"It is the third day: I daresay your mamma has told you, my dear,
never to let more than three days elapse between receiving a call and
returning it; and also, that you are never to stay longer than a
quarter of an hour."
"But am I to look at my watch? How am I to find out when a quarter of
an hour has passed?"
"You must keep thinking about the time, my dear, and not allow
yourself to forget it in conversation."
As everybody had this rule in their minds, whether they received or
paid a call, of course no absorbing subject was ever spoken about. We
kept ourselves to short sentences of small-talk, and were punctual to
our time.
I imagine that a few of the gentlefolks of Cranford were poor, and had
some difficulty in making both ends meet; but they were like the
Spartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling face. We none of
us spoke of money, because that subject savored of commerce and trade,
and though some might be poor, we were all aristocratic. The
Cranfordians had that kindly _esprit de corps_ which made them
overlook all deficiencies in success when some among them tried to
conceal their poverty. When Mrs. Forrester, for instance, gave a party
in her baby-house of a dwelling, and the little maiden disturbed the
ladies on the sofa by a request that she might get the tea-tray out
from underneath, every one took this novel proceeding as the most
natural thing in the world, and talked on about household forms and
ceremonies as if we all believed that our hostess had a regular
servants' hall, second table, with housekeeper and steward, instead of
the one little charity-school maiden, whose short ruddy arms could
never have been strong enough to carry the tray up-stairs if she had
not been assisted in private by her mistress, who now sat in state,
pretending not to know what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and
we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we knew that she knew that we
knew, she had been busy all the morning making tea-bread and
sponge-cakes.
There were one or two consequences arising from this general but
unacknowledged poverty and this very much acknowledged gentility,
which were not amiss, and which might be introduced into many circles
of society to their great improvement. For instance, the inhabitants
of Cranford kept early hours, and clattered home in their pattens
under the guidance of a lantern-bearer about nine o'clock at night;
and the whole town was abed and asleep by half-past ten. Moreover, it
was considered "vulgar" (a tremendous word in Cranford) to give
anything expensive in the way of eatable or drinkable, at the evening
entertainments. Wafer bread and butter and sponge-biscuits were all
that the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson gave; and she was sister-in-law to
the late Earl of Glenmire, although she did practice such "elegant
economy."
"Elegant economy!" How naturally one falls back into the phraseology
of Cranford! There, economy was always "elegant," and money-spending
always "vulgar and ostentatious"; a sort of sour-grapeism which made
us very peaceful and satisfied. I never shall forget the dismay felt
when a certain Captain Brown came to live at Cranford, and openly
spoke about his being poor--not in a whisper to an intimate friend,
the doors and windows being previously closed, but in the public
street! in a loud military voice! alleging his poverty as a reason for
not taking a particular house. The ladies of Cranford were already
rather moaning over the invasion of their territories by a man and a
gentleman. He was a half-pay captain, and had obtained some situation
on a neighboring railroad, which had been vehemently petitioned
against by the little town; and if in addition to his masculine gender
and his connection with the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen as to
talk of being poor--why then indeed he must be sent to Coventry. Death
was as true and as common as poverty; yet people never spoke about
that, loud out in the streets. It was a word not to be mentioned to
ears polite. We had tacitly agreed to ignore that any with whom we
associated on terms of visiting equality could ever be prevented by
poverty from doing anything that they wished. If we walked to or from
a party, it was because the night was _so_ fine, or the air _so_
refreshing; not because sedan-chairs were expensive. If we wore prints
instead of summer silks, it was because we preferred a washing
material; and so on, till we blinded ourselves to the vulgar fact that
we were all of us people of very moderate means. Of course, then, we
did not know what to make of a man who could speak of poverty as if it
was not a disgrace. Yet somehow Captain Brown made himself respected
in Cranford, and was called upon, in spite of all resolutions to the
contrary. I was surprised to hear his opinions quoted as authority at
a visit which I paid to Cranford about a year after he had settled in
the town. My own friends had been among the bitterest opponents of any
proposal to visit the captain and his daughters only twelve months
before; and now he was even admitted in the tabooed hours before
twelve. True, it was to discover the cause of a smoking chimney,
before the fire was lighted; but still Captain Brown walked up-stairs,
nothing daunted, spoke in a voice too large for the room, and joked
quite in the way of a tame man about the house. He had been blind to
all the small slights, and omissions of trivial ceremonies, with which
he had been received. He had been friendly, though the Cranford ladies
had been cool; he had answered small sarcastic compliments in good
faith; and with his manly frankness had overpowered all the shrinking
which met him as a man who was not ashamed to be poor. And at last his
excellent masculine common-sense, and his facility in devising
expedients to overcome domestic dilemmas, had gained him an
extraordinary place as authority among the Cranford ladies. He himself
went on in his course, as unaware of his popularity as he had been of
the reverse....
I wondered what the Cranford ladies did with Captain Brown at their
parties. We had often rejoiced, in former days, that there was no
gentleman to be attended to and to find conversation for, at the card
parties. We had congratulated ourselves upon the snugness of the
evenings, and in our love for gentility and distaste of mankind we had
almost persuaded ourselves that to be a man was to be "vulgar"; so
that when I found my friend and hostess Miss Jenkyns was going to have
a party in my honor, and that Captain and the Miss Browns were
invited, I wondered much what would be the course of the evening. Card
tables, with green-baize tops, were set out by daylight, just as
usual: it was the third week in November, so the evenings closed in
about four. Candles and clean packs of cards were arranged on each
table. The fire was made up; the neat maid-servant had received her
last directions: and there we stood, dressed in our best, each with a
candle-lighter in our hands, ready to dart at the candles as soon as
the first knock came. Parties in Cranford were solemn festivities,
making the ladies feel gravely elated as they sat together in their
best dresses. As soon as three had arrived, we sat down to Preference,
I being the unlucky fourth. The next four comers were put down
immediately to another table; and presently the tea-trays, which I had
seen set out in the store-room as I passed in the morning, were placed
each on the middle of a card table. The china was delicate egg-shell;
the old-fashioned silver glittered with polishing; but the eatables
were of the slightest description.
While the trays were yet on the tables, Captain and the Miss Browns
came in; and I could see that, somehow or other, the captain was a
favorite with all the ladies present. Ruffled brows were smoothed,
sharp voices lowered at his approach. Miss Brown looked ill, and
depressed almost to gloom. Miss Jessie smiled as usual, and seemed
nearly as popular as her father. He immediately and quietly assumed
the man's place in the room; attended to every one's wants, lessened
the pretty maid-servant's labor by waiting on empty cups and
bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet did it all in so easy and
dignified a manner, and so much as if it were a matter of course for
the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a true man throughout.
He played for threepenny points with as grave an interest as if they
had been pounds; and yet in all his attention to strangers he had an
eye on his suffering daughter--for suffering I was sure she was,
though to many eyes she might only appear to be irritable. Miss Jessie
could not play cards, but she talked to the sitters-out, who before
her coming had been rather inclined to be cross. She sang, too, to an
old cracked piano which I think had been a spinet in its youth. Miss
Jessie sang 'Jock o' Hazeldean' a little out of tune; but we were none
of us musical, though Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, by way of
appearing to be so.
It was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this; for I had seen that, a
little before, she had been a good deal annoyed by Miss Jessie Brown's
unguarded admission (apropos of Shetland wool) that she had an uncle,
her mother's brother, who was a shopkeeper in Edinburgh. Miss
Jenkyns tried to drown this confession by a terrible cough--for the
Honorable Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the card table nearest Miss
Jessie, and what would she say or think if she found out that she was
in the same room with a shopkeeper's niece! But Miss Jessie Brown (who
had no tact, as we all agreed the next morning) _would_ repeat the
information, and assure Miss Pole she could easily get her the
identical Shetland wool required "through my uncle, who has the best
assortment of Shetland goods of any one in Edinbro'." It was to take
the taste of this out of our mouths, and the sound of this out of our
ears, that Miss Jenkyns proposed music: so I say again, it was very
good of her to beat time to the song.
When the trays reappeared with biscuits and wine, punctually at a
quarter to nine, there was conversation, comparing of cards, and
talking over tricks; but by-and-by Captain Brown sported a bit of
literature.
"Have you seen any numbers of 'The Pickwick Papers'?" said he. (They
were then publishing in parts.) "Capital thing!"
Now, Miss Jenkyns was daughter of a deceased rector of Cranford, and
on the strength of a number of manuscript sermons and a pretty good
library of divinity considered herself literary, and looked upon any
conversation about books as a challenge to her. So she answered and
said, "Yes, she had seen them; indeed, she might say she had read
them."
"And what do you think of them?" exclaimed Captain Brown. "Aren't they
famously good?"
So urged, Miss Jenkyns could not but speak.
"I must say, I don't think they are by any means equal to Dr. Johnson.
Still, perhaps, the author is young. Let him persevere, and who knows
what he may become if he will take the great Doctor for his model."
This was evidently too much for Captain Brown to take placidly; and I
saw the words on the tip of his tongue before Miss Jenkyns had
finished her sentence.
"It is quite a different sort of thing, my dear madam," he began.
"I am quite aware of that," returned she; "and I make allowances,
Captain Brown."
"Just allow me to read you a scene out of this month's number,"
pleaded he. "I had it only this morning, and I don't think the company
can have read it yet."
"As you please," said she, settling herself with an air of
resignation. He read the account of the "swarry" which Sam Weller gave
at Bath. Some of us laughed heartily. I did not dare, because I was
staying in the house. Miss Jenkyns sat in patient gravity. When it was
ended, she turned to me, and said, with mild dignity:--
"Fetch me 'Rasselas,' my dear, out of the book-room."