Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell [books to read to improve english TXT] 📗

from India⁠—from her poor boy. It was a large, soft, white Indian shawl, with just a little narrow border all round; just what my mother would have liked.

“We thought it might rouse my father, for he had sat with her hand in his all night long; so Deborah took it in to him, and Peter’s letter to her, and all. At first, he took no notice; and we tried to make a kind of light careless talk about the shawl, opening it out and admiring it. Then, suddenly, he got up, and spoke: ‘She shall be buried in it,’ he said; ‘Peter shall have that comfort; and she would have liked it.’

“Well, perhaps it was not reasonable, but what could we do or say? One gives people in grief their own way. He took it up and felt it: ‘It is just such a shawl as she wished for when she was married, and her mother did not give it her. I did not know of it till after, or she should have had it⁠—she should; but she shall have it now.’

“My mother looked so lovely in her death! She was always pretty, and now she looked fair, and waxen, and young⁠—younger than Deborah, as she stood trembling and shivering by her. We decked her in the long soft folds; she lay smiling, as if pleased; and people came⁠—all Cranford came⁠—to beg to see her, for they had loved her dearly, as well they might; and the countrywomen brought posies; old Clare’s wife brought some white violets and begged they might lie on her breast.

“Deborah said to me, the day of my mother’s funeral, that if she had a hundred offers she never would marry and leave my father. It was not very likely she would have so many⁠—I don’t know that she had one; but it was not less to her credit to say so. She was such a daughter to my father as I think there never was before or since. His eyes failed him, and she read book after book, and wrote, and copied, and was always at his service in any parish business. She could do many more things than my poor mother could; she even once wrote a letter to the bishop for my father. But he missed my mother sorely; the whole parish noticed it. Not that he was less active; I think he was more so, and more patient in helping everyone. I did all I could to set Deborah at liberty to be with him; for I knew I was good for little, and that my best work in the world was to do odd jobs quietly, and set others at liberty. But my father was a changed man.”

“Did Mr. Peter ever come home?”

“Yes, once. He came home a lieutenant; he did not get to be admiral. And he and my father were such friends! My father took him into every house in the parish, he was so proud of him. He never walked out without Peter’s arm to lean upon. Deborah used to smile (I don’t think we ever laughed again after my mother’s death), and say she was quite put in a corner. Not but what my father always wanted her when there was letter-writing or reading to be done, or anything to be settled.”

“And then?” said I, after a pause.

“Then Peter went to sea again; and, by-and-by, my father died, blessing us both, and thanking Deborah for all she had been to him; and, of course, our circumstances were changed; and, instead of living at the rectory, and keeping three maids and a man, we had to come to this small house, and be content with a servant-of-all-work; but, as Deborah used to say, we have always lived genteelly, even if circumstances have compelled us to simplicity. Poor Deborah!”

“And Mr. Peter?” asked I.

“Oh, there was some great war in India⁠—I forget what they call it⁠—and we have never heard of Peter since then. I believe he is dead myself; and it sometimes fidgets me that we have never put on mourning for him. And then again, when I sit by myself, and all the house is still, I think I hear his step coming up the street, and my heart begins to flutter and beat; but the sound always goes past⁠—and Peter never comes.

“That’s Martha back? No! I’ll go, my dear; I can always find my way in the dark, you know. And a blow of fresh air at the door will do my head good, and it’s rather got a trick of aching.”

So she pattered off. I had lighted the candle, to give the room a cheerful appearance against her return.

“Was it Martha?” asked I.

“Yes. And I am rather uncomfortable, for I heard such a strange noise, just as I was opening the door.”

“Where?” I asked, for her eyes were round with affright.

“In the street⁠—just outside⁠—it sounded like⁠—”

“Talking?” I put in, as she hesitated a little.

“No! kissing⁠—”

VII Visiting

One morning, as Miss Matty and I sat at our work⁠—it was before twelve o’clock, and Miss Matty had not changed the cap with yellow ribbons that had been Miss Jenkyns’s best, and which Miss Matty was now wearing out in private, putting on the one made in imitation of Mrs. Jamieson’s at all times when she expected to be seen⁠—Martha came up, and asked if Miss Betty Barker might speak to her mistress. Miss Matty assented, and quickly disappeared to change the yellow ribbons, while Miss Barker came upstairs; but, as she had forgotten her spectacles, and was rather flurried by the unusual time of the visit, I was not surprised to see her return with one cap on the top of the other. She was quite unconscious of it herself, and looked at us with bland satisfaction. Nor do I think Miss Barker perceived it; for, putting aside the little circumstance that she was not so young as she had been, she was very much absorbed