Hard Times
and hith dog being thuppothed to have morrithed?’
He addressed Mr. Gradgrind, who answered ‘Yes.’
‘Well, Thquire,’ he returned, taking off his hat, and rubbing the lining
with his pocket-handkerchief, which he kept inside for the purpose. ‘Ith
it your intenthion to do anything for the poor girl, Thquire?’
‘I shall have something to propose to her when she comes back,’ said Mr.
Gradgrind.
‘Glad to hear it, Thquire. Not that I want to get rid of the child, any
more than I want to thtand in her way. I’m willing to take her prentith,
though at her age ith late. My voithe ith a little huthky, Thquire, and
not eathy heard by them ath don’t know me; but if you’d been chilled and
heated, heated and chilled, chilled and heated in the ring when you wath
young, ath often ath I have been, _your_ voithe wouldn’t have lathted
out, Thquire, no more than mine.’
‘I dare say not,’ said Mr. Gradgrind.
‘What thall it be, Thquire, while you wait? Thall it be Therry? Give it
a name, Thquire!’ said Mr. Sleary, with hospitable ease.
‘Nothing for me, I thank you,’ said Mr. Gradgrind.
‘Don’t thay nothing, Thquire. What doth your friend thay? If you
haven’t took your feed yet, have a glath of bitterth.’
Here his daughter Josephine—a pretty fair-haired girl of eighteen, who
had been tied on a horse at two years old, and had made a will at twelve,
which she always carried about with her, expressive of her dying desire
to be drawn to the grave by the two piebald ponies—cried, ‘Father, hush!
she has come back!’ Then came Sissy Jupe, running into the room as she
had run out of it. And when she saw them all assembled, and saw their
looks, and saw no father there, she broke into a most deplorable cry, and
took refuge on the bosom of the most accomplished tight-rope lady
(herself in the family-way), who knelt down on the floor to nurse her,
and to weep over her.
‘Ith an internal thame, upon my thoul it ith,’ said Sleary.
‘O my dear father, my good kind father, where are you gone? You are gone
to try to do me some good, I know! You are gone away for my sake, I am
sure! And how miserable and helpless you will be without me, poor, poor
father, until you come back!’ It was so pathetic to hear her saying many
things of this kind, with her face turned upward, and her arms stretched
out as if she were trying to stop his departing shadow and embrace it,
that no one spoke a word until Mr. Bounderby (growing impatient) took the
case in hand.
‘Now, good people all,’ said he, ‘this is wanton waste of time. Let the
girl understand the fact. Let her take it from me, if you like, who have
been run away from, myself. Here, what’s your name! Your father has
absconded—deserted you—and you mustn’t expect to see him again as long as
you live.’
They cared so little for plain Fact, these people, and were in that
advanced state of degeneracy on the subject, that instead of being
impressed by the speaker’s strong common sense, they took it in
extraordinary dudgeon. The men muttered ‘Shame!’ and the women ‘Brute!’
and Sleary, in some haste, communicated the following hint, apart to Mr.
Bounderby.
‘I tell you what, Thquire. To thpeak plain to you, my opinion ith that
you had better cut it thort, and drop it. They’re a very good natur’d
people, my people, but they’re accuthtomed to be quick in their
movementh; and if you don’t act upon my advithe, I’m damned if I don’t
believe they’ll pith you out o’ winder.’
Mr. Bounderby being restrained by this mild suggestion, Mr. Gradgrind
found an opening for his eminently practical exposition of the subject.
‘It is of no moment,’ said he, ‘whether this person is to be expected
back at any time, or the contrary. He is gone away, and there is no
present expectation of his return. That, I believe, is agreed on all
hands.’
‘Thath agreed, Thquire. Thick to that!’ From Sleary.
‘Well then. I, who came here to inform the father of the poor girl,
Jupe, that she could not be received at the school any more, in
consequence of there being practical objections, into which I need not
enter, to the reception there of the children of persons so employed, am
prepared in these altered circumstances to make a proposal. I am willing
to take charge of you, Jupe, and to educate you, and provide for you.
The only condition (over and above your good behaviour) I make is, that
you decide now, at once, whether to accompany me or remain here. Also,
that if you accompany me now, it is understood that you communicate no
more with any of your friends who are here present. These observations
comprise the whole of the case.’
‘At the thame time,’ said Sleary, ‘I mutht put in my word, Thquire, tho
that both thides of the banner may be equally theen. If you like,
Thethilia, to be prentitht, you know the natur of the work and you know
your companionth. Emma Gordon, in whothe lap you’re a lying at prethent,
would be a mother to you, and Joth’phine would be a thithter to you. I
don’t pretend to be of the angel breed myself, and I don’t thay but what,
when you mith’d your tip, you’d find me cut up rough, and thwear an oath
or two at you. But what I thay, Thquire, ith, that good tempered or bad
tempered, I never did a horthe a injury yet, no more than thwearing at
him went, and that I don’t expect I thall begin otherwithe at my time of
life, with a rider. I never wath much of a Cackler, Thquire, and I have
thed my thay.’
The latter part of this speech was addressed to Mr. Gradgrind, who
received it with a grave inclination of his head, and then remarked:
‘The only observation I will make to you, Jupe, in the way of influencing
your decision, is, that it is highly desirable to have a sound practical
education, and that even your father himself (from what I understand)
appears, on your behalf, to have known and felt that much.’
The last words had a visible effect upon her. She stopped in her wild
crying, a little detached herself from Emma Gordon, and turned her face
full upon her patron. The whole company perceived the force of the
change, and drew a long breath together, that plainly said, ‘she will
go!’
‘Be sure you know your own mind, Jupe,’ Mr. Gradgrind cautioned her; ‘I
say no more. Be sure you know your own mind!’
‘When father comes back,’ cried the girl, bursting into tears again after
a minute’s silence, ‘how will he ever find me if I go away!’
‘You may be quite at ease,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, calmly; he worked out the
whole matter like a sum: ‘you may be quite at ease, Jupe, on that score.
In such a case, your father, I apprehend, must find out Mr.—’
‘Thleary. Thath my name, Thquire. Not athamed of it. Known all over
England, and alwayth paythe ith way.’
‘Must find out Mr. Sleary, who would then let him know where you went. I
should have no power of keeping you against his wish, and he would have
no difficulty, at any time, in finding Mr. Thomas Gradgrind of Coketown.
I am well known.’
‘Well known,’ assented Mr. Sleary, rolling his loose eye. ‘You’re one of
the thort, Thquire, that keepth a prethiouth thight of money out of the
houthe. But never mind that at prethent.’
There was another silence; and then she exclaimed, sobbing with her hands
before her face, ‘Oh, give me my clothes, give me my clothes, and let me
go away before I break my heart!’
The women sadly bestirred themselves to get the clothes together—it was
soon done, for they were not many—and to pack them in a basket which had
often travelled with them. Sissy sat all the time upon the ground, still
sobbing, and covering her eyes. Mr. Gradgrind and his friend Bounderby
stood near the door, ready to take her away. Mr. Sleary stood in the
middle of the room, with the male members of the company about him,
exactly as he would have stood in the centre of the ring during his
daughter Josephine’s performance. He wanted nothing but his whip.
The basket packed in silence, they brought her bonnet to her, and
smoothed her disordered hair, and put it on. Then they pressed about
her, and bent over her in very natural attitudes, kissing and embracing
her: and brought the children to take leave of her; and were a
tender-hearted, simple, foolish set of women altogether.
‘Now, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘If you are quite determined, come!’
But she had to take her farewell of the male part of the company yet, and
every one of them had to unfold his arms (for they all assumed the
professional attitude when they found themselves near Sleary), and give
her a parting kiss—Master Kidderminster excepted, in whose young nature
there was an original flavour of the misanthrope, who was also known to
have harboured matrimonial views, and who moodily withdrew. Mr. Sleary
was reserved until the last. Opening his arms wide he took her by both
her hands, and would have sprung her up and down, after the riding-master
manner of congratulating young ladies on their dismounting from a rapid
act; but there was no rebound in Sissy, and she only stood before him
crying.
‘Good-bye, my dear!’ said Sleary. ‘You’ll make your fortun, I hope, and
none of our poor folkth will ever trouble you, I’ll pound it. I with
your father hadn’t taken hith dog with him; ith a ill-conwenienth to have
the dog out of the billth. But on thecond thoughth, he wouldn’t have
performed without hith mathter, tho ith ath broad ath ith long!’
With that he regarded her attentively with his fixed eye, surveyed his
company with his loose one, kissed her, shook his head, and handed her to
Mr. Gradgrind as to a horse.
‘There the ith, Thquire,’ he said, sweeping her with a professional
glance as if she were being adjusted in her seat, ‘and the’ll do you
juthtithe. Good-bye, Thethilia!’
‘Good-bye, Cecilia!’ ‘Good-bye, Sissy!’ ‘God bless you, dear!’ In a
variety of voices from all the room.
But the riding-master eye had observed the bottle of the nine oils in her
bosom, and he now interposed with ‘Leave the bottle, my dear; ith large
to carry; it will be of no uthe to you now. Give it to me!’
‘No, no!’ she said, in another burst of tears. ‘Oh, no! Pray let me
keep it for father till he comes back! He will want it when he comes
back. He had never thought of going away, when he sent me for it. I
must keep it for him, if you please!’
‘Tho be it, my dear. (You thee how it ith, Thquire!) Farewell,
Thethilia! My latht wordth to you ith thith, Thtick to the termth of
your engagement, be obedient to the Thquire, and forget uth. But if,
when you’re grown up and married and well off, you come upon any
horthe-riding ever, don’t be hard upon it, don’t be croth with it, give
it a Bethpeak if you can, and think you might do wurth. People mutht be
amuthed, Thquire, thomehow,’ continued Sleary, rendered more pursy than
ever, by so much talking; ‘they can’t be alwayth a working, nor yet they
can’t be alwayth a learning. Make the betht of uth; not the wurtht.
I’ve got my living out of the horthe-riding all my life, I know; but I
conthider that I lay down the philothophy of the thubject when I thay to
you, Thquire, make the betht of uth: not the wurtht!’
The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went downstairs and the
fixed eye of Philosophy—and its rolling eye, too—soon lost the three
figures and the basket in the darkness of the street.
CHAPTER VII
MRS. SPARSIT
MR. BOUNDERBY being a bachelor, an elderly lady presided over his
establishment, in consideration of a certain annual stipend. Mrs.
Sparsit was this lady’s name; and she was a prominent figure in
attendance on Mr. Bounderby’s car, as it rolled along in triumph with the
Bully of humility inside.
For, Mrs. Sparsit had not only seen different days, but was highly
connected. She had a great aunt living in these very times called Lady