Cranford

Planning the Shopping Trip

To escape the uncomfortable subject, the narrator steers the conversation toward the day’s expedition. Miss Matty explains the etiquette: one ought not to arrive at the fashion show until after twelve, lest one appear too curious about caps and trimmings before the world. Following Miss Jenkyns’s example of appearing as if the latest fashions were nothing new—a manner she had caught from Lady Arley—Miss Matty proposes slipping down early to buy tea and examine the silks in private, then returning after twelve with their minds “disengaged” from dress. They discuss the gown’s color (sea-green preferred, with maize and silver gray as alternatives) and the requisite number of breadths, the narrator noting that this will be the first time in Miss Matty’s life that she has chosen anything of consequence for herself.

Farmer’s Bank Note Refused

At Mr Johnson’s shop, the errand begins routinely: tea is purchased, the silks are unrolled, and the fashion show-room awaits. Country folk from the surrounding farms have come in for market day, among them an honest man named Mr Dobson, who approaches the counter to select a shawl, clearly intent on surprising some Molly or Jenny at home. He tenders a five-pound note of the Town and County Bank along with grocery purchases. The shopman examines the note with puzzled, doubtful air, then admits that a warning against notes issued by that bank had been received that very morning, and he must therefore request payment in cash or in another bank’s notes. The farmer’s face falls “into dismay and bewilderment” as he strikes the table and laments that “notes and gold” are not “to be had for the picking up.”