CRANFORD
PART 2
CHAPTER II: THE CAPTAIN
It was impossible to live
a month at Cranford and not know the daily habits of each resident; and long
before my visit was ended I knew much concerning the whole Brown trio.
There was nothing new to be discovered respecting their poverty; for they had
spoken simply and openly about that from the very first. They made no
mystery of the necessity for their being economical. All that remained to
be discovered was the Captain’s infinite kindness of heart, and the various
modes in which, unconsciously to himself, he manifested it. Some little
anecdotes were talked about for some time after they occurred. As we did
not read much, and as all the ladies were pretty well suited with servants,
there was a dearth of subjects for conversation. We therefore discussed
the circumstance of the Captain taking a poor old woman’s dinner out of her
hands one very slippery Sunday. He had met her returning from the
bakehouse as he came from church, and noticed her precarious footing; and, with
the grave dignity with which he did everything, he relieved her of her burden,
and steered along the street by her side, carrying her baked
mutton and potatoes safely home. This was thought very eccentric; and it
was rather expected that he would pay a round of calls, on the Monday morning,
to explain and apologise to the Cranford sense of propriety: but he did no such
thing: and then it was decided that he was ashamed, and was keeping out of
sight. In a kindly pity for him, we began to say, “After all, the Sunday
morning’s occurrence showed great goodness of heart,” and it was resolved that
he should be comforted on his next appearance amongst us; but, lo! he came down
upon us, untouched by any sense of shame, speaking loud and bass as ever, his
head thrown back, his wig as jaunty and well-curled as usual, and we were
obliged to conclude he had forgotten all about Sunday.
Miss Pole
and Miss Jessie Brown had set up a kind of intimacy on the strength of the
Shetland wool and the new knitting stitches; so it happened that when I went to
visit Miss Pole I saw more of the Browns than I had done while staying with
Miss Jenkyns, who had never got over what she called Captain Brown’s
disparaging remarks upon Dr Johnson as a writer of light and agreeable
fiction. I found that Miss Brown was seriously ill of some lingering,
incurable complaint, the pain occasioned by which gave the uneasy expression to
her face that I had taken for unmitigated crossness. Cross, too, she was
at times, when the nervous irritability occasioned by her disease became past
endurance. Miss Jessie bore with her at these times, even more patiently
than she did with the bitter self-upbraidings by which they were
invariably succeeded. Miss Brown used to accuse herself, not merely of
hasty and irritable temper, but also of being the cause why her father and
sister were obliged to pinch, in order to allow her the small luxuries which
were necessaries in her condition. She would so fain have made sacrifices
for them, and have lightened their cares, that the original generosity of her
disposition added acerbity to her temper. All this was borne by Miss
Jessie and her father with more than placidity—with absolute tenderness.
I forgave Miss Jessie her singing out of tune, and her juvenility of dress,
when I saw her at home. I came to perceive that Captain Brown’s dark
Brutus wig and padded coat (alas! too often threadbare) were remnants of the
military smartness of his youth, which he now wore unconsciously. He was
a man of infinite resources, gained in his barrack experience. As he
confessed, no one could black his boots to please him except himself; but,
indeed, he was not above saving the little maid-servant’s labours in every
way—knowing, most likely, that his daughter’s illness made the place a hard
one.
He
endeavoured to make peace with Miss Jenkyns soon after the memorable dispute I
have named, by a present of a wooden fire-shovel (his own making), having heard
her say how much the grating of an iron one annoyed her. She received the
present with cool gratitude, and thanked him formally. When he was gone,
she bade me put it away in the lumber-room; feeling, probably, that no present
from a man who preferred Mr Boz to Dr Johnson could be less jarring than an
iron fire-shovel.
Such was
the state of things when I left Cranford and went to
Drumble. I had, however, several correspondents, who kept me au fait
as to the proceedings of the dear little town. There was Miss Pole, who
was becoming as much absorbed in crochet as she had been once in knitting, and
the burden of whose letter was something like, “But don’t you forget the white
worsted at Flint’s” of the old song; for at the end of every sentence of news
came a fresh direction as to some crochet commission which I was to execute for
her. Miss Matilda Jenkyns (who did not mind being called Miss Matty, when
Miss Jenkyns was not by) wrote nice, kind, rambling letters, now and then
venturing into an opinion of her own; but suddenly pulling herself up, and
either begging me not to name what she had said, as Deborah thought differently,
and she knew, or else putting in a postscript to the effect that, since
writing the above, she had been talking over the subject with Deborah, and was
quite convinced that, etc.—(here probably followed a recantation of every
opinion she had given in the letter). Then came Miss Jenkyns—Deborah, as
she liked Miss Matty to call her, her father having once said that the Hebrew
name ought to be so pronounced. I secretly think she took the Hebrew
prophetess for a model in character; and, indeed, she was not unlike the stern
prophetess in some ways, making allowance, of course, for modern customs and
difference in dress. Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat, and a little bonnet like
a jockey-cap, and altogether had the appearance of a strong-minded woman; although
she would have despised the modern idea of women being equal to men.
Equal, indeed! she knew they were superior. But to return to her
letters. Everything in them was stately and grand like
herself. I have been looking them over (dear Miss Jenkyns, how I honoured
her!) and I will give an extract, more especially because it relates to our
friend Captain Brown:—
“The
Honourable Mrs Jamieson has only just quitted me; and, in the course of
conversation, she communicated to me the intelligence that she had yesterday
received a call from her revered husband’s quondam friend, Lord
Mauleverer. You will not easily conjecture what brought his lordship
within the precincts of our little town. It was to see Captain Brown,
with whom, it appears, his lordship was acquainted in the ‘plumed wars,’ and
who had the privilege of averting destruction from his lordship’s head when
some great peril was impending over it, off the misnomered Cape of Good
Hope. You know our friend the Honourable Mrs Jamieson’s deficiency in the
spirit of innocent curiosity, and you will therefore not be so much surprised
when I tell you she was quite unable to disclose to me the exact nature of the
peril in question. I was anxious, I confess, to ascertain in what manner
Captain Brown, with his limited establishment, could receive so distinguished a
guest; and I discovered that his lordship retired to rest, and, let us hope, to
refreshing slumbers, at the Angel Hotel; but shared the Brunonian meals during
the two days that he honoured Cranford with his august presence. Mrs
Johnson, our civil butcher’s wife, informs me that Miss Jessie purchased a leg
of lamb; but, besides this, I can hear of no preparation whatever to give a
suitable reception to so distinguished a visitor. Perhaps they entertained him with ‘the feast of reason
and the flow of soul’; and to us, who are acquainted with Captain Brown’s sad
want of relish for ‘the pure wells of English undefiled,’ it may be matter for
congratulation that he has had the opportunity of improving his taste by
holding converse with an elegant and refined member of the British
aristocracy. But from some mundane failings who is altogether free?”
Miss Pole
and Miss Matty wrote to me by the same post. Such a piece of news as Lord
Mauleverer’s visit was not to be lost on the Cranford letter-writers: they made
the most of it. Miss Matty humbly apologised for writing at the same time
as her sister, who was so much more capable than she to describe the honour
done to Cranford; but in spite of a little bad spelling, Miss Matty’s account
gave me the best idea of the commotion occasioned by his lordship’s visit,
after it had occurred; for, except the people at the Angel, the Browns, Mrs
Jamieson, and a little lad his lordship had sworn at for driving a dirty hoop
against the aristocratic legs, I could not hear of any one with whom his
lordship had held conversation.
My next
visit to Cranford was in the summer. There had been neither births,
deaths, nor marriages since I was there last. Everybody lived in the same
house, and wore pretty nearly the same well-preserved, old-fashioned
clothes. The greatest event was, that Miss Jenkyns had purchased a new
carpet for the drawing-room. Oh, the busy work Miss Matty and I had in
chasing the sunbeams, as they fell in an afternoon right down on this carpet
through the blindless window! We spread newspapers
over the places and sat down to our book or our work; and, lo! in a quarter of
an hour the sun had moved, and was blazing away on a fresh spot; and down again
we went on our knees to alter the position of the newspapers. We were
very busy, too, one whole morning, before Miss Jenkyns gave her party, in
following her directions, and in cutting out and stitching together pieces of
newspaper so as to form little paths to every chair set for the expected
visitors, lest their shoes might dirty or defile the purity of the
carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to walk upon in London?
Captain
Brown and Miss Jenkyns were not very cordial to each other. The literary dispute,
of which I had seen the beginning, was a “raw,” the slightest touch on which
made them wince. It was the only difference of opinion they had ever had;
but that difference was enough. Miss Jenkyns could not refrain from
talking at Captain Brown; and, though he did not reply, he drummed with his
fingers, which action she felt and resented as very disparaging to Dr
Johnson. He was rather ostentatious in his preference of the writings of
Mr Boz; would walk through the streets so absorbed in them that he all but ran
against Miss Jenkyns; and though his apologies were earnest and sincere, and
though he did not, in fact, do more than startle her and himself, she owned to
me she had rather he had knocked her down, if he had only been reading a higher
style of 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.
“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 awe-struck 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
letting you sacrifice yourself for me as you did! I have so loved you—and
yet I have thought only of myself. God forgive me!”
“Hush,
love! hush!” said Miss Jessie, sobbing.
“And my
father, my dear, dear father! I will not complain now, if God will give
me strength to be patient. But, oh, Jessie! tell my father how I longed
and yearned to see him at last, and to ask his forgiveness. He can never
know now how I loved him—oh! if I might but tell him, before I die! What
a life of sorrow his has been, and I have done so little to cheer him!”
A light
came into Miss Jessie’s face. “Would it comfort you, dearest, to think
that he does know?—would it comfort you, love, to know that his cares, his
sorrows”—Her voice quivered, but she steadied it into calmness—“Mary! he has
gone before you to the place where the weary are at rest. He knows now
how you loved him.”
A strange
look, which was not distress, came over Miss Brown’s face. She did not
speak for come time, but then we saw her lips form the words, rather
than heard the sound—“Father, mother, Harry, Archy;”—then, as if it were a new
idea throwing a filmy shadow over her darkened mind—“But you will be alone, Jessie!”
Miss
Jessie had been feeling this all during the silence, I think; for the tears
rolled down her cheeks like rain, at these words, and she could not answer at
first. Then she put her hands together tight, and lifted them up, and
said—but not to us—“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”
In a few
moments more Miss Brown lay calm and still—never to sorrow or murmur more.
After this
second funeral, Miss Jenkyns insisted that Miss Jessie should come to stay with
her rather than go back to the desolate house, which, in fact, we learned from
Miss Jessie, must now be given up, as she had not wherewithal to maintain
it. She had something above twenty pounds a year, besides the interest of
the money for which the furniture would sell; but she could not live upon that:
and so we talked over her qualifications for earning money.
“I can sew
neatly,” said she, “and I like nursing. I think, too, I could manage a
house, if any one would try me as housekeeper; or I would go into a shop as
saleswoman, if they would have patience with me at first.”
Miss
Jenkyns declared, in an angry voice, that she should do no such thing; and
talked to herself about “some people having no idea of their rank as a
captain’s daughter,” nearly an hour afterwards, when she brought Miss Jessie up
a basin of delicately-made arrowroot, and stood over her like a dragoon until
the last spoonful was finished: then she disappeared. Miss
Jessie began to tell me some more of the plans which had suggested themselves
to her, and insensibly fell into talking of the days that were past and gone,
and interested me so much I neither knew nor heeded how time passed. We
were both startled when Miss Jenkyns reappeared, and caught us crying. I
was afraid lest she would be displeased, as she often said that crying hindered
digestion, and I knew she wanted Miss Jessie to get strong; but, instead, she
looked queer and excited, and fidgeted round us without saying anything.
At last she spoke.
“I have
been so much startled—no, I’ve not been at all startled—don’t mind me, my dear
Miss Jessie—I’ve been very much surprised—in fact, I’ve had a caller, whom you
knew once, my dear Miss Jessie”—
Miss
Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet, and looked eagerly at Miss
Jenkyns.
“A
gentleman, my dear, who wants to know if you would see him.”
“Is it?—it
is not”—stammered out Miss Jessie—and got no farther.
“This is
his card,” said Miss Jenkyns, giving it to Miss Jessie; and while her head was
bent over it, Miss Jenkyns went through a series of winks and odd faces to me,
and formed her lips into a long sentence, of which, of course, I could not
understand a word.
“May he
come up?” asked Miss Jenkyns at last.
“Oh, yes!
certainly!” said Miss Jessie, as much as to say, this is your house, you may
show any visitor where you like. She took up some knitting of Miss
Matty’s and began to be very busy, though I could see how she trembled all
over.
Miss Jenkyns rang the bell, and told the servant who
answered it to show Major Gordon upstairs; and, presently, in walked a tall,
fine, frank-looking man of forty or upwards. He shook hands with Miss
Jessie; but he could not see her eyes, she kept them so fixed on the
ground. Miss Jenkyns asked me if I would come and help her to tie up the
preserves in the store-room; and though Miss Jessie plucked at my gown, and
even looked up at me with begging eye, I durst not refuse to go where Miss
Jenkyns asked. Instead of tying up preserves in the store-room, however,
we went to talk in the dining-room; and there Miss Jenkyns told me what Major
Gordon had told her; how he had served in the same regiment with Captain Brown,
and had become acquainted with Miss Jessie, then a sweet-looking, blooming girl
of eighteen; how the acquaintance had grown into love on his part, though it
had been some years before he had spoken; how, on becoming possessed, through
the will of an uncle, of a good estate in Scotland, he had offered and been
refused, though with so much agitation and evident distress that he was sure
she was not indifferent to him; and how he had discovered that the obstacle was
the fell disease which was, even then, too surely threatening her sister.
She had mentioned that the surgeons foretold intense suffering; and there was
no one but herself to nurse her poor Mary, or cheer and comfort her father
during the time of illness. They had had long discussions; and on her
refusal to pledge herself to him as his wife when all should be over, he had
grown angry, and broken off entirely, and gone abroad, believing that she was a
cold-hearted person whom he would do well to forget. He
had been travelling in the East, and was on his return home when, at Rome, he
saw the account of Captain Brown’s death in Galignani.
Just then
Miss Matty, who had been out all the morning, and had only lately returned to
the house, burst in with a face of dismay and outraged propriety.
“Oh,
goodness me!” she said. “Deborah, there’s a gentleman sitting in the
drawing-room with his arm round Miss Jessie’s waist!” Miss Matty’s eyes
looked large with terror.
Miss
Jenkyns snubbed her down in an instant.
“The most
proper place in the world for his arm to be in. Go away, Matilda, and
mind your own business.” This from her sister, who had hitherto been a
model of feminine decorum, was a blow for poor Miss Matty, and with a double
shock she left the room.
The last
time I ever saw poor Miss Jenkyns was many years after this. Mrs Gordon
had kept up a warm and affectionate intercourse with all at Cranford.
Miss Jenkyns, Miss Matty, and Miss Pole had all been to visit her, and returned
with wonderful accounts of her house, her husband, her dress, and her
looks. For, with happiness, something of her early bloom returned; she
had been a year or two younger than we had taken her for. Her eyes were
always lovely, and, as Mrs Gordon, her dimples were not out of place. At
the time to which I have referred, when I last saw Miss Jenkyns, that lady was
old and feeble, and had lost something of her strong mind. Little Flora
Gordon was staying with the Misses Jenkyns, and when I came in she was reading
aloud to Miss Jenkyns, who lay feeble and changed on the
sofa. Flora put down the Rambler when I came in.
“Ah!” said
Miss Jenkyns, “you find me changed, my dear. I can’t see as I used to
do. If Flora were not here to read to me, I hardly know how I should get
through the day. Did you ever read the Rambler? It’s a
wonderful book—wonderful! and the most improving reading for Flora” (which I
daresay it would have been, if she could have read half the words without
spelling, and could have understood the meaning of a third), “better than that
strange old book, with the queer name, poor Captain Brown was killed for
reading—that book by Mr Boz, you know—‘Old Poz’; when I was a girl—but that’s a
long time ago—I acted Lucy in ‘Old Poz.’” She babbled on long enough for
Flora to get a good long spell at the “Christmas Carol,” which Miss Matty had
left on the table.
To be continued
