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Title: Cranford

Author: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Illustrator: C. E. Brock

Release date: January 1, 1996 [eBook #394]
Most recently updated: December 23, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/394

Credits: David Price, Margaret Price and Richard Tonsing

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRANFORD ***

CRANFORD

by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

With twenty-five coloured illustrations
by C. E. Brock

1904

London. J. M. Dent & Co.
New York. E. P. Dutton & Co.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. OUR SOCIETY
CHAPTER II. THE CAPTAIN
CHAPTER III. A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO
CHAPTER IV. A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR
CHAPTER V. OLD LETTERS
CHAPTER VI. POOR PETER
CHAPTER VII. VISITING
CHAPTER VIII. “YOUR LADYSHIP”
CHAPTER IX. SIGNOR BRUNONI
CHAPTER X. THE PANIC
CHAPTER XI. SAMUEL BROWN
CHAPTER XII. ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED
CHAPTER XIII. STOPPED PAYMENT
CHAPTER XIV. FRIENDS IN NEED
CHAPTER XV. A HAPPY RETURN
CHAPTER XVI. PEACE TO CRANFORD

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

“Oh, sir! Can you be Peter?”
A magnificent family red silk umbrella
Meekly going to her pasture
Endeavouring to beguile her into conversation
She brought the affrighted carter ... into the drawing-room
“With his arm round Miss Jessie’s waist!”
Mr Holbrook ... bade us good-bye
Now, what colour are ash-buds in March?
I made use of the time to think of many other things
“Confound the woman!”
The temptation of the comfortable arm-chair had been too much for her
Mr Mulliner
We gave her a tea-spoonful of currant jelly
Afraid of matrimonial reports
Asked him to take care of us
Slaughterous and indiscriminate directions
Would stretch out their little arms
“What do you think, Miss Matty?”
Standing over him like a bold dragoon
“You must give me your note, Mr Dobson, if you please”
“Please, ma’am, he wants to marry me off hand”
Miss Matty and I sat assenting to accounts
Smiling glory ... and becoming blushes
I went to call Miss Matty

Most of the three-colour blocks used in this book have been made by the
Graphic Photo-Engraving Co., London

CHAPTER I.
OUR SOCIETY

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 so in the way
in the house!” Although the ladies of Cranford know all each other’s
proceedings, they are exceedingly indifferent to each other’s opinions.
Indeed, as each has her own 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.
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—and
seen without a smile.

I can testify to a magnificent family red silk umbrella, under which a
gentle little spinster, left alone of many brothers and sisters, used to patter
to church on rainy days. Have you any red silk umbrellas in London? We
had a tradition of the first that had ever been seen in Cranford; and the little
boys mobbed it, and called it “a stick in petticoats.” It might have been the

very red silk one I have described, held by a strong father over a troop of
little ones; the poor little lady—the survivor of all—could scarcely carry it.
Then there were rules and regulations for visiting and calls; and they
were announced to any young people who might be staying in the town,
with all the solemnity with which the old Manx laws were read once a year
on the Tinwald Mount.
“Our friends have sent to inquire how you are after your journey to-night,
my dear” (fifteen miles in a gentleman’s carriage); “they will give you some
rest to-morrow, but the next day, I have no doubt, they will call; so be at
liberty after twelve—from twelve to three are our calling hours.”
Then, after they had called—
“It is the third day; I 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.”
“But am I to look at my watch? How am I to find out when a quarter of
an hour has passed?”
“You must keep thinking about the time, my dear, and not allow yourself
to forget it in conversation.”
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.
I imagine that a few of the gentlefolks of Cranford were poor, and had
some difficulty in making both ends meet; but they were like the Spartans,
and concealed their smart under a smiling face. We none of us spoke of
money, because that subject savoured of commerce and trade, and though
some might be poor, we were all aristocratic. The Cranfordians had that
kindly esprit de corps which made them overlook all deficiencies in success
when some among them tried to conceal their poverty. When Mrs Forrester,
for instance, gave a party in her baby-house of a dwelling, and the little
maiden disturbed the ladies on the sofa by a request that she might get the
tea-tray out from underneath, everyone took this novel proceeding as the
most natural thing in the world, and talked on about household forms and
ceremonies as if we all believed that our hostess had a regular servants’ hall,
second table, with housekeeper and steward, instead of the one little
charity-school maiden, whose short ruddy arms could never have been

strong enough to carry the tray upstairs, if she had not been assisted in
private by her mistress, who now sat in state, pretending not to know what
cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that we
knew, and we knew that she knew that we knew, she had been busy all the
morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes.
There were one or two consequences arising from this general but
unacknowledged poverty, and this very much acknowledged gentility,
which were not amiss, and which might be introduced 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.”
“Elegant economy!” How naturally one falls back into the phraseology of
Cranford! There, economy was always “elegant,” and money-spending
always “vulgar and ostentatious”; a sort of sour-grapeism which made us
very peaceful and satisfied. I never shall forget the dismay felt when a
certain Captain Brown came to live at Cranford, and openly spoke about his
being poor—not in a whisper to an intimate friend, the doors and windows
being 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—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 so fine, or the air so refreshing, not because

sedan-chairs were expensive. If we wore prints, instead of summer silks, it
was because we preferred a washing material; and so on, till we blinded
ourselves to the vulgar fact that we were, all of us, people of very moderate
means. Of course, then, we did not know what to make of a man who could
speak of poverty as if it was not a disgrace. Yet, somehow, Captain Brown
made himself respected in Cranford, and was called upon, in spite of all
resolutions to the contrary. I was surprised to hear his opinions quoted as
authority at a visit which I paid to Cranford about a year after he had settled
in the town. My own friends had been among the bitterest opponents of any
proposal to visit the Captain and his daughters, only twelve months before;
and now he was even admitted in the tabooed hours before twelve. True, it
was to discover the cause of a smoking chimney, before the fire was
lighted; but still Captain Brown walked upstairs, nothing daunted, spoke in
a voice too large for the room, and joked quite in the way of a tame man
about the house. He had been blind to all the small slights, and omissions of
trivial 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.
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.”
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?

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—that of Miss Jessie being about two pounds per annum more
expensive than Miss Brown’s. Two pounds was a large sum in Captain
Brown’s annual disbursements.
Such was the impression made upon me by the Brown family when I first
saw them all together in Cranford Church. The Captain I had met before—
on the occasion of the smoky chimney, which he had cured by some simple
alteration in the flue. In church, he held his double eye-glass to his eyes
during the Morning Hymn, and then lifted up his head erect and sang out
loud and joyfully. He made the responses louder than the clerk—an old man
with a piping feeble voice, who, I think, felt aggrieved at the Captain’s
sonorous bass, and quivered higher and higher in consequence.
On coming out of church, the brisk Captain paid the most gallant
attention to his two daughters. He nodded and smiled to his acquaintances;
but he shook hands with none until he had helped Miss Brown to unfurl her
umbrella, had relieved her of her prayer-book, and had waited patiently till
she, with trembling nervous hands, had taken up her gown to walk through
the wet roads.

I 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—for suffering I was sure she was, though to many eyes she might
only appear to be irritable. Miss Jessie could not play cards: but she talked
to the sitters-out, who, before her coming, had been rather inclined to be

cross. She sang, too, to an old cracked piano, which I think had been a
spinet in its youth. Miss Jessie sang, “Jock of Hazeldean” a little out of
tune; but we were none of us musical, though Miss Jenkyns beat time, out
of time, by way of appearing to be so.
It was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this; for I had seen that, a little
before, she had been a good deal annoyed by Miss Jessie Brown’s
unguarded admission (à propos of Shetland wool) that she had an uncle, her
mother’s brother, who was a shopkeeper in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried
to drown this confession by a terrible cough—for the Honourable Mrs
Jamieson was sitting at 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) would repeat the information, and assure Miss Pole she could
easily get her the identical Shetland wool required, “through my uncle, who
has the best 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.
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.
“Have you seen any numbers of ‘The Pickwick Papers’?” said he. (They
were then publishing in parts.) “Capital thing!”
Now Miss Jenkyns was daughter of a deceased rector of Cranford; and,
on the strength of a number of manuscript sermons, and a pretty good
library of divinity, considered herself literary, and looked upon any
conversation about books as a challenge to her. So she answered and said,
“Yes, she had seen them; indeed, she might say she had read them.”
“And what do you think of them?” exclaimed Captain Brown. “Aren’t
they famously good?”
So urged Miss Jenkyns could not but speak.
“I must say, I don’t think they are by any means equal to Dr Johnson.
Still, perhaps, the author is young. Let him persevere, and who knows what
he may become if he will take the great Doctor for his model?” This was
evidently too much for Captain Brown to take placidly; and I saw the words
on the tip of his tongue before Miss Jenkyns had finished her sentence.

“It is quite a different sort of thing, my dear madam,” he began.
“I am quite aware of that,” returned she. “And I make allowances,
Captain Brown.”
“Just allow me to read you a scene out of this month’s number,” pleaded
he. “I had it only this morning, and I don’t think the company can have read
it yet.”
“As you please,” said she, settling herself with an air of resignation. He
read the account of the “swarry” which Sam Weller gave at Bath. Some of
us laughed heartily. 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—
“Fetch me ‘Rasselas,’ my dear, out of the book-room.”
When I had brought it to her, she turned to Captain Brown—
“Now allow me to read you a scene, and then the present company can
judge between your favourite, Mr Boz, and Dr Johnson.”
She read one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac, in a high-
pitched, majestic voice: and when she had ended, she said, “I imagine I am
now justified in my preference of Dr Johnson as a writer of fiction.” The
Captain screwed his lips up, and drummed on the table, but he did not
speak. She thought she would give him a finishing blow or two.

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

“How was the Rambler published, ma’am?” asked Captain Brown in a
low voice, which I think Miss Jenkyns could not have heard.
“Dr Johnson’s style is a model for young beginners. My father
recommended it to me when I began to write letters—I have formed my
own style upon it; I recommend it to your favourite.”
“I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any such
pompous writing,” said Captain Brown.
Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront, in a way of which the
Captain had not dreamed. Epistolary writing she and her friends considered
as her forte. Many a copy of many a letter have I seen written and corrected
on the slate, before she “seized the half-hour just previous to post-time to
assure” her friends of this or of that; and Dr Johnson was, as she said, her
model in these 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.”
It is said—I won’t vouch for the fact—that Captain Brown was heard to
say, sotto voce, “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.

CHAPTER II.
THE CAPTAIN

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.

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—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—knowing, most likely, that his daughter’s illness made the place a
hard one.
He endeavoured to make peace with Miss Jenkyns soon after the
memorable dispute I have named, by a present of a wooden fire-shovel (his
own making), having heard her say how much the grating of an iron one
annoyed her. She received the present with cool gratitude, and thanked him
formally. When he was gone, she bade me put it away in the lumber-room;
feeling, probably, that no present from a man who preferred Mr Boz to Dr
Johnson could be less jarring than an iron fire-shovel.
Such was the state of things when I left Cranford and went to Drumble. I
had, however, several correspondents, who kept me au fait 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 she knew, or else putting in a
postscript to the effect that, since writing the above, she had been talking
over the subject with Deborah, and was quite convinced that, etc.—(here
probably followed a recantation of every opinion she had given in the
letter). Then came Miss Jenkyns—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:—
“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?”
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.
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?

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.
“She suffers a great deal, and she must suffer more: we do what we can
to alleviate her pain;—God’s will be done!” He took off his hat at these last
words. I found, from Miss Matty, that 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!—“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—
“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.
“But why does not this Lord Mauleverer do something for the man who
saved his life?” said I.
“Why, you see, unless Captain Brown has some reason for it, he never
speaks about being poor; and he walked along by his lordship looking as
happy and cheerful as a prince; and as they never called attention to their
dinner by apologies, and as Miss Brown was better that day, and all seemed
bright, I daresay his lordship never knew how much care there was in the
background. He did send game in the winter pretty often, but now he is
gone abroad.”
I had often occasion to notice the use that was made of fragments and
small opportunities in 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.
Captain Brown called one day to thank Miss Jenkyns for many little
kindnesses, which I did not know until then that she had rendered. He had
suddenly become like an old man; his deep bass voice had a quavering in it,
his eyes looked dim, and the lines on his face were deep. He did not—could
not—speak cheerfully of his daughter’s state, but he talked with manly,
pious resignation, and not much. Twice over he said, “What Jessie has been
to us, God only knows!” and after the second time, he got up hastily, shook
hands all round without speaking, and left the room.
That afternoon we perceived little groups in the street, all listening with
faces aghast to some tale or other. Miss Jenkyns wondered what could be
the matter for some time before she took the undignified step of sending
Jenny out to inquire.

Jenny came back with a white face of terror. “Oh, ma’am! Oh, Miss
Jenkyns, ma’am! Captain Brown is killed by them nasty cruel railroads!”
and she burst into tears. She, along with many others, had experienced the
poor Captain’s kindness.
“How?—where—where? Good God! Jenny, don’t waste time in crying,
but tell us something.” Miss Matty rushed out into the street at once, and
collared the man who was telling the tale.

“Come in—come to my sister at once, Miss Jenkyns, the rector’s
daughter. Oh, man, man! say it is not true,” she cried, as she brought the
affrighted carter, sleeking down his hair, into the drawing-room, where he
stood with his wet boots on the new carpet, and no one regarded it.
“Please, mum, it is true. I seed it myself,” and he shuddered at the
recollection. “The Captain was a-reading some new book as he was deep in,

a-waiting for the down train; and there was a little lass as wanted to come to
its mammy, and gave its sister the slip, and came toddling across the line.
And he looked up sudden, at the sound of the train coming, and seed the
child, and he darted on the line and cotched it up, and his foot slipped, and
the train came over him in no time. 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.
“Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to those girls. God pardon me,
if ever I have spoken contemptuously to the Captain!”
Miss Jenkyns arrayed herself to go out, telling Miss Matilda to give the
man a glass of wine. While she was away, Miss Matty and I huddled over
the fire, talking in a low and awestruck voice. I know we cried quietly all
the time.
Miss Jenkyns came home in a silent mood, and we durst not ask her
many questions. She told us that Miss Jessie had fainted, and that she and
Miss Pole had had some difficulty in bringing her round; but that, as soon
as she recovered, she begged one of them to go and sit with her sister.
“Mr Hoggins says she cannot live many days, and she shall be spared this
shock,” said Miss Jessie, shivering with feelings to which she dared not
give way.
“But how can you manage, my dear?” asked Miss Jenkyns; “you cannot
bear up, she must see your tears.”
“God will help me—I will not give way—she was asleep when the news
came; she may be asleep yet. She would be so utterly miserable, not merely
at my father’s death, but to think of what would become of me; she is so
good to me.” She looked up earnestly in their faces with her soft true eyes,
and Miss Pole told Miss Jenkyns afterwards she could hardly bear it,
knowing, as she did, how Miss Brown treated her sister.
However, it was settled according to Miss Jessie’s wish. Miss Brown was
to be told her father had been summoned to take a short journey on railway
business. They had managed it in some way—Miss Jenkyns could not
exactly say how. Miss Pole was to stop with Miss Jessie. Mrs Jamieson had

sent to inquire. And this was all we heard that night; and a sorrowful night it
was. The next day a full account of the fatal accident was in the county
paper which Miss Jenkyns took in. Her eyes were very weak, she said, and
she asked me to read it. When I came to the “gallant 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!”
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.
“It is not fit for you to go alone. It would be against both propriety and
humanity were I to allow it.”
Miss Jessie seemed as if she did not half like this arrangement; but her
obstinacy, if she had any, had been exhausted in her determination to go to
the interment. She longed, poor thing, I have no doubt, to cry alone over the
grave of the dear father to whom she had been all in all, and to give way, for
one little half-hour, uninterrupted by sympathy and unobserved by
friendship. But it was not to be. That afternoon Miss Jenkyns sent out for a
yard of black crape, and employed herself busily in trimming the little black
silk bonnet I have spoken about. When it was finished she put it on, and
looked at us for approbation—admiration she despised. I was full of sorrow,
but, by one of those whimsical thoughts which come unbidden into our
heads, in times of deepest grief, I no sooner saw the bonnet than I was
reminded of a helmet; and in that hybrid bonnet, half helmet, half jockey-
cap, did Miss Jenkyns attend Captain Brown’s funeral, and, I believe,
supported Miss Jessie with a tender, indulgent firmness which was
invaluable, allowing her to weep her passionate fill before they left.
Miss Pole, Miss Matty, and I, meanwhile attended to Miss Brown: and
hard work we found it to relieve her querulous and never-ending
complaints. But if we were so weary and dispirited, what must Miss Jessie
have been! Yet she came back almost calm as if she had gained a new
strength. She put off her mourning dress, and came in, looking pale and

gentle, thanking us each with a soft long pressure of the hand. She could
even smile—a faint, sweet, wintry smile—as if to reassure us of her power
to endure; but her look made our eyes fill suddenly with tears, more than if
she had cried outright.
It was settled that Miss Pole was to remain with her all the watching
livelong night; and that Miss Matty and I were to return in the morning to
relieve them, and give Miss Jessie the opportunity for a few hours of sleep.
But when the morning came, Miss 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.
No nursing—no energetic strong-minded woman could help Miss Brown
now. There was that in the room as we entered which was stronger than us
all, and made us shrink into solemn awestruck 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.
She was conscious of her sister’s presence, though not, I think, of ours.
We stood a little behind the curtain: Miss Jessie knelt with her face near her
sister’s, in order to catch the last soft awful whispers.
“Oh, Jessie! Jessie! How selfish I have been! God forgive me for letting
you sacrifice yourself for me as you did! I have so loved you—and yet I
have thought only of myself. God forgive me!”
“Hush, love! hush!” said Miss Jessie, sobbing.
“And my father, my dear, dear father! I will not complain now, if God
will give me strength to be patient. But, oh, Jessie! tell my father how I
longed and yearned to see him at last, and to ask his forgiveness. He can
never know now how I loved him—oh! if I might but tell him, before I die!
What a life of sorrow his has been, and I have done so little to cheer him!”
A light came into Miss Jessie’s face. “Would it comfort you, dearest, to
think that he does know?—would it comfort you, love, to know that his
cares, his sorrows”—Her voice quivered, but she steadied it into calmness

—“Mary! he has gone before you to the place where the weary are at rest.
He knows now how you loved him.”
A strange look, which was not distress, came over Miss Brown’s face.
She did not speak for some time, but then we saw her lips form the words,
rather than heard the sound—“Father, mother, Harry, Archy;”—then, as if it
were a new idea throwing a filmy shadow over her darkened mind—“But
you will be alone, Jessie!”
Miss Jessie had been feeling this all during the silence, I think; for the
tears rolled down her cheeks like rain, at these words, and she could not
answer at first. Then she put her hands together tight, and lifted them up,
and said—but not to us—“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”
In a few moments more Miss Brown lay calm and still—never to sorrow
or murmur more.
After this second funeral, Miss Jenkyns insisted that Miss Jessie should
come to stay with her rather than go back to the desolate house, which, in
fact, we learned from Miss Jessie, must now be given up, as she had not
wherewithal to maintain it. She had something above twenty pounds a year,
besides the interest of the money for which the furniture would sell; but she
could not live upon that: and so we talked over her qualifications for
earning money.
“I can sew neatly,” said she, “and I like nursing. I think, too, I could
manage a house, if 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.”
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.

“I have been so much startled—no, I’ve not been at all startled—don’t
mind me, my dear Miss Jessie—I’ve been very much surprised—in fact,
I’ve had a caller, whom you knew once, my dear Miss Jessie”—
Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet, and looked eagerly at
Miss Jenkyns.
“A gentleman, my dear, who wants to know if you would see him.”
“Is it?—it is not”—stammered out Miss Jessie—and got no farther.
“This is his card,” said Miss Jenkyns, giving it to Miss Jessie; and while
her head was bent over it, Miss Jenkyns went through a series of winks and
odd faces to me, and formed her lips into a long sentence, of which, of
course, I could not understand a word.
“May he come up?” asked Miss Jenkyns at last.
“Oh, yes! certainly!” said Miss Jessie, as much as to say, this is your
house, you may show any visitor where you like. She took up some knitting
of Miss Matty’s and began to be very busy, though I could see how she
trembled all over.
Miss Jenkyns rang the bell, and told the servant who answered it to show
Major Gordon upstairs; and, presently, in walked a tall, fine, frank-looking
man of forty or upwards. He shook hands with Miss Jessie; but he could not
see her eyes, she kept them so fixed on the ground. Miss Jenkyns asked me
if I would come and help her to tie up the preserves in the store-room; and
though Miss Jessie plucked at my gown, and even looked up at me with
begging eye, I durst not refuse to go where Miss Jenkyns asked. Instead of
tying up preserves in the store-room, however, we went to talk in the
dining-room; and there Miss Jenkyns told me what Major Gordon had told
her; how he had served in the same regiment with Captain Brown, and had
become acquainted with Miss Jessie, then a sweet-looking, blooming girl of
eighteen; how the acquaintance had grown into love on his part, though it
had been some years before he had spoken; how, on becoming possessed,
through the will of an uncle, of a good estate in Scotland, he had offered
and been refused, though with so much agitation and evident distress that he
was sure she was not indifferent to him; and how he had discovered that the
obstacle was the fell disease which was, even then, too surely 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
Galignani.
Just then Miss Matty, who had been out all the morning, and had only
lately returned to the house, burst in with a face of dismay and outraged
propriety.
“Oh, goodness me!” she said. “Deborah, there’s a gentleman sitting in the
drawing-room with his arm round Miss Jessie’s waist!” Miss Matty’s eyes
looked large with terror.

Miss Jenkyns snubbed her down in an instant.

“The most proper place in the world for his arm to be in. Go away,
Matilda, and mind your own business.” This from her sister, who had
hitherto been a model of feminine decorum, was a blow for poor Miss
Matty, and with a double shock she left the room.
The last time I ever saw poor Miss Jenkyns was many years after this.
Mrs Gordon had kept up a warm and affectionate intercourse with all at
Cranford. Miss Jenkyns, Miss Matty, and Miss Pole had all been to visit her,
and returned with wonderful accounts of her house, her husband, her dress,
and her looks. For, with happiness, 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 Rambler when I came in.
“Ah!” said Miss Jenkyns, “you find me changed, my dear. I can’t see as I
used to do. If Flora were not here to read to me, I hardly know how I should
get through the day. Did you ever read the Rambler? It’s a wonderful book
—wonderful! and the most improving reading for Flora” (which I daresay it
would have been, if she could have read half the words without spelling,
and could have understood the meaning of a third), “better than that strange
old book, with the queer name, poor Captain Brown was killed for reading
—that book by Mr Boz, you know—‘Old Poz’; when I was a girl—but
that’s a long time ago—I acted Lucy in ‘Old Poz.’” She babbled on long
enough for Flora to get a good long spell at the “Christmas Carol,” which
Miss Matty had left on the table.

CHAPTER III.
A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO

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.”
Of course I promised to come to dear Miss Matty as soon as I had ended
my visit to Miss Pole; and the day after my arrival at Cranford I went to see
her, much wondering what the house would be like without Miss Jenkyns,
and rather dreading the changed aspect of things. Miss Matty began to cry
as soon as she saw me. She was evidently nervous from having anticipated
my call. I comforted her as well as I could; and I found the best consolation
I could give was the honest praise that came from my heart as I spoke of the
deceased. Miss Matty slowly shook her head over each virtue as it was
named and attributed to her sister; and at last she could not restrain the tears
which had long been silently flowing, but hid her face behind her
handkerchief and sobbed aloud.
“Dear Miss Matty,” said I, taking her hand—for indeed I did not know in
what way to tell her how sorry I was for her, left deserted in the world. She

put down her handkerchief and said—
“My dear, I’d rather you did not call me Matty. She did not like it; but I
did many a thing she did not like, I’m afraid—and now she’s gone! If you
please, my love, will you call me Matilda?”
I promised faithfully, and began to practise the new name with Miss Pole
that very day; and, by degrees, Miss Matilda’s feeling on the subject was
known through Cranford, and we all tried to drop the more familiar name,
but with so little success that by-and-by we gave up the attempt.
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.
Presently, the time arrived when I was to remove to Miss Matilda’s
house. I found her timid and anxious about the arrangements for my
comfort. Many a time, while I was unpacking, did she come backwards and
forwards to stir the fire which burned all the worse for being so frequently
poked.
“Have you drawers enough, dear?” asked she. “I don’t know exactly how
my sister used to arrange them. She had capital methods. I am sure she
would have trained a servant in a week to make a better fire than this, and
Fanny has been with me four months.”
This subject of servants was a standing grievance, and I could not wonder
much at it; for if gentlemen were scarce, and almost unheard of in the
“genteel society” of Cranford, they or their counterparts—handsome young
men—abounded in the lower classes. The pretty neat servant-maids had
their choice of desirable “followers”; and their mistresses, 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—
and Miss Matilda suspected her of so many flirtations that, if she had not
been very pretty, I should have doubted her having one—were a constant
anxiety to her mistress. She was forbidden, by the articles of her
engagement, to have “followers”; and though she had answered, innocently
enough, doubling up the hem of her apron as she spoke, “Please, ma’am, I
never had more than one at a time,” Miss Matty prohibited that one. But a
vision of a man seemed to haunt the kitchen. Fanny assured me that it was
all fancy, or else I should have said myself that I had seen a man’s coat-tails
whisk into the scullery once, when I went on an errand into the store-room
at night; and another evening, when, our watches having stopped, I went to
look at the clock, there was a very odd appearance, singularly like a young
man squeezed up between the clock and the back of the open kitchen door:
and I thought Fanny snatched up the candle very hastily, so as to throw the
shadow on the clock face, while she very positively told me the time half-
an-hour too early, as we found out afterwards by the church clock. But I did
not add to Miss Matty’s anxieties by naming my suspicions, especially as
Fanny said to me, the next day, that it was such a queer kitchen for having
odd shadows about it, she really was almost afraid to stay; “for you know,
miss,” she added, “I don’t see a creature from six o’clock tea, till Missus
rings the bell for prayers at ten.”
However, it so fell out that Fanny had to leave and Miss Matilda begged
me to stay and “settle her” with the new maid; to which I consented, after I
had heard from my father that he did not want me at home. The new servant
was a rough, honest-looking, country girl, who had only lived in a farm
place before; but I liked her looks when she came to be hired; and I
promised Miss Matilda to put her in the ways of the house. The said ways
were religiously such as Miss Matilda thought her sister would approve.
Many a domestic rule and regulation had been a subject of plaintive
whispered murmur to me during Miss Jenkyns’s life; but now that she was
gone, I do not think that even I, who was a favourite, durst have suggested
an alteration. To give an instance: we constantly adhered to the forms which
were observed, at meal-times, in “my father, the rector’s house.”
Accordingly, we had always wine and dessert; but the decanters were only
filled when there was a party, and what remained was seldom touched,

though we had two 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.
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.

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—at the inn,
if it did not suit Miss Matilda to receive them into her house; in which case
they should hope to be with her as much as possible during the day. Of
course it must suit her, as she said; for all Cranford knew that she had her
sister’s bedroom at liberty; but I am sure she wished the Major had stopped
in India and forgotten his cousins out and out.
“Oh! how must I manage?” asked she 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—in which it must be owned she
was terribly deficient—and that I had no doubt Major and Mrs Jenkyns
would understand the quiet mode in which a lady lived by herself in a
country town. But she was sadly fluttered. I made her empty her decanters
and bring up two fresh bottles of wine. I wished I could have 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.
“Hand the vegetables round,” said I (foolishly, I see now—for it was
aiming at more than we could accomplish with quietness and simplicity);
and then, seeing her look bewildered, I added, “take the vegetables round to
people, and let them help themselves.”
“And mind you go first to the ladies,” put in Miss Matilda. “Always go to
the ladies before gentlemen when you are waiting.”
“I’ll do it as you tell me, ma’am,” said Martha; “but I like lads best.”

We felt very uncomfortable and shocked at this speech of Martha’s, yet I
don’t think she meant any harm; and, on the whole, she attended very well
to our directions, except that she “nudged” the Major when he did not help
himself as soon as she expected to the potatoes, while she was handing
them round.
The major and his wife were quiet unpretending people enough when
they did come; languid, as all East Indians are, I suppose. We were rather
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—answers which I must
confess she had given in the wearied manner of the Scandinavian
prophetess—
“Leave me, leave me to repose.”

And now I come to the love affair.
It seems that Miss Pole had a cousin, once or twice removed, who had
offered to Miss Matty long ago. Now this cousin lived four or five miles
from Cranford on his own estate; but his property was not large enough to
entitle him to rank higher than a yeoman; or rather, with something of the
“pride which apes humility,” he had refused to push himself on, as so many
of his class had done, into the ranks of the squires. He would not allow
himself to be called Thomas Holbrook, Esq.; he even sent back letters with
this address, telling the post-mistress at Cranford that his name was Mr
Thomas Holbrook, yeoman. He rejected all domestic innovations; he would
have the house door stand open in summer and shut in winter, without
knocker 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.
“And how came Miss Matilda not to marry him?” asked I.
“Oh, I don’t know. She was willing enough, I think; but you know
Cousin Thomas would not have been enough of a gentleman for the rector
and Miss Jenkyns.”
“Well! but they were not to marry him,” said I, impatiently.
“No; but they did not like Miss Matty to marry below her rank. You
know she was the rector’s daughter, and somehow they are related to Sir
Peter Arley: Miss Jenkyns thought a deal of that.”
“Poor Miss Matty!” said I.
“Nay, now, I don’t know anything more than that he offered and was
refused. Miss Matty might not like him—and Miss Jenkyns might never
have said a word—it is only a guess of mine.”
“Has she never seen him since?” I inquired.
“No, I think not. You see Woodley, Cousin Thomas’s house, lies half-way
between Cranford and Misselton; and I know he made Misselton his
market-town very soon after he had offered to Miss Matty; and I don’t think
he has been into Cranford above once or twice since—once, when I was
walking 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.”
“How old is he?” I asked, after a pause of castle-building.
“He must be about seventy, I think, my dear,” said Miss Pole, blowing up
my castle, as if by gun-powder, into small fragments.
Very soon after—at least during my long visit to Miss Matilda—I had the
opportunity of seeing Mr Holbrook; seeing, too, his first encounter with his
former love, after thirty or forty years’ separation. I was helping to decide
whether any of the new assortment of coloured silks which they had just
received at the shop would do to match a grey and black mousseline-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.
“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.
“Matty—Miss Matilda—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.
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.

CHAPTER IV.
A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR

A few days after, a note came from Mr Holbrook, asking us—impartially
asking both of us—in a formal, old-fashioned style, to spend a day at his
house—a long June day—for it was June now. He named that he had also
invited his cousin, Miss Pole; so that we might join in a fly, which could be
put up at his house.
I expected Miss Matty to jump at this invitation; but, no! Miss Pole and I
had the greatest difficulty in persuading her to go. She thought it was
improper; and was even half annoyed when we utterly ignored the idea of
any impropriety in her going with two other ladies to see her old lover.
Then came a more serious 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—fixing day and hour, that all might
be decided and done with.
The next morning she asked me if I would go down to the shop with her;
and there, after much hesitation, we chose out three caps to be sent home
and tried on, that the most becoming might be selected to take with us on
Thursday.
She was in a state of silent agitation all the way to Woodley. She had
evidently never been there before; and, although she little dreamt I knew
anything of her early story, I could perceive she was in a tremor at the
thought of seeing the place which might have been her home, and round
which it is probable that many of her innocent girlish 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.
“My cousin might make a drive, I think,” said Miss Pole, who was afraid
of ear-ache, and had only her cap on.
“I think it is very pretty,” said Miss Matty, with a soft plaintiveness in her
voice, and almost in a whisper, for just then Mr Holbrook appeared at the
door, rubbing his hands in very effervescence 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—“As Goethe says, ‘Ye ever-verdant palaces,’” &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.
When he and I went in, we found that dinner was nearly ready in the
kitchen—for so I suppose the room ought to be called, as there were oak
dressers and cupboards all round, all over by the side of the fireplace, and
only a small Turkey carpet in the middle of the flag-floor. The room might
have been easily made into a handsome dark oak dining-parlour by
removing the oven and a few other appurtenances of a kitchen, which were
evidently never used, the real cooking-place being at some distance. The
room in which we were expected to sit was 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—looking into the

orchard, and all covered over with dancing tree-shadows—was filled with
books. They lay on the ground, they covered the walls, they strewed the
table. He was evidently half ashamed and half proud of his extravagance in
this respect. They were of all kinds—poetry and wild weird tales prevailing.
He evidently chose his books in accordance with his own tastes, not
because such and such were classical or established favourites.
“Ah!” he said, “we farmers ought not to have much time for reading; yet
somehow one can’t help it.”
“What a pretty room!” said Miss Matty, sotto voce.
“What a pleasant place!” said I, aloud, almost simultaneously.
“Nay! if you like it,” replied he; “but can you sit on these great, black
leather, three-cornered chairs? I like it better than the best parlour; but I
thought ladies would take that for the smarter place.”
It was the smarter place, but, like most smart things, not at all pretty, or
pleasant, or home-like; so, while we were at dinner, the servant-girl dusted
and scrubbed the counting-house chairs, and we sat there all the rest of the
day.
We had pudding before meat; and I thought Mr Holbrook was going to
make some apology for his old-fashioned ways, for he began—
“I don’t know whether you like newfangled ways.”
“Oh, not at all!” said Miss Matty.
“No more do I,” said he. “My housekeeper will have these in her new
fashion; or else I tell her that, when I was a young man, we used to keep
strictly to my father’s rule, ‘No broth, no ball; no ball, no beef’; and always
began dinner with broth. Then we had suet puddings, boiled in the broth
with the beef: and then the meat itself. If we did not sup our broth, we had
no ball, which we liked a deal better; and the beef came last of all, and only
those had it who had done justice to the broth and the ball. Now folks begin
with sweet things, and turn their dinners topsy-turvy.”
When the ducks and green peas came, we looked at each other in dismay;
we had only two-pronged, black-handled forks. It is true the steel was as
bright as silver; but what were we to do? Miss Matty picked up her peas,
one by one, on the point of the prongs, much as Aminé 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

would drop between the prongs. I looked at my host: the peas were going
wholesale into his capacious mouth, shovelled up by his large round-ended
knife. I saw, I imitated, I survived! My friends, in spite of my precedent,
could not muster up courage enough to do an ungenteel thing; and, if Mr
Holbrook had not been so heartily hungry, he would probably have seen
that the good peas went away almost untouched.
After dinner, a clay pipe was brought in, and a spittoon; and, asking us to
retire to another room, where he would soon join us, if we disliked tobacco-
smoke, he presented his pipe to Miss Matty, and requested her to fill the
bowl. This was a compliment to a lady in his youth; but it was rather
inappropriate to propose it as an honour to Miss Matty, who had been
trained by her sister to hold smoking of every kind in utter abhorrence. But
if it was a shock to her refinement, it was also a gratification to her feelings
to be thus selected; so she daintily stuffed the strong tobacco into the pipe,
and then we withdrew.
“It is very pleasant dining with a bachelor,” said Miss Matty softly, as we
settled ourselves in the counting-house. “I only hope it is not improper; so
many pleasant things are!”
“What a number of books he has!” said Miss Pole, looking round the
room. “And how dusty they are!”
“I think it must be like one of the great Dr Johnson’s rooms,” said Miss
Matty. “What a superior man your cousin must be!”
“Yes!” said Miss Pole, “he’s a great reader; but I am afraid he has got
into very uncouth habits with living alone.”
“Oh! uncouth is too hard a word. I should call him eccentric; very clever
people always are!” replied Miss Matty.

When Mr Holbrook returned, he proposed a walk in the fields; but the
two elder ladies were afraid of damp, and dirt, and had only very
unbecoming calashes 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—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—
“The cedar spreads his dark-green layers of shade.”

“Capital term—‘layers!’ Wonderful man!” I did not know whether he
was speaking to me or not; but I put in an assenting “wonderful,” although I
knew nothing about it, just because I was tired of being forgotten, and of
being consequently silent.
He turned sharp round. “Ay! you may say ‘wonderful.’ Why, when I saw
the review of his poems in Blackwood, I set off within an hour, and walked
seven miles to Misselton (for the horses were not in the way) and ordered
them. Now, what colour are ash-buds in March?”
Is the man going mad? thought I. He is very like Don Quixote.
“What colour are they, I say?” repeated he vehemently.
“I am sure I don’t know, sir,” said I, with the meekness of ignorance.
“I knew you didn’t. No more did I—an old fool that I am!—till this
young man comes and tells me. Black as ash-buds in March. And I’ve lived
all my life in the country; more shame for me not to know. Black: they are
jet-black, madam.” And he went off again, swinging along to the music of
some rhyme he had got hold of.
When we came back, nothing would serve him but he must read us the
poems he had been speaking of; and Miss Pole encouraged him in his
proposal, I thought, because she wished me to hear his beautiful 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—
“What a pretty book!”
“Pretty, madam! it’s beautiful! Pretty, indeed!”
“Oh yes! I meant beautiful!” said she, fluttered at his disapproval of her
word. “It is so like that beautiful poem of Dr Johnson’s my sister used to
read—I forget the name of it; what was it, my dear?” turning to me.
“Which do you mean, ma’am? What was it about?”
“I don’t remember what it was about, and I’ve quite forgotten what the
name of it was; but it was written by Dr Johnson, and was very beautiful,

and very like what Mr Holbrook has just been reading.”
“I don’t remember it,” said he reflectively. “But I don’t know Dr
Johnson’s poems well. I must read them.”
As we were getting into the fly to return, I heard Mr Holbrook say he
should 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—
“Eh! dear ma’am, to think of your going out in an evening in such a thin
shawl! It’s no better than muslin. At your age, ma’am, you should be
careful.”
“My age!” said Miss Matty, almost speaking crossly, for her, for she was
usually gentle—“My age! Why, how old do you think I am, that you talk
about my age?”
“Well, ma’am, I should say you were not far short of sixty: but folks’
looks is often against them—and I’m sure I meant no harm.”
“Martha, I’m not yet fifty-two!” said Miss Matty, with grave emphasis;
for probably the remembrance of her youth had come very vividly before
her this day, and she was annoyed at finding that golden time so far away in
the past.
But she never spoke of any former and more intimate acquaintance with
Mr Holbrook. She had probably met with so little sympathy in her early
love, that she had shut it up close in her heart; and it was only by a sort of
watching, which I could hardly avoid since Miss Pole’s confidence, that I
saw how faithful her poor heart had been in its sorrow and its silence.
She gave me some good reason for wearing her best cap every day, and
sat near the window, in spite of her rheumatism, in order to see, without
being seen, down into the street.
He came. He put his open palms upon his knees, which were far apart, as
he sat with his head bent down, whistling, after we had replied to his
inquiries about our safe return. Suddenly he jumped up—

“Well, madam! have you any commands for Paris? I am going there in a
week or two.”
“To Paris!” we both exclaimed.
“Yes, madam! I’ve never been there, and always had a wish to go; and I
think if I don’t go soon, I mayn’t go at all; so as soon as the hay is got in I
shall go, before harvest time.”
We were so much astonished that we had no commissions.
Just as he was going out of the room, he turned back, with his favourite
exclamation—
“God bless my soul, madam! but I nearly forgot half my errand. Here are
the poems for you you admired so much the other evening at my house.” He
tugged away at a parcel in his coat-pocket. “Good-bye, miss,” said he;
“good-bye, Matty! take care of yourself.” And he was gone. But he had
given her a book, and he had called her Matty, just as he used to do thirty
years ago.
“I wish he would not go to Paris,” said Miss Matilda anxiously. “I don’t
believe frogs will agree with him; he used to have to be very careful what
he ate, which was curious in so strong-looking a young man.”
Soon after this I took my leave, giving many an injunction to Martha to
look after her mistress, and to let me know if she thought that Miss Matilda
was not so well; in which case I would volunteer a visit to my old friend,
without noticing Martha’s intelligence to her.
Accordingly I received a line or two from Martha every now and then;
and, about November I had a 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.
I received a warm welcome, in spite of the little flurry produced by my
impromptu visit, for I had only been able to give a day’s notice. Miss
Matilda looked miserably ill; and I prepared to comfort and cosset her.
I went down to have a private talk with Martha.
“How long has your mistress been so poorly?” I asked, as I stood by the
kitchen fire.
“Well! I think it’s better than a fortnight; it is, I know; it was one
Tuesday, after Miss Pole had been, that she went into this moping way. I

thought she was tired, and it would go off with a night’s rest; but no! she
has gone on and on ever since, till I thought it my duty to write to you,
ma’am.”
“You did quite right, Martha. It is a comfort to think she has so faithful a
servant about her. And I hope you find your place comfortable?”
“Well, ma’am, missus is very kind, and there’s plenty to eat and drink,
and no more work but what I can do easily—but—” Martha hesitated.
“But what, Martha?”
“Why, it seems so hard of missus not to let me have any followers;
there’s such lots of young fellows in the town; and many a one has as much
as offered to keep company with me; and I may never be in such a likely
place again, and it’s like wasting an opportunity. Many a girl as I know
would have ’em unbeknownst to missus; but I’ve given my word, and I’ll
stick to it; or else this is just the house for missus never to be the wiser if
they did come: and it’s such a capable kitchen—there’s such dark corners in
it—I’d be bound to hide any one. I counted up last Sunday night—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.
I went to see Miss Pole the next day, and took her completely by surprise,
for she had not been to see Miss Matilda for two days.
“And now I must go back with you, my dear, for I promised to let her
know how Thomas Holbrook went on; and, I’m sorry to say, his
housekeeper has sent me word to-day that he hasn’t long to live. Poor
Thomas! that journey to Paris was quite too much for him. His housekeeper
says he has hardly ever been round his fields since, but just sits with his
hands on his knees in the counting-house, not reading or anything, but only
saying what a wonderful city Paris was! Paris has much to answer for if it’s
killed my cousin Thomas, for a better man never lived.”
“Does Miss Matilda know of his illness?” asked I—a new light as to the
cause of her indisposition dawning upon me.

“Dear! to be sure, yes! Has 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!”
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—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.
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—
“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.”
She paused for some demonstration on our part. I saw Miss Matty could
not speak, she was trembling so nervously; so I said what I really felt; and
after a call of some duration—all the time of which I have no doubt Miss

Pole thought Miss Matty received the news very calmly—our visitor took
her leave.
Miss Matty made a strong effort to conceal her feelings—a concealment
she practised even with me, for she has never alluded to Mr Holbrook
again, although the book he gave her lies with her Bible on the little table
by her bedside. She did not think I heard her when she asked the little
milliner of Cranford to make her caps something like the Honourable Mrs
Jamieson’s, or that I noticed the reply—
“But she wears widows’ caps, ma’am?”
“Oh! I only meant something in that style; not widows’, of course, but
rather like Mrs Jamieson’s.”
This effort at concealment was the beginning of the tremulous motion of
head and hands which I have seen ever since in Miss Matty.
The evening of the day on which we heard of Mr Holbrook’s death, Miss
Matilda was very silent and thoughtful; after prayers she called Martha back
and then she stood uncertain what to say.
“Martha!” she said, at last, “you are young”—and then she made so long
a pause that Martha, to remind her of her half-finished sentence, dropped a
curtsey, and said—
“Yes, please, ma’am; two-and-twenty last third of October, please,
ma’am.”
“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—
“Please, ma’am, there’s Jem Hearn, and he’s a joiner making three-and-
sixpence a-day, and six foot one in his stocking-feet, please, ma’am; and if
you’ll ask about him to-morrow morning, every one will give him a
character for steadiness; and he’ll be glad enough to come to-morrow night,
I’ll be bound.”
Though Miss Matty was startled, she submitted to Fate and Love.

CHAPTER V.
OLD LETTERS

I have often noticed that almost every one has his own individual small
economies—careful habits of saving fractions of pennies in some one
peculiar direction—any disturbance of which annoys him more than
spending shillings or pounds on some real extravagance. An old gentleman
of my 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—one that I
picked up off the floor nearly six years ago. I have really tried to use it, but
my heart failed me, and I could not commit the extravagance.

Small pieces of butter grieve others. They cannot attend to conversation
because of the annoyance occasioned by the habit which some people have
of invariably taking more butter than they want. Have you not seen the
anxious look (almost mesmeric) which such persons fix on the article? They
would feel it a relief if they might bury it out of their sight by popping it
into their own mouths and swallowing it down; and they are really made
happy if the person on whose plate it lies unused suddenly breaks off a
piece of toast (which he does not want at all) and eats up his butter. They
think that this is not waste.
Now Miss Matty Jenkyns was chary of candles. We had many devices to
use as few as possible. In the winter afternoons she would sit knitting for
two or three hours—she could do this in the dark, or by firelight—and when
I asked if I might not ring for candles to finish stitching my wristbands, she
told me to “keep blind man’s holiday.” They were usually brought in with
tea; but we only burnt one at a time. As we lived in constant preparation for
a friend who might come in any evening (but who never did), it required
some contrivance to keep our two candles of the same length, ready to be
lighted, and to look as if we burnt two always. The candles took it in turns;
and, whatever we might be talking about or doing, Miss Matty’s eyes were
habitually fixed upon the candle, ready to jump up and 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.
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—in the dark; for she
piqued herself on the precise neatness of all her chamber arrangements, and
used to look uneasily at me when I lighted a bed-candle to go to another
room for anything. When she returned there was a faint, pleasant smell of
Tonquin beans in the room. I had always noticed this scent about any of the
things which had belonged to her mother; and many of the letters were
addressed to her—yellow bundles of love-letters, sixty or seventy years old.
Miss Matty undid the packet with a sigh; but she stifled it directly, as if it
were hardly right to regret the flight of time, or of life either. We agreed to
look them over separately, each taking a different letter out of the same
bundle and describing its contents to the other before destroying it. I never
knew what sad work the reading of old letters was before that evening,
though I could hardly tell why. The letters were as happy as letters could be
—at least those early letters were. There was in them a vivid and intense
sense of the present time, which seemed so strong and full, as if it could
never pass away, and as if the warm, living hearts that so 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.
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—it was strange to read these
letters. They were full of eager, passionate ardour; short homely sentences,
right fresh from the heart (very different from the grand Latinised,
Johnsonian style of the printed sermon preached before some judge at

assize time). His letters were a curious contrast to those of his girl-bride.
She was evidently rather annoyed at his demands upon her for expressions
of love, and could not quite understand what he meant by repeating the
same thing over in so many different ways; but what she was quite clear
about was a longing for a white “Paduasoy”—whatever that might be; and
six or seven letters were principally occupied in 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.
“We must burn them, I think,” said Miss Matty, looking doubtfully at me.
“No one will care for them when I am gone.” And one by one she dropped
them into the middle of the fire, watching each blaze up, die out, and rise
away, in faint, white, ghostly semblance, up the chimney, before she gave
another to the same fate. The room was light enough now; but I, like her,
was fascinated into watching the destruction of those letters, into which the
honest warmth of a manly heart had been poured forth.
The next letter, likewise docketed by Miss Jenkyns, was endorsed,
“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.”
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 up
stairs before going down: and telling her to wrap her baby’s feet up in
flannel, and keep it warm by the fire, although it was summer, for babies
were so tender.
It was pretty to see from the letters, which were evidently exchanged
with some frequency between the young mother and the grandmother, how
the girlish vanity was being weeded out of her heart by love for her baby.
The white “Paduasoy” figured again in the letters, with almost as much
vigour as before. In one, it was being made into a christening cloak for the
baby. It decked it when it went with its parents to spend a day or two at
Arley Hall. It added to its charms, when it was “the prettiest little baby that
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.
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—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, dum
memor ipse mei, dum spiritus regit artus,” which, considering that the
English of his correspondent was sometimes at fault in grammar, and often
in spelling, might be taken as a proof of how much he “idealised his
Molly;” and, as Miss Jenkyns used to say, “People talk a great deal about
idealising 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 carmen was endorsed by
her, “Hebrew verses sent me by my honoured husband. I thowt to have had
a letter about killing the pig, but must wait. Mem., to send the poetry to Sir
Peter Arley, as my husband desires.” And in a post-scriptum note in his
handwriting it was stated that the Ode had appeared in the Gentleman’s
Magazine, December 1782.
Her letters back to her husband (treasured as fondly by him as if they had
been M. T. Ciceronis Epistolæ) 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.”
“I had very pretty hair, my dear,” said Miss Matilda; “and not a bad
mouth.” And I saw her soon afterwards adjust her cap and draw herself up.
But to return to Mrs Jenkyns’s letters. She told her husband about the
poor in the parish; what homely domestic medicines she had 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.
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.”
It seemed curious that I should never have heard of this brother before;
but I concluded that he had died young, or else surely his name would have

been alluded to by his sisters.
By-and-by we came to packets of Miss Jenkyns’s letters. These Miss
Matty did regret to burn. She said all the others had been only interesting to
those who loved the writers, and that it seemed as if it would have hurt her
to allow them to fall into the hands of strangers, who had not known her
dear mother, and how good she was, although she did not always spell quite
in the modern fashion; but Deborah’s letters were so very superior! Any one
might profit by reading them. It was a long time since she had read Mrs
Chapone, but she knew she used to think that Deborah could have said the
same things quite as well; and as for Mrs Carter! people thought a deal of
her letters, just because she had written “Epictetus,” but she was quite sure
Deborah would never have made use of such a common expression as “I
canna be fashed!”

Miss Matty did grudge burning these letters, it was evident. She would
not let them be carelessly passed over with any quiet reading, and skipping,

to myself. She took them from me, and even lighted the second candle in
order to read them aloud with a proper emphasis, and without stumbling
over the big words. Oh dear! how I wanted facts instead of reflections,
before those letters were concluded! They lasted us two nights; and I won’t
deny that I made use of the time to think of many other things, and yet I
was always at my post at the end of each sentence.
The rector’s letters, and those of his wife and mother-in-law, had all been
tolerably short and pithy, written in a straight hand, with the lines very close
together. Sometimes the whole letter was contained on a mere scrap of
paper. The paper was very yellow, and the ink very brown; some of the
sheets were (as Miss Matty made me observe) the old original post, with the
stamp in the corner representing a post-boy riding for life and twanging his
horn. The letters of Mrs Jenkyns and her mother were fastened with a great
round red wafer; for it was before Miss Edgeworth’s “patronage” had
banished wafers from polite society. It was evident, from the tenor of what
was said, that franks were in great request, and were even used as a means
of paying debts by needy members of Parliament. The rector sealed his
epistles with an immense coat of arms, and showed by the care with which
he had performed this ceremony that he expected they should be cut open,
not broken by any thoughtless or impatient hand. Now, Miss Jenkyns’s
letters were of a later date in form and writing. She wrote on the square
sheet which we have learned to call old-fashioned. Her hand was admirably
calculated, together with her use of many-syllabled words, to fill up a sheet,
and then came the pride and delight of crossing. Poor Miss Matty got sadly
puzzled with this, for the words gathered size like snowballs, and towards
the end of her letter Miss Jenkyns used to become quite 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.
I can’t quite remember the date, but I think it was in 1805 that Miss
Jenkyns wrote the longest series of letters—on occasion of her absence on a
visit to some friends near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These friends were
intimate with the commandant of the garrison there, and heard from him of
all the preparations that were being made to repel the invasion of
Buonaparte, which some people imagined might take place at the mouth of
the Tyne. Miss Jenkyns was evidently very much alarmed; and the first part
of her letters was often written in pretty intelligible English, conveying

particulars of the preparations which were made in the family with whom
she was residing against the dreaded event; the bundles of clothes that were
packed up ready for a flight to Alston Moor (a wild hilly piece of ground
between Northumberland and Cumberland); the signal that was to be given
for this flight, and for the simultaneous turning out of the volunteers under
arms—which said signal was to consist (if I remember rightly) in ringing
the church bells in a particular and ominous manner. One day, when Miss
Jenkyns and her hosts were at a dinner-party in Newcastle, this warning
summons was actually given (not a very wise proceeding, if there be any
truth in the moral attached to the fable of the Boy and the Wolf; but so it
was), and Miss Jenkyns, hardly recovered from her fright, wrote the next
day to describe the sound, the breathless shock, the hurry and alarm; and
then, taking breath, she added, “How trivial, my dear father, do all our
apprehensions of the last evening appear, at the present moment, to calm
and enquiring minds!” And here Miss Matty broke in with—
“But, indeed, my dear, they were not at all trivial or trifling at the time. I
know I used to wake up in the night many a time and think I heard the
tramp of the French entering Cranford. Many people talked of hiding
themselves in the salt mines—and meat would have kept capitally down
there, only perhaps we should have been thirsty. And my father preached a
whole set of sermons on the occasion; one set in the mornings, all about
David and Goliath, to spirit up the people to fighting with spades or bricks,
if need were; and the other set in the 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.”
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—at
least to judge from the bits I remember out of the rector’s letters. One was,
“You have not got that town in your map of Ireland; but Bonus Bernardus
non videt omnia, as the Proverbia say.” Presently it became very evident
that “poor Peter” got himself into many scrapes. There were letters of stilted
penitence to his father, for some wrong-doing; and among them all was a
badly-written, badly-sealed, badly-directed, blotted note:—“My dear, dear,
dear, dearest mother, I will be a better boy; I will, indeed; but don’t, please,
be ill for me; I am not worth it; but I will be good, darling mother.”
Miss Matty could not speak for crying, after she had read this note. She
gave it to me in silence, and then got up and took it to her sacred recesses in
her own room, for fear, by any chance, it might get burnt. “Poor Peter!” she
said; “he was always in scrapes; he was too easy. They led him wrong, and
then left him in the lurch. But he was too fond of mischief. He could never
resist a joke. Poor Peter!”

CHAPTER VI.
POOR PETER

Poor Peter’s career lay before him rather pleasantly mapped out by kind
friends, but Bonus Bernardus non videt omnia, in this map too. He was to
win honours at 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.
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.
“My poor mother!” said she. “I remember how she used to stand in the
hall, just near enough the study-door, to catch the tone of my father’s voice.
I could tell in a moment if all was going right, by her face. And it did go
right for a long time.”
“What went wrong at last?” said I. “That tiresome Latin, I dare say.”
“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
—him, I mean—no, her, for Peter was a lady then. He told me he was more
terrified than he ever was before, all the time my father was speaking. He
did not think my father would have believed him; and yet if he had not, it
would have been a sad thing for Peter. As it was, he was none so glad of it,
for my father kept him hard at work copying out all those twelve
Buonaparte sermons for the lady—that was for Peter himself, you know. He
was the lady. And once when he wanted to go fishing, Peter said,
‘Confound the woman!’—very bad language, my dear, but Peter was not
always so guarded as he should have been; my father was so angry with
him, it nearly frightened me out of my wits: and yet I could hardly keep
from laughing at the little curtseys Peter kept making, quite slyly, whenever
my father spoke of the lady’s excellent taste and sound discrimination.”

“Did Miss Jenkyns know of these tricks?” said I.
“Oh, no! Deborah would have been too much shocked. No, no one knew
but me. I wish I had always known of Peter’s plans; but sometimes he did
not tell me. He used to say the old ladies in the town wanted something to
talk about; but I don’t think they did. They had the St James’s Chronicle
three times a week, just as we have now, and we have plenty to say; and I
remember the clacking noise there always was when some of the ladies got
together. But, probably, schoolboys talk more than ladies. At last there was
a terrible, sad thing 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.
“I will lock the door after you, Martha. You are not afraid to go, are
you?”

“No, ma’am, not at all; Jem Hearn will be only too proud to go with me.”
Miss Matty drew herself up, and as soon as we were alone, she wished
that Martha had more maidenly reserve.
“We’ll put out the candle, my dear. We can talk just as well by firelight,
you know. There! Well, you see, Deborah had gone from home for a
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.
“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—you
are sure you locked the door, my dear, for I should not like anyone to hear
—into—into a little baby, with white long clothes. It was only, as he told
me afterwards, to make something to talk about in the town; he never
thought of it as affecting Deborah. And he went and walked up and down in
the Filbert walk—just half-hidden by the rails, and half-seen; and he
cuddled his pillow, just like a baby, and talked to it all the nonsense people
do. Oh dear! and my father came stepping stately up the street, as he always
did; and what should he see but a little black crowd of people—I daresay as
many as twenty—all peeping through his garden rails. So he thought, at
first, they were only looking at a new rhododendron that was in full bloom,
and that he was very proud of; and he walked slower, that they might have
more time to admire. And he wondered if he could make out a sermon from
the occasion, and thought, perhaps, there was some relation between the
rhododendrons and the lilies of the field. My poor father! When he came
nearer, he began to wonder that they did not see him; but their heads were
all so close together, peeping and peeping! My father was amongst them,
meaning, he said, to ask them to walk into the garden with him, and admire
the beautiful vegetable production, when—oh, my dear, I tremble to think
of it—he looked through the rails himself, and saw—I don’t know what he
thought he saw, but old Clare told me his face went quite grey-white with
anger, and his eyes blazed out under his frowning black brows; and he

spoke out—oh, so terribly!—and bade them all stop where they were—not
one of 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—bonnet, shawl, gown, and all—and
threw the pillow among the people over the railings: and then he was very,
very angry indeed, and before all the people he lifted up his cane and
flogged Peter!
“My dear, that boy’s trick, on that sunny day, when all seemed going
straight and well, broke my mother’s heart, and changed my father for life.
It did, indeed. Old Clare said, Peter looked as white as my father; and stood
as still as a statue to be flogged; and my father struck hard! When my father
stopped to take breath, Peter said, ‘Have you done enough, sir?’ quite
hoarsely, and still standing quite quiet. I don’t know what my father said—
or if he said anything. But old Clare said, Peter turned to where the people
outside the railing were, and made them a low bow, as grand and as grave
as any gentleman; and then walked slowly into the house. I was in the store-
room helping my mother to make cowslip wine. I cannot abide the wine
now, nor the scent of the flowers; they turn me sick and faint, as they did
that day, when Peter came in, looking as haughty as any man—indeed,
looking like a man, not like a boy. ‘Mother!’ he said, ‘I am come to say,
God bless you for ever.’ I saw his lips quiver as he spoke; and I think he
durst not say anything more loving, for the purpose that was in his heart.
She looked at him rather frightened, and wondering, and asked him what
was to do. He did not smile or speak, but put his arms round her and kissed
her as if he did not know how to leave off; and before she could speak
again, he was gone. We talked it over, and could not understand it, and she
bade me go and seek my father, and ask what it was all about. I found him
walking up and down, looking very highly displeased.
“‘Tell your mother I have flogged Peter, and that he richly deserved it.’
“I durst not ask any more questions. When I told my mother, she sat
down, quite faint, for a minute. I remember, a few days after, I saw the poor,
withered cowslip flowers thrown out to the leaf heap, to decay and die
there. There was no making of cowslip wine that year at the rectory—nor,
indeed, ever after.
“Presently my mother went to my father. I know I thought of Queen
Esther and King Ahasuerus; for my mother was very pretty and delicate-

looking, and my father looked as terrible as King Ahasuerus. Some time
after they came out together; and then my mother told me what had
happened, and that she was going up to Peter’s room at my father’s desire—
though she was not to tell Peter this—to talk the matter over with him. But
no Peter was there. We looked over the house; no Peter was there! Even my
father, who had not liked to join in the search at first, helped us before long.
The rectory was a very old house—steps up into a room, steps down into a
room, all through. At first, my mother went calling low and soft, as if to
reassure the poor boy, ‘Peter! Peter, dear! it’s only me;’ but, by-and-by, as
the servants came back from the errands my father had sent them, in
different directions, to find where Peter was—as we found he was not in the
garden, nor the hayloft, nor anywhere about—my mother’s cry grew louder
and wilder, ‘Peter! Peter, my darling! where are you?’ for then she felt and
understood that that long kiss meant some sad kind of ‘good-bye.’ The
afternoon went on—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.
“‘Molly!’ said he, ‘I did not think all this would happen.’ He looked into
her face for comfort—her poor face all wild and white; for neither she nor
my father had dared to acknowledge—much less act upon—the terror that
was in their hearts, lest Peter should have made away with himself. My
father saw no conscious look in his wife’s hot, dreary eyes, and he missed
the sympathy that she had always been ready to give him—strong man as
he was, and at the dumb despair in her face his tears began to flow. But
when she saw this, a gentle sorrow came over her countenance, and she
said, ‘Dearest John! don’t cry; come with me, and we’ll find him,’ almost as
cheerfully as if she knew where he was. And she took my father’s great
hand in her little soft one, and led him along, the tears dropping as he

walked on that same unceasing, weary walk, from room to room, through
house and garden.
“Oh, how I wished for Deborah! I had no time for crying, for now all
seemed to depend on me. I wrote for Deborah to come home. I sent a
message privately to that same Mr Holbrook’s house—poor Mr Holbrook;
—you know who I mean. I don’t mean I sent a message to him, but I sent
one that I could trust to know if Peter was at his house. For at one time Mr
Holbrook was an occasional visitor at the rectory—you know he was Miss
Pole’s cousin—and he had been very kind to Peter, and taught him how to
fish—he was very kind to everybody, and I thought Peter might have gone
off there. But Mr Holbrook was from home, and Peter had never been seen.
It was night now; but the doors were all wide open, and my father and
mother walked on and on; it was more than an hour since he had joined her,
and I don’t believe they had ever spoken all that time. I was getting the
parlour fire lighted, and one of the servants was preparing tea, for I wanted
them to have something to eat and drink and warm them, when old Clare
asked to speak to me.
“‘I have borrowed the nets from the weir, Miss Matty. Shall we drag the
ponds to-night, or wait for the morning?’
“I remember staring in his face to gather his meaning; and when I did, I
laughed out loud. The horror of that new thought—our bright, darling Peter,
cold, and stark, and dead! I remember the ring of my own laugh now.
“The next day Deborah was at home before I was myself again. She
would not have been so weak as to give way as I had done; but my screams
(my horrible laughter had ended in crying) had roused my sweet dear
mother, whose poor wandering wits were called back and collected as soon
as a child needed her care. She and Deborah sat by my bedside; I knew by
the looks of each that there had been no news of Peter—no awful, ghastly
news, which was what I most had dreaded in my dull state between sleeping
and waking.
“The same result of all the searching had brought something of the same
relief to my mother, to whom, I am sure, the thought that Peter might even
then be hanging dead in some of the 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.”
“Where was Mr Peter?” said I.
“He had made his way to Liverpool; and there was war then; and some of
the king’s ships lay off the mouth of the Mersey; and they were only too
glad to have a fine likely boy such as him (five foot nine he was), come to
offer himself. The captain wrote to my father, and Peter wrote to my
mother. Stay! those letters will be somewhere here.”
We lighted the candle, and found the captain’s letter and Peter’s too. And
we also found a little simple begging letter from Mrs Jenkyns to Peter,
addressed to him at the house of an old schoolfellow whither she fancied he
might have gone. They had returned it unopened; and unopened it had
remained ever since, having been inadvertently put by among the other
letters of that time. This is it:—

“My dearest Peter,—You did not think we should be so sorry
as we are, I know, or you would never have gone away. You
are too good. Your father sits and sighs till my heart aches to
hear him. He cannot hold up his head for grief; and yet he
only did what he thought was right. Perhaps he has been too
severe, and perhaps I have not been kind enough; but God
knows how we love you, my dear only boy. Don looks so
sorry you are gone. Come back, and make us happy, who
love you so much. I know you will come back.”

But Peter did not come back. That spring day was the last time he ever
saw his mother’s face. The writer of the letter—the last—the only person
who had ever seen what was written in it, was dead long ago; and I, a
stranger, not born at the time when this occurrence took place, was the one
to open it.
The captain’s letter summoned the father 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.
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—and oh! my dear, they were too late—the ship was gone! And
now read Peter’s letter to my mother!”
It was full of love, and sorrow, and pride in his new profession, and a
sore sense of his disgrace in the eyes of the people at Cranford; but ending
with a passionate entreaty that she would come and see him before he left
the Mersey: “Mother; we may go into battle. I hope we shall, and lick those
French: but I must see you again before that time.”
“And she was too late,” said Miss Matty; “too late!”
We sat in silence, pondering on the full meaning of those sad, sad words.
At length I asked Miss Matty to tell me how her mother bore it.
“Oh!” she said, “she was patience itself. She had never been strong, and
this weakened her terribly. My father used to sit looking at her: far more sad
than she was. He seemed as if he could look at nothing else when she was
by; and he was so humble—so very gentle now. He would, perhaps, speak
in his old way—laying down the law, as it were—and then, in a minute or
two, he would come round and put his hand on our shoulders, and ask us in
a low voice, if he had said anything to hurt us. I did not wonder at his
speaking so to Deborah, for she was so clever; but I could not bear to hear
him talking so to me.
“But, you see, he saw what we did not—that it was killing my mother.
Yes! killing her (put out the candle, my dear; I can talk better in the dark),
for she was but a frail woman, and ill-fitted to stand the fright and shock
she had gone through; and she would smile at him and comfort him, not in
words, but in her looks and tones, which were always cheerful when he was
there. And she would speak of how she thought Peter stood a good chance
of being admiral very soon—he was so brave and clever; and how she
thought of seeing him in his navy uniform, and what sort of hats admirals
wore; and how much more fit he was to be a sailor than a clergyman; and
all in that way, just to make my father think she was quite glad of what
came of that unlucky morning’s work, and the flogging which was always
in his mind, as we all knew. But oh, my dear! the bitter, bitter crying she
had when she was alone; and at last, as she grew weaker, she could not keep
her tears in when Deborah or me was by, and would give us message after
message for Peter (his ship had gone to the Mediterranean, or somewhere
down there, and then he was ordered off to India, and there was no overland
route then); but she still said that no one knew where their death lay in wait,

and that we were not to think hers was near. We did not think it, but we
knew it, as we saw her fading away.
“Well, my dear, it’s very foolish of me, I know, when in all likelihood I
am so near seeing her again.
“And only think, love! the very day after her death—for she did not live
quite a twelvemonth after Peter went away—the very day after—came a
parcel for her from India—from her poor boy. It was a large, soft, white
Indian shawl, with just a little narrow border all round; just what my mother
would have liked.
“We thought it might rouse my father, for he had sat with her hand in his
all night long; so Deborah took it in to him, and Peter’s letter to her, and all.
At first, he took no notice; and we tried to make a kind of light careless talk
about the shawl, opening it out and admiring it. Then, suddenly, he got up,
and spoke: ‘She shall be buried in it,’ he said; ‘Peter shall have that
comfort; and she would have liked it.’
“Well, perhaps it was not reasonable, but what could we do or say? One
gives people in grief their own way. He took it up and felt it: ‘It is just such
a shawl as she wished for when she was married, and her mother did not
give it her. I did not know of it till after, or she should have had it—she
should; but she shall have it now.’
“My mother looked so lovely in her death! She was always pretty, and
now she looked fair, and waxen, and young—younger than Deborah, as she
stood trembling and shivering by her. We decked her in the long soft folds;
she lay smiling, as if pleased; and people came—all Cranford came—to beg
to see her, for they had loved her dearly, as well they might; and the
countrywomen brought posies; old Clare’s wife brought some white violets
and begged they might lie on her breast.
“Deborah said to me, the day of my mother’s funeral, that if she had a
hundred offers she never would marry and leave my father. It was not very
likely she would have so many—I don’t know 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.”
“Did Mr Peter ever come home?”
“Yes, once. He came home a lieutenant; he did not get to be admiral. And
he and my father were such friends! My father took him into every house in
the parish, he was so proud of him. He never walked out without Peter’s
arm to lean upon. 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.”
“And then?” said I, after a pause.
“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!”
“And Mr Peter?” asked I.
“Oh, there was some great war in India—I forget what they call it—and
we have never heard of Peter since then. I believe he is dead myself; and it
sometimes fidgets me that we have never put on mourning for him. And
then again, when I sit by myself, and all the house is still, I think I hear his
step coming up the street, and my heart begins to flutter and beat; but the
sound always goes past—and Peter never comes.
“That’s Martha back? No! I’ll go, my dear; I can always find my way in
the dark, you know. And a blow of fresh air at the door will do my head
good, and it’s rather got a trick of aching.”
So she pattered off. I had lighted the candle, to give the room a cheerful
appearance against her return.
“Was it Martha?” asked I.
“Yes. And I am rather uncomfortable, for I heard such a strange noise,
just as I was opening the door.”

“Where?” I asked, for her eyes were round with affright.
“In the street—just outside—it sounded like”—
“Talking?” I put in, as she hesitated a little.
“No! kissing”—

CHAPTER VII.
VISITING

One morning, as Miss Matty and I sat at our work—it was before twelve
o’clock, and Miss Matty had not changed the cap with yellow ribbons that
had been Miss Jenkyns’s best, and which Miss Matty was now wearing out
in private, putting on the one made in imitation of Mrs Jamieson’s at all
times when she expected to be seen—Martha came up, and asked if Miss
Betty Barker might speak to her mistress. Miss Matty assented, and quickly
disappeared to change the yellow ribbons, while Miss Barker came upstairs;
but, as she had forgotten her spectacles, and was rather flurried by the
unusual time of the visit, I was not surprised to see her return with one cap
on the top of the other. She was quite unconscious of it herself, and looked
at us, with bland satisfaction. Nor do I think Miss Barker perceived it; for,
putting aside the little circumstance that she was not so young as she had
been, she was very much absorbed in her errand, which she delivered
herself of with an oppressive modesty that found vent in endless apologies.
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 élite of Cranford. I say the élite, for Miss Barkers
had caught the trick of the place, and piqued themselves upon their
“aristocratic connection.” They would not sell their caps and ribbons to
anyone without a pedigree. Many a farmer’s wife or daughter turned away
huffed from Miss Barkers’ select millinery, and went rather to the universal
shop, where the profits of brown soap and moist sugar enabled the
proprietor to go straight to (Paris, he said, until he found his customers too

patriotic and John Bullish to wear what the Mounseers wore) London,
where, as he often told his customers, Queen Adelaide had appeared, only
the very week before, in a cap exactly like the one he showed them,
trimmed with yellow and blue ribbons, and had been complimented by
King William on the becoming nature of her head-dress.
Miss Barkers, who confined themselves to truth, and did not approve of
miscellaneous customers, throve notwithstanding. They were self-denying,
good people. Many a time have I seen the eldest of them (she that had been
maid to Mrs Jamieson) carrying out some delicate mess to a poor person.
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 passée.
And now Miss Betty Barker had called to invite Miss Matty to tea at her
house on the following Tuesday. She gave me also an impromptu invitation,
as I happened to be a visitor—though I could see she had a little fear lest,
since my father had gone to live in Drumble, he might have engaged in that
“horrid cotton trade,” and so dragged his family down out of “aristocratic
society.” She prefaced this invitation with so many apologies that she quite
excited my curiosity. “Her presumption” was to be excused. What had she
been doing? She seemed so 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.
“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.”
“And Miss Pole?” questioned Miss Matty, who was thinking of her pool
at Preference, in which Carlo would not be available as a partner.
“I am going to ask Miss Pole. Of course, I could not think of asking her
until I had asked you, madam—the rector’s daughter, madam. Believe me, I
do not forget the situation my father held under yours.”
“And Mrs Forrester, of course?”
“And Mrs Forrester. I thought, in fact, of going to her before I went to
Miss Pole. Although her circumstances are changed, madam, she was born
a Tyrrell, and we can never forget her alliance to the Bigges, of Bigelow
Hall.”
Miss Matty cared much more for the little circumstance of her being a
very good card-player.
“Mrs Fitz-Adam—I suppose”—
“No, madam. I must draw a line somewhere. Mrs Jamieson would not, I
think, like to meet Mrs Fitz-Adam. I have the greatest respect for Mrs Fitz-
Adam—but I cannot think her fit society for such ladies as Mrs Jamieson
and Miss Matilda Jenkyns.”
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.
“May I beg you to come as near half-past six to my little dwelling, as
possible, Miss Matilda? Mrs Jamieson dines at five, but has kindly
promised not to delay her visit beyond that time—half-past six.” And with a
swimming curtsey Miss Betty Barker took her leave.
My prophetic soul foretold a visit that afternoon from Miss Pole, who
usually came to call on Miss Matilda after any event—or indeed in sight of
any event—to talk it over with her.

“Miss Betty told me it was to be a choice and select few,” said Miss Pole,
as she and Miss Matty compared notes.
“Yes, so she said. Not even Mrs Fitz-Adam.”
Now Mrs Fitz-Adam was the widowed sister of the Cranford surgeon,
whom I have named before. Their parents were respectable farmers, content
with their station. The name of these good people was Hoggins. Mr
Hoggins was the Cranford doctor now; we disliked the name and
considered it coarse; but, as Miss Jenkyns said, if he changed it to Piggins it
would not be much better. We had hoped to discover a relationship between
him and that 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.
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.”
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.”
Mrs Forrester continued on the same side.
“She had always understood that Fitz meant something aristocratic; there
was Fitz-Roy—she thought that some of the King’s children had been
called Fitz-Roy; and there was Fitz-Clarence, now—they were the children
of dear good King William the Fourth. Fitz-Adam!—it was a pretty name,
and she thought it very probably meant ‘Child of Adam.’ No one, who had
not some good blood in their veins, would dare to be called Fitz; there was
a deal in a name—she had had a cousin who spelt his name with two little
ffs—ffoulkes—and he always looked down upon capital letters and said
they belonged to lately-invented families. She had been afraid he would die
a bachelor, he was so very choice. When he met with a Mrs ffarringdon, at a
watering-place, he took to her immediately; and a very pretty genteel
woman she was—a widow, with a very good fortune; and ‘my cousin,’ Mr
ffoulkes, married her; and it was all owing to her two little ffs.”
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 ci-devant Miss Hoggins; and if this had been her hope it would be cruel
to disappoint her.
So everybody called upon Mrs Fitz-Adam—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—so low, in
fact, that I think Mrs Jamieson must have looked at the wall above her, for
she never moved a muscle of her face, no more than if she had not seen her.
Still Mrs Fitz-Adam persevered.
The spring evenings were getting bright and long when three or four
ladies in calashes met at Miss Barker’s door. Do you know what a calash is?
It is a covering worn over caps, not unlike the heads fastened on old-

fashioned gigs; but sometimes it is not quite so large. This kind of head-
gear always made an awful impression on the children in Cranford; and
now two or three left off their play in the quiet sunny little street, and
gathered in wondering silence round Miss Pole, Miss Matty, and myself.
We were silent too, so that 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.”
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—a seat arranged something like Prince Albert’s
near the Queen’s—good, but not so good. The place of pre-eminence was,
of course, reserved for the Honourable Mrs Jamieson, who presently came
panting up the stairs—Carlo rushing round her on her progress, as if he
meant to trip her up.
And now Miss Betty Barker was a proud and happy woman! She stirred
the fire, and shut the door, and sat as near to it as she could, quite on the
edge of her chair. When Peggy came in, tottering under the weight of the
tea-tray, I noticed that Miss Barker was sadly afraid lest Peggy should not
keep her distance sufficiently. She and her mistress were on very familiar
terms in their 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!”

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—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.
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.

“It is very gratifying to me,” whispered Miss Barker at the card-table to
her three opponents, whom, notwithstanding her ignorance of the game, she
was “basting” most unmercifully—“very gratifying indeed, to see how
completely Mrs Jamieson feels at home in my poor little dwelling; she
could not have paid me a greater compliment.”
Miss Barker provided me with some literature in the shape of three or
four handsomely-bound fashion-books ten or twelve years old, observing,
as she put a little table and a candle for my especial benefit, that she knew
young people liked to look at pictures. Carlo lay and snorted, and started at
his mistress’s feet. He, too, was quite at home.
The card-table was an animated scene to watch; four ladies’ heads, with
niddle-noddling caps, all nearly meeting over the middle of the table in their
eagerness to whisper quick enough and loud enough: and every now and

then came Miss Barker’s “Hush, ladies! if you please, hush! Mrs Jamieson
is asleep.”
It was very difficult to steer clear between Mrs Forrester’s deafness and
Mrs Jamieson’s sleepiness. But Miss Barker managed her arduous task
well. She repeated the whisper to Mrs Forrester, distorting her face
considerably, in order to show, by the motions of her lips, what was said;
and then she smiled kindly all round at us, and murmured to herself, “Very
gratifying, indeed; I wish my poor sister had been alive to see this day.”
Presently the door was thrown wide open; Carlo started to his feet, with a
loud snapping bark, and Mrs Jamieson awoke: or, perhaps, she had not been
asleep—as she said almost directly, the room had been so light she had been
glad to keep her eyes shut, but had been listening with great interest to all
our amusing and agreeable conversation. Peggy came in once more, red
with importance. Another tray! “Oh, gentility!” thought I, “can you endure
this last shock?” For Miss Barker had ordered (nay, I doubt not, prepared,
although she did say, “Why, Peggy, what have you brought us?” and looked
pleasantly surprised at the unexpected pleasure) all sorts of good things for
supper—scalloped oysters, potted lobsters, jelly, a dish called “little
Cupids” (which was in great favour with the Cranford ladies, although too
expensive to be given, except on solemn and state occasions—macaroons
sopped in brandy, I should have called it, if I had not known its more
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—which never ate suppers in general, but
which, like most non-supper-eaters, was particularly hungry on all special
occasions.
Miss Barker, in her former sphere, had, I daresay, been made acquainted
with the beverage they call cherry-brandy. We none of us had ever seen
such a thing, and rather shrank back when she proffered it us—“just a little,
leetle glass, ladies; after the oysters and lobsters, you know. 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—almost as
strangely as Miss Barker had done, before we were admitted by Peggy.

“It’s very strong,” said Miss Pole, as she put down her empty glass; “I do
believe there’s spirit in it.”
“Only a little drop—just necessary to make it keep,” said Miss Barker.
“You know we put brandy-pepper over our preserves to make them keep. I
often feel tipsy myself from eating damson tart.”
I question whether damson tart would have opened Mrs Jamieson’s heart
as the cherry-brandy did; but she told us of a coming event, respecting
which she had been quite silent till that moment.
“My sister-in-law, Lady Glenmire, is coming to stay with me.”
There was a chorus of “Indeed!” and then a pause. Each one rapidly
reviewed her wardrobe, as to its fitness to appear in the presence of a
baron’s 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.
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—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.

CHAPTER VIII.
“YOUR LADYSHIP”

Early the next morning—directly after twelve—Miss Pole made her
appearance at Miss Matty’s. Some very trifling piece of business was
alleged as a reason for the call; but there was evidently something behind.
At last out it came.
“By the way, you’ll think I’m strangely ignorant; but, do you really
know, I am puzzled how we ought to address Lady Glenmire. Do you say,
‘Your 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—will you kindly tell me the most
correct way of speaking to the peerage?”
Poor Miss Matty! she took off her spectacles and she put them on again
—but how Lady Arley was addressed, she could not remember.
“It is so long ago,” she said. “Dear! dear! how stupid I am! I don’t think I
ever saw her more than twice. I know we used to call Sir Peter, ‘Sir
Peter’—but he came much oftener to see us than Lady Arley did. Deborah
would have known in a minute. ‘My lady’—‘your ladyship.’ It sounds very
strange, and as if it was not natural. I never thought of it before; but, now
you have named it, I am all in a puzzle.”
It was very certain Miss Pole would obtain no wise decision from Miss
Matty, who got more bewildered every moment, and more perplexed as to
etiquettes of address.
“Well, I really think,” said Miss Pole, “I had better just go and tell Mrs
Forrester about our little difficulty. One sometimes grows nervous; and yet
one would not have Lady Glenmire think we were quite ignorant of the
etiquettes of high life in Cranford.”

“And will you just step in here, dear Miss Pole, as you come back,
please, and tell me what you decide upon? Whatever you and Mrs Forrester
fix upon, will be quite right, I’m sure. ‘Lady Arley,’ ‘Sir Peter,’” said Miss
Matty to herself, trying to recall the old forms of words.
“Who is Lady Glenmire?” asked I.
“Oh, she’s the widow of Mr Jamieson—that’s Mrs Jamieson’s late
husband, you know—widow of his eldest brother. Mrs Jamieson was a Miss
Walker, daughter of Governor Walker. ‘Your ladyship.’ My dear, if they fix
on that way of speaking, you must just let me practice a little on you first,
for I shall feel so foolish and hot saying it the first time to Lady Glenmire.”
It was really a relief to Miss Matty when Mrs Jamieson came on a very
unpolite errand. I notice that apathetic people have more quiet impertinence
than others; and Mrs Jamieson came now to 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.
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—she was of too gentle a
spirit for that; nor was she exactly conscious of disapproving of Mrs
Jamieson’s conduct; but there was something of this feeling in her mind, I
am sure, which made her pass from the subject to others in a less flurried
and more composed manner than usual. Mrs Jamieson was, indeed, the
more flurried of the two, and I could see she was glad to take her leave.
A little while afterwards Miss Pole returned, red and indignant. “Well! to
be sure! You’ve had Mrs Jamieson here, I find from Martha; and we are not
to call on Lady Glenmire. Yes! I met Mrs Jamieson, half-way between here
and Mrs Forrester’s, and she told me; she took me so by surprise, I had
nothing to say. I wish I had thought of something very sharp and sarcastic; I
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—

never sat in the House of Lords—and as poor as Job, I dare say; and she—
fifth daughter of some Mr Campbell or other. You are the daughter of a
rector, at any rate, and related to the Arleys; and Sir Peter might have been
Viscount Arley, every one says.”
Miss Matty tried to soothe Miss Pole, but in vain. That lady, usually so
kind and good-humoured, was now in a full flow of anger.
“And I went and ordered a cap this morning, to be quite ready,” said she
at last, letting out the secret which gave sting to Mrs Jamieson’s intimation.
“Mrs Jamieson shall see if it is so easy to get me to make fourth at a pool
when she has none of her fine Scotch relations with her!”
In coming out of church, the first Sunday on which Lady Glenmire
appeared in Cranford, we sedulously talked together, and turned our backs
on Mrs 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.
“Well, ma’am! is it the little lady with Mrs Jamieson, you mean? I
thought you would like more to know how young Mrs Smith was dressed;
her being a bride.” (Mrs Smith was the butcher’s wife).
Miss Pole said, “Good gracious me! as if we cared about a Mrs Smith;”
but was silent as Martha resumed her speech.
“The little lady in Mrs Jamieson’s pew had on, ma’am, rather an old
black silk, and a shepherd’s plaid cloak, ma’am, and very bright black eyes
she had, 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.”
“Hush, Martha!” said Miss Matty, “that’s not respectful.”
“Isn’t it, ma’am? I beg pardon, I’m sure; but Jem Hearn said so as well.
He said, she was just such a sharp, stirring sort of a body”—
“Lady,” said Miss Pole.
“Lady—as Mrs Deacon.”

Another Sunday passed away, and we still averted our eyes from Mrs
Jamieson and her guest, and made remarks to ourselves that we thought
were very severe—almost too much so. Miss Matty was evidently uneasy at
our sarcastic manner of speaking.
Perhaps by this time Lady Glenmire had found out that Mrs Jamieson’s
was not the gayest, liveliest house in the world; perhaps Mrs Jamieson had
found out that most of the county families were in London, and that those
who remained in the country were not so alive as they might have been to
the circumstance of Lady Glenmire being in their neighbourhood. Great
events spring out of small causes; so I will not pretend to say what induced
Mrs Jamieson to alter her 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 would always ignore
the fact of there being a back door to any house, and gave a louder rat-tat
than his mistress, Mrs Jamieson. He had three little notes, which he carried
in a large basket, in order to impress his mistress with an idea of their great
weight, though they might easily have gone into his waistcoat pocket.
Miss Matty and I quietly decided 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—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.
“So!” she said. “Ah! I see you have got your note, too. Better late than
never. I could have told my Lady Glenmire she would be glad enough of
our society before a fortnight was over.”
“Yes,” said Miss Matty, “we’re asked for Tuesday evening. And perhaps
you would just kindly bring your work across and drink tea with us that
night. It is my usual regular time for looking over the last week’s bills, and
notes, and letters, and making candle-lighters of them; but that does not
seem quite reason enough for saying I have a previous engagement at home,
though I meant to make it do. Now, if you would come, my conscience
would be quite at ease, and luckily the note is not written yet.”
I saw Miss Pole’s countenance change while Miss Matty was speaking.

“Don’t you mean to go then?” asked she.
“Oh, no!” said, Miss Matty quietly. “You don’t either, I suppose?”
“I don’t know,” replied Miss Pole. “Yes, I think I do,” said she, rather
briskly; and on seeing Miss 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.”
“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.”
“Oh, come! Miss Matty, you must go; you know our friend Mrs Jamieson
is much more phlegmatic than most people, and does not enter into the little
delicacies of feeling which you possess in so remarkable a degree.”
“I thought you possessed them, too, that day Mrs Jamieson called to tell
us not to go,” said Miss Matty innocently.
But Miss Pole, in addition to her delicacies of 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.”

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—the ladies of
Cranford always dressed with chaste elegance and propriety, as Miss Barker
once prettily expressed it.
And with three new caps, and a greater array of brooches than had ever
been seen together at one time since Cranford was a town, did Mrs
Forrester, and Miss Matty, and Miss Pole appear on that 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.
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 St James’s Chronicle, opened wide, which, in some
degree, accounted for the length of time the said newspaper was in reaching
us—equal subscribers with Mrs Jamieson, though, in right of her
honourableness, she always had the reading of it first. This very Tuesday,
the delay in forwarding the last number had been particularly aggravating;
just when both Miss Pole and Miss Matty, the former more especially, had
been wanting to see it, in order to coach up the Court news ready for the
evening’s interview with aristocracy. Miss Pole told us she had absolutely
taken time by the forelock, and been dressed by five o’clock, in order to be
ready if the St James’s Chronicle should come in at the last moment—the
very St James’s Chronicle which the powdered head was tranquilly and
composedly reading as we passed the accustomed window this evening.
“The impudence of the man!” said Miss Pole, in a low indignant whisper.
“I should like to ask him whether his mistress pays her quarter-share for his
exclusive use.”
We looked at her in admiration of the courage of her thought; for Mr
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.
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.
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—
“My dear! ten pounds would have purchased every stitch she had on—
lace and all.”
It was pleasant to suspect that a peeress could be poor, and partly
reconciled us to the fact that her husband had never sat in the House of
Lords; which, when we first heard of it, seemed a kind of swindling us out
of our prospects on false pretences; a sort of “A Lord and No Lord”
business.
We were all very silent at first. We were thinking what we could talk
about, that should be high enough to interest My Lady. There had been a
rise in the price of sugar, which, as preserving-time was near, was a piece of
intelligence to all our 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—much less knew how they were made. At last, Miss
Pole, who had always a great deal of courage and savoir faire, spoke to
Lady Glenmire, who on her part had seemed just as much puzzled to know
how to break the silence as we were.
“Has your ladyship been to Court lately?” asked she; and then gave a
little glance round at us, half timid and half triumphant, as much as to say,
“See how judiciously I have chosen a subject befitting the rank of the
stranger.”
“I never was there in my life,” said Lady Glenmire, with a broad Scotch
accent, but in a very sweet voice. And then, as if she had been too abrupt,
she added: “We very seldom went to London—only twice, in fact, during
all my married life; and before I was married my father had far too large a
family” (fifth daughter of Mr Campbell was in all our minds, I am sure) “to
take us often from our home, even to Edinburgh. Ye’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.
Mrs Jamieson, meanwhile, was absorbed in wonder why Mr Mulliner did
not bring the tea; and at length the wonder oozed out of her mouth.
“I had better ring the bell, my dear, had not I?” said Lady Glenmire
briskly.

“No—I think not—Mulliner does not like to be hurried.”
We should have liked our tea, for we dined at an earlier hour than Mrs
Jamieson. I suspect Mr Mulliner had to finish the St James’s Chronicle
before he chose to trouble himself about tea. His mistress fidgeted and
fidgeted, and kept saying, “I can’t think why Mulliner does not bring tea. I
can’t think what he can be about.” And Lady Glenmire at last grew quite
impatient, but it was a pretty kind of impatience after all; and she rang the
bell rather sharply, on receiving a half-permission from her sister-in-law to
do so. Mr Mulliner appeared in dignified surprise. “Oh!” said Mrs
Jamieson, “Lady Glenmire rang the bell; I believe it was for tea.”
In a few minutes tea was brought. Very delicate was the china, very old
the plate, very thin the bread and butter, and very small the lumps of sugar.
Sugar was evidently Mrs Jamieson’s favourite economy. I question if the
little filigree sugar-tongs, made 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.
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.

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.
As a proof of how thoroughly we had forgotten that we were in the
presence of one who might have sat down to tea with a coronet, instead of a
cap, on her head, Mrs Forrester related a curious little fact to Lady
Glenmire—an anecdote known to the circle of her intimate friends, but of
which even Mrs Jamieson was not aware. It related to some fine old lace,
the sole relic of better days, which Lady Glenmire was admiring on Mrs
Forrester’s collar.
“Yes,” said that lady, “such lace cannot be got now for either love or
money; made by the nuns abroad, they tell me. They say that they can’t
make it now even there. But perhaps they can, now they’ve passed the
Catholic Emancipation Bill. I should not wonder. But, in the meantime, I
treasure up my lace very much. I daren’t even trust the washing of it to my
maid” (the little charity school-girl I have named before, but who sounded
well as “my maid”). “I always wash it myself. And once it had a narrow
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—cleaned out! ‘You naughty cat!’ said I, and I believe I was
provoked enough to give her a slap, which did no good, but only helped the
lace down—just as one slaps a choking child on the back. I could have
cried, I was so vexed; but I determined I would not give the lace up without
a struggle for it. I hoped the lace might disagree with her, at any rate; but it
would have been too much for Job, if he had seen, as I did, that cat come in,

quite placid and purring, not a quarter of an hour after, and almost expecting
to be stroked. ‘No, pussy!’ said I, ‘if you have any conscience you ought not
to expect that!’ And then a thought struck me; and I rang the bell for my
maid, and sent her to Mr Hoggins, with my compliments, and would he be
kind enough to lend me one of his top-boots for an hour? I did not think
there was anything odd in the message; but Jenny said the young men in the
surgery laughed as if they would be ill at my wanting a top-boot. When it
came, Jenny and I put pussy in, with 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.”

We found out, in the course of the evening, that Lady Glenmire was
going to pay Mrs Jamieson a long visit, as she had given up her apartments
in Edinburgh, and had no ties to take her back there in a hurry. On the
whole, we were rather glad to hear this, for she had made a pleasant
impression upon us; and it was also very comfortable to find, from things
which dropped out in the course of conversation, that, in addition to many
other genteel qualities, she was far removed from the “vulgarity of wealth.”
“Don’t you find it very unpleasant walking?” asked Mrs Jamieson, as our
respective servants were announced. It was a pretty regular question from
Mrs Jamieson, who had her own carriage in the coach-house, and always
went out in a sedan-chair to the very shortest distances. The answers were
nearly as much a matter of course.
“Oh dear, no! it is so pleasant and still at night!” “Such a refreshment
after the excitement of a party!” “The stars are so beautiful!” This last was

from Miss Matty.
“Are you fond of astronomy?” Lady Glenmire asked.
“Not very,” replied Miss Matty, rather confused at the moment to
remember which was astronomy and which was astrology—but the answer
was true under either circumstance, for she read, and was slightly alarmed
at Francis Moore’s astrological 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.
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.”

CHAPTER IX.
SIGNOR BRUNONI

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.
Late in November—when we had returned home again, and my father
was once more in good health—I received a letter from Miss Matty; and a
very mysterious letter it was. She began many sentences without ending
them, running them 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.
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—
“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—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?”
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.
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—a way which, if she
had not looked so very genteel and prim, might have been considered
impertinent. And now, by the expressive way in which she cleared her
throat, and waited for all minor subjects (such as caps and turbans) to be
cleared off the course, we knew she had something very particular to relate,
when the due pause came—and I defy any people possessed of common
modesty to keep up a conversation long, where one among them sits up
aloft in silence, looking down upon all the things they chance to say as
trivial and contemptible compared to what they could disclose, if properly
entreated. Miss Pole began—
“As I was stepping out of Gordon’s shop to-day, I chanced to go into the
‘George’ (my Betty has a second-cousin who is chambermaid there, and I
thought Betty would like to hear how she was), and, not seeing anyone
about, I strolled up the staircase, and found myself in the passage leading to
the Assembly Room (you and I remember the Assembly Room, I am sure,
Miss Matty! and the minuets de la cour!); so I went on, not thinking of what
I was about, when, all at once, I perceived that I was in the middle of the
preparations for to-morrow night—the room being divided with great
clothes-maids, over which Crosby’s men were tacking red flannel; very
dark and odd it seemed; it quite bewildered me, and I was going on behind
the screens, in my absence of mind, when a gentleman (quite the gentleman,
I can assure you) stepped forwards and asked if I had any business he could
arrange for me. He spoke such pretty broken English, I could not help
thinking of Thaddeus of Warsaw, and the Hungarian Brothers, and Santo
Sebastiani; and while I was busy picturing his past life to myself, he had
bowed me out of the room. But wait a minute! You have not heard half my
story yet! I was going downstairs, when who should I meet but Betty’s
second-cousin. So, of course, I stopped to speak to her for Betty’s sake; and
she told me that I had really seen the conjuror—the gentleman who spoke
broken English was 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—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—you remember, Miss Matty
—and just repeating, in his pretty broken English, the inquiry if I had any
business there—I don’t mean that he put it quite so bluntly, but he seemed
very determined that I should not pass the screen—so, of course, I
explained about my glove, which, curiously enough, I found at that very
moment.”
Miss Pole, then, had seen the conjuror—the real, live conjuror! and
numerous were the questions we all asked her. “Had he a beard?” “Was he
young, or old?” “Fair, or dark?” “Did he look”—(unable to shape my
question prudently, I put it in another form)—“How did he look?” In short,
Miss Pole was the heroine of the evening, owing to her morning’s
encounter. If she was not the rose (that is to say the conjuror) she had been
near it.
Conjuration, sleight of hand, magic, witchcraft, were the subjects of the
evening. Miss Pole was slightly sceptical, and inclined to think there might
be a scientific solution found for even the proceedings of the Witch of
Endor. Mrs Forrester believed everything, from ghosts to death-watches.
Miss Matty ranged between the two—always convinced by the last speaker.
I think she was naturally more inclined to Mrs Forrester’s side, but a desire
of proving herself a worthy sister to Miss Jenkyns kept her equally balanced
—Miss Jenkyns, who would never allow a servant to call the little rolls of
tallow that formed themselves round candles “winding-sheets,” but insisted
on their being spoken of as “roley-poleys!” A sister of hers to be
superstitious! It would never do.
After tea, I was despatched downstairs into the dining-parlour for that
volume of the old Encyclopædia 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—
“Ah! I see; I comprehend perfectly. A represents the ball. Put A between
B and D—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?”
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 Encyclopædia to Miss
Pole, who accepted it thankfully, and said Betty should take it home when
she came with the lantern.
The next evening we were all in a little gentle flutter at the idea of the
gaiety before us. Miss Matty went up to dress betimes, and hurried me until
I was ready, when we found we had an hour-and-a-half to wait before the
“doors opened at seven precisely.” And we had only twenty yards to go!
However, as Miss Matty said, it would not do to get too much absorbed in
anything, and forget the time; so she thought we had better sit quietly,
without lighting the candles, till five minutes to seven. So Miss Matty
dozed, and I knitted.
At length we set off; and at the door under the carriage-way at the
“George,” we met Mrs Forrester 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”—as she called them—for the different tricks, on backs of
letters, ready to explain and to detect Signor Brunoni’s arts.
We went into the cloak-room 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, chapeau bras in hand;
the old room was dingy; the salmon-coloured paint had faded into a drab;
great pieces of plaster had chipped off from the 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.
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.
At length the eyes disappeared—the curtain quivered—one side went up
before the other, which stuck fast; it was dropped again, and, with a fresh
effort, and a vigorous pull from some unseen hand, it 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.
“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—but
perhaps he’ll come soon.” So she lulled herself into patience. Meanwhile,
Miss Matty had reconnoitred through her eye-glass, wiped it, and looked
again. Then she turned round, and said to me, in a kind, mild, sorrowful
tone—
“You see, my dear, turbans are worn.”
But we had no time for more conversation. The Grand Turk, as Miss Pole
chose to call him, arose and announced himself as Signor Brunoni.
“I don’t believe him!” exclaimed Miss Pole, in a defiant manner. He
looked at her again, with the same dignified upbraiding in his countenance.
“I don’t!” she repeated more positively than ever. “Signor Brunoni had not
got that muffy sort of thing about his chin, but looked like a close-shaved
Christian gentleman.”
Miss Pole’s energetic speeches had the good effect of wakening up Mrs
Jamieson, who opened her eyes wide, in sign of the deepest attention—a
proceeding which silenced Miss Pole and encouraged the Grand Turk to
proceed, which he did in very broken English—so broken that there was no
cohesion between the parts of his sentences; a fact which he himself
perceived at last, and so left off speaking and proceeded to action.
Now we were astonished. How he did his tricks I could not imagine; no,
not even when Miss Pole pulled out her pieces of paper and began reading
aloud—or at least in a very audible whisper—the separate “receipts” for the
most common of his tricks. If ever I saw a man frown and look enraged, I
saw the Grand Turk frown at Miss Pole; but, as she said, what could be

expected but unchristian looks from a 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 Encyclopædia and make her third finger flexible.
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”— 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—
“Will you look, my dear—you are a stranger in the town, and it won’t
give rise to unpleasant reports—will you just look round and see if the
rector is here? If he is, I think we may conclude that this wonderful man is
sanctioned by the Church, and that will be a great relief to my mind.”
I looked, and I saw the tall, thin, dry, dusty rector, sitting surrounded by
National School boys, guarded by troops of his own sex from any approach
of the many Cranford spinsters. His kind face was all agape with broad
smiles, and the boys around him were in chinks of laughing. I told Miss
Matty that the Church was smiling approval, which set her mind at ease.

I have never named Mr Hayter, the rector, because I, as a well-to-do and
happy young woman, never came in contact with him. He was an old
bachelor, but as afraid of matrimonial reports getting abroad about him as
any girl of eighteen: and he would rush into a shop or dive down an entry,
sooner than encounter any of the Cranford ladies in the street; and, as for
the Preference parties, I did not wonder at his not accepting invitations to
them. To tell the truth, I always suspected Miss Pole of having given very
vigorous chase to Mr Hayter when he first came to Cranford; and not the
less, because now she appeared to share so vividly in his dread lest her
name should ever be coupled with his. He found all his interests among the
poor and helpless; he had treated the National School boys this very night to
the 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.

CHAPTER X.
THE PANIC

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—real bonâ fide robberies; men had up before the magistrates
and committed for trial—and that seemed to make us all afraid of being
robbed; and for a long time, at Miss Matty’s, I know, we used to make a
regular expedition all round the kitchens and cellars every night, Miss
Matty leading the way, armed with the poker, I following with the hearth-
brush, and Martha carrying the shovel and 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.
Miss Pole, who affected great bravery herself, was the principal person to
collect and arrange these reports so as to make them assume their most
fearful aspect. But we discovered that she had begged one of Mr Hoggins’s
worn-out hats to hang up in her lobby, and we (at least I) had doubts as to
whether she really would enjoy the little adventure of having her house
broken into, as she protested she should. Miss Matty made no secret of
being an arrant coward, but she went regularly through her housekeeper’s
duty of inspection—only the hour for this became earlier and earlier, till at

last we went the rounds at half-past six, and Miss Matty adjourned to bed
soon after seven, “in order to get the night over the sooner.”
Cranford had so long piqued itself on being an honest and moral town
that it had grown to fancy itself too genteel and well-bred to be otherwise,
and felt the stain upon its character at this time doubly. But we comforted
ourselves with the assurance which we gave to each other that the robberies
could never have been committed by any Cranford person; it must have
been a stranger or strangers who brought this disgrace upon the town, and
occasioned as many precautions as if we were living among the Red Indians
or the French.
This last comparison of our nightly state of defence and fortification was
made by Mrs Forrester, whose father had served under General Burgoyne in
the American war, and whose husband had fought the French in Spain. She
indeed inclined to the idea that, in some way, the French were connected
with the small thefts, which were ascertained facts, and the burglaries and
highway robberies, which were rumours. She had been deeply impressed
with the idea of French spies at some time in her life; and the notion could
never be fairly eradicated, but sprang up again from time to time. And now
her theory was this:—The Cranford people respected themselves too much,
and were too grateful to the aristocracy who were so kind as to live near the
town, ever to disgrace their bringing up by being dishonest or immoral;
therefore, we must believe that the robbers were strangers—if strangers,
why not foreigners?—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 Staël with
a turban on, and another of Mr Denon in just such a dress as that in which
the conjuror had made his appearance, showing clearly that the French, as
well as the Turks, wore turbans. There could be no doubt Signor Brunoni
was a Frenchman—a French spy come to discover the weak and
undefended places of England, and doubtless he had his accomplices. For
her part, she, Mrs Forrester, had always had her own opinion of Miss Pole’s
adventure at the “George Inn”—seeing two men where only one was
believed to be. French people had ways and means which, she was thankful
to say, the English knew nothing about; and she had never felt quite easy in
her mind about going to see that conjuror—it 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.
Really I do not know how much was true or false in the reports which
flew about like wildfire just at this time; but it seemed to me then that there
was every reason to believe that at Mardon (a small town about eight miles
from Cranford) houses and shops were entered by holes made in the walls,
the bricks being silently carried away in the dead of the night, and all done
so quietly that no sound was heard either in or out of the house. Miss Matty
gave it up in despair when she heard of this. “What was the use,” said she,
“of locks and bolts, and bells to the windows, and going round the house
every night? That last trick was fit for a conjuror. Now she did believe that
Signor Brunoni was at the bottom of it.”
One afternoon, about five o’clock, we were startled by a hasty knock at
the door. Miss Matty bade me run and tell Martha on no account to open the
door till she (Miss Matty) had reconnoitred through the window; and she
armed herself with a footstool to drop down on the head of the visitor, in
case he should show a face covered with black crape, as he looked up in
answer to her inquiry of who was there. But it was nobody but Miss Pole
and Betty. The former came upstairs, carrying a little hand-basket, and she
was evidently in a state of great agitation.
“Take care of that!” said she to me, as I 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!”
“But,” said Miss Matty, “what has alarmed you so much? Have you seen
any men lurking about the house?”
“Oh, yes!” answered Miss Pole. “Two very bad-looking men have gone
three times past the house, very slowly; and an Irish beggar-woman came
not half-an-hour ago, and all but forced herself in past Betty, saying her
children were starving, and she must speak to the mistress. You see, she said
‘mistress,’ though there was a hat hanging up in the hall, and it would have
been more natural to have said ‘master.’ But Betty shut the door in her face,
and came up to me, and we got the spoons together, and sat in the parlour-

window watching till we saw Thomas Jones going from his work, when we
called to him and asked him to take care of us into the town.”
We might have triumphed over Miss Pole, who had professed such
bravery until she was frightened; but we were too glad to perceive that she
shared in the weaknesses of humanity to exult over her; and I gave up my
room to her very willingly, and shared Miss Matty’s bed for the night. But
before we retired, the two ladies rummaged up, out of the recesses of their
memory, such horrid stories of robbery and murder that I quite quaked in
my shoes. Miss Pole was evidently anxious to prove that such terrible
events had occurred within her experience that she was justified in her
sudden panic; and Miss Matty did not like to be outdone, and capped every
story with one yet more horrible, till it reminded me oddly enough, of an
old story I had read somewhere, of a nightingale and a musician, who strove
one against the other which could produce the most admirable music, till
poor Philomel dropped down dead.
One of the stories that haunted me for a long time afterwards was of a
girl who was left in charge of a great house in Cumberland on some
particular fair-day, when the other servants all went off to the gaieties. The
family were away in London, and a pedlar came by, and asked to leave his
large and heavy pack in the kitchen, saying he would call 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.
We parted for the night with an awe-stricken wonder as to what we
should hear of in the morning—and, on my part, with a vehement desire for
the night to be over and gone: I was so afraid lest the robbers should have
seen, from some dark lurking-place, that Miss Pole had carried off her plate,
and thus have a double motive for attacking our house.

But until Lady Glenmire came to call next day we heard of nothing
unusual. The kitchen 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.
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.
When Miss Pole heard of this, she nodded her head in great satisfaction.
She had been sure we should hear of something happening in Cranford that
night; and we had heard. It was clear enough they had first proposed to
attack her house; but when they saw that she and Betty were on their guard,
and had carried off the plate, they had changed their tactics and gone to Mrs
Jamieson’s, and no one knew what might have happened if Carlo had not
barked, like a good dog as he was!
Poor Carlo! his barking days were nearly over. Whether the gang who
infested the neighbourhood were afraid of him, or whether they were
revengeful enough, for the way in which he had baffled them on the night in
question, to poison him; or whether, as some among the more 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.

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!
We whispered these fancies among ourselves in the evenings; but in the
mornings our courage came back with the daylight, and in a week’s time we
had got over the shock of Carlo’s death; all but Mrs Jamieson. She, poor
thing, felt it as she had felt no event since her husband’s death; indeed, Miss
Pole said, that as the Honourable Mr Jamieson drank a good deal, and
occasioned her much uneasiness, it was possible that Carlo’s death might be
the greater affliction. But there was always a tinge of cynicism in Miss
Pole’s remarks. However, one thing was clear and certain—it was necessary
for Mrs Jamieson to have some change of scene; and Mr Mulliner was very
impressive on this point, shaking his head whenever we inquired after his
mistress, and speaking of her loss of appetite and bad nights very
ominously; and with justice too, for if she had two characteristics in her
natural state of health they were a facility of eating and sleeping. If she
could neither eat nor sleep, she must be indeed out of spirits and out of
health.
Lady Glenmire (who had evidently taken very kindly to Cranford) did
not like the idea of Mrs Jamieson’s going to Cheltenham, and more than
once insinuated pretty plainly that it was Mr 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.

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—he grew to be gigantic in height before we had done with him; he
of course had black hair—and by-and-by it hung in elf-locks over his
forehead and down his back. The other was short and broad—and a hump
sprouted out on his shoulder before we heard the last of him; he had red hair
—which deepened into carroty; and she was almost sure he had a cast in the
eye—a decided squint. As for the woman, her eyes glared, and she was
masculine-looking—a perfect virago; most probably a man dressed in
woman’s clothes; afterwards, we heard of a beard on her chin, and a manly
voice and a stride.
If Miss Pole was delighted to recount the events of that afternoon to all
inquirers, others were not so proud of their adventures in the robbery line.
Mr Hoggins, the surgeon, had been attacked at his own door by two
ruffians, who were concealed in the shadow of the porch, and so effectually
silenced him that he was robbed in the interval between ringing his bell and
the servant’s answering it. Miss Pole was sure it would turn out that this
robbery had been committed by “her men,” and went the very day she 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.
“Well!” said Miss Pole, sitting down with the decision of a person who
has made up her mind as to the nature of life and the world (and such
people never tread lightly, or seat themselves without a bump), “well, Miss
Matty! men will be men. Every mother’s son of them wishes to be
considered Samson and Solomon rolled into one—too strong ever to be
beaten or discomfited—too wise ever to be outwitted. 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.”

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!”
“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.”
“Not robbed!” exclaimed the chorus.
“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—but he
need not have tried to impose upon me, by saying I must have heard an
exaggerated account of some petty theft of a neck of mutton, which, it
seems, was stolen out of the safe in his yard last week; he had the
impertinence to add, he believed that that was taken by the cat. I have no
doubt, if I could get at the bottom of it, it was that Irishman dressed up in
woman’s clothes, who came spying about my house, with the story about
the starving children.”
After we had duly condemned the want of candour which Mr Hoggins
had evinced, and abused men in general, taking him for the representative
and type, we got round to the subject about which we had been talking
when Miss Pole came in; namely, how far, in the present disturbed state of
the country, we could venture to accept an invitation which Miss Matty had
just received from Mrs Forrester, to come as usual and keep the anniversary
of her wedding-day by 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.
But when the evening came, Miss Matty (for it was she who was voted
into the chair, as she had a cold), before being shut down in the sedan, like
jack-in-a-box, implored the chairmen, whatever might befall, not to run
away and leave her fastened up there, to be murdered; and even after they
had promised, I saw her tighten her features into the stern determination of
a martyr, and she gave me a melancholy and ominous shake of the head
through the glass. However, we got there safely, only rather out of breath,
for it was who could trot hardest through Darkness Lane, and I am afraid
poor Miss Matty was sadly jolted.
Mrs Forrester had made extra preparations, in acknowledgment of our
exertion in coming to see her through such dangers. The usual forms of
genteel ignorance as to what her servants might send up were all gone
through; and harmony and Preference seemed likely to be the order of the
evening, but for an interesting conversation that began I don’t know how,
but which had relation, of course, to the robbers who infested the
neighbourhood of Cranford.
Having braved the dangers of Darkness Lane, and thus having a little
stock of reputation for courage to fall back upon; and also, I daresay,
desirous of proving ourselves superior to men (videlicet 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
—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—perhaps I
had noticed that she had told Martha to buy her a penny ball, such as
children play with—and now she rolled this ball under the bed every night:
if it came out on the other side, well and good; if not she always took care
to have her hand on the bell-rope, and meant to call out John and Harry, just
as if she expected men-servants to answer her ring.
We all applauded this ingenious contrivance, and Miss Matty sank back
into satisfied silence, with a look at Mrs Forrester as if to ask for her private
weakness.
Mrs Forrester looked askance at Miss Pole, and tried to change the
subject a little by telling us that she had borrowed a boy from one of the
neighbouring cottages and promised his parents a hundredweight of coals at
Christmas, and his supper every evening, for the loan of him at nights. She
had instructed him in his possible duties when he first came; and, finding
him sensible, she had given him the Major’s sword (the Major was her late
husband), and desired him to put it very carefully behind his pillow at night,
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.

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—
“Ghosts!”
She looked at Miss Pole, as much as to say, she had declared it, and
would stand by it. Such a look was a challenge in itself. Miss Pole came
down upon her with indigestion, spectral illusions, optical delusions, and a
great deal out of Dr Ferrier and Dr Hibbert besides. Miss Matty had rather a
leaning to ghosts, as I have mentioned before, and what little she did say
was all on Mrs Forrester’s side, who, emboldened by sympathy, protested
that ghosts were a part of her religion; that surely she, the widow of a major
in the army, knew what to be frightened at, and what not; in short, I never

saw Mrs Forrester so warm either before or since, for she was a gentle,
meek, enduring old lady in most things. Not all the elder-wine that ever was
mulled could this night wash out the remembrance of this difference
between Miss Pole and her hostess. Indeed, when the elder-wine was
brought in, it gave rise to a new burst of 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.
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.
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—
“Could not you—could not you take Miss Matty round by Headingley
Causeway?—the pavement in Darkness Lane jolts so, and she is not very
strong.”
A smothered voice was heard from the inside of the chair—
“Oh! pray go on! What is the matter? What is the matter? I will give you
sixpence more to go on very fast; pray don’t stop here.”
“And I’ll give you a shilling,” said Miss Pole, with tremulous dignity, “if
you’ll go by Headingley Causeway.”
The two men grunted acquiescence and took up the chair, and went along
the causeway, which 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.

CHAPTER XI.
SAMUEL BROWN

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.
In the afternoon Miss Pole called on Miss Matty to tell her of the
adventure—the real adventure they had met with on their morning’s walk.
They had been perplexed about the exact path which they were to take
across the fields in order to find the knitting old woman, and had stopped to
inquire at a little wayside public-house, standing on the high road to
London, about three miles from Cranford. The good woman had asked them
to sit down and rest themselves while she fetched her husband, who could
direct them better than she could; and, while they were sitting in the sanded
parlour, a little girl came in. They thought that she belonged to the landlady,
and began some trifling conversation with her; but, on Mrs Roberts’s return,
she told them that the little thing was the only child of a couple who were
staying in the house. And then she began a long story, out of which Lady
Glenmire and Miss Pole could only gather one or two decided facts, which
were that, about six weeks ago, a light spring-cart had broken down just
before their door, in which there were two men, one woman, and this child.
One of the men was seriously hurt—no bones broken, only “shaken,” the
landlady called it; but he had probably sustained some severe internal

injury, for he had languished in their house ever since, attended by his wife,
the mother of this little girl. Miss Pole had asked what he was, what he
looked like. And Mrs Roberts had made answer that he was not like a
gentleman, nor yet like a common person; if it had not been that he and his
wife were such decent, quiet people, she could almost have thought he was
a mountebank, or something of that kind, for they had a great box in the
cart, full of she did not know what. She had helped to unpack it, and take
out their linen and clothes, when the other man—his twin-brother, she
believed he was—had gone off with the horse and cart.
Miss Pole had begun to have her suspicions at this point, and expressed
her idea that it was rather strange that the box and cart and horse and all
should have disappeared; but good Mrs Roberts seemed to have become
quite indignant at Miss Pole’s implied 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—“Sam,” she called him—but to
the last we preferred calling him “the Signor”; it sounded so much better.
The end of their conversation with the Signora Brunoni was that it was
agreed that he should be placed under medical advice, and for any expense
incurred in procuring this Lady Glenmire promised to hold herself
responsible, and had accordingly gone to Mr Hoggins to beg him to ride
over to the “Rising Sun” that very afternoon, and examine into the 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.

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—or rather, I should say, as a gentleman—we could only
shake our heads over his name and himself, and wished that he had read
Lord Chesterfield’s Letters in the days when his manners were susceptible
of improvement. Nevertheless, we all regarded his dictum in the signor’s
case as infallible, and when he said that with care and attention he might
rally, we had no more fear for him.
But, although we had no more fear, everybody did as much as if there
was great cause for anxiety—as indeed there was until Mr Hoggins took
charge of 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—

might choose to do with the receipt when it came into her possession—
whether to make it public, or to hand it down as an heirloom—she did not
know, nor would she dictate. And a mould of this admirable, digestible,
unique bread-jelly was sent by Mrs Forrester to our poor sick conjuror. Who
says that the aristocracy are proud? Here was a lady by birth a Tyrrell, and
descended from the great Sir Walter that shot King Rufus, and in whose
veins ran the blood of him who murdered the little princes in the Tower,
going every day to see what dainty dishes she could prepare for Samuel
Brown, a mountebank! But, indeed, it was wonderful to see what kind
feelings were called out by this poor man’s coming amongst us. And also
wonderful to see how the great Cranford panic, which had been occasioned
by his first coming in his Turkish dress, melted away into thin air on his
second coming—pale and feeble, and with his heavy, filmy eyes, that only
brightened a very little when they fell upon the countenance of his faithful
wife, or their pale and sorrowful little girl.
Somehow we all forgot to be afraid. I daresay it was that finding out that
he, who had first excited our love of the marvellous by his unprecedented
arts, had not sufficient 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.
I found Miss Matty covering her penny ball—the ball that she used to roll
under her bed—with gay-coloured worsted in rainbow stripes.
“My dear,” said she, “my heart is sad for that little careworn child.
Although her father is a conjuror, she looks as if she had never had a good
game of play in her life. I used to make very pretty balls in this way when I
was a girl, and I thought I would 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.”

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”—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.
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.
“Not to any particular person, my dear,” said she, hastily checking herself
up, as if she were afraid of having admitted too much; “only the old story,
you know, of ladies always saying, ‘When I marry,’ and gentlemen, ‘If 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—
“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—I hope he would not take it too
much to heart, but I could not take him—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—Well, it’s no matter what I thought. God ordains it all, and I am very
happy, my dear. No one has such kind friends as I,” continued she, taking
my hand and holding it in hers.
If I had never known of Mr Holbrook, I could have said something in this
pause, but as I had, I could not think of anything that would come in
naturally, and so we both kept silence for a little time.
“My father once made us,” she began, “keep a diary, in two columns; on
one side we were to put down in the morning what we thought would be the
course and events of the coming day, and at night we were to put down on
the other side what really had happened. It would be to some people rather a
sad way of telling their lives,” (a tear dropped upon my hand at these
words)—“I don’t mean that mine has been sad, only so very different to
what I expected. I remember, one winter’s evening, sitting over our
bedroom fire with Deborah—I remember it as if it were yesterday—and we
were planning our future lives, both of us were planning, though only she
talked about it. She said she should like to marry an 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—the shyest babies would stretch out their little arms to
come to me; when I was a girl, I was half my leisure time nursing in the
neighbouring cottages; but I don’t know how it was, when I grew sad and
grave—which I did a year or two after this time—the little things drew back
from me, and I am afraid I lost the knack, though I am just as fond of
children as ever, and have a strange yearning at my heart whenever I see a
mother with her baby in her arms. Nay, my dear” (and by a sudden blaze
which sprang up from a fall of the unstirred coals, I saw that her eyes were
full of tears—gazing intently on some vision of what might have been), “do
you know I dream sometimes that I have a little child—always the same—a
little girl of about two years old; she never grows older, though I have
dreamt about her for many years. I don’t think I ever dream of any words or
sound she makes; she is very noiseless and still, but she comes to me when
she is very sorry or very glad, and I have wakened with the clasp of her dear
little arms round my neck. Only last night—perhaps because I had gone to
sleep thinking of this ball for Phœbe—my little darling came in my dream,
and put up her mouth to be kissed, just as I have seen real babies do to real
mothers before going to bed. But all this is nonsense, dear! only don’t be
frightened by Miss Pole from being married. I can fancy it may be a very
happy state, and a little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly—
better than always doubting and doubting and seeing difficulties and
disagreeables in everything.”

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.
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.”
“Have you been in India?” said I, rather astonished.
“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—with a kind of wild look in them, as if seeking for what they
never more might find. “Yes! Six children died off, like little buds nipped
untimely, in that cruel India. I thought, as each died, I never could—I never
would—love a child again; and when the next came, it had not only its own
love, but the deeper love that came from the thoughts of its little dead
brothers and sisters. And when 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—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—along by the river’s side
(but I had been brought up near the Avon in Warwickshire, so that flowing
noise sounded like home)—from station to station, from Indian village to
village, I went along, carrying my child. I had seen one of the officer’s
ladies with a little picture, ma’am—done by a Catholic foreigner, ma’am—
of the Virgin and the little Saviour, ma’am. She had him on her arm, and her
form was softly curled round him, and their cheeks touched. Well, when I

went to bid good-bye to this lady, for whom I had washed, she cried sadly;
for she, too, had lost her children, but she had not another to save, like me;
and I was bold enough to ask her would she give me that print. And she
cried the more, and said her children were with that little blessed Jesus; and
gave it me, and told me 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—I have
got some of the flowers dried. Then, the next morning, I was so tired; and
they wanted me to stay with them—I could tell that—and tried to frighten
me from going into the deep woods, which, indeed, looked very strange and
dark; but it seemed to me as if Death was following me to take my baby
away from me; and as if I must go on, and on—and I thought how God had
cared for mothers ever since the world was made, and would care for me; so
I bade them good-bye, and set off afresh. And once when my baby was ill,
and both she and I needed rest, He led me to a place where I found a kind
Englishman lived, right in the midst of the natives.”
“And you reached Calcutta safely at last?”
“Yes, safely! Oh! when I knew I had only two days’ journey more before
me, I could not help it, ma’am—it might be idolatry, I cannot tell—but I
was near one of the native temples, and I went 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—as his man, you know, not as another conjuror,
though Thomas has set it up now on his own hook. But it has been a great
help to us that likeness between the twins, and made a good many tricks go
off well that they made up together. And Thomas is a good brother, only he

has not the fine carriage of my husband, so that I can’t think how he can be
taken for Signor Brunoni himself, as he says he is.”
“Poor little Phœbe!” said I, my thoughts going back to the baby she
carried all those hundred miles.
“Ah! you may say so! I never thought I should have reared her, though,
when she fell ill at Chunderabaddad; but that good, kind Aga Jenkyns took
us in, which I believe was the very saving of her.”
“Jenkyns!” said I.
“Yes, Jenkyns. I shall think all people of that name are kind; for here is
that nice old lady who comes every day to take Phœbe a walk!”
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.

CHAPTER XII.
ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED

Was the “poor Peter” of Cranford the Aga Jenkyns of Chunderabaddad,
or was he not? As somebody says, that was the question.
In my own home, whenever people had nothing else to do, they blamed
me for want of discretion. Indiscretion was my bug-bear fault. Everybody
has a bug-bear fault, a sort of standing characteristic—a pièce de résistance
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.
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)—I asked Miss Pole what
was the very last thing they had ever heard about him; and then she named
the absurd report to which I have alluded, about his having been elected
Great Lama of Thibet; and this was a signal for each lady to go off on her

separate idea. Mrs Forrester’s start was made on the veiled prophet in Lalla
Rookh—whether I thought he was meant for the Great Lama, though Peter
was not so ugly, indeed rather handsome, if he had not been freckled. I was
thankful to see her double upon Peter; but, in a moment, the delusive lady
was off upon Rowland’s Kalydor, and the merits of cosmetics and hair oils
in general, and holding forth so fluently that I turned to listen to Miss Pole,
who (through the llamas, the beasts of burden) had got to Peruvian bonds,
and the share market, and her poor opinion of 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—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.
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.
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—although she did not
like to disturb her friends by telling them her foreknowledge—even Miss
Pole herself was breathless with astonishment when she came to tell us of
the astounding piece of news. But I must recover myself; the contemplation
of it, even at this distance of time, has taken away my breath and my
grammar, and unless I subdue my emotion, my spelling will go too.
We were sitting—Miss Matty and I—much as usual, she in the blue
chintz easy-chair, with her back to the light, and her knitting in her hand, I
reading aloud the St James’s Chronicle. A few minutes more, and we should
have gone to make the little alterations in dress usual before calling-time
(twelve o’clock) in Cranford. I remember the scene and the date well. We
had been talking of the signor’s rapid recovery since the warmer weather
had set in, and praising Mr Hoggins’s skill, and lamenting his want of
refinement and manner (it seems a curious coincidence that this should have
been our subject, but so it was), when a knock was heard—a caller’s knock
—three distinct taps—and we were flying (that is to say, Miss Matty could
not walk very fast, having had a touch of rheumatism) to our rooms, to
change cap and collars, when Miss Pole arrested us by calling out, as she
came up the stairs, “Don’t go—I can’t wait—it is not twelve, I know—but
never mind your dress—I must speak to you.” We did our best to look as if
it was not we who had made the hurried movement, the sound of which she
had heard; for, of course, we did not like to have it supposed that we had
any old clothes that it was convenient to wear out in the “sanctuary of
home,” as Miss Jenkyns once prettily called the back parlour, where she
was tying up preserves. So we threw our gentility with double force into our
manners, and very genteel we were for two minutes while Miss Pole
recovered breath, and excited our curiosity strongly by lifting up her hands
in amazement, and bringing them down in silence, as if what she had to say
was too big for words, and could only be expressed by pantomime.
“What do you think, Miss Matty? What do you think? Lady Glenmire is
to marry—is to be married, I mean—Lady Glenmire—Mr Hoggins—Mr
Hoggins is going to marry Lady Glenmire!”
“Marry!” said we. “Marry! Madness!”

“Marry!” said Miss Pole, with the decision that belonged to her character.
“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!”
“But,” said Miss Matty, sighing as one recovering from a blow, “perhaps
it is not true. Perhaps we are doing her injustice.”
“No,” said Miss Pole. “I have taken care to ascertain that. I went straight
to Mrs Fitz-Adam, to borrow a cookery-book which I knew she had; and I
introduced my congratulations à propos 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.
“Marry!” said Miss Matty once again. “Well! I never thought of it. Two
people that we know going to be married. It’s coming very near!”
“So near that my heart stopped beating when I heard of it, while you
might have counted twelve,” said Miss Pole.
“One does not know whose turn may come next. Here, in Cranford, poor
Lady Glenmire might have thought herself safe,” said Miss Matty, with a
gentle pity in her tones.
“Bah!” said Miss Pole, with a toss of her head. “Don’t you remember
poor dear Captain Brown’s song ‘Tibbie Fowler,’ and the line—
‘Set her on the Tintock tap,
The wind will blaw a man till her.’”

“That was because ‘Tibbie Fowler’ was rich, I think.”
“Well! there was a kind of attraction about Lady Glenmire that I, for one,
should be ashamed to have.”
I put in my wonder. “But how can she have fancied Mr Hoggins? I am
not surprised that Mr Hoggins has liked her.”
“Oh! I don’t know. Mr Hoggins is rich, and very pleasant-looking,” said
Miss Matty, “and very good-tempered and kind-hearted.”
“She has married for an establishment, that’s it. I suppose she takes the
surgery with it,” said Miss Pole, with a little dry laugh at her own joke. But,
like many people who think they have made a severe and sarcastic speech,
which yet is clever of its kind, she began to relax in her grimness from the
moment when she made this allusion to the surgery; and we turned to
speculate on the way in which Mrs Jamieson would receive the news. The
person whom she had left in charge of her house to keep off followers from
her maids to set up a follower of her own! And that follower a man whom
Mrs Jamieson had tabooed as vulgar, and inadmissible to Cranford society,
not merely on account of his name, but because of his voice, his
complexion, his boots, smelling of the stable, and himself, smelling of
drugs. Had he ever been to see Lady Glenmire at Mrs Jamieson’s? Chloride
of lime would not purify the house in its owner’s 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
mésalliance, 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 IT would take
place? Where? How much a year Mr Hoggins had? Whether she would
drop her title? And how Martha and the other correct servants in Cranford
would ever be brought to announce a 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.
Mrs Forrester surprised us in our darned caps and patched collars; and we
forgot all about them in our eagerness to see how she would bear the
information, which we honourably left to Miss Pole, to impart, although, if
we had been inclined to take unfair advantage, we might have rushed in
ourselves, for she had a most out-of-place fit of coughing for five minutes
after Mrs Forrester entered the room. I shall never forget the imploring
expression of her eyes, as she looked at us over her pocket-handkerchief.
They said, as plain as words could speak, “Don’t let Nature deprive me of
the treasure which is mine, although for a time I can make no use of it.”
And we did not.
Mrs Forrester’s surprise was equal to ours; and her sense of injury rather
greater, because she had to feel for her Order, and saw more fully than we
could do how such conduct brought stains on the aristocracy.
When she and Miss Pole left us we endeavoured to subside into
calmness; but Miss Matty was really 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.
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—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.
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—facts which certainly existed, but
the less said about the better. This restraint upon our tongues—for you see if
we did not speak about it to any of the parties concerned, how could we get
answers to the questions that we longed to ask?—was beginning to be
irksome, and our idea of the dignity of silence was paling before our

curiosity, when another direction was given to our thoughts, by an
announcement on the part of the principal shopkeeper of Cranford, who
ranged the trades from grocer and cheesemonger to man-milliner, as
occasion required, that the spring fashions were arrived, and would be
exhibited on the following Tuesday at his rooms in High Street. Now Miss
Matty had been only waiting for this before buying herself a new silk gown.
I had offered, it is true, to send to Drumble for patterns, but she had rejected
my proposal, gently implying that she had not forgotten her disappointment
about the sea-green turban. I was thankful that I was on the spot now, to
counteract the dazzling fascination of any yellow or scarlet silk.
I must say a word or two here about myself. I have spoken of my father’s
old friendship for the Jenkyns family; indeed, I am not sure if there was not
some distant relationship. He had willingly allowed me to 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.

CHAPTER XIII.
STOPPED PAYMENT

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—
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—what they were
doing—what school they went to; upbraiding him if another was likely to
make its appearance, but sending even the little babies the shilling and the
mince-pie which was her gift to all the children, with half-a-crown in

addition for both father and mother. The post was not half of so much
consequence to dear Miss Matty; but not for the world would she have
diminished Thomas’s welcome and his dole, though I could see that she felt
rather shy over the ceremony, which had been regarded by Miss Jenkyns as
a glorious 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.

I have wandered a long way from the two letters that awaited us on the
breakfast-table that Tuesday morning. Mine was from my father. Miss

Matty’s was printed. My father’s was just a man’s letter; I mean it was very
dull, and gave no information beyond that he was well, that they had had a
good deal of rain, that trade was very stagnant, and there were many
disagreeable rumours afloat. He then asked me if I knew whether Miss
Matty still retained her shares in the Town and County Bank, as there were
very unpleasant reports about it; though nothing more than he had always
foreseen, and had prophesied to Miss Jenkyns years ago, when she would
invest their little property in it—the only unwise step that clever woman
had ever taken, to his knowledge (the only time she ever acted against his
advice, I knew). 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.
“Who is your letter from, my dear? Mine is a very civil invitation, signed
‘Edwin Wilson,’ asking me to attend an important meeting of the
shareholders of the Town and County Bank, to be held in Drumble, on
Thursday the twenty-first. I am sure, it is very attentive of them to
remember me.”
I did not like to hear of this “important meeting,” for, though I did not
know much about business, I feared it confirmed what my father said:
however, I thought, ill news always came fast enough, so I resolved to say
nothing about my alarm, and merely told her that my father was well, and
sent his kind regards to her. She kept turning over and admiring her letter.
At last she spoke—
“I remember their sending one to Deborah just like this; but that I did not
wonder at, for everybody knew she was so clear-headed. I am afraid I could
not help them much; indeed, if they came to accounts, I should be quite in
the way, for I never could do sums in my head. Deborah, I know, rather
wished to go, and went so far as to order a new bonnet for the occasion: but
when the time came she had a bad cold; so they sent her a very polite
account of what they had done. Chosen a director, I think it was. Do you
think they want me to help them to choose a director? I am sure I should
choose your father at once!”
“My father has no shares in the bank,” said I.
“Oh, no! I remember. He objected very much to Deborah’s buying any, I
believe. But she was quite the woman of business, and always judged for
herself; and here, you see, they have paid eight per cent. all these years.”

It was a very uncomfortable subject to me, with my half-knowledge; so I
thought I would change the conversation, and I asked at what time she
thought we had better go and see the fashions. “Well, my dear,” 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—and then we could go up and
examine the things at our leisure, and see exactly how my new silk gown
must be made; and then, after twelve, we could go with our minds
disengaged, and free from thoughts of dress.”
We began to talk of Miss Matty’s new silk gown. I discovered that it
would be really the first time in her life that she had had to choose anything
of 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.
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.
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.
“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—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?”
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.
“Town and County Bank! I am not sure, sir, but I believe we have
received a warning against notes issued by this bank only this morning. I
will just step and ask Mr Johnson, sir; but I’m afraid I must trouble you for
payment in cash, or in a note of a different bank.”
I never saw a man’s countenance fall so suddenly into dismay and
bewilderment. It was almost piteous to see the rapid change.
“Dang it!” said he, striking his fist down on the 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.”
Miss Matty had forgotten her silk gown in her interest for the man. I
don’t think she had caught the name of the bank, and in my nervous
cowardice I was anxious that she should not; and so I began admiring the
yellow-spotted lilac gown that I had been utterly condemning only a minute
before. But it was of no use.
“What bank was it? I mean, what bank did your note belong to?”
“Town and County Bank.”
“Let me see it,” said she quietly to the shopman, gently taking it out of
his hand, as he brought it back to return it to the farmer.
Mr Johnson was very sorry, but, from information he had received, the
notes issued by that bank were little better than waste paper.
“I don’t understand it,” said Miss Matty to me in a low voice. “That is
our bank, is it not?—the Town and County Bank?”
“Yes,” said I. “This lilac silk will just match the ribbons in your new cap,
I believe,” I continued, holding up the folds so as to catch the light, and
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.
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—

“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?”
“Oh, no, ma’am. It is a true note of its kind; but you see, ma’am, it is a
joint-stock bank, and there are reports out that it is likely to break. Mr
Johnson is only doing his duty, ma’am, as I am sure Mr Dobson knows.”
But Mr Dobson could not respond to the appealing bow by any
answering smile. He was turning the note absently over in his fingers,
looking gloomily enough at the parcel containing the lately-chosen shawl.
“It’s hard upon a poor man,” said he, “as earns every farthing with the
sweat of his brow. However, there’s no help for it. You must take back your
shawl, my man; Lizzle must go on with her cloak for a while. And yon figs
for the little ones—I promised them to ’em—I’ll take them; but the ’bacco,
and the other things”—
“I will give you five sovereigns for your note, my good man,” said Miss
Matty. “I think there is some great mistake about it, for I am one of the
shareholders, and I’m sure they would have told me if things had not been
going on right.”
The shopman whispered a word or two across the table to Miss Matty.
She looked at him with a dubious air.
“Perhaps so,” said she. “But I don’t pretend to understand business; I
only know that if it is going to fail, and if honest people are to lose their
money because they have taken our notes—I can’t explain myself,” said
she, suddenly becoming aware that she had got into a long sentence with
four people for audience; “only I would rather exchange my gold for the
note, if you please,” turning to the farmer, “and then you can take your wife
the shawl. It is only going without my gown a few days longer,” she
continued, speaking to me. “Then, I have no doubt, everything will be
cleared up.”
“But if it is cleared up the wrong way?” said I.
“Why, then it will only have been common honesty in me, as a
shareholder, to have given this good man the money. I am quite clear about
it in my own mind; but, you know, I can never speak quite as
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.”

The man looked at her with silent gratitude—too awkward to put his
thanks into words; but he hung back for a minute or two, fumbling with his
note.
“I’m loth to make another one lose instead of me, if it is a loss; but, you
see, five pounds is a deal of money to a man with a family; and, as you say,
ten to one in a day or two the note will be as good as gold again.”
“No hope of that, my friend,” said the shopman.
“The more reason why I should take it,” said Miss Matty quietly. She
pushed her sovereigns towards the man, who slowly laid his note down in
exchange. “Thank you. I will wait a day or two before I purchase any of
these silks; perhaps you will then have a greater choice. My dear, will you
come upstairs?”

We inspected the fashions with as minute and curious an interest as if the
gown to be made after them had been bought. I could not see that the little
event in the shop below had in the least damped Miss Matty’s curiosity as
to the make of sleeves or the sit of skirts. She once or twice exchanged
congratulations with me on our private and leisurely view of the bonnets
and 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.
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.
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—my own dear Miss Matty
—without a shade of reproach in her voice—
“My dear, I never feel as if my mind was what people call very strong;
and it’s often hard enough work for me to settle what I ought to do with the
case right before me. I was very thankful to—I was very thankful, that I
saw my duty this morning, with the poor man standing by me; but it’s rather
a strain upon me to keep thinking and thinking what I should do if such and
such a thing happened; and, I believe, I had rather wait and see what really
does come; and I don’t doubt I shall be helped then if I don’t fidget myself,
and get too anxious beforehand. You know, love, I’m not like Deborah. If
Deborah had lived, I’ve no doubt she would have seen after them, before
they had got themselves into this state.”
We had neither of us much appetite for dinner, though we tried to talk
cheerfully about indifferent things. When we returned into the drawing-
room, Miss Matty unlocked her desk and began to look over her account-
books. I was so penitent for what I had said in the morning, that I did not
choose to take upon myself the presumption to suppose that I could assist
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—not wicked—but, oh! I am so glad poor
Deborah is spared this. She could not have borne to come down in the
world—she had such a noble, lofty spirit.”
This was all she said about the sister who had 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.

However, we took to our work after tea with a kind of forced
cheerfulness (which soon became real as far as it went), talking of that
never-ending wonder, Lady Glenmire’s engagement. Miss Matty was
almost coming round to think it a good thing.
“I don’t mean to deny that men are troublesome in a house. I don’t judge
from my own experience, for my father was neatness itself, and wiped his
shoes on coming in as carefully as any woman; but still a man has a sort of
knowledge of what should be done in 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.”
She fell off into a soft reverie about Mr Holbrook, and I did not interrupt
her, I was so busy maturing a plan I had had in my mind for some days, but
which this threatened failure of the bank had brought to a crisis. That night,
after Miss Matty went to bed, I treacherously lighted the candle again, and
sat down in the drawing-room to compose a letter to the Aga Jenkyns, a
letter which should affect him if he were Peter, and yet seem a mere
statement of dry facts if he were a stranger. The church clock pealed out
two before I had done.
The next morning news came, both official and otherwise, that the Town
and County Bank had stopped payment. Miss Matty was ruined.
She tried to speak quietly to me; but when she came to the actual fact that
she would have but about five shillings a week to live upon, she could not
restrain a few tears.
“I am not crying for myself, dear,” said she, wiping them away; “I
believe I am crying for the very silly thought of how my mother would
grieve if she could know; she always cared for us so much more than for
herself. But many a poor person has less, and I am not very extravagant,
and, thank God, when the neck of mutton, and Martha’s wages, and the rent
are paid, I have not a farthing owing. Poor Martha! I think she’ll be sorry to
leave me.”

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

CHAPTER XIV.
FRIENDS IN NEED

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.
“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”—
“But, Martha,” said I, cutting in while she wiped her eyes.
“Don’t, ‘but Martha’ me,” she replied to my deprecatory tone.
“Listen to reason”—
“I’ll not listen to reason,” she said, now in full possession of her voice,
which had been rather choked with sobbing. “Reason always means what
someone else has got to say. Now I think what I’ve got to say is good
enough reason; but reason or not, I’ll say it, and I’ll stick to it. I’ve money
in the Savings Bank, and I’ve a good stock of clothes, and I’m not going to
leave Miss Matty. No, not if she gives me warning every hour in the day!”
She put her arms akimbo, as much as to say she defied me; and, indeed, I
could hardly tell how to begin to remonstrate with her, so much did I feel
that Miss Matty, in her increasing infirmity, needed the attendance of this
kind and faithful woman.
“Well”—said I at last.
“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.”
“I know you would be a great loss to Miss Matty, Martha”—
“I telled her so. A loss she’d never cease to be sorry for,” broke in Martha
triumphantly.
“Still, she will have so little—so very little—to live upon, that I don’t see
just now how she could find you food—she will even be pressed for her

own. I tell you 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.”
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).
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.”
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.
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.
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—fancy work and the use of the globes—such as the mistress of
the Ladies’ Seminary, to which all the tradespeople in Cranford sent their
daughters, 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.
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?
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—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.
No! there was nothing she could teach to the rising generation of
Cranford, unless they had been quick learners and ready imitators of her
patience, her humility, her sweetness, her quiet contentment with all that
she could not do. I pondered and pondered until dinner was announced by
Martha, with a face all blubbered and swollen with crying.
Miss Matty had a few little peculiarities which Martha was apt to regard
as whims below her 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.
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 couchant 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 couchant, with his currant eyes, being hoisted up to the
place of honour on a mantelpiece, tickled my hysterical fancy, and I began
to laugh, which rather surprised Miss Matty.

“I am sure, dear, I have seen uglier things under a glass shade before
now,” said she.
So had I, many a time and oft, and I accordingly composed my
countenance (and now I could hardly keep from crying), and we both fell to
upon the pudding, which was indeed excellent—only every morsel seemed
to choke us, our hearts were so full.
We had too much to think about to talk much that afternoon. It passed
over very tranquilly. But when the tea-urn was brought in a new thought
came into my head. Why should not Miss Matty sell tea—be an agent to the
East India Tea Company which then existed? I could see no objections to
this plan, while the advantages were many—always supposing that Miss
Matty could get over the degradation of condescending to anything like
trade. Tea was neither greasy nor sticky—grease and stickiness being two of
the qualities which Miss Matty could not endure. No shop-window would
be required. A small, genteel notification of her being licensed to sell tea
would, it is true, be necessary, but I hoped that it could be placed where no
one would see it. Neither was tea a heavy article, so as to tax Miss Matty’s
fragile strength. The only thing against my plan was the buying and selling
involved.
While I was giving but absent answers to the questions Miss Matty was
putting—almost as absently—we heard a clumping sound on the stairs, and
a whispering outside the door, which indeed once opened and shut as if by
some invisible agency. After a little while Martha came in, dragging after
her a great tall young man, all crimson with shyness, and finding his only
relief in perpetually sleeking down his hair.
“Please, ma’am, he’s only Jem Hearn,” said Martha, by way of an
introduction; and so out of breath was she that I imagine she had had some
bodily struggle before she could overcome his reluctance to be presented on
the courtly scene of Miss Matilda Jenkyns’s drawing-room.
“And please, ma’am, he wants to marry me off-hand. And please, ma’am,
we want to take a lodger—just one quiet lodger, to make our two ends meet;
and we’d take any house conformable; and, oh dear Miss Matty, if I may be
so bold, would you have any objections to lodging with us? Jem wants it as
much as I do.” [To Jem ]—“You great oaf! why can’t you back me!—But
he does want it all the same, very bad—don’t you, Jem?—only, you see,
he’s dazed at being called on to speak before quality.”

“It’s not that,” broke in Jem. “It’s that you’ve taken me all on a sudden,
and I didn’t think for to get married so soon—and such quick 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—marriage nails a man, as one
may say. I dare say I shan’t mind it after it’s once over.”
“Please, ma’am,” said Martha—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—“don’t mind him, he’ll come to; ’twas only last
night he was an-axing me, and an-axing me, and all the more because I said
I could not think of it for years to come, and now he’s only taken aback
with the suddenness of the joy; but you know, Jem, you are just as full as
me about wanting a lodger.” (Another great nudge.)
“Ay! if Miss Matty would lodge with us—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.
Miss Matty herself was bewildered by the pair; their, or rather Martha’s
sudden resolution in favour of matrimony staggered her, and stood between
her and the contemplation of the plan which Martha had at heart. Miss
Matty began—
“Marriage is a very solemn thing, Martha.”
“It is indeed, ma’am,” quoth Jem. “Not that I’ve no objections to
Martha.”
“You’ve never let me a-be for asking me for to fix when I would be
married,” said Martha—her face all a-fire, and ready to cry with vexation
—“and now you’re shaming me before my missus and all.”
“Nay, now! Martha don’t ee! don’t ee! only a man likes to have
breathing-time,” said Jem, trying to possess himself of her hand, but in
vain. Then seeing that she was more seriously hurt than he had imagined, he
seemed to try to rally his scattered 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—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.”
Miss Matty had been very busy with taking off her spectacles, wiping
them, and replacing them; but all she could say was, “Don’t let any thought
of me hurry you into marriage: pray don’t. Marriage is such a very solemn
thing!”
“But Miss Matilda will think of your plan, Martha,” said I, struck with
the advantages that it offered, and unwilling to lose the opportunity of
considering about it. “And I’m sure neither she nor I can ever forget your
kindness; nor yours either, Jem.”

“Why, yes, ma’am! I’m sure I mean kindly, though I’m a bit fluttered by
being pushed straight ahead into matrimony, as it were, and mayn’t express
myself 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?”
This last was sotto voce, and had the effect of making Martha bounce out
of the room, to be followed and soothed by her lover. Whereupon Miss
Matty sat down and cried very heartily, and accounted for it by saying that
the thought of Martha being married so soon gave her quite a shock, and
that she should never forgive herself if she thought she was hurrying the
poor creature. I think my pity was more for Jem, of the two; but both Miss
Matty and I appreciated to the full the kindness of the honest couple,
although we said little about this, and a good deal about the chances and
dangers of matrimony.
The next morning, very early, I received a note from Miss Pole, so
mysteriously wrapped up, and with so many seals on it to secure secrecy,
that I had to tear the paper before I could unfold it. And when I came to the
writing I could hardly understand the meaning, it was so involved and
oracular. I made out, however, that I was to go to Miss Pole’s at eleven
o’clock; the number eleven being written in full length as well as in
numerals, and A.M. twice dashed under, as if I were very likely to come at
eleven at night, when all 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.
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?
Of course, I had but one answer to make; and I never saw more
unaffected sorrow depicted on any countenances than I did there on the
three before me.
“I wish Mrs Jamieson was here!” said Mrs Forrester at last; but to judge
from Mrs Fitz-Adam’s face, she could not second the wish.
“But without Mrs Jamieson,” said Miss Pole, with just a sound of
offended merit in her voice, “we, the ladies of Cranford, in my drawing-
room assembled, can resolve upon something. I imagine we are none of us
what may be called rich, though we all possess a genteel competency,
sufficient for tastes that are elegant and refined, and would not, if they
could, be vulgarly ostentatious.” (Here I observed Miss Pole refer to a small
card concealed in her hand, on which I imagine she had put down a few
notes.)
“Miss Smith,” she continued, addressing me (familiarly known as
“Mary” to all the company assembled, but this was a state occasion), “I
have conversed in private—I made it my business to do so yesterday
afternoon—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—a true pleasure, Mary!”—her voice was
rather choked just here, and she had to wipe her spectacles before she could
go on—“to give what we can to assist her—Miss Matilda Jenkyns. Only in
consideration of the feelings of delicate independence existing in the mind
of every refined female”—I was sure she had got back to the card now
—“we wish to contribute our mites in a secret and concealed manner, so as
not to hurt the feelings I have referred to. And our object in requesting you
to meet us this morning is that, believing you are the daughter—that your
father is, in fact, her confidential adviser, in all pecuniary matters, we
imagined that, by consulting with him, you might devise some mode in

which our contribution could be made to appear the legal due which Miss
Matilda Jenkyns ought to receive from—— Probably your father, knowing
her investments, can fill up the blank.”
Miss Pole concluded her address, and looked round for approval and
agreement.
“I have expressed your meaning, ladies, have I not? And while Miss
Smith considers what reply to make, allow me to offer you some little
refreshment.”
I had no great reply to make: I had more 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,”—
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.
“I don’t mind, among friends, stating that I—no! I’m not poor exactly,
but I don’t think I’m what you may call rich; I wish I were, for dear Miss
Matty’s sake—but, if you please, I’ll write down in a sealed paper what I
can give. I only wish it was more; my dear Mary, I do indeed.”
Now I saw why paper, pens, and ink were provided. Every lady wrote
down the sum she could give annually, signed the paper, and sealed it
mysteriously. If their proposal was acceded to, my father was to be allowed
to open the papers, under pledge of secrecy. If not, they were to be returned
to their writers.
When 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.
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.
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—oh, so kindly—about my poor mother, who
lay on her death-bed; and when I cried she took hold of my hand to comfort
me—and the gentleman waiting for her all the time—and her poor heart
very full of something, I am sure; and I thought it such an honour to be
spoken to in that pretty way by the rector’s daughter, who visited at Arley
Hall. I have loved her ever since, though perhaps I’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—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.”
I told her I was quite sure of it, and promised all sorts of things in my
anxiety to get home to Miss Matty, who might well be wondering what had
become of me—absent from her two hours without being able to account
for it. She had taken very little note of time, however, as she had been
occupied in 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.

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, &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.
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.

While Miss Matty was out of the room giving orders for luncheon—and
sadly perplexed between her desire of honouring my father by a delicate,
dainty meal, and her conviction that she had no right, now that all her
money was gone, to indulge this desire—I told him of the meeting of the
Cranford ladies at Miss Pole’s the day before. He kept brushing his hand
before his eyes as I spoke—and when I went back to Martha’s offer the
evening before, of receiving Miss 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—only I’m
sure you feel what I want to say. You and I will have a walk after lunch and
talk a bit more about these plans.”
The lunch—a hot savoury mutton-chop, and a little of the cold loin sliced
and fried—was now brought in. Every morsel of this last dish was finished,
to Martha’s great gratification. Then my father bluntly told Miss Matty he

wanted to talk to me alone, and that he would stroll out and see some of the
old places, and then I could tell her what plan we thought desirable. Just
before we went out, she called me back and said, “Remember, dear, I’m the
only one left—I mean, there’s no one to be hurt by what I do. I’m willing to
do anything that’s right and honest; and I don’t think, if Deborah knows
where she is, she’ll care 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.”
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.
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!

CHAPTER XV.
A HAPPY RETURN

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.
But what was our surprise—our dismay—when we learnt that Mr and
Mrs Hoggins were returning on the following Tuesday! Mrs Hoggins! Had
she 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 St James’s
Chronicle, so indignant was she with its having inserted the announcement
of the marriage.

Miss Matty’s sale went off famously. She retained the furniture of her
sitting-room and bedroom; the former of which she was to occupy till
Martha could meet with a lodger who might wish to take it; and into this
sitting-room and bedroom she had to cram all sorts of things, which were
(the auctioneer assured her) bought in for her at the sale by an unknown
friend. I always suspected Mrs Fitz-Adam of this; but she must have had an
accessory, who knew what articles were particularly regarded by Miss
Matty on account of their associations with her early days. The rest of the
house looked rather bare, to be sure; all except one tiny bedroom, of which
my father allowed me to purchase the furniture for my occasional use in
case of Miss Matty’s illness.
I had expended my own small store in buying all manner of comfits and
lozenges, in order to tempt the little people whom Miss Matty loved so
much to come about her. Tea in bright green canisters, and comfits in
tumblers—Miss Matty and I felt quite proud as we looked round us on the

evening before the shop was to be opened. Martha had scoured the boarded
floor to a white cleanness, and it was adorned with a brilliant piece of oil-
cloth, on which customers were to stand before the table-counter. The
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.
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.
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.
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.
The money which he had paid, and that produced by the sale, was partly
expended in the stock of tea, and part of it was invested against a rainy day
—i.e. old age or illness. It was but a small sum, it is true; and it occasioned
a few evasions of truth and white lies (all of which I think very wrong
indeed—in theory—and would rather not put them in practice), for we
knew Miss Matty would be perplexed as to her duty if she were aware of
any little reserve-fund being made for her while the debts of the bank
remained unpaid. Moreover, she had never been told of the way in which
her friends were contributing to pay the rent. I should have liked to tell her
this, but the mystery of the affair gave a piquancy to their deed of kindness
which the ladies were unwilling to give up; and at first Martha had to shirk
many a perplexed question as to her ways and means of living in such a
house, but by-and-by Miss Matty’s prudent uneasiness sank down into
acquiescence with the existing arrangement.
I left Miss Matty with a good heart. Her sales of tea during the first two
days had surpassed my most sanguine expectations. The whole country
round seemed to be all out of tea at once. The only 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—
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.
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.
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—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.”
I comforted Martha by telling her I would remain till she was about
again, and only wished she had told me her reason for this sudden
summons, as then I would have brought the requisite stock of clothes. But
Martha was so tearful and tender-spirited, and unlike her usual self, that I
said as little as possible about myself, and endeavoured rather to comfort
Martha under all the probable and possible misfortunes which came
crowding upon her imagination.
I then stole out of the house-door, and made my appearance as if I were a
customer in the shop, just to take Miss Matty by surprise, and gain an idea
of how she looked in her new situation. It was warm May weather, so only
the little half-door was closed; and Miss Matty sat behind 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.
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.

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.
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.
Martha was beginning to go about again, and I had already fixed a limit,
not very far distant, to my visit, when one afternoon, as I was sitting in the
shop-parlour with Miss Matty—I remember the weather was colder now
than it had been in May, three weeks before, and we had a fire and kept the
door fully closed—we saw a gentleman go slowly past the window, and
then stand opposite to the door, as if looking out for the name which we had
so carefully hidden. He took out a double 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?”
“Yes!” said I.
All my doubts as to his identity were set at rest, and I only wondered
what he would say or do next, and how Miss Matty would stand the joyful
shock of what he had to reveal. Apparently he was at a loss how to
announce himself, for he looked round at last in search of something to buy,
so as to gain time, and, as it happened, his eye caught on the almond-
comfits, and he boldly asked for a pound of “those things.” I doubt if Miss
Matty had a whole pound in the shop, and, besides the unusual magnitude
of the order, she was distressed with the idea of the indigestion they would
produce, taken in such unlimited quantities. She looked up to remonstrate.
Something of tender relaxation in his face struck home to her heart. She
said, “It is—oh, sir! can you be Peter?” and 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—I have, my little girl.”
I proposed that she should go at once up into the drawing-room and lie
down on the sofa there. She looked wistfully at her brother, whose hand she

had held tight, even when nearly fainting; but on his assuring her that he
would not leave her, she allowed him to carry her upstairs.
I thought that the best I could do was to run and put the kettle on the fire
for early tea, and then to attend to the shop, leaving the brother and sister to
exchange some of the many thousand things they must have to say. I had
also to break the news to Martha, who received it with a burst of tears
which nearly 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.
“I suppose hot climates age people very quickly,” said she, almost to
herself. “When you left Cranford you had not a grey hair in your head.”
“But how many years ago is that?” said Mr Peter, smiling.
“Ah, true! yes, I suppose you and I are getting old. But still I did not
think we were so very old! But white hair is very becoming to you, Peter,”
she continued—a little afraid lest she had hurt him by revealing how his
appearance had impressed her.
“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—
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—when I was young.”
“So I thought, my little Matty. I remembered your tastes; they were so
like my dear mother’s.” At the mention of that name the brother and sister
clasped each other’s hands yet more fondly, and, although they were

perfectly silent, I fancied they might have something to say if they were
unchecked by my presence, and I got up to arrange my room for Mr Peter’s
occupation that night, intending myself to share Miss Matty’s bed. But at
my movement, he started up. “I must go and settle about a room at the
‘George.’ My carpet-bag is there too.”
“No!” said Miss Matty, in great distress—“you must not go; please, dear
Peter—pray, Mary—oh! you must not go!”
She was so much agitated that we both promised everything she wished.
Peter sat down again and gave her his hand, which for better security she
held in both of hers, and I left the room to accomplish my arrangements.
Long, long into the night, far, far into the morning, did Miss Matty and I
talk. She had much to tell me of her brother’s life and adventures, which he
had 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—under the same roof—
she had begun to fear lest it was only a waking dream of hers; that there
never had been a Peter sitting by her all that blessed evening—but that the
real Peter lay dead far away beneath some wild sea-wave, or under some

strange eastern tree. And so strong had this nervous feeling of hers become,
that she was fain to get up and go and convince herself that he was really
there by listening through the door to his even, regular breathing—I don’t
like to call it snoring, but I heard it myself through two closed doors—and
by-and-by it soothed Miss Matty to sleep.
I don’t believe Mr Peter came home from India as rich as a nabob; he
even considered himself poor, but neither he nor Miss Matty cared much
about that. At any rate, he had enough to live upon “very genteelly” at
Cranford; he and Miss Matty together. And a day or two after his arrival,
the shop was closed, while troops of little urchins gleefully awaited the
shower of comfits and lozenges that came from time to time down upon
their faces as they stood up-gazing at Miss Matty’s drawing-room windows.
Occasionally Miss Matty would say to them (half-hidden behind the
curtains), “My dear children, don’t make 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.

CHAPTER XVI.
PEACE TO CRANFORD

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—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.”
One day, at a select party in his honour, which Miss Pole gave, and from
which, as Mrs Jamieson honoured it with her presence, and had even
offered to send Mr Mulliner to wait, Mr and Mrs Hoggins and Mrs Fitz-
Adam were necessarily excluded—one day at Miss Pole’s, Mr Peter said he
was tired of sitting upright against the hard-backed uneasy chairs, and asked
if he might not indulge himself in sitting cross-legged. Miss Pole’s consent
was eagerly given, and down he went with the utmost gravity. But when
Miss Pole asked me, in an audible whisper, “if he did not remind me of the
Father of the Faithful?” I could not help thinking of poor Simon Jones, the
lame tailor, and while Mrs Jamieson slowly 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.
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—
“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.”
Miss Matty made no reply, and I tried in vain to think of some subject
which should effectually turn the conversation; but I was very stupid; and
before I spoke he went on—

“It was Holbrook, that fine manly fellow who lived at Woodley, that I
used to think would carry off my little Matty. You would not think it now, I
dare say, Mary; but this sister of mine was once a very pretty girl—at least,
I thought so, and so I’ve a notion did poor Holbrook. What business had he
to die before I came home to thank him for all his kindness to a good-for-
nothing cub as I was? It was that that made me first think he cared for you;
for in all our fishing expeditions it was Matty, Matty, we talked about. Poor
Deborah! What a lecture she read me on having asked him home to lunch
one day, when she had seen the Arley carriage in the town, and thought that
my lady might call. Well, that’s long years ago; more than half a 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—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!”
I did so, and then stooped down to kiss Miss Matty, and see if she really
were chilled. She caught at my hand, and gave it a hard squeeze—but
unconsciously, I think—for in a minute or two she spoke to us quite in her
usual voice, and smiled our uneasiness away, although she patiently
submitted to the prescriptions we enforced of a warm bed and a glass of
weak negus. I was to leave Cranford the next day, and before I went I saw
that all the effects of the open window had quite vanished. I had
superintended most of the alterations necessary in the house and household
during the latter weeks of my stay. The shop was once more a parlour: the
empty resounding rooms again furnished up to the very garrets.
There had been some talk of establishing Martha and Jem in another
house, but Miss Matty would not hear of this. Indeed, I never saw her so
much roused as when Miss Pole had assumed it to be the most desirable
arrangement. As long as Martha would remain with Miss Matty, Miss Matty
was only too thankful to have her about her; yes, and Jem too, who was a
very pleasant man to have in the house, for she never saw him from week’s
end to week’s end. And as for the probable children, if they would all turn
out such little darlings as her god-daughter, Matilda, she should not mind
the number, if Martha didn’t. Besides, the next was to be called Deborah—a
point which Miss Matty had reluctantly yielded to Martha’s stubborn
determination that her first-born was to be Matilda. So Miss Pole had to

lower her colours, and even her voice, as she said to me that, as Mr and Mrs
Hearn were still to go on living in the same house with Miss Matty, we had
certainly done a wise thing in hiring Martha’s niece as an auxiliary.
I left Miss Matty and Mr Peter most comfortable and contented; the only
subject for regret to the tender heart of the one, and the social friendly
nature of the other, being the unfortunate quarrel between Mrs Jamieson
and the plebeian Hogginses and their following. In joke, I prophesied one
day that this would only last until Mrs Jamieson or Mr Mulliner were ill, in
which case they would only be too glad to be friends with Mr Hoggins; but
Miss Matty did not like my looking forward to anything like illness in so
light a manner, and before the year was out all had come round in a far
more satisfactory way.
I received two Cranford letters on one auspicious October morning. Both
Miss Pole and Miss Matty wrote to ask me to come over and meet the
Gordons, who had returned to England alive and well with their two
children, now almost grown up. Dear Jessie Brown had kept her old kind
nature, although she had changed her name and station; and she wrote to
say that she and Major Gordon expected to be in Cranford on the
fourteenth, and she hoped and begged to be remembered to Mrs Jamieson
(named first, as became her honourable station), Miss Pole and Miss Matty
—could she ever forget their kindness to her poor father and sister?—Mrs
Forrester, Mr Hoggins (and here again came in an allusion to kindness
shown to the dead long ago), his new wife, who as such must allow Mrs
Gordon to desire to make her acquaintance, and who was, moreover, an old
Scotch friend of her husband’s. In short, every one was named, from the
rector—who had been appointed to Cranford in the interim between
Captain Brown’s death and Miss Jessie’s marriage, and was now associated
with the latter event—down to Miss Betty Barker. All were asked to the
luncheon; all except Mrs Fitz-Adam, who had come to live in Cranford
since Miss Jessie Brown’s days, and whom I found rather moping on
account of the omission. People wondered at Miss Betty Barker’s being
included in the honourable list; but, then, as Miss Pole said, we must
remember the disregard of the genteel proprieties of life in which the poor
captain had educated his girls, and for his sake we swallowed our pride.
Indeed, Mrs Jamieson rather took it as a compliment, as putting Miss Betty
(formerly her maid) on a level with “those Hogginses.”

But when I arrived in Cranford, nothing was as yet ascertained of Mrs
Jamieson’s own 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.
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.”
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,” &c. &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—a luncheon at the
“George,” with the dear Gordons, and the signor in the Assembly Room in
the evening. But I—I looked only at the fatal words:—

“Under the Patronage of the HONOURABLE MRS JAMIESON.”

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.
So, angry and irritated, and exaggerating every little incident which could
add to my irritation, I went on till we were all assembled in the great
parlour at the “George.” Major and Mrs Gordon and pretty Flora and Mr
Ludovic were all as bright and handsome and friendly as could be; but I
could hardly attend to them for watching Mr Peter, and I saw that Miss Pole
was equally busy. I had never seen Mrs Jamieson so roused and animated
before; her face looked full of interest in what Mr Peter was saying. I drew
near to listen. My relief was great when I caught that his words were not
words of love, but that, for all his grave face, he was at his old tricks. He
was telling her of his travels in India, and describing the wonderful height
of the Himalaya mountains: one touch after another added to their size, and
each exceeded the former in absurdity; but Mrs Jamieson really enjoyed all
in perfect good faith. I suppose she required strong stimulants to excite her
to come out of her apathy. Mr Peter wound up his account by saying that, of
course, at that altitude there were none of the animals to be found that
existed in the lower regions; the game,—everything was different. Firing
one day at some flying creature, he was very much dismayed when it fell, to
find that he had shot a cherubim! Mr Peter caught my eye at this moment,
and gave me such a funny twinkle, that I felt sure he had no thoughts of Mrs
Jamieson as a wife from that time. She looked uncomfortably amazed—
“But, Mr Peter, shooting a cherubim—don’t you think—I am afraid that
was sacrilege!”
Mr Peter composed his countenance in a moment, and appeared shocked
at the idea, which, as he said truly enough, was now presented to him for
the first time; but then Mrs Jamieson must remember that he had been
living for a long time among savages—all of whom were heathens—some

of them, he was afraid, were downright Dissenters. Then, seeing Miss
Matty draw near, he hastily changed the conversation, and after a little
while, turning to me, he said, “Don’t be shocked, prim little Mary, at all my
wonderful stories. I consider Mrs Jamieson fair game, and besides I am bent
on propitiating her, and the first step towards it is keeping her well awake. I
bribed her here by asking her to let me have her name as patroness for my
poor conjuror this evening; and I don’t want to give her time enough to get
up her rancour against the Hogginses, who are just coming in. I want
everybody to be friends, for it harasses Matty so much to hear of these
quarrels. I shall go at it again by-and-by, so you need not look shocked. I
intend to enter the Assembly Room to-night with Mrs Jamieson on one side,
and my lady, Mrs Hoggins, on the other. You see if I don’t.”
Somehow or another he did; and fairly got them into conversation
together. Major and Mrs Gordon helped at the good work with their perfect
ignorance of any existing coolness between any of the inhabitants of
Cranford.
Ever since that day there has been the old friendly sociability in Cranford
society; which I am thankful for, because of my dear Miss Matty’s love of
peace and kindliness. We all love Miss Matty, and I somehow think we are
all of us better when she is near us.

PRINTED BY
TURNBULL AND SPEARS,
EDINBURGH

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