Dumps – A Plain Girl

“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.”

She smiled and shook her little head.

“But what would you do,” she said a few minutes afterwards, “if these things were not arranged? You might reach, say, twenty, or even twenty-one or twenty-two, and – ”

“Well, suppose I did reach twenty-one or twenty-two; surely those years are not so awful?”

“But to be unbetrothed at twenty-one or twenty-two,” she continued. “Why, do you not know that at twenty-five a girl – why, she is lost.”

“Lost?” I cried.

“Well, what we call put aside – of no account. She doesn’t go to dances. She stays at home with the old parents. The young sister supersedes her; she goes out all shining and beautiful, and the adored one comes her way, and she is betrothed, and gets presents and the dot and the beautiful wedding, and the home where the house linen is so marvellous and the furniture so good. Then for the rest of her days she is a good housewife, and looks after the comforts of the lord of the house.”

“The lord of the house?” I gasped.

“Her husband. Surely it is her one and only desire to think of his comforts. What is she but second to him? Oh! the chosen wife is happy, and fulfils her mission. But the unfortunate maiden who reaches the age of twenty-five, why, there is nothing for her – nothing!”

The Comtesses pretty checks were flushed with vivid rose; her blue eyes darkened with horror.

“Poor maiden of twenty-five!” I said. “Why, in England you are only supposed to be properly grown-up about then.”

“But surely,” said the Comtesse, glancing at me and shrugging her shoulders – “you surely do not mean to say that at that advanced age marriages take place?”

“Much more than before a girl is twenty-five. But really,” I added, “I don’t want to talk about marriages and dots; I am only a schoolgirl.”

The Comtesse laughed.

“Why will you so speak? What else has a girl of my great nation to think of and talk of? And the mademoiselles here – what have they to think of and to talk of? Oh! it is all the same; we live for it – our dot, and our future husbands, and the home where he is lord and we his humble servant.”

“It doesn’t sound at all interesting,” I said; and after that my conversation with Comtesse Riki languished a little.

A few days afterwards this same girl came to me when I was preparing a letter for home. I was writing in our sitting-room when she entered. She glanced quickly round her.

“It is you who have the sympathy,” she said.

“I hope so,” I answered. “What is the matter, Riki?” Her eyes were full of tears; she hastily put up her handkerchief and wiped them away.

“There is no doubt,” she said, “that you English are allowed liberties unheard-of for a German girl like me. I would beg of you to do me a great favour. I have been thinking of what you said the other day about this so great liberty of the English maidens, and the great extension of years which to them is permitted.”

“Yes, yes?” I said, and as I spoke I glanced at the gilt clock on the chiffonier.

“You are in so great a hurry, are you not?” asked Riki.

“I want to finish my letter.”

“And you will perhaps post it; is it not so?”

“Yes; I am going out with Hermione and Mademoiselle Wrex.”

“You are going, perhaps, to shops to buy things?”

“Yes. Do you want me to bring you in some chocolates?”

“Oh! that would be vare nice; but if you would, with your own letter, put this into the post also?”

As she spoke she gave me a letter addressed in the somewhat thin and pointed hand which most German girls use, and which I so cordially detested.

“It is to Heinrich,” she said. “I wouldn’t ask you; but your heart is warm, and – he suffers.”

“But why should I post it? Will you not take it downstairs and put it with the other letters in the letter-box?”

The delicate colour flew to her cheeks; her eyes were brighter than usual.

“Heinrich would not then receive it,” she answered. “You will post it – it is nécessaire for him that he gets it soon; he is in need of comfort. You will, will you not?”

I really hardly thought about the matter. I did not know why, but it did not occur to me that Riki was asking me to do anything underhand or outside the rules. She laid the letter on the table and flew away. I had just finished my own; I put it into an envelope and addressed it, and taking Riki’s letter also, I put on my outdoor things and went downstairs to meet Hermione and Mademoiselle Wrex.

It was now a very bitter day in March. We had been at school for two months. The time had flown. I was a healthy and very happy girl.

Mademoiselle Wrex said, “We must walk quickly to keep ourselves warm in this so bitter north-east wind.”

We all walked quickly, with our hands in our muffs, and as we were passing a pillar-box I dropped the letters in.

“Now that is off my mind,” I thought, with a sigh of relief.

“How did you manage to write two letters?” asked Hermione. “You were in such a fearful fuss getting through your one!”

I made no answer. Something the next moment distracted our attention, and we absolutely forgot the circumstance.

It was not until about a week afterwards that I observed a change in Comtesse Riki. She was very pale, and coughed now and then. She no longer took interest in her work, and often sat for a long time pensive and melancholy, her eyes fixed on my face. One bitterly cold day I found her alone in the salon, where we seldom sat; for although there was what was called central heating all over the house, it was not often put on to any great extent in the salon. Riki had flung herself into a chair which was the reverse of comfortable. She started up when she saw me.

“Oh, you will sympathise with me in my trouble!”

“What is the matter?” I asked.

“If we might go for a little walk together.”

“But why so?” I asked. “You are not fit to go out to-day, it is so cold.”

“But the cold will revive me. Feel my hand; my pulse beats so fast.”

I took her hand; her little pulse was bounding in her slender wrist.

“I am sure you ought not to go out; indeed, you can’t.” She looked up at me imploringly. Suddenly she burst out crying.

“Oh Riki,” I said, “what is the matter?”

“If you don’t help me I shall be the most miserable girl in all the world,” she said. “And it is all your fault, too.”

“My fault?” I cried. “Why, Riki, you must be mad. Whatever have I done?”

“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?”

“I do not know,” I answered somewhat wearily.

“I like Molière and the writings of some of the other great French poets very much indeed.”

“Well,” said Augusta, “I have got to study a great quantity of German for to-morrow morning. I must go into my room and tackle it. The Professor said I was not to write to him, but I keep his treasured letter near my heart; but if you are writing home you might say that Augusta is not ungrateful. Do you ever have the great privilege of writing direct to your father?”

“I could, of course, write to father any day,” I said; “but as a matter of fact I don’t.”

“But why not?”

“It would worry the poor man.”

“But you might write just once to give him my message.”

“I will, Augusta, if you will leave me now.”

“But why do you want to get rid of me? How like you are to him! You have just that same bluntness and the same determination. You interest me at times profoundly.”

“Well,” I said, “if I interest you to the extent of getting you to start your German it would be better.”

“All right; but what am I to say to that silly Comtesse?”

“Tell her that I will see her by-and-by.”

“You had much better not. She is not worth a grain of salt. A little piece of conceit!”

Augusta left the room. She had not been gone many minutes before there came a tap at the door, and the Comtesse, dressed in the palest blue and looking remarkably pretty, entered.

“Ah!” she said, “you have caught cold from me, you poor English girl, and I am so disconsolate.”

She sank down at the foot of the bed and fixed her bright eyes on my face.

“You are much better,” I said.

“Ah, yes, that is so. I am what is called more spirited, and it is because of you; but for you I should be indeed disconsolate. I might have chosen the stupid, the so weary life of the good German housewife, instead of – ”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I cannot say more. There are secrets which can be guessed but which must not be spoken.”

“Riki,” I said, “I do wish you would give me a right good lesson in talking German.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t – to give you a lesson. But why should I thus discompose myself?”

“It would be a good and worthy object for one girl to help another.”

“I want not to think of objects good and worthy. Why should I? That isn’t my aim; that is not what is called my métier in life.”

I sighed.

“You have made me so happy that I should be happy to do what I could to please you, and to bring that one very slow smile to your so grave face, and to let your eyes open wide and look into my face so that I should see the lurking goodness within, but it is too troublesome.”

“Riki, there is something I must say to you.”

“Why that tone of suffering? I hope it isn’t of the so disagreeable nature.”

“I can’t help it if it is. Do you know that you have done something very wrong?”

She clasped her hands and looked at me with sad pathos.

“Why speak of that?” she said. “Is it to be expected that I should always do what we call right?”

“Not always; but it is expected of every one to be straight and upright and above anything mean. A girl of honour always expects to be that.”

“Would you mind very much if you were to repeat once more your so difficult remark?”

I did repeat it.

“But straight,” said Riki – “straight? That means a line. I make it difficult in my drawing. My line is always what you call wobbly.”

I could not help laughing.

“There, now, you are much more of the agreeable. What would you say to me?”

I felt that I must indeed speak very plainly to this girl.

“Listen,” I said. “You know the rules with regard to letter-writing.”

She understood me well enough now. The colour left her cheeks and fluttered back again like a waving flag; her lips were slightly parted; she looked at me with wide-open eyes.

“You know the rules,” I said. “No girl – no German girl, or Italian girl, or French girl, or Dutch girl, or any girl in the school – without the consent of her parents, or the special leave of the Baroness, is allowed to post letters except through the post-box in the hall.”

“Oh, that is very nice,” she said – “very nice.”

She waited expectantly.

“You know what I mean.”

“But I don’t post letters except in the way that is what is called legitimate.”

“Riki, where is the good of prevaricating?”

“I know not what you call pre-vare-cating. I never heard the word.”

“Listen to me,” I said. “You had no right to ask me to post the letters for you.”

“What would poor, poor Heinrich do if you had not?” she said. “What do we not owe you, you kind English girl, with the so kind, good face? You have our great gratitude.”

“I don’t want your gratitude,” I said. “You did wrong to ask me. I would not do wrong for all the world – I mean wrong like this – quite wrong; and it was wrong of you to tempt me. I did not know; I was unaware of the rule; but even so, I was silly, and you will quite understand that I will not do it any more.”

She took my hand and stroked it very gently. After a silence of two or three minutes, during which I hoped to get a full explanation from her, she raised her eyes and said very gently:

“What about the great prizes on the great day of the break-up, and the beautiful Easter lilies that we are each presented with before the Easter services? Think you not that will be a very beautiful occasion for us all?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I may not be here for Easter.”

She looked at me with a startled expression. After a minute’s pause she began again in a very inconsequent way to rattle off some news with regard to the school. It was not until her visit was very nearly over that she said:

“Once is good, twice is better, but the third is best. If your friend, the kind and gracious Hermione, goes out, will she not drop this letter into the post-box?”

“She will not,” I replied.

“And why? It is only to poor Heinrich. May he not receive this letter, this note of so true feeling from one he regards? May it not be put into the box?”

“There is no reason why Heinrich, whoever he is, should not hear from you twice every day as far as I am concerned,” I said; “but I will not post it, nor will Hermione.”

“I know; but you cannot tell the mind of your friend.”

“I know she will not do it, Riki.”

Riki considered for a minute; then she put the note again into her pocket.

“Very well,” she said. “I little guessed that you would have a heart so hard, instead of soft and overflowing with the love for the German Fatherland.”