XX. MARY'S DREAM--AND THE AWAKENING.
"I saw where stark and cold he lay, Beneath the gallows-tree, And every one did point and say, ''Twas there he died for thee!'
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"Oh! weeping heart! Oh! bleeding heart! What boots thy pity now? Bid from his eyes that shade depart, That death-damp from his brow!" --"THE BIRTLE TRAGEDY."
So there was no more peace in the house of sickness except to Alice,the dying Alice.
But Mary knew nothing of the afternoon's occurrences; and gladly didshe breathe in the fresh air, as she left Miss Simmonds' house, tohasten to the Wilsons'. The very change, from the indoor to theoutdoor atmosphere, seemed to alter the current of her thoughts.She thought less of the dreadful subject which had so haunted herall day; she cared less for the upbraiding speeches of herfellow-workwomen; the old association of comfort and sympathyreceived from Alice gave her the idea that, even now, her bodilypresence would soothe and compose those who were in trouble,changed, unconscious, and absent though her spirit might be.
Then, again, she reproached herself a little for the feeling ofpleasure she experienced, in thinking that he whom she dreaded couldnever more beset her path; in the security with which she could passeach street corner--each shop, where he used to lie in ambush. Oh!beating heart! was there no other little thought of joy lurkingwithin, to gladden the very air without! Was she not going to meet,to see, to hear Jem; and could they fail at last to understand eachother's loving hearts!
She softly lifted the latch, with the privilege of friendship. HEwas not there, but his mother was standing by the fire, stirringsome little mess or other. Never mind! he would come soon: andwith an unmixed desire to do her graceful duty to all belonging tohim, she stepped lightly forwards, unheard by the old lady, who waspartly occupied by the simmering, bubbling sound of her bit ofcookery; but more with her own sad thoughts, and wailing, half-uttered murmurings.
Mary took off bonnet and shawl with speed, and advancing, made Mrs.Wilson conscious of her presence, by saying--
"Let me do that for you. I'm sure you mun be tired."
Mrs. Wilson slowly turned round, and her eyes gleamed like those ofa pent-up wild beast, as she recognised her visitor.
"And is it thee that dares set foot in this house, after what hascome to pass? Is it not enough to have robbed me of my boy with thyarts and thy profligacy, but thou must come here to crow overme--me--his mother? Dost thou know where he is, thou bad hussy,with thy great blue eyes and yellow hair, to lead men on to ruin?Out upon thee with thy angel's face, thou whited sepulchre! Dostthou know where Jem is, all through thee?"
"No!" quivered out poor Mary, scarcely conscious that she spoke, sodaunted, so terrified was she by the indignant mother's greeting.
"He's lying in th' New Bailey," slowly and distinctly spoke themother, watching the effect of her words, as if believing in theirinfinite power to pain. "There he lies, waiting to take his trialfor murdering young Mr. Carson."
There was no answer; but such a blanched face, such wild, distendedeyes, such trembling limbs, instinctively seeking support!
"Did you know Mr. Carson as now lies dead?" continued the mercilesswoman. "Folk say you did, and knew him but too well. And that forthe sake of such as you, my precious child shot yon chap. But hedid not. I know he did not. They may hang him, but his mother willspeak to his innocence with her last dying breath."
She stopped more from exhaustion than want of words. Mary spoke,but in so changed and choked a voice that the old woman almoststarted. It seemed as if some third person must be in the room, thevoice was so hoarse and strange.
"Please say it again. I don't quite understand you. What has Jemdone? Please to tell me."
"I never said he had done it. I said, and I'll swear, that he neverdid do it. I don't care who heard 'em quarrel, or if it is his gunas were found near the body. It's not my own Jem as would go for tokill any man, choose how a girl had jilted him. My own good Jem, aswas a blessing sent upon the house where he was born." Tears cameinto the mother's burning eyes as her heart recurred to the dayswhen she had rocked the cradle of her "first-born"; and then,rapidly passing over events, till the full consciousness of hispresent situation came upon her, and perhaps annoyed at having shownany softness of character in the presence of the Delilah who hadlured him to his danger, she spoke again, and in a sharp tone.
"I told him, and told him to leave off thinking on thee; but hewouldn't be led by me. Thee! wench! thou wert not good enough towipe the dust off his feet. A vile, flirting quean as thou art.It's well thy mother does not know (poor body) what a good-for-nothing thou art."
"Mother! O mother!" said Mary, as if appealing to the merciful dead."But I was not good enough for him! I know I was not," added she,in a voice of touching humility.
For through her heart went tolling the ominous, prophetic words hehad used when he had last spoken to her--
"Mary! you'll maybe hear of me as a drunkard, and maybe as a thief,and maybe as a murderer. Remember! when all are speaking ill of me,yo will have no right to blame me, for it's your cruelty that willhave made me what I feel I shall become."
And she did not blame him, though she doubted not his guilt; shefelt how madly she might act if once jealous of him, and how muchcause had she not given him for jealousy, miserable guilty wretchthat she was! Speak on, desolate mother. Abuse her as you will.Her broken spirit feels to have merited all.
But her last humble, self-abased words had touched Mrs. Wilson'sheart, sore as it was; and she looked at the snow-pale girl withthose piteous eyes, so hopeless of comfort, and she relented inspite of herself.
"Thou seest what comes of light conduct, Mary! It's thy doing thatsuspicion has lighted on him, who is as innocent as the babe unborn.Thou'lt have much to answer for if he's hung. Thou'lt have my deathtoo at thy door!"
Harsh as these words seem, she spoke them in a milder tone of voicethan she had yet used. But the idea of Jem on the gallows, Jemdead, took possession of Mary, and she covered her eyes with her wanhands, as if indeed to shut out the fearful sight.
She murmured some words, which, though spoken low, as if choked upfrom the depths of agony, Jane Wilson caught. "My heart isbreaking," said she feebly. "My heart is breaking."
"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Wilson. "Don't talk in that silly way. Myheart has a better right to break than yours, and yet I hold up, yousee. But, oh dear! oh dear!" with a sudden revulsion of feeling, asthe reality of the danger in which her son was placed pressed uponher. "What am I saying? How could I hold up if thou wert gone,Jem? Though I'm as sure as I stand here of thy innocence, if theyhang thee, my lad, I will lie down and die!"
She wept aloud with bitter consciousness of the fearful chanceawaiting her child. She cried more passionately still.
Mary roused herself up.
"Oh, let me stay with you, at any rate, till we know the end.Dearest Mrs. Wilson, mayn't I stay?"
The more obstinately and upbraidingly Mrs. Wilson refused, the moreMary pleaded, with ever the same soft entreating cry, "Let me staywith you." Her stunned soul seem to bound its wishes, for the hourat least, to remaining with one who loved and sorrowed for the samehuman being that she did.
But no. Mrs. Wilson was inflexible.
"I've, maybe, been a bit hard on you, Mary, I'll own that. But Icannot abide you yet with me. I cannot but remember it's yourgiddiness as has wrought this woe. I'll stay with Alice, andperhaps Mrs. Davenport may come help a bit. I cannot put up withyou about me. Good-night. To-morrow I may look on you different,maybe. Good-night."
And Mary turned out of the house, which had been HIS home, where HEwas loved, and mourned for, into the busy, desolate, crowded street,where they were crying halfpenny broadsides, giving an account ofthe bloody murder, the coroner's inquest, and a raw-head-and-bloody-bones picture of the suspected murderer, James Wilson.
But Mary heard not; she heeded not. She staggered on like one in adream. With hung head and tottering steps, she instinctively chosethe shortest cut to that home which was to her, in her present stateof mind, only the hiding-place of four walls, where she might venther agony, unseen and unnoticed by the keen unkind world without,but where no welcome, no love, no sympathising tears awaited her.
As she neared that home, within two minutes' walk of it, herimpetuous course was arrested by a light touch on her arm, andturning hastily she saw a little Italian boy with his humbleshow-box, a white mouse, or some such thing. The setting sun castits red glow on his face, otherwise the olive complexion would havebeen very pale; and the glittering tear-drops hung on thelong-curled eye-lashes. With his soft voice and pleading looks, heuttered, in his pretty broken English, the words--
"Hungry! so hungry."
And as if to aid by gesture the effect of the solitary word, hepointed to his mouth, with its white quivering lips.
Mary answered him impatiently, "O lad, hunger is nothing--nothing!"
And she rapidly passed on. But her heart upbraided her the nextminute with her unrelenting speech, and she hastily entered her doorand seized the scanty remnant of food which the cupboard contained,and she retraced her steps to the place where the little hopelessstranger had sunk down by his mute companion in loneliness andstarvation, and was raining down tears as he spoke in some foreigntongue, with low cries for the far distant "Mamma mia!"
With the elasticity of heart belonging to childhood he sprang up ashe saw the food the girl brought; she whose face, lovely in its woe,had tempted him first to address her; and, with the gracefulcourtesy of his country, he looked up and smiled while he kissed herhand, and then poured forth his thanks, and shared her bounty withhis little pet companion. She stood an instant, diverted from thethought of her own grief by the sight of his infantine gladness; andthen bending down and kissing his smooth forehead, she left him, andsought to be alone with her agony once more.
She re-entered the house, locked the door, and tore off her bonnet,as if greedy of every moment which took her from the full indulgenceof painful, despairing thought.
Then she threw herself on the ground, yes, on the hard flags shethrew her soft limbs down; and the comb fell out of her hair, andthose bright tresses swept the dusty floor, while she pillowed andhid her face on her arms, and burst forth into loud, suffocatingsobs.
O earth! thou didst seem but a dreary dwelling-place for thy poorchild that night. None to comfort, none to pity! And self-reproachgnawing at her heart.
Oh, why did she ever listen to the tempter? Why did she ever giveear to her own suggestions, and cravings after wealth and grandeur?Why had she thought it a fine thing to have a rich lover?
She--she had deserved it all: but he was the victim,--he, thebeloved. She could not conjecture, she could not even pause tothink who had revealed, or how he had discovered her acquaintancewith Harry Carson. It was but too clear, some way or another, hehad learnt all; and what would he think of her? No hope of hislove,--oh, that she would give up, and be content: it was hislife, his precious life, that was threatened! Then she tried torecall the particulars, which, when Mrs. Wilson had given them, hadfallen but upon a deafened ear,--something about a gun, a quarrel,which she could not remember clearly. Oh, how terrible to think ofhis crime, his blood-guiltiness; he who had hitherto been so good,so noble, and now an assassin! And then she shrank from him inthought; and then, with bitter remorse, clung more closely to hisimage with passionate self-upbraiding. Was it not she who had ledhim to the pit into which he had fallen? Was she to blame him? Sheto judge him? Who could tell how maddened he might have been byjealousy; how one moment's uncontrollable passion might have led himto become a murderer! And she had blamed him in her heart after hislast deprecating, imploring, prophetic speech!
Then she burst out crying afresh; and when weary of crying, fell tothinking again. The gallows! The gallows! Black it stood againstthe burning light which dazzled her shut eyes, press on them as shewould. Oh! she was going mad; and for awhile she lay outwardlystill, but with the pulses careering through her head with wildvehemence.
And then came a strange forgetfulness of the present, in thought ofthe long-past times;--of those days when she hid her face on hermother's pitying, loving bosom, and heard tender words of comfort,be her grief or her error what it might;--of those days when she hadfelt as if her mother's love was too mighty not to last forever;--of those days when hunger had been to her (as to the littlestranger she had that evening relieved) something to be thoughtabout, and mourned over;--when Jem and she had played together; he,with the condescension of an older child, and she, with unconsciousearnestness, believing that he was as much gratified with importanttrifles as she was;--when her father was a cheery-hearted man, richin the love of his wife, and the companionship of his friend;--when(for it still worked round to that), when mother was alive, and HEwas not a murderer.
And then Heaven blessed her unaware, and she sank from remembering,to wandering, unconnected thought, and thence to sleep. Yes! it wassleep, though in that strange posture, on that hard cold bed; andshe dreamt of the happy times of long ago, and her mother came toher, and kissed her as she lay, and once more the dead were aliveagain in that happy world of dreams. All was restored to thegladness of childhood, even to the little kitten which had been herplaymate and bosom friend then, and which had been long forgotten inher waking hours. All the loved ones were there!
She suddenly wakened! Clear and wide awake! Some noise hadstartled her from sleep. She sat up, and put her hair (still wetwith tears) back from her flushed cheeks, and listened. At firstshe could only hear her beating heart. All was still without, forit was after midnight, such hours of agony had passed away; but themoon shone clearly in at the unshuttered window, making the roomalmost as light as day, in its cold ghastly radiance. There was alow knock at the door! A strange feeling crept over Mary's heart,as if something spiritual were near; as if the dead, so latelypresent in her dreams, were yet gliding and hovering round her, withtheir dim, dread forms. And yet, why dread? Had they not lovedher?--and who loved her now? Was she not lonely enough to welcomethe spirits of the dead, who had loved her while here? If hermother had conscious being, her love for her child endured. So shequieted her fears, and listened--listened still.
"Mary! Mary! open the door!" as a little movement on her partseemed to tell the being outside of her wakeful, watchful state.They were the accents of her mother's voice; the very south-countrypronunciation, that Mary so well remembered; and which she hadsometimes tried to imitate when alone, with the fond mimicry ofaffection.
So, without fear, without hesitation, she rose and unbarred thedoor. There, against the moonlight, stood a form, so closelyresembling her dead mother, that Mary never doubted the identity,but exclaiming (as if she were a terrified child, secure of safetywhen near the protecting care of its parent)--
"O mother! mother! you are come at last?" she threw herself, orrather fell, into the trembling arms of her long-lost, unrecognisedaunt, Esther.