"such simplicity might be very well in cranford..."

“It was really very pleasant to see how her unselfishness, and simple sense of justice called out the same good qualities in others. She never seemed to think any one would impose upon her, because she should be so grieved to do it to them. . . . People would have felt as much ashamed of presuming on her good faith as they would have done on that of a child. But my father says, ‘such simplicity might be very well in Cranford, but would never do in the world.’”

—Mary Smith of Miss Matty in “A Happy Return to Cranford”

Miss Matty opens a tea shop to support herself.

After the crash of the Town and County Bank, in which Miss Matty is thoroughly invested, the spinsters in Cranford semi-anonymously pool their resources to assist her in opening a tea shop by which she can support herself. In this passage, Mary Smith describes Miss Matty’s business habits as having a childlike innocence, an innocence that pervades the large majority of Mary’s interactions with the Cranfordians. Before opening her shop, Miss Matty asks the other shop owner in Cranford how her shop would affect his business, an unwise move from a businessman’s perspective. As Mary’s father says, the likelihood of a business being successful based on the honesty of the consumer and the generosity of the storekeeper, at least in the industry-based society of Drumble, is slim. Through Mary’s father Gaskell introduces the other side of the train tracks, Drumble, where the industrial machine is beginning to squash the small-business owner, as it did in the nineteenth century. Against all odds, Miss Matty sells enough tea to live decently; the other shop owner sends customers to her, and though her business practices are unorthodox, her simple innocence and trusting nature attract customers and keep producers from exploiting her. In Cranford, the outside world’s idea of value is inverted; these women make obvious that the pursuit of wealth does not concern them. Among the ladies of Cranford, the unexpected and unrealistic is expected, and because of these expectations the rest of the community steps up to the challenge. Though Cranford has many imperfections, Gaskell shows that there are ways besides industrialization to create a better society.