Cranford

The Deborah Disguise Incident

Peter once took in his own father by disguising himself as a passing lady who wished to meet the Rector about his published Assize Sermon. The rector, flattered by her praise, offered to copy out his twelve Napoleon Buonaparte sermons for her. Terrified as he was during the encounter, Peter could not unmask himself and was forced to actually copy out all twelve sermons. The story includes a particularly amusing moment when, frustrated during a fishing trip, Peter muttered “Confound the woman!” and was nearly undone trying to suppress curtseys as his father praised the imaginary lady’s excellent taste.

Peter’s Public Flogging

On a still, quiet spring day when lilacs were in bloom and Deborah was away from home, Peter dressed in her old gown, shawl, and bonnet and fashioned a pillow into a fake baby. He paraded up and down the Filbert walk, half-hidden by the garden rails, cuddling the “baby” and cooing to it. When his father approached and saw the crowd of about twenty onlookers, he assumed they were admiring his prized rhododendron, but on looking through the rails himself, his face turned grey-white with rage. He seized Peter, tore off the disguise, threw the pillow over the railings, and flogged the boy publicly and severely with his cane before the assembled crowd.

Peter’s Disappearance

After the flogging, Peter returned to the house where his mother and Miss Matty were making cowslip wine. Pale and haughty, looking more like a man than a boy, Peter said a solemn “God bless you for ever” to his mother, kissed her lingeringly as if he could not bear to stop, and then disappeared. The family discovered his room empty and the house was searched thoroughly, but Peter was nowhere to be found. The unfinished cowslip wine that day symbolized the brokenness that descended on the rectory.