Cranford
inhabitants of Cranford. She had taken a large rambling house, which
had been usually considered to confer a patent of gentility upon its
tenant, because, once upon a time, seventy or eighty years before, the
spinster daughter of an earl had resided in it. I am not sure if the
inhabiting this house was not also believed to convey some unusual power
of intellect; for the earl’s daughter, Lady Jane, had a sister, Lady
Anne, who had married a general officer in the time of the American war,
and this general officer had written one or two comedies, which were
still acted on the London boards, and which, when we saw them
advertised, made us all draw up, and feel that Drury Lane was paying a
very pretty compliment to Cranford. Still, it was not at all a settled
thing that Mrs Fitz-Adam was to be visited, when dear Miss Jenkyns died;
and, with her, something of the clear knowledge of the strict code of
gentility went out too. As Miss Pole observed, “As most of the ladies
of good family in Cranford were elderly spinsters, or widows without
children, if we did not relax a little, and become less exclusive,
by-and-by we should have no society at all.”
Mrs Forrester continued on the same side.
“She had always understood that Fitz meant something aristocratic; there
was Fitz-Roy—she thought that some of the King’s children had been
called Fitz-Roy; and there was Fitz-Clarence, now—they were the children
of dear good King William the Fourth. Fitz-Adam!—it was a pretty name,
and she thought it very probably meant ‘Child of Adam.’ No one, who had
not some good blood in their veins, would dare to be called Fitz; there
was a deal in a name—she had had a cousin who spelt his name with two
little ffs—ffoulkes—and he always looked down upon capital letters and
said they belonged to lately-invented families. She had been afraid he
would die a bachelor, he was so very choice. When he met with a Mrs
ffarringdon, at a watering-place, he took to her immediately; and a very
pretty genteel woman she was—a widow, with a very good fortune; and ‘my
cousin,’ Mr ffoulkes, married her; and it was all owing to her two
little ffs.”
Mrs Fitz-Adam did not stand a chance of meeting with a Mr Fitz-anything
in Cranford, so that could not have been her motive for settling there.
Miss Matty thought it might have been the hope of being admitted into
the society of the place, which would certainly be a very agreeable rise
for _ci-devant_ Miss Hoggins; and if this had been her hope it would be
cruel to disappoint her.
So everybody called upon Mrs Fitz-Adam—everybody but Mrs Jamieson, who
used to show how honourable she was by never seeing Mrs Fitz-Adam when
they met at the Cranford parties. There would be only eight or ten
ladies in the room, and Mrs Fitz-Adam was the largest of all, and she
invariably used to stand up when Mrs Jamieson came in, and curtsey very
low to her whenever she turned in her direction—so low, in fact, that I
think Mrs Jamieson must have looked at the wall above her, for she never
moved a muscle of her face, no more than if she had not seen her. Still
Mrs Fitz-Adam persevered.
The spring evenings were getting bright and long when three or four
ladies in calashes met at Miss Barker’s door. Do you know what a
calash is? It is a covering worn over caps, not unlike the heads
fastened on old-fashioned gigs; but sometimes it is not quite so large.
This kind of head-gear always made an awful impression on the children
in Cranford; and now two or three left off their play in the quiet
sunny little street, and gathered in wondering silence round Miss Pole,
Miss Matty, and myself. We were silent too, so that we could hear
loud, suppressed whispers inside Miss Barker’s house: “Wait, Peggy! wait
till I’ve run upstairs and washed my hands. When I cough, open the
door; I’ll not be a minute.”
And, true enough it was not a minute before we heard a noise, between a
sneeze and a crow; on which the door flew open. Behind it stood a
round-eyed maiden, all aghast at the honourable company of calashes, who
marched in without a word. She recovered presence of mind enough to
usher us into a small room, which had been the shop, but was now
converted into a temporary dressing-room. There we unpinned and shook
ourselves, and arranged our features before the glass into a sweet and
gracious company-face; and then, bowing backwards with “After you,
ma’am,” we allowed Mrs Forrester to take precedence up the narrow
staircase that led to Miss Barker’s drawing-room. There she sat, as
stately and composed as though we had never heard that odd-sounding
cough, from which her throat must have been even then sore and rough.
Kind, gentle, shabbily-dressed Mrs Forrester was immediately conducted
to the second place of honour—a seat arranged something like Prince
Albert’s near the Queen’s—good, but not so good. The place of
pre-eminence was, of course, reserved for the Honourable Mrs Jamieson,
who presently came panting up the stairs—Carlo rushing round her on her
progress, as if he meant to trip her up.
And now Miss Betty Barker was a proud and happy woman! She stirred the
fire, and shut the door, and sat as near to it as she could, quite on
the edge of her chair. When Peggy came in, tottering under the weight
of the tea-tray, I noticed that Miss Barker was sadly afraid lest Peggy
should not keep her distance sufficiently. She and her mistress were on
very familiar terms in their every-day intercourse, and Peggy wanted now
to make several little confidences to her, which Miss Barker was on
thorns to hear, but which she thought it her duty, as a lady, to
repress. So she turned away from all Peggy’s asides and signs; but she
made one or two very malapropos answers to what was said; and at last,
seized with a bright idea, she exclaimed, “Poor, sweet Carlo! I’m
forgetting him. Come downstairs with me, poor ittie doggie, and it shall
have its tea, it shall!”
In a few minutes she returned, bland and benignant as before; but I
thought she had forgotten to give the “poor ittie doggie” anything to
eat, judging by the avidity with which he swallowed down chance pieces
of cake. The tea-tray was abundantly loaded—I was pleased to see it, I
was so hungry; but I was afraid the ladies present might think it
vulgarly heaped up. I know they would have done at their own houses;
but somehow the heaps disappeared here. I saw Mrs Jamieson eating
seed-cake, slowly and considerately, as she did everything; and I was
rather surprised, for I knew she had told us, on the occasion of her
last party, that she never had it in her house, it reminded her so much
of scented soap. She always gave us Savoy biscuits. However, Mrs
Jamieson was kindly indulgent to Miss Barker’s want of knowledge of the
customs of high life; and, to spare her feelings, ate three large pieces
of seed-cake, with a placid, ruminating expression of countenance, not
unlike a cow’s.
After tea there was some little demur and difficulty. We were six in
number; four could play at Preference, and for the other two there was
Cribbage. But all, except myself (I was rather afraid of the Cranford
ladies at cards, for it was the most earnest and serious business they
ever engaged in), were anxious to be of the “pool.” Even Miss Barker,
while declaring she did not know Spadille from Manille, was evidently
hankering to take a hand. The dilemma was soon put an end to by a
singular kind of noise. If a baron’s daughter-in-law could ever be
supposed to snore, I should have said Mrs Jamieson did so then; for,
overcome by the heat of the room, and inclined to doze by nature, the
temptation of that very comfortable arm-chair had been too much for her,
and Mrs Jamieson was nodding. Once or twice she opened her eyes with an
effort, and calmly but unconsciously smiled upon us; but by-and-by, even
her benevolence was not equal to this exertion, and she was sound
asleep.
[Picture: The temptation of the comfortable arm-chair had been too much
for her]
“It is very gratifying to me,” whispered Miss Barker at the card-table
to her three opponents, whom, notwithstanding her ignorance of the game,
she was “basting” most unmercifully—“very gratifying indeed, to see how
completely Mrs Jamieson feels at home in my poor little dwelling; she
could not have paid me a greater compliment.”
Miss Barker provided me with some literature in the shape of three or
four handsomely-bound fashion-books ten or twelve years old, observing,
as she put a little table and a candle for my especial benefit, that she
knew young people liked to look at pictures. Carlo lay and snorted, and
started at his mistress’s feet. He, too, was quite at home.
The card-table was an animated scene to watch; four ladies’ heads, with
niddle-noddling caps, all nearly meeting over the middle of the table in
their eagerness to whisper quick enough and loud enough: and every now
and then came Miss Barker’s “Hush, ladies! if you please, hush! Mrs
Jamieson is asleep.”
It was very difficult to steer clear between Mrs Forrester’s deafness
and Mrs Jamieson’s sleepiness. But Miss Barker managed her arduous task
well. She repeated the whisper to Mrs Forrester, distorting her face
considerably, in order to show, by the motions of her lips, what was
said; and then she smiled kindly all round at us, and murmured to
herself, “Very gratifying, indeed; I wish my poor sister had been alive
to see this day.”
Presently the door was thrown wide open; Carlo started to his feet, with
a loud snapping bark, and Mrs Jamieson awoke: or, perhaps, she had not
been asleep—as she said almost directly, the room had been so light she
had been glad to keep her eyes shut, but had been listening with great
interest to all our amusing and agreeable conversation. Peggy came in
once more, red with importance. Another tray! “Oh, gentility!” thought
I, “can you endure this last shock?” For Miss Barker had ordered (nay,
I doubt not, prepared, although she did say, “Why, Peggy, what have you
brought us?” and looked pleasantly surprised at the unexpected pleasure)
all sorts of good things for supper—scalloped oysters, potted lobsters,
jelly, a dish called “little Cupids” (which was in great favour with the
Cranford ladies, although too expensive to be given, except on solemn
and state occasions—macaroons sopped in brandy, I should have called it,
if I had not known its more refined and classical name). In short, we
were evidently to be feasted with all that was sweetest and best; and
we thought it better to submit graciously, even at the cost of our
gentility—which never ate suppers in general, but which, like most
non-supper-eaters, was particularly hungry on all special occasions.
Miss Barker, in her former sphere, had, I daresay, been made acquainted
with the beverage they call cherry-brandy. We none of us had ever seen
such a thing, and rather shrank back when she proffered it us—“just a
little, leetle glass, ladies; after the oysters and lobsters, you know.
Shell-fish are sometimes thought not very wholesome.” We all shook our
heads like female mandarins; but, at last, Mrs Jamieson suffered herself
to be persuaded, and we followed her lead. It was not exactly
unpalatable, though so hot and so strong that we thought ourselves bound
to give evidence that we were not accustomed to such things by coughing
terribly—almost as strangely as Miss Barker had done, before we were
admitted by Peggy.
“It’s very strong,” said Miss Pole, as she put down her empty glass; “I
do believe there’s spirit in it.”
“Only a little drop—just necessary to make it keep,” said Miss Barker.
“You know we put brandy-pepper over our preserves to make them keep. I
often feel tipsy myself from eating damson tart.”