Mary Barton Page #42

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

								

if one waistcoat or another could decide his fate in so passionately
momentous a thing. He believed he only delayed before his little
looking-glass for cowardice, for absolute fear of a girl. He would
try not to think so much about the affair, and he thought the more.

Poor Jem! it is not an auspicious moment for thee!

"Come in," said Mary, as some one knocked at the door, while she sat
sadly at her sewing, trying to earn a few pence by working over hours
at some mourning.

Jem entered, looking more awkward and abashed than he had ever done
before. Yet here was Mary all alone, just as he had hoped to find
her. She did not ask him to take a chair, but after standing a minute
or two he sat down near her.

"Is your father at home, Mary?" said he, by way of making an opening,
for she seemed determined to keep silence, and went on stitching
away.

"No, he's gone to his Union, I suppose." Another silence. It was no
use waiting, thought Jem. The subject would never be led to by any
talk he could think of in his anxious fluttered state. He had better
begin at once.

"Mary!" said he, and the unusual tone of his voice made her look up
for an instant, but in that time she understood from his countenance
what was coming, and her heart beat so suddenly and violently she
could hardly sit still. Yet one thing she was sure of; nothing he
could say should make her have him. She would show them all who
would be glad to have her. She was not yet calm after her father's
irritating speeches. Yet her eyes fell veiled before that passionate
look fixed upon her.

"Dear Mary! (for how dear you are, I cannot rightly tell you in
words). It's no new story I'm going to speak about. You must ha' seen
and known it long; for since we were boy and girl, I ha' loved you
above father and mother and all; and all I've thought on by day and
dreamt on by night, has been something in which you've had a share.
I'd no way of keeping you for long, and I scorned to try and tie you
down; and I lived in terror lest some one else should take you to
himself. But now, Mary, I'm foreman in th' works, and, dear Mary!
listen," as she, in her unbearable agitation, stood up and turned
away from him. He rose, too, and came nearer, trying to take hold of
her hand; but this she would not allow. She was bracing herself up to
refuse him, for once and for all.

"And now, Mary, I've a home to offer you, and a heart as true as ever
man had to love you and cherish you; we shall never be rich folk,
I dare say; but if a loving heart and a strong right arm can shield
you from sorrow, or from want, mine shall do it. I cannot speak
as I would like; my love won't let itself be put in words. But oh!
darling, say you believe me, and that you'll be mine."

She could not speak at once; her words would not come.

"Mary, they say silence gives consent; is it so?" he whispered.

Now or never the effort must be made.

"No! it does not with me." Her voice was calm, although she trembled
from head to foot. "I will always be your friend, Jem, but I can
never be your wife."

"Not my wife!" said he, mournfully. "Oh Mary, think awhile! you
cannot be my friend if you will not be my wife. At least I can never
be content to be only your friend. Do think awhile! If you say No you
will make me hopeless, desperate. It's no love of yesterday. It has
made the very groundwork of all that people call good in me. I don't
know what I shall be if you won't have me. And, Mary! think how glad
your father would be! it may sound vain, but he's told me more than
once how much he should like to see us two married!"

Jem intended this for a powerful argument, but in Mary's present mood
it told against him more than any thing; for it suggested the false
and foolish idea, that her father, in his evident anxiety to promote
her marriage with Jem, had been speaking to him on the subject with
some degree of solicitation.

"I tell you, Jem, it cannot be. Once for all, I will never marry
you."

"And is this the end of all my hopes and fears? the end of my life,
I may say, for it is the end of all worth living for!" His agitation
rose and carried him into passion. "Mary! you'll hear, may be, of
me as a drunkard, and may be as a thief, and may be as a murderer.
Remember! when all are speaking ill of me, you will have no right to
blame me, for it's your cruelty that will have made me what I feel
I shall become. You won't even say you'll try and like me; will you,
Mary?" said he, suddenly changing his tone from threatening despair
to fond passionate entreaty, as he took her hand and held it forcibly
between both of his, while he tried to catch a glimpse of her averted
face. She was silent, but it was from deep and violent emotion. He
could not bear to wait; he would not hope, to be dashed away again;
he rather in his bitterness of heart chose the certainty of despair,
and before she could resolve what to answer, he flung away her hand
and rushed out of the house.

"Jem! Jem!" cried she, with faint and choking voice. It was too late;
he left street after street behind him with his almost winged speed,
as he sought the fields, where he might give way unobserved to all
the deep despair he felt.

It was scarcely ten minutes since he had entered the house, and found
Mary at comparative peace, and now she lay half across the dresser,
her head hidden in her hands, and every part of her body shaking with
the violence of her sobs. She could not have told at first (if you
had asked her, and she could have commanded voice enough to answer)
why she was in such agonised grief. It was too sudden for her to
analyse, or think upon it. She only felt that by her own doing her
life would be hereafter dreary and blank. By-and-bye her sorrow
exhausted her body by its power, and she seemed to have no strength
left for crying. She sat down; and now thoughts crowded on her mind.
One little hour ago, and all was still unsaid, and she had her fate
in her own power. And yet, how long ago had she determined to say
pretty much what she did, if the occasion ever offered.

It was as if two people were arguing the matter; that mournful,
desponding communion between her former self and her present self.
Herself, a day, an hour ago; and herself now. For we have every one
of us felt how a very few minutes of the months and years called
life, will sometimes suffice to place all time past and future in an
entirely new light; will make us see the vanity or the criminality
of the bye-gone, and so change the aspect of the coming time, that
we look with loathing on the very thing we have most desired. A
few moments may change our character for life, by giving a totally
different direction to our aims and energies.

To return to Mary. Her plan had been, as we well know, to marry Mr.
Carson, and the occurrence an hour ago was only a preliminary step.
True; but it had unveiled her heart to her; it had convinced her she
loved Jem above all persons or things. But Jem was a poor mechanic,
with a mother and aunt to keep; a mother, too, who had shown her
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