Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  So with vehemence and impatience she rebutted every reason Job adduced for his plan; and of course, thus opposed, by what appeared to him wilfulness, he became more resolute, and angry words were exchanged, and a feeling of estrangement rose up between them, for a time, as they walked homewards.

  But then came in Margaret with her gentleness, like an angel of peace, so calm and reasonable, that both felt ashamed of their irritation, and tacitly left the decision to her (only, by the way, I think Mary could never have submitted if it had gone against her, penitent and tearful as was her manner now to Job, the good old man who was helping her to work for Jem, although they differed as to the manner).

  “Mary had better go,” said Margaret to her grandfather, in a low tone; “I know what she’s feeling, and it will be a comfort to her soon, maybe, to think she did all she could herself. She would, perhaps, fancy it might have been different; do, grandfather, let her.”

  Margaret had still, you see, little or no belief in Jem’s innocence and besides, she thought if Mary saw Will, and heard herself from him that Jem had not been with him that Thursday night, it would in a measure break the force of the blow which was impending.

  “Let me lock up house, grandfather, for a couple of days, and go and stay with Alice. It’s but little one like me can do, I know” (she added softly); “but, by the blessing o’ God, I’ll do it and welcome; and here comes one kindly use o’ money, I can hire them as will do for her what I cannot. Mrs. Davenport is a willing body, and one who knows sorrow and sickness, and I can pay her for her time, and keep her there pretty near altogether. So let that be settled. And you take Mrs. Wilson, dear grandad, and let Mary go find Will, and you can all meet together at after, and I’m sure I wish you luck.”

  Job consented with only a few dissenting grunts; but on the whole with a very good grace for an old man who had been so positive only a few minutes before.

  Mary was thankful for Margaret’s interference. She did not speak, but threw her arms round Margaret’s neck, and put up her rosy-red mouth to be kissed; and even Job was attracted by the pretty, child-like gesture; and when she drew near him, afterwards, like a little creature sidling up to some person whom it feels to have offended, he bent down and blessed her, as if she had been a child of his own.

  To Mary the old man’s blessing came like words of power.

  XXVI. THE JOURNEY TO LIVERPOOL.

  ”Like a bark upon the sea,

  Life is floating over death;

  Above, below, encircling thee,

  Danger lurks in every breath.

  ”Parted art thou from the grave

  Only by a plank most frail;

  Tossed upon the restless wave,

  Sport of every fickle gale.

  ”Let the skies be e’er so clear,

  And so calm and still the sea,

  Shipwreck yet has he to fear

  Who life’s voyager will be.”

  — RUCKERT.

  The early trains for Liverpool, on Monday morning, were crowded by attorneys, attorneys’ clerks, plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses, all going to the Assizes. They were a motley assembly, each with some cause for anxiety stirring at his heart; though, after all, that is saying little or nothing, for we are all of us in the same predicament through life; each with a fear and a hope from childhood to death. Among the passengers there was Mary Barton, dressed in the blue gown and obnoxious plaid shawl.

  Common as railroads are now in all places as a means of transit, and especially in Manchester, Mary had never been on one before; and she felt bewildered by the hurry, the noise of people, and bells, and horns; the whiz and the scream of the arriving trains.

  The very journey itself seemed to her a matter of wonder. She had a back seat, and looked towards the factory-chimneys, and the cloud of smoke which hovers over Manchester, with a feeling akin to the “Heimweh.” She was losing sight of the familiar objects of her childhood for the first time; and unpleasant as those objects are to most, she yearned after them with some of the same sentiment which gives pathos to the thoughts of the emigrant.

  The cloud-shadows which give beauty to Chat-Moss, the picturesque old houses of Newton, what were they to Mary, whose heart was full of many things? Yet she seemed to look at them earnestly as they glided past; but she neither saw nor heard.

  She neither saw nor heard till some well-known names fell upon her ear.

  Two lawyers’ clerks were discussing the cases to come on that Assizes; of course, “the murder case,” as it had come to be termed, held a conspicuous place in their conversation.

  They had no doubt of the result.

  “Juries are always very unwilling to convict on circumstantial evidence, it is true,” said one, “but here there can hardly be any doubt.”

  “If it had not been so clear a case,” replied the other, “I should have said they were injudicious in hurrying on the trial so much. Still, more evidence might have been collected.”

  “They tell me,” said the first speaker — ”the people in Gardener’s office, I mean — that it was really feared the old gentleman would have gone out of his mind, if the trial had been delayed. He was with Mr. Gardener as many as seven times on Saturday, and called him up at night to suggest that some letter should be written, or something done to secure the verdict.”

  “Poor old man,” answered his companion, “who can wonder? — an only son, — such a death, — the disagreeable circumstances attending it; I had not time to read the Guardian on Saturday, but I understand it was some dispute about a factory girl.”

  “Yes, some such person. Of course she’ll be examined, and Williams will do it in style. I shall slip out from our court to hear him, if I can hit the nick of time.”

  “And if you can get a place, you mean, for depend upon it the court will be crowded.”

  “Ay, ay, the ladies (sweet souls) will come in shoals to hear a trial for murder, and see the murderer, and watch the judge put on his black cap.”

  “And then go home and groan over the Spanish ladies who take delight in bull-fights — ’such unfeminine creatures!’“

  Then they went on to other subjects.

  It was but another drop to Mary’s cup; but she was nearly in that state which Crabbe describes —

  ”For when so full the cup of sorrows flows,

  Add but a drop it instantly o’erflows.”

  And now they were in the tunnel! — and now they were in Liverpool; and she must rouse herself from the torpor of mind and body which was creeping over her; the result of much anxiety and fatigue, and several sleepless nights.

  She asked a policeman the way to Milk House Yard, and following his directions with the savoir faire of a town-bred girl, she reached a little court leading out of a busy, thronged street, not far from the Docks.

  When she entered the quiet little yard, she stopped to regain her breath, and to gather strength, for her limbs trembled, and her heart beat violently.

  All the unfavourable contingencies she had, until now, forbidden herself to dwell upon, came forward to her mind — the possibility, the bare possibility, of Jem being an accomplice in the murder — the still greater possibility that he had not fulfilled his intention of going part of the way with Will, but had been led off by some little accidental occurrence from his original intention; and that he had spent the evening with those, whom it was now too late to bring forward as witnesses.

  But sooner or later she must know the truth; so, taking courage, she knocked at the door of a house.

  “Is this Mrs. Jones’s?” she inquired.

  “Next door but one,” was the curt answer.

  And even this extra minute was a reprieve.

  Mrs. Jones was busy washing, and would have spoken angrily to the person who knocked so gently at the door, if anger had been in her nature; but she was a soft, helpless kind of woman, and only sighed over the many interruptions she had had to her business that unlucky Monday morning.

  But the feeling which
would have been anger in a more impatient temper, took the form of prejudice against the disturber, whoever he or she might be.

  Mary’s fluttered and excited appearance strengthened this prejudice in Mrs. Jones’s mind, as she stood, stripping the soap-suds off her arms, while she eyed her visitor, and waited to be told what her business was.

  But no words would come. Mary’s voice seemed choked up in her throat.

  “Pray what do you want, young woman?” coldly asked Mrs. Jones at last.

  “I want — oh! is Will Wilson here?”

  “No, he is not,” replied Mrs. Jones, inclining to shut the door in her face.

  “Is he not come back from the Isle of Man?” asked Mary, sickening.

  “He never went; he stayed in Manchester too long; as perhaps you know, already.”

  And again the door seemed closing.

  But Mary bent forwards with suppliant action (as some young tree bends, when blown by the rough, autumnal wind), and gasped out —

  “Tell me — tell — me — where is he?”

  Mrs. Jones suspected some love affair, and, perhaps, one of not the most creditable kind; but the distress of the pale young creature before her was so obvious and so pitiable, that were she ever so sinful, Mrs. Jones could no longer uphold her short, reserved manner.

  “He’s gone this very morning, my poor girl. Step in, and I’ll tell you about it.”

  “Gone!” cried ‘Mary. “How gone? I must see him, — it’s a matter of life and death: he can save the innocent from being hanged, — he cannot be gone, — how gone?”

  “Sailed, my dear! sailed in the John Cropper this very blessed morning.”

  “Sailed!”

  XXVII. IN THE LIVERPOOL DOCKS.

  ”Yon is our quay!

  Hark to the clamour in that miry road,

  Bounded and narrowed by yon vessel’s load;

  The lumbering wealth she empties round the place,

  Package and parcel, hogshead, chest, and case;

  While the loud seaman and the angry hind,

  Mingling in business, bellow to the wind.”

  — CRABBE.

  Mary staggered into the house. Mrs. Jones placed her tenderly in a chair, and there stood bewildered by her side.

  “O father! father!” muttered she, “what have you done! — What must I do? must the innocent die? — or he — whom I fear — I fear — oh! what am I saying?” said she, looking round affrighted, and, seemingly reassured by Mrs. Jones’s countenance, “I am so helpless, so weak — but a poor girl, after all. How can I tell what is right? Father! you have always been so kind to me, — and you to be — never mind — never mind, all will come right in the grave.”

  “Save us, and bless us!” exclaimed Mrs. Jones, “if I don’t think she’s gone out of her wits!”

  “No, I am not,” said Mary, catching at the words, and with a strong effort controlling the mind she felt to be wandering, while the red blood flushed to scarlet the heretofore white cheek, — ”I’m not out of my senses; there is so much to be done — so much — and no one but me to do it, you know — though I can’t rightly tell what it is,” looking up with bewilderment into Mrs. Jones’s face. “I must not go mad whatever comes — at least not yet. No!” (bracing herself up) “something may yet be done, and I must do it. Sailed! did you say? The John Cropper? Sailed?”

  “Ay! she went out of dock last night, to be ready for the morning’s tide.”

  “I thought she was not to sail till to-morrow,” murmured Mary.

  “So did Will (he’s lodged here long, so we all call him ‘Will’),” replied Mrs. Jones. “The mate had told him so, I believe, and he never knew different till he got to Liverpool on Friday morning; but as soon as he heard, he gave up going to the Isle o’ Man, and just ran over to Rhyl with the mate, one John Harris, as has friends a bit beyond Abergele; you may have heard him speak on him; for they are great chums, though I’ve my own opinion of Harris.”

  “And he’s sailed?” repeated Mary, trying by repetition to realise the fact to herself.

  “Ay, he went on board last night to be ready for the morning’s tide, as I said afore, and my boy went to see the ship go down the river, and came back all agog with the sight. Here, Charley, Charley!”

  She called out loudly for her son; but Charley was one of those boys who are never “far to seek,” as the Lancashire people say, when anything is going on; a mysterious conversation, an unusual event, a fire, or a riot, anything in short; such boys are the little omnipresent people of this world.

  Charley had, in fact, been spectator and auditor all this time; though for a little while he had been engaged in “dollying” and a few other mischievous feats in the washing line, which had prevented his attention from being fully given to his mother’s conversation with the strange girl who had entered.

  “O Charley! there you are! Did you not see the John Cropper sail down the river this morning? Tell the young woman about it, for I think she hardly credits me.”

  “I saw her tugged down the river by a steamboat, which comes to the same thing,” replied he.

  “Oh! if I had but come last night!” moaned Mary. “But I never thought of it. I never thought but what he knew right when he said he would be back from the Isle of Man on Monday morning, and not afore — and now some one must die for my negligence!”

  “Die!” exclaimed the lad. “How?”

  “Oh! Will would have proved an alibi, — but he’s gone, — and what am I to do?”

  “Don’t give it up yet,” cried the energetic boy, interested at once in the case; “let’s have a try for him. We are but where we were, if we fail.”

  Mary roused herself. The sympathetic “we” gave her heart and hope.

  “But what can be done? You say he’s sailed; what can be done?” But she spoke louder, and in a more life-like tone.

  “No! I did not say he’d sailed; mother said that, and women know nought about such matters. You see” (proud of his office of instructor, and insensibly influenced, as all about her were, by Mary’s sweet, earnest, lovely countenance), “there’s sandbanks at the mouth of the river, and ships can’t get over them but at high-water; especially ships of heavy burden, like the John Cropper. Now she was tugged down the river at low water, or pretty near, and will have to lie some time before the water will be high enough to float her over the banks. So hold up your head, — you’ve a chance yet, though, maybe, but a poor one.”

  “But what must I do?” asked Mary, to whom all this explanation had been a vague mystery.

  “Do!” said the boy impatiently, “why, have not I told you? Only women (begging your pardon) are so stupid at understanding about anything belonging to the sea; — you must get a boat, and make all haste, and sail after him, — after the John Cropper. You may overtake her, or you may not. It’s just a chance; but she’s heavy laden, and that’s in your favour. She’ll draw many feet of water.”

  Mary had humbly and eagerly (oh, how eagerly!) listened to this young Sir Oracle’s speech; but try as she would, she could only understand that she must make haste, and sail — somewhere.

  “I beg your pardon,” (and her little acknowledgment of inferiority in this speech pleased the lad, and made him her still more zealous friend). “I beg your pardon,” said she, “but I don’t know where to get a boat. Are there boat-stands?”

  The lad laughed outright.

  “You’re not long in Liverpool, I guess. Boat-stands! No; go down to the pier, — any pier will do, and hire a boat, — you’ll be at no loss when once you are there. Only make haste.”

  “Oh, you need not tell me that, if I but knew how,” said Mary, trembling with eagerness. “But you say right, — I never was here before, and I don’t know my way to the place you speak on; only tell me, and I’ll not lose a minute.”

  “Mother!” said the wilful lad, “I’m going to show her the way to the pier; I’ll be back in an hour, — or so,” he added in a lower tone.

  And befor
e the gentle Mrs. Jones could collect her scattered wits sufficiently to understand half of the hastily-formed plan, her son was scudding down the street, closely followed by Mary’s half-running steps.

  Presently he slackened his pace sufficiently to enable him to enter into conversation with Mary, for once escaped from the reach of his mother’s recalling voice, he thought he might venture to indulge his curiosity.

  “Ahem! — What’s your name? It’s so awkward to be calling you young woman.”

  “My name is Mary, — Mary Barton,” answered she, anxious to propitiate one who seemed so willing to exert himself in her behalf, or else she grudged every word which caused the slightest relaxation in her speed, although her chest seemed tightened, and her head throbbing, from the rate at which they were walking.

  “And you want Will Wilson to prove an alibi — is that it?”

  “Yes — oh, yes, — can we not cross now?”

  “No, wait a minute; it’s the teagle hoisting above your head I’m afraid of; and who is it that’s to be tried?”

  “Jem; oh, lad! can’t we get past?”

  They rushed under the great bales quivering in the air above their heads and pressed onward for a few minutes, till Master Charley again saw fit to walk a little slower, and ask a few more questions.

  “Mary, is Jem your brother, or your sweetheart, that you’re so set upon saving him?”