"My luggage is in the van behind that carriage," I said--"the van at the
end of the train."
"You ain't never put a brown-paper parcel in the van, child?" said
Hannah, in high dudgeon.
"Oh, come along, Hannah," I said.
I swept her with me. She was quite neatly dressed, but I saw the
cotton-wool sticking in her right ear, and somehow the depression of all
that was before me in the ugly house swept over my mind with renewed
force. 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 the
trunk 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 induce
Hannah to go in a hansom--and we drove back to the old house belonging
to the college. It was dark and dismal, for the dim light of one
gas-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, for
there had been no one to put the books in order or keep confusion at bay
since Dumps had gone. Not that Dumps was in herself in the very least
of the tidy sort, but she was a few shades tidier than the boys, Alex
and 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 secretly
adored 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 turn
it up higher. Then he recognised me. He recoiled at once; he was angry
with me for misleading him.
"Oh, it's you, Dumps! What in the name of fortune did you steal in like
that for, like a thief in the night, and slap me on the back to make
me--"
"Oh, you didn't know me!" I said, catching his hands and jumping softly
up and down. "Don't I look nice in my new dress? Tell me I look nice--
tell me--tell me, Alex!"
But Alex was really angry.
"I don't know anything about it," he said.
I had counted much on the impression that I should make on Alex with my
dress. I thought he would be respectful and treat me as a lady. I
thought he would begin to see that even Dumps, with her hair neatly
arranged and in a pretty costume, could look nearly as nice as other
girls.
But if Alex failed me, Charley did not. Charley came in at that moment,
and he was in raptures. On his heels came Von Marlo. And as to Von
Marlo, he said quite openly that Miss Rachel was a most charmingly
pretty young lady.
"You shut up!" said Alex. "It isn't the custom here to praise girls to
their faces. Sit down, Von, or go away, but don't stand there looking
like a foolish owl." Nothing could put Von Marlo out of countenance.
He sank down on the nearest chair, hitched up his great, square
shoulders, and gazed at me from under his penthouse of inky-black hair.
"Very, very nice indeed," he said. "And where did you get the dress,
Miss--Miss Dumps?"
I was inclined to be friendly with Von Marlo and with Charley, but I
would be quite cold to Alex.
Just at that moment Hannah bustled in with the supper. I did think she
might have made a little struggle to have something appetising for me
to-night; but no, there was the invariable cold mutton bone and
potatoes, boiled this time, and not too well boiled at that. There was
a dear little dish of something fried, which smelt very good, for
father.
Then the Professor came in without his glasses. He could never see much
without them. He called out to me, as though I had never left the
house, "Go and hunt for my spectacles, Dumps."
Away I went, and of course I found them and brought them to him. He put
them on his nose, and his eyes fell on Von Marlo.
"Is that you, Von Marlo?" he said. "Sit down, my dear fellow, and have
some supper.--Alex, help Von Marlo to whatever there is."
He pulled the contents of the hot dish towards himself and began to eat
ravenously. There was not even a welcome for me. He had evidently
quite forgotten that I had been away. After a time I said, "Father, I
have come back."
"Eh?" said the Professor. "By-the-bye, Von Marlo, did you notice the
grand passage you and the other fellows were construing this afternoon?
There was a fellow in the form inclined to mock at the magnificent
words, but that could not have been you."
"Oh no, sir," replied Von Marlo.
"Father, I have come back," I repeated. "I have come back from Miss
Grace Donnithorne's."
"Ah!" he said. The fact that I had come back did not move him, but the
words "Miss Grace Donnithorne" seemed to rouse him, for he got up, came
straight towards me, and put a hand on my right shoulder and a hand on
my left, and drew me towards him.
"How is Grace Donnithorne?" he said.
"She seems quite well, father."
"Then that is all right."
"Aren't you glad I am back?" I said.
The Professor returned to his seat. "Alex, I shall be obliged to stay
up until the small hours. That paper for the Royal Society must be
finished to-night. I shall send it to be typed the first thing in the
morning. You must get up half-an-hour earlier than usual, and come to
my room for copy, and take it to the typewriting office in Chancery
Lane."
Not a word about me. I felt a sense of pain at the back of my eyes.
What was the good of having a learned Professor for a father when he
hardly noticed you? I had been so hoping that my pretty dress would be
seen and admired in the home circle.
I went to bed that night in my comfortless and hideous room. It was so
cold that I could not sleep for some time, and as I pressed and pressed
the bedclothes round me I could not help thinking of the jolly life some
girls had, and even a few tears rolled down my cheeks. To be very ugly,
to be in no way endowed with any special talent, and to have a great
father who simply forgot your existence, was not the most enviable lot
in all the world for a girl.
"If only mother had lived!" I could not help saying to myself.
Then in my dreams mother seemed to come to me; she took me in her arms
and kissed me and called me her little darling; and when she did this it
seemed to me that looks mattered nothing and love mattered everything.
I was her child; I was with her; she was all my own.
When I went down to breakfast I was surprised to find that the only
person in the parlour was father. He was not eating; he was standing on
the hearth-rug. His hair was ruffled up, but his face looked calmer
than usual. He was evidently in one of those moods in which he could be
approached. I had on, of course, my everyday school dress, and I must
start almost immediately for school. I went up to him and took one of
his long hands.
"Father," I said, "may I ask you something?"
He looked down at me with quite a gentle expression.
"What is it my little Rachel wants?"
"Father, have you got anywhere a picture of my mother?"
He dropped my hands as though they hurt him.
"You want it?" he said.
"I should love to have it."
"You have missed your mother's care?"
"Yes."
"If I--" He stopped.
"Why do you stop?" I said. "You are just like Miss Donnithorne. She
is always beginning sentences and stopping. But oh! please,"--for he
seemed to be going off into one of his Demosthenes or Sophocles
monologues--"please, if you have a picture of my mother, give it to me."
For answer he went out of the room. He was gone two or three minutes.
When he returned he put a little case into my hand.
"You can keep it; it is yours now by every right. I treasured it.
Understand that I have not forgotten her; but you can keep it. It is
yours by every right." Before I could reply he had left the room. I
heard him bang the door, and I heard Hannah's step on the stairs. I
could not stand the thought of Hannah seeing the little case in my
hands. She was the sort of woman who could be devoured by curiosity.
This was more than I could bear. I flew to my room and put the dear
little case into one of my drawers. I forbore to open it just then. My
heart was warm and full of bliss. I possessed it; I would look at it
to-night. It should lie in my arms when I slept; I could kiss it in the
morning. It was next best to having mother to have a picture of mother.
I was happy.
A few minutes later I was on my way to school. There I met the Swan
girls. They came up to me.
"Well, well," they said, "how are you? How do you like her?"
"What do you mean?" I said.
"Why, all the world knows that you have been staying with Miss
Donnithorne. Do tell us about her. We are dying with curiosity. It is
no secret, you know."
"What is no secret?"
"Why, that you have been staying there," said Rita Swan, giving her
sister a nudge at the moment.
"I don't want it to be a secret," I said. "I have had a very happy
time. I'll tell you about her and her nice house later on."
"Oh dear! we are likely to know plenty of her in the near future," said
Agnes. "But there's the bell; we must go in. Come along, Dumps. Why,
to be sure, you do look smartened up! But you will be twice as smart as
this in the future."