“I was acquainted with all this, you know,” said Mr. Bounderby, “except the last clause, long ago. It’s a bad job; that’s what it is. You had better have been satisfied as you were, and not have got married. However, it’s too late to say that.”
“Was it an unequal marriage, sir, in point of years?” asked Mrs. Sparsit.
“You hear what this lady asks. Was it an unequal marriage in point of years, this unlucky job of yours?” said Mr. Bounderby.
“Not e’en so. I were one-and-twenty myseln; she were twenty nighbut.”
“Indeed, sir?” said Mrs. Sparsit to her Chief, with great placidity. “I inferred, from its being so miserable a marriage, that it was probably an unequal one in point of years.”
Mr. Bounderby looked very hard at the good lady in a sidelong way that had an odd sheepishness about it. He fortified himself with a little more sherry.
“Well? Why don’t you go on?” he then asked, turning rather irritably on Stephen Blackpool.
“I ha’ coom to ask yo, sir, how I am to be ridded o’ this woman.” Stephen infused a yet deeper gravity into the mixed expression of his attentive face. Mrs. Sparsit uttered a gentle ejaculation, as having received a moral shock.
“What do you mean?” said Bounderby, getting up to lean his back against the chimney-piece. “What are you talking about? You took her for better for worse.”
“I mun’ be ridden o’ her. I cannot bear ‘t nommore. I ha’ lived under ‘t so long, for that I ha’ had’n the pity and comforting words o’ th’ best lass living or dead. Haply, but for her, I should ha’ gone hottering mad.”
“He wishes to be free, to marry the female of whom he speaks, I fear, sir,” observed Mrs. Sparsit in an undertone, and much dejected by the immorality of the people.
“I do. The lady says what’s right. I do. I were a coming to ‘t. I ha’ read i’ th’ papers that great fok (fair faw ’em a’! I wishes ’em no hurt!) are not bonded together for better for worse so fast, but that they can be set free fro’ their misfortnet marriages, an marry ower agen. When they dunnot agree, for that their tempers is ill-sorted, they has rooms o’ one kind an another in their houses, above a bit, and they can live asunders. We fok ha’ only one room, an we can’t. When that won’t do, they ha’ gowd an other cash, an they can say, ‘This for yo’, an that for me,’ an they can go their separate ways. We can’t. Spite o’ all that, they can be set free for smaller wrongs than mine. So, I mun be ridden o’ this woman, and I want t’ know how?”
“No how,” returned Mr. Bounderby.
“If I do her any hurt, sir, there’s a law to punish me?”
“Of course there is.”
“If I flee from her, there’s a law to punish me?”
“Of course there is.”
“If I marry t’oother dear lass, there’s a law to punish me?”
“Of course there is.”
“If I was to live wi’ her an not marry her – saying such a thing could be, which it never could or would, an her so good – there’s a law to punish me, in every innocent child belonging to me?”
“Of course there is.”
“Now, a’ God’s name,” said Stephen Blackpool, “show me the law to help me!”
“Hem! There’s a sancity in this relation of life,” said Mr. Bounderby, “and – and – it must be kept up.”
“No no, dunnot say that, sir. ‘Tan’t kep’ up that way. Not that way. ‘Tis kep’ down that way. I’m a weaver, I were in a fact’ry when a chilt, but I ha’ gotten een to see wi’ and eern to year wi’. I read in th’ papers every ‘Sizes, every Sessions – and you read too – I know it! – with dismay – how th’ supposed unpossibility o’ ever getting unchained from one another, at any price, on any terms, brings blood upon this land, and brings many common married fok to battle, murder, and sudden death. Let us ha’ this, right understood. Mine’s a grievous case, an I want – if yo will be so good – t’knaw the law that helps me.”