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CONTENTS
NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS
MEMOIR OF MRS. GASKELL
INTRODUCTION TO " CRANFORD
A LIST OF MRS. GASKELL's WRITINGS
I. OUR SOCIETY
II. THE CAPTAIN
III. A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO
IV. A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR
V. OLD LETTERS
VI. POOR PETER
VII. VISITING
VIII. " YOUR LADYSHIP "
IX. SIGNOR BRUNONI
X. THE PANIC
XI. SAMUEL BROWN .
XII. ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED
XIII. STOPPED PAYMENT
XIV. FRIENDS IN NEED
XV. A HAPPY RETURN
XVI. PEACE TO CRANFORD
NOTES TO " CRANFORD "
9930^
THE ILLUSTRATIONS
THE CLOAK ROOM . . . . • Frontispiece
There are two large rooms. The Assembly Room, holding
about i8o people, is frequently used for meetings, dinners,
parties, etc. Beyond this is the County Ball Room, capable
of seating about 280. This is where the County Assembly
is usually held, and it was formerly used exclusively by the
county families. To-day it is let for local purposes. It is
an extremely handsome room, with three beautiful can-
delabra down the centre of the ceiling. The floor is perfect
for dancing. It is here where the county ball, described in
Rut/i, was held. The Cloak Room is beyond the Bali
Room, and is very quaint in appearance, with a large
ancient mirror and cushioned seats : " Miss Matty adjusted
her pretty new cap before the strange, quaint old mirror in
the cloak-room " (p. 135).
A PAVED LANE ......
There are very few of the old paved lanes left in Cheshire.
The paved portion was usually in the centre of the road, but
sometimes at the 'side. It is said that the paving was
useful to the drowsy farmer returning from the market.
So long as he heard the musical sound, he knew that all
was well, and could sleep on.
THE CHURCH ......
The Knutsford parish church of St. John the Baptist, a
red-brick building with stone facings, was built in 1744,
soon after Knutsford — which formerly was in the parish
of Rostherne— was made by an Act of Parliament into
a separate parish in 1741. The bells which used to ring in
the old parochial chapel were lecast and rehung in the
tower of the new church. It now has a peal of six bells.
The remains of the ancient chapelry, which was rebuilt in
the time of Henry VI II, may be found about a mile away,
where yew trees, a few bricks and stones, and a number of
gravestones bearing sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
dates still bear testimony to its former usage. It was in
the parish church that Mrs. Gaskell was married in 1832,
the dissenters being unable to marrj' in their own chapels
until iS^6.
PAGE
lii
X CRANFORD
PAGE
KNUTSFORD FROM THE MOOR .... 3
Looking over the moor from the parish of St. Cross or
Cross Town, Knutsford has the appearance of a compact
little town, with the church in the centre. The town rises
gently from the moor to the Heath, which is the highest
point.
IN THE CHURCH ...... 16
The interior of the church consists of a nave and aisles
with galleries above them supported by substantial pillars.
IN THE MARKET PLACE . . . . -I?
_ Many of the old houses in the Market Place are dis-
tinctly substantial. Some of the most respectable people
lived here in former times. The bow windows remind us
of a past age. The date of these houses is 1708.
HIGGINS' HOUSE FROM THE GARDEN . . 35
Heath House, the home of Higgins the Highwayman, is
covered with ivy at the front. At the back, where there
is a magnificent garden, the house has a much more quaint
appearance, so irregular is it in shape. The drawing-room
(upstairs) faces the garden. There are many outbuildings
and much stable accommodation, for Higgins is reputed to
have had a number of very swift steeds. His wife, a
daughter of one of the county squires, did not know
her husband's occupation. He used to tell her he was
going to " collect his rents."
THE *' ROSE AND CROWN " . . . • 3^
The ' ' Rose and Crown " is the oldest house in Knutsford.
It is of the old black-and-white magpie order, with slanting
gable, and the front is in good preservation. The rooms
upstairs are very low, and the oak beams are still bare.
The date on the Iront of the house is 1641. At one time the
top of the 6 was chipped off, and for about 46 years the
date appeared to be 1041. The top of the 6 was restored
in 1905.
PRINCESS STREET ..... 47, 49
One of the houses pointed out to nearly all visitors is
what is called " Miss Matty's Tea-shop." It is a chemist's
shop in Princess S"treet, in the occupation of Mr. Gibbon-
Simpson. It is pretty certain that it never had any con-
nection with Miss Matty, as the real Miss Matty was never
reduced in circumstances so as to be under the necessity of
keeping a tea-shop. Something must be allowed to the
imagination. This house, however, was occupied by Miss
THE ILLUSTRATIONS xi
PAGE
Elizabeth Marker (Miss Betty Barker), whose cow actually
not only fell into the limepit — then on the Northwich Road
— but also wore a grey flannel jacket. The headstone in
the parish churchyard bears the following inscription : —
" Elizabeth Marker
Died loth April 1833
Aged 72 years."
In any case, Miss Matty's tea-shop could not have been in
Princess Street, since we are told on p. 244 : " Her sofa was
wheeled to the open window, through which, although it
looked into the principal street of_ Cranford, etc." The
principal street of Cranford is certainly King Street.
THE ROAD TO SANDLEBRIDGE .... 48
The road to Sandlebridge from Knutsford (three to four
miles) is through Ollerton, and is a pleasant country lane.
SANDLEBRIDGE ...... 64
The old farm stands pretty much as it was in Mrs.
Gaskell's time. This view is from the back, and shows the
door, which is called the "Curate" in Cousin Phillis, as
distinct from the front door or "Rector," which was
" handsome and all for show." There are a considerable
number of farm buildings, and an ancient horse-mount
may be found at the side of the house.
HIGGINS THE HIGHWAYMAn's .... 65
This house was at one time the old Cann Office, where
weights and scales were tested. It was the house occupied
by Higgins the Highwa\ man of The Squires '/'ale and of
De Quincey's Highivayman. Me is fully described by
Rev. Henry Green, m.a., in Knutsford, its Traditions
and History. He was hanged at Carmarthen in 1767.
This house was once occupied by Jack Mytton, a famous
sporting character, whose adventures were celebrated in
song, and in a series of sporting prints once exhibited at
the Grosvenor Gallery. He rode a race in his shirt on one
occasion, and performed various wild feats.
MRS. LUMB's house ..... 78
Mrs. Lumb's House is a tall, red-brick house, facing the
Heath, in what is now known as Gaskell Avenue. It is a
substantial house, the lower windows of which have been
enlarged. Hannah, relict of Samuel Lumb, of Wakefield,
and daughter of Samuel and Ann Holland, a very good
portrait of whom appears in Mrs. Chadwick's book, lived
only five years after her niece's marriage — which took place
from her house on the Heath — passing away in 1837 at the
age of 69. Mrs. Lumb appears to have been pretty
well off.
xii CRANFORD
THE OLD VICARAGE .....
The old vicarage stands at the top of King Street, near
the Park Gates. It is a small house with many windows.
In later times the Rev. Robert Clowes lived in a much
larger house known as the Court House along the Chelford
Road. The old vicarage corresponds in many particulars
with the description in Cranford, but there is certainly
very little room at the front of the house for Poor Peter to
have received a whipping. It may or may not have been
the house Mrs. Gaskell had in mind, but it is reputed to be
the one, and it certainly was the old vicarage when she was
a girl.
SUNDIAL AND CHURCH HOUSE ....
An ancient sundial stands in the churchyard, adjoining
and overlooking which is Church House, now called
Hollingford House, the home of the Holland family. It
may well be taken for the vicarage, which, however, is
some little distance away. It was the home of dissenters,
who owned a family pew in the parish church, and who
sometimes exercised their right to its use. They usually
worshipped in the Unitarian chapel, built in 1689, in which
Matthew Henry occasionally preached. It is a plain build-
ing with a gallery on three sides and a pulpit on the fourth.
The old pulpit and the square family pews were removed in
1859, but the gallery remains in its original state.
THE SEDAN CHAIR ......
This sedan chair, or at least one of the sedan chairs used
at this period, is still carefully preserved, and is carried in
the May-Day procession once a year.
A CALASH ....... lOS
The earlier illustrators of Cranford did not draw a
calash, but the illustrations of Miss Wheelhouse supply this
defect. The drawing is of a calash which was actually
worn in Cranford times. For the description see p. 102.
BROOK HOUSE FROM THE GARDEN . . .1
Mrs. Jamieson's house is extremely picturesque at the
back, overlooking one of the prettiest gardens in Knutsford,
rising as it does in terraces of lovely soft green turf, and
having a pretty stream winding in and out until it finally
passes underneath the main road.
BROOK HOUSE . . . . . .1
" That lady lived in a large house just outside the town "
(p. 116). The house occupied by the Hon. Mrs. Jamieson
is usually supposed to be that adjoining the Unitarian
Chapel, which used to be open to the road, though it now
has a garden at the front. Here an eccentric lady — Lady
THE ILLUSTRATIONS xiii
PAGE
Jane Stanley — once lived, who disapproved of j'Oiing people
"linking" in the street. She had evidently been turned
off the path on more than one occasion, for she left a sum
of money to be spent in providing stone flags. The paths
I were to be one flag wide. "Lady Jane Stanley, by a
codicil to her will, dated the ist August, 1801, gave the
sum of ;^4oo, the interest to be applied to the repairs of the
flagstones laid down by her in the town of Nether Knuts-
ford, and to the maintenance of the woollen flag or colours
given by her to the said town." A revised scheme, dated
6th February, 1894, provides for the maintenance of the
woollen flag or colours, and for any public purpose for the
benefit of the township of Nether Knutsford.
THE minstrels' GALLERY . . . . 1 26
The Minstrels' Gallery is at one end of the County Ball
Room high up above the dancers.
THE STAIRS AT THE " GEORGE " . . . 12J
Miss Pole strolled up the staircase and found herself in
the passage leading to the Assembly Room (p. 131). The
visiter is usually charmed with the shining black oak
staircase and panelled wainscot, the old oak settle at
the head of the stairs, the chippendale cabinets, hunting
prints, old china, and portraits of celebrities, which adorn
the staircase and rooms.
"the CARRIAGE-WAY AT THE ' GEORGE ' " . I40
"At length we set ofi"; and at the door, under the
carriage-way at the ' George,' we met Mrs. Forrester
and Miss Pole" (p. 134). The entrance to the "George"
is in a passage leading from King Street to Princess Street.
This is a public way and very much used, though it passes
through the stable yard.
CROSS TOWN ...... 141
Cross Town is a portion of Nether Knutsford across the
moor. A small stream — the River Lily — runs down from
what is called Molly Potts Moor, behind Legh Road, and
joins Tatton Mere, after passing along the side of the moor.
This stream, which used to cross Brook Street just above
the Public Library, but which now runs underneath the
road, is supposed to be the stream which Canute forded,
hence the name Knutsford. It is also found in the forms
Knotsford, Knottesford, Cunetesford. It may possibly have
been a N eats-ford, but if it must have reference to Canute
or Knut it seems more likely to have been Canute's Fort
than the Ford — ^judging, at least, by its present size — which
Canute forded.
OVER KNUTSFORD . . . . . . I58
Over Knutsford extends along the Chelford Road, and
back as far as the Legh Road, where some picturesque
Italian houses were built by Mr. R. H. Watt. Over Place
refers, no doubt, to this district.
xiv CRANFORD
"The little wayside public-house, standing on the high
road to London, about three miles from Cranford " (p. i6o).
It is called the" Rising Sun" in Cranford, but in reality
it is the " Mainwaring Arms," near to the entrance gates
to Higher Peover Hall, "the homestead of the Main-
warings from times, perhaps, long anterior to the Con-
quest." It is generally known as the " Whipping Stocks,"
though the stocks which used to face the road from Knuts-
ford have been long since removed. The large sign used to
hang from a tree on the opposite side of the road to the
public-house, which stands at the junction of the Holmes
Chapel, Chelford, and Knutsford roads, about 2^ miles
from Knutsford.
ON THE LONDON ROAD .....
The London Road is the Toft Road out of Knutsford.
Along this Knutsford to Holmes Chapel Road the stage
coaches passed in 1834. The Royal Mail left Knutsford
every morning at 2, and travelled through Lichfield and
Coventry. The Umpire left every afternoon (Sunday ex-
cepted) at 3.30, and went through Newcastle-under-Lyme,
Lichfield and Northampton. From Liverpool to Chelten-
ham the Bangup left Knutsford every morning (Sunday
excepted) at 9, and travelled through Newcastle, Stone,
Stafford and Wolverhampton. These are only a few of the
coaches which passed through Knutsford, which must have
been well known to travellers.
FROM THE CHURCHYARD ....
This ancient house, now divided into a larger and a
smaller, was in Cranford times occupied by the master
of the Grammar School, who provided accommodation for
a number of boarders.
THE ANGEL HOTEL .....
This ancient hostelry is on the same side of King Street
as the George Hotel, but nearer the entrance to Cumnor
Towers {Wives and Daughters) or Tatton Hall and Park,
the seat of Lord Egerton of Tatton. In earlier days it was
on the opposite side of the street, nearer the Post Office.
IN KING STREET ......
These are some of the very few cottages left which are
covered with thatch. They date from about 1690. In one
of them an old shoemaker lived, who used to frame his bills
much in this form : —
" For heeling master, . . .so much
For toeing missus . . . .so much "
Near these cottages the stocks formerly stood, beneath the
wall of the parish church. ^Stocks may still be seen at
High Legh and at Lymm.
174
THE ILLUSTRATIONS xv
9| THE END OF KING STREET . . . . 1 8/
A few cottages stand at the end of King Street, near the
entrance to Tat on Park. Formerly it would appear that
a number of cotton mills stood on this site— that is, at the
" top of the bottom street."
THE OLD MARKET HOUSE . . . . 20I
The Old Market Hall, with the Court above, may still be
seen in the Market Place. Here the bellman, who was
also the chief constable, used to live, and many a man has
been locked up in the cells, which correspond with our
modern police station. The Saturday- market — established
in 1292 — was at one time large and flourishing, and filled
the market square as well as the Market Hall. To-day it is
a very poor business, limited in point of time and very
limited in size, and is held in what is called the Market
Hall, beneath the Town Hall.
ON THE HEATH ...... 202
A reverse view of the cottages shown on page 187. It is
fortunate that a picture is preserved of the cottage with
the rounded end and of the old fire-station — with the small
bell-turret — which have since been removed. On the door
of the fire-station a notice used to be posted which in-
formed any person who was unfortunate enough to require
the services of the fire-engine: —
" Key at John Wood's."
In these days, by smashing a glass, it is possible to toll
the bell and summon the firemen.
FRIEZE IN THE COUNTY BALL ROOM . . 223
THE EDGE OF THE HEATH .... 224
The ancient cottages shown in this picture, which used to
stand along the Northwich Road, have now been removed,
and at the corner nearest to the town a palatial Conserva-
tive Club has been built. The cottagers, who were turned
out by this change, have been provided with much more
commodious modern cottages by the Lord of the Manor
along the Manchester Road.
DISTANT VIEW OF PARISH CHURCH, KNUTSFORD . 239
THE GEORGE HOTEL ..... 24O
This is a view of the hotel, showing a little of King
Street, which used to be paved' with cobble stones, or
"petrified kidneys." The street has an irregular, in-and-out
appearance, with here and there a protruding gable. _ There
are a few half-doors to the houses, and some of the windows
are extremely quaint.
CRANFORD
THE GEORGE
241
An ancient hostelry in the lower street or King Street,
Knutsford, called Roj'al after the visit of the Duchess
of Kent with Princess Victoria. The sign, showing
St. George slaying the Dragon, used to go right across
the street.
E GEORGE YARD . . ... . 252
To-day it is not unusual to see a number of motor-cars
standing in the stable yard, through which a public way
passes. Formerly it wa^ a busy scene, when Knutsford
wasa coaching centre and at least a dozen coaches started
during the day. On the night of the county ball it is
almost impossible to pass up and down.
! A
t • ^ *
tjA^OTViyy^A,^
INTRODUCTION
I
• "' > Mrs. Gaskell
TT is regrettable that Mrs. Gaskell exacted from
her husband and family the promise that they
would neither themselves prepare any biography of
her nor assist another in such a task. Whatever may
have been her reason for laying such an obligation
upon those nearest to her, — and probably we may
seek it in the embroilment in which certain passages
(since excised) in her work on Charlotte Bronte
plunged her, — the fact remains that EngKsh literature
is the poorer by the lack of the Life of a good and
accomplished woman.
There is a reason which operated even before the
publication of the " Life " which will be recognized
as a perfectly natural one. On the authority of the
late Miss Meta Gaskell it appears that the daughters
of Mrs. Gaskell, meeting Thackeray's daughters at
Brighton, were informed by them that their father
had expressed a desire that no biography of him should
be written.
On being told this Mrs. Gaskell thought it an
excellent idea, and hoped her daughters would keep
in mind that she also was opposed to the writing of a
biography.
xviii CRANFORD
The loss is indeed a double one, for not only were
the character and actions of Mrs. Gaskell worthy of
careful presentation, but her friendships were many
and warm, and we are thus deprived of the very
numerous and interesting letters from notable men
and women with whom she corresponded.
The nearest approach to a biography is the volume
entitled Mrs. Gaskell, Haunts, Homes, and Stories, by
Mrs. Chadwick, now in its second edition, though
the writer knows of the existence of at least two
biographies by eminent writers, which have been
prepared now for some years, and which will eventually
see the light.
Mrs. Gaskell's wishes with regard to a biography
do not, however, stand in the way of the short
memoir, or monograph, from without. Professor
A. W. Ward, of Owens College, contributed to
the Dictionary of National Biography an admirably
concise and informing account of Mrs. Gaskell's
career, and the same office was performed for the
Encyclopcedia Britamiica by Miss F. Masson. In
the compilation of the brief sketch which follows,
both these articles, together with such others as
could be found elsewhere, have been drawn upon.
Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson (afterwards Mrs.
Gaskell) was born in Chelsea on September 29,
1 8 10. The house was in Lindsey Row, now numbered
93 Cheyne Walk. Her father, William Stevenson, a
native of Berwick-on-Tweed, was the son of a sailor,
and the descendant of Norwegian Stevensons, a sea-
faring stock. The love of the sea was indeed in the
family blood : Mrs. Gaskell thrilled to it, and her
INTRODUCTION xix
only brother was in the Merchant Service, WiUiam
Stevenson, however, clave to the land. A man of
unusual mental vigour and independence, he began
life as a tutor, took a classical post at the Manchester
Academy, and then, accepting the Unitarians' creed,
underwent training for a minister. He suppHed the
pulpit of Dob Lane Chapel, Failsworth, Manchester,
from 1792 to 1796. Feeling, however, that to preach
the gospel as a profession was an incongruity, he
abandoned the pulpit and joined a farmer in Scotland
as pupil, afterwards taking a farm of his own near
Edinburgh. This sacrifice for the sake of conviction
was doubtless in the mind of his daughter when she
wrote North and South.
He tilled the soil only for a brief space, and then,
moving to Edinburgh, opened a boarding-house for
students, became the Editor of the Scots Magazine^
and started in earnest upon the career of a busy
literary man. In 1806, Lord Lauderdale, who had
just accepted the post of Governor-General of India,
asked Stevenson to accompany him as secretary ;
but the project was overturned by the successful
opposition made by the East India Company to the
appointment. As some compensation, his lordship
procured for Stevenson the office of Keeper of the
Records to the Treasury. He therefore moved to
Chelsea, and there remained for the rest of his Hfe,
fulfilling his official duties, editing the Annual Register,
and writing articles for the leading reviews, princi-
pally on agriculture, education, and commerce.
Mrs. Gaskell's mother was Elizabeth Holland, the
daughter of a sturdy yeoman of Sandle Bridge, near
XX CRANFORD
Knutsford, in Cheshire. The Hollands were and
are an old Cheshire family of sterling qualities.
Peter Holland, the Knutsford doctor, was Mrs.
Gaskell's uncle, and his son (her cousin) was Sir
Henry Holland, a famous physician, who married
a daughter of Sydney Smith. In Sir Henry
Holland's Recollections will be found a pleasant
character sketch of his and Mrs. Gaskell's grand-
father. " The most perfect practical optimist " he
had ever known, his grandson calls him ; adding,
" living and farming his own land, he put to shame
the many sayings, ancient and modern, as to the
querulous nature of the agricultural mind. ... If
a particular season was quoted to him as bad for
one crop, he always vindicated it as good for
another. ... I never visit this old and picturesque
house at Sandle Bridge," Sir Henry continued,
" without some remembrance of him coming to my
mind, either as walking cheerfully over his fields, or
tranquilly smoking his pipe in an arm-chair coeval
with himself." Woodley, Mr. Holbrook's home
in Cranford, is said to have been modelled upon the
old house at Sandle Bridge, and probably in Mr.
Holbrook we may look for a likeness of the author's
grandfather. Mrs. Gaskell herself must have in-
herited not a little of his nature : practical optimism
was certainly one of her characteristics.
Mrs. Stevenson, who already had one child, a
boy, never recovered from her second confinement.
She died when her daughter was a little more than
a year old, and the little Elizabeth was handed over
to the care of her maternal aunt, Mrs. Lumb.^
INTRODUCTION xxi
[Mrs. Chadwick has discovered the entry of her
mother's death 30th Oct., 181 1, EHzabeth Stevens,
age 40. In the Chelsea rate-book the name appears
in 1 8 10 as Stephens, and later as Stephenson.]
The aunt, as Mr. Thomas Seccombe says in his
Introduction to Cousin Phillis, was poor and had to
practise in her modest household those elegant
economies which supply such delectable fare to the
reader of Cr an ford.
Mrs. Gaskell always referred to her aunt in most
affectionate terms.
" She was my dearest friend— my more than mother
— whose bodily appearance was a fit shrine for her
pure and chastened spirit."
This lady, who, owing to rather distressing circum-
stances, was then living, with her invalid child, in re-
tirement at Knutsford, in a cottage on the heath, was
perhaps glad to have such additional distraction as a
baby affords ; and when, soon afterwards, her own
crippled daughter died, Mrs. Lumb took the place of
mother to her tiny niece, and cared for her with the
tenderest solicitude. Elizabeth had also another
friend in Knutsford, in the person of her uncle Peter
Holland, and the little town became as wholly her
home as if she had been born there. With Mrs. Lumb
the child remained until it was time for boarding-
school, when she was sent to one at Stratford-on-
Avon, for two years, spending the holidays there also.
At the age of seventeen she left, and, joining her
father and stepmother (for he had married again)
at Chelsea, there continued her studies. Mr. Steven-
son instructed his daughter in French, Italian, and
xxii CRANFORD
Latin. It was not, however, a bright chapter in
her Hfe. Writing ten years afterwards to the Howitts,
Mrs. Gaskell said : " Long ago I lived in Chelsea
occasionally with my father and stepmother, and
very^ very unhappy I used to be ; if it had not been
for the beautiful, grand river, which was an in-
explicable comfort to me, and a family of the name
of Kennett, I think my child's heart would have
broken." She had also her books, to which she was
devoted, in those years Scott, Goldsmith, Pope, and
Cowper being chief favourites.
The Chelsea period was closed abruptly in March
1829 by the death of Mr. Stevenson ; when Eliza-
beth, who had nursed him with loving care, returned
to Knutsford. She was at that time nineteen, a
graceful girl of noticeable beauty. It is told of her
that, when on a visit to Edinburgh in the same year,
more than one artist asked her to sit as a model.
Mrs. Gaskell carried much of her comeliness into
later life, as various portraits testify. Her face was
an eminently kindly one, gentle and luminous, and
in conformation typically early Victorian. Mrs.
Ritchie quotes a friend of Mrs. Gaskell as saying
of her appearance when young : " She had a well-
shaped head, regular, finely-cut features ; her mien
was bright and dignified, almost joyous ; and among
her many other gifts was that of delightful com-
panionship " ; and Miss Masson speaks of her
exquisitely-shaped soft eyes and a smile of wonderful
sweetness.
The marble bust, executed by D. Dunbar in 1829,
which until recently stood in the drawing-room at
INTRODUCTION xxiii
84 Plymouth Grove, Manchester, amply testifies to
the correctness of these descriptions. A replica by
Hamo Thorneycroft may be seen in the Christie
Library at Manchester University.
The original has been presented to the Manchester
Art Gallery.
The miniature by Joseph Thomson, also of Edin-
burgh, in 1832, when Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson
was 22, and just before her marriage, is the most
beautiful portrait we possess ; though the Richmond
portrait of 1851, when Mrs. Gaskell was 41, was
always regarded by the late Miss Gaskell as " the
least unpleasing picture." The Samuel Lawrence
portrait of 1864-5 represents Mrs. Gaskell at the age
of 54 as much more matronly in appearance.
Another place of sojourn at this time was New-
castle, where William Turner, a Unitarian minister,
was her host ; but though her absences were long
and frequent, Knutsford, her " adopted native
town," as she called it, always occupied the place
of home in her mind. In 1832, however, a great
change came ; for on August 30 of that year
Elizabeth Stevenson became Mrs. William Gaskell.
The marriage was solemnised in Knutsford Church,
and all the town was gay. It was then, and is to this
day, a custom at Knutsford on an occasion of re-
joicing for the people to sprinkle red sand before
the doors of their houses, and then, with white sand,
to superimpose floral and other patterns. According
to local legend, the practice originated in the
circumstance that King Knut, after fording a
neighbouring brook (hence the name Knutsford),
xxiv CRANFORD
was sitting on the bank to remove the sand from
his shoes, when a bridal procession passed ; where-
upon the king, shaking the sand towards the happy-
pair, wished them as many joys and children as there
were grains in his shoe. The Knutsford sand
patterns not always being considered a sufficient
earnest of good wishes, it was also usual for
verses to be written embodying more explicit
felicitations. Mrs. Gaskell, in a long account of
Cheshire customs which she once sent to the
Howitts, wrote : " When I was married, nearly
all the houses were sanded, and these were the two
favourite verses : —
" Long may they live,
Happy may they be,
Blest with content
And from misfortune free !
" Long may they live,
Happy may they be,
And blest with numerous
Pro-ge-ny."2
The fact that the Knutsford people were so
unanimous in celebrating Mrs. Gaskell's wedding
proves that even then she had won a place in their
hearts.
William Gaskell (i 805-1 884), at that time
twenty-seven years of age, was junior minister, under
John Gooch Robberds, of the Cross Street Unitarian
Chapel, in Manchester, one of the strongholds of
the sect. He was the son of a canvas maker at Latch-
ford, near Warrington, had been educated at Glasgow
and Manchester College, York, and in 1828 was
appointed to Manchester. At Cross Street he
INTRODUCTION xxv
remained to the end of his long life, becoming senior
minister in 1854. Mr. Gaskell held from time to
time the highest and most honoured places among
Unitarians, and for many years he was one of the
editors of the Unitarian Herald. At the Manchester
New College he was Professor of English History and
Literature from 1846 to 1853, and in 1854 was elected
Chairman of Committee. During the illness of
Principal Scott of Owens College he lectured for him
on Logic and English Literature. His mind was
luminous and richly stored, and his pupils speak of the
unusual literary finish of his discourses. In 1878, a
scholarship bearing his name was founded at the
Unitarian Home Missionary College — then called
Board — Manchester, of which institution he was a
tutor from 1854 and Principal from 1876, succeeding
John Relly Beard, as some commemoration of the
completion of the jubilee of his Manchester ministry.
Mr. Gaskell did not turn his thoughts much to
authorship, but certain of his funeral sermons or
orations have been reprinted, and Unitarians prize
many of his hymns. He was an authority on Lanca-
shire dialect, and to one edition of his wife's novel,
Mary Barton, was added an etymological appendix
from his pen. But although not intent upon writing
himself, he encouraged and stimulated his wife
throughout her busy literary career. Their union
was indeed in every way a suitable and happy one.
During the early years of her married life Mrs.
Gaskell was in delicate health. She lived very
quietly in Manchester,^ in intercourse with a few
friends, attending to her children, of whom altogether
xxvi CRANFORD
she had seven, and fulfiUing the duties of the wife
of a minister of the Gospel. She interested herself
continually in the poor, and from the sincere and
understanding friendship she had for them grew her
first literary project, in which her husband joined
her. Mr. Gaskell, who was always a busy philan-
thropist, prepared a series of lectures to mill hands
on " The Poets and Poetry of Humble Life," and
these were delivered in various parts of Manchester
in 1836, and eagerly listened to by large audiences of
poor people, whose opportunities for hearing of the
sympathy which fine intellects had felt for them had
been very few. Mr. Gaskell and his wife were so
much struck by this interest, that they decided, as
we learn from a letter written in after years by Mrs.
Gaskell to Mary Howitt,* upon experimenting
themselves upon a similar kind of sympathetic verse.
In Mrs. Gaskell's words : " We once thought of
trying to write sketches among the poor, rather in
the manner of Crabbe (now don't think this pre-
sumptuous), but in a more seeing-beauty spirit ; and
one — the only one — was published in Blackwood,
January, 1837." The poem, in ten syllabled
couplets, is entitled " Sketches among the Poor,
No. I." It tells of a lone woman in the heart of
Manchester, whose one dream was to be back once
again among the green fields and blue skies of her
childhood in the country. It was, however, not
to be ; but in her last moments, by a happy
delusion of illness, she believed the dream realised.
That piece was Mrs. Gaskell's first literary effort.
It is, however, usually considered that her career
INTRODUCTION xivii
as a writer began with the account of Clopton Hall,
which she wrote in 1838 for William Howitt's Visits
to Remarkable Places, published in 1840. Mary
Howitt, writing of this article in her Autobiography ,
says that William Howitt's praise of it " so gratified
and encouraged Mrs. Gaskell, that Mary Barton
resulted " ; but so much intervened between the
two productions that the statement must be con-
sidered a little too emphatic. For one thing, in
1839-40-41 Manchester was overwhelmed by the
cotton famine, and the Gaskells had more work
than they could accomplish in mitigating the suffer-
ing around them. Mrs. Gaskell's literary schemes,
if any she had, were forgotten in the stress of action.
She toiled day and night. Says Miss Masson : " From
the first, although she never visited the poor as a
member of any organised society, she sought by all
means in her power to relieve the misery which, in a
town Hke Manchester, she was constantly witnessing.
She gave the most devoted help and tender
sympathy to such cases of individual distress as
came under her notice. She assisted Mr. Travers
Madge in his missionary work among the poor, and
was the friend and helper of Thomas Wright, the
prison philanthropist." If that had been Mrs.
Gaskell's ordinary charitable routine, it may be
supposed that the special efforts of so impulsive
and warm-hearted a woman would be splendidly
vigorous. Her literary plans, we have said, were
set aside, although, subconsciously, perhaps, they
must have been germinating all the time. Her
opportunities of seeing things as they are — and
xxviii CRANFORD
the observer of human nature has never such
a chance of grim realities as in a famine — were
many, and Mrs. Gaskell remembered them. When
the time was ripe she turned them to account.
Every poignant incident of the squaHd life around
her, every fresh instance of what seemed to her the
injustice of capitalists, brought Mary Barton nearer ;
but the particular cause leading Mrs. Gaskell to
begin that story was the death, in 1841, of her only
son Willie, a baby of but ten months. [Mrs. Gaskell
had four daughters : Miss Florence Gaskell (who
married Mr. Charles Crompton, q.c), died in 1881 ;
Miss Julia Bradford Gaskell, who died in Oct., 1908 ;
Miss Margaret Emily (" Meta ") Gaskell, who died
in Oct., 191 3 ; and Miss Marianne Gaskell (the
widow of Mr. Edward Thurstan Holland), who is the
only living representative of the family.] The loss so
preyed upon her mind that Mr. Gaskell recommended
story-writing as a diversion. Mary Barton was
straightway begun. Once started, Mrs. Gaskell
wrote rapidly, using backs of letters and any scraps
of paper that came to hand,^ and the story was soon
finished. The first volume was sent to William
Howitt, whom, with his wife, the Gaskells had
met in person on the Rhine in 1841, and he was
extremely enthusiastic. Before, however, the novel
could be published, it had to undergo an experience
only too common with first books. The manuscript
began its travels, and was so long about them that
Mrs. Gaskell, as she used to say, " forgot all about
it," and turned to other records of her famine
experiences. Under the pseudonym of Cotton
INTRODUCTION xxix
Mather Mills, Esq., she contributed to Rowings
Journal three stories of the poor : " Libbie Marsh's
Three Eras," " The Sexton's Hero," and " Christmas
Storms and Sunshine " ; and probably many other
of her numerous short stories belong to these years.
Meanwhile, after the manuscript of Mary Barton
had been returned unread by one publisher, rejected
perhaps by others, and had lain for a year unopened
at Chapman and Hall's, that firm offered £^oo
for the copyright. Mrs. Gaskell accepted ; and in
1848, Mary Barton : A 7 ale of Manchester Life,
appeared. No author's name was printed on the
title-page ; but many people were in the secret.
During this period of anonymity Mrs. Gaskell very
cleverly discussed, with a number of ladies in a
Knutsford drawing-room, who the probable author
could possibly be. The story, which is concerned with
the conflict between capital and labour, does not show
Mrs. Gaskell at her best. It is often crude in workman-
ship, and is lacking in fine shades of character-drawing ;
but it has the force of sincerity and sympathy. Mrs.
Gaskell felt what she wrote. To this must be
attributed its popularity. We must remember also
that in 1848 such a story was a new thing.^ Were it
to come fresh from the publisher's to-day, Mary
Barton might find fewer readers. In 1848, however,
it was read everywhere. It had also the publicity
that follows attack in the press. Manchester was
divided in opinion, and the battle between employers
and proletarians was fought out in the local papers.
The fact that Mrs. Gaskell had stated in her
preface that she was ignorant of political economy
XXX ' CRANFORD
and the theories of trade (although she had studied
Adam Smith as a preliminary training for the
novel), and had not intentionally attacked any
system, weighed nothing with her critics. In this
controversy, however, Mrs. Gaskell and human
nature won ; and her reputation, or at least the
reputation of the author of Mary Barton (for
anonymity was still preserved) was made. Many
of the novelist's friendships with eminent men
and women date from this book. Charles Dickens
admired it greatly ; Charlotte Bronte, of whom
more anon, thought it " clever, though painful,"
and was much drawn to the character of the writer ;
it was one of the books which interested Miss Edge-
worth in her declining days, and one of the few novels
to meet with the approbation of Thomas Carlyle ;
Walter Savage Landor inscribed a copy of verses to
" The Paraclete of the Bartons " ; and among other
enthusiastic readers of the novel, and of Mrs. Gaskell's
works generally, were Mr. Ruskin, Mrs. Stowe, Mrs.
Jameson, Miss Florence Nightingale, Charles Kingsley,
Lord Houghton ' (then Monckton Milnes), Benjamin
Jowett, and Dean Stanley. A version soon circulated
in France, into whose language almost all of Mrs.
Gaskell's stories were translated. In that country,
indeed, she had a comparatively large following.
On her visits to Paris, Madame Mohl, who was her
warm personal friend, Guizot, Montalembert, and
other persons of note, were glad to do her honour.
William Howitt has been mentioned as an
important influence in Mrs. Gaskell's literary
career. A greater was Charles Dickens. The
INTRODUCTION xxxi
two novelists met first at the dinner which in the
spring of 1849 commemorated the publication of
the first part of David Copperfield, and in January
of the following year Dickens asked Mrs. Gaskell
to help him with Household Words, which he was
then projecting. The purpose of the magazine, he
told her, was " the raising up of those that are down,
and the general improvement of our social con-
dition." It cannot be said that this purpose shone
very clearly from Household Words^ pages, which
provided good-humoured and entertaining beguile-
ment rather than powder and shot for social re-
formers and philanthropists ; but Dickens at that
time no doubt meant it to be as he forecast. He
went on : "I should set a value on your help
which your modesty can hardly imagine ; and I am
perfectly sure that the least result of your reflection
or observation in respect of the life around you,
would attract attention and do good. . . . My un-
affected and great admiration of your book [Mary
Barton] makes me very earnest in all relating to
you," he added, and he concluded by offering to
visit Mrs. Gaskell at Manchester if she would like
to talk to him in person about her contributions.
The immediate answer to the request was the short
story, Lizzie Leigh, with which the new periodical
began. An essay or so followed at irregular intervals ;
and then, on December 13, 1851, came the opening
instalment of Cranford, under the title, " Our Society
at Cranford."
Cranford is, in the opinion of the present writer,
Mrs. Gaskell's most perfect and distinguished work.
xxxii CRANFORD
Its isolation is, indeed, something of a mystery. In
all her books Mrs. Gaskell wrote occasionally very
well, but technically Cranford is better — and con-
sistently better — than any. It has more delicacy,
more atmosphere, in short, more style. This was
particularly noticeable in Household Words^ where
there was no style, only manner. We may perhaps
look for one cause in the circumstance that
Cranford is the record of impressions gathered in
childhood ; and such records have always a vitality
not to be equalled, except in rare instances, by those
of impressions gathered by older and less sensitive
vision. But of Cranford so much is said later that
here it is out of place to do more than remark that
only of quite recent years has it become a popular
book. At first it attracted but little attention,
possibly from its lack of that somewhat lurid interest
for which Mary Barton was remarkable, English
readers being always better pleased when an author's
subsequent books resemble the first than when new
paths are attempted. Latterly, however, Cranford
has come to its own, and Miss Matty is, and is likely
to remain, a household name.
Synchronously with Cranford, Mrs. Gaskell had
been writing Ruth, — which appeared indeed before
Cranford reached book form, — another sombre study
of a social sore. Therein, with what then was
considered courageous outspokenness, but would
now be thought to approximate to cautious reserve,
a fracture of the moral law was discussed. Again
Mrs. Gaskell was greeted with hostile criticism,
and again she received the support of many persons
INTRODUCTION xxxiii
competent to speak with authority. Among others,
Charles Kingsley wrote of Ruth — " May God
bless you, and help you to write many more such
books as you have already written." An interesting
letter on the subject from Mrs. Gaskell to Lord
Houghton is worth quoting : " I am so glad you
liked Ruth. I was so anxious about her, and took
so much pains over writing it, that I lost my
own power of judging, and could not tell whether
I had done it well or ill. I only knew how very
close to my heart it had come from. I tried to
make both the story and the writing as quiet as
possible, in order that ' people ' (my great bug-
bear) might not say that they could not see what
the writer felt to be very plain and earnest truth,
for romantic incidents or exaggerated writing."
Dickens, who also admired the novel, demurring
(as a reference to his Letters will show) only to a
technical point therein, commissioned Mrs. Gaskell
to write the next serial story in Household Words^
and North and South was the result. Therein,
although the problem of capital and labour is again
prominent, she made a departure from strenuous
fiction and never returned to it. Possibly the
remarks of misunderstanding critics and people (her
great bugbear) had been too clamorous ; possibly in
Mary Barton and Ruth she had covered her more
serious polemical ground ; whatever was the cause,
Mrs. Gaskell henceforth confined herself in fiction
to more or less pleasant stories of romantic or domestic
interest, in which light and shade were blended in
fairly equal proportions.
xxxiv CRANFORD
In her next book, which is that by which her
name will probably be remembered after her stories
are no longer read, Mrs. Gaskell abandoned fiction
for biography. To explain this step it is necessary
to go back into time some five years, to August,
1850. In that month Sir James Kay Shuttleworth
had invited Mrs. Gaskell to Briery Close, near
Bowness, to meet the author of Jane Eyre. Mrs.
Gaskell, who had already corresponded with Char-
lotte Bronte, accepted, and a friendship destined to
endure until closed by the death of Charlotte Bronte
was there established between the two novelists. It
was never quite of the closest, but we know from
testimony on both sides that it was warm and real.
On receipt of Mrs. Gaskell's first letter, in 1849,
Charlotte Bronte had referred to her — to W. S.
Williams — as " a good, a great, woman," adding
that she was proud to be able to touch a chord of
sympathy in souls so noble. " In Mrs. Gaskell's
nature," she continued, " it mournfully pleases
me to fancy a remote affinity to my sister Emily."
In the spring of 1853, Charlotte Bronte stayed
with the Gaskells in Manchester, and in the autumn
Mrs. Gaskell returned the visit at Haworth. And
then, when, in less than two years after, Charlotte
Bronte's brief life was ended, Mr. Bronte, taking
into consideration this intimacy and Mrs. Gaskell's
literary gifts, asked her to become Charlotte Bronte's
biographer. She acquiesced, and worked at her
task with impulsive assiduity, growing, we may sup-
pose, with every page more and more a zealous
champion of the rare and lonely spirit whose life-
INTRODUCTION xxxv
story she was to disclose. Hence, when the book
was published in 1857, it was found to contain
passages which a more discreet biographer would
have omitted. An extraordinary manifestation
followed publication, and amid the battle of the
critics and offended relatives, Mrs. Gaskell was
handled roughly. In the end the first edition had
to be suppressed, and another, that which is now
procurable, substituted. (There is no space here
in which to enter into detail : the whole story is
told minutely in Mr. Clement Shorter's Charlotte
Bronte and her Circle.) Shortcomings notwith-
standing, the book is one of the most persuasive
biographies in the language. It has fervour, life.
Mrs. Gaskell was a novelist born, and she came
to the story of Charlotte Bronte's sad career with
all her narrative gifts in full play. But such was
her mortification consequent upon the reception
of the book, her third to be received, in many places,
with acrimony, that Mrs. Gaskell abandoned biography
for ever and ever, and, as has been stated, even forbade
the writing of her own.
The first decision, however, was so far recon-
sidered, that subsequently one of Mrs. Gaskell's pet
literary projects was a life of Madame de Sevigne,
of whose letters she was a keen admirer. Certain
researches towards the work were instituted both
in Paris and Brittany, but death interrupted the
scheme. Of all old French memoirs and accounts
of French life and character Mrs. Gaskell was an
eager reader. Among her other favourite authors,
in later life, were Macaulay and Ruskin, and it is
xxxvi CRANFORD
told of her by Miss Masson that after perusal of
Amos Barton^ she predicted for its anonymous author
a great literary career. ^ This anonymous author
and Mrs. Gaskell subsequently corresponded : there
is extant a letter by George Eliot which acknow-
ledges Mrs. Gaskell's " sweet encouraging words."
From her tastes in reading, Mrs. Gaskell's preference
for quiet domesticity may be deduced. She was
in private life simple-minded and enthusiastic.
People, as we have seen, were her bugbear : she
was all for unpretentiousness and close friendships.
Mrs. Bridell Fox, in a chapter of reminiscences,^
tells of once, as a girl, meeting Mrs. Gaskell at a
party in London, the hostess of which showed a
disposition to make that lady a lion. This Mrs.
Gaskell resented, and the mere suggestion of her
distaste being insufficient, she took refuge with
two young friends, of whom Mrs. Bridell Fox was
one, on a distant sofa, ramparted by a table, and
there remained until it was time to go.
After the biography of Charlotte Bronte, Mrs.
Gaskell's thoughts were again turned to the
amelioration of the poor. The prospect of another
cotton famine in Manchester in 1862 set her, says
Miss Masson, anxiously thinking what could be
done to relieve the coming distress, " and she decided,
without any suggestion from others, on a plan of
giving relief and employment together to the women
mill-hands, which was an exact prototype of the
great system of relief afterwards publicly adopted,
namely, the sewing schools. When these were formed,
Mrs. Gaskell merged the private scheme in the public
INTRODUCTION xxxvii
one, and worked most laboriously in the sewing-
school nearest her home." Her next long story was
Sylvia's Lovers, published in 1863, a romance of
Whitby smugglers and the pressgang, based on very
careful study of the period, the end of the last century.
Cousin Phillis, a dainty idyll, is considered by
some critics to be her most perfect story.
Mr. Thomas Seccombe, for instance, says : " For
absolute perfection in execution there is strong
weight of testimony to prove that she never surpassed,
if she ever even approached. Cousin Phillis.^^
Paul Elmer More refers to Cousin Phillis as " that
flawless, radiant idyll," and Dr. Ward speaks of it as
" an artistically perfect composition, and one of the
gems of English imaginative prose."
It was her principal work between the publication of
Sylvia's Lovers and the beginning, in 1864, of the
serial career of Wives and Daughters in Cornhill. In
this, her last long novel, Mrs. Gaskell perhaps showed
greatest command of character. The story shared
something of the advantage which Cranford enjoyed,
for Hollingford, the town where so many scenes
have place, although it is unimportant in the book,
is Knutsford once more : that is to say, the writer
had as she wrote the priceless sense of home. The
Doctor, Mr. Gibson, is full of reminiscences of her
uncle, Peter Holland ; while the two girls are probably
as rich in hints of herself. Take it for all in all. Wives
and Daughters may be called, psychologically, Mrs.
Gaskell's finest work in fiction, although in actual
writing Cranford is, I think, its superior. George
Sand's opinion is often quoted : " It is a book," she
xxxviii CRANFORD
said, " that might be put into the hands of an innocent
girl, while at the same time it would rivet the attention
of the most blase man of the world." The excellence of
Wives and Daughters is additional reason for regret that
its author did not live to finish it. Death came while
the last chapters were yet only in her mind, and the story
broke off abruptly in Cornhill, with a note by the editor,
Mr. Frederick Greenwood, tracing the probable course
of events, and expressing a sense of the loss which
English readers suffered by Mrs. Gaskell's death.
The end came with terrible suddenness. Mrs.
Gaskell was at the time staying with her daughters
at Holybourne, near Alton in Hampshire, in the
house that she had recently bought as a gift to her
husband. " Mama's last days," wrote her daughter
Meta, " had been full of loving thought and tender
help for others. She was so sweet and dear and noble
beyond words." And then, without the least warning,
came death, on the afternoon of Sunday, November
12, 1865. The cause was heart disease. The body
was conveyed to Knutsford, and there buried in the
graveyard belonging to the Unitarian Chapel, which
has become a shrine for literary pilgrims, both
English and American.
The following inscription from the pen of her
husband was engraved on a tablet in Cross Street
Chapel, Manchester : —
In Memory of
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell,
Wife of the Rev. William Gaskell, M. A.,
One of the Ministers of this Chapel,
Widely honoured for her genius and the spirit in which it
was exercised.
INTRODUCTION xxxix
Endeared by her rare graces of mind and heart to all by whom
she was known,
She fulfilled the duties of a wife and mother
With a tenderness and fidelity which secured for her
undying love,
And so lived in Christian faith and hope that death,
Which came without a moment's warning, had for her
no sting.
Born September 29th, 18 10. Died November 12th, 1865.
Erected by the congregation in token of their respect
and regard.
To this tribute to Mrs. Gaskell's character it is
not possible for a stranger to add anything. Of
her work it may be said that no writer has quite
taken her place. She had not the genius of either
Charlotte Bronte or George Eliot ; yet, while ap-
pealing also to sophisticated readers, she reached,
perhaps, simpler minds than either of those writers.
Her material was always normal. Her humour
was natural and fresh, the humour of the normal
home ; her pathos was natural and rightly rooted,
the pathos of the normal home ; the griefs and
joys and doubts of her characters were such as every-
day life affords, the griefs and joys and doubts of the
normal home. If it were permissible to apply but
one word to Mrs. Gaskell's work, that word would
•"be " homeliness." When homeliness is enforced by
the literary skill of the born story-writer, it is irre-
sistible. Hence Mrs. Gaskell's books, once begun,
are still as hard as ever to lay aside.
A companion tablet in memory of Mr. Gaskell,
who survived his wife for many years, is also to be
seen in Cross Street Chapel. Mr. Gaskell died
on June 11, 1884, in his seventy-ninth year, and was
xl CRANFORD
buried with his wife at Knutsford. He had been the
minister of Cross Street Chapel for fifty-six years.
In February, 1898, the association of Mrs. Gaskell
and the Cheshire town which she loved so well and
described so exquisitely was publicly emphasised.
Mr. R. H. Watt, as a personal tribute to Mrs. Gaskell's
memory, caused to be built on the wall of the post
office a bas-relief portrait of that lady, executed
from a photograph taken a year or so before her
death.
In March, 1908, Mr. Watt erected a Memorial
Tower in King Street, Knutsford, and the bas-relief
was transferred from the post office to the tower.
The tower was opened by Vice-Chancellor Hop-
kinson, of Manchester University. Carved upon its
sides are the titles of all her stories, while a replica
of the Edinburgh bust faces the street. The tower
is attached to the King's Coffee House.
II
The Cranford papers began in Household Words in
December 1851, and continued at irregular intervals
until May 1853. At first there was a Httle difficulty.
In the opening chapter (which, when the papers were
collected into a book, was divided into chapters i.
and ii. as they now stand), Mrs. Gaskell's description
of the duel between Miss Deborah and Captain
INTRODUCTION xH
Brown, the champions respectively of the Great
Lexicographer and the inimitable Boz, led to a
momentary hitch. To print this passage in a periodical
conducted by himself was, Dickens considered, in-
advisable, and he made, as is explained in the notes to
the present edition, certain changes by which Captain
Brown figured instead as the gallant defender of
Thomas Hood. Dickens undoubtedly did right, but
Mrs. Gaskell, like all writers who believe in their
work, was depressed by any editorial alterations, and
disturbed especially, one may suppose, by alterations
at so early a stage. For a moment it looked as if
trouble might ensue, but happily it was averted, the
second instalment — the account of Mr. Holbrook —
appeared, and all was well. "If you were not the
most suspicious of women, always looking for soft
sawder in the purest metal of praise," wrote Dickens
to Mrs. Gaskell after reading this manuscript, '' I
should call your paper delightful, and touched in the
tenderest and most delicate manner. Being what
you are, I confine myself to the observation that I
have called it ' A Love Affair at Cranford,' and sent
it off to the printer." Thenceforward there were no
difficulties.
Cranford is a blend of memory and invention.
Much is true. The Rev. Henry Green, in his Uttle
history of Knutsford (second edition, 1887) writes of
a sick parishioner : " I lent her Cranford without
telling her to what it was supposed to relate. She
read the tale of ' Life in a Country Town,' and when
I called again, she was full of eagerness to say, ' Why,
sir, that Crayiford is all about Knutsford. My old
xlii CRANFORD
mistress, Miss Harker, is mentioned in it ; and our
poor cow she did go to the field in a large flannel
waistcoat because she had burned herself in a lime
pit.' " Similarly we may suppose Mrs. Forrester's
story of the recovery of her lace to be true, and it is
known that the disappearance of Peter had a melan-
choly precedent in the disappearance of Mrs. Gaskell's
only brother, John Stevenson, a young sailor who, in
the twenties, left England for India and was never
heard of more. The Hon. Beatrice Tollemache,
writing in Tem^ple Bar in August 1895, traced Captain
Brown and Mr. Holbrook to real life. In Captain
Brown Mrs. Tollemache recognised Captain Hill of
Knutsford, the adjutant of the Cheshire Yeomanry,
and a regular visitor on matters concerning the regi-
ment to Tatton, at the home of her father. Lord
Egerton of Tatton. Captain Hill, who had risen
from the ranks — he was a drummer boy in the Penin-
sular War — was a notable local landmark in his Waterloo
cloak, of which he was rightly proud. He had a story
that the first thing that happened to him on returning
to England after the defeat of Napoleon, was to be
fined ten shillings for marching on the footpath !
Captain Hill, although he may have sat to Mrs.
Gaskell for the portrait of Captain Brown, was
more fortunate than that genial soldier ; for he
died peacefully in his bed at an advanced age. Mrs.
Tollemache goes on to give Mr. Peter Leigh as the
original of Mr. Holbrook. Mr. Leigh, who owned
land just outside the town, was an eccentric and a
weather-prophet. From his observatory he kept a
watch on the skies, and therefrom deduced the pre-
INTRODUCTION xliii
dictions that appeared year after year in his almanac.
Any mistakes that might there occur were accounted
for by unforeseen planetary disturbance. Mrs.
Gaskell may have gone to Mr. Leigh for the linea-
ments of Mr. Holbrook, but it is odd that she should
have omitted all mention of his talents as a prog-
nosticator. Personally we incline to the belief already
stated, that in Mr. Holland of Sandle Bridge, Mrs.
Gaskell's maternal grandfather, the real Mr. Holbrook
is to be sought.
The topography of Cranford is also the topo-
graphy of Knutsford. Indeed, the town to-day
seems not to have greatly changed. There are
new houses, new fashions ; Manchester (or Drumble)
is many minutes nearer, and signs of " progress "
are everywhere evident ; but the town is still much
in the hands of the Amazons, and its spirit remains.
In the introduction, touched with the gentle, old-
-world, smiling charm of which she alone of living
writers has the secret, prefixed by Mrs. Ritchie
to Mr. Hugh Thomson's illustrated edition of Cran-
ford,^^ she mentions a Knutsford lady of quite recent
times, who, to soothe her excitement on hearing of a
wedding, " was obliged to have a dish of toasted
cheese prepared, and to send for a friend to play bezique
and share the news and the dainty." That shows the
persistence of the Cranford spirit. Another lady, an
American — Miss Alice Brown — has described, in a
record of English days entitled By Oak and ^horn,
the Cranford that may now be seen. She explored
the Royal George and found the old Assembly Room
where Signor Brunoni avoided Miss Pole and Miss
xliv CRANFORD
Pole still pursued ; she walked along Darkness Lane,
gazed upon the house which is assumed to have had
the honour of lodging the Hon. Mrs. Jamieson and
Mr. Mulliner ; . contemplated the Vicarage where
Miss Deborah's father composed the sermons that
Rivingtons published ; and was shown the identical
shop in which Miss Matty dispensed tea. At least
there is a shop which has that reputation, and were
it not for the circumstance that the builders were at
work there, Miss Brown would have had the felicity
of peeping through the very window near which
Miss Matty kept a watch for customers. Finally,
Miss Brown was so fortunate, she tells us, as to be
present at a May Day festival, which is a notable
affair at Knutsford, and to observe, in the procession,
the very sedan chair that may have conveyed Miss
Matty to and from evening parties. It is clear,
therefore, that Knutsford still holds its own,
Mrs. Ritchie suggests that Miss Deborah is certainly
first cousin to Miss Pinkerton. But one might go
farther, and advance the theory that not only was
she Miss Pinkerton's relative, but also Miss Pinker-
ton's pupil. There is the stamp of The Mall, Chis-
wick, " an establishment which has been honoured by
the presence of The Great Lexicographer and the
patronage of the admirable Mrs. Chapone," on all
her words and actions. Save perhaps one : it was
not quite like The Mall for Miss Deborah to declare,
when Major Gordon put his arm round Miss Jessie
Brown's waist, that it was " the most proper place
in the world for his arm to be in." That was the
triumph of nature over Pinkertonism, and it is
INTRODUCTION xlv
Miss Deborah's great claim to our affection. With
that noble sentiment she becomes human ; without
it she would still be remote and awful, although her
previous kindness to Miss Brown robbed her of a
little of her terror. One would have given much
to be within hearing while Miss Deborah, stuffing an
apple with cloves, uttered with each clove " a John-
sonian sentence." Not least among the Doctor's
retinue of ladies, that blue-hosed and formidable
company, is Miss Deborah Jenkyns.
Miss Pole wins us by a similar impulse. For the
greater part of the book Miss Pole is a delight, by
reason of her invincible gentility, her resolute
inquisitiveness, and her harmless deceptions that
deceive no one, such as the story of the attempt on
her house, culminating in the " elf-locks " of the
principal desperado. She is a delight to the mind,
and no more. And then comes Miss Matty's loss,
. when Miss Pole, with her mystic note signed with
inverted initials and her splendid renunciation of a
portion of her infinitesimal income, has our hearts
too. But for the warming of hearts, the crowning
moment of the book is the appearance of the sturdy,
defiant Martha, in Miss Matty's sad little ruined
parlour, bearing before her the pudding shaped like
a lion couchant. Those who can read the chapter
in which this incident occurs, and confess to no
moistening of the eyes or tightening of the throat,
must be made of sterner stuff than flesh and blood.
Here, and in the scene with Jim Hearn which follows,"
Mrs. Gaskell's art is at its finest : a less perceptive
mind would have hesitated to allow Jim any reluctance.
xlvi CRANFORD
Although Martha's declaration of independence is (to
one reader at any rate) the most " dissolving " incident
in the book, there is another passage which falls not far
behind. This is at the end of the fourth chapter, after
Mr. Holbrook's death, when Miss Matty says, " God
forbid that I should grieve any young hearts."
« But Miss Matty is lovable throughout, steadily
and irresistibly. In her Mrs. Gaskell has created
one of the sweetest and gentlest figures in English
fiction, and also one of the most pathetic, although
the sadness of her lonely life is never very poignant,
and we do not meet with her until time has smoothed
its sharpest edge. It is indeed one of the peculiar
characteristics of Cranford, that it presents an
autumnal picture. Therein it differs most strikingly
from other novels, which, although the autumn
comes within their purview too, prefer rather to
lavish themselves upon the spring. The emotion in
Cranford is emotion remembered in tranquillity.
Spring is there, but we do not have it at first hand ;
we see it, as it were, reflected in an antique mirror.
The youth of Miss Matty and Miss Deborah, of
Miss Pole and the Hon. Mrs. Jamieson, is a memory.
Were it not for Martha in her enjoyment of the
" capabiHties " of her kitchen, and Jim Hearn in his
laborious love-making, we should be in the company
only of elders throughout ; for Miss Mary Smith,
the modest, observant, sympathetic historian, though
but a girl in the beginning of the book and no more
than a young woman at the end, has upon her shoulders
what is called an old head. A critic of Cranford
expressed the case adroitly when he said that we
INTRODUCTION xlvii
come to the story as to the fourth volume of a
novel.
To explain the difference in literary excellence
between Cranford and Mrs. Gaskell's other books
— Cranford has a distinction to which they never
attain — two or three theories may be put forward.
For one, it was, in a way that none of the others
were, her own book. Most novelists have one story
with which favourite incidents in their lives are
peculiarly associated : association that makes, if
not always for interest, at any rate for vitality and
sincerity. With Dickens it was David Copperjield ;
with Thackeray it was Pendennis ; with Mrs.
Gaskell it was Cranford. "HI live at all," she said
to her daughter on one occasion, " it will be through
Cranford.'''' And it must be borne in mind that a
book which describes scenes among which the author's
childhood was passed has always a particular chance of
being good. Having, as we have seen, spent at Knuts-
ford her early years between the age of one and the
time of her removal to school, Mrs. Gaskell knew it
through and through.
When Elizabeth was ten years of age her uncle,
Peter Holland, surgeon, was fifty-four. He lived to
be eighty-nine, and died in 1855.
Taking her as he often did on his rounds of twenty
or thirty miles in the gig to visit his patients, he would
doubtless tell her many stories of the ancient halls,
families, and churches of the neighbourhood, which
she remembered, and which furnished her in after
years with many of her stories, long and short.
To describe it must have been a continuous joy.
xlviii CRANFORD
To understand and reproduce the spirit of a place
it is necessary to have been brought up in it. Assiduous
study of a town or district may, to a certain extent,
enable one to acquire its local colour, but the really
vivid impressions can be received only in childhood.
It has been suggested that Mrs. Gaskell attempted
to reap in Miss Austen's fields, and a comparison
of the methods of the two novelists has often been
made ; but it cannot be carried very far. Except
that both deal with a provincial circle, and both
work with something like Dutch minuteness, they
have little in common. Miss Austen's humour has
a sub-acidity entirely lacking in the historian of
Cranford's foibles, and Mrs. Gaskell's interest in
gentle recollections of the tender passion rather than
in its actual workings, is diametrically opposed to
the enjoyment of the analyst of Elizabeth Bennet's
very present hopes and fears. But it is impossible to
believe that Mrs. Gaskell did not take the keenest
pleasure in reading the novels of her illustrious
predecessor, and, as someone has suggested, certain
of the characters of the two writers would very
gladly have been on visiting terms. The Hon.
Mrs. Jamieson, were she to stray by accident into
Rosings, would surely feel perfectly at home there.
Mrs. Gaskell may have thought of Jane Austen
occasionally, as she planned the Cranford chapters
in her head, but the style of the book was her own.
There is a letter from Charlotte Bronte to her which
helps to confirm the theory that Mrs. Gaskell followed
the line of least resistance : " Thank you for your
letter," Miss Bronte wrote ; " it was as pleasant as
INTRODUCTION xlix
a quiet chat, as welcome as spring showers, as reviving
as a friend's visit ; in short, it was very like a page of
\Cranjord,P Letters being the simplest and most
[natural form of literary composition, it follows, if
Mrs. Gaskell's letters were like Cranford, that the
book was written without painstaking artifice. In her
other books Mrs. Gaskell was more deliberately an
inventor of stories. Cranfordy one suspects, came
trippingly off the pen and taxed the mind but little.
The deduction (although this is but conjecture) is
I that when most herself Mrs. Gaskell wrote better
ithan when most a conscious literary artist.
Analogy hunters might point with as much reason
' to Miss Mitford as to Miss Austen, and even Bracebridge
. Hall might be taken into account. But these com-
i parisons are idle. Cranford stands alone and inde-
1 pendent. There was nothing quite in the manner
: before and there has been nothing since, although
more than one book of the past few years could be
named which probably would not be just as it is had
not Cranford come first. Lord Houghton, in esti-
mating Mrs. Gaskell's work immediately after her
death (in a brief notice in the Pall Mall Gazette),
remarked of Cranford, that it was " the purest piece
of humoristic description that has been added to
British literature since Charles Lamb " ; but this
was not very informing criticism. Some of the
figures to which Elia gave life might have lived in
the Cheshire town, it is true, — Captain Jackson, in
particular, — but the association of Lamb with Mrs.
Gaskell is confusing. They worked in different
regions Lamb sought for oddity in human nature ;
1 CRANFORD
Mrs. Gaskell was far more interested in the norm.-
There is a writer now living, who, if these parallels
must be instituted, approaches the method of Cranford
more nearly (without imitation or through conscious
influence) than any predecessor of Mrs. Gaskell ever
did. Those bibliophiles who practise the pleasant
habit of ranging their books in sympathetic groups,
would find that Margaret Ogilvy falls into a place by
Cranford very naturally and comfortably.
At the Gaskell sale in February 1914, a first
edition of Cranford bearing the author's signature —
a presentation copy to her husband — was sold for ^55,
and the first illustrated edition (1864, a presentation
copy: J. B.G. from E.G. G.) realised ^31. Other
autographed first editions brought the following
prices : The Moorland Cottage, jf 20 ; Round the Sofa
(3 vols.), ^31 ; Mary Barton (2 vols, bound in pigskin),
£45-
III
A LIST OF MRS. GASKELL'S WRITINGS
" Sketches among the Poor, No. i," Black-
wood's Magazine. Written in collaboration
with Mr. Gaskell. Probably Mrs. Gaskell's
first appearance in print .... 1837
An account of Clopton Hall, written in 1838,
in William Howitt's Fisits to Remarkable
Places . . . . . . 1840
Mary Barton 1848
INTRODUCTION li
^he Moorland Cottage 1850
Ruth 1853
Cranford 1853
North and South 1855
Lizzie Leigh (Contained : " Lizzie Leigh,"
" The Well of Pen Morfa," " The Heart
of John Middleton," " Disappearances,"
"The Old Nurse's Story," "Traits and
Stories of the Huguenots," " Morton Hall,"
" My French Master," " The Squire's Story,"
" Company Manners," " Mr. Harrison's Con-
fessions," " Libbie Marsh's Three Eras,"
" The Sexton's Hero," " Christmas Storms
and Sunshine," " Hand and Heart," " Bessy's
Troubles at Home ") .... 1855
The Life of Charlotte Bronte . ■. . .1857
My Lady Ludlow and Round the Sofa (Con-
tained : "Round the Sofa," "My Lady
Ludlow," "The Accursed Race," "The
Doom of the Griffiths," " Half a Life-time
Ago," "The Poor Clare," "The Half
Brothers") 1859
Right at Last (Contained : " Right at Last,"
" The Manchester Marriage," " Lois the
Witch," " The Crooked Branch ") . .i860
Sylvia^ s Lovers ...... 1863
J Dark Night's Work 1863
Cousin Phillis (Contained : " Cousin Phillis,"
" Company Manners," " The Sexton's Hero,"
" Mr. Harrison's Confessions ") . . . 1865
Hi
CRANFORD
The Grey Woman (Contained : " The Grey
Woman," " Six Weeks at Heppenheim,"
" Libbie Marsh's Three Eras," " Curious
if True," " Disappearances," " Hand and
Heart," "Bessy's Troubles at Home,"
" Christmas Storms and Sunshine ") .
Wives and Daughters .....
:865
:866
Mrs. Gaskell wrote also several magazine articles,
principally in Household Words and All the Year
Rounds which have not been republished ; and one
or two prefaces. In later editions of her works the
short stories were again rearranged more than once.
In the foregoing list, although many editions are
omitted, all Mrs. Gaskell's republished writings are
mentioned.
^
CRANFORD
CHAPTER I"
OUR SOCIETY
TN the first place, Cranford^^ is in possession of the
Amazons ; all the holders of houses, above a certain
rent, are women. If a married couple come to
settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears ;
he is either fairly frightened to death by being the
only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is
accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship,
or closely engaged in business all the week in the
great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble,^^
distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short,
whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not
at Cranford. What could they do if they were there ?
The surgeon has his round of thirty miles, and sleeps
at Cranford ; but every man cannot be a surgeon.
For keeping the trim gardens full of choice flowers
without a weed to speck them ; for frightening away
3
4 CRANFORD
little boy^s who look wistfully at the said flowers
through; the jrailings ; for rushing out at the geese ^ * that
occasionally venture into the gardens if the gates are
left open ; for deciding all questions of literature and
politics without troubling themselves with un-
necessary reasons or arguments ; for obtaining clear
and correct knowledge of everybody's affairs in the
parish ; for keeping their neat maid-servants in admir-
able order ; for kindness (somewhat dictatorial) to
the poor, ^ ^ and real tender good offices to each other
whenever they are in distress, the ladies of Cranford
are quite sufficient. " A man," as one of them
observed to me once, " is so in the way in the house ! "
Although the ladies of Cranford know all each other's
proceedings, they are exceedingly indifferent to each
other's opinions. Indeed, as each has her own in-
dividuahty, not to say eccentricity, pretty strongly
developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation ;
but, somehow, goodwill reigns among them to a con-
siderable degree.
The Cranford ladies have only an occasional little
quarrel, spirted out in a few peppery words and
angry jerks of the head ; just enough to prevent the
even tenor of their lives from becoming too flat.
Their dress is very independent of fashion ; as they
observe, " What does it signify how we dress here
at Cranford, where everybody knows us ? " And if
they go from home, their reason is equally cogent,
" What does it signify how we dress here, where
nobody knows us ? " The materials of their clothes
are, in general, good and plain, and most of them are
nearly as scrupulous as Miss Tyler, of cleanly
memory ^^; but I will answer for it, the last gigot,
the last tight and scanty petticoat in wear in England,
was seen in Cranford — and seen without a smile.
OUR SOCIETY 5
I can testify to a magnificent family red silk
umbrella, under which a gentle little spinster, left
alone of many brothers and sisters, used to patter
to church on rainy days. Have you any red silk
umbrellas in London ? We had a tradition of the
first that had ever been seen in Cranford ; and the
little boys mobbed it, and called it " a stick in
petticoats." It might have been the very red silk
one I have described, held by a strong father over
a troop of little ones ; the poor little lady — the
survivor of all — could scarcely carry it.
Then there were rules and regulations for visiting
and calls ; and they were announced to any young
people who might be staying in the town, with all
the solemnity with which the old Manx laws were
read once a year on the Tinwald Mount.
" Our friends have sent to inquire how you are
after your journey to-night, my dear " (fifteen
miles, in a gentleman's carriage) ; " they will give
you some rest to-morrow, but the next day, I have
no doubt, they will call ; so be at liberty after twelve
— from twelve to three are our calling-hours."^'
Then, after they had called —
" It is the third day ; I daresay your mamma
has told you, my dear, never to let more than three
days elapse between receiving a call and returning
it ; and also, that you are never to stay longer than
a quarter of an hour."
" But am I to look at my watch ? How am I
to find out when a quarter of an hour has passed ? "
" You must keep thinking about the time, my
dear, and not allow yourself to forget it in conver-
sation."
As everybody had this rule in their minds, whether
they received or paid a call, of course no absorbing
6 CRANFORD
subject was ever spoken about. We kept ourselves
to short sentences of small talk, and were punctual
to our time.
I imagine that a few of the gentlefolks of
Cranford were poor, and had some difficulty in
making both ends meet ; but they were like the
Spartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling
face. We none of us spoke of money, because that
subject savoured of commerce and trade, and though
some might be poor, we were all aristocratic. The
Cranfordians had that kindly esprit de corps which
made them overlook all deficiencies in success when
some among them tried to conceal their poverty.
When Mrs. Forrester, for instance, gave a party in
her baby-house of a dwelling, and the little maiden
disturbed the ladies on the sofa by a request that
she might get the tea-tray out from underneath,
everyone took this novel proceeding as the most
natural thing in the world, and talked on about
household forms and ceremonies as if we all believed
that our hostess had a regular servants' hall, second
table, with housekeeper and steward, instead of the
one little charity-school maiden, ^^ whose short ruddy
arms could never have been strong enough to carry
the tray upstairs, if she had not been assisted in private
by her mistress, who now sat in state, pretending not
to know what cakes were sent up, though she knew,
and we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we
knew that she knew that we knew, she had been busy
all the morning making tea-bread and sponge-
cakes.
There were one or two consequences arising
from this general but unacknowledged poverty, and
this very much acknowledged gentility, which
were not amiss, and which might be introduced
OUR SOCIETY 7
into many circles of society to their great improve-
ment. For instance, the inhabitants of Cranford
kept early hours, and clattered home in their
pattens, under the guidance of a lantern bearer,
about nine o'clock at night ; and the whole town
was abed and asleep by half-past ten. Moreover,
it was considered " vulgar " (a tremendous word
in Cranford) to give anything expensive, in the
way of eatable or drinkable, at the evening enter-
tainments. Wafer bread-and-butter and sponge-
biscuits were all that the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson
gave ; and she was sister-in-law to the late Earl of
Glenmire, although she did practise such " elegant
economy."
" Elegant economy ! " How naturally one falls
back into the phraseology of Cranford ! There,
economy was always " elegant," and money-spending
always " vulgar and ostentatious " ; a sort of sour
grapeism which made us very peaceful and satisfied.
I never shall forget the dismay felt when a certain
Captain Brown^^ came to live at Cranford, and openly
spoke about his being poor — not in a whisper to an
intimate friend, the doors and windows being pre-
viously closed, but in the public street ! in a loud
military voice ! alleging his poverty as a reason for
not taking a particular house. The ladies of Cranford
were already rather moaning over the invasion of their
territories by a man and a gentleman. He was a half-
pay captain, and had obtained some situation on a
neighbouring railroad, which had been vehemently
petitioned against by the little town ; and if, in
addition to his masculine gender, and his connec-
tion with the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen
as to talk of being poor — why, then, indeed, he
must be sent to Coventry. Death was as true and
8 CRANFORD
as common as poverty ; yet people never spoke
about that loud out in the streets. It was a word
not to be mentioned to ears polite. We had
tacitly agreed to ignore that any with whom we
associated on terms of visiting equality could ever
be prevented by poverty from doing anything that
they wished. If we walked to or from a party,
it was because the night was so fine, or the air so
refreshing, not because sedan chairs were expensive.
If we wore prints instead of summer silks, it was
because we preferred a washing material; and so
on, till we blinded ourselves to the vulgar fact that
we were, all of us, people of very moderate means.
Of course, then, we did not know what to make
of a man who could speak of poverty as if it was
not a disgrace. Yet, somehow. Captain Brown
made himself respected in Cranford, and was called
upon, in spite of all resolutions to the contrary.
I was surprised to hear his opinions quoted as
authority at a visit which I paid to Cranford about
a year after he had settled in the town. My own
friends had been among the bitterest opponents of
any proposal to visit the Captain and his daughters,
only twelve months before ; and now he was even
admitted in the tabooed hours before twelve. True,
it was to discover the cause of a smoking chimney,
before the fire was lighted ; but still Captain Brown
walked upstairs, nothing daunted, spoke in a voice
too large for the room, and joked quite in the way
of a tame man about the house. He had been blind
to all the small slights, and omissions of trivial cere-
monies, with which he had been received. He had
been friendly, though the Cranford ladies had been
cool ; he had answered small sarcastic compliments
in good faith ; and with his manly frankness had
OUR SOCIETY 9
overpowered all the shrinking which met him as a
man who was not ashamed to be poor. And, at
last, his excellent masculine common sense, and
hig facility in devising expedients to overcome
domestic dilemmas, had gained him an extraordinary
place as authority among the Cranford ladies. He
himself went on in his course, as unaware of his
popularity as he had been of the reverse ; and I
am sure he was startled one day when he found
his advice so highly esteemed as to make some counsel
which he had given in jest to be taken in sober, serious
earnest.
It was on this subject : An old lady had an Alderney
cow, which she looked upon as a daughter. You
could not pay the short quarter of an hour call with-
out being told- of the wonderful milk or wonderful
intelligence of this animal. The whole town knew
and kindly regarded Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney ;
therefore great was the sympathy and regret when,
in an unguarded moment, the poor cow tumbled
into a lime-pit. She moaned so loudly that she was
soon heard and rescued ; but meanwhile the poor
beast had lost most of her hair, and came out looking
naked, cold, and miserable, in a bare skin. Everybody
pitied the animal, though a few could not restrain
their smiles at her droll appearance. Miss Betsy
Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay ;
and it was said she thought of trying a bath of oil.
This remedy, perhaps, was recommended by some
one of the number whose advice she asked ; but the
proposal, if ever it was made, was knocked on the
head by Captain Brown's decided " Get her a flannel
waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to
keep her alive. But my advice is, kill the poor creature
at once."
lo CRANFORD
Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked
the Captain heartily ; she set to work, and by and
by all the town turned out to see the Alderney
meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark grey flannel. 2»
I have watched her myself many a time. Do you ever
see cows dressed in grey flannel in London ?
Captain Brown had taken a small house on the
outskirts of the town, where he lived with his two
daughters. He must have been upwards of sixty at
the time of the first visit I paid to Cranford after I
had left it as a residence. But he had a wiry, well-
trained, elastic figure, a stiff military throw-back of
his head, and a springing step, which made him
appear much younger than he was. His eldest
daughter looked almost as old as himself, and
betrayed the fact that his real was more than his
apparent age. Miss Brown must have been forty ;
she had a sickly, pained, careworn expression on
her face, and looked as if the gaiety of youth had
long faded out of sight. Even when young she
must have been plain and hard-featured. Miss
Jessie Brown was ten younger than her sister, and
twenty shades prettier. Her face was round and
dimpled. Miss Jenkyns once said, in a passion
against Captain Brown (the cause of which I will
tell you presently), " that she thought it was time
for Miss Jessie to leave oft' her dimples, and not
always to be trying to look like a child." It was
true there was something childlike in her face ; and
there will be, I think, till she dies, though she should
live to a hundred. Her eyes were large blue wonder-
ing eyes, looking straight at you ; her nose was
unformed and snub, and her lips were red and dewy ;
she wore her hair, too, in little rows of curls, which
heightened thi? appearance. I do not know whether
OUR SOCIETY II
she was pretty or not ; but I liked her face, and so
did everybody, and I do not think she could help
her dimples. She had something of her father's
jauntiness of gait and manner ; and any female
observer might detect a slight difference in the attire
of the two sisters — that of Miss Jessie being about
two pounds per annum more expensive than Miss
Brown's. Two pounds was a large sum in Captain
Brown's annual disbursements.
Such was the impression made upon me by the
Brown family when I first saw them all together in
Cranford Church. The Captain I had met before —
on the occasion of the smoky chimney, which he
had cured by some simple alteration in the flue.
In church, he held his double eye-glass to his eyes
during the Morning Hymn, and then lifted up his
head erect and sang out loud and joyfully. He
made the responses louder than the clerk — an
old man with a piping, feeble voice, who, I think,
felt aggrieved at the Captain's sonorous bass, and
quavered higher and higher in consequence.
On coming out of church, the brisk Captain paid
the most gallant attention to his two daughters.
He nodded and smiled to his acquaintances ; but he
shook hands with none until he had helped Miss
Brown to unfurl her umbrella, had relieved her of
her prayer-book, and had waited patiently till she,
with trembling nervous hands, had taken up her
gown to walk through the wet roads.
I wondered what the Cranford ladies did with
Captain Brown at their parties. We had often
rejoiced, in former days, that there was no gentle-
man to be attended to, and to find conversation for,
at the card-parties. We had congratulated our-
selves upon the snugness of the evenings ; and, in
12 CRANFORD
our love for gentility, and distaste of mankind, we
had almost persuaded ourselves that to be a man
was to be " vulgar " ; so that when I found my
friend and hostess, Miss Jenkyns, ^ ^ was going to have
a party in my honour, and that Captain and the
Miss Browns were invited, I wondered much what
would be the course of the evening. Card-tables,
with green-baize tops, were set out by daylight,
just as usual ; it was the third week in November,
so the evenings closed in about four. Candles, and
clean packs of cards were arranged on each table.
The fire was made up ; the neat maid-servant had
received her last directions ; and there we stood,
dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in
our hands, ready to dart at the candles as soon as
the first knock came. Parties in Cranford were
solemn festivities, making the ladies feel gravely
elated as they sat together in their best dresses.
As soon as three had arrived, we sat down to
"Preference," 22 I being the unlucky fourth. The
next four comers were put down immediately to
another table ; and presently the tea-trays, which I
had seen set out in the storeroom as I passed in the
morning, were placed each on the middle of a card-
table. The china was delicate eggshell ; the old-
fashioned silver glittered with poHshing ; but the
eatables were of the slightest description. While
the trays were yet on the tables, Captain and the
Miss Browns came in ; and I could see that,
somehow or other, the Captain was a favourite
with all the ladies present. Ruffled brows were
smoothed, sharp voices lowered at his approach.
Miss Brown looked ill, and depressed almost to
gloom. While Jessie smiled as usual, and seemed
nearly as popular as her father. He immediately
OUR SOCIETY 13
and quietly assumed the man's place in the room ;
attended to everyone's wants, lessened the pretty
maid-servant's labour by waiting on empty cups and
bread-and-butterless ladies ; and yet did it all in so
easy and dignified a manner, and so much as if it
were a matter of course for the strong to attend to
the weak, that he was a true man throughout. He
played for threepenny points with as grave an
interest as if they had been pounds ; and yet, in all
his attention to strangers, he had an eye on his suffer-
ing daughter — for suffering I was sure she was,
though to many eyes she might only appear to be
irritable. Miss Jessie could not play cards : but
she talked to the sitters-out, who, before her
coming, had been rather inclined to be cross. She
sang, too, to an old cracked piano, which I think
had been a spinet in its youth. Miss Jessie sang
" Jock of Hazeldean " a little out of tune ; but we
were none of us musical, though Miss Jenkyns beat
time, out of time, by way of appearing to be so.
It was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this ;
for I had seen that, a little before, she had been a
good deal annoyed by Miss Jessie Brown's un-
guarded admission {a profos of Shetland wool) that
she had an uncle, her mother's brother, who was a
shopkeeper in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to
drown this confession by a terrible cough — for the
Honourable Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the card-
table nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she say
or think if she found out she was in the same room
with a shopkeeper's niece ! But Miss Jessie Brown
(who had no tact, as we all agreed the next morning)
would repeat the information, and assure Miss Pole
she could easily get her the identical Shetland wool
required, " through my uncle, who has the best
14 CRANFORD
assortment of Shetland goods of anyone in Edinbro'."
It was to take the taste of this out of our mouths,
and the sound of this out of our ears, that Miss
Jenkyns proposed music ; so I say again, it was very
good of her to beat time to the song.
When the trays reappeared with biscuits and wine,
punctually at a quarter to nine, there was conversation,
comparing of cards, and talking over tricks ; but by
and by Captain Brown sported a bit of literature.
" Have you seen any numbers of The Pickwick
Papers ? " said he. (They were then publishing
in parts. 2 3) " Capital thing ! "
Now Miss Jenkyns was daughter of a deceased
rector of Cranford ; and, on the strength of a number
of manuscript sermons, and a pretty good library of
divinity, considered herself literary, and looked upon
any conversation about books as a challenge to her.
So she answered and said, " Yes, she had seen them ;
indeed, she might say she had read them."
" And what do you think of them ? " exclaimed
Captain Brown. " Aren't they famously good ? "
So urged. Miss Jenkyns could not but speak.
" I must say, I don't think they are by any means
equal to Dr. Johnson. Still, perhaps, the author is
young. Let him persevere, and who knows what he
may become if he will take the great Doctor for his
model." This was evidently too much for Captain
Brown to take placidly ; and I saw the words on the
tip of his tongue before Miss Jenkyns had finished her
sentence.
" It is quite a different sort of thing, my dear
madam," he began.
" I am quite aware of that," returned she. " And
I make allowances. Captain Brown."
" Just allow me to read you a scene out of this
OUR SOCIETY 15
month's number," pleaded he. " I had it only
this morning, and I don't think the company can
have read it yet."
" As you please," said she, settling herself with
an air of resignation. He read the account of the
" swarry " which Sam Weller gave at Bath. -* Some
of us laughed heartily. / did not dare, because I was
staying in the house. Miss Jenkyns sat in patient
gravity. When it was ended, she turned to me, and
said, with mild dignity,
" Fetch me Rasselas, my dear, out of the bookroom."
When I brought it to her, she turned to Captain
Brown —
" Now allow me to read you a scene, and {hen
the present company can judge between your
favourite, Mr. Boz, and Dr. Johnson."
She read one of the conversations between Rasselas
and Imlac, in a high-pitched majestic voice ; and
when she had ended, she said, " I imagine I am now
justified in my preference of Dr. Johnson as a writer
of fiction." The Captain screwed his lips up, and
drummed on the table, but he did not speak. She
thought she would give a finishing blow or two.
" I consider it vulgar, and below the dignity of
literature, to publish in numbers."
" How was the Rambler published, ma'am .? "
asked Captain Brown, in a low voice, which I think
Miss Jenkyns could not have heard.
" Dr. Johnson's style is a model for young be-
ginners. My father recommended it to me when I
began to write letters — I have formed my own style
upon it ; I recommend it to your favourite."
" I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style
for any such pompous writing," said Captain Brown.
Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront, in
i6
CRANFORD
a way of which the Captain had not dreamed.
Epistolary writing she and her friends considered as
her forte. Many a copy of many a letter have I
seen written and corrected on the slate, before she
" seized the half hour just previous to post-time to
assure " her friends of this or of that ; and Dr.
Johnson was, as she said, her model in these com-
positions. She drew herself up with dignity, and
only replied to Captain Brown's last remark by
saying, with marked emphasis on every syllable,
" I prefer Dr. Johnson to Mr. Boz."
It is said — I won't vouch for the fact — that Captain
Brown was heard to say, sotto voce^ " D — n Dr. John-
son [ " If he did, he was penitent afterwards, as he
showed by going to stand near Miss Jenkyns's arm-
chair, and endeavouring to beguile her into con-
versation on some more pleasing subject. But she
was inexorable. The next day she made the remark
I have mentioned about Miss Jessie's dimples.
J^n t4eQAf{^h,
I
J^tar/ie'^ Unlace
CHAPTER II
THE CAPTAIN
TT was impossible to live a month at Cranford
and not know the daily habits of each resident ;
and long before my visit was ended I knew much
concerning the whole Brown trio. There was nothing
new to be discovered respecting their poverty ; for
they had spoken simply and openly about that from
the very first. They made no mystery of the necessity
for their being economical. All that remained to be
discovered was the Captain's infinite kindness of
heart, and the various modes in which, unconsciously
to himself, he manifested it. Some little anecdotes
were talked about for some time after they occurred.
As we did not read much, and as all the ladies were
pretty well suited with servants, there was a dearth
of subjects for conversation. We therefore discussed
the circumstance of the Captain taking a poor old
woman's dinner out of her hands one very slippery
2 17
i8 CRANFORD
Sunday. He had met her returning from the bake-
house 2 5 as he came from church, and noticed her pre-
carious footing ; and, with the grave dignity with
which he did everything, he reUeved her of her
burden, and steered along the street by her side,
carrying her baked mutton and potatoes safely home.
This was thought very eccentric ; and it was rather
expected that he would pay a round of calls, on
the Monday morning, to explain and apologise to
the Cranford sense of propriety ; but he did no
such thing ; and then it was decided that he was
ashamed, and was keeping out of sight. In a
kindly pity for him, we began to say, " After all,
the Sunday morning's occurrence showed great
goodness of heart," and it was resolved that he
should be comforted on his next appearance amongst
us ; but, lo ! he came down upon us, untouched by
any sense of shame, speaking loud and bass as ever,
his head thrown back, his wig as jaunty and well-
curled as usual, and we were obliged to conclude
he had forgotten all about Sunday.
Miss Pole and Miss Jessie Brown had set up a
kind of intimacy on the strength of the Shetland
wool and the new knitting stitches ; so it happened
that, when I went to visit Miss Pole, I saw more of
the Browns than I had done while staying with
Miss Jenkyns, who had never got over what she
called Captain Brown's disparaging remarks upon
Dr. Johnson as a writer of light and agreeable
fiction. I found that Miss Brown was seriously ill
of some lingering, incurable complaint, the pain
occasioned by which gave the uneasy expression to
her face that I had taken for unmitigated crossness.
Cross, too, she was at times, when the nervous irri-
tability occasioned by her disease became past en-
THE CAPTAIN 19
durance. Miss Jessie bore with her at these times,
even more patiently than she did with the bitter self-
upbraidings by which they were invariably succeeded.
Miss Brown used to accuse herself, not merely of
hasty and irritable temper, but also of being the cause
why her father and sister were obliged to pinch, in
order to allow her the small luxuries which were
necessaries in her condition. She would so fain have
made sacrifices for them, and have lightened their
cares, that the original generosity of her disposition
added acerbity to her temper. All this was borne by
Miss Jessie and her father with more than placidity
— with absolute tenderness. I forgave Miss Jessie her
singing out of tune, and her juveniHty of dress, when
I saw her at home. I came to perceive that Captain
Brown's dark Brutus wig and padded coat (alas ! too
often threadbare) were remnants of the military
smartness of his youth, which he now wore un-
consciously. He was a man of infinite resources,
gained in his barrack experience. As he confessed,
no one could black his boots to please him, except
himself : but, indeed, he was not above saving the
little maid-servant's labours in every way — knowing,
most likely, that his daughter's illness made the
place a hard one.
He endeavoured to make peace with Miss
Jenkyns, soon after the memorable dispute I have
named, by a present of a wooden fire-shovel (his
own making), having heard her say how much the
grating of an iron one annoyed her. She received
the present with cool gratitude, and thanked him
formally. When he was gone, she bade me put it
away in the lumber-room ; feeling, probably, that no
present from a man who preferred Mr. Boz to Dr.
Johnson could be less jarring than an iron fire-shovel.
20 CRANFORD
Such was the state oi things when I left Cranford
and went to Drumble. I had, however, several
correspondents who kept me au fait as to the pro-
ceedings of the dear little town. There was Miss
Pole, who was becoming as much absorbed in crochet
as she had been once in knitting, and the burden of
whose letter was something like, " But don't you
forget the white worsted at Flint's " of the old song ;
for at the end of every sentence of news came a fresh
direction as to some crochet commission which I was
to execute for her. Miss Matilda Jenkyns (who did
not mind being called Miss Matty, ^^ when Miss
Jenkyns was not by) wrote nice, kind, ram.bling
letters, now and then venturing into an opinion of
her own ; but suddenly pulling herself up, and either
begging me not to name what she had said, as Deborah
thought differently, and she knew ; or else putting
in a postscript to the effect that, since writing the
above, she had been talking over the subject with
Deborah, and was quite convinced that, etc. — (liere
probably followed a recantation of every opinion
she had given in the letter). Then came Miss Jenkyns
— Deborah, as she liked Miss Matty to call her, her
father having once said that the Hebrew name ought ^
to be so pronounced. I secretly think she took the
Hebrew prophetess for a model in character ; and,
indeed, she was not unlike the stern prophetess in
some ways, making allowance, of course, for modern
customs and difference in dress. Miss Jenkyns
wore a cravat, and a little bonnet like a jockey-
cap, and altogether had the appearance of a strong-
minded woman ; although she would have despised
the modern idea of women being equal to men.
Equal, indeed ! she knew they were superior. But
to return to her letters. Everything in them was
THE CAPTAIN 21
stately and grand like herself. I have been looking
them over (dear Miss Jenkyns, how I honoured
her !), and I will give an extract, more especially
because it relates to our friend Captain Brown : —
" The Honourable Mrs. Jamieson has only just
quitted me ; and, in the course of conversation, she
communicated to me the inteUigence that she had
yesterday received a call from her revered husband's
quondam friend, Lord Mauleverer. You will not
easily conjecture what brought his lordship within
the precincts of our little town. It was to see Captain
Brown, with whom, it appears, his lordship was
acquainted in the ' plumed wars,' and who had
the privilege of averting destruction from his lord-
ship's head, when some great peril was impending
over it, off the misnomered Cape of Good Hope.
You know our friend the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson's
deficiency in the spirit of innocent curiosity ; and
you will therefore not be so much surprised when
I tell you she was quite unable to disclose to me
the exact nature of the peril in question. I was
anxious, I confess, to ascertain in what manner
Captain Brown, with his limited establishment,
could receive so distinguished a guest ; and I dis-
covered that his lordship retired to rest, and, let
us hope, to refreshing slumbers, at the Angel Hotel,
but shared the Brunonian meals during the two
days that he honoured Cranford with his august
presence. Mrs. Johjison, our civil butcher's wife,
informs me that Miss Jessie purchased a leg of lamb ;
but, besides this, I can hear of no preparation what-
ever to give a suitable reception to so distinguished
a visitor. Perhaps they entertained him with ' the
feast of reason and the flow of soul ' ; and to us,
who are acquainted with Captain Brown's sad want
22 CRANFORD
of relish for * the pure wells of English undefiled,'
it may be matter for congratulation that he has had
the opportunity of improving his taste by holding
converse vv^ith an elegant and refined member of the
British aristocracy. But from some mundane failings
who is altogether free ? "
Miss Pole and Miss Matty wrote to me by the
same post. Such a piece of news as Lord Mau-
leverer's visit was not to be lost on the Cranford
letter-writers : they made the most of it. Miss
Matty humbly apologised for writing at the same
time as her sister, who was so much more capable than
she to describe the honour done to Cranford ; but, in
spite of a little bad speUing, Miss Matty's account
gave me the best idea of the commotion occasioned
by his lordship's visit, after it had occurred ; for,
except the people at the Angel, the Browns, Mrs.
Jamieson, and a little lad his lordship had sworn at
for driving a dirty hoop against the aristocratic legs,
I could not hear of anyone with whom his lordship
had held conversation.
My next visit to Cranford was in the summer.
There had been neither births, deaths, nor marriages
since I was there last. Everybody lived in the same
house, and wore pretty nearly the same well-preserved,
old-fashioned clothes. The greatest event was, that
the Miss Jenkynses had purchased a new carpet for
the drawing-room. Oh the busy work Miss Matty
and I had in chasing the sunbeams, ^^ as they fell in
an afternoon right down on this carpet through the
blindless window ! We spread newspapers over the
places, and sat down to our book or our work ; and,
lo ! in a quarter of an hour the sun had moved, and
was blazing away on a fresh spot ; and down again
we went on our knees to alter the position of the
THE CAPTAIN 23
newspapers. We were very busy, too, one whole
morning, before Miss Jenkyns gave her party, in
following her directions, and in cutting out and
stitching together pieces of newspaper so as to form
little paths to every chair set for the expected visitors,
lest their shoes might dirty or defile the purity of the
carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to
walk upon in London ? ^^
Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns were not very
cordial to each other. The literary dispute, of
which I had seen the beginning, was a " raw," the
slightest touch on which made them wince. It
was the only difference of opinion they had ever
had ; but that difference was enough. Miss Jenkyns
could not refrain from talking at Captain Brown ;
and, though he did not reply, he drummed with
his fingers, which action she felt and resented as
very disparaging to Dr. Johnson. He was rather
ostentatious in his preference of the writings of
Mr. Boz ; would walk through the streets so ab-
sorbed in them that he all but ran against Miss
Jenkyns ; and though his apologies were earnest
and sincere, and though he did not, in fact, do
more than startle her and himself, she owned to
me she had rather he had knocked her down, if he
had only been reading a higher style of literature.
The poor, brave Captain ! he looked older, and
more worn, and his clothes were very threadbare.
But he seemed as bright and cheerful as ever, unless
he was asked about his daughter's health.
" She suffers a great deal, and she must suffer
more ; we do what we can to alleviate her pain ; —
God's will be done ! " He took off his hat at these
last words. I found, from Miss Matty, that every-
thing had been done, in fact. A medical man, of
24 CRANFORD
high repute in that country neighbourhood, had
been sent for, and every injunction he had given
was attended to, regardless of expense. Miss Matty
was sure they denied themselves many things in
order to make the invalid comfortable ; but they
never spoke about it ; and as for Miss Jessie ! —
" I really think she's an angel," said poor Miss Matty,
quite overcome. " To see her way of bearing with
Miss Brown's crossness, and the bright face she puts
on after she's been sitting up a whole night and scolded
above half of it, is quite beautiful. Yet she looks as
neat and as ready to welcome the Captain at breakfast-
time as if she had been asleep in the queen's bed all
night. My dear ! you never could laugh at her prim
little curls or her pink bows again if you saw her as I
have done." I could only feel very penitent, and
greet Miss Jessie with double respect when I met
her next. She looked faded and pinched ; and
her lips began to quiver, as if she was very weak,
when she spoke of her sister. But she brightened,
and sent back the tears that were glittering in her
pretty eyes, as she said —
" But, to be sure, what a town Cranford is for
kindness ! I don't suppose anyone has a better
dinner than usual cooked but the best part of all
comes in a little covered basin for my sister. The
poor people will leave their earliest vegetables at
our door for her. They speak short and gruff, as
if they were ashamed of it ; but I am sure it often
goes to my heart to see their thoughtfulness."
The tears now came back and overflowed ; but
after a minute or two she began to scold herself,
and ended by going away the same cheerful Miss
Jessie as ever.
" But why does not this Lord' Mauleverer do
THE CAPTAIN 25
something for the man who saved his life ? " said I.
" Why, you. see, unless Captain Brown has some
reason for it, he never speaks about being poor ;
and he walked along by his lordship looking as happy
and cheerful as a prince ; and as they never called
attention to their dinner by apologies, and as Miss
Brown was better that day, and all seemed bright,
I daresay his lordship never knew how much care
there was in the background. He did send game in
the winter pretty often, but now he is gone abroad."
I had often occasion to notice the use that was
made of fragments and small opportunities in Cran-
ford ; the rose-leaves that were gathered ere they
fell, to make into a pot-pourri for someone who
had no garden ; the little bundles of lavender flowers
sent to strew the drawers of some town-dweller, or
to burn in the chamber of some invalid. Things
that many would despise, and actions which it seemed
scarcely worth while to perform, were all attended to
in Cranford. Miss Jenkyns stuck an apple full of
cloves, to be heated and smell pleasantly in Miss
Brown's room ; and as she put in each clove she
uttered a Johnsonian sentence. Indeed, she never
could think of the Browns without talking Johnson ;
and as they were seldom absent from her thoughts
just then, I'heard many a rolling, three-piled sentence.
Captain Brown called one day to thank Miss
Jenkyns for many little kindnesses, which I did
not know until then that she had rendered. He
had suddenly become like an old man ; his deep
bass voice had a quavering in it, his eyes looked
dim, and the lines on his face were deep. He did
not — could not — speak cheerfully of his daughter's
state, but he talked with manly, pious resignation,
and not much. Twice over he said, " What Jessie
26 CRANFORD
has been to us, God only knows ! " and after the
second time, he got up hastily, shook hands all round
without speaking, and left the room.
That afternoon we perceived little groups in the
street, all listening with faces aghast to some tale or
other. Miss Jenkyns wondered what could be the
matter for some time before she took the undignified
step of sending Jenny out to inquire.
Jenny came back with a white face of terror.
" Oh, ma'am ! oh. Miss Jenkyns, ma'am ! Captain
Brown is killed by them nasty cruel railroads ! "
and she burst into tears. She, along with many
others, had experienced the poor Captain's kindness.
" How ? — where — where ? Good God ! Jenny,
don't waste time in crying, but tell us something."
Miss Matty rushed out into the street at once, and
collared the man who was telling the tale.
" Come in — come to my sister at once, — Miss
Jenkyns, the rector's daughter. Oh, man, man ! —
say it is not true," she cried, as she brought the
affrighted carter, sleeking down his hair, into the
drawing-room, where he stood with his wet boots
on the new carpet, and no one regarded it.
" Please, mum, it is true. I seed it myself," and
he shuddered at the recollection. " The Captain
was a-reading some new book as he was deep in,
a-waiting for the down train ; and there was a little
lass as wanted to come to its mammy, and gave its
sister the slip, and came toddling across the line.
And he looked up sudden, at the sound of the train
coming, and seed the child, and he darted on the
line and cotched it up, and his foot slipped, and the
train came over him in no time. Oh Lord, Lord !
Mum, it's quite true — and they've come over to tell
his daughters. The child's safe, though, with only a
THE CAPTAIN 27
bang on its shoulder, as he threw it to its mammy.
Poor Captain would be glad of that, mum, wouldn't
he ? God bless him ! " The great rough carter
puckered up his manly face, and turned away to
hide his tears. I turned to Miss Jenkyns, She looked
very ill, as if she were going to faint, and signed to me
to open the window.
" Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to
those girls. God pardon me, if ever I have spoken
contemptuously to the Captain ! "
Miss Jenkyns arrayed herself to go out, telling
Miss Matilda to give the man a glass of wine. While
she was away, Miss Matty and I huddled over the
fire, talking in a low and awestruck voice. I know we
cried quietly all the time.
Miss Jenkyns came home in a silent mood, and
we durst not ask her many questions. She told us
that Miss Jessie had fainted, and that she and Miss
Pole had had some difficulty in bringing her round ;
but that, as soon as she recovered, she begged one of
them to go and sit with her sister.
" Mr. Hoggins ^^ says she cannot live many days,
and she shall be spared this shock," said Miss Jessie,
shivering with feelings to which she dared not give
way.
" But how can you manage, my dear ? " asked
Miss Jenkyns ; " you cannot bear up, she must see
your tears."
" God will help me — I will not give way — she
was asleep when the news came ; she may be asleep
yet. She would be so utterly miserable, not merely
at my father's death, but to think of what would
become of me ; she is so good to me." She looked
up earnestly in their faces with her soft true eyes, and
Miss Pole told Miss Jenkyns afterwards she could
28 CRANFORD
hardly bear it, knowing, as she did, how Miss Brown
treated her sister.
However, it was settled according to Miss Jessie's
wish. Miss Brown was to be told her father had
been summoned to take a short journey on railway
business. They had managed it in some way —
Miss Jenkyns could not exactly say how. Miss
Pole was to stop with Miss Jessie. Mrs. Jamieson
had sent to inquire. And this was all we heard
that night ; and a sorrowful night it was. The
next day a full account of the fatal accident was in
the county paper ^^ which Miss Jenkyns took in.
Her eyes were very weak, she said, and she asked
me to read it. When I came to the " gallant gentle-
man was deeply engaged in the perusal of a number
of Pickwick,^^ which he had just received," Miss
Jenkyns shook her head long and solemnly, and then
sighed out, " Poor, dear, infatuated man ! "
The corpse was to be taken from the station to
the parish church, there to be interred. Miss Jessie
had set her heart on following it to the grave ; and
no dissuasives could alter her resolve. Her restraint
upon herself made her almost obstinate ; she resisted
all Miss Pole's entreaties and Miss Jenkyns's advice.
At last Miss Jenkyns gave up the point ; and after
a silence, which I feared portended some deep dis-
pleasure against Miss Jessie, Miss Jenkyns said she
should accompany the latter to the funeral.
" It is not fit for you to go alone. It would be
against both propriety and humanity were I to
allow it."
Miss Jessie seemed as if she did not half like this
arrangement ; but her obstinacy, if she had any,
had been exhausted in her determination to go to
the interment. She longed, poor thing, I have no
THE CAPTAIN 29
doubt, to cry alone over the grave of the dear father
to whom she had been all in all, and to give way,
for one little half-hour, uninterrupted by sympathy
and unobserved by friendship. But it was not to be.
That afternoon Miss Jenkyns sent out for a yard of
black crape, and employed herself busily in trimming
the little black silk bonnet I have spoken about.
When it was finished she put it on, and looked at us
for approbation — admiration she despised. I was
full of sorrow, but, by one of those whimsical thoughts
which come unbidden into our heads, in times of
deepest grief, I no sooner saw the bonnet than I was
reminded of a helmet ; and in that hybrid bonnet,
half-helmet, half-jockey-cap, did Miss Jenkyns attend
Captain Brown's funeral ; and, I believe, supported
Miss Jessie with a tender, indulgent firmness which
was invaluable, allowing her to weep her passionate
fill before they left.
Miss Pole, Miss Matty, and I, meanwhile, attended
to Miss Brown ; and hard work we found it to relieve
her querulous and never-ending complaints. But if we
were so weary and dispirited, what must Miss Jessie
have been ! Yet she came back almost calm, as if she
had gained a new strength. She put off her mourning
dress, and came in, looking pale and gentle, thanking
us each with a soft long pressure of the hand. She
could even smile — a faint, sweet, wintry smile — as if
to reassure us of her power to endure ; but her look
made our eyes fill suddenly with tears, more than
if she had cried outright.
It was settled that Miss Pole was to remain with
her all the watching livelong night ; and that Miss
Matty and I were to return in the morning to relieve
them, and give Miss Jessie the opportunity for a few
hours of sleep. But when the morning came, Miss
30 CRANFORD
Jenkyns appeared at the breakfast-table, equipped
in her helmet-bonnet, and ordered Miss Matty to
stay at home, as she meant to go and help to nurse.
She was evidently in a state of great friendly excite-
ment, which she showed by eating her breakfast
standing, and scolding the household all round.
No nursing — no energetic strong-minded woman
could help Miss Brown now. There was that in
the room as we entered which was stronger than us
all, and made us shrink into solemn awestruck help-
lessness. Miss Brown was dying. We hardly knew
her voice, it was so devoid of the complaining tone
we had always associated with it. Miss Jessie told
me afterwards that it, and her face too, were just
what they had been formerly, when her mother's
death left her the young anxious head of the family,
of whom only Miss Jessie survived.
She was conscious of her sister's presence, though
not, I think, of ours. We stood a little behind the
curtain : Miss Jessie knelt with her face near her
sister's, in order to catch the last soft awful whispers.
" Oh, Jessie ! Jessie ! How selfish I have been !
God forgive me for letting you sacrifice yourself
for me as you did ! I have so loved you — and yet I
have thought only of myself. God forgive me ! "
" Hush, love ! hush ! " said Miss Jessie, sobbing.
" And my father ! my dear, dear father ! I
will not complain now, if God will give me strength
to be patient. But oh, Jessie ! tell my father how I
longed and yearned to see him at last, and to ask
his forgiveness. He can never know now how I
loved him — oh ! if I might but tell him, before I
die ! What a life of sorrow his has been, and I have
done so little to cheer him ! "
A light came into Miss Jessie's face. " Would
THE CAPTAIN 31
it comfort you, dearest, to think that he does know ?
— would it comfort you, love, to know that his
cares, his sorrows " — Her voice quivered, but she
steadied it into calmness, — " Mary ! he has gone
before you to the place where the weary are at rest.
He knows now how you loved him."
A strange look, which was not distress, came
over Miss Brown's face. She did not speak for
some time, but then we saw her lips form the words,
rather than heard the sound — " Father, mother,
Harry, Archy ; " — then, as if it were a new idea
throwing a filmy shadow over her darkened mind —
" But you will be alone, Jessie ! "
Miss Jessie had been feeling this all during the
silence, I think ; for the tears rolled down her cheeks
like rain, at these words, and she could not answer
at first. Then she put her hands together tight, and
lifted them up, and said — but not to us —
" Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." ^^
In a few moments more Miss Brown lay calm and
still — never to sorrow or murmur more.
After this second funeral. Miss Jenkyns insisted
that Miss Jessie should come to stay with her rather
than go back to the desolate house, which, in fact,
we learned from Miss Jessie, must now be given up,
as she had not wherewithal to maintain it. She
had something above twenty pounds a year, besides
the interest of the money for which the furniture
would sell ; but she could not live upon that : and
so we talked over her qualifications for earning money.
" I can sew neatly," said she, " and I like nursing. I
think, too, I could manage a house, if anyone would try
me as housekeeper ; or I would go into a shop as sales-
woman, if they would have patience with me at first."
Miss Jenkyns declared, in an angry voice, that
32 CRANFORD
she should do no such thing ; and talked to herself
about " some people having no idea of their rank as
a captain's daughter," nearly an hour afterwards,
when she broiight Miss Jessie up a basin of delicately-
made arrowroot, and stood over her like a dragoon
until the last spoonful was finished : then she dis-
appeared. Miss Jessie began to tell me some more
of the plans which had suggested themselves to her,
and insensibly fell into talking of the days that were
past and gone, and interested me so much I neither
knew nor heeded how time passed. We were both
startled when Miss Jenkyns reappeared, and caught
us crying. I was afraid lest she would be displeased,
as she often said that crying hindered digestion, and
I knew she wanted Miss Jessie to get strong ; but,
instead, she looked queer and excited, and fidgeted
round us without saying anything. At last she spoke.
" I have been so much startled — no, I've not
been at all startled — don't mind me, my dear Miss
Jessie — I've been very much surprised — in fact,
I've had a caller, whom you knew once, my dear
Miss Jessie "
Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet,
and looked eagerly at Miss Jenkyns.
" A gentleman, my dear, who wants to know if
you would see him."
" Is it ? — it is not " stammered out Miss
Jessie — and got no farther.
" This is his card," said Miss Jenkyns, giving it
to Miss Jessie ; and while her head was bent over
it. Miss Jenkyns went through a series of winks
and odd faces to me, and formed her lips into a long
sentence, of which, of course, I could not understand
a word.
" May he come up ? " asked Miss Jenkyns, at last.
THE CAPTAIN 33
" Oh yes ! certainly ! " said Miss Jessie, as much
as to say, this is your house, you may show any visitor
where you like. She took up some knitting of Miss
Matty's and began to be very busy, though I could
see how she trembled all over.
Miss Jenkyns rang the bell, and told the servant
who answered it to show Major Gordon upstairs ;
and, presently, in walked a tall, fine, frank-looking
man of forty or upwards. He shook hands with Miss
Jessie ; but he could not see her eyes, she kept them
so fixed on the ground. Miss Jenkyns asked me if I
would come and help her to tie up the preserves in
the store-room ; and, though Miss Jessie plucked at
my gown, and even looked up at me with begging
eye, I durst not refuse to go where Miss Jenkyns
asked. Instead of tying up preserves in the store-
room, however, we went to talk in the dining-room ;
and there Miss Jenkyns told me what Major Gordon
had told her ; — how he had served in the same
regiment with Captain Brown, and had become
acquainted with Miss Jessie, then a sweet-looking,
blooming girl of eighteen ; how the acquaintance had
grown into love on his part, though it had been some
years before he had spoken ; how, on becoming
possessed, through the will of an uncle, of a good
estate in Scotland, he had offered and been refused,
though with so much agitation and evident distress
that he was sure she was not indifferent to him ;
and how he had discovered that the obstacle was the
fell disease which was, even then, too surely threaten-
ing her sister. She had mentioned that the surgedns
foretold intense suffering ; and there was no one
but herself to nurse her poor Mary, or cheer and
comfort her father during the time of illness. They
had had long discussions ; and on her refusal to
34 CRANFORD
pledge herself to him as his wife when all should be
over, he had grown angry, and broken off entirely,
and gone abroad, believing that she was a cold-
hearted person whom he would do well to forget.
He had been travelling in the East, and was on his
return home, when, at Rome, he saw the account of
Captain Brown's death in Galignani.^^
Just then Miss Matty, who had been out all the
morning, and had only lately returned to the house,
burst in with a face of dismay and outraged propriety.
" Oh, goodness me ! " she said. " Deborah,
there's a gentleman sitting in the drawing-room
with his arm round Miss Jessie's waist ! " Miss
Matty's eyes looked large with terror.
Miss Jenkyns snubbed her down in an instant.
" The most proper place in the world for his
arm to be in. Go away, Matilda, and mind your
own business." This from her sister, who had
hitherto been a model of feminine decorum, was a
blow for poor Miss Matty, and with a double shock
she left the room.
The last time I ever saw poor Miss Jenkyns was
many years after this. Mrs. Gordon had kept up
a warm and affectionate intercourse with all at
Cranford. Miss Jenkyns, Miss Matty, and Miss
Pole had all been to visit her, and returned with
wonderful accounts of her house, her husband, her
dress, and her looks. For, with happiness, some-
thing of her early bloom returned; she had been a
year or two younger than we had taken her for.
Her eyes were always lovely, and, as Mrs. Gordon,
her dimples were not out of place. At the time to
which I have referred, when I last saw Miss Jenkyns,
that lady was old and feeble, and had lost something
of her strong mind. Little Flora Gordon was staying
THE CAPTAIN
35
with the Misses Jenkyns, and when I came in she was
reading aloud to Miss Jenkyns, who lay feeble and
changed on the sofa. Flora put down the Rambler
when I came in.
" Ah ! " said Miss Jenkyns, " you find me changed,
my dear. I can't see as I used to do. If Flora were
not here to read to me, I hardly know how I should
get through the day. Did you ever read the Rambler F
It's a wonderful book — wonderful ! and the most
improving reading for Flora " (which I daresay it
would have been, if she could have read half the
words without spelling, and could have understood
the meaning of a third), " better than that strange old
book, with the queer name, poor Captain Brown was
killed for reading — that book by Mr. Boz, you know
— Old Poz ; when I was a girl — but that's a long time
ago — I acted Lucy in Old Poz" ^ * She babbled on long
enough for Flora to get a good long spell at the Christ-
mas Carol, which Miss Matty had left on the table.
^_^m tfia- Garden-
CHAPTER IIP 5
A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO
T THOUGHT that probably my connection with
Cranford would cease after Miss Jenkyns's
death ; at least, that it would have to be kept up by
correspondence, which bears much the same delation
to personal intercourse that the books of dried
plants I sometimes see (" Hortus Siccus," I think
they call the thing) do to the living and fresh flowers
in the lanes and meadows. I was pleasantly sur-
prised, therefore, by receiving a letter from Miss
Pole (who had always come in for a supplementary
week after my annual visit to Miss Jenkyns) pro-
posing that I should go and stay with her ; and then,
in a couple of days after my acceptance, came a note
from Miss Matty, in which, in a rather circuitous
and very humble manner, she told me how much
pleasure I should confer if I could spend a week or
36
A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO 37
two with her, either before or after I had been at
Miss Pole's ; " for," she said, " since my dear sister's
death I am well aware I have no attractions to offer ;
it is only to the kindness of my friends that I can owe
their company."
Of course I promised to come to dear Miss Matty
as soon as I had ended my visit to Miss Pole ; and
the day after my arrival at Cranford I went to see
her, much wondering what the house would be like
without Miss Jenkyns, and rather dreading the
changed aspect of things. Miss Matty began to cry
as soon as she saw me. She was evidently nervous
from having anticipated my call. I comforted her as
well as I could ; and I found the best consolation I
could give was the honest praise that came from my
heart as I spoke of the deceased. Miss Matty slowly
shook her head over each virtue as it was named and
attributed to her sister ; and at last she could not
restrain the tears which had long been silently flowing,
but hid her face behind her handkerchief, and sobbed
aloud.
"Dear Miss Matty!" said I, taking her hand —
for indeed I did not know in what way to tell her how
sorry I was for her, left deserted in the world. She
put down her handkerchief, and said —
" My dear, I'd rather you did not call me Matty.
She did not like it ; but I did many a thing she did
not like, I'm afraid — and now she's gone ! If you
please, my love, will you call me Matilda ? "
I promised faithfully, and began to practise the
new name with Miss Pole that very day ; and, by
degrees, Miss Matilda's feeling on the subject was
known through Cranford, and we all tried to drop
the more familiar name, but with so little success
that by and by we gave up the attempt.
38 CRANFORD
My visit to Miss Pole was very quiet. Miss Jenkyns
had so long taken the lead in Cranford, that, now
she was gone, they hardly knew how to give a party.
The Honourable Mrs. Jamieson, to whom Miss
Jenkyns herself had always yielded the post of honour,
was fat and inert, and very much at the mercy of her
oM servants. If they chose that she should give a party,
they reminded her of the necessity for so doing : if
not, she let it alone. There was all the more time for
me to hear old-world stories from Miss Pole, while
she sat knitting, and I making my father's shirts. I
always took a quantity of plain sewing to Cranford ;
for, as we did not read much, or walk much, I found
it a capital time to get through my work. One of
Miss Pole's stories related to a shadow of a love affair
that was dimlyperceived or suspected long years before.
Presently, the time arrived when I was to remove
to Miss Matilda's house. I found her timid and
anxious about the arrangements for my comfort.
Many a time, while I was unpacking, did she come
backwards and forwards to stir the fire, which burned
all the worse for being so frequently poked.
" Have you drawers enough, dear ? " asked she.
" I don't know exactly how my sister used to arrange
them. She had capital methods. I am sure she
would have trained a servant in a week to make a
better fire than this, and Fanny has been with me
four months."
This subject of servants was a standing grievance,
and I could not wonder much at it ; for if gentlemen
were scarce, and almost unheard of in the " genteel
society " of Cranford, they or their counterparts —
handsome young men — abounded in the lower classes.
The pretty neat servant-maids had their choice of
desirable " followers " ; and their mistresses, with-
A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO 39
out having the sort of mysterious dread of men and
matrimony that Miss Matilda had, might well feel a
little anxious lest the heads of their comely maids
should be turned by the joiner, or the butcher, or the
gardener, who were obliged, by their callings, to come
to the house, and who, as ill-luck would have it, were
generally handsome and unmarried. Fanny's lovers,
if she had any — and Miss Matilda suspected her of so
many flirtations, that, if she had not been very
pretty, I should have doubted her having one —
were a constant anxiety to her mistress. She was
forbidden, by the articles of her engagement, to
have " followers " ; and though she had answered,
innocently enough, doubling up the hem of her
apron as she spoke, " Please, ma'am, I never had
more than one at a time," Miss Matty prohibited
that one. But a vision of a man seemed to haunt
the kitchen. Fanny assured me that it was all fancy,
or else I should have said myself that I had seen a
man's coat-tails whisk into the scullery once, when I
went on an errand into the store-room at night ; and
another evening, when, our watches having stopped,
I went to look at the clock, there was a very odd
appearance, singularly like a young man squeezed
up between the clock and the back of the open
kitchen door ; and I thought Fanny snatched up
the candle very hastily, so as to throw the shadow
on the clock face, while she very positively told me
the time half an hour too early, as we found out
afterwards by the church clock. But I did not add
to Miss Matty's anxieties by naming my suspicions,
especially as Fanny said to me, the next day, that
it was such a queer kitchen for having odd shadows
about it, she really was almost afraid to stay ; " for
you know, miss," she added, " I don't see a creature
40 CRANFORD
from six o'clock tea, till missus rings the bell for
prayers at ten."
However, it so fell out that Fanny had to leave ;
and Miss Matilda begged me to stay and " settle
her " with the new maid ; to which I consented,
after I had heard from my father that he did not
want me at home. The new servant was a rough,
honest-looking country girl, who had only lived in
a farm place before ; but I liked her looks when
she came to be hired ; and I promised Miss Matilda
to put her in the ways of the house. The said ways
were religiously such as Miss Matilda thought her
sister would approve. Many a domestic rule and
regulation had been a subject of plaintive whispered
murmur to me during Miss Jenkyns's life ; but now
that she was gone, I do not think that even I, who
was a favourite,' durst have suggested an alteration.
To give an instance : we constantly adhered to the
forms which were observed, at meal- times, in " my
father the rector's house." Accordingly, we had
always wine and dessert ; but the decanters were
only filled when there was a party, and what remained
was seldom touched, though we had two wineglasses
apiece every day after dinner, until the next festive
occasion arrived, when the state of the remainder
wine was examined into in a family council The
dregs were often given to the poor : but occasionally,
when a good deal had been left at the last party (five
months ago, it might be), it was added to some of a
fresh bottle, brought up from the cellar. I fancy
poor Captain Brown did not much like wine, for I
noticed he never finished his first glass, and most
military men take several. Then, as to our dessert.
Miss Jenkyns used to gather currants and goose-
berries for it herself, which I sometimes thought
A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO 41
would have tasted better fresh from the trees ; but
then, as Miss Jenkyns observed, there would have
been nothing for dessert in summer-time. As it
was, we felt very genteel with our two glasses apiece,
and a dish of gooseberries at the top, of currants
and biscuits at the sides, and two decanters at the
bottom. When oranges came in, a curious proceeding
was gone through. Miss Jenkyns did not like to cut
the fruit ; for, as she observed, the juice all ran out
nobody knew where ; sucking (only I think she used
some more recondite word) was in fact the only
way of enjoying oranges ; but then there was the
unpleasant association with a ceremony frequently
gone through by little babies ; and so, after dessert,
in orange season. Miss Jenkyns and Miss Matty
used to rise up, possess themselves each of an orange
in silence, and withdraw to the privacy of their own
rooms to indulge in sucking oranges.
I had once or twice tried, on such occasions, to
prevail on Miss Matty to stay, and had succeeded
in her sister's lifetime. I held up a screen, and did
not look, and, as she said, she tried not to make the
noise very offensive ; but now that she was left
alone, she seemed quite horrified when I begged
her to remain with me in the warm dining-parlour,
and enjoy her orange as she liked best. And so it was
in everything. Miss Jenkyns's rules were made
more stringent than ever, because the framer of
them was gone where there could be no appeal. In
all things else Miss Matilda was meek and undecided
to a fault. I have heard Fanny turn her round
twenty times in a morning about dinner, just as the
little hussy chose ; and I sometimes fancied she
worked on Miss Matilda's weakness in order to
bewilder her, and to make her feel more in the
42 CRANFORD
power of her clever servant. I determined that I
would not leave her till I had seen what sort of a
person Martha was ; and if I found her trustworthy,
I would tell her not to trouble her mistress with
every little decision.
Martha was blunt and plain-spoken to a fault ;
otherwise she was a brisk, well-meaning, but very
ignorant girl. She had not been with us a week
before Miss Matilda and I were astounded one
morning by the receipt of a letter from a cousin of
hers, who had been twenty or thirty years in India,
and who had lately, as we had seen by the Army
List, returned to England, bringing with him an
invalid wife who had never been introduced to her
English relations. Major Jenkyns wrote to propose
that he and his wife should spend a night at Cran-
ford, on his way to Scotland — at the inn, if it did
not suit Miss Matilda to receive them into her
house ; in which case they should hope to be with
her as much as possible during the day. Of course
it must suit her, as she said ; for all Cranford knew
that she had her sister's bedroom at liberty ; but I
am sure she wished the Major had stopped in India
and forgotten his cousins out and out.
" Oh ! how must I manage ? " asked she help-
lessly. "If Deborah had been alive, she would
have known what to do with a gentleman-visitor.
Must I put razors in his dressing-room ? Dear !
dear ! and I've got none. Deborah would have
had them. And slippers, and coat-brushes ? " I
suggested that probably he would bring all these
things with him. " And, after dinner, how am I
to know when to get up and leave him to his wine ?
Deborah would have done it so well ; she would
have been quite in her element. Will he want
A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO 43
coffee, do you think ? " I undertook the manage-
ment of the coffee, and told her I would instruct
Martha in the art of waiting — in which it must be
owned she was terribly deficient — and that I had
no doubt Major and Mrs. Jenkyns would understand
the quiet mode in which a lady lived by herself in
a country town. But she was sadly fluttered. I
made her empty her decanters and bring up two
fresh bottles of wine. I wished I could have pre-
vented her from being present at my instructions to
Martha, for she frequently cut in with some fresh
direction, muddling the poor girl's mind, as she
stood open-mouthed, listening to us both.
" Hand the vegetables round," said I (foolishly,
I see now — for it was aiming at more than we could
accomplish with quietness and simplicity) ; and then,
seeing her look bewildered, I added, " take the vege-
tables round to people, and let them help themselves."
" And mind you go first to the ladies," put in
Miss Matilda. " Always go to the ladies before
gentlemen when you are waiting."
" I'll do it as you tell me, ma'am," said Martha ;
"but I like lads best."
We felt very uncomfortable and shocked at this
speech of Martha's, yet I don't think she meant
any harm ; and, on the whole, she attended very
well to our directions, except that she " nudged "
the Major when he did not help himself as soon as
she expected to the potatoes, while she was handing
them round.
The Major and his wife were quiet, unpretending
people enough when they did come ; languid, as all
East Indians are, I suppose. We were rather dis-
mayed at their bringing two servants with them, a
Hindoo body-servant for the Major, and a steady
44 CRANFORD
elderly maid for his wife : but they slept at the inn,
and took off a good deal of the responsibility by
attending carefully to their master's and mistress's
comfort. Martha, to be sure, had never ended her
staring at the East Indian's white turban and brown
complexion, and I saw that Miss Matilda shrunk
away from him a little as he waited at dinner. Indeed,
she asked me, when they were gone, if he did not
remind me of Blue Beard ? On the whole, the visit
was most satisfactory, and is a subject of conversation
even now with Miss Matilda ; at the time, it greatly
excited Cranford, and even stirred up the apathetic
and Honourable Mrs. Jamieson to some expression of
interest, when I went to call and thank her for the kind
answers she had vouchsafed to Miss Matilda's inquiries
as to the arrangement of a gentleman's dressing-room
— answers which I must confess she had given in the
wearied manner of the Scandinavian prophetess —
" Leave me, leave me to repose." ^^
And now I come to the love affair.
It seems that Miss Pole had a cousin, once or
twice removed, who had offered to Miss Matty
long ago. Now this cousin lived four or five miles
from Cranford, on his own estate ; but his property
was not large enough to entitle him to rank higher
than a yeoman ; or rather, with something of the
" pride which apes humility," he had refused to
push himself on, as so many of his class had done,
into the ranks of the squires. He would not allow
himself to be called Thomas Holbrook, Esq. ; he
even sent back letters with this address, telling the
postmistress 2' at Cranford that his name was Mr.
Thomas Holbrook, yeoman. He rejected all domestic
innovations ; he would have the house door stand
open in summer and shut in winter, without knocker
A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO 45
or bell to summon a servant. The closed fist or the
knob of the stick did this office for him if he found
the door locked. He despised every refinement
which had not its root deep down in humanity. If
people were not ill, he saw no necessity for moderating
his voice. He spoke the dialect of the country in
perfection, and constantly used it in conversation ;
although Miss Pole (who gave me these particulars)
added, that he read aloud more beautifully and with
more feeling than anyone she had ever heard, except
the late rector.
" And how came Miss Matilda not to marry him ? "
asked I.
" Oh, I don't know. She was willing enough,
I think ; but you know Cousin Thomas would not
have been enough of a gentleman for the rector and
Miss Jenkyns."
" Well ! but they were not to marry him," said I
impatiently.
" No ; but they did not like Miss Matty to marry
below her rank. You know she was the rector's
daughter, and somehow they are related to Sir Peter
Arley^* : Miss Jenkyns thought a deal of that."
" Poor Miss Matty ! " said I.
" Nay, now, I don't know anything more than
that he offered and was refused. Miss Matty might
not like him — and Miss Jenkyns might never have
said a word — it is only a guess of mine."
" Has she never seen him since ? " I inquired.
"No, I think not. You see Woodley,^^ Cousin
Thomas's house, lies half-way between Cranford
and Misselton ; and I know he made Misselton his
market-town very soon after he had offered to Miss
Matty ; and I don't think he has been into Cranford
above once or twice since — once, when I was walking
46 CRANFORD
with Miss Matty, in High Street, and suddenly she
darted from me, and went up Shire Lane.*° A few
minutes after I was startled by meeting Cousii
Thomas."
" How old is he ? " I asked, after a pause of casth
building.
" He must be about seventy, I think, my dear,'
said Miss Pole, blowing up my castle, as if by gun-
powder, into small fragments.
Very soon after — at least during my long visit to
Miss Matilda — I had the opportunity of seeing Mr.
Holbrook ; seeing, too, his first encounter with his
former love, after thirty or forty years' separation.
I was helping to decide whether any of the new
assortment of coloured silks which they had just
received at the shop would do to match a grey and
black mousseline-de-laine that wanted a new breadth,
when a tall, thin, Don Quixote-looking old man came
into the shop for some woollen gloves. I had never
seen the person (who was rather striking) before, and
I watched him rather attentively, while Miss Matty
listened to the shopman. The stranger wore a blue
coat with brass buttons, drab breeches and gaiters,
and drummed with his fingers on the counter until
he was attended to. When he answered the shop-
boy's question, " What can I have the pleasure of
showing you to-day, sir .? " I saw Miss Matilda start,
and then suddenly sit down ; and instantly I guessed
who it was. She had made some inquiry which had
to be carried round to the other shopman.
" Miss Jenkyns wants the black sarsanet two-and-
twopence the yard ; " and Mr. Holbrook had caught
the name, and was across the shop in two strides.
" Matty — Miss Matilda — Miss Jenkyns ! God
bless my soul ! I should not have known you. How
A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO
47
are you ? how are you ? " He kept shaking her hand
in a way which proved the warmth of his friendship ;
but he repeated so often, as if to himself, " I should
not have known you ! " that any sentimental romance
which I might be inclined to build was quite done
away with by his manner.
However, he kept talking to us all the time we
were in the shop ; and then, waving the shopman
with the unpurchased gloves on one side, with
" Another time, sir ! another time ! " he walked
home with us. I am happy to say my client. Miss
Matilda, also left the shop in an equally bewildered
state, not having purchased either green or red
silk. Mr. Holbrook was evidently full with honest,
loud-spoken joy at meeting his old love again ; he
touched on the changes that had taken place ; he
even spoke of Miss Jenkyns as " Your poor sister !
Well, well ! we have all our faults ; " and bade
us good-bye with many a hope that he should soon
see Miss Matty again. She went straight to her
room, and never came back till our early tea-time,
when I thought she looked as if she had been crying.
S^T^inc.
cess
CHAPTER IV
A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR
A FEW days after, a note came from Mr. Hol-
brook, asking us — impartially asking both of
us — in a formal, old-fashioned style, to spend a day
at his house — a long June day — for it was June now.
He named that he had also invited his cousin, Miss
Pole ; so that we might join in a fly, which could be
put up at his house.
I expected Miss Matty to jump at this invitation ;
but no ! Miss Pole and I had the greatest difficulty
in persuading her to go.
She thought it was improper ; and was even half
annoyed when we utterly ignored the idea of any
impropriety in her going with two other ladies to
see her old lover. Then came a more serious diffi-
culty. She did not think Deborah would have
liked her to go. This took us half a day's good hard
48
49
A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 51
talking to get over ; but, at the first sentence of
relenting, I seized the opportunity, and wrote and
despatched an acceptance in her name — fixing
day and hour, that all might be decided and done
with.
The next morning she asked me if I would go
down to the shop with her ; and there, after much
hesitation, we chose out three caps to be sent home
and tried on, that the most becoming might be
selected to take with us on Thursday.
She was in a state of silent agitation all the way
to Woodley. She had evidently never been there
before ; and although she little dreamt I knew
anything of her early story, I could perceive she
was in a tremor at the thought of seeing the place
which might have been her home, and round which it
is probable that many of her innocent girlish imagina-
tions had clustered. It was a long drive there, through
paved, jolting lanes. Miss Matilda sat bolt upright,
and looked wistfully out of the windows as we drew
near the end of our journey. The aspect of the
country was quiet and pastoral. Woodley stood
among fields ; and there was an old-fashioned garden
where roses and currant-bushes touched each other,
and where the feathery asparagus formed a pretty
background to the pinks and gilly-flowers ; there
was no drive up to the door. We got out at a little
gate, and walked up a straight box-edged path.
" My cousin might make a drive, I think," said
Miss Pole, who was afraid of earache, and had only
her cap on.
" I think it is very pretty," said Miss Matty,
with a soft plaintiveness in her voice, and almost in
a whisper, for just then Mr. Holbrook appeared at
the door, rubbing his hands in very effervescence
52 CRANFORD
of hospitality. He looked more like my idea of
Don Quixote than ever, and yet the likeness was
only external. His respectable housekeeper stood
modestly at the door to bid us welcome ; and,
while she led the elder ladies upstairs to a bedroom,
I begged to look about the garden. My request
evidently pleased the old gentleman, who took me
all round the place, and showed me his six-and-
twenty cows, named after the different letters of the
alphabet. As we went along, he surprised me occa-
sionally by repeating apt and beautiful quotations
from the poets, ranging easily from Shakespeare and
George Herbert to those of our own day. He did
this as naturally as if he were thinking aloud, and their
true and beautiful words were the best expression he
could find for what he was thinking or feeling. To
be sure he called Byron " my Lord Byrron," and pro-
nounced the name of Goethe strictly in accordance
with the English sound of the letters — " As Goethe
says, * Ye ever-verdant palaces,' " etc. Altogether,
I never met with a man, before or since, who had
spent so long a life in a secluded and not impressive
country, with ever-increasing delight in the daily and
yearly change of season and beauty.
When he and I went in, we found that dinner
was nearly ready in the kitchen — for so I suppose
the room ought to be called, as there were oak dressers
and cupboards all round, all over by the side of the
fireplace, and only a small Turkey carpet in the middle
of the flag-floor. The room might have been easily
made into a handsome dark oak dining-parlour by
removing the oven and a few other appurtenances of
a kitchen, which were evidently never used, the real
cooking-place being at some distance. The room in
which we were expected to sit was in a stifily- furnished,
A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 53
ugly apartment ; but that in which we did sit was
what Mr. Holbrook called the counting-house, when
he paid his labourers their weekly wages at a great desk
near the door. The rest of the pretty sitting-room
— looking into the orchard, and all covered over
with dancing tree-shadows — was filled with books.
They lay on the ground, they covered the walls,
they strewed the table. He was evidently half
ashamed and half proud of his extravagance in
this respect. They were of all kinds — poetry and
wild weird tales prevailing. He evidently chose
his books in accordance with his own tastes, not
because such and such were classical or established
favourites.
" Ah ! " he said, " we farmers ought not to have
much time for reading ; yet somehow one can't
help it."
" What a pretty room ! " said Miss Matty, sotto
voce.
" What a pleasant place ! " said I, aloud, almost
simultaneously.
" Nay ! if you like it," replied he ; " but can you
sit on these great black leather three-cornered chairs ?
I like it better than the best parlour ; but I thought
ladies would take that for the smarter place."
It was the smarter place, but, like most smart
things, not at all pretty, or pleasant, or home-like ;
so, while we were at dinner, the servant-girl dusted
and scrubbed the counting-house chairs, and we sat
there all the rest of the day.
We had pudding before meat ; and I thought
Mr. Holbrook was going to make some apology
for his old-fashioned ways, for he began —
" I don't know whether you like new-fangled
ways."
54 CRANFORD
" Oh, not at all ! " said Miss Matty.
" No more do I," said he. " My housekeeper
will have these in her new fashion ; or else I tell
her that, when I was a young man, we used to keep
strictly to my father's rule, ' No broth, no ball ; no
ball, no beef ; ' and always began dinner with broth.
Then we had suet puddings, boiled in the broth
with the beef ; and then the meat itself. If we did
not sup our broth, we had no ball, which we liked
a deal better ; and the beef came last of all, and
only those had it who had done justice to the broth
and the ball. Now folks begin with sweet things,
and turn their dinners topsy-turvy."
When the ducks and green peas came, we looked
at each other in dismay ; we had only two-pronged,
black-handled forks. ' It is true the steel was as
bright as silver ; but what were we to do ? Miss
Matty picked up her peas, one by one, on the point
of the prongs, much as Amine ate her grains of rice
after her previous feast with the Ghoul. ^^ Miss
Pole sighed over her delicate young peas as she left
them on one side of her plate untasted, for they
zvould drop between the prongs. I looked at my
host : the peas were going wholesale into his
capacious mouth, shovelled up by his large, round-
ended knife. I saw, I imitated, I survived ! My
friends, in spite of my precedent, could not muster
up courage enough to do an ungenteel thing ; and
if Mr. Holbrook had not been so heartily hungry,
he would probably have seen that the good peas
went away almost untouched.
After dinner, a clay pipe was brought in, and a
spittoon ; and, asking us to retire to another room,
where he would soon join us, if we disliked tobacco
smoke, he presented his pipe to Miss Matty, and
A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 55
requested her to fill the bowl. This was a compliment
to a lady in his youth ; but it was rather inappropriate
to propose it as an honour to Miss Matty, who had
been trained by her sister to hold smoking of every
kind in utter abhorrence. But if it was a shock to her
refinement, it was also a gratification to her feelings
to be thus selected ; so she daintily stuffed the strong
tobacco into the pipe, and then we withdrew.
" It is very pleasant dining with a bachelor," said
Miss Matty softly, as we settled ourselves in the
counting-house. " I only hope it is not improper ;
so many pleasant things are ! "
" What a number of books he has ! " said Miss
Pole, looking round the room. " And how dusty
they are ! "
" I think it must be like one of the great Dr.
Johnson's rooms," said Miss Matty. " What a
superior man your cousin must be ! "
" Yes ! " said Miss Pole, " he's a great reader ;
but I am afraid he has got into very uncouth habits
with living alone ! "
" Oh ! uncouth is too hard a word. I should
call him eccentric ; very clever people always are ! "
replied Miss Matty.
When Mr. Holbrook returned, he proposed a walk in
the fields ; but the two elder ladies were afraid of
damp and dirt, and had only very unbecoming calashes
[see illustration, p. 108] to put on over their caps ; so
they declined, and I was again his companion in a
turn which he said he was obliged to take to see
after his men. He strode along, either wholly for-
getting my existence, or soothed into silence by
his pipe — and yet it was not silence exactly. He
walked before me, with a stooping gait, his hands
clasped behind him ; and as some tree or cloud or
56 CRANFORD
glimpse of distant upland pastures struck him, he
quoted poetry to himself, saying it out loud in a
grand, sonorous voice, with just the emphasis that
true feeling and appreciation give. We came upon
an old cedar-tree, which stood at one end of the
house —
"The cedar spreads his dark-green layers of shade." '^^
" Capital term — ' layers ! ' Wonderful man ! "
I did not know whether he was speaking to me or
not ; but I put in an assenting " wonderful," although
I knew nothing about it, just because I was tired of
being forgotten, and of being consequently silent.
He turned sharp round. " Ay ! you may say
* wonderful.' Why, when I saw the review of his
poems in Blackwood,^^ I set off within an hour, and
walked seven miles to Misselton (for the horses
were not in the. way) and ordered them. Now,
what colour are ash-buds in March ? "
Is the man going mad ? thought I. He is very
like Don Quixote.
" What colour are they, I say ? " repeated he
vehemently.
" I am sure I don't know, sir," said I, with the
meekness of ignorance.
" I knew you didn't. No more did I — an old
fool that I am ! — till this young man comes and
tells me. Black as ash-buds in March. And I've
lived all my life in the country ; more shame for me
not to know. Black : they are jet-black, madam." **
And he went off again, swinging along to the music
of some rhyme he had got hold of.
When we came back, nothing would serve him
but he must read us the poems he had been speaking
of ; and Miss Pole encouraged him in his proposal,
I thought, because she wished me to hear his beautiful
A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 57
reading, of which she had boasted ; but she after-
wards said it was because she had got to a difficult
part of her crochet, and wanted to count her stitches
without having to talk. Whatever he had proposed
would have been right to Miss Matty ; although she
did fall sound asleep within live minutes after he had
begun a long poem, called " Locksley Hall," and had
a comfortable nap, unobserved, till he ended ; when
the cessation of his voice wakened her up, and she
said, feeling that something was expected, and that
Miss Pole was counting —
" What a pretty book ! "
" Pretty, madam ! it's beautiful ! Pretty, indeed ! "
" Oh yes ! I meant beautiful ! " said she, fluttered
at his disapproval of her word. " It is so like that
beautiful poem of Dr. Johnson's my sister used to
read — I forget the name of it ; what was it, my
dear ? " turning to me.
" Which do you mean, ma'am ? What was it
about ? "
" I don't remember what it was about, and I've
quite forgotten what the name of it was ; but it was
written by Dr. Johnson, and was very beautiful,
and very like what Mr. Holbrook has just been
reading." ^^
" I don't remember it," said he reflectively.
" But I don't know Dr. Johnson's poems well. I
must read them."
As we were getting into the fly to return, I heard
Mr. Holbrook say he should caU on the ladies soon,
and inquire how they got home ; and this evidently
pleased and fluttered Miss Matty at the time he said
it ; but, after we had lost sight of the old house
among the trees, her sentiments towards the master
of it were gradually absorbed into a distressing
58 CRANFORD
wonder as to whether Martha had broken her word,
and seized on the opportunity of her mistress's absence
to have a " follower." Martha looked good, and
steady, and composed enough, as she came to help
us out ; she was always careful of Miss Matty, and
to-night she made use of this unlucky speech —
" Eh ! dear ma'am, to think of your going out
in an evening in such a thin shawl ! It's no better
than muslin. At your age, ma'am, you should be
careful."
" My age ! " said Miss Matty, almost speaking
crossly, for her, for she was usually gentle — " My
age ! Why, how old do you think I am, that you
talk about my age ? "
" Well, ma'am, I should say you were not far
short of sixty : but folks' looks is often against
them — and I'm sure I meant no harm."
" Martha, I'm not yet fifty-two ! " said Miss
Matty, with grave emphasis ; for probably the
remembrance of her youth had come very vividly
before her this day, and she was annoyed at finding
that golden time so far away in the past.
But she never spoke of any former and more
intimate acquaintance with Mr. Holbrook. She
had probably met with so little sympathy in her
early love, that she had shut it up close in her heart ;
and it was only by a sort of watching, which I could
hardly avoid since Miss Pole's confidence, that I saw
how faithful her poor heart had been in its sorrow
and its silence.
She gave me some good reason for wearing her
best cap every day, and sat near the window, in
spite of her rheumatism, in order to see, without
being seen, down into the street.
He came. He put his open palms upon his knees,
A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 59
which were far apart, as he sat with his head bent
down, whistling, after we had replied to his inquiries
about our safe return. Suddenly he jumped up —
" Well, madam ! have you any commands for
Paris ? I am going there in a week or two."
" To Paris ! " we both exclaimed.
" Yes, madam ! I've never been there, and always
had a wish to go ; and I think if I don't go soon, I
mayn't go at all ; so as soon as the hay is got in I
shall go, before harvest time."
Wc were so much astonished that we had no
commissions.
Just as he was going out of the room, he turned
back, with his favourite exclamation —
" God bless my soul, madam ! but I nearly forgot
half my errand. Here are the poems for you you
admired so much the other evening at my house."
He tugged away at a parcel in his coat-pocket. " Good-
bye, miss," said he ; " good-bye, Matty ! take care of
yourself." And he was gone. But he had given her
a book, and he had called her Matty, just as he used
to do thirty years ago.
" I wish he would not go to Paris," said Miss
Matilda anxiously. " I don't believe frogs will
agree with him ; he used to have to be very careful
what he ate, which was curious in so strong-looking
a young man."
Soon after this I took my leave, giving many an
injunction to Martha to look after her mistress, and
to let me know if she thought that Miss Matilda
was not so well ; , in which case I would volunteer
a visit to my old friend, without noticing Martha's
intelligence to her.
Accordingly I received a line or two from Martha
every now and then ; and, about November, I had a
6o CRANFORD
note to say her mistress was " very low and sadly off
her food " ; and the account rriade me so uneasy,
that, although Martha did not decidedly summon
me, I packed up my things and went.
I received a warm welcome, in spite of the little
flurry produced by my impromptu visit, for I had
only been able to give a day's notice. Miss Matilda
looked miserably ill ; and I prepared to comfort and
cosset her.
I went down to have a private talk with Martha.
" How long has your mistress been so poorly ? "
I asked, as I stood by the kitchen fire.
" Well ! I think it's better than a fortnight ; it
is, I know ; it was one Tuesday, after Miss Pole
had been, that she went into this moping way. I
thought she was tired, and it would go off with a
night's rest ; but no ! she has gone on and on ever
since, till I thought it my duty to write to you,
ma'am."
'* You did quite right, Martha. It is a comfort
to think she has so faithful a servant about her.
And I hope you find your place comfortable ? "
" Well, ma'am, missus is very kind, and there's
plenty to eat and drink, and no more work but
what I can do easily, — but " Martha hesitated.
" But what, Martha ? "
" Why, it seems so hard of missus not to let me
have any followers ; there's such lots of young
fellows in the town ; and many a one has as much
as offered to keep company with me ; and I may
never be in such a likely place again, and it's like
wasting an opportunity. Many a girl as I know
would have 'em unbeknownst to missus ; but I've
given my word, and I'll stick to it ; or else this is
just the house for missus never to be the wiser if
A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 6i
they did come : and it's such a capable kitchen —
there's such good dark corners in it — I'd be bound
hide anyone. I counted up last Sunday night —
r I'll not deny I was crying because I had to shut
the door in Jem Hearn's face, and he's a steady young
man, fit for any girl ; only I had given missus my
word." Martha was all but crying again ; and I had
little comfort to give her, for I knew, from old ex-
perience, of the horror with which both the Miss
Jenkynses looked upon " followers " ; and in Miss
Matty's present nervous state this dread was not
likely to be lessened.
I went to see Miss Pole the next day, and took her
completely by surprise, for she had not been to see
Miss Matilda for two days.
" And now I must go back with you, my dear, for
I promised to let her know how Thomas Holbrook
went on ; and, I'm sorry to say, his housekeeper has
sent me word to day that he hasn't long to live.
Poor Thomas ! that journey to Paris was quite too
much for him. His housekeeper says he has hardly
ever been round his fields since, but just sits with his
hands on his knees in the counting-house, not reading
or anything, but only saying what a wonderful city
Paris was ! Paris has much to answer for if it's killed
my cousin Thomas, for a better man never lived."
" Does Miss Matilda know of his illness ? " asked I
— a new light as to the cause of her indisposition
dawning upon me.
" Dear ! to be sure, yes ! Has she not told you ?
I let her know a fortnight ago, or more, when first I
heard of it. How odd she shouldn't have told you ! "
Not at all, I thought ; but I did not say anything.
I felt almost guilty of having spied too curiously into
that tender heart, and I was not going to speak of its
62 CRANFORD
secrets — hidden, Miss Matty believed, from all the
world. I ushered Miss Pole into Miss Matilda's
little drawing-room, and then left them alone. But
I was not surprised when Martha came to my bedroom
door, to ask me to go down to dinner alone, for that
missus had one of her bad headaches. She came into
the drawing-room at tea-time, but it was evidently
an effort to her ; and, as if to make up for some
reproachful feeling against her late sister. Miss
Tenkyns, which had been troubling her all the after-
noon, and for which she now felt penitent, she kept
telling me how good and how clever Deborah was in
her youth ; how she used to settle what gowns they
were to wear at all the parties (faint, ghostly ideas of
grim parties, far away in the distance, when Miss
Matty and Miss Pole were young !) ; and how Deborah
and her mother had started the benefit society for the
poor, *^ and taught girls cooking and plain sewing ; and
how Deborah had once danced with a lord ; and how
she used to visit at Sir Peter Arley's, and try to remodel
the quiet rectory establishment on the plans of Arley
Hall, where they kept thirty servants ; and how
she had nursed Miss Matty through a long, long
illness, of which I had never heard before, but which
I now dated in my own mind as following the dismissal
of the suit of Mr. Holbrook. So we talked softly and
quietly of old times through the long November
evening.
The next day Miss Pole brought us word that
Mr. Holbrook was dead. Miss Matty heard the
news in silence ; in fact, from the account of the
previous day, it was only what we had to expect.
Miss Pole kept calling upon us for some expression
of regret, by asking if it was not sad that he was
gone, and saying —
A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 63
'' To think of that pleasant day last June, when
he seemed so well ! And he might have lived this
dozen years if he had not gone to that wicked Paris,
v.here they are always having revolutions."
She paused for some demonstration on our part.
I saw Miss Matty could not speak, she was trembling
so nervously ; so I said what I really felt : and after
a call of some duration — all the time of which I have
no doubt Miss Pole thought Miss Matty received the
news very calmly — our visitor took her leave.
Miss Matty made a strong effort to conceal her
feelings — a concealment she practised even with
me, for she has never alluded to Mr. Holbrook
again, although the book he gave her lies with her
Bible on the little table by her bedside. She did
not think I heard her when she asked the little milliner
of Cranford to make her caps something like the
Honourable Mrs. Jamieson's, or that I noticed the
reply —
" But she wears widows' caps, ma'am ! "
" Oh ! I only meant something in that style ; not
widows', of course, but rather like Mrs. Jamieson's."
This effort at concealment was the beginning of
the tremulous motion of head and hands which I
have seen ever since in Miss Matty.
The evening of the day on which we heard of
Mr. Holbrook's death. Miss Matilda was very silent
and thoughtful ; after prayers she called Martha
back, and then she stood, uncertain what to say.
" Martha ! " she said, at last, " you are young " — ■
and then she made so long a pause, that Martha, to
remind her of her half-finished sentence, dropped a
curtsey, and said —
" Yes, please, ma'am ; two-and-twenty last third
of October, please, ma'am."
64
CRANFORD
" And perhaps, Martha, you may sometime meet :
with a young man you like, and who Ukes you. I did
say you were not to have followers ; but if you meet
with such a young man, and tell me, and I find he is
respectable, I have no objection to his coming to see
you once a week. God forbid ! " said she, in a low
voice, " that I should grieve any young hearts." She
spoke as if she were providing for some distant con-
tingency, and was rather startled when Martha made
her ready eager answer.
" Please, ma'am, there's Jem Hearn, and he's a
joiner making three-and-sixpence a-day, and six foot
one in his stocking-feet, please, ma'am ; and if you'll
ask about him to-morrow morning, every one will
give him a character for steadiness ; and he'll be glad
enough to come to-morrow night, I'll be bound."
Though Miss Matty was startled, she submitted to
Fate and Love.
iv-
'y:^'
^
Ji^a^in-s the
CHAPTER V *'
OLD LETTERS
T HAVE often noticed that almost every one
has his own individual small economies — careful
habits of saving fractions of pennies in some one
peculiar direction — any disturbance of which annoys
him more than spending shillings or pounds on some
real extravagance. An old gentleman of my acquaint-
ance, who took the intelligence of the failure of a
joint-stock bank, in which some of his money was
invested, with stoical mildness, worried his family all
through a long summer's day because one of them
had torn (instead of cutting) out the written leaves
of his now useless bank-book ; of course the cor-
responding pages at the other end came out as well,
and this little unnecessary waste of paper (his private
5 65
66 CRANFORD
economy) chafed him more than all the loss of his
money. Envelopes fretted his soul terribly when
they first came in ; the only way in which he could
reconcile himself to such waste of his cherished
article was by patiently turning inside out all that
were sent to him, and so making them serve again.
Even now, though tamed by age, I see him casting
wistful glances at his daughters when they send a
whole inside of a half-sheet of note-paper, with the
three lines of acceptance to an invitation written on
only one of the sides. I am not above owning that
I have this human weakness myself. String is my
foible. My pockets get full of little hanks of it,
picked up and twisted together, ready for uses that
never come. I am seriously annoyed if anyone cuts
the string of a parcel instead of patiently and faith-
fully undoing it fold by fold. How people can bring
themselves to use india-rubber rings, which are a
sort of deification of string, as lightly as they do, I
cannot imagine. To me an india-rubber ring is a
precious treasure. I have one which is not new —
one that I picked up off the floor nearly six years
ago. I have really tried to use it, but my heart failed
me, and I could not commit the extravagance.
Small pieces of butter grieve others. They cannot
attend to conversation because of the annoyance
occasioned by the habit which some people have of
invariably taking more butter than they want. Have
you not seen the anxious look (almost mesmeric)
which such persons fix on the article ? They would
feel it a relief if they might bury it out of their sight
by popping it into their own mouths and swallowing
it down ; and they are really made happy if the
person on whose plate it lies unused suddenly breaks
off a piece of toast (which he does not want at all)
OLD LETTERS 67
and eats up his butter. They think that this is not
waste.
Now Miss Matty Jenkyns was chary of candles. *^
We had many devices to use as few as possible.
In the winter afternoons she would sit knitting for
two or three hours, — she could do this in the dark,
or by firelight, — and when I asked if I might not
ring for candles to finish stitching my wristbands,
she told me to " keep blind man's holiday." They
were usually brought in with tea ; but we only burnt
one at a time. As we lived in constant preparation
for a friend who might come in any evening (but who
never did), it required some contrivance to keep our
two candles of the same length, ready to be lighted,
and to look as if we burnt two always. The candles
took it in turns ; and, whatever we might be talking
about or doing. Miss Matty's eyes were habitually
fixed upon the candle, ready to. jump up and ex-
tinguish it and to light the other before they had
become too uneven in length to be restored to equality
in the course of the evening.
One night, I remember this candle economy
particularly annoyed me. I had been very much
tired of my compulsory " blind man's holiday,"
especially as Miss Matty had fallen asleep, and I
did not like to stir the fire and run the risk of awaken-
ing her ; so I could not even sit on the rug, and scorch
myself with sewing by firelight, according to my
usual custom. I fancied Miss Matty must be dreaming
of her early life ; for she spoke one or two words in
her uneasy sleep bearing reference to persons who
were dead long before. When Martha brought in
the lighted candle and tea, Miss Matty started into
wakefulness, with a strange, bewildered look around,
as if we were not the people she expected to see about
68 CRANFORD
her. There was a little sad expression that shadowed
her face as she recognised me ; but immediately
afterwards she tried to give me her usual smile. All
through tea-time her talk ran upon the days of her
childhood and youth. Perhaps this reminded her of
the desirableness of looking over all the old family
letters, and destroying such as ought not to be allowed
to fall into the hands of strangers ; for she had often
spoken of the necessity of this task, but had always
shrunk from it, with a timid dread of something
painful. To-night, however, she rose up after tea
and went for them in the dark ; for she piqued
herself on the precise neatness of all her chamber
arrangements, and used to look uneasily at me when
I lighted a bed-candle to go to another room for
anything. When she returned there was a faint,
pleasant smell of Tonquin beans in the room. I
had always noticed this scent about any of the things
which had belonged to her mother ; and many of
the letters were addressed to her — yellow bundles of
love-letters, sixty or seventy years old.
Miss Matty undid the packet with a sigh ; but she
stifled it directly, as if it were hardly right to regret
the flight of time, or of life either. We agreed to
look them over separately, each taking a different
letter out of the same bundle, and describing its
contents to the other before destroying it. I never
knew what sad work the reading of old letters was
before that evening, though I could hardly tell why.
The letters were as happy as letters could be — at
least those early letters were. There was in them a
vivid and intense sense of the present time, which
seemed so strong and full, as if it could never pass
away, and as if the warm, living hearts that so ex-
pressed themselves could never die, and be as nothing
OLD LETTERS 69
to the sunny earth. I should have felt less melancholy,
I believe, if the letters had been more so. I saw the
i tears stealing down the well-worn furrows of Miss
Matty's cheeks, and her spectacles often wanted wiping.
I trusted at last that she would light the other candle,
for my own eyes were rather dim, and I wanted more
light to see the pale, faded ink ; but no, even through
her tears, she saw and remembered her little economical
ways.
The earliest set of letters were two bundles tied
together, and ticketed (in Miss Jenkyns's hand-
writing), " Letters interchanged between my ever-
honoured father and my dearly-beloved mother,
prior to their marriage, in July, 1774." I should
guess that the rector of Cranford was about twenty-
seven years of age when he wrote those letters ; and
Miss Matty told me that her mother was just eighteen
at the time of her wedding. With my idea of the
rector, derived from a picture in the dining-parlour,
stiff and stately, in a huge full-bottomed wig, with
gown, cassock, and bands, and his hand upon a copy
of the only sermon he ever published — it was strange
to read these letters. They were full of eager,
passionate ardour ; short homely sentences, right
fresh from the heart (very different from the grand
Latinised, Johnsonian style of the printed sermon,
preached before some judge at assize time). His
letters were a curious contrast to those of his girl-
bride. She was evidently rather annoyed at his
demands upon her for expressions of love, and could
not quite understand what he meant by repeating
the same thing over in so many different ways ; but
what she was quite clear about was a longing for a
white " Paduasoy " *^ — whatever that might be ;
and six or seven letters were principally occupied in
70 CRANFORD
asking her lover to use his influence with her parents
(who evidently kept her in good order) to obtain
this or that article of dress, more especially the white
" Paduasoy." He cared nothing how she was dressed ;
she was always lovely enough for him, as he took pains
to assure her, when she begged him to express in his
answers a predilection for particular pieces of finery,
in order that she might show what he said to her
parents. But at length he seemed to find out that
she would not be married till she had a " trousseau "
to her mind ; and then he sent her a letter, which
had evidently accompanied a whole box full of finery,
and in which he requested that she might be dressed
in everything her heart desired. This was the first
letter, ticketed in a frail, delicate hand, " From my
dearest John." Shortly afterwards they were married,
I suppose, from the intermission in their correspond-
ence.
" We must burn them, I think," said Miss Matty,
looking doubtfully at me. " No one will care for
them when I am gone." And one by one she dropped
them into the middle of the fire, watching each blaze
up, die out, and rise away, in faint, white, ghostly
semblance, up the chimney, before she gave another
to the same fate. The room was light enough now ;
but I, like her, was fascinated into watching the
destruction of those letters, into which the honest
warmth of a manly heart had been poured forth.
The next letter, likewise docketed by Miss Jenkyns,
was endorsed, " Letters of pious congratulation and
exhortation from my venerable grandfather to my
beloved mother, on occasion of my own birth. Also
some practical remarks on the desirability of keeping
warm the extremities of infants, from my excellent
grandmother."
OLD LETTERS 71
The first part was, indeed, a severe and forcible
picture of the responsibilities of mothers, and a
warning against the evils that were in the world,
and lying in ghastly wait for the little baby of two
days old. His wife did not write, said the old gentle-
man, because he had forbidden it, she being indisposed
with a sprained ankle, which (he said) quite incapaci-
tated her from holding a pen. However, at the foot
of the page was a small " t.o.," and on turning it
over, sure enough, there was a letter to " my dear,
dearest Molly," begging her, when she left her room,
whatever she did, to go up stairs before going down ;
and telling her to wrap her baby's feet up in flannel,
and keep it warm by the fire, although it was summer,
for babies were so tender.
It was pretty to see from the letters, which were
evidently exchanged with some frequency between
the young mother and the grandmother, how the
girlish vanity was being weeded out of her heart
by love for her baby. The white " Paduasoy "
figured again in the letters, with almost as much
vigour as before. In one, it was being made into
a christening cloak for the baby. It decked it when
it went with its parents to spend a day or two at
Arley Hall. It added to its charms when it was
" the prettiest little baby that e\'er was seen. Dear
mother, I wish you could see her ! Without any
parshality, I do think she will grow up a regular
bewty ! " I thought of Miss Jenkyns, grey, withered,
and wrinkled, and I wondered if her mother had known
her in the courts of heaven ; and then I knew that
she had, and that they stood there in angelic guise.
There was a great gap before any of the rector's
letters appeared. And then his wife had changed
her mode of endorsement. It was no longer from
72 CRANFORD
" My dearest John " ; it was from " My honoured
Husband." The letters were written on occasion
of the publication of the same sermon which was
represented in the picture. The preaching before
" My Lord Judge," and the " publishing by request,"
was evidently the culminating point — the event of
his life. It had been necessary for him to go up to
London to superintend it through the press. Many
friends had to be called upon, and consulted, before
he could decide on any printer fit for so onerous a
task ; and at length it was arranged that J. and J.
Rivingtons were to have the honourable responsi-
bility. The worthy rector seemed to be strung up by
the occasion to a high literary pitch, for he could
hardly write a letter to his wife without cropping
out into Latin. I remember the end of one of his
letters ran thus : "I shall ever hold the virtuous
qualities of my Molly in remembrance, dum memor
ipse met, dum spiritus regit artus^"* which, considering
that the English of his correspondent was sometimes
at fault in grammar, and often in spelling, might be
taken as a proof of how much he " idealised " his
Molly ; and, as Miss Jenkyns used to say, " People
talk a great deal about idealising nowadays, whatever
that may mean." But this was nothing to a fit of
writing classical poetry which soon seized him, in
wh"ch his Molly figured away as " Maria." The
letter containing the carmen was endorsed by her,
"Hebrew verses sent me by my honoured husband.
I thowt to have had a letter about killing the pig,
but must wait. Mem., to send the poetry to Sir
Peter Arley, as my husband desires." And in a post-
scriptum note in his handwriting it was stated that
the Ode had appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine,
December 1782.
OLD LETTERS 73
Her letters back to her husband (treasured as
fondlv by him as if they had been M. 7. Ciceronis
Epistolce) were more satisfactory to an absent husband
and father than his could ever have been to her. She
told him hov;^ Deborah sewed her seam very neatly
every day, and read to her in the books he had set
her ; how she was a very " forrard," good child, but
zuould ask questions her mother could not answer, but
how she did not let herself down by saying she did
not know, but took to stirring the fire, or sending the
" forrard " child on an errand. Matty was now the
mother's darhng, and promised (like her sister at her
age) to be a great beauty. I was reading this aloud to
Miss Matty, who smiled and sighed a little at the
hope, so fondly expressed, that " little Matty might
not be vain, even if she were a bewty."
" I had very pretty hair, my dear," said Miss
Matilda ; " and not a bad mouth." And I saw
her soon afterwards adjust her cap and draw herself
up.
But to return to Mrs. Jenkyns's letters. She
told her husband about the poor in the parish ;
what homely domestic medicines she had adminis-
tered ; what kitchen physic she had sent. She
had evidently held his displeasure as a rod in pickle
over the heads of all the ne'er-do-wells. She asked
for his directions about the cows and pigs ; and did
not always obtain them, as I have shown before.
The kind old grandmother was dead when a
little boy was born, soon after the publication of
the Sermon ; but there was another letter of ex-
hortation from the grandfather, more stringent
and admonitory than ever, now that there was a
boy to be guarded from the snares of the world.
He described all the various sins into which men
74 CRANFORD
might fall, until I wondered how any man ever
came to a natural death. The gallows seemed as
if it must have been the termination of the lives
of most of the grandfather's friends and acquaint-
ance ; and I was not surprised at the way in which
he spoke of this life being " a vale of tears."
It seemed curious that I should never have heard
of this brother before ; but I concluded that he had
died young, or else surely his name would have been
alluded to by his sisters.
By and by we came to packets of Miss Jenkyns^s
letters. These Miss Matty did regret to burn.
She said all the others had been only interesting to
those who loved the writers, and that it seemed as
if it would have hurt her to allow them to fall into
the hands of strangers, who had not known her
dear mother, and how good she was, although she
did not always spell quite in the modern fashion ;
but Deborah's letters were so very superior ! Any-
one might profit by reading them. It was a long
time since she had read Mrs. Chapone,^*' but she
knew she used to think that Deborah could have
said the same things quite as well ; and as for Mrs.
Carter ! ^^ people thought a deal of her letters^ just
because she had written " Epictetus," but she was
quite sure Deborah would never have made use of
such a common expression as " I canna be fashed ! "
Miss Matty did grudge burning these letters, it
was evident. She would not let them be carelessly
passed over with any quiet reading, and skipping,
to myself. She took them from me, and even lighted
the second candle in order to read them aloud with a
proper emphasis, and without stumbling over the
big words. Oh dear ! how I wanted facts instead of
reflections, before those letters were concluded !
OLD LETTERS 75
They lasted us two nights ; and I won't deny that I
made use of the time to think of many other things,
and yet I was always at my post at the end of each
sentence.
The rector's letters, and those of his wife and
mother-in-law, had all been tolerably short and
pithy, written in a straight hand, with the lines
very close together. Sometimes the whole letter
was contained on a mere scrap of paper. The paper
was very yellow, and the ink very brown ; some of
the sheets were (as Miss Matty made me observe)
the old original post, with the stamp in the corner
representing a post-boy riding for life and twanging
his horn. The letters of Mrs. Jenkyns and her mother
were fastened with a great round red wafer ; for it
was before Miss Edgeworth's Patronage had banished
wafers from polite society. ^^ It was evident, from
the tenor of what was said, that franks were in great
request, and were even used as a means of paying
debts by needy members of Parliament. The rector
sealed his epistles with an immense coat of arms, and
showed, by the care with which he had performed
this ceremony, that he expected they should be cut
open, not broken by any thoughtless or impatient
hand. Now, Miss Jenkyns's letters were of a later
date in form and writing. She wrote on the square
sheet which we have learned to call old-fashioned.
Her hand was admirably calculated, together with her
use of many-syllabled words, to fill up a sheet, and
then came the pride and delight of crossing. Poor
Miss Matty got sadly puzzled with this, for the words
gathered size like snowballs, and towards the end of
her letter Miss Jenkyns used to become quite sesqui-
pedalian.^^ In one to her father, slightly theological
and controversial in its tone, she had spoken of Herod,
^6 CRANFORD
Tctrarch of Idumea. Miss Matty read it " Herod
Petrarch of Etruria," and was just as well pleased as
if she had been right.
I can't quite remember the date, but I think it
was in 1805 that Miss Jenkyns wrote the longest
series of letters — on occasion of her absence on a
visit to some friends near Newcastle-upon-Tyne.^*
These friends were intimate with the commandant
of the garrison there, and heard from him of all
the preparations that were being made to repel the
invasion of Buonaparte, which some people imagined
might take place at the mouth of the Tyne. Miss
Jenkyns was evidently very much alarmed ; and the
first part of her letters was often written in pretty
intelligible English, conveying particulars of the
preparations which were made in the family with
whom she was residing against the dreaded event ;
the bundles of clothes that were packed up ready
for a flight to Alston Moor (a wild hilly piece of
ground between Northumberland and Cumberland) ;
the signal that was to be given for this flight, and
for the simultaneous turning out of the volunteers
under arms — which said signal was to consist (if I
remember rightly) in ringing the church bells in a
particular and ominous manner. One day, when
Miss Jenkyns and her hosts were at a dinner-party
in Newcastle, this warning summons was actually
given (not a very wise proceeding, if there be any
truth in the moral attached to the fable of the Boy
and the Wolf ; but so it was), and Miss Jenkyns,
hardly recovered from her fright, wrote the next
day to describe the sound, the breathless shock, the
hurry and alarm ; and then, taking breath, she added,
" How trivial, my dear father, do all our apprehensions
of the last evening appear, at the present moment, to
OLD LETTERS -]-]
calm and inquiring minds ! " and here Miss Matty-
broke in with —
" But, indeed, my dear, they were not at all trivial
or trifling at the time. I know I used to wake up in
the night many a time and think I heard the tramp
of the French entering Cranford.^" Many people
talked of hiding themselves in the salt mines — and
meat would have kept capitally down there, only
perhaps we should have been thirsty. And my
father preached a whole set of sermons on the occasion;
one set in the mornings, all about David and Goliath,
to spirit up the people to fighting with spades or
bricks, if need were ; and the other set in the after-
noons, proving that Napoleon (that was another
name for Bony, as we used to call him) was all the
same as an Apollyon and Abaddon. I remember my
father rather thought he should be asked to print
this last set ; but the parish had, perhaps, had enough
of them with hearing."
Peter Marmaduke Arley Jenkyns (" poor Peter ! "
as Miss Matty began to call him) was at school at
Shrewsbury by this time. The rector took up his
pen, and rubbed up his Latin once more, to correspond
with his boy. It was very clear that the lad's were
what are called show letters. They were of a highly
mental description, giving an account of his studies,
and his intellectual hopes of various kinds, with an
occasional quotation from the classics ; but, now and
then, the animal nature broke out in such a little
sentence as this, evidently written in a trembling
hurry, after the letter had been inspected : " Mother
dear, do send me a cake, and put plenty of citron in."
The " mother dear " probably answered her boy in
the form of cakes and " goody," for there were none
of her letters among this set ; but a whole collection
78 CRANFORD
of the rector's, to whom the Latin in his boy's letters
was like a trumpet to the old war-horse. I do not
know much about Latin, certainly, and it is, perhaps,
an ornamental language, but not very useful, I think —
at least to judge from the bits I remember out of the
rector's letters. One was, " You have not got that
town in your map of Ireland ; but Bonus Bernardus
non videt omnia, as the Proverbia say." Presently it
became very evident that " poor Peter " got himself
into many scrapes. There were letters of stilted
penitence to his father, for some wrongdoing ; and
among them all was a badly-written, badly-sealed,
badly-directed, blotted note — " My dear, dear, dear,
dearest mother, I will be a better boy ; I will, indeed ;
but don't, please, be ill for me ; I am not worth it ;
but I will be good, darling mother."
Miss Matty could not speak for crying, after
she had read this note. She gave it to me in silence,
and then got up and took it to her sacred recesses in
her own room, for fear, by any chance, it might get
burnt. " Poor Peter ! " she said ; " he was always
in scrapes ; he was too easy. They led him wrong,
and then left him in the lurch. But he was too fond
of mischief. He could never resist a joke. Poor Peter!"
CHAPTER VI
POOR PETER
pOOR Peter's career lay before him rather
pleasantly mapped out by kind friends, but
Bonus Bernardus non videt omnia, in this map too.
He was to win honours at Shrewsbury School, and
carry them thick to Cambridge ; and after that, a
living awaited him, the gift of his godfather. Sir
Peter Arley. Poor Peter ! his lot in life was very
different to^® what his friends had hoped and planned.
Miss Matty told me all about it, and I think it was a
relief to her when she had done so.
He was the darling of his mother, who seemed
to dote on all her children, though she was, perhaps,
a little afraid of Deborah's superior acquirements.
Deborah was the favourite of her father, and when
Peter disappointed him, she became his pride. The
sole honour Peter brought away from Shrewsbury
was the reputation of being the best good fellow that
79
8o CRANFORD
ever was, and of being the captain of the school in
the art of practical joking. His father was dis-
appointed, but set about remedying the matter in a
manly way. He could not afford to send Peter to
read with any tutor, but he could read with him
himself ; and Miss Matty told me much of the awful
preparations in the way of dictionaries and lexicons
that were made in her father's study the morning
Peter began.
" My poor mother ! " said she. " I remember
how she used to stand in the hall, just near enough
the study door to catch the tone of my father's
voice. I could tell in a moment if all was going
right, by her face. And it did go right for a long
time."
" What went wrong at last ? " said I. " That
tiresome Latin, I daresay."
" No ! it was not the Latin. Peter was in high
favour with my father, for he worked up well for
him. But he seemed to think that the Cranford
people might be joked about, and made fun of, and
they did not like it ; nobody does. He was always
hoaxing them ; ' hoaxing ^ is not a pretty word, my
dear, and I hope you won't tell your father I used
it, for I should not like him to think that I was not
choice in my language, after living with such a woman
as Deborah. And be sure you never use it yourself.
I don't know how it slipped out of my mouth, except
it was that I was thinking of poor Peter, and it was
always his expression. But he was a very gentlemanly
boy in many things. He was like dear Captain Brown
in always being ready to help any old person or a
child. Still, he did like joking and making fun ; and
he seemed to think the old ladies in Cranford would
believe anything. There were many old ladies living
POOR PETER 8 1
here then ; we are principally ladies now, I know, but
we are not so old as the ladies used to be when I was a
girl. I could laugh to think of some of Peter's jokes.
No, my dear, I won't tell you of them, because they
might not shock you as they ought to do, and they
were very shocking. He even took in my father once,
by dressing himself up as a lady that was passing
through the town and wished to see the Rector of
Cranford, ' who had published that admirable Assize
Sermon.' 5' Peter said he was awfully frightened
himself when he saw how my father took it all in,
and even offered to copy out all his Napoleon Buona-
parte sermons for her — him, I mean — no, her, for
Peter was a lady then. He told me he was more
terrified than he ever was before, all the time my
father was speaking. He did not think my father
would have believed him ; and yet if he had not, it
would have been a sad thing for Peter. As it was,
he was none so glad of it, for my father kept him
hard at work copying out all those twelve Buonaparte
sermons for the lady — that was for Peter himself,
you know. He was the lady. And once when he
wanted to go fishing, Peter said, * Confound the
woman ! ' — very bad language, my dear, but Peter
was not always so guarded as he should have been ;
my father was so angry with him, it nearly frightened
me out of my wits ; and yet I could hardly keep
from laughing at the little curtseys Peter kept making,
quite slyly, whenever my father spoke of the lady's
excellent taste and sound discrimination."
" Did Miss Jenkyns know of these tricks ? " said I.
" Oh no ! Deborah would have been too much
shocked. No ; no one knew but me. I wish I had
always known of Peter's plans ; but sometimes he
did not tell me. He used to say the old ladies in the
6
82 CRANFORD
town wanted something to talk about ; but I don't
think the^ did. They had the St. Jameses Chronicle
three times a week, just as we have now, and we
have plenty to say ; and I remember the clacking
noise there always was when some of the ladies got
together. But, probably, schoolboys talk more than
ladies. At last there was a terrible, sad thing hap-
pened." Miss Matty got up, went to the door, and
opened it ; no one was there. She rang the bell for
Martha, and when Martha came, her mistress told
her to go for eggs to a farm at the other end of the
town.
" I will lock the door after you, Martha. You
are not afraid to go, are you ? "
" No, ma'am, not at all ; Jem Hearn will be only
too proud to go with me."
Miss Matty drew herself up, and as soon as we
were alone, she wished that Martha had more maidenly
reserve.
" We'll put out the candle, my dear. We can talk
just as well by firelight, you know. There ! Well,
you see, Deborah had gone from home for a fort-
night or so ; it was a very still, quiet day, I remember,
overhead ; and the lilacs were all in flower, so I
suppose it was spring. My father had gone out to
see some sick people in the parish ; I recollect seeing
him leave the house with his wig and shovel-hat and
cane. What possessed our poor Peter I don't know ;
he had the sweetest temper, and yet he always seemed
to like to plague Deborah. She never laughed at his
jokes, and thought him ungenteel, and not careful
enough about improving his mind ; and that vexed
him.
" Well ! he went to her room, it seems, and dressed
himself in her old gown, and shawl, and bonnet ; just
POOR PETER 83
the things she used to wear in Cranford, and was
known by everywhere ; and he made the pillow into
a little — you are sure you locked the door, my dear,
for I should not like any one to hear — into — into — a
little baby, with white long clothes. It was only, as
he told me afterwards, to make something to talk
about in the town ; he never thought of it as affecting
Deborah. And he went and walked up and down in
the Filbert walk — just half-hidden by the rails, and
half-seen ; and he cuddled his pillow, just like a
baby, and talked to it all the nonsense people do.
Oh dear ! and my father came stepping stately up
the street, as he always did ; and what should he
see but a little black crowd of people — I daresay as
many as twenty — all peeping through his garden
rails. So he thought, at first, they were only looking
at a new rhododendron that was in full bloom, and
that he was very proud of ; and he walked slower,
that they might have more time to admire. And
he wondered if he could make out a sermon from the
occasion, and thought, perhaps, there was some
relation between the rhododendrons and the lilies
of the field. My poor father ! When he came
nearer, he began to wonder that they did not see
him ; but their heads were all so close together,
peeping and peeping ! My father was amongst
them, meaning, he said, to ask them to walk into
the garden with him, and admire the beautiful
vegetable production, when — oh, my dear ! I tremble
to think of it — he looked through the rails himself,
and saw — I don't know what he thought he saw, but
old Clare told me his face went quite grey-white with
anger, and his eyes blazed out under his frowning
black brows ; and he spoke out — oh, so terribly ! —
and bade them all stop where they were — not one of
84 CRANFORD
them to go, not one to stir a step • and, swift as light,
he was in at the garden door, and down the Filbert
walk, and seized hold of poor Peter, and tore his clothes
off his back — bonnet, shawl, gown, and all — and threw
the pillow among the people over the railings : and
then he was very, very angry indeed, and before all
the people he lifted up his cane and flogged Peter.
" My dear, that boy's trick, on that sunny day,
when all seemed going straight and well, broke my
mother's heart, and changed my father for life.
It did indeed. Old Clare said, Peter looked as white
as my father ; and stood as still as a statue to be
flogged ; and my father struck hard ! When my
father stopped to take breath, Peter said, ' Have
you done enough, sir ? ' quite hoarsely, and still
standing quite quiet. I don't know what my father
said — or if he said anything. But old Clare said,
Peter turned to where the people outside the railing
were, and made them a low bow, as grand and as
grave as any gentleman ; and then walked slowly into
the house. I was in the store-room helping my mother
to make cowslip wine. I cannot abide the wine now,
nor the scent of the flowers ; they turn me sick and
faint, as they did that day, when Peter came in, look-
ing as haughty as any man — indeed, looking like a
man, not like a boy. ' Mother ! ' he said, ' I am come
to say, God bless you for ever.' I saw his lips quiver
as he spoke ; and I think he durst not say anything
more loving, for the purpose that was in his heart.
She looked at him rather frightened, and wondering,
and asked him what was to do.^^ He did not smile
or speak, but put his arms round her and kissed her
as if he did not know how to leave off ; and before
she could speak again, he was gone. We talked it
over, and could not understand it, and she bade me
POOR PETER 85
go and seek my father, and ask what it was all about.
I found him walking up and down, looking very
highly displeased.
" ' Tell your mother I have flogged Peter, and
that he richly deserved it.'
" I durst not ask any more questions. When I
told my mother, she sat down, quite faint, for a
minute. I remember, a few days after, I saw the
poor, withered cowslip flowers thrown out to the
leaf heap, to decay and die there. There was no
making of cowslip wine that year at the rectory —
nor, indeed, ever after.
" Presently my mother went to my father. I
know I thought of Queen Esther and King Ahasuerus ;
for my mother was very pretty and delicate-looking,
and my father looked as terrible as King Ahasuerus.
Some time after they came out together ; and then
my mother told me what had happened, and that she
was going up to Peter's room at my father's desire —
though she was not to tell Peter this — to talk the
matter over with him. But no Peter was there. We
looked over the house ; no Peter was there ! Even
my father, who had not liked to join in the search at
first, helped us before long. The rectory was a very
old house — steps up into a room, steps down into a
room, all through. At first, my mother went calling
low and soft, as if to reassure the poor boy, ' Peter !
Peter dear ! it's only me ; ' but, by and by, as the
servants came back from the errands my father had
sent them, in different directions, to find where Peter
was — as we found he was not in the garden, nor the
hayloft, nor anywhere about — my mother's cry grew
louder and wilder, ' Peter ! Peter, my darling !
where are you ? ' for then she felt and understood
that that long kiss meant some sad kind of ' good-bye.'
86 CRANFORD
The afternoon went on — my mother never resting,
but seeking again and again in every possible place
that had been looked into tw^enty times before, nay,
that she had looked into over and over again herself.
My father sat with his head in his hands, not speaking
except when his messengers came in, bringing no
tidings ; then he lifted up his face, so strong and sad,
and told them to go again in some new direction. My
mother kept passing from room to room, in and out
of the house, moving noiselessly, but never ceasing.
Neither she nor my father durst leave the house,
which was the meeting-place for all the messengers.
At last (and it was nearly dark) my father rose up.
He took hold of my mother's arm as she came with
wild, sad pace through one door, and quickly towards
another. She started at the touch of his hand, for
she had forgotten all in the world but Peter.
" ' Molly ! ' said he, ' I did not think all this would
happen.' He looked into her face for comfort — her
poor face, all wild and white ; for neither she nor my
father had dared to acknowledge — much less act
upon — the terror that was in their hearts, lest Peter
should have made away with himself. My father
saw no conscious look in his wife's hot, dreary eyes,
and he missed the sympathy that she had always been
ready to give him — strong man as he was, and at the
dumb despair in her face his tears began to flow. But
when she saw this, a gentle sorrow came over her
countenance, and she said, ' Dearest John ! don't
cry ; come with me, and we'll find him,' almost as
cheerfully as if she knew where he was. And she
took my father's great hand in her little soft one and
led him along, the tears dropping as he walked on
that same unceasing, weary walk, from room to room,
through house and garden.
POOR PETER 87
" Oh, how I wished for Deborah ! I had no
time for crying, for now all seemed to depend on
me. I wrote for Deborah to come home. I sent
a message privately to that same Mr. Holbrook's
house — poor Mr. Holbrook ! — ^you know who I
mean. I don't mean I sent a message to him, but
I sent one that I could trust to know if Peter was
at his house. For at one time Mr. Holbrook was
an occasional visitor at the rectory — you know
he was Miss Pole's cousin — and he had been very
kind to Peter, and taught him how to fish — he was
very kind to everybody, and I thought Peter might
have gone off there. But Mr. Holbrook was from
home, and Peter had never been seen. It was night
now ; but the doors were all wide open, and my
father and mother walked on and on ; it was more
than an hour since he had joined her, and I don't
believe they had ever spoken all that time. I was
getting the parlour fire lighted, and one of the servants
was preparing tea, for I wanted them to have some-
thing to eat and drink and warm them, when old
Clare asked to speak to me.
" ' I have borrowed the nets from the weir. Miss
Matty. Shall we drag the ponds to-night, or wait
for the morning ? '
" I remember staring in his face to gather his
meaning ; and when I did, I laughed out loud.
The horror of that new thought — our bright, darling
Peter, cold and stark and dead ! I remember the
ring of my own laugh now.
" The next day Deborah was at home before
I was myself again. She would not have been so
weak as to give way as I had done ; but my screams
(my horrible laughter had ended in crying) had
roused my sweet dear mother, whose poor wandering
88 CRANFORD
wits were called back and collected as soon as a child
needed her care. She and Deborah sat by my bedside ;
I knew by the looks of each that there had been no
news of Peter — no awful, ghastly news, which was
what I most had dreaded in my dull state between
sleeping and waking.
" The same result of all the searching had brought
something of the same relief to my mother, to whom,
I am sure, the thought that Peter might even then
be hanging dead in some of the famihar home places
had caused that never-ending walk of yesterday. Her
soft eyes never were the same again after that ; they
had always a restless, craving look, as if seeking for
what they could not find. Oh ! it was an awful time ;
coming down like a thunderbolt on the still sunny day
when the lilacs were all in bloom."
" Where was Mr. Peter ? " said I.
" He had made his way to Liverpool ; and there
was war then ; and some of the king's ships lay off
the mouth of the Mersey ; and they were only too
glad to have a fine likely boy such as him (five foot
nine he was) come to offer himself. The captain
wrote to my father, and Peter wrote to my mother.
Stay ! those letters will be somewhere here."
We lighted the candle, and found the captain's
letter and Peter's too. And we also found a little
simple begging letter from Mrs. Jenkyns to Peter,
addressed to him at the house of an old schoolfellow,
whither she fancied he might have gone. They had
returned it unopened ; and unopened it had re-
mained ever since, having been inadvertently put by
among the other letters of that time. This is it : —
" My dearest Peter, — You did not think we
should be so sorry as we are, I know, or you would
never have gone away. You are too good. Your
POOR PETER 89
father sits and sighs till my heart aches to hear him.
He cannot hold up his head for grief ; and yet he
only did what he thought was right. Perhaps he has
been too severe, and perhaps I have not been kind
enough ; but God knows how we love you, my dear
only boy. Don looks so sorry you are gone. Come
back, and make us happy, who love you so much.
I know you will come back."
But Peter did not come back. That spring day
was the last time he ever saw his mother's face.
The writer of the letter — the last — the only person
who had ever seen what was written in it, was dead
long ago ; and I, a stranger, not born at the time
when this occurrence took place, was the one to
open it.
The captain's letter summoned the father J"and
mother to Liverpool instantly, if they wished to
see their boy ; and, by some of the wild chances of
life, the captain's letter had been detained some-
where, somehow.
Miss Matty went on, "And it was race-time, ^^ and
all the post-horses at Cranford were gone to the races ;
but my father and mother set off in their own gig —
and oh ! my dear, they were too late — the ship
was gone ! And now read Peter's letter to my
mother ! "
It was full of love, and sorrow, and pride in his
new profession, and a sore sense of his disgrace in
the eyes of the people at Cranford ; but ending
with a passionate entreaty that she would come
and see him before he left the Mersey : " Mother !
we may go into battle. I hope we shall, and lick
those French ; but I must see you again before
that time."
90 CRANFORD
" And she was too late," said Miss Matty ; " too
late ! "
We sat in silence, pondering on the full meaning of
those sad, sad words. At length I asked Miss Matty
to tell me how her mother bore it.
" Oh ! " she said, " she was patience itself. She
had never been strong, and this weakened her terribly.
My father used to sit looking at her : far more sad
than she was. He seemed as if he could look at
nothing else when she was by ; and he was so humble
— so very gentle now. He would, perhaps, speak in
his old way — laying down the law, as it were — and
then, in a minute or two, he would come round and
put his hand on our shoulders, and ask us in a low
voice if he had said anything to hurt us. I did not
wonder at his speaking so to Deborah, for she was so
clever ; but I could not bear to hear him talking so
to me.
" But, you see, he saw what we did not — that
it was killing my mother. Yes ! killing her (put out
the candle, my dear ; I can talk better in the dark),
for she was but a frail woman, and ill fitted to stand
the fright and shock she had gone through ; and she
would smile at him and comfort him, not in words,
but in her looks and tones, which were always cheerful
when he was there. And she would speak of how she
thought Peter stood a good chance of being admiral
very soon — he was so brave and clever ; and how she
thought of seeing him in his navy uniform, and what
sort of hats admirals wore ; and how much more fit
he was to be a sailor than a clergyman ; and all in
that way, just to make my father think she was quite
glad of what came of that unlucky morning's work,
and the flogging which was always in his mind, as we
all knew. But oh, my dear ! the bitter, bitter crying
POOR PETER 91
she had when she was alone ; and at last, as she grew
weaker, she could not keep her tears in when Deborah
or me was by, and would give us message after message
for Peter (his ship had gone to the Mediterranean, or
somewhere down there, and then he was ordered off
to India, and there was no overland route then) ; but
she still said that no one knew where their death lay in
wait, and that we were not to think hers was near.
We did not think it, but we knew it, as we saw her
fading away.
" Well, my dear, it's very foolish of me, I know,
when in all likelihood I am so near seeing her again.
" And only think, love ! the very day after her
death — for she did not live quite a twelvemonth
after Peter went away — the very day after — came
a parcel for her from India — from her poor boy.
It was a large, soft, white India shawl, with just a
little narrow border all round ; just what my mother
would have liked.
" We thought it might rouse my father, for he
had sat with her hand in his all night long ; so Deborah
took it in to him, and Peter's letter to her, and all. At
first he took no notice ; and we tried to make a kind
of light careless talk about the shawl, opening it out
and admiring it. Then, suddenly, he got up, and
spoke : ' She shall be buried in it,' he said ; * Peter
shall have that comfort ; and she would have liked
it.'
" Well, perhaps it was not reasonable, but what
could we do or say ? One gives people in grief
their own way. He took it up and felt it : * It is
just such a shawl as she wished for when she was
married, and her mother did not give it her. I did
not know of it till after, or she should have had it
— she should : but she shall have it now.'
92 CRANFORD
" My mother looked so lovely in her death ! She
was always pretty, and now she looked fair, and waxen,
and young — younger than Deborah, as she stood
trembling and shivering by her. We decked her in
the long soft folds ; she lay smiling, as if pleased ;
and people came — all Cranford came — to beg to see
her, for they had loved her dearly, as well they might ;
and the countrywomen brought posies ; old Clare's
wife brought some white violets, and begged they
might lie on her breast.
" Deborah said to me, the day of my mother's
funeral, that if she had a hundred offers she never
would marry and leave my father. It was not very
likely she would have so many — I don't know thati
she had one ; but it was not less to her credit to say
so. She was such a daughter to my father as I think
there never was before or since. His eyes failed him,
and she read book after book, and wrote and copied,
and was always at his service in any parish business.
She could do many more things than my poor mother
could ; she even once wrote a letter to the bishop for
my father. But he missed my mother sorely ; the
whole parish noticed it. Not that he was less active ;
I think he was more so, and more patient in helping
everyone. I did all I could to set Deborah at liberty
to be with him ; for I knew I was good for little, and
that my best work in the world was to do odd jobs
quietly, and set others at liberty. But my father was
a changed man."
" Did Mr. Peter ever come home ? "
" Yes, once. He came home a lieutenant ; he
did not get to be admiral. And he and my father
were such friends ! My father took him into every
house in the parish, he was so proud of him. He
never walked out without Peter's arm to lean upon.
POOR PETER 93
Deborah used to smile (I don't think we ever laughed
; again after my mother's death), and say she was
i quite put in a corner. Not but what my father
always wanted her when there was letter-writing
or reading to be done, or anything to be
I settled."
I " And then ? " said I, after a pause.
I " Then Peter went to sea again ; and, by and by,
I my father died, blessing us both, and thanking
1 Deborah for all she had been to him ; and, of course,
our circumstances were changed ; and instead of
living at the rectory, and keeping three maids and a
man, we had to come to this small house, and be
content with a servant-of-all-work ; but, as Deborah
used to say, we have always lived genteelly, even if
circumstances have compelled us to simplicity. Poor
Deborah ! "
" And Mr. Peter ? " asked I.
" Oh, there was some great war in India — I forgot
what they call it — and we have never heard of Peter
since then. I believe he is dead myself ; and it
sometimes fidgets me that we have never put on
mourning for him. And then again, when I sit by
myself, and all the house is still, I think I hear his
step coming up the street, and my heart begins to
flutter and beat ; but the sound always goes past —
and Peter never comes."
" That's Martha back ! No ! /'ll go, my dear ;
I can always find my way in the dark, you know.
And a blow of fresh air at the door will do my head
good, and it's rather got a trick of aching."
So she pattered off. I had lighted the candle,
to give the room a cheerful appearance against her
return.
" Was it Martha ? " asked I.
94
CRANFORD
" Yes. And I am rather uncomfortable, for I
heard such a strange noise, just as I was opening the
door."
" Where ? " I asked, for her eyes were round with
affright.
" In the street — just outside — it sounded Hke "
" Talking .? " I put in, as she hesitated a little.
-^ "No! kissing"—
C/iccrcA Jfatcse
CT6e JeBa^(^air'
CHAPTER VII ««
VISITING
/^NE morning, as Miss Matty and I sat at our
^^^ work — it was before twelve o'clock, and
Miss Matty had not changed the cap with yellow
ribbons that had been Miss Jenkyns's best, and
which Miss Matty was now wearing out in private,
putting on the one made in imitation of Mrs. Jamie-
son's at all times when she expected to be seen —
Martha came up, and asked if Miss Betty Barker
might speak to her mistress. Miss Matty assented,
and quickly disappeared to change the yellow ribbons,
while Miss Barker came upstairs ; but, as she had
forgotten her spectacles, and was rather flurried by
the unusual time of the visit, I was not surprised to
see her return with one cap on the top of the other.
She was quite unconscious of it herself, and looked at
us with bland satisfaction. Nor do I think Miss
Barker perceived it ; for, putting aside the little
circumstance that she was not so young as she had
been, she was very much absorbed in her errand,
which she delivered herself of with an oppressive
modesty that found vent in endless apologies.
95
()6 CRANFORD
Miss Betty Barker was the daughter of the old
clerk at Cranford who had officiated in Mr. Jenkyns's
time. She and her sister had had pretty good situa-
tions as ladies' maids, and had saved money enough
to set up a milliner's shop, which had been patronised
^ by the ladies in the neighbourhood. Lady Arley, for
instance, would occasionally give Miss Barkers the
pattern of an old cap of hers, which they immediately
copied and circulated among the elite of Cranford.
I say the elite, for Miss Barkers had caught the trick
of the place, and piqued themselves upon their
" aristocratic connection." They would not sell
their caps and ribbons to anyone without a pedigree.
Many a farmer's wife or daughter turned away huffed
from Miss Barkers' select millinery, and went rather
to the universal shop, where the profits of brown soap
and moist sugar enabled the proprietor to go straight
to (Paris, he said, until he found his customers too
patriotic and John Bullish to wear what the Mounseers
wore) London, where, as he often told his customers,
Queen Adelaide had appeared, only the very week
before, in a cap exactly like the one he showed them,
trimmed with yellow and blue ribbons, and had been
complimented by King William on the becoming
nature of her head-dress.®^
Miss Barkers, who confined themselves to truth,
and did not approve of miscellaneous customers,
throve notwithstanding. They were self-denying,
good people. Many a time have I seen the eldest
of them (she that had been maid to Mrs. Jamieson)
carrying out some delicate mess to a poor person.
JThey only aped their betters in having " nothing to
do " with the class immediately below theirs. And
when Miss Barker died, their profits and income were
found to be such that Miss Betty was justified in
VISITING 97
shutting up shop and retiring from business. She
also (as I think I have before said) set up her cow ; a
mark of respectabiHty in Cranford almost as decided
as setting up a gig is among some people. ^2 gj^^
dressed finer than any lady in Cranford ; and we did
not wonder at it ; for it was understood that she was
wearing out all the bonnets and caps and outrageous
ribbons which had once formed her stock-in-trade.
It was five or six years since she had given up shop, so
in any other place than Cranford her dress might
have been considered passSe.
And now Miss Betty Barker had called to invite
Miss Matty to tea at her house on the following
Tuesday. She gave me also an impromptu invitation,
as I happened to be a visitor — though I could see she
had a little fear lest, since my father had gone to live
in Drumble, he might have engaged in that " horrid
—cotton trade," and so dragged his family down out
of " aristocratic society." She prefaced this invitation
with so many apologies that she quite excited my
curiosity. " Her presumption " was to be excused.
What had she been doing ? She seemed so over-
powered by it, I could only think that she had been
writing to Queen Adelaide to ask for a receipt for
washing lace ; but the act which she so characterised
was only an invitation she had carried to her sister's
former mistress, Mrs. Jamieson. " Her former
occupation considered, could Miss Matty excuse the
liberty ? " Ah ! thought I, she has found out that
double cap, and is going to rectify Miss Matty's
head-dress. No ! it was simply to extend her in-
vitation to Miss Matty and to me. Miss Matty
bowed acceptance ; and I wondered that, in the
graceful action, she did not feel the unusual weight
and extraordinary height of her head-dress. But I
98 CRANFORD
do not think she did, for she recovered her balance,
and went on talking to Miss Betty in a kind, con-
descending manner, very different from the fidgety
way she would have had if she had suspected how
singular her appearance was.
" Mrs. Jamieson is coming, I think you said ? '^
asked Miss Matty.
" Yes. Mrs. Jamieson most kindly and con-
descendingly said she would be happy to come.
One little stipulation she made, that she should
bring Carlo. I told her that if I had a weakness, it
was for dogs."
" And Miss Pole ? " questioned Miss Matty,
who was thinking of her pool at Preference, in which
Carlo would not be available as a partner.
" I am going to ask Miss Pole. Or course, I could
not think of asking her until I had asked you, madam
— the rector's daughter, madam. Believe me, I do
not forget the situation my father held under
yours."
" And Mrs. Forrester, of course ? "
" And Mrs. Forrester. I thought, in fact, of
going to her before I went to Miss Pole. Although
her circumstances are changed, madam, she was born
a Tyrrell, and we can never forget her alliance to the
Bigges, of Bigelow Hall."
Miss Matty cared much more for the little cir-
cumstance of her being a very good card-player.
" Mrs. Fitz-Adam — I suppose "
" No, madam. I must draw a line somewhere.
Mrs. Jamieson would not, I think, like to meet
Mrs. Fitz-Adam. I have the greatest respect for
Mrs. Fitz-Adam — but I cannot think her fit society
for such ladies as Mrs. Jamieson and Miss Matilda
Jenkyns."
VISITING 99
Miss Betty Barker bowed low to Miss Matty, and
pursed up her mouth. She looked at me with side-
long dignity, as much as to say, although a retired
milliner, she was no democrat, and understood the
difference of ranks.
" May I beg you to come as near half-past six, to
my little dwelling, as possible. Miss Matilda ? Mrs.
Jamieson dines at five, but has kindly promised not
to delay her visit beyond that time — half-past six."
And with a swimming curtsey Miss Betty Barker
took her leave.
My prophetic soul foretold a visit that afternoon
from Miss Pole, who usually came to call on Miss
Matilda after any event — or indeed in sight of any
event — to talk it over with her.
" Miss Betty told me it was to be a choice and
select few," said Miss Pole, as she and Miss Matty
compared notes.
" Yes, so she said. Not even Mrs. Fitz-Adam."
Now Mrs. Fitz-Adam was the widowed sister of
the Cranford surgeon, whom I have named before.
Their parents were respectable farmers, content
with their station. The name of these good people
was Hoggins. Mr. Hoggins was the Cranford doctor
now ; we disliked the name, and considered it coarse ;
but, as Miss Jenkyns said, if he changed it to Piggins
it would not be much better. We had hoped to
discover a relationship between him and that Mar-
chioness of Exeter whose name was Molly Hoggins ; ^'
but the man, careless of his own interests, utterly
ignored and denied any such relationship, although,
as dear Miss Jenkyns had said, he had a sister called
Mary, and the same Christian names were very apt
to run in families.
Soon after Miss Mary Hoggins married Mr.
loo CRANFORD
Fitz-Adam she disappeared from the neighbourhood
for many years. She did not move in a sphere in
Cranford society sufficiently high to make any of us
care to know what Mr. Fitz-Adam was. He died
and was gathered to his fathers without our ever
having thought about him at all. And then Mrs.
Fitz-Adam reappeared in Cranford (" as bold as a
lion," Miss Pole said), a well-to-do widow, dressed in
rustling black silk, so soon after her husband's death
that poor Miss Jenkyns was justified in the remark
she made, that " bombazine would have shown a
deeper sense of her loss."
I remember the convocation of ladies who as-
sembled to decide whether or not Mrs. Fitz-Adam
should be called upon by the old blue-blooded in-
habitants of Cranford. She had taken a large rambling
house, which had been usually considered to confer a
patent of gentility upon its tenant, because, once
upon a time, seventy or eighty years before, the
spinster daughter of an earl had resided in it. I am
not sure if the inhabiting this house was not also
believed to convey some unusual power of intellect ;
for the earl's daughter. Lady Jane, had a sister. Lady
Anne, who had married a general officer in the time
of the American war, and this general officer had
written one or two comedies, which were still acted
on the London boards, and which, when we saw them
advertised, made us all draw up, and feel that Drury
Lane was paying a very pretty compliment to Cran-
ford. Still, it was not at all a settled thing that Mrs.
Fitz-Adam was to be visited, when dear Miss Jenkyns
died ; and, with her, something of the clear know-
ledge of the strict code of gentility went out too. As
Miss Pole observed, " As most of the ladies of good
family in Cranford were elderly spinsters, or widows
VISITING loi
without children, if we did not -reiax,^^ -little, and
become less exclusive, by and by we should have no
society at all." .\ <■
Mrs. Forrester continued on the saint; side.
" She had always understood that Fitz meant
something aristocratic ; there was Fitz-Roy — she
thought that some of the King's children had
been called Fitz-Roy ; and there was Fitz-Clarence
now — they were the children of dear good King
William the Fourth. Fitz-Adam ! — it was a pretty
name, and she thought it very probably meant
* Child of Adam.' No one, who had not some good
blood in their veins, would dare to be called Fitz ;
there was a deal in a name — she had had a cousin who
spelt his name with two little ffs — ffoulkes — and he
always looked down upon capital letters, and said they
belonged to lately-invented families. She had been
afraid he would die a bachelor, he was so very choice.
When he met with a Mrs. fFaringdon, at a watering-
place, he took to her immediately ; and a very pretty
genteel woman she was — a widow, with a very good
fortune ; and ' my cousin,' Mr. ffoulkes, married her ;
and it was all owing to her two little ifs."
Mrs. Fitz-Adam did not stand a chance of meeting
with a Mr. Fitz-anything in Cranford, so that could
not have been her motive for settling there. Miss
Matty thought it might have been the hope of being
admitted in the society of the place, which would
certainly be a very agreeable rise for ci-devant Miss
Hoggins ; and if this had been her hope it would be
cruel to disappoint her.
So everybody called upon Mrs. Fitz-Adam — every-
body but Mrs. Jamieson, who used to show how
honourable she was by never seeing Mrs. Fitz-Adam
when they met at the Cranford parties. There
I02 CRANFORD
would De onlx eigh-; or ten ladies in the room, and Mrs.
t'itz-Adam was the largest of all, and she invariably-
used^ to sta'nd up when Mrs. Jamieson came in, and
curtsey very low to her whenever she turned in her
direction — so low, in fact, that I think Mrs. Jamieson
must have looked at the wall above her, for she never
moved a muscle of her face, no more than if she had
not seen her. Still Mrs. Fitz-Adam persevered.
The spring evenings were getting bright and long
when three or four ladies in calashes met at Miss
Barker's door. Do you know what a calash is ? It is
a covering worn over caps, not unlike the heads
fastened on old-fashioned gigs ; but sometimes it is
not quite so large. This kind of head-gear always
made an awful impression on the children in Cranford ;
and now two or three left off their play in the quiet
sunny little street, and gathered in wondering silence
round Miss Pole, Miss Matty, and myself. We
were silent too, so that wc could hear loud, suppressed
whispers inside Miss Barker's house : " Wait, Peggy !
wait till I've run upstairs and washed my hands.
When I cough, open the door ; I'll not be a
minute."
And, true enough, it was not a minute before we
heard a noise, between a sneeze and a crow ; on
which the door flew open. Behind it stood a round-
eyed maiden, all aghast at the honourable company
of calashes, who marched in without a word. She
recovered presence of mind enough to usher us into
a small room, which had been the shop, but was now
converted into a temporary dressing-room. There
we unpinned and shook ourselves, and arranged our
features before the glass into a sweet and gracious
company- face ; and then, bowing backwards with
" After you, ma'am," we allowed Mrs. Forrester to
VISITING 103
take precedence up the narrow staircase that led to
Miss Barker's drawing-room. There she sat, as stately
and composed as though we had never heard that odd-
sounding cough, from which her throat must have
even then been sore and rough. Kind, gentle, shabbily-
dressed Mrs. Forrester was immediately conducted to
the second place of honour — a seat arranged something
like Prince Albert's near the Queen's — good, but not
so good. The place of pre-eminence was, of course,
reserved for the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson, who
presently came panting up the stairs — Carlo rushing
round her on her progress, as if he meant to trip her
up.
And now Miss Betty Barker was a proud and happy
woman ! She stirred the fire, and shut the door, and
sat as near to it as she could, quite on the edge of her
chair. When Peggy came in, tottering under the
weight of the tea-tray, I noticed that Miss Barker was
sadly afraid lest Peggy should not keep her distance
sufficiently. She and her mistress were on very familiar
terms in their everyday intercourse, and Peggy wanted
now to make several little confidences to her, which
Miss Barker was on thorns to hear, but which she
thought it her duty, as a lady, to repress. So she
turned away from all Peggy's asides and signs ; but she
made one or two very mal-apropos answers to what
was said ; and at last, seized with a bright idea, she
exclaimed, " Poor, sweet Carlo ! I'm forgetting him.
Come downstairs with me, poor ittie doggie, and it
shall have its tea, it shall ! "
In a few minutes she returned, bland and benignant
as before ; but I thought she had forgotten to give
the " poor ittie doggie " anything to eat, judging by
the avidity with which he swallowed down chance
pieces of cake. The tea-tray was abundantly loaded
104 CRANFORD
— I was pleased to see it, I was so hungry ; but I was
afraid the ladies present might think it vulgarly
heaped up. I know they would have done at their
own houses ; but somehow the heaps disappeared
here. I saw Mrs. Jamieson eating seed-cake, slowly
and considerately, as she did everything ; and I was
rather surprised, for I knew she had told us, on the
occasion of her last party, that she never had it in her
house, it reminded her so much of scented soap. She
always gave us Savoy biscuits. However, Mrs. Jamie-
son was kindly indulgent to Miss Barker's want of
knowledge of the customs of high life ; and, to spare
her feelings, ate three large pieces of seed-cake, with
a placid, ruminating expression of countenance, not
unlike a cow's.
After tea there was some little demur and difficulty.
We were six in number ; four could play at Preference,
and for the other two there was Cribbage. But all,
except myself (I was rather afraid of the Cranford
ladies at cards, for it was the most earnest and serious
business they ever engaged in), were anxious to be of
the " pool." Even Miss Barker, while declaring she
did not know Spadille from Manille, was evidently
hankering to take a hand. The dilemma was soon put
an end to by a singular kind of noise. If a Baron's
daughter-in-law could ever be supposed to snore, I
should have said Mrs. Jamieson did so then ; for,
overcome by the heat of the room, and inclined to
doze by nature, the temptation of that very comfort-
able arm-chair had been too much for her, and Mrs.
Jamieson was nodding. Once or twice she opened her
eyes with an effort, and calmly but unconsciously
smiled upon us ; but, by and by, even her benevolence
was not equal to this exertion, and she was sound
asleep.
VISITING 105
" It is very gratifying to me," whispered Miss
Barker at the card-table to her three opponents,
whom, notwithstanding her ignorance of the game,
she was "basting"^* most unmercifully — "very
gratifying indeed, to see how completely Mrs. Jamie-
son feels at home in my poor little dwelling ; she
could not have paid me a greater compliment."
Miss Barker provided me with some literature in
the shape of three or four handsomely-bound fashion-
books ten or twelve years old, observing, as she put a
little table and a candle for my especial benefit, that
she knew young people liked to look at pictures. Carlo
lay and snorted and started at his mistress's feet. He,
too, was quite at home.
The card-table was an animated scene to watch :
four ladies' heads, with niddle-noddling caps, all
nearly meeting over the middle of the table in their
eagerness to whisper quick enough and loud enough ;
and every now and then came Miss Barker's " Hush,
ladies ! if you please, hush ! Mrs. Jamieson is
asleep."
It was very difficult to steer clear between Mrs.
Forrester's deafness and Mrs. Jamieson's sleepiness.
But Miss Barker managed her arduous task well.
She repeated the whisper to Mrs. Forrester, distorting
her face considerably, in order to show, by the motions
of her lips, what was said ; and then she smiled kindly
all round at us, and murmured to herself, " Very
gratifying, indeed ; I wish my poor sister had been
alive to see this day."
Presently the door was thrown wide open : Carlo
started to his feet, with a loud snapping bark, and
Mrs. Jamieson awoke ; or, perhaps, she had not been
asleep — as she said almost directly, the room had been
so light she had been glad to keep her eyes shut, but
io6 CRANFORD
had been listening with great interest to all our
amusing and agreeable conversation. Peggy came in
once more, red with importance. Another tray !
." Oh, gentility ! " thought I, " can you endure this
last shock ? " For Miss Barker had ordered (nay, I
doubt not, prepared, although she did say, " Why !
Peggy, what have you brought us ? " and looked
pleasantly surprised at the unexpected pleasure) all
sorts of good things for supper — scalloped oysters,
potted lobsters, jelly, a dish called " little Cupids "
(which was in great favour with the Cranford ladies,
although too expensive to be given, except on solemn
and state occasions — macaroons sopped in brandy, I
should have called it, if I had not known its more re-
fined and classical name). In short, we were evidently
to be feasted with all that was sweetest and best ; and
we thought it better to submit graciously, even at the
cost of our gentility — which never ate suppers in
general, but which, like most non-supper-eaters, was
particularly hungry on all special occasions.
Miss Barker, in her former sphere, had, I daresay,
been made acquainted with the beverage they call
cherry- brandy. We none of us had ever seen such a
thing, and rather shrank back when she proffered it
us — " just a little, leetle glass, ladies ; after the
oysters and lobsters, you know. Shellfish are some-
times thought not very wholesome." We all shook
our heads like female mandarins ; but, at last, Mrs.
Jamieson suffered herself to be persuaded, and we
followed her lead. It was not exactly unpalatable,
though so hot and so strong that we thought our-
selves bound to give evidence that we were not
accustomed to such things by coughing terribly —
almost as strangely as Miss Barker had done, before
we were admitted by Peggy.
VISITING 107
" It's very strong," said Miss Pole, as she put
down her empty glass ; " I do believe there's spirit
in it."
" Only a little drop — just necessary to make it
keep," said Miss Barker. " You know we put brandy-
paper over preserves to make them keep. I often feel
tipsy myself from eating damson tart."
I question whether damson tart would have
opened Mrs. Jamieson's heart as the cherry-brandy
did ; but she told us of a coming event, respecting
which she had been quite silent till that moment.
" My sister-in-law, Lady Glenmire, is coming to
stay with me."
There was a chorus of " Indeed ! " and then a
pause. Each one rapidly reviewed her wardrobe,
as to its fitness to appear in the presence of a Baron's
viddow ; for, of course, a series of small festivals
were always held at Cranford on the arrival of a
visitor at any of our friends' houses. We felt very
pleasantly excited on the present occasion.
Not long after this the maids and the lanterns
were announced. Mrs. Jamieson had the sedan-
chair, which had squeezed itself into Miss Barker's
narrow lobby with some difficulty, and most literally
" stopped the way." It required some skilful
manoeuvring on the part of the old chairmen (shoe-
makers by day, but when summoned to carry the
sedan dressed up in a strange old livery — long great-
coats, with small capes, coeval with the sedan, and
similar to the dress of the class in Hogarth's pictures)
to edge, and back, and try at it again, and finally to
succeed in carrying their burden out of Miss Barker's
front door. Then we heard their quick pit-a-pat
along the quiet little street as we put on our
calashes and pinned up our gowns ; Miss Barker
io8
CRANFORD
hovering about us with offers of help, which, if
she had not remembered her former occupation,
and wished us to forget it, would have been much
more pressing.
<A^(ajCa^/i.
CHAPTER VIII
YOUR LADYSHIP
PARLY the next morning — directly after twelve
— Miss Pole made her appearance at Miss
Matty's. Some very trifling piece of business was
alleged as a reason for the call ; but there was evidently
something behind. At last out it came.
" By the way, you'll think I'm strangely ignorant ;
but, do you really know, I am puzzled how we ought
to address Lady Glenmire. Do you say ' Your Lady-
■^ship,' where you would say ' you ' to a common
person ? I have been puzzling all morning ; and are
we to say ' My Lady,' instead of ' Ma'am ! ' Now
you knew Lady Arley — will you kindly tell me the
most correct way of speaking to the Peerage ? "
Poor Miss Matty ! she took off her spectacles and
she put them on again — but how Lady Arley was
addressed, she could not remember.
" It is so long ago," she said. " Dear ! dear ! how
stupid I am ! I don't think I ever saw her more than
109
no CRANFORD
twice. I know we used to call Sir Peter, ' Sir Peter ; '
— but he came much oftener to see us than Lady Arley
did. Deborah would have known in a minute. ' My
lady ' — ' your ladyship.' It sounds very strange, and
as if it was not natural. I never thought of it before ;
but, now you have named it, I am all in a puzzle."
It was very certain Miss Pole would obtain no wise
decision from Miss Matty, who got more bewildered
every moment, and more perplexed as to etiquettes
of address.
" Well, I really think," said Miss Pole, " I had
better just go and tell Mrs. Forrester about our little
difficulty. One sometimes grows nervous ; and yet
.one would not have Lady Glenmire think we were
quite ignorant of the etiquettes of high life in Cran-
ford."
" And will you just step in here, dear Miss Pole,
as you come back, please, and tell me what you decide
upon ? Whatever you and Mrs. Forrester fix upon
will be quite right, I'm sure. ' Lady Arley,' ' Sir
Peter,' " said Miss Matty to herself, trying to recall
the old forms of words.
" Who is Lady Glenmire ? " asked I.
" Oh, she's the widow of Mr. Jamieson — that's
Mrs. Jamieson's late husband, you know — widow of
his eldest brother. Mrs. Jamieson was a Miss Walker,
daughter of Governor Walker. ' Your ladyship.' My
dear, if they fix on that way of speaking, you must
just let me practise a little on you first, for I shall feel
so foolish and hot saying it the first time to Lady
Glenmire."
It was really a relief to Miss Matty when Mrs.
Jamieson came on a very unpolite errand. I notice
that apathetic people have more quiet impertinence
than others ; and Mrs. Jamieson came now to insinu-
"YOUR LADYSHIP" iii
ate pretty plainly that she did not particularly wish
that the Cranford ladies should call upon her sister-in-
law. I can hardly say how she made this clear ; for
I grew. very indignant and warm, while with slow
deliberation she was explaining her wishes to Miss
Matty, who, a true lady herself, could hardly under-
stand the feeling which made Mrs. Jamieson wish to
appear to her noble sister-in-law as if she only visited
" county " families. Miss Matty remained puzzled
and perplexed long after I had found out the object
of Mrs. Jamieson's visit.
When she did understand the drift of the honour-
able lady's call, it was pretty to see with what quiet
dignity she received the intimation thus uncourteously
given. She was not in the least hurt — she was of too
gentle a spirit for that ; nor was she exactly conscious
of disapproving of Mrs. Jamieson's conduct ; but
there was something of this feeling in her mind, I am
sure, which made her pass from the subject to others
in a less flurried and more composed manner than
usual. Mrs. Jamieson was, indeed, the more flurried
of the two, and I could see she was glad to take her
leave.
A little while afterwards, Miss Pole returned, red
and indignant. " Well ! to be sure ! You've had
Mrs. Jamieson here, I find from Martha ; and we are
not to call on Lady Glenmire. Yes ! I met Mrs.
Jamieson, half-way between here and Mrs. Forrester's,
and she told me ; she took me so by surprise, I had
nothing to say. I wish I had thought of something
very sharp and sarcastic ; I daresay I shall to-night.
And Lady Glenmire is but the widow of a Scotch
baron, after all ! I went on to look at Mrs. Forrester's
Peerage, to see who this lady was, that is to be kept
under a glass case ; widow of a Scotch peer — never
112 CRANFORD ^
sat in the House of Lords — and as poor as Job, I
daresay ; and she — fifth daughter of some Mr.
Campbell or other. You are the daughter of a rector,
at any rate, and related to the Arleys ; and Sir Peter
might have been Viscount Arley, everyone says."
Miss Matty tried to soothe Miss Pole, but in vain.
That lady, usually so kind and good-humoured, was
now in a full flow of anger.
" And I went and ordered a cap this morning, to
be quite ready," said she at last, letting out the secret
which gave sting to Mrs. Jamieson's intimation. " Mrs.
Jamieson shall see if it is so easy to get me to make
fourth at a pool when she has none of her fine Scotch
relations with her ! "
In coming out of church, the first Sunday on which
Lady Glenmire appeared in Cranford, we sedulously
talked together, and turned our backs on Mrs. Jamie-
son and her guest. If we might not call on her, we
would not even look at her, though we were dying
with curiosity to know what she was like. We had the
comfort of questioning Martha in the afternoon.
Martha did not belong to a sphere of society whose
observation could be an implied compliment to Lady
Glenmire, and Martha had made good use of her
eyes.
" Well, ma'am ! is it the little lady with Mrs.
Jamieson, you mean ? I thought you would like more
to know how young Mrs. Smith was dressed, her being
a bride." (Mrs. Smith was the butcher's wife.)
Miss Pole said, " Good gracious me ! as if we cared
about a Mrs. Smith ; " but was silent as Martha
resumed her speech.
" The little lady in Mrs. Jamieson's pew had on.
ma'am, rather an old black silk, and a shepherd's plaid
cloak, ma'am, and very bright black eyes she had,
"YOUR LADYSHIP" 113
ma'am, and a pleasant, sharp face ; not over young,
ma'am, but yet, I should guess, younger than Mrs.
Jamieson herself. She looked up and down the church,
like a bird, and nipped up her petticoats, when she
came out, as quick and sharp as ever I see. I'll tell you
what, ma'am, she's more like Mrs. Deacon, at the
' Coach and Horses,' nor anyone."
" Hush, Martha ! " said Miss Matty, " that's not
respectful."
" Isn't it, ma'am ? I beg pardon, I'm sure ; but
Jem Hearn said so as well. He said, she was just such
a sharp, stirring sort of a body "
" Lady," said Miss Pole.
" Lady — as Mrs. Deacon."
Another Sunday passed away, and we still averted
our eyes from Mrs. Jamieson and her guest, and made
remarks to ourselves that we thought were very
severe — almost too much so. Miss Matty was evi-
dently uneasy at our sarcastic manner of speaking.
Perhaps by this time Lady Glenmire had found out
that Mrs. Jamieson's was not the gayest, liveliest
house in the world ; perhaps Mrs. Jamieson had found
out that most of the county families were in London,
and that those who remained in the country were not
so alive as they might have been to the circumstance of
Lady Glenmire being in their neighbourhood. Great
events spring out of small causes ; so I will not pretend
to say what induced Mrs. Jamieson to alter her deter-
mination of excluding the Cranford ladies, and send
notes of invitation all round for a small party on the
following Tuesday. Mr. Mulliner himself brought
them round. He would always ignore the fact of there
being a back-door to any house, and gave a louder
rat-tat than his mistress, Mrs. Jamieson. He had
three little notes, which he carried in a large basket,
114 CRANFORD
in order to impress his mistress with an idea of their
great weight, though they might easily have gone into
his waistcoat pocket.
Miss Matty and I quietly decided we would have a
previous engagement at home : it was the evening
on which Miss Matty usually made candle-lighters of
all the notes and letters of the week ; for on Mondays
her accounts were always made straight — not a penny
owing from the week before ; so, by a natural arrange-
ment, making candle-lighters fell upon a Tuesday
evening, and gave us a legitimate excuse for declining
Mrs. Jamieson's invitation. But before our answer
was written, in came Miss Pole, with an open note in
her hand.
" So ! " she said. " Ah ! I see you have got your
note, too. Better late than never. I could have told
my Lady Glenmire she would be glad enough of our
society before a fortnight was over."
" Yes," said Miss Matty, " we're asked for Tuesday
evening. And perhaps you would just kindly bring
your work across and drink tea with us that night ?
It is my usual regular time for looking over the last
week's bills, and notes, and letters, and making candle-
lighters of them ; but that does not seem quite reason
enough for saying I have a previous engagement at
home, though I meant to make it do. Now, if you
would come, my conscience would be quite at ease,
and luckily the note is not written yet."
I saw Miss Pole's countenance change while Miss
Matty was speaking.
" Don't you mean to go, then ? " asked she.
" Oh no ! " said Miss Matty quietly. " You don't
either, I suppose ? "
" I don't know," replied Miss Pole. " Yes, I think
I do," said she, rather briskly ; and on seeing Miss
"YOUR LADYSHIP" 115
Matty looked surprised, she added, " You see, one
would not like Mrs. Jamieson to think that anything
she could do, or say, was of consequence enough to
give offence ; it would be a kind of letting down of
ourselves, that I, for one, should not like. It would
be too flattering to Mrs. Jamieson if we allowed her to
suppose that what she had said affected us a week, nay
ten days afterwards."
" Well ! I suppose it is wrong to be hurt and an-
noyed so long about anything ; and perhaps, after all,
she did not mean to vex us. But I must say, I could
not have brought myself to say the things Mrs.
Jamieson did about our not calling. I really don't
think I shall go."
" Oh, come ! Miss Matty, you must go ; you know
our friend Mrs. Jamieson is much more phlegmatic
than most people, and does not enter into the little
delicacies of feeling which you possess in so remarkable
a degree."
" I thought you possessed them too, that day Mrs.
Jamieson called to tell us not to go," said Miss Matty
innocently.
But Miss Pole, in addition to her delicacies of feel-
ing, possessed a very smart cap, which she was anxious
to show to an admiring world ; and so she seemed to
forget all her angry words uttered not a fortnight
before, and to be ready to act on what she called the
great Christian principle of " Forgive and forget " ;
and she lectured dear Miss Matty so long on this head,
that she absolutely ended by assuring her it was her
duty, as a deceased rector's daughter, to buy a new
cap and go to the party at Mrs. Jamieson's. So " we
were most happy to accept," instead of " regretting
that we were obliged to decline."
The expenditure on dress in Cranford was princi-
ii6 CRANFORD
pally in that one article referred to. If the heads
were buried in smart new caps, the ladies were like
ostriches, and cared not what became of their bodies.
Old gowns, white and venerable collars, any number of
brooches, up and down and everywhere (some with
dogs' eyes painted in them ; some that were like small
picture-frames with mausoleums and weeping-willows
neatly executed in hair inside ; some, again, with
miniatures of ladies and gentlemen sweetly smiling
out of a nest of stiff muslin), old brooches for a perma-
nent ornament, and new caps to suit the fashion of
the day — the ladies of Cranford always dressed with
chaste elegance and propriety, as Miss Barker once
prettily expressed it.
And with three new caps, and a greater array of
brooches than had ever been seen together at one
time since Cranford was a town, did Mrs. Forrester,
and Miss Matty, and Miss Pole appear on that memor-
able Tuesday evening. I counted seven brooches
myself on Miss Pole's dress. Two were fixed negli-
gently in her cap (one was a butterfly made of Scotch
pebbles, which a vivid imagination might believe to
be the real insect) ; one fastened her net neck-
kerchief ; one her collar ; one ornamented the front
of her gown, midway between her throat and waist ;
and another adorned the point of her stomacher.
Where the seventh was I have forgotten, but it was
somewhere about her, I am sure.
But I am getting on too fast, in describing the
dresses of the company. I should first relate the
gathering on the way to Mrs. Jamieson's. That lady
lived in a large house just outside the town. A road,
which had know what it was to be a street, ran right
before the house, which opened out upon it without
any intervening garden or court. Whatever the sun
"YOUR LADYSHIP" 117
was about, he never shone on the front of that house.
To be sure, the living-rooms were at the back, looking
on to a pleasant garden ; the front windows only-
belonged to kitchens and housekeeper's rooms and
pantries, and in one of them Mr. MuUiner was re-
ported to sit. Indeed, looking askance, we often saw
the back of a head covered with hair powder, which
also extended itself over his coat-collar down to his
very waist ; and this imposing back was always
engaged in reading the St. Jameses Chronicle, opened
wide, which, in some degree, accounted for the length
of time the said newspaper was in reaching us — equal
subscribers with Mrs. Jamieson, though, in right of
her honourableness, she always had the reading of it
first. This very Tuesday, the delay in forwarding the
last number had been particularly aggravating ; just
when both Miss Pole and Miss Matty, the former
more especially, had been wanting to see it, in order
to coach up the Court news ready for the evening's
interview with aristocracy. Miss Pole told us she had
absolutely taken time by the forelock, and been dressed
by five o'clock, in order to be ready if the St. Jameses
Chronicle should come in at the last moment — the
very St. Jameses Chronicle which the powdered head
was tranquilly and composedly reading as we passed
the accustomed window this evening. ^
" The impudence of the man ! " said Miss Pole
in a low, indignant whisper. " I should like to ask
him whether his mistress pays her quarter-share for
his exclusive use."
We looked at her in admiration of the courage of
her thought ; for Mr. MulHner was an object of great
awe to all of us. He seemed never to have forgotten
his condescension in coming to live at Cranford.
Miss Jenkyns, at times, had stood forth as the un-
ii8 CRANFORD
daunted champion of her sex, and spoken to him on
terms of equality ; but even Miss Jenkyns could get
no higher. In his pleasantest and most gracious moods
he looked like a sulky cockatoo. He did not speak
except in gruff monosyllables. He would wait in the
hall when we begged him not to wait, and then look
deeply offended because we had kept him there, while,
with trembling, hasty hands we prepared ourselves
for appearing in company.
Miss Pole ventured on a small joke as we went up-
stairs, intended, though addressed to us, to afford Mr.
Mulliner some slight amusement. We all smiled, in
order to seem as if we felt at our ease, and timidly
looked for Mr. Mulhner's sympathy. Not a muscle
of that wooden face had relaxed ; and we were grave
in an instant.
Mrs. Jamieson's drawing-room was cheerful ; the
evening sun came streaming into it, and the large
square window was clustered round with flowers.
The furniture was white and gold ; not the later
style, Louis-Quatorze, I think they call it, all shells
and twirls ; no, Mrs. Jamieson's chairs and tables had
not a curve or bend about them. The chair and table
legs diminished as they neared the ground, and were
straight and square in all their corners. The chairs
were all a-row against the walls, with the exception
of four or five which stood in a circle round the fire.
They were railed with white bars across the back, and
knobbed with gold ; neither the railings nor the knobs
invited to ease. There was a japanned table devoted
to literature, on which lay a Bible, a Peerage, and a
Prayer-Book. There was another square Pembroke
table dedicated to the Fine Arts, on which were a
kaleidoscope, conversation-cards, puzzle-cards (tied
together to an interminable length with faded pink
"YOUR LADYSHIP" 119
satin ribbon), and a box painted in fond imitation
of the drawings which decorate tea-chests. Carlo lay-
on the worsted-worked rug, and ungraciously barked
at us as we entered. Mrs. Jamieson stood up, giving
us each a torpid smile of welcome, and looking help-
lessly beyond us at Mr. Mulliner, as if she hoped he
would place us in chairs, for, if he did not, she never
could. I suppose he thought we could find our way
to the circle round the fire, which reminded me of
Stonehenge, I don't know why. Lady Glenmire came
to the rescue of our hostess, and, somehow of other,
we found ourselves for the first time placed agreeably
and not formally, in Mrs. Jamieson's house. Lady
Glenmire, now we had time to look at her, proved to
be a bright little woman of middle age, who had been
very pretty in the days of her youth, and who was
even yet very pleasant-looking. I saw Miss Pole
appraising her dress in the first five minutes, and I take
her word when she said the next day —
" My dear ! ten pounds would have purchased
every stitch she had on — lace and all."
It was pleasant to suspect that a peeress could be
poor, and partly reconciled us to the fact that her
husband had never sat in the House of Lords ; which,
when we first heard of it, seemed a kind of swindling
us out of our respect on false pretences ; a sort of
" A Lord and No Lord " business.
We were all very silent at first. We were thinking
what we could talk about, that should be high enough
to interest My Lady. There had been a rise in the
price of sugar, which, as preserving-time was near,
was a piece of intelligence to all our housekeeping
hearts, and would have been the natural topic if Lady
Glenmire had not been by. But we were not sure if
the peerage ate preserves — much less knew how they
I20 CRANFORD
were made. At last, Miss Pole, who had always a
great deal of courage and savoir faire, spoke to Lady
Glenmire, who on her part had seemed just as much
puzzled to know how to break the silence as we were.
" Has your ladyship been to Court lately ? " asked
she ; and then gave a little glance round at us, half
timid and half triumphant, as much as to say, " See
how judiciously I have chosen a subject befiting the
rank of the stranger."
" I never was there in my life," said Lady Glenmire,
with a broad Scotch accent, but in a very sweet voice.
And then, as if she had been too abrupt, she added :
" We very seldom went to London — only twice, in
fact, during all my married life ; and before I was
married my father had far too large a family "
(fifth daughter of Mr. Campbell was in all our minds,
I am sure) " to take us often from our home, even to
Edinburgh. Ye'U have been in Edinburgh, maybe ? "
said she, suddenly brightening up with the hope of a
common interest. We had none of us been there ;
but Miss Pole had an uncle who once had passed a
night there, which was very pleasant.
Mrs. Jamieson, meanwhile, was absorbed in wonder
why Mr. Mulliner did not bring the tea ; and at length
the wonder oozed out of her mouth.
" I had better ring the bell, my dear, had not I ? "
said Lady Glenmire briskly.
" No — I think not — Mulliner does not like to be
hurried."
We should have liked our tea, for we dined at an
earlier hour than Mrs. Jamieson. I suspect Mr. Mul-
liner had to finish the St. James's Chronicle before he
chose to trouble himself about tea. His mistress
fidgeted and fidgeted, and kept saying, " I can't think
why Mulliner does not bring tea. I can't think what
"YOUR LADYSHIP" 121
he can be about." And Lady Glenmire at last grew
quite impatient, but it was a pretty kind of impatience
after all ; and she rang the bell rather sharply, on
receiving a half-permission from her sister-in-law to
do so. Mr. Mulliner appeared in dignified surprise.
" Oh ! " said Mrs. Jamieson, " Lady Glenmire rang
the bell ; I believe it was for tea."
In a few minutes tea was brought. Very delicate
was the china, very old the plate, very thin the bread
and butter, and very small the lumps of sugar. Sugar
was evidently Mrs. Jamieson's favourite economy. I
question if the little filigree sugar-tongs, made some-
thing like scissors, could have opened themselves wide
enough to take up an honest, vulgar, good-sized piece ;
and when I tried to seize two little minnikin pieces at
once, so as not to be detected in too many returns to
the sugar-basin, they absolutely dropped one, with a
little sharp clatter, quite in a malicious and unnatural
manner. But before this happened, we had had a
slight disappointment. In the little silver jug was
cream, in the larger one was milk. As soon as Mr.
Mulliner came in. Carlo began to beg, which was a
thing our manners forbade us to do, though I am sure
we were just as hungry ; and Mrs. Jamieson said she
was certain we would excuse her if she gave her poor
dumb Carlo his tea first. She accordingly mixed a
saucerful for him, and put it down for him to lap ;
and then she told us how intelligent and sensible the
dear little fellow was ; he knew cream quite well, and
constantly refused tea with only milk in it : so the
milk was left for us ; but we silently thought we were
quite as intelligent and sensible as Carlo, and felt as if
insult were added to injury when we were called upon
to admire the gratitude evinced by his wagging his
tail for the cream which should have been ours.**
122 CRANFORD
After tea we thawed down into common-life sub-
jects. We were thankful to Lady Glenmire for having
proposed some more bread and butter, and this mutual
want made us better acquainted with her than we
should ever have been with talking about the Court,
though Miss Pole did say she had hoped to know how
the dear Queen was from someone who had seen her.
The friendship begun over bread and butter ex-
tended on to cards. Lady Glenmire played Prefer-
ence to admiration, and was a complete authority as
to Ombre and Quadrille. Even Miss Pole quite forgot
to say " my lady," and " your ladyship," and said
*' Basto ! ma'am ; " " you have Spadille, I believe,'*
just as quietly as if we had never held the great Cran-*
ford parliament on the subject of the proper mode of'
addressing a peeress.
As a proof of how thoroughly we had forgotten that
we were in the presence of one who might have sat
down to tea with a coronet, instead of a cap, on her
head, Mrs. Forrester related a curious little fact to
Lady Glenmire — an anecdote known to the circle of
her intimate friends, but of which even Mrs. Jamieson
was not aware. It related to some fine old lace, the
sole relic of better days, which Lady Glenmire was
admiring on Mrs. Forrester's collar.
" Yes," said that lady, " such lace cannot be got
now for either love or money ; made by the nuns
abroad, they tell me. They say that they can't make
it now, even there. But perhaps they can now they've
passed the Catholic Emancipation Bill. I should not
wonder. But, in the meantime, I treasure up my lace
very much. I daren't even trust the washing of it to
my maid " (the little charity school-girl I have named
before, but who sounded well as " my maid "). " I
always wash it myself. And once it had a narrow
"YOUR LADYSHIP" 123
escape. Of course, your ladyship knows that such lace
must never be starched or ironed. Some people wash
it in sugar and water, and some in coffee, to make it
the right yellow colour ; but I myself have a very
good receipt for washing it in milk, which stiffens it
enough, and gives it a very good creamy colour. Well,
ma'am, I had tacked it together (and the beauty of
this fine lace is that, when it is wet, it goes into a very
little space), and put it to soak in milk, when, unfortu-
nately, I left the room ; on my return, I found pussy
on the table, looking very like a thief, but gulping very
uncomfortably, as if she was half-choked with some-
thing she wanted to swallow and could not. And,
would you believe it ? At first I pitied her, and said
* Poor pussy ! poor pussy ! ' till, all at once, I looked
and saw the cup of milk empty — cleaned out ! ' You
naughty cat ! ' said I ; and I believe I was provoked
enough to give her a slap, which did no good, but only
helped the lace down — just as one slaps a choking
child on the back. I could have cried, I was so vexed ;
but I determined I would not give the lace up without
a struggle for it. I hoped the lace might disagree with
her, at any rate ; but it would have been too much
for Job, if he had seen, as I did, that cat come in, quite
placid and purring, not a quarter of an hour after,
and almost expecting to be stroked. * No, pussy ! *
said I, ' if you have any conscience you ought not to
expect that ! ' And then a thought struck me ; and
I rang the bell for my maid, and sent her to Mr.
Hoggins, with my compliments, and would he be
kind enough to lend me one of his top-boots for an
hour ? I did not think there was anything odd in the
message ; but Jenny said the young men in the surgery
laughed as if they would be ill at my wanting a top-
boot. When it came, Jenny and I put pussy in, with
124 CRANFORD
her fore- feet straight down, so that they were fastened,
and could not scratch, and we gave her a teaspoonful
of currant-jelly in which (your ladyship must excuse
me) I had mixed some tartar emetic. I shall never
forget how anxious I was for the next half hour. I
took pussy to my own room, and spread a clean towel
on the floor. I could have kissed her when she returned
the lace to sight, very much as it had gone down.
Jenny had boiling water ready, and we soaked it and
soaked it, and spread it on a lavender-bush in the sun
before I could touch it again, even to put in milk. But
now your ladyship would never guess that it had been
in pussy's inside."
We found out, in the course of the evening, that
Lady Glenmire was going to pay Mrs. Jamieson a long
visit, as she had given up her apartments in Edinburgh,
and had no ties to take her back there in a hurry. On
the whole, we were rather glad to hear this, for she
had made a pleasant impression upon us ; and it was
also very comfortable to find, from things which
dropped out in the course of conversation, that, in
, addition to many other genteel qualities, she was far
removed from the " vulgarity of wealth."
" Don't you find it very unpleasant walking ? "
asked Mrs. Jamieson, as our respective servants were
announced. It was a pretty regular question from
Mrs. Jamieson, who had her own carriage in the coach-
house, and always went out in a sedan-chair to the
very shortest distances. The answers were nearly as
much a matter of course.
" Oh dear, no ! it is so pleasant and still at night ! "
" Such a refreshment after the excitement of a party ! "
" The stars are so beautiful ! " This last was from
Miss Matty.
"Are you fond of astronomy? " Lady Glenmire asked.
"YOUR LADYSHIP" 125
" Not very," replied Miss Matty, rather confused
at the moment to remember which was astronomy
and which was astrology ; but the answer was true
under either circumstance, for she read, and was
slightly alarmed at Francis Moore's astrological pre-
dictions ;^® and as to astronomy, in a private and con-
fidential conversation, she had told me she never could
believe that the earth was moving constantly, and that
she would not believe it if she could, it made her feel
so tired and dizzy whenever she thought about it.
In our pattens we picked our way home with extra
care that night, so refined and delicate were our
perceptions after drinking tea with " my lady."
i
J/le
ffaCCery
CHAPTER IX"
SIGNOR BRUNONI
COON after the events of which I gave an account
^ in my last paper, I was summoned home by my
father's illness ; and for a time I forgot, in anxiety
about him, to wonder how my dear friends at Cranford
were getting on, or how Lady Glenmire could reconcile
herself to the dulness of the long visit which she was
still paying to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Jamieson. When
my father grew a little stronger I accompanied him to
the seaside, so that altogether I seemed banished from
Cranford, and was deprived of the opportunity of
hearing any chance intelligence of the dear little town
for the greater part of that year.
Late in November — when we had returned home
again, and my father was once more in good health —
I received a letter from Miss Matty ; and a very
mysterious letter it was. She began" many sentences
without ending them, running them into one another,
in much the same confused sort of way in which
126
^fuStacTS^The^eo^e
SIGNOR BRUNONI 129
written words run together on blotting-paper. All
I could make out was that, if my father was better
(which she hoped he was), and would take warning
and wear a greatcoat from Michaelmas to Lady-day,
if turbans were in fashion, could I tell her ? Such a
piece of gaiety was going to happen as had not been
seen or known of since Wombwell's lions came, ®^ when
one of them ate a little child's arm ; and she was,
perhaps, too old to care about dress, but a new cap
she must have ; and, having heard that turbans were
worn, and some of the county families likely to come,
she would like to look tidy, if I would bring her a cap
from the milliner I employed ; and, oh dear ! how
careless of her to forget that she wrote to beg I would
come and pay her a visit next Tuesday ; when she
hoped to have something to offer me in the way of
amusement, which she would not now more particu-
larly describe, only sea-green was her favourite colour.
So she ended her letter ; but in a PS. she added, she
thought she might as well tell me what was the
peculiar attraction to Crariford just now : Signer
Brunoni was going to exhibit his wonderful magic in
the Cranford Assembly Rooms on Wednesday and
Friday evening in the following week.
I was very glad to accept the invitation from my
dear Miss Matty, independently of the conjuror, and
most particularly anxious to prevent her from dis-
figuring her small, gentle, mousey face with a great
Saracen's head turban ; and, accordingly, I brought
her a pretty, neat, middle-aged cap, which, however,
was rather a disappointment to her, when, on my
arrival, she followed me into my bedroom, ostensibly to
poke the fire, but in reahty, I do believe, to see if the
sea-green turban was not inside the cap-box with which
I had travelled. It was in vain that I twirled the cap
130 CRANFORD
round on my hand to exhibit back and side fronts :
her heart had been set upon a turban, and all she could
do was to say, with resignation in her look and voice —
" I am sure you did your best, my dear. It is just
like the caps all the ladies in Cranford are wearing,
and they have had theirs for a year, I daresay. I
should have liked something newer, I confess — some-
thing more like the turbans Miss Betty Barker tells me
Queen Adelaide*^ wears, but it is very pretty, my dear.
And I daresay lavender will wear better than sea-
green. Well, after all, what is dress, that we should
care about it ? You'll tell me if you want anything,
my dear. Here is the bell. I suppose turbans have
not got down to Drumble yet ? "
So saying, the dear old lady gently bemoaned her-
self out of the room, leaving me to dress for the
evening, when, as she informed me, she expected
Miss Pole and Mrs. Forrester, and she hoped I should
not feel myself too much tired to join the party. Of
course I should not ; and I made some haste to un-
pack and arrange my dress ; but, with all my speed,
I heard the arrivals and the buzz of conversation in
the next room before I was ready. Just as I opened
the door, I caught the words, " I was foolish to expect
anything very genteel out of the Drumble shops ;
poor girl ! she did her best, I've no doubt." But, for
all that, I had rather that she blamed Drumble and me
than disfigured herself with a turban.
Miss Pole was always the person, in the trio of Cran-
ford ladies now assembled, to have had adventures.
She was in the habit of spending the morning in ramb-
ling from shop to shop, not to purchase anything
(except an occasional reel of cotton, or a piece of tape),
but to see the new articles and report upon them, and
to collect all the stray pieces of intelligence in the
SIGNOR BRUNONI 131
town. She had a way, too, of demurely popping
hither and thither into all sorts of places to gratify
her curiosity on any point — a way which, if she had
not looked so very genteel and prim, might have been
considered impertinent. And now, by the expressive
way in which she cleared her throat, and waited for
all minor subjects (such as caps and turbans) to be
cleared off the course, we knew she had something
very particular to relate, when the due pause came —
and I defy any people, possessed of common modesty,
to keep up a conversation long, where one among them
sits up aloft in silence, looking down upon all the things
they chance to say as trivial and contemptible com-
pared to what they could disclose, if properly entreated.
Miss Pole began —
" As I was stepping out of Gordon's shop to-day,
I chanced to go into the ' George ' (my Betty has a
second cousin who is chambermaid there, and I thought
Betty would like to hear how she was), and, not seeing
anyone about, I strolled up the staircase, and found
myself in the passage leading to the Assembly Room
(you and I remember the Assembly Room, I am sure.
Miss Matty ! and the minuets de la cour !) ; so I went
on, not thinking of what I was about, when, all at
once, I perceived that I was in the middle of the
preparations for to-morrow night — the room being
divided with great clothes-maids, over which Crosby's
men were tacking red flannel ; very dark and odd it
seemed ; it quite bewildered me, and I was going on
behind the screens, in my absence of mind, when a
gentleman (quite the gentleman, I can assure you)
stepped forwards and asked if I had any business he
could arrange for me. He spoke such pretty broken
English, I could not help thinking of Thaddeus of
Warsaw and the Hungarian Brothers, and Santo
132 CRANFORD
Sebastiani;'" and while I was busy picturing his past
life to myself, he had bowed me out of the room. But
wait a minute ! You have not heard half my story yet !
I was going downstairs, when who should I meet but
Betty's second cousin. So, of course, I stopped to
speak to her for Betty's sake ; and she told me that
I had really seen the conjuror — the gentleman who
spoke broken English was Signer Brunoni himself.
Just at this moment he passed us on the stairs, making
such a graceful bow ! in reply to which I dropped a
curtsey — all foreigners have such polite manners, one
catches something of it. But, when he had gone down-
stairs, I bethought me that I had dropped my glove
in the Assembly Room (it was safe in my muff all the
time, but I never found it till afterwards) ; so I went
back, and just as I was creeping up the passage left on
one side of the great screen that goes nearly across the
room, who should I see but the very same gentleman
that had met me before, and passed me on the stairs,
coming now forwards from the inner part of the room,
to which there is no entrance — you remember. Miss
Matty — and just repeating, in his pretty broken
English, the inquiry if I had any business there — I
don't mean that he put it quite so bluntly, but he
seemed very determined that I should not pass the
screen — so, of course, I explained about my glove,
which, curiously enough, I found at that very
moment."
Miss Pole, then, had seen the conjuror — the real,
live conjuror ! and numerous were the questions we
all asked her. " Had he a beard ? " " Was he yotmg,
or old ? " " Fair, or dark ? " " Did he look "—(un-
able to shape my question prudently, I put it in another
form) — " How did he look ? " In short, Miss Pole
was the heroine of the evening, owing to her morning's
SIGNOR BRUNONI 133
encounter. If she was not the rose (that is to say, the
conjuror), she had been near it.
Conjuration, sleight of hand, magic, witchcraft,
were the subjects of the evening. Miss Pole was
slightly sceptical, and inclined to think there might
be a scientific solution found for even the proceed-
ings of the Witch of Endor.'^^ Mrs. Forrester believed
everything, from ghosts to death-watches. Miss Matty
ranged between the two — always convinced by the
last speaker. I think she was naturally more inclined
to Mrs. Forrester's side, but a desire of proving herself
a worthy sister to Miss Jenkyns kept her equally
balanced — Miss Jenkyns, who would never allow a
servant to call the little rolls of tallow that formed
themselves round candles " winding-sheets," but in-
sisted on their being spoken of as " roley-poleys ! "
A sister of hers to be superstitious ! It would never do.
After tea, I was despatched downstairs into the
dining-parlour for that volume of the old Encyclo-
pedia which contained the nouns beginning with C,
in order that Miss Pole might prime herself with
scientific explanations for the tricks of the following
evening. It spoilt the pool at Preference which Miss
Matty and Mrs. Forrester had been looking forward
to, for Miss Pole became so absorbed in her subject,
and the plates by which it was illustrated, that we
felt it would be cruel to disturb her otherwise than by
one or two well-timed yawns, which I threw in now
and then, for I was really touched by the meek way
in which the two ladies were bearing their disappoint-
ment. But Miss Pole only read the more zealously,
imparting to us no more interesting information than
this : —
" Ah ! I see ; I comprehend perfectly. A repre-
sents the ball. Put A between B and D — no ! between
134 CRANFORD
C and F, and turn the second joint of the third finger
of your left hand over the wrist of your right H.
Very clear indeed ! My dear Mrs. Forrester, conjur-
ing and witchcraft is a mere affair of the alphabet.
Do let me read you this one passage ! "
Mrs. Forrester implored Miss Pole to spare her,
saying, from a child upwards, she never could under-
stand being read aloud to ; and I dropped the pack of
cards, which I had been shuffling very audibly, and
by this discreet movement I obliged Miss Pole to
perceive that Preference was to have been the order
of the evening, and to propose, rather unwillingly,
that the pool should commence. The pleasant bright-
ness that stole over the other two ladies' faces on this !
Miss Matty had one or two twinges of self-reproach
for having interrupted Miss Pole in her studies, and
did not remember her cards well, or give her full
attention to the game, until she had soothed her con-
science by offering to lend the volume of the Encyclo-
paedia to Miss Pole, who accepted it thankfully, and
said Betty should take it home when she came with
the lantern.
The next evening we were all in a little gentle
flutter at the idea of the gaiety before us. Miss Matty
went up to dress betimes, and hurried me until I was
ready, when we found we had an hour and a half to
wait before the " doors opened at seven precisely."
And we had only twenty yards to go ! However, as
Miss Matty said, it would not do to get too much
absorbed in anything, and forget the time ; so she
thought we had better sit quietly, without lighting
the candles, till five minutes to seven. So Miss Matty
dozed, and I knitted.
At length we set off ; and at the door, under the
carriage-way at the " George," we met Mrs. Forrester
SIGNOR BRUNONI 135
and Miss Pole : the latter was discussing the subject of
the evening with more vehemence than ever, and
throwing A's and B's at our heads like hailstones. She
had even copied one or two of the " receipts " — as she
called them — for the different tricks, on backs of letters
ready to explain and to detect Signor Brunoni's arts.
We went into the cloak-room [see frontispiece] adjoin-
ing the Assembly Room ; Miss Matty gave a sigh or two
to her departed youth, and the remembrance of the last
time she had been there, as she adjusted her pretty new
cap before the strange, quaint old mirror in the cloak-
room. The Assembly Room had been added to the
inn, about a hundred years before, by the different
county families, who met together there once a month
during the winter to dance and play at cards. Many
a county beauty had first swum through the minuet
that she afterwards danced before Queen Charlotte in
this very room. It was said that one of the Gunnings'^
had graced the apartment with her beauty ; it was cer-
tain that a rich and beautiful widow, Lady Williams^
had here been smitten with the noble figure of a young
artist, "3 who was staying with some family in the neigh-
bourhood for professional purposes, and accompanied
his patrons to the Cranford Assembly. And a pretty
bargain poor Lady Williams had of her handsome
husband, if all tales were true. Now, no beauty
blushed and dimpled along the sides of the Cranford
Assembly Room ; no handsome artist won hearts by
his bow, chapeau bras in hand ; the old room was
dingy ; the salmon-coloured paint had faded into a
drab ; great pieces of plaster had chipped off from the
white wreaths and festoons on its walls ; but still a
mouldy odour of aristocracy lingered about the place,
and a dusty recollection of the days that were gone
made Miss Matty and Mrs. Forrester bridle up as they
136 CRANFORD
entered, and walk mincingly up the room, as if there
were a number of genteel observers, instead of two
little boys with a stick of toffy between them with
which to beguile the time.
We stopped short at the second front row ; I could
hardly understand why, until I heard Miss Pole ask a
stray waiter if any of the county families were expected;
and when he shook his head, and believed not, Mrs.
Forrester and Miss Matty moved forwards, and our
party represented a conversational square. The front
row was soon augmented and enriched by Lady
Glenmire and Mrs. Jamieson. We six occupied the
two front rows, and our aristocratic seclusion was
respected by the groups of shopkeepers who strayed
in from time to time and huddled together on the
back benches. At least I conjectured so, from the
noise they made, and the sonorous bumps they gave
in sitting down ; but when, in weariness of the obsti-
nate green curtain that would not draw up, but would
stare at me with two odd eyes, seen through holes,
as in the old tapestry story, I would fain have looked
round at the merry chattering people behind me. Miss
Pole clutched my arm, and begged me not to turn,
for " it was not the thing." What " the thing " was,
I never could find out, but it must have been some-
thing eminently dull and tiresome. However, we all
sat eyes right, square front, gazing at the tantalising
curtain, and hardly speaking intelligibly, we were so
afraid of being caught in the vulgarity of making any
noise in a place of public amusement. Mrs. Jamieson
was the most fortunate, for she fell asleep.
At length the eyes disappeared — the curtain
quivered — one side went up before the other, which
stuck fast ; it was dropped again, and, with a fresh
effort, and a vigorous pull from some unseen hand, it
SIGNOR BRUNONI 137
flew up, revealing to our sight a magnificent gentleman
in the Turkish costume, seated before a little table,
gazing at us (I should have said w^ith the same eyes
that I had last seen through the hole in the curtain)
with calm and condescending dignity, " like a being
of another sphere," as I heard a sentimental voice
ejaculate behind me.
" That's not Signer Brunoni ! " said Miss Pole
decidedly ; and so audibly that I am sure he heard,
for he glanced down over his flowing beard at our
party with an air of mute reproach. " Signer Brunoni
had no beard — but perhaps he'll come soon." So she
lulled herself into patience. Meanwhile, Miss Matty
had reconnoitred through her eye-glass, wiped it, and
looked again. Then she turned round, and said to me,
in a kind, mild, sorrowful tone —
" You see, my dear, turbans are worn."
But we had no time for more conversation. The
Grand Turk, as Miss Pole chose to call him, arose and
announced himself as Signor Brunoni.
" I don't believe him ! " exclaimed Miss Pole, in a
defiant manner. He looked at her again, with the same
dignified upbraiding in his countenance. " I don't ! "
she repeated more positively than ever. " Signor Bru-
noni had not got that muffy sort of thing about his chin,
but looked like a close-shaved Christian gentleman."
Miss Pole's energetic speeches had the good effect
of wakening up Mrs. Jamieson, who opened her eyes
wide, in sign of the deepest attention — a proceeding
which silenced Miss Pole and encouraged the Grand
Turk to proceed, which he did in very broken English
— so broken that there was no cohesion between the
parts of his sentences ; a fact which he himself per-
ceived at last, and so left oflf speaking and proceeded
to action.
138 CRANFORD
Now we zoere astonished. How he did his tricks
I could not imagine ; no, not even when Miss Pole
pulled out her pieces of paper and began reading aloud
— or at least in a very audible whisper — the separate
" receipts " for the most common of his tricks. If
ever I saw a man frown and look enraged, I saw the
Grand Turk frown at Miss Pole ; but, as she said, what
could be expected but unchristian looks from a Mussul-
man ? If Miss Pole were sceptical, and more engrossed
with her receipts and diagrams than with his tricks,
Miss Mattv and Mrs. Forrester were mystified and
perplexed to the highest degree. Mrs. Jamieson kept
taking her spectacles off and wiping them, as if she
thought it was something deceptive in them which
made the legerdemain ; and Lady Glenmire, who had
seen many curious sights in Edinburgh, was very much
struck with the tricks, and would not at all agree with
Miss Pole, who declared that anybody could do them
with a little practice, and that she would, herself,
undertake to do all he did, with two hours given to
study the Encyclopaedia, and make her third finger
flexible.
At last Miss Matty and Mrs. Forrester became per-
fectly awestricken. They whispered together. I
sat just behind them, so I could not help hearing
what they were saying. Miss Matty asked Mrs.
Forrester " if she thought it was quite right to have
come to see such things ? She could not help fearing
they were lending encouragement to something that
was not quite " A little shake of the head filled
up the blank. Mrs. Forrester replied, that the same
thought had crossed her mind ; she, too, was feeling
very uncomfortable, it was so very strange. She was
quite certain that it was her pocket-handkerchief
which was in that loaf just now ; and it had been in
SIGNOR BRUNONI 139
her own hand not five minutes before. She wondered
who had furnished the bread ? She was sure it could
not be Dakin, because he was the churchwarden.
Suddenly Miss Mattv half turned towards me —
" Will you look, my dear — you are a stranger in the
town, and it won't give rise to unpleasant reports —
will you just look round and see if the rector is here ?
If he is, I think we may conclude that this wonderful
man is sanctioned by the Church, and that will be a
great relief to my mind."
I looked, and I saw the tall, thin, dry, dusty rector,
sitting surrounded by National School '* boys, guarded
by troops of his own sex from any approach of the
many Cranford spinsters. His kind face was all agape
with broad smiles, and the boys around him were in
chinks'^ of laughing. I told Miss Matty that the
Church was smiling approval, which set her mind at
ease.
I have never named Mr. Hayter, the rector, because
I, as a well-to-do and happy young woman, never came
in contact with him. He was an old bachelor, but as
afraid of matrimonial reports getting abroad about
him as any girl of eighteen ; and he would rush into
a shop, or dive down an entry, sooner than encounter
any of the Cranford ladies in the street ; and as for
the Preference parties, I did not wonder at his not
accepting invitations to them. To tell the truth, I
always suspected Miss Pole of having given very
vigorous chase to Mr. Hayter when he first came to
Cranford ; and not the less because now she appeared
to share so vividly in his dread lest her name should
ever be coupled with his. He found all his interests
among the poor and helpless ; he had treated the
National School boys this very night to the perform-
ance ; and virtue was for once its own reward, for
140
CRANFORD
they guarded him right and left, and clung round
him as if he had been the queen-bee and they the
swarm. He felt so safe in their environment that he
could even afford to give our party a bow as we filed
out. Miss Pole ignored his presence, and pretended
to be absorbed in convincing us that we had been
cheated, and had not seen Signor Brunoni after all.
Cd-rna/re-uxjy
atr the'QepT^e
Qoss^awj
CHAPTER X
THE PANIC
T THINK a series of circumstances dated from
''■ Signer Brunoni's visit to Cranford, which seemed
at the time connected in our minds with him, though
I don't know that he had anything really to do with
them. All at once all sorts of uncomfortable rumours
got afloat in the town. There were one or two
robberies — real bona fide robberies ; men had up before
the magistrates and committed for trial — and that
seemed to make us all afraid of being robbed ; and for
a long time, at Miss Matty's, I know, we used to make
a regular expedition all round the kitchens and cellars
every night, Miss Matty leading the way, armed with
the poker, I following with the hearth-brush, and
Martha carrying the shovel and fireirons with which
to sound the alarm ; and by the accidental hitting
together of them she often frightened us so much that
141
142 CRANFORD
we bolted ourselves up, all three together, in the back
kitchen, or store-room, or wherever we happened to
be, till, when our affright was over, we recollected
ourselves, and set out afresh with double valiance.
By day we heard strange stories from the shopkeepers
and cottagers, of carts that went about in the dead of
night, drawn by horses shod with felt, and guarded by
men in dark clothes, going round the town, no doubt
in search of some unwatched house or some unfastened
door.
Miss Pole, who affected great bravery herself, was
the principal person to collect and arrange these reports,
so as to make them assume their most fearful .aspect.
But we discovered that she had begged one of Mr.
Hoggins's worn-out hats to hang up in her lobby, and
we (at least I) had doubts as to whether she really
would enjoy the little adventure of having her house
broken into, as she protested she should. Miss Matty
made no secret of being an arrant coward, but she
went regularly through her housekeeper's duty of
inspection — only the hour for this became earlier and
earlier, till at last we went the rounds at half-past six,
and Miss Matty adjourned to bed soon after seven,
" in order to get the night over the sooner."
Cranford had so long piqued itself on being an
honest and moral town, that it had grown to fancy
itself too genteel and well-bred to be otherwise, and
felt the stain upon its character at this time doubly.
But we comforted ourselves with the assurance which
we gave to each other, that the robberies could never
have been committed by any Cranford person ; it
must have been a stranger or strangers who brought
this disgrace upon the town, and occasioned as many
precautions as if we were living among the Red
Indians or the French.
THE PANIC 143
This last comparison of our nightly state of defence
and fortification was made by Mrs. Forrester, whose
father had served under General Burgoyne in the
American war, and whose husband had fought the
French in Spain. She indeed inclined to the idea
that, in some way, the French were connected with
the small thefts which were ascertained facts, and the
burglaries and highway robberies which were rumours.
She had been deeply impressed with the idea of
French spies at some time in her life ; and the notion
could never be fairly eradicated, but sprang up again
from time to time. And now her theory was this :
The Cranford people respected themselves too much,
and were too grateful to the aristocracy who were so
kind as to live near the town, ever to disgrace their
bringing up by being dishonest or immoral ; there-
fore, we must believe that the robbers were strangers
— if strangers, why not foreigners ? — if foreigners,
who so likely as the French ? Signer Brunoni spoke
broken English like a Frenchman ; and though he wore
a turban like a Turk, Mrs. Forrester had seen a print
of Madame de Stael with a turban on, and another of
Mr. Denon'^ in just such a dress as that in which the
conjuror had made his appearance, showing clearly
that the French, as well as the Turks, wore turbans.
There could be no doubt Signor Brunoni was a
Frenchman — a French spy come to discover the weak
and undefended places of England, and doubtless he
had his accomplices. For her part, she, Mrs. Forrester,
had always had her own opinion of Miss Pole's adven-
ture at the " George Inn " — seeing two men where
only one was believed to be. French people had ways
and means which, she was thankful to say, the English
knew nothing about ; and she had never felt quite
easy in her mind about going to see that conjuror — it
144 CRANFORD
was rather too much Hke a forbidden thing, though
the rector was there. In short, Mrs. Forrester grew
more excited than we had ever known her before,
and, being an officer's daughter and widow, we looked
up to her opinion, of course.
Really I do not know how much was true or false in
the reports which flew about like wildfire just at this
time ; but it seemed to me then that there was every
reason to believe that at Mardon (a small town about
eight miles from Cranford) houses and shops were
entered by holes made in the walls, the bricks being
silently carried away in the dead of the night, and all
done so quietly that no sound was heard either in or
out of the house. Miss Matty gave it up in despair
when she heard of this. " What was the use," said
she, " of locks and bolts, and bells to the windows,
and going round the house every night ? That last
trick was fit for a conjuror. Now she did believe that
Signor Brunoni was at the bottom of it."
One afternoon, about five o'clock, we were startled
by a hasty knock at the door. Miss Matty bade me
run and tell Martha on no account to open the door
till she (Miss Matty) had reconnoitred through the
window ; and she armed herself with a footstool to
drop down on the head of the visitor, in case he should
show a face covered with black crape, as he looked up
in answer to her inquiry of who was there. But it was
nobody but Miss Pole and Betty. The former came
upstairs, carrying a little hand-basket, and she was
evidently in a state of great agitation.
" Take care of that ! " said she to me, as I oflPered
to relieve her of her basket. " It's my plate. I am
sure there is a plan to rob my house to-night. I am
come to throw myself on your hospitality. Miss Matty.
Betty is going to sleep with her cousin at the ' George.'
THE PANIC 145
I can sit up here all night if you will allow me ; but
my house is so far from any neighbours, and I don't
believe we could be heard if we screamed ever
so!"
" But," said Miss Matty, " what has alarmed you
so much ? Have you seen any men lurking about the
house ? "
" Oh yes ! " answered Miss Pole. " Two very bad-
looking men have gone three times past the house,
very slowly ; and an Irish beggar-woman came not
half an hour ago, and all but forced herself in past
Betty, saying her children were starving, and. she must
speak to the mistress. You see, she said ' mistress,'
though there was a hat hanging up in the hall, and it
would have been more natural to have said ' master.'
But Betty shut the door in her face, and came up to
me, and we got the spoons together, and sat in the
parlour window watching till we saw Thomas Jones
going from his work, when we called to him and asked
him to take care of us into the town."
We might have triumphed over Miss Pole, who had
professed such bravery until she was frightened ;
but we were too glad to perceive that she shared in
the weaknesses of humanity to exult over her ; and
I gave up my room to her very willingly, and shared
Miss Matty's bed for the night. But before we
retired, the two ladies rummaged up, out of the
recesses of their memory, such horrid stories of robbery
and murder, that I quite quaked in my shoes. Miss
Pole was evidently anxious to prove that such terrible
events had occurred within her experience that she
was justified in her sudden panic ; and Miss Matty
did not like to be outdone, and capped every story with
one yet more horrible, till it reminded me, oddly
enough, of an old story I had read somewhere, of a
10
146 CRANFORD
nightingale and a musician, who strove one against
the other which could produce the most admirable
music, till poor Philomel dropped down dead.
One of the stories that haunted me for a long time
afterwards was of a girl who was left in charge of a
great house in Cumberland on some particular fair-
day, when the other servants all went off to the
gaieties. The family were away in London, and a
pedlar came by, and asked to leave his large and heavy
pack in the kitchen, saying he would call again for it
at night ; «nd the girl (a gamekeeper's daughter),
roaming about in search of amusement, chanced to
hit upon a gun hanging up in the hall, and took it down
to look at the chasing ; and it went off through the
open kitchen door, hit the pack, and a slow dark
thread of blood came oozing out. (How Miss Pole
enjoyed this part of the story, dwelling on each word
as if she loved it !) She rather hurried over the further
account of the girl's bravery, and I have but a con-
fused idea that, somehow, she baffled the robbers
with Italian irons, heated red-hot, and then restored
to blackness by being dipped in grease.
We parted for the night with an awestricken wonder
as to what we should hear of in the morning ; — and,
on my part, with a vehement desire for the night to
be over and gone : I was so afraid lest the robbers
should have seen, from some dark lurking-place, that
Miss Pole had carried off her plate, and thus have a
double motive for attacking our house.
But until Lady Glenmire came to call next day we
heard of nothing unusual. The kitchen fireirons were
in exactly the same position against the back door as
when Martha and Lhad skilfully piled them up, like
spillikins, ready to fall with an awful clatter if only a
cat had touched the outside panels. I had wondered
THE PANIC 147
what we should all do if thus awakened and alarmed,
and had proposed to Miss Matty that we should cover
up our faces under the bedclothes, so that there should
be no danger of the robbers thinking that we could
identify them ; but Miss Matty, who was trembling
very much, scouted this idea, and said we owed it
to society to apprehend them, and that she should
certainly do her best to lay hold of them and lock
them up in the garret till morning.
When Lady Glenmire came, we almost felt jealous
of her. Mrs.Jamieson's house had really been attacked;
at least there were men's footsteps to be seen on the
flower borders, underneath the kitchen windows,
" where nae men should be ; " and Carlo had barked
all through the night as if strangers were abroad.
Mrs. Jamieson had been awakened by Lady Glenmire,
and they had rung the bell which communicated with
Mr. Mulliner's room in the third storey, and when
his night-capped head had appeared over the banisters,
in answer to the summons, they had told him of their
alarm, and the reasons for it ; whereupon he retreated
into his bedroom, and locked the door (for fear of
draughts, as he informed them in the morning), and
opened the window, and called out valiantly to say,
if the supposed robbers would come to him he would
fight them ; but, as Lady Glenmire observed, that
was but poor comfort, since they would have to pass
by Mrs. Jamieson's room and her own before they could
reach him, and must be of a very pugnacious disposi-
tion indeed if they neglected the oportunities of
robbery presented by the unguarded lower storeys, to
go up to a garret, and there force a door, in order to
get at the champion of the house. Lady Glenmire,
after waiting and listening for some time in the
drawing-room, had proposed to Mrs. Jamieson that
148 CRANFORD
they should go to bed ; but that lady said she should
not feel comfortable unless she sat up and watched ;
and, accordingly, she packed herself warmly up on the
sofa, where she was found by the housemaid, when
she came into the room at six o'clock, fast asleep ;
but Lady Glenmire went to bed, and kept awake all
night.
When Miss Pole heard of this, she nodded her head
in great satisfaction. She had been sure we should
hear of something happening in Cranford that night ;
and we had heard. It was clear enough they had first
proposed to attack her house ; but when they saw
that she and Betty were on their guard, and had carried
off the plate, they had changed their tactics and gone
to Mrs. Jamieson's, and no one knew what might have
happened if Carlo had not barked, like a good dog as
he was !
Poor Carlo ! his barking days were nearly over.
Whether the gang who infested the neighbourhood
were afraid of him, or whether they were revengeful
enough, for the way in which he had baffled them on
the night in question, to poison him ; or whether,
as some among the more educated people thought,
he died of apoplexy, brought on by too much feeding
and too little exercise ; at any rate, it is certain that,
two days after this eventful night, Carlo was found
dead, with his poor little legs stretched out stiff in the
attitude of running, as if by such unusual exertion he
could escape the sure pursuer. Death.
We were all sorry for Carlo, the old familiar friend
who had snapped at us for so many years ; and the
mysterious mode of his death made us very uncom-
fortable. Could Signor Brunoni be at the bottom of
this ? He had apparently killed a canary with only a
word of command ; his will seemed of deadly force ;
THE PANIC 149
who knew but what he might yet be lingering in the
neighbourhood, willing all sorts of awful things !
We whispered these fancies among ourselves in the
evenings ; but in the mornings our courage came back
with the daylight, and in a week's time we had got
over the shock of Carlo's death — all but Mrs. Jamieson.
She, poor thing, felt it as she had felt no event since
her husband's death ; indeed. Miss Pole said that, as
the Honourable Mr. Jamieson drank a good deal, and
occasioned her much uneasiness, it was possible that
Carlo's death might be the greater affliction. But
there was always a tinge of cynicism in Miss Pole's
remarks. However, one thing was clear and certain —
it was necessary for Mrs, Jamieson to have some change
of scene ; and, Mr. Mulliner was very impressive on
this point, shaking his head whenever we inquired
after his mistress, and speaking of her loss of appetite
and bad nights very ominously ; and with justice too,
for if she had two characteristics in her natural state
of health, they were a facility of eating and sleeping.
H she could neither eat nor sleep, she must indeed be
out of spirits and out of health.
Lady Glenmire (who had evidently taken very
kindly to Cranford) did not like the idea of Mrs.
Jamieson's going to Cheltenham, and more than once
insinuated pretty plainly that it was Mr. MuUiner's
doing, who had been much alarmed on the occasion
of the house being attacked, and since had said, more
than once, that he felt it a very responsible charge to
have to defend so many women. Be that as it might,
Mrs. Jamieson went to Cheltenham, escorted by Mr.
Mulliner ; and Lady Glenmire remained in possession
of the house, her ostensible office being to take care
that the maid-servants did not pick up followers. She
made a very pleasant-looking dragon ; and as soon as
150 CRANFORD
it was arranged for her stay in Cranford, she found
out that Mrs. Jamieson's visit to Cheltenham was just
the best thing in the world. She had let her house in
Edinburgh, and was for the time houseless, so the
charge of her sister-in-law's comfortable abode was
very convenient and acceptable.
Miss Pole was very much inclined to install herself
as a heroine, because of the decided steps she had
taken in flying from the two men and one woman,
whom she entitled " that murderous gang." She
described their appearance in glowing colours, and I
noticed that every time she went over the story some
fresh trait of villainy was added to their appearance.
One was tall — he grew to be gigantic in height before
we had done with him ; he of course had black hair —
and by and by it hung in elf-locks over his forehead
and down his back. The other was short and broad
— and a hump sprouted out on his shoulder before we
heard the last of him ; he had red hair — which
deepened into carroty ; and she was almost sure he had
a cast in the eye — a decided squint. As for the
woman, her eyes glared, and she was masculine-
looking — a perfect virago ; most probably a man
dressed in woman's clothes : afterwards, we heard of
a beard on her chin, and a manly voice and a stride.
If Miss Pole was delighted to recount the events
of that afternoon to all inquirers, others were not so
proud of their adventures in the robbery line. Mr.
Hoggins, the surgeon, had been attacked at his own
door by two ruffians, who were concealed in the
shadow of the porch, and so effectually silenced him
that he was robbed in the interval between ringing
his bell and the servant's answering it. Miss Pole was
sure it would turn out that this robbery had been
committed by " her men," and went the very day she
THE PANIC 151
heard the report to have her teeth examined, and to
question Mr. Hoggins. She came to us afterwards ;
so we heard what she had heard, straight and direct
from the source, while we were yet in the excitement
and flutter of the agitation caused by the first intelH-
gence ; for the event had only occurred the night
before.
" Well ! " said Miss Pole, sitting down with the
decision of a person who has made up her mind as
to the nature of life and the world (and such people
never tread lightly, or seat themselves without a
bump), " well. Miss Matty ! men will be men. Every
mother's son of them wishes to be considered Samson
and Solomon rolled into one — too strong ever to be
beaten or discomfited — too wise ever to be outwitted.
li you will notice, they have always foreseen events,
though they never tell one for one's warning before
the events happen. My father was a man, and I know
the sex pretty well."
She had talked herself out of breath, and we should
have been very glad to fill up the necessary pause as
chorus, but we did not exactly know what to say, or
which man had suggested this diatribe against the sex ;
so we only joined in generally, with a grave shake of
the head, and a soft murmur of " They are very in-
comprehensible, certainly ! "
" Now, only think," said she. " There, I have
undergone the risk of having one of my remaining
teeth drawn (for one is terribly at the mercy of any
surgeon-dentist ; and I, for one, always speak them
fair till I hav^e got my mouth out of their clutches),
and, after all, Mr. Hoggins is too much of a man to
own that he was robbed last night."
" Not robbed ! " exclaimed the chorus.
" Don't tell me ! " Miss Pole exclaimed, angry
152 CRANFORD
that we could be for a moment imposed upon. " I
believe he was robbed, just as Betty told me, and he
is ashamed to own it ; and, to be sure, it was very silly
of him to be robbed just at his own door ; I daresay
he feels that such a thing won't raise him in the eyes
of Cranford society, and is anxious to conceal it : but
he need not have tried to impose upon me, by saying
I must have heard an exaggerated account of some
petty theft of a neck of mutton, which, it seems, was
stolen out of the safe in his yard last week ; he had
the impertinence to add, he believed that that was
taken by the cat. I have no doubt, if I could get at
the bottom of it, it was that Irishman dressed up in
woman's clothes, who came spying about my house,
with the story about the starving children."
After we had duly condemned the want of candour
which Mr. Hoggins had evinced, and abused men in
general, taking him for the representative and type,
we got round to the subject about which we had been
talking when Miss Pole came in, namely, how far, in
the present disturbed state of the country, we could
venture to accept an invitation which Miss Matty had
just received from Mrs. Forrester, to come as usual
and keep the anniversary of her wedding-day by drink-
ing tea with her at five o'clock, and playing a quiet
pool afterwards. Mrs. Forrester had said that she
asked us with some diffidence, because the roads were,
she feared, very unsafe. But she suggested that per-
haps one of us would not object to take the sedan, and
that the others, by walking briskly, might keep up
with the long trot of the chairmen, and so we might all
arrive safely at Over Place," a suburb of the town.
(No ; that is too large an expression : a small cluster
of houses separated from Cranford by about two
hundred yards of a dark and lonely lane.) There was
THE PANIC 153
no doubt but that a similar note was awaiting Miss
Pole at home ; so her call was a very fortunate affair,
as it enabled us to consult together. . . . We would
all much rather have declined this invitation ; but we
felt that it would not be quite kind to Mrs. Forrester,
who would otherwise be left to a solitary retrospect
of her not very happy or fortunate life. Miss Matty
and Miss Pole had been visitors on this occasion for
many years, and now they gallantly determined to
nail their colours to the mast, and to go through
Darkness Lane rather than fail in loyalty to their friend.
But when the evening came. Miss Matty (for it
was she who was voted into the chair, as she had a
cold), before being shut down in the sedan, like
jack-in-a-box, implored the chairmen, whatever
might befall, not to run away and leave her fastened
up there, to be murdered ; and even after they had
promised, I saw her tighten her features into the
stern determination of a martyr, and she gave me a
melancholy and ominous shake of the head through
the glass. However, we got there safely, only rather
out of breath, for it was who could trot hardest
through Darkness Lane, and I am afraid poor Miss
Matty was sadly jolted.
Mrs. Forrester had made extra preparations, in
acknowledgment of our exertion in coming to see her
through such dangers. The usual forms of genteel
ignorance as to what her servants might send up were
all gone through ; and harmony and Preference
seemed likely to be the order of the evening, but for
an interesting conversation that began I don't know
how, but which had relation, of course, to the robbers
who infested the neighbourhood of Cranford.
Having braved, the dangers of Darkness Lane, and
thus having a little stock of reputation for courage to
154 CRANFORD
fall back upon ; and also, I daresay, desirous of proving
ourselves superior to men (videlicet Mr. Hoggins) in
the article of candour, w^e began to relate our indi-
vidual fears, and the private precautions we each of
us took. I owned that my pet apprehension was eyes
— eyes looking at me, and watching me, glittering out
from some dull, flat, wooden surface ; and that if I
dared to go up to my looking-glass when I was panic-
stricken, I should certainly turn it round, with its back
towards me, for fear of seeing eyes behind me looking
out of the darkness. I saw Miss Matty nerving herself
up for a confession ; and at last out it came. She
owned that, ever since she had been a girl, she had
dreaded being caught by her last leg, just as she was
getting into bed, by someone concealed under it.
She said, when she was younger and more active,
she used to take a flying leap from a distance, and so
bring both her legs up safely into bed at once ; but
that this had always annoyed Deborah, who piqued
herself upon getting into bed gracefully, and she had
given it up in consequence. But now the old terror
would often come over her, especially since Miss Pole's
house had been attacked (we had got quite to believe
in the fact of the attack having taken place), and yet
it was very unpleasant to think of looking under a bed,
and seeing a man concealed, with a great, fierce face
staring out at you ; so she had bethought herself of
something — perhaps I had noticed that she had told
Martha to buy her a penny ball, such as children play
with — and now she rolled this ball under the bed
every night : if it came out on the other side, well
and good ; if not, she always took care to have her
hand on the bell-rope, and meant to call out John and
Harry, just as if she expected men-servants to answer
her ring.
THE PANIC 155
We all applauded this ingenious contrivance, and
Miss Matty sank back into satisfied silence, with a look
at Mrs. Forrester as if to ask for her private weakness.
Mrs. Forrester looked askance at Miss Pole, and
tried to change the subject a little by telling us that
she had borrowed a boy from one of the neighbouring
cottages, and promised his parents a hundredweight of
coals at Christmas, and his supper every evening, for
the loan of him at nights. She had instructed him in
his possible duties when he first came ; and, finding
him sensible, she had given him the Major's sword
(the Major was her late husband), and desired him to
put it very carefully behind his pillow at night, turn-
ing the edge towards the head of the pillow. He was
a sharp lad, she was sure ; for, spying out the Major's
cocked hat, he had said, if he might have that to wear,
he was sure he could frighten two Englishmen, or four
Frenchmen, any day. But she had impressed upon
him anew that he was to lose no time in putting on
hats or anything else ; but if he heard any noise,
he was to run at it with his drawn sword. On my
suggesting that some accident might occur from such
slaughterous and indiscriminate directions, and that
he might rush on Jenny getting up to wash, and have
spitted her before he had discovered that she was not
a Frenchman, Mrs. Forrester said she did not think
that that was likely, for he was a very sound sleeper,
and generally had to be well shaken or cold-pigged in
a morning before they could rouse him. She some-
times thought such dead sleep must be owing to the
hearty suppers the poor lad ate, for he was half-starved
at home, and she told Jenny to see that he got a good
meal at night.
Still this was no confession of Mrs. Forrester's
peculiar timidity, and we urged her to tell us what she
iS6 CRANFORD
thought would frighten her more than anything.
She paused, and stirred the fire, and snuffed the
candles, and then she said, in a sounding whisper —
" Ghosts ! »
She looked at Miss Pole, as much as to say, she had
declared it, and would stand by it. Such a look was a
challenge in itself. Miss Pole came down upon her
with indigestion, spectral illusions, optical delusions,
and a great deal out of Dr. Ferrier and Dr. Hibbert'^
besides. Miss Matty had rather a leaning to ghosts, as
I have mentioned before, and what little she did say
was all on Mrs. Forrester's side, who, emboldened by
sympathy, protested that ghosts were a part of her
religion ; that surely she, the widow of a Major in
the army, knew what to be frightened at, and what
not ; in short, I never saw Mrs. Forrester so warm
either before or since, for she was a gentle, meek,
enduring old lady in most things. Not all the elder-
wine that ever was mulled could this night wash out
the remembrance of this difference between Miss
Pole and her hostess. Indeed, when the elder-wine
was brought in, it gave rise to a new burst of discus-
sion ; for Jenny, the little maiden who staggered
under the tray, had to give evidence of having seen a
ghost with her own eyes, not so many nights ago, in
Darkness Lane, the very lane we were to go through
on our way home.
In spite of the uncomfortable feeling which this
last consideration gave me, I could not help being
amused at Jenny's position, which was exceedingly
like that of a witness being examined and cross-
examined by two counsel who are not at all scrupulous
about asking leading questions. The conclusion I
arrived at was, that Jenny had certainly seen something
beyond what a fit of indigestion would have caused.
THE PANIC 157
A lady all in white, and without her head, was what she
deposed and adhered to, supported by a consciousness
of the secret sympathy of her mistress under the
withering scorn with which Miss Pole regarded her.
And not only she, but many others, had seen this
headless lady, who sat by the roadside wringing her
hands as in deep grief. Mrs. Forrester looked at us
from time to time with an air of conscious triumph ;
but then she had not to pass through Darkness Lane
before she could bury herself beneath her own famihar
bedclothes.
We preserved a discreet silence as to the headless
lady while we were putting on our things to go home,
for there was no knowing how near the ghostly head
and ears might be, or what spiritual connection they
might be keeping up with the unhappy body in
Darkness Lane ; and therefore even Miss Pole felt
that it was as well not to speak lightly on such subjects,
for fear of vexing or insulting that woebegone trunk.
At least, so I conjecture ; for instead of the busy
clatter usual in the operation, we tied on our cloaks
as sadly as mutes at a funeral. Miss Matty drew the
curtains round the windows of the chair to shut out
disagreeable sights, and the men (either because they
were in spirits that their labours were so nearly ended,
or because they were going down hill) set off at such a
round and merry pace that it was all Miss Pole and I
could do to keep up with them. She had breath for
nothing beyond an imploring " Don't leave me ! "
uttered as she clutched my arm so tightly that I could
not have quitted her, ghost or no ghost. What a
relief it was when the men, weary of their burden and
their quick trot, stopped just where Headingley
Causeway branches off from Darkness Lane ! Miss
Pole unloosed me and caught at one of the men —
158
CRANFORD
" Could not yovL — could not you take Miss Matty
round by Headingley Causeway ? — the pavement in
Darkness Lane jolts so, and she is not very strong."
A smothered voice was heard from the inside of
the chair —
" Oh ! pray go on ! What is the matter ? What is
the matter ? I will give you sixpence more to go on
very fast ; pray don't stop here."
^ " And I'll give you a shilling," said Miss Pole,
with tremulous dignity, " if you'll go by Headingley
Causeway."
The two men grunted acquiescence and took up
the chair, and went along the causeway, which cer-
tainly answered Miss Pole's kind purpose of saving
Miss Matty's bones ; for it was covered with soft,
thick mud, and even a fall there would have been easy
till the getting-up came, when there might have been
some difficulty in extrication.
Oyer
cAmus
CHAPTER XI
SAMUEL BROWN
npHE next morning I met Lady Glenmire and
^ Miss Pole setting out on a long walk, to find
some old woman who was famous in the neighbour-
hood for her skill in knitting woollen stockings. Miss
Pole said to me, with a smile half-kindly and half-
contemptuous upon her countenance, " I have been
just telling I^ady Glenmire of our poor friend Mrs.
Forrester, and her terror of ghosts. It comes from
living so much alone, and listening to the bug-a-boo"
stories of that Jenny of hers." She was so calm and
so much above superstitious fears herself, that I was
almost ashamed to say how glad I had been of her
Headingley Causeway proposition the night before,
and turned off the conversation to something else.
159
i6o CRANFORD
In the afternoon Miss Pole called on Miss Matty
to tell her of the adventure — the real adventure they
had met with on their morning's walk. They had been
perplexed about the exact path which they were to
take across the fields in order to find the knitting old
woman, and had stopped to inquire at a little wayside
public-house, standing on the high road to London,
about three miles from Cranford. The good woman
had asked them to sit down and rest themselves, while
she fetched her husband, who could direct them better
than she could ; and while they were sitting in the
sanded parlour a little girl came in. They thought
that she belonged to the landlady, and began some
trifling conversation with her ; but, on Mrs. Roberts's
return, she told them that the little thing was the
only child of a couple who were staying in the house.
And then she began a long story, out of which Lady
Glenmire and Miss Pole could only gather one or two
decided facts, which were that, about six weeks ago,
a light spring cart had broken down just before their
door, in which there were two men, one woman, and
this child. One of the men was seriously hurt — no
bones broken, only " shaken," the landlady called it ;
but he had probably sustained some severe internal
injury, for he had languished in their house ever since,
attended by his wife, the mother of this little girl.
Miss Pole had asked what he was, what he looked like.
And Mrs. Roberts had made answer that he was not
like a gentleman, nor yet like a common person ; if
it had not been that he and his wife were such decent,
quiet people, she could almost have thought he was a
mountebank, or something of that kind, for they had
a great box in the cart, full of she did not know what.
She had helped to unpack it, and take out their linen
and clothes, when the other man — his twin-brother,
SAMUEL BROWN i6i
she believed he was — had gone off with the horse and
cart.
Miss Pole had begun to have her suspicions at this
point, and expressed her idea that it was rather strange
that the box and cart and horse and all should have
disappeared ; but good Mrs. Roberts seemed to have
become quite indignant at Miss Pole's implied sugges-
tion ; in fact, Miss Pole said, she was as angry as if
Miss Pole had told her that she herself was a swindler.
As the best way of convincing the ladies, she bethought
her of begging them to see the wife ; and, as Miss
Pole said, there was no doubting the honest, worn,
bronzed face of the woman, who, at the first tender
word from Lady Glenmire, burst into tears, which she
was too weak to check until some word from the land-
lady made her swallow down her sobs, in order that
she might testify to the Christian kindness shown by
Mr. and Mrs. Roberts. Miss Pole came round with a
swing to as vehement a belief in the sorrowful tale as
she had been sceptical before ; and, as a proof of this,
her energy in the poor sufferer's behalf was nothing
daunted when she found out that he, and no other,
was our Signor Brunoni, to whom all Cranford had
been attributing all manner of evil this six weeks past !
Yes ! his wife said his proper name was Samuel Brown
— " Sam," she called him — but to the last we preferred
calling him " the Signor " : it sounded so much
better.
The end of their conversation with the Signora
Brunoni was that it was agreed that he should be
placed under medical advice, and for any expense
incurred in procuring this Lady Glenmire promised to
hold herself responsible, and had accordingly gone to
Mr. Hoggins to beg him to ride over to the " Rising
Sun " that very afternoon, and examine into the
II
i62 CRANFORD
Signer's real state ; and Miss Pole said, if it was
desirable to remove him to Cranford to be more
immediately under Mr. Hoggins's eye, she would under-
take to see for lodgings and arrange about the rent.
Mrs. Roberts had been as kind as could be all through-
out, but it was evident that their long residence there
had been a slight inconvenience.
Before Miss Pole left us, Miss Matty and I were as
full of the morning's adventure as she was. We talked
about it all the evening, tuf-ning it in every possible
light, and we went to bed anxious for the morning,
when we should surely hear from some one what Mr.
Hoggins thought and recommended ; for, as Miss
Matty observed, though Mr. Hoggins did say " Jack's
up," " a fig for his heels," and called Preference
" Pref," she believed he was a very worthy man and a
very clever surgeon. Indeed, we were rather proud of
our doctor at Cranford, as a doctor. We often wished,
when we heard of Queen Adelaide or the Duke of
Wellington being ill, that they would send for Mr.
Hoggins ; but, on consideration, we were rather glad
they did not, for, if we were ailing, what should we
do if Mr. Hoggins had been appointed physician-in-
ordinary to the Royal Family ? As a surgeon we were
proud of him ; but as a man — or rather, I should say, as
a gentleman — we could only shake our heads over his
name and himself, and wished that he had read Lord
Chesterfield's Letters in the days when his manners
were susceptible of improvement. Nevertheless, we
all regarded his dictum in the Signor's case as infallible,
and when he said that with care and attention he might
rally, we had no more fear for him.
But although we had no more fear, everybody did
as much as if there was great cause for anxiety — as
indeed there was until Mr. Hoggins took charge of
SAMUEL BROWN 163
him. Miss Pole looked out clean and comfortable, if
homely, lodgings ; Miss Matty sent the sedan-chair
for him, and Martha and I aired it well before it left
Cranford, by holding a warming-pan full of red-hot
coals in it, and then shutting it up close, smoke and
all, until the time when he should get into it at the
" Rising Sun." Lady Glenmire undertook the medical
department under Mr. Hoggins's directions, and
rummaged up all Mrs. Jamieson's medicine glasses, and
spoons, and bed-tables, in a free-and-easy way, that
made Miss Matty feel a little anxious as to what that
lady and Mr. MulHner might say, if they knew. Mrs.
Forrester made some of the bread- jelly for which she
was so famous, to have ready as a refreshment in the
lodgings when he should arrive. A present of this
bread-jelly was the highest mark of favour dear Mrs.
Forrest er could confer. Miss Pole had once asked her
for the receipt, but she had met with a very decided
rebuff ; that lady told her that she could not part
with it to anyone during her life, and that after her
death it was bequeathed, as her executors would find,
to Miss Matty. What Miss Matty, or, as Mrs. For-
rester called her (remembering the clause in her will
and the dignity of the occasion). Miss Matilda Jenkyns
— might choose to do with the receipt when it came
into her possession — whether to make it public, or to
hand it down as an heirloom — she did not know, nor
would she dictate. And a mould of this admirable,
digestible, unique bread-jelly was sent by Mrs.
Forrester to our poor sick conjuror. Who says that
the aristocracy are proud ? Here was a lady, by birth
a Tyrrell, and descended from the great Sir Walter
that shot King Rufus, and in whose veins ran the blood
of him who murdered the little Princes in the Tower,
going every day to see what dainty dishes she could
i64 CRANFORD
prepare for Samuel Brown, a mountebank ! But,
indeed, it was wonderful to see what kind feelings were
called out by this poor man's coming amongst us. And
also wonderful to see how the great Cranford panic,
which had been occasioned by his first coming in his
.Turkish dress, melted away into thin air on his second
coming — pale and feeble, and with his heavy, filmy
eyes, that only brightened a very little when they fell
upon the countenance of his faithful wife, or their
pale and sorrowful little girl.
Somehow, we all forgot to be afraid. I daresay it
was that finding out that he, who had first excited our
love of the marvellous by his unprecedented arts, had
not sufficient everyday gifts to manage a shying
horse, made us feel as if we were ourselves again. Miss
Pole came with her little basket at all hours of the
evening, as if her lonely house and the unfrequented
road to it had never been infested by that " murder-
ous gang " ; Mrs. Forrester said she thought that
neither Jenny nor she need mind the headless lady who
wept and wailed in Darkness Lane, for surely the power
was never given to such beings to harm those who
went about to try to do what little good was in their
power, to which Jenny, trembling, assented ; but the
mistress's theory had little effect on the maid's practice,
until she had sewn two pieces of red flannel, in the
shape of a cross, on her inner garment.
I found Miss Matty covering her penny ball — the
ball that she used to roll under her bed — with gay-
coloured worsted in rainbow stripes.
" My dear," said she, " my heart is sad for that
little careworn child. Although her father is a
conjuror, she looks as if she had never had a good game
of play in her life. I used to make very pretty balls
in this way when I was a girl, and I thought I would
SAMUEL BROWN 165
try if I could not make this one smart and take it to
Phoebe this afternoon. I think ' the gang ' must have
left the neighbourhood, for one does not hear any
more of their violence and robbery now,"
We were all of us far too full of the Signor's pre-
carious state to talk either about robbers or ghosts.
Indeed, Lady Glenmire said she never had heard of
any actual robberies, except that two little boys had
stolen some apples from Farmer Benson's orchard,
and that some eggs had been missed on a market-day
off Widow Hayward's stall. But that was expecting
too much of us ; we could not acknowledge that we
kad only had this small foundation for all our panic.
Miss Pole drew herself up at this remark of Lady
Glenmire's, and said " that she wished she could agree
with her as to the very small reason we had had for
alarm, but with the recollection of a man disguised as
a woman who had endeavoured to force himself into
her house while his confederates waited outside ;
with the knowledge gained from Lady Glenmire her-
self, of the footprints seen on Mrs. Jamieson's flower
borders ; with the fact before her of the audacious
robbery committed on Mr. Hoggins at his own
door " But here Lady Glenmire broke in with a
very strong expression of doubt as to whether this last
story was not an entire fabrication founded upon the
theft of a cat ; she grew so red while she was saying all
this that I was not surprised at Miss Pole's manner of
bridling up, and I am certain, if Lady Glenmire had
not been " her ladyship," we should have had a more
emphatic contradiction than the " Well, to be sure ! "
and similar fragmentary ejaculations, which were all
that she ventured upon in my lady's presence. But
when she was gone Miss Pole began a long congratula-
tion to Miss Matty that so far they had escaped
i66 CRANFORD
marriage, which she noticed always made people
credulous to the last degree ; indeed, she thought it
argued great natural credulity in a woman if she could
not keep herself from being married ; and in what
I.ady Glenmire had said about Mr. Hoggins's robbery
we had a specimen of what people came to if they gave
way to such a weakness ; evidently Lady Glenmire
would swallow anything, if she could believe the poor
vamped-up story about a neck of mutton and a pussy
with which he had tried to impose on Miss Pole, only
she had always been on her guard against believing
too much of what men said.
We were thankful, as Miss Pole desired us to bfe,
that we had never been married ; but I think, of the
two, we were even more thankful that the robbers had
left Cranford ; at least I judge so from a speech of
Miss Matty's that evening, as we sat over the fire, in
which she evidently looked upon a husband as a great
protector against thieves, burglars, and ghosts ; and
said that she did not think that she should dare to be
always warning young people against matrimony, as
Miss Pole did continually ; to be sure, marriage was a
risk, as she saw, now she had had some experience ;
but she remembered the time when she had looked
forward to being married as much as anyone.
" Not to any particular person, my dear," said she,
hastily checking herself up, as if she were afraid of
having admitted too much ; " only the old story,
you know, of ladies always saying, ' When I marry,'
and gentlemen, ' // 1 marry.' " It was a joke spoken
in rather a sad tone, and I doubt if either of us smiled ;
but I could not see Miss Matty's face by the flickering
firelight. In a little while she continued —
" But, after all, I have not told you the truth. It
is so long ago, and no one ever knew how much I
SAMUEL BROWN 167
thought of it at the time, unless, indeed, my dear
mother guessed ; but I may say that there was a time
when I did not think I should have been only Miss
Matty Jenkyns all my life ; for even if I did meet
with anyone who wished to marry me now (and, as
Miss Pole says, one is never too safe), I could not take
him — I hope he would not take it too much to heart,
but I could fiot take him — or anyone but the person
I once thought I should be married to ; and he is dead
and gone, and he never knew how it all came about
that I said ' No,' when I had thought many and many
a time Well, it's no matter what I thought.
God ordains it all, and I am very happy, my dear. No
one has such kind friends as I," continued she, taking
my hand and holding it in hers.
If I had never known of Mr. Holbrook, I could
have said something in this pause, but as I had, I could
not think of anything that would come in naturally,
and so we both kept silence for a little time.
" My father once made us," she began, " keep a
diary, in two columns ; on one side we were to put
down in the morning what we thought would be the
course and events of the coming day, and at night we
were to put down on the other side what really had
happened. It would be to some people rather a sad
way of telling their lives " (a tear dropped upon my
hand at these words) — " I don't mean that mine has
been sad, only so very different to what I expected.
I remember, one winter's evening, sitting over our
bedroom fire with Deborah — I remember it as if it
were yesterday — and we were planning our future
lives, both of us were planning, though only she talked
about it. She said she should like to marry an arch-
deacon, and write his charges ; and you know, my
dear, she never was married, and, for aught I know,
i68 CRANFORD
she never spoke to an unmarried archdeacon in her
life. I never was ambitious, nor could I have written
charges, but I thought I could manage a house (my
mother used to call me her right hand), and I was
always so fond of little children — the shyest babies
would stretch out their little arms to come to me ;
when I was a girl, I was half my leisure time nursing
in the neighbouring cottages ; but I don't know how
it was, when I grew sad and grave — which I did a year
or two after this time — the little things drew back
from me, and I am afraid I lost the knack, though I am
just as fond of children as ever, and have a strange
yearning at my heart whenever I see a mother with
her baby in her arms. Nay, my dear " (and by a
sudden blaze which sprang up from a fall of the un-
stirred coals, I saw that her eyes were full of tears —
gazing intently on some vision of what might have
been), " do you know, I dream sometimes that I have
a little child — always the same — a little girl of about
two years old ; she never grows older, though I have
dreamt about her for many years. I don't think I ever
dream of any words or sound she makes ; she is very
noiseless and still, but she comes to me when she is
very sorry or very glad, and I have wakened with the
clasp of her dear little arms round my neck. Only last
night — perhaps because I had gone to sleep thinking
of this ball for Phoebe — my little darling came in my
dream, and put up her mouth to be kissed, just as I
have seen real babies do to real mothers before going
to bed. But all this is nonsense, dear ! only don't be
frightened by Miss Pole from being married. I can
fancy it may be a very happy state, and a little credulity
helps one on through life very smoothly — better than
always doubting and doubting and seeing difficulties
and disagreeables in everything."
SAMUEL BROWN 169
If I had been inclined to be daunted from matri-
mony, it would not have been Miss Pole to do it ; it
would have been the lot of poor Signer Brunoni and
his wife. And yet again, it was an encouragement to
see how, through all their cares and sorrows, they
thought of each other and not of themselves ; and how
keen were their joys, if they only passed through each
other, or through the little Phoebe.
The Signora told me, one day, a good deal about
their lives up to this period. It began by my asking
her whether Miss Pole's story of the twin-brothers
was true ; it sounded so wonderful a likeness, that I
should have had my doubts, if Miss Pole had not been
unmarried. But the Signora, or (as we found out she
preferred to be called) Mrs. Brown, said it was quite
true ; that her brother-in-law was by many taken for
her husband, which was of great assistance to them in
their profession ; " though," she continued, " how
people can mistake Thomas for the real Signor
Brunoni, I can't conceive ; but he says they do ; so I
suppose I must believe him. Not but what he is a
very good man ; I am sure I don't know how we should
have paid our bill at the ' Rising Sun ' but for the
money he sends ; but people must know very little
about art if they can take him for my husband. Why,
miss, in the ball trick, where my husband spreads his
fingers wide, and throws out his little finger with quite
an air and a grace, Thomas just clumps up his hand
like a fist, and might have ever so many balls hidden in
it. Besides, he has never been in India, and knows
nothing of the proper sit of a turban."
" Have you been in India ? " said I, rather as-
tonished.
" Oh yes ! many a year, ma'am. Sam was a ser-
geant in the 31st; and when the regiment was
170 CRANFORD
ordered to India, I drew a lot to go, and I was more
thankful than I can tell ; for it seemed as if it would
only be a slow death to me to part from my husband.
But, indeed, ma'am, if I had known all, I don't know
whether I would not rather have died there and then
than gone through what I have done since. To be sure,
I've been able to comfort Sam, and to be with him ;
but, ma'am, I've lost six children," said she, looking
up at me with those strange eyes that I've never
noticed but in mothers of dead children — with a kind
of wild look in them, as if seeking for what they never
more might find. " Yes ! six children died off, like
little buds nipped untimely, in that cruel India. I
thought, as each died, I never could — I never would —
love a child again ; and when the next came, it had
not only its own love, but the deeper love that came
from the thoughts of its little dead brothers and sisters.
And when Phoebe was coming, I said to my husband,
' Sam, when the child is born, and I am strong, I shall
leave you ; it will cut my heart cruel ; but if this baby
dies too, I shall go mad ; the madness is in me now ;
but if you let me go down to Calcutta, carrying my
baby step by step, it will, maybe, work itself off ; and
I will save, and I will hoard, and I will beg — and I will
die, to get a passage home to England, where our baby
may live ! ' God bless him ! he said I might go ; and
he saved up his pay, and I saved every pice I could get
for washing or any way ; and when Phoebe came, and
I grew strong again, I set off. It was very lonely ;
through the thick forests, dark again with their heavy
trees — along by the river's side (but I had been brought
up near the Avon in Warwickshire, so that flowing
noise sounded like home) — from station to station,
from Indian village to village, I went along, carrying
my child. I had seen one of the officers' ladies with a
SAMUEL BROWN 171
little picture, ma'am — done hy a Catholic foreigner,
ma'am — of the Virgin and the little Saviour, ma'am.
She had Him on her arm, and her form was softly
curled round Him, and their cheeks touched. Well,
when I went to bid good-bye to this lady, for whom I
had washed, she cried sadly ; for she, too, had lost her
children, but she had not another to save, like me ;
and I was bold enough to ask her, would she give me
that print ? And she cried the more, and said her
children were with that little blessed Jesus ; and gave
it me, and told me she had heard it had been painted
on the bottom of a cask, which made it have that
round shape. And when my body was very weary,
and my heart was sick (for there were times when I
misdoubted if I could ever reach my home, and there
were times when I thought of my husband, and one
time when I thought my baby was dying), I took out
that picture and looked at it, till I could have thought
the mother spoke to me, and comforted me. And the
natives were very kind. We could not understand one
another ; but they saw my baby on my breast, and
they came out to me, and brought me rice and milk,
and sometimes flowers — I have got some of the
flowers dried. Then, the next morning, I was so tired ;
and they wanted me to stay with them — I could tell
that — and tried to frighten me from going into the
deep woods, which, indeed, looked very strange and
dark ; but it seemed to me as if Death was following
me to take my baby away from me ; and as if I must
go on, and on — and I thought how God had cared for
mothers ever since the world was made, and would care
for me ; so I bade them good-bye, and set off afresh.
And once when my baby was ill, and both she and I
needed rest. He led me to a place where I found a kind
Englishman lived, right in the midst of the natives."
172 CRANFORD ;
" And you reached Calcutta safely at last ? "
" Yes, safely. Oh ! when I knew I had only two
days' journey more before me, I could not help it,
ma'am— it might be idolatry, I cannot tell — but I
was near one of the native temples, and I went in it
with my baby to thank God for His great mercy ;
for it seemed to me that where others had prayed
before to their God, in their joy or in their agony, was
of itself a sacred place. And I got as servant to an
invalid lady, who grew quite fond of my baby aboard-
ship ; and in two years' time Sam earned his discharge,
and came home to me, and to our child. Then he had
to fix on a trade ; but he knew of none ; and once,
once upon a time, he had learnt some tricks from an
Indian juggler ; so he set up conjuring, and it answered
so well that he took Thomas to help him — as his man,
you know, not as another conjuror, though Thomas
has set it up now on his own hook. But it has been a
great help to us that likeness between the twins, and
made a good many tricks go off well that they made up
together. And Thomas is a good brother, only he
has not the fine carriage of my husband, so that I can't
think how he can be taken for Signor Brunoni himself,
as he says he is."
" Poor little Phoebe ! " said I, my thoughts going
back to the baby she carried all those hundred miles.
" Ah ! you may say so ! I never thought I should
have reared her, though, when she fell ill at Chunder-
abaddad ; but that good, kind Aga Jenkyns took us
in, which I believe was the very saving of her."
" Jenkyns ! " said I.
" Yes, Jenkyns. I shall think all people of that name
are kind ; for here is that nice old lady who comes
every day to take Phoebe a walk ! "
But an idea had flashed through my head : could
SAMUEL BROWN 173
the Aga Jenkyns be the lost Peter ? True, he was
reported by many to be dead. But, equally true, some
had said that he had arrived at the dignity of Great
Lama of Thibet. Miss Matty thought he was alive.
I would make further inquiry.
■■"A. '"''.'•''^fl.
^::^-n^,
CHAPTER XII «»
ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED
T T ^AS the " poor Peter " of Cranford the Aga
^ ^ Jenkyns of Chunderabaddad, or was he not ?
As somebody says, that was the question.
In my own home, whenever people had nothing else
to do, they blamed me for want of discretion. Indis-
cretion was my bugbear fault. Everybody has a bug-
bear fault; a sort of standing characteristic — a
fiece de resistance for their friends to cut at ; and in
general they cut and come again. I was tired of being
called indiscreet and incautious ; and I determined
for once to prove myself a model of prudence and
wisdom. I would not even hint my suspicions respect-
ing the Aga. I would collect evidence and carry it
home to lay before my father, as the family friend of
the two Miss Jenkynses.
174
TAe cJin^^ J^ateC
ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED 177
In my search after facts, I was often reminded of a
description my father had once given of a ladies'
committee that he had had to preside over. He said
he could not help thinking of a passage in Dickens,
which spoke of a chorus in which every man took the
tune he knew best, and sang it to his own satisfaction. ^^
So, at this charitable committee, every lady took the
subject uppermost in her mind, and talked about it to
her own great contentment, but not much to the
advancement of the subject they had met to discuss.
But even that committee could have been nothing to
the Cranford ladies when I attempted to gain some
clear and definite information as to poor Peter's
height, appearance, and when and where he was seen
and heard of last. For instance, I remember asking
Miss Pole (and I thought the question was very oppor-
tune, for I put it when I met her at a call at Mrs.
Forrester's, and both the ladies had known Peter, and
I imagined that they might refresh each other's
memories) — I asked Miss Pole what was the very last
thing they had ever heard about him ; and then she
named the absurd report to which I have alluded,
about his having been elected Great Lama of Thibet ;
and this was a signal for each lady to go off on her
separate idea. Mrs. Forrester's start was made on the
Veiled Prophet in Lalla Rookh^^ — whether I thought
he was meant for the Great Lama, though Peter was
not so ugly, indeed rather handsome, if he had not
been freckled. I was thankful to see her double upon
Peter ; but, in a moment, the delusive lady was off
upon Rowland's Kalydor, and the merits of cosmetics
and hair oils in general, and holding forth so fluently
that I turned to listen to Miss Pole, who (through the
llamas, the beasts of burden) had got to Peruvian
bonds, and the share market, and her poor opinion of
lyS CRANFORD
joint-stock banks in general, and of that one in particu-
lar in which Miss Matty's money was invested. In
vain I put in " When was it — in what year was it that
you heard that Mr. Peter was the Great Lama ? "
They only joined issue to dispute whether llamas were
carnivorous animals or not ; in which dispute they
were not quite on fair grounds, as Mrs. Forrester (after
they had grown warm and cool again) acknowledged
that she always confused carnivorous and graminivor-
ous together, just as she did horizontal and perpendicu-
lar ; but then she apologised for it very prettily, by
saying that in her day the only use people made of
four-syllabled words was to teach how they should be
spelt.
The only fact I gained from this conversation was
that certainly Peter had been last heard of in India,
" or that neighbourhood ; " and that this scanty in-
telligence of his whereabouts had reached Cranford
in the year when Miss Pole had bought her Indian
muslin gown, long since worn out (we washed it and
mended it, and traced its decline and fall into a window-
blind before we could go on) ; and in a year when
Wombwell^^ came to Cranford, because Miss Matty
had wanted to see an elephant in order that she might
the better imagine Peter riding on one ; and had seen
a boa-constrictor too, which was more than she wished
to imagine in her fancy-pictures of Peter's locality ;
and in a year when Miss Jenkyns had learnt some
piece of poetry^* off by heart, and used to say, at all
the Cranford parties, how Peter was " surveying man-
kind from China to Peru," which everybody had
thought very grand, and rather appropriate, because
India was between China and Peru, if you took care
to turn the globe to the left instead of the nght.^,.^
I suppose all these inquiries of mine, and the con-
ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED 179
sequent curiosity excited in the minds of my friends,
made us blind and deaf to what was going on around
us. It seemed to me as if the sun rose and shone, and
as if the rain rained on Cranford, just as usual, and I
did not notice any sign of the times that could be
considered as a prognostic of any uncommon event ;
and, to the best of my belief, not only Miss Matty
and Mrs. Forrester, but even Miss Pole herself, whom
we looked upon as a kind of prophetess, from the
knack she had of foreseeing things before they came
to pass — although she did not like to disturb her
friends by telling them her foreknowledge — even Miss
Pole herself was breathless with astonishment when
she came to tell us of the astounding piece of news.
But I must recover myself ; the contemplation of it,
even at this distance of time, has taken away my
breath and my grammar, and unless I subdue my
emotion, my spelling will go too.
VVe were sitting — Miss Matty and I — much as
usual, she in the blue chintz easy-chair, with her
back to the light, and her knitting in her hand, I read-
ing aloud the St. Jameses Chronicle. A few minutes
more, and we should have gone to make the little
alterations in dress usual before calling-time (twelve
o'clock) in Cranford. I remember the scene and the
date well. We had been talking of the Signor's rapid
recovery since the warmer weather had set in, and
praising Mr. Hoggins's skill, and lamenting his want
of refinement and manner (it seems a curious coinci-
dence that this should have been our subject, but so
it was), when a knock was heard — a caller's knock —
three distinct taps — and we were flying (that is to say.
Miss Matty could not walk very fast, having had a
touch of rheumatism) to our rooms, to change cap
and collars, when Miss Pole arrested us by calling out.
i8o CRANFORD
as she came up the stairs, " Don't go — I can't wait —
it is not twelve, I know — but never mind your dress —
I must speak to you." We did our best to look as if it
was not we who had made the hurried movement, the
sound of which she had heard ; for, of course, we did
not like to have it supposed that we had any old clothes
that it was convenient to wear out in the " sanctuary
of home," as Miss Jenkyns once prettily called the back
parlour, where she was tying up preserves. So we
threw our gentility with double force into our manners
and very genteel we were for two minutes while Miss
Pole recovered breath, and excited our curiosity
strongly by lifting up her hands in amazement, and
bringing them down in silence, as if what she had to
say was too big for words, and could only be expressed
by pantomime.
" What do you think. Miss Matty ? What do you
think .? Lady Glenmire is to marry — is to be married,
I mean — Lady Glenmire — Mr. Hoggins — Mr. Hog-
gins is going to marry Lady Glenmire ! "
" Marry ! " said we. " Marry ! Madness ! "
" Marry ! " said Miss Pole, with the decision that
belonged to her character. " / said marry ! as you do ;
and I also said, ' What a fool my lady is going to make
of herself ! ' I could have said ' Madness ! ' but I con-
trolled myself, for it was in a public shop that I heard
of it. Where feminine delicacy is gone to, I don't
know ! You and I, Miss Matty, would have been
ashamed to have known that our marriage was spoken
of in a grocer's shop, in the hearing of shopmen ! "
" But," said Miss Matty, sighing as one recovering
from a blow, " perhaps it is not true. Perhaps we are
doing her injustice."
" No," said Miss Pole. " I have taken care to
ascertain that. I went straight to Mrs. Fitz-Adam, to
p
ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED i8i
borrow a cookery-book which I knew she had ; and I
introduced my congratulations d -profos of the diffi-
culty gentlemen must have in housekeeping ; and
Mrs. Fitz-Adam bridled up, and said that she believed
it was true, though how and where I could have heard
it she did not know. She said her brother and Lady
Glenmire had come to an understanding at last.
* Understanding ! ' such a coarse word ! But my lady
will have to come down to many a want of refinement.
I have reason to believe Mr. Hoggins sups on bread-
and-cheese and beer every night."
" Marry ! " said Miss Matty once again. " Well !
I never thought of it. Two people that we know going
to be married. It's coming very near ! "
" So near that my heart stopped beating, when I
heard of it, while you might have counted twelve,"
said Miss Pole.
" One does not know whose turn may come next.
Here, in Cranford, poor Lady Glenmire might have
thought herself safe," said Miss Matty, with a gentle
pity in her tones.
" Bah ! " said Miss Pole, with a toss of her head.
" Don't you remember poor dear Captain Brown's
song, ' Tibbie Fowler,' and the line —
*Set her on the Tintock tap,
The wind will blaw a man till her.' " ^^
' That was because ' Tibbie Fowler ' was rich, I
think."
" Well ! there is a kind of attraction about Lady
Glenmire that I, for one, should be ashamed to have."
I put in my wonder. " But how can she have
fancied Mr. Hoggins ? I am not surprised that Mr.
Hoggins has liked her."
" Oh ! I don't know. Mr. Hoggins is rich, and very
1 82 CRANFORD
pleasant-looking," said Miss Matty, " and very good-
tempered and kind-hearted."
" She has married for an establishment, that's it.
I suppose she takes the surgery with it," said Miss
Pole, with a little dry laugh at her own joke. But,
like many people who think they have made a severe
and sarcastic speech, which yet is clever of its kind, she
began to relax in her grimness from the moment when
she made this allusion to the surgery ; and we turned
to speculate on the way in which Mrs. Jamieson would
receive the news. The person whom she had left in
charge of her house to keep off followers from her
maids to set up a follower of her own ! And that
follower a man whom Mrs. Jamieson had tabooed as
vulgar, and inadmissible to Cranford society, not
merely on account of his name, but because of his
voice, his complexion, his boots smelling of the stable,
and himself smelling of drugs. Had he ever been to
see Lady Glenmire at Mrs. Jamieson's ? Chloride of
lime would not purify the house in its owner's estima-
tion if he had. Or had their interviews been confined
to the occasional meetings in the chamber of the poor
sick conjuror, to whom, with all our sense of the
misalliance, we could not help allowing that they had
both been exceedingly kind ? And now it turned out
that a servant of Mrs. Jamieson's had been ill, and Mr.
Hoggins had been attending her for some weeks. So
the v/olf had got into the fold, and now he was carry-
ing off the shepherdess. What would Mrs. Jamieson
say .? We looked into the darkness of futurity as a
child gazes after a rocket up in the cloudy sky, full of
wondering expectation of the rattle, the discharge,
and the brillant shower of sparks and light. Then we
brought ourselves down to earth and the present time
by questioning each other (being all equally ignorant,
I
ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED 183
and all equally without the slightest data to build any
conclusions upon) as to when it would take place ?
Where ? How much a year Mr. Hoggins had ?
Whether she would drop her title ? And how Martha
and the other correct servants in Cranford would ever
be brought to announce a marriage couple as Lady
Glenmire and Mr, Hoggins ? But would they be
visited ? Would Mrs. Jamieson let us ? Or must we
choose between the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson and the
degraded Lady Glenmire ? We all liked Lady Glen-
mire the best. She was bright, and kind, and
sociable, and agreeable ; and Mrr>. Jamieson was dull,
and inert, and pompous, and tiresome. But we had
acknowledged the sway of the latter so long, that it
seemed like a kind of disloyalty now even to meditate
disobedience to the prohibition we anticipated.
Mrs. Forrester surprised us in our darned caps and
patched collars ; and we forgot all about them in our
eagerness to see how she would bear the information,
which we honourably left to Miss Pole to impart,
although, if we had been inclined to take unfair
advantage we might have rushed in ourselves, for she
had a most out-of-place fit of coughing for five minutes
after Mrs. Forrester entered the room. I shall never
forget the imploring expression of her eyes, as she
looked at us over her pocket-handkerchief. They said,
as plain as words could speak, *' Don't let Nature
deprive me of the treasure which is mine, although—'
for a time I can make no use of it." And we did not.
Mrs. Forrester's surprise was equal to ours ; and
her sense of injury rather greater, because she had
to.feel for her Order, and saw more fully than we could
do how such conduct brought stains on the aristocracy.
When she and Miss Pole left us, we endeavoured
to subside into calmness ; but Miss Matty was really
i84 CRANFORD
upset hy the intelligence she had heard. She reckoned
it up, and it was more than fifteen years since she had
heard of any of her acquaintance going to be married,
with the one exception of Miss Jessie Brown ; and,
as she said, it gave her quite a shock, and made her feel
as if she could not think what would happen next.
I don't know whether it is a fancy of mine, or a real
fact, but I have noticed that, just after the announce-
ment of an engagement in any set, the unmarried
ladies in that set flutter out in an unusual gaiety and
newness of dress, as much as to say, in a tacit and un-
conscious manner, " We also are spinsters." Miss
Matty and Miss Pole talked and thought more about
bonnets, gowns, caps, and shawls, during the fortnight
that succeeded this call, than I had known them do
for years before. But it might be the spring weather,
for it was a warm and pleasant March ; and merinoes
and beavers, and woollen materials of all sorts were
but ungracious receptacles of the bright sun's glancing
rays. It had not been Lady Glenmire's dress that had
won Mr. Hoggins's heart, for she went about on her
errands of kindness more shabby than ever. Although,
in the hurried glimpses I caught of her at church or
elsewhere, she appeared rather to shun meeting any of
her friends, her face seemed to have almost something
of the flush of youth in it ; her lips looked redder and
more trembhng full than in their old compressed
state, and her eyes dwelt on all things with a lingering
light, as if she was learning to love Cranford and its
belongings. Mr. Hoggins looked broad and radiant,
and creaked up the middle aisle at church in a bran-
new pair of top-boots — an audible, as well as visible,
sign of his purposed change of state ; for the tradi-
tion went that the boots he had worn till now were the
identical pair in which he first set out on his rounds in
ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED 185
Cranford twenty-five years ago ; only they had been
new-pieced, high and low, top and bottom, heel and
sole, black leather and brown leather, more times than
anyone could tell.
None of the ladies in Cranford chose to sanction
the marriage by congratulating either of the parties.
We wished to ignore the whole affair until our liege
lady, Mrs. Jamieson, returned, f Till she came back
to give us our cue, we felt that it would be better to
consider the engagement in the same light as the Queen
of Spain's legs — facts which certainly existed, but the
less said about the better. This restraint upon our
tongues — for you see if we did not speak about it to any
of the parties concerned, how could we get answers
to the questions that we longed to ask ? — was beginning
to be irksome, and our idea of the dignity of silence was
paling before our curiosity, when another direction
was given to our thoughts, by an announcement on
the part of the principal shopkeeper of Cranford, who
ranged the trades from grocer and cheesemonger to
man-milliner, as occasion required, that the spring
fashions were arrived, and would be exhibited on the
following Tuesday at his rooms in High Street. Now
Miss Matty had been only waiting for this before
buying herself a new silk gown. I had offered, it is
true, to send to Drumble for patterns, but she had
rejected my proposal, gently implying that she had
not forgotten her disappointment about the sea-
green turban, I was thankful that I was on the spot
now, to counteract the dazzling fascination of any
yellow or scarlet silk.
I must say a word or two here about myself. I have
spoken of my father's old friendship for the Jenkyns
family ; indeed, I am not sure if there was not some
distant relationship. He had willingly allowed me to
:86
CRANFORD
remain all the winter at Cranford, in consideration
of a letter which Miss Matty had written to him about
the time of the panic, in which I suspect she had
exaggerated my powers and my bravery as a defender
of the house. But now that the days were longer and
more cheerful, he was beginning to urge the necessity
of my return ; and I only delayed in a sort of odd
forlorn hope that if I could obtain any clear informa-
tion, I might make the account given by the Signora
of the Aga Jenkyns tally with that of " poor Peter,"
his appearance and disappearance, which I had
winnowed out of the conversation of Miss Pole and
Mrs. Forrester.
^li^J'^
..1*1^1^
:--r-i
:i^am^
CHAPTER XIII
STOPPED PAYMENT
' I ^HE very Tuesday morning on which Mr. John-
son was going to show the fashions, the post-
woman brought two letters to the house. I say the
post-woman, but I should say the postman's wife. He
was a lame shoemaker, a very clean, honest man, much
respected in the town ; but he never brought the
letters round except on unusual occasions, such as
Christmas Day or Good Friday ; and on those days
the letters, which should have been delivered at eight
in the morning, did not make their appearance until
two or three in the afternoon, for everyone liked poor
Thomas, and gave him a welcome on these festive
occasions. He used to say, " He was welly stawed wi'
187
1 88 CRANFORD
eating, for there were three or four houses where nowt
would serve 'em but he must share in their breakfast ; "
and by the time he had done his last breakfast, he came
to some other friend who was beginning dinner ; but
come what might in the way of temptation, Tom was
always sober, civil, and smiling ; and, as Miss Jenkyns
used to say, it was a lesson in patience, that she
doubted not would call out that precious quality in
some minds, where, but for Thomas, it might have
lain dormant and undiscovered. Patience was certainly
very dormant in Miss Jenkyns's mind. She was always
expecting letters, and always drumming on the table
till the post-woman had called or gone past. On
Christmas Day and Good Friday she drummed from
breakfast till church, from church-time till two o'clock
— unless when the fire wanted stirring, when she in-
variably knocked down the fireirons, and scolded Miss
Matty for it. But equally certain was the hearty
welcome and the good dinner for Thomas ; Miss
Jenkyns standing over him like a bold dragoon, ques-
tioning him as to his children — what they were doing
— what school they went to ; upbraiding him if another
was likely to make its appearance, but sending even
the little babies the shilling and the mince-pie which
was her gift to all the children, with half a crown in
addition for both father and mother. The post was
not half of so much consequence to dear Miss Matty ;
but not for the world would she have diminished
Thomas's welcome and his dole, though I could see
that she felt rather shy over the ceremony, which had
been regarded by Miss Jenkyns as a glorious oppor-
tunity for giving advice and benefiting her fellow-
creatures. Miss Matty would steal the money all in a
lump into his hand, as if she were ashamed of herself.
Miss Jenkyns gave him each individual coin separate.
STOPPED PAYMENT 189
with a " There ! that's for yourself ; that's for
Jennv," etc. Miss Matty would even beckon Martha
out of the kitchen while he ate his food : and once, to
my knowledge, winked at its rapid disappearance into
a blue cotton pocket-handkerchief. Miss Jenkyns
almost scolded him if he did not leave a clean plate,
however heaped it might have been, and gave an in-
junction with every mouthful.
I have wandered a long way from the two letters
that awaited us on the breakfast-table that Tuesday
morning. Mine was from my father. Miss Matty's
was printed. My father's was just a man's letter ; I
mean it was very dull, and gave no information
beyond that he was well, that they had had a good
deal of rain, that trade was very stagnant, and there
were many disagreeable rumours afloat. He then
asked me if I knew whether Miss Matty still retained
her shares in the Town and County Bank, as there
were very unpleasant reports about it ; though nothing
more than he had always foreseen, and had prophesied
to Miss Jenkyns years ago, when she would invest their
little property in it — the only unwise step that clever
woman had ever taken, to his knowledge (the only
time she ever acted against his advice, I knew). How-
ever, if anything had gone wrong, of course I was not
to think of leaving Miss Matty while I could be of
use, etc.
*' Who is your letter from, my dear ? Mine is a
very civil invitation, signed ^ Edwin Wilson,' asking me
to attend an important meeting of the shareholders of
the Town and County Bank,^^ to be held in Drumble,
on Thursday the twenty-first. I am sure, it is very
attentive of them to remember me."
I did not like to hear of this " important meeting,"
for, though I did not know much about business, I
190 CRANFORD
feared it confirmed what my father said ; however,
I thought, ill news always came fast enough, so I
resolved to say nothing about my alarm, and merely
told her that my father was well, and sent his kind
regards to her. She kept turning over and admiring
her letter. At last she spoke —
" I remember their sending one to Deborah just
like this ; but that I did not wonder at, for everybody
knew she was so clear-headed. I am afraid I could
not help them much ; indeed, if they came to accounts
I should be quite in the way, for I never could do
sums in my head. Deborah, I know, rather wished
to go, and went so far as to order a new bonnet for the
occasion : but when the time came she had a bad cold ;
so they sent her a very polite account of what they had
done. Chosen a director, I think it was. Do you
think they want me to help them to choose a director ?
I am sure I should choose your father at once."
" My father has no shares in the bank," said I.
" Oh no ! I remember. He objected very much to
Deborah's buying any, I believe. But she was quite
the woman of business, and always judged for herself ;
and here, you see, they have paid eight per cent, all
these years."
It was a very uncomfortable subject to me, with my
half-knowledge ; so I thought I would change the
conversation, and I asked at what time she thought we
had better go and see the fashions. " Well, my dear,"
I she said, " the thing is this : it is not etiquette to go
till after twelve ; but then, you see, all Cranford will
be there, and one does not like to be too curious about
dress and trimmings and caps with all the world looking
on. It is never genteel to be over-curious on these
occasions. Deborah had the knack of always looking
as if the latest fashion was nothing new to her ; a
STOPPED PAYMENT 191
manner she had caught from Lady Arley, who did see
all the new modes in London, you know. So I thought
we would just slip down this morning, soon after
breakfast — for I do want half a pound of tea — and
then we could go up and examine the things at our
leisure, and see exactly how my new silk gown must be
made ; and then, after twelve, we could go with
our minds disengaged, and free from thoughts of
dress."
We began to talk of Miss Matty's new silk gown.
I discovered that it would be really the first time in
her life that she had had to choose anything of conse-
quence for herself : for Miss Jenkyns had always been
the more decided character, whatever her taste might
have been ; and it is astonishing how such people
carry the world before them by the mere force of will.
Miss Matty anticipated the sight of the glossy folds
with as much delight as if the five sovereigns, set apart
for the purchase, could buy all the silks in the shop ;
and (remembering my own loss of two hours in a toy-
shop before I could tell on what wonder to spend a
silver threepence) I was very glad that we were going
early, that dear Miss Matty might have leisure for the
delights of perplexity.
If a happy sea-green could be met with, the gown
was to be sea-green : if not, she inclined to maize, and
I to silver-grey ; and we discussed the requisite num-
ber of breadths until we arrived at the shop door. We
were to buy the tea, select the silk, and then clamber
up the iron corkscrew stairs that led into what was
once a loft, though now a fashion show-room.
The young men at Mr. Johnson's had on their
best looks, and their best cravats, and pivoted them-
selves over the counter with surprising activity. They
wanted to show us upstairs at once ; but, on the prin-
192 CRANFORD
ciple of business first and pleasure afterwards, we
stayed to purchase the tea. Here Miss Matty's
absence of mind betrayed itself. If she was made
aware that she had been drinking green tea at any
time, she had always thought it her duty to lie awake
half through the night afterward (I have known her
take it in ignorance many a time without such effects),
and consequently green tea was prohibited the house ;
yet to-day she herself asked for the obnoxious article,
under the impression that she was talking about the
silk. However, the mistake was soon rectified ; and
then the silks were unrolled in good truth. By this
time the shop was pretty well filled, for it was Cranford
market-day, and many of the farmers and country
people from the neighbourhood round came in, sleek-
ing down their hair, and glancing shyly about, from
under their eyelids, as anxious to take back some
notion of the unusual gaiety to the mistress or the
lasses at home, and yet feeling that they were out of
place among the smart shopmen and gay shawls and
summer prints. One honest-looking man, however,
made his way up to the counter at which we stood, and
boldly asked to look at a shawl or two. The other
country folk confined themselves to the grocery side ;
but our neighbour was evidently too full of some kind
intention towards mistress, wife, or daughter, to be
shy ; and it soon became a question with me, whether
he or Miss Matty would keep their shopman the longest
time. He thought each shawl more beautiful than the
last ; and as for Miss Matty, she smiled and sighed
over each fresh bale that was brought out ; one colour
set off another, and the heap together would, as she
said, make even the rainbow look poor.
" I am afraid," she said, hesitating, " whichever
I choose I shall wish I had taken another. Look
STOPPED PAYMENT 193
at this lovely crimson ! it would be so warm in winter.
But spring is coming on, you know. I wish I could
have a gown for every season," said she, dropping her
voice — as we all did in Cr an ford whenever we talked
of anything we wished for but could not afford.
" However," she continued, in a louder and more
cheerful tone, " it would give me a great deal of
trouble to take care of them if I had them ; so, I
think, I'll only take one. But which must it be, my
dear ? "
And now she hovered over a lilac with yellow spots,
while I pulled out a quiet sage-green that had faded
into insignificance under the more brilliant colours,
but which was nevertheless a good silk in its humble
way. Our attention was called off to our neighbour.
He had chosen a shawl of about thirty shillings' value ;
and his face looked broadly happy, under the anticipa-
tion, no doubt, of the pleasant surprise he should give
to some Molly or Jenny at home ; he had tugged a
leathern purse out of his breeches-pocket, and had
offered a five-pound note in payment for the shawl,
and for some parcels which had been brought round
to him from the grocery counter ; and it was just at
this point that he attracted our notice. The shopman
was examining the note with a puzzled, doubtful air.
" Town and County Bank ! I am not sure, sir, but
I believe we have received a warning against notes
issued by this bank only this morning. I will just step
and ask Mr. Johnson, sir ; but I'm afraid I must
trouble you for payment in cash, or in a note of a
different bank."
I never saw a man's countenance fall so suddenly
into dismay and bewilderment. It was almost piteous
to see the rapid change.
" Dang it ! " said he, striking his fist down on the
J 94 CRANFORD
table, as if to try which were the harder, " the chap
talks as if notes and gold were to be had for the
picking up."
Miss Matty had forgotten her silk gown in her
interest for the man. I don't think she had caught
the name of the bank, and in my nervous cowardice
I was anxious that she should not ; and so I began
admiring the yellow-spotted lilac gown that I had
been utterly condemning only a minute before. But
it was of no use.
" What bank was it ? I mean, what bank did your
note belong to ? "
" Town and County Bank."
*' Let me see it," said she quietly to the shopman,
gently taking it out of his hand, as he brought it back
to return it to the farmer.
Mr. Johnson was very sorry, but, from information
he had received, the notes issued by that bank were
little better than waste paper.
" I don't understand it," said Miss Matty to me in
a low voice. " That is our bank, is it not ? — the Town
and County Bank ? "
" Yes," said I. " This lilac silk will just match the
ribbons in your new cap, I believe," I continued,
holding up the folds so as to catch the light, and wish-
ing that the man would make haste and be gone, and
yet having a new wonder, that had only just sprung
up, how far it was wise or right in me to allow Miss
Matty to make this expensive purchase, if the affairs
of the bank were really so bad as the refusal of the note
implied.
But Miss Matty put on the soft dignified manner
peculiar to her, rarely used, and yet which became her
so well, and, laying her hand gently on mine, she
said —
STOPPED PAYMENT 195
" Never mind the silks for a few minutes, dear.
I don't understand 70U, sir," turning now to the shop-
man, who had been attending to the farmer. " Is
this a forged note ? "
" Oh no, ma'am. It is a true note of its kind ; but
you see, ma'am, it is a joint-stock bank, and there are
reports out that it is likely to break. Mr. Johnson is
only doing his duty, ma'am, as I am sure Mr. Dobson
knows."
But Mr. Dobson could not respond to the appealing
bow by any answering smile. He was turning the note
absently over in his lingers, looking gloomily enough
at the parcel containing the lately-chosen shawl.
" It's hard upon a poor man," said he, " as earns
every farthing with the sweat of his brow. However,
there's no help for it. You must take back your shawl,
my man ; Lizzie must go on with her cloak for a while.
And yon figs for the little ones — I promised them to
'em — I'll take them ; but the 'bacco, and the other
things "
" I will give you five sovereigns for your note, my
good man," said Miss Matty. " I think there is some
great mistake about it, for I am one of the shareholders,
and I'm sure they would have told me if things had
not been going on right."
The shopman whispered a word or two across the
table to Miss Matty. She looked at him with a dubious
air.
" Perhaps so," said she. " But I don't pretend to
understand business ; I only know that if it is going
to fail, and if honest people are to lose their money
because they have taken our notes — I can't explain
myself," said she, suddenly becoming aware that she
had got into a long sentence with four people for
audience ; " only I would rather exchange my gold
196 CRANFORD
for the note, if you please," turning to the farmer,
" and then you can take your wife the shawl. It is
only going without my gown a few days longer," she
continued, speaking to me. " Then, I have no doubt,
everything will be cleared up."
" But if it is cleared up the wrong way .? " said I.
" Why, then it will only have been common honesty
in me, as a shareholder, to have given this good man
. the money. I am quite clear about it in my own mind ;
but, you know, I can never speak quite as compre-
hensibly as others can ; only you must give me your
note, Mr. Dobson, if you please, and go on with your
purchases with these sovereigns."
The man looked at her with silent gratitude — too
awkward to put his thanks into words ; but he hung
back for a minute or two, fumbling with his note.
" I'm loth to make another one lose instead of me, if
it is a loss ; but, you see, five pounds is a deal of money
to a man with a family ; and, as you say, ten to one
in a day or two the note will be as good as gold again."
" No hope of that, my friend," said the shopman.
" The more reason why I should take it," said Miss
Matty quietly. She pushed her sovereigns towards
the man, who slowly laid his note down in exchange.
" Thank you. I will wait a day or two before I pur-
chase any of these silks ; perhaps you will then
have a greater choice. My dear, will you come
upstairs ? "
We inspected the fashions with as minute and curious
an interest as if the gown to be made after them
had been bought. I could not see that the little event
in the shop below had in the least damped Miss Matty's
curiosity as to the make of sleeves or the sit of skirts.
She once or twice exchanged congratulations with me
on our private and leisurely view of the bonnets and
STOPPED PAYMENT 197
shawls ; but I was, all the time, not so sure that our
examination was so utterly private, for I caught
glimpses of a figure dodging behind the cloaks and
mantles ; and, by a. dexterous move, I came face to
face with Miss Pole, also in morning costume (the
principal feature of which was her being without teeth,
and wearing a veil to conceal the deficiency), come on
the same errand as ourselves. But she quickly took
her departure, because, as she said, she had a bad
headache, and did not feel herself up to conver-
sation.
As we came down through the shop, the civil Mr.
Johnson was awaiting us ; he had been informed of
the exchange of the note for gold, and with much
good feeling and real kindness, but with a little want
of tact, he wished to condole with Miss Matty, and
impress upon her the true state of the case. I could
only hope that he had heard an exaggerated rumour,
for he said that her shares were worse than nothing, and
that the bank could not pay a shilling in the pound. I was
glad that Miss Matty seemed still a little incredulous ;
but I could not tell how much of this was real or
assumed, with that self-control which seemed habitual
to ladies of Miss Matty's standing in Cranford, who
would have thought their dignity compromised by the ,
slightest expression of surprise, dismay, or any similar
feeling to an inferior in station, or in a public shop.
However, we walked home very silently. I am ashamed
to say, I believe I was rather vexed and annoyed at
Miss Matty's conduct in taking the note to herself
so decidedly. I had so set my heart upon her having
a new silk gown, which she wanted sadly ; in general
she was so undecided anybody might turn her round ;
in this case I had felt that it was no use attempting it,
but I was not the less put out at the result.
198 CRANFORD
Somehow, after twelve o'clock^ we both acknow-
ledged to a sated curiosity about the fashions, and to
a certain fatigue of body (which was, in fact, depression
of mind) that indisposed us to go out again. But still
we never spoke of the note ; till, all at once, something
possessed me to ask Miss Matty if she would think it
her duty to offer sovereigns for all the notes of the
Town and County Bank she met with ? I could have
bitten my tongue out the minute I had said it. She
looked up rather sadly, and as if I had thrown a new
perplexity into her already distressed mind ; and for
a minute or two she did not speak. Then she said —
my own dear Miss Matty — without a shade of reproach
in her voice —
" My dear, I never feel as if my mind was what
•people call very strong; and it's often hard enough
work for me to settle what I ought to do with the case
right before me. I was very thankful to — I was very
thankful, that I saw my duty this morning, with the
poor man standing by me ; but it's rather a strain
upon me to keep thinking and thinking what I should
do if such and such a thing happened ; and, I believe,
I had rather wait and see what really does come ; and
I don't doubt I shall be helped then, if I don't fidget
myself, and get too anxious beforehand. You know,
love, I'm not like Deborah. If Deborah had lived, I've
no doubt she would have seen after them, before they
had got themselves into this state."
We had neither of us much appetite for dinner,
though we tried to talk cheerfully about indifferent
things. When we returned into the drawing-room,
Miss Matty unlocked her desk and began to look over
her account-books. I was so penitent for what I had
said in the morning, that I did not choose to take upon
myself the presumption to suppose that I could assist
STOPPED PAYMENT 199
her ; I rather left her alone, as, with puzzled brow, her
eye followed her pen up and down the ruled page.
By and by she shut the book, locked her desk, and came
and drew a chair to mine, where I sat in moody sorrow
over the fire. I stole my hand into hers ; she clasped
it, but did not speak a word. At last she said, with
forced composure in her voice, "If that bank goes
wrong, I shall lose one hundred and forty-nine pounds
thirteen shillings and fourpence a year ; I shall only
have thirteen pounds a year left." I squeezed her
hand hard and tight. I did not know what to say.
Presently (it was too dark to see her face) I felt her
fingers work convulsively in my grasp ; and I knew
she was going to speak again. I heard the sobs in her
voice as she said, " I hope it's not wrong — not wicked
— but oh ! I am so glad poor Deborah is spared this.
She could not have borne to come down in the world
— she had such a noble, lofty spirit."
This was all she said about the sister who had in-
sisted upon investing their little property in that
unlucky bank. We were later in lighting the candle
than usual that night, and until that light shamed
us into speaking, we sat together very silently and
sadly.
However, we took to our work after tea with a kind
of forced cheerfulness (which soon became real as far
as it went), talking of that never-ending wonder, Lady
Glenmire's engagement. Miss Matty was almost
coming round to think it a good thing.
" I don't mean to deny that men are troublesome
in a house. I don't judge from my own experience,
for my father was neatness itself, and wiped his shoes
on coming in as carefully as any woman ; but still a
man has a sort of knowledge of what should be done
in difiiculties, that it is very pleasant to have one at
200 CRANFORD
hand ready to lean upon. Now, Lady Glenmire, in-
stead of being tossed about, and wondering where she
is to settle, will be certain of a home among pleasant
and kind people, such as our good Miss Pole and Mrs.
Forrester. And Mr. Hoggins is really a very person-
able man ; and as for his manners, why, if they are not
very polished, I have known people with very good
hearts and very clever minds too, who were not what
some people reckoned refined, but who were both true
and tender."
She fell off into a soft reverie about Mr. Holbrook,
and I did not interrupt her, I was so busy maturing a
plan I had had in my mind for some days, but which
this threatened failure of the bank had brought to a
crisis. That night, after Miss Matty went to bed, I
treacherously lighted the candle again, and sat down
in the drawing-room to compose a letter to the Aga
Jenkyns, a letter which should affect him if he were
Peter, and yet seem a mere statement of dry facts if
he were a stranger. The church clock pealed out two
before I had done.
The next morning news came, both official and
otherwise, that the Town and County Bank had
stopped payment. Miss Matty was ruined.
She tried to speak quietly to me ; but when she
came to the actual fact that she would have but about
five shillings a week to live upon, she could not restrain
a few tears.
" I am not crying for myself, dear," said she, wiping
them away ; "I believe I am crying for the very silly
thought of how my mother would grieve if she could
know ; she always cared for us so much more than for
herself. But many a poor person has less, and I am not
very extravagant ; and, thank God, when the neck of
mutton, and Martha's wages, and the rent are paid.
STOPPED PAYMENT
20 1
I have not a farthing owing. Poor Martha ! I think
she'll be sorry to leave me."
Miss Matty smiled at me through her tears, and she
would fain have had me see only the smile, not the
tears.
Jhe (y€d> J'ta^/ie^ jYoic^e
mrm I
Ontfie
CHAPTER XIV8'
FRIENDS IN NEED
TT was an example to me, and I fancy it might be
"'■ to many others, to see how immediately Miss
Matty set about the retrenchment which she knew
to be right under her altered circumstances. While
she went down to speak to Martha, and break the in-
telligence to her, I stole out with my letter to the
Aga Jenkyns, and went to the Signor's lodgings to
obtain the exact address. I bound the Signora to
secrecy ; and indeed her military manners had a degree
of shortness and reserve in them which made her
always say as little as possible, except when under the
pressure of strong excitement. Moreover (which
made my secret doubly sure), the Signor was now so
far recovered as to be looking forward to travelling
and conjuring again in the space of a few days, when he,
his wife, and little Phcebe would leave Cranford. In-
deed, I found him looking over a great black and red
202
FRIENDS IN NEED 203
placard, in which the Signer Brunoni's accomplish-
ments were set forth, and to which only the name of
the town where he would next display them was
wanting. He and his wife were so much absorbed in
deciding where the red letters would come in with
most effect (it might have been the Rubric for that
matter), that it was some time before I could get my
question asked privately, and not before I had given
several decisions, the wisdom of which I questioned
afterwards with equal sincerity as soon as the Signor
threw in his doubts and reasons on the important sub-
ject. At last I got the address, spelt by sound, and
very queer it looked. I dropped it in the post on my
way home, and then for a minute I stood looking at
the wooden pane with a gaping slit which divided me
from the letter but a moment ago in my hand. It was
gone from me like life, never to be recalled. It would
get tossed about on the sea, and stained with sea-
waves perhaps, and be carried among palm-trees, and
scented with all tropical fragrance ; the little piece
of paper, but an hour ago so familiar and commonplace,
had set out on its race to the strange wild countries
beyond the Ganges ! But I could not afford to lose
much time on this speculation. I hastened home, that
Miss Matty might not miss me. Martha opened the
door to me, her face swollen with crying. As soon as
she saw me she burst out afresh, and, taking hold of
my arm, she pulled me in, and banged the door to, in
order to ask me if indeed it was all true that Miss Matty
had been saying.
" I'll never leave her ! No, I won't. I telled her
so, and said I could not think how she could find in her
heart to give me warning. I could not have had the
face to do it, if I'd been her. I might ha' been just
as good for nothing as Mrs. Fitz-Adam's Rosy, who
204 CRANFORD
struck for wages after living seven years and a half in
one place. I said I was not one to go and serve Mam-
mon at that rate ; that I knew when I'd got a good
missus, if she didn't know when she'd got a good
servant "
" But, Martha," said I, cutting in while she wiped
her eyes.
" Don't ' but Martha ' me," she replied to my
deprecatory tone.
" Listen to reason "
" I'll not listen to reason," she said, now in full
possession of her voice, which had been rather choked
with sobbing. " Reason always means what someone
else has got to say. Now I think what I've got to say
is good enough reason ; but reason or not, I'll say it,
and I'll stick to it. I've money in the Savings Bank,
and I've a good stock of clothes, and I'm not going
to leave Miss Matty. No, not if she gives me warning
every hour in the day ! "
She put her arms akimbo, as much as to say she defied
me ; and, indeed, I could hardly tell how to begin to
remonstrate with her, so much did I feel that Miss
Matty, in her increasing infirmity, needed the atten-
dance of this kind and faithful woman.
" Well " said I at last.
" I'm thankful you begin with ' well ! ' If you'd
ha' begun with ' but,' as you did afore, I'd not ha'
listened to you. Now you may go on."
" I know you would be a great loss to Miss Matty,
Martha "
" I telled her so. A loss she'd never cease to be
sorry for," broke in Martha triumphantly.
" Still, she will have so little — so very little — to live
upon, that I don't see just now how she could find you
food — she will even be pressed for her own. I tell you
FRIENDS IN NEED 205
this, Martha, because I feel you are Hke a friend to
dear Miss Matty, but you know she might not like to
have it spoken about."
Apparently this was even a blacker view of the sub-
ject than Miss Matty had presented to her, for Martha
just sat down on the first chair that came to hand, and
cried out loud (we had been standing in the kitchen).
At last she put her apron down, and, looking me
earnestly in the face, asked, " Was that the reason
Miss Matty wouldn't order a pudding to-day ? She
said she had no great fancy for sweet things, and you
and she would just have a mutton-chop. But I'll be
up to her. Never you tell, but I'll make her a pudding,
and a pudding she'll like, too, and I'll pay for it myself ;
so mind you see she eats it. Many a one has been com-
forted in their sorrow by seeing a good dish come
upon the table."
I was rather glad that Martha's energy had taken the
immediate and practical direction of pudding-making,
for it staved off the quarrelsome discussion as to whether
she should or should not leave Miss Matty's service.
She began to tie on a clean apron, and otherwise pre-
pare herself for going to the shop for the butter, eggs,
and what else she might require. She would not use
a scrap of the articles already in the house for her
cookery, but went to an old teapot in which her
private store of money was deposited, and took out
what she wanted.
I found Miss Matty very quiet, and not a little sad ;
but by and by she tried to smile for my sake. It was
settled that I was to write to my father, and ask him
to come over and hold a consultation, and as soon as
this letter was despatched we began to talk over future
plans. Miss Matty's idea was to take a single room,
and retain as much of her furniture as would be neces-
2o6 CRANFORD
sary to fit up this, and sell the rest, and there to quietly
exist upon what would remain after paying the rent.
For my part, I was more ambitious and less contented.
I thought of all the things by which a woman past
middle age, and with the education common to ladies
fifty years ago, could earn or add to a living without
materially losing caste ; but at length I put even this
last clause on one side, and wondered what in the world
Miss Matty could do.
Teaching was, of course, the first thing that sug-
gested itself. If Miss Matty could teach children
anything, it would throw her among the little elves
in whom her soul delighted. I ran over her accom-
plishments. Once upon a time I had heard her say
she could play " Ah ! vous dirai-je, maman ? " on the
piano, but that was long, long ago ; that faint shadow
of musical acquirement had died out years before.
She had also once been able to trace out patterns very
nicely for muslin embroidery, by dint of placing a
piece of silver paper over the design to be copied, and
holding both against the window-pane while she
marked the scollop and eyelet-holes. But that was
her nearest approach to the accomplishment of draw-
ing, and I did not think it would go very far. Then,
again, as to the branches of a solid English education
— fancy work and the use of the globes — such as the
mistress of the Ladies' Seminary, ^^ to which all the
tradespeople in Cranford sent their daughters, pro-
fessed to teach. Miss Matty's eyes were failing her,
and I doubted if she could discover the number of
threads in a worsted-work pattern, or rightly appre-
ciate the different shades required for Queen Adelaide's
face in the loyal wool-work now fashionable in Cran-
ford. As for the use of the globes, I had never been
able to find it out myself, so perhaps I was not a good
FRIENDS IN NEED 207
judge of Miss Matty's capability of instructing in this
branch of education ; but it struck me that equators
and tropics, and such mystical circles, were very
imaginary lines indeed to her, and that she looked
upon the signs of the Zodiac as so many remnants of
the Black Art.
What she piqued herself upon, as arts in which she
excelled, was making candle-lighters, or " spills " (as
she preferred calling them), of coloured paper, cut
so as to resemble feathers, and knitting garters in a
variety of dainty stitches. I had once said, on receiving
a present of an elaborate pair, that I should feel quite
tempted to drop one of them in the street, in order
to have it admired ; but I found this little joke (and
it was a very little one) was such a distress to her sense
of propriety, and was taken with such anxious, earnest
alarm, lest the temptation might some day prove too
strong for me, that I quite regretted having ventured
upon it. A present of these delicately-wrought
garters, a bunch of gay "spills," or a set of cards on
which sewing-silk was wound in a mystical manner,
were the well-known tokens of Miss Matty's favour.
But would anyone pay to have their children taught
these arts ? or, indeed, would Miss Matty sell, for
filthy lucre, the knack and the skill with which she
made trifles of value to those who loved her ?
I had to come down to reading, writing, and arith-
metic ; and, in reading the chapter every morning,
she always coughed before coming to long words. I
doubted her power of getting through a genealogical
chapter, with any number of coughs. Writing she did
well and delicately — but spelling! She seemed to think
that the more out-of-the-way this was, and the more
trouble it cost her, the greater the compliment she paid
to her correspondent ; and words that she would spell
208 CRANFORD
quite correctly in her letters to me became perfect
enigmas when she wrote to my father.
No ! there was nothing she could teach to the rising
generation of Cranford, unless they had been quick
learners and ready imitators of her patience, her
humility, her sweetness, her quiet contentment with
all that she could not do. I pondered and pondered
until dinner was announced by Martha, with a face
all blubbered and swollen with crying.
Miss Matty had a few little peculiarities which
Martha was apt to regard as whims below her atten-
tion, and appeared to consider as childish fancies, of
which an old lady of fifty-eight should try and cure
herself. But to-day everything was attended to with
the most careful regard. The bread was cut to the
imaginary pattern of excellence that existed in Miss
Matty's mind, as being the way which her mother had
preferred ; the curtain was drawn so as to exclude the
dead brick wall of a neighbour's stables, and yet left
so as to show every tender leaf of the poplar which was
bursting into spring beauty. Martha's tone to Miss
Matty was just such as that good, rough-spoken ser-
vant usually kept sacred for little children, and which
I had never heard her use to any grown-up person.
I had forgotten to tell Miss Matty about the pud-
ding, and I was afraid she might not do justice to it,
for she had evidently very little appetite this day ; so
I seized the opportunity of letting her into the secret
while Martha took away the meat. Miss Matty's eyes
filled with tears, and she could not speak, either to
express surprise or delight, when Martha returned
bearing it aloft, made in the most wonderful repre-
sentation of a a lion couchant that ever was moulded.
Martha's face gleamed with triumph as she set it down
before Miss Matty with an exultant " There ! " Miss
FRIENDS IN NEED 209
Matty wanted to speak her thanks, but could not ; so
she took Martha's hand and shook it warmly, which
set Martha off crying, and I myself could hardly keep
up the necessary composure. Martha burst out of
the room, and Miss Matty had to clear her voice once
or twice before she could speak. At last she said, " I
should like to keep this pudding under a glass shade, my '
dear ! " and the notion of the lion couchant, with his
currant eyes, being hoisted up to the place of honour
on a mantelpiece, tickled my hysterical fancy, and
I began to laugh, which rather surprised Miss
Matty.
" I am sure, dear, I have seen uglier things under a
glass shade before rioWj" said she.
So had I, many a time and oft, and I accordingly
composed my countenance (and now I could hardly
keep from crying), and we both fell to upon the pud-
ding, which was indeed excellent — only every morsel
seemed to choke us, our hearts were so full.
We had too much to think about to talk much that
afternoon. It passed over very tranquilly. But when
the tea-urn was brought in a new thought came into
my head. Why should not Miss Matty sell tea — be an
agent to the East India Tea Company which then
existed ? I could see no objections to this plan, while
the advantages were many — always supposing that
Miss Matty could get over the degradation of con-
descending to anything like trade. Tea was neither
greasy nor sticky — grease and stickiness being two of
the qualities which Miss Matty could not endure.
No shop-window would be required. A small, genteel
notification of her being licensed to sell tea would, it
is true, be necessary, but I hoped that it could be
placed where no one would see it. Neither was tea a
heavy article, so as to tax Miss Matty's fragile strength.
14
2IO CRANFORD
The only thing against my plan was the buying and
selling involved.
While I was giving but absent answers to the ques-
tions Miss Matty was putting — almost as absently — we
heard a clumping sound on the stairs, and a whispering
outside the door, which indeed once opened and shut
as if by some invisible agency. After a little while
Martha came in, dragging after her a great tall young
man, all crimson with shyness, and finding his only
relief in perpetually sleeking down his hair.
" Please, ma'am, he's only Jem Hearn," said Martha,
by way of an introduction ; and so out of breath was
she, that I imagine she had had some bodily struggle
before she could overcome his reluctance to be pre-
sented on the courtly scene of Miss Matilda Jenkyns's
drawing-room.
" And please, ma'am, he wants to marry me off-
hand. And please, ma'am, we want to take a lodger —
just one quiet lodger, to make our two ends meet ;
and we'd take any house conformable ; and oh, dear
Miss Matty, if I may be so bold, would you have any
objections to lodging with us .? Jem wants it as much
as I do." [To Jem :] — " You great oaf ! why can't
you back me .? — But he does want it all the same, very
bad — don't you, Jem .? — only, you see, he's dazed at
being called on to speak before quality."
" It's not that," broke in Jem. " It's that you've
taken me all on a sudden, and I didn't think for to get
married so soon — and such quick work does flabbergast
a man. It's not that I'm against it, ma'am " (ad-
dressing Miss Matty), " only Martha has such quick
ways with her when once she takes a thing into her
head ; and marriage, ma'am — marriage nails a man, as
one may say. I daresay I shan't mind it after it's once
over,"
FRIENDS IN NEED 211
" Please, ma'am," said Martha — who had plucked
at his sleeve, and nudged him with her elbow, and other-
wise tried to interrupt him, all the time he had been
speaking — " don't mind him, he'll come to ; 'twas
only last night he was an-axing me, and an-axing me,
and all the more because I said I could not think of it
for years to come, and now he's only taken aback with
the suddenness of the joy ; but you know, Jem, you
are just as full as me about wanting a lodger." (Another
great nudge.)
" Ay ! if Miss Matty would lodge with us — other-
wise I've no mind to be cumbered with strange folk
in the house," said Jem, with a want of tact which I
could see enraged Martha, who was trying to represent
a lodger as the great object they wished to obtain,
and that, in fact. Miss Matty would be smoothing
their path and conferring a favour, if she would only
come and live with them.
Miss Matty herself was bewildered by the pair ;
their, or rather Martha's, sudden resolution in favour
of matrimony staggered her, and stood between her
and the contemplation of the plan which Martha had
at heart. Miss Matty began —
" Marriage is a very solemn thing, Martha."
" It is indeed, ma'am," quoth Jem. " Not that
I've no objections to Martha."
" You've never let me a-be for asking me for to
fix when I would be married," said Martha — her face
all a-fire, and ready to cry with vexation — " and now
you're shaming me before my missus and all."
" Nay, now ! Martha, don't ee ! don't ee ! only a
man likes to have breathing-time," said Jem, trying
to possess himself of her hand, but in vain. Then
seeing that she was more seriously hurt than he had
imagined, he seemed to try to rally his scattered
212 CRANFORD
faculties, and with more straightforward dignity than,
ten minutes before, I should have thought it possible
for him to assume, he turned to Miss Matty and said,
" I hope, ma'am, you know that I am bound to re-
spect everyone who has been kind to Martha. I always
looked on her as to be my wife — some time ; and she
has often and often spoken of you as the kindest lady
that ever was ; and though the plain truth is, I would
not like to be troubled with lodgers of the common
run, yet if, ma'am, you'd honour us by living with us,
I'm sure Martha would do her best to make you com-
fortable ; and I'd keep out of your way as much as
I could, which I reckon would be the best kindness
such an awkward chap as me could do."
Miss Matty had been very busy with taking off her
spectacles, wiping them, and replacing them ; but all
she could say was, " Don't let any thought of me
hurry you into marriage : pray don't ! Marriage is
such a very solemn thing ! "
" But Miss Matilda will think of your plan, Martha,"
said I, struck with the advantages that it offered, and
unwilling to lose the opportunity of considering about
it. " And I'm sure neither she nor I can ever forget
your kindness ; nor yours either, Jem."
" Why, yes, ma'am ! I'm sure I mean kindly, though
I'm a bit fluttered by being pushed straight ahead into
matrimony, as it were, and mayn't express myself con-
formable. But I'm sure I'm wilhng enough, and give
me time to get accustomed ; so, Martha, wench,
what's the use of crying so, and slapping me if I come
near ? "
This last was sotto voce, and had the effect of making
Martha bounce out of the room, to be followed and
soothed by her lover. Whereupon Miss Matty sat
down and cried very heartily, and accounted for it by
FRIENDS IN NEED 213
saying that the thought of Martha being married so
soon gave her quite a shock, and that she should never
forgive herself if she thought she was hurrying the
poor creature. I think my pity was more for Jem, of the
two ; but both Miss Matty and I appreciated to the
full the kindness of the honest couple, although we
said little about this, and a good deal about the
chances and dangers of matrimony.
The next morning, very early, I received a note from
Miss Pole, so mysteriously wrapped up, and with so
many seals on it to secure secrecy, that I had to tear
the paper before I could unfold it. And when I came
to the writing I could hardly understand the meaning,
it was so involved and oracular. I made out, however,
that I was to go to Miss Pole's at eleven o'clock ; the
number eleven being written in full length as well as
in numerals, and A.M. twice dashed under, as if I were
very likely to come at eleven at night, when all Cran-
ford was usually abed and asleep by ten. There was
no signature except Miss Pole's initials reversed, P. E.;
but as Martha had given me the note, " with Miss
Pole's kind regards," it needed no wizard to find out
who sent it ; and if the writer's name was to be kept
secret, it was very well that I was alone when Martha
delivered it.
I went as requested to Miss Pole's. The door was
opened to me by her little maid Lizzy in Sunday trim,
as if some grand event was impending over this work-
day. And the drawing-room upstairs was arranged
in accordance with this idea. The table was set out
with the best green card-cloth, and writing materials
upon it. On the little chiffonier was a tray with a
newly-decantered bottle of cowslip wine, and some
ladies'-finger biscuits. Miss Pole herself was in solemn
array, as if to receive visitors, although it was only
214 CRANFORD
eleven o'clock. Mrs. Forrester was there, crying
quietly and sadly, and my arrival seemed only to call
forth fresh tears. Before w^e had finished our greet-
ings, performed with lugubrious mystery of demeanour,
there was another rat-tat-tat, and Mrs. Fitz-Adam
appeared, crimson with walking and excitement. It
seemed as if this was all the company expected ; for
now Miss Pole made several demonstrations of being
about to open the business of the meeting, by stirring
the fire, opening and shutting the door, and coughing
and blowing her nose. Then she arranged us all round
the table, taking care to place me opposite to her ;
and last of all, she inquired of me if the sad report was
true, as she feared it was, that Miss Matty had lost all
her fortune ?
Of course, I had but one answer to make ; and I
never saw more unaffected sorrow depicted on any
countenances than I did there on the three before me.
" I wish Mrs. Jamieson was here ! " said Mrs.
Forrester at last ; but to judge from Mrs. Fitz-Adam's
face, she could not second the wish.
" But without Mrs. Jamieson," said Miss Pole,
with just a sound of offended merit in her voice, " we,
the ladies of Cranford, in my drawing-room assembled,
can resolve upon something. I imagine we are none
of us what may be called rich, though we all possess
a genteel competency, sufficient for tastes that are
elegant and refined, and would not, if they could, be
vulgarly ostentatious." (Here I observed Miss Pole
refer to a small card concealed in her hand, on which
I imagine she had put down a few notes.)
" Miss Smith," she continued, addressing me
(familiarly known as " Mary " to all the company
assembled, but this was a state occasion), " I have
conversed in private — I made it my business to do so
FRIENDS IN NEED 215
yesterday afternoon — with these ladies on the misfor-
tune which has happened to our friend, and one and
all of us have agreed that, while we have a superfluity,
it is not only a duty, but a pleasure — a true pleasure,
Mary ! " — her voice was rather choked just here, and
she had to wipe her spectacles before she could go on
— " to give what we can to assist her — Miss Matilda
Jenkyns. Only in consideration of the feelings of
delicate independence existing in the mind of every
refined female " — I was sure she had got back to the
card now — " we wish to contribute our mites in a
secret and concealed manner, so as not to hurt the
feelings I have referred to. And our object in re-
questing you to meet us this morning is that, believing
you are the daughter — that your father is, in fact,
her confidential adviser in all pecuniary matters, we
imagined that, by consulting with him, you might
devise some mode in which our contribution could be
made to appear the legal due which Miss Matilda
Jenkyns ought to receive from Probably, your
father, knowing her investments, can fill up the blank."
Miss Pole concluded her address, and looked round
for approval and agreement.
" I have expressed your meaning, ladies, have I not ?
And while Miss Smith considers what reply to make,
allow me to offer you some little refreshment."
I had no great reply to make ; I had more thankful-
ness at my heart for their kind thoughts than I cared to
put into words ; and so I only mumbled out something
to the effect " that I would name what Miss Pole had
said to my father, and that if anything could be
arranged for dear Miss Matty," — and here I broke down
utterly, and had to be refreshed with a glass of cowslip
wine before I could check the crying which had been
repressed for the last two or three days. The worst
2i6 CRANFORD
was, all the ladies cried in concert. Even Miss Pole
^ cried, who had said a hundred times that to betray
emotion before anyone was a sign of weakness and want
of self-control. She recovered herself into a slight
degree of impatient anger, directed against me, as
having set them all off ; and, moreover, I think she
was vexed that I could not make a speech back in
return for hers ; and if I had known beforehand what
was to be said, and had a card on which to express the
probable feelings that would rise in my heart, I would
have tried to gratify her. As it was, Mrs. Forrester
was the person to speak when we had recovered our
composure.
" I don't mind, among friends, stating that I —
no ! I'm not poor exactly, but I don't think I'm what
you may call rich ; I wish I were, for dear Matty's
sake — but, if you please, I'll write down in a sealed
paper what I can give. I only wish it was more : my
dear Mary, I do indeed."
Now I saw why paper, pens, and ink were provided.
Every lady wrote down the sum she could give annually,
signed the paper, and sealed it mysteriously. If their
proposal was acceded to, my father was to be allowed
to open the papers, under pledge of secrecy. If not,
they were to be returned to their writers.
When this ceremony had been gone through, I
rose to depart ; but each lady seemed to wish to have
a private conference with me. Miss Pole kept me in
the drawing-room to explain why, in Mrs. Jamieson's
absence, she had taken the lead in this " movement,"
as she was pleased to call it, and also to inform me that
she had heard from good sources that Mrs. Jamieson
was coming home directly in a state of high displeasure
against her sister-in-law, who was forthwith to leave
her house, and was, she beheved, to return to Edin-
FRIENDS IN NEED 217
burgh that very afternoon. Of course this piece of
intelligence could not be communicated before Mrs.
Fitz-Adam, more especially as Miss Pole was inclined
to think that Lady Glenmire's engagement to Mr.
Hoggins could not possibly hold against the blaze of
Mrs. Jamieson's displeasure. A few hearty inquiries
after Miss Matty's health concluded my interview
with Miss Pole.
On coming downstairs, I found Mrs. Forrester
waiting for me at the entrance to the dining-parlour ;
she drew me in, and when the door was shut, she tried
two or three times to begin on some subject, which was
so unapproachable apparently, that I began to despair
of our ever getting to a clear understanding. At last
out it came ; the poor old lady trembling all the time
as if it were a great crime which she was exposing to
daylight in telling me how very, very little she had to
live upon ; a confession which she was brought to
make from a dread lest we should think that the small
contribution named in her paper bore any proportion
to her love and regard for Miss Matty. And yet that
sum which she so eagerly relinquished was, in truth,
more than a twentieth part of what she had to live
upon, and keep house, and a little serving-maid, all
as became one born a Tyrrell. And when the whole
income does not nearly amount to a hundred pounds,
to give up a twentieth of it will necessitate many care-
ful economies, and many pieces of self-denial, small
and insignificant in the world's account, but bearing
a different value in another account-book that I have
heard of. She did so wish she was rich, she said, and
this wish she kept repeating, with no thought of her-
self in it, only with a longing, yearning desire to be able
to heap up Miss Matty's measure of comforts.
It was some time before I could console her enough
2i8 CRANFORD
to leave her ; and then, on quitting the house, I was
waylaid by Mrs. Fitz-Adam, who had also her confi-
dence to make of pretty nearly the opposite descrip-
tion. She had not liked to put down all that she could
afford and was ready to give. She told me she thought
she could never look Miss Matty in the face again if
she presumed to be giving her so much as she should
like to do. " Miss Matty ! " continued she, " that I
thought was such a fine young lady when I was nothing
but a country girl, coming to market with eggs and
butter and such-like things. For my father, though
well-to-do, would always make me go on as my
mother had done before me, and I had to come into
Cranford every Saturday, and see after sales, and
prices, and what not. And one day, I remember, I
met Miss Matty in the lane that leads to Combehurst ;
she was walking on the footpath, which, you know, is
raised a good way above the road, and a gentleman
rode beside her, and was talking to her, and she was
looking down at some primroses she had gathered, and
pulling them all to pieces, and I do believe she was
crying. But after she had passed she turned round
and ran after me to ask — oh, so kindly — about my
poor mother, who lay on her deathbed ; and when I
cried she took hold of my hand to comfort me — and
the gentleman waiting for her all the time — and her
poor heart very full of something, I am sure ; and I
thought it such an honour to be spoken to in that
pretty way by the rector's daughter, who visited at
Arley Hall. I have loved her ever since, though
perhaps I had no right to do it ; but if you can think
of any way in which I might be allowed to give a
little more without anyone knowing it, I should be so
much obliged to you, my dear. And my brother
would be delighted to doctor her for nothing — medi-
FRIENDS IN NEED 219
cines, leeches, and all. I know that he and her lady-
ship (my dear, I little thought in the days I was telling
you of that I should ever come to be sister-in-law to a
ladyship !) would do anything for her. We all would."
I told her I was quite sure of it, and promised all
sorts of things in my anxiety to get home to Miss
Matty, who might well be wondering what had become
of me — absent from her two hours without being able
to account for it. She had taken very little note of
time, however, as she had been occupied in number-
less little arrangements preparatory to the great step
of giving up her house. It was evidently a relief to
her to be doing something in the way of retrenchment,
for, as she said, whenever she paused to think, the
recollection of the poor fellow with his bad five-pound
note came over her, and she felt quite dishonest ; only
if it made her so uncomfortable, what must it not be
doing to the directors of the bank, who must know so
much more of the misery consequent upon this failure ;
She almost made me angry by dividing her sympathy
between these directors (whom she imagined over-
whelmed by self-reproach for the mismanagement of
other people's affairs) and those who were suffering
like her. Indeed, of the two, she seemed to think
poverty a lighter burden than self-reproach ; but I
privately doubted if the directors would agree with her.
Old hoards were taken out and examined as to
their money value, which luckily was small, or else
I don't know how Miss Matty would have prevailed
upon herself to part with such things as her mother's
wedding ring, the strange, uncouth brooch with which
her father had disfigured his shirt frill, etc. How-
ever, we arranged things a little in order as to their
pecuniary estimation, and were all ready for my father
when he came the next morning.
220 CRANFORD
I am not going to weary you with the details of all
the business we went through ; and one reason for
not telling about them is, that I did not understand
what we were doing at the time, and cannot recollect
it now. Miss Matty and I sat assenting to accounts,
and schemes, and reports, and documents, of which I
do not believe we either of us understood a word ; for
my father was clear-headed and decisive, and a capital
man of business, and if we made the slighest inquiry,
or expressed the slightest want of comprehension, he
had a sharp way of saying, " Eh ? eh ? it's as clear as
daylight. What's your objection ? " And as we had
not comprehended anything of what he had proposed,
we found it rather difficult to shape our objections ;
in fact, we never were sure if we had any. So pre-
sently Miss Matty got into a nervously acquiescent
state, and said " Yes," and " Certainly," at every
pause, whether required or not ; but when I once
joined in as chorus to a " Decidedly," pronounced by
Miss Matty in a tremblingly dubious tone, my father
fired round at me and asked me " What there was to
decide .? " And I am sure to this day I have never
known. But, in justice to him, I must say he had
come over from Drumble to help Miss Matty when he
could ill spare the time, and when his own affairs were
in a very anxious state.
While Miss Matty was out of the room giving
orders for luncheon — and sadly perplexed between
her desire of honouring my father by a delicate, dainty
meal, and her conviction that she had no right, now
that all her money was gone, to indulge this desire —
I told him of the meeting of the Cranford ladies at
Miss Pole's the day before. He kept brushing his
hand before his eyes as I spoke — and when I went back
to Martha's offer the evening before, of receiving Miss
FRIENDS IN NEED 221:
Matty as a lodger, he fairly walked away from me to the
window, and began drumming with his fingers upon
it. Then he turned abruptly round, and said, " See,
Mary, how a good, innocent life makes friends all
round. Confound it ! I could make a good lesson
out of it if I were a parson ; but, as it is, I can't get a
tail to my sentences — only I'm sure you feel what I
want to say. You and I will have a walk after lunch
and talk a bit more about these plans."
The lunch — a hot savoury mutton chop, and a
little of the cold Hon sliced and fried — was now
brought in. Every morsel of this last dish was finished,
to Martha's great gratification. Then my father
bluntly told Miss Matty he wanted to talk to me alone,
and that he would stroll out and see some of the old
places, and then I could tell her what plan we thought
desirable. Just before we went out, she called me back
and said, " Remember, dear, I'm the only one left — I
mean, there's no one to be hurt by what I do. I'm
willing to do anything that's right and honest ; and
I don't think, if Deborah knows where she is, she'll
care sa very much if I'm not genteel ; because, you
see, she'll know all, dear. Only let me see what I can
do, and pay the poor people as far as I'm able."
I gave her a hearty kiss, and ran after my father.
The result of our conversation was this. If all parties
were agreeable, Martha and Jem were to be married
with as little delay as possible, and they were to live
on in Miss Matty's present abode ; the sum which
the Cranford ladies had agreed to contribute annually
being sufficient to meet the greater part of the rent,
and leaving Martha free to appropriate what Miss
Matty should pay for her lodgings to any little extra
comforts required. About the sale, my father was
dubious at first. He said the old rectory furniture,
222 CRANFORD
however carefully used and reverently treated, would
fetch very little ; and that little would be but as a
drop in the sea of the debts of the Town and County
Bank. But when I represented how Miss Matty's
tender conscience would be soothed by feeling that
she had done what she could, he gave way ; especially
after I had told him the five-pound note adventure,
and he had scolded me well for allowing it. I then
alluded to my idea that she might add to her small
Income by selling tea ; and, to my surprise (for I had
nearly given up the plan), my father grasped at it
with all the energy of a tradesman. I think he
reckoned his chickens before they were hatched, for
he immediately ran up the profits of the sales which
she could effect in Cranford to more than twenty
pounds a year. The small dining-parlour was to be
converted into a shop, without any of its degrading
characteristics ; a table was to be the counter ; one
window was to be retained unaltered, and the other
changed into a glass door. I evidently rose in his
estimation for having made this bright suggestion.
I only hoped we should not both fall in Miss Matty's.
But she was patient and content with all our ar-
rangements. She knew, she said, that we should do
the best we could for her ; and she only hoped, only
stipulated that she should pay every farthing that she
could be said to owe, for her father's sake, who had
been so respected in Cranford. My father and I had
agreed to say as little as possible about the bank,
indeed never to mention it again, if it could be helped.
Some of the plans were evidently a little perplexing
to her ; but she had seen me sufficiently snubbed in
the morning for want of comprehension to venture on
too many inquiries now ; and all passed over well,
with a hope on her part that no one would be hurried
FRIENDS IN NEED
223
into marriage on her account. When we came to the
proposal that she should sell tea, I could see it was
rather a shock to her ; not on account of any personal
loss of gentility involved, but only because she dis-
trusted her own powers of action in a new line of life,
and would timidly have preferred a little more priva-
tion to any exertion for which she feared she was un-
fitted. However, when she saw my father was bent
upon it, she sighed, and said she would try ; and if she
did not do well, of course she might give it up. One
good thing about it was, she did not think men ever
bought tea ; and it was of men particularly she was
afraid. They had such sharp loud ways with them ;
and did up accounts, and counted their change so
quickly ! Now, if she might only sell comfits to chil-
dren, she was sure she could please them !
3^ne^e Ui^ t^e C(?t(/n
Jhe edcfeofe/UJ'le^UA
CHAPTER XV 89
A HAPPY RETURN
DEFORE I left Miss Matty at Cranford every-
thing had been comfortably arranged for her.
Even Mrs. Jamieson's approval of her selling tea had
been gained. That oracle had taken a few days to
consider v^^hether by so doing Miss Matty would for-
feit her right to the privileges of society in Cranford.
I think she had some little idea of mortifying Lady
Glenmire by the decision she gave at last ; which was
to this effect : that whereas a married woman takes
her husband's rank by the strict laws of precedence,
an unmarried woman retains the station her father
occupied. So Cranford was allowed to visit Miss
Matty ; and, whether allowed or not, it intended to
visit Lady Glenmire.
But what was our surprise — our dismay — when we
learnt that Mr. and Mrs. Hoggins were returning on
the following Tuesday. Mrs. Hoggins ! Had she
224
A HAPPY RETURN 225
absolutely dropped her title, and so, in a spirit of
bravado, cut the aristocracy to become a Hoggins !
She, who might have been called Lady Glenmire to
her dying day ! Mrs. Jamieson was pleased. She said
it only convinced her of what she had known from the
first, that the creature had a low taste. But " the crea-
ture " looked very happy on Sunday at church ; nor
did we see it necessary to keep our veils down on that
side of our bonnets on which Mr. and Mrs. Hoggins
sat, as Mrs. Jamieson did ; thereby missing all the
smiling glory of his face, and all the becoming blushes
of hers. I am not sure if Martha and Jem looked more
radiant in the afternoon, when they, too, made their
first appearance. Mrs. Jamieson soothed the turbu-
lence of her soul by having the blinds of her windows
drawn down, as if for a funeral, on the day when Mr.
and Mrs. Hoggins received callers : and it was with
some difficulty that she was prevailed upon to continue
the St. Jameses Chronicle, so indignant was she with
its having inserted the announcement of the marriage.
Miss Matty's sale went off famously. She retained
the furniture of her sitting-room and bedroom ; the
former of which she was to occupy till Martha could
meet with a lodger who might wish to take it ; and
into this sitting-room and bedroom she had to cram
all sorts of things, which were (the auctioneer assured
her) bought in for her at the sale by an unknown
friend. I always suspected Mrs. Fitz-Adam of this ;
but she must have had an accessory, who knew what
articles were particularly regarded by Miss Matty on
account of their associations with her early days. The
rest of the house looked rather bare, to be sure ; all
except one tiny bedroom, of which my father allowed
me to purchase the furniture for my occasional use in
case of Miss Matty's illness.
15
226 CRANFORD
I had expended my own small store in buying all
manner of comfits and lozenges, in order to tempt
the little people whom Miss Matty loved so much to
come about her. Tea in bright green canisters, and
comfits in tumblers— Miss Matty and I felt quite
proud as we looked round us on the evening before
the shop was to be opened. Martha had scoured the
boarded floor to a white cleanness, and it was adorned
with a brilliant piece of oil-cloth, on which customers
were to stand before the table-counter. The whole-
some smell of plaster and whitewash pervaded the
apartment. A very small " Matilda Jenkyns, licensed
to sell tea," was hidden under the lintel of the new
door, and two boxes of tea, with cabalistic inscriptions
all over them, stood ready to disgorge their contents
into the canisters.
Miss Matty, as I ought to have mentioned before,
had had some scruples of conscience at selling tea when
there was already Mr. Johnson in the town, who in-
cluded it among his numerous commodities ; and,
before she could quite reconcile herself to the adoption
of her new business, she had trotted down to his shop,
unknown to me, to tell him of the project that was
entertained, and to inquire if it was likely to injure
his business. My father called this idea of hers " great
nonsense," and " wondered how tradespeople were to
get on if there was to be a continual consulting of
each other's interests, which would put a stop to all
competition directly." And, perhaps, it would not
have done in Drumble, but in Cranford it answered
very well ; for not only did Mr. Johnson kindly put ^
at rest all Miss Matty's scruples and fear of injuring I
his business, but, I have reason to know, he repeatedly ^
sent customers to her, saying that the teas he kept
were of a common kind, but that Miss Jenkyns had all j
A HAPPY RETURN 227
the choice sorts. And expensive tea is a very favourite
luxury with well-to-do tradespeople and rich farmers'
wives, who turn up their noses at the Congou and
Souchong prevalent at many tables of gentility, and
will have nothing else than Gunpowder and Pekoe for
themselves.
But to return to Miss Matty. It was really very
pleasant to see how her unselfishness, and simple sense
of justice, called out the same good qualities in others.
She never seemed to think anyone would impose upon
her, because she should be so grieved to do it to them.
I have heard her put a stop to the asseverations of the
man who brought her coals by quietly saying, " I am
sure you would be sorry to bring me wrong weight ; "
and if the coals were short measure that time, I don't
believe they ever were again. People would have felt
as much ashamed of presuming on her good faith as
they would have done on that of a child. But my
father says " such simplicity might be very well in
Cranford, but would never do in the world." And I
fancy the world must be very bad, for, with all my
father's suspicion of everyone with whom he has
dealings, and in spite of all his many precautions, he
lost upwards of a thousand pounds by roguery only
last year.
I just stayed long enough to establish Miss Matty
in her new mode of life, and to pack up the library,
which the rector had purchased. He had written a
very kind letter to Miss Matty, saying " how glad he
should be to take a library, so well selected as he knew
that the late Mr. Jenkyns's must have been, at any
valuation put upon them." And when she agreed to
this, with a touch of sorrowful gladness that they would
go back to the rectory and be arranged on the accus-
tomed walls once more, he sent word that he feared
228 CRANFORD
that he had not room for them all, and perhaps Miss
Matty would kindly allow him to leave some volumes
on her shelves. But Miss Matty said that she had her
Bible and " Johnson's Dictionary," and should not
have much time for reading, she was afraid ; still,
I retained a few books out of consideration for the
rector's kindness.
The money which he had paid, and that produced
by the sale, was partly expended in the stock of tea,
and part of it was invested against a rainy day — i.e. old
age or illness. It was but a small sum, it is true ; and
it occasioned a few evasions of truth and white lies
(all of which I think very wrong indeed — in theory —
and would rather not put them in practice), for we
knew Miss Matty would be perplexed as to her duty
if she were aware of any little reserve- fund being made
for her while the debts of the bank remained unpaid.
Moreover, she had never been told of the way in which
her friends were contributing to pay the rent. I
should have liked to tell her this, but the mystery of
the affair gave a piquancy to their deed of kindness
which the ladies were unwilling to give up ; and at
first Martha had to shirk many a perplexed question
as to her ways and means of living in such a house,
but by and by Miss Matty's prudent uneasiness sank
down into acquiescence with the existing arrangement.
I left Miss Matty with a good heart. Her sales of
tea during the first two days had surpassed my most
sanguine expectations. The whole country round
seemed to be all out of tea at once. The only altera-
tion I could have desired in Miss Matty's way of doing
business was, that she should not have so plaintively
entreated some of her customers not to buy green tea
— running it down as slow poison, sure to destroy the
nerves, and produce all manner of evil. Their perti-
A HAPPY RETURN 229
nacity in taking it, in spite of all her warnings, dis-
tressed her so much that I really thought she would
relinquish the sale of it, and so lose half her custom ;
and I was driven to my wits' end for instances of
longevity entirely attributable to a persevering use of
green tea. But the final argument, which settled the
question, was a happy reference of mine to the train-
oil and tallow candles which the Esquimaux not only
enjoy but digest. After that she acknowledged that
" one man's meat might be another man's poison,"
and contented herself thenceforward with an occa-
sional remonstrance when she thought the purchaser
was too young and innocent to be acquainted with
the evil effects green tea produced on some constitu-
tions, and an habitual sigh when people old enough to
choose more wisely would prefer it.
I went over from Drumble once a quarter at least
to settle the accounts, and see after the necessary busi-
ness letters. And, speaking of letters, I began to be
very much ashamed of remembering my letter to the
Aga Jenkyns, and very glad I had never named my
writing to anyone. I only hoped the letter was lost.
No answer came. No sign was made.
About a year after Miss Matty set up shop, I re-
ceived one of Martha's hieroglyphics, begging me to
come to Cranford very soon. I was afraid that Miss
Matty was ill, and went off that very afternoon, and
took Martha by surprise when she saw me on opening
the door. We went into the kitchen, as usual, to have
our confidential conference, and then Martha told me
she was expecting her confinement very soon — in a
week or two ; and she did not think Miss Matty was
aware of it, and she wanted me to break the news to
her, " for indeed, miss," continued Martha, crying
hysterically, " I'm afraid she won't approve of it, and
230 CRANFORD
I'm sure I don't know who is to take care of her as she
should be taken care of when I am laid up."
I comforted Martha by telling her I would remain
till she was about again, and only wished she had told
me her reason for this sudden summons, as then I
would have brought the requisite stock of clothes.
But Martha was so tearful and tender-spirited, and
unlike her usual self, that I said as little as possible
about myself, and endeavoured rather to comfort
Martha under all the probable and possible misfortunes
which came crowding upon her imagination.
I then stole out of the house-door, and made my
appearance as if I were a customer in the shop, just to
take Miss Matty by surprise, and gain an idea of how
she looked in her new situation. It was warm May
weather, so only the little half-door was closed ; and
Miss Matty sat behind her counter, knitting an elabo-
rate pair of garters ; elaborate they seemed to me, but
the difficult stitch was no weight upon her mind, for
she was singing in a low voice to herself as her needles
went rapidly in and out. I call it singing, but I daresay
a musician would not use that word to the tuneless
yet sweet humming of the low, worn voice. I found
out from the words, far more than from the attempt
at the tune, that it was the Old Hundredth she was
crooning to herself ; but the quiet continuous sound
told of content, and gave me a pleasant feeling, as I
stood in the street just outside the door, quite in har-
mony with that soft May morning. I went in. At*
first she did not catch who it was, and stood up as if to
serve me ; but in another minute watchful pussy had
clutched her knitting, which was dropped in eager joy
at seeing me. I found, after we had had a little con-
versation, that it was as Martha said, and that Miss
Matty had no idea of the approaching household event.
A HAPPY RETURN 231
So I thought I would let things take their course,
secure that when I went to her with the baby in my
arms, I should obtain that forgiveness for Martha which
she was needlessly frightening herself into believing
that Miss Matty would withhold, under some notion
that the new claimant would require attentions from
its mother that it would be faithless treason to Miss
Matty to render.
But I was right. I think that must be an hereditary
quality, for my father says he is scarcely ever wrong.
One morning, within a week after I arrived, I went
to call Miss Matty, with a little bundle of flannel in my
arms. She was very much awestruck when I showed
her what it was, and asked for her spectacles off the
dressing-table, and looked at it curiously, with a sort
of tender wonder at its small perfection of parts. She
could not banish the thought of the surprise all day,
but went about on tiptoe, and was very silent. But
she stole up to see Martha, and they both cried with
joy, and she got into a complimentary speech to Jem,
and did not know how to get out of it again, and was
only extricated from her dilemma by the sound of the
shop-bell, which was an equal relief to the shy, proud,
honest Jem, who shook my hand so vigorously when I
congratualated him that I think I feel the pain of it
yet.
I had a busy Hfe while Martha was laid up. I
attended on Miss Matty, and prepared her meals ; I
cast up her accounts, and examined into the state of
her canisters and tumblers. I helped her, too, occa-
sionally, in the shop ; and it gave me no small amuse-
ment, and sometimes a little uneasiness, to watch her
ways there. If a little child came in to ask for an
ounce of almond-comfits (and four of the large kind
which Miss Matty sold weighed that much), she
232 CRANFORD
always added one more by " way of make-weight," as
she called it, although the scale was handsomely turned
before ; and when I remonstrated against this, her
reply was, " The little things like it so much ! " There
was no use in telling her that the fifth comfit weighed a
quarter of an ounce, and made every sale into a loss to
her pocket. So I remembered the green tea, and
winged my shaft with a feather out of her own
plumage. I told her how unwholesome almond-
comfits were, and how ill excess in them might make
the little children. This argument produced some
effect ; for henceforward, instead of the fifth comfit,
she always told them to hold out their tiny palms, into
which she shook either peppermint or ginger lozenges,
as a preventive to the dangers that might arise from
the previous sale. Altogether the lozenge trade, con-
ducted on these principles, did not promise to be re-
munerative ; but I was happy to find she had made
more than twenty pounds during the last year by
her sales of tea ; and, moreover, that now she was
accustomed to it, she did not dislike the employment,
which brought her into kindly intercourse with many
of the people round about. If she gave them good
weight, they, in their turn, brought many a little coun-
try present to the " old rector's daughter " ; a cream
cheese, a few new-laid eggs, a little fresh ripe fruit,
a bunch of flowers. The counter was quite loaded
with these offerings sometimes, as she told me.
As for Cranford in general, it was going on much as
usual. The Jamieson and Hoggins feud still raged, if
a feud it could be called, when only one side cared
much about it. Mr. and Mrs. Hoggins were very
happy together, and, like most very happy people,
quite ready to be friendly ; indeed, Mrs. Hoggins
was really desirous to be restored to Mrs. Jamieson's
A HAPPY RETURN 233
good graces, because of the former intimacy. But Mrs.
Jamieson considered their very happiness an insult to
the Glenmire family, to which she had still the honour
to belong, and she doggedly refused and rejected
every advance. Mr. Mulliner, like a faithful clansman,
espoused his mistress' side with ardour. If he saw
either Mr. or Mrs. Hoggins, he would cross the street,
and appear absorbed in the contemplation of life in
general, and his own path in particular, until he had
passed them by. Miss Pole used to amuse herself with
wondering what in the world Mrs. Jamieson would do,
if either she, or Mr. Mulliner, or any other member of
her household, was taken ill ; she could hardly have
the face to call in Mr. Hoggins after the way she had
behaved to them. Miss Pole grew quite impatient
for some indisposition or accident to befall Mrs.
Jamieson or her dependents, in order that Cranford
might see how she would act under the perplexing
circumstances.
Martha was beginning to go about again, and I had
already fixed a limit, not very far distant, to my visit,
when one afternoon, as I was sitting in the shop-
parlour with Miss Matty — I remember the weather
was colder now than it had been in May, three weeks
before, and we had a fire and kept the door fully closed
— we saw a gentleman go slowly past the window, and
then stand opposite to the door, as if looking out for
the name which we had so carefully hidden. He took
out a double eye-glass, and peered about for some time
before he could discover it. Then he came in. And
all on a sudden, it flashed across me that it was the Aga
himself ! For his clothes had an out-of-the-way
foreign cut about them, and his face was deep brown,
as if tanned and re-tanned by the sun. His complexion
contrasted oddly with his plentiful snow-white hair,
234 CRANFORD
his eyes were dark and piercing, and he had an odd way
of contracting them and puckering up his cheeks into
innumerable wrinkles when he looked earnestly at
objects. He did so to Miss Matty when he first came
in. His glance had first caught and lingered a Httle
upon me, but then turned, with the pecuhar searching
look I have described, to Miss Matty. She was a little
fluttered and nervous, but no more so than she always
was when any man came into her shop. She thought
that he would probably have a note, or a sovereign at
least, for which she would have to give change, which
was an operation she very much disliked to perform.
But the present customer stood opposite to her,
without asking for anything, only looking fixedly at
her as he drummed upon the table with his fingers,
just for all the world as Miss Jenkyns used to do. Miss
Matty was on the point of asking him what he wanted
(as she told me afterwards), when he turned sharp to
me : " Is your name Mary Smith ? "
" Yes ! " said I.
All my doubts as to his identity were set at rest, and
I only wondered what he would say or do next, and
how Miss Matty would stand the joyful shock of what
he had to reveal. Apparently he was at a loss how to
announce himself, for he looked round at last in search
of something to buy, so as to gain time, and, as it
happened, his eye caught on the almond comfits, and
he boldly asked for a pound of " those things." I
doubt if Miss Matty had a whole pound in the shop,
and, besides the unusual magnitude of the order, she
was distressed with the idea of the indigestion they
would produce, taken in such unlimited quantities.
She looked up to remonstrate. Something of tender
relaxation in his face struck home to her heart. She
said, " It is — oh, sir ! can you be Peter ? " and trem-
A HAPPY RETURN 235
bled from head to foot. In a moment he was round
the table and had her in his arms, sobbing the tearless
cries of old age. I brought her a glass of wine, for
indeed her colour had changed so as to alarm me, and
Mr. Peter too. He kept saying, " I have been too
sudden for you, Matty — I have, my little girl."
I proposed that she should go at once up into the
drawing-room and lie down on the sofa there. She
looked wistfully at her brother, whose hand she had
held tight, even when nearly fainting ; but on his
assuring her that he would not leave her, she allowed
him to carry her upstairs.
I thought that the best I could do was to run and
put the kettle on the fire for early tea, and then to
attend to the shop, leaving the brother and sister to
exchange some of the many thousand things they must
have to say. I had also to break the news to Martha,
who received it with a burst of tears which nearly in-
fected me. She kept recovering herself to ask if I was
sure it was indeed Miss Matty's brother, for I had
mentioned that he had grey hair, and she had always
heard that he was a very handsome young man. Some-
thing of the same kind perplexed Miss Matty at tea-
time, when she was installed in the great easy-chair
opposite to Mr. Jenkyns's in order to gaze her fill. She
could hardly drink for looking at him, and as for eating,
that was out of the question.
" I suppose hot climates age people very quickly,"
said she, almost to herself. " When you left Cranford
you had not a grey hair in your head."
" But how many years ago is that ? " said Mr. Peter,
smiling.
" Ah, true ! yes, I suppose you and I are getting old.
But still I did not think we were so very old ! But
white hair is very becoming to you, Peter," she con-
236 CRANFORD
tinued — a little afraid lest she had hurt him hy revealing
ing how his appearance had impressed her.
" I suppose I forgot dates too, Matty, for what do
70U think I have brought for you from India ? I have
an Indian muslin gown and a pearl necklace for you
somewhere in my chest at Portsmouth." He smiled as
if amused at the idea of the incongruity of his presents
with the appearance of his sister ; but this did not
strike her all at once, while the elegance of the articles
did. I could see that for a moment her imagination
dwelt complacently on the idea of herself thus attired ;
and instinctively she put her hand up to her throat —
that little delicate throat which (as Miss Pole had told
me) had been one of her youthful charms ; but the
hand met the touch of folds of soft muslin in which
she was always swathed up to her chin, and the sensa-
tion recalled a sense of the unsuitableness of a pearl
necklace to her age. She said, " I'm afraid I'm too
old ; but it was very kind of you to think of it. They
are just what I should liave liked years ago — when I
was young."
" So I thought, my little Matty. I remembered
your tastes ; they were so like my dear mother's."
At the mention of that name the brother and sister
clasped each other's hands yet more fondly, and
although they were perfectly silent, I fancied they
might have something to say if they were unchecked
by my presence, and I got up to arrange my room
for Mr. Peter's occupation that night, intending
myself, to share Miss Matty's bed. But at my move-
ment he started up. " I must go and settle about a
room at the ' George.' My carpet-bag is there too."
" No ! " said Miss Matty, in great distress — " you
must not go ; please, dear Peter — pray, Mary — oh !
you must not go ! "
A HAPPY RETURN 237
She was so much agitated that we both promised
everything she wished. Peter sat down again and
gave her his hand, which for better security she held
in both of hers, and I left the room to accomplish my
arrangements.
Long, long into the night, far, far into the morning,
did Miss Matty and I talk. She had much to tell me
of her brother's life and adventures, which he had com-
municated to her as they had sat alone. She said all
was thoroughly clear to her ; but I never quite under-
stood the whole story ; and when in after days I lost
my awe of Mr. Peter enough to question him myself,
he laughed at my curiosity, and told me stories that
sounded so very much like Baron Munchausen's, that
I was sure he was making fun of me. What I heard
from Miss Matty was that he had been a volunteer at
the siege of Rangoon ; had been taken prisoner by
the Burmese ; had somehow obtained favour and
eventual freedom, from knowing how to bleed the
chief of the small tribe in some case of dangerous
illness ; that on his release from years of captivity he
had had his letters returned from England with the
ominous word " Dead " marked upon them ; and,
believing himself to be the last of his race, he had
settled down as an indigo planter, and had proposed
to spend the remainder of his life in the country, to
whose inhabitants and modes of life he had become
habituated, when my letter reached him ; and, with
the odd vehemence which characterised him in age as
it had done in youth, he had sold his lands and all his
possessions to the first purchaser, and come home to
the poor old sister, who was more glad and rich than
any princess when she looked at him. She talked me
to sleep at last, and then I was awakened by a slight
sound at the door, for which she begged my pardon
238 CRANFORD
as she crept penitently into bed ; but it seems that
when I could no longer confirm her belief that the
long-lost was really here — under the same roof — she
had begun to fear lest it was only a waking dream of
hers ; that there never had been a Peter sitting by
her all that blessed evening — but that the real Peter
lay dead far away beneath some wild sea-wave, or
under some strange Eastern tree. And so strong had
this nervous feeling of hers become, that she was fain
to get up and go and convince herself that he was
really there by listening through the door to his even,
regular breathing — I don't like to call it snoring, but
I heard it myself through two closed doors — and by
and by it soothed Miss Matty to sleep.
I don't believe Mr. Peter came home from India
as rich as a nabob ; he even considered himself poor,
but neither he nor Miss Matty cared much about
that. At any rate, he had enough to live upon " very
genteelly " at Cranford, he and Miss Matty together.
And a day or two after his arrival, the shop was closed,
while troops of little urchins gleefully awaited the
shower of comfits and lozenges that came from time
to time down upon their faces as they stood up-gazing
at Miss Matty's drawing-room windows. Occasionally
Miss Matty would say to them (half-hidden behind
the curtains), " My dear children, don't make your-
selves ill ; " but a strong arm pulled her back, and a
more rattling shower then ever succeeded. A part of
the tea was sent in presents to the Cranford ladies ;
and some of it was distributed among the old people
who remembered Mr. Peter in the days of his froHc-
some youth. The India muslin gown was reserved
for darling Flora Gordon (Miss Jessie Brown's daugh-
ter). The Gordons had been on the Continent for
the last few years, but were now expected to return
i
A HAPPY RETURN
239
very soon ; and Miss Matty, in her sisterly pridej
anticipated great delight in the joy of showing them
Mr. Peter. The pearl necklace disappeared ; and
about that time many handsome and useful presents
made their appearance in the households of Miss Pole
and Mrs. Forrester ; and some rare and delicate Indian
ornaments graced the drawing-rooms of Mrs, Jamieson
and Mrs. Fitz-Adam. I myself was not forgotten.
Among other things, I had the handsomest bound and
best edition of Dr. Johnson's works that could be
procured ; and dear Miss Matty, with tears in her
eyes, begged me to consider it as a present from her
sister as well as herself. In short, no one was forgotten ;
and, what was more, everyone, however insignificant,
who had shown kindness to Miss Matty at any time,
was sure of Mr. Peter's cordial regard.
W %:
S^ls^a^i^iyieztJ of
D'/ie ^eor^e J/&teC
CHAPTER XVI
PEACE TO CRANFORD
TT was not surprising that Mr. Peter became such
"*■ a favourite at Cranford. The ladies vied with
each other who should admire him most ; and no
wonder, for their quiet lives were astonishingly
stirred up by the arrival from India — especially as the
person arrived told more wonderful stories than
Sindbad the Sailor ; and, as Miss Pole said, was quite
as good as an Arabian Night any evening. For my
own part, I had vibrated all my life between Drumble
and Cranford, and I thought it was quite possible
that all Mr. Peter's stories might be true, although
wonderful ; but when I found that, if we swallowed
an anecdote of tolerable magnitude one week, we had
the dose considerably increased the next, I began to
240
i6
PEACE TO CRANFORD 243
have my doubts ; especially as I noticed that when
his sister was present the accounts of Indian life were
comparatively tame ; not that she knew more than we
did, perhaps less. I noticed also that when the rector
came to call, Mr. Peter talked in a different way about
the countries he had been in. But I don't think the
ladies in Cranford would have considered him such a
wonderful traveller if they had only heard him talk
in the quiet way he did to him. They liked him the
better, indeed, for being what they called " so very
Oriental."
One day, at a select party in his honour, which
Miss Pole gave, and from which, as Mrs. Jamieson
honoured it with her presence, and had even offered
to send Mr. Mulliner to wait, Mr. and Mrs. Hoggins
and Mrs. Fitz-Adam were necessarily excluded — one
day at Miss Pole's, Mr. Peter said he was tired of
sitting upright against the hard-backed uneasy chairs,
and asked if he might not indulge himself in sitting
cross-legged. Miss Pole's consent was eagerly given,
and down he went with the utmost gravity. But
when Miss Pole asked me, in an audible whisper, " if
he did not remind me of the Father of the Faithful ? "
I could not help thinking of poor Simon Jones, the
lame tailor ; and while Mrs. Jamieson slowly com-
mented on the elegance and convenience of the atti-
tude, I remembered how we had all followed that lady's
lead in condemning Mr. Hoggins for vulgarity because
he simply crossed his legs as he sat still on his chair.
Many of Mr. Peter's ways of eating were a little
strange amongst such ladies as Miss Pole, and Miss
Matty, and Mrs. Jamieson, especially when I recol-
lected the untasted green peas and two-pronged forks
at poor Mr. Holbrook's dinner.
The mention of that gentleman's name recalls to
244 CRANFORD
my mind a conversation between Mr. Peter and Miss
Matty one evening in the summer after he returned
to Cranford. The day had been very hot, and Miss
Matty had been much oppressed by the weather, in
the heat of which her brother revelled. I remember
that she had been unable to nurse Martha's baby,
which had become her favourite employment of late,
and which was as much at home in her arms as in its
mother's, as long as it remained a light-weight, portable
by one so fragile as Miss Matty. This day to which
I refer. Miss Matty had seemed more than usually
feeble and languid, and only revived when the sun
went down, and her sofa was wheeled to the open
window, through which, although it looked into the
principal street of Cranford, the fragrant smell of the
neighbouring hayfields came in every now and then,
borne by the soft breezes that stirred the dull air of
the summer twilight, and then died away. The
silence of the sultry atmosphere was lost in the mur-
muring noises which came in from many an open
window and door ; even the children were abroad in
the street, late as it was (between ten and eleven),
enjoying the game of play for which they had not had
spirits during the heat of the day. It was a source of
satisfaction to Miss Matty to see how few candles were
lighted, even in the apartments of those houses from
which issued the greatest signs of life. Mr. Peter,
Miss Matty, and I had all been quiet, each with a
separate reverie, for some little time, when Mr. Peter
broke in —
" Do you know, little Matty, I could have sworn
you were on the high road to matrimony when I left
England that last time ! If anybody had told me you
would have lived and died an old maid then, I should
have laughed in their faces."
PEACE TO CRANFORD 245
Miss Matty made no reply, and I tried in vain to
think of some subject which should effectually turn
the conversation ; but I was very stupid ; and before
I spoke he went on —
" It was Holbrook, that fine manly fellow who lived
at Woodley, that I used to think would carry off my
little Matty. You would not think it now, I daresay,
Mary ; but this sister of mine was once a very pretty
girl — at least, I thought so, and so I've a notion did
poor Holbrook. What business had he to die before
I came home to thank him for all his kindness to a
good-for-nothing cub as I was ? It was that that made
me first think he cared for you ; for in all our fishing
expeditions it was Matty, Matty, we talked about.
Poor Deborah ! What a lecture she read me on having
asked him home to lunch one day, when she had seen
the Arley carriage in the town, and thought that my
lady might call. Well, that's long years ago ; more
than half a lifetime, and yet it seems like yesterday !
I don't know a fellow I should have liked better as a
brother-in-law. You must have played your cards
badly, my little Matty, somehow or another — wanted
your brother to be a good go-between, eh, little one ? "
said he, putting out his hand to take hold of hers as
as she lay on the sofa. " Why, what's this ? you're
shivering and shaking, Matty, with that confounded
open window. Shut it, Mary, this minute ! "
I did so, and then stooped down to kiss Miss Matty,
and see if she really were chilled. She caught at my
hand, and gave it a hard squeeze — but unconsciously,
I think — for in a minute or two she spoke to us quite
in her usual voice, and smiled our uneasiness away,
although she patiently submitted to the prescriptions
we enforced of a warm bed and a glass of weak negus.
I was to leave Cranford the next day, and before I
246 CRANFORD
went I saw that all the effects of the open window
had quite vanished. I had superintended most of the
alterations necessary in the house and household
during the latter weeks of my stay. The shop was
once more a parlour ; the empty resounding rooms
again furnished up to the very garrets.
There had been some talk of establishing Martha
and Jem in another house, but Miss Matty would not
hear of this. Indeed, I never saw her so much roused
as when Miss Pole had assumed it to be the most
desirable arrangement. As long as Martha would
remain with Miss Matty, Miss Matty was only too
thankful to have her about her ; yes, and Jem too,
who was a very pleasant man to have in the house,
for she never saw him from week's end to week's end.
And as for the probable children, if they would all
turn out such little darlings as her god-daughter
Matilda, she should not mind the number, if Martha
didn't. Besides, the next was to be called Deborah —
a point which Miss Matty had reluctantly yielded to
Martha's stubborn determination that her first-born
was to be Matilda. So Miss Pole had to lower her
colours, and even her voice, as she said to me that, as
Mr. and Mrs. Hearn were still to go on living in the
same house with Miss Matty, we had certainly done a
wise thing in hiring Martha's niece as an auxiliary.
I left Miss Matty and Mr. Peter most comfortable
and contented ; the only subject for regret to the
tender heart of the one, and the social friendly nature
of the other, being the unfortunate quarrel between
Mrs. Jamieson and the plebeian Hogginses and their
following. In joke, I prophesied one day that this
would only last until Mrs. Jamieson or Mr. Mulliner
were ill, in which case they would only be too glad to
be friends with Mr. Hoggins ; but Miss Matty did
PEACE TO CRANFORD 2^7
not like my looking forward to anything like illness in
so light a manner, and before the year was out all had
come round in a far more satisfactory way.
I received two Cranford letters on one auspicious
October morning. Both Miss Pole and Miss Matty
wrote to ask me to come over and meet the Gordons,
who had returned to England alive and well with
their two children, now almost grown up. Dear
Jessie Brown had kept her old kind nature, although
she had changed her name and station ; and she wrote
to say that she and Major Gordon expected to be in
Cranford on the fourteenth, and she hoped and begged
to be remembered to Mrs. Jamieson (named first, as
became her honourable station), Miss Pole, and Miss
Matty — could she ever forget their kindness to her
father and sister ? — Mrs. Forrester, Mr, Hoggins
(and here again came in an allusion to kindness shown
to the dead long ago), his new wife, who as such must
allow Mrs. Gordon to desire to make her acquaintance,
and who was, moreover, an old Scotch friend of her
husband's. In short, everyone was named, from the
rector — who had been appointed to Cranford in the
interim between Captain Brown's death and Miss
Jessie's marriage, and was now associated with the
latter event — down to Miss Betty Barker. All were
asked to the luncheon ; all except Mrs. Fitz-Adam,
who had come to live in Cranford since Miss Jessie
Brown's days, and whom I found rather moping on
account of the omission. People wondered at Miss
Betty Barker's being included in the honourable list ;
but then, as Miss Pole said, we must remember the
disregard of the genteel proprieties of life in which
"the poor Captain had educated his girls, and for his
sake we swallowed our pride. Indeed, Mrs. Jamieson
rather took it as a compliment, as putting Miss
248 CRANFORD
Betty (formerly her maid) on a level with *' those
Hogginses."
But when I arrived in^Cranford, nothing was as
yet ascertained of Mrs. Jamieson's own intention ;
would the honourable lady go, or would she not ?
Mr. Peter declared that she should, and she would ;
Miss Pole shook her head and desponded. But Mr.
Peter was a man of resources. In the first place, he
persuaded Miss Matty to write to Mrs. Gordon, and
to tell her of Mrs. Fitz-Adam's existence, and to beg
that one so kind, and cordial, and generous, might be
included in the pleasant invitation. An answer came
back by return of post, with a pretty little note for
Mrs. Fitz-Adam, and a request that Miss Matty
would deliver it herself, and explain the previous
omission. Mrs. Fitz-Adam was as pleased as could be,
and thanked Miss Matty over and over again. Mr.
Peter had said, " Leave Mrs. Jamieson to me ; " so
we did ; especially as we knew nothing that we could
do to alter her determination if once formed.
I did not know, nor did Miss Matty, how things
were going on, until Miss Pole asked me, just the
day before Mrs. Gordon came, if I thought there
was anything between Mr. Peter and Mrs. Jamieson
in the matrimonial line, for that Mrs. Jamieson was
really going to the lunch at the " George." She
had sent Mr. MulHner down to desire that there
might be a footstool put to the warmest seat in the
room, as she meant to come, and knew that their
chairs were very high. Miss Pole had picked this
piece of news up, and from it she conjectured all
sorts of things, and bemoaned yet more. "If Peter
should marry, what would become of poor dear
Miss Matty ? And Mrs. Jamieson, of all people ! "
Miss Pole seemed to think there were other ladies
PEACE TO CRANFORD 249
in Cranford who would have done more credit to
his choice, and I think she must have had some-
one who was unmarried in her head, for she kept
saying, " It was so wanting in deHcacy in a widow
to think of such a thing."
When I got back to Miss Matty's, I really did
begin to think that Mr. Peter might be thinking
of Mrs. Jamieson for a wife, and I was as unhappy
as Miss Pole about it. He had the proof-sheet of
a great placard in his hand. " Signor Brunoni,
Magician to the King of Delhi, the Rajah of Oude,
and the great Lama of Thibet," etc., etc., was going
to " perform in Cranford for one night only,"
the very next night ; and Miss Matty, exultant,
showed me a letter from the Gordons, promising
to remain over this gaiety, which Miss Matty said
was entirely Peter's doing. He had written to ask
the Signor to come, and was to be at all the expenses
of the affair. Tickets were to be sent gratis to as
many as the room would hold. In short. Miss Matty
was charmed with the plan, and said that to-morrow
Cranford would remind her of the Preston Guild,
to which she had been in her youth — a luncheon at
the " George," with the dear Gordons, and the
Signor in the Assembly Room in the evening. But
I — I looked only at the fatal words —
" UnJer the Patronage of the Honourable
Mrs. Jamieson."
She, then, was chosen to preside over this enter-
tainment of Mr. Peter's ; she was perhaps going to
displace my dear Miss Matty in his heart, and make
her life lonely once more ! I could not look forward
to the morrow with any pleasure ; and every innocent
250 CRANFORD
anticipation of Miss Matty's only served to add to my
annoyance.
So, angry and irritated, and exaggerating every
little incident which could add to my irritation, I
went on till we were all assembled in the great parlour
at the " George." Major and Mrs. Gordon and
pretty Flora and Mr. Ludovic were all as bright and
handsome and friendly as could be ; but I could
hardly attend to them for watching Mr. Peter, and I
saw that Miss Pole was equally busy. I had never seen
Mrs. Jamieson so roused and animated before ; her
face looked full of interest in what Mr. Peter was
saying. I drew near to listen. My relief was great
when I caught that his words were not words of love,
but that, for all his grave face, he was at his old tricks.
He was telling her of his travels in India, and describing
the wonderful height of the Himalaya mountains :
one touch after another added to their size, and each
exceeded the former in absurdity ; but Mrs. Jamieson
really enjoyed all in perfect good faith. I suppose she
required strong stimulants to excite her to come out
of her apathy. Mr. Peter wound up his account by
saying that, of course, at that altitude there were
none of the animals to be found that existed in the
lower regions ; the game — everything was different.
Firing one day at some flying creature, he was very
much dismayed when it fell, to find that he had shot
a cherubim ! Mr. Peter caught my eye at this moment,
and gave me such a funny twinkle, that I felt sure he
had no thoughts of Mrs. Jamieson as a wife from that
time. She looked uncomfortably amazed —
" But, Mr. Peter, shooting a cherubim — don't you
think — I am afraid that was sacrilege ! "
Mr. Peter composed his countenance in a moment,
and appeared shocked at the idea, which, as he said
PEACE TO CRANFORD 251
truly enough, was now presented to him for the first
time ; but then Mrs. Jamieson must remember that
he had been living for a long time among savages — all
of whom were heathens — some of them, he was afraid,
were downright Dissenters.^" Then, seeing Miss
Matty draw near, he hastily changed the conversation,
and after a little while, turning to me, he said, " Don't
be shocked, prim little Mary, at all my wonderful
stories. I consider Mrs. Jamieson fair game, and
besides I am bent on propitiating her, and the first
step towards it is keeping her well awake. I bribed
her here by asking her to let me have her name as
patroness for my poor conjuror this evening ; and I
don't want to give her time enough to get up her
rancour against the Hogginses, who are just coming
in. I want everybody to be friends, for it harasses
Matty so much to hear of these quarrels. I shall go
at it again by and by, so you need not look shocked.
I intend to enter the Assembly Room to-night with
Mrs. Jamieson on one side, and my lady, Mrs. Hoggins,
on the other. You see if I don't."
Somehow or another he did ; and fairly got them
into conversation together. Major and Mrs. Gordon
helped at the good work with their perfect ignorance
of any existing coolness between any of the in-
habitants of Cranford.
Ever since that day there has been the old friendly
sociability in Cranford society ; which I am thankful
for, because of my dear Miss Matty's love of peace
and kindliness. We all love Miss Matty, and I some-
how think we are all of us better when she is near us.***
NOTES TO "CRANFORD"
The Rev. G. A, Payne desires to acknowledge assistance from
many writers in compiling the notes, descriptions of illus-
trations, and additions and emendations to the Introduction.
March ^ 1 914.
INTRODUCTION
1. The journey from Chelsea to Cheshire, as described to Mrs.
Gaskell in after years, formed the groundwork of the account of
the " babby's " travels in Mary Barton.
2. The second stanza was afterwards used in Syl-via^s Lovers.
3. At first in Dover Street ; then, in 1842, moving to Rum-
ford Street ; and moving finally, in 1850, to 84 Plymouth
Grove.
4. The letters from Mrs. Gaskell to the Howitts, from which
quotations are now and then made in this memoir, appeared in
an article by Margaret Howitt in Good Words for September
1895.
5. From the circumstance that Dickens, in one of his letters
to Mrs. Gaskell, says, "I shall still look forward to the large
sides of paper," it may be supposed that she lost this habit.
6. Lord Beaconsfield's Sybil, although it had its impulse in the
same period of distress, belongs to a different class altogether.
7. It was Lord Houghton who remarked that only the presence
of the Gaskells made Manchester a possible abode for a literary
man.
8. There is, however, some confusion here ; for Dr. Robertson
Nicoll, in another memoir of Mrs. Gaskell, states that George
Eliot made the prophecy concerning the anonymous author of
Mary Barton.
9. In the Girl *s Oivn Paper.
10. In spite of the richness of material which Cranford oflFers,
no illustrated edition worth the name was published until 1891,
253
254 CRANFORD
when Mr. Hugh Thomson's charming drawings were made ac-
cessible. Since then other artists have also *' embellished " the
story, among the most notable of whom have been Mr. Brock
and Miss Wheelhouse. In 1864, it is true, an edition of Cranford
was issued containing four drawings, the work of Mr. du Maurier,
but it is impossible to praise his attempt. A view of a Cranford
street ; Mr. Holbrook recognising Miss Matty at the draper's ;
Martha introducing Jem Hearn to her mistress ; and Mr. Peter
revealing himself to Miss Matty and Mary Smith — these four
scenes can hardly be said to " illustrate" Cranford. It is a book
to be thorough with or to leave alone.
TEXT
11. The material contained in this and the following chapter
formed, with slight differences, the first instalment of Cranford^
when it ran serially in Household fVords. The title was "Our
Society at Cranford," and the date December 13, 1851. (E.V.L.)
In a letter to Ruskin, quoted by Dr. Ward in the Knutsford
Edition, Mrs. Gaskell said, " The beginning of Cranford was
one paper in Household fVords ; and I never meant to write
more, so killed Captain Brown very much against my will."
This was in response to a letter in which Ruskin had said
(see E. T. Cooke's Life) that his mother had read Cranford five
times, but that the first time he tried he flew into a passion at
Captain Brown's being killed, and wouldn't go any further.
This time his mother had coaxed him past it, and then he had
enjoyed it mightily. He did not know when he had read a
more finished little piece of study of human nature. On
February 22, 1859, Ruskin visited Mrs. Gaskell at Man-
chester.
12. Cranford, as has been explained in the Introduction, is
Knutsford, in Cheshire. (E.V.L.)
13. Drumble is Manchester, i6 miles by road.
14. It was not unusual for the cottagers to keep geese on the
Heath, which was not enclosed as it is to-day by railings, which
were erected in the first instance to keep off the gipsies. The
rights of the Nether Knutsford freeholders are regulated by a
deed dated the 22nd October, 1734, and made between John
Egerton of Tatton, Lord of the Manor, of the one part, and the
freeholders of Nether Knutsford of the other part. The free-
holders have certain rights of taking sand, clay, and sods for the
repair of their ancient houses, and they are allowed to graze
NOTES 255
their cattle on the Heath. Miss Betty Barker's cow, no doubt,
grazed on the Heath.
15. There is a vein of irony running through the entire story,
but it is so beautifully veiled that it injures nobody. It was
however meant, since it is perfectly true to the life of the
ancient town.
16. Miss Tyler was Southey's aunt. In his fragment of
autobiography it is told of her that she lived in a spotless house
at Bath, and never allowed her little nephew, who was under
her care, to do "anything in which, by possibility, he might
dirty himself." (E.V.L.)
17. So long after Cranford was written as 1874 we find that
breakfast in the Misses Holland's household was at 8, a biscuit
at 12, dinner at 4, and a tray at 8 o'clock.
18. Mrs. Gaskell describes this school in the first chapter of
Wivei and Daughters : "The countess and the ladies, her daughters,
had set up a school, not a school after the manner of schools
nowadays — where far better intellectual teaching is given to the
boys and girls of labourers and workpeople than often falls to the
lot of their betters in worldly estate — but a school of the kind
we should call 'industrial,' where girls are taught to sew
beautifully, to be capital housemaids and pretty fair cooks, and,
above all, to dress neatly in a kind of charity uniform devised by
the ladies of Cumnor Towers (Tatton Hall) — white caps, white
tippets, check aprons, blue gowns, and ready curtseys and * please
ma'ams' being de rigueur," This school (now transformed into
a golf clubhouse), which stands at the gates of Tatton Park, was
continued as a girls' school until 1893, wben new schools were
provided by the late Lord (who became Earl) Egerton of Tatton.
It was established in 1815. The 1834 Directory states that the
girls' school, in which a hundred girls were instructed in reading
and needlework, was supported by Mrs. Egerton of Tatton.
19. Captain Brown is said to have been Captain Hill. There
may have been certain resemblances. Captain Hill was 46 in
1832. He fought in the Peninsula and at Waterloo. His wife
certainly died before him. She passed away in 1871, and the
captain in 1875, and there was an invalid daughter, who died in
1876, but it is well to remember that Mrs. Gaskell herself died
in 1865.
20. Other humorists have since treated the same idea. Miss
Harriet Childe Pemberton has a ballad telling how a whole
village green of geese, through feeding on brandied cherries
which had been incautiously thrown away, were reduced to
256 CRANFORD
alcoholic coma, and in that state plucked for market. On their
coming to there was nothing for it but to dress them in flannel
jackets. The late Samuel Brandram used to recite the poem
with rich unction. (E.V. L.)
21. Miss Jenkyns (Deborah) and Miss Matty Jenkyns were
modelled upon the chief traits and characteristics of Mrs.
Gaskell's cousins, Miss Mary and Miss Lucy Holland, the
daughters of Peter Holland, surgeon. This was placed beyond
any manner of doubt when Dr. Ward published extracts from
the "Letters of Mary Sibylla Holland," and also Mrs. Gaskell's
letter to Ruskin in 1906, in which she said : "Two good old
ladies, friends of mine in my girlhood, had a niece who made a
grand marriage, as grand marriages went in those days. . . . The
bride and bridegroom came to stay with the two aunts, who had
bought a new dining-room carpet as a sort of wedding welcome
to the young people, but I am afraid it was rather lost upon
them ; for the first time they found it out was after dinner the
day after they came. All dinner-time they had noticed that the
neat maid-servant had performed a sort oi pas de basque, hopping
and striding with more grace than security to the dishes she
held. When she had left the room one lady said to the other :
* Sister, I think she'll do!' *Yes,' said the other, * she's
managed very nicely.' And then they began to explain that she
was a fresh servant, and they had just laid down a new carpet
with white spots or spaces over it, and they had been teaching
this girl to vault or jump gracefully over these white places, lest
her feet might dirty them !" Dr. Ward says that Miss Mary
and Miss Lucy Holland were both of them admirable women,
and the elder, Miss Mary, was a personage quite out of the
common. "At one time she was much in London, when she
became the friend of Hallam, Miss Edgeworth, and other dis-
tinguished people, and acted as a judicious guardian of her
nephews and niece after their mother's death. On their father's
second marriage she returned to Knutsford, where she became a
great power for good by her active interest in charitable and
other organisations, and by the generous self-sacrifice which
enabled her in many instances to aid struggling poverty." Miss
Lucy Holland was an accomplished water-colour artist. When
potatoes were dear and mufl^s were large Miss Lucy Holland has
been known to carry a few potatoes as a gift to the poor. Miss
Mary and Miss Lucy lived to be 85 and 83 respectively, each
surviving Mrs. Gaskell herself. A visitor at Church House in
1 860, who still survives at the age of 80 years, describes the
two ladies as follows : "Miss Holland appeared to me a lady of
great good sense and capacity, with strong convictions, and a
NOTES 257
will powerful enough to stand by them. She was not, I imagine,
impulsive, but would be ready to help any good cause if it
appealed to her judgment. Miss Lucy Holland markedly con-
trasted with her sister. Very amiable and kind, with soft,
gentle manners, she lacked the strength of Miss Holland. I
heard that she habitually visited the poorer people of the neigh-
bourhood, but that she was often imposed upon by unscrupulous
persons. The two sisters, though very different in character,
were equally estimable, and they have left a pleasant memory in
my mind." (G. F. March, 1914.)
22. Cranford's favourite card game, which figures again
and again in this book, was probably "Boston'' (so called
from its invention by French officers at Boston during the
American revolutionary war). The method is as follows : The
hands are dealt and played as in whist, each of the four players
having the right to bid or offer to take unassisted a certain
number of tricks, to lose every trick but one, or every trick,
etc. The highest bidder plays against the rest, and if successful,
gains, if defeated, loses, according to the size of his bid. The
two suits of the colour of the card turned up just after the first
deal are called First Preference and Second Preference, or, more
properly, belle and petite. When two players make equal bids,
he who offers in belle has the first preference, and he who offers
in petite the second. Hence the name by which the game was
known in Cranford. (E.V. L.)
23. This fixes the year at 1836. In Household Words
Dickens altered Pickivick to Hoodi's Oivn. (E.V.L.)
24. To be quite accurate, Sam Weller did not "give" the
" swarry," but partook of it as a guest. It was given by **a
select company of the Bath footmen." In Household Words
Dickens made the passage run thus : " He read [from Hood's
Oivn] the account of the gentleman who was terrified out of his
wits by political events, who, ' could no more collect himself than
the Irish tithes.' " (E.V.L.)
25. The poor people used to take their Sunday dinner to the
bakehouse. The charge was one penny.
26. In Household Words Miss Matty was called always Miss
Matey — a far inferior form. (E.V.L.)
27. Mrs. Gaskell had no doubt seen this done, just as she had
seen the servant, of whom she wrote to Ruskin, hopping over
the white patches in the new carpet. She also told him that
she had seen the cow with the grey-flannel jacket, and knew the
cat that swallowed the lace.
17
258 CRANFORD
28. Mrs. Bellamy would, one feels certain, be so proud to be
in the company of the Miss Jenkynses, that it may be per-
mitted here to range her with them in protective communion.
Mrs, Bellamy is in Mark Rutherford's Catharine Furze, " She
established," says that admirable novelist, *' a system of pre-
cautions to prevent dirt, and the precautions themselves became
objects to be protected. There was a rough scraper intervening
on behalf of the black-leaded scraper ; there was a large mat to
preserve the mat beyond it ; and although a drugget covered the
stair carpet, Mrs. Bellamy would have been sorely vexed if she
had found a footmark upon it. If a friend was expected, she
put some straw outside the garden gate, and she asked him
in gentle tones, when he dismounted, if he would kindly *just
take the worst off' there. The kitchen was scoured and
scrubbed till it was fleckless. It was theoretically the living-
room, and a defence for the parlour, but it also was defended in
its turn like the scraper, and the back kitchen, which had
a fireplace, was used for cooking, the fire in the state kitchen
not being lighted in summer time." (E.V.L.)
29. It is evident from Mrs. Gaskell's stories that she knew
the doctor's life from the inside. Mr. Hoggins, of Crattford,
Mr. Gibson, of fVi'ves and Daughters, Mr. Morgan and his
assistant, Mr. Harrison, of Mr. Harrison's Confessions^ and others,
bear sufficient testimony to that. It is too much to say that
she put Dr. Peter Holland, the father of Sir Henry Holland,
Bart., into any of her stories, but his traits, characteristics and
eccentricities may be traced quite easily in her various creations.
30. The county paper was probably the Macclesjield Courier and
Herald, which, in 1834, was published in Macclesfield — twelve
miles from Knutsford — every Saturday morning. It would, no
doubt, circulate in all the country districts.
31. In House/iold PFords this became Hood's Poems. (E.V.L.)
32. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him" is carved
in stone upon the Memorial Tower in Knutsford, as being a
favourite text of Mrs. Gaskell.
33. Galignant's Messenger, an English newspaper published in
Paris for the greater part of the century, but now no more.
(E.V.L.)
34. Dickens adapted Miss Deborah's musings very cleverly to
fit his Hood substitution. "That book by Mr. Hood, you
know," the old lady is made to say, " Hood — Admiral Hood ;
when I was a girl — but that's a long time ago — I wore a cloak
NOTES 259
with a red hood. ' And in Household fFords Flora picked up not
the Chtiitmas Carol but Mhs Killmansegg. (E.V.L.)
35. The second instalment oi Cranford in Household Words —
January 3, 1852 — comprised this and the following chapter, and
was called « A Love Affair at Cranford." (E.V.L.)
36. The Scandinavian prophetess is in Gray's poem, "The
Descent of Odin." (E.V.L.)
37. The postmistress at Knutsford in 1834 was Miss Marian
Dakin, who officiated in a small office in Princess Street, or the
Top Street. She retired from that position on 7th August, 1866,
and died on nth July, 1886. Her pension was ^^60 \zs. 8d.
per annum, and the Duke of Montrose was Postmaster-General
at the time of her retirement. Miss Dakin was most careful to
obey the Post Office rules. On one occasion, it is said, the
Postmaster-General, who was visiting in the neighbourhood,
was anxious either to procure a favour or to see if a favour could
be procured. He received a refusal, upon which he said, *' Do
you know who I am ? Do you know that I am from Tatton
Hall ?" to which Miss Dakin replied, *'I would not care if you
were the Postmaster-General himself ! " — a speech which must
have stood her in good stead when her pension was allotted.
38. The name, doubtless, is a combination of the names of
two families in the neighbourhood — the De Tabley family, of
Tabley Park, of whom Sir Peter Leicester, the historian, was
the most celebrated scion — and the Warburtons, of Arley Hall.
39. Woodley is no doubt Sandlebridge, some three to four
miles from Knutsford, on the way to Alderley Edge. Misselton
is probably Macclesfield. (Mr. Holbrook walked seven miles to
Misselton for a copy of the poems reviewed in Blackivood.) Mr.
Holbrook is probably Mrs. Gaskell's grandfather, Mr. Samuel
Holland, who died in 1816 at the age of 82. Mrs. Gaskell
would only be six at the time of his death, and could not
remember much of him personally, though she must have heard
a great deal about him from her friends and relations. (See
Preface.) The Woodley of Cranford is the Hope Farm of
Cousin Phillis. Some years ago the late Lord Knutsford sold this
estate to the David Lewis trustees, and though a number of
institutions — such as the Epileptic Colony, Ancoats Hospital
Sanatorium, and Homes for Feeble-minded — have been built,
the farm remains just as it was in Mrs. Gaskell s time.
40. Shire Lane was probably Minshull Street, between King
Street and Tatton Street.
41. Amine (in the Arabian Nights) ate her rice, grain by
grain, with a bodkin. (E.V.L.)
26o CRANFORD
42. From "The Gardener's Daughter" : —
" In the midbt
A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade."
43. This was " Crusty Christopher's " article in Blackivood
for May 1832. It was eulogistic only in parts. (E.V.L.)
44. " The Gardener's Daughter " again : —
" Love unperceived,
A more ideal Artist he than all,
Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes
Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair
More black than ash-buds in the front of March."
45. Can it have been "The Vanity of Human Wishes"?
(E.V.L.)
46. The Benefit Society for the Poor, which Deborah and her
mother had started, is still in existence, and celebrated its 107th
anniversary on Whit-Monday, 191 3. The members on this
day attend the parish church, and afterwards partake of a sub-
stantial tea. The society is known as the Female Benefit
Society, the funds of which, through careful investment, have
grown considerably. It is still managed by the ladies of Knuts-
ford. It was founded in 1806 by Mrs. Holland (mother of Miss
Holland and Miss Lucy Holland), of Church House (now called
Hollingford House), and a few other of the influential ladies of
the town and neighbourhood. Mrs. Holland had no doubt taken
the idea from Mrs. Fletcher (see Autobiography, p. 76), who in
1798 started the first Female Benefit Society, in Edinburgh,
" for the relief of maid-servants and other poor women in
sickness."
47. Chapters V and VI appeared in Household Words for
March 13, 1852, as "Memory at Cranford." (E.V.L.)
48. Probably one of Mrs. Lumb's eccentricities, due to her
frugal mind. A similar example of carefulness in the use of
candles may be noted on p. 12.
49. A Paduasoy is a silken mantle. (E.V.L.)
50. Mrs. Chapone and Mrs. Carter were two of Dr.
Johnson's " Blues." Both were learned, and both cultivated
the epistolary art, Mrs. Chapone (1727-1801) wrote "Letters
on the Improvement of the Mind," which had wide vogue, and
were a classic in Miss Pinkerton's establishment at the Mall,
Chiswick. It would have strengthened Miss Matty's con-
viction of Miss Deb5rah's superiority had she known that
Mrs. Chapone saw "nothing" in Rasselas. (E.V.L.)
51. Mrs. Carter (1717-1806) was more to the Great Lexico-
grapher's mind. He addressed to her a Greek epigram, and said
NOTES 261
of her that she could make a pudding as well as translate
Epictetus from the Greek, and work a handkerchief as well
as compose a poem. Her letters were published in several
volumes. (E.V.L.)
52. The coolness between the Duke of Greenwich and Lord
Oldborough, in Miss Edgeworth's novel, was due entirely to
wafers. Lord Oldborough "had sent his Grace a note, written
in his own hand, sealed with a wafer. The clerk, who was
present when the note was received, said that the Duke's face
flushed violently, and that he flung the note immediately to his
secretary, exclaiming, ' C>/>6'« that, if you please^ sir. I tvonder
hoiv any man can have the impertinence to send me his spittle / '"
Subsequently Commissioner Falconer intervened with much
diplomacy, and all was well again j but the use of wafers
remained, we must suppose, an unpardonable offence, (E.V.L.)
53. Sesquipedalian, measuring a foot and a half. Often
applied in humour to very long words.
54. Mrs. Gaskell knew this neighbourhood well. After her
father's death, in 1829, she spent two years in Newcastle-on-
Tyne, in the family of the Rev. Wm, Turner, the Unitarian
minister there for nearly sixty years (he lived to be 97). At the
age of 31 Wm. Turner founded the Literary and Philosophical
Society in that town, in 1793. It is said that the character of
Mr. Benson in Ruth was largely based upon his life. He was in
many ways a remarkable man, and George Stephenson, the
inventor, acknowledged that a great deal of his scientific know-
ledge was obtained from him.
55. In Knutsford we find careful preparations had been made
for any emergency. In October 1803, invasion being antici-
pated, the Yeomanry troop was kept in a constant state of
readiness. On the lighting up of the beacons the Macclesfield,
Tabley and Knutsford troops were to muster at the latter place.
Instructions were given as to how each man was to dress, and
every captain was to have ready, at a few hours' notice, four
days' provisions and forage for his troop. On November 13
the colonel issued regimental orders for every man to provide
himself with necessaries, such as overcoats, extra shirts, shoes,
stockings, etc. These were indeed stirring times, and Mrs.
Gaskell has not exaggerated the excitement which prevailed.
56. A departure from the general usage, "different from."
57. The assizes were never held at Knutsford, but at Chester,
The Midsummer and Michaelmas Sessions of the county were
262 CRANFORD
formerly held at Nantwich and Northwich, but they were
removed from Nantwich to Knutsford about the year 1760 and
from Northwich about 1784. The old Sessions House used to
stand at the corner leading from Princess Street to the Heath.
The present gaol and Sessions House were completed in 181 8,
and large additions were made in 1847 and again in 1880.
58. An expression used only in the North.
59. Knutsford races were held on the Racecourse or Heath,
where the May festival is now held, from 1729 to 1873. Being
near so many country seats, it has always been a sporting centre.
Sometimes during the races as many as two dozen coaches-and-
four have been counted, and up to 1836 all arrangements and all
payments were made by the county families. Before the races
were established Knutsford had the unenviable notoriety of being
one of the recognized cock-fighting centres.
60. Chapters VII and VIII appeared in Household fVordi for
April 3, 1852, as "Visiting at Cranford." (E.V.L.)
61. This recommendation had of course to cease in 1837.
(E.V.L.)
62. The allusion is to the definition of respectability at the
Thurtell trial — A respectable man is one who keeps a gig —
made common property by Carlyle's word "gigmanity" and his
recurrent joy therein. (E.V.L.)
63. Not Molly, but Sarah — perhaps Sally- Hoggins, second
wife of Henry Cecil, Baron Burghley and first Marquis of
Exeter. She was the daughter of Thomas Hoggins, of Bolas
Magna in Shropshire. She lived to wear the title only a few
months. The marriage was the origin of Tennyson's ballad
**The Lord of Burleigh," but it is there greatly "idealised," as
Miss Jenkyns would say. As a matter of fact, the marquis had
divorced his first wife, and after Sarah's death he married the
divorced wife of another peer. (E.V.L.)
64. Beating. (E.V.L.)
65. Tastes differ. Jane Austen wrote, in her Letters, of a
Miss Fletcher: "There are two traits in her character which
are pleasing— namely, she admires Camilla, and drinks no
cream in her tea." (E.V.L.)
66. Francis Moore's Vox Stellarum^ first published in 1701,
was the original of our Old Moore^s Almanac, (E.V.L.)
67. Chapters IX, X, and XI appeared in Houuhold Words in
two parts (January 8 and 15, 1853) as "The Great Panic
in Cranford." (E.V.L.)
NOTES 263
68. To this day the appearance of a menagerie or travelling
show is the cause of great excitement, and crowds usually flock
in. Knutsford up to the present is without a picture-show, save
a temporary arrangement. There is no permanent building
devoted to pictures, though one is being erected.
69. Queen Dowager Adelaide, widow of William IV, who
survived him until 1849. (E.V.L. )
70. The heroes of romances popular at the beginning of the
century, bv Jane Porter and her sister Anna Maria Porter.
(E.V.L.) '
71. It is continually being found to-day. (E.V.L.)
72. The "Miss Gunnings" were two sisters who dazzled
London society in the middle of the last century. They were
known as *'The Beauties," and people surged after them in the
streets. One, Maria (1733-61), became Countess of Coventry}
the other, Elizabeth (1734-90), the Duchess of Hamilton and
Argyle. (E.V.L.)
73. Lady Daniel, of Over Tabley Hall, was married to John
Astley, the painter, whom she had met at the Assembly Room.
(See Knutsford^ its Traditions and History, by Rev. Henry Green,
M. A., chap. 8.) The reference is to John Astley, the portrait
painter, who fell in love with Lady Daniel, who used to reside at
Over Tabley Hall, now used as a farmhouse, and formerly sur-
rounded by a moat. It was in the County Assembly Room that
Edwin Wilkins danced with the ladies of the Lord-Lieutenant's
party, as related in **A Dark Night's Work," one of Mrs.
Gaskell's shorter stories ; and where Mr. Bellingham [Ruth)
fell in love with Ruth Hilton, the dressmaker's apprentice. The
apprentices attend the ball to-day just as they did in Mrs.
Gaskell's early years.
74. The Boys' National School was built just below the
Unitarian Chapel in 1830. Indeed, it still stands there, though
it is used by the Education Sub-committee for laundry-work,
cookery, and manual training, the boys' school having been
transferred in 1893 to the handsome school buildings provided
by the late Earl Egerton near the parish church.
75. Fits. (E.V.L.)
76. Possibly Baron Denon (1747-1825), a French author and
artist who wrote works of Eastern travel. (E.V.L.)
yj. Mrs. Forrester's house would appear to be situated in
Over Knutsford, and Darkness Lane would probably be Brook
Street, which then would be a very quiet spot.
264 CRANFORD
78. Dr. John Ferriar (176 1-18 15) wrote an Essay toivards a
Theory of Apparitions^ Tind Samuel Hibbert-Ware (1782-1848),
Sketches of the. Philosophy of Apparitions ,• or, An Attempt to Trace
such Illusions to their Physical Causes. (E.V. L.)
79. Bogey, terrifying. (E.V. L.)
80. Chapters XII and XIII appeared in Household Words for
April 2, 1853, as "Stopped Payment at Cranford." (E.V.L.)
81. The incident occurred at Mr. Bob Sawyer's supper party.
***Now,' said Jack Hopkins, *just to set us going again, Bob, I
don't mind singing a song.' And Hopkins, incited thereto by
tumultuous applause, plunged himself at once into ' The King,
God bless him,' which he sang as loud as he could, to a novel
air compounded of 'The Bay of Biscay' and 'A Frog he Would.'
The chorus was the essence of the song ; and as each gentleman
sang it to the tune he knew best, the effect was very striking
indeed." (E.V.L.)
82. The Great Mokanna, the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan,
in Moore's poem. (E.V.L.)
83. Wombwell of Womb well's Menagerie. The menagerie,
such as it is, is now known by another name, and Wombwell
sleeps in Highgate Cemetery, guarded by a marble lion. (E.V.L.)
84. " The Vanity of Human Wishes," by Dr. Johnson.
(E.V.L.)
85. "Tibbie Fowler," a favourite old ditty, may be found in
Robert Chambers's Scottish Songs. One full stanza is : —
" Be a lassie e'er sae blate,
Gin she hae the penny siller,
Set her up on Tintock tap,
The wind will blaw a man till her."
Tintock is a little hill in the south of Scotland. (E.V.L.)
86. The failure of the Royal and Dantery Bank at Maccles-
field in 1823 may have been in Mrs. Gaskell's mind, or it may
have been the failure of the Bank of Manchester in 1842. The
scene of Cranford is laid in 1836, though it was only prepared
for Household Words in 1851-52.
87. This chapter appeared in Household Words for May 7,
1853, as "Friends in Need at Cranford." (E.V.L.)
88. This was probably Heath Hoiise, presided over by a Mrs.
Stokes.
89. This and the following chapter appeared in Household
Words for May 21, 1853, as "A Happy Return to Cranford."
(E.V.L.)
NOTES 265
90. This is a master stroke of irony on the part of Mrs.
Gaskell, whose people were all Dissenters. The Unitarian
Chapel, where they all attended, is faithfully described in Ruth
as Mr. Benson's chapel.
91. This was the end of the story in Household fVords^ as it is
here. But ten years later Mrs. Gaskell contributed to All the
Tear Round (November 28, 1863) an additional chapter, entitled
"The Cage at Cranford,'' which did not appear in what was
called the complete edition of 1906, viz. the Knutsford edition,
but which appeared in the Cranford of the World's Classics
in 1907, where it was reprinted for the first time from All the
Tear Round {November 1863). It fell below the level of the
book. (E.V.L.) and (G.A.P.)
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John Oxenham, The Long Road!^; Mrs. Henry de la Pasture, The
Tyrant ; Alice Perrin, The Charm ; Eden Phillpotts, The Secret
Woman ; Mrs. A. Sidgwick, The Severins ; E. Temple Thurston,
Mirage ; Peggy Webling, Virginia Perfect ; Stanley J. Weyman,
Under the Red Robe ; C. N. and A. M. Williamson, Lady Betty
across the Water ; The Demon ; W. W. Jacobs, Light Freights.
Methuen's Shilling Library
Graham Balfour, The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson ; S. Baring-
Gould, The Vicar of Morwenstow ; A. C. Benson, The Life of
Tennyson ; John Boyes, John Boyes, King of the Wa-Kikuyu ;
W. G. Collingwood, The Life of John Ruskin ; Tickner Edwardes,
The Lore of the Honey- Bee ; James M. Glover, Jimmy Glover,
His Book ; Sir Oliver Lodge, Man and the Universe ; Georjjc
Horace Lorimer, Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to his
Son ; £. V. Lucas, A Little of Everything ; Maurice Maeter-
linck, Mary Magdalene; The Blue Bird; C. F. G. ^fa^itermaii,
The Condition of England ; Lady Dorothy Nevill, Under Five
Reigns; Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Letters; Leo Tolstoy,
Sevastopol and other Stones; Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband;
De Profundis ; Lady Windermere's Fan ; Lord Arthur
Saviie's Crime ; Selected Poems ; Sir Evelyn \\'oodj From
Midshipnian to Field-Marihal.
\Y RESii:"^^ E
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GENEBflLLfBBABy-u.c. BERKELEY
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY