Cranford
jack-in-a-box, implored the chairmen, whatever might befall, not to run
away and leave her fastened up there, to be murdered; and even after
they had promised, I saw her tighten her features into the stern
determination of a martyr, and she gave me a melancholy and ominous
shake of the head through the glass. However, we got there safely, only
rather out of breath, for it was who could trot hardest through Darkness
Lane, and I am afraid poor Miss Matty was sadly jolted.
Mrs Forrester had made extra preparations, in acknowledgment of our
exertion in coming to see her through such dangers. The usual forms of
genteel ignorance as to what her servants might send up were all gone
through; and harmony and Preference seemed likely to be the order of the
evening, but for an interesting conversation that began I don’t know
how, but which had relation, of course, to the robbers who infested the
neighbourhood of Cranford.
Having braved the dangers of Darkness Lane, and thus having a little
stock of reputation for courage to fall back upon; and also, I daresay,
desirous of proving ourselves superior to men (_videlicet_ Mr Hoggins)
in the article of candour, we began to relate our individual fears, and
the private precautions we each of us took. I owned that my pet
apprehension was eyes—eyes looking at me, and watching me, glittering
out from some dull, flat, wooden surface; and that if I dared to go up
to my looking-glass when I was panic-stricken, I should certainly turn
it round, with its back towards me, for fear of seeing eyes behind me
looking out of the darkness. I saw Miss Matty nerving herself up for a
confession; and at last out it came. She owned that, ever since she had
been a girl, she had dreaded being caught by her last leg, just as she
was getting into bed, by some one concealed under it. She said, when
she was younger and more active, she used to take a flying leap from a
distance, and so bring both her legs up safely into bed at once; but
that this had always annoyed Deborah, who piqued herself upon getting
into bed gracefully, and she had given it up in consequence. But now
the old terror would often come over her, especially since Miss Pole’s
house had been attacked (we had got quite to believe in the fact of the
attack having taken place), and yet it was very unpleasant to think of
looking under a bed, and seeing a man concealed, with a great, fierce
face staring out at you; so she had bethought herself of
something—perhaps I had noticed that she had told Martha to buy her a
penny ball, such as children play with—and now she rolled this ball
under the bed every night: if it came out on the other side, well and
good; if not she always took care to have her hand on the bell-rope, and
meant to call out John and Harry, just as if she expected men-servants
to answer her ring.
We all applauded this ingenious contrivance, and Miss Matty sank back
into satisfied silence, with a look at Mrs Forrester as if to ask for
_her_ private weakness.
Mrs Forrester looked askance at Miss Pole, and tried to change the
subject a little by telling us that she had borrowed a boy from one of
the neighbouring cottages and promised his parents a hundredweight of
coals at Christmas, and his supper every evening, for the loan of him at
nights. She had instructed him in his possible duties when he first
came; and, finding him sensible, she had given him the Major’s sword
(the Major was her late husband), and desired him to put it very
carefully behind his pillow at night, turning the edge towards the head
of the pillow. He was a sharp lad, she was sure; for, spying out the
Major’s cocked hat, he had said, if he might have that to wear, he was
sure he could frighten two Englishmen, or four Frenchmen any day. But
she had impressed upon him anew that he was to lose no time in putting
on hats or anything else; but, if he heard any noise, he was to run at
it with his drawn sword. On my suggesting that some accident might
occur from such slaughterous and indiscriminate directions, and that he
might rush on Jenny getting up to wash, and have spitted her before he
had discovered that she was not a Frenchman, Mrs Forrester said she did
not think that that was likely, for he was a very sound sleeper, and
generally had to be well shaken or cold-pigged in a morning before they
could rouse him. She sometimes thought such dead sleep must be owing to
the hearty suppers the poor lad ate, for he was half-starved at home,
and she told Jenny to see that he got a good meal at night.
[Picture: Slaughterous and indiscriminate directions]
Still this was no confession of Mrs Forrester’s peculiar timidity, and
we urged her to tell us what she thought would frighten her more than
anything. She paused, and stirred the fire, and snuffed the candles,
and then she said, in a sounding whisper—
“Ghosts!”
She looked at Miss Pole, as much as to say, she had declared it, and
would stand by it. Such a look was a challenge in itself. Miss Pole
came down upon her with indigestion, spectral illusions, optical
delusions, and a great deal out of Dr Ferrier and Dr Hibbert besides.
Miss Matty had rather a leaning to ghosts, as I have mentioned before,
and what little she did say was all on Mrs Forrester’s side, who,
emboldened by sympathy, protested that ghosts were a part of her
religion; that surely she, the widow of a major in the army, knew what
to be frightened at, and what not; in short, I never saw Mrs Forrester
so warm either before or since, for she was a gentle, meek, enduring old
lady in most things. Not all the elder-wine that ever was mulled could
this night wash out the remembrance of this difference between Miss Pole
and her hostess. Indeed, when the elder-wine was brought in, it gave
rise to a new burst of discussion; for Jenny, the little maiden who
staggered under the tray, had to give evidence of having seen a ghost
with her own eyes, not so many nights ago, in Darkness Lane, the very
lane we were to go through on our way home.
In spite of the uncomfortable feeling which this last consideration gave
me, I could not help being amused at Jenny’s position, which was
exceedingly like that of a witness being examined and cross-examined by
two counsel who are not at all scrupulous about asking leading
questions. The conclusion I arrived at was, that Jenny had certainly
seen something beyond what a fit of indigestion would have caused. A
lady all in white, and without her head, was what she deposed and
adhered to, supported by a consciousness of the secret sympathy of her
mistress under the withering scorn with which Miss Pole regarded her.
And not only she, but many others, had seen this headless lady, who sat
by the roadside wringing her hands as in deep grief. Mrs Forrester
looked at us from time to time with an air of conscious triumph; but
then she had not to pass through Darkness Lane before she could bury
herself beneath her own familiar bed-clothes.
We preserved a discreet silence as to the headless lady while we were
putting on our things to go home, for there was no knowing how near the
ghostly head and ears might be, or what spiritual connection they might
be keeping up with the unhappy body in Darkness Lane; and, therefore,
even Miss Pole felt that it was as well not to speak lightly on such
subjects, for fear of vexing or insulting that woebegone trunk. At
least, so I conjecture; for, instead of the busy clatter usual in the
operation, we tied on our cloaks as sadly as mutes at a funeral. Miss
Matty drew the curtains round the windows of the chair to shut out
disagreeable sights, and the men (either because they were in spirits
that their labours were so nearly ended, or because they were going down
hill), set off at such a round and merry pace, that it was all Miss Pole
and I could do to keep up with them. She had breath for nothing beyond
an imploring “Don’t leave me!” uttered as she clutched my arm so tightly
that I could not have quitted her, ghost or no ghost. What a relief it
was when the men, weary of their burden and their quick trot, stopped
just where Headingley Causeway branches off from Darkness Lane! Miss
Pole unloosed me and caught at one of the men—
“Could not you—could not you take Miss Matty round by Headingley
Causeway?—the pavement in Darkness Lane jolts so, and she is not very
strong.”
A smothered voice was heard from the inside of the chair—
“Oh! pray go on! What is the matter? What is the matter? I will give
you sixpence more to go on very fast; pray don’t stop here.”
“And I’ll give you a shilling,” said Miss Pole, with tremulous dignity,
“if you’ll go by Headingley Causeway.”
The two men grunted acquiescence and took up the chair, and went along
the causeway, which certainly answered Miss Pole’s kind purpose of
saving Miss Matty’s bones; for it was covered with soft, thick mud, and
even a fall there would have been easy till the getting-up came, when
there might have been some difficulty in extrication.
CHAPTER XI.
SAMUEL BROWN
THE next morning I met Lady Glenmire and Miss Pole setting out on a long
walk to find some old woman who was famous in the neighbourhood for her
skill in knitting woollen stockings. Miss Pole said to me, with a smile
half-kindly and half-contemptuous upon her countenance, “I have been
just telling Lady Glenmire of our poor friend Mrs Forrester, and her
terror of ghosts. It comes from living so much alone, and listening to
the bug-a-boo stories of that Jenny of hers.” She was so calm and so
much above superstitious fears herself that I was almost ashamed to say
how glad I had been of her Headingley Causeway proposition the night
before, and turned off the conversation to something else.
In the afternoon Miss Pole called on Miss Matty to tell her of the
adventure—the real adventure they had met with on their morning’s walk.
They had been perplexed about the exact path which they were to take
across the fields in order to find the knitting old woman, and had
stopped to inquire at a little wayside public-house, standing on the
high road to London, about three miles from Cranford. The good woman
had asked them to sit down and rest themselves while she fetched her
husband, who could direct them better than she could; and, while they
were sitting in the sanded parlour, a little girl came in. They thought
that she belonged to the landlady, and began some trifling conversation
with her; but, on Mrs Roberts’s return, she told them that the little
thing was the only child of a couple who were staying in the house. And
then she began a long story, out of which Lady Glenmire and Miss Pole
could only gather one or two decided facts, which were that, about six
weeks ago, a light spring-cart had broken down just before their door,
in which there were two men, one woman, and this child. One of the men
was seriously hurt—no bones broken, only “shaken,” the landlady called
it; but he had probably sustained some severe internal injury, for he
had languished in their house ever since, attended by his wife, the
mother of this little girl. Miss Pole had asked what he was, what he
looked like. And Mrs Roberts had made answer that he was not like a
gentleman, nor yet like a common person; if it had not been that he and
his wife were such decent, quiet people, she could almost have thought
he was a mountebank, or something of that kind, for they had a great box
in the cart, full of she did not know what. She had helped to unpack
it, and take out their linen and clothes, when the other man—his
twin-brother, she believed he was—had gone off with the horse and cart.
Miss Pole had begun to have her suspicions at this point, and expressed
her idea that it was rather strange that the box and cart and horse and