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

and coughing and blowing her nose. Then she arranged us all round the table, taking care to place me opposite to her; and last of all, she inquired of me if the sad report was true, as she feared it was, that Miss Matty had lost all her fortune?

Of course, I had but one answer to make; and I never saw more unaffected sorrow depicted on any countenances than I did there on the three before me.

“I wish Mrs. Jamieson was here!” said Mrs. Forrester at last; but to judge from Mrs. Fitz-Adam’s face, she could not second the wish.

“But without Mrs. Jamieson,” said Miss Pole, with just a sound of offended merit in her voice, “we, the ladies of Cranford, in my drawing-room assembled, can resolve upon something. I imagine we are none of us what may be called rich, though we all possess a genteel competency, sufficient for tastes that are elegant and refined, and would not, if they could, be vulgarly ostentatious.” (Here I observed Miss Pole refer to a small card concealed in her hand, on which I imagine she had put down a few notes.)

“Miss Smith,” she continued, addressing me (familiarly known as “Mary” to all the company assembled, but this was a state occasion), “I have conversed in private⁠—I made it my business to do so yesterday afternoon⁠—with these ladies on the misfortune which has happened to our friend, and one and all of us have agreed that while we have a superfluity, it is not only a duty, but a pleasure⁠—a true pleasure, Mary!”⁠—her voice was rather choked just here, and she had to wipe her spectacles before she could go on⁠—“to give what we can to assist her⁠—Miss Matilda Jenkyns. Only in consideration of the feelings of delicate independence existing in the mind of every refined female”⁠—I was sure she had got back to the card now⁠—“we wish to contribute our mites in a secret and concealed manner, so as not to hurt the feelings I have referred to. And our object in requesting you to meet us this morning is that, believing you are the daughter⁠—that your father is, in fact, her confidential adviser, in all pecuniary matters, we imagined that, by consulting with him, you might devise some mode in which our contribution could be made to appear the legal due which Miss Matilda Jenkyns ought to receive from⁠—Probably your father, knowing her investments, can fill up the blank.”

Miss Pole concluded her address, and looked round for approval and agreement.

“I have expressed your meaning, ladies, have I not? And while Miss Smith considers what reply to make, allow me to offer you some little refreshment.”

I had no great reply to make: I had more thankfulness at my heart for their kind thoughts than I cared to put into words; and so I only mumbled out something to the effect “that I would name what Miss Pole had said to my father, and that if anything could be arranged for dear Miss Matty,”⁠—and here I broke down utterly, and had to be refreshed with a glass of cowslip wine before I could check the crying which had been repressed for the last two or three days. The worst was, all the ladies cried in concert. Even Miss Pole cried, who had said a hundred times that to betray emotion before anyone was a sign of weakness and want of self-control. She recovered herself into a slight degree of impatient anger, directed against me, as having set them all off; and, moreover, I think she was vexed that I could not make a speech back in return for hers; and if I had known beforehand what was to be said, and had a card on which to express the probable feelings that would rise in my heart, I would have tried to gratify her. As it was, Mrs. Forrester was the person to speak when we had recovered our composure.

“I don’t mind, among friends, stating that I⁠—no! I’m not poor exactly, but I don’t think I’m what you may call rich; I wish I were, for dear Miss Matty’s sake⁠—but, if you please, I’ll write down in a sealed paper what I can give. I only wish it was more; my dear Mary, I do indeed.”

Now I saw why paper, pens, and ink were provided. Every lady wrote down the sum she could give annually, signed the paper, and sealed it mysteriously. If their proposal was acceded to, my father was to be allowed to open the papers, under pledge of secrecy. If not, they were to be returned to their writers.

When the ceremony had been gone through, I rose to depart; but each lady seemed to wish to have a private conference with me. Miss Pole kept me in the drawing-room to explain why, in Mrs. Jamieson’s absence, she had taken the lead in this “movement,” as she was pleased to call it, and also to inform me that she had heard from good sources that Mrs. Jamieson was coming home directly in a state of high displeasure against her sister-in-law, who was forthwith to leave her house, and was, she believed, to return to Edinburgh that very afternoon. Of course this piece of intelligence could not be communicated before Mrs. Fitz-Adam, more especially as Miss Pole was inclined to think that Lady Glenmire’s engagement to Mr. Hoggins could not possibly hold against the blaze of Mrs. Jamieson’s displeasure. A few hearty inquiries after Miss Matty’s health concluded my interview with Miss Pole.

On coming downstairs I found Mrs. Forrester waiting for me at the entrance to the dining-parlour; she drew me in, and when the door was shut, she tried two or three times to begin on some subject, which was so unapproachable apparently, that I began to despair of our ever getting to a clear understanding. At last out it came; the poor old lady trembling all the time as if it were a great crime which she was exposing to daylight, in telling me how very, very little she had