Hard Times
She knew them in crowds passing to and from their nests, like ants or
beetles. But she knew from her reading infinitely more of the ways of
toiling insects than of these toiling men and women.
Something to be worked so much and paid so much, and there ended;
something to be infallibly settled by laws of supply and demand;
something that blundered against those laws, and floundered into
difficulty; something that was a little pinched when wheat was dear, and
over-ate itself when wheat was cheap; something that increased at such a
rate of percentage, and yielded such another percentage of crime, and
such another percentage of pauperism; something wholesale, of which vast
fortunes were made; something that occasionally rose like a sea, and did
some harm and waste (chiefly to itself), and fell again; this she knew
the Coketown Hands to be. But, she had scarcely thought more of
separating them into units, than of separating the sea itself into its
component drops.
She stood for some moments looking round the room. From the few chairs,
the few books, the common prints, and the bed, she glanced to the two
women, and to Stephen.
‘I have come to speak to you, in consequence of what passed just now. I
should like to be serviceable to you, if you will let me. Is this your
wife?’
Rachael raised her eyes, and they sufficiently answered no, and dropped
again.
‘I remember,’ said Louisa, reddening at her mistake; ‘I recollect, now,
to have heard your domestic misfortunes spoken of, though I was not
attending to the particulars at the time. It was not my meaning to ask a
question that would give pain to any one here. If I should ask any other
question that may happen to have that result, give me credit, if you
please, for being in ignorance how to speak to you as I ought.’
As Stephen had but a little while ago instinctively addressed himself to
her, so she now instinctively addressed herself to Rachael. Her manner
was short and abrupt, yet faltering and timid.
‘He has told you what has passed between himself and my husband? You
would be his first resource, I think.’
‘I have heard the end of it, young lady,’ said Rachael.
‘Did I understand, that, being rejected by one employer, he would
probably be rejected by all? I thought he said as much?’
‘The chances are very small, young lady—next to nothing—for a man who
gets a bad name among them.’
‘What shall I understand that you mean by a bad name?’
‘The name of being troublesome.’
‘Then, by the prejudices of his own class, and by the prejudices of the
other, he is sacrificed alike? Are the two so deeply separated in this
town, that there is no place whatever for an honest workman between
them?’
Rachael shook her head in silence.
‘He fell into suspicion,’ said Louisa, ‘with his fellow-weavers,
because—he had made a promise not to be one of them. I think it must
have been to you that he made that promise. Might I ask you why he made
it?’
Rachael burst into tears. ‘I didn’t seek it of him, poor lad. I prayed
him to avoid trouble for his own good, little thinking he’d come to it
through me. But I know he’d die a hundred deaths, ere ever he’d break
his word. I know that of him well.’
Stephen had remained quietly attentive, in his usual thoughtful attitude,
with his hand at his chin. He now spoke in a voice rather less steady
than usual.
‘No one, excepting myseln, can ever know what honour, an’ what love, an’
respect, I bear to Rachael, or wi’ what cause. When I passed that
promess, I towd her true, she were th’ Angel o’ my life. ’Twere a solemn
promess. ’Tis gone fro’ me, for ever.’
Louisa turned her head to him, and bent it with a deference that was new
in her. She looked from him to Rachael, and her features softened.
‘What will you do?’ she asked him. And her voice had softened too.
‘Weel, ma’am,’ said Stephen, making the best of it, with a smile; ‘when I
ha finished off, I mun quit this part, and try another. Fortnet or
misfortnet, a man can but try; there’s nowt to be done wi’out tryin’—cept
laying down and dying.’
‘How will you travel?’
‘Afoot, my kind ledy, afoot.’
Louisa coloured, and a purse appeared in her hand. The rustling of a
bank-note was audible, as she unfolded one and laid it on the table.
‘Rachael, will you tell him—for you know how, without offence—that this
is freely his, to help him on his way? Will you entreat him to take it?’
‘I canna do that, young lady,’ she answered, turning her head aside.
‘Bless you for thinking o’ the poor lad wi’ such tenderness. But ’tis
for him to know his heart, and what is right according to it.’
Louisa looked, in part incredulous, in part frightened, in part overcome
with quick sympathy, when this man of so much self-command, who had been
so plain and steady through the late interview, lost his composure in a
moment, and now stood with his hand before his face. She stretched out
hers, as if she would have touched him; then checked herself, and
remained still.
‘Not e’en Rachael,’ said Stephen, when he stood again with his face
uncovered, ‘could mak sitch a kind offerin, by onny words, kinder. T’
show that I’m not a man wi’out reason and gratitude, I’ll tak two pound.
I’ll borrow ’t for t’ pay ’t back. ’Twill be the sweetest work as ever I
ha done, that puts it in my power t’ acknowledge once more my lastin
thankfulness for this present action.’
She was fain to take up the note again, and to substitute the much
smaller sum he had named. He was neither courtly, nor handsome, nor
picturesque, in any respect; and yet his manner of accepting it, and of
expressing his thanks without more words, had a grace in it that Lord
Chesterfield could not have taught his son in a century.
Tom had sat upon the bed, swinging one leg and sucking his walking-stick
with sufficient unconcern, until the visit had attained this stage.
Seeing his sister ready to depart, he got up, rather hurriedly, and put
in a word.
‘Just wait a moment, Loo! Before we go, I should like to speak to him a
moment. Something comes into my head. If you’ll step out on the stairs,
Blackpool, I’ll mention it. Never mind a light, man!’ Tom was
remarkably impatient of his moving towards the cupboard, to get one. ‘It
don’t want a light.’
Stephen followed him out, and Tom closed the room door, and held the lock
in his hand.
‘I say!’ he whispered. ‘I think I can do you a good turn. Don’t ask me
what it is, because it may not come to anything. But there’s no harm in
my trying.’
His breath fell like a flame of fire on Stephen’s ear, it was so hot.
‘That was our light porter at the Bank,’ said Tom, ‘who brought you the
message to-night. I call him our light porter, because I belong to the
Bank too.’
Stephen thought, ‘What a hurry he is in!’ He spoke so confusedly.
‘Well!’ said Tom. ‘Now look here! When are you off?’
‘T’ day’s Monday,’ replied Stephen, considering. ‘Why, sir, Friday or
Saturday, nigh ’bout.’
‘Friday or Saturday,’ said Tom. ‘Now look here! I am not sure that I
can do you the good turn I want to do you—that’s my sister, you know, in
your room—but I may be able to, and if I should not be able to, there’s
no harm done. So I tell you what. You’ll know our light porter again?’
‘Yes, sure,’ said Stephen.
‘Very well,’ returned Tom. ‘When you leave work of a night, between this
and your going away, just hang about the Bank an hour or so, will you?
Don’t take on, as if you meant anything, if he should see you hanging
about there; because I shan’t put him up to speak to you, unless I find I
can do you the service I want to do you. In that case he’ll have a note
or a message for you, but not else. Now look here! You are sure you
understand.’
He had wormed a finger, in the darkness, through a button-hole of
Stephen’s coat, and was screwing that corner of the garment tight up
round and round, in an extraordinary manner.
‘I understand, sir,’ said Stephen.
‘Now look here!’ repeated Tom. ‘Be sure you don’t make any mistake then,
and don’t forget. I shall tell my sister as we go home, what I have in
view, and she’ll approve, I know. Now look here! You’re all right, are
you? You understand all about it? Very well then. Come along, Loo!’
He pushed the door open as he called to her, but did not return into the
room, or wait to be lighted down the narrow stairs. He was at the bottom
when she began to descend, and was in the street before she could take
his arm.
Mrs. Pegler remained in her corner until the brother and sister were
gone, and until Stephen came back with the candle in his hand. She was
in a state of inexpressible admiration of Mrs. Bounderby, and, like an
unaccountable old woman, wept, ‘because she was such a pretty dear.’ Yet
Mrs. Pegler was so flurried lest the object of her admiration should
return by chance, or anybody else should come, that her cheerfulness was
ended for that night. It was late too, to people who rose early and
worked hard; therefore the party broke up; and Stephen and Rachael
escorted their mysterious acquaintance to the door of the Travellers’
Coffee House, where they parted from her.
They walked back together to the corner of the street where Rachael
lived, and as they drew nearer and nearer to it, silence crept upon them.
When they came to the dark corner where their unfrequent meetings always
ended, they stopped, still silent, as if both were afraid to speak.
‘I shall strive t’ see thee agen, Rachael, afore I go, but if not—’
‘Thou wilt not, Stephen, I know. ’Tis better that we make up our minds
to be open wi’ one another.’
‘Thou’rt awlus right. ’Tis bolder and better. I ha been thinkin then,
Rachael, that as ’tis but a day or two that remains, ’twere better for
thee, my dear, not t’ be seen wi’ me. ’T might bring thee into trouble,
fur no good.’
‘’Tis not for that, Stephen, that I mind. But thou know’st our old
agreement. ’Tis for that.’
‘Well, well,’ said he. ‘’Tis better, onnyways.’
‘Thou’lt write to me, and tell me all that happens, Stephen?’
‘Yes. What can I say now, but Heaven be wi’ thee, Heaven bless thee,
Heaven thank thee and reward thee!’
‘May it bless thee, Stephen, too, in all thy wanderings, and send thee
peace and rest at last!’
‘I towd thee, my dear,’ said Stephen Blackpool—‘that night—that I would
never see or think o’ onnything that angered me, but thou, so much better
than me, should’st be beside it. Thou’rt beside it now. Thou mak’st me
see it wi’ a better eye. Bless thee. Good night. Good-bye!’
It was but a hurried parting in a common street, yet it was a sacred
remembrance to these two common people. Utilitarian economists,
skeletons of schoolmasters, Commissioners of Fact, genteel and used-up
infidels, gabblers of many little dog’s-eared creeds, the poor you will
have always with you. Cultivate in them, while there is yet time, the
utmost graces of the fancies and affections, to adorn their lives so much
in need of ornament; or, in the day of your triumph, when romance is
utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare existence stand
face to face, Reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you.
Stephen worked the next day, and the next, uncheered by a word from any
one, and shunned in all his comings and goings as before. At the end of
the second day, he saw land; at the end of the third, his loom stood
empty.
He had overstayed his hour in the street outside the Bank, on each of the
two first evenings; and nothing had happened there, good or bad. That he
might not be remiss in his part of the engagement, he resolved to wait
full two hours, on this third and last night.
There was the lady who had once kept Mr. Bounderby’s house, sitting at