Mary Barton Page #41

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

								

listened, he would have heard these words, repeated in various forms,
but always in the same anxious, muttering way.

"He would not listen to me; what can I do? He would not listen to me,
and I wanted to warn him! Oh, what shall I do to save Mary's child?
What shall I do? How can I keep her from being such a one as I am;
such a wretched, loathsome creature! She was listening just as I
listened, and loving just as I loved, and the end will be just like
my end. How shall I save her? She won't hearken to warning, or heed
it more than I did; and who loves her well enough to watch over her
as she should be watched? God keep her from harm! And yet I won't
pray for her; sinner that I am! Can my prayers be heard? No! they'll
only do harm. How shall I save her? He would not listen to me."

So the night wore away. The next morning she was taken up to the
New Bailey. It was a clear case of disorderly vagrancy, and she was
committed to prison for a month. How much might happen in that time!




CHAPTER XI.

MR. CARSON'S INTENTIONS REVEALED.


   "O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace,
     Wha for thy sake wad gladly die?
   Or canst thou break that heart of his,
     Whase only faut is loving thee?"

   BURNS.

   "I can like of the wealth, I must confess,
   Yet more I prize the man, though moneyless;
   I am not of their humour yet that can
   For title or estate affect a man;
   Or of myself one body deign to make
   With him I loathe, for his possessions' sake."

   WITHER'S "FIDELIA."


Barton returned home after his encounter with Esther, uneasy and
dissatisfied. He had said no more than he had been planning to say
for years, in case she was ever thrown in his way, in the character
in which he felt certain he should meet her. He believed she deserved
it all, and yet he now wished he had not said it. Her look, as she
asked for mercy, haunted him through his broken and disordered sleep;
her form, as he last saw her, lying prostrate in helplessness,
would not be banished from his dreams. He sat up in bed to try and
dispel the vision. Now, too late, his conscience smote him for his
harshness. It would have been all very well, he thought, to have said
what he did, if he had added some kind words, at last. He wondered
if his dead wife was conscious of that night's occurrence; and he
hoped not, for with her love for Esther he believed it would embitter
Heaven to have seen her so degraded and repulsed. For he now recalled
her humility, her tacit acknowledgment of her lost character; and he
began to marvel if there was power in the religion he had often heard
of, to turn her from her ways. He felt that no earthly power that he
knew of could do it, but there glimmered on his darkness the idea
that religion might save her. Still, where to find her again? In the
wilderness of a large town, where to meet with an individual of so
little value or note to any?

And evening after evening he paced those streets in which he had
heard her footsteps following him, peering under every fantastic,
discreditable bonnet, in the hopes of once more meeting Esther,
and addressing her in a far different manner from what he had done
before. But he returned, night after night, disappointed in his
search, and at last gave it up in despair, and tried to recall his
angry feelings towards her, in order to find relief from his present
self-reproach.

He often looked at Mary, and wished she were not so like her aunt,
for the very bodily likeness seemed to suggest the possibility of
a similar likeness in their fate; and then this idea enraged his
irritable mind, and he became suspicious and anxious about Mary's
conduct. Now hitherto she had been so remarkably free from all
control, and almost from all inquiry concerning her actions, that
she did not brook this change in her father's behaviour very well.
Just when she was yielding more than ever to Mr. Carson's desire of
frequent meetings, it was hard to be so questioned concerning her
hours of leaving off work, whether she had come straight home, &c.
She could not tell lies; though she could conceal much if she were
not questioned. So she took refuge in obstinate silence, alleging
as a reason for it her indignation at being so cross-examined. This
did not add to the good feeling between father and daughter, and yet
they dearly loved each other; and in the minds of each, one principal
reason for maintaining such behaviour as displeased the other, was
the believing that this conduct would insure that person's happiness.

Her father now began to wish Mary were married. Then this terrible
superstitious fear suggested by her likeness to Esther would be done
away with. He felt that he could not resume the reins he had once
slackened. But with a husband it would be different. If Jem Wilson
would but marry her! With his character for steadiness and talent!
But he was afraid Mary had slighted him, he came so seldom now to the
house. He would ask her.

"Mary, what's come o'er thee and Jem Wilson? Yo were great friends at
one time."

"Oh, folk say he's going to be married to Molly Gibson, and of course
courting takes up a deal o' time," answered Mary, as indifferently as
she could.

"Thou'st played thy cards badly, then," replied her father, in a
surly tone. "At one time he were desperate fond o' thee, or I'm much
mistaken. Much fonder of thee than thou deservedst."

"That's as people think," said Mary, pertly, for she remembered that
the very morning before she had met Mr. Carson, who had sighed, and
swore, and protested all manner of tender vows that she was the
loveliest, sweetest, best, &c. And when she had seen him afterwards
riding with one of his beautiful sisters, had he not evidently
pointed her out as in some way or other an object worthy of attention
and interest, and then lingered behind his sister's horse for a
moment to kiss his hand repeatedly. So, as for Jem Wilson, she could
whistle him down the wind.

But her father was not in the mood to put up with pertness, and he
upbraided her with the loss of Jem Wilson till she had to bite her
lips till the blood came, in order to keep down the angry words that
would rise in her heart. At last her father left the house, and then
she might give way to her passionate tears.

It so happened that Jem, after much anxious thought, had determined
that day to "put his fate to the touch, to win or lose it all." He
was in a condition to maintain a wife in comfort. It was true his
mother and aunt must form part of the household; but such is not an
uncommon case among the poor, and if there were the advantage of
previous friendship between the parties, it was not, he thought, an
obstacle to matrimony. Both mother and aunt he believed would welcome
Mary. And oh! what a certainty of happiness the idea of that welcome
implied.

He had been absent and abstracted all day long with the thought of
the coming event of the evening. He almost smiled at himself for his
care in washing and dressing in preparation for his visit to Mary. As
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