Hard Times

by Dickens, Charles

  'May I inquire, sir,' pursued the injured woman, 'whether I am the

  unfortunate cause of your having lost your temper?'

  'Now, I'll tell you what, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'I am not come

  here to be bullied. A female may be highly connected, but she

  can't be permitted to bother and badger a man in my position, and I

  am not going to put up with it.' (Mr. Bounderby felt it necessary

  to get on: foreseeing that if he allowed of details, he would be

  beaten.)

  Mrs. Sparsit first elevated, then knitted, her Coriolanian

  eyebrows; gathered up her work into its proper basket; and rose.

  'Sir,' said she, majestically. 'It is apparent to me that I am in

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  your way at present. I will retire to my own apartment.'

  'Allow me to open the door, ma'am.'

  'Thank you, sir; I can do it for myself.'

  'You had better allow me, ma'am,' said Bounderby, passing her, and

  getting his hand upon the lock; 'because I can take the opportunity

  of saying a word to you, before you go. Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am, I

  rather think you are cramped here, do you know? It appears to me,

  that, under my humble roof, there's hardly opening enough for a

  lady of your genius in other people's affairs.'

  Mrs. Sparsit gave him a look of the darkest scorn, and said with

  great politeness, 'Really, sir?'

  'I have been thinking it over, you see, since the late affairs have

  happened, ma'am,' said Bounderby; 'and it appears to my poor

  judgment - '

  'Oh! Pray, sir,' Mrs. Sparsit interposed, with sprightly

  cheerfulness, 'don't disparage your judgment. Everybody knows how

  unerring Mr. Bounderby's judgment is. Everybody has had proofs of

  it. It must be the theme of general conversation. Disparage

  anything in yourself but your judgment, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit,

  laughing.

  Mr. Bounderby, very red and uncomfortable, resumed:

  'It appears to me, ma'am, I say, that a different sort of

  establishment altogether would bring out a lady of your powers.

  Such an establishment as your relation, Lady Scadgers's, now.

  Don't you think you might find some affairs there, ma'am, to

  interfere with?'

  'It never occurred to me before, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit; 'but

  now you mention it, should think it highly probable.'

  'Then suppose you try, ma'am,' said Bounderby, laying an envelope

  with a cheque in it in her little basket. 'You can take your own

  time for going, ma'am; but perhaps in the meanwhile, it will be

  more agreeable to a lady of your powers of mind, to eat her meals

  by herself, and not to be intruded upon. I really ought to

  apologise to you - being only Josiah Bounderby of Coketown - for

  having stood in your light so long.'

  'Pray don't name it, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit. 'If that

  portrait could speak, sir - but it has the advantage over the

  original of not possessing the power of committing itself and

  disgusting others, - it would testify, that a long period has

  elapsed since I first habitually addressed it as the picture of a

  Noodle. Nothing that a Noodle does, can awaken surprise or

  indignation; the proceedings of a Noodle can only inspire

  contempt.'

  Thus saying, Mrs. Sparsit, with her Roman features like a medal

  struck to commemorate her scorn of Mr. Bounderby, surveyed him

  fixedly from head to foot, swept disdainfully past him, and

  ascended the staircase. Mr. Bounderby closed the door, and stood

  before the fire; projecting himself after his old explosive manner

  into his portrait - and into futurity.

  Into how much of futurity? He saw Mrs. Sparsit fighting out a

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  daily fight at the points of all the weapons in the female armoury,

  with the grudging, smarting, peevish, tormenting Lady Scadgers,

  still laid up in bed with her mysterious leg, and gobbling her

  insufficient income down by about the middle of every quarter, in a

  mean little airless lodging, a mere closet for one, a mere crib for

  two; but did he see more? Did he catch any glimpse of himself

  making a show of Bitzer to strangers, as the rising young man, so

  devoted to his master's great merits, who had won young Tom's

  place, and had almost captured young Tom himself, in the times when

  by various rascals he was spirited away? Did he see any faint

  reflection of his own image making a vain-glorious will, whereby

  five-and-twenty Humbugs, past five-and-fifty years of age, each

  taking upon himself the name, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, should

  for ever dine in Bounderby Hall, for ever lodge in Bounderby

  buildings, for ever attend a Bounderby chapel, for ever go to sleep

  under a Bounderby chaplain, for ever be supported out of a

  Bounderby estate, and for ever nauseate all healthy stomachs, with

  a vast amount of Bounderby balderdash and bluster? Had he any

  prescience of the day, five years to come, when Josiah Bounderby of

  Coketown was to die of a fit in the Coketown street, and this same

  precious will was to begin its long career of quibble, plunder,

  false pretences, vile example, little service and much law?

  Probably not. Yet the portrait was to see it all out.

  Here was Mr. Gradgrind on the same day, and in the same hour,

  sitting thoughtful in his own room. How much of futurity did he

  see? Did he see himself, a white-haired decrepit man, bending his

  hitherto inflexible theories to appointed circumstances; making his

  facts and figures subservient to Faith, Hope, and Charity; and no

  longer trying to grind that Heavenly trio in his dusty little

  mills? Did he catch sight of himself, therefore much despised by

  his late political associates? Did he see them, in the era of its

  being quite settled that the national dustmen have only to do with

  one another, and owe no duty to an abstraction called a People,

  'taunting the honourable gentleman' with this and with that and

  with what not, five nights a-week, until the small hours of the

  morning? Probably he had that much foreknowledge, knowing his men.

  Here was Louisa on the night of the same day, watching the fire as

  in days of yore, though with a gentler and a humbler face. How

  much of the future might arise before her vision? Broadsides in

  the streets, signed with her father's name, exonerating the late

  Stephen Blackpool, weaver, from misplaced suspicion, and publishing

  the guilt of his own son, with such extenuation as his years and

  temptation (he could not bring himself to add, his education) might

  beseech; were of the Present. So, Stephen Blackpool's tombstone,

  with her father's record of his death, was almost of the Present,

  for she knew it was to be. These things she could plainly see.

  But, how much of the Future?

  A working woman, christened Rachael, after a long illness once

  again appearing at the ringing of the Factory bell, and passing to

  and fro at the set hours, among the Coketown Hands; a woman of

  pensive beauty, always dressed in black, but sweet-tempered and

  s
erene, and even cheerful; who, of all the people in the place,

  alone appeared to have compassion on a degraded, drunken wretch of

  her own sex, who was sometimes seen in the town secretly begging of

  her, and crying to her; a woman working, ever working, but content

  to do it, and preferring to do it as her natural lot, until she

  should be too old to labour any more? Did Louisa see this? Such a

  thing was to be.

  A lonely brother, many thousands of miles away, writing, on paper

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  blotted with tears, that her words had too soon come true, and that

  all the treasures in the world would be cheaply bartered for a

  sight of her dear face? At length this brother coming nearer home,

  with hope of seeing her, and being delayed by illness; and then a

  letter, in a strange hand, saying 'he died in hospital, of fever,

  such a day, and died in penitence and love of you: his last word

  being your name'? Did Louisa see these things? Such things were

  to be.

  Herself again a wife - a mother - lovingly watchful of her

  children, ever careful that they should have a childhood of the

  mind no less than a childhood of the body, as knowing it to be even

  a more beautiful thing, and a possession, any hoarded scrap of

  which, is a blessing and happiness to the wisest? Did Louisa see

  this? Such a thing was never to be.

  But, happy Sissy's happy children loving her; all children loving

  her; she, grown learned in childish lore; thinking no innocent and

  pretty fancy ever to be despised; trying hard to know her humbler

  fellow-creatures, and to beautify their lives of machinery and

  reality with those imaginative graces and delights, without which

  the heart of infancy will wither up, the sturdiest physical manhood

  will be morally stark death, and the plainest national prosperity

  figures can show, will be the Writing on the Wall, - she holding

  this course as part of no fantastic vow, or bond, or brotherhood,

  or sisterhood, or pledge, or covenant, or fancy dress, or fancy

  fair; but simply as a duty to be done, - did Louisa see these

  things of herself? These things were to be.

  Dear reader! It rests with you and me, whether, in our two fields

  of action, similar things shall be or not. Let them be! We shall

  sit with lighter bosoms on the hearth, to see the ashes of our

  fires turn gray and cold.

  [*End*]

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