CHAPTER III.

A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO

I THOUGHT that probably my connection with Cranford would cease after

Miss Jenkyns’s death; at least, that it would have to be kept up by

correspondence, which bears much the same relation to personal

intercourse that the books of dried plants I sometimes see (“Hortus

Siccus,” I think they call the thing) do to the living and fresh flowers

in the lanes and meadows. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, by

receiving a letter from Miss Pole (who had always come in for a

supplementary week after my annual visit to Miss Jenkyns) proposing that

I should go and stay with her; and then, in a couple of days after my

acceptance, came a note from Miss Matty, in which, in a rather

circuitous and very humble manner, she told me how much pleasure I

should confer if I could spend a week or two with her, either before or

after I had been at Miss Pole’s; “for,” she said, “since my dear

sister’s death I am well aware I have no attractions to offer; it is

only to the kindness of my friends that I can owe their company.”

Of course I promised to come to dear Miss Matty as soon as I had ended

my visit to Miss Pole; and the day after my arrival at Cranford I went

to see her, much wondering what the house would be like without Miss

Jenkyns, and rather dreading the changed aspect of things. Miss Matty

began to cry as soon as she saw me. She was evidently nervous from

having anticipated my call. I comforted her as well as I could; and I

found the best consolation I could give was the honest praise that came

from my heart as I spoke of the deceased. Miss Matty slowly shook her

head over each virtue as it was named and attributed to her sister; and

at last she could not restrain the tears which had long been silently

flowing, but hid her face behind her handkerchief and sobbed aloud.

“Dear Miss Matty,” said I, taking her hand—for indeed I did not know in

what way to tell her how sorry I was for her, left deserted in the

world. She put down her handkerchief and said—

“My dear, I’d rather you did not call me Matty. She did not like it;

but I did many a thing she did not like, I’m afraid—and now she’s gone!

If you please, my love, will you call me Matilda?”

I promised faithfully, and began to practise the new name with Miss Pole

that very day; and, by degrees, Miss Matilda’s feeling on the subject

was known through Cranford, and we all tried to drop the more familiar

name, but with so little success that by-and-by we gave up the attempt.

My visit to Miss Pole was very quiet. Miss Jenkyns had so long taken

the lead in Cranford that now she was gone, they hardly knew how to give

a party. The Honourable Mrs Jamieson, to whom Miss Jenkyns herself had

always yielded the post of honour, was fat and inert, and very much at

the mercy of her old servants. If they chose that she should give a

party, they reminded her of the necessity for so doing: if not, she let

it alone. There was all the more time for me to hear old-world stories

from Miss Pole, while she sat knitting, and I making my father’s shirts.

I always took a quantity of plain sewing to Cranford; for, as we did not

read much, or walk much, I found it a capital time to get through my

work. One of Miss Pole’s stories related to a shadow of a love affair

that was dimly perceived or suspected long years before.

Presently, the time arrived when I was to remove to Miss Matilda’s

house. I found her timid and anxious about the arrangements for my

comfort. Many a time, while I was unpacking, did she come backwards and

forwards to stir the fire which burned all the worse for being so

frequently poked.

“Have you drawers enough, dear?” asked she. “I don’t know exactly how

my sister used to arrange them. She had capital methods. I am sure she

would have trained a servant in a week to make a better fire than this,

and Fanny has been with me four months.”

This subject of servants was a standing grievance, and I could not

wonder much at it; for if gentlemen were scarce, and almost unheard of

in the “genteel society” of Cranford, they or their

counterparts—handsome young men—abounded in the lower classes. The

pretty neat servant-maids had their choice of desirable “followers”; and

their mistresses, without having the sort of mysterious dread of men and

matrimony that Miss Matilda had, might well feel a little anxious lest

the heads of their comely maids should be turned by the joiner, or the

butcher, or the gardener, who were obliged, by their callings, to come

to the house, and who, as ill-luck would have it, were generally

handsome and unmarried. Fanny’s lovers, if she had any—and Miss Matilda

suspected her of so many flirtations that, if she had not been very

pretty, I should have doubted her having one—were a constant anxiety to

her mistress. She was forbidden, by the articles of her engagement, to

have “followers”; and though she had answered, innocently enough,

doubling up the hem of her apron as she spoke, “Please, ma’am, I never

had more than one at a time,” Miss Matty prohibited that one. But a

vision of a man seemed to haunt the kitchen. Fanny assured me that it

was all fancy, or else I should have said myself that I had seen a man’s

coat-tails whisk into the scullery once, when I went on an errand into

the store-room at night; and another evening, when, our watches having

stopped, I went to look at the clock, there was a very odd appearance,

singularly like a young man squeezed up between the clock and the back

of the open kitchen door: and I thought Fanny snatched up the candle

very hastily, so as to throw the shadow on the clock face, while she

very positively told me the time half-an-hour too early, as we found out

afterwards by the church clock. But I did not add to Miss Matty’s

anxieties by naming my suspicions, especially as Fanny said to me, the

next day, that it was such a queer kitchen for having odd shadows about

it, she really was almost afraid to stay; “for you know, miss,” she

added, “I don’t see a creature from six o’clock tea, till Missus rings

the bell for prayers at ten.”

However, it so fell out that Fanny had to leave and Miss Matilda begged

me to stay and “settle her” with the new maid; to which I consented,

after I had heard from my father that he did not want me at home. The

new servant was a rough, honest-looking, country girl, who had only

lived in a farm place before; but I liked her looks when she came to be

hired; and I promised Miss Matilda to put her in the ways of the house.

The said ways were religiously such as Miss Matilda thought her sister

would approve. Many a domestic rule and regulation had been a subject

of plaintive whispered murmur to me during Miss Jenkyns’s life; but now

that she was gone, I do not think that even I, who was a favourite,

durst have suggested an alteration. To give an instance: we constantly

adhered to the forms which were observed, at meal-times, in “my father,

the rector’s house.” Accordingly, we had always wine and dessert; but

the decanters were only filled when there was a party, and what remained

was seldom touched, though we had two wine-glasses apiece every day

after dinner, until the next festive occasion arrived, when the state of

the remainder wine was examined into in a family council. The dregs

were often given to the poor: but occasionally, when a good deal had

been left at the last party (five months ago, it might be), it was added

to some of a fresh bottle, brought up from the cellar. I fancy poor

Captain Brown did not much like wine, for I noticed he never finished

his first glass, and most military men take several. Then, as to our

dessert, Miss Jenkyns used to gather currants and gooseberries for it

herself, which I sometimes thought would have tasted better fresh from

the trees; but then, as Miss Jenkyns observed, there would have been

nothing for dessert in summer-time. As it was, we felt very genteel

with our two glasses apiece, and a dish of gooseberries at the top, of

currants and biscuits at the sides, and two decanters at the bottom.

When oranges came in, a curious proceeding was gone through. Miss

Jenkyns did not like to cut the fruit; for, as she observed, the juice

all ran out nobody knew where; sucking (only I think she used some more

recondite word) was in fact the only way of enjoying oranges; but then

there was the unpleasant association with a ceremony frequently gone

through by little babies; and so, after dessert, in orange season, Miss

Jenkyns and Miss Matty used to rise up, possess themselves each of an

orange in silence, and withdraw to the privacy of their own rooms to

indulge in sucking oranges.

I had once or twice tried, on such occasions, to prevail on Miss Matty

to stay, and had succeeded in her sister’s lifetime. I held up a

screen, and did not look, and, as she said, she tried not to make the

noise very offensive; but now that she was left alone, she seemed quite

horrified when I begged her to remain with me in the warm

dining-parlour, and enjoy her orange as she liked best. And so it was

in everything. Miss Jenkyns’s rules were made more stringent than ever,

because the framer of them was gone where there could be no appeal. In

all things else Miss Matilda was meek and undecided to a fault. I have

heard Fanny turn her round twenty times in a morning about dinner, just

as the little hussy chose; and I sometimes fancied she worked on Miss

Matilda’s weakness in order to bewilder her, and to make her feel more

in the power of her clever servant. I determined that I would not leave

her till I had seen what sort of a person Martha was; and, if I found

her trustworthy, I would tell her not to trouble her mistress with every

little decision.

Martha was blunt and plain-spoken to a fault; otherwise she was a brisk,

well-meaning, but very ignorant girl. She had not been with us a week

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

Quixote-looking old man came into the shop for some woollen gloves. I

had never seen the person (who was rather striking) before, and I

watched him rather attentively while Miss Matty listened to the shopman.

The stranger wore a blue coat with brass buttons, drab breeches, and

gaiters, and drummed with his fingers on the counter until he was

attended to. When he answered the shop-boy’s question, “What can I have

the pleasure of showing you to-day, sir?” I saw Miss Matilda start, and

then suddenly sit down; and instantly I guessed who it was. She had

made some inquiry which had to be carried round to the other shopman.

“Miss Jenkyns wants the black sarsenet two-and-twopence the yard”; and

Mr Holbrook had caught the name, and was across the shop in two strides.

“Matty—Miss Matilda—Miss Jenkyns! God bless my soul! I should not have

known you. How are you? how are you?” He kept shaking her hand in a

way which proved the warmth of his friendship; but he repeated so often,

as if to himself, “I should not have known you!” that any sentimental

romance which I might be inclined to build was quite done away with by

his manner.

However, he kept talking to us all the time we were in the shop; and

then waving the shopman with the unpurchased gloves on one side, with

“Another time, sir! another time!” he walked home with us. I am happy

to say my client, Miss Matilda, also left the shop in an equally

bewildered state, not having purchased either green or red silk. Mr

Holbrook was evidently full with honest loud-spoken joy at meeting his

old love again; he touched on the changes that had taken place; he even

spoke of Miss Jenkyns as “Your poor sister! Well, well! we have all our

faults”; and bade us good-bye with many a hope that he should soon see

Miss Matty again. She went straight to her room, and never came back

till our early tea-time, when I thought she looked as if she had been

crying.

[Picture: Mr Holbrook ... bade us good-bye]