Cranford
sense, and his facility in devising expedients to overcome domestic
dilemmas, had gained him an extraordinary place as authority among the
Cranford ladies. He himself went on in his course, as unaware of his
popularity as he had been of the reverse; and I am sure he was startled
one day when he found his advice so highly esteemed as to make some
counsel which he had given in jest to be taken in sober, serious
earnest.
It was on this subject: An old lady had an Alderney cow, which she
looked upon as a daughter. You could not pay the short quarter of an
hour call without being told of the wonderful milk or wonderful
intelligence of this animal. The whole town knew and kindly regarded
Miss Betsy Barker’s Alderney; therefore great was the sympathy and
regret when, in an unguarded moment, the poor cow tumbled into a
lime-pit. She moaned so loudly that she was soon heard and rescued; but
meanwhile the poor beast had lost most of her hair, and came out looking
naked, cold, and miserable, in a bare skin. Everybody pitied the
animal, though a few could not restrain their smiles at her droll
appearance. Miss Betsy Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay;
and it was said she thought of trying a bath of oil. This remedy,
perhaps, was recommended by some one of the number whose advice she
asked; but the proposal, if ever it was made, was knocked on the head by
Captain Brown’s decided “Get her a flannel waistcoat and flannel
drawers, ma’am, if you wish to keep her alive. But my advice is, kill
the poor creature at once.”
Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the Captain heartily; she
set to work, and by-and-by all the town turned out to see the Alderney
meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark grey flannel. I have watched
her myself many a time. Do you ever see cows dressed in grey flannel in
London?
[Picture: Meekly going to her pasture]
Captain Brown had taken a small house on the outskirts of the town,
where he lived with his two daughters. He must have been upwards of
sixty at the time of the first visit I paid to Cranford after I had left
it as a residence. But he had a wiry, well-trained, elastic figure, a
stiff military throw-back of his head, and a springing step, which made
him appear much younger than he was. His eldest daughter looked almost
as old as himself, and betrayed the fact that his real was more than his
apparent age. Miss Brown must have been forty; she had a sickly,
pained, careworn expression on her face, and looked as if the gaiety of
youth had long faded out of sight. Even when young she must have been
plain and hard-featured. Miss Jessie Brown was ten years younger than
her sister, and twenty shades prettier. Her face was round and dimpled.
Miss Jenkyns once said, in a passion against Captain Brown (the cause
of which I will tell you presently), “that she thought it was time for
Miss Jessie to leave off her dimples, and not always to be trying to
look like a child.” It was true there was something childlike in her
face; and there will be, I think, till she dies, though she should live
to a hundred. Her eyes were large blue wondering eyes, looking straight
at you; her nose was unformed and snub, and her lips were red and dewy;
she wore her hair, too, in little rows of curls, which heightened this
appearance. I do not know whether she was pretty or not; but I liked
her face, and so did everybody, and I do not think she could help her
dimples. She had something of her father’s jauntiness of gait and
manner; and any female observer might detect a slight difference in the
attire of the two sisters—that of Miss Jessie being about two pounds per
annum more expensive than Miss Brown’s. Two pounds was a large sum in
Captain Brown’s annual disbursements.
Such was the impression made upon me by the Brown family when I first
saw them all together in Cranford Church. The Captain I had met
before—on the occasion of the smoky chimney, which he had cured by some
simple alteration in the flue. In church, he held his double eye-glass
to his eyes during the Morning Hymn, and then lifted up his head erect
and sang out loud and joyfully. He made the responses louder than the
clerk—an old man with a piping feeble voice, who, I think, felt
aggrieved at the Captain’s sonorous bass, and quivered higher and higher
in consequence.
On coming out of church, the brisk Captain paid the most gallant
attention to his two daughters. He nodded and smiled to his
acquaintances; but he shook hands with none until he had helped Miss
Brown to unfurl her umbrella, had relieved her of her prayer-book, and
had waited patiently till she, with trembling nervous hands, had taken
up her gown to walk through the wet roads.
I wonder what the Cranford ladies did with Captain Brown at their
parties. We had often rejoiced, in former days, that there was no
gentleman to be attended to, and to find conversation for, at the
card-parties. We had congratulated ourselves upon the snugness of the
evenings; and, in our love for gentility, and distaste of mankind, we
had almost persuaded ourselves that to be a man was to be “vulgar”; so
that when I found my friend and hostess, Miss Jenkyns, was going to have
a party in my honour, and that Captain and the Miss Browns were invited,
I wondered much what would be the course of the evening. Card-tables,
with green baize tops, were set out by daylight, just as usual; it was
the third week in November, so the evenings closed in about four.
Candles, and clean packs of cards, were arranged on each table. The
fire was made up; the neat maid-servant had received her last
directions; and there we stood, dressed in our best, each with a
candle-lighter in our hands, ready to dart at the candles as soon as the
first knock came. Parties in Cranford were solemn festivities, making
the ladies feel gravely elated as they sat together in their best
dresses. As soon as three had arrived, we sat down to “Preference,” I
being the unlucky fourth. The next four comers were put down
immediately to another table; and presently the tea-trays, which I had
seen set out in the store-room as I passed in the morning, were placed
each on the middle of a card-table. The china was delicate egg-shell;
the old-fashioned silver glittered with polishing; but the eatables were
of the slightest description. While the trays were yet on the tables,
Captain and the Miss Browns came in; and I could see that, somehow or
other, the Captain was a favourite with all the ladies present. Ruffled
brows were smoothed, sharp voices lowered at his approach. Miss Brown
looked ill, and depressed almost to gloom. Miss Jessie smiled as usual,
and seemed nearly as popular as her father. He immediately and quietly
assumed the man’s place in the room; attended to every one’s wants,
lessened the pretty maid-servant’s labour by waiting on empty cups and
bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet did it all in so easy and dignified
a manner, and so much as if it were a matter of course for the strong to
attend to the weak, that he was a true man throughout. He played for
threepenny points with as grave an interest as if they had been pounds;
and yet, in all his attention to strangers, he had an eye on his
suffering daughter—for suffering I was sure she was, though to many eyes
she might only appear to be irritable. Miss Jessie could not play
cards: but she talked to the sitters-out, who, before her coming, had
been rather inclined to be cross. She sang, too, to an old cracked
piano, which I think had been a spinet in its youth. Miss Jessie sang,
“Jock of Hazeldean” a little out of tune; but we were none of us
musical, though Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, by way of appearing
to be so.
It was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this; for I had seen that, a
little before, she had been a good deal annoyed by Miss Jessie Brown’s
unguarded admission (_à propos_ of Shetland wool) that she had an uncle,
her mother’s brother, who was a shopkeeper in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns
tried to drown this confession by a terrible cough—for the Honourable
Mrs Jamieson was sitting at a card-table nearest Miss Jessie, and what
would she say or think if she found out she was in the same room with a
shop-keeper’s niece! But Miss Jessie Brown (who had no tact, as we all
agreed the next morning) _would_ repeat the information, and assure Miss
Pole she could easily get her the identical Shetland wool required,
“through my uncle, who has the best assortment of Shetland goods of any
one in Edinbro’.” It was to take the taste of this out of our mouths,
and the sound of this out of our ears, that Miss Jenkyns proposed music;
so I say again, it was very good of her to beat time to the song.
When the trays re-appeared with biscuits and wine, punctually at a
quarter to nine, there was conversation, comparing of cards, and talking
over tricks; but by-and-by Captain Brown sported a bit of literature.
“Have you seen any numbers of ‘The Pickwick Papers’?” said he. (They
were then publishing in parts.) “Capital thing!”
Now Miss Jenkyns was daughter of a deceased rector of Cranford; and, on
the strength of a number of manuscript sermons, and a pretty good
library of divinity, considered herself literary, and looked upon any
conversation about books as a challenge to her. So she answered and
said, “Yes, she had seen them; indeed, she might say she had read them.”
“And what do you think of them?” exclaimed Captain Brown. “Aren’t they
famously good?”
So urged Miss Jenkyns could not but speak.
“I must say, I don’t think they are by any means equal to Dr Johnson.
Still, perhaps, the author is young. Let him persevere, and who knows
what he may become if he will take the great Doctor for his model?”
This was evidently too much for Captain Brown to take placidly; and I
saw the words on the tip of his tongue before Miss Jenkyns had finished
her sentence.
“It is quite a different sort of thing, my dear madam,” he began.
“I am quite aware of that,” returned she. “And I make allowances,
Captain Brown.”
“Just allow me to read you a scene out of this month’s number,” pleaded
he. “I had it only this morning, and I don’t think the company can have
read it yet.”
“As you please,” said she, settling herself with an air of resignation.
He read the account of the “swarry” which Sam Weller gave at Bath. Some
of us laughed heartily. _I_ did not dare, because I was staying in the
house. Miss Jenkyns sat in patient gravity. When it was ended, she
turned to me, and said with mild dignity—
“Fetch me ‘Rasselas,’ my dear, out of the book-room.”
When I had brought it to her, she turned to Captain Brown—
“Now allow _me_ to read you a scene, and then the present company can
judge between your favourite, Mr Boz, and Dr Johnson.”
She read one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac, in a
high-pitched, majestic voice: and when she had ended, she said, “I
imagine I am now justified in my preference of Dr Johnson as a writer of
fiction.” The Captain screwed his lips up, and drummed on the table,
but he did not speak. She thought she would give him a finishing blow
or two.
[Picture: Endeavouring to beguile her into conversation]
“I consider it vulgar, and below the dignity of literature, to publish
in numbers.”
“How was the _Rambler_ published, ma’am?” asked Captain Brown in a low
voice, which I think Miss Jenkyns could not have heard.
“Dr Johnson’s style is a model for young beginners. My father
recommended it to me when I began to write letters—I have formed my own
style upon it; I recommend it to your favourite.”
“I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any such
pompous writing,” said Captain Brown.