WAS the "poor Peter" of Cranford the Aga Jenkyns of Chunderabaddad, or was he
not? As somebody says, that was the question.
In my own home, whenever people had nothing else to do, they blamed me for
want of discretion. Indiscretion was my bug-bear fault. Everybody has a bug-bear
fault, a sort of standing characteristic - a PIECE DE RESISTANCE for their
friends to cut at; and in general they cut and come again. I was tired of being
called indiscreet and incautious; and I determined for once to prove myself a
model of prudence and wisdom. I would not even hint my suspicions respecting the
Aga. I would collect evidence and carry it home to lay before my father, as the
family friend of the two Miss Jenkynses.
In my search after facts, I was often reminded of a description my father had
once given of a ladies' committee that he had had to preside over. He said he
could not help thinking of a passage in Dickens, which spoke of a chorus in
which every man took the tune he knew best, and sang it to his own satisfaction.
So, at this charitable committee, every lady took the subject uppermost in her
mind, and talked about it to her own great contentment, but not much to the
advancement of the subject they had met to discuss. But even that committee
could have been nothing to the Cranford ladies when I attempted to gain some
clear and definite information as to poor Peter's height, appearance, and when
and where he was seen and heard of last. For instance, I remember asking Miss
Pole (and I thought the question was very opportune, for I put it when I met her
at a call at Mrs Forrester's, and both the ladies had known Peter, and I
imagined that they might refresh each other's memories) - I asked Miss Pole what
was the very last thing they had ever heard about him; and then she named the
absurd report to which I have alluded, about his having been elected Great Lama
of Thibet; and this was a signal for each lady to go off on her separate idea.
Mrs Forrester's start was made on the veiled prophet in Lalla Rookh - whether I
thought he was meant for the Great Lama, though Peter was not so ugly, indeed
rather handsome, if he had not been freckled. I was thankful to see her double
upon Peter; but, in a moment, the delusive lady was off upon Rowland's Kalydor,
and the merits of cosmetics and hair oils in general, and holding forth so
fluently that I turned to listen to Miss Pole, who (through the llamas, the
beasts of burden) had got to Peruvian bonds, and the share market, and her poor
opinion of joint-stock banks in general, and of that one in particular in which
Miss Matty's money was invested. In vain I put in "When was it - in what year
was it that you heard that Mr Peter was the Great Lama?" They only joined issue
to dispute whether llamas were carnivorous animals or not; in which dispute they
were not quite on fair grounds, as Mrs Forrester (after they had grown warm and
cool again) acknowledged that she always confused carnivorous and graminivorous
together, just as she did horizontal and perpendicular; but then she apologised
for it very prettily, by saying that in her day the only use people made of
four-syllabled words was to teach how they should be spelt.
The only fact I gained from this conversation was that certainly Peter had
last been heard of in India, "or that neighbourhood"; and that this scanty
intelligence of his whereabouts had reached Cranford in the year when Miss Pole
had brought her Indian muslin gown, long since worn out (we washed it and mended
it, and traced its decline and fall into a window-blind before we could go on);
and in a year when Wombwell came to Cranford, because Miss Matty had wanted to
see an elephant in order that she might the better imagine Peter riding on one;
and had seen a boa-constrictor too, which was more than she wished to imagine in
her fancy-pictures of Peter's locality; and in a year when Miss Jenkyns had
learnt some piece of poetry off by heart, and used to say, at all the Cranford
parties, how Peter was "surveying mankind from China to Peru," which everybody
had thought very grand, and rather appropriate, because India was between China
and Peru, if you took care to turn the globe to the left instead of the right.
I suppose all these inquiries of mine, and the consequent curiosity excited
in the minds of my friends, made us blind and deaf to what was going on around
us. It seemed to me as if the sun rose and shone, and as if the rain rained on
Cranford, just as usual, and I did not notice any sign of the times that could
be considered as a prognostic of any uncommon event; and, to the best of my
belief, not only Miss Matty and Mrs Forrester, but even Miss Pole herself, whom
we looked upon as a kind of prophetess, from the knack she had of foreseeing
things before they came to pass - although she did not like to disturb her
friends by telling them her foreknowledge - even Miss Pole herself was
breathless with astonishment when she came to tell us of the astounding piece of
news. But I must recover myself; the contemplation of it, even at this distance
of time, has taken away my breath and my grammar, and unless I subdue my
emotion, my spelling will go too.
We were sitting - Miss Matty and I - much as usual, she in the blue chintz
easy-chair, with her back to the light, and her knitting in her hand, I reading
aloud the ST JAMES'S CHRONICLE. A few minutes more, and we should have gone to
make the little alterations in dress usual before calling-time (twelve o'clock)
in Cranford. I remember the scene and the date well. We had been talking of the
signor's rapid recovery since the warmer weather had set in, and praising Mr
Hoggins's skill, and lamenting his want of refinement and manner (it seems a
curious coincidence that this should have been our subject, but so it was), when
a knock was heard - a caller's knock - three distinct taps - and we were flying
(that is to say, Miss Matty could not walk very fast, having had a touch of
rheumatism) to our rooms, to change cap and collars, when Miss Pole arrested us
by calling out, as she came up the stairs, "Don't go - I can't wait - it is not
twelve, I know - but never mind your dress - I must speak to you." We did our
best to look as if it was not we who had made the hurried movement, the sound of
which she had heard; for, of course, we did not like to have it supposed that we
had any old clothes that it was convenient to wear out in the "sanctuary of
home," as Miss Jenkyns once prettily called the back parlour, where she was
tying up preserves. So we threw our gentility with double force into our
manners, and very genteel we were for two minutes while Miss Pole recovered
breath, and excited our curiosity strongly by lifting up her hands in amazement,
and bringing them down in silence, as if what she had to say was too big for
words, and could only be expressed by pantomime.
"What do you think, Miss Matty? What DO you think? Lady Glenmire is to marry
- is to be married, I mean - Lady Glenmire - Mr Hoggins - Mr Hoggins is going to
marry Lady Glenmire!"
"Marry!" said we. "Marry! Madness!"
"Marry!" said Miss Pole, with the decision that belonged to her character. "I
said marry! as you do; and I also said, 'What a fool my lady is going to make of
herself!' I could have said 'Madness!' but I controlled myself, for it was in a
public shop that I heard of it. Where feminine delicacy is gone to, I don't
know! You and I, Miss Matty, would have been ashamed to have known that our
marriage was spoken of in a grocer's shop, in the hearing of shopmen!"
"But," said Miss Matty, sighing as one recovering from a blow, "perhaps it is
not true. Perhaps we are doing her injustice."
"No," said Miss Pole. "I have taken care to ascertain that. I went straight
to Mrs Fitz-Adam, to borrow a cookery-book which I knew she had; and I
introduced my congratulations A PROPOS of the difficulty gentlemen must have in
house-keeping; and Mrs Fitz-Adam bridled up, and said that she believed it was
true, though how and where I could have heard it she did not know. She said her
brother and Lady Glenmire had come to an understanding at last. 'Understanding!'
such a coarse word! But my lady will have to come down to many a want of
refinement. I have reason to believe Mr Hoggins sups on bread-and-cheese and
beer every night.
"Marry!" said Miss Matty once again. "Well! I never thought of it. Two people
that we know going to be married. It's coming very near!"
"So near that my heart stopped beating when I heard of it, while you might
have counted twelve," said Miss Pole.
"One does not know whose turn may come next. Here, in Cranford, poor Lady
Glenmire might have thought herself safe," said Miss Matty, with a gentle pity
in her tones.
"Bah!" said Miss Pole, with a toss of her head. "Don't you remember poor dear
Captain Brown's song 'Tibbie Fowler,' and the line -
'Set her on the Tintock tap, The wind will blaw a man till her.'"
"That was because 'Tibbie Fowler' was rich, I think."
"Well! there was a kind of attraction about Lady Glenmire that I, for one,
should be ashamed to have."
I put in my wonder. "But how can she have fancied Mr Hoggins? I am not
surprised that Mr Hoggins has liked her."
"Oh! I don't know. Mr Hoggins is rich, and very pleasant- looking," said Miss
Matty, "and very good-tempered and kind- hearted."
"She has married for an establishment, that's it. I suppose she takes the
surgery with it," said Miss Pole, with a little dry laugh at her own joke. But,
like many people who think they have made a severe and sarcastic speech, which
yet is clever of its kind, she began to relax in her grimness from the moment
when she made this allusion to the surgery; and we turned to speculate on the
way in which Mrs Jamieson would receive the news. The person whom she had left
in charge of her house to keep off followers from her maids to set up a follower
of her own! And that follower a man whom Mrs Jamieson had tabooed as vulgar, and
inadmissible to Cranford society, not merely on account of his name, but because
of his voice, his complexion, his boots, smelling of the stable, and himself,
smelling of drugs. Had he ever been to see Lady Glenmire at Mrs Jamieson's?
Chloride of lime would not purify the house in its owner's estimation if he had.
Or had their interviews been confined to the occasional meetings in the chamber
of the poor sick conjuror, to whom, with all our sense of the MESALLIANCE, we
could not help allowing that they had both been exceedingly kind? And now it
turned out that a servant of Mrs Jamieson's had been ill, and Mr Hoggins had
been attending her for some weeks. So the wolf had got into the fold, and now he
was carrying off the shepherdess. What would Mrs Jamieson say? We looked into
the darkness of futurity as a child gazes after a rocket up in the cloudy sky,
full of wondering expectation of the rattle, the discharge, and the brilliant
shower of sparks and light. Then we brought ourselves down to earth and the
present time by questioning each other (being all equally ignorant, and all
equally without the slightest data to build any conclusions upon) as to when IT
would take place? Where? How much a year Mr Hoggins had? Whether she would drop
her title? And how Martha and the other correct servants in Cranford would ever
be brought to announce a married couple as Lady Glenmire and Mr Hoggins? But
would they be visited? Would Mrs Jamieson let us? Or must we choose between the
Honourable Mrs Jamieson and the degraded Lady Glenmire? We all liked Lady
Glenmire the best. She was bright, and kind, and sociable, and agreeable; and
Mrs Jamieson was dull, and inert, and pompous, and tiresome. But we had
acknowledged the sway of the latter so long, that it seemed like a kind of
disloyalty now even to meditate disobedience to the prohibition we anticipated.
Mrs Forrester surprised us in our darned caps and patched collars; and we
forgot all about them in our eagerness to see how she would bear the
information, which we honourably left to Miss Pole, to impart, although, if we
had been inclined to take unfair advantage, we might have rushed in ourselves,
for she had a most out-of-place fit of coughing for five minutes after Mrs
Forrester entered the room. I shall never forget the imploring expression of her
eyes, as she looked at us over her pocket-handkerchief. They said, as plain as
words could speak, "Don't let Nature deprive me of the treasure which is mine,
although for a time I can make no use of it." And we did not.
Mrs Forrester's surprise was equal to ours; and her sense of injury rather
greater, because she had to feel for her Order, and saw more fully than we could
do how such conduct brought stains on the aristocracy.
When she and Miss Pole left us we endeavoured to subside into calmness; but
Miss Matty was really upset by the intelligence she had heard. She reckoned it
up, and it was more than fifteen years since she had heard of any of her
acquaintance going to be married, with the one exception of Miss Jessie Brown;
and, as she said, it gave her quite a shock, and made her feel as if she could
not think what would happen next.
I don't know whether it is a fancy of mine, or a real fact, but I have
noticed that, just after the announcement of an engagement in any set, the
unmarried ladies in that set flutter out in an unusual gaiety and newness of
dress, as much as to say, in a tacit and unconscious manner, "We also are
spinsters." Miss Matty and Miss Pole talked and thought more about bonnets,
gowns, caps, and shawls, during the fortnight that succeeded this call, than I
had known them do for years before. But it might be the spring weather, for it
was a warm and pleasant March; and merinoes and beavers, and woollen materials
of all sorts were but ungracious receptacles of the bright sun's glancing rays.
It had not been Lady Glenmire's dress that had won Mr Hoggins's heart, for she
went about on her errands of kindness more shabby than ever. Although in the
hurried glimpses I caught of her at church or elsewhere she appeared rather to
shun meeting any of her friends, her face seemed to have almost something of the
flush of youth in it; her lips looked redder and more trembling full than in
their old compressed state, and her eyes dwelt on all things with a lingering
light, as if she was learning to love Cranford and its belongings. Mr Hoggins
looked broad and radiant, and creaked up the middle aisle at church in a
brand-new pair of top-boots - an audible, as well as visible, sign of his
purposed change of state; for the tradition went, that the boots he had worn
till now were the identical pair in which he first set out on his rounds in
Cranford twenty-five years ago; only they had been new-pieced, high and low, top
and bottom, heel and sole, black leather and brown leather, more times than any
one could tell.
None of the ladies in Cranford chose to sanction the marriage by
congratulating either of the parties. We wished to ignore the whole affair until
our liege lady, Mrs Jamieson, returned. Till she came back to give us our cue,
we felt that it would be better to consider the engagement in the same light as
the Queen of Spain's legs - facts which certainly existed, but the less said
about the better. This restraint upon our tongues - for you see if we did not
speak about it to any of the parties concerned, how could we get answers to the
questions that we longed to ask? - was beginning to be irksome, and our idea of
the dignity of silence was paling before our curiosity, when another direction
was given to our thoughts, by an announcement on the part of the principal
shopkeeper of Cranford, who ranged the trades from grocer and cheesemonger to
man-milliner, as occasion required, that the spring fashions were arrived, and
would be exhibited on the following Tuesday at his rooms in High Street. Now
Miss Matty had been only waiting for this before buying herself a new silk gown.
I had offered, it is true, to send to Drumble for patterns, but she had rejected
my proposal, gently implying that she had not forgotten her disappointment about
the sea-green turban. I was thankful that I was on the spot now, to counteract
the dazzling fascination of any yellow or scarlet silk.
I must say a word or two here about myself. I have spoken of my father's old
friendship for the Jenkyns family; indeed, I am not sure if there was not some
distant relationship. He had willingly allowed me to remain all the winter at
Cranford, in consideration of a letter which Miss Matty had written to him about
the time of the panic, in which I suspect she had exaggerated my powers and my
bravery as a defender of the house. But now that the days were longer and more
cheerful, he was beginning to urge the necessity of my return; and I only
delayed in a sort of odd forlorn hope that if I could obtain any clear
information, I might make the account given by the signora of the Aga Jenkyns
tally with that of "poor Peter," his appearance and disappearance, which I had
winnowed out of the conversation of Miss Pole and Mrs Forrester.
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