|
ROUND THE SOFA
ROUND THE SOFA ELIZABETH GASKELL Long ago I was placed by my parents under the medical treatment of a
certain Mr. Dawson a surgeon in Edinburgh who had obtained a
reputation for the cure of a particular class of diseases. I was
sent with my governess into lodgings near his house in the Old Town.
I was to combine lessons from the excellent Edinburgh masters with
the medicines and exercises needed for my indisposition. It was at
first rather dreary to leave my brothers and sisters and to give up
our merry out-of-doors life with our country home for dull lodgings
with only poor grave Miss Duncan for a companion; and to exchange our
romps in the garden and rambles through the fields for stiff walks in
the streets the decorum of which obliged me to tie my bonnet-strings
neatly and put on my shawl with some regard to straightness.
The evenings were the worst. It was autumn and of course they daily
grew longer: they were long enough I am sure when we first settled
down in those gray and drab lodgings. For you must know my father
and mother were not rich and there were a great many of us and the
medical expenses to be incurred by my being placed under Mr. Dawson's
care were expected to be considerable; therefore one great point in
our search after lodgings was economy. My father who was too true a
gentleman to feel false shame had named this necessity for cheapness
to Mr. Dawson; and in return Mr. Dawson had told him of those at No.
6 Cromer Street in which we were finally settled. The house
belonged to an old man at one time a tutor to young men preparing
for the University in which capacity he had become known to Mr.
Dawson. But his pupils had dropped off; and when we went to lodge
with him I imagine that his principal support was derived from a few
occasional lessons which he gave and from letting the rooms that we
took a drawing-room opening into a bed-room out of which a smaller
chamber led. His daughter was his housekeeper: a son whom we never
saw supposed to be leading the same life that his father had done
before him only we never saw or heard of any pupils; and there was
one hard-working honest little Scottish maiden square stumpy
neat and plain who might have been any age from eighteen to forty.
Looking back on the household now there was perhaps much to admire
in their quiet endurance of decent poverty; but at this time their
poverty grated against many of my tastes for I could not recognize
the fact that in a town the simple graces of fresh flowers clean
white muslin curtains pretty bright chintzes all cost money which
is saved by the adoption of dust-coloured moreen and mud-coloured
carpets. There was not a penny spent on mere elegance in that room;
yet there was everything considered necessary to comfort: but after
all such mere pretences of comfort! a hard slippery black horse-
hair sofa which was no place of rest; an old piano serving as a
sideboard; a grate narrowed by an inner supplement till it hardly
held a handful of the small coal which could scarcely ever be stirred
up into a genial blaze. But there were two evils worse than even
this coldness and bareness of the rooms: one was that we were
provided with a latch-key which allowed us to open the front door
whenever we came home from a walk and go upstairs without meeting
any face of welcome or hearing the sound of a human voice in the
apparently deserted house--Mr. Mackenzie piqued himself on the
noiselessness of his establishment; and the other which might almost
seem to neutralize the first was the danger we were always exposed
to on going out of the old man--sly miserly and intelligent--
popping out upon us from his room close to the left hand of the
door with some civility which we learned to distrust as a mere
pretext for extorting more money yet which it was difficult to
refuse: such as the offer of any books out of his library a great
temptation for we could see into the shelf-lined room; but just as
we were on the point of yielding there was a hint of the
"consideration" to be expected for the loan of books of so much
higher a class than any to be obtained at the circulating library
which made us suddenly draw back. Another time he came out of his
den to offer us written cards to distribute among our acquaintance
on which he undertook to teach the very things I was to learn; but I
would rather have been the most ignorant woman that ever lived than
tried to learn anything from that old fox in breeches. When we had
declined all his proposals he went apparently into dudgeon. Once
when we had forgotten our latch-key we rang in vain for many times at
the door seeing our landlord standing all the time at the window to
the right looking out of it in an absent and philosophical state of
mind from which no signs and gestures of ours could arouse him.
The women of the household were far better and more really
respectable though even on them poverty had laid her heavy left
hand instead of her blessing right. Miss Mackenzie kept us as short
in our food as she decently could--we paid so much a week for our
board be it observed; and if one day we had less appetite than
another our meals were docked to the smaller standard until Miss
Duncan ventured to remonstrate. The sturdy maid-of-all-work was
scrupulously honest but looked discontented and scarcely vouchsafed
us thanks when on leaving we gave her what Mrs. Dawson had told us
would be considered handsome in most lodgings. I do not believe
Phenice ever received wages from the Mackenzies.
But that dear Mrs. Dawson! The mention of her comes into my mind
like the bright sunshine into our dingy little drawing room came on
those days;--as a sweet scent of violets greets the sorrowful passer
among the woodlands.
Mrs. Dawson was not Mr. Dawson's wife for he was a bachelor. She
was his crippled sister an old maid who had what she called taken
her brevet rank.
After we had been about a fortnight in Edinburgh Mr. Dawson said in
a sort of half doubtful manner to Miss Duncan -
"My sister bids me say that every Monday evening a few friends come
in to sit round her sofa for an hour or so--some before going to
gayer parties--and that if you and Miss Greatorex would like a little
change she would only be too glad to see you. Any time from seven
to eight to-night; and I must add my injunctions both for her sake
and for that of my little patient's here that you leave at nine
o'clock. After all I do not know if you will care to come; but
Margaret bade me ask you;" and he glanced up suspiciously and sharply
at us. If either of us had felt the slightest reluctance however
well disguised by manner to accept this invitation I am sure he
would have at once detected our feelings and withdrawn it; so
jealous and chary was he of anything pertaining to the appreciation
of this beloved sister.
But if it had been to spend an evening at the dentist's I believe I
should have welcomed the invitation so weary was I of the monotony
of the nights in our lodgings; and as for Miss Duncan an invitation
to tea was of itself a pure and unmixed honour and one to be
accepted with all becoming form and gratitude: so Mr. Dawson's sharp
glances over his spectacles failed to detect anything but the truest
pleasure and he went on.
"You'll find it very dull I dare say. Only a few old fogies like
myself and one or two good sweet young women: I never know who'll
come. Margaret is obliged to lie in a darkened room--only half-
lighted I mean--because her eyes are weak--oh it will be very
stupid I dare say: don't thank me till you've been once and tried
it and then if you like it your best thanks will be to come again
every Monday from half-past seven to nine you know. Good-bye
good-bye."
Hitherto I had never been out to a party of grown-up people; and no
court ball to a London young lady could seem more redolent of honour
and pleasure than this Monday evening to me.
Dressed out in new stiff book-muslin made up to my throat--a frock
which had seemed to me and my sisters the height of earthly grandeur
and finery--Alice our old nurse had been making it at home in
contemplation of the possibility of such an event during my stay in
Edinburgh but which had then appeared to me a robe too lovely and
angelic to be ever worn short of heaven--I went with Miss Duncan to
Mr. Dawson's at the appointed time. We entered through one small
lofty room perhaps I ought to call it an antechamber for the house
was old-fashioned and stately and grand the large square drawing-
room into the centre of which Mrs. Dawson's sofa was drawn. Behind
her a little was placed a table with a great cluster candlestick upon
it bearing seven or eight wax-lights; and that was all the light in
the room which looked to me very vast and indistinct after our
pinched-up apartment at the Mackenzie's. Mrs. Dawson must have been
sixty; and yet her face looked very soft and smooth and child-like.
Her hair was quite gray: it would have looked white but for the
snowiness of her cap and satin ribbon. She was wrapped in a kind of
dressing-gown of French grey merino: the furniture of the room was
deep rose-colour and white and gold--the paper which covered the
walls was Indian beginning low down with a profusion of tropical
leaves and birds and insects and gradually diminishing in richness
of detail till at the top it ended in the most delicate tendrils and
most filmy insects.
Mr. Dawson had acquired much riches in his profession and his house
gave one this impression. In the corners of the rooms were great
jars of Eastern china filled with flower-leaves and spices; and in
the middle of all this was placed the sofa which poor Margaret
Dawson passed whole days and months and years without the power of
moving by herself. By-and-by Mrs. Dawson's maid brought in tea and
macaroons for us and a little cup of milk and water and a biscuit
for her. Then the door opened. We had come very early and in came
Edinburgh professors Edinburgh beauties and celebrities all on
their way to some other gayer and later party but coming first to
see Mrs. Dawson and tell her their bon-mots or their interests or
their plans. By each learned man by each lovely girl she was
treated as a dear friend who knew something more about their own
individual selves independent of their reputation and general
society-character than any one else.
It was very brilliant and very dazzling and gave enough to think
about and wonder about for many days.
Monday after Monday we went stationary silent; what could we find
to say to any one but Mrs. Margaret herself? Winter passed summer
was coming still I was ailing and weary of my life; but still Mr.
Dawson gave hopes of my ultimate recovery. My father and mother came
and went; but they could not stay long they had so many claims upon
them. Mrs. Margaret Dawson had become my dear friend although
perhaps I had never exchanged as many words with her as I had with
Miss Mackenzie but then with Mrs. Dawson every word was a pearl or a
diamond.
People began to drop off from Edinburgh only a few were left and I
am not sure if our Monday evenings were not all the pleasanter.
There was Mr. Sperano the Italian exile banished even from France
where he had long resided and now teaching Italian with meek
diligence in the northern city; there was Mr. Preston the
Westmoreland squire or as he preferred to be called statesman
whose wife had come to Edinburgh for the education of their numerous
family and who whenever her husband had come over on one of his
occasional visits was only too glad to accompany him to Mrs.
Dawson's Monday evenings he and the invalid lady having been friends
from long ago. These and ourselves kept steady visitors and enjoyed
...
|
