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$Title{Hard Times
Chapter III}
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$Author{Dickens, Charles}
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$Subject{bounderby
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$Date{}
$Log{See Bounderby*0060401.scf
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Title:       Hard Times
Book:        Book The Third: Garnering
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter III

Very Decided

     The indefatigable Mrs. Sparsit, with a violent cold upon her, her voice
reduced to a whisper, and her stately frame so racked by continual sneezes
that it seemed in danger of dismemberment, gave chase to her patron until she
found him in the metropolis; and there, majestically sweeping in upon him at
his hotel in St. James's Street, exploded the combustibles with which she was
charged, and blew up.  Having executed her mission with infinite relish, this
high-minded woman then fainted away on Mr. Bounderby's coat-collar.

     Mr. Bounderby's first procedure was to shake Mrs. Sparsit off, and leave
her to progress as she might through various stages of suffering on the floor.
He next had recourse to the administration of potent restoratives, such as
screwing the patient's thumbs, smiting her hands, abundantly watering her
face, and inserting salt in her mouth.  When these attentions had recovered
her (which they speedily did), he hustled her into a fast train without
offering any other refreshment, and carried her back to Coketown more dead
than alive.

     Regarded as a classical ruin, Mrs. Sparsit was an interesting spectacle
on her arrival at her journey's end; but considered in any other light, the
amount of damage she had by that time sustained was excessive, and impaired
her claims to admiration.  Utterly heedless of the wear and tear of her
clothes and constitution, and adamant to her pathetic sneezes, Mr. Bounderby
immediately crammed her into a coach, and bore her off to Stone Lodge.

     "Now, Tom Gradgrind," said Bounderby, bursting into his father-in-law's
room late at night; "here's a lady here - Mrs. Sparsit - you know Mrs. Sparsit
- who has something to say to you that will strike you dumb."

[See Bounderby: Bursting into his father-in-law's room late at night.]

     "You have missed my letter!" exclaimed Mr. Gradgrind, surprised by the
apparition.

     "Missed your letter, sir!" bawled Bounderby.  "The present time is no
time for letters.  No man shall talk to Josiah Bounderby of Coketown about
letters, with his mind in the state it's in now."

     "Bounderby," said Mr. Gradgrind, in a tone of temperate remonstrance, "I
speak of a very special letter I have written to you, in reference to Louisa."

     "Tom Gradgrind," replied Bounderby, knocking the flat of his hand several
times with great vehemence on the table, "I speak of a very special messenger
that has come to me, in reference to Louisa.  Mrs. Sparsit ma'am, stand
forward!"

     That unfortunate lady hereupon essaying to offer testimony, without any
voice and with painful gestures expressive of an inflamed throat, became so
aggravating and underwent so many facial contortions, that Mr. Bounderby,
unable to bear it, seized her by the arm and shook her.

     "If you can't get it out, ma'am," said Bounderby, "leave me to get it
out.  This is not a time for a lady, however highly connected, to be totally
inaudible, and seemingly swallowing marbles.  Tom Gradgrind, Mrs. Sparsit
latterly found herself, by accident, in a situation to overhear a conversation
out of doors between your daughter and your precious gentleman-friend, Mr.
James Harthouse."

     "Indeed!" said Mr. Gradgrind.

     "Ah!  Indeed!" cried Bounderby.  "And in that conversation - "

     "It is not necessary to repeat its tenor, Bounderby.  I know what
passed."

     "You do?  Perhaps," said Bounderby, staring with all his might at his so
quiet and assuasive father-in-law, "you know where your daughter is at the
present time?"

     "Undoubtedly.  She is here."

     "Here?"

     "My dear Bounderby, let me beg you to restrain these loud outbreaks, on
all accounts.  Louisa is here.  The moment she could detach herself from that
interview with the person of whom you speak, and whom I deeply regret to have
been the means of introducing to you.  Louisa hurried here, for protection.  I
myself had not been at home many hours, when I received her - here, in this
room.  She hurried by the train to town, she ran from town to this house
through a raging storm, and presented herself before me in a state of
distraction.  Of course, she has remained here ever since. Let me entreat you,
for your own sake and for hers, to be more quiet."

     Mr. Bounderby silently gazed about him for some moments, in every
direction except Mrs. Sparsit's direction; and then, abruptly turning upon the
niece of Lady Scadgers, said to that wretched woman:

     "Now, ma'am!  We shall be happy to hear any little apology you may think
proper to offer, for going about the country at express pace, with no other
luggage than a Cock-and-a-Bull, ma'am!"

     "Sir," whispered Mrs. Sparsit, "my nerves are at present too much shaken,
and my health is at present too much impaired, in your service, to admit of my
doing more than taking refuge in tears."

     (Which she did.)

     "Well, ma'am," said Bounderby, "without making any observation to you
that may not be made with propriety to a woman of good family, what I have got
to add to that, is that there is something else in which it appears to me you
may take refuge, namely, a coach.  And the coach in which we came here, being
at the door, you'll allow me to hand you down to it, and pack you home to the
Bank: where the best course for you to pursue, will be to put your feet into
the hottest water you can bear, and take a glass of scalding rum and butter
after you get into bed." With these words, Mr. Bounderby extended his right
hand to the weeping lady and escorted her to the conveyance in question,
shedding many plaintive sneezes by the way. He soon returned alone.

     "Now, as you showed me in your face, Tom Gradgrind, that you wanted to
speak to me," he resumed, "here I am.  But, I am not in a very agreeable
state, I tell you plainly; not relishing this business, even as it is, and not
considering that I am at any time as dutifully and submissively treated by
your daughter, as Josiah Bounderby of Coketown ought to be treated by his
wife.  You have your opinion, I dare say; and I have mine, I know.  If you
mean to say anything to me to-night, that goes against this candid remark, you
had better let it alone."

     Mr. Gradgrind, it will be observed, being much softened, Mr. Bounderby
took particular pains to harden himself at all points.  It was his amiable
nature.

     "My dear Bounderby," Mr. Gradgrind began in reply.

     "Now, you'll excuse me," said Bounderby, "but I don't want to be too
dear.  That, to start with.  When I begin to be dear to a man, I generally
find that his intention is to come over me.  I am not speaking to you
politely; but, as you are aware, I am not polite.  If you like politeness, you
know where to get it.  You have your gentleman-friends, you know, and they'll
serve you with as much of the article as you want.  I don't keep it myself."

     "Bounderby," urged Mr. Gradgrind, "we are all liable to mistakes - "

     "I thought you couldn't make 'em," interrupted Bounderby.

     "Perhaps I thought so.  But I say we are all liable to mistakes; and I
should feel sensible of your delicacy and grateful for it, if you would spare
me these references to Harthouse.  I shall not associate him in our
conversation with your intimacy and encouragement; pray do not persist in
connecting him with mine."

     "I never mentioned his name!" said Bounderby.

     "Well, well!" returned Mr. Gradgrind, with a patient, even a submissive,
air.  And he sat for a little while pondering.  "Bounderby, I see reason to
doubt whether we have ever quite understood Louisa."

     "What do you mean by We?"

     "Let me say I, then," he returned, in answer to the coarsely blurted
question; "I doubt whether I have understood Louisa.  I doubt whether I have
been quite right in the manner of her education."

     "There you hit it," returned Bounderby.  "There I agree with you. You
have found it out at last, have you?  Education!  I'll tell you what education
is - To be tumbled out of doors, neck and crop, and put upon the shortest
allowance of everything except blows.  That's what I call education."

     "I think your good sense will perceive," Mr. Gradgrind remonstrated in
all humility, "that whatever the merits of such a system may be, it would be
difficult of general application to girls."

     "I don't see it at all, sir," returned the obstinate Bounderby.

     "Well," sighed Mr. Gradgrind, "we will not enter into the question. I
assure you I have no desire to be controversial.  I seek to repair what is
amiss, if I possibly can; and I hope you will assist me in a good spirit,
Bounderby, for I have been very much distressed."

     "I don't understand you yet," said Bounderby, with determined obstinacy,
"and therefore I won't make any promises."

     "In the course of a few hours, my dear Bounderby," Mr. Gradgrind
proceeded in the same depressed and propitiatory manner, "I appear to myself
to have become better informed as to Louisa's character, than in previous
years.  The enlightenment has been painfully forced upon me, and the discovery
is not mine.  I think there are - Bounderby, you will be surprised to hear me
say this - I think there are qualities in Louisa, which - which have been
harshly neglected, and - and a little perverted. And - and I would suggest to
you, that - that if you would kindly meet me in a timely endeavour to leave
her to her better nature for a while - and to encourage it to develope itself
by tenderness and consideration - it - it would be the better for the
happiness of all of us.  Louisa," said Mr. Gradgrind, shading his face with
his hand, "has always been my favourite child."

     The blustrous Bounderby crimsoned and swelled to such an extent on
hearing these words, that he seemed to be, and probably was, on the brink of a
fit.  With his very ears a bright purple shot with crimson, he pent up his
indignation, however, and said:

     "You'd like to keep her here for a time?"

     "I - I had intended to recommend, my dear Bounderby, that you should
allow Louisa to remain here on a visit, and be attended by Sissy (I mean of
course Cecilia Jupe), who understands here, and in whom she trusts."

     "I gather from all this, Tom Gradgrind," said Bounderby, standing up with
his hands in his pockets, "that you are of opinion that there's what people
call some incompatibility between Loo Bounderby and myself."

     "I fear there is at present a general incompatibility between Louisa and
- and - and almost all the relations in which I have placed her," was her
father's sorrowful reply.

     "Now, look you here, Tom Gradgrind," said Bounderby the flushed,
confronting him with his legs wide apart, his hands deeper in his pockets, and
his hair like a hayfield wherein his windy anger was boisterous.  "You have
said your say; I am going to say mine.  I am a Coketown man.  I am Josiah
Bounderby of Coketown.  I know the bricks of this town, and I know the works
of this town, and I know the chimneys of this town, and I know the smoke of
this town, and I know the Hands of this town.  I know 'em all pretty well.
They're real.  When a man tells me anything about imaginative qualities, I
always tell that man, whoever he is, that I know what he means.  He means
turtle-soup and venison, with a gold spoon, and that he wants to be set up
with a coach and six.  That's what your daughter wants.  Since you are of
opinion that she ought to have what she wants, I recommend you to provide it
for her.  Because, Tom Gradgrind, she will never have it from me."

     "Bounderby," said Mr. Gradgrind, "I hoped, after my entreaty, you would
have taken a different tone."

     "Just wait a bit," retorted Bounderby, "you have said your say, I
believe.  I heard you out; hear me out, if you please.  Don't make yourself a
spectacle of unfairness as well as inconsistency, because, although I am sorry
to see Tom Gradgrind reduced to his present position, I should be doubly sorry
to see him brought so low as that.  Now, there's an incompatibility of some
sort or another, I am given to understand by you, between your daughter and
me.  I'll give you to understand, in reply to that, that there unquestionably
is an incompatibility of the first magnitude - to be summed up in this - that
your daughter don't properly know her husband's merits, and is not impressed
with such a sense as would become her, by George!  of the honour of his
alliance.  That's plain speaking, I hope."

     "Bounderby," urged Mr. Gradgrind, "this is unreasonable."

     "Is it?" said Bounderby.  "I am glad to hear you say so.  Because when
Tom Gradgrind with his new lights, tells me that what I say is unreasonable, I
am convinced at once it must be devilish sensible.  With your permission I am
going on.  You know my origin; and you know that for a good many years of my
life I didn't want a shoeing-horn, in consequence of not having a shoe.  Yet
you may believe or not, as you think proper, that there are ladies - born
ladies - belonging to families - Families! - who next to worship the ground I
walk on."

     He discharged this like a Rocket, at his father-in-law's head.

     "Whereas your daughter," proceeded Bounderby, "is far from being a born
lady.  That you know, yourself.  Not that I care a pinch of candle-snuff about
such things, for you are very well aware I don't; but that such is the fact,
and you, Tom Gradgrind, can't change it.  Why do I say this?"

     "Not, I fear," observed Mr. Gradgrind, in a low voice, "to spare me."

     "Hear me out," said Bounderby, "and refrain from cutting in till your
turn comes round.  I say this, because highly connected females have been
astonished to see the way in which your daughter has conducted herself, and to
witness her insensibility.  They have wondered how I have suffered it.  And I
wonder myself now, and I won't suffer it."

     "Bounderby," returned Mr. Gradgrind, rising, "the less we say to-night
the better, I think."

     "On the contrary, Tom Gradgrind, the more we say to-night, the better, I
think.  That is," the consideration checked him, "till I have said all I mean
to say, and then I don't care how soon we stop.  I come to a question that may
shorten the business.  What do you mean by the proposal you made just now?"

     "What do I mean, Bounderby?"

     "By your visiting proposition," said Bounderby, with an inflexible jerk
of the hayfield.

     "I mean that I hope you may be induced to arrange in a friendly manner,
for allowing Louisa a period of repose and reflection here, which may tend to
a gradual alteration for the better in many respects."

     "To a softening down of your ideas of the incompatibility?" said
Bounderby.

     "If you put it in those terms."

     "What made you think of this?" said Bounderby.

     "I have already said, I fear Louisa has not been understood.  Is it
asking too much, Bounderby, that you, so far her elder, should aid in trying
to set her right?  You have accepted a great charge of her; for better for
worse, for - "

     Mr. Bounderby may have been annoyed by the repetition of his own words to
Stephen Blackpool, but he cut the quotation short with an angry start.

     "Come!" said he, "I don't want to be told about that.  I know what I took
her for, as well as you do.  Never you mind what I took her for; that's my
lookout."

     "I was merely going on to remark, Bounderby, that we may all be more or
less in the wrong, not even excepting you; and that some yielding on your
part, remembering the trust you have accepted, may not only be an act of true
kindness, but perhaps a debt incurred towards Louisa."

     "I think differently," blustered Bounderby.  "I am going to finish this
business according to my own opinions.  Now, I don't want to make a quarrel of
it with you, Tom Gradgrind.  To tell you the truth, I don't think it would be
worthy of my reputation to quarrel on such a subject. As to your
gentleman-friend, he may take himself off, wherever he likes best.  If he
falls in my way, I shall tell him my mind; if he don't fall in my way, I
shan't, for it won't be worth my while to do it.  As to your daughter, whom I
made Loo Bounderby, and might have done better by leaving Loo Gradgrind, if
she don't come home to-morrow, by twelve o'clock at noon, I shall understand
that she prefers to stay away, and I shall send her wearing apparel and so
forth over here, and you'll take charge of her for the future.  What I shall
say to people in general, of the incompatibility that led to my so laying down
the law, will be this.  I am Josiah Bounderby, and I had my bringing-up; she's
the daughter of Tom Gradgrind, and she had her bringing-up; and the two horses
wouldn't pull together.  I am pretty well known to be rather an uncommon man,
I believe: and most people will understand fast enough that it must be a woman
rather out of the common, also, who, in the long run, would come up to my
mark."

     "Let me seriously entreat you to reconsider this, Bounderby," urged Mr.
Gradgrind, "before you commit yourself to such a decision."

     "I always come to a decision," said Bounderby, tossing his hat on: "and
whatever I do, I do at once.  I should be surprised at Tom Gradgrind's
addressing such a remark to Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, knowing what he
knows of him, if I could be surprised by anything Tom Gradgrind did, after his
making himself a party to sentimental humbug.  I have given you my decision,
and I have got no more to say.  Good-night!"

     So Mr. Bounderby went home to his town house to bed.  At five minutes
past twelve o'clock next day, he directed Mrs. Bounderby's property to be
carefully packed up and sent to Tom Gradgrind's; advertised his country
retreat for sale by private contract; and resumed a bachelor life.