Rose, Blanche, and Violet, Volume 2 (of 3)

by George Henry Lewes

Well, among these answers there was one which particularly struck Cecil. It was from a widow living at Notting Hill. Omnibuses passing the door every ten minutes; the quiet, unpretending comforts of a home; strictest attention to the respectability of the inmates, and sixty pounds a year for a married couple's board and lodging, were the inestimable advantages offered to the advertiser. The situation and the terms so well suited Cecil's present position, that he determined to look at the place.

The boarding-houses of London are of every possible description; from splendour to pinching, almost squalid poverty. That kept by Mrs. Tring was a type of its class, and merits a fuller description than I shall be able to give of it. The first aspect of it produced a chill upon Cecil. He had taken Blanche with him; and on arriving they were shown into the front parlour, with the information that Mrs. Tring would be "down directly."

It must be a beautiful room, indeed, which can be agreeable in such moments. I know few things more unsatisfactory than that of waiting for a stranger in a strange house. But the cold, cheerless, rigid, poverty-stricken appearance of Mrs. Tring's parlour, would at all times have made Cecil uncomfortable: how much more so now that he was contemplating living there! The drab who officiated as maid, with flaunting cap-ribands, slip-shod feet, and fiery hands,—a synthesis of rags and dirt,—came in to light the fire; a proceeding which only made the room colder and more uncomfortable than before, besides the addition of smoke.

The parlour had a desolate appearance. All the chairs were ranged in order against the wainscot, as if no one had sat in them for months. Not a book, not a bit of needlework, not even a cat betrayed habitation. The settled gloom seemed to have driven away all animated beings from its prosaic solitude. The furniture was old, dingy, scrupulously clean, invalided, melancholy; it did not seem as if it had been worn to its present dinginess, but as if it had darkened under years of silence and neglect.

The Kidderminster carpet was of a plain, dark pattern, selected for its non-betrayal of stains and dirt; it was faded indeed, but in nowise worn. The hearth rug was rolled up before the fender. In the centre of the room was a square table, covered with a dark-green cloth, on which some ancient ink spots told of days when it had been used. Six black horse-hair chairs with mahogany backs, and one footstool retiring into a corner—a portrait of a gentleman, executed in a style of stern art, dark red curtains, and two large shells upon the mantelpiece, complete the inventory of this parlour, which in Mrs. Tring's establishment was set apart for the reception of visitors, and those who came to treat with her for board and lodging.

The want of comfort of this room did not arise from its appearance of poverty so much as from its cold pinched look. It was a poverty which had no poetry in it—nothing picturesque, nor careless and hearty. Between it and the parlour of poor people in general, there was just the difference between a woman dressed in a silk dress which has been dyed, then has faded, and is now worn with a bonnet which was once new, and a woman dressed in plain, common, but fresh wholesome-looking gingham, which she wears with as much ease as if it were of the costliest material. It had the musty smell of an uninhabited room, and the melancholy aspect of a room that was uninhabitable. A sordid meanness was plainly marked upon it, together with an attempt at "appearances," which showed that it was as ostentatious as the means allowed. It was genteel and desolate.

Cecil looked at Blanche to see what impression it had made upon her; but the mild eyes of his beloved seemed to have noticed nothing but his presence, which was sufficient for her happiness. It suddenly occurred to him, that the more wretched the appearance of his home, the more likely would Vyner be to relent when he heard of it; and this thought dissipated his objections to the place.

Mrs. Tring shortly entered, with very evident marks of having just attired herself to receive them. Her presence was necessary to complete the picture; or rather, the room formed a fitting frame for the portrait of the mistress.

Mrs. Tring was the widow of a curate, who, astounding and paradoxical as the fact may appear, had not left her with an indefinite number of destitute children. No: for the benefit of the Statistical Society the fact shall be recorded. Mrs. Tring, though a curate's wife, had never borne a child; she had been left penniless but childless. When I say penniless, I use, of course, merely a well-sounding word. The literal truth is, that although he left her no money, he had left her the means of earning a subsistence, by opening her house as one in which single ladies, single gentlemen, and married people could be lodged and boarded at a very moderate sum. The furniture was her own. Her boarders paid her rent, taxes, dress, and little expenses; and thus Mrs. Tring contrived to live, but not without a hard struggle! It was barely a subsistence, and even that was precarious.

Her personal appearance was not pleasantly prepossessing. She was horribly thin: with a yellow withered face, which seemed to have been sharpened by constant struggles to gain farthings, and constant sorrows at disbursing pence. She wore a black net cap, and a black silk dress, white at the seams from age, the shape of which had outlived a thousand fashions, and taxed the most retentive memory to specify when it had been the mode. It was a low dress, and a piece of net fastened by a large brooch served to conceal her yellow shoulders.