From the beginning, she had sat looking at him fixedly. As he now leaned back in his chair, and bent his deep-set eyes upon her in his turn, perhaps he might have seen one wavering moment in her, when she was impelled to throw herself upon his breast, and give him the pent-up confidences of her heart. But, to see it, he must have overleaped at a bound the artificial barriers he had for many years been erecting, between himself and all those subtle essences of humanity which will elude the utmost cunning of algebra until the last trumpet ever to be sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck. The barriers were too many and too high for such a leap. With his unbending, utilitarian, matter-of-fact face, he hardened her again; and the moment shot away into the plumbless depths of the past, to mingle with all the lost opportunities that are drowned there.
Removing her eyes from him, she sat so long looking silently towards the town, that he said, at length: “Are you consulting the chimneys of the Coketown works, Louisa?”
“There seems to be nothing there but languid and monotonous smoke. Yet when the night comes, Fire bursts out, father!” she answered, turning quickly.
“Of course I know that, Louisa. I do not see the application of the remark.” To do him justice he did not, at all.
She passed it away with a slight motion of her hand, and concentrating her attention upon him again, said, “Father, I have often thought that life is very short. “—This was so distinctly one of his subjects that he interposed.
“It is short, no doubt, my dear. Still, the average duration of human life is proved to have increased of late years. The calculations of various life assurance and annuity offices, among other figures which cannot go wrong, have established the fact.”
“I speak of my own life, father.”
“O indeed? Still,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “I need not point out to you, Louisa, that it is governed by the laws which govern lives in the aggregate.”
“While it lasts, I would wish to do the little I can, and the little I am fit for. What does it matter?”
Mr. Gradgrind seemed rather at a loss to understand the last four words; replying, “How, matter? What matter, my dear?”
“Mr. Bounderby,” she went on in a steady, straight way, without regarding this, “asks me to marry him. The question I have to ask myself is, shall I marry him? That is so, father, is it not? You have told me so, father. Have you not?”
“Certainly, my dear.”
“Let it be so. Since Mr. Bounderby likes to take me thus, I am satisfied to accept his proposal. Tell him, father, as soon as you please, that this was my answer. Repeat it, word for word, if you can, because I should wish him to know what I said.”
“It is quite right, my dear,” retorted her father approvingly, “to be exact. I will observe your very proper request. Have you any wish in reference to the period of your marriage, my child?”
“None, father. What does it matter!”
Mr. Gradgrind had drawn his chair a little nearer to her, and taken her hand. But, her repetition of these words seemed to strike with some little discord on his ear. He paused to look at her, and, still holding her hand, said:
“Louisa, I have not considered it essential to ask you one question, because the possibility implied in it appeared to me to be too remote. But perhaps I ought to do so. You have never entertained in secret any other proposal?”
“Father,” she returned, almost scornfully, “what other proposal can have been made to me? Whom have I seen? Where have I been? What are my heart's experiences?”
“My dear Louisa,” returned Mr. Gradgrind, reassured and satisfied. “You correct me justly. I merely wished to discharge my duty.”
“What do I know, father,” said Louisa in her quiet manner, “of tastes and fancies; of aspirations and affections; of all that part of my nature in which such light things might have been nourished? What escape have I had from problems that could be demonstrated, and realities that could be grasped?” As she said it, she unconsciously closed her hand, as if upon a solid object, and slowly opened it as though she were releasing dust or ash.
“My dear,” assented her eminently practical parent, “quite true, quite true.”
“Why, father,” she pursued, “what a strange question to ask me! The baby-preference that even I have heard of as common among children, has never had its innocent resting-place in my breast. You have been so careful of me, that I never had a child's heart. You have trained me so well, that I never dreamed a child's dream. You have dealt so wisely with me, father, from my cradle to this hour, that I never had a child's belief or a child's fear.”
Mr. Gradgrind was quite moved by his success, and by this testimony to it. “My dear Louisa,” said he, “you abundantly repay my care. Kiss me, my dear girl.”
So, his daughter kissed him. Detaining her in his embrace, he said, “I may assure you now, my favourite child, that I am made happy by the sound decision at which you have arrived. Mr. Bounderby is a very remarkable man; and what little disparity can be said to exist between you—if any—is more than counterbalanced by the tone your mind has acquired. It has always been my object so to educate you, as that you might, while still in your early youth, be (if I may so express myself) almost any age. Kiss me once more, Louisa. Now, let us go and find your mother.”
Accordingly, they went down to the drawing-room, where the esteemed lady with no nonsense about her, was recumbent as usual, while Sissy worked beside her. She gave some feeble signs of returning animation when they entered, and presently the faint transparency was presented in a sitting attitude.
“Mrs. Gradgrind,” said her husband, who had waited for the achievement of this feat with some impatience, “allow me to present to you Mrs. Bounderby.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Gradgrind, “so you have settled it! Well, I'm sure I hope your health may be good, Louisa; for if your head begins to split as soon as you are married, which was the case with mine, I cannot consider that you are to be envied, though I have no doubt you think you are, as all girls do. However, I give you joy, my dear—and I hope you may now turn all your ological studies to good account, I am sure I do! I must give you a kiss of congratulation, Louisa; but don't touch my right shoulder, for there's something running down it all day long. And now you see,” whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, adjusting her shawls after the affectionate ceremony, “I shall be worrying myself, morning, noon, and night, to know what I am to call him!”
“Mrs. Gradgrind,” said her husband, solemnly, “what do you mean?”
“Whatever I am to call him, Mr. Gradgrind, when he is married to Louisa! I must call him something. It's impossible,” said Mrs. Gradgrind, with a mingled sense of politeness and injury, “to be constantly addressing him and never giving him a name. I cannot call him Josiah, for the name is insupportable to me. You yourself wouldn't hear of Joe, you very well know. Am I to call my own sonin-law, Mister! Not, I believe, unless the time has arrived when, as an invalid, I am to be trampled upon by my relations. Then, what am I to call him!”
Nobody present having any suggestion to offer in the remarkable emergency, Mrs. Gradgrind departed this life for the time being, after delivering the following codicil to her remarks already executed:
“As to the wedding, all I ask, Louisa, is,—and I ask it with a fluttering in my chest, which actually extends to the soles of my feet,—that it may take place soon. Otherwise, I know it is one of those subjects I shall never hear the last of.”
When Mr. Gradgrind had presented Mrs. Bounderby, Sissy had suddenly turned her head, and looked, in wonder, in pity, in sorrow, in doubt, in a multitude of emotions, towards Louisa. Louisa had known it, and seen it, without looking at her. From that moment she was impassive, proud and cold—held Sissy at a distance—changed to her altogether.
CHAPTER XVI
HUSBAND AND WIFE
MR. BOUNDERBY'S first disquietude on hearing of his happiness, was occasioned by the necessity of
