Hard Times by Charles Dickens (ebooks that read to you txt) 📕

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 chose to do, resolved not to lose sight of Mrs. Sparsit easily. So when her nerves were strung up to the pitch of again consuming sweetbreads 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 Mahomedan 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 hardy 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 villainous old mind. In the meantime, ma’am, I am of opinion, if you ask me my opinion, that the less she is talked about, the better.”

The 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 overdoing 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