The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0059/00599.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 10KB | 196 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00599}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Hard Times
Chapter X}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{mrs
sparsit
louisa
bounderby
ma'am
day
fellow
sparsit's
staircase
upon}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Hard Times
Book:        Book The Second: Reaping
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter X

Mrs. Sparsit's Staircase

     Mrs. Sparsit's nerves being slow to recover their tone, the worthy woman
made a stay of some weeks in duration at Mr. Bounderby's retreat, where,
notwithstanding her anchorite turn of mind based upon her becoming
consciousness of her altered station, she resigned herself with noble
fortitude to lodging, as one may say, in clover, and feeding on the fat of the
land.  During the whole term of this recess from the guardianship of the Bank,
Mrs. Sparsit was a pattern of consistency; continuing to take such pity on Mr.
Bounderby to his face, as is rarely taken on man, and to call his portrait a
Noodle to its face, with the greatest acrimony and contempt.

     Mr. Bounderby, having got it into his explosive composition that Mrs.
Sparsit was a highly superior woman to perceive that he had that general cross
upon him in his deserts (for he had not yet settled what it was), and further,
that Louisa would have objected to her as a frequent visitor if it had
comported with his greatness that she should object to anything he choose to
do, resolved not to lose sight of Mrs. Sparsit easily.  So when her nerves
were strung up to the pitch of again consuming sweet-breads in solitude, he
said to her at the dinner-table, on the day before her departure, "I tell you
what, ma'am; you shall come down here of a Saturday, while the fine weather
lasts, and stay till Monday." To which Mrs. Sparsit returned, in effect,
though not of the Mohammedan persuasion: "To hear is to obey."

     Now Mrs. Sparsit was not a poetical woman; but she took an idea in the
nature of an allegorical fancy, into her head.  Much watching of Louisa, and
much consequent observation of her impenetrable demeanour, which keenly
whetted and sharpened Mrs. Sparsit's edge, must have given her as it were a
lift, in the way of inspiration.  She erected in her mind a mighty Staircase,
with a dark pit of shame and ruin at the bottom; and down those stairs, from
day to day and hour to hour, she saw Louisa coming.

     It became the business of Mrs. Sparsit's life, to look up at her
staircase, and to watch Louisa coming down.  Sometimes slowly, sometimes
quickly, sometimes several steps at one bout, sometimes stopping, never
turning back.  If she had once turned back, it might have been the death of
Mrs. Sparsit in spleen and grief.

     She had been descending steadily, to the day, and on the day, when Mr.
Bounderby issued the weekly invitation recorded above.  Mrs. Sparsit was in
good spirits, and inclined to be conversational.

     "And pray, sir," said she, "if I may venture to ask a question
appertaining to any subject on which you show reserve - which is indeed hardly
in me, for I well know you have a reason for everything you do - have you
received intelligence respecting the robbery?"

     "Why, ma'am, no; not yet.  Under the circumstances, I didn't expect it
yet.  Rome wasn't built in a day, ma'am."

     "Very true, sir," said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head.

     "Nor yet in a week, ma'am."

     "No, indeed, sir," returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a gentle melancholy upon
her.

     "In a similar manner, ma'am," said Bounderby, "I can wait, you know. If
Romulus and Remus could wait, Josiah Bounderby can wait.  They were better off
in their youth than I was, however, They had a she-wolf for a nurse; I had
only a she-wolf for a grandmother.  She didn't give any milk, ma'am; she gave
bruises.  She was a regular Alderney at that."

     "Ah!" Mrs. Sparsit sighed and shuddered.

     "No, ma'am," continued Bounderby, "I have not heard anything more about
it.  It's in hand, though; and young Tom, who rather sticks to business at
present - something new for him; he hadn't the schooling I had - is helping.
My injunction is, Keep it quiet, and let it seem to blow over.  Do what you
like under the rose, but don't give a sign of what you're about; or half a
hundred of 'em will combine together and get this fellow who has bolted, out
of reach for good.  Keep it quiet, and the thieves will grow in confidence by
little and little, and we shall have 'em."

     "Very sagacious indeed, sir," said Mrs. Sparsit.  "Very interesting. The
old woman you mentioned, sir - "

     "The old woman I mentioned, ma'am," said Bounderby, cutting the matter
short, as it was nothing to boast about, "is not laid hold of; but she may
take her oath she will be, if that is any satisfaction to her villanous old
mind.  In the mean time, ma'am, I am of opinion, if you ask me my opinion,
that the less she is talked about, the better."

     That same evening, Mrs. Sparsit, in her chamber window, resting from her
packing operations, looked towards her great staircase and saw Louisa still
descending.

     She sat by Mr. Harthouse, in an alcove in the garden, talking very low,
he stood leaning over her, as they whispered together, and his face almost
touched her hair.  "If not quite!" said Mrs. Sparsit, straining her hawk's
eyes to the utmost.  Mrs. Sparsit was too distant to hear a word of their
discourse, or even to know that they were speaking softly, otherwise than from
the expression of their figures; but what they said was this:

     "You recollect the man, Mr. Harthouse?"

     "Oh, perfectly!"

     "His face, and his manner, and what he said?"

     "Perfectly.  And an infinitely dreary person he appeared to me to be.
Lengthy and prosy in the extreme.  It was knowing to hold forth, in the
humble-virtue school of eloquence; but, I assure you I thought at the time,
'My good fellow, you are over-doing this!'"

     "It has been very difficult to me to think ill of that man."

     "My dear Louisa - as Tom says." Which he never did say.  "You know no
good of the fellow?"

     "No, certainly."

     "Nor of any other such person?"

     "How can I," she returned, with more of her first manner on her than he
had lately seen, "when I know nothing of them, men or women?"

     "My dear Louisa, then consent to receive the submissive representation of
your devoted friend, who knows something of several varieties of his excellent
fellow-creatures - for excellent they are, I am quite ready to believe, in
spite of such little foibles as always helping themselves to what they can get
hold of.  This fellow talks.  Well; every fellow talks.  He professes
morality.  Well; all sorts of humbugs profess morality.  From the House of
Commons to the House of Correction, there is a general profession of morality,
except among our people; it really is that exception which makes our people
quite reviving.  You saw and heard the case.  Here was one of the fluffy
classes pulled up extremely short by my esteemed friend Mr. Bounderby - who,
as we know, is not possessed of that delicacy which would soften so tight a
hand.  The member of the fluffy classes was injured, exasperated, left the
house grumbling, met somebody who proposed to him to go in for some share in
this Bank business, went in, put something in his pocket which had nothing in
it before, and relieved his mind extremely.  Really he would have been an
uncommon, instead of a common, fellow, if he had not availed himself of such
an opportunity.  Or he may have originated it altogether, if he had the
cleverness."

     "I almost feel as though it must be bad in me," returned Louisa, after
sitting thoughtful awhile, to be so ready to agree with you, and to be so
lightened in my heart by what you say."

     "I only say what is reasonable; nothing worse.  I have talked it over
with my friend Tom more than once - of course I remain on terms of perfect
confidence with Tom - and he is quite of my opinion, and I am quite of his.
Will you walk?"

     They strolled away, among the lanes b