Cranford

Miss Jenkyns’s Helmet-Bonnet

That afternoon Miss Jenkyns sends for a yard of black crape and busily trims the little black silk bonnet she has previously worn. When she puts it on and seeks approbation rather than admiration, the narrator is struck—through tears—by its resemblance to a helmet. In this hybrid bonnet, half helmet and half jockey-cap, Miss Jenkyns attends Captain Brown’s funeral and supports Miss Jessie with tender, indulgent firmness, allowing her to weep her passionate fill before they depart.

The Death of Miss Brown

While Miss Jenkyns and Miss Jessie are at the funeral, Miss Pole, Miss Matty, and the narrator tend to the dying Miss Brown. By morning, Miss Brown is visibly fading; her voice has lost its querulous tone, recalling instead the young anxious head of the family she once was after their mother’s death. Conscious of Miss Jessie’s presence but not of the others, Miss Brown whispers her remorse for her selfishness, her longing for her father’s forgiveness, and her grief at how little she did to ease his sorrows. Miss Jessie gently tells her that their father has gone before her to a place of rest and knows now how much she loved him. Miss Brown murmurs the names of those who have gone before her, then, with one final thought for Jessie’s loneliness, she passes away calm and still.

Miss Jessie’s Uncertain Future

After the second funeral, Miss Jenkyns insists that Miss Jessie come to stay rather than return to the desolate house, which must now be given up as she cannot afford to maintain it. With only about twenty pounds a year and the proceeds from the furniture, Miss Jessie must earn her living. She lists her qualifications modestly—sewing neatly, nursing, possibly managing a house or working as a saleswoman. Miss Jenkyns is outraged that a captain’s daughter should contemplate such work, but busies herself bringing up delicately made arrowroot and standing over Miss Jessie like a dragoon until every spoonful is finished.

Major Gordon’s Return

The narrator and Miss Jessie fall to talking of the past until Miss Jenkyns reappears in an odd, excited state and announces that a caller has arrived—someone Miss Jessie once knew. Miss Jessie turns pale, then scarlet, and can barely stammer a question. The card reveals it to be Major Gordon, a tall, frank man of forty who once served in Captain Brown’s regiment. In the store-room, Miss Jenkyns shares Major Gordon’s history: he had fallen in love with the blooming Miss Jessie of eighteen, eventually proposed after inheriting a Scottish estate, and been refused because she would not abandon her ailing sister. He had gone abroad angry and believing her cold, only to see the account of Captain Brown’s death in Galignani at Rome on his way home.

A Proper Place for His Arm

Before the story is finished, Miss Matty bursts in, fresh from a morning out, aghast at the sight of a gentleman sitting in the drawing-room with his arm around Miss Jessie’s waist. Miss Jenkyns instantly snubs her down, declaring it “the most proper place in the world for his arm to be in,” and orders her to mind her own business. The rebuke, from a sister long held up as a model of feminine decorum, strikes Miss Matty a double blow and sends her from the room.

The Last Memory of Miss Jenkyns

Many years later, the narrator sees Miss Jenkyns again, now old and feeble, with something of her strong mind diminished. Little Flora Gordon—Mrs. Gordon’s daughter—is staying with the Misses Jenkyns and reading aloud from the Rambler on the sofa beside her. Miss Jenkyns, her eyes failing, rambles on about the wonderful, improving book and then drifts back to a memory of her girlhood, when she acted Lucy in “Old Poz,” the very book whose reading she associates, with fond absurdity, with Captain Brown’s death.

KAPITEL III.

This chapter chronicles the narrator’s extended visit to Cranford following Miss Jenkyns’s death, encompassing stays with both Miss Pole and Miss Matilda. The narrative weaves together domestic concerns about servants, preparations for visiting guests, and tender reminiscences about Miss Matilda’s rejected suitor from decades past. The story culminates in an emotionally charged reunion between Miss Matilda and the man she once loved but never married.