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Title: Round the Sofa


Author: Elizabeth Gaskell



Release Date: January 11, 2015  [eBook #2533]
[This file was first posted on April 4, 2000]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUND THE SOFA***


Transcribed from the 1896 Smith, Elder and Co. “Lizzie Leigh and Other
Tales” edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org.  Proofed by
Vanessa Mosher, Jennifer Lee, Alev Akman and Andy Wallace.





                             ROUND THE SOFA.


[_Project Gutenberg note_: Elizabeth Gaskell wrote the following story to
join together a number of her other, previously published, short stories.
Project Gutenberg has already released the other stories and so they are
not repeated here—however, notes are given at the appropriate
places.—DP.]

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 ourselves all the more from 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 Madeline 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 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.

                                * * * * *

                [_At this point comes_ “_My Lady Ludlow_”]

                                * * * * *

As any one may guess, it had taken Mrs. Dawson several Monday evenings to
narrate all this history of the days of her youth.  Miss Duncan thought
it would be a good exercise for me, both in memory and composition, to
write out on Tuesday mornings all that I had heard the night before; and
thus it came to pass that I have the manuscript of “My Lady Ludlow” now
lying by me.

                                * * * * *

Mr. Dawson had often come in and out of the room during the time that his
sister had been telling us about Lady Ludlow.  He would stop, and listen
a little, and smile or sigh as the case might be.  The Monday after the
dear old lady had wound up her tale (if tale it could be called), we felt
rather at a loss what to talk about, we had grown so accustomed to listen
to Mrs. Dawson.  I remember I was saying, “Oh, dear!  I wish some one
would tell us another story!” when her brother said, as if in answer to
my speech, that he had drawn up a paper all ready for the Philosophical
Society, and that perhaps we might care to hear it before it was sent
off: it was in a great measure compiled from a French book, published by
one of the Academies, and rather dry in itself; but to which Mr. Dawson’s
attention had been directed, after a tour he had made in England during
the past year, in which he had noticed small walled-up doors in unusual
parts of some old parish churches, and had been told that they had
formerly been appropriated to the use of some half-heathen race, who,
before the days of gipsies, held the same outcast pariah position in most
of the countries of western Europe.  Mr. Dawson had been recommended to
the French book which he named, as containing the fullest and most
authentic account of this mysterious race, the Cagots.  I did not think I
should like hearing this paper as much as a story; but, of course, as he
meant it kindly, we were bound to submit, and I found it, on the whole,
more interesting than I anticipated.

                                * * * * *

               [_At this point comes_ “_An Accursed Race_”]

                                * * * * *

For some time past I had observed that Miss Duncan made a good deal of
occupation for herself in writing, but that she did not like me to notice
her employment.  Of course this made me all the more curious; and many
were my silent conjectures—some of them so near the truth that I was not
much surprised when, after Mr. Dawson had finished reading his Paper to
us, she hesitated, coughed, and abruptly introduced a little formal
speech, to the effect that she had noted down an old Welsh story the
particulars of which had often been told her in her youth, as she lived
close to the place where the events occurred.  Everybody pressed her to
read the manuscript, which she now produced from her reticule; but, when
on the point of beginning, her nervousness seemed to overcome her, and
she made so many apologies for its being the first and only attempt she
had ever made at that kind of composition, that I began to wonder if we
should ever arrive at the story at all.  At length, in a high-pitched,
ill-assured voice, she read out the title:

                       “THE DOOM OF THE GRIFFITHS.”

          [_At this point comes_ “_The Doom of the Griffiths_”]

                                * * * * *

You cannot think how kindly Mrs. Dawson thanked Miss Duncan for writing
and reading this story.  She shook my poor, pale governess so tenderly by
the hand that the tears came into her eyes, and the colour to her checks.

“I though you had been so kind; I liked hearing about Lady Ludlow; I
fancied, perhaps, I could do something to give a little pleasure,” were
the half-finished sentences Miss Duncan stammered out.  I am sure it was
the wish to earn similar kind words from Mrs. Dawson, that made Mrs.
Preston try and rummage through her memory to see if she could not
recollect some fact, or event, or history, which might interested Mrs.
Dawson and the little party that gathered round her sofa.  Mrs. Preston
it was who told us the following tale:

                         “HALF A LIFE-TIME AGO.”

             [_At this point comes_ “_Half a Life-Time Ago_”]

                                * * * * *

When this narrative was finished, Mrs. Dawson called on our two
gentlemen, Signor Sperano and Mr. Preston, and told them that they had
hitherto been amused or interested, but that it was now their turn to
amuse or interest.  They looked at each other as if this application of
hers took them by surprise, and seemed altogether as much abashed as
well-grown men can ever be.  Signor Sperano was the first to recover
himself: after thinking a little, he said—

“Your will, dear lady, is law.  Next Monday evening, I will bring you an
old, old story, which I found among the papers of the good old priest who
first welcomed me to England.  It was but a poor return for his generous
kindness; but I had the opportunity of nursing him through the cholera,
of which he died.  He left me all that he had—no money—but his scanty
furniture, his book of prayers, his crucifix and rosary, and his papers.
How some of those papers came into his hands I know not.  They had
evidently been written many years before the venerable man was born; and
I doubt whether he had ever examined the bundles, which had come down to
him from some old ancestor, or in some strange bequest.  His life was too
busy to leave any time for the gratification of mere curiosity; I, alas!
have only had too much leisure.”

Next Monday, Signor Sperano read to us the story which I will call

                            “THE POOR CLARE.”

                [_At this point comes_ “_The Poor Clare_”]

                                * * * * *

Now, of all our party who had first listened to my Lady Ludlow, Mr.
Preston was the only one who had not told us something, either of
information, tradition, history, or legend.  We naturally turned to him;
but we did not like asking him directly for his contribution, for he was
a grave, reserved, and silent man.

He understood us, however, and, rousing himself as it were, he said—

“I know you wish me to tell you, in my turn, of something which I have
learnt during my life.  I could tell you something of my own life, and of
a life dearer still to my memory; but I have shunk from narrating
anything so purely personal.  Yet, shrink as I will, no other but those
sad recollections will present themselves to my mind.  I call them sad
when I think of the end of it all.  However, I am not going to moralize.
If my dear brother’s life and death does not speak for itself, no words
of mine will teach you what may be learnt from it.”

      [_At this point comes the final story_ “_The Half-Brothers_”]




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