Dumps – A Plain Girl

My mind was still dwelling on the letter which Augusta had received. Presently Rosalind left us, and Hermione and I wondered what the result would be.

“Go to her door and knock, and see if she will come out and tell us; won’t you, Dumps?” said Hermione.

I did go and knock.

“Yes, dear?” said Augusta’s voice. It was quite bright and absolutely changed.

“Aren’t you coming out to stand on the balcony a little, and to chat? Do come, please.”

“Not to-night, dear; I am very busy.”

Still that new, wonderful, exceedingly cheerful voice.

“The spell has worked,” I said to Hermione when I returned to her.

We neither of us saw Augusta again until the next morning, and then there was a marvellous change in her. She did not tell us what had caused it. To begin with, she was neatly dressed; to follow, she ate an excellent breakfast; and again, wonder of wonders! she applied herself with extreme and passionate diligence to her French and German lessons. She looked up when her mistress spoke; she no longer indulged in silence broken only by rhapsodies of passionate snatches of verse from her favourite authors. She was altogether a changed Augusta. I did not say a word to her on the subject, and I cautioned Hermione not to breathe what I had done.

“If she thinks father has written to her on his own account the spell will work, and she will be saved,” I said.

It was not until a fortnight later that Augusta said to me in a very gentle tone, “I see daylight. How very naughty I was when I first came! How badly I did behave! But now a guiding hand has been stretched out, and I know what I am expected to do.”

I jumped up and kissed her.

“I am glad,” I said.

“You cannot be as glad as I am,” she answered; and she took both my hands in one of hers and looked into my face, while tears rose to her bright, rather sunken eyes. “To think that he should take the trouble to write!”

I ran away. I did not want to be unkind, and truly did not mean to; but Augusta’s manner, notwithstanding the reform in her character, was almost past bearing.

“Poor, dear old father!” I said afterwards to Hermione, “he can little realise what a fearful responsibility he has in life – the whole of Augusta’s future – and just because he is a clever lecturer. I really cannot understand it.”

“Nor I,” said Hermione. “I myself think his speeches are rather dull; but I suppose I have a different order of mind.”

I remember quite well that on that occasion we girls were permitted to go for a delightful walk into the Bois de Boulogne. We went, of course, with some of the governesses; but when we got there we were allowed a certain amount of freedom – for instance, we could choose our own companions and walk with whom we pleased. We were just leaving the house on this occasion when Comtesse Riki came up to me and asked if I would walk with her. I acceded at once, although I had hoped for a long walk with Hermione, as I had received a budget of home news on that day, and I wanted to talk it over with her; last, but not least, there had come a voluminous letter from Lilian St. Leger. It was a little provoking, but Riki’s very pretty blue eyes, her pathetic mouth, and sweet smile conquered. At the same instant Baroness Elfreda flew up to Hermione and tucked her podgy hand inside the girl’s arm.

“I couldn’t walk with you, Dumps,” she said, “for a dumpy girl couldn’t walk with another dumpy girl – so I want to be your friend, a sweet, slight, graceful English girl.”

Hermione consented with what patience she could, and we started off on our walk. While we were in the town we had, of course, to walk two by two; but presently, in a special and rather retired part of the gardens, the governesses were less particular, and each couple was allowed to keep a little away from the other.

“Now, that’s a comfort,” said Riki. “I have so much I want to ask you.”

“What about?” I said.

“About your so delightful English ways. You have much of the freedom, have you not?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“Oh, but you must! Think now; no girl here, nor in my country, nor in any other, I think, on the Continent, would be allowed to go about unattended – not at least before her marriage.”

“But,” I answered, “we don’t think about getting married at all in England – I mean girls of my age.”

“If you don’t think it impertinent, would you tell me what your age may be?”

I said I should be sixteen in May.

“But surely you will think of your marriage within about a year or two, will you not?”

I laughed.

“What are you talking about?” I said. “Really, Comtesse, I cannot understand you.”

“Fray don’t call me that; call me Riki. I like you so very much; you are different from others.”

“Every one tells me that,” I answered, a little bitterness in my tone.

“You have the goodness within – you perhaps have not the beauty without; but what does that matter when goodness within is more valuable? It is but to look at you to know that you have got that.”

“If you were really to see into my heart, Riki, you would perceive that I am an exceedingly selfish and very ungrateful girl.”

“Oh dear!” said the Comtesse Riki, “what is it to be what you call ungrateful?”

“Not to be thankful for the blessings that are given you,” I made answer.

She glanced at me in a puzzled way.

“Some day, perhaps,” I said, “you will visit our England and see for yourself what the life is like.”

“I should like it,” she replied – “that is, after my nuptials.”

“But you are only a child yourself.”

“Not a child – I am sixteen; I shall be seventeen in a year; then I shall leave school and go home, and – and – ”

“Begin your fun,” I said.

“Oh no,” she answered – “not exactly. I may go to a few of the dances and take a tour (dance) with the young men – I should, of course, have many partners; but what is that? Then I shall become affianced, and my betrothal will be a very great event; and afterwards there will be my trousseau, and the preparing for my home, and then my marriage with the husband whom my parents have chosen for me.”

“And you look forward to that?” I said.

“Of course; what else does any girl look forward to?”

I could not speak at all for a minute; then I said, “I am truly thankful I am not a German.”

She smiled.

“If we,” she said slowly, “have one thing to be more – what you call grateful for – than another, it is that we don’t belong to your so strange country of England. Your coldness, and your long time of remaining without your dot and your betrothal and your so nécessaire husband, is too terrible for any girl in the Fatherland even to contemplate the pain.”

“Oh!” I said, feeling quite angry, “we pity you. You see, Comtesse, you and I can never agree.”