Mary Barton. Элизабет Гаскелл

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СКАЧАТЬ bad news.

      ‘Father, do you know George Wilson’s dead?’ (Her hand was suddenly and almost violently compressed.) ‘He dropped down dead in Oxford Road yester morning. It’s very sad, isn’t it, father?’

      Her tears were ready to flow as she looked up in her father’s face for sympathy. Still the same fixed look of despair, not varied by grief for the dead.

      ‘Best for him to die,’ he said, in a low voice.

      This was unbearable. Mary got up under pretence of going to tell Margaret that she need not come to sleep with her to-night, but really to ask Job Legh to come and cheer her father.

      She stopped outside the door. Margaret was practising her singing, and through the still night air her voice rang out, like that of an angel:

      ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God.’

      The old Hebrew prophetic words fell like dew on Mary’s heart. She could not interrupt. She stood listening and ‘comforted’, till the little buzz of conversation again began, and then entered and told her errand.

      Both grandfather and grand-daughter rose instantly to fulfil her request.

      ‘He’s just tired out, Mary,’ said old Job. ‘He’ll be a different man to-morrow.’

      There is no describing the looks and tones that have power over an aching, heavy-laden heart; but in an hour or so John Barton was talking away as freely as ever, though all his talk ran, as was natural, on the disappointment of his fond hope, of the forlorn hope of many.

      ‘Ay, London’s a fine place,’ said he, ‘and finer folk live in it than I ever thought on, or ever heerd tell on except in th’ story-books. They are having their good things now, that afterwards they may be tormented.’

      Still at the old parable of Dives and Lazarus! Does it haunt the minds of the rich as it does those of the poor?

      ‘Do tell us all about London, dear father,’ asked Mary, who was sitting at her old post by her father’s knee.

      ‘How can I tell yo a’ about it, when I never see’d one-tenth of it. It’s as big as six Manchesters, they telled me. One-sixth may be made up o’ grand palaces, and three-sixths o’ middling kind, and th’ rest o’ holes o’ iniquity and filth, such as Manchester knows nought on, I’m glad to say.’

      ‘Well, father, but did you see the Queen?’

      ‘I believe I didn’t, though one day I thought I’d seen her many a time. You see,’ said he, turning to Job Legh, ‘there were a day appointed for us to go to Parliament House. We were most on us biding at a public-house in Holborn, where they did very well for us. Th’ morning of taking our petition we had such a spread for breakfast as th’ Queen hersel might ha’ sitten down to. I suppose they thought we wanted putting in heart. There were mutton kidneys, and sausages, and broiled ham, and fried beef and onions; more like a dinner nor a breakfast. Many on our chaps though, I could see, could eat but little. Th’ food stuck in their throats when they thought o’ them at home, wives and little ones, as had, maybe at that very time, nought to eat. Well, after breakfast, we were all set to walk in procession, and a time it took to put us in order, two and two, and the petition, as was yards long, carried by th’ foremost pairs. The men looked grave enough, yo may be sure; and such a set of thin, wan, wretched-looking chaps as they were!’

      ‘Yourself is none to boast on.’

      ‘Ay, but I were fat and rosy to many a one. Well, we walked on and on through many a street, much the same as Deansgate. We had to walk slowly, slowly, for th’ carriages an’ cabs as thronged th’ streets. I thought by-and-by we should maybe get clear on ’em, but as the streets grew wider they grew worse, and at last we were fairly blocked up at Oxford Street. We getten across at after a while though, and my eyes! the grand streets we were in then! They’re sadly puzzled how to build houses though in London; there’d be an opening for a good steady master builder there, as know’d his business. For yo see the houses are many on ’em built without any proper shape for a body to live in; some on ’em they’ve after thought would fall down, so they’ve stuck great ugly pillars out before ’em. And some on ’em (we thought they must be th’ tailors’ sign) had getten stone men and women as wanted clothes stuck on ’em. I were like a child, I forgot a’ my errand in looking about me. By this it were dinner-time, or better, as we could tell by the sun, right above our heads, and we were dusty and tired, going a step now and a step then. Well, at last we getten into a street grander nor all, leading to th’ Queen’s palace, and there it were I thought I saw th’ Queen. Yo’ve seen th’ hearses wi’ white plumes, Job?’

      Job assented.

      ‘Well, them undertaker folk are driving a pretty trade in London. Well nigh every lady we saw in a carriage had hired one o’ them plumes for the day, and had it niddle noddling on her head. It were th’ Queen’s drawing-room, they said, and th’ carriages went bowling along toward her house, some wi’ dressed-up gentlemen like circus folk in ’em, and rucks^* o’ ladies in others. Carriages themselves were great shakes too. Some o’ th’ gentlemen as couldn’t get inside hung on behind, wi’ nosegays to smell at, and sticks to keep off folk as might splash their silk stockings. I wonder why they didn’t hire a cab rather than hang on like a whip-behind boy; but I suppose they wished to keep wi’ their wives, Darby and Joan like. Coachmen were little squat men, wi’ wigs like th’ oud-fashioned parsons’. Well, we could na get on for these carriages, though we waited and waited. Th’ horses were too fat to move quick; they never known want o’ food, one might tell by their sleek coats; and police pushed us back when we tried to cross. One or two of ’em struck wi’ their sticks, and coachmen laughed, and some officers as stood nigh put their spy-glasses in their eye, and left ’em sticking there like mountebanks. One o’ th’ police struck me. “Whatten business have you to do that?” said I.

      ‘“You’re frightening them horses,” says he, in his mincing way (for Londoners are mostly all tongue-tied, and can’t say their a’s and i’s properly), “and it’s our business to keep you from molesting the ladies and gentlemen going to her Majesty’s drawing-room.”

      ‘“And why are we to be molested?”’ asked I, ‘“going decently about our business, which is life and death to us, and many a little one clemming at home in Lancashire? Which business is of most consequence i’ the sight o’ God, think yo, our’n or them grand ladies and gentlemen as yo think so much on?”

      ‘But I might as well ha’ held my peace, for he only laughed.’

      John ceased. After waiting a little, to see if he would go on himself, Job said:

      ‘Well, but that’s not a’ your story, man. Tell us what happened when you got to th’ Parliament House.’

      After a little pause, John answered:

      ‘If you please, neighbour, I’d rather say nought about that. It’s not to be forgotten, or forgiven either, by me or many another; but I canna tell of our down-casting just as a piece of London news. As long as I live, our rejection of that day will abide in my heart; and as long as I live I shall curse them as so cruelly refused to hear us; but I’ll not speak of it no^* more.’

      So, daunted in their inquiries, they sat silent for a few minutes.

      Old Job, however, felt that some one must speak, СКАЧАТЬ