Hard Times

by Dickens, Charles

  Bounderby. 'Really, sir?' said Mrs. Sparsit. And was affected

  with a cough in her throat.

  When the time drew near for retiring, Mr. Bounderby took a glass of

  water. 'Oh, sir?' said Mrs. Sparsit. 'Not your sherry warm, with

  lemon-peel and nutmeg?' 'Why, I have got out of the habit of

  taking it now, ma'am,' said Mr. Bounderby. 'The more's the pity,

  sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit; 'you are losing all your good old

  habits. Cheer up, sir! If Miss Gradgrind will permit me, I will

  offer to make it for you, as I have often done.'

  Miss Gradgrind readily permitting Mrs. Sparsit to do anything she

  pleased, that considerate lady made the beverage, and handed it to

  Mr. Bounderby. 'It will do you good, sir. It will warm your

  heart. It is the sort of thing you want, and ought to take, sir.'

  And when Mr. Bounderby said, 'Your health, ma'am!' she answered

  with great feeling, 'Thank you, sir. The same to you, and

  happiness also.' Finally, she wished him good night, with great

  pathos; and Mr. Bounderby went to bed, with a maudlin persuasion

  that he had been crossed in something tender, though he could not,

  for his life, have mentioned what it was.

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  Long after Louisa had undressed and lain down, she watched and

  waited for her brother's coming home. That could hardly be, she

  knew, until an hour past midnight; but in the country silence,

  which did anything but calm the trouble of her thoughts, time

  lagged wearily. At last, when the darkness and stillness had

  seemed for hours to thicken one another, she heard the bell at the

  gate. She felt as though she would have been glad that it rang on

  until daylight; but it ceased, and the circles of its last sound

  spread out fainter and wider in the air, and all was dead again.

  She waited yet some quarter of an hour, as she judged. Then she

  arose, put on a loose robe, and went out of her room in the dark,

  and up the staircase to her brother's room. His door being shut,

  she softly opened it and spoke to him, approaching his bed with a

  noiseless step.

  She kneeled down beside it, passed her arm over his neck, and drew

  his face to hers. She knew that he only feigned to be asleep, but

  she said nothing to him.

  He started by and by as if he were just then awakened, and asked

  who that was, and what was the matter?

  'Tom, have you anything to tell me? If ever you loved me in your

  life, and have anything concealed from every one besides, tell it

  to me.'

  'I don't know what you mean, Loo. You have been dreaming.'

  'My dear brother:' she laid her head down on his pillow, and her

  hair flowed over him as if she would hide him from every one but

  herself: 'is there nothing that you have to tell me? Is there

  nothing you can tell me if you will? You can tell me nothing that

  will change me. O Tom, tell me the truth!'

  'I don't know what you mean, Loo!'

  'As you lie here alone, my dear, in the melancholy night, so you

  must lie somewhere one night, when even I, if I am living then,

  shall have left you. As I am here beside you, barefoot, unclothed,

  undistinguishable in darkness, so must I lie through all the night

  of my decay, until I am dust. In the name of that time, Tom, tell

  me the truth now!'

  'What is it you want to know?'

  'You may be certain;' in the energy of her love she took him to her

  bosom as if he were a child; 'that I will not reproach you. You

  may be certain that I will be compassionate and true to you. You

  may be certain that I will save you at whatever cost. O Tom, have

  you nothing to tell me? Whisper very softly. Say only "yes," and

  I shall understand you!'

  She turned her ear to his lips, but he remained doggedly silent.

  'Not a word, Tom?'

  'How can I say Yes, or how can I say No, when I don't know what you

  mean? Loo, you are a brave, kind girl, worthy I begin to think of

  a better brother than I am. But I have nothing more to say. Go to

  bed, go to bed.'

  'You are tired,' she whispered presently, more in her usual way.

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  'Yes, I am quite tired out.'

  'You have been so hurried and disturbed to-day. Have any fresh

  discoveries been made?'

  'Only those you have heard of, from - him.'

  'Tom, have you said to any one that we made a visit to those

  people, and that we saw those three together?'

  'No. Didn't you yourself particularly ask me to keep it quiet when

  you asked me to go there with you?'

  'Yes. But I did not know then what was going to happen.'

  'Nor I neither. How could I?'

  He was very quick upon her with this retort.

  'Ought I to say, after what has happened,' said his sister,

  standing by the bed - she had gradually withdrawn herself and

  risen, 'that I made that visit? Should I say so? Must I say so?'

  'Good Heavens, Loo,' returned her brother, 'you are not in the

  habit of asking my advice. say what you like. If you keep it to

  yourself, I shall keep it to myself. If you disclose it, there's

  an end of it.'

  It was too dark for either to see the other's face; but each seemed

  very attentive, and to consider before speaking.

  'Tom, do you believe the man I gave the money to, is really

  implicated in this crime?'

  'I don't know. I don't see why he shouldn't be.'

  'He seemed to me an honest man.'

  'Another person may seem to you dishonest, and yet not be so.'

  There was a pause, for he had hesitated and stopped.

  'In short,' resumed Tom, as if he had made up his mind, 'if you

  come to that, perhaps I was so far from being altogether in his

  favour, that I took him outside the door to tell him quietly, that

  I thought he might consider himself very well off to get such a

  windfall as he had got from my sister, and that I hoped he would

  make good use of it. You remember whether I took him out or not.

  I say nothing against the man; he may be a very good fellow, for

  anything I know; I hope he is.'

  'Was he offended by what you said?'

  'No, he took it pretty well; he was civil enough. Where are you,

  Loo?' He sat up in bed and kissed her. 'Good night, my dear, good

  night.'

  'You have nothing more to tell me?'

  'No. What should I have? You wouldn't have me tell you a lie!'

  'I wouldn't have you do that to-night, Tom, of all the nights in

  your life; many and much happier as I hope they will be.'

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  'Thank you, my dear Loo. I am so tired, that I am sure I wonder I

  don't say anything to get to sleep. Go to bed, go to bed.'

  Kissing her again, he turned round, drew the coverlet over his

  head, and lay as still as if that time had come by which she had

  adjured him. She stood for some time at the bedside before she

  slowly moved away. She stopped at the door, looked back when she

  had opened it, and asked him if he had called her? But he lay

  still, and
she softly closed the door and returned to her room.

  Then the wretched boy looked cautiously up and found her gone,

  crept out of bed, fastened his door, and threw himself upon his

  pillow again: tearing his hair, morosely crying, grudgingly loving

  her, hatefully but impenitently spurning himself, and no less

  hatefully and unprofitably spurning all the good in the world.

  CHAPTER IX - HEARING THE LAST OF IT

  MRS. SPARSIT, lying by to recover the tone of her nerves in Mr.

  Bounderby's retreat, kept such a sharp look-out, night and day,

  under her Coriolanian eyebrows, that her eyes, like a couple of

  lighthouses on an iron-bound coast, might have warned all prudent

  mariners from that bold rock her Roman nose and the dark and craggy

  region in its neighbourhood, but for the placidity of her manner.

  Although it was hard to believe that her retiring for the night

  could be anything but a form, so severely wide awake were those

  classical eyes of hers, and so impossible did it seem that her

  rigid nose could yield to any relaxing influence, yet her manner of

  sitting, smoothing her uncomfortable, not to say, gritty mittens

  (they were constructed of a cool fabric like a meat-safe), or of

  ambling to unknown places of destination with her foot in her

  cotton stirrup, was so perfectly serene, that most observers would

  have been constrained to suppose her a dove, embodied by some freak

  of nature, in the earthly tabernacle of a bird of the hook-beaked

  order.

  She was a most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How

  she got from story to story was a mystery beyond solution. A lady

  so decorous in herself, and so highly connected, was not to be

  suspected of dropping over the banisters or sliding down them, yet

  her extraordinary facility of locomotion suggested the wild idea.

  Another noticeable circumstance in Mrs. Sparsit was, that she was

  never hurried. She would shoot with consummate velocity from the

  roof to the hall, yet would be in full possession of her breath and

  dignity on the moment of her arrival there. Neither was she ever

  seen by human vision to go at a great pace.

  She took very kindly to Mr. Harthouse, and had some pleasant

  conversation with him soon after her arrival. She made him her

  stately curtsey in the garden, one morning before breakfast.

  'It appears but yesterday, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'that I had the

  honour of receiving you at the Bank, when you were so good as to

  wish to be made acquainted with Mr. Bounderby's address.'

  'An occasion, I am sure, not to be forgotten by myself in the

  course of Ages,' said Mr. Harthouse, inclining his head to Mrs.

  Sparsit with the most indolent of all possible airs.

  'We live in a singular world, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit.

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  'I have had the honour, by a coincidence of which I am proud, to

  have made a remark, similar in effect, though not so

  epigrammatically expressed.'

  'A singular world, I would say, sir,' pursued Mrs. Sparsit; after

  acknowledging the compliment with a drooping of her dark eyebrows,

  not altogether so mild in its expression as her voice was in its

  dulcet tones; 'as regards the intimacies we form at one time, with

  individuals we were quite ignorant of, at another. I recall, sir,

  that on that occasion you went so far as to say you were actually

  apprehensive of Miss Gradgrind.'

  'Your memory does me more honour than my insignificance deserves.

  I availed myself of your obliging hints to correct my timidity, and

  it is unnecessary to add that they were perfectly accurate. Mrs.

  Sparsit's talent for - in fact for anything requiring accuracy -

  with a combination of strength of mind - and Family - is too

  habitually developed to admit of any question.' He was almost

  falling asleep over this compliment; it took him so long to get

  through, and his mind wandered so much in the course of its

  execution.

  'You found Miss Gradgrind - I really cannot call her Mrs.

  Bounderby; it's very absurd of me - as youthful as I described

  her?' asked Mrs. Sparsit, sweetly.

  'You drew her portrait perfectly,' said Mr. Harthouse. 'Presented

  her dead image.'

  'Very engaging, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, causing her mittens slowly

  to revolve over one another.

  'Highly so.'

  'It used to be considered,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'that Miss Gradgrind

  was wanting in animation, but I confess she appears to me

  considerably and strikingly improved in that respect. Ay, and

  indeed here is Mr. Bounderby!' cried Mrs. Sparsit, nodding her head

  a great many times, as if she had been talking and thinking of no

  one else. 'How do you find yourself this morning, sir? Pray let

  us see you cheerful, sir.'

  Now, these persistent assuagements of his misery, and lightenings

  of his load, had by this time begun to have the effect of making

  Mr. Bounderby softer than usual towards Mrs. Sparsit, and harder

  than usual to most other people from his wife downward. So, when

  Mrs. Sparsit said with forced lightness of heart, 'You want your

  breakfast, sir, but I dare say Miss Gradgrind will soon be here to

  preside at the table,' Mr. Bounderby replied, 'If I waited to be

  taken care of by my wife, ma'am, I believe you know pretty well I

  should wait till Doomsday, so I'll trouble you to take charge of

  the teapot.' Mrs. Sparsit complied, and assumed her old position

  at table.

  This again made the excellent woman vastly sentimental. She was so

  humble withal, that when Louisa appeared, she rose, protesting she

  never could think of sitting in that place under existing

  circumstances, often as she had had the honour of making Mr.

  Bounderby's breakfast, before Mrs. Gradgrind - she begged pardon,

  she meant to say Miss Bounderby - she hoped to be excused, but she

  really could not get it right yet, though she trusted to become

  familiar with it by and by - had assumed her present position. It

  was only (she observed) because Miss Gradgrind happened to be a

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  little late, and Mr. Bounderby's time was so very precious, and she

  knew it of old to be so essential that he should breakfast to the

  moment, that she had taken the liberty of complying with his

  request; long as his will had been a law to her.

  'There! Stop where you are, ma'am,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'stop

  where you are! Mrs. Bounderby will be very glad to be relieved of

  the trouble, I believe.'

  'Don't say that, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, almost with severity,

  'because that is very unkind to Mrs. Bounderby. And to be unkind

  is not to be you, sir.'

  'You may set your mind at rest, ma'am. - You can take it very

  quietly, can't you, Loo?' said Mr. Bounderby, in a blustering way

  to his wife.

  'Of course. It is of no moment. Why should it be of any

  importance to me?'

  'Why should it be of any importance to any one, Mrs. Sparsit,

  ma'am?' said Mr. Bounderby, swelling w
ith a sense of slight. 'You

  attach too much importance to these things, ma'am. By George,

  you'll be corrupted in some of your notions here. You are oldfashioned,

  ma'am. You are behind Tom Gradgrind's children's time.'

  'What is the matter with you?' asked Louisa, coldly surprised.

  'What has given you offence?'

  'Offence!' repeated Bounderby. 'Do you suppose if there was any

  offence given me, I shouldn't name it, and request to have it

  corrected? I am a straightforward man, I believe. I don't go

  beating about for side-winds.'

  'I suppose no one ever had occasion to think you too diffident, or

  too delicate,' Louisa answered him composedly: 'I have never made

  that objection to you, either as a child or as a woman. I don't

  understand what you would have.'

  'Have?' returned Mr. Bounderby. 'Nothing. Otherwise, don't you,

  Loo Bounderby, know thoroughly well that I, Josiah Bounderby of

  Coketown, would have it?'

  She looked at him, as he struck the table and made the teacups

  ring, with a proud colour in her face that was a new change, Mr.

  Harthouse thought. 'You are incomprehensible this morning,' said

  Louisa. 'Pray take no further trouble to explain yourself. I am

  not curious to know your meaning. What does it matter?'

  Nothing more was said on this theme, and Mr. Harthouse was soon

  idly gay on indifferent subjects. But from this day, the Sparsit

  action upon Mr. Bounderby threw Louisa and James Harthouse more

  together, and strengthened the dangerous alienation from her

  husband and confidence against him with another, into which she had

  fallen by degrees so fine that she could not retrace them if she

  tried. But whether she ever tried or no, lay hidden in her own

  closed heart.

  Mrs. Sparsit was so much affected on this particular occasion,

  that, assisting Mr. Bounderby to his hat after breakfast, and being

  then alone with him in the hall, she imprinted a chaste kiss upon

  his hand, murmured 'My benefactor!' and retired, overwhelmed with

  grief. Yet it is an indubitable fact, within the cognizance of

  this history, that five minutes after he had left the house in the

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  self-same hat, the same descendant of the Scadgerses and connexion

  by matrimony of the Powlers, shook her right-hand mitten at his

  portrait, made a contemptuous grimace at that work of art, and said