Jupe, and to order her from henceforth to remain away from school. On
the way there they met her. "Now, girl," said Mr. Gradgrind, "take this
gentleman and me to your father's; we are going there. What have you got
in that bottle you are carrying?"
"It's the nine oils."
"The what?" cried Mr. Bounderby.
"The nine oils, sir, to rub father with. It is what our people always
use, sir, when they get any hurts in the ring," replied the girl, "they
bruise themselves very bad sometimes."
"Serves them right," said Mr. Bounderby, "for being idle." The girl
glanced up at his face with mingled astonishment and dread as he said
this, but she led them on down a narrow road, until they stopped at the
door of a little public house.
"This is it, sir," she said. "It's only crossing the bar, sir, and up
the stairs, if you wouldn't mind; and waiting there for a moment till I
get a candle. If you should hear a dog, sir, it's only Merrylegs, and he
only barks."
They followed the girl up some steep stairs, and stopped while she went
on for a candle. Reappearing, with a face of great surprise, she said,
"Father is not in our room, sir. If you wouldn't mind walking in, sir?
I'll find him directly."
They walked in; and Sissy having set two chairs for them, sped away with
a quick, light step. They heard the doors of rooms above opening and
shutting, as Sissy went from one to another in quest of her father. She
came bounding down again in a great hurry, opened an old hair trunk,
found it empty, and looked around with her face full of terror.
"Father must have gone down to the Booth, sir. I'll bring him in a
minute!" She was gone directly, without her bonnet; with her long, dark,
childish hair streaming behind her.
"What does she mean!" said Mr. Gradgrind. "Back in a minute? It's more
than a mile off."
Before Mr. Bounderby could reply, a young man mentioned in the bills of
the day as Mr. E.W.B. Childers,--justly celebrated for his daring
vaulting act as the wild huntsman of the North American prairies,
appeared. Upon entering into conversation with Mr. Gradgrind he informed
that gentleman of his opinion that Jupe was off.
"Do you mean that he has deserted his daughter?" asked Mr. Gradgrind.
"I mean," said Mr. Childers with a nod, "that he has cut. He has been
short in his leaps and bad in his tumbling lately, missed his tip
several times, too. He was goosed last night, he was goosed the night
before last, he was goosed to-day. He has lately got in the way of being
always goosed, and he can't stand it."
"Why has he been--so very much--goosed?" asked Mr. Gradgrind, forcing
the word out of himself, with great solemnity and reluctance.
"His joints are turning stiff, and he is getting used up," said
Childers. "He has his points as a Cackler still, a speaker, if the
gentleman likes it better--but he can't get a living out of _that_. Now
it's a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut that man deeper to know that
his daughter knew of his being goosed than to go through with it. Jupe
sent her out on an errand not an hour ago, and then was seen to slip out
himself, with his dog behind him and a bundle under his arm. She will
never believe it of her father, but he has cut away and left her.
"Poor Sissy! he had better have apprenticed her," added Mr. Childers,
"Now, he leaves her without anything to take to. Her father always had
it in his head, that she was to be taught the deuce-and-all of
education. He has been picking up a bit of reading for her, here--and a
bit of writing for her, there--and a bit of ciphering for her, somewhere
else--these seven years. When Sissy got into the school here," he
pursued, "he was as pleased as Punch. I suppose he had this move in his
mind--he was always half cracked--and then considered her provided for.
If you should have happened to have looked in to-night to tell him that
you were going to do her any little service," added Mr. Childers, "it
would be very fortunate and well-timed."
"On the contrary," returned Mr. Gradgrind, "I came to tell her that she
could not attend our school any more. Still, if her father really has
left her without any connivance on her part!--Bounderby, let me have a
word with you."
Upon this, Mr. Childers politely betook himself outside the door, and
there stood while the two gentlemen were engaged in conversation.
Meanwhile the various members of Sleary's company gathered together in
the room. Last of all appeared Mr. Sleary himself, who was stout, and
troubled with asthma, and whose breath came far too thick and heavy for
the letter s. Bowing to Mr. Gradgrind, he asked:
"Ith it your intention to do anything for the poor girl, Thquire?"
"I shall have something to propose to her when she comes back," said Mr.
Gradgrind.
"Glad to hear it, Thquire. Not that I want to get rid of the child, any
more than I want to thtand in her way. I'm willing to take her
prenthith, though at her age ith late."
Here his daughter Josephine--a pretty, fair-haired girl of eighteen, who
had been tied on a horse at two years old, and had made a will at
twelve, which she always carried about with her, expressive of her dying
desire to be drawn to the grave by two piebald ponies--cried "Father,
hush! she has come back!" Then came Sissy Jupe, running into the room
as she had run out of it. And when she saw them all assembled, and saw
their looks, and saw no father there, she broke into a most deplorable
cry, and took refuge on the bosom of the most accomplished tight-rope
lady, who knelt down on the floor to nurse her, and to weep over her.
"Ith an infernal shame, upon my thoul it ith," said Sleary.
"O my dear father, my good, kind father, where are you gone? You are
gone to try to do me some good, I know! You are gone away for my sake, I
am sure. And how miserable and helpless you will be without me, poor,
poor father, until you come back!" It was so pathetic to hear her saying
many things of this kind, with her face turned upward, and her arms
stretched out as if she were trying to stop his departing shadow and
embrace it, that no one spoke a word until Mr. Bounderby (growing
impatient) took the case in hand.
"Now, good people all," said he, "this is wanton waste of time. Let the
girl understand the fact. Here, what's your name! Your father has
absconded, deserted you--and you mustn't expect to see him again as long
as you live."
They cared so little for plain fact, these people, that instead of being
impressed by the speaker's strong common sense, they took it in
extraordinary dudgeon. The men muttered "Shame!" and the women, "Brute!"
Whereupon Mr. Gradgrind found an opening for his eminently practical
exposition of the subject.
"It is of no moment," said he, "whether this person is to be expected
back at any time, or the contrary. He is gone away, and there is no
present expectation of his return. That, I believe, is agreed on
all hands."
"Thath agreed, Thquire. Thtick to that!" from Sleary.
"Well, then. I, who came here to inform the father of the poor girl,
Jupe, that she could not be received at the school any more, in
consequence of there being practical objections, into which I need not
enter, to the reception there of the children of persons so employed, am
prepared in these altered circumstances to make a proposal. I am willing
to take charge of you, Jupe, and to educate you, and provide for you.
The only condition (over and above your good behavior) I make is, that
you decide now, at once, whether to accompany me or remain here. Also,
that if you accompany me now, it is understood that you communicate no
more with any of your friends who are here present. These observations
comprise the whole of the case."
"At the thame time," said Sleary, "I muth put in my word, Thquire, tho
that both thides of the banner may be equally theen. If you like,
Thethillia, to be prentitht, you know the natur' of the work, and you
know your companionth. Emma Gordon, in whothe lap you're a lying at
prethent, would be a mother to you, and Joth'phine would be a thithther
to you. I don't pretend to be of the angel breed myself, and I don't
thay but what, when you mith'd your tip, you'd find me cut up rough, and
thwear a oath or two at you. But what I thay, Thquire, ith, that good
tempered or bad tempered, I never did a horthe a injury yet, no more
than thwearing at him went, and that I don't expect I thall begin
otherwithe at my time of life, with a rider. I never wath much of a
cackler, Thquire, and I have thed my thay."
The latter part of this speech was addressed to Mr. Gradgrind, who
received it with a grave inclination of his head, and then remarked:
"The only observation I will make to you, Jupe, in the way of
influencing your decision, is, that it is highly desirable to have a
sound practical education, and that even your father himself (from what
I understand) appears, on your behalf, to have known and felt
that much."
The last words had a visible effect upon her. She stopped in her wild
crying, and turned her face full upon her patron. The whole company
perceived the force of the change, and drew a long breath, together,
that plainly said, "She will go!"
"Be sure you know your own mind, Jupe," Mr. Gradgrind cautioned her; "I
say no more. Be sure you know your own mind!"
"When father comes back," cried the girl, bursting into tears again
after a minute's silence, "how will he ever find me if I go away!"
"You may be quite at ease," said Mr. Gradgrind calmly; he worked out the
whole matter like a sum; "you may be quite at ease, Jupe, on that score.
In such a case, your father, I apprehend, must find out Mr. Sleary, who
would then let him know where you went. I should have no power of
keeping you against his wish."
There was another silence; and then Sissy exclaimed sobbing, "Oh, give
me my clothes, give me my clothes, and let me go away before I break
my heart!"
The women sadly bestirred themselves to get the clothes together, and to
pack them. They then brought Sissy's bonnet to her and put it on. Then
they pressed about her, kissing and embracing her: and brought the
children to take leave of her; and were a tender-hearted, simple,
foolish, set of women altogether. Then she had to take her farewell of
the male part of the company, and last of all of Mr. Sleary.
"Farewell, Thethilia!" he said, "my latht wordth to you ith thith:
Thtick to the termth of your engagement, be obedient to the Thquire, and
forget uth. But if, when you're grown up and married and well off, you
come upon any horthe-riding ever, don't be hard upon it, don't be croth
with it, give it a Bethpeak if you can, and think you might do worth.
People must be amuthed, Thquire, thomehow," continued Sleary, "they
can't be alwayth a working, nor yet they can't be alwayth a learning.
Make the betht of uth; not the wurtht. I've got my living out of
horthe-riding all my life, I know, but I conthider that I lay down the
philothophy of the thubject when I thay to you, Thquire, make the betht
of uth; not the wurtht!"
The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went downstairs; and the
fixed eye of Philosophy--and its rolling eye, too,--soon lost the three
figures, and the basket in the darkness of the street.
To Mr. Bounderby's house the weeping Sissy was conducted, and remained
there while Mr. Gradgrind returned to Stone Lodge to mature his plans
for the clown's daughter. He soon came back to Mr. Bounderby's, bringing
his daughter Louisa with him, and Sissy Jupe stood before them, with
downcast eyes, while Mr. Gradgrind thus addressed her:
"Jupe, I have made up my mind to take you into my house; and when you
are not at 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 understand
that the subject 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 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.
"Only to father and to Merrylegs, sir. At least I mean to father, when
Merrylegs was always there."
"Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe," said Mr. Gradgrind with a frown. "I don't
ask about him. I understand you have been in the habit of reading to
your father, and what did you read to him, Jupe?"
"About the fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and the Hunchback, and the
Genies," she sobbed out: "And about--"
"Hush!" exclaimed Mr. Gradgrind, "that is enough. Never breathe a word
of such destructive nonsense any more."
Then Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took Cecilia Jupe off with them to
Stone Lodge, where she speedily grew as pale as wax, and as heavy-eyed
as all the other victims of Mr. Gradgrind's practical system of
training. She had not an easy time of it, between Mr. M'Choakumchild and
Mrs. Gradgrind, and was not without strong impulses, in the first months
of her probation, to run away. It hailed facts all day long, so very
hard, and life in general was opened to her as such a closely ruled
ciphering book, that assuredly she would have run away, but for only one
restraint. She believed that her father had not deserted her; she lived
in the hope that he would come back, and in the faith that he would be
made the happier by her remaining where she was.
The wretched ignorance with which Jupe clung to this consolation,
rejecting the superior comfort of knowing on a sound arithmetical basis
that her father was an unnatural vagabond, filled Mr. Gradgrind with
pity. Yet, what was to be done? Mr. M'Choakumchild reported that she had
a very dense head for figures; that, once possessed with a general idea
of the globe, she took the smallest conceivable interest in its exact
measurements; that after eight weeks of induction into the elements of
Political Economy, she had only yesterday returned to the question,
"What is the first principle of this science?" the absurd answer, "To do
unto others as I would that they should do unto me."
Mr. Gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this was very bad;
that it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill of
knowledge, and that Jupe must be "kept to it." So Jupe was kept to it,
and became low spirited, but no wiser.
"It would be a fine thing to be you, Miss Louisa!" She said one night,
when Louisa had endeavored to make her perplexities for next day
something clearer to her, to which Louisa answered, "I don't know that,
Sissy. You are more useful to my mother. You are pleasanter to yourself,
than _I_ am to _myself._"
"But, if you please, Miss Louisa," Sissy pleaded, "I am--Oh so stupid!
All through school hours I make mistakes. To-day for instance, Mr.
M'Choakumchild was explaining to us about Natural Prosperity."
"National, I think it must have been," observed Louisa.
"National Prosperity," corrected Sissy, "and he said, Now, this
schoolroom is a Nation, and in this nation there are fifty millions of
money. Isn't this a prosperous nation? Girl number twenty. Isn't this a
prosperous nation, and a'n't you in a thriving state? Miss Louisa, I
said I didn't know. I thought I couldn't know whether it was a
prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or not,
unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine. But
that had nothing to do with it. It was not in the figures at all," said
Sissy, wiping her eyes.
"That was a great mistake of yours," observed Louisa.
"Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it was now. Then Mr. M'Choakumchild said he
would try me again. And he said, This Schoolroom is an immense town, and
in it there are a million inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are
starved to death in the streets, in the course of a year. What is your
remark on that proportion? And my remark was, that I thought it must be
just as hard upon those who were starved, whether the others were a
million or a million million. And that was wrong too. Then Mr.
M'Choakumchild said he would try me once more. And he said That in a
given time a hundred thousand persons went to sea on long voyages, and
only five hundred of them were drowned or burned to death. What is the
percentage? And I said, Miss;" here Sissy fairly sobbed in confessing to
her great error; "I said it was nothing, Miss--to the relations and
friends of the people who were killed--I shall never learn," said Sissy.
"And the worst of all is, that although my poor father wished me so much
to learn, and although I am so anxious to learn, because he wished me
to, I am afraid I don't like it."
Louisa stood looking at the pretty, modest head, as it drooped abashed
before her, until it was raised again to glance at her face. Then
she asked:
"Did your father know so much himself, that he wished you to be well
taught too?"
Sissy hesitated before replying, for this was forbidden ground, but
Louisa insisted upon continuing the conversation.
"No, Miss Louisa," answered Sissy, "father knows very little indeed. But
he said mother was quite a scholar. She died when I was born. She
was"--Sissy made the terrible communication, nervously--"she was a
dancer. We travelled about the country. Father's a"--Sissy whispered the
awful word--"a clown."
"To make the people laugh?" said Louisa with a nod of intelligence.
"Yes." But they wouldn't laugh sometimes. Lately they very often
wouldn't, and he used to come home despairing.
I tried to comfort him the best I could, and father said I did. I used
to read to him to cheer up his courage, and he was very fond of that.
Often and often of a night, he used to forget all his troubles in
wondering whether the Sultan would let the lady go on with her story, or
would have her head cut off before it was finished."
"And your father was always kind?" asked Louisa.
"Always, always!" returned Sissy, clasping her hands. "Kinder and kinder
than I can tell. He was angry only one night, and that was not at me,
but Merrylegs, his performing dog. After he beat the dog, he lay down
crying on the floor with him in his arms, and the dog licked his face."
Louisa saw that she was sobbing, and going to her, kissed her, took her
hand, and sat down beside her.
"Finish by telling me how your father left you, Sissy. The blame of
telling the story, if there is any blame, is mine, not yours."
"Dear Miss Louisa," said Sissy, sobbing yet; "I came home from the
school that afternoon, and found poor father just come home too, from
the booth. And he sat rocking himself over the fire, as if he was in
pain. And I said, 'have you hurt yourself father?' and he said, 'A
little, my darling.' Then I saw that he was crying. The more I spoke to
him, the more he hid his face; and shook all over, and said nothing but
'My darling'; and 'My love!' Then he said he never gave any satisfaction
now, that he was a shame and disgrace, and I should have done better
without him all along. I said all the affectionate things to him that
came into my heart, and presently he was quiet, and put his arms around
my neck, and kissed me a great many times. Then he asked me to fetch
some of the stuff he used, for the little hurt he had had, and to get it
at the best place, which was at the other end of town. Then after
kissing me again, he let me go. There is no more to tell, Miss Louisa. I
keep the nine oils ready for him, and I know he will come back. Every
letter that I see in Mr. Gradgrind's hand takes my breath away, and
blinds my eyes, for I think it comes from father, or from Mr. Sleary
about father."
After this whenever Sissy dropped a curtsey to Mr. Gradgrind in the
presence of his family, and asked if he had had any letter yet about
her, Louisa would suspend the occupation of the moment, and look for the
reply as earnestly as Sissy did. And when Mr. Gradgrind answered, "No,
Jupe, nothing of the sort," the trembling of Sissy's lips would be
repeated in Louisa's face, and her eyes would follow Sissy with
compassion to the door. Thus a warm friendship sprang up between the
girls, and a similar one between the mathematical Thomas and the
clown's daughter.
Time with his innumerable horse-power presently turned out young Thomas
Gradgrind a young man and Louisa a young woman. The same great
manufacturer passed Sissy onward in his mill, and worked her up into a
very pretty article, indeed.
"I fear, Jupe," said Mr. Gradgrind, "that your continuance at the school
any longer would be useless."
"I am afraid it would, sir," Sissy answered with a curtsey.
"I cannot disguise from you, Jupe," said Mr. Gradgrind, "that the result
of your probation there has greatly disappointed me. You are extremely
deficient in your facts. Your acquaintance with figures is very limited.
You are altogether backward, and below the mark, yet I believe you have
tried hard. I have observed you, and I can find no fault with you in
that respect."
"Thank you, sir. I have thought sometimes;" Sissy faltered, "that
perhaps I tried to learn too much, and that if I had asked to be
allowed to try a little less, I might have--"
"No, Jupe, no," said Mr. Gradgrind, shaking his head. "No. The course
you pursued, you pursued according to the system, and there is no more
to be said about it. I can only suppose that the circumstances of your
early life were too unfavorable to the development of your reasoning
powers, and that we began too late. Still, as I have said already, I am
disappointed."
"I wish I could have made a better acknowledgment, sir, of your kindness
to a poor forlorn girl who had no claim upon you, and of your protection
of her." said Sissy, weeping.
"Don't shed tears," added Mr. Gradgrind, "I don't complain of you. You
are an affectionate, earnest, good young woman, and we must make
that do."
"Thank you, sir, very much," said Sissy, with a grateful curtsey.
"You are useful to Mrs. Gradgrind, and you are serviceable in the family
also; so I understand from Miss Louisa, and indeed, so I have observed
myself. I therefore hope," said Mr. Gradgrind, "that you can make
yourself happy in those relations."
"I should have nothing to wish, sir, if--"
"I understand you," said Mr. Gradgrind; "you refer to your father. I
have heard from Miss Louisa that you still preserve that bottle. Well!
If your training in the science of arriving at exact results had been
more successful, you would have been wiser on these points. I will
say no more."
He really liked Sissy too well to have contempt for her. Somehow or
other, he had become possessed by an idea that there was something in
this girl which could hardly be set forth in a tabular form; that there
was something in her composition which defied the cold analysis of Fact;
that there was some great virtue in her loving-kindness which more than
compensated for her deficiencies of mind.
From that time Sissy lived at Stone Lodge on equal terms with the rest
of the family, and after Louisa's marriage, cared for fretful Mrs.
Gradgrind in her invalidism, with a sweet patience that endeared her to
the poor woman. Indeed the entire household were deeply attached to
Sissy, and, seeing the unselfishness of her daily life, even Mr.
Gradgrind himself was forced to acknowledge that there was a greater
Teacher than M'Choakumchild, with a system of education superior to the
Gradgrind system, and that the same great Teacher had educated the
clown's daughter to a higher degree of usefulness and courage than the
Gradgrind system had yet been able to produce.
In fact, as time went on, Mr. Gradgrind was slowly discovering the flaws
in his mathematical theories; finding out that laws and logic can never
take the place of love in the development of a nature, and the discovery
was a bitter one to him.
Despite their careful bringing-up by rule and measure, neither Louisa
nor Thomas Gradgrind, in their maturity, did any credit to their
father's system, and when his mistakes with them became evident to the
cold, proud man, and he realized how nearly he had wrecked their lives
by those errors, the weight of his suffering was heavy upon him. Then,
realizing that all the Facts in his storehouse of learning, could not
teach him how to save his children, and win their love, it was to Sissy
that he turned for the information that he needed.