Mary Barton Page #38

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

								

believed himself fascinating.

If he had known what Mary's home was, he would not have been so much
convinced of his increasing influence over her, by her being more and
more ready to linger with him in the sweet summer air. For when she
returned for the night her father was often out, and the house wanted
the cheerful look it had had in the days when money was never wanted
to purchase soap and brushes, black-lead and pipe-clay. It was dingy
and comfortless; for, of course, there was not even the dumb familiar
home-friend, a fire. And Margaret, too, was now so often from home,
singing at some of those grand places. And Alice; oh, Mary wished
she had never left her cellar to go and live at Ancoats with her
sister-in-law. For in that matter Mary felt very guilty; she had put
off and put off going to see the widow after George Wilson's death
from dread of meeting Jem, or giving him reason to think she wished
to be as intimate with him as formerly; and now she was so much
ashamed of her delay that she was likely never to go at all.

If her father was at home it was no better; indeed it was worse. He
seldom spoke, less than ever; and often when he did speak they were
sharp angry words, such as he had never given her formerly. Her
temper was high, too, and her answers not over-mild; and once in his
passion he had even beaten her. If Sally Leadbitter or Mr. Carson had
been at hand at that moment, Mary would have been ready to leave home
for ever. She sat alone, after her father had flung out of the house,
bitterly thinking on the days that were gone; angry with her own
hastiness, and believing that her father did not love her; striving
to heap up one painful thought on another. Who cared for her? Mr.
Carson might, but in this grief that seemed no comfort. Mother dead!
Father so often angry, so lately cruel (for it was a hard blow, and
blistered and reddened Mary's soft white skin with pain): and then
her heart turned round, and she remembered with self-reproach how
provokingly she had looked and spoken, and how much her father had to
bear; and oh, what a kind and loving parent he had been, till these
days of trial. The remembrance of one little instance of his fatherly
love thronged after another into her mind, and she began to wonder
how she could have behaved to him as she had done.

Then he came home; and but for very shame she would have confessed
her penitence in words. But she looked sullen, from her effort to
keep down emotion; and for some time her father did not know how to
begin to speak. At length he gulped down pride, and said:

"Mary, I'm not above saying I'm very sorry I beat thee. Thou wert a
bit aggravating, and I'm not the man I was. But it were wrong, and
I'll try never to lay hands on thee again."

So he held out his arms, and in many tears she told him her
repentance for her fault. He never struck her again.

Still, he often was angry. But that was almost better than being
silent. Then he sat near the fire-place (from habit), smoking, or
chewing opium. Oh, how Mary loathed that smell! And in the dusk, just
before it merged into the short summer night, she had learned to look
with dread towards the window, which now her father would have kept
uncurtained; for there were not seldom seen sights which haunted her
in her dreams. Strange faces of pale men, with dark glaring eyes,
peered into the inner darkness, and seemed desirous to ascertain if
her father were at home. Or a hand and arm (the body hidden) was put
within the door, and beckoned him away. He always went. And once
or twice, when Mary was in bed, she heard men's voices below, in
earnest, whispered talk.

They were all desperate members of Trades' Unions, ready for any
thing; made ready by want.

While all this change for gloom yet struck fresh and heavy on Mary's
heart, her father startled her out of a reverie one evening, by
asking her when she had been to see Jane Wilson. From his manner of
speaking, she was made aware that he had been; but at the time of his
visit he had never mentioned any thing about it. Now, however, he
gruffly told her to go next day without fail, and added some abuse
of her for not having been before. The little outward impulse of
her father's speech gave Mary the push which she, in this instance,
required; and, accordingly, timing her visit so as to avoid Jem's
hours at home, she went the following afternoon to Ancoats.

The outside of the well-known house struck her as different; for
the door was closed, instead of open, as it once had always stood.
The window-plants, George Wilson's pride and especial care, looked
withering and drooping. They had been without water for a long time,
and now, when the widow had reproached herself severely for neglect,
in her ignorant anxiety, she gave them too much. On opening the door,
Alice was seen, not stirring about in her habitual way, but knitting
by the fire-side. The room felt hot, although the fire burnt gray
and dim, under the bright rays of the afternoon sun. Mrs. Wilson was
"siding" [39] the dinner things, and talking all the time, in a kind of
whining, shouting voice, which Mary did not at first understand.
She understood at once, however, that her absence had been noted,
and talked over; she saw a constrained look on Mrs. Wilson's
sorrow-stricken face, which told her a scolding was to come.


   [Footnote 39: To "side," to put aside, or in order.]


"Dear Mary, is that you?" she began. "Why, who would ha' dreamt of
seeing you! We thought you'd clean forgotten us; and Jem has often
wondered if he should know you, if he met you in the street."

Now, poor Jane Wilson had been sorely tried; and at present her
trials had had no outward effect, but that of increased acerbity of
temper. She wished to show Mary how much she was offended, and meant
to strengthen her cause, by putting some of her own sharp speeches
into Jem's mouth.

Mary felt guilty, and had no good reason to give as an apology; so
for a minute she stood silent, looking very much ashamed, and then
turned to speak to aunt Alice, who, in her surprised, hearty greeting
to Mary, had dropped her ball of worsted, and was busy trying to
set the thread to rights, before the kitten had entangled it past
redemption, once round every chair, and twice round the table.

"You mun speak louder than that, if you mean her to hear; she become
as deaf as a post this last few weeks. I'd ha' told you, if I'd
remembered how long it were sin' you'd seen her."

"Yes, my dear, I'm getting very hard o' hearing of late," said Alice,
catching the state of the case, with her quick-glancing eyes. "I
suppose it's the beginning of th' end."

"Don't talk o' that way," screamed her sister-in-law. "We've had enow
of ends and deaths without forecasting more." She covered her face
with her apron, and sat down to cry.

"He was such a good husband," said she, in a less excited tone, to
Mary, as she looked up with tear-streaming eyes from behind her
apron. "No one can tell what I've lost in him, for no one knew his
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