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<body>
<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 394 ***</div>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus01"></a>
<a href="images/fpb.jpg">
<img alt="“Oh, sir! can you be Peter?”"
title="“Oh, sir! can you be Peter?”"
src="images/fps.jpg"></a>
</p>

<h1>CRANFORD</h1>

<h2 class="no-break">by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell</h2>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/tpb.jpg">
<img alt="Picture of lady pouring tea"
title="Picture of lady pouring tea"
src="images/tps.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p class="center">
<i>With twenty-five coloured illustrations</i><br >
<i>by C. E. Brock</i>
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/tp2b.jpg">
<img alt="Decorative graphic"
title="Decorative graphic"
src="images/tp2s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p class="center">
1904
</p>

<p class="center">
<i>London. J. M. Dent &amp; C<sup>o</sup>.</i><br >
<i>New York. E. P. Dutton &amp; C<sup>o</sup>.</i>
</p>

<div class="chapter">

<h2>CONTENTS</h2>

<table>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. OUR SOCIETY</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. THE CAPTAIN</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. OLD LETTERS</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. POOR PETER</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. VISITING</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. “YOUR LADYSHIP”</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. SIGNOR BRUNONI</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. THE PANIC</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. SAMUEL BROWN</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. STOPPED PAYMENT</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. FRIENDS IN NEED</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV. A HAPPY RETURN</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI. PEACE TO CRANFORD</a></td>
</tr>

</table>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>

<table>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus01">“Oh, sir! Can you be Peter?”</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus02">A magnificent family red silk umbrella</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus03">Meekly going to her pasture</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus04">Endeavouring to beguile her into conversation</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus05">She brought the affrighted carter ... into the drawing-room</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus06">“With his arm round Miss Jessie’s waist!”</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus07">Mr Holbrook ... bade us good-bye</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus08">Now, what colour are ash-buds in March?</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus09">I made use of the time to think of many other things</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus10">“Confound the woman!”</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus11">The temptation of the comfortable arm-chair had been too much for her</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus12">Mr Mulliner</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus13">We gave her a tea-spoonful of currant jelly</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus14">Afraid of matrimonial reports</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus15">Asked him to take care of us</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus16">Slaughterous and indiscriminate directions</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus17">Would stretch out their little arms</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus18">“What do you think, Miss Matty?”</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus19">Standing over him like a bold dragoon</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus20">“You must give me your note, Mr Dobson, if you please”</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus21">“Please, ma’am, he wants to marry me off hand”</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus22">Miss Matty and I sat assenting to accounts</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus23">Smiling glory ... and becoming blushes</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#illus24">I went to call Miss Matty</a></td>
</tr>

</table>

<p class="p2">
<i>Most of the three-colour blocks used in this book have been made by the
Graphic Photo-Engraving Co.</i>, <i>London</i>
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br>
OUR SOCIETY</h2>

<p>
In 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 little boys who look wistfully at the said
flowers through the railings; for rushing out at the geese that occasionally
venture in to the gardens if the gates are left open; for deciding all
questions of literature and politics without troubling themselves with
unnecessary reasons or arguments; for obtaining clear and correct knowledge of
everybody’s affairs in the parish; for keeping their neat maid-servants in
admirable 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
<i>so</i> 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 individuality, not to say eccentricity,
pretty strongly developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation; but,
somehow, good-will reigns among them to a considerable degree.
</p>

<p>
The Cranford ladies have only an occasional little quarrel, spirited 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&mdash;and seen without a smile.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus02"></a>
<a href="images/p3b.jpg">
<img alt="A magnificent family red silk umbrella" title="A magnificent family
red silk umbrella" src="images/p3s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;the survivor of all&mdash;could scarcely carry
it.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;from twelve to three are our calling hours.”
</p>

<p>
Then, after they had called&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“It is the third day; I dare say 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.”
</p>

<p>
“But am I to look at my watch? How am I to find out when a quarter of an hour
has passed?”
</p>

<p>
“You must keep thinking about the time, my dear, and not allow yourself to
forget it in conversation.”
</p>

<p>
As everybody had this rule in their minds, whether they received or paid a
call, of course no absorbing subject was ever spoken about. We kept ourselves
to short sentences of small talk, and were punctual to our time.
</p>

<p>
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 <i>esprit de
corps</i> 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.
</p>

<p>
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 into many circles of society to their great
improvement. 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
entertainments. 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.”
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;not
in a whisper to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being previously
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 connection
with the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen as to talk of being
poor&mdash;why, then, indeed, he must be sent to Coventry. Death was as true
and 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 <i>so</i> fine, or the
air <i>so</i> 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
ceremonies, 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 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 his 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.
</p>

<p>
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 without
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.”
</p>

<p>
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. I have watched her myself many a time.
Do you ever see cows dressed in grey flannel in London?
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus03"></a>
<a href="images/p8b.jpg">
<img alt="Meekly going to her pasture" title="Meekly going to her pasture"
src="images/p8s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
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 years 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 off 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 wondering 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
this appearance. I do not know whether 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&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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&mdash;an old man with a piping
feeble voice, who, I think, felt aggrieved at the Captain’s sonorous bass, and
quivered higher and higher in consequence.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
I wonder what the Cranford ladies did with Captain Brown at their parties. We
had often rejoiced, in former days, that there was no gentleman to be attended
to, and to find conversation for, at the card-parties. We had congratulated
ourselves upon the snugness of the evenings; and, in 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,”
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
store-room as I passed in the morning, were placed each on the middle of a
card-table. The china was delicate egg-shell; the old-fashioned silver
glittered with polishing; 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. Miss Jessie
smiled as usual, and seemed nearly as popular as her father. He immediately and
quietly assumed the man’s place in the room; attended to every one’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 suffering daughter&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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 unguarded
admission (<i>&agrave; propos</i> 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&mdash;for the Honourable Mrs Jamieson
was sitting at a card-table nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she say or
think if she found out she was in the same room with a shop-keeper’s niece! But
Miss Jessie Brown (who had no tact, as we all agreed the next morning)
<i>would</i> repeat the information, and assure Miss Pole she could easily get
her the identical Shetland wool required, “through my uncle, who has the best
assortment of Shetland goods of any one 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.
</p>

<p>
When the trays re-appeared 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.
</p>

<p>
“Have you seen any numbers of ‘The Pickwick Papers’?” said he. (They were then
publishing in parts.) “Capital thing!”
</p>

<p>
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.”
</p>

<p>
“And what do you think of them?” exclaimed Captain Brown. “Aren’t they famously
good?”
</p>

<p>
So urged Miss Jenkyns could not but speak.
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
“It is quite a different sort of thing, my dear madam,” he began.
</p>

<p>
“I am quite aware of that,” returned she. “And I make allowances, Captain
Brown.”
</p>

<p>
“Just allow me to read you a scene out of this month’s number,” pleaded he. “I
had it only this morning, and I don’t think the company can have read it yet.”
</p>

<p>
“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. <i>I</i> 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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“Fetch me ‘Rasselas,’ my dear, out of the book-room.”
</p>

<p>
When I had brought it to her, she turned to Captain Brown&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“Now allow <i>me</i> to read you a scene, and then the present company can
judge between your favourite, Mr Boz, and Dr Johnson.”
</p>

<p>
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 him a finishing blow or two.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus04"></a>
<a href="images/p14b.jpg">
<img alt="Endeavouring to beguile her into conversation" title="Endeavouring to
beguile her into conversation" src="images/p14s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
“I consider it vulgar, and below the dignity of literature, to publish in
numbers.”
</p>

<p>
“How was the <i>Rambler</i> published, ma’am?” asked Captain Brown in a low
voice, which I think Miss Jenkyns could not have heard.
</p>

<p>
“Dr Johnson’s style is a model for young beginners. My father recommended it to
me when I began to write letters&mdash;I have formed my own style upon it; I
recommend it to your favourite.”
</p>

<p>
“I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any such pompous
writing,” said Captain Brown.
</p>

<p>
Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront, in a way of which the Captain had
not dreamed. Epistolary writing she and her friends considered as her
<i>forte</i>. 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 compositions. 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.”
</p>

<p>
It is said&mdash;I won’t vouch for the fact&mdash;that Captain Brown was heard
to say, <i>sotto voce</i>, “D—n Dr Johnson!” If he did, he was penitent
afterwards, as he showed by going to stand near Miss Jenkyns’ arm-chair, and
endeavouring to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing subject.
But she was inexorable. The next day she made the remark I have mentioned about
Miss Jessie’s dimples.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br>
THE CAPTAIN</h2>

<p>
It 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 Sunday. He had met her returning from the bakehouse as he
came from church, and noticed her precarious footing; and, with the grave
dignity with which he did everything, he relieved 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.
</p>

<p>
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 irritability occasioned by her disease became past endurance. 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&mdash;with
absolute tenderness. I forgave Miss Jessie her singing out of tune, and her
juvenility 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
unconsciously. 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&mdash;knowing, most likely, that his daughter’s illness made the
place a hard one.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
Such was the state of things when I left Cranford and went to Drumble. I had,
however, several correspondents, who kept me <i>au fait</i> as to the
proceedings 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, rambling 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 <i>she</i> 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.&mdash;(here probably followed a recantation of every opinion she had
given in the letter). Then came Miss Jenkyns&mdash;Debōrah, 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 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:&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“The Honourable Mrs Jamieson has only just quitted me; and, in the course of
conversation, she communicated to me the intelligence 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 lordship’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 discovered 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 Johnson, our civil butcher’s
wife, informs me that Miss Jessie purchased a leg of lamb; but, besides this, I
can hear of no preparation whatever 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 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 with an elegant and refined member of the British aristocracy.
But from some mundane failings who is altogether free?”
</p>

<p>
Miss Pole and Miss Matty wrote to me by the same post. Such a piece of news as
Lord Mauleverer’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 spelling, 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 any one with whom his
lordship had held conversation.
</p>

<p>
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 Miss Jenkyns 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 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?
</p>

<p>
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 absorbed 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.
</p>

<p>
“She suffers a great deal, and she must suffer more: we do what we can to
alleviate her pain;&mdash;God’s will be done!” He took off his hat at these
last words. I found, from Miss Matty, that everything had been done, in fact. A
medical man, of 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!&mdash;“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 could never 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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“But, to be sure, what a town Cranford is for kindness! I don’t suppose any one
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.
</p>

<p>
“But why does not this Lord Mauleverer do something for the man who saved his
life?” said I.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
I had often occasion to notice the use that was made of fragments and small
opportunities in Cranford; the rose-leaves that were gathered ere they fell to
make into a potpourri 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.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;could
not&mdash;speak cheerfully of his daughter’s state, but he talked with manly,
pious resignation, and not much. Twice over he said, “What Jessie 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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“How?&mdash;where&mdash;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.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus05"></a>
<a href="images/p24b.jpg">
<img alt="She brought the affrighted carter ... into the drawing-room"
title="She brought the affrighted carter ... into the drawing-room"
src="images/p24s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
“Come in&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
“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. O Lord, Lord! Mum, it’s quite true, and they’ve come
over to tell his daughters. The child’s safe, though, with only a 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.
</p>

<p>
“Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to those girls. God pardon me, if ever
I have spoken contemptuously to the Captain!”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
“But how can you manage, my dear?” asked Miss Jenkyns; “you cannot bear up, she
must see your tears.”
</p>

<p>
“God will help me&mdash;I will not give way&mdash;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 hardly bear it, knowing, as she
did, how Miss Brown treated her sister.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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 gentleman 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!”
</p>

<p>
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’ advice. At
last Miss Jenkyns gave up the point; and after a silence, which I feared
portended some deep displeasure against Miss Jessie, Miss Jenkyns said she
should accompany the latter to the funeral.
</p>

<p>
“It is not fit for you to go alone. It would be against both propriety and
humanity were I to allow it.”
</p>

<p>
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 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&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;a faint, sweet, wintry
smile&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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 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 excitement, which
she showed by eating her breakfast standing, and scolding the household all
round.
</p>

<p>
No nursing&mdash;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 helplessness. 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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;and yet I have
thought only of myself. God forgive me!”
</p>

<p>
“Hush, love! hush!” said Miss Jessie, sobbing.
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;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!”
</p>

<p>
A light came into Miss Jessie’s face. “Would it comfort you, dearest, to think
that he does know?&mdash;would it comfort you, love, to know that his cares,
his sorrows”&mdash;Her voice quivered, but she steadied it into
calmness&mdash;“Mary! he has gone before you to the place where the weary are
at rest. He knows now how you loved him.”
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;“Father, mother, Harry, Archy;”&mdash;then, as if it were
a new idea throwing a filmy shadow over her darkened mind&mdash;“But you will
be alone, Jessie!”
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;but not to us&mdash;“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”
</p>

<p>
In a few moments more Miss Brown lay calm and still&mdash;never to sorrow or
murmur more.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“I can sew neatly,” said she, “and I like nursing. I think, too, I could manage
a house, if any one would try me as housekeeper; or I would go into a shop as
saleswoman, if they would have patience with me at first.”
</p>

<p>
Miss Jenkyns declared, in an angry voice, that 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 brought Miss Jessie up
a basin of delicately-made arrowroot, and stood over her like a dragoon until
the last spoonful was finished: then she disappeared. 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.
</p>

<p>
“I have been so much startled&mdash;no, I’ve not been at all
startled&mdash;don’t mind me, my dear Miss Jessie&mdash;I’ve been very much
surprised&mdash;in fact, I’ve had a caller, whom you knew once, my dear Miss
Jessie”&mdash;
</p>

<p>
Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet, and looked eagerly at Miss
Jenkyns.
</p>

<p>
“A gentleman, my dear, who wants to know if you would see him.”
</p>

<p>
“Is it?&mdash;it is not”&mdash;stammered out Miss Jessie&mdash;and got no
farther.
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
“May he come up?” asked Miss Jenkyns at last.
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
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 threatening her sister. She had mentioned that the surgeons 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 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 <i>Galignani</i>.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus06"></a>
<a href="images/p33b.jpg">
<img alt="“With his arm around Miss Jessie’s waist!”" title="“With his arm
around Miss Jessie’s waist!”" src="images/p33s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
Miss Jenkyns snubbed her down in an instant.
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
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, something 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 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 <i>Rambler</i> when I
came in.
</p>

<p>
“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 <i>Rambler</i>? It’s a wonderful
book&mdash;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&mdash;that book by Mr Boz, you know&mdash;‘Old Poz’; when I was a
girl&mdash;but that’s a long time ago&mdash;I acted Lucy in ‘Old Poz.’” She
babbled on long enough for Flora to get a good long spell at the “Christmas
Carol,” which Miss Matty had left on the table.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br>
A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO</h2>

<p>
I 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 relation 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
surprised, therefore, by receiving a letter from Miss Pole (who had always come
in for a supplementary week after my annual visit to Miss Jenkyns) proposing
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 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.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“Dear Miss Matty,” said I, taking her hand&mdash;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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;and now she’s gone! If you
please, my love, will you call me Matilda?”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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 old
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 dimly perceived or suspected long years before.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;handsome young
men&mdash;abounded in the lower classes. The pretty neat servant-maids had
their choice of desirable “followers”; and their mistresses, without 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&mdash;and Miss
Matilda suspected her of so many flirtations that, if she had not been very
pretty, I should have doubted her having one&mdash;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 from six o’clock
tea, till Missus rings the bell for prayers at ten.”
</p>

<p>
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 wine-glasses 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 gooseberries for it
herself, which I sometimes thought 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.
</p>

<p>
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 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.
</p>

<p>
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
Cranford, on his way to Scotland&mdash;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 <i>must</i> 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.
</p>

<p>
“Oh! how must I manage?” asked she helplessly. “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 coffee, do you think?” I undertook the management
of the coffee, and told her I would instruct Martha in the art of
waiting&mdash;in which it must be owned she was terribly deficient&mdash;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 prevented 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.
</p>

<p>
“Hand the vegetables round,” said I (foolishly, I see now&mdash;for it was
aiming at more than we could accomplish with quietness and simplicity); and
then, seeing her look bewildered, I added, “take the vegetables round to
people, and let them help themselves.”
</p>

<p>
“And mind you go first to the ladies,” put in Miss Matilda. “Always go to the
ladies before gentlemen when you are waiting.”
</p>

<p>
“I’ll do it as you tell me, ma’am,” said Martha; “but I like lads best.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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 dismayed at
their bringing two servants with them, a Hindoo body-servant for the Major, and
a steady 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&mdash;answers which I must
confess she had given in the wearied manner of the Scandinavian
prophetess&mdash;
</p>

<p class="poem">
“Leave me, leave me to repose.”
</p>

<p>
And <i>now</i> I come to the love affair.
</p>

<p>
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, <i>Esq.</i>; he even sent back letters with this address, telling the
post-mistress at Cranford that his name was <i>Mr</i> Thomas Holbrook, yeoman.
He rejected all domestic innovations; he would have the house door stand open
in summer and shut in winter, without knocker or bell to summon a servant. The
closed fist or the knob of a 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 any one she had ever
heard, except the late rector.
</p>

<p>
“And how came Miss Matilda not to marry him?” asked I.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
“Well! but they were not to marry him,” said I, impatiently.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
“Poor Miss Matty!” said I.
</p>

<p>
“Nay, now, I don’t know anything more than that he offered and was refused.
Miss Matty might not like him&mdash;and Miss Jenkyns might never have said a
word&mdash;it is only a guess of mine.”
</p>

<p>
“Has she never seen him since?” I inquired.
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;once, when I was walking 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 Cousin Thomas.”
</p>

<p>
“How old is he?” I asked, after a pause of castle-building.
</p>

<p>
“He must be about seventy, I think, my dear,” said Miss Pole, blowing up my
castle, as if by gun-powder, into small fragments.
</p>

<p>
Very soon after&mdash;at least during my long visit to Miss Matilda&mdash;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-delaine 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.
</p>

<p>
“Miss Jenkyns wants the black sarsenet two-and-twopence the yard”; and Mr
Holbrook had caught the name, and was across the shop in two strides.
</p>

<p>
“Matty&mdash;Miss Matilda&mdash;Miss Jenkyns! God bless my soul! I should not
have known you. How 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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus07"></a>
<a href="images/p48b.jpg">
<img alt="Mr Holbrook ... bade us good-bye" title="Mr Holbrook ... bade us
good-bye" src="images/p48s.jpg"></a>
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br>
A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR</h2>

<p>
A few days after, a note came from Mr Holbrook, asking us&mdash;impartially
asking both of us&mdash;in a formal, old-fashioned style, to spend a day at his
house&mdash;a long June day&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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 difficulty. She did not think Deborah would have liked her to go. This
took us half a day’s good hard talking to get over; but, at the first sentence
of relenting, I seized the opportunity, and wrote and despatched an acceptance
in her name&mdash;fixing day and hour, that all might be decided and done with.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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 imaginations 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.
</p>

<p>
“My cousin might make a drive, I think,” said Miss Pole, who was afraid of
ear-ache, and had only her cap on.
</p>

<p>
“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 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
occasionally 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 pronounced the name of Goethe
strictly in accordance with the English sound of the letters&mdash;“As Goethe
says, ‘Ye ever-verdant palaces,’” &amp;c. 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.
</p>

<p>
When he and I went in, we found that dinner was nearly ready in the
kitchen&mdash;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 a stiffly-furnished, ugly apartment; but that in which we
did sit was what Mr Holbrook called the counting-house, where he paid his
labourers their weekly wages at a great desk near the door. The rest of the
pretty sitting-room&mdash;looking into the orchard, and all covered over with
dancing tree-shadows&mdash;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&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
“Ah!” he said, “we farmers ought not to have much time for reading; yet somehow
one can’t help it.”
</p>

<p>
“What a pretty room!” said Miss Matty, <i>sotto voce</i>.
</p>

<p>
“What a pleasant place!” said I, aloud, almost simultaneously.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
We had pudding before meat; and I thought Mr Holbrook was going to make some
apology for his old-fashioned ways, for he began&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“I don’t know whether you like newfangled ways.”
</p>

<p>
“Oh, not at all!” said Miss Matty.
</p>

<p>
“No more do I,” said he. “My housekeeper <i>will</i> 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.”
</p>

<p>
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 Amin&eacute; 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 <i>would</i> 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.
</p>

<p>
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 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.
</p>

<p>
“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!”
</p>

<p>
“What a number of books he has!” said Miss Pole, looking round the room. “And
how dusty they are!”
</p>

<p>
“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!”
</p>

<p>
“Yes!” said Miss Pole, “he’s a great reader; but I am afraid he has got into
very uncouth habits with living alone.”
</p>

<p>
“Oh! uncouth is too hard a word. I should call him eccentric; very clever
people always are!” replied Miss Matty.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus08"></a>
<a href="images/p54b.jpg">
<img alt="Now, what colour are ash-buds in March" title="Now, what colour are
ash-buds in March" src="images/p54s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
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 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 forgetting my existence, or soothed into silence by his
pipe&mdash;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
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&mdash;
</p>

<p class="poem">
“The cedar spreads his dark-green layers of shade.”
</p>

<p>
“Capital term&mdash;‘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.
</p>

<p>
He turned sharp round. “Ay! you may say ‘wonderful.’ Why, when I saw the review
of his poems in <i>Blackwood</i>, 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?”
</p>

<p>
Is the man going mad? thought I. He is very like Don Quixote.
</p>

<p>
“What colour are they, I say?” repeated he vehemently.
</p>

<p>
“I am sure I don’t know, sir,” said I, with the meekness of ignorance.
</p>

<p>
“I knew you didn’t. No more did I&mdash;an old fool that I am!&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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 reading, of which she had boasted;
but she afterwards 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 five 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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“What a pretty book!”
</p>

<p>
“Pretty, madam! it’s beautiful! Pretty, indeed!”
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;I forget the name of it; what was it, my dear?” turning to me.
</p>

<p>
“Which do you mean, ma’am? What was it about?”
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
“I don’t remember it,” said he reflectively. “But I don’t know Dr Johnson’s
poems well. I must read them.”
</p>

<p>
As we were getting into the fly to return, I heard Mr Holbrook say he should
call 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 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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
“My age!” said Miss Matty, almost speaking crossly, for her, for she was
usually gentle&mdash;“My age! Why, how old do you think I am, that you talk
about my age?”
</p>

<p>
“Well, ma’am, I should say you were not far short of sixty: but folks’ looks is
often against them&mdash;and I’m sure I meant no harm.”
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
He came. He put his open palms upon his knees, 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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“Well, madam! have you any commands for Paris? I am going there in a week or
two.”
</p>

<p>
“To Paris!” we both exclaimed.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
We were so much astonished that we had no commissions.
</p>

<p>
Just as he was going out of the room, he turned back, with his favourite
exclamation&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
Accordingly I received a line or two from Martha every now and then; and, about
November I had a note to say her mistress was “very low and sadly off her
food”; and the account made me so uneasy that, although Martha did not
decidedly summon me, I packed up my things and went.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
I went down to have a private talk with Martha.
</p>

<p>
“How long has your mistress been so poorly?” I asked, as I stood by the kitchen
fire.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
“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?”
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;but&mdash;” Martha hesitated.
</p>

<p>
“But what, Martha?”
</p>

<p>
“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 they did come: and it’s such a
capable kitchen&mdash;there’s such dark corners in it&mdash;I’d be bound to
hide any one. I counted up last Sunday night&mdash;for 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
experience, 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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
“Does Miss Matilda know of his illness?” asked I&mdash;a new light as to the
cause of her indisposition dawning upon me.
</p>

<p>
“Dear! to be sure, yes! Has not she 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!”
</p>

<p>
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 secrets&mdash;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
Jenkyns, which had been troubling her all the afternoon, 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 tried 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.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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, where they
are always having revolutions.”
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;all the time of which I have no doubt Miss Pole
thought Miss Matty received the news very calmly&mdash;our visitor took her
leave.
</p>

<p>
Miss Matty made a strong effort to conceal her feelings&mdash;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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“But she wears widows’ caps, ma’am?”
</p>

<p>
“Oh! I only meant something in that style; not widows’, of course, but rather
like Mrs Jamieson’s.”
</p>

<p>
This effort at concealment was the beginning of the tremulous motion of head
and hands which I have seen ever since in Miss Matty.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“Martha!” she said, at last, “you are young”&mdash;and then she made so long a
pause that Martha, to remind her of her half-finished sentence, dropped a
curtsey, and said&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“Yes, please, ma’am; two-and-twenty last third of October, please, ma’am.”
</p>

<p>
“And, perhaps, Martha, you may some time meet with a young man you like, and
who likes 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 contingency, and was rather startled when Martha
made her ready eager answer&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
Though Miss Matty was startled, she submitted to Fate and Love.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br>
OLD LETTERS</h2>

<p>
I have often noticed that almost every one has his own individual small
economies&mdash;careful habits of saving fractions of pennies in some one
peculiar direction&mdash;any disturbance of which annoys him more than spending
shillings or pounds on some real extravagance. An old gentleman of my
acquaintance, 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
corresponding pages at the other end came out as well, and this little
unnecessary waste of paper (his private 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 any one cuts the string of a parcel instead of patiently and faithfully
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&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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) and eats up his butter. They think that this is not
waste.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;she could do this in the dark, or by firelight&mdash;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 extinguish 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.
</p>

<p>
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 awakening 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 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&mdash;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&mdash;yellow bundles of love-letters, sixty or seventy years old.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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 expressed themselves could
never die, and be as nothing to the sunny earth. I should have felt less
melancholy, I believe, if the letters had been more so. I saw the 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.
</p>

<p>
The earliest set of letters were two bundles tied together, and ticketed (in
Miss Jenkyns’s handwriting) “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&mdash;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”&mdash;whatever
that might be; and six or seven letters were principally occupied in 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 correspondence.
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
The next letter, likewise docketed by Miss Jenkyns, was endorsed, “Letter 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.”
</p>

<p>
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 gentleman, because he had forbidden it, she being
indisposed with a sprained ankle, which (he said) quite incapacitated 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 <i>up</i> stairs
before going <i>down</i>: 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.
</p>

<p>
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 ever was seen. Dear mother, I wish
you could see her! Without any pershality, 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.
</p>

<p>
There was a great gap before any of the rector’s letters appeared. And then his
wife had changed her mode of her endorsement. It was no longer from, “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&mdash;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 responsibility. 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, <i>dum memor ipse mei</i>, <i>dum spiritus regit
artus</i>,” 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 now-a-days, whatever that may mean.” But
this was nothing to a fit of writing classical poetry which soon seized him, in
which his Molly figured away as “Maria.” The letter containing the
<i>carmen</i> 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 <i>Gentleman’s Magazine</i>, December 1782.
</p>

<p>
Her letters back to her husband (treasured as fondly by him as if they had been
<i>M. T. Ciceronis Epistol&aelig;</i>) were more satisfactory to an absent
husband and father than his could ever have been to her. She told him how
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 would 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 darling, 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.”
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
But to return to Mrs Jenkyns’s letters. She told her husband about the poor in
the parish; what homely domestic medicines she had administered; 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.
</p>

<p>
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 exhortation 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 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 acquaintance; and I was not surprised
at the way in which he spoke of this life being “a vale of tears.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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!”
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus09"></a>
<a href="images/p74b.jpg">
<img alt="I made use of the time to think of many other things" title="I made
use of the time to think of many other things" src="images/p74s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
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! 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.
</p>

<p>
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
sesquipedalian. In one to her father, slightly theological and controversial in
its tone, she had spoken of Herod, Tetrarch of Idumea. Miss Matty read it
“Herod Petrarch of Etruria,” and was just as well pleased as if she had been
right.
</p>

<p>
I can’t quite remember the date, but I think it was in 1805 that Miss Jenkyns
wrote the longest series of letters&mdash;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&mdash;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 calm and enquiring minds!”
And here Miss Matty broke in with&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;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 afternoons, 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.”
</p>

<p>
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 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&mdash;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 <i>Bonus Bernardus non videt omnia</i>, 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 wrong-doing; and among them all was a badly-written, badly-sealed,
badly-directed, blotted note:&mdash;“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.”
</p>

<p>
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!”
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br>
POOR PETER</h2>

<p>
Poor Peter’s career lay before him rather pleasantly mapped out by kind
friends, but <i>Bonus Bernardus non videt omnia</i>, in this map too. He was to
win honours at the 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 when
she had done so.
</p>

<p>
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 ever was, and of being the
captain of the school in the art of practical joking. His father was
disappointed, 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.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
“What went wrong at last?” said I. “That tiresome Latin, I dare say.”
</p>

<p>
“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 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.’
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 Buonaparte sermons for
her&mdash;him, I mean&mdash;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&mdash;that was for Peter himself, you know. He
was the lady. And once when he wanted to go fishing, Peter said, ‘Confound the
woman!’&mdash;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.”
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus10"></a>
<a href="images/p82b.jpg">
<img alt="Confound the woman" title="Confound the woman" src="images/p82s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
“Did Miss Jenkyns know of these tricks?” said I.
</p>

<p>
“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 town wanted something to talk about; but I
don’t think they did. They had the <i>St James’s Chronicle</i> 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 happened.” 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.
</p>

<p>
“I will lock the door after you, Martha. You are not afraid to go, are you?”
</p>

<p>
“No, ma’am, not at all; Jem Hearn will be only too proud to go with me.”
</p>

<p>
Miss Matty drew herself up, and as soon as we were alone, she wished that
Martha had more maidenly reserve.
</p>

<p>
“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 fortnight 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.
</p>

<p>
“Well! he went to her room, it seems, and dressed himself in her old gown, and
shawl, and bonnet; just the things she used to wear in Cranford, and was known
by everywhere; and he made the pillow into a little&mdash;you are sure you
locked the door, my dear, for I should not like anyone to
hear&mdash;into&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;I daresay as many
as twenty&mdash;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&mdash;oh, my dear, I tremble to think of it&mdash;he looked through the
rails himself, and saw&mdash;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&mdash;oh, so
terribly!&mdash;and bade them all stop where they were&mdash;not one of them to
go, not one of them 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&mdash;bonnet, shawl, gown, and all&mdash;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!
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;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,
looking as haughty as any man&mdash;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 go and seek my father, and ask what it was all
about. I found him walking up and down, looking very highly displeased.
</p>

<p>
“‘Tell your mother I have flogged Peter, and that he richly deserved it.’
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;nor, indeed, ever
after.
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;though she was not to tell Peter
this&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;as we found he was not in the garden, nor the hayloft,
nor anywhere about&mdash;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.’ The afternoon went on&mdash;my mother
never resting, but seeking again and again in every possible place that had
been looked into twenty 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.
</p>

<p>
“‘Molly!’ said he, ‘I did not think all this would happen.’ He looked into her
face for comfort&mdash;her poor face all wild and white; for neither she nor my
father had dared to acknowledge&mdash;much less act upon&mdash;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&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;poor Mr Holbrook;&mdash;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&mdash;you know he was Miss Pole’s
cousin&mdash;and he had been very kind to Peter, and taught him how to
fish&mdash;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 something to
eat and drink and warm them, when old Clare asked to speak to me.
</p>

<p>
“‘I have borrowed the nets from the weir, Miss Matty. Shall we drag the ponds
to-night, or wait for the morning?’
</p>

<p>
“I remember staring in his face to gather his meaning; and when I did, I
laughed out loud. The horror of that new thought&mdash;our bright, darling
Peter, cold, and stark, and dead! I remember the ring of my own laugh now.
</p>

<p>
“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 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&mdash;no awful, ghastly news, which was what I most had dreaded
in my dull state between sleeping and waking.
</p>

<p>
“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 familiar 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 thunder-bolt on the still sunny
day when the lilacs were all in bloom.”
</p>

<p>
“Where was Mr Peter?” said I.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
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 remained ever since,
having been inadvertently put by among the other letters of that time. This is
it:&mdash;
</p>

<p class="letter">
“My dearest Peter,&mdash;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 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.”
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;the last&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
The captain’s letter summoned the father 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 somewhere, somehow.
</p>

<p>
Miss Matty went on, “And it was racetime, and all the post-horses at Cranford
were gone to the races; but my father and mother set off in our own
gig&mdash;and oh! my dear, they were too late&mdash;the ship was gone! And now
read Peter’s letter to my mother!”
</p>

<p>
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.”
</p>

<p>
“And she was too late,” said Miss Matty; “too late!”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;so very gentle now. He would, perhaps, speak in his old
way&mdash;laying down the law, as it were&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
“But, you see, he saw what we did not&mdash;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&mdash;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 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.
</p>

<p>
“Well, my dear, it’s very foolish of me, I know, when in all likelihood I am so
near seeing her again.
</p>

<p>
“And only think, love! the very day after her death&mdash;for she did not live
quite a twelvemonth after Peter went away&mdash;the very day after&mdash;came a
parcel for her from India&mdash;from her poor boy. It was a large, soft, white
Indian shawl, with just a little narrow border all round; just what my mother
would have liked.
</p>

<p>
“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.’
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;she
should; but she shall have it now.’
</p>

<p>
“My mother looked so lovely in her death! She was always pretty, and now she
looked fair, and waxen, and young&mdash;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&mdash;all Cranford came&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;I don’t know that 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 every one. 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.”
</p>

<p>
“Did Mr Peter ever come home?”
</p>

<p>
“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.
Deborah used to smile (I don’t think we ever laughed again after my mother’s
death), and say she was 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 settled.”
</p>

<p>
“And then?” said I, after a pause.
</p>

<p>
“Then Peter went to sea again; and, by-and-by, my father died, blessing us
both, and thanking 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!”
</p>

<p>
“And Mr Peter?” asked I.
</p>

<p>
“Oh, there was some great war in India&mdash;I forget what they call
it&mdash;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&mdash;and Peter never comes.
</p>

<p>
“That’s Martha back? No! <i>I’ll</i> 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.”
</p>

<p>
So she pattered off. I had lighted the candle, to give the room a cheerful
appearance against her return.
</p>

<p>
“Was it Martha?” asked I.
</p>

<p>
“Yes. And I am rather uncomfortable, for I heard such a strange noise, just as
I was opening the door.”
</p>

<p>
“Where?” I asked, for her eyes were round with affright.
</p>

<p>
“In the street&mdash;just outside&mdash;it sounded like”&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“Talking?” I put in, as she hesitated a little.
</p>

<p>
“No! kissing”&mdash;
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br>
VISITING</h2>

<p>
One morning, as Miss Matty and I sat at our work&mdash;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 Jamieson’s at all times when she
expected to be seen&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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
situations 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
<i>&eacute;lite</i> of Cranford. I say the <i>&eacute;lite</i>, 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.
</p>

<p>
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. They 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 shutting up shop and retiring from
business. She also (as I think I have before said) set up her cow; a mark of
respectability in Cranford almost as decided as setting up a gig is among some
people. She 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 <i>pass&eacute;e</i>.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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 overpowered 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 invitation 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 do not think she did,
for she recovered her balance, and went on talking to Miss Betty in a kind,
condescending 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.
</p>

<p>
“Yes. Mrs Jamieson most kindly and condescendingly 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.”
</p>

<p>
“And Miss Pole?” questioned Miss Matty, who was thinking of her pool at
Preference, in which Carlo would not be available as a partner.
</p>

<p>
“I am going to ask Miss Pole. Of course, I could not think of asking her until
I had asked you, madam&mdash;the rector’s daughter, madam. Believe me, I do not
forget the situation my father held under yours.”
</p>

<p>
“And Mrs Forrester, of course?”
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
Miss Matty cared much more for the little circumstance of her being a very good
card-player.
</p>

<p>
“Mrs Fitz-Adam&mdash;I suppose”&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;but
I cannot think her fit society for such ladies as Mrs Jamieson and Miss Matilda
Jenkyns.”
</p>

<p>
Miss Betty Barker bowed low to Miss Matty, and pursed up her mouth. She looked
at me with sidelong dignity, as much as to say, although a retired milliner,
she was no democrat, and understood the difference of ranks.
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;half-past six.” And with a swimming
curtsey Miss Betty Barker took her leave.
</p>

<p>
My prophetic soul foretold a visit that afternoon from Miss Pole, who usually
came to call on Miss Matilda after any event&mdash;or indeed in sight of any
event&mdash;to talk it over with her.
</p>

<p>
“Miss Betty told me it was to be a choice and select few,” said Miss Pole, as
she and Miss Matty compared notes.
</p>

<p>
“Yes, so she said. Not even Mrs Fitz-Adam.”
</p>

<p>
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 Marchioness 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.
</p>

<p>
Soon after Miss Mary Hoggins married Mr 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.”
</p>

<p>
I remember the convocation of ladies who assembled to decide whether or not Mrs
Fitz-Adam should be called upon by the old blue-blooded inhabitants 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 Cranford. 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 knowledge 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 without children, if we did not relax a little,
and become less exclusive, by-and-by we should have no society at all.”
</p>

<p>
Mrs Forrester continued on the same side.
</p>

<p>
“She had always understood that Fitz meant something aristocratic; there was
Fitz-Roy&mdash;she thought that some of the King’s children had been called
Fitz-Roy; and there was Fitz-Clarence, now&mdash;they were the children of dear
good King William the Fourth. Fitz-Adam!&mdash;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&mdash;she had had a cousin who spelt his name with two little
ffs&mdash;ffoulkes&mdash;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 ffarringdon, at a
watering-place, he took to her immediately; and a very pretty genteel woman she
was&mdash;a widow, with a very good fortune; and ‘my cousin,’ Mr ffoulkes,
married her; and it was all owing to her two little ffs.”
</p>

<p>
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 into the society of the
place, which would certainly be a very agreeable rise for <i>ci-devant</i> Miss
Hoggins; and if this had been her hope it would be cruel to disappoint her.
</p>

<p>
So everybody called upon Mrs Fitz-Adam&mdash;everybody 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 would be only eight or ten ladies in the room,
and Mrs Fitz-Adam was the largest of all, and she invariably used to stand up
when Mrs Jamieson came in, and curtsey very low to her whenever she turned in
her direction&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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 we 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.”
</p>

<p>
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 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 been even then sore and rough. Kind, gentle, shabbily-dressed
Mrs Forrester was immediately conducted to the second place of honour&mdash;a
seat arranged something like Prince Albert’s near the Queen’s&mdash;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&mdash;Carlo
rushing round her on her progress, as if he meant to trip her up.
</p>

<p>
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 every-day 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 malapropos 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!”
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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 Jamieson 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.
</p>

<p>
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 comfortable 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.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus11"></a>
<a href="images/p106b.jpg">
<img alt="The temptation of the comfortable arm-chair had been too much for
her" title="The temptation of the comfortable arm-chair had been too much for
her" src="images/p106s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;“very gratifying indeed, to see how
completely Mrs Jamieson feels at home in my poor little dwelling; she could not
have paid me a greater compliment.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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.”
</p>

<p>
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.”
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;as she said almost directly, the room had been so light she had
been glad to keep her eyes shut, but 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&mdash;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&mdash;macaroons
sopped in brandy, I should have called it, if I had not known its more refined
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&mdash;which never ate suppers in general, but which,
like most non-supper-eaters, was particularly hungry on all special occasions.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;“just a little, leetle
glass, ladies; after the oysters and lobsters, you know. Shell-fish are
sometimes 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 ourselves bound to give evidence that we were not accustomed to
such things by coughing terribly&mdash;almost as strangely as Miss Barker had
done, before we were admitted by Peggy.
</p>

<p>
“It’s very strong,” said Miss Pole, as she put down her empty glass; “I do
believe there’s spirit in it.”
</p>

<p>
“Only a little drop&mdash;just necessary to make it keep,” said Miss Barker.
“You know we put brandy-pepper over our preserves to make them keep. I often
feel tipsy myself from eating damson tart.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“My sister-in-law, Lady Glenmire, is coming to stay with me.”
</p>

<p>
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 widow; for,
of course, a series of small festivals were always held in Cranford on the
arrival of a visitor at any of our friends’ houses. We felt very pleasantly
excited on the present occasion.
</p>

<p>
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
manœuvring on the part of the old chairmen (shoemakers by day, but when
summoned to carry the sedan dressed up in a strange old livery&mdash;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 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.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br>
“YOUR LADYSHIP”</h2>

<p>
Early the next morning&mdash;directly after twelve&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
“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 Ladyship,’
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&mdash;will you kindly tell me the most correct way of speaking to the
peerage?”
</p>

<p>
Poor Miss Matty! she took off her spectacles and she put them on
again&mdash;but how Lady Arley was addressed, she could not remember.
</p>

<p>
“It is so long ago,” she said. “Dear! dear! how stupid I am! I don’t think I
ever saw her more than twice. I know we used to call Sir Peter, ‘Sir
Peter’&mdash;but he came much oftener to see us than Lady Arley did. Deborah
would have known in a minute. ‘My lady’&mdash;‘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.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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 Cranford.”
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
“Who is Lady Glenmire?” asked I.
</p>

<p>
“Oh, she’s the widow of Mr Jamieson&mdash;that’s Mrs Jamieson’s late husband,
you know&mdash;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 practice a little on you first, for I shall
feel so foolish and hot saying it the first time to Lady Glenmire.”
</p>

<p>
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 insinuate 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 understand 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.
</p>

<p>
When she did understand the drift of the honourable 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&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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 dare say 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&mdash;never sat in the
House of Lords&mdash;and as poor as Job, I dare say; and she&mdash;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,
every one says.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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!”
</p>

<p>
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 Jamieson
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.
</p>

<p>
“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).
</p>

<p>
Miss Pole said, “Good gracious me! as if we cared about a Mrs Smith;” but was
silent as Martha resumed her speech.
</p>

<p>
“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, 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 any one.”
</p>

<p>
“Hush, Martha!” said Miss Matty, “that’s not respectful.”
</p>

<p>
“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”&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“Lady,” said Miss Pole.
</p>

<p>
“Lady&mdash;as Mrs Deacon.”
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;almost too much so. Miss Matty was evidently uneasy at our
sarcastic manner of speaking.
</p>

<p>
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
determination 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 <i>would</i> 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, in
order to impress his mistress with an idea of their great weight, though they
might easily have gone into his waistcoat pocket.
</p>

<p>
Miss Matty and I quietly decided that 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&mdash;not a penny owing from the week before; so, by a natural
arrangement, 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.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
I saw Miss Pole’s countenance change while Miss Matty was speaking.
</p>

<p>
“Don’t you mean to go then?” asked she.
</p>

<p>
“Oh, no!” said, Miss Matty quietly. “You don’t either, I suppose?”
</p>

<p>
“I don’t know,” replied Miss Pole. “Yes, I think I do,” said she, rather
briskly; and on seeing Miss Matty look 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.”
</p>

<p>
“Well! I suppose it is wrong to be hurt and annoyed 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.”
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
“I thought you possessed them, too, that day Mrs Jamieson called to tell us not
to go,” said Miss Matty innocently.
</p>

<p>
But Miss Pole, in addition to her delicacies of feeling, 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.”
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus12"></a>
<a href="images/p117b.jpg">
<img alt="Mr Mulliner" title="Mr Mulliner" src="images/p117s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
The expenditure on dress in Cranford was principally 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 permanent ornament, and new caps to suit the
fashion of the day&mdash;the ladies of Cranford always dressed with chaste
elegance and propriety, as Miss Barker once prettily expressed it.
</p>

<p>
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 memorable Tuesday evening. I counted
seven brooches myself on Miss Pole’s dress. Two were fixed negligently 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 neckerchief; 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.
</p>

<p>
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 known 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 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
housekeepers’ rooms, and pantries, and in one of them Mr Mulliner was reported
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 <i>St James’s
Chronicle</i>, opened wide, which, in some degree, accounted for the length of
time the said newspaper was in reaching us&mdash;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 <i>St James’s Chronicle</i> should come in at the last
moment&mdash;the very <i>St James’s Chronicle</i> which the powdered head was
tranquilly and composedly reading as we passed the accustomed window this
evening.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
We looked at her in admiration of the courage of her thought; for Mr Mulliner
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 undaunted 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.
</p>

<p>
Miss Pole ventured on a small joke as we went upstairs, 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 Mulliner’s
sympathy. Not a muscle of that wooden face had relaxed; and we were grave in an
instant.
</p>

<p>
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 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
helplessly 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 or
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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“My dear! ten pounds would have purchased every stitch she had on&mdash;lace
and all.”
</p>

<p>
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 prospects
on false pretences; a sort of “A Lord and No Lord” business.
</p>

<p>
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 house-keeping 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&mdash;much less knew how they were made. At last, Miss Pole, who had
always a great deal of courage and <i>savoir faire</i>, spoke to Lady Glenmire,
who on her part had seemed just as much puzzled to know how to break the
silence as we were.
</p>

<p>
“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 befitting the rank of the stranger.”
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;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’ll 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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“I had better ring the bell, my dear, had not I?” said Lady Glenmire briskly.
</p>

<p>
“No&mdash;I think not&mdash;Mulliner does not like to be hurried.”
</p>

<p>
We should have liked our tea, for we dined at an earlier hour than Mrs
Jamieson. I suspect Mr Mulliner had to finish the <i>St James’s Chronicle</i>
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 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.”
</p>

<p>
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 something 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.
</p>

<p>
After tea we thawed down into common-life subjects. 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 some one who had seen her.
</p>

<p>
The friendship begun over bread and butter extended on to cards. Lady Glenmire
played Preference 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 Cranford Parliament on the subject of the proper
mode of addressing a peeress.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
“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 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, unfortunately, 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 something 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&mdash;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&mdash;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 her forefeet straight down, so that they were fastened, and could not
scratch, and we gave her a teaspoonful of current-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 it in milk. But now your ladyship would never
guess that it had been in pussy’s inside.”
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus13"></a>
<a href="images/p124b.jpg">
<img alt="We gave her a teaspoonful of current-jelly" title="We gave her a
teaspoonful of current-jelly" src="images/p124s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
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.”
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
“Are you fond of astronomy?” Lady Glenmire asked.
</p>

<p>
“Not very,” replied Miss Matty, rather confused at the moment to remember which
was astronomy and which was astrology&mdash;but the answer was true under
either circumstance, for she read, and was slightly alarmed at Francis Moore’s
astrological predictions; and, as to astronomy, in a private and confidential
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.
</p>

<p>
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.”
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br>
SIGNOR BRUNONI</h2>

<p>
Soon 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.
</p>

<p>
Late in November&mdash;when we had returned home again, and my father was once
more in good health&mdash;I received a letter from Miss Matty; and a very
mysterious letter it was. She began many sentences without ending them, running
them one into another, in much the same confused sort of way in which 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
great-coat 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 particularly describe, only sea-green was her favourite colour. So she
ended her letter; but in a P.S. she added, she thought she might as well tell
me what was the peculiar attraction to Cranford just now; Signor Brunoni was
going to exhibit his wonderful magic in the Cranford Assembly Rooms on
Wednesday and Friday evening in the following week.
</p>

<p>
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 disfiguring
her small, gentle, mousey face with a great Saracen’s head turban; and
accordingly, I bought 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 reality, 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 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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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 dare say. I
should have liked something newer, I confess&mdash;something more like the
turbans Miss Betty Barker tells me Queen Adelaide wears; but it is very pretty,
my dear. And I dare say lavender will wear better than sea-green. Well, after
all, what is dress, that we should care anything 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?”
</p>

<p>
So saying, the dear old lady gently bemoaned herself 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 unpack 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.
</p>

<p>
Miss Pole was always the person, in the trio of Cranford ladies now assembled,
to have had adventures. She was in the habit of spending the morning in
rambling 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 town. She had
a way, too, of demurely popping hither and thither into all sorts of places to
gratify her curiosity on any point&mdash;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&mdash;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 compared to what they could
disclose, if properly entreated. Miss Pole began&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;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 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&mdash;the
gentleman who spoke broken English was Signor 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&mdash;all foreigners have such polite manners, one
catches something of it. But when he had gone downstairs, 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&mdash;you remember, Miss
Matty&mdash;and just repeating, in his pretty broken English, the inquiry if I
had any business there&mdash;I don’t mean that he put it quite so bluntly, but
he seemed very determined that I should not pass the screen&mdash;so, of
course, I explained about my glove, which, curiously enough, I found at that
very moment.”
</p>

<p>
Miss Pole, then, had seen the conjuror&mdash;the real, live conjuror! and
numerous were the questions we all asked her. “Had he a beard?” “Was he young,
or old?” “Fair, or dark?” “Did he look”&mdash;(unable to shape my question
prudently, I put it in another form)&mdash;“How did he look?” In short, Miss
Pole was the heroine of the evening, owing to her morning’s encounter. If she
was not the rose (that is to say the conjuror) she had been near it.
</p>

<p>
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 proceedings of the Witch of Endor. Mrs
Forrester believed everything, from ghosts to death-watches. Miss Matty ranged
between the two&mdash;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&mdash;Miss
Jenkyns, who would never allow a servant to call the little rolls of tallow
that formed themselves round candles “winding-sheets,” but insisted on their
being spoken of as “roley-poleys!” A sister of hers to be superstitious! It
would never do.
</p>

<p>
After tea, I was despatched downstairs into the dining-parlour for that volume
of the old Encyclop&aelig;dia 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
much 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 disappointment. But
Miss Pole only read the more zealously, imparting to us no more information
than this&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“Ah! I see; I comprehend perfectly. A represents the ball. Put A between B and
D&mdash;no! between 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, conjuring and witchcraft is a mere affair of the alphabet. Do let me
read you this one passage?”
</p>

<p>
Mrs Forrester implored Miss Pole to spare her, saying, from a child upwards,
she never could understand 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 brightness 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 conscience by offering to lend the
volume of the Encyclop&aelig;dia to Miss Pole, who accepted it thankfully, and
said Betty should take it home when she came with the lantern.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
At length we set off; and at the door under the carriage-way at the “George,”
we met Mrs Forrester and Miss Pole: the latter was discussing the subject of
the evening with more vehemence than ever, and throwing X’s and B’s at our
heads like hailstones. She had even copied one or two of the
“receipts”&mdash;as she called them&mdash;for the different tricks, on backs of
letters, ready to explain and to detect Signor Brunoni’s arts.
</p>

<p>
We went into the cloak-room adjoining 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 swung 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 certain that a rich and beautiful widow,
Lady Williams, had here been smitten with the noble figure of a young artist,
who was staying with some family in the neighbourhood 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, <i>chapeau bras</i> 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 fine 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 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 toffee
between them with which to beguile the time.
</p>

<p>
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 obstinate 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 something
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.
</p>

<p>
At length the eyes disappeared&mdash;the curtain quivered&mdash;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 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 with 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.
</p>

<p>
“That’s not Signor 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. “Signor Brunoni had no beard&mdash;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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“You see, my dear, turbans <i>are</i> worn.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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 Brunoni had not got that muffy
sort of thing about his chin, but looked like a close-shaved Christian
gentleman.”
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;a proceeding
which silenced Miss Pole and encouraged the Grand Turk to proceed, which he did
in very broken English&mdash;so broken that there was no cohesion between the
parts of his sentences; a fact which he himself perceived at last, and so left
off speaking and proceeded to action.
</p>

<p>
Now we <i>were</i> 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&mdash;or at least in a very audible whisper&mdash;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 Mussulman? If Miss Pole were sceptical,
and more engrossed with her receipts and diagrams than with his tricks, Miss
Matty 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 defective 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 Encyclop&aelig;dia and make
her third finger flexible.
</p>

<p>
At last Miss Matty and Mrs Forrester became perfectly 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”&mdash; 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 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 Matty half-turned towards
me&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“Will you look, my dear&mdash;you are a stranger in the town, and it won’t give
rise to unpleasant reports&mdash;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.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus14"></a>
<a href="images/p140b.jpg">
<img alt="Afraid of matrimonial reports" title="Afraid of matrimonial reports"
src="images/p140s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
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 performance; and virtue was for
once its own reward, for 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.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br>
THE PANIC</h2>

<p>
I think a series of circumstances dated from Signor 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&mdash;real <i>bon&acirc; fide</i> robberies; men had up before the
magistrates and committed for trial&mdash;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 fire-irons with which to sound the alarm; and by
the accidental hitting together of them she often frightened us so much that 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.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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:&mdash;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; therefore, we must
believe that the robbers were strangers&mdash;if strangers, why not
foreigners?&mdash;if foreigners, who so likely as the French? Signor 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 Sta&euml;l 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&mdash;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 adventure at the “George Inn”&mdash;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&mdash;it was
rather too much like 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.
</p>

<p>
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.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“Take care of that!” said she to me, as I offered 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.’ 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!”
</p>

<p>
“But,” said Miss Matty, “what has alarmed you so much? Have you seen any men
lurking about the house?”
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
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
nightingale and a musician, who strove one against the other which could
produce the most admirable music, till poor Philomel dropped down dead.
</p>

<p>
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 for it again at night; and 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 confused idea that, somehow,
she baffled the robbers with Italian irons, heated red-hot, and then restored
to blackness by being dipped in grease.
</p>

<p>
We parted for the night with an awe-stricken wonder as to what we should hear
of in the morning&mdash;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.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus15"></a>
<a href="images/p148b.jpg">
<img alt="Asked him to take care of us" title="Asked him to take care of us"
src="images/p148s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
But until Lady Glenmire came to call next day we heard of nothing unusual. The
kitchen fire-irons were in exactly the same position against the back door as
when Martha and I had 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 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 bed-clothes 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.
</p>

<p>
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 bannisters, 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 disposition indeed if they neglected the opportunities
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 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.
</p>

<p>
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!
</p>

<p>
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 uneducated 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 legs stretched out stiff in the attitude of running, as if by
such unusual exertion he could escape the sure pursuer, Death.
</p>

<p>
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 uncomfortable.
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; who knew
but what he might yet be lingering in the neighbourhood willing all sorts of
awful things!
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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. If she could neither eat nor sleep, she must be indeed
out of spirits and out of health.
</p>

<p>
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 Mulliner’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 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 house-less, so the charge of her sister-in-law’s comfortable abode was
very convenient and acceptable.
</p>

<p>
Miss Pole was very much inclined to instal 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&mdash;he grew to be
gigantic in height before we had done with him; he of course had black
hair&mdash;and by-and-by it hung in elf-locks over his forehead and down his
back. The other was short and broad&mdash;and a hump sprouted out on his
shoulder before we heard the last of him; he had red hair&mdash;which deepened
into carroty; and she was almost sure he had a cast in the eye&mdash;a decided
squint. As for the woman, her eyes glared, and she was
masculine-looking&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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 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
intelligence; for the event had only occurred the night before.
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;too strong ever to be beaten or discomfited&mdash;too
wise ever to be outwitted. If 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.”
</p>

<p>
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
incomprehensible, certainly!”
</p>

<p>
“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 have 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.”
</p>

<p>
“Not robbed!” exclaimed the chorus.
</p>

<p>
“Don’t tell me!” Miss Pole exclaimed, angry 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&mdash;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.”
</p>

<p>
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
drinking 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 perhaps 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 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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
Having braved the dangers of Darkness Lane, and thus having a little stock of
reputation for courage to fall back upon; and also, I daresay, desirous of
proving ourselves superior to men (<i>videlicet</i> Mr Hoggins) in the article
of candour, we began to relate our individual fears, and the private
precautions we each of us took. I owned that my pet apprehension was
eyes&mdash;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 some one 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&mdash;perhaps I had noticed that she had told Martha to
buy her a penny ball, such as children play with&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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 <i>her</i>
private weakness.
</p>

<p>
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, turning 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 sometimes 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.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus16"></a>
<a href="images/p157b.jpg">
<img alt="Slaughterous and indiscriminate directions" title="Slaughterous and
indiscriminate directions" src="images/p157s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
Still this was no confession of Mrs Forrester’s peculiar timidity, and we urged
her to tell us what she 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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“Ghosts!”
</p>

<p>
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
discussion; 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.
</p>

<p>
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. 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 familiar
bed-clothes.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“Could not you&mdash;could not you take Miss Matty round by Headingley
Causeway?&mdash;the pavement in Darkness Lane jolts so, and she is not very
strong.”
</p>

<p>
A smothered voice was heard from the inside of the chair&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
“And I’ll give you a shilling,” said Miss Pole, with tremulous dignity, “if
you’ll go by Headingley Causeway.”
</p>

<p>
The two men grunted acquiescence and took up the chair, and went along the
causeway, which certainly 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.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br>
SAMUEL BROWN</h2>

<p>
The 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 neighbourhood 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 Lady 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.
</p>

<p>
In the afternoon Miss Pole called on Miss Matty to tell her of the
adventure&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;his twin-brother, she
believed he was&mdash;had gone off with the horse and cart.
</p>

<p>
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 suggestion; 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 landlady 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&mdash;“Sam,” she called him&mdash;but to the
last we preferred calling him “the Signor”; it sounded so much better.
</p>

<p>
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 signor’s real state; and, as Miss Pole
said, if it was desirable to remove him to Cranford to be more immediately
under Mr Hoggins’s eye, she would undertake to see for lodgings and arrange
about the rent. Mrs Roberts had been as kind as could be all throughout, but it
was evident that their long residence there had been a slight inconvenience.
</p>

<p>
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, turning it in every
possible light, and we went to bed anxious for the morning, when we should
surely hear from someone 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&mdash;or rather,
I should say, as a gentleman&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
But, although we had no more fear, everybody did as much as if there was great
cause for anxiety&mdash;as indeed there was until Mr Hoggins took charge of
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 Mulliner 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 Forrester 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 any
one 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 Forrester
called her (remembering the clause in her will and the dignity of the
occasion), Miss Matilda Jenkyns&mdash;might choose to do with the receipt when
it came into her possession&mdash;whether to make it public, or to hand it down
as an heirloom&mdash;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 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&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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 every-day 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 “murderous 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
tremblingly 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.
</p>

<p>
I found Miss Matty covering her penny ball&mdash;the ball that she used to roll
under her bed&mdash;with gay-coloured worsted in rainbow stripes.
</p>

<p>
“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 try if I could not make this one smart and take it to
Phœbe this afternoon. I think ‘the gang’ must have left the neighbourhood, for
one does not hear any more of their violence and robbery now.”
</p>

<p>
We were all of us far too full of the signor’s precarious 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 had 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 herself, 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”&mdash;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 congratulation to Miss Matty that so far they had escaped 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 Lady 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.
</p>

<p>
We were thankful, as Miss Pole desired us to be, 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 any one.
</p>

<p>
“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, ‘<i>When</i> I marry,’ and gentlemen, ‘<i>If</i>
I 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 fire-light.
In a little while she continued&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“But, after all, I have not told you the truth. It is so long ago, and no one
ever knew how much I 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 any one
who wished to marry me now (and, as Miss Pole says, one is never too safe), I
could not take him&mdash;I hope he would not take it too much to heart, but I
could <i>not</i> take him&mdash;or any one 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&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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)&mdash;“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&mdash;I remember it as if it were yesterday&mdash;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 archdeacon, and write his charges; and you
know, my dear, she never was married, and, for aught I know, 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&mdash;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&mdash;which I did a year or
two after this time&mdash;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
unstirred coals, I saw that her eyes were full of tears&mdash;gazing intently
on some vision of what might have been), “do you know I dream sometimes that I
have a little child&mdash;always the same&mdash;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&mdash;perhaps because I had gone to sleep thinking of this ball for
Phœbe&mdash;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&mdash;better than always doubting and
doubting and seeing difficulties and disagreeables in everything.”
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus17"></a>
<a href="images/p170b.jpg">
<img alt="Would stretch out their little arms" title="Would stretch out their
little arms" src="images/p170s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
If I had been inclined to be daunted from matrimony, it would not have been
Miss Pole to do it; it would have been the lot of poor Signor 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 Phœbe.
</p>

<p>
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 were
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.”
</p>

<p>
“Have you been in India?” said I, rather astonished.
</p>

<p>
“Oh, yes! many a year, ma’am. Sam was a sergeant in the 31st; and when the
regiment was 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&mdash;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&mdash;I never would&mdash;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 Phœbe 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&mdash;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 Phœbe came, and I grew strong again, I set off.
It was very lonely; through the thick forests, dark again with their heavy
trees&mdash;along by the river’s side (but I had been brought up near the Avon
in Warwickshire, so that flowing noise sounded like home)&mdash;from station to
station, from Indian village to village, I went along, carrying my child. I had
seen one of the officer’s ladies with a little picture, ma’am&mdash;done by a
Catholic foreigner, ma’am&mdash;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 that 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&mdash;I have got some of the
flowers dried. Then, the next morning, I was so tired; and they wanted me to
stay with them&mdash;I could tell that&mdash;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&mdash;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.”
</p>

<p>
“And you reached Calcutta safely at last?”
</p>

<p>
“Yes, safely! Oh! when I knew I had only two days’ journey more before me, I
could not help it, ma’am&mdash;it might be idolatry, I cannot tell&mdash;but I
was near one of the native temples, and I went into 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&mdash;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.”
</p>

<p>
“Poor little Phœbe!” said I, my thoughts going back to the baby she carried
all those hundred miles.
</p>

<p>
“Ah! you may say so! I never thought I should have reared her, though, when she
fell ill at Chunderabaddad; but that good, kind Aga Jenkyns took us in, which I
believe was the very saving of her.”
</p>

<p>
“Jenkyns!” said I.
</p>

<p>
“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 Phœbe a walk!”
</p>

<p>
But an idea had flashed through my head; could 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.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br>
ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED</h2>

<p>
Was the “poor Peter” of Cranford the Aga Jenkyns of Chunderabaddad, or was he
not? As somebody says, that was the question.
</p>

<p>
In my own home, whenever people had nothing else to do, they blamed me for want
of discretion. Indiscretion was my bug-bear fault. Everybody has a bug-bear
fault, a sort of standing characteristic&mdash;a <i>pi&egrave;ce de
r&eacute;sistance</i> 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 respecting the Aga. I would collect evidence and carry
it home to lay before my father, as the family friend of the two Miss
Jenkynses.
</p>

<p>
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 opportune, 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)&mdash;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&mdash;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 joint-stock banks
in general, and of that one in particular in which Miss Matty’s money was
invested. In vain I put in “When was it&mdash;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 graminivorous
together, just as she did horizontal and perpendicular; 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.
</p>

<p>
The only fact I gained from this conversation was that certainly Peter had last
been heard of in India, “or that neighbourhood”; and that this scanty
intelligence 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 mankind 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 right.
</p>

<p>
I suppose all these inquiries of mine, and the consequent 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&mdash;although she did not like to disturb her
friends by telling them her foreknowledge&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
We were sitting&mdash;Miss Matty and I&mdash;much as usual, she in the blue
chintz easy-chair, with her back to the light, and her knitting in her hand, I
reading aloud the <i>St James’s Chronicle</i>. 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 coincidence that this should have
been our subject, but so it was), when a knock was heard&mdash;a caller’s
knock&mdash;three distinct taps&mdash;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, as she
came up the stairs, “Don’t go&mdash;I can’t wait&mdash;it is not twelve, I
know&mdash;but never mind your dress&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
“What do you think, Miss Matty? What <i>do</i> you think? Lady Glenmire is to
marry&mdash;is to be married, I mean&mdash;Lady Glenmire&mdash;Mr
Hoggins&mdash;Mr Hoggins is going to marry Lady Glenmire!”
</p>

<p>
“Marry!” said we. “Marry! Madness!”
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus18"></a>
<a href="images/p179b.jpg">
<img alt="What do you think, Miss Matty" title="What do you think, Miss Matty"
src="images/p179s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
“Marry!” said Miss Pole, with the decision that belonged to her character.
“<i>I</i> 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 controlled 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!”
</p>

<p>
“But,” said Miss Matty, sighing as one recovering from a blow, “perhaps it is
not true. Perhaps we are doing her injustice.”
</p>

<p>
“No,” said Miss Pole. “I have taken care to ascertain that. I went straight to
Mrs Fitz-Adam, to borrow a cookery-book which I knew she had; and I introduced
my congratulations <i>&agrave; propos</i> of the difficulty gentlemen must have
in house-keeping; 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.
</p>

<p>
“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!”
</p>

<p>
“So near that my heart stopped beating when I heard of it, while you might have
counted twelve,” said Miss Pole.
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;
</p>

<p class="poem">
‘Set her on the Tintock tap,<br>
The wind will blaw a man till her.’”
</p>

<p>
“That was because ‘Tibbie Fowler’ was rich, I think.”
</p>

<p>
“Well! there was a kind of attraction about Lady Glenmire that I, for one,
should be ashamed to have.”
</p>

<p>
I put in my wonder. “But how can she have fancied Mr Hoggins? I am not
surprised that Mr Hoggins has liked her.”
</p>

<p>
“Oh! I don’t know. Mr Hoggins is rich, and very pleasant-looking,” said Miss
Matty, “and very good-tempered and kind-hearted.”
</p>

<p>
“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
estimation 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 <i>m&eacute;salliance</i>, 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 wolf
had got into the fold, and now he was carrying 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 brilliant shower of sparks and light. Then we
brought ourselves down to earth and the present time by questioning each other
(being all equally ignorant, and all equally without the slightest data to
build any conclusions upon) as to when <small>IT</small> 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 married 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 Glenmire the
best. She was bright, and kind, and sociable, and agreeable; and Mrs 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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
When she and Miss Pole left us we endeavoured to subside into calmness; but
Miss Matty was really upset by 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.
</p>

<p>
I don’t know whether it is a fancy of mine, or a real fact, but I have noticed
that, just after the announcement 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 unconscious 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 trembling 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
brand-new pair of top-boots&mdash;an audible, as well as visible, sign of his
purposed change of state; for the tradition went, that the boots he had worn
till now were the identical pair in which he first set out on his rounds in
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
any one could tell.
</p>

<p>
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. 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&mdash;facts which certainly existed, but the less said
about the better. This restraint upon our tongues&mdash;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?&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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 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
information, 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.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br>
STOPPED PAYMENT</h2>

<p>
The very Tuesday morning on which Mr Johnson 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 every one liked
poor Thomas, and gave him a welcome on these festive occasions. He used to say,
“He was welly stawed wi’ 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&mdash;unless when the fire wanted stirring, when
she invariably knocked down the fire-irons, 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, questioning him as to his
children&mdash;what they were doing&mdash;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 opportunity 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, with a
“There! that’s for yourself; that’s for Jenny,” 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 injunction with
every mouthful.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus19"></a>
<a href="images/p190b.jpg">
<img alt="Standing over him like a bold dragoon" title="Standing over him like
a bold dragoon" src="images/p190s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;the only
unwise step that clever woman had ever taken, to his knowledge (the only time
she ever acted against his advice, I knew). However, if anything had gone
wrong, of course I was not to think of leaving Miss Matty while I could be of
any use, etc.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
I did not like to hear of this “important meeting,” for, though I did not know
much about business, I 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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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!”
</p>

<p>
“My father has no shares in the bank,” said I.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
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,” 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 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&mdash;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.”
</p>

<p>
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
consequence 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 toyshop 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.
</p>

<p>
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 gray; and we discussed the requisite
number 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.
</p>

<p>
The young men at Mr Johnson’s had on their best looks; and their best cravats,
and pivoted themselves over the counter with surprising activity. They wanted
to show us upstairs at once; but on the principle 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 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, sleeking 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 shopmen 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.
</p>

<p>
“I am afraid,” said she, hesitating, “whichever I choose I shall wish I had
taken another. Look 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&mdash;as we all did in Cranford 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?”
</p>

<p>
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 anticipation, no doubt, of
the pleasant surprise he would 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.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
I never saw a man’s countenance fall so suddenly into dismay and bewilderment.
It was almost piteous to see the rapid change.
</p>

<p>
“Dang it!” said he, striking his fist down on the table, as if to try which was
the harder, “the chap talks as if notes and gold were to be had for the picking
up.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“What bank was it? I mean, what bank did your note belong to?”
</p>

<p>
“Town and County Bank.”
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
Mr Johnson was very sorry, but, from information he had received, the notes
issued by that bank were little better than waste paper.
</p>

<p>
“I don’t understand it,” said Miss Matty to me in a low voice. “That is our
bank, is it not?&mdash;the Town and County Bank?”
</p>

<p>
“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
wishing 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.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“Never mind the silks for a few minutes, dear. I don’t understand you, sir,”
turning now to the shopman, who had been attending to the farmer. “Is this a
forged note?”
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
But Mr Dobson could not respond to the appealing bow by any answering smile. He
was turning the note absently over in his fingers, looking gloomily enough at
the parcel containing the lately-chosen shawl.
</p>

<p>
“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; Lizzle must go on with her cloak for a while. And yon figs for the little
ones&mdash;I promised them to ’em&mdash;I’ll take them; but the ’bacco, and the
other things”&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
The shopman whispered a word or two across the table to Miss Matty. She looked
at him with a dubious air.
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;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 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.”
</p>

<p>
“But if it is cleared up the wrong way?” said I.
</p>

<p>
“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 comprehensibly as others can, only
you must give me your note, Mr Dobson, if you please, and go on with your
purchases with these sovereigns.”
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus20"></a>
<a href="images/p198b.jpg">
<img alt="You must give me your note, Mr Dobson, if you please" title="You must
give me your note, Mr Dobson, if you please" src="images/p198s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
The man looked at her with silent gratitude&mdash;too awkward to put his thanks
into words; but he hung back for a minute or two, fumbling with his note.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
“No hope of that, my friend,” said the shopman.
</p>

<p>
“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 purchase any of these silks; perhaps you
will then have a greater choice. My dear, will you come upstairs?”
</p>

<p>
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 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 conversation.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
Somehow, after twelve o’clock, we both acknowledged 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&mdash;my own dear Miss Matty&mdash;without a shade of reproach in her
voice&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;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.”
</p>

<p>
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 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 the 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&mdash;not
wicked&mdash;but, oh! I am so glad poor Deborah is spared this. She could not
have borne to come down in the world&mdash;she had such a noble, lofty spirit.”
</p>

<p>
This was all she said about the sister who had insisted 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.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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 difficulties, that it is very pleasant to have one at
hand ready to lean upon. Now, Lady Glenmire, instead 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 personable 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.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
The next morning news came, both official and otherwise, that the Town and
County Bank had stopped payment. Miss Matty was ruined.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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, I have not a farthing
owing. Poor Martha! I think she’ll be sorry to leave me.”
</p>

<p>
Miss Matty smiled at me through her tears, and she would fain have had me see
only the smile, not the tears.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br>
FRIENDS IN NEED</h2>

<p>
It 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 intelligence 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 Phœbe would leave Cranford. Indeed, I found him looking over a
great black and red placard, in which the Signor Brunoni’s accomplishments 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 subject. 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.
</p>

<p>
“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 struck for wages after living seven years and a half
in one place. I said I was not one to go and serve Mammon 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”&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“But, Martha,” said I, cutting in while she wiped her eyes.
</p>

<p>
“Don’t, ‘but Martha’ me,” she replied to my deprecatory tone.
</p>

<p>
“Listen to reason”&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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!”
</p>

<p>
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 attendance of this kind and
faithful woman.
</p>

<p>
“Well”&mdash;said I at last.
</p>

<p>
“I’m thankful you begin with ‘well!’ If you’d have begun with ‘but,’ as you did
afore, I’d not ha’ listened to you. Now you may go on.”
</p>

<p>
“I know you would be a great loss to Miss Matty, Martha”&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“I telled her so. A loss she’d never cease to be sorry for,” broke in Martha
triumphantly.
</p>

<p>
“Still, she will have so little&mdash;so very little&mdash;to live upon, that I
don’t see just now how she could find you food&mdash;she will even be pressed
for her own. I tell you this, Martha, because I feel you are like a friend to
dear Miss Matty, but you know she might not like to have it spoken about.”
</p>

<p>
Apparently this was even a blacker view of the subject 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).
</p>

<p>
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 comforted in their sorrow by seeing a good dish come
upon the table.”
</p>

<p>
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 prepare 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 tea-pot in
which her private store of money was deposited, and took out what she wanted.
</p>

<p>
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 necessary 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.
</p>

<p>
Teaching was, of course, the first thing that suggested 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 accomplishments. 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 drawing, and I did not think it would go very far. Then
again, as to the branches of a solid English education&mdash;fancy work and the
use of the globes&mdash;such as the mistress of the Ladies’ Seminary, to which
all the tradespeople in Cranford sent their daughters, professed 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 appreciate the different
shades required for Queen Adelaide’s face in the loyal wool-work now
fashionable in Cranford. As for the use of the globes, I had never been able to
find it out myself, so perhaps I was not a good 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.
</p>

<p>
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 any one 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?
</p>

<p>
I had to come down to reading, writing, and arithmetic; 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&mdash;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 quite correctly in her letters to me became perfect enigmas when
she wrote to my father.
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
Miss Matty had a few little peculiarities which Martha was apt to regard as
whims below her attention, 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 stable, 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 servant usually kept
sacred for little children, and which I had never heard her use to any grown-up
person.
</p>

<p>
I had forgotten to tell Miss Matty about the pudding, 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 representation of a lion <i>couchant</i> that
ever was moulded. Martha’s face gleamed with triumph as she set it down before
Miss Matty with an exultant “There!” Miss 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 <i>couchant</i>, 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.
</p>

<p>
“I am sure, dear, I have seen uglier things under a glass shade before now,”
said she.
</p>

<p>
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 pudding,
which was indeed excellent&mdash;only every morsel seemed to choke us, our
hearts were so full.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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&mdash;always supposing that Miss Matty could get over
the degradation of condescending to anything like trade. Tea was neither greasy
nor sticky&mdash;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. The only thing
against my plan was the buying and selling involved.
</p>

<p>
While I was giving but absent answers to the questions Miss Matty was
putting&mdash;almost as absently&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
“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 presented on the courtly scene
of Miss Matilda Jenkyns’s drawing-room.
</p>

<p>
“And please, ma’am, he wants to marry me off-hand. And please, ma’am, we want
to take a lodger&mdash;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 ]&mdash;“You great oaf! why can’t you back me!&mdash;But he does
want it all the same, very bad&mdash;don’t you, Jem?&mdash;only, you see, he’s
dazed at being called on to speak before quality.”
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus21"></a>
<a href="images/p213b.jpg">
<img alt="Please, ma’am, he wants to marry me off-hand" title="Please, ma’am,
he wants to marry me off-hand" src="images/p213s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;and such quick words does
flabbergast a man. It’s not that I’m against it, ma’am” (addressing Miss
Matty), “only Martha has such quick ways with her when once she takes a thing
into her head; and marriage, ma’am&mdash;marriage nails a man, as one may say.
I dare say I shan’t mind it after it’s once over.”
</p>

<p>
“Please, ma’am,” said Martha&mdash;who had plucked at his sleeve, and nudged
him with her elbow, and otherwise tried to interrupt him all the time he had
been speaking&mdash;“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.)
</p>

<p>
“Ay! if Miss Matty would lodge with us&mdash;otherwise 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.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“Marriage is a very solemn thing, Martha.”
</p>

<p>
“It is indeed, ma’am,” quoth Jem. “Not that I’ve no objections to Martha.”
</p>

<p>
“You’ve never let me a-be for asking me for to fix when I would be married,”
said Martha&mdash;her face all a-fire, and ready to cry with
vexation&mdash;“and now you’re shaming me before my missus and all.”
</p>

<p>
“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 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 respect every one
who has been kind to Martha. I always looked on her as to be my wife&mdash;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 comfortable; 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.”
</p>

<p>
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!”
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
“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
conformable. But I’m sure I’m willing 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?”
</p>

<p>
This last was <i>sotto voce</i>, 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 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.
</p>

<p>
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
<i>eleven</i> being written in full length as well as in numerals, and
<i>A.M.</i> twice dashed under, as if I were very likely to come at eleven at
night, when all Cranford 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.
</p>

<p>
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-decanted
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 eleven
o’clock. Mrs Forrester was there, crying quietly and sadly, and my arrival
seemed only to call forth fresh tears. Before we had finished our greetings,
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?
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
“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.
</p>

<p>
“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.)
</p>

<p>
“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&mdash;I made it my business to do so yesterday afternoon&mdash;with
these ladies on the misfortune 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&mdash;a true pleasure, Mary!”&mdash;her voice was rather choked
just here, and she had to wipe her spectacles before she could go on&mdash;“to
give what we can to assist her&mdash;Miss Matilda Jenkyns. Only in
consideration of the feelings of delicate independence existing in the mind of
every refined female”&mdash;I was sure she had got back to the card
now&mdash;“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 requesting
you to meet us this morning is that, believing you are the daughter&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash; Probably your father, knowing her investments, can
fill up the blank.”
</p>

<p>
Miss Pole concluded her address, and looked round for approval and agreement.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
I had no great reply to make: I had more thankfulness 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,”&mdash;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 was, all the ladies cried in concert. Even Miss Pole
cried, who had said a hundred times that to betray emotion before any one 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.
</p>

<p>
“I don’t mind, among friends, stating that I&mdash;no! I’m not poor exactly,
but I don’t think I’m what you may call rich; I wish I were, for dear Miss
Matty’s sake&mdash;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.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
When the 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 believed, to return to Edinburgh 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.
</p>

<p>
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 careful
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 herself in it, only with a longing, yearning
desire to be able to heap up Miss Matty’s measure of comforts.
</p>

<p>
It was some time before I could console her enough to leave her; and then, on
quitting the house, I was waylaid by Mrs Fitz-Adam, who had also her confidence
to make of pretty nearly the opposite description. She had not liked to put
down all that she could afford and was ready to give. She told me she thought
she never could 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&mdash;oh, so
kindly&mdash;about my poor mother, who lay on her death-bed; and when I cried
she took hold of my hand to comfort me&mdash;and the gentleman waiting for her
all the time&mdash;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’d 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 any one knowing it, I should be so
much obliged to you, my dear. And my brother would be delighted to doctor her
for nothing&mdash;medicines, leeches, and all. I know that he and her ladyship
(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.”
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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
numberless 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 overwhelmed 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.
</p>

<p>
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, &amp;c.
However, 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.
</p>

<p>
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
slightest 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 presently 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.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus22"></a>
<a href="images/p220b.jpg">
<img alt="Miss Matty and I sat assenting to accounts" title="Miss Matty and I
sat assenting to accounts" src="images/p220s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
While Miss Matty was out of the room giving orders for luncheon&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;and when I went back to Martha’s offer the evening before, of
receiving Miss 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 around. 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&mdash;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.”
</p>

<p>
The lunch&mdash;a hot savoury mutton-chop, and a little of the cold loin sliced
and fried&mdash;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&mdash;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 so 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.”
</p>

<p>
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, 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 that 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.
</p>

<p>
But she was patient and content with all our arrangements. 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 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 distrusted her own powers of action in a new
line of life, and would timidly have preferred a little more privation to any
exertion for which she feared she was unfitted. 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 children, she was
sure she could please them!
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br>
A HAPPY RETURN</h2>

<p>
Before I left Miss Matty at Cranford everything 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 whether by so doing Miss Matty would
forfeit 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.
</p>

<p>
But what was our surprise&mdash;our dismay&mdash;when we learnt that Mr and
<i>Mrs Hoggins</i> were returning on the following Tuesday! Mrs Hoggins! Had
she 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
creature” 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 turbulence 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 <i>St James’s Chronicle</i>, so indignant was she with its having
inserted the announcement of the marriage.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus23"></a>
<a href="images/p231b.jpg">
<img alt="Smiling glory ... and becoming blushes" title="Smiling glory ... and
becoming blushes" src="images/p231s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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 wholesome 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.
</p>

<p>
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
included 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 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 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.
</p>

<p>
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 any one 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 every one 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.
</p>

<p>
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 accustomed walls once more, he sent word that he feared 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.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> 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&mdash;in theory&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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 alteration 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&mdash;running it down as a
slow poison, sure to destroy the nerves, and produce all manner of evil. Their
pertinacity in taking it, in spite of all her warnings, distressed 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 thence-forward with an occasional remonstrance when she thought the
purchaser was too young and innocent to be acquainted with the evil effects
green tea produced on some constitutions, and an habitual sigh when people old
enough to choose more wisely would prefer it.
</p>

<p>
I went over from Drumble once a quarter at least to settle the accounts, and
see after the necessary business 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 any one. I only hoped the letter was lost. No
answer came. No sign was made.
</p>

<p>
About a year after Miss Matty set up shop, I received 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&mdash;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 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.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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 the counter, knitting an
elaborate 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 dare
say 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 harmony 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
conversation, that it was as Martha said, and that Miss Matty had no idea of
the approaching household event. 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.
</p>

<p>
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 congratulated
him, that I think I feel the pain of it yet.
</p>

<p style="text-align: center">
<a id="illus24"></a>
<a href="images/p234b.jpg">
<img alt="I went to call Miss Matty" title="I went to call Miss Matty"
src="images/p234s.jpg"></a>
</p>

<p>
I had a busy life 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, occasionally, in the shop; and it
gave me no small amusement, 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
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, conducted on these
principles, did not promise to be remunerative; 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 country 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.
</p>

<p>
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 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’s 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.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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&mdash;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 eyeglass 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, 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 little upon me, but then turned, with the peculiar 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?”
</p>

<p>
“Yes!” said I.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;oh, sir! can you be Peter?” and
trembled 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&mdash;I have, my little girl.”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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
infected 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. Something of the same kind
perplexed Miss Matty at tea-time, when she was installed in the great
easy-chair opposite to Mr Jenkyns in order to gaze her fill. She could hardly
drink for looking at him, and as for eating, that was out of the question.
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
“But how many years ago is that?” said Mr Peter, smiling.
</p>

<p>
“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
continued&mdash;a little afraid lest she had hurt him by revealing how his
appearance had impressed her.
</p>

<p>
“I suppose I forgot dates too, Matty, for what do you 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&mdash;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 sensation 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 have liked years ago&mdash;when I was young.”
</p>

<p>
“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 movement, he started up. “I must go
and settle about a room at the ‘George.’ My carpet-bag is there too.”
</p>

<p>
“No!” said Miss Matty, in great distress&mdash;“you must not go; please, dear
Peter&mdash;pray, Mary&mdash;oh! you must not go!”
</p>

<p>
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.
</p>

<p>
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 communicated to her as they had sat alone. She said all was thoroughly
clear to her; but I never quite understood 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; and 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
had reached him; and, with the odd vehemence which characterised him in age as
it had done in youth, he had sold his land 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 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&mdash;under the
same roof&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;I don’t like to call it snoring, but I heard it myself through
two closed doors&mdash;and by-and-by it soothed Miss Matty to sleep.
</p>

<p>
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
yourselves ill;” but a strong arm pulled her back, and a more rattling shower
than 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 frolicsome youth. The Indian muslin gown was reserved
for darling Flora Gordon (Miss Jessie Brown’s daughter). The Gordons had been
on the Continent for the last few years, but were now expected to return very
soon; and Miss Matty, in her sisterly pride, 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, every one, however
insignificant, who had shown kindness to Miss Matty at any time, was sure of Mr
Peter’s cordial regard.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a id="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br>
PEACE TO CRANFORD</h2>

<p>
It 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&mdash;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 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.”
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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 commented on the elegance and convenience of the attitude, 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 recollected the
untasted green peas and two-pronged forks at poor Mr Holbrook’s dinner.
</p>

<p>
The mention of that gentleman’s name recalls to 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 murmuring 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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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.”
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“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 dare say,
Mary; but this sister of mine was once a very pretty girl&mdash;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 life-time, 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&mdash;wanted your brother to be a good go-between, eh, little one?”
said he, putting out his hand to take hold of hers 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!”
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;but
unconsciously, I think&mdash;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 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.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;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.
</p>

<p>
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 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.
</p>

<p>
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&mdash;could she ever forget their kindness to her poor father and
sister?&mdash;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, every one was named, from the
rector&mdash;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&mdash;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 Betty (formerly <i>her</i> maid) on a level with
“those Hogginses.”
</p>

<p>
But when I arrived in Cranford, nothing was as yet ascertained of Mrs
Jamieson’s own intentions; 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.
</p>

<p>
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
Mulliner 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 in Cranford who would have done more
credit to his choice, and I think she must have had someone who was unmarried
in her head, for she kept saying, “It was so wanting in delicacy in a widow to
think of such a thing.”
</p>

<p>
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,” &amp;c. &amp;c., 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&mdash;a luncheon at the “George,” with the dear Gordons, and
the signor in the Assembly Room in the evening. But I&mdash;I looked only at
the fatal words:&mdash;
</p>

<p class="center">
“<i>Under the Patronage of the</i> H<small>ONOURABLE</small> M<small>RS</small>
J<small>AMIESON</small>.”
</p>

<p>
She, then, was chosen to preside over this entertainment 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 anticipation of Miss Matty’s only served to add to my annoyance.
</p>

<p>
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,&mdash;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&mdash;
</p>

<p>
“But, Mr Peter, shooting a cherubim&mdash;don’t you think&mdash;I am afraid
that was sacrilege!”
</p>

<p>
Mr Peter composed his countenance in a moment, and appeared shocked at the
idea, which, as he said 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&mdash;all of whom were heathens&mdash;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.”
</p>

<p>
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 inhabitants of Cranford.
</p>

<p>
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 somehow think we are all of us
better when she is near us.
</p>

<p class="center">
<small>PRINTED BY</small><br>
<small>TURNBULL AND SPEARS</small>,<br>
<small>EDINBURGH</small>
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 394 ***</div>
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