Cranford

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.

The Captain’s Grief

One day Captain Brown calls to thank Miss Jenkyns for kindnesses the narrator had not known she had rendered. He has suddenly become like an old man: his bass voice quavers, his eyes are dim, and his face is deeply lined. He cannot speak cheerfully of his daughter, but twice he says “What Jessie has been to us, God only knows!”—and after the second repetition he rises abruptly, shakes hands all round without a word, and leaves.

News in the Street

That very afternoon little groups gather in the street with faces aghast at some news. Miss Jenkyns hesitates before taking the undignified step of sending the maid Jenny out to inquire; Jenny returns white and weeping. Miss Matty dashes into the street and drags the affrighted carter, with his wet boots on the new carpet, into the drawing-room. He tells how the Captain, deep in a new book at the railway, saw a toddler stray onto the line, darted to catch her up, slipped, and was run over by the train; he had hurled the child safe to her mother, only bruising her shoulder.