‘But I have not done with the marriages yet. Captain James’s is all very well, but no one cares for it now, we are all so full of Mr Gray’s. Yes, indeed, Mr Gray is going to be married, and to nobody else but my little Bessy! I tell her she will have to nurse him half the days of her life, he is such a frail little body. But she says she does not care for that; so that his body holds his soul, it is enough for her. She has a good spirit, and a brave heart, has my Bessy! It is a great advantage that she won’t have to mark her clothes over again; for when she had knitted herself her last set of stockings, I told her to put G for Galindo, if she did not choose to put it for Gibson, for she should be my child if she was no one else’s. And now, you see, it stands for Gray. So there are two marriages, and what more would you have? And she promises to take another of my kittens.
‘Now, as to deaths, old Farmer Hale is dead – poor old man, I should think his wife thought it a good riddance, for he beat her every day that he was drunk, and he never was sober, in spite of Mr Gray. I don’t think (as I tell him) that Mr Gray would ever have found courage to speak to Bessy as long as Farmer Hale lived, he took the old gentleman’s sins so much to heart, and seemed to think it was all his fault for not being able to make a sinner into a saint. The parish bull is dead too. I never was so glad in my life. But they say we are to have a new one in his place. In the meantime I cross the common in peace, which is convenient just now, when I have so often to go to Mr Gray’s to see about furnishing.
‘Now you think I have told you all the Hanbury news, don’t you? Not so. The very greatest thing of all is to come. I won’t tantalize you, but just out with it, for you would never guess it. My Lady Ludlow has given a party, just like any plebeian amongst us. We had tea and toast in the blue drawing-room, old John Footman waiting, with Tom Diggles, the lad that used to frighten away crows in Farmer Hale’s fields, following in my lady’s livery, hair powdered and everything. Mrs Medlicott made tea in my lady’s own room. My lady looked like a splendid fairy queen of mature age, in black velvet, and the old lace, which I have never seen her wear before since my lord’s death. But the company? you’ll say. Why we had the parson of Clover, and the parson of Headleigh, and the parson of Merribank, and the three parsonesses; and Farmer Donkin and two Miss Donkins; and Mr Gray (of course), and myself and Bessy; and Captain and Mrs James; yes, and Mr and Mrs Brooke: think of that! I am not so sure the parsons liked it; but he was there. For he has been helping Captain James to get my lady’s land into order; and then his daughter married the agent; and Mr Gray (who ought to know) says, after all, Baptists are not such bad people; and he was right against them at one time, as you may remember. Mrs Brooke is a rough diamond, to be sure. People have said that of me, I know. But, being a Galindo, I learnt manners in my youth, and can take them up when I choose. But Mrs Brooke never learnt manners, I’ll be bound. When John Footman handed her the tray with the tea-cups, she looked up at him as if she were sorely puzzled by that way of going on. I was sitting next to her, so I pretended not to see her perplexity, and put her cream and sugar in for her, and was all ready to pop it into her hands – when who should come up, but that impudent lad Tom Diggles (I call him lad, for all his hair is powdered, for you know that it is not natural gray hair), with his tray full of cakes and what not, all as good as Mrs Medlicott could make them. By this time, I should tell you, all the parsonesses were looking at Mrs Brooke, for she had shown her want of breeding before; and the parsonesses, who were just a step above her in manners, were very much inclined to smile at her doings and sayings. Well! what does she do but pull out a clean Bandanna pocket-handkerchief, all red and yellow silk, spread it over her best silk gown; it was, like enough, a new one, for I had it from Sally, who had it from her cousin Molly, who is dairy-woman at the Brookes’, that the Brookes were mighty set-up with an invitation to drink tea at the Hall. There we were, Tom Diggles even on the grin (I wonder how long it is since he was own brother to a scarecrow, only not so decently dressed) and Mrs Parsoness of Headleigh – I forget her name, and it’s no matter, for she’s an ill-bred creature, I hope Bessy will behave herself better – was right-down bursting with laughter, and as near a hee-haw as ever a donkey was, when what does my lady do? Ay! there’s my own dear Lady Ludlow, God bless her! She takes out her own pocket-handkerchief, all snowy cambric, and lays it softly down on her velvet lap, for all the world as if she did it every day of her life, just like Mrs Brooke, the baker’s wife; and when the one got up to shake the crumbs into the fireplace, the other did just the same. But with such a grace! and such a look at us all! Tom Diggles went red all over; and Mrs Parsoness of Headleigh scarce spoke for the rest of the evening; and the tears came into my old silly eyes; and Mr Gray, who was before silent and awkward, in a way which I tell Bessy she must cure him of, was made so happy by this pretty action of my lady’s, that he talked away all the rest of the evening, and was the life of the company.
‘Oh! Margaret Dawson, I sometimes wonder if you’re the better off for leaving us. To be sure, you’re with your brother, and blood is blood. But when I look at my lady and Mr Gray, for all they’re so different, I would not change places with any in England.’
Alas! alas! I never saw my dear lady again. She died in eighteen hundred and fourteen, and Mr Gray did not long survive her. As I dare say you know, the Reverend Henry Gregson is now vicar of Hanbury, and his wife is the daughter of Mr Gray and Miss Bessy.
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Mr Harrison’s Confessions first published in the Ladies Companion and Monthly Magazine 1851
This revised edition published in Lizzie Leigh and Other Tales in 1855
Cranford first published in Household Words in 1851
This revised edition published in 1853
My Lady Ludlow first published in Househol
d Words in 1858
This revised edition published in Round the Sofa in 1859
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Elizabeth Gaskell, The Cranford Chronicles
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