"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!"
"Yes; what is it?" I asked.
Augusta's sallow face was lit up with a gleam of red on each of her
cheeks. This red tint improved her appearance vastly.
"Oh," said Augusta, "I don't for a moment suppose you'll do it."
"I don't see why," I replied. "I'm not in the habit of making myself
unamiable."
"Well, it's this," said Mrs Grant; "Augusta would greatly like to come
with us to Hedgerow House for Christmas. It will be a little difficult
to squeeze her in, but if you, Dumps, would not mind having her in your
room--"
"I'd take a very tiny bit of the bed. I can make myself quite
accommodating," said Augusta.
"She would like it very much indeed," said Mrs Grant.
"Of course you must come if my step-mother invites you," I said.
Mrs Grant coloured; then she got up, walked to the table, and took up
some plain sewing which she was doing, and began a long seam. She was
making some clothes for the poor; she was never idle for a minute of her
time.
"You can come, Augusta, as far as I am concerned," I said.
"Of course you can; you needn't share the same bed," said Mrs Grant.
"I think I can manage better for you than that, but I cannot give you a
room apiece. If you will share the same room, that is all that is
required."
"Oh, it is too wonderful!" said Augusta.
"Come out, Augusta, or I shall be late," I said.
We found ourselves in the street.
"Oh!" said Augusta. She walked on, not noticing me in the least. After
a time she said, "To wake in the morning and to feel that you will
breakfast with him, that you will dine with him, and that you will sup
with him! To think that occasionally he may even look at you, and
perhaps once or twice speak to you; and to know that this will go on for
seven days--seven whole days, for I have been asked for a week! Dumps,
do you think it is true? Do you think it is only a vision? I often
have visions; they're beautiful, some of them, but none of them equals
this. To be in the house with him, and to hang on his words for a
week!"
"I don't think, to tell the truth," I said, "that any one else will hang
on his words; you will have him all to yourself."
"Oh," said Augusta, "if you only wouldn't!"
"Wouldn't what?"
"Wouldn't try to deprecate him. It seems wicked--it seems as though God
would punish you."
"Why, what do you mean?" I said.
"You ought to be so happy and so pleased," said Augusta. "And you have
got such a beautiful, commonplace step-mother. I admit that she is
commonplace, but I never met so charming a woman. If only my mother
were like her!"
"Your mother is excellent," I said--"quite as nice as my step-mother;
and then she is your own. I think it is very wicked of you to run down
your mother. If you hadn't a mother you'd know the difference."
"But you have."
"I haven't. How dare you!"
"Dumps, I can't help thinking that you--but oh, perhaps you'd rather not
share your room with me?"
"How can I help it?" I replied. "Is the room mine? Doesn't it belong
to Mrs Grant--I mean to my step-mother? How can I question any of her
wishes? You come to our house, and you snuggle into her good favour;
you worm yourself in, and you have got yourself invited, and I suppose--
oh dear, I wish I wasn't so cross!"
"If it were not such a very great thing I would take offence at your
words, Rachel," said Augusta, "and not come with you; but being such a
magnificent thing, and so all-important to me, I will not take offence,
even though you do compare me to a snuggler (I don't quite know what the
creature is), and even to a worm. I will come with you on the 24th to
Hedgerow House, and when you look at my face you will perhaps realise
that you are looking at perfect happiness--yes, Perfect Happiness; spell
the words with capitals, for I have attained to that great height."
"This is the Twopenny Tube," I said. "Perhaps you would like to go back
to your mother and make arrangements?"
"But where are you going?"
"I'm going to meet the Swan girls; they said they would be round the
corner waiting for me."
Augusta looked at me rather longingly, but I would not reply to her
look.
"Good-bye," I said. "I'll try not to do anything to interfere with your
bliss." I left her. When I looked back she was already standing as one
in a dream. I doubted if she would catch the next train in the Twopenny
Tube, but I concluded that in the course of hours she would return to
her commonplace mother.