Chapter IX - Final

Hard Times

by Charles Dickens

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.