Mary Barton Page #65

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

								

gathered fragments of meaning from the half spoken words which came
mingled with sobs from the terrified little heart. So, aided by
inquiries here and there from a passer-by, he led and carried the
little fellow home, where his mother had been too busy to miss him,
but now received him with thankfulness, and with an eloquent Irish
blessing. When John heard the words of blessing, he shook his head
mournfully, and turned away to retrace his steps.

Let us leave him.

Mary took her sewing after he had gone, and sat on, and sat on,
trying to listen to Job, who was more inclined to talk than usual.
She had conquered her feeling of impatience towards him so far as to
be able to offer him her father's rejected supper; and she even tried
to eat herself. But her heart failed her. A leaden weight seemed to
hang over her; a sort of presentiment of evil, or perhaps only an
excess of low-spirited feeling in consequence of the two departures
which had taken place that afternoon.

She wondered how long Job Legh would sit. She did not like putting
down her work, and crying before him, and yet she had never in her
life longed so much to be alone in order to indulge in a good hearty
burst of tears.

"Well, Mary," she suddenly caught him saying, "I thought you'd be
a bit lonely to-night; and as Margaret were going to cheer th' old
woman, I said I'd go and keep th' young un company; and a very
pleasant, chatty evening we've had; very. Only I wonder as Margaret
is not come back."

"But perhaps she is," suggested Mary.

"No, no, I took care o' that. Look ye here!" and he pulled out the
great house-key. "She'll have to stand waiting i' th' street, and
that I'm sure she wouldn't do, when she knew where to find me."

"Will she come back by hersel?" asked Mary.

"Ay. At first I were afraid o' trusting her, and I used to follow her
a bit behind; never letting on, of course. But, bless you! she goes
along as steadily as can be; rather slow, to be sure, and her head a
bit on one side as if she were listening. And it's real beautiful to
see her cross the road. She'll wait above a bit to hear that all is
still; not that she's so dark as not to see a coach or a cart like
a big black thing, but she can't rightly judge how far off it is by
sight, so she listens. Hark! that's her!"

Yes; in she came with her usually calm face all tear-stained and
sorrow-marked.

"What's the matter, my wench?" said Job, hastily.

"Oh! grandfather! Alice Wilson's so bad!" She could say no more, for
her breathless agitation. The afternoon, and the parting with Will,
had weakened her nerves for any after-shock.

"What is it? Do tell us, Margaret!" said Mary, placing her in a
chair, and loosening her bonnet-strings.

"I think it's a stroke o' the palsy. Any rate she has lost the use of
one side."

"Was it afore Will had set off?" asked Mary.

"No; he were gone before I got there," said Margaret; "and she were
much about as well as she has been this many a day. She spoke a bit,
but not much; but that were only natural, for Mrs. Wilson likes to
have the talk to hersel, you know. She got up to go across the room,
and then I heard a drag wi' her leg, and presently a fall, and Mrs.
Wilson came running, and set up such a cry! I stopped wi' Alice,
while she fetched a doctor; but she could not speak, to answer me,
though she tried, I think."

"Where was Jem? Why didn't he go for the doctor?"

"He were out when I got there, and he never came home while I
stopped."

"Thou'st never left Mrs. Wilson alone wi' poor Alice?" asked Job,
hastily.

"No, no," said Margaret. "But, oh! grandfather; it's now I feel how
hard it is to have lost my sight. I should have so loved to nurse
her; and I did try, until I found I did more harm than good. Oh!
grandfather; if I could but see!"

She sobbed a little; and they let her give that ease to her heart.
Then she went on--

"No! I went round by Mrs. Davenport's, and she were hard at work;
but, the minute I told my errand, she were ready and willing to go to
Jane Wilson, and stop up all night with Alice."

"And what does the doctor say?" asked Mary.

"Oh! much what all doctors say: he puts a fence on this side, and a
fence on that, for fear he should be caught tripping in his judgment.
One moment he does not think there's much hope--but while there
is life there is hope; th' next he says he should think she might
recover partial, but her age is again her. He's ordered her leeches
to her head."

Margaret, having told her tale, leant back with weariness, both of
body and mind. Mary hastened to make her a cup of tea; while Job,
lately so talkative, sat quiet and mournfully silent.

"I'll go first thing to-morrow morning, and learn how she is; and
I'll bring word back before I go to work," said Mary.

"It's a bad job Will's gone," said Job.

"Jane does not think she knows any one," replied Margaret. "It's
perhaps as well he shouldn't see her now, for they say her face is
sadly drawn. He'll remember her with her own face better, if he does
not see her again."

With a few more sorrowful remarks they separated for the night, and
Mary was left alone in her house, to meditate on the heavy day that
had passed over her head. Everything seemed going wrong. Will gone;
her father gone--and so strangely too! And to a place so mysteriously
distant as Glasgow seemed to be to her! She had felt his presence
as a protection against Harry Carson and his threats; and now she
dreaded lest he should learn she was alone. Her heart began to
despair, too, about Jem. She feared he had ceased to love her; and
she--she only loved him more and more for his seeming neglect. And,
as if all this aggregate of sorrowful thoughts was not enough, here
was this new woe, of poor Alice's paralytic stroke.




CHAPTER XVIII.

MURDER.


   "But in his pulse there was no throb,
   Nor on his lips one dying sob;
   Sigh, nor word, nor struggling breath
   Heralded his way to death."

   SIEGE OF CORINTH.

   "My brain runs this way and that way; 'twill not fix
   On aught but vengeance."

   DUKE OF GUISE.


I must now go back to an hour or two before Mary and her friends
parted for the night. It might be about eight o'clock that
evening, and the three Miss Carsons were sitting in their father's
drawing-room. He was asleep in the dining-room, in his own
comfortable chair. Mrs. Carson was (as was usual with her, when
no particular excitement was going on) very poorly, and sitting
up-stairs in her dressing-room, indulging in the luxury of a
head-ache. She was not well, certainly. "Wind in the head," the
servants called it. But it was but the natural consequence of the
state of mental and bodily idleness in which she was placed. Without
education enough to value the resources of wealth and leisure, she
was so circumstanced as to command both. It would have done her more
good than all the æther and sal-volatile she was daily in the habit
of swallowing, if she might have taken the work of one of her own
housemaids for a week; made beds, rubbed tables, shaken carpets, and
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