Part II Chapter 1 Dumps — A Plain Girl by L. T. Meade
The New Order of Things
Of course, my step-mother made a great change in the house. I cannot exactly describe how things were gradually altered, and how the desolate old mansion became a habitable and cheerful home. But it certainly was completely metamorphosed. The old régime with regard to fires was the first change. Mrs Grant said that such a big, empty, rambling place must be kept thoroughly warmed in winter. Accordingly, in the dining-room a fire always blazed, and was kept well piled up with solid lumps of shining black coal of the very best Silkstone, which Hannah would never dream of affording in the old days. Then into my bedroom and into the boys’ bedroom were introduced wonderful new gas-stoves, which gave not the slightest smell, but which could be lit at a moment’s notice, and would make the bedrooms thoroughly warm and comfortable.
But I no longer slept in my attic. I had struggled hard against Mrs Grant’s wish to move me into another part of the house, but in the end I yielded, and now I had a pretty room, brightly papered and nicely furnished, on the floor just above the drawing-room.
“Why,” said my step-mother, “we do not need to use those desolate attics at all. This room will do for Alex, this for Charley, and this for Dumps; and this, when we have visitors, for the spare room. Hannah and the other servants can sleep upstairs. For you, children, this ought to be your floor, and it shall be,” continued the little lady, speaking with that spirit which always characterised her.
As to the boys, they were delighted with their new rooms. They were furnished exceedingly simply; indeed, they looked quite bare enough to make most people consider them somewhat hermit-like sort of sleeping apartments; but then those people had never visited the attics where Alex and Charley used to sleep.
“These rooms are quite good enough for boys; you mustn’t pamper boys, whatever happens,” said Mrs Grant. “Girls are different; girls need softer treatment.”
But her most delightful innovation was the introduction into the house of two excellent servants to help Hannah. There had been, I have not the slightest doubt of it, a very terrible scene in the kitchen when Mrs Grant interviewed Hannah. Hannah was not visible at all for the rest of the day, and my step-mother and I went out for our meals.
On the next day Hannah came upstairs and said she wished to speak to Mrs Grant. They had a long conference, and when Hannah came out of her presence, the eyes of that good woman were very red, but she succumbed without a word.
A new range was now put into the kitchen, a boy came every morning to help Hannah with the heaviest part of her work, an excellent housemaid attended to the bedrooms, and a first-rate parlour-maid opened the hall door and served up our meals. In short, we were a new family.
The drawing-room, however, had not yet been touched. I wondered what Mrs Grant would make of the drawing-room. I did not like to question her. I was quite good—outwardly good, I mean—all this time to my step-mother, but we did not come a bit nearer to each other. The little trunk with the letters R.G. on the cover seemed to stand between my heart and her heart. Nevertheless, we chatted together all day long, and planned how we would meet this contingency and the other, and what surprises we would give to father, and how we could manage things.
One day about six weeks after father’s second marriage Mrs Grant came to me. She had a pleased and delighted expression on her face.
“Rachel, my dear child,” she said, “how old are you?”
“I shall be sixteen on my birthday, and my birthday comes in May. It is a long way off yet.”
Then I gave a sigh, and felt a sudden contraction of my heart.
“Well, anyhow, dear, this is Quarter Day, the 21st of December. I have been speaking to your father, and he means to give you a dress allowance.”
“A what?” I said.
“A dress allowance, dear. You must, you know, have clothes suitable to your father’s daughter. Here is the first quarter’s money.”
She put two crisp Bank of England notes, worth five pounds each, into my hand. I started; I coloured crimson; I looked at the money.
“But I—I don’t know what to do with this,” I said.
“Oh yes, you will know very well what to do with it. Now the question is, would you like me to help you to choose some pretty dresses, or would you rather manage the whole affair yourself?”
Again there was that pathetic expression in her eyes which I had seen for a minute or two before. She was looking at me very earnestly. I was about to say, “Oh, will you help me to choose, for I don’t know anything about dress?” when I remembered the pretty dark-blue dress with the grey fur. That dress, which I always felt had been given me under false pretences, seemed to rise up now to slay the feeling of kindness which, in spite of everything, I could not help entertaining for my step-mother in my heart. “If you don’t greatly mind,” I said, “perhaps this first time I had better choose my own dresses.”
“As you like, dear, of course; but you mustn’t go alone. You might ask one of your schoolfellows to go with you. And, Dumps dear, ask as many of your friends in to tea as you like on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday afternoons; those are your half-holidays, and you can go to visit those whom I like you to know also on those days. I want you to have a very pleasant life, my dear child.”
“Thank you,” I answered.
“You understand, Rachel, that my wish is to make you happy.”
“I am sure of it,” I said.
“And you are happy?”
“I am comfortable,” I said.
I folded the money up.
“I will thank father when I see him. It is exceedingly kind of him,” I said.
“I wouldn’t worry him,” said Mrs Grant. She looked at me a little anxiously.
“But why not?”
“He has forgotten all about it by now. It is unfair to disturb a man of his nature with these trivial details.”
I slipped the notes into my pocket. “Have you no purse, dear?”
“Upstairs,” I said.
“Well, be careful of the money. Don’t lose it.”
“I’ll be very careful; thank you so much.”
I went out into the hall. Charley was there.
“I say, Dumps!”
“What is it, Charley?”
“Von Marlo and I have been talking about the new mamma.”
“You are not to call her that.”
“But I say she is, you know; and Von and I, we say—”
“I don’t want to hear.”
“But you shall—you must! We say she is awfully jolly—just A1, A1—and that—”
But I rushed past. There was a choking lump in my throat; in another minute I should have burst into tears.
I managed to reach my own pretty new bedroom without disgracing myself. I shut and locked the door and stood in the centre of the room. The crisp five-pound notes rustled in my pocket, but I, Dumps—in other words, Rachel Grant—stamped my foot. I was in an absolute passion. I did not know why I felt so thoroughly angry.
What unreasonable creatures girls are! Three months ago I would have given anything for my present surroundings and my present prospects: I, who hardly ever had a penny of my own; I, who was only half-fed and only half-clothed, who was desolate, without a real friend in the world; for my father—my dear old father—lived for ever and ever in Wonderland, and no one could bring him bock from that strange country, where he dwelt with other geniuses of his kind, and I and the boys had to suffer; and Hannah, notwithstanding her protestations, neglected us so shamefully that the wonder was we were not ill. All of a sudden, however, “Open sesame!” and behold a new order of things! The old order had given way to the new. We were clothed; we were fed; we were considered; we were treated with kindness; our wants were attended to, our little trials sympathised with. In short, love in the true sense of the word had come into the house; the genius of Wonderment had taken to himself the genius of Order and Motherly Kindness, and this latter genius had made the whole house home-like and happy.
But I, at least, was not prepared to take into my heart this good fairy whom the good queen of all the fairies had sent to us. I stood in my pretty room which my step-mother had arranged for me, and felt as angry and as bitter as girl could feel.
By-and-by there came a cheerful sound on the stairs. My step-mother knocked at the door.
“Augusta Moore is downstairs and would like to see you, Dumps,” she said. “It is a beautiful, sunshiny morning, and you may as well go out with her.”
I suddenly remembered that I had neglected Augusta a good deal of late; that she had often come to the house and I had hardly spoken to her. I further remembered that, this being the 21st of December, the holidays had begun. Our big school had broken up on the 20th, but the boys’ college would break up to-morrow. Christmas would be with us in no time, and Christmas was to be spent in Hedgerow House.
That was the treat of all treats which was turning the heads of both the boys. I was to go, Alex was to go, Charley was to go, and Von Marlo was to go. He was alone at the school, and Mrs Grant, with her kind and open-hearted hospitality, had invited him.
“It is to be my Christmas present to you all, to have you in my house,” she said. “I am sure you will enjoy yourselves vastly.”
Now surely, with such a prospect in view, any girl would be a perfect goose if she were not happy, and I do not think many girls will sympathise with Rachel Grant at this moment. I was making a martyr of myself because I thought it not right to my mother’s memory to receive this new mamma in her place; and yet, if the truth must be told, although I had often pined for my mother, there were days and months, and perhaps even years, when I had forgotten her very existence. She was out of the world before I had time to remember her face. That was my position with regard to my real mother in the past, but from the hour when I had heard that father was about to bring a new wife to the old house, and after he had given me my mother’s miniature, I worshipped her, I kept her always in my memory, and I felt that the more I withdrew my heart from the “new mamma,” to quote Von Marlo’s hideous phrase, the more I showed my love and tenderness for the real mother. Perhaps there are other girls made like that; if so, I should like to show them once for all how exceedingly silly, how exceedingly unpractical and ungrateful, I was. For this story would be worthless if it were not told truthfully.
I got over my passion after a time. I kept repeating to myself, “Odious fellow, Von Marlo! The new mamma A1 indeed! A1!” I wished he would not talk to Charley and corrupt him with his wrong ideas.
Then I slipped the ten pounds which my step-mother had given me into my purse, and put the purse into my pocket. I dressed myself in the warm clothes which I now had to wear—and which my father, of course, had given me—and I went slowly downstairs.
Augusta was waiting in the drawing-room. She was sitting near the fire; she was talking to my step-mother. As I entered the room I heard my step-mother say, “I think it can be managed, Augusta. It would be a great pleasure for you, and if it is really the case that your mother would like to spend Christmas with your uncle Charles, why— Oh, here you are, Dumps!”
“Yes; what is it?” I asked.
Augusta’s sallow face was lit up with a gleam of red on each of her cheeks. This red tint improved her appearance vastly.
“Oh,” said Augusta, “I don’t for a moment suppose you’ll do it.”
“I don’t see why,” I replied. “I’m not in the habit of making myself unamiable.”
“Well, it’s this,” said Mrs Grant; “Augusta would greatly like to come with us to Hedgerow House for Christmas. It will be a little difficult to squeeze her in, but if you, Dumps, would not mind having her in your room—”
“I’d take a very tiny bit of the bed. I can make myself quite accommodating,” said Augusta.
“She would like it very much indeed,” said Mrs Grant.
“Of course you must come if my step-mother invites you,” I said.
Mrs Grant coloured; then she got up, walked to the table, and took up some plain sewing which she was doing, and began a long seam. She was making some clothes for the poor; she was never idle for a minute of her time.
“You can come, Augusta, as far as I am concerned,” I said.
“Of course you can; you needn’t share the same bed,” said Mrs Grant. “I think I can manage better for you than that, but I cannot give you a room apiece. If you will share the same room, that is all that is required.”
“Oh, it is too wonderful!” said Augusta.
“Come out, Augusta, or I shall be late,” I said.
We found ourselves in the street.
“Oh!” said Augusta. She walked on, not noticing me in the least. After a time she said, “To wake in the morning and to feel that you will breakfast with him, that you will dine with him, and that you will sup with him! To think that occasionally he may even look at you, and perhaps once or twice speak to you; and to know that this will go on for seven days—seven whole days, for I have been asked for a week! Dumps, do you think it is true? Do you think it is only a vision? I often have visions; they’re beautiful, some of them, but none of them equals this. To be in the house with him, and to hang on his words for a week!”
“I don’t think, to tell the truth,” I said, “that any one else will hang on his words; you will have him all to yourself.”
“Oh,” said Augusta, “if you only wouldn’t!”
“Wouldn’t what?”
“Wouldn’t try to deprecate him. It seems wicked—it seems as though God would punish you.”
“Why, what do you mean?” I said.
“You ought to be so happy and so pleased,” said Augusta. “And you have got such a beautiful, commonplace step-mother. I admit that she is commonplace, but I never met so charming a woman. If only my mother were like her!”
“Your mother is excellent,” I said—“quite as nice as my step-mother; and then she is your own. I think it is very wicked of you to run down your mother. If you hadn’t a mother you’d know the difference.”
“But you have.”
“I haven’t. How dare you!”
“Dumps, I can’t help thinking that you—but oh, perhaps you’d rather not share your room with me?”
“How can I help it?” I replied. “Is the room mine? Doesn’t it belong to Mrs Grant—I mean to my step-mother? How can I question any of her wishes? You come to our house, and you snuggle into her good favour; you worm yourself in, and you have got yourself invited, and I suppose—oh dear, I wish I wasn’t so cross!”
“If it were not such a very great thing I would take offence at your words, Rachel,” said Augusta, “and not come with you; but being such a magnificent thing, and so all-important to me, I will not take offence, even though you do compare me to a snuggler (I don’t quite know what the creature is), and even to a worm. I will come with you on the 24th to Hedgerow House, and when you look at my face you will perhaps realise that you are looking at perfect happiness—yes, Perfect Happiness; spell the words with capitals, for I have attained to that great height.”
“This is the Twopenny Tube,” I said. “Perhaps you would like to go back to your mother and make arrangements?”
“But where are you going?”
“I’m going to meet the Swan girls; they said they would be round the corner waiting for me.”
Augusta looked at me rather longingly, but I would not reply to her look.
“Good-bye,” I said. “I’ll try not to do anything to interfere with your bliss.” I left her. When I looked back she was already standing as one in a dream. I doubted if she would catch the next train in the Twopenny Tube, but I concluded that in the course of hours she would return to her commonplace mother.