Mary Barton: Chapter 33 Summary & Analysis

Back at the Sturgis home, Mary is delirious and hallucinating, convinced Jem is still in danger even when he comes to visit her. From her wild murmurings, Jem—but no one else—realizes that she knows her father is the real murderer. Though unsure of John’s motive—perhaps Harry’s pursuit of Mary, perhaps the struggle between workers and employers—Jem figured out John’s guilt because John borrowed Jem’s gun, the murder weapon, two days before the murder took place. Jem was unwilling for Mary’s sake to prove his own innocence by damning Mary’s father, however.

While Jem is waiting anxiously in the Sturgis house, listening to Mary’s delirious ravings, Job visits. Job has received a letter from Margaret suggesting Alice will die soon; he proposes that he watch over Mary while Jem accompanies Mrs. Wilson and Will back to Manchester to see Alice. When Jem wants to protest, Job tells Jem that Jem owes it to his mother even if he loves Mary. Worried that Mary might betray John’s guilt, Jem hurriedly tells Job that Mary in her illness is mixing up the thought of her father with the trial she just attended. Job says it’s no wonder.

Jem takes a last look at Mary, terrified that she’ll die or never recover her wits after finally confessing her love for him. Job, guessing Jem’s thoughts, tells him he has to trust in God. Jem returns with Mrs. Wilson and Will to Manchester, where Alice—still convinced she is back in her childhood—diffuses a peaceful religious atmosphere before dying. At Alice’s funeral, Margaret comforts Will, and though he feels utterly bereft, he also feels a “golden thread” within “the darkness of his sorrow.” Meanwhile, Jem plans to return to Mary in Liverpool the day after the funeral.

When Jem discusses his plans with Margaret on the way home from the funeral, she notes how odd it is that John hasn’t returned even during Mary’s illness. She wishes aloud that John were home. Jem, silently, does not concur. Jem asks Margaret to look after Mrs. Wilson while he is in Liverpool. Margaret doesn’t want to spend too much time at the Wilsons’ for fear it would look like she was throwing herself at Will, but she reluctantly agrees.

Once Jem and Mrs. Wilson are alone at home—Will having retired to a bedroom—Jem announces that he plans to return to Liverpool to see Mary. When Mrs. Wilson asks hostilely who Mary is to him, Jem replies that he’ll marry her if she lives and won’t even be able to speak his grief if she dies. Mrs. Wilson, jealous that her only surviving son loves another, snipes at him that he’s abandoning her—that he’s forgotten how she testified to his innocence at trial. Jem tells her he could never forget but that his love for Mary doesn’t mean he loves his mother any less. He begs her to bless his journey to Liverpool and to look on Mary as a daughter.

When Mrs. Wilson complainingly asks why Jem can’t just stay home and out of trouble, a frustrated Jem asks her whether she wants him to be happy the way Mr. Wilson was happy with her. Sadly, Mrs. Wilson wishes she had made Mr. Wilson happier; her debilitating accident worsened her temper and sometimes made her nag him. Jem reminds her that she and Mr. Wilson had as happy a marriage as most people manage. Then he asks her, for Mr. Wilson’s sake, to love and accept Mary. Mrs. Wilson, crying, puts her hands on Jem’s head; then she blesses him and asks God to bless Mary for Jem’s sake. Jem, overjoyed, tells Mrs. Wilson that if she shows Mary her true personality, Mary will love her as much as Jem does.

Jem goes to visit Margaret. When he tells her about his conversation with Mrs. Wilson, she comments gloomily that he’s hoping for an engagement on Alice’s funeral day: “the dead are soon forgotten!” Jem gently chastises her, saying that new happiness need not mean forgetting the dead, any more than Margaret’s blindness requires her to forget the faces she once knew. At eleven o’clock, after Jem leaves Margaret’s, he sees a weak-looking silhouette—it’s John Barton! After John vanishes into the Barton house, a shocked Jem decides not to tell him about Mary’s illness, unsure how a visit from her beloved father might affect her given her knowledge of the murder.