Thus Slackbridge, gnashing and perspiring after a prodigious sort. A few stern voices called out, "No!" and a score or two hailed, with assenting cries of "Hear, hear!" the caution from one man, "Slackbridge, y'or over hetter in 't; y'or a goen too fast!" But these were pigmies against an army; the general assemblage subscribed to the gospel according to Slackbridge, and gave three cheers for him, as he sat demonstratively panting at them.
These men and women were yet in the streets, passing quietly to their homes, when Sissy, who had been called away from Louisa some minutes before, returned.
"Who is it?" asked Louisa.
"It is Mr. Bounderby," said Sissy, timid of the name, "and your brother Mr. Tom, and a young woman who says her name is Rachael, and that you know her."
"What do they want, Sissy dear?"
"They want to see you. Rachael has been crying, and seems angry."
"Father," said Louisa, for he was present, "I cannot refuse to see them, for a reason that will explain itself. Shall they come in here?"
As he answered in the affirmative, Sissy went away to bring them. She reappeared with them directly. Tom was last, and remained standing in the obscurest part of the room, near the door.
"Mrs. Bounderby," said her husband, entering with a cool nod, "I don't disturb you, I hope. This is an unseasonable hour, but here is a young woman who has been making statements which render my visit necessary. Tom Gradgrind, as your son, young Tom, refuses for some obstinate reason or other to say anything at all about those statements, good or bad, I am obliged to confront her with your daughter."
"You have seen me once before, young lady," said Rachael, standing in front of Louisa.
Tom coughed.
"You have seen me, young lady," repeated Rachael, as she did not answer, "once before."
Tom coughed again.
"I have."
Rachael cast her eyes proudly towards Mr. Bounderby, and said, "Will you make it known, young lady, where, and who was there?"
"I went to the house where Stephen Blackpool lodged, on the night of his discharge from his work, and I saw you there. He was there, too, and an old woman who did not speak, and whom I could scarcely see, stood in a dark corner. My brother was with me."
"Why couldn't you say so, young Tom?" demanded Bounderby.
"I promised my sister I wouldn't." Which Louisa hastily confirmed. "And besides," said the whelp bitterly, "she tells her own story so precious well--and so full--that what business had I to take it out of her mouth?"
"Say, young lady, if you please," pursued Rachael, "why, in an evil hour, you ever came to Stephen's that night."
"I felt compassion for him," said Louisa, her colour deepening, "and I wished to know what he was going to do, and wished to offer him assistance."
"Thank you, ma'am," said Bounderby. "Much flattered and obliged."
"Did you offer him," asked Rachael, "a bank-note?"
"Yes, but he refused it, and would only take two pounds in gold."
Rachael cast her eyes towards Mr. Bounderby again.
"Oh, certainly!" said Bounderby. "If you put the question whether your ridiculous and improbable account was true or not, I am bound to say it's confirmed."
"Young lady," said Rachael, "Stephen Blackpool is now named as a thief in public print all over this town, and where else! There have been a meeting tonight where he have been spoken of in the same shameful way. Stephen! The honest lad, the truest lad, the best!" Her indignation failed her, and she broke off sobbing.
"I am very, very sorry," said Louisa.
"Oh, young lady, young lady," returned Rachael, "I hope you may be, but I don't know! I can't say what you may ha' done! The like of you don't know us, don't care for us, don't belong to us. I am not sure why you may ha' come that night. I can't tell but what you may ha' come wi' some aim of your own, not mindin' to what trouble you brought such as the poor lad. I said then, Bless you for coming, and I said it of my heart, you seemed to take so pitifully to him, but I don't know now, I don't know!"
Louisa could not reproach her for her unjust suspicions; she was so faithful to her idea of the man, and so afflicted.
"And when I think," said Rachael, through her sobs, "that the poor lad was so grateful, thinkin' you so good to him--when I mind that he put his hand over his hard worken face to hide the tears that you brought up there--oh, I hope you may be sorry, and ha' no bad cause to be it, but I don't know, I don't know!"
"You're a pretty article," growled the whelp, moving uneasily in his dark corner, "to come here with these precious imputations! You ought to be bundled out for not knowing how to behave yourself, and you would be by rights."
She said nothing in reply, and her low weeping was the only sound that was heard, until Mr. Bounderby spoke.
"Come!" said he, "you know what you have engaged to do. You had better give your mind to that, not this."
" 'Deed, I am loath," returned Rachael, drying her eyes, "that any here should see me like this; but I won't be seen so again. Young lady, when I had read what's put in print of Stephen--and what has just as much truth in it as if it had been put in print of you--I went straight to the Bank to say I knew where Stephen was, and to give a sure and certain promise that he should be here in two days. I couldn't meet wi' Mr. Bounderby then, and your brother sent me away, and I tried to find you, but you was not to be found, and I went back to work. Soon as I come out of the Mill tonight, I hastened to hear what was said of Stephen--for I know wi' pride he will come back to shame it!--and then I went again to seek Mr. Bounderby, and I found him, and I told him every word I knew; and he believed no word I said, and brought me here."
"So far, that's true enough," assented Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his pockets and his hat on. "But I have known you people before today, you'll observe, and I know you never die for want of talking. Now I recommend you not so much to mind talking just now, as doing. You have undertaken to do something; all I remark upon that at present is, do it!"
"I have written to Stephen by the post that went out this afternoon, as I have written to him once before sin he went away," said Rachael, "and he will be here, at furthest, in two days."
"Then, I'll tell you something. You are not aware perhaps," retorted Mr. Bounderby, "that you yourself have been looked after now and then, not being considered quite free from suspicion in this business, on account of most people being judged according to the company they keep. The post-office hasn't been forgotten either. What I'll tell you is, that no letter to Stephen Blackpool has ever got into it. Therefore, what has become of yours I leave you to guess. Perhaps you're mistaken, and never wrote any."
"He hadn't been gone from here, young lady," said Rachael, turning appealingly to Louisa, "as much as a week when he sent me the only letter I have had from him, saying that he was forced to seek work in another name."
"Oh, by George!" cried Bounderby, shaking his head, with a whistle, "he changes his name, does he! That's rather unlucky, too, for such an immaculate chap. It's considered a little suspicious in Courts of Justice, I believe, when an Innocent happens to have many names."
"What," said Rachael, with the tears in her eyes again, "what, young lady, in the name of Mercy, was left the poor lad to do! The masters against him on one hand, the men against him on the other, he only wantin' to work hard in peace, and do what he felt right. Can a man have no soul of his own, no mind of his own? Must he go wrong all through wi' this side, or must he go wrong all through wi' that, or else be hunted like a hare?"
"Indeed, indeed, I pity him from my heart," returned Louisa, "and I hope that he will clear himself."
"You need have no fear of that, young lady. He is sure!"
"All the surer, I suppose," said Mr. Bounderby, "for your refusing to tell me where he is? Eh?"
"He shall not, through any act of mine, come back wi' the unmerited reproach of being brought back. He shall come back of his own accord to clear himself, and put all those that have injured his good character, and he
not here for its defence, to shame. I have told him what has been done against him," said Rachael, throwing off all distrust as a rock throws off the sea, "and he will be here, at furthest, in two days."
"Notwithstanding which," added Mr. Bounderby, "if he can be laid hold of any sooner, he shall have an earlier opportunity of clearing himself. As to you, I have nothing against you; what you came and told me turns out to be true, and I have given you the means of proving it to be true, and there's an end of it. I wish you good night all! I must be off to look a little further into this."
Tom came out of his corner when Mr. Bounderby moved, moved with him, kept close to him, and went away with him. The only parting salutation of which he delivered himself was a sulky "Good night, Father!" With a brief speech, and a scowl at his sister, he left the house.
Since his sheet-anchor had come home, Mr. Gradgrind had been sparing of speech. He still sat silent, when Louisa mildly said:
"Rachael, you will not distrust me one day, when you know me better."
"It goes against me," Rachael answered, in a gentler manner, "to mistrust anyone, but when I am so mistrusted--when we all are--I cannot keep such things quite out of my mind. I ask your pardon for having done you an injury. I don't think what I said now. Yet I might come to think it again, wi' the poor lad so wronged."
"Did you tell him in your letter," inquired Sissy, "that suspicion seemed to have fallen upon him because he had been seen about the Bank at night? He would then know what he would have to explain on coming back, and would be ready."
"Yes, dear," she returned, "but I can't guess what can have ever taken him there. He never used to go there. It was never in his way. His way was the same as mine, and not near it."
Sissy had already been at her side asking her where she lived, and whether she might come tomorrow night to inquire if there were news of him.
"I doubt," said Rachael, "if he can be here till next day."
"Then I will come next night, too," said Sissy.
When Rachael, assenting to this, was gone, Mr. Gradgrind lifted up his head and said to his daughter:
"Louisa, my dear, I have never, that I know of, seen this man. Do you believe him to be implicated?"
"I think I have believed it, Father, though with great difficulty. I do not believe it now."
"That is to say, you once persuaded yourself to believe it, from knowing him to be suspected. His appearance and manner--are they so honest?"
"Very honest."
"And her confidence not to be shaken! I ask myself," said Mr. Gradgrind, musing, "does the real culprit know of these accusations? Where is he? Who is he?"
His hair had latterly began to change its colour. As he leaned upon his hand again, looking grey and old, Louisa, with a face of fear and pity, hurriedly went over to him, and sat close at his side. Her eyes by accident met Sissy's at the moment. Sissy flushed and started, and Louisa put her finger on her lip.
Next night, when Sissy returned home and told Louisa that Stephen was not come, she told it in a whisper. Next night again, when she came home with the same account, and added that he had not been heard of, she spoke in the same low frightened tone. From the moment of that interchange of looks, they never uttered his name, or any reference to him, aloud, nor even pursued the subject of the robbery when Mr. Gradgrind spoke of it.
The two appointed days ran out, three days and nights ran out, and Stephen Blackpool was not come, and remained unheard of. On the fourth day, Rachael, with unabated confidence, but considering her dispatch to have miscarried, went up to the Bank and showed her letter from him with his address, at a working colony, one of many, not upon the main road, sixty miles away. Messengers were sent to that place, and the whole town looked for Stephen to be brought in next day.
During this whole time the whelp moved about with Mr. Bounderby like his shadow, assisting in all the proceedings. He was greatly excited, horribly fevered, bit his nails down to the quick, spoke in a hard rattling voice, and with lips that were black and burnt up. At the hour when the suspected man was looked for, the whelp was at the station, offering to wager that he had made off before the arrival of those who were sent in quest of him, and that he would not appear.
The whelp was right. The messengers returned alone. Rachael's letter had gone, Rachael's letter had been delivered. Stephen Blackpool had decamped in that same hour, and no soul knew more of him. The only doubt in Coketown was whether Rachael had written in good faith, believing that he really would come back, or warning him to fly. On this point opinion was divided.
Six days, seven days, far on into another week. The wretched whelp plucked up a ghastly courage, and began to grow defiant, "Was the suspected fellow the thief? A pretty question! If not, where was the man, and why did he not come back?"
Where was the man, and why did he not come back? In the dead of night the echoes of his own words, which had rolled Heaven knows how far away in the daytime, came back instead, and abided by him until morning.
CHAPTER V
Found
DAY and night again, day and night again. No Stephen Blackpool. Where was the man, and why did he not come back?
Every night, Sissy went to Rachael's lodging, and sat with her in her small neat room. All day, Rachael toiled as such people must toil, whatever their anxieties. The smoke-serpents were indifferent who was lost or found, who turned out bad or good; the melancholy mad elephants, like the Hard Fact men, abated nothing of their set routine, whatever happened. Day and night again, day and night again. The monotony was unbroken. Even Stephen Blackpool's disappearance was falling into the general way, and becoming as monotonous a wonder as any piece of machinery in Coketown.
"I misdoubt," said Rachael, "if there is as many as twenty left in all this place who have any trust in the poor dear lad now."
She said it to Sissy, as they sat in her lodging, lighted only by the lamp at the street-corner. Sissy had come there when it was already dark to await her return from work, and they had since sat at the window where Rachael had found her, wanting no brighter light to shine on their sorrowful talk.
"If it hadn't been mercifully brought about that I was to have you to speak to," pursued Rachael, "times are when I think my mind would not have kept right. But I get hope and strength through you; and you believe that though appearances may rise against him, he will be proved clear?"
"I do believe so," returned Sissy, "with my whole heart. I feel so certain, Rachael, that the confidence you hold in yours against all discouragement is not like to be wrong, that I have no more doubt of him than if I had known him through as many years of trial as you have."
"And I, my dear," said Rachael, with a tremble in her voice, "have known him through them all to be, according to his quiet ways, so faithful to everything honest and good that if he was never to be heard of more, and I was to live to be a hundred years old, I could say with my last breath, 'God knows my heart, I have never once left trusting Stephen Blackpool!' "
"We all believe, up at the Lodge, Rachael, that he will be freed from suspicion sooner or later."
"The better I know it to be so believed there, my dear," said Rachael, "and the kinder I feel it that you come away from there, purposely to comfort me, and keep me company, and be seen wi' me when I am not yet free from all suspicion myself, the more grieved I am that I should ever have spoken those mistrusting words to the young lady. And yet----"
"You don't mistrust her now, Rachael?"
"Now that you have brought us more together, no. But I can't at all times keep out of my mind----"
Her voice so sunk into a low and slow communing with herself that Sissy, sitting by her side, was obliged to listen with attention.
"I can't at all times keep out of my mind, mistrustings of someone. I can't think who 'tis, I can't think how or why it may be done, but I mistrust that someone has put Stephen out of the way. I mistrust that by his coming back of his own accord, and showing himself innocent before them all, someone would be confounded,
who--to prevent that--has stopped him, and put him out of the way."