The Complete Novels of Elizabeth Gaskell. Elizabeth Gaskell
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could accomplish with quietness and simplicity); and then, seeing her look bewildered, I added, “take the vegetables round to people, and let them help themselves.”
“And mind you go first to the ladies,” put in Miss Matilda. “Always go to the ladies before gentlemen when you are waiting.”
“I’ll do it as you tell me, ma’am,” said Martha; “but I like lads best.”
We felt very uncomfortable and shocked at this speech of Martha’s, yet I don’t think she meant any harm; and, on the whole, she attended very well to our directions, except that she “nudged” the Major when he did not help himself as soon as she expected to the potatoes, while she was handing them round.
The major and his wife were quiet unpretending people enough when they did come; languid, as all East Indians are, I suppose. We were rather dismayed at their bringing two servants with them, a Hindoo body-servant for the Major, and a steady elderly maid for his wife; but they slept at the inn, and took off a good deal of the responsibility by attending carefully to their master’s and mistress’s comfort. Martha, to be sure, had never ended her staring at the East Indian’s white turban and brown complexion, and I saw that Miss Matilda shrunk away from him a little as he waited at dinner. Indeed, she asked me, when they were gone, if he did not remind me of Blue Beard? On the whole, the visit was most satisfactory, and is a subject of conversation even now with Miss Matilda; at the time it greatly excited Cranford, and even stirred up the apathetic and Honourable Mrs Jamieson to some expression of interest, when I went to call and thank her for the kind answers she had vouchsafed to Miss Matilda’s inquiries as to the arrangement of a gentleman’s dressing-room—answers which I must confess she had given in the wearied manner of the Scandinavian prophetess—
“Leave me, leave me to repose.”
And now I come to the love affair.
It seems that Miss Pole had a cousin, once or twice removed, who had offered to Miss Matty long ago. Now this cousin lived four or five miles from Cranford on his own estate; but his property was not large enough to entitle him to rank higher than a yeoman; or rather, with something of the “pride which apes humility,” he had refused to push himself on, as so many of his class had done, into the ranks of the squires. He would not allow himself to be called Thomas Holbrook, Esq.; he even sent back letters with this address, telling the post-mistress at Cranford that his name was Mr Thomas Holbrook, yeoman. He rejected all domestic innovations; he would have the house door stand open in summer and shut in winter, without knocker or bell to summon a servant. The closed fist or the knob of a stick did this office for him if he found the door locked. He despised every refinement which had not its root deep down in humanity. If people were not ill, he saw no necessity for moderating his voice. He spoke the dialect of the country in perfection, and constantly used it in conversation; although Miss Pole (who gave me these particulars) added, that he read aloud more beautifully and with more feeling than any one she had ever heard, except the late rector.
“And how came Miss Matilda not to marry him?” asked I.
“Oh, I don’t know. She was willing enough, I think; but you know Cousin Thomas would not have been enough of a gentleman for the rector and Miss Jenkyns.”
“Well! but they were not to marry him,” said I, impatiently.
“No; but they did not like Miss Matty to marry below her rank. You know she was the rector’s daughter, and somehow they are related to Sir Peter Arley: Miss Jenkyns thought a deal of that.”
“Poor Miss Matty!” said I.
“Nay, now, I don’t know anything more than that he offered and was refused. Miss Matty might not like him—and Miss Jenkyns might never have said a word—it is only a guess of mine.”
“Has she never seen him since?” I inquired.
“No, I think not. You see Woodley, Cousin Thomas’s house, lies half-way between Cranford and Misselton; and I know he made Misselton his market-town very soon after he had offered to Miss Matty; and I don’t think he has been into Cranford above once or twice since—once, when I was walking with Miss Matty, in High Street, and suddenly she darted from me, and went up Shire Lane. A few minutes after I was startled by meeting Cousin Thomas.”
“How old is he?” I asked, after a pause of castle-building.
“He must be about seventy, I think, my dear,” said Miss Pole, blowing up my castle, as if by gun-powder, into small fragments.
Very soon after—at least during my long visit to Miss Matilda—I had the opportunity of seeing Mr Holbrook; seeing, too, his first encounter with his former love, after thirty or forty years’ separation. I was helping to decide whether any of the new assortment of coloured silks which they had just received at the shop would do to match a grey and black mousseline-delaine that wanted a new breadth, when a tall, thin, Don Quixote-looking old man came into the shop for some woollen gloves. I had never seen the person (who was rather striking) before, and I watched him rather attentively while Miss Matty listened to the shopman. The stranger wore a blue coat with brass buttons, drab breeches, and gaiters, and drummed with his fingers on the counter until he was attended to. When he answered the shop-boy’s question, “What can I have the pleasure of showing you to-day, sir?” I saw Miss Matilda start, and then suddenly sit down; and instantly I guessed who it was. She had made some inquiry which had to be carried round to the other shopman.
“Miss Jenkyns wants the black sarsenet two-and-twopence the yard”; and Mr Holbrook had caught the name, and was across the shop in two strides.
“Matty—Miss Matilda—Miss Jenkyns! God bless my soul! I should not have known you. How are you? how are you?” He kept shaking her hand in a way which proved the warmth of his friendship; but he repeated so often, as if to himself, “I should not have known you!” that any sentimental romance which I might be inclined to build was quite done away with by his manner.
However, he kept talking to us all the time we were in the shop; and then waving the shopman with the unpurchased gloves on one side, with “Another time, sir! another time!” he walked home with us. I am happy to say my client, Miss Matilda, also left the shop in an equally bewildered state, not having purchased either green or red silk. Mr Holbrook was evidently full with honest loud-spoken joy at meeting his old love again; he touched on the changes that had taken place; he even spoke of Miss Jenkyns as “Your poor sister! Well, well! we have all our faults”; and bade us good-bye with many a hope that he should soon see Miss Matty again. She went straight to her room, and never came back till our early tea-time, when I thought she looked as if she had been crying.
Chapter IV.
A Visit to an Old Bachelor
A few days after, a note came from Mr Holbrook, asking us—impartially asking both of us—in a formal, old-fashioned style, to spend a day at his house—a long June day—for it was June now. He named that he had also invited his cousin, Miss Pole; so that we might join in a fly, which could be put up at his house.
I expected Miss Matty to jump at this invitation; but, no! Miss Pole and I had the greatest difficulty in persuading her to go. She thought it was improper; and was even half annoyed when we utterly ignored the idea of any impropriety in her going with two other ladies to see her old lover. Then came a more serious difficulty. She did not think Deborah would have liked her to go. This took us half a day’s good hard talking to get over; but, at the first sentence of relenting, I seized the opportunity, and wrote and despatched an acceptance in her name—fixing day and hour, that all might be decided and done with.
The next morning she asked me if I would go down to the shop with her; and there, after much hesitation, we chose out three caps to be sent home and tried on, that the most becoming