Cranford, Chapter 7 - Visiting

Relax and nod gently off to sleep listening to the seventh chapter of Elizabeth Gaskell's classic novel. Our narrator pokes gentle fun at the strict customs and etiquette the ladies of Cranford observe when paying visits to the other ladies of differing social status who live in their small town.

For more gentle writing you might like Ted the Shed, also available on Free Tracks.

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Transcript

Hello,

It's Mandy here.

Welcome back to Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell and tonight we're looking at chapter seven.

You might be interested to know that Elizabeth Gaskell lost a son in infancy,

William,

And that tragedy was the inspiration for her first novel,

Mary Barton.

This was an enormous success and sold thousands of copies.

The depth of her feeling in the novel was very evident and her turn of phrase and description was described as the greatest since Jane Austen.

But before tonight's chapter,

Please go right ahead and make yourself really comfortable.

Settle down into your bed or your chair,

Relax your hands,

Loosen your shoulders and just release that jaw.

That's great.

And if you're ready,

Then I'll begin.

Chapter seven,

Visiting.

One morning,

As Miss Mattie and I sat at our work,

It was before twelve o'clock and Miss Mattie had not changed the cap with yellow ribbons that had been Miss Jenkins' best and which Miss Mattie was now wearing out in private,

Putting on the one made in imitation of Mrs.

Jameson'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 Mattie 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 wasn't surprised to see her return with one cap on 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 in her errand,

Which she delivered herself of with an oppressive modesty that found vent in endless apologies.

Miss Betty Barker was the daughter of the old clerk at Cranford who had officiated in Mr.

Jenkins' time.

She and her sister had had pretty good situations as ladies' maids and had saved money enough to set up a milliner's shop which had been patronised by the ladies in the neighbourhood.

Lady Arleigh,

For instance,

Would occasionally give the Miss Barkers the pattern of an old cap of hers which they immediately copied and circulated among the elite of Cranford.

I say the elite,

For the Miss Barkers had caught the trick of the place and piqued themselves upon their aristocratic connection.

They would not sell their caps and ribbons to anyone without a pedigree.

Many a farmer's wife or daughter turned away,

Hoffed from Miss Barker's select millinery and went rather to the Universal shop where the profits of brown soap and moist sugar enabled the proprietor to go straight to London where,

As he often told his customers,

Queen Adelaide had appeared only the very week before in a cap exactly like the one he showed them now,

Trimmed with yellow and blue ribbons and had been complimented by King William on the becoming nature of her headdress.

The Miss Barkers,

Who confined themselves to truth and did not approve of miscellaneous customers,

Throve notwithstanding.

They were self-denying good people.

Many a time have I seen the eldest of them,

She that had been made to Mrs Jameson,

Carrying out some delicate mess to a poor person.

They only aped their bettors in having nothing to do with the class immediately below theirs.

And when Miss Barker died,

Their profits and income were found to be such that Miss Betty was justified in shutting up shop and retiring from business.

She also,

As I think I've before said,

Set up her cow,

A mark of respectability in Cranford,

Almost as decided as setting up a gig is among some people.

She dressed finer than any lady in Cranford and we didn't wonder at it,

For it was understood that she was wearing out all the bonnets and caps and outrageous ribbons which had once formed her stock in trade.

It was five or six years since she had given up shop,

So in any other place than Cranford,

Her dress might have been considered passé.

And now Miss Betty Barker had called to invite Miss Mattie to tea at her house on the following Tuesday.

She gave me also an impromptu invitation as I happened to be a visitor,

Though I could see she had a little fear lest,

Since my father had gone to live in Drumble,

He might have engaged in that horrid cotton trade and so dragged his family down out of aristocratic society.

She prefaced this invitation with so many apologies that she quite excited my curiosity.

Her presumption was to be excused.

What had she been doing?

She seemed so overpowered by it,

I could only think that she had been writing to Queen Adelaide to ask for a receipt for washing lace,

But the act which she so characterised was only an invitation she'd carried to her sister's former mistress,

Mrs Jameson.

Her former occupation considered,

Could Miss Mattie excuse the liberty?

Ah,

Thought I,

She has found out that double cap and is going to rectify Miss Mattie's headdress.

No,

It was simply to extend her invitation to Miss Mattie and to me.

Miss Mattie bowed acceptance and I wondered that,

In the graceful action,

She did not feel the unusual weight and extraordinary height of her headdress.

But I do not think she did,

For she recovered her balance and went on talking to Miss Betty in a kind condescending manner,

Very different from the fidgety way she would have had if she'd suspected how singular her appearance was.

Mrs Jameson is coming,

I think you said,

Asked Miss Mattie.

Yes,

Miss Jameson most kindly and condescendingly said she would be happy to come.

One little stipulation she made that she should bring Carlo.

I told her that if I had a weakness,

It was for dogs.

And Miss Pole,

Questioned Miss Mattie,

Who was thinking of her pool at preference,

In which Carlo would not be available as a partner.

I am going to ask Miss Pole.

Of course,

I could not think of asking her until I had asked you,

Madam,

The rector's daughter,

Madam.

Believe me,

I do not forget the situation my father held under yours.

And Mrs Forrester,

Of course,

And Mrs Forrester.

I thought,

In fact,

Of going to her before I went to Miss Pole.

Although her circumstances are changed,

Madam,

She was born at Tyrrell,

And we can never forget her alliance to the bigs of Bigelow Hall.

Miss Mattie cared much more for the little circumstance of her being a very good card player.

Mrs Fitzadam,

I suppose.

No,

Madam,

I must draw a line somewhere.

Mrs Jameson would not,

I think,

Like to meet Mrs Fitzadam.

I have the greatest respect for Mrs Fitzadam,

But I cannot think her fit society for such ladies as Mrs Jameson and Miss Matilda Jenkins.

Miss Betty Barker bowed low to Miss Mattie and pursed up her mouth.

She looked at me with sidelong dignity,

As much as to say,

Although a retired milliner,

She was no democrat and understood the difference of ranks.

May I beg you to come as near half past six to my little dwelling as possible,

Miss Matilda.

Mrs Jameson dines at five,

But has kindly promised not to delay her visit beyond that time,

Half past six,

And with a swimming curtsy,

Miss Betty Barker took her leave.

My prophetic soul foretold a visit that afternoon from Miss Pole,

Who usually came to call on Miss Matilda after any event,

Or indeed in sight of any event,

To talk it over with her.

Miss Betty told me it was to be a choice and select few,

Said Miss Pole,

As she and Miss Mattie compared notes.

Yes,

Though she said,

Not even Mrs Fitzadam.

Now,

Mrs Fitzadam was the widowed sister of the Cranford surgeon,

Who I have named before.

Their parents were respectable farmers,

Content with their station.

The name of these good people was Hoggins.

Mr Hoggins was the Cranford doctor now.

We disliked the name and considered it coarse,

But as Miss Jenkins said,

If he changed it to Piggins,

It would not be much better.

We had hoped to discover a relationship between him and that marchioness of Exeter,

Whose name was Molly Hoggins,

But the man,

Careless of his own interests,

Utterly ignored and denied any such relationship.

Although,

As dear Miss Jenkins had said,

He had a sister called Mary,

And the same Christian names were very apt to run in families.

Soon after Miss Mary Hoggins married Mr Fitzadam,

She disappeared from the neighbourhood for many years.

She did not move in a sphere of Cranford society sufficiently high to make any of us care to know what Mr Fitzadam was.

He died and was gathered to his father's without our ever having thought about him at all,

And then Mrs Fitzadam reappeared in Cranford.

As bold as a lion,

Miss Pohl said,

A well-to-do widow dressed in rustling black silk.

So soon after her husband's death,

That poor Miss Jenkins was justified in the remark she made,

That Bombazine would have shown a deeper sense of her loss.

I remember the convocation of ladies who assembled to decide whether or not Mrs Fitzadam should be called upon by the old blue-blooded inhabitants of Cranford.

She had taken a large rambling house,

Which had been usually considered to confer a patent of gentility upon its tenant,

Because once upon a time,

70 or 80 years before,

The spinster daughter of an earl had resided in it.

I am not sure if the inhabiting this house was not also believed to convey some unusual power of intellect.

For the earl's daughter,

Lady Jane,

Had a sister,

Lady Anne,

Who had married a general officer in the time of the American war,

And this general officer had written one or two comedies,

Which were still acted on the London boards,

And which,

When we saw them advertised,

Made us all draw up and feel that Drury Lane was paying a very pretty compliment to Cranford.

Still,

It was not at all a settled thing that Mrs Fitzadam was to be visited,

When dear Miss Jenkins died,

And with her something of the clear knowledge of the strict code of gentility went out too.

As Miss Pole observed,

As most of the ladies of good family in Cranford were elderly spinsters,

Or widows without children,

If we did not relax a little and become less exclusive,

By and by we should have no society at all.

Mrs Forrester continued on the same side.

She had always understood that Fitz meant something aristocratic.

There was Fitz Roy.

She thought that some of the king's children had been called Fitz Roy,

And then there was Fitz Clarence.

Now they were the children of dear good King William IV.

Fitz Adam,

It was a pretty name,

And she thought it very probably meant child of Adam.

No one who had not some good blood in their veins would dare to be called Fitz.

There was a deal in a name.

She had had a cousin who spelt his name with a double F,

Fawkes,

And he always looked down upon capital letters and said they belonged to lately invented families.

She had been afraid he would die a bachelor he was so very choice.

When he met with a Mrs Farringdon at a watering place,

He took to her immediately,

And a very pretty genteel woman she was,

A widow with a very good fortune,

And my cousin Mr Fawkes married her,

And it was all owing to her double Fs.

Mrs Fitz Adam did not stand a chance of meeting with the Mr Fitzanything in Cranford,

So that could not have been her motive for settling there.

Miss Matty thought it might have been the hope of being admitted into the society of the place,

Which would certainly be a very agreeable rise for C.

Devant,

Miss Hoggins,

And if this had been her hope,

It would be cruel to disappoint her.

So everybody called upon Mrs Fitz Adam,

Everybody but Mrs Jameson,

Who used to show how honourable she was by never seeing Mrs Fitz Adam when they met at the Cranford parties.

There would be only eight or ten ladies in the room,

And Mrs Fitz Adam was the largest of all,

And she invariably used to stand up when Mrs Jameson came in,

And curtsy very low to her whenever she turned in her direction,

So low in fact that I think Mrs Jameson must have looked at the wall above her,

For she never moved a muscle of her face,

No more than if she had not seen her.

Still Mrs Fitz Adam persevered.

The spring evenings were getting bright and long when three or four ladies in calashes met at Miss Barker's door.

Do you know what a calash is?

It's a covering worn over caps,

Not unlike the heads fastened on old-fashioned gigs,

But sometimes it is not quite so large.

This kind of headgear always made an awful impression on the children in Cranford,

And now two or three left off their play in the quiet sunny little street,

And gathered in wandering silence around Miss Pole,

Miss Matty and myself.

We were silent too,

So that we could hear loud suppressed whispers inside Miss Barker's house.

Wait Peggy,

Wait till I've run upstairs and washed my hands.

When I cough,

Open the door.

I'll not be a minute,

And sure enough it was not a minute before we heard a noise between a sneeze and a crow on which the door flew open.

Behind it stood a round-eyed maiden,

All aghast at the honourable company of calashes,

Who marched in without a word.

She recovered presence of mind enough to usher us into a small room,

Which had been the shop,

But which was now converted into a temporary dressing room.

There we unpinned and shook ourselves and arranged our features before the glass into a sweet and gracious company face,

And then bowing backwards with,

After you mum,

We allowed Mrs Forrester to take precedence up the narrow staircase that led to Miss Barker's drawing room.

And there she sat,

As stately and composed as though we had never heard that odd sounding cough,

From which her throat must have been even then sore and rough.

Kind,

Gentle,

Shabbily dressed Mrs Forrester was immediately conducted to the second place of honour.

A seat arranged something like Prince Albert's near the Queen.

Good,

But not so good.

The place of pre-eminence was,

Of course,

Reserved for the honourable Mrs Jamieson,

Who presently came panting up the stairs,

Carlo rushing around her on her progress,

As if he meant to trip her up.

And now Miss Betty Barker was a proud and happy woman.

She stirred the fire and shut the door and sat as near to it as she could,

Quite on the edge of her chair.

When Peggy came in,

Tottering under the weight of the tea tray,

I noticed that Miss Barker was sadly afraid lest Peggy should not keep her distance sufficiently.

She and her mistress were on very familiar terms in their everyday intercourse,

And Peggy wanted now to make several little confidences to her,

Which Miss Barker was on thorns to hear,

But which she thought her duty as a lady to repress.

So she turned away from all Peggy's asides and signs,

But she made one or two very malapropos answers to what was said,

And at last,

Seized with a bright idea,

She exclaimed,

Poor sweet Carlo,

I'm forgetting him.

Come downstairs with me,

Poor itty-doggy,

And it shall have its tea,

It shall.

In a few minutes she returned,

Bland and benign as before,

But I thought she had forgotten to give the poor itty-doggy anything to eat,

Judging by the avidity with which he swallowed down chance pieces of cake.

The tea tray was abundantly loaded.

I was pleased to see it.

I was so hungry,

But I was afraid the ladies present might think it vulgarly heaped up.

I know they would have done at their own houses,

But somehow the heaps disappeared here.

I saw Mrs.

Jameson eating seed cake slowly and considerately as she did everything,

And I was rather surprised,

For I knew she had told us,

On the occasion of her last party,

That she never had it in her house.

It reminded her so much of soap.

She always gave us savoy biscuits.

However,

Mrs.

Jameson was kindly indulgent to Miss Barker's want of knowledge of the customs of high life,

And to spare her feelings,

Ate three large pieces of seed cake,

With a placid,

Ruminating expression of countenance,

Not unlike a cow's.

After tea,

There was some little demur and difficulty.

We were six in number.

Four could play at preference,

And for the other two there was cribbage.

But all except myself,

I was rather afraid of the Cranford ladies at cards,

For it was the most earnest and serious business they ever engaged in,

Were anxious to be of the poor.

Even Miss Barker,

While declaring she didn't know Spadile from Manil,

Was evidently hankering to take a hand.

The dilemma was soon put to an end by a singular kind of noise.

If a baron's daughter-in-law could ever be supposed to snore,

I should have said Mrs.

Jameson did so then,

For,

Overcome by the heat of the room,

And inclined to doze by nature,

The temptation of that very comfortable armchair had been too much for her,

And Mrs.

Jameson was nodding.

Once or twice she opened her eyes with an effort,

And calmly but unconsciously smiled upon us,

But by and by even her benevolence was not equal to this exertion,

And she was sound asleep.

It is very gratifying to me,

Whispered Miss Barker at the card table to her three opponents,

Very gratifying indeed to see how completely Mrs.

Jameson feels at home in my poor little dwelling.

She could not have paid me a greater compliment.

Miss Barker provided me with some literature in the shape of three or four handsomely bound fashion books,

10 or 12 years old,

Observing,

As she put a little table and candle for my special benefit,

That she knew young people liked to look at pictures.

Carlo lay and snorted,

And started at his mistress's feet.

He too was quite at home.

The card table was an animated scene to watch.

Four ladies' heads with niddle-noddling caps,

All nearly meeting over the middle of the table in their eagerness to whisper quick enough and loud enough,

And every now and then came Miss Barker's,

Hush ladies,

If you please hush,

Mrs.

Jameson is asleep.

It was very difficult to steer clear between Mrs.

Forrester's deafness and Mrs.

Jameson's sleepiness,

But Miss Barker managed her arduous task well.

She repeated the whisper to Mrs.

Forrester,

Distorting her face considerably in order to show by the motions of her lips what was said,

And then she smiled kindly all round at us and murmured to herself,

Very gratifying indeed,

I wish my poor sister had been alive to see this day.

Presently the door was thrown wide open.

Carlo started to his feet with a loud snapping bark and Mrs.

Jameson awoke,

Or perhaps she had not been asleep,

As she said almost directly.

The room had been so light she had been glad to keep her eyes shut,

But had been listening with great interest to all our amusing and agreeable conversation.

Peggy came in once more,

Red with importance.

Another tray.

Oh gentility,

Thought I,

Can you endure this last shock?

For Miss Barker had ordered,

Nay I doubt not prepared,

Although she did say,

Why Peggy,

What have you brought us?

And looked pleasantly surprised at the unexpected pleasure.

All sorts of good things for supper,

Scalloped oysters,

Potted lobsters,

Jelly,

A dish called little cupids,

Which was in great favour with the Cranford ladies,

Although too expensive to be given,

Except on solemn and state occasions.

Macaroons sopped in brandy,

I should have called it,

If I hadn't known its more refined and classical name.

In short,

We were evidently to be feasted with all that was sweetest and best,

And we thought it better to submit graciously,

Even at the cost of our gentility,

Which never ate suppers in general,

But which,

Like most non-supper eaters,

Was particularly hungry on all special occasions.

Miss Barker,

In her former sphere,

Had,

I dare say,

Been made acquainted with the beverage they call cherry brandy.

We,

None of us,

Had ever seen such a thing,

And rather shrunk back when she proffered it to us.

Just a little,

Little glass,

Ladies,

After the oysters and lobsters.

You know,

Shellfish are sometimes thought not very wholesome.

We all shook our heads like female mandarins,

But at last Mrs Jameson suffered herself to be persuaded,

And we followed her lead.

It wasn't exactly unpalatable,

Though so hot and so strong,

That we thought ourselves bound to give evidence that we were not accustomed to such things by coughing terribly,

Almost as strangely as Miss Barker had done,

Before we were admitted by Peggy.

It's very strong,

Said Miss Pole,

As she put down her empty glass.

I do believe there's spirit in it.

Only a little drop,

Just necessary to make it keep,

Said Miss Barker.

You know,

We put brandy pepper over our preserves to make them keep.

I often feel tipsy myself from eating damson tart.

I question whether damson tart would have opened Mrs Jameson's heart,

As the cherry brandy did,

But she told us of a coming event,

Respecting which she had been quite silent until that moment.

My sister-in-law,

Lady Glenmire,

Is coming to stay with me.

There was a chorus of,

Indeed,

And then a pause.

Each one rapidly reviewed her wardrobe as to its fitness to appear in the presence of a baron's widow,

For of course a series of small festivals were always held in on the arrival of a visitor at any of our friends' houses.

We felt very pleasantly excited on the present occasion.

Not long after this,

The maids and the lanterns were announced.

Mrs Jameson had the sedan chair,

Which had squeezed itself into Miss Barker's narrow lobby,

With some difficulty,

And most literally stopped the way.

It required some skillful manoeuvring on the part of the old chairmen,

Shoemakers by day,

But when summoned to carry the sedan,

Dressed up in a strange old livery,

Long greatcoats with small capes,

Co-evil with the sedan,

And similar to the dress of the class in Hogarth's pictures,

To edge and back and try at it again,

And finally to succeed in carrying their burden out of Miss Barker's front door.

Then we heard their quick pitter-pat along the quiet little street,

As we put on our collages and pinned up our gowns,

Miss Barker hovering about us with offers of help,

Which,

If she had not remembered her former occupation and wished us to forget it,

Would have been much more pressing.

To be continued.

Reviews

I fell asleep quickly so will need to listen again! Thank you Mandy 🦋

All this talk about hats and ribbons 🥱put me to sleep so fast I will have to give it more than one listen to find out what happens at the party. Thanks Mandy.