Cranford

Cranford’s Red Silk Umbrella Tradition

A celebrated local tradition centers on a magnificent family red silk umbrella, under which a gentle little spinster—the sole survivor of many brothers and sisters—used to patter to church on rainy days. The narrator recalls the first red silk umbrella ever seen in Cranford, when small boys mobbed it and called it “a stick in petticoats.” The poor surviving lady could scarcely carry what her strong father had once held above a troop of children.

Cranford Calling Etiquette

Visiting in Cranford is governed by solemn rules announced to young people with the gravity of old Manx laws read on Tinwald Mount. Calling hours run from twelve to three, and no more than three days may elapse between receiving a call and returning it; visits must last no longer than a quarter of an hour—measured by thinking about the time, not by consulting a watch. Since every hostess and guest keeps this rule in mind, no absorbing subject is ever broached; conversation is reduced to short sentences of small talk, and punctuality is absolute.

Cranford’s Genteel Poverty

Many Cranford gentlefolk are quietly poor, but they follow a Spartan code of cheerful concealment. Money is never mentioned because it smacks of trade, and though some are poor, all consider themselves aristocratic. An esprit de corps leads them to overlook every awkward sign of reduced circumstances, as when Mrs. Forrester, giving a party in her tiny dwelling, has her little charity-school maid pretend to fetch the tea-tray from a servants’ hall that does not exist, while the hostess sits in state pretending not to know that the tea-bread and sponge-cakes are her own morning’s work. Side-effects include early hours—everyone abed by half-past ten—and an abhorrence of anything expensive to eat or drink. Economy is always called “elegant,” and spending “vulgar and ostentatious.”