Cranford
“And how dusty they are!”
“I think it must be like one of the great Dr Johnson’s rooms,” said Miss
Matty. “What a superior man your cousin must be!”
“Yes!” said Miss Pole, “he’s a great reader; but I am afraid he has got
into very uncouth habits with living alone.”
“Oh! uncouth is too hard a word. I should call him eccentric; very
clever people always are!” replied Miss Matty.
[Picture: Now, what colour are ash-buds in March]
When Mr Holbrook returned, he proposed a walk in the fields; but the two
elder ladies were afraid of damp, and dirt, and had only very unbecoming
calashes to put on over their caps; so they declined, and I was again
his companion in a turn which he said he was obliged to take to see
after his men. He strode along, either wholly forgetting my existence,
or soothed into silence by his pipe—and yet it was not silence exactly.
He walked before me with a stooping gait, his hands clasped behind him;
and, as some tree or cloud, or glimpse of distant upland pastures,
struck him, he quoted poetry to himself, saying it out loud in a grand
sonorous voice, with just the emphasis that true feeling and
appreciation give. We came upon an old cedar tree, which stood at one
end of the house—
“The cedar spreads his dark-green layers of shade.”
“Capital term—‘layers!’ Wonderful man!” I did not know whether he was
speaking to me or not; but I put in an assenting “wonderful,” although I
knew nothing about it, just because I was tired of being forgotten, and
of being consequently silent.
He turned sharp round. “Ay! you may say ‘wonderful.’ Why, when I saw
the review of his poems in _Blackwood_, I set off within an hour, and
walked seven miles to Misselton (for the horses were not in the way) and
ordered them. Now, what colour are ash-buds in March?”
Is the man going mad? thought I. He is very like Don Quixote.
“What colour are they, I say?” repeated he vehemently.
“I am sure I don’t know, sir,” said I, with the meekness of ignorance.
“I knew you didn’t. No more did I—an old fool that I am!—till this
young man comes and tells me. Black as ash-buds in March. And I’ve
lived all my life in the country; more shame for me not to know. Black:
they are jet-black, madam.” And he went off again, swinging along to
the music of some rhyme he had got hold of.
When we came back, nothing would serve him but he must read us the poems
he had been speaking of; and Miss Pole encouraged him in his proposal, I
thought, because she wished me to hear his beautiful reading, of which
she had boasted; but she afterwards said it was because she had got to a
difficult part of her crochet, and wanted to count her stitches without
having to talk. Whatever he had proposed would have been right to Miss
Matty; although she did fall sound asleep within five minutes after he
had begun a long poem, called “Locksley Hall,” and had a comfortable
nap, unobserved, till he ended; when the cessation of his voice wakened
her up, and she said, feeling that something was expected, and that Miss
Pole was counting—
“What a pretty book!”
“Pretty, madam! it’s beautiful! Pretty, indeed!”
“Oh yes! I meant beautiful!” said she, fluttered at his disapproval of
her word. “It is so like that beautiful poem of Dr Johnson’s my sister
used to read—I forget the name of it; what was it, my dear?” turning to
me.
“Which do you mean, ma’am? What was it about?”
“I don’t remember what it was about, and I’ve quite forgotten what the
name of it was; but it was written by Dr Johnson, and was very
beautiful, and very like what Mr Holbrook has just been reading.”
“I don’t remember it,” said he reflectively. “But I don’t know Dr
Johnson’s poems well. I must read them.”
As we were getting into the fly to return, I heard Mr Holbrook say he
should call on the ladies soon, and inquire how they got home; and this
evidently pleased and fluttered Miss Matty at the time he said it; but
after we had lost sight of the old house among the trees her sentiments
towards the master of it were gradually absorbed into a distressing
wonder as to whether Martha had broken her word, and seized on the
opportunity of her mistress’s absence to have a “follower.” Martha
looked good, and steady, and composed enough, as she came to help us
out; she was always careful of Miss Matty, and to-night she made use of
this unlucky speech—
“Eh! dear ma’am, to think of your going out in an evening in such a thin
shawl! It’s no better than muslin. At your age, ma’am, you should be
careful.”
“My age!” said Miss Matty, almost speaking crossly, for her, for she was
usually gentle—“My age! Why, how old do you think I am, that you talk
about my age?”
“Well, ma’am, I should say you were not far short of sixty: but folks’
looks is often against them—and I’m sure I meant no harm.”
“Martha, I’m not yet fifty-two!” said Miss Matty, with grave emphasis;
for probably the remembrance of her youth had come very vividly before
her this day, and she was annoyed at finding that golden time so far
away in the past.
But she never spoke of any former and more intimate acquaintance with Mr
Holbrook. She had probably met with so little sympathy in her early
love, that she had shut it up close in her heart; and it was only by a
sort of watching, which I could hardly avoid since Miss Pole’s
confidence, that I saw how faithful her poor heart had been in its
sorrow and its silence.
She gave me some good reason for wearing her best cap every day, and sat
near the window, in spite of her rheumatism, in order to see, without
being seen, down into the street.
He came. He put his open palms upon his knees, which were far apart, as
he sat with his head bent down, whistling, after we had replied to his
inquiries about our safe return. Suddenly he jumped up—
“Well, madam! have you any commands for Paris? I am going there in a
week or two.”
“To Paris!” we both exclaimed.
“Yes, madam! I’ve never been there, and always had a wish to go; and I
think if I don’t go soon, I mayn’t go at all; so as soon as the hay is
got in I shall go, before harvest time.”
We were so much astonished that we had no commissions.
Just as he was going out of the room, he turned back, with his favourite
exclamation—
“God bless my soul, madam! but I nearly forgot half my errand. Here are
the poems for you you admired so much the other evening at my house.”
He tugged away at a parcel in his coat-pocket. “Good-bye, miss,” said
he; “good-bye, Matty! take care of yourself.” And he was gone. But he
had given her a book, and he had called her Matty, just as he used to do
thirty years ago.
“I wish he would not go to Paris,” said Miss Matilda anxiously. “I
don’t believe frogs will agree with him; he used to have to be very
careful what he ate, which was curious in so strong-looking a young
man.”
Soon after this I took my leave, giving many an injunction to Martha to
look after her mistress, and to let me know if she thought that Miss
Matilda was not so well; in which case I would volunteer a visit to my
old friend, without noticing Martha’s intelligence to her.
Accordingly I received a line or two from Martha every now and then;
and, about November I had a note to say her mistress was “very low and
sadly off her food”; and the account made me so uneasy that, although
Martha did not decidedly summon me, I packed up my things and went.
I received a warm welcome, in spite of the little flurry produced by my
impromptu visit, for I had only been able to give a day’s notice. Miss
Matilda looked miserably ill; and I prepared to comfort and cosset her.
I went down to have a private talk with Martha.
“How long has your mistress been so poorly?” I asked, as I stood by the
kitchen fire.
“Well! I think it’s better than a fortnight; it is, I know; it was one
Tuesday, after Miss Pole had been, that she went into this moping way.
I thought she was tired, and it would go off with a night’s rest; but
no! she has gone on and on ever since, till I thought it my duty to
write to you, ma’am.”
“You did quite right, Martha. It is a comfort to think she has so
faithful a servant about her. And I hope you find your place
comfortable?”
“Well, ma’am, missus is very kind, and there’s plenty to eat and drink,
and no more work but what I can do easily—but—” Martha hesitated.
“But what, Martha?”
“Why, it seems so hard of missus not to let me have any followers;
there’s such lots of young fellows in the town; and many a one has as
much as offered to keep company with me; and I may never be in such a
likely place again, and it’s like wasting an opportunity. Many a girl
as I know would have ’em unbeknownst to missus; but I’ve given my word,
and I’ll stick to it; or else this is just the house for missus never to
be the wiser if they did come: and it’s such a capable kitchen—there’s
such dark corners in it—I’d be bound to hide any one. I counted up last
Sunday night—for I’ll not deny I was crying because I had to shut the
door in Jem Hearn’s face, and he’s a steady young man, fit for any girl;
only I had given missus my word.” Martha was all but crying again; and
I had little comfort to give her, for I knew, from old experience, of
the horror with which both the Miss Jenkynses looked upon “followers”;
and in Miss Matty’s present nervous state this dread was not likely to
be lessened.
I went to see Miss Pole the next day, and took her completely by
surprise, for she had not been to see Miss Matilda for two days.
“And now I must go back with you, my dear, for I promised to let her
know how Thomas Holbrook went on; and, I’m sorry to say, his housekeeper
has sent me word to-day that he hasn’t long to live. Poor Thomas! that
journey to Paris was quite too much for him. His housekeeper says he
has hardly ever been round his fields since, but just sits with his
hands on his knees in the counting-house, not reading or anything, but
only saying what a wonderful city Paris was! Paris has much to answer
for if it’s killed my cousin Thomas, for a better man never lived.”
“Does Miss Matilda know of his illness?” asked I—a new light as to the
cause of her indisposition dawning upon me.
“Dear! to be sure, yes! Has not she told you? I let her know a
fortnight ago, or more, when first I heard of it. How odd she shouldn’t
have told you!”
Not at all, I thought; but I did not say anything. I felt almost guilty
of having spied too curiously into that tender heart, and I was not
going to speak of its secrets—hidden, Miss Matty believed, from all the
world. I ushered Miss Pole into Miss Matilda’s little drawing-room, and
then left them alone. But I was not surprised when Martha came to my
bedroom door, to ask me to go down to dinner alone, for that missus had
one of her bad headaches. She came into the drawing-room at tea-time,
but it was evidently an effort to her; and, as if to make up for some
reproachful feeling against her late sister, Miss Jenkyns, which had
been troubling her all the afternoon, and for which she now felt
penitent, she kept telling me how good and how clever Deborah was in her
youth; how she used to settle what gowns they were to wear at all the
parties (faint, ghostly ideas of grim parties, far away in the distance,
when Miss Matty and Miss Pole were young!); and how Deborah and her
mother had started the benefit society for the poor, and taught girls
cooking and plain sewing; and how Deborah had once danced with a lord;
and how she used to visit at Sir Peter Arley’s, and tried to remodel the
quiet rectory establishment on the plans of Arley Hall, where they kept
thirty servants; and how she had nursed Miss Matty through a long, long
illness, of which I had never heard before, but which I now dated in my