The World's Greatest Books - Volume 4 Part 31

Captain Brown endeavoured to make peace after this memorable dispute by a present to Miss Jenkyns 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 grat.i.tude and thanked him formally.

When he was gone she bade me put it 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 affairs at the time when I left Cranford and went to Drumble. I had, however, several correspondents who kept me _au fait_ as to the proceedings of the inhabitants of the dear little town.

_II.--The Captain_

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 near the same well-preserved, old-fashioned clothes. The greatest event was that the Misses 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 windows! We spread our 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 in a fresh spot; and down again we went on our knees to alter the position of the newspapers. One whole morning, too, we spent in cutting out and st.i.tching together pieces of newspapers so as to form little paths to every chair, lest the shoes of visitors should defile the purity of the carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to walk upon in London?

The literary dispute between Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns continued.

She had formed a habit of talking _at_ him. And he retaliated by drumming his fingers, which action Miss Jenkyns felt and resented as disparaging to Dr. Johnson.

The poor captain! I noticed on this visit that 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.

One afternoon we perceived little groups in the street, all listening with faces aghast to some tale or other. It was some time before Miss Jenkyns 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.

"How, where--where? Good G.o.d! Jenny, don't waste time in crying, but tell us something."

Miss Matty rushed out into the street, and presently an affrighted carter appeared in the drawing-room and told the story.

"'Tis true, mum, I seed it myself. The captain was a-readin' some book, waitin' for the down train, when a la.s.s as gave its sister the slip came toddling across the line. He looked up sudden, see'd the child, darted on the line, cotched it up, and his foot slipped and the train came over him in no time. The child's safe. Poor captain would be glad of that, mum, wouldn't he? G.o.d bless him!"

The great rough carter turned away to hide his tears. I turned to Miss Jenkyns. She looked very ill, as though she were going to faint, and signed to me to open a window.

"Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to those girls. G.o.d pardon me if ever I have spoken contemptuously to the captain."

Miss Brown did not long survive her father. Her last words were a prayer for forgiveness for her selfishness in allowing her sister Jessie to sacrifice herself for her all her life.

But Miss Jessie was not long left alone. Miss Jenkyns insisted she should come and stay with her, and would not hear of her going out into the world to earn her living as a saleswoman. "Some people have no idea of their rank as a captain's daughter," she related indignantly, and stumped out of the room. Presently she came back with a strange look on her face.

"I have been much startled--no, I've not been startled--don't mind me, my dear Miss Jessie, only surprised--in fact, I've had a caller whom you once knew, my dear Miss Jessie."

Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet.

"Is it?--it is not----" stammered out Miss Jessie, and got no farther.

"This is his card," said Miss Jenkyns, and went through a series of winks and odd faces at me, and formed a long sentence with her lips, of which I could not understand a word.

Major Gordon was shown upstairs.

While downstairs Miss Jenkyns told me what the major had told her. How he had served in the same regiment as Captain Brown and had fallen in love with Miss Jessie, then a sweet-looking, blooming girl of eighteen; how she had refused him, though obviously not indifferent to him; how he had discovered the obstacle to be the fell disease which had stricken her sister, whom there was no one to nurse and comfort but herself; how he had believed her cold and had left in anger; and finally how he had read of the death of Captain Brown in a foreign newspaper.

Just then Miss Matty burst into the room.

"Oh, Deborah," she said, "there's a gentleman sitting in the drawing- room with his arm round Miss Jessie's waist!"

"The most proper place for his arm to be in. Go, Matilda, and mind your own business."

Poor Miss Matty! This was a shock, coming from her decorous sister.

Thus happiness, and with it some of her early bloom, returned to Miss Jessie, and as Mrs. Gordon her dimples were not out of place.

_III.--Poor Peter_

My visits to Cranford continued for many years, and did not cease even after the death of Miss Jenkyns.

Miss Matty became my new hostess. At first I rather dreaded the changed aspect of things. Miss Matty, too, began to cry as soon as she saw me.

She was evidently nervous from having antic.i.p.ated my visit. I comforted her as well as I could, and I found the best consolation I could give was the honest praise that came from my heart as I spoke of the deceased.

Miss Matty made me her confidante in many matters, and one evening she sent Martha to go for eggs at a farm at the other end of the town and told me the story of her brother.

"Poor Peter! The sole honour he brought from Shrewsbury was the reputation of being captain of the school in the art of practical joking. He even thought that the people of Cranford might be hoaxed.

'Hoaxing' is not a pretty word, my dear, and I hope you won't tell your father I used it, for I should not like him to think I was not choice in my language, after living with such a woman as Deborah. I don't know how it slipped out of my mouth, except it was that I was thinking of poor Peter, and it was always his expression.

"One day my father had gone to see some sick people in the village.

Deborah, too, was away from home for a fortnight or so. I don't know what possessed poor Peter, but he went to her room and dressed himself in her old gown and shawl and bonnet. And he made the pillow into a little--you are sure you locked the door, my dear?--into--into a little baby with white long clothes. And he went and walked up and down in the Filbert Walk--just half hidden by the rails and half seen; and he cuddled the pillow just like a baby and talked to it all the nonsense people do. Oh, dear, and my father came stepping stately up the street, as he always did, and pushing past the crowd saw--I don't know what he saw--but old Clare said his face went grey-white with anger. He seized hold of poor Peter, tore the clothes off his back--bonnet, shawl, gown, and all--threw them among the crowd, and before all the people lifted up his cane and flogged Peter.

"My dear, that boy's trick on that sunny day, when all promised so well, broke my mother's heart and changed my father for life. Old Clare said Peter looked as white as my father and stood still as a statue to be flogged.

"'Have you done enough, sir?' he asked hoa.r.s.ely, when my father stopped.

Then Peter bowed grandly to the people outside the railing and walked slowly home. He went straight to his mother, looking as haughty as any man, and not like a boy.

"'Mother,' he said, 'I am come to say "G.o.d bless you for ever."'

"He would say no more, and by the time my mother had found out what had happened from my father, and had gone to her boy's room to comfort him, he had gone, and did not come back. That spring day was the last time he ever saw his mother's face. He wrote a pa.s.sionate entreaty to her to come and see him before his ship left the Mersey for the war, but the letter was delayed, and when she arrived it was too late. It killed my mother. And think, my dear, the day after her death--for she did not live a twelve-month after Peter left--came a parcel from India from her poor boy. It was a large, soft white India shawl. Just what my mother would have liked.

"We took it to my father in the hopes it would rouse him, for he had sat with her hand in his all night long. At first he took no notice of it.

Then suddenly he got up and spoke. 'She shall be buried in it,' he said.

'Peter shall have that comfort; and she would have liked it.'"

"Did Mr. Peter ever come home?"

"Yes, once. He came home a lieutenant. And he and my father were such friends. My father was so proud to show him to all the neighbours. He never walked out without Peter's arm to lean on. And then Peter went to sea again, and by-and-by my father died, blessing us both and thanking Deborah for all she had been to him. And our circ.u.mstances were changed, and from a big rectory with three servants we had come down to a small house with a servant-of-all-work. But, as Deborah used to say, we have always lived genteelly, even if circ.u.mstances have compelled us to simplicity. Poor Deborah!"

"And Mr. Peter?" I asked.

"Oh, there was some great war in India, and we have never heard of Peter since then. I believe he is dead myself. Sometimes when I sit by myself and the house is quiet, I think I hear his step coming up the street, and my heart begins to flutter and beat; but the sound goes, and Peter never comes back."

_IV.--Friends in Need_