Cranford Page #4

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

								

recommended it to me when I began to write letters—I have formed my own
style upon it; I recommended 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—Deborah, 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
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