IT is a dangerous thing to see anything in the sphere of a vain
blusterer, before the vain blusterer sees it himself. Mr. Bounderby felt that
Mrs. Sparsit had audaciously anticipated him, and presumed to be wiser than he.
Inappeasably indignant with her for her triumphant discovery of Mrs. Pegler, he
turned this presumption, on the part of a woman in her dependent position, over
and over in his mind, until it accumulated with turning like a great snowball.
At last he made the discovery that to discharge this highly connected female -
to have it in his power to say, 'She was a woman of family, and wanted to stick
to me, but I wouldn't have it, and got rid of her' - would be to get the utmost
possible amount of crowning glory out of the connection, and at the same time to
punish Mrs. Sparsit according to her deserts.
Filled fuller than ever, with this great idea, Mr. Bounderby came in to
lunch, and sat himself down in the dining-room of former days, where his
portrait was. Mrs. Sparsit sat by the fire, with her foot in her cotton stirrup,
little thinking whither she was posting.
Since the Pegler affair, this gentlewoman had covered her pity for Mr.
Bounderby with a veil of quiet melancholy and contrition. In virtue thereof, it
had become her habit to assume a woful look, which woful look she now bestowed
upon her patron.
'What's the matter now, ma'am?' said Mr. Bounderby, in a very short, rough
way.
'Pray, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'do not bite my nose off.'
'Bite your nose off, ma'am?' repeated Mr. Bounderby. 'Your nose!' meaning, as
Mrs. Sparsit conceived, that it was too developed a nose for the purpose. After
which offensive implication, he cut himself a crust of bread, and threw the
knife down with a noise.
Mrs. Sparsit took her foot out of her stirrup, and said, 'Mr. Bounderby,
sir!'
'Well, ma'am?' retorted Mr. Bounderby. 'What are you staring at?'
'May I ask, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'have you been ruffled this morning?'
'Yes, ma'am.'
'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 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 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 serene, 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 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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