Cranford Page #10

Cranford is an episodic novel by the English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. It first appeared in instalments in the magazine Household Words, then was published with minor revisions as a book with the title Cranford in 1853.

• Novel

								

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
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