DAY and night again, day and night again. No Stephen Blackpool.
Where was the man, and why did he not come back?
Every night, Sissy went to Rachael's lodging, and sat with her in her small
neat room. All day, Rachael toiled as such people must toil, whatever their
anxieties. The smoke-serpents were indifferent who was lost or found, who turned
out bad or good; the melancholy mad elephants, like the Hard Fact men, abated
nothing of their set routine, whatever happened. Day and night again, day and
night again. The monotony was unbroken. Even Stephen Blackpool's disappearance
was falling into the general way, and becoming as monotonous a wonder as any
piece of machinery in Coketown.
'I misdoubt,' said Rachael, 'if there is as many as twenty left in all this
place, who have any trust in the poor dear lad now.'
She said it to Sissy, as they sat in her lodging, lighted only by the lamp at
the street corner. Sissy had come there when it was already dark, to await her
return from work; and they had since sat at the window where Rachael had found
her, wanting no brighter light to shine on their sorrowful talk.
'If it hadn't been mercifully brought about, that I was to have you to speak
to,' pursued Rachael, 'times are, when I think my mind would not have kept
right. But I get hope and strength through you; and you believe that though
appearances may rise against him, he will be proved clear?'
'I do believe so,' returned Sissy, 'with my whole heart. I feel so certain,
Rachael, that the confidence you hold in yours against all discouragement, is
not like to be wrong, that I have no more doubt of him than if I had known him
through as many years of trial as you have.'
'And I, my dear,' said Rachel, with a tremble in her voice, 'have known him
through them all, to be, according to his quiet ways, so faithful to everything
honest and good, that if he was never to be heard of more, and I was to live to
be a hundred years old, I could say with my last breath, God knows my heart. I
have never once left trusting Stephen Blackpool!'
'We all believe, up at the Lodge, Rachael, that he will be freed from
suspicion, sooner or later.'
'The better I know it to be so believed there, my dear,' said Rachael, 'and
the kinder I feel it that you come away from there, purposely to comfort me, and
keep me company, and be seen wi' me when I am not yet free from all suspicion
myself, the more grieved I am that I should ever have spoken those mistrusting
words to the young lady. And yet I - '
'You don't mistrust her now, Rachael?'
'Now that you have brought us more together, no. But I can't at all times
keep out of my mind - '
Her voice so sunk into a low and slow communing with herself, that Sissy,
sitting by her side, was obliged to listen with attention.
'I can't at all times keep out of my mind, mistrustings of some one. I can't
think who 'tis, I can't think how or why it may be done, but I mistrust that
some one has put Stephen out of the way. I mistrust that by his coming back of
his own accord, and showing himself innocent before them all, some one would be
confounded, who - to prevent that - has stopped him, and put him out of the
way.'
'That is a dreadful thought,' said Sissy, turning pale.
'It is a dreadful thought to think he may be murdered.'
Sissy shuddered, and turned paler yet.
'When it makes its way into my mind, dear,' said Rachael, 'and it will come
sometimes, though I do all I can to keep it out, wi' counting on to high numbers
as I work, and saying over and over again pieces that I knew when I were a child
- I fall into such a wild, hot hurry, that, however tired I am, I want to walk
fast, miles and miles. I must get the better of this before bed-time. I'll walk
home wi' you.'
'He might fall ill upon the journey back,' said Sissy, faintly offering a
worn-out scrap of hope; 'and in such a case, there are many places on the road
where he might stop.'
'But he is in none of them. He has been sought for in all, and he's not
there.'
'True,' was Sissy's reluctant admission.
'He'd walk the journey in two days. If he was footsore and couldn't walk, I
sent him, in the letter he got, the money to ride, lest he should have none of
his own to spare.'
'Let us hope that to-morrow will bring something better, Rachael. Come into
the air!'
Her gentle hand adjusted Rachael's shawl upon her shining black hair in the
usual manner of her wearing it, and they went out. The night being fine, little
knots of Hands were here and there lingering at street corners; but it was
supper-time with the greater part of them, and there were but few people in the
streets.
'You're not so hurried now, Rachael, and your hand is cooler.'
'I get better, dear, if I can only walk, and breathe a little fresh. 'Times
when I can't, I turn weak and confused.'
'But you must not begin to fail, Rachael, for you may be wanted at any time
to stand by Stephen. To-morrow is Saturday. If no news comes to-morrow, let us
walk in the country on Sunday morning, and strengthen you for another week. Will
you go?'
'Yes, dear.'
They were by this time in the street where Mr. Bounderby's house stood. The
way to Sissy's destination led them past the door, and they were going straight
towards it. Some train had newly arrived in Coketown, which had put a number of
vehicles in motion, and scattered a considerable bustle about the town. Several
coaches were rattling before them and behind them as they approached Mr.
Bounderby's, and one of the latter drew up with such briskness as they were in
the act of passing the house, that they looked round involuntarily. The bright
gaslight over Mr. Bounderby's steps showed them Mrs. Sparsit in the coach, in an
ecstasy of excitement, struggling to open the door; Mrs. Sparsit seeing them at
the same moment, called to them to stop.
'It's a coincidence,' exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, as she was released by the
coachman. 'It's a Providence! Come out, ma'am!' then said Mrs. Sparsit, to some
one inside, 'come out, or we'll have you dragged out!'
Hereupon, no other than the mysterious old woman descended. Whom Mrs. Sparsit
incontinently collared.
'Leave her alone, everybody!' cried Mrs. Sparsit, with great energy. 'Let
nobody touch her. She belongs to me. Come in, ma'am!' then said Mrs. Sparsit,
reversing her former word of command. 'Come in, ma'am, or we'll have you dragged
in!'
The spectacle of a matron of classical deportment, seizing an ancient woman
by the throat, and hauling her into a dwelling-house, would have been under any
circumstances, sufficient temptation to all true English stragglers so blest as
to witness it, to force a way into that dwelling-house and see the matter out.
But when the phenomenon was enhanced by the notoriety and mystery by this time
associated all over the town with the Bank robbery, it would have lured the
stragglers in, with an irresistible attraction, though the roof had been
expected to fall upon their heads. Accordingly, the chance witnesses on the
ground, consisting of the busiest of the neighbours to the number of some
five-and-twenty, closed in after Sissy and Rachael, as they closed in after Mrs.
Sparsit and her prize; and the whole body made a disorderly irruption into Mr.
Bounderby's dining-room, where the people behind lost not a moment's time in
mounting on the chairs, to get the better of the people in front.
'Fetch Mr. Bounderby down!' cried Mrs. Sparsit. 'Rachael, young woman; you
know who this is?'
'It's Mrs. Pegler,' said Rachael.
'I should think it is!' cried Mrs. Sparsit, exulting. 'Fetch Mr. Bounderby.
Stand away, everybody!' Here old Mrs. Pegler, muffling herself up, and shrinking
from observation, whispered a word of entreaty. 'Don't tell me,' said Mrs.
Sparsit, aloud. 'I have told you twenty times, coming along, that I will not
leave you till I have handed you over to him myself.'
Mr. Bounderby now appeared, accompanied by Mr. Gradgrind and the whelp, with
whom he had been holding conference up-stairs. Mr. Bounderby looked more
astonished than hospitable, at sight of this uninvited party in his dining-room.
'Why, what's the matter now!' said he. 'Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am?'
'Sir,' explained that worthy woman, 'I trust it is my good fortune to produce
a person you have much desired to find. Stimulated by my wish to relieve your
mind, sir, and connecting together such imperfect clues to the part of the
country in which that person might be supposed to reside, as have been afforded
by the young woman, Rachael, fortunately now present to identify, I have had the
happiness to succeed, and to bring that person with me - I need not say most
unwillingly on her part. It has not been, sir, without some trouble that I have
effected this; but trouble in your service is to me a pleasure, and hunger,
thirst, and cold a real gratification.'
Here Mrs. Sparsit ceased; for Mr. Bounderby's visage exhibited an
extraordinary combination of all possible colours and expressions of
discomfiture, as old Mrs. Pegler was disclosed to his view.
'Why, what do you mean by this?' was his highly unexpected demand, in great
warmth. 'I ask you, what do you mean by this, Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am?'
'Sir!' exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, faintly.
'Why don't you mind your own business, ma'am?' roared Bounderby. 'How dare
you go and poke your officious nose into my family affairs?'
This allusion to her favourite feature overpowered Mrs. Sparsit. She sat down
stiffly in a chair, as if she were frozen; and with a fixed stare at Mr.
Bounderby, slowly grated her mittens against one another, as if they were frozen
too.
'My dear Josiah!' cried Mrs. Pegler, trembling. 'My darling boy! I am not to
blame. It's not my fault, Josiah. I told this lady over and over again, that I
knew she was doing what would not be agreeable to you, but she would do it.'
'What did you let her bring you for? Couldn't you knock her cap off, or her
tooth out, or scratch her, or do something or other to her?' asked Bounderby.
'My own boy! She threatened me that if I resisted her, I should be brought by
constables, and it was better to come quietly than make that stir in such a' -
Mrs. Pegler glanced timidly but proudly round the walls - 'such a fine house as
this. Indeed, indeed, it is not my fault! My dear, noble, stately boy! I have
always lived quiet, and secret, Josiah, my dear. I have never broken the
condition once. I have never said I was your mother. I have admired you at a
distance; and if I have come to town sometimes, with long times between, to take
a proud peep at you, I have done it unbeknown, my love, and gone away again.'
Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his pockets, walked in impatient
mortification up and down at the side of the long dining-table, while the
spectators greedily took in every syllable of Mrs. Pegler's appeal, and at each
succeeding syllable became more and more round-eyed. Mr. Bounderby still walking
up and down when Mrs. Pegler had done, Mr. Gradgrind addressed that maligned old
lady:
'I am surprised, madam,' he observed with severity, 'that in your old age you
have the face to claim Mr. Bounderby for your son, after your unnatural and
inhuman treatment of him.'
'Me unnatural!' cried poor old Mrs. Pegler. 'Me inhuman! To my dear boy?'
'Dear!' repeated Mr. Gradgrind. 'Yes; dear in his self-made prosperity,
madam, I dare say. Not very dear, however, when you deserted him in his infancy,
and left him to the brutality of a drunken grandmother.'
'I deserted my Josiah!' cried Mrs. Pegler, clasping her hands. 'Now, Lord
forgive you, sir, for your wicked imaginations, and for your scandal against the
memory of my poor mother, who died in my arms before Josiah was born. May you
repent of it, sir, and live to know better!'
She was so very earnest and injured, that Mr. Gradgrind, shocked by the
possibility which dawned upon him, said in a gentler tone:
'Do you deny, then, madam, that you left your son to - to be brought up in
the gutter?'
'Josiah in the gutter!' exclaimed Mrs. Pegler. 'No such a thing, sir. Never!
For shame on you! My dear boy knows, and will give you to know, that though he
come of humble parents, he come of parents that loved him as dear as the best
could, and never thought it hardship on themselves to pinch a bit that he might
write and cipher beautiful, and I've his books at home to show it! Aye, have I!'
said Mrs. Pegler, with indignant pride. 'And my dear boy knows, and will give
you to know, sir, that after his beloved father died, when he was eight years
old, his mother, too, could pinch a bit, as it was her duty and her pleasure and
her pride to do it, to help him out in life, and put him 'prentice. And a steady
lad he was, and a kind master he had to lend him a hand, and well he worked his
own way forward to be rich and thriving. And I'll give you to know, sir - for
this my dear boy won't - that though his mother kept but a little village shop,
he never forgot her, but pensioned me on thirty pound a year - more than I want,
for I put by out of it - only making the condition that I was to keep down in my
own part, and make no boasts about him, and not trouble him. And I never have,
except with looking at him once a year, when he has never knowed it. And it's
right,' said poor old Mrs. Pegler, in affectionate championship, 'that I should
keep down in my own part, and I have no doubts that if I was here I should do a
many unbefitting things, and I am well contented, and I can keep my pride in my
Josiah to myself, and I can love for love's own sake! And I am ashamed of you,
sir,' said Mrs. Pegler, lastly, 'for your slanders and suspicions. And I never
stood here before, nor never wanted to stand here when my dear son said no. And
I shouldn't be here now, if it hadn't been for being brought here. And for shame
upon you, Oh, for shame, to accuse me of being a bad mother to my son, with my
son standing here to tell you so different!'
The bystanders, on and off the dining-room chairs, raised a murmur of
sympathy with Mrs. Pegler, and Mr. Gradgrind felt himself innocently placed in a
very distressing predicament, when Mr. Bounderby, who had never ceased walking
up and down, and had every moment swelled larger and larger, and grown redder
and redder, stopped short.
'I don't exactly know,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'how I come to be favoured with
the attendance of the present company, but I don't inquire. When they're quite
satisfied, perhaps they'll be so good as to disperse; whether they're satisfied
or not, perhaps they'll be so good as to disperse. I'm not bound to deliver a
lecture on my family affairs, I have not undertaken to do it, and I'm not a
going to do it. Therefore those who expect any explanation whatever upon that
branch of the subject, will be disappointed - particularly Tom Gradgrind, and he
can't know it too soon. In reference to the Bank robbery, there has been a
mistake made, concerning my mother. If there hadn't been over-officiousness it
wouldn't have been made, and I hate over-officiousness at all times, whether or
no. Good evening!'
Although Mr. Bounderby carried it off in these terms, holding the door open
for the company to depart, there was a blustering sheepishness upon him, at once
extremely crestfallen and superlatively absurd. Detected as the Bully of
humility, who had built his windy reputation upon lies, and in his boastfulness
had put the honest truth as far away from him as if he had advanced the mean
claim (there is no meaner) to tack himself on to a pedigree, he cut a most
ridiculous figure. With the people filing off at the door he held, who he knew
would carry what had passed to the whole town, to be given to the four winds, he
could not have looked a Bully more shorn and forlorn, if he had had his ears
cropped. Even that unlucky female, Mrs. Sparsit, fallen from her pinnacle of
exultation into the Slough of Despond, was not in so bad a plight as that
remarkable man and self-made Humbug, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown.
Rachael and Sissy, leaving Mrs. Pegler to occupy a bed at her son's for that
night, walked together to the gate of Stone Lodge and there parted. Mr.
Gradgrind joined them before they had gone very far, and spoke with much
interest of Stephen Blackpool; for whom he thought this signal failure of the
suspicions against Mrs. Pegler was likely to work well.
As to the whelp; throughout this scene as on all other late occasions, he had
stuck close to Bounderby. He seemed to feel that as long as Bounderby could make
no discovery without his knowledge, he was so far safe. He never visited his
sister, and had only seen her once since she went home: that is to say on the
night when he still stuck close to Bounderby, as already related.
There was one dim unformed fear lingering about his sister's mind, to which
she never gave utterance, which surrounded the graceless and ungrateful boy with
a dreadful mystery. The same dark possibility had presented itself in the same
shapeless guise, this very day, to Sissy, when Rachael spoke of some one who
would be confounded by Stephen's return, having put him out of the way. Louisa
had never spoken of harbouring any suspicion of her brother in connexion with
the robbery, she and Sissy had held no confidence on the subject, save in that
one interchange of looks when the unconscious father rested his gray head on his
hand; but it was understood between them, and they both knew it. This other fear
was so awful, that it hovered about each of them like a ghostly shadow; neither
daring to think of its being near herself, far less of its being near the other.
And still the forced spirit which the whelp had plucked up, throve with him.
If Stephen Blackpool was not the thief, let him show
himself. Why didn't he?
Another night. Another day and night. No Stephen Blackpool. Where was the
man, and why did he not come back?
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