Cranford

Discovery of the Injured Signor Brunoni

The landlady described the injured man as neither gentleman nor common, prompting Mrs Roberts to summon his wife, whose honest, worn, bronzed face won the ladies’ complete belief in her sorrowful tale. Miss Pole’s skepticism turned to fervent advocacy when it emerged that the sufferer was none other than Signor Brunoni, whom all Cranford had suspected of villainy. His wife confirmed his proper name was Samuel Brown, though Cranford preferred to keep calling him “the Signor” because it sounded better.

Arrangements for Samuel Brown’s Cranford Care

It was arranged that Lady Glenmire would hold herself responsible for medical expenses, and she sent Mr Hoggins to examine the patient that very afternoon. Miss Pole volunteered to find lodgings in Cranford should a removal be advisable. When news came that with care and attention the Signor might rally, the whole community rallied to his support: Miss Pole found clean lodgings, Miss Matty sent her sedan-chair, and Mrs Forrester contributed her legendary bread-jelly, bequeathing the recipe in her will to Miss Matty alone.

Cranford’s Supernatural Panic Fades

The great Cranford panic occasioned by the Signor’s first arrival in Turkish dress melted away on his second coming, pale and feeble, attended by his faithful wife and sorrowful little daughter. The realization that the man who had stirred their love of the marvelous lacked the everyday skill to manage a shying horse restored the community’s confidence. Mrs Forrester declared that the headless lady in Darkness Lane could harm only those who neglected good works, though her maid Jenny prudently sewed red flannel crosses into her undergarments. Lady Glenmire playfully observed that the only actual robberies had been stolen apples and missing eggs.

Miss Matty’s Confession of Past Romantic Hope

After Miss Pole’s departure, Miss Matty reflected that she could not in good conscience always warn young people against matrimony, for she remembered when she had looked forward to marriage as eagerly as anyone. Hastily she clarified that she had not thought of any particular person, then confessed that there had been a time when she did not expect to remain Miss Matty Jenkyns all her life. Someone she had once thought to marry had died without ever learning that she had refused him. Now, she said, no one could take his place, though she counted herself very happy with her kind friends. The narrator, knowing of Mr Holbrook, kept silent.

Miss Matty’s Childhood Diary Memory

Miss Matty recalled how her father had once made the sisters keep a diary in two columns, with morning expectations set against the evening’s realities. One winter’s evening she had sat over the bedroom fire with Deborah, planning their futures. While Deborah dreamed of marrying an archdeacon and writing his charges, Miss Matty thought she could manage a household, for her mother called her her right hand, and she loved to nurse shy babies in the neighboring cottages. Yet after she grew sad and grave a year or two later, the little ones drew back from her, and though she still loved children and felt a strange yearning at the sight of any mother with her baby, the knack of comforting them had never returned.

Miss Matty’s Recurring Dream of a Little Girl

By a sudden blaze from the unstirred coals, the narrator saw Miss Matty’s eyes full of tears as she described a recurring dream. For many years she had dreamed of a little girl of about two who never grew older, who came noiselessly to her in moments of sorrow or joy. The child put up her mouth to be kissed, and Miss Matty had sometimes wakened with the clasp of the little arms about her neck. The previous night, perhaps because she had been thinking of a play-ball she was making for Phœbe, the little dream-child had come and asked to be kissed, just as real babies do with real mothers before bed.

Miss Matty’s Advice on Marriage and Credulity

Brushing aside her own tender disclosures, Miss Matty cautioned the narrator not to be frightened out of marriage by Miss Pole’s warnings. She could imagine it to be a very happy state, and a little credulity, she believed, carried one through life far more smoothly than constant doubting and the perpetual search for difficulties and disagreeables.