Dumps - A Plain Girl

by L. T. Meade

Now was the time to look at mother’s picture. The hunger in my heart was now to be satisfied. For many long years I had wanted to be the possessor of that portrait, which I knew existed, but which I had never seen. How easily I had got possession of it in the end! It was queer, for we had all been afraid to speak of mother to father. He had said once that he could not stand it, and after that we never mentioned her name. But she was my mother. I had envied girls who had mothers, and yet some girls did not appreciate them. There was Augusta, for instance; how rude and insufferable she was to her mother! She called her commonplace. Now, I could have been very happy with Mrs Moore. I could have been quite glad to be kissed by her and fondled by her, and to sit with her and encourage her to tell me stories about herself. And I could have helped her with her needlework, and to keep the place tidy; and I should have enjoyed going with her to dine with Uncle Charles—whoever Uncle Charles might be. But there was Augusta, who did not care a bit about her mother, but wanted to be the daughter of my father. Oh yes, she was right; it was a strange, mixed world.

Well, I had the picture of mother, and I was going to look at it to-night. I lit three or four pieces of candle in honour of the great occasion, and then I drew my chair near the ugly little dressing-table, and I took the case and opened it. The picture within had been carefully painted; it was a miniature, and a good one, I am sure, for it looked quite alive. The eyes seemed to speak to me; the gentle mouth looked as though it would open with words of love for me. It was the sort of mouth I should like to kiss. The face was very young. I had imagined that all mothers must be older than that. It was a girlish face.

“It was because no one understood her that she died,” I said to myself. “Hannah said she was killed. Hannah spoke nonsense, of course.”

Tears filled my eyes.

“Darling, I would have loved you,” I murmured. “I’d have made so much of you! You wouldn’t have been a bit angry with Dumps for not resembling you. You’d have let me kiss you and kiss you, and your hungry heart would not have pined and pined. Why didn’t you live just a little longer, darling—just until I grew up, and Alex grew up, and Charley grew up? Why didn’t you, dearest, darling?”

My tears flowed. I gazed at the picture many, many times. Finally I put it under my pillow.

In the middle of the night I woke, and my first thought was of the picture and of the mother whom it represented. I clasped it tightly to my breast and hugged it. Oh yes, the picture of my mother was better than nothing.

The next morning I got up with a sense of relief at knowing that father would be away for at least a couple of days. It was a sadly wrong feeling; but then I held mother’s picture, and father had not understood mother, and mother had died. Killed!—that was what Hannah had said—killed because she had not had enough sunshine.

“It was such a pity you didn’t wait for me! I’d have made things sunshiny for you,” I thought.

I ran downstairs. The boys had had their breakfast and had already gone to school; but there was a little pot of coffee inside the fender, some bread-and-butter on the table, and a jug of cold milk and some sugar. It was one of Hannah’s unpleasant ways that she never would make the milk hot for the children’s coffee. She said cold milk was good enough for them.