Life at Mrs. M'Collop's apartments in 22 Breadalbane Terrace is about as
simple, comfortable, dignified, and delightful as it well can be.
Mrs. M'Collop herself is neat, thrifty, precise, tolerably genial, and
'verra releegious.'
Her partner, who is also the cook, is a person introduced to us as Miss
Diggity. We afterwards learned that this is spelled Dalgety, but it is
not considered good form, in Scotland, to pronounce the names of persons
and places as they are written. When, therefore, I allude to the cook,
which will be as seldom as possible, I shall speak of her as Miss
Diggity-Dalgety, so that I shall be presenting her correctly both to the
eye and to the ear, and giving her at the same time a hyphenated name, a
thing which is a secret object of aspiration in Great Britain.
In selecting our own letters and parcels from the common stock on the
hall table, I perceive that most of our fellow-lodgers are hyphenated
ladies, whose visiting-cards diffuse the intelligence that in their
single persons two ancient families and fortunes are united. On
the ground floor are the Misses Hepburn-Sciennes (pronounced
Hebburn-Sheens); on the floor above us are Miss Colquhoun (Cohoon)
and her cousin Miss Cockburn-Sinclair (Coburn-Sinkler). As soon as
the Hepburn-Sciennes depart, Mrs. M'Collop expects Mrs. Menzies of
Kilconquhar, of whom we shall speak as Mrs. Mingess of Kinyuchar.
There is not a man in the house; even the Boots is a girl, so that
22 Breadalbane Terrace is as truly a castra puellarum as was ever the
Castle of Edinburgh with its maiden princesses in the olden time.
We talked with Miss Diggity-Dalgety on the evening of our first day at
Mrs. M'Collop's, when she came up to know our commands. As Francesca
and Salemina were both in the room, I determined to be as Scotch as
possible, for it is Salemina's proud boast that she is taken for a
native of every country she visits.
“We shall not be entertaining at present, Miss Diggity,” I said, “so you
can give us just the ordinary dishes,--no doubt you are accustomed to
them: scones, baps or bannocks with marmalade, finnan-haddie or kippered
herring for breakfast; tea,--of course we never touch coffee in the
morning” (here Francesca started with surprise); “porridge, and we like
them well boiled, please” (I hope she noted the plural pronoun; Salemina
did, and blanched with envy); “minced collops for luncheon, or a nice
little black-faced chop; Scotch broth, pease brose or cockyleekie soup
at dinner, and haggis now and then, with a cold shape for dessert. That
is about the sort of thing we are accustomed to,--just plain Scotch
living.”
I was impressing Miss Diggity-Dalgety,--I could see that clearly; but
Francesca spoiled the effect by inquiring, maliciously, if we could
sometimes have a howtowdy wi' drappit eggs, or her favourite dish, wee
grumphie wi' neeps.
Here Salemina was obliged to poke the fire in order to conceal her
smiles, and the cook probably suspected that Francesca found howtowdy
in the Scotch glossary; but we amused each other vastly, and that is our
principal object in life.
Miss Diggity-Dalgety's forebears must have been exposed to foreign
influences, for she interlards her culinary conversation with French
terms, and we have discovered that this is quite common. A 'jigget' of
mutton is of course a gigot, and we have identified an 'ashet' as
an assiette. The 'petticoat tails' she requested me to buy at the
confectioner's were somewhat more puzzling, but when they were finally
purchased by Susanna Crum they appeared to be ordinary little cakes;
perhaps, therefore, petits gastels, since gastel is an old form of
gateau, as was bel for beau. Susanna, on her part, speaks of the
wardrobe in my bedroom as an 'awmry.' It certainly contains no weapons,
so cannot be an armoury, and we conjecture that her word must be a
corruption of armoire.
“That was a remarkable touch about the black-faced chop,” laughed
Salemina, when Miss Diggity-Dalgety had retired; “not that I believe
they ever say it.”
“I am sure they must,” I asserted stoutly, “for I passed a flesher's on
my way home, and saw a sign with 'Prime Black-Faced Mutton' printed on
it. I also saw 'Fed Veal,' but I forgot to ask the cook for it.”
“We ought really to have kept house in Edinburgh,” observed Francesca,
looking up from the Scotsman. “One can get a 'self-contained residential
flat' for twenty pounds a month. We are such an enthusiastic trio that a
self-contained flat would be everything to us; and if it were not fully
furnished, here is a firm that wishes to sell a 'composite bed' for six
pounds, and a 'gent's stuffed easy' for five. Added to these inducements
there is somebody who advertises that parties who intend 'displenishing'
at the Whit Term would do well to consult him, as he makes a specialty
of second-handed furniture and 'cyclealities.' What are 'cyclealities,'
Susanna?” (She had just come in with coals.)
“I cudna say, mam.”
“Thank you; no, you need not ask Mrs. M'Collop; it is of no
consequence.”
Susanna Crum is a most estimable young woman, clean, respectful,
willing, capable, and methodical, but as a Bureau of Information she is
painfully inadequate. Barring this single limitation she seems to be a
treasure-house of all good practical qualities; and being thus clad and
panoplied in virtue, why should she be so timid and self-distrustful?
She wears an expression which can mean only one of two things: either
she has heard of the national tomahawk and is afraid of violence on
our part, or else her mother was frightened before she was born. This
applies in general to her walk and voice and manner, but is it fear that
prompts her eternal 'I cudna say,' or is it perchance Scotch caution
and prudence? Is she afraid of projecting her personality too indecently
far? Is it the indirect effect of heresy trials on her imagination? Does
she remember the thumbscrew of former generations? At all events, she
will neither affirm nor deny, and I am putting her to all sorts of
tests, hoping to discover finally whether she is an accident, an
exaggeration, or a type.
Salemina thinks that our American accent may confuse her. Of course she
means Francesca's and mine, for she has none; although we have
tempered ours so much for the sake of the natives, that we can scarcely
understand each other any more. As for Susanna's own accent, she comes
from the heart of Aberdeenshire, and her intonation is beyond my power
to reproduce.
We naturally wish to identify all the national dishes; so, “Is this
cockle soup, Susanna?” I ask her, as she passes me the plate at dinner.
“I cudna say.”
“This vegetable is new to me, Susanna; is it perhaps sea-kale?”
“I canna say, mam.”
Then finally, in despair, as she handed me a boiled potato one day,
I fixed my searching Yankee brown eyes on her blue-Presbyterian,
non-committal ones, and asked, “What is this vegetable, Susanna?”
In an instant she withdrew herself, her soul, her ego, so utterly that
I felt myself gazing at an inscrutable stone image, as she replied, “I
cudna say, mam.”
This was too much! Her mother may have been frightened, very badly
frightened, but this was more that I could endure without protest. The
plain boiled potato is practically universal. It is not only common to
all temperate climates, but it has permeated all classes of society.
I am confident that the plain boiled potato has been one of the chief
constituents in the building up of that frame in which Susanna Crum
conceals her opinions and emotions. I remarked, therefore, as an,
apparent afterthought, “Why, it is a potato, is it not, Susanna?”
What do you think she replied, when thus hunted into a corner, pushed
against a wall, driven to the very confines of her personal and national
liberty? She subjected the potato to a second careful scrutiny, and
answered, “I wudna say it's no'!”
Now there is no inherited physical terror in this. It is the
concentrated essence of intelligent reserve, caution, and obstinacy;
it is a conscious intellectual hedging; it is a dogged and determined
attempt to build up barriers of defence between the questioner and the
questionee: it must be, therefore, the offspring of the catechism and
the heresy trial.
Once again, after establishing an equally obvious fact, I succeeded in
wringing from her the reluctant admission, “It depends,” but she was so
shattered by the bulk and force of this outgo, so fearful that in some
way she had imperilled her life or reputation, so anxious concerning the
effect that her unwilling testimony might have upon unborn generations,
that she was of no real service the rest of the day.
I wish that the Lord Advocate, or some modern counterpart of Braxfield,
the hanging judge, would summon Susanna Crum as a witness in an
important case. He would need his longest plummet to sound the depths of
her consciousness.
I have had no legal experience, but I can imagine the scene.
“Is the prisoner your father, Susanna Crum?”
“I cudna say, my lord.”
“You have not understood the question, Susanna. Is the prisoner your
father?”
“I cudna say, my lord.”
“Come, come, my girl! you must answer the questions put you by the
court. You have been an inmate of the prisoner's household since your
earliest consciousness. He provided you with food, lodging, and clothing
during your infancy and early youth. You have seen him on annual
visits to your home, and watched him as he performed the usual parental
functions for your younger brothers and sisters. I therefore repeat, is
the prisoner your father, Susanna Crum?”
“I wudna say he's no', my lord.”
“This is really beyond credence! What do you conceive to be the idea
involved in the word 'father,' Susanna Crum?”
“It depends, my lord.”
And this, a few hundred years earlier, would have been the natural and
effective moment for the thumbscrews.
I do not wish to be understood as defending these uncomfortable
appliances. They would never have been needed to elicit information from
me, for I should have spent my nights inventing matter to confess in
the daytime. I feel sure that I should have poured out such floods
of confessions and retractations that if all Scotland had been one
listening ear it could not have heard my tale. I am only wondering if,
in the extracting of testimony from the common mind, the thumbscrew
might not have been more necessary with some nations than with others.