Cranford

The Paris Announcement

Mr Holbrook announces that he intends to travel to Paris in a week or two—a place he has never visited but always wished to see—reasoning that if he does not go soon he may never go at all. He plans to depart as soon as the hay is in, before harvest. The ladies, caught by surprise, can think of no commissions to send him.

Miss Matty’s Decline

After Mr Holbrook’s departure, Miss Matty visibly declines. She worries about his health abroad, fearing that French food will not agree with him. Martha sends occasional lines to the narrator reporting that her mistress is very low and off her food, and by November she is “sadly off” and “moping” since Miss Pole’s visit, prompting the narrator to pack up and return without waiting for a formal summons.

A Return to Cranford

The narrator arrives to a warm though flustered welcome and finds Miss Matty looking miserably ill. In a private talk at the kitchen fire Martha confirms that her mistress has been poorly for over a fortnight, having fallen into her moping state on the Tuesday after Miss Pole’s visit, and the narrator prepares to comfort and cosset her old friend.

CHAPTER IV.

Chapter IV opens with Martha’s grievance about being forbidden suitors, shifts through the illness and death of Miss Matty’s old admirer Thomas Holbrook, follows Miss Matty’s concealed grief and quiet self-reproach, and closes with her softened blessing of Martha’s courtship by Jem Hearn.

Martha’s Grievance About Followers

Martha complains to the narrator that Miss Matty forbids her to have “followers,” despite several young men in the town being interested in her. She confesses she cried on the previous Sunday after turning Jem Hearn away because she had given her word. The narrator knows from long experience how strongly both Miss Jenkyns sisters disapproved of followers, and recognizes that Miss Matty’s present nervous state is unlikely to soften the rule.

News of Thomas Holbrook’s Decline

Miss Pole, visiting after a two-day absence, reports that Thomas Holbrook is not long for this world; his exhausting trip to Paris has broken him, and his housekeeper says he now sits in the counting-house with his hands on his knees, repeating only that Paris was a wonderful city. Miss Pole laments that a better man never lived.

Miss Matty’s Hidden Sorrow

When the narrator asks whether Miss Matty knows of Holbrook’s illness, Miss Pole is surprised she has not been told and reveals she informed her more than a fortnight ago. The narrator realizes Miss Matty has been hiding her sorrow from everyone, and guiltily resolves not to betray the secrets of that tender heart.

Reminiscences of Deborah Jenkyns

Miss Matty, suffering one of her headaches, spends a quiet November evening reminiscing aloud about her late sister Deborah’s youth: settling gowns for parties, founding a benefit society, dancing with a lord, visiting Sir Peter Arley, and nursing Miss Matty through a long illness which the narrator privately dates to the rejection of Mr Holbrook’s suit. The conversation is soft and tender.

Mr Holbrook’s Death

Miss Pole returns the next day with news that Mr Holbrook has died. Miss Matty receives the report in trembling silence, and the narrator, seeing her unable to speak, supplies the expected expressions of regret. Miss Pole, deceived by the calm exterior, takes her leave after a call of some duration.

Miss Matty’s Quiet Grief

Miss Matty makes a strong effort to conceal her grief, never once alluding again to Mr Holbrook in the narrator’s presence. The book he gave her, however, lies beside her Bible on the bedside table, a silent witness to her loss.

Widow-Style Caps

In secret, Miss Matty asks the Cranford milliner to make her caps in the style of the Honourable Mrs Jamieson’s. When the milliner observes that Mrs Jamieson wears widows’ caps, Miss Matty hastily disclaims any such intention. The narrator, who has noticed this exchange, recognizes it as the beginning of Miss Matty’s tremulous head-and-hand motion, the physical mark of a grief she will not name.