Cranford

The Love Affair of Long Ago

Miss Pole reveals to the narrator the story of Miss Matilda’s rejected suitor, Thomas Holbrook, a yeoman farmer who once offered for her hand long ago. Holbrook, though living only four or five miles from Cranford on his own modest estate, possessed an honest pride that prevented him from pushing into squire ranks or accepting the title “Esquire.” He rejected modern refinements, kept his house door shut without a knocker, spoke the country dialect freely, and read aloud with exceptional beauty and feeling. Miss Matilda was willing enough to accept him, but her sister Deborah and the rector father discouraged the match as beneath her station—the family being distantly connected to Sir Peter Arley, a connection Miss Jenkyns valued highly. After his refusal, Holbrook took his business to the neighboring market town and rarely visited Cranford again.

Reunion with Mr. Holbrook

During the narrator’s extended visit to Miss Matilda, an unexpected reunion occurs when they encounter Mr. Holbrook in a shop where the narrator helps select colored silks. The tall, thin, Don Quixote-like old man, now about seventy years old and dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons and drab breeches, instantly recognizes Miss Matilda across the shop. He greets her with warm, repeated handshakes and exclamations of surprise at her changed appearance, though his manner is that of an old friend rather than a romantic figure. He walks home with the ladies, expressing honest pleasure at the meeting while acknowledging Miss Jenkyns’s recent death charitably. Miss Matilda, overwhelmed by the encounter, retreats to her room and does not appear until early tea, looking as though she has been crying.