THE indefatigable Mrs. Sparsit, with a violent cold upon her,
her voice reduced to a whisper, and her stately frame so racked by continual
sneezes that it seemed in danger of dismemberment, gave chase to her patron
until she found him in the metropolis; and there, majestically sweeping in upon
him at his hotel in St. James's Street, exploded the combustibles with which she
was charged, and blew up. Having executed her mission with infinite relish, this
high-minded woman then fainted away on Mr. Bounderby's coat-collar.
Mr. Bounderby's first procedure was to shake Mrs. Sparsit off, and leave her
to progress as she might through various stages of suffering on the floor. He
next had recourse to the administration of potent restoratives, such as screwing
the patient's thumbs, smiting her hands, abundantly watering her face, and
inserting salt in her mouth. When these attentions had recovered her (which they
speedily did), he hustled her into a fast train without offering any other
refreshment, and carried her back to Coketown more dead than alive.
Regarded as a classical ruin, Mrs. Sparsit was an interesting spectacle on
her arrival at her journey's end; but considered in any other light, the amount
of damage she had by that time sustained was excessive, and impaired her claims
to admiration. Utterly heedless of the wear and tear of her clothes and
constitution, and adamant to her pathetic sneezes, Mr. Bounderby immediately
crammed her into a coach, and bore her off to Stone Lodge.
'Now, Tom Gradgrind,' said Bounderby, bursting into his father-in- law's room
late at night; 'here's a lady here - Mrs. Sparsit - you know Mrs. Sparsit - who
has something to say to you that will strike you dumb.'
'You have missed my letter!' exclaimed Mr. Gradgrind, surprised by the
apparition.
'Missed your letter, sir!' bawled Bounderby. 'The present time is no time for
letters. No man shall talk to Josiah Bounderby of Coketown about letters, with
his mind in the state it's in now.'
'Bounderby,' said Mr. Gradgrind, in a tone of temperate remonstrance, 'I
speak of a very special letter I have written to you, in reference to Louisa.'
'Tom Gradgrind,' replied Bounderby, knocking the flat of his hand several
times with great vehemence on the table, 'I speak of a very special messenger
that has come to me, in reference to Louisa. Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am, stand
forward!'
That unfortunate lady hereupon essaying to offer testimony, without any voice
and with painful gestures expressive of an inflamed throat, became so
aggravating and underwent so many facial contortions, that Mr. Bounderby, unable
to bear it, seized her by the arm and shook her.
'If you can't get it out, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'leave me to get it out.
This is not a time for a lady, however highly connected, to be totally
inaudible, and seemingly swallowing marbles. Tom Gradgrind, Mrs. Sparsit
latterly found herself, by accident, in a situation to overhear a conversation
out of doors between your daughter and your precious gentleman-friend, Mr. James
Harthouse.'
'Indeed!' said Mr. Gradgrind.
'Ah! Indeed!' cried Bounderby. 'And in that conversation - '
'It is not necessary to repeat its tenor, Bounderby. I know what passed.'
'You do? Perhaps,' said Bounderby, staring with all his might at his so quiet
and assuasive father-in-law, 'you know where your daughter is at the present
time!'
'Undoubtedly. She is here.'
'Here?'
'My dear Bounderby, let me beg you to restrain these loud out- breaks, on all
accounts. Louisa is here. The moment she could detach herself from that
interview with the person of whom you speak, and whom I deeply regret to have
been the means of introducing to you, Louisa hurried here, for protection. I
myself had not been at home many hours, when I received her - here, in this
room. She hurried by the train to town, she ran from town to this house, through
a raging storm, and presented herself before me in a state of distraction. Of
course, she has remained here ever since. Let me entreat you, for your own sake
and for hers, to be more quiet.'
Mr. Bounderby silently gazed about him for some moments, in every direction
except Mrs. Sparsit's direction; and then, abruptly turning upon the niece of
Lady Scadgers, said to that wretched woman:
'Now, ma'am! We shall be happy to hear any little apology you may think
proper to offer, for going about the country at express pace, with no other
luggage than a Cock-and-a-Bull, ma'am!'
'Sir,' whispered Mrs. Sparsit, 'my nerves are at present too much shaken, and
my health is at present too much impaired, in your service, to admit of my doing
more than taking refuge in tears.' (Which she did.)
'Well, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'without making any observation to you that
may not be made with propriety to a woman of good family, what I have got to add
to that, is that there is something else in which it appears to me you may take
refuge, namely, a coach. And the coach in which we came here being at the door,
you'll allow me to hand you down to it, and pack you home to the Bank: where the
best course for you to pursue, will be to put your feet into the hottest water
you can bear, and take a glass of scalding rum and butter after you get into
bed.' With these words, Mr. Bounderby extended his right hand to the weeping
lady, and escorted her to the conveyance in question, shedding many plaintive
sneezes by the way. He soon returned alone.
'Now, as you showed me in your face, Tom Gradgrind, that you wanted to speak
to me,' he resumed, 'here I am. But, I am not in a very agreeable state, I tell
you plainly: not relishing this business, even as it is, and not considering
that I am at any time as dutifully and submissively treated by your daughter, as
Josiah Bounderby of Coketown ought to be treated by his wife. You have your
opinion, I dare say; and I have mine, I know. If you mean to say anything to me
to-night, that goes against this candid remark, you had better let it alone.'
Mr. Gradgrind, it will be observed, being much softened, Mr. Bounderby took
particular pains to harden himself at all points. It was his amiable nature.
'My dear Bounderby,' Mr. Gradgrind began in reply.
'Now, you'll excuse me,' said Bounderby, 'but I don't want to be too dear.
That, to start with. When I begin to be dear to a man, I generally find that his
intention is to come over me. I am not speaking to you politely; but, as you are
aware, I am not polite. If you like politeness, you know where to get it. You
have your gentleman-friends, you know, and they'll serve you with as much of the
article as you want. I don't keep it myself.'
'Bounderby,' urged Mr. Gradgrind, 'we are all liable to mistakes - '
'I thought you couldn't make 'em,' interrupted Bounderby.
'Perhaps I thought so. But, I say we are all liable to mistakes and I should
feel sensible of your delicacy, and grateful for it, if you would spare me these
references to Harthouse. I shall not associate him in our conversation with your
intimacy and encouragement; pray do not persist in connecting him with mine.'
'I never mentioned his name!' said Bounderby.
'Well, well!' returned Mr. Gradgrind, with a patient, even a submissive, air.
And he sat for a little while pondering. 'Bounderby, I see reason to doubt
whether we have ever quite understood Louisa.'
'Who do you mean by We?'
'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.
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