The Adventures of an Ugly Girl. Mrs. George Corbett
“Not always, especially if I am in town. But I am fond of rising early in the country. Besides, I wanted to explore the Grange thoroughly to-day. I have been here before, but it is so long since that I have quite forgotten what it is like.”
“Do you know,” put in Jerry, “that I fancied yesterday you did not like the place?”
“And Dora thought I must be a heathen not to do so.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” I exclaimed hurriedly. “It was very presumptuous of me. But I have lived here all my life, and to me no place can be nicer than Courtney Grange.”
“That remains to be proved,” said my stepmother, with a smile. “I have an idea that the sanitary arrangements of this place are bad. Should this really prove the case, we shall vacate the Grange in favor of a pretty place of my own.”
“Leave the Grange!” I cried aghast. “Why, that would be awful! I should look uglier than ever anywhere else.”
“On the contrary, it is just possible, Dora, that this place is to blame for your unsatisfactory complexion. Perhaps your bedroom is a specially unhealthy one. Your father has promised to employ some sanitary engineers at once, to examine the place. Meanwhile I have left my maid at Sunny Knowe, and we are all going next week to pay a visit to that place. Your father is quite willing that you should all three accompany us, and I am sure you will enjoy your visit.”
“But I have no pretty clothes to be seen elsewhere in.”
“We will soon alter that. I am very glad that Ernestine did not come with me. I can manage very well for a week without her, and it is just as well that neither she nor any other servant of mine should criticise you at present. You will show to much better advantage in new clothes, and may as well create as good an impression as possible, even upon the servants, who can be very neglectful of people who do not strike them as important. I intend you to be considered as important as your sister, who is very lovely, but who must not monopolize all the attention due to you.”
“Indeed, I do not want attention or assistance. I am quite used to looking after both myself and others, and cannot expect the same politeness as Belle. See, these are my pets, and I love them dearly, for they both love me.”
Bobby always slept with Teddy, and it was no unusual thing to see the two friends come to meet me, as they did on this particular morning, Teddy brushing my arm by way of salute and uttering a delighted neigh, while Bobby barked his “good-morning” quite plainly.
“They have brought you to see some lovely animals,” said a voice at this juncture. It was my father, who had joined us, preparatory to going in to breakfast, and who gazed at me with manifest displeasure.
“I’m afraid, my dear,” he continued, “that you will be somewhat disgusted at being taken the round of stableyards and back premises. But I should have warned you as to what you might expect from Dora. Her tastes are inveterately low.”
“Then I am afraid I am low, too,” laughed Lady Elizabeth, “for I have actually been enjoying myself. I was always sorry that I had no children of my own, and a few fresh young spirits about me will complete my happiness in marrying you. Come along, children. We mustn’t keep your father waiting for his breakfast.”
My father was not severe or ill-natured, except when irritated by the sight of the child who was a veritable eyesore to him, and he would have had to be a churl indeed to resist his wife’s sunny ways. He was smiling pleasantly at her, and had turned to walk toward the house, having offered her his arm, when I hastily whispered to her: “Pray excuse Jerry and me for a moment, while we gather those strawberries.” And then I ran off, followed by Jerry, and knowing full well that my desire to procure Lady Elizabeth a plentiful supply of the fruit of which she seemed fond would provoke my father’s displeasure again, simply because it would strike him as another undesirable exhibition of my notoriously independent manners.
But I no longer felt any particular desire to please him, and only cared to be of service to the dear lady who would permit no prejudices to influence her treatment of me. As far as she was concerned, I meant to follow Victor Hugo’s advice, and be as charming and helpful as I could. If I could not make my appearance charming, I would charm her by a solicitous and persistent attention to her pleasures and comforts.
It did not take the two of us long to gather a good supply of “Queens” and “Presidents,” and we reached the morning-room before the others had sat down to breakfast. Belle was there, attired in a pretty pale blue print, and was admirably foiled by my altogether unprepossessing appearance. As I saw Lady Elizabeth’s glance wander from Belle to myself, I knew that she was wondering what I could possibly wear to make me look pretty; and though I could never really hope to embody such a pleasant adjective as “pretty,” I was happy in the knowledge that Belle’s unpleasant theories were upset, and that I might possibly show a marked improvement in my appearance ere long.
The rest of the day was chiefly taken up with explorations and consultations, and a good many new arrangements were made. Jerry, I was sorry to hear, was to be sent off to a French boarding school at the beginning of the next term. But when I heard that he was to spend all his holidays at home, just as if he were in an English school, I felt reconciled to the temporary absences of the bright, clever child who liked his ugly sister best. Jerry himself was quite overjoyed at the programme cut out for him, and promised to write us each and all a French letter from the first week of his residence in France.
Belle, who was now twenty, was enraptured by the promise of next season in town, while I was so delighted to hear that I was to have efficient instruction on my favorite instrument, the violin, that I burst into tears, and ran hastily up to my own room, where I might vent my emotion unrestrainedly. You see, my tastes had met with so little sympathy heretofore that I required some time to get used to unwonted indulgences. I was not sure that my happiness would not yet take unto itself wings and fly away, or that I was not dreaming; for I had never heard of the arrival of a stepmother being so conducive to the welfare of the junior branches of the family as promised to be the case with us.
My father, I noticed during the next few days, was so supremely contented and so happy in the society of his wife, that I contrasted the coldly conventional manner in which he had always comported himself in my poor mother’s presence, and was able to see that the feeling he had borne for her was but poor stuff compared to the love he felt for Lady Elizabeth. I remember also having heard that these two were lovers in their youth, and it amazed me to think that they could have deliberately thrown aside the heart’s most sacred feelings in order to make a worldly marriage.
I have since then become thoroughly conversant with the fact that Mammon is infinitely the more powerful god of the two, when it comes to a tussle with Cupid, and that even very estimable people lose their judgment when called upon to choose between them. And yet, how can they honestly utter their marriage vows, when the heart is given away from the one they are marrying? Truly, life has many mysteries, which it were unprofitable work to attempt to solve!
In a day or two quite an assortment of new clothes came for me, and it was astonishing to see how different I looked in the reds and yellows which I now wore. I was still the ugly girl of the family, but it was quite possible for strangers to overlook the unpleasant fact for a while, and I even caught myself hoping that I looked rather nice than otherwise, especially when callers began to pay their respects to the newly-married couple.
Both Belle and I were introduced to nearly all our visitors, among the first of them being the Earl of Greatlands. I was rather disposed to like him, until he put his eyeglass up, quizzed me attentively, and remarked: “You are unfortunately very like your mother, Miss Dora, though I believe she had much finer hair and eyes than you have. But everybody improves in the hands of my daughter, and I have no doubt you will be as handsome as your sister by the time you are her age.”
“I am only just twenty,” said Belle stiffly.
“So I suppose, my dear,” rejoined the earl. “But you will find in a year or two that even the slight margin of age there is between the two of you will land you considerably on the weather-side, in other people’s