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_ DAY and night again, day and night again. No Stephen Blackpool.
Where was the man, and why did he not come back?
Every night, Sissy went to Rachael's lodging, and sat with her in
her small neat room. All day, Rachael toiled as such people must
toil, whatever their anxieties. The smoke-serpents were
indifferent who was lost or found, who turned out bad or good; the
melancholy mad elephants, like the Hard Fact men, abated nothing of
their set routine, whatever happened. Day and night again, day and
night again. The monotony was unbroken. Even Stephen Blackpool's
disappearance was falling into the general way, and becoming as
monotonous a wonder as any piece of machinery in Coketown.
'I misdoubt,' said Rachael, 'if there is as many as twenty left in
all this place, who have any trust in the poor dear lad now.'
She said it to Sissy, as they sat in her lodging, lighted only by
the lamp at the street corner. Sissy had come there when it was
already dark, to await her return from work; and they had since sat
at the window where Rachael had found her, wanting no brighter
light to shine on their sorrowful talk.
'If it hadn't been mercifully brought about, that I was to have you
to speak to,' pursued Rachael, 'times are, when I think my mind
would not have kept right. But I get hope and strength through
you; and you believe that though appearances may rise against him,
he will be proved clear?'
'I do believe so,' returned Sissy, 'with my whole heart. I feel so
certain, Rachael, that the confidence you hold in yours against all
discouragement, is not like to be wrong, that I have no more doubt
of him than if I had known him through as many years of trial as
you have.'
'And I, my dear,' said Rachel, with a tremble in her voice, 'have
known him through them all, to be, according to his quiet ways, so
faithful to everything honest and good, that if he was never to be
heard of more, and I was to live to be a hundred years old, I could
say with my last breath, God knows my heart. I have never once
left trusting Stephen Blackpool!'
'We all believe, up at the Lodge, Rachael, that he will be freed
from suspicion, sooner or later.'
'The better I know it to be so believed there, my dear,' said
Rachael, 'and the kinder I feel it that you come away from there,
purposely to comfort me, and keep me company, and be seen wi' me
when I am not yet free from all suspicion myself, the more grieved
I am that I should ever have spoken those mistrusting words to the
young lady. And yet I - '
'You don't mistrust her now, Rachael?'
'Now that you have brought us more together, no. But I can't at
all times keep out of my mind - '
Her voice so sunk into a low and slow communing with herself, that
Sissy, sitting by her side, was obliged to listen with attention.
'I can't at all times keep out of my mind, mistrustings of some
one. I can't think who 'tis, I can't think how or why it may be
done, but I mistrust that some one has put Stephen out of the way.
I mistrust that by his coming back of his own accord, and showing
himself innocent before them all, some one would be confounded, who
- to prevent that - has stopped him, and put him out of the way.'
'That is a dreadful thought,' said Sissy, turning pale.
'It is a dreadful thought to think he may be murdered.'
Sissy shuddered, and turned paler yet.
'When it makes its way into my mind, dear,' said Rachael, 'and it
will come sometimes, though I do all I can to keep it out, wi'
counting on to high numbers as I work, and saying over and over
again pieces that I knew when I were a child - I fall into such a
wild, hot hurry, that, however tired I am, I want to walk fast,
miles and miles. I must get the better of this before bed-time.
I'll walk home wi' you.'
'He might fall ill upon the journey back,' said Sissy, faintly
offering a worn-out scrap of hope; 'and in such a case, there are
many places on the road where he might stop.'
'But he is in none of them. He has been sought for in all, and
he's not there.'
'True,' was Sissy's reluctant admission.
'He'd walk the journey in two days. If he was footsore and
couldn't walk, I sent him, in the letter he got, the money to ride,
lest he should have none of his own to spare.'
'Let us hope that to-morrow will bring something better, Rachael.
Come into the air!'
Her gentle hand adjusted Rachael's shawl upon her shining black
hair in the usual manner of her wearing it, and they went out. The
night being fine, little knots of Hands were here and there
lingering at street corners; but it was supper-time with the
greater part of them, and there were but few people in the streets.
'You're not so hurried now, Rachael, and your hand is cooler.'
'I get better, dear, if I can only walk, and breathe a little
fresh. 'Times when I can't, I turn weak and confused.'
'But you must not begin to fail, Rachael, for you may be wanted at
any time to stand by Stephen. To-morrow is Saturday. If no news
comes to-morrow, let us walk in the country on Sunday morning, and
strengthen you for another week. Will you go?'
'Yes, dear.'
They were by this time in the street where Mr. Bounderby's house
stood. The way to Sissy's destination led them past the door, and
they were going straight towards it. Some train had newly arrived
in Coketown, which had put a number of vehicles in motion, and
scattered a considerable bustle about the town. Several coaches
were rattling before them and behind them as they approached Mr.
Bounderby's, and one of the latter drew up with such briskness as
they were in the act of passing the house, that they looked round
involuntarily. The bright gaslight over Mr. Bounderby's steps
showed them Mrs. Sparsit in the coach, in an ecstasy of excitement,
struggling to open the door; Mrs. Sparsit seeing them at the same
moment, called to them to stop.
'It's a coincidence,' exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, as she was released
by the coachman. 'It's a Providence! Come out, ma'am!' then said
Mrs. Sparsit, to some one inside, 'come out, or we'll have you
dragged out!'
Hereupon, no other than the mysterious old woman descended. Whom
Mrs. Sparsit incontinently collared.
'Leave her alone, everybody!' cried Mrs. Sparsit, with great
energy. 'Let nobody touch her. She belongs to me. Come in,
ma'am!' then said Mrs. Sparsit, reversing her former word of
command. 'Come in, ma'am, or we'll have you dragged in!'
The spectacle of a matron of classical deportment, seizing an
ancient woman by the throat, and hauling her into a dwelling-house,
would have been under any circumstances, sufficient temptation to
all true English stragglers so blest as to witness it, to force a
way into that dwelling-house and see the matter out. But when the
phenomenon was enhanced by the notoriety and mystery by this time
associated all over the town with the Bank robbery, it would have
lured the stragglers in, with an irresistible attraction, though
the roof had been expected to fall upon their heads. Accordingly,
the chance witnesses on the ground, consisting of the busiest of
the neighbours to the number of some five-and-twenty, closed in
after Sissy and Rachael, as they closed in after Mrs. Sparsit and
her prize; and the whole body made a disorderly irruption into Mr.
Bounderby's dining-room, where the people behind lost not a
moment's time in mounting on the chairs, to get the better of the
people in front.
'Fetch Mr. Bounderby down!' cried Mrs. Sparsit. 'Rachael, young
woman; you know who this is?'
'It's Mrs. Pegler,' said Rachael.
'I should think it is!' cried Mrs. Sparsit, exulting. 'Fetch Mr.
Bounderby. Stand away, everybody!' Here old Mrs. Pegler, muffling
herself up, and shrinking from observation, whispered a word of
entreaty. 'Don't tell me,' said Mrs. Sparsit, aloud. 'I have told
you twenty times, coming along, that I will not leave you till I
have handed you over to him myself.'
Mr. Bounderby now appeared, accompanied by Mr. Gradgrind and the
whelp, with whom he had been holding conference up-stairs. Mr.
Bounderby looked more astonished than hospitable, at sight of this
uninvited party in his dining-room.
'Why, what's the matter now!' said he. 'Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am?'
'Sir,' explained that worthy woman, 'I trust it is my good fortune
to produce a person you have much desired to find. Stimulated by
my wish to relieve your mind, sir, and connecting together such
imperfect clues to the part of the country in which that person
might be supposed to reside, as have been afforded by the young
woman, Rachael, fortunately now present to identify, I have had the
happiness to succeed, and to bring that person with me - I need not
say most unwillingly on her part. It has not been, sir, without
some trouble that I have effected this; but trouble in your service
is to me a pleasure, and hunger, thirst, and cold a real
gratification.'
Here Mrs. Sparsit ceased; for Mr. Bounderby's visage exhibited an
extraordinary combination of all possible colours and expressions
of discomfiture, as old Mrs. Pegler was disclosed to his view.
'Why, what do you mean by this?' was his highly unexpected demand,
in great warmth. 'I ask you, what do you mean by this, Mrs.
Sparsit, ma'am?'
'Sir!' exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, faintly.
'Why don't you mind your own business, ma'am?' roared Bounderby.
'How dare you go and poke your officious nose into my family
affairs?'
This allusion to her favourite feature overpowered Mrs. Sparsit.
She sat down stiffly in a chair, as if she were frozen; and with a
fixed stare at Mr. Bounderby, slowly grated her mittens against one
another, as if they were frozen too.
'My dear Josiah!' cried Mrs. Pegler, trembling. 'My darling boy!
I am not to blame. It's not my fault, Josiah. I told this lady
over and over again, that I knew she was doing what would not be
agreeable to you, but she would do it.'
'What did you let her bring you for? Couldn't you knock her cap
off, or her tooth out, or scratch her, or do something or other to
her?' asked Bounderby.
'My own boy! She threatened me that if I resisted her, I should be
brought by constables, and it was better to come quietly than make
that stir in such a' - Mrs. Pegler glanced timidly but proudly
round the walls - 'such a fine house as this. Indeed, indeed, it
is not my fault! My dear, noble, stately boy! I have always lived
quiet, and secret, Josiah, my dear. I have never broken the
condition once. I have never said I was your mother. I have
admired you at a distance; and if I have come to town sometimes,
with long times between, to take a proud peep at you, I have done
it unbeknown, my love, and gone away again.'
Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his pockets, walked in impatient
mortification up and down at the side of the long dining-table,
while the spectators greedily took in every syllable of Mrs.
Pegler's appeal, and at each succeeding syllable became more and
more round-eyed. Mr. Bounderby still walking up and down when Mrs.
Pegler had done, Mr. Gradgrind addressed that maligned old lady:
'I am surprised, madam,' he observed with severity, 'that in your
old age you have the face to claim Mr. Bounderby for your son,
after your unnatural and inhuman treatment of him.'
'Me unnatural!' cried poor old Mrs. Pegler. 'Me inhuman! To my
dear boy?'
'Dear!' repeated Mr. Gradgrind. 'Yes; dear in his self-made
prosperity, madam, I dare say. Not very dear, however, when you
deserted him in his infancy, and left him to the brutality of a
drunken grandmother.'
'I deserted my Josiah!' cried Mrs. Pegler, clasping her hands.
'Now, Lord forgive you, sir, for your wicked imaginations, and for
your scandal against the memory of my poor mother, who died in my
arms before Josiah was born. May you repent of it, sir, and live
to know better!'
She was so very earnest and injured, that Mr. Gradgrind, shocked by
the possibility which dawned upon him, said in a gentler tone:
'Do you deny, then, madam, that you left your son to - to be
brought up in the gutter?'
'Josiah in the gutter!' exclaimed Mrs. Pegler. 'No such a thing,
sir. Never! For shame on you! My dear boy knows, and will give
you to know, that though he come of humble parents, he come of
parents that loved him as dear as the best could, and never thought
it hardship on themselves to pinch a bit that he might write and
cipher beautiful, and I've his books at home to show it! Aye, have
I!' said Mrs. Pegler, with indignant pride. 'And my dear boy
knows, and will give you to know, sir, that after his beloved
father died, when he was eight years old, his mother, too, could
pinch a bit, as it was her duty and her pleasure and her pride to
do it, to help him out in life, and put him 'prentice. And a
steady lad he was, and a kind master he had to lend him a hand, and
well he worked his own way forward to be rich and thriving. And
I'll give you to know, sir - for this my dear boy won't - that
though his mother kept but a little village shop, he never forgot
her, but pensioned me on thirty pound a year - more than I want,
for I put by out of it - only making the condition that I was to
keep down in my own part, and make no boasts about him, and not
trouble him. And I never have, except with looking at him once a
year, when he has never knowed it. And it's right,' said poor old
Mrs. Pegler, in affectionate championship, 'that I should keep down
in my own part, and I have no doubts that if I was here I should do
a many unbefitting things, and I am well contented, and I can keep
my pride in my Josiah to myself, and I can love for love's own
sake! And I am ashamed of you, sir,' said Mrs. Pegler, lastly,
'for your slanders and suspicions. And I never stood here before,
nor never wanted to stand here when my dear son said no. And I
shouldn't be here now, if it hadn't been for being brought here.
And for shame upon you, Oh, for shame, to accuse me of being a bad
mother to my son, with my son standing here to tell you so
different!'
The bystanders, on and off the dining-room chairs, raised a murmur
of sympathy with Mrs. Pegler, and Mr. Gradgrind felt himself
innocently placed in a very distressing predicament, when Mr.
Bounderby, who had never ceased walking up and down, and had every
moment swelled larger and larger, and grown redder and redder,
stopped short.
'I don't exactly know,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'how I come to be
favoured with the attendance of the present company, but I don't
inquire. When they're quite satisfied, perhaps they'll be so good
as to disperse; whether they're satisfied or not, perhaps they'll
be so good as to disperse. I'm not bound to deliver a lecture on
my family affairs, I have not undertaken to do it, and I'm not a
going to do it. Therefore those who expect any explanation
whatever upon that branch of the subject, will be disappointed -
particularly Tom Gradgrind, and he can't know it too soon. In
reference to the Bank robbery, there has been a mistake made,
concerning my mother. If there hadn't been over-officiousness it
wouldn't have been made, and I hate over-officiousness at all
times, whether or no. Good evening!'
Although Mr. Bounderby carried it off in these terms, holding the
door open for the company to depart, there was a blustering
sheepishness upon him, at once extremely crestfallen and
superlatively absurd. Detected as the Bully of humility, who had
built his windy reputation upon lies, and in his boastfulness had
put the honest truth as far away from him as if he had advanced the
mean claim (there is no meaner) to tack himself on to a pedigree,
he cut a most ridiculous figure. With the people filing off at the
door he held, who he knew would carry what had passed to the whole
town, to be given to the four winds, he could not have looked a
Bully more shorn and forlorn, if he had had his ears cropped. Even
that unlucky female, Mrs. Sparsit, fallen from her pinnacle of
exultation into the Slough of Despond, was not in so bad a plight
as that remarkable man and self-made Humbug, Josiah Bounderby of
Coketown.
Rachael and Sissy, leaving Mrs. Pegler to occupy a bed at her son's
for that night, walked together to the gate of Stone Lodge and
there parted. Mr. Gradgrind joined them before they had gone very
far, and spoke with much interest of Stephen Blackpool; for whom he
thought this signal failure of the suspicions against Mrs. Pegler
was likely to work well.
As to the whelp; throughout this scene as on all other late
occasions, he had stuck close to Bounderby. He seemed to feel that
as long as Bounderby could make no discovery without his knowledge,
he was so far safe. He never visited his sister, and had only seen
her once since she went home: that is to say on the night when he
still stuck close to Bounderby, as already related.
There was one dim unformed fear lingering about his sister's mind,
to which she never gave utterance, which surrounded the graceless
and ungrateful boy with a dreadful mystery. The same dark
possibility had presented itself in the same shapeless guise, this
very day, to Sissy, when Rachael spoke of some one who would be
confounded by Stephen's return, having put him out of the way.
Louisa had never spoken of harbouring any suspicion of her brother
in connexion with the robbery, she and Sissy had held no confidence
on the subject, save in that one interchange of looks when the
unconscious father rested his gray head on his hand; but it was
understood between them, and they both knew it. This other fear
was so awful, that it hovered about each of them like a ghostly
shadow; neither daring to think of its being near herself, far less
of its being near the other.
And still the forced spirit which the whelp had plucked up, throve
with him. If Stephen Blackpool was not the thief, let him show
himself. Why didn't he?
Another night. Another day and night. No Stephen Blackpool.
Where was the man, and why did he not come back? _
Read next: BOOK THE THIRD - GARNERING: CHAPTER VI - THE STARLIGHT
Read previous: BOOK THE THIRD - GARNERING: CHAPTER IV - LOST
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