"Dumps," she said. She was still huddled by the fire. I had never seen
her so subdued or broken-down before, and it was only when I heard her
voice rise in shrill passion that I recognised the old Hannah. "Dumps,
is it you who is going to submit tame--you, who had a mother?"
"Oh, I must submit," I said. I sank down again into a chair. "Where's
the good?" I queried.
"I always know you had no spirit worth speaking of," said Hannah. "I'm
sorry now as I gave you that drop of soup. It was the stock in which I
meant to boil the bits of mutton for the boys' dinner, but I said you
should have it, for you were so took aback, poor child! But there!
'tain't in you, I expect, to feel things very deep; and yet you had a
mother."
"You said yesterday that she had been killed," I said, and my voice
trembled.
"And so she were. If ever a woman were pushed out of life--pushed on to
the edge of the world and then right over it--it was the Professor's
wife, Alice Grant. Ah! she was too gentle, too sweet; he wanted a
different sort."
When Hannah said these words, in a flash I seemed to see Grace
Donnithorne in a new position--Grace Donnithorne with her laughing eyes,
her firm mouth, her composed and dignified manner. It would be very
difficult, I felt certain, to push Grace Donnithorne over the edge of
the world. I rose.
"Hannah, if you don't mind, I'll tell the boys. But please understand
that I am very unhappy. I don't love my mother one bit the less; I am
about as unhappy as girl can be. I have been cruelly deceived. I went
to see Miss Donnithorne, and she was kind to me, and I thought her
kindness meant something."
"I didn't," said Hannah. "I felt all along that she was a snake in the
grass."
"She was kind, even though she meant to marry father; and perhaps
another girl would have guessed."
"Sakes! why should you guess? You ain't that sort; you're an innocent
child, and don't know the wicked ways of wicked, knowing, designing
females. Why ever should you guess?"
"Well, I didn't; but, now I look back, I see--"
"Oh, we all see when the light comes," said Hannah; "there's nought in
that."
"But, Hannah, she is not bad. She is good, and if she chose to marry
father--"
"My word, we'll have no more of that!" said Hannah. "I'm sorry I gave
you that drop of soup. The boys will have to eat the mutton boiled up
with water from the pump."
"Oh Hannah, will you never understand?"
"I don't understand you, Miss Dumps; but then I never did."
"Well, I am going to tell the boys, and I'm as unhappy as I can be; but
I don't see the use of fighting. I'll try to do what's right. I'll try
to. I don't love her. I might have loved her if she had just remained
my friend."
"Friend, indeed! What should make her take up with you--a plain girl
like you, with no sort of attraction that any living being ever yet
discovered? What should make her pet you, and fondle you, and dress you
up if she hadn't had in her mind the getting of a husband? There I now
you know. That's the long and short of it. She used you for her own
purposes, and I say she is a low-down sort of hussy, and she won't get
me a-humouring of her!"
"Very well, Hannah. I don't love her. I would have loved her had she
not been father's wife."
"There's no use talking about what you would do had certain things not
happened; it's what you will do now that certain things have happened.
That's what you've got to face, Dumps."
"Am I to sit up in my room all day and never speak to father and--and
his wife?"
"Oh, I know you!" said Hannah. "You'll come down after a day or two and
make yourself quite agreeable, and it'll be `mother' you'll be calling
her before the week's out I know you--she'll come round the likes of you
pretty fine!"
But this last straw was too much. I left Hannah. I went unsteadily--
yes, unsteadily--towards the door. I rushed upstairs, entered my own
room, bolted myself in. I took my mother's miniature in my hands. I
opened the case and pressed the miniature to my heart, flung myself on
the bed face downwards, and sobbed and sobbed. No broken-hearted child
in all the world could have sobbed more for her own mother than I did
then.