Part II Chapter 6 Dumps — A Plain Girl by L. T. Meade
Learning to Skate
Certainly my step-mother was a patient teacher, and certainly also there were few more awkward girls than I, Rachel Grant, on that afternoon. The stumbles I made, the way I sprawled my legs, the many falls I had, notwithstanding my step-mother’s care! Both Alex and Charley laughed immoderately. It was Von Marlo, however, who in the end came to the rescue.
“Mrs Grant,” he said, “you are dead-tired. I have been able to skate ever since I was able to walk. May I take Miss Dumps right round the pond? Will you trust her to me?”
“Oh yes, do let him!” I said.
My step-mother agreed, and a minute later she was flying away herself as though on wings, with Charley on one side of her and Alex on the other. Notwithstanding that she was a stout person, she looked very graceful on the ice. She could cut figures, and she set herself to teach the boys how to manage these exquisite and bird-like movements.
Meanwhile Von Marlo and I skated away after a time with a certain amount of success. He was taller and stronger than my step-mother, and he taught me a Dutch way of managing the business; and after a time I was able to go forward with the help of his strong hand, and so the afternoon did not turn out so very disastrous after all.
As we were going home Von Marlo asked if he might walk with me. Mrs Grant was standing near; she said “Certainly,” and we started off together.
“Not that way,” he said; “I don’t want to go straight back. We have nearly two hours before dinner, and I want you to take me a very long way round.”
“But I don’t know Chelmsford specially well,” I replied.
“Oh, I’ve been poking about a bit by myself,” he answered. “We’ll just walk up this road to the left, then plunge into the woods; they look so perfect with the snow on the ground.”
I took his hand, and we walked along bravely. I was warmed with the skating; my cheeks were cold; my heart was beating heartily; I felt a curious exhilaration which snowy air and even most badly executed skating gives to every one.
When we entered the woods Von Marlo slackened his steps and looked full at me.
“You are as happy as the day is long,” he said.
I made no reply.
“If you are not you ought to be so,” was his next remark.
I turned then and stood quite still and faced him.
“You make too much fuss,” I said. “If you and Alex and Charley would leave the subject alone I might get on better with her. But you never will leave the subject alone. When I speak to her you all three look at me.”
“I didn’t know that the others looked; I couldn’t help it, you know,” said Von Marlo.
“But why should you do it? After all, you know much less than the others do.”
“That doesn’t matter.” Von Marlo held out his hand and took mine. “I want to say something to you, Dumps. You are quite the nicest and pluckiest girl I have ever come across. I know lots of girls at The Hague, and they are pretty in their way; but I never saw anybody quite so pretty as you are.”
“Oh Von!” I said, and I burst out laughing. “I do wish you wouldn’t talk rubbish like that. Why, you know that I am very—very—downright ugly.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” he replied. “To me, a face like yours, so round, and eyes so grey, and—well, I think you are beautiful.”
I saw at last that he was speaking the truth. Perhaps I was the Dutch style. I knew I should never certainly be the English style. After a moment his words were soothing. It was well if even a Dutchman could think me nice.
“And you are so brave,” he continued. “Looks don’t matter very much, of course. They do a little, but you are so plucky, and you have always been so good at home, although now you are just having a rare chance of turning yourself into—”
“Well?” I said, for he stopped.
“Into a vixen.”
“Oh dear!” I cried.
“Yes; you know you are not what you used to be, and it is because of the best woman in the world. So I do want you to try—”
“Stop!” I said. “I won’t do what you want, so now let us change the subject.”
The colour came into his face.
“Perhaps,” he said, “the best thing I can do is to tell you about my own step-mother.”
“Have you one?” I asked.
I looked at him with very keen interest. “Yes. I do not remember anybody else. I don’t remember my own mother.”
“Oh, well, that is different.”
“I do not think it is so different, for in some ways it is harder for me than for you.”
“Isn’t she nice. Von?” I asked.
“She means to be,” he said; “but she is severe. She doesn’t love me as English school because I am not wanted at home.”
“Poor Von!” I said. “And have you ever been rude to her?”
“Oh no,” he answered; “I couldn’t be that—my father wouldn’t allow it.”
He was silent for a bit, and so was I silent. “What is she like, Von?” I asked.
“She is what you English would call plain. She is very stout, with a good figure, a high colour, and black eyes, only they’re rather small. She is an excellent housewife, and makes good dinners, and sees to the house and the linen and the servants. My father thinks a great deal of her.”
“And you have brothers and sisters—half brothers and sisters?” I said.
“Oh yes; a great many. My step-mother loves them best, of course, but that cannot be wondered at.”
“No,” I answered, “And, Von Marlo,” I continued, “what do you call her?”
“Mamma,” he replied.
“How can you?”
“I couldn’t say anything else. I have known her since I was a tiny boy.”
“With you it is different—it is truly,” I repeated. “I am never going to call my step-mother mamma or mother, nor anything which would give her the place of my own mother.”
“I do not believe a name matters,” said Von Marlo; “but you ought to be good to her, for she is wonderfully good to you.”
We finished our walk. I liked him and yet I did not like him. I felt annoyed with the boys. I saw during dinner that they were watching me when I spoke to my step-mother. Alex would raise his head and glance in her direction, and once when I forgot to reply to her Charley gave me a kick under the table. As to Von Marlo, he seemed to have done his part when he had that walk with me, for he did not take much notice of me, although I was certain he was listening.
Now, this was the sort of thing to fret a girl. How could I be good when I was certain that I was surrounded by spies? I thought my father’s abstracted manner quite refreshing beside the intent and watchful ways of the three boys. And as to Augusta, I almost learned to love her. She saw nothing wrong in my step-mother for the very reason that she did not see her at all. Whenever she raised her eyes, those deep-set dark eyes of hers would fly to the Professor. When he spoke she bent eagerly forward. Once he began one of his endless dissertations; the boys were talking about something else. Augusta said “Hush!” in a most peremptory manner, and my father stopped.
“Thank you,” he said, and he gave her a gracious bow. I really thought for a moment I was at school, and that one of the prefects was calling the class to order. “Thank you, Miss—”
“Augusta Moore is my name.”
She uttered it quickly, and with a sort of sob in her voice.
“Oh, go on, please—go on! It is of the utmost importance.”
“Indeed!” he replied, colouring. “I should not have thought you understood.”
“Oh, I do, sir—I do! I love the great Herodotus—the father of all history, is he not?”
“Yes, child.”
Really I believe, for the first time in his whole life, my father was aware of Augusta’s society; he now addressed his remarks to her, evidently thinking the rest of us of no importance. He put questions to her which she answered; he drew her out; she had an immense amount of miscellaneous knowledge with regard to the old classics. Her hour had come; her cheeks blazed; her eyes were bright; she was lifted off her feet, metaphorically, by my father’s appreciation of her talents.
“A remarkable girl,” he said afterwards when I was alone in the room. “A friend of yours, Dumps?”
“One of my schoolfellows,” I said.
Then I took hold of his hands.
“Father!”
“Well, Dumps?”
“I want to speak to you.”
“Yes, my dear.”
“It was very good of you to do what you did for me, and now you are going to send me to a school in Paris.”
“Indeed I am not,” said my father.
“You are,” I replied; “it is all arranged. My step-mother said so.”
“Grace, bless her! She has a great many schemes on hand. But I think you will have discovered for yourself, Dumps, that I cannot possibly do such a thing. Indeed, I don’t particularly care for the French mode of education. If you must go abroad, go to Germany. In Germany we find the greatest thinkers of the last three centuries. Put yourself under them, my dear, and it is possible you may come back an intelligent woman.”
I did not say much more. By-and-by I went up to my room. Augusta had not come upstairs. I had a few moments to myself. I locked the door and flung myself on my bed. Oh, what a silly, silly Dumps I was! for I cried as though my heart would break. It was not father who was sending me to the school in Paris; it was my new mother—my step-mother. Was I beholden to her for everything? Of course, she had bought me the clothes, and she had provided all the new and delightful things in the house. Could I take her gifts and stand aloof from her? It seemed impossible.
“I cannot love her,” I said to myself. “She is nice, but she ever and ever stands between me and my own mother. I cannot—cannot love her.”
“Then if you don’t love her,” said a voice—an inward voice—“you ought not to take her gifts. The two things are incompatible. Either love her with all your heart, and take without grudging what she bestows upon you, or refuse her gifts.”
I was making up my mind. I sat up on my elbow and thought out the whole problem. Yes, I must—I would refuse. I would find father some day when he was alone, and tell him that I, Rachel, intended to live on the little money he could spare me; that I would still go to the old school, and wear shabby dresses. Anything else would be a slight on my own mother, I thought.