The Complete Short Stories of Elizabeth Gaskell. Elizabeth Gaskell
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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 childlike. Her hair was quite grey: 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 tonight, 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