Cranford Page #7

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

								

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 come 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
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