JEM'S INTERVIEW WITH POOR ESTHER.
"Know the temptation ere you judge the crime!
Look on this tree--'twas green, and fair, and graceful;
Yet now, save these few shoots, how dry and rotten!
Thou canst not tell the cause. Not long ago,
A neighbour oak, with which its roots were twined,
In falling wrenched them with such cruel force,
That though we covered them again with care,
Its beauty withered, and it pined away.
So, could we look into the human breast,
How oft the fatal blight that meets our view,
Should we trace down to the torn, bleeding fibres
Of a too trusting heart--where it were shame,
For pitying tears, to give contempt or blame."
"STREET WALKS."
The month was over;--the honeymoon to the newly-married; the
exquisite convalescence to the "living mother of a living child;" the
"first dark days of nothingness" to the widow and the child bereaved;
the term of penance, of hard labour, and solitary confinement, to the
shrinking, shivering, hopeless prisoner.
"Sick, and in prison, and ye visited me." Shall you, or I, receive
such blessing? I know one who will. An overseer of a foundry, an aged
man, with hoary hair, has spent his Sabbaths, for many years, in
visiting the prisoners and the afflicted in Manchester New Bailey;
not merely advising and comforting, but putting means into their
power of regaining the virtue and the peace they had lost; becoming
himself their guarantee in obtaining employment, and never deserting
those who have once asked help from him. [43]
[Footnote 43: Vide _Manchester Guardian_, of Wednesday, March 18,
1846; and also the Reports of Captain Williams,
prison inspector.]
Esther's term of imprisonment was ended. She received a good
character in the governor's books; she had picked her daily quantity
of oakum, had never deserved the extra punishment of the tread-mill,
and had been civil and decorous in her language. And once more she
was out of prison. The door closed behind her with a ponderous clang,
and in her desolation she felt as if shut out of home--from the only
shelter she could meet with, houseless and pennyless as she was, on
that dreary day.
But it was but for an instant that she stood there doubting. One
thought had haunted her both by night and by day, with monomaniacal
incessancy; and that thought was how to save Mary (her dead sister's
only child, her own little pet in the days of her innocence) from
following in the same downward path to vice. To whom could she speak
and ask for aid? She shrank from the idea of addressing John Barton
again; her heart sank within her, at the remembrance of his fierce
repulsing action, and far fiercer words. It seemed worse than death
to reveal her condition to Mary, else she sometimes thought that this
course would be the most terrible, the most efficient warning. She
must speak; to that she was soul-compelled; but to whom? She dreaded
addressing any of her former female acquaintance, even supposing they
had sense, or spirit, or interest enough to undertake her mission.
To whom shall the outcast prostitute tell her tale? Who will give her
help in her day of need? Hers is the leper-sin, and all stand aloof
dreading to be counted unclean.
In her wild night wanderings, she had noted the haunts and habits
of many a one who little thought of a watcher in the poor forsaken
woman. You may easily imagine that a double interest was attached
by her to the ways and companionships of those with whom she had
been acquainted in the days which, when present, she had considered
hardly-worked and monotonous, but which now in retrospection seemed
so happy and unclouded. Accordingly, she had, as we have seen, known
where to meet with John Barton on that unfortunate night, which had
only produced irritation in him, and a month's imprisonment to her.
She had also observed that he was still intimate with the Wilsons.
She had seen him walking and talking with both father and son; her
old friends too; and she had shed unregarded, unvalued tears, when
some one had casually told her of George Wilson's sudden death. It
now flashed across her mind, that to the son, to Mary's play-fellow,
her elder brother in the days of childhood, her tale might be told,
and listened to with interest, and some mode of action suggested by
him by which Mary might be guarded and saved.
All these thoughts had passed through her mind while yet she was in
prison; so when she was turned out, her purpose was clear, and she
did not feel her desolation of freedom as she would otherwise have
done.
That night she stationed herself early near the foundry where she
knew Jem worked; he stayed later than usual, being detained by some
arrangements for the morrow. She grew tired and impatient; many
workmen had come out of the door in the long, dead, brick wall, and
eagerly had she peered into their faces, deaf to all insult or curse.
He must have gone home early; one more turn in the street, and she
would go.
During that turn he came out, and in the quiet of that street of
workshops and warehouses, she directly heard his steps. Now her heart
failed her for an instant; but still she was not daunted from her
purpose, painful as its fulfilment was sure to be. She laid her hand
on his arm. As she expected, after a momentary glance at the person
who thus endeavoured to detain him, he made an effort to shake it
off, and pass on. But trembling as she was, she had provided against
this by a firm and unusual grasp.
"You must listen to me, Jem Wilson," she said, with almost an accent
of command.
"Go away, missis; I've nought to do with you, either in hearkening,
or talking."
He made another struggle.
"You must listen," she said again, authoritatively, "for Mary
Barton's sake."
The spell of her name was as potent as that of the mariner's
glittering eye. "He listened like a three-year child."
"I know you care enough for her to wish to save her from harm."
He interrupted his earnest gaze into her face, with the exclamation--
"And who can yo be to know Mary Barton, or to know that she's ought
to me?"
There was a little strife in Esther's mind for an instant, between
the shame of acknowledging herself, and the additional weight to her
revelation which such acknowledgment would give. Then she spoke.
"Do you remember Esther, the sister of John Barton's wife? the aunt
to Mary? And the Valentine I sent you last February ten years?"
"Yes, I mind her well! But yo are not Esther, are you?" He looked
again into her face, and seeing that indeed it was his boyhood's
friend, he took her hand, and shook it with a cordiality that forgot
the present in the past.
"Why, Esther! Where han ye been this many a year? Where han ye been
wandering that we none of us could find you out?"
The question was asked thoughtlessly, but answered with fierce
earnestness.
"Where have I been? What have I been doing? Why do you torment me
with questions like these? Can you not guess? But the story of my
life is wanted to give force to my speech, afterwards I will tell it
you. Nay! don't change your fickle mind now, and say you don't want
to hear it. You must hear it, and I must tell it; and then see after
Mary, and take care she does not become like me. As she is loving
now, so did I love once; one above me far." She remarked not, in her
own absorption, the change in Jem's breathing, the sudden clutch at
the wall which told the fearfully vivid interest he took in what she
said. "He was so handsome, so kind! Well, the regiment was ordered to
Chester (did I tell you he was an officer?), and he could not bear to
part from me, nor I from him, so he took me with him. I never thought
poor Mary would have taken it so to heart! I always meant to send for
her to pay me a visit when I was married; for, mark you! he promised
me marriage. They all do. Then came three years of happiness. I
suppose I ought not to have been happy, but I was. I had a little
girl, too. Oh! the sweetest darling that ever was seen! But I must
not think of her," putting her hand wildly up to her forehead, "or I
shall go mad; I shall."
"Don't tell me any more about yoursel," said Jem, soothingly.
"What! you're tired already, are you? but I'll tell you; as you've
asked for it, you shall hear it. I won't recall the agony of the past
for nothing. I will have the relief of telling it. Oh, how happy I
was!"--sinking her voice into a plaintive child-like manner. "It
came like a shot on me when one day he came to me and told me he was
ordered to Ireland, and must leave me behind; at Bristol we then
were."
Jem muttered some words; she caught their meaning, and in a pleading
voice continued,
"Oh, don't abuse him; don't speak a word against him! You don't know
how I love him yet; yet, when I am sunk so low. You don't guess how
kind he was. He gave me fifty pound before we parted, and I knew he
could ill spare it. Don't, Jem, please," as his muttered indignation
rose again. For her sake he ceased. "I might have done better with
the money; I see now. But I did not know the value of money. Formerly
I had earned it easily enough at the factory, and as I had no more
sensible wants, I spent it on dress and on eating. While I lived with
him, I had it for asking; and fifty pounds would, I thought, go a
long way. So I went back to Chester, where I'd been so happy, and
set up a small-ware shop, and hired a room near. We should have done
well, but alas! alas! my little girl fell ill, and I could not mind
my shop and her too; and things grew worse and worse. I sold my
goods any how to get money to buy her food and medicine; I wrote
over and over again to her father for help, but he must have changed
his quarters, for I never got an answer. The landlord seized the
few bobbins and tapes I had left, for shop-rent; and the person to
whom the mean little room, to which we had been forced to remove,
belonged, threatened to turn us out unless his rent was paid; it had
run on many weeks, and it was winter, cold bleak winter; and my child
was so ill, so ill, and I was starving. And I could not bear to see
her suffer, and forgot how much better it would be for us to die
together;--oh her moans, her moans, which money would give me the
means of relieving! So I went out into the street, one January
night--Do you think God will punish me for that?" she asked with wild
vehemence, almost amounting to insanity, and shaking Jem's arm in
order to force an answer from him.
But before he could shape his heart's sympathy into words, her voice
had lost its wildness, and she spoke with the quiet of despair.
"But it's no matter! I've done that since, which separates us as far
asunder as heaven and hell can be." Her voice rose again to the sharp
pitch of agony. "My darling! my darling! even after death I may not
see thee, my own sweet one! She was so good--like a little angel.
What is that text, I don't remember,--that text mother used to teach
me when I sat on her knee long ago; it begins, 'Blessed are the
pure'"--
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
"Ay, that's it! It would break mother's heart if she knew what I am
now--it did break Mary's heart, you see. And now I recollect it was
about her child I wanted so to see you, Jem. You know Mary Barton,
don't you?" said she, trying to collect her thoughts.
Yes, Jem knew her. How well, his beating heart could testify!
"Well, there's something to do for her; I forget what; wait a
minute! She is so like my little girl;" said she, raising her eyes,
glistening with unshed tears, in search of the sympathy of Jem's
countenance.
He deeply pitied her; but oh! how he longed to recall her mind to the
subject of Mary, and the lover above her in rank, and the service to
be done for her sake. But he controlled himself to silence. After
awhile, she spoke again, and in a calmer voice.
"When I came to Manchester (for I could not stay in Chester after her
death), I found you all out very soon. And yet I never thought my
poor sister was dead. I suppose I would not think so. I used to watch
about the court where John lived, for many and many a night, and
gather all I could about them from the neighbours' talk; for I never
asked a question. I put this and that together, and followed one, and
listened to the other; many's the time I've watched the policeman off
his beat, and peeped through the chink of the window-shutter to see
the old room, and sometimes Mary or her father sitting up late for
some reason or another. I found out Mary went to learn dress-making,
and I began to be frightened for her; for it's a bad life for a girl
to be out late at night in the streets, and after many an hour of
weary work, they're ready to follow after any novelty that makes a
little change. But I made up my mind, that bad as I was, I could
watch over Mary and perhaps keep her from harm. So I used to wait
for her at nights, and follow her home, often when she little knew
any one was near her. There was one of her companions I never could
abide, and I'm sure that girl is at the bottom of some mischief.
By-and-bye, Mary's walks homewards were not alone. She was joined
soon after she came out, by a man; a gentleman. I began to fear
for her, for I saw she was light-hearted, and pleased with his
attentions; and I thought worse of him for having such long talks
with that bold girl I told you of. But I was laid up for a long time
with spitting of blood; and could do nothing. I'm sure it made me
worse, thinking about what might be happening to Mary. And when I
came out, all was going on as before, only she seemed fonder of him
than ever; and oh Jem! her father won't listen to me, and it's you
must save Mary! You're like a brother to her, and maybe could give
her advice and watch over her, and at any rate John will hearken to
you; only he's so stern and so cruel." She began to cry a little at
the remembrance of his harsh words; but Jem cut her short by his
hoarse, stern inquiry,
"Who is this spark that Mary loves? Tell me his name!"
"It's young Carson, old Carson's son, that your father worked for."
There was a pause. She broke the silence.
"Oh! Jem, I charge you with the care of her! I suppose it would be
murder to kill her, but it would be better for her to die than to
live to lead such a life as I do. Do you hear me, Jem?"
"Yes! I hear you. It would be better. Better we were all dead." This
was said as if thinking aloud; but he immediately changed his tone,
and continued,
"Esther, you may trust to my doing all I can for Mary. That I have
determined on. And now listen to me! you loathe the life you lead,
else you would not speak of it as you do. Come home with me. Come to
my mother. She and my aunt Alice live together. I will see that they
give you a welcome. And to-morrow I will see if some honest way of
living cannot be found for you. Come home with me."
She was silent for a minute, and he hoped he had gained his point.
Then she said,
"God bless you, Jem, for the words you have just spoken. Some years
ago you might have saved me, as I hope and trust you will yet save
Mary. But it is too late now;--too late," she added, with accents of
deep despair.
Still he did not relax his hold. "Come home," he said.
"I tell you, I cannot. I could not lead a virtuous life if I would.
I should only disgrace you. If you will know all," said she, as he
still seemed inclined to urge her, "I must have drink. Such as live
like me could not bear life if they did not drink. It's the only
thing to keep us from suicide. If we did not drink, we could not
stand the memory of what we have been, and the thought of what we
are, for a day. If I go without food, and without shelter, I must
have my dram. Oh! you don't know the awful nights I have had in
prison for want of it!" said she, shuddering, and glaring round with
terrified eyes, as if dreading to see some spiritual creature, with
dim form, near her.
"It is so frightful to see them," whispering in tones of wildness,
although so low spoken. "There they go round and round my bed the
whole night through. My mother, carrying little Annie (I wonder how
they got together) and Mary--and all looking at me with their sad,
stony eyes; oh Jem! it is so terrible! They don't turn back either,
but pass behind the head of the bed, and I feel their eyes on me
everywhere. If I creep under the clothes I still see them; and what
is worse," hissing out her words with fright, "they see me. Don't
speak to me of leading a better life--I must have drink. I cannot
pass to-night without a dram; I dare not."
Jem was silent from deep sympathy. Oh! could he, then, do nothing for
her! She spoke again, but in a less excited tone, although it was
thrillingly earnest.
"You are grieved for me! I know it better than if you told me in
words. But you can do nothing for me. I am past hope. You can yet
save Mary. You must. She is innocent, except for the great error of
loving one above her in station. Jem! you _will_ save her?"
With heart and soul, though in few words, Jem promised that if aught
earthly could keep her from falling, he would do it. Then she blessed
him, and bade him good-night.
"Stay a minute," said he, as she was on the point of departure. "I
may want to speak to you again. I mun know where to find you--where
do you live?"
She laughed strangely. "And do you think one sunk so low as I am has
a home? Decent, good people have homes. We have none. No, if you want
me, come at night, and look at the corners of the streets about here.
The colder, the bleaker, the more stormy the night, the more certain
you will be to find me. For then," she added, with a plaintive fall
in her voice, "it is so cold sleeping in entries, and on door-steps,
and I want a dram more than ever."
Again she rapidly turned off, and Jem also went on his way. But
before he reached the end of the street, even in the midst of the
jealous anguish that filled his heart, his conscience smote him.
He had not done enough to save her. One more effort, and she might
have come. Nay, twenty efforts would have been well rewarded by her
yielding. He turned back, but she was gone. In the tumult of his
other feelings, his self-reproach was deadened for the time. But many
and many a day afterwards he bitterly regretted his omission of duty;
his weariness of well-doing.
Now, the great thing was to reach home, and solitude. Mary loved
another! Oh! how should he bear it? He had thought her rejection of
him a hard trial, but that was nothing now. He only remembered it,
to be thankful he had not yielded to the temptation of trying his
fate again, not in actual words, but in a meeting, where her manner
should tell far more than words, that her sweeter smiles, her dainty
movements, her pretty household ways, were all to be reserved to
gladden another's eyes and heart. And he must live on; that seemed
the strangest. That a long life (and he knew men did live long, even
with deep, biting sorrow corroding at their hearts) must be spent
without Mary; nay, with the consciousness she was another's! That
hell of thought he would reserve for the quiet of his own room, the
dead stillness of night. He was on the threshold of home now.
He entered. There were the usual faces, the usual sights. He loathed
them, and then he cursed himself because he loathed them. His
mother's love had taken a cross turn, because he had kept the
tempting supper she had prepared for him waiting until it was
nearly spoilt. Alice, her dulled senses deadening day by day, sat
mutely near the fire; her happiness, bounded by the circle of the
consciousness of the presence of her foster child, knowing that his
voice repeated what was passing to her deafened ear, that his arm
removed each little obstacle to her tottering steps. And Will, out
of the very kindness of his heart, talked more and more merrily than
ever. He saw Jem was downcast, and fancied his rattling might cheer
him; at any rate, it drowned his aunt's muttered grumblings, and in
some measure concealed the blank of the evening. At last, bed-time
came; and Will withdrew to his neighbouring lodging; and Jane and
Alice Wilson had raked the fire, and fastened doors and shutters,
and pattered up stairs, with their tottering foot-steps, and shrill
voices. Jem, too, went to the closet termed his bed-room. There was
no bolt to the door; but by one strong effort of his right arm, a
heavy chest was moved against it, and he could sit down on the side
of his bed, and think.
Mary loved another! That idea would rise uppermost in his mind, and
had to be combated in all its forms of pain. It was, perhaps, no
great wonder that she should prefer one so much above Jem in the
external things of life. But the gentleman; why did he, with his
range of choice among the ladies of the land, why did he stoop down
to carry off the poor man's darling? With all the glories of the
garden at his hand, why did he prefer to cull the wild-rose,--Jem's
own fragrant wild-rose?
His _own!_ Oh! never now his own!--Gone for evermore!
Then uprose the guilty longing for blood!--The frenzy of
jealousy!--Some one should die. He would rather Mary were dead, cold
in her grave, than that she were another's. A vision of her pale,
sweet face, with her bright hair all bedabbled with gore, seemed to
float constantly before his aching eyes. But hers were ever open,
and contained, in their soft, deathly look, such mute reproach! What
had she done to deserve such cruel treatment from him? She had been
wooed by one whom Jem knew to be handsome, gay, and bright, and she
had given him her love. That was all! It was the wooer who should
die. Yes, die, knowing the cause of his death. Jem pictured him (and
gloated on the picture), lying smitten, yet conscious; and listening
to the upbraiding accusation of his murderer. How he had left his own
rank, and dared to love a maiden of low degree; and--oh! stinging
agony of all--how she, in return, had loved him! Then the other
nature spoke up, and bade him remember the anguish he should so
prepare for Mary! At first he refused to listen to that better voice;
or listened only to pervert. He would glory in her wailing grief! he
would take pleasure in her desolation of heart!
No! he could not, said the still small voice. It would be worse, far
worse, to have caused such woe, than it was now to bear his present
heavy burden.
But it was too heavy, too grievous to be borne, and live. He would
slay himself, and the lovers should love on, and the sun shine
bright, and he with his burning, woeful heart would be at rest. "Rest
that is reserved for the people of God."
Had he not promised with such earnest purpose of soul, as makes words
more solemn than oaths, to save Mary from becoming such as Esther?
Should he shrink from the duties of life, into the cowardliness of
death? Who would then guard Mary, with her love and her innocence?
Would it not be a goodly thing to serve her, although she loved him
not; to be her preserving angel, through the perils of life; and she,
unconscious all the while?
He braced up his soul, and said to himself, that with God's help he
would be that earthly keeper.
And now the mists and the storms seemed clearing away from his path,
though it still was full of stinging thorns. Having done the duty
nearest to him (of reducing the tumult of his own heart to something
like order), the second became more plain before him.
Poor Esther's experience had led her, perhaps, too hastily to the
conclusion, that Mr. Carson's intentions were evil towards Mary; at
least she had given no just ground for the fears she entertained
that such was the case. It was possible, nay, to Jem's heart, very
probable, that he might only be too happy to marry her. She was a
lady by right of nature, Jem thought; in movement, grace, and spirit.
what was birth to a Manchester manufacturer, many of whom glory, and
justly too, in being the architects of their own fortunes? And, as
far as wealth was concerned, judging another by himself, Jem could
only imagine it a great privilege to lay it at the feet of the loved
one. Harry Carson's mother had been a factory girl; so, after all,
what was the great reason for doubting his intentions towards Mary?
There might probably be some little awkwardness about the affair at
first: Mary's father having such strong prejudices on the one hand;
and something of the same kind being likely to exist on the part of
Mr. Carson's family. But Jem knew he had power over John Barton's
mind; and it would be something to exert that power in promoting
Mary's happiness, and to relinquish all thought of self in so doing.
Oh! why had Esther chosen him for this office? It was beyond his
strength to act rightly! Why had she singled him out?
The answer came when he was calm enough to listen for it. Because
Mary had no other friend capable of the duty required of him; the
duty of a brother, as Esther imagined him to be in feeling, from his
long friendship. He would be unto her as a brother.
As such, he ought to ascertain Harry Carson's intentions towards
her in winning her affections. He would ask him, straightforwardly,
as became man speaking to man, not concealing, if need were, the
interest he felt in Mary.
Then, with the resolve to do his duty to the best of his power, peace
came into his soul; he had left the windy storm and tempest behind.
Two hours before day-dawn he fell asleep.