So, half-listening to her father’s movements upstairs (passionate, violent, restless motions they were), and half-attending to Job Legh, she tried to pay him all due regard.
“When does thy father start, Mary?”
That plaguing question again.
“Oh! very soon. I’m just getting him a bit of supper. Is Margaret very well?”
“Yes, she’s well enough. She’s meaning to go and keep Alice Wilson company for an hour or so this evening: as soon as she thinks her nephew will have started for Liverpool; for she fancies the old woman will feel a bit lonesome. Th’ Union is paying for your father, I suppose?”
“Yes, they’ve given him a sovereign. You’re one of th’ Union, Job?”
“Ay! I’m one, sure enough; but I’m but a sleeping partner in the concern. I were obliged to become a member for peace, else I don’t go along with ‘em. Yo see they think themselves wise, and me silly, for differing with them. Well! there’s no harm in that. But then they won’t let me be silly in peace and quietness, but will force me to be as wise as they are; now that’s not British liberty, I say. I’m forced to be wise according to their notions, else they parsecute me, and sarve me out.”
What could her father be doing upstairs? Tramping and banging about. Why did he not come down? Or why did not Job go? The supper would be spoilt.
But Job had no notion of going.
“You see my folly is this, Mary. I would take what I could get; I think half a loaf is better than no bread. I would work for low wages rather than sit idle and starve. But, comes the Trades’ Union, and says, ‘Well, if you take the half-loaf, we’ll worry you out of your life. Will you be clemmed, or will you be worried?’ Now clemming is a quiet death, and worrying isn’t, so I choose clemming, and come into th’ Union. But I’d wish they’d leave me free, if I am a fool.”
Creak, creak, went the stairs. Her father was coming down at last.
Yes, he came down, but more doggedly fierce than before, and made up for his journey, too; with his little bundle on his arm. He went up to Job, and, more civilly than Mary expected, wished him good-bye. He then turned to her, and in a short cold manner, bade her farewell.
“Oh! father, don’t go yet. Your supper is all ready. Stay one moment.”
But he pushed her away, and was gone. She followed him to the door, her eyes blinded by sudden tears; she stood there looking after him. He was so strange, so cold, so hard. Suddenly, at the end of the court, he turned, and saw her standing there; he came back quickly, and took her in his arms.
“God bless thee, Mary! — God in heaven bless thee, poor child!” She threw her arms round his neck.
“Don’t go yet, father; I can’t bear you to go yet. Come in, and eat some supper; you look so ghastly; dear father, do!”
“No,” he said, faintly and mournfully. “It’s best as it is. I couldn’t eat, and it’s best to be off. I cannot be still at home. I must be moving.”
So saying, he unlaced her soft twining arms, and kissing her once more, set off on his fierce errand.
And he was out of sight! She did not know why, but she had never before felt so depressed, so desolate. She turned in to Job, who sat there still. Her father, as soon as he was out of sight, slackened his pace, and fell into that heavy listless step which told, as well as words could do, of hopelessness and weakness. It was getting dark, but he loitered on, returning no greeting to any one.
A child’s cry caught his ear. His thoughts were running on little Tom; on the dead and buried child of happier years. He followed the sound of the wail, that might have been HIS, and found a poor little mortal, who had lost his way, and whose grief had choked up his thoughts to the single want, “Mammy, mammy.” With tender address, John Barton soothed the little laddie, and with beautiful patience he 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.
“O 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 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 for 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. O 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 fe
nce 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.
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; ‘t will 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 upstairs in her dressing-room, indulging in the luxury of a headache. 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 ether 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 gone out into the fresh morning air, without all the paraphernalia of shawl, cloak, boa, fur boots, bonnet, and veil, in which she was equipped before setting out for an “airing,” in the closely shut-up carriage.
So the three girls were by themselves in the comfortable, elegant, well-lighted drawing-room; and, like many similarly situated young ladies, they did not exactly know what to do to while away the time until the tea-hour. The elder two had been at a dancing-party the night before, and were listless and sleepy in consequence. One tried to read “Emerson’s Essays,” and fell asleep in the attempt; the other was turning over a parcel of new songs, in order to select what she liked. Amy, the youngest, was copying some manuscript music. The air was heavy with the fragrance of strongly-scented flowers, which sent out their night odours from an adjoining conservatory.
The clock on the chimney-piece chimed eight. Sophy (the sleeping sister) started up at the sound.
“What o’clock is that?” she asked.
“Eight,” said Amy.
“O dear! how tired I am! Is Harry come in? Tea will rouse one up a little. Are you not worn out, Helen?”
“Yes; I am tired enough. One is good for nothing the day after a dance. Yet I don’t feel weary at the time; I suppose it is the lateness of the hours.”
“And yet, how could it be managed otherwise? So many don’t dine till five or six, that one cannot begin before eight or nine; and then it takes a long time to get into the spirit of the evening. It is always more pleasant after supper than before.”
“Well, I’m too tired to-night to reform the world in the matter of dances or balls. What are you copying, Amy?”
“Only that little Spanish air you sing, ‘Quien quiera.’“
“What are you copying it for?” asked Helen.
“Harry asked me to do it for him this morning at breakfast-time — for
Miss Richardson, he said.”
“For Jane Richardson!” said Sophy, as if a new idea were receiving strength in her mind.
“Do you think Harry means anything by his attention to her?” asked
Helen.
“Nay, I do not know anything more than you do; I can only observe and conjecture. What do you think, Helen?”
“Harry always likes to be of consequence to the belle of the room. If one girl is more admired than another, he likes to flutter about her, and seem to be on intimate terms with her. That is his way, and I have not noticed anything beyond that in his manner to Jane Richardson.”
“But I don’t think she knows it’s only his way. Just watch her the next time we meet her when Harry is there, and see how she crimsons, and looks another way when she feels he is coming up to her. I think he sees it, too, and I think he is pleased with it.”
“I dare say Harry would like well enough to turn the head of such a lovely girl as Jane Richardson. But I’m not convinced that he’s in love, whatever she may be.”
“Well, then!” said Sophy indignantly, “though it is our own brother, I do not think he is behaving very wrongly. The more I think of it, the more sure I am that she thinks he means something, and that he intends her to think so. And then, when he leaves off paying her attention” —
“Which will be as soon as a prettier girl makes her appearance,” interrupted Helen.
“As soon as he leaves off paying her attention,” resumed Sophy, “she will have many and many a heartache, and then she will harden herself into being a flirt, a feminine flirt, as he is a masculine flirt. Poor girl!”
“I don’t like to hear you speak so of Harry,” said Amy, looking up at Sophy.
“And I don’t like to have to speak so, Amy, for I love him dearly. He is a good, kind brother, but I do think him vain, and I think he hardly knows the misery, the crime, to which indulged vanity may lead him.”
Helen yawned.
“Oh! do you think we may ring for tea? Sleeping after dinner makes me so feverish.”
“Yes, surely. Why should not we?” said the more energetic Sophy, pulling the bell with some determination.
“Tea, directly, Parker,” said she authoritatively, as the man entered the room.
She was too little in the habit of reading expressions on the faces of others to notice Parker’s countenance,
Yet it was striking. It was blanched to a dead whiteness; the lips compressed as if to keep within some tale of horror; the eyes distended and unnatural. It was a terror-stricken face.
The girls began to put away their music and books, in preparation for tea. The door slowly opened again, and this time it was the nurse who entered. I call her nurse, for such had been her office in bygone days, though now she held rather an anomalous situation in the family. Seamstress, attendant on the young ladies, keeper of the stores; only “Nurse” was still her name. She had lived longer with them than any other servant, and to her their manner was far less haughty than to the other domestics. She occasionally came into the drawing-room to look for things belonging to their father or mother, so it did not excite any surprise when she advanced into the room. They went on arranging their various articles of employment.
She wanted them to look up. She wanted them
to read something in her face — her face so full of woe, of horror. But they went on without taking any notice. She coughed; not a natural cough; but one of those coughs which asks so plainly for remark.
“Dear nurse, what is the matter?” asked Amy. “Are not you well?”
“Is mamma ill?” asked Sophy quickly.
“Speak, speak, nurse!” said they all, as they saw her efforts to articulate choked by the convulsive rising in her throat. They clustered round her with eager faces, catching a glimpse of some terrible truth to be revealed.
“My dear young ladies! my dear girls!” she gasped out at length, and then she burst into tears.
“Oh! do tell us what it is, nurse!” said one. “Anything is better than this. Speak!”
“My children! I don’t know how to break it to you. My dears, poor
Mr. Harry is brought home” —
“Brought home — BROUGHT home — how?” Instinctively they sank their voices to a whisper; but a fearful whisper it was. In the same low tone, as if afraid lest the walls, the furniture, the inanimate things which told of preparation for life and comfort, should hear, she answered —
“Dead!”
Amy clutched her nurse’s arm, and fixed her eyes on her as if to know if such a tale could be true; and when she read its confirmation in those sad, mournful, unflinching eyes, she sank, without word or sound, down in a faint upon the floor. One sister sat down on an ottoman, and covered her face, to try and realise it. That was Sophy. Helen threw herself on the sofa, and burying her head in the pillows, tried to stifle the screams and moans which shook her frame.
The nurse stood silent. She had not told ALL.
“Tell me,” said Sophy, looking up, and speaking in a hoarse voice, which told of the inward pain, “tell me, nurse! Is he DEAD, did you say? Have you sent for a doctor? Oh! send for one, send for one,” continued she, her voice rising to shrillness, and starting to her feet. Helen lifted herself up, and looked, with breathless waiting, towards nurse.
Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell Page 25
