Hard Times

Mr. Bounderby stayed her, by holding a mouthful of chop in suspension before swallowing it, and putting out his left hand. Then, withdrawing his hand and swallowing his mouthful of chop, he said to Stephen: ‘Now you know, this good lady is a born lady, a high lady. You are not to suppose because she keeps my house for me, that she hasn’t been very high up the tree—ah, up at the top of the tree! Now, if you have got anything to say that can’t be said before a born lady, this lady will leave the room. If what you have got to say _can_ be said before a born lady, this lady will stay where she is.’ ‘Sir, I hope I never had nowt to say, not fitten for a born lady to year, sin’ I were born mysen’,’ was the reply, accompanied with a slight flush. ‘Very well,’ said Mr. Bounderby, pushing away his plate, and leaning back. ‘Fire away!’ ‘I ha’ coom,’ Stephen began, raising his eyes from the floor, after a moment’s consideration, ‘to ask yo yor advice. I need ’t overmuch. I were married on Eas’r Monday nineteen year sin, long and dree. She were a young lass—pretty enow—wi’ good accounts of herseln. Well! She went bad—soon. Not along of me. Gonnows I were not a unkind husband to her.’ ‘I have heard all this before,’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘She took to drinking, left off working, sold the furniture, pawned the clothes, and played old Gooseberry.’ ‘I were patient wi’ her.’ (‘The more fool you, I think,’ said Mr. Bounderby, in confidence to his wine-glass.) ‘I were very patient wi’ her. I tried to wean her fra ’t ower and ower agen. I tried this, I tried that, I tried t’other. I ha’ gone home, many’s the time, and found all vanished as I had in the world, and her without a sense left to bless herseln lying on bare ground. I ha’ dun ’t not once, not twice—twenty time!’ Every line in his face deepened as he said it, and put in its affecting evidence of the suffering he had undergone. ‘From bad to worse, from worse to worsen. She left me. She disgraced herseln everyways, bitter and bad. She coom back, she coom back, she coom back. What could I do t’ hinder her? I ha’ walked the streets nights long, ere ever I’d go home. I ha’ gone t’ th’ brigg, minded to fling myseln ower, and ha’ no more on’t. I ha’ bore that much, that I were owd when I were young.’ Mrs. Sparsit, easily ambling along with her netting-needles, raised the Coriolanian eyebrows and shook her head, as much as to say, ‘The great know trouble as well as the small. Please to turn your humble eye in My direction.’ ‘I ha’ paid her to keep awa’ fra’ me. These five year I ha’ paid her. I ha’ gotten decent fewtrils about me agen. I ha’ lived hard and sad, but not ashamed and fearfo’ a’ the minnits o’ my life. Last night, I went home. There she lay upon my har-stone! There she is!’ In the strength of his misfortune, and the energy of his distress, he fired for the moment like a proud man. In another moment, he stood as he had stood all the time—his usual stoop upon him; his pondering face addressed to Mr. Bounderby, with a curious expression on it, half shrewd, half perplexed, as if his mind were set upon unravelling something very difficult; his hat held tight in his left hand, which rested on his hip; his right arm, with a rugged propriety and force of action, very earnestly emphasizing what he said: not least so when it always paused, a little bent, but not withdrawn, as he paused. ‘I was acquainted with all this, you know,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘except the last clause, long ago. It’s a bad job; that’s what it is. You had better have been satisfied as you were, and not have got married. However, it’s too late to say that.’ ‘Was it an unequal marriage, sir, in point of years?’ asked Mrs. Sparsit. ‘You hear what this lady asks. Was it an unequal marriage in point of years, this unlucky job of yours?’ said Mr. Bounderby. ‘Not e’en so. I were one-and-twenty myseln; she were twenty nighbut.’ ‘Indeed, sir?’ said Mrs. Sparsit to her Chief, with great placidity. ‘I inferred, from its being so miserable a marriage, that it was probably an unequal one in point of years.’ Mr. Bounderby looked very hard at the good lady in a side-long way that had an odd sheepishness about it. He fortified himself with a little more sherry. ‘Well? Why don’t you go on?’ he then asked, turning rather irritably on Stephen Blackpool. ‘I ha’ coom to ask yo, sir, how I am to be ridded o’ this woman.’ Stephen infused a yet deeper gravity into the mixed expression of his attentive face. Mrs. Sparsit uttered a gentle ejaculation, as having received a moral shock. ‘What do you mean?’ said Bounderby, getting up to lean his back against the chimney-piece. ‘What are you talking about? You took her for better for worse.’ ‘I mun’ be ridden o’ her. I cannot bear ’t nommore. I ha’ lived under ’t so long, for that I ha’ had’n the pity and comforting words o’ th’ best lass living or dead. Haply, but for her, I should ha’ gone battering mad.’ ‘He wishes to be free, to marry the female of whom he speaks, I fear, sir,’ observed Mrs. Sparsit in an undertone, and much dejected by the immorality of the people. ‘I do. The lady says what’s right. I do. I were a coming to ’t. I ha’ read i’ th’ papers that great folk (fair faw ’em a’! I wishes ’em no hurt!) are not bonded together for better for worst so fast, but that they can be set free fro’ _their_ misfortnet marriages, an’ marry ower agen. When they dunnot agree, for that their tempers is ill-sorted, they has rooms o’ one kind an’ another in their houses, above a bit, and they can live asunders. We fok ha’ only one room, and we can’t. When that won’t do, they ha’ gowd an’ other cash, an’ they can say “This for yo’ an’ that for me,” an’ they can go their separate ways. We can’t. Spite o’ all that, they can be set free for smaller wrongs than mine. So, I mun be ridden o’ this woman, and I want t’ know how?’ ‘No how,’ returned Mr. Bounderby. ‘If I do her any hurt, sir, there’s a law to punish me?’ ‘Of course there is.’ ‘If I flee from her, there’s a law to punish me?’ ‘Of course there is.’ ‘If I marry t’oother dear lass, there’s a law to punish me?’ ‘Of course there is.’ ‘If I was to live wi’ her an’ not marry her—saying such a thing could be, which it never could or would, an’ her so good—there’s a law to punish me, in every innocent child belonging to me?’ ‘Of course there is.’ ‘Now, a’ God’s name,’ said Stephen Blackpool, ‘show me the law to help me!’ ‘Hem! There’s a sanctity in this relation of life,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘and—and—it must be kept up.’ ‘No no, dunnot say that, sir. ’Tan’t kep’ up that way. Not that way. ’Tis kep’ down that way. I’m a weaver, I were in a fact’ry when a chilt, but I ha’ gotten een to see wi’ and eern to year wi’. I read in th’ papers every ’Sizes, every Sessions—and you read too—I know it!—with dismay—how th’ supposed unpossibility o’ ever getting unchained from one another, at any price, on any terms, brings blood upon this land, and brings many common married fok to battle, murder, and sudden death. Let us ha’ this, right understood. Mine’s a grievous case, an’ I want—if yo will be so good—t’ know the law that helps me.’ ‘Now, I tell you what!’ said Mr. Bounderby, putting his hands in his pockets. ‘There _is_ such a law.’ Stephen, subsiding into his quiet manner, and never wandering in his attention, gave a nod.