Dumps - A Plain Girl

will like me and notmisunderstand me."

  "But why should I?" I asked.

  "Come into the other room, child," was her remark.

  We went into the room where the stuffed birds were, and Miss Donnithornesat down and poked up the fire.

  Then she said gently, "Does he always talk as much as he did at tea?"

  "Who, Miss Donnithorne?"

  "Your father, my dear."

  "Not always," I answered.

  She gave a sigh of profound thankfulness.

  "But does he at most times?"

  "Most times he is silent," I said, "and we are all silent too. It's therule at home for none of us to speak when the Professor is eating. Ifhe likes he speaks, but none of us does."

  "What do you mean by `none of us'?"

  "The boys and I. We sit very still. It isn't difficult for me, becauseI am accustomed to it; but Alex--he sometimes moves his legs, for theyare so long. Father is annoyed then. Father suffers from headache."

  "No wonder, with such a brain. His learning is colossal!"

  "It is," I said wearily.

  "You admire him very much, don't you, Dumps?"

  "Naturally, because he is my father." But then I added, "I only wish hewasn't so learned. I hate learning, you know. I never mean to belearned."

  Miss Donnithorne laughed, and her favourite expression, "Bless thechild!" burst from her lips.

  PART ONE, CHAPTER EIGHT.

  HOME AGAIN.

  I went home on Tuesday evening. I had no more very speciallyinteresting conversations with Miss Donnithorne; but she gave me duringthe whole of Monday and all Tuesday, until it was time to put me intothe train for my return journey, a right royal time. I can speak of itin no other way. I lived for the first time in my whole existence. Shemanaged to open up the world for me. She did not tell me about the deadand gone great people, who to me were very musty and mouldy andimpossible; but she talked of living things--of birds and beasts andflowers. She was great on flowers. She said the country was the rightplace to live in, and the town was a very melancholy abode, and notspecially good for any one. But then she added, "It is the lot of somegirls and some men and women to live in the town, and when it is theymust make the best of it."

  I began to consider her not only a most agreeable woman, but also a verynoble woman.

  "Now, if you lived in our house, would you make things different?" Isaid.

  "I shall--" she began, and then she stopped.

  "Oh yes, Dumps--yes. Your house isn't at all what it ought to be; itisn't well ordered."

  "How would you manage things? I wish you would tell me, MissDonnithorne--I really do--for now I have been with you, and eaten suchdelicious meals, and been in such a pretty, very clean house, I see thedifference."

  "It would be difficult for you to make much change," she said; "but ofcourse there are always things to be done. Your house wants--"

  She paused to consider. There came a frown between her brows.

  "Dumps dear," she said after a pause, "I cannot explain just now. Yourhouse wants--well, I will say it--to be turned topsy-turvy, inside out,round about; to be--to be made as different from what it is now as thesun is different from the moon."

  "If that is the case I needn't trouble," I said in a sort of despondingtone, "for Hannah won't work any harder, and I don't think I can; andfather likes his meals anyhow, and the boys and I--well, I suppose weare poor; I'm sure I don't know, but there doesn't seem to be muchmoney. It will feel so strange when I go home."

  "Trust to better times coming," said Miss Donnithorne. "The house canbe altered. I will write to you about it."

  We were sitting by the fire on the last evening when she said this. Iturned to her.

  "Why don't you tell me now?"

  But she said, "No; it will be best to write. The fact is, I could nottell you now; it will be best to write."

  "What a darling little house this is!" was my next remark. "If only wecould have a sweet little house like this to live in in town, how happyI should be!"

  "It is a nice house," she said. "I don't think I'll give it up. Infact," she added, "I have made up my mind not to."

  "Were you thinking of moving?" I asked.

  "I have made up my mind that the house shall remain--I mean that I shallkeep the house," was her unintelligible remark; and then she got veryred--quite scarlet--all over, and she walked to one of the bookcases,opened it, and took out two volumes of _The Daisy Chain_ and two more of_The Heir of Redclyffe_, and flung them into my lap.

  "You haven't read those, have you?" she asked.

  "Oh no," I replied, opening the first volume that came handy, anddipping into its contents.

  "I think you will like them," she said. "Take them back with you; putthem into your brown-paper parcel. I mean--" She stopped.

  She was a funny woman, after all. Why did she draw herself up eachmoment? It became almost irritating.

  Well, the precious, darling, joyful time came to an end, and I was oncemore in the train. I was in the train, but on the rack above me therewas no longer a brown-paper parcel--a hideous, humiliating brown-paperparcel. On the contrary, there was a neat little trunk in theluggage-van, and the only thing I had with me was my umbrella, which Iheld in my hand. I was wearing the dark-blue dress with the grey fur,so my hands were warm with my little grey muff, and altogether I was atotally different creature from the girl who had travelled down toChelmsford on the Saturday before.

  Hannah was waiting for me on one of the big platforms at LiverpoolStreet Station. I was amused at the way she stared at me.

  "Sakes!" she cried, "who's that?"

  I went up to her and clapped her on the shoulder.

  "It's I. I am smart, am I not, Hannah?"

  "Sakes!" said Hannah again, "I wouldn't ha' known you. Here, comealong--do. Where in the name of fortune did you get them things from?"

  "I'll tell you presently."

  "And where's your brown-paper parcel? My word, if it's lost there'll bea fuss! I don't think I dare take you home if the parcel is lost; allyour best linen in it, and your night-dress with the frills, and thehandkerchiefs, and the stockings, and the dress you went down in, andthe new skirt and blouse as the Professor gave you. Wherever be theparcel?"

  I felt very dignified and grand. I called a porter.

  "My luggage is in the van behind that carriage," I said--"the van at theend of the train."

  "You ain't never put a brown-paper parcel in the van, child?" saidHannah, in high dudgeon.

  "Oh, come along, Hannah," I said.

  I swept her with me. She was quite neatly dressed, but I saw thecotton-wool sticking in her right ear, and somehow the depression of allthat was before me in the ugly house swept over my mind with renewedforce. The trunk was small and wonderfully neat. It had my initials,R.G., on it. Hannah gave a snort.

  "I suppose the person as togged you up in all that finery give you thetrunk as well," she said.

  "You may suppose anything you like, Hannah; the trunk holds my clothes.Ladies cannot go about with brown-paper parcels. Now then!"

  The trunk was put on the top of a four-wheeler--nothing would induceHannah to go in a hansom--and we drove back to the old house belongingto the college. It was dark and dismal, for the dim light of onegas-jet in the hall only made the shadows look the deeper. The parlour,too, was quite hideous to behold. It was more than usually untidy, forthere had been no one to put the books in order or keep confusion at baysince Dumps had gone. Not that Dumps was in herself in the very leastof the tidy sort, but she was a few shades tidier than the boys, Alexand Charley.

  Alex was sitting by the fire with his shoulders hitched up to his ears;he was conning a Latin treatise, muttering the words aloud. I came in,stole softly up to him, and gave him a slap on the back.

  "Goodness gracious! who's that?"

  Alex sprang to his feet. He saw a smartly dressed girl. Alex secretlyadored girls. He became immediately his most polite
self.

  "I beg your pardon," he said, "I--"

  He approached in the direction of the nearest gas-jet in order to turnit up higher. Then he recognised me. He recoiled at once; he was angrywith me for misleading him.

  "Oh, it's you, Dumps! What in the name of fortune did you steal in likethat for, like a thief in the night, and slap me on the back to makeme--"

  "Oh, you didn't know me!" I said, catching his hands and jumping softlyup and down. "Don't I look nice in my new dress? Tell me I look nice--tell me--tell me,