Mrs. Gaskell has left out even more than Jane Austen of the ordinary materials of fiction (though she is an adept at pathos), and her characters are equally living. She has less wit, but almost as much humour.
The most obvious limitation of Cranford, indeed, is more apparent than real. As everyone will remember, “all the holders of houses” are women. “If a married couple settles in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening tea-parties, or he is accounted for by being at his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford. What could they do there?... A man is so in the way in the house.”
Even the Rector dare not attend a public entertainment unless “guarded by troops of his own sex—the National School boys whom he had treated to the performance.” The “neat maid-servants” were never allowed “followers”; and it was Miss Matty’s chief consolation in starting her little business that “she did not think men ever bought tea.” She was afraid of men. “They had such sharp, loud ways with them, and did up accounts, and counted their change so quickly.”
Yet, in fact, the masculine element in Cranford comes frequently to the front; and the men’s characters are drawn with no less firmness of outline than the women’s. Miss Matty derives much from her Reverend father—deceased, from that sturdy yeoman Thomas Holbrook, and from “Mr. Peter.” It is Captain Brown, and no other, whose misfortunes unmask the real tenderness of Miss Jenkyns herself; and the good Mr. Hoggins occasions the only serious discord narrated in the select circle of “elegant females,” to whom his uncouth surname was a perpetual affront. The unfortunate conjurer, Signor Brunoni, otherwise Mr. Brown (was it accident or design, we wonder, which gave him the same plebeian name as the gallant Captain?); his brother Thomas; the great Mr. Mulliner, “who seemed never to have forgotten his condescension in coming to live at Cranford”; honest farmer Dobson; and dear, blundering Jim Hearn, whose tactful notion of kindness was “to keep out of your way as much as he could”; each played their part in the lives of their lady-betters.
Thomas Holbrook, his quotations from Shakespeare, George Herbert, and Tennyson; his love of Nature; his two-pronged forks; and his charming “counting-house,” have no less subtle originality than any character in the whole book; and we should hesitate to name any record of perfect fidelity, without sentimentalism, to be compared with the simply chivalrous and cheerful attentions of this gentleman of seventy to the old lady who had refused, at the bidding of father and sister, “to marry below her rank.” One can only echo the pious aspiration (so touching in its unselfish abandonment of a cherished ideal), by which alone Miss Matty betrayed the emotions excited by the visit to her old lover: “‘God forbid,’ said she, in a low voice, ‘that I should grieve any young hearts.’”
Holbrook, moreover, had been no doubt largely responsible for encouraging the inherent good qualities of Miss Matty’s scapegrace brother (afterwards the popular Mr. Peter), whose thoughtless pranks form so strange, and yet so fitting, a background to those finished miniature-sketches of the stern Rector and his sweet young wife. It is, indeed, a fine instance of poetical justice by which Mr. Peter is allowed, in his old age, to bestow a richly merited peace and comfort, in addition to the diversion of masculine society, upon the very sister whose early life had been so terribly clouded by his misdeeds.
One is almost tempted to say that Mrs. Gaskell does scant justice to the first invader of the Amazons, when she refers to Captain Brown as “a tame man about the house.” Yet those of us with sufficient imagination to realise the firm exclusiveness of Miss Deborah Jenkyns, should appreciate the significance of the phrase. The military gentleman, “who was not ashamed to be poor,” only found his way to that lady’s good graces by sterling qualities of true manliness. He was “even admitted in the tabooed hours before twelve,” because no errand of kindness was beneath his dignity or beyond his patience.
Miss Matty expresses the prevailing sentiment about men, as she has done on most subjects worthy of attention, with that “love of peace and kindliness,” which “makes all of us better when we are near her.”
“I don’t mean to deny that men are troublesome in a house. I don’t judge from my own experience, for my father was neatness itself, and wiped his shoes in coming in as carefully as any woman; but still a man has a sort of knowledge of what should be done in difficulties, that it is very pleasant to have one at hand ready to lean upon. Now Lady Glenmire” (whose engagement to Mr. Hoggins was the occasion of this gentle homily), “instead of being tossed about and wondering where she is to settle, will be certain of a home among pleasant and kind people, such as our good Miss Pole and Mrs. Forrester. And Mr. Hoggins is really a very personable man; and so far as his manners—why, if they are not very polished, I have known people with very good hearts, and very clever minds too, who were not what some people reckoned refined, but who were tender and true.” Again: “Don’t be frightened by Miss Pole from being married. I can fancy it may be a very happy state, and a little credulity helps one through life very smoothly—better than always doubting and doubting, and seeing difficulties and disagreeables in everything.”
The finality of the above quotations may further remind us of an unexpected conclusion to which a careful study of Cranford must compel the critic. Despite its apparent inconsequence, the desultory nature of the narrative, and its surprising innocence of plot, the work is composed with an almost perfect sense of dramatic unity. In reality every event, however trivial or serious, every shade of character, however subtle or obvious, is at once subordinate and essential to the character of the heroine. A heroine, “not far short of sixty, whose looks were against her,” may not attract the habitual novel-reader; but unless we submit to the charm of Miss Matty’s personality, we have misread Cranford. Deborah, the domineering, had not so much real strength of character, and serves only as a foil to her sister’s wider sympathies; the superficial quickness of Miss Pole never ultimately misled her friend’s finer judgment; the (temporary) snobbishness of the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson troubles her heart indeed, but leaves her dignity unruffled; and the other members of the circle scarcely aspire to be more than humble admirers of the “Rector’s daughter.” Miss Matty, of course, is sublimely unconscious of her own influence, and the authoress very nearly deceives us into fancying her equally innocent. But she gives away the secret in her farewell sentence; and I, for one, would not quarrel with her for pointing the moral. Miss Matty can never lose her place in the Gallery of the Immortals, and we would not neglect to honour the painter’s name.