Hard Times
or other to say anything at all about those statements, good or bad, I am
obliged to confront her with your daughter.’
‘You have seen me once before, young lady,’ said Rachael, standing in
front of Louisa.
Tom coughed.
‘You have seen me, young lady,’ repeated Rachael, as she did not answer,
‘once before.’
Tom coughed again.
‘I have.’
Rachael cast her eyes proudly towards Mr. Bounderby, and said, ‘Will you
make it known, young lady, where, and who was there?’
‘I went to the house where Stephen Blackpool lodged, on the night of his
discharge from his work, and I saw you there. He was there too; and an
old woman who did not speak, and whom I could scarcely see, stood in a
dark corner. My brother was with me.’
‘Why couldn’t you say so, young Tom?’ demanded Bounderby.
‘I promised my sister I wouldn’t.’ Which Louisa hastily confirmed. ‘And
besides,’ said the whelp bitterly, ‘she tells her own story so precious
well—and so full—that what business had I to take it out of her mouth!’
‘Say, young lady, if you please,’ pursued Rachael, ‘why, in an evil hour,
you ever came to Stephen’s that night.’
‘I felt compassion for him,’ said Louisa, her colour deepening, ‘and I
wished to know what he was going to do, and wished to offer him
assistance.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Bounderby. ‘Much flattered and obliged.’
‘Did you offer him,’ asked Rachael, ‘a bank-note?’
‘Yes; but he refused it, and would only take two pounds in gold.’
Rachael cast her eyes towards Mr. Bounderby again.
‘Oh, certainly!’ said Bounderby. ‘If you put the question whether your
ridiculous and improbable account was true or not, I am bound to say it’s
confirmed.’
‘Young lady,’ said Rachael, ‘Stephen Blackpool is now named as a thief in
public print all over this town, and where else! There have been a
meeting to-night where he have been spoken of in the same shameful way.
Stephen! The honestest lad, the truest lad, the best!’ Her indignation
failed her, and she broke off sobbing.
‘I am very, very sorry,’ said Louisa.
‘Oh, young lady, young lady,’ returned Rachael, ‘I hope you may be, but I
don’t know! I can’t say what you may ha’ done! The like of you don’t
know us, don’t care for us, don’t belong to us. I am not sure why you
may ha’ come that night. I can’t tell but what you may ha’ come wi’ some
aim of your own, not mindin to what trouble you brought such as the poor
lad. I said then, Bless you for coming; and I said it of my heart, you
seemed to take so pitifully to him; but I don’t know now, I don’t know!’
Louisa could not reproach her for her unjust suspicions; she was so
faithful to her idea of the man, and so afflicted.
‘And when I think,’ said Rachael through her sobs, ‘that the poor lad was
so grateful, thinkin you so good to him—when I mind that he put his hand
over his hard-worken face to hide the tears that you brought up there—Oh,
I hope you may be sorry, and ha’ no bad cause to be it; but I don’t know,
I don’t know!’
‘You’re a pretty article,’ growled the whelp, moving uneasily in his dark
corner, ‘to come here with these precious imputations! You ought to be
bundled out for not knowing how to behave yourself, and you would be by
rights.’
She said nothing in reply; and her low weeping was the only sound that
was heard, until Mr. Bounderby spoke.
‘Come!’ said he, ‘you know what you have engaged to do. You had better
give your mind to that; not this.’
‘’Deed, I am loath,’ returned Rachael, drying her eyes, ‘that any here
should see me like this; but I won’t be seen so again. Young lady, when
I had read what’s put in print of Stephen—and what has just as much truth
in it as if it had been put in print of you—I went straight to the Bank
to say I knew where Stephen was, and to give a sure and certain promise
that he should be here in two days. I couldn’t meet wi’ Mr. Bounderby
then, and your brother sent me away, and I tried to find you, but you was
not to be found, and I went back to work. Soon as I come out of the Mill
to-night, I hastened to hear what was said of Stephen—for I know wi’
pride he will come back to shame it!—and then I went again to seek Mr.
Bounderby, and I found him, and I told him every word I knew; and he
believed no word I said, and brought me here.’
‘So far, that’s true enough,’ assented Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in
his pockets and his hat on. ‘But I have known you people before to-day,
you’ll observe, and I know you never die for want of talking. Now, I
recommend you not so much to mind talking just now, as doing. You have
undertaken to do something; all I remark upon that at present is, do it!’
‘I have written to Stephen by the post that went out this afternoon, as I
have written to him once before sin’ he went away,’ said Rachael; ‘and he
will be here, at furthest, in two days.’
‘Then, I’ll tell you something. You are not aware perhaps,’ retorted Mr.
Bounderby, ‘that you yourself have been looked after now and then, not
being considered quite free from suspicion in this business, on account
of most people being judged according to the company they keep. The
post-office hasn’t been forgotten either. What I’ll tell you is, that no
letter to Stephen Blackpool has ever got into it. Therefore, what has
become of yours, I leave you to guess. Perhaps you’re mistaken, and
never wrote any.’
‘He hadn’t been gone from here, young lady,’ said Rachael, turning
appealingly to Louisa, ‘as much as a week, when he sent me the only
letter I have had from him, saying that he was forced to seek work in
another name.’
‘Oh, by George!’ cried Bounderby, shaking his head, with a whistle, ‘he
changes his name, does he! That’s rather unlucky, too, for such an
immaculate chap. It’s considered a little suspicious in Courts of
Justice, I believe, when an Innocent happens to have many names.’
‘What,’ said Rachael, with the tears in her eyes again, ‘what, young
lady, in the name of Mercy, was left the poor lad to do! The masters
against him on one hand, the men against him on the other, he only wantin
to work hard in peace, and do what he felt right. Can a man have no soul
of his own, no mind of his own? Must he go wrong all through wi’ this
side, or must he go wrong all through wi’ that, or else be hunted like a
hare?’
‘Indeed, indeed, I pity him from my heart,’ returned Louisa; ‘and I hope
that he will clear himself.’
‘You need have no fear of that, young lady. He is sure!’
‘All the surer, I suppose,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘for your refusing to
tell where he is? Eh?’
‘He shall not, through any act of mine, come back wi’ the unmerited
reproach of being brought back. He shall come back of his own accord to
clear himself, and put all those that have injured his good character,
and he not here for its defence, to shame. I have told him what has been
done against him,’ said Rachael, throwing off all distrust as a rock
throws off the sea, ‘and he will be here, at furthest, in two days.’
‘Notwithstanding which,’ added Mr. Bounderby, ‘if he can be laid hold of
any sooner, he shall have an earlier opportunity of clearing himself. As
to you, I have nothing against you; what you came and told me turns out
to be true, and I have given you the means of proving it to be true, and
there’s an end of it. I wish you good night all! I must be off to look
a little further into this.’
Tom came out of his corner when Mr. Bounderby moved, moved with him, kept
close to him, and went away with him. The only parting salutation of
which he delivered himself was a sulky ‘Good night, father!’ With a
brief speech, and a scowl at his sister, he left the house.
Since his sheet-anchor had come home, Mr. Gradgrind had been sparing of
speech. He still sat silent, when Louisa mildly said:
‘Rachael, you will not distrust me one day, when you know me better.’
‘It goes against me,’ Rachael answered, in a gentler manner, ‘to mistrust
any one; but when I am so mistrusted—when we all are—I cannot keep such
things quite out of my mind. I ask your pardon for having done you an
injury. I don’t think what I said now. Yet I might come to think it
again, wi’ the poor lad so wronged.’
‘Did you tell him in your letter,’ inquired Sissy, ‘that suspicion seemed
to have fallen upon him, because he had been seen about the Bank at
night? He would then know what he would have to explain on coming back,
and would be ready.’
‘Yes, dear,’ she returned; ‘but I can’t guess what can have ever taken
him there. He never used to go there. It was never in his way. His way
was the same as mine, and not near it.’
Sissy had already been at her side asking her where she lived, and
whether she might come to-morrow night, to inquire if there were news of
him.
‘I doubt,’ said Rachael, ‘if he can be here till next day.’
‘Then I will come next night too,’ said Sissy.
When Rachael, assenting to this, was gone, Mr. Gradgrind lifted up his
head, and said to his daughter:
‘Louisa, my dear, I have never, that I know of, seen this man. Do you
believe him to be implicated?’
‘I think I have believed it, father, though with great difficulty. I do
not believe it now.’
‘That is to say, you once persuaded yourself to believe it, from knowing
him to be suspected. His appearance and manner; are they so honest?’
‘Very honest.’
‘And her confidence not to be shaken! I ask myself,’ said Mr. Gradgrind,
musing, ‘does the real culprit know of these accusations? Where is he?
Who is he?’
His hair had latterly began to change its colour. As he leaned upon his
hand again, looking gray and old, Louisa, with a face of fear and pity,
hurriedly went over to him, and sat close at his side. Her eyes by
accident met Sissy’s at the moment. Sissy flushed and started, and
Louisa put her finger on her lip.
Next night, when Sissy returned home and told Louisa that Stephen was not
come, she told it in a whisper. Next night again, when she came home
with the same account, and added that he had not been heard of, she spoke
in the same low frightened tone. From the moment of that interchange of
looks, they never uttered his name, or any reference to him, aloud; nor
ever pursued the subject of the robbery, when Mr. Gradgrind spoke of it.
The two appointed days ran out, three days and nights ran out, and
Stephen Blackpool was not come, and remained unheard of. On the fourth
day, Rachael, with unabated confidence, but considering her despatch to
have miscarried, went up to the Bank, and showed her letter from him with
his address, at a working colony, one of many, not upon the main road,
sixty miles away. Messengers were sent to that place, and the whole town
looked for Stephen to be brought in next day.
During this whole time the whelp moved about with Mr. Bounderby like his
shadow, assisting in all the proceedings. He was greatly excited,
horribly fevered, bit his nails down to the quick, spoke in a hard
rattling voice, and with lips that were black and burnt up. At the hour
when the suspected man was looked for, the whelp was at the station;
offering to wager that he had made off before the arrival of those who
were sent in quest of him, and that he would not appear.
The whelp was right. The messengers returned alone. Rachael’s letter
had gone, Rachael’s letter had been delivered. Stephen Blackpool had
decamped in that same hour; and no soul knew more of him. The only doubt
in Coketown was, whether Rachael had written in good faith, believing
that he really would come back, or warning him to fly. On this point
opinion was divided.
Six days, seven days, far on into another week. The wretched whelp
plucked up a ghastly courage, and began to grow defiant. ‘_Was_ the
suspected fellow the thief? A pretty question! If not, where was the