Dumps – A Plain Girl

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

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

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

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

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

She laid her hand on my arm.

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

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

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

“She?”

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

“Hannah, you didn’t.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Charley made his bow, winking at me and vanishing.

“Just like him,” said Hannah.

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

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

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

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

“What is it?” I said.

She immediately repeated with great emphasis:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Next what?” I said.

“You are his daughter.”

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

“And what is that?”

“Nonsense. You must try and talk sense.”

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

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