Dumps – A Plain Girl

Never had I realised that fact until I went into the sweet little apartment which Miss Grace Donnithorne had ordered to be got ready for me. In the first place, its window looked out on a pure expanse of snow-covered country, and I jumped softly up and down as I gazed at that view, for the sun was shining on it, and the sky overhead was blue – blue as sapphires. Then in the grate there was a fire – a fire just as bright as the one in the little sitting-room with the stuffed birds downstairs; and all the hangings of the room were of white dimity, which had evidently been put up fresh from the wash. It was by no means a grand room; it was simple of the simple, but it did look sweet. There was a little nosegay of chrysanthemums on the dressing-table; there were dainty hangings round my snow-white couch; and on the floor was an old-fashioned carpet made of different shades of crimson, and very thick and soft it felt to the feet. The china in the room was very pretty, being white with scarlet berries on it; it all looked Christmasy and wintry and yet cheery, like the sort of Christmases one reads of in the fairy-tales of long ago.

I unfastened my parcel. I had just taken my long brown skirt out of its wrappings, and was shaking it out preparatory to putting it on, when I heard Miss Grace say from the bottom of the stairs, “Dumps, how long will it be before you are downstairs? I am just having the cutlets dished up.”

“Oh dear!” I said to myself. – “I’ll be down in a very few minutes,” I answered.

Now, I had promised father that I would certainly go down in the brown skirt and red blouse, and I would not break that promise to him for the world; so I quickly divested myself of my shabby little travelling costume and got into the brown skirt. It was a little tight in the waist, for I must say mine was very broad, but in every other single particular it was too big for me; it was so long in front that I could scarcely walk without stumbling. Still, I had no doubt that I made a very imposing figure in it. It was thick, it felt warm, and I remembered my father’s remark that there would be room for growth, and that the thinning process would eventually make it not quite so heavy.

But the brown skirt, although a partial success, was nothing at all to the red blouse. I have said that it was a brick-red, and it did not suit my face. It was of common material, made with thick folds, and the sleeves were much too long. I got into it somehow, and cast a glance at myself in the glass. How funny I looked! – my head not too tidy; my face flushed, in by no means a becoming way; with a brick-red blouse and a brown skirt. Nevertheless, I was dressed, and there was a sort of satisfaction in feeling grown-up just for once. I wished that I had had time to plait my hair and pin it round my head; then I might have impressed Miss Grace Donnithorne with the fact that not a child but a grown-up young lady had come to visit her. But as there was no time for that, and as there was a most appetising smell coming up the narrow stairs, I flew down just as I was, in my new costume. I very nearly stumbled as I ran downstairs, but I saved myself by picking up my skirt, and then I entered the little drawing-room.

“Come, come, child!” said Miss Donnithorne. “Not that way; come into this room now.”

I turned and crossed the little hall and entered the dining-room. The dining-room was twice the size of the little room where the stuffed birds dwelt. It was furnished in quite a modern fashion, and looked very nice indeed to me. The cloth on the table was so white that it did not even look dirty by contrast with the snow outside, and the silver shone – oh, like a number of looking-glasses; and the knives were so clean and new-looking.

Miss Grace just opened her eyes for the tenth of a second when I entered the room, and I wondered what reflection passed through her mind, but she gave utterance to none. She invited me to seat myself, and I had the most delicious meal I had ever partaken of in the whole course of my life. Nancy flew in and out, serving us with more and more dainties: puddings, jellies – oh dear, what delicious things jellies are when you have never tasted them before! Then there was fruit – apples which, Miss Donnithorne told me, had grown and ripened in her own garden; and finally we cracked nuts and became excellent friends, sitting close to the fire. Nancy’s final entrance had been with coffee on a little tray. Miss Donnithorne poured out a cup for me and a cup for herself.

“We’ll go out presently,” she said. “It’s a lovely day for a walk. I shall take you a good way and show you some of the beauties of the place. But what about your boots? Are they strong?”

“Oh, pretty well,” I replied.

“I can lend you some rubbers; but what size are your feet?”

I pushed out one of my feet for inspection.

“Dear, dear!” said Miss Donnithorne, “they’re bigger than mine. Mine are rather small, and yours – you will forgive me, but yours are enormous; they really are. Have you been attended to by a shoemaker?”

“Oh, Hannah gets my boots for me,” I said. “She always has them made to order, as she says they last twice as long; and she always insists on having them made two sizes too large. She says she can’t be troubled by hearing me complain that they are too small.”

“Dear me, child!” said Miss Donnithorne. “Do you know that you aggravate me more each moment?”

“Aggravate you?” I answered.

“Yes. You make something plainer and plainer. There! not a word more at present. But before I go upstairs, do tell me, was it Hannah or yourself who chose that?”

As she spoke she pointed to the red blouse and the brown skirt. She evidently thought of them as a costume, for she did not speak of them in the plural; she spoke of them as “that,” and if ever there was condemnation in a kind voice, it was when she uttered that word.

“It was father who got them at Wallis’s,” I said. “I told him when I was coming to you that my clothes were rather shabby, and he bought them – he chose them himself.”

“Bless him!” said Miss Donnithorne.

She looked at me critically for a minute, and then she burst into a perfect shriek of laughter. I felt inclined to be offended. It had never occurred to me that anybody in all the world could laugh at the Professor; but Miss Donnithorne laughed till the tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Mercy! Mercy me!” she repeated at intervals.

When she had recovered herself she said, “My dear, you mustn’t be angry. I respect your father immensely, but his gift does not lie in the clothing of girls. Why, child, that is a woman’s skirt. Let me feel the texture.”

She felt it between her finger and thumb.

“Not at all the material for a lady,” was her comment. “That skirt is meant for a hard-working artisan’s wife. It is so harsh it makes me shudder as I touch it. A lady’s dress should always be soft, and not heavy.”

“Father thought a great deal of the weight,” I could not help saying. “He thought it would keep me so warm.”

“Bless him!” said Miss Donnithorne again. “But after all,” she continued, “the skirt is nothing to the blouse. My dear, I will be frank with you; there are some men who know nothing whatever about dress, and that blouse is – atrocious. We’ll get them both off, Rachel, or Dumps, or whatever you call yourself.”

“But,” I said, “I have nothing else much to wear. I only brought this and my little, shabby everyday dress.”

“Now, I wonder,” said Miss Donnithorne; but she did not utter her thought aloud. She became very reflective.

“I should not be surprised,” she said under her breath. “Well, anyhow, we’ll go out in the shabby little things, for I couldn’t have you look a figure of fun walking through Chelmsford with me. That would be quite impossible.”

“All right, Miss Donnithorne,” I said, inclined to be offended, although in my heart of hearts I had no love for the brown skirt and the red blouse.

“That costume will do admirably for that Hannah of yours,” said Miss Donnithorne after another pause. “From what you tell me of that body, I should think it would suit her; but it’s not the thing for you.”

“Only father – ” I expostulated.

“I’ll manage your father. Now go to your room, child, and get into your other things as fast as possible.”

I went away, and Miss Donnithorne still continued to sit by the fire. Could I believe my own ears? I thought I heard her sigh when I got into the hall, and then I heard her laugh. I felt half-inclined to be offended; I was certainly very much puzzled. Truly my cheeks were red now. I looked at myself in the glass. No, I was not pretty. I saw at once now why people called me Dumps. It is a great trial for a girl when her nose is half an inch too short, and her eyes are too small, and her mouth a trifle too broad, and she has no special complexion and no special look of intelligence, and no wonderfully thick hair, and has no beautiful shades of colouring – when she is all made up of drabs and greys, and her nose is decidedly podgy, and her cheeks inclined to be too fat – and yet when all the time the poor girl has a feverish desire in her soul to be beautiful, when she thinks more of beauty of feature and beauty of form, and beauty, in fact, of every sort, than of anything else in the world. It was a girl with that sort of exterior who now looked into the round glass. It was an old-fashioned glass, but a very good one, and I, Dumps, could see myself quite distinctly, and knew at last that it was fit and right that I should have the name. It was absurd to call a creature like me Rachel. Was not the first Rachel always spoken of as one of the most beautiful women in all the world? Why should I dare to take that sacred name? Oh yes, I was Dumps. I would not be offended any longer when I was called by it. My figure very much matched my face, for it was squat and decidedly short for my age. In the hideous red blouse, and with that brown skirt, I looked my very worst. I was glad to take them off. Talk of heat and weight! I knew at last what it was to be too hot and to have too much to carry.

I was delighted to be in my little, worn-out, but well-accustomed-to garments, and I ran down to Miss Donnithorne, feeling as though I, like Christian, had got rid of a heavy burden.

Part 1, Chapter VI

At Hedgerow House

We took a long walk. We went right through Chelmsford, and I was enchanted with the appearance of that gay little country town. Then we got out into the country, where the snow lay in all its virgin purity. We walked fast, and I felt the cold, delicious air stinging my cheeks. I felt a sense of exhilaration, which Miss Donnithorne told me the snow generally gives to people.

“It makes the air lighter,” she said; “and besides, there is so much ammonia in it.”

I did not understand what she meant, but then I did not want to understand. I was happy; I was having a good time. I liked her better each moment.

We got back to the little cottage in time for tea, which we had cosily in the sitting-room with the stuffed birds and animals.

After tea Miss Donnithorne showed me some of her treasures – vast collections of shells, which she had been gathering in different parts of the world ever since she was a small child. I was fascinated by them; she told me that I might help to arrange them for her, and I spent a very blissful time in this fashion until it was time for supper. Supper was a simple meal, which consisted of milk and bread-and-butter and different sorts of stewed fruit.

“I don’t approve of late dinners,” said Miss Donnithorne. “That is,” she added, “not for myself. Now, Dumps, do tell me what sort of meal the Professor eats before he goes to bed at night.”

“Oh, anything that is handy,” I answered.

“But doesn’t he have a good nourishing meal, the sort to sustain a brain like his?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Hannah sees to it.”

“But don’t you?” said Miss Donnithorne, looking rather severe, and the laugh going out of her eyes. “Don’t you attend to your father’s wants?”

“As much as I can, Miss Donnithorne. You see, I am still supposed to be nothing but a child, and Hannah has the management of things.”

“You are supposed to be nothing but a child?” said Miss Donnithorne, and she looked me all up and down.