Kitabı oku: «Dumps – A Plain Girl», sayfa 8
Part 1, Chapter XII
Discussing the New Mother
It was not I, after all, who told the boys Hannah was the person who gave them that piece of information. I did not come downstairs for the watery stew which she had prepared for them. Doubtless she would tell the boys that I had swallowed the spirit of that stew and left them the poor material body. She would make the most of my conduct, for she was very angry with me. But by-and-by there came a knock at my door, and I heard Alex’s voice, and he said, “Oh, do open the door and let me in! Please let me in, Rachel.”
He so seldom called me by that name that I got up, went to the door, and flung it open. Alex’s face was very pale, and his hair was rumpled up over his forehead, but he had not been crying at all. I don’t suppose boys do cry much; but the moment I glanced at him I knew that Hannah had told him.
He took my hand.
“My word,” he said, “how cold you are! And I can scarcely see your eyes. You’ll have a bad inflammation if you give way like this. Where’s the use? Come along downstairs.”
He took my hand, and we raced down together. When we got down I clung to him and said, “Kiss me, Alex.”
“Why, of course I will, Dumps.”
He kissed me twice on my forehead, and I knew by the trembling of his lips that he was feeling things a good bit.
“Hannah has told you?” I said.
“She has. But she isn’t coming upstairs again to-day.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Charley, you can explain to Dumps.”
Charley was standing by the fire. He was a very solidly made boy, not nearly so handsome as Alex, who was tall and slight, with regular features and beautiful eyes. Charley was in some respects like me, only very much better-looking.
“Oh,” said Charley, “she began talking in a way we couldn’t stand about the Professor, so we just took her by the shoulders and brought her to the top of the stairs. She said she was going out, and wouldn’t be back until to-night – or perhaps never.”
“Oh, you haven’t turned her away?” I said; for although Hannah was very troublesome and most disagreeable, and was certainly the last person to conciliate the disturbed state of the household and bring peace out of disorder, I could not bear the idea of her not being there.
“She’ll come back, right enough. I tell you what it is, Dumps,” said Alex; “we’re – we’re a bit stunned. Of course, it’s rather awkward, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know that it is,” said Charley. “He could always do as he liked, couldn’t he? I mean he never thought much about us, did he?”
“Oh, don’t blame him now,” I said.
“I don’t want to – I only want you to understand. Father always did what he liked. Hannah was dreadful; she spoke as she ought not to speak. It is just as well she should go out and let the open air smooth away some of her grievances. I do not see that it matters to her; he is not her father.”
“No, it doesn’t really matter to her; and yet it does matter in another sense,” I said.
Charley turned round.
“When are they coming back?” was his next remark.
“I think on Sunday evening.”
“Well, this is Thursday. We have got to-day and to-morrow and Saturday and Sunday. We have got four whole days. Let us have some fun. How much of your five shillings have you left. Dumps?”
“I don’t care,” I said.
“That’s nonsense. – Alex, push her into that chair. – Now, how much money have you got?”
“I’ve got it all,” I said.
“All of it?”
“Yes, every farthing. I had a few pence over which paid for the Twopenny Tube yesterday; I have not broken into the five shillings at all.”
“We spent one and sixpence each last night, so you owe each of us a bit, because you enjoyed the supper just as much as we did.”
“Oh yes.”
“Let us have something good for tea. You can go out and buy it. You can spend your share on that. And I’ll bring Von Marlo in, and we’ll have a chat, and perhaps we’ll go somewhere to-night. Why shouldn’t we?”
“Oh Charley, where?”
“Well, I was thinking of the pit of one of the theatres.”
This was such a daring, such an unheard-of suggestion that it really took my breath away.
“Do you think we might?”
“Why not? Von Marlo would love it. We four could go. We three big boys could take care of one dumpy girl, I’m sure. There’s a jolly thing on at the Adelphi. I love the Adelphi, for it’s all blood and thunder. Don’t you like it best of all, Alex?”
“Well, you see, I’ve never been to a theatre in the whole course of my life,” said Alex.
“Except once to the pantomime,” I said. “You remember that?”
“Who cares for the pantomime?” said Charley.
“Very well, we’ll go to the Adelphi,” I said. “But I hope it won’t be very frightening.”
“It will scare you out of your seven senses; I know it will. But I tell you what it will do also,” continued Charley – “it will make you forget; and if you remember at all, you have but to squeeze the thought up in your heart that you have got three more whole days, or nearly three whole days, before she comes in.”
“All right,” I said; “I’ll get something for tea.”
“And we must be off to school,” said Alex. “The Professor’s away, and when the cat’s away the mice will play.”
“Oh Alex, you oughtn’t to compare father to a cat!”
“Never mind; Hannah isn’t here. If she were here we’d round on her fast enough. Now then, good girl, eat some bread-and-butter, for you weren’t down to that dinner of horrid stew. Hannah said that you’d supped up all the gravy. Jolly mean, I call it. But there! we’ll be back about half-past four. Then we’ll have tea, and hurry off to the theatre afterwards.”
The boys left the house, and I was quite alone. Yes, there was nothing like occupation. I put on my hat and jacket and went out. I bought golden syrup – the darkest sort – we all loved that; and I bought a loaf of crispy new bread, and half a pound of butter. Then I got a currant-cake and a small – very small – tin of sardines. The meal would be delicious.
I returned home. I entered the parlour and put the kettle on to boil. Then I went down to the neglected kitchen. The fire was out in the little range, the doors of which stood open wide. There was no sign of Hannah anywhere. I went to the kitchen door, and saw that it was locked. There was no key in the lock; she had doubtless taken it with her. This fact relieved me, for I knew that she was coming bock, otherwise she would most certainly have left the key behind.
I selected the best of the cups and saucers, choosing with difficulty, for there were few that were not either deprived of handles or with pieces cracked out of the rims. It was a nondescript set when presently it appeared on the table, and the cloth which I spread on it to lay out our meal was none of the cleanest. But there was the golden syrup, and the crispy loaf, and the butter, which I knew was good; and there was the tin of sardines.
Punctual to the minute, at half-past four, the three boys made their appearance. Von Marlo had been told. He came straight up to me and took my hand. He did not speak; but the next minute he put his hand into his waistcoat pocket and took from it a knife. This knife was a curious one; it seemed to contain every possible tool that any human being could require in his journey from the cradle to the grave. With one of the instruments in it he speedily opened the tin of sardines; then he himself made the tea, and when it was made he drew chairs up to the table and said, “Come and eat.”
We all fell upon the provisions in a ravenous fashion. Oh dear! even when you are in great trouble it is good to be hungry – good to be hungry when you have the means of satisfying your appetite. I felt downright starving with hunger that evening. I drank the hot tea, and ate bread-and-butter and golden syrup, and left the sardines for the boys, who made short work of them.
At last we were all satisfied, and we talked over the matter of the theatre. We must be standing outside not a minute later than seven o’clock. Von Marlo would keep at my right, and Alex at my left, and Charley would be my bodyguard behind. When the rush came we would surely be in the front rank, and we would get good seats. The scenes of the play would be most harrowing; there was a secret murder in it, and a duel, and one or two other extreme horrors. The boys said it was of the sensational order, and Alex wound up with the remark that we could not possibly stand anything else to-night.
Then there fell a silence upon us. We need not go to the Adelphi yet; it was not very far from where we lived. We could get there in a few minutes. There was more than an hour between us and the desirable moment when we were to steal like thieves in the night from our father’s respectable house to go to that place of iniquity, the pit at the Adelphi. For, of course, it was very naughty of us to go. Our father himself would not have thought it right to allow children to partake of these worldly pleasures.
In the silence that ensued the pain at my heart began again. It was then Von Marlo made his remark.
“I think,” he said, “it would be exceedingly interesting if Miss Rachel would tell us exactly what the new mamma is like.”
Nothing could be more intensely aggravating than those words, “the new mamma,” had they fallen from any lips but Von Marlo’s. But the peculiar foreign intonation he gave the words caused us three to burst out laughing.
“You must never say those words again – never as long as you live, Von Marlo,” cried Alex, while Charley sprang upon him and did his very best to knock him off his chair.
“Come, come! no violence,” I said. “Please understand, Mr Von Marlo, that the lady who has married our father is not our new mamma.”
“I am sorry, I am sure,” said Von Marlo. “I won’t call her that any more – never; I am certain of that. But, all the same, if she is coming to live here, what is she like? You have seen her, Miss Rachel; you can describe her.”
“Yes, you may as well tell us about her,” said Charley. “I suppose she is precious ugly. Catch father choosing a woman with good looks! Why, he doesn’t know blue eyes from brown, or a straight nose from a crooked one, or a large mouth from a small one. He never looks at any woman; I can’t imagine how he got hold of her.”
“Hannah said,” remarked Alex, “that she got hold of him.”
“Well, surely that doesn’t matter,” said Von Marlo. “Describe her, Miss Rachel.”
“I will if you wish it,” I answered.
“Yes, do,” said Charley. “You have seen quite a lot of her.”
“I must be honest at all costs,” I said, “and if she had not married father – yes, it is quite true – I’d have liked her. She is what you would – I mean she was– I don’t suppose she is now, for when people are dreadfully wicked they change, don’t they? But before she was wicked – before she married father – she was a very – very – well, a very jolly sort of woman.”
“Jolly?” said Charley. “I like that! How do you mean jolly?”
“Round and fattish – not too fat – with laughing eyes.”
“We haven’t much of laughing eyes in this house,” said Alex.
“Well, her eyes seem to be always laughing, even when her face is grave; and she makes delicious things to eat – at least she did make them.”
“Let’s hope she has not lost the art,” said Alex. “If we must have her in the family, let us trust that she has at least some merits. Good things to eat? What sort?”
I described the food at Hedgerow House, and described it well. I then went on to speak of the stuffed birds. The boys were wildly excited. I spoke of other things, and gave them a very full and true account of Miss Grace Donnithorne.
“It seems to me she must be a splendid sort of woman,” said Alex.
“Hurrah for Miss Grace Donnithorne!” said Charley. “She must be a most charming lady,” said Von Marlo in his precise way.
Then I sprang to my feet.
“Now listen,” I said. “I have told you about her as she was. When I saw her she had not done this wicked thing.”
“But she was going to do it; she had made up her mind pretty straight,” said Alex.
“Well, she hadn’t done it, and that makes all the difference,” I said stoutly. “She will be changed; I know she will be changed.”
“I hope she won’t have got thin (I’m sick of Hannah’s sort of figure) and cross and churlish and miserly,” said Charley.
“I don’t think so,” I answered. “I don’t suppose she’ll be as changed as all that; but, anyhow, I know – ”
“I tell you what,” interrupted Von Marlo; “she is coming here, and nothing living will stop her.”
“That’s true enough,” I said gloomily.
“Then can’t you three be sensible?”
“What do you mean now, Von?” said the boys.
“Why can’t you make the best of it? Don’t hunt the poor lady into her grave by being snappish and making the worst of everything. Just give her a fair trial – start her honest, don’t you understand?”
Alex stared; Charley blinked his eyes.
I said slowly, “I don’t mean to be unkind; I mean to be kind. I am not going to say a word to father – I mean not a word of reproach – ”
“Much use if you did!” muttered Alex.
“But, all the same,” I said very distinctly, “not for a single instant will I love her. She can come and take her place, and I will try to do what she wishes, but I will never love her – never!”
“Hurrah!” said Charley.
“Quite right, Dumps; you show spirit,” cried Alex.
But Von Marlo looked dissatisfied.
“It doesn’t seem right,” he said. “It doesn’t seem quite fair; and the poor lady hasn’t done you any harm.”
Part 1, Chapter XIII
Putting the House in Order
The play was as lively as any four children could desire. It was called The Grand Duke Alexis; it had a great deal to do with Nihilism and with the Russians generally. There was a very handsome woman in it who had a mission to kill somebody, and a very evil-looking man whose mission it was to get her arrested; and the handsome woman and the wicked man seemed to chase each other on and off the stage, and to mingle up in the plot, and to fasten themselves in some unpleasant manner into my brain. I am sure the boys enjoyed themselves vastly, and there is no doubt that I was interested.
“Your eyes are like the eyes of an owl,” whispered Charley to me; “if they get any rounder they’ll drop out like marbles.”
I was accustomed to this kind of remark, and was too much fascinated with the lovely lady and the man who was trying to arrest her to take any notice of his words. The Grand Duke was certainly the most appallingly wicked person I had ever imagined. Even father’s new wife seemed pale and commonplace and everyday beside him. Even the fact that my own precious mother was superseded by another was of no consequence at all when I recalled to memory that lovely lady’s face, and the face of the man who was trying to have her arrested.
The play came to an end, but when we arrived home Hannah had not yet returned. We let ourselves in, in lordly fashion, with the latchkey. Von Marlo bade us good-bye, and promised to come in again on the following day. He said he would stand by us. He gave my hand an affectionate squeeze.
“Make the best of things,” he said; “there’s a good girl.”
I began to think Von Marlo a very comfortable sort of friend. I wished that he was a girl instead of a boy. I could have been quite fond of him had he been a girl.
We three sat in the parlour; we would not go to bed until Hannah came in. We began to nod presently, and Alex dropped off to sleep. It was past midnight when we heard Hannah’s steps creeping upstairs towards her bedroom. Charley immediately rushed on tiptoe to the parlour door, opened it a tenth of an inch, and peeped out.
“She is off to bed. She is walking as straight as a die. She has got on her best bonnet. I hope she’ll be in a better temper in the morning. Now then, I’m going to follow her example; I’m dead-beat I shall be asleep in a twinkling.”
He went off; his good-humoured, boyish face flashed back at us full of fun. Father’s marriage, the knowledge that there would soon be a lady in the house, whom some people would call his new mamma, did not affect him very deeply.
I went up to Alex and spoke to him.
“You and I will stand shoulder to shoulder, won’t we?” I said.
“Why, yes, Dumps – of course,” he replied.
“I mean,” I said, “that you will do what I do.”
“What do you exactly mean by that?”
“I’m prepared to be quite kind and lady-like, and not to storm or scold or say ugly things, and I want you to do just the same. You will, won’t you? We’ll understand each other. We’ll be most careful, truly, not to put her in dear mother’s place.”
My voice trembled.
“It’s a long time since mother died,” said Alex.
“But, Alex, you remember her.”
“No, I don’t,” said Alex.
“Nor do I,” I said. “Sometimes I try to. But I have got her miniature; father gave it to me. Wouldn’t you like to see it?”
“A miniature? That’s a picture of her, isn’t it? Have you got one?”
“Yes.”
“I knew father had one, but I didn’t know he would part with it.”
“He never would until now.”
“Once,” said Alex, “years ago, he was very ill in bed for a few days, and I went into his room. He was sitting up in bed, and he had a picture in a frame; he was looking at it, and there were tears in his eyes. When he saw me he fired up – you know his hasty sort of way – and stuffed the picture under his pillow. I believe it was mother’s picture he was looking at. He must have loved her then.”
“But he doesn’t love her now,” I said. “He has given the picture to me because he has put another woman in her place.”
“Well, most of them do,” said Alex.
“What do you mean?”
“Most men marry again. There are two masters at our school, and they’ve married again jolly quick – one of them within a year and a half, and the other even in a shorter time. All the fellows were talking about it. It was mighty unfortunate, I can tell you, for we had to subscribe to give them both wedding presents, otherwise we wouldn’t have noticed. They were widowers, and they had no right to do it. It was beastly hard on the boys; that’s what I think.”
“What do you mean?”
“The wedding presents, I mean.”
“Oh Alex! that is a very trivial part of the matter.”
“I expect they’ll collect something jolly for father.”
“Well, we needn’t subscribe,” I said.
“Of course not; that’s the best of it.”
“I hope they won’t,” I said.
“They’re certain to. They just worship him in the school. You haven’t the least idea how popular he is. They just adore him. He’s such a splendid teacher, and so sympathetic over a difficulty. He is a great man, there’s no doubt of that.”
But I was not in a humour to hear his praises.
“Let’s think of our own dear little mother to-night,” I said.
“All right, Rachel.”
“Come up with me to my room and I’ll show you her portrait.”
“All right, old girl.”
We went up together. I thought if Alex would stand my friend – if he would lean on me as a very superior sort of sister, and allow me to take the place of sister and mother – then I could endure things. Father’s new wife might go her own way, and I would go mine. I just wanted Alex at least to understand me. Charley was a good boy, but he was hopeless. Still, I had a vague sort of hope that Alex would keep on my side.
When we got to my room I lit all the bits of candle, and made quite a strong light; and then I opened the miniature frame, and told Alex to kneel down by me and I would show it to him. He looked at it very earnestly. He himself was strangely like the miniature, but I don’t think the likeness struck him particularly. Nevertheless, he had his sensibilities, and his lips quivered, and his soft, gentle brown eyes looked their very softest and gentlest now as they fixed themselves on my face.
“Poor mother!” he said. He bent his head and kissed the glass which covered the pictured face.
I shut up the case hastily.
“You are in rare luck to have it,” he said.
“Yes,” I answered; “it is a great comfort to me. This is mother; this is the woman I love; no other can ever take her place.”
“Of course not,” said Alex. “And some day when I’m rich you’ll let me have it photographed, won’t you?”
“Indeed I will. We’ll stick to our bargain, won’t we, Alex?”
Alex rose to his feet. He yawned slightly.
“I’m dead-tired, and I must go to school to-morrow. I haven’t looked at one of my lessons, but it doesn’t really matter. When the Professor is away marrying, you know, he can’t expect his children to work as hard as they do when he is at home.”
“Oh Alex, Hannah said something dreadful!”
“As though anybody minded what she said!”
“She said that mother – our little, young, pretty mother – was killed. She said mother would have been in the world now if she hadn’t been killed.”
“That’s all stuff!” said Alex. “Why do you speak in that exaggerated sort of way? If she had been killed there would have been a coroner’s inquest and a trial, and the murderer would have been discovered and – and hanged. Why do you talk such rot?”
“Oh, there are many ways of killing a person, and mother died for want of sunshine.”
“Oh, I see. Well, well! good-night.”
He kissed me again and left the room.
During the next day or two I was very busy. Father had said that the house was to be put in order. Now, what that meant I could not tell, but the house on the whole was about in as much order as such a great, desolate, and unfurnished abode could be. But when the next day at breakfast I found a second letter from father on my plate, and when I opened it and read father’s own directions that the spare room was to be got ready for the reception of himself and his wife on the following Sunday, I knew that Hannah and I must come either to open war or to a dismissal of the latter. I went down to the kitchen and told her at once.
“The spare room, forsooth!” she said. “Well, yes, I thought of that last night. Master said it was to be put in order, but he needn’t have written; I’d have seen to it.”
I was greatly relieved at this change of front. Hannah was looking quite gentle. She was moving about in the kitchen in quite an orderly fashion. The little cooking-stove was black instead of grey; there were no ashes to be seen anywhere, and a bright little fire burned in it. There was a pot on, and there was something boiling in the pot, and the thing that boiled and bubbled gave forth a most appetising smell. When I spoke Hannah turned and opened the oven door, and I saw inside a great cake.
“Why, Hannah!” I said.
“It’s only right to have cake and that sort of thing handy,” she said. “Don’t talk nonsense, Dumps. There’s a deal for you and me to do. Be you going to school to-day?”
“No,” I said.
“Why will you keep away?”
“Because I won’t go.”
“You will get a report; your mistress will be very angry.”
“I don’t care,” I said; “I won’t go. I’ll go afterwards. I won’t go this week.”
“Highty-tighty!” said Hannah. “Well, you’ll catch it!”
“Seems to me I’m always catching it,” I said.
“Seems to me you are,” said Hannah.
“Well, Hannah, what about the spare room?”
“I’ll see to it myself. I’ll have it ready.”
“Can I help you, Hannah?”
“No; but you can come and look on if you like.”
“Don’t you want Mrs Herring? She is so strong. Everything should be turned out; the place should be made very clean.”
“I don’t want none of your herrings nor your sprats neither,” replied Hannah in her most aggressive tone. This was a very old joke of Hannah’s.
I went upstairs now. The spare room was on the same landing as the drawing-room, and, as far as I could tell, had never been of any use at all to any single member of the family. Perhaps in mother’s time it had been of service to some long-forgotten guest. The door was always locked. I supposed Hannah had the key. At nights sometimes, when the wind was blowing high, there was a moaning, through the keyhole of that locked door, and there were times when I flew past it up and up and up to my own attic bedroom. But now I stood outside the door. At the other side of the landing was the drawing-room. It was a very big room with three windows. We sat there sometimes when father had his professors, men very nearly as learned as himself – not quite, of course – to visit him.
I went into the drawing-room. It was very ugly, and not nearly as cosy as the parlour. The spare room I had never seen the inside of that I could remember. Hannah came up now, and took a great bunch of keys from her pocket and opened the door, and we went in.
“Oh, how musty it smells!” I said.
“In course it do,” said Hannah. “When a room’s shut up for going on fourteen years, why shouldn’t it smell musty? But there, child! don’t you go and catch your death of cold. The first thing is to air the room and then to light a fire. Afterwards I’ll rub up the furniture and put up clean hangings. It won’t be exactly a cheerful sort of room, but I suppose the master must be content.”
There were grey-looking curtains hanging at the three tall windows. There were green Venetian blinds, which looked almost white now, so covered were they with dust. There was a sort of rough drugget stuff on the floor, which was quite as grey as the curtains which surrounded the windows. There was a huge four-poster bed, drawn out a little from the wall, and taking one of the best positions in the room. This also was hung with grey moreen, and looked as desolate and as uninviting as a couch could look. There was a huge arm-chair, covered also with the same grey moreen; and there were a few other chairs, hard and dirty. There was a very tall brass fender to the grate, which in itself was large and of generous proportions. There was a chest of drawers, made of mahogany, with brass handles; and a huge wardrobe, almost as big as a small house. I really don’t remember the rest of the furniture of the room, except that there were engravings hanging on the walls, and one in particular portraying Herodias bearing the head of John the Baptist on a charger, hanging exactly over the fireplace. The picture was as ghastly as the room.
“I wouldn’t sleep here for the world,” I said.
“Well, you won’t have the chance,” said Hannah. “Now, you can just go out and make yourself useful somewhere else, while I’m beginning to clean up and get things in order.”
