“If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in business”
In the novel’s opening line, the women of Cranford are identified through metaphor as “Amazons” which naturally conveys the image of young, eternally beautifully, physically powerful women who rule their own society without any need for men. It is a terrific opening line because it works both ironically and sincerely. The physical appearance of the women of Cranford obviously stands in ironic counterpart to Amazonian warrior princesses, but the very next line is a sharp rebuke to any reader who thinks the previous sentence is supposed to be interpreted only as ironic.
“As most of the ladies of good family in Cranford were elderly spinsters, or widows without children, if we did not relax a little, and become less exclusive, by-and-by we should have no society at all.”
Miss Pole is one of the women at the core of power within the Amazonian control of Cranford. (Notably, the word Amazon never appears again after the opening sentence.) Her overview of the community is probably the most direct and honest appraisals of their situation in the book.
Wafer bread-and- butter and sponge-biscuits were all that the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson gave; and she was sister-in-law to the late Earl of Glenmire, although she did practice such “elegant economy.”
The key thing here are those final words which does sport the literary equivalent of air quotes in the written text. Keep in mind that Cranford is a community of women without husbands and even in the 21st century that can mean living on a fixed income for women. (And for men, for that matter.) “Elegant economy” refers to the awareness of everyone in the community that the financial status of each household can vary considerably. With that in mind, excessive displays of wealth are considered vulgar and as unwelcome as public complaints about financial deprivation. In other words, the rich don’t brag and the poor don’t complain outside their home. Not that the "elegant economy" was adopted purely for those reasons; just let it be said that Cranford carries the bouquet of sour grapes over some homes.
On the whole, we were rather glad to hear this, for she had made a pleasant impression upon us; and it was also very comfortable to find, from things which dropped out in the course of conversation, that, in addition to many other genteel qualities, she was far removed from the “vulgarity of wealth.”
The “she” who made an impression is a new arrival in Cranford, sister-in-law to the town’s de fact social president, Miss Jamieson. Lady Glenmire is the first noblewomen most of Cranford has ever met and her arrival brings excitement and trepidation about how to treat her and how she will treat them. In a testament to the power of sisterhood, the aristocratic widow turns out to fit right in because there is certainly a bit of truth in what her sister-in-law derisively terms her after she surprises everyone by sacrificing her title by marrying a doctor: a creature of low taste. The somewhat higher common taste of the spinsterhood considers this the equivalent of marrying a simple merchant.
