Cranford

The Wooden Fire-Shovel

Seeking reconciliation after the dispute over Dr Johnson, the Captain presents Miss Jenkyns with a wooden fire-shovel of his own making, having heard her complain of the grating of an iron one. She receives it with cool, formal thanks and bids the narrator store it in the lumber-room, feeling that nothing from a man who preferred Mr Boz to Dr Johnson could be less jarring than iron. The episode underscores the unresolved tension beneath their civility.

Letters from Cranford

After leaving Cranford for Drumble, the narrator receives letters from three correspondents. Miss Pole writes chiefly of crochet commissions, ending each item of news with a fresh errand. Miss Matty Jenkyns writes kindly and rambles into opinions, only to retract them after consulting her sister Deborah. Miss Jenkyns herself writes in stately Johnsonian sentences, modelled, the narrator suspects, on the Hebrew prophetess; she wears a cravat and jockey-cap bonnet and holds that women are superior, not merely equal, to men.

Lord Mauleverer’s Visit

In one such letter Miss Jenkyns recounts that the Honourable Mrs Jamieson has announced a visit from her late husband’s old friend Lord Mauleverer, who came to Cranford to see Captain Brown—a companion of his “plumed wars” who once saved his life off the Cape of Good Hope. Lord Mauleverer lodged at the Angel Hotel but shared the Brunonian meals for two days. Mrs Jamieson could not disclose the nature of the peril, and the town’s only preparations Miss Jenkyns could discover were Miss Jessie’s purchase of a leg of lamb; she hopes “the feast of reason and the flow of soul” compensated, and gently wonders whether any mortal is free from worldly failings.

The New Carpet

Miss Pole and Miss Matty, writing by the same post, make the most of so great an event. Miss Matty, despite bad spelling, gives the liveliest picture of the commotion, for beyond the people at the Angel, the Browns, Mrs Jamieson, and a small boy his lordship swore at for driving a hoop against his legs, no one seems to have held conversation with him. The narrative then turns to the narrator’s next summer visit, whose greatest event is Miss Jenkyns’s purchase of a new drawing-room carpet, against whose brilliance she and Miss Matty chase the afternoon sunbeams with newspaper patches and, before a party, stitch paper paths for every guest’s shoes.

The Literary Dispute

Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns remain stiff with each other; the literary dispute about Dr Johnson is a “raw” that the lightest touch aggravates. Miss Jenkyns cannot refrain from talking at him about Johnson, and although he does not reply, his drumming fingers strike her as disparaging. He is ostentatious in his preference for Mr Boz, walking so absorbed that he nearly runs into her; his apologies are sincere, but she owns she would rather he had knocked her down than been reading a lower style of literature. The narrator observes that, despite the quarrel, the Captain looks only older and more threadbare.

The Invalid’s Decline

Asked about his daughter’s health, the Captain answers with manly piety: she suffers greatly and must suffer more; they do all they can to alleviate her pain, and God’s will be done—removing his hat at the last words. Miss Matty reports that a physician of high repute has been consulted, his every injunction followed regardless of expense, and that the family denies itself in silence to keep the invalid comfortable.

Cranford’s Quiet Kindness

Cranford’s small economies of affection are everywhere apparent: rose-leaves gathered before they fall, bundles of lavender sent to drawer or sickroom, and Miss Jenkyns sticking an apple full of cloves to warm and perfume Miss Brown’s chamber, pronouncing a Johnsonian sentence with each clove. Miss Jessie, describing the neighbours who leave their earliest vegetables at the door for her sister, declares Cranford a town for kindness; the poor speak short and gruff as if ashamed, but their thoughtfulness moves her to tears, which she quickly scolds away.