Cranford, Chapter 9 - Signor Brunoni

Relax and sleep listening to the ninth chapter of Elizabeth Gaskell's gentle, classic novel, in which a conjuror comes to Cranford, much to everyone's excitement. With the notable exception of Miss Pole, who does not believe in magic and is not afraid to say so, the ladies thrill to Signor Brunoni's splendid tricks in the faded grandeur of the town's former ballroom.

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

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Transcript

Hello there,

It's Mandy here.

Welcome back to Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell.

We've reached chapter nine,

Signior Brunoni,

But before we begin,

Just to tell you something more about Elizabeth Gaskell.

As mentioned before,

I think,

She was friends with Charlotte Brontë,

And in June 1855,

Patrick Brontë,

Her father,

Asked Gaskell to write a biography of Charlotte,

And The Life of Charlotte Brontë was published in 1857.

This played a significant role in developing Gaskell's own literary career.

Anyhow,

Before I begin reading,

Please go right ahead and make yourself really comfortable.

Settle down into your chair or your bed,

Relax your hands,

Loosen your shoulders,

And slacken your jaw.

That's great.

So,

If you're ready,

Then I'll begin.

Chapter nine,

Signior Brunoni.

Soon after the events of which I gave an account in my last paper,

I was summoned home by my father's illness,

And for a time I forgot,

In anxiety about him,

To wonder how my dear friends at Cranford were getting on,

Or how Lady Glenmire could reconcile herself to the dullness of the long visit which she was still paying to her sister-in-law,

Mrs Jameson.

When my father grew a little stronger,

I accompanied him to the seaside,

So that altogether I seemed banished from Cranford,

And was deprived of the opportunity of hearing any chance intelligence of the dear little town for the greater part of that year.

Late in November,

When we had returned home again,

And my father was once more in good health,

I received a letter from Miss Mattie,

And a very mysterious letter it was.

She began many sentences without ending them,

Running them one into another,

In much the same confused sort of way in which written words run together on blotting paper.

All I could make out was,

That if my father was better,

Which she hoped he was,

And would take warning and wear a greatcoat from Michaelmas to Lady Day,

If turbans were in fashion,

Could I tell her?

Such a piece of gaiety was going to happen,

As had not been seen or known of since Womwell's lions came,

When one of them ate a little child's arm,

And she was perhaps too old to care about dress,

But a new cap she must have,

And having heard that turbans were worn,

And some of the county families likely to come,

She would like to look tidy,

If I would bring her a cap from the milliner I employed,

And oh dear,

How careless of her to forget that she wrote to beg I would come and pay her a visit next Tuesday,

When she hoped to have something to offer me,

In the way of amusement,

Which she would not now more particularly describe,

Only sea green was her favourite colour,

So she ended her letter,

But in a PS she added,

She thought she might as well tell me,

What was the peculiar attraction to Cranford just now,

Signor Brunoni was going to exhibit his wonderful magic,

In the Cranford assembly rooms,

On Wednesday and Friday evening,

In the following week,

I was very glad to accept the invitation from my dear Miss Matty,

Independently of the conjurer,

And most particularly anxious to prevent her from disfiguring her small gentle mousy face,

With a great Saracen's head turban,

And accordingly,

I bought her a pretty neat middle-aged cap,

Which however,

Was rather a disappointment to her,

When on my arrival she followed me into my bedroom,

Ostensibly to poke the fire,

But in reality I do believe,

To see if the sea green turban was not inside the cap box,

With which I had travelled,

It was in vain,

That I twirled the cap round on my hand,

To exhibit back and side fronts,

Her heart had been set upon a turban,

And all she could do was say,

With resignation in her look and voice,

I am sure you did your best my dear,

It is just like all the caps the ladies in Cranford are wearing,

And they have had theirs for a year I dare say,

I should have liked something newer,

I confess,

Something more like the turbans Miss Betty Barker tells me Queen Adelaide wears,

But it is very pretty dear,

And I dare say lavender will wear better than sea green,

Well after all,

What is dress,

That we should care anything about it,

You'll tell me if you want anything my dear,

Here is the bell,

I suppose turbans have not got down to drumble yet,

So saying,

The dear old lady gently bemoaned herself out of the room,

Leaving me to dress for the evening,

When,

As she informed me,

She expected Miss Pole and Mrs Forrester,

And she hoped I should not feel myself too much tired to join the party,

Of course I should not,

And I made some haste to unpack and arrange my dress,

But with all my speed I heard the arrivals,

And the buzz of conversation in the next room,

Before I was ready,

Just as I opened the door,

I caught the words,

I was foolish to expect anything very genteel out of the drumble shops,

Poor girl,

She did her best,

I've no doubt,

But for all that I had rather that she blamed drumble and me,

Than disfigure herself with a turban.

Miss Pole was always the person,

In the trio of Cranford ladies now assembled,

To have had adventures,

She was in the habit of spending the morning,

In rambling from shop to shop,

Not to purchase anything,

Except an occasional reel of cotton,

Or a piece of tape,

But to see the new articles,

And report upon them,

And to collect all the stray pieces of intelligence,

She had a way too,

Of demurely popping hither and thither,

Into all sorts of places,

To gratify her curiosity on any point,

A way which,

If she had not looked so very genteel and prim,

Might have been considered impertinent,

And now by the expressive way in which she cleared her throat,

And waited for all minor subjects,

Such as caps and turbans,

To be cleared off the course,

We knew she had something very particular to relate,

When the due pause came,

And I defy any people possessed of common modesty,

To keep up a conversation long,

Where one among them sits up aloft in silence,

Looking down upon all the things they chance to say,

As trivial and contemptible,

Compared to what they could disclose,

If properly entreated.

Miss Pole began,

As I was stepping out of Gordon's shop today,

I chanced to go into the George,

My Betty has a second cousin,

Who is chambermaid there,

And I thought Betty would like to hear how she was,

And,

Not seeing anyone about,

I strolled up the staircase,

And found myself in the passage,

Leading to the assembly room,

You and I remember the assembly room,

I'm sure Miss Matty,

And the minuet de la coeur,

So I went on,

Not thinking of what I was about,

When,

All at once,

I perceived I was in the middle of the preparations for tomorrow night,

The room being divided,

With great clothes maids,

Over which Crosby's men were tucking red flannel,

Very dark and odd,

It seemed,

It quite bewildered me,

And I was going on behind the screens,

In my absence of mind,

When a gentleman,

Quite the gentleman,

I can assure you,

Stepped forwards,

And asked if I had any business he could arrange for me,

He spoke such pretty broken English,

I could not help thinking of Thaddeus of Warsaw,

And the Hungarian brothers,

And Santo Sebastiani,

And while I was busy picturing his past life to myself,

He had bowed me out of the room,

But wait a minute,

You have not heard half my story yet,

I was going downstairs,

When who should I meet but Betty's second cousin,

So,

Of course,

I stopped to speak to her,

For Betty's sake,

And she told me that I had really seen the conjurer,

The gentleman who spoke broken English,

Was Signor Brunoni himself,

Just at this moment,

He passed us on the stairs,

Making such a graceful bow,

In reply to which I dropped a curtsy,

All foreigners have such polite manners,

One catches something of it,

But when he had gone downstairs,

I bethought me that I had dropped my glove in the assembly room,

It was safe in my muff all the time,

But I never found it till afterwards,

So I went back,

And just as I was creeping up the passage,

Left on one side of the great screen,

That goes nearly across the room,

Who should I see,

But the very same gentleman who had met me before,

And passed me on the stairs,

Coming now forwards from the inner part of the room,

To which there is no entrance,

You remember Miss Matty,

And just repeating,

In his pretty broken English,

The inquiry,

If I had any business there,

I don't mean that he put it quite so bluntly,

But he seemed very determined,

That I should not pass the screen,

So of course,

I explained about my glove,

Which curiously enough,

I found at that very moment.

Miss Pole then,

Had seen the conjurer,

The real live conjurer,

And numerous were the questions,

We all asked her,

Had he a beard,

Was he young or old,

Fair or dark,

Did he look,

Unable to shape my question prudently,

I put it in another form,

How did he look?

In short,

Miss Pole was the heroine of the evening,

Owing to her morning's encounter,

If she was not the rose,

That is to say the conjurer,

She had been near it.

Conjuration,

Slate of hand,

Magic,

Witchcraft,

Were the subjects of that evening.

Miss Pole was slightly sceptical,

And inclined to think there might be a scientific solution found,

For even the proceedings of the witch of Endor.

Mrs.

Forrester believed everything,

From ghosts to death watches,

Miss Matty ranged between the two,

Always convinced by the last speaker,

I think she was naturally more inclined to Mrs.

Forrester's side,

But a desire of proving herself a worthy sister of Miss Jenkins,

Kept her equally balanced,

Miss Jenkins,

Who would never allow a servant to call the little rolls of tallow that formed themselves round candles,

Winding sheets,

But insisted on their being spoken of as roly-polies,

A sister of hers,

To be superstitious,

It would never do.

After tea,

I was dispatched downstairs into the dining parlour,

For that volume of the old encyclopaedia,

Which contained the nouns beginning with C,

In order that Miss Pole might prime herself with scientific explanations for the tricks of the following evening.

It spoilt the pool at preference,

Which Miss Matty and Mrs.

Forrester had been looking forward to,

For Miss Pole became so much absorbed in her subject,

And the plates by which it was illustrated,

That we felt it would be cruel to disturb her,

Otherwise than by one or two well-timed yawns,

Which I threw in now and then,

For I was really touched by the meek way in which the two ladies were bearing their disappointment.

But Miss Pole only read the more zealously,

Imparting to us no more information than this.

Ah,

I see,

I comprehend perfectly,

A represents the ball.

Put A between B and D,

No,

Between C and F,

And turn the second joint of the third finger of your left hand over the wrist of your right.

H.

Very clear indeed.

My dear Mrs.

Forrester,

Conjuring and witchcraft is a mere affair of the alphabet.

Do let me read you this one passage.

Mrs.

Forrester implored Miss Pole to spare her,

Saying,

From a child upwards,

She never could understand being read aloud to,

And I dropped the pack of cards,

Which I had been shuffling very audibly,

And by this discreet movement I obliged Miss Pole to perceive that preference was to have been the order of the evening,

And to propose,

Rather unwillingly,

That the pool should commence.

The pleasant brightness that stole over the other two ladies' faces on this!

Miss Mattie had one or two twinges of self-reproach for having interrupted Miss Pole in her studies,

And did not remember her cards well,

Or give her full attention to the game,

Until she had soothed her conscience by offering to lend the volume of the encyclopaedia to Miss Pole,

Who accepted it thankfully,

And said Betty should take it home when she came with the lantern.

The next evening we were all in a little gentle flutter at the idea of the gaiety before us.

Miss Mattie went up to dress betimes,

And hurried me until I was ready,

When we found we had an hour and a half to wait before the doors opened at seven precisely,

And we had only 20 yards to walk.

However,

As Miss Mattie said,

It would not do to get too much absorbed in anything,

And forget the time,

So she thought we had better sit quietly without lighting the candles till five minutes to seven.

So Miss Mattie dozed,

And I knitted.

At length we set off,

And at the door under the carriageway at the George,

We met Mrs Forrester and Miss Pole.

The latter was discussing the subject of the evening with more vehemence than ever,

And throwing X's and B's at our heads like hailstones.

She had even copied one or two of the receipts,

As she called them,

For the different tricks,

On backs of letters,

Ready to explain and to detect Signor Brunoni's arts.

We went into the cloakroom adjoining the assembly room.

Miss Mattie gave a sigh or two to her departed youth,

And the remembrance of the last time she had been there,

As she adjusted her pretty new cap before the strange quaint old mirror in the cloakroom.

The assembly room had been added to the inn about a hundred years before by the different county families,

Who met there together once a month during the winter to dance and play at cards.

Many a county beauty had first swung through the minuet that she afterwards danced before Queen Charlotte in this very room.

It was said that one of the Gunnings had graced the apartment with her beauty.

It was certain that a rich and beautiful widow,

Lady Williams,

Had here been smitten with the noble figure of a young artist,

Who was staying with some family in the neighbourhood for professional purposes,

And accompanied his patrons to the Cranford Assembly.

And a pretty bargain poor Lady Williams had of her handsome husband,

If all tales were true.

Now,

No beauty blushed and dimpled along the sides of the Cranford Assembly room.

No handsome artist won hearts by his bow,

Chapeau bra in hand.

The old room was dingy.

The salmon-coloured paint had faded into a drab.

Great pieces of plaster had chipped off from the fine wreaths and festoons on its walls.

But still a mouldy odour of aristocracy lingered about the place,

And a dusty recollection of the days that were gone made Miss Matty and Mrs Forrester bridle up as they entered,

And walk mincingly up the room,

As if there were a number of genteel observers,

Instead of two little boys with a stick of toffee between them,

With which to beguile the time.

We stopped short at the second front row.

I could hardly understand why,

Until I heard Miss Pole ask a stray waiter if any of the county families were expected,

And when he shook his head,

And believed not,

Mrs Forrester and Miss Matty moved forwards,

And our party represented a conversational square.

The front row was soon augmented and enriched by Lady Glenmire and Mrs Jameson.

We six occupied the two front rows,

And our aristocratic seclusion was respected by the groups of shopkeepers,

Who strayed in from time to time,

And huddled together on the back benches.

At least I conjectured so,

From the noise they made,

And the sonorous bumps they gave in sitting down.

But when,

In weariness of the obstinate green curtain that would not draw up,

But would stare at me with two odd eyes,

Seen through holes,

As in the old tapestry story,

I would fain have looked round at the merry,

Chattering people behind me.

Miss Pole clutched my arm,

And begged me not to turn,

For it was not the thing.

What the thing was,

I never could find out,

But it must have been something eminently dull and tiresome.

However,

We all sat,

Eyes right,

Square front,

Gazing at the tantalising curtain,

And hardly speaking intelligibly,

We were so afraid of being caught in the vulgarity of making any noise in a place of public amusement.

Mrs Jameson was the most fortunate,

For she fell asleep.

At length the eyes disappeared,

The curtain quivered,

One side went up before the other,

Which stuck fast.

It was dropped again,

And with a fresh effort and a vigorous pull from some unseen hand,

It flew up,

Revealing to our sight a magnificent gentleman in the Turkish costume,

Seated before a little table,

Gazing at us.

I should have said,

With the same eyes that I had last seen,

Through the hole in the curtain,

With calm and condescending dignity,

Like a being of another sphere,

As I heard a sentimental voice say behind me.

That's not Signor Brunoni,

Said Miss Pole decidedly,

And so audibly that I'm sure he heard,

For he glanced down over his flowing beard at our party with an air of mutual reproach.

Signor Brunoni had no beard,

But perhaps he'll come soon.

So she lulled herself into patience.

Meanwhile Miss Matty had reconnoitered through her eyeglass,

Wiped it,

And looked again.

Then she turned around and said to me,

In a kind,

Mild,

Sorrowful tone,

You see my dear,

Turbans are worn.

But we had no time for more conversation.

The Grand Turk,

As Miss Pole chose to call him,

Arose and announced himself as Signor Brunoni.

I don't believe him,

Exclaimed Miss Pole,

In a defiant manner.

He looked at her again,

With the same dignified upbraiding in his countenance.

I don't,

She repeated,

More positively than ever.

Signor Brunoni had not got that muffy sort of thing about his chin,

But looked like a close-shaved Christian gentleman.

Miss Pole's energetic speeches had the good effect of wakening up Mrs Jamieson,

Who opened her eyes wide in sign of the deepest attention,

A proceeding which silenced Miss Pole,

And encouraged the Grand Turk to proceed,

Which he did in very broken English,

So broken that there was no cohesion between the parts of his sentences,

A fact which he himself perceived at last,

And so left off speaking and proceeded to action.

Now we were astonished.

How he did his tricks,

I could not imagine.

No,

Not even when Miss Pole pulled out her pieces of paper,

And began reading aloud,

Or at least in a very audible whisper,

The separate receipts for the most common of his tricks.

If ever I saw a man frown and look enraged,

I saw the Grand Turk frown at Miss Pole.

But as she said,

What could be expected?

If Miss Pole were sceptical,

And more engrossed with her receipts and diagrams than with his tricks,

Miss Matty and Mrs Forrester were mystified and perplexed to the highest degree.

Mrs Jamieson kept taking her spectacles off and wiping them,

As if she thought it was something defective in them,

Which made the ledger demain,

And Lady Glenmire,

Who had seen many curious sights in Edinburgh,

Was very much struck with the tricks,

And would not at all agree with Miss Pole,

Who declared that anybody could do them with a little practice,

And that she would herself undertake to do all he did,

With two hours given to study the encyclopedia,

And make her third finger flexible.

At last Miss Matty and Mrs Forrester became perfectly awestricken.

They whispered together.

I sat just behind them,

So I could not help hearing what they were saying.

Miss Matty asked Mrs Forrester if she thought it was quite right to have come to see such things.

She could not help fearing they were lending encouragement to something that was not quite.

.

.

A shake of the head filled up the blank.

Mrs Forrester replied that the same thought had crossed her mind.

She too was feeling very uncomfortable.

It was so very strange.

She was quite certain that it was her pocket handkerchief which was in that loaf just now,

And it had been in her own hand not five minutes before.

She wondered who had furnished the bread.

She was sure it could not be Deakin,

Because he was the church warden.

Suddenly Miss Matty half turned towards me.

Will you look,

My dear?

You are a stranger in the town,

And it won't give rise to unpleasant reports.

Will you just look around and see if the rector is here?

If he is,

I think we may conclude that this wonderful man is sanctioned by the church,

And that will be a great relief to my mind.

I looked,

And I saw the tall,

Thin,

Dry,

Dusty rector sitting surrounded by national school boys,

Guarded by troops of his own sex from any approach of the many Cranford spinsters.

His kind face was all agape with broad smiles,

And the boys around him were in chinks of laughing.

I told Miss Matty that the church was smiling approval,

Which set her mind at ease.

I have never named Mr.

Hayter,

The rector,

Because I,

As a well-to-do and happy young woman,

Never came into contact with him.

He was an old bachelor,

But as afraid of matrimonial reports getting abroad about him as any girl of eighteen,

And he would rush into a shop or dive down an entry sooner than encounter any of the Cranford ladies in the street.

And as for the preference parties,

I did not wonder at his not accepting invitations to them.

To tell the truth,

I always suspected Miss Pole of having given very vigorous chase to Mr.

Hayter when he first came to Cranford,

And not the less,

Because now she appeared to share so vividly in his dread,

Lest her name should ever be coupled with his.

He found all his interests among the poor and helpless.

He had treated the national school boys this very night to the performance,

And virtue was,

For once,

Its own reward,

For they guarded him right and left,

And clung around him as if he had been the queen bee,

And they the swarm.

He felt so safe in their environment,

That he could even afford to give our party a bow as we filed out.

Miss Pole ignored his presence,

And pretended to be absorbed in convincing us that we had been cheated,

And had not seen Signor Brunoni after all.

To be continued.

Reviews

I find the Cranford ladies’ behavior in public so entertaining. Thanks Mandy 🙏🏻

Hard to write a review when I fell asleep so quickly! Just know, Mandy, I always listen again (sometimes a couple mow times) so that I hear the whole story. ❤️📖📚🙏🏻❤️

Whimsical, so innocent to look at in these dark times… thank you ❤️🙏🏼