Cranford

Moral Qualms Over Attending the Show

Miss Matty and Mrs Forrester, sitting just ahead of the narrator, grow so awestruck that they begin whispering moral doubts about their attendance. Miss Matty fears they are “lending encouragement to something that was not quite” respectable. Mrs Forrester confesses equal discomfort, particularly troubled that her own pocket-handkerchief seemed to appear inside a loaf of bread, and wonders uneasily whether the churchwarden Dakin could have been the supplier.

Miss Matty Requests Rector’s Approval for the Show

Miss Matty half-turns to the narrator and asks her, as a comparative stranger in Cranford, to look around and report whether the rector is present. She reasons that if Mr Hayter has sanctioned the show with his attendance, then the Church itself must approve, which would greatly ease her troubled conscience.

Rector’s Presence Eases Group Concerns

The narrator complies and locates the rector amid the audience. She returns to Miss Matty with the news that “the Church was smiling approval,” and this assurance immediately calms Miss Matty’s anxiety. The rector’s presence serves as an ecclesiastical seal of legitimacy on what might otherwise have seemed dubious entertainment.

Background on Reclusive Rector Mr Hayter

The narrator explains in an aside that she has never previously mentioned Mr Hayter because, as a contented young woman, she never encountered him. He is an old bachelor who dreads matrimonial rumors as much as any girl of eighteen, dodging the Cranford ladies in the street and declining invitations to “Preference parties.” The narrator slyly suspects Miss Pole of having once given vigorous chase to Mr Hayter when he first arrived, which makes her present dread of association all the more pointed.