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                            ROUND THE SOFA.

                           BY THE AUTHOR OF

      “Mary Barton,” “Life of Charlotte Bronte,” &c. &c.


                             TWO VOLUMES.

                                VOL. I.

                                LONDON:

             SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO., 47 LUDGATE HILL.

                                 1859.


     LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET.




PREFACE.


Most of these Stories have already appeared in <i>Household Words</i>: one,
however, has never been published in England, and another has obtained
only a limited circulation.




ROUND THE SOFA.


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, 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 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- moreen, and mud- 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 <i>bon-mots</i>, 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 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 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.




MY LADY LUDLOW.


CHAPTER I.

I am an old woman now, and things are very different to what they were
in my youth. Then we, who travelled, travelled in coaches, carrying six
inside, and making a two days’ journey out of what people now go over in
a couple of hours with a whizz and a flash, and a screaming whistle,
enough to deafen one. Then letters came in but three times a week:
indeed, in some places in Scotland where I have stayed when I was a
girl, the post came in but once a month;--but letters were letters then;
and we made great prizes of them, and read them and studied them like
books. Now the post comes rattling in twice a day, bringing short jerky
notes, some without beginning or end, but just a little sharp sentence,
which well-bred folks would think too abrupt to be spoken. Well, well!
they may all be improvements,--I dare say they are; but you will never
meet with a Lady Ludlow in these days.

I will try and tell you about her. It is no story: it has, as I said,
neither beginning, middle, nor end.

My father was a poor clergyman with a large family. My mother was always
said to have good blood in her veins; and when she wanted to maintain
her position with the people she was thrown among,--principally rich
democratic manufacturers, all for liberty and the French
Revolution,--she would put on a pair of ruffles, trimmed with real old
English point, very much darned to be sure,--but which could not be
bought new for love or money, as the art of making it was lost years
before. These ruffles showed, as she said, that her ancestors had been
Somebodies, when the grandfathers of the rich folk, who now looked down
upon her, had been Nobodies,--if, indeed, they had any grandfathers at
all. I don’t know whether any one out of our own family ever noticed
these ruffles,--but we were all taught as children to feel rather proud
when my mother put them on, and to hold up our heads as became the
descendants of the lady who had first possessed the lace. Not but what
my dear father often told us that pride was a great sin; we were never
allowed to be proud of anything but my mother’s ruffles: and she was so
innocently happy when she put them on,--often, poor dear creature, to a
very worn and thread-bare gown,--that I still think, even after all my
experience of life, they were a blessing to the family. You will think
that I am wandering away from my Lady Ludlow. Not at all. The Lady who
had owned the lace, Ursula Hanbury, was a common ancestress of both my
mother and my Lady Ludlow. And so it fell out, that when my poor father
died, and my mother was sorely pressed to know what to do with her nine
children, and looked far and wide for signs of willingness to help, Lady
Ludlow sent her a letter, proffering aid and assistance. I see that
letter now: a large sheet of thick yellow paper, with a straight broad
margin left on the left-hand side of the delicate Italian
writing,--writing which contained far more in the same space of paper
than all the sloping, or masculine hand-writings of the present day. It
was sealed with a coat of arms,--a lozenge,--for Lady Ludlow was a
widow. My mother made us notice the motto, “Foy et Loy,” and told us
where to look for the quarterings of the Hanbury arms before she opened
the letter. Indeed, I think she was rather afraid of what the contents
might be; for, as I have said, in her anxious love for her fatherless
children, she had written to many people upon whom, to tell truly, she
had but little claim; and their cold, hard answers had many a time made
her cry, when she thought none of us were looking. I do not even know
if she had ever seen Lady Ludlow: all I knew of her was that she was a
very grand lady, whose grandmother had been half-sister to my mother’s
great-grandmother; but of her character and circumstances I had heard
nothing, and I doubt if my mother was acquainted with them.

I looked over my mother’s shoulder to read the letter; it began, “Dear
Cousin Margaret Dawson,” and I think I felt hopeful from the moment I
saw those words. She went on to say,--stay, I think I can remember the
very words:

‘Dear Cousin Margaret Dawson,--I have been much grieved to hear of
the loss you have sustained in the death of so good a husband, and
so excellent a clergyman as I have always heard that my late cousin
Richard was esteemed to be.’

“There!” said my mother, laying her finger on the passage, “read that
aloud to the little ones. Let them hear how their father’s good report
travelled far and wide, and how well he is spoken of by one whom he
never saw. Cousin Richard, how prettily her ladyship writes! Go on,
Margaret!” She wiped her eyes as she spoke: and laid her finger on her
lips, to still my little sister, Cecily, who, not understanding
anything about the important letter, was beginning to talk and make a
noise.

‘You say you are left with nine children. I too should have had
nine, if mine had all lived. I have none left but Rudolph, the
present Lord Ludlow. He is married, and lives, for the most part,
in London. But I entertain six young gentlewomen at my house at
Connington, who are to me as daughters--save that, perhaps, I
restrict them in certain indulgences in dress and diet that might
be befitting in young ladies of a higher rank, and of more probable
wealth. These young persons--all of condition, though out of
means--are my constant companions, and I strive to do my duty as a
Christian lady towards them. One of these young gentlewomen died
(at her own home, whither she had gone upon a visit) last May. Will
you do me the favour to allow your eldest daughter to supply her
place in my household? She is, as I make out, about sixteen years
of age. She will find companions here who are but a little older
than herself. I dress my young friends myself, and make each of
them a small allowance for pocket-money. They have but few
opportunities for matrimony, as Connington is far removed from any
town. The clergyman is a deaf old widower; my agent is married; and
as for the neighbouring farmers, they are, of course, below the
notice of the young gentlewomen under my protection. Still, if any
young woman wishes to marry, and has conducted herself to my
satisfaction, I give her a wedding dinner, her clothes, and her
house-linen. And such as remain with me to my death, will find a
small competency provided for them in my will. I reserve to myself
the option of paying their travelling expenses,--disliking gadding
women, on the one hand; on the other, not wishing by too long
absence from the family home to weaken natural ties.

‘If my proposal pleases you and your daughter--or rather, if it
pleases you, for I trust your daughter has been too well brought up
to have a will in opposition to yours--let me know, dear cousin
Margaret Dawson, and I will make arrangements for meeting the young
gentlewoman at Cavistock, which is the nearest point to which the
coach will bring her.’

My mother dropped the letter, and sat silent.

“I shall not know what to do without you, Margaret.”

A moment before, like a young untried girl as I was, I had been pleased
at the notion of seeing a new place, and leading a new life. But
now,--my mother’s look of sorrow, and the children’s cry of
remonstrance: “Mother; I won’t go,” I said.

“Nay! but you had better,” replied she, shaking her head. “Lady Ludlow
has much power. She can help your brothers. It will not do to slight her
offer.”

So we accepted it, after much consultation. We were rewarded,--or so we
thought,--for, afterwards, when I came to know Lady Ludlow, I saw that
she would have done her duty by us, as helpless relations, however we
might have rejected her kindness,--by a presentation to Christ’s
Hospital for one of my brothers.

And this was how I came to know my Lady Ludlow.

I remember well the afternoon of my arrival at Hanbury Court. Her
ladyship had sent to meet me at the nearest post-town at which the
mail-coach stopped. There was an old groom inquiring for me, the ostler
said, if my name was Dawson--from Hanbury Court, he believed. I felt it
rather formidable; and first began to understand what was meant by going
among strangers, when I lost sight of the guard to whom my mother had
intrusted me. I was perched up in a high gig with a hood to it, such as
in those days was called a chair, and my companion was driving
deliberately through the most pastoral country I had ever yet seen.
By-and-by we ascended a long hill, and the man got out and walked at the
horse’s head. I should have liked to walk, too, very much indeed; but I
did not know how far I might do it; and, in fact, I dared not speak to
ask to be helped down the deep steps of the gig. We were at last at the
top,--on a long, breezy, sweeping, unenclosed piece of ground, called,
as I afterwards learnt, a Chase. The groom stopped, breathed, patted
his horse, and then mounted again to my side.

“Are we near Hanbury Court?” I asked.

“Near! Why, Miss! we’ve a matter of ten mile yet to go.”

Once launched into conversation, we went on pretty glibly. I fancy he
had been afraid of beginning to speak to me, just as I was to him; but
he got over his shyness with me sooner than I did mine with him. I let
him choose the subjects of conversation, although very often I could not
understand the points of interest in them: for instance, he talked for
more than a quarter of an hour of a famous race which a certain dog-fox
had given him, above thirty years before; and spoke of all the covers
and turns just as if I knew them as well as he did; and all the time I
was wondering what kind of an animal a dog-fox might be.

After we left the Chase, the road grew worse. No one in these days, who
has not seen the byroads of fifty years ago, can imagine what