Kitabı oku: «Dumps – A Plain Girl», sayfa 12
Part 2, Chapter V
A Quiet Talk
Christmas Day came to an end, and the very next morning, when I was alone with my step-mother, I asked her what Hermione meant by her words.
“Oh, she has told you?” said Mrs Grant.
She was sitting by the fire in the little drawing-room; the stuffed birds and the stuffed animals surrounded us, but the room was never close, and it had the faint, delicious smell of cedar-wood which had fascinated me so much on the occasion of my first visit.
“Sit down, Dumps,” she said, holding out her hand to take one of mine.
“But please tell me,” I said.
“Well, yes, it has been arranged. Your father would like it, and so would I. You go on the 21st of January. It is a very nice school, just beyond the Champs Élysées. You will be well taught, and I think the change will do you good.”
“You suggested it, didn’t you?” I said.
“Yes, naturally.”
“Why naturally? I am his child.”
“My dear, you know his character; he is so absorbed in those marvellous things which occupy his great brain that he hasn’t time – ”
“Oh, I know,” I said bitterly; “he never had any time, this wonderful father of ours, to attend to us, his children.”
“Dear, he has given you into my care, and, believe me, I love you.”
“I believe you do,” I said in a gentle voice.
“Some day, Rachel, I am sure you will love me.”
I was silent.
“Tell me about the school,” I said.
“I know all about it, for it belongs to a very special friend of mine, and I am certain you will be looked after and all your best interests promoted.”
“And Hermione Aldyce goes too?”
“Yes; she is a very nice girl, and a special friend of mine.”
“I know.”
“You will, I am sure, Dumps, do your utmost to attend to your studies. You will soon be sixteen; my intention is that you should remain at the French school for two years, and then come back in time to enjoy some of the pleasures of life – some of the pleasures, dear, as well as the responsibilities, for we never can dissever one from the other.”
I was silent. Why did I like her and yet dislike her? I had thought the day before when Hermione spoke of school that I should wildly rebel, but as I sat there looking at her placid face it did not occur to me to rebel. I said after a minute, “Step-mother, until I love you better, may I call you by that name?”
“I have given you leave,” she said in a low tone.
“I have something to confess,” I said.
“What is that?” she asked.
“I did not buy any thing useful out of the ten pounds you gave me.”
“Your father’s dress allowance?”
“You know it was yours.”
“Your father’s,” she repeated.
“I will tell you how I spent it,” I said; and then I described to her all about the ribbons and the chiffons and the gloves and the stockings and the handkerchiefs.
“The stockings were needful,” she said, “and so were the gloves and handkerchiefs. So much ribbon was scarcely essential, but it can be passed over. The hat you bought was vulgar, so I trust you will not wear it again.”
“What?” I said. “That lovely green hat with the bird-of-Paradise in it?”
“It is very unsuitable to a girl of your age.”
“I got it in one of the smartest shops in Regent Street.”
“Anything that is unsuitable is vulgar, Dumps. I hope you will soon understand that for yourself.”
“Oh, I have a great deal to learn,” I said, with sudden humility.
“You have, my dear; and when you take that fact really to heart you will begin to learn in grave reality, and you will be all that your father and I long to make you.”
“But I’m not the least like father; he could never appreciate me, for I am so different from him. If, for instance, I were like Augusta – ”
“I wonder, Dumps, if it would greatly distress you if Augusta also went to the French school?”
“What?” I said. “Augusta! But surely she cannot afford it?”
“I think it could be arranged. I take an interest in her, poor child! There is no doubt she is wonderfully clever; but just at present she is very one-sided in all her views. Her intellect is somewhat warped by her having all her aspirations and desires forced into one channel.”
“Then, step-mother, you are going to support her?”
“Certainly not. It is true I may make it possible for those who could not otherwise afford it. I have spoken to her mother on the subject, and perhaps her mother can be helped by some of her relations; it would certainly be the making of Augusta.”
“You are wonderfully kind,” I said.
“What am I put into the world for except to help others?”
“Is it true,” I asked suddenly, and I laid my hand on her lap, “that you are very rich?”
“Who told you that?” she said, the colour coming into her face. She looked at me in a distressed way.
“Only I want to know.”
“All I can tell you in reply to your question is this: that whatever money God has given me is to be spent not on myself but for Him – for Him and for those whom I am privileged to help. I do not want to talk of riches, for it is impossible for a child like you, with your narrow experience, to understand that money is a great gift; it is a talent little understood by many; nevertheless, one of the most precious of all. Few who have money quite know how to spend it worthily.”
Alex, Charley, and Von Marlo bounded into the room.
“We can skate, if you don’t mind,” said Charley, “on the round pond a mile from here. We didn’t bring our skates with us, but there are jolly nice ones in Chelmsford. Do you mind?” he asked.
“Certainly not, dear,” said Mrs Grant; “and what is more, if there is good skating I am going myself. What do you say, Dumps? Do you know how to skate?”
“No,” I answered. “How could I? I never learnt.”
“Few girls can skate,” said Charley.
“This girl shall learn,” said Mrs Grant. “Come, come, children; we’ll go off as fast as ever we can, to get the best skates to be obtained.”
Part 2, Chapter VI
Learning to Skate
Certainly my step-mother was a patient teacher, and certainly also there were few more awkward girls than I, Rachel Grant, on that afternoon. The stumbles I made, the way I sprawled my legs, the many falls I had, notwithstanding my step-mother’s care! Both Alex and Charley laughed immoderately. It was Von Marlo, however, who in the end came to the rescue.
“Mrs Grant,” he said, “you are dead-tired. I have been able to skate ever since I was able to walk. May I take Miss Dumps right round the pond? Will you trust her to me?”
“Oh yes, do let him!” I said.
My step-mother agreed, and a minute later she was flying away herself as though on wings, with Charley on one side of her and Alex on the other. Notwithstanding that she was a stout person, she looked very graceful on the ice. She could cut figures, and she set herself to teach the boys how to manage these exquisite and bird-like movements.
Meanwhile Von Marlo and I skated away after a time with a certain amount of success. He was taller and stronger than my step-mother, and he taught me a Dutch way of managing the business; and after a time I was able to go forward with the help of his strong hand, and so the afternoon did not turn out so very disastrous after all.
As we were going home Von Marlo asked if he might walk with me. Mrs Grant was standing near; she said “Certainly,” and we started off together.
“Not that way,” he said; “I don’t want to go straight back. We have nearly two hours before dinner, and I want you to take me a very long way round.”
“But I don’t know Chelmsford specially well,” I replied.
“Oh, I’ve been poking about a bit by myself,” he answered. “We’ll just walk up this road to the left, then plunge into the woods; they look so perfect with the snow on the ground.”
I took his hand, and we walked along bravely. I was warmed with the skating; my cheeks were cold; my heart was beating heartily; I felt a curious exhilaration which snowy air and even most badly executed skating gives to every one.
When we entered the woods Von Marlo slackened his steps and looked full at me.
“You are as happy as the day is long,” he said.
I made no reply.
“If you are not you ought to be so,” was his next remark.
I turned then and stood quite still and faced him.
“You make too much fuss,” I said. “If you and Alex and Charley would leave the subject alone I might get on better with her. But you never will leave the subject alone. When I speak to her you all three look at me.”
“I didn’t know that the others looked; I couldn’t help it, you know,” said Von Marlo.
“But why should you do it? After all, you know much less than the others do.”
“That doesn’t matter.” Von Marlo held out his hand and took mine. “I want to say something to you, Dumps. You are quite the nicest and pluckiest girl I have ever come across. I know lots of girls at The Hague, and they are pretty in their way; but I never saw anybody quite so pretty as you are.”
“Oh Von!” I said, and I burst out laughing. “I do wish you wouldn’t talk rubbish like that. Why, you know that I am very – very – downright ugly.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” he replied. “To me, a face like yours, so round, and eyes so grey, and – well, I think you are beautiful.”
I saw at last that he was speaking the truth. Perhaps I was the Dutch style. I knew I should never certainly be the English style. After a moment his words were soothing. It was well if even a Dutchman could think me nice.
“And you are so brave,” he continued. “Looks don’t matter very much, of course. They do a little, but you are so plucky, and you have always been so good at home, although now you are just having a rare chance of turning yourself into – ”
“Well?” I said, for he stopped.
“Into a vixen.”
“Oh dear!” I cried.
“Yes; you know you are not what you used to be, and it is because of the best woman in the world. So I do want you to try – ”
“Stop!” I said. “I won’t do what you want, so now let us change the subject.”
The colour came into his face.
“Perhaps,” he said, “the best thing I can do is to tell you about my own step-mother.”
“Have you one?” I asked.
I looked at him with very keen interest. “Yes. I do not remember anybody else. I don’t remember my own mother.”
“Oh, well, that is different.”
“I do not think it is so different, for in some ways it is harder for me than for you.”
“Isn’t she nice. Von?” I asked.
“She means to be,” he said; “but she is severe. She doesn’t love me as English school because I am not wanted at home.”
“Poor Von!” I said. “And have you ever been rude to her?”
“Oh no,” he answered; “I couldn’t be that – my father wouldn’t allow it.”
He was silent for a bit, and so was I silent. “What is she like, Von?” I asked.
“She is what you English would call plain. She is very stout, with a good figure, a high colour, and black eyes, only they’re rather small. She is an excellent housewife, and makes good dinners, and sees to the house and the linen and the servants. My father thinks a great deal of her.”
“And you have brothers and sisters – half brothers and sisters?” I said.
“Oh yes; a great many. My step-mother loves them best, of course, but that cannot be wondered at.”
“No,” I answered, “And, Von Marlo,” I continued, “what do you call her?”
“Mamma,” he replied.
“How can you?”
“I couldn’t say anything else. I have known her since I was a tiny boy.”
“With you it is different – it is truly,” I repeated. “I am never going to call my step-mother mamma or mother, nor anything which would give her the place of my own mother.”
“I do not believe a name matters,” said Von Marlo; “but you ought to be good to her, for she is wonderfully good to you.”
We finished our walk. I liked him and yet I did not like him. I felt annoyed with the boys. I saw during dinner that they were watching me when I spoke to my step-mother. Alex would raise his head and glance in her direction, and once when I forgot to reply to her Charley gave me a kick under the table. As to Von Marlo, he seemed to have done his part when he had that walk with me, for he did not take much notice of me, although I was certain he was listening.
Now, this was the sort of thing to fret a girl. How could I be good when I was certain that I was surrounded by spies? I thought my father’s abstracted manner quite refreshing beside the intent and watchful ways of the three boys. And as to Augusta, I almost learned to love her. She saw nothing wrong in my step-mother for the very reason that she did not see her at all. Whenever she raised her eyes, those deep-set dark eyes of hers would fly to the Professor. When he spoke she bent eagerly forward. Once he began one of his endless dissertations; the boys were talking about something else. Augusta said “Hush!” in a most peremptory manner, and my father stopped.
“Thank you,” he said, and he gave her a gracious bow. I really thought for a moment I was at school, and that one of the prefects was calling the class to order. “Thank you, Miss – ”
“Augusta Moore is my name.”
She uttered it quickly, and with a sort of sob in her voice.
“Oh, go on, please – go on! It is of the utmost importance.”
“Indeed!” he replied, colouring. “I should not have thought you understood.”
“Oh, I do, sir – I do! I love the great Herodotus – the father of all history, is he not?”
“Yes, child.”
Really I believe, for the first time in his whole life, my father was aware of Augusta’s society; he now addressed his remarks to her, evidently thinking the rest of us of no importance. He put questions to her which she answered; he drew her out; she had an immense amount of miscellaneous knowledge with regard to the old classics. Her hour had come; her cheeks blazed; her eyes were bright; she was lifted off her feet, metaphorically, by my father’s appreciation of her talents.
“A remarkable girl,” he said afterwards when I was alone in the room. “A friend of yours, Dumps?”
“One of my schoolfellows,” I said.
Then I took hold of his hands.
“Father!”
“Well, Dumps?”
“I want to speak to you.”
“Yes, my dear.”
“It was very good of you to do what you did for me, and now you are going to send me to a school in Paris.”
“Indeed I am not,” said my father.
“You are,” I replied; “it is all arranged. My step-mother said so.”
“Grace, bless her! She has a great many schemes on hand. But I think you will have discovered for yourself, Dumps, that I cannot possibly do such a thing. Indeed, I don’t particularly care for the French mode of education. If you must go abroad, go to Germany. In Germany we find the greatest thinkers of the last three centuries. Put yourself under them, my dear, and it is possible you may come back an intelligent woman.”
I did not say much more. By-and-by I went up to my room. Augusta had not come upstairs. I had a few moments to myself. I locked the door and flung myself on my bed. Oh, what a silly, silly Dumps I was! for I cried as though my heart would break. It was not father who was sending me to the school in Paris; it was my new mother – my step-mother. Was I beholden to her for everything? Of course, she had bought me the clothes, and she had provided all the new and delightful things in the house. Could I take her gifts and stand aloof from her? It seemed impossible.
“I cannot love her,” I said to myself. “She is nice, but she ever and ever stands between me and my own mother. I cannot – cannot love her.”
“Then if you don’t love her,” said a voice – an inward voice – “you ought not to take her gifts. The two things are incompatible. Either love her with all your heart, and take without grudging what she bestows upon you, or refuse her gifts.”
I was making up my mind. I sat up on my elbow and thought out the whole problem. Yes, I must – I would refuse. I would find father some day when he was alone, and tell him that I, Rachel, intended to live on the little money he could spare me; that I would still go to the old school, and wear shabby dresses. Anything else would be a slight on my own mother, I thought.
Part 2, Chapter VII
A New Régime
Little did I know, however, of the changes that were ahead. Hitherto my step-mother had been all that was sweetly kind and lovingly indulgent; no doubt she was still kind, and in her heart of hearts still indulgent; but when we returned home after our pleasant few days at Hedgerow House her manner altered. She took the reins of government with a new sort of decision; she ordered changes in the household management without consulting me about them; she got in even more servants, and added to the luxuries of the house. She invited friends to call, and went herself to pay visits. She ordered a neat brougham, which came for her every day, and in which she asked me to accompany her to visit friends and relatives of her own. I refused in my own blunt fashion.
“I am sorry, step-mother,” I said; “I am particularly busy this afternoon, and I am going to tea with the Swans.”
“Is that an old engagement, Rachel?” she inquired.
“Yes,” I said; but I blushed a little as I spoke, for in truth that morning I had all but refused Rita Swan’s urgent entreaty to go and have tea with them. Now I seized upon the whole idea as an excuse.
Mrs Grant stood silent for a minute. How handsome and bright and energetic she looked! She was becomingly dressed, and the carriage with its nice horse and well-appointed coachman was waiting at the door. She said after a minute’s pause, “Very well, Dumps, you needn’t come to-day; but please understand that I shall want you to go out with me to-morrow morning, and again in the afternoon. Don’t make any engagement for to-morrow.”
Before I had time to reply she had swept down the hall, the door was flung open for her by the neat parlour-maid, she stepped into her carriage, and was borne away.
Was this indeed the same desolate house where I had lived ever since my mother died?
I had a somewhat dull tea with the Swans; I was thinking all the time of my step-mother. They twitted me one moment on my melancholy, and the next they began to praise me. I was not a particularly shrewd girl, but somehow after a time I began to suspect that the news of my step-mother’s wealth had got to their ears. If that was so, it would account for their complete change of front. Doubtless my step-mother was right when she decided to take me from a school where I might have companions of the Swan sort. The next day I came downstairs determined, if possible, to have my own way and not to go out with Mrs Grant. She was at breakfast when I entered.
“You are a little late, Rachel,” she said. “The hour for breakfast is half-past eight.”
“But – but – ” I began.
“You needn’t excuse yourself, dear. Sit down. To-morrow morning I shall expect you to be in time.” She spoke very sweetly, poured out a cup of delicious coffee for me, and asked whether I would prefer ham or eggs to eat with it. I looked out at the street. The worst January weather was on us; there was a drizzling sleet falling from the sky.
“We sha’n’t have a very pleasant day for our shopping,” said Mrs Grant.
“Are we going shopping?” I asked.
“Yes; I am going to take you shopping to-day. You will want your school outfit.”
I felt myself turning first red and then pale.
“Oh, but, please – ” I began.
She stopped helping herself to marmalade and looked at me. She and I were alone; the Professor and the boys were all at the college.
“But?” she said. “What is it, dear?”
“I don’t want to go.”
“I am sorry, but we have very little time to lose. I have ordered the carriage to be here at ten o’clock.”
“But – ” I said, faltering somewhat in my speech, for her manner was beginning to tell on me. I was struggling and struggling against it, but struggling as the swimmer does who knows that time and tide are against him.
“Yes?” she said.
“I want to go for a walk. I hate driving.”
“To walk on such a day, Rachel? I should think you would be glad to have the comfort of our carriage.”
She was always careful never to call anything hers; she always said “ours.”
I flushed angrily.
“I hate driving,” I repeated.
“I am sorry, dear. Well, we will get the things you hate over as quickly as possible. You must get your school outfit, you see, as you are going to Paris on the 21st. Now run upstairs and get your hat and jacket on.”
Was there ever a girl so bullied before? I went unwillingly upstairs. On the second floor, where I now slept, I saw Hannah coming downstairs. I ran up to her and took one of her hands.
“What have you been doing?” I asked.
“Doing?” said Hannah. “Doing? What’s the matter with you, Dumps?”
“She’s going to send me away, Hannah.”
“Don’t talk to me,” replied Hannah.
“Hannah, I must I’m just stifling.”
“I can’t talk to you now – not now. She’s everywhere, and she has her spies about – all them new servants; they’re hand in glove with her – eating her food and taking her wages.”
“But, Hannah, we eat her food and take her wages.”
“Well, I must confess I thought there was a time when I could put up with it, but if you go I go too. There!”
I clutched her hand. There came a rustling sound of a silk dress up the stairs. No, it was not a silk dress; it was a woollen one of good material, but Mrs Grant had all her dresses lined with silk.
“I hate going,” I had just time to whisper.
“I’ll come to your bedroom to-night, and we’ll talk this thing out,” said Hannah.
But how small I felt myself, condescending to talk even to poor old Hannah about my step-mother!
“Come, dear,” cried the pleasant voice, “are you ready? The carriage is at the door.”
I rushed into my bedroom, got into my hat and jacket, and was downstairs in a trice. Mrs Grant came up to me.
“Not tidily put on, Rachel,” she said. She dragged my tie into a straight position, and straightened my hat; then she said approvingly, “Ah! gloves are nice, and so are the boots. Always remember, Rachel, that a lady is known by her good gloves and good boots. Now then, come.”
She stepped into the carriage first, and I followed. She gave orders. We stopped at a large shop, where we bought a quantity of things – or rather she bought them – underclothing of every sort and description, more stockings than I thought I could ever use in the whole course of my life, a lot more handkerchiefs, embroidered petticoats, dark petticoats; then gloves – walking gloves and evening gloves and afternoon gloves; and by-and-by we went into the region where pretty things were to be found. Such a sweetly becoming costume was got for me – dark-blue again, but now trimmed richly with velvet which was embroidered in a strange and mystical sort of pattern. In my heart of hearts I adored it, but all the time I stood gloomy and silent and without a smile on my face.
“Come,” said Mrs Grant when the purchases were nearly finished, “you must, my dear child, put on a slightly more agreeable face, for we are going to the millinery department, and I cannot choose a hat which will suit you while you look like that.”
I tried to smile, but instead I burst into a sort of hysterical laughter.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” I said.
She took my hand and squeezed it.
“You wish I wouldn’t? But I wish I could do a thousand times more for you. Come, darling, come.” The word “darling,” after all the calm insistence of having her own way all the morning, broke on my heart with a feverish desire to respond to it, but I would not. No, I would not be conquered.
Oh, how particular my step-mother was about that hat! As if it mattered after all. It was the quietest and most expensive hat I had ever seen. As to the feathers, she took them to the light, examined them and pulled them about, and saw that they were exactly the right shade, until I scarcely knew how to contain myself. I could not help murmuring under my breath, “I shall become a sort of Augusta if this goes on. I shall loathe clothes if this continues.”
Finally a dark-blue hat was chosen to suit the dark-blue costume, and then a grey hat with a long grey feather was also bought for best occasions; and afterwards I was supplied with a perfectly fascinating set of chinchilla furs, chinchilla for my neck and a darling little muff to match.
“You shall wear this hat with these chinchillas,” said my step-mother; “and I will get you a very good brown fur for everyday wear – fox. You must wear your chinchillas when you want to be extra smart.”
At last all the list of things that Mrs Grant considered necessary for a young lady’s entrance into the fashionable Parisian school were obtained.
“We have done a good morning’s work,” she said, and she desired the coachman to take us home.
“At least I shall have the afternoon to myself,” I thought.
Now, if the truth must be known, hateful as the morning had been, there had also been a sort of feeling of enjoyment. The things that had been bought were good, and I was to be no longer a shabby girl. When I remembered the dark-brown skirt of uncertain make and by no means uncertain length, with the brick-red blouse which had been my proud possession such a very short time ago, I could not help smiling to myself at the vastness of the contrast. But, alas and alack! why was I so perverse that I thought I would welcome that skirt and hideous blouse if only I might be back again in the old days? But would I? Could I have this afternoon to myself, I should have a certain satisfaction in going to see the Swans, and inviting them back to tea, which I was always permitted to do, and giving them an account of my ravishing chinchilla, my beautiful fox, my dark-blue costume, and my new hats. What would they not feel? I fairly believed that they would begin to see beauty in my small and insignificant eyes, in my retroussé nose, in my somewhat wide mouth.
“Oh, riches, riches!” I muttered under my breath.
“As you did not get the dress I expected you to get before Christmas, Rachel,” said my step-mother during lunch-time, “I have ordered the dark-blue costume and the grey hat and the grey furs to be sent home immediately, for I am going to visit some special friends of mine this afternoon, and I want you to accompany me.”
“Oh, but twice in the carriage!” I said.
“I am sorry. To-morrow we will do a lot of walking. I have heaps to do, and I love a tramp on my feet, as you know. I won’t have the carriage at all to-morrow; we’ll walk until we are fit to drop. But go and amuse yourself, dear, for the carriage will not be round again until four o’clock.”
I went away to my room. The little gas-stove was alight and the room was warm and comfortable. I went and stood by the window and looked round the apartment. It had been made so elegant, so sweet, so fresh for me. Then I glanced at the bed; it was covered with parcels – great big boxes, small boxes, parcels made up in brown-paper. What girl can resist an unopened parcel? Not even Rachel Grant. I began to take out my wonderful possessions, to look at them, to examine them. In themselves they were fascinating, but the sting lay in the fact that they had been given me by her. They all seemed to be witnesses against the miniature – the dear miniature which was fading and fading out of every one’s memory.
“The only person in this house,” I said to myself, “who has a grain of sense is poor old Hannah.”
Just as the thought floated through my brain the door was opened and Hannah came in.
“I had a few minutes to spare, and I thought I’d just steal in and have a talk with you now. She’s downstairs talking to a visitor – drat her! say I. Now then, Miss Dumps, what is it? You tell me, and as quick as you can.”
Hannah was the cook of the establishment, and I must say an excellent cook she made.
“Why, Hannah,” I said, “I can’t imagine how you manage to leave the kitchen just now.”
“Oh, I can manage,” said Hannah. “I get as much help as I want.”
“And you are such a good cook, Hannah; you take to the new life as kindly as I do.”
“Much chance I have of not taking to it. It’s do your work or go; that’s the rule of rules in this house. If you are kept to cook, cook you must; if you don’t cook, out you go, and some one else comes in who can cook. That’s the way. Now, Miss Rachel, you’ve got to be made into a fashionable young lady, magnificently dressed, and educated in one of the ’orrid French schools.”
Hannah threw a world of contempt into the adjective she bestowed upon the Parisian school.
“In one of them ’orrid French schools,” she said; “and if you don’t submit, why, out you goes too.”
“Why, Hannah, how could I go out? I often wish I could.”
“Poor child!” said Hannah. “Well, now – oh, my word! what are all those?”
She had not noticed the parcels before. She now sprang on them and began to examine them. In spite of herself she was impressed by the goodly array of garments.
“My word!” she said, “no one can accuse her of being stingy.”
“And no one can accuse her,” I said with feeling, “of being mean in any sense of the word. She does her best for us all.”
“Well, she has her object,” said Hannah. “A-pushing of her out – a-pushing of her out. She’s a’most gone, poor thing! Killed she were, but still her spirit seems to linger; now she’s a’most gone.”
“Hannah, when you talk like that I sometimes hate you,” I said.
Hannah looked at me in astonishment.
“How queer you are, Dumps!” she said. “I don’t know that I didn’t like you twice as well in the old times, though you have plumped out like anything. You were a very plain little creature, I will say that. But there! handsome is that handsome does.”
“And did I behave so handsomely, Hannah? You were always finding fault with me then.”
“Drat you!” said Hannah, “you were a bit of a caution – you and them boys. Oh dear me! don’t I remember the darkness in the old times? And now it’s just a blaze of light – gas every where, big fires, big j’ints, poultry, game, fish. My word! and the sweets are enough to make your mouth water. And I has to superintend, and it’s ‘Mrs Joyce’ here and ‘Mrs Joyce’ there. My word! My word!”
“Do they call you Mrs Joyce?”
“Of course they do. I wouldn’t allow anything else. But there, child, I must be off. It’s a’most time for us to sit down to our dinner; nothing less, I can assure you, than veal and ham pie, and apple-dumplings afterwards.”
“But, Hannah, you never were good at apple-dumplings, you know.”
“I am now. I have everything to make them with – that’s what I have; and I had nothing afore. Oh, my word!”
