Part 2, Chapter IV.Christmas Day.My presents were much appreciated, although it is true that father looked somewhat dubiously at his inkpot. He asked me how it was opened. I described the exact method by which he was to press the spring, and he remarked then that it would take time.“But,” I said, “you see there is a kind of sponge with a leather cover to it, which presses down into the bottle and prevents every scrap of air from getting in, so that the ink keeps much longer.”“Yes; but the period it takes from one’s existence!” remarked father. Then he glanced at me. “Never mind,” he said; “you meant well. I am always willing to admit it when any one means well.”Now, I had actually spent a pound of my money on this inkstand of father’s—one-tenth of my quarter’s allowance—and all the praise I got was that I meant well.Von Marlo came up to me and said, “It is a most wonderful and cleverly constructed inkstand. I tell you what—whenever I come over to your house I’ll see that it’s dusted and kept in order. I’ll look after it myself. I think it’s quite lovely.”I had given Von Marlo a nice little tablet for notes, which he professed to be delighted with; and I had given my step-mother a new sort of diary with a lock and key. There was no one whom I had forgotten. Even Augusta was in raptures with the very driest book on mathematics that I could pick up. She said that for once she believed I was a thoroughly sensible girl.Then there were the gifts from the others to me. My step-mother gave me a lovely little narrow gold chain with a locket attached to it; and father, for the first time since I could remember, gave me a present simply as a present. It consisted of a row of very curious, sweet-scented beads, which were mounted now in gold, and could be worn either as a necklace or as a bracelet.“But you have had these for ages,” I said.“Yes; but my wife thought that they could be set very prettily for you,” he said.I was delighted, and thanked him heartily. I had often coveted those blue beads, for they were a wonderful greenish blue, and in some lights looked quite opalescent.The boys, too, gave me things very suitable and very useful. No one had forgotten me. Even Augusta gave me a pin-cushion stuck full of pins that I scratched myself with the first thing. That was very likely, for she had put them in so badly that several stuck out underneath, and I had inflicted a wound before I was aware of this fact.But the presents, after all, were nothing compared to the festive air which pervaded the place.We went to church, and we knelt before God’s altar, and joined in the great and glorious Festival of Divine Love.After church we were all to go to the Aldyces’ for dinner. This invitation had been vouchsafed to us on the occasion of my father’s marriage, and Mrs Grant said that it was quite impossible not to accept it.“You will like Hermione,” I said to Augusta. I thought she would. I thought Hermione’s precise ways would rather please Augusta. The carriage, however, did not meet us at the church, for it was arranged that we were to go home first and have lunch at Hedgerow House, and then were to walk in a body the two miles which separated us from The Grange, Squire Aldyce’s beautiful old residence.We went there in high spirits. Everything was joyful that day. Here more and more presents awaited us. Really it was marvellous. Alex managed to whisper to me, “Have you no eye for contrasts?”“Contrasts?” I asked, turning round and giving him a flashing glance.“Between this Christmas and last,” he said.I felt annoyed. I had been trying so very hard to keep in the best of humours—to be good, if I, poor naughty Dumps, could really and truly be good—and now the spirit of naughtiness was once more awakened. Oh, of course, this was a glorious time, and I ought to be delighted; but the ache had returned to my heart, the longing to be in my own little room looking at my mother’s miniature, the wish for the old desolation when she, as I said to myself, had been honoured and her memory respected.I stood in a brown study for a minute or two, and as I stood thus Hermione came up to me and asked me if I would not like to go away with her to her room. I was very glad of the reprieve. She took my hand and we ran upstairs. When we found ourselves in her pretty room she made me sit down in the cosiest chair she could find, poked the fire, and squatted herself on the hearth-rug. She wore a lovely dress of very pale Liberty green silk, and looked, with her aristocratic small face and beautiful hair, like a picture.“Well, Dumps,” she said, “and so you have solved the mystery?”“You knew it at that time?” I said.“Knew it? Of course I did! It was the greatest amazement to me when Miss Donnithorne said, ‘You are not to tell her; her father doesn’t wish it to be known.’”“Then she did not want to have it kept a secret?”“She?” said Hermione. “Poor darling! it was her greatest desire to tell you—in fact, she had quite made up her mind to do so—but she received a most urgent letter from your father saying that he would infinitely prefer none of you to know until after the ceremony. You mustn’t blame her.”“I think it was exceedingly wrong to deceive me,” I said.“It was not her fault; you must not blame her.”I was silent. On the whole, my step-mother’s conduct could not seem quite so black if she herself had been forced to act as she did. Nevertheless, I felt uncomfortable.Hermione glanced at me.“You look very much better,” she said.“What do you mean by that?”“Not that you are dressed so wonderfully well—of course, I shouldn’t dream of making any comments with regard to your dress; but then you were quite exquisitely attired the last time you came here. Mother said she had never seen anything sochicin all her life as that little dark-blue costume with the grey fur; and it suited you so well.”I was wearing one of my summer dresses which my step-mother had altered for me shortly after she came to us. It was made of pale-blue crepon, which had been rather ugly, but she had put on a beautiful lace tucker, and had arranged the skirt so that my growing length of limb was not so discernible.“It isn’t your dress,” continued Hermione—“never mind about it—nobody cares what any one else wears on Christmas Day—but it is your face.”“And what about that?” I said.“You are so much better-looking.”I felt myself flushing.“I wish you wouldn’t laugh at me, Hermione. It isn’t kind. I can’t help being plain.”“No,” said Hermione, putting her head a little on one side. “Nothing will ever give you remarkably good eyes, or much of a nose, or anything special of a mouth; but you have got a complexion now, and your cheeks have filled out.”“Oh, I was always fat,” I said.“Well, but they look different,” she said; “I can’t tell why.”I knew, but I would not enlighten her. I knew that it was the excellent food that I now had, and the warm rooms to live in, and the good influence of a comfortable home. I was not going to betray myself, however.“You must be having a jolly time,” said Hermione. “Oh! if anything were to give me a step-mother, I should pine and long for a sort of Grace Donnithorne.”“She is a dear,” I said.Hermione looked at me very gravely.“Dumps,” she said, “you don’t like her in your heart.”“Hermione, how dare you say it?”“You know you don’t. The moment I saw you I was certain of it.”“I wish you wouldn’t read people like that,” I said.“I saw it, and I was sorry; for the fact is, you have only known Grace for a little—a very little—time.”“For two months,” I said.“And I have known her ever since I have known anybody at all.”“Then, of course, it is natural that you should be fond of her.”“Not at all. There are other people I have known, so to speak, from my birth. There is old Mr Chatterton, and there is Mrs Frazer. Now, I detest fussy Mrs Frazer, and I run away a mile from Mr Chatterton. It isn’t the time I have known Grace, but because she is what she is.”“Well, I suppose,” I said, “you are going to give me a lecture about her?”“No, I am not; but I am simply going to say this—that you are in rare luck to have got the most amiable woman in the whole of Essex to be your step-mother. And then, Dumps dear, she is so jolly rich! She can give you all sorts of comforts. And what is more, she is awfully fond of you; she said so.”“Fond of me? She couldn’t be!”“She is, poor darling! She said so in such a loving and sad way just now. I know why she is sad; it is because you won’t return her love.”“Never mind,” I said, jumping to my feet. I went over to the window and looked out.“Hermione,” I said, “let us talk of something else.”“Of course. For instance, how will you like your new school?”“What new school?”I sprang towards her; I took her by her shoulders; I turned her round.“Oh! have I let the cat out of the bag?” said Hermione. “Didn’t you know you were going?”“There!” I said; “and yet you tell me to like her. Has she been planning this?”“It is awfully wrong of me to speak of it; but I thought, of course, you knew.”“But I don’t want to go.”“Oh, won’t you, though? Now look here, Dumps. You mustn’t make a fuss; you must be patient; you must—you really must—for I am going with you. It’s to a jolly, jolly school in Paris. We’ll have a nice time—I know we shall.”“Paris?” I said.Now, what London girl doesn’t own to a secret hankering for Paris—Paris the gay, the fascinating, the beautiful? Nevertheless, after my first shock of pleasure I was very wary. I said after a pause, “Perhaps you had better not say any more.”“No, I won’t, as you didn’t know. It’s very odd; you’ll be told probably to-morrow.”“I suppose so,” I said.There came a knock at the door. Hermione said, “Come in;” and Augusta intruded her face.“It seems a great pity you should be here,” she said. “I thought I’d tell you.”“Come in, Miss Moore; make yourself at home,” said Hermione.“Thank you so much,” said Augusta, “but I couldn’t come in.”“And why not?” asked Hermione.“Because he is talking—he is lecturing downstairs. We are all listening.—I thought it would be such a frightful deprivation for you, Dumps, not to hear him. I rushed upstairs; he was blowing his nose—I think he has a cold. I must go back at once. Do come down, if you don’t want to miss it. It’s about the time of Herodotus; it’s most fascinating—fascinating!” She banged the door after her and rushed away.“Is that poor girl mad?” said Hermione slowly.“I think so,” I answered. “She has conceived a violent worshipping attachment to father. She thinks he is the soul of genius.”“Well, he is, you know. You, as his daughter, can really hold a most distinguished position; and now that you have got such a step-mother as Miss Donnithorne, and you yourself are to be sent to—oh, I forgot, that subject is taboo. Well, never mind; when you come out you will have quite a good time, Dumps, I can tell you. Your step-mother means to do the right thing both by you and the boys. You will have a splendid time, so just do cheer up and be thankful for the blessings which Providence has showered upon your head.”
My presents were much appreciated, although it is true that father looked somewhat dubiously at his inkpot. He asked me how it was opened. I described the exact method by which he was to press the spring, and he remarked then that it would take time.
“But,” I said, “you see there is a kind of sponge with a leather cover to it, which presses down into the bottle and prevents every scrap of air from getting in, so that the ink keeps much longer.”
“Yes; but the period it takes from one’s existence!” remarked father. Then he glanced at me. “Never mind,” he said; “you meant well. I am always willing to admit it when any one means well.”
Now, I had actually spent a pound of my money on this inkstand of father’s—one-tenth of my quarter’s allowance—and all the praise I got was that I meant well.
Von Marlo came up to me and said, “It is a most wonderful and cleverly constructed inkstand. I tell you what—whenever I come over to your house I’ll see that it’s dusted and kept in order. I’ll look after it myself. I think it’s quite lovely.”
I had given Von Marlo a nice little tablet for notes, which he professed to be delighted with; and I had given my step-mother a new sort of diary with a lock and key. There was no one whom I had forgotten. Even Augusta was in raptures with the very driest book on mathematics that I could pick up. She said that for once she believed I was a thoroughly sensible girl.
Then there were the gifts from the others to me. My step-mother gave me a lovely little narrow gold chain with a locket attached to it; and father, for the first time since I could remember, gave me a present simply as a present. It consisted of a row of very curious, sweet-scented beads, which were mounted now in gold, and could be worn either as a necklace or as a bracelet.
“But you have had these for ages,” I said.
“Yes; but my wife thought that they could be set very prettily for you,” he said.
I was delighted, and thanked him heartily. I had often coveted those blue beads, for they were a wonderful greenish blue, and in some lights looked quite opalescent.
The boys, too, gave me things very suitable and very useful. No one had forgotten me. Even Augusta gave me a pin-cushion stuck full of pins that I scratched myself with the first thing. That was very likely, for she had put them in so badly that several stuck out underneath, and I had inflicted a wound before I was aware of this fact.
But the presents, after all, were nothing compared to the festive air which pervaded the place.
We went to church, and we knelt before God’s altar, and joined in the great and glorious Festival of Divine Love.
After church we were all to go to the Aldyces’ for dinner. This invitation had been vouchsafed to us on the occasion of my father’s marriage, and Mrs Grant said that it was quite impossible not to accept it.
“You will like Hermione,” I said to Augusta. I thought she would. I thought Hermione’s precise ways would rather please Augusta. The carriage, however, did not meet us at the church, for it was arranged that we were to go home first and have lunch at Hedgerow House, and then were to walk in a body the two miles which separated us from The Grange, Squire Aldyce’s beautiful old residence.
We went there in high spirits. Everything was joyful that day. Here more and more presents awaited us. Really it was marvellous. Alex managed to whisper to me, “Have you no eye for contrasts?”
“Contrasts?” I asked, turning round and giving him a flashing glance.
“Between this Christmas and last,” he said.
I felt annoyed. I had been trying so very hard to keep in the best of humours—to be good, if I, poor naughty Dumps, could really and truly be good—and now the spirit of naughtiness was once more awakened. Oh, of course, this was a glorious time, and I ought to be delighted; but the ache had returned to my heart, the longing to be in my own little room looking at my mother’s miniature, the wish for the old desolation when she, as I said to myself, had been honoured and her memory respected.
I stood in a brown study for a minute or two, and as I stood thus Hermione came up to me and asked me if I would not like to go away with her to her room. I was very glad of the reprieve. She took my hand and we ran upstairs. When we found ourselves in her pretty room she made me sit down in the cosiest chair she could find, poked the fire, and squatted herself on the hearth-rug. She wore a lovely dress of very pale Liberty green silk, and looked, with her aristocratic small face and beautiful hair, like a picture.
“Well, Dumps,” she said, “and so you have solved the mystery?”
“You knew it at that time?” I said.
“Knew it? Of course I did! It was the greatest amazement to me when Miss Donnithorne said, ‘You are not to tell her; her father doesn’t wish it to be known.’”
“Then she did not want to have it kept a secret?”
“She?” said Hermione. “Poor darling! it was her greatest desire to tell you—in fact, she had quite made up her mind to do so—but she received a most urgent letter from your father saying that he would infinitely prefer none of you to know until after the ceremony. You mustn’t blame her.”
“I think it was exceedingly wrong to deceive me,” I said.
“It was not her fault; you must not blame her.”
I was silent. On the whole, my step-mother’s conduct could not seem quite so black if she herself had been forced to act as she did. Nevertheless, I felt uncomfortable.
Hermione glanced at me.
“You look very much better,” she said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Not that you are dressed so wonderfully well—of course, I shouldn’t dream of making any comments with regard to your dress; but then you were quite exquisitely attired the last time you came here. Mother said she had never seen anything sochicin all her life as that little dark-blue costume with the grey fur; and it suited you so well.”
I was wearing one of my summer dresses which my step-mother had altered for me shortly after she came to us. It was made of pale-blue crepon, which had been rather ugly, but she had put on a beautiful lace tucker, and had arranged the skirt so that my growing length of limb was not so discernible.
“It isn’t your dress,” continued Hermione—“never mind about it—nobody cares what any one else wears on Christmas Day—but it is your face.”
“And what about that?” I said.
“You are so much better-looking.”
I felt myself flushing.
“I wish you wouldn’t laugh at me, Hermione. It isn’t kind. I can’t help being plain.”
“No,” said Hermione, putting her head a little on one side. “Nothing will ever give you remarkably good eyes, or much of a nose, or anything special of a mouth; but you have got a complexion now, and your cheeks have filled out.”
“Oh, I was always fat,” I said.
“Well, but they look different,” she said; “I can’t tell why.”
I knew, but I would not enlighten her. I knew that it was the excellent food that I now had, and the warm rooms to live in, and the good influence of a comfortable home. I was not going to betray myself, however.
“You must be having a jolly time,” said Hermione. “Oh! if anything were to give me a step-mother, I should pine and long for a sort of Grace Donnithorne.”
“She is a dear,” I said.
Hermione looked at me very gravely.
“Dumps,” she said, “you don’t like her in your heart.”
“Hermione, how dare you say it?”
“You know you don’t. The moment I saw you I was certain of it.”
“I wish you wouldn’t read people like that,” I said.
“I saw it, and I was sorry; for the fact is, you have only known Grace for a little—a very little—time.”
“For two months,” I said.
“And I have known her ever since I have known anybody at all.”
“Then, of course, it is natural that you should be fond of her.”
“Not at all. There are other people I have known, so to speak, from my birth. There is old Mr Chatterton, and there is Mrs Frazer. Now, I detest fussy Mrs Frazer, and I run away a mile from Mr Chatterton. It isn’t the time I have known Grace, but because she is what she is.”
“Well, I suppose,” I said, “you are going to give me a lecture about her?”
“No, I am not; but I am simply going to say this—that you are in rare luck to have got the most amiable woman in the whole of Essex to be your step-mother. And then, Dumps dear, she is so jolly rich! She can give you all sorts of comforts. And what is more, she is awfully fond of you; she said so.”
“Fond of me? She couldn’t be!”
“She is, poor darling! She said so in such a loving and sad way just now. I know why she is sad; it is because you won’t return her love.”
“Never mind,” I said, jumping to my feet. I went over to the window and looked out.
“Hermione,” I said, “let us talk of something else.”
“Of course. For instance, how will you like your new school?”
“What new school?”
I sprang towards her; I took her by her shoulders; I turned her round.
“Oh! have I let the cat out of the bag?” said Hermione. “Didn’t you know you were going?”
“There!” I said; “and yet you tell me to like her. Has she been planning this?”
“It is awfully wrong of me to speak of it; but I thought, of course, you knew.”
“But I don’t want to go.”
“Oh, won’t you, though? Now look here, Dumps. You mustn’t make a fuss; you must be patient; you must—you really must—for I am going with you. It’s to a jolly, jolly school in Paris. We’ll have a nice time—I know we shall.”
“Paris?” I said.
Now, what London girl doesn’t own to a secret hankering for Paris—Paris the gay, the fascinating, the beautiful? Nevertheless, after my first shock of pleasure I was very wary. I said after a pause, “Perhaps you had better not say any more.”
“No, I won’t, as you didn’t know. It’s very odd; you’ll be told probably to-morrow.”
“I suppose so,” I said.
There came a knock at the door. Hermione said, “Come in;” and Augusta intruded her face.
“It seems a great pity you should be here,” she said. “I thought I’d tell you.”
“Come in, Miss Moore; make yourself at home,” said Hermione.
“Thank you so much,” said Augusta, “but I couldn’t come in.”
“And why not?” asked Hermione.
“Because he is talking—he is lecturing downstairs. We are all listening.—I thought it would be such a frightful deprivation for you, Dumps, not to hear him. I rushed upstairs; he was blowing his nose—I think he has a cold. I must go back at once. Do come down, if you don’t want to miss it. It’s about the time of Herodotus; it’s most fascinating—fascinating!” She banged the door after her and rushed away.
“Is that poor girl mad?” said Hermione slowly.
“I think so,” I answered. “She has conceived a violent worshipping attachment to father. She thinks he is the soul of genius.”
“Well, he is, you know. You, as his daughter, can really hold a most distinguished position; and now that you have got such a step-mother as Miss Donnithorne, and you yourself are to be sent to—oh, I forgot, that subject is taboo. Well, never mind; when you come out you will have quite a good time, Dumps, I can tell you. Your step-mother means to do the right thing both by you and the boys. You will have a splendid time, so just do cheer up and be thankful for the blessings which Providence has showered upon your head.”
Part 2, Chapter V.A Quiet Talk.Christmas Day came to an end, and the very next morning, when I was alone with my step-mother, I asked her what Hermione meant by her words.“Oh, she has told you?” said Mrs Grant.She was sitting by the fire in the little drawing-room; the stuffed birds and the stuffed animals surrounded us, but the room was never close, and it had the faint, delicious smell of cedar-wood which had fascinated me so much on the occasion of my first visit.“Sit down, Dumps,” she said, holding out her hand to take one of mine.“But please tell me,” I said.“Well, yes, it has been arranged. Your father would like it, and so would I. You go on the 21st of January. It is a very nice school, just beyond the Champs Élysées. You will be well taught, and I think the change will do you good.”“You suggested it, didn’t you?” I said.“Yes, naturally.”“Why naturally? I am his child.”“My dear, you know his character; he is so absorbed in those marvellous things which occupy his great brain that he hasn’t time—”“Oh, I know,” I said bitterly; “he never had any time, this wonderful father of ours, to attend to us, his children.”“Dear, he has given you into my care, and, believe me, I love you.”“I believe you do,” I said in a gentle voice.“Some day, Rachel, I am sure you will love me.”I was silent.“Tell me about the school,” I said.“I know all about it, for it belongs to a very special friend of mine, and I am certain you will be looked after and all your best interests promoted.”“And Hermione Aldyce goes too?”“Yes; she is a very nice girl, and a special friend of mine.”“I know.”“You will, I am sure, Dumps, do your utmost to attend to your studies. You will soon be sixteen; my intention is that you should remain at the French school for two years, and then come back in time to enjoy some of the pleasures of life—some of the pleasures, dear, as well as the responsibilities, for we never can dissever one from the other.”I was silent. Why did I like her and yet dislike her? I had thought the day before when Hermione spoke of school that I should wildly rebel, but as I sat there looking at her placid face it did not occur to me to rebel. I said after a minute, “Step-mother, until I love you better, may I call you by that name?”“I have given you leave,” she said in a low tone.“I have something to confess,” I said.“What is that?” she asked.“I did not buy any thing useful out of the ten pounds you gave me.”“Your father’s dress allowance?”“You know it was yours.”“Your father’s,” she repeated.“I will tell you how I spent it,” I said; and then I described to her all about the ribbons and the chiffons and the gloves and the stockings and the handkerchiefs.“The stockings were needful,” she said, “and so were the gloves and handkerchiefs. So much ribbon was scarcely essential, but it can be passed over. The hat you bought was vulgar, so I trust you will not wear it again.”“What?” I said. “That lovely green hat with the bird-of-Paradise in it?”“It is very unsuitable to a girl of your age.”“I got it in one of the smartest shops in Regent Street.”“Anything that is unsuitable is vulgar, Dumps. I hope you will soon understand that for yourself.”“Oh, I have a great deal to learn,” I said, with sudden humility.“You have, my dear; and when you take that fact really to heart you will begin to learn in grave reality, and you will be all that your father and I long to make you.”“But I’m not the least like father; he could never appreciate me, for I am so different from him. If, for instance, I were like Augusta—”“I wonder, Dumps, if it would greatly distress you if Augusta also went to the French school?”“What?” I said. “Augusta! But surely she cannot afford it?”“I think it could be arranged. I take an interest in her, poor child! There is no doubt she is wonderfully clever; but just at present she is very one-sided in all her views. Her intellect is somewhat warped by her having all her aspirations and desires forced into one channel.”“Then, step-mother, you are going to support her?”“Certainly not. It is true I may make it possible for those who could not otherwise afford it. I have spoken to her mother on the subject, and perhaps her mother can be helped by some of her relations; it would certainly be the making of Augusta.”“You are wonderfully kind,” I said.“What am I put into the world for except to help others?”“Is it true,” I asked suddenly, and I laid my hand on her lap, “that you are very rich?”“Who told you that?” she said, the colour coming into her face. She looked at me in a distressed way.“Only I want to know.”“All I can tell you in reply to your question is this: that whatever money God has given me is to be spent not on myself but for Him—for Him and for those whom I am privileged to help. I do not want to talk of riches, for it is impossible for a child like you, with your narrow experience, to understand that money is a great gift; it is a talent little understood by many; nevertheless, one of the most precious of all. Few who have money quite know how to spend it worthily.”Alex, Charley, and Von Marlo bounded into the room.“We can skate, if you don’t mind,” said Charley, “on the round pond a mile from here. We didn’t bring our skates with us, but there are jolly nice ones in Chelmsford. Do you mind?” he asked.“Certainly not, dear,” said Mrs Grant; “and what is more, if there is good skating I am going myself. What do you say, Dumps? Do you know how to skate?”“No,” I answered. “How could I? I never learnt.”“Few girls can skate,” said Charley.“This girl shall learn,” said Mrs Grant. “Come, come, children; we’ll go off as fast as ever we can, to get the best skates to be obtained.”
Christmas Day came to an end, and the very next morning, when I was alone with my step-mother, I asked her what Hermione meant by her words.
“Oh, she has told you?” said Mrs Grant.
She was sitting by the fire in the little drawing-room; the stuffed birds and the stuffed animals surrounded us, but the room was never close, and it had the faint, delicious smell of cedar-wood which had fascinated me so much on the occasion of my first visit.
“Sit down, Dumps,” she said, holding out her hand to take one of mine.
“But please tell me,” I said.
“Well, yes, it has been arranged. Your father would like it, and so would I. You go on the 21st of January. It is a very nice school, just beyond the Champs Élysées. You will be well taught, and I think the change will do you good.”
“You suggested it, didn’t you?” I said.
“Yes, naturally.”
“Why naturally? I am his child.”
“My dear, you know his character; he is so absorbed in those marvellous things which occupy his great brain that he hasn’t time—”
“Oh, I know,” I said bitterly; “he never had any time, this wonderful father of ours, to attend to us, his children.”
“Dear, he has given you into my care, and, believe me, I love you.”
“I believe you do,” I said in a gentle voice.
“Some day, Rachel, I am sure you will love me.”
I was silent.
“Tell me about the school,” I said.
“I know all about it, for it belongs to a very special friend of mine, and I am certain you will be looked after and all your best interests promoted.”
“And Hermione Aldyce goes too?”
“Yes; she is a very nice girl, and a special friend of mine.”
“I know.”
“You will, I am sure, Dumps, do your utmost to attend to your studies. You will soon be sixteen; my intention is that you should remain at the French school for two years, and then come back in time to enjoy some of the pleasures of life—some of the pleasures, dear, as well as the responsibilities, for we never can dissever one from the other.”
I was silent. Why did I like her and yet dislike her? I had thought the day before when Hermione spoke of school that I should wildly rebel, but as I sat there looking at her placid face it did not occur to me to rebel. I said after a minute, “Step-mother, until I love you better, may I call you by that name?”
“I have given you leave,” she said in a low tone.
“I have something to confess,” I said.
“What is that?” she asked.
“I did not buy any thing useful out of the ten pounds you gave me.”
“Your father’s dress allowance?”
“You know it was yours.”
“Your father’s,” she repeated.
“I will tell you how I spent it,” I said; and then I described to her all about the ribbons and the chiffons and the gloves and the stockings and the handkerchiefs.
“The stockings were needful,” she said, “and so were the gloves and handkerchiefs. So much ribbon was scarcely essential, but it can be passed over. The hat you bought was vulgar, so I trust you will not wear it again.”
“What?” I said. “That lovely green hat with the bird-of-Paradise in it?”
“It is very unsuitable to a girl of your age.”
“I got it in one of the smartest shops in Regent Street.”
“Anything that is unsuitable is vulgar, Dumps. I hope you will soon understand that for yourself.”
“Oh, I have a great deal to learn,” I said, with sudden humility.
“You have, my dear; and when you take that fact really to heart you will begin to learn in grave reality, and you will be all that your father and I long to make you.”
“But I’m not the least like father; he could never appreciate me, for I am so different from him. If, for instance, I were like Augusta—”
“I wonder, Dumps, if it would greatly distress you if Augusta also went to the French school?”
“What?” I said. “Augusta! But surely she cannot afford it?”
“I think it could be arranged. I take an interest in her, poor child! There is no doubt she is wonderfully clever; but just at present she is very one-sided in all her views. Her intellect is somewhat warped by her having all her aspirations and desires forced into one channel.”
“Then, step-mother, you are going to support her?”
“Certainly not. It is true I may make it possible for those who could not otherwise afford it. I have spoken to her mother on the subject, and perhaps her mother can be helped by some of her relations; it would certainly be the making of Augusta.”
“You are wonderfully kind,” I said.
“What am I put into the world for except to help others?”
“Is it true,” I asked suddenly, and I laid my hand on her lap, “that you are very rich?”
“Who told you that?” she said, the colour coming into her face. She looked at me in a distressed way.
“Only I want to know.”
“All I can tell you in reply to your question is this: that whatever money God has given me is to be spent not on myself but for Him—for Him and for those whom I am privileged to help. I do not want to talk of riches, for it is impossible for a child like you, with your narrow experience, to understand that money is a great gift; it is a talent little understood by many; nevertheless, one of the most precious of all. Few who have money quite know how to spend it worthily.”
Alex, Charley, and Von Marlo bounded into the room.
“We can skate, if you don’t mind,” said Charley, “on the round pond a mile from here. We didn’t bring our skates with us, but there are jolly nice ones in Chelmsford. Do you mind?” he asked.
“Certainly not, dear,” said Mrs Grant; “and what is more, if there is good skating I am going myself. What do you say, Dumps? Do you know how to skate?”
“No,” I answered. “How could I? I never learnt.”
“Few girls can skate,” said Charley.
“This girl shall learn,” said Mrs Grant. “Come, come, children; we’ll go off as fast as ever we can, to get the best skates to be obtained.”
Part 2, Chapter VI.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.
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.
Part 2, Chapter VII.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 myretroussénose, 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 ofherout—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. Andshehad 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 calledbric-à-bracand 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 andbric-à-bracand 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 thesavoir-fairewhich 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’thalfknow 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 youalwaysdoingoutréthings? 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 mammaisa 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 doesoutréthings 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 praiseher.”“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 themal-à-proposremarks 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!”
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 myretroussénose, 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 ofherout—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. Andshehad 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 calledbric-à-bracand 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 andbric-à-bracand 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 thesavoir-fairewhich 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’thalfknow 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 youalwaysdoingoutréthings? 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 mammaisa 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 doesoutréthings 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 praiseher.”
“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 themal-à-proposremarks 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!”