Part II Chapter 2 Dumps — A Plain Girl by L. T. Meade
A Quarterly Allowance
Rita Swan and Agnes had both been exceedingly interested with regard to my conduct at the time of my father’s second marriage. My absence from school had caused their wonder. I was not blamed for that absence, and I often wondered why the form mistress and the head-mistress said nothing whatever to me on the subject.
I went back to school on the Monday after my father’s marriage, and the girls had tittered and laughed and made remarks. I had been quite silent and gone stoically through my lessons. Now this marriage was an old story, but still Rita and Agnes were never tired of expatiating on the great change for the better which had taken place in my circumstances. I told them that my step-mother had a great deal of common-sense (I had not the slightest idea of giving her away to strangers); I said that father had now been told what was necessary to the well bringing up of his children, and accordingly things were altered in our home.
The girls were in great spirits on this occasion, and when I met them I suddenly resolved to enjoy myself.
“What do you think has happened to me?” I said.
“What can it be?” said Rita. “Oh, dear me! Rachel, you look very nice.”
In the old days they did not pet me much, and they often told me I looked very ugly, and I was not elated by the compliment.
“Never mind my looks,” I said. “I am quite a proud girl to-day. I am, in fact, almost grown-up; I have taken the first step upwards.”
Now, to be grown-up was Rita’s greatest ambition in all the world. She was four months older than I. She would be sixteen early in January, and I should have to wait until the beginning of May for the event. But, of course, she would not be “out” for at least two years.
“You are not really grown-up, and you needn’t suppose you will be for ages and ages,” said Agnes. “Why, look at Rita; you have made her quite cross.”
“You do talk in such an absurd way,” said Rita. “But what is it? Out with it!”
“Well, I’ve begun to get an allowance.”
“A what?” said Agnes. “An allowance.”
“You don’t mean a dress allowance?” said Rita. “Yes, that’s just what I do mean; and I’ve got my first quarter’s money in my pocket. What’s more, I’m as rich as Croesus; I have more money than I think any one girl could by any possibility spend. Now, what do you think of me?”
Agnes had been walking on Rita’s other side. She showed her estimation of my upward step in the world’s ladder by running round to my side and placing me in the middle.
“Tell us all about it,” she said, and she slipped her hand through my arm.
“There’s not much to tell. Father thought that—or at least my step-mother thought that I ought to have money to spend on dress, and I have got ten pounds.”
“For a year?” asked Agnes.
“No; for a quarter. I am to have ten pounds every quarter. Think of it!”
Now, Agnes Swan knew quite well that when her allowance was given to her it would not approach anything like that royal sum. She therefore glanced at me and said in a low, pathetic voice, “What remarkably pretty ears you have got, Dumps!”
I made no answer. I continued as though I had not heard her: “And I have the money—two banknotes—in my pocket; and I am going to choose some dresses now, and I thought perhaps you two girls would like to come with me.”
“How splendid! Where shall we go?”
“Not to Wallis’s,” I said firmly.
“Why not to Wallis’s? What special hatred have you for that shop?”
“I do not wish to go there,” I answered. “I want to dress myself in West End style.”
“Then,” said Agnes, “nothing can be easier. We’ll wait just here and take the first ’bus to Oxford Street. We’ll get down there and press our noses against the shop windows. It’s Christmas-time, and things are so bright. But if you want dresses now you’ll have to get them ready-made, for no shop will make your dresses in time for Christmas.”
“I don’t really know that I want much dress,” I said. “I have got the money to do what I like with.”
“Of course you have.” Rita looked at me anxiously.
“I must spend some of it on dress, of course, but I’ve got ten pounds. It seems almost as though it could never be spent. Oh, here’s a ’bus! Shall we go on the top?”
Rita waved her umbrella wildly. The driver of the omnibus stopped. We mounted on to the roof, and sat huddled close together discussing my brilliant prospects.
“We’d best keep one on each side of you, for a lot of money like that in a girl’s pocket makes it dangerous for her to walk about at Christmas-time,” said Agnes.
“I don’t mind,” I said. “You can keep one on each side of me. I think,” I continued after a pause, “that it would be only right to spend some of my money on Christmas presents.”
“Of course, dear; it would be only generous. And you ought to get something for your step-mother.”
“Yes, of course I ought; and for the boys, and for father. It will be difficult to think of anything for father. And then there is Hannah. Yes, I will spend some of it on Christmas-boxes.”
We got down from the roof of the omnibus at Oxford Circus, and then we walked slowly down Regent Street and revelled in our view of the shop windows. I was not specially devoted to dress, but the dainty and ravishing garments which I beheld exhibited in the windows were certainly enough to excite the wonder and admiration of us all.
At last we decided to venture into a large shop to ask the price of a pretty costume which took my fancy. I liked it because it was as different from the dark-blue with the grey fur as dress could be. It was a soft, glowing shade of crimson, and was smartly trimmed with velvet of the same colour. We all marched into the shop, and I demanded the price of the little costume in the window.
“It will just fit you, Dumps,” said Rita.
The man who served us said he would inquire, and presently he informed us that the dress was selling off and we could have it for ten guineas. Both Rita and Agnes raised their blows in amazement. I coloured deeply, and said that ten guineas was more than I wanted to pay. He said that he had cheaper costumes in the shop, but I would not listen. We went out of the shop, and we three girls once again found ourselves on the pavement.
“I call it a perfect swindle,” said Rita. “Of course, I know that my cousin Laura Ives gives more than that for a dress, but then she is grown-up. After all, ten pounds doesn’t seem much for a dress allowance. But let us go into another shop.”
But, try as we would, I could get nothing that I could really wear under about five guineas, and as I did not choose to give more than half my allowance for a single dress, I resolved to do without one.
“I’ll tell my step-mother that father must be informed that ten pounds a quarter is not nearly enough to spend on clothes,” I said. “Of course I had no real ideas on the subject before.”
“Of course it isn’t half enough,” said Rita. “You can just spend the money on odds and ends. That’s what I’d do.”
I proceeded to follow her advice, and presently I purchased a quantity of ribbon of different shades and colours, two or three pairs of gloves—boots I decided I could do without, although mine were rather shabby—some neckties of different colours, and a new hat. The hat was quite unsuitable, but Rita said it was remarkably stylish.
By this time I had spent three or four pounds of my allowance.
“Oh, I must have some handkerchiefs and stockings,” I said suddenly. I thought myself most prudent and all that was wise and common-sense when I spoke of stockings. I bought several pairs of most expensive make, and furnished myself with some fine lawn handkerchiefs, and lo and behold! my first five-pound note had vanished. Still, I had the other.
“You ought to think of the Christmas-boxes; you ought to take something home for them all,” said Rita.
The Christmas-boxes proved themselves most fascinating. They were the sort of things that beckoned you into a shop, and then went away, and you could not find them. You followed them from shop to shop, and always exactly the very things you wanted were in another shop farther on and yet quite near. Oh, how difficult it was to get them! That knife, for instance, that Alex would like, or that pen which Charley would condescend to write with, or that pair of soft doeskin gloves for Hannah—Hannah was always complaining of cold hands.
In the end I gave up the knife and the pen and the gloves, and bought fancy articles which I thought would please my family—glass and china for my step-mother; a new sort of inkpot, which eventually proved of no use at all, but was very expensive, for my father; and things for the boys which I will reveal by-and-by.
I had only thirty shillings out of my ten pounds when I returned home that afternoon, having provided presents for every one except myself; and in addition I presented an exceedingly expensive, huge box of chocolates each to Rita and Agnes Swan. They called me their best darling, and said that each moment my appearance was improving, until at last their remarks made me so angry that I said, “If you say that again I will never speak to you or give you sixpence-worth of chocolates as long as I live!”
Upon this threat the two girls were silent, until at last Rita remarked, “Well, whatever happens, she will always pass in a crowd.”
“What does that mean?” I said.
“It means that whatever you put on, you will never be anything but a most ordinary-looking person. Now, does that content you?”
“Better than flattering words which are false,” I said stoutly.
They had conducted me home. I was dead-tired and very hungry. My hands were full of parcels. I rushed impetuously into the house. It was time for lunch; the morning had flown with marvellous swiftness. Nay, more; I was late for lunch. Father was standing alone in the dining-room. Marriage had wrought very little perceptible alteration in him. It is true he always now wore a perfectly clean collar, and his coats were always well brushed, but each one seemed to hang upon him in just its old, loose, aggravating fashion, being worn very high up on the nape of the neck, which gave his back a sort of bowed appearance; and his collars, however neat when he put them on in the morning, managed to get finely rumpled before school-hours were over. This was from a habit he had of clutching his collar fiercely when in the heat of argument. There was no laundress in the whole of London who could have made collars stiff enough to withstand father’s clutch. But even Mrs Grant could not persuade him to put on a clean one to go back to afternoon school, nor could she get him to visit the barber as often as she wished. Therefore, on the whole, father looked much as he had always done. But perhaps he would not have been respected or loved as he was loved and respected if even his outward appearance had been changed. He was in a deep brown study now. He hardly saw me as I rushed into the room. I went up to him and took both his hands, and said, “Thank you—thank you so much!”
“What in the world are you thanking me about, Dumps?” he said.
He seemed to wake with a start.
“Where have you been? What is the matter? Don’t litter the place, please; your step-mother doesn’t like it.”
He observed the brown-paper parcels.
“They’re presents,” I said. “Don’t speak about them.”
He raised his hand wearily to his brow.
“I am not likely to,” he said. “Things wrapped up in brown-paper do not interest me.”
“Oh father! they interest most people. But you must—you really must—rouse yourself for a minute or two, for I have to thank you so greatly, darling father.”
“What for?” he muttered.
“The money—the money.”
“I am unaware, child, that I have given you any money.”
What could he mean? I felt a curious damp sensation round my spirits, which were quite high at the moment. Then I remembered that Mrs Grant had told me that I was not to worry father on the subject.
“She said,” I continued, with great eagerness, “that you were not to be worried, but that you had arranged it. I am to have an allowance in future, and she gave me the first quarter’s allowance to-day—ten pounds.”
“Goodness!” said father. “What wilful waste! Ten pounds! Why, it would have bought—it would have bought that new—”
He mentioned a volume which had a long Latin name.
I understood now—or thought I understood—why my step-mother had desired me to be silent on the subject of my allowance. Father shook himself. I was roused even to a show of anger.
“Well, at any rate,” I said, “it might buy you a book, but it can buy other things as well. I was given the money to-day—your money—and I must thank you; only please in future make it a little more, for I cannot buy dresses with it; it isn’t enough.”
He stared at me wildly, and just at that moment my step-mother came in.
“Grace,” said my father, turning to her, “this child seems to be in a sad muddle. She has been endeavouring to confuse me, which is exceedingly wrong of her. I trust that in future you will permit yourself, my dear, the extreme privilege of repressing Dumps.”
“Oh, oh!” I said.
“Yes,” continued father, “of repressing her.—You are, Dumps, too exuberant, too unmannerly, too impulsive.—Keep her, my dear, from bringing unsightly objects of that sort into my presence.”
He pointed to my darling brown-paper parcels.
“And above all things, dear Grace, tell her not to thank me for what I have not done. She has been murmuring the most absurd rubbish into my ears, talking about a dress allowance. A dress allowance, indeed! Does she need money to spend on her outward adornment? Tell her to learn that hymn of Watts’s, ‘Why should our garments, made to hide’—She had better learn that. Let her learn once for all that,—
“Be she dressed fine as she will,
Flies, worms, and moths exceed her still.
“In short, Grace, suppress the child, and tell her not to utter falsehoods in my presence.”
He went out; his wife followed him into the hall. She came back in a few minutes, and her cheeks were redder than was quite becoming.
“Now, Dumps dear,” she said, “I told you not to speak of your dress allowance to your father.”
“Then he never gave it to me?”
“Well, dear, not exactly. I mean that he did not give it to you in so many words; nevertheless, it is my place to see to these things.”
“But was the ten pounds father’s?” I asked stoutly.
“What is his is mine, and what is mine is his,” she replied.
“Please, step-mother,” I said imploringly, “answer me just for once. Did you give me that money, or did my father?”
“My dear child, will you not understand once and for all that it is my aim and wish to do what I can to make you happy? If you go on trying me, Rachel, as you have been doing lately, you will make me a very unhappy woman.”
She paused; then she said, “Never up to the present moment have I known what real, true unhappiness is. I, Grace Donnithorne, given by nature so cheerful a heart, and, I think, so brave a spirit, and, I believe, the power of looking at things on the bright side—I unhappy!”
She moved away; she stood by the fire. I saw tears starting to her bright, kindly, merry eyes; one rolled down her cheek. I went up to her and took her hand.
“I have not been trying,” I said—“I will confess it—I have not been trying to think kindly of you.”
“I know it, Dumps,” she said gravely, and she looked round at me.
“And I have been advising the boys not to show you any affection.”
“I know it, Dumps,” she said again.
“And—and I returned those clothes that you gave me when I was at Hedgerow House.”
“You did. Why did you do it?”
“If, perhaps,” I said slowly—“I don’t know, but perhaps if you had told me the truth then, that you were not being so awfully kind just because I was a lonely little girl, but because you were going to marry my father, I might have stood it better, and I might have acted differently; but you deceived me. I thought you were a very kind, middle-aged, rather fat lady, and I liked you just awfully; but when you deceived me—”
“Don’t say any more,” she remarked hastily. “It was not my wish—I felt all along that—”
But then, with a great effort, she resumed her usual manner.
“I see I have not won you yet,” she said. “But we must go on being friends outwardly, and perhaps—you have been confirmed, have you not?”
“Yes,” I said, somewhat startled.
“Then perhaps when we kneel together at the Great Festival, the feast of all feasts, your heart may be softened, and you may see that in all the world no one means more kindly to you than the one whom you used to know as Grace Donnithorne.”
“Oh, if you wouldn’t be quite so amiable I think I could love you better,” I said, and then I really hated myself.
“It will come, dear,” she said in a patient tone. “And now, just tell me what you bought. If your father isn’t interested in brown-paper parcels, I am.”
“They’re presents,” I said shortly.
“Those delightful things on the sofa are presents? You have spent a little of your money on presents? Rather extravagant of you, but I’m not going to scold.”
“That sounded such a lot of money,” I said, “but it didn’t turn out so much.”
“What do you mean, dear? It is a very substantial sum for a young schoolgirl of your age. I am sorry you did not take me with you to spend it; but you seemed so anxious to go alone, and I thought until Christmas was over—”
“What is going to happen when Christmas is over?” I said.
“I will tell you when the time comes.”
“But please tell me now, step-mother—”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me by that name.”
“Well, I can’t call you Mrs Grant; and you are my step-mother, you know.”
“It doesn’t matter—call me anything you like, dear.”
I wished she was not quite so accommodating; but while I looked at her I saw there was a change in her face: there was a purpose in it, a firmness, a sort of upper-hand look as though she did not mean that I, Dumps, should have my own way about everything. She asked me what I had bought for myself, and I said nothing particular, except a few ribbons and things like that.
“They ought to be bought last of all,” she said, “but of course you don’t quite understand this time.”
“Oh!” I said.
“You want a quiet, plain dress; let me recommend you to get it the first thing to-morrow morning. Peter Robinson has some very nice dresses for young girls; and Evans, just a little farther down Oxford Street, has perhaps even smarter costumes. You ought to get a very nice dress for about four guineas. It would be wrong to spend more. A warm coat and a nice short skirt would be the thing. Shall we go to-morrow morning to Evans’s?”
“No, thank you,” I replied.
“But, my dear child, you want a dress. Well, perhaps you will get one of the girls to go with you.”
“I would rather,” I replied. I gathered up all my parcels in my arms and prepared to leave the room.
“Just as you like, dear; but remember we go on the 24th to Hedgerow House.”
“On the 24th; yes, step-mother, thank you.”
I went upstairs.