Major
Jenkyns wrote to propose that he and his wife should spend a night
at Cranford, on his way to Scotland--at the inn, if it did not suit
Miss Matilda to receive them into her house; in which case they
should hope to be with her as much as possible during the day. Of
course it MUST suit her, as she said; for all Cranford knew that
she had her sister's bedroom at liberty; but I am sure she wished
the Major had stopped in India and forgotten his cousins out and
out.
"Oh! how must I manage?" asked she helplessly. "If Deborah had
been alive she would have known what to do with a gentleman-
visitor. Must I put razors in his dressing-room? Dear! dear! and
I've got none. Deborah would have had them. And slippers, and
coat-brushes?" I suggested that probably he would bring all these
things with him. "And after dinner, how am I to know when to get
up and leave him to his wine? Deborah would have done it so well;
she would have been quite in her element. Will he want coffee, do
you think?" I undertook the management of the coffee, and told her
I would instruct Martha in the art of waiting--in which it must be
owned she was terribly deficient--and that I had no doubt Major and
Mrs Jenkyns would understand the quiet mode in which a lady lived
by herself in a country town.
Pages:
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58