Kitabı oku: «Dumps – A Plain Girl», sayfa 9
Part 1, Chapter XIV
The Professor’s Return
When Sunday morning dawned the place was, according to Hannah’s ideas, in perfect order. She had not got in any one to help her, and I am afraid she must have been nearly dropping with fatigue. She allowed me to dust a little, but would not permit me to do any harder work.
“No, no,” she said – “no, no; you’re the young lady, and I’m a poor drudge. It’s right that the drudge should work, and not the young lady.”
I proceeded to try to remind her that she had not considered my young ladyhood much in the past.
“Things is different now,” said Hannah. “I have got to look after you now.”
“But why so?” I asked.
“I had a dream in the night,” she said. “Your poor mother come to me, and she said, ‘Don’t leave my children, Hannah.’ Oh dear! oh dear! she as was killed – as was killed!”
To my amazement, Hannah burst out crying. When she cried I rushed to her and flung my arms round her neck and cried also.
“Oh, I am so glad you won’t leave us!” I said. I felt like a most terrible little martyr, and Hannah’s sympathy soothed me inexpressibly.
That evening – it was Saturday – I told Alex and Charley and Von Marlo about Hannah’s dream.
“Rot, I call it!” said Charley.
“Oh Charley, you are very unkind!”
“Well, I’m sure,” said Charley, “why should she have been so cross and disobliging when we really wanted somebody – when we had no sort of mother? Now that we’re going to have that jolly, fat, round woman to look after us and to see to our comforts, Hannah is beginning to find out what her duties are.”
“Things will work themselves right,” said Von Marlo in his solemn way. “Take my word for it, Rachel, things will shape themselves right.”
I didn’t think Von Marlo half so comforting as Hannah on this occasion, and I almost said so, for I felt very snappish.
That night I scarcely slept at all. To-morrow would find us with that detestable person in the house – “the new mamma.” Of course, she wasn’t my mamma, but the world would speak of her in that manner, just as Von Marlo had once done. He would never say those words to my face again.
I went to church on Sunday morning, accompanied by Alex and Charley. As we were coming back Augusta Moore rushed up to me.
“I thought you were very ill,” she said. “We all thought so – Miss Franklin, your form mistress, and all.”
“I’m not a bit ill,” I said. I did not want Augusta’s sympathy, or, indeed, to say anything at all to her just then.
“Then why didn’t you come to school?”
I was silent. Augusta took my hand. She pulled it through her arm.
“I think I understand,” she said. “You were ill in mind; that is the worst sort of illness, isn’t it?”
She glanced round at Mrs Moore, who was trotting along behind.
“Go home, mother; I’ll follow you.”
“You’ll lose yourself, Gussie.”
“Don’t call me Gussie. I’ll follow you.”
Mrs Moore said something to me; she was quite nice and commonplace, and did not allude to the subject of the “new mamma.”
Presently Augusta and I found ourselves alone, for the boys the moment they saw her had taken precious good care to make themselves scarce. We walked on slowly.
“I should like to see your house,” said Augusta.
“You can if you wish to,” I replied.
I took her in, and the moment she got into the hall she began to sniff.
“What is the matter?” I asked.
“Books!” she said. “Old leather! How I envy that woman!”
“What woman?”
“That commonplace person who has dared to marry your father.”
“Oh well, Augusta, we had better not talk of that.”
“Not talk of it? Why, it’s a weight on my mind always. I only trust she won’t make him fall off. Rachel – Rachel Grant – you have a very solemn responsibility before you.”
“What is that?”
“The commonplace woman can do nothing, but you can do a great deal.”
“In what way?”
“You, who are his child, must partake in some way of his nature.”
“I never had the slightest influence on father,” I responded. “I think he often forgets that I exist. I shall certainly have less influence than ever now.”
“You have influence, but you won’t use it. Oh that I were his daughter!”
Augusta began to sniff again. Charley came into the room at that moment.
“I thought dinner was served,” he said.
He looked at Augusta.
“How do you do?” she said. “You are the son of the greatest of men.”
“Bosh!” said Charley. He backed towards the door. “I thought,” he said, glancing from me to Augusta, and then from Augusta to me again, “that dinner was on the table, and that you were sniffing the good smell.”
“Books! Books!” said Augusta.
Charley vanished.
“Take me to his library,” said Augusta. “Just let me walk round it once, will you?”
“Oh yes, if you like,” I replied.
I took her round. She stepped softly in veneration. She took up a volume; she seated herself on a chair; she opened it; she was lost.
“Augusta,” I said.
There was not the most remote movement on her part.
“Augusta!” I said again.
Her lips quivered. She was repeating something softly under her breath.
“Come,” I cried, “it is time for you to go home to your dinner, and it is time for us to eat ours. Get up! Awake!”
No stir of any sort. Violent measures were necessary. I snatched the hook from her hand, and in so doing upset the stool on which she was sitting. To have her book taken away and her seat removed from under her was sufficient to wake even Augusta Moore. She rubbed her eyes and said, “Where was I?”
“Where you have no right to be,” I said. “You really must go.”
“But you will keep him up to the mark; you will take my advice, won’t you?”
“I tell you what,” I said cheerfully; “if I can possibly manage it, I will introduce you to him, and you shall talk to him. If you feel that he is so near you – so like you in all respects – you will have much more influence over him than I should, and you will be able to keep him up to the mark yourself.”
The next minute I had repented of my hastily formed decision, for Augusta’s long, thin arms were round my neck, and she was hugging me and kissing me on my cheeks, and then hugging me again with frantic energy.
“Oh, you dear! You love! You beautiful creature! Oh! oh! oh! To think of it! To think of it!”
“Dinner is served,” said Charley, just poking his head round the door and then vanishing.
At last I got rid of Augusta. When I arrived in the dining-room Charley asked me if I had had a mad girl in the house who had broken loose from an asylum. I replied with dignity that she was a very clever girl, and then we proceeded to our meal.
The meal itself was quite plain – the usual sort – a piece of boiled beef, carrots floating in gravy round it, and a few boiled potatoes. These were to be followed by one of Hannah’s apple-dumplings. Now, apple-dumplings are supposed to be very good things, but I cannot say that Hannah’s recipe was worth preserving. The pastry was always very hard, and the apples were never done enough; in short, we were all tired of them.
“I can’t imagine why the thing that smells so jolly good doesn’t come upstairs,” said Charley. “It’s too bad – it’s worse than bad.”
“Oh no,” I answered; “don’t say that, Charley. Hannah is keeping it for supper. She is going to have a surprise supper; I know it for I saw the cake.”
“The cake!” cried Charley. “A cake made by Hannah?”
“Yes; and I can tell you it did smell pretty good. Oh, didn’t it just!” I smacked my lips in anticipation.
“I suppose we’ll have to make this do,” said Alex gloomily, helping himself to another slice of tough beef.
Our conversation filtered away into mere nothings, then into monosyllables; then it tailed off into utter silence. We were all very depressed, and yet we were excited; we wanted we knew not what; we were afraid, we could not tell of what. Each one of us had a sense that things could never be the same again, that we were eating our humble dinner and looking each into the humble face of the other for the last time. Everything from that hour forward would be different. Would the change be for the better? No, it could not be for the better. A change, however, we were certain was coming. We did not speak of it; we sat very still.
At last the boys said they would go for a walk; they did not ask me to accompany them, nor did I offer to go. I ran up to my own room. I took the pretty dark-blue dress which Miss Grace Donnithorne had given me. I took the jacket, the little shoes, the stockings, all the things which she had showered upon me when I was at Hedgerow House, and I put them into the trunk which she had also presented me with – the pretty trunk which I had been so proud of, and which bore my initials, R.G. On the top of all the things I put a card with the words, “Returned with thanks – Rachel Grant,” written upon it. This little trunk I myself conveyed to the bedroom which had been got ready for the Professor and his wife. There was no attempt at making this room pretty, but a huge fire burned in the grate, and that alone had a certain cheerfulness about it. I put the little trunk at the foot of the bed. I did not know what would happen. I felt afraid; nevertheless, I was quite determined to let Miss Grace Donnithorne – Mrs Grant, as she was now – know how things really stood.
At last the time came for me to make myself look as well as I could to meet my father and his wife. I put on the blue evening-dress which I had outgrown, brushed out my long hair, and went down to the parlour. The parlour certainly looked very smart. Its central table alone was worth the greatest admiration. There was a white cloth – very white indeed – in fact, dazzlingly so; and the crockery (I cannot call it by the name of china) seemed to me quite amazing. It did not matter that none of the glass matched, and that there were plates of various sorts, but what was all-important was the fact that the board groaned with goodly fare. There was a huge piece of cold roast beef, a salad made according to an old-fashioned recipe of Hannah’s, a cake (frosted) in the centre of the table, some jellies, some fruit, a pair of roast fowls, and a ham. Oh, when before had the old house close to the college seen such a feast?
Standing at the head of the table, with his arms folded and his eyes fixed upon the goodly fare, was Alex; and standing at the foot of the table, in precisely the same attitude, was Charley. They did not move when I came in, and I did not speak, but went and stood at one of the sides. Hannah bustled into the room.
“They’ll be here in a few minutes, children,” she said; “and don’t forget that I’m here to take your parts. Bless you, poor orphans – bless you!”
Then she disappeared downstairs.
“Oh dear! Oh dear!” I said.
“For goodness’ sake,” said Alex, moving away from the table, “don’t begin to snivel, whatever you do, Dumps. She’s a mighty silly old woman.”
“Oh, what a supper!” said Charley.
He gave a sigh of profound satisfaction. After a minute he said, “Whatever sort of a step-mother she is, I am going to eat! I say, what a supper!”
He had scarcely uttered the words before the sound of a cab stopping outside the front door was distinctly heard.
“Shall we all go into the hall?” asked Alex.
“I’m not going to stir,” I answered.
“Nor I,” said Charley. “I can’t keep my eyes off the supper. I’m awfully afraid it’s a sort of fairy feast, and will vanish if I don’t keep gazing and gazing at it.”
The bell was pulled violently. Hannah came hurrying up the stairs. She bustled into the hall. Charley went on tiptoe to the door of the parlour. He came back again on tiptoe, with his eyes rounder than ever.
“What do you think?” he said. “Hannah has got a white satin favour pinned upon her dress. Would you believe it? What a turncoat she is!”
“She’s not,” I answered. “She had to do it. We must be outwardly civil.”
“Yes, yes; that’s it,” said Alex.
“And for the sake of the supper it’s worth while,” said Charley.
The hall door was opened. My father’s step was heard coming in; this was followed by a lighter, much younger step. Then a cheerful voice said, “Well, here we are. – And you are Hannah, I think? I have often heard of you.”
“The hypocrite!” I muttered; but Alex said, “Hush! Remember our compact.”
“I have often heard of you,” said the cheerful voice. “How do you do?”
Hannah’s reply was so muttered that it could not be heard in the parlour. Then father said, “Where are the children? Dumps! Alex! Charley! Come along at once!”
We all made a rush to the parlour door. We had to rush or we should not have moved at all. We went into the hall. I felt at that supreme moment that if I had not known Miss Grace Donnithorne in the past, and had not really liked her very much, not to say almost loved her, I could have borne my present position better. But having already known her, the present position was almost unbearable. Nevertheless, things that seem unbearable have now and then to be faced in life. My father called in his cheerful tones, “Well, children, well! here we are back. Here’s your new mother. I trust you will all be as dutiful as she deserves. I am sure it is very good of her to come and look after such harum-scarums as you are. Now then, Dumps, you give her a right royal welcome.”
“How do you do?” I said.
I held out my hand. The kindest – oh yes, I must say the words – the kindest eyes in the world looked anxiously into mine; the pleasant mouth relaxed as though it was preparing to smile; then it became grave, but its expression was as sweet as ever.
“How are you, Rachel?” said she who used to be Miss Grace Donnithorne. She bent forward and gave me a light kiss – not the affectionate embrace she had bestowed upon me once or twice when I was at Hedgerow House.
“Take your mother upstairs, Dumps. Take her and show her her bedroom,” said father. “Come along, you two boys; just come and tell me all that has been happening at the college. My goodness, what an age it seems since I went away!”
Father’s tone and the mighty sigh of relief he gave did more to compose my nerves than anything else. Miss Grace Donnithorne had not changed him. I went up the stairs saying to myself, “She is not my father’s wife. She is only Miss Grace Donnithorne, a stoutish lady, middle-aged, quite nice and fat and pleasant; she is not father’s wife.”
All the time these thoughts kept coming and going in my brain; but the lady who followed me did not speak at all. That was quite unlike Miss Donnithorne’s way.
I opened the door of the big room. The fire had almost burnt itself out; the room in consequence was cold. There was no gas of any sort in this huge chamber; two poor, solitary candles had been placed on the high mantelshelf, but had not been lighted.
“Dear me!” said the lady – and there was no mistaking the matter-of-fact voice – “but this room is too cold for your father. Come along. Dumps, you and I must see to this at once. Where can we get coals? Oh, this hod is empty. Get some matches quickly, child, and some hot water. Your father must have hot water, and we must have this fire made up. Dear, dear! Dumps, our hands will be full. He is a very precious man, you know, but a handful – a good bit of a handful – more than one child could possibly manage, and more than one woman can manage, but between us, Dumps – ”
She took up the poker, and the fire was soon blazing again. Candles were lit in a trice. Hannah appeared with a great jug of hot water.
“Where would you wish your hot water to be placed, Mrs Grant?” she said. Her tone was very precise. There was a red spot on one of her cheeks; the other was deadly pale. But the white satin favour! What possessed her to wear it? It stood out with an aggravating stare on her dark dress.
The new Mrs Grant turned at once.
“Put it here by the wash-hand stand,” she said; “and bring some more coals, please. This fire is not nearly large enough. The room is chilly.”
She spoke very cheerfully. Hannah left the room at once. Just at that moment there came a knock at the door.
“Father says that supper is ready,” said Charley’s voice.
“Oh, I haven’t spoken to you, Charley,” said Mrs Grant.
She went to the door, took his hand, and wrung it.
“Good boy,” she said. “You will help me all you can.”
I saw him gazing at her very hard; then he went downstairs, almost like a flash. I wondered what he was going to say to Alex.
Meanwhile I stood silent by the fire. Miss Grace Donnithorne, that was, faced me. She had removed her hat and taken off her jacket. She had a little comb in her pocket; with this she smoothed out her hair. She went to the wash-stand and washed her hands. Hannah appeared with the coals.
“Put a good many on, please, Hannah. I want the room to be quite warm,” said the new mistress.
Hannah obeyed. The late Miss Grace Donnithorne looked round the room.
“Much too large,” she said.
“All the rooms are large in this house,” I answered.
“Oh, we’ll choose a cosier one than this – eh, Dumps?” she said.
“Can’t find one in this house,” was my response.
“Well, this will do for to-night.”
She looked at me. The kindness in her eyes seemed kinder than ever. It would have been difficult, had she not been my step-mother, to resist her; but being my step-mother, I stood very cold and still, responding quite civilly when she spoke, but not offering any advances on my part.
She had washed her hands now, and the fire was blazing brightly. She poured some hot water into a basin.
“This is for the Professor,” she said. “He must warm himself. He is very cold, dear man! He is a very precious creature, and – ”
I wished she would not talk of him like that. I felt a sense of irritation. Then I looked at her and the irritation vanished.
“The boys are so hungry,” I said.
“And so am I,” she replied, with a laugh; “and your dear father is too. My dear Dumps, he has a ravenous appetite. That is a great relief to me. He hasn’t the faintest idea how much he eats, but it’s that that keeps him going. He eats without knowing that he is eating. But he mustn’t go on doing that. I am certain he bolts his food, and that will mean indigestion by-and-by. And indigestion breaks up life. You and I have a great deal on our hands.”
Then there was a dead pause.
“Dumps dear,” she said, coming nearer.
In another minute perhaps she might have said something, and all that followed need never have been written; just at that moment she laid her hand on my shoulder, but before she could utter the words, whatever they were, that were trembling on her lips, her eyes fell on the little trunk – on the little leather trunk with my initials, R.G., on the lid. She could not mistake it. She gave a start; into her comely cheeks there flamed a vivid red. She bent down without a word and opened the trunk. She looked at the contents, took up the card which I had laid on the top and read it. Then she laid it back again very quietly, without uttering a syllable, and closed the lid of the little trunk. Then she turned to me.
“Shall we go down to supper?” she said. Her voice was quite cheerful. But there was a wall of ice between us.
Part 2, Chapter I
The New Order of Things
Of course, my step-mother made a great change in the house. I cannot exactly describe how things were gradually altered, and how the desolate old mansion became a habitable and cheerful home. But it certainly was completely metamorphosed. The old régime with regard to fires was the first change. Mrs Grant said that such a big, empty, rambling place must be kept thoroughly warmed in winter. Accordingly, in the dining-room a fire always blazed, and was kept well piled up with solid lumps of shining black coal of the very best Silkstone, which Hannah would never dream of affording in the old days. Then into my bedroom and into the boys’ bedroom were introduced wonderful new gas-stoves, which gave not the slightest smell, but which could be lit at a moment’s notice, and would make the bedrooms thoroughly warm and comfortable.
But I no longer slept in my attic. I had struggled hard against Mrs Grant’s wish to move me into another part of the house, but in the end I yielded, and now I had a pretty room, brightly papered and nicely furnished, on the floor just above the drawing-room.
“Why,” said my step-mother, “we do not need to use those desolate attics at all. This room will do for Alex, this for Charley, and this for Dumps; and this, when we have visitors, for the spare room. Hannah and the other servants can sleep upstairs. For you, children, this ought to be your floor, and it shall be,” continued the little lady, speaking with that spirit which always characterised her.
As to the boys, they were delighted with their new rooms. They were furnished exceedingly simply; indeed, they looked quite bare enough to make most people consider them somewhat hermit-like sort of sleeping apartments; but then those people had never visited the attics where Alex and Charley used to sleep.
“These rooms are quite good enough for boys; you mustn’t pamper boys, whatever happens,” said Mrs Grant. “Girls are different; girls need softer treatment.”
But her most delightful innovation was the introduction into the house of two excellent servants to help Hannah. There had been, I have not the slightest doubt of it, a very terrible scene in the kitchen when Mrs Grant interviewed Hannah. Hannah was not visible at all for the rest of the day, and my step-mother and I went out for our meals.
On the next day Hannah came upstairs and said she wished to speak to Mrs Grant. They had a long conference, and when Hannah came out of her presence, the eyes of that good woman were very red, but she succumbed without a word.
A new range was now put into the kitchen, a boy came every morning to help Hannah with the heaviest part of her work, an excellent housemaid attended to the bedrooms, and a first-rate parlour-maid opened the hall door and served up our meals. In short, we were a new family.
The drawing-room, however, had not yet been touched. I wondered what Mrs Grant would make of the drawing-room. I did not like to question her. I was quite good – outwardly good, I mean – all this time to my step-mother, but we did not come a bit nearer to each other. The little trunk with the letters R.G. on the cover seemed to stand between my heart and her heart. Nevertheless, we chatted together all day long, and planned how we would meet this contingency and the other, and what surprises we would give to father, and how we could manage things.
One day about six weeks after father’s second marriage Mrs Grant came to me. She had a pleased and delighted expression on her face.
“Rachel, my dear child,” she said, “how old are you?”
“I shall be sixteen on my birthday, and my birthday comes in May. It is a long way off yet.”
Then I gave a sigh, and felt a sudden contraction of my heart.
“Well, anyhow, dear, this is Quarter Day, the 21st of December. I have been speaking to your father, and he means to give you a dress allowance.”
“A what?” I said.
“A dress allowance, dear. You must, you know, have clothes suitable to your father’s daughter. Here is the first quarter’s money.”
She put two crisp Bank of England notes, worth five pounds each, into my hand. I started; I coloured crimson; I looked at the money.
“But I – I don’t know what to do with this,” I said.
“Oh yes, you will know very well what to do with it. Now the question is, would you like me to help you to choose some pretty dresses, or would you rather manage the whole affair yourself?”
Again there was that pathetic expression in her eyes which I had seen for a minute or two before. She was looking at me very earnestly. I was about to say, “Oh, will you help me to choose, for I don’t know anything about dress?” when I remembered the pretty dark-blue dress with the grey fur. That dress, which I always felt had been given me under false pretences, seemed to rise up now to slay the feeling of kindness which, in spite of everything, I could not help entertaining for my step-mother in my heart. “If you don’t greatly mind,” I said, “perhaps this first time I had better choose my own dresses.”
“As you like, dear, of course; but you mustn’t go alone. You might ask one of your schoolfellows to go with you. And, Dumps dear, ask as many of your friends in to tea as you like on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday afternoons; those are your half-holidays, and you can go to visit those whom I like you to know also on those days. I want you to have a very pleasant life, my dear child.”
“Thank you,” I answered.
“You understand, Rachel, that my wish is to make you happy.”
“I am sure of it,” I said.
“And you are happy?”
“I am comfortable,” I said.
I folded the money up.
“I will thank father when I see him. It is exceedingly kind of him,” I said.
“I wouldn’t worry him,” said Mrs Grant. She looked at me a little anxiously.
“But why not?”
“He has forgotten all about it by now. It is unfair to disturb a man of his nature with these trivial details.”
I slipped the notes into my pocket. “Have you no purse, dear?”
“Upstairs,” I said.
“Well, be careful of the money. Don’t lose it.”
“I’ll be very careful; thank you so much.”
I went out into the hall. Charley was there.
“I say, Dumps!”
“What is it, Charley?”
“Von Marlo and I have been talking about the new mamma.”
“You are not to call her that.”
“But I say she is, you know; and Von and I, we say – ”
“I don’t want to hear.”
“But you shall – you must! We say she is awfully jolly – just A1, A1 – and that – ”
But I rushed past. There was a choking lump in my throat; in another minute I should have burst into tears.
I managed to reach my own pretty new bedroom without disgracing myself. I shut and locked the door and stood in the centre of the room. The crisp five-pound notes rustled in my pocket, but I, Dumps – in other words, Rachel Grant – stamped my foot. I was in an absolute passion. I did not know why I felt so thoroughly angry.
What unreasonable creatures girls are! Three months ago I would have given anything for my present surroundings and my present prospects: I, who hardly ever had a penny of my own; I, who was only half-fed and only half-clothed, who was desolate, without a real friend in the world; for my father – my dear old father – lived for ever and ever in Wonderland, and no one could bring him bock from that strange country, where he dwelt with other geniuses of his kind, and I and the boys had to suffer; and Hannah, notwithstanding her protestations, neglected us so shamefully that the wonder was we were not ill. All of a sudden, however, “Open sesame!” and behold a new order of things! The old order had given way to the new. We were clothed; we were fed; we were considered; we were treated with kindness; our wants were attended to, our little trials sympathised with. In short, love in the true sense of the word had come into the house; the genius of Wonderment had taken to himself the genius of Order and Motherly Kindness, and this latter genius had made the whole house home-like and happy.
But I, at least, was not prepared to take into my heart this good fairy whom the good queen of all the fairies had sent to us. I stood in my pretty room which my step-mother had arranged for me, and felt as angry and as bitter as girl could feel.
By-and-by there came a cheerful sound on the stairs. My step-mother knocked at the door.
“Augusta Moore is downstairs and would like to see you, Dumps,” she said. “It is a beautiful, sunshiny morning, and you may as well go out with her.”
I suddenly remembered that I had neglected Augusta a good deal of late; that she had often come to the house and I had hardly spoken to her. I further remembered that, this being the 21st of December, the holidays had begun. Our big school had broken up on the 20th, but the boys’ college would break up to-morrow. Christmas would be with us in no time, and Christmas was to be spent in Hedgerow House.
That was the treat of all treats which was turning the heads of both the boys. I was to go, Alex was to go, Charley was to go, and Von Marlo was to go. He was alone at the school, and Mrs Grant, with her kind and open-hearted hospitality, had invited him.
“It is to be my Christmas present to you all, to have you in my house,” she said. “I am sure you will enjoy yourselves vastly.”
Now surely, with such a prospect in view, any girl would be a perfect goose if she were not happy, and I do not think many girls will sympathise with Rachel Grant at this moment. I was making a martyr of myself because I thought it not right to my mother’s memory to receive this new mamma in her place; and yet, if the truth must be told, although I had often pined for my mother, there were days and months, and perhaps even years, when I had forgotten her very existence. She was out of the world before I had time to remember her face. That was my position with regard to my real mother in the past, but from the hour when I had heard that father was about to bring a new wife to the old house, and after he had given me my mother’s miniature, I worshipped her, I kept her always in my memory, and I felt that the more I withdrew my heart from the “new mamma,” to quote Von Marlo’s hideous phrase, the more I showed my love and tenderness for the real mother. Perhaps there are other girls made like that; if so, I should like to show them once for all how exceedingly silly, how exceedingly unpractical and ungrateful, I was. For this story would be worthless if it were not told truthfully.
I got over my passion after a time. I kept repeating to myself, “Odious fellow, Von Marlo! The new mamma A1 indeed! A1!” I wished he would not talk to Charley and corrupt him with his wrong ideas.
Then I slipped the ten pounds which my step-mother had given me into my purse, and put the purse into my pocket. I dressed myself in the warm clothes which I now had to wear – and which my father, of course, had given me – and I went slowly downstairs.
Augusta was waiting in the drawing-room. She was sitting near the fire; she was talking to my step-mother. As I entered the room I heard my step-mother say, “I think it can be managed, Augusta. It would be a great pleasure for you, and if it is really the case that your mother would like to spend Christmas with your uncle Charles, why – Oh, here you are, Dumps!”
