Dumps – A Plain Girl

Part 1, Chapter I

A Lesson in Patience

The boys were most troublesome. They never would mind in the very least when father had one of his worst headaches. It was not that they did not try to be good – I will say that Alex had the kindest heart, and that Charley was good-natured too – but it seemed to me as though they could not walk quietly; they would stump upstairs, and they would go heavily across the big attic where they slept, and father was so fearfully sensitive; the least sound made him start up, and then he would get into a sort of frenzy and hardly know what he was doing. He would call out to the boys and thunder to them to be quiet; and then his head was worse than ever. Oh, it was all dreadful – dreadful! I sometimes did not know what to do.

I am going to tell the story of my life as far as I can; but before I begin I must say that I do wonder why girls, as a rule, have a harder time of it than boys, and why they learn quite early in life to be patient and to give up their own will. Now, of course, if father comes in after his very hard day’s work, schoolmastering, as he calls it, and when he has one of his fearful headaches, I sit like a lamb and hardly speak; but it never enters into Alex’s head, or into Charley’s, that they ought to be equally considerate. I do not for a minute want to praise myself, but I know that girls have an opportunity very early in life of learning patience.

Well now, to begin my story.

I was exactly fifteen years and a half. I should not have a birthday, therefore, for six months. I was sorry for that, for birthdays are very nice; on one day at least in the year you are queen, and you are thought more of than any one else in the house. You are put first instead of last, and you get delicious presents. Some girls get presents every day – at least every week – but my sort of girl only gets a present worth considering on her birthday. Of all my presents I loved flowers best; for we lived in London, where flowers are scarce, and we hardly ever went into the country.

My name is Rachel Grant, and I expect I was a very ordinary sort of girl. Alex said so. Alex said that if I had beautiful, dancing dark eyes, and very red lips, and a good figure, I might queen it over all the boys, even on the days when it wasn’t my birthday; but he said the true name for me ought not to be Rachel, but Dumps, and how could any girl expect to rule over either boys or girls with such a name as Dumps? I suppose I was a little stodgy in my build, but father said I might grow out of that, for my mother was tall.

Ah dear! there was the sting of things; for if I had had a mother on earth I might have been a very different girl, and the boys might have been told to keep their place and not to bully poor Dumps, as they called me, so dreadfully. But I must go on with my story.

I was Rachel or Dumps, and there were two boys, Alex and Charley. Alex was a year younger than I, and ought really to have been very much under my control; and Charley was two years younger. Then there was father, who was quite elderly, although his children were comparatively young. He was tall and had a slight stoop, and his hair was turning grey. He had a very beautiful, lofty sort of expression, and he did wonders in the great school or college where he spent most of his time. Our house belonged to the college; the rooms were large, and the windows looked out on the grounds of the college and I could see the boys playing, Alex and Charley amongst them, only I never dared to look if I thought Alex or Charley could see me; for if they had caught sight of me it would have been all over with me, for they did not particularly want the other boys to know they had a sister.

“If she was a beauty we’d be awfully proud,” said Alex, “but being only Dumps, you know,” – and then he would wink at me, and when he did this I felt very much inclined to cry.

Well, these things went on, and I went to school myself and learnt as hard as I could, and tried to keep the house in order for father, whom I loved very dearly, and who sometimes – not very often, but perhaps once or twice, on a birthday or some special occasion of that sort – told me that I was the comfort of his life, and I knew that I was patient, whatever other virtue I might lack.

There came a special evening in the beginning of November. It had been a drizzling sort of day, and rather foggy, and of course the old house looked its worst, and it was six months – six whole months – before I could have a birthday, and the boys were so loud, and father’s head was so bad, and altogether it was a most discouraging sort of day. I had invited Rita and Agnes Swan to come and have tea with me. They were my greatest friends. I hardly ever dared to ask them to come, because something would be sure to happen on the nights when they arrived. But at school that morning it had seemed to me that I might certainly enjoy a quiet hour with them, so I said, “If you will come in exactly at four o’clock – father won’t be in, I am sure, for two hours, for it is his late day at the school, and it is half-holiday for the Upper Remove and Alex will be out of the way, and if Charley does come in we can manage him – we’ll have the entire house to ourselves from four to five, and can have a glorious game of hide-and-seek.”

Rita said she would be charmed to come, and Agnes said the same, and I hurried home to do the best I could for my friends.

Rita and Agnes were not exactly beautiful; but they were not like me – no one could have called either of them Dumps. They had soft, pretty hair which waved about their little heads, and their features were quite marked and distinct, and I think their eyes were beautiful, although I am not absolutely sure. They were rather clever, and often got praised at school. I am afraid they were inclined to patronise me, but I thought if I could have them to tea, and could show them over our large house, and let them see what a splendid place it was for hide-and-seek, it being a very old house with lots of queer passages and corners, they might respect me more and get the other girls in the school to do so also.

Accordingly, when I got home about one o’clock on that November day I was in high spirits. But there was my usual lesson in patience waiting for me; for father came in at three o’clock instead of at six, as he had done every single Thursday since I could remember.

“Where are you, Rachel?” he called out when he entered the house.

I ran to him.

“Oh father, is anything wrong?”

“Only this abominable headache,” he replied. “It is worse than usual. I am going to my room to lie down. See that the house is kept quiet, Rachel.”

“Oh yes,” I replied. “Shall I get you a cup of tea?”

“No; I couldn’t touch anything. Just keep the house as quiet as possible. If those young rascals come in, tell them about me. I trust you, Rachel, not to allow a sound.”

“Very well, father,” I said.

He never noticed that I was in my best frock, pale-blue with a sash of the same, and that I had combed and brushed my hair until it fairly shone. I knew that my hair was thick and longer than most girls’ hair, and I was proud to let it fall over my shoulders, and I wondered if Rita and Agnes would remark it.

But here at once was a stop to our jolly game of hide-and-seek; we could not play a game of that sort without making a noise. We must sit in the parlour. The parlour was farthest away from father’s bedroom. We must sit there and be as still as possible. We might play games, of course; but then one could play games at the Swans’ house, which was a very ordinary, everyday sort of place, not a bit like ours, which at least was quaint and out of the common.

I had ordered queen-cakes for tea, and a fresh pot of jam to be opened, and I was all expectation, and primed, as Alex would say, to exert myself to the very utmost to entertain my friends, when who should come thundering up the steps, making a most horrible noise, but the boys, with two other boys bearing them company. I rushed out to the hall.

“You mustn’t really, Alex,” I said.

“Mustn’t what?” he cried, looking at my excited face. “What’s up now, Dumps?”

The other boys were strangers. One had red hair, and the other was dark. He looked like a foreigner; his hair fell straight in two lines down his forehead and almost met his eyebrows. He was sparely built, and very tall, and had great big hands. Alex glanced back at him.

“I wanted to take these fellows over the house,” he said. “This is Von Marlo” – here he introduced the taller boy – “and this is Squibs. You must have heard me talk of Squibs. Now, don’t stand in the way; let us come in. Von Marlo is Dutch, and very proud of his country – aren’t you, Von Marlo?”

Von Marlo smiled, and bowed to me.

“Now get out of the way, Dumps,” said Alex. “And what have you put on your best frock for, and why are you all prunes and prisms? What is the matter?”

“Only that father is at home. He is lying down; he has a shocking headache. You really mustn’t make a noise. – You must go away, please, Mr Von Marlo and Mr Squibs.”

“Oh, how jokingly funny!” exclaimed Alex, and he burst into a loud laugh and sank down on the bench in the hall. But the Dutch boy, Von Marlo, came up to me and made another little bow, and took my hand as though he would kiss it; he raised it to within a few inches of his lips and then dropped it again. I was told afterwards that this was the Dutch way of showing reverence to a lady, and I was immensely touched by it. He said, “Certainly, Miss Grant, we will go away. I did not know when Grant asked me to come in that your father was ill.”

“But I say, the Professor was in his class holding forth not half-an-hour back,” said Squibs, whose real name was Squire.

“Well, he’s lying down now, and there can be no noise,” I said.

I had scarcely uttered the words before up the steps came my own two special visitors, Rita and Agnes Swan.

“Oh Jiminy!” cried Alex; and he stepped back as the two young ladies sailed in.

“How do you do, Rachel?” said Rita.

“How do you do, Rachel?” said Agnes.

They were also dressed in their best, and were evidently highly pleased and intended to have a good time. They did not at all object to the fact that four rather tall, ungainly schoolboys were standing about in the hall.

“You know my brothers, don’t you, Rita?” I said, presenting Alex and Charley. “And this is Mr Von Marlo, and this is Mr Squire.”

Alex and Charley reddened up to the roots of their hair; Squibs looked as though he could not possibly get any redder – he was nearly always scarlet; but the Dutch boy, Von Marlo, bowed in the most graceful style, and then stood quite at his ease, glancing at the girls.

“I say,” said Alex, coming up to me and speaking in a very loud semi-whisper, “have they come to tea?”

“Yes – yes. Do go away – please go away – and take the boys with you.”

“But are there cookies and good things for tea?”

“Yes; but there really isn’t enough for four extra people. Do go away, Alex. I’ll have something nice for your supper by-and-by. Do! there’s a good boy.”

But neither Alex nor Charley would see the fun of that, and I am sure those girls who take the trouble to read my history will guess at my mortification when I tell them that four extra guests sat down to a tea-table only prepared for three.

Now Hannah, our servant, was by no means noted for her good temper. She brought in fresh bread-and-butter, fresh tea, fresh jam; but the fearful difficulty of keeping the room quiet and of making those boys abstain from laughter, of making even Rita and Agnes behave themselves, was enough to wear any poor girl out. I do not know what I should have done but for the Dutch boy, Von Marlo. He saw that I was annoyed, and he came up to me and offered me all the help he possibly could.

“It is quite a shame,” he said; “and you looked so nice when you opened the door. I thought you were the very prettiest girl I had ever laid eyes on. You see, I have not been in England more than two months. I have come here to go to this famous school.”

“You speak English very well,” I said.

“Oh yes, I learnt that in Holland; we all learn it there. We learn English, German, and French as soon as ever we can speak at all, I think; for, you see, our language – Dutch – is not much use to us outside our own country. There is nothing in that,” he continued modestly. “Now, what can I do to help you?”

I looked at him, and my ruffled spirits became soothed. After all, why should I not make the best of things?

“I’ll try to keep the fellows quiet,” said Von Marlo; “and you needn’t call me Mr – I am only a schoolboy. You can just say Von Marlo, as I am sure you say Squibs to Squire. We can all be jolly together. What do you say?”

“Done!” I cried; and after that the meal went swimmingly.

It was amazing what those fellows managed to eat; and it was still more amazing to see how Rita and Agnes enjoyed themselves. It was the thought of their disappointment which had so terribly annoyed me when the four boys insisted on bursting into our parlour and forcing themselves into our presence; but I soon saw that Rita and Agnes were only delighted. They laughed and joked, and as they laughed Alex and Charley became like lambs of sweetness and gentleness. Dear, dear! how nice a brother can be to other people’s sisters! It is quite extraordinary. I bent over to Rita and whispered to her, “I hope you are not vexed.”

“Vexed?” she whispered back. “No; I’m sure I’m delighted. I did not think it was to be a big party of this sort; and really the boys of the upper school are almost like men. It is very nice indeed; I am enjoying myself extremely.”

And so she was, and so was Agnes. When tea was over, however, an anxious moment arrived. We could not play any noisy games, and the boys immediately declared that they were not going away.

“We are going to see the fun out now,” said Alex. “Never mind to-morrow’s work. I’ll do that in the small hours – burn the candle, you know.”

Here he winked at Agnes, and she winked back at him, thinking herself exceedingly witty.

Games were proposed, and games were begun; but, alas! how could seven young people keep absolutely quiet? I was trembling all over. If father were but to come down and see the absolute riot in the parlour, I didn’t know what would happen. I was certain of one thing: neither Rita nor Agnes would ever be allowed to have tea with me again.

After a time I did a very injudicious thing. I left the room. I ran upstairs. I listened outside father’s room and heard him moving about. I knocked, and immediately the door was flung open, and there was father in his dressing-gown, with his beautiful grey hair pushed back off his forehead.

“What’s all that murmuring and muttering and shuffling that is going on downstairs?” he said. “And how flushed your cheeks are! And there is a smear of jam on one of them. What have you been doing?”

“Having tea, father.”

“You never offered me a cup.”

“Oh father! when you first came in I offered to get you some.”

“Well, I’d like some now. Bring me up something to eat.”

“Then, father darling, is your head better?”

“Yes, my dear, yes. Go downstairs and bring me up a tray full of food – toast and an egg and some tea. Bring them up with your own hands. See there isn’t a sound. If I have two or three hours of quiet I shall be quite fit to resume my work to-night. I have to lecture in Hall at nine o’clock this evening. I shall not be able to utter a word if this headache continues. Now, Rachel, be off; set to work and get me some food at once, as fast as ever you can.”

I was half-way downstairs when my father’s voice called after me:

“Do stop all that whispering and whistling and noise. I can’t imagine what is happening.”

“I will do what I can, father,” I said.

Part 1, Chapter II

The Poached Egg

I returned to the boys and to my school friends.

“Father is awake,” I said, “and he complains of the noise we are making.”

“Noise?” cried Alex. “Why, we are as mum as mice!”

“People must breathe, you know,” said Agnes in what I considered a very impertinent way.

I stared at her. She had no right to speak like that of my father, the great Professor Grant; for my father was a member of the Royal Society, no less, and you can imagine that to hear such talk from a silly little girl like Agnes Swan was, to say the least of it, disagreeable. So I drew myself up; but then I caught Von Marlo’s eyes, and I felt soothed, for he seemed to understand.

“If the Professor wishes it,” he said, “we will, of course, hardly speak at all. – It might be best,” he added, turning to Alex, “if we all went away. What do you think?”

“Please yourself, Von,” said Alex, speaking in a very patronising way, and flinging himself back in a deep chair. “Squibs and Charley and I stay; and as you are the quietest of the party, and inclined to patronise Dumps, I don’t see why you should go.”

Von Marlo came straight up to me and said:

“Can I do anything for you? They say I patronise you, but that is not true. I don’t exactly know what they mean by patronise, but I will do all I can to help you, for you are quite the nicest little girl I have met since I came to England.”

Agnes and Rita seemed neither of them to thoroughly appreciate these remarks of Von Marlo’s, for he was really the biggest and most imposing-looking of the four boys. Even Alex, who was a handsome fellow, looked very young beside him. As to me, I felt soothed. Of course, you must understand that if you have been called Dumps all your life, and told to your face that you haven’t one vestige of good looks, it must be a sort of pleasure to have a person suddenly inform you that you are – oh! better than good-looking – the very prettiest girl he has seen in the whole of the country. I felt, therefore, a flush of triumph stealing to my cheeks, and then I said, “Please keep things as quiet as you can. I must go to the kitchen to get some tea for father. Please don’t let them be noisy.”

“I’ll sit on them if they are,” said Von Marlo.

But Alex called out, “Go along, Von, and help her; that’ll be the best way. Good gracious! she’s in such a state of mind, because you are noticing her and bolstering her up, that she will fall, as likely as not, going down those slippery backstairs. Go along with her, old chap, and help her.”

“Yes, come,” I said, for I could not resist it.

So Von Marlo and I found ourselves in the big hall; then he took my hand and we went along the passage, and then down another passage, and then we opened a door and I called to Hannah.

“Hannah, are you downstairs?”

We were looking into pitch-black darkness, but we heard a muffled voice say, “Yes, Miss Rachel? Sakes alive! What’s wanted now?”

Then Hannah appeared at the foot of the stairs, holding a lighted candle.

“I’m coming down,” I said, “and I’m bringing a gentleman with me.”

Hannah very nearly fell in her amazement, but I went steadily down, Von Marlo following me.

“It is a very old house,” I whispered, “and some people say it is haunted. But you are not afraid of ghosts, are you?”

“I think they are the jolliest things in the world!” was his reply.

He said the word jolly in a very funny way, as though he was not accustomed to the word, and it sounded quite sweet.

At last we got to the lower regions, and then, guided by Hannah’s candle – which was really only like a very little spark of light – we found our way into the kitchen.

“Once this was a grand house and grand people lived here,” I said. “Father lives here now because it belongs to the college. The house is a great deal too big for us, but it is a glorious place for hide-and-seek. This is the kitchen – monstrous dinners used to be cooked here.”

“Now then, Miss Rachel, what do you want?” said Hannah. “And I think young gents as ought to be at school ought to keep out of the Professor’s kitchen. That’s what I think.”

“Oh, please, Hannah,” I said, “this gentleman is from over the seas – he comes from Holland, where the beautiful tulips are grown, and his name is Mr Von Marlo.”

“Catch me trying to say a mouthful of a name like that!” was Hannah’s rejoinder.

“He is exceedingly kind,” I continued, “and he is going to help us.”

“Yes, I will help you if you will let me,” said Von Marlo, speaking in his slow and rather distinct way, and not gabbling his words as we English do.

“I want tea and toast and an egg for father; he is waiting for them, and we must hurry,” I said. “Hannah, be as quick as you can.”

“My word,” said Hannah, “what a fuss!”

She was really a kind creature. She must have been good to live with us in that queer old house, for she was actually the only servant we kept. She must have been brave, too, to spend so much of her time in that desolate kitchen and in those black passages, for gas had never been laid on in the bottom portion of the old house, and it smelt very damp, and I am sure the rats had a good time there at night. But Hannah, forty-five years of age, with a freckled face and reddish hair, and high cheek-bones and square shoulders, had never known the meaning of the word fear.

“Ghosts?” she would cry. “Don’t talk nonsense to me! Rats? Well, I guess they’re more afraid of me than I am of them. Loneliness? I’m a sight too busy to be lonely. I does my work, and I eats my vittals, and when bedtime comes I sleeps like a top. I’m fond of the Professor, and proud of him, he’s so cliver; and I’m fond of Miss Rachel, whom I’ve known since she was born, and of the boys, although they be handfuls.”

This was Hannah’s creed; she had no fear, and she was fond of us. But she had a rough tongue, and could be very rude at times, and could make things unpleasant for us children unless we humoured her.

It was Von Marlo, the Dutch boy, who humoured her now. He offered to cut the bread for toast, and he not only offered, but he went boldly to the cupboard, found a loaf, and cut most delicate slices, and set to work toasting them before a clear little fire in a small new range at one end of the kitchen before Hannah had time to expostulate. Then he suggested that father’s egg should be poached, not boiled, and he found a saucepan and put it on the fire and prepared to poach the egg. And when Hannah said, “My, what a fuss!” he found the egg, broke it into the boiling water, poached it beautifully, and put it on the toast. Really, he was a wonderful boy; even Hannah declared that never had she seen his like.

The tea was made fragrant and strong, and we put it on a little tray with a white cloth, and Von Marlo carried it for me up the dark stairs. We reached the hall, and then we stood and faced each other.

“You are going up all those other stairs with that tray?” said Von Marlo. “Then I insist upon carrying it for you.”

“But suppose father should come out? He sometimes does, you know,” I whispered.

“And if he does, what matter?” said Von Marlo. “He won’t eat us! Come along, Miss Rachel.”

I was very glad he did not call me Dumps. He must have heard Hannah call me Miss Rachel, for, as far as the boys were concerned, I might have been christened Dumps, for they never addressed me as anything else.

We went up the stairs, I going first to lead the way, and Von Marlo following, bearing the little tray with its fragrant tea, hot toast, and poached egg. All went well, and nothing would have happened except the pleasant memory of our little adventure if suddenly at the top of the stairs we had not encountered the stern face of father himself. There was gas in that part of the house, and it had been turned on; father looked absolutely black with rage.

“What is the meaning of this?” he said. “Who are you? Von Marlo, I declare! And what, may I ask, are you doing in my house, and venturing up to my rooms, sir? – What is the meaning of this, Rachel? I shall punish you severely. – Go downstairs, sir; go down at once, and leave the house.”

If it had been Squibs, even had it been Alex or Charley, I think he would have turned at once at the sight of that angry, very fierce face; but Von Marlo was like Hannah – he knew no fear. He said quietly, “You are mistaken, sir; I have done nothing that I should be ashamed of. Your son, Mr Alex, invited me to come into the house, and he also invited me to have tea downstairs. Your daughter went to the kitchen to prepare your tea, and I offered to assist her. It is a way we have in my country, sir, to assist the ladies when they have more to do than they can well accomplish. It is the way we gentlemen act, Professor.”