Hard Times

by Dickens, Charles

  view by the softened tears that filled his eyes; but not before he

  had seen how earnestly she looked at him, and how her own eyes were

  filled too.

  She turned again towards the bed, and satisfying herself that all

  was quiet there, spoke in a low, calm, cheerful voice.

  'I am glad you have come at last, Stephen. You are very late.'

  'I ha' been walking up an' down.'

  'I thought so. But 'tis too bad a night for that. The rain falls

  very heavy, and the wind has risen.'

  The wind? True. It was blowing hard. Hark to the thundering in

  the chimney, and the surging noise! To have been out in such a

  wind, and not to have known it was blowing!

  'I have been here once before, to-day, Stephen. Landlady came

  round for me at dinner-time. There was some one here that needed

  looking to, she said. And 'deed she was right. All wandering and

  lost, Stephen. Wounded too, and bruised.'

  He slowly moved to a chair and sat down, drooping his head before

  her.

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  'I came to do what little I could, Stephen; first, for that she

  worked with me when we were girls both, and for that you courted

  her and married her when I was her friend - '

  He laid his furrowed forehead on his hand, with a low groan.

  'And next, for that I know your heart, and am right sure and

  certain that 'tis far too merciful to let her die, or even so much

  as suffer, for want of aid. Thou knowest who said, "Let him who is

  without sin among you cast the first stone at her!" There have

  been plenty to do that. Thou art not the man to cast the last

  stone, Stephen, when she is brought so low.'

  'O Rachael, Rachael!'

  'Thou hast been a cruel sufferer, Heaven reward thee!' she said, in

  compassionate accents. 'I am thy poor friend, with all my heart

  and mind.'

  The wounds of which she had spoken, seemed to be about the neck of

  the self-made outcast. She dressed them now, still without showing

  her. She steeped a piece of linen in a basin, into which she

  poured some liquid from a bottle, and laid it with a gentle hand

  upon the sore. The three-legged table had been drawn close to the

  bedside, and on it there were two bottles. This was one.

  It was not so far off, but that Stephen, following her hands with

  his eyes, could read what was printed on it in large letters. He

  turned of a deadly hue, and a sudden horror seemed to fall upon

  him.

  'I will stay here, Stephen,' said Rachael, quietly resuming her

  seat, 'till the bells go Three. 'Tis to be done again at three,

  and then she may be left till morning.'

  'But thy rest agen to-morrow's work, my dear.'

  'I slept sound last night. I can wake many nights, when I am put

  to it. 'Tis thou who art in need of rest - so white and tired.

  Try to sleep in the chair there, while I watch. Thou hadst no

  sleep last night, I can well believe. To-morrow's work is far

  harder for thee than for me.'

  He heard the thundering and surging out of doors, and it seemed to

  him as if his late angry mood were going about trying to get at

  him. She had cast it out; she would keep it out; he trusted to her

  to defend him from himself.

  'She don't know me, Stephen; she just drowsily mutters and stares.

  I have spoken to her times and again, but she don't notice! 'Tis

  as well so. When she comes to her right mind once more, I shall

  have done what I can, and she never the wiser.'

  'How long, Rachael, is 't looked for, that she'll be so?'

  'Doctor said she would haply come to her mind to-morrow.'

  His eyes fell again on the bottle, and a tremble passed over him,

  causing him to shiver in every limb. She thought he was chilled

  with the wet. 'No,' he said, 'it was not that. He had had a

  fright.'

  'A fright?'

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  'Ay, ay! coming in. When I were walking. When I were thinking.

  When I - ' It seized him again; and he stood up, holding by the

  mantel-shelf, as he pressed his dank cold hair down with a hand

  that shook as if it were palsied.

  'Stephen!'

  She was coming to him, but he stretched out his arm to stop her.

  'No! Don't, please; don't. Let me see thee setten by the bed.

  Let me see thee, a' so good, and so forgiving. Let me see thee as

  I see thee when I coom in. I can never see thee better than so.

  Never, never, never!'

  He had a violent fit of trembling, and then sunk into his chair.

  After a time he controlled himself, and, resting with an elbow on

  one knee, and his head upon that hand, could look towards Rachael.

  Seen across the dim candle with his moistened eyes, she looked as

  if she had a glory shining round her head. He could have believed

  she had. He did believe it, as the noise without shook the window,

  rattled at the door below, and went about the house clamouring and

  lamenting.

  'When she gets better, Stephen, 'tis to be hoped she'll leave thee

  to thyself again, and do thee no more hurt. Anyways we will hope

  so now. And now I shall keep silence, for I want thee to sleep.'

  He closed his eyes, more to please her than to rest his weary head;

  but, by slow degrees as he listened to the great noise of the wind,

  he ceased to hear it, or it changed into the working of his loom,

  or even into the voices of the day (his own included) saying what

  had been really said. Even this imperfect consciousness faded away

  at last, and he dreamed a long, troubled dream.

  He thought that he, and some one on whom his heart had long been

  set - but she was not Rachael, and that surprised him, even in the

  midst of his imaginary happiness - stood in the church being

  married. While the ceremony was performing, and while he

  recognized among the witnesses some whom he knew to be living, and

  many whom he knew to be dead, darkness came on, succeeded by the

  shining of a tremendous light. It broke from one line in the table

  of commandments at the altar, and illuminated the building with the

  words. They were sounded through the church, too, as if there were

  voices in the fiery letters. Upon this, the whole appearance

  before him and around him changed, and nothing was left as it had

  been, but himself and the clergyman. They stood in the daylight

  before a crowd so vast, that if all the people in the world could

  have been brought together into one space, they could not have

  looked, he thought, more numerous; and they all abhorred him, and

  there was not one pitying or friendly eye among the millions that

  were fastened on his face. He stood on a raised stage, under his

  own loom; and, looking up at the shape the loom took, and hearing

  the burial service distinctly read, he knew that he was there to

  suffer death. In an instant what he stood on fell below him, and

  he was gone.

  - Out of what mystery he came back to his usual life, and to places

  that he knew, he was unable to consider; but he was back in those

  places by some means, and
with this condemnation upon him, that he

  was never, in this world or the next, through all the unimaginable

  ages of eternity, to look on Rachael's face or hear her voice.

  Wandering to and fro, unceasingly, without hope, and in search of

  he knew not what (he only knew that he was doomed to seek it), he

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  was the subject of a nameless, horrible dread, a mortal fear of one

  particular shape which everything took. Whatsoever he looked at,

  grew into that form sooner or later. The object of his miserable

  existence was to prevent its recognition by any one among the

  various people he encountered. Hopeless labour! If he led them

  out of rooms where it was, if he shut up drawers and closets where

  it stood, if he drew the curious from places where he knew it to be

  secreted, and got them out into the streets, the very chimneys of

  the mills assumed that shape, and round them was the printed word.

  The wind was blowing again, the rain was beating on the house-tops,

  and the larger spaces through which he had strayed contracted to

  the four walls of his room. Saving that the fire had died out, it

  was as his eyes had closed upon it. Rachael seemed to have fallen

  into a doze, in the chair by the bed. She sat wrapped in her

  shawl, perfectly still. The table stood in the same place, close

  by the bedside, and on it, in its real proportions and appearance,

  was the shape so often repeated.

  He thought he saw the curtain move. He looked again, and he was

  sure it moved. He saw a hand come forth and grope about a little.

  Then the curtain moved more perceptibly, and the woman in the bed

  put it back, and sat up.

  With her woful eyes, so haggard and wild, so heavy and large, she

  looked all round the room, and passed the corner where he slept in

  his chair. Her eyes returned to that corner, and she put her hand

  over them as a shade, while she looked into it. Again they went

  all round the room, scarcely heeding Rachael if at all, and

  returned to that corner. He thought, as she once more shaded them

  - not so much looking at him, as looking for him with a brutish

  instinct that he was there - that no single trace was left in those

  debauched features, or in the mind that went along with them, of

  the woman he had married eighteen years before. But that he had

  seen her come to this by inches, he never could have believed her

  to be the same.

  All this time, as if a spell were on him, he was motionless and

  powerless, except to watch her.

  Stupidly dozing, or communing with her incapable self about

  nothing, she sat for a little while with her hands at her ears, and

  her head resting on them. Presently, she resumed her staring round

  the room. And now, for the first time, her eyes stopped at the

  table with the bottles on it.

  Straightway she turned her eyes back to his corner, with the

  defiance of last night, and moving very cautiously and softly,

  stretched out her greedy hand. She drew a mug into the bed, and

  sat for a while considering which of the two bottles she should

  choose. Finally, she laid her insensate grasp upon the bottle that

  had swift and certain death in it, and, before his eyes, pulled out

  the cork with her teeth.

  Dream or reality, he had no voice, nor had he power to stir. If

  this be real, and her allotted time be not yet come, wake, Rachael,

  wake!

  She thought of that, too. She looked at Rachael, and very slowly,

  very cautiously, poured out the contents. The draught was at her

  lips. A moment and she would be past all help, let the whole world

  wake and come about her with its utmost power. But in that moment

  Rachael started up with a suppressed cry. The creature struggled,

  struck her, seized her by the hair; but Rachael had the cup.

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  Stephen broke out of his chair. 'Rachael, am I wakin' or dreamin'

  this dreadfo' night?'

  ''Tis all well, Stephen. I have been asleep, myself. 'Tis near

  three. Hush! I hear the bells.'

  The wind brought the sounds of the church clock to the window.

  They listened, and it struck three. Stephen looked at her, saw how

  pale she was, noted the disorder of her hair, and the red marks of

  fingers on her forehead, and felt assured that his senses of sight

  and hearing had been awake. She held the cup in her hand even now.

  'I thought it must be near three,' she said, calmly pouring from

  the cup into the basin, and steeping the linen as before. 'I am

  thankful I stayed! 'Tis done now, when I have put this on. There!

  And now she's quiet again. The few drops in the basin I'll pour

  away, for 'tis bad stuff to leave about, though ever so little of

  it.' As she spoke, she drained the basin into the ashes of the

  fire, and broke the bottle on the hearth.

  She had nothing to do, then, but to cover herself with her shawl

  before going out into the wind and rain.

  'Thou'lt let me walk wi' thee at this hour, Rachael?'

  'No, Stephen. 'Tis but a minute, and I'm home.'

  'Thou'rt not fearfo';' he said it in a low voice, as they went out

  at the door; 'to leave me alone wi' her!'

  As she looked at him, saying, 'Stephen?' he went down on his knee

  before her, on the poor mean stairs, and put an end of her shawl to

  his lips.

  'Thou art an Angel. Bless thee, bless thee!'

  'I am, as I have told thee, Stephen, thy poor friend. Angels are

  not like me. Between them, and a working woman fu' of faults,

  there is a deep gulf set. My little sister is among them, but she

  is changed.'

  She raised her eyes for a moment as she said the words; and then

  they fell again, in all their gentleness and mildness, on his face.

  'Thou changest me from bad to good. Thou mak'st me humbly wishfo'

  to be more like thee, and fearfo' to lose thee when this life is

  ower, and a' the muddle cleared awa'. Thou'rt an Angel; it may be,

  thou hast saved my soul alive!'

  She looked at him, on his knee at her feet, with her shawl still in

  his hand, and the reproof on her lips died away when she saw the

  working of his face.

  'I coom home desp'rate. I coom home wi'out a hope, and mad wi'

  thinking that when I said a word o' complaint I was reckoned a

  unreasonable Hand. I told thee I had had a fright. It were the

  Poison-bottle on table. I never hurt a livin' creetur; but

  happenin' so suddenly upon 't, I thowt, "How can I say what I might

  ha' done to myseln, or her, or both!"'

  She put her two hands on his mouth, with a face of terror, to stop

  him from saying more. He caught them in his unoccupied hand, and

  holding them, and still clasping the border of her shawl, said

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  hurriedly:

  'But I see thee, Rachael, setten by the bed. I ha' seen thee, aw

  this night. In my troublous sleep I ha' known thee still to be

  there. Evermore I will see thee there. I nevermore will see her

  or think o' her, but thou shalt be
beside her. I nevermore will

  see or think o' anything that angers me, but thou, so much better

  than me, shalt be by th' side on't. And so I will try t' look t'

  th' time, and so I will try t' trust t' th' time, when thou and me

  at last shall walk together far awa', beyond the deep gulf, in th'

  country where thy little sister is.'

  He kissed the border of her shawl again, and let her go. She bade

  him good night in a broken voice, and went out into the street.

  The wind blew from the quarter where the day would soon appear, and

  still blew strongly. It had cleared the sky before it, and the

  rain had spent itself or travelled elsewhere, and the stars were

  bright. He stood bare-headed in the road, watching her quick

  disappearance. As the shining stars were to the heavy candle in

  the window, so was Rachael, in the rugged fancy of this man, to the

  common experiences of his life.

  CHAPTER XIV - THE GREAT MANUFACTURER

  TIME went on in Coketown like its own machinery: so much material

  wrought up, so much fuel consumed, so many powers worn out, so much

  money made. But, less inexorable than iron, steal, and brass, it

  brought its varying seasons even into that wilderness of smoke and

  brick, and made the only stand that ever was made in the place

  against its direful uniformity.

  'Louisa is becoming,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'almost a young woman.'

  Time, with his innumerable horse-power, worked away, not minding

  what anybody said, and presently turned out young Thomas a foot

  taller than when his father had last taken particular notice of

  him.

  'Thomas is becoming,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'almost a young man.'

  Time passed Thomas on in the mill, while his father was thinking

  about it, and there he stood in a long-tailed coat and a stiff

  shirt-collar.

  'Really,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'the period has arrived when Thomas

  ought to go to Bounderby.'

  Time, sticking to him, passed him on into Bounderby's Bank, made

  him an inmate of Bounderby's house, necessitated the purchase of

  his first razor, and exercised him diligently in his calculations

  relative to number one.

  The same great manufacturer, always with an immense variety of work

  on hand, in every stage of development, passed Sissy onward in his

  mill, and worked her up into a very pretty article indeed.

  'I fear, Jupe,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'that your continuance at the

  school any longer would be useless.'