Cranford Page #20

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

								


“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
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