Part I Chapter 12 Dumps — A Plain Girl by L. T. Meade
Discussing the New Mother
It was not I, after all, who told the boys Hannah was the person who gave them that piece of information. I did not come downstairs for the watery stew which she had prepared for them. Doubtless she would tell the boys that I had swallowed the spirit of that stew and left them the poor material body. She would make the most of my conduct, for she was very angry with me. But by-and-by there came a knock at my door, and I heard Alex’s voice, and he said, “Oh, do open the door and let me in! Please let me in, Rachel.”
He so seldom called me by that name that I got up, went to the door, and flung it open. Alex’s face was very pale, and his hair was rumpled up over his forehead, but he had not been crying at all. I don’t suppose boys do cry much; but the moment I glanced at him I knew that Hannah had told him.
He took my hand.
“My word,” he said, “how cold you are! And I can scarcely see your eyes. You’ll have a bad inflammation if you give way like this. Where’s the use? Come along downstairs.”
He took my hand, and we raced down together. When we got down I clung to him and said, “Kiss me, Alex.”
“Why, of course I will, Dumps.”
He kissed me twice on my forehead, and I knew by the trembling of his lips that he was feeling things a good bit.
“Hannah has told you?” I said.
“She has. But she isn’t coming upstairs again to-day.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Charley, you can explain to Dumps.”
Charley was standing by the fire. He was a very solidly made boy, not nearly so handsome as Alex, who was tall and slight, with regular features and beautiful eyes. Charley was in some respects like me, only very much better-looking.
“Oh,” said Charley, “she began talking in a way we couldn’t stand about the Professor, so we just took her by the shoulders and brought her to the top of the stairs. She said she was going out, and wouldn’t be back until to-night—or perhaps never.”
“Oh, you haven’t turned her away?” I said; for although Hannah was very troublesome and most disagreeable, and was certainly the last person to conciliate the disturbed state of the household and bring peace out of disorder, I could not bear the idea of her not being there.
“She’ll come back, right enough. I tell you what it is, Dumps,” said Alex; “we’re—we’re a bit stunned. Of course, it’s rather awkward, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know that it is,” said Charley. “He could always do as he liked, couldn’t he? I mean he never thought much about us, did he?”
“Oh, don’t blame him now,” I said.
“I don’t want to—I only want you to understand. Father always did what he liked. Hannah was dreadful; she spoke as she ought not to speak. It is just as well she should go out and let the open air smooth away some of her grievances. I do not see that it matters to her; he is not her father.”
“No, it doesn’t really matter to her; and yet it does matter in another sense,” I said.
Charley turned round.
“When are they coming back?” was his next remark.
“I think on Sunday evening.”
“Well, this is Thursday. We have got to-day and to-morrow and Saturday and Sunday. We have got four whole days. Let us have some fun. How much of your five shillings have you left. Dumps?”
“I don’t care,” I said.
“That’s nonsense.—Alex, push her into that chair.—Now, how much money have you got?”
“I’ve got it all,” I said.
“All of it?”
“Yes, every farthing. I had a few pence over which paid for the Twopenny Tube yesterday; I have not broken into the five shillings at all.”
“We spent one and sixpence each last night, so you owe each of us a bit, because you enjoyed the supper just as much as we did.”
“Oh yes.”
“Let us have something good for tea. You can go out and buy it. You can spend your share on that. And I’ll bring Von Marlo in, and we’ll have a chat, and perhaps we’ll go somewhere to-night. Why shouldn’t we?”
“Oh Charley, where?”
“Well, I was thinking of the pit of one of the theatres.”
This was such a daring, such an unheard-of suggestion that it really took my breath away.
“Do you think we might?”
“Why not? Von Marlo would love it. We four could go. We three big boys could take care of one dumpy girl, I’m sure. There’s a jolly thing on at the Adelphi. I love the Adelphi, for it’s all blood and thunder. Don’t you like it best of all, Alex?”
“Well, you see, I’ve never been to a theatre in the whole course of my life,” said Alex.
“Except once to the pantomime,” I said. “You remember that?”
“Who cares for the pantomime?” said Charley.
“Very well, we’ll go to the Adelphi,” I said. “But I hope it won’t be very frightening.”
“It will scare you out of your seven senses; I know it will. But I tell you what it will do also,” continued Charley—“it will make you forget; and if you remember at all, you have but to squeeze the thought up in your heart that you have got three more whole days, or nearly three whole days, before she comes in.”
“All right,” I said; “I’ll get something for tea.”
“And we must be off to school,” said Alex. “The Professor’s away, and when the cat’s away the mice will play.”
“Oh Alex, you oughtn’t to compare father to a cat!”
“Never mind; Hannah isn’t here. If she were here we’d round on her fast enough. Now then, good girl, eat some bread-and-butter, for you weren’t down to that dinner of horrid stew. Hannah said that you’d supped up all the gravy. Jolly mean, I call it. But there! we’ll be back about half-past four. Then we’ll have tea, and hurry off to the theatre afterwards.”
The boys left the house, and I was quite alone. Yes, there was nothing like occupation. I put on my hat and jacket and went out. I bought golden syrup—the darkest sort—we all loved that; and I bought a loaf of crispy new bread, and half a pound of butter. Then I got a currant-cake and a small—very small—tin of sardines. The meal would be delicious.
I returned home. I entered the parlour and put the kettle on to boil. Then I went down to the neglected kitchen. The fire was out in the little range, the doors of which stood open wide. There was no sign of Hannah anywhere. I went to the kitchen door, and saw that it was locked. There was no key in the lock; she had doubtless taken it with her. This fact relieved me, for I knew that she was coming bock, otherwise she would most certainly have left the key behind.
I selected the best of the cups and saucers, choosing with difficulty, for there were few that were not either deprived of handles or with pieces cracked out of the rims. It was a nondescript set when presently it appeared on the table, and the cloth which I spread on it to lay out our meal was none of the cleanest. But there was the golden syrup, and the crispy loaf, and the butter, which I knew was good; and there was the tin of sardines.
Punctual to the minute, at half-past four, the three boys made their appearance. Von Marlo had been told. He came straight up to me and took my hand. He did not speak; but the next minute he put his hand into his waistcoat pocket and took from it a knife. This knife was a curious one; it seemed to contain every possible tool that any human being could require in his journey from the cradle to the grave. With one of the instruments in it he speedily opened the tin of sardines; then he himself made the tea, and when it was made he drew chairs up to the table and said, “Come and eat.”
We all fell upon the provisions in a ravenous fashion. Oh dear! even when you are in great trouble it is good to be hungry—good to be hungry when you have the means of satisfying your appetite. I felt downright starving with hunger that evening. I drank the hot tea, and ate bread-and-butter and golden syrup, and left the sardines for the boys, who made short work of them.
At last we were all satisfied, and we talked over the matter of the theatre. We must be standing outside not a minute later than seven o’clock. Von Marlo would keep at my right, and Alex at my left, and Charley would be my bodyguard behind. When the rush came we would surely be in the front rank, and we would get good seats. The scenes of the play would be most harrowing; there was a secret murder in it, and a duel, and one or two other extreme horrors. The boys said it was of the sensational order, and Alex wound up with the remark that we could not possibly stand anything else to-night.
Then there fell a silence upon us. We need not go to the Adelphi yet; it was not very far from where we lived. We could get there in a few minutes. There was more than an hour between us and the desirable moment when we were to steal like thieves in the night from our father’s respectable house to go to that place of iniquity, the pit at the Adelphi. For, of course, it was very naughty of us to go. Our father himself would not have thought it right to allow children to partake of these worldly pleasures.
In the silence that ensued the pain at my heart began again. It was then Von Marlo made his remark.
“I think,” he said, “it would be exceedingly interesting if Miss Rachel would tell us exactly what the new mamma is like.”
Nothing could be more intensely aggravating than those words, “the new mamma,” had they fallen from any lips but Von Marlo’s. But the peculiar foreign intonation he gave the words caused us three to burst out laughing.
“You must never say those words again—never as long as you live, Von Marlo,” cried Alex, while Charley sprang upon him and did his very best to knock him off his chair.
“Come, come! no violence,” I said. “Please understand, Mr Von Marlo, that the lady who has married our father is not our new mamma.”
“I am sorry, I am sure,” said Von Marlo. “I won’t call her that any more—never; I am certain of that. But, all the same, if she is coming to live here, what is she like? You have seen her, Miss Rachel; you can describe her.”
“Yes, you may as well tell us about her,” said Charley. “I suppose she is precious ugly. Catch father choosing a woman with good looks! Why, he doesn’t know blue eyes from brown, or a straight nose from a crooked one, or a large mouth from a small one. He never looks at any woman; I can’t imagine how he got hold of her.”
“Hannah said,” remarked Alex, “that she got hold of him.”
“Well, surely that doesn’t matter,” said Von Marlo. “Describe her, Miss Rachel.”
“I will if you wish it,” I answered.
“Yes, do,” said Charley. “You have seen quite a lot of her.”
“I must be honest at all costs,” I said, “and if she had not married father—yes, it is quite true—I’d have liked her. She is what you would—I mean she was—I don’t suppose she is now, for when people are dreadfully wicked they change, don’t they? But before she was wicked—before she married father—she was a very—very—well, a very jolly sort of woman.”
“Jolly?” said Charley. “I like that! How do you mean jolly?”
“Round and fattish—not too fat—with laughing eyes.”
“We haven’t much of laughing eyes in this house,” said Alex.
“Well, her eyes seem to be always laughing, even when her face is grave; and she makes delicious things to eat—at least she did make them.”
“Let’s hope she has not lost the art,” said Alex. “If we must have her in the family, let us trust that she has at least some merits. Good things to eat? What sort?”
I described the food at Hedgerow House, and described it well. I then went on to speak of the stuffed birds. The boys were wildly excited. I spoke of other things, and gave them a very full and true account of Miss Grace Donnithorne.
“It seems to me she must be a splendid sort of woman,” said Alex.
“Hurrah for Miss Grace Donnithorne!” said Charley. “She must be a most charming lady,” said Von Marlo in his precise way.
Then I sprang to my feet.
“Now listen,” I said. “I have told you about her as she was. When I saw her she had not done this wicked thing.”
“But she was going to do it; she had made up her mind pretty straight,” said Alex.
“Well, she hadn’t done it, and that makes all the difference,” I said stoutly. “She will be changed; I know she will be changed.”
“I hope she won’t have got thin (I’m sick of Hannah’s sort of figure) and cross and churlish and miserly,” said Charley.
“I don’t think so,” I answered. “I don’t suppose she’ll be as changed as all that; but, anyhow, I know—”
“I tell you what,” interrupted Von Marlo; “she is coming here, and nothing living will stop her.”
“That’s true enough,” I said gloomily.
“Then can’t you three be sensible?”
“What do you mean now, Von?” said the boys.
“Why can’t you make the best of it? Don’t hunt the poor lady into her grave by being snappish and making the worst of everything. Just give her a fair trial—start her honest, don’t you understand?”
Alex stared; Charley blinked his eyes.
I said slowly, “I don’t mean to be unkind; I mean to be kind. I am not going to say a word to father—I mean not a word of reproach—”
“Much use if you did!” muttered Alex.
“But, all the same,” I said very distinctly, “not for a single instant will I love her. She can come and take her place, and I will try to do what she wishes, but I will never love her—never!”
“Hurrah!” said Charley.
“Quite right, Dumps; you show spirit,” cried Alex.
But Von Marlo looked dissatisfied.
“It doesn’t seem right,” he said. “It doesn’t seem quite fair; and the poor lady hasn’t done you any harm.”