“Indeed, indeed, I pity him from my heart,” returned Louisa; “and I hope that he will clear himself.”
“You need have no fear of that, young lady. He is sure!”
“All the surer, I suppose,” said Mr. Bounderby, “for your refusing to tell where he is? Eh?”
“He shall not, through any act of mine, come back wi” the unmerited reproach of being brought back. He shall come back of his own accord to clear himself, and put all those that have injured his good character, and he not here for its defence, to shame. I have told him what has been done against him,” said Rachael, throwing off all distrust as a rock throws of the sea, “and he will be here, at furthest, in two days.”
“Notwithstanding which,” added Mr. Bounderby, “if he can be laid hold of any sooner, he shall have an earlier opportunity of clearing himself. As to you, I have nothing against you; what you came and told me turns out to be true, and I have given you the means of proving it to be true, and there's an end of it. I wish you good night all! I must be off to look a little further into this.”
Tom came out of his corner when Mr. Bounderby moved, moved with him, kept close to him, and went away with him. The only parting salutation of which he delivered himself was a sulky “Good night, father!” With a brief speech, and a scowl at his sister, he left the house.
Since his sheet-anchor had come home, Mr. Gradgrind had been sparing of speech. He still sat silent, when Louisa mildly said:
“Rachael, you will not distrust me one day, when you know me better.”
“It goes against me,” Rachael answered, in a gentler manner, “to mistrust any one; but when I am so mistrusted—when we all are—I cannot keep such things quite out of my mind. I ask your pardon for having done you an injury. I don't think what I said now. Yet I might come to think it again, wi” the poor lad so wronged.”
“Did you tell him in your letter,” inquired Sissy, “that suspicion seemed to have fallen upon him, because he had been seen about the Bank at night? He would then know what he would have to explain on coming back, and would be ready.”
“Yes, dear,” she returned; “but I can't guess what can have ever taken him there. He never used to go there. It was never in his way. His way was the same as mine, and not near it.”
Sissy had already been at her side asking her where she lived, and whether she might come to-morrow night, to inquire if there were news of him.
“I doubt,” said Rachael, “if he can be here till next day.”
“Then I will come next night too,” said Sissy.
When Rachael, assenting to this, was gone, Mr. Gradgrind lifted up his head, and said to his daughter:
“Louisa, my dear, I have never, that I know of, seen this man. Do you believe him to be implicated?”
“I think I have believed it, father, though with great difficulty. I do not believe it now.”
“That is to say, you once persuaded yourself to believe it, from knowing him to be suspected. His appearance and manner; are they so honest?”
“Very honest.”
“And her confidence not to be shaken! I ask myself,” said Mr. Gradgrind, musing, “does the real culprit know of these accusations? Where is he? Who is he?”
His hair had latterly began to change its colour. As he leaned upon his hand again, looking gray and old, Louisa, with a face of fear and pity, hurriedly went over to him, and sat close at his side. Her eyes by accident met Sissy's at the moment. Sissy flushed and started, and Louisa put her finger on her lip.
Next night, when Sissy returned home and told Louisa that Stephen was not come, she told it in a whisper. Next night again, when she came home with the same account, and added that he had not been heard of, she spoke in the same low frightened tone. From the moment of that interchange of looks, they never uttered his name, or any reference to him, aloud; nor ever pursued the subject of the robbery, when Mr. Gradgrind spoke of it.
The two appointed days ran out, three days and nights ran out, and Stephen Blackpool was not come, and remained unheard of. On the fourth day, Rachael, with unabated confidence, but considering her despatch to have miscarried, went up to the Bank, and showed her letter from him with his address, at a working colony, one of many, not upon the main road, sixty miles away. Messengers were sent to that place, and the whole town looked for Stephen to be brought in next day.
During this whole time the whelp moved about with Mr. Bounderby like his shadow, assisting in all the proceedings. He was greatly excited, horribly fevered, bit his nails down to the quick, spoke in a hard rattling voice, and with lips that were black and burnt up. At the hour when the suspected man was looked for, the whelp was at the station; offering to wager that he had made off before the arrival of those who were sent in quest of him, and that he would not appear.
The whelp was right. The messengers returned alone. Rachael's letter had gone, Rachael's letter had been delivered. Stephen Blackpool had decamped in that same hour; and no soul knew more of him. The only doubt in Coketown was, whether Rachael had written in good faith, believing that he really would come back, or warning him to fly. On this point opinion was divided.
Six days, seven days, far on into another week. The wretched whelp plucked up a ghastly courage, and began to grow defiant. “Was the suspected fellow the thief? A pretty question! If not, where was the man, and why did he not come back?”
Where was the man, and why did he not come back? In the dead of night the echoes of his own words, which had rolled Heaven knows how far away in the daytime, came back instead, and abided by him until morning.
CHAPTER V
FOUND
DAY and night again, day and night again. No Stephen Blackpool. Where was the man, and why did he not come back?
Every night, Sissy went to Rachael's lodging, and sat with her in her small neat room. All day, Rachael toiled as such people must toil, whatever their anxieties. The smoke-serpents were indifferent who was lost or found, who turned out bad or good; the melancholy mad elephants, like the Hard Fact men, abated nothing of their set routine, whatever happened. Day and night again, day and night again. The monotony was unbroken. Even Stephen Blackpool's disappearance was falling into the general way, and becoming as monotonous a wonder as any piece of machinery in Coketown.
“I misdoubt,” said Rachael, “if there is as many as twenty left in all this place, who have any trust in the poor dear lad now.”
She said it to Sissy, as they sat in her lodging, lighted only by the lamp at the street corner. Sissy had come there when it was already dark, to await her return from work; and they had since sat at the window where Rachael had found her, wanting no brighter light to shine on their sorrowful talk.
“If it hadn't been mercifully brought about, that I was to have you to speak to,” pursued Rachael, “times are, when I think my mind would not have kept right. But I get hope and strength through you; and you believe that though appearances may rise against him, he will be proved clear?”
“I do believe so,” returned Sissy, “with my whole heart. I feel so certain, Rachael, that the confidence you hold in yours against all discouragement, is not like to be wrong, that I have no more doubt of him than if I had known him through as many years of trial as you have.”
“And I, my dear,” said Rachel, with a tremble in her voice, “have known him through them all, to be, according to his quiet ways, so faithful to everything honest and good, that if he was never to be heard of more, and I was to live to be a hundred years old, I could say with my last breath, God knows my heart. I have never once left trusting Stephen Blackpool!”
“We all believe, up at the Lodge, Rachael, that he will be freed from suspicion, sooner or later.”
“The better I know it to be so believed there, my dear,” said Rachael, “and the kinder I feel it that you come away from there, purposely to comfort me, and keep me company, and be seen wi” me when I am not yet free from all suspicion myself, the more grieved I am that I should ever have spoken those mistrusting words to the young lady. And yet I—”