Ten Girls from Dickens Part 19

"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--"

"Hus.h.!.+" 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'Choak.u.mchild 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 a.s.suredly 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'Choak.u.mchild 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'Choak.u.mchild 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'Choak.u.mchild 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'Choak.u.mchild 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 compa.s.sion to the door. Thus a warm friends.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.n.a.lysis 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.