The Complete Novels of Elizabeth Gaskell. Elizabeth Gaskell
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a death,—the disagreeable circumstances attending it; I had not time to read the Guardian on Saturday, but I understand it was some dispute about a factory girl."
"Yes, some such person. Of course she'll be examined, and Williams will do it in style. I shall slip out from our court to hear him if I can hit the nick of time."
"And if you can get a place, you mean, for depend upon it the court will be crowded."
"Ay, ay, the ladies (sweet souls) will come in shoals to hear a trial for murder, and see the murderer, and watch the judge put on his black cap."
"And then go home and groan over the Spanish ladies who take delight in bull-fights—'such unfeminine creatures!'"
Then they went on to other subjects.
It was but another drop to Mary's cup; but she was nearly in that state which Crabbe describes,
"For when so full the cup of sorrows flows
Add but a drop, it instantly o'erflows."
And now they were in the tunnel!—and now they were in Liverpool; and she must rouse herself from the torpor of mind and body which was creeping over her; the result of much anxiety and fatigue, and several sleepless nights.
She asked a policeman the way to Milk House Yard, and following his directions with the savoir faire of a town-bred girl, she reached a little court leading out of a busy, thronged street, not far from the Docks.
When she entered the quiet little yard she stopped to regain her breath, and to gather strength, for her limbs trembled, and her heart beat violently.
All the unfavourable contingencies she had, until now, forbidden herself to dwell upon, came forward to her mind. The possibility, the bare possibility, of Jem being an accomplice in the murder; the still greater possibility that he had not fulfilled his intention of going part of the way with Will, but had been led off by some little accidental occurrence from his original intention; and that he had spent the evening with those, whom it was now too late to bring forward as witnesses.
But sooner or later she must know the truth; so taking courage she knocked at the door of a house.
"Is this Mrs. Jones's?" she inquired.
"Next door but one," was the curt answer.
And even this extra minute was a reprieve.
Mrs. Jones was busy washing, and would have spoken angrily to the person who knocked so gently at the door, if anger had been in her nature; but she was a soft, helpless kind of woman, and only sighed over the many interruptions she had had to her business that unlucky Monday morning.
But the feeling which would have been anger in a more impatient temper, took the form of prejudice against the disturber, whoever he or she might be.
Mary's fluttered and excited appearance strengthened this prejudice in Mrs. Jones's mind, as she stood, stripping the soap-suds off her arms, while she eyed her visitor, and waited to be told what her business was.
But no words would come. Mary's voice seemed choked up in her throat.
"Pray what do you want, young woman?" coldly asked Mrs. Jones at last.
"I want—Oh! is Will Wilson here?"
"No, he is not," replied Mrs. Jones, inclining to shut the door in her face.
"Is he not come back from the Isle of Man?" asked Mary, sickening.
"He never went; he stayed in Manchester too long; as perhaps you know, already."
And again the door seemed closing.
But Mary bent forwards with suppliant action (as some young tree bends, when blown by the rough, autumnal wind), and gasped out,
"Tell me—tell me—where is he?"
Mrs. Jones suspected some love affair, and, perhaps, one of not the most creditable kind; but the distress of the pale young creature before her was so obvious and so pitiable, that were she ever so sinful, Mrs. Jones could no longer uphold her short, reserved manner.
"He's gone this very morning, my poor girl. Step in, and I'll tell you about it."
"Gone!" cried Mary. "How gone? I must see him,—it's a matter of life and death: he can save the innocent from being hanged,—he cannot be gone,—how gone?"
"Sailed, my dear! sailed in the John Cropper this very blessed morning."
"Sailed!"
Chapter XXVII.
In the Liverpool Docks
"Yon is our quay!
Hark to the clamour in that miry road,
Bounded and narrowed by yon vessel's load;
The lumbering wealth she empties round the place,
Package and parcel, hogshead, chest and case:
While the loud seaman and the angry hind,
Mingling in business, bellow to the wind."
Crabbe.
Mary staggered into the house. Mrs. Jones placed her tenderly in a chair, and there stood bewildered by her side.
"Oh, father! father!" muttered she, "what have you done?—What must I do? must the innocent die?—or he—whom I fear—I fear—oh! what am I saying?" said she, looking round affrighted, and seemingly reassured by Mrs. Jones's countenance, "I am so helpless, so weak,—but a poor girl after all. How can I tell what is right? Father! you have always been so kind to me,—and you to be—never mind—never mind, all will come right in the grave."
"Save us, and bless us!" exclaimed Mrs. Jones, "if I don't think she's gone out of her wits!"
"No, I'm not!" said Mary, catching at the words, and with a strong effort controlling the mind she felt to be wandering, while the red blood flushed to scarlet the heretofore white cheek, "I'm not out of my senses; there is so much to be done—so much—and no one but me to do it, you know,—though I can't rightly tell what it is," looking up with bewilderment into Mrs. Jones's face. "I must not go mad whatever comes—at least not yet. No!" (bracing herself up) "something may yet be done, and I must do it. Sailed! did you say? The John Cropper? Sailed?"
"Ay! she went out of dock last night, to be ready for the morning's tide."
"I thought she was not to sail till to-morrow," murmured Mary.
"So did Will (he's lodged here long, so we all call him 'Will')," replied Mrs. Jones. "The mate had told him so, I believe, and he never knew different till he got to Liverpool on Friday morning; but as soon as he heard, he gave up going to the Isle o' Man, and just ran over to Rhyl with the mate, one John Harris, as has friends a bit beyond Abergele; you may have heard him speak on him, for they are great chums, though I've my own opinion of Harris."
"And he's sailed?" repeated Mary, trying by repetition to realise the fact to herself.
"Ay, he went on board last night to be ready for the morning's tide, as I said afore, and my boy went to see the ship go down the river, and came back all agog with the sight. Here, Charley, Charley!" She called out loudly for her son: but Charley was one of those boys who are never "far to seek," as the Lancashire people say, when any thing is going on; a mysterious conversation, an unusual event, a fire, or a riot, any thing, in short; such boys are the little omnipresent people of this world.
Charley had, in fact, been spectator and auditor all this time; though for a little while he had been engaged in "dollying" and a few other mischievous feats in the washing line, which had prevented his attention from being fully given to his mother's conversation with the strange girl who had entered.
"Oh, Charley! there you are! Did you not see the John Cropper