The World's Greatest Books_ Volume 3 Part 20

"Well!" bl.u.s.tered Mr. Bounderby, "what's the matter? What is young Thomas in the dumps about?"

He spoke of young Thomas, but he looked at Louisa.

"We were peeping at the circus," muttered Louisa haughtily; "and father caught us."

"And, Mrs. Gradgrind," said her husband, in a lofty manner, "I should as soon have expected to find my children reading poetry."

"Dear me!" whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind. "How can you, Louisa and Thomas? I wonder at you. I declare you're enough to make one regret ever having had a family at all. I have a great mind to say I wish I hadn't. _Then_ what would you have done, I should like to know? As if, with my head in its present throbbing state, you couldn't go and look at the sh.e.l.ls and minerals and things provided for you, instead of circuses. I'm sure you have enough to do if that's what you want. With my head in its present state I couldn't remember the mere names of half the facts you have got to attend to."

"That's the reason," pouted Louisa.

"Don't tell me that's the reason, because it can be nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Gradgrind. "Go and be something logical directly."

Mrs. Gradgrind, not being a scientific character, usually dismissed her children to their studies with the general injunction that they were to choose their own pursuit.

_II.--Mr. Bounderby of c.o.ketown_

Mr. Josiah Bounderby was as near being Mr. Gradgrind's bosom friend as a man perfectly devoid of sentiment can be to another man perfectly devoid of sentiment.

He was a rich man--banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, loud man, with a stare and a metallic laugh. A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself--a self-made man. A man who was always proclaiming, through that bra.s.sy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his early ignorance and poverty. A man who was the bully of humility.

He was fond of telling, was Mr. Bounderby, how he was born in a ditch, and, abandoned by his mother, how he ran away from his grandmother, who starved and ill-used him, and so became a vagabond. "I pulled through it," he would say, "though n.o.body threw me out a rope. Vagabond, errand-boy, labourer, porter, clerk, chief manager, small partner--Josiah Bounderby, of c.o.ketown."

This myth of his early life was dissipated later; and it turned out that his mother, a respectable old woman, whom Bounderby pensioned off with thirty pounds a year on condition she never came near him, had pinched herself to help him out in life, and put him as apprentice to a trade.

From this apprenticeship he had steadily risen to riches.

Mr. Bounderby held strong views about the people who worked for him, the "hands" he called them; and found, whenever they complained of anything, that they always expected to be set up in a coach and six, and to be fed on turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon.

As time went on, and young Thomas Gradgrind became old enough to go into Bounderby's Bank, Bounderby decided that Louisa was old enough to be married.

Mr. Gradgrind, now member of parliament for c.o.ketown, mentioned the matter to his daughter.

"Louisa, my dear, you are the subject of a proposal of marriage that has been made to me."

He waited, as if he would have been glad that she said something.

Strange to relate Mr. Gradgrind was not so collected at this moment as his daughter was.

"I have undertaken to let you know that--in short, that Mr. Bounderby has long hoped that the time might arrive when he should offer you his hand in marriage. That time has now come, and Mr. Bounderby has made his proposal to me, and has entreated me to make it known to you."

"Father," said Louisa, "do you think I love Mr. Bounderby?"

Mr. Gradgrind was extremely discomforted by this unexpected question.

"Well, my child," he returned, "I--really--cannot take upon myself to say."

"Father," pursued Louisa, in exactly the same voice as before, "do you ask me to love Mr. Bounderby?"

"My dear Louisa, no. No, I ask nothing."

"Father, does Mr. Bounderby ask me to love him?"

"Really, my dear, it is difficult to answer your question. Because the reply depends so materially, Louisa, on the sense in which we use the expression. Mr. Bounderby does not pretend to anything sentimental. Now, I should advise you to consider this question simply as one of fact.

Now, what are the facts of this case? You are, we will say in round numbers, twenty years of age. Mr. Bounderby is, we will say in round numbers, fifty. There is some disparity in your respective years, but in your means and position there is none; on the contrary, there is a great suitability. Confining yourself rigidly to fact, the questions of fact are: 'Does Mr. Bounderby ask me to marry him?' 'Yes, he does.' And, 'Shall I marry him?'"

"Shall I marry him?" repeated Louisa, with great deliberation.

There was silence between the two before Louisa spoke again. She thought of the shortness of life, of how her brother Tom had said it would be a good thing for him if she made up her mind to do--she knew what.

"While it lasts," she said aloud, "I would like to do the little I can, and the little I am fit for. What does it matter? Mr. Bounderby asks me to marry him. Let it be so. Since Mr. Bounderby likes to take me thus, I am satisfied to accept his proposal. Tell him, father, as soon as you please, that this was my answer. Repeat it, word for word, if you can, because I should wish him to know what I said."

"It is quite right, my dear," retorted her father approvingly, "to be exact I will observe your very proper request. Have you any wish in reference to the period of your marriage, my child?"

"None, father. What does it matter?"

They went into the drawing-room, and Mr. Gradgrind presented Louisa to his wife as Mrs. Bounderby.

"Oh!" said Mrs. Gradgrind. "So you have settled it. I am sure I give you joy, my dear, and I hope you may turn all your ological studies to good account. And now, you see, I shall be worrying myself morning, noon, and night, to know what I am to call him!"

"Mrs. Gradgrind," said her husband solemnly, "what do you mean?"

"Whatever am I to call him when he is married to Louisa? I must call him something. It's impossible to be constantly addressing him, and never giving him a name. I cannot call him Josiah, for the name is insupportable to me. You yourself wouldn't hear of Joe, you very well know. Am I to call my own son-in-law 'Mister?' I believe not, unless the time has arrived when I am to be trampled upon by my relations. Then, what am I to call him?"

There being no answer to this conundrum, Mrs. Gradgrind retired to bed.

The day of the marriage came, and after the wedding-breakfast the bridegroom addressed the company--an improving party, there was no nonsense about any of them--in the following terms.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am Josiah Bounderby, of c.o.ketown. Since you have done my wife and myself the honour of drinking our healths and happiness, I suppose I must acknowledge the same. If you want a speech, my friend and father-in-law, Tom Gradgrind, is a member of parliament, and you know where to get it. Now, you have mentioned that I am this day married to Tom Gradgrind's daughter. I am very glad to be so. It has long been my wish to be so. I have watched her bringing up, and I believe she is worthy of me. At the same time, I believe I am worthy of her. So I thank you for the goodwill you have shown towards us."

Shortly after which oration, as they were going on a nuptial trip to Lyons, in order that Mr. Bounderby might see how the hands got on in those parts, and whether they, too, required to be fed with gold spoons, the happy pair departed for the railroad. As the bride pa.s.sed downstairs her brother Tom whispered to her. "What a game girl you are, to be such a first-rate sister, too!"

She clung to him as she would have clung to some far better nature that day, and was shaken in her composure for the first time.

_III.--Mr. James Harthouse_

The Gradgrind party wanting a.s.sistance in the House of Commons, Mr.

James Harthouse, who was of good family and appearance, and had tried most things and found them a bore, was sent down to c.o.ketown to study the neighbourhood with a view to entering Parliament.

Mr. Bounderby at once pounced upon him, and James Harthouse was introduced to Mrs. Bounderby and her brother. Tom Gradgrind, junior, brought up under a continuous system of restraint, was a hypocrite, a thief, and, to Mr. James Harthouse, a whelp.

Yet the visitor saw at once that the whelp was the only creature Mrs.

Bounderby cared for, and it occurred to him, as time went on, that to win Mrs. Bounderby's affection (for he made no secret of his contempt for politics), he must devote himself to the whelp.

Mr. Bounderby was proud to have Mr. James Harthouse under his roof, proud to show off his greatness and self-importance to this gentleman from London.

"You're a gentleman, and I don't pretend to be one. You're a man of family. I am a bit of dirty riff-raff, and a genuine sc.r.a.p of rag, tag, and bobtail," said Mr. Bounderby.