Part 57 (1/2)
So Margaret gave a reluctant consent.
”If you can just step up to our house to-night, Jem, I'll put up a few things as may be useful to Mary, and then you can say when you'll likely be back. If you come home to-morrow night, and Will's there, perhaps I need not step up?”
”Yes, Margaret, do! I shan't leave easy unless you go some time in the day to see mother. I'll come to-night, though; and now good-bye. Stay! do you think you could just coax poor Will to walk a bit home with you, that I might speak to mother by myself?”
No! that Margaret could not do. That was expecting too great a sacrifice of bashful feeling.
But the object was accomplished by Will's going upstairs immediately on their return to the house, to indulge his mournful thoughts alone. As soon as Jem and his mother were left by themselves, he began on the subject uppermost in his mind.
”Mother!”
She put her handkerchief from her eyes, and turned quickly round so as to face him where he stood, thinking what best to say. The little action annoyed him, and he rushed at once into the subject.
”Mother! I am going back to Liverpool to-morrow morning to see how Mary Barton is.”
”And what's Mary Barton to thee, that thou shouldst be running after her in that-a-way?”
”If she lives, she shall be my wedded wife. If she dies--mother, I can't speak of what I shall feel if she dies.” His voice was choked in his throat.
For an instant his mother was interested by his words; and then came back the old jealousy of being supplanted in the affections of that son, who had been, as it were, newly born to her, by the escape he had so lately experienced from danger. So she hardened her heart against entertaining any feeling of sympathy; and turned away from the face, which recalled the earnest look of his childhood, when he had come to her in some trouble, sure of help and comfort.
And coldly she spoke, in those tones which Jem knew and dreaded, even before the meaning they expressed was fully shaped.
”Thou'rt old enough to please thysel. Old mothers are cast aside, and what they've borne forgotten, as soon as a pretty face comes across. I might have thought of that last Tuesday, when I felt as if thou wert all my own, and the judge were some wild animal trying to rend thee from me. I spoke up for thee then; but it's all forgotten now, I suppose.”
”Mother! you know all this while, YOU KNOW I can never forget any kindness you've ever done for me; and they've been many. Why should you think I've only room for one love in my heart? I can love you as dearly as ever, and Mary too, as much as man ever loved woman.”
He awaited a reply. None was vouchsafed.
”Mother, answer me!” said he, at last.
”What mun I answer? You asked me no question.”
”Well! I ask you this now. To-morrow morning I go to Liverpool to see her who is as my wife. Dear mother! will you bless me on my errand? If it please G.o.d she recovers, will you take her to you as you would a daughter?”
She could neither refuse nor a.s.sent.
”Why need you go?” said she querulously, at length. ”You'll be getting in some mischief or another again. Can't you stop at home quiet with me?”
Jem got up, and walked about the room in despairing impatience. She would not understand his feelings. At last he stopped right before the place where she was sitting, with an air of injured meekness on her face.
”Mother! I often think what a good man father was! I've often heard you tell of your courting days; and of the accident that befell you, and how ill you were. How long is it ago?”
”Near upon five-and-twenty years,” said she, with a sigh.
”You little thought when you were so ill you should live to have such a fine strapping son as I am, did you now?”
She smiled a little and looked up at him, which was just what he wanted.
”Thou'rt not so fine a man as thy father was, by a deal,” said she, looking at him with much fondness, notwithstanding her depreciatory words.
He took another turn or two up and down the room. He wanted to bend the subject round to his own case.