Gothic Tales (62 page)

76
.
balm in Gilead:
See Jeremiah 8:22: ‘Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?'

77
.
to effect his mother's escape:
Another nearly direct transcription from Upham,
Lectures on Witchcraft
, pp. 35–6.

78
.
humble and solemn declaration of regret:
For the declaration signed by the jurors, from which Gaskell copies nearly word for word, see Upham,
Lectures on Witchcraft
, pp. 126–9.

79
.
Deut. xvii.6:
‘At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.'

80
.
2 Kings xxiv.4
: ‘And also for the innocent blood that he shed: for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; which the Lord would not pardon.'

81
.
Justice Sewall
: Samuel Sewall (1652–1730), appointed by special commission to try the witchcraft cases in Salem, did observe a private day every year for ‘humiliation and prayer', and fifty years after the trials his son arranged restitution for the relatives of the victims.

The Crooked Branch

First published as ‘The Ghost in the Garden Room' in
The Haunted House, All the Year Round
, Extra Christmas No. (13 December 1859), pp. 31–48. This set of eight stories has the most consistent framing device written by Dickens, according to Harry Stone, ‘The Unknown Dickens: With a Sampling of Uncollected Writings',
Dickens Studies Annual
, ed. Robert B. Partlow, Jr., 1 (London: Feffer and Simons, Inc., 1970), pp. 1–22. However, as it was Dickens who wrote the introductory paragraphs, they have been dropped from this edition. It appeared under the title ‘The Crooked Branch' in
Right at Last and Other Tales
(London: Sampson Low, Son and Co., 1860), pp. 241–318, from which the present text is taken.

1
.
bedgown
…
linsey
: A bedgown is ‘a kind of jacket worn by women of the working class in the north' (
OED
). ‘Linsey' is a coarse linen fabric.

2
.
kine
: Cows.

3
.
Benjamin
: The character is very close to a fictional representation of the gloomy explanation Gaskell gives for the misbehaviour of Branwell Brontë, in her biography of Charlotte Brontë: ‘There are always peculiar trials in the life of an only boy in a family of girls. He is expected to act a part in life; to
do
, while they are only to
be
; and the necessity of their giving way to him in some things, is too often exaggerated into their giving way to him in all, and thus rendering him utterly selfish' (
The Life of Charlotte Brontë
, ed. Elisabeth Jay (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1997), p. 138).

4
.
articled clerk
: In this case, apprentice to an attorney.

5
.
settle
: See note 24 to ‘The Doom of the Griffiths'.

6
.
creepie-stool
: Low stool on three legs.

7
.
bound
: Entered into apprenticeship.

8
.
crook
: Chimney hook for hanging kettles or pots.

9
.
dunna wax up so
: Don't flare up in this way.

10
.
King George
: Presumably George IV (reigned 1820–30), as the story begins before Benjamin is born, in the early part of the century; by the time the story
has reached this far, Benjamin is in his early 20s, which would place the action roughly coterminous with the reign of George IV.

11
.
welly
: Nearly, almost.

12
.
go-cart
: Bottomless framework on rollers which enables a child to move around without falling over.

13
.
turned bottom upwards
: To bar the door, or to fence the child round for protection.

14
.
house-place
: See note 30 to ‘Lois the Witch'.

15
.
clothes-presses
: Movable chests or wardrobes for clothes.

16
.
mistaking guineas for shillings
: A guinea was worth one pound, one shilling; there were twenty shillings to a pound.

17
.
troth-plight
: See note 54 to ‘Lois the Witch'.

18
.
dree
: Dreary.

19
.
brass farthing
: Coin worth one-quarter of a nineteenth-century penny.

20
.
To Memory Dear
: Traditionally part of an inscription on a tombstone.

21
.
a hole into a box
: Presumably a pillarbox, or postbox, which would not be historically accurate here, since none was in use until 1852.

22
.
shippon
: Cow-shed.

23
.
the Prodigal
…
his father's house
: See Luke 15:11–32, for the famous parable of the younger son who asked for his inheritance early and left home; he squandered his wealth to the point where, destitute, he begged a stranger for food, and was sent out to eat with the swine. Repentant and humble, he returned to his father's house, where he was welcomed with love and the ‘fatted calf'.

24
.
redd up things a bit
: Tidy up.

25
.
York Assizes
: See note 10 to ‘The Doom of the Griffiths'.

26
.
shandry
: ‘A light cart or trap on springs' (
OED
).

27
.
the very stones… rise up
: See Luke 19:40: Jesus' disciples in Jerusalem are singing his praises when some Pharisees ride up and ask Jesus to silence them. ‘And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.'

28
.
starving i' the cold
: Dying of cold.

Curious, if True

First published as one of the first stories in William Thackeray's new journal,
Cornhill Magazine
, 1 (February 1860), pp. 208–19. It was reprinted in
The Grey Woman and Other Tales
(London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1865), pp. 82–104, from which the present text is taken.

1
. ‘
Curious, if True'
: Sources vary on the form of this title. In the
Cornhill Magazine
, the title has a comma. In
The Grey Woman and Other Tales
, the comma is omitted at the start of the story and in the table of contents, which are probably mistakes, as it appears in the headings at the top of every page. The Knutsford edition,
The Works of Mrs. Gaskell
, ed. Ward, vol. 7, omits the comma; Uglow has put it in
Curious, if True: Strange Tales by Mrs Gaskell
(London: Virago Press, 1995); and Angus Easson, who takes
The Grey Woman
as his copytext, has the title as ‘Curious, If True', in
Cousin Phillis and Other Tales
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. xii. See also Introduction, pp. xvii–xviii.

2
.
Richard Whittingham, Esq.
: Gaskell draws on a number of popular fairy-tale characters which would have been familiar to a nineteenth-century audience. In addition to Dick Whittington, for whom Whittingham is mistaken, they include, in order of appearance, Bluebeard's wife (‘Madame de Retz'), Cinderella, Poucet, Puss in Boots and his master, the Marquis of Carabas, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty (and later her Beast), the White Cat and Little Red Riding Hood. The fairy stories which Gaskell alluded to originate in Charles Perrault's
Histoires et contes du temps passé
(Amsterdam: Jacques Desbordes, 1708). ‘The White Cat' can be found in Countess d'Aulnoy [Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville],
Fairy Tales
, trans. J. R. Planché (London: G. Routledge & Co., 1855), pp. 433–69. For the English retelling of all of these stories, see Andrew Lang (ed.),
The Blue Fairy Book
(London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1889), which also contains ‘The History of Jack the Giant-killer' and ‘The History of Whittington'. Also worth consulting is Iona and Peter Opie,
The Classic Fairy Tales
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), which charts the first appearance of many of these stories in English.

3
.
sister of Calvin's
: John Calvin (1509–64), French theologian and religious reformer. He systematized Protestant doctrine and greatly influenced Puritanism in particular.

4
.
table d'hôte
: Buffet supper for hotel residents.

5
.
salle à manger
: Dining-room.

6
.
Lochiel's grandchild… pillow of snow
: In
Tales of a Grandfather
, Walter Scott describes how the clan chief Cameron of Lochiel found ‘one of his sons, or nephews' using a snow-ball for a pillow: ‘Indignant at what he considered as a mark of effeminacy, he… kicked the snow-ball away from under the sleeper's head, exclaiming, – “Are you become so luxurious that you cannot sleep without a pillow?”' (
Tales of a Grandfather: History of Scotland
, 7 vols., vol. 3, in
The Miscellaneous Works of Sir Walter Scott
(Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1870), 30 vols., vol. 24, pp. 119–20).

7
.
patois
: Dialect speech.

8
.
battants
: Bars to secure a door.

9
.
Monsieur le Géanquilleur
: Reference in ‘patois' to Jack the Giant-killer.

10
.
flambeau
: Candlestick or lighted torch.

11
.
Marché au Vendredi
: Place in town where the Friday market is held.

12
.
Hôtel Cluny
: In Paris, housing medieval collections and tapestries.

13
.
embonpoint
: Stoutness.

14
.
Dr Johnson… retrace his steps
: James Boswell recounts how Samuel Johnson's friend Dr [William] Adams described seeing Johnson (1709–84), essayist and biographer, when he was quite ill, ‘in a deplorable state, sighing, groaning, talking to himself, and restlessly walking from room to room' (
Life of Johnson
, ed. Christopher Hibbert (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1986), p. 127).

15
.
aristocratic ‘de' for a prefix
: Implying nobility or possession of a title, as does ‘von' (p. 279).

16
.
chasseur
: Huntsman or footman.

17
.
changes… since the days of Louis XVI
: Louis XVI (1754–93) was guillotined by revolutionaries in Paris on charges of counterrevolution, and his execution was a public exhibition of the death of the monarchy. The ‘changes in the order of the peerage' refer, presumably, to the emigration of many French nobles to England and other places following the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and the resultant Terror; emigration intensified after Louis XVI's execution to avoid imprisonment and/or execution. See also note 7 to ‘The Grey Woman' below.

18
.
eau sucré
: Sugared water.

19
.
the emperor
: Probably Napoleon III (1808–73), who was Emperor of France 1852–71.

20
.
vouée au blanc
: Devoted to all things white.

21
.
John Bull? John Russell? John Bright
: John Bull, a representative of the ‘typical' Englishman, in common use in Gaskell's time. John Russell (1792–1878), the first Earl Russell, was Prime Minister 1846–52, and Foreign Minister in 1859. (He was elected Prime Minister again in 1865.) John Bright (1811–89), was an anti-Corn Law reformer, orator and Member of Parliament.

22
.
King Arthur's knights… help at England's need
: See Elizabeth Gaskell's letter to Mary Howitt, [18 August 1838]: ‘And if you were on Alderley Edge, the hill between Cheshire and Derbyshire, could not I point out to you the very entrance to the cave where King Arthur and his knights lie sleeping in their golden armour till the day when England's peril shall summon them to her rescue' (
Letters
, no. 12, p. 32).

23
.
Monsieur Sganarelle… ragaillardir l'affection
: From the play by Molière, pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin,
The Reluctant Doctor (Le Médicin Malgré Lui
) (1666), where Sganarelle defends his beating of his wife. Janice K. Kirkland translates: ‘There are little things which are from time to time necessary in
love; and five or six blows with a sword between people who love each other can only revive their affection.' She goes on to add that Gaskell has actually ‘changed one word in Molière's original lines: Sganarelle says “coups de baton” or blows with a stick, meaning wife-beating; Gaskell changes it to blows with a sword or rapier, meaning wife-murder' (“Curious, if True”: Suggesting more',
Gaskell Society Journal
, 12 (1998), p. 26).