Cranford Page #21

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

								

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 over-powered
by it I could only think that she had been writing to Queen Adelaide to
ask for a receipt for washing lace; but the act which she so
characterised was only an invitation she had carried to her sister’s
former mistress, Mrs Jamieson.  “Her former occupation considered, could
Miss Matty excuse the liberty?”  Ah! thought I, she has found out that
double cap, and is going to rectify Miss Matty’s head-dress.  No! it was
simply to extend her 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
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