Part II Chapter 7 Dumps — A Plain Girl by L. T. Meade
A New Régime
Little did I know, however, of the changes that were ahead. Hitherto my step-mother had been all that was sweetly kind and lovingly indulgent; no doubt she was still kind, and in her heart of hearts still indulgent; but when we returned home after our pleasant few days at Hedgerow House her manner altered. She took the reins of government with a new sort of decision; she ordered changes in the household management without consulting me about them; she got in even more servants, and added to the luxuries of the house. She invited friends to call, and went herself to pay visits. She ordered a neat brougham, which came for her every day, and in which she asked me to accompany her to visit friends and relatives of her own. I refused in my own blunt fashion.
“I am sorry, step-mother,” I said; “I am particularly busy this afternoon, and I am going to tea with the Swans.”
“Is that an old engagement, Rachel?” she inquired.
“Yes,” I said; but I blushed a little as I spoke, for in truth that morning I had all but refused Rita Swan’s urgent entreaty to go and have tea with them. Now I seized upon the whole idea as an excuse.
Mrs Grant stood silent for a minute. How handsome and bright and energetic she looked! She was becomingly dressed, and the carriage with its nice horse and well-appointed coachman was waiting at the door. She said after a minute’s pause, “Very well, Dumps, you needn’t come to-day; but please understand that I shall want you to go out with me to-morrow morning, and again in the afternoon. Don’t make any engagement for to-morrow.”
Before I had time to reply she had swept down the hall, the door was flung open for her by the neat parlour-maid, she stepped into her carriage, and was borne away.
Was this indeed the same desolate house where I had lived ever since my mother died?
I had a somewhat dull tea with the Swans; I was thinking all the time of my step-mother. They twitted me one moment on my melancholy, and the next they began to praise me. I was not a particularly shrewd girl, but somehow after a time I began to suspect that the news of my step-mother’s wealth had got to their ears. If that was so, it would account for their complete change of front. Doubtless my step-mother was right when she decided to take me from a school where I might have companions of the Swan sort. The next day I came downstairs determined, if possible, to have my own way and not to go out with Mrs Grant. She was at breakfast when I entered.
“You are a little late, Rachel,” she said. “The hour for breakfast is half-past eight.”
“But—but—” I began.
“You needn’t excuse yourself, dear. Sit down. To-morrow morning I shall expect you to be in time.” She spoke very sweetly, poured out a cup of delicious coffee for me, and asked whether I would prefer ham or eggs to eat with it. I looked out at the street. The worst January weather was on us; there was a drizzling sleet falling from the sky.
“We sha’n’t have a very pleasant day for our shopping,” said Mrs Grant.
“Are we going shopping?” I asked.
“Yes; I am going to take you shopping to-day. You will want your school outfit.”
I felt myself turning first red and then pale.
“Oh, but, please—” I began.
She stopped helping herself to marmalade and looked at me. She and I were alone; the Professor and the boys were all at the college.
“But?” she said. “What is it, dear?”
“I don’t want to go.”
“I am sorry, but we have very little time to lose. I have ordered the carriage to be here at ten o’clock.”
“But—” I said, faltering somewhat in my speech, for her manner was beginning to tell on me. I was struggling and struggling against it, but struggling as the swimmer does who knows that time and tide are against him.
“Yes?” she said.
“I want to go for a walk. I hate driving.”
“To walk on such a day, Rachel? I should think you would be glad to have the comfort of our carriage.”
She was always careful never to call anything hers; she always said “ours.”
I flushed angrily.
“I hate driving,” I repeated.
“I am sorry, dear. Well, we will get the things you hate over as quickly as possible. You must get your school outfit, you see, as you are going to Paris on the 21st. Now run upstairs and get your hat and jacket on.”
Was there ever a girl so bullied before? I went unwillingly upstairs. On the second floor, where I now slept, I saw Hannah coming downstairs. I ran up to her and took one of her hands.
“What have you been doing?” I asked.
“Doing?” said Hannah. “Doing? What’s the matter with you, Dumps?”
“She’s going to send me away, Hannah.”
“Don’t talk to me,” replied Hannah.
“Hannah, I must I’m just stifling.”
“I can’t talk to you now—not now. She’s everywhere, and she has her spies about—all them new servants; they’re hand in glove with her—eating her food and taking her wages.”
“But, Hannah, we eat her food and take her wages.”
“Well, I must confess I thought there was a time when I could put up with it, but if you go I go too. There!”
I clutched her hand. There came a rustling sound of a silk dress up the stairs. No, it was not a silk dress; it was a woollen one of good material, but Mrs Grant had all her dresses lined with silk.
“I hate going,” I had just time to whisper.
“I’ll come to your bedroom to-night, and we’ll talk this thing out,” said Hannah.
But how small I felt myself, condescending to talk even to poor old Hannah about my step-mother!
“Come, dear,” cried the pleasant voice, “are you ready? The carriage is at the door.”
I rushed into my bedroom, got into my hat and jacket, and was downstairs in a trice. Mrs Grant came up to me.
“Not tidily put on, Rachel,” she said. She dragged my tie into a straight position, and straightened my hat; then she said approvingly, “Ah! gloves are nice, and so are the boots. Always remember, Rachel, that a lady is known by her good gloves and good boots. Now then, come.”
She stepped into the carriage first, and I followed. She gave orders. We stopped at a large shop, where we bought a quantity of things—or rather she bought them—underclothing of every sort and description, more stockings than I thought I could ever use in the whole course of my life, a lot more handkerchiefs, embroidered petticoats, dark petticoats; then gloves—walking gloves and evening gloves and afternoon gloves; and by-and-by we went into the region where pretty things were to be found. Such a sweetly becoming costume was got for me—dark-blue again, but now trimmed richly with velvet which was embroidered in a strange and mystical sort of pattern. In my heart of hearts I adored it, but all the time I stood gloomy and silent and without a smile on my face.
“Come,” said Mrs Grant when the purchases were nearly finished, “you must, my dear child, put on a slightly more agreeable face, for we are going to the millinery department, and I cannot choose a hat which will suit you while you look like that.”
I tried to smile, but instead I burst into a sort of hysterical laughter.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” I said.
She took my hand and squeezed it.
“You wish I wouldn’t? But I wish I could do a thousand times more for you. Come, darling, come.” The word “darling,” after all the calm insistence of having her own way all the morning, broke on my heart with a feverish desire to respond to it, but I would not. No, I would not be conquered.
Oh, how particular my step-mother was about that hat! As if it mattered after all. It was the quietest and most expensive hat I had ever seen. As to the feathers, she took them to the light, examined them and pulled them about, and saw that they were exactly the right shade, until I scarcely knew how to contain myself. I could not help murmuring under my breath, “I shall become a sort of Augusta if this goes on. I shall loathe clothes if this continues.”
Finally a dark-blue hat was chosen to suit the dark-blue costume, and then a grey hat with a long grey feather was also bought for best occasions; and afterwards I was supplied with a perfectly fascinating set of chinchilla furs, chinchilla for my neck and a darling little muff to match.
“You shall wear this hat with these chinchillas,” said my step-mother; “and I will get you a very good brown fur for everyday wear—fox. You must wear your chinchillas when you want to be extra smart.”
At last all the list of things that Mrs Grant considered necessary for a young lady’s entrance into the fashionable Parisian school were obtained.
“We have done a good morning’s work,” she said, and she desired the coachman to take us home.
“At least I shall have the afternoon to myself,” I thought.
Now, if the truth must be known, hateful as the morning had been, there had also been a sort of feeling of enjoyment. The things that had been bought were good, and I was to be no longer a shabby girl. When I remembered the dark-brown skirt of uncertain make and by no means uncertain length, with the brick-red blouse which had been my proud possession such a very short time ago, I could not help smiling to myself at the vastness of the contrast. But, alas and alack! why was I so perverse that I thought I would welcome that skirt and hideous blouse if only I might be back again in the old days? But would I? Could I have this afternoon to myself, I should have a certain satisfaction in going to see the Swans, and inviting them back to tea, which I was always permitted to do, and giving them an account of my ravishing chinchilla, my beautiful fox, my dark-blue costume, and my new hats. What would they not feel? I fairly believed that they would begin to see beauty in my small and insignificant eyes, in my retroussé nose, in my somewhat wide mouth.
“Oh, riches, riches!” I muttered under my breath.
“As you did not get the dress I expected you to get before Christmas, Rachel,” said my step-mother during lunch-time, “I have ordered the dark-blue costume and the grey hat and the grey furs to be sent home immediately, for I am going to visit some special friends of mine this afternoon, and I want you to accompany me.”
“Oh, but twice in the carriage!” I said.
“I am sorry. To-morrow we will do a lot of walking. I have heaps to do, and I love a tramp on my feet, as you know. I won’t have the carriage at all to-morrow; we’ll walk until we are fit to drop. But go and amuse yourself, dear, for the carriage will not be round again until four o’clock.”
I went away to my room. The little gas-stove was alight and the room was warm and comfortable. I went and stood by the window and looked round the apartment. It had been made so elegant, so sweet, so fresh for me. Then I glanced at the bed; it was covered with parcels—great big boxes, small boxes, parcels made up in brown-paper. What girl can resist an unopened parcel? Not even Rachel Grant. I began to take out my wonderful possessions, to look at them, to examine them. In themselves they were fascinating, but the sting lay in the fact that they had been given me by her. They all seemed to be witnesses against the miniature—the dear miniature which was fading and fading out of every one’s memory.
“The only person in this house,” I said to myself, “who has a grain of sense is poor old Hannah.”
Just as the thought floated through my brain the door was opened and Hannah came in.
“I had a few minutes to spare, and I thought I’d just steal in and have a talk with you now. She’s downstairs talking to a visitor—drat her! say I. Now then, Miss Dumps, what is it? You tell me, and as quick as you can.”
Hannah was the cook of the establishment, and I must say an excellent cook she made.
“Why, Hannah,” I said, “I can’t imagine how you manage to leave the kitchen just now.”
“Oh, I can manage,” said Hannah. “I get as much help as I want.”
“And you are such a good cook, Hannah; you take to the new life as kindly as I do.”
“Much chance I have of not taking to it. It’s do your work or go; that’s the rule of rules in this house. If you are kept to cook, cook you must; if you don’t cook, out you go, and some one else comes in who can cook. That’s the way. Now, Miss Rachel, you’ve got to be made into a fashionable young lady, magnificently dressed, and educated in one of the ’orrid French schools.”
Hannah threw a world of contempt into the adjective she bestowed upon the Parisian school.
“In one of them ’orrid French schools,” she said; “and if you don’t submit, why, out you goes too.”
“Why, Hannah, how could I go out? I often wish I could.”
“Poor child!” said Hannah. “Well, now—oh, my word! what are all those?”
She had not noticed the parcels before. She now sprang on them and began to examine them. In spite of herself she was impressed by the goodly array of garments.
“My word!” she said, “no one can accuse her of being stingy.”
“And no one can accuse her,” I said with feeling, “of being mean in any sense of the word. She does her best for us all.”
“Well, she has her object,” said Hannah. “A-pushing of her out—a-pushing of her out. She’s a’most gone, poor thing! Killed she were, but still her spirit seems to linger; now she’s a’most gone.”
“Hannah, when you talk like that I sometimes hate you,” I said.
Hannah looked at me in astonishment.
“How queer you are, Dumps!” she said. “I don’t know that I didn’t like you twice as well in the old times, though you have plumped out like anything. You were a very plain little creature, I will say that. But there! handsome is that handsome does.”
“And did I behave so handsomely, Hannah? You were always finding fault with me then.”
“Drat you!” said Hannah, “you were a bit of a caution—you and them boys. Oh dear me! don’t I remember the darkness in the old times? And now it’s just a blaze of light—gas every where, big fires, big j’ints, poultry, game, fish. My word! and the sweets are enough to make your mouth water. And I has to superintend, and it’s ‘Mrs Joyce’ here and ‘Mrs Joyce’ there. My word! My word!”
“Do they call you Mrs Joyce?”
“Of course they do. I wouldn’t allow anything else. But there, child, I must be off. It’s a’most time for us to sit down to our dinner; nothing less, I can assure you, than veal and ham pie, and apple-dumplings afterwards.”
“But, Hannah, you never were good at apple-dumplings, you know.”
“I am now. I have everything to make them with—that’s what I have; and I had nothing afore. Oh, my word!”
“Yes, Hannah, you used to feed us very badly. Do you remember that leg of mutton?”
Hannah laughed.
“I do,” she said. “’Ot Sunday, cold Monday, cold again Tuesday, turned upside down Wednesday, hashed Thursday, bone made into soup Friday—couldn’t do more with it if I tried.”
“You certainly couldn’t.”
“Well, child, well, all I can say is this—if you go, and she puts more on me, out I go too. And if ever you want a home, I’ll give it to you. I have a bit of money put by—more than you think on. You shall have my address before you go to that school in Paris.”
I kissed the poor old thing. Hannah was neatly dressed herself now, and looked a new sort of person altogether. She no longer wore cotton-wool in her ears; she did not need to, she said, for she was never expected to answer any bell of any sort.
“I’ve enough in the kitchen to keep me agoin’,” was her remark.
Hannah disappeared. It was soon time to dress. I put on my beautiful blue dress, which fitted me perfectly—that is, as well as it was necessary to fit a girl of my age. The short, smart little coat had not a wrinkle in it anywhere. Over the dress I tried first the fox. It was Russian fox, and, I thought, terribly expensive; but what was that to the lovely chinchilla? The chinchilla must go on.
I forgot my step-mother in my excitement. The blue hat? Yes, the blue hat was perfect; but the grey hat, which exactly toned with the chinchilla, was still better. I found that my cheeks were flushed, and the softness of the grey hat seemed exactly to suit the tone of my complexion. I made my hair look as thick and important as I could. I put on the hat; I fastened the chinchilla fur round my neck. How delicious it was! Just as though a number of soft kittens were pressing against my cheeks. I had grey gloves on my hands, and the little muff was seized, and—oh yes, I kissed it. I was a new Dumps altogether. I looked in the long glass in my bedroom, and saw an almost slender Dumps in an elegant costume. Never mind the plain face; the whole appearance was good, and very lady-like. And she had done it all. Where was the girl whose dress was outgrown, whose hats had often not the semblance of respectability about them? The girl who was always in despair about the possibility of mending her old stockings any longer, whose gloves had mostly holes in the fingers? Where was this girl, with her hungry eyes, her shivering body? She had vanished; she belonged to the attic upstairs, the bare attic which contained—oh, just memories of the past.
Again I kissed the little muff; then I ran down into the hall. My step-mother was very anxious to see the effect of the costume; she took me into the parlour and made me turn round and round.
“It is nice!” I said.
My tone of approbation seemed to give her immense satisfaction. She kissed me, then said, “There’s the carriage—we are just in time.”
We entered, and off we went. Mrs Grant looked her very best. I cannot remember what she wore; when a person is always well dressed you take it as a matter of course and do not notice. I kept on feeling the delicious softness of the pussy-cat fur round my neck, and if my step-mother had not been present I should have kissed the little muff again.
We stopped at a house; the footman got down and came to the door. I had not noticed before that there were two men on the box.
“Why, step-mother,” I said, “we are grand!”
She gave a smile as though she had not heard me; then, bending forward, she told the man to inquire if Lady Anne Churton was within. He ran up the steps, pulled the bell, and a powdered footman in livery opened the door. A minute later we found ourselves in the hall.
We went upstairs; Mrs Grant, of course, going first, I following. It was a smart-looking house, but it seemed dull and heavy to me; the air was so hot, too. I was certain that I should have to part with my beloved pussy-cat fur when once I entered whatever room we were being conveyed to.
A door was flung open by the man who had preceded us upstairs; our names were called out, and a lady, who must have been between fifty and sixty years of age, came to meet us.
“Now this is good, Grace,” she said. “How sweet of you to come! You are not a bit formal. Oh, this is your—”
“My daughter,” said Mrs Grant.—“Rachel, this is my very great friend, Lady Anne Churton.”
A hand jewelled with many valuable rings was held out to me. I was asked to come near the fire. I followed my step-mother and Lady Anne across the room. It was a very large room, and absolutely crowded with furniture. Wherever you turned you saw a little table; and where a table was not, there was a little chair; and every chair was different from its neighbour, and each table was also of a different shape from the one next it. The tables were laden with what my step-mother called bric-à-brac and curios of all sorts and descriptions. The nearest table to me was covered with old-fashioned articles of silver.
Lady Anne and my step-mother began to talk earnestly together in low tones. I got up and went nearer to the silver table to examine it. But, alack and alas! notwithstanding my beautiful dark-blue costume, my chinchilla furs, and all the rest, I was awkward. I was carried off my feet into this new region of soft things and little tables and bric-à-brac and every kind of luxury. I stumbled and knocked over a still smaller table which contained but one priceless treasure, a piece of glass of most wondrous make. I had meant to examine that glass when I had done looking at the silver, for it had the power of taking on every imaginable ray of colour. But it existed no longer; it lay in fragments on the ground.
My step-mother came at once to the rescue. Lady Anne said in the calmest voice, “Fray don’t trouble. Miss Grant; it was a mere accident. Come a little nearer to me, won’t you?”
Then she rang the bell. When the footman appeared he was told to remove the broken glass. Everything was done quietly; there was not the faintest trace of displeasure on Lady Anne’s face; but any girl who reads this can well imagine my feelings. Talk of being hot! I thought I should never need furs again as long as I lived. The soft pussy-cats, dear pets, no longer comforted me. I removed the chinchilla, and sat with blazing cheeks gazing straight before me. But Lady Anne was nothing if she was not kind.
“So you are going to school next week?” she said. “And to Paris? You will enjoy that.”
“Oh yes,” I murmured. I really had not a vestige of character left; I could only mutter—I, who felt myself to be a person of great energy and determination and force of speech.
“It was very kind of Mrs Grant to arrange it all for you.”
“Very kind,” I said, loathing Mrs Grant as I uttered the words.
Lady Anne stared at me. Her eyebrows went up the very least bit in the world.
“Ah! here comes tea,” she said.
A footman appeared with a tray. A little table opened of its own accord in some extraordinary way. It had looked like a harmless bundle of sticks leaning against one of the walls. The tray, one of rarest china, was placed upon it. Lady Anne poured thimblefuls of weak tea into cups of matchless china. I was trembling all over. I was actually so nervous that I was sure I should break one of those cups if I touched it. But I did take it, nevertheless; I took this terrible thimbleful in its beautiful little saucer in my gloved hand, and sat down and received a plate of the same type to rest on my lap with an infinitesimal morsel of wafery bread-and-butter. The tea was scalding hot, and it brought tears to my eyes. I felt so bewildered and upset that it was with difficulty I could keep myself from making an ignominious bolt from the room. But worse was to follow.
Lady Anne and my step-mother continued to talk as placidly together as though nothing whatever had happened, as though I had not disgraced myself for ever and ever, when the door was flung open and a perfect swarm of gaily dressed ladies appeared. I think there were five of them. They made the silent room alive all at once, each talking a little higher and more rapidly than the other. One rushed up to Lady Anne and called her an old dear, and kissed her and patted her cheek; another tapped her with her lorgnette and said, “You naughty old thing, why weren’t you at the bazaar yesterday? Oh, we had such fun!”
Then they all sat down, spreading out their garments and seeming to preen themselves like lovely tropical birds. I pushed my chair a little farther from the fire, which had caught my cheeks and made them burn in a most terrible manner. When would my step-mother go? But no, she had no intention of stirring. She knew these people; they were quite interested on seeing her.
“Oh, how do you get on? How nice to see you again! But what an extraordinary thing you have done, Grace! And you have step-children, too. Horrors, no doubt!”
The words reached my ears. I could scarcely bear myself. Mrs Grant said something, and there was an apologetic, almost frightened look on the lady’s face.
The next minute a girl, doubtless about my own age, but who had all the savoir-faire which I did not possess, came swiftly forward and dropped into a low chair near me.
“I must introduce myself, Miss Grant,” she said. “I know you are Miss Grant. I am Lilian St. Leger. I am so glad you are here; all the others are so terribly old, you know. Where shall we go to have a nice little talk all to ourselves? Into the back drawing-room? Oh, but have you had enough tea?”
“Quite,” I replied.
Now, if there was an absolutely radiant-looking creature on this earth, it was Lilian St. Leger. I won’t attempt to describe her, for I have no words. I don’t suppose if I were to take her features separately I should be able for a single moment to pronounce them perfect; but it was her sweetness and tact, and the way she seemed to envelop me with her bright presence, which was as cold water to a thirsty person.
“I have had quite enough tea,” I said.
“And I hate tea in drawing-rooms; it is always so weak, and you can only snatch a mouthful of food at a time,” said Lilian. “Come along, then.”
She held out her tiny hand and clasped mine. I felt vulgar and rough and commonplace beside her; but she steered me right past the numerous tables until we got into a room which was comparatively cool, and we sank down together on a sofa.
“This is better. Oh, you do look hot! Have you been sitting by the fire?”
“Yes, Miss St. Leger, I have; but I’ve also done such an awful thing.”
“I am sure awful things have been done to you. You heard, of course, what mother said. She didn’t mean it; she couldn’t have meant it if she had seen you.”
“If she had seen me she would have meant it in very truth,” I replied, “if she had witnessed me a few minutes ago.”
“Oh! what happened? Tell me everything. It would be lovely if you broke the proprieties of that drawing-room.”
Lilian was wearing a black velvet hat, which had a great plume of feathers that drooped a little over her face. Her hair was golden, and very thick and very shining. It was not, like mine, hanging down her back, but fastened in a thick knot very low on her neck.
“What did you do?” she said, and she clasped my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“I knocked over a small table; there was a solitary glass ornament in the middle.”
“What! Not the Salviati?”
“It was glass, not Salviati,” I said.
She laughed.
“Salviati is the maker of some of the most perfect opalescent glass in the world, and this was one of his oldest and most perfect creations. But you saved it?”
“I didn’t, Miss St. Leger. It is in pieces. It was taken away in something that a footman brought in; it doesn’t exist any longer. I have smashed it.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know what happened; nothing, I think. There was a kind of icy breath all over the room, and I thought my heart would stop. But Lady Anne’s voice was as cool as—oh! cool as snow, if snow could speak. Afterwards I got burning hot; the ice went and the fire came, and—and I have done it!”
Lilian looked perplexed. She turned round and gazed at me; then she burst into a peal of merriest laughter.
“Oh, you funny girl!” she said. “Just to think of you—the horror, as mother called you—calmly breaking dear Lady Anne’s sacred Salviati, and Oh, you don’t half know the heinousness of your crime!”
“You are rubbing it in pretty hard,” I said.
She laughed again immoderately; she could not stop laughing.
“Oh! I could kiss you,” she said; “I could hug you. I hate that room and those tables and curios; it is wicked—it is wrong for any one to make her room exactly like a curiosity shop, and that is what Lady Anne does. But then it’s her hobby. Well, you have knocked over one of her idols, and she’ll never forgive you.”
“If she never expects me to come to see her again I shall certainly survive,” I said. “But please don’t laugh at me any more.”
“Oh, I admire you so much,” said Lilian; “you have such courage!”
“But you don’t think I did it on purpose, do you?”
“Of course not You just did it because you are accustomed to space, and there is no space allowed in Lady Anne’s drawing-room. Oh! I shall tell Dick to-night, and Guy.”
“Who are they, please?”
“My brothers. Won’t they roar? Well, my dear, she’ll never say a word to you or your step-mother; she’ll never say a word to anybody; but I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if the doctor was summoned to-night. She has had a sort of shock; but she won’t show it, for it’s considered underbred for any one to show anything.”
“Oh, what an appalling life to lead!”
“I lead it—at least I generally do; it is only now and then that I can give myself away. You dear, refreshing young soul, how you have cheered me up! I was so loathing the thought of this afternoon of visits. But now, do tell me something more! Are you always doing outré things? If I could only convey you to our house and send you sprawling round, it would be such fun!”
“I know you are laughing at me,” I said.
“Well, yes, I am and I am not. But there! tell me about yourself.”
“I have nothing to tell; I am just a plain girl.”
“However plain, you are delicious—delicious! How old are you?”
“I shall be sixteen in May.”
“Well, I was seventeen a month ago, so I have put up my hair. How do you like it?”
“It is lovely,” I said.
“My maid thinks it is. I don’t much bother about it. I have one great desire in life. I long for the unattainable.”
“I should think anything could be attained by you.”
“Not a bit of it. The thing that I want I can’t attain to.”
“What do you want?”
“To be very, very plain, to have a free time, to do exactly what I like—to knock over tables, to skim about the country at my own sweet will unchaperoned and unstared at; never to be expected to make a great match; never to have any one say, ‘If Lilian doesn’t do something wonderful we shall be disappointed.’”
“Oh, well, you never will get those things,” I said. After a time I continued—for she kept on looking at me—“Would you change with me if you could?”
“I shouldn’t like to give up mamma—dear mamma is a darling; she really is, although she is always putting her foot into it. She put her foot into it now; but, you see, it was rather good after all, for I saw you and I noticed that you had heard what mamma said. Now, mother never does outré things with her body, but with her lips she is always giving herself away. I couldn’t leave her even to change with you.”
“Well, I’m plain enough.”
“Thank Providence for that. You are plain; I quite admit it. But I will tell you something else. Your step-mother is the most delightful woman—”
“Oh, you have been very nice, Miss St. Leger—”
“They call me Lady Lilian,” she interrupted.
“Oh, but that is rather too terrible.”
“Why should the fact of being an earl’s daughter make me a scrap better than you, who are the daughter of a very great professor? But, anyhow, you may call me Lilian; you may drop the Lady. Now go on.”
“I wish you wouldn’t begin to praise her.”
“Oh, then, you don’t like her? You are one of those naughty little girls who won’t take to her dear step-mother. Dear, dear!”
“She is as good as gold,” I said.
“I see what it is,” said Lady Lilian; “you and I must have a long talk. We must be friends. Have we not talked together over the lost Salviati? Have we not both sighed over the mal-à-propos remarks of my dear mamma? We ought to be friends. Don’t I wish to have your looks? And doubtless you wish to have mine? Why shouldn’t we be friends?”
“Let us,” I said. I was bewitched, charmed. I had forgotten my shyness and felt quite at home with her. In fact, as Lady Lilian went on talking I felt rather superior to her. It was the first time in all my life I had regarded my plainness as a distinct and most valuable acquisition.
“That’s all right. I’ll introduce you to mamma. Come along now this very minute; she is rising to go.”
“But I sha’n’t see much of you, for I am going to school on the 21st.”
“To school! Heavens! Why?”
“My step-mother wishes it.”
“Poor little thing! I see. And where?”
I mentioned the school. Her eyes brightened.
“Oh, you are going there?” she said. “Then I don’t think I do pity you. I was there for a year; it’s an awfully nice place, and there are some of my own friends there. I’ll write and tell them about you. Oh! come along; there is mamma at the door.”
She took my hand. The Countess of Derwent was just saying adieu to another intimate acquaintance who had entered the room as soon as Lilian and I had betaken ourselves into the back drawing-room. She turned when she saw her daughter.
“Come, Lilian. I am going. Say good-bye to Lady Anne.”
“First,” said Lilian in her calmest voice, “let me introduce you to the Horror.”
She drew me forward. The poor Countess’s face became crimson.
“The what?” she said.
“Oh, you called her that yourself when you were congratulating dear Grace on having a husband and ready-made children. Well, this is the girl, and she is a perfect darling, a deliverer for me out of my worst fit of the dumps.”
“Oh, but they call me Dumps,” I could not help saying.
“Better and better,” said Lady Lilian.—“Now, mother, here she is; judge for yourself.”
“I must really apologise, Miss Grant,” said the Countess. “I must apologise most humbly. I had no idea you were in the room.”
“There’s nothing to apologise for,” I answered. “I am awfully obliged to you, for Lady Lilian wouldn’t have spoken to me but for your saying that. And you had a right to say it, for I expect I am a horror.”
“I am sure you are nothing of the sort—Lilian, my dear Lilian.”
Lady Lilian tripped back.
“Ask this child to tea to-morrow.—Come, won’t you, Miss—Grant? Now good-bye, my dear; you are a very nice, forgiving sort of girl. Good-bye.—Come, Lilian—come!”