CHAPTER II

MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE

THE Gradgrind party wanted assistance in cutting the throats of the

Graces. They went about recruiting; and where could they enlist recruits

more hopefully, than among the fine gentlemen who, having found out

everything to be worth nothing, were equally ready for anything?

Moreover, the healthy spirits who had mounted to this sublime height were

attractive to many of the Gradgrind school. They liked fine gentlemen;

they pretended that they did not, but they did. They became exhausted in

imitation of them; and they yaw-yawed in their speech like them; and they

served out, with an enervated air, the little mouldy rations of political

economy, on which they regaled their disciples. There never before was

seen on earth such a wonderful hybrid race as was thus produced.

Among the fine gentlemen not regularly belonging to the Gradgrind school,

there was one of a good family and a better appearance, with a happy turn

of humour which had told immensely with the House of Commons on the

occasion of his entertaining it with his (and the Board of Directors)

view of a railway accident, in which the most careful officers ever

known, employed by the most liberal managers ever heard of, assisted by

the finest mechanical contrivances ever devised, the whole in action on

the best line ever constructed, had killed five people and wounded

thirty-two, by a casualty without which the excellence of the whole

system would have been positively incomplete. Among the slain was a cow,

and among the scattered articles unowned, a widow’s cap. And the

honourable member had so tickled the House (which has a delicate sense of

humour) by putting the cap on the cow, that it became impatient of any

serious reference to the Coroner’s Inquest, and brought the railway off

with Cheers and Laughter.

Now, this gentleman had a younger brother of still better appearance than

himself, who had tried life as a Cornet of Dragoons, and found it a bore;

and had afterwards tried it in the train of an English minister abroad,

and found it a bore; and had then strolled to Jerusalem, and got bored

there; and had then gone yachting about the world, and got bored

everywhere. To whom this honourable and jocular, member fraternally said

one day, ‘Jem, there’s a good opening among the hard Fact fellows, and

they want men. I wonder you don’t go in for statistics.’ Jem, rather

taken by the novelty of the idea, and very hard up for a change, was as

ready to ‘go in’ for statistics as for anything else. So, he went in.

He coached himself up with a blue-book or two; and his brother put it

about among the hard Fact fellows, and said, ‘If you want to bring in,

for any place, a handsome dog who can make you a devilish good speech,

look after my brother Jem, for he’s your man.’ After a few dashes in the

public meeting way, Mr. Gradgrind and a council of political sages

approved of Jem, and it was resolved to send him down to Coketown, to

become known there and in the neighbourhood. Hence the letter Jem had

last night shown to Mrs. Sparsit, which Mr. Bounderby now held in his

hand; superscribed, ‘Josiah Bounderby, Esquire, Banker, Coketown.

Specially to introduce James Harthouse, Esquire. Thomas Gradgrind.’

Within an hour of the receipt of this dispatch and Mr. James Harthouse’s

card, Mr. Bounderby put on his hat and went down to the Hotel. There he

found Mr. James Harthouse looking out of window, in a state of mind so

disconsolate, that he was already half-disposed to ‘go in’ for something

else.

‘My name, sir,’ said his visitor, ‘is Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown.’

Mr. James Harthouse was very happy indeed (though he scarcely looked so)

to have a pleasure he had long expected.

‘Coketown, sir,’ said Bounderby, obstinately taking a chair, ‘is not the

kind of place you have been accustomed to. Therefore, if you will allow

me—or whether you will or not, for I am a plain man—I’ll tell you

something about it before we go any further.’

Mr. Harthouse would be charmed.

‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ said Bounderby. ‘I don’t promise it. First

of all, you see our smoke. That’s meat and drink to us. It’s the

healthiest thing in the world in all respects, and particularly for the

lungs. If you are one of those who want us to consume it, I differ from

you. We are not going to wear the bottoms of our boilers out any faster

than we wear ’em out now, for all the humbugging sentiment in Great

Britain and Ireland.’

By way of ‘going in’ to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined, ‘Mr.

Bounderby, I assure you I am entirely and completely of your way of

thinking. On conviction.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Bounderby. ‘Now, you have heard a lot of

talk about the work in our mills, no doubt. You have? Very good. I’ll

state the fact of it to you. It’s the pleasantest work there is, and

it’s the lightest work there is, and it’s the best-paid work there is.

More than that, we couldn’t improve the mills themselves, unless we laid

down Turkey carpets on the floors. Which we’re not a-going to do.’

‘Mr. Bounderby, perfectly right.’

‘Lastly,’ said Bounderby, ‘as to our Hands. There’s not a Hand in this

town, sir, man, woman, or child, but has one ultimate object in life.

That object is, to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon.

Now, they’re not a-going—none of ’em—ever to be fed on turtle soup and

venison with a gold spoon. And now you know the place.’

Mr. Harthouse professed himself in the highest degree instructed and

refreshed, by this condensed epitome of the whole Coketown question.

‘Why, you see,’ replied Mr. Bounderby, ‘it suits my disposition to have a

full understanding with a man, particularly with a public man, when I

make his acquaintance. I have only one thing more to say to you, Mr.

Harthouse, before assuring you of the pleasure with which I shall

respond, to the utmost of my poor ability, to my friend Tom Gradgrind’s

letter of introduction. You are a man of family. Don’t you deceive

yourself by supposing for a moment that I am a man of family. I am a bit

of dirty riff-raff, and a genuine scrap of tag, rag, and bobtail.’

If anything could have exalted Jem’s interest in Mr. Bounderby, it would

have been this very circumstance. Or, so he told him.

‘So now,’ said Bounderby, ‘we may shake hands on equal terms. I say,

equal terms, because although I know what I am, and the exact depth of

the gutter I have lifted myself out of, better than any man does, I am as

proud as you are. I am just as proud as you are. Having now asserted my

independence in a proper manner, I may come to how do you find yourself,

and I hope you’re pretty well.’

The better, Mr. Harthouse gave him to understand as they shook hands, for

the salubrious air of Coketown. Mr. Bounderby received the answer with

favour.

‘Perhaps you know,’ said he, ‘or perhaps you don’t know, I married Tom

Gradgrind’s daughter. If you have nothing better to do than to walk up

town with me, I shall be glad to introduce you to Tom Gradgrind’s

daughter.’

‘Mr. Bounderby,’ said Jem, ‘you anticipate my dearest wishes.’

They went out without further discourse; and Mr. Bounderby piloted the

new acquaintance who so strongly contrasted with him, to the private red

brick dwelling, with the black outside shutters, the green inside blinds,

and the black street door up the two white steps. In the drawing-room of

which mansion, there presently entered to them the most remarkable girl

Mr. James Harthouse had ever seen. She was so constrained, and yet so

careless; so reserved, and yet so watchful; so cold and proud, and yet so

sensitively ashamed of her husband’s braggart humility—from which she

shrunk as if every example of it were a cut or a blow; that it was quite

a new sensation to observe her. In face she was no less remarkable than

in manner. Her features were handsome; but their natural play was so

locked up, that it seemed impossible to guess at their genuine

expression. Utterly indifferent, perfectly self-reliant, never at a

loss, and yet never at her ease, with her figure in company with them

there, and her mind apparently quite alone—it was of no use ‘going in’

yet awhile to comprehend this girl, for she baffled all penetration.

From the mistress of the house, the visitor glanced to the house itself.

There was no mute sign of a woman in the room. No graceful little

adornment, no fanciful little device, however trivial, anywhere expressed

her influence. Cheerless and comfortless, boastfully and doggedly rich,

there the room stared at its present occupants, unsoftened and unrelieved

by the least trace of any womanly occupation. As Mr. Bounderby stood in

the midst of his household gods, so those unrelenting divinities occupied

their places around Mr. Bounderby, and they were worthy of one another,

and well matched.

‘This, sir,’ said Bounderby, ‘is my wife, Mrs. Bounderby: Tom Gradgrind’s

eldest daughter. Loo, Mr. James Harthouse. Mr. Harthouse has joined

your father’s muster-roll. If he is not Tom Gradgrind’s colleague before

long, I believe we shall at least hear of him in connexion with one of

our neighbouring towns. You observe, Mr. Harthouse, that my wife is my

junior. I don’t know what she saw in me to marry me, but she saw

something in me, I suppose, or she wouldn’t have married me. She has

lots of expensive knowledge, sir, political and otherwise. If you want

to cram for anything, I should be troubled to recommend you to a better

adviser than Loo Bounderby.’

To a more agreeable adviser, or one from whom he would be more likely to

learn, Mr. Harthouse could never be recommended.

‘Come!’ said his host. ‘If you’re in the complimentary line, you’ll get

on here, for you’ll meet with no competition. I have never been in the

way of learning compliments myself, and I don’t profess to understand the

art of paying ’em. In fact, despise ’em. But, your bringing-up was

different from mine; mine was a real thing, by George! You’re a

gentleman, and I don’t pretend to be one. I am Josiah Bounderby of

Coketown, and that’s enough for me. However, though I am not influenced

by manners and station, Loo Bounderby may be. She hadn’t my

advantages—disadvantages you would call ’em, but I call ’em advantages—so

you’ll not waste your power, I dare say.’

‘Mr. Bounderby,’ said Jem, turning with a smile to Louisa, ‘is a noble

animal in a comparatively natural state, quite free from the harness in

which a conventional hack like myself works.’

‘You respect Mr. Bounderby very much,’ she quietly returned. ‘It is

natural that you should.’

He was disgracefully thrown out, for a gentleman who had seen so much of

the world, and thought, ‘Now, how am I to take this?’

‘You are going to devote yourself, as I gather from what Mr. Bounderby

has said, to the service of your country. You have made up your mind,’

said Louisa, still standing before him where she had first stopped—in all

the singular contrariety of her self-possession, and her being obviously

very ill at ease—‘to show the nation the way out of all its

difficulties.’

‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ he returned, laughing, ‘upon my honour, no. I will

make no such pretence to you. I have seen a little, here and there, up

and down; I have found it all to be very worthless, as everybody has, and

as some confess they have, and some do not; and I am going in for your

respected father’s opinions—really because I have no choice of opinions,

and may as well back them as anything else.’

‘Have you none of your own?’ asked Louisa.

‘I have not so much as the slightest predilection left. I assure you I

attach not the least importance to any opinions. The result of the

varieties of boredom I have undergone, is a conviction (unless conviction

is too industrious a word for the lazy sentiment I entertain on the

subject), that any set of ideas will do just as much good as any other

set, and just as much harm as any other set. There’s an English family

with a charming Italian motto. What will be, will be. It’s the only

truth going!’

This vicious assumption of honesty in dishonesty—a vice so dangerous, so

deadly, and so common—seemed, he observed, a little to impress her in his

favour. He followed up the advantage, by saying in his pleasantest

manner: a manner to which she might attach as much or as little meaning

as she pleased: ‘The side that can prove anything in a line of units,

tens, hundreds, and thousands, Mrs. Bounderby, seems to me to afford the

most fun, and to give a man the best chance. I am quite as much attached

to it as if I believed it. I am quite ready to go in for it, to the same

extent as if I believed it. And what more could I possibly do, if I did

believe it!’

‘You are a singular politician,’ said Louisa.

‘Pardon me; I have not even that merit. We are the largest party in the

state, I assure you, Mrs. Bounderby, if we all fell out of our adopted

ranks and were reviewed together.’

Mr. Bounderby, who had been in danger of bursting in silence, interposed

here with a project for postponing the family dinner till half-past six,

and taking Mr. James Harthouse in the meantime on a round of visits to

the voting and interesting notabilities of Coketown and its vicinity.

The round of visits was made; and Mr. James Harthouse, with a discreet

use of his blue coaching, came off triumphantly, though with a

considerable accession of boredom.

In the evening, he found the dinner-table laid for four, but they sat

down only three. It was an appropriate occasion for Mr. Bounderby to

discuss the flavour of the hap’orth of stewed eels he had purchased in

the streets at eight years old; and also of the inferior water, specially

used for laying the dust, with which he had washed down that repast. He

likewise entertained his guest over the soup and fish, with the

calculation that he (Bounderby) had eaten in his youth at least three

horses under the guise of polonies and saveloys. These recitals, Jem, in

a languid manner, received with ‘charming!’ every now and then; and they

probably would have decided him to ‘go in’ for Jerusalem again to-morrow

morning, had he been less curious respecting Louisa.

‘Is there nothing,’ he thought, glancing at her as she sat at the head of

the table, where her youthful figure, small and slight, but very

graceful, looked as pretty as it looked misplaced; ‘is there nothing that

will move that face?’

Yes! By Jupiter, there was something, and here it was, in an unexpected

shape. Tom appeared. She changed as the door opened, and broke into a

beaming smile.

A beautiful smile. Mr. James Harthouse might not have thought so much of

it, but that he had wondered so long at her impassive face. She put out

her hand—a pretty little soft hand; and her fingers closed upon her

brother’s, as if she would have carried them to her lips.

‘Ay, ay?’ thought the visitor. ‘This whelp is the only creature she

cares for. So, so!’

The whelp was presented, and took his chair. The appellation was not

flattering, but not unmerited.

‘When I was your age, young Tom,’ said Bounderby, ‘I was punctual, or I

got no dinner!’

‘When you were my age,’ resumed Tom, ‘you hadn’t a wrong balance to get

right, and hadn’t to dress afterwards.’

‘Never mind that now,’ said Bounderby.

‘Well, then,’ grumbled Tom. ‘Don’t begin with me.’

‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ said Harthouse, perfectly hearing this under-strain as

it went on; ‘your brother’s face is quite familiar to me. Can I have

seen him abroad? Or at some public school, perhaps?’

‘No,’ she resumed, quite interested, ‘he has never been abroad yet, and

was educated here, at home. Tom, love, I am telling Mr. Harthouse that

he never saw you abroad.’

‘No such luck, sir,’ said Tom.

There was little enough in him to brighten her face, for he was a sullen

young fellow, and ungracious in his manner even to her. So much the

greater must have been the solitude of her heart, and her need of some

one on whom to bestow it. ‘So much the more is this whelp the only

creature she has ever cared for,’ thought Mr. James Harthouse, turning it

over and over. ‘So much the more. So much the more.’

Both in his sister’s presence, and after she had left the room, the whelp

took no pains to hide his contempt for Mr. Bounderby, whenever he could

indulge it without the observation of that independent man, by making wry

faces, or shutting one eye. Without responding to these telegraphic

communications, Mr. Harthouse encouraged him much in the course of the

evening, and showed an unusual liking for him. At last, when he rose to

return to his hotel, and was a little doubtful whether he knew the way by

night, the whelp immediately proffered his services as guide, and turned

out with him to escort him thither.

[Picture: Mr. Harthouse dines at the Bounderby’s]