Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (guided reading books .txt) 📕

ladies, although too expensive to be given, except on solemn and state occasions⁠—macaroons sopped in brandy, I should have called it, if I had not 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 daresay, been made acquainted with the beverage they call cherry-brandy. We none of us had ever seen such a thing, and rather shrank back when she proffered it us⁠—“just a little, leetle 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. Jamieson suffered herself to be persuaded, and we followed her lead. It was not 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. Jamieson’s heart as the cherry-brandy did; but she told us of a coming event, respecting which she had been quite silent till 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 Cranford 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. Jamieson 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 skilful 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, coeval 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 pit-a-pat along the quiet little street as we put on our calashes 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.

VIII “Your Ladyship”

Early the next morning⁠—directly after twelve⁠—Miss Pole made her appearance at Miss Matty’s. Some very trifling piece of business was alleged as a reason for the call; but there was evidently something behind. At last out it came.

“By the way, you’ll think I’m strangely ignorant; but, do you really know, I am puzzled how we ought to address Lady Glenmire. Do you say, ‘Your Ladyship,’ where you would say ‘you’ to a common person? I have been puzzling all morning; and are we to say ‘My Lady,’ instead of ‘Ma’am?’ Now you knew Lady Arley⁠—will you kindly tell me the most correct way of speaking to the peerage?”

Poor Miss Matty! she took off her spectacles and she put them on again⁠—but how Lady Arley was addressed, she could not remember.

“It is so long ago,” she said. “Dear! dear! how stupid I am! I don’t think I ever saw her more than twice. I know we used to call Sir Peter, ‘Sir Peter’⁠—but he came much oftener to see us than Lady Arley did. Deborah would have known in a minute. ‘My lady’⁠—‘your ladyship.’ It sounds very strange, and as if it was not natural. I never thought of it before; but, now you have named it, I am all in a puzzle.”

It was very certain Miss Pole would obtain no wise decision from Miss Matty, who got more bewildered every moment, and more perplexed as to etiquettes of address.

“Well, I really think,” said Miss Pole, “I had better just go and tell Mrs. Forrester about our little difficulty. One sometimes grows nervous; and yet one would not have Lady Glenmire think we were quite ignorant of the etiquettes of high life in Cranford.”

“And will you just step in here, dear Miss Pole, as you come back, please, and tell me what you decide upon? Whatever you and Mrs. Forrester fix upon, will be quite right, I’m sure. ‘Lady Arley,’ ‘Sir Peter,’ ” said Miss Matty to herself, trying to recall the old forms of words.

“Who is Lady Glenmire?” asked I.

“Oh, she’s the widow of Mr. Jamieson⁠—that’s Mrs. Jamieson’s late husband, you know⁠—widow of his eldest brother. Mrs. Jamieson was a Miss Walker, daughter of Governor Walker. ‘Your ladyship.’ My dear, if they fix on that way of speaking, you must just let me practice a little on you first, for I shall feel so foolish and hot saying it the first time to Lady Glenmire.”

It was really a relief to Miss Matty when Mrs. Jamieson came on a very unpolite errand. I notice that apathetic people have more quiet impertinence than others; and Mrs. Jamieson came now to insinuate pretty plainly that she did not particularly wish that the Cranford ladies should call upon her sister-in-law. I can hardly say how she made this clear; for I grew very indignant and warm, while with slow deliberation she was explaining her wishes to Miss Matty, who, a true lady herself, could hardly understand the feeling