Mary Barton Page #23

Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life is the first novel by English author Elizabeth Gaskell, published in 1848. The story is set in the English city of Manchester between 1839 and 1842, and deals with the difficulties faced by the Victorian working class.

• Novel

								

Monday. Besides, the cook, who, when she had had time to think, after
breakfast was sent in, had noticed his paleness, had had meat and
bread ready to put in his hand when he came out of the parlour; and a
full stomach makes every one of us more hopeful.

When he reached Berry Street, he had persuaded himself he bore good
news, and felt almost elated in his heart. But it fell when he opened
the cellar-door, and saw Barton and the wife both bending over the
sick man's couch with awe-struck, saddened look.

"Come here," said Barton. "There's a change comed over him sin' yo
left, is there not?"

Wilson looked. The flesh was sunk, the features prominent, bony, and
rigid. The fearful clay-colour of death was over all. But the eyes
were open and sensible, though the films of the grave were settling
upon them.

"He wakened fra his sleep, as yo left him in, and began to mutter and
moan; but he soon went off again, and we never knew he were awake
till he called his wife, but now she's here he's gotten nought to say
to her."

Most probably, as they all felt, he could not speak, for his strength
was fast ebbing. They stood round him still and silent; even the wife
checked her sobs, though her heart was like to break. She held her
child to her breast, to try and keep him quiet. Their eyes were all
fixed on the yet living one, whose moments of life were passing so
rapidly away. At length he brought (with jerking, convulsive effort)
his two hands into the attitude of prayer. They saw his lips move,
and bent to catch the words, which came in gasps, and not in tones.

"Oh Lord God! I thank thee, that the hard struggle of living is
over."

"Oh, Ben! Ben!" wailed forth his wife, "have you no thought for me?
Oh, Ben! Ben! do say one word to help me through life."

He could not speak again. The trump of the archangel would set his
tongue free; but not a word more would it utter till then. Yet he
heard, he understood, and though sight failed, he moved his hand
gropingly over the covering. They knew what he meant, and guided it
to her head, bowed and hidden in her hands, when she had sunk in her
woe. It rested there, with a feeble pressure of endearment. The face
grew beautiful, as the soul neared God. A peace beyond understanding
came over it. The hand was a heavy, stiff weight on the wife's
head. No more grief or sorrow for him. They reverently laid out the
corpse--Wilson fetching his only spare shirt to array it in. The wife
still lay hidden in the clothes, in a stupor of agony.

There was a knock at the door, and Barton went to open it. It
was Mary, who had received a message from her father, through a
neighbour, telling her where he was; and she had set out early to
come and have a word with him before her day's work; but some errands
she had to do for Miss Simmonds had detained her until now.

"Come in, wench!" said her father. "Try if thou canst comfort yon
poor, poor woman, kneeling down there. God help her." Mary did not
know what to say, or how to comfort; but she knelt down by her, and
put her arm round her neck, and in a little while fell to crying
herself so bitterly, that the source of tears was opened by sympathy
in the widow, and her full heart was, for a time, relieved.

And Mary forgot all purposed meeting with her gay lover, Harry
Carson; forgot Miss Simmonds' errands, and her anger, in the anxious
desire to comfort the poor lone woman. Never had her sweet face
looked more angelic, never had her gentle voice seemed so musical as
when she murmured her broken sentences of comfort.

"Oh, don't cry so, dear Mrs. Davenport, pray don't take on so. Sure
he's gone where he'll never know care again. Yes, I know how lonesome
you must feel; but think of your children. Oh! we'll all help to earn
food for 'em. Think how sorry he'd be, if he sees you fretting so.
Don't cry so, please don't."

And she ended by crying herself, as passionately as the poor widow.

It was agreed that the town must bury him; he had paid to a burial
club as long as he could; but by a few weeks' omission, he had
forfeited his claim to a sum of money now. Would Mrs. Davenport and
the little child go home with Mary? The latter brightened up as she
urged this plan; but no! where the poor, fondly loved remains were,
there would the mourner be; and all that they could do was to make
her as comfortable as their funds would allow, and to beg a neighbour
to look in and say a word at times. So she was left alone with her
dead, and they went to work that had work, and he who had none, took
upon him the arrangements for the funeral.

Mary had many a scolding from Miss Simmonds that day for her absence
of mind. To be sure Miss Simmonds was much put out by Mary's
non-appearance in the morning with certain bits of muslin, and shades
of silk which were wanted to complete a dress to be worn that night;
but it was true enough that Mary did not mind what she was about;
she was too busy planning how her old black gown (her best when
her mother died) might be spunged, and turned, and lengthened into
something like decent mourning for the widow. And when she went home
at night (though it was very late, as a sort of retribution for her
morning's negligence), she set to work at once, and was so busy, and
so glad over her task, that she had, every now and then, to check
herself in singing merry ditties, that she felt little accorded with
the sewing on which she was engaged.

So when the funeral day came, Mrs. Davenport was neatly arrayed in
black, a satisfaction to her poor heart in the midst of her sorrow.
Barton and Wilson both accompanied her, as she led her two elder
boys, and followed the coffin. It was a simple walking funeral, with
nothing to grate on the feelings of any; far more in accordance with
its purpose, to my mind, than the gorgeous hearses, and nodding
plumes, which form the grotesque funeral pomp of respectable people.
There was no "rattling the bones over the stones," of the pauper's
funeral. Decently and quietly was he followed to the grave by one
determined to endure her woe meekly for his sake. The only mark of
pauperism attendant on the burial concerned the living and joyous,
far more than the dead, or the sorrowful. When they arrived in the
churchyard, they halted before a raised and handsome tombstone; in
reality a wooden mockery of stone respectabilities which adorned the
burial-ground. It was easily raised in a very few minutes, and below
was the grave in which pauper bodies were piled until within a foot
or two of the surface; when the soil was shovelled over, and stamped
down, and the wooden cover went to do temporary duty over another
hole. [19] But little they recked of this who now gave up their dead.


   [Footnote 19: The case, to my certain knowledge, in one
                 churchyard in Manchester. There may be more.]




CHAPTER VII.

JEM WILSON'S REPULSE.


   "How infinite the wealth of love and hope
   Garnered in these same tiny treasure-houses!
   And oh! what bankrupts in the world we feel,
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