Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell CHAPTER I. OUR SOCIETY In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does ...Read More

CHAPTER II. THE CAPTAIN It was impossible to live a month at Cranford and not know the daily habits 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 ...Read More

CHAPTER III. A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO I thought that probably my connection with Cranford would cease after Jenkyns’s death; at least, that it would have to be kept up by correspondence, which bears much the same relation to personal intercourse that the books of dried plants I sometimes see (“Hortus Siccus,” I think they call the thing) do to the living and fresh flowers in the lanes and meadows. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, by receiving a letter from Miss Pole (who had always come in for a supplementary week after my annual visit to Miss Jenkyns) ...Read More

CHAPTER IV. A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR A few days after, a note came from Mr Holbrook, asking 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 ...Read More

CHAPTER V. OLD LETTERS I have often noticed that almost every one has his own individual small economies—careful habits saving fractions of pennies in some one peculiar direction—any disturbance of which annoys him more than spending shillings or pounds on some real extravagance. An old gentleman of my acquaintance, who took the intelligence of the failure of a Joint-Stock Bank, in which some of his money was invested, with stoical mildness, worried his family all through a long summer’s day because one of them had torn (instead of cutting) out the written leaves of his now useless bank-book; of ...Read More

CHAPTER VI. POOR PETER Poor Peter’s career lay before him rather pleasantly mapped out by kind friends, but Bonus non videt omnia, in this map too. He was to win honours at the Shrewsbury School, and carry them thick to Cambridge, and after that, a living awaited him, the gift of his godfather, Sir Peter Arley. Poor Peter! his lot in life was very different to what his friends had hoped and planned. Miss Matty told me all about it, and I think it was a relief when she had done so. He was the darling of his mother, ...Read More

CHAPTER VII. VISITING One morning, as Miss Matty and I sat at our work—it was before twelve o’clock, and Matty had not changed the cap with yellow ribbons that had been Miss Jenkyns’s best, and which Miss Matty was now wearing out in private, putting on the one made in imitation of Mrs Jamieson’s at all times when she expected to be seen—Martha came up, and asked if Miss Betty Barker might speak to her mistress. Miss Matty assented, and quickly disappeared to change the yellow ribbons, while Miss Barker came upstairs; but, as she had forgotten her spectacles, ...Read More

CHAPTER VIII. “YOUR LADYSHIP” Early the next morning—directly after twelve—Miss Pole made her appearance at Miss Matty’s. Some very piece of business was alleged as a reason for the call; but there was evidently something behind. At last out it came. “By the way, you’ll think I’m strangely ignorant; but, do you really know, I am puzzled how we ought to address Lady Glenmire. Do you say, ‘Your Ladyship,’ where you would say ‘you’ to a common person? I have been puzzling all morning; and are we to say ‘My Lady,’ instead of ‘Ma’am?’ Now you knew Lady Arley—will ...Read More

CHAPTER IX. SIGNOR BRUNONI Soon after the events of which I gave an account in my last paper, I summoned home by my father’s illness; and for a time I forgot, in anxiety about him, to wonder how my dear friends at Cranford were getting on, or how Lady Glenmire could reconcile herself to the dulness of the long visit which she was still paying to her sister-in-law, Mrs Jamieson. When my father grew a little stronger I accompanied him to the seaside, so that altogether I seemed banished from Cranford, and was deprived of the opportunity of hearing ...Read More

CHAPTER X. THE PANIC I think a series of circumstances dated from Signor Brunoni’s visit to Cranford, which seemed the time connected in our minds with him, though I don’t know that he had anything really to do with them. All at once all sorts of uncomfortable rumours got afloat in the town. There were one or two robberies—real bonâ fide robberies; men had up before the magistrates and committed for trial—and that seemed to make us all afraid of being robbed; and for a long time, at Miss Matty’s, I know, we used to make a regular expedition ...Read More

CHAPTER XI. SAMUEL BROWN The next morning I met Lady Glenmire and Miss Pole setting out on a long to find some old woman who was famous in the neighbourhood for her skill in knitting woollen stockings. Miss Pole said to me, with a smile half-kindly and half-contemptuous upon her countenance, “I have been just telling Lady Glenmire of our poor friend Mrs Forrester, and her terror of ghosts. It comes from living so much alone, and listening to the bug-a-boo stories of that Jenny of hers.” She was so calm and so much above superstitious fears herself that ...Read More

CHAPTER XII. ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED Was the “poor Peter” of Cranford the Aga Jenkyns of Chunderabaddad, or was not? As somebody says, that was the question. In my own home, whenever people had nothing else to do, they blamed me for want of discretion. Indiscretion was my bug-bear fault. Everybody has a bug-bear fault, a sort of standing characteristic—a pièce de résistance for their friends to cut at; and in general they cut and come again. I was tired of being called indiscreet and incautious; and I determined for once to prove myself a model of prudence and ...Read More

CHAPTER XIII. STOPPED PAYMENT The very Tuesday morning on which Mr Johnson was going to show the fashions, the brought two letters to the house. I say the post-woman, but I should say the postman’s wife. He was a lame shoemaker, a very clean, honest man, much respected in the town; but he never brought the letters round except on unusual occasions, such as Christmas Day or Good Friday; and on those days the letters, which should have been delivered at eight in the morning, did not make their appearance until two or three in the afternoon, for every ...Read More

CHAPTER XIV. FRIENDS IN NEED It was an example to me, and I fancy it might be to many to see how immediately Miss Matty set about the retrenchment which she knew to be right under her altered circumstances. While she went down to speak to Martha, and break the intelligence to her, I stole out with my letter to the Aga Jenkyns, and went to the signor’s lodgings to obtain the exact address. I bound the signora to secrecy; and indeed her military manners had a degree of shortness and reserve in them which made her always say ...Read More

CHAPTER XV. A HAPPY RETURN Before I left Miss Matty at Cranford everything had been comfortably arranged for her. Mrs Jamieson’s approval of her selling tea had been gained. That oracle had taken a few days to consider whether by so doing Miss Matty would forfeit her right to the privileges of society in Cranford. I think she had some little idea of mortifying Lady Glenmire by the decision she gave at last; which was to this effect: that whereas a married woman takes her husband’s rank by the strict laws of precedence, an unmarried woman retains the station ...Read More

CHAPTER XVI. PEACE TO CRANFORD It was not surprising that Mr Peter became such a favourite at Cranford. The vied with each other who should admire him most; and no wonder, for their quiet lives were astonishingly stirred up by the arrival from India—especially as the person arrived told more wonderful stories than Sindbad the Sailor; and, as Miss Pole said, was quite as good as an Arabian Night any evening. For my own part, I had vibrated all my life between Drumble and Cranford, and I thought it was quite possible that all Mr Peter’s stories might be ...Read More