Hard Times - 29

‘Let me say I, then,’ he returned, in answer to the coarsely blurted question; ‘I doubt whether I have understood Louisa.  I doubt whether I have been quite right in the manner of her education.’

‘There you hit it,’ returned Bounderby.  ‘There I agree with you.  You have found it out at last, have you?  Education!  I’ll tell you what education is—To be tumbled out of doors, neck and crop, and put upon the shortest allowance of everything except blows.  That’s what I call education.’

‘I think your good sense will perceive,’ Mr. Gradgrind remonstrated in all humility, ‘that whatever the merits of such a system may be, it would be difficult of general application to girls.’

‘I don’t see it at all, sir,’ returned the obstinate Bounderby.

‘Well,’ sighed Mr. Gradgrind, ‘we will not enter into the question.  I assure you I have no desire to be controversial.  I seek to repair what is amiss, if I possibly can; and I hope you will assist me in a good spirit, Bounderby, for I have been very much distressed.’

‘I don’t understand you, yet,’ said Bounderby, with determined obstinacy, ‘and therefore I won’t make any promises.’

‘In the course of a few hours, my dear Bounderby,’ Mr. Gradgrind proceeded, in the same depressed and propitiatory manner, ‘I appear to myself to have become better informed as to Louisa’s character, than in previous years.  The enlightenment has been painfully forced upon me, and the discovery is not mine.  I think there are—Bounderby, you will be surprised to hear me say this—I think there are qualities in Louisa, which—which have been harshly neglected, and—and a little perverted.  And—and I would suggest to you, that—that if you would kindly meet me in a timely endeavour to leave her to her better nature for a while—and to encourage it to develop itself by tenderness and consideration—it—it would be the better for the happiness of all of us.  Louisa,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, shading his face with his hand, ‘has always been my favourite child.’

The blustrous Bounderby crimsoned and swelled to such an extent on hearing these words, that he seemed to be, and probably was, on the brink of a fit.  With his very ears a bright purple shot with crimson, he pent up his indignation, however, and said:

‘You’d like to keep her here for a time?’

‘I—I had intended to recommend, my dear Bounderby, that you should allow Louisa to remain here on a visit, and be attended by Sissy (I mean of course Cecilia Jupe), who understands her, and in whom she trusts.’

‘I gather from all this, Tom Gradgrind,’ said Bounderby, standing up with his hands in his pockets, ‘that you are of opinion that there’s what people call some incompatibility between Loo Bounderby and myself.’

‘I fear there is at present a general incompatibility between Louisa, and—and—and almost all the relations in which I have placed her,’ was her father’s sorrowful reply.

‘Now, look you here, Tom Gradgrind,’ said Bounderby the flushed, confronting him with his legs wide apart, his hands deeper in his pockets, and his hair like a hayfield wherein his windy anger was boisterous.  ‘You have said your say; I am going to say mine.  I am a Coketown man.  I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown.  I know the bricks of this town, and I know the works of this town, and I know the chimneys of this town, and I know the smoke of this town, and I know the Hands of this town.  I know ’em all pretty well.  They’re real.  When a man tells me anything about imaginative qualities, I always tell that man, whoever he is, that I know what he means.  He means turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon, and that he wants to be set up with a coach and six.  That’s what your daughter wants.  Since you are of opinion that she ought to have what she wants, I recommend you to provide it for her.  Because, Tom Gradgrind, she will never have it from me.’

‘Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘I hoped, after my entreaty, you would have taken a different tone.’

‘Just wait a bit,’ retorted Bounderby; ‘you have said your say, I believe.  I heard you out; hear me out, if you please.  Don’t make yourself a spectacle of unfairness as well as inconsistency, because, although I am sorry to see Tom Gradgrind reduced to his present position, I should be doubly sorry to see him brought so low as that.  Now, there’s an incompatibility of some sort or another, I am given to understand by you, between your daughter and me.  I’ll give you to understand, in reply to that, that there unquestionably is an incompatibility of the first magnitude—to be summed up in this—that your daughter don’t properly know her husband’s merits, and is not impressed with such a sense as would become her, by George! of the honour of his alliance.  That’s plain speaking, I hope.’

‘Bounderby,’ urged Mr. Gradgrind, ‘this is unreasonable.’

‘Is it?’ said Bounderby.  ‘I am glad to hear you say so.  Because when Tom Gradgrind, with his new lights, tells me that what I say is unreasonable, I am convinced at once it must be devilish sensible.  With your permission I am going on.  You know my origin; and you know that for a good many years of my life I didn’t want a shoeing-horn, in consequence of not having a shoe.  Yet you may believe or not, as you think proper, that there are ladies—born ladies—belonging to families—Families!—who next to worship the ground I walk on.’

He discharged this like a Rocket, at his father-in-law’s head.

‘Whereas your daughter,’ proceeded Bounderby, ‘is far from being a born lady.  That you know, yourself.  Not that I care a pinch of candle-snuff about such things, for you are very well aware I don’t; but that such is the fact, and you, Tom Gradgrind, can’t change it.  Why do I say this?’

‘Not, I fear,’ observed Mr. Gradgrind, in a low voice, ‘to spare me.’

‘Hear me out,’ said Bounderby, ‘and refrain from cutting in till your turn comes round.  I say this, because highly connected females have been astonished to see the way in which your daughter has conducted herself, and to witness her insensibility.  They have wondered how I have suffered it.  And I wonder myself now, and I won’t suffer it.’

‘Bounderby,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, rising, ‘the less we say to-night the better, I think.’

‘On the contrary, Tom Gradgrind, the more we say to-night, the better, I think.  That is,’ the consideration checked him, ‘till I have said all I mean to say, and then I don’t care how soon we stop.  I come to a question that may shorten the business.  What do you mean by the proposal you made just now?’

‘What do I mean, Bounderby?’

‘By your visiting proposition,’ said Bounderby, with an inflexible jerk of the hayfield.

‘I mean that I hope you may be induced to arrange in a friendly manner, for allowing Louisa a period of repose and reflection here, which may tend to a gradual alteration for the better in many respects.’

‘To a softening down of your ideas of the incompatibility?’ said Bounderby.

‘If you put it in those terms.’

‘What made you think of this?’ said Bounderby.

‘I have already said, I fear Louisa has not been understood.  Is it asking too much, Bounderby, that you, so far her elder, should aid in trying to set her right?  You have accepted a great charge of her; for better for worse, for—’

Mr. Bounderby may have been annoyed by the repetition of his own words to Stephen Blackpool, but he cut the quotation short with an angry start.

‘Come!’ said he, ‘I don’t want to be told about that.  I know what I took her for, as well as you do.  Never you mind what I took her for; that’s my look out.’

‘I was merely going on to remark, Bounderby, that we may all be more or less in the wrong, not even excepting you; and that some yielding on your part, remembering the trust you have accepted, may not only be an act of true kindness, but perhaps a debt incurred towards Louisa.’

‘I think differently,’ blustered Bounderby.  ‘I am going to finish this business according to my own opinions.  Now, I don’t want to make a quarrel of it with you, Tom Gradgrind.  To tell you the truth, I don’t think it would be worthy of my reputation to quarrel on such a subject.  As to your gentleman-friend, he may take himself off, wherever he likes best.  If he falls in my way, I shall tell him my mind; if he don’t fall in my way, I shan’t, for it won’t be worth my while to do it.  As to your daughter, whom I made Loo Bounderby, and might have done better by leaving Loo Gradgrind, if she don’t come home to-morrow, by twelve o’clock at noon, I shall understand that she prefers to stay away, and I shall send her wearing apparel and so forth over here, and you’ll take charge of her for the future.  What I shall say to people in general, of the incompatibility that led to my so laying down the law, will be this.  I am Josiah Bounderby, and I had my bringing-up; she’s the daughter of Tom Gradgrind, and she had her bringing-up; and the two horses wouldn’t pull together.  I am pretty well known to be rather an uncommon man, I believe; and most people will understand fast enough that it must be a woman rather out of the common, also, who, in the long run, would come up to my mark.’

‘Let me seriously entreat you to reconsider this, Bounderby,’ urged Mr. Gradgrind, ‘before you commit yourself to such a decision.’

‘I always come to a decision,’ said Bounderby, tossing his hat on: ‘and whatever I do, I do at once.  I should be surprised at Tom Gradgrind’s addressing such a remark to Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, knowing what he knows of him, if I could be surprised by anything Tom Gradgrind did, after his making himself a party to sentimental humbug.  I have given you my decision, and I have got no more to say.  Good night!’

So Mr. Bounderby went home to his town house to bed.  At five minutes past twelve o’clock next day, he directed Mrs. Bounderby’s property to be carefully packed up and sent to Tom Gradgrind’s; advertised his country retreat for sale by private contract; and resumed a bachelor life.

CHAPTER IV
LOST

The robbery at the Bank had not languished before, and did not cease to occupy a front place in the attention of the principal of that establishment now.  In boastful proof of his promptitude and activity, as a remarkable man, and a self-made man, and a commercial wonder more admirable than Venus, who had risen out of the mud instead of the sea, he liked to show how little his domestic affairs abated his business ardour.  Consequently, in the first few weeks of his resumed bachelorhood, he even advanced upon his usual display of bustle, and every day made such a rout in renewing his investigations into the robbery, that the officers who had it in hand almost wished it had never been committed.

They were at fault too, and off the scent.  Although they had been so quiet since the first outbreak of the matter, that most people really did suppose it to have been abandoned as hopeless, nothing new occurred.  No implicated man or woman took untimely courage, or made a self-betraying step.  More remarkable yet, Stephen Blackpool could not be heard of, and the mysterious old woman remained a mystery.

Things having come to this pass, and showing no latent signs of stirring beyond it, the upshot of Mr. Bounderby’s investigations was, that he resolved to hazard a bold burst.  He drew up a placard, offering Twenty Pounds reward for the apprehension of Stephen Blackpool, suspected of complicity in the robbery of Coketown Bank on such a night; he described the said Stephen Blackpool by dress, complexion, estimated height, and manner, as minutely as he could; he recited how he had left the town, and in what direction he had been last seen going; he had the whole printed in great black letters on a staring broadsheet; and he caused the walls to be posted with it in the dead of night, so that it should strike upon the sight of the whole population at one blow.

The factory-bells had need to ring their loudest that morning to disperse the groups of workers who stood in the tardy daybreak, collected round the placards, devouring them with eager eyes.  Not the least eager of the eyes assembled, were the eyes of those who could not read.  These people, as they listened to the friendly voice that read aloud—there was always some such ready to help them—stared at the characters which meant so much with a vague awe and respect that would have been half ludicrous, if any aspect of public ignorance could ever be otherwise than threatening and full of evil.  Many ears and eyes were busy with a vision of the matter of these placards, among turning spindles, rattling looms, and whirling wheels, for hours afterwards; and when the Hands cleared out again into the streets, there were still as many readers as before.

Slackbridge, the delegate, had to address his audience too that night; and Slackbridge had obtained a clean bill from the printer, and had brought it in his pocket.  Oh, my friends and fellow-countrymen, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown, oh, my fellow-brothers and fellow-workmen and fellow-citizens and fellow-men, what a to-do was there, when Slackbridge unfolded what he called ‘that damning document,’ and held it up to the gaze, and for the execration of the working-man community!  ‘Oh, my fellow-men, behold of what a traitor in the camp of those great spirits who are enrolled upon the holy scroll of Justice and of Union, is appropriately capable!  Oh, my prostrate friends, with the galling yoke of tyrants on your necks and the iron foot of despotism treading down your fallen forms into the dust of the earth, upon which right glad would your oppressors be to see you creeping on your bellies all the days of your lives, like the serpent in the garden—oh, my brothers, and shall I as a man not add, my sisters too, what do you say, now, of Stephen Blackpool, with a slight stoop in his shoulders and about five foot seven in height, as set forth in this degrading and disgusting document, this blighting bill, this pernicious placard, this abominable advertisement; and with what majesty of denouncement will you crush the viper, who would bring this stain and shame upon the God-like race that happily has cast him out for ever!  Yes, my compatriots, happily cast him out and sent him forth!  For you remember how he stood here before you on this platform; you remember how, face to face and foot to foot, I pursued him through all his intricate windings; you remember how he sneaked and slunk, and sidled, and splitted of straws, until, with not an inch of ground to which to cling, I hurled him out from amongst us: an object for the undying finger of scorn to point at, and for the avenging fire of every free and thinking mind to scorch and scar!  And now, my friends—my labouring friends, for I rejoice and triumph in that stigma—my friends whose hard but honest beds are made in toil, and whose scanty but independent pots are boiled in hardship; and now, I say, my friends, what appellation has that dastard craven taken to himself, when, with the mask torn from his features, he stands before us in all his native deformity, a What?  A thief!  A plunderer!  A proscribed fugitive, with a price upon his head; a fester and a wound upon the noble character of the Coketown operative!  Therefore, my band of brothers in a sacred bond, to which your children and your children’s children yet unborn have set their infant hands and seals, I propose to you on the part of the United Aggregate Tribunal, ever watchful for your welfare, ever zealous for your benefit, that this meeting does Resolve: That Stephen Blackpool, weaver, referred to in this placard, having been already solemnly disowned by the community of Coketown Hands, the same are free from the shame of his misdeeds, and cannot as a class be reproached with his dishonest actions!’

Thus Slackbridge; gnashing and perspiring after a prodigious sort.  A few stern voices called out ‘No!’ and a score or two hailed, with assenting cries of ‘Hear, hear!’ the caution from one man, ‘Slackbridge, y’or over hetter in’t; y’or a goen too fast!’  But these were pigmies against an army; the general assemblage subscribed to the gospel according to Slackbridge, and gave three cheers for him, as he sat demonstratively panting at them.

These men and women were yet in the streets, passing quietly to their homes, when Sissy, who had been called away from Louisa some minutes before, returned.

‘Who is it?’ asked Louisa.

‘It is Mr. Bounderby,’ said Sissy, timid of the name, ‘and your brother Mr. Tom, and a young woman who says her name is Rachael, and that you know her.’

‘What do they want, Sissy dear?’

‘They want to see you.  Rachael has been crying, and seems angry.’

‘Father,’ said Louisa, for he was present, ‘I cannot refuse to see them, for a reason that will explain itself.  Shall they come in here?’