L. Meade - Dumps – A Plain Girl

The boys were most troublesome. They never would mind in the very least when father had one of his worst headaches. It was not that they did not try to be good – I will say that Alex had the kindest heart, and that Charley was good-natured too – but it seemed to me as though they could not walk quietly; they would stump upstairs, and they would go heavily across the big attic where they slept, and father was so fearfully sensitive; the least sound made him start up, and then he would get into a sort of frenzy and hardly know what he was doing. He would call out to the boys and thunder to them to be quiet; and then his head was worse than ever. Oh, it was all dreadful – dreadful! I sometimes did not know what to do.

I am going to tell the story of my life as far as I can; but before I begin I must say that I do wonder why girls, as a rule, have a harder time of it than boys, and why they learn quite early in life to be patient and to give up their own will. Now, of course, if father comes in after his very hard day’s work, schoolmastering, as he calls it, and when he has one of his fearful headaches, I sit like a lamb and hardly speak; but it never enters into Alex’s head, or into Charley’s, that they ought to be equally considerate. I do not for a minute want to praise myself, but I know that girls have an opportunity very early in life of learning patience.

Well now, to begin my story.

I was exactly fifteen years and a half. I should not have a birthday, therefore, for six months. I was sorry for that, for birthdays are very nice; on one day at least in the year you are queen, and you are thought more of than any one else in the house. You are put first instead of last, and you get delicious presents. Some girls get presents every day – at least every week – but my sort of girl only gets a present worth considering on her birthday. Of all my presents I loved flowers best; for we lived in London, where flowers are scarce, and we hardly ever went into the country.

My name is Rachel Grant, and I expect I was a very ordinary sort of girl. Alex said so. Alex said that if I had beautiful, dancing dark eyes, and very red lips, and a good figure, I might queen it over all the boys, even on the days when it wasn’t my birthday; but he said the true name for me ought not to be Rachel, but Dumps, and how could any girl expect to rule over either boys or girls with such a name as Dumps? I suppose I was a little stodgy in my build, but father said I might grow out of that, for my mother was tall.

Ah dear! there was the sting of things; for if I had had a mother on earth I might have been a very different girl, and the boys might have been told to keep their place and not to bully poor Dumps, as they called me, so dreadfully. But I must go on with my story.

I was Rachel or Dumps, and there were two boys, Alex and Charley. Alex was a year younger than I, and ought really to have been very much under my control; and Charley was two years younger. Then there was father, who was quite elderly, although his children were comparatively young. He was tall and had a slight stoop, and his hair was turning grey. He had a very beautiful, lofty sort of expression, and he did wonders in the great school or college where he spent most of his time. Our house belonged to the college; the rooms were large, and the windows looked out on the grounds of the college and I could see the boys playing, Alex and Charley amongst them, only I never dared to look if I thought Alex or Charley could see me; for if they had caught sight of me it would have been all over with me, for they did not particularly want the other boys to know they had a sister.

“If she was a beauty we’d be awfully proud,” said Alex, “but being only Dumps, you know,” – and then he would wink at me, and when he did this I felt very much inclined to cry.

Well, these things went on, and I went to school myself and learnt as hard as I could, and tried to keep the house in order for father, whom I loved very dearly, and who sometimes – not very often, but perhaps once or twice, on a birthday or some special occasion of that sort – told me that I was the comfort of his life, and I knew that I was patient, whatever other virtue I might lack.

There came a special evening in the beginning of November. It had been a drizzling sort of day, and rather foggy, and of course the old house looked its worst, and it was six months – six whole months – before I could have a birthday, and the boys were so loud, and father’s head was so bad, and altogether it was a most discouraging sort of day. I had invited Rita and Agnes Swan to come and have tea with me. They were my greatest friends. I hardly ever dared to ask them to come, because something would be sure to happen on the nights when they arrived. But at school that morning it had seemed to me that I might certainly enjoy a quiet hour with them, so I said, “If you will come in exactly at four o’clock – father won’t be in, I am sure, for two hours, for it is his late day at the school, and it is half-holiday for the Upper Remove and Alex will be out of the way, and if Charley does come in we can manage him – we’ll have the entire house to ourselves from four to five, and can have a glorious game of hide-and-seek.”

Rita said she would be charmed to come, and Agnes said the same, and I hurried home to do the best I could for my friends.

Rita and Agnes were not exactly beautiful; but they were not like me – no one could have called either of them Dumps. They had soft, pretty hair which waved about their little heads, and their features were quite marked and distinct, and I think their eyes were beautiful, although I am not absolutely sure. They were rather clever, and often got praised at school. I am afraid they were inclined to patronise me, but I thought if I could have them to tea, and could show them over our large house, and let them see what a splendid place it was for hide-and-seek, it being a very old house with lots of queer passages and corners, they might respect me more and get the other girls in the school to do so also.

Accordingly, when I got home about one o’clock on that November day I was in high spirits. But there was my usual lesson in patience waiting for me; for father came in at three o’clock instead of at six, as he had done every single Thursday since I could remember.

“Where are you, Rachel?” he called out when he entered the house.

I ran to him.

“Oh father, is anything wrong?”

“Only this abominable headache,” he replied. “It is worse than usual. I am going to my room to lie down. See that the house is kept quiet, Rachel.”

“Oh yes,” I replied. “Shall I get you a cup of tea?”

“No; I couldn’t touch anything. Just keep the house as quiet as possible. If those young rascals come in, tell them about me. I trust you, Rachel, not to allow a sound.”

“Very well, father,” I said.

He never noticed that I was in my best frock, pale-blue with a sash of the same, and that I had combed and brushed my hair until it fairly shone. I knew that my hair was thick and longer than most girls’ hair, and I was proud to let it fall over my shoulders, and I wondered if Rita and Agnes would remark it.

But here at once was a stop to our jolly game of hide-and-seek; we could not play a game of that sort without making a noise. We must sit in the parlour. The parlour was farthest away from father’s bedroom. We must sit there and be as still as possible. We might play games, of course; but then one could play games at the Swans’ house, which was a very ordinary, everyday sort of place, not a bit like ours, which at least was quaint and out of the common.