CHAPTER VII

MRS. SPARSIT

MR. BOUNDERBY being a bachelor, an elderly lady presided over his

establishment, in consideration of a certain annual stipend. Mrs.

Sparsit was this lady’s name; and she was a prominent figure in

attendance on Mr. Bounderby’s car, as it rolled along in triumph with the

Bully of humility inside.

For, Mrs. Sparsit had not only seen different days, but was highly

connected. She had a great aunt living in these very times called Lady

Scadgers. Mr. Sparsit, deceased, of whom she was the relict, had been by

the mother’s side what Mrs. Sparsit still called ‘a Powler.’ Strangers

of limited information and dull apprehension were sometimes observed not

to know what a Powler was, and even to appear uncertain whether it might

be a business, or a political party, or a profession of faith. The

better class of minds, however, did not need to be informed that the

Powlers were an ancient stock, who could trace themselves so exceedingly

far back that it was not surprising if they sometimes lost

themselves—which they had rather frequently done, as respected

horse-flesh, blind-hookey, Hebrew monetary transactions, and the

Insolvent Debtors’ Court.

The late Mr. Sparsit, being by the mother’s side a Powler, married this

lady, being by the father’s side a Scadgers. Lady Scadgers (an immensely

fat old woman, with an inordinate appetite for butcher’s meat, and a

mysterious leg which had now refused to get out of bed for fourteen

years) contrived the marriage, at a period when Sparsit was just of age,

and chiefly noticeable for a slender body, weakly supported on two long

slim props, and surmounted by no head worth mentioning. He inherited a

fair fortune from his uncle, but owed it all before he came into it, and

spent it twice over immediately afterwards. Thus, when he died, at

twenty-four (the scene of his decease, Calais, and the cause, brandy), he

did not leave his widow, from whom he had been separated soon after the

honeymoon, in affluent circumstances. That bereaved lady, fifteen years

older than he, fell presently at deadly feud with her only relative, Lady

Scadgers; and, partly to spite her ladyship, and partly to maintain

herself, went out at a salary. And here she was now, in her elderly

days, with the Coriolanian style of nose and the dense black eyebrows

which had captivated Sparsit, making Mr. Bounderby’s tea as he took his

breakfast.

If Bounderby had been a Conqueror, and Mrs. Sparsit a captive Princess

whom he took about as a feature in his state-processions, he could not

have made a greater flourish with her than he habitually did. Just as it

belonged to his boastfulness to depreciate his own extraction, so it

belonged to it to exalt Mrs. Sparsit’s. In the measure that he would not

allow his own youth to have been attended by a single favourable

circumstance, he brightened Mrs. Sparsit’s juvenile career with every

possible advantage, and showered waggon-loads of early roses all over

that lady’s path. ‘And yet, sir,’ he would say, ‘how does it turn out

after all? Why here she is at a hundred a year (I give her a hundred,

which she is pleased to term handsome), keeping the house of Josiah

Bounderby of Coketown!’

Nay, he made this foil of his so very widely known, that third parties

took it up, and handled it on some occasions with considerable briskness.

It was one of the most exasperating attributes of Bounderby, that he not

only sang his own praises but stimulated other men to sing them. There

was a moral infection of clap-trap in him. Strangers, modest enough

elsewhere, started up at dinners in Coketown, and boasted, in quite a

rampant way, of Bounderby. They made him out to be the Royal arms, the

Union-Jack, Magna Charta, John Bull, Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights,

An Englishman’s house is his castle, Church and State, and God save the

Queen, all put together. And as often (and it was very often) as an

orator of this kind brought into his peroration,

‘Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,

A breath can make them, as a breath has made,’

—it was, for certain, more or less understood among the company that he

had heard of Mrs. Sparsit.

‘Mr. Bounderby,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘you are unusually slow, sir, with

your breakfast this morning.’

‘Why, ma’am,’ he returned, ‘I am thinking about Tom Gradgrind’s whim;’

Tom Gradgrind, for a bluff independent manner of speaking—as if somebody

were always endeavouring to bribe him with immense sums to say Thomas,

and he wouldn’t; ‘Tom Gradgrind’s whim, ma’am, of bringing up the

tumbling-girl.’

‘The girl is now waiting to know,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘whether she is to

go straight to the school, or up to the Lodge.’

‘She must wait, ma’am,’ answered Bounderby, ‘till I know myself. We

shall have Tom Gradgrind down here presently, I suppose. If he should

wish her to remain here a day or two longer, of course she can, ma’am.’

‘Of course she can if you wish it, Mr. Bounderby.’

‘I told him I would give her a shake-down here, last night, in order that

he might sleep on it before he decided to let her have any association

with Louisa.’

‘Indeed, Mr. Bounderby? Very thoughtful of you!’ Mrs. Sparsit’s

Coriolanian nose underwent a slight expansion of the nostrils, and her

black eyebrows contracted as she took a sip of tea.

‘It’s tolerably clear to _me_,’ said Bounderby, ‘that the little puss can

get small good out of such companionship.’

‘Are you speaking of young Miss Gradgrind, Mr. Bounderby?’

‘Yes, ma’am, I’m speaking of Louisa.’

‘Your observation being limited to “little puss,”’ said Mrs. Sparsit,

‘and there being two little girls in question, I did not know which might

be indicated by that expression.’

‘Louisa,’ repeated Mr. Bounderby. ‘Louisa, Louisa.’

‘You are quite another father to Louisa, sir.’ Mrs. Sparsit took a

little more tea; and, as she bent her again contracted eyebrows over her

steaming cup, rather looked as if her classical countenance were invoking

the infernal gods.

‘If you had said I was another father to Tom—young Tom, I mean, not my

friend Tom Gradgrind—you might have been nearer the mark. I am going to

take young Tom into my office. Going to have him under my wing, ma’am.’

‘Indeed? Rather young for that, is he not, sir?’ Mrs. Sparsit’s ‘sir,’

in addressing Mr. Bounderby, was a word of ceremony, rather exacting

consideration for herself in the use, than honouring him.

‘I’m not going to take him at once; he is to finish his educational

cramming before then,’ said Bounderby. ‘By the Lord Harry, he’ll have

enough of it, first and last! He’d open his eyes, that boy would, if he

knew how empty of learning _my_ young maw was, at his time of life.’

Which, by the by, he probably did know, for he had heard of it often

enough. ‘But it’s extraordinary the difficulty I have on scores of such

subjects, in speaking to any one on equal terms. Here, for example, I

have been speaking to you this morning about tumblers. Why, what do

_you_ know about tumblers? At the time when, to have been a tumbler in

the mud of the streets, would have been a godsend to me, a prize in the

lottery to me, you were at the Italian Opera. You were coming out of the

Italian Opera, ma’am, in white satin and jewels, a blaze of splendour,

when I hadn’t a penny to buy a link to light you.’

‘I certainly, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a dignity serenely

mournful, ‘was familiar with the Italian Opera at a very early age.’

‘Egad, ma’am, so was I,’ said Bounderby, ‘—with the wrong side of it. A

hard bed the pavement of its Arcade used to make, I assure you. People

like you, ma’am, accustomed from infancy to lie on Down feathers, have no

idea _how_ hard a paving-stone is, without trying it. No, no, it’s of no

use my talking to _you_ about tumblers. I should speak of foreign

dancers, and the West End of London, and May Fair, and lords and ladies

and honourables.’

‘I trust, sir,’ rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, with decent resignation, ‘it is

not necessary that you should do anything of that kind. I hope I have

learnt how to accommodate myself to the changes of life. If I have

acquired an interest in hearing of your instructive experiences, and can

scarcely hear enough of them, I claim no merit for that, since I believe

it is a general sentiment.’

‘Well, ma’am,’ said her patron, ‘perhaps some people may be pleased to

say that they do like to hear, in his own unpolished way, what Josiah

Bounderby, of Coketown, has gone through. But you must confess that you

were born in the lap of luxury, yourself. Come, ma’am, you know you were

born in the lap of luxury.’

‘I do not, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit with a shake of her head, ‘deny

it.’

Mr. Bounderby was obliged to get up from table, and stand with his back

to the fire, looking at her; she was such an enhancement of his position.

‘And you were in crack society. Devilish high society,’ he said, warming

his legs.

‘It is true, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with an affectation of humility

the very opposite of his, and therefore in no danger of jostling it.

‘You were in the tiptop fashion, and all the rest of it,’ said Mr.

Bounderby.

‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a kind of social widowhood upon

her. ‘It is unquestionably true.’

Mr. Bounderby, bending himself at the knees, literally embraced his legs

in his great satisfaction and laughed aloud. Mr. and Miss Gradgrind

being then announced, he received the former with a shake of the hand,

and the latter with a kiss.

‘Can Jupe be sent here, Bounderby?’ asked Mr. Gradgrind.

Certainly. So Jupe was sent there. On coming in, she curtseyed to Mr.

Bounderby, and to his friend Tom Gradgrind, and also to Louisa; but in

her confusion unluckily omitted Mrs. Sparsit. Observing this, the

blustrous Bounderby had the following remarks to make:

‘Now, I tell you what, my girl. The name of that lady by the teapot, is

Mrs. Sparsit. That lady acts as mistress of this house, and she is a

highly connected lady. Consequently, if ever you come again into any

room in this house, you will make a short stay in it if you don’t behave

towards that lady in your most respectful manner. Now, I don’t care a

button what you do to _me_, because I don’t affect to be anybody. So far

from having high connections I have no connections at all, and I come of

the scum of the earth. But towards that lady, I do care what you do; and

you shall do what is deferential and respectful, or you shall not come

here.’

‘I hope, Bounderby,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, in a conciliatory voice, ‘that

this was merely an oversight.’

‘My friend Tom Gradgrind suggests, Mrs. Sparsit,’ said Bounderby, ‘that

this was merely an oversight. Very likely. However, as you are aware,

ma’am, I don’t allow of even oversights towards you.’

‘You are very good indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head

with her State humility. ‘It is not worth speaking of.’

Sissy, who all this time had been faintly excusing herself with tears in

her eyes, was now waved over by the master of the house to Mr. Gradgrind.

She stood looking intently at him, and Louisa stood coldly by, with her

eyes upon the ground, while he proceeded thus:

‘Jupe, I have made up my mind to take you into my house; and, when you

are not in attendance at the school, to employ you about Mrs. Gradgrind,

who is rather an invalid. I have explained to Miss Louisa—this is Miss

Louisa—the miserable but natural end of your late career; and you are to

expressly understand that the whole of that subject is past, and is not

to be referred to any more. From this time you begin your history. You

are, at present, ignorant, I know.’

‘Yes, sir, very,’ she answered, curtseying.

‘I shall have the satisfaction of causing you to be strictly educated;

and you will be a living proof to all who come into communication with

you, of the advantages of the training you will receive. You will be

reclaimed and formed. You have been in the habit now of reading to your

father, and those people I found you among, I dare say?’ said Mr.

Gradgrind, beckoning her nearer to him before he said so, and dropping

his voice.

‘Only to father and Merrylegs, sir. At least I mean to father, when

Merrylegs was always there.’

‘Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, with a passing frown.

‘I don’t ask about him. I understand you to have been in the habit of

reading to your father?’

‘O, yes, sir, thousands of times. They were the happiest—O, of all the

happy times we had together, sir!’

It was only now when her sorrow broke out, that Louisa looked at her.

‘And what,’ asked Mr. Gradgrind, in a still lower voice, ‘did you read to

your father, Jupe?’

‘About the Fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and the Hunchback, and the

Genies,’ she sobbed out; ‘and about—’

‘Hush!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘that is enough. Never breathe a word of

such destructive nonsense any more. Bounderby, this is a case for rigid

training, and I shall observe it with interest.’

‘Well,’ returned Mr. Bounderby, ‘I have given you my opinion already, and

I shouldn’t do as you do. But, very well, very well. Since you are bent

upon it, _very_ well!’

So, Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took Cecilia Jupe off with them to

Stone Lodge, and on the way Louisa never spoke one word, good or bad.

And Mr. Bounderby went about his daily pursuits. And Mrs. Sparsit got

behind her eyebrows and meditated in the gloom of that retreat, all the

evening.