Dumps – A Plain Girl

“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!”

Part 2, Chapter VIII

Going to School

All the preparations for school had been made, and it was the day before I was to leave. My trunks – I had several now – were packed. Augusta was coming too, and so was Hermione. Hermione had come to spend the last evening with us in the old house behind the great college. She was very much interested and highly pleased.

The last fortnight of my time at home had gone on wings. Lady Lilian St. Leger had lifted me into a new world. She was a daring, bright, true-hearted girl. She did not mind treating me with a sort of playful lightness which was very refreshing after the stifling time I had spent in that awful drawing-room; but she also had said good-bye.

“We shall meet in the holidays,” she said. “I shall see you sometimes. I am to come out as soon as ever I am presented, and I’ll be presented at the first Drawing-room. After that it will be nothing but rush and tumult; I’ll be wishing myself dead all the time, for there will be no hope of anything. I am going to make up my mind to accept the first man who proposes for me.”

“Oh, but you won’t do that!” I said, for I had very primitive and very sacred ideas on such topics.

“Oh, just to get rid of the thing! I only trust he’ll be young and poor and ugly. If he is young and poor and ugly, and I fall madly in love with him, there’ll be such a rumpus, and that would be a rare bit of fun. But dear, darling mamma will have to give way, because I can always make her do what I like.”

“But your father?” I said.

“Oh, I’ll manage him too.”

Thus she talked and chattered; but she was not out yet. She was very good-natured, and told me a great deal about the school.

“I do envy your going there,” she said. “I wish I was fifteen. And you are so jolly honest-looking and so downright plain. I do think you are unfairly equipped for this life, Dumps.”

She would never call me anything else now; I was Dumps to her – her darling, plain, practical, jolly Dumps. That was how she spoke of me. She had written to the girls whom she knew at the school, and had told me to be sure to introduce myself as her very dearest friend, as her newest and dearest.

“They will embrace you; they will take you into their bosoms for my sake,” she said.

I am afraid I was very much enamoured of Lady Lilian; she was the type of girl who would excite the admiration of any one. Even Hermione, who knew her quite well, and whom I had liked in many ways until I met Lady Lilian, seemed commonplace and spiritless beside her.

But Hermione, Augusta, and I were to go to school together. Of course we would be friends. A lady, a special chaperon, was to take us across the Channel; we would start on the following morning, and should arrive in Paris in the evening. I was excited now it came to the point Hannah met me on the last evening as I was going upstairs. She was standing just beside a corner of my own landing. She sprang out on me.

“Hannah,” I said, “you did give me a start.”

She laid her hand on my arm.

“Let me come into your room with you,” she said.

I asked her to do so. She came up and spoke to me emphatically.

“You are going. When you go she will go too.”

“She?”

“Your own mother. She won’t stay another minute. The house will belong to the new queen; but Hannah won’t put up with it. I gave her notice this morning.”

“Hannah, you didn’t.”

“I did, my dear – I did. I said, ‘You are turning the child out, and the old woman goes too.’”

“Then you won’t stay for the sake of the boys?”

“No, I won’t; they can manage for themselves, even Master Charley and even beautiful Master Alex. I will say, anyhow, she wasn’t a bit unkind. She was very nice; I will say that for her. She’s a very nice woman, and under other circumstances I’d be inclined to like her. But there! she’s the new queen, and my heart is with the old one.”

Poor Hannah burst into tears; I had never seen her so overcome before.

“You will come back belonging to the house as it will be in the future. You are too young not to grow up in the new house; but I’m too old, child. I’ll never forget the old ways.”

“Hannah, fudge!” said a voice behind; and turning round, I was amazed, and I must say rather disgusted, to see my brother Charley.

“Look here,” he said, “this is all stuff and nonsense. We are as jolly as we can be, and our step-mother is as good as gold, and why should we make mischief? As to the old times – now I’ll tell you what it is, Hannah, they were detestable.”

Charley made his bow, winking at me and vanishing.

“Just like him,” said Hannah.

“There’s a good deal of truth in what he says, Hannah.”

“Well, I like the old ways best,” said Hannah.

Poor old thing, I could not but pet her and comfort her. She gave me her address. She was going to live with a cousin, and if ever I wanted a home, and was disposed to quarrel with my step-mother, she would take me in – that she would. As I had no intention of quarrelling with my step-mother – for it is quite impossible for any one to have a completely one-sided quarrel – I told Hannah that all I could hope to do in the future was to visit her a good deal. In the end I told her that I would write her long letters from Paris, which quieted her a good bit. She kissed me, and when she went away I did feel, somehow, that the old life was really gone.

The old life! It quite went the next morning when I found myself on board the steamer which was to convey me from Dover to Calais. I stood with Hermione on one side and Augusta on the other, looking at the fast-receding waves as the gallant boat plied its way through them. Our chaperon, a dull, quiet-looking woman, who only spoke broken English, took little or no notice of us. Augusta’s eyes were fixed on the distant horizon. Occasionally I heard her murmuring lines of verse to herself. Once she glanced at me, and I saw that her eyes were full of tears.

“What is it?” I said.

She immediately repeated with great emphasis:

“And where are they? And where art thou,My country?”

“Oh,” I cried, “don’t say any more! We are not in the humour for poetry.”

“Of course we’re not,” said Hermione, glancing at her.

“I was quoting,” said Augusta. “I was thinking, not about what Lord Byron thought when he spoke of ancient Greece, but of all that I was leaving behind in London.”

“And what are you leaving behind that is so specially valuable, Augusta?” I asked.

“Your father’s lectures,” she replied. She turned once more and looked at the horizon.

“Don’t worry her,” said Hermione in a low tone to me.

“I wonder if she’ll ever get over it,” I said.

Hermione and I began to pace slowly up and down the deck.

“I cannot imagine why my step-mother was so anxious that she should come with us,” I said.

“Because she felt that it was absolutely essential that Augusta should see another side of life. Dear, dear, I do feel excited! I wonder how we shall like the life. Don’t frown, Dumps; you surely needn’t worry about Augusta. She has made a kind of king of your father. She believes him to be all that is heroic and noble and majestic in life. It is really a most innocent admiration; let her keep it.”

“Yes, of course, if she likes,” I said.

The air was cold. I wrapped the warm fur cloak which my step-mother had insisted upon giving me for the voyage tightly round me, and sat down on one of the deck-seats. By-and-by Augusta tottered forward.

“It is strange how difficult it is to use your sea-legs,” she said.

She sprawled on to the seat by my side. Suddenly the vessel gave a lurch, and she found herself lying on the deck. A sailor rushed forward, picked her up, and advised the young lady to sit down; the wind was a little fresher and the vessel would sway a trifle. He brought a tarpaulin and wrapped it round us three. Augusta was on one side of me. Presently she pressed my hand.

“You are the next best,” she said, gazing at me with pathetic eyes.

“Next what?” I said.

“You are his daughter.”

“I will try and be friendly with you, Augusta; but I do bar one thing,” was my immediate comment.

“And what is that?”

“Nonsense. You must try and talk sense.”

She smiled very gently, and taking my hand within her own, stroked it.

“He also,” she said after a pause, “is very determined. In fact, I cannot with truth say that he has ever in his life given me what I could call a civil word. Now, you are like him; you are exceedingly blunt. The blunter you are, the more you resemble him.”

“Oh, good gracious! then I suppose I shall have to be civil.”

“I beseech of you, don’t; keep as like him as you can.”

“If you mean for a single moment that Dumps is like her father in appearance, you are much mistaken,” said Hermione, bending across me to speak to Augusta.

“She is like him neither in body nor in mind.”

“But she has a trifle of his moral force,” replied Augusta, with great majesty; and then, finding that neither Hermione nor I was at all in sympathy with her, she satisfied herself with remaining silent and leaning against my shoulder. Perhaps she thought I was imparting to her some of my moral force. I really felt a savage desire to push her away.

At last we landed, and found ourselves in a first-class compartment in the Paris train, and a few minutes afterwards we were on our journey. We arrived there in the evening. Then we found ourselves in an omnibus which was sent to meet us from the school, and were on our way to that home of all the virtues just beyond the Champs Élysées. My heart was beating high. I was full of suppressed anxiety. Hermione once or twice touched my hand. She was also very excited; she was wondering what sort of life lay before her. Augusta, on the other hand, was utterly irresponsive. She did not make one remark with regard to gay, beautiful, brilliant Paris, which looked, as it always does at this hour, full of marvellous witchery, so brilliantly lighted up were the broad streets, so altogether exhilarating was the tone of the bracing air.

Augusta sat huddled up in one corner of the omnibus, while Hermione and I got as close to the door as we could, and gazed out of the window, which was wide-open, exclaiming at each turn as we drove along. The Champs Élysées flashed into view; we drove on, and presently turned into a very broad street, and pulled up with a jerk before a house which seemed to have a balcony to each window, and which was brilliantly lit from attic to cellar.

Our companion, the lady who had brought us, now said something in excellent French, and we got out of the omnibus and followed her up a paved path and through an open doorway into a wide hall. Here a servant appeared, who was told to take us to our rooms. We followed her up some stairs, which were white marble and were uncarpeted. We passed a wide landing where there were some marble figures in the corners, and large palm-trees standing beside them; then again past folding-doors, and through a landing with more marble figures and more palms, until at last we entered through two doors, which were flung open wide, into a pretty little sitting-room. Why do I say little? The room was lofty, and was so simply furnished that it looked much larger than it was. The floor was covered with oak parquetry, and was polished to the most slippery degree. There were a couple of rugs here and there, but no carpet. In the centre of the room was a table covered with a white cloth, and containing knives, forks, glasses, and a bunch of flowers rather carelessly arranged in a vase in the middle. There were heavy chairs in the Louis-Quinze style, with a great deal of gilt about them, and a huge mirror, also with gilt, let into the wall at one side; and exactly opposite the wall was a door, which led into three small bedrooms, all communicating each with the other.

“These are your apartments, young ladies,” said the governess who had taken us upstairs. “This is your sitting-room, where to-night you will have your supper. You will not see your companions – or I think not – until the morning. You will be glad to retire to rest, doubtless, as you must have had a long journey. Your supper will come up in a moment or two. If you give your trunks to Justine she will unpack them and put your things away. Ah! here is the bell; if you will ring it when you want anything, Justine, who is the maid whose special duty it is to wait on you, will attend the summons.”

The governess turned to go away.

“But, please,” called out Hermione as she was closing the door, “what are we to call you?”

“Mademoiselle Wrex.”

We thanked her, and she vanished. Augusta stood in the middle of the room and clasped her hands.

“Well, now, I call this jolly!” I said.

“Delightful! And how quaint!” said Hermione. “I never thought we should have a sitting-room.”

“But there isn’t a book,” remarked Augusta.

“Oh, we don’t want books to-night, Augusta. Now, do lean on my moral strength and forget everything unpleasant,” I said.

“Oh! do look out of the window; here’s a balcony,” cried Hermione. “Let us go out on it when we have had supper.”

She pushed back the curtains, opened the window, and the next minute she was standing on the little balcony looking down into the crowded street.

“Oh! and that house opposite; we can see right into its rooms. What fun! What fun! I do call this life!” cried the girl.

“We had better go and unlock our trunks; remember we are at school,” I said.

“How unlike you, Dumps, to think of anything sensible!” was Hermione’s remark.

We went into our rooms.

“I am going to ring the bell for Justine,” said Hermione.

She did so, and a very pretty girl dressed in French style appeared. She could not speak English, but our home-made French was sufficient for the occasion. We managed to convey to her what we wanted, and she supplied us with hot water, took our keys, and immediately began to unpack our trunks and to put away our belongings.

“You shall have the room next to the sitting-room,” I said to Hermione.

“Very well,” she answered.

“I will take the next,” I said; “and, Augusta, will you have that one?”

“It’s all the same to me,” said Augusta.

In less than half-an-hour we felt ourselves more or less established in our new quarters.

“Now,” said Justine, becoming much animated, “you will want, you pauvre petites, some of the so nécessaire refreshment.”

She rang the bell with energy, and a man appeared bearing chocolate, cakes of different descriptions, and sandwiches. We sat down and made a merry meal. Even Augusta was pleased. She forgot the absence of books; she even forgot how far she was from the Professor. As to her poor mother, I do not think she even gave her a serious thought Hermione and I laughed and chatted. Finally we went and stood on the balcony, and Augusta retired to her own room.

“Now this is a new era; what will it do for us both?” said Hermione.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Aren’t you happy, Dumps?”

“Yes, I am a little; but I don’t suppose I am expected to take things very seriously.”

“It is a great change for me,” said Hermione, “from the regularity of the life at home.”

“I suppose it is,” I said; but then I added, “You cannot expect me to feel about it in that way.”

“Why so?”

“It seems to me,” I continued, “that I have been for the last few months taken off my feet and whirled into all sorts of new conditions. We were so poor, so straitened; we seemed to have none of what you would call the good things of life. Then all of a sudden Fortune’s wheel turned and we were – I suppose – rich. But still – ”

“Don’t say you prefer the old life.”

“No – not really. I know she is so good; but you must admit that it is a great change for me.”

“I know it is; but you ought to be thankful.”

“That is it; I don’t think I am. And what is more,” I continued, “I don’t think this is the right school for Augusta. There is just a possibility that I may be shaped and moulded and twisted into a sort of fine lady; but nothing will ever make Augusta commonplace, nor will anything make you commonplace. Oh dear! there is some one knocking at the door.”

The knock was repeated. We said, “Come in!” and a girl with a very curly head of dark hair, bright eyes to match, and a radiant face, first peeped at us, then entered, shut the door with a noisy vehemence, and came towards as with both her hands extended.