Round the Sofa

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      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 grey 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 bedroom, 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 recognise 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 latchkey, 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 neutralise 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 latchkey 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 tonight; 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