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.{2}
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, was 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{3} 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{4} 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 learnt 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.{5}
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{6} 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 a 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{7} 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 grownup 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{8} 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, on which poor mrs. 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 pro{9}fessors, 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{10} 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 ourselves all the more for having the more of mrs. dawson’s society.
one evening i had brought the little stool close to her sofa, and was caressing her thin white hand, when the thought came into my head and out i spoke it.
“tell me, dear mrs. dawson,” said i, “how long you have been in edinburgh; you do not speak scotch, and mr. dawson says he is not scotch.”
“no, i am lancashire—liverpool-born,” said she, smiling. “don’t you hear it in my broad tongue?”
“i hear something different to other people, but i like it because it is just you; is that lancashire?”
“i dare say it is; for, though i am sure lady ludlow took pains enough to correct me in my younger days, i never could get rightly over the accent.”
“lady ludlow,” said i, “what had she to do with you? i heard you talking about her to lady made{11}line stuart the first evening i ever came here; you and she seemed so fond of lady ludlow; who is she?”
“she is dead, my child; dead long ago.”
i felt sorry i had spoken about her, mrs. dawson looked so grave and sad. i suppose she perceived my sorrow, for she went on and said,
“my dear, i like to talk and to think of lady ludlow: she was my true, kind friend and benefactress for many years; ask me what you like about her, and do not think you give me pain.”
i grew bold at this.
“will you tell me all about her then, please mrs. dawson?”
“nay,” said she, smiling, “that would be too long a story. here are signor sperano, and miss duncan, and mr. and mrs. preston are coming to-night, mr. preston told me; how would they like to hear an old-world story which, after all, would be no story at all, neither beginning, nor middle, nor end, only a bundle of recollections.”
“if you speak of me, madame,” said signor sperano, “i can only say you do me one great honour by recounting in my presence anything about any person that has ever interested you.”
miss duncan tried to say something of the same kind. in the middle of her confused speech, mr. and{12} mrs. preston came in. i sprang up; i went to meet them.
“oh,” said i, “mrs. dawson is just going to tell us all about lady ludlow, and a great deal more, only she is afraid it won’t interest anybody: do say you would like to hear it!”
mrs. dawson smiled at me, and in reply to their urgency she promised to tell us all about lady ludlow, on condition that each one of us should, after she had ended, narrate something interesting, which we had either heard, or which had fallen within our own experience. we all promised willingly, and then gathered round her sofa to hear what she could tell us about my lady ludlow.