ROUND THE SOFA.
by 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 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.
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 threadbare
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 fingers 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 they
were. We had to quarter, as Randal called it, nearly all the way along
the deep-rutted, miry lanes; and the tremendous jolts I occasionally
met with made my seat in the gig so unsteady that I could not look
about me at all, I was so much occupied in holding on. The road was
too muddy for me to walk without dirtying myself more than I liked to
do, just before my first sight of my Lady Ludlow. But by-and-by, when
we came to the fields in which the lane ended, I begged Randal to help
me down, as I saw that I could pick my steps among the pasture grass
without making myself unfit to be seen; and Randal, out of pity for his
steaming horse, wearied with the hard struggle through the mud, thanked
me kindly, and helped me down with a springing jump.
The pastures fell gradually down to the lower land, shut in on either
side by rows of high elms, as if there had been a wide grand avenue here
in former times. Down the grassy gorge we went, seeing the sunset sky at
the end of the shadowed descent. Suddenly we came to a long flight of
steps.
“If you’ll run down there, Miss, I’ll go round and meet you, and then
you’d better mount again, for my lady will like to see you drive up to
the house.”
“Are we near the house?” said I, suddenly checked by the idea.
“Down there, Miss,” replied he, pointing with his whip to certain stacks
of twisted chimneys rising out of a group of trees, in deep shadow
against the crimson light, and which lay just beyond a great square lawn
at the base of the steep slope of a hundred yards, on the edge of which
we stood.
I went down the steps quietly enough. I met Randal and the gig at the
bottom; and, falling into a side road to the left, we drove sedately
round, through the gateway, and into the great court in front of the
house.
The road by which we had come lay right at the back.
Hanbury Court is a vast red-brick house—at least, it is cased in part
with red bricks; and the gate-house and walls about the place are of
brick,—with stone facings at every corner, and door, and window, such as
you see at Hampton Court. At the back are the gables, and arched
doorways, and stone mullions, which show (so Lady Ludlow used to tell us)
that it was once a priory. There was a prior’s parlour, I know—only we
called it Mrs. Medlicott’s room; and there was a tithe-barn as big as a
church, and rows of fish-ponds, all got ready for the monks’ fasting-days
in old time. But all this I did not see till afterwards. I hardly
noticed, this first night, the great Virginian Creeper (said to have been
the first planted in England by one of my lady’s ancestors) that half
covered the front of the house. As I had been unwilling to leave the
guard of the coach, so did I now feel unwilling to leave Randal, a known
friend of three hours. But there was no help for it; in I must go; past
the grand-looking old gentleman holding the door open for me, on into the
great hall on the right hand, into which the sun’s last rays were sending
in glorious red light,—the gentleman was now walking before me,—up a
step on to the dais, as I afterwards learned that it was called,—then
again to the left, through a series of sitting-rooms, opening one out of
another, and all of them looking into a stately garden, glowing, even in
the twilight, with the bloom of flowers. We went up four steps out of
the last of these rooms, and then my guide lifted up a heavy silk curtain
and I was in the presence of my Lady Ludlow.
She was very small of stature, and very upright. She wore a great lace
cap, nearly half her own height, I should think, that went round her
head (caps which tied under the chin, and which we called “mobs,” came
in later, and my lady held them in great contempt, saying people might
as well come down in their nightcaps). In front of my lady’s cap was a
great bow of white satin ribbon; and a broad band of the same ribbon
was tied tight round her head, and served to keep the cap straight. She
had a fine Indian muslin shawl folded over her shoulders and across
her chest, and an apron of the same; a black silk mode gown, made with
short sleeves and ruffles, and with the tail thereof pulled through
the pocket-hole, so as to shorten it to a useful length: beneath it
she wore, as I could plainly see, a quilted lavender satin petticoat.
Her hair was snowy white, but I hardly saw it, it was so covered with
her cap: her skin, even at her age, was waxen in texture and tint; her
eyes were large and dark blue, and must have been her great beauty
when she was young, for there was nothing particular, as far as I can
remember, either in mouth or nose. She had a great gold-headed stick by
her chair; but I think it was more as a mark of state and dignity than
for use; for she had as light and brisk a step when she chose as any
girl of fifteen, and, in her private early walk of meditation in the
mornings, would go as swiftly from garden alley to garden alley as any
one of us.
She was standing up when I went in. I dropped my curtsey at the door,
which my mother had always taught me as a part of good manners, and went
up instinctively to my lady. She did not put out her hand, but raised
herself a little on tiptoe, and kissed me on both cheeks.
“You are cold, my child. You shall have a dish of tea with me.” She
rang a little hand-bell on the table by her, and her waiting-maid came in
from a small anteroom; and, as if all had been prepared, and was awaiting
my arrival, brought with her a small china service with tea ready made,
and a plate of delicately-cut bread and butter, every morsel of which I
could have eaten, and been none the better for it, so hungry was I after
my long ride. The waiting-maid took off my cloak, and I sat down, sorely
alarmed at the silence, the hushed foot-falls of the subdued maiden over
the thick carpet, and the soft voice and clear pronunciation of my Lady
Ludlow. My teaspoon fell against my cup with a sharp noise, that seemed
so out of place and season that I blushed deeply. My lady caught my eye
with hers,—both keen and sweet were those dark-blue eyes of her
ladyship’s:—
“Your hands are very cold, my dear; take off those gloves” (I wore thick
serviceable doeskin, and had been too shy to take them off unbidden),
“and let me try and warm them—the evenings are very chilly.” And she
held my great red hands in hers,—soft, warm, white, ring-laden. Looking
at last a little wistfully into my face, she said—“Poor child! And
you’re the eldest of nine! I had a daughter who would have been just
your age; but I cannot fancy her the eldest of nine.” Then came a pause
of silence; and then she rang her bell, and desired her waiting-maid,
Adams, to show me to my room.
It was so small that I think it must have been a cell. The walls were
whitewashed stone; the bed was of white dimity. There was a small piece
of red staircarpet on each side of the bed, and two chairs. In a closet
adjoining were my washstand and toilet-table. There was a text of
Scripture painted on the wall right opposite to my bed; and below hung a
print, common enough in those days, of King George and Queen Charlotte,
with all their numerous children, down to the little Princess Amelia in a
go-cart. On each side hung a small portrait, also engraved: on the left,
it was Louis the Sixteenth; on the other, Marie-Antoinette. On the
chimney-piece there was a tinder-box and a Prayer-book. I do not
remember anything else in the room. Indeed, in those days people did not
dream of writing-tables, and inkstands, and portfolios, and easy chairs,
and what not. We were taught to go into our bed-rooms for the purposes of
dressing, and sleeping, and praying.
Presently I was summoned to supper. I followed the young lady who had
been sent to call me, down the wide shallow stairs, into the great hall,
through which I had first passed on my way to my Lady Ludlow’s room.
There were four other young gentlewomen, all standing, and all silent,
who curtsied to me when I first came in. They were dressed in a kind of
uniform: muslin caps bound round their heads with blue ribbons, plain
muslin handkerchiefs, lawn aprons, and drab-coloured stuff gowns. They
were all gathered together at a little distance from the table, on which
were placed a couple of cold chickens, a salad, and a fruit tart. On the
dais there was a smaller round table, on which stood a silver jug filled
with milk, and a small roll. Near that was set a carved chair, with a
countess’s coronet surmounting the back of it. I thought that some one
might have spoken to me; but they were shy, and I was shy; or else there
was some other reason; but, indeed, almost the minute after I had come
into the hall by the door at the lower hand, her ladyship entered by the
door opening upon the dais; whereupon we all curtsied very low; I because
I saw the others do it. She stood, and looked at us for a moment.
“Young gentlewomen,” said she, “make Margaret Dawson welcome among you;”
and they treated me with the kind politeness due to a stranger, but still
without any talking beyond what was required for the purposes of the
meal. After it was over, and grace was said by one of our party, my lady
rang her hand-bell, and the servants came in and cleared away the supper
things: then they brought in a portable reading-desk, which was placed on
the dais, and, the whole household trooping in, my lady called to one of
my companions to come up and read the Psalms and Lessons for the day. I
remember thinking how afraid I should have been had I been in her place.
There were no prayers. My lady thought it schismatic to have any prayers
excepting those in the Prayer-book; and would as soon have preached a
sermon herself in the parish church, as have allowed any one not a deacon
at the least to read prayers in a private dwelling-house. I am not sure
that even then she would have approved of his reading them in an
unconsecrated place.
She had been maid-of-honour to Queen Charlotte: a Hanbury of that old
stock that flourished in the days of the Plantagenets, and heiress of all
the land that remained to the family, of the great estates which had once
stretched into four separate counties. Hanbury Court was hers by right.
She had married Lord Ludlow, and had lived for many years at his various
seats, and away from her ancestral home. She had lost all her children
but one, and most of them had died at these houses of Lord Ludlow’s; and,
I dare say, that gave my lady a distaste to the places, and a longing to
come back to Hanbury Court, where she had been so happy as a girl. I
imagine her girlhood had been the happiest time of her life; for, now I
think of it, most of her opinions, when I knew her in later life, were
singular enough then, but had been universally prevalent fifty years
before. For instance, while I lived at Hanbury Court, the cry for
education was beginning to come up: Mr. Raikes had set up his Sunday
Schools; and some clergymen were all for teaching writing and arithmetic,
as well as reading. My lady would have none of this; it was levelling
and revolutionary, she said. When a young woman came to be hired, my
lady would have her in, and see if she liked her looks and her dress, and
question her about her family. Her ladyship laid great stress upon this
latter point, saying that a girl who did not warm up when any interest or
curiosity was expressed about her mother, or the “baby” (if there was
one), was not likely to make a good servant. Then she would make her put
out her feet, to see if they were well and neatly shod. Then she would
bid her say the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed. Then she inquired if she
could write. If she could, and she had liked all that had gone before,
her face sank—it was a great disappointment, for it was an all but
inviolable rule with her never to engage a servant who could write. But
I have known her ladyship break through it, although in both cases in
which she did so she put the girl’s principles to a further and unusual
test in asking her to repeat the Ten Commandments. One pert young
woman—and yet I was sorry for her too, only she afterwards married a
rich draper in Shrewsbury—who had got through her trials pretty
tolerably, considering she could write, spoilt all, by saying glibly, at
the end of the last Commandment, “An’t please your ladyship, I can cast
accounts.”
“Go away, wench,” said my lady in a hurry, “you’re only fit for trade;
you will not suit me for a servant.” The girl went away crestfallen: in
a minute, however, my lady sent me after her to see that she had
something to eat before leaving the house; and, indeed, she sent for her
once again, but it was only to give her a Bible, and to bid her beware of
French principles, which had led the French to cut off their king’s and
queen’s heads.
The poor, blubbering girl said, “Indeed, my lady, I wouldn’t hurt a fly,
much less a king, and I cannot abide the French, nor frogs neither, for
that matter.”
But my lady was inexorable, and took a girl who could neither read nor
write, to make up for her alarm about the progress of education towards
addition and subtraction; and afterwards, when the clergyman who was at
Hanbury parish when I came there, had died, and the bishop had appointed
another, and a younger man, in his stead, this was one of the points on
which he and my lady did not agree. While good old deaf Mr. Mountford
lived, it was my lady’s custom, when indisposed for a sermon, to stand up
at the door of her large square pew,—just opposite to the
reading-desk,—and to say (at that part of the morning service where it
is decreed that, in quires and places where they sing, here followeth the
anthem): “Mr. Mountford, I will not trouble you for a discourse this
morning.” And we all knelt down to the Litany with great satisfaction;
for Mr. Mountford, though he could not hear, had always his eyes open
about this part of the service, for any of my lady’s movements. But the
new clergyman, Mr. Gray, was of a different stamp. He was very zealous
in all his parish work; and my lady, who was just as good as she could be
to the poor, was often crying him up as a godsend to the parish, and he
never could send amiss to the Court when he wanted broth, or wine, or
jelly, or sago for a sick person. But he needs must take up the new
hobby of education; and I could see that this put my lady sadly about one
Sunday, when she suspected, I know not how, that there was something to
be said in his sermon about a Sunday-school which he was planning. She
stood up, as she had not done since Mr. Mountford’s death, two years and
better before this time, and said—
“Mr. Gray, I will not trouble you for a discourse this morning.”
But her voice was not well-assured and steady; and we knelt down with
more of curiosity than satisfaction in our minds. Mr. Gray preached a
very rousing sermon, on the necessity of establishing a Sabbath-school in
the village. My lady shut her eyes, and seemed to go to sleep; but I
don’t believe she lost a word of it, though she said nothing about it
that I heard until the next Saturday, when two of us, as was the custom,
were riding out with her in her carriage, and we went to see a poor
bedridden woman, who lived some miles away at the other end of the estate
and of the parish: and as we came out of the cottage we met Mr. Gray
walking up to it, in a great heat, and looking very tired. My lady
beckoned him to her, and told him she should wait and take him home with
her, adding that she wondered to see him there, so far from his home, for
that it was beyond a Sabbath-day’s journey, and, from what she had
gathered from his sermon the last Sunday, he was all for Judaism against
Christianity. He looked as if he did not understand what she meant; but
the truth was that, besides the way in which he had spoken up for schools
and schooling, he had kept calling Sunday the Sabbath: and, as her
ladyship said, “The Sabbath is the Sabbath, and that’s one thing—it is
Saturday; and if I keep it, I’m a Jew, which I’m not. And Sunday is
Sunday; and that’s another thing; and if I keep it, I’m a Christian,
which I humbly trust I am.”
But when Mr. Gray got an inkling of her meaning in talking about a
Sabbath-day’s journey, he only took notice of a part of it: he smiled and
bowed, and said no one knew better than her ladyship what were the duties
that abrogated all inferior laws regarding the Sabbath; and that he must
go in and read to old Betty Brown, so that he would not detain her
ladyship.
“But I shall wait for you, Mr. Gray,” said she. “Or I will take a drive
round by Oakfield, and be back in an hour’s time.” For, you see, she
would not have him feel hurried or troubled with a thought that he was
keeping her waiting, while he ought to be comforting and praying with old
Betty.
“A very pretty young man, my dears,” said she, as we drove away. “But I
shall have my pew glazed all the same.”
We did not know what she meant at the time; but the next Sunday but one
we did. She had the curtains all round the grand old Hanbury family seat
taken down, and, instead of them, there was glass up to the height of six
or seven feet. We entered by a door, with a window in it that drew up or
down just like what you see in carriages. This window was generally
down, and then we could hear perfectly; but if Mr. Gray used the word
“Sabbath,” or spoke in favour of schooling and education, my lady stepped
out of her corner, and drew up the window with a decided clang and clash.
I must tell you something more about Mr. Gray. The presentation to the
living of Hanbury was vested in two trustees, of whom Lady Ludlow was
one: Lord Ludlow had exercised this right in the appointment of Mr.
Mountford, who had won his lordship’s favour by his excellent
horsemanship. Nor was Mr. Mountford a bad clergyman, as clergymen went
in those days. He did not drink, though he liked good eating as much as
any one. And if any poor person was ill, and he heard of it, he would
send them plates from his own dinner of what he himself liked best;
sometimes of dishes which were almost as bad as poison to sick people. He
meant kindly to everybody except dissenters, whom Lady Ludlow and he
united in trying to drive out of the parish; and among dissenters he
particularly abhorred Methodists—some one said, because John Wesley had
objected to his hunting. But that must have been long ago for when I
knew him he was far too stout and too heavy to hunt; besides, the bishop
of the diocese disapproved of hunting, and had intimated his
disapprobation to the clergy. For my own part, I think a good run would
not have come amiss, even in a moral point of view, to Mr. Mountford. He
ate so much, and took so little exercise, that we young women often heard
of his being in terrible passions with his servants, and the sexton and
clerk. But they none of them minded him much, for he soon came to
himself, and was sure to make them some present or other—some said in
proportion to his anger; so that the sexton, who was a bit of a wag (as
all sextons are, I think), said that the vicar’s saying, “The Devil take
you,” was worth a shilling any day, whereas “The Deuce” was a shabby
sixpenny speech, only fit for a curate.
There was a great deal of good in Mr. Mountford, too. He could not bear
to see pain, or sorrow, or misery of any kind; and, if it came under his
notice, he was never easy till he had relieved it, for the time, at any
rate. But he was afraid of being made uncomfortable; so, if he possibly
could, he would avoid seeing any one who was ill or unhappy; and he did
not thank any one for telling him about them.
“What would your ladyship have me to do?” he once said to my Lady Ludlow,
when she wished him to go and see a poor man who had broken his leg. “I
cannot piece the leg as the doctor can; I cannot nurse him as well as his
wife does; I may talk to him, but he no more understands me than I do the
language of the alchemists. My coming puts him out; he stiffens himself
into an uncomfortable posture, out of respect to the cloth, and dare not
take the comfort of kicking, and swearing, and scolding his wife, while I
am there. I hear him, with my figurative ears, my lady, heave a sigh of
relief when my back is turned, and the sermon that he thinks I ought to
have kept for the pulpit, and have delivered to his neighbours (whose
case, as he fancies, it would just have fitted, as it seemed to him to be
addressed to the sinful), is all ended, and done, for the day. I judge
others as myself; I do to them as I would be done to. That’s
Christianity, at any rate. I should hate—saving your ladyship’s
presence—to have my Lord Ludlow coming and seeing me, if I were ill.
’Twould be a great honour, no doubt; but I should have to put on a clean
nightcap for the occasion; and sham patience, in order to be polite, and
not weary his lordship with my complaints. I should be twice as thankful
to him if he would send me game, or a good fat haunch, to bring me up to
that pitch of health and strength one ought to be in, to appreciate the
honour of a visit from a nobleman. So I shall send Jerry Butler a good
dinner every day till he is strong again; and spare the poor old fellow
my presence and advice.”
My lady would be puzzled by this, and by many other of Mr. Mountford’s
speeches. But he had been appointed by my lord, and she could not
question her dead husband’s wisdom; and she knew that the dinners were
always sent, and often a guinea or two to help to pay the doctor’s bills;
and Mr. Mountford was true blue, as we call it, to the back-bone; hated
the dissenters and the French; and could hardly drink a dish of tea
without giving out the toast of “Church and King, and down with the
Rump.” Moreover, he had once had the honour of preaching before the King
and Queen, and two of the Princesses, at Weymouth; and the King had
applauded his sermon audibly with,—“Very good; very good;” and that was
a seal put upon his merit in my lady’s eyes.
Besides, in the long winter Sunday evenings, he would come up to the
Court, and read a sermon to us girls, and play a game of picquet with my
lady afterwards; which served to shorten the tedium of the time. My lady
would, on those occasions, invite him to sup with her on the dais; but as
her meal was invariably bread and milk only, Mr. Mountford preferred
sitting down amongst us, and made a joke about its being wicked and
heterodox to eat meagre on Sunday, a festival of the Church. We smiled
at this joke just as much the twentieth time we heard it as we did at the
first; for we knew it was coming, because he always coughed a little
nervously before he made a joke, for fear my lady should not approve: and
neither she nor he seemed to remember that he had ever hit upon the idea
before.
Mr. Mountford died quite suddenly at last. We were all very sorry to
lose him. He left some of his property (for he had a private estate) to
the poor of the parish, to furnish them with an annual Christmas dinner
of roast beef and plum pudding, for which he wrote out a very good
receipt in the codicil to his will.
Moreover, he desired his executors to see that the vault, in which the
vicars of Hanbury were interred, was well aired, before his coffin was
taken in; for, all his life long, he had had a dread of damp, and
latterly he kept his rooms to such a pitch of warmth that some thought it
hastened his end.
Then the other trustee, as I have said, presented the living to Mr. Gray,
Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. It was quite natural for us all, as
belonging in some sort to the Hanbury family, to disapprove of the other
trustee’s choice. But when some ill-natured person circulated the report
that Mr. Gray was a Moravian Methodist, I remember my lady said, “She
could not believe anything so bad, without a great deal of evidence.”