XXI. ESTHER'S MOTIVE IN SEEKING MARY.
"My rest is gone, My heart is sore, Peace find I never, And never more." --MARGARET'S SONG IN "FAUST."
I must go back a little to explain the motives which caused Estherto seek an interview with her niece.
The murder had been committed early on Thursday night, and betweenthen and the dawn of the following day there was ample time for thenews to spread far and wide among all those whose duty, or whosewant, or whose errors, caused them to be abroad in the streets ofManchester.
Among those who listened to the tale of violence was Esther.
A craving desire to know more took possession of her mind. Far awayas she was from Turner Street, she immediately set off to the sceneof the murder, which was faintly lighted by the grey dawn as shereached the spot. It was so quiet and still that she could hardlybelieve it to be the place. The only vestige of any scuffle orviolence was a trail on the dust, as if somebody had been lyingthere, and then been raised by extraneous force. The little birdswere beginning to hop and twitter in the leafless hedge, making theonly sound that was near and distinct. She crossed into the fieldwhere she guessed the murderer to have stood; it was easy of access,for the worn, stunted hawthorn-hedge had many gaps in it. Thenight-smell of bruised grass came up from under her feet, as shewent towards the saw-pit and carpenter's shed which, as I have saidbefore, were in a corner of the field near the road, and where oneof her informants had told her it was supposed by the police thatthe murderer had lurked while waiting for his victim. There was nosign, however, that any one had been about the place. If the grasshad been bruised or bent where he had trod, it had had enough of theelasticity of life to raise itself under the dewy influences ofnight. She hushed her breath in involuntary awe, but nothing elsetold of the violent deed by which a fellow-creature had passed away.She stood still for a minute, imagining to herself the position ofthe parties, guided by the only circumstance which afforded anyevidence, the trailing mark on the dust in the road.
Suddenly (it was before the sun had risen above the horizon) shebecame aware of something white in the hedge. All other colourswore the same murky hue, though the forms of objects were perfectlydistinct. What was it? It could not be a flower;--that, the timeof year made clear. A frozen lump of snow, lingering late in one ofthe gnarled tufts of the hedge? She stepped forward to examine. Itproved to be a little piece of stiff writing-paper compressed into around shape. She understood it instantly; it was the paper that hadserved as wadding for the murderer's gun. Then she had beenstanding just where the murderer must have been but a few hoursbefore; probably (as the rumour had spread through the town,reaching her ears) one of the poor maddened turn-outs, who hungabout everywhere, with black, fierce looks, as if contemplating somedeed of violence. Her sympathy was all with them, for she had knownwhat they suffered; and besides this, there was her own individualdislike of Mr. Carson, and dread of him for Mary's sake. Yet, poorMary! Death was a terrible, though sure, remedy for the evil Estherhad dreaded for her; and how would she stand the shock, loving asher aunt believed her to do? Poor Mary! who would comfort her?Esther's thoughts began to picture her sorrow, her despair, when thenews of her lover's death should reach her; and she longed to tellher there might have been a keener grief yet had he lived.
Bright, beautiful came the slanting rays of the morning sun. It wastime for such as she to hide themselves, with the other obscenethings of night, from the glorious light of day, which was only forthe happy. So she turned her steps towards town, still holding thepaper. But in getting over the hedge it encumbered her to hold itin her clasped hand, and she threw it down. She passed on a fewsteps, her thoughts still of Mary, till the idea crossed her mind,could it (blank as it appeared to be) give any clue to the murderer?As I said before, her sympathies were all on that side, so sheturned back and picked it up; and then feeling as if in some measurean accessory, she hid it unexamined in her hand, and hastily passedout of the street at the opposite end to that by which she hadentered it.
And what do you think she felt, when having walked some distancefrom the spot, she dared to open the crushed paper, and saw writtenon it Mary Barton's name, and not only that, but the street in whichshe lived! True, a letter or two was torn off, but, nevertheless,there was the name clear to be recognised. And oh! what terriblethought flashed into her mind; or was it only fancy? But it lookedvery like the writing which she had once known well--the writing ofJem Wilson, who, when she lived at her brother-in-law's, and he wasa near neighbour, had often been employed by her to write herletters to people, to whom she was ashamed of sending her ownmisspelt scrawl. She remembered the wonderful flourishes she had somuch admired in those days, while she sat by dictating, and Jem, inall the pride of newly-acquired penmanship, used to dazzle her eyesby extraordinary graces and twirls.
If it were his!
Oh! perhaps it was merely that her head was running so on Mary, thatshe was associating every trifle with her. As if only one personwrote in that flourishing, meandering style!
It was enough to fill her mind to think from what she might havesaved Mary by securing the paper. She would look at it just oncemore, and see if some very dense and stupid policeman could havemistaken the name, or if Mary would certainly have been dragged intonotice in the affair.
No! no one could have mistaken the "ry Barton," and it WAS Jem'shandwriting!
Oh! if it was so, she understood it all, and she had been the cause!With her violent and unregulated nature, rendered morbid by thecourse of life she led, and her consciousness of her degradation,she cursed herself for the interference which she believed had ledto this; for the information and the warning she had given to Jem,which had roused him to this murderous action. How could she, theabandoned and polluted outcast, ever have dared to hope for ablessing, even on her efforts to do good. The black curse of Heavenrested on all her doings, were they for good or for evil.
Poor, diseased mind! and there were none to minister to thee!
So she wandered about, too restless to take her usual heavymorning's sleep, up and down the streets, greedily listening toevery word of the passers-by, and loitering near each group oftalkers, anxious to scrape together every morsel of information, orconjecture, or suspicion, though without possessing any definitepurpose in all this. And ever and always she clenched the scrap ofpaper which might betray so much, until her nails had deeplyindented the palm of her hand; so fearful was she in her nervousdread, lest unawares she should let it drop.
Towards the middle of the day she could no longer evade the body'scraving want of rest and refreshment; but the rest was taken in aspirit vault, and the refreshment was a glass of gin.
Then she started up from the stupor she had taken for repose; andsuddenly driven before the gusty impulses of her mind, she pushedher way to the place where at that very time the police werebringing the information they had gathered with regard to theall-engrossing murder.
She listened with painful acuteness of comprehension to droppedwords, and unconnected sentences, the meaning of which becameclearer, and yet more clear to her. Jem was suspected. Jem wasascertained to be the murderer.
She saw him (although he, absorbed in deep sad thought, saw hernot), she saw him brought handcuffed and guarded out of the coach.She saw him enter the station--she gasped for breath till he cameout, still handcuffed, and still guarded, to be conveyed to the NewBailey.
He was the only one who had spoken to her with hope that she mightwin her way back to virtue. His words had lingered in her heartwith a sort of call to heaven, like distant Sabbath bells, althoughin her despair she had turned away from his voice. He was the onlyone who had spoken to her kindly. The murder, shocking though itwas, was an absent, abstract thing, on which her thoughts could not,and would not dwell: all that was present in her mind was Jem'sdanger, and his kindness.
Then Mary came to remembrance. Esther wondered till she was sick ofwondering, in wh
at way she was taking the affair. In some manner itwould be a terrible blow for the poor, motherless girl; with herdreadful father, too, who was to Esther a sort of accusing angel.
She set off towards the court where Mary lived, to pick up what shecould there of information. But she was ashamed to enter in whereonce she had been innocent, and hung about the neighbouring streets,not daring to question, so she learnt but little; nothing, in fact,but the knowledge of John Barton's absence from home.
She went up a dark entry to rest her weary limbs on a doorstep andthink. Her elbows on her knees, her face hidden in her hands, shetried to gather together and arrange her thoughts. But still everynow and then she opened her hand to see if the paper were yet there.
She got up at last. She had formed a plan, and had a course ofaction to look forward to that would satisfy one craving desire atleast. The time was long gone by when there was much wisdom orconsistency in her projects.
It was getting late, and that was so much the better. She went to apawnshop, and took off her finery in a back room. She was known bythe people, and had a character for honesty, so she had no verygreat difficulty in inducing them to let her have a suit of outerclothes, befitting the wife of a working-man, a black silk bonnet, aprinted gown, a plaid shawl, dirty and rather worn to be sure, butwhich had a sort of sanctity to the eyes of the street-walker asbeing the appropriate garb of that happy class to which she couldnever, never more belong.
She looked at herself in the little glass which hung against thewall, and sadly shaking her head thought how easy were the duties ofthat Eden of innocence from which she was shut out; how she wouldwork, and toil, and starve, and die, if necessary, for a husband, ahome--for children--but that thought she could not bear; a littleform rose up, stern in its innocence, from the witches' caldron ofher imagination, and she rushed into action again.
You know now how she came to stand by the threshold of Mary's door,waiting, trembling, until the latch was lifted, and her niece, withwords that spoke of such desolation among the living, fell into herarms.
She had felt as if some holy spell would prevent her (even as theunholy Lady Geraldine was prevented, in the abode of Christabel)from crossing the threshold of that home of her early innocence; andshe had meant to wait for an invitation. But Mary's helpless actiondid away with all reluctant feeling, and she bore or dragged her toher seat, and looked on her bewildered eyes, as, puzzled with thelikeness, which was not identity, she gazed on her aunt's features.
In pursuance of her plan, Esther meant to assume the manners andcharacter, as she had done the dress, of a mechanic's wife; butthen, to account for her long absence, and her long silence towardsall that ought to have been dear to her, it was necessary that sheshould put on an indifference far distant from her heart, which wasloving and yearning, in spite of all its faults. And, perhaps, sheover-acted her part, for certainly Mary felt a kind of repugnance tothe changed and altered aunt, who so suddenly reappeared on thescene; and it would have cut Esther to the very core, could she haveknown how her little darling of former days was feeling towards her.
"You don't remember me, I see, Mary!" she began. "It's a long whilesince I left you all, to be sure; and I, many a time, thought ofcoming to see you, and--and your father. But I live so far off, andam always so busy, I cannot do just what I wish. You recollect auntEsther, don't you, Mary?"
"Are you Aunt Hetty?" asked Mary faintly, still looking at the facewhich was so different from the old recollections of her aunt'sfresh dazzling beauty.
"Yes! I am Aunt Hetty. Oh! it's so long since I heard that name,"sighing forth the thoughts it suggested; then, recovering herself,and striving after the hard character she wished to assume, shecontinued: "And to-day I heard a friend of yours, and of mine too,long ago, was in trouble, and I guessed you would be in sorrow, so Ithought I would just step this far and see you."
Mary's tears flowed afresh, but she had no desire to open her heartto her strangely-found aunt, who had, by her own confession, keptaloof from and neglected them for so many years. Yet she tried tofeel grateful for kindness (however late) from any one, and wishedto be civil. Moreover, she had a strong disinclination to speak onthe terrible subject uppermost in her mind.
So, after a pause, she said--
"Thank you. I dare say you mean very kind. Have you had a longwalk? I'm so sorry," said she, rising with a sudden thought, whichwas as suddenly checked by recollection, "but I've nothing to eat inthe house, and I'm sure you must be hungry, after your walk."
For Mary concluded that certainly her aunt's residence must be faraway on the other side of the town, out of sight or hearing. But,after all, she did not think much about her; her heart was soaching-full of other things, that all besides seemed like a dream.She received feelings and impressions from her conversation with heraunt, but did not, could not, put them together, or think or argueabout them.
And Esther! How scanty had been her food for days and weeks, herthinly-covered bones and pale lips might tell, but her words shouldnever reveal!
So, with a little unreal laugh, she replied--
"Oh! Mary, my dear! don't talk about eating. We've the best ofeverything, and plenty of it, for my husband is in good work. I'dsuch a supper before I came out. I couldn't touch a morsel if youhad it."
Her words shot a strange pang through Mary's heart. She had alwaysremembered her aunt's loving and unselfish disposition how was itchanged, if, living in plenty, she had never thought it worth whileto ask after her relations who were all but starving! She shut upher heart instinctively against her aunt.
And all the time poor Esther was swallowing her sobs, and over-acting her part, and controlling herself more than she had done formany a long day, in order that her niece might not be shocked andrevolted, by the knowledge of what her aunt had become--aprostitute; an outcast.
She had longed to open her wretched, wretched heart, so hopeless, soabandoned by all living things, to one who had loved her once; andyet she refrained, from dread of the averted eye, the altered voice,the internal loathing, which she feared such disclosure mightcreate. She would go straight to the subject of the day. She couldnot tarry long, for she felt unable to support the character she hadassumed for any length of time.
They sat by the little round table, facing each other. The candlewas placed right between them, and Esther moved it in order to havea clearer view of Mary's face, so that she might read her emotions,and ascertain her interests.
Then she began--
"It's a bad business, I'm afraid, this of Mr. Carson's murder."
Mary winced a little.
"I hear Jem Wilson is taken up for it."
Mary covered her eyes with her hands, as if to shade them from thelight, and Esther herself, less accustomed to self-command, wasgetting too much agitated for calm observation of another.
"I was taking a walk near Turner Street, and I went to see thespot," continued Esther, "and, as luck would have it, I spied thisbit of paper in the hedge," producing the precious piece stillfolded in her hand. "It has been used as wadding for the gun, Ireckon indeed, that's clear enough, from the shape it's crammedinto. I was sorry for the murderer, whoever he might be (I didn'tthen know of Jem's being suspected), and I thought I would neverleave a thing about as might help, ever so little, to convict him;the police are so 'cute about straws. So I carried it a little way,and then I opened it and saw your name, Mary."
Mary took her hands away from her eyes, and looked with surprise ather aunt's face, as she uttered these words. She WAS kind afterall, for was she not saving her from being summoned, and from beingquestioned and examined; a thing to be dreaded above all others:as she felt sure that her unwilling answers, frame them how shemight, would add to the suspicions against Jem; her aunt was indeedkind, to think of what would spare her this.
Esther went on, without noticing Mary's look. The very action ofspeaking was so painful to her, and so much interrupted by the hard,raking little cough, which had been her co
nstant annoyance formonths, that she was too much engrossed by the physical difficultyof utterance, to be a very close observer.
"There could be no mistake if they had found it. Look at your name,together with the very name of this court! And in Jem's handwritingtoo, or I'm much mistaken. Look, Mary!"
And now she did watch her.
Mary took the paper and flattened it; then suddenly stood stiff up,with irrepressible movement, as if petrified by some horror abruptlydisclosed; her face, strung and rigid; her lips compressed tight, tokeep down some rising exclamation. She dropped on her seat, assuddenly as if the braced muscles had in an instant given way. Butshe spoke no word.
"It is his handwriting--isn't it?" asked Esther, though Mary'smanner was almost confirmation enough.
"You will not tell. You never will tell?" demanded Mary, in a toneso sternly earnest, as almost to be threatening.
"Nay, Mary," said Esther, rather reproachfully, "I am not so bad asthat. O Mary, you cannot think I would do that, whatever I may be."
The tears sprang to her eyes at the idea that she was suspected ofbeing one who would help to inform against an old friend.
Mary caught her sad and upbraiding look.
"No! I know you would not tell, aunt. I don't know what I say, I amso shocked. But say you will not tell. Do."
"No, indeed I willn't tell, come what may."
Mary sat still looking at the writing, and turning the paper roundwith careful examination, trying to hope, but her very fears belyingher hopes.
"I thought you cared for the young man that's murdered," observedEsther, half-aloud; but feeling that she could not mistake thisstrange interest in the suspected murderer, implied by Mary'seagerness to screen him from anything which might strengthensuspicion against him. She had come, desirous to know the extent ofMary's grief for Mr. Carson, and glad of the excuse afforded her bythe important scrap of paper. Her remark about its being Jem'shandwriting, she had, with this view of ascertaining Mary's state offeeling, felt to be most imprudent the instant after she had utteredit; but Mary's anxiety that she should not tell was too great, andtoo decided, to leave a doubt as to her interest for Jem. She grewmore and more bewildered, and her dizzy head refused to reason.Mary never spoke. She held the bit of paper firmly, determined toretain possession of it, come what might; and anxious, andimpatient, for her aunt to go. As she sat, her face bore a likenessto Esther's dead child.
"You are so like my little girl, Mary!" said Esther, weary of theone subject on which she could get no satisfaction, and recurring,with full heart, to the thought of the dead.
Mary looked up. Her aunt had children, then. That was all the ideashe received. No faint imagination of the love and the woe of thatpoor creature crossed her mind, or she would have taken her, allguilty and erring, to her bosom, and tried to bind up the brokenheart. No! it was not to be. Her aunt had children, then; and shewas on the point of putting some question about them, but before itcould be spoken another thought turned it aside, and she went backto her task of unravelling the mystery of the paper, and thehandwriting. Oh! how she wished her aunt would go!
As if, according to the believers in mesmerism, the intenseness ofher wish gave her power over another, although the wish wasunexpressed, Esther felt herself unwelcome, and that her absence wasdesired.
She felt this some time before she could summon up resolution to go.She was so much disappointed in this longed-for, dreaded interviewwith Mary; she had wished to impose upon her with her tale ofmarried respectability, and yet she had yearned and craved forsympathy in her real lot. And she had imposed upon her well. Sheshould perhaps be glad of it afterwards; but her desolation of hopeseemed for the time redoubled. And she must leave the olddwelling-place, whose very walls, and flags, dingy and sordid asthey were, had a charm for her. Must leave the abode of poverty,for the more terrible abodes of vice. She must--she would go.
"Well, good-night, Mary. That bit of paper is safe enough with you,I see. But you made me promise I would not tell about it, and youmust promise me to destroy it before you sleep."
"I promise," said Mary hoarsely, but firmly. "Then you are going?"
"Yes. Not if you wish me to stay. Not if I could be of any comfortto you, Mary"; catching at some glimmering hope.
"Oh no," said Mary, anxious to be alone. "Your husband will bewondering where you are. Some day you must tell me all aboutyourself. I forget what your name is?"
"Fergusson," said Esther sadly.
"Mrs. Fergusson," repeated Mary half unconsciously. "And where didyou say you lived?"
"I never did say," muttered Esther; then aloud, "In Angel's Meadow,145, Nicholas Street."
"145, Nicholas Street, Angel Meadow. I shall remember."
As Esther drew her shawl around her, and prepared to depart, athought crossed Mary's mind that she had been cold and hard in hermanner towards one, who had certainly meant to act kindly inbringing her the paper (that dread, terrible piece of paper!) andthus saving her from--she could not rightly think how much, or howlittle she was spared. So desirous of making up for her previousindifferent manner, she advanced to kiss her aunt before herdeparture.
But, to her surprise, her aunt pushed her off with a frantic kind ofgesture, and saying the words--
"Not me. You must never kiss me. You!"
She rushed into the outer darkness of the street, and there weptlong and bitterly.