Cranford
literature. The poor, brave Captain! he looked older, and more worn,
and his clothes were very threadbare. But he seemed as bright and
cheerful as ever, unless he was asked about his daughter’s health.
“She suffers a great deal, and she must suffer more: we do what we can
to alleviate her pain;—God’s will be done!” He took off his hat at
these last words. I found, from Miss Matty, that everything had been
done, in fact. A medical man, of high repute in that country
neighbourhood, had been sent for, and every injunction he had given was
attended to, regardless of expense. Miss Matty was sure they denied
themselves many things in order to make the invalid comfortable; but
they never spoke about it; and as for Miss Jessie!—“I really think she’s
an angel,” said poor Miss Matty, quite overcome. “To see her way of
bearing with Miss Brown’s crossness, and the bright face she puts on
after she’s been sitting up a whole night and scolded above half of it,
is quite beautiful. Yet she looks as neat and as ready to welcome the
Captain at breakfast-time as if she had been asleep in the Queen’s bed
all night. My dear! you could never laugh at her prim little curls or
her pink bows again if you saw her as I have done.” I could only feel
very penitent, and greet Miss Jessie with double respect when I met her
next. She looked faded and pinched; and her lips began to quiver, as if
she was very weak, when she spoke of her sister. But she brightened,
and sent back the tears that were glittering in her pretty eyes, as she
said—
“But, to be sure, what a town Cranford is for kindness! I don’t suppose
any one has a better dinner than usual cooked but the best part of all
comes in a little covered basin for my sister. The poor people will
leave their earliest vegetables at our door for her. They speak short
and gruff, as if they were ashamed of it: but I am sure it often goes to
my heart to see their thoughtfulness.” The tears now came back and
overflowed; but after a minute or two she began to scold herself, and
ended by going away the same cheerful Miss Jessie as ever.
“But why does not this Lord Mauleverer do something for the man who
saved his life?” said I.
“Why, you see, unless Captain Brown has some reason for it, he never
speaks about being poor; and he walked along by his lordship looking as
happy and cheerful as a prince; and as they never called attention to
their dinner by apologies, and as Miss Brown was better that day, and
all seemed bright, I daresay his lordship never knew how much care there
was in the background. He did send game in the winter pretty often, but
now he is gone abroad.”
I had often occasion to notice the use that was made of fragments and
small opportunities in Cranford; the rose-leaves that were gathered ere
they fell to make into a potpourri for someone who had no garden; the
little bundles of lavender flowers sent to strew the drawers of some
town-dweller, or to burn in the chamber of some invalid. Things that
many would despise, and actions which it seemed scarcely worth while to
perform, were all attended to in Cranford. Miss Jenkyns stuck an apple
full of cloves, to be heated and smell pleasantly in Miss Brown’s room;
and as she put in each clove she uttered a Johnsonian sentence. Indeed,
she never could think of the Browns without talking Johnson; and, as
they were seldom absent from her thoughts just then, I heard many a
rolling, three-piled sentence.
Captain Brown called one day to thank Miss Jenkyns for many little
kindnesses, which I did not know until then that she had rendered. He
had suddenly become like an old man; his deep bass voice had a quavering
in it, his eyes looked dim, and the lines on his face were deep. He did
not—could not—speak cheerfully of his daughter’s state, but he talked
with manly, pious resignation, and not much. Twice over he said, “What
Jessie has been to us, God only knows!” and after the second time, he
got up hastily, shook hands all round without speaking, and left the
room.
That afternoon we perceived little groups in the street, all listening
with faces aghast to some tale or other. Miss Jenkyns wondered what
could be the matter for some time before she took the undignified step
of sending Jenny out to inquire.
Jenny came back with a white face of terror. “Oh, ma’am! Oh, Miss
Jenkyns, ma’am! Captain Brown is killed by them nasty cruel railroads!”
and she burst into tears. She, along with many others, had experienced
the poor Captain’s kindness.
“How?—where—where? Good God! Jenny, don’t waste time in crying, but
tell us something.” Miss Matty rushed out into the street at once, and
collared the man who was telling the tale.
[Picture: She brought the affrighted carter ... into the
drawing-room]
“Come in—come to my sister at once, Miss Jenkyns, the rector’s daughter.
Oh, man, man! say it is not true,” she cried, as she brought the
affrighted carter, sleeking down his hair, into the drawing-room, where
he stood with his wet boots on the new carpet, and no one regarded it.
“Please, mum, it is true. I seed it myself,” and he shuddered at the
recollection. “The Captain was a-reading some new book as he was deep
in, a-waiting for the down train; and there was a little lass as wanted
to come to its mammy, and gave its sister the slip, and came toddling
across the line. And he looked up sudden, at the sound of the train
coming, and seed the child, and he darted on the line and cotched it up,
and his foot slipped, and the train came over him in no time. O Lord,
Lord! Mum, it’s quite true, and they’ve come over to tell his
daughters. The child’s safe, though, with only a bang on its shoulder as
he threw it to its mammy. Poor Captain would be glad of that, mum,
wouldn’t he? God bless him!” The great rough carter puckered up his
manly face, and turned away to hide his tears. I turned to Miss
Jenkyns. She looked very ill, as if she were going to faint, and signed
to me to open the window.
“Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to those girls. God pardon me,
if ever I have spoken contemptuously to the Captain!”
Miss Jenkyns arrayed herself to go out, telling Miss Matilda to give the
man a glass of wine. While she was away, Miss Matty and I huddled over
the fire, talking in a low and awestruck voice. I know we cried quietly
all the time.
Miss Jenkyns came home in a silent mood, and we durst not ask her many
questions. She told us that Miss Jessie had fainted, and that she and
Miss Pole had had some difficulty in bringing her round; but that, as
soon as she recovered, she begged one of them to go and sit with her
sister.
“Mr Hoggins says she cannot live many days, and she shall be spared this
shock,” said Miss Jessie, shivering with feelings to which she dared not
give way.
“But how can you manage, my dear?” asked Miss Jenkyns; “you cannot bear
up, she must see your tears.”
“God will help me—I will not give way—she was asleep when the news came;
she may be asleep yet. She would be so utterly miserable, not merely at
my father’s death, but to think of what would become of me; she is so
good to me.” She looked up earnestly in their faces with her soft true
eyes, and Miss Pole told Miss Jenkyns afterwards she could hardly bear
it, knowing, as she did, how Miss Brown treated her sister.
However, it was settled according to Miss Jessie’s wish. Miss Brown was
to be told her father had been summoned to take a short journey on
railway business. They had managed it in some way—Miss Jenkyns could
not exactly say how. Miss Pole was to stop with Miss Jessie. Mrs
Jamieson had sent to inquire. And this was all we heard that night; and
a sorrowful night it was. The next day a full account of the fatal
accident was in the county paper which Miss Jenkyns took in. Her eyes
were very weak, she said, and she asked me to read it. When I came to
the “gallant gentleman was deeply engaged in the perusal of a number of
‘Pickwick,’ which he had just received,” Miss Jenkyns shook her head
long and solemnly, and then sighed out, “Poor, dear, infatuated man!”
The corpse was to be taken from the station to the parish church, there
to be interred. Miss Jessie had set her heart on following it to the
grave; and no dissuasives could alter her resolve. Her restraint upon
herself made her almost obstinate; she resisted all Miss Pole’s
entreaties and Miss Jenkyns’ advice. At last Miss Jenkyns gave up the
point; and after a silence, which I feared portended some deep
displeasure against Miss Jessie, Miss Jenkyns said she should accompany
the latter to the funeral.
“It is not fit for you to go alone. It would be against both propriety
and humanity were I to allow it.”
Miss Jessie seemed as if she did not half like this arrangement; but her
obstinacy, if she had any, had been exhausted in her determination to go
to the interment. She longed, poor thing, I have no doubt, to cry alone
over the grave of the dear father to whom she had been all in all, and
to give way, for one little half-hour, uninterrupted by sympathy and
unobserved by friendship. But it was not to be. That afternoon Miss
Jenkyns sent out for a yard of black crape, and employed herself busily
in trimming the little black silk bonnet I have spoken about. When it
was finished she put it on, and looked at us for approbation—admiration
she despised. I was full of sorrow, but, by one of those whimsical
thoughts which come unbidden into our heads, in times of deepest grief,
I no sooner saw the bonnet than I was reminded of a helmet; and in that
hybrid bonnet, half helmet, half jockey-cap, did Miss Jenkyns attend
Captain Brown’s funeral, and, I believe, supported Miss Jessie with a
tender, indulgent firmness which was invaluable, allowing her to weep
her passionate fill before they left.
Miss Pole, Miss Matty, and I, meanwhile attended to Miss Brown: and hard
work we found it to relieve her querulous and never-ending complaints.
But if we were so weary and dispirited, what must Miss Jessie have been!
Yet she came back almost calm as if she had gained a new strength. She
put off her mourning dress, and came in, looking pale and gentle,
thanking us each with a soft long pressure of the hand. She could even
smile—a faint, sweet, wintry smile—as if to reassure us of her power to
endure; but her look made our eyes fill suddenly with tears, more than
if she had cried outright.
It was settled that Miss Pole was to remain with her all the watching
livelong night; and that Miss Matty and I were to return in the morning
to relieve them, and give Miss Jessie the opportunity for a few hours of
sleep. But when the morning came, Miss Jenkyns appeared at the
breakfast-table, equipped in her helmet-bonnet, and ordered Miss Matty
to stay at home, as she meant to go and help to nurse. She was
evidently in a state of great friendly excitement, which she showed by
eating her breakfast standing, and scolding the household all round.
No nursing—no energetic strong-minded woman could help Miss Brown now.
There was that in the room as we entered which was stronger than us all,
and made us shrink into solemn awestruck helplessness. Miss Brown was
dying. We hardly knew her voice, it was so devoid of the complaining
tone we had always associated with it. Miss Jessie told me afterwards
that it, and her face too, were just what they had been formerly, when
her mother’s death left her the young anxious head of the family, of
whom only Miss Jessie survived.
She was conscious of her sister’s presence, though not, I think, of
ours. We stood a little behind the curtain: Miss Jessie knelt with her
face near her sister’s, in order to catch the last soft awful whispers.
“Oh, Jessie! Jessie! How selfish I have been! God forgive me for