Dumps – A Plain Girl

“Well, you have told me about your so wonderful English customs, and I have been taking them to my heart; and there is Heinrich – ”

“Who is Heinrich – your brother?”

She stared at me, but made no reply.

“He was the person you wrote to, was he not?”

“Oh, hush, hush! Raise not your voice to that point; some one may come in and hear.”

“And why should not people hear? I must say English girls have secrets, but not that sort,” I said, with great indignation.

“You are so bitter and so proud,” she said; “but you know not the heart-hunger.”

“Oh yes, I do!” I answered. I was thinking of my mother and her miniature, and the fading image of that loved memory in the old home. I also thought of the new step-mother. Yes, yes, I knew what heart-hunger was. My tone changed to one of pity.

“I have felt it,” I said.

“Oh, then, you have had your beloved one?”

“Indeed, yes.”

“Did I not say that of all the school it was natural I should select you to be to me a companion?”

“Can I help you?” I said.

“You can. Will you, as I am not allowed to go out, take this and put it into a letter-box?”

“But I cannot make out why there should be any trouble.”

“It is so easy, and Heinrich – the poor, the sad, the inconsolable – wants to get it at once.”

Again I was a remarkably silly girl; but I took Riki’s letter and posted it for her. She devoured me with kisses, and immediately recovered her spirits.

The next day she was better and able to go out, and when she returned home she presented me with a magnificent box of French bonbons. Now, I was exceedingly partial to those sweets. Riki often came into our little sitting-room, and all the girls began to remark on our friendship.

“It is so unlike the Comtesse Riki to take up passionately with any one girl!” said Rosalind when this sort of thing had been going on for a few weeks and we were all talking of the Easter holidays.

The great point of whether I was to go home or not had not yet been decided. Hermione knew she must remain at the school; Augusta would probably do likewise.

Rosalind went on commenting on my friendship with Riki. After a pause she said, “Of course, she has been at the school for some time; she leaves in the summer.”

“Oh!” I answered; “she told me that she would be here for another year.”

“I think it has been changed. She is not contented; the Baroness will not keep a pupil in the school who shows discontent.”

“But surely she is quite a nice girl?”

Rosalind was silent for a minute; then she said, “Perhaps I ought just to warn you, Dumps. I wouldn’t trouble myself to do so – for I make a point of never interfering between one girl and another – but as you are Lilian St. Leger’s friend, and have been specially introduced to me through her, it is but fair to say that you ought to regard the German girl from a different standpoint from the English one.”

“Certainly the German girl is different,” I said; and I laughingly repeated some of Riki’s conversation with me in the Bois de Boulogne.

“Think of any girl talking of dots, and being betrothed, and getting married at her age!” I said.

“Oh, that isn’t a bit strange,” replied Rosalind; “they all do it. These German girls get married very young, and the marriages are arranged for them by their parents; they never have anything to say to them themselves.”

“Well, it is horrible,” I said, “and I told her so.”

“Did you?” said Rosalind very slowly. “Well, perhaps that accounts.” She looked very grave. After a minute she bent towards me and said in a low tone – too low even for Hermione to hear – “Whatever you do, don’t post letters for her.”

I started and felt myself turning very white.

“You won’t, will you?” said Rosalind, giving my arm a little squeeze.

I made no reply.

“It will be madness if you do. You cannot possibly tell what it means, Dumps.”

“Why, is there anything very dreadful in it?”

“Dreadful? Why, the Baroness has all the letters put into a box in the hall – I mean all the foreigners’ letters – and she herself keeps the key. She opens the box to take out the letters both for the post and when they have arrived, and distributes them amongst the girls.”

“And she doesn’t do that for the English girls?”

“No – not for a few. With the consent of their parents, they are allowed to have a free correspondence.” I sat very still and quiet. One or two things were being made plain to me. After a pause I said, “I can tell you nothing, Rosalind, but I thank you very much.”

On the next day I myself was seized with the first severe cold I had had that winter; it was very bad and kept me in bed. I had been in bed all day, not feeling exactly ill, but glad of the warmth and comfort of my snug little room. Towards evening Augusta came in and asked me if I would like any friends to visit me.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I answered. “Of course, Hermione or you; but the others – I think not.”

“There’s that stupid girl, that pale-faced Comtesse – Riki, I think you call her – she is very anxious to come and have a chat with you.”

Now, to tell the truth, I had been feeling uncomfortable enough ever since Rosalind had spoken to me about the rule with regard to the foreign girls’ letters. The Baroness von Gablestein had every right to make what rules she liked in her own school, but I could not help thinking that it was hardly wise that such a marked distinction should be made between girls of one nationality and another. I now understood that all foreign girls’ letters were pot into the post-box in the hall, and the Baroness looked them over before they were posted. But the affair was not mine, and I should have forgotten all about it but for the very uncomfortable feeling that I myself, unwittingly, had twice broken this most solemn rule of the house, and had twice posted a letter for Riki von Kronenfel.

Now, it seemed to me that this might be a good opportunity for me to expostulate with her on the whole position, and to tell her that she had done very wrong to allow me innocently to break the rule of the house, and to assure her that under no circumstances should I be guilty of such an indiscretion again.

Augusta meanwhile seated herself comfortably by my bedside.

“Horrible,” she said – “horrible! but for the prospect of pleasing him – ”

I did not pretend to misunderstand her.

“But you are really getting on splendidly, Augusta,” I said.

“Ah, yes! I should be a brute indeed did I do otherwise. And perhaps when I am sufficiently acquainted with the German tongue I may find out some of its beauties – or, rather, the beauties of its literature, for the language itself is all guttural and horrible – worse than French.”

“But surely French is very dainty?” I said.

“Dainty!” said Augusta, with scorn. “What one wants is a language of thought – a language that will show sentiment, that will reveal the depth of nature; and how, I ask you, can you find it in that frippery the French tongue?”