Mary Barton. Элизабет Гаскелл

on compulsion,’ replied her brother, smiling with his mouth, while his eyes had an irritated expression, and he went first red, then pale, with vexed embarrassment.

      ‘If you please, sir,’ said a servant, entering the room, ‘here’s one of the mill people wanting to see you; his name is Wilson, he says.’

      ‘I’ll come to him directly; stay, tell him to come in here.’

      Amy danced off into the conservatory which opened out of the room, before the gaunt, pale, unwashed, unshaven weaver was ushered in. There he stood at the door sleeking his hair with old country habit, and every now and then stealing a glance round at the splendour of the apartment.

      ‘Well, Wilson, and what do you want to-day, man?’

      ‘Please, sir, Davenport’s ill of the fever, and I’m come to know if you’ve got an Infirmary order for him?’

      ‘Davenport – Davenport; who is the fellow? I don’t know the name.’

      ‘He’s worked in your factory better nor three years, sir.’

      ‘Very likely; I don’t pretend to know the names of the men I employ; that I leave to the overlooker. So he’s ill, eh?’

      ‘Ay, sir, he’s very bad; we want to get him in at the Fever Wards.’

      ‘I doubt if I’ve an in-patient’s order to spare at present; but I’ll give you an out-patient’s and welcome.’

      So saying, he rose up, unlocked a drawer, pondered a minute, and then gave Wilson an out-patient’s order.

      Meanwhile, the younger Mr Carson had ended his review, and began to listen to what was going on. He finished his breakfast, got up, and pulled five shillings out of his pocket, which he gave to Wilson as he passed him, for the ‘poor fellow.’ He went past quickly, and calling for his horse, mounted gaily, and rode away. He was anxious to be in time to have a look and a smile from lovely Mary Barton, as she went to Miss Simmonds’. But to-day he was to be disappointed. Wilson left the house, not knowing whether to be pleased or grieved. They had all spoken kindly to him, and who could tell if they might not inquire into Davenport’s case, and do something for him and his family. Besides, the cook, who, when she had had time to think, after breakfast was sent in, had noticed his paleness, had had meat and bread ready to put in his hand when he came out of the parlour; and a full stomach makes every one of us more hopeful.

      When he reached Berry Street, he had persuaded himself he bore good news, and felt almost elated in his heart. But it fell when he opened the cellar door, and saw Barton and the wife both bending over the sick man’s couch with awe-struck, saddened look.

      ‘Come here,’ said Barton. ‘There’s a change comed over him sin’ yo left, is there not?’

      Wilson looked. The flesh was sunk, the features prominent, bony, and rigid. The fearful clay-colour of death was over all. But the eyes were open and sensitive, though the films of the grave were setting upon them.

      ‘He wakened fra’ his sleep, as yo left him in, and began to mutter and moan; but he soon went off again, and we never knew he were awake till he called his wife, but now she’s here he’s gotten nought to say to her.’

      Most probably, as they all felt, he could not speak, for his strength was fast ebbing. They stood round him still and silent; even the wife checked her sobs, though her heart was like to break. She held her child to her breast, to try and keep him quiet. Their eyes were all fixed on the yet living one, whose moments of life were passing so rapidly away. At length he brought (with jerking convulsive effort) his two hands into the attitude of prayer. They saw his lips move, and bent to catch the words, which came in gasps, and not in tones.

      ‘O Lord God! I thank thee, that the hard struggle of living is over.’

      ‘O Ben! Ben!’ wailed forth his wife, ‘have you no thought for me? O Ben! Ben! do say one word to help me through life.’

      He could not speak again. The trump of the archangel would set his tongue free; but not a word more would it utter till then. Yet he heard, he understood, and, though sight failed, he moved his hand gropingly over the covering. They knew what he meant, and guided it to her head, bowed and hidden in her hands, when she had sunk in her woe. It rested there with a feeble pressure of endearment. The face grew beautiful, as the soul neared God. A peace beyond understanding came over it. The hand was a heavy stiff weight on the wife’s head. No more grief or sorrow for him. They reverently laid out the corpse – Wilson fetching his only spare shirt to array it in. The wife still lay hidden in the clothes, in a stupor of agony.

      There was a knock at the door, and Barton went to open it. It was Mary, who had received a message from her father, through a neighbour, telling her where he was; and she had set out early to come and have a word with him before her day’s work; but some errands she had to do for Miss Simmonds had detained her until now.

      ‘Come in, wench!’ said her father. ‘Try if thou canst comfort yon poor, poor woman, kneeling down there. God help her!’ Mary did not know what to say, or how to comfort; but she knelt down by her, and put her arm round her neck, and in a little while fell to crying herself so bitterly that the source of tears was opened by sympathy in the widow, and her full heart was, for a time, relieved.

      And Mary forgot all purposed meeting with her gay lover, Harry Carson; forgot Miss Simmonds’ errands, and her anger, in the anxious desire to comfort the poor lone woman. Never had her sweet face looked more angelic, never had her gentle voice seemed so musical as when she murmured her broken sentences of comfort.

      ‘Oh, don’t cry so, dear Mrs Davenport, pray don’t take on so. Sure he’s gone where he’ll never know care again. Yes, I know how lonesome you must feel; but think of your children. Oh! we’ll all help to earn food for ’em. Think how sorry he’d be, if he sees you fretting so. Don’t cry so, please don’t.’

      And she ended by crying herself as passionately as the poor widow.

      It was agreed the town must bury him; he had paid to a burial club as long as he could, but, by a few weeks’ omission, he had forfeited his claim to a sum of money now. Would Mrs Davenport and the little child go home with Mary? The latter brightened up as she urged this plan; but no! Where the poor, fondly loved remains were, there would the mourner be; and all that they could do was to make her as comfortable as their funds would allow, and to beg a neighbour to look in and say a word at times. So she was left alone with her dead, and they went to work that had work, and he who had none took upon him the arrangements for the funeral.

      Mary had many a scolding from Miss Simmonds that day for her absence of mind. To be sure Miss Simmonds was much put out by Mary’s non-appearance in the morning with certain bits of muslin, and shades of silk which were wanted to complete a dress to be worn that night; but it was true enough that Mary did not mind what she was about; she was too busy planning how her old black gown (her best when her mother died) might be sponged, and turned, and lengthened into something like decent mourning for the widow. And when she went home at night (though it was very late), as a sort of retribution for her morning’s negligence, she set to work at once, and was so busy and so glad over her task, that she had, every now and then, to check herself in singing merry ditties, which she felt little accorded with the sewing on which she was engaged.

So when the funeral day came, Mrs Davenport was neatly arrayed in black, a satisfaction to her poor heart in the midst of her sorrow. Barton and Wilson both accompanied her, as she led her two elder boys, and followed the coffin. It was a simple walking funeral, with nothing to grate on the feelings of any; far more in accordance with its purpose, to my mind, than the gorgeous hearses, and nodding plumes, which form the grotesque funeral pomp of respectable people. There was no ‘rattling the bones over the stones’, of the pauper’s funeral. Decently and quietly was he followed to the grave by one determined to endure her woe meekly for his sake. The only mark of pauperism attendant on the burial concerned the living and joyous, far more than the dead, or the sorrowful. When they arrived in the churchyard, they halted before a raised and handsome tombstone; in reality a wooden mockery of stone respectabilities which adorned