CHAPTER XI

NO WAY OUT

THE Fairy palaces burst into illumination, before pale morning showed the

monstrous serpents of smoke trailing themselves over Coketown. A

clattering of clogs upon the pavement; a rapid ringing of bells; and all

the melancholy mad elephants, polished and oiled up for the day’s

monotony, were at their heavy exercise again.

Stephen bent over his loom, quiet, watchful, and steady. A special

contrast, as every man was in the forest of looms where Stephen worked,

to the crashing, smashing, tearing piece of mechanism at which he

laboured. Never fear, good people of an anxious turn of mind, that Art

will consign Nature to oblivion. Set anywhere, side by side, the work of

GOD and the work of man; and the former, even though it be a troop of

Hands of very small account, will gain in dignity from the comparison.

So many hundred Hands in this Mill; so many hundred horse Steam Power.

It is known, to the force of a single pound weight, what the engine will

do; but, not all the calculators of the National Debt can tell me the

capacity for good or evil, for love or hatred, for patriotism or

discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into vice, or the reverse, at

any single moment in the soul of one of these its quiet servants, with

the composed faces and the regulated actions. There is no mystery in it;

there is an unfathomable mystery in the meanest of them, for

ever.—Supposing we were to reverse our arithmetic for material objects,

and to govern these awful unknown quantities by other means!

The day grew strong, and showed itself outside, even against the flaming

lights within. The lights were turned out, and the work went on. The

rain fell, and the Smoke-serpents, submissive to the curse of all that

tribe, trailed themselves upon the earth. In the waste-yard outside, the

steam from the escape pipe, the litter of barrels and old iron, the

shining heaps of coals, the ashes everywhere, were shrouded in a veil of

mist and rain.

The work went on, until the noon-bell rang. More clattering upon the

pavements. The looms, and wheels, and Hands all out of gear for an hour.

Stephen came out of the hot mill into the damp wind and cold wet streets,

haggard and worn. He turned from his own class and his own quarter,

taking nothing but a little bread as he walked along, towards the hill on

which his principal employer lived, in a red house with black outside

shutters, green inside blinds, a black street door, up two white steps,

BOUNDERBY (in letters very like himself) upon a brazen plate, and a round

brazen door-handle underneath it, like a brazen full-stop.

Mr. Bounderby was at his lunch. So Stephen had expected. Would his

servant say that one of the Hands begged leave to speak to him? Message

in return, requiring name of such Hand. Stephen Blackpool. There was

nothing troublesome against Stephen Blackpool; yes, he might come in.

Stephen Blackpool in the parlour. Mr. Bounderby (whom he just knew by

sight), at lunch on chop and sherry. Mrs. Sparsit netting at the

fireside, in a side-saddle attitude, with one foot in a cotton stirrup.

It was a part, at once of Mrs. Sparsit’s dignity and service, not to

lunch. She supervised the meal officially, but implied that in her own

stately person she considered lunch a weakness.

‘Now, Stephen,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘what’s the matter with _you_?’

Stephen made a bow. Not a servile one—these Hands will never do that!

Lord bless you, sir, you’ll never catch them at that, if they have been

with you twenty years!—and, as a complimentary toilet for Mrs. Sparsit,

tucked his neckerchief ends into his waistcoat.

‘Now, you know,’ said Mr. Bounderby, taking some sherry, ‘we have never

had any difficulty with you, and you have never been one of the

unreasonable ones. You don’t expect to be set up in a coach and six, and

to be fed on turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon, as a good many

of ’em do!’ Mr. Bounderby always represented this to be the sole,

immediate, and direct object of any Hand who was not entirely satisfied;

‘and therefore I know already that you have not come here to make a

complaint. Now, you know, I am certain of that, beforehand.’

‘No, sir, sure I ha’ not coom for nowt o’ th’ kind.’

Mr. Bounderby seemed agreeably surprised, notwithstanding his previous

strong conviction. ‘Very well,’ he returned. ‘You’re a steady Hand, and

I was not mistaken. Now, let me hear what it’s all about. As it’s not

that, let me hear what it is. What have you got to say? Out with it,

lad!’

Stephen happened to glance towards Mrs. Sparsit. ‘I can go, Mr.

Bounderby, if you wish it,’ said that self-sacrificing lady, making a

feint of taking her foot out of the stirrup.

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.

‘But it’s not for you at all. It costs money. It costs a mint of

money.’

‘How much might that be?’ Stephen calmly asked.

‘Why, you’d have to go to Doctors’ Commons with a suit, and you’d have to

go to a court of Common Law with a suit, and you’d have to go to the

House of Lords with a suit, and you’d have to get an Act of Parliament to

enable you to marry again, and it would cost you (if it was a case of

very plain sailing), I suppose from a thousand to fifteen hundred pound,’

said Mr. Bounderby. ‘Perhaps twice the money.’

‘There’s no other law?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Why then, sir,’ said Stephen, turning white, and motioning with that

right hand of his, as if he gave everything to the four winds, ‘’_tis_ a

muddle. ’Tis just a muddle a’toogether, an’ the sooner I am dead, the

better.’

(Mrs. Sparsit again dejected by the impiety of the people.)

‘Pooh, pooh! Don’t you talk nonsense, my good fellow,’ said Mr.

Bounderby, ‘about things you don’t understand; and don’t you call the

Institutions of your country a muddle, or you’ll get yourself into a real

muddle one of these fine mornings. The institutions of your country are

not your piece-work, and the only thing you have got to do, is, to mind

your piece-work. You didn’t take your wife for fast and for loose; but

for better for worse. If she has turned out worse—why, all we have got

to say is, she might have turned out better.’

‘’Tis a muddle,’ said Stephen, shaking his head as he moved to the door.

‘’Tis a’ a muddle!’

‘Now, I’ll tell you what!’ Mr. Bounderby resumed, as a valedictory

address. ‘With what I shall call your unhallowed opinions, you have been

quite shocking this lady: who, as I have already told you, is a born

lady, and who, as I have not already told you, has had her own marriage

misfortunes to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds—tens of Thousands

of Pounds!’ (he repeated it with great relish). ‘Now, you have always

been a steady Hand hitherto; but my opinion is, and so I tell you

plainly, that you are turning into the wrong road. You have been

listening to some mischievous stranger or other—they’re always about—and

the best thing you can do is, to come out of that. Now you know;’ here

his countenance expressed marvellous acuteness; ‘I can see as far into a

grindstone as another man; farther than a good many, perhaps, because I

had my nose well kept to it when I was young. I see traces of the turtle

soup, and venison, and gold spoon in this. Yes, I do!’ cried Mr.

Bounderby, shaking his head with obstinate cunning. ‘By the Lord Harry,

I do!’

With a very different shake of the head and deep sigh, Stephen said,

‘Thank you, sir, I wish you good day.’ So he left Mr. Bounderby swelling

at his own portrait on the wall, as if he were going to explode himself

into it; and Mrs. Sparsit still ambling on with her foot in her stirrup,

looking quite cast down by the popular vices.