Mary Barton Page #46

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

								


And all this time Jem Wilson never came! Not to see her--that she did
not expect--but to see her father; to--she did not know what, but
she had hoped he would have come on some excuse, just to see if she
hadn't changed her mind. He never came. Then she grew weary and
impatient, and her spirits sank. The persecution of the one lover,
and the neglect of the other, oppressed her sorely. She could not now
sit quietly through the evening at her work; or, if she kept, by a
strong effort, from pacing up and down the room, she felt as if she
must sing to keep off thought while she sewed. And her songs were
the maddest, merriest, she could think of. "Barbara Allen," and such
sorrowful ditties, did well enough for happy times; but now she
required all the aid that could be derived from external excitement
to keep down the impulse of grief.

And her father, too--he was a great anxiety to her, he looked so
changed and so ill. Yet he would not acknowledge to any ailment. She
knew, that be it as late as it would, she never left off work until
(if the poor servants paid her pretty regularly for the odd jobs of
mending she did for them) she had earned a few pence, enough for one
good meal for her father on the next day. But very frequently all she
could do in the morning, after her late sitting up at night, was to
run with the work home, and receive the money from the person for
whom it was done. She could not stay often to make purchases of food,
but gave up the money at once to her father's eager clutch; sometimes
prompted by savage hunger it is true, but more frequently by a
craving for opium.

On the whole he was not so hungry as his daughter. For it was a long
fast from the one o'clock dinner-hour at Miss Simmonds' to the close
of Mary's vigil, which was often extended to midnight. She was young,
and had not yet learned to bear "clemming."

One evening, as she sang a merry song over her work, stopping
occasionally to sigh, the blind Margaret came groping in. It had been
one of Mary's additional sorrows that her friend had been absent
from home, accompanying the lecturer on music in his round among the
manufacturing towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire. Her grandfather,
too, had seen this a good time for going his expeditions in search of
specimens; so that the house had been shut up for several weeks.

"Oh! Margaret, Margaret! how glad I am to see you. Take care. There,
now, you're all right, that's father's chair. Sit down."--She kissed
her over and over again.

"It seems like the beginning o' brighter times, to see you again,
Margaret. Bless you! And how well you look!"

"Doctors always send ailing folk for change of air! and you know I've
had plenty o' that same lately."

"You've been quite a traveller for sure! Tell us all about it, do,
Margaret. Where have you been to, first place?"

"Eh, lass, that would take a long time to tell. Half o'er the world I
sometimes think. Bolton, and Bury, and Owdham, and Halifax, and--but
Mary, guess who I saw there! May be you know though, so it's not fair
guessing."

"No, I donnot. Tell me, Margaret, for I cannot abide waiting and
guessing."

"Well, one night as I were going fra' my lodgings wi' the help on a
lad as belonged to th' landlady, to find the room where I were to
sing, I heard a cough before me, walking along. Thinks I, that's Jem
Wilson's cough, or I'm much mistaken. Next time came a sneeze and a
cough, and then I were certain. First I hesitated whether I should
speak, thinking if it were a stranger he'd may be think me forrard.
[41] But I knew blind folks must not be nesh about using their
tongues, so says I, 'Jem Wilson, is that you?' And sure enough it
was, and nobody else. Did you know he were in Halifax, Mary?"


   [Footnote 41: "Forrard," forward.]


"No;" she answered, faintly and sadly; for Halifax was all the
same to her heart as the Antipodes; equally inaccessible by humble
penitent looks and maidenly tokens of love.

"Well, he's there, however; he's putting up an engine for some folks
there, for his master. He's doing well, for he's getten four or five
men under him; we'd two or three meetings, and he telled me all about
his invention for doing away wi' the crank, or somewhat. His master's
bought it from him, and ta'en out a patent, and Jem's a gentleman
for life wi' the money his master gied him. But you'll ha' heard all
this, Mary?"

No! she had not.

"Well, I thought it all happened afore he left Manchester, and then
in course you'd ha' known. But may be it were all settled after he
got to Halifax; however, he's gotten two or three hunder pounds for
his invention. But what's up with you, Mary? you're sadly out o'
sorts. You've never been quarrelling wi' Jem, surely?"

Now Mary cried outright; she was weak in body, and unhappy in mind,
and the time was come when she might have the relief of telling her
grief. She could not bring herself to confess how much of her sorrow
was caused by her having been vain and foolish; she hoped that need
never be known, and she could not bear to think of it.

"Oh, Margaret; do you know Jem came here one night when I were put
out, and cross. Oh, dear! dear! I could bite my tongue out when I
think on it. And he told me how he loved me, and I thought I did not
love him, and I told him I didn't; and, Margaret,--he believed me,
and went away so sad, and so angry; and now I'd do any thing,--I
would, indeed," her sobs choked the end of her sentence. Margaret
looked at her with sorrow, but with hope; for she had no doubt in her
own mind, that it was only a temporary estrangement.

"Tell me, Margaret," said Mary, taking her apron down from her eyes,
and looking at Margaret with eager anxiety, "what can I do to bring
him back to me? Should I write to him?"

"No," replied her friend, "that would not do. Men are so queer, they
like to have a' the courting to themselves."

"But I did not mean to write him a courting letter," said Mary,
somewhat indignantly.

"If you wrote at all, it would be to give him a hint you'd taken
the rue, and would be very glad to have him now. I believe now he'd
rather find that out himself."

"But he won't try," said Mary, sighing. "How can he find it out when
he's at Halifax?"

"If he's a will he's a way, depend upon it. And you would not have
him if he's not a will to you, Mary! No, dear!" changing her tone
from the somewhat hard way in which sensible people too often speak,
to the soft accents of tenderness which come with such peculiar grace
from them; "you must just wait and be patient. You may depend upon
it, all will end well, and better than if you meddled in it now."

"But it's so hard to be patient," pleaded Mary.

"Ay, dear; being patient is the hardest work we, any on us, have
to do through life, I take it. Waiting is far more difficult than
doing. I've known that about my sight, and many a one has known it in
watching the sick; but it's one of God's lessons we all must learn,
one way or another." After a pause. "Have ye been to see his mother
of late?"
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