Cranford
have never known. But, in justice to him, I must say he had come over
from Drumble to help Miss Matty when he could ill spare the time, and
when his own affairs were in a very anxious state.
[Picture: Miss Matty and I sat assenting to accounts]
While Miss Matty was out of the room giving orders for luncheon—and
sadly perplexed between her desire of honouring my father by a delicate,
dainty meal, and her conviction that she had no right, now that all her
money was gone, to indulge this desire—I told him of the meeting of the
Cranford ladies at Miss Pole’s the day before. He kept brushing his
hand before his eyes as I spoke—and when I went back to Martha’s offer
the evening before, of receiving Miss Matty as a lodger, he fairly
walked away from me to the window, and began drumming with his fingers
upon it. Then he turned abruptly round, and said, “See, Mary, how a
good, innocent life makes friends all around. Confound it! I could
make a good lesson out of it if I were a parson; but, as it is, I can’t
get a tail to my sentences—only I’m sure you feel what I want to say.
You and I will have a walk after lunch and talk a bit more about these
plans.”
The lunch—a hot savoury mutton-chop, and a little of the cold loin
sliced and fried—was now brought in. Every morsel of this last dish was
finished, to Martha’s great gratification. Then my father bluntly told
Miss Matty he wanted to talk to me alone, and that he would stroll out
and see some of the old places, and then I could tell her what plan we
thought desirable. Just before we went out, she called me back and
said, “Remember, dear, I’m the only one left—I mean, there’s no one to
be hurt by what I do. I’m willing to do anything that’s right and
honest; and I don’t think, if Deborah knows where she is, she’ll care so
very much if I’m not genteel; because, you see, she’ll know all, dear.
Only let me see what I can do, and pay the poor people as far as I’m
able.”
I gave her a hearty kiss, and ran after my father. The result of our
conversation was this. If all parties were agreeable, Martha and Jem
were to be married with as little delay as possible, and they were to
live on in Miss Matty’s present abode; the sum which the Cranford ladies
had agreed to contribute annually being sufficient to meet the greater
part of the rent, and leaving Martha free to appropriate what Miss Matty
should pay for her lodgings to any little extra comforts required.
About the sale, my father was dubious at first. He said the old rectory
furniture, however carefully used and reverently treated, would fetch
very little; and that little would be but as a drop in the sea of the
debts of the Town and County Bank. But when I represented how Miss
Matty’s tender conscience would be soothed by feeling that she had done
what she could, he gave way; especially after I had told him the
five-pound note adventure, and he had scolded me well for allowing it.
I then alluded to my idea that she might add to her small income by
selling tea; and, to my surprise (for I had nearly given up the plan),
my father grasped at it with all the energy of a tradesman. I think he
reckoned his chickens before they were hatched, for he immediately ran
up the profits of the sales that she could effect in Cranford to more
than twenty pounds a year. The small dining-parlour was to be converted
into a shop, without any of its degrading characteristics; a table was
to be the counter; one window was to be retained unaltered, and the
other changed into a glass door. I evidently rose in his estimation for
having made this bright suggestion. I only hoped we should not both
fall in Miss Matty’s.
But she was patient and content with all our arrangements. She knew,
she said, that we should do the best we could for her; and she only
hoped, only stipulated, that she should pay every farthing that she
could be said to owe, for her father’s sake, who had been so respected
in Cranford. My father and I had agreed to say as little as possible
about the bank, indeed never to mention it again, if it could be helped.
Some of the plans were evidently a little perplexing to her; but she
had seen me sufficiently snubbed in the morning for want of
comprehension to venture on too many inquiries now; and all passed over
well with a hope on her part that no one would be hurried into marriage
on her account. When we came to the proposal that she should sell tea, I
could see it was rather a shock to her; not on account of any personal
loss of gentility involved, but only because she distrusted her own
powers of action in a new line of life, and would timidly have preferred
a little more privation to any exertion for which she feared she was
unfitted. However, when she saw my father was bent upon it, she sighed,
and said she would try; and if she did not do well, of course she might
give it up. One good thing about it was, she did not think men ever
bought tea; and it was of men particularly she was afraid. They had
such sharp loud ways with them; and did up accounts, and counted their
change so quickly! Now, if she might only sell comfits to children, she
was sure she could please them!
CHAPTER XV.
A HAPPY RETURN
BEFORE I left Miss Matty at Cranford everything had been comfortably
arranged for her. Even Mrs Jamieson’s approval of her selling tea had
been gained. That oracle had taken a few days to consider whether by so
doing Miss Matty would forfeit her right to the privileges of society in
Cranford. I think she had some little idea of mortifying Lady Glenmire
by the decision she gave at last; which was to this effect: that whereas
a married woman takes her husband’s rank by the strict laws of
precedence, an unmarried woman retains the station her father occupied.
So Cranford was allowed to visit Miss Matty; and, whether allowed or
not, it intended to visit Lady Glenmire.
But what was our surprise—our dismay—when we learnt that Mr and _Mrs
Hoggins_ were returning on the following Tuesday! Mrs Hoggins! Had
she absolutely dropped her title, and so, in a spirit of bravado, cut
the aristocracy to become a Hoggins! She, who might have been called
Lady Glenmire to her dying day! Mrs Jamieson was pleased. She said it
only convinced her of what she had known from the first, that the
creature had a low taste. But “the creature” looked very happy on
Sunday at church; nor did we see it necessary to keep our veils down on
that side of our bonnets on which Mr and Mrs Hoggins sat, as Mrs
Jamieson did; thereby missing all the smiling glory of his face, and all
the becoming blushes of hers. I am not sure if Martha and Jem looked
more radiant in the afternoon, when they, too, made their first
appearance. Mrs Jamieson soothed the turbulence of her soul by having
the blinds of her windows drawn down, as if for a funeral, on the day
when Mr and Mrs Hoggins received callers; and it was with some
difficulty that she was prevailed upon to continue the _St James’s
Chronicle_, so indignant was she with its having inserted the
announcement of the marriage.
[Picture: Smiling glory ... and becoming blushes]
Miss Matty’s sale went off famously. She retained the furniture of her
sitting-room and bedroom; the former of which she was to occupy till
Martha could meet with a lodger who might wish to take it; and into this
sitting-room and bedroom she had to cram all sorts of things, which were
(the auctioneer assured her) bought in for her at the sale by an unknown
friend. I always suspected Mrs Fitz-Adam of this; but she must have had
an accessory, who knew what articles were particularly regarded by Miss
Matty on account of their associations with her early days. The rest of
the house looked rather bare, to be sure; all except one tiny bedroom,
of which my father allowed me to purchase the furniture for my
occasional use in case of Miss Matty’s illness.
I had expended my own small store in buying all manner of comfits and
lozenges, in order to tempt the little people whom Miss Matty loved so
much to come about her. Tea in bright green canisters, and comfits in
tumblers—Miss Matty and I felt quite proud as we looked round us on the
evening before the shop was to be opened. Martha had scoured the
boarded floor to a white cleanness, and it was adorned with a brilliant
piece of oil-cloth, on which customers were to stand before the
table-counter. The wholesome smell of plaster and whitewash pervaded the
apartment. A very small “Matilda Jenkyns, licensed to sell tea,” was
hidden under the lintel of the new door, and two boxes of tea, with
cabalistic inscriptions all over them, stood ready to disgorge their
contents into the canisters.
Miss Matty, as I ought to have mentioned before, had had some scruples
of conscience at selling tea when there was already Mr Johnson in the
town, who included it among his numerous commodities; and, before she
could quite reconcile herself to the adoption of her new business, she
had trotted down to his shop, unknown to me, to tell him of the project
that was entertained, and to inquire if it was likely to injure his
business. My father called this idea of hers “great nonsense,” and
“wondered how tradespeople were to get on if there was to be a continual
consulting of each other’s interests, which would put a stop to all
competition directly.” And, perhaps, it would not have done in Drumble,
but in Cranford it answered very well; for not only did Mr Johnson
kindly put at rest all Miss Matty’s scruples and fear of injuring his
business, but I have reason to know he repeatedly sent customers to her,
saying that the teas he kept were of a common kind, but that Miss
Jenkyns had all the choice sorts. And expensive tea is a very favourite
luxury with well-to-do tradespeople and rich farmers’ wives, who turn up
their noses at the Congou and Souchong prevalent at many tables of
gentility, and will have nothing else than Gunpowder and Pekoe for
themselves.
But to return to Miss Matty. It was really very pleasant to see how her
unselfishness and simple sense of justice called out the same good
qualities in others. She never seemed to think any one would impose
upon her, because she should be so grieved to do it to them. I have
heard her put a stop to the asseverations of the man who brought her
coals by quietly saying, “I am sure you would be sorry to bring me wrong
weight;” and if the coals were short measure that time, I don’t believe
they ever were again. People would have felt as much ashamed of
presuming on her good faith as they would have done on that of a child.
But my father says “such simplicity might be very well in Cranford, but
would never do in the world.” And I fancy the world must be very bad,
for with all my father’s suspicion of every one with whom he has
dealings, and in spite of all his many precautions, he lost upwards of a
thousand pounds by roguery only last year.
I just stayed long enough to establish Miss Matty in her new mode of
life, and to pack up the library, which the rector had purchased. He
had written a very kind letter to Miss Matty, saying “how glad he should
be to take a library, so well selected as he knew that the late Mr
Jenkyns’s must have been, at any valuation put upon them.” And when she
agreed to this, with a touch of sorrowful gladness that they would go
back to the rectory and be arranged on the accustomed walls once more,
he sent word that he feared that he had not room for them all, and
perhaps Miss Matty would kindly allow him to leave some volumes on her
shelves. But Miss Matty said that she had her Bible and “Johnson’s
Dictionary,” and should not have much time for reading, she was afraid;
still, I retained a few books out of consideration for the rector’s
kindness.