He swore an oath, and bade her begone.
“I really do. Don’t send me away. I’m so out of breath, I cannot say what I would all at once.” She put her hand to her side, and caught her breath with evident pain.
“I tell thee I’m not the man for thee,” adding an opprobrious name. “Stay,” said he, as a thought suggested by her voice flashed across him. He gripped her arm — the arm he had just before shaken off — and dragged her, faintly resisting, to the nearest lamp-post. He pushed the bonnet back, and roughly held the face she would fain have averted, to the light, and in her large, unnaturally bright grey eyes, her lovely mouth, half open, as if imploring the forbearance she could not ask for in words, he saw at once the long-lost Esther; she who had caused his wife’s death. Much was like the gay creature of former years; but the glaring paint, the sharp features, the changed expression of the whole! But most of all, he loathed the dress; and yet the poor thing, out of her little choice of attire, had put on the plainest she had, to come on that night’s errand.
“So it’s thee, is it? It’s thee!” exclaimed John, as he ground his teeth, and shook her with passion. “I’ve looked for thee long at corners o’ streets, and such like places. I knew I should find thee at last. Thee’ll maybe bethink thee o’ some words I spoke, which put thee up at th’ time; summut about street-walkers; but oh no! thou art none o’ them naughts; no one thinks thou art, who sees thy fine draggle-tailed dress, and thy pretty pink cheeks!” stopping for very want of breath.
“Oh, mercy! John, mercy! listen to me for Mary’s sake!”
She meant his daughter, but the name only fell on his ear as belonging to his wife; and it was adding fuel to the fire. In vain did her face grow deadly pale around the vivid circle of paint, in vain did she gasp for mercy, — he burst forth again.
“And thou names that name to me? and thou thinks the thought of her will bring thee mercy! Dost thou know it was thee who killed her, as sure as ever Cain killed Abel. She’d loved thee as her own, and she trusted thee as her own, and when thou wert gone she never held head up again, but died in less than a three week; and at her judgment-day she’ll rise, and point to thee as her murderer; or if she don’t, I will.”
He flung her, trembling, sinking, fainting, from him, and strode away. She fell with a feeble scream against the lamp-post, and lay there in her weakness, unable to rise. A policeman came up in time to see the close of these occurrences, and concluding from Esther’s unsteady, reeling fall, that she was tipsy, he took her in her half- unconscious state to the lock-ups for the night. The superintendent of that abode of vice and misery was roused from his dozing watch through the dark hours, by half-delirious wails and moanings, which he reported as arising from intoxication. If he had 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!
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 fault 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 with 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 the same streets in which he had heard those 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, etc. 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 was 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? You were great friends at one time.”
“Oh, folk say he is 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, etc. 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 fortune to the touch, to win or lose 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 advantages 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 if one waistcoat or another could decide his fate in so passionately a momentous 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’ll 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. “O 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 anything; 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, maybe, of me as a drunkard, and maybe as a thief, and maybe 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 agonized 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 blank and dreary. 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 bygone, 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 that 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 pretty clearly that she did not desire her for a daughter-in-law: while Mr. Carson was rich, and prosperous, and gay, and (she believed) would place her in all circumstances of ease and luxury, where want could never come. What were these hollow vanities to her, now she had discovered the passionate secret of her soul? She felt as if she almost hated Mr. Carson, who had decoyed her with his baubles. She now saw how vain, how nothing to her, would be all gaieties and pomps, all joys and pleasures, unless she might share them with Jem; yes, with him she had harshly rejected so short a time ago. If he were poor, she loved him all the better. If his mother did think her unworthy of him, what was it but the truth? as she now owned with bitter penitence. She had hitherto been walking in grope-light towards a precipice; but in the clear revelation of that past hour she saw her danger, and turned away resolutely and for ever.
Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell Page 16
