Cranford

								

Cranford kept early hours, and clattered home in their pattens, under the
guidance of a lantern-bearer, about nine o’clock at night; and the whole
town was abed and asleep by half-past ten.  Moreover, it was considered
“vulgar” (a tremendous word in Cranford) to give anything expensive, in
the way of eatable or drinkable, at the evening entertainments.  Wafer
bread-and-butter and sponge-biscuits were all that the Honourable Mrs
Jamieson gave; and she was sister-in-law to the late Earl of Glenmire,
although she did practise such “elegant economy.”

“Elegant economy!”  How naturally one falls back into the phraseology of
Cranford!  There, economy was always “elegant,” and money-spending always
“vulgar and ostentatious”; a sort of sour-grapeism which made us very
peaceful and satisfied.  I never shall forget the dismay felt when a
certain Captain Brown came to live at Cranford, and openly spoke about
his being poor—not in a whisper to an intimate friend, the doors and
windows being previously closed, but in the public street! in a loud
military voice! alleging his poverty as a reason for not taking a
particular house.  The ladies of Cranford were already rather moaning
over the invasion of their territories by a man and a gentleman.  He was
a half-pay captain, and had obtained some situation on a neighbouring
railroad, which had been vehemently petitioned against by the little
town; and if, in addition to his masculine gender, and his connection
with the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen as to talk of being
poor—why, then, indeed, he must be sent to Coventry.  Death was as true
and as common as poverty; yet people never spoke about that, loud out in
the streets.  It was a word not to be mentioned to ears polite.  We had
tacitly agreed to ignore that any with whom we associated on terms of
visiting equality could ever be prevented by poverty from doing anything
that they wished.  If we walked to or from a party, it was because the
night was so fine, or the air so refreshing, not because sedan-chairs
were expensive.  If we wore prints, instead of summer silks, it was
because we preferred a washing material; and so on, till we blinded
ourselves to the vulgar fact that we were, all of us, people of very
moderate means.  Of course, then, we did not know what to make of a man
who could speak of poverty as if it was not a disgrace.  Yet, somehow,
Captain Brown made himself respected in Cranford, and was called upon, in
spite of all resolutions to the contrary.  I was surprised to hear his
opinions quoted as authority at a visit which I paid to Cranford about a
year after he had settled in the town.  My own friends had been among the
bitterest opponents of any proposal to visit the Captain and his
daughters, only twelve months before; and now he was even admitted in the
tabooed hours before twelve.  True, it was to discover the cause of a
smoking chimney, before the fire was lighted; but still Captain Brown
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