Dombey and Son
by Charles Dickens
CONTENTS
1. Dombey and Son
2. In which Timely Provision is made for an Emergency that
will sometimes arise in the best-regulated Families
3. In which Mr Dombey, as a Man and a Father, is seen at the
Head of the Home-Department
4. In which some more First Appearances are made on the
Stage of these Adventures
5. Paul's Progress and Christening
6. Paul's Second Deprivation
7. A Bird's-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox's Dwelling-place; also
of the State of Miss Tox's Affections
8. Paul's further Progress, Growth, and Character
9. In which the Wooden Midshipman gets into Trouble
10. Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman's Disaster
11. Paul's Introduction to a New Scene
12. Paul's Education
13. Shipping Intelligence and Office Business
14. Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned, and goes Home
for the holidays
15. Amazing Artfulness of Captain Cuttle, and a new Pursuit
for Walter Gay
16. What the Waves were always saying
17. Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young people
18. Father and Daughter
19. Walter goes away
20. Mr Dombey goes upon a journey
21. New Faces
22. A Trifle of Management by Mr Carker the Manager
23. Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious
24. The Study of a Loving Heart
25. Strange News of Uncle Sol
26. Shadows of the Past and Future
27. Deeper shadows
28. Alterations
29. The Opening of the Eyes of Mrs Chick
30. The Interval before the Marriage
31. The Wedding
32. The Wooden Midshipman goes to Pieces
33. Contrasts
34. Another Mother and Daughter
35. The Happy Pair
36. Housewarming
37. More Warnings than One
38. Miss Tox improves an Old Acquaintance
39. Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner
40. Domestic Relations
41. New Voices in the Waves
42. Confidential and Accidental
43. The Watches of the Night
44. A Separation
45. The Trusty Agent
46. Recognizant and Reflective
47. The Thunderbolt
48. The Flight of Florence
49. The Midshipman makes a Discovery
50. Mr Toots's Complaint
51. Mr Dombey and the World
52. Secret Intelligence
53. More Intelligence
54. The Fugitives
55. Rob the Grinder loses his Place
56. Several People delighted, and the Game Chicken disgusted
57. Another Wedding
58. After a Lapse
59. Retribution
60. Chiefly Matrimonial
61. Relenting
62. Final
CHAPTER 1.
Dombey and Son
Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great
arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little
basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in
front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were
analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown
while he was very new.
Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about
eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and
though a handsome well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance,
to be prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of
course) an undeniably fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his
general effect, as yet. On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother
Care had set some marks, as on a tree that was to come down in good
time - remorseless twins they are for striding through their human
forests, notching as they go - while the countenance of Son was
crossed with a thousand little creases, which the same deceitful Time
would take delight in smoothing out and wearing away with the flat
part of his scythe, as a preparation of the surface for his deeper
operations.
Dombey, exulting in the long-looked-for event, jingled and jingled
the heavy gold watch-chain that depended from below his trim blue
coat, whereof the buttons sparkled phosphorescently in the feeble rays
of the distant fire. Son, with his little fists curled up and
clenched, seemed, in his feeble way, to be squaring at existence for
having come upon him so unexpectedly.
'The House will once again, Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, 'be not
only in name but in fact Dombey and Son;' and he added, in a tone of
luxurious satisfaction, with his eyes half-closed as if he were
reading the name in a device of flowers, and inhaling their fragrance
at the same time; 'Dom-bey and Son!'
The words had such a softening influence, that he appended a term
of endearment to Mrs Dombey's name (though not without some
hesitation, as being a man but little used to that form of address):
and said, 'Mrs Dombey, my - my dear.'
A transient flush of faint surprise overspread the sick lady's face
as she raised her eyes towards him.
'He will be christened Paul, my - Mrs Dombey - of course.'
She feebly echoed, 'Of course,' or rather expressed it by the
motion of her lips, and closed her eyes again.
'His father's name, Mrs Dombey, and his grandfather's! I wish his
grandfather were alive this day! There is some inconvenience in the
necessity of writing Junior,' said Mr Dombey, making a fictitious
autograph on his knee; 'but it is merely of a private and personal
complexion. It doesn't enter into the correspondence of the House. Its
signature remains the same.' And again he said 'Dombey and Son, in
exactly the same tone as before.
Those three words conveyed the one idea of Mr Dombey's life. The
earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon
were made to give them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float
their ships; rainbows gave them promise of fair weather; winds blew
for or against their enterprises; stars and planets circled in their
orbits, to preserve inviolate a system of which they were the centre.
Common abbreviations took new meanings in his eyes, and had sole
reference to them. A. D. had no concern with Anno Domini, but stood
for anno Dombey - and Son.
He had risen, as his father had before him, in the course of life
and death, from Son to Dombey, and for nearly twenty years had been
the sole representative of the Firm. Of those years he had been
married, ten - married, as some said, to a lady with no heart to give
him; whose happiness was in the past, and who was content to bind her
broken spirit to the dutiful and meek endurance of the present. Such
idle talk was little likely to reach the ears of Mr Dombey, whom it
nearly concerned; and probably no one in the world would have received
it with such utter incredulity as he, if it had reached him. Dombey
and Son had often dealt in hides, but never in hearts. They left that
fancy ware to boys and girls, and boarding-schools and books. Mr
Dombey would have reasoned: That a matrimonial alliance with himself
must, in the nature of things, be gratifying and honourable to any
woman of common sense. That the hope of giving birth to a new partner
in such a House, could not fail to awaken a glorious and stirring
ambition in the breast of the least ambitious of her sex. That Mrs
Dombey had entered on that social contract of matrimony: almost
necessarily part of a genteel and wealthy station, even without
reference to the perpetuation of family Firms: with her eyes fully
open to these advantages. That Mrs Dombey had had daily practical
knowledge of his position in society. That Mrs Dombey had always sat
at the head of his table, and done the honours of his house in a
remarkably lady-like and becoming manner. That Mrs Dombey must have
been happy. That she couldn't help it.
Or, at all events, with one drawback. Yes. That he would have
allowed. With only one; but that one certainly involving much. With
the drawback of hope deferred. That hope deferred, which, (as the
Scripture very correctly tells us, Mr Dombey would have added in a
patronising way; for his highest distinct idea even of Scripture, if
examined, would have been found to be; that as forming part of a
general whole, of which Dombey and Son formed another part, it was
therefore to be commended and upheld) maketh the heart sick. They had
been married ten years, and until this present day on which Mr Dombey
sat jingling and jingling his heavy gold watch-chain in the great
arm-chair by the side of the bed, had had no issue.
- To speak of; none worth mentioning. There had been a girl some
six years before, and the child, who had stolen into the chamber
unobserved, was now crouching timidly, in a corner whence she could
see her mother's face. But what was a girl to Dombey and Son! In the
capital of the House's name and dignity, such a child was merely a
piece of base coin that couldn't be invested - a bad Boy - nothing
more.
Mr Dombey's cup of satisfaction was so full at this moment,
however, that he felt he could afford a drop or two of its contents,
even to sprinkle on the dust in the by-path of his little daughter.
So he said, 'Florence, you may go and look at your pretty brother,
if you lIke, I daresay. Don't touch him!'
The child glanced keenly at the blue coat and stiff white cravat,
which, with a pair of creaking boots and a very loud ticking watch,
embodied her idea of a father; but her eyes returned to her mother's
face immediately, and she neither moved nor answered.
'Her insensibility is as proof against a brother as against every
thing else,' said Mr Dombey to himself He seemed so confirmed in a
previous opinion by the discovery, as to be quite glad of it'
Next moment, the lady had opened her eyes and seen the child; and
the child had run towards her; and, standing on tiptoe, the better to
hide her face in her embrace, had clung about her with a desperate
affection very much at variance with her years.
'Oh Lord bless me!' said Mr Dombey, rising testily. 'A very
illadvised and feverish proceeding this, I am sure. Please to ring
there for Miss Florence's nurse. Really the person should be more
care-'
'Wait! I - had better ask Doctor Peps if he'll have the goodness to
step upstairs again perhaps. I'll go down. I'll go down. I needn't beg
you,' he added, pausing for a moment at the settee before the fire,
'to take particular care of this young gentleman, Mrs - '
'Blockitt, Sir?' suggested the nurse, a simpering piece of faded
gentility, who did not presume to state her name as a fact, but merely
offered it as a mild suggestion.
'Of this young gentleman, Mrs Blockitt.'
'No, Sir, indeed. I remember when Miss Florence was born - '
'Ay, ay, ay,' said Mr Dombey, bending over the basket bedstead, and
slightly bending his brows at the same time. 'Miss Florence was all
very well, but this is another matter. This young gentleman has to
accomplish a destiny. A destiny, little fellow!' As he thus
apostrophised the infant he raised one of his hands to his lips, and
kissed it; then, seeming to fear that the action involved some
compromise of his dignity, went, awkwardly enough, away.
Doctor Parker Peps, one of the Court Physicians, and a man of
immense reputation for assisting at the increase of great families,
was walking up and down the drawing-room with his hands behind him, to
the unspeakable admiration of the family Surgeon, who had regularly
puffed the case for the last six weeks, among all his patients,
friends, and acquaintances, as one to which he was in hourly
expectation day and night of being summoned, in conjunction with
Doctor Parker Pep.
'Well, Sir,' said Doctor Parker Peps in a round, deep, sonorous
voice, muffled for the occasion, like the knocker; 'do you find that
your dear lady is at all roused by your visit?'
'Stimulated as it were?' said the family practitioner faintly:
bowing at the same time to the Doctor, as much as to say, 'Excuse my
putting in a word, but this is a valuable connexion.'
Mr Dombey was quite discomfited by the question. He had thought so
little of the patient, that he was not in a condition to answer it. He
said that it would be a satisfaction to him, if Doctor Parker Peps
would walk upstairs again.
'Good! We must not disguise from you, Sir,' said Doctor Parker
Peps, 'that there is a want of power in Her Grace the Duchess - I beg
your pardon; I confound names; I should say, in your amiable lady.
That there is a certain degree of languor, and a general absence of
elasticity, which we would rather - not -
'See,' interposed the family practitioner with another inclination
of the head.
'Quite so,' said Doctor Parker Peps,' which we would rather not
see. It would appear that the system of Lady Cankaby - excuse me: I
should say of Mrs Dombey: I confuse the names of cases - '
'So very numerous,' murmured the family practitioner - 'can't be
expected I'm sure - quite wonderful if otherwise - Doctor Parker
Peps's West-End practice - '
'Thank you,' said the Doctor, 'quite so. It would appear, I was
observing, that the system of our patient has sustained a shock, from
which it can only hope to rally by a great and strong - '
'And vigorous,' murmured the family practitioner.
'Quite so,' assented the Doctor - 'and vigorous effort. Mr Pilkins
here, who from his position of medical adviser in this family - no one
better qualified to fill that position, I am sure.'
'Oh!' murmured the family practitioner. '"Praise from Sir Hubert
Stanley!"'
'You are good enough,' returned Doctor Parker Peps, 'to say so. Mr
Pilkins who, from his position, is best acquainted with the patient's
constitution in its normal state (an acquaintance very valuable to us
in forming our opinions in these occasions), is of opinion, with me,
that Nature must be called upon to make a vigorous effort in this
instance; and that if our interesting friend the Countess of Dombey -
I beg your pardon; Mrs Dombey - should not be - '
'Able,' said the family practitioner.
'To make,' said Doctor Parker Peps.
'That effort,' said the family practitioner.
'Successfully,' said they both together.
'Then,' added Doctor Parker Peps, alone and very gravely, a crisis
might arise, which we should both sincerely deplore.'
With that, they stood for a few seconds looking at the ground.
Then, on the motion - made in dumb show - of Doctor Parker Peps, they
went upstairs; the family practitioner opening the room door for that
distinguished professional, and following him out, with most
obsequious politeness.
To record of Mr Dombey that he was not in his way affected by this
intelligence, would be to do him an injustice. He was not a man of
whom it could properly be said that he was ever startled, or shocked;
but he certainly had a sense within him, that if his wife should
sicken and decay, he would be very sorry, and that he would find a
something gone from among his plate and furniture, and other household
possessions, which was well worth the having, and could not be lost
without sincere regret. Though it would be a cool,. business-like,
gentlemanly, self-possessed regret, no doubt.
His meditations on the subject were soon interrupted, first by the
rustling of garments on the staircase, and then by the sudden whisking
into the room of a lady rather past the middle age than otherwise but
dressed in a very juvenile manner, particularly as to the tightness of
her bodice, who, running up to him with a kind of screw in her face
and carriage, expressive of suppressed emotion, flung her arms around
his neck, and said, in a choking voice,
'My dear Paul! He's quite a Dombey!'
'Well, well!' returned her brother - for Mr Dombey was her brother
- 'I think he is like the family. Don't agitate yourself, Louisa.'
'It's very foolish of me,' said Louisa, sitting down, and taking
out her pocket~handkerchief, 'but he's - he's such a perfect Dombey!'
Mr Dombey coughed.
'It's so extraordinary,' said Louisa; smiling through her tears,
which indeed were not overpowering, 'as to be perfectly ridiculous. So
completely our family. I never saw anything like it in my life!'
'But what is this about Fanny, herself?' said Mr Dombey. 'How is
Fanny?'
'My dear Paul,' returned Louisa, 'it's nothing whatever. Take my
word, it's nothing whatever. There is exhaustion, certainly, but
nothing like what I underwent myself, either with George or Frederick.
An effort is necessary. That's all. If dear Fanny were a Dombey! - But
I daresay she'll make it; I have no doubt she'll make it. Knowing it
to be required of her, as a duty, of course she'll make it. My dear
Paul, it's very weak and silly of me, I know, to be so trembly and
shaky from head to foot; but I am so very queer that I must ask you
for a glass of wine and a morsel of that cake.'
Mr Dombey promptly supplied her with these refreshments from a tray
on the table.
'I shall not drink my love to you, Paul,' said Louisa: 'I shall
drink to the little Dombey. Good gracious me! - it's the most
astonishing thing I ever knew in all my days, he's such a perfect
Dombey.'
Quenching this expression of opinion in a short hysterical laugh
which terminated in tears, Louisa cast up her eyes, and emptied her
glass.
'I know it's very weak and silly of me,' she repeated, 'to be so
trembly and shaky from head to foot, and to allow my feelings so
completely to get the better of me, but I cannot help it. I thought I
should have fallen out of the staircase window as I came down from
seeing dear Fanny, and that tiddy ickle sing.' These last words
originated in a sudden vivid reminiscence of the baby.
They were succeeded by a gentle tap at the door.
'Mrs Chick,' said a very bland female voice outside, 'how are you
now, my dear friend?'
'My dear Paul,' said Louisa in a low voice, as she rose from her
seat, 'it's Miss Tox. The kindest creature! I never could have got
here without her! Miss Tox, my brother Mr Dombey. Paul, my dear, my
very particular friend Miss Tox.'
The lady thus specially presented, was a long lean figure, wearing
such a faded air that she seemed not to have been made in what
linen-drapers call 'fast colours' originally, and to have, by little
and little, washed out. But for this she might have been described as
the very pink of general propitiation and politeness. From a long
habit of listening admiringly to everything that was said in her
presence, and looking at the speakers as if she were mentally engaged
in taking off impressions of their images upon her soul, never to part
with the same but with life, her head had quite settled on one side.
Her hands had contracted a spasmodic habit of raising themselves of
their own accord as in involuntary admiration. Her eyes were liable to
a similar affection. She had the softest voice that ever was heard;
and her nose, stupendously aquiline, had a little knob in the very
centre or key-stone of the bridge, whence it tended downwards towards
her face, as in an invincible determination never to turn up at
anything.
Miss Tox's dress, though perfectly genteel and good, had a certain
character of angularity and scantiness. She was accustomed to wear odd
weedy little flowers in her bonnets and caps. Strange grasses were
sometimes perceived in her hair; and it was observed by the curious,
of all her collars, frills, tuckers, wristbands, and other gossamer
articles - indeed of everything she wore which had two ends to it
intended to unite - that the two ends were never on good terms, and
wouldn't quite meet without a struggle. She had furry articles for
winter wear, as tippets, boas, and muffs, which stood up on end in
rampant manner, and were not at all sleek. She was much given to the
carrying about of small bags with snaps to them, that went off like
little pistols when they were shut up; and when full-dressed, she wore
round her neck the barrenest of lockets, representing a fishy old eye,
with no approach to speculation in it. These and other appearances of
a similar nature, had served to propagate the opinion, that Miss Tox
was a lady of what is called a limited independence, which she turned
to the best account. Possibly her mincing gait encouraged the belief,
and suggested that her clipping a step of ordinary compass into two or
three, originated in her habit of making the most of everything.
'I am sure,' said Miss Tox, with a prodigious curtsey, 'that to
have the honour of being presented to Mr Dombey is a distinction which
I have long sought, but very little expected at the present moment. My
dear Mrs Chick - may I say Louisa!'
Mrs Chick took Miss Tox's hand in hers, rested the foot of her
wine-glass upon it, repressed a tear, and said in a low voice, 'God
bless you!'
'My dear Louisa then,' said Miss Tox, 'my sweet friend, how are you
now?'
'Better,' Mrs Chick returned. 'Take some wine. You have been almost
as anxious as I have been, and must want it, I am sure.'
Mr Dombey of course officiated, and also refilled his sister's
glass, which she (looking another way, and unconscious of his
intention) held straight and steady the while, and then regarded with
great astonishment, saying, 'My dear Paul, what have you been doing!'
'Miss Tox, Paul,' pursued Mrs Chick, still retaining her hand,
'knowing how much I have been interested in the anticipation of the
event of to-day, and how trembly and shaky I have been from head to
foot in expectation of it, has been working at a little gift for
Fanny, which I promised to present. Miss Tox is ingenuity itself.'
'My dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox. 'Don't say so.
'It is only a pincushion for the toilette table, Paul,' resumed his
sister; 'one of those trifles which are insignificant to your sex in
general, as it's very natural they should be - we have no business to
expect they should be otherwise - but to which we attach some
interest.
'Miss Tox is very good,' said Mr Dombey.
'And I do say, and will say, and must say,' pursued his sister,
pressing the foot of the wine-glass on Miss Tox's hand, at each of the
three clauses, 'that Miss Tox has very prettily adapted the sentiment
to the occasion. I call "Welcome little Dombey" Poetry, myself!'
'Is that the device?' inquired her brother.
'That is the device,' returned Louisa.
'But do me the justice to remember, my dear Louisa,' said Miss
Toxin a tone of low and earnest entreaty, 'that nothing but the - I
have some difficulty in expressing myself - the dubiousness of the
result would have induced me to take so great a liberty: "Welcome,
Master Dombey," would have been much more congenial to my feelings, as
I am sure you know. But the uncertainty attendant on angelic
strangers, will, I hope, excuse what must otherwise appear an
unwarrantable familiarity.' Miss Tox made a graceful bend as she
spoke, in favour of Mr Dombey, which that gentleman graciously
acknowledged. Even the sort of recognition of Dombey and Son, conveyed
in the foregoing conversation, was so palatable to him, that his
sister, Mrs Chick - though he affected to consider her a weak
good-natured person - had perhaps more influence over him than anybody
else.
'My dear Paul,' that lady broke out afresh, after silently
contemplating his features for a few moments, 'I don't know whether to
laugh or cry when I look at you, I declare, you do so remind me of
that dear baby upstairs.'
'Well!' said Mrs Chick, with a sweet smile, 'after this, I forgive
Fanny everything!'
It was a declaration in a Christian spirit, and Mrs Chick felt that
it did her good. Not that she had anything particular to forgive in
her sister-in-law, nor indeed anything at all, except her having
married her brother - in itself a species of audacity - and her
having, in the course of events, given birth to a girl instead of a
boy: which, as Mrs Chick had frequently observed, was not quite what
she had expected of her, and was not a pleasant return for all the
attention and distinction she had met with.
Mr Dombey being hastily summoned out of the room at this moment,
the two ladies were left alone together. Miss Tox immediately became
spasmodic.
'I knew you would admire my brother. I told you so beforehand, my
dear,' said Louisa. Miss Tox's hands and eyes expressed how much. 'And
as to his property, my dear!'
'Ah!' said Miss Tox, with deep feeling. 'Im-mense!'
'But his deportment, my dear Louisa!' said Miss Tox. 'His presence!
His dignity! No portrait that I have ever seen of anyone has been half
so replete with those qualities. Something so stately, you know: so
uncompromising: so very wide across the chest: so upright! A pecuniary
Duke of York, my love, and nothing short of it!' said Miss Tox.
'That's what I should designate him.'
'Why, my dear Paul!' exclaimed his sister, as he returned, 'you
look quite pale! There's nothing the matter?'
'I am sorry to say, Louisa, that they tell me that Fanny - '
'Now, my dear Paul,' returned his sister rising, 'don't believe it.
Do not allow yourself to receive a turn unnecessarily. Remember of
what importance you are to society, and do not allow yourself to be
worried by what is so very inconsiderately told you by people who
ought to know better. Really I'm surprised at them.'
'I hope I know, Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, stiffly, 'how to bear
myself before the world.'
'Nobody better, my dear Paul. Nobody half so well. They would be
ignorant and base indeed who doubted it.'
'Ignorant and base indeed!' echoed Miss Tox softly.
'But,' pursued Louisa, 'if you have any reliance on my experience,
Paul, you may rest assured that there is nothing wanting but an effort
on Fanny's part. And that effort,' she continued, taking off her
bonnet, and adjusting her cap and gloves, in a business-like manner,
'she must be encouraged, and really, if necessary, urged to make. Now,
my dear Paul, come upstairs with me.'
Mr Dombey, who, besides being generally influenced by his sister
for the reason already mentioned, had really faith in her as an
experienced and bustling matron, acquiesced; and followed her, at
once, to the sick chamber.
The lady lay upon her bed as he had left her, clasping her little
daughter to her breast. The child clung close about her, with the same
intensity as before, and never raised her head, or moved her soft
cheek from her mother's face, or looked on those who stood around, or
spoke, or moved, or shed a tear.
'Restless without the little girl,' the Doctor whispered Mr Dombey.
'We found it best to have her in again.'
'Can nothing be done?' asked Mr Dombey.
The Doctor shook his head. 'We can do no more.'
The windows stood open, and the twilight was gathering without.
The scent of the restoratives that had been tried was pungent in
the room, but had no fragrance in the dull and languid air the lady
breathed.
There was such a solemn stillness round the bed; and the two
medical attendants seemed to look on the impassive form with so much
compassion and so little hope, that Mrs Chick was for the moment
diverted from her purpose. But presently summoning courage, and what
she called presence of mind, she sat down by the bedside, and said in
the low precise tone of one who endeavours to awaken a sleeper:
'Fanny! Fanny!'
There was no sound in answer but the loud ticking of Mr Dombey's
watch and Doctor Parker Peps's watch, which seemed in the silence to
be running a race.
'Fanny, my dear,' said Mrs Chick, with assumed lightness, 'here's
Mr Dombey come to see you. Won't you speak to him? They want to lay
your little boy - the baby, Fanny, you know; you have hardly seen him
yet, I think - in bed; but they can't till you rouse yourself a
little. Don't you think it's time you roused yourself a little? Eh?'
She bent her ear to the bed, and listened: at the same time looking
round at the bystanders, and holding up her finger.
'Eh?' she repeated, 'what was it you said, Fanny? I didn't hear
you.'
No word or sound in answer. Mr Dombey's watch and Dr Parker Peps's
watch seemed to be racing faster.
'Now, really, Fanny my dear,' said the sister-in-law, altering her
position, and speaking less confidently, and more earnestly, in spite
of herself, 'I shall have to be quite cross with you, if you don't
rouse yourself. It's necessary for you to make an effort, and perhaps
a very great and painful effort which you are not disposed to make;
but this is a world of effort you know, Fanny, and we must never
yield, when so much depends upon us. Come! Try! I must really scold
you if you don't!'
The race in the ensuing pause was fierce and furious. The watches
seemed to jostle, and to trip each other up.
'Fanny!' said Louisa, glancing round, with a gathering alarm. 'Only
look at me. Only open your eyes to show me that you hear and
understand me; will you? Good Heaven, gentlemen, what is to be done!'
The two medical attendants exchanged a look across the bed; and the
Physician, stooping down, whispered in the child's ear. Not having
understood the purport of his whisper, the little creature turned her
perfectly colourless face and deep dark eyes towards him; but without
loosening her hold in the least
The whisper was repeated.
'Mama!' said the child.
The little voice, familiar and dearly loved, awakened some show of
consciousness, even at that ebb. For a moment, the closed eye lids
trembled, and the nostril quivered, and the faintest shadow of a smile
was seen.
'Mama!' cried the child sobbing aloud. 'Oh dear Mama! oh dear
Mama!'
The Doctor gently brushed the scattered ringlets of the child,
aside from the face and mouth of the mother. Alas how calm they lay
there; how little breath there was to stir them!
Thus, clinging fast to that slight spar within her arms, the mother
drifted out upon the dark and unknown sea that rolls round all the
world.
CHAPTER 2.
In which Timely Provision is made for an Emergency that
will sometimes arise in the best-regulated Families
'I shall never cease to congratulate myself,' said Mrs Chick,' on
having said, when I little thought what was in store for us, - really
as if I was inspired by something, - that I forgave poor dear Fanny
everything. Whatever happens, that must always be a comfort to me!'
Mrs Chick made this impressive observation in the drawing-room,
after having descended thither from the inspection of the
mantua-makers upstairs, who were busy on the family mourning. She
delivered it for the behoof of Mr Chick, who was a stout bald
gentleman, with a very large face, and his hands continually in his
pockets, and who had a tendency in his nature to whistle and hum
tunes, which, sensible of the indecorum of such sounds in a house of
grief, he was at some pains to repress at present.
'Don't you over-exert yourself, Loo,' said Mr Chick, 'or you'll be
laid up with spasms, I see. Right tol loor rul! Bless my soul, I
forgot! We're here one day and gone the next!'
Mrs Chick contented herself with a glance of reproof, and then
proceeded with the thread of her discourse.
'I am sure,' she said, 'I hope this heart-rending occurrence will
be a warning to all of us, to accustom ourselves to rouse ourselves,
and to make efforts in time where they're required of us. There's a
moral in everything, if we would only avail ourselves of it. It will
be our own faults if we lose sight of this one.'
Mr Chick invaded the grave silence which ensued on this remark with
the singularly inappropriate air of 'A cobbler there was;' and
checking himself, in some confusion, observed, that it was undoubtedly
our own faults if we didn't improve such melancholy occasions as the
present.
'Which might be better improved, I should think, Mr C.,' retorted
his helpmate, after a short pause, 'than by the introduction, either
of the college hornpipe, or the equally unmeaning and unfeeling remark
of rump-te-iddity, bow-wow-wow!' - which Mr Chick had indeed indulged
in, under his breath, and which Mrs Chick repeated in a tone of
withering scorn.
'Merely habit, my dear,' pleaded Mr Chick.
'Nonsense! Habit!' returned his wife. 'If you're a rational being,
don't make such ridiculous excuses. Habit! If I was to get a habit (as
you call it) of walking on the ceiling, like the flies, I should hear
enough of it, I daresay.
It appeared so probable that such a habit might be attended with
some degree of notoriety, that Mr Chick didn't venture to dispute the
position.
'Bow-wow-wow!' repeated Mrs Chick with an emphasis of blighting
contempt on the last syllable. 'More like a professional singer with
the hydrophobia, than a man in your station of life!'
'How's the Baby, Loo?' asked Mr Chick: to change the subject.
'What Baby do you mean?' answered Mrs Chick.
'The poor bereaved little baby,' said Mr Chick. 'I don't know of
any other, my dear.'
'You don't know of any other,'retorted Mrs Chick. 'More shame for
you, I was going to say.
Mr Chick looked astonished.
'I am sure the morning I have had, with that dining-room
downstairs, one mass of babies, no one in their senses would believe.'
'One mass of babies!' repeated Mr Chick, staring with an alarmed
expression about him.
'It would have occurred to most men,' said Mrs Chick, 'that poor
dear Fanny being no more, - those words of mine will always be a balm
and comfort to me,' here she dried her eyes; 'it becomes necessary to
provide a Nurse.'
'Oh! Ah!' said Mr Chick. 'Toor-ru! - such is life, I mean. I hope
you are suited, my dear.'
'Indeed I am not,' said Mrs Chick; 'nor likely to be, so far as I
can see, and in the meantime the poor child seems likely to be starved
to death. Paul is so very particular - naturally so, of course, having
set his whole heart on this one boy - and there are so many objections
to everybody that offers, that I don't see, myself, the least chance
of an arrangement. Meanwhile, of course, the child is - '
'Going to the Devil,' said Mr Chick, thoughtfully, 'to be sure.'
Admonished, however, that he had committed himself, by the
indignation expressed in Mrs Chick's countenance at the idea of a
Dombey going there; and thinking to atone for his misconduct by a
bright suggestion, he added:
'Couldn't something temporary be done with a teapot?'
If he had meant to bring the subject prematurely to a close, he
could not have done it more effectually. After looking at him for some
moments in silent resignation, Mrs Chick said she trusted he hadn't
said it in aggravation, because that would do very little honour to
his heart. She trusted he hadn't said it seriously, because that would
do very little honour to his head. As in any case, he couldn't,
however sanguine his disposition, hope to offer a remark that would be
a greater outrage on human nature in general, we would beg to leave
the discussion at that point.
Mrs Chick then walked majestically to the window and peeped through
the blind, attracted by the sound of wheels. Mr Chick, finding that
his destiny was, for the time, against him, said no more, and walked
off. But it was not always thus with Mr Chick. He was often in the
ascendant himself, and at those times punished Louisa roundly. In
their matrimonial bickerings they were, upon the whole, a
well-matched, fairly-balanced, give-and-take couple. It would have
been, generally speaking, very difficult to have betted on the winner.
Often when Mr Chick seemed beaten, he would suddenly make a start,
turn the tables, clatter them about the ears of Mrs Chick, and carry
all before him. Being liable himself to similar unlooked for checks
from Mrs Chick, their little contests usually possessed a character of
uncertainty that was very animating.
Miss Tox had arrived on the wheels just now alluded to, and came
running into the room in a breathless condition. 'My dear Louisa,'said
Miss Tox, 'is the vacancy still unsupplied?'
'You good soul, yes,' said Mrs Chick.
'Then, my dear Louisa,' returned Miss Tox, 'I hope and believe -
but in one moment, my dear, I'll introduce the party.'
Running downstairs again as fast as she had run up, Miss Tox got
the party out of the hackney-coach, and soon returned with it under
convoy.
It then appeared that she had used the word, not in its legal or
business acceptation, when it merely expresses an individual, but as a
noun of multitude, or signifying many: for Miss Tox escorted a plump
rosy-cheeked wholesome apple-faced young woman, with an infant in her
arms; a younger woman not so plump, but apple-faced also, who led a
plump and apple-faced child in each hand; another plump and also
apple-faced boy who walked by himself; and finally, a plump and
apple-faced man, who carried in his arms another plump and apple-faced
boy, whom he stood down on the floor, and admonished, in a husky
whisper, to 'kitch hold of his brother Johnny.'
'My dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox, 'knowing your great anxiety, and
wishing to relieve it, I posted off myself to the Queen Charlotte's
Royal Married Females,' which you had forgot, and put the question,
Was there anybody there that they thought would suit? No, they said
there was not. When they gave me that answer, I do assure you, my
dear, I was almost driven to despair on your account. But it did so
happen, that one of the Royal Married Females, hearing the inquiry,
reminded the matron of another who had gone to her own home, and who,
she said, would in all likelihood be most satisfactory. The moment I
heard this, and had it corroborated by the matron - excellent
references and unimpeachable character - I got the address, my dear,
and posted off again.'
'Like the dear good Tox, you are!' said Louisa.
'Not at all,' returned Miss Tox. 'Don't say so. Arriving at the
house (the cleanest place, my dear! You might eat your dinner off the
floor), I found the whole family sitting at table; and feeling that no
account of them could be half so comfortable to you and Mr Dombey as
the sight of them all together, I brought them all away. This
gentleman,' said Miss Tox, pointing out the apple-faced man, 'is the
father. Will you have the goodness to come a little forward, Sir?'
The apple-faced man having sheepishly complied with this request,
stood chuckling and grinning in a front row.
'This is his wife, of course,' said Miss Tox, singling out the
young woman with the baby. 'How do you do, Polly?'
'I'm pretty well, I thank you, Ma'am,' said Polly.
By way of bringing her out dexterously, Miss Tox had made the
inquiry as in condescension to an old acquaintance whom she hadn't
seen for a fortnight or so.
'I'm glad to hear it,' said Miss Tox. 'The other young woman is her
unmarried sister who lives with them, and would take care of her
children. Her name's Jemima. How do you do, Jemima?'
'I'm pretty well, I thank you, Ma'am,' returned Jemima.
'I'm very glad indeed to hear it,' said Miss Tox. 'I hope you'll
keep so. Five children. Youngest six weeks. The fine little boy with
the blister on his nose is the eldest The blister, I believe,' said
Miss Tox, looking round upon the family, 'is not constitutional, but
accidental?'
The apple-faced man was understood to growl, 'Flat iron.
'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Miss Tox, 'did you?
'Flat iron,' he repeated.
'Oh yes,' said Miss Tox. 'Yes! quite true. I forgot. The little
creature, in his mother's absence, smelt a warm flat iron. You're
quite right, Sir. You were going to have the goodness to inform me,
when we arrived at the door that you were by trade a - '
'Stoker,' said the man.
'A choker!' said Miss Tox, quite aghast.
'Stoker,' said the man. 'Steam ingine.'
'Oh-h! Yes!' returned Miss Tox, looking thoughtfully at him, and
seeming still to have but a very imperfect understanding of his
meaning.
'And how do you like it, Sir?'
'Which, Mum?' said the man.
'That,' replied Miss Tox. 'Your trade.'
'Oh! Pretty well, Mum. The ashes sometimes gets in here;' touching
his chest: 'and makes a man speak gruff, as at the present time. But
it is ashes, Mum, not crustiness.'
Miss Tox seemed to be so little enlightened by this reply, as to
find a difficulty in pursuing the subject. But Mrs Chick relieved her,
by entering into a close private examination of Polly, her children,
her marriage certificate, testimonials, and so forth. Polly coming out
unscathed from this ordeal, Mrs Chick withdrew with her report to her
brother's room, and as an emphatic comment on it, and corroboration of
it, carried the two rosiest little Toodles with her. Toodle being the
family name of the apple-faced family.
Mr Dombey had remained in his own apartment since the death of his
wife, absorbed in visions of the youth, education, and destination of
his baby son. Something lay at the bottom of his cool heart, colder
and heavier than its ordinary load; but it was more a sense of the
child's loss than his own, awakening within him an almost angry
sorrow. That the life and progress on which he built such hopes,
should be endangered in the outset by so mean a want; that Dombey and
Son should be tottering for a nurse, was a sore humiliation. And yet
in his pride and jealousy, he viewed with so much bitterness the
thought of being dependent for the very first step towards the
accomplishment of his soul's desire, on a hired serving-woman who
would be to the child, for the time, all that even his alliance could
have made his own wife, that in every new rejection of a candidate he
felt a secret pleasure. The time had now come, however, when he could
no longer be divided between these two sets of feelings. The less so,
as there seemed to be no flaw in the title of Polly Toodle after his
sister had set it forth, with many commendations on the indefatigable
friendship of Miss Tox.
'These children look healthy,' said Mr Dombey. 'But my God, to
think of their some day claiming a sort of relationship to Paul!'
' But what relationship is there!' Louisa began -
'Is there!' echoed Mr Dombey, who had not intended his sister to
participate in the thought he had unconsciously expressed. 'Is there,
did you say, Louisa!'
'Can there be, I mean - '
'Why none,' said Mr Dombey, sternly. 'The whole world knows that, I
presume. Grief has not made me idiotic, Louisa. Take them away,
Louisa! Let me see this woman and her husband.'
Mrs Chick bore off the tender pair of Toodles, and presently
returned with that tougher couple whose presence her brother had
commanded.
'My good woman,' said Mr Dombey, turning round in his easy chair,
as one piece, and not as a man with limbs and joints, 'I understand
you are poor, and wish to earn money by nursing the little boy, my
son, who has been so prematurely deprived of what can never be
replaced. I have no objection to your adding to the comforts of your
family by that means. So far as I can tell, you seem to be a deserving
object. But I must impose one or two conditions on you, before you
enter my house in that capacity. While you are here, I must stipulate
that you are always known as - say as Richards - an ordinary name, and
convenient. Have you any objection to be known as Richards? You had
better consult your husband.'
'Well?' said Mr Dombey, after a pretty long pause. 'What does your
husband say to your being called Richards?'
As the husband did nothing but chuckle and grin, and continually
draw his right hand across his mouth, moistening the palm, Mrs Toodle,
after nudging him twice or thrice in vain, dropped a curtsey and
replied 'that perhaps if she was to be called out of her name, it
would be considered in the wages.'
'Oh, of course,' said Mr Dombey. 'I desire to make it a question of
wages, altogether. Now, Richards, if you nurse my bereaved child, I
wish you to remember this always. You will receive a liberal stipend
in return for the discharge of certain duties, in the performance of
which, I wish you to see as little of your family as possible. When
those duties cease to be required and rendered, and the stipend ceases
to be paid, there is an end of all relations between us. Do you
understand me?'
Mrs Toodle seemed doubtful about it; and as to Toodle himself, he
had evidently no doubt whatever, that he was all abroad.
'You have children of your own,' said Mr Dombey. 'It is not at all
in this bargain that you need become attached to my child, or that my
child need become attached to you. I don't expect or desire anything
of the kind. Quite the reverse. When you go away from here, you will
have concluded what is a mere matter of bargain and sale, hiring and
letting: and will stay away. The child will cease to remember you; and
you will cease, if you please, to remember the child.'
Mrs Toodle, with a little more colour in her cheeks than she had
had before, said 'she hoped she knew her place.'
'I hope you do, Richards,' said Mr Dombey. 'I have no doubt you
know it very well. Indeed it is so plain and obvious that it could
hardly be otherwise. Louisa, my dear, arrange with Richards about
money, and let her have it when and how she pleases. Mr what's-your
name, a word with you, if you please!'
Thus arrested on the threshold as he was following his wife out of
the room, Toodle returned and confronted Mr Dombey alone. He was a
strong, loose, round-shouldered, shuffling, shaggy fellow, on whom his
clothes sat negligently: with a good deal of hair and whisker,
deepened in its natural tint, perhaps by smoke and coal-dust: hard
knotty hands: and a square forehead, as coarse in grain as the bark of
an oak. A thorough contrast in all respects, to Mr Dombey, who was one
of those close-shaved close-cut moneyed gentlemen who are glossy and
crisp like new bank-notes, and who seem to be artificially braced and
tightened as by the stimulating action of golden showerbaths.
'You have a son, I believe?' said Mr Dombey.
'Four on 'em, Sir. Four hims and a her. All alive!'
'Why, it's as much as you can afford to keep them!' said Mr Dombey.
'I couldn't hardly afford but one thing in the world less, Sir.'
'What is that?'
'To lose 'em, Sir.'
'Can you read?' asked Mr Dombey.
'Why, not partick'ler, Sir.'
'Write?'
'With chalk, Sir?'
'With anything?'
'I could make shift to chalk a little bit, I think, if I was put to
it,' said Toodle after some reflection.
'And yet,' said Mr Dombey, 'you are two or three and thirty, I
suppose?'
'Thereabouts, I suppose, Sir,' answered Toodle, after more
reflection
'Then why don't you learn?' asked Mr Dombey.
'So I'm a going to, Sir. One of my little boys is a going to learn
me, when he's old enough, and been to school himself.'
'Well,' said Mr Dombey, after looking at him attentively, and with
no great favour, as he stood gazing round the room (principally round
the ceiling) and still drawing his hand across and across his mouth.
'You heard what I said to your wife just now?'
'Polly heerd it,' said Toodle, jerking his hat over his shoulder in
the direction of the door, with an air of perfect confidence in his
better half. 'It's all right.'
'But I ask you if you heard it. You did, I suppose, and understood
it?' pursued Mr Dombey.
'I heerd it,' said Toodle, 'but I don't know as I understood it
rightly Sir, 'account of being no scholar, and the words being - ask
your pardon - rayther high. But Polly heerd it. It's all right.'
'As you appear to leave everything to her,' said Mr Dombey,
frustrated in his intention of impressing his views still more
distinctly on the husband, as the stronger character, 'I suppose it is
of no use my saying anything to you.'
'Not a bit,' said Toodle. 'Polly heerd it. She's awake, Sir.'
'I won't detain you any longer then,' returned Mr Dombey,
disappointed. 'Where have you worked all your life?'
'Mostly underground, Sir, 'till I got married. I come to the level
then. I'm a going on one of these here railroads when they comes into
full play.'
As he added in one of his hoarse whispers, 'We means to bring up
little Biler to that line,' Mr Dombey inquired haughtily who little
Biler was.
'The eldest on 'em, Sir,' said Toodle, with a smile. 'It ain't a
common name. Sermuchser that when he was took to church the gen'lm'n
said, it wam't a chris'en one, and he couldn't give it. But we always
calls him Biler just the same. For we don't mean no harm. Not we.
'Do you mean to say, Man,' inquired Mr Dombey; looking at him with
marked displeasure, 'that you have called a child after a boiler?'
'No, no, Sir,' returned Toodle, with a tender consideration for his
mistake. 'I should hope not! No, Sir. Arter a BILER Sir. The
Steamingine was a'most as good as a godfather to him, and so we called
him Biler, don't you see!'
As the last straw breaks the laden camel's back, this piece of
information crushed the sinking spirits of Mr Dombey. He motioned his
child's foster-father to the door, who departed by no means
unwillingly: and then turning the key, paced up and down the room in
solitary wretchedness.
It would be harsh, and perhaps not altogether true, to say of him
that he felt these rubs and gratings against his pride more keenly
than he had felt his wife's death: but certainly they impressed that
event upon him with new force, and communicated to it added weight and
bitterness. It was a rude shock to his sense of property in his child,
that these people - the mere dust of the earth, as he thought them -
should be necessary to him; and it was natural that in proportion as
he felt disturbed by it, he should deplore the occurrence which had
made them so. For all his starched, impenetrable dignity and
composure, he wiped blinding tears from his eyes as he paced up and
down his room; and often said, with an emotion of which he would not,
for the world, have had a witness, 'Poor little fellow!'
It may have been characteristic of Mr Dombey's pride, that he
pitied himself through the child. Not poor me. Not poor widower,
confiding by constraint in the wife of an ignorant Hind who has been
working 'mostly underground' all his life, and yet at whose door Death
had never knocked, and at whose poor table four sons daily sit - but
poor little fellow!
Those words being on his lips, it occurred to him - and it is an
instance of the strong attraction with which his hopes and fears and
all his thoughts were tending to one centre - that a great temptation
was being placed in this woman's way. Her infant was a boy too. Now,
would it be possIble for her to change them?
Though he was soon satisfied that he had dismissed the idea as
romantic and unlikely - though possible, there was no denying - he
could not help pursuing it so far as to entertain within himself a
picture of what his condition would be, if he should discover such an
imposture when he was grown old. Whether a man so situated would be
able to pluck away the result of so many years of usage, confidence,
and belief, from the impostor, and endow a stranger with it?
But it was idle speculating thus. It couldn't happen. In a moment
afterwards he determined that it could, but that such women were
constantly observed, and had no opportunity given them for the
accomplishment of such a design, even when they were so wicked as to
entertain it. In another moment, he was remembering how few such cases
seemed to have ever happened. In another moment he was wondering
whether they ever happened and were not found out.
As his unusual emotion subsided, these misgivings gradually melted
away, though so much of their shadow remained behind, that he was
constant in his resolution to look closely after Richards himself,
without appearing to do so. Being now in an easier frame of mind, he
regarded the woman's station as rather an advantageous circumstance
than otherwise, by placing, in itself, a broad distance between her
and the child, and rendering their separation easy and natural. Thence
he passed to the contemplation of the future glories of Dombey and
Son, and dismissed the memory of his wife, for the time being, with a
tributary sigh or two.
Meanwhile terms were ratified and agreed upon between Mrs Chick and
Richards, with the assistance of Miss Tox; and Richards being with
much ceremony invested with the Dombey baby, as if it were an Order,
resigned her own, with many tears and kisses, to Jemima. Glasses of
wine were then produced, to sustain the drooping spirits of the
family; and Miss Tox, busying herself in dispensing 'tastes' to the
younger branches, bred them up to their father's business with such
surprising expedition, that she made chokers of four of them in a
quarter of a minute.
'You'll take a glass yourself, Sir, won't you?' said Miss Tox, as
Toodle appeared.
'Thankee, Mum,' said Toodle, 'since you are suppressing.'
'And you're very glad to leave your dear good wife in such a
comfortable home, ain't you, Sir?'said Miss Tox, nodding and winking
at him stealthily.
'No, Mum,' said Toodle. 'Here's wishing of her back agin.'
Polly cried more than ever at this. So Mrs Chick, who had her
matronly apprehensions that this indulgence in grief might be
prejudicial to the little Dombey ('acid, indeed,' she whispered Miss
Tox), hastened to the rescue.
'Your little child will thrive charmingly with your sister Jemima,
Richards,' said Mrs Chick; 'and you have only to make an effort - this
is a world of effort, you know, Richards - to be very happy indeed.
You have been already measured for your mourning, haven't you,
Richards?'
'Ye - es, Ma'am,' sobbed Polly.
'And it'll fit beautifully. I know,' said Mrs Chick, 'for the same
young person has made me many dresses. The very best materials, too!'
'Lor, you'll be so smart,' said Miss Tox, 'that your husband won't
know you; will you, Sir?'
'I should know her,' said Toodle, gruffly, 'anyhows and anywheres.'
Toodle was evidently not to be bought over.
'As to living, Richards, you know,' pursued Mrs Chick, 'why, the
very best of everything will be at your disposal. You will order your
little dinner every day; and anything you take a fancy to, I'm sure
will be as readily provided as if you were a Lady.'
'Yes to be sure!' said Miss Tox, keeping up the ball with great
sympathy. 'And as to porter! - quite unlimited, will it not, Louisa?'
'Oh, certainly!' returned Mrs Chick in the same tone. 'With a
little abstinence, you know, my dear, in point of vegetables.'
'And pickles, perhaps,' suggested Miss Tox.
'With such exceptions,' said Louisa, 'she'll consult her choice
entirely, and be under no restraint at all, my love.'
'And then, of course, you know,' said Miss Tox, 'however fond she
is of her own dear little child - and I'm sure, Louisa, you don't
blame her for being fond of it?'
'Oh no!' cried Mrs Chick, benignantly.
'Still,' resumed Miss Tox, 'she naturally must be interested in her
young charge, and must consider it a privilege to see a little cherub
connected with the superior classes, gradually unfolding itself from
day to day at one common fountain- is it not so, Louisa?'
'Most undoubtedly!' said Mrs Chick. 'You see, my love, she's
already quite contented and comfortable, and means to say goodbye to
her sister Jemima and her little pets, and her good honest husband,
with a light heart and a smile; don't she, my dear?'
'Oh yes!' cried Miss Tox. 'To be sure she does!'
Notwithstanding which, however, poor Polly embraced them all round
in great distress, and coming to her spouse at last, could not make up
her mind to part from him, until he gently disengaged himself, at the
close of the following allegorical piece of consolation:
'Polly, old 'ooman, whatever you do, my darling, hold up your head
and fight low. That's the only rule as I know on, that'll carry anyone
through life. You always have held up your head and fought low, Polly.
Do it now, or Bricks is no longer so. God bless you, Polly! Me and
J'mima will do your duty by you; and with relating to your'n, hold up
your head and fight low, Polly, and you can't go wrong!'
Fortified by this golden secret, Folly finally ran away to avoid
any more particular leave-taking between herself and the children. But
the stratagem hardly succeeded as well as it deserved; for the
smallest boy but one divining her intent, immediately began swarming
upstairs after her - if that word of doubtful etymology be admissible
- on his arms and legs; while the eldest (known in the family by the
name of Biler, in remembrance of the steam engine) beat a demoniacal
tattoo with his boots, expressive of grief; in which he was joined by
the rest of the family.
A quantity of oranges and halfpence thrust indiscriminately on each
young Toodle, checked the first violence of their regret, and the
family were speedily transported to their own home, by means of the
hackney-coach kept in waiting for that purpose. The children, under
the guardianship of Jemima, blocked up the window, and dropped out
oranges and halfpence all the way along. Mr Toodle himself preferred
to ride behind among the spikes, as being the mode of conveyance to
which he was best accustomed.
CHAPTER 3.
In which Mr Dombey, as a Man and a Father, is seen at the
Head of the Home-Department
The funeral of the deceased lady having been 'performed to the
entire satisfaction of the undertaker, as well as of the neighbourhood
at large, which is generally disposed to be captious on such a point,
and is prone to take offence at any omissions or short-comings in the
ceremonies, the various members of Mr Dombey's household subsided into
their several places in the domestic system. That small world, like
the great one out of doors, had the capacity of easily forgetting its
dead; and when the cook had said she was a quiet-tempered lady, and
the house-keeper had said it was the common lot, and the butler had
said who'd have thought it, and the housemaid had said she couldn't
hardly believe it, and the footman had said it seemed exactly like a
dream, they had quite worn the subject out, and began to think their
mourning was wearing rusty too.
On Richards, who was established upstairs in a state of honourable
captivity, the dawn of her new life seemed to break cold and grey. Mr
Dombey's house was a large one, on the shady side of a tall, dark,
dreadfully genteel street in the region between Portland Place and
Bryanstone Square.' It was a corner house, with great wide areas
containing cellars frowned upon by barred windows, and leered at by
crooked-eyed doors leading to dustbins. It was a house of dismal
state, with a circular back to it, containing a whole suite of
drawing-rooms looking upon a gravelled yard, where two gaunt trees,
with blackened trunks and branches, rattled rather than rustled, their
leaves were so smoked-dried. The summer sun was never on the street,
but in the morning about breakfast-time, when it came with the
water-carts and the old clothes men, and the people with geraniums,
and the umbrella-mender, and the man who trilled the little bell of
the Dutch clock as he went along. It was soon gone again to return no
more that day; and the bands of music and the straggling Punch's shows
going after it, left it a prey to the most dismal of organs, and white
mice; with now and then a porcupine, to vary the entertainments; until
the butlers whose families were dining out, began to stand at the
house-doors in the twilight, and the lamp-lighter made his nightly
failure in attempting to brighten up the street with gas.
It was as blank a house inside as outside. When the funeral was
over, Mr Dombey ordered the furniture to be covered up - perhaps to
preserve it for the son with whom his plans were all associated - and
the rooms to be ungarnished, saving such as he retained for himself on
the ground floor. Accordingly, mysterious shapes were made of tables
and chairs, heaped together in the middle of rooms, and covered over
with great winding-sheets. Bell-handles, window-blinds, and
looking-glasses, being papered up in journals, daily and weekly,
obtruded fragmentary accounts of deaths and dreadful murders. Every
chandelier or lustre, muffled in holland, looked like a monstrous tear
depending from the ceiling's eye. Odours, as from vaults and damp
places, came out of the chimneys. The dead and buried lady was awful
in a picture-frame of ghastly bandages. Every gust of wind that rose,
brought eddying round the corner from the neighbouring mews, some
fragments of the straw that had been strewn before the house when she
was ill, mildewed remains of which were still cleaving to the
neighbourhood: and these, being always drawn by some invisible
attraction to the threshold of the dirty house to let immediately
opposite, addressed a dismal eloquence to Mr Dombey's windows.
The apartments which Mr Dombey reserved for his own inhabiting,
were attainable from the hall, and consisted of a sitting-room; a
library, which was in fact a dressing-room, so that the smell of
hot-pressed paper, vellum, morocco, and Russia leather, contended in
it with the smell of divers pairs of boots; and a kind of conservatory
or little glass breakfast-room beyond, commanding a prospect of the
trees before mentioned, and, generally speaking, of a few prowling
cats. These three rooms opened upon one another. In the morning, when
Mr Dombey was at his breakfast in one or other of the two
first-mentioned of them, as well as in the afternoon when he came home
to dinner, a bell was rung for Richards to repair to this glass
chamber, and there walk to and fro with her young charge. From the
glimpses she caught of Mr Dombey at these times, sitting in the dark
distance, looking out towards the infant from among the dark heavy
furniture - the house had been inhabited for years by his father, and
in many of its appointments was old-fashioned and grim - she began to
entertain ideas of him in his solitary state, as if he were a lone
prisoner in a cell, or a strange apparition that was not to be
accosted or understood. Mr Dombey came to be, in the course of a few
days, invested in his own person, to her simple thinking, with all the
mystery and gloom of his house. As she walked up and down the glass
room, or sat hushing the baby there - which she very often did for
hours together, when the dusk was closing in, too - she would
sometimes try to pierce the gloom beyond, and make out how he was
looking and what he was doing. Sensible that she was plainly to be
seen by him' however, she never dared to pry in that direction but
very furtively and for a moment at a time. Consequently she made out
nothing, and Mr Dombey in his den remained a very shade.
Little Paul Dombey's foster-mother had led this life herself, and
had carried little Paul through it for some weeks; and had returned
upstairs one day from a melancholy saunter through the dreary rooms of
state (she never went out without Mrs Chick, who called on fine
mornings, usually accompanied by Miss Tox, to take her and Baby for an
airing - or in other words, to march them gravely up and down the
pavement, like a walking funeral); when, as she was sitting in her own
room, the door was slowly and quietly opened, and a dark-eyed little
girl looked in.
'It's Miss Florence come home from her aunt's, no doubt,' thought
Richards, who had never seen the child before. 'Hope I see you well,
Miss.'
'Is that my brother?' asked the child, pointing to the Baby.
'Yes, my pretty,' answered Richards. 'Come and kiss him.'
But the child, instead of advancing, looked her earnestly in the
face, and said:
'What have you done with my Mama?'
'Lord bless the little creeter!' cried Richards, 'what a sad
question! I done? Nothing, Miss.'
'What have they done with my Mama?' inquired the child, with
exactly the same look and manner.
'I never saw such a melting thing in all my life!' said Richards,
who naturally substituted 'for this child one of her own, inquiring
for herself in like circumstances. 'Come nearer here, my dear Miss!
Don't be afraid of me.'
'I am not afraid of you,' said the child, drawing nearer. 'But I
want to know what they have done with my Mama.'
Her heart swelled so as she stood before the woman, looking into
her eyes, that she was fain to press her little hand upon her breast
and hold it there. Yet there was a purpose in the child that prevented
both her slender figure and her searching gaze from faltering.
'My darling,' said Richards, 'you wear that pretty black frock in
remembrance of your Mama.'
'I can remember my Mama,' returned the child, with tears springing
to her eyes, 'in any frock.'
'But people put on black, to remember people when they're gone.'
'Where gone?' asked the child.
'Come and sit down by me,' said Richards, 'and I'll tell you a
story.'
With a quick perception that it was intended to relate to what she
had asked, little Florence laid aside the bonnet she had held in her
hand until now, and sat down on a stool at the Nurse's feet, looking
up into her face.
'Once upon a time,' said Richards, 'there was a lady - a very good
lady, and her little daughter dearly loved her.'
'A very good lady and her little daughter dearly loved her,'
repeated the child.
'Who, when God thought it right that it should be so, was taken ill
and died.'
The child shuddered.
'Died, never to be seen again by anyone on earth, and was buried in
the ground where the trees grow.
'The cold ground?' said the child, shuddering again. 'No! The warm
ground,' returned Polly, seizing her advantage, 'where the ugly little
seeds turn into beautiful flowers, and into grass, and corn, and I
don't know what all besides. Where good people turn into bright
angels, and fly away to Heaven!'
The child, who had dropped her head, raised it again, and sat
looking at her intently.
'So; let me see,' said Polly, not a little flurried between this
earnest scrutiny, her desire to comfort the child, her sudden success,
and her very slight confidence in her own powers.' So, when this lady
died, wherever they took her, or wherever they put her, she went to
GOD! and she prayed to Him, this lady did,' said Polly, affecting
herself beyond measure; being heartily in earnest, 'to teach her
little daughter to be sure of that in her heart: and to know that she
was happy there and loved her still: and to hope and try - Oh, all her
life - to meet her there one day, never, never, never to part any
more.'
'It was my Mama!' exclaimed the child, springing up, and clasping
her round the neck.
'And the child's heart,' said Polly, drawing her to her breast:
'the little daughter's heart was so full of the truth of this, that
even when she heard it from a strange nurse that couldn't tell it
right, but was a poor mother herself and that was all, she found a
comfort in it - didn't feel so lonely - sobbed and cried upon her
bosom - took kindly to the baby lying in her lap - and - there, there,
there!' said Polly, smoothing the child's curls and dropping tears
upon them. 'There, poor dear!'
'Oh well, Miss Floy! And won't your Pa be angry neither!' cried a
quick voice at the door, proceeding from a short, brown, womanly girl
of fourteen, with a little snub nose, and black eyes like jet beads.
'When it was 'tickerlerly given out that you wasn't to go and worrit
the wet nurse.
'She don't worry me,' was the surprised rejoinder of Polly. 'I am
very fond of children.'
'Oh! but begging your pardon, Mrs Richards, that don't matter, you
know,' returned the black-eyed girl, who was so desperately sharp and
biting that she seemed to make one's eyes water. 'I may be very fond
of pennywinkles, Mrs Richards, but it don't follow that I'm to have
'em for tea. 'Well, it don't matter,' said Polly. 'Oh, thank'ee, Mrs
Richards, don't it!' returned the sharp girl. 'Remembering, however,
if you'll be so good, that Miss Floy's under my charge, and Master
Paul's under your'n.'
'But still we needn't quarrel,' said Polly.
'Oh no, Mrs Richards,' rejoined Spitfire. 'Not at all, I don't wish
it, we needn't stand upon that footing, Miss Floy being a permanency,
Master Paul a temporary.' Spitfire made use of none but comma pauses;
shooting out whatever she had to say in one sentence, and in one
breath, if possible.
'Miss Florence has just come home, hasn't she?' asked Polly.
'Yes, Mrs Richards, just come, and here, Miss Floy, before you've
been in the house a quarter of an hour, you go a smearing your wet
face against the expensive mourning that Mrs Richards is a wearing for
your Ma!' With this remonstrance, young Spitfire, whose real name was
Susan Nipper, detached the child from her new friend by a wrench - as
if she were a tooth. But she seemed to do it, more in the excessively
sharp exercise of her official functions, than with any deliberate
unkindness.
'She'll be quite happy, now she has come home again,' said Polly,
nodding to her with an encouraging smile upon her wholesome face, 'and
will be so pleased to see her dear Papa to-night.'
'Lork, Mrs Richards!' cried Miss Nipper, taking up her words with a
jerk. 'Don't. See her dear Papa indeed! I should like to see her do
it!'
'Won't she then?' asked Polly.
'Lork, Mrs Richards, no, her Pa's a deal too wrapped up in somebody
else, and before there was a somebody else to be wrapped up in she
never was a favourite, girls are thrown away in this house, Mrs
Richards, I assure you.
The child looked quickly from one nurse to the other, as if she
understood and felt what was said.
'You surprise me!' cried Folly. 'Hasn't Mr Dombey seen her since -
'
'No,' interrupted Susan Nipper. 'Not once since, and he hadn't
hardly set his eyes upon her before that for months and months, and I
don't think he'd have known her for his own child if he had met her in
the streets, or would know her for his own child if he was to meet her
in the streets to-morrow, Mrs Richards, as to me,' said Spitfire, with
a giggle, 'I doubt if he's aweer of my existence.'
'Pretty dear!' said Richards; meaning, not Miss Nipper, but the
little Florence.
'Oh! there's a Tartar within a hundred miles of where we're now in
conversation, I can tell you, Mrs Richards, present company always
excepted too,' said Susan Nipper; 'wish you good morning, Mrs
Richards, now Miss Floy, you come along with me, and don't go hanging
back like a naughty wicked child that judgments is no example to,
don't!'
In spite of being thus adjured, and in spite also of some hauling
on the part of Susan Nipper, tending towards the dislocation of her
right shoulder, little Florence broke away, and kissed her new friend,
affectionately.
'Oh dear! after it was given out so 'tickerlerly, that Mrs Richards
wasn't to be made free with!' exclaimed Susan. 'Very well, Miss Floy!'
'God bless the sweet thing!' said Richards, 'Good-bye, dear!'
'Good-bye!' returned the child. 'God bless you! I shall come to see
you again soon, and you'll come to see me? Susan will let us. Won't
you, Susan?'
Spitfire seemed to be in the main a good-natured little body,
although a disciple of that school of trainers of the young idea which
holds that childhood, like money, must be shaken and rattled and
jostled about a good deal to keep it bright. For, being thus appealed
to with some endearing gestures and caresses, she folded her small
arms and shook her head, and conveyed a relenting expression into her
very-wide-open black eyes.
'It ain't right of you to ask it, Miss Floy, for you know I can't
refuse you, but Mrs Richards and me will see what can be done, if Mrs
Richards likes, I may wish, you see, to take a voyage to Chaney, Mrs
Richards, but I mayn't know how to leave the London Docks.'
Richards assented to the proposition.
'This house ain't so exactly ringing with merry-making,' said Miss
Nipper, 'that one need be lonelier than one must be. Your Toxes and
your Chickses may draw out my two front double teeth, Mrs Richards,
but that's no reason why I need offer 'em the whole set.'
This proposition was also assented to by Richards, as an obvious
one.
'So I'm able, I'm sure,'said Susan Nipper, 'to live friendly, Mrs
Richards, while Master Paul continues a permanency, if the means can
be planned out without going openly against orders, but goodness
gracious Miss Floy, you haven't got your things off yet, you naughty
child, you haven't, come along!'
With these words, Susan Nipper, in a transport of coercion, made a
charge at her young ward, and swept her out of the room.
The child, in her grief and neglect, was so gentle, so quiet, and
uncomplaining; was possessed of so much affection that no one seemed
to care to have, and so much sorrowful intelligence that no one seemed
to mind or think about the wounding of, that Polly's heart was sore
when she was left alone again. In the simple passage that had taken
place between herself and the motherless little girl, her own motherly
heart had been touched no less than the child's; and she felt, as the
child did, that there was something of confidence and interest between
them from that moment.
Notwithstanding Mr Toodle's great reliance on Polly, she was
perhaps in point of artificial accomplishments very little his
superior. She had been good-humouredly working and drudging for her
life all her life, and was a sober steady-going person, with
matter-of-fact ideas about the butcher and baker, and the division of
pence into farthings. But she was a good plain sample of a nature that
is ever, in the mass, better, truer, higher, nobler, quicker to feel,
and much more constant to retain, all tenderness and pity, self-denial
and devotion, than the nature of men. And, perhaps, unlearned as she
was, she could have brought a dawning knowledge home to Mr Dombey at
that early day, which would not then have struck him in the end like
lightning.
But this is from the purpose. Polly only thought, at that time, of
improving on her successful propitiation of Miss Nipper, and devising
some means of having little Florence aide her, lawfully, and without
rebellion. An opening happened to present itself that very night.
She had been rung down into the glass room as usual, and had walked
about and about it a long time, with the baby in her arms, when, to
her great surprise and dismay, Mr Dombey - whom she had seen at first
leaning on his elbow at the table, and afterwards walking up and down
the middle room, drawing, each time, a little nearer, she thought, to
the open folding doors - came out, suddenly, and stopped before her.
'Good evening, Richards.'
Just the same austere, stiff gentleman, as he had appeared to her
on that first day. Such a hard-looking gentleman, that she
involuntarily dropped her eyes and her curtsey at the same time.
'How is Master Paul, Richards?'
'Quite thriving, Sir, and well.'
'He looks so,' said Mr Dombey, glancing with great interest at the
tiny face she uncovered for his observation, and yet affecting to be
half careless of it. 'They give you everything you want, I hope?'
'Oh yes, thank you, Sir.'
She suddenly appended such an obvious hesitation to this reply,
however, that Mr Dombey, who had turned away; stopped, and turned
round again, inquiringly.
'If you please, Sir, the child is very much disposed to take notice
of things,' said Richards, with another curtsey, 'and - upstairs is a
little dull for him, perhaps, Sir.'
'I begged them to take you out for airings, constantly,' said Mr
Dombey. 'Very well! You shall go out oftener. You're quite right to
mention it.'
'I beg your pardon, Sir,' faltered Polly, 'but we go out quite
plenty Sir, thank you.'
'What would you have then?' asked Mr Dombey.
'Indeed Sir, I don't exactly know,' said Polly, 'unless - '
'Yes?'
'I believe nothing is so good for making children lively and
cheerful, Sir, as seeing other children playing about 'em,' observed
Polly, taking courage.
'I think I mentioned to you, Richards, when you came here,' said Mr
Dombey, with a frown, 'that I wished you to see as little of your
family as possible.'
'Oh dear yes, Sir, I wasn't so much as thinking of that.'
'I am glad of it,' said Mr Dombey hastily. 'You can continue your
walk if you please.'
With that, he disappeared into his inner room; and Polly had the
satisfaction of feeling that he had thoroughly misunderstood her
object, and that she had fallen into disgrace without the least
advancement of her purpose.
Next night, she found him walking about the conservatory when she
came down. As she stopped at the door, checked by this unusual sight,
and uncertain whether to advance or retreat, he called her in. His
mind was too much set on Dombey and Son, it soon appeared, to admit of
his having forgotten her suggestion.
'If you really think that sort of society is good for the child,'
he said sharply, as if there had been no interval since she proposed
it, 'where's Miss Florence?'
'Nothing could be better than Miss Florence, Sir,' said Polly
eagerly, 'but I understood from her maid that they were not to - '
Mr Dombey rang the bell, and walked till it was answered.
'Tell them always to let Miss Florence be with Richards when she
chooses, and go out with her, and so forth. Tell them to let the
children be together, when Richards wishes it.'
The iron was now hot, and Richards striking on it boldly - it was a
good cause and she bold in it, though instinctively afraid of Mr
Dombey - requested that Miss Florence might be sent down then and
there, to make friends with her little brother.
She feigned to be dandling the child as the servant retired on this
errand, but she thought that she saw Mr Dombey's colour changed; that
the expression of his face quite altered; that he turned, hurriedly,
as if to gainsay what he had said, or she had said, or both, and was
only deterred by very shame.
And she was right. The last time he had seen his slighted child,
there had been that in the sad embrace between her and her dying
mother, which was at once a revelation and a reproach to him. Let him
be absorbed as he would in the Son on whom he built such high hopes,
he could not forget that closing scene. He could not forget that he
had had no part in it. That, at the bottom of its clear depths of
tenderness and truth' lay those two figures clasped in each other's
arms, while he stood on the bank above them, looking down a mere
spectator - not a sharer with them - quite shut out.
Unable to exclude these things from his remembrance, or to keep his
mind free from such imperfect shapes of the meaning with which they
were fraught, as were able to make themselves visible to him through
the mist of his pride, his previous feeling of indifference towards
little Florence changed into an uneasiness of an extraordinary kind.
Young as she was, and possessing in any eyes but his (and perhaps in
his too) even more than the usual amount of childish simplicity and
confidence, he almost felt as if she watched and distrusted him. As if
she held the clue to something secret in his breast, of the nature of
which he was hardly informed himself. As if she had an innate
knowledge of one jarring and discordant string within him, and her
very breath could sound it.
His feeling about the child had been negative from her birth. He
had never conceived an aversion to her: it had not been worth his
while or in his humour. She had never been a positively disagreeable
object to him. But now he was ill at ease about her. She troubled his
peace. He would have preferred to put her idea aside altogether, if he
had known how. Perhaps - who shall decide on such mysteries! - he was
afraid that he might come to hate her.
When little Florence timidly presented herself, Mr Dombey stopped
in his pacing up and down and looked towards her. Had he looked with
greater interest and with a father's eye, he might have read in her
keen glance the impulses and fears that made her waver; the passionate
desire to run clinging to him, crying, as she hid her face in his
embrace, 'Oh father, try to love me! there's no one else!' the dread
of a repulse; the fear of being too bold, and of offending him; the
pitiable need in which she stood of some assurance and encouragement;
and how her overcharged young heart was wandering to find some natural
resting-place, for its sorrow and affection.
But he saw nothing of this. He saw her pause irresolutely at the
door and look towards him; and he saw no more.
'Come in,' he said, 'come in: what is the child afraid of?'
She came in; and after glancing round her for a moment with an
uncertain air, stood pressing her small hands hard together, close
within the door.
'Come here, Florence,' said her father, coldly. 'Do you know who I
am?'
'Yes, Papa.'
'Have you nothing to say to me?'
The tears that stood in her eyes as she raised them quickly to his
face, were frozen by the expression it wore. She looked down again,
and put out her trembling hand.
Mr Dombey took it loosely in his own, and stood looking down upon
her for a moment, as if he knew as little as the child, what to say or
do.
'There! Be a good girl,' he said, patting her on the head, and
regarding her as it were by stealth with a disturbed and doubtful
look. 'Go to Richards! Go!'
His little daughter hesitated for another instant as though she
would have clung about him still, or had some lingering hope that he
might raise her in his arms and kiss her. She looked up in his face
once more. He thought how like her expression was then, to what it had
been when she looked round at the Doctor - that night - and
instinctively dropped her hand and turned away.
It was not difficult to perceive that Florence was at a great
disadvantage in her father's presence. It was not only a constraint
upon the child's mind, but even upon the natural grace and freedom of
her actions. As she sported and played about her baby brother that
night, her manner was seldom so winning and so pretty as it naturally
was, and sometimes when in his pacing to and fro, he came near her
(she had, perhaps, for the moment, forgotten him) it changed upon the
instant and became forced and embarrassed.
Still, Polly persevered with all the better heart for seeing this;
and, judging of Mr Dombey by herself, had great confidence in the mute
appeal of poor little Florence's mourning dress.' It's hard indeed,'
thought Polly, 'if he takes only to one little motherless child, when
he has another, and that a girl, before his eyes.'
So, Polly kept her before his eyes, as long as she could, and
managed so well with little Paul, as to make it very plain that he was
all the livelier for his sister's company. When it was time to
withdraw upstairs again, she would have sent Florence into the inner
room to say good-night to her father, but the child was timid and drew
back; and when she urged her again, said, spreading her hands before
her eyes, as if to shut out her own unworthiness, 'Oh no, no! He don't
want me. He don't want me!'
The little altercation between them had attracted the notice of Mr
Dombey, who inquired from the table where he was sitting at his wine,
what the matter was.
'Miss Florence was afraid of interrupting, Sir, if she came in to
say good-night,' said Richards.
'It doesn't matter,' returned Mr Dombey. 'You can let her come and
go without regarding me.'
The child shrunk as she listened - and was gone, before her humble
friend looked round again.
However, Polly triumphed not a little in the success of her
well-intentioned scheme, and in the address with which she had brought
it to bear: whereof she made a full disclosure to Spitfire when she
was once more safely entrenched upstairs. Miss Nipper received that
proof of her confidence, as well as the prospect of their free
association for the future, rather coldly, and was anything but
enthusiastic in her demonstrations of joy.
'I thought you would have been pleased,' said Polly.
'Oh yes, Mrs Richards, I'm very well pleased, thank you,' returned
Susan, who had suddenly become so very upright that she seemed to have
put an additional bone in her stays.
'You don't show it,' said Polly.
'Oh! Being only a permanency I couldn't be expected to show it like
a temporary,' said Susan Nipper. 'Temporaries carries it all before
'em here, I find, but though there's a excellent party-wall between
this house and the next, I mayn't exactly like to go to it, Mrs
Richards, notwithstanding!'
CHAPTER 4.
In which some more First Appearances are made on the Stage of these
Adventures
Though the offices of Dombey and Son were within the liberties of
the City of London, and within hearing of Bow Bells, when their
clashing voices were not drowned by the uproar in the streets, yet
were there hints of adventurous and romantic story to be observed in
some of the adjacent objects. Gog and Magog held their state within
ten minutes' walk; the Royal Exchange was close at hand; the Bank of
England, with its vaults of gold and silver 'down among the dead men'
underground, was their magnificent neighbour. Just round the corner
stood the rich East India House, teeming with suggestions of precious
stuffs and stones, tigers, elephants, howdahs, hookahs, umbrellas,
palm trees, palanquins, and gorgeous princes of a brown complexion
sitting on carpets, with their slippers very much turned up at the
toes. Anywhere in the immediate vicinity there might be seen pictures
of ships speeding away full sail to all parts of the world; outfitting
warehouses ready to pack off anybody anywhere, fully equipped in half
an hour; and little timber midshipmen in obsolete naval uniforms,
eternally employed outside the shop doors of nautical
Instrument-makers in taking observations of the hackney carriages.
Sole master and proprietor of one of these effigies - of that which
might be called, familiar!y, the woodenest - of that which thrust
itself out above the pavement, right leg foremost, with a suavity the
least endurable, and had the shoe buckles and flapped waistcoat the
least reconcileable to human reason, and bore at its right eye the
most offensively disproportionate piece of machinery - sole master and
proprietor of that Midshipman, and proud of him too, an elderly
gentleman in a Welsh wig had paid house-rent, taxes, rates, and dues,
for more years than many a full-grown midshipman of flesh and blood
has numbered in his life; and midshipmen who have attained a pretty
green old age, have not been wanting in the English Navy.
The stock-in-trade of this old gentleman comprised chronometers,
barometers, telescopes, compasses, charts, maps, sextants, quadrants,
and specimens of every kind of instrument used in the working of a
ship's course, or the keeping of a ship's reckoning, or the
prosecuting of a ship's discoveries. Objects in brass and glass were
in his drawers and on his shelves, which none but the initiated could
have found the top of, or guessed the use of, or having once examined,
could have ever got back again into their mahogany nests without
assistance. Everything was jammed into the tightest cases, fitted into
the narrowest corners, fenced up behind the most impertinent cushions,
and screwed into the acutest angles, to prevent its philosophical
composure from being disturbed by the rolling of the sea. Such
extraordinary precautions were taken in every instance to save room,
and keep the thing compact; and so much practical navigation was
fitted, and cushioned, and screwed into every box (whether the box was
a mere slab, as some were, or something between a cocked hat and a
star-fish, as others were, and those quite mild and modest boxes as
compared with others); that the shop itself, partaking of the general
infection, seemed almost to become a snug, sea-going, ship-shape
concern, wanting only good sea-room, in the event of an unexpected
launch, to work its way securely to any desert island in the world.
Many minor incidents in the household life of the Ships'
Instrument-maker who was proud of his little Midshipman, assisted
and bore out this fancy. His acquaintance lying chiefly among
ship-chandlers and so forth, he had always plenty of the veritable
ships' biscuit on his table. It was familiar with dried meats and
tongues, possessing an extraordinary flavour of rope yarn. Pickles
were produced upon it, in great wholesale jars, with 'dealer in all
kinds of Ships' Provisions' on the label; spirits were set forth in
case bottles with no throats. Old prints of ships with alphabetical
references to their various mysteries, hung in frames upon the walls;
the Tartar Frigate under weigh, was on the plates; outlandish shells,
seaweeds, and mosses, decorated the chimney-piece; the little
wainscotted back parlour was lighted by a sky-light, like a cabin.
Here he lived too, in skipper-like state, all alone with his nephew
Walter: a boy of fourteen who looked quite enough like a midshipman,
to carry out the prevailing idea. But there it ended, for Solomon
Gills himself (more generally called old Sol) was far from having a
maritime appearance. To say nothing of his Welsh wig, which was as
plain and stubborn a Welsh wig as ever was worn, and in which he
looked like anything but a Rover, he was a slow, quiet-spoken,
thoughtful old fellow, with eyes as red as if they had been small suns
looking at you through a fog; and a newly-awakened manner, such as he
might have acquired by having stared for three or four days
successively through every optical instrument in his shop, and
suddenly came back to the world again, to find it green. The only
change ever known in his outward man, was from a complete suit of
coffee-colour cut very square, and ornamented with glaring buttons, to
the same suit of coffee-colour minus the inexpressibles, which were
then of a pale nankeen. He wore a very precise shirt-frill, and
carried a pair of first-rate spectacles on his forehead, and a
tremendous chronometer in his fob, rather than doubt which precious
possession, he would have believed in a conspiracy against it on part
of all the clocks and watches in the City, and even of the very Sun
itself. Such as he was, such he had been in the shop and parlour
behind the little Midshipman, for years upon years; going regularly
aloft to bed every night in a howling garret remote from the lodgers,
where, when gentlemen of England who lived below at ease had little or
no idea of the state of the weather, it often blew great guns.
It is half-past five o'clock, and an autumn afternoon, when the
reader and Solomon Gills become acquainted. Solomon Gills is in the
act of seeing what time it is by the unimpeachable chronometer. The
usual daily clearance has been making in the City for an hour or more;
and the human tide is still rolling westward. 'The streets have
thinned,' as Mr Gills says, 'very much.' It threatens to be wet
to-night. All the weatherglasses in the shop are in low spirits, and
the rain already shines upon the cocked hat of the wooden Midshipman.
'Where's Walter, I wonder!' said Solomon Gills, after he had
carefully put up the chronometer again. 'Here's dinner been ready,
half an hour, and no Walter!'
Turning round upon his stool behind the counter, Mr Gills looked
out among the instruments in the window, to see if his nephew might be
crossing the road. No. He was not among the bobbing umbrellas, and he
certainly was not the newspaper boy in the oilskin cap who was slowly
working his way along the piece of brass outside, writing his name
over Mr Gills's name with his forefinger.
'If I didn't know he was too fond of me to make a run of it, and go
and enter himself aboard ship against my wishes, I should begin to be
fidgetty,' said Mr Gills, tapping two or three weather-glasses with
his knuckles. 'I really should. All in the Downs, eh! Lots of
moisture! Well! it's wanted.'
I believe,' said Mr Gills, blowing the dust off the glass top of a
compass-case, 'that you don't point more direct and due to the back
parlour than the boy's inclination does after all. And the parlour
couldn't bear straighter either. Due north. Not the twentieth part of
a point either way.'
'Halloa, Uncle Sol!'
'Halloa, my boy!' cried the Instrument-maker, turning briskly
round. 'What! you are here, are you?'
A cheerful looking, merry boy, fresh with running home in the rain;
fair-faced, bright-eyed, and curly-haired.
'Well, Uncle, how have you got on without me all day? Is dinner
ready? I'm so hungry.'
'As to getting on,' said Solomon good-naturedly, 'it would be odd
if I couldn't get on without a young dog like you a great deal better
than with you. As to dinner being ready, it's been ready this half
hour and waiting for you. As to being hungry, I am!'
'Come along then, Uncle!' cried the boy. 'Hurrah for the admiral!'
'Confound the admiral!' returned Solomon Gills. 'You mean the Lord
Mayor.'
'No I don't!' cried the boy. 'Hurrah for the admiral! Hurrah for
the admiral! For-ward!'
At this word of command, the Welsh wig and its wearer were borne
without resistance into the back parlour, as at the head of a boarding
party of five hundred men; and Uncle Sol and his nephew were speedily
engaged on a fried sole with a prospect of steak to follow.
'The Lord Mayor, Wally,' said Solomon, 'for ever! No more admirals.
The Lord Mayor's your admiral.'
'Oh, is he though!' said the boy, shaking his head. 'Why, the Sword
Bearer's better than him. He draws his sword sometimes.
'And a pretty figure he cuts with it for his pains,' returned the
Uncle. 'Listen to me, Wally, listen to me. Look on the mantelshelf.'
'Why who has cocked my silver mug up there, on a nail?' exclaimed
the boy.
I have,' said his Uncle. 'No more mugs now. We must begin to drink
out of glasses to-day, Walter. We are men of business. We belong to
the City. We started in life this morning.
'Well, Uncle,' said the boy, 'I'll drink out of anything you like,
so long as I can drink to you. Here's to you, Uncle Sol, and Hurrah
for the
'Lord Mayor,' interrupted the old man.
'For the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, Common Council, and Livery,' said
the boy. 'Long life to 'em!'
The uncle nodded his head with great satisfaction. 'And now,' he
said, 'let's hear something about the Firm.'
'Oh! there's not much to be told about the Firm, Uncle,' said the
boy, plying his knife and fork.' It's a precious dark set of offices,
and in the room where I sit, there's a high fender, and an iron safe,
and some cards about ships that are going to sail, and an almanack,
and some desks and stools, and an inkbottle, and some books, and some
boxes, and a lot of cobwebs, and in one of 'em, just over my head, a
shrivelled-up blue-bottle that looks as if it had hung there ever so
long.'
'Nothing else?' said the Uncle.
'No, nothing else, except an old birdcage (I wonder how that ever
came there!) and a coal-scuttle.'
'No bankers' books, or cheque books, or bills, or such tokens of
wealth rolling in from day to day?' said old Sol, looking wistfully at
his nephew out of the fog that always seemed to hang about him, and
laying an unctuous emphasis upon the words.
'Oh yes, plenty of that I suppose,' returned his nephew carelessly;
'but all that sort of thing's in Mr Carker's room, or Mr Morfin's, or
MR Dombey's.'
'Has Mr Dombey been there to-day?' inquired the Uncle.
'Oh yes! In and out all day.'
'He didn't take any notice of you, I suppose?'.
'Yes he did. He walked up to my seat, - I wish he wasn't so solemn
and stiff, Uncle, - and said, "Oh! you are the son of Mr Gills the
Ships' Instrument-maker." "Nephew, Sir," I said. "I said nephew, boy,"
said he. But I could take my oath he said son, Uncle.'
'You're mistaken I daresay. It's no matter.
'No, it's no matter, but he needn't have been so sharp, I thought.
There was no harm in it though he did say son. Then he told me that
you had spoken to him about me, and that he had found me employment in
the House accordingly, and that I was expected to be attentive and
punctual, and then he went away. I thought he didn't seem to like me
much.'
'You mean, I suppose,' observed the Instrument-maker, 'that you
didn't seem to like him much?'
'Well, Uncle,' returned the boy, laughing. 'Perhaps so; I never
thought of that.'
Solomon looked a little graver as he finished his dinner, and
glanced from time to time at the boy's bright face. When dinner was
done, and the cloth was cleared away (the entertainment had been
brought from a neighbouring eating-house), he lighted a candle, and
went down below into a little cellar, while his nephew, standing on
the mouldy staircase, dutifully held the light. After a moment's
groping here and there, he presently returned with a very
ancient-looking bottle, covered with dust and dirt.
'Why, Uncle Sol!' said the boy, 'what are you about? that's the
wonderful Madeira! - there's only one more bottle!'
Uncle Sol nodded his head, implying that he knew very well what he
was about; and having drawn the cork in solemn silence, filled two
glasses and set the bottle and a third clean glass on the table.
'You shall drink the other bottle, Wally,' he said, 'when you come
to good fortune; when you are a thriving, respected, happy man; when
the start in life you have made to-day shall have brought you, as I
pray Heaven it may! - to a smooth part of the course you have to run,
my child. My love to you!'
Some of the fog that hung about old Sol seemed to have got into his
throat; for he spoke huskily. His hand shook too, as he clinked his
glass against his nephew's. But having once got the wine to his lips,
he tossed it off like a man, and smacked them afterwards.
'Dear Uncle,' said the boy, affecting to make light of it, while
the tears stood in his eyes, 'for the honour you have done me, et
cetera, et cetera. I shall now beg to propose Mr Solomon Gills with
three times three and one cheer more. Hurrah! and you'll return
thanks, Uncle, when we drink the last bottle together; won't you?'
They clinked their glasses again; and Walter, who was hoarding his
wine, took a sip of it, and held the glass up to his eye with as
critical an air as he could possibly assume.
His Uncle sat looking at him for some time in silence. When their
eyes at last met, he began at once to pursue the theme that had
occupied his thoughts, aloud, as if he had been speaking all the time.
'You see, Walter,' he said, 'in truth this business is merely a
habit with me. I am so accustomed to the habit that I could hardly
live if I relinquished it: but there's nothing doing, nothing doing.
When that uniform was worn,' pointing out towards the little
Midshipman, 'then indeed, fortunes were to be made, and were made. But
competition, competition - new invention, new invention - alteration,
alteration - the world's gone past me. I hardly know where I am
myself, much less where my customers are.
'Never mind 'em, Uncle!'
'Since you came home from weekly boarding-school at Peckham, for
instance - and that's ten days,' said Solomon, 'I don't remember more
than one person that has come into the shop.'
'Two, Uncle, don't you recollect? There was the man who came to ask
for change for a sovereign - '
'That's the one,' said Solomon.
'Why Uncle! don't you call the woman anybody, who came to ask the
way to Mile-End Turnpike?'
'Oh! it's true,' said Solomon, 'I forgot her. Two persons.'
'To be sure, they didn't buy anything,' cried the boy.
'No. They didn't buy anything,' said Solomon, quietly.
'Nor want anything,' cried the boy.
'No. If they had, they'd gone to another shop,' said Solomon, in
the same tone.
'But there were two of 'em, Uncle,' cried the boy, as if that were
a great triumph. 'You said only one.'
'Well, Wally,' resumed the old man, after a short pause: 'not being
like the Savages who came on Robinson Crusoe's Island, we can't live
on a man who asks for change for a sovereign, and a woman who inquires
the way to Mile-End Turnpike. As I said just now, the world has gone
past me. I don't blame it; but I no longer understand it. Tradesmen
are not the same as they used to be, apprentices are not the same,
business is not the same, business commodities are not the same.
Seven-eighths of my stock is old-fashioned. I am an old-fashioned man
in an old-fashioned shop, in a street that is not the same as I
remember it. I have fallen behind the time, and am too old to catch it
again. Even the noise it makes a long way ahead, confuses me.'
Walter was going to speak, but his Uncle held up his hand.
'Therefore, Wally - therefore it is that I am anxious you should be
early in the busy world, and on the world's track. I am only the ghost
of this business - its substance vanished long ago; and when I die,
its ghost will be laid. As it is clearly no inheritance for you then,
I have thought it best to use for your advantage, almost the only
fragment of the old connexion that stands by me, through long habit.
Some people suppose me to be wealthy. I wish for your sake they were
right. But whatever I leave behind me, or whatever I can give you, you
in such a House as Dombey's are in the road to use well and make the
most of. Be diligent, try to like it, my dear boy, work for a steady
independence, and be happy!'
'I'll do everything I can, Uncle, to deserve your affection. Indeed
I will,' said the boy, earnestly
'I know it,' said Solomon. 'I am sure of it,' and he applied
himself to a second glass of the old Madeira, with increased relish.
'As to the Sea,' he pursued, 'that's well enough in fiction, Wally,
but it won't do in fact: it won't do at all. It's natural enough that
you should think about it, associating it with all these familiar
things; but it won't do, it won't do.'
Solomon Gills rubbed his hands with an air of stealthy enjoyment,
as he talked of the sea, though; and looked on the seafaring objects
about him with inexpressible complacency.
'Think of this wine for instance,' said old Sol, 'which has been to
the East Indies and back, I'm not able to say how often, and has been
once round the world. Think of the pitch-dark nights, the roaring
winds, and rolling seas:'
'The thunder, lightning, rain, hail, storm of all kinds,' said the
boy.
'To be sure,' said Solomon, - 'that this wine has passed through.
Think what a straining and creaking of timbers and masts: what a
whistling and howling of the gale through ropes and rigging:'
'What a clambering aloft of men, vying with each other who shall
lie out first upon the yards to furl the icy sails, while the ship
rolls and pitches, like mad!' cried his nephew.
'Exactly so,' said Solomon: 'has gone on, over the old cask that
held this wine. Why, when the Charming Sally went down in the - '
'In the Baltic Sea, in the dead of night; five-and-twenty minutes
past twelve when the captain's watch stopped in his pocket; he lying
dead against the main-mast - on the fourteenth of February, seventeen
forty-nine!' cried Walter, with great animation.
'Ay, to be sure!' cried old Sol, 'quite right! Then, there were
five hundred casks of such wine aboard; and all hands (except the
first mate, first lieutenant, two seamen, and a lady, in a leaky boat)
going to work to stave the casks, got drunk and died drunk, singing
"Rule Britannia", when she settled and went down, and ending with one
awful scream in chorus.'
'But when the George the Second drove ashore, Uncle, on the coast
of Cornwall, in a dismal gale, two hours before daybreak, on the
fourth of March, 'seventy-one, she had near two hundred horses aboard;
and the horses breaking loose down below, early in the gale, and
tearing to and fro, and trampling each other to death, made such
noises, and set up such human cries, that the crew believing the ship
to be full of devils, some of the best men, losing heart and head,
went overboard in despair, and only two were left alive, at last, to
tell the tale.'
'And when,' said old Sol, 'when the Polyphemus - '
'Private West India Trader, burden three hundred and fifty tons,
Captain, John Brown of Deptford. Owners, Wiggs and Co.,' cried Walter.
'The same,' said Sol; 'when she took fire, four days' sail with a
fair wind out of Jamaica Harbour, in the night - '
'There were two brothers on board,' interposed his nephew, speaking
very fast and loud, 'and there not being room for both of them in the
only boat that wasn't swamped, neither of them would consent to go,
until the elder took the younger by the waist, and flung him in. And
then the younger, rising in the boat, cried out, "Dear Edward, think
of your promised wife at home. I'm only a boy. No one waits at home
for me. Leap down into my place!" and flung himself in the sea!'
The kindling eye and heightened colour of the boy, who had risen
from his seat in the earnestness of what he said and felt, seemed to
remind old Sol of something he had forgotten, or that his encircling
mist had hitherto shut out. Instead of proceeding with any more
anecdotes, as he had evidently intended but a moment before, he gave a
short dry cough, and said, 'Well! suppose we change the subject.'
The truth was, that the simple-minded Uncle in his secret
attraction towards the marvellous and adventurous - of which he was,
in some sort, a distant relation, by his trade - had greatly
encouraged the same attraction in the nephew; and that everything that
had ever been put before the boy to deter him from a life of
adventure, had had the usual unaccountable effect of sharpening his
taste for it. This is invariable. It would seem as if there never was
a book written, or a story told, expressly with the object of keeping
boys on shore, which did not lure and charm them to the ocean, as a
matter of course.
But an addition to the little party now made its appearance, in the
shape of a gentleman in a wide suit of blue, with a hook instead of a
hand attached to his right wrist; very bushy black eyebrows; and a
thick stick in his left hand, covered all over (like his nose) with
knobs. He wore a loose black silk handkerchief round his neck, and
such a very large coarse shirt collar, that it looked like a small
sail. He was evidently the person for whom the spare wine-glass was
intended, and evidently knew it; for having taken off his rough outer
coat, and hung up, on a particular peg behind the door, such a hard
glazed hat as a sympathetic person's head might ache at the sight of,
and which left a red rim round his own forehead as if he had been
wearing a tight basin, he brought a chair to where the clean glass
was, and sat himself down behind it. He was usually addressed as
Captain, this visitor; and had been a pilot, or a skipper, or a
privateersman, or all three perhaps; and was a very salt-looking man
indeed.
His face, remarkable for a brown solidity, brightened as he shook
hands with Uncle and nephew; but he seemed to be of a laconic
disposition, and merely said:
'How goes it?'
'All well,' said Mr Gills, pushing the bottle towards him.
He took it up, and having surveyed and smelt it, said with
extraordinary expression:
'The?'
'The,' returned the Instrument-maker.
Upon that he whistled as he filled his glass, and seemed to think
they were making holiday indeed.
'Wal'r!' he said, arranging his hair (which was thin) with his
hook, and then pointing it at the Instrument-maker, 'Look at him!
Love! Honour! And Obey! Overhaul your catechism till you find that
passage, and when found turn the leaf down. Success, my boy!'
He was so perfectly satisfied both with his quotation and his
reference to it, that he could not help repeating the words again in a
low voice, and saying he had forgotten 'em these forty year.
'But I never wanted two or three words in my life that I didn't
know where to lay my hand upon 'em, Gills,' he observed. 'It comes of
not wasting language as some do.'
The reflection perhaps reminded him that he had better, like young
Norval's father, '"ncrease his store." At any rate he became silent,
and remained so, until old Sol went out into the shop to light it up,
when he turned to Walter, and said, without any introductory remark:
'I suppose he could make a clock if he tried?'
'I shouldn't wonder, Captain Cuttle,' returned the boy.
'And it would go!' said Captain Cuttle, making a species of serpent
in the air with his hook. 'Lord, how that clock would go!'
For a moment or two he seemed quite lost in contemplating the pace
of this ideal timepiece, and sat looking at the boy as if his face
were the dial.
'But he's chockful of science,' he observed, waving his hook
towards the stock-in-trade. 'Look'ye here! Here's a collection of 'em.
Earth, air, or water. It's all one. Only say where you'll have it. Up
in a balloon? There you are. Down in a bell? There you are. D'ye want
to put the North Star in a pair of scales and weigh it? He'll do it
for you.'
It may be gathered from these remarks that Captain Cuttle's
reverence for the stock of instruments was profound, and that his
philosophy knew little or no distinction between trading in it and
inventing it.
'Ah!' he said, with a sigh, 'it's a fine thing to understand 'em.
And yet it's a fine thing not to understand 'em. I hardly know which
is best. It's so comfortable to sit here and feel that you might be
weighed, measured, magnified, electrified, polarized, played the very
devil with: and never know how.'
Nothing short of the wonderful Madeira, combined with the occasion
(which rendered it desirable to improve and expand Walter's mind),
could have ever loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance
to this prodigious oration. He seemed quite amazed himself at the
manner in which it opened up to view the sources of the taciturn
delight he had had in eating Sunday dinners in that parlour for ten
years. Becoming a sadder and a wiser man, he mused and held his peace.
'Come!' cried the subject of this admiration, returning. 'Before
you have your glass of grog, Ned, we must finish the bottle.'
'Stand by!' said Ned, filling his glass. 'Give the boy some more.'
'No more, thank'e, Uncle!'
'Yes, yes,' said Sol, 'a little more. We'll finish the bottle, to
the House, Ned - Walter's House. Why it may be his House one of these
days, in part. Who knows? Sir Richard Whittington married his master's
daughter.'
'"Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are
old you will never depart from it,"' interposed the Captain. 'Wal'r!
Overhaul the book, my lad.'
'And although Mr Dombey hasn't a daughter,' Sol began.
'Yes, yes, he has, Uncle,' said the boy, reddening and laughing.
'Has he?' cried the old man. 'Indeed I think he has too.
'Oh! I know he has,' said the boy. 'Some of 'em were talking about
it in the office today. And they do say, Uncle and Captain Cuttle,'
lowering his voice, 'that he's taken a dislike to her, and that she's
left, unnoticed, among the servants, and that his mind's so set all
the while upon having his son in the House, that although he's only a
baby now, he is going to have balances struck oftener than formerly,
and the books kept closer than they used to be, and has even been seen
(when he thought he wasn't) walking in the Docks, looking at his ships
and property and all that, as if he was exulting like, over what he
and his son will possess together. That's what they say. Of course, I
don't know.
'He knows all about her already, you see,' said the
instrument-maker.
'Nonsense, Uncle,' cried the boy, still reddening and laughing,
boy-like. 'How can I help hearing what they tell me?'
'The Son's a little in our way at present, I'm afraid, Ned,' said
the old man, humouring the joke.
'Very much,' said the Captain.
'Nevertheless, we'll drink him,' pursued Sol. 'So, here's to Dombey
and Son.'
'Oh, very well, Uncle,' said the boy, merrily. 'Since you have
introduced the mention of her, and have connected me with her and have
said that I know all about her, I shall make bold to amend the toast.
So here's to Dombey - and Son - and Daughter!'
CHAPTER 5.
Paul's Progress and Christening
Little Paul, suffering no contamination from the blood of the
Toodles, grew stouter and stronger every day. Every day, too, he was
more and more ardently cherished by Miss Tox, whose devotion was so
far appreciated by Mr Dombey that he began to regard her as a woman of
great natural good sense, whose feelings did her credit and deserved
encouragement. He was so lavish of this condescension, that he not
only bowed to her, in a particular manner, on several occasions, but
even entrusted such stately recognitions of her to his sister as 'pray
tell your friend, Louisa, that she is very good,' or 'mention to Miss
Tox, Louisa, that I am obliged to her;'specialities which made a deep
impression on the lady thus distinguished.
Whether Miss Tox conceived that having been selected by the Fates
to welcome the little Dombey before he was born, in Kirby, Beard and
Kirby's Best Mixed Pins, it therefore naturally devolved upon her to
greet him with all other forms of welcome in all other early stages of
his existence - or whether her overflowing goodness induced her to
volunteer into the domestic militia as a substitute in some sort for
his deceased Mama - or whether she was conscious of any other motives
- are questions which in this stage of the Firm's history herself only
could have solved. Nor have they much bearing on the fact (of which
there is no doubt), that Miss Tox's constancy and zeal were a heavy
discouragement to Richards, who lost flesh hourly under her patronage,
and was in some danger of being superintended to death.
Miss Tox was often in the habit of assuring Mrs Chick, that nothing
could exceed her interest in all connected with the development of
that sweet child;' and an observer of Miss Tox's proceedings might
have inferred so much without declaratory confirmation. She would
preside over the innocent repasts of the young heir, with ineffable
satisfaction, almost with an air of joint proprietorship with Richards
in the entertainment. At the little ceremonies of the bath and
toilette, she assisted with enthusiasm. The administration of
infantine doses of physic awakened all the active sympathy of her
character; and being on one occasion secreted in a cupboard (whither
she had fled in modesty), when Mr Dombey was introduced into the
nursery by his sister, to behold his son, in the course of preparation
for bed, taking a short walk uphill over Richards's gown, in a short
and airy linen jacket, Miss Tox was so transported beyond the ignorant
present as to be unable to refrain from crying out, 'Is he not
beautiful Mr Dombey! Is he not a Cupid, Sir!' and then almost sinking
behind the closet door with confusion and blushes.
'Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, one day, to his sister, 'I really think I
must present your friend with some little token, on the occasion of
Paul's christening. She has exerted herself so warmly in the child's
behalf from the first, and seems to understand her position so
thoroughly (a very rare merit in this world, I am sorry to say), that
it would really be agreeable to me to notice her.'
Let it be no detraction from the merits of Miss Tox, to hint that
in Mr Dombey's eyes, as in some others that occasionally see the
light, they only achieved that mighty piece of knowledge, the
understanding of their own position, who showed a fitting reverence
for his. It was not so much their merit that they knew themselves, as
that they knew him, and bowed low before him.
'My dear Paul,' returned his sister, 'you do Miss Tox but justice,
as a man of your penetration was sure, I knew, to do. I believe if
there are three words in the English language for which she has a
respect amounting almost to veneration, those words are, Dombey and
Son.'
'Well,' said Mr Dombey, 'I believe it. It does Miss Tox credit.'
'And as to anything in the shape of a token, my dear Paul,' pursued
his sister, 'all I can say is that anything you give Miss Tox will be
hoarded and prized, I am sure, like a relic. But there is a way, my
dear Paul, of showing your sense of Miss Tox's friendliness in a still
more flattering and acceptable manner, if you should be so inclined.'
'How is that?' asked Mr Dombey.
'Godfathers, of course,' continued Mrs Chick, 'are important in
point of connexion and influence.'
'I don't know why they should be, to my son, said Mr Dombey,
coldly.
'Very true, my dear Paul,' retorted Mrs Chick, with an
extraordinary show of animation, to cover the suddenness of her
conversion; 'and spoken like yourself. I might have expected nothing
else from you. I might have known that such would have been your
opinion. Perhaps;' here Mrs Chick faltered again, as not quite
comfortably feeling her way; 'perhaps that is a reason why you might
have the less objection to allowing Miss Tox to be godmother to the
dear thing, if it were only as deputy and proxy for someone else. That
it would be received as a great honour and distinction, Paul, I need
not say.
'Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, after a short pause, 'it is not to be
supposed - '
'Certainly not,' cried Mrs Chick, hastening to anticipate a
refusal, 'I never thought it was.'
Mr Dombey looked at her impatiently.
'Don't flurry me, my dear Paul,' said his sister; 'for that
destroys me. I am far from strong. I have not been quite myself, since
poor dear Fanny departed.'
Mr Dombey glanced at the pocket-handkerchief which his sister
applied to her eyes, and resumed:
'It is not be supposed, I say 'And I say,' murmured Mrs Chick,
'that I never thought it was.'
'Good Heaven, Louisa!' said Mr Dombey.
'No, my dear Paul,' she remonstrated with tearful dignity, 'I must
really be allowed to speak. I am not so clever, or so reasoning, or so
eloquent, or so anything, as you are. I know that very well. So much
the worse for me. But if they were the last words I had to utter - and
last words should be very solemn to you and me, Paul, after poor dear
Fanny - I would still say I never thought it was. And what is more,'
added Mrs Chick with increased dignity, as if she had withheld her
crushing argument until now, 'I never did think it was.' Mr Dombey
walked to the window and back again.
'It is not to be supposed, Louisa,' he said (Mrs Chick had nailed
her colours to the mast, and repeated 'I know it isn't,' but he took
no notice of it), 'but that there are many persons who, supposing that
I recognised any claim at all in such a case, have a claim upon me
superior to Miss Tox's. But I do not. I recognise no such thing. Paul
and myself will be able, when the time comes, to hold our own - the
House, in other words, will be able to hold its own, and maintain its
own, and hand down its own of itself, and without any such
common-place aids. The kind of foreign help which people usually seek
for their children, I can afford to despise; being above it, I hope.
So that Paul's infancy and childhood pass away well, and I see him
becoming qualified without waste of time for the career on which he is
destined to enter, I am satisfied. He will make what powerful friends
he pleases in after-life, when he is actively maintaining - and
extending, if that is possible - the dignity and credit of the Firm.
Until then, I am enough for him, perhaps, and all in all. I have no
wish that people should step in between us. I would much rather show
my sense of the obliging conduct of a deserving person like your
friend. Therefore let it be so; and your husband and myself will do
well enough for the other sponsors, I daresay.'
In the course of these remarks, delivered with great majesty and
grandeur, Mr Dombey had truly revealed the secret feelings of his
breast. An indescribable distrust of anybody stepping in between
himself and his son; a haughty dread of having any rival or partner in
the boy's respect and deference; a sharp misgiving, recently acquired,
that he was not infallible in his power of bending and binding human
wills; as sharp a jealousy of any second check or cross; these were,
at that time the master keys of his soul. In all his life, he had
never made a friend. His cold and distant nature had neither sought
one, nor found one. And now, when that nature concentrated its whole
force so strongly on a partial scheme of parental interest and
ambition, it seemed as if its icy current, instead of being released
by this influence, and running clear and free, had thawed for but an
instant to admit its burden, and then frozen with it into one
unyielding block.
Elevated thus to the godmothership of little Paul, in virtue of her
insignificance, Miss Tox was from that hour chosen and appointed to
office; and Mr Dombey further signified his pleasure that the
ceremony, already long delayed, should take place without further
postponement. His sister, who had been far from anticipating so signal
a success, withdrew as soon as she could, to communicate it to her
best of friends; and Mr Dombey was left alone in his library. He had
already laid his hand upon the bellrope to convey his usual summons to
Richards, when his eye fell upon a writing-desk, belonging to his
deceased wife, which had been taken, among other things, from a
cabinet in her chamber. It was not the first time that his eye had
lighted on it He carried the key in his pocket; and he brought it to
his table and opened it now - having previously locked the room door -
with a well-accustomed hand.
From beneath a leaf of torn and cancelled scraps of paper, he took
one letter that remained entire. Involuntarily holding his breath as
he opened this document, and 'bating in the stealthy action something
of his arrogant demeanour, he s at down, resting his head upon one
hand, and read it through.
He read it slowly and attentively, and with a nice particularity to
every syllable. Otherwise than as his great deliberation seemed
unnatural, and perhaps the result of an effort equally great, he
allowed no sign of emotion to escape him. When he had read it through,
he folded and refolded it slowly several times, and tore it carefully
into fragments. Checking his hand in the act of throwing these away,
he put them in his pocket, as if unwilling to trust them even to the
chances of being re-united and deciphered; and instead of ringing, as
usual, for little Paul, he sat solitary, all the evening, in his
cheerless room.
There was anything but solitude in the nursery; for there, Mrs
Chick and Miss Tox were enjoying a social evening, so much to the
disgust of Miss Susan Nipper, that that young lady embraced every
opportunity of making wry faces behind the door. Her feelings were so
much excited on the occasion, that she found it indispensable to
afford them this relief, even without having the comfort of any
audience or sympathy whatever. As the knight-errants of old relieved
their minds by carving their mistress's names in deserts, and
wildernesses, and other savage places where there was no probability
of there ever being anybody to read them, so did Miss Susan Nipper
curl her snub nose into drawers and wardrobes, put away winks of
disparagement in cupboards, shed derisive squints into stone pitchers,
and contradict and call names out in the passage.
The two interlopers, however, blissfully unconscious of the young
lady's sentiments, saw little Paul safe through all the stages of
undressing, airy exercise, supper and bed; and then sat down to tea
before the fire. The two children now lay, through the good offices of
Polly, in one room; and it was not until the ladies were established
at their tea-table that, happening to look towards the little beds,
they thought of Florence.
'How sound she sleeps!' said Miss Tox.
'Why, you know, my dear, she takes a great deal of exercise in the
course of the day,' returned Mrs Chick, 'playing about little Paul so
much.'
'She is a curious child,' said Miss Tox.
'My dear,' retorted Mrs Chick, in a low voice: 'Her Mama, all
over!'
'In deed!' said Miss Tox. 'Ah dear me!'
A tone of most extraordinary compassion Miss Tox said it in, though
she had no distinct idea why, except that it was expected of her.
'Florence will never, never, never be a Dombey,'said Mrs Chick,
'not if she lives to be a thousand years old.'
Miss Tox elevated her eyebrows, and was again full of
commiseration.
'I quite fret and worry myself about her,' said Mrs Chick, with a
sigh of modest merit. 'I really don't see what is to become of her
when she grows older, or what position she is to take. She don't gain
on her Papa in the least. How can one expect she should, when she is
so very unlike a Dombey?'
Miss Tox looked as if she saw no way out of such a cogent argument
as that, at all.
'And the child, you see,' said Mrs Chick, in deep confidence, 'has
poor dear Fanny's nature. She'll never make an effort in after-life,
I'll venture to say. Never! She'll never wind and twine herself about
her Papa's heart like - '
'Like the ivy?' suggested Miss Tox.
'Like the ivy,' Mrs Chick assented. 'Never! She'll never glide and
nestle into the bosom of her Papa's affections like - the - '
'Startled fawn?' suggested Miss Tox.
'Like the startled fawn,' said Mrs Chick. 'Never! Poor Fanny! Yet,
how I loved her!'
'You must not distress yourself, my dear,' said Miss Tox, in a
soothing voice. 'Now really! You have too much feeling.'
'We have all our faults,' said Mrs Chick, weeping and shaking her
head. 'I daresay we have. I never was blind to hers. I never said I
was. Far from it. Yet how I loved her!'
What a satisfaction it was to Mrs Chick - a common-place piece of
folly enough, compared with whom her sister-in-law had been a very
angel of womanly intelligence and gentleness - to patronise and be
tender to the memory of that lady: in exact pursuance of her conduct
to her in her lifetime: and to thoroughly believe herself, and take
herself in, and make herself uncommonly comfortable on the strength of
her toleration! What a mighty pleasant virtue toleration should be
when we are right, to be so very pleasant when we are wrong, and quite
unable to demonstrate how we come to be invested with the privilege of
exercising it!
Mrs Chick was yet drying her eyes and shaking her head, when
Richards made bold to caution her that Miss Florence was awake and
sitting in her bed. She had risen, as the nurse said, and the lashes
of her eyes were wet with tears. But no one saw them glistening save
Polly. No one else leant over her, and whispered soothing words to
her, or was near enough to hear the flutter of her beating heart.
'Oh! dear nurse!' said the child, looking earnestly up in her face,
'let me lie by my brother!'
'Why, my pet?' said Richards.
'Oh! I think he loves me,' cried the child wildly. 'Let me lie by
him. Pray do!'
Mrs Chick interposed with some motherly words about going to sleep
like a dear, but Florence repeated her supplication, with a frightened
look, and in a voice broken by sobs and tears.
'I'll not wake him,' she said, covering her face and hanging down
her head. 'I'll only touch him with my hand, and go to sleep. Oh,
pray, pray, let me lie by my brother to-night, for I believe he's fond
of me!'
Richards took her without a word, and carrying her to the little
bed in which the infant was sleeping, laid her down by his side. She
crept as near him as she could without disturbing his rest; and
stretching out one arm so that it timidly embraced his neck, and
hiding her face on the other, over which her damp and scattered hair
fell loose, lay motionless.
'Poor little thing,' said Miss Tox; 'she has been dreaming, I
daresay.'
Dreaming, perhaps, of loving tones for ever silent, of loving eyes
for ever closed, of loving arms again wound round her, and relaxing in
that dream within the dam which no tongue can relate. Seeking, perhaps
- in dreams - some natural comfort for a heart, deeply and sorely
wounded, though so young a child's: and finding it, perhaps, in
dreams, if not in waking, cold, substantial truth. This trivial
incident had so interrupted the current of conversation, that it was
difficult of resumption; and Mrs Chick moreover had been so affected
by the contemplation of her own tolerant nature, that she was not in
spirits. The two friends accordingly soon made an end of their tea,
and a servant was despatched to fetch a hackney cabriolet for Miss
Tox. Miss Tox had great experience in hackney cabs, and her starting
in one was generally a work of time, as she was systematic in the
preparatory arrangements.
'Have the goodness, if you please, Towlinson,' said Miss Tox,
'first of all, to carry out a pen and ink and take his number
legibly.'
'Yes, Miss,' said Towlinson.
'Then, if you please, Towlinson,'said Miss Tox, 'have the goodness
to turn the cushion. Which,' said Miss Tox apart to Mrs Chick, 'is
generally damp, my dear.'
'Yes, Miss,' said Towlinson.
'I'll trouble you also, if you please, Towlinson,' said Miss Tox,
'with this card and this shilling. He's to drive to the card, and is
to understand that he will not on any account have more than the
shilling.'
'No, Miss,' said Towlinson.
'And - I'm sorry to give you so much trouble, Towlinson,' said Miss
Tox, looking at him pensively.
'Not at all, Miss,' said Towlinson.
'Mention to the man, then, if you please, Towlinson,' said Miss
Tox, 'that the lady's uncle is a magistrate, and that if he gives her
any of his impertinence he will be punished terribly. You can pretend
to say that, if you please, Towlinson, in a friendly way, and because
you know it was done to another man, who died.'
'Certainly, Miss,' said Towlinson.
'And now good-night to my sweet, sweet, sweet, godson,' said Miss
Tox, with a soft shower of kisses at each repetition of the adjective;
'and Louisa, my dear friend, promise me to take a little something
warm before you go to bed, and not to distress yourself!'
It was with extreme difficulty that Nipper, the black-eyed, who
looked on steadfastly, contained herself at this crisis, and until the
subsequent departure of Mrs Chick. But the nursery being at length
free of visitors, she made herself some recompense for her late
restraint.
'You might keep me in a strait-waistcoat for six weeks,' said
Nipper, 'and when I got it off I'd only be more aggravated, who ever
heard the like of them two Griffins, Mrs Richards?'
'And then to talk of having been dreaming, poor dear!' said Polly.
'Oh you beauties!' cried Susan Nipper, affecting to salute the door
by which the ladies had departed. 'Never be a Dombey won't she? It's
to be hoped she won't, we don't want any more such, one's enough.'
'Don't wake the children, Susan dear,' said Polly.
'I'm very much beholden to you, Mrs Richards,' said Susan, who was
not by any means discriminating in her wrath, 'and really feel it as a
honour to receive your commands, being a black slave and a mulotter.
Mrs Richards, if there's any other orders, you can give me, pray
mention 'em.'
'Nonsense; orders,' said Polly.
'Oh! bless your heart, Mrs Richards,' cried Susan, 'temporaries
always orders permanencies here, didn't you know that, why wherever
was you born, Mrs Richards? But wherever you was born, Mrs Richards,'
pursued Spitfire, shaking her head resolutely, 'and whenever, and
however (which is best known to yourself), you may bear in mind,
please, that it's one thing to give orders, and quite another thing to
take 'em. A person may tell a person to dive off a bridge head
foremost into five-and-forty feet of water, Mrs Richards, but a person
may be very far from diving.'
'There now,' said Polly, 'you're angry because you're a good little
thing, and fond of Miss Florence; and yet you turn round on me,
because there's nobody else.'
'It's very easy for some to keep their tempers, and be soft-spoken,
Mrs Richards,' returned Susan, slightly mollified, 'when their child's
made as much of as a prince, and is petted and patted till it wishes
its friends further, but when a sweet young pretty innocent, that
never ought to have a cross word spoken to or of it, is rundown, the
case is very different indeed. My goodness gracious me, Miss Floy, you
naughty, sinful child, if you don't shut your eyes this minute, I'll
call in them hobgoblins that lives in the cock-loft to come and eat
you up alive!'
Here Miss Nipper made a horrible lowing, supposed to issue from a
conscientious goblin of the bull species, impatient to discharge the
severe duty of his position. Having further composed her young charge
by covering her head with the bedclothes, and making three or four
angry dabs at the pillow, she folded her arms, and screwed up her
mouth, and sat looking at the fire for the rest of the evening.
Though little Paul was said, in nursery phrase, 'to take a deal of
notice for his age,' he took as little notice of all this as of the
preparations for his christening on the next day but one; which
nevertheless went on about him, as to his personal apparel, and that
of his sister and the two nurses, with great activity. Neither did he,
on the arrival of the appointed morning, show any sense of its
importance; being, on the contrary, unusually inclined to sleep, and
unusually inclined to take it ill in his attendants that they dressed
him to go out.
It happened to be an iron-grey autumnal day, with a shrewd east
wind blowing - a day in keeping with the proceedings. Mr Dombey
represented in himself the wind, the shade, and the autumn of the
christening. He stood in his library to receive the company, as hard
and cold as the weather; and when he looked out through the glass
room, at the trees in the little garden, their brown and yellow leaves
came fluttering down, as if he blighted them.
Ugh! They were black, cold rooms; and seemed to be in mourning,
like the inmates of the house. The books precisely matched as to size,
and drawn up in line, like soldiers, looked in their cold, hard,
slippery uniforms, as if they had but one idea among them, and that
was a freezer. The bookcase, glazed and locked, repudiated all
familiarities. Mr Pitt, in bronze, on the top, with no trace of his
celestial origin' about him, guarded the unattainable treasure like an
enchanted Moor. A dusty urn at each high corner, dug up from an
ancient tomb, preached desolation and decay, as from two pulpits; and
the chimney-glass, reflecting Mr Dombey and his portrait at one blow,
seemed fraught with melancholy meditations.
The stiff and stark fire-irons appeared to claim a nearer
relationship than anything else there to Mr Dombey, with his buttoned
coat, his white cravat, his heavy gold watch-chain, and his creaking
boots.
But this was before the arrival of Mr and Mrs Chick, his lawful
relatives, who soon presented themselves.
'My dear Paul,' Mrs Chick murmured, as she embraced him, 'the
beginning, I hope, of many joyful days!'
'Thank you, Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, grimly. 'How do you do, Mr
John?'
'How do you do, Sir?' said Chick.
He gave Mr Dombey his hand, as if he feared it might electrify him.
Mr Dombey tool: it as if it were a fish, or seaweed, or some such
clammy substance, and immediately returned it to him with exalted
politeness.
'Perhaps, Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, slightly turning his head in his
cravat, as if it were a socket, 'you would have preferred a fire?'
'Oh, my dear Paul, no,' said Mrs Chick, who had much ado to keep
her teeth from chattering; 'not for me.'
'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, 'you are not sensible of any chill?'
Mr John, who had already got both his hands in his pockets over the
wrists, and was on the very threshold of that same canine chorus which
had given Mrs Chick so much offence on a former occasion, protested
that he was perfectly comfortable.
He added in a low voice, 'With my tiddle tol toor rul' - when he
was providentially stopped by Towlinson, who announced:
'Miss Tox!'
And enter that fair enslaver, with a blue nose and indescribably
frosty face, referable to her being very thinly clad in a maze of
fluttering odds and ends, to do honour to the ceremony.
'How do you do, Miss Tox?' said Mr Dombey.
Miss Tox, in the midst of her spreading gauzes, went down
altogether like an opera-glass shutting-up; she curtseyed so low, in
acknowledgment of Mr Dombey's advancing a step or two to meet her.
'I can never forget this occasion, Sir,' said Miss Tox, softly.
''Tis impossible. My dear Louisa, I can hardly believe the evidence of
my senses.'
If Miss Tox could believe the evidence of one of her senses, it was
a very cold day. That was quite clear. She took an early opportunity
of promoting the circulation in the tip of her nose by secretly
chafing it with her pocket handkerchief, lest, by its very low
temperature, it should disagreeably astonish the baby when she came to
kiss it.
The baby soon appeared, carried in great glory by Richards; while
Florence, in custody of that active young constable, Susan Nipper,
brought up the rear. Though the whole nursery party were dressed by
this time in lighter mourning than at first, there was enough in the
appearance of the bereaved children to make the day no brighter. The
baby too - it might have been Miss Tox's nose - began to cry. Thereby,
as it happened, preventing Mr Chick from the awkward fulfilment of a
very honest purpose he had; which was, to make much of Florence. For
this gentleman, insensible to the superior claims of a perfect Dombey
(perhaps on account of having the honour to be united to a Dombey
himself, and being familiar with excellence), really liked her, and
showed that he liked her, and was about to show it in his own way now,
when Paul cried, and his helpmate stopped him short
'Now Florence, child!' said her aunt, briskly, 'what are you doing,
love? Show yourself to him. Engage his attention, my dear!'
The atmosphere became or might have become colder and colder, when
Mr Dombey stood frigidly watching his little daughter, who, clapping
her hands, and standing On tip-toe before the throne of his son and
heir, lured him to bend down from his high estate, and look at her.
Some honest act of Richards's may have aided the effect, but he did
look down, and held his peace. As his sister hid behind her nurse, he
followed her with his eyes; and when she peeped out with a merry cry
to him, he sprang up and crowed lustily - laughing outright when she
ran in upon him; and seeming to fondle her curls with his tiny hands,
while she smothered him with kisses.
Was Mr Dombey pleased to see this? He testified no pleasure by the
relaxation of a nerve; but outward tokens of any kind of feeling were
unusual with him. If any sunbeam stole into the room to light the
children at their play, it never reached his face. He looked on so
fixedly and coldly, that the warm light vanished even from the
laughing eyes of little Florence, when, at last, they happened to meet
his.
It was a dull, grey, autumn day indeed, and in a minute's pause and
silence that took place, the leaves fell sorrowfully.
'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, referring to his watch, and assuming his
hat and gloves. 'Take my sister, if you please: my arm today is Miss
Tox's. You had better go first with Master Paul, Richards. Be very
careful.'
In Mr Dombey's carriage, Dombey and Son, Miss Tox, Mrs Chick,
Richards, and Florence. In a little carriage following it, Susan
Nipper and the owner Mr Chick. Susan looking out of window, without
intermission, as a relief from the embarrassment of confronting the
large face of that gentleman, and thinking whenever anything rattled
that he was putting up in paper an appropriate pecuniary compliment
for herself.
Once upon the road to church, Mr Dombey clapped his hands for the
amusement of his son. At which instance of parental enthusiasm Miss
Tox was enchanted. But exclusive of this incident, the chief
difference between the christening party and a party in a mourning
coach consisted in the colours of the carriage and horses.
Arrived at the church steps, they were received by a portentous
beadle.' Mr Dombey dismounting first to help the ladies out, and
standing near him at the church door, looked like another beadle. A
beadle less gorgeous but more dreadful; the beadle of private life;
the beadle of our business and our bosoms.
Miss Tox's hand trembled as she slipped it through Mr Dombey's arm,
and felt herself escorted up the steps, preceded by a cocked hat and a
Babylonian collar. It seemed for a moment like that other solemn
institution, 'Wilt thou have this man, Lucretia?' 'Yes, I will.'
'Please to bring the child in quick out of the air there,'
whispered the beadle, holding open the inner door of the church.
Little Paul might have asked with Hamlet 'into my grave?' so chill
and earthy was the place. The tall shrouded pulpit and reading desk;
the dreary perspective of empty pews stretching away under the
galleries, and empty benches mounting to the roof and lost in the
shadow of the great grim organ; the dusty matting and cold stone
slabs; the grisly free seats' in the aisles; and the damp corner by
the bell-rope, where the black trestles used for funerals were stowed
away, along with some shovels and baskets, and a coil or two of
deadly-looking rope; the strange, unusual, uncomfortable smell, and
the cadaverous light; were all in unison. It was a cold and dismal
scene.
'There's a wedding just on, Sir,' said the beadle, 'but it'll be
over directly, if you'll walk into the westry here.
Before he turned again to lead the way, he gave Mr Dombey a bow and
a half smile of recognition, importing that he (the beadle) remembered
to have had the pleasure of attending on him when he buried his wife,
and hoped he had enjoyed himself since.
The very wedding looked dismal as they passed in front of the
altar. The bride was too old and the bridegroom too young, and a
superannuated beau with one eye and an eyeglass stuck in its blank
companion, was giving away the lady, while the friends were shivering.
In the vestry the fire was smoking; and an over-aged and over-worked
and under-paid attorney's clerk, 'making a search,' was running his
forefinger down the parchment pages of an immense register (one of a
long series of similar volumes) gorged with burials. Over the
fireplace was a ground-plan of the vaults underneath the church; and
Mr Chick, skimming the literary portion of it aloud, by way of
enlivening the company, read the reference to Mrs Dombey's tomb in
full, before he could stop himself.
After another cold interval, a wheezy little pew-opener afflicted
with an asthma, appropriate to the churchyard, if not to the church,
summoned them to the font - a rigid marble basin which seemed to have
been playing a churchyard game at cup and ball with its matter of fact
pedestal, and to have been just that moment caught on the top of it.
Here they waited some little time while the marriage party enrolled
themselves; and meanwhile the wheezy little pew-opener - partly in
consequence of her infirmity, and partly that the marriage party might
not forget her - went about the building coughing like a grampus.
Presently the clerk (the only cheerful-looking object there, and he
was an undertaker) came up with a jug of warm water, and said
something, as he poured it into the font, about taking the chill off;
which millions of gallons boiling hot could not have done for the
occasion. Then the clergyman, an amiable and mild-looking young
curate, but obviously afraid of the baby, appeared like the principal
character in a ghost-story, 'a tall figure all in white;' at sight of
whom Paul rent the air with his cries, and never left off again till
he was taken out black in the face.
Even when that event had happened, to the great relief of
everybody, he was heard under the portico, during the rest of the
ceremony, now fainter, now louder, now hushed, now bursting forth
again with an irrepressible sense of his wrongs. This so distracted
the attention of the two ladies, that Mrs Chick was constantly
deploying into the centre aisle, to send out messages by the
pew-opener, while Miss Tox kept her Prayer-book open at the Gunpowder
Plot, and occasionally read responses from that service.
During the whole of these proceedings, Mr Dombey remained as
impassive and gentlemanly as ever, and perhaps assisted in making it
so cold, that the young curate smoked at the mouth as he read. The
only time that he unbent his visage in the least, was when the
clergyman, in delivering (very unaffectedly and simply) the closing
exhortation, relative to the future examination of the child by the
sponsors, happened to rest his eye on Mr Chick; and then Mr Dombey
might have been seen to express by a majestic look, that he would like
to catch him at it.
It might have been well for Mr Dombey, if he had thought of his own
dignity a little less; and had thought of the great origin and purpose
of the ceremony in which he took so formal and so stiff a part, a
little more. His arrogance contrasted strangely with its history.
When it was all over, he again gave his arm to Miss Tox, and
conducted her to the vestry, where he informed the clergyman how much
pleasure it would have given him to have solicited the honour of his
company at dinner, but for the unfortunate state of his household
affairs. The register signed, and the fees paid, and the pew-opener
(whose cough was very bad again) remembered, and the beadle gratified,
and the sexton (who was accidentally on the doorsteps, looking with
great interest at the weather) not forgotten, they got into the
carriage again, and drove home in the same bleak fellowship.
There they found Mr Pitt turning up his nose at a cold collation,
set forth in a cold pomp of glass and silver, and looking more like a
dead dinner lying in state than a social refreshment. On their arrival
Miss Tox produced a mug for her godson, and Mr Chick a knife and fork
and spoon in a case. Mr Dombey also produced a bracelet for Miss Tox;
and, on the receipt of this token, Miss Tox was tenderly affected.
'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, 'will you take the bottom of the table,
if you please? What have you got there, Mr John?'
'I have got a cold fillet of veal here, Sir,' replied Mr Chick,
rubbing his numbed hands hard together. 'What have you got there,
Sir?'
'This,' returned Mr Dombey, 'is some cold preparation of calf's
head, I think. I see cold fowls - ham - patties - salad - lobster.
Miss Tox will do me the honour of taking some wine? Champagne to Miss
Tox.'
There was a toothache in everything. The wine was so bitter cold
that it forced a little scream from Miss Tox, which she had great
difficulty in turning into a 'Hem!' The veal had come from such an
airy pantry, that the first taste of it had struck a sensation as of
cold lead to Mr Chick's extremities. Mr Dombey alone remained unmoved.
He might have been hung up for sale at a Russian fair as a specimen of
a frozen gentleman.
The prevailing influence was too much even for his sister. She made
no effort at flattery or small talk, and directed all her efforts to
looking as warm as she could.
'Well, Sir,' said Mr Chick, making a desperate plunge, after a long
silence, and filling a glass of sherry; 'I shall drink this, if you'll
allow me, Sir, to little Paul.'
'Bless him!' murmured Miss Tox, taking a sip of wine.
'Dear little Dombey!' murmured Mrs Chick.
'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, with severe gravity, 'my son would feel
and express himself obliged to you, I have no doubt, if he could
appreciate the favour you have done him. He will prove, in time to
come, I trust, equal to any responsibility that the obliging
disposition of his relations and friends, in private, or the onerous
nature of our position, in public, may impose upon him.'
The tone in which this was said admitting of nothing more, Mr Chick
relapsed into low spirits and silence. Not so Miss Tox, who, having
listened to Mr Dombey with even a more emphatic attention than usual,
and with a more expressive tendency of her head to one side, now leant
across the table, and said to Mrs Chick softly:
'Louisa!'
'My dear,' said Mrs Chick.
'Onerous nature of our position in public may - I have forgotten
the exact term.'
'Expose him to,' said Mrs Chick.
'Pardon me, my dear,' returned Miss Tox, 'I think not. It was more
rounded and flowing. Obliging disposition of relations and friends in
private, or onerous nature of position in public - may - impose upon
him!'
'Impose upon him, to be sure,' said Mrs Chick.
Miss Tox struck her delicate hands together lightly, in triumph;
and added, casting up her eyes, 'eloquence indeed!'
Mr Dombey, in the meanwhile, had issued orders for the attendance
of Richards, who now entered curtseying, but without the baby; Paul
being asleep after the fatigues of the morning. Mr Dombey, having
delivered a glass of wine to this vassal, addressed her in the
following words: Miss Tox previously settling her head on one side,
and making other little arrangements for engraving them on her heart.
'During the six months or so, Richards, which have seen you an
inmate of this house, you have done your duty. Desiring to connect
some little service to you with this occasion, I considered how I
could best effect that object, and I also advised with my sister, Mrs
- '
'Chick,' interposed the gentleman of that name.
'Oh, hush if you please!' said Miss Tox.
'I was about to say to you, Richards,' resumed Mr Dombey, with an
appalling glance at Mr John, 'that I was further assisted in my
decision, by the recollection of a conversation I held with your
husband in this room, on the occasion of your being hired, when he
disclosed to me the melancholy fact that your family, himself at the
head, were sunk and steeped in ignorance.
Richards quailed under the magnificence of the reproof.
'I am far from being friendly,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'to what is
called by persons of levelling sentiments, general education. But it
is necessary that the inferior classes should continue to be taught to
know their position, and to conduct themselves properly. So far I
approve of schools. Having the power of nominating a child on the
foundation of an ancient establishment, called (from a worshipful
company) the Charitable Grinders; where not only is a wholesome
education bestowed upon the scholars, but where a dress and badge is
likewise provided for them; I have (first communicating, through Mrs
Chick, with your family) nominated your eldest son to an existing
vacancy; and he has this day, I am informed, assumed the habit. The
number of her son, I believe,' said Mr Dombey, turning to his sister
and speaking of the child as if he were a hackney-coach, is one
hundred and forty-seven. Louisa, you can tell her.'
'One hundred and forty-seven,' said Mrs Chick 'The dress, Richards,
is a nice, warm, blue baize tailed coat and cap, turned up with orange
coloured binding; red worsted stockings; and very strong leather
small-clothes. One might wear the articles one's self,' said Mrs
Chick, with enthusiasm, 'and be grateful.'
'There, Richards!' said Miss Tox. 'Now, indeed, you may be proud.
The Charitable Grinders!'
'I am sure I am very much obliged, Sir,' returned Richards faintly,
'and take it very kind that you should remember my little ones.' At
the same time a vision of Biler as a Charitable Grinder, with his very
small legs encased in the serviceable clothing described by Mrs Chick,
swam before Richards's eyes, and made them water.
'I am very glad to see you have so much feeling, Richards,' said
Miss Tox.
'It makes one almost hope, it really does,' said Mrs Chick, who
prided herself on taking trustful views of human nature, 'that there
may yet be some faint spark of gratitude and right feeling in the
world.'
Richards deferred to these compliments by curtseying and murmuring
her thanks; but finding it quite impossible to recover her spirits
from the disorder into which they had been thrown by the image of her
son in his precocious nether garments, she gradually approached the
door and was heartily relieved to escape by it.
Such temporary indications of a partial thaw that had appeared with
her, vanished with her; and the frost set in again, as cold and hard
as ever. Mr Chick was twice heard to hum a tune at the bottom of the
table, but on both occasions it was a fragment of the Dead March in
Saul. The party seemed to get colder and colder, and to be gradually
resolving itself into a congealed and solid state, like the collation
round which it was assembled. At length Mrs Chick looked at Miss Tox,
and Miss Tox returned the look, and they both rose and said it was
really time to go. Mr Dombey receiving this announcement with perfect
equanimity, they took leave of that gentleman, and presently departed
under the protection of Mr Chick; who, when they had turned their
backs upon the house and left its master in his usual solitary state,
put his hands in his pockets, threw himself back in the carriage, and
whistled 'With a hey ho chevy!' all through; conveying into his face
as he did so, an expression of such gloomy and terrible defiance, that
Mrs Chick dared not protest, or in any way molest him.
Richards, though she had little Paul on her lap, could not forget
her own first-born. She felt it was ungrateful; but the influence of
the day fell even on the Charitable Grinders, and she could hardly
help regarding his pewter badge, number one hundred and forty-seven,
as, somehow, a part of its formality and sternness. She spoke, too, in
the nursery, of his 'blessed legs,' and was again troubled by his
spectre in uniform.
'I don't know what I wouldn't give,' said Polly, 'to see the poor
little dear before he gets used to 'em.'
'Why, then, I tell you what, Mrs Richards,' retorted Nipper, who
had been admitted to her confidence, 'see him and make your mind
easy.'
'Mr Dombey wouldn't like it,' said Polly.
'Oh, wouldn't he, Mrs Richards!' retorted Nipper, 'he'd like it
very much, I think when he was asked.'
'You wouldn't ask him, I suppose, at all?' said Polly.
'No, Mrs Richards, quite contrairy,' returned Susan, 'and them two
inspectors Tox and Chick, not intending to be on duty tomorrow, as I
heard 'em say, me and Mid Floy will go along with you tomorrow
morning, and welcome, Mrs Richards, if you like, for we may as well
walk there as up and down a street, and better too.'
Polly rejected the idea pretty stoutly at first; but by little and
little she began to entertain it, as she entertained more and more
distinctly the forbidden pictures of her children, and her own home.
At length, arguing that there could be no great harm in calling for a
moment at the door, she yielded to the Nipper proposition.
The matter being settled thus, little Paul began to cry most
piteously, as if he had a foreboding that no good would come of it.
'What's the matter with the child?' asked Susan.
'He's cold, I think,' said Polly, walking with him to and fro, and
hushing him.
It was a bleak autumnal afternoon indeed; and as she walked, and
hushed, and, glancing through the dreary windows, pressed the little
fellow closer to her breast, the withered leaves came showering down.
CHAPTER 6.
Paul's Second Deprivation
Polly was beset by so many misgivings in the morning, that but for
the incessant promptings of her black-eyed companion, she would have
abandoned all thoughts of the expedition, and formally petitioned for
leave to see number one hundred and forty-seven, under the awful
shadow of Mr Dombey's roof. But Susan who was personally disposed in
favour of the excursion, and who (like Tony Lumpkin), if she could
bear the disappointments of other people with tolerable fortitude,
could not abide to disappoint herself, threw so many ingenious doubts
in the way of this second thought, and stimulated the original
intention with so many ingenious arguments, that almost as soon as Mr
Dombey's stately back was turned, and that gentleman was pursuing his
daily road towards the City, his unconscious son was on his way to
Staggs's Gardens.
This euphonious locality was situated in a suburb, known by the
inhabitants of Staggs's Gardens by the name of Camberling Town; a
designation which the Strangers' Map of London, as printed (with a
view to pleasant and commodious reference) on pocket handkerchiefs,
condenses, with some show of reason, into Camden Town. Hither the two
nurses bent their steps, accompanied by their charges; Richards
carrying Paul, of course, and Susan leading little Florence by the
hand, and giving her such jerks and pokes from time to time, as she
considered it wholesome to administer.
The first shock of a great earthquake had, just at that period,
rent the whole neighbourhood to its centre. Traces of its course were
visible on every side. Houses were knocked down; streets broken
through and stopped; deep pits and trenches dug in the ground;
enormous heaps of earth and clay thrown up; buildings that were
undermined and shaking, propped by great beams of wood. Here, a chaos
of carts, overthrown and jumbled together, lay topsy-turvy at the
bottom of a steep unnatural hill; there, confused treasures of iron
soaked and rusted in something that had accidentally become a pond.
Everywhere were bridges that led nowhere; thoroughfares that were
wholly impassable; Babel towers of chimneys, wanting half their
height; temporary wooden houses and enclosures, in the most unlikely
situations; carcases of ragged tenements, and fragments of unfinished
walls and arches, and piles of scaffolding, and wildernesses of
bricks, and giant forms of cranes, and tripods straddling above
nothing. There were a hundred thousand shapes and substances of
incompleteness, wildly mingled out of their places, upside down,
burrowing in the earth, aspiring in the air, mouldering in the water,
and unintelligible as any dream. Hot springs and fiery eruptions, the
usual attendants upon earthquakes, lent their contributions of
confusion to the scene. Boiling water hissed and heaved within
dilapidated walls; whence, also, the glare and roar of flames came
issuing forth; and mounds of ashes blocked up rights of way, and
wholly changed the law and custom of the neighbourhood.
In short, the yet unfinished and unopened Railroad was in progress;
and, from the very core of all this dire disorder, trailed smoothly
away, upon its mighty course of civilisation and improvement.
But as yet, the neighbourhood was shy to own the Railroad. One or
two bold speculators had projected streets; and one had built a
little, but had stopped among the mud and ashes to consider farther of
it. A bran-new Tavern, redolent of fresh mortar and size, and fronting
nothing at all, had taken for its sign The Railway Arms; but that
might be rash enterprise - and then it hoped to sell drink to the
workmen. So, the Excavators' House of Call had sprung up from a
beer-shop; and the old-established Ham and Beef Shop had become the
Railway Eating House, with a roast leg of pork daily, through
interested motives of a similar immediate and popular description.
Lodging-house keepers were favourable in like manner; and for the like
reasons were not to be trusted. The general belief was very slow.
There were frowzy fields, and cow-houses, and dunghills, and
dustheaps, and ditches, and gardens, and summer-houses, and
carpet-beating grounds, at the very door of the Railway. Little tumuli
of oyster shells in the oyster season, and of lobster shells in the
lobster season, and of broken crockery and faded cabbage leaves in all
seasons, encroached upon its high places. Posts, and rails, and old
cautions to trespassers, and backs of mean houses, and patches of
wretched vegetation, stared it out of countenance. Nothing was the
better for it, or thought of being so. If the miserable waste ground
lying near it could have laughed, it would have laughed it to scorn,
like many of the miserable neighbours.
Staggs's Gardens was uncommonly incredulous. It was a little row of
houses, with little squalid patches of ground before them, fenced off
with old doors, barrel staves, scraps of tarpaulin, and dead bushes;
with bottomless tin kettles and exhausted iron fenders, thrust into
the gaps. Here, the Staggs's Gardeners trained scarlet beans, kept
fowls and rabbits, erected rotten summer-houses (one was an old boat),
dried clothes, and smoked pipes. Some were of opinion that Staggs's
Gardens derived its name from a deceased capitalist, one Mr Staggs,
who had built it for his delectation. Others, who had a natural taste
for the country, held that it dated from those rural times when the
antlered herd, under the familiar denomination of Staggses, had
resorted to its shady precincts. Be this as it may, Staggs's Gardens
was regarded by its population as a sacred grove not to be withered by
Railroads; and so confident were they generally of its long outliving
any such ridiculous inventions, that the master chimney-sweeper at the
corner, who was understood to take the lead in the local politics of
the Gardens, had publicly declared that on the occasion of the
Railroad opening, if ever it did open, two of his boys should ascend
the flues of his dwelling, with instructions to hail the failure with
derisive cheers from the chimney-pots.
To this unhallowed spot, the very name of which had hitherto been
carefully concealed from Mr Dombey by his sister, was little Paul now
borne by Fate and Richards
'That's my house, Susan,' said Polly, pointing it out.
'Is it, indeed, Mrs Richards?' said Susan, condescendingly.
'And there's my sister Jemima at the door, I do declare' cried
Polly, 'with my own sweet precious baby in her arms!'
The sight added such an extensive pair of wings to Polly's
impatience, that she set off down the Gardens at a run, and bouncing
on Jemima, changed babies with her in a twinkling; to the unutterable
astonishment of that young damsel, on whom the heir of the Dombeys
seemed to have fallen from the clouds.
'Why, Polly!' cried Jemima. 'You! what a turn you have given me!
who'd have thought it! come along in Polly! How well you do look to be
sure! The children will go half wild to see you Polly, that they
will.'
That they did, if one might judge from the noise they made, and the
way in which they dashed at Polly and dragged her to a low chair in
the chimney corner, where her own honest apple face became immediately
the centre of a bunch of smaller pippins, all laying their rosy cheeks
close to it, and all evidently the growth of the same tree. As to
Polly, she was full as noisy and vehement as the children; and it was
not until she was quite out of breath, and her hair was hanging all
about her flushed face, and her new christening attire was very much
dishevelled, that any pause took place in the confusion. Even then,
the smallest Toodle but one remained in her lap, holding on tight with
both arms round her neck; while the smallest Toodle but two mounted on
the back of the chair, and made desperate efforts, with one leg in the
air, to kiss her round the corner.
'Look! there's a pretty little lady come to see you,' said Polly;
'and see how quiet she is! what a beautiful little lady, ain't she?'
This reference to Florence, who had been standing by the door not
unobservant of what passed, directed the attention of the younger
branches towards her; and had likewise the happy effect of leading to
the formal recognition of Miss Nipper, who was not quite free from a
misgiving that she had been already slighted.
'Oh do come in and sit down a minute, Susan, please,' said Polly.
'This is my sister Jemima, this is. Jemima, I don't know what I should
ever do with myself, if it wasn't for Susan Nipper; I shouldn't be
here now but for her.'
'Oh do sit down, Miss Nipper, if you please,' quoth Jemima.
Susan took the extreme corner of a chair, with a stately and
ceremonious aspect.
'I never was so glad to see anybody in all my life; now really I
never was, Miss Nipper,' said Jemima.
Susan relaxing, took a little more of the chair, and smiled
graciously.
'Do untie your bonnet-strings, and make yourself at home, Miss
Nipper, please,' entreated Jemima. 'I am afraid it's a poorer place
than you're used to; but you'll make allowances, I'm sure.'
The black-eyed was so softened by this deferential behaviour, that
she caught up little Miss Toodle who was running past, and took her to
Banbury Cross immediately.
'But where's my pretty boy?' said Polly. 'My poor fellow? I came
all this way to see him in his new clothes.'
'Ah what a pity!' cried Jemima. 'He'll break his heart, when he
hears his mother has been here. He's at school, Polly.'
'Gone already!'
'Yes. He went for the first time yesterday, for fear he should lose
any learning. But it's half-holiday, Polly: if you could only stop
till he comes home - you and Miss Nipper, leastways,' said Jemima,
mindful in good time of the dignity of the black-eyed.
'And how does he look, Jemima, bless him!' faltered Polly.
'Well, really he don't look so bad as you'd suppose,' returned
Jemima.
'Ah!' said Polly, with emotion, 'I knew his legs must be too
short.'
His legs is short,' returned Jemima; 'especially behind; but
they'll get longer, Polly, every day.'
It was a slow, prospective kind of consolation; but the
cheerfulness and good nature with which it was administered, gave it a
value it did not intrinsically possess. After a moment's silence,
Polly asked, in a more sprightly manner:
'And where's Father, Jemima dear?' - for by that patriarchal
appellation, Mr Toodle was generally known in the family.
'There again!' said Jemima. 'What a pity! Father took his dinner
with him this morning, and isn't coming home till night. But he's
always talking of you, Polly, and telling the children about you; and
is the peaceablest, patientest, best-temperedest soul in the world, as
he always was and will be!'
'Thankee, Jemima,' cried the simple Polly; delighted by the speech,
and disappointed by the absence.
'Oh you needn't thank me, Polly,' said her sister, giving her a
sounding kiss upon the cheek, and then dancing little Paul cheerfully.
'I say the same of you sometimes, and think it too.'
In spite of the double disappointment, it was impossible to regard
in the light of a failure a visit which was greeted with such a
reception; so the sisters talked hopefully about family matters, and
about Biler, and about all his brothers and sisters: while the
black-eyed, having performed several journeys to Banbury Cross and
back, took sharp note of the furniture, the Dutch clock, the cupboard,
the castle on the mantel-piece with red and green windows in it,
susceptible of illumination by a candle-end within; and the pair of
small black velvet kittens, each with a lady's reticule in its mouth;
regarded by the Staggs's Gardeners as prodigies of imitative art. The
conversation soon becoming general lest the black-eyed should go off
at score and turn sarcastic, that young lady related to Jemima a
summary of everything she knew concerning Mr Dombey, his prospects,
family, pursuits, and character. Also an exact inventory of her
personal wardrobe, and some account of her principal relations and
friends. Having relieved her mind of these disclosures, she partook of
shrimps and porter, and evinced a disposition to swear eternal
friendship.
Little Florence herself was not behind-hand in improving the
occasion; for, being conducted forth by the young Toodles to inspect
some toad-stools and other curiosities of the Gardens, she entered
with them, heart and soul, on the formation of a temporary breakwater
across a small green pool that had collected in a corner. She was
still busily engaged in that labour, when sought and found by Susan;
who, such was her sense of duty, even under the humanizing influence
of shrimps, delivered a moral address to her (punctuated with thumps)
on her degenerate nature, while washing her face and hands; and
predicted that she would bring the grey hairs of her family in
general, with sorrow to the grave. After some delay, occasioned by a
pretty long confidential interview above stairs on pecuniary subjects,
between Polly and Jemima, an interchange of babies was again effected
- for Polly had all this timeretained her own child, and Jemima little
Paul - and the visitors took leave.
But first the young Toodles, victims of a pious fraud, were deluded
into repairing in a body to a chandler's shop in the neighbourhood,
for the ostensible purpose of spending a penny; and when the coast was
quite clear, Polly fled: Jemima calling after her that if they could
only go round towards the City Road on their way back, they would be
sure to meet little Biler coming from school.
'Do you think that we might make time to go a little round in that
direction, Susan?' inquired Polly, when they halted to take breath.
'Why not, Mrs Richards?' returned Susan.
'It's getting on towards our dinner time you know,' said Polly.
But lunch had rendered her companion more than indifferent to this
grave consideration, so she allowed no weight to it, and they resolved
to go 'a little round.'
Now, it happened that poor Biler's life had been, since yesterday
morning, rendered weary by the costume of the Charitable Grinders. The
youth of the streets could not endure it. No young vagabond could be
brought to bear its contemplation for a moment, without throwing
himself upon the unoffending wearer, and doing him a mischief. His
social existence had been more like that of an early Christian, than
an innocent child of the nineteenth century. He had been stoned in the
streets. He had been overthrown into gutters; bespattered with mud;
violently flattened against posts. Entire strangers to his person had
lifted his yellow cap off his head, and cast it to the winds. His legs
had not only undergone verbal criticisms and revilings, but had been
handled and pinched. That very morning, he had received a perfectly
unsolicited black eye on his way to the Grinders' establishment, and
had been punished for it by the master: a superannuated old Grinder of
savage disposition, who had been appointed schoolmaster because he
didn't know anything, and wasn't fit for anything, and for whose cruel
cane all chubby little boys had a perfect fascination.'
Thus it fell out that Biler, on his way home, sought unfrequented
paths; and slunk along by narrow passages and back streets, to avoid
his tormentors. Being compelled to emerge into the main road, his ill
fortune brought him at last where a small party of boys, headed by a
ferocious young butcher, were lying in wait for any means of
pleasurable excitement that might happen. These, finding a Charitable
Grinder in the midst of them - unaccountably delivered over, as it
were, into their hands - set up a general yell and rushed upon him.
But it so fell out likewise, that, at the same time, Polly, looking
hopelessly along the road before her, after a good hour's walk, had
said it was no use going any further, when suddenly she saw this
sight. She no sooner saw it than, uttering a hasty exclamation, and
giving Master Dombey to the black-eyed, she started to the rescue of
her unhappy little son.
Surprises, like misfortunes, rarely come alone. The astonished
Susan Nipper and her two young charges were rescued by the bystanders
from under the very wheels of a passing carriage before they knew what
had happened; and at that moment (it was market day) a thundering
alarm of 'Mad Bull!' was raised.
With a wild confusion before her, of people running up and down,
and shouting, and wheels running over them, and boys fighting, and mad
bulls coming up, and the nurse in the midst of all these dangers being
torn to pieces, Florence screamed and ran. She ran till she was
exhausted, urging Susan to do the same; and then, stopping and
wringing her hands as she remembered they had left the other nurse
behind, found, with a sensation of terror not to be described, that
she was quite alone.
'Susan! Susan!' cried Florence, clapping her hands in the very
ecstasy of her alarm. 'Oh, where are they? where are they?'
'Where are they?' said an old woman, coming hobbling across as fast
as she could from the opposite side of the way. 'Why did you run away
from 'em?'
'I was frightened,' answered Florence. 'I didn't know what I did. I
thought they were with me. Where are they?'
The old woman took her by the wrist, and said, 'I'll show you.'
She was a very ugly old woman, with red rims round her eyes, and a
mouth that mumbled and chattered of itself when she was not speaking.
She was miserably dressed, and carried some skins over her arm. She
seemed to have followed Florence some little way at all events, for
she had lost her breath; and this made her uglier still, as she stood
trying to regain it: working her shrivelled yellow face and throat
into all sorts of contortions.
Florence was afraid of her, and looked, hesitating, up the street,
of which she had almost reached the bottom. It was a solitary place -
more a back road than a street - and there was no one in it but her-
self and the old woman.
'You needn't be frightened now,' said the old woman, still holding
her tight. 'Come along with me.'
'I - I don't know you. What's your name?' asked Florence.
'Mrs Brown,' said the old woman. 'Good Mrs Brown.'
'Are they near here?' asked Florence, beginning to be led away.
'Susan ain't far off,' said Good Mrs Brown; 'and the others are
close to her.'
'Is anybody hurt?' cried Florence.
'Not a bit of it,' said Good Mrs Brown.
The child shed tears of delight on hearing this, and accompanied
the old woman willingly; though she could not help glancing at her
face as they went along - particularly at that industrious mouth - and
wondering whether Bad Mrs Brown, if there were such a person, was at
all like her.
They had not gone far, but had gone by some very uncomfortable
places, such as brick-fields and tile-yards, when the old woman turned
down a dirty lane, where the mud lay in deep black ruts in the middle
of the road. She stopped before a shabby little house, as closely shut
up as a house that was full of cracks and crevices could be. Opening
the door with a key she took out of her bonnet, she pushed the child
before her into a back room, where there was a great heap of rags of
different colours lying on the floor; a heap of bones, and a heap of
sifted dust or cinders; but there was no furniture at all, and the
walls and ceiling were quite black.
The child became so terrified the she was stricken speechless, and
looked as though about to swoon.
'Now don't be a young mule,' said Good Mrs Brown, reviving her with
a shake. 'I'm not a going to hurt you. Sit upon the rags.'
Florence obeyed her, holding out her folded hands, in mute
supplication.
'I'm not a going to keep you, even, above an hour,' said Mrs Brown.
'D'ye understand what I say?'
The child answered with great difficulty, 'Yes.'
'Then,' said Good Mrs Brown, taking her own seat on the bones,
'don't vex me. If you don't, I tell you I won't hurt you. But if you
do, I'll kill you. I could have you killed at any time - even if you
was in your own bed at home. Now let's know who you are, and what you
are, and all about it.'
The old woman's threats and promises; the dread of giving her
offence; and the habit, unusual to a child, but almost natural to
Florence now, of being quiet, and repressing what she felt, and
feared, and hoped; enabled her to do this bidding, and to tell her
little history, or what she knew of it. Mrs Brown listened
attentively, until she had finished.
'So your name's Dombey, eh?' said Mrs Brown.
'I want that pretty frock, Miss Dombey,' said Good Mrs Brown, 'and
that little bonnet, and a petticoat or two, and anything else you can
spare. Come! Take 'em off.'
Florence obeyed, as fast as her trembling hands would allow;
keeping, all the while, a frightened eye on Mrs Brown. When she had
divested herself of all the articles of apparel mentioned by that
lady, Mrs B. examined them at leisure, and seemed tolerably well
satisfied with their quality and value.
'Humph!' she said, running her eyes over the child's slight figure,
'I don't see anything else - except the shoes. I must have the shoes,
Miss Dombey.'
Poor little Florence took them off with equal alacrity, only too
glad to have any more means of conciliation about her. The old woman
then produced some wretched substitutes from the bottom of the heap of
rags, which she turned up for that purpose; together with a girl's
cloak, quite worn out and very old; and the crushed remains of a
bonnet that had probably been picked up from some ditch or dunghill.
In this dainty raiment, she instructed Florence to dress herself; and
as such preparation seemed a prelude to her release, the child
complied with increased readiness, if possible.
In hurriedly putting on the bonnet, if that may be called a bonnet
which was more like a pad to carry loads on, she caught it in her hair
which grew luxuriantly, and could not immediately disentangle it. Good
Mrs Brown whipped out a large pair of scissors, and fell into an
unaccountable state of excitement.
'Why couldn't you let me be!' said Mrs Brown, 'when I was
contented? You little fool!'
'I beg your pardon. I don't know what I have done,' panted
Florence. 'I couldn't help it.'
'Couldn't help it!' cried Mrs Brown. 'How do you expect I can help
it? Why, Lord!' said the old woman, ruffling her curls with a furious
pleasure, 'anybody but me would have had 'em off, first of all.'
Florence was so relieved to find that it was only her hair and not her
head which Mrs Brown coveted, that she offered no resistance or
entreaty, and merely raised her mild eyes towards the face of that
good soul.
'If I hadn't once had a gal of my own - beyond seas now- that was
proud of her hair,' said Mrs Brown, 'I'd have had every lock of it.
She's far away, she's far away! Oho! Oho!'
Mrs Brown's was not a melodious cry, but, accompanied with a wild
tossing up of her lean arms, it was full of passionate grief, and
thrilled to the heart of Florence, whom it frightened more than ever.
It had its part, perhaps, in saving her curls; for Mrs Brown, after
hovering about her with the scissors for some moments, like a new kind
of butterfly, bade her hide them under the bonnet and let no trace of
them escape to tempt her. Having accomplished this victory over
herself, Mrs Brown resumed her seat on the bones, and smoked a very
short black pipe, mowing and mumbling all the time, as if she were
eating the stem.
When the pipe was smoked out, she gave the child a rabbit-skin to
carry, that she might appear the more like her ordinary companion, and
told her that she was now going to lead her to a public street whence
she could inquire her way to her friends. But she cautioned her, with
threats of summary and deadly vengeance in case of disobedience, not
to talk to strangers, nor to repair to her own home (which may have
been too near for Mrs Brown's convenience), but to her father's office
in the City; also to wait at the street corner where she would be
left, until the clock struck three. These directions Mrs Brown
enforced with assurances that there would be potent eyes and ears in
her employment cognizant of all she did; and these directions Florence
promised faithfully and earnestly to observe.
At length, Mrs Brown, issuing forth, conducted her changed and
ragged little friend through a labyrinth of narrow streets and lanes
and alleys, which emerged, after a long time, upon a stable yard, with
a gateway at the end, whence the roar of a great thoroughfare made
itself audible. Pointing out this gateway, and informing Florence that
when the clocks struck three she was to go to the left, Mrs Brown,
after making a parting grasp at her hair which seemed involuntary and
quite beyond her own control, told her she knew what to do, and bade
her go and do it: remembering that she was watched.
With a lighter heart, but still sore afraid, Florence felt herself
released, and tripped off to the corner. When she reached it, she
looked back and saw the head of Good Mrs Brown peeping out of the low
wooden passage, where she had issued her parting injunctions; likewise
the fist of Good Mrs Brown shaking towards her. But though she often
looked back afterwards - every minute, at least, in her nervous
recollection of the old woman - she could not see her again.
Florence remained there, looking at the bustle in the street, and
more and more bewildered by it; and in the meanwhile the clocks
appeared to have made up their minds never to strike three any more.
At last the steeples rang out three o'clock; there was one close by,
so she couldn't be mistaken; and - after often looking over her
shoulder, and often going a little way, and as often coming back
again, lest the all-powerful spies of Mrs Brown should take offence -
she hurried off, as fast as she could in her slipshod shoes, holding
the rabbit-skin tight in her hand.
All she knew of her father's offices was that they belonged to
Dombey and Son, and that that was a great power belonging to the City.
So she could only ask the way to Dombey and Son's in the City; and as
she generally made inquiry of children - being afraid to ask grown
people - she got very little satisfaction indeed. But by dint of
asking her way to the City after a while, and dropping the rest of her
inquiry for the present, she really did advance, by slow degrees,
towards the heart of that great region which is governed by the
terrible Lord Mayor.
Tired of walking, repulsed and pushed about, stunned by the noise
and confusion, anxious for her brother and the nurses, terrified by
what she had undergone, and the prospect of encountering her angry
father in such an altered state; perplexed and frightened alike by
what had passed, and what was passing, and what was yet before her;
Florence went upon her weary way with tearful eyes, and once or twice
could not help stopping to ease her bursting heart by crying bitterly.
But few people noticed her at those times, in the garb she wore: or if
they did, believed that she was tutored to excite compassion, and
passed on. Florence, too, called to her aid all the firmness and
self-reliance of a character that her sad experience had prematurely
formed and tried: and keeping the end she had in view steadily before
her, steadily pursued it.
It was full two hours later in the afternoon than when she had
started on this strange adventure, when, escaping from the clash and
clangour of a narrow street full of carts and waggons, she peeped into
a kind of wharf or landing-place upon the river-side, where there were
a great many packages, casks, and boxes, strewn about; a large pair of
wooden scales; and a little wooden house on wheels, outside of which,
looking at the neighbouring masts and boats, a stout man stood
whistling, with his pen behind his ear, and his hands in his pockets,
as if his day's work were nearly done.
'Now then! 'said this man, happening to turn round. 'We haven't got
anything for you, little girl. Be off!'
'If you please, is this the City?' asked the trembling daughter of
the Dombeys.
'Ah! It's the City. You know that well enough, I daresay. Be off!
We haven't got anything for you.'
'I don't want anything, thank you,' was the timid answer. 'Except
to know the way to Dombey and Son's.'
The man who had been strolling carelessly towards her, seemed
surprised by this reply, and looking attentively in her face,
rejoined:
'Why, what can you want with Dombey and Son's?'
'To know the way there, if you please.'
The man looked at her yet more curiously, and rubbed the back of
his head so hard in his wonderment that he knocked his own hat off.
'Joe!' he called to another man - a labourer- as he picked it up
and put it on again.
'Joe it is!' said Joe.
'Where's that young spark of Dombey's who's been watching the
shipment of them goods?'
'Just gone, by t'other gate,' said Joe.
'Call him back a minute.'
Joe ran up an archway, bawling as he went, and very soon returned
with a blithe-looking boy.
'You're Dombey's jockey, ain't you?' said the first man.
'I'm in Dombey's House, Mr Clark,' returned the boy.
'Look'ye here, then,' said Mr Clark.
Obedient to the indication of Mr Clark's hand, the boy approached
towards Florence, wondering, as well he might, what he had to do with
her. But she, who had heard what passed, and who, besides the relief
of so suddenly considering herself safe at her journey's end, felt
reassured beyond all measure by his lively youthful face and manner,
ran eagerly up to him, leaving one of the slipshod shoes upon the
ground and caught his hand in both of hers.
'I am lost, if you please!' said Florence.
'Lost!' cried the boy.
'Yes, I was lost this morning, a long way from here - and I have
had my clothes taken away, since - and I am not dressed in my own now
- and my name is Florence Dombey, my little brother's only sister -
and, oh dear, dear, take care of me, if you please!' sobbed Florence,
giving full vent to the childish feelings she had so long suppressed,
and bursting into tears. At the same time her miserable bonnet falling
off, her hair came tumbling down about her face: moving to speechless
admiration and commiseration, young Walter, nephew of Solomon Gills,
Ships' Instrument-maker in general.
Mr Clark stood rapt in amazement: observing under his breath, I
never saw such a start on this wharf before. Walter picked up the
shoe, and put it on the little foot as the Prince in the story might
have fitted Cinderella's slipper on. He hung the rabbit-skin over his
left arm; gave the right to Florence; and felt, not to say like
Richard Whittington - that is a tame comparison - but like Saint
George of England, with the dragon lying dead before him.
'Don't cry, Miss Dombey,' said Walter, in a transport of
enthusiasm.
'What a wonderful thing for me that I am here! You are as safe now
as if you were guarded by a whole boat's crew of picked men from a
man-of-war. Oh, don't cry.'
'I won't cry any more,' said Florence. 'I am only crying for joy.'
'Crying for joy!' thought Walter, 'and I'm the cause of it! Come
along, Miss Dombey. There's the other shoe off now! Take mine, Miss
Dombey.'
'No, no, no,' said Florence, checking him in the act of impetuously
pulling off his own. 'These do better. These do very well.'
'Why, to be sure,' said Walter, glancing at her foot, 'mine are a
mile too large. What am I thinking about! You never could walk in
mine! Come along, Miss Dombey. Let me see the villain who will dare
molest you now.'
So Walter, looking immensely fierce, led off Florence, looking very
happy; and they went arm-in-arm along the streets, perfectly
indifferent to any astonishment that their appearance might or did
excite by the way.
It was growing dark and foggy, and beginning to rain too; but they
cared nothing for this: being both wholly absorbed in the late
adventures of Florence, which she related with the innocent good faith
and confidence of her years, while Walter listened as if, far from the
mud and grease of Thames Street, they were rambling alone among the
broad leaves and tall trees of some desert island in the tropics - as
he very likely fancied, for the time, they were.
'Have we far to go?' asked Florence at last, lilting up her eyes to
her companion's face.
'Ah! By-the-bye,' said Walter, stopping, 'let me see; where are we?
Oh! I know. But the offices are shut up now, Miss Dombey. There's
nobody there. Mr Dombey has gone home long ago. I suppose we must go
home too? or, stay. Suppose I take you to my Uncle's, where I live -
it's very near here - and go to your house in a coach to tell them you
are safe, and bring you back some clothes. Won't that be best?'
'I think so,' answered Florence. 'Don't you? What do you think?'
As they stood deliberating in the street, a man passed them, who
glanced quickly at Walter as he went by, as if he recognised him; but
seeming to correct that first impression, he passed on without
stopping.
'Why, I think it's Mr Carker,' said Walter. 'Carker in our House.
Not Carker our Manager, Miss Dombey - the other Carker; the Junior -
Halloa! Mr Carker!'
'Is that Walter Gay?' said the other, stopping and returning. 'I
couldn't believe it, with such a strange companion.
As he stood near a lamp, listening with surprise to Walter's
hurried explanation, he presented a remarkable contrast to the two
youthful figures arm-in-arm before him. He was not old, but his hair
was white; his body was bent, or bowed as if by the weight of some
great trouble: and there were deep lines in his worn and melancholy
face. The fire of his eyes, the expression of his features, the very
voice in which he spoke, were all subdued and quenched, as if the
spirit within him lay in ashes. He was respectably, though very
plainly dressed, in black; but his clothes, moulded to the general
character of his figure, seemed to shrink and abase themselves upon
him, and to join in the sorrowful solicitation which the whole man
from head to foot expressed, to be left unnoticed, and alone in his
humility.
And yet his interest in youth and hopefulness was not extinguished
with the other embers of his soul, for he watched the boy's earnest
countenance as he spoke with unusual sympathy, though with an
inexplicable show of trouble and compassion, which escaped into his
looks, however hard he strove to hold it prisoner. When Walter, in
conclusion, put to him the question he had put to Florence, he still
stood glancing at him with the same expression, as if he had read some
fate upon his face, mournfully at variance with its present
brightness.
'What do you advise, Mr Carker?' said Walter, smiling. 'You always
give me good advice, you know, when you do speak to me. That's not
often, though.'
'I think your own idea is the best,' he answered: looking from
Florence to Walter, and back again.
'Mr Carker,' said Walter, brightening with a generous thought,
'Come! Here's a chance for you. Go you to Mr Dombey's, and be the
messenger of good news. It may do you some good, Sir. I'll remain at
home. You shall go.'
'I!' returned the other.
'Yes. Why not, Mr Carker?' said the boy.
He merely shook him by the hand in answer; he seemed in a manner
ashamed and afraid even to do that; and bidding him good-night, and
advising him to make haste, turned away.
'Come, Miss Dombey,' said Walter, looking after him as they turned
away also, 'we'll go to my Uncle's as quick as we can. Did you ever
hear Mr Dombey speak of Mr Carker the Junior, Miss Florence?'
'No,' returned the child, mildly, 'I don't often hear Papa speak.'
'Ah! true! more shame for him,' thought Walter. After a minute's
pause, during which he had been looking down upon the gentle patient
little face moving on at his side, he said, 'The strangest man, Mr
Carker the Junior is, Miss Florence, that ever you heard of. If you
could understand what an extraordinary interest he takes in me, and
yet how he shuns me and avoids me; and what a low place he holds in
our office, and how he is never advanced, and never complains, though
year after year he sees young men passed over his head, and though his
brother (younger than he is), is our head Manager, you would be as
much puzzled about him as I am.'
As Florence could hardly be expected to understand much about it,
Walter bestirred himself with his accustomed boyish animation and
restlessness to change the subject; and one of the unfortunate shoes
coming off again opportunely, proposed to carry Florence to his
uncle's in his arms. Florence, though very tired, laughingly declined
the proposal, lest he should let her fall; and as they were already
near the wooden Midshipman, and as Walter went on to cite various
precedents, from shipwrecks and other moving accidents, where younger
boys than he had triumphantly rescued and carried off older girls than
Florence, they were still in full conversation about it when they
arrived at the Instrument-maker's door.
'Holloa, Uncle Sol!' cried Walter, bursting into the shop, and
speaking incoherently and out of breath, from that time forth, for the
rest of the evening. 'Here's a wonderful adventure! Here's Mr Dombey's
daughter lost in the streets, and robbed of her clothes by an old
witch of a woman - found by me - brought home to our parlour to rest -
look here!'
'Good Heaven!' said Uncle Sol, starting back against his favourite
compass-case. 'It can't be! Well, I - '
'No, nor anybody else,' said Walter, anticipating the rest. 'Nobody
would, nobody could, you know. Here! just help me lift the little sofa
near the fire, will you, Uncle Sol - take care of the plates - cut
some dinner for her, will you, Uncle - throw those shoes under the
grate. Miss Florence - put your feet on the fender to dry - how damp
they are - here's an adventure, Uncle, eh? - God bless my soul, how
hot I am!'
Solomon Gills was quite as hot, by sympathy, and in excessive
bewilderment. He patted Florence's head, pressed her to eat, pressed
her to drink, rubbed the soles of her feet with his
pocket-handkerchief heated at the fire, followed his locomotive nephew
with his eyes, and ears, and had no clear perception of anything
except that he was being constantly knocked against and tumbled over
by that excited young gentleman, as he darted about the room
attempting to accomplish twenty things at once, and doing nothing at
all.
'Here, wait a minute, Uncle,' he continued, catching up a candle,
'till I run upstairs, and get another jacket on, and then I'll be off.
I say, Uncle, isn't this an adventure?'
'My dear boy,' said Solomon, who, with his spectacles on his
forehead and the great chronometer in his pocket, was incessantly
oscillating between Florence on the sofa, and his nephew in all parts
of the parlour, 'it's the most extraordinary - '
'No, but do, Uncle, please - do, Miss Florence - dinner, you know,
Uncle.'
'Yes, yes, yes,' cried Solomon, cutting instantly into a leg of
mutton, as if he were catering for a giant. 'I'll take care of her,
Wally! I understand. Pretty dear! Famished, of course. You go and get
ready. Lord bless me! Sir Richard Whittington thrice Lord Mayor of
London.'
Walter was not very long in mounting to his lofty garret and
descending from it, but in the meantime Florence, overcome by fatigue,
had sunk into a doze before the fire. The short interval of quiet,
though only a few minutes in duration, enabled Solomon Gills so far to
collect his wits as to make some little arrangements for her comfort,
and to darken the room, and to screen her from the blaze. Thus, when
the boy returned, she was sleeping peacefully.
'That's capital!' he whispered, giving Solomon such a hug that it
squeezed a new expression into his face. 'Now I'm off. I'll just take
a crust of bread with me, for I'm very hungry - and don't wake her,
Uncle Sol.'
'No, no,' said Solomon. 'Pretty child.'
'Pretty, indeed!' cried Walter. 'I never saw such a face, Uncle
Sol. Now I'm off.'
'That's right,' said Solomon, greatly relieved.
'I say, Uncle Sol,' cried Walter, putting his face in at the door.
'Here he is again,' said Solomon.
'How does she look now?'
'Quite happy,' said Solomon.
'That's famous! now I'm off.'
'I hope you are,' said Solomon to himself.
'I say, Uncle Sol,' cried Walter, reappearing at the door.
'Here he is again!' said Solomon.
'We met Mr Carker the Junior in the street, queerer than ever. He
bade me good-bye, but came behind us here - there's an odd thing! -
for when we reached the shop door, I looked round, and saw him going
quietly away, like a servant who had seen me home, or a faithful dog.
How does she look now, Uncle?'
'Pretty much the same as before, Wally,' replied Uncle Sol.
'That's right. Now I am off!'
And this time he really was: and Solomon Gills, with no appetite
for dinner, sat on the opposite side of the fire, watching Florence in
her slumber, building a great many airy castles of the most fantastic
architecture; and looking, in the dim shade, and in the close vicinity
of all the instruments, like a magician disguised in a Welsh wig and a
suit of coffee colour, who held the child in an enchanted sleep.
In the meantime, Walter proceeded towards Mr Dombey's house at a
pace seldom achieved by a hack horse from the stand; and yet with his
head out of window every two or three minutes, in impatient
remonstrance with the driver. Arriving at his journey's end, he leaped
out, and breathlessly announcing his errand to the servant, followed
him straight into the library, we there was a great confusion of
tongues, and where Mr Dombey, his sister, and Miss Tox, Richards, and
Nipper, were all congregated together.
'Oh! I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Walter, rushing up to him, 'but
I'm happy to say it's all right, Sir. Miss Dombey's found!'
The boy with his open face, and flowing hair, and sparkling eyes,
panting with pleasure and excitement, was wonderfully opposed to Mr
Dombey, as he sat confronting him in his library chair.
'I told you, Louisa, that she would certainly be found,' said Mr
Dombey, looking slightly over his shoulder at that lady, who wept in
company with Miss Tox. 'Let the servants know that no further steps
are necessary. This boy who brings the information, is young Gay, from
the office. How was my daughter found, Sir? I know how she was lost.'
Here he looked majestically at Richards. 'But how was she found? Who
found her?'
'Why, I believe I found Miss Dombey, Sir,' said Walter modestly,
'at least I don't know that I can claim the merit of having exactly
found her, Sir, but I was the fortunate instrument of - '
'What do you mean, Sir,' interrupted Mr Dombey, regarding the boy's
evident pride and pleasure in his share of the transaction with an
instinctive dislike, 'by not having exactly found my daughter, and by
being a fortunate instrument? Be plain and coherent, if you please.'
It was quite out of Walter's power to be coherent; but he rendered
himself as explanatory as he could, in his breathless state, and
stated why he had come alone.
'You hear this, girl?' said Mr Dombey sternly to the black-eyed.
'Take what is necessary, and return immediately with this young man to
fetch Miss Florence home. Gay, you will be rewarded to-morrow.
'Oh! thank you, Sir,' said Walter. 'You are very kind. I'm sure I
was not thinking of any reward, Sir.'
'You are a boy,' said Mr Dombey, suddenly and almost fiercely; 'and
what you think of, or affect to think of, is of little consequence.
You have done well, Sir. Don't undo it. Louisa, please to give the lad
some wine.'
Mr Dombey's glance followed Walter Gay with sharp disfavour, as he
left the room under the pilotage of Mrs Chick; and it may be that his
mind's eye followed him with no greater relish, as he rode back to his
Uncle's with Miss Susan Nipper.
There they found that Florence, much refreshed by sleep, had dined,
and greatly improved the acquaintance of Solomon Gills, with whom she
was on terms of perfect confidence and ease. The black-eyed (who had
cried so much that she might now be called the red-eyed, and who was
very silent and depressed) caught her in her arms without a word of
contradiction or reproach, and made a very hysterical meeting of it.
Then converting the parlour, for the nonce, into a private tiring
room, she dressed her, with great care, in proper clothes; and
presently led her forth, as like a Dombey as her natural
disqualifications admitted of her being made.
'Good-night!' said Florence, running up to Solomon. 'You have been
very good to me.
Old Sol was quite delighted, and kissed her like her grand-father.
'Good-night, Walter! Good-bye!' said Florence.
'Good-bye!' said Walter, giving both his hands.
'I'll never forget you,' pursued Florence. 'No! indeed I never
will. Good-bye, Walter!' In the innocence of her grateful heart, the
child lifted up her face to his. Walter, bending down his own, raised
it again, all red and burning; and looked at Uncle Sol, quite
sheepishly.
'Where's Walter?' 'Good-night, Walter!' 'Good-bye, Walter!' 'Shake
hands once more, Walter!' This was still Florence's cry, after she was
shut up with her little maid, in the coach. And when the coach at
length moved off, Walter on the door-step gaily turned the waving of
her handkerchief, while the wooden Midshipman behind him seemed, like
himself, intent upon that coach alone, excluding all the other passing
coaches from his observation.
In good time Mr Dombey's mansion was gained again, and again there
was a noise of tongues in the library. Again, too, the coach was
ordered to wait - 'for Mrs Richards,' one of Susan's fellow-servants
ominously whispered, as she passed with Florence.
The entrance of the lost child made a slight sensation, but not
much. Mr Dombey, who had never found her, kissed her once upon the
forehead, and cautioned her not to run away again, or wander anywhere
with treacherous attendants. Mrs Chick stopped in her lamentations on
the corruption of human nature, even when beckoned to the paths of
virtue by a Charitable Grinder; and received her with a welcome
something short of the reception due to none but perfect Dombeys. Miss
Tox regulated her feelings by the models before her. Richards, the
culprit Richards, alone poured out her heart in broken words of
welcome, and bowed herself over the little wandering head as if she
really loved it.
'Ah, Richards!' said Mrs Chick, with a sigh. 'It would have been
much more satisfactory to those who wish to think well of their fellow
creatures, and much more becoming in you, if you had shown some proper
feeling, in time, for the little child that is now going to be
prematurely deprived of its natural nourishment.
'Cut off,' said Miss Tox, in a plaintive whisper, 'from one common
fountain!'
'If it was ungrateful case,' said Mrs Chick, solemnly, 'and I had
your reflections, Richards, I should feel as if the Charitable
Grinders' dress would blight my child, and the education choke him.'
For the matter of that - but Mrs Chick didn't know it - he had been
pretty well blighted by the dress already; and as to the education,
even its retributive effect might be produced in time, for it was a
storm of sobs and blows.
'Louisa!' said Mr Dombey. 'It is not necessary to prolong these
observations. The woman is discharged and paid. You leave this house,
Richards, for taking my son - my son,' said Mr Dombey, emphatically
repeating these two words, 'into haunts and into society which are not
to be thought of without a shudder. As to the accident which befel
Miss Florence this morning, I regard that as, in one great sense, a
happy and fortunate circumstance; inasmuch as, but for that
occurrence, I never could have known - and from your own lips too - of
what you had been guilty. I think, Louisa, the other nurse, the young
person,' here Miss Nipper sobbed aloud, 'being so much younger, and
necessarily influenced by Paul's nurse, may remain. Have the goodness
to direct that this woman's coach is paid to' - Mr Dombey stopped and
winced - 'to Staggs's Gardens.'
Polly moved towards the door, with Florence holding to her dress,
and crying to her in the most pathetic manner not to go away. It was a
dagger in the haughty father's heart, an arrow in his brain, to see
how the flesh and blood he could not disown clung to this obscure
stranger, and he sitting by. Not that he cared to whom his daughter
turned, or from whom turned away. The swift sharp agony struck through
him, as he thought of what his son might do.
His son cried lustily that night, at all events. Sooth to say, poor
Paul had better reason for his tears than sons of that age often have,
for he had lost his second mother - his first, so far as he knew - by
a stroke as sudden as that natural affliction which had darkened the
beginning of his life. At the same blow, his sister too, who cried
herself to sleep so mournfully, had lost as good and true a friend.
But that is quite beside the question. Let us waste no words about it.
CHAPTER 7.
A Bird's-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox's Dwelling-place: also
of the State of Miss Tox's Affections
Miss Tox inhabited a dark little house that had been squeezed, at
some remote period of English History, into a fashionable
neighbourhood at the west end of the town, where it stood in the shade
like a poor relation of the great street round the corner, coldly
looked down upon by mighty mansions. It was not exactly in a court,
and it was not exactly in a yard; but it was in the dullest of
No-Thoroughfares, rendered anxious and haggard by distant double
knocks. The name of this retirement, where grass grew between the
chinks in the stone pavement, was Princess's Place; and in Princess's
Place was Princess's Chapel, with a tinkling bell, where sometimes as
many as five-and-twenty people attended service on a Sunday. The
Princess's Arms was also there, and much resorted to by splendid
footmen. A sedan chair was kept inside the railing before the
Princess's Arms, but it had never come out within the memory of man;
and on fine mornings, the top of every rail (there were
eight-and-forty, as Miss Tox had often counted) was decorated with a
pewter-pot.
There was another private house besides Miss Tox's in Princess's
Place: not to mention an immense Pair of gates, with an immense pair
of lion-headed knockers on them, which were never opened by any
chance, and were supposed to constitute a disused entrance to
somebody's stables. Indeed, there was a smack of stabling in the air
of Princess's Place; and Miss Tox's bedroom (which was at the back)
commanded a vista of Mews, where hostlers, at whatever sort of work
engaged, were continually accompanying themselves with effervescent
noises; and where the most domestic and confidential garments of
coachmen and their wives and families, usually hung, like Macbeth's
banners, on the outward walls.'
At this other private house in Princess's Place, tenanted by a
retired butler who had married a housekeeper, apartments were let
Furnished, to a single gentleman: to wit, a wooden-featured,
blue-faced Major, with his eyes starting out of his head, in whom Miss
Tox recognised, as she herself expressed it, 'something so truly
military;' and between whom and herself, an occasional interchange of
newspapers and pamphlets, and such Platonic dalliance, was effected
through the medium of a dark servant of the Major's who Miss Tox was
quite content to classify as a 'native,' without connecting him with
any geographical idea whatever.
Perhaps there never was a smaller entry and staircase, than the
entry and staircase of Miss Tox's house. Perhaps, taken altogether,
from top to bottom, it was the most inconvenient little house in
England, and the crookedest; but then, Miss Tox said, what a
situation! There was very little daylight to be got there in the
winter: no sun at the best of times: air was out of the question, and
traffic was walled out. Still Miss Tox said, think of the situation!
So said the blue-faced Major, whose eyes were starting out of his
head: who gloried in Princess's Place: and who delighted to turn the
conversation at his club, whenever he could, to something connected
with some of the great people in the great street round the corner,
that he might have the satisfaction of saying they were his
neighbours.
In short, with Miss Tox and the blue-faced Major, it was enough for
Princess's Place - as with a very small fragment of society, it is
enough for many a little hanger-on of another sort - to be well
connected, and to have genteel blood in its veins. It might be poor,
mean, shabby, stupid, dull. No matter. The great street round the
corner trailed off into Princess's Place; and that which of High
Holborn would have become a choleric word, spoken of Princess's Place
became flat blasphemy.
The dingy tenement inhabited by Miss Tox was her own; having been
devised and bequeathed to her by the deceased owner of the fishy eye
in the locket, of whom a miniature portrait, with a powdered head and
a pigtail, balanced the kettle-holder on opposite sides of the parlour
fireplace. The greater part of the furniture was of the powdered-head
and pig-tail period: comprising a plate-warmer, always languishing and
sprawling its four attenuated bow legs in somebody's way; and an
obsolete harpsichord, illuminated round the maker's name with a
painted garland of sweet peas. In any part of the house, visitors were
usually cognizant of a prevailing mustiness; and in warm weather Miss
Tox had been seen apparently writing in sundry chinks and crevices of
the wainscoat with the the wrong end of a pen dipped in spirits of
turpentine.
Although Major Bagstock had arrived at what is called in polite
literature, the grand meridian of life, and was proceeding on his
journey downhill with hardly any throat, and a very rigid pair of
jaw-bones, and long-flapped elephantine ears, and his eyes and
complexion in the state of artificial excitement already mentioned, he
was mightily proud of awakening an interest in Miss Tox, and tickled
his vanity with the fiction that she was a splendid woman who had her
eye on him. This he had several times hinted at the club: in connexion
with little jocularities, of which old Joe Bagstock, old Joey
Bagstock, old J. Bagstock, old Josh Bagstock, or so forth, was the
perpetual theme: it being, as it were, the Major's stronghold and
donjon-keep of light humour, to be on the most familiar terms with his
own name.
'Joey B., Sir,'the Major would say, with a flourish of his
walking-stick, 'is worth a dozen of you. If you had a few more of the
Bagstock breed among you, Sir, you'd be none the worse for it. Old
Joe, Sir, needn't look far for a wile even now, if he was on the
look-out; but he's hard-hearted, Sir, is Joe - he's tough, Sir, tough,
and de-vilish sly!' After such a declaration, wheezing sounds would be
heard; and the Major's blue would deepen into purple, while his eyes
strained and started convulsively.
Notwithstanding his very liberal laudation of himself, however, the
Major was selfish. It may be doubted whether there ever was a more
entirely selfish person at heart; or at stomach is perhaps a better
expression, seeing that he was more decidedly endowed with that latter
organ than with the former. He had no idea of being overlooked or
slighted by anybody; least of all, had he the remotest comprehension
of being overlooked and slighted by Miss Tox.
And yet, Miss Tox, as it appeared, forgot him - gradually forgot
him. She began to forget him soon after her discovery of the Toodle
family. She continued to forget him up to the time of the christening.
She went on forgetting him with compound interest after that.
Something or somebody had superseded him as a source of interest.
'Good morning, Ma'am,' said the Major, meeting Miss Tox in
Princess's Place, some weeks after the changes chronicled in the last
chapter.
'Good morning, Sir,' said Miss Tox; very coldly.
'Joe Bagstock, Ma'am,' observed the Major, with his usual
gallantry, 'has not had the happiness of bowing to you at your window,
for a considerable period. Joe has been hardly used, Ma'am. His sun
has been behind a cloud.'
Miss Tox inclined her head; but very coldly indeed.
'Joe's luminary has been out of town, Ma'am, perhaps,' inquired the
Major.
'I? out of town? oh no, I have not been out of town,' said Miss
Tox. 'I have been much engaged lately. My time is nearly all devoted
to some very intimate friends. I am afraid I have none to spare, even
now. Good morning, Sir!'
As Miss Tox, with her most fascinating step and carriage,
disappeared from Princess's Place, the Major stood looking after her
with a bluer face than ever: muttering and growling some not at all
complimentary remarks.
'Why, damme, Sir,' said the Major, rolling his lobster eyes round
and round Princess's Place, and apostrophizing its fragrant air, 'six
months ago, the woman loved the ground Josh Bagstock walked on. What's
the meaning of it?'
The Major decided, after some consideration, that it meant
mantraps; that it meant plotting and snaring; that Miss Tox was
digging pitfalls. 'But you won't catch Joe, Ma'am,' said the Major.
'He's tough, Ma'am, tough, is J.B. Tough, and de-vilish sly!' over
which reflection he chuckled for the rest of the day.
But still, when that day and many other days were gone and past, it
seemed that Miss Tox took no heed whatever of the Major, and thought
nothing at all about him. She had been wont, once upon a time, to look
out at one of her little dark windows by accident, and blushingly
return the Major's greeting; but now, she never gave the Major a
chance, and cared nothing at all whether he looked over the way or
not. Other changes had come to pass too. The Major, standing in the
shade of his own apartment, could make out that an air of greater
smartness had recently come over Miss Tox's house; that a new cage
with gilded wires had been provided for the ancient little canary
bird; that divers ornaments, cut out of coloured card-boards and
paper, seemed to decorate the chimney-piece and tables; that a plant
or two had suddenly sprung up in the windows; that Miss Tox
occasionally practised on the harpsichord, whose garland of sweet peas
was always displayed ostentatiously, crowned with the Copenhagen and
Bird Waltzes in a Music Book of Miss Tox's own copying.
Over and above all this, Miss Tox had long been dressed with
uncommon care and elegance in slight mourning. But this helped the
Major out of his difficulty; and be determined within himself that she
had come into a small legacy, and grown proud.
It was on the very next day after he had eased his mind by arriving
at this decision, that the Major, sitting at his breakfast, saw an
apparition so tremendous and wonderful in Miss Tox's little
drawing-room, that he remained for some time rooted to his chair;
then, rushing into the next room, returned with a double-barrelled
opera-glass, through which he surveyed it intently for some minutes.
'It's a Baby, Sir,' said the Major, shutting up the glass again,
'for fifty thousand pounds!'
The Major couldn't forget it. He could do nothing but whistle, and
stare to that extent, that his eyes, compared with what they now
became, had been in former times quite cavernous and sunken. Day after
day, two, three, four times a week, this Baby reappeared. The Major
continued to stare and whistle. To all other intents and purposes he
was alone in Princess's Place. Miss Tox had ceased to mind what he
did. He might have been black as well as blue, and it would have been
of no consequence to her.
The perseverance with which she walked out of Princess's Place to
fetch this baby and its nurse, and walked back with them, and walked
home with them again, and continually mounted guard over them; and the
perseverance with which she nursed it herself, and fed it, and played
with it, and froze its young blood with airs upon the harpsichord, was
extraordinary. At about this same period too, she was seized with a
passion for looking at a certain bracelet; also with a passion for
looking at the moon, of which she would take long observations from
her chamber window. But whatever she looked at; sun, moon, stars, or
bracelet; she looked no more at the Major. And the Major whistled, and
stared, and wondered, and dodged about his room, and could make
nothing of it.
'You'll quite win my brother Paul's heart, and that's the truth, my
dear,' said Mrs Chick, one day.
Miss Tox turned pale.
'He grows more like Paul every day,' said Mrs Chick.
Miss Tox returned no other reply than by taking the little Paul in
her arms, and making his cockade perfectly flat and limp with her
caresses.
'His mother, my dear,' said Miss Tox, 'whose acquaintance I was to
have made through you, does he at all resemble her?'
'Not at all,' returned Louisa
'She was - she was pretty, I believe?' faltered Miss Tox.
'Why, poor dear Fanny was interesting,' said Mrs Chick, after some
judicial consideration. 'Certainly interesting. She had not that air
of commanding superiority which one would somehow expect, almost as a
matter of course, to find in my brother's wife; nor had she that
strength and vigour of mind which such a man requires.'
Miss Tox heaved a deep sigh.
'But she was pleasing:' said Mrs Chick: 'extremely so. And she
meant! - oh, dear, how well poor Fanny meant!'
'You Angel!' cried Miss Tox to little Paul. 'You Picture of your
own Papa!'
If the Major could have known how many hopes and ventures, what a
multitude of plans and speculations, rested on that baby head; and
could have seen them hovering, in all their heterogeneous confusion
and disorder, round the puckered cap of the unconscious little Paul;
he might have stared indeed. Then would he have recognised, among the
crowd, some few ambitious motes and beams belonging to Miss Tox; then
would he perhaps have understood the nature of that lady's faltering
investment in the Dombey Firm.
If the child himself could have awakened in the night, and seen,
gathered about his cradle-curtains, faint reflections of the dreams
that other people had of him, they might have scared him, with good
reason. But he slumbered on, alike unconscious of the kind intentions
of Miss Tox, the wonder of the Major, the early sorrows of his sister,
and the stern visions of his father; and innocent that any spot of
earth contained a Dombey or a Son.
CHAPTER 8.
Paul's Further Progress, Growth and Character
Beneath the watching and attentive eyes of Time - so far another
Major - Paul's slumbers gradually changed. More and more light broke
in upon them; distincter and distincter dreams disturbed them; an
accumulating crowd of objects and impressions swarmed about his rest;
and so he passed from babyhood to childhood, and became a talking,
walking, wondering Dombey.
On the downfall and banishment of Richards, the nursery may be said
to have been put into commission: as a Public Department is sometimes,
when no individual Atlas can be found to support it The Commissioners
were, of course, Mrs Chick and Miss Tox: who devoted themselves to
their duties with such astonishing ardour that Major Bagstock had
every day some new reminder of his being forsaken, while Mr Chick,
bereft of domestic supervision, cast himself upon the gay world, dined
at clubs and coffee-houses, smelt of smoke on three different
occasions, went to the play by himself, and in short, loosened (as Mrs
Chick once told him) every social bond, and moral obligation.
Yet, in spite of his early promise, all this vigilance and care
could not make little Paul a thriving boy. Naturally delicate,
perhaps, he pined and wasted after the dismissal of his nurse, and,
for a long time, seemed but to wait his opportunity of gliding through
their hands, and seeking his lost mother. This dangerous ground in his
steeple-chase towards manhood passed, he still found it very rough
riding, and was grievously beset by all the obstacles in his course.
Every tooth was a break-neck fence, and every pimple in the measles a
stone wall to him. He was down in every fit of the hooping-cough, and
rolled upon and crushed by a whole field of small diseases, that came
trooping on each other's heels to prevent his getting up again. Some
bird of prey got into his throat instead of the thrush; and the very
chickens turning ferocious - if they have anything to do with that
infant malady to which they lend their name - worried him like
tiger-cats.
The chill of Paul's christening had struck home, perhaps to some
sensitive part of his nature, which could not recover itself in the
cold shade of his father; but he was an unfortunate child from that
day. Mrs Wickam often said she never see a dear so put upon.
Mrs Wickam was a waiter's wife - which would seem equivalent to
being any other man's widow - whose application for an engagement in
Mr Dombey's service had been favourably considered, on account of the
apparent impossibility of her having any followers, or anyone to
follow; and who, from within a day or two of Paul's sharp weaning, had
been engaged as his nurse. Mrs Wickam was a meek woman, of a fair
complexion, with her eyebrows always elevated, and her head always
drooping; who was always ready to pity herself, or to be pitied, or to
pity anybody else; and who had a surprising natural gift of viewing
all subjects in an utterly forlorn and pitiable light, and bringing
dreadful precedents to bear upon them, and deriving the greatest
consolation from the exercise of that talent.
It is hardly necessary to observe, that no touch of this quality
ever reached the magnificent knowledge of Mr Dombey. It would have
been remarkable, indeed, if any had; when no one in the house - not
even Mrs Chick or Miss Tox - dared ever whisper to him that there had,
on any one occasion, been the least reason for uneasiness in reference
to little Paul. He had settled, within himself, that the child must
necessarily pass through a certain routine of minor maladies, and that
the sooner he did so the better. If he could have bought him off, or
provided a substitute, as in the case of an unlucky drawing for the
militia, he would have been glad to do so, on liberal terms. But as
this was not feasible, he merely wondered, in his haughty-manner, now
and then, what Nature meant by it; and comforted himself with the
reflection that there was another milestone passed upon the road, and
that the great end of the journey lay so much the nearer. For the
feeling uppermost in his mind, now and constantly intensifying, and
increasing in it as Paul grew older, was impatience. Impatience for
the time to come, when his visions of their united consequence and
grandeur would be triumphantly realized.
Some philosophers tell us that selfishness is at the root of our
best loves and affections.' Mr Dombey's young child was, from the
beginning, so distinctly important to him as a part of his own
greatness, or (which is the same thing) of the greatness of Dombey and
Son, that there is no doubt his parental affection might have been
easily traced, like many a goodly superstructure of fair fame, to a
very low foundation. But he loved his son with all the love he had. If
there were a warm place in his frosty heart, his son occupied it; if
its very hard surface could receive the impression of any image, the
image of that son was there; though not so much as an infant, or as a
boy, but as a grown man - the 'Son' of the Firm. Therefore he was
impatient to advance into the future, and to hurry over the
intervening passages of his history. Therefore he had little or no
anxiety' about them, in spite of his love; feeling as if the boy had a
charmed life, and must become the man with whom he held such constant
communication in his thoughts, and for whom he planned and projected,
as for an existing reality, every day.
Thus Paul grew to be nearly five years old. He was a pretty little
fellow; though there was something wan and wistful in his small face,
that gave occasion to many significant shakes of Mrs Wickam's head,
and many long-drawn inspirations of Mrs Wickam's breath. His temper
gave abundant promise of being imperious in after-life; and he had as
hopeful an apprehension of his own importance, and the rightful
subservience of all other things and persons to it, as heart could
desire. He was childish and sportive enough at times, and not of a
sullen disposition; but he had a strange, old-fashioned, thoughtful
way, at other times, of sitting brooding in his miniature arm-chair,
when he looked (and talked) like one of those terrible little Beings
in the Fairy tales, who, at a hundred and fifty or two hundred years
of age, fantastically represent the children for whom they have been
substituted. He would frequently be stricken with this precocious mood
upstairs in the nursery; and would sometimes lapse into it suddenly,
exclaiming that he was tired: even while playing with Florence, or
driving Miss Tox in single harness. But at no time did he fall into it
so surely, as when, his little chair being carried down into his
father's room, he sat there with him after dinner, by the fire. They
were the strangest pair at such a time that ever firelight shone upon.
Mr Dombey so erect and solemn, gazing at the blare; his little image,
with an old, old face, peering into the red perspective with the fixed
and rapt attention of a sage. Mr Dombey entertaining complicated
worldly schemes and plans; the little image entertaining Heaven knows
what wild fancies, half-formed thoughts, and wandering speculations.
Mr Dombey stiff with starch and arrogance; the little image by
inheritance, and in unconscious imitation. The two so very much alike,
and yet so monstrously contrasted.
On one of these occasions, when they had both been perfectly quiet
for a long time, and Mr Dombey only knew that the child was awake by
occasionally glancing at his eye, where the bright fire was sparkling
like a jewel, little Paul broke silence thus:
'Papa! what's money?'
The abrupt question had such immediate reference to the subject of
Mr Dombey's thoughts, that Mr Dombey was quite disconcerted.
'What is money, Paul?' he answered. 'Money?'
'Yes,' said the child, laying his hands upon the elbows of his
little chair, and turning the old face up towards Mr Dombey's; 'what
is money?'
Mr Dombey was in a difficulty. He would have liked to give him some
explanation involving the terms circulating-medium, currency,
depreciation of currency', paper, bullion, rates of exchange, value of
precious metals in the market, and so forth; but looking down at the
little chair, and seeing what a long way down it was, he answered:
'Gold, and silver, and copper. Guineas, shillings, half-pence. You
know what they are?'
'Oh yes, I know what they are,' said Paul. 'I don't mean that,
Papa. I mean what's money after all?'
Heaven and Earth, how old his face was as he turned it up again
towards his father's!
'What is money after all!' said Mr Dombey, backing his chair a
little, that he might the better gaze in sheer amazement at the
presumptuous atom that propounded such an inquiry.
'I mean, Papa, what can it do?' returned Paul, folding his arms
(they were hardly long enough to fold), and looking at the fire, and
up at him, and at the fire, and up at him again.
Mr Dombey drew his chair back to its former place, and patted him
on the head. 'You'll know better by-and-by, my man,' he said. 'Money,
Paul, can do anything.' He took hold of the little hand, and beat it
softly against one of his own, as he said so.
But Paul got his hand free as soon as he could; and rubbing it
gently to and fro on the elbow of his chair, as if his wit were in the
palm, and he were sharpening it - and looking at the fire again, as
though the fire had been his adviser and prompter - repeated, after a
short pause:
'Anything, Papa?'
'Yes. Anything - almost,' said Mr Dombey.
'Anything means everything, don't it, Papa?' asked his son: not
observing, or possibly not understanding, the qualification.
'It includes it: yes,' said Mr Dombey.
'Why didn't money save me my Mama?' returned the child. 'It isn't
cruel, is it?'
'Cruel!' said Mr Dombey, settling his neckcloth, and seeming to
resent the idea. 'No. A good thing can't be cruel.'
'If it's a good thing, and can do anything,' said the little
fellow, thoughtfully, as he looked back at the fire, 'I wonder why it
didn't save me my Mama.'
He didn't ask the question of his father this time. Perhaps he had
seen, with a child's quickness, that it had already made his father
uncomfortable. But he repeated the thought aloud, as if it were quite
an old one to him, and had troubled him very much; and sat with his
chin resting on his hand, still cogitating and looking for an
explanation in the fire.
Mr Dombey having recovered from his surprise, not to say his alarm
(for it was the very first occasion on which the child had ever
broached the subject of his mother to him, though he had had him
sitting by his side, in this same manner, evening after evening),
expounded to him how that money, though a very potent spirit, never to
be disparaged on any account whatever, could not keep people alive
whose time was come to die; and how that we must all die,
unfortunately, even in the City, though we were never so rich. But how
that money caused us to be honoured, feared, respected, courted, and
admired, and made us powerful and glorious in the eyes of all men; and
how that it could, very often, even keep off death, for a long time
together. How, for example, it had secured to his Mama the services of
Mr Pilkins, by which be, Paul, had often profited himself; likewise of
the great Doctor Parker Peps, whom he had never known. And how it
could do all, that could be done. This, with more to the same purpose,
Mr Dombey instilled into the mind of his son, who listened
attentively, and seemed to understand the greater part of what was
said to him.
'It can't make me strong and quite well, either, Papa; can it?'
asked Paul, after a short silence; rubbing his tiny hands.
'Why, you are strong and quite well,' returned Mr Dombey. 'Are you
not?'
Oh! the age of the face that was turned up again, with an
expression, half of melancholy, half of slyness, on it!
'You are as strong and well as such little people usually are? Eh?'
said Mr Dombey.
'Florence is older than I am, but I'm not as strong and well as
Florence, 'I know,' returned the child; 'and I believe that when
Florence was as little as me, she could play a great deal longer at a
time without tiring herself. I am so tired sometimes,' said little
Paul, warming his hands, and looking in between the bars of the grate,
as if some ghostly puppet-show were performing there, 'and my bones
ache so (Wickam says it's my bones), that I don't know what to do.'
'Ay! But that's at night,' said Mr Dombey, drawing his own chair
closer to his son's, and laying his hand gently on his back; 'little
people should be tired at night, for then they sleep well.'
'Oh, it's not at night, Papa,' returned the child, 'it's in the
day; and I lie down in Florence's lap, and she sings to me. At night I
dream about such cu-ri-ous things!'
And he went on, warming his hands again, and thinking about them,
like an old man or a young goblin.
Mr Dombey was so astonished, and so uncomfortable, and so perfectly
at a loss how to pursue the conversation, that he could only sit
looking at his son by the light of the fire, with his hand resting on
his back, as if it were detained there by some magnetic attraction.
Once he advanced his other hand, and turned the contemplative face
towards his own for a moment. But it sought the fire again as soon as
he released it; and remained, addressed towards the flickering blaze,
until the nurse appeared, to summon him to bed.
'I want Florence to come for me,' said Paul.
'Won't you come with your poor Nurse Wickam, Master Paul?' inquired
that attendant, with great pathos.
'No, I won't,' replied Paul, composing himself in his arm-chair
again, like the master of the house.
Invoking a blessing upon his innocence, Mrs Wickam withdrew, and
presently Florence appeared in her stead. The child immediately
started up with sudden readiness and animation, and raised towards his
father in bidding him good-night, a countenance so much brighter, so
much younger, and so much more child-like altogether, that Mr Dombey,
while he felt greatly reassured by the change, was quite amazed at it.
After they had left the room together, he thought he heard a soft
voice singing; and remembering that Paul had said his sister sung to
him, he had the curiosity to open the door and listen, and look after
them. She was toiling up the great, wide, vacant staircase, with him
in her arms; his head was lying on her shoulder, one of his arms
thrown negligently round her neck. So they went, toiling up; she
singing all the way, and Paul sometimes crooning out a feeble
accompaniment. Mr Dombey looked after them until they reached the top
of the staircase - not without halting to rest by the way - and passed
out of his sight; and then he still stood gazing upwards, until the
dull rays of the moon, glimmering in a melancholy manner through the
dim skylight, sent him back to his room.
Mrs Chick and Miss Tox were convoked in council at dinner next day;
and when the cloth was removed, Mr Dombey opened the proceedings by
requiring to be informed, without any gloss or reservation, whether
there was anything the matter with Paul, and what Mr Pilkins said
about him.
'For the child is hardly,' said Mr Dombey, 'as stout as I could
wish.'
'My dear Paul,' returned Mrs Chick, 'with your usual happy
discrimination, which I am weak enough to envy you, every time I am in
your company; and so I think is Miss Tox
'Oh my dear!' said Miss Tox, softly, 'how could it be otherwise?
Presumptuous as it is to aspire to such a level; still, if the bird of
night may - but I'll not trouble Mr Dombey with the sentiment. It
merely relates to the Bulbul.'
Mr Dombey bent his head in stately recognition of the Bulbuls as an
old-established body.
'With your usual happy discrimination, my dear Paul,' resumed Mrs
Chick, 'you have hit the point at once. Our darling is altogether as
stout as we could wish. The fact is, that his mind is too much for
him. His soul is a great deal too large for his frame. I am sure the
way in which that dear child talks!'said Mrs Chick, shaking her head;
'no one would believe. His expressions, Lucretia, only yesterday upon
the subject of Funerals!
'I am afraid,' said Mr Dombey, interrupting her testily, 'that some
of those persons upstairs suggest improper subjects to the child. He
was speaking to me last night about his - about his Bones,' said Mr
Dombey, laying an irritated stress upon the word. 'What on earth has
anybody to do with the - with the - Bones of my son? He is not a
living skeleton, I suppose.
'Very far from it,' said Mrs Chick, with unspeakable expression.
'I hope so,' returned her brother. 'Funerals again! who talks to
the child of funerals? We are not undertakers, or mutes, or
grave-diggers, I believe.'
'Very far from it,' interposed Mrs Chick, with the same profound
expression as before.
'Then who puts such things into his head?' said Mr Dombey. 'Really
I was quite dismayed and shocked last night. Who puts such things into
his head, Louisa?'
'My dear Paul,' said Mrs Chick, after a moment's silence, 'it is of
no use inquiring. I do not think, I will tell you candidly that Wickam
is a person of very cheerful spirit, or what one would call a - '
'A daughter of Momus,' Miss Tox softly suggested.
'Exactly so,' said Mrs Chick; 'but she is exceedingly attentive and
useful, and not at all presumptuous; indeed I never saw a more
biddable woman. I would say that for her, if I was put upon my trial
before a Court of Justice.'
'Well! you are not put upon your trial before a Court of Justice,
at present, Louisa,' returned Mr Dombey, chafing,' and therefore it
don't matter.
'My dear Paul,' said Mrs Chick, in a warning voice, 'I must be
spoken to kindly, or there is an end of me,' at the same time a
premonitory redness developed itself in Mrs Chick's eyelids which was
an invariable sign of rain, unless the weather changed directly.
'I was inquiring, Louisa,' observed Mr Dombey, in an altered voice,
and after a decent interval, 'about Paul's health and actual state.
'If the dear child,' said Mrs Chick, in the tone of one who was
summing up what had been previously quite agreed upon, instead of
saying it all for the first time, 'is a little weakened by that last
attack, and is not in quite such vigorous health as we could wish; and
if he has some temporary weakness in his system, and does occasionally
seem about to lose, for the moment, the use of his - '
Mrs Chick was afraid to say limbs, after Mr Dombey's recent
objection to bones, and therefore waited for a suggestion from Miss
Tox, who, true to her office, hazarded 'members.'
'Members!' repeated Mr Dombey.
'I think the medical gentleman mentioned legs this morning, my dear
Louisa, did he not?' said Miss Tox.
'Why, of course he did, my love,' retorted Mrs Chick, mildly
reproachful. 'How can you ask me? You heard him. I say, if our dear
Paul should lose, for the moment, the use of his legs, these are
casualties common to many children at his time of life, and not to be
prevented by any care or caution. The sooner you understand that,
Paul, and admit that, the better. If you have any doubt as to the
amount of care, and caution, and affection, and self-sacrifice, that
has been bestowed upon little Paul, I should wish to refer the
question to your medical attendant, or to any of your dependants in
this house. Call Towlinson,' said Mrs Chick, 'I believe he has no
prejudice in our favour; quite the contrary. I should wish to hear
what accusation Towlinson can make!'
'Surely you must know, Louisa,' observed Mr Dombey, 'that I don't
question your natural devotion to, and regard for, the future head of
my house.'
'I am glad to hear it, Paul,' said Mrs Chick; 'but really you are
very odd, and sometimes talk very strangely, though without meaning
it, I know. If your dear boy's soul is too much for his body, Paul,
you should remember whose fault that is - who he takes after, I mean -
and make the best of it. He's as like his Papa as he can be. People
have noticed it in the streets. The very beadle, I am informed,
observed it, so long ago as at his christening. He's a very
respectable man, with children of his own. He ought to know.'
'Mr Pilkins saw Paul this morning, I believe?' said Mr Dombey.
'Yes, he did,' returned his sister. 'Miss Tox and myself were
present. Miss Tox and myself are always present. We make a point of
it. Mr Pilkins has seen him for some days past, and a very clever man
I believe him to be. He says it is nothing to speak of; which I can
confirm, if that is any consolation; but he recommended, to-day,
sea-air. Very wisely, Paul, I feel convinced.'
'Sea-air,' repeated Mr Dombey, looking at his sister.
'There is nothing to be made uneasy by, in that,'said Mrs Chick.
'My George and Frederick were both ordered sea-air, when they were
about his age; and I have been ordered it myself a great many times. I
quite agree with you, Paul, that perhaps topics may be incautiously
mentioned upstairs before him, which it would be as well for his
little mind not to expatiate upon; but I really don't see how that is
to be helped, in the case of a child of his quickness. If he were a
common child, there would be nothing in it. I must say I think, with
Miss Tox, that a short absence from this house, the air of Brighton,
and the bodily and mental training of so judicious a person as Mrs
Pipchin for instance - '
'Who is Mrs Pipchin, Louisa?' asked Mr Dombey; aghast at this
familiar introduction of a name he had never heard before.
'Mrs Pipchin, my dear Paul,' returned his sister, 'is an elderly
lady - Miss Tox knows her whole history - who has for some time
devoted all the energies of her mind, with the greatest success, to
the study and treatment of infancy, and who has been extremely well
connected. Her husband broke his heart in - how did you say her
husband broke his heart, my dear? I forget the precise circumstances.
'In pumping water out of the Peruvian Mines,' replied Miss Tox.
'Not being a Pumper himself, of course,' said Mrs Chick, glancing
at her brother; and it really did seem necessary to offer the
explanation, for Miss Tox had spoken of him as if he had died at the
handle; 'but having invested money in the speculation, which failed. I
believe that Mrs Pipchin's management of children is quite
astonishing. I have heard it commended in private circles ever since I
was - dear me - how high!' Mrs Chick's eye wandered about the bookcase
near the bust of Mr Pitt, which was about ten feet from the ground.
'Perhaps I should say of Mrs Pipchin, my dear Sir,' observed Miss
Tox, with an ingenuous blush, 'having been so pointedly referred to,
that the encomium which has been passed upon her by your sweet sister
is well merited. Many ladies and gentleman, now grown up to be
interesting members of society, have been indebted to her care. The
humble individual who addresses you was once under her charge. I
believe juvenile nobility itself is no stranger to her establishment.'
'Do I understand that this respectable matron keeps an
establishment, Miss Tox?' the Mr Dombey, condescendingly.
'Why, I really don't know,' rejoined that lady, 'whether I am
justified in calling it so. It is not a Preparatory School by any
means. Should I express my meaning,' said Miss Tox, with peculiar
sweetness,'if I designated it an infantine Boarding-House of a very
select description?'
'On an exceedingly limited and particular scale,' suggested Mrs
Chick, with a glance at her brother.
'Oh! Exclusion itself!' said Miss Tox.
There was something in this. Mrs Pipchin's husband having broken
his heart of the Peruvian mines was good. It had a rich sound.
Besides, Mr Dombey was in a state almost amounting to consternation at
the idea of Paul remaining where he was one hour after his removal had
been recommended by the medical practitioner. It was a stoppage and
delay upon the road the child must traverse, slowly at the best,
before the goal was reached. Their recommendation of Mrs Pipchin had
great weight with him; for he knew that they were jealous of any
interference with their charge, and he never for a moment took it into
account that they might be solicitous to divide a responsibility, of
which he had, as shown just now, his own established views. Broke his
heart of the Peruvian mines, mused Mr Dombey. Well! a very respectable
way of doing It.
'Supposing we should decide, on to-morrow's inquiries, to send Paul
down to Brighton to this lady, who would go with him?' inquired Mr
Dombey, after some reflection.
'I don't think you could send the child anywhere at present without
Florence, my dear Paul,' returned his sister, hesitating. 'It's quite
an infatuation with him. He's very young, you know, and has his
fancies.'
Mr Dombey turned his head away, and going slowly to the bookcase,
and unlocking it, brought back a book to read.
'Anybody else, Louisa?' he said, without looking up, and turning
over the leaves.
'Wickam, of course. Wickam would be quite sufficient, I should
say,' returned his sister. 'Paul being in such hands as Mrs Pipchin's,
you could hardly send anybody who would be a further check upon her.
You would go down yourself once a week at least, of course.'
'Of course,' said Mr Dombey; and sat looking at one page for an
hour afterwards, without reading one word.
This celebrated Mrs Pipchin was a marvellous ill-favoured,
ill-conditioned old lady, of a stooping figure, with a mottled face,
like bad marble, a hook nose, and a hard grey eye, that looked as if
it might have been hammered at on an anvil without sustaining any
injury. Forty years at least had elapsed since the Peruvian mines had
been the death of Mr Pipchin; but his relict still wore black
bombazeen, of such a lustreless, deep, dead, sombre shade, that gas
itself couldn't light her up after dark, and her presence was a
quencher to any number of candles. She was generally spoken of as 'a
great manager' of children; and the secret of her management was, to
give them everything that they didn't like, and nothing that they did
- which was found to sweeten their dispositions very much. She was
such a bitter old lady, that one was tempted to believe there had been
some mistake in the application of the Peruvian machinery, and that
all her waters of gladness and milk of human kindness, had been pumped
out dry, instead of the mines.
The Castle of this ogress and child-queller was in a steep
by-street at Brighton; where the soil was more than usually chalky,
flinty, and sterile, and the houses were more than usually brittle and
thin; where the small front-gardens had the unaccountable property of
producing nothing but marigolds, whatever was sown in them; and where
snails were constantly discovered holding on to the street doors, and
other public places they were not expected to ornament, with the
tenacity of cupping-glasses. In the winter time the air couldn't be
got out of the Castle, and in the summer time it couldn't be got in.
There was such a continual reverberation of wind in it, that it
sounded like a great shell, which the inhabitants were obliged to hold
to their ears night and day, whether they liked it or no. It was not,
naturally, a fresh-smelling house; and in the window of the front
parlour, which was never opened, Mrs Pipchin kept a collection of
plants in pots, which imparted an earthy flavour of their own to the
establishment. However choice examples of their kind, too, these
plants were of a kind peculiarly adapted to the embowerment of Mrs
Pipchin. There were half-a-dozen specimens of the cactus, writhing
round bits of lath, like hairy serpents; another specimen shooting out
broad claws, like a green lobster; several creeping vegetables,
possessed of sticky and adhesive leaves; and one uncomfortable
flower-pot hanging to the ceiling, which appeared to have boiled over,
and tickling people underneath with its long green ends, reminded them
of spiders - in which Mrs Pipchin's dwelling was uncommonly prolific,
though perhaps it challenged competition still more proudly, in the
season, in point of earwigs.
Mrs Pipchin's scale of charges being high, however, to all who
could afford to pay, and Mrs Pipchin very seldom sweetening the
equable acidity of her nature in favour of anybody, she was held to be
an old 'lady of remarkable firmness, who was quite scientific in her
knowledge of the childish character.' On this reputation, and on the
broken heart of Mr Pipchin, she had contrived, taking one year with
another, to eke out a tolerable sufficient living since her husband's
demise. Within three days after Mrs Chick's first allusion to her,
this excellent old lady had the satisfaction of anticipating a
handsome addition to her current receipts, from the pocket of Mr
Dombey; and of receiving Florence and her little brother Paul, as
inmates of the Castle.
Mrs Chick and Miss Tox, who had brought them down on the previous
night (which they all passed at an Hotel), had just driven away from
the door, on their journey home again; and Mrs Pipchin, with her back
to the fire, stood, reviewing the new-comers, like an old soldier. Mrs
Pipchin's middle-aged niece, her good-natured and devoted slave, but
possessing a gaunt and iron-bound aspect, and much afflicted with
boils on her nose, was divesting Master Bitherstone of the clean
collar he had worn on parade. Miss Pankey, the only other little
boarder at present, had that moment been walked off to the Castle
Dungeon (an empty apartment at the back, devoted to correctional
purposes), for having sniffed thrice, in the presence of visitors.
'Well, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin to Paul, 'how do you think you shall
like me?'
'I don't think I shall like you at all,' replied Paul. 'I want to
go away. This isn't my house.'
'No. It's mine,' retorted Mrs Pipchin.
'It's a very nasty one,' said Paul.
'There's a worse place in it than this though,' said Mrs Pipchin,
'where we shut up our bad boys.'
'Has he ever been in it?' asked Paul: pointing out Master
Bitherstone.
Mrs Pipchin nodded assent; and Paul had enough to do, for the rest
of that day, in surveying Master Bitherstone from head to foot, and
watching all the workings of his countenance, with the interest
attaching to a boy of mysterious and terrible experiences.
At one o'clock there was a dinner, chiefly of the farinaceous and
vegetable kind, when Miss Pankey (a mild little blue-eyed morsel of a
child, who was shampoo'd every morning, and seemed in danger of being
rubbed away, altogether) was led in from captivity by the ogress
herself, and instructed that nobody who sniffed before visitors ever
went to Heaven. When this great truth had been thoroughly impressed
upon her, she was regaled with rice; and subsequently repeated the
form of grace established in the Castle, in which there was a special
clause, thanking Mrs Pipchin for a good dinner. Mrs Pipchin's niece,
Berinthia, took cold pork. Mrs Pipchin, whose constitution required
warm nourishment, made a special repast of mutton-chops, which were
brought in hot and hot, between two plates, and smelt very nice.
As it rained after dinner, and they couldn't go out walking on the
beach, and Mrs Pipchin's constitution required rest after chops, they
went away with Berry (otherwise Berinthia) to the Dungeon; an empty
room looking out upon a chalk wall and a water-butt, and made ghastly
by a ragged fireplace without any stove in it. Enlivened by company,
however, this was the best place after all; for Berry played with them
there, and seemed to enjoy a game at romps as much as they did; until
Mrs Pipchin knocking angrily at the wall, like the Cock Lane Ghost'
revived, they left off, and Berry told them stories in a whisper until
twilight.
For tea there was plenty of milk and water, and bread and butter,
with a little black tea-pot for Mrs Pipchin and Berry, and buttered
toast unlimited for Mrs Pipchin, which was brought in, hot and hot,
like the chops. Though Mrs Pipchin got very greasy, outside, over this
dish, it didn't seem to lubricate her internally, at all; for she was
as fierce as ever, and the hard grey eye knew no softening.
After tea, Berry brought out a little work-box, with the Royal
Pavilion on the lid, and fell to working busily; while Mrs Pipchin,
having put on her spectacles and opened a great volume bound in green
baize, began to nod. And whenever Mrs Pipchin caught herself falling
forward into the fire, and woke up, she filliped Master Bitherstone on
the nose for nodding too.
At last it was the children's bedtime, and after prayers they went
to bed. As little Miss Pankey was afraid of sleeping alone in the
dark, Mrs Pipchin always made a point of driving her upstairs herself,
like a sheep; and it was cheerful to hear Miss Pankey moaning long
afterwards, in the least eligible chamber, and Mrs Pipchin now and
then going in to shake her. At about half-past nine o'clock the odour
of a warm sweet-bread (Mrs Pipchin's constitution wouldn't go to sleep
without sweet-bread) diversified the prevailing fragrance of the
house, which Mrs Wickam said was 'a smell of building;' and slumber
fell upon the Castle shortly after.
The breakfast next morning was like the tea over night, except that
Mrs Pipchin took her roll instead of toast, and seemed a little more
irate when it was over. Master Bitherstone read aloud to the rest a
pedigree from Genesis judiciously selected by Mrs Pipchin), getting
over the names with the ease and clearness of a person tumbling up the
treadmill. That done, Miss Pankey was borne away to be shampoo'd; and
Master Bitherstone to have something else done to him with salt water,
from which he always returned very blue and dejected. Paul and
Florence went out in the meantime on the beach with Wickam - who was
constantly in tears - and at about noon Mrs Pipchin presided over some
Early Readings. It being a part of Mrs Pipchin's system not to
encourage a child's mind to develop and expand itself like a young
flower, but to open it by force like an oyster, the moral of these
lessons was usually of a violent and stunning character: the hero - a
naughty boy - seldom, in the mildest catastrophe, being finished off
anything less than a lion, or a bear.
Such was life at Mrs Pipchin's. On Saturday Mr Dombey came down;
and Florence and Paul would go to his Hotel, and have tea They passed
the whole of Sunday with him, and generally rode out before dinner;
and on these occasions Mr Dombey seemed to grow, like Falstaff's
assailants, and instead of being one man in buckram, to become a
dozen. Sunday evening was the most melancholy evening in the week; for
Mrs Pipchin always made a point of being particularly cross on Sunday
nights. Miss Pankey was generally brought back from an aunt's at
Rottingdean, in deep distress; and Master Bitherstone, whose relatives
were all in India, and who was required to sit, between the services,
in an erect position with his head against the parlour wall, neither
moving hand nor foot, suffered so acutely in his young spirits that he
once asked Florence, on a Sunday night, if she could give him any idea
of the way back to Bengal.
But it was generally said that Mrs Pipchin was a woman of system
with children; and no doubt she was. Certainly the wild ones went home
tame enough, after sojourning for a few months beneath her hospitable
roof. It was generally said, too, that it was highly creditable of Mrs
Pipchin to have devoted herself to this way of life, and to have made
such a sacrifice of her feelings, and such a resolute stand against
her troubles, when Mr Pipchin broke his heart in the Peruvian mines.
At this exemplary old lady, Paul would sit staring in his little
arm-chair by the fire, for any length of time. He never seemed to know
what weariness was, when he was looking fixedly at Mrs Pipchin. He was
not fond of her; he was not afraid of her; but in those old, old moods
of his, she seemed to have a grotesque attraction for him. There he
would sit, looking at her, and warming his hands, and looking at her,
until he sometimes quite confounded Mrs Pipchin, Ogress as she was.
Once she asked him, when they were alone, what he was thinking about.
'You,' said Paul, without the least reserve.
'And what are you thinking about me?' asked Mrs Pipchin.
'I'm thinking how old you must be,' said Paul.
'You mustn't say such things as that, young gentleman,' returned
the dame. 'That'll never do.'
'Why not?' asked Paul.
'Because it's not polite,' said Mrs Pipchin, snappishly.
'Not polite?' said Paul.
'No.'
'It's not polite,' said Paul, innocently, 'to eat all the mutton
chops and toast, Wickam says.
'Wickam,' retorted Mrs Pipchin, colouring, 'is a wicked, impudent,
bold-faced hussy.'
'What's that?' inquired Paul.
'Never you mind, Sir,' retorted Mrs Pipchin. 'Remember the story of
the little boy that was gored to death by a mad bull for asking
questions.'
'If the bull was mad,' said Paul, 'how did he know that the boy had
asked questions? Nobody can go and whisper secrets to a mad bull. I
don't believe that story.
'You don't believe it, Sir?' repeated Mrs Pipchin, amazed.
'No,' said Paul.
'Not if it should happen to have been a tame bull, you little
Infidel?' said Mrs Pipchin.
As Paul had not considered the subject in that light, and had
founded his conclusions on the alleged lunacy of the bull, he allowed
himself to be put down for the present. But he sat turning it over in
his mind, with such an obvious intention of fixing Mrs Pipchin
presently, that even that hardy old lady deemed it prudent to retreat
until he should have forgotten the subject.
From that time, Mrs Pipchin appeared to have something of the same
odd kind of attraction towards Paul, as Paul had towards her. She
would make him move his chair to her side of the fire, instead of
sitting opposite; and there he would remain in a nook between Mrs
Pipchin and the fender, with all the light of his little face absorbed
into the black bombazeen drapery, studying every line and wrinkle of
her countenance, and peering at the hard grey eye, until Mrs Pipchin
was sometimes fain to shut it, on pretence of dozing. Mrs Pipchin had
an old black cat, who generally lay coiled upon the centre foot of the
fender, purring egotistically, and winking at the fire until the
contracted pupils of his eyes were like two notes of admiration. The
good old lady might have been - not to record it disrespectfully - a
witch, and Paul and the cat her two familiars, as they all sat by the
fire together. It would have been quite in keeping with the appearance
of the party if they had all sprung up the chimney in a high wind one
night, and never been heard of any more.
This, however, never came to pass. The cat, and Paul, and Mrs
Pipchin, were constantly to be found in their usual places after dark;
and Paul, eschewing the companionship of Master Bitherstone, went on
studying Mrs Pipchin, and the cat, and the fire, night after night, as
if they were a book of necromancy, in three volumes.
Mrs Wickam put her own construction on Paul's eccentricities; and
being confirmed in her low spirits by a perplexed view of chimneys
from the room where she was accustomed to sit, and by the noise of the
wind, and by the general dulness (gashliness was Mrs Wickam's strong
expression) of her present life, deduced the most dismal reflections
from the foregoing premises. It was a part of Mrs Pipchin's policy to
prevent her own 'young hussy' - that was Mrs Pipchin's generic name
for female servant - from communicating with Mrs Wickam: to which end
she devoted much of her time to concealing herself behind doors, and
springing out on that devoted maiden, whenever she made an approach
towards Mrs Wickam's apartment. But Berry was free to hold what
converse she could in that quarter, consistently with the discharge of
the multifarious duties at which she toiled incessantly from morning
to night; and to Berry Mrs Wickam unburdened her mind.
'What a pretty fellow he is when he's asleep!' said Berry, stopping
to look at Paul in bed, one night when she took up Mrs Wickam's
supper.
'Ah!' sighed Mrs Wickam. 'He need be.'
'Why, he's not ugly when he's awake,' observed Berry.
'No, Ma'am. Oh, no. No more was my Uncle's Betsey Jane,' said Mrs
Wickam.
Berry looked as if she would like to trace the connexion of ideas
between Paul Dombey and Mrs Wickam's Uncle's Betsey Jane
'My Uncle's wife,' Mrs Wickam went on to say, 'died just like his
Mama. My Uncle's child took on just as Master Paul do.'
'Took on! You don't think he grieves for his Mama, sure?' argued
Berry, sitting down on the side of the bed. 'He can't remember
anything about her, you know, Mrs Wickam. It's not possible.'
'No, Ma'am,' said Mrs Wickam 'No more did my Uncle's child. But my
Uncle's child said very strange things sometimes, and looked very
strange, and went on very strange, and was very strange altogether. My
Uncle's child made people's blood run cold, some times, she did!'
'How?' asked Berry.
'I wouldn't have sat up all night alone with Betsey Jane!' said Mrs
Wickam, 'not if you'd have put Wickam into business next morning for
himself. I couldn't have done it, Miss Berry.
Miss Berry naturally asked why not? But Mrs Wickam, agreeably to
the usage of some ladies in her condition, pursued her own branch of
the subject, without any compunction.
'Betsey Jane,' said Mrs Wickam, 'was as sweet a child as I could
wish to see. I couldn't wish to see a sweeter. Everything that a child
could have in the way of illnesses, Betsey Jane had come through. The
cramps was as common to her,' said Mrs Wickam, 'as biles is to
yourself, Miss Berry.' Miss Berry involuntarily wrinkled her nose.
'But Betsey Jane,' said Mrs Wickam, lowering her voice, and looking
round the room, and towards Paul in bed, 'had been minded, in her
cradle, by her departed mother. I couldn't say how, nor I couldn't say
when, nor I couldn't say whether the dear child knew it or not, but
Betsey Jane had been watched by her mother, Miss Berry!' and Mrs
Wickam, with a very white face, and with watery eyes, and with a
tremulous voice, again looked fearfully round the room, and towards
Paul in bed.
'Nonsense!' cried Miss Berry - somewhat resentful of the idea.
'You may say nonsense! I ain't offended, Miss. I hope you may be
able to think in your own conscience that it is nonsense; you'll find
your spirits all the better for it in this - you'll excuse my being so
free - in this burying-ground of a place; which is wearing of me down.
Master Paul's a little restless in his sleep. Pat his back, if you
please.'
'Of course you think,' said Berry, gently doing what she was asked,
'that he has been nursed by his mother, too?'
'Betsey Jane,' returned Mrs Wickam in her most solemn tones, 'was
put upon as that child has been put upon, and changed as that child
has changed. I have seen her sit, often and often, think, think,
thinking, like him. I have seen her look, often and often, old, old,
old, like him. I have heard her, many a time, talk just like him. I
consider that child and Betsey Jane on the same footing entirely, Miss
Berry.'
'Is your Uncle's child alive?' asked Berry.
'Yes, Miss, she is alive,' returned Mrs Wickam with an air of
triumph, for it was evident. Miss Berry expected the reverse; 'and is
married to a silver-chaser. Oh yes, Miss, SHE is alive,' said Mrs
Wickam, laying strong stress on her nominative case.
It being clear that somebody was dead, Mrs Pipchin's niece inquired
who it was.
'I wouldn't wish to make you uneasy,' returned Mrs Wickam, pursuing
her supper. Don't ask me.'
This was the surest way of being asked again. Miss Berry repeated
her question, therefore; and after some resistance, and reluctance,
Mrs Wickam laid down her knife, and again glancing round the room and
at Paul in bed, replied:
'She took fancies to people; whimsical fancies, some of them;
others, affections that one might expect to see - only stronger than
common. They all died.'
This was so very unexpected and awful to Mrs Pipchin's niece, that
she sat upright on the hard edge of the bedstead, breathing short, and
surveying her informant with looks of undisguised alarm.
Mrs Wickam shook her left fore-finger stealthily towards the bed
where Florence lay; then turned it upside down, and made several
emphatic points at the floor; immediately below which was the parlour
in which Mrs Pipchin habitually consumed the toast.
'Remember my words, Miss Berry,' said Mrs Wickam, 'and be thankful
that Master Paul is not too fond of you. I am, that he's not too fond
of me, I assure you; though there isn't much to live for - you'll
excuse my being so free - in this jail of a house!'
Miss Berry's emotion might have led to her patting Paul too hard on
the back, or might have produced a cessation of that soothing
monotony, but he turned in his bed just now, and, presently awaking,
sat up in it with his hair hot and wet from the effects of some
childish dream, and asked for Florence.
She was out of her own bed at the first sound of his voice; and
bending over his pillow immediately, sang him to sleep again. Mrs
Wickam shaking her head, and letting fall several tears, pointed out
the little group to Berry, and turned her eyes up to the ceiling.
'He's asleep now, my dear,' said Mrs Wickam after a pause, 'you'd
better go to bed again. Don't you feel cold?'
'No, nurse,' said Florence, laughing. 'Not at all.'
'Ah!' sighed Mrs Wickam, and she shook her head again, expressing
to the watchful Berry, 'we shall be cold enough, some of us, by and
by!'
Berry took the frugal supper-tray, with which Mrs Wickam had by
this time done, and bade her good-night.
'Good-night, Miss!' returned Wickam softly. 'Good-night! Your aunt
is an old lady, Miss Berry, and it's what you must have looked for,
often.'
This consolatory farewell, Mrs Wickam accompanied with a look of
heartfelt anguish; and being left alone with the two children again,
and becoming conscious that the wind was blowing mournfully, she
indulged in melancholy - that cheapest and most accessible of luxuries
- until she was overpowered by slumber.
Although the niece of Mrs Pipchin did not expect to find that
exemplary dragon prostrate on the hearth-rug when she went downstairs,
she was relieved to find her unusually fractious and severe, and with
every present appearance of intending to live a long time to be a
comfort to all who knew her. Nor had she any symptoms of declining, in
the course of the ensuing week, when the constitutional viands still
continued to disappear in regular succession, notwithstanding that
Paul studied her as attentively as ever, and occupied his usual seat
between the black skirts and the fender, with unwavering constancy.
But as Paul himself was no stronger at the expiration of that time
than he had been on his first arrival, though he looked much healthier
in the face, a little carriage was got for him, in which he could lie
at his ease, with an alphabet and other elementary works of reference,
and be wheeled down to the sea-side. Consistent in his odd tastes, the
child set aside a ruddy-faced lad who was proposed as the drawer of
this carriage, and selected, instead, his grandfather - a weazen, old,
crab-faced man, in a suit of battered oilskin, who had got tough and
stringy from long pickling in salt water, and who smelt like a weedy
sea-beach when the tide is out.
With this notable attendant to pull him along, and Florence always
walking by his side, and the despondent Wickam bringing up the rear,
he went down to the margin of the ocean every day; and there he would
sit or lie in his carriage for hours together: never so distressed as
by the company of children - Florence alone excepted, always.
'Go away, if you please,' he would say to any child who came to
bear him company. Thank you, but I don't want you.'
Some small voice, near his ear, would ask him how he was, perhaps.
'I am very well, I thank you,' he would answer. 'But you had better
go and play, if you please.'
Then he would turn his head, and watch the child away, and say to
Florence, 'We don't want any others, do we? Kiss me, Floy.'
He had even a dislike, at such times, to the company of Wickam, and
was well pleased when she strolled away, as she generally did, to pick
up shells and acquaintances. His favourite spot was quite a lonely
one, far away from most loungers; and with Florence sitting by his
side at work, or reading to him, or talking to him, and the wind
blowing on his face, and the water coming up among the wheels of his
bed, he wanted nothing more.
'Floy,' he said one day, 'where's India, where that boy's friends
live?'
'Oh, it's a long, long distance off,' said Florence, raising her
eyes from her work.
'Weeks off?' asked Paul.
'Yes dear. Many weeks' journey, night and day.'
'If you were in India, Floy,' said Paul, after being silent for a
minute, 'I should - what is it that Mama did? I forget.'
'Loved me!' answered Florence.
'No, no. Don't I love you now, Floy? What is it? - Died. in you
were in India, I should die, Floy.'
She hurriedly put her work aside, and laid her head down on his
pillow, caressing him. And so would she, she said, if he were there.
He would be better soon.
'Oh! I am a great deal better now!' he answered. 'I don't mean
that. I mean that I should die of being so sorry and so lonely, Floy!'
Another time, in the same place, he fell asleep, and slept quietly
for a long time. Awaking suddenly, he listened, started up, and sat
listening.
Florence asked him what he thought he heard.
'I want to know what it says,' he answered, looking steadily in her
face. 'The sea' Floy, what is it that it keeps on saying?'
She told him that it was only the noise of the rolling waves.
'Yes, yes,' he said. 'But I know that they are always saying
something. Always the same thing. What place is over there?' He rose
up, looking eagerly at the horizon.
She told him that there was another country opposite, but he said
he didn't mean that: he meant further away - farther away!
Very often afterwards, in the midst of their talk, he would break
off, to try to understand what it was that the waves were always
saying; and would rise up in his couch to look towards that invisible
region, far away.
CHAPTER 9.
In which the Wooden Midshipman gets into Trouble
That spice of romance and love of the marvellous, of which there
was a pretty strong infusion in the nature of young Walter Gay, and
which the guardianship of his Uncle, old Solomon Gills, had not very
much weakened by the waters of stern practical experience, was the
occasion of his attaching an uncommon and delightful interest to the
adventure of Florence with Good Mrs Brown. He pampered and cherished
it in his memory, especially that part of it with which he had been
associated: until it became the spoiled child of his fancy, and took
its own way, and did what it liked with it.
The recollection of those incidents, and his own share in them, may
have been made the more captivating, perhaps, by the weekly dreamings
of old Sol and Captain Cuttle on Sundays. Hardly a Sunday passed,
without mysterious references being made by one or other of those
worthy chums to Richard Whittington; and the latter gentleman had even
gone so far as to purchase a ballad of considerable antiquity, that
had long fluttered among many others, chiefly expressive of maritime
sentiments, on a dead wall in the Commercial Road: which poetical
performance set forth the courtship and nuptials of a promising young
coal-whipper with a certain 'lovely Peg,' the accomplished daughter of
the master and part-owner of a Newcastle collier. In this stirring
legend, Captain Cuttle descried a profound metaphysical bearing on the
case of Walter and Florence; and it excited him so much, that on very
festive occasions, as birthdays and a few other non-Dominical
holidays, he would roar through the whole song in the little back
parlour; making an amazing shake on the word Pe-e-eg, with which every
verse concluded, in compliment to the heroine of the piece.
But a frank, free-spirited, open-hearted boy, is not much given to
analysing the nature of his own feelings, however strong their hold
upon him: and Walter would have found it difficult to decide this
point. He had a great affection for the wharf where he had encountered
Florence, and for the streets (albeit not enchanting in themselves) by
which they had come home. The shoes that had so often tumbled off by
the way, he preserved in his own room; and, sitting in the little back
parlour of an evening, he had drawn a whole gallery of fancy portraits
of Good Mrs Brown. It may be that he became a little smarter in his
dress after that memorable occasion; and he certainly liked in his
leisure time to walk towards that quarter of the town where Mr
Dombey's house was situated, on the vague chance of passing little
Florence in the street. But the sentiment of all this was as boyish
and innocent as could be. Florence was very pretty, and it is pleasant
to admire a pretty face. Florence was defenceless and weak, and it was
a proud thought that he had been able to render her any protection and
assistance. Florence was the most grateful little creature in the
world, and it was delightful to see her bright gratitude beaming in
her face. Florence was neglected and coldly looked upon, and his
breast was full of youthful interest for the slighted child in her
dull, stately home.
Thus it came about that, perhaps some half-a-dozen times in the
course of the year, Walter pulled off his hat to Florence in the
street, and Florence would stop to shake hands. Mrs Wickam (who, with
a characteristic alteration of his name, invariably spoke of him as
'Young Graves') was so well used to this, knowing the story of their
acquaintance, that she took no heed of it at all. Miss Nipper, on the
other hand, rather looked out for these occasions: her sensitive young
heart being secretly propitiated by Walter's good looks, and inclining
to the belief that its sentiments were responded to.
In this way, Walter, so far from forgetting or losing sight of his
acquaintance with Florence, only remembered it better and better. As
to its adventurous beginning, and all those little circumstances which
gave it a distinctive character and relish, he took them into account,
more as a pleasant story very agreeable to his imagination, and not to
be dismissed from it, than as a part of any matter of fact with which
he was concerned. They set off Florence very much, to his fancy; but
not himself. Sometimes he thought (and then he walked very fast) what
a grand thing it would have been for him to have been going to sea on
the day after that first meeting, and to have gone, and to have done
wonders there, and to have stopped away a long time, and to have come
back an Admiral of all the colours of the dolphin, or at least a
Post-Captain with epaulettes of insupportable brightness, and have
married Florence (then a beautiful young woman) in spite of Mr
Dombey's teeth, cravat, and watch-chain, and borne her away to the
blue shores of somewhere or other, triumphantly. But these flights of
fancy seldom burnished the brass plate of Dombey and Son's Offices
into a tablet of golden hope, or shed a brilliant lustre on their
dirty skylights; and when the Captain and Uncle Sol talked about
Richard Whittington and masters' daughters, Walter felt that he
understood his true position at Dombey and Son's, much better than
they did.
So it was that he went on doing what he had to do from day to day,
in a cheerful, pains-taking, merry spirit; and saw through the
sanguine complexion of Uncle Sol and Captain Cuttle; and yet
entertained a thousand indistinct and visionary fancies of his own, to
which theirs were work-a-day probabilities. Such was his condition at
the Pipchin period, when he looked a little older than of yore, but
not much; and was the same light-footed, light-hearted, light-headed
lad, as when he charged into the parlour at the head of Uncle Sol and
the imaginary boarders, and lighted him to bring up the Madeira.
'Uncle Sol,' said Walter, 'I don't think you're well. You haven't
eaten any breakfast. I shall bring a doctor to you, if you go on like
this.'
'He can't give me what I want, my boy,' said Uncle Sol. 'At least
he is in good practice if he can - and then he wouldn't.'
'What is it, Uncle? Customers?'
'Ay,' returned Solomon, with a sigh. 'Customers would do.'
'Confound it, Uncle!' said Walter, putting down his breakfast cup
with a clatter, and striking his hand on the table: 'when I see the
people going up and down the street in shoals all day, and passing and
re-passing the shop every minute, by scores, I feel half tempted to
rush out, collar somebody, bring him in, and make him buy fifty
pounds' worth of instruments for ready money. What are you looking in
at the door for? - ' continued Walter, apostrophizing an old gentleman
with a powdered head (inaudibly to him of course), who was staring at
a ship's telescope with all his might and main. 'That's no use. I
could do that. Come in and buy it!'
The old gentleman, however, having satiated his curiosity, walked
calmly away.
'There he goes!' said Walter. 'That's the way with 'em all. But,
Uncle - I say, Uncle Sol' - for the old man was meditating and had not
responded to his first appeal. 'Don't be cast down. Don't be out of
spirits, Uncle. When orders do come, they'll come in such a crowd, you
won't be able to execute 'em.'
'I shall be past executing 'em, whenever they come, my boy,'
returned Solomon Gills. 'They'll never come to this shop again, till I
am out of t.'
'I say, Uncle! You musn't really, you know!' urged Walter. 'Don't!'
Old Sol endeavoured to assume a cheery look, and smiled across the
little table at him as pleasantly as he could.
'There's nothing more than usual the matter; is there, Uncle?' said
Walter, leaning his elbows on the tea tray, and bending over, to speak
the more confidentially and kindly. 'Be open with me, Uncle, if there
is, and tell me all about it.'
'No, no, no,' returned Old Sol. 'More than usual? No, no. What
should there be the matter more than usual?'
Walter answered with an incredulous shake of his head. 'That's what
I want to know,' he said, 'and you ask me! I'll tell you what, Uncle,
when I see you like this, I am quite sorry that I live with you.'
Old Sol opened his eyes involuntarily.
'Yes. Though nobody ever was happier than I am and always have been
with you, I am quite sorry that I live with you, when I see you with
anything in your mind.'
'I am a little dull at such times, I know,' observed Solomon,
meekly rubbing his hands.
'What I mean, Uncle Sol,' pursued Walter, bending over a little
more to pat him on the shoulder, 'is, that then I feel you ought to
have, sitting here and pouring out the tea instead of me, a nice
little dumpling of a wife, you know, - a comfortable, capital, cosy
old lady, who was just a match for you, and knew how to manage you,
and keep you in good heart. Here am I, as loving a nephew as ever was
(I am sure I ought to be!) but I am only a nephew, and I can't be such
a companion to you when you're low and out of sorts as she would have
made herself, years ago, though I'm sure I'd give any money if I could
cheer you up. And so I say, when I see you with anything on your mind,
that I feel quite sorry you haven't got somebody better about you than
a blundering young rough-and-tough boy like me, who has got the will
to console you, Uncle, but hasn't got the way - hasn't got the way,'
repeated Walter, reaching over further yet, to shake his Uncle by the
hand.
'Wally, my dear boy,' said Solomon, 'if the cosy little old lady
had taken her place in this parlour five and forty years ago, I never
could have been fonder of her than I am of you.'
'I know that, Uncle Sol,' returned Walter. 'Lord bless you, I know
that. But you wouldn't have had the whole weight of any uncomfortable
secrets if she had been with you, because she would have known how to
relieve you of 'em, and I don't.'
'Yes, yes, you do,' returned the Instrument-maker.
'Well then, what's the matter, Uncle Sol?' said Walter, coaxingly.
'Come! What's the matter?'
Solomon Gills persisted that there was nothing the matter; and
maintained it so resolutely, that his nephew had no resource but to
make a very indifferent imitation of believing him.
'All I can say is, Uncle Sol, that if there is - '
'But there isn't,' said Solomon.
'Very well,, said Walter. 'Then I've no more to say; and that's
lucky, for my time's up for going to business. I shall look in
by-and-by when I'm out, to see how you get on, Uncle. And mind, Uncle!
I'll never believe you again, and never tell you anything more about
Mr Carker the Junior, if I find out that you have been deceiving me!'
Solomon Gills laughingly defied him to find out anything of the
kind; and Walter, revolving in his thoughts all sorts of impracticable
ways of making fortunes and placing the wooden Midshipman in a
position of independence, betook himself to the offices of Dombey and
Son with a heavier countenance than he usually carried there.
There lived in those days, round the corner - in Bishopsgate Street
Without - one Brogley, sworn broker and appraiser, who kept a shop
where every description of second-hand furniture was exhibited in the
most uncomfortable aspect, and under circumstances and in combinations
the most completely foreign to its purpose. Dozens of chairs hooked on
to washing-stands, which with difficulty poised themselves on the
shoulders of sideboards, which in their turn stood upon the wrong side
of dining-tables, gymnastic with their legs upward on the tops of
other dining-tables, were among its most reasonable arrangements. A
banquet array of dish-covers, wine-glasses, and decanters was
generally to be seen, spread forth upon the bosom of a four-post
bedstead, for the entertainment of such genial company as half-a-dozen
pokers, and a hall lamp. A set of window curtains with no windows
belonging to them, would be seen gracefully draping a barricade of
chests of drawers, loaded with little jars from chemists' shops; while
a homeless hearthrug severed from its natural companion the fireside,
braved the shrewd east wind in its adversity, and trembled in
melancholy accord with the shrill complainings of a cabinet piano,
wasting away, a string a day, and faintly resounding to the noises of
the street in its jangling and distracted brain. Of motionless clocks
that never stirred a finger, and seemed as incapable of being
successfully wound up, as the pecuniary affairs of their former
owners, there was always great choice in Mr Brogley's shop; and
various looking-glasses, accidentally placed at compound interest of
reflection and refraction, presented to the eye an eternal perspective
of bankruptcy and ruin.
Mr Brogley himself was a moist-eyed, pink-complexioned,
crisp-haired man, of a bulky figure and an easy temper - for that
class of Caius Marius who sits upon the ruins of other people's
Carthages, can keep up his spirits well enough. He had looked in at
Solomon's shop sometimes, to ask a question about articles in
Solomon's way of business; and Walter knew him sufficiently to give
him good day when they met in the street. But as that was the extent
of the broker's acquaintance with Solomon Gills also, Walter was not a
little surprised when he came back in the course of the forenoon,
agreeably to his promise, to find Mr Brogley sitting in the back
parlour with his hands in his pockets, and his hat hanging up behind
the door.
'Well, Uncle Sol!' said Walter. The old man was sitting ruefully on
the opposite side of the table, with his spectacles over his eyes, for
a wonder, instead of on his forehead. 'How are you now?'
Solomon shook his head, and waved one hand towards the broker, as
introducing him.
'Is there anything the matter?' asked Walter, with a catching in
his breath.
'No, no. There's nothing the matter, said Mr Brogley. 'Don't let it
put you out of the way.' Walter looked from the broker to his Uncle in
mute amazement. 'The fact is,' said Mr Brogley, 'there's a little
payment on a bond debt - three hundred and seventy odd, overdue: and
I'm in possession.'
'In possession!' cried Walter, looking round at the shop.
'Ah!' said Mr Brogley, in confidential assent, and nodding his head
as if he would urge the advisability of their all being comfortable
together. 'It's an execution. That's what it is. Don't let it put you
out of the way. I come myself, because of keeping it quiet and
sociable. You know me. It's quite private.'
'Uncle Sol!' faltered Walter.
'Wally, my boy,' returned his uncle. 'It's the first time. Such a
calamity never happened to me before. I'm an old man to begin.'
Pushing up his spectacles again (for they were useless any longer to
conceal his emotion), he covered his face with his hand, and sobbed
aloud, and his tears fell down upon his coffee-coloured waistcoat.
'Uncle Sol! Pray! oh don't!' exclaimed Walter, who really felt a
thrill of terror in seeing the old man weep. 'For God's sake don't do
that. Mr Brogley, what shall I do?'
'I should recommend you looking up a friend or so,' said Mr
Brogley, 'and talking it over.'
'To be sure!' cried Walter, catching at anything. 'Certainly!
Thankee. Captain Cuttle's the man, Uncle. Wait till I run to Captain
Cuttle. Keep your eye upon my Uncle, will you, Mr Brogley, and make
him as comfortable as you can while I am gone? Don't despair, Uncle
Sol. Try and keep a good heart, there's a dear fellow!'
Saying this with great fervour, and disregarding the old man's
broken remonstrances, Walter dashed out of the shop again as hard as
he could go; and, having hurried round to the office to excuse himself
on the plea of his Uncle's sudden illness, set off, full speed, for
Captain Cuttle's residence.
Everything seemed altered as he ran along the streets. There were
the usual entanglement and noise of carts, drays, omnibuses, waggons,
and foot passengers, but the misfortune that had fallen on the wooden
Midshipman made it strange and new. Houses and shops were different
from what they used to be, and bore Mr Brogley's warrant on their
fronts in large characters. The broker seemed to have got hold of the
very churches; for their spires rose into the sky with an unwonted
air. Even the sky itself was changed, and had an execution in it
plainly.
Captain Cuttle lived on the brink of a little canal near the India
Docks, where there was a swivel bridge which opened now and then to
let some wandering monster of a ship come roamIng up the street like a
stranded leviathan. The gradual change from land to water, on the
approach to Captain Cuttle's lodgings, was curious. It began with the
erection of flagstaffs, as appurtenances to public-houses; then came
slop-sellers' shops, with Guernsey shirts, sou'wester hats, and canvas
pantaloons, at once the tightest and the loosest of their order,
hanging up outside. These were succeeded by anchor and chain-cable
forges, where sledgehammers were dinging upon iron all day long. Then
came rows of houses, with little vane-surmounted masts uprearing
themselves from among the scarlet beans. Then, ditches. Then, pollard
willows. Then, more ditches. Then, unaccountable patches of dirty
water, hardly to be descried, for the ships that covered them. Then,
the air was perfumed with chips; and all other trades were swallowed
up in mast, oar, and block-making, and boatbuilding. Then, the ground
grew marshy and unsettled. Then, there was nothing to be smelt but rum
and sugar. Then, Captain Cuttle's lodgings - at once a first floor and
a top storey, in Brig Place - were close before you.
The Captain was one of those timber-looking men, suits of oak as
well as hearts, whom it is almost impossible for the liveliest
imagination to separate from any part of their dress, however
insignificant. Accordingly, when Walter knocked at the door, and the
Captain instantly poked his head out of one of his little front
windows, and hailed him, with the hard glared hat already on it, and
the shirt-collar like a sail, and the wide suit of blue, all standing
as usual, Walter was as fully persuaded that he was always in that
state, as if the Captain had been a bird and those had been his
feathers.
'Wal'r, my lad!'said Captain Cuttle. 'Stand by and knock again.
Hard! It's washing day.'
Walter, in his impatience, gave a prodigious thump with the
knocker.
'Hard it is!' said Captain Cuttle, and immediately drew in his
head, as if he expected a squall.
Nor was he mistaken: for a widow lady, with her sleeves rolled up
to her shoulders, and her arms frothy with soap-suds and smoking with
hot water, replied to the summons with startling rapidity. Before she
looked at Walter she looked at the knocker, and then, measuring him
with her eyes from head to foot, said she wondered he had left any of
it.
'Captain Cuttle's at home, I know,' said Walter with a conciliatory
smile.
'Is he?' replied the widow lady. 'In-deed!'
'He has just been speaking to me,' said Walter, in breathless
explanation.
'Has he?' replied the widow lady. 'Then p'raps you'll give him Mrs
MacStinger's respects, and say that the next time he lowers himself
and his lodgings by talking out of the winder she'll thank him to come
down and open the door too.' Mrs MacStinger spoke loud, and listened
for any observations that might be offered from the first floor.
'I'll mention it,' said Walter, 'if you'll have the goodness to let
me in, Ma'am.'
For he was repelled by a wooden fortification extending across the
doorway, and put there to prevent the little MacStingers in their
moments of recreation from tumbling down the steps.
'A boy that can knock my door down,' said Mrs MacStinger,
contemptuously, 'can get over that, I should hope!' But Walter, taking
this as a permission to enter, and getting over it, Mrs MacStinger
immediately demanded whether an Englishwoman's house was her castle or
not; and whether she was to be broke in upon by 'raff.' On these
subjects her thirst for information was still very importunate, when
Walter, having made his way up the little staircase through an
artificial fog occasioned by the washing, which covered the banisters
with a clammy perspiration, entered Captain Cuttle's room, and found
that gentleman in ambush behind the door.
'Never owed her a penny, Wal'r,' said Captain Cuttle, in a low
voice, and with visible marks of trepidation on his countenance. 'Done
her a world of good turns, and the children too. Vixen at times,
though. Whew!'
'I should go away, Captain Cuttle,' said Walter.
'Dursn't do it, Wal'r,' returned the Captain. 'She'd find me out,
wherever I went. Sit down. How's Gills?'
The Captain was dining (in his hat) off cold loin of mutton,
porter, and some smoking hot potatoes, which he had cooked himself,
and took out of a little saucepan before the fire as he wanted them.
He unscrewed his hook at dinner-time, and screwed a knife into its
wooden socket instead, with which he had already begun to peel one of
these potatoes for Walter. His rooms were very small, and strongly
impregnated with tobacco-smoke, but snug enough: everything being
stowed away, as if there were an earthquake regularly every half-hour.
'How's Gills?' inquired the Captain.
Walter, who had by this time recovered his breath, and lost his
spirits - or such temporary spirits as his rapid journey had given him
- looked at his questioner for a moment, said 'Oh, Captain Cuttle!'
and burst into tears.
No words can describe the Captain's consternation at this sight Mrs
MacStinger faded into nothing before it. He dropped the potato and the
fork - and would have dropped the knife too if he could - and sat
gazing at the boy, as if he expected to hear next moment that a gulf
had opened in the City, which had swallowed up his old friend,
coffee-coloured suit, buttons, chronometer, spectacles, and all.
But when Walter told him what was really the matter, Captain
Cuttle, after a moment's reflection, started up into full activity. He
emptied out of a little tin canister on the top shelf of the cupboard,
his whole stock of ready money (amounting to thirteen pounds and
half-a-crown), which he transferred to one of the pockets of his
square blue coat; further enriched that repository with the contents
of his plate chest, consisting of two withered atomies of tea-spoons,
and an obsolete pair of knock-knee'd sugar-tongs; pulled up his
immense double-cased silver watch from the depths in which it reposed,
to assure himself that that valuable was sound and whole; re-attached
the hook to his right wrist; and seizing the stick covered over with
knobs, bade Walter come along.
Remembering, however, in the midst of his virtuous excitement, that
Mrs MacStinger might be lying in wait below, Captain Cuttle hesitated
at last, not without glancing at the window, as if he had some
thoughts of escaping by that unusual means of egress, rather than
encounter his terrible enemy. He decided, however, in favour of
stratagem.
'Wal'r,' said the Captain, with a timid wink, 'go afore, my lad.
Sing out, "good-bye, Captain Cuttle," when you're in the passage, and
shut the door. Then wait at the corner of the street 'till you see me.
These directions were not issued without a previous knowledge of
the enemy's tactics, for when Walter got downstairs, Mrs MacStinger
glided out of the little back kitchen, like an avenging spirit. But
not gliding out upon the Captain, as she had expected, she merely made
a further allusion to the knocker, and glided in again.
Some five minutes elapsed before Captain Cuttle could summon
courage to attempt his escape; for Walter waited so long at the street
corner, looking back at the house, before there were any symptoms of
the hard glazed hat. At length the Captain burst out of the door with
the suddenness of an explosion, and coming towards him at a great
pace, and never once looking over his shoulder, pretended, as soon as
they were well out of the street, to whistle a tune.
'Uncle much hove down, Wal'r?' inquired the Captain, as they were
walking along.
'I am afraid so. If you had seen him this morning, you would never
have forgotten it.'
'Walk fast, Wal'r, my lad,' returned the Captain, mending his pace;
'and walk the same all the days of your life. Overhaul the catechism
for that advice, and keep it!'
The Captain was too busy with his own thoughts of Solomon Gills,
mingled perhaps with some reflections on his late escape from Mrs
MacStinger, to offer any further quotations on the way for Walter's
moral improvement They interchanged no other word until they arrived
at old Sol's door, where the unfortunate wooden Midshipman, with his
instrument at his eye, seemed to be surveying the whole horizon in
search of some friend to help him out of his difficulty.
'Gills!' said the Captain, hurrying into the back parlour, and
taking him by the hand quite tenderly. 'Lay your head well to the
wind, and we'll fight through it. All you've got to do,' said the
Captain, with the solemnity of a man who was delivering himself of one
of the most precious practical tenets ever discovered by human wisdom,
'is to lay your head well to the wind, and we'll fight through it!'
Old Sol returned the pressure of his hand, and thanked him.
Captain Cuttle, then, with a gravity suitable to the nature of the
occasion, put down upon the table the two tea-spoons and the
sugar-tongs, the silver watch, and the ready money; and asked Mr
Brogley, the broker, what the damage was.
'Come! What do you make of it?' said Captain Cuttle.
'Why, Lord help you!' returned the broker; 'you don't suppose that
property's of any use, do you?'
'Why not?' inquired the Captain.
'Why? The amount's three hundred and seventy, odd,' replied the
broker.
'Never mind,' returned the Captain, though he was evidently
dismayed by the figures: 'all's fish that comes to your net, I
suppose?'
'Certainly,' said Mr Brogley. 'But sprats ain't whales, you know.'
The philosophy of this observation seemed to strike the Captain. He
ruminated for a minute; eyeing the broker, meanwhile, as a deep
genius; and then called the Instrument-maker aside.
'Gills,' said Captain Cuttle, 'what's the bearings of this
business? Who's the creditor?'
'Hush!' returned the old man. 'Come away. Don't speak before Wally.
It's a matter of security for Wally's father - an old bond. I've paid
a good deal of it, Ned, but the times are so bad with me that I can't
do more just now. I've foreseen it, but I couldn't help it. Not a word
before Wally, for all the world.'
'You've got some money, haven't you?' whispered the Captain.
'Yes, yes - oh yes- I've got some,' returned old Sol, first putting
his hands into his empty pockets, and then squeezing his Welsh wig
between them, as if he thought he might wring some gold out of it;
'but I - the little I have got, isn't convertible, Ned; it can't be
got at. I have been trying to do something with it for Wally, and I'm
old fashioned, and behind the time. It's here and there, and - and, in
short, it's as good as nowhere,' said the old man, looking in
bewilderment about him.
He had so much the air of a half-witted person who had been hiding
his money in a variety of places, and had forgotten where, that the
Captain followed his eyes, not without a faint hope that he might
remember some few hundred pounds concealed up the chimney, or down in
the cellar. But Solomon Gills knew better than that.
'I'm behind the time altogether, my dear Ned,' said Sol, in
resigned despair, 'a long way. It's no use my lagging on so far behind
it. The stock had better be sold - it's worth more than this debt -
and I had better go and die somewhere, on the balance. I haven't any
energy left. I don't understand things. This had better be the end of
it. Let 'em sell the stock and take him down,' said the old man,
pointing feebly to the wooden Midshipman, 'and let us both be broken
up together.'
'And what d'ye mean to do with Wal'r?'said the Captain. 'There,
there! Sit ye down, Gills, sit ye down, and let me think o' this. If I
warn't a man on a small annuity, that was large enough till to-day, I
hadn't need to think of it. But you only lay your head well to the
wind,' said the Captain, again administering that unanswerable piece
of consolation, 'and you're all right!'
Old Sol thanked him from his heart, and went and laid it against
the back parlour fire-place instead.
Captain Cuttle walked up and down the shop for some time,
cogitating profoundly, and bringing his bushy black eyebrows to bear
so heavily on his nose, like clouds setting on a mountain, that Walter
was afraid to offer any interruption to the current of his
reflections. Mr Brogley, who was averse to being any constraint upon
the party, and who had an ingenious cast of mind, went, softly
whistling, among the stock; rattling weather-glasses, shaking
compasses as if they were physic, catching up keys with loadstones,
looking through telescopes, endeavouring to make himself acquainted
with the use of the globes, setting parallel rulers astride on to his
nose, and amusing himself with other philosophical transactions.
'Wal'r!' said the Captain at last. 'I've got it.'
'Have you, Captain Cuttle?' cried Walter, with great animation.
'Come this way, my lad,' said the Captain. 'The stock's the
security. I'm another. Your governor's the man to advance money.'
'Mr Dombey!' faltered Walter.
The Captain nodded gravely. 'Look at him,' he said. 'Look at Gills.
If they was to sell off these things now, he'd die of it. You know he
would. We mustn't leave a stone unturned - and there's a stone for
you.'
'A stone! - Mr Dombey!' faltered Walter.
'You run round to the office, first of all, and see if he's there,'
said Captain Cuttle, clapping him on the back. 'Quick!'
Walter felt he must not dispute the command - a glance at his Uncle
would have determined him if he had felt otherwise - and disappeared
to execute it. He soon returned, out of breath, to say that Mr Dombey
was not there. It was Saturday, and he had gone to Brighton.
'I tell you what, Wal'r!' said the Captain, who seemed to have
prepared himself for this contingency in his absence. 'We'll go to
Brighton. I'll back you, my boy. I'll back you, Wal'r. We'll go to
Brighton by the afternoon's coach.'
If the application must be made to Mr Dombey at all, which was
awful to think of, Walter felt that he would rather prefer it alone
and unassisted, than backed by the personal influence of Captain
Cuttle, to which he hardly thought Mr Dombey would attach much weight.
But as the Captain appeared to be of quite another opinion, and was
bent upon it, and as his friendship was too zealous and serious to be
trifled with by one so much younger than himself, he forbore to hint
the least objection. Cuttle, therefore, taking a hurried leave of
Solomon Gills, and returning the ready money, the teaspoons, the
sugar-tongs, and the silver watch, to his pocket - with a view, as
Walter thought, with horror, to making a gorgeous impression on Mr
Dombey - bore him off to the coach-office, with- out a minute's delay,
and repeatedly assured him, on the road, that he would stick by him to
the last.
CHAPTER 10.
Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman's Disaster
Major Bagstock, after long and frequent observation of Paul, across
Princess's Place, through his double-barrelled opera-glass; and after
receiving many minute reports, daily, weekly, and monthly, on that
subject, from the native who kept himself in constant communication
with Miss Tox's maid for that purpose; came to the conclusion that
Dombey, Sir, was a man to be known, and that J. B. was the boy to make
his acquaintance.
Miss Tox, however, maintaining her reserved behaviour, and frigidly
declining to understand the Major whenever he called (which he often
did) on any little fishing excursion connected with this project, the
Major, in spite of his constitutional toughness and slyness, was fain
to leave the accomplishment of his desire in some measure to chance,
'which,' as he was used to observe with chuckles at his club, 'has
been fifty to one in favour of Joey B., Sir, ever since his elder
brother died of Yellow Jack in the West Indies.'
It was some time coming to his aid in the present instance, but it
befriended him at last. When the dark servant, with full particulars,
reported Miss Tox absent on Brighton service, the Major was suddenly
touched with affectionate reminiscences of his friend Bill Bitherstone
of Bengal, who had written to ask him, if he ever went that way, to
bestow a call upon his only son. But when the same dark servant
reported Paul at Mrs Pipchin's, and the Major, referring to the letter
favoured by Master Bitherstone on his arrival in England - to which he
had never had the least idea of paying any attention - saw the opening
that presented itself, he was made so rabid by the gout, with which he
happened to be then laid up, that he threw a footstool at the dark
servant in return for his intelligence, and swore he would be the
death of the rascal before he had done with him: which the dark
servant was more than half disposed to believe.
At length the Major being released from his fit, went one Saturday
growling down to Brighton, with the native behind him; apostrophizing
Miss Tox all the way, and gloating over the prospect of carrying by
storm the distinguished friend to whom she attached so much mystery,
and for whom she had deserted him,
'Would you, Ma'am, would you!' said the Major, straining with
vindictiveness, and swelling every already swollen vein in his head.
'Would you give Joey B. the go-by, Ma'am? Not yet, Ma'am, not yet!
Damme, not yet, Sir. Joe is awake, Ma'am. Bagstock is alive, Sir. J.
B. knows a move or two, Ma'am. Josh has his weather-eye open, Sir.
You'll find him tough, Ma'am. Tough, Sir, tough is Joseph. Tough, and
de-vilish sly!'
And very tough indeed Master Bitherstone found him, when he took
that young gentleman out for a walk. But the Major, with his
complexion like a Stilton cheese, and his eyes like a prawn's, went
roving about, perfectly indifferent to Master Bitherstone's amusement,
and dragging Master Bitherstone along, while he looked about him high
and low, for Mr Dombey and his children.
In good time the Major, previously instructed by Mrs Pipchin, spied
out Paul and Florence, and bore down upon them; there being a stately
gentleman (Mr Dombey, doubtless) in their company. Charging with
Master Bitherstone into the very heart of the little squadron, it fell
out, of course, that Master Bitherstone spoke to his fellow-sufferers.
Upon that the Major stopped to notice and admire them; remembered with
amazement that he had seen and spoken to them at his friend Miss Tox's
in Princess's Place; opined that Paul was a devilish fine fellow, and
his own little friend; inquired if he remembered Joey B. the Major;
and finally, with a sudden recollection of the conventionalities of
life, turned and apologised to Mr Dombey.
'But my little friend here, Sir,' said the Major, 'makes a boy of
me again: An old soldier, Sir - Major Bagstock, at your service - is
not ashamed to confess it.' Here the Major lifted his hat. 'Damme,
Sir,' cried the Major with sudden warmth, 'I envy you.' Then he
recollected himself, and added, 'Excuse my freedom.'
Mr Dombey begged he wouldn't mention it.
'An old campaigner, Sir,' said the Major, 'a smoke-dried,
sun-burnt, used-up, invalided old dog of a Major, Sir, was not afraid
of being condemned for his whim by a man like Mr Dombey. I have the
honour of addressing Mr Dombey, I believe?'
'I am the present unworthy representative of that name, Major,'
returned Mr Dombey.
'By G-, Sir!' said the Major, 'it's a great name. It's a name,
Sir,' said the Major firmly, as if he defied Mr Dombey to contradict
him, and would feel it his painful duty to bully him if he did, 'that
is known and honoured in the British possessions abroad. It is a name,
Sir, that a man is proud to recognise. There is nothing adulatory in
Joseph Bagstock, Sir. His Royal Highness the Duke of York observed on
more than one occasion, "there is no adulation in Joey. He is a plain
old soldier is Joe. He is tough to a fault is Joseph:" but it's a
great name, Sir. By the Lord, it's a great name!' said the Major,
solemnly.
'You are good enough to rate it higher than it deserves, perhaps,
Major,' returned Mr Dombey.
'No, Sir,' said the Major, in a severe tone. No, Mr Dombey, let us
understand each other. That is not the Bagstock vein, Sir. You don't
know Joseph B. He is a blunt old blade is Josh. No flattery in him,
Sir. Nothing like it.'
Mr Dombey inclined his head, and said he believed him to be in
earnest, and that his high opinion was gratifying.
'My little friend here, Sir,' croaked the Major, looking as amiably
as he could, on Paul, 'will certify for Joseph Bagstock that he is a
thorough-going, down-right, plain-spoken, old Trump, Sir, and nothing
more. That boy, Sir,' said the Major in a lower tone, 'will live in
history. That boy, Sir, is not a common production. Take care of him,
Mr Dombey.'
Mr Dombey seemed to intimate that he would endeavour to do so.
'Here is a boy here, Sir,' pursued the Major, confidentially, and
giving him a thrust with his cane. 'Son of Bitherstone of Bengal. Bill
Bitherstone formerly of ours. That boy's father and myself, Sir, were
sworn friends. Wherever you went, Sir, you heard of nothing but Bill
Bitherstone and Joe Bagstock. Am I blind to that boy's defects? By no
means. He's a fool, Sir.'
Mr Dombey glanced at the libelled Master Bitherstone, of whom he
knew at least as much as the Major did, and said, in quite a
complacent manner, 'Really?'
'That is what he is, sir,' said the Major. 'He's a fool. Joe
Bagstock never minces matters. The son of my old friend Bill
Bitherstone, of Bengal, is a born fool, Sir.' Here the Major laughed
till he was almost black. 'My little friend is destined for a public
school,' I' presume, Mr Dombey?' said the Major when he had recovered.
'I am not quite decided,' returned Mr Dombey. 'I think not. He is
delicate.'
'If he's delicate, Sir,' said the Major, 'you are right. None but
the tough fellows could live through it, Sir, at Sandhurst. We put
each other to the torture there, Sir. We roasted the new fellows at a
slow fire, and hung 'em out of a three pair of stairs window, with
their heads downwards. Joseph Bagstock, Sir, was held out of the
window by the heels of his boots, for thirteen minutes by the college
clock'
The Major might have appealed to his countenance in corroboration
of this story. It certainly looked as if he had hung out a little too
long.
'But it made us what we were, Sir,' said the Major, settling his
shirt frill. 'We were iron, Sir, and it forged us. Are you remaining
here, Mr Dombey?'
'I generally come down once a week, Major,' returned that
gentleman. 'I stay at the Bedford.'
'I shall have the honour of calling at the Bedford, Sir, if you'll
permit me,' said the Major. 'Joey B., Sir, is not in general a calling
man, but Mr Dombey's is not a common name. I am much indebted to my
little friend, Sir, for the honour of this introduction.'
Mr Dombey made a very gracious reply; and Major Bagstock, having
patted Paul on the head, and said of Florence that her eyes would play
the Devil with the youngsters before long - 'and the oldsters too,
Sir, if you come to that,' added the Major, chuckling very much -
stirred up Master Bitherstone with his walking-stick, and departed
with that young gentleman, at a kind of half-trot; rolling his head
and coughing with great dignity, as he staggered away, with his legs
very wide asunder.
In fulfilment of his promise, the Major afterwards called on Mr
Dombey; and Mr Dombey, having referred to the army list, afterwards
called on the Major. Then the Major called at Mr Dombey's house in
town; and came down again, in the same coach as Mr Dombey. In short,
Mr Dombey and the Major got on uncommonly well together, and
uncommonly fast: and Mr Dombey observed of the Major, to his sister,
that besides being quite a military man he was really something more,
as he had a very admirable idea of the importance of things
unconnected with his own profession.
At length Mr Dombey, bringing down Miss Tox and Mrs Chick to see
the children, and finding the Major again at Brighton, invited him to
dinner at the Bedford, and complimented Miss Tox highly, beforehand,
on her neighbour and acquaintance.
'My dearest Louisa,' said Miss Tox to Mrs Chick, when they were
alone together, on the morning of the appointed day, 'if I should seem
at all reserved to Major Bagstock, or under any constraint with him,
promise me not to notice it.'
'My dear Lucretia,' returned Mrs Chick, 'what mystery is involved
in this remarkable request? I must insist upon knowing.'
'Since you are resolved to extort a confession from me, Louisa,'
said Miss Tox instantly, 'I have no alternative but to confide to you
that the Major has been particular.'
'Particular!' repeated Mrs Chick.
'The Major has long been very particular indeed, my love, in his
attentions,' said Miss Tox, 'occasionally they have been so very
marked, that my position has been one of no common difficulty.'
'Is he in good circumstances?' inquired Mrs Chick.
'I have every reason to believe, my dear - indeed I may say I
know,' returned Miss Tox, 'that he is wealthy. He is truly military,
and full of anecdote. I have been informed that his valour, when he
was in active service, knew no bounds. I am told that he did all sorts
of things in the Peninsula, with every description of fire-arm; and in
the East and West Indies, my love, I really couldn't undertake to say
what he did not do.'
'Very creditable to him indeed,' said Mrs Chick, 'extremely so; and
you have given him no encouragement, my dear?'
'If I were to say, Louisa,' replied Miss Tox, with every
demonstration of making an effort that rent her soul, 'that I never
encouraged Major Bagstock slightly, I should not do justice to the
friendship which exists between you and me. It is, perhaps, hardly in
the nature of woman to receive such attentions as the Major once
lavished upon myself without betraying some sense of obligation. But
that is past - long past. Between the Major and me there is now a
yawning chasm, and I will not feign to give encouragement, Louisa,
where I cannot give my heart. My affections,' said Miss Tox - 'but,
Louisa, this is madness!' and departed from the room.
All this Mrs Chick communicated to her brother before dinner: and
it by no means indisposed Mr Dombey to receive the Major with unwonted
cordiality. The Major, for his part, was in a state of plethoric
satisfaction that knew no bounds: and he coughed, and choked, and
chuckled, and gasped, and swelled, until the waiters seemed positively
afraid of him.
'Your family monopolises Joe's light, Sir,' said the Major, when he
had saluted Miss Tox. 'Joe lives in darkness. Princess's Place is
changed into Kamschatka in the winter time. There is no ray of sun,
Sir, for Joey B., now.'
'Miss Tox is good enough to take a great deal of interest in Paul,
Major,' returned Mr Dombey on behalf of that blushing virgin.
'Damme Sir,' said the Major, 'I'm jealous of my little friend. I'm
pining away Sir. The Bagstock breed is degenerating in the forsaken
person of old Joe.' And the Major, becoming bluer and bluer and
puffing his cheeks further and further over the stiff ridge of his
tight cravat, stared at Miss Tox, until his eyes seemed as if he were
at that moment being overdone before the slow fire at the military
college.
Notwithstanding the palpitation of the heart which these allusions
occasioned her, they were anything but disagreeable to Miss Tox, as
they enabled her to be extremely interesting, and to manifest an
occasional incoherence and distraction which she was not at all
unwilling to display. The Major gave her abundant opportunities of
exhibiting this emotion: being profuse in his complaints, at dinner,
of her desertion of him and Princess's Place: and as he appeared to
derive great enjoyment from making them, they all got on very well.
None the worse on account of the Major taking charge of the whole
conversation, and showing as great an appetite in that respect as in
regard of the various dainties on the table, among which he may be
almost said to have wallowed: greatly to the aggravation of his
inflammatory tendencies. Mr Dombey's habitual silence and reserve
yielding readily to this usurpation, the Major felt that he was coming
out and shining: and in the flow of spirits thus engendered, rang such
an infinite number of new changes on his own name that he quite
astonished himself. In a word, they were all very well pleased. The
Major was considered to possess an inexhaustible fund of conversation;
and when he took a late farewell, after a long rubber, Mr Dombey again
complimented the blushing Miss Tox on her neighbour and acquaintance.
But all the way home to his own hotel, the Major incessantly said
to himself, and of himself, 'Sly, Sir - sly, Sir - de-vil-ish sly!'
And when he got there, sat down in a chair, and fell into a silent fit
of laughter, with which he was sometimes seized, and which was always
particularly awful. It held him so long on this occasion that the dark
servant, who stood watching him at a distance, but dared not for his
life approach, twice or thrice gave him over for lost. His whole form,
but especially his face and head, dilated beyond all former
experience; and presented to the dark man's view, nothing but a
heaving mass of indigo. At length he burst into a violent paroxysm of
coughing, and when that was a little better burst into such
ejaculations as the following:
'Would you, Ma'am, would you? Mrs Dombey, eh, Ma'am? I think not,
Ma'am. Not while Joe B. can put a spoke in your wheel, Ma'am. J. B.'s
even with you now, Ma'am. He isn't altogether bowled out, yet, Sir,
isn't Bagstock. She's deep, Sir, deep, but Josh is deeper. Wide awake
is old Joe - broad awake, and staring, Sir!' There was no doubt of
this last assertion being true, and to a very fearful extent; as it
continued to be during the greater part of that night, which the Major
chiefly passed in similar exclamations, diversified with fits of
coughing and choking that startled the whole house.
It was on the day after this occasion (being Sunday) when, as Mr
Dombey, Mrs Chick, and Miss Tox were sitting at breakfast, still
eulogising the Major, Florence came running in: her face suffused with
a bright colour, and her eyes sparkling joyfully: and cried,
'Papa! Papa! Here's Walter! and he won't come in.'
'Who?' cried Mr Dombey. 'What does she mean? What is this?'
'Walter, Papa!' said Florence timidly; sensible of having
approached the presence with too much familiarity. 'Who found me when
I was lost.'
'Does she mean young Gay, Louisa?' inquired Mr Dombey, knitting his
brows. 'Really, this child's manners have become very boisterous. She
cannot mean young Gay, I think. See what it is, will you?'
Mrs Chick hurried into the passage, and returned with the
information that it was young Gay, accompanied by a very
strange-looking person; and that young Gay said he would not take the
liberty of coming in, hearing Mr Dombey was at breakfast, but would
wait until Mr Dombey should signify that he might approach.
'Tell the boy to come in now,' said Mr Dombey. 'Now, Gay, what is
the matter? Who sent you down here? Was there nobody else to come?'
'I beg your pardon, Sir,' returned Walter. 'I have not been sent. I
have been so bold as to come on my own account, which I hope you'll
pardon when I mention the cause.
But Mr Dombey, without attending to what he said, was looking
impatiently on either side of him (as if he were a pillar in his way)
at some object behind.
'What's that?' said Mr Dombey. 'Who is that? I think you have made
some mistake in the door, Sir.'
'Oh, I'm very sorry to intrude with anyone, Sir,' cried Walter,
hastily: 'but this is - this is Captain Cuttle, Sir.'
'Wal'r, my lad,' observed the Captain in a deep voice: 'stand by!'
At the same time the Captain, coming a little further in, brought
out his wide suit of blue, his conspicuous shirt-collar, and his
knobby nose in full relief, and stood bowing to Mr Dombey, and waving
his hook politely to the ladies, with the hard glazed hat in his one
hand, and a red equator round his head which it had newly imprinted
there.
Mr Dombey regarded this phenomenon with amazement and indignation,
and seemed by his looks to appeal to Mrs Chick and Miss Tox against
it. Little Paul, who had come in after Florence, backed towards Miss
Tox as the Captain waved his book, and stood on the defensive.
'Now, Gay,' said Mr Dombey. 'What have you got to say to me?'
Again the Captain observed, as a general opening of the
conversation that could not fail to propitiate all parties, 'Wal'r,
standby!'
'I am afraid, Sir,' began Walter, trembling, and looking down at
the ground, 'that I take a very great liberty in coming - indeed, I am
sure I do. I should hardly have had the courage to ask to see you,
Sir, even after coming down, I am afraid, if I had not overtaken Miss
Dombey, and - '
'Well!' said Mr Dombey, following his eyes as he glanced at the
attentive Florence, and frowning unconsciously as she encouraged him
with a smile. 'Go on, if you please.'
'Ay, ay,' observed the Captain, considering it incumbent on him, as
a point of good breeding, to support Mr Dombey. 'Well said! Go on,
Wal'r.'
Captain Cuttle ought to have been withered by the look which Mr
Dombey bestowed upon him in acknowledgment of his patronage. But quite
innocent of this, he closed one eye in reply, and gave Mr Dombey to
understand, by certain significant motions of his hook, that Walter
was a little bashful at first, and might be expected to come out
shortly.
'It is entirely a private and personal matter, that has brought me
here, Sir,' continued Walter, faltering, 'and Captain Cuttle
'Here!' interposed the Captain, as an assurance that he was at
hand, and might be relied upon.
'Who is a very old friend of my poor Uncle's, and a most excellent
man, Sir,' pursued Walter, raising his eyes with a look of entreaty in
the Captain's behalf, 'was so good as to offer to come with me, which
I could hardly refuse.'
'No, no, no;' observed the Captain complacently. 'Of course not. No
call for refusing. Go on, Wal'r.'
'And therefore, Sir,' said Walter, venturing to meet Mr Dombey's
eye, and proceeding with better courage in the very desperation of the
case, now that there was no avoiding it, 'therefore I have come, with
him, Sir, to say that my poor old Uncle is in very great affliction
and distress. That, through the gradual loss of his business, and not
being able to make a payment, the apprehension of which has weighed
very heavily upon his mind, months and months, as indeed I know, Sir,
he has an execution in his house, and is in danger of losing all he
has, and breaking his heart. And that if you would, in your kindness,
and in your old knowledge of him as a respectable man, do anything to
help him out of his difficulty, Sir, we never could thank you enough
for it.'
Walter's eyes filled with tears as he spoke; and so did those of
Florence. Her father saw them glistening, though he appeared to look
at Walter only.
'It is a very large sum, Sir,' said Walter. 'More than three
hundred pounds. My Uncle is quite beaten down by his misfortune, it
lies so heavy on him; and is quite unable to do anything for his own
relief. He doesn't even know yet, that I have come to speak to you.
You would wish me to say, Sir,' added Walter, after a moment's
hesitation, 'exactly what it is I want. I really don't know, Sir.
There is my Uncle's stock, on which I believe I may say, confidently,
there are no other demands, and there is Captain Cuttle, who would
wish to be security too. I - I hardly like to mention,' said Walter,
'such earnings as mine; but if you would allow them - accumulate -
payment - advance - Uncle - frugal, honourable, old man.' Walter
trailed off, through these broken sentences, into silence: and stood
with downcast head, before his employer.
Considering this a favourable moment for the display of the
valuables, Captain Cuttle advanced to the table; and clearing a space
among the breakfast-cups at Mr Dombey's elbow, produced the silver
watch, the ready money, the teaspoons, and the sugar-tongs; and piling
them up into a heap that they might look as precious as possible,
delivered himself of these words:
'Half a loaf's better than no bread, and the same remark holds good
with crumbs. There's a few. Annuity of one hundred pound premium also
ready to be made over. If there is a man chock full of science in the
world, it's old Sol Gills. If there is a lad of promise - one
flowing,' added the Captain, in one of his happy quotations, 'with
milk and honey - it's his nevy!'
The Captain then withdrew to his former place, where he stood
arranging his scattered locks with the air of a man who had given the
finishing touch to a difficult performance.
When Walter ceased to speak, Mr Dombey's eyes were attracted to
little Paul, who, seeing his sister hanging down her head and silently
weeping in her commiseration for the distress she had heard described,
went over to her, and tried to comfort her: looking at Walter and his
father as he did so, with a very expressive face. After the momentary
distraction of Captain Cuttle's address, which he regarded with lofty
indifference, Mr Dombey again turned his eyes upon his son, and sat
steadily regarding the child, for some moments, in silence.
'What was this debt contracted for?' asked Mr Dombey, at length.
'Who is the creditor?'
'He don't know,' replied the Captain, putting his hand on Walter's
shoulder. 'I do. It came of helping a man that's dead now, and that's
cost my friend Gills many a hundred pound already. More particulars in
private, if agreeable.'
'People who have enough to do to hold their own way,' said Mr
Dombey, unobservant of the Captain's mysterious signs behind Walter,
and still looking at his son, 'had better be content with their own
obligations and difficulties, and not increase them by engaging for
other men. It is an act of dishonesty and presumption, too,' said Mr
Dombey, sternly; 'great presumption; for the wealthy could do no more.
Paul, come here!'
The child obeyed: and Mr Dombey took him on his knee.
'If you had money now - ' said Mr Dombey. 'Look at me!'
Paul, whose eyes had wandered to his sister, and to Walter, looked
his father in the face.
'If you had money now,' said Mr Dombey; 'as much money as young Gay
has talked about; what would you do?'
'Give it to his old Uncle,' returned Paul.
'Lend it to his old Uncle, eh?' retorted Mr Dombey. 'Well! When you
are old enough, you know, you will share my money, and we shall use it
together.'
'Dombey and Son,' interrupted Paul, who had been tutored early in
the phrase.
'Dombey and Son,' repeated his father. 'Would you like to begin to
be Dombey and Son, now, and lend this money to young Gay's Uncle?'
'Oh! if you please, Papa!' said Paul: 'and so would Florence.'
'Girls,' said Mr Dombey, 'have nothing to do with Dombey and Son.
Would you like it?'
'Yes, Papa, yes!'
'Then you shall do it,' returned his father. 'And you see, Paul,'
he added, dropping his voice, 'how powerful money is, and how anxious
people are to get it. Young Gay comes all this way to beg for money,
and you, who are so grand and great, having got it, are going to let
him have it, as a great favour and obligation.'
Paul turned up the old face for a moment, in which there was a
sharp understanding of the reference conveyed in these words: but it
was a young and childish face immediately afterwards, when he slipped
down from his father's knee, and ran to tell Florence not to cry any
more, for he was going to let young Gay have the money.
Mr Dombey then turned to a side-table, and wrote a note and sealed
it. During the interval, Paul and Florence whispered to Walter, and
Captain Cuttle beamed on the three, with such aspiring and ineffably
presumptuous thoughts as Mr Dombey never could have believed in. The
note being finished, Mr Dombey turned round to his former place, and
held it out to Walter.
'Give that,' he said, 'the first thing to-morrow morning, to Mr
Carker. He will immediately take care that one of my people releases
your Uncle from his present position, by paying the amount at issue;
and that such arrangements are made for its repayment as may be
consistent with your Uncle's circumstances. You will consider that
this is done for you by Master Paul.'
Walter, in the emotion of holding in his hand the means of
releasing his good Uncle from his trouble, would have endeavoured to
express something of his gratitude and joy. But Mr Dombey stopped him
short.
'You will consider that it is done,' he repeated, 'by Master Paul.
I have explained that to him, and he understands it. I wish no more to
be said.'
As he motioned towards the door, Walter could only bow his head and
retire. Miss Tox, seeing that the Captain appeared about to do the
same, interposed.
'My dear Sir,' she said, addressing Mr Dombey, at whose munificence
both she and Mrs Chick were shedding tears copiously; 'I think you
have overlooked something. Pardon me, Mr Dombey, I think, in the
nobility of your character, and its exalted scope, you have omitted a
matter of detail.'
'Indeed, Miss Tox!' said Mr Dombey.
'The gentleman with the - Instrument,' pursued Miss Tox, glancing
at Captain Cuttle, 'has left upon the table, at your elbow - '
'Good Heaven!' said Mr Dombey, sweeping the Captain's property from
him, as if it were so much crumb indeed. 'Take these things away. I am
obliged to you, Miss Tox; it is like your usual discretion. Have the
goodness to take these things away, Sir!'
Captain Cuttle felt he had no alternative but to comply. But he was
so much struck by the magnanimity of Mr Dombey, in refusing treasures
lying heaped up to his hand, that when he had deposited the teaspoons
and sugar-tongs in one pocket, and the ready money in another, and had
lowered the great watch down slowly into its proper vault, he could
not refrain from seizing that gentleman's right hand in his own
solitary left, and while he held it open with his powerful fingers,
bringing the hook down upon its palm in a transport of admiration. At
this touch of warm feeling and cold iron, Mr Dombey shivered all over.
Captain Cuttle then kissed his hook to the ladies several times,
with great elegance and gallantry; and having taken a particular leave
of Paul and Florence, accompanied Walter out of the room. Florence was
running after them in the earnestness of her heart, to send some
message to old Sol, when Mr Dombey called her back, and bade her stay
where she was.
'Will you never be a Dombey, my dear child!' said Mrs Chick, with
pathetic reproachfulness.
'Dear aunt,' said Florence. 'Don't be angry with me. I am so
thankful to Papa!'
She would have run and thrown her arms about his neck if she had
dared; but as she did not dare, she glanced with thankful eyes towards
him, as he sat musing; sometimes bestowing an uneasy glance on her,
but, for the most part, watching Paul, who walked about the room with
the new-blown dignity of having let young Gay have the money.
And young Gay - Walter- what of him?
He was overjoyed to purge the old man's hearth from bailiffs and
brokers, and to hurry back to his Uncle with the good tidings. He was
overjoyed to have it all arranged and settled next day before noon;
and to sit down at evening in the little back parlour with old Sol and
Captain Cuttle; and to see the Instrument-maker already reviving, and
hopeful for the future, and feeling that the wooden Midshipman was his
own again. But without the least impeachment of his gratitude to Mr
Dombey, it must be confessed that Walter was humbled and cast down. It
is when our budding hopes are nipped beyond recovery by some rough
wind, that we are the most disposed to picture to ourselves what
flowers they might have borne, if they had flourished; and now, when
Walter found himself cut off from that great Dombey height, by the
depth of a new and terrible tumble, and felt that all his old wild
fancies had been scattered to the winds in the fall, he began to
suspect that they might have led him on to harmless visions of
aspiring to Florence in the remote distance of time.
The Captain viewed the subject in quite a different light. He
appeared to entertain a belief that the interview at which he had
assisted was so very satisfactory and encouraging, as to be only a
step or two removed from a regular betrothal of Florence to Walter;
and that the late transaction had immensely forwarded, if not
thoroughly established, the Whittingtonian hopes. Stimulated by this
conviction, and by the improvement in the spirits of his old friend,
and by his own consequent gaiety, he even attempted, in favouring them
with the ballad of 'Lovely Peg' for the third time in one evening, to
make an extemporaneous substitution of the name 'Florence;' but
finding this difficult, on account of the word Peg invariably rhyming
to leg (in which personal beauty the original was described as having
excelled all competitors), he hit upon the happy thought of changing
it to Fle-e-eg; which he accordingly did, with an archness almost
supernatural, and a voice quite vociferous, notwithstanding that the
time was close at band when he must seek the abode of the dreadful Mrs
MacStinger.
That same evening the Major was diffuse at his club, on the subject
of his friend Dombey in the City. 'Damme, Sir,' said the Major, 'he's
a prince, is my friend Dombey in the City. I tell you what, Sir. If
you had a few more men among you like old Joe Bagstock and my friend
Dombey in the City, Sir, you'd do!'
CHAPTER 11.
Paul's Introduction to a New Scene
Mrs Pipchin's constitution was made of such hard metal, in spite of
its liability to the fleshly weaknesses of standing in need of repose
after chops, and of requiring to be coaxed to sleep by the soporific
agency of sweet-breads, that it utterly set at naught the predictions
of Mrs Wickam, and showed no symptoms of decline. Yet, as Paul's rapt
interest in the old lady continued unbated, Mrs Wickam would not budge
an inch from the position she had taken up. Fortifying and entrenching
herself on the strong ground of her Uncle's Betsey Jane, she advised
Miss Berry, as a friend, to prepare herself for the worst; and
forewarned her that her aunt might, at any time, be expected to go off
suddenly, like a powder-mill.
'I hope, Miss Berry,' Mrs Wickam would observe, 'that you'll come
into whatever little property there may be to leave. You deserve it, I
am sure, for yours is a trying life. Though there don't seem much
worth coming into - you'll excuse my being so open - in this dismal
den.'
Poor Berry took it all in good part, and drudged and slaved away as
usual; perfectly convinced that Mrs Pipchin was one of the most
meritorious persons in the world, and making every day innumerable
sacrifices of herself upon the altar of that noble old woman. But all
these immolations of Berry were somehow carried to the credit of Mrs
Pipchin by Mrs Pipchin's friends and admirers; and were made to
harmonise with, and carry out, that melancholy fact of the deceased Mr
Pipchin having broken his heart in the Peruvian mines.
For example, there was an honest grocer and general dealer in the
retail line of business, between whom and Mrs Pipchin there was a
small memorandum book, with a greasy red cover, perpetually in
question, and concerning which divers secret councils and conferences
were continually being held between the parties to that register, on
the mat in the passage, and with closed doors in the parlour. Nor were
there wanting dark hints from Master Bitherstone (whose temper had
been made revengeful by the solar heats of India acting on his blood),
of balances unsettled, and of a failure, on one occasion within his
memory, in the supply of moist sugar at tea-time. This grocer being a
bachelor and not a man who looked upon the surface for beauty, had
once made honourable offers for the hand of Berry, which Mrs Pipchin
had, with contumely and scorn, rejected. Everybody said how laudable
this was in Mrs Pipchin, relict of a man who had died of the Peruvian
mines; and what a staunch, high, independent spirit the old lady had.
But nobody said anything about poor Berry, who cried for six weeks
(being soundly rated by her good aunt all the time), and lapsed into a
state of hopeless spinsterhood.
'Berry's very fond of you, ain't she?' Paul once asked Mrs Pipchin
when they were sitting by the fire with the cat.
'Yes,' said Mrs Pipchin.
'Why?' asked Paul.
'Why!' returned the disconcerted old lady. 'How can you ask such
things, Sir! why are you fond of your sister Florence?'
'Because she's very good,' said Paul. 'There's nobody like
Florence.'
'Well!' retorted Mrs Pipchin, shortly, 'and there's nobody like me,
I suppose.'
'Ain't there really though?' asked Paul, leaning forward in his
chair, and looking at her very hard.
'No,' said the old lady.
'I am glad of that,' observed Paul, rubbing his hands thoughtfully.
'That's a very good thing.'
Mrs Pipchin didn't dare to ask him why, lest she should receive
some perfectly annihilating answer. But as a compensation to her
wounded feelings, she harassed Master Bitherstone to that extent until
bed-time, that he began that very night to make arrangements for an
overland return to India, by secreting from his supper a quarter of a
round of bread and a fragment of moist Dutch cheese, as the beginning
of a stock of provision to support him on the voyage.
Mrs Pipchin had kept watch and ward over little Paul and his sister
for nearly twelve months. They had been home twice, but only for a few
days; and had been constant in their weekly visits to Mr Dombey at the
hotel. By little and little Paul had grown stronger, and had become
able to dispense with his carriage; though he still looked thin and
delicate; and still remained the same old, quiet, dreamy child that he
had been when first consigned to Mrs Pipchin's care. One Saturday
afternoon, at dusk, great consternation was occasioned in the Castle
by the unlooked-for announcement of Mr Dombey as a visitor to Mrs
Pipchin. The population of the parlour was immediately swept upstairs
as on the wings of a whirlwind, and after much slamming of bedroom
doors, and trampling overhead, and some knocking about of Master
Bitherstone by Mrs Pipchin, as a relief to the perturbation of her
spirits, the black bombazeen garments of the worthy old lady darkened
the audience-chamber where Mr Dombey was contemplating the vacant
arm-chair of his son and heir.
'Mrs Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, 'How do you do?'
'Thank you, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'I am pretty well,
considering.'
Mrs Pipchin always used that form of words. It meant, considering
her virtues, sacrifices, and so forth.
'I can't expect, Sir, to be very well,' said Mrs Pipchin, taking a
chair and fetching her breath; 'but such health as I have, I am
grateful for.'
Mr Dombey inclined his head with the satisfied air of a patron, who
felt that this was the sort of thing for which he paid so much a
quarter. After a moment's silence he went on to say:
'Mrs Pipchin, I have taken the liberty of calling, to consult you
in reference to my son. I have had it in my mind to do so for some
time past; but have deferred it from time to time, in order that his
health might be thoroughly re-established. You have no misgivings on
that subject, Mrs Pipchin?'
'Brighton has proved very beneficial, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin.
'Very beneficial, indeed.'
'I purpose,' said Mr Dombey, 'his remaining at Brighton.'
Mrs Pipchin rubbed her hands, and bent her grey eyes on the fire.
'But,' pursued Mr Dombey, stretching out his forefinger, 'but
possibly that he should now make a change, and lead a different kind
of life here. In short, Mrs Pipchin, that is the object of my visit.
My son is getting on, Mrs Pipchin. Really, he is getting on.'
There was something melancholy in the triumphant air with which Mr
Dombey said this. It showed how long Paul's childish life had been to
him, and how his hopes were set upon a later stage of his existence.
Pity may appear a strange word to connect with anyone so haughty and
so cold, and yet he seemed a worthy subject for it at that moment.
'Six years old!' said Mr Dombey, settling his neckcloth - perhaps
to hide an irrepressible smile that rather seemed to strike upon the
surface of his face and glance away, as finding no resting-place, than
to play there for an instant. 'Dear me, six will be changed to
sixteen, before we have time to look about us.'
'Ten years,' croaked the unsympathetic Pipchin, with a frosty
glistening of her hard grey eye, and a dreary shaking of her bent
head, 'is a long time.'
'It depends on circumstances, returned Mr Dombey; 'at all events,
Mrs Pipchin, my son is six years old, and there is no doubt, I fear,
that in his studies he is behind many children of his age - or his
youth,' said Mr Dombey, quickly answering what he mistrusted was a
shrewd twinkle of the frosty eye, 'his youth is a more appropriate
expression. Now, Mrs Pipchin, instead of being behind his peers, my
son ought to be before them; far before them. There is an eminence
ready for him to mount upon. There is nothing of chance or doubt in
the course before my son. His way in life was clear and prepared, and
marked out before he existed. The education of such a young gentleman
must not be delayed. It must not be left imperfect. It must be very
steadily and seriously undertaken, Mrs Pipchin.'
'Well, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'I can say nothing to the contrary.'
'I was quite sure, Mrs Pipchin,' returned Mr Dombey, approvingly,
'that a person of your good sense could not, and would not.'
'There is a great deal of nonsense - and worse - talked about young
people not being pressed too hard at first, and being tempted on, and
all the rest of it, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, impatiently rubbing her
hooked nose. 'It never was thought of in my time, and it has no
business to be thought of now. My opinion is "keep 'em at it".'
'My good madam,' returned Mr Dombey, 'you have not acquired your
reputation undeservedly; and I beg you to believe, Mrs Pipchin, that I
am more than satisfied with your excellent system of management, and
shall have the greatest pleasure in commending it whenever my poor
commendation - ' Mr Dombey's loftiness when he affected to disparage
his own importance, passed all bounds - 'can be of any service. I have
been thinking of Doctor Blimber's, Mrs Pipchin.'
'My neighbour, Sir?' said Mrs Pipchin. 'I believe the Doctor's is
an excellent establishment. I've heard that it's very strictly
conducted, and there is nothing but learning going on from morning to
night.'
'And it's very expensive,' added Mr Dombey.
'And it's very expensive, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin, catching at
the fact, as if in omitting that, she had omitted one of its leading
merits.
'I have had some communication with the Doctor, Mrs Pipchin,' said
Mr Dombey, hitching his chair anxiously a little nearer to the fire,
'and he does not consider Paul at all too young for his purpose. He
mentioned several instances of boys in Greek at about the same age. If
I have any little uneasiness in my own mind, Mrs Pipchin, on the
subject of this change, it is not on that head. My son not having
known a mother has gradually concentrated much - too much - of his
childish affection on his sister. Whether their separation - ' Mr
Dombey said no more, but sat silent.
'Hoity-toity!' exclaimed Mrs Pipchin, shaking out her black
bombazeen skirts, and plucking up all the ogress within her. 'If she
don't like it, Mr Dombey, she must be taught to lump it.' The good
lady apologised immediately afterwards for using so common a figure of
speech, but said (and truly) that that was the way she reasoned with
'em.
Mr Dombey waited until Mrs Pipchin had done bridling and shaking
her head, and frowning down a legion of Bitherstones and Pankeys; and
then said quietly, but correctively, 'He, my good madam, he.'
Mrs Pipchin's system would have applied very much the same mode of
cure to any uneasiness on the part of Paul, too; but as the hard grey
eye was sharp enough to see that the recipe, however Mr Dombey might
admit its efficacy in the case of the daughter, was not a sovereign
remedy for the son, she argued the point; and contended that change,
and new society, and the different form of life he would lead at
Doctor Blimber's, and the studies he would have to master, would very
soon prove sufficient alienations. As this chimed in with Mr Dombey's
own hope and belief, it gave that gentleman a still higher opinion of
Mrs Pipchin's understanding; and as Mrs Pipchin, at the same time,
bewailed the loss of her dear little friend (which was not an
overwhelming shock to her, as she had long expected it, and had not
looked, in the beginning, for his remaining with her longer than three
months), he formed an equally good opinion of Mrs Pipchin's
disinterestedness. It was plain that he had given the subject anxious
consideration, for he had formed a plan, which he announced to the
ogress, of sending Paul to the Doctor's as a weekly boarder for the
first half year, during which time Florence would remain at the
Castle, that she might receive her brother there, on Saturdays. This
would wean him by degrees, Mr Dombey said; possibly with a
recollection of his not having been weaned by degrees on a former
occasion.
Mr Dombey finished the interview by expressing his hope that Mrs
Pipchin would still remain in office as general superintendent and
overseer of his son, pending his studies at Brighton; and having
kissed Paul, and shaken hands with Florence, and beheld Master
Bitherstone in his collar of state, and made Miss Pankey cry by
patting her on the head (in which region she was uncommonly tender, on
account of a habit Mrs Pipchin had of sounding it with her knuckles,
like a cask), he withdrew to his hotel and dinner: resolved that Paul,
now that he was getting so old and well, should begin a vigorous
course of education forthwith, to qualify him for the position in
which he was to shine; and that Doctor Blimber should take him in hand
immediately.
Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor Blimber, he
might consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The Doctor only
undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had, always ready,
a supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; and it was
at once the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten
with it.
In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house, in
which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys
blew before their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas,
and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical
gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and
from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every
description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs
of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no
consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to
bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other.
This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing
was attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right
taste about the premature productions, and they didn't keep well.
Moreover, one young gentleman, with a swollen nose and an excessively
large head (the oldest of the ten who had 'gone through' everything),
suddenly left off blowing one day, and remained in the establishment a
mere stalk. And people did say that the Doctor had rather overdone it
with young Toots, and that when he began to have whiskers he left off
having brains.
There young Toots was, at any rate; possessed of the gruffest of
voices and the shrillest of minds; sticking ornamental pins into his
shirt, and keeping a ring in his waistcoat pocket to put on his little
finger by stealth, when the pupils went out walking; constantly
falling in love by sight with nurserymaids, who had no idea of his
existence; and looking at the gas-lighted world over the little iron
bars in the left-hand corner window of the front three pairs of
stairs, after bed-time, like a greatly overgrown cherub who had sat up
aloft much too long.
The Doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with strings
at his knees, and stockings below them. He had a bald head, highly
polished; a deep voice; and a chin so very double, that it was a
wonder how he ever managed to shave into the creases. He had likewise
a pair of little eyes that were always half shut up, and a mouth that
was always half expanded into a grin, as if he had, that moment, posed
a boy, and were waiting to convict him from his own lips. Insomuch,
that when the Doctor put his right hand into the breast of his coat,
and with his other hand behind him, and a fly perceptible wag of his
head, made the commonest observation to a nervous stranger, it was
like a sentiment from the sphynx, and settled his business.
The Doctor's was a mighty fine house, fronting the sea. Not a
joyful style of house within, but quite the contrary. Sad-coloured
curtains, whose proportions were spare and lean, hid themselves
despondently behind the windows. The tables and chairs were put away
in rows, like figures in a sum; fires were so rarely lighted in the
rooms of ceremony, that they felt like wells, and a visitor
represented the bucket; the dining-room seemed the last place in the
world where any eating or drinking was likely to occur; there was no
sound through all the house but the ticking of a great clock in the
hall, which made itself audible in the very garrets; and sometimes a
dull cooing of young gentlemen at their lessons, like the murmurings
of an assemblage of melancholy pigeons.
Miss Blimber, too, although a slim and graceful maid, did no soft
violence to the gravity of the house. There was no light nonsense
about Miss Blimber. She kept her hair short and crisp, and wore
spectacles. She was dry and sandy with working in the graves of
deceased languages. None of your live languages for Miss Blimber. They
must be dead - stone dead - and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a
Ghoul.
Mrs Blimber, her Mama, was not learned herself, but she pretended
to be, and that did quite as well. She said at evening parties, that
if she could have known Cicero, she thought she could have died
contented. It was the steady joy of her life to see the Doctor's young
gentlemen go out walking, unlike all other young gentlemen, in the
largest possible shirt-collars, and the stiffest possible cravats. It
was so classical, she said.
As to Mr Feeder, B.A., Doctor Blimber's assistant, he was a kind of
human barrel-organ, with a little list of tunes at which he was
continually working, over and over again, without any variation. He
might have been fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early
life, if his destiny had been favourable; but it had not been; and he
had only one, with which, in a monotonous round, it was his occupation
to bewilder the young ideas of Doctor Blimber's young gentlemen. The
young gentlemen were prematurely full of carking anxieties. They knew
no rest from the pursuit of stony-hearted verbs, savage
noun-substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of
exercises that appeared to them in their dreams. Under the forcing
system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his spirits in three
weeks. He had all the cares of the world on his head in three months.
He conceived bitter sentiments against his parents or guardians in
four; he was an old misanthrope, in five; envied Curtius that blessed
refuge in the earth, in six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth
had arrived at the conclusion, from which he never afterwards
departed, that all the fancies of the poets, and lessons of the sages,
were a mere collection of words and grammar, and had no other meaning
in the world.
But he went on blow, blow, blowing, in the Doctor's hothouse, all
the time; and the Doctor's glory and reputation were great, when he
took his wintry growth home to his relations and friends.
Upon the Doctor's door-steps one day, Paul stood with a fluttering
heart, and with his small right hand in his father's. His other hand
was locked in that of Florence. How tight the tiny pressure of that
one; and how loose and cold the other!
Mrs Pipchin hovered behind the victim, with her sable plumage and
her hooked beak, like a bird of ill-omen. She was out of breath - for
Mr Dombey, full of great thoughts, had walked fast - and she croaked
hoarsely as she waited for the opening of the door.
'Now, Paul,' said Mr Dombey, exultingly. 'This is the way indeed to
be Dombey and Son, and have money. You are almost a man already.'
'Almost,' returned the child.
Even his childish agitation could not master the sly and quaint yet
touching look, with which he accompanied the reply.
It brought a vague expression of dissatisfaction into Mr Dombey's
face; but the door being opened, it was quickly gone
'Doctor Blimber is at home, I believe?' said Mr Dombey.
The man said yes; and as they passed in, looked at Paul as if he
were a little mouse, and the house were a trap. He was a weak-eyed
young man, with the first faint streaks or early dawn of a grin on his
countenance. It was mere imbecility; but Mrs Pipchin took it into her
head that it was impudence, and made a snap at him directly.
'How dare you laugh behind the gentleman's back?' said Mrs Pipchin.
'And what do you take me for?'
'I ain't a laughing at nobody, and I'm sure I don't take you for
nothing, Ma'am,' returned the young man, in consternation.
'A pack of idle dogs!' said Mrs Pipchin, 'only fit to be turnspits.
Go and tell your master that Mr Dombey's here, or it'll be worse for
you!'
The weak-eyed young man went, very meekly, to discharge himself of
this commission; and soon came back to invite them to the Doctor's
study.
'You're laughing again, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, when it came to her
turn, bringing up the rear, to pass him in the hall.
'I ain't,' returned the young man, grievously oppressed. 'I never
see such a thing as this!'
'What is the matter, Mrs Pipchin?' said Mr Dombey, looking round.
'Softly! Pray!'
Mrs Pipchin, in her deference, merely muttered at the young man as
she passed on, and said, 'Oh! he was a precious fellow' - leaving the
young man, who was all meekness and incapacity, affected even to tears
by the incident. But Mrs Pipchin had a way of falling foul of all meek
people; and her friends said who could wonder at it, after the
Peruvian mines!
The Doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at
each knee, books all round him, Homer over the door, and Minerva on
the mantel-shelf. 'And how do you do, Sir?' he said to Mr Dombey, 'and
how is my little friend?' Grave as an organ was the Doctor's speech;
and when he ceased, the great clock in the hall seemed (to Paul at
least) to take him up, and to go on saying, 'how, is, my, lit, tle,
friend? how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?' over and over and over again.
The little friend being something too small to be seen at all from
where the Doctor sat, over the books on his table, the Doctor made
several futile attempts to get a view of him round the legs; which Mr
Dombey perceiving, relieved the Doctor from his embarrassment by
taking Paul up in his arms, and sitting him on another little table,
over against the Doctor, in the middle of the room.
'Ha!' said the Doctor, leaning back in his chair with his hand in
his breast. 'Now I see my little friend. How do you do, my little
friend?'
The clock in the hall wouldn't subscribe to this alteration in the
form of words, but continued to repeat how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?
how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?'
'Very well, I thank you, Sir,' returned Paul, answering the clock
quite as much as the Doctor.
'Ha!' said Doctor Blimber. 'Shall we make a man of him?'
'Do you hear, Paul?' added Mr Dombey; Paul being silent.
'Shall we make a man of him?' repeated the Doctor.
'I had rather be a child,' replied Paul.
'Indeed!' said the Doctor. 'Why?'
The child sat on the table looking at him, with a curious
expression of suppressed emotion in his face, and beating one hand
proudly on his knee as if he had the rising tears beneath it, and
crushed them. But his other hand strayed a little way the while, a
little farther - farther from him yet - until it lighted on the neck
of Florence. 'This is why,' it seemed to say, and then the steady look
was broken up and gone; the working lip was loosened; and the tears
came streaming forth.
'Mrs Pipchin,' said his father, in a querulous manner, 'I am really
very sorry to see this.'
'Come away from him, do, Miss Dombey,' quoth the matron.
'Never mind,' said the Doctor, blandly nodding his head, to keep
Mrs Pipchin back. 'Never mind; we shall substitute new cares and new
impressions, Mr Dombey, very shortly. You would still wish my little
friend to acquire - '
'Everything, if you please, Doctor,' returned Mr Dombey, firmly.
'Yes,' said the Doctor, who, with his half-shut eyes, and his usual
smile, seemed to survey Paul with the sort of interest that might
attach to some choice little animal he was going to stuff. 'Yes,
exactly. Ha! We shall impart a great variety of information to our
little friend, and bring him quickly forward, I daresay. I daresay.
Quite a virgin soil, I believe you said, Mr Dombey?'
'Except some ordinary preparation at home, and from this lady,'
replied Mr Dombey, introducing Mrs Pipchin, who instantly communicated
a rigidity to her whole muscular system, and snorted defiance
beforehand, in case the Doctor should disparage her; 'except so far,
Paul has, as yet, applied himself to no studies at all.'
Doctor Blimber inclined his head, in gentle tolerance of such
insignificant poaching as Mrs Pipchin's, and said he was glad to hear
it. It was much more satisfactory, he observed, rubbing his hands, to
begin at the foundation. And again he leered at Paul, as if he would
have liked to tackle him with the Greek alphabet, on the spot.
'That circumstance, indeed, Doctor Blimber,' pursued Mr Dombey,
glancing at his little son, 'and the interview I have already had the
pleasure of holding with you, renders any further explanation, and
consequently, any further intrusion on your valuable time, so
unnecessary, that - '
'Now, Miss Dombey!' said the acid Pipchin.
'Permit me,' said the Doctor, 'one moment. Allow me to present Mrs
Blimber and my daughter; who will be associated with the domestic life
of our young Pilgrim to Parnassus Mrs Blimber,' for the lady, who had
perhaps been in waiting, opportunely entered, followed by her
daughter, that fair Sexton in spectacles, 'Mr Dombey. My daughter
Cornelia, Mr Dombey. Mr Dombey, my love,' pursued the Doctor, turning
to his wife, 'is so confiding as to - do you see our little friend?'
Mrs Blimber, in an excess of politeness, of which Mr Dombey was the
object, apparently did not, for she was backing against the little
friend, and very much endangering his position on the table. But, on
this hint, she turned to admire his classical and intellectual
lineaments, and turning again to Mr Dombey, said, with a sigh, that
she envied his dear son.
'Like a bee, Sir,' said Mrs Blimber, with uplifted eyes, 'about to
plunge into a garden of the choicest flowers, and sip the sweets for
the first time Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Terence, Plautus, Cicero. What a
world of honey have we here. It may appear remarkable, Mr Dombey, in
one who is a wife - the wife of such a husband - '
'Hush, hush,' said Doctor Blimber. 'Fie for shame.'
'Mr Dombey will forgive the partiality of a wife,' said Mrs
Blimber, with an engaging smile.
Mr Dombey answered 'Not at all:' applying those words, it is to be
presumed, to the partiality, and not to the forgiveness.
'And it may seem remarkable in one who is a mother also,' resumed
Mrs Blimber.
'And such a mother,' observed Mr Dombey, bowing with some confused
idea of being complimentary to Cornelia.
'But really,' pursued Mrs Blimber, 'I think if I could have known
Cicero, and been his friend, and talked with him in his retirement at
Tusculum (beau-ti-ful Tusculum!), I could have died contented.'
A learned enthusiasm is so very contagious, that Mr Dombey half
believed this was exactly his case; and even Mrs Pipchin, who was not,
as we have seen, of an accommodating disposition generally, gave
utterance to a little sound between a groan and a sigh, as if she
would have said that nobody but Cicero could have proved a lasting
consolation under that failure of the Peruvian MInes, but that he
indeed would have been a very Davy-lamp of refuge.
Cornelia looked at Mr Dombey through her spectacles, as if she
would have liked to crack a few quotations with him from the authority
in question. But this design, if she entertained it, was frustrated by
a knock at the room-door.
'Who is that?' said the Doctor. 'Oh! Come in, Toots; come in. Mr
Dombey, Sir.' Toots bowed. 'Quite a coincidence!' said Doctor Blimber.
'Here we have the beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega Our head boy,
Mr Dombey.'
The Doctor might have called him their head and shoulders boy, for
he was at least that much taller than any of the rest. He blushed very
much at finding himself among strangers, and chuckled aloud.
'An addition to our little Portico, Toots,' said the Doctor; 'Mr
Dombey's son.'
Young Toots blushed again; and finding, from a solemn silence which
prevailed, that he was expected to say something, said to Paul, 'How
are you?' in a voice so deep, and a manner so sheepish, that if a lamb
had roared it couldn't have been more surprising.
'Ask Mr Feeder, if you please, Toots,' said the Doctor, 'to prepare
a few introductory volumes for Mr Dombey's son, and to allot him a
convenient seat for study. My dear, I believe Mr Dombey has not seen
the dormitories.'
'If Mr Dombey will walk upstairs,' said Mrs Blimber, 'I shall be
more than proud to show him the dominions of the drowsy god.'
With that, Mrs Blimber, who was a lady of great suavity, and a wiry
figure, and who wore a cap composed of sky-blue materials, pied
upstairs with Mr Dombey and Cornelia; Mrs Pipchin following, and
looking out sharp for her enemy the footman.
While they were gone, Paul sat upon the table, holding Florence by
the hand, and glancing timidly from the Doctor round and round the
room, while the Doctor, leaning back in his chair, with his hand in
his breast as usual, held a book from him at arm's length, and read.
There was something very awful in this manner of reading. It was such
a determined, unimpassioned, inflexible, cold-blooded way of going to
work. It left the Doctor's countenance exposed to view; and when the
Doctor smiled suspiciously at his author, or knit his brows, or shook
his head and made wry faces at him, as much as to say, 'Don't tell me,
Sir; I know better,' it was terrific.
Toots, too, had no business to be outside the door, ostentatiously
examining the wheels in his watch, and counting his half-crowns. But
that didn't last long; for Doctor Blimber, happening to change the
position of his tight plump legs, as if he were going to get up, Toots
swiftly vanished, and appeared no more.
Mr Dombey and his conductress were soon heard coming downstairs
again, talking all the way; and presently they re-entered the Doctor's
study.
'I hope, Mr Dombey,' said the Doctor, laying down his book, 'that
the arrangements meet your approval.'
'They are excellent, Sir,' said Mr Dombey.
'Very fair, indeed,' said Mrs Pipchin, in a low voice; never
disposed to give too much encouragement.
'Mrs Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, wheeling round, 'will, with your
permission, Doctor and Mrs Blimber, visit Paul now and then.'
'Whenever Mrs Pipchin pleases,' observed the Doctor.
'Always happy to see her,' said Mrs Blimber.
'I think,' said Mr Dombey, 'I have given all the trouble I need,
and may take my leave. Paul, my child,' he went close to him, as he
sat upon the table. 'Good-bye.'
'Good-bye, Papa.'
The limp and careless little hand that Mr Dombey took in his, was
singularly out of keeping with the wistful face. But he had no part in
its sorrowful expression. It was not addressed to him. No, no. To
Florence - all to Florence.
If Mr Dombey in his insolence of wealth, had ever made an enemy,
hard to appease and cruelly vindictive in his hate, even such an enemy
might have received the pang that wrung his proud heart then, as
compensation for his injury.
He bent down, over his boy, and kissed him. If his sight were
dimmed as he did so, by something that for a moment blurred the little
face, and made it indistinct to him, his mental vision may have been,
for that short time, the clearer perhaps.
'I shall see you soon, Paul. You are free on Saturdays and Sundays,
you know.'
'Yes, Papa,' returned Paul: looking at his sister. 'On Saturdays
and Sundays.'
'And you'll try and learn a great deal here, and be a clever man,'
said Mr Dombey; 'won't you?'
'I'll try,' returned the child, wearily.
'And you'll soon be grown up now!' said Mr Dombey.
'Oh! very soon!' replied the child. Once more the old, old look
passed rapidly across his features like a strange light. It fell on
Mrs Pipchin, and extinguished itself in her black dress. That
excellent ogress stepped forward to take leave and to bear off
Florence, which she had long been thirsting to do. The move on her
part roused Mr Dombey, whose eyes were fixed on Paul. After patting
him on the head, and pressing his small hand again, he took leave of
Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber, with his usual polite
frigidity, and walked out of the study.
Despite his entreaty that they would not think of stirring, Doctor
Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber all pressed forward to attend
him to the hall; and thus Mrs Pipchin got into a state of entanglement
with Miss Blimber and the Doctor, and was crowded out of the study
before she could clutch Florence. To which happy accident Paul stood
afterwards indebted for the dear remembrance, that Florence ran back
to throw her arms round his neck, and that hers was the last face in
the doorway: turned towards him with a smile of encouragement, the
brighter for the tears through which it beamed.
It made his childish bosom heave and swell when it was gone; and
sent the globes, the books, blind Homer and Minerva, swimming round
the room. But they stopped, all of a sudden; and then he heard the
loud clock in the hall still gravely inquiring 'how, is, my, lit, tle,
friend? how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?' as it had done before.
He sat, with folded hands, upon his pedestal, silently listening.
But he might have answered 'weary, weary! very lonely, very sad!' And
there, with an aching void in his young heart, and all outside so
cold, and bare, and strange, Paul sat as if he had taken life
unfurnished, and the upholsterer were never coming.
CHAPTER 12.
Paul's Education
After the lapse of some minutes, which appeared an immense time to
little Paul Dombey on the table, Doctor Blimber came back. The
Doctor's walk was stately, and calculated to impress the juvenile mind
with solemn feelings. It was a sort of march; but when the Doctor put
out his right foot, he gravely turned upon his axis, with a
semi-circular sweep towards the left; and when he put out his left
foot, he turned in the same manner towards the right. So that he
seemed, at every stride he took, to look about him as though he were
saying, 'Can anybody have the goodness to indicate any subject, in any
direction, on which I am uninformed? I rather think not'
Mrs Blimber and Miss Blimber came back in the Doctor's company; and
the Doctor, lifting his new pupil off the table, delivered him over to
Miss Blimber.
'Cornelia,' said the Doctor, 'Dombey will be your charge at first.
Bring him on, Cornelia, bring him on.'
Miss Blimber received her young ward from the Doctor's hands; and
Paul, feeling that the spectacles were surveying him, cast down his
eyes.
'How old are you, Dombey?' said Miss Blimber.
'Six,' answered Paul, wondering, as he stole a glance at the young
lady, why her hair didn't grow long like Florence's, and why she was
like a boy.
'How much do you know of your Latin Grammar, Dombey?' said Miss
Blimber.
'None of it,' answered Paul. Feeling that the answer was a shock to
Miss Blimber's sensibility, he looked up at the three faces that were
looking down at him, and said:
'I have'n't been well. I have been a weak child. I couldn't learn a
Latin Grammar when I was out, every day, with old Glubb. I wish you'd
tell old Glubb to come and see me, if you please.'
'What a dreadfully low name' said Mrs Blimber. 'Unclassical to a
degree! Who is the monster, child?'
'What monster?' inquired Paul.
'Glubb,' said Mrs Blimber, with a great disrelish.
'He's no more a monster than you are,' returned Paul.
'What!' cried the Doctor, in a terrible voice. 'Ay, ay, ay? Aha!
What's that?'
Paul was dreadfully frightened; but still he made a stand for the
absent Glubb, though he did it trembling.
'He's a very nice old man, Ma'am,' he said. 'He used to draw my
couch. He knows all about the deep sea, and the fish that are in it,
and the great monsters that come and lie on rocks in the sun, and dive
into the water again when they're startled, blowing and splashing so,
that they can be heard for miles. There are some creatures, said Paul,
warming with his subject, 'I don't know how many yards long, and I
forget their names, but Florence knows, that pretend to be in
distress; and when a man goes near them, out of compassion, they open
their great jaws, and attack him. But all he has got to do,' said
Paul, boldly tendering this information to the very Doctor himself,
'is to keep on turning as he runs away, and then, as they turn slowly,
because they are so long, and can't bend, he's sure to beat them. And
though old Glubb don't know why the sea should make me think of my
Mama that's dead, or what it is that it is always saying - always
saying! he knows a great deal about it. And I wish,' the child
concluded, with a sudden falling of his countenance, and failing in
his animation, as he looked like one forlorn, upon the three strange
faces, 'that you'd let old Glubb come here to see me, for I know him
very well, and he knows me.
'Ha!' said the Doctor, shaking his head; 'this is bad, but study
will do much.'
Mrs Blimber opined, with something like a shiver, that he was an
unaccountable child; and, allowing for the difference of visage,
looked at him pretty much as Mrs Pipchin had been used to do.
'Take him round the house, Cornelia,' said the Doctor, 'and
familiarise him with his new sphere. Go with that young lady, Dombey.'
Dombey obeyed; giving his hand to the abstruse Cornelia, and
looking at her sideways, with timid curiosity, as they went away
together. For her spectacles, by reason of the glistening of the
glasses, made her so mysterious, that he didn't know where she was
looking, and was not indeed quite sure that she had any eyes at all
behind them.
Cornelia took him first to the schoolroom, which was situated at
the back of the hall, and was approached through two baize doors,
which deadened and muffled the young gentlemen's voices. Here, there
were eight young gentlemen in various stages of mental prostration,
all very hard at work, and very grave indeed. Toots, as an old hand,
had a desk to himself in one corner: and a magnificent man, of immense
age, he looked, in Paul's young eyes, behind it.
Mr Feeder, B.A., who sat at another little desk, had his Virgil
stop on, and was slowly grinding that tune to four young gentlemen. Of
the remaining four, two, who grasped their foreheads convulsively,
were engaged in solving mathematical problems; one with his face like
a dirty window, from much crying, was endeavouring to flounder through
a hopeless number of lines before dinner; and one sat looking at his
task in stony stupefaction and despair - which it seemed had been his
condition ever since breakfast time.
The appearance of a new boy did not create the sensation that might
have been expected. Mr Feeder, B.A. (who was in the habit of shaving
his head for coolness, and had nothing but little bristles on it),
gave him a bony hand, and told him he was glad to see him - which Paul
would have been very glad to have told him, if he could have done so
with the least sincerity. Then Paul, instructed by Cornelia, shook
hands with the four young gentlemen at Mr Feeder's desk; then with the
two young gentlemen at work on the problems, who were very feverish;
then with the young gentleman at work against time, who was very inky;
and lastly with the young gentleman in a state of stupefaction, who
was flabby and quite cold.
Paul having been already introduced to Toots, that pupil merely
chuckled and breathed hard, as his custom was, and pursued the
occupation in which he was engaged. It was not a severe one; for on
account of his having 'gone through' so much (in more senses than
one), and also of his having, as before hinted, left off blowing in
his prime, Toots now had licence to pursue his own course of study:
which was chiefly to write long letters to himself from persons of
distinction, adds 'P. Toots, Esquire, Brighton, Sussex,' and to
preserve them in his desk with great care.
These ceremonies passed, Cornelia led Paul upstairs to the top of
the house; which was rather a slow journey, on account of Paul being
obliged to land both feet on every stair, before he mounted another.
But they reached their journey's end at last; and there, in a front
room, looking over the wild sea, Cornelia showed him a nice little bed
with white hangings, close to the window, on which there was already
beautifully written on a card in round text - down strokes very thick,
and up strokes very fine - DOMBEY; while two other little bedsteads in
the same room were announced, through like means, as respectively
appertaining unto BRIGGS and TOZER.
Just as they got downstairs again into the hall, Paul saw the
weak-eyed young man who had given that mortal offence to Mrs Pipchin,
suddenly seize a very large drumstick, and fly at a gong that was
hanging up, as if he had gone mad, or wanted vengeance. Instead of
receiving warning, however, or being instantly taken into custody, the
young man left off unchecked, after having made a dreadful noise. Then
Cornelia Blimber said to Dombey that dinner would be ready in a
quarter of an hour, and perhaps he had better go into the schoolroom
among his 'friends.'
So Dombey, deferentially passing the great clock which was still as
anxious as ever to know how he found himself, opened the schoolroom
door a very little way, and strayed in like a lost boy: shutting it
after him with some difficulty. His friends were all dispersed about
the room except the stony friend, who remained immoveable. Mr Feeder
was stretching himself in his grey gown, as if, regardless of expense,
he were resolved to pull the sleeves off.
'Heigh ho hum!' cried Mr Feeder, shaking himself like a cart-horse.
'Oh dear me, dear me! Ya-a-a-ah!'
Paul was quite alarmed by Mr Feeder's yawning; it was done on such
a great scale, and he was so terribly in earnest. All the boys too
(Toots excepted) seemed knocked up, and were getting ready for dinner
- some newly tying their neckcloths, which were very stiff indeed; and
others washing their hands or brushing their hair, in an adjoining
ante-chamber - as if they didn't think they should enjoy it at all.
Young Toots who was ready beforehand, and had therefore nothing to
do, and had leisure to bestow upon Paul, said, with heavy good nature:
'Sit down, Dombey.'
'Thank you, Sir,' said Paul.
His endeavouring to hoist himself on to a very high window-seat,
and his slipping down again, appeared to prepare Toots's mind for the
reception of a discovery.
'You're a very small chap;' said Mr Toots.
'Yes, Sir, I'm small,' returned Paul. 'Thank you, Sir.'
For Toots had lifted him into the seat, and done it kindly too.
'Who's your tailor?' inquired Toots, after looking at him for some
moments.
'It's a woman that has made my clothes as yet,' said Paul. 'My
sister's dressmaker.'
'My tailor's Burgess and Co.,' said Toots. 'Fash'nable. But very
dear.'
Paul had wit enough to shake his head, as if he would have said it
was easy to see that; and indeed he thought so.
'Your father's regularly rich, ain't he?' inquired Mr Toots.
'Yes, Sir,' said Paul. 'He's Dombey and Son.'
'And which?' demanded Toots.
'And Son, Sir,' replied Paul.
Mr Toots made one or two attempts, in a low voice, to fix the Firm
in his mind; but not quite succeeding, said he would get Paul to
mention the name again to-morrow morning, as it was rather important.
And indeed he purposed nothing less than writing himself a private and
confidential letter from Dombey and Son immediately.
By this time the other pupils (always excepting the stony boy)
gathered round. They were polite, but pale; and spoke low; and they
were so depressed in their spirits, that in comparison with the
general tone of that company, Master Bitherstone was a perfect Miller,
or complete Jest Book.' And yet he had a sense of injury upon him,
too, had Bitherstone.
'You sleep in my room, don't you?' asked a solemn young gentleman,
whose shirt-collar curled up the lobes of his ears.
'Master Briggs?' inquired Paul.
'Tozer,' said the young gentleman.
Paul answered yes; and Tozer pointing out the stony pupil, said
that was Briggs. Paul had already felt certain that it must be either
Briggs or Tozer, though he didn't know why.
'Is yours a strong constitution?' inquired Tozer.
Paul said he thought not. Tozer replied that he thought not also,
judging from Paul's looks, and that it was a pity, for it need be. He
then asked Paul if he were going to begin with Cornelia; and on Paul
saying 'yes,' all the young gentlemen (Briggs excepted) gave a low
groan.
It was drowned in the tintinnabulation of the gong, which sounding
again with great fury, there was a general move towards the
dining-room; still excepting Briggs the stony boy, who remained where
he was, and as he was; and on its way to whom Paul presently
encountered a round of bread, genteelly served on a plate and napkin,
and with a silver fork lying crosswise on the top of it.
Doctor Blimber was already in his place in the dining-room, at the
top of the table, with Miss Blimber and Mrs Blimber on either side of
him. Mr Feeder in a black coat was at the bottom. Paul's chair was
next to Miss Blimber; but it being found, when he sat in it, that his
eyebrows were not much above the level of the table-cloth, some books
were brought in from the Doctor's study, on which he was elevated, and
on which he always sat from that time - carrying them in and out
himself on after occasions, like a little elephant and castle.'
Grace having been said by the Doctor, dinner began. There was some
nice soup; also roast meat, boiled meat, vegetables, pie, and cheese.
Every young gentleman had a massive silver fork, and a napkin; and all
the arrangements were stately and handsome. In particular, there was a
butler in a blue coat and bright buttons, who gave quite a winey
flavour to the table beer; he poured it out so superbly.
Nobody spoke, unless spoken to, except Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber,
and Miss Blimber, who conversed occasionally. Whenever a young
gentleman was not actually engaged with his knife and fork or spoon,
his eye, with an irresistible attraction, sought the eye of Doctor
Blimber, Mrs Blimber, or Miss Blimber, and modestly rested there.
Toots appeared to be the only exception to this rule. He sat next Mr
Feeder on Paul's side of the table, and frequently looked behind and
before the intervening boys to catch a glimpse of Paul.
Only once during dinner was there any conversation that included
the young gentlemen. It happened at the epoch of the cheese, when the
Doctor, having taken a glass of port wine, and hemmed twice or thrice,
said:
'It is remarkable, Mr Feeder, that the Romans - '
At the mention of this terrible people, their implacable enemies,
every young gentleman fastened his gaze upon the Doctor, with an
assumption of the deepest interest. One of the number who happened to
be drinking, and who caught the Doctor's eye glaring at him through
the side of his tumbler, left off so hastily that he was convulsed for
some moments, and in the sequel ruined Doctor Blimber's point.
'It is remarkable, Mr Feeder,' said the Doctor, beginning again
slowly, 'that the Romans, in those gorgeous and profuse entertainments
of which we read in the days of the Emperors, when luxury had attained
a height unknown before or since, and when whole provinces were
ravaged to supply the splendid means of one Imperial Banquet - '
Here the offender, who had been swelling and straining, and waiting
in vain for a full stop, broke out violently.
'Johnson,' said Mr Feeder, in a low reproachful voice, 'take some
water.'
The Doctor, looking very stern, made a pause until the water was
brought, and then resumed:
'And when, Mr Feeder - '
But Mr Feeder, who saw that Johnson must break out again, and who
knew that the Doctor would never come to a period before the young
gentlemen until he had finished all he meant to say, couldn't keep his
eye off Johnson; and thus was caught in the fact of not looking at the
Doctor, who consequently stopped.
'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Mr Feeder, reddening. 'I beg your
pardon, Doctor Blimber.'
'And when,' said the Doctor, raising his voice, 'when, Sir, as we
read, and have no reason to doubt - incredible as it may appear to the
vulgar - of our time - the brother of Vitellius prepared for him a
feast, in which were served, of fish, two thousand dishes - '
'Take some water, Johnson - dishes, Sir,' said Mr Feeder.
'Of various sorts of fowl, five thousand dishes.'
'Or try a crust of bread,' said Mr Feeder.
'And one dish,' pursued Doctor Blimber, raising his voice still
higher as he looked all round the table, 'called, from its enormous
dimensions, the Shield of Minerva, and made, among other costly
ingredients, of the brains of pheasants - '
'Ow, ow, ow!' (from Johnson.)
'Woodcocks - '
'Ow, ow, ow!'
'The sounds of the fish called scari - '
'You'll burst some vessel in your head,' said Mr Feeder. 'You had
better let it come.'
'And the spawn of the lamprey, brought from the Carpathian Sea,'
pursued the Doctor, in his severest voice; 'when we read of costly
entertainments such as these, and still remember, that we have a Titus
- '
'What would be your mother's feelings if you died of apoplexy!'
said Mr Feeder.
'A Domitian - '
'And you're blue, you know,' said Mr Feeder.
'A Nero, a Tiberius, a Caligula, a Heliogabalus, and many more,
pursued the Doctor; 'it is, Mr Feeder - if you are doing me the honour
to attend - remarkable; VERY remarkable, Sir - '
But Johnson, unable to suppress it any longer, burst at that moment
into such an overwhelming fit of coughing, that although both his
immediate neighbours thumped him on the back, and Mr Feeder himself
held a glass of water to his lips, and the butler walked him up and
down several times between his own chair and the sideboard, like a
sentry, it was a full five minutes before he was moderately composed.
Then there was a profound silence.
'Gentlemen,' said Doctor Blimber, 'rise for Grace! Cornelia, lift
Dombey down' - nothing of whom but his scalp was accordingly seen
above the tablecloth. 'Johnson will repeat to me tomorrow morning
before breakfast, without book, and from the Greek Testament, the
first chapter of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians. We will
resume our studies, Mr Feeder, in half-an-hour.'
The young gentlemen bowed and withdrew. Mr Feeder did likewise.
During the half-hour, the young gentlemen, broken into pairs, loitered
arm-in-arm up and down a small piece of ground behind the house, or
endeavoured to kindle a spark of animation in the breast of Briggs.
But nothing happened so vulgar as play. Punctually at the appointed
time, the gong was sounded, and the studies, under the joint auspices
of Doctor Blimber and Mr Feeder, were resumed.
As the Olympic game of lounging up and down had been cut shorter
than usual that day, on Johnson's account, they all went out for a
walk before tea. Even Briggs (though he hadn't begun yet) partook of
this dissipation; in the enjoyment of which he looked over the cliff
two or three times darkly. Doctor Blimber accompanied them; and Paul
had the honour of being taken in tow by the Doctor himself: a
distinguished state of things, in which he looked very little and
feeble.
Tea was served in a style no less polite than the dinner; and after
tea, the young gentlemen rising and bowing as before, withdrew to
fetch up the unfinished tasks of that day, or to get up the already
looming tasks of to-morrow. In the meantime Mr Feeder withdrew to his
own room; and Paul sat in a corner wondering whether Florence was
thinking of him, and what they were all about at Mrs Pipchin's.
Mr Toots, who had been detained by an important letter from the
Duke of Wellington, found Paul out after a time; and having looked at
him for a long while, as before, inquired if he was fond of
waistcoats.
Paul said 'Yes, Sir.'
'So am I,' said Toots.
No word more spoke Toots that night; but he stood looking at Paul
as if he liked him; and as there was company in that, and Paul was not
inclined to talk, it answered his purpose better than conversation.
At eight o'clock or so, the gong sounded again for prayers in the
dining-room, where the butler afterwards presided over a side-table,
on which bread and cheese and beer were spread for such young
gentlemen as desired to partake of those refreshments. The ceremonies
concluded by the Doctor's saying, 'Gentlemen, we will resume our
studies at seven to-morrow;' and then, for the first time, Paul saw
Cornelia Blimber's eye, and saw that it was upon him. When the Doctor
had said these words, 'Gentlemen, we will resume our studies at seven
tomorrow,' the pupils bowed again, and went to bed.
In the confidence of their own room upstairs, Briggs said his head
ached ready to split, and that he should wish himself dead if it
wasn't for his mother, and a blackbird he had at home Tozer didn't say
much, but he sighed a good deal, and told Paul to look out, for his
turn would come to-morrow. After uttering those prophetic words, he
undressed himself moodily, and got into bed. Briggs was in his bed
too, and Paul in his bed too, before the weak-eyed young man appeared
to take away the candle, when he wished them good-night and pleasant
dreams. But his benevolent wishes were in vain, as far as Briggs and
Tozer were concerned; for Paul, who lay awake for a long while, and
often woke afterwards, found that Briggs was ridden by his lesson as a
nightmare: and that Tozer, whose mind was affected in his sleep by
similar causes, in a minor degree talked unknown tongues, or scraps of
Greek and Latin - it was all one to Paul- which, in the silence of
night, had an inexpressibly wicked and guilty effect.
Paul had sunk into a sweet sleep, and dreamed that he was walking
hand in hand with Florence through beautiful gardens, when they came
to a large sunflower which suddenly expanded itself into a gong, and
began to sound. Opening his eyes, he found that it was a dark, windy
morning, with a drizzling rain: and that the real gong was giving
dreadful note of preparation, down in the hall.
So he got up directly, and found Briggs with hardly any eyes, for
nightmare and grief had made his face puffy, putting his boots on:
while Tozer stood shivering and rubbing his shoulders in a very bad
humour. Poor Paul couldn't dress himself easily, not being used to it,
and asked them if they would have the goodness to tie some strings for
him; but as Briggs merely said 'Bother!' and Tozer, 'Oh yes!' he went
down when he was otherwise ready, to the next storey, where he saw a
pretty young woman in leather gloves, cleaning a stove. The young
woman seemed surprised at his appearance, and asked him where his
mother was. When Paul told her she was dead, she took her gloves off,
and did what he wanted; and furthermore rubbed his hands to warm them;
and gave him a kiss; and told him whenever he wanted anything of that
sort - meaning in the dressing way - to ask for 'Melia; which Paul,
thanking her very much, said he certainly would. He then proceeded
softly on his journey downstairs, towards the room in which the young
gentlemen resumed their studies, when, passing by a door that stood
ajar, a voice from within cried, 'Is that Dombey?' On Paul replying,
'Yes, Ma'am:' for he knew the voice to be Miss Blimber's: Miss Blimber
said, 'Come in, Dombey.' And in he went. Miss Blimber presented
exactly the appearance she had presented yesterday, except that she
wore a shawl. Her little light curls were as crisp as ever, and she
had already her spectacles on, which made Paul wonder whether she went
to bed in them. She had a cool little sitting-room of her own up
there, with some books in it, and no fire But Miss Blimber was never
cold, and never sleepy.
Now, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, 'I am going out for a
constitutional.'
Paul wondered what that was, and why she didn't send the footman
out to get it in such unfavourable weather. But he made no observation
on the subject: his attention being devoted to a little pile of new
books, on which Miss Blimber appeared to have been recently engaged.
'These are yours, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber.
'All of 'em, Ma'am?' said Paul.
'Yes,' returned Miss Blimber; 'and Mr Feeder will look you out some
more very soon, if you are as studious as I expect you will be,
Dombey.'
'Thank you, Ma'am,' said Paul.
'I am going out for a constitutional,' resumed Miss Blimber; 'and
while I am gone, that is to say in the interval between this and
breakfast, Dombey, I wish you to read over what I have marked in these
books, and to tell me if you quite understand what you have got to
learn. Don't lose time, Dombey, for you have none to spare, but take
them downstairs, and begin directly.'
'Yes, Ma'am,' answered Paul.
There were so many of them, that although Paul put one hand under
the bottom book and his other hand and his chin on the top book, and
hugged them all closely, the middle book slipped out before he reached
the door, and then they all tumbled down on the floor. Miss Blimber
said, 'Oh, Dombey, Dombey, this is really very careless!' and piled
them up afresh for him; and this time, by dint of balancing them with
great nicety, Paul got out of the room, and down a few stairs before
two of them escaped again. But he held the rest so tight, that he only
left one more on the first floor, and one in the passage; and when he
had got the main body down into the schoolroom, he set off upstairs
again to collect the stragglers. Having at last amassed the whole
library, and climbed into his place, he fell to work, encouraged by a
remark from Tozer to the effect that he 'was in for it now;' which was
the only interruption he received till breakfast time. At that meal,
for which he had no appetite, everything was quite as solemn and
genteel as at the others; and when it was finished, he followed Miss
Blimber upstairs.
'Now, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber. 'How have you got on with those
books?'
They comprised a little English, and a deal of Latin - names of
things, declensions of articles and substantives, exercises thereon,
and preliminary rules - a trifle of orthography, a glance at ancient
history, a wink or two at modern ditto, a few tables, two or three
weights and measures, and a little general information. When poor Paul
had spelt out number two, he found he had no idea of number one;
fragments whereof afterwards obtruded themselves into number three,
which slided into number four, which grafted itself on to number two.
So that whether twenty Romuluses made a Remus, or hic haec hoc was
troy weight, or a verb always agreed with an ancient Briton, or three
times four was Taurus a bull, were open questions with him.
'Oh, Dombey, Dombey!' said Miss Blimber, 'this is very shocking.'
'If you please,' said Paul, 'I think if I might sometimes talk a
little to old Glubb, I should be able to do better.'
'Nonsense, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber. 'I couldn't hear of it. This
is not the place for Glubbs of any kind. You must take the books down,
I suppose, Dombey, one by one, and perfect yourself in the day's
instalment of subject A, before you turn at all to subject B. I am
sorry to say, Dombey, that your education appears to have been very
much neglected.'
'So Papa says,' returned Paul; 'but I told you - I have been a weak
child. Florence knows I have. So does Wickam.'
'Who is Wickam?' asked Miss Blimber.
'She has been my nurse,' Paul answered.
'I must beg you not to mention Wickam to me, then,' said Miss
Blimber.'I couldn't allow it'.
'You asked me who she was,' said Paul.
'Very well,' returned Miss Blimber; 'but this is all very different
indeed from anything of that sort, Dombey, and I couldn't think of
permitting it. As to having been weak, you must begin to be strong.
And now take away the top book, if you please, Dombey, and return when
you are master of the theme.'
Miss Blimber expressed her opinions on the subject of Paul's
uninstructed state with a gloomy delight, as if she had expected this
result, and were glad to find that they must be in constant
communication. Paul withdrew with the top task, as he was told, and
laboured away at it, down below: sometimes remembering every word of
it, and sometimes forgetting it all, and everything else besides:
until at last he ventured upstairs again to repeat the lesson, when it
was nearly all driven out of his head before he began, by Miss
Blimber's shutting up the book, and saying, 'Good, Dombey!' a
proceeding so suggestive of the knowledge inside of her, that Paul
looked upon the young lady with consternation, as a kind of learned
Guy Faux, or artificial Bogle, stuffed full of scholastic straw.
He acquitted himself very well, nevertheless; and Miss Blimber,
commending him as giving promise of getting on fast, immediately
provided him with subject B; from which he passed to C, and even D
before dinner. It was hard work, resuming his studies, soon after
dinner; and he felt giddy and confused and drowsy and dull. But all
the other young gentlemen had similar sensations, and were obliged to
resume their studies too, if there were any comfort in that. It was a
wonder that the great clock in the hall, instead of being constant to
its first inquiry, never said, 'Gentlemen, we will now resume our
studies,' for that phrase was often enough repeated in its
neighbourhood. The studies went round like a mighty wheel, and the
young gentlemen were always stretched upon it.
After tea there were exercises again, and preparations for next day
by candlelight. And in due course there was bed; where, but for that
resumption of the studies which took place in dreams, were rest and
sweet forgetfulness.
Oh Saturdays! Oh happy Saturdays, when Florence always came at
noon, and never would, in any weather, stay away, though Mrs Pipchin
snarled and growled, and worried her bitterly. Those Saturdays were
Sabbaths for at least two little Christians among all the Jews, and
did the holy Sabbath work of strengthening and knitting up a brother's
and a sister's love.
Not even Sunday nights - the heavy Sunday nights, whose shadow
darkened the first waking burst of light on Sunday mornings - could
mar those precious Saturdays. Whether it was the great sea-shore,
where they sat, and strolled together; or whether it was only Mrs
Pipchin's dull back room, in which she sang to him so softly, with his
drowsy head upon her arm; Paul never cared. It was Florence. That was
all he thought of. So, on Sunday nights, when the Doctor's dark door
stood agape to swallow him up for another week, the time was come for
taking leave of Florence; no one else.
Mrs Wickam had been drafted home to the house in town, and Miss
Nipper, now a smart young woman, had come down. To many a single
combat with Mrs Pipchin, did Miss Nipper gallantly devote herself, and
if ever Mrs Pipchin in all her life had found her match, she had found
it now. Miss Nipper threw away the scabbard the first morning she
arose in Mrs Pipchin's house. She asked and gave no quarter. She said
it must be war, and war it was; and Mrs Pipchin lived from that time
in the midst of surprises, harassings, and defiances, and skirmishing
attacks that came bouncing in upon her from the passage, even in
unguarded moments of chops, and carried desolation to her very toast.
Miss Nipper had returned one Sunday night with Florence, from
walking back with Paul to the Doctor's, when Florence took from her
bosom a little piece of paper, on which she had pencilled down some
words.
'See here, Susan,' she said. 'These are the names of the little
books that Paul brings home to do those long exercises with, when he
is so tired. I copied them last night while he was writing.'
'Don't show 'em to me, Miss Floy, if you please,' returned Nipper,
'I'd as soon see Mrs Pipchin.'
'I want you to buy them for me, Susan, if you will, tomorrow
morning. I have money enough,' said Florence.
'Why, goodness gracious me, Miss Floy,' returned Miss Nipper, 'how
can you talk like that, when you have books upon books already, and
masterses and mississes a teaching of you everything continual, though
my belief is that your Pa, Miss Dombey, never would have learnt you
nothing, never would have thought of it, unless you'd asked him - when
be couldn't well refuse; but giving consent when asked, and offering
when unasked, Miss, is quite two things; I may not have my objections
to a young man's keeping company with me, and when he puts the
question, may say "yes," but that's not saying "would you be so kind
as like me."'
'But you can buy me the books, Susan; and you will, when you know
why I want them.'
'Well, Miss, and why do you want 'em?' replied Nipper; adding, in a
lower voice, 'If it was to fling at Mrs Pipchin's head, I'd buy a
cart-load.'
'Paul has a great deal too much to do, Susan,' said Florence, 'I am
sure of it.'
'And well you may be, Miss,' returned her maid, 'and make your mind
quite easy that the willing dear is worked and worked away. If those
is Latin legs,' exclaimed Miss Nipper, with strong feeling - in
allusion to Paul's; 'give me English ones.'
'I am afraid he feels lonely and lost at Doctor Blimber's, Susan,'
pursued Florence, turning away her face.
'Ah,' said Miss Nipper, with great sharpness, 'Oh, them "Blimbers"'
'Don't blame anyone,' said Florence. 'It's a mistake.'
'I say nothing about blame, Miss,' cried Miss Nipper, 'for I know
that you object, but I may wish, Miss, that the family was set to work
to make new roads, and that Miss Blimber went in front and had the
pickaxe.'
After this speech, Miss Nipper, who was perfectly serious, wiped
her eyes.
'I think I could perhaps give Paul some help, Susan, if I had these
books,' said Florence, 'and make the coming week a little easier to
him. At least I want to try. So buy them for me, dear, and I will
never forget how kind it was of you to do it!'
It must have been a harder heart than Susan Nipper's that could
have rejected the little purse Florence held out with these words, or
the gentle look of entreaty with which she seconded her petition.
Susan put the purse in her pocket without reply, and trotted out at
once upon her errand.
The books were not easy to procure; and the answer at several shops
was, either that they were just out of them, or that they never kept
them, or that they had had a great many last month, or that they
expected a great many next week But Susan was not easily baffled in
such an enterprise; and having entrapped a white-haired youth, in a
black calico apron, from a library where she was known, to accompany
her in her quest, she led him such a life in going up and down, that
he exerted himself to the utmost, if it were only to get rid of her;
and finally enabled her to return home in triumph.
With these treasures then, after her own daily lessons were over,
Florence sat down at night to track Paul's footsteps through the
thorny ways of learning; and being possessed of a naturally quick and
sound capacity, and taught by that most wonderful of masters, love, it
was not long before she gained upon Paul's heels, and caught and
passed him.
Not a word of this was breathed to Mrs Pipchin: but many a night
when they were all in bed, and when Miss Nipper, with her hair in
papers and herself asleep in some uncomfortable attitude, reposed
unconscious by her side; and when the chinking ashes in the grate were
cold and grey; and when the candles were burnt down and guttering out;
- Florence tried so hard to be a substitute for one small Dombey, that
her fortitude and perseverance might have almost won her a free right
to bear the name herself.
And high was her reward, when one Saturday evening, as little Paul
was sitting down as usual to 'resume his studies,' she sat down by his
side, and showed him all that was so rough, made smooth, and all that
was so dark, made clear and plain, before him. It was nothing but a
startled look in Paul's wan face - a flush - a smile - and then a
close embrace - but God knows how her heart leapt up at this rich
payment for her trouble.
'Oh, Floy!' cried her brother, 'how I love you! How I love you,
Floy!'
'And I you, dear!'
'Oh! I am sure of that, Floy.'
He said no more about it, but all that evening sat close by her,
very quiet; and in the night he called out from his little room within
hers, three or four times, that he loved her.
Regularly, after that, Florence was prepared to sit down with Paul
on Saturday night, and patiently assist him through so much as they
could anticipate together of his next week's work. The cheering
thought that he was labouring on where Florence had just toiled before
him, would, of itself, have been a stimulant to Paul in the perpetual
resumption of his studies; but coupled with the actual lightening of
his load, consequent on this assistance, it saved him, possibly, from
sinking underneath the burden which the fair Cornelia Blimber piled
upon his back.
It was not that Miss Blimber meant to be too hard upon him, or that
Doctor Blimber meant to bear too heavily on the young gentlemen in
general. Cornelia merely held the faith in which she had been bred;
and the Doctor, in some partial confusion of his ideas, regarded the
young gentlemen as if they were all Doctors, and were born grown up.
Comforted by the applause of the young gentlemen's nearest relations,
and urged on by their blind vanity and ill-considered haste, it would
have been strange if Doctor Blimber had discovered his mistake, or
trimmed his swelling sails to any other tack.
Thus in the case of Paul. When Doctor Blimber said he made great
progress and was naturally clever, Mr Dombey was more bent than ever
on his being forced and crammed. In the case of Briggs, when Doctor
Blimber reported that he did not make great progress yet, and was not
naturally clever, Briggs senior was inexorable in the same purpose. In
short, however high and false the temperature at which the Doctor kept
his hothouse, the owners of the plants were always ready to lend a
helping hand at the bellows, and to stir the fire.
Such spirits as he had in the outset, Paul soon lost of course. But
he retained all that was strange, and old, and thoughtful in his
character: and under circumstances so favourable to the development of
those tendencies, became even more strange, and old, and thoughtful,
than before.
The only difference was, that he kept his character to himself. He
grew more thoughtful and reserved, every day; and had no such
curiosity in any living member of the Doctor's household, as he had
had in Mrs Pipchin. He loved to be alone; and in those short intervals
when he was not occupied with his books, liked nothing so well as
wandering about the house by himself, or sitting on the stairs,
listening to the great clock in the hall. He was intimate with all the
paperhanging in the house; saw things that no one else saw in the
patterns; found out miniature tigers and lions running up the bedroom
walls, and squinting faces leering in the squares and diamonds of the
floor-cloth.
The solitary child lived on, surrounded by this arabesque work of
his musing fancy, and no one understood him. Mrs Blimber thought him
'odd,' and sometimes the servants said among themselves that little
Dombey 'moped;' but that was all.
Unless young Toots had some idea on the subject, to the expression
of which he was wholly unequal. Ideas, like ghosts (according to the
common notion of ghosts), must be spoken to a little before they will
explain themselves; and Toots had long left off asking any questions
of his own mind. Some mist there may have been, issuing from that
leaden casket, his cranium, which, if it could have taken shape and
form, would have become a genie; but it could not; and it only so far
followed the example of the smoke in the Arabian story, as to roll out
in a thick cloud, and there hang and hover. But it left a little
figure visible upon a lonely shore, and Toots was always staring at
it.
'How are you?' he would say to Paul, fifty times a day. 'Quite
well, Sir, thank you,' Paul would answer. 'Shake hands,' would be
Toots's next advance.
Which Paul, of course, would immediately do. Mr Toots generally
said again, after a long interval of staring and hard breathing, 'How
are you?' To which Paul again replied, 'Quite well, Sir, thank you.'
One evening Mr Toots was sitting at his desk, oppressed by
correspondence, when a great purpose seemed to flash upon him. He laid
down his pen, and went off to seek Paul, whom he found at last, after
a long search, looking through the window of his little bedroom.
'I say!' cried Toots, speaking the moment he entered the room, lest
he should forget it; 'what do you think about?'
'Oh! I think about a great many things,' replied Paul.
'Do you, though?' said Toots, appearing to consider that fact in
itself surprising. 'If you had to die,' said Paul, looking up into his
face - Mr Toots started, and seemed much disturbed.
'Don't you think you would rather die on a moonlight night, when
the sky was quite clear, and the wind blowing, as it did last night?'
Mr Toots said, looking doubtfully at Paul, and shaking his head,
that he didn't know about that.
'Not blowing, at least,' said Paul, 'but sounding in the air like
the sea sounds in the shells. It was a beautiful night. When I had
listened to the water for a long time, I got up and looked out. There
was a boat over there, in the full light of the moon; a boat with a
sail.'
The child looked at him so steadfastly, and spoke so earnestly,
that Mr Toots, feeling himself called upon to say something about this
boat, said, 'Smugglers.' But with an impartial remembrance of there
being two sides to every question, he added, 'or Preventive.'
'A boat with a sail,' repeated Paul, 'in the full light of the
moon. The sail like an arm, all silver. It went away into the
distance, and what do you think it seemed to do as it moved with the
waves?'
'Pitch,' said Mr Toots.
'It seemed to beckon,' said the child, 'to beckon me to come! -
There she is! There she is!'
Toots was almost beside himself with dismay at this sudden
exclamation, after what had gone before, and cried 'Who?'
'My sister Florence!' cried Paul, 'looking up here, and waving her
hand. She sees me - she sees me! Good-night, dear, good-night,
good-night.'
His quick transition to a state of unbounded pleasure, as he stood
at his window, kissing and clapping his hands: and the way in which
the light retreated from his features as she passed out of his view,
and left a patient melancholy on the little face: were too remarkable
wholly to escape even Toots's notice. Their interview being
interrupted at this moment by a visit from Mrs Pipchin, who usually
brought her black skirts to bear upon Paul just before dusk, once or
twice a week, Toots had no opportunity of improving the occasion: but
it left so marked an impression on his mind that he twice returned,
after having exchanged the usual salutations, to ask Mrs Pipchin how
she did. This the irascible old lady conceived to be a deeply devised
and long-meditated insult, originating in the diabolical invention of
the weak-eyed young man downstairs, against whom she accordingly
lodged a formal complaint with Doctor Blimber that very night; who
mentioned to the young man that if he ever did it again, he should be
obliged to part with him.
The evenings being longer now, Paul stole up to his window every
evening to look out for Florence. She always passed and repassed at a
certain time, until she saw him; and their mutual recognition was a
gleam of sunshine in Paul's daily life. Often after dark, one other
figure walked alone before the Doctor's house. He rarely joined them
on the Saturdays now. He could not bear it. He would rather come
unrecognised, and look up at the windows where his son was qualifying
for a man; and wait, and watch, and plan, and hope.
Oh! could he but have seen, or seen as others did, the slight spare
boy above, watching the waves and clouds at twilight, with his earnest
eyes, and breasting the window of his solitary cage when birds flew
by, as if he would have emulated them, and soared away!
CHAPTER 13.
Shipping Intelligence and Office Business
Mr Dombey's offices were in a court where there was an
old-established stall of choice fruit at the corner: where
perambulating merchants, of both sexes, offered for sale at any time
between the hours of ten and five, slippers, pocket-books, sponges,
dogs' collars, and Windsor soap; and sometimes a pointer or an
oil-painting.
The pointer always came that way, with a view to the Stock
Exchange, where a sporting taste (originating generally in bets of new
hats) is much in vogue. The other commodities were addressed to the
general public; but they were never offered by the vendors to Mr
Dombey. When he appeared, the dealers in those wares fell off
respectfully. The principal slipper and dogs' collar man - who
considered himself a public character, and whose portrait was screwed
on to an artist's door in Cheapside - threw up his forefinger to the
brim of his hat as Mr Dombey went by. The ticket-porter, if he were
not absent on a job, always ran officiously before, to open Mr
Dombey's office door as wide as possible, and hold it open, with his
hat off, while he entered.
The clerks within were not a whit behind-hand in their
demonstrations of respect. A solemn hush prevailed, as Mr Dombey
passed through the outer office. The wit of the Counting-House became
in a moment as mute as the row of leathern fire-buckets hanging up
behind him. Such vapid and flat daylight as filtered through the
ground-glass windows and skylights, leaving a black sediment upon the
panes, showed the books and papers, and the figures bending over them,
enveloped in a studious gloom, and as much abstracted in appearance,
from the world without, as if they were assembled at the bottom of the
sea; while a mouldy little strong room in the obscure perspective,
where a shaded lamp was always burning, might have represented the
cavern of some ocean monster, looking on with a red eye at these
mysteries of the deep.
When Perch the messenger, whose place was on a little bracket, like
a timepiece, saw Mr Dombey come in - or rather when he felt that he
was coming, for he had usually an instinctive sense of his approach -
he hurried into Mr Dombey's room, stirred the fire, carried fresh
coals from the bowels of the coal-box, hung the newspaper to air upon
the fender, put the chair ready, and the screen in its place, and was
round upon his heel on the instant of Mr Dombey's entrance, to take
his great-coat and hat, and hang them up. Then Perch took the
newspaper, and gave it a turn or two in his hands before the fire, and
laid it, deferentially, at Mr Dombey's elbow. And so little objection
had Perch to being deferential in the last degree, that if he might
have laid himself at Mr Dombey's feet, or might have called him by
some such title as used to be bestowed upon the Caliph Haroun
Alraschid, he would have been all the better pleased.
As this honour would have been an innovation and an experiment,
Perch was fain to content himself by expressing as well as he could,
in his manner, You are the light of my Eyes. You are the Breath of my
Soul. You are the commander of the Faithful Perch! With this imperfect
happiness to cheer him, he would shut the door softly, walk away on
tiptoe, and leave his great chief to be stared at, through a
dome-shaped window in the leads, by ugly chimney-pots and backs of
houses, and especially by the bold window of a hair-cutting saloon on
a first floor, where a waxen effigy, bald as a Mussulman in the
morning, and covered, after eleven o'clock in the day, with luxuriant
hair and whiskers in the latest Christian fashion, showed him the
wrong side of its head for ever.
Between Mr Dombey and the common world, as it was accessible
through the medium of the outer office - to which Mr Dombey's presence
in his own room may be said to have struck like damp, or cold air -
there were two degrees of descent. Mr Carker in his own office was the
first step; Mr Morfin, in his own office, was the second. Each of
these gentlemen occupied a little chamber like a bath-room, opening
from the passage outside Mr Dombey's door. Mr Carker, as Grand Vizier,
inhabited the room that was nearest to the Sultan. Mr Morfin, as an
officer of inferior state, inhabited the room that was nearest to the
clerks.
The gentleman last mentioned was a cheerful-looking, hazel-eyed
elderly bachelor: gravely attired, as to his upper man, in black; and
as to his legs, in pepper-and-salt colour. His dark hair was just
touched here and there with specks of gray, as though the tread of
Time had splashed it; and his whiskers were already white. He had a
mighty respect for Mr Dombey, and rendered him due homage; but as he
was of a genial temper himself, and never wholly at his ease in that
stately presence, he was disquieted by no jealousy of the many
conferences enjoyed by Mr Carker, and felt a secret satisfaction in
having duties to discharge, which rarely exposed him to be singled out
for such distinction. He was a great musical amateur in his way -
after business; and had a paternal affection for his violoncello,
which was once in every week transported from Islington, his place of
abode, to a certain club-room hard by the Bank, where quartettes of
the most tormenting and excruciating nature were executed every
Wednesday evening by a private party.
Mr Carker was a gentleman thirty-eight or forty years old, of a
florid complexion, and with two unbroken rows of glistening teeth,
whose regularity and whiteness were quite distressing. It was
impossible to escape the observation of them, for he showed them
whenever he spoke; and bore so wide a smile upon his countenance (a
smile, however, very rarely, indeed, extending beyond his mouth), that
there was something in it like the snarl of a cat. He affected a stiff
white cravat, after the example of his principal, and was always
closely buttoned up and tightly dressed. His manner towards Mr Dombey
was deeply conceived and perfectly expressed. He was familiar with
him, in the very extremity of his sense of the distance between them.
'Mr Dombey, to a man in your position from a man in mine, there is no
show of subservience compatible with the transaction of business
between us, that I should think sufficient. I frankly tell you, Sir, I
give it up altogether. I feel that I could not satisfy my own mind;
and Heaven knows, Mr Dombey, you can afford to dispense with the
endeavour.' If he had carried these words about with him printed on a
placard, and had constantly offered it to Mr Dombey's perusal on the
breast of his coat, he could not have been more explicit than he was.
This was Carker the Manager. Mr Carker the Junior, Walter's friend,
was his brother; two or three years older than he, but widely removed
in station. The younger brother's post was on the top of the official
ladder; the elder brother's at the bottom. The elder brother never
gained a stave, or raised his foot to mount one. Young men passed
above his head, and rose and rose; but he was always at the bottom. He
was quite resigned to occupy that low condition: never complained of
it: and certainly never hoped to escape from it.
'How do you do this morning?' said Mr Carker the Manager, entering
Mr Dombey's room soon after his arrival one day: with a bundle of
papers in his hand.
'How do you do, Carker?' said Mr Dombey.
'Coolish!' observed Carker, stirring the fire.
'Rather,' said Mr Dombey.
'Any news of the young gentleman who is so important to us all?'
asked Carker, with his whole regiment of teeth on parade.
'Yes - not direct news- I hear he's very well,' said Mr Dombey. Who
had come from Brighton over-night. But no one knew It.
'Very well, and becoming a great scholar, no doubt?' observed the
Manager.
'I hope so,' returned Mr Dombey.
'Egad!' said Mr Carker, shaking his head, 'Time flies!'
'I think so, sometimes,' returned Mr Dombey, glancing at his
newspaper.
'Oh! You! You have no reason to think so,' observed Carker. 'One
who sits on such an elevation as yours, and can sit there, unmoved, in
all seasons - hasn't much reason to know anything about the flight of
time. It's men like myself, who are low down and are not superior in
circumstances, and who inherit new masters in the course of Time, that
have cause to look about us. I shall have a rising sun to worship,
soon.'
'Time enough, time enough, Carker!' said Mr Dombey, rising from his
chair, and standing with his back to the fire. 'Have you anything
there for me?'
'I don't know that I need trouble you,' returned Carker, turning
over the papers in his hand. 'You have a committee today at three, you
know.'
'And one at three, three-quarters,' added Mr Dombey.
'Catch you forgetting anything!' exclaimed Carker, still turning
over his papers. 'If Mr Paul inherits your memory, he'll be a
troublesome customer in the House. One of you is enough'
'You have an accurate memory of your own,' said Mr Dombey.
'Oh! I!' returned the manager. 'It's the only capital of a man like
me.'
Mr Dombey did not look less pompous or at all displeased, as he
stood leaning against the chimney-piece, surveying his (of course
unconscious) clerk, from head to foot. The stiffness and nicety of Mr
Carker's dress, and a certain arrogance of manner, either natural to
him or imitated from a pattern not far off, gave great additional
effect to his humility. He seemed a man who would contend against the
power that vanquished him, if he could, but who was utterly borne down
by the greatness and superiority of Mr Dombey.
'Is Morfin here?' asked Mr Dombey after a short pause, during which
Mr Carker had been fluttering his papers, and muttering little
abstracts of their contents to himself.
'Morfin's here,' he answered, looking up with his widest and almost
sudden smile; 'humming musical recollections - of his last night's
quartette party, I suppose - through the walls between us, and driving
me half mad. I wish he'd make a bonfire of his violoncello, and burn
his music-books in it.'
'You respect nobody, Carker, I think,' said Mr Dombey.
'No?' inquired Carker, with another wide and most feline show of
his teeth. 'Well! Not many people, I believe. I wouldn't answer
perhaps,' he murmured, as if he were only thinking it, 'for more than
one.'
A dangerous quality, if real; and a not less dangerous one, if
feigned. But Mr Dombey hardly seemed to think so, as he still stood
with his back to the fire, drawn up to his full height, and looking at
his head-clerk with a dignified composure, in which there seemed to
lurk a stronger latent sense of power than usual.
'Talking of Morfin,' resumed Mr Carker, taking out one paper from
the rest, 'he reports a junior dead in the agency at Barbados, and
proposes to reserve a passage in the Son and Heir - she'll sail in a
month or so - for the successor. You don't care who goes, I suppose?
We have nobody of that sort here.'
Mr Dombey shook his head with supreme indifference.
'It's no very precious appointment,' observed Mr Carker, taking up
a pen, with which to endorse a memorandum on the back of the paper. 'I
hope he may bestow it on some orphan nephew of a musical friend. It
may perhaps stop his fiddle-playing, if he has a gift that way. Who's
that? Come in!'
'I beg your pardon, Mr Carker. I didn't know you were here, Sir,'
answered Walter; appearing with some letters in his hand, unopened,
and newly arrived. 'Mr Carker the junior, Sir - '
At the mention of this name, Mr Carker the Manager was or affected
to be, touched to the quick with shame and humiliation. He cast his
eyes full on Mr Dombey with an altered and apologetic look, abased
them on the ground, and remained for a moment without speaking.
'I thought, Sir,' he said suddenly and angrily, turning on Walter,
'that you had been before requested not to drag Mr Carker the Junior
into your conversation.'
'I beg your pardon,' returned Walter. 'I was only going to say that
Mr Carker the Junior had told me he believed you were gone out, or I
should not have knocked at the door when you were engaged with Mr
Dombey. These are letters for Mr Dombey, Sir.'
'Very well, Sir,' returned Mr Carker the Manager, plucking them
sharply from his hand. 'Go about your business.'
But in taking them with so little ceremony, Mr Carker dropped one
on the floor, and did not see what he had done; neither did Mr Dombey
observe the letter lying near his feet. Walter hesitated for a moment,
thinking that one or other of them would notice it; but finding that
neither did, he stopped, came back, picked it up, and laid it himself
on Mr Dombey's desk. The letters were post-letters; and it happened
that the one in question was Mrs Pipchin's regular report, directed as
usual - for Mrs Pipchin was but an indifferent penwoman - by Florence.
Mr Dombey, having his attention silently called to this letter by
Walter, started, and looked fiercely at him, as if he believed that he
had purposely selected it from all the rest.
'You can leave the room, Sir!' said Mr Dombey, haughtily.
He crushed the letter in his hand; and having watched Walter out at
the door, put it in his pocket without breaking the seal.
'These continual references to Mr Carker the Junior,' Mr Carker the
Manager began, as soon as they were alone, 'are, to a man in my
position, uttered before one in yours, so unspeakably distressing - '
'Nonsense, Carker,' Mr Dombey interrupted. 'You are too sensitive.'
'I am sensitive,' he returned. 'If one in your position could by
any possibility imagine yourself in my place: which you cannot: you
would be so too.'
As Mr Dombey's thoughts were evidently pursuing some other subject,
his discreet ally broke off here, and stood with his teeth ready to
present to him, when he should look up.
'You want somebody to send to the West Indies, you were saying,'
observed Mr Dombey, hurriedly.
'Yes,' replied Carker.
'Send young Gay.'
'Good, very good indeed. Nothing easier,' said Mr Carker, without
any show of surprise, and taking up the pen to re-endorse the letter,
as coolly as he had done before. '"Send young Gay."'
'Call him back,' said Mr Dombey.
Mr Carker was quick to do so, and Walter was quick to return.
'Gay,' said Mr Dombey, turning a little to look at him over his
shoulder. 'Here is a -
'An opening,' said Mr Carker, with his mouth stretched to the
utmost.
'In the West Indies. At Barbados. I am going to send you,' said Mr
Dombey, scorning to embellish the bare truth, 'to fill a junior
situation in the counting-house at Barbados. Let your Uncle know from
me, that I have chosen you to go to the West Indies.'
Walter's breath was so completely taken away by his astonishment,
that he could hardly find enough for the repetition of the words 'West
Indies.'
'Somebody must go,' said Mr Dombey, 'and you are young and healthy,
and your Uncle's circumstances are not good. Tell your Uncle that you
are appointed. You will not go yet. There will be an interval of a
month - or two perhaps.'
'Shall I remain there, Sir?' inquired Walter.
'Will you remain there, Sir!' repeated Mr Dombey, turning a little
more round towards him. 'What do you mean? What does he mean, Carker?'
'Live there, Sir,' faltered Walter.
'Certainly,' returned Mr Dombey.
Walter bowed.
'That's all,' said Mr Dombey, resuming his letters. 'You will
explain to him in good time about the usual outfit and so forth,
Carker, of course. He needn't wait, Carker.'
'You needn't wait, Gay,' observed Mr Carker: bare to the gums.
'Unless,' said Mr Dombey, stopping in his reading without looking
off the letter, and seeming to listen. 'Unless he has anything to
say.'
'No, Sir,' returned Walter, agitated and confused, and almost
stunned, as an infinite variety of pictures presented themselves to
his mind; among which Captain Cuttle, in his glazed hat, transfixed
with astonishment at Mrs MacStinger's, and his uncle bemoaning his
loss in the little back parlour, held prominent places. 'I hardly know
- I - I am much obliged, Sir.'
'He needn't wait, Carker,' said Mr Dombey.
And as Mr Carker again echoed the words, and also collected his
papers as if he were going away too, Walter felt that his lingering
any longer would be an unpardonable intrusion - especially as he had
nothing to say - and therefore walked out quite confounded.
Going along the passage, with the mingled consciousness and
helplessness of a dream, he heard Mr Dombey's door shut again, as Mr
Carker came out: and immediately afterwards that gentleman called to
him.
'Bring your friend Mr Carker the Junior to my room, Sir, if you
please.'
Walter went to the outer office and apprised Mr Carker the Junior
of his errand, who accordingly came out from behind a partition where
he sat alone in one corner, and returned with him to the room of Mr
Carker the Manager.
That gentleman was standing with his back to the fire, and his
hands under his coat-tails, looking over his white cravat, as
unpromisingly as Mr Dombey himself could have looked. He received them
without any change in his attitude or softening of his harsh and black
expression: merely signing to Walter to close the door.
'John Carker,' said the Manager, when this was done, turning
suddenly upon his brother, with his two rows of teeth bristling as if
he would have bitten him, 'what is the league between you and this
young man, in virtue of which I am haunted and hunted by the mention
of your name? Is it not enough for you, John Carker, that I am your
near relation, and can't detach myself from that - '
'Say disgrace, James,' interposed the other in a low voice, finding
that he stammered for a word. 'You mean it, and have reason, say
disgrace.'
'From that disgrace,' assented his brother with keen emphasis, 'but
is the fact to be blurted out and trumpeted, and proclaimed
continually in the presence of the very House! In moments of
confidence too? Do you think your name is calculated to harmonise in
this place with trust and confidence, John Carker?'
'No,' returned the other. 'No, James. God knows I have no such
thought.'
'What is your thought, then?' said his brother, 'and why do you
thrust yourself in my way? Haven't you injured me enough already?'
'I have never injured you, James, wilfully.'
'You are my brother,' said the Manager. 'That's injury enough.'
'I wish I could undo it, James.'
'I wish you could and would.'
During this conversation, Walter had looked from one brother to the
other, with pain and amazement. He who was the Senior in years, and
Junior in the House, stood, with his eyes cast upon the ground, and
his head bowed, humbly listening to the reproaches of the other.
Though these were rendered very bitter by the tone and look with which
they were accompanied, and by the presence of Walter whom they so much
surprised and shocked, he entered no other protest against them than
by slightly raising his right hand in a deprecatory manner, as if he
would have said, 'Spare me!' So, had they been blows, and he a brave
man, under strong constraint, and weakened by bodily suffering, he
might have stood before the executioner.
Generous and quick in all his emotions, and regarding himself as
the innocent occasion of these taunts, Walter now struck in, with all
the earnestness he felt.
'Mr Carker,' he said, addressing himself to the Manager. 'Indeed,
indeed, this is my fault solely. In a kind of heedlessness, for which
I cannot blame myself enough, I have, I have no doubt, mentioned Mr
Carker the Junior much oftener than was necessary; and have allowed
his name sometimes to slip through my lips, when it was against your
expressed wish. But it has been my own mistake, Sir. We have never
exchanged one word upon the subject - very few, indeed, on any
subject. And it has not been,' added Walter, after a moment's pause,
'all heedlessness on my part, Sir; for I have felt an interest in Mr
Carker ever since I have been here, and have hardly been able to help
speaking of him sometimes, when I have thought of him so much!'
Walter said this from his soul, and with the very breath of honour.
For he looked upon the bowed head, and the downcast eyes, and upraised
hand, and thought, 'I have felt it; and why should I not avow it in
behalf of this unfriended, broken man!'
Mr Carker the Manager looked at him, as he spoke, and when he had
finished speaking, with a smile that seemed to divide his face into
two parts.
'You are an excitable youth, Gay,' he said; 'and should endeavour
to cool down a little now, for it would be unwise to encourage
feverish predispositions. Be as cool as you can, Gay. Be as cool as
you can. You might have asked Mr John Carker himself (if you have not
done so) whether he claims to be, or is, an object of such strong
interest.'
'James, do me justice,' said his brother. 'I have claimed nothing;
and I claim nothing. Believe me, on my -
'Honour?' said his brother, with another smile, as he warmed
himself before the fire.
'On my Me - on my fallen life!' returned the other, in the same low
voice, but with a deeper stress on his words than he had yet seemed
capable of giving them. 'Believe me, I have held myself aloof, and
kept alone. This has been unsought by me. I have avoided him and
everyone.
'Indeed, you have avoided me, Mr Carker,' said Walter, with the
tears rising to his eyes; so true was his compassion. 'I know it, to
my disappointment and regret. When I first came here, and ever since,
I am sure I have tried to be as much your friend, as one of my age
could presume to be; but it has been of no use.
'And observe,' said the Manager, taking him up quickly, 'it will be
of still less use, Gay, if you persist in forcing Mr John Carker's
name on people's attention. That is not the way to befriend Mr John
Carker. Ask him if he thinks it is.'
'It is no service to me,' said the brother. 'It only leads to such
a conversation as the present, which I need not say I could have well
spared. No one can be a better friend to me:' he spoke here very
distinctly, as if he would impress it upon Walter: 'than in forgetting
me, and leaving me to go my way, unquestioned and unnoticed.'
'Your memory not being retentive, Gay, of what you are told by
others,' said Mr Carker the Manager, warming himself with great and
increased satisfaction, 'I thought it well that you should be told
this from the best authority,' nodding towards his brother. 'You are
not likely to forget it now, I hope. That's all, Gay. You can go.
Walter passed out at the door, and was about to close it after him,
when, hearing the voices of the brothers again, and also the mention
of his own name, he stood irresolutely, with his hand upon the lock,
and the door ajar, uncertain whether to return or go away. In this
position he could not help overhearing what followed.
'Think of me more leniently, if you can, James,' said John Carker,
'when I tell you I have had - how could I help having, with my
history, written here' - striking himself upon the breast - 'my whole
heart awakened by my observation of that boy, Walter Gay. I saw in him
when he first came here, almost my other self.'
'Your other self!' repeated the Manager, disdainfully.
'Not as I am, but as I was when I first came here too; as sanguine,
giddy, youthful, inexperienced; flushed with the same restless and
adventurous fancies; and full of the same qualities, fraught with the
same capacity of leading on to good or evil.'
'I hope not,' said his brother, with some hidden and sarcastic
meaning in his tone.
'You strike me sharply; and your hand is steady, and your thrust is
very deep,' returned the other, speaking (or so Walter thought) as if
some cruel weapon actually stabbed him as he spoke. 'I imagined all
this when he was a boy. I believed it. It was a truth to me. I saw him
lightly walking on the edge of an unseen gulf where so many others
walk with equal gaiety, and from which
'The old excuse,' interrupted his brother, as he stirred the fire.
'So many. Go on. Say, so many fall.'
'From which ONE traveller fell,' returned the other, 'who set
forward, on his way, a boy like him, and missed his footing more and
more, and slipped a little and a little lower; and went on stumbling
still, until he fell headlong and found himself below a shattered man.
Think what I suffered, when I watched that boy.'
'You have only yourself to thank for it,' returned the brother.
'Only myself,' he assented with a sigh. 'I don't seek to divide the
blame or shame.'
'You have divided the shame,' James Carker muttered through his
teeth. And, through so many and such close teeth, he could mutter
well.
'Ah, James,' returned his brother, speaking for the first time in
an accent of reproach, and seeming, by the sound of his voice, to have
covered his face with his hands, 'I have been, since then, a useful
foil to you. You have trodden on me freely in your climbing up. Don't
spurn me with your heel!'
A silence ensued. After a time, Mr Carker the Manager was heard
rustling among his papers, as if he had resolved to bring the
interview to a conclusion. At the same time his brother withdrew
nearer to the door.
'That's all,' he said. 'I watched him with such trembling and such
fear, as was some little punishment to me, until he passed the place
where I first fell; and then, though I had been his father, I believe
I never could have thanked God more devoutly. I didn't dare to warn
him, and advise him; but if I had seen direct cause, I would have
shown him my example. I was afraid to be seen speaking with him, lest
it should be thought I did him harm, and tempted him to evil, and
corrupted him: or lest I really should. There may be such contagion in
me; I don't know. Piece out my history, in connexion with young Walter
Gay, and what he has made me feel; and think of me more leniently,
James, if you can.
With these words he came out to where Walter was standing. He
turned a little paler when he saw him there, and paler yet when Walter
caught him by the hand, and said in a whisper:
'Mr Carker, pray let me thank you! Let me say how much I feel for
you! How sorry I am, to have been the unhappy cause of all this! How I
almost look upon you now as my protector and guardian! How very, very
much, I feel obliged to you and pity you!' said Walter, squeezing both
his hands, and hardly knowing, in his agitation, what he did or said.
Mr Morfin's room being close at hand and empty, and the door wide
open, they moved thither by one accord: the passage being seldom free
from someone passing to or fro. When they were there, and Walter saw
in Mr Carker's face some traces of the emotion within, he almost felt
as if he had never seen the face before; it was so greatly changed.
'Walter,' he said, laying his hand on his shoulder. 'I am far
removed from you, and may I ever be. Do you know what I am?'
'What you are!' appeared to hang on Walter's lips, as he regarded
him attentively.
'It was begun,' said Carker, 'before my twenty-first birthday - led
up to, long before, but not begun till near that time. I had robbed
them when I came of age. I robbed them afterwards. Before my
twenty-second birthday, it was all found out; and then, Walter, from
all men's society, I died.'
Again his last few words hung trembling upon Walter's lips, but he
could neither utter them, nor any of his own.
'The House was very good to me. May Heaven reward the old man for
his forbearance! This one, too, his son, who was then newly in the
Firm, where I had held great trust! I was called into that room which
is now his - I have never entered it since - and came out, what you
know me. For many years I sat in my present seat, alone as now, but
then a known and recognised example to the rest. They were all
merciful to me, and I lived. Time has altered that part of my poor
expiation; and I think, except the three heads of the House, there is
no one here who knows my story rightly. Before the little boy grows
up, and has it told to him, my corner may be vacant. I would rather
that it might be so! This is the only change to me since that day,
when I left all youth, and hope, and good men's company, behind me in
that room. God bless you, Walter! Keep you, and all dear to you, in
honesty, or strike them dead!'
Some recollection of his trembling from head to foot, as if with
excessive cold, and of his bursting into tears, was all that Walter
could add to this, when he tried to recall exactly what had passed
between them.
When Walter saw him next, he was bending over his desk in his old
silent, drooping, humbled way. Then, observing him at his work, and
feeling how resolved he evidently was that no further intercourse
should arise between them, and thinking again and again on all he had
seen and heard that morning in so short a time, in connexion with the
history of both the Carkers, Walter could hardly believe that he was
under orders for the West Indies, and would soon be lost to Uncle Sol,
and Captain Cuttle, and to glimpses few and far between of Florence
Dombey - no, he meant Paul - and to all he loved, and liked, and
looked for, in his daily life.
But it was true, and the news had already penetrated to the outer
office; for while he sat with a heavy heart, pondering on these
things, and resting his head upon his arm, Perch the messenger,
descending from his mahogany bracket, and jogging his elbow, begged
his pardon, but wished to say in his ear, Did he think he could
arrange to send home to England a jar of preserved Ginger, cheap, for
Mrs Perch's own eating, in the course of her recovery from her next
confinement?
CHAPTER 14.
Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned, and goes Home for the Holidays
When the Midsummer vacation approached, no indecent manifestations
of joy were exhibited by the leaden-eyed young gentlemen assembled at
Doctor Blimber's. Any such violent expression as 'breaking up,' would
have been quite inapplicable to that polite establishment. The young
gentlemen oozed away, semi-annually, to their own homes; but they
never broke up. They would have scorned the action.
Tozer, who was constantly galled and tormented by a starched white
cambric neckerchief, which he wore at the express desire of Mrs Tozer,
his parent, who, designing him for the Church, was of opinion that he
couldn't be in that forward state of preparation too soon - Tozer
said, indeed, that choosing between two evils, he thought he would
rather stay where he was, than go home. However inconsistent this
declaration might appear with that passage in Tozer's Essay on the
subject, wherein he had observed 'that the thoughts of home and all
its recollections, awakened in his mind the most pleasing emotions of
anticipation and delight,' and had also likened himself to a Roman
General, flushed with a recent victory over the Iceni, or laden with
Carthaginian spoil, advancing within a few hours' march of the
Capitol, presupposed, for the purposes of the simile, to be the
dwelling-place of Mrs Tozer, still it was very sincerely made. For it
seemed that Tozer had a dreadful Uncle, who not only volunteered
examinations of him, in the holidays, on abstruse points, but twisted
innocent events and things, and wrenched them to the same fell
purpose. So that if this Uncle took him to the Play, or, on a similar
pretence of kindness, carried him to see a Giant, or a Dwarf, or a
Conjuror, or anything, Tozer knew he had read up some classical
allusion to the subject beforehand, and was thrown into a state of
mortal apprehension: not foreseeing where he might break out, or what
authority he might not quote against him.
As to Briggs, his father made no show of artifice about it. He
never would leave him alone. So numerous and severe were the mental
trials of that unfortunate youth in vacation time, that the friends of
the family (then resident near Bayswater, London) seldom approached
the ornamental piece of water in Kensington Gardens,' without a vague
expectation of seeing Master Briggs's hat floating on the surface, and
an unfinished exercise lying on the bank. Briggs, therefore, was not
at all sanguine on the subject of holidays; and these two sharers of
little Paul's bedroom were so fair a sample of the young gentlemen in
general, that the most elastic among them contemplated the arrival of
those festive periods with genteel resignation.
It was far otherwise with little Paul. The end of these first
holidays was to witness his separation from Florence, but who ever
looked forward to the end of holidays whose beginning was not yet
come! Not Paul, assuredly. As the happy time drew near, the lions and
tigers climbing up the bedroom walls became quite tame and frolicsome.
The grim sly faces in the squares and diamonds of the floor-cloth,
relaxed and peeped out at him with less wicked eyes. The grave old
clock had more of personal interest in the tone of its formal inquiry;
and the restless sea went rolling on all night, to the sounding of a
melancholy strain - yet it was pleasant too - that rose and fell with
the waves, and rocked him, as it were, to sleep.
Mr Feeder, B.A., seemed to think that he, too, would enjoy the
holidays very much. Mr Toots projected a life of holidays from that
time forth; for, as he regularly informed Paul every day, it was his
'last half' at Doctor Blimber's, and he was going to begin to come
into his property directly.
It was perfectly understood between Paul and Mr Toots, that they
were intimate friends, notwithstanding their distance in point of
years and station. As the vacation approached, and Mr Toots breathed
harder and stared oftener in Paul's society, than he had done before,
Paul knew that he meant he was sorry they were going to lose sight of
each other, and felt very much obliged to him for his patronage and
good opinion.
It was even understood by Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss
Blimber, as well as by the young gentlemen in general, that Toots had
somehow constituted himself protector and guardian of Dombey, and the
circumstance became so notorious, even to Mrs Pipchin, that the good
old creature cherished feelings of bitterness and jealousy against
Toots; and, in the sanctuary of her own home, repeatedly denounced him
as a 'chuckle-headed noodle.' Whereas the innocent Toots had no more
idea of awakening Mrs Pipchin's wrath, than he had of any other
definite possibility or proposition. On the contrary, he was disposed
to consider her rather a remarkable character, with many points of
interest about her. For this reason he smiled on her with so much
urbanity, and asked her how she did, so often, in the course of her
visits to little Paul, that at last she one night told him plainly,
she wasn't used to it, whatever he might think; and she could not, and
she would not bear it, either from himself or any other puppy then
existing: at which unexpected acknowledgment of his civilities, Mr
Toots was so alarmed that he secreted himself in a retired spot until
she had gone. Nor did he ever again face the doughty Mrs Pipchin,
under Doctor Blimber's roof.
They were within two or three weeks of the holidays, when, one day,
Cornelia Blimber called Paul into her room, and said, 'Dombey, I am
going to send home your analysis.'
'Thank you, Ma'am,' returned Paul.
'You know what I mean, do you, Dombey?' inquired Miss Blimber,
looking hard at him, through the spectacles.
'No, Ma'am,' said Paul.
'Dombey, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, 'I begin to be afraid you are
a sad boy. When you don't know the meaning of an expression, why don't
you seek for information?'
'Mrs Pipchin told me I wasn't to ask questions,' returned Paul.
'I must beg you not to mention Mrs Pipchin to me, on any account,
Dombey,' returned Miss Blimber. 'I couldn't think of allowing it. The
course of study here, is very far removed from anything of that sort.
A repetition of such allusions would make it necessary for me to
request to hear, without a mistake, before breakfast-time to-morrow
morning, from Verbum personale down to simillimia cygno.'
'I didn't mean, Ma'am - ' began little Paul.
'I must trouble you not to tell me that you didn't mean, if you
please, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, who preserved an awful politeness
in her admonitions. 'That is a line of argument I couldn't dream of
permitting.'
Paul felt it safest to say nothing at all, so he only looked at
Miss Blimber's spectacles. Miss Blimber having shaken her head at him
gravely, referred to a paper lying before her.
'"Analysis of the character of P. Dombey." If my recollection
serves me,' said Miss Blimber breaking off, 'the word analysis as
opposed to synthesis, is thus defined by Walker. "The resolution of an
object, whether of the senses or of the intellect, into its first
elements." As opposed to synthesis, you observe. Now you know what
analysis is, Dombey.'
Dombey didn't seem to be absolutely blinded by the light let in
upon his intellect, but he made Miss Blimber a little bow.
'"Analysis,"' resumed Miss Blimber, casting her eye over the paper,
'"of the character of P. Dombey." I find that the natural capacity of
Dombey is extremely good; and that his general disposition to study
may be stated in an equal ratio. Thus, taking eight as our standard
and highest number, I find these qualities in Dombey stated each at
six three-fourths!'
Miss Blimber paused to see how Paul received this news. Being
undecided whether six three-fourths meant six pounds fifteen, or
sixpence three farthings, or six foot three, or three quarters past
six, or six somethings that he hadn't learnt yet, with three unknown
something elses over, Paul rubbed his hands and looked straight at
Miss Blimber. It happened to answer as well as anything else he could
have done; and Cornelia proceeded.
'"Violence two. Selfishness two. Inclination to low company, as
evinced in the case of a person named Glubb, originally seven, but
since reduced. Gentlemanly demeanour four, and improving with
advancing years." Now what I particularly wish to call your attention
to, Dombey, is the general observation at the close of this analysis.'
Paul set himself to follow it with great care.
'"It may be generally observed of Dombey,"' said Miss Blimber,
reading in a loud voice, and at every second word directing her
spectacles towards the little figure before her: '"that his abilities
and inclinations are good, and that he has made as much progress as
under the circumstances could have been expected. But it is to be
lamented of this young gentleman that he is singular (what is usually
termed old-fashioned) in his character and conduct, and that, without
presenting anything in either which distinctly calls for reprobation,
he is often very unlike other young gentlemen of his age and social
position." Now, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, laying down the paper, 'do
you understand that?'
'I think I do, Ma'am,' said Paul.
'This analysis, you see, Dombey,' Miss Blimber continued, 'is going
to be sent home to your respected parent. It will naturally be very
painful to him to find that you are singular in your character and
conduct. It is naturally painful to us; for we can't like you, you
know, Dombey, as well as we could wish.'
She touched the child upon a tender point. He had secretly become
more and more solicitous from day to day, as the time of his departure
drew more near, that all the house should like him. From some hidden
reason, very imperfectly understood by himself - if understood at all
- he felt a gradually increasing impulse of affection, towards almost
everything and everybody in the place. He could not bear to think that
they would be quite indifferent to him when he was gone. He wanted
them to remember him kindly; and he had made it his business even to
conciliate a great hoarse shaggy dog, chained up at the back of the
house, who had previously been the terror of his life: that even he
might miss him when he was no longer there.
Little thinking that in this, he only showed again the difference
between himself and his compeers, poor tiny Paul set it forth to Miss
Blimber as well as he could, and begged her, in despite of the
official analysis, to have the goodness to try and like him. To Mrs
Blimber, who had joined them, he preferred the same petition: and when
that lady could not forbear, even in his presence, from giving
utterance to her often-repeated opinion, that he was an odd child,
Paul told her that he was sure she was quite right; that he thought it
must be his bones, but he didn't know; and that he hoped she would
overlook it, for he was fond of them all.
'Not so fond,' said Paul, with a mixture of timidity and perfect
frankness, which was one of the most peculiar and most engaging
qualities of the child, 'not so fond as I am of Florence, of course;
that could never be. You couldn't expect that, could you, Ma'am?'
'Oh! the old-fashioned little soul!' cried Mrs Blimber, in a
whisper.
'But I like everybody here very much,' pursued Paul, 'and I should
grieve to go away, and think that anyone was glad that I was gone, or
didn't care.'
Mrs Blimber was now quite sure that Paul was the oddest child in
the world; and when she told the Doctor what had passed, the Doctor
did not controvert his wife's opinion. But he said, as he had said
before, when Paul first came, that study would do much; and he also
said, as he had said on that occasion, 'Bring him on, Cornelia! Bring
him on!'
Cornelia had always brought him on as vigorously as she could; and
Paul had had a hard life of it. But over and above the getting through
his tasks, he had long had another purpose always present to him, and
to which he still held fast. It was, to be a gentle, useful, quiet
little fellow, always striving to secure the love and attachment of
the rest; and though he was yet often to be seen at his old post on
the stairs, or watching the waves and clouds from his solitary window,
he was oftener found, too, among the other boys, modestly rendering
them some little voluntary service. Thus it came to pass, that even
among those rigid and absorbed young anchorites, who mortified
themselves beneath the roof of Doctor Blimber, Paul was an object of
general interest; a fragile little plaything that they all liked, and
that no one would have thought of treating roughly. But he could not
change his nature, or rewrite the analysis; and so they all agreed
that Dombey was old-fashioned.
There were some immunities, however, attaching to the character
enjoyed by no one else. They could have better spared a
newer-fashioned child, and that alone was much. When the others only
bowed to Doctor Blimber and family on retiring for the night, Paul
would stretch out his morsel of a hand, and boldly shake the Doctor's;
also Mrs Blimber's; also Cornelia's. If anybody was to be begged off
from impending punishment, Paul was always the delegate. The weak-eyed
young man himself had once consulted him, in reference to a little
breakage of glass and china. And it was darKly rumoured that the
butler, regarding him with favour such as that stern man had never
shown before to mortal boy, had sometimes mingled porter with his
table-beer to make him strong.
Over and above these extensive privileges, Paul had free right of
entry to Mr Feeder's room, from which apartment he had twice led Mr
Toots into the open air in a state of faintness, consequent on an
unsuccessful attempt to smoke a very blunt cigar: one of a bundle
which that young gentleman had covertly purchased on the shingle from
a most desperate smuggler, who had acknowledged, in confidence, that
two hundred pounds was the price set upon his head, dead or alive, by
the Custom House. It was a snug room, Mr Feeder's, with his bed in
another little room inside of it; and a flute, which Mr Feeder
couldn't play yet, but was going to make a point of learning, he said,
hanging up over the fireplace. There were some books in it, too, and a
fishing-rod; for Mr Feeder said he should certainly make a point of
learning to fish, when he could find time. Mr Feeder had amassed, with
similar intentions, a beautiful little curly secondhand key-bugle, a
chess-board and men, a Spanish Grammar, a set of sketching materials,
and a pair of boxing-gloves. The art of self-defence Mr Feeder said he
should undoubtedly make a point of learning, as he considered it the
duty of every man to do; for it might lead to the protection of a
female in distress. But Mr Feeder's great possession was a large green
jar of snuff, which Mr Toots had brought down as a present, at the
close of the last vacation; and for which he had paid a high price,
having been the genuine property of the Prince Regent. Neither Mr
Toots nor Mr Feeder could partake of this or any other snuff, even in
the most stinted and moderate degree, without being seized with
convulsions of sneezing. Nevertheless it was their great delight to
moisten a box-full with cold tea, stir it up on a piece of parchment
with a paper-knife, and devote themselves to its consumption then and
there. In the course of which cramming of their noses, they endured
surprising torments with the constancy of martyrs: and, drinking
table-beer at intervals, felt all the glories of dissipation.
To little Paul sitting silent in their company, and by the side of
his chief patron, Mr Toots, there was a dread charm in these reckless
occasions: and when Mr Feeder spoke of the dark mysteries of London,
and told Mr Toots that he was going to observe it himself closely in
all its ramifications in the approaching holidays, and for that
purpose had made arrangements to board with two old maiden ladies at
Peckham, Paul regarded him as if he were the hero of some book of
travels or wild adventure, and was almost afraid of such a slashing
person.
Going into this room one evening, when the holidays were very near,
Paul found Mr Feeder filling up the blanks in some printed letters,
while some others, already filled up and strewn before him, were being
folded and sealed by Mr Toots. Mr Feeder said, 'Aha, Dombey, there you
are, are you?' - for they were always kind to him, and glad to see him
- and then said, tossing one of the letters towards him, 'And there
you are, too, Dombey. That's yours.'
'Mine, Sir?' said Paul.
'Your invitation,' returned Mr Feeder.
Paul, looking at it, found, in copper-plate print, with the
exception of his own name and the date, which were in Mr Feeder's
penmanship, that Doctor and Mrs Blimber requested the pleasure of Mr
P. Dombey's company at an early party on Wednesday Evening the
Seventeenth Instant; and that the hour was half-past seven o'clock;
and that the object was Quadrilles. Mr Toots also showed him, by
holding up a companion sheet of paper, that Doctor and Mrs Blimber
requested the pleasure of Mr Toots's company at an early party on
Wednesday Evening the Seventeenth Instant, when the hour was half-past
seven o'clock, and when the object was Quadrilles. He also found, on
glancing at the table where Mr Feeder sat, that the pleasure of Mr
Briggs's company, and of Mr Tozer's company, and of every young
gentleman's company, was requested by Doctor and Mrs Blimber on the
same genteel Occasion.
Mr Feeder then told him, to his great joy, that his sister was
invited, and that it was a half-yearly event, and that, as the
holidays began that day, he could go away with his sister after the
party, if he liked, which Paul interrupted him to say he would like,
very much. Mr Feeder then gave him to understand that he would be
expected to inform Doctor and Mrs Blimber, in superfine small-hand,
that Mr P. Dombey would be happy to have the honour of waiting on
them, in accordance with their polite invitation. Lastly, Mr Feeder
said, he had better not refer to the festive occasion, in the hearing
of Doctor and Mrs Blimber; as these preliminaries, and the whole of
the arrangements, were conducted on principles of classicality and
high breeding; and that Doctor and Mrs Blimber on the one hand, and
the young gentlemen on the other, were supposed, in their scholastic
capacities, not to have the least idea of what was in the wind.
Paul thanked Mr Feeder for these hints, and pocketing his
invitation, sat down on a stool by the side of Mr Toots, as usual. But
Paul's head, which had long been ailing more or less, and was
sometimes very heavy and painful, felt so uneasy that night, that he
was obliged to support it on his hand. And yet it dropped so, that by
little and little it sunk on Mr Toots's knee, and rested there, as if
it had no care to be ever lifted up again.
That was no reason why he should be deaf; but he must have been, he
thought, for, by and by, he heard Mr Feeder calling in his ear, and
gently shaking him to rouse his attention. And when he raised his
head, quite scared, and looked about him, he found that Doctor Blimber
had come into the room; and that the window was open, and that his
forehead was wet with sprinkled water; though how all this had been
done without his knowledge, was very curious indeed.
'Ah! Come, come! That's well! How is my little friend now?' said
Doctor Blimber, encouragingly.
'Oh, quite well, thank you, Sir,' said Paul.
But there seemed to be something the matter with the floor, for he
couldn't stand upon it steadily; and with the walls too, for they were
inclined to turn round and round, and could only be stopped by being
looked at very hard indeed. Mr Toots's head had the appearance of
being at once bigger and farther off than was quite natural; and when
he took Paul in his arms, to carry him upstairs, Paul observed with
astonishment that the door was in quite a different place from that in
which he had expected to find it, and almost thought, at first, that
Mr Toots was going to walk straight up the chimney.
It was very kind of Mr Toots to carry him to the top of the house
so tenderly; and Paul told him that it was. But Mr Toots said he would
do a great deal more than that, if he could; and indeed he did more as
it was: for he helped Paul to undress, and helped him to bed, in the
kindest manner possible, and then sat down by the bedside and chuckled
very much; while Mr Feeder, B.A., leaning over the bottom of the
bedstead, set all the little bristles on his head bolt upright with
his bony hands, and then made believe to spar at Paul with great
science, on account of his being all right again, which was so
uncommonly facetious, and kind too in Mr Feeder, that Paul, not being
able to make up his mind whether it was best to laugh or cry at him,
did both at once.
How Mr Toots melted away, and Mr Feeder changed into Mrs Pipchin,
Paul never thought of asking; neither was he at all curious to know;
but when he saw Mrs Pipchin standing at the bottom of the bed, instead
of Mr Feeder, he cried out, 'Mrs Pipchin, don't tell Florence!'
'Don't tell Florence what, my little Paul?' said Mrs Pipchin,
coming round to the bedside, and sitting down in the chair.
'About me,' said Paul.
'No, no,' said Mrs Pipchin.
'What do you think I mean to do when I grow up, Mrs Pipchin?'
inquired Paul, turning his face towards her on his pillow, and resting
his chin wistfully on his folded hands.
Mrs Pipchin couldn't guess.
'I mean,' said Paul, 'to put my money all together in one Bank,
never try to get any more, go away into the country with my darling
Florence, have a beautiful garden, fields, and woods, and live there
with her all my life!'
'Indeed!' cried Mrs Pipchin.
'Yes,' said Paul. 'That's what I mean to do, when I - ' He stopped,
and pondered for a moment.
Mrs Pipchin's grey eye scanned his thoughtful face.
'If I grow up,' said Paul. Then he went on immediately to tell Mrs
Pipchin all about the party, about Florence's invitation, about the
pride he would have in the admiration that would be felt for her by
all the boys, about their being so kind to him and fond of him, about
his being so fond of them, and about his being so glad of it. Then he
told Mrs Pipchin about the analysis, and about his being certainly
old-fashioned, and took Mrs Pipchin's opinion on that point, and
whether she knew why it was, and what it meant. Mrs Pipchin denied the
fact altogether, as the shortest way of getting out of the difficulty;
but Paul was far from satisfied with that reply, and looked so
searchingly at Mrs Pipchin for a truer answer, that she was obliged to
get up and look out of the window to avoid his eyes.
There was a certain calm Apothecary, 'who attended at the
establishment when any of the young gentlemen were ill, and somehow he
got into the room and appeared at the bedside, with Mrs Blimber. How
they came there, or how long they had been there, Paul didn't know;
but when he saw them, he sat up in bed, and answered all the
Apothecary's questions at full length, and whispered to him that
Florence was not to know anything about it, if he pleased, and that he
had set his mind upon her coming to the party. He was very chatty with
the Apothecary, and they parted excellent friends. Lying down again
with his eyes shut, he heard the Apothecary say, out of the room and
quite a long way off - or he dreamed it - that there was a want of
vital power (what was that, Paul wondered!) and great constitutional
weakness. That as the little fellow had set his heart on parting with
his school-mates on the seventeenth, it would be better to indulge the
fancy if he grew no worse. That he was glad to hear from Mrs Pipchin,
that the little fellow would go to his friends in London on the
eighteenth. That he would write to Mr Dombey, when he should have
gained a better knowledge of the case, and before that day. That there
was no immediate cause for - what? Paul lost that word And that the
little fellow had a fine mind, but was an old-fashioned boy.
What old fashion could that be, Paul wondered with a palpitating
heart, that was so visibly expressed in him; so plainly seen by so
many people!
He could neither make it out, nor trouble himself long with the
effort. Mrs Pipchin was again beside him, if she had ever been away
(he thought she had gone out with the Doctor, but it was all a dream
perhaps), and presently a bottle and glass got into her hands
magically, and she poured out the contents for him. After that, he had
some real good jelly, which Mrs Blimber brought to him herself; and
then he was so well, that Mrs Pipchin went home, at his urgent
solicitation, and Briggs and Tozer came to bed. Poor Briggs grumbled
terribly about his own analysis, which could hardly have discomposed
him more if it had been a chemical process; but he was very good to
Paul, and so was Tozer, and so were all the rest, for they every one
looked in before going to bed, and said, 'How are you now, Dombey?'
'Cheer up, little Dombey!' and so forth. After Briggs had got into
bed, he lay awake for a long time, still bemoaning his analysis, and
saying he knew it was all wrong, and they couldn't have analysed a
murderer worse, and - how would Doctor Blimber like it if his
pocket-money depended on it? It was very easy, Briggs said, to make a
galley-slave of a boy all the half-year, and then score him up idle;
and to crib two dinners a-week out of his board, and then score him up
greedy; but that wasn't going to be submitted to, he believed, was it?
Oh! Ah!
Before the weak-eyed young man performed on the gong next morning,
he came upstairs to Paul and told him he was to lie still, which Paul
very gladly did. Mrs Pipchin reappeared a little before the
Apothecary, and a little after the good young woman whom Paul had seen
cleaning the stove on that first morning (how long ago it seemed now!)
had brought him his breakfast. There was another consultation a long
way off, or else Paul dreamed it again; and then the Apothecary,
coming back with Doctor and Mrs Blimber, said:
'Yes, I think, Doctor Blimber, we may release this young gentleman
from his books just now; the vacation being so very near at hand.'
'By all means,' said Doctor Blimber. 'My love, you will inform
Cornelia, if you please.'
'Assuredly,' said Mrs Blimber.
The Apothecary bending down, looked closely into Paul's eyes, and
felt his head, and his pulse, and his heart, with so much interest and
care, that Paul said, 'Thank you, Sir.'
'Our little friend,' observed Doctor Blimber, 'has never
complained.'
'Oh no!' replied the Apothecary. 'He was not likely to complain.'
'You find him greatly better?' said Doctor Blimber.
'Oh! he is greatly better, Sir,' returned the Apothecary.
Paul had begun to speculate, in his own odd way, on the subject
that might occupy the Apothecary's mind just at that moment; so
musingly had he answered the two questions of Doctor Blimber. But the
Apothecary happening to meet his little patient's eyes, as the latter
set off on that mental expedition, and coming instantly out of his
abstraction with a cheerful smile, Paul smiled in return and abandoned
it.
He lay in bed all that day, dozing and dreaming, and looking at Mr
Toots; but got up on the next, and went downstairs. Lo and behold,
there was something the matter with the great clock; and a workman on
a pair of steps had taken its face off, and was poking instruments
into the works by the light of a candle! This was a great event for
Paul, who sat down on the bottom stair, and watched the operation
attentively: now and then glancing at the clock face, leaning all
askew, against the wall hard by, and feeling a little confused by a
suspicion that it was ogling him.
The workman on the steps was very civil; and as he said, when he
observed Paul, 'How do you do, Sir?' Paul got into conversation with
him, and told him he hadn't been quite well lately. The ice being thus
broken, Paul asked him a multitude of questions about chimes and
clocks: as, whether people watched up in the lonely church steeples by
night to make them strike, and how the bells were rung when people
died, and whether those were different bells from wedding bells, or
only sounded dismal in the fancies of the living. Finding that his new
acquaintance was not very well informed on the subject of the Curfew
Bell of ancient days, Paul gave him an account of that institution;
and also asked him, as a practical man, what he thought about King
Alfred's idea of measuring time by the burning of candles; to which
the workman replied, that he thought it would be the ruin of the clock
trade if it was to come up again. In fine, Paul looked on, until the
clock had quite recovered its familiar aspect, and resumed its sedate
inquiry; when the workman, putting away his tools in a long basket,
bade him good day, and went away. Though not before he had whispered
something, on the door-mat, to the footman, in which there was the
phrase 'old-fashioned' - for Paul heard it. What could that old
fashion be, that seemed to make the people sorry! What could it be!
Having nothing to learn now, he thought of this frequently; though
not so often as he might have done, if he had had fewer things to
think of. But he had a great many; and was always thinking, all day
long.
First, there was Florence coming to the party. Florence would see
that the boys were fond of him; and that would make her happy. This
was his great theme. Let Florence once be sure that they were gentle
and good to him, and that he had become a little favourite among them,
and then the would always think of the time he had passed there,
without being very sorry. Florence might be all the happier too for
that, perhaps, when he came back.
When he came back! Fifty times a day, his noiseless little feet
went up the stairs to his own room, as he collected every book, and
scrap, and trifle that belonged to him, and put them all together
there, down to the minutest thing, for taking home! There was no shade
of coming back on little Paul; no preparation for it, or other
reference to it, grew out of anything he thought or did, except this
slight one in connexion with his sister. On the contrary, he had to
think of everything familiar to him, in his contemplative moods and in
his wanderings about the house, as being to be parted with; and hence
the many things he had to think of, all day long.
He had to peep into those rooms upstairs, and think how solitary
they would be when he was gone, and wonder through how many silent
days, weeks, months, and years, they would continue just as grave and
undisturbed. He had to think - would any other child (old-fashioned,
like himself stray there at any time, to whom the same grotesque
distortions of pattern and furniture would manifest themselves; and
would anybody tell that boy of little Dombey, who had been there once?
He had to think of a portrait on the stairs, which always looked
earnestly after him as he went away, eyeing it over his shoulder; and
which, when he passed it in the company of anyone, still seemed to
gaze at him, and not at his companion. He had much to think of, in
association with a print that hung up in another place, where, in the
centre of a wondering group, one figure that he knew, a figure with a
light about its head - benignant, mild, and merciful - stood pointing
upward.
At his own bedroom window, there were crowds of thoughts that mixed
with these, and came on, one upon another, like the rolling waves.
Where those wild birds lived, that were always hovering out at sea in
troubled weather; where the clouds rose and first began; whence the
wind issued on its rushing flight, and where it stopped; whether the
spot where he and Florence had so often sat, and watched, and talked
about these things, could ever be exactly as it used to be without
them; whether it could ever be the same to Florence, if he were in
some distant place, and she were sitting there alone.
He had to think, too, of Mr Toots, and Mr Feeder, B.A., of all the
boys; and of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber; of home,
and of his aunt and Miss Tox; of his father; Dombey and Son, Walter
with the poor old Uncle who had got the money he wanted, and that
gruff-voiced Captain with the iron hand. Besides all this, he had a
number of little visits to pay, in the course of the day; to the
schoolroom, to Doctor Blimber's study, to Mrs Blimber's private
apartment, to Miss Blimber's, and to the dog. For he was free of the
whole house now, to range it as he chose; and, in his desire to part
with everybody on affectionate terms, he attended, in his way, to them
all. Sometimes he found places in books for Briggs, who was always
losing them; sometimes he looked up words in dictionaries for other
young gentlemen who were in extremity; sometimes he held skeins of
silk for Mrs Blimber to wind; sometimes he put Cornelia's desk to
rights; sometimes he would even creep into the Doctor's study, and,
sitting on the carpet near his learned feet, turn the globes softly,
and go round the world, or take a flight among the far-off stars.
In those days immediately before the holidays, in short, when the
other young gentlemen were labouring for dear life through a general
resumption of the studies of the whole half-year, Paul was such a
privileged pupil as had never been seen in that house before. He could
hardly believe it himself; but his liberty lasted from hour to hour,
and from day to day; and little Dombey was caressed by everyone.
Doctor Blimber was so particular about him, that he requested Johnson
to retire from the dinner-table one day, for having thoughtlessly
spoken to him as 'poor little Dombey;' which Paul thought rather hard
and severe, though he had flushed at the moment, and wondered why
Johnson should pity him. It was the more questionable justice, Paul
thought, in the Doctor, from his having certainly overheard that great
authority give his assent on the previous evening, to the proposition
(stated by Mrs Blimber) that poor dear little Dombey was more
old-fashioned than ever. And now it was that Paul began to think it
must surely be old-fashioned to be very thin, and light, and easily
tired, and soon disposed to lie down anywhere and rest; for he
couldn't help feeling that these were more and more his habits every
day.
At last the party-day arrived; and Doctor Blimber said at
breakfast, 'Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth
of next month.' Mr Toots immediately threw off his allegiance, and put
on his ring: and mentioning the Doctor in casual conversation shortly
afterwards, spoke of him as 'Blimber'! This act of freedom inspired
the older pupils with admiration and envy; but the younger spirits
were appalled, and seemed to marvel that no beam fell down and crushed
him.
Not the least allusion was made to the ceremonies of the evening,
either at breakfast or at dinner; but there was a bustle in the house
all day, and in the course of his perambulations, Paul made
acquaintance with various strange benches and candlesticks, and met a
harp in a green greatcoat standing on the landing outside the
drawing-room door. There was something queer, too, about Mrs Blimber's
head at dinner-time, as if she had screwed her hair up too tight; and
though Miss Blimber showed a graceful bunch of plaited hair on each
temple, she seemed to have her own little curls in paper underneath,
and in a play-bill too; for Paul read 'Theatre Royal' over one of her
sparkling spectacles, and 'Brighton' over the other.
There was a grand array of white waistcoats and cravats in the
young gentlemen's bedrooms as evening approached; and such a smell of
singed hair, that Doctor Blimber sent up the footman with his
compliments, and wished to know if the house was on fire. But it was
only the hairdresser curling the young gentlemen, and over-heating his
tongs in the ardour of business.
When Paul was dressed - which was very soon done, for he felt
unwell and drowsy, and was not able to stand about it very long - he
went down into the drawing-room; where he found Doctor Blimber pacing
up and down the room full dressed, but with a dignified and
unconcerned demeanour, as if he thought it barely possible that one or
two people might drop in by and by. Shortly afterwards, Mrs Blimber
appeared, looking lovely, Paul thought; and attired in such a number
of skirts that it was quite an excursion to walk round her. Miss
Blimber came down soon after her Mama; a little squeezed in
appearance, but very charming.
Mr Toots and Mr Feeder were the next arrivals. Each of these
gentlemen brought his hat in his hand, as if he lived somewhere else;
and when they were announced by the butler, Doctor Blimber said, 'Ay,
ay, ay! God bless my soul!' and seemed extremely glad to see them. Mr
Toots was one blaze of jewellery and buttons; and he felt the
circumstance so strongly, that when he had shaken hands with the
Doctor, and had bowed to Mrs Blimber and Miss Blimber, he took Paul
aside, and said, 'What do you think of this, Dombey?'
But notwithstanding this modest confidence in himself, Mr Toots
appeared to be involved in a good deal of uncertainty whether, on the
whole, it was judicious to button the bottom button of his waistcoat,
and whether, on a calm revision of all the circumstances, it was best
to wear his waistbands turned up or turned down. Observing that Mr
Feeder's were turned up, Mr Toots turned his up; but the waistbands of
the next arrival being turned down, Mr Toots turned his down. The
differences in point of waistcoat-buttoning, not only at the bottom,
but at the top too, became so numerous and complicated as the arrivals
thickened, that Mr Toots was continually fingering that article of
dress, as if he were performing on some instrument; and appeared to
find the incessant execution it demanded, quite bewildering. All the
young gentlemen, tightly cravatted, curled, and pumped, and with their
best hats in their hands, having been at different times announced and
introduced, Mr Baps, the dancing-master, came, accompanied by Mrs
Baps, to whom Mrs Blimber was extremely kind and condescending. Mr
Baps was a very grave gentleman, with a slow and measured manner of
speaking; and before he had stood under the lamp five minutes, he
began to talk to Toots (who had been silently comparing pumps with
him) about what you were to do with your raw materials when they came
into your ports in return for your drain of gold. Mr Toots, to whom
the question seemed perplexing, suggested 'Cook 'em.' But Mr Baps did
not appear to think that would do.
Paul now slipped away from the cushioned corner of a sofa, which
had been his post of observation, and went downstairs into the
tea-room to be ready for Florence, whom he had not seen for nearly a
fortnight, as he had remained at Doctor Blimber's on the previous
Saturday and Sunday, lest he should take cold. Presently she came:
looking so beautiful in her simple ball dress, with her fresh flowers
in her hand, that when she knelt down on the ground to take Paul round
the neck and kiss him (for there was no one there, but his friend and
another young woman waiting to serve out the tea), he could hardly
make up his mind to let her go again, or to take away her bright and
loving eyes from his face.
'But what is the matter, Floy?' asked Paul, almost sure that he saw
a tear there.
'Nothing, darling; nothing,' returned Florence.
Paul touched her cheek gently with his finger - and it was a tear!
'Why, Floy!' said he.
'We'll go home together, and I'll nurse you, love,' said Florence.
'Nurse me!' echoed Paul.
Paul couldn't understand what that had to do with it, nor why the
two young women looked on so seriously, nor why Florence turned away
her face for a moment, and then turned it back, lighted up again with
smiles.
'Floy,' said Paul, holding a ringlet of her dark hair in his hand.
'Tell me, dear, Do you think I have grown old-fashioned?'
His sister laughed, and fondled him, and told him 'No.'
'Because I know they say so,' returned Paul, 'and I want to know
what they mean, Floy.' But a loud double knock coming at the door, and
Florence hurrying to the table, there was no more said between them.
Paul wondered again when he saw his friend whisper to Florence, as if
she were comforting her; but a new arrival put that out of his head
speedily.
It was Sir Barnet Skettles, Lady Skettles, and Master Skettles.
Master Skettles was to be a new boy after the vacation, and Fame had
been busy, in Mr Feeder's room, with his father, who was in the House
of Commons, and of whom Mr Feeder had said that when he did catch the
Speaker's eye (which he had been expected to do for three or four
years), it was anticipated that he would rather touch up the Radicals.
'And what room is this now, for instance?' said Lady Skettles to
Paul's friend, 'Melia.
'Doctor Blimber's study, Ma'am,' was the reply.
Lady Skettles took a panoramic survey of it through her glass, and
said to Sir Barnet Skettles, with a nod of approval, 'Very good.' Sir
Barnet assented, but Master Skettles looked suspicious and doubtful.
'And this little creature, now,' said Lady Skettles, turning to
Paul. 'Is he one of the
'Young gentlemen, Ma'am; yes, Ma'am,' said Paul's friend.
'And what is your name, my pale child?' said Lady Skettles.
'Dombey,' answered Paul.
Sir Barnet Skettles immediately interposed, and said that he had
had the honour of meeting Paul's father at a public dinner, and that
he hoped he was very well. Then Paul heard him say to Lady Skettles,
'City - very rich - most respectable - Doctor mentioned it.' And then
he said to Paul, 'Will you tell your good Papa that Sir Barnet
Skettles rejoiced to hear that he was very well, and sent him his best
compliments?'
'Yes, Sir,' answered Paul.
'That is my brave boy,' said Sir Barnet Skettles. 'Barnet,' to
Master Skettles, who was revenging himself for the studies to come, on
the plum-cake, 'this is a young gentleman you ought to know. This is a
young gentleman you may know, Barnet,' said Sir Barnet Skettles, with
an emphasis on the permission.
'What eyes! What hair! What a lovely face!' exclaimed Lady Skettles
softly, as she looked at Florence through her glass. 'My sister,' said
Paul, presenting her.
The satisfaction of the Skettleses was now complex And as Lady
Skettles had conceived, at first sight, a liking for Paul, they all
went upstairs together: Sir Barnet Skettles taking care of Florence,
and young Barnet following.
Young Barnet did not remain long in the background after they had
reached the drawing-room, for Dr Blimber had him out in no time,
dancing with Florence. He did not appear to Paul to be particularly
happy, or particularly anything but sulky, or to care much what he was
about; but as Paul heard Lady Skettles say to Mrs Blimber, while she
beat time with her fan, that her dear boy was evidently smitten to
death by that angel of a child, Miss Dombey, it would seem that
Skettles Junior was in a state of bliss, without showing it.
Little Paul thought it a singular coincidence that nobody had
occupied his place among the pillows; and that when he came into the
room again, they should all make way for him to go back to it,
remembering it was his. Nobody stood before him either, when they
observed that he liked to see Florence dancing, but they left the
space in front quite clear, so that he might follow her with his eyes.
They were so kind, too, even the strangers, of whom there were soon a
great many, that they came and spoke to him every now and then, and
asked him how he was, and if his head ached, and whether he was tired.
He was very much obliged to them for all their kindness and attention,
and reclining propped up in his corner, with Mrs Blimber and Lady
Skettles on the same sofa, and Florence coming and sitting by his side
as soon as every dance was ended, he looked on very happily indeed.
Florence would have sat by him all night, and would not have danced
at all of her own accord, but Paul made her, by telling her how much
it pleased him. And he told her the truth, too; for his small heart
swelled, and his face glowed, when he saw how much they all admired
her, and how she was the beautiful little rosebud of the room.
From his nest among the pillows, Paul could see and hear almost
everything that passed as if the whole were being done for his
amusement. Among other little incidents that he observed, he observed
Mr Baps the dancing-master get into conversation with Sir Barnet
Skettles, and very soon ask him, as he had asked Mr Toots, what you
were to do with your raw materials, when they came into your ports in
return for your drain of gold - which was such a mystery to Paul that
he was quite desirous to know what ought to be done with them. Sir
Barnet Skettles had much to say upon the question, and said it; but it
did not appear to solve the question, for Mr Baps retorted, Yes, but
supposing Russia stepped in with her tallows; which struck Sir Barnet
almost dumb, for he could only shake his head after that, and say, Why
then you must fall back upon your cottons, he supposed.
Sir Barnet Skettles looked after Mr Baps when he went to cheer up
Mrs Baps (who, being quite deserted, was pretending to look over the
music-book of the gentleman who played the harp), as if he thought him
a remarkable kind of man; and shortly afterwards he said so in those
words to Doctor Blimber, and inquired if he might take the liberty of
asking who he was, and whether he had ever been in the Board of Trade.
Doctor Blimber answered no, he believed not; and that in fact he was a
Professor of - '
'Of something connected with statistics, I'll swear?' observed Sir
Barnet Skettles.
'Why no, Sir Barnet,' replied Doctor Blimber, rubbing his chin.
'No, not exactly.'
'Figures of some sort, I would venture a bet,' said Sir Barnet
Skettles.
'Why yes,' said Doctor Blimber, yes, but not of that sort. Mr Baps
is a very worthy sort of man, Sir Barnet, and - in fact he's our
Professor of dancing.'
Paul was amazed to see that this piece of information quite altered
Sir Barnet Skettles's opinion of Mr Baps, and that Sir Barnet flew
into a perfect rage, and glowered at Mr Baps over on the other side of
the room. He even went so far as to D Mr Baps to Lady Skettles, in
telling her what had happened, and to say that it was like his most
con-sum-mate and con-foun-ded impudence.
There was another thing that Paul observed. Mr Feeder, after
imbibing several custard-cups of negus, began to enjoy himself. The
dancing in general was ceremonious, and the music rather solemn - a
little like church music in fact - but after the custard-cups, Mr
Feeder told Mr Toots that he was going to throw a little spirit into
the thing. After that, Mr Feeder not only began to dance as if he
meant dancing and nothing else, but secretly to stimulate the music to
perform wild tunes. Further, he became particular in his attentions to
the ladies; and dancing with Miss Blimber, whispered to her -
whispered to her! - though not so softly but that Paul heard him say
this remarkable poetry,
'Had I a heart for falsehood framed,
I ne'er could injure You!'
This, Paul heard him repeat to four young ladies, in succession. Well
might Mr Feeder say to Mr Toots, that he was afraid he should be the
worse for it to-morrow!
Mrs Blimber was a little alarmed by this - comparatively speaking -
profligate behaviour; and especially by the alteration in the
character of the music, which, beginning to comprehend low melodies
that were popular in the streets, might not unnaturally be supposed to
give offence to Lady Skettles. But Lady Skettles was so very kind as
to beg Mrs Blimber not to mention it; and to receive her explanation
that Mr Feeder's spirits sometimes betrayed him into excesses on these
occasions, with the greatest courtesy and politeness; observing, that
he seemed a very nice sort of person for his situation, and that she
particularly liked the unassuming style of his hair - which (as
already hinted) was about a quarter of an inch long.
Once, when there was a pause in the dancing, Lady Skettles told
Paul that he seemed very fond of music. Paul replied, that he was; and
if she was too, she ought to hear his sister, Florence, sing. Lady
Skettles presently discovered that she was dying with anxiety to have
that gratification; and though Florence was at first very much
frightened at being asked to sing before so many people, and begged
earnestly to be excused, yet, on Paul calling her to him, and saying,
'Do, Floy! Please! For me, my dear!' she went straight to the piano,
and began. When they all drew a little away, that Paul might see her;
and when he saw her sitting there all alone, so young, and good, and
beautiful, and kind to him; and heard her thrilling voice, so natural
and sweet, and such a golden link between him and all his life's love
and happiness, rising out of the silence; he turned his face away, and
hid his tears. Not, as he told them when they spoke to him, not that
the music was too plaintive or too sorrowful, but it was so dear to
him.
They all loved Florence. How could they help it! Paul had known
beforehand that they must and would; and sitting in his cushioned
corner, with calmly folded hands; and one leg loosely doubled under
him, few would have thought what triumph and delight expanded his
childish bosom while he watched her, or what a sweet tranquillity he
felt. Lavish encomiums on 'Dombey's sister' reached his ears from all
the boys: admiration of the self-possessed and modest little beauty
was on every lip: reports of her intelligence and accomplishments
floated past him, constantly; and, as if borne in upon the air of the
summer night, there was a half intelligible sentiment diffused around,
referring to Florence and himself, and breathing sympathy for both,
that soothed and touched him.
He did not know why. For all that the child observed, and felt, and
thought, that night - the present and the absent; what was then and
what had been - were blended like the colours in the rainbow, or in
the plumage of rich birds when the sun is shining on them, or in the
softening sky when the same sun is setting. The many things he had had
to think of lately, passed before him in the music; not as claiming
his attention over again, or as likely evermore to occupy it, but as
peacefully disposed of and gone. A solitary window, gazed through
years ago, looked out upon an ocean, miles and miles away; upon its
waters, fancies, busy with him only yesterday, were hushed and lulled
to rest like broken waves. The same mysterious murmur he had wondered
at, when lying on his couch upon the beach, he thought he still heard
sounding through his sister's song, and through the hum of voices, and
the tread of feet, and having some part in the faces flitting by, and
even in the heavy gentleness of Mr Toots, who frequently came up to
shake him by the hand. Through the universal kindness he still thought
he heard it, speaking to him; and even his old-fashioned reputation
seemed to be allied to it, he knew not how. Thus little Paul sat
musing, listening, looking on, and dreaming; and was very happy.
Until the time arrived for taking leave: and then, indeed, there
was a sensation in the party. Sir Barnet Skettles brought up Skettles
Junior to shake hands with him, and asked him if he would remember to
tell his good Papa, with his best compliments, that he, Sir Barnet
Skettles, had said he hoped the two young gentlemen would become
intimately acquainted. Lady Skettles kissed him, and patted his hair
upon his brow, and held him in her arms; and even Mrs Baps - poor Mrs
Baps! Paul was glad of that - came over from beside the music-book of
the gentleman who played the harp, and took leave of him quite as
heartily as anybody in the room.
'Good-bye, Doctor Blimber,' said Paul, stretching out his hand.
'Good-bye, my little friend,' returned the Doctor.
'I'm very much obliged to you, Sir,' said Paul, looking innocently
up into his awful face. 'Ask them to take care of Diogenes, if you
please.'
Diogenes was the dog: who had never in his life received a friend
into his confidence, before Paul. The Doctor promised that every
attention should he paid to Diogenes in Paul's absence, and Paul
having again thanked him, and shaken hands with him, bade adieu to Mrs
Blimber and Cornelia with such heartfelt earnestness that Mrs Blimber
forgot from that moment to mention Cicero to Lady Skettles, though she
had fully intended it all the evening. Cornelia, taking both Paul's
hands in hers, said,'Dombey, Dombey, you have always been my favourite
pupil. God bless you!' And it showed, Paul thought, how easily one
might do injustice to a person; for Miss Blimber meant it - though she
was a Forcer - and felt it.
A boy then went round among the young gentlemen, of 'Dombey's
going!' 'Little Dombey's going!' and there was a general move after
Paul and Florence down the staircase and into the hall, in which the
whole Blimber family were included. Such a circumstance, Mr Feeder
said aloud, as had never happened in the case of any former young
gentleman within his experience; but it would be difficult to say if
this were sober fact or custard-cups. The servants, with the butler at
their head, had all an interest in seeing Little Dombey go; and even
the weak-eyed young man, taking out his books and trunks to the coach
that was to carry him and Florence to Mrs Pipchin's for the night,
melted visibly.
Not even the influence of the softer passion on the young gentlemen
- and they all, to a boy, doted on Florence - could restrain them from
taking quite a noisy leave of Paul; waving hats after him, pressing
downstairs to shake hands with him, crying individually 'Dombey, don't
forget me!' and indulging in many such ebullitions of feeling,
uncommon among those young Chesterfields. Paul whispered Florence, as
she wrapped him up before the door was opened, Did she hear them?
Would she ever forget it? Was she glad to know it? And a lively
delight was in his eyes as he spoke to her.
Once, for a last look, he turned and gazed upon the faces thus
addressed to him, surprised to see how shining and how bright, and
numerous they were, and how they were all piled and heaped up, as
faces are at crowded theatres. They swam before him as he looked, like
faces in an agitated glass; and next moment he was in the dark coach
outside, holding close to Florence. From that time, whenever he
thought of Doctor Blimber's, it came back as he had seen it in this
last view; and it never seemed to be a real place again, but always a
dream, full of eyes.
This was not quite the last of Doctor Blimber's, however. There was
something else. There was Mr Toots. Who, unexpectedly letting down one
of the coach-windows, and looking in, said, with a most egregious
chuckle, 'Is Dombey there?' and immediately put it up again, without
waiting for an answer. Nor was this quite the last of Mr Toots, even;
for before the coachman could drive off, he as suddenly let down the
other window, and looking in with a precisely similar chuckle, said in
a precisely similar tone of voice, 'Is Dombey there?' and disappeared
precisely as before.
How Florence laughed! Paul often remembered it, and laughed himself
whenever he did so.
But there was much, soon afterwards - next day, and after that -
which Paul could only recollect confusedly. As, why they stayed at Mrs
Pipchin's days and nights, instead of going home; why he lay in bed,
with Florence sitting by his side; whether that had been his father in
the room, or only a tall shadow on the wall; whether he had heard his
doctor say, of someone, that if they had removed him before the
occasion on which he had built up fancies, strong in proportion to his
own weakness, it was very possible he might have pined away.
He could not even remember whether he had often said to Florence,
'Oh Floy, take me home, and never leave me!' but he thought he had. He
fancied sometimes he had heard himself repeating, 'Take me home, Floy!
take me home!'
But he could remember, when he got home, and was carried up the
well-remembered stairs, that there had been the rumbling of a coach
for many hours together, while he lay upon the seat, with Florence
still beside him, and old Mrs Pipchin sitting opposite. He remembered
his old bed too, when they laid him down in it: his aunt, Miss Tox,
and Susan: but there was something else, and recent too, that still
perplexed him.
'I want to speak to Florence, if you please,' he said. 'To Florence
by herself, for a moment!'
She bent down over him, and the others stood away.
'Floy, my pet, wasn't that Papa in the hall, when they brought me
from the coach?'
'Yes, dear.'
'He didn't cry, and go into his room, Floy, did he, when he saw me
coming in?'
Florence shook her head, and pressed her lips against his cheek.
'I'm very glad he didn't cry,' said little Paul. 'I thought he did.
Don't tell them that I asked.'
CHAPTER 15.
Amazing Artfulness of Captain Cuttle, and a new Pursuit for Walter Gay
Walter could not, for several days, decide what to do in the
Barbados business; and even cherished some faint hope that Mr Dombey
might not have meant what he had said, or that he might change his
mind, and tell him he was not to go. But as nothing occurred to give
this idea (which was sufficiently improbable in itself) any touch of
confirmation, and as time was slipping by, and he had none to lose, he
felt that he must act, without hesitating any longer.
Walter's chief difficulty was, how to break the change in his
affairs to Uncle Sol, to whom he was sensible it would he a terrible
blow. He had the greater difficulty in dashing Uncle Sol's spirits
with such an astounding piece of intelligence, because they had lately
recovered very much, and the old man had become so cheerful, that the
little back parlour was itself again. Uncle Sol had paid the first
appointed portion of the debt to Mr Dombey, and was hopeful of working
his way through the rest; and to cast him down afresh, when he had
sprung up so manfully from his troubles, was a very distressing
necessity.
Yet it would never do to run away from him. He must know of it
beforehand; and how to tell him was the point. As to the question of
going or not going, Walter did not consider that he had any power of
choice in the matter. Mr Dombey had truly told him that he was young,
and that his Uncle's circumstances were not good; and Mr Dombey had
plainly expressed, in the glance with which he had accompanied that
reminder, that if he declined to go he might stay at home if he chose,
but not in his counting-house. His Uncle and he lay under a great
obligation to Mr Dombey, which was of Walter's own soliciting. He
might have begun in secret to despair of ever winning that gentleman's
favour, and might have thought that he was now and then disposed to
put a slight upon him, which was hardly just. But what would have been
duty without that, was still duty with it - or Walter thought so- and
duty must be done.
When Mr Dombey had looked at him, and told him he was young, and
that his Uncle's circumstances were not good, there had been an
expression of disdain in his face; a contemptuous and disparaging
assumption that he would be quite content to live idly on a reduced
old man, which stung the boy's generous soul. Determined to assure Mr
Dombey, in so far as it was possible to give him the assurance without
expressing it in words, that indeed he mistook his nature, Walter had
been anxious to show even more cheerfulness and activity after the
West Indian interview than he had shown before: if that were possible,
in one of his quick and zealous disposition. He was too young and
inexperienced to think, that possibly this very quality in him was not
agreeable to Mr Dombey, and that it was no stepping-stone to his good
opinion to be elastic and hopeful of pleasing under the shadow of his
powerful displeasure, whether it were right or wrong. But it may have
been - it may have been- that the great man thought himself defied in
this new exposition of an honest spirit, and purposed to bring it
down.
'Well! at last and at least, Uncle Sol must be told,' thought
Walter, with a sigh. And as Walter was apprehensive that his voice
might perhaps quaver a little, and that his countenance might not be
quite as hopeful as he could wish it to be, if he told the old man
himself, and saw the first effects of his communication on his
wrinkled face, he resolved to avail himself of the services of that
powerful mediator, Captain Cuttle. Sunday coming round, he set off
therefore, after breakfast, once more to beat up Captain Cuttle's
quarters.
It was not unpleasant to remember, on the way thither, that Mrs
MacStinger resorted to a great distance every Sunday morning, to
attend the ministry of the Reverend Melchisedech Howler, who, having
been one day discharged from the West India Docks on a false suspicion
(got up expressly against him by the general enemy) of screwing
gimlets into puncheons, and applying his lips to the orifice, had
announced the destruction of the world for that day two years, at ten
in the morning, and opened a front parlour for the reception of ladies
and gentlemen of the Ranting persuasion, upon whom, on the first
occasion of their assemblage, the admonitions of the Reverend
Melchisedech had produced so powerful an effect, that, in their
rapturous performance of a sacred jig, which closed the service, the
whole flock broke through into a kitchen below, and disabled a mangle
belonging to one of the fold.
This the Captain, in a moment of uncommon conviviality, had
confided to Walter and his Uncle, between the repetitions of lovely
Peg, on the night when Brogley the broker was paid out. The Captain
himself was punctual in his attendance at a church in his own
neighbourhood, which hoisted the Union Jack every Sunday morning; and
where he was good enough - the lawful beadle being infirm - to keep an
eye upon the boys, over whom he exercised great power, in virtue of
his mysterious hook. Knowing the regularity of the Captain's habits,
Walter made all the haste he could, that he might anticipate his going
out; and he made such good speed, that he had the pleasure, on turning
into Brig Place, to behold the broad blue coat and waistcoat hanging
out of the Captain's oPen window, to air in the sun.
It appeared incredible that the coat and waistcoat could be seen by
mortal eyes without the Captain; but he certainly was not in them,
otherwise his legs - the houses in Brig Place not being lofty- would
have obstructed the street door, which was perfectly clear. Quite
wondering at this discovery, Walter gave a single knock.
'Stinger,' he distinctly heard the Captain say, up in his room, as
if that were no business of his. Therefore Walter gave two knocks.
'Cuttle,' he heard the Captain say upon that; and immediately
afterwards the Captain, in his clean shirt and braces, with his
neckerchief hanging loosely round his throat like a coil of rope, and
his glazed hat on, appeared at the window, leaning out over the broad
blue coat and waistcoat.
'Wal'r!' cried the Captain, looking down upon him in amazement.
'Ay, ay, Captain Cuttle,' returned Walter, 'only me'
'What's the matter, my lad?' inquired the Captain, with great
concern. 'Gills an't been and sprung nothing again?'
'No, no,' said Walter. 'My Uncle's all right, Captain Cuttle.'
The Captain expressed his gratification, and said he would come
down below and open the door, which he did.
'Though you're early, Wal'r,' said the Captain, eyeing him still
doubtfully, when they got upstairs:
'Why, the fact is, Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, sitting down, 'I
was afraid you would have gone out, and I want to benefit by your
friendly counsel.'
'So you shall,' said the Captain; 'what'll you take?'
'I want to take your opinion, Captain Cuttle,' returned Walter,
smiling. 'That's the only thing for me.'
'Come on then,' said the Captain. 'With a will, my lad!'
Walter related to him what had happened; and the difficulty in
which he felt respecting his Uncle, and the relief it would be to him
if Captain Cuttle, in his kindness, would help him to smooth it away;
Captain Cuttle's infinite consternation and astonishment at the
prospect unfolded to him, gradually swallowing that gentleman up,
until it left his face quite vacant, and the suit of blue, the glazed
hat, and the hook, apparently without an owner.
'You see, Captain Cuttle,' pursued Walter, 'for myself, I am young,
as Mr Dombey said, and not to be considered. I am to fight my way
through the world, I know; but there are two points I was thinking, as
I came along, that I should be very particular about, in respect to my
Uncle. I don't mean to say that I deserve to be the pride and delight
of his life - you believe me, I know - but I am. Now, don't you think
I am?'
The Captain seemed to make an endeavour to rise from the depths of
his astonishment, and get back to his face; but the effort being
ineffectual, the glazed hat merely nodded with a mute, unutterable
meaning.
'If I live and have my health,' said Walter, 'and I am not afraid
of that, still, when I leave England I can hardly hope to see my Uncle
again. He is old, Captain Cuttle; and besides, his life is a life of
custom - '
'Steady, Wal'r! Of a want of custom?' said the Captain, suddenly
reappearing.
'Too true,' returned Walter, shaking his head: 'but I meant a life
of habit, Captain Cuttle - that sort of custom. And if (as you very
truly said, I am sure) he would have died the sooner for the loss of
the stock, and all those objects to which he has been accustomed for
so many years, don't you think he might die a little sooner for the
loss of - '
'Of his Nevy,' interposed the Captain. 'Right!'
'Well then,' said Walter, trying to speak gaily, 'we must do our
best to make him believe that the separation is but a temporary one,
after all; but as I know better, or dread that I know better, Captain
Cuttle, and as I have so many reasons for regarding him with
affection, and duty, and honour, I am afraid I should make but a very
poor hand at that, if I tried to persuade him of it. That's my great
reason for wishing you to break it out to him; and that's the first
point.'
'Keep her off a point or so!' observed the Captain, in a
comtemplative voice.
'What did you say, Captain Cuttle?' inquired Walter.
'Stand by!' returned the Captain, thoughtfully.
Walter paused to ascertain if the Captain had any particular
information to add to this, but as he said no more, went on.
'Now, the second point, Captain Cuttle. I am sorry to say, I am not
a favourite with Mr Dombey. I have always tried to do my best, and I
have always done it; but he does not like me. He can't help his
likings and dislikings, perhaps. I say nothing of that. I only say
that I am certain he does not like me. He does not send me to this
post as a good one; he disclaims to represent it as being better than
it is; and I doubt very much if it will ever lead me to advancement in
the House - whether it does not, on the contrary, dispose of me for
ever, and put me out of the way. Now, we must say nothing of this to
my Uncle, Captain Cuttle, but must make it out to be as favourable and
promising as we can; and when I tell you what it really is, I only do
so, that in case any means should ever arise of lending me a hand, so
far off, I may have one friend at home who knows my real situation.
'Wal'r, my boy,' replied the Captain, 'in the Proverbs of Solomon
you will find the following words, "May we never want a friend in
need, nor a bottle to give him!" When found, make a note of.'
Here the Captain stretched out his hand to Walter, with an air of
downright good faith that spoke volumes; at the same time repeating
(for he felt proud of the accuracy and pointed application of his
quotation), 'When found, make a note of.'
'Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, taking the immense fist extended to
him by the Captain in both his hands, which it completely filled, next
to my Uncle Sol, I love you. There is no one on earth in whom I can
more safely trust, I am sure. As to the mere going away, Captain
Cuttle, I don't care for that; why should I care for that! If I were
free to seek my own fortune - if I were free to go as a common sailor
- if I were free to venture on my own account to the farthest end of
the world - I would gladly go! I would have gladly gone, years ago,
and taken my chance of what might come of it. But it was against my
Uncle's wishes, and against the plans he had formed for me; and there
was an end of that. But what I feel, Captain Cuttle, is that we have
been a little mistaken all along, and that, so far as any improvement
in my prospects is concerned, I am no better off now than I was when I
first entered Dombey's House - perhaps a little worse, for the House
may have been kindly inclined towards me then, and it certainly is not
now.'
'Turn again, Whittington,' muttered the disconsolate Captain, after
looking at Walter for some time.
'Ay,' replied Walter, laughing, 'and turn a great many times, too,
Captain Cuttle, I'm afraid, before such fortune as his ever turns up
again. Not that I complain,' he added, in his lively, animated,
energetic way. 'I have nothing to complain of. I am provided for. I
can live. When I leave my Uncle, I leave him to you; and I can leave
him to no one better, Captain Cuttle. I haven't told you all this
because I despair, not I; it's to convince you that I can't pick and
choose in Dombey's House, and that where I am sent, there I must go,
and what I am offered, that I must take. It's better for my Uncle that
I should be sent away; for Mr Dombey is a valuable friend to him, as
he proved himself, you know when, Captain Cuttle; and I am persuaded
he won't be less valuable when he hasn't me there, every day, to
awaken his dislike. So hurrah for the West Indies, Captain Cuttle! How
does that tune go that the sailors sing?
'For the Port of Barbados, Boys!
Cheerily!
Leaving old England behind us, Boys!
Cheerily!'
Here the Captain roared in chorus -
'Oh cheerily, cheerily!
Oh cheer-i-ly!'
The last line reaching the quick ears of an ardent skipper not
quite sober, who lodged opposite, and who instantly sprung out of bed,
threw up his window, and joined in, across the street, at the top of
his voice, produced a fine effect. When it was impossible to sustain
the concluding note any longer, the skipper bellowed forth a terrific
'ahoy!' intended in part as a friendly greeting, and in part to show
that he was not at all breathed. That done, he shut down his window,
and went to bed again.
'And now, Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, handing him the blue coat
and waistcoat, and bustling very much, 'if you'll come and break the
news to Uncle Sol (which he ought to have known, days upon days ago,
by rights), I'll leave you at the door, you know, and walk about until
the afternoon.'
The Captain, however, scarcely appeared to relish the commission,
or to be by any means confident of his powers of executing it. He had
arranged the future life and adventures of Walter so very differently,
and so entirely to his own satisfaction; he had felicitated himself so
often on the sagacity and foresight displayed in that arrangement, and
had found it so complete and perfect in all its parts; that to suffer
it to go to pieces all at once, and even to assist in breaking it up,
required a great effort of his resolution. The Captain, too, found it
difficult to unload his old ideas upon the subject, and to take a
perfectly new cargo on board, with that rapidity which the
circumstances required, or without jumbling and confounding the two.
Consequently, instead of putting on his coat and waistcoat with
anything like the impetuosity that could alone have kept pace with
Walter's mood, he declined to invest himself with those garments at
all at present; and informed Walter that on such a serious matter, he
must be allowed to 'bite his nails a bit'
'It's an old habit of mine, Wal'r,' said the Captain, 'any time
these fifty year. When you see Ned Cuttle bite his nails, Wal'r, then
you may know that Ned Cuttle's aground.'
Thereupon the Captain put his iron hook between his teeth, as if it
were a hand; and with an air of wisdom and profundity that was the
very concentration and sublimation of all philosophical reflection and
grave inquiry, applied himself to the consideration of the subject in
its various branches.
'There's a friend of mine,' murmured the Captain, in an absent
manner, 'but he's at present coasting round to Whitby, that would
deliver such an opinion on this subject, or any other that could be
named, as would give Parliament six and beat 'em. Been knocked
overboard, that man,' said the Captain, 'twice, and none the worse for
it. Was beat in his apprenticeship, for three weeks (off and on),
about the head with a ring-bolt. And yet a clearer-minded man don't
walk.'
Despite of his respect for Captain Cuttle, Walter could not help
inwardly rejoicing at the absence of this sage, and devoutly hoping
that his limpid intellect might not be brought to bear on his
difficulties until they were quite settled.
'If you was to take and show that man the buoy at the Nore,' said
Captain Cuttle in the same tone, 'and ask him his opinion of it,
Wal'r, he'd give you an opinion that was no more like that buoy than
your Uncle's buttons are. There ain't a man that walks - certainly not
on two legs - that can come near him. Not near him!'
'What's his name, Captain Cuttle?' inquired Walter, determined to
be interested in the Captain's friend.
'His name's Bunsby, said the Captain. 'But Lord, it might be
anything for the matter of that, with such a mind as his!'
The exact idea which the Captain attached to this concluding piece
of praise, he did not further elucidate; neither did Walter seek to
draw it forth. For on his beginning to review, with the vivacity
natural to himself and to his situation, the leading points in his own
affairs, he soon discovered that the Captain had relapsed into his
former profound state of mind; and that while he eyed him steadfastly
from beneath his bushy eyebrows, he evidently neither saw nor heard
him, but remained immersed in cogitation.
In fact, Captain Cuttle was labouring with such great designs, that
far from being aground, he soon got off into the deepest of water, and
could find no bottom to his penetration. By degrees it became
perfectly plain to the Captain that there was some mistake here; that
it was undoubtedly much more likely to be Walter's mistake than his;
that if there were really any West India scheme afoot, it was a very
different one from what Walter, who was young and rash, supposed; and
could only be some new device for making his fortune with unusual
celerity. 'Or if there should be any little hitch between 'em,'
thought the Captain, meaning between Walter and Mr Dombey, 'it only
wants a word in season from a friend of both parties, to set it right
and smooth, and make all taut again.' Captain Cuttle's deduction from
these considerations was, that as he already enjoyed the pleasure of
knowing Mr Dombey, from having spent a very agreeable half-hour in his
company at Brighton (on the morning when they borrowed the money); and
that, as a couple of men of the world, who understood each other, and
were mutually disposed to make things comfortable, could easily
arrange any little difficulty of this sort, and come at the real
facts; the friendly thing for him to do would be, without saying
anything about it to Walter at present, just to step up to Mr Dombey's
house - say to the servant 'Would ye be so good, my lad, as report
Cap'en Cuttle here?' - meet Mr Dombey in a confidential spirit- hook
him by the button-hole - talk it over - make it all right - and come
away triumphant!
As these reflections presented themselves to the Captain's mind,
and by slow degrees assumed this shape and form, his visage cleared
like a doubtful morning when it gives place to a bright noon. His
eyebrows, which had been in the highest degree portentous, smoothed
their rugged bristling aspect, and became serene; his eyes, which had
been nearly closed in the severity of his mental exercise, opened
freely; a smile which had been at first but three specks - one at the
right-hand corner of his mouth, and one at the corner of each eye -
gradually overspread his whole face, and, rippling up into his
forehead, lifted the glazed hat: as if that too had been aground with
Captain Cuttle, and were now, like him, happily afloat again.
Finally, the Captain left off biting his nails, and said, 'Now,
Wal'r, my boy, you may help me on with them slops.' By which the
Captain meant his coat and waistcoat.
Walter little imagined why the Captain was so particular in the
arrangement of his cravat, as to twist the pendent ends into a sort of
pigtail, and pass them through a massive gold ring with a picture of a
tomb upon it, and a neat iron railing, and a tree, in memory of some
deceased friend. Nor why the Captain pulled up his shirt-collar to the
utmost limits allowed by the Irish linen below, and by so doing
decorated himself with a complete pair of blinkers; nor why he changed
his shoes, and put on an unparalleled pair of ankle-jacks, which he
only wore on extraordinary occasions. The Captain being at length
attired to his own complete satisfaction, and having glanced at
himself from head to foot in a shaving-glass which he removed from a
nail for that purpose, took up his knotted stick, and said he was
ready.
The Captain's walk was more complacent than usual when they got out
into the street; but this Walter supposed to be the effect of the
ankle-jacks, and took little heed of. Before they had gone very far,
they encountered a woman selling flowers; when the Captain stopping
short, as if struck by a happy idea, made a purchase of the largest
bundle in her basket: a most glorious nosegay, fan-shaped, some two
feet and a half round, and composed of all the jolliest-looking
flowers that blow.
Armed with this little token which he designed for Mr Dombey,
Captain Cuttle walked on with Walter until they reached the
Instrument-maker's door, before which they both paused.
'You're going in?' said Walter.
'Yes,' returned the Captain, who felt that Walter must be got rid
of before he proceeded any further, and that he had better time his
projected visit somewhat later in the day.
'And you won't forget anything?'
'No,' returned the Captain.
'I'll go upon my walk at once,' said Walter, 'and then I shall be
out of the way, Captain Cuttle.'
'Take a good long 'un, my lad!' replied the Captain, calling after
him. Walter waved his hand in assent, and went his way.
His way was nowhere in particular; but he thought he would go out
into the fields, where he could reflect upon the unknown life before
him, and resting under some tree, ponder quietly. He knew no better
fields than those near Hampstead, and no better means of getting at
them than by passing Mr Dombey's house.
It was as stately and as dark as ever, when he went by and glanced
up at its frowning front. The blinds were all pulled down, but the
upper windows stood wide open, and the pleasant air stirring those
curtains and waving them to and fro was the only sign of animation in
the whole exterior. Walter walked softly as he passed, and was glad
when he had left the house a door or two behind.
He looked back then; with the interest he had always felt for the
place since the adventure of the lost child, years ago; and looked
especially at those upper windows. While he was thus engaged, a
chariot drove to the door, and a portly gentleman in black, with a
heavy watch-chain, alighted, and went in. When he afterwards
remembered this gentleman and his equipage together, Walter had no
doubt be was a physician; and then he wondered who was ill; but the
discovery did not occur to him until he had walked some distance,
thinking listlessly of other things.
Though still, of what the house had suggested to him; for Walter
pleased hImself with thinking that perhaps the time might come, when
the beautiful child who was his old friend and had always been so
grateful to him and so glad to see him since, might interest her
brother in his behalf and influence his fortunes for the better. He
liked to imagine this - more, at that moment, for the pleasure of
imagining her continued remembrance of him, than for any worldly
profit he might gain: but another and more sober fancy whispered to
him that if he were alive then, he would be beyond the sea and
forgotten; she married, rich, proud, happy. There was no more reason
why she should remember him with any interest in such an altered state
of things, than any plaything she ever had. No, not so much.
Yet Walter so idealised the pretty child whom he had found
wandering in the rough streets, and so identified her with her
innocent gratitude of that night and the simplicity and truth of its
expression, that he blushed for himself as a libeller when he argued
that she could ever grow proud. On the other hand, his meditations
were of that fantastic order that it seemed hardly less libellous in
him to imagine her grown a woman: to think of her as anything but the
same artless, gentle, winning little creature, that she had been in
the days of Good Mrs Brown. In a word, Walter found out that to reason
with himself about Florence at all, was to become very unreasonable
indeed; and that he could do no better than preserve her image in his
mind as something precious, unattainable, unchangeable, and indefinite
- indefinite in all but its power of giving him pleasure, and
restraining him like an angel's hand from anything unworthy.
It was a long stroll in the fields that Walter took that day,
listening to the birds, and the Sunday bells, and the softened murmur
of the town - breathing sweet scents; glancing sometimes at the dim
horizon beyond which his voyage and his place of destination lay; then
looking round on the green English grass and the home landscape. But
he hardly once thought, even of going away, distinctly; and seemed to
put off reflection idly, from hour to hour, and from minute to minute,
while he yet went on reflecting all the time.
Walter had left the fields behind him, and was plodding homeward in
the same abstracted mood, when he heard a shout from a man, and then a
woman's voice calling to him loudly by name. Turning quickly in his
surprise, he saw that a hackney-coach, going in the contrary
direction, had stopped at no great distance; that the coachman was
looking back from his box and making signals to him with his whip; and
that a young woman inside was leaning out of the window, and beckoning
with immense energy. Running up to this coach, he found that the young
woman was Miss Nipper, and that Miss Nipper was in such a flutter as
to be almost beside herself.
'Staggs's Gardens, Mr Walter!' said Miss Nipper; 'if you please, oh
do!'
'Eh?' cried Walter; 'what is the matter?'
'Oh, Mr Walter, Staggs's Gardens, if you please!' said Susan.
'There!' cried the coachman, appealing to Walter, with a sort of
exalting despair; 'that's the way the young lady's been a goin' on for
up'ards of a mortal hour, and me continivally backing out of no
thoroughfares, where she would drive up. I've had a many fares in this
coach, first and last, but never such a fare as her.'
'Do you want to go to Staggs's Gardens, Susan?' inquired Walter.
'Ah! She wants to go there! WHERE IS IT?' growled the coachman.
'I don't know where it is!' exclaimed Susan, wildly. 'Mr Walter, I
was there once myself, along with Miss Floy and our poor darling
Master Paul, on the very day when you found Miss Floy in the City, for
we lost her coming home, Mrs Richards and me, and a mad bull, and Mrs
Richards's eldest, and though I went there afterwards, I can't
remember where it is, I think it's sunk into the ground. Oh, Mr
Walter, don't desert me, Staggs's Gardens, if you please! Miss Floy's
darling - all our darlings - little, meek, meek Master Paul! Oh Mr
Walter!'
'Good God!' cried Walter. 'Is he very ill?'
'The pretty flower!' cried Susan, wringing her hands, 'has took the
fancy that he'd like to see his old nurse, and I've come to bring her
to his bedside, Mrs Staggs, of Polly Toodle's Gardens, someone pray!'
Greatly moved by what he heard, and catching Susan's earnestness
immediately, Walter, now that he understood the nature of her errand,
dashed into it with such ardour that the coachman had enough to do to
follow closely as he ran before, inquiring here and there and
everywhere, the way to Staggs's Gardens.
There was no such place as Staggs's Gardens. It had vanished from
the earth. Where the old rotten summer-houses once had stood, palaces
now reared their heads, and granite columns of gigantic girth opened a
vista to the railway world beyond. The miserable waste ground, where
the refuse-matter had been heaped of yore, was swallowed up and gone;
and in its frowsy stead were tiers of warehouses, crammed with rich
goods and costly merchandise. The old by-streets now swarmed with
passengers and vehicles of every kind: the new streets that had
stopped disheartened in the mud and waggon-ruts, formed towns within
themselves, originating wholesome comforts and conveniences belonging
to themselves, and never tried nor thought of until they sprung into
existence. Bridges that had led to nothing, led to villas, gardens,
churches, healthy public walks. The carcasses of houses, and
beginnings of new thoroughfares, had started off upon the line at
steam's own speed, and shot away into the country in a monster train.'
As to the neighbourhood which had hesitated to acknowledge the
railroad in its straggling days, that had grown wise and penitent, as
any Christian might in such a case, and now boasted of its powerful
and prosperous relation. There were railway patterns in its drapers'
shops, and railway journals in the windows of its newsmen. There were
railway hotels, office-houses, lodging-houses, boarding-houses;
railway plans, maps, views, wrappers, bottles, sandwich-boxes, and
time-tables; railway hackney-coach and stands; railway omnibuses,
railway streets and buildings, railway hangers-on and parasites, and
flatterers out of all calculation. There was even railway time
observed in clocks, as if the sun itself had given in. Among the
vanquished was the master chimney-sweeper, whilom incredulous at
Staggs's Gardens, who now lived in a stuccoed house three stories
high, and gave himself out, with golden flourishes upon a varnished
board, as contractor for the cleansing of railway chimneys by
machinery.
To and from the heart of this great change, all day and night,
throbbing currents rushed and returned incessantly like its life's
blood. Crowds of people and mountains of goods, departing and arriving
scores upon scores of times in every four-and-twenty hours, produced a
fermentation in the place that was always in action. The very houses
seemed disposed to pack up and take trips. Wonderful Members of
Parliament, who, little more than twenty years before, had made
themselves merry with the wild railroad theories of engineers, and
given them the liveliest rubs in cross-examination, went down into the
north with their watches in their hands, and sent on messages before
by the electric telegraph, to say that they were coming. Night and day
the conquering engines rumbled at their distant work, or, advancing
smoothly to their journey's end, and gliding like tame dragons into
the allotted corners grooved out to the inch for their reception,
stood bubbling and trembling there, making the walls quake, as if they
were dilating with the secret knowledge of great powers yet
unsuspected in them, and strong purposes not yet achieved.
But Staggs's Gardens had been cut up root and branch. Oh woe the
day when 'not a rood of English ground' - laid out in Staggs's Gardens
- is secure!
At last, after much fruitless inquiry, Walter, followed by the
coach and Susan, found a man who had once resided in that vanished
land, and who was no other than the master sweep before referred to,
grown stout, and knocking a double knock at his own door. He knowed
Toodle, he said, well. Belonged to the Railroad, didn't he?
'Yes' sir, yes!' cried Susan Nipper from the coach window.
Where did he live now? hastily inquired Walter.
He lived in the Company's own Buildings, second turning to the
right, down the yard, cross over, and take the second on the right
again. It was number eleven; they couldn't mistake it; but if they
did, they had only to ask for Toodle, Engine Fireman, and any one
would show them which was his house. At this unexpected stroke of
success Susan Nipper dismounted from the coach with all speed, took
Walter's arm, and set off at a breathless pace on foot; leaving the
coach there to await their return.
'Has the little boy been long ill, Susan?' inquired Walter, as they
hurried on.
'Ailing for a deal of time, but no one knew how much,' said Susan;
adding, with excessive sharpness, 'Oh, them Blimbers!'
'Blimbers?' echoed Walter.
'I couldn't forgive myself at such a time as this, Mr Walter,' said
Susan, 'and when there's so much serious distress to think about, if I
rested hard on anyone, especially on them that little darling Paul
speaks well of, but I may wish that the family was set to work in a
stony soil to make new roads, and that Miss Blimber went in front, and
had the pickaxe!'
Miss Nipper then took breath, and went on faster than before, as if
this extraordinary aspiration had relieved her. Walter, who had by
this time no breath of his own to spare, hurried along without asking
any more questions; and they soon, in their impatience, burst in at a
little door and came into a clean parlour full of children.
'Where's Mrs Richards?' exclaimed Susan Nipper, looking round. 'Oh
Mrs Richards, Mrs Richards, come along with me, my dear creetur!'
'Why, if it ain't Susan!' cried Polly, rising with her honest face
and motherly figure from among the group, in great surprIse.
'Yes, Mrs Richards, it's me,' said Susan, 'and I wish it wasn't,
though I may not seem to flatter when I say so, but little Master Paul
is very ill, and told his Pa today that he would like to see the face
of his old nurse, and him and Miss Floy hope you'll come along with me
- and Mr Walter, Mrs Richards - forgetting what is past, and do a
kindness to the sweet dear that is withering away. Oh, Mrs Richards,
withering away!' Susan Nipper crying, Polly shed tears to see her, and
to hear what she had said; and all the children gathered round
(including numbers of new babies); and Mr Toodle, who had just come
home from Birmingham, and was eating his dinner out of a basin, laid
down his knife and fork, and put on his wife's bonnet and shawl for
her, which were hanging up behind the door; then tapped her on the
back; and said, with more fatherly feeling than eloquence, 'Polly! cut
away!'
So they got back to the coach, long before the coachman expected
them; and Walter, putting Susan and Mrs Richards inside, took his seat
on the box himself that there might be no more mistakes, and deposited
them safely in the hall of Mr Dombey's house - where, by the bye, he
saw a mighty nosegay lying, which reminded him of the one Captain
Cuttle had purchased in his company that morning. He would have
lingered to know more of the young invalid, or waited any length of
time to see if he could render the least service; but, painfully
sensible that such conduct would be looked upon by Mr Dombey as
presumptuous and forward, he turned slowly, sadly, anxiously, away.
He had not gone five minutes' walk from the door, when a man came
running after him, and begged him to return. Walter retraced his steps
as quickly as he could, and entered the gloomy house with a sorrowful
foreboding.
CHAPTER 16.
What the Waves were always saying
Paul had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening
to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly; not caring much how the
time went, but watching it and watching everything about him with
observing eyes.
When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds,
and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that
evening was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. As the
reflection died away, and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he
watched it deepen, deepen, deepen, into night. Then he thought how the
long streets were dotted with lamps, and how the peaceful stars were
shining overhead. His fancy had a strange tendency to wander to the
river, which he knew was flowing through the great city; and now he
thought how black it was, and how deep it would look, reflecting the
hosts of stars - and more than all, how steadily it rolled away to
meet the sea.
As it grew later in the night, and footsteps in the street became
so rare that he could hear them coming, count them as they passed, and
lose them in the hollow distance, he would lie and watch the
many-coloured ring about the candle, and wait patiently for day. His
only trouble was, the swift and rapid river. He felt forced,
sometimes, to try to stop it - to stem it with his childish hands - or
choke its way with sand - and when he saw it coming on, resistless, he
cried out! But a word from Florence, who was always at his side,
restored him to himself; and leaning his poor head upon her breast, he
told Floy of his dream, and smiled.
When day began to dawn again, he watched for the sun; and when its
cheerful light began to sparkle in the room, he pictured to himself -
pictured! he saw - the high church towers rising up into the morning
sky, the town reviving, waking, starting into life once more, the
river glistening as it rolled (but rolling fast as ever), and the
country bright with dew. Familiar sounds and cries came by degrees
into the street below; the servants in the house were roused and busy;
faces looked in at the door, and voices asked his attendants softly
how he was. Paul always answered for himself, 'I am better. I am a
great deal better, thank you! Tell Papa so!'
By little and little, he got tired of the bustle of the day, the
noise of carriages and carts, and people passing and repassing; and
would fall asleep, or be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense
again - the child could hardly tell whether this were in his sleeping
or his waking moments - of that rushing river. 'Why, will it never
stop, Floy?' he would sometimes ask her. 'It is bearing me away, I
think!'
But Floy could always soothe and reassure him; and it was his daily
delight to make her lay her head down on his pillow, and take some
rest.
'You are always watching me, Floy, let me watch you, now!' They
would prop him up with cushions in a corner of his bed, and there he
would recline the while she lay beside him: bending forward oftentimes
to kiss her, and whispering to those who were near that she was tired,
and how she had sat up so many nights beside him.
Thus, the flush of the day, in its heat and light, would gradually
decline; and again the golden water would be dancing on the wall.
He was visited by as many as three grave doctors - they used to
assemble downstairs, and come up together - and the room was so quiet,
and Paul was so observant of them (though he never asked of anybody
what they said), that he even knew the difference in the sound of
their watches. But his interest centred in Sir Parker Peps, who always
took his seat on the side of the bed. For Paul had heard them say long
ago, that that gentleman had been with his Mama when she clasped
Florence in her arms, and died. And he could not forget it, now. He
liked him for it. He was not afraid.
The people round him changed as unaccountably as on that first
night at Doctor Blimber's - except Florence; Florence never changed -
and what had been Sir Parker Peps, was now his father, sitting with
his head upon his hand. Old Mrs Pipchin dozing in an easy chair, often
changed to Miss Tox, or his aunt; and Paul was quite content to shut
his eyes again, and see what happened next, without emotion. But this
figure with its head upon its hand returned so often, and remained so
long, and sat so still and solemn, never speaking, never being spoken
to, and rarely lifting up its face, that Paul began to wonder
languidly, if it were real; and in the night-time saw it sitting
there, with fear.
'Floy!' he said. 'What is that?'
'Where, dearest?'
'There! at the bottom of the bed.'
'There's nothing there, except Papa!'
The figure lifted up its head, and rose, and coming to the bedside,
said:
'My own boy! Don't you know me?'
Paul looked it in the face, and thought, was this his father? But
the face so altered to his thinking, thrilled while he gazed, as if it
were in pain; and before he could reach out both his hands to take it
between them, and draw it towards him, the figure turned away quickly
from the little bed, and went out at the door.
Paul looked at Florence with a fluttering heart, but he knew what
she was going to say, and stopped her with his face against her lips.
The next time he observed the figure sitting at the bottom of the bed,
he called to it.
'Don't be sorry for me, dear Papa! Indeed I am quite happy!'
His father coming and bending down to him - which he did quickly,
and without first pausing by the bedside - Paul held him round the
neck, and repeated those words to him several times, and very
earnestly; and Paul never saw him in his room again at any time,
whether it were day or night, but he called out, 'Don't be sorry for
me! Indeed I am quite happy!' This was the beginning of his always
saying in the morning that he was a great deal better, and that they
were to tell his father so.
How many times the golden water danced upon the wall; how many
nights the dark, dark river rolled towards the sea in spite of him;
Paul never counted, never sought to know. If their kindness, or his
sense of it, could have increased, they were more kind, and he more
grateful every day; but whether they were many days or few, appeared
of little moment now, to the gentle boy.
One night he had been thinking of his mother, and her picture in
the drawing-room downstairs, and thought she must have loved sweet
Florence better than his father did, to have held her in her arms when
she felt that she was dying - for even he, her brother, who had such
dear love for her, could have no greater wish than that. The train of
thought suggested to him to inquire if he had ever seen his mother?
for he could not remember whether they had told him, yes or no, the
river running very fast, and confusing his mind.
'Floy, did I ever see Mama?'
'No, darling, why?'
'Did I ever see any kind face, like Mama's, looking at me when I
was a baby, Floy?'
He asked, incredulously, as if he had some vision of a face before
him.
'Oh yes, dear!'
'Whose, Floy?'
'Your old nurse's. Often.'
'And where is my old nurse?' said Paul. 'Is she dead too? Floy, are
we all dead, except you?'
There was a hurry in the room, for an instant - longer, perhaps;
but it seemed no more - then all was still again; and Florence, with
her face quite colourless, but smiling, held his head upon her arm.
Her arm trembled very much.
'Show me that old nurse, Floy, if you please!'
'She is not here, darling. She shall come to-morrow.'
'Thank you, Floy!'
Paul closed his eyes with those words, and fell asleep. When he
awoke, the sun was high, and the broad day was clear and He lay a
little, looking at the windows, which were open, and the curtains
rustling in the air, and waving to and fro: then he said, 'Floy, is it
tomorrow? Is she come?'
Someone seemed to go in quest of her. Perhaps it was Susan. Paul
thought he heard her telling him when he had closed his eyes again,
that she would soon be back; but he did not open them to see. She kept
her word - perhaps she had never been away - but the next thing that
happened was a noise of footsteps on the stairs, and then Paul woke -
woke mind and body - and sat upright in his bed. He saw them now about
him. There was no grey mist before them, as there had been sometimes
in the night. He knew them every one, and called them by their names.
'And who is this? Is this my old nurse?' said the child, regarding
with a radiant smile, a figure coming in.
Yes, yes. No other stranger would have shed those tears at sight of
him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor
blighted child. No other woman would have stooped down by his bed, and
taken up his wasted hand, and put it to her lips and breast, as one
who had some right to fondle it. No other woman would have so
forgotten everybody there but him and Floy, and been so full of
tenderness and pity.
'Floy! this is a kind good face!' said Paul. 'I am glad to see it
again. Don't go away, old nurse! Stay here.'
His senses were all quickened, and he heard a name he knew.
'Who was that, who said "Walter"?' he asked, looking round.
'Someone said Walter. Is he here? I should like to see him very much.'
Nobody replied directly; but his father soon said to Susan, 'Call
him back, then: let him come up!' Alter a short pause of expectation,
during which he looked with smiling interest and wonder, on his nurse,
and saw that she had not forgotten Floy, Walter was brought into the
room. His open face and manner, and his cheerful eyes, had always made
him a favourite with Paul; and when Paul saw him' he stretched Out his
hand, and said 'Good-bye!'
'Good-bye, my child!' said Mrs Pipchin, hurrying to his bed's head.
'Not good-bye?'
For an instant, Paul looked at her with the wistful face with which
he had so often gazed upon her in his corner by the fire. 'Yes,' he
said placidly, 'good-bye! Walter dear, good-bye!' - turning his head
to where he stood, and putting out his hand again. 'Where is Papa?'
He felt his father's breath upon his cheek, before the words had
parted from his lips.
'Remember Walter, dear Papa,' he whispered, looking in his face.
'Remember Walter. I was fond of Walter!' The feeble hand waved in the
air, as if it cried 'good-bye!' to Walter once again.
'Now lay me down,' he said, 'and, Floy, come close to me, and let
me see you!'
Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the
golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together.
'How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes,
'Floy! But it's very near the sea. I hear the waves! They always said
so!'
Presently he told her the motion of the boat upon the stream was
lulling him to rest. How green the banks were now, how bright the
flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes! Now the boat was out
at sea, but gliding smoothly on. And now there was a shore before him.
Who stood on the bank! -
He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his
prayers. He did not remove his arms to do it; but they saw him fold
them so, behind her neck.
'Mama is like you, Floy. I know her by the face! But tell them that
the print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. The light
about the head is shining on me as I go!'
The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else
stirred in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in
with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has
run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The
old, old fashion - Death!
Oh thank GOD, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of
Immortality! And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards
not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean!
'Dear me, dear me! To think,' said Miss Tox, bursting out afresh
that night, as if her heart were broken, 'that Dombey and Son should
be a Daughter after all!'
CHAPTER 17.
Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young People
Captain Cuttle, in the exercise of that surprising talent for
deep-laid and unfathomable scheming, with which (as is not unusual in
men of transparent simplicity) he sincerely believed himself to be
endowed by nature, had gone to Mr Dombey's house on the eventful
Sunday, winking all the way as a vent for his superfluous sagacity,
and had presented himself in the full lustre of the ankle-jacks before
the eyes of Towlinson. Hearing from that individual, to his great
concern, of the impending calamity, Captain Cuttle, in his delicacy,
sheered off again confounded; merely handing in the nosegay as a small
mark of his solicitude, and leaving his respectful compliments for the
family in general, which he accompanied with an expression of his hope
that they would lay their heads well to the wind under existing
circumstances, and a friendly intimation that he would 'look up again'
to-morrow.
The Captain's compliments were never heard of any more. The
Captain's nosegay, after lying in the hall all night, was swept into
the dust-bin next morning; and the Captain's sly arrangement, involved
in one catastrophe with greater hopes and loftier designs, was crushed
to pieces. So, when an avalanche bears down a mountain-forest, twigs
and bushes suffer with the trees, and all perish together.
When Walter returned home on the Sunday evening from his long walk,
and its memorable close, he was too much occupied at first by the
tidings he had to give them, and by the emotions naturally awakened in
his breast by the scene through which he had passed, to observe either
that his Uncle was evidently unacquainted with the intelligence the
Captain had undertaken to impart, or that the Captain made signals
with his hook, warning him to avoid the subject. Not that the
Captain's signals were calculated to have proved very comprehensible,
however attentively observed; for, like those Chinese sages who are
said in their conferences to write certain learned words in the air
that are wholly impossible of pronunciation, the Captain made such
waves and flourishes as nobody without a previous knowledge of his
mystery, would have been at all likely to understand.
Captain Cuttle, however, becoming cognisant of what had happened,
relinquished these attempts, as he perceived the slender chance that
now existed of his being able to obtain a little easy chat with Mr
Dombey before the period of Walter's departure. But in admitting to
himself, with a disappointed and crestfallen countenance, that Sol
Gills must be told, and that Walter must go - taking the case for the
present as he found it, and not having it enlightened or improved
beforehand by the knowing management of a friend - the Captain still
felt an unabated confidence that he, Ned Cuttle, was the man for Mr
Dombey; and that, to set Walter's fortunes quite square, nothing was
wanted but that they two should come together. For the Captain never
could forget how well he and Mr Dombey had got on at Brighton; with
what nicety each of them had put in a word when it was wanted; how
exactly they had taken one another's measure; nor how Ned Cuttle had
pointed out that resources in the first extremity, and had brought the
interview to the desired termination. On all these grounds the Captain
soothed himself with thinking that though Ned Cuttle was forced by the
pressure of events to 'stand by' almost useless for the present, Ned
would fetch up with a wet sail in good time, and carry all before him.
Under the influence of this good-natured delusion, Captain Cuttle
even went so far as to revolve in his own bosom, while he sat looking
at Walter and listening with a tear on his shirt-collar to what he
related, whether it might not be at once genteel and politic to give
Mr Dombey a verbal invitation, whenever they should meet, to come and
cut his mutton in Brig Place on some day of his own naming, and enter
on the question of his young friend's prospects over a social glass.
But the uncertain temper of Mrs MacStinger, and the possibility of her
setting up her rest in the passage during such an entertainment, and
there delivering some homily of an uncomplimentary nature, operated as
a check on the Captain's hospitable thoughts, and rendered him timid
of giving them encouragement.
One fact was quite clear to the Captain, as Walter, sitting
thoughtfully over his untasted dinner, dwelt on all that had happened;
namely, that however Walter's modesty might stand in the way of his
perceiving it himself, he was, as one might say, a member of Mr
Dombey's family. He had been, in his own person, connected with the
incident he so pathetically described; he had been by name remembered
and commended in close association with it; and his fortunes must have
a particular interest in his employer's eyes. If the Captain had any
lurking doubt whatever of his own conclusions, he had not the least
doubt that they were good conclusions for the peace of mind of the
Instrument-maker. Therefore he availed himself of so favourable a
moment for breaking the West Indian intelligence to his friend, as a
piece of extraordinary preferment; declaring that for his part he
would freely give a hundred thousand pounds (if he had it) for
Walter's gain in the long-run, and that he had no doubt such an
investment would yield a handsome premium.
Solomon Gills was at first stunned by the communication, which fell
upon the little back-parlour like a thunderbolt, and tore up the
hearth savagely. But the Captain flashed such golden prospects before
his dim sight: hinted so mysteriously at 'Whittingtonian consequences;
laid such emphasis on what Walter had just now told them: and appealed
to it so confidently as a corroboration of his predictions, and a
great advance towards the realisation of the romantic legend of Lovely
Peg: that he bewildered the old man. Walter, for his part, feigned to
be so full of hope and ardour, and so sure of coming home again soon,
and backed up the Captain with such expressive shakings of his head
and rubbings of his hands, that Solomon, looking first at him then at
Captain Cuttle, began to think he ought to be transported with joy.
'But I'm behind the time, you understand,' he observed in apology,
passing his hand nervously down the whole row of bright buttons on his
coat, and then up again, as if they were beads and he were telling
them twice over: 'and I would rather have my dear boy here. It's an
old-fashioned notion, I daresay. He was always fond of the sea He's' -
and he looked wistfully at Walter - 'he's glad to go.'
'Uncle Sol!' cried Walter, quickly, 'if you say that, I won't go.
No, Captain Cuttle, I won't. If my Uncle thinks I could be glad to
leave him, though I was going to be made Governor of all the Islands
in the West Indies, that's enough. I'm a fixture.'
'Wal'r, my lad,' said the Captain. 'Steady! Sol Gills, take an
observation of your nevy.
Following with his eyes the majestic action of the Captain's hook,
the old man looked at Walter.
'Here is a certain craft,' said the Captain, with a magnificent
sense of the allegory into which he was soaring, 'a-going to put out
on a certain voyage. What name is wrote upon that craft indelibly? Is
it The Gay? or,' said the Captain, raising his voice as much as to
say, observe the point of this, 'is it The Gills?'
'Ned,' said the old man, drawing Walter to his side, and taking his
arm tenderly through his, 'I know. I know. Of course I know that Wally
considers me more than himself always. That's in my mind. When I say
he is glad to go, I mean I hope he is. Eh? look you, Ned and you too,
Wally, my dear, this is new and unexpected to me; and I'm afraid my
being behind the time, and poor, is at the bottom of it. Is it really
good fortune for him, do you tell me, now?' said the old man, looking
anxiously from one to the other. 'Really and truly? Is it? I can
reconcile myself to almost anything that advances Wally, but I won't
have Wally putting himself at any disadvantage for me, or keeping
anything from me. You, Ned Cuttle!' said the old man, fastening on the
Captain, to the manifest confusion of that diplomatist; 'are you
dealing plainly by your old friend? Speak out, Ned Cuttle. Is there
anything behind? Ought he to go? How do you know it first, and why?'
As it was a contest of affection and self-denial, Walter struck in
with infinite effect, to the Captain's relief; and between them they
tolerably reconciled old Sol Gills, by continued talking, to the
project; or rather so confused him, that nothing, not even the pain of
separation, was distinctly clear to his mind.
He had not much time to balance the matter; for on the very next
day, Walter received from Mr Carker the Manager, the necessary
credentials for his passage and outfit, together with the information
that the Son and Heir would sail in a fortnight, or within a day or
two afterwards at latest. In the hurry of preparation: which Walter
purposely enhanced as much as possible: the old man lost what little
selfpossession he ever had; and so the time of departure drew on
rapidly.
The Captain, who did not fail to make himself acquainted with all
that passed, through inquiries of Walter from day to day, found the
time still tending on towards his going away, without any occasion
offering itself, or seeming likely to offer itself, for a better
understanding of his position. It was after much consideration of this
fact, and much pondering over such an unfortunate combination of
circumstances, that a bright idea occurred to the Captain. Suppose he
made a call on Mr Carker, and tried to find out from him how the land
really lay!
Captain Cuttle liked this idea very much. It came upon him in a
moment of inspiration, as he was smoking an early pipe in Brig Place
after breakfast; and it was worthy of the tobacco. It would quiet his
conscience, which was an honest one, and was made a little uneasy by
what Walter had confided to him, and what Sol Gills had said; and it
would be a deep, shrewd act of friendship. He would sound Mr Carker
carefully, and say much or little, just as he read that gentleman's
character, and discovered that they got on well together or the
reverse.
Accordingly, without the fear of Walter before his eyes (who he
knew was at home packing), Captain Cuttle again assumed his
ankle-jacks and mourning brooch, and issued forth on this second
expedition. He purchased no propitiatory nosegay on the present
occasion, as he was going to a place of business; but he put a small
sunflower in his button-hole to give himself an agreeable relish of
the country; and with this, and the knobby stick, and the glazed hat,
bore down upon the offices of Dombey and Son.
After taking a glass of warm rum-and-water at a tavern close by, to
collect his thoughts, the Captain made a rush down the court, lest its
good effects should evaporate, and appeared suddenly to Mr Perch.
'Matey,' said the Captain, in persuasive accents. 'One of your
Governors is named Carker.' Mr Perch admitted it; but gave him to
understand, as in official duty bound, that all his Governors were
engaged, and never expected to be disengaged any more.
'Look'ee here, mate,' said the Captain in his ear; 'my name's
Cap'en Cuttle.'
The Captain would have hooked Perch gently to him, but Mr Perch
eluded the attempt; not so much in design, as in starting at the
sudden thought that such a weapon unexpectedly exhibited to Mrs Perch
might, in her then condition, be destructive to that lady's hopes.
'If you'll be so good as just report Cap'en Cuttle here, when you
get a chance,' said the Captain, 'I'll wait.'
Saying which, the Captain took his seat on Mr Perch's bracket, and
drawing out his handkerchief from the crown of the glazed hat which he
jammed between his knees (without injury to its shape, for nothing
human could bend it), rubbed his head well all over, and appeared
refreshed. He subsequently arranged his hair with his hook, and sat
looking round the office, contemplating the clerks with a serene
respect.
The Captain's equanimity was so impenetrable, and he was altogether
so mysterious a being, that Perch the messenger was daunted.
'What name was it you said?' asked Mr Perch, bending down over him
as he sat on the bracket.
'Cap'en,' in a deep hoarse whisper.
'Yes,' said Mr Perch, keeping time with his head.
'Cuttle.'
'Oh!' said Mr Perch, in the same tone, for he caught it, and
couldn't help it; the Captain, in his diplomacy, was so impressive.
'I'll see if he's disengaged now. I don't know. Perhaps he may be for
a minute.'
'Ay, ay, my lad, I won't detain him longer than a minute,' said the
Captain, nodding with all the weighty importance that he felt within
him. Perch, soon returning, said, 'Will Captain Cuttle walk this way?'
Mr Carker the Manager, standing on the hearth-rug before the empty
fireplace, which was ornamented with a castellated sheet of brown
paper, looked at the Captain as he came in, with no very special
encouragement.
'Mr Carker?' said Captain Cuttle.
'I believe so,' said Mr Carker, showing all his teeth.
The Captain liked his answering with a smile; it looked pleasant.
'You see,' began the Captain, rolling his eyes slowly round the little
room, and taking in as much of it as his shirt-collar permitted; 'I'm
a seafaring man myself, Mr Carker, and Wal'r, as is on your books
here, is almost a son of mine.'
'Walter Gay?' said Mr Carker, showing all his teeth again.
'Wal'r Gay it is,' replied the Captain, 'right!' The Captain's
manner expressed a warm approval of Mr Carker's quickness of
perception. 'I'm a intimate friend of his and his Uncle's. Perhaps,'
said the Captain, 'you may have heard your head Governor mention my
name? - Captain Cuttle.'
'No!' said Mr Carker, with a still wider demonstration than before.
'Well,' resumed the Captain, 'I've the pleasure of his
acquaintance. I waited upon him down on the Sussex coast there, with
my young friend Wal'r, when - in short, when there was a little
accommodation wanted.' The Captain nodded his head in a manner that
was at once comfortable, easy, and expressive. 'You remember, I
daresay?'
'I think,' said Mr Carker, 'I had the honour of arranging the
business.'
'To be sure!' returned the Captain. 'Right again! you had. Now I've
took the liberty of coming here -
'Won't you sit down?' said Mr Carker, smiling.
'Thank'ee,' returned the Captain, availing himself of the offer. 'A
man does get more way upon himself, perhaps, in his conversation, when
he sits down. Won't you take a cheer yourself?'
'No thank you,' said the Manager, standing, perhaps from the force
of winter habit, with his back against the chimney-piece, and looking
down upon the Captain with an eye in every tooth and gum. 'You have
taken the liberty, you were going to say - though it's none - '
'Thank'ee kindly, my lad,' returned the Captain: 'of coming here,
on account of my friend Wal'r. Sol Gills, his Uncle, is a man of
science, and in science he may be considered a clipper; but he ain't
what I should altogether call a able seaman - not man of practice.
Wal'r is as trim a lad as ever stepped; but he's a little down by the
head in one respect, and that is, modesty. Now what I should wish to
put to you,' said the Captain, lowering his voice, and speaking in a
kind of confidential growl, 'in a friendly way, entirely between you
and me, and for my own private reckoning, 'till your head Governor has
wore round a bit, and I can come alongside of him, is this - Is
everything right and comfortable here, and is Wal'r out'ard bound with
a pretty fair wind?'
'What do you think now, Captain Cuttle?' returned Carker, gathering
up his skirts and settling himself in his position. 'You are a
practical man; what do you think?'
The acuteness and the significance of the Captain's eye as he
cocked it in reply, no words short of those unutterable Chinese words
before referred to could describe.
'Come!' said the Captain, unspeakably encouraged, 'what do you say?
Am I right or wrong?'
So much had the Captain expressed in his eye, emboldened and
incited by Mr Carker's smiling urbanity, that he felt himself in as
fair a condition to put the question, as if he had expressed his
sentiments with the utmost elaboration.
'Right,' said Mr Carker, 'I have no doubt.'
'Out'ard bound with fair weather, then, I say,' cried Captain
Cuttle.
Mr Carker smiled assent.
'Wind right astarn, and plenty of it,' pursued the Captain.
Mr Carker smiled assent again.
'Ay, ay!' said Captain Cuttle, greatly relieved and pleased. 'I
know'd how she headed, well enough; I told Wal'r so. Thank'ee,
thank'ee.'
'Gay has brilliant prospects,' observed Mr Carker, stretching his
mouth wider yet: 'all the world before him.'
'All the world and his wife too, as the saying is,' returned the
delighted Captain.
At the word 'wife' (which he had uttered without design), the
Captain stopped, cocked his eye again, and putting the glazed hat on
the top of the knobby stick, gave it a twirl, and looked sideways at
his always smiling friend.
'I'd bet a gill of old Jamaica,' said the Captain, eyeing him
attentively, 'that I know what you're a smiling at.'
Mr Carker took his cue, and smiled the more.
'It goes no farther?' said the Captain, making a poke at the door
with the knobby stick to assure himself that it was shut.
'Not an inch,' said Mr Carker.
'You're thinking of a capital F perhaps?' said the Captain.
Mr Carker didn't deny it.
'Anything about a L,' said the Captain, 'or a O?'
Mr Carker still smiled.
'Am I right, again?' inquired the Captain in a whisper, with the
scarlet circle on his forehead swelling in his triumphant joy.
Mr Carker, in reply, still smiling, and now nodding assent, Captain
Cuttle rose and squeezed him by the hand, assuring him, warmly, that
they were on the same tack, and that as for him (Cuttle) he had laid
his course that way all along. 'He know'd her first,' said the
Captain, with all the secrecy and gravity that the subject demanded,
'in an uncommon manner - you remember his finding her in the street
when she was a'most a babby - he has liked her ever since, and she
him, as much as two youngsters can. We've always said, Sol Gills and
me, that they was cut out for each other.'
A cat, or a monkey, or a hyena, or a death's-head, could not have
shown the Captain more teeth at one time, than Mr Carker showed him at
this period of their interview.
'There's a general indraught that way,' observed the happy Captain.
'Wind and water sets in that direction, you see. Look at his being
present t'other day!'
'Most favourable to his hopes,' said Mr Carker.
'Look at his being towed along in the wake of that day!' pursued
the Captain. 'Why what can cut him adrift now?'
'Nothing,' replied Mr Carker.
'You're right again,' returned the Captain, giving his hand another
squeeze. 'Nothing it is. So! steady! There's a son gone: pretty little
creetur. Ain't there?'
'Yes, there's a son gone,' said the acquiescent Carker.
'Pass the word, and there's another ready for you,' quoth the
Captain. 'Nevy of a scientific Uncle! Nevy of Sol Gills! Wal'r! Wal'r,
as is already in your business! And' - said the Captain, rising
gradually to a quotation he was preparing for a final burst, 'who -
comes from Sol Gills's daily, to your business, and your buzzums.' The
Captain's complacency as he gently jogged Mr Carker with his elbow, on
concluding each of the foregoing short sentences, could be surpassed
by nothing but the exultation with which he fell back and eyed him
when he had finished this brilliant display of eloquence and sagacity;
his great blue waistcoat heaving with the throes of such a
masterpiece, and his nose in a state of violent inflammation from the
same cause.
'Am I right?' said the Captain.
'Captain Cuttle,' said Mr Carker, bending down at the knees, for a
moment, in an odd manner, as if he were falling together to hug the
whole of himself at once, 'your views in reference to Walter Gay are
thoroughly and accurately right. I understand that we speak together
in confidence.
'Honour!' interposed the Captain. 'Not a word.'
'To him or anyone?' pursued the Manager.
Captain Cuttle frowned and shook his head.
'But merely for your own satisfaction and guidance - and guidance,
of course,' repeated Mr Carker, 'with a view to your future
proceedings.'
'Thank'ee kindly, I am sure,' said the Captain, listening with
great attention.
'I have no hesitation in saying, that's the fact. You have hit the
probabilities exactly.'
'And with regard to your head Governor,' said the Captain, 'why an
interview had better come about nat'ral between us. There's time
enough.'
Mr Carker, with his mouth from ear to ear, repeated, 'Time enough.'
Not articulating the words, but bowing his head affably, and forming
them with his tongue and lips.
'And as I know - it's what I always said- that Wal'r's in a way to
make his fortune,' said the Captain.
'To make his fortune,' Mr Carker repeated, in the same dumb manner.
'And as Wal'r's going on this little voyage is, as I may say, in
his day's work, and a part of his general expectations here,' said the
Captain.
'Of his general expectations here,' assented Mr Carker, dumbly as
before.
'Why, so long as I know that,' pursued the Captain, 'there's no
hurry, and my mind's at ease.
Mr Carker still blandly assenting in the same voiceless manner,
Captain Cuttle was strongly confirmed in his opinion that he was one
of the most agreeable men he had ever met, and that even Mr Dombey
might improve himself on such a model. With great heartiness,
therefore, the Captain once again extended his enormous hand (not
unlike an old block in colour), and gave him a grip that left upon his
smoother flesh a proof impression of the chinks and crevices with
which the Captain's palm was liberally tattooed.
'Farewell!' said the Captain. 'I ain't a man of many words, but I
take it very kind of you to be so friendly, and above-board. You'll
excuse me if I've been at all intruding, will you?' said the Captain.
'Not at all,' returned the other.
'Thank'ee. My berth ain't very roomy,' said the Captain, turning
back again, 'but it's tolerably snug; and if you was to find yourself
near Brig Place, number nine, at any time - will you make a note of
it? - and would come upstairs, without minding what was said by the
person at the door, I should be proud to see you.
With that hospitable invitation, the Captain said 'Good day!' and
walked out and shut the door; leaving Mr Carker still reclining
against the chimney-piece. In whose sly look and watchful manner; in
whose false mouth, stretched but not laughing; in whose spotless
cravat and very whiskers; even in whose silent passing of his soft
hand over his white linen and his smooth face; there was something
desperately cat-like.
The unconscious Captain walked out in a state of self-glorification
that imparted quite a new cut to the broad blue suit. 'Stand by, Ned!'
said the Captain to himself. 'You've done a little business for the
youngsters today, my lad!'
In his exultation, and in his familiarity, present and prospective,
with the House, the Captain, when he reached the outer office, could
not refrain from rallying Mr Perch a little, and asking him whether he
thought everybody was still engaged. But not to be bitter on a man who
had done his duty, the Captain whispered in his ear, that if he felt
disposed for a glass of rum-and-water, and would follow, he would be
happy to bestow the same upon him.
Before leaving the premises, the Captain, somewhat to the
astonishment of the clerks, looked round from a central point of view,
and took a general survey of the officers part and parcel of a project
in which his young friend was nearly interested. The strong-room
excited his especial admiration; but, that he might not appear too
particular, he limited himself to an approving glance, and, with a
graceful recognition of the clerks as a body, that was full of
politeness and patronage, passed out into the court. Being promptly
joined by Mr Perch, he conveyed that gentleman to the tavern, and
fulfilled his pledge - hastily, for Perch's time was precious.
'I'll give you for a toast,' said the Captain, 'Wal'r!'
'Who?' submitted Mr Perch.
'Wal'r!' repeated the Captain, in a voice of thunder.
Mr Perch, who seemed to remember having heard in infancy that there
was once a poet of that name, made no objection; but he was much
astonished at the Captain's coming into the City to propose a poet;
indeed, if he had proposed to put a poet's statue up - say
Shakespeare's for example - in a civic thoroughfare, he could hardly
have done a greater outrage to Mr Perch's experience. On the whole, he
was such a mysterious and incomprehensible character, that Mr Perch
decided not to mention him to Mrs Perch at all, in case of giving rise
to any disagreeable consequences.
Mysterious and incomprehensible, the Captain, with that lively
sense upon him of having done a little business for the youngsters,
remained all day, even to his most intimate friends; and but that
Walter attributed his winks and grins, and other such pantomimic
reliefs of himself, to his satisfaction in the success of their
innocent deception upon old Sol Gills, he would assuredly have
betrayed himself before night. As it was, however, he kept his own
secret; and went home late from the Instrument-maker's house, wearing
the glazed hat so much on one side, and carrying such a beaming
expression in his eyes, that Mrs MacStinger (who might have been
brought up at Doctor Blimber's, she was such a Roman matron) fortified
herself, at the first glimpse of him, behind the open street door, and
refused to come out to the contemplation of her blessed infants, until
he was securely lodged in his own room.
CHAPTER 18.
Father and Daughter
There is a hush through Mr Dombey's house. Servants gliding up and
down stairs rustle, but make no sound of footsteps. They talk together
constantly, and sit long at meals, making much of their meat and
drink, and enjoying themselves after a grim unholy fashion. Mrs
Wickam, with her eyes suffused with tears, relates melancholy
anecdotes; and tells them how she always said at Mrs Pipchin's that it
would be so, and takes more table-ale than usual, and is very sorry
but sociable. Cook's state of mind is similar. She promises a little
fry for supper, and struggles about equally against her feelings and
the onions. Towlinson begins to think there's a fate in it, and wants
to know if anybody can tell him ofany good that ever came of living in
a corner house. It seems to all of them as having happened a long time
ago; though yet the child lies, calm and beautiful, upon his little
bed.
After dark there come some visitors - noiseless visitors, with
shoes of felt - who have been there before; and with them comes that
bed of rest which is so strange a one for infant sleepers. All this
time, the bereaved father has not been seen even by his attendant; for
he sits in an inner corner of his own dark room when anyone is there,
and never seems to move at other times, except to pace it to and fro.
But in the morning it is whispered among the household that he was
heard to go upstairs in the dead night, and that he stayed there - in
the room - until the sun was shining.
At the offices in the City, the ground-glass windows are made more
dim by shutters; and while the lighted lamps upon the desks are half
extinguished by the day that wanders in, the day is half extinguished
by the lamps, and an unusual gloom prevails. There is not much
business done. The clerks are indisposed to work; and they make
assignations to eat chops in the afternoon, and go up the river.
Perch, the messenger, stays long upon his errands; and finds himself
in bars of public-houses, invited thither by friends, and holding
forth on the uncertainty of human affairs. He goes home to Ball's Pond
earlier in the evening than usual, and treats Mrs Perch to a veal
cutlet and Scotch ale. Mr Carker the Manager treats no one; neither is
he treated; but alone in his own room he shows his teeth all day; and
it would seem that there is something gone from Mr Carker's path -
some obstacle removed - which clears his way before him.
Now the rosy children living opposite to Mr Dombey's house, peep
from their nursery windows down into the street; for there are four
black horses at his door, with feathers on their heads; and feathers
tremble on the carriage that they draw; and these, and an array of men
with scarves and staves, attract a crowd. The juggler who was going to
twirl the basin, puts his loose coat on again over his fine dress; and
his trudging wife, one-sided with her heavy baby in her arms, loiters
to see the company come out. But closer to her dingy breast she
presses her baby, when the burden that is so easily carried is borne
forth; and the youngest of the rosy children at the high window
opposite, needs no restraining hand to check her in her glee, when,
pointing with her dimpled finger, she looks into her nurse's face, and
asks 'What's that?'
And now, among the knot of servants dressed in mourning, and the
weeping women, Mr Dombey passes through the hall to the other carriage
that is waiting to receive him. He is not 'brought down,' these
observers think, by sorrow and distress of mind. His walk is as erect,
his bearing is as stiff as ever it has been. He hides his face behind
no handkerchief, and looks before him. But that his face is something
sunk and rigid, and is pale, it bears the same expression as of old.
He takes his place within the carriage, and three other gentlemen
follow. Then the grand funeral moves slowly down the street. The
feathers are yet nodding in the distance, when the juggler has the
basin spinning on a cane, and has the same crowd to admire it. But the
juggler's wife is less alert than usual with the money-box, for a
child's burial has set her thinking that perhaps the baby underneath
her shabby shawl may not grow up to be a man, and wear a sky-blue
fillet round his head, and salmon-coloured worsted drawers, and tumble
in the mud.
The feathers wind their gloomy way along the streets, and come
within the sound of a church bell. In this same church, the pretty boy
received all that will soon be left of him on earth - a name. All of
him that is dead, they lay there, near the perishable substance of his
mother. It is well. Their ashes lie where Florence in her walks - oh
lonely, lonely walks! - may pass them any day.
The service over, and the clergyman withdrawn, Mr Dombey looks
round, demanding in a low voice, whether the person who has been
requested to attend to receive instructions for the tablet, is there?
Someone comes forward, and says 'Yes.'
Mr Dombey intimates where he would have it placed; and shows him,
with his hand upon the wall, the shape and size; and how it is to
follow the memorial to the mother. Then, with his pencil, he writes
out the inscription, and gives it to him: adding, 'I wish to have it
done at once.
'It shall be done immediately, Sir.'
'There is really nothing to inscribe but name and age, you see.'
The man bows, glancing at the paper, but appears to hesitate. Mr
Dombey not observing his hesitation, turns away, and leads towards the
porch.
'I beg your pardon, Sir;' a touch falls gently on his mourning
cloak; 'but as you wish it done immediately, and it may be put in hand
when I get back - '
'Well?'
'Will you be so good as read it over again? I think there's a
mistake.'
'Where?'
The statuary gives him back the paper, and points out, with his
pocket rule, the words, 'beloved and only child.'
'It should be, "son," I think, Sir?'
'You are right. Of course. Make the correction.'
The father, with a hastier step, pursues his way to the coach. When
the other three, who follow closely, take their seats, his face is
hidden for the first time - shaded by his cloak. Nor do they see it
any more that day. He alights first, and passes immediately into his
own room. The other mourners (who are only Mr Chick, and two of the
medical attendants) proceed upstairs to the drawing-room, to be
received by Mrs Chick and Miss Tox. And what the face is, in the
shut-up chamber underneath: or what the thoughts are: what the heart
is, what the contest or the suffering: no one knows.
The chief thing that they know, below stairs, in the kitchen, is
that 'it seems like Sunday.' They can hardly persuade themselves but
that there is something unbecoming, if not wicked, in the conduct of
the people out of doors, who pursue their ordinary occupations, and
wear their everyday attire. It is quite a novelty to have the blinds
up, and the shutters open; and they make themselves dismally
comfortable over bottles of wine, which are freely broached as on a
festival. They are much inclined to moralise. Mr Towlinson proposes
with a sigh, 'Amendment to us all!' for which, as Cook says with
another sigh, 'There's room enough, God knows.' In the evening, Mrs
Chick and Miss Tox take to needlework again. In the evening also, Mr
Towlinson goes out to take the air, accompanied by the housemaid, who
has not yet tried her mourning bonnet. They are very tender to each
other at dusky street-corners, and Towlinson has visions of leading an
altered and blameless existence as a serious greengrocer in Oxford
Market.
There is sounder sleep and deeper rest in Mr Dombey's house
tonight, than there has been for many nights. The morning sun awakens
the old household, settled down once more in their old ways. The rosy
children opposite run past with hoops. There is a splendid wedding in
the church. The juggler's wife is active with the money-box in another
quarter of the town. The mason sings and whistles as he chips out
P-A-U-L in the marble slab before him.
And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one
weak creature makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing
but the width and depth of vast eternity can fill it up! Florence, in
her innocent affliction, might have answered, 'Oh my brother, oh my
dearly loved and loving brother! Only friend and companion of my
slighted childhood! Could any less idea shed the light already dawning
on your early grave, or give birth to the softened sorrow that is
springing into life beneath this rain of tears!'
'My dear child,' said Mrs Chick, who held it as a duty incumbent on
her, to improve the occasion, 'when you are as old as I am - '
'Which will be the prime of life,' observed Miss Tox.
'You will then,' pursued Mrs Chick, gently squeezing Miss Tox's
hand in acknowledgment of her friendly remark, 'you will then know
that all grief is unavailing, and that it is our duty to submit.'
'I will try, dear aunt I do try,' answered Florence, sobbing.
'I am glad to hear it,' said Mrs Chick, 'because; my love, as our
dear Miss Tox - of whose sound sense and excellent judgment, there
cannot possibly be two opinions - '
'My dear Louisa, I shall really be proud, soon,' said Miss Tox
- 'will tell you, and confirm by her experience,' pursued Mrs
Chick, 'we are called upon on all occasions to make an effort It is
required of us. If any - my dear,' turning to Miss Tox, 'I want a
word. Mis- Mis-'
'Demeanour?' suggested Miss Tox.
'No, no, no,' said Mrs Chic 'How can you! Goodness me, it's on, the
end of my tongue. Mis-'
Placed affection?' suggested Miss Tox, timidly.
'Good gracious, Lucretia!' returned Mrs Chick 'How very monstrous!
Misanthrope, is the word I want. The idea! Misplaced affection! I say,
if any misanthrope were to put, in my presence, the question "Why were
we born?" I should reply, "To make an effort"'
'Very good indeed,' said Miss Tox, much impressed by the
originality of the sentiment 'Very good.'
'Unhappily,' pursued Mrs Chick, 'we have a warning under our own
eyes. We have but too much reason to suppose, my dear child, that if
an effort had been made in time, in this family, a train of the most
trying and distressing circumstances might have been avoided. Nothing
shall ever persuade me,' observed the good matron, with a resolute
air, 'but that if that effort had been made by poor dear Fanny, the
poor dear darling child would at least have had a stronger
constitution.'
Mrs Chick abandoned herself to her feelings for half a moment; but,
as a practical illustration of her doctrine, brought herself up short,
in the middle of a sob, and went on again.
'Therefore, Florence, pray let us see that you have some strength
of mind, and do not selfishly aggravate the distress in which your
poor Papa is plunged.'
'Dear aunt!' said Florence, kneeling quickly down before her, that
she might the better and more earnestly look into her face. 'Tell me
more about Papa. Pray tell me about him! Is he quite heartbroken?'
Miss Tox was of a tender nature, and there was something in this
appeal that moved her very much. Whether she saw it in a succession,
on the part of the neglected child, to the affectionate concern so
often expressed by her dead brother - or a love that sought to twine
itself about the heart that had loved him, and that could not bear to
be shut out from sympathy with such a sorrow, in such sad community of
love and grief - or whether the only recognised the earnest and
devoted spirit which, although discarded and repulsed, was wrung with
tenderness long unreturned, and in the waste and solitude of this
bereavement cried to him to seek a comfort in it, and to give some, by
some small response - whatever may have been her understanding of it,
it moved Miss Tox. For the moment she forgot the majesty of Mrs Chick,
and, patting Florence hastily on the cheek, turned aside and suffered
the tears to gush from her eyes, without waiting for a lead from that
wise matron.
Mrs Chick herself lost, for a moment, the presence of mind on which
she so much prided herself; and remained mute, looking on the
beautiful young face that had so long, so steadily, and patiently,
been turned towards the little bed. But recovering her voice - which
was synonymous with her presence of mind, indeed they were one and the
same thing - she replied with dignity:
'Florence, my dear child, your poor Papa is peculiar at times; and
to question me about him, is to question me upon a subject which I
really do not pretend to understand. I believe I have as much
influence with your Papa as anybody has. Still, all I can say is, that
he has said very little to me; and that I have only seen him once or
twice for a minute at a time, and indeed have hardly seen him then,
for his room has been dark. I have said to your Papa, "Paul!" - that
is the exact expression I used - "Paul! why do you not take something
stimulating?" Your Papa's reply has always been, "Louisa, have the
goodness to leave me. I want nothing. I am better by myself." If I was
to be put upon my oath to-morrow, Lucretia, before a magistrate,' said
Mrs Chick, 'I have no doubt I could venture to swear to those
identical words.'
Miss Tox expressed her admiration by saying, 'My Louisa is ever
methodical!'
'In short, Florence,' resumed her aunt, 'literally nothing has
passed between your poor Papa and myself, until to-day; when I
mentioned to your Papa that Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles had written
exceedingly kind notes - our sweet boy! Lady Skettles loved him like a
- where's my pocket handkerchief?'
Miss Tox produced one.
'Exceedingly kind notes, proposing that you should visit them for
change of scene. Mentioning to your Papa that I thought Miss Tox and
myself might now go home (in which he quite agreed), I inquired if he
had any objection to your accepting this invitation. He said, "No,
Louisa, not the least!"' Florence raised her tearful eye
'At the same time, if you would prefer staying here, Florence, to
paying this visit at present, or to going home with me - '
'I should much prefer it, aunt,' was the faint rejoinder.
'Why then, child,'said Mrs Chick, 'you can. It's a strange choice,
I must say. But you always were strange. Anybody else at your time of
life, and after what has passed - my dear Miss Tox, I have lost my
pocket handkerchief again - would be glad to leave here, one would
suppose.
'I should not like to feel,' said Florence, 'as if the house was
avoided. I should not like to think that the - his - the rooms
upstairs were quite empty and dreary, aunt. I would rather stay here,
for the present. Oh my brother! oh my brother!'
It was a natural emotion, not to be suppressed; and it would make
way even between the fingers of the hands with which she covered up
her face. The overcharged and heavy-laden breast must some times have
that vent, or the poor wounded solitary heart within it would have
fluttered like a bird with broken wings, and sunk down in the dust'
'Well, child!' said Mrs Chick, after a pause 'I wouldn't on any
account say anything unkind to you, and that I'm sure you know. You
will remain here, then, and do exactly as you like. No one will
interfere with you, Florence, or wish to interfere with you, I'm sure.
Florence shook her head in sad assent'
'I had no sooner begun to advise your poor Papa that he really
ought to seek some distraction and restoration in a temporary change,'
said Mrs Chick, 'than he told me he had already formed the intention
of going into the country for a short time. I'm sure I hope he'll go
very soon. He can't go too soon. But I suppose there are some
arrangements connected with his private papers and so forth,
consequent on the affliction that has tried us all so much - I can't
think what's become of mine: Lucretia, lend me yours, my dear - that
may occupy him for one or two evenings in his own room. Your Papa's a
Dombey, child, if ever there was one,' said Mrs Chick, drying both her
eyes at once with great care on opposite corners of Miss Tox's
handkerchief 'He'll make an effort. There's no fear of him.'
'Is there nothing, aunt,' said Florence, trembling, 'I might do to
-
'Lord, my dear child,' interposed Mrs Chick, hastily, 'what are you
talking about? If your Papa said to Me - I have given you his exact
words, "Louisa, I want nothing; I am better by myself" - what do you
think he'd say to you? You mustn't show yourself to him, child. Don't
dream of such a thing.'
'Aunt,' said Florence, 'I will go and lie down on my bed.'
Mrs Chick approved of this resolution, and dismissed her with a
kiss. But Miss Tox, on a faint pretence of looking for the mislaid
handkerchief, went upstairs after her; and tried in a few stolen
minutes to comfort her, in spite of great discouragement from Susan
Nipper. For Miss Nipper, in her burning zeal, disparaged Miss Tox as a
crocodile; yet her sympathy seemed genuine, and had at least the
vantage-ground of disinterestedness - there was little favour to be
won by it.
And was there no one nearer and dearer than Susan, to uphold the
striving heart in its anguish? Was there no other neck to clasp; no
other face to turn to? no one else to say a soothing word to such deep
sorrow? Was Florence so alone in the bleak world that nothing else
remained to her? Nothing. Stricken motherless and brotherless at once
- for in the loss of little Paul, that first and greatest loss fell
heavily upon her - this was the only help she had. Oh, who can tell
how much she needed help at first!
At first, when the house subsided into its accustomed course, and
they had all gone away, except the servants, and her father shut up in
his own rooms, Florence could do nothing but weep, and wander up and
down, and sometimes, in a sudden pang of desolate remembrance, fly to
her own chamber, wring her hands, lay her face down on her bed, and
know no consolation: nothing but the bitterness and cruelty of grief.
This commonly ensued upon the recognition of some spot or object very
tenderly dated with him; and it made the ale house, at first, a place
of agony.
But it is not in the nature of pure love to burn so fiercely and
unkindly long. The flame that in its grosser composition has the taint
of earth may prey upon the breast that gives it shelter; but the fire
from heaven is as gentle in the heart, as when it rested on the heads
of the assembled twelve, and showed each man his brother, brightened
and unhurt. The image conjured up, there soon returned the placid
face, the softened voice, the loving looks, the quiet trustfulness and
peace; and Florence, though she wept still, wept more tranquilly, and
courted the remembrance.
It was not very long before the golden water, dancing on the wall,
in the old place, at the old serene time, had her calm eye fixed upon
it as it ebbed away. It was not very long before that room again knew
her, often; sitting there alone, as patient and as mild as when she
had watched beside the little bed. When any sharp sense of its being
empty smote upon her, she could kneel beside it, and pray GOD - it was
the pouring out of her full heart - to let one angel love her and
remember her.
It was not very long before, in the midst of the dismal house so
wide and dreary, her low voice in the twilight, slowly and stopping
sometimes, touched the old air to which he had so often listened, with
his drooping head upon her arm. And after that, and when it was quite
dark, a little strain of music trembled in the room: so softly played
and sung, that it was more lIke the mournful recollection of what she
had done at his request on that last night, than the reality repeated.
But it was repeated, often - very often, in the shadowy solitude; and
broken murmurs of the strain still trembled on the keys, when the
sweet voice was hushed in tears.
Thus she gained heart to look upon the work with which her fingers
had been busy by his side on the sea-shore; and thus it was not very
long before she took to it again - with something of a human love for
it, as if it had been sentient and had known him; and, sitting in a
window, near her mother's picture, in the unused room so long
deserted, wore away the thoughtful hours.
Why did the dark eyes turn so often from this work to where the
rosy children lived? They were not immediate!y suggestive of her loss;
for they were all girls: four little sisters. But they were motherless
like her - and had a father.
It was easy to know when he had gone out and was expected home, for
the elder child was always dressed and waiting for him at the
drawing-room window, or n the balcony; and when he appeared, her
expectant face lighted up with joy, while the others at the high
window, and always on the watch too, clapped their hands, and drummed
them on the sill, and called to him. The elder child would come down
to the hall, and put her hand in his, and lead him up the stairs; and
Florence would see her afterwards sitting by his side, or on his knee,
or hanging coaxingly about his neck and talking to him: and though
they were always gay together, he would often watch her face as if he
thought her like her mother that was dead. Florence would sometimes
look no more at this, and bursting into tears would hide behind the
curtain as if she were frightened, or would hurry from the window. Yet
she could not help returning; and her work would soon fall unheeded
from her hands again.
It was the house that had been empty, years ago. It had remained so
for a long time. At last, and while she had been away from home, this
family had taken it; and it was repaired and newly painted; and there
were birds and flowers about it; and it looked very different from its
old self. But she never thought of the house. The children and their
father were all in all.
When he had dined, she could see them, through the open windows, go
down with their governess or nurse, and cluster round the table; and
in the still summer weather, the sound of their childish voices and
clear laughter would come ringing across the street, into the drooping
air of the room in which she sat. Then they would climb and clamber
upstairs with him, and romp about him on the sofa, or group themselves
at his knee, a very nosegay of little faces, while he seemed to tell
them some story. Or they would come running out into the balcony; and
then Florence would hide herself quickly, lest it should check them in
their joy, to see her in her black dress, sitting there alone.
The elder child remained with her father when the rest had gone
away, and made his tea for him - happy little house-keeper she was
then! - and sat conversing with him, sometimes at the window,
sometimes in the room, until the candles came. He made her his
companion, though she was some years younger than Florence; and she
could be as staid and pleasantly demure, with her little book or
work-box, as a woman. When they had candles, Florence from her own
dark room was not afraid to look again. But when the time came for the
child to say 'Good-night, Papa,' and go to bed, Florence would sob and
tremble as she raised her face to him, and could look no more.
Though still she would turn, again and again, before going to bed
herself from the simple air that had lulled him to rest so often, long
ago, and from the other low soft broken strain of music, back to that
house. But that she ever thought of it, or watched it, was a secret
which she kept within her own young breast.
And did that breast of Florence - Florence, so ingenuous and true -
so worthy of the love that he had borne her, and had whispered in his
last faint words - whose guileless heart was mirrored in the beauty of
her face, and breathed in every accent of her gentle voice - did that
young breast hold any other secret? Yes. One more.
When no one in the house was stirring, and the lights were all
extinguished, she would softly leave her own room, and with noiseless
feet descend the staircase, and approach her father's door. Against
it, scarcely breathing, she would rest her face and head, and press
her lips, in the yearning of her love. She crouched upon the cold
stone floor outside it, every night, to listen even for his breath;
and in her one absorbing wish to be allowed to show him some
affection, to be a consolation to him, to win him over to the
endurance of some tenderness from her, his solitary child, she would
have knelt down at his feet, if she had dared, in humble supplication.
No one knew it' No one thought of it. The door was ever closed, and
he shut up within. He went out once or twice, and it was said in the
house that he was very soon going on his country journey; but he lived
in those rooms, and lived alone, and never saw her, or inquired for
her. Perhaps he did not even know that she was in the house.
One day, about a week after the funeral, Florence was sitting at
her work, when Susan appeared, with a face half laughing and half
crying, to announce a visitor.
'A visitor! To me, Susan!' said Florence, looking up in
astonishment.
'Well, it is a wonder, ain't it now, Miss Floy?' said Susan; 'but I
wish you had a many visitors, I do, indeed, for you'd be all the
better for it, and it's my opinion that the sooner you and me goes
even to them old Skettleses, Miss, the better for both, I may not wish
to live in crowds, Miss Floy, but still I'm not a oyster.'
To do Miss Nipper justice, she spoke more for her young mistress
than herself; and her face showed it.
'But the visitor, Susan,' said Florence.
Susan, with an hysterical explosion that was as much a laugh as a
sob, and as much a sob as a laugh, answered,
'Mr Toots!'
The smile that appeared on Florence's face passed from it in a
moment, and her eyes filled with tears. But at any rate it was a
smile, and that gave great satisfaction to Miss Nipper.
'My own feelings exactly, Miss Floy,' said Susan, putting her apron
to her eyes, and shaking her head. 'Immediately I see that Innocent in
the Hall, Miss Floy, I burst out laughing first, and then I choked.'
Susan Nipper involuntarily proceeded to do the like again on the
spot. In the meantime Mr Toots, who had come upstairs after her, all
unconscious of the effect he produced, announced himself with his
knuckles on the door, and walked in very brisKly.
'How d'ye do, Miss Dombey?' said Mr Toots. 'I'm very well, I thank
you; how are you?'
Mr Toots - than whom there were few better fellows in the world,
though there may have been one or two brighter spirits - had
laboriously invented this long burst of discourse with the view of
relieving the feelings both of Florence and himself. But finding that
he had run through his property, as it were, in an injudicious manner,
by squandering the whole before taking a chair, or before Florence had
uttered a word, or before he had well got in at the door, he deemed it
advisable to begin again.
'How d'ye do, Miss Dombey?' said Mr Toots. 'I'm very well, I thank
you; how are you?'
Florence gave him her hand, and said she was very well.
'I'm very well indeed,' said Mr Toots, taking a chair. 'Very well
indeed, I am. I don't remember,' said Mr Toots, after reflecting a
little, 'that I was ever better, thank you.'
'It's very kind of you to come,' said Florence, taking up her work,
'I am very glad to see you.'
Mr Toots responded with a chuckle. Thinking that might be too
lively, he corrected it with a sigh. Thinking that might be too
melancholy, he corrected it with a chuckle. Not thoroughly pleasing
himself with either mode of reply, he breathed hard.
'You were very kind to my dear brother,' said Florence, obeying her
own natural impulse to relieve him by saying so. 'He often talked to
me about you.'
'Oh it's of no consequence,' said Mr Toots hastily. 'Warm, ain't
it?'
'It is beautiful weather,' replied Florence.
'It agrees with me!' said Mr Toots. 'I don't think I ever was so
well as I find myself at present, I'm obliged to you.
After stating this curious and unexpected fact, Mr Toots fell into
a deep well of silence.
'You have left Dr Blimber's, I think?' said Florence, trying to
help him out.
'I should hope so,' returned Mr Toots. And tumbled in again.
He remained at the bottom, apparently drowned, for at least ten
minutes. At the expiration of that period, he suddenly floated, and
said,
'Well! Good morning, Miss Dombey.'
'Are you going?' asked Florence, rising.
'I don't know, though. No, not just at present,' said Mr Toots,
sitting down again, most unexpectedly. 'The fact is - I say, Miss
Dombey!'
'Don't be afraid to speak to me,' said Florence, with a quiet
smile, 'I should he very glad if you would talk about my brother.'
'Would you, though?' retorted Mr Toots, with sympathy in every
fibre of his otherwise expressionless face. 'Poor Dombey! I'm sure I
never thought that Burgess and Co. - fashionable tailors (but very
dear), that we used to talk about - would make this suit of clothes
for such a purpose.' Mr Toots was dressed in mourning. 'Poor Dombey! I
say! Miss Dombey!' blubbered Toots.
'Yes,' said Florence.
'There's a friend he took to very much at last. I thought you'd
lIke to have him, perhaps, as a sort of keepsake. You remember his
remembering Diogenes?'
'Oh yes! oh yes' cried Florence.
'Poor Dombey! So do I,' said Mr Toots.
Mr Toots, seeing Florence in tears, had great difficulty in getting
beyond this point, and had nearly tumbled into the well again. But a
chucKle saved him on the brink.
'I say,' he proceeded, 'Miss Dombey! I could have had him stolen
for ten shillings, if they hadn't given him up: and I would: but they
were glad to get rid of him, I think. If you'd like to have him, he's
at the door. I brought him on purpose for you. He ain't a lady's dog,
you know,' said Mr Toots, 'but you won't mind that, will you?'
In fact, Diogenes was at that moment, as they presently ascertained
from looking down into the street, staring through the window of a
hackney cabriolet, into which, for conveyance to that spot, he had
been ensnared, on a false pretence of rats among the straw. Sooth to
say, he was as unlike a lady's dog as might be; and in his gruff
anxiety to get out, presented an appearance sufficiently unpromising,
as he gave short yelps out of one side of his mouth, and overbalancing
himself by the intensity of every one of those efforts, tumbled down
into the straw, and then sprung panting up again, putting out his
tongue, as if he had come express to a Dispensary to be examined for
his health.
But though Diogenes was as ridiculous a dog as one would meet with
on a summer's day; a blundering, ill-favoured, clumsy, bullet-headed
dog, continually acting on a wrong idea that there was an enemy in the
neighbourhood, whom it was meritorious to bark at; and though he was
far from good-tempered, and certainly was not clever, and had hair all
over his eyes, and a comic nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff
voice; he was dearer to Florence, in virtue of that parting
remembrance of him, and that request that he might be taken care of,
than the most valuable and beautiful of his kind. So dear, indeed, was
this same ugly Diogenes, and so welcome to her, that she took the
jewelled hand of Mr Toots and kissed it in her gratitude. And when
Diogenes, released, came tearing up the stairs and bouncing into the
room (such a business as there was, first, to get him out of the
cabriolet!), dived under all the furniture, and wound a long iron
chain, that dangled from his neck, round legs of chairs and tables,
and then tugged at it until his eyes became unnaturally visible, in
consequence of their nearly starting out of his head; and when he
growled at Mr Toots, who affected familiarity; and went pell-mell at
Towlinson, morally convinced that he was the enemy whom he had barked
at round the corner all his life and had never seen yet; Florence was
as pleased with him as if he had been a miracle of discretion.
Mr Toots was so overjoyed by the success of his present, and was so
delighted to see Florence bending down over Diogenes, smoothing his
coarse back with her little delicate hand - Diogenes graciously
allowing it from the first moment of their acquaintance - that he felt
it difficult to take leave, and would, no doubt, have been a much
longer time in making up his mind to do so, if he had not been
assisted by Diogenes himself, who suddenly took it into his head to
bay Mr Toots, and to make short runs at him with his mouth open. Not
exactly seeing his way to the end of these demonstrations, and
sensible that they placed the pantaloons constructed by the art of
Burgess and Co. in jeopardy, Mr Toots, with chuckles, lapsed out at
the door: by which, after looking in again two or three times, without
any object at all, and being on each occasion greeted with a fresh run
from Diogenes, he finally took himself off and got away.
'Come, then, Di! Dear Di! Make friends with your new mistress. Let
us love each other, Di!'said Florence, fondling his shaggy head. And
Di, the rough and gruff, as if his hairy hide were pervious to the
tear that dropped upon it, and his dog's heart melted as it fell, put
his nose up to her face, and swore fidelity.
Diogenes the man did not speak plainer to Alexander the Great than
Diogenes the dog spoke to Florence.' He subscribed to the offer of his
little mistress cheerfully, and devoted himself to her service. A
banquet was immediately provided for him in a corner; and when he had
eaten and drunk his fill, he went to the window where Florence was
sitting, looking on, rose up on his hind legs, with his awkward fore
paws on her shoulders, licked her face and hands, nestled his great
head against her heart, and wagged his tail till he was tired.
Finally, Diogenes coiled himself up at her feet and went to sleep.
Although Miss Nipper was nervous in regard of dogs, and felt it
necessary to come into the room with her skirts carefully collected
about her, as if she were crossing a brook on stepping-stones; also to
utter little screams and stand up on chairs when Diogenes stretched
himself, she was in her own manner affected by the kindness of Mr
Toots, and could not see Florence so alive to the attachment and
society of this rude friend of little Paul's, without some mental
comments thereupon that brought the water to her eyes. Mr Dombey, as a
part of her reflections, may have been, in the association of ideas,
connected with the dog; but, at any rate, after observing Diogenes and
his mistress all the evening, and after exerting herself with much
good-will to provide Diogenes a bed in an ante-chamber outside his
mistress's door, she said hurriedly to Florence, before leaving her
for the night:
'Your Pa's a going off, Miss Floy, tomorrow morning.'
'To-morrow morning, Susan?'
'Yes, Miss; that's the orders. Early.'
'Do you know,' asked Florence, without looking at her, 'where Papa
is going, Susan?'
'Not exactly, Miss. He's going to meet that precious Major first,
and I must say if I was acquainted with any Major myself (which
Heavens forbid), it shouldn't be a blue one!'
'Hush, Susan!' urged Florence gently.
'Well, Miss Floy,' returned Miss Nipper, who was full of burning
indignation, and minded her stops even less than usual. 'I can't help
it, blue he is, and while I was a Christian, although humble, I would
have natural-coloured friends, or none.'
It appeared from what she added and had gleaned downstairs, that
Mrs Chick had proposed the Major for Mr Dombey's companion, and that
Mr Dombey, after some hesitation, had invited him.
'Talk of him being a change, indeed!' observed Miss Nipper to
herself with boundless contempt. 'If he's a change, give me a
constancy.
'Good-night, Susan,' said Florence.
'Good-night, my darling dear Miss Floy.'
Her tone of commiseration smote the chord so often roughly touched,
but never listened to while she or anyone looked on. Florence left
alone, laid her head upon her hand, and pressing the other over her
swelling heart, held free communication with her sorrows.
It was a wet night; and the melancholy rain fell pattering and
dropping with a weary sound. A sluggish wind was blowing, and went
moaning round the house, as if it were in pain or grief. A shrill
noise quivered through the trees. While she sat weeping, it grew late,
and dreary midnight tolled out from the steeples.
Florence was little more than a child in years - not yet fourteen-
and the loneliness and gloom of such an hour in the great house where
Death had lately made its own tremendous devastation, might have set
an older fancy brooding on vague terrors. But her innocent imagination
was too full of one theme to admit them. Nothing wandered in her
thoughts but love - a wandering love, indeed, and castaway - but
turning always to her father. There was nothing in the dropping of the
rain, the moaning of the wind, the shuddering of the trees, the
striking of the solemn clocks, that shook this one thought, or
diminished its interest' Her recollections of the dear dead boy - and
they were never absent - were itself, the same thing. And oh, to be
shut out: to be so lost: never to have looked into her father's face
or touched him, since that hour!
She could not go to bed, poor child, and never had gone yet, since
then, without making her nightly pilgrimage to his door. It would have
been a strange sad sight, to see her' now, stealing lightly down the
stairs through the thick gloom, and stopping at it with a beating
heart, and blinded eyes, and hair that fell down loosely and unthought
of; and touching it outside with her wet cheek. But the night covered
it, and no one knew.
The moment that she touched the door on this night, Florence found
that it was open. For the first time it stood open, though by but a
hair's-breadth: and there was a light within. The first impulse of the
timid child - and she yielded to it - was to retire swiftly. Her next,
to go back, and to enter; and this second impulse held her in
irresolution on the staircase.
In its standing open, even by so much as that chink, there seemed
to be hope. There was encouragement in seeing a ray of light from
within, stealing through the dark stern doorway, and falling in a
thread upon the marble floor. She turned back, hardly knowing what she
did, but urged on by the love within her, and the trial they had
undergone together, but not shared: and with her hands a little raised
and trembling, glided in.
Her father sat at his old table in the middle room. He had been
arranging some papers, and destroying others, and the latter lay in
fragile ruins before him. The rain dripped heavily upon the glass
panes in the outer room, where he had so often watched poor Paul, a
baby; and the low complainings of the wind were heard without.
But not by him. He sat with his eyes fixed on the table, so
immersed in thought, that a far heavier tread than the light foot of
his child could make, might have failed to rouse him. His face was
turned towards her. By the waning lamp, and at that haggard hour, it
looked worn and dejected; and in the utter loneliness surrounding him,
there was an appeal to Florence that struck home.
'Papa! Papa! speak to me, dear Papa!'
He started at her voice, and leaped up from his seat. She was close
before him' with extended arms, but he fell back.
'What is the matter?' he said, sternly. 'Why do you come here? What
has frightened you?'
If anything had frightened her, it was the face he turned upon her.
The glowing love within the breast of his young daughter froze before
it, and she stood and looked at him as if stricken into stone.
There was not one touch of tenderness or pity in it. There was not
one gleam of interest, parental recognition, or relenting in it. There
was a change in it, but not of that kind. The old indifference and
cold constraint had given place to something: what, she never thought
and did not dare to think, and yet she felt it in its force, and knew
it well without a name: that as it looked upon her, seemed to cast a
shadow on her head.
Did he see before him the successful rival of his son, in health
and life? Did he look upon his own successful rival in that son's
affection? Did a mad jealousy and withered pride, poison sweet
remembrances that should have endeared and made her precious to him?
Could it be possible that it was gall to him to look upon her in her
beauty and her promise: thinking of his infant boy!
Florence had no such thoughts. But love is quick to know when it is
spurned and hopeless: and hope died out of hers, as she stood looking
in her father's face.
'I ask you, Florence, are you frightened? Is there anything the
matter, that you come here?'
'I came, Papa - '
'Against my wishes. Why?'
She saw he knew why: it was written broadly on his face: and
dropped her head upon her hands with one prolonged low cry.
Let him remember it in that room, years to come. It has faded from
the air, before he breaks the silence. It may pass as quickly from his
brain, as he believes, but it is there. Let him remember it in that
room, years to come!
He took her by the arm. His hand was cold, and loose, and scarcely
closed upon her.
'You are tired, I daresay,' he said, taking up the light, and
leading her towards the door, 'and want rest. We all want rest. Go,
Florence. You have been dreaming.'
The dream she had had, was over then, God help her! and she felt
that it could never more come back
'I will remain here to light you up the stairs. The whole house is
yours above there,' said her father, slowly. 'You are its mistress
now. Good-night!'
Still covering her face, she sobbed, and answered 'Good-night, dear
Papa,' and silently ascended. Once she looked back as if she would
have returned to him, but for fear. It was a mommentary thought, too
hopeless to encourage; and her father stood there with the light -
hard, unresponsive, motionless - until the fluttering dress of his
fair child was lost in the darkness.
Let him remember it in that room, years to come. The rain that
falls upon the roof: the wind that mourns outside the door: may have
foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. Let him remember it in that
room, years to come!
The last time he had watched her, from the same place, winding up
those stairs, she had had her brother in her arms. It did not move his
heart towards her now, it steeled it: but he went into his room, and
locked his door, and sat down in his chair, and cried for his lost
boy.
Diogenes was broad awake upon his post, and waiting for his little
mistress.
'Oh, Di! Oh, dear Di! Love me for his sake!'
Diogenes already loved her for her own, and didn't care how much he
showed it. So he made himself vastly ridiculous by performing a
variety of uncouth bounces in the ante-chamber, and concluded, when
poor Florence was at last asleep, and dreaming of the rosy children
opposite, by scratching open her bedroom door: rolling up his bed into
a pillow: lying down on the boards, at the full length of his tether,
with his head towards her: and looking lazily at her, upside down, out
of the tops of his eyes, until from winking and winking he fell asleep
himself, and dreamed, with gruff barks, of his enemy.
CHAPTER 19.
Walter goes away
The wooden Midshipman at the Instrument-maker's door, like the
hard-hearted little Midshipman he was, remained supremely indifferent
to Walter's going away, even when the very last day of his sojourn in
the back parlour was on the decline. With his quadrant at his round
black knob of an eye, and his figure in its old attitude of
indomitable alacrity, the Midshipman displayed his elfin small-clothes
to the best advantage, and, absorbed in scientific pursuits, had no
sympathy with worldly concerns. He was so far the creature of
circumstances, that a dry day covered him with dust, and a misty day
peppered him with little bits of soot, and a wet day brightened up his
tarnished uniform for the moment, and a very hot day blistered him;
but otherwise he was a callous, obdurate, conceited Midshipman, intent
on his own discoveries, and caring as little for what went on about
him, terrestrially, as Archimedes at the taking of Syracuse.
Such a Midshipman he seemed to be, at least, in the then position
of domestic affairs. Walter eyed him kindly many a time in passing in
and out; and poor old Sol, when Walter was not there, would come and
lean against the doorpost, resting his weary wig as near the
shoe-buckles of the guardian genius of his trade and shop as he could.
But no fierce idol with a mouth from ear to ear, and a murderous
visage made of parrot's feathers, was ever more indifferent to the
appeals of its savage votaries, than was the Midshipman to these marks
of attachment.
Walter's heart felt heavy as he looked round his old bedroom, up
among the parapets and chimney-pots, and thought that one more night
already darkening would close his acquaintance with it, perhaps for
ever. Dismantled of his little stock of books and pictures, it looked
coldly and reproachfully on him for his desertion, and had already a
foreshadowing upon it of its coming strangeness. 'A few hours more,'
thought Walter, 'and no dream I ever had here when I was a schoolboy
will be so little mine as this old room. The dream may come back in my
sleep, and I may return waking to this place, it may be: but the dream
at least will serve no other master, and the room may have a score,
and every one of them may change, neglect, misuse it.'
But his Uncle was not to be left alone in the little back parlour,
where he was then sitting by himself; for Captain Cuttle, considerate
in his roughness, stayed away against his will, purposely that they
should have some talk together unobserved: so Walter, newly returned
home from his last day's bustle, descended briskly, to bear him
company.
'Uncle,' he said gaily, laying his hand upon the old man's
shoulder, 'what shall I send you home from Barbados?'
'Hope, my dear Wally. Hope that we shall meet again, on this side
of the grave. Send me as much of that as you can.'
'So I will, Uncle: I have enough and to spare, and I'll not be
chary of it! And as to lively turtles, and limes for Captain Cuttle's
punch, and preserves for you on Sundays, and all that sort of thing,
why I'll send you ship-loads, Uncle: when I'm rich enough.'
Old Sol wiped his spectacles, and faintly smiled.
'That's right, Uncle!' cried Walter, merrily, and clapping him half
a dozen times more upon the shoulder. 'You cheer up me! I'll cheer up
you! We'll be as gay as larks to-morrow morning, Uncle, and we'll fly
as high! As to my anticipations, they are singing out of sight now.
'Wally, my dear boy,' returned the old man, 'I'll do my best, I'll
do my best.'
'And your best, Uncle,' said Walter, with his pleasant laugh, 'is
the best best that I know. You'll not forget what you're to send me,
Uncle?'
'No, Wally, no,' replied the old man; 'everything I hear about Miss
Dombey, now that she is left alone, poor lamb, I'll write. I fear it
won't be much though, Wally.'
'Why, I'll tell you what, Uncle,' said Walter, after a moment's
hesitation, 'I have just been up there.'
'Ay, ay, ay?' murmured the old man, raising his eyebrows, and his
spectacles with them.
'Not to see her,' said Walter, 'though I could have seen her, I
daresay, if I had asked, Mr Dombey being out of town: but to say a
parting word to Susan. I thought I might venture to do that, you know,
under the circumstances, and remembering when I saw Miss Dombey last.'
'Yes, my boy, yes,' replied his Uncle, rousing himself from a
temporary abstraction.
'So I saw her,' pursued Walter, 'Susan, I mean: and I told her I
was off and away to-morrow. And I said, Uncle, that you had always had
an interest in Miss Dombey since that night when she was here, and
always wished her well and happy, and always would be proud and glad
to serve her in the least: I thought I might say that, you know, under
the circumstances. Don't you think so ?'
'Yes, my boy, yes,' replied his Uncle, in the tone as before.
'And I added,' pursued Walter, 'that if she - Susan, I mean - could
ever let you know, either through herself, or Mrs Richards, or anybody
else who might be coming this way, that Miss Dombey was well and
happy, you would take it very kindly, and would write so much to me,
and I should take it very kindly too. There! Upon my word, Uncle,'
said Walter, 'I scarcely slept all last night through thinking of
doing this; and could not make up my mind when I was out, whether to
do it or not; and yet I am sure it is the true feeling of my heart,
and I should have been quite miserable afterwards if I had not
relieved it.'
His honest voice and manner corroborated what he said, and quite
established its ingenuousness.
'So, if you ever see her, Uncle,' said Walter, 'I mean Miss Dombey
now - and perhaps you may, who knows! - tell her how much I felt for
her; how much I used to think of her when I was here; how I spoke of
her, with the tears in my eyes, Uncle, on this last night before I
went away. Tell her that I said I never could forget her gentle
manner, or her beautiful face, or her sweet kind disposition that was
better than all. And as I didn't take them from a woman's feet, or a
young lady's: only a little innocent child's,' said Walter: 'tell her,
if you don't mind, Uncle, that I kept those shoes - she'll remember
how often they fell off, that night - and took them away with me as a
remembrance!'
They were at that very moment going out at the door in one of
Walter's trunks. A porter carrying off his baggage on a truck for
shipment at the docks on board the Son and Heir, had got possession of
them; and wheeled them away under the very eye of the insensible
Midshipman before their owner had well finished speaking.
But that ancient mariner might have been excused his insensibility
to the treasure as it rolled away. For, under his eye at the same
moment, accurately within his range of observation, coming full into
the sphere of his startled and intensely wide-awake look-out, were
Florence and Susan Nipper: Florence looking up into his face half
timidly, and receiving the whole shock of his wooden ogling!
More than this, they passed into the shop, and passed in at the
parlour door before they were observed by anybody but the Midshipman.
And Walter, having his back to the door, would have known nothing of
their apparition even then, but for seeing his Uncle spring out of his
own chair, and nearly tumble over another.
'Why, Uncle!' exclaimed Walter. 'What's the matter?'
Old Solomon replied, 'Miss Dombey!'
'Is it possible?' cried Walter, looking round and starting up in
his turn. 'Here!'
Why, It was so possible and so actual, that, while the words were
on his lips, Florence hurried past him; took Uncle Sol's
snuff-coloured lapels, one in each hand; kissed him on the cheek; and
turning, gave her hand to Walter with a simple truth and earnestness
that was her own, and no one else's in the world!
'Going away, Walter!' said Florence.
'Yes, Miss Dombey,' he replied, but not so hopefully as he
endeavoured: 'I have a voyage before me.'
'And your Uncle,' said Florence, looking back at Solomon. 'He is
sorry you are going, I am sure. Ah! I see he is! Dear Walter, I am
very sorry too.'
'Goodness knows,' exclaimed Miss Nipper, 'there's a many we could
spare instead, if numbers is a object, Mrs Pipchin as a overseer would
come cheap at her weight in gold, and if a knowledge of black slavery
should be required, them Blimbers is the very people for the
sitiwation.'
With that Miss Nipper untied her bonnet strings, and alter looking
vacantly for some moments into a little black teapot that was set
forth with the usual homely service on the table, shook her head and a
tin canister, and began unasked to make the tea.
In the meantime Florence had turned again to the Instrument-maker,
who was as full of admiration as surprise. 'So grown!' said old Sol.
'So improved! And yet not altered! Just the same!'
'Indeed!' said Florence.
'Ye - yes,' returned old Sol, rubbing his hands slowly, and
considering the matter half aloud, as something pensive in the bright
eyes looking at him arrested his attention. 'Yes, that expression was
in the younger face, too!'
'You remember me,' said Florence with a smile, 'and what a little
creature I was then?'
'My dear young lady,' returned the Instrument-maker, 'how could I
forget you, often as I have thought of you and heard of you since! At
the very moment, indeed, when you came in, Wally was talking about you
to me, and leaving messages for you, and - '
'Was he?' said Florence. 'Thank you, Walter! Oh thank you, Walter!
I was afraid you might be going away and hardly thinking of me;' and
again she gave him her little hand so freely and so faithfully that
Walter held it for some moments in his own, and could not bear to let
it go.
Yet Walter did not hold it as he might have held it once, nor did
its touch awaken those old day-dreams of his boyhood that had floated
past him sometimes even lately, and confused him with their indistinct
and broken shapes. The purity and innocence of her endearing manner,
and its perfect trustfulness, and the undisguised regard for him that
lay so deeply seated in her constant eyes, and glowed upon her fair
face through the smile that shaded - for alas! it was a smile too sad
to brighten - it, were not of their romantic race. They brought back
to his thoughts the early death-bed he had seen her tending, and the
love the child had borne her; and on the wings of such remembrances
she seemed to rise up, far above his idle fancies, into clearer and
serener air.
'I - I am afraid I must call you Walter's Uncle, Sir,' said
Florence to the old man, 'if you'll let me.'
'My dear young lady,' cried old Sol. 'Let you! Good gracious!'
'We always knew you by that name, and talked of you,' said
Florence, glancing round, and sighing gently. 'The nice old parlour!
Just the same! How well I recollect it!'
Old Sol looked first at her, then at his nephew, and then rubbed
his hands, and rubbed his spectacles, and said below his breath, 'Ah!
time, time, time!'
There was a short silence; during which Susan Nipper skilfully
impounded two extra cups and saucers from the cupboard, and awaited
the drawing of the tea with a thoughtful air.
'I want to tell Walter's Uncle,' said Florence, laying her hand
timidly upon the old man's as it rested on the table, to bespeak his
attention, 'something that I am anxious about. He is going to be left
alone, and if he will allow me - not to take Walter's place, for that
I couldn't do, but to be his true friend and help him if I ever can
while Walter is away, I shall be very much obliged to him indeed. Will
you? May I, Walter's Uncle?'
The Instrument-maker, without speaking, put her hand to his lips,
and Susan Nipper, leaning back with her arms crossed, in the chair of
presidency into which she had voted herself, bit one end of her bonnet
strings, and heaved a gentle sigh as she looked up at the skylight.
'You will let me come to see you,' said Florence, 'when I can; and
you will tell me everything about yourself and Walter; and you will
have no secrets from Susan when she comes and I do not, but will
confide in us, and trust us, and rely upon us. And you'll try to let
us be a comfort to you? Will you, Walter's Uncle?'
The sweet face looking into his, the gentle pleading eyes, the soft
voice, and the light touch on his arm made the more winning by a
child's respect and honour for his age, that gave to all an air of
graceful doubt and modest hesitation - these, and her natural
earnestness, so overcame the poor old Instrument-maker, that he only
answered:
'Wally! say a word for me, my dear. I'm very grateful.'
'No, Walter,' returned Florence with her quiet smile. 'Say nothing
for him, if you please. I understand him very well, and we must learn
to talk together without you, dear Walter.'
The regretful tone in which she said these latter words, touched
Walter more than all the rest.
'Miss Florence,' he replied, with an effort to recover the cheerful
manner he had preserved while talking with his Uncle, 'I know no more
than my Uncle, what to say in acknowledgment of such kindness, I am
sure. But what could I say, after all, if I had the power of talking
for an hour, except that it is like you?'
Susan Nipper began upon a new part of her bonnet string, and nodded
at the skylight, in approval of the sentiment expressed.
'Oh! but, Walter,' said Florence, 'there is something that I wish
to say to you before you go away, and you must call me Florence, if
you please, and not speak like a stranger.'
'Like a stranger!' returned Walter, 'No. I couldn't speak so. I am
sure, at least, I couldn't feel like one.'
'Ay, but that is not enough, and is not what I mean. For, Walter,'
added Florence, bursting into tears, 'he liked you very much, and said
before he died that he was fond of you, and said "Remember Walter!"
and if you'll be a brother to me, Walter, now that he is gone and I
have none on earth, I'll be your sister all my life, and think of you
like one wherever we may be! This is what I wished to say, dear
Walter, but I cannot say it as I would, because my heart is full.'
And in its fulness and its sweet simplicity, she held out both her
hands to him. Walter taking them, stooped down and touched the tearful
face that neither shrunk nor turned away, nor reddened as he did so,
but looked up at him with confidence and truth. In that one moment,
every shadow of doubt or agitation passed away from Walter's soul. It
seemed to him that he responded to her innocent appeal, beside the
dead child's bed: and, in the solemn presence he had seen there,
pledged himself to cherish and protect her very image, in his
banishment, with brotherly regard; to garner up her simple faith,
inviolate; and hold himself degraded if he breathed upon it any
thought that was not in her own breast when she gave it to him.
Susan Nipper, who had bitten both her bonnet strings at once, and
imparted a great deal of private emotion to the skylight, during this
transaction, now changed the subject by inquiring who took milk and
who took sugar; and being enlightened on these points, poured out the
tea. They all four gathered socially about the little table, and took
tea under that young lady's active superintendence; and the presence
of Florence in the back parlour, brightened the Tartar frigate on the
wall.
Half an hour ago Walter, for his life, would have hardly called her
by her name. But he could do so now when she entreated him. He could
think of her being there, without a lurking misgiving that it would
have been better if she had not come. He could calmly think how
beautiful she was, how full of promise, what a home some happy man
would find in such a heart one day. He could reflect upon his own
place in that heart, with pride; and with a brave determination, if
not to deserve it - he still thought that far above him - never to
deserve it less
Some fairy influence must surely have hovered round the hands of
Susan Nipper when she made the tea, engendering the tranquil air that
reigned in the back parlour during its discussion. Some
counter-influence must surely have hovered round the hands of Uncle
Sol's chronometer, and moved them faster than the Tartar frigate ever
went before the wind. Be this as it may, the visitors had a coach in
waiting at a quiet corner not far off; and the chronometer, on being
incidentally referred to, gave such a positive opinion that it had
been waiting a long time, that it was impossible to doubt the fact,
especially when stated on such unimpeachable authority. If Uncle Sol
had been going to be hanged by his own time, he never would have
allowed that the chronometer was too fast, by the least fraction of a
second.
Florence at parting recapitulated to the old man all that she had
said before, and bound him to the compact. Uncle Sol attended her
lovingly to the legs of the wooden Midshipman, and there resigned her
to Walter, who was ready to escort her and Susan Nipper to the coach.
'Walter,' said Florence by the way, 'I have been afraid to ask
before your Uncle. Do you think you will be absent very long?'
'Indeed,' said Walter, 'I don't know. I fear so. Mr Dombey
signified as much, I thought, when he appointed me.'
'Is it a favour, Walter?' inquired Florence, after a moment's
hesitation, and looking anxiously in his face.
'The appointment?' returned Walter.
'Yes.'
Walter would have given anything to have answered in the
affirmative, but his face answered before his lips could, and Florence
was too attentive to it not to understand its reply.
'I am afraid you have scarcely been a favourite with Papa,' she
said, timidly.
'There is no reason,' replied Walter, smiling, 'why I should be.'
'No reason, Walter!'
'There was no reason,' said Walter, understanding what she meant.
'There are many people employed in the House. Between Mr Dombey and a
young man like me, there's a wide space of separation. If I do my
duty, I do what I ought, and do no more than all the rest.'
Had Florence any misgiving of which she was hardly conscious: any
misgiving that had sprung into an indistinct and undefined existence
since that recent night when she had gone down to her father's room:
that Walter's accidental interest in her, and early knowledge of her,
might have involved him in that powerful displeasure and dislike? Had
Walter any such idea, or any sudden thought that it was in her mind at
that moment? Neither of them hinted at it. Neither of them spoke at
all, for some short time. Susan, walking on the other side of Walter,
eyed them both sharply; and certainly Miss Nipper's thoughts travelled
in that direction, and very confidently too.
'You may come back very soon,' said Florence, 'perhaps, Walter.'
'I may come back,' said Walter, 'an old man, and find you an old
lady. But I hope for better things.'
'Papa,' said Florence, after a moment, 'will - will recover from
his grief, and - speak more freely to me one day, perhaps; and if he
should, I will tell him how much I wish to see you back again, and ask
him to recall you for my sake.'
There was a touching modulation in these words about her father,
that Walter understood too well.
The coach being close at hand, he would have left her without
speaking, for now he felt what parting was; but Florence held his hand
when she was seated, and then he found there was a little packet in
her own.
'Walter,' she said, looking full upon him with her affectionate
eyes, 'like you, I hope for better things. I will pray for them, and
believe that they will arrive. I made this little gift for Paul. Pray
take it with my love, and do not look at it until you are gone away.
And now, God bless you, Walter! never forget me. You are my brother,
dear!'
He was glad that Susan Nipper came between them, or he might have
left her with a sorrowful remembrance of him. He was glad too that she
did not look out of the coach again, but waved the little hand to him
instead, as long as he could see it.
In spite of her request, he could not help opening the packet that
night when he went to bed. It was a little purse: and there was was
money in it.
Bright rose the sun next morning, from his absence in strange
countries and up rose Walter with it to receive the Captain, who was
already at the door: having turned out earlier than was necessary, in
order to get under weigh while Mrs MacStinger was still slumbering.
The Captain pretended to be in tip-top spirits, and brought a very
smoky tongue in one of the pockets of the of the broad blue coat for
breakfast.
'And, Wal'r,' said the Captain, when they took their seats at
table, if your Uncle's the man I think him, he'll bring out the last
bottle of the Madeira on the present occasion.'
'No, no, Ned,' returned the old man. 'No! That shall be opened when
Walter comes home again.'
'Well said!' cried the Captain. 'Hear him!'
'There it lies,' said Sol Gills, 'down in the little cellar,
covered with dirt and cobwebs. There may be dirt and cobwebs over you
and me perhaps, Ned, before it sees the light.'
'Hear him! 'cried the Captain. 'Good morality! Wal'r, my lad. Train
up a fig-tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under
the shade on it. Overhaul the - Well,' said the Captain on second
thoughts, 'I ain't quite certain where that's to be found, but when
found, make a note of. Sol Gills, heave ahead again!'
'But there or somewhere, it shall lie, Ned, until Wally comes back
to claim it,' said the old man. 'That's all I meant to say.'
'And well said too,' returned the Captain; 'and if we three don't
crack that bottle in company, I'll give you two leave to.'
Notwithstanding the Captain's excessive joviality, he made but a
poor hand at the smoky tongue, though he tried very hard, when anybody
looked at him, to appear as if he were eating with a vast apetite. He
was terribly afraid, likewise, of being left alone with either Uncle
or nephew; appearing to consider that his only chance of safety as to
keeping up appearances, was in there being always three together. This
terror on the part of the Captain, reduced him to such ingenious
evasions as running to the door, when Solomon went to put his coat on,
under pretence of having seen an extraordinary hackney-coach pass: and
darting out into the road when Walter went upstairs to take leave of
the lodgers, on a feint of smelling fire in a neighbouring chimney.
These artifices Captain Cuttle deemed inscrutable by any uninspired
observer.
Walter was coming down from his parting expedition upstairs, and
was crossing the shop to go back to the little parlour, when he saw a
faded face he knew, looking in at the door, and darted towards it.
'Mr Carker!' cried Walter, pressing the hand of John Carker the
Junior. 'Pray come in! This is kind of you, to be here so early to say
good-bye to me. You knew how glad it would make me to shake hands with
you, once, before going away. I cannot say how glad I am to have this
opportunity. Pray come in.'
'It is not likely that we may ever meet again, Walter,' returned
the other, gently resisting his invitation, 'and I am glad of this
opportunity too. I may venture to speak to you, and to take you by the
hand, on the eve of separation. I shall not have to resist your frank
approaches, Walter, any more.
There was a melancholy in his smile as he said it, that showed he
had found some company and friendship for his thoughts even in that.
'Ah, Mr Carker!' returned Walter. 'Why did you resist them? You
could have done me nothing but good, I am very sure.
He shook his head. 'If there were any good,' he said, 'I could do
on this earth, I would do it, Walter, for you. The sight of you from
day to day, has been at once happiness and remorse to me. But the
pleasure has outweighed the pain. I know that, now, by knowing what I
lose.'
'Come in, Mr Carker, and make acquaintance with my good old Uncle,'
urged Walter. 'I have often talked to him about you, and he will be
glad to tell you all he hears from me. I have not,' said Walter,
noticing his hesitation, and speaking with embarrassment himself: 'I
have not told him anything about our last conversation, Mr Carker; not
even him, believe me.
The grey Junior pressed his hand, and tears rose in his eyes.
'If I ever make acquaintance with him, Walter,' he returned, 'it
will be that I may hear tidings of you. Rely on my not wronging your
forbearance and consideration. It would be to wrong it, not to tell
him all the truth, before I sought a word of confidence from him. But
I have no friend or acquaintance except you: and even for your sake,
am little likely to make any.'
'I wish,' said Walter, 'you had suffered me to be your friend
indeed. I always wished it, Mr Carker, as you know; but never half so
much as now, when we are going to part'
'It is enough replied the other, 'that you have been the friend of
my own breast, and that when I have avoided you most, my heart
inclined the most towards you, and was fullest of you. Walter,
good-bye!'
'Good-bye, Mr Carker. Heaven be with you, Sir!' cried Walter with
emotion.
'If,' said the other, retaining his hand while he spoke; 'if when
you come back, you miss me from my old corner, and should hear from
anyone where I am lying, come and look upon my grave. Think that I
might have been as honest and as happy as you! And let me think, when
I know time is coming on, that some one like my former self may stand
there, for a moment, and remember me with pity and forgiveness!
Walter, good-bye!'
His figure crept like a shadow down the bright, sun-lighted street,
so cheerful yet so solemn in the early summer morning; and slowly
passed away.
The relentless chronometer at last announced that Walter must turn
his back upon the wooden Midshipman: and away they went, himself, his
Uncle, and the Captain, in a hackney-coach to a wharf, where they were
to take steam-boat for some Reach down the river, the name of which,
as the Captain gave it out, was a hopeless mystery to the ears of
landsmen. Arrived at this Reach (whither the ship had repaired by last
night's tide), they were boarded by various excited watermen, and
among others by a dirty Cyclops of the Captain's acquaintance, who,
with his one eye, had made the Captain out some mile and a half off,
and had been exchanging unintelligible roars with him ever since.
Becoming the lawful prize of this personage, who was frightfully
hoarse and constitutionally in want of shaving, they were all three
put aboard the Son and Heir. And the Son and Heir was in a pretty
state of confusion, with sails lying all bedraggled on the wet decks,
loose ropes tripping people up, men in red shirts running barefoot to
and fro, casks blockading every foot of space, and, in the thickest of
the fray, a black cook in a black caboose up to his eyes in vegetables
and blinded with smoke.
The Captain immediately drew Walter into a corner, and with a great
effort, that made his face very red, pulled up the silver watch, which
was so big, and so tight in his pocket, that it came out like a bung.
'Wal'r,' said the Captain, handing it over, and shaking him
heartily by the hand, 'a parting gift, my lad. Put it back half an
hour every morning, and about another quarter towards the arternoon,
and it's a watch that'll do you credit.'
'Captain Cuttle! I couldn't think of it!' cried Walter, detaining
him, for he was running away. 'Pray take it back. I have one already.'
'Then, Wal'r,' said the Captain, suddenly diving into one of his
pockets and bringing up the two teaspoons and the sugar-tongs, with
which he had armed himself to meet such an objection, 'take this here
trifle of plate, instead.'
'No, no, I couldn't indeed!' cried Walter, 'a thousand thanks!
Don't throw them away, Captain Cuttle!' for the Captain was about to
jerk them overboard. 'They'll be of much more use to you than me. Give
me your stick. I have often thought I should like to have it. There!
Good-bye, Captain Cuttle! Take care of my Uncle! Uncle Sol, God bless
you!'
They were over the side in the confusion, before Walter caught
another glimpse of either; and when he ran up to the stern, and looked
after them, he saw his Uncle hanging down his head in the boat, and
Captain Cuttle rapping him on the back with the great silver watch (it
must have been very painful), and gesticulating hopefully with the
teaspoons and sugar-tongs. Catching sight of Walter, Captain Cuttle
dropped the property into the bottom of the boat with perfect
unconcern, being evidently oblivious of its existence, and pulling off
the glazed hat hailed him lustily. The glazed hat made quite a show in
the sun with its glistening, and the Captain continued to wave it
until he could be seen no longer. Then the confusion on board, which
had been rapidly increasing, reached its height; two or three other
boats went away with a cheer; the sails shone bright and full above,
as Walter watched them spread their surface to the favourable breeze;
the water flew in sparkles from the prow; and off upon her voyage went
the Son and Heir, as hopefully and trippingly as many another son and
heir, gone down, had started on his way before her.
Day after day, old Sol and Captain Cuttle kept her reckoning in the
little hack parlour and worked out her course, with the chart spread
before them on the round table. At night, when old Sol climbed
upstairs, so lonely, to the attic where it sometimes blew great guns,
he looked up at the stars and listened to the wind, and kept a longer
watch than would have fallen to his lot on board the ship. The last
bottle of the old Madeira, which had had its cruising days, and known
its dangers of the deep, lay silently beneath its dust and cobwebs, in
the meanwhile, undisturbed.
CHAPTER 20.
Mr Dombey goes upon a Journey
'Mr Dombey, Sir,' said Major Bagstock, 'Joee' B. is not in general
a man of sentiment, for Joseph is tough. But Joe has his feelings,
Sir, and when they are awakened - Damme, Mr Dombey,? cried the Major
with sudden ferocity, 'this is weakness, and I won't submit to it]'
Major Bagstock delivered himself of these expressions on receiving
Mr Dombey as his guest at the head of his own staircase in Princess's
Place. Mr Dombey had come to breakfast with the Major, previous to
their setting forth on their trip; and the ill-starved Native had
already undergone a world of misery arising out of the muffins, while,
in connexion with the general question of boiled eggs, life was a
burden to him.
'It is not for an old soldier of the Bagstock breed,' observed the
Major, relapsing into a mild state, 'to deliver himself up, a prey to
his own emotions; but - damme, Sir,' cried the Major, in another spasm
of ferocity, 'I condole with you!'
The Major's purple visage deepened in its hue, and the Major's
lobster eyes stood out in bolder relief, as he shook Mr Dombey by the
hand, imparting to that peaceful action as defiant a character as if
it had been the prelude to his immediately boxing Mr Dombey for a
thousand pounds a side and the championship of England. With a
rotatory motion of his head, and a wheeze very like the cough of a
horse, the Major then conducted his visitor to the sitting-room, and
there welcomed him (having now composed his feelings) with the freedom
and frankness ofa travelling companion.
'Dombey,' said the Major, 'I'm glad to see you. I'm proud to see
you. There are not many men in Europe to whom J. Bagstock would say
that - for Josh is blunt. Sir: it's his nature - but Joey B. is proud
to see you, Dombey.'
'Major,' returned Mr Dombey, 'you are very obliging.'
'No, Sir,' said the Major, 'Devil a bit! That's not my character.
If that had been Joe's character, Joe might have been, by this time,
Lieutenant-General Sir Joseph Bagstock, K.C.B., and might have
received you in very different quarters. You don't know old Joe yet, I
find. But this occasion, being special, is a source of pride to me. By
the Lord, Sir,' said the Major resolutely, 'it's an honour to me!'
Mr Dombey, in his estimation of himself and his money, felt that
this was very true, and therefore did not dispute the point. But the
instinctive recognition of such a truth by the Major, and his plain
avowal of it, were very able. It was a confirmation to Mr Dombey, if
he had required any, of his not being mistaken in the Major. It was an
assurance to him that his power extended beyond his own immediate
sphere; and that the Major, as an officer and a gentleman, had a no
less becoming sense of it, than the beadle of the Royal Exchange.
And if it were ever consolatory to know this, or the like of this,
it was consolatory then, when the impotence of his will, the
instability of his hopes, the feebleness of wealth, had been so
direfully impressed upon him. What could it do, his boy had asked him.
Sometimes, thinking of the baby question, he could hardly forbear
inquiring, himself, what could it do indeed: what had it done?
But these were lonely thoughts, bred late at night in the sullen
despondency and gloom of his retirement, and pride easily found its
reassurance in many testimonies to the truth, as unimpeachable and
precious as the Major's. Mr Dombey, in his friendlessness, inclined to
the Major. It cannot be said that he warmed towards him, but he thawed
a little, The Major had had some part - and not too much - in the days
by the seaside. He was a man of the world, and knew some great people.
He talked much, and told stories; and Mr Dombey was disposed to regard
him as a choice spirit who shone in society, and who had not that
poisonous ingredient of poverty with which choice spirits in general
are too much adulterated. His station was undeniable. Altogether the
Major was a creditable companion, well accustomed to a life of
leisure, and to such places as that they were about to visit, and
having an air of gentlemanly ease about him that mixed well enough
with his own City character, and did not compete with it at all. If Mr
Dombey had any lingering idea that the Major, as a man accustomed, in
the way of his calling, to make light of the ruthless hand that had
lately crushed his hopes, might unconsciously impart some useful
philosophy to him, and scare away his weak regrets, he hid it from
himself, and left it lying at the bottom of his pride, unexamined.
'Where is my scoundrel?' said the Major, looking wrathfully round
the room.
The Native, who had no particular name, but answered to any
vituperative epithet, presented himself instantly at the door and
ventured to come no nearer.
'You villain!' said the choleric Major, 'where's the breakfast?'
The dark servant disappeared in search of it, and was quickly heard
reascending the stairs in such a tremulous state, that the plates and
dishes on the tray he carried, trembling sympathetically as he came,
rattled again, all the way up.
'Dombey,' said the Major, glancing at the Native as he arranged the
table, and encouraging him with an awful shake of his fist when he
upset a spoon, 'here is a devilled grill, a savoury pie, a dish of
kidneys, and so forth. Pray sit down. Old Joe can give you nothing but
camp fare, you see.
'Very excellent fare, Major,' replied his guest; and not in mere
politeness either; for the Major always took the best possible care of
himself, and indeed ate rather more of rich meats than was good for
him, insomuch that his Imperial complexion was mainly referred by the
faculty to that circumstance.
'You have been looking over the way, Sir,' observed the Major.
'Have you seen our friend?'
'You mean Miss Tox,' retorted Mr Dombey. 'No.'
'Charming woman, Sir,' said the Major, with a fat laugh rising in
his short throat, and nearly suffocating him.
'Miss Tox is a very good sort of person, I believe,' replied Mr
Dombey.
The haughty coldness of the reply seemed to afford Major Bagstock
infinite delight. He swelled and swelled, exceedingly: and even laid
down his knife and fork for a moment, to rub his hands.
'Old Joe, Sir,' said the Major, 'was a bit ofa favourite in that
quarter once. But Joe has had his day. J. Bagstock is extinguished -
outrivalled - floored, Sir.'
'I should have supposed,' Mr Dombey replied, 'that the lady's day
for favourites was over: but perhaps you are jesting, Major.'
'Perhaps you are jesting, Dombey?' was the Major's rejoinder.
There never was a more unlikely possiblity. It was so clearly
expressed in Mr Dombey's face, that the Major apologised.
'I beg your pardon,' he said. 'I see you are in earnest. I tell you
what, Dombey.' The Major paused in his eating, and looked mysteriously
indignant. 'That's a de-vilish ambitious woman, Sir.'
Mr Dombey said 'Indeed?' with frigid indifference: mingled perhaps
with some contemptuous incredulity as to Miss Tox having the
presumption to harbour such a superior quality.
'That woman, Sir,' said the Major, 'is, in her way, a Lucifer. Joey
B. has had his day, Sir, but he keeps his eyes. He sees, does Joe. His
Royal Highness the late Duke of York observed of Joey, at a levee,
that he saw.'
The Major accompanied this with such a look, and, between eating,
drinking, hot tea, devilled grill, muffins, and meaning, was
altogether so swollen and inflamed about the head, that even Mr Dombey
showed some anxiety for him.
'That ridiculous old spectacle, Sir,' pursued the Major, 'aspires.
She aspires sky-high, Sir. Matrimonially, Dombey.'
'I am sorry for her,' said Mr Dombey.
'Don't say that, Dombey,' returned the Major in a warning voice.
'Why should I not, Major?' said Mr Dombey.
The Major gave no answer but the horse's cough, and went on eating
vigorously.
'She has taken an interest in your household,' said the Major,
stopping short again, 'and has been a frequent visitor at your house
for some time now.'
'Yes,' replied Mr Dombey with great stateliness, 'Miss Tox was
originally received there, at the time of Mrs Dombey's death, as a
friend of my sister's; and being a well-behaved person, and showing a
liking for the poor infant, she was permitted - may I say encouraged -
to repeat her visits with my sister, and gradually to occupy a kind of
footing of familiarity in the family. I have,' said Mr Dombey, in the
tone of a man who was making a great and valuable concession, 'I have
a respect for Miss Tox. She his been so obliging as to render many
little services in my house: trifling and insignificant services
perhaps, Major, but not to be disparaged on that account: and I hope I
have had the good fortune to be enabled to acknowledge them by such
attention and notice as it has been in my power to bestow. I hold
myself indebted to Miss Tox, Major,' added Mr Dombey, with a slight
wave of his hand, 'for the pleasure of your acquaintance.'
'Dombey,' said the Major, warmly: 'no! No, Sir! Joseph Bagstock can
never permit that assertion to pass uncontradicted. Your knowledge of
old Joe, Sir, such as he is, and old Joe's knowledge of you, Sir, had
its origin in a noble fellow, Sir - in a great creature, Sir. Dombey!'
said the Major, with a struggle which it was not very difficult to
parade, his whole life being a struggle against all kinds of
apoplectic symptoms, 'we knew each other through your boy.'
Mr Dombey seemed touched, as it is not improbable the Major
designed he should be, by this allusion. He looked down and sighed:
and the Major, rousing himself fiercely, again said, in reference to
the state of mind into which he felt himself in danger of falling,
that this was weakness, and nothing should induce him to submit to it.
'Our friend had a remote connexion with that event,' said the
Major, 'and all the credit that belongs to her, J. B. is willing to
give her, Sir. Notwithstanding which, Ma'am,' he added, raising his
eyes from his plate, and casting them across Princess's Place, to
where Miss Tox was at that moment visible at her window watering her
flowers, 'you're a scheming jade, Ma'am, and your ambition is a piece
of monstrous impudence. If it only made yourself ridiculous, Ma'am,'
said the Major, rolling his head at the unconscious Miss Tox, while
his starting eyes appeared to make a leap towards her, 'you might do
that to your heart's content, Ma'am, without any objection, I assure
you, on the part of Bagstock.' Here the Major laughed frightfully up
in the tips of his ears and in the veins of his head. 'But when,
Ma'am,' said the Major, 'you compromise other people, and generous,
unsuspicious people too, as a repayment for their condescension, you
stir the blood of old Joe in his body.'
'Major,' said Mr Dombey, reddening, 'I hope you do not hint at
anything so absurd on the part of Miss Tox as - '
'Dombey,' returned the Major, 'I hint at nothing. But Joey B. has
lived in the world, Sir: lived in the world with his eyes open, Sir,
and his ears cocked: and Joe tells you, Dombey, that there's a
devilish artful and ambitious woman over the way.'
Mr Dombey involuntarily glanced over the way; and an angry glance
he sent in that direction, too.
'That's all on such a subject that shall pass the lips of Joseph
Bagstock,' said the Major firmly. 'Joe is not a tale-bearer, but there
are times when he must speak, when he will speak! - confound your
arts, Ma'am,' cried the Major, again apostrophising his fair
neighbour, with great ire, - 'when the provocation is too strong to
admit of his remaining silent.'
The emotion of this outbreak threw the Major into a paroxysm of
horse's coughs, which held him for a long time. On recovering he
added:
'And now, Dombey, as you have invited Joe - old Joe, who has no
other merit, Sir, but that he is tough and hearty - to be your guest
and guide at Leamington, command him in any way you please, and he is
wholly yours. I don't know, Sir,' said the Major, wagging his double
chin with a jocose air, 'what it is you people see in Joe to make you
hold him in such great request, all of you; but this I know, Sir, that
if he wasn't pretty tough, and obstinate in his refusals, you'd kill
him among you with your invitations and so forth, in double-quick
time.'
Mr Dombey, in a few words, expressed his sense of the preference he
received over those other distinguished members of society who were
clamouring for the possession of Major Bagstock. But the Major cut him
short by giving him to understand that he followed his own
inclinations, and that they had risen up in a body and said with one
accord, 'J. B., Dombey is the man for you to choose as a friend.'
The Major being by this time in a state of repletion, with essence
of savoury pie oozing out at the corners of his eyes, and devilled
grill and kidneys tightening his cravat: and the time moreover
approaching for the departure of the railway train to Birmingham, by
which they were to leave town: the Native got him into his great-coat
with immense difficulty, and buttoned him up until his face looked
staring and gasping, over the top of that garment, as if he were in a
barrel. The Native then handed him separately, and with a decent
interval between each supply, his washleather gloves, his thick stick,
and his hat; which latter article the Major wore with a rakish air on
one side of his head, by way of toning down his remarkable visage. The
Native had previously packed, in all possible and impossible parts of
Mr Dombey's chariot, which was in waiting, an unusual quantity of
carpet-bags and small portmanteaus, no less apoplectic in appearance
than the Major himself: and having filled his own pockets with Seltzer
water, East India sherry, sandwiches, shawls, telescopes, maps, and
newspapers, any or all of which light baggage the Major might require
at any instant of the journey, he announced that everything was ready.
To complete the equipment of this unfortunate foreigner (currently
believed to be a prince in his own country), when he took his seat in
the rumble by the side of Mr Towlinson, a pile of the Major's cloaks
and great-coats was hurled upon him by the landlord, who aimed at him
from the pavement with those great missiles like a Titan, and so
covered him up, that he proceeded, in a living tomb, to the railroad
station.
But before the carriage moved away, and while the Native was in the
act of sepulture, Miss Tox appearing at her window, waved a lilywhite
handkerchief. Mr Dombey received this parting salutation very coldly -
very coldly even for him - and honouring her with the slightest
possible inclination of his head, leaned back in the carriage with a
very discontented look. His marked behaviour seemed to afford the
Major (who was all politeness in his recognition of Miss Tox)
unbounded satisfaction; and he sat for a long time afterwards,
leering, and choking, like an over-fed Mephistopheles.
During the bustle of preparation at the railway, Mr Dombey and the
Major walked up and down the platform side by side; the former
taciturn and gloomy, and the latter entertaining him, or entertaining
himself, with a variety of anecdotes and reminiscences, in most of
which Joe Bagstock was the principal performer. Neither of the two
observed that in the course of these walks, they attracted the
attention of a working man who was standing near the engine, and who
touched his hat every time they passed; for Mr Dombey habitually
looked over the vulgar herd, not at them; and the Major was looking,
at the time, into the core of one of his stories. At length, however,
this man stepped before them as they turned round, and pulling his hat
off, and keeping it off, ducked his head to Mr Dombey.
'Beg your pardon, Sir,' said the man, 'but I hope you're a doin'
pretty well, Sir.'
He was dressed in a canvas suit abundantly besmeared with coal-dust
and oil, and had cinders in his whiskers, and a smell of half-slaked
ashes all over him. He was not a bad-looking fellow, nor even what
could be fairly called a dirty-looking fellow, in spite of this; and,
in short, he was Mr Toodle, professionally clothed.
'I shall have the honour of stokin' of you down, Sir,' said Mr
Toodle. 'Beg your pardon, Sir. - I hope you find yourself a coming
round?'
Mr Dombey looked at him, in return for his tone of interest, as if
a man like that would make his very eyesight dirty.
''Scuse the liberty, Sir,' said Toodle, seeing he was not clearly
remembered, 'but my wife Polly, as was called Richards in your family
- '
A change in Mr Dombey's face, which seemed to express recollection
of him, and so it did, but it expressed in a much stronger degree an
angry sense of humiliation, stopped Mr Toodle short.
'Your wife wants money, I suppose,' said Mr Dombey, putting his
hand in his pocket, and speaking (but that he always did) haughtily.
'No thank'ee, Sir,' returned Toodle, 'I can't say she does. I
don't.'
Mr Dombey was stopped short now in his turn: and awkwardly: with
his hand in his pocket.
'No, Sir,' said Toodle, turning his oilskin cap round and round;
'we're a doin' pretty well, Sir; we haven't no cause to complain in
the worldly way, Sir. We've had four more since then, Sir, but we rubs
on.'
Mr Dombey would have rubbed on to his own carriage, though in so
doing he had rubbed the stoker underneath the wheels; but his
attention was arrested by something in connexion with the cap still
going slowly round and round in the man's hand.
'We lost one babby,' observed Toodle, 'there's no denyin'.'
'Lately,' added Mr Dombey, looking at the cap.
'No, Sir, up'ard of three years ago, but all the rest is hearty.
And in the matter o readin', Sir,' said Toodle, ducking again, as if
to remind Mr Dombey of what had passed between them on that subject
long ago, 'them boys o' mine, they learned me, among 'em, arter all.
They've made a wery tolerable scholar of me, Sir, them boys.'
'Come, Major!' said Mr Dombey.
'Beg your pardon, Sir,' resumed Toodle, taking a step before them
and deferentially stopping them again, still cap in hand: 'I wouldn't
have troubled you with such a pint except as a way of gettin' in the
name of my son Biler - christened Robin - him as you was so good as to
make a Charitable Grinder on.'
'Well, man,' said Mr Dombey in his severest manner. 'What about
him?'
'Why, Sir,' returned Toodle, shaking his head with a face of great
anxiety and distress, 'I'm forced to say, Sir, that he's gone wrong.
'He has gone wrong, has he?' said Mr Dombey, with a hard kind of
satisfaction.
'He has fell into bad company, you see, genelmen,' pursued the
father, looking wistfully at both, and evidently taking the Major into
the conversation with the hope of having his sympathy. 'He has got
into bad ways. God send he may come to again, genelmen, but he's on
the wrong track now! You could hardly be off hearing of it somehow,
Sir,' said Toodle, again addressing Mr Dombey individually; 'and it's
better I should out and say my boy's gone rather wrong. Polly's
dreadful down about it, genelmen,' said Toodle with the same dejected
look, and another appeal to the Major.
'A son of this man's whom I caused to be educated, Major,' said Mr
Dombey, giving him his arm. 'The usual return!'
'Take advice from plain old Joe, and never educate that sort of
people, Sir,' returned the Major. 'Damme, Sir, it never does! It
always fails!'
The simple father was beginning to submit that he hoped his son,
the quondam Grinder, huffed and cuffed, and flogged and badged, and
taught, as parrots are, by a brute jobbed into his place of
schoolmaster with as much fitness for it as a hound, might not have
been educated on quite a right plan in some undiscovered respect, when
Mr Dombey angrily repeating 'The usual return!' led the Major away.
And the Major being heavy to hoist into Mr Dombey's carriage, elevated
in mid-air, and having to stop and swear that he would flay the Native
alive, and break every bone in his skin, and visit other physical
torments upon him, every time he couldn't get his foot on the step,
and fell back on that dark exile, had barely time before they started
to repeat hoarsely that it would never do: that it always failed: and
that if he were to educate 'his own vagabond,' he would certainly be
hanged.
Mr Dombey assented bitterly; but there was something more in his
bitterness, and in his moody way of falling back in the carriage, and
looking with knitted brows at the changing objects without, than the
failure of that noble educational system administered by the Grinders'
Company. He had seen upon the man's rough cap a piece of new crape,
and he had assured himself, from his manner and his answers, that he
wore it for his son.
So] from high to low, at home or abroad, from Florence in his great
house to the coarse churl who was feeding the fire then smoking before
them, everyone set up some claim or other to a share in his dead boy,
and was a bidder against him! Could he ever forget how that woman had
wept over his pillow, and called him her own child! or how he, waking
from his sleep, had asked for her, and had raised himself in his bed
and brightened when she carne in!
To think of this presumptuous raker among coals and ashes going on
before there, with his sign of mourning! To think that he dared to
enter, even by a common show like that, into the trial and
disappointrnent of a proud gentleman's secret heart! To think that
this lost child, who was to have divided with him his riches, and his
projects, and his power, and allied with whom he was to have shut out
all the world as with a double door of gold, should have let in such a
herd to insult him with their knowledge of his defeated hopes, and
their boasts of claiming community of feeling with himself, so far
removed: if not of having crept into the place wherein he would have
lorded it, alone!
He found no pleasure or relief in the journey. Tortured by these
thoughts he carried monotony with him, through the rushing landscape,
and hurried headlong, not through a rich and varied country, but a
wilderness of blighted plans and gnawing jealousies. The very speed at
which the train was whirled along, mocked the swift course of the
young life that had been borne away so steadily and so inexorably to
its foredoomed end. The power that forced itself upon its iron way -
its own - defiant of all paths and roads, piercing through the heart
of every obstacle, and dragging living creatures of all classes, ages,
and degrees behind it, was a type of the triumphant monster, Death.
Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, from the town,
burrowmg among the dwellings of men and making the streets hum,
flashing out into the meadows for a moment, mining in through the damp
earth, booming on in darkness and heavy air, bursting out again into
the sunny day so bright and wide; away, with a shriek, and a roar, and
a rattle, through the fields, through the woods, through the corn,
through the hay, through the chalk, through the mould, through the
clay, through the rock, among objects close at hand and almost in the
grasp, ever flying from the traveller, and a deceitful distance ever
moving slowly within him: like as in the track of the remorseless
monster, Death!
Through the hollow, on the height, by the heath, by the orchard, by
the park, by the garden, over the canal, across the river, where the
sheep are feeding, where the mill is going, where the barge is
floating, where the dead are lying, where the factory is smoking,
where the stream is running, where the village clusters, where the
great cathedral rises, where the bleak moor lies, and the wild breeze
smooths or ruffles it at its inconstant will; away, with a shriek, and
a roar, and a rattle, and no trace to leave behind but dust and
vapour: like as in the track of the remorseless monster, Death!
Breasting the wind and light, the shower and sunshine, away, and
still away, it rolls and roars, fierce and rapid, smooth and certain,
and great works and massive bridges crossing up above, fall like a
beam of shadow an inch broad, upon the eye, and then are lost. Away,
and still away, onward and onward ever: glimpses of cottage-homes, of
houses, mansions, rich estates, of husbandry and handicraft, of
people, of old roads and paths that look deserted, small, and
insignificant as they are left behind: and so they do, and what else
is there but such glimpses, in the track of the indomitable monster,
Death!
Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, plunging down into
the earth again, and working on in such a storm of energy and
perseverance, that amidst the darkness and whirlwind the motion seems
reversed, and to tend furiously backward, until a ray of light upon
the Wet wall shows its surface flying past like a fierce stream, Away
once more into the day, and through the day, with a shrill yell of
exultation, roaring, rattling, tearing on, spurning everything with
its dark breath, sometimes pausing for a minute where a crowd of faces
are, that in a minute more are not; sometimes lapping water greedily,
and before the spout at which it drinks' has ceased to drip upon the
ground, shrieking, roaring, rattling through the purple distance!
Louder and louder yet, it shrieks and cries as it comes tearing on
resistless to the goal: and now its way, still like the way of Death,
is strewn with ashes thickly. Everything around is blackened. There
are dark pools of water, muddy lanes, and miserable habitations far
below. There are jagged walls and falling houses close at hand, and
through the battered roofs and broken windows, wretched rooms are
seen, where 'want and fever hide themselves in many wretched shapes,
while smoke and crowded gables, and distorted chimneys, and deformity
of brick and mortar penning up deformity of mind and body, choke the
murky distance. As Mr Dombey looks out of his carriage window, it is
never in his thoughts that the monster who has brought him there has
let the light of day in on these things: not made or caused them. It
was the journey's fitting end, and might have been the end of
everything; it was so ruinous and dreary.'
So, pursuing the one course of thought, he had the one relentless
monster still before him. All things looked black, and cold, and
deadly upon him, and he on them. He found a likeness to his misfortune
everywhere. There was a remorseless triumph going on about him, and it
galled and stung him in his pride and jealousy, whatever form it took:
though most of all when it divided with him the love and memory of his
lost boy.
There was a face - he had looked upon it, on the previous night,
and it on him with eyes that read his soul, though they were dim with
tears, and hidden soon behind two quivering hands - that often had
attended him in fancy, on this ride. He had seen it, with the
expression of last night, timidly pleading to him. It was not
reproachful, but there was something of doubt, almost of hopeful
incredulity in it, which, as he once more saw that fade away into a
desolate certainty of his dislike, was like reproach. It was a trouble
to him to think of this face of Florence.
Because he felt any new compunction towards it? No. Because the
feeling it awakened in him - of which he had had some old
foreshadowing in older times - was full-formed now, and spoke out
plainly, moving him too much, and threatening to grow too strong for
his composure. Because the face was abroad, in the expression of
defeat and persecution that seemed to encircle him like the air.
Because it barbed the arrow of that cruel and remorseless enemy on
which his thoughts so ran, and put into its grasp a double-handed
sword. Because he knew full well, in his own breast, as he stood
there, tinging the scene of transition before him with the morbid
colours of his own mind, and making it a ruin and a picture of decay,
instead of hopeful change, and promise of better things, that life had
quite as much to do with his complainings as death. One child was
gone, and one child left. Why was the object of his hope removed
instead of her?
The sweet, calm, gentle presence in his fancy, moved him to no
reflection but that. She had been unwelcome to him from the first; she
was an aggravation of his bitterness now. If his son had been his only
child, and the same blow had fallen on him, it would have been heavy
to bear; but infinitely lighter than now, when it might have fallen on
her (whom he could have lost, or he believed it, without a pang), and
had not. Her loving and innocent face rising before him, had no
softening or winning influence. He rejected the angel, and took up
with the tormenting spirit crouching in his bosom. Her patience,
goodness, youth, devotion, love, were as so many atoms in the ashes
upon which he set his heel. He saw her image in the blight and
blackness all around him, not irradiating but deepening the gloom.
More than once upon this journey, and now again as he stood pondering
at this journey's end, tracing figures in the dust with his stick, the
thought came into his mind, what was there he could interpose between
himself and it?
The Major, who had been blowing and panting all the way down, like
another engine, and whose eye had often wandered from his newspaper to
leer at the prospect, as if there were a procession of discomfited
Miss Toxes pouring out in the smoke of the train, and flying away over
the fields to hide themselves in any place of refuge, aroused his
friends by informing him that the post-horses were harnessed and the
carriage ready.
'Dombey,' said the Major, rapping him on the arm with his cane,
'don't be thoughtful. It's a bad habit, Old Joe, Sir, wouldn't be as
tough as you see him, if he had ever encouraged it. You are too great
a man, Dombey, to be thoughtful. In your position, Sir, you're far
above that kind of thing.'
The Major even in his friendly remonstrrnces, thus consulting the
dignity and honour of Mr Dombey, and showing a lively sense of their
importance, Mr Dombey felt more than ever disposed to defer to a
gentleman possessing so much good sense and such a well-regulated
mind; acoordingly he made an effort to listen to the Major's stories,
as they trotted along the turnpike road; and the Major, finding both
the pace and the road a great deal better adapted to his
conversational powers than the mode of travelling they had just
relinquished, came out of his entertainment,
But still the Major, blunt and tough as he was, and as he so very
often said he was, administered some palatable catering to his
companion's appetite. He related, or rather suffered it to escape him,
accidentally, and as one might say, grudgingly and against his will,
how there was great curiosity and excitement at the club, in regard of
his friend Dombey. How he was suffocated with questions, Sir. How old
Joe Bagstock was a greater man than ever, there, on the strength of
Dombey. How they said, 'Bagstock, your friend Dombey now, what is the
view he takes of such and such a question? Though, by the Rood, Sir,'
said the Major, with a broad stare, 'how they discovered that J. B.
ever came to know you, is a mystery!'
In this flow of spirits and conversation, only interrupted by his
usual plethoric symptoms, and by intervals of lunch, and from time to
time by some violent assault upon the Native, who wore a pair of
ear-rings in his dark-brown ears, and on whom his European clothes sat
with an outlandish impossibility of adjustment - being, of their own
accord, and without any reference to the tailor's art, long where they
ought to be short, short where they ought to be long, tight where they
ought to be loose, and loose where they ought to be tight - and to
which he imparted a new grace, whenever the Major attacked him, by
shrinking into them like a shrivelled nut, or a cold monkey - in this
flow of spirits and conversation, the Major continued all day: so that
when evening came on, and found them trotting through the green and
leafy road near Leamington, the Major's voice, what with talking and
eating and chuckling and choking, appeared to be in the box under the
rumble, or in some neighbouring hay-stack. Nor did the Major improve
it at the Royal Hotel, where rooms and dinner had been ordered, and
where he so oppressed his organs of speech by eating and drinking,
that when he retired to bed he had no voice at all, except to cough
with, and could only make himself intelligible to the dark servant by
gasping at him.
He not only rose next morning, however, like a giant refreshed, but
conducted himself, at breakfast like a giant refreshing. At this meal
they arranged their daily habits. The Major was to take the
responsibility of ordering evrything to eat and drink; and they were
to have a late breakfast together every morning, and a late dinner
together every day. Mr Dombey would prefer remaining in his own room,
or walking in the country by himself, on that first day of their
sojourn at Leamington; but next morning he would be happy to accompany
the Major to the Pump-room, and about the town. So they parted until
dinner-time. Mr Dombey retired to nurse his wholesome thoughts in his
own way. The Major, attended by the Native carrying a camp-stool, a
great-coat, and an umbrella, swaggered up and down through all the
public places: looking into subscription books to find out who was
there, looking up old ladies by whom he was much admired, reporting J.
B. tougher than ever, and puffing his rich friend Dombey wherever he
went. There never was a man who stood by a friend more staunchly than
the Major, when in puffing him, he puffed himself.
It was surprising how much new conversation the Major had to let
off at dinner-time, and what occasion he gave Mr Dombey to admire his
social qualities. At breakfast next morning, he knew the contents of
the latest newspapers received; and mentioned several subjects in
connexion with them, on which his opinion had recently been sought by
persons of such power and might, that they were only to be obscurely
hinted at. Mr Dombey, who had been so long shut up within himself, and
who had rarely, at any time, overstepped the enchanted circle within
which the operations of Dombey and Son were conducted, began to think
this an improvement on his solitary life; and in place of excusing
himself for another day, as he had thought of doing when alone, walked
out with the Major arm-in-arm.
CHAPTER 21.
New Faces
The MAJOR, more blue-faced and staring - more over-ripe, as it
were, than ever - and giving vent, every now and then, to one of the
horse's coughs, not so much of necessity as in a spontaneous explosion
of importance, walked arm-in-arm with Mr Dombey up the sunny side of
the way, with his cheeks swelling over his tight stock, his legs
majestically wide apart, and his great head wagging from side to side,
as if he were remonstrating within himself for being such a
captivating object. They had not walked many yards, before the Major
encountered somebody he knew, nor many yards farther before the Major
encountered somebody else he knew, but he merely shook his fingers at
them as he passed, and led Mr Dombey on: pointing out the localities
as they went, and enlivening the walk with any current scandal
suggested by them.
In this manner the Major and Mr Dombey were walking arm-in-arm,
much to their own satisfaction, when they beheld advancing towards
them, a wheeled chair, in which a lady was seated, indolently steering
her carriage by a kind of rudder in front, while it was propelled by
some unseen power in the rear. Although the lady was not young, she
was very blooming in the face - quite rosy- and her dress and attitude
were perfectly juvenile. Walking by the side of the chair, and
carrying her gossamer parasol with a proud and weary air, as if so
great an effort must be soon abandoned and the parasol dropped,
sauntered a much younger lady, very handsome, very haughty, very
wilful, who tossed her head and drooped her eyelids, as though, if
there were anything in all the world worth looking into, save a
mirror, it certainly was not the earth or sky.
'Why, what the devil have we here, Sir!' cried the Major, stopping
as this little cavalcade drew near.
'My dearest Edith!' drawled the lady in the chair, 'Major
Bagstock!'
The Major no sooner heard the voice, than he relinquished Mr
Dombey's arm, darted forward, took the hand of the lady in the chair
and pressed it to his lips. With no less gallantry, the Major folded
both his gloves upon his heart, and bowed low to the other lady. And
now, the chair having stopped, the motive power became visible in the
shape of a flushed page pushing behind, who seemed to have in part
outgrown and in part out-pushed his strength, for when he stood
upright he was tall, and wan, and thin, and his plight appeared the
more forlorn from his having injured the shape of his hat, by butting
at the carriage with his head to urge it forward, as is sometimes done
by elephants in Oriental countries.
'Joe Bagstock,' said the Major to both ladies, 'is a proud and
happy man for the rest of his life.'
'You false creature! said the old lady in the chair, insipidly.
'Where do you come from? I can't bear you.'
'Then suffer old Joe to present a friend, Ma'am,' said the Major,
promptly, 'as a reason for being tolerated. Mr Dombey, Mrs Skewton.'
The lady in the chair was gracious. 'Mr Dombey, Mrs Granger.' The lady
with the parasol was faintly conscious of Mr Dombey's taking off his
hat, and bowing low. 'I am delighted, Sir,' said the Major, 'to have
this opportunity.'
The Major seemed in earnest, for he looked at all the three, and
leered in his ugliest manner.
'Mrs Skewton, Dombey,' said the Major, 'makes havoc in the heart of
old Josh.'
Mr Dombey signified that he didn't wonder at it.
'You perfidious goblin,' said the lady in the chair, 'have done!
How long have you been here, bad man?'
'One day,' replied the Major.
'And can you be a day, or even a minute,' returned the lady,
slightly settling her false curls and false eyebrows with her fan, and
showing her false teeth, set off by her false complexion, 'in the
garden of what's-its-name
'Eden, I suppose, Mama,' interrupted the younger lady, scornfully.
'My dear Edith,' said the other, 'I cannot help it. I never can
remember those frightful names - without having your whole Soul and
Being inspired by the sight of Nature; by the perfume,' said Mrs
Skewton, rustling a handkerchief that was faint and sickly with
essences, 'of her artless breath, you creature!'
The discrepancy between Mrs Skewton's fresh enthusiasm of words,
and forlornly faded manner, was hardly less observable than that
between her age, which was about seventy, and her dress, which would
have been youthful for twenty-seven. Her attitude in the wheeled chair
(which she never varied) was one in which she had been taken in a
barouche, some fifty years before, by a then fashionable artist who
had appended to his published sketch the name of Cleopatra: in
consequence of a discovery made by the critics of the time, that it
bore an exact resemblance to that Princess as she reclined on board
her galley. Mrs Skewton was a beauty then, and bucks threw
wine-glasses over their heads by dozens in her honour. The beauty and
the barouche had both passed away, but she still preserved the
attitude, and for this reason expressly, maintained the wheeled chair
and the butting page: there being nothing whatever, except the
attitude, to prevent her from walking.
'Mr Dombey is devoted to Nature, I trust?' said Mrs Skewton,
settling her diamond brooch. And by the way, she chiefly lived upon
the reputation of some diamonds, and her family connexions.
'My friend Dombey, Ma'am,' returned the Major, 'may be devoted to
her in secret, but a man who is paramount in the greatest city in the
universe -
'No one can be a stranger,' said Mrs Skewton, 'to Mr Dombey's
immense influence.'
As Mr Dombey acknowledged the compliment with a bend of his head,
the younger lady glancing at him, met his eyes.
'You reside here, Madam?' said Mr Dombey, addressing her.
'No, we have been to a great many places. To Harrogate and
Scarborough, and into Devonshire. We have been visiting, and resting
here and there. Mama likes change.'
'Edith of course does not,' said Mrs Skewton, with a ghastly
archness.
'I have not found that there is any change in such places,' was the
answer, delivered with supreme indifference.
'They libel me. There is only one change, Mr Dombey,' observed Mrs
Skewton, with a mincing sigh, 'for which I really care, and that I
fear I shall never be permitted to enjoy. People cannot spare one. But
seclusion and contemplation are my what-his-name - '
'If you mean Paradise, Mama, you had better say so, to render
yourself intelligible,' said the younger lady.
'My dearest Edith,' returned Mrs Skewton, 'you know that I am
wholly dependent upon you for those odious names. I assure you, Mr
Dombey, Nature intended me for an Arcadian. I am thrown away in
society. Cows are my passion. What I have ever sighed for, has been to
retreat to a Swiss farm, and live entirely surrounded by cows - and
china.'
This curious association of objects, suggesting a remembrance of
the celebrated bull who got by mistake into a crockery shop, was
received with perfect gravity by Mr Dombey, who intimated his opinion
that Nature was, no doubt, a very respectable institution.
'What I want,' drawled Mrs Skewton, pinching her shrivelled throat,
'is heart.' It was frightfully true in one sense, if not in that in
which she used the phrase. 'What I want, is frankness, confidence,
less conventionality, and freer play of soul. We are so dreadfully
artificial.'
We were, indeed.
'In short,' said Mrs Skewton, 'I want Nature everywhere. It would
be so extremely charming.'
'Nature is inviting us away now, Mama, if you are ready,' said the
younger lady, curling her handsome lip. At this hint, the wan page,
who had been surveying the party over the top of the chair, vanished
behind it, as if the ground had swallowed him up.
'Stop a moment, Withers!' said Mrs Skewton, as the chair began to
move; calling to the page with all the languid dignity with which she
had called in days of yore to a coachman with a wig, cauliflower
nosegay, and silk stockings. 'Where are you staying, abomination?' The
Major was staying at the Royal Hotel, with his friend Dombey.
'You may come and see us any evening when you are good,' lisped Mrs
Skewton. 'If Mr Dombey will honour us, we shall be happy. Withers, go
on!'
The Major again pressed to his blue lips the tips of the fingers
that were disposed on the ledge of the wheeled chair with careful
carelessness, after the Cleopatra model: and Mr Dombey bowed. The
elder lady honoured them both with a very gracious smile and a girlish
wave of her hand; the younger lady with the very slightest inclination
of her head that common courtesy allowed.
The last glimpse of the wrinkled face of the mother, with that
patched colour on it which the sun made infinitely more haggard and
dismal than any want of colour could have been, and of the proud
beauty of the daughter with her graceful figure and erect deportment,
engendered such an involuntary disposition on the part of both the
Major and Mr Dombey to look after them, that they both turned at the
same moment. The Page, nearly as much aslant as his own shadow, was
toiling after the chair, uphill, like a slow battering-ram; the top of
Cleopatra's bonnet was fluttering in exactly the same corner to the
inch as before; and the Beauty, loitering by herself a little in
advance, expressed in all her elegant form, from head to foot, the
same supreme disregard of everything and everybody.
'I tell you what, Sir,' said the Major, as they resumed their walk
again. 'If Joe Bagstock were a younger man, there's not a woman in the
world whom he'd prefer for Mrs Bagstock to that woman. By George,
Sir!' said the Major, 'she's superb!'
'Do you mean the daughter?' inquired Mr Dombey.
'Is Joey B. a turnip, Dombey,' said the Major, 'that he should mean
the mother?'
'You were complimentary to the mother,' returned Mr Dombey.
'An ancient flame, Sir,' chuckled Major Bagstock. 'Devilish
ancient. I humour her.'
'She impresses me as being perfectly genteel,' said Mr Dombey.
'Genteel, Sir,' said the Major, stopping short, and staring in his
companion's face. 'The Honourable Mrs Skewton, Sir, is sister to the
late Lord Feenix, and aunt to the present Lord. The family are not
wealthy - they're poor, indeed - and she lives upon a small jointure;
but if you come to blood, Sir!' The Major gave a flourish with his
stick and walked on again, in despair of being able to say what you
came to, if you came to that.
'You addressed the daughter, I observed,' said Mr Dombey, after a
short pause, 'as Mrs Granger.'
'Edith Skewton, Sir,' returned the Major, stopping short again, and
punching a mark in the ground with his cane, to represent her,
'married (at eighteen) Granger of Ours;' whom the Major indicated by
another punch. 'Granger, Sir,' said the Major, tapping the last ideal
portrait, and rolling his head emphatically, 'was Colonel of Ours; a
de-vilish handsome fellow, Sir, of forty-one. He died, Sir, in the
second year of his marriage.' The Major ran the representative of the
deceased Granger through and through the body with his walking-stick,
and went on again, carrying his stick over his shoulder.
'How long is this ago?' asked Mr Dombey, making another halt.
'Edith Granger, Sir,' replied the Major, shutting one eye, putting
his head on one side, passing his cane into his left hand, and
smoothing his shirt-frill with his right, 'is, at this present time,
not quite thirty. And damme, Sir,' said the Major, shouldering his
stick once more, and walking on again, 'she's a peerless woman!'
'Was there any family?' asked Mr Dombey presently.
'Yes, Sir,' said the Major. 'There was a boy.'
Mr Dombey's eyes sought the ground, and a shade came over his face.
'Who was drowned, Sir,' pursued the Major. 'When a child of four or
five years old.'
'Indeed?' said Mr Dombey, raising his head.
'By the upsetting of a boat in which his nurse had no business to
have put him,' said the Major. 'That's his history. Edith Granger is
Edith Granger still; but if tough old Joey B., Sir, were a little
younger and a little richer, the name of that immortal paragon should
be Bagstock.'
The Major heaved his shoulders, and his cheeks, and laughed more
like an over-fed Mephistopheles than ever, as he said the words.
'Provided the lady made no objection, I suppose?' said Mr Dombey
coldly.
'By Gad, Sir,' said the Major, 'the Bagstock breed are not
accustomed to that sort of obstacle. Though it's true enough that
Edith might have married twenty times, but for being proud, Sir,
proud.'
Mr Dombey seemed, by his face, to think no worse of her for that.
'It's a great quality after all,' said the Major. 'By the Lord,
it's a high quality! Dombey! You are proud yourself, and your friend,
Old Joe, respects you for it, Sir.'
With this tribute to the character of his ally, which seemed to be
wrung from him by the force of circumstances and the irresistible
tendency of their conversation, the Major closed the subject, and
glided into a general exposition of the extent to which he had been
beloved and doted on by splendid women and brilliant creatures.
On the next day but one, Mr Dombey and the Major encountered the
Honourable Mrs Skewton and her daughter in the Pump-room; on the day
after, they met them again very near the place where they had met them
first. After meeting them thus, three or four times in all, it became
a point of mere civility to old acquaintances that the Major should go
there one evening. Mr Dombey had not originally intended to pay
visits, but on the Major announcing this intention, he said he would
have the pleasure of accompanying him. So the Major told the Native to
go round before dinner, and say, with his and Mr Dombey's compliments,
that they would have the honour of visiting the ladies that same
evening, if the ladies were alone. In answer to which message, the
Native brought back a very small note with a very large quantity of
scent about it, indited by the Honourable Mrs Skewton to Major
Bagstock, and briefly saying, 'You are a shocking bear and I have a
great mind not to forgive you, but if you are very good indeed,' which
was underlined, 'you may come. Compliments (in which Edith unites) to
Mr Dombey.'
The Honourable Mrs Skewton and her daughter, Mrs Granger, resided,
while at Leamington, in lodgings that were fashionable enough and dear
enough, but rather limited in point of space and conveniences; so that
the Honourable Mrs Skewton, being in bed, had her feet in the window
and her head in the fireplace, while the Honourable Mrs Skewton's maid
was quartered in a closet within the drawing-room, so extremely small,
that, to avoid developing the whole of its accommodations, she was
obliged to writhe in and out of the door like a beautiful serpent.
Withers, the wan page, slept out of the house immediately under the
tiles at a neighbouring milk-shop; and the wheeled chair, which was
the stone of that young Sisyphus, passed the night in a shed belonging
to the same dairy, where new-laid eggs were produced by the poultry
connected with the establishment, who roosted on a broken donkey-cart,
persuaded, to all appearance, that it grew there, and was a species of
tree.
Mr Dombey and the Major found Mrs Skewton arranged, as Cleopatra,
among the cushions of a sofa: very airily dressed; and certainly not
resembling Shakespeare's Cleopatra, whom age could not wither. On
their way upstairs they had heard the sound of a harp, but it had
ceased on their being announced, and Edith now stood beside it
handsomer and haughtier than ever. It was a remarkable characteristic
of this lady's beauty that it appeared to vaunt and assert itself
without her aid, and against her will. She knew that she was
beautiful: it was impossible that it could be otherwise: but she
seemed with her own pride to defy her very self.
Whether she held cheap attractions that could only call forth
admiration that was worthless to her, or whether she designed to
render them more precious to admirers by this usage of them, those to
whom they were precious seldom paused to consider.
'I hope, Mrs Granger,' said Mr Dombey, advancing a step towards
her, 'we are not the cause of your ceasing to play?'
'You! oh no!'
'Why do you not go on then, my dearest Edith?' said Cleopatra.
'I left off as I began - of my own fancy.'
The exquisite indifference of her manner in saying this: an
indifference quite removed from dulness or insensibility, for it was
pointed with proud purpose: was well set off by the carelessness with
which she drew her hand across the strings, and came from that part of
the room.
'Do you know, Mr Dombey,' said her languishing mother, playing with
a hand-screen, 'that occasionally my dearest Edith and myself actually
almost differ - '
'Not quite, sometimes, Mama?' said Edith.
'Oh never quite, my darling! Fie, fie, it would break my heart,'
returned her mother, making a faint attempt to pat her with the
screen, which Edith made no movement to meet, ' - about these old
conventionalities of manner that are observed in little things? Why
are we not more natural? Dear me! With all those yearnings, and
gushings, and impulsive throbbings that we have implanted in our
souls, and which are so very charming, why are we not more natural?'
Mr Dombey said it was very true, very true.
'We could be more natural I suppose if we tried?' said Mrs Skewton.
Mr Dombey thought it possible.
'Devil a bit, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'We couldn't afford it.
Unless the world was peopled with J.B.'s - tough and blunt old Joes,
Ma'am, plain red herrings with hard roes, Sir - we couldn't afford it.
It wouldn't do.'
'You naughty Infidel,' said Mrs Skewton, 'be mute.'
'Cleopatra commands,' returned the Major, kissing his hand, 'and
Antony Bagstock obeys.'
'The man has no sensitiveness,' said Mrs Skewton, cruelly holding
up the hand-screen so as to shut the Major out. 'No sympathy. And what
do we live for but sympathy! What else is so extremely charming!
Without that gleam of sunshine on our cold cold earth,' said Mrs
Skewton, arranging her lace tucker, and complacently observing the
effect of her bare lean arm, looking upward from the wrist, 'how could
we possibly bear it? In short, obdurate man!' glancing at the Major,
round the screen, 'I would have my world all heart; and Faith is so
excessively charming, that I won't allow you to disturb it, do you
hear?'
The Major replied that it was hard in Cleopatra to require the
world to be all heart, and yet to appropriate to herself the hearts of
all the world; which obliged Cleopatra to remind him that flattery was
insupportable to her, and that if he had the boldness to address her
in that strain any more, she would positively send him home.
Withers the Wan, at this period, handing round the tea, Mr Dombey
again addressed himself to Edith.
'There is not much company here, it would seem?' said Mr Dombey, in
his own portentous gentlemanly way.
'I believe not. We see none.'
'Why really,' observed Mrs Skewton fom her couch, 'there are no
people here just now with whom we care to associate.'
'They have not enough heart,' said Edith, with a smile. The very
twilight of a smile: so singularly were its light and darkness
blended.
'My dearest Edith rallies me, you see!' said her mother, shaking
her head: which shook a little of itself sometimes, as if the palsy
Bed now and then in opposition to the diamonds. 'Wicked one!'
'You have been here before, if I am not mistaken?' said Mr Dombey.
Still to Edith.
'Oh, several times. I think we have been everywhere.'
'A beautiful country!'
'I suppose it is. Everybody says so.'
'Your cousin Feenix raves about it, Edith,' interposed her mother
from her couch.
The daughter slightly turned her graceful head, and raising her
eyebrows by a hair's-breadth, as if her cousin Feenix were of all the
mortal world the least to be regarded, turned her eyes again towards
Mr Dombey.
'I hope, for the credit of my good taste, that I am tired of the
neighbourhood,' she said.
'You have almost reason to be, Madam,' he replied, glancing at a
variety of landscape drawings, of which he had already recognised
several as representing neighbouring points of view, and which were
strewn abundantly about the room, 'if these beautiful productions are
from your hand.'
She gave him no reply, but sat in a disdainful beauty, quite
amazing.
'Have they that interest?' said Mr Dombey. 'Are they yours?'
'Yes.'
'And you play, I already know.'
'Yes.'
'And sing?'
'Yes.'
She answered all these questions with a strange reluctance; and
with that remarkable air of opposition to herself, already noticed as
belonging to her beauty. Yet she was not embarrassed, but wholly
self-possessed. Neither did she seem to wish to avoid the
conversation, for she addressed her face, and - so far as she could -
her manner also, to him; and continued to do so, when he was silent.
'You have many resources against weariness at least,' said Mr
Dombey.
'Whatever their efficiency may be,' she returned, 'you know them
all now. I have no more.
'May I hope to prove them all?' said Mr Dombey, with solemn
gallantry, laying down a drawing he had held, and motioning towards
the harp.
'Oh certainly] If you desire it!'
She rose as she spoke, and crossing by her mother's couch, and
directing a stately look towards her, which was instantaneous in its
duration, but inclusive (if anyone had seen it) of a multitude of
expressions, among which that of the twilight smile, without the smile
itself, overshadowed all the rest, went out of the room.
The Major, who was quite forgiven by this time, had wheeled a
little table up to Cleopatra, and was sitting down to play picquet
with her. Mr Dombey, not knowing the game, sat down to watch them for
his edification until Edith should return.
'We are going to have some music, Mr Dombey, I hope?' said
Cleopatra.
'Mrs Granger has been kind enough to promise so,' said Mr Dombey.
'Ah! That's very nice. Do you propose, Major?'
'No, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'Couldn't do it.'
'You're a barbarous being,' replied the lady, 'and my hand's
destroyed. You are fond of music, Mr Dombey?'
'Eminently so,' was Mr Dombey's answer.
'Yes. It's very nice,' said Cleopatra, looking at her cards. 'So
much heart in it - undeveloped recollections of a previous state of
existence' - and all that - which is so truly charming. Do you know,'
simpered Cleopatra, reversing the knave of clubs, who had come into
her game with his heels uppermost, 'that if anything could tempt me to
put a period to my life, it would be curiosity to find out what it's
all about, and what it means; there are so many provoking mysteries,
really, that are hidden from us. Major, you to play.'
The Major played; and Mr Dombey, looking on for his instruction,
would soon have been in a state of dire confusion, but that he gave no
attention to the game whatever, and sat wondering instead when Edith
would come back.
She came at last, and sat down to her harp, and Mr Dombey rose and
stood beside her, listening. He had little taste for music, and no
knowledge of the strain she played, but he saw her bending over it,
and perhaps he heard among the sounding strings some distant music of
his own, that tamed the monster of the iron road, and made it less
inexorable.
Cleopatra had a sharp eye, verily, at picquet. It glistened like a
bird's, and did not fix itself upon the game, but pierced the room
from end to end, and gleamed on harp, performer, listener, everything.
When the haughty beauty had concluded, she arose, and receiving Mr
Dombey's thanks and compliments in exactly the same manner as before,
went with scarcely any pause to the piano, and began there.
Edith Granger, any song but that! Edith Granger, you are very
handsome, and your touch upon the keys is brilliant, and your voice is
deep and rich; but not the air that his neglected daughter sang to his
dead son]
Alas, he knows it not; and if he did, what air of hers would stir
him, rigid man! Sleep, lonely Florence, sleep! Peace in thy dreams,
although the night has turned dark, and the clouds are gathering, and
threaten to discharge themselves in hail!
CHAPTER 22.
A Trifle of Management by Mr Carker the Manager
Mr Carker the Manager sat at his desk, smooth and soft as usual,
reading those letters which were reserved for him to open, backing
them occasionally with such memoranda and references as their business
purport required, and parcelling them out into little heaps for
distribution through the several departments of the House. The post
had come in heavy that morning, and Mr Carker the Manager had a good
deal to do.
The general action of a man so engaged - pausing to look over a
bundle of papers in his hand, dealing them round in various portions,
taking up another bundle and examining its contents with knitted brows
and pursed-out lips - dealing, and sorting, and pondering by turns -
would easily suggest some whimsical resemblance to a player at cards.
The face of Mr Carker the Manager was in good keeping with such a
fancy. It was the face of a man who studied his play, warily: who made
himself master of all the strong and weak points of the game: who
registered the cards in his mind as they fell about him, knew exactly
what was on them, what they missed, and what they made: who was crafty
to find out what the other players held, and who never betrayed his
own hand.
The letters were in various languages, but Mr Carker the Manager
read them all. If there had been anything in the offices of Dombey and
Son that he could read, there would have been a card wanting in the
pack. He read almost at a glance, and made combinations of one letter
with another and one business with another as he went on, adding new
matter to the heaps - much as a man would know the cards at sight, and
work out their combinations in his mind after they were turned.
Something too deep for a partner, and much too deep for an adversary,
Mr Carker the Manager sat in the rays of the sun that came down
slanting on him through the skylight, playing his game alone.
And although it is not among the instincts wild or domestic of the
cat tribe to play at cards, feline from sole to crown was Mr Carker
the Manager, as he basked in the strip of summer-light and warmth that
shone upon his table and the ground as if they were a crooked
dial-plate, and himself the only figure on it. With hair and whiskers
deficient in colour at all times, but feebler than common in the rich
sunshine, and more like the coat of a sandy tortoise-shell cat; with
long nails, nicely pared and sharpened; with a natural antipathy to
any speck of dirt, which made him pause sometimes and watch the
falling motes of dust, and rub them off his smooth white hand or
glossy linen: Mr Carker the Manager, sly of manner, sharp of tooth,
soft of foot, watchful of eye, oily of tongue, cruel of heart, nice of
habit, sat with a dainty steadfastness and patience at his work, as if
he were waiting at a mouse's hole.
At length the letters were disposed of, excepting one which he
reserved for a particular audience. Having locked the more
confidential correspondence in a drawer, Mr Carker the Manager rang
his bell.
'Why do you answer it?' was his reception of his brother.
'The messenger is out, and I am the next,' was the submissive
reply.
'You are the next?' muttered the Manager. 'Yes! Creditable to me!
There!'
Pointing to the heaps of opened letters, he turned disdainfully
away, in his elbow-chair, and broke the seal of that one which he held
in his hand.
'I am sorry to trouble you, James,' said the brother, gathering
them up, 'but - '
'Oh! you have something to say. I knew that. Well?'
Mr Carker the Manager did not raise his eyes or turn them on his
brother, but kept them on his letter, though without opening it.
'Well?' he repeated sharply.
'I am uneasy about Harriet.'
'Harriet who? what Harriet? I know nobody of that name.'
'She is not well, and has changed very much of late.'
'She changed very much, a great many years ago,' replied the
Manager; 'and that is all I have to say.
'I think if you would hear me -
'Why should I hear you, Brother John?' returned the Manager, laying
a sarcastic emphasis on those two words, and throwing up his head, but
not lifting his eyes. 'I tell you, Harriet Carker made her choice many
years ago between her two brothers. She may repent it, but she must
abide by it.'
'Don't mistake me. I do not say she does repent it. It would be
black ingratitude in me to hint at such a thing,' returned the other.
'Though believe me, James, I am as sorry for her sacrifice as you.'
'As I?' exclaimed the Manager. 'As I?'
'As sorry for her choice - for what you call her choice - as you
are angry at it,' said the Junior.
'Angry?' repeated the other, with a wide show of his teeth.
'Displeased. Whatever word you like best. You know my meaning.
There is no offence in my intention.'
'There is offence in everything you do,' replied his brother,
glancing at him with a sudden scowl, which in a moment gave place to a
wider smile than the last. 'Carry those papers away, if you please. I
am busy.
His politeness was so much more cutting than his wrath, that the
Junior went to the door. But stopping at it, and looking round, he
said:
'When Harriet tried in vain to plead for me with you, on your first
just indignation, and my first disgrace; and when she left you, James,
to follow my broken fortunes, and devote herself, in her mistaken
affection, to a ruined brother, because without her he had no one, and
was lost; she was young and pretty. I think if you could see her now -
if you would go and see her - she would move your admiration and
compassion.'
The Manager inclined his head, and showed his teeth, as who should
say, in answer to some careless small-talk, 'Dear me! Is that the
case?' but said never a word.
'We thought in those days: you and I both: that she would marry
young, and lead a happy and light-hearted life,' pursued the other.
'Oh if you knew how cheerfully she cast those hopes away; how
cheerfully she has gone forward on the path she took, and never once
looked back; you never could say again that her name was strange in
your ears. Never!'
Again the Manager inclined his head and showed his teeth, and
seemed to say, 'Remarkable indeed! You quite surprise me!' And again
he uttered never a word.
'May I go on?' said John Carker, mildly.
'On your way?' replied his smiling brother. 'If you will have the
goodness.
John Carker, with a sigh, was passing slowly out at the door, when
his brother's voice detained him for a moment on the threshold.
'If she has gone, and goes, her own way cheerfully,' he said,
throwing the still unfolded letter on his desk, and putting his hands
firmly in his pockets, 'you may tell her that I go as cheerfully on
mine. If she has never once looked back, you may tell her that I have,
sometimes, to recall her taking part with you, and that my resolution
is no easier to wear away;' he smiled very sweetly here; 'than
marble.'
'I tell her nothing of you. We never speak about you. Once a year,
on your birthday, Harriet says always, "Let us remember James by name,
and wish him happy," but we say no more'
'Tell it then, if you please,' returned the other, 'to yourself.
You can't repeat it too often, as a lesson to you to avoid the subject
in speaking to me. I know no Harriet Carker. There is no such person.
You may have a sister; make much of her. I have none.'
Mr Carker the Manager took up the letter again, and waved it with a
smile of mock courtesy towards the door. Unfolding it as his brother
withdrew, and looking darkly aiter him as he left the room, he once
more turned round in his elbow-chair, and applied himself to a
diligent perusal of its contents.
It was in the writing of his great chief, Mr Dombey, and dated from
Leamington. Though he was a quick reader of all other letters, Mr
Carker read this slowly; weighing the words as he went, and bringing
every tooth in his head to bear upon them. When he had read it through
once, he turned it over again, and picked out these passages. 'I find
myself benefited by the change, and am not yet inclined to name any
time for my return.' 'I wish, Carker, you would arrange to come down
once and see me here, and let me know how things are going on, in
person.' 'I omitted to speak to you about young Gay. If not gone per
Son and Heir, or if Son and Heir still lying in the Docks, appoint
some other young man and keep him in the City for the present. I am
not decided.' 'Now that's unfortunate!' said Mr Carker the Manager,
expanding his mouth, as if it were made of India-rubber: 'for he's far
away.'
Still that passage, which was in a postscript, attracted his
attention and his teeth, once more.
'I think,' he said, 'my good friend Captain Cuttle mentioned
something about being towed along in the wake of that day. What a pity
he's so far away!'
He refolded the letter, and was sitting trifling with it, standing
it long-wise and broad-wise on his table, and turning it over and over
on all sides - doing pretty much the same thing, perhaps, by its
contents - when Mr Perch the messenger knocked softly at the door, and
coming in on tiptoe, bending his body at every step as if it were the
delight of his life to bow, laid some papers on the table.
'Would you please to be engaged, Sir?' asked Mr Perch, rubbing his
hands, and deferentially putting his head on one side, like a man who
felt he had no business to hold it up in such a presence, and would
keep it as much out of the way as possible.
'Who wants me?'
'Why, Sir,' said Mr Perch, in a soft voice, 'really nobody, Sir, to
speak of at present. Mr Gills the Ship's Instrument-maker, Sir, has
looked in, about a little matter of payment, he says: but I mentioned
to him, Sir, that you was engaged several deep; several deep.'
Mr Perch coughed once behind his hand, and waited for further
orders.
'Anybody else?'
'Well, Sir,' said Mr Perch, 'I wouldn't of my own self take the
liberty of mentioning, Sir, that there was anybody else; but that same
young lad that was here yesterday, Sir, and last week, has been
hanging about the place; and it looks, Sir,' added Mr Perch, stopping
to shut the door, 'dreadful unbusiness-like to see him whistling to
the sparrows down the court, and making of 'em answer him.'
'You said he wanted something to do, didn't you, Perch?' asked Mr
Carker, leaning back in his chair and looking at that officer.
'Why, Sir,' said Mr Perch, coughing behind his hand again, 'his
expression certainly were that he was in wants of a sitiwation, and
that he considered something might be done for him about the Docks,
being used to fishing with a rod and line: but - ' Mr Perch shook his
head very dubiously indeed.
'What does he say when he comes?' asked Mr Carker.
'Indeed, Sir,' said Mr Perch, coughing another cough behind his
hand, which was always his resource as an expression of humility when
nothing else occurred to him, 'his observation generally air that he
would humbly wish to see one of the gentlemen, and that he wants to
earn a living. But you see, Sir,' added Perch, dropping his voice to a
whisper, and turning, in the inviolable nature of his confidence, to
give the door a thrust with his hand and knee, as if that would shut
it any more when it was shut already, 'it's hardly to be bore, Sir,
that a common lad like that should come a prowling here, and saying
that his mother nursed our House's young gentleman, and that he hopes
our House will give him a chance on that account. I am sure, Sir,'
observed Mr Perch, 'that although Mrs Perch was at that time nursing
as thriving a little girl, Sir, as we've ever took the liberty of
adding to our family, I wouldn't have made so free as drop a hint of
her being capable of imparting nourishment, not if it was never so!'
Mr Carker grinned at him like a shark, but in an absent, thoughtful
manner.
'Whether,' submitted Mr Perch, after a short silence, and another
cough, 'it mightn't be best for me to tell him, that if he was seen
here any more he would be given into custody; and to keep to it! With
respect to bodily fear,' said Mr Perch, 'I'm so timid, myself, by
nature, Sir, and my nerves is so unstrung by Mrs Perch's state, that I
could take my affidavit easy.'
'Let me see this fellow, Perch,' said Mr Carker. 'Bring him in!'
'Yes, Sir. Begging your pardon, Sir,' said Mr Perch, hesitating at
the door, 'he's rough, Sir, in appearance.'
'Never mind. If he's there, bring him in. I'll see Mr Gills
directly. Ask him to wait.'
Mr Perch bowed; and shutting the door, as precisely and carefully
as if he were not coming back for a week, went on his quest among the
sparrows in the court. While he was gone, Mr Carker assumed his
favourite attitude before the fire-place, and stood looking at the
door; presenting, with his under lip tucked into the smile that showed
his whole row of upper teeth, a singularly crouching apace.
The messenger was not long in returning, followed by a pair of
heavy boots that came bumping along the passage like boxes. With the
unceremonious words 'Come along with you!' - a very unusual form of
introduction from his lips - Mr Perch then ushered into the presence a
strong-built lad of fifteen, with a round red face, a round sleek
head, round black eyes, round limbs, and round body, who, to carry out
the general rotundity of his appearance, had a round hat in his hand,
without a particle of brim to it.
Obedient to a nod from Mr Carker, Perch had no sooner confronted
the visitor with that gentleman than he withdrew. The moment they were
face to face alone, Mr Carker, without a word of preparation, took him
by the throat, and shook him until his head seemed loose upon his
shoulders.
The boy, who in the midst of his astonishment could not help
staring wildly at the gentleman with so many white teeth who was
choking him, and at the office walls, as though determined, if he were
choked, that his last look should be at the mysteries for his
intrusion into which he was paying such a severe penalty, at last
contrived to utter -
'Come, Sir! You let me alone, will you!'
'Let you alone!' said Mr Carker. 'What! I have got you, have I?'
There was no doubt of that, and tightly too. 'You dog,' said Mr
Carker, through his set jaws, 'I'll strangle you!'
Biler whimpered, would he though? oh no he wouldn't - and what was
he doing of - and why didn't he strangle some- body of his own size
and not him: but Biler was quelled by the extraordinary nature of his
reception, and, as his head became stationary, and he looked the
gentleman in the face, or rather in the teeth, and saw him snarling at
him, he so far forgot his manhood as to cry.
'I haven't done nothing to you, Sir,' said Biler, otherwise Rob,
otherwise Grinder, and always Toodle.
'You young scoundrel!' replied Mr Carker, slowly releasing him, and
moving back a step into his favourite position. 'What do you mean by
daring to come here?'
'I didn't mean no harm, Sir,' whimpered Rob, putting one hand to
his throat, and the knuckles of the other to his eyes. 'I'll never
come again, Sir. I only wanted work.'
'Work, young Cain that you are!' repeated Mr Carker, eyeing him
narrowly. 'Ain't you the idlest vagabond in London?'
The impeachment, while it much affected Mr Toodle Junior, attached
to his character so justly, that he could not say a word in denial. He
stood looking at the gentleman, therefore, with a frightened,
self-convicted, and remorseful air. As to his looking at him, it may
be observed that he was fascinated by Mr Carker, and never took his
round eyes off him for an instant.
'Ain't you a thief?' said Mr Carker, with his hands behind him in
his pockets.
'No, sir,' pleaded Rob.
'You are!' said Mr Carker.
'I ain't indeed, Sir,' whimpered Rob. 'I never did such a thing as
thieve, Sir, if you'll believe me. I know I've been a going wrong,
Sir, ever since I took to bird-catching' and walking-matching. I'm
sure a cove might think,' said Mr Toodle Junior, with a burst of
penitence, 'that singing birds was innocent company, but nobody knows
what harm is in them little creeturs and what they brings you down
to.'
They seemed to have brought him down to a velveteen jacket and
trousers very much the worse for wear, a particularly small red
waistcoat like a gorget, an interval of blue check, and the hat before
mentioned.
'I ain't been home twenty times since them birds got their will of
me,' said Rob, 'and that's ten months. How can I go home when
everybody's miserable to see me! I wonder,' said Biler, blubbering
outright, and smearing his eyes with his coat-cuff, 'that I haven't
been and drownded myself over and over again.'
All of which, including his expression of surprise at not having
achieved this last scarce performance, the boy said, just as if the
teeth of Mr Carker drew it out ofhim, and he had no power of
concealing anything with that battery of attraction in full play.
'You're a nice young gentleman!' said Mr Carker, shaking his head
at him. 'There's hemp-seed sown for you, my fine fellow!'
'I'm sure, Sir,' returned the wretched Biler, blubbering again, and
again having recourse to his coat-cuff: 'I shouldn't care, sometimes,
if it was growed too. My misfortunes all began in wagging, Sir; but
what could I do, exceptin' wag?'
'Excepting what?' said Mr Carker.
'Wag, Sir. Wagging from school.'
'Do you mean pretending to go there, and not going?' said Mr
Carker.
'Yes, Sir, that's wagging, Sir,' returned the quondam Grinder, much
affected. 'I was chivied through the streets, Sir, when I went there,
and pounded when I got there. So I wagged, and hid myself, and that
began it.'
'And you mean to tell me,' said Mr Carker, taking him by the throat
again, holding him out at arm's-length, and surveying him in silence
for some moments, 'that you want a place, do you?'
'I should be thankful to be tried, Sir,' returned Toodle Junior,
faintly.
Mr Carker the Manager pushed him backward into a corner - the boy
submitting quietly, hardly venturing to breathe, and never once
removing his eyes from his face - and rang the bell.
'Tell Mr Gills to come here.'
Mr Perch was too deferential to express surprise or recognition of
the figure in the corner: and Uncle Sol appeared immediately.
'Mr Gills!' said Carker, with a smile, 'sit down. How do you do?
You continue to enjoy your health, I hope?'
'Thank you, Sir,' returned Uncle Sol, taking out his pocket-book,
and handing over some notes as he spoke. 'Nothing ails me in body but
old age. Twenty-five, Sir.'
'You are as punctual and exact, Mr Gills,' replied the smiling
Manager, taking a paper from one of his many drawers, and making an
endorsement on it, while Uncle Sol looked over him, 'as one of your
own chronometers. Quite right.'
'The Son and Heir has not been spoken, I find by the list, Sir,'
said Uncle Sol, with a slight addition to the usual tremor in his
voice.
'The Son and Heir has not been spoken,' returned Carker. 'There
seems to have been tempestuous weather, Mr Gills, and she has probably
been driven out of her course.'
'She is safe, I trust in Heaven!' said old Sol.
'She is safe, I trust in Heaven!' assented Mr Carker in that
voiceless manner of his: which made the observant young Toodle
trernble again. 'Mr Gills,' he added aloud, throwing himself back in
his chair, 'you must miss your nephew very much?'
Uncle Sol, standing by him, shook his head and heaved a deep sigh.
'Mr Gills,' said Carker, with his soft hand playing round his
mouth, and looking up into the Instrument-maker's face, 'it would be
company to you to have a young fellow in your shop just now, and it
would be obliging me if you would give one house-room for the present.
No, to be sure,' he added quickly, in anticipation of what the old man
was going to say, 'there's not much business doing there, I know; but
you can make him clean the place out, polish up the instruments;
drudge, Mr Gills. That's the lad!'
Sol Gills pulled down his spectacles from his forehead to his eyes,
and looked at Toodle Junior standing upright in the corner: his head
presenting the appearance (which it always did) of having been newly
drawn out of a bucket of cold water; his small waistcoat rising and
falling quickly in the play of his emotions; and his eyes intently
fixed on Mr Carker, without the least reference to his proposed
master.
'Will you give him house-room, Mr Gills?' said the Manager.
Old Sol, without being quite enthusiastic on the subject, replied
that he was glad of any opportunity, however slight, to oblige Mr
Carker, whose wish on such a point was a command: and that the wooden
Midshipman would consider himself happy to receive in his berth any
visitor of Mr Carker's selecting.
Mr Carker bared himself to the tops and bottoms of his gums: making
the watchful Toodle Junior tremble more and more: and acknowledged the
Instrument-maker's politeness in his most affable manner.
'I'll dispose of him so, then, Mr Gills,' he answered, rising, and
shaking the old man by the hand, 'until I make up my mind what to do
with him, and what he deserves. As I consider myself responsible for
him, Mr Gills,' here he smiled a wide smile at Rob, who shook before
it: 'I shall be glad if you'll look sharply after him, and report his
behaviour to me. I'll ask a question or two of his parents as I ride
home this afternoon - respectable people - to confirm some particulars
in his own account of himself; and that done, Mr Gills, I'll send him
round to you to-morrow morning. Goodbye!'
His smile at parting was so full of teeth, that it confused old
Sol, and made him vaguely uncomfortable. He went home, thinking of
raging seas, foundering ships, drowning men, an ancient bottle of
Madeira never brought to light, and other dismal matters.
'Now, boy!' said Mr Carker, putting his hand on young Toodle's
shoulder, and bringing him out into the middle of the room. 'You have
heard me?'
Rob said, 'Yes, Sir.'
'Perhaps you understand,' pursued his patron, 'that if you ever
deceive or play tricks with me, you had better have drowned yourself,
indeed, once for all, before you came here?'
There was nothing in any branch of mental acquisition that Rob
seemed to understand better than that.
'If you have lied to me,' said Mr Carker, 'in anything, never come
in my way again. If not, you may let me find you waiting for me
somewhere near your mother's house this afternoon. I shall leave this
at five o'clock, and ride there on horseback. Now, give me the
address.'
Rob repeated it slowly, as Mr Carker wrote it down. Rob even spelt
it over a second time, letter by letter, as if he thought that the
omission of a dot or scratch would lead to his destruction. Mr Carker
then handed him out of the room; and Rob, keeping his round eyes fixed
upon his patron to the last, vanished for the time being.
Mr Carker the Manager did a great deal of business in the course of
the day, and stowed his teeth upon a great many people. In the office,
in the court, in the street, and on 'Change, they glistened and
bristled to a terrible extent. Five o'clock arriving, and with it Mr
Carker's bay horse, they got on horseback, and went gleaming up
Cheapside.
As no one can easily ride fast, even if inclined to do so, through
the press and throng of the City at that hour, and as Mr Carker was
not inclined, he went leisurely along, picking his way among the carts
and carriages, avoiding whenever he could the wetter and more dirty
places in the over-watered road, and taking infinite pains to keep
himself and his steed clean. Glancing at the passersby while he was
thus ambling on his way, he suddenly encountered the round eyes of the
sleek-headed Rob intently fixed upon his face as if they had never
been taken off, while the boy himself, with a pocket-handkerchief
twisted up like a speckled eel and girded round his waist, made a very
conspicuous demonstration of being prepared to attend upon him, at
whatever pace he might think proper to go.
This attention, however flattering, being one of an unusual kind,
and attracting some notice from the other passengers, Mr Carker took
advantage of a clearer thoroughfare and a cleaner road, and broke into
a trot. Rob immediately did the same. Mr Carker presently tried a
canter; Rob Was still in attendance. Then a short gallop; it Was all
one to the boy. Whenever Mr Carker turned his eyes to that side of the
road, he still saw Toodle Junior holding his course, apparently
without distress, and working himself along by the elbows after the
most approved manner of professional gentlemen who get over the ground
for wagers.
Ridiculous as this attendance was, it was a sign of an influence
established over the boy, and therefore Mr Carker, affecting not to
notice it, rode away into the neighbourhood of Mr Toodle's house. On
his slackening his pace here, Rob appeared before him to point out the
turnings; and when he called to a man at a neighbouring gateway to
hold his horse, pending his visit to the buildings that had succeeded
Staggs's Gardens, Rob dutifully held the stirrup, while the Manager
dismounted.
'Now, Sir,' said Mr Carker, taking him by the shoulder, 'come
along!'
The prodigal son was evidently nervous of visiting the parental
abode; but Mr Carker pushing him on before, he had nothing for it but
to open the right door, and suffer himself to be walked into the midst
of his brothers and sisters, mustered in overwhelming force round the
family tea-table. At sight of the prodigal in the grasp of a stranger,
these tender relations united in a general howl, which smote upon the
prodigal's breast so sharply when he saw his mother stand up among
them, pale and trembling, with the baby in her arms, that he lent his
own voice to the chorus.
Nothing doubting now that the stranger, if not Mr Ketch' in person,
was one of that company, the whole of the young family wailed the
louder, while its more infantine members, unable to control the
transports of emotion appertaining to their time of life, threw
themselves on their backs like young birds when terrified by a hawk,
and kicked violently. At length, poor Polly making herself audible,
said, with quivering lips, 'Oh Rob, my poor boy, what have you done at
last!'
'Nothing, mother,' cried Rob, in a piteous voice, 'ask the
gentleman!'
'Don't be alarmed,' said Mr Carker, 'I want to do him good.'
At this announcement, Polly, who had not cried yet, began to do so.
The elder Toodles, who appeared to have been meditating a rescue,
unclenched their fists. The younger Toodles clustered round their
mother's gown, and peeped from under their own chubby arms at their
desperado brother and his unknown friend. Everybody blessed the
gentleman with the beautiful teeth, who wanted to do good.
'This fellow,' said Mr Carker to Polly, giving him a gentle shake,
'is your son, eh, Ma'am?'
'Yes, Sir,' sobbed Polly, with a curtsey; 'yes, Sir.'
'A bad son, I am afraid?' said Mr Carker.
'Never a bad son to me, Sir,' returned Polly.
'To whom then?' demanded Mr Carker.
'He has been a little wild, Sir,' returned Polly, checking the
baby, who was making convulsive efforts with his arms and legs to
launch himself on Biler, through the ambient air, 'and has gone with
wrong companions: but I hope he has seen the misery of that, Sir, and
will do well again.'
Mr Carker looked at Polly, and the clean room, and the clean
children, and the simple Toodle face, combined of father and mother,
that was reflected and repeated everywhere about him - and seemed to
have achieved the real purpose of his visit.
'Your husband, I take it, is not at home?' he said.
'No, Sir,' replied Polly. 'He's down the line at present.'
The prodigal Rob seemed very much relieved to hear it: though still
in the absorption of all his faculties in his patron, he hardly took
his eyes from Mr Carker's face, unless for a moment at a time to steal
a sorrowful glance at his mother.
'Then,' said Mr Carker, 'I'll tell you how I have stumbled on this
boy of yours, and who I am, and what I am going to do for him.'
This Mr Carker did, in his own way; saying that he at first
intended to have accumulated nameless terrors on his presumptuous
head, for coming to the whereabout of Dombey and Son. That he had
relented, in consideration of his youth, his professed contrition, and
his friends. That he was afraid he took a rash step in doing anything
for the boy, and one that might expose him to the censure of the
prudent; but that he did it of himself and for himself, and risked the
consequences single-handed; and that his mother's past connexion with
Mr Dombey's family had nothing to do with it, and that Mr Dombey had
nothing to do with it, but that he, Mr Carker, was the be-all and the
end-all of this business. Taking great credit to himself for his
goodness, and receiving no less from all the family then present, Mr
Carker signified, indirectly but still pretty plainly, that Rob's
implicit fidelity, attachment, and devotion, were for evermore his
due, and the least homage he could receive. And with this great truth
Rob himself was so impressed, that, standing gazing on his patron with
tears rolling down his cheeks, he nodded his shiny head until it
seemed almost as loose as it had done under the same patron's hands
that morning.
Polly, who had passed Heaven knows how many sleepless nights on
account of this her dissipated firstborn, and had not seen him for
weeks and weeks, could have almost kneeled to Mr Carker the Manager,
as to a Good Spirit - in spite of his teeth. But Mr Carker rising to
depart, she only thanked him with her mother's prayers and blessings;
thanks so rich when paid out of the Heart's mint, especially for any
service Mr Carker had rendered, that he might have given back a large
amount of change, and yet been overpaid.
As that gentleman made his way among the crowding children to the
door, Rob retreated on his mother, and took her and the baby in the
same repentant hug.
'I'll try hard, dear mother, now. Upon my soul I will!' said Rob.
'Oh do, my dear boy! I am sure you will, for our sakes and your
own!' cried Polly, kissing him. 'But you're coming back to speak to
me, when you have seen the gentleman away?'
'I don't know, mother.' Rob hesitated, and looked down. 'Father -
when's he coming home?'
'Not till two o'clock to-morrow morning.'
'I'll come back, mother dear!' cried Rob. And passing through the
shrill cry of his brothers and sisters in reception of this promise,
he followed Mr Carker out.
'What!' said Mr Carker, who had heard this. 'You have a bad father,
have you?'
'No, Sir!' returned Rob, amazed. 'There ain't a better nor a kinder
father going, than mine is.'
'Why don't you want to see him then?' inquired his patron.
'There's such a difference between a father and a mother, Sir,'
said Rob, after faltering for a moment. 'He couldn't hardly believe
yet that I was doing to do better - though I know he'd try to but a
mother - she always believes what's,' good, Sir; at least I know my
mother does, God bless her!'
Mr Carker's mouth expanded, but he said no more until he was
mounted on his horse, and had dismissed the man who held it, when,
looking down from the saddle steadily into the attentive and watchful
face of the boy, he said:
'You'll come to me tomorrow morning, and you shall be shown where
that old gentleman lives; that old gentleman who was with me this
morning; where you are going, as you heard me say.'
'Yes, Sir,' returned Rob.
'I have a great interest in that old gentleman, and in serving him,
you serve me, boy, do you understand? Well,' he added, interrupting
him, for he saw his round face brighten when he was told that: 'I see
you do. I want to know all about that old gentleman, and how he goes
on from day to day - for I am anxious to be of service to him - and
especially who comes there to see him. Do you understand?'
Rob nodded his steadfast face, and said 'Yes, Sir,' again.
'I should like to know that he has friends who are attentive to
him, and that they don't desert him - for he lives very much alone
now, poor fellow; but that they are fond of him, and of his nephew who
has gone abroad. There is a very young lady who may perhaps come to
see him. I want particularly to know all about her.'
'I'll take care, Sir,' said the boy.
'And take care,' returned his patron, bending forward to advance
his grinning face closer to the boy's, and pat him on the shoulder
with the handle of his whip: 'take care you talk about affairs of mine
to nobody but me.'
'To nobody in the world, Sir,' replied Rob, shaking his head.
'Neither there,' said Mr CarHer, pointing to the place they had
just left, 'nor anywhere else. I'll try how true and grateful you can
be. I'll prove you!' Making this, by his display of teeth and by the
action of his head, as much a threat as a promise, he turned from
Rob's eyes, which were nailed upon him as if he had won the boy by a
charm, body and soul, and rode away. But again becoming conscious,
after trotting a short distance, that his devoted henchman, girt as
before, was yielding him the same attendance, to the great amusement
of sundry spectators, he reined up, and ordered him off. To ensure his
obedience, he turned in the saddle and watched him as he retired. It
was curious to see that even then Rob could not keep his eyes wholly
averted from his patron's face, but, constantly turning and turning
again to look after him' involved himself in a tempest of buffetings
and jostlings from the other passengers in the street: of which, in
the pursuit of the one paramount idea, he was perfectly heedless.
Mr Carker the Manager rode on at a foot-pace, with the easy air of
one who had performed all the business of the day in a satisfactory
manner, and got it comfortably off his mind. Complacent and affable as
man could be, Mr Carker picked his way along the streets and hummed a
soft tune as he went He seemed to purr, he was so glad.
And in some sort, Mr Carker, in his fancy, basked upon a hearth
too. Coiled up snugly at certain feet, he was ready for a spring, Or
for a tear, or for a scratch, or for a velvet touch, as the humour
took him and occasion served. Was there any bird in a cage, that came
in for a share ofhis regards?
'A very young lady!' thought Mr Carker the Manager, through his
song. 'Ay! when I saw her last, she was a little child. With dark eyes
and hair, I recollect, and a good face; a very good face! I daresay
she's pretty.'
More affable and pleasant yet, and humming his song until his many
teeth vibrated to it, Mr Carker picked his way along, and turned at
last into the shady street where Mr Dombey's house stood. He had been
so busy, winding webs round good faces, and obscuring them with
meshes, that he hardly thought of being at this point of his ride,
until, glancing down the cold perspective of tall houses, he reined in
his horse quickly within a few yards of the door. But to explain why
Mr Carker reined in his horse quickly, and what he looked at in no
small surprise, a few digressive words are necessary.
Mr Toots, emancipated from the Blimber thraldom and coming into the
possession of a certain portion of his wordly wealth, 'which,' as he
had been wont, during his last half-year's probation, to communicate
to Mr Feeder every evening as a new discovery, 'the executors couldn't
keep him out of' had applied himself with great diligence, to the
science of Life. Fired with a noble emulation to pursue a brilliant
and distinguished career, Mr Toots had furnished a choice set of
apartments; had established among them a sporting bower, embellished
with the portraits of winning horses, in which he took no particle of
interest; and a divan, which made him poorly. In this delicious abode,
Mr Toots devoted himself to the cultivation of those gentle arts which
refine and humanise existence, his chief instructor in which was an
interesting character called the Game Chicken, who was always to be
heard of at the bar of the Black Badger, wore a shaggy white
great-coat in the warmest weather, and knocked Mr Toots about the head
three times a week, for the small consideration of ten and six per
visit.
The Game Chicken, who was quite the Apollo of Mr Toots's Pantheon,
had introduced to him a marker who taught billiards, a Life Guard who
taught fencing, a jobmaster who taught riding, a Cornish gentleman who
was up to anything in the athletic line, and two or three other
friends connected no less intimately with the fine arts. Under whose
auspices Mr Toots could hardly fail to improve apace, and under whose
tuition he went to work.
But however it came about, it came to pass, even while these
gentlemen had the gloss of novelty upon them, that Mr Toots felt, he
didn't know how, unsettled and uneasy. There were husks in his corn,
that even Game Chickens couldn't peck up; gloomy giants in his
leisure, that even Game Chickens couldn't knock down. Nothing seemed
to do Mr Toots so much good as incessantly leaving cards at Mr
Dombey's door. No taxgatherer in the British Dominions - that
wide-spread territory on which the sun never sets, and where the
tax-gatherer never goes to bed - was more regular and persevering in
his calls than Mr Toots.
Mr Toots never went upstairs; and always performed the same
ceremonies, richly dressed for the purpose, at the hall door.
'Oh! Good morning!' would be Mr Toots's first remark to the
servant. 'For Mr Dombey,' would be Mr Toots's next remark, as he
handed in a card. 'For Miss Dombey,' would be his next, as he handed
in another.
Mr Toots would then turn round as if to go away; but the man knew
him by this time, and knew he wouldn't.
'Oh, I beg your pardon,' Mr Toots would say, as if a thought had
suddenly descended on him. 'Is the young woman at home?'
The man would rather think she was;, but wouldn't quite know. Then
he would ring a bell that rang upstairs, and would look up the
staircase, and would say, yes, she was at home, and was coming down.
Then Miss Nipper would appear, and the man would retire.
'Oh! How de do?' Mr Toots would say, with a chuckle and a blush.
Susan would thank him, and say she was very well.
'How's Diogenes going on?' would be Mr Toots's second
interrogation.
Very well indeed. Miss Florence was fonder and fonder of him every
day. Mr Toots was sure to hail this with a burst of chuckles, like the
opening of a bottle of some effervescent beverage.
'Miss Florence is quite well, Sir,' Susan would add.
Oh, it's of no consequence, thank'ee,' was the invariable reply of
Mr Toots; and when he had said so, he always went away very fast.
Now it is certain that Mr Toots had a filmy something in his mind,
which led him to conclude that if he could aspire successfully in the
fulness of time, to the hand of Florence, he would be fortunate and
blest. It is certain that Mr Toots, by some remote and roundabout
road, had got to that point, and that there he made a stand. His heart
was wounded; he was touched; he was in love. He had made a desperate
attempt, one night, and had sat up all night for the purpose, to write
an acrostic on Florence, which affected him to tears in the
conception. But he never proceeded in the execution further than the
words 'For when I gaze,' - the flow of imagination in which he had
previously written down the initial letters of the other seven lines,
deserting him at that point.
Beyond devising that very artful and politic measure of leaving a
card for Mr Dombey daily, the brain of Mr Toots had not worked much in
reference to the subject that held his feelings prisoner. But deep
consideration at length assured Mr Toots that an important step to
gain, was, the conciliation of Miss Susan Nipper, preparatory to
giving her some inkling of his state of mind.
A little light and playful gallantry towards this lady seemed the
means to employ in that early chapter of the history, for winning her
to his interests. Not being able quite to make up his mind about it,
he consulted the Chicken - without taking that gentleman into his
confidence; merely informing him that a friend in Yorkshire had
written to him (Mr Toots) for his opinion on such a question. The
Chicken replying that his opinion always was, 'Go in and win,' and
further, 'When your man's before you and your work cut out, go in and
do it,' Mr Toots considered this a figurative way of supporting his
own view of the case, and heroically resolved to kiss Miss Nipper next
day.
Upon the next day, therefore, Mr Toots, putting into requisition
some of the greatest marvels that Burgess and Co. had ever turned out,
went off to Mr Dotnbey's upon this design. But his heart failed him so
much as he approached the scene of action, that, although he arrived
on the ground at three o'clock in the afternoon, it was six before he
knocked at the door.
Everything happened as usual, down to the point where Susan said
her young mistress was well, and Mr Toots said it was ofno
consequence. To her amazement, Mr Toots, instead of going off, like a
rocket, after that observation, lingered and chuckled.
'Perhaps you'd like to walk upstairs, Sir!' said Susan.
'Well, I think I will come in!' said Mr Toots.
But instead of walking upstairs, the bold Toots made an awkward
plunge at Susan when the door was shut, and embracing that fair
creature, kissed her on the cheek
'Go along with you!~ cried Susan, 'or Ill tear your eyes out.'
'Just another!' said Mr Toots.
'Go along with you!' exclaimed Susan, giving him a push 'Innocents
like you, too! Who'll begin next? Go along, Sir!'
Susan was not in any serious strait, for she could hardly speak for
laughing; but Diogenes, on the staircase, hearing a rustling against
the wall, and a shuffling of feet, and seeing through the banisters
that there was some contention going on, and foreign invasion in the
house, formed a different opinion, dashed down to the rescue, and in
the twinkling of an eye had Mr Toots by the leg.
Susan screamed, laughed, opened the street-door, and ran
downstairs; the bold Toots tumbled staggering out into the street,
with Diogenes holding on to one leg of his pantaioons, as if Burgess
and Co. were his cooks, and had provided that dainty morsel for his
holiday entertainment; Diogenes shaken off, rolled over and over in
the dust, got up' again, whirled round the giddy Toots and snapped at
him: and all this turmoil Mr Carker, reigning up his horse and sitting
a little at a distance, saw to his amazement, issue from the stately
house of Mr Dombey.
Mr Carker remained watching the discomfited Toots, when Diogenes
was called in, and the door shut: and while that gentleman, taking
refuge in a doorway near at hand, bound up the torn leg of his
pantaloons with a costly silk handkerchief that had formed part of his
expensive outfit for the advent
'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Mr Carker, riding up, with his most
propitiatory smile. 'I hope you are not hurt?'
'Oh no, thank you,' replied Mr Toots, raising his flushed face,
'it's of no consequence' Mr Toots would have signified, if he could,
that he liked it very much.
'If the dog's teeth have entered the leg, Sir - ' began Carker,
with a display of his own'
'No, thank you,' said Mr Toots, 'it's all quite right. It's very
comfortable, thank you.'
'I have the pleasure of knowing Mr Dombey,' observed Carker.
'Have you though?' rejoined the blushing Took
'And you will allow me, perhaps, to apologise, in his absence,'
said Mr Carker, taking off his hat, 'for such a misadventure, and to
wonder how it can possibly have happened.'
Mr Toots is so much gratified by this politeness, and the lucky
chance of making frends with a friend of Mr Dombey, that he pulls out
his card-case which he never loses an opportunity of using, and hands
his name and address to Mr Carker: who responds to that courtesy by
giving him his own, and with that they part.
As Mr Carker picks his way so softly past the house, looking up at
the windows, and trying to make out the pensive face behind the
curtain looking at the children opposite, the rough head of Diogenes
came clambering up close by it, and the dog, regardless of all
soothing, barks and growls, and makes at him from that height, as ifhe
would spring down and tear him limb from limb.
Well spoken, Di, so near your Mistress! Another, and another with
your head up, your eyes flashing, and your vexed mouth worrying
itself, for want of him! Another, as he picks his way along! You have
a good scent, Di, - cats, boy, cats!
CHAPTER 23.
Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious
Florence lived alone in the great dreary house, and day succeeded
day, and still she lived alone; and the blank walls looked down upon
her with a vacant stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare
her youth and beauty into stone.
No magic dwelling-place in magic story, shut up in the heart of a
thick wood, was ever more solitary and deserted to the fancy, than was
her father's mansion in its grim reality, as it stood lowering on the
street: always by night, when lights were shining from neighbouring
windows, a blot upon its scanty brightness; always by day, a frown
upon its never-smiling face.
There were not two dragon sentries keeping ward before the gate of
this above, as in magic legend are usually found on duty over the
wronged innocence imprisoned; but besides a glowering visage, with its
thin lips parted wickedly, that surveyed all comers from above the
archway of the door, there was a monstrous fantasy of rusty iron,
curling and twisting like a petrifaction of an arbour over threshold,
budding in spikes and corkscrew points, and bearing, one on either
side, two ominous extinguishers, that seemed to say, 'Who enter here,
leave light behind!' There were no talismanic characters engraven on
the portal, but the house was now so neglected in appearance, that
boys chalked the railings and the pavement - particularly round the
corner where the side wall was - and drew ghosts on the stable door;
and being sometimes driven off by Mr Towlinson, made portraits of him,
in return, with his ears growing out horizontally from under his hat.
Noise ceased to be, within the shadow of the roof. The brass band that
came into the street once a week, in the morning, never brayed a note
in at those windows; but all such company, down to a poor little
piping organ of weak intellect, with an imbecile party of automaton
dancers, waltzing in and out at folding-doors, fell off from it with
one accord, and shunned it as a hopeless place.
The spell upon it was more wasting than the spell that used to set
enchanted houses sleeping once upon a time, but left their waking
freshness unimpaired. The passive desolation of disuse was everywhere
silently manifest about it. Within doors, curtains, drooping heavily,
lost their old folds and shapes, and hung like cumbrous palls.
Hecatombs of furniture, still piled and covered up, shrunk like
imprisoned and forgotten men, and changed insensibly. Mirrors were dim
as with the breath of years. Patterns of carpets faded and became
perplexed and faint, like the memory of those years' trifling
incidents. Boards, starting at unwonted footsteps, creaked and shook.
Keys rusted in the locks of doors. Damp started on the walls, and as
the stains came out, the pictures seemed to go in and secrete
themselves. Mildew and mould began to lurk in closets. Fungus trees
grew in corners of the cellars. Dust accumulated, nobody knew whence
nor how; spiders, moths, and grubs were heard of every day. An
exploratory blackbeetle now and then was found immovable upon the
stairs, or in an upper room, as wondering how he got there. Rats began
to squeak and scuffle in the night time, through dark galleries they
mined behind the panelling.
The dreary magnificence of the state rooms, seen imperfectly by the
doubtful light admitted through closed shutters, would have answered
well enough for an enchanted abode. Such as the tarnished paws of
gilded lions, stealthily put out from beneath their wrappers; the
marble lineaments of busts on pedestals, fearfully revealing
themselves through veils; the clocks that never told the time, or, if
wound up by any chance, told it wrong, and struck unearthly numbers,
which are not upon the dial; the accidental tinklings among the
pendant lustres, more startling than alarm-bells; the softened sounds
and laggard air that made their way among these objects, and a phantom
crowd of others, shrouded and hooded, and made spectral of shape. But,
besides, there was the great staircase, where the lord of the place so
rarely set his foot, and by which his little child had gone up to
Heaven. There were other staircases and passages where no one went for
weeks together; there were two closed rooms associated with dead
members of the family, and with whispered recollections of them; and
to all the house but Florence, there was a gentle figure moving
through the solitude and gloom, that gave to every lifeless thing a
touch of present human interest and wonder,
For Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded
day, and still she lived alone, and the cold walls looked down upon
her with a vacant stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare
her youth and beauty into stone
The grass began to grow upon the roof, and in the crevices of the
basement paving. A scaly crumbling vegetation sprouted round the
window-sills. Fragments of mortar lost their hold upon the insides of
the unused chimneys, and came dropping down. The two trees with the
smoky trunks were blighted high up, and the withered branches
domineered above the leaves, Through the whole building white had
turned yellow, yellow nearly black; and since the time when the poor
lady died, it had slowly become a dark gap in the long monotonous
street.
But Florence bloomed there, like the king's fair daughter in the
story. Her books, her music, and her daily teachers, were her only
real companions, Susan Nipper and Diogenes excepted: of whom the
former, in her attendance on the studies of her young mistress, began
to grow quite learned herself, while the latter, softened possibly by
the same influences, would lay his head upon the window-ledge, and
placidly open and shut his eyes upon the street, all through a summer
morning; sometimes pricking up his head to look with great
significance after some noisy dog in a cart, who was barking his way
along, and sometimes, with an exasperated and unaccountable
recollection of his supposed enemy in the neighbourhood, rushing to
the door, whence, after a deafening disturbance, he would come jogging
back with a ridiculous complacency that belonged to him, and lay his
jaw upon the window-ledge again, with the air of a dog who had done a
public service.
So Florence lived in her wilderness of a home, within the circle of
her innocent pursuits and thoughts, and nothing harmed her. She could
go down to her father's rooms now, and think of him, and suffer her
loving heart humbly to approach him, without fear of repulse. She
could look upon the objects that had surrounded him in his sorrow, and
could nestle near his chair, and not dread the glance that she so well
remembered. She could render him such little tokens of her duty and
service' as putting everything in order for him with her own hands,
binding little nosegays for table, changing them as one by one they
withered and he did not come back, preparing something for him every'
day, and leaving some timid mark of her presence near his usual seat.
To-day, it was a little painted stand for his watch; tomorrow she
would be afraid to leave it, and would substitute some other trifle of
her making not so likely to attract his eye. Waking in the night,
perhaps, she would tremble at the thought of his coming home and
angrily rejecting it, and would hurry down with slippered feet and
quickly beating heart, and bring it away. At another time, she would
only lay her face upon his desk, and leave a kiss there, and a tear.
Still no one knew of this. Unless the household found it out when
she was not there - and they all held Mr Dombey's rooms in awe - it
was as deep a secret in her breast as what had gone before it.
Florence stole into those rooms at twilight, early in the morning, and
at times when meals were served downstairs. And although they were in
every nook the better and the brighter for her care, she entered and
passed out as quietly as any sunbeam, opting that she left her light
behind.
Shadowy company attended Florence up and down the echoing house,
and sat with her in the dismantled rooms. As if her life were an
enchanted vision, there arose out of her solitude ministering
thoughts, that made it fanciful and unreal. She imagined so often what
her life would have been if her father could have loved her and she
had been a favourite child, that sometimes, for the moment, she almost
believed it was so, and, borne on by the current of that pensive
fiction, seemed to remember how they had watched her brother in his
grave together; how they had freely shared his heart between them; how
they were united in the dear remembrance of him; how they often spoke
about him yet; and her kind father, looking at her gently, told her of
their common hope and trust in God. At other times she pictured to
herself her mother yet alive. And oh the happiness of falling on her
neck, and clinging to her with the love and confidence of all her
soul! And oh the desolation of the solitary house again, with evening
coming on, and no one there!
But there was one thought, scarcely shaped out to herself, yet
fervent and strong within her, that upheld Florence when she strove
and filled her true young heart, so sorely tried, with constancy of
purpose. Into her mind, as 'into all others contending with the great
affliction of our mortal nature, there had stolen solemn wonderings
and hopes, arising in the dim world beyond the present life, and
murmuring, like faint music, of recognition in the far-off land
between her brother and her mother: of some present consciousness in
both of her: some love and commiseration for her: and some knowledge
of her as she went her way upon the earth. It was a soothing
consolation to Florence to give shelter to these thoughts, until one
day - it was soon after she had last seen her father in his own room,
late at night - the fancy came upon her, that, in weeping for his
alienated heart, she might stir the spirits of the dead against him'
Wild, weak, childish, as it may have been to think so, and to tremble
at the half-formed thought, it was the impulse of her loving nature;
and from that hour Florence strove against the cruel wound in her
breast, and tried to think of him whose hand had made it, only with
hope.
Her father did not know - she held to it from that time - how much
she loved him. She was very young, and had no mother, and had never
learned, by some fault or misfortune, how to express to him that she
loved him. She would be patient, and would try to gain that art in
time, and win him to a better knowledge of his only child.
This became the purpose of her life. The morning sun shone down
upon the faded house, and found the resolution bright and fresh within
the bosom of its solitary mistress, Through all the duties of the day,
it animated her; for Florence hoped that the more she knew, and the
more accomplished she became, the more glad he would be when he came
to know and like her. Sometimes she wondered, with a swelling heart
and rising tear, whether she was proficient enough in anything to
surprise him when they should become companions. Sometimes she tried
to think if there were any kind of knowledge that would bespeak his
interest more readily than another. Always: at her books, her music,
and her work: in her morning walks, and in her nightly prayers: she
had her engrossing aim in view. Strange study for a child, to learn
the road to a hard parent's heart!
There were many careless loungers through the street, as the summer
evening deepened into night, who glanced across the road at the sombre
house, and saw the youthful figure at the window, such a contrast to
it, looking upward at the stars as they began to shine, who would have
slept the worse if they had known on what design she mused so steady.
The reputation of the mansion as a haunted house, would not have been
the gayer with some humble dwellers elsewhere, who were struck by its
external gloom in passing and repassing on their daily avocations, and
so named it, if they could have read its story in the darkening face.
But Florence held her sacred purpose, unsuspected and unaided: and
studied only how to bring her father to the understanding that she
loved him, and made no appeal against him in any wandering thought.
Thus Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded
day, and still she lived alone, and the monotonous walls looked down
upon her with a stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like intent to stare
her youth and beauty into stone.
Susan Nipper stood opposite to her young mistress one morning, as
she folded and sealed a note she had been writing: and showed in her
looks an approving knowledge of its contents.
'Better late than never, dear Miss Floy,' said Susan, 'and I do
say, that even a visit to them old Skettleses will be a Godsend.'
'It is very good of Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, Susan,' returned
Florence, with a mild correction of that young lady's familiar mention
of the family in question, 'to repeat their invitation so kindly.'
Miss Nipper, who was perhaps the most thoroughgoing partisan on the
face of the earth, and who carried her partisanship into all matters
great or small, and perpetually waged war with it against society,
screwed up her lips and shook her head, as a protest against any
recognition of disinterestedness in the Skettleses, and a plea in bar
that they would have valuable consideration for their kindness, in the
company of Florence.
'They know what they're about, if ever people did,' murmured Miss
Nipper, drawing in her breath 'oh! trust them Skettleses for that!'
'I am not very anxious to go to Fulham, Susan, I confess,' said
Florence thoughtfully: 'but it will be right to go. I think it will be
better.'
'Much better,' interposed Susan, with another emphatic shake of her
head.
'And so,' said Florence, 'though I would prefer to have gone when
there was no one there, instead of in this vacation time, when it
seems there are some young people staying in the house, I have
thankfully said yes.'
'For which I say, Miss Floy, Oh be joyful!' returned Susan, 'Ah!
This last ejaculation, with which Miss Nipper frequently wound up a
sentence, at about that epoch of time, was supposed below the level of
the hall to have a general reference to Mr Dombey, and to be
expressive of a yearning in Miss Nipper to favour that gentleman with
a piece of her mind. But she never explained it; and it had, in
consequence, the charm of mystery, in addition to the advantage of the
sharpest expression.
'How long it is before we have any news of Walter, Susan!' observed
Florence, after a moment's silence.
'Long indeed, Miss Floy!' replied her maid. 'And Perch said, when
he came just now to see for letters - but what signifies what he
says!' exclaimed Susan, reddening and breaking off. 'Much he knows
about it!'
Florence raised her eyes quickly, and a flush overspread her face.
'If I hadn't,' said Susan Nipper, evidently struggling with some
latent anxiety and alarm, and looking full at her young mistress,
while endeavouring to work herself into a state of resentment with the
unoffending Mr Perch's image, 'if I hadn't more manliness than that
insipidest of his sex, I'd never take pride in my hair again, but turn
it up behind my ears, and wear coarse caps, without a bit of border,
until death released me from my insignificance. I may not be a Amazon,
Miss Floy, and wouldn't so demean myself by such disfigurement, but
anyways I'm not a giver up, I hope'
'Give up! What?' cried Florence, with a face of terror.
'Why, nothing, Miss,' said Susan. 'Good gracious, nothing! It's
only that wet curl-paper of a man, Perch, that anyone might almost
make away with, with a touch, and really it would be a blessed event
for all parties if someone would take pity on him, and would have the
goodness!'
'Does he give up the ship, Susan?' inquired Florence, very pale.
'No, Miss,' returned Susan, 'I should like to see' him make so bold
as do it to my face! No, Miss, but he goes 'on about some bothering
ginger that Mr Walter was to send to Mrs Perch, and shakes his dismal
head, and says he hopes it may be coming; anyhow, he says, it can't
come now in time for the intended occasion, but may do for next, which
really,' said Miss Nipper, with aggravated scorn, 'puts me out of
patience with the man, for though I can bear a great deal, I am not a
camel, neither am I,' added Susan, after a moment's consideration, 'if
I know myself, a dromedary neither.'
'What else does he say, Susan?' inquired Florence, earnestly.
'Won't you tell me?'
'As if I wouldn't tell you anything, Miss Floy, and everything!'
said Susan. 'Why, nothing Miss, he says that there begins to be a
general talk about the ship, and that they have never had a ship on
that voyage half so long unheard of, and that the Captain's wife was
at the office yesterday, and seemed a little put out about it, but
anyone could say that, we knew nearly that before.'
'I must visit Walter's uncle,' said Florence, hurriedly, 'before I
leave home. I will go and see him this morning. Let us walk there,
directly, Susan.
Miss Nipper having nothing to urge against the proposal, but being
perfectly acquiescent, they were soon equipped, and in the streets,
and on their way towards the little Midshipman.
The state of mind in which poor Walter had gone to Captain
Cuttle's, on the day when Brogley the broker came into possession, and
when there seemed to him to be an execution in the very steeples, was
pretty much the same as that in which Florence now took her way to
Uncle Sol's; with this difference, that Florence suffered the added
pain of thinking that she had been, perhaps, the innocent occasion of
involving Walter in peril, and all to whom he was dear, herself
included, in an agony of suspense. For the rest, uncertainty and
danger seemed written upon everything. The weathercocks on spires and
housetops were mysterious with hints of stormy wind, and pointed, like
so many ghostly fingers, out to dangerous seas, where fragments of
great wrecks were drifting, perhaps, and helpless men were rocked upon
them into a sleep as deep as the unfathomable waters. When Florence
came into the City, and passed gentlemen who were talking together,
she dreaded to hear them speaking of the ship, an'd saying it was
lost. Pictures and prints of vessels fighting with the rolling waves
filled her with alarm. The smoke and clouds, though moving gently,
moved too fast for her apprehensions, and made her fear there was a
tempest blowing at that moment on the ocean.
Susan Nipper may or may not have been affected similarly, but
having her attention much engaged in struggles with boys, whenever
there was any press of people - for, between that grade of human kind
and herself, there was some natural animosity that invariably broke
out, whenever they came together - it would seem that she had not much
leisure on the road for intellectual operations,
Arriving in good time abreast of the wooden Midshipman on the
opposite side of the way, and waiting for an opportunity to cross the
street, they were a little surprised at first to see, at the
Instrument-maker's door, a round-headed lad, with his chubby face
addressed towards the sky, who, as they looked at him, suddenly thrust
into his capacious mouth two fingers of each hand, and with the
assistance of that machinery whistled, with astonishing shrillness, to
some pigeons at a considerable elevation in the air.
'Mrs Richards's eldest, Miss!' said Susan, 'and the worrit of Mrs
Richards's life!'
As Polly had been to tell Florence of the resuscitated prospects of
her son and heir, Florence was prepared for the meeting: so, a
favourable moment presenting itself, they both hastened across,
without any further contemplation of Mrs Richards's bane' That
sporting character, unconscious of their approach, again whistled with
his utmost might, and then yelled in a rapture of excitement, 'Strays!
Whip! Strays!' which identification had such an effect upon the
conscience-stricken pigeons, that instead of going direct to some town
in the North of England, as appeared to have been their original
intention, they began to wheel and falter; whereupon Mrs Richards's
first born pierced them with another whistle, and again yelled, in a
voice that rose above the turmoil of the street, 'Strays! Who~oop!
Strays!'
From this transport, he was abruptly recalled to terrestrial
objects, by a poke from Miss Nipper, which sent him into the shop,
'Is this the way you show your penitence, when Mrs Richards has
been fretting for you months and months?' said Susan, following the
poke. 'Where's Mr Gills?'
Rob, who smoothed his first rebellious glance at Miss Nipper when
he saw Florence following, put his knuckles to his hair, in honour of
the latter, and said to the former, that Mr Gills was out'
Fetch him home,' said Miss Nipper, with authority, 'and say that my
young lady's here.'
'I don't know where he's gone,' said Rob.
'Is that your penitence?' cried Susan, with stinging sharpness.
'Why how can I go and fetch him when I don't know where to go?'
whimpered the baited Rob. 'How can you be so unreasonable?'
'Did Mr Gills say when he should be home?' asked Florence.
'Yes, Miss,' replied Rob, with another application of his knuckles
to his hair. 'He said he should be home early in the afternoon; in
about a couple of hours from now, Miss.'
'Is he very anxious about his nephew?' inquired Susan.
'Yes, Miss,' returned Rob, preferring to address himself to
Florence and slighting Nipper; 'I should say he was, very much so. He
ain't indoors, Miss, not a quarter of an hour together. He can't
settle in one place five minutes. He goes about, like a - just like a
stray,' said Rob, stooping to get a glimpse of the pigeons through the
window, and checking himself, with his fingers half-way to his mouth,
on the verge of another whistle.
'Do you know a friend of Mr Gills, called Captain Cuttle?' inquired
Florence, after a moment's reflection.
'Him with a hook, Miss?' rejoined Rob, with an illustrative twist
of his left hand. Yes, Miss. He was here the day before yesterday.'
'Has he not been here since?' asked Susan.
'No, Miss,' returned Rob, still addressing his reply to Florence.
'Perhaps Walter's Uncle has gone there, Susan,' observed Florence,
turning to her.
'To Captain Cuttle's, Miss?' interposed Rob; 'no, he's not gone
there, Miss. Because he left particular word that if Captain Cuttle
called, I should tell him how surprised he was, not to have seen him
yesterday, and should make him stop till he came back'
'Do you know where Captain Cuttle lives?' asked Florence.
Rob replied in the affirmative, and turning to a greasy parchment
book on the shop desk, read the address aloud.
Florence again turned to her maid and took counsel with her in a
low voice, while Rob the round-eyed, mindful of his patron's secret
charge, looked on and listened. Florence proposed that they kould go
to Captain Cuttle's house; hear from his own lips, what he thought of
the absence of any tidings ofthe Son and Heir; and bring him, if they
could, to comfort Uncle Sol. Susan at first objected slightly, on the
score of distance; but a hackney-coach being mentioned by her
mistress, withdrew that opposition, and gave in her assent. There were
some minutes of discussion between them before they came to this
conclusion, during which the staring Rob paid close attention to both
speakers, and inclined his ear to each by turns, as if he were
appointed arbitrator of the argument.
In time, Rob was despatched for a coach, the visitors keeping shop
meanwhile; and when he brought it, they got into it, leaving word for
Uncle Sol that they would be sure to call again, on their way back.
Rob having stared after the coach until it was as invisible as the
pigeons had now become, sat down behind the desk with a most assiduous
demeanour; and in order that he might forget nothing of what had
transpired, made notes of it on various small scraps of paper, with a
vast expenditure of ink. There was no danger of these documents
betraying anything, if accidentally lost; for long before a word was
dry, it became as profound a mystery to Rob, as if he had had no part
whatever in its production.
While he was yet busy with these labours, the hackney-coach, after
encountering unheard-of difficulties from swivel-bridges, soft roads,
impassable canals, caravans of casks, settlements of scarlet-beans and
little wash-houses, and many such obstacles abounding in that country,
stopped at the corner of Brig Place. Alighting here, Florence and
Susan Nipper walked down the street, and sought out the abode of
Captain Cuttle.
It happened by evil chance to be one of Mrs MacStinger's great
cleaning days. On these occasions, Mrs MacStinger was knocked up by
the policeman at a quarter before three in the morning, and rarely
such before twelve o'clock next night. The chief object of this
institution appeared to be, that Mrs MacStinger should move all the
furniture into the back garden at early dawn, walk about the house in
pattens all day, and move the furniture back again after dark. These
ceremonies greatly fluttered those doves the young MacStingers, who
were not only unable at such times to find any resting-place for the
soles of their feet, but generally came in for a good deal of pecking
from the maternal bird during the progress of the solemnities.
At the moment when Florence and Susan Nipper presented themselves
at Mrs MacStinger's door, that worthy but redoubtable female was in
the act of conveying Alexander MacStinger, aged two years and three
months, along the passage, for forcible deposition in a sitting
posture on the street pavement: Alexander being black in the face with
holding his breath after punishment, and a cool paving-stone being
usually found to act as a powerful restorative in such cases.
The feelings of Mrs MacStinger, as a woman and a mother, were
outraged by the look of pity for Alexander which she observed on
Florence's face. Therefore, Mrs MacStinger asserting those finest
emotions of our nature, in preference to weakly gratifying her
curiosity, shook and buffeted Alexander both before and during the
application of the paving-stone, and took no further notice of the
strangers.
'I beg your pardon, Ma'am,' said Florence, when the child had found
his breath again, and was using it. 'Is this Captain Cuttle's house?'
'No,' said Mrs MacStinger.
'Not Number Nine?' asked Florence, hesitating.
'Who said it wasn't Number Nine?' said Mrs MacStinger.
Susan Nipper instantly struck in, and begged to inquire what Mrs
MacStinger meant by that, and if she knew whom she was talking to.
Mrs MacStinger in retort, looked at her all over. 'What do you want
with Captain Cuttle, I should wish to know?' said Mrs MacStinger.
'Should you? Then I'm sorry that you won't be satisfied,' returned
Miss Nipper.
'Hush, Susan! If you please!' said Florence. 'Perhaps you can have
the goodness to tell us where Captain Cutlle lives, Ma'am as he don't
live here.'
'Who says he don't live here?' retorted the implacable MacStinger.
'I said it wasn't Cap'en Cuttle's house - and it ain't his house -and
forbid it, that it ever should be his house - for Cap'en Cuttle don't
know how to keep a house - and don't deserve to have a house - it's my
house - and when I let the upper floor to Cap'en Cuttle, oh I do a
thankless thing, and cast pearls before swine!'
Mrs MacStinger pitched her voice for the upper windows in offering
these remarks, and cracked off each clause sharply by itself as if
from a rifle possessing an infinity of barrels. After the last shot,
the Captain's voice was heard to say, in feeble remonstrance from his
own room, 'Steady below!'
'Since you want Cap'en Cuttle, there he is!' said Mrs MacStinger,
with an angry motion of her hand. On Florence making bold to enter,
without any more parley, and on Susan following, Mrs MacStinger
recommenced her pedestrian exercise in pattens, and Alexander
MacStinger (still on the paving-stone), who had stopped in his crying
to attend to the conversation, began to wail again, entertaining
himself during that dismal performance, which was quite mechanical,
with a general survey of the prospect, terminating in the
hackney-coach.
The Captain in his own apartment was sitting with his hands in his
pockets and his legs drawn up under his chair, on a very small
desolate island, lying about midway in an ocean of soap and water. The
Captain's windows had been cleaned, the walls had been cleaned, the
stove had been cleaned, and everything the stove excepted, was wet,
and shining with soft soap and sand: the smell of which dry-saltery
impregnated the air. In the midst of the dreary scene, the Captain,
cast away upon his island, looked round on the waste of waters with a
rueful countenance, and seemed waiting for some friendly bark to come
that way, and take him off.
But when the Captain, directing his forlorn visage towards the
door, saw Florence appear with her maid, no words can describe his
astonishment. Mrs MacStinger's eloquence having rendered all other
sounds but imperfectly distinguishable, he had looked for no rarer
visitor than the potboy or the milkman; wherefore, when Florence
appeared, and coming to the confines of the island, put her hand in
his, the Captain stood up, aghast, as if he supposed her, for the
moment, to be some young member of the Flying Dutchman's family.'
Instantly recovering his self-possession, however, the Captain's
first care was to place her on dry land, which he happily
accomplished, with one motion of his arm. Issuing forth, then, upon
the main, Captain Cuttle took Miss Nipper round the waist, and bore
her to the island also. Captain Cuttle, then, with great respect and
admiration, raised the hand of Florence to his lips, and standing off
a little(for the island was not large enough for three), beamed on her
from the soap and water like a new description of Triton.
'You are amazed to see us, I am sure,'said Florence, with a smile.
The inexpressibly gratified Captain kissed his hook in reply, and
growled, as if a choice and delicate compliment were included in the
words, 'Stand by! Stand by!'
'But I couldn't rest,' said Florence, 'without coming to ask you
what you think about dear Walter - who is my brother now- and whether
there is anything to fear, and whether you will not go and console his
poor Uncle every day, until we have some intelligence of him?'
At these words Captain Cuttle, as by an involuntary gesture,
clapped his hand to his head, on which the hard glazed hat was not,
and looked discomfited.
'Have you any fears for Walter's safety?' inquired Florence, from
whose face the Captain (so enraptured he was with it) could not take
his eyes: while she, in her turn, looked earnestly at him, to be
assured of the sincerity of his reply.
'No, Heart's-delight,' said Captain Cuttle, 'I am not afeard. Wal'r
is a lad as'll go through a deal o' hard weather. Wal'r is a lad as'll
bring as much success to that 'ere brig as a lad is capable on.
Wal'r,' said the Captain, his eyes glistening with the praise of his
young friend, and his hook raised to announce a beautiful quotation,
'is what you may call a out'ard and visible sign of an in'ard and
spirited grasp, and when found make a note of.'
Florence, who did not quite understand this, though the Captain
evidentllty thought it full of meaning, and highly satisfactory,
mildly looked to him for something more.
'I am not afeard, my Heart's-delight,' resumed the Captain,
'There's been most uncommon bad weather in them latitudes, there's no
denyin', and they have drove and drove and been beat off, may be
t'other side the world. But the ship's a good ship, and the lad's a
good lad; and it ain't easy, thank the Lord,' the Captain made a
little bow, 'to break up hearts of oak, whether they're in brigs or
buzzums. Here we have 'em both ways, which is bringing it up with a
round turn, and so I ain't a bit afeard as yet.'
'As yet?' repeated Florence.
'Not a bit,' returned the Captain, kissing his iron hand; 'and
afore I begin to be, my Hearts-delight, Wal'r will have wrote home
from the island, or from some port or another, and made all taut and
shipsahape'And with regard to old Sol Gills, here the Captain became
solemn, 'who I'll stand by, and not desert until death do us part, and
when the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow - overhaul the
Catechism,' said the Captain parenthetically, 'and there you'll find
them expressions - if it would console Sol Gills to have the opinion
of a seafaring man as has got a mind equal to any undertaking that he
puts it alongside of, and as was all but smashed in his'prenticeship,
and of which the name is Bunsby, that 'ere man shall give him such an
opinion in his own parlour as'll stun him. Ah!' said Captain Cuttle,
vauntingly, 'as much as if he'd gone and knocked his head again a
door!'
'Let us take this ~gentleman to see him, and let us hear what he
says,' cried Florence. 'Will you go with us now? We have a coach
here.'
Again the Captain clapped his hand to his head, on which the hard
glazed hat was not, and looked discomfited. But at this instant a most
remarkable phenomenon occurred. The door opening, without any note of
preparation, and apparently of itself, the hard glazed hat in question
skimmed into the room like a bird, and alighted heavily at the
Captain's feet. The door then shut as violently as it had opened, and
nothIng ensued in explanation of the prodigy.
Captain Cuttle picked up his hat, and having turned it over with a
look of interest and welcome, began to polish it on his sleeve' While
doing so, the Captain eyed his visitors intently, and said in a low
voice
'You see I should have bore down on Sol Gills yesterday, and this
morning, but she - she took it away and kep it. That's the long and
short ofthe subject.'
'Who did, for goodness sake?' asked Susan Nipper.
'The lady of the house, my dear,'returned the Captain, in a gruff
whisper, and making signals of secrecy.'We had some words about the
swabbing of these here planks, and she - In short,' said the Captain,
eyeing the door, and relieving himself with a long breath, 'she
stopped my liberty.'
'Oh! I wish she had me to deal with!' said Susan, reddening with
the energy of the wish. 'I'd stop her!'
'Would you, do you, my dear?' rejoined the Captain, shaking his
head doubtfully, but regarding the desperate courage of the fair
aspirant with obvious admiration. 'I don't know. It's difficult
navigation. She's very hard to carry on with, my dear. You never can
tell how she'll head, you see. She's full one minute, and round upon
you next. And when she in a tartar,' said the Captain, with the
perspiration breaking out upon his forehead. There was nothing but a
whistle emphatic enough for the conclusion of the sentence, so the
Captain whistled tremulously. After which he again shook his head, and
recurring to his admiration of Miss Nipper's devoted bravery, timidly
repeated, 'Would you, do you think, my dear?'
Susan only replied with a bridling smile, but that was so very full
of defiance, that there is no knowing how long Captain Cuttle might
have stood entranced in its contemplation, if Florence in her anxiety
had not again proposed their immediately resorting to the oracular
Bunsby. Thus reminded of his duty, Captain Cuttle Put on the glazed
hat firmly, took up another knobby stick, with which he had supplied
the place of that one given to Walter, and offering his arm to
Florence, prepared to cut his way through the enemy.
It turned out, however, that Mrs MacStinger had already changed her
course, and that she headed, as the Captain had remarked she often
did, in quite a new direction. For when they got downstairs, they
found that exemplary woman beating the mats on the doorsteps, with
Alexander, still upon the paving-stone, dimly looming through a fog of
dust; and so absorbed was Mrs MacStinger in her household occupation,
that when Captain Cuttle and his visitors passed, she beat the harder,
and neither by word nor gesture showed any consciousness of their
vicinity. The Captain was so well pleased with this easy escape -
although the effect of the door-mats on him was like a copious
administration of snuff, and made him sneeze until the tears ran down
his face - that he could hardly believe his good fortune; but more
than once, between the door and the hackney-coach, looked over his
shoulder, with an obvious apprehension of Mrs MacStinger's giving
chase yet.
However, they got to the corner of Brig Place without any
molestation from that terrible fire-ship; and the Captain mounting the
coach-box - for his gallantry would not allow him to ride inside with
the ladies, though besought to do so - piloted the driver on his
course for Captain Bunsby's vessel, which was called the Cautious
Clara, and was lying hard by Ratcliffe.
Arrived at the wharf off which this great commander's ship was
jammed in among some five hundred companions, whose tangled rigging
looked like monstrous cobwebs half swept down, Captain Cuttle appeared
at the coach-window, and invited Florence and Miss Nipper to accompany
him on board; observing that Bunsby was to the last degree
soft-hearted in respect of ladies, and that nothing would so much tend
to bring his expansive intellect into a state of harmony as their
presentation to the Cautious Clara.
Florence readily consented; and the Captain, taking her little hand
in his prodigious palm, led her, with a mixed expression of patronage,
paternity, pride, and ceremony, that was pleasant to see, over several
very dirty decks, until, coming to the Clara, they found that cautious
craft (which lay outside the tier) with her gangway removed, and
half-a-dozen feet of river interposed between herself and her nearest
neighbour. It appeared, from Captain Cuttle's explanation, that the
great Bunsby, like himself, was cruelly treated by his landlady, and
that when her usage of him for the time being was so hard that he
could bear it no longer, he set this gulf between them as a last
resource.
'Clara a-hoy!' cried the Captain, putting a hand to each side of
his mouth.
'A-hoy!' cried a boy, like the Captain's echo, tumbling up from
below.
'Bunsby aboard?' cried the Captain, hailing the boy in a stentorian
voice, as if he were half-a-mile off instead of two yards.
'Ay, ay!' cried the boy, in the same tone.
The boy then shoved out a plank to Captain Cuttle, who adjusted it
carefully, and led Florence across: returning presently for Miss
Nipper. So they stood upon the deck of the Cautious Clara, in whose
standing rigging, divers fluttering articles of dress were curing, in
company with a few tongues and some mackerel.
Immediately there appeared, coming slowly up above the bulk-head of
the cabin, another bulk-head 'human, and very large - with one
stationary eye in the mahogany face, and one revolving one, on the
principle of some lighthouses. This head was decorated with shaggy
hair, like oakum,' which had no governing inclination towards the
north, east, west, or south, but inclined to all four quarters of the
compass, and to every point upon it. The head was followed by a
perfect desert of chin, and by a shirt-collar and neckerchief, and by
a dreadnought pilot-coat, and by a pair of dreadnought pilot-trousers,
whereof the waistband was so very broad and high, that it became a
succedaneum for a waistcoat: being ornamented near the wearer's
breastbone with some massive wooden buttons, like backgammon men. As
the lower portions of these pantaloons became revealed, Bunsby stood
confessed; his hands in their pockets, which were of vast size; and
his gaze directed, not to Captain Cuttle or the ladies, but the
mast-head.
The profound appearance of this philosopher, who was bulky and
strong, and on whose extremely red face an expression of taciturnity
sat enthroned, not inconsistent with his character, in which that
quality was proudly conspicuous, almost daunted Captain Cuttle, though
on familiar terms with him. Whispering to Florence that Bunsby had
never in his life expressed surprise, and was considered not to know
what it meant, the Captain watched him as he eyed his mast-head, and
afterwards swept the horizon; and when the revolving eye seemed to be
coming round in his direction, said:
'Bunsby, my lad, how fares it?'
A deep, gruff, husky utterance, which seemed to have no connexion
with Bunsby, and certainly had not the least effect upon his face,
replied, 'Ay, ay, shipmet, how goes it?' At the same time Bunsby's
right hand and arm, emerging from a pocket, shook the Captain's, and
went back again.
'Bunsby,' said the Captain, striking home at once, 'here you are; a
man of mind, and a man as can give an opinion. Here's a young lady as
wants to take that opinion, in regard of my friend Wal'r; likewise my
t'other friend, Sol Gills, which is a character for you to come within
hail of, being a man of science, which is the mother of inwention, and
knows no law. Bunsby, will you wear, to oblige me, and come along with
us?'
The great commander, who seemed by expression of his visage to be
always on the look-out for something in the extremest distance' and to
have no ocular knowledge of any anng' within ten miles, made no reply
whatever.
'Here is a man,' said the Captain, addressing himself to his fair
auditors, and indicating the commander with his outstretched hook,
'that has fell down, more than any man alive; that has had more
accidents happen to his own self than the Seamen's Hospital to all
hands; that took as many spars and bars and bolts about the outside of
his head when he was young, as you'd want a order for on Chatham-yard
to build a pleasure yacht with; and yet that his opinions in that way,
it's my belief, for there ain't nothing like 'em afloat or ashore.'
The stolid commander appeared by a very slight vibration in his
elbows, to express some satisfitction in this encomium; but if his
face had been as distant as his gaze was, it could hardIy have
enlightened the beholders less in reference to anything that was
passing in his thoughts.
'Shipmate,' said Bunsby, all of a sudden, and stooping down to look
out under some interposing spar, 'what'll the ladies drink?'
Captain Cuttle, whose delicacy was shocked by such an inquiry in
connection with Florence, drew the sage aside, and seeming to explain
in his ear, accompanied him below; where, that he might not take
offence, the Captain drank a dram himself' which Florence and Susan,
glancing down the open skylight, saw the sage, with difficulty finding
room for himself between his berth and a very little brass fireplace,
serve out for self and friend. They soon reappeared on deck, and
Captain Cuttle, triumphing in the success of his enterprise, conducted
Florence back to the coach, while Bunsby followed, escorting Miss
Nipper, whom he hugged upon the way (much to that young lady's
indignation) with his pilot-coated arm, like a blue bear.
The Captain put his oracle inside, and gloried so much in having
secured him, and having got that mind into a hackney-coach, that he
could not refrain from often peeping in at Florence through the little
window behind the driver, and testifiing his delight in smiles, and
also in taps upon his forehead, to hint to her that the brain of
Bunsby was hard at it' In the meantime, Bunsby, still hugging Miss
Nipper (for his friend, the Captain, had not exaggerated the softness
of his heart), uniformily preserved his gravity of deportment, and
showed no other consciousness of her or anything.
Uncle Sol, who had come home, received them at the door, and
ushered them immediately into the little back parlour: strangely
altered by the absence of Walter. On the table, and about the room,
were the charts and maps on which the heavy-hearted Instrument-maker
had again and again tracked the missing vessel across the sea, and on
which, with a pair of compasses that he still had in his hand, he had
been measuring, a minute before, how far she must have driven, to have
driven here or there: and trying to demonstrate that a long time must
elapse before hope was exhausted.
'Whether she can have run,' said Uncle Sol, looking wistfully over
the chart; 'but no, that's almost impossible or whether she can have
been forced by stress of weather, - but that's not reasonably likely.
Or whether there is any hope she so far changed her course as - but
even I can hardly hope that!' With such broken suggestions, poor old
Uncle Sol roamed over the great sheet before him, and could not find a
speck of hopeful probability in it large enough to set one small point
of the compasses upon.
Florence saw immediately - it would have been difficult to help
seeing - that there was a singular, indescribable change in the old
man, and that while his manner was far more restless and unsettled
than usual, there was yet a curious, contradictory decision in it,
that perplexed her very much. She fancied once that he spoke wildly,
and at random; for on her saying she regretted not to have seen him
when she had been there before that morning, he at first replied that
he had been to see her, and directly afterwards seemed to wish to
recall that answer.
'You have been to see me?' said Florence. 'To-day?'
'Yes, my dear young lady,' returned Uncle Sol, looking at her and
away from her in a confused manner. 'I wished to see you with my own
eyes, and to hear you with my own ears, once more before - ' There he
stopped.
'Before when? Before what?' said Florence, putting her hand upon
his arm.
'Did I say "before?"' replied old Sol. 'If I did, I must have meant
before we should have news of my dear boy.'
'You are not well,' said Florence, tenderly. 'You have been so very
anxious I am sure you are not well.'
'I am as well,' returned the old man, shutting up his right hand,
and holding it out to show her: 'as well and firm as any man at my
time of life can hope to be. See! It's steady. Is its master not as
capable of resolution and fortitude as many a younger man? I think so.
We shall see.'
There was that in his manner more than in his words, though they
remained with her too, which impressed Florence so much, that she
would have confided her uneasiness to Captain Cuttle at that moment,
if the Captain had not seized that moment for expounding the state of
circumstance, on which the opinion of the sagacious Bunsby was
requested, and entreating that profound authority to deliver the same.
Bunsby, whose eye continued to be addressed to somewhere about the
half-way house between London and Gravesend, two or three times put
out his rough right arm, as seeking to wind it for inspiration round
the fair form of Miss Nipper; but that young female having withdrawn
herself, in displeasure, to the opposite side of the table, the soft
heart of the Commander of the Cautious Clara met with no response to
its impulses. After sundry failures in this wise, the Commander,
addressing himself to nobody, thus spake; or rather the voice within
him said of its own accord, and quite independent of himself, as if he
were possessed by a gruff spirit:
'My name's Jack Bunsby!'
'He was christened John,' cried the delighted Captain Cuttle. 'Hear
him!'
'And what I says,' pursued the voice, after some deliberation, 'I
stands to.
The Captain, with Florence on his arm, nodded at the auditory, and
seemed to say, 'Now he's coming out. This is what I meant when I
brought him.'
'Whereby,' proceeded the voice, 'why not? If so, what odds? Can any
man say otherwise? No. Awast then!'
When it had pursued its train of argument to this point, the voice
stopped, and rested. It then proceeded very slowly, thus:
'Do I believe that this here Son and Heir's gone down, my lads?
Mayhap. Do I say so? Which? If a skipper stands out by Sen' George's
Channel, making for the Downs, what's right ahead of him? The
Goodwins. He isn't foroed to run upon the Goodwins, but he may. The
bearings of this observation lays in the application on it. That ain't
no part of my duty. Awast then, keep a bright look-out for'ard, and
good luck to you!'
The voice here went out of the back parlour and into the street,
taking the Commander of the Cautious Clara with it, and accompanying
him on board again with all convenient expedition, where he
immediately turned in, and refreshed his mind with a nap.
The students of the sage's precepts, left to their own application
of his wisdom - upon a principle which was the main leg of the Bunsby
tripod, as it is perchance of some other oracular stools - looked upon
one another in a little uncertainty; while Rob the Grinder, who had
taken the innocent freedom of peering in, and listening, through the
skylight in the roof, came softly down from the leads, in a state of
very dense confusion. Captain Cuttle, however, whose admiration of
Bunsby was, if possible, enhanced by the splendid manner in which he
had justified his reputation and come through this solemn reference,
proceeded to explain that Bunsby meant nothing but confidence; that
Bunsby had no misgivings; and that such an opinion as that man had
given, coming from such a mind as his, was Hope's own anchor, with
good roads to cast it in. Florence endeavoured to believe that the
Captain was right; but the Nipper, with her arms tight folded, shook
her head in resolute denial, and had no more trust m Bunsby than in Mr
Perch himself.
The philosopher seemed to have left Uncle Sol pretty much where he
had found him, for he still went roaming about the watery world,
compasses in hand, and discovering no rest for them. It was in
pursuance of a whisper in his ear from Florence, while the old man was
absorbed in this pursuit, that Captain Cuttle laid his heavy hand upon
his shoulder.
'What cheer, Sol Gills?' cried the Captain, heartily.
'But so-so, Ned,' returned the Instrument-maker. 'I have been
remembering, all this afternoon, that on the very day when my boy
entered Dombey's House, and came home late to dinner, sitting just
there where you stand, we talked of storm and shipwreck, and I could
hardly turn him from the subject'
But meeting the eyes of Florence, which were fixed with earnest
scrutiny upon his face, the old man stopped and smiled.
'Stand by, old friend!' cried the Captain. 'Look alive! I tell you
what, Sol Gills; arter I've convoyed Heart's-delight safe home,' here
the Captain kissed his hook to Florence, 'I'll come back and take you
in tow for the rest of this blessed day. You'll come and eat your
dinner along with me, Sol, somewheres or another.'
'Not to-day, Ned!' said the old man quickly, and appearing to be
unaccountably startled by the proposition. 'Not to-day. I couldn't do
it!'
'Why not?' returned the Captain, gazing at him in astonishment.
'I - I have so much to do. I - I mean to think of, and arrange. I
couldn't do it, Ned, indeed. I must go out again, and be alone, and
turn my mind to many things to-day.'
The Captain looked at the Instrument-maker, and looked at Florence,
and again at the Instrument-maker. 'To-morrow, then,' he suggested, at
last.
'Yes, yes. To-morrow,' said the old man. 'Think of me to-morrow.
Say to-morrow.'
'I shall come here early, mind, Sol Gills,' stipulated the Captain.
'Yes, yes. The first thing tomorrow morning,' said old Sol; 'and
now good-bye, Ned Cuttle, and God bless you!'
Squeezing both the Captain's hands, with uncommon fervour, as he
said it, the old man turned to Florence, folded hers in his own, and
put them to his lips; then hurried her out to the coach with very
singular precipitation. Altogether, he made such an effect on Captain
Cuttle that the Captain lingered behind, and instructed Rob to be
particularly gentle and attentive to his master until the morning:
which injunction he strengthened with the payment of one shilling
down, and the promise of another sixpence before noon next day. This
kind office performed, Captain Cuttle, who considered himself the
natural and lawful body-guard of Florence, mounted the box with a
mighty sense of his trust, and escorted her home. At parting, he
assured her that he would stand by Sol Gills, close and true; and once
again inquired of Susan Nipper, unable to forget her gallant words in
reference to Mrs MacStinger, 'Would you, do you think my dear,
though?'
When the desolate house had closed upon the two, the Captain's
thoughts reverted to the old Instrument-maker, and he felt
uncomfortable. Therefore, instead of going home, he walked up and down
the street several times, and, eking out his leisure until evening,
dined late at a certain angular little tavern in the City, with a
public parlour like a wedge, to which glazed hats much resorted. The
Captain's principal intention was to pass Sol Gills's, after dark, and
look in through the window: which he did, The parlour door stood open,
and he could see his old friend writing busily and steadily at the
table within, while the little Midshipman, already sheltered from the
night dews, watched him from the counter; under which Rob the Grinder
made his own bed, preparatory to shutting the shop. Reassured by the
tranquillity that reigned within the precincts of the wooden mariner,
the Captain headed for Brig Place, resolving to weigh anchor betimes
in the morning.
CHAPTER 24.
The Study of a Loving Heart
Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, very good people, resided in a pretty
villa at Fulham, on the banks of the Thames; which was one of the most
desirable residences in the world when a rowing-match happened to be
going past, but had its little inconveniences at other times, among
which may be enumerated the occasional appearance of the river in the
drawing-room, and the contemporaneous disappearance of the lawn and
shrubbery.
Sir Barnet Skettles expressed his personal consequence chiefly
through an antique gold snuffbox, and a ponderous silk
pocket-kerchief, which he had an imposing manner of drawing out of his
pocket like a banner and using with both hands at once. Sir Barnet's
object in life was constantly to extend the range of his acquaintance.
Like a heavy body dropped into water - not to disparage so worthy a
gentleman by the comparison - it was in the nature of things that Sir
Barnet must spread an ever widening circle about him, until there was
no room left. Or, like a sound in air, the vibration of which,
according to the speculation of an ingenious modern philosopher, may
go on travelling for ever through the interminable fields of space,
nothing but coming to the end of his moral tether could stop Sir
Barnet Skettles in his voyage of discovery through the social system.
Sir Barnet was proud of making people acquainted with people. He
liked the thing for its own sake, and it advanced his favourite object
too. For example, if Sir Barnet had the good fortune to get hold of a
law recruit, or a country gentleman, and ensnared him to his
hospitable villa, Sir Barnet would say to him, on the morning after
his arrival, 'Now, my dear Sir, is there anybody you would like to
know? Who is there you would wish to meet? Do you take any interest in
writing people, or in painting or sculpturing people, or in acting
people, or in anything of that sort?' Possibly the patient answered
yes, and mentioned somebody, of whom Sir Barnet had no more personal
knowledge than of Ptolemy the Great. Sir Barnet replied, that nothing
on earth was easier, as he knew him very well: immediately called on
the aforesaid somebody, left his card, wrote a short note, - 'My dear
Sir - penalty of your eminent position - friend at my house naturally
desirous - Lady Skettles and myself participate - trust that genius
being superior to ceremonies, you will do us the distinguished favour
of giving us the pleasure,' etc, etc. - and so killed a brace of birds
with one stone, dead as door-nails.
With the snuff-box and banner in full force, Sir Barnet Skettles
propounded his usual inquiry to Florence on the first morning of her
visit. When Florence thanked him, and said there was no one in
particular whom she desired to see, it was natural she should think
with a pang, of poor lost Walter. When Sir Barnet Skettles, urging his
kind offer, said, 'My dear Miss Dombey, are you sure you can remember
no one whom your good Papa - to whom I beg you present the best
compliments of myself and Lady Skettles when you write - might wish
you to know?' it was natural, perhaps, that her poor head should droop
a little, and that her voice should tremble as it softly answered in
the negative.
Skettles Junior, much stiffened as to his cravat, and sobered down
as to his spirits' was at home for the holidays, and appeared to feel
himself aggrieved by the solicitude of his excellent mother that he
should be attentive to Florence. Another and a deeper injury under
which the soul of young Barnet chafed, was the company of Dr and Mrs
Blimber, who had been invited on a visit to the paternal roof-tree,
and of whom the young gentleman often said he would have preferred
their passing the vacation at Jericho.
'Is there anybody you can suggest now, Doctor Blimber?' said Sir
Barnet Skettles, turning to that gentleman.
'You are very kind, Sir Barnet,' returned Doctor Blimber. 'Really I
am not aware that there is, in particular. I like to know my
fellow-men in general, Sir Barnet. What does Terence say? Anyone who
is the parent of a son is interesting to me.
'Has Mrs Blimber any wish to see any remarkable person?' asked Sir
Barnet, courteously.
Mrs Blimber replied, with a sweet smile and a shake of her sky-blue
cap, that if Sir Barnet could have made her known to Cicero, she would
have troubled him; but such an introduction not being feasible, and
she already enjoying the friendship of himself and his amiable lady,
and possessing with the Doctor her husband their joint confidence in
regard to their dear son - here young Barnet was observed to curl his
nose - she asked no more.
Sir Barnet was fain, under these circumstances, to content himself
for the time with the company assembled. Florence was glad of that;
for she had a study to pursue among them, and it lay too near her
heart, and was too precious and momentous, to yield to any other
interest.
There were some children staying in the house. Children who were as
frank and happy with fathers and with mothers as those rosy faces
opposite home. Children who had no restraint upon their love. and
freely showed it. Florence sought to learn their secret; sought to
find out what it was she had missed; what simple art they knew, and
she knew not; how she could be taught by them to show her father that
she loved him, and to win his love again.
Many a day did Florence thoughtfully observe these children. On
many a bright morning did she leave her bed when the glorious sun
rose, and walking up and down upon the river's bank' before anyone in
the house was stirring, look up at the windows of their rooms, and
think of them, asleep, so gently tended and affectionately thought of.
Florence would feel more lonely then, than in the great house all
alone; and would think sometimes that she was better there than here,
and that there was greater peace in hiding herself than in mingling
with others of her age, and finding how unlike them all she was. But
attentive to her study, though it touched her to the quick at every
little leaf she turned in the hard book, Florence remained among them,
and tried with patient hope, to gain the knowledge that she wearied
for.
Ah! how to gain it! how to know the charm in its beginning! There
were daughters here, who rose up in the morning, and lay down to rest
at night, possessed of fathers' hearts already. They had no repulse to
overcome, no coldness to dread, no frown to smooth away. As the
morning advanced, and the windows opened one by one, and the dew began
to dry upon the flowers and and youthful feet began to move upon the
lawn, Florence, glancing round at the bright faces, thought what was
there she could learn from these children? It was too late to learn
from them; each could approach her father fearlessly, and put up her
lips to meet the ready kiss, and wind her arm about the neck that bent
down to caress her. She could not begin by being so bold. Oh! could it
be that there was less and less hope as she studied more and more!
She remembered well, that even the old woman who had robbed her
when a little child - whose image and whose house, and all she had
said and done, were stamped upon her recollection, with the enduring
sharpness of a fearful impression made at that early period of life -
had spoken fondly of her daughter, and how terribly even she had cried
out in the pain of hopeless separation from her child But her own
mother, she would think again, when she recalled this, had loved her
well. Then, sometimes, when her thoughts reverted swiftly to the void
between herself and her father, Florence would tremble, and the tears
would start upon her face, as she pictured to herself her mother
living on, and coming also to dislike her, because of her wanting the
unknown grace that should conciliate that father naturally, and had
never done so from her cradle She knew that this imagination did wrong
to her mother's memory, and had no truth in it, or base to rest upon;
and yet she tried so hard to justify him, and to find the whole blame
in herself, that she could not resist its passing, like a wild cloud,
through the distance of her mind.
There came among the other visitors, soon after Florence, one
beautiful girl, three or four years younger than she, who was an
orphan child, and who was accompanied by her aunt, a grey-haired lady,
who spoke much to Florence, and who greatly liked (but that they all
did) to hear her sing of an evening, and would always sit near her at
that time, with motherly interest. They had only been two days in the
house, when Florence, being in an arbour in the garden one warm
morning, musingly observant of a youthful group upon the turf, through
some intervening boughs, - and wreathing flowers for the head of one
little creature among them who was the pet and plaything of the rest,
heard this same lady and her niece, in pacing up and down a sheltered
nook close by, speak of herself.
'Is Florence an orphan like me, aunt?' said the child.
'No, my love. She has no mother, but her father is living.'
'Is she in mourning for her poor Mama, now?' inquired the child
quickly.
'No; for her only brother.'
'Has she no other brother?'
'None.'
'No sister?'
'None,'
'I am very, very sorry!' said the little girL
As they stopped soon afterwards to watch some boats, and had been
silent in the meantime, Florence, who had risen when she heard her
name, and had gathered up her flowers to go and meet them, that they
might know of her being within hearing, resumed her seat and work,
expecting to hear no more; but the conversation recommenced next
moment.
'Florence is a favourite with everyone here, and deserves to be, I
am sure,' said the child, earnestly. 'Where is her Papa?'
The aunt replied, after a moment's pause, that she did not know.
Her tone of voice arrested Florence, who had started from her seat
again; and held her fastened to the spot, with her work hastily caught
up to her bosom, and her two hands saving it from being scattered on
the ground.
'He is in England, I hope, aunt?' said the child.
'I believe so. Yes; I know he is, indeed.'
'Has he ever been here?'
'I believe not. No.'
'Is he coming here to see her?'
'I believe not.
'Is he lame, or blind, or ill, aunt?' asked the child.
The flowers that Florence held to her breast began to fall when she
heard those words, so wonderingly spoke She held them closer; and her
face hung down upon them'
'Kate,' said the lady, after another moment of silence, 'I will
tell you the whole truth about Florence as I have heard it, and
believe it to be. Tell no one else, my dear, because it may be little
known here, and your doing so would give her pain.'
'I never will!' exclaimed the child.
'I know you never will,' returned the lady. 'I can trust you as
myself. I fear then, Kate, that Florence's father cares little for
her, very seldom sees her, never was kind to her in her life, and now
quite shuns her and avoids her. She would love him dearly if he would
suffer her, but he will not - though for no fault of hers; and she is
greatly to be loved and pitied by all gentle hearts.'
More of the flowers that Florence held fell scattering on the
ground; those that remained were wet, but not with dew; and her face
dropped upon her laden hands.
'Poor Florence! Dear, good Florence!' cried the child.
'Do you know why I have told you this, Kate?' said the lady.
'That I may be very kind to her, and take great care to try to
please her. Is that the reason, aunt?'
'Partly,' said the lady, 'but not all. Though we see her so
cheerful; with a pleasant smile for everyone; ready to oblige us all,
and bearing her part in every amusement here: she can hardly be quite
happy, do you think she can, Kate?'
'I am afraid not,' said the little girl.
'And you can understand,' pursued the lady, 'why her observation of
children who have parents who are fond of them, and proud of them -
like many here, just now - should make her sorrowful in secret?'
'Yes, dear aunt,' said the child, 'I understand that very well.
Poor Florence!'
More flowers strayed upon the ground, and those she yet held to her
breast trembled as if a wintry wind were rustling them.
'My Kate,' said the lady, whose voice was serious, but very calm
and sweet, and had so impressed Florence from the first moment of her
hearing it, 'of all the youthful people here, you are her natural and
harmless friend; you have not the innocent means, that happier
children have - '
'There are none happier, aunt!' exclaimed the child, who seemed to
cling about her.
'As other children have, dear Kate, of reminding her of her
misfortune. Therefore I would have you, when you try to be her little
friend, try all the more for that, and feel that the bereavement you
sustained - thank Heaven! before you knew its weight- gives you claim
and hold upon poor Florence.'
'But I am not without a parent's love, aunt, and I never have
been,' said the child, 'with you.'
'However that may be, my dear,' returned the lady, 'your misfortune
is a lighter one than Florence's; for not an orphan in the wide world
can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living
parent's love.'
The flowers were scattered on the ground like dust; the empty hands
were spread upon the face; and orphaned Florence, shrinking down upon
the ground, wept long and bitterly.
But true of heart and resolute in her good purpose, Florence held
to it as her dying mother held by her upon the day that gave Paul
life. He did not know how much she loved him. However long the time in
coming, and however slow the interval, she must try to bring that
knowledge to her father's heart one day or other. Meantime she must be
careful in no thoughtless word, or look, or burst of feeling awakened
by any chance circumstance, to complain against him, or to give
occasion for these whispers to his prejudice.
Even in the response she made the orphan child, to whom she was
attracted strongly, and whom she had such occasion to remember,
Florence was mindful of him' If she singled her out too plainly
(Florence thought) from among the rest, she would confirm - in one
mind certainly: perhaps in more - the belief that he was cruel and
unnatural. Her own delight was no set-off to this, 'What she had
overheard was a reason, not for soothing herself, but for saving him;
and Florence did it, in pursuance of the study of her heart.
She did so always. If a book were read aloud, and there were
anything in the story that pointed at an unkind father, she was in
pain for their application of it to him; not for herself. So with any
trifle of an interlude that was acted, or picture that was shown, or
game that was played, among them. The occasions for such tenderness
towards him were so many, that her mind misgave her often, it would
indeed be better to go back to the old house, and live again within
the shadow of its dull walls, undisturbed. How few who saw sweet
Florence, in her spring of womanhood, the modest little queen of those
small revels, imagined what a load of sacred care lay heavy in her
breast! How few of those who stiffened in her father's freezing
atmosphere, suspected what a heap of fiery coals was piled upon his
head!
Florence pursued her study patiently, and, failing to acquire the
secret of the nameless grace she sought, among the youthful company
who were assembled in the house, often walked out alone, in the early
morning, among the children of the poor. But still she found them all
too far advanced to learn from. They had won their household places
long ago, and did not stand without, as she did, with a bar across the
door.
There was one man whom she several times observed at work very
early, and often with a girl of about her own age seated near him' He
was a very poor man, who seemed to have no regular employment, but now
went roaming about the banks of the river when the tide was low,
looking out for bits and scraps in the mud; and now worked at the
unpromising little patch of garden-ground before his cottage; and now
tinkered up a miserable old boat that belonged to him; or did some job
of that kind for a neighbour, as chance occurred. Whatever the man's
labour, the girl was never employed; but sat, when she was with him,
in a listless, moping state, and idle.
Florence had often wished to speak to this man; yet she had never
taken courage to do so, as he made no movement towards her. But one
morning when she happened to come upon him suddenly, from a by-path
among some pollard willows which terminated in the little shelving
piece of stony ground that lay between his dwelling and the water,
where he was bending over a fire he had made to caulk the old boat
which was lying bottom upwards, close by, he raised his head at the
sound of her footstep, and gave her Good morning.
'Good morning,' said Florence, approaching nearer, 'you are at work
early.'
'I'd be glad to be often at work earlier, Miss, if I had work to
do.'
'Is it so hard to get?' asked Florence.
'I find it so,' replied the man.
Florence glanced to where the girl was sitting, drawn together,
with her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her hands, and said:
'Is that your daughter?'
He raised his head quickly, and looking towards the girl with a
brightened face, nodded to her, and said 'Yes,' Florence looked
towards her too, and gave her a kind salutation; the girl muttered
something in return, ungraciously and sullenly.
'Is she in want of employment also?' said Florence.
The man shook his head. 'No, Miss,' he said. 'I work for both,'
'Are there only you two, then?' inquired Florence.
'Only us two,' said the man. 'Her mother his been dead these ten
year. Martha!' lifted up his head again, and whistled to her) 'won't
you say a word to the pretty young lady?'
The girl made an impatient gesture with her cowering shoulders, and
turned her head another way. Ugly, misshapen, peevish,
ill-conditioned, ragged, dirty - but beloved! Oh yes! Florence had
seen her father's look towards her, and she knew whose look it had no
likeness to.
'I'm afraid she's worse this morning, my poor girl!' said the man,
suspending his work, and contemplating his ill-favoured child, with a
compassion that was the more tender for being rougher.
'She is ill, then!' said Florence,
The man drew a deep sigh 'I don't believe my Martha's had five
short days' good health,' he answered, looking at her still, 'in as
many long years'
'Ay! and more than that, John,' said a neighbour, who had come down
to help him with the boat.
'More than that, you say, do you?' cried the other, pushing back
his battered hat, and drawing his hand across his forehead. 'Very
like. It seems a long, long time.'
'And the more the time,' pursued the neighbour, 'the more you've
favoured and humoured her, John, till she's got to be a burden to
herself, and everybody else'
'Not to me,' said her father, falling to his work. 'Not to me.'
Florence could feel - who better? - how truly he spoke. She drew a
little closer to him, and would have been glad to touch his rugged
hand, and thank him for his goodness to the miserable object that he
looked upon with eyes so different from any other man's.
'Who would favour my poor girl - to call it favouring - if I
didn't?' said the father.
'Ay, ay,' cried the neighbour. 'In reason, John. But you! You rob
yourself to give to her. You bind yourself hand and foot on her
account. You make your life miserable along of her. And what does she
care! You don't believe she knows it?'
The father lifted up his head again, and whistled to her. Martha
made the same impatient gesture with her crouching shoulders, in
reply; and he was glad and happy.
'Only for that, Miss,' said the neighbour, with a smile, in which
there was more of secret sympathy than he expressed; 'only to get
that, he never lets her out of his sight!'
'Because the day'll come, and has been coming a long while,'
observed the other, bending low over his work, 'when to get half as
much from that unfort'nate child of mine - to get the trembling of a
finger, or the waving of a hair - would be to raise the dead.'
Florence softly put some money near his hand on the old boat, and
left him.
And now Florence began to think, if she were to fall ill, if she
were to fade like her dear brother, would he then know that she had
loved him; would she then grow dear to him; would he come to her
bedside, when she was weak and dim of sight, and take her into his
embrace, and cancel all the past? Would he so forgive her, in that
changed condition, for not having been able to lay open her childish
heart to him, as to make it easy to relate with what emotions she had
gone out of his room that night; what she had meant to say if she had
had the courage; and how she had endeavoured, afterwards, to learn the
way she never knew in infancy?
Yes, she thought if she were dying, he would relent. She thought,
that if she lay, serene and not unwilling to depart, upon the bed that
was curtained round with recollections of their darling boy, he would
be touched home, and would say, 'Dear Florence, live for me, and we
will love each other as we might have done, and be as happy as we
might have been these many years!' She thought that if she heard such
words from him, and had her arms clasped round him' she could answer
with a smile, 'It is too late for anything but this; I never could be
happier, dear father!' and so leave him, with a blessing on her lips.
The golden water she remembered on the wall, appeared to Florence,
in the light of such reflections, only as a current flowing on to
rest, and to a region where the dear ones, gone before, were waiting,
hand in hand; and often when she looked upon the darker river rippling
at her feet, she thought with awful wonder, but not terror, of that
river which her brother had so often said was bearing him away.
The father and his sick daughter were yet fresh in Florence's mind,
and, indeed, that incident was not a week old, when Sir Barnet and his
lady going out walking in the lanes one afternoon, proposed to her to
bear them company. Florence readily consenting, Lady Skettles ordered
out young Barnet as a matter of course. For nothing delighted Lady
Skettles so much, as beholding her eldest son with Florence on his
arm.
Barnet, to say the truth, appeared to entertain an opposite
sentiment on the subject, and on such occasions frequently expressed
himself audibly, though indefinitely, in reference to 'a parcel of
girls.' As it was not easy to ruffle her sweet temper, however,
Florence generally reconciled the young gentleman to his fate after a
few minutes, and they strolled on amicably: Lady Skettles and Sir
Barnet following, in a state of perfect complacency and high
gratification.
This was the order of procedure on the afternoon in question; and
Florence had almost succeeded in overruling the present objections of
Skettles Junior to his destiny, when a gentleman on horseback came
riding by, looked at them earnestly as he passed, drew in his rein,
wheeled round, and came riding back again, hat in hand.
The gentleman had looked particularly at Florence; and when the
little party stopped, on his riding back, he bowed to her, before
saluting Sir Barnet and his lady. Florence had no remembrance of
having ever seen him, but she started involuntarily when he came near
her, and drew back.
'My horse is perfectly quiet, I assure you,' said the gentleman.
It was not that, but something in the gentleman himself - Florence
could not have said what - that made her recoil as if she had been
stung.
'I have the honour to address Miss Dombey, I believe?' said the
gentleman, with a most persuasive smile. On Florence inclining her
head, he added, 'My name is Carker. I can hardly hope to be remembered
by Miss Dombey, except by name. Carker.'
Florence, sensible of a strange inclination to shiver, though the
day was hot, presented him to her host and hostess; by whom he was
very graciously received.
'I beg pardon,' said Mr Carker, 'a thousand times! But I am going
down tomorrow morning to Mr Dombey, at Leamington, and if Miss Dombey
can entrust me with any commission, need I say how very happy I shall
be?'
Sir Barnet immediately divining that Florence would desire to write
a letter to her father, proposed to return, and besought Mr Carker to
come home and dine in his riding gear. Mr Carker had the misfortune to
be engaged to dinner, but if Miss Dombey wished to write, nothing
would delight him more than to accompany them back, and to be her
faithful slave in waiting as long as she pleased. As he said this with
his widest smile, and bent down close to her to pat his horse's neck,
Florence meeting his eyes, saw, rather than heard him say, 'There is
no news of the ship!'
Confused, frightened, shrinking from him, and not even sure that he
had said those words, for he seemed to have shown them to her in some
extraordinary manner through his smile, instead of uttering them,
Florence faintly said that she was obliged to him, but she would not
write; she had nothing to say.
'Nothing to send, Miss Dombey?' said the man of teeth.
'Nothing,' said Florence, 'but my - but my dear love- if you
please.'
Disturbed as Florence was, she raised her eyes to his face with an
imploring and expressive look, that plainly besought him, if he knew -
which he as plainly did - that any message between her and her father
was an uncommon charge, but that one most of all, to spare her. Mr
Carker smiled and bowed low, and being charged by Sir Barnet with the
best compliments of himself and Lady Skettles, took his leave, and
rode away: leaving a favourable impression on that worthy couple.
Florence was seized with such a shudder as he went, that Sir Barnet,
adopting the popular superstition, supposed somebody was passing over
her grave. Mr Carker turning a corner, on the instant, looked back,
and bowed, and disappeared, as if he rode off to the churchyard
straight, to do it.
CHAPTER 25.
Strange News of Uncle Sol
Captain Cuttle, though no sluggard, did not turn out so early on
the morning after he had seen Sol Gills, through the shop-window,
writing in the parlour, with the Midshipman upon the counter, and Rob
the Grinder making up his bed below it, but that the clocks struck six
as he raised himself on his elbow, and took a survey of his little
chamber. The Captain's eyes must have done severe duty, if he usually
opened them as wide on awaking as he did that morning; and were but
roughly rewarded for their vigilance, if he generally rubbed them half
as hard. But the occasion was no common one, for Rob the Grinder had
certainly never stood in the doorway of Captain Cuttle's room before,
and in it he stood then, panting at the Captain, with a flushed and
touzled air of Bed about him, that greatly heightened both his colour
and expression.
'Holloa!' roared the Captain. 'What's the matter?'
Before Rob could stammer a word in answer, Captain Cuttle turned
out, all in a heap, and covered the boy's mouth with his hand.
'Steady, my lad,' said the Captain, 'don't ye speak a word to me as
yet!'
The Captain, looking at his visitor in great consternation, gently
shouldered him into the next room, after laying this injunction upon
him; and disappearing for a few moments, forthwith returned in the
blue suit. Holding up his hand in token of the injunction not yet
being taken off, Captain Cuttle walked up to the cupboard, and poured
himself out a dram; a counterpart of which he handed to the messenger.
The Captain then stood himself up in a corner, against the wall, as if
to forestall the possibility of being knocked backwards by the
communication that was to be made to him; and having swallowed his
liquor, with his eyes fixed on the messenger, and his face as pale as
his face could be, requested him to 'heave ahead.'
'Do you mean, tell you, Captain?' asked Rob, who had been greatly
impressed by these precautions
'Ay!' said the Captain.
'Well, Sir,' said Rob, 'I ain't got much to tell. But look here!'
Rob produced a bundle of keys. The Captain surveyed them, remained
in his corner, and surveyed the messenger.
'And look here!' pursued Rob.
The boy produced a sealed packet, which Captain Cuttle stared at as
he had stared at the keys.
'When I woke this morning, Captain,' said Rob, 'which was about a
quarter after five, I found these on my pillow. The shop-door was
unbolted and unlocked, and Mr Gills gone.'
'Gone!' roared the Captain.
'Flowed, Sir,' returned Rob.
The Captain's voice was so tremendous, and he came out of his
corner with such way on him, that Rob retreated before him into
another corner: holding out the keys and packet, to prevent himself
from being run down.
'"For Captain Cuttle," Sir,' cried Rob, 'is on the keys, and on the
packet too. Upon my word and honour, Captain Cuttle, I don't know
anything more about it. I wish I may die if I do! Here's a sitiwation
for a lad that's just got a sitiwation,' cried the unfortunate
Grinder, screwing his cuff into his face: 'his master bolted with his
place, and him blamed for it!'
These lamentations had reference to Captain Cuttle's gaze, or
rather glare, which was full of vague suspicions, threatenings, and
denunciations. Taking the proffered packet from his hand, the Captain
opened it and read as follows:-
'My dear Ned Cuttle. Enclosed is my will!' The Captain turned it
over, with a doubtful look - 'and Testament - Where's the Testament?'
said the Captain, instantly impeaching the ill-fated Grinder. 'What
have you done with that, my lad?'
'I never see it,' whimpered Rob. 'Don't keep on suspecting an
innocent lad, Captain. I never touched the Testament.'
Captain Cuttle shook his head, implying that somebody must be made
answerable for it; and gravely proceeded:
'Which don't break open for a year, or until you have decisive
intelligence of my dear Walter, who is dear to you, Ned, too, I am
sure.' The Captain paused and shook his head in some emotion; then, as
a re-establishment of his dignity in this trying position, looked with
exceeding sternness at the Grinder. 'If you should never hear of me,
or see me more, Ned, remember an old friend as he will remember you to
the last - kindly; and at least until the period I have mentioned has
expired, keep a home in the old place for Walter. There are no debts,
the loan from Dombey's House is paid off and all my keys I send with
this. Keep this quiet, and make no inquiry for me; it is useless. So
no more, dear Ned, from your true friend, Solomon Gills.' The Captain
took a long breath, and then read these words written below: '"The boy
Rob, well recommended, as I told you, from Dombey's House. If all else
should come to the hammer, take care, Ned, of the little Midshipman."'
To convey to posterity any idea of the manner in which the Captain,
after turning this letter over and over, and reading it a score of
times, sat down in his chair, and held a court-martial on the subject
in his own mind, would require the united genius of all the great men,
who, discarding their own untoward days, have determined to go down to
posterity, and have never got there. At first the Captain was too much
confounded and distressed to think of anything but the letter itself;
and even when his thoughts began to glance upon the various attendant
facts, they might, perhaps, as well have occupied themselves with
their former theme, for any light they reflected on them. In this
state of mind, Captain Cuttle having the Grinder before the court, and
no one else, found it a great relief to decide, generally, that he was
an object of suspicion: which the Captain so clearly expressed in his
visage, that Rob remonstrated.
'Oh, don't, Captain!' cried the Grinder. 'I wonder how you can!
what have I done to be looked at, like that?'
'My lad,' said Captain Cuttle, 'don't you sing out afore you're
hurt. And don't you commit yourself, whatever you do.'
'I haven't been and committed nothing, Captain!' answered Rob.
'Keep her free, then,' said the Captain, impressively, 'and ride
easy.
With a deep sense of the responsibility imposed upon him' and the
necessity of thoroughly fathoming this mysterious affair as became a
man in his relations with the parties, Captain Cuttle resolved to go
down and examine the premises, and to keep the Grinder with him.
Considering that youth as under arrest at present, the Captain was in
some doubt whether it might not be expedient to handcuff him, or tie
his ankles together, or attach a weight to his legs; but not being
clear as to the legality of such formalities, the Captain decided
merely to hold him by the shoulder all the way, and knock him down if
he made any objection.
However, he made none, and consequently got to the
Instrument-maker's house without being placed under any more stringent
restraint. As the shutters were not yet taken down, the Captain's
first care was to have the shop opened; and when the daylight was
freely admitted, he proceeded, with its aid, to further investigation.
The Captain's first care was to establish himself in a chair in the
shop, as President of the solemn tribunal that was sitting within him;
and to require Rob to lie down in his bed under the counter, show
exactly where he discovered the keys and packet when he awoke, how he
found the door when he went to try it, how he started off to Brig
Place - cautiously preventing the latter imitation from being carried
farther than the threshold - and so on to the end of the chapter. When
all this had been done several times, the Captain shook his head and
seemed to think the matter had a bad look.
Next, the Captain, with some indistinct idea of finding a body,
instituted a strict search over the whole house; groping in the
cellars with a lighted candle, thrusting his hook behind doors,
bringing his head into violent contact with beams, and covering
himself with cobwebs. Mounting up to the old man's bed-room, they
found that he had not been in bed on the previous night, but had
merely lain down on the coverlet, as was evident from the impression
yet remaining there.
'And I think, Captain,' said Rob, looking round the room, 'that
when Mr Gills was going in and out so often, these last few days, he
was taking little things away, piecemeal, not to attract attention.'
'Ay!' said the Captain, mysteriously. 'Why so, my lad?'
'Why,' returned Rob, looking about, 'I don't see his shaving
tackle. Nor his brushes, Captain. Nor no shirts. Nor yet his shoes.'
As each of these articles was mentioned, Captain Cuttle took
particular notice of the corresponding department of the Grinder, lest
he should appear to have been in recent use, or should prove to be in
present possession thereof. But Rob had no occasion to shave, was not
brushed, and wore the clothes he had on for a long time past, beyond
all possibility of a mistake.
'And what should you say,' said the Captain - 'not committing
yourself - about his time of sheering off? Hey?'
'Why, I think, Captain,' returned Rob, 'that he must have gone
pretty soon after I began to snore.'
'What o'clock was that?' said the Captain, prepared to be very
particular about the exact time.
'How can I tell, Captain!' answered Rob. 'I only know that I'm a
heavy sleeper at first, and a light one towards morning; and if Mr
Gills had come through the shop near daybreak, though ever so much on
tiptoe, I'm pretty sure I should have heard him shut the door at all
events.
On mature consideration of this evidence, Captain Cuttle began to
think that the Instrument-maker must have vanished of his own accord;
to which logical conclusion he was assisted by the letter addressed to
himself, which, as being undeniably in the old man's handwriting,
would seem, with no great forcing, to bear the construction, that he
arranged of his own will to go, and so went. The Captain had next to
consider where and why? and as there was no way whatsoever that he saw
to the solution of the first difficulty, he confined his meditations
to the second.
Remembering the old man's curious manner, and the farewell he had
taken of him; unaccountably fervent at the time, but quite
intelligible now: a terrible apprehension strengthened on the Captain,
that, overpowered by his anxieties and regrets for Walter, he had been
driven to commit suicide. Unequal to the wear and tear of daily life,
as he had often professed himself to be, and shaken as he no doubt was
by the uncertainty and deferred hope he had undergone, it seemed no
violently strained misgiving, but only too probable. Free from debt,
and with no fear for his personal liberty, or the seizure of his
goods, what else but such a state of madness could have hurried him
away alone and secretly? As to his carrying some apparel with him, if
he had really done so - and they were not even sure of that - he might
have done so, the Captain argued, to prevent inquiry, to distract
attention from his probable fate, or to ease the very mind that was
now revolving all these possibilities. Such, reduced into plain
language, and condensed within a small compass, was the final result
and substance of Captain Cuttle's deliberations: which took a long
time to arrive at this pass, and were, like some more public
deliberations, very discursive and disorderly.
Dejected and despondent in the extreme, Captain Cuttle felt it just
to release Rob from the arrest in which he had placed him, and to
enlarge him, subject to a kind of honourable inspection which he still
resolved to exercise; and having hired a man, from Brogley the Broker,
to sit in the shop during their absence, the Captain, taking Rob with
him, issued forth upon a dismal quest after the mortal remains of
Solomon Gills.
Not a station-house, or bone-house, or work-house in the metropolis
escaped a visitation from the hard glazed hat. Along the wharves,
among the shipping on the bank-side, up the river, down the river,
here, there, everywhere, it went gleaming where men were thickest,
like the hero's helmet in an epic battle. For a whole week the Captain
read of all the found and missing people in all the newspapers and
handbills, and went forth on expeditions at all hours of the day to
identify Solomon Gills, in poor little ship-boys who had fallen
overboard, and in tall foreigners with dark beards who had taken
poison - 'to make sure,' Captain Cuttle said, 'that it wam't him.' It
is a sure thing that it never was, and that the good Captain had no
other satisfaction.
Captain Cuttle at last abandoned these attempts as hopeless, and
set himself to consider what was to be done next. After several new
perusals of his poor friend's letter, he considered that the
maintenance of' a home in the old place for Walter' was the primary
duty imposed upon him. Therefore, the Captain's decision was, that he
would keep house on the premises of Solomon Gills himself, and would
go into the instrument-business, and see what came of it.
But as this step involved the relinquishment of his apartments at
Mrs MacStinger's, and he knew that resolute woman would never hear of
his deserting them, the Captain took the desperate determination of
running away.
'Now, look ye here, my lad,' said the Captain to Rob, when he had
matured this notable scheme, 'to-morrow, I shan't be found in this
here roadstead till night - not till arter midnight p'rhaps. But you
keep watch till you hear me knock, and the moment you do, turn-to, and
open the door.'
'Very good, Captain,' said Rob.
'You'll continue to be rated on these here books,' pursued the
Captain condescendingly, 'and I don't say but what you may get
promotion, if you and me should pull together with a will. But the
moment you hear me knock to-morrow night, whatever time it is, turn-to
and show yourself smart with the door.'
'I'll be sure to do it, Captain,' replied Rob.
'Because you understand,' resumed the Captain, coming back again to
enforce this charge upon his mind, 'there may be, for anything I can
say, a chase; and I might be took while I was waiting, if you didn't
show yourself smart with the door.'
Rob again assured the Captain that he would be prompt and wakeful;
and the Captain having made this prudent arrangement, went home to Mrs
MacStinger's for the last time.
The sense the Captain had of its being the last time, and of the
awful purpose hidden beneath his blue waistcoat, inspired him with
such a mortal dread of Mrs MacStinger, that the sound of that lady's
foot downstairs at any time of the day, was sufficient to throw him
into a fit of trembling. It fell out, too, that Mrs MacStinger was in
a charming temper - mild and placid as a house- lamb; and Captain
Cuttle's conscience suffered terrible twinges, when she came up to
inquire if she could cook him nothing for his dinner.
'A nice small kidney-pudding now, Cap'en Cuttle,' said his
landlady: 'or a sheep's heart. Don't mind my trouble.'
'No thank'ee, Ma'am,' returned the Captain.
'Have a roast fowl,' said Mrs MacStinger, 'with a bit of weal
stuffing and some egg sauce. Come, Cap'en Cuttle! Give yourself a
little treat!'
'No thank'ee, Ma'am,' returned the Captain very humbly.
'I'm sure you're out of sorts, and want to be stimulated,' said Mrs
MacStinger. 'Why not have, for once in a way, a bottle of sherry
wine?'
'Well, Ma'am,' rejoined the Captain, 'if you'd be so good as take a
glass or two, I think I would try that. Would you do me the favour,
Ma'am,' said the Captain, torn to pieces by his conscience, 'to accept
a quarter's rent ahead?'
'And why so, Cap'en Cuttle?' retorted Mrs MacStinger - sharply, as
the Captain thought.
The Captain was frightened to dead 'If you would Ma'am,' he said
with submission, 'it would oblige me. I can't keep my money very well.
It pays itself out. I should take it kind if you'd comply.'
'Well, Cap'en Cuttle,' said the unconscious MacStinger, rubbing her
hands, 'you can do as you please. It's not for me, with my family, to
refuse, no more than it is to ask'
'And would you, Ma'am,' said the Captain, taking down the tin
canister in which he kept his cash' from the top shelf of the
cupboard, 'be so good as offer eighteen-pence a-piece to the little
family all round? If you could make it convenient, Ma'am, to pass the
word presently for them children to come for'ard, in a body, I should
be glad to see 'em'
These innocent MacStingers were so many daggers to the Captain's
breast, when they appeared in a swarm, and tore at him with the
confiding trustfulness he so little deserved. The eye of Alexander
MacStinger, who had been his favourite, was insupportable to the
Captain; the voice of Juliana MacStinger, who was the picture of her
mother, made a coward of him.
Captain Cuttle kept up appearances, nevertheless, tolerably well,
and for an hour or two was very hardly used and roughly handled by the
young MacStingers: who in their childish frolics, did a little damage
also to the glazed hat, by sitting in it, two at a time, as in a nest,
and drumming on the inside of the crown with their shoes. At length
the Captain sorrowfully dismissed them: taking leave of these cherubs
with the poignant remorse and grief of a man who was going to
execution.
In the silence of night, the Captain packed up his heavier property
in a chest, which he locked, intending to leave it there, in all
probability for ever, but on the forlorn chance of one day finding a
man sufficiently bold and desperate to come and ask for it. Of his
lighter necessaries, the Captain made a bundle; and disposed his plate
about his person, ready for flight. At the hour of midnight, when Brig
Place was buried in slumber, and Mrs MacStinger was lulled in sweet
oblivion, with her infants around her, the guilty Captain, stealing
down on tiptoe, in the dark, opened the door, closed it softly after
him, and took to his heels
Pursued by the image of Mrs MacStinger springing out of bed, and,
regardless of costume, following and bringing him back; pursued also
by a consciousness of his enormous crime; Captain Cuttle held on at a
great pace, and allowed no grass to grow under his feet, between Brig
Place and the Instrument-maker's door. It opened when he knocked - for
Rob was on the watch - and when it was bolted and locked behind him,
Captain Cuttle felt comparatively safe.
'Whew!' cried the Captain, looking round him. 'It's a breather!'
'Nothing the matter, is there, Captain?' cried the gaping Rob.
'No, no!' said Captain Cuttle, after changing colour, and listening
to a passing footstep in the street. 'But mind ye, my lad; if any
lady, except either of them two as you see t'other day, ever comes and
asks for Cap'en Cuttle, be sure to report no person of that name
known, nor never heard of here; observe them orders, will you?'
'I'll take care, Captain,' returned Rob.
'You might say - if you liked,' hesitated the Captain, 'that you'd
read in the paper that a Cap'en of that name was gone to Australia,
emigrating, along with a whole ship's complement of people as had all
swore never to come back no more.
Rob nodded his understanding of these instructions; and Captain
Cuttle promising to make a man of him, if he obeyed orders, dismissed
him, yawning, to his bed under the counter, and went aloft to the
chamber of Solomon Gills.
What the Captain suffered next day, whenever a bonnet passed, or
how often he darted out of the shop to elude imaginary MacStingers,
and sought safety in the attic, cannot be told. But to avoid the
fatigues attendant on this means of self-preservation, the Captain
curtained the glass door of communication between the shop and
parlour, on the inside; fitted a key to it from the bunch that had
been sent to him; and cut a small hole of espial in the wall. The
advantage of this fortification is obvious. On a bonnet appearing, the
Captain instantly slipped into his garrison, locked himself up, and
took a secret observation of the enemy. Finding it a false alarm, the
Captain instantly slipped out again. And the bonnets in the street
were so very numerous, and alarms were so inseparable from their
appearance, that the Captain was almost incessantly slipping in and
out all day long.
Captain Cuttle found time, however, in the midst of this fatiguing
service to inspect the stock; in connexion with which he had the
general idea (very laborious to Rob) that too much friction could not
be bestowed upon it, and that it could not be made too bright. He also
ticketed a few attractive-looking articles at a venture, at prices
ranging from ten shillings to fifty pounds, and exposed them in the
window to the great astonishment of the public.
After effecting these improvements, Captain Cuttle, surrounded by
the instruments, began to feel scientific: and looked up at the stars
at night, through the skylight, when he was smoking his pipe in the
little back parlour before going to bed, as if he had established a
kind of property in them. As a tradesman in the City, too, he began to
have an interest in the Lord Mayor, and the Sheriffs, and in Public
Companies; and felt bound to read the quotations of the Funds every
day, though he was unable to make out, on any principle of navigation,
what the figures meant, and could have very well dispensed with the
fractions. Florence, the Captain waited on, with his strange news of
Uncle Sol, immediately after taking possession of the Midshipman; but
she was away from home. So the Captain sat himself down in his altered
station of life, with no company but Rob the Grinder; and losing count
of time, as men do when great changes come upon them, thought musingly
of Walter, and of Solomon Gills, and even of Mrs MacStinger herself,
as among the things that had been.
CHAPTER 26.
Shadows of the Past and Future
'Your most obedient, Sir,' said the Major. 'Damme, Sir, a friend of
my friend Dombey's is a friend of mine, and I'm glad to see you!'
'I am infinitely obliged, Carker,' explained Mr Dombey, 'to Major
Bagstock, for his company and conversation. 'Major Bagstock has
rendered me great service, Carker.'
Mr Carker the Manager, hat in hand, just arrived at Leamington, and
just introduced to the Major, showed the Major his whole double range
of teeth, and trusted he might take the liberty of thanking him with
all his heart for having effected so great an Improvement in Mr
Dombey's looks and spirits'
'By Gad, Sir,' said the Major, in reply, 'there are no thanks due
to me, for it's a give and take affair. A great creature like our
friend Dombey, Sir,' said the Major, lowering his voice, but not
lowering it so much as to render it inaudible to that gentleman,
'cannot help improving and exalting his friends. He strengthens and
invigorates a man, Sir, does Dombey, in his moral nature.'
Mr Carker snapped at the expression. In his moral nature. Exactly.
The very words he had been on the point of suggesting.
'But when my friend Dombey, Sir,' added the Major, 'talks to you of
Major Bagstock, I must crave leave to set him and you right. He means
plain Joe, Sir - Joey B. - Josh. Bagstock - Joseph- rough and tough
Old J., Sir. At your service.'
Mr Carker's excessively friendly inclinations towards the Major,
and Mr Carker's admiration of his roughness, toughness, and plainness,
gleamed out of every tooth in Mr Carker's head.
'And now, Sir,' said the Major, 'you and Dombey have the devil's
own amount of business to talk over.'
'By no means, Major,' observed Mr Dombey.
'Dombey,' said the Major, defiantly, 'I know better; a man of your
mark - the Colossus of commerce - is not to be interrupted. Your
moments are precious. We shall meet at dinner-time. In the interval,
old Joseph will be scarce. The dinner-hour is a sharp seven, Mr
Carker.'
With that, the Major, greatly swollen as to his face, withdrew; but
immediately putting in his head at the door again, said:
'I beg your pardon. Dombey, have you any message to 'em?'
Mr Dombey in some embarrassment, and not without a glance at the
courteous keeper of his business confidence, entrusted the Major with
his compliments.
'By the Lord, Sir,' said the Major, 'you must make it something
warmer than that, or old Joe will be far from welcome.'
'Regards then, if you will, Major,' returned Mr Dombey.
'Damme, Sir,' said the Major, shaking his shoulders and his great
cheeks jocularly: 'make it something warmer than that.'
'What you please, then, Major,' observed Mr Dombey.
'Our friend is sly, Sir, sly, Sir, de-vilish sly,' said the Major,
staring round the door at Carker. 'So is Bagstock.' But stopping in
the midst of a chuckle, and drawing himself up to his full height, the
Major solemnly exclaimed, as he struck himself on the chest, 'Dombey!
I envy your feelings. God bless you!' and withdrew.
'You must have found the gentleman a great resource,' said Carker,
following him with his teeth.
'Very great indeed,' said Mr Dombey.
'He has friends here, no doubt,' pursued Carker. 'I perceive, from
what he has said, that you go into society here. Do you know,' smiling
horribly, 'I am so very glad that you go into society!'
Mr Dombey acknowledged this display of interest on the part of his
second in command, by twirling his watch-chain, and slightly moving
his head.
'You were formed for society,' said Carker. 'Of all the men I know,
you are the best adapted, by nature and by position, for society. Do
you know I have been frequently amazed that you should have held it at
arm's length so long!'
'I have had my reasons, Carker. I have been alone, and indifferent
to it. But you have great social qualifications yourself, and are the
more likely to have been surprised.'
'Oh! I!' returned the other, with ready self-disparagement. 'It's
quite another matter in the case of a man like me. I don't come into
comparison with you.'
Mr Dombey put his hand to his neckcloth, settled his chin in it,
coughed, and stood looking at his faithful friend and servant for a
few moments in silence.
'I shall have the pleasure, Carker,' said Mr Dombey at length:
making as if he swallowed something a little too large for his throat:
'to present you to my - to the Major's friends. Highly agreeable
people.'
'Ladies among them, I presume?' insinuated the smooth Manager.
'They are all - that is to say, they are both - ladies,' replied Mr
Dombey.
'Only two?' smiled Carker.
'They are only two. I have confined my visits to their residence,
and have made no other acquaintance here.'
'Sisters, perhaps?' quoth Carker.
'Mother and daughter,' replied Mr Dombey.
As Mr Dombey dropped his eyes, and adjusted his neckcloth again,
the smiling face of Mr Carker the Manager became in a moment, and
without any stage of transition, transformed into a most intent and
frowning face, scanning his closely, and with an ugly sneer. As Mr
Dombey raised his eyes, it changed back, no less quickly, to its old
expression, and showed him every gum of which it stood possessed.
'You are very kind,' said Carker, 'I shall be delighted to know
them. Speaking of daughters, I have seen Miss Dombey.'
There was a sudden rush of blood to Mr Dombey's face.
'I took the liberty of waiting on her,' said Carker, 'to inquire if
she could charge me with any little commission. I am not so fortunate
as to be the bearer of any but her - but her dear love.'
Wolf's face that it was then, with even the hot tongue revealing
itself through the stretched mouth, as the eyes encountered Mr
Dombey's!
'What business intelligence is there?' inquired the latter
gentleman, after a silence, during which Mr Carker had produced some
memoranda and other papers.
'There is very little,' returned Carker. 'Upon the whole we have
not had our usual good fortune of late, but that is of little moment
to you. At Lloyd's, they give up the Son and Heir for lost. Well, she
was insured, from her keel to her masthead.'
'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, taking a chair near him, 'I cannot say
that young man, Gay, ever impressed me favourably
'Nor me,' interposed the Manager.
'But I wish,' said Mr Dombey, without heeding the interruption, 'he
had never gone on board that ship. I wish he had never been sent out.
'It is a pity you didn't say so, in good time, is it not?' retorted
Carker, coolly. 'However, I think it's all for the best. I really,
think it's all for the best. Did I mention that there was something
like a little confidence between Miss Dombey and myself?'
'No,' said Mr Dombey, sternly.
'I have no doubt,' returned Mr Carker, after an impressive pause,
'that wherever Gay is, he is much better where he is, than at home
here. If I were, or could be, in your place, I should be satisfied of
that. I am quite satisfied of it myself. Miss Dombey is confiding and
young - perhaps hardly proud enough, for your daughter - if she have a
fault. Not that that is much though, I am sure. Will you check these
balances with me?'
Mr Dombey leaned back in his chair, instead of bending over the
papers that were laid before him, and looked the Manager steadily in
the face. The Manager, with his eyelids slightly raised, affected to
be glancing at his figures, and to await the leisure of his principal.
He showed that he affected this, as if from great delicacy, and with a
design to spare Mr Dombey's feelings; and the latter, as he looked at
him, was cognizant of his intended consideration, and felt that but
for it, this confidential Carker would have said a great deal more,
which he, Mr Dombey, was too proud to ask for. It was his way in
business, often. Little by little, Mr Dombey's gaze relaxed, and his
attention became diverted to the papers before him; but while busy
with the occupation they afforded him, he frequently stopped, and
looked at Mr Carker again. Whenever he did so, Mr Carker was
demonstrative, as before, in his delicacy, and impressed it on his
great chief more and more.
While they were thus engaged; and under the skilful culture of the
Manager, angry thoughts in reference to poor Florence brooded and bred
in Mr Dombey's breast, usurping the place of the cold dislike that
generally reigned there; Major Bagstock, much admired by the old
ladies of Leamington, and followed by the Native, carrying the usual
amount of light baggage, straddled along the shady side of the way, to
make a morning call on Mrs Skewton. It being midday when the Major
reached the bower of Cleopatra, he had the good fortune to find his
Princess on her usual sofa, languishing over a cup of coffee, with the
room so darkened and shaded for her more luxurious repose, that
Withers, who was in attendance on her, loomed like a phantom page.
'What insupportable creature is this, coming in?' said Mrs Skewton,
'I cannot hear it. Go away, whoever you are!'
'You have not the heart to banish J. B., Ma'am!' said the Major
halting midway, to remonstrate, with his cane over his shoulder.
'Oh it's you, is it? On second thoughts, you may enter,' observed
Cleopatra.
The Major entered accordingly, and advancing to the sofa pressed
her charming hand to his lips.
'Sit down,' said Cleopatra, listlessly waving her fan, 'a long way
off. Don't come too near me, for I am frightfully faint and sensitive
this morning, and you smell of the Sun. You are absolutely tropical.'
'By George, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'the time has been when Joseph
Bagstock has been grilled and blistered by the Sun; then time was,
when he was forced, Ma'am, into such full blow, by high hothouse heat
in the West Indies, that he was known as the Flower. A man never heard
of Bagstock, Ma'am, in those days; he heard of the Flower - the Flower
of Ours. The Flower may have faded, more or less, Ma'am,' observed the
Major, dropping into a much nearer chair than had been indicated by
his cruel Divinity, 'but it is a tough plant yet, and constant as the
evergreen.'
Here the Major, under cover of the dark room, shut up one eye,
rolled his head like a Harlequin, and, in his great self-satisfaction,
perhaps went nearer to the confines of apoplexy than he had ever gone
before.
'Where is Mrs Granger?' inquired Cleopatra of her page.
Withers believed she was in her own room.
'Very well,' said Mrs Skewton. 'Go away, and shut the door. I am
engaged.'
As Withers disappeared, Mrs Skewton turned her head languidly
towards the Major, without otherwise moving, and asked him how his
friend was.
'Dombey, Ma'am,' returned the Major, with a facetious gurgling in
his throat, 'is as well as a man in his condition can be. His
condition is a desperate one, Ma'am. He is touched, is Dombey!
Touched!' cried the Major. 'He is bayonetted through the body.'
Cleopatra cast a sharp look at the Major, that contrasted forcibly
with the affected drawl in which she presently said:
'Major Bagstock, although I know but little of the world, - nor can
I really regret my experience, for I fear it is a false place, full of
withering conventionalities: where Nature is but little regarded, and
where the music of the heart, and the gushing of the soul, and all
that sort of thing, which is so truly poetical, is seldom heard, - I
cannot misunderstand your meaning. There is an allusion to Edith - to
my extremely dear child,' said Mrs Skewton, tracing the outline of her
eyebrows with her forefinger, 'in your words, to which the tenderest
of chords vibrates excessively.'
'Bluntness, Ma'am,' returned the Major, 'has ever been the
characteristic of the Bagstock breed. You are right. Joe admits it.'
'And that allusion,' pursued Cleopatra, 'would involve one of the
most - if not positively the most - touching, and thrilling, and
sacred emotions of which our sadly-fallen nature is susceptible, I
conceive.'
The Major laid his hand upon his lips, and wafted a kiss to
Cleopatra, as if to identify the emotion in question.
'I feel that I am weak. I feel that I am wanting in that energy,
which should sustain a Mama: not to say a parent: on such a subject,'
said Mrs Skewton, trimming her lips with the laced edge of her
pocket-handkerchief; 'but I can hardly approach a topic so excessively
momentous to my dearest Edith without a feeling of faintness.
Nevertheless, bad man, as you have boldly remarked upon it, and as it
has occasioned me great anguish:' Mrs Skewton touched her left side
with her fan: 'I will not shrink from my duty.'
The Major, under cover of the dimness, swelled, and swelled, and
rolled his purple face about, and winked his lobster eye, until he
fell into a fit of wheezing, which obliged him to rise and take a turn
or two about the room, before his fair friend could proceed.
'Mr Dombey,' said Mrs Skewton, when she at length resumed, 'was
obliging enough, now many weeks ago, to do us the honour of visiting
us here; in company, my dear Major, with yourself. I acknowledge - let
me be open - that it is my failing to be the creature of impulse, and
to wear my heart as it were, outside. I know my failing full well. My
enemy cannot know it better. But I am not penitent; I would rather not
be frozen by the heartless world, and am content to bear this
imputation justly.'
Mrs Skewton arranged her tucker, pinched her wiry throat to give it
a soft surface, and went on, with great complacency.
'It gave me (my dearest Edith too, I am sure) infinite pleasure to
receive Mr Dombey. As a friend of yours, my dear Major, we were
naturally disposed to be prepossessed in his favour; and I fancied
that I observed an amount of Heart in Mr Dombey, that was excessively
refreshing.'
'There is devilish little heart in Dombey now, Ma'am,' said the
Major.
'Wretched man!' cried Mrs Skewton, looking at him languidly, 'pray
be silent.'
'J. B. is dumb, Ma'am,' said the Major.
'Mr Dombey,' pursued Cleopatra, smoothing the rosy hue upon her
cheeks, 'accordingly repeated his visit; and possibly finding some
attraction in the simplicity and primitiveness of our tastes - for
there is always a charm in nature - it is so very sweet - became one
of our little circle every evening. Little did I think of the awful
responsibility into which I plunged when I encouraged Mr Dombey - to -
'To beat up these quarters, Ma'am,' suggested Major Bagstock.
'Coarse person! 'said Mrs Skewton, 'you anticipate my meaning,
though in odious language.
Here Mrs Skewton rested her elbow on the little table at her side,
and suffering her wrist to droop in what she considered a graceful and
becoming manner, dangled her fan to and fro, and lazily admired her
hand while speaking.
'The agony I have endured,' she said mincingly, 'as the truth has
by degrees dawned upon me, has been too exceedingly terrific to dilate
upon. My whole existence is bound up in my sweetest Edith; and to see
her change from day to day - my beautiful pet, who has positively
garnered up her heart since the death of that most delightful
creature, Granger - is the most affecting thing in the world.'
Mrs Skewton's world was not a very trying one, if one might judge
of it by the influence of its most affecting circumstance upon her;
but this by the way.
'Edith,' simpered Mrs Skewton, 'who is the perfect pearl of my
life, is said to resemble me. I believe we are alike.'
'There is one man in the world who never will admit that anyone
resembles you, Ma'am,' said the Major; 'and that man's name is Old Joe
Bagstock.'
Cleopatra made as if she would brain the flatterer with her fan,
but relenting, smiled upon him and proceeded:
'If my charming girl inherits any advantages from me, wicked one!':
the Major was the wicked one: 'she inherits also my foolish nature.
She has great force of character - mine has been said to be immense,
though I don't believe it - but once moved, she is susceptible and
sensitive to the last extent. What are my feelings when I see her
pining! They destroy me.
The Major advancing his double chin, and pursing up his blue lips
into a soothing expression, affected the profoundest sympathy.
'The confidence,' said Mrs Skewton, 'that has subsisted between us
- the free development of soul, and openness of sentiment - is
touching to think of. We have been more like sisters than Mama and
child.'
'J. B.'s own sentiment,' observed the Major, 'expressed by J. B.
fifty thousand times!'
'Do not interrupt, rude man!' said Cleopatra. 'What are my
feelings, then, when I find that there is one subject avoided by us!
That there is a what's-his-name - a gulf - opened between us. That my
own artless Edith is changed to me! They are of the most poignant
description, of course.'
The Major left his chair, and took one nearer to the little table.
'From day to day I see this, my dear Major,' proceeded Mrs Skewton.
'From day to day I feel this. From hour to hour I reproach myself for
that excess of faith and trustfulness which has led to such
distressing consequences; and almost from minute to minute, I hope
that Mr Dombey may explain himself, and relieve the torture I undergo,
which is extremely wearing. But nothing happens, my dear Major; I am
the slave of remorse - take care of the coffee-cup: you are so very
awkward - my darling Edith is an altered being; and I really don't see
what is to be done, or what good creature I can advise with.'
Major Bagstock, encouraged perhaps by the softened and confidential
tone into which Mrs Skewton, after several times lapsing into it for a
moment, seemed now to have subsided for good, stretched out his hand
across the little table, and said with a leer,
'Advise with Joe, Ma'am.'
'Then, you aggravating monster,' said Cleopatra, giving one hand to
the Major, and tapping his knuckles with her fan, which she held in
the other: 'why don't you talk to me? you know what I mean. Why don't
you tell me something to the purpose?'
The Major laughed, and kissed the hand she had bestowed upon him,
and laughed again immensely.
'Is there as much Heart in Mr Dombey as I gave him credit for?'
languished Cleopatra tenderly. 'Do you think he is in earnest, my dear
Major? Would you recommend his being spoken to, or his being left
alone? Now tell me, like a dear man, what would you advise.'
'Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma'am?' chuckled the Major,
hoarsely.
'Mysterious creature!' returned Cleopatra, bringing her fan to bear
upon the Major's nose. 'How can we marry him?'
'Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma'am, I say?' chuckled the
Major again.
Mrs Skewton returned no answer in words, but smiled upon the Major
with so much archness and vivacity, that that gallant officer
considering himself challenged, would have imprinted a kiss on her
exceedingly red lips, but for her interposing the fan with a very
winning and juvenile dexterity. It might have been in modesty; it
might have been in apprehension of some danger to their bloom.
'Dombey, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'is a great catch.'
'Oh, mercenary wretch!' cried Cleopatra, with a little shriek, 'I
am shocked.'
'And Dombey, Ma'am,' pursued the Major, thrusting forward his head,
and distending his eyes, 'is in earnest. Joseph says it; Bagstock
knows it; J. B. keeps him to the mark. Leave Dombey to himself, Ma'am.
Dombey is safe, Ma'am. Do as you have done; do no more; and trust to
J. B. for the end.'
'You really think so, my dear Major?' returned Cleopatra, who had
eyed him very cautiously, and very searchingly, in spite of her
listless bearing.
'Sure of it, Ma'am,' rejoined the Major. 'Cleopatra the peerless,
and her Antony Bagstock, will often speak of this, triumphantly, when
sharing the elegance and wealth of Edith Dombey's establishment.
Dombey's right-hand man, Ma'am,' said the Major, stopping abruptly in
a chuckle, and becoming serious, 'has arrived.'
'This morning?' said Cleopatra.
'This morning, Ma'am,' returned the Major. 'And Dombey's anxiety
for his arrival, Ma'am, is to be referred - take J. B.'s word for
this; for Joe is devilish sly' - the Major tapped his nose, and
screwed up one of his eyes tight: which did not enhance his native
beauty - 'to his desire that what is in the wind should become known
to him' without Dombey's telling and consulting him. For Dombey is as
proud, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'as Lucifer.'
'A charming quality,' lisped Mrs Skewton; 'reminding one of dearest
Edith.'
'Well, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'I have thrown out hints already,
and the right-hand man understands 'em; and I'll throw out more,
before the day is done. Dombey projected this morning a ride to
Warwick Castle, and to Kenilworth, to-morrow, to be preceded by a
breakfast with us. I undertook the delivery of this invitation. Will
you honour us so far, Ma'am?' said the Major, swelling with shortness
of breath and slyness, as he produced a note, addressed to the
Honourable Mrs Skewton, by favour of Major Bagstock, wherein hers ever
faithfully, Paul Dombey, besought her and her amiable and accomplished
daughter to consent to the proposed excursion; and in a postscript
unto which, the same ever faithfully Paul Dombey entreated to be
recalled to the remembrance of Mrs Granger.
'Hush!' said Cleopatra, suddenly, 'Edith!'
The loving mother can scarcely be described as resuming her insipid
and affected air when she made this exclamation; for she had never
cast it off; nor was it likely that she ever would or could, in any
other place than in the grave. But hurriedly dismissing whatever
shadow of earnestness, or faint confession of a purpose, laudable or
wicked, that her face, or voice, or manner: had, for the moment,
betrayed, she lounged upon the couch, her most insipid and most
languid self again, as Edith entered the room.
Edith, so beautiful and stately, but so cold and so repelling. Who,
slightly acknowledging the presence of Major Bagstock, and directing a
keen glance at her mother, drew back the from a window, and sat down
there, looking out.
'My dearest Edith,' said Mrs Skewton, 'where on earth have you
been? I have wanted you, my love, most sadly.'
'You said you were engaged, and I stayed away,' she answered,
without turning her head.
'It was cruel to Old Joe, Ma'am,' said the Major in his gallantry.
'It was very cruel, I know,' she said, still looking out - and said
with such calm disdain, that the Major was discomfited, and could
think of nothing in reply.
'Major Bagstock, my darling Edith,' drawled her mother, 'who is
generally the most useless and disagreeable creature in the world: as
you know - '
'It is surely not worthwhile, Mama,' said Edith, looking round, 'to
observe these forms of speech. We are quite alone. We know each
other.'
The quiet scorn that sat upon her handsome face - a scorn that
evidently lighted on herself, no less than them - was so intense and
deep, that her mother's simper, for the instant, though of a hardy
constitution, drooped before it.
'My darling girl,' she began again.
'Not woman yet?' said Edith, with a smile.
'How very odd you are to-day, my dear! Pray let me say, my love,
that Major Bagstock has brought the kindest of notes from Mr Dombey,
proposing that we should breakfast with him to-morrow, and ride to
Warwick and Kenilworth. Will you go, Edith?'
'Will I go!' she repeated, turning very red, and breathing quickly
as she looked round at her mother.
'I knew you would, my own, observed the latter carelessly. 'It is,
as you say, quite a form to ask. Here is Mr Dombey's letter, Edith.'
'Thank you. I have no desire to read it,' was her answer.
'Then perhaps I had better answer it myself,' said Mrs Skewton,
'though I had thought of asking you to be my secretary, darling.' As
Edith made no movement, and no answer, Mrs Skewton begged the Major to
wheel her little table nearer, and to set open the desk it contained,
and to take out pen and paper for her; all which congenial offices of
gallantry the Major discharged, with much submission and devotion.
'Your regards, Edith, my dear?' said Mrs Skewton, pausing, pen in
hand, at the postscript.
'What you will, Mama,' she answered, without turning her head, and
with supreme indifference.
Mrs Skewton wrote what she would, without seeking for any more
explicit directions, and handed her letter to the Major, who receiving
it as a precious charge, made a show of laying it near his heart, but
was fain to put it in the pocket of his pantaloons on account of the
insecurity of his waistcoat The Major then took a very polished and
chivalrous farewell of both ladies, which the elder one acknowledged
in her usual manner, while the younger, sitting with her face
addressed to the window, bent her head so slightly that it would have
been a greater compliment to the Major to have made no sign at all,
and to have left him to infer that he had not been heard or thought
of.
'As to alteration in her, Sir,' mused the Major on his way back; on
which expedition - the afternoon being sunny and hot - he ordered the
Native and the light baggage to the front, and walked in the shadow of
that expatriated prince: 'as to alteration, Sir, and pining, and so
forth, that won't go down with Joseph Bagstock, None of that, Sir. It
won't do here. But as to there being something of a division between
'em - or a gulf as the mother calls it - damme, Sir, that seems true
enough. And it's odd enough! Well, Sir!' panted the Major, 'Edith
Granger and Dombey are well matched; let 'em fight it out! Bagstock
backs the winner!'
The Major, by saying these latter words aloud, in the vigour of his
thoughts, caused the unhappy Native to stop, and turn round, in the
belief that he was personally addressed. Exasperated to the last
degree by this act of insubordination, the Major (though he was
swelling with enjoyment of his own humour, at the moment of its
occurrence instantly thrust his cane among the Native's ribs, and
continued to stir him up, at short intervals, all the way to the
hotel.
Nor was the Major less exasperated as he dressed for dinner, during
which operation the dark servant underwent the pelting of a shower of
miscellaneous objects, varying in size from a boot to a hairbrush, and
including everything that came within his master's reach. For the
Major plumed himself on having the Native in a perfect state of drill,
and visited the least departure from strict discipline with this kind
of fatigue duty. Add to this, that he maintained the Native about his
person as a counter-irritant against the gout, and all other
vexations, mental as well as bodily; and the Native would appear to
have earned his pay - which was not large.
At length, the Major having disposed of all the missiles that were
convenient to his hand, and having called the Native so many new names
as must have given him great occasion to marvel at the resources of
the English language, submitted to have his cravat put on; and being
dressed, and finding himself in a brisk flow of spirits after this
exercise, went downstairs to enliven 'Dombey' and his right-hand man.
Dombey was not yet in the room, but the right-hand man was there,
and his dental treasures were, as usual, ready for the Major.
'Well, Sir!' said the Major. 'How have you passed the time since I
had the happiness of meeting you? Have you walked at all?'
'A saunter of barely half an hour's duration,' returned Carker. 'We
have been so much occupied.'
'Business, eh?' said the Major.
'A variety of little matters necessary to be gone through,' replied
Carker. 'But do you know - this is quite unusual with me, educated in
a distrustful school, and who am not generally disposed to be
communicative,' he said, breaking off, and speaking in a charming tone
of frankness - 'but I feel quite confidential with you, Major
Bagstock.'
'You do me honour, Sir,' returned the Major. 'You may be.'
'Do you know, then,' pursued Carker, 'that I have not found my
friend - our friend, I ought rather to call him - '
'Meaning Dombey, Sir?' cried the Major. 'You see me, Mr Carker,
standing here! J. B.?'
He was puffy enough to see, and blue enough; and Mr Carker
intimated the he had that pleasure.
'Then you see a man, Sir, who would go through fire and water to
serve Dombey,' returned Major Bagstock.
Mr Carker smiled, and said he was sure of it. 'Do you know, Major,'
he proceeded: 'to resume where I left off' that I have not found our
friend so attentive to business today, as usual?'
'No?' observed the delighted Major.
'I have found him a little abstracted, and with his attention
disposed to wander,' said Carker.
'By Jove, Sir,' cried the Major, 'there's a lady in the case.'
'Indeed, I begin to believe there really is,' returned Carker; 'I
thought you might be jesting when you seemed to hint at it; for I know
you military men -
The Major gave the horse's cough, and shook his head and shoulders,
as much as to say, 'Well! we are gay dogs, there's no denying.' He
then seized Mr Carker by the button-hole, and with starting eyes
whispered in his ear, that she was a woman of extraordinary charms,
Sir. That she was a young widow, Sir. That she was of a fine family,
Sir. That Dombey was over head and ears in love with her, Sir, and
that it would be a good match on both sides; for she had beauty,
blood, and talent, and Dombey had fortune; and what more could any
couple have? Hearing Mr Dombey's footsteps without, the Major cut
himself short by saying, that Mr Carker would see her tomorrow
morning, and would judge for himself; and between his mental
excitement, and the exertion of saying all this in wheezy whispers,
the Major sat gurgling in the throat and watering at the eyes, until
dinner was ready.
The Major, like some other noble animals, exhibited himself to
great advantage at feeding-time. On this occasion, he shone
resplendent at one end of the table, supported by the milder lustre of
Mr Dombey at the other; while Carker on one side lent his ray to
either light, or suffered it to merge into both, as occasion arose.
During the first course or two, the Major was usually grave; for
the Native, in obedience to general orders, secretly issued, collected
every sauce and cruet round him, and gave him a great deal to do, in
taking out the stoppers, and mixing up the contents in his plate.
Besides which, the Native had private zests and flavours on a
side-table, with which the Major daily scorched himself; to say
nothing of strange machines out of which he spirited unknown liquids
into the Major's drink. But on this occasion, Major Bagstock, even
amidst these many occupations, found time to be social; and his
sociality consisted in excessive slyness for the behoof of Mr Carker,
and the betrayal of Mr Dombey's state of mind.
'Dombey,' said the Major, 'you don't eat; what's the matter?'
'Thank you,' returned the gentleman, 'I am doing very well; I have
no great appetite today.'
'Why, Dombey, what's become of it?' asked the Major. 'Where's it
gone? You haven't left it with our friends, I'll swear, for I can
answer for their having none to-day at luncheon. I can answer for one
of 'em, at least: I won't say which.'
Then the Major winked at Carker, and became so frightfully sly,
that his dark attendant was obliged to pat him on the back, without
orders, or he would probably have disappeared under the table.
In a later stage of the dinner: that is to say, when the Native
stood at the Major's elbow ready to serve the first bottle of
champagne: the Major became still slyer.
'Fill this to the brim, you scoundrel,' said the Major, holding up
his glass. 'Fill Mr Carker's to the brim too. And Mr Dombey's too. By
Gad, gentlemen,' said the Major, winking at his new friend, while Mr
Dombey looked into his plate with a conscious air, 'we'll consecrate
this glass of wine to a Divinity whom Joe is proud to know, and at a
distance humbly and reverently to admire. Edith,' said the Major, 'is
her name; angelic Edith!'
'To angelic Edith!' cried the smiling Carker.
'Edith, by all means,' said Mr Dombey.
The entrance of the waiters with new dishes caused the Major to be
slyer yet, but in a more serious vein. 'For though among ourselves,
Joe Bagstock mingles jest and earnest on this subject, Sir,' said the
Major, laying his finger on his lips, and speaking half apart to
Carker, 'he holds that name too sacred to be made the property of
these fellows, or of any fellows. Not a word!, Sir' while they are
here!'
This was respectful and becoming on the Major's part, and Mr Dombey
plainly felt it so. Although embarrassed in his own frigid way, by the
Major's allusions, Mr Dombey had no objection to such rallying, it was
clear, but rather courted it. Perhaps the Major had been pretty near
the truth, when he had divined that morning that the great man who was
too haughty formally to consult with, or confide in his prime
minister, on such a matter, yet wished him to be fully possessed of
it. Let this be how it may, he often glanced at Mr Carker while the
Major plied his light artillery, and seemed watchful of its effect
upon him.
But the Major, having secured an attentive listener, and a smiler
who had not his match in all the world - 'in short, a devilish
intelligent and able fellow,' as he often afterwards declared - was
not going to let him off with a little slyness personal to Mr Dombey.
Therefore, on the removal of the cloth, the Major developed himself as
a choice spirit in the broader and more comprehensive range of
narrating regimental stories, and cracking regimental jokes, which he
did with such prodigal exuberance, that Carker was (or feigned to be)
quite exhausted with laughter and admiration: while Mr Dombey looked
on over his starched cravat, like the Major's proprietor, or like a
stately showman who was glad to see his bear dancing well.
When the Major was too hoarse with meat and drink, and the display
of his social powers, to render himself intelligible any longer, they
adjourned to coffee. After which, the Major inquired of Mr Carker the
Manager, with little apparent hope of an answer in the affirmative, if
he played picquet.
'Yes, I play picquet a little,' said Mr Carker.
'Backgammon, perhaps?' observed the Major, hesitating.
'Yes, I play backgammon a little too,' replied the man of teeth.
'Carker plays at all games, I believe,' said Mr Dombey, laying
himself on a sofa like a man of wood, without a hinge or a joint in
him; 'and plays them well.'
In sooth, he played the two in question, to such perfection, that
the Major was astonished, and asked him, at random, if he played
chess.
'Yes, I play chess a little,' answered Carker. 'I have sometimes
played, and won a game - it's a mere trick - without seeing the
board.'
'By Gad, Sir!' said the Major, staring, 'you are a contrast to
Dombey, who plays nothing.'
'Oh! He!' returned the Manager. 'He has never had occasion to
acquire such little arts. To men like me, they are sometimes useful.
As at present, Major Bagstock, when they enable me to take a hand with
you.'
It might be only the false mouth, so smooth and wide; and yet there
seemed to lurk beneath the humility and subserviency of this short
speech, a something like a snarl; and, for a moment, one might have
thought that the white teeth were prone to bite the hand they fawned
upon. But the Major thought nothing about it; and Mr Dombey lay
meditating with his eyes half shut, during the whole of the play,
which lasted until bed-time.
By that time, Mr Carker, though the winner, had mounted high into
the Major's good opinion, insomuch that when he left the Major at his
own room before going to bed, the Major as a special attention, sent
the Native - who always rested on a mattress spread upon the ground at
his master's door - along the gallery, to light him to his room in
state.
There was a faint blur on the surface of the mirror in Mr Carker's
chamber, and its reflection was, perhaps, a false one. But it showed,
that night, the image of a man, who saw, in his fancy, a crowd of
people slumbering on the ground at his feet, like the poor Native at
his master's door: who picked his way among them: looking down,
maliciously enough: but trod upon no upturned face - as yet.
CHAPTER 27.
Deeper Shadows
Mr Carker the Manager rose with the lark, and went out, walking in
the summer day. His meditations - and he meditated with contracted
brows while he strolled along - hardly seemed to soar as high as the
lark, or to mount in that direction; rather they kept close to their
nest upon the earth, and looked about, among the dust and worms. But
there was not a bird in the air, singing unseen, farther beyond the
reach of human eye than Mr Carker's thoughts. He had his face so
perfectly under control, that few could say more, in distinct terms,
of its expression, than that it smiled or that it pondered. It
pondered now, intently. As the lark rose higher, he sank deeper in
thought. As the lark poured out her melody clearer and stronger, he
fell into a graver and profounder silence. At length, when the lark
came headlong down, with an accumulating stream of song, and dropped
among the green wheat near him, rippling in the breath of the morning
like a river, he sprang up from his reverie, and looked round with a
sudden smile, as courteous and as soft as if he had had numerous
observers to propitiate; nor did he relapse, after being thus
awakened; but clearing his face, like one who bethought himself that
it might otherwise wrinkle and tell tales, went smiling on, as if for
practice.
Perhaps with an eye to first impressions, Mr Carker was very
carefully and trimly dressed, that morning. Though always somewhat
formal, in his dress, in imitation of the great man whom he served, he
stopped short of the extent of Mr Dombey's stiffness: at once perhaps
because he knew it to be ludicrous, and because in doing so he found
another means of expressing his sense of the difference and distance
between them. Some people quoted him indeed, in this respect, as a
pointed commentary, and not a flattering one, on his icy patron - but
the world is prone to misconstruction, and Mr Carker was not
accountable for its bad propensity.
Clean and florid: with his light complexion, fading as it were, in
the sun, and his dainty step enhancing the softness of the turf: Mr
Carker the Manager strolled about meadows, and green lanes, and glided
among avenues of trees, until it was time to return to breakfast.
Taking a nearer way back, Mr Carker pursued it, airing his teeth, and
said aloud as he did so, 'Now to see the second Mrs Dombey!'
He had strolled beyond the town, and re-entered it by a pleasant
walk, where there was a deep shade of leafy trees, and where there
were a few benches here and there for those who chose to rest. It not
being a place of general resort at any hour, and wearing at that time
of the still morning the air of being quite deserted and retired, Mr
Carker had it, or thought he had it, all to himself. So, with the whim
of an idle man, to whom there yet remained twenty minutes for reaching
a destination easily able in ten, Mr Carker threaded the great boles
of the trees, and went passing in and out, before this one and behind
that, weaving a chain of footsteps on the dewy ground.
But he found he was mistaken in supposing there was no one in the
grove, for as he softly rounded the trunk of one large tree, on which
the obdurate bark was knotted and overlapped like the hide of a
rhinoceros or some kindred monster of the ancient days before the
Flood, he saw an unexpected figure sitting on a bench near at hand,
about which, in another moment, he would have wound the chain he was
making.
It was that of a lady, elegantly dressed and very handsome, whose
dark proud eyes were fixed upon the ground, and in whom some passion
or struggle was raging. For as she sat looking down, she held a corner
of her under lip within her mouth, her bosom heaved, her nostril
quivered, her head trembled, indignant tears were on her cheek, and
her foot was set upon the moss as though she would have crushed it
into nothing. And yet almost the self-same glance that showed him
this, showed him the self-same lady rising with a scornful air of
weariness and lassitude, and turning away with nothing expressed in
face or figure but careless beauty and imperious disdain.
A withered and very ugly old woman, dressed not so much like a
gipsy as like any of that medley race of vagabonds who tramp about the
country, begging, and stealing, and tinkering, and weaving rushes, by
turns, or all together, had been observing the lady, too; for, as she
rose, this second figure strangely confronting the first, scrambled up
from the ground - out of it, it almost appeared - and stood in the
way.
'Let me tell your fortune, my pretty lady,' said the old woman,
munching with her jaws, as if the Death's Head beneath her yellow skin
were impatient to get out.
'I can tell it for myself,' was the reply.
'Ay, ay, pretty lady; but not right. You didn't tell it right when
you were sitting there. I see you! Give me a piece of silver, pretty
lady, and I'll tell your fortune true. There's riches, pretty lady, in
your face.'
'I know,' returned the lady, passing her with a dark smile, and a
proud step. 'I knew it before.
'What! You won't give me nothing?' cried the old woman. 'You won't
give me nothing to tell your fortune, pretty lady? How much will you
give me to tell it, then? Give me something, or I'll call it after
you!' croaked the old woman, passionately.
Mr Carker, whom the lady was about to pass close, slinking against
his tree as she crossed to gain the path, advanced so as to meet her,
and pulling off his hat as she went by, bade the old woman hold her
peace. The lady acknowledged his interference with an inclination of
the head, and went her way.
'You give me something then, or I'll call it after her!' screamed
the old woman, throwing up her arms, and pressing forward against his
outstretched hand. 'Or come,' she added, dropping her voice suddenly,
looking at him earnestly, and seeming in a moment to forget the object
of her wrath, 'give me something, or I'll call it after you! '
'After me, old lady!' returned the Manager, putting his hand in his
pocket.
'Yes,' said the woman, steadfast in her scrutiny, and holding out
her shrivelled hand. 'I know!'
'What do you know?' demanded Carker, throwing her a shilling. 'Do
you know who the handsome lady is?'
Munching like that sailor's wife of yore, who had chestnuts In her
lap, and scowling like the witch who asked for some in vain, the old
woman picked the shilling up, and going backwards, like a crab, or
like a heap of crabs: for her alternately expanding and contracting
hands might have represented two of that species, and her creeping
face, some half-a-dozen more: crouched on the veinous root of an old
tree, pulled out a short black pipe from within the crown of her
bonnet, lighted it with a match, and smoked in silence, looking
fixedly at her questioner.
Mr Carker laughed, and turned upon his heel.
'Good!' said the old woman. 'One child dead, and one child living:
one wife dead, and one wife coming. Go and meet her!'
In spite of himself, the Manager looked round again, and stopped.
The old woman, who had not removed her pipe, and was munching and
mumbling while she smoked, as if in conversation with an invisible
familiar, pointed with her finger in the direction he was going, and
laughed.
'What was that you said, Beldamite?' he demanded.
The woman mumbled, and chattered, and smoked, and still pointed
before him; but remained silent Muttering a farewell that was not
complimentary, Mr Carker pursued his way; but as he turned out of that
place, and looked over his shoulder at the root of the old tree, he
could yet see the finger pointing before him, and thought he heard the
woman screaming, 'Go and meet her!'
Preparations for a choice repast were completed, he found, at the
hotel; and Mr Dombey, and the Major, and the breakfast, were awaiting
the ladies. Individual constitution has much to do with the
development of such facts, no doubt; but in this case, appetite
carried it hollow over the tender passion; Mr Dombey being very cool
and collected, and the Major fretting and fuming in a state of violent
heat and irritation. At length the door was thrown open by the Native,
and, after a pause, occupied by her languishing along the gallery, a
very blooming, but not very youthful lady, appeared.
'My dear Mr Dombey,' said the lady, 'I am afraid we are late, but
Edith has been out already looking for a favourable point of view for
a sketch, and kept me waiting for her. Falsest of Majors,' giving him
her little finger, 'how do you do?'
'Mrs Skewton,' said Mr Dombey, 'let me gratify my friend Carker:'
Mr Dombey unconsciously emphasised the word friend, as saying "no
really; I do allow him to take credit for that distinction:" 'by
presenting him to you. You have heard me mention Mr Carker.'
'I am charmed, I am sure,' said Mrs Skewton, graciously.
Mr Carker was charmed, of course. Would he have been more charmed
on Mr Dombey's behalf, if Mrs Skewton had been (as he at first
supposed her) the Edith whom they had toasted overnight?
'Why, where, for Heaven's sake, is Edith?' exclaimed Mrs Skewton,
looking round. 'Still at the door, giving Withers orders about the
mounting of those drawings! My dear Mr Dombey, will you have the
kindness -
Mr Dombey was already gone to seek her. Next moment he returned,
bearing on his arm the same elegantly dressed and very handsome lady
whom Mr Carker had encountered underneath the trees.
'Carker - ' began Mr Dombey. But their recognition of each other
was so manifest, that Mr Dombey stopped surprised.
'I am obliged to the gentleman,' said Edith, with a stately bend,
'for sparing me some annoyance from an importunate beggar just now.'
'I am obliged to my good fortune,' said Mr Carker, bowing low, 'for
the opportunity of rendering so slight a service to one whose servant
I am proud to be.'
As her eye rested on him for an instant, and then lighted on the
ground, he saw in its bright and searching glance a suspicion that he
had not come up at the moment of his interference, but had secretly
observed her sooner. As he saw that, she saw in his eye that her
distrust was not without foundation.
'Really,' cried Mrs Skewton, who had taken this opportunity of
inspecting Mr Carker through her glass, and satisfying herself (as she
lisped audibly to the Major) that he was all heart; 'really now, this
is one of the most enchanting coincidences that I ever heard of. The
idea! My dearest Edith, there is such an obvious destiny in it, that
really one might almost be induced to cross one's arms upon one's
frock, and say, like those wicked Turks, there is no What's-his-name
but Thingummy, and What-you-may-call-it is his prophet!'
Edith designed no revision of this extraordinary quotation from the
Koran, but Mr Dombey felt it necessary to offer a few polite remarks.
'It gives me great pleasure,' said Mr Dombey, with cumbrous
gallantry, 'that a gentleman so nearly connected with myself as Carker
is, should have had the honour and happiness of rendering the least
assistance to Mrs Granger.' Mr Dombey bowed to her. 'But it gives me
some pain, and it occasions me to be really envious of Carker;' he
unconsciously laid stress on these words, as sensible that they must
appear to involve a very surprising proposition; 'envious of Carker,
that I had not that honour and that happiness myself.' Mr Dombey bowed
again. Edith, saving for a curl of her lip, was motionless.
'By the Lord, Sir,' cried the Major, bursting into speech at sight
of the waiter, who was come to announce breakfast, 'it's an
extraordinary thing to me that no one can have the honour and
happiness of shooting all such beggars through the head without being
brought to book for it. But here's an arm for Mrs Granger if she'll do
J. B. the honour to accept it; and the greatest service Joe can render
you, Ma'am, just now, is, to lead you into table!'
With this, the Major gave his arm to Edith; Mr Dombey led the way
with Mrs Skewton; Mrs Carker went last, smiling on the party.
'I am quite rejoiced, Mr Carker,' said the lady-mother, at
breakfast, after another approving survey of him through her glass,
'that you have timed your visit so happily, as to go with us to-day.
It is the most enchanting expedition!'
'Any expedition would be enchanting in such society,' returned
Carker; 'but I believe it is, in itself, full of interest.'
'Oh!' cried Mrs Skewton, with a faded little scream of rapture,
'the Castle is charming! - associations of the Middle Ages - and all
that - which is so truly exquisite. Don't you dote upon the Middle
Ages, Mr Carker?'
'Very much, indeed,' said Mr Carker.
'Such charming times!' cried Cleopatra. 'So full of faith! So
vigorous and forcible! So picturesque! So perfectly removed from
commonplace! Oh dear! If they would only leave us a little more of the
poetry of existence in these terrible days!'
Mrs Skewton was looking sharp after Mr Dombey all the time she said
this, who was looking at Edith: who was listening, but who never
lifted up her eyes.
'We are dreadfully real, Mr Carker,' said Mrs Skewton; 'are we
not?'
Few people had less reason to complain of their reality than
Cleopatra, who had as much that was false about her as could well go
to the composition of anybody with a real individual existence. But Mr
Carker commiserated our reality nevertheless, and agreed that we were
very hardly used in that regard.
'Pictures at the Castle, quite divine!' said Cleopatra. 'I hope you
dote upon pictures?'
'I assure you, Mrs Skewton,' said Mr Dombey, with solemn
encouragement of his Manager, 'that Carker has a very good taste for
pictures; quite a natural power of appreciating them. He is a very
creditable artist himself. He will be delighted, I am sure, with Mrs
Granger's taste and skill.'
'Damme, Sir!' cried Major Bagstock, 'my opinion is, that you're the
admirable Carker, and can do anything.'
'Oh!' smiled Carker, with humility, 'you are much too sanguine,
Major Bagstock. I can do very little. But Mr Dombey is so generous in
his estimation of any trivial accomplishment a man like myself may
find it almost necessary to acquire, and to which, in his very
different sphere, he is far superior, that - ' Mr Carker shrugged his
shoulders, deprecating further praise, and said no more.
All this time, Edith never raised her eyes, unless to glance
towards her mother when that lady's fervent spirit shone forth in
words. But as Carker ceased, she looked at Mr Dombey for a moment. For
a moment only; but with a transient gleam of scornful wonder on her
face, not lost on one observer, who was smiling round the board.
Mr Dombey caught the dark eyelash in its descent, and took the
opportunity of arresting it.
'You have been to Warwick often, unfortunately?' said Mr Dombey.
'Several times.'
'The visit will be tedious to you, I am afraid.'
'Oh no; not at all.'
'Ah! You are like your cousin Feenix, my dearest Edith,' said Mrs
Skewton. 'He has been to Warwick Castle fifty times, if he has been
there once; yet if he came to Leamington to-morrow - I wish he would,
dear angel! - he would make his fifty-second visit next day.'
'We are all enthusiastic, are we not, Mama?' said Edith, with a
cold smile.
'Too much so, for our peace, perhaps, my dear,' returned her
mother; 'but we won't complain. Our own emotions are our recompense.
If, as your cousin Feenix says, the sword wears out the
what's-its-name
'The scabbard, perhaps,' said Edith.
'Exactly - a little too fast, it is because it is bright and
glowing, you know, my dearest love.'
Mrs Skewton heaved a gentle sigh, supposed to cast a shadow on the
surface of that dagger of lath, whereof her susceptible bosom was the
sheath: and leaning her head on one side, in the Cleopatra manner,
looked with pensive affection on her darling child.
Edith had turned her face towards Mr Dombey when he first addressed
her, and had remained in that attitude, while speaking to her mother,
and while her mother spoke to her, as though offering him her
attention, if he had anything more to say. There was something in the
manner of this simple courtesy: almost defiant, and giving it the
character of being rendered on compulsion, or as a matter of traffic
to which she was a reluctant party again not lost upon that same
observer who was smiling round the board. It set him thinking of her
as he had first seen her, when she had believed herself to be alone
among the trees.
Mr Dombey having nothing else to say, proposed - the breakfast
being now finished, and the Major gorged, like any Boa Constrictor -
that they should start. A barouche being in waiting, according to the
orders of that gentleman, the two ladies, the Major and himself, took
their seats in it; the Native and the wan page mounted the box, Mr
Towlinson being left behind; and Mr Carker, on horseback, brought up
the rear. Mr Carker cantered behind the carriage. at the distance of a
hundred yards or so, and watched it, during all the ride, as if he
were a cat, indeed, and its four occupants, mice. Whether he looked to
one side of the road, or to the other - over distant landscape, with
its smooth undulations, wind-mills, corn, grass, bean fields,
wild-flowers, farm-yards, hayricks, and the spire among the wood - or
upwards in the sunny air, where butterflies were sporting round his
head, and birds were pouring out their songs - or downward, where the
shadows of the branches interlaced, and made a trembling carpet on the
road - or onward, where the overhanging trees formed aisles and
arches, dim with the softened light that steeped through leaves - one
corner of his eye was ever on the formal head of Mr Dombey, addressed
towards him, and the feather in the bonnet, drooping so neglectfully
and scornfully between them; much as he had seen the haughty eyelids
droop; not least so, when the face met that now fronting it. Once, and
once only, did his wary glance release these objects; and that was,
when a leap over a low hedge, and a gallop across a field, enabled him
to anticipate the carriage coming by the road, and to be standing
ready, at the journey's end, to hand the ladies out. Then, and but
then, he met her glance for an instant in her first surprise; but when
he touched her, in alighting, with his soft white hand, it overlooked
him altogether as before.
Mrs Skewton was bent on taking charge of Mr Carker herself, and
showing him the beauties of the Castle. She was determined to have his
arm, and the Major's too. It would do that incorrigible creature: who
was the most barbarous infidel in point of poetry: good to be in such
company. This chance arrangement left Mr Dombey at liberty to escort
Edith: which he did: stalking before them through the apartments with
a gentlemanly solemnity.
'Those darling byegone times, Mr Carker,' said Cleopatra, 'with
their delicious fortresses, and their dear old dungeons, and their
delightful places of torture, and their romantic vengeances, and their
picturesque assaults and sieges, and everything that makes life truly
charming! How dreadfully we have degenerated!'
'Yes, we have fallen off deplorably,' said Mr Carker.
The peculiarity of their conversation was, that Mrs Skewton, in
spite of her ecstasies, and Mr Carker, in spite of his urbanity, were
both intent on watching Mr Dombey and Edith. With all their
conversational endowments, they spoke somewhat distractedly, and at
random, in consequence.
'We have no Faith left, positively,' said Mrs Skewton, advancing
her shrivelled ear; for Mr Dombey was saying something to Edith. 'We
have no Faith in the dear old Barons, who were the most delightful
creatures - or in the dear old Priests, who were the most warlike of
men - or even in the days of that inestimable Queen Bess, upon the
wall there, which were so extremely golden. Dear creature! She was all
Heart And that charming father of hers! I hope you dote on Harry the
Eighth!'
'I admire him very much,' said Carker.
'So bluff!' cried Mrs Skewton, 'wasn't he? So burly. So truly
English. Such a picture, too, he makes, with his dear little peepy
eyes, and his benevolent chin!'
'Ah, Ma'am!' said Carker, stopping short; 'but if you speak of
pictures, there's a composition! What gallery in the world can produce
the counterpart of that?'
As the smiling gentleman thus spake, he pointed through a doorway
to where Mr Dombey and Edith were standing alone in the centre of
another room.
They were not interchanging a word or a look. Standing together,
arm in arm, they had the appearance of being more divided than if seas
had rolled between them. There was a difference even in the pride of
the two, that removed them farther from each other, than if one had
been the proudest and the other the humblest specimen of humanity in
all creation. He, self-important, unbending, formal, austere. She,
lovely and graceful, in an uncommon degree, but totally regardless of
herself and him and everything around, and spurning her own
attractions with her haughty brow and lip, as if they were a badge or
livery she hated. So unmatched were they, and opposed, so forced and
linked together by a chain which adverse hazard and mischance had
forged: that fancy might have imagined the pictures on the walls
around them, startled by the unnatural conjunction, and observant of
it in their several expressions. Grim knights and warriors looked
scowling on them. A churchman, with his hand upraised, denounced the
mockery of such a couple coming to God's altar. Quiet waters in
landscapes, with the sun reflected in their depths, asked, if better
means of escape were not at hand, was there no drowning left? Ruins
cried, 'Look here, and see what We are, wedded to uncongenial Time!'
Animals, opposed by nature, worried one another, as a moral to them.
Loves and Cupids took to flight afraid, and Martyrdom had no such
torment in its painted history of suffering.
Nevertheless, Mrs Skewton was so charmed by the sight to which Mr
Carker invoked her attention, that she could not refraIn from saying,
half aloud, how sweet, how very full of soul it was! Edith,
overhearing, looked round, and flushed indignant scarlet to her hair.
'My dearest Edith knows I was admiring her!' said Cleopatra,
tapping her, almost timidly, on the back with her parasol. 'Sweet
pet!'
Again Mr Carker saw the strife he had witnessed so unexpectedly
among the trees. Again he saw the haughty languor and indifference
come over it, and hide it like a cloud.
She did not raise her eyes to him; but with a slight peremptory
motion of them, seemed to bid her mother come near. Mrs Skewton
thought it expedient to understand the hint, and advancing quickly,
with her two cavaliers, kept near her daughter from that time,
Mr Carker now, having nothing to distract his attention, began to
discourse upon the pictures and to select the best, and point them out
to Mr Dombey: speaking with his usual familiar recognition of Mr
Dombey's greatness, and rendering homage by adjusting his eye-glass
for him, or finding out the right place in his catalogue, or holding
his stick, or the like. These services did not so much originate with
Mr Carker, in truth, as with Mr Dombey himself, who was apt to assert
his chieftainship by saying, with subdued authority, and in an easy
way - for him - 'Here, Carker, have the goodness to assist me, will
you?' which the smiling gentleman always did with pleasure.
They made the tour of the pictures, the walls, crow's nest, and so
forth; and as they were still one little party, and the Major was
rather in the shade: being sleepy during the process of digestion: Mr
Carker became communicative and agreeable. At first, he addressed
himself for the most part to Mrs Skewton; but as that sensitive lady
was in such ecstasies with the works of art, after the first quarter
of an hour, that she could do nothing but yawn (they were such perfect
inspirations, she observed as a reason for that mark of rapture), he
transferred his attentions to Mr Dombey. Mr Dombey said little beyond
an occasional 'Very true, Carker,' or 'Indeed, Carker,' but he tacitly
encouraged Carker to proceed, and inwardly approved of his behaviour
very much: deeming it as well that somebody should talk, and thinking
that his remarks, which were, as one might say, a branch of the parent
establishment, might amuse Mrs Granger. Mr Carker, who possessed an
excellent discretion, never took the liberty of addressing that lady,
direct; but she seemed to listen, though she never looked at him; and
once or twice, when he was emphatic in his peculiar humility, the
twilight smile stole over her face, not as a light, but as a deep
black shadow.
Warwick Castle being at length pretty well exhausted, and the Major
very much so: to say nothing of Mrs Skewton, whose peculiar
demonstrations of delight had become very frequent Indeed: the
carriage was again put In requisition, and they rode to several
admired points of view In the neighbourhood. Mr Dombey ceremoniously
observed of one of these, that a sketch, however slight, from the fair
hand of Mrs Granger, would be a remembrance to him of that agreeable
day: though he wanted no artificial remembrance, he was sure (here Mr
Dombey made another of his bows), which he must always highly value.
Withers the lean having Edith's sketch-book under his arm, was
immediately called upon by Mrs Skewton to produce the same: and the
carriage stopped, that Edith might make the drawing, which Mr Dombey
was to put away among his treasures.
'But I am afraid I trouble you too much,' said Mr Dombey.
'By no means. Where would you wish it taken from?' she answered,
turning to him with the same enforced attention as before.
Mr Dombey, with another bow, which cracked the starch in his
cravat, would beg to leave that to the Artist.
'I would rather you chose for yourself,' said Edith.
'Suppose then,' said Mr Dombey, 'we say from here. It appears a
good spot for the purpose, or - Carker, what do you think?'
There happened to be in the foreground, at some little distance, a
grove of trees, not unlike that In which Mr Carker had made his chain
of footsteps in the morning, and with a seat under one tree, greatly
resembling, in the general character of its situation, the point where
his chain had broken.
'Might I venture to suggest to Mrs Granger,' said Carker, 'that
that is an interesting - almost a curious - point of view?'
She followed the direction of his riding-whip with her eyes, and
raised them quickly to his face. It was the second glance they had
exchanged since their introduction; and would have been exactly like
the first, but that its expression was plainer.
'Will you like that?' said Edith to Mr Dombey.
'I shall be charmed,' said Mr Dombey to Edith.
Therefore the carriage was driven to the spot where Mr Dombey was
to be charmed; and Edith, without moving from her seat, and openIng
her sketch-book with her usual proud indifference, began to sketch.
'My pencils are all pointless,' she said, stopping and turning them
over.
'Pray allow me,' said Mr Dombey. 'Or Carker will do it better, as
he understands these things. Carker, have the goodness to see to these
pencils for Mrs Granger.
Mr Carker rode up close to the carriage-door on Mrs Granger's side,
and letting the rein fall on his horse's neck, took the pencils from
her hand with a smile and a bow, and sat in the saddle leisurely
mending them. Having done so, he begged to be allowed to hold them,
and to hand them to her as they were required; and thus Mr Carker,
with many commendations of Mrs Granger's extraordinary skill -
especially in trees - remained - close at her side, looking over the
drawing as she made it. Mr Dombey in the meantime stood bolt upright
in the carriage like a highly respectable ghost, looking on too; while
Cleopatra and the Major dallied as two ancient doves might do.
'Are you satisfied with that, or shall I finish it a little more?'
said Edith, showing the sketch to Mr Dombey.
Mr Dombey begged that it might not be touched; it was perfection.
'It is most extraordinary,' said Carker, bringing every one of his
red gums to bear upon his praise. 'I was not prepared for anything so
beautiful, and so unusual altogether.'
This might have applied to the sketcher no less than to the sketch;
but Mr Carker's manner was openness itself - not as to his mouth
alone, but as to his whole spirit. So it continued to be while the
drawing was laid aside for Mr Dombey, and while the sketching
materials were put up; then he handed in the pencils (which were
received with a distant acknowledgment of his help, but without a
look), and tightening his rein, fell back, and followed the carriage
again.
Thinking, perhaps, as he rode, that even this trivial sketch had
been made and delivered to its owner, as if it had been bargained for
and bought. Thinking, perhaps, that although she had assented with
such perfect readiness to his request, her haughty face, bent over the
drawing, or glancing at the distant objects represented in it, had
been the face of a proud woman, engaged in a sordid and miserable
transaction. Thinking, perhaps, of such things: but smiling certainly,
and while he seemed to look about him freely, in enjoyment of the air
and exercise, keeping always that sharp corner of his eye upon the
carriage.
A stroll among the haunted ruins of Kenilworth, and more rides to
more points of view: most of which, Mrs Skewton reminded Mr Dombey,
Edith had already sketched, as he had seen in looking over her
drawings: brought the day's expedition to a close. Mrs Skewton and
Edith were driven to their own lodgings; Mr Carker was graciously
invited by Cleopatra to return thither with Mr Dombey and the Major,
in the evening, to hear some of Edith's music; and the three gentlemen
repaired to their hotel to dinner.
The dinner was the counterpart of yesterday's, except that the
Major was twenty-four hours more triumphant and less mysterious. Edith
was toasted again. Mr Dombey was again agreeably embarrassed. And Mr
Carker was full of interest and praise.
There were no other visitors at Mrs Skewton's. Edith's drawings
were strewn about the room, a little more abundantly than usual
perhaps; and Withers, the wan page, handed round a little stronger
tea. The harp was there; the piano was there; and Edith sang and
played. But even the music was played by Edith to Mr Dombey's order,
as it were, in the same uncompromising way. As thus.
'Edith, my dearest love,' said Mrs Skewton, half an hour after tea,
'Mr Dombey is dying to hear you, I know.'
'Mr Dombey has life enough left to say so for himself, Mama, I have
no doubt.'
'I shall be immensely obliged,' said Mr Dombey.
'What do you wish?'
'Piano?' hesitated Mr Dombey.
'Whatever you please. You have only to choose.
Accordingly, she began with the piano. It was the same with the
harp; the same with her singing; the same with the selection of the
pieces that she sang and played. Such frigid and constrained, yet
prompt and pointed acquiescence with the wishes he imposed upon her,
and on no one else, was sufficiently remarkable to penetrate through
all the mysteries of picquet, and impress itself on Mr Carker's keen
attention. Nor did he lose sight of the fact that Mr Dombey was
evidently proud of his power, and liked to show it.
Nevertheless, Mr Carker played so well - some games with the Major,
and some with Cleopatra, whose vigilance of eye in respect of Mr
Dombey and Edith no lynx could have surpassed - that he even
heightened his position in the lady-mother's good graces; and when on
taking leave he regretted that he would be obliged to return to London
next morning, Cleopatra trusted: community of feeling not being met
with every day: that it was far from being the last time they would
meet.
'I hope so,' said Mr Carker, with an expressive look at the couple
in the distance, as he drew towards the door, following the Major. 'I
think so.'
Mr Dombey, who had taken a stately leave of Edith, bent, or made
some approach to a bend, over Cleopatra's couch, and said, in a low
voice:
'I have requested Mrs Granger's permission to call on her to-morrow
morning - for a purpose - and she has appointed twelve o'clock. May I
hope to have the pleasure of finding you at home, Madam, afterwards?'
Cleopatra was so much fluttered and moved, by hearing this, of
course, incomprehensible speech, that she could only shut her eyes,
and shake her head, and give Mr Dombey her hand; which Mr Dombey, not
exactly knowing what to do with, dropped.
'Dombey, come along!' cried the Major, looking in at the door.
'Damme, Sir, old Joe has a great mind to propose an alteration in the
name of the Royal Hotel, and that it should be called the Three Jolly
Bachelors, in honour of ourselves and Carker.' With this, the Major
slapped Mr Dombey on the back, and winking over his shoulder at the
ladies, with a frightful tendency of blood to the head, carried him
off.
Mrs Skewton reposed on her sofa, and Edith sat apart, by her harp,
in silence. The mother, trifling with her fan, looked stealthily at
the daughter more than once, but the daughter, brooding gloomily with
downcast eyes, was not to be disturbed.
Thus they remained for a long hour, without a word, until Mrs
Skewton's maid appeared, according to custom, to prepare her gradually
for night. At night, she should have been a skeleton, with dart and
hour-glass, rather than a woman, this attendant; for her touch was as
the touch of Death. The painted object shrivelled underneath her hand;
the form collapsed, the hair dropped off, the arched dark eyebrows
changed to scanty tufts of grey; the pale lips shrunk, the skin became
cadaverous and loose; an old, worn, yellow, nodding woman, with red
eyes, alone remained in Cleopatra's place, huddled up, like a slovenly
bundle, in a greasy flannel gown.
The very voice was changed, as it addressed Edith, when they were
alone again.
'Why don't you tell me,' it said sharply, 'that he is coming here
to-morrow by appointment?'
'Because you know it,' returned Edith, 'Mother.'
The mocking emphasis she laid on that one word!
'You know he has bought me,' she resumed. 'Or that he will,
to-morrow. He has considered of his bargain; he has shown it to his
friend; he is even rather proud of it; he thinks that it will suit
him, and may be had sufficiently cheap; and he will buy to-morrow.
God, that I have lived for this, and that I feel it!'
Compress into one handsome face the conscious self-abasement, and
the burning indignation of a hundred women, strong in passion and in
pride; and there it hid itself with two white shuddering arms.
'What do you mean?' returned the angry mother. 'Haven't you from a
child - '
'A child!' said Edith, looking at her, 'when was I a child? What
childhood did you ever leave to me? I was a woman - artful, designing,
mercenary, laying snares for men - before I knew myself, or you, or
even understood the base and wretched aim of every new display I
learnt You gave birth to a woman. Look upon her. She is in her pride
tonight'
And as she spoke, she struck her hand upon her beautiful bosom, as
though she would have beaten down herself
'Look at me,' she said, 'who have never known what it is to have an
honest heart, and love. Look at me, taught to scheme and plot when
children play; and married in my youth - an old age of design - to one
for whom I had no feeling but indifference. Look at me, whom he left a
widow, dying before his inheritance descended to him - a judgment on
you! well deserved! - and tell me what has been my life for ten years
since.'
'We have been making every effort to endeavour to secure to you a
good establishment,' rejoined her mother. 'That has been your life.
And now you have got it.'
'There is no slave in a market: there is no horse in a fair: so
shown and offered and examined and paraded, Mother, as I have been,
for ten shameful years,' cried Edith, with a burning brow, and the
same bitter emphasis on the one word. 'Is it not so? Have I been made
the bye-word of all kinds of men? Have fools, have profligates, have
boys, have dotards, dangled after me, and one by one rejected me, and
fallen off, because you were too plain with all your cunning: yes, and
too true, with all those false pretences: until we have almost come to
be notorious? The licence of look and touch,' she said, with flashing
eyes, 'have I submitted to it, in half the places of resort upon the
map of England? Have I been hawked and vended here and there, until
the last grain of self-respect is dead within me, and I loathe myself?
Has been my late childhood? I had none before. Do not tell me that I
had, tonight of all nights in my life!'
'You might have been well married,' said her mother, 'twenty times
at least, Edith, if you had given encouragement enough.'
'No! Who takes me, refuse that I am, and as I well deserve to be,'
she answered, raising her head, and trembling in her energy of shame
and stormy pride, 'shall take me, as this man does, with no art of
mine put forth to lure him. He sees me at the auction, and he thinks
it well to buy me. Let him! When he came to view me - perhaps to bid -
he required to see the roll of my accomplishments. I gave it to him.
When he would have me show one of them, to justify his purchase to his
men, I require of him to say which he demands, and I exhibit it. I
will do no more. He makes the purchase of his own will, and with his
own sense of its worth, and the power of his money; and I hope it may
never disappoint him. I have not vaunted and pressed the bargain;
neither have you, so far as I have been able to prevent you.
'You talk strangely to-night, Edith, to your own Mother.'
'It seems so to me; stranger to me than you,' said Edith. 'But my
education was completed long ago. I am too old now, and have fallen
too low, by degrees, to take a new course, and to stop yours, and to
help myself. The germ of all that purifies a woman's breast, and makes
it true and good, has never stirred in mine, and I have nothing else
to sustain me when I despise myself.' There had been a touching
sadness in her voice, but it was gone, when she went on to say, with a
curled lip, 'So, as we are genteel and poor, I am content that we
should be made rich by these means; all I say is, I have kept the only
purpose I have had the strength to form - I had almost said the power,
with you at my side, Mother - and have not tempted this man on.'
'This man! You speak,' said her mother, 'as if you hated him.'
'And you thought I loved him, did you not?' she answered, stopping
on her way across the room, and looking round. 'Shall I tell you,' she
continued, with her eyes fixed on her mother, 'who already knows us
thoroughly, and reads us right, and before whom I have even less of
self-respect or confidence than before my own inward self; being so
much degraded by his knowledge of me?'
'This is an attack, I suppose,' returned her mother coldly, 'on
poor, unfortunate what's-his-name - Mr Carker! Your want of
self-respect and confidence, my dear, in reference to that person (who
is very agreeable, it strikes me), is not likely to have much effect
on your establishment. Why do you look at me so hard? Are you ill?'
Edith suddenly let fall her face, as if it had been stung, and
while she pressed her hands upon it, a terrible tremble crept over her
whole frame. It was quickly gone; and with her usual step, she passed
out of the room.
The maid who should have been a skeleton, then reappeared, and
giving one arm to her mistress, who appeared to have taken off her
manner with her charms, and to have put on paralysis with her flannel
gown, collected the ashes of Cleopatra, and carried them away in the
other, ready for tomorrow's revivification.
CHAPTER 28.
Alterations
'So the day has come at length, Susan,' said Florence to the
excellent Nipper, 'when we are going back to our quiet home!'
Susan drew in her breath with an amount of expression not easily
described, further relieving her feelings with a smart cough,
answered, 'Very quiet indeed, Miss Floy, no doubt. Excessive so.'
'When I was a child,' said Florence, thoughtfully, and after musing
for some moments, 'did you ever see that gentleman who has taken the
trouble to ride down here to speak to me, now three times - three
times, I think, Susan?'
'Three times, Miss,' returned the Nipper. 'Once when you was out a
walking with them Sket- '
Florence gently looked at her, and Miss Nipper checked herself.
'With Sir Barnet and his lady, I mean to say, Miss, and the young
gentleman. And two evenings since then.'
'When I was a child, and when company used to come to visit Papa,
did you ever see that gentleman at home, Susan?' asked Florence.
'Well, Miss,' returned her maid, after considering, 'I really
couldn't say I ever did. When your poor dear Ma died, Miss Floy, I was
very new in the family, you see, and my element:' the Nipper bridled,
as opining that her merits had been always designedly extinguished by
Mr Dombey: 'was the floor below the attics.'
'To be sure,' said Florence, still thoughtfully; 'you are not
likely to have known who came to the house. I quite forgot.'
'Not, Miss, but what we talked about the family and visitors,' said
Susan, 'and but what I heard much said, although the nurse before Mrs
Richards make unpleasant remarks when I was in company, and hint at
little Pitchers, but that could only be attributed, poor thing,'
observed Susan, with composed forbearance, 'to habits of intoxication,
for which she was required to leave, and did.'
Florence, who was seated at her chamber window, with her face
resting on her hand, sat looking out, and hardly seemed to hear what
Susan said, she was so lost in thought.
'At all events, Miss,' said Susan, 'I remember very well that this
same gentleman, Mr Carker, was almost, if not quite, as great a
gentleman with your Papa then, as he is now. It used to be said in the
house then, Miss, that he was at the head of all your Pa's affairs in
the City, and managed the whole, and that your Pa minded him more than
anybody, which, begging your pardon, Miss Floy, he might easy do, for
he never minded anybody else. I knew that, Pitcher as I might have
been.'
Susan Nipper, with an injured remembrance of the nurse before Mrs
Richards, emphasised 'Pitcher' strongly.
'And that Mr Carker has not fallen off, Miss,' she pursued, 'but
has stood his ground, and kept his credit with your Pa, I know from
what is always said among our people by that Perch, whenever he comes
to the house; and though he's the weakest weed in the world, Miss
Floy, and no one can have a moment's patience with the man, he knows
what goes on in the City tolerable well, and says that your Pa does
nothing without Mr Carker, and leaves all to Mr Carker, and acts
according to Mr Carker, and has Mr Carker always at his elbow, and I
do believe that he believes (that washiest of Perches!) that after
your Pa, the Emperor of India is the child unborn to Mr Carker.'
Not a word of this was lost on Florence, who, with an awakened
interest in Susan's speech, no longer gazed abstractedly on the
prospect without, but looked at her, and listened with attention.
'Yes, Susan,' she said, when that young lady had concluded. 'He is
in Papa's confidence, and is his friend, I am sure.'
Florence's mind ran high on this theme, and had done for some days.
Mr Carker, in the two visits with which he had followed up his first
one, had assumed a confidence between himself and her - a right on his
part to be mysterious and stealthy, in telling her that the ship was
still unheard of - a kind of mildly restrained power and authority
over her - that made her wonder, and caused her great uneasiness. She
had no means of repelling it, or of freeing herself from the web he
was gradually winding about her; for that would have required some art
and knowledge of the world, opposed to such address as his; and
Florence had none. True, he had said no more to her than that there
was no news of the ship, and that he feared the worst; but how he came
to know that she was interested in the ship, and why he had the right
to signify his knowledge to her, so insidiously and darkly, troubled
Florence very much.
This conduct on the part of Mr Carker, and her habit of often
considering it with wonder and uneasiness, began to invest him with an
uncomfortable fascination in Florence's thoughts. A more distinct
remembrance of his features, voice, and manner: which she sometimes
courted, as a means of reducing him to the level of a real personage,
capable of exerting no greater charm over her than another: did not
remove the vague impression. And yet he never frowned, or looked upon
her with an air of dislike or animosity, but was always smiling and
serene.
Again, Florence, in pursuit of her strong purpose with reference to
her father, and her steady resolution to believe that she was herself
unwittingly to blame for their so cold and distant relations, would
recall to mind that this gentleman was his confidential friend, and
would think, with an anxious heart, could her struggling tendency to
dislike and fear him be a part of that misfortune in her, which had
turned her father's love adrift, and left her so alone? She dreaded
that it might be; sometimes believed it was: then she resolved that
she would try to conquer this wrong feeling; persuaded herself that
she was honoured and encouraged by the notice of her father's friend;
and hoped that patient observation of him and trust in him would lead
her bleeding feet along that stony road which ended in her father's
heart.
Thus, with no one to advise her - for she could advise with no one
without seeming to complain against him - gentle Florence tossed on an
uneasy sea of doubt and hope; and Mr Carker, like a scaly monster of
the deep, swam down below, and kept his shining eye upon her. Florence
had a new reason in all this for wishing to be at home again. Her
lonely life was better suited to her course of timid hope and doubt;
and she feared sometimes, that in her absence she might miss some
hopeful chance of testifying her affection for her father. Heaven
knows, she might have set her mind at rest, poor child! on this last
point; but her slighted love was fluttering within her, and, even in
her sleep, it flew away in dreams, and nestled, like a wandering bird
come home, upon her father's neck.
Of Walter she thought often. Ah! how often, when the night was
gloomy, and the wind was blowing round the house! But hope was strong
in her breast. It is so difficult for the young and ardent, even with
such experience as hers, to imagine youth and ardour quenched like a
weak flame, and the bright day of life merging into night, at noon,
that hope was strong yet. Her tears fell frequently for Walter's
sufferings; but rarely for his supposed death, and never long.
She had written to the old Instrument-maker, but had received no
answer to her note: which indeed required none. Thus matters stood
with Florence on the morning when she was going home, gladly, to her
old secluded life.
Doctor and Mrs Blimber, accompanied (much against his will) by
their valued charge, Master Barnet, were already gone back to
Brighton, where that young gentleman and his fellow-pilgrims to
Parnassus were then, no doubt, in the continual resumption of their
studies. The holiday time was past and over; most of the juvenile
guests at the villa had taken their departure; and Florence's long
visit was come to an end.
There was one guest, however, albeit not resident within the house,
who had been very constant in his attentions to the family, and who
still remained devoted to them. This was Mr Toots, who after renewing,
some weeks ago, the acquaintance he had had the happiness of forming
with Skettles Junior, on the night when he burst the Blimberian bonds
and soared into freedom with his ring on, called regularly every other
day, and left a perfect pack of cards at the hall-door; so many
indeed, that the ceremony was quite a deal on the part of Mr Toots,
and a hand at whist on the part of the servant.
Mr Toots, likewise, with the bold and happy idea of preventing the
family from forgetting him (but there is reason to suppose that this
expedient originated in the teeming brain of the Chicken), had
established a six-oared cutter, manned by aquatic friends of the
Chicken's and steered by that illustrious character in person, who
wore a bright red fireman's coat for the purpose, and concealed the
perpetual black eye with which he was afflicted, beneath a green
shade. Previous to the institution of this equipage, Mr Toots sounded
the Chicken on a hypothetical case, as, supposing the Chicken to be
enamoured of a young lady named Mary, and to have conceived the
intention of starting a boat of his own, what would he call that boat?
The Chicken replied, with divers strong asseverations, that he would
either christen it Poll or The Chicken's Delight. Improving on this
idea, Mr Toots, after deep study and the exercise of much invention,
resolved to call his boat The Toots's Joy, as a delicate compliment to
Florence, of which no man knowing the parties, could possibly miss the
appreciation.
Stretched on a crimson cushion in his gallant bark, with his shoes
in the air, Mr Toots, in the exercise of his project, had come up the
river, day after day, and week after week, and had flitted to and fro,
near Sir Barnet's garden, and had caused his crew to cut across and
across the river at sharp angles, for his better exhibition to any
lookers-out from Sir Barnet's windows, and had had such evolutions
performed by the Toots's Joy as had filled all the neighbouring part
of the water-side with astonishment. But whenever he saw anyone in Sir
Barnet's garden on the brink of the river, Mr Toots always feigned to
be passing there, by a combination of coincidences of the most
singular and unlikely description.
'How are you, Toots?' Sir Barnet would say, waving his hand from
the lawn, while the artful Chicken steered close in shore.
'How de do, Sir Barnet?' Mr Toots would answer, What a surprising
thing that I should see you here!'
Mr Toots, in his sagacity, always said this, as if, instead of that
being Sir Barnet's house, it were some deserted edifice on the banks
of the Nile, or Ganges.
'I never was so surprised!' Mr Toots would exclaim. - 'Is Miss
Dombey there?'
Whereupon Florence would appear, perhaps.
'Oh, Diogenes is quite well, Miss Dombey,' Toots would cry. 'I
called to ask this morning.'
'Thank you very much!' the pleasant voice of Florence would reply.
'Won't you come ashore, Toots?' Sir Barnet would say then. 'Come!
you're in no hurry. Come and see us.'
'Oh, it's of no consequence, thank you!' Mr Toots would blushingly
rejoin. 'I thought Miss Dombey might like to know, that's all.
Good-bye!' And poor Mr Toots, who was dying to accept the invitation,
but hadn't the courage to do it, signed to the Chicken, with an aching
heart, and away went the Joy, cleaving the water like an arrow.
The Joy was lying in a state of extraordinary splendour, at the
garden steps, on the morning of Florence's departure. When she went
downstairs to take leave, after her talk with Susan, she found Mr
Toots awaiting her in the drawing-room.
'Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey?' said the stricken Toots, always
dreadfully disconcerted when the desire of his heart was gained, and
he was speaking to her; 'thank you, I'm very well indeed, I hope
you're the same, so was Diogenes yesterday.'
'You are very kind,' said Florence.
'Thank you, it's of no consequence,' retorted Mr Toots. 'I thought
perhaps you wouldn't mind, in this fine weather, coming home by water,
Miss Dombey. There's plenty of room in the boat for your maid.'
'I am very much obliged to you,' said Florence, hesitating. 'I
really am - but I would rather not.'
'Oh, it's of no consequence,' retorted Mr Toots. 'Good morning.'
'Won't you wait and see Lady Skettles?' asked Florence, kindly.
'Oh no, thank you,' returned Mr Toots, 'it's of no consequence at
all.'
So shy was Mr Toots on such occasions, and so flurried! But Lady
Skettles entering at the moment, Mr Toots was suddenly seized with a
passion for asking her how she did, and hoping she was very well; nor
could Mr Toots by any possibility leave off shaking hands with her,
until Sir Barnet appeared: to whom he immediately clung with the
tenacity of desperation.
'We are losing, today, Toots,' said Sir Barnet, turning towards
Florence, 'the light of our house, I assure you'
'Oh, it's of no conseq - I mean yes, to be sure,' faltered the
embarrassed Mr Toots. 'Good morning!'
Notwithstanding the emphatic nature of this farewell, Mr Toots,
instead of going away, stood leering about him, vacantly. Florence, to
relieve him, bade adieu, with many thanks, to Lady Skettles, and gave
her arm to Sir Barnet.
'May I beg of you, my dear Miss Dombey,' said her host, as he
conducted her to the carriage, 'to present my best compliments to your
dear Papa?'
It was distressing to Florence to receive the commission, for she
felt as if she were imposing on Sir Barnet by allowing him to believe
that a kindness rendered to her, was rendered to her father. As she
could not explain, however, she bowed her head and thanked him; and
again she thought that the dull home, free from such embarrassments,
and such reminders of her sorrow, was her natural and best retreat.
Such of her late friends and companions as were yet remaining at
the villa, came running from within, and from the garden, to say
good-bye. They were all attached to her, and very earnest in taking
leave of her. Even the household were sorry for her going, and the
servants came nodding and curtseying round the carriage door. As
Florence looked round on the kind faces, and saw among them those of
Sir Barnet and his lady, and of Mr Toots, who was chuckling and
staring at her from a distance, she was reminded of the night when
Paul and she had come from Doctor Blimber's: and when the carriage
drove away, her face was wet with tears.
Sorrowful tears, but tears of consolation, too; for all the softer
memories connected with the dull old house to which she was returning
made it dear to her, as they rose up. How long it seemed since she had
wandered through the silent rooms: since she had last crept, softly
and afraid, into those her father occupied: since she had felt the
solemn but yet soothing influence of the beloved dead in every action
of her daily life! This new farewell reminded her, besides, of her
parting with poor Walter: of his looks and words that night: and of
the gracious blending she had noticed in him, of tenderness for those
he left behind, with courage and high spirit. His little history was
associated with the old house too, and gave it a new claim and hold
upon her heart. Even Susan Nipper softened towards the home of so many
years, as they were on their way towards it. Gloomy as it was, and
rigid justice as she rendered to its gloom, she forgave it a great
deal. 'I shall be glad to see it again, I don't deny, Miss,' said the
Nipper. 'There ain't much in it to boast of, but I wouldn't have it
burnt or pulled down, neither!'
'You'll be glad to go through the old rooms, won't you, Susan?'
said Florence, smiling.
'Well, Miss,' returned the Nipper, softening more and more towards
the house, as they approached it nearer, 'I won't deny but what I
shall, though I shall hate 'em again, to-morrow, very likely.'
Florence felt that, for her, there was greater peace within it than
elsewhere. It was better and easier to keep her secret shut up there,
among the tall dark walls, than to carry it abroad into the light, and
try to hide it from a crowd of happy eyes. It was better to pursue the
study of her loving heart, alone, and find no new discouragements in
loving hearts about her. It was easier to hope, and pray, and love on,
all uncared for, yet with constancy and patience, in the tranquil
sanctuary of such remembrances: although it mouldered, rusted, and
decayed about her: than in a new scene, let its gaiety be what it
would. She welcomed back her old enchanted dream of life, and longed
for the old dark door to close upon her, once again.
Full of such thoughts, they turned into the long and sombre street.
Florence was not on that side of the carriage which was nearest to her
home, and as the distance lessened between them and it, she looked out
of her window for the children over the way.
She was thus engaged, when an exclamation from Susan caused her to
turn quickly round.
'Why, Gracious me!' cried Susan, breathless, 'where's our house!'
'Our house!' said Florence.
Susan, drawing in her head from the window, thrust it out again,
drew it in again as the carriage stopped, and stared at her mistress
in amazement.
There was a labyrinth of scaffolding raised all round the house,
from the basement to the roof. Loads of bricks and stones, and heaps
of mortar, and piles of wood, blocked up half the width and length of
the broad street at the side. Ladders were raised against the walls;
labourers were climbing up and down; men were at work upon the steps
of the scaffolding; painters and decorators were busy inside; great
rolls of ornamental paper were being delivered from a cart at the
door; an upholsterer's waggon also stopped the way; no furniture was
to be seen through the gaping and broken windows in any of the rooms;
nothing but workmen, and the implements of their several trades,
swarming from the kitchens to the garrets. Inside and outside alike:
bricklayers, painters, carpenters, masons: hammer, hod, brush,
pickaxe, saw, and trowel: all at work together, in full chorus!
Florence descended from the coach, half doubting if it were, or
could be the right house, until she recognised Towlinson, with a
sun-burnt face, standing at the door to receive her.
'There is nothing the matter?' inquired Florence.
'Oh no, Miss.'
'There are great alterations going on.'
'Yes, Miss, great alterations,' said Towlinson.
Florence passed him as if she were in a dream, and hurried
upstairs. The garish light was in the long-darkened drawing-room and
there were steps and platforms, and men In paper caps, in the high
places. Her mother's picture was gone with the rest of the moveables,
and on the mark where it had been, was scrawled in chalk, 'this room
in panel. Green and gold.' The staircase was a labyrinth of posts and
planks like the outside of the house, and a whole Olympus of plumbers
and glaziers was reclining in various attitudes, on the skylight. Her
own room was not yet touched within, but there were beams and boards
raised against it without, baulking the daylight. She went up swiftly
to that other bedroom, where the little bed was; and a dark giant of a
man with a pipe in his mouth, and his head tied up in a
pocket-handkerchief, was staring in at the window.
It was here that Susan Nipper, who had been in quest of Florence,
found her, and said, would she go downstairs to her Papa, who wished
to speak to her.
'At home! and wishing to speak to me!' cried Florence, trembling.
Susan, who was infinitely more distraught than Florence herself,
repeated her errand; and Florence, pale and agitated, hurried down
again, without a moment's hesitation. She thought upon the way down,
would she dare to kiss him? The longing of her heart resolved her, and
she thought she would.
Her father might have heard that heart beat, when it came into his
presence. One instant, and it would have beat against his breast.
But he was not alone. There were two ladies there; and Florence
stopped. Striving so hard with her emotion, that if her brute friend
Di had not burst in and overwhelmed her with his caresses as a welcome
home - at which one of the ladies gave a little scream, and that
diverted her attention from herself - she would have swooned upon the
floor.
'Florence,' said her father, putting out his hand: so stiffly that
it held her off: 'how do you do?'
Florence took the hand between her own, and putting it timidly to
her lips, yielded to its withdrawal. It touched the door in shutting
it, with quite as much endearment as it had touched her.
'What dog is that?' said Mr Dombey, displeased.
'It is a dog, Papa - from Brighton.'
'Well!' said Mr Dombey; and a cloud passed over his face, for he
understood her.
'He is very good-tempered,' said Florence, addressing herself with
her natural grace and sweetness to the two lady strangers. 'He is only
glad to see me. Pray forgive him.'
She saw in the glance they interchanged, that the lady who had
screamed, and who was seated, was old; and that the other lady, who
stood near her Papa, was very beautiful, and of an elegant figure.
'Mrs Skewton,' said her father, turning to the first, and holding
out his hand, 'this is my daughter Florence.'
'Charming, I am sure,' observed the lady, putting up her glass. 'So
natural! My darling Florence, you must kiss me, if you please.'
Florence having done so, turned towards the other lady, by whom her
father stood waiting.
'Edith,' said Mr Dombey, 'this is my daughter Florence. Florence,
this lady will soon be your Mama.'
Florence started, and looked up at the beautiful face in a conflict
of emotions, among which the tears that name awakened, struggled for a
moment with surprise, interest, admiration, and an indefinable sort of
fear. Then she cried out, 'Oh, Papa, may you be happy! may you be
very, very happy all your life!' and then fell weeping on the lady's
bosom.
There was a short silence. The beautiful lady, who at first had
seemed to hesitate whether or no she should advance to Florence, held
her to her breast, and pressed the hand with which she clasped her,
close about her waist, as if to reassure her and comfort her. Not one
word passed the lady's lips. She bent her head down over Florence, and
she kissed her on the cheek, but she said no word.
'Shall we go on through the rooms,' said Mr Dombey, 'and see how
our workmen are doing? Pray allow me, my dear madam.'
He said this in offering his arm to Mrs Skewton, who had been
looking at Florence through her glass, as though picturing to herself
what she might be made, by the infusion - from her own copious
storehouse, no doubt - of a little more Heart and Nature. Florence was
still sobbing on the lady's breast, and holding to her, when Mr Dombey
was heard to say from the Conservatory:
'Let us ask Edith. Dear me, where is she?'
'Edith, my dear!' cried Mrs Skewton, 'where are you? Looking for Mr
Dombey somewhere, I know. We are here, my love.'
The beautiful lady released her hold of Florence, and pressing her
lips once more upon her face, withdrew hurriedly, and joined them.
Florence remained standing In the same place: happy, sorry, joyful,
and in tears, she knew not how, or how long, but all at once: when her
new Mama came back, and took her in her arms again.
'Florence,' said the lady, hurriedly, and looking into her face
with great earnestness. 'You will not begin by hating me?'
'By hating you, Mama?' cried Florence, winding her arm round her
neck, and returning the look.
'Hush! Begin by thinking well of me,' said the beautiful lady.
'Begin by believing that I will try to make you happy, and that I am
prepared to love you, Florence. Good-bye. We shall meet again soon.
Good-bye! Don't stay here, now.'
Again she pressed her to her breast she had spoken in a rapid
manner, but firmly - and Florence saw her rejoin them in the other
room. And now Florence began to hope that she would learn from her new
and beautiful Mama, how to gaIn her father's love; and in her sleep
that night, in her lost old home, her own Mama smiled radiantly upon
the hope, and blessed it. Dreaming Florence!
CHAPTER 29.
The Opening of the Eyes of Mrs Chick
Miss Tox, all unconscious of any such rare appearances in connexion
with Mr Dombey's house, as scaffoldings and ladders, and men with
their heads tied up in pocket-handkerchiefs, glaring in at the windows
like flying genii or strange birds, - having breakfasted one morning
at about this eventful period of time, on her customary viands; to
wit, one French roll rasped, one egg new laid (or warranted to be),
and one little pot of tea, wherein was infused one little silver
scoopful of that herb on behalf of Miss Tox, and one little silver
scoopful on behalf of the teapot - a flight of fancy in which good
housekeepers delight; went upstairs to set forth the bird waltz on the
harpsichord, to water and arrange the plants, to dust the nick-nacks,
and, according to her daily custom, to make her little drawing-room
the garland of Princess's Place.
Miss Tox endued herself with a pair of ancient gloves, like dead
leaves, in which she was accustomed to perform these avocations -
hidden from human sight at other times in a table drawer - and went
methodically to work; beginning with the bird waltz; passing, by a
natural association of ideas, to her bird - a very high-shouldered
canary, stricken in years, and much rumpled, but a piercing singer, as
Princess's Place well knew; taking, next in order, the little china
ornaments, paper fly-cages, and so forth; and coming round, in good
time, to the plants, which generally required to be snipped here and
there with a pair of scissors, for some botanical reason that was very
powerful with Miss Tox. Miss Tox was slow in coming to the plants,
this morning. The weather was warm, the wind southerly; and there was
a sigh of the summer-time In Princess's Place, that turned Miss Tox's
thoughts upon the country. The pot-boy attached to the Princess's Arms
had come out with a can and trickled water, in a flowering pattern,
all over Princess's Place, and it gave the weedy ground a fresh scent
- quite a growing scent, Miss Tox said. There was a tiny blink of sun
peeping in from the great street round the corner, and the smoky
sparrows hopped over it and back again, brightening as they passed: or
bathed in it, like a stream, and became glorified sparrows,
unconnected with chimneys. Legends in praise of Ginger-Beer, with
pictorial representations of thirsty customers submerged in the
effervescence, or stunned by the flying corks, were conspicuous in the
window of the Princess's Arms. They were making late hay, somewhere
out of town; and though the fragrance had a long way to come, and many
counter fragrances to contend with among the dwellings of the poor
(may God reward the worthy gentlemen who stickle for the Plague as
part and parcel of the wisdom of our ancestors, and who do their
little best to keep those dwellings miserable!), yet it was wafted
faintly into Princess's Place, whispering of Nature and her wholesome
air, as such things will, even unto prisoners and captives, and those
who are desolate and oppressed, in very spite of aldermen and knights
to boot: at whose sage nod - and how they nod! - the rolling world
stands still!
Miss Tox sat down upon the window-seat, and thought of her good
Papa deceased - Mr Tox, of the Customs Department of the public
service; and of her childhood, passed at a seaport, among a
considerable quantity of cold tar, and some rusticity. She fell into a
softened remembrance of meadows, in old time, gleaming with
buttercups, like so many inverted firmaments of golden stars; and how
she had made chains of dandelion-stalks for youthful vowers of eternal
constancy, dressed chiefly in nankeen; and how soon those fetters had
withered and broken.
Sitting on the window-seat, and looking out upon the sparrows and
the blink of sun, Miss Tox thought likewise of her good Mama deceased
- sister to the owner of the powdered head and pigtail - of her
virtues and her rheumatism. And when a man with bulgy legs, and a
rough voice, and a heavy basket on his head that crushed his hat into
a mere black muffin, came crying flowers down Princess's Place, making
his timid little roots of daisies shudder in the vibration of every
yell he gave, as though he had been an ogre, hawking little children,
summer recollections were so strong upon Miss Tox, that she shook her
head, and murmured she would be comparatively old before she knew it -
which seemed likely.
In her pensive mood, Miss Tox's thoughts went wandering on Mr
Dombey's track; probably because the Major had returned home to his
lodgings opposite, and had just bowed to her from his window. What
other reason could Miss Tox have for connecting Mr Dombey with her
summer days and dandelion fetters? Was he more cheerful? thought Miss
Tox. Was he reconciled to the decrees of fate? Would he ever marry
again? and if yes, whom? What sort of person now!
A flush - it was warm weather - overspread Miss Tox's face, as,
while entertaining these meditations, she turned her head, and was
surprised by the reflection of her thoughtful image In the
chimney-glass. Another flush succeeded when she saw a little carriage
drive into Princess's Place, and make straight for her own door. Miss
Tox arose, took up her scissors hastily, and so coming, at last, to
the plants, was very busy with them when Mrs Chick entered the room.
'How is my sweetest friend!' exclaimed Miss Tox, with open arms.
A little stateliness was mingled with Miss Tox's sweetest friend's
demeanour, but she kissed Miss Tox, and said, 'Lucretia, thank you, I
am pretty well. I hope you are the same. Hem!'
Mrs Chick was labouring under a peculiar little monosyllabic cough;
a sort of primer, or easy introduction to the art of coughing.
'You call very early, and how kind that is, my dear!' pursued Miss
Tox. 'Now, have you breakfasted?'
'Thank you, Lucretia,' said Mrs Chick, 'I have. I took an early
breakfast' - the good lady seemed curious on the subject of Princess's
Place, and looked all round it as she spoke - 'with my brother, who
has come home.'
'He is better, I trust, my love,' faltered Miss Tox.
'He is greatly better, thank you. Hem!'
'My dear Louisa must be careful of that cough' remarked Miss Tox.
'It's nothing,' returned Mrs Chic 'It's merely change of weather.
We must expect change.'
'Of weather?' asked Miss Tox, in her simplicity.
'Of everything' returned Mrs Chick 'Of course we must. It's a world
of change. Anyone would surprise me very much, Lucretia, and would
greatly alter my opinion of their understanding, if they attempted to
contradict or evade what is so perfectly evident. Change!' exclaimed
Mrs Chick, with severe philosophy. 'Why, my gracious me, what is there
that does not change! even the silkworm, who I am sure might be
supposed not to trouble itself about such subjects, changes into all
sorts of unexpected things continually.'
'My Louisa,' said the mild Miss Tox, 'is ever happy in her
illustrations.'
'You are so kind, Lucretia,' returned Mrs Chick, a little softened,
'as to say so, and to think so, I believe. I hope neither of us may
ever have any cause to lessen our opinion of the other, Lucretia.'
'I am sure of it,' returned Miss Tox.
Mrs Chick coughed as before, and drew lines on the carpet with the
ivory end of her parasol. Miss Tox, who had experience of her fair
friend, and knew that under the pressure of any slight fatigue or
vexation she was prone to a discursive kind of irritability, availed
herself of the pause, to change the subject.
'Pardon me, my dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox, 'but have I caught
sight of the manly form of Mr Chick in the carriage?'
'He is there,' said Mrs Chick, 'but pray leave him there. He has
his newspaper, and would be quite contented for the next two hours. Go
on with your flowers, Lucretia, and allow me to sit here and rest.'
'My Louisa knows,' observed Miss Tox, 'that between friends like
ourselves, any approach to ceremony would be out of the question.
Therefore - ' Therefore Miss Tox finished the sentence, not in words
but action; and putting on her gloves again, which she had taken off,
and arming herself once more with her scissors, began to snip and clip
among the leaves with microscopic industry.
'Florence has returned home also,' said Mrs Chick, after sitting
silent for some time, with her head on one side, and her parasol
sketching on the floor; 'and really Florence is a great deal too old
now, to continue to lead that solitary life to which she has been
accustomed. Of course she is. There can be no doubt about it. I should
have very little respect, indeed, for anybody who could advocate a
different opinion. Whatever my wishes might be, I could not respect
them. We cannot command our feelings to such an extent as that.'
Miss Tox assented, without being particular as to the
intelligibility of the proposition.
'If she's a strange girl,' said Mrs Chick, 'and if my brother Paul
cannot feel perfectly comfortable in her society, after all the sad
things that have happened, and all the terrible disappointments that
have been undergone, then, what is the reply? That he must make an
effort. That he is bound to make an effort. We have always been a
family remarkable for effort. Paul is at the head of the family;
almost the only representative of it left - for what am I - I am of no
consequence - '
'My dearest love,' remonstrated Miss Tox.
Mrs Chick dried her eyes, which were, for the moment, overflowing;
and proceeded:
'And consequently he is more than ever bound to make an effort. And
though his having done so, comes upon me with a sort of shock - for
mine is a very weak and foolish nature; which is anything but a
blessing I am sure; I often wish my heart was a marble slab, or a
paving-stone -
'My sweet Louisa,' remonstrated Miss Tox again.
'Still, it is a triumph to me to know that he is so true to
himself, and to his name of Dombey; although, of course, I always knew
he would be. I only hope,' said Mrs Chick, after a pause, 'that she
may be worthy of the name too.
Miss Tox filled a little green watering-pot from a jug, and
happening to look up when she had done so, was so surprised by the
amount of expression Mrs Chick had conveyed into her face, and was
bestowing upon her, that she put the little watering-pot on the table
for the present, and sat down near it.
'My dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox, 'will it be the least satisfaction
to you, if I venture to observe in reference to that remark, that I,
as a humble individual, think your sweet niece in every way most
promising?~ 'What do you mean, Lucretia?' returned Mrs Chick, with
increased stateliness of manner. 'To what remark of mine, my dear, do
you refer?'
'Her being worthy of her name, my love,' replied Miss Tox.
'If,' said Mrs Chick, with solemn patience, 'I have not expressed
myself with clearness, Lucretia, the fault of course is mine. There
is, perhaps, no reason why I should express myself at all, except the
intimacy that has subsisted between us, and which I very much hope,
Lucretia - confidently hope - nothing will occur to disturb. Because,
why should I do anything else? There is no reason; it would be absurd.
But I wish to express myself clearly, Lucretia; and therefore to go
back to that remark, I must beg to say that it was not intended to
relate to Florence, in any way.'
'Indeed!' returned Miss Tox.
'No,' said Mrs Chick shortly and decisively.
'Pardon me, my dear,' rejoined her meek friend; 'but I cannot have
understood it. I fear I am dull.'
Mrs Chick looked round the room and over the way; at the plants, at
the bird, at the watering-pot, at almost everything within view,
except Miss Tox; and finally dropping her glance upon Miss Tox, for a
moment, on its way to the ground, said, looking meanwhile with
elevated eyebrows at the carpet:
'When I speak, Lucretia, of her being worthy of the name, I speak
of my brother Paul's second wife. I believe I have already said, in
effect, if not in the very words I now use, that it is his intention
to marry a second wife.'
Miss Tox left her seat in a hurry, and returned to her plants;
clipping among the stems and leaves, with as little favour as a barber
working at so many pauper heads of hair.
'Whether she will be fully sensible of the distinction conferred
upon her,' said Mrs Chick, in a lofty tone, 'is quite another
question. I hope she may be. We are bound to think well of one another
in this world, and I hope she may be. I have not been advised with
myself If I had been advised with, I have no doubt my advice would
have been cavalierly received, and therefore it is infinitely better
as it is. I much prefer it as it is.'
Miss Tox, with head bent down, still clipped among the plants. Mrs
Chick, with energetic shakings of her own head from time to time,
continued to hold forth, as if in defiance of somebody. 'If my brother
Paul had consulted with me, which he sometimes does - or rather,
sometimes used to do; for he will naturally do that no more now, and
this is a circumstance which I regard as a relief from
responsibility,' said Mrs Chick, hysterically, 'for I thank Heaven I
am not jealous - ' here Mrs Chick again shed tears: 'if my brother
Paul had come to me, and had said, "Louisa, what kind of qualities
would you advise me to look out for, in a wife?" I should certainly
have answered, "Paul, you must have family, you must have beauty, you
must have dignity, you must have connexion." Those are the words I
should have used. You might have led me to the block immediately
afterwards,' said Mrs Chick, as if that consequence were highly
probable, 'but I should have used them. I should have said, "Paul! You
to marry a second time without family! You to marry without beauty!
You to marry without dignity! You to marry without connexion! There is
nobody in the world, not mad, who could dream of daring to entertain
such a preposterous idea!"'
Miss Tox stopped clipping; and with her head among the plants,
listened attentively. Perhaps Miss Tox thought there was hope in this
exordium, and the warmth of Mrs Chick.
I should have adopted this course of argument,' pursued the
discreet lady, 'because I trust I am not a fool. I make no claim to be
considered a person of superior intellect - though I believe some
people have been extraordinary enough to consider me so; one so little
humoured as I am, would very soon be disabused of any such notion; but
I trust I am not a downright fool. And to tell ME,' said Mrs Chick
with ineffable disdain, 'that my brother Paul Dombey could ever
contemplate the possibility of uniting himself to anybody - I don't
care who' - she was more sharp and emphatic in that short clause than
in any other part of her discourse - 'not possessing these requisites,
would be to insult what understanding I have got, as much as if I was
to be told that I was born and bred an elephant, which I may be told
next,' said Mrs Chick, with resignation. 'It wouldn't surprise me at
all. I expect it.'
In the moment's silence that ensued, Miss Tox's scissors gave a
feeble clip or two; but Miss Tox's face was still invisible, and Miss
Tox's morning gown was agitated. Mrs Chick looked sideways at her,
through the intervening plants, and went on to say, in a tone of bland
conviction, and as one dwelling on a point of fact that hardly
required to be stated:
'Therefore, of course my brother Paul has done what was to be
expected of him, and what anybody might have foreseen he would do, if
he entered the marriage state again. I confess it takes me rather by
surprise, however gratifying; because when Paul went out of town I had
no idea at all that he would form any attachment out of town, and he
certainly had no attachment when he left here. However, it seems to be
extremely desirable in every point of view. I have no doubt the mother
is a most genteel and elegant creature, and I have no right whatever
to dispute the policy of her living with them: which is Paul's affair,
not mine - and as to Paul's choice, herself, I have only seen her
picture yet, but that is beautiful indeed. Her name is beautiful too,'
said Mrs Chick, shaking her head with energy, and arranging herself in
her chair; 'Edith is at once uncommon, as it strikes me, and
distinguished. Consequently, Lucretia, I have no doubt you will be
happy to hear that the marriage is to take place immediately - of
course, you will:' great emphasis again: 'and that you are delighted
with this change in the condition of my brother, who has shown you a
great deal of pleasant attention at various times.'
Miss Tox made no verbal answer, but took up the little watering-pot
with a trembling hand, and looked vacantly round as if considering
what article of furniture would be improved by the contents. The room
door opening at this crisis of Miss Tox's feelings, she started,
laughed aloud, and fell into the arms of the person entering; happily
insensible alike of Mrs Chick's indignant countenance and of the Major
at his window over the way, who had his double-barrelled eye-glass in
full action, and whose face and figure were dilated with
Mephistophelean joy.
Not so the expatriated Native, amazed supporter of Miss Tox's
swooning form, who, coming straight upstairs, with a polite inquiry
touching Miss Tox's health (in exact pursuance of the Major's
malicious instructions), had accidentally arrived in the very nick of
time to catch the delicate burden in his arms, and to receive the
content' of the little watering-pot in his shoe; both of which
circumstances, coupled with his consciousness of being closely watched
by the wrathful Major, who had threatened the usual penalty in regard
of every bone in his skin in case of any failure, combined to render
him a moving spectacle of mental and bodily distress.
For some moments, this afflicted foreigner remained clasping Miss
Tox to his heart, with an energy of action in remarkable opposition to
his disconcerted face, while that poor lady trickled slowly down upon
him the very last sprinklings of the little watering-pot, as if he
were a delicate exotic (which indeed he was), and might be almost
expected to blow while the gentle rain descended. Mrs Chick, at length
recovering sufficient presence of mind to interpose, commanded him to
drop Miss Tox upon the sofa and withdraw; and the exile promptly
obeying, she applied herself to promote Miss Tox's recovery.
But none of that gentle concern which usually characterises the
daughters of Eve in their tending of each other; none of that
freemasonry in fainting, by which they are generally bound together In
a mysterious bond of sisterhood; was visible in Mrs Chick's demeanour.
Rather like the executioner who restores the victim to sensation
previous to proceeding with the torture (or was wont to do so, in the
good old times for which all true men wear perpetual mourning), did
Mrs Chick administer the smelling-bottle, the slapping on the hands,
the dashing of cold water on the face, and the other proved remedies.
And when, at length, Miss Tox opened her eyes, and gradually became
restored to animation and consciousness, Mrs Chick drew off as from a
criminal, and reversing the precedent of the murdered king of Denmark,
regarded her more in anger than In sorrow.'
'Lucretia!' said Mrs Chick 'I will not attempt to disguise what I
feel. My eyes are opened, all at once. I wouldn't have believed this,
if a Saint had told it to me.
'I am foolish to give way to faintness,' Miss Tox faltered. 'I
shall be better presently.'
'You will be better presently, Lucretia!' repeated Mrs Chick, with
exceeding scorn. 'Do you suppose I am blind? Do you imagine I am in my
second childhood? No, Lucretia! I am obliged to you!'
Miss Tox directed an imploring, helpless kind of look towards her
friend, and put her handkerchief before her face.
'If anyone had told me this yesterday,' said Mrs Chick, with
majesty, 'or even half-an-hour ago, I should have been tempted, I
almost believe, to strike them to the earth. Lucretia Tox, my eyes are
opened to you all at once. The scales:' here Mrs Chick cast down an
imaginary pair, such as are commonly used in grocers' shops: 'have
fallen from my sight. The blindness of my confidence is past,
Lucretia. It has been abused and played, upon, and evasion is quite
out of the question now, I assure you.
'Oh! to what do you allude so cruelly, my love?' asked Miss Tox,
through her tears.
'Lucretia,' said Mrs Chick, 'ask your own heart. I must entreat you
not to address me by any such familiar term as you have just used, if
you please. I have some self-respect left, though you may think
otherwise.'
'Oh, Louisa!' cried Miss Tox. 'How can you speak to me like that?'
'How can I speak to you like that?' retorted Mrs Chick, who, in
default of having any particular argument to sustain herself upon,
relied principally on such repetitions for her most withering effects.
'Like that! You may well say like that, indeed!'
Miss Tox sobbed pitifully.
'The idea!' said Mrs Chick, 'of your having basked at my brother's
fireside, like a serpent, and wound yourself, through me, almost into
his confidence, Lucretia, that you might, in secret, entertain designs
upon him, and dare to aspire to contemplate the possibility of his
uniting himself to you! Why, it is an idea,' said Mrs Chick, with
sarcastic dignity, 'the absurdity of which almost relieves its
treachery.'
'Pray, Louisa,' urged Miss Tox, 'do not say such dreadful things.'
'Dreadful things!' repeated Mrs Chick. 'Dreadful things! Is it not
a fact, Lucretia, that you have just now been unable to command your
feelings even before me, whose eyes you had so completely closed?'
'I have made no complaint,' sobbed Miss Tox. 'I have said nothing.
If I have been a little overpowered by your news, Louisa, and have
ever had any lingering thought that Mr Dombey was inclined to be
particular towards me, surely you will not condemn me.'
'She is going to say,' said Mrs Chick, addressing herself to the
whole of the furniture, in a comprehensive glance of resignation and
appeal, 'She is going to say - I know it - that I have encouraged
her!'
'I don't wish to exchange reproaches, dear Louisa,' sobbed Miss Tox
'Nor do I wish to complain. But, in my own defence - '
'Yes,' cried Mrs Chick, looking round the room with a prophetic
smile, 'that's what she's going to say. I knew it. You had better say
it. Say it openly! Be open, Lucretia Tox,' said Mrs Chick, with
desperate sternness, 'whatever you are.'
'In my own defence,' faltered Miss Tox, 'and only In my own defence
against your unkind words, my dear Louisa, I would merely ask you if
you haven't often favoured such a fancy, and even said it might
happen, for anything we could tell?'
'There is a point,' said Mrs Chick, rising, not as if she were
going to stop at the floor, but as if she were about to soar up, high,
into her native skies, 'beyond which endurance becomes ridiculous, if
not culpable. I can bear much; but not too much. What spell was on me
when I came into this house this day, I don't know; but I had a
presentiment - a dark presentiment,' said Mrs Chick, with a shiver,
'that something was going to happen. Well may I have had that
foreboding, Lucretia, when my confidence of many years is destroyed in
an instant, when my eyes are opened all at once, and when I find you
revealed in your true colours. Lucretia, I have been mistaken in you.
It is better for us both that this subject should end here. I wish you
well, and I shall ever wish you well. But, as an individual who
desires to be true to herself in her own poor position, whatever that
position may be, or may not be - and as the sister of my brother - and
as the sister-in-law of my brother's wife - and as a connexion by
marriage of my brother's wife's mother - may I be permitted to add, as
a Dombey? - I can wish you nothing else but good morning.'
These words, delivered with cutting suavity, tempered and chastened
by a lofty air of moral rectitude, carried the speaker to the door.
There she inclined her head in a ghostly and statue-like manner, and
so withdrew to her carriage, to seek comfort and consolation in the
arms of Mr Chick, her lord.
Figuratively speaking, that is to say; for the arms of Mr Chick
were full of his newspaper. Neither did that gentleman address his
eyes towards his wife otherwise than by stealth. Neither did he offer
any consolation whatever. In short, he sat reading, and humming fag
ends of tunes, and sometimes glancing furtively at her without
delivering himself of a word, good, bad, or indifferent.
In the meantime Mrs Chick sat swelling and bridling, and tossing
her head, as if she were still repeating that solemn formula of
farewell to Lucretia Tox. At length, she said aloud, 'Oh the extent to
which her eyes had been opened that day!'
'To which your eyes have been opened, my dear!' repeated Mr Chick.
'Oh, don't talk to me!' said Mrs Chic 'if you can bear to see me in
this state, and not ask me what the matter is, you had better hold
your tongue for ever.'
'What is the matter, my dear?' asked Mr Chick
'To think,' said Mrs Chick, in a state of soliloquy, 'that she
should ever have conceived the base idea of connecting herself with
our family by a marriage with Paul! To think that when she was playing
at horses with that dear child who is now in his grave - I never liked
it at the time - she should have been hiding such a double-faced
design! I wonder she was never afraid that something would happen to
her. She is fortunate if nothing does.'
'I really thought, my dear,' said Mr Chick slowly, after rubbing
the bridge of his nose for some time with his newspaper, 'that you had
gone on the same tack yourself, all along, until this morning; and had
thought it would be a convenient thing enough, if it could have been
brought about.'
Mrs Chick instantly burst into tears, and told Mr Chick that if he
wished to trample upon her with his boots, he had better do It.
'But with Lucretia Tox I have done,' said Mrs Chick, after
abandoning herself to her feelings for some minutes, to Mr Chick's
great terror. 'I can bear to resign Paul's confidence in favour of one
who, I hope and trust, may be deserving of it, and with whom he has a
perfect right to replace poor Fanny if he chooses; I can bear to be
informed, In Paul's cool manner, of such a change in his plans, and
never to be consulted until all is settled and determined; but deceit
I can not bear, and with Lucretia Tox I have done. It is better as it
is,' said Mrs Chick, piously; 'much better. It would have been a long
time before I could have accommodated myself comfortably with her,
after this; and I really don't know, as Paul is going to be very
grand, and these are people of condition, that she would have been
quite presentable, and might not have compromised myself. There's a
providence in everything; everything works for the best; I have been
tried today but on the whole I do not regret it.'
In which Christian spirit, Mrs Chick dried her eyes and smoothed
her lap, and sat as became a person calm under a great wrong. Mr Chick
feeling his unworthiness no doubt, took an early opportunity of being
set down at a street corner and walking away whistling, with his
shoulders very much raised, and his hands in his pockets.
While poor excommunicated Miss Tox, who, if she were a fawner and
toad-eater, was at least an honest and a constant one, and had ever
borne a faithful friendship towards her impeacher and had been truly
absorbed and swallowed up in devotion to the magnificence of Mr Dombey
- while poor excommunicated Miss Tox watered her plants with her
tears, and felt that it was winter in Princess's Place.
CHAPTER 30.
The interval before the Marriage
Although the enchanted house was no more, and the working world had
broken into it, and was hammering and crashing and tramping up and
down stairs all day long keeping Diogenes in an incessant paroxysm of
barking, from sunrise to sunset - evidently convinced that his enemy
had got the better of him at last, and was then sacking the premises
in triumphant defiance - there was, at first, no other great change in
the method of Florence's life. At night, when the workpeople went
away, the house was dreary and deserted again; and Florence, listening
to their voices echoing through the hall and staircase as they
departed, pictured to herself the cheerful homes to which the were
returning, and the children who were waiting for them, and was glad to
think that they were merry and well pleased to go.
She welcomed back the evening silence as an old friend, but it came
now with an altered face, and looked more kindly on her. Fresh hope
was in it. The beautiful lady who had soothed and carressed her, in
the very room in which her heart had been so wrung, was a spirit of
promise to her. Soft shadows of the bright life dawning, when her
father's affection should be gradually won, and all, or much should be
restored, of what she had lost on the dark day when a mother's love
had faded with a mother's last breath on her cheek, moved about her in
the twilight and were welcome company. Peeping at the rosy children
her neighbours, it was a new and precious sensation to think that they
might soon speak together and know each other; when she would not
fear, as of old, to show herself before them, lest they should be
grieved to see her in her black dress sitting there alone!
In her thoughts of her new mother, and in the love and trust
overflowing her pure heart towards her, Florence loved her own dead
mother more and more. She had no fear of setting up a rival in her
breast. The new flower sprang from the deep-planted and long-cherished
root, she knew. Every gentle word that had fallen from the lips of the
beautiful lady, sounded to Florence like an echo of the voice long
hushed and silent. How could she love that memory less for living
tenderness, when it was her memory of all parental tenderness and
love!
Florence was, one day, sitting reading in her room, and thinking of
the lady and her promised visit soon - for her book turned on a
kindred subject - when, raising her eyes, she saw her standing in the
doorway.
'Mama!' cried Florence, joyfully meeting her. 'Come again!'
'Not Mama yet,' returned the lady, with a serious smile, as she
encircled Florence's neck with her arm.
'But very soon to be,' cried Florence.
'Very soon now, Florence: very soon.
Edith bent her head a little, so as to press the blooming cheek of
Florence against her own, and for some few moments remained thus
silent. There was something so very tender in her manner, that
Florence was even more sensible of it than on the first occasion of
their meeting.
She led Florence to a chair beside her, and sat down: Florence
looking in her face, quite wondering at its beauty, and willingly
leaving her hand In hers.
'Have you been alone, Florence, since I was here last?'
'Oh yes!' smiled Florence, hastily.
She hesitated and cast down her eyes; for her new Mama was very
earnest in her look, and the look was intently and thoughtfully fixed
upon her face.
'I - I- am used to be alone,' said Florence. 'I don't mind it at
all. Di and I pass whole days together, sometimes.' Florence might
have said, whole weeks and months.
'Is Di your maid, love?'
'My dog, Mama,' said Florence, laughing. 'Susan is my maid.'
'And these are your rooms,' said Edith, looking round. 'I was not
shown these rooms the other day. We must have them improved, Florence.
They shall be made the prettiest in the house.'
'If I might change them, Mama,' returned Florence; 'there is one
upstairs I should like much better.'
'Is this not high enough, dear girl?' asked Edith, smiling.
'The other was my brother's room,' said Florence, 'and I am very
fond of it. I would have spoken to Papa about it when I came home, and
found the workmen here, and everything changing; but - '
Florence dropped her eyes, lest the same look should make her
falter again.
'but I was afraid it might distress him; and as you said you would
be here again soon, Mama, and are the mistress of everything, I
determined to take courage and ask you.'
Edith sat looking at her, with her brilliant eyes intent upon her
face, until Florence raising her own, she, in her turn, withdrew her
gaze, and turned it on the ground. It was then that Florence thought
how different this lady's beauty was, from what she had supposed. She
had thought it of a proud and lofty kind; yet her manner was so
subdued and gentle, that if she had been of Florence's own age and
character, it scarcely could have invited confidence more.
Except when a constrained and singular reserve crept over her; and
then she seemed (but Florence hardly understood this, though she could
not choose but notice it, and think about it) as if she were humbled
before Florence, and ill at ease. When she had said that she was not
her Mama yet, and when Florence had called her the mistress of
everything there, this change in her was quick and startling; and now,
while the eyes of Florence rested on her face, she sat as though she
would have shrunk and hidden from her, rather than as one about to
love and cherish her, in right of such a near connexion.
She gave Florence her ready promise, about her new room, and said
she would give directions about it herself. She then asked some
questions concerning poor Paul; and when they had sat in conversation
for some time, told Florence she had come to take her to her own home.
'We have come to London now, my mother and I,' said Edith, 'and you
shall stay with us until I am married. I wish that we should know and
trust each other, Florence.'
'You are very kind to me,' said Florence, 'dear Mama. How much I
thank you!'
'Let me say now, for it may be the best opportunity,' continued
Edith, looking round to see that they were quite alone, and speaking
in a lower voice, 'that when I am married, and have gone away for some
weeks, I shall be easier at heart if you will come home here. No
matter who invites you to stay elsewhere. Come home here. It is better
to be alone than - what I would say is,' she added, checking herself,
'that I know well you are best at home, dear Florence.'
'I will come home on the very day, Mama'
'Do so. I rely on that promise. Now, prepare to come with me, dear
girl. You will find me downstairs when you are ready.'
Slowly and thoughtfully did Edith wander alone through the mansion
of which she was so soon to be the lady: and little heed took she of
all the elegance and splendour it began to display. The same
indomitable haughtiness of soul, the same proud scorn expressed in eye
and lip, the same fierce beauty, only tamed by a sense of its own
little worth, and of the little worth of everything around it, went
through the grand saloons and halls, that had got loose among the
shady trees, and raged and rent themselves. The mimic roses on the
walls and floors were set round with sharp thorns, that tore her
breast; in every scrap of gold so dazzling to the eye, she saw some
hateful atom of her purchase-money; the broad high mirrors showed her,
at full length, a woman with a noble quality yet dwelling in her
nature, who was too false to her better self, and too debased and
lost, to save herself. She believed that all this was so plain, more
or less, to all eyes, that she had no resource or power of
self-assertion but in pride: and with this pride, which tortured her
own heart night and day, she fought her fate out, braved it, and
defied it.
Was this the woman whom Florence - an innocent girl, strong only in
her earnestness and simple truth - could so impress and quell, that by
her side she was another creature, with her tempest of passion hushed,
and her very pride itself subdued? Was this the woman who now sat
beside her in a carriage, with her arms entwined, and who, while she
courted and entreated her to love and trust her, drew her fair head to
nestle on her breast, and would have laid down life to shield it from
wrong or harm?
Oh, Edith! it were well to die, indeed, at such a time! Better and
happier far, perhaps, to die so, Edith, than to live on to the end!
The Honourable Mrs Skewton, who was thinking of anything rather
than of such sentiments - for, like many genteel persons who have
existed at various times, she set her face against death altogether,
and objected to the mention of any such low and levelling upstart -
had borrowed a house in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, from a stately
relative (one of the Feenix brood), who was out of town, and who did
not object to lending it, in the handsomest manner, for nuptial
purposes, as the loan implied his final release and acquittance from
all further loans and gifts to Mrs Skewton and her daughter. It being
necessary for the credit of the family to make a handsome appearance
at such a time, Mrs Skewton, with the assistance of an accommodating
tradesman resident In the parish of Mary-le-bone, who lent out all
sorts of articles to the nobility and gentry, from a service of plate
to an army of footmen, clapped into this house a silver-headed butler
(who was charged extra on that account, as having the appearnce of an
ancient family retainer), two very tall young men in livery, and a
select staff of kitchen-servants; so that a legend arose, downstairs,
that Withers the page, released at once from his numerous household
duties, and from the propulsion of the wheeled-chair (inconsistent
with the metropolis), had been several times observed to rub his eyes
and pinch his limbs, as if he misdoubted his having overslept himself
at the Leamington milkman's, and being still in a celestial dream. A
variety of requisites in plate and china being also conveyed to the
same establishment from the same convenient source, with several
miscellaneous articles, including a neat chariot and a pair of bays,
Mrs Skewton cushioned herself on the principal sofa, in the Cleopatra
attitude, and held her court in fair state.
'And how,' said Mrs Skewton, on the entrance of her daughter and
her charge, 'is my charming Florence? You must come and kiss me,
Florence, if you please, my love.'
Florence was timidly stooping to pick out a place In the white part
of Mrs Skewton's face, when that lady presented her ear, and relieved
her of her difficulty.
'Edith, my dear,' said Mrs Skewton, 'positively, I - stand a little
more in the light, my sweetest Florence, for a moment.
Florence blushingly complied.
'You don't remember, dearest Edith,' said her mother, 'what you
were when you were about the same age as our exceedingly precious
Florence, or a few years younger?'
'I have long forgotten, mother.'
'For positively, my dear,' said Mrs Skewton, 'I do think that I see
a decided resemblance to what you were then, in our extremely
fascinating young friend. And it shows,' said Mrs Skewton, in a lower
voice, which conveyed her opinion that Florence was in a very
unfinished state, 'what cultivation will do.'
'It does, indeed,' was Edith's stern reply.
Her mother eyed her sharply for a moment, and feeling herself on
unsafe ground, said, as a diversion:
'My charming Florence, you must come and kiss me once more, if you
please, my love.'
Florence complied, of course, and again imprinted her lips on Mrs
Skewton's ear.
'And you have heard, no doubt, my darling pet,' said Mrs Skewton,
detaining her hand, 'that your Papa, whom we all perfectly adore and
dote upon, is to be married to my dearest Edith this day week.'
'I knew it would be very soon,' returned Florence, 'but not exactly
when.'
'My darling Edith,' urged her mother, gaily, 'is it possible you
have not told Florence?'
'Why should I tell Florence?' she returned, so suddenly and
harshly, that Florence could scarcely believe it was the same voice.
Mrs Skewton then told Florence, as another and safer diversion,
that her father was coming to dinner, and that he would no doubt be
charmingly surprised to see her; as he had spoken last night of
dressing in the City, and had known nothing of Edith's design, the
execution of which, according to Mrs Skewton's expectation, would
throw him into a perfect ecstasy. Florence was troubled to hear this;
and her distress became so keen, as the dinner-hour approached, that
if she had known how to frame an entreaty to be suffered to return
home, without involving her father in her explanation, she would have
hurried back on foot, bareheaded, breathless, and alone, rather than
incur the risk of meeting his displeasure.
As the time drew nearer, she could hardly breathe. She dared not
approach a window, lest he should see her from the street. She dared
not go upstairs to hide her emotion, lest, in passing out at the door,
she should meet him unexpectedly; besides which dread, she felt as
though she never could come back again if she were summoned to his
presence. In this conflict of fears; she was sitting by Cleopatra's
couch, endeavouring to understand and to reply to the bald discourse
of that lady, when she heard his foot upon the stair.
'I hear him now!' cried Florence, starting. 'He is coming!'
Cleopatra, who in her juvenility was always playfully disposed, and
who in her self-engrossment did not trouble herself about the nature
of this agitation, pushed Florence behind her couch, and dropped a
shawl over her, preparatory to giving Mr Dombey a rapture of surprise.
It was so quickly done, that in a moment Florence heard his awful step
in the room.
He saluted his intended mother-in-law, and his intended bride. The
strange sound of his voice thrilled through the whole frame of his
child.
'My dear Dombey,' said Cleopatra, 'come here and tell me how your
pretty Florence is.'
'Florence is very well,' said Mr Dombey, advancing towards the
couch.
'At home?'
'At home,' said Mr Dombey.
'My dear Dombey,' returned Cleopatra, with bewitching vivacity;
'now are you sure you are not deceiving me? I don't know what my
dearest Edith will say to me when I make such a declaration, but upon
my honour I am afraid you are the falsest of men, my dear Dombey.'
Though he had been; and had been detected on the spot, in the most
enormous falsehood that was ever said or done; he could hardly have
been more disconcerted than he was, when Mrs Skewton plucked the shawl
away, and Florence, pale and trembling, rose before him like a ghost.
He had not yet recovered his presence of mind, when Florence had run
up to him, clasped her hands round his neck, kissed his face, and
hurried out of the room. He looked round as if to refer the matter to
somebody else, but Edith had gone after Florence, instantly.
'Now, confess, my dear Dombey,' said Mrs Skewton, giving him her
hand, 'that you never were more surprised and pleased in your life.'
'I never was more surprised,' said Mr Dombey.
'Nor pleased, my dearest Dombey?' returned Mrs Skewton, holding up
her fan.
'I - yes, I am exceedingly glad to meet Florence here,' said Mr
Dombey. He appeared to consider gravely about it for a moment, and
then said, more decidedly, 'Yes, I really am very glad indeed to meet
Florence here.'
'You wonder how she comes here?' said Mrs Skewton, 'don't you?'
'Edith, perhaps - ' suggested Mr Dombey.
'Ah! wicked guesser!' replied Cleopatra, shaking her head. 'Ah!
cunning, cunning man! One shouldn't tell these things; your sex, my
dear Dombey, are so vain, and so apt to abuse our weakness; but you
know my open soul - very well; immediately.'
This was addressed to one of the very tall young men who announced
dinner.
'But Edith, my dear Dombey,' she continued in a whisper, when she
cannot have you near her - and as I tell her, she cannot expect that
always - will at least have near her something or somebody belonging
to you. Well, how extremely natural that is! And in this spirit,
nothing would keep her from riding off to-day to fetch our darling
Florence. Well, how excessively charming that is!'
As she waited for an answer, Mr Dombey answered, 'Eminently so.
'Bless you, my dear Dombey, for that proof of heart!' cried
Cleopatra, squeezing his hand. 'But I am growing too serious! Take me
downstairs, like an angel, and let us see what these people intend to
give us for dinner. Bless you, dear Dombey!'
Cleopatra skipping off her couch with tolerable briskness, after
the last benediction, Mr Dombey took her arm in his and led her
ceremoniously downstairs; one of the very tall young men on hire,
whose organ of veneration was imperfectly developed, thrusting his
tongue into his cheek, for the entertainment of the other very tall
young man on hire, as the couple turned into the dining-room.
Florence and Edith were already there, and sitting side by side.
Florence would have risen when her father entered, to resign her chair
to him; but Edith openly put her hand upon her arm, and Mr Dombey took
an opposite place at the round table.
The conversation was almost entirely sustained by Mrs Skewton.
Florence hardly dared to raise her eyes, lest they should reveal the
traces of tears; far less dared to speak; and Edith never uttered one
word, unless in answer to a question. Verily, Cleopatra worked hard,
for the establishment that was so nearly clutched; and verily it
should have been a rich one to reward her!
And so your preparations are nearly finished at last, my dear
Dombey?' said Cleopatra, when the dessert was put upon the table, and
the silver-headed butler had withdrawn. 'Even the lawyers'
preparations!'
'Yes, madam,' replied Mr Dombey; 'the deed of settlement, the
professional gentlemen inform me, is now ready, and as I was
mentioning to you, Edith has only to do us the favour to suggest her
own time for its execution.'
Edith sat like a handsome statue; as cold, as silent, and as still.
'My dearest love,' said Cleopatra, 'do you hear what Mr Dombey
says? Ah, my dear Dombey!' aside to that gentleman, 'how her absence,
as the time approaches, reminds me of the days, when that most
agreeable of creatures, her Papa, was in your situation!'
'I have nothing to suggest. It shall be when you please,' said
Edith, scarcely looking over the table at Mr Dombey.
'To-morrow?' suggested Mr Dombey.
'If you please.'
'Or would next day,' said Mr Dombey, 'suit your engagements
better?'
'I have no engagements. I am always at your disposal. Let it be
when you like.'
'No engagements, my dear Edith!' remonstrated her mother, 'when you
are in a most terrible state of flurry all day long, and have a
thousand and one appointments with all sorts of trades-people!'
'They are of your making,' returned Edith, turning on her with a
slight contraction of her brow. 'You and Mr Dombey can arrange between
you.'
'Very true indeed, my love, and most considerate of you!' said
Cleopatra. 'My darling Florence, you must really come and kiss me once
more, if you please, my dear!'
Singular coincidence, that these gushes of interest In Florence
hurried Cleopatra away from almost every dialogue in which Edith had a
share, however trifling! Florence had certainly never undergone so
much embracing, and perhaps had never been, unconsciously, so useful
in her life.
Mr Dombey was far from quarrelling, in his own breast, with the
manner of his beautiful betrothed. He had that good reason for
sympathy with haughtiness and coldness, which is found In a
fellow-feeling. It flattered him to think how these deferred to him,
in Edith's case, and seemed to have no will apart from his. It
flattered him to picture to himself, this proud and stately woman
doing the honours of his house, and chilling his guests after his own
manner. The dignity of Dombey and Son would be heightened and
maintained, indeed, in such hands.
So thought Mr Dombey, when he was left alone at the dining-table,
and mused upon his past and future fortunes: finding no uncongeniality
in an air of scant and gloomy state that pervaded the room, in colour
a dark brown, with black hatchments of pictures blotching the walls,
and twenty-four black chairs, with almost as many nails in them as so
many coffins, waiting like mutes, upon the threshold of the Turkey
carpet; and two exhausted negroes holding up two withered branches of
candelabra on the sideboard, and a musty smell prevailing as if the
ashes of ten thousand dinners were entombed in the sarcophagus below
it. The owner of the house lived much abroad; the air of England
seldom agreed long with a member of the Feenix family; and the room
had gradually put itself into deeper and still deeper mourning for
him, until it was become so funereal as to want nothing but a body in
it to be quite complete.
No bad representation of the body, for the nonce, in his unbending
form, if not in his attitude, Mr Dombey looked down into the cold
depths of the dead sea of mahogany on which the fruit dishes and
decanters lay at anchor: as if the subjects of his thoughts were
rising towards the surface one by one, and plunging down again. Edith
was there In all her majesty of brow and figure; and close to her came
Florence, with her timid head turned to him, as it had been, for an
instant, when she left the room; and Edith's eyes upon her, and
Edith's hand put out protectingly. A little figure in a low arm-chair
came springing next into the light, and looked upon him wonderingly,
with its bright eyes and its old-young face, gleaming as in the
flickering of an evening fire. Again came Florence close upon it, and
absorbed his whole attention. Whether as a fore-doomed difficulty and
disappointment to him; whether as a rival who had crossed him in his
way, and might again; whether as his child, of whom, in his successful
wooing, he could stoop to think as claiming, at such a time, to be no
more estranged; or whether as a hint to him that the mere appearance
of caring for his own blood should be maintained in his new relations;
he best knew. Indifferently well, perhaps, at best; for marriage
company and marriage altars, and ambitious scenes - still blotted here
and there with Florence - always Florence - turned up so fast, and so
confusedly, that he rose, and went upstairs to escape them.
It was quite late at night before candles were brought; for at
present they made Mrs Skewton's head ache, she complained; and in the
meantime Florence and Mrs Skewton talked together (Cleopatra being
very anxious to keep her close to herself), or Florence touched the
piano softly for Mrs Skewton's delight; to make no mention of a few
occasions in the course of the evening, when that affectionate lady
was impelled to solicit another kiss, and which always happened after
Edith had said anything. They were not many, however, for Edith sat
apart by an open window during the whole time (in spite of her
mother's fears that she would take cold), and remained there until Mr
Dombey took leave. He was serenely gracious to Florence when he did
so; and Florence went to bed in a room within Edith's, so happy and
hopeful, that she thought of her late self as if it were some other
poor deserted girl who was to be pitied for her sorrow; and in her
pity, sobbed herself to sleep.
The week fled fast. There were drives to milliners, dressmakers,
jewellers, lawyers, florists, pastry-cooks; and Florence was always of
the party. Florence was to go to the wedding. Florence was to cast off
her mourning, and to wear a brilliant dress on the occasion. The
milliner's intentions on the subject of this dress - the milliner was
a Frenchwoman, and greatly resembled Mrs Skewton - were so chaste and
elegant, that Mrs Skewton bespoke one like it for herself. The
milliner said it would become her to admiration, and that all the
world would take her for the young lady's sister.
The week fled faster. Edith looked at nothing and cared for
nothing. Her rich dresses came home, and were tried on, and were
loudly commended by Mrs Skewton and the milliners, and were put away
without a word from her. Mrs Skewton made their plans for every day,
and executed them. Sometimes Edith sat in the carriage when they went
to make purchases; sometimes, when it was absolutely necessary, she
went into the shops. But Mrs Skewton conducted the whole business,
whatever it happened to be; and Edith looked on as uninterested and
with as much apparent indifference as if she had no concern in it.
Florence might perhaps have thought she was haughty and listless, but
that she was never so to her. So Florence quenched her wonder in her
gratitude whenever it broke out, and soon subdued it.
The week fled faster. It had nearly winged its flight away. The
last night of the week, the night before the marriage, was come. In
the dark room - for Mrs Skewton's head was no better yet, though she
expected to recover permanently to-morrow - were that lady, Edith, and
Mr Dombey. Edith was at her open window looking out into the street;
Mr Dombey and Cleopatra were talking softly on the sofa. It was
growing late; and Florence, being fatigued, had gone to bed.
'My dear Dombey,' said Cleopatra, 'you will leave me Florence
to-morrow, when you deprive me of my sweetest Edith.'
Mr Dombey said he would, with pleasure.
'To have her about me, here, while you are both at Paris, and to
think at her age, I am assisting in the formation of her mind, my dear
Dombey,' said Cleopatra, 'will be a perfect balm to me in the
extremely shattered state to which I shall be reduced.'
Edith turned her head suddenly. Her listless manner was exchanged,
in a moment, to one of burning interest, and, unseen in the darkness,
she attended closely to their conversation.
Mr Dombey would be delighted to leave Florence in such admirable
guardianship.
'My dear Dombey,' returned Cleopatra, 'a thousand thanks for your
good opinion. I feared you were going, with malice aforethought' as
the dreadful lawyers say - those horrid proses! - to condemn me to
utter solitude;'
'Why do me so great an injustice, my dear madam?' said Mr Dombey.
'Because my charming Florence tells me so positively she must go
home tomorrow, returned Cleopatra, that I began to be afraid, my
dearest Dombey, you were quite a Bashaw.'
'I assure you, madam!' said Mr Dombey, 'I have laid no commands on
Florence; and if I had, there are no commands like your wish.'
'My dear Dombey,' replied Cleopatra, what a courtier you are!
Though I'll not say so, either; for courtiers have no heart, and yours
pervades your farming life and character. And are you really going so
early, my dear Dombey!'
Oh, indeed! it was late, and Mr Dombey feared he must.
'Is this a fact, or is it all a dream!' lisped Cleopatra. 'Can I
believe, my dearest Dombey, that you are coming back tomorrow morning
to deprive me of my sweet companion; my own Edith!'
Mr Dombey, who was accustomed to take things literally, reminded
Mrs Skewton that they were to meet first at the church.
'The pang,' said Mrs Skewton, 'of consigning a child, even to you,
my dear Dombey, is one of the most excruciating imaginable, and
combined with a naturally delicate constitution, and the extreme
stupidity of the pastry-cook who has undertaken the breakfast, is
almost too much for my poor strength. But I shall rally, my dear
Dombey, In the morning; do not fear for me, or be uneasy on my
account. Heaven bless you! My dearest Edith!' she cried archly.
'Somebody is going, pet.'
Edith, who had turned her head again towards the window, and whose
interest in their conversation had ceased, rose up in her place, but
made no advance towards him, and said nothing. Mr Dombey, with a lofty
gallantry adapted to his dignity and the occasion, betook his creaking
boots towards her, put her hand to his lips, said, 'Tomorrow morning I
shall have the happiness of claiming this hand as Mrs Dombey's,' and
bowed himself solemnly out.
Mrs Skewton rang for candles as soon as the house-door had closed
upon him. With the candles appeared her maid, with the juvenile dress
that was to delude the world to-morrow. The dress had savage
retribution in it, as such dresses ever have, and made her infinitely
older and more hideous than her greasy flannel gown. But Mrs Skewton
tried it on with mincing satisfaction; smirked at her cadaverous self
in the glass, as she thought of its killing effect upon the Major; and
suffering her maid to take it off again, and to prepare her for
repose, tumbled into ruins like a house of painted cards.
All this time, Edith remained at the dark window looking out into
the street. When she and her mother were at last left alone, she moved
from it for the first time that evening, and came opposite to her. The
yawning, shaking, peevish figure of the mother, with her eyes raised
to confront the proud erect form of the daughter, whose glance of fire
was bent downward upon her, had a conscious air upon it, that no
levity or temper could conceal.
'I am tired to death,' said she. 'You can't be trusted for a
moment. You are worse than a child. Child! No child would be half so
obstinate and undutiful.'
'Listen to me, mother,' returned Edith, passing these words by with
a scorn that would not descend to trifle with them. 'You must remain
alone here until I return.'
'Must remain alone here, Edith, until you return!' repeated her
mother.
'Or in that name upon which I shall call to-morrow to witness what
I do, so falsely: and so shamefully, I swear I will refuse the hand of
this man in the church. If I do not, may I fall dead upon the
pavement!'
The mother answered with a look of quick alarm, in no degree
diminished by the look she met.
'It is enough,' said Edith, steadily, 'that we are what we are. I
will have no youth and truth dragged down to my level. I will have no
guileless nature undermined, corrupted, and perverted, to amuse the
leisure of a world of mothers. You know my meaning. Florence must go
home.'
'You are an idiot, Edith,' cried her angry mother. 'Do you expect
there can ever be peace for you in that house, till she is married,
and away?'
'Ask me, or ask yourself, if I ever expect peace in that house,'
said her daughter, 'and you know the answer.
'And am I to be told to-night, after all my pains and labour, and
when you are going, through me, to be rendered independent,' her
mother almost shrieked in her passion, while her palsied head shook
like a leaf, 'that there is corruption and contagion in me, and that I
am not fit company for a girl! What are you, pray? What are you?'
'I have put the question to myself,' said Edith, ashy pale, and
pointing to the window, 'more than once when I have been sitting
there, and something in the faded likeness of my sex has wandered past
outside; and God knows I have met with my reply. Oh mother, mother, if
you had but left me to my natural heart when I too was a girl - a
younger girl than Florence - how different I might have been!'
Sensible that any show of anger was useless here, her mother
restrained herself, and fell a whimpering, and bewailed that she had
lived too long, and that her only child had cast her off, and that
duty towards parents was forgotten in these evil days, and that she
had heard unnatural taunts, and cared for life no longer.
'If one is to go on living through continual scenes like this,' she
whined,'I am sure it would be much better for me to think of some
means of putting an end to my existence. Oh! The idea of your being my
daughter, Edith, and addressing me in such a strain!'
'Between us, mother,' returned Edith, mournfully, 'the time for
mutual reproaches is past.
'Then why do you revive it?' whimpered her mother. 'You know that
you are lacerating me in the cruellest manner. You know how sensitive
I am to unkindness. At such a moment, too, when I have so much to
think of, and am naturally anxious to appear to the best advantage! I
wonder at you, Edith. To make your mother a fright upon your
wedding-day!'
Edith bent the same fixed look upon her, as she sobbed and rubbed
her eyes; and said in the same low steady voice, which had neither
risen nor fallen since she first addressed her, 'I have said that
Florence must go home.'
'Let her go!' cried the afflicted and affrighted parent, hastily.
'I am sure I am willing she should go. What is the girl to me?'
'She is so much to me, that rather than communicate, or suffer to
be communicated to her, one grain of the evil that is in my breast,
mother, I would renounce you, as I would (if you gave me cause)
renounce him in the church to-morrow,' replied Edith. 'Leave her
alone. She shall not, while I can interpose, be tampered with and
tainted by the lessons I have learned. This is no hard condition on
this bitter night.'
'If you had proposed it in a filial manner, Edith,' whined her
mother, 'perhaps not; very likely not. But such extremely cutting
words - '
'They are past and at an end between us now,' said Edith. 'Take
your own way, mother; share as you please in what you have gained;
spend, enjoy, make much of it; and be as happy as you will. The object
of our lives is won. Henceforth let us wear it silently. My lips are
closed upon the past from this hour. I forgive you your part in
to-morrow's wickedness. May God forgive my own!'
Without a tremor in her voice, or frame, and passing onward with a
foot that set itself upon the neck of every soft emotion, she bade her
mother good-night, and repaired to her own room.
But not to rest; for there was no rest in the tumult of her
agitation when alone to and fro, and to and fro, and to and fro again,
five hundred times, among the splendid preparations for her adornment
on the morrow; with her dark hair shaken down, her dark eyes flashing
with a raging light, her broad white bosom red with the cruel grasp of
the relentless hand with which she spurned it from her, pacing up and
down with an averted head, as if she would avoid the sight of her own
fair person, and divorce herself from its companionship. Thus, In the
dead time of the night before her bridal, Edith Granger wrestled with
her unquiet spirit, tearless, friendless, silent, proud, and
uncomplaining.
At length it happened that she touched the open door which led into
the room where Florence lay.
She started, stopped, and looked in.
A light was burning there, and showed her Florence in her bloom of
innocence and beauty, fast asleep. Edith held her breath, and felt
herself drawn on towards her.
Drawn nearer, nearer, nearer yet; at last, drawn so near, that
stooping down, she pressed her lips to the gentle hand that lay
outside the bed, and put it softly to her neck. Its touch was like the
prophet's rod of old upon the rock. Her tears sprung forth beneath it,
as she sunk upon her knees, and laid her aching head and streaming
hair upon the pillow by its side.
Thus Edith Granger passed the night before her bridal. Thus the sun
found her on her bridal morning.
CHAPTER 31.
The Wedding
Dawn with its passionless blank face, steals shivering to the
church beneath which lies the dust of little Paul and his mother, and
looks in at the windows. It is cold and dark. Night crouches yet, upon
the pavement, and broods, sombre and heavy, in nooks and corners of
the building. The steeple-clock, perched up above the houses, emerging
from beneath another of the countless ripples in the tide of time that
regularly roll and break on the eternal shore, is greyly visible, like
a stone beacon, recording how the sea flows on; but within doors,
dawn, at first, can only peep at night, and see that it is there.
Hovering feebly round the church, and looking in, dawn moans and
weeps for its short reign, and its tears trickle on the window-glass,
and the trees against the church-wall bow their heads, and wring their
many hands in sympathy. Night, growing pale before it, gradually fades
out of the church, but lingers in the vaults below, and sits upon the
coffins. And now comes bright day, burnishing the steeple-clock, and
reddening the spire, and drying up the tears of dawn, and stifling its
complaining; and the dawn, following the night, and chasing it from
its last refuge, shrinks into the vaults itself and hides, with a
frightened face, among the dead, until night returns, refreshed, to
drive it out.
And now, the mice, who have been busier with the prayer-books than
their proper owners, and with the hassocks, more worn by their little
teeth than by human knees, hide their bright eyes in their holes, and
gather close together in affright at the resounding clashing of the
church-door. For the beadle, that man of power, comes early this
morning with the sexton; and Mrs Miff, the wheezy little pew-opener -
a mighty dry old lady, sparely dressed, with not an inch of fulness
anywhere about her - is also here, and has been waiting at the
church-gate half-an-hour, as her place is, for the beadle.
A vinegary face has Mrs Miff, and a mortified bonnet, and eke a
thirsty soul for sixpences and shillings. Beckoning to stray people to
come into pews, has given Mrs Miff an air of mystery; and there is
reservation in the eye of Mrs Miff, as always knowing of a softer
seat, but having her suspicions of the fee. There is no such fact as
Mr Miff, nor has there been, these twenty years, and Mrs Miff would
rather not allude to him. He held some bad opinions, it would seem,
about free seats; and though Mrs Miff hopes he may be gone upwards,
she couldn't positively undertake to say so.
Busy is Mrs Miff this morning at the church-door, beating and
dusting the altar-cloth, the carpet, and the cushions; and much has
Mrs Miff to say, about the wedding they are going to have. Mrs Miff is
told, that the new furniture and alterations in the house cost full
five thousand pound if they cost a penny; and Mrs Miff has heard, upon
the best authority, that the lady hasn't got a sixpence wherewithal to
bless herself. Mrs Miff remembers, like wise, as if it had happened
yesterday, the first wife's funeral, and then the christening, and
then the other funeral; and Mrs Miff says, by-the-bye she'll
soap-and-water that 'ere tablet presently, against the company arrive.
Mr Sownds the Beadle, who is sitting in the sun upon the church steps
all this time (and seldom does anything else, except, in cold weather,
sitting by the fire), approves of Mrs Miff's discourse, and asks if
Mrs Miff has heard it said, that the lady is uncommon handsome? The
information Mrs Miff has received, being of this nature, Mr Sownds the
Beadle, who, though orthodox and corpulent, is still an admirer of
female beauty, observes, with unction, yes, he hears she is a spanker
- an expression that seems somewhat forcible to Mrs Miff, or would,
from any lips but those of Mr Sownds the Beadle.
In Mr Dombey's house, at this same time, there is great stir and
bustle, more especially among the women: not one of whom has had a
wink of sleep since four o'clock, and all of whom were fully dressed
before six. Mr Towlinson is an object of greater consideration than
usual to the housemaid, and the cook says at breakfast time that one
wedding makes many, which the housemaid can't believe, and don't think
true at all. Mr Towlinson reserves his sentiments on this question;
being rendered something gloomy by the engagement of a foreigner with
whiskers (Mr Towlinson is whiskerless himself), who has been hired to
accompany the happy pair to Paris, and who is busy packing the new
chariot. In respect of this personage, Mr Towlinson admits, presently,
that he never knew of any good that ever come of foreigners; and being
charged by the ladies with prejudice, says, look at Bonaparte who was
at the head of 'em, and see what he was always up to! Which the
housemaid says is very true.
The pastry-cook is hard at work in the funereal room in Brook
Street, and the very tall young men are busy looking on. One of the
very tall young men already smells of sherry, and his eyes have a
tendency to become fixed in his head, and to stare at objects without
seeing them. The very tall young man is conscious of this failing in
himself; and informs his comrade that it's his 'exciseman.' The very
tall young man would say excitement, but his speech is hazy.
The men who play the bells have got scent of the marriage; and the
marrow-bones and cleavers too; and a brass band too. The first, are
practising in a back settlement near Battlebridge; the second, put
themselves in communication, through their chief, with Mr Towlinson,
to whom they offer terms to be bought off; and the third, in the
person of an artful trombone, lurks and dodges round the corner,
waiting for some traitor tradesman to reveal the place and hour of
breakfast, for a bribe. Expectation and excitement extend further yet,
and take a wider range. From Balls Pond, Mr Perch brings Mrs Perch to
spend the day with Mr Dombey's servants, and accompany them,
surreptitiously, to see the wedding. In Mr Toots's lodgings, Mr Toots
attires himself as if he were at least the Bridegroom; determined to
behold the spectacle in splendour from a secret corner of the gallery,
and thither to convey the Chicken: for it is Mr Toots's desperate
intent to point out Florence to the Chicken, then and there, and
openly to say, 'Now, Chicken, I will not deceive you any longer; the
friend I have sometimes mentioned to you is myself; Miss Dombey is the
object of my passion; what are your opinions, Chicken, in this state
of things, and what, on the spot, do you advise? The
so-much-to-be-astonished Chicken, in the meanwhile, dips his beak into
a tankard of strong beer, in Mr Toots's kitchen, and pecks up two
pounds of beefsteaks. In Princess's Place, Miss Tox is up and doing;
for she too, though in sore distress, is resolved to put a shilling in
the hands of Mrs Miff, and see the ceremony which has a cruel
fascination for her, from some lonely corner. The quarters of the
wooden Midshipman are all alive; for Captain Cuttle, in his
ankle-jacks and with a huge shirt-collar, is seated at his breakfast,
listening to Rob the Grinder as he reads the marriage service to him
beforehand, under orders, to the end that the Captain may perfectly
understand the solemnity he is about to witness: for which purpose,
the Captain gravely lays injunctions on his chaplain, from time to
time, to 'put about,' or to 'overhaul that 'ere article again,' or to
stick to his own duty, and leave the Amens to him, the Captain; one of
which he repeats, whenever a pause is made by Rob the Grinder, with
sonorous satisfaction.
Besides all this, and much more, twenty nursery-maids in Mr
Dombey's street alone, have promised twenty families of little women,
whose instinctive interest in nuptials dates from their cradles, that
they shall go and see the marriage. Truly, Mr Sownds the Beadle has
good reason to feel himself in office, as he suns his portly figure on
the church steps, waiting for the marriage hour. Truly, Mrs Miff has
cause to pounce on an unlucky dwarf child, with a giant baby, who
peeps in at the porch, and drive her forth with indignation!
Cousin Feenix has come over from abroad, expressly to attend the
marriage. Cousin Feenix was a man about town, forty years ago; but he
is still so juvenile in figure and in manner, and so well got up, that
strangers are amazed when they discover latent wrinkles in his
lordship's face, and crows' feet in his eyes: and first observe him,
not exactly certain when he walks across a room, of going quite
straight to where he wants to go. But Cousin Feenix, getting up at
half-past seven o'clock or so, is quite another thing from Cousin
Feenix got up; and very dim, indeed, he looks, while being shaved at
Long's Hotel, in Bond Street.
Mr Dombey leaves his dressing-room, amidst a general whisking away
of the women on the staircase, who disperse in all directions, with a
great rustling of skirts, except Mrs Perch, who, being (but that she
always is) in an interesting situation, is not nimble, and is obliged
to face him, and is ready to sink with confusion as she curtesys; -
may Heaven avert all evil consequences from the house of Perch! Mr
Dombey walks up to the drawing-room, to bide his time. Gorgeous are Mr
Dombey's new blue coat, fawn-coloured pantaloons, and lilac waistcoat;
and a whisper goes about the house, that Mr Dombey's hair is curled.
A double knock announces the arrival of the Major, who is gorgeous
too, and wears a whole geranium in his button-hole, and has his hair
curled tight and crisp, as well the Native knows.
'Dombey!' says the Major, putting out both hands, 'how are you?'
'Major,' says Mr Dombey, 'how are You?'
'By Jove, Sir,' says the Major, 'Joey B. is in such case this
morning, Sir,' - and here he hits himself hard upon the breast - 'In
such case this morning, Sir, that, damme, Dombey, he has half a mind
to make a double marriage of it, Sir, and take the mother.'
Mr Dombey smiles; but faintly, even for him; for Mr Dombey feels
that he is going to be related to the mother, and that, under those
circumstances, she is not to be joked about.
'Dombey,' says the Major, seeing this, 'I give you joy. I
congratulate you, Dombey. By the Lord, Sir,' says the Major, 'you are
more to be envied, this day, than any man in England!'
Here again Mr Dombey's assent is qualified; because he is going to
confer a great distinction on a lady; and, no doubt, she is to be
envied most.
'As to Edith Granger, Sir,' pursues the Major, 'there is not a
woman in all Europe but might - and would, Sir, you will allow
Bagstock to add - and would- give her ears, and her earrings, too, to
be in Edith Granger's place.'
'You are good enough to say so, Major,' says Mr Dombey.
'Dombey,' returns the Major, 'you know it. Let us have no false
delicacy. You know it. Do you know it, or do you not, Dombey?' says
the Major, almost in a passion.
'Oh, really, Major - '
'Damme, Sir,' retorts the Major, 'do you know that fact, or do you
not? Dombey! Is old Joe your friend? Are we on that footing of
unreserved intimacy, Dombey, that may justify a man - a blunt old
Joseph B., Sir - in speaking out; or am I to take open order, Dombey,
and to keep my distance, and to stand on forms?'
'My dear Major Bagstock,' says Mr Dombey, with a gratified air,
'you are quite warm.'
'By Gad, Sir,' says the Major, 'I am warm. Joseph B. does not deny
it, Dombey. He is warm. This is an occasion, Sir, that calls forth all
the honest sympathies remaining in an old, infernal, battered,
used-up, invalided, J. B. carcase. And I tell you what, Dombey - at
such a time a man must blurt out what he feels, or put a muzzle on;
and Joseph Bagstock tells you to your face, Dombey, as he tells his
club behind your back, that he never will be muzzled when Paul Dombey
is in question. Now, damme, Sir,' concludes the Major, with great
firmness, 'what do you make of that?'
'Major,' says Mr Dombey, 'I assure you that I am really obliged to
you. I had no idea of checking your too partial friendship.'
'Not too partial, Sir!' exclaims the choleric Major. 'Dombey, I
deny it.'
'Your friendship I will say then,' pursues Mr Dombey, 'on any
account. Nor can I forget, Major, on such an occasion as the present,
how much I am indebted to it.'
'Dombey,' says the Major, with appropriate action, 'that is the
hand of Joseph Bagstock: of plain old Joey B., Sir, if you like that
better! That is the hand, of which His Royal Highness the late Duke of
York, did me the honour to observe, Sir, to His Royal Highness the
late Duke of Kent, that it was the hand of Josh: a rough and tough,
and possibly an up-to-snuff, old vagabond. Dombey, may the present
moment be the least unhappy of our lives. God bless you!'
Now enters Mr Carker, gorgeous likewise, and smiling like a
wedding-guest indeed. He can scarcely let Mr Dombey's hand go, he is
so congratulatory; and he shakes the Major's hand so heartily at the
same time, that his voice shakes too, in accord with his arms, as it
comes sliding from between his teeth.
'The very day is auspicious,' says Mr Carker. 'The brightest and
most genial weather! I hope I am not a moment late?'
'Punctual to your time, Sir,' says the Major.
'I am rejoiced, I am sure,' says Mr Carker. 'I was afraid I might
be a few seconds after the appointed time, for I was delayed by a
procession of waggons; and I took the liberty of riding round to Brook
Street' - this to Mr Dombey - 'to leave a few poor rarities of flowers
for Mrs Dombey. A man in my position, and so distinguished as to be
invited here, is proud to offer some homage in acknowledgment of his
vassalage: and as I have no doubt Mrs Dombey is overwhelmed with what
is costly and magnificent;' with a strange glance at his patron; 'I
hope the very poverty of my offering, may find favour for it.'
'Mrs Dombey, that is to be,' returns Mr Dombey, condescendingly,
'will be very sensible of your attention, Carker, I am sure.'
'And if she is to be Mrs Dombey this morning, Sir,' says the Major,
putting down his coffee-cup, and looking at his watch, 'it's high time
we were off!'
Forth, in a barouche, ride Mr Dombey, Major Bagstock, and Mr
Carker, to the church. Mr Sownds the Beadle has long risen from the
steps, and is in waiting with his cocked hat in his hand. Mrs Miff
curtseys and proposes chairs in the vestry. Mr Dombey prefers
remaining in the church. As he looks up at the organ, Miss Tox in the
gallery shrinks behind the fat leg of a cherubim on a monument, with
cheeks like a young Wind. Captain Cuttle, on the contrary, stands up
and waves his hook, in token of welcome and encouragement. Mr Toots
informs the Chicken, behind his hand, that the middle gentleman, he in
the fawn-coloured pantaloons, is the father of his love. The Chicken
hoarsely whispers Mr Toots that he's as stiff a cove as ever he see,
but that it is within the resources of Science to double him up, with
one blow in the waistcoat.
Mr Sownds and Mrs Miff are eyeing Mr Dombey from a little distance,
when the noise of approaching wheels is heard, and Mr Sownds goes out.
Mrs Miff, meeting Mr Dombey's eye as it is withdrawn from the
presumptuous maniac upstairs, who salutes him with so much urbanity,
drops a curtsey, and informs him that she believes his 'good lady' is
come. Then there is a crowding and a whispering at the door, and the
good lady enters, with a haughty step.
There is no sign upon her face, of last night's suffering; there is
no trace in her manner, of the woman on the bended knees, reposing her
wild head, in beautiful abandonment, upon the pillow of the sleeping
girl. That girl, all gentle and lovely, is at her side - a striking
contrast to her own disdainful and defiant figure, standing there,
composed, erect, inscrutable of will, resplendent and majestic in the
zenith of its charms, yet beating down, and treading on, the
admiration that it challenges.
There is a pause while Mr Sownds the Beadle glides into the vestry
for the clergyman and clerk. At this juncture, Mrs Skewton speaks to
Mr Dombey: more distinctly and emphatically than her custom is, and
moving at the same time, close to Edith.
'My dear Dombey,' said the good Mama, 'I fear I must relinquish
darling Florence after all, and suffer her to go home, as she herself
proposed. After my loss of to-day, my dear Dombey, I feel I shall not
have spirits, even for her society.'
'Had she not better stay with you?' returns the Bridegroom.
'I think not, my dear Dombey. No, I think not. I shall be better
alone. Besides, my dearest Edith will be her natural and constant
guardian when you return, and I had better not encroach upon her
trust, perhaps. She might be jealous. Eh, dear Edith?'
The affectionate Mama presses her daughter's arm, as she says this;
perhaps entreating her attention earnestly.
'To be serious, my dear Dombey,' she resumes, 'I will relinquish
our dear child, and not inflict my gloom upon her. We have settled
that, just now. She fully understands, dear Dombey. Edith, my dear, -
she fully understands.'
Again, the good mother presses her daughter's arm. Mr Dombey offers
no additional remonstrance; for the clergyman and clerk appear; and
Mrs Miff, and Mr Sownds the Beadle, group the party in their proper
places at the altar rails.
The sun is shining down, upon the golden letters of the ten
commandments. Why does the Bride's eye read them, one by one? Which
one of all the ten appears the plainest to her in the glare of light?
False Gods; murder; theft; the honour that she owes her mother; -
which is it that appears to leave the wall, and printing itself in
glowing letters, on her book!
"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?"'
Cousin Feenix does that. He has come from Baden-Baden on purpose.
'Confound it,' Cousin Feenix says - good-natured creature, Cousin
Feenix - 'when we do get a rich City fellow into the family, let us
show him some attention; let us do something for him.' I give this
woman to be married to this man,' saith Cousin Feenix therefore.
Cousin Feenix, meaning to go in a straight line, but turning off
sideways by reason of his wilful legs, gives the wrong woman to be
married to this man, at first - to wit, a brides- maid of some
condition, distantly connected with the family, and ten years Mrs
Skewton's junior - but Mrs Miff, interposing her mortified bonnet,
dexterously turns him back, and runs him, as on castors, full at the
'good lady:' whom Cousin Feenix giveth to married to this man
accordingly. And will they in the sight of heaven - ? Ay, that they
will: Mr Dombey says he will. And what says Edith? She will. So, from
that day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in
sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do them
part, they plight their troth to one another, and are married. In a
firm, free hand, the Bride subscribes her name in the register, when
they adjourn to the vestry. 'There ain't a many ladies come here,' Mrs
Miff says with a curtsey - to look at Mrs Miff, at such a season, is
to make her mortified bonnet go down with a dip - writes their names
like this good lady!' Mr Sownds the Beadle thinks it is a truly
spanking signature, and worthy of the writer - this, however, between
himself and conscience. Florence signs too, but unapplauded, for her
hand shakes. All the party sign; Cousin Feenix last; who puts his
noble name into a wrong place, and enrols himself as having been born
that morning. The Major now salutes the Bride right gallantly, and
carries out that branch of military tactics in reference to all the
ladies: notwithstanding Mrs Skewton's being extremely hard to kiss,
and squeaking shrilly in the sacred edIfice. The example is followed
by Cousin. Feenix and even by Mr Dombey. Lastly, Mr Carker, with hIs
white teeth glistening, approaches Edith, more as if he meant to bite
her, than to taste the sweets that linger on her lips.
There is a glow upon her proud cheek, and a flashing in her eyes,
that may be meant to stay him; but it does not, for he salutes her as
the rest have done, and wishes her all happiness.
'If wishes,' says he in a low voice, 'are not superfluous, applied
to such a union.'
'I thank you, Sir,' she answers, with a curled lip, and a heaving
bosom.
But, does Edith feel still, as on the night when she knew that Mr
Dombey would return to offer his alliance, that Carker knows her
thoroughly, and reads her right, and that she is more degraded by his
knowledge of her, than by aught else? Is it for this reason that her
haughtiness shrinks beneath his smile, like snow within the hands that
grasps it firmly, and that her imperious glance droops In meeting his,
and seeks the ground?
'I am proud to see,' said Mr Carker, with a servile stooping of his
neck, which the revelations making by his eyes and teeth proclaim to
be a lie, 'I am proud to see that my humble offering is graced by Mrs
Dombey's hand, and permitted to hold so favoured a place in so joyful
an occasion.'
Though she bends her head, in answer, there is something in the
momentary action of her hand, as if she would crush the flowers it
holds, and fling them, with contempt, upon the ground. But, she puts
the hand through the arm of her new husband, who has been standing
near, conversing with the Major, and is proud again, and motionless,
and silent.
The carriages are once more at the church door. Mr Dombey, with his
bride upon his arm, conducts her through the twenty families of little
women who are on the steps, and every one of whom remembers the
fashion and the colour of her every article of dress from that moment,
and reproduces it on her doll, who is for ever being married.
Cleopatra and Cousin Feenix enter the same carriage. The Major hands
into a second carriage, Florence, and the bridesmaid who so narrowly
escaped being given away by mistake, and then enters it himself, and
is followed by Mr Carker. Horses prance and caper; coachmen and
footmen shine in fluttering favours, flowers, and new-made liveries.
Away they dash and rattle through the streets; and as they pass along,
a thousand heads are turned to look at them, and a thousand sober
moralists revenge themselves for not being married too, that morning,
by reflecting that these people little think such happiness can't
last.
Miss Tox emerges from behind the cherubim's leg, when all is quiet,
and comes slowly down from the gallery. Miss Tox's eyes are red, and
her pocket-handkerchief is damp. She is wounded, but not exasperated,
and she hopes they may be happy. She quite admits to herself the
beauty of the bride, and her own comparatively feeble and faded
attractions; but the stately image of Mr Dombey in his lilac
waistcoat, and his fawn-coloured pantaloons, is present to her mind,
and Miss Tox weeps afresh, behind her veil, on her way home to
Princess's Place. Captain Cuttle, having joined in all the amens and
responses, with a devout growl, feels much improved by his religious
exercises; and in a peaceful frame of mind pervades the body of the
church, glazed hat in hand, and reads the tablet to the memory of
little Paul. The gallant Mr Toots, attended by the faithful Chicken,
leaves the building in torments of love. The Chicken is as yet unable
to elaborate a scheme for winning Florence, but his first idea has
gained possession of him, and he thinks the doubling up of Mr Dombey
would be a move in the right direction. Mr Dombey's servants come out
of their hiding-places, and prepare to rush to Brook Street, when they
are delayed by symptoms of indisposition on the part of Mrs Perch, who
entreats a glass of water, and becomes alarming; Mrs Perch gets better
soon, however, and is borne away; and Mrs Miff, and Mr Sownds the
Beadle, sit upon the steps to count what they have gained by the
affair, and talk it over, while the sexton tolls a funeral.
Now, the carriages arrive at the Bride's residence, and the players
on the bells begin to jingle, and the band strikes up, and Mr Punch,
that model of connubial bliss, salutes his wife. Now, the people run,
and push, and press round in a gaping throng, while Mr Dombey, leading
Mrs Dombey by the hand, advances solemnly into the Feenix Halls. Now,
the rest of the wedding party alight, and enter after them. And why
does Mr Carker, passing through the people to the hall-door, think of
the old woman who called to him in the Grove that morning? Or why does
Florence, as she passes, think, with a tremble, of her childhood, when
she was lost, and of the visage of Good Mrs Brown?
Now, there are more congratulations on this happiest of days, and
more company, though not much; and now they leave the drawing-room,
and range themselves at table in the dark-brown dining-room, which no
confectioner can brighten up, let him garnish the exhausted negroes
with as many flowers and love-knots as he will.
The pastry-cook has done his duty like a man, though, and a rich
breakfast is set forth. Mr and Mrs Chick have joined the party, among
others. Mrs Chick admires that Edith should be, by nature, such a
perfect Dombey; and is affable and confidential to Mrs Skewton, whose
mind is relieved of a great load, and who takes her share of the
champagne. The very tall young man who suffered from excitement early,
is better; but a vague sentiment of repentance has seized upon him,
and he hates the other very tall young man, and wrests dishes from him
by violence, and takes a grim delight in disobliging the company. The
company are cool and calm, and do not outrage the black hatchments of
pictures looking down upon them, by any excess of mirth. Cousin Feenix
and the Major are the gayest there; but Mr Carker has a smile for the
whole table. He has an especial smile for the Bride, who very, very
seldom meets it.
Cousin Feenix rises, when the company have breakfasted, and the
servants have left the room; and wonderfully young he looks, with his
white wristbands almost covering his hands (otherwise rather bony),
and the bloom of the champagne in his cheeks.
'Upon my honour,' says Cousin Feenix, 'although it's an unusual
sort of thing in a private gentleman's house, I must beg leave to call
upon you to drink what is usually called a - in fact a toast.
The Major very hoarsely indicates his approval. Mr Carker, bending
his head forward over the table in the direction of Cousin Feenix,
smiles and nods a great many times.
'A - in fact it's not a - ' Cousin Feenix beginning again, thus,
comes to a dead stop.
'Hear, hear!' says the Major, in a tone of conviction.
Mr Carker softly claps his hands, and bending forward over the
table again, smiles and nods a great many more times than before, as
if he were particularly struck by this last observation, and desired
personally to express his sense of the good it has done
'It is,' says Cousin Feenix, 'an occasion in fact, when the general
usages of life may be a little departed from, without impropriety; and
although I never was an orator in my life, and when I was in the House
of Commons, and had the honour of seconding the address, was - in
fact, was laid up for a fortnight with the consciousness of failure -
'
The Major and Mr Carker are so much delighted by this fragment of
personal history, that Cousin Feenix laughs, and addressing them
individually, goes on to say:
'And in point of fact, when I was devilish ill - still, you know, I
feel that a duty devolves upon me. And when a duty devolves upon an
Englishman, he is bound to get out of it, in my opinion, in the best
way he can. Well! our family has had the gratification, to-day, of
connecting itself, in the person of my lovely and accomplished
relative, whom I now see - in point of fact, present - '
Here there is general applause.
'Present,' repeats Cousin Feenix, feeling that it is a neat point
which will bear repetition, - 'with one who - that is to say, with a
man, at whom the finger of scorn can never - in fact, with my
honourable friend Dombey, if he will allow me to call him so.'
Cousin Feenix bows to Mr Dombey; Mr Dombey solemnly returns the
bow; everybody is more or less gratified and affected by this
extraordinary, and perhaps unprecedented, appeal to the feelings.
'I have not,' says Cousin Feenix, 'enjoyed those opportunities
which I could have desired, of cultivating the acquaintance of my
friend Dombey, and studying those qualities which do equal honour to
his head, and, in point of fact, to his heart; for it has been my
misfortune to be, as we used to say in my time in the House of
Commons, when it was not the custom to allude to the Lords, and when
the order of parliamentary proceedings was perhaps better observed
than it is now - to be in - in point of fact,' says Cousin Feenix,
cherishing his joke, with great slyness, and finally bringing it out
with a jerk, "'in another place!"'
The Major falls into convulsions, and is recovered with difficulty.
'But I know sufficient of my friend Dombey,' resumes Cousin Feenix
in a graver tone, as if he had suddenly become a sadder and wiser man'
'to know that he is, in point of fact, what may be emphatically called
a - a merchant - a British merchant - and a - and a man. And although
I have been resident abroad, for some years (it would give me great
pleasure to receive my friend Dombey, and everybody here, at
Baden-Baden, and to have an opportunity of making 'em known to the
Grand Duke), still I know enough, I flatter myself, of my lovely and
accomplished relative, to know that she possesses every requisite to
make a man happy, and that her marriage with my friend Dombey is one
of inclination and affection on both sides.'
Many smiles and nods from Mr Carker.
'Therefore,' says Cousin Feenix, 'I congratulate the family of
which I am a member, on the acquisition of my friend Dombey. I
congratulate my friend Dombey on his union with my lovely and
accomplished relative who possesses every requisite to make a man
happy; and I take the liberty of calling on you all, in point of fact,
to congratulate both my friend Dombey and my lovely and accomplished
relative, on the present occasion.'
The speech of Cousin Feenix is received with great applause, and Mr
Dombey returns thanks on behalf of himself and Mrs Dombey. J. B.
shortly afterwards proposes Mrs Skewton. The breakfast languishes when
that is done, the violated hatchments are avenged, and Edith rises to
assume her travelling dress.
All the servants in the meantime, have been breakfasting below.
Champagne has grown too common among them to be mentioned, and roast
fowls, raised pies, and lobster-salad, have become mere drugs. The
very tall young man has recovered his spirits, and again alludes to
the exciseman. His comrade's eye begins to emulate his own, and he,
too, stares at objects without taking cognizance thereof. There is a
general redness in the faces of the ladies; in the face of Mrs Perch
particularly, who is joyous and beaming, and lifted so far above the
cares of life, that if she were asked just now to direct a wayfarer to
Ball's Pond, where her own cares lodge, she would have some difficulty
in recalling the way. Mr Towlinson has proposed the happy pair; to
which the silver-headed butler has responded neatly, and with emotion;
for he half begins to think he is an old retainer of the family, and
that he is bound to be affected by these changes. The whole party, and
especially the ladies, are very frolicsome. Mr Dombey's cook, who
generally takes the lead in society, has said, it is impossible to
settle down after this, and why not go, in a party, to the play?
Everybody (Mrs Perch included) has agreed to this; even the Native,
who is tigerish in his drink, and who alarms the ladies (Mrs Perch
particularly) by the rolling of his eyes. One of the very tall young
men has even proposed a ball after the play, and it presents itself to
no one (Mrs Perch included) in the light of an impossibility. Words
have arisen between the housemaid and Mr Towlinson; she, on the
authority of an old saw, asserting marriages to be made in Heaven: he,
affecting to trace the manufacture elsewhere; he, supposing that she
says so, because she thinks of being married her own self: she,
saying, Lord forbid, at any rate, that she should ever marry him. To
calm these flying taunts, the silver-headed butler rises to propose
the health of Mr Towlinson, whom to know is to esteem, and to esteem
is to wish well settled in life with the object of his choice,
wherever (here the silver-headed butler eyes the housemaid) she may
be. Mr Towlinson returns thanks in a speech replete with feeling, of
which the peroration turns on foreigners, regarding whom he says they
may find favour, sometimes, with weak and inconstant intellects that
can be led away by hair, but all he hopes, is, he may never hear of no
foreigner never boning nothing out of no travelling chariot. The eye
of Mr Towlinson is so severe and so expressive here, that the
housemaid is turning hysterical, when she and all the rest, roused by
the intelligence that the Bride is going away, hurry upstairs to
witness her departure.
The chariot is at the door; the Bride is descending to the hall,
where Mr Dombey waits for her. Florence is ready on the staircase to
depart too; and Miss Nipper, who has held a middle state between the
parlour and the kitchen, is prepared to accompany her. As Edith
appears, Florence hastens towards her, to bid her farewell.
Is Edith cold, that she should tremble! Is there anything unnatural
or unwholesome in the touch of Florence, that the beautiful form
recedes and contracts, as if it could not bear it! Is there so much
hurry in this going away, that Edith, with a wave of her hand, sweeps
on, and is gone!
Mrs Skewton, overpowered by her feelings as a mother, sinks on her
sofa in the Cleopatra attitude, when the clatter of the chariot wheels
is lost, and sheds several tears. The Major, coming with the rest of
the company from table, endeavours to comfort her; but she will not be
comforted on any terms, and so the Major takes his leave. Cousin
Feenix takes his leave, and Mr Carker takes his leave. The guests all
go away. Cleopatra, left alone, feels a little giddy from her strong
emotion, and falls asleep.
Giddiness prevails below stairs too. The very tall young man whose
excitement came on so soon, appears to have his head glued to the
table in the pantry, and cannot be detached from - it. A violent
revulsion has taken place in the spirits of Mrs Perch, who is low on
account of Mr Perch, and tells cook that she fears he is not so much
attached to his home, as he used to be, when they were only nine in
family. Mr Towlinson has a singing in his ears and a large wheel going
round and round inside his head. The housemaid wishes it wasn't wicked
to wish that one was dead.
There is a general delusion likewise, in these lower regions, on
the subject of time; everybody conceiving that it ought to be, at the
earliest, ten o'clock at night, whereas it is not yet three in the
afternoon. A shadowy idea of wickedness committed, haunts every
individual in the party; and each one secretly thinks the other a
companion in guilt, whom it would be agreeable to avoid. No man or
woman has the hardihood to hint at the projected visit to the play.
Anyone reviving the notion of the ball, would be scouted as a
malignant idiot.
Mrs Skewton sleeps upstairs, two hours afterwards, and naps are not
yet over in the kitchen. The hatchments in the dining-room look down
on crumbs, dirty plates, spillings of wine, half-thawed ice, stale
discoloured heel-taps, scraps of lobster, drumsticks of fowls, and
pensive jellies, gradually resolving themselves into a lukewarm gummy
soup. The marriage is, by this time, almost as denuded of its show and
garnish as the breakfast. Mr Dombey's servants moralise so much about
it, and are so repentant over their early tea, at home, that by eight
o'clock or so, they settle down into confirmed seriousness; and Mr
Perch, arriving at that time from the City, fresh and jocular, with a
white waistcoat and a comic song, ready to spend the evening, and
prepared for any amount of dissipation, is amazed to find himself
coldly received, and Mrs Perch but poorly, and to have the pleasing
duty of escorting that lady home by the next omnibus.
Night closes in. Florence, having rambled through the handsome
house, from room to room, seeks her own chamber, where the care of
Edith has surrounded her with luxuries and comforts; and divesting
herself of her handsome dress, puts on her old simple mourning for
dear Paul, and sits down to read, with Diogenes winking and blinking
on the ground beside her. But Florence cannot read tonight. The house
seems strange and new, and there are loud echoes in it. There is a
shadow on her heart: she knows not why or what: but it is heavy.
Florence shuts her book, and gruff Diogenes, who takes that for a
signal, puts his paws upon her lap, and rubs his ears against her
caressing hands. But Florence cannot see him plainly, in a little
time, for there is a mist between her eyes and him, and her dead
brother and dead mother shine in it like angels. Walter, too, poor
wandering shipwrecked boy, oh, where is he?
The Major don't know; that's for certain; and don't care. The
Major, having choked and slumbered, all the afternoon, has taken a
late dinner at his club, and now sits over his pint of wine, driving a
modest young man, with a fresh-coloured face, at the next table (who
would give a handsome sum to be able to rise and go away, but cannot
do it) to the verge of madness, by anecdotes of Bagstock, Sir, at
Dombey's wedding, and Old Joe's devilish gentle manly friend, Lord
Feenix. While Cousin Feenix, who ought to be at Long's, and in bed,
finds himself, instead, at a gaming-table, where his wilful legs have
taken him, perhaps, in his own despite.
Night, like a giant, fills the church, from pavement to roof, and
holds dominion through the silent hours. Pale dawn again comes peeping
through the windows: and, giving place to day, sees night withdraw
into the vaults, and follows it, and drives it out, and hides among
the dead. The timid mice again cower close together, when the great
door clashes, and Mr Sownds and Mrs Miff treading the circle of their
daily lives, unbroken as a marriage ring, come in. Again, the cocked
hat and the mortified bonnet stand in the background at the marriage
hour; and again this man taketh this woman, and this woman taketh this
man, on the solemn terms:
'To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse,
for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to
cherish, until death do them part.'
The very words that Mr Carker rides into town repeating, with his
mouth stretched to the utmost, as he picks his dainty way.
CHAPTER 32.
The Wooden Midshipman goes to Pieces
Honest Captain Cuttle, as the weeks flew over him in his fortified
retreat, by no means abated any of his prudent provisions against
surprise, because of the non-appearance of the enemy. The Captain
argued that his present security was too profound and wonderful to
endure much longer; he knew that when the wind stood in a fair
quarter, the weathercock was seldom nailed there; and he was too well
acquainted with the determined and dauntless character of Mrs
MacStinger, to doubt that that heroic woman had devoted herself to the
task of his discovery and capture. Trembling beneath the weight of
these reasons, Captain Cuttle lived a very close and retired life;
seldom stirring abroad until after dark; venturing even then only into
the obscurest streets; never going forth at all on Sundays; and both
within and without the walls of his retreat, avoiding bonnets, as if
they were worn by raging lions.
The Captain never dreamed that in the event of his being pounced
upon by Mrs MacStinger, in his walks, it would be possible to offer
resistance. He felt that it could not be done. He saw himself, in his
mind's eye, put meekly in a hackney-coach, and carried off to his old
lodgings. He foresaw that, once immured there, he was a lost man: his
hat gone; Mrs MacStinger watchful of him day and night; reproaches
heaped upon his head, before the infant family; himself the guilty
object of suspicion and distrust; an ogre in the children's eyes, and
in their mother's a detected traitor.
A violent perspiration, and a lowness of spirits, always came over
the Captain as this gloomy picture presented itself to his
imagination. It generally did so previous to his stealing out of doors
at night for air and exercise. Sensible of the risk he ran, the
Captain took leave of Rob, at those times, with the solemnity which
became a man who might never return: exhorting him, in the event of
his (the Captain's) being lost sight of, for a time, to tread in the
paths of virtue, and keep the brazen instruments well polished.
But not to throw away a chance; and to secure to himself a means,
in case of the worst, of holding communication with the external
world; Captain Cuttle soon conceived the happy idea of teaching Rob
the Grinder some secret signal, by which that adherent might make his
presence and fidelity known to his commander, in the hour of
adversity. After much cogitation, the Captain decided in favour of
instructing him to whistle the marine melody, 'Oh cheerily, cheerily!'
and Rob the Grinder attaining a point as near perfection in that
accomplishment as a landsman could hope to reach, the Captain
impressed these mysterious instructions on his mind:
'Now, my lad, stand by! If ever I'm took - '
'Took, Captain!' interposed Rob, with his round eyes wide open.
'Ah!' said Captain Cuttle darkly, 'if ever I goes away, meaning to
come back to supper, and don't come within hail again, twenty-four
hours arter my loss, go you to Brig Place and whistle that 'ere tune
near my old moorings - not as if you was a meaning of it, you
understand, but as if you'd drifted there, promiscuous. If I answer in
that tune, you sheer off, my lad, and come back four-and-twenty hours
arterwards; if I answer in another tune, do you stand off and on, and
wait till I throw out further signals. Do you understand them orders,
now?'
'What am I to stand off and on of, Captain?' inquired Rob. 'The
horse-road?'
'Here's a smart lad for you!' cried the Captain eyeing him sternly,
'as don't know his own native alphabet! Go away a bit and come back
again alternate - d'ye understand that?'
'Yes, Captain,' said Rob.
'Very good my lad, then,' said the Captain, relenting. 'Do it!'
That he might do it the better, Captain Cuttle sometimes
condescended, of an evening after the shop was shut, to rehearse this
scene: retiring into the parlour for the purpose, as into the lodgings
of a supposititious MacStinger, and carefully observing the behaviour
of his ally, from the hole of espial he had cut in the wall. Rob the
Grinder discharged himself of his duty with so much exactness and
judgment, when thus put to the proof, that the Captain presented him,
at divers times, with seven sixpences, in token of satisfaction; and
gradually felt stealing over his spirit the resignation of a man who
had made provision for the worst, and taken every reasonable
precaution against an unrelenting fate.
Nevertheless, the Captain did not tempt ill-fortune, by being a
whit more venturesome than before. Though he considered it a point of
good breeding in himself, as a general friend of the family, to attend
Mr Dombey's wedding (of which he had heard from Mr Perch), and to show
that gentleman a pleasant and approving countenance from the gallery,
he had repaired to the church in a hackney cabriolet with both windows
up; and might have scrupled even to make that venture, in his dread of
Mrs MacStinger, but that the lady's attendance on the ministry of the
Reverend Melchisedech rendered it peculiarly unlikely that she would
be found in communion with the Establishment.
The Captain got safe home again, and fell into the ordinary routine
of his new life, without encountering any more direct alarm from the
enemy, than was suggested to him by the daily bonnets in the street.
But other subjects began to lay heavy on the Captain's mind. Walter's
ship was still unheard of. No news came of old Sol Gills. Florence did
not even know of the old man's disappearance, and Captain Cuttle had
not the heart to tell her. Indeed the Captain, as his own hopes of the
generous, handsome, gallant-hearted youth, whom he had loved,
according to his rough manner, from a child, began to fade, and faded
more and more from day to day, shrunk with instinctive pain from the
thought of exchanging a word with Florence. If he had had good news to
carry to her, the honest Captain would have braved the newly decorated
house and splendid furniture - though these, connected with the lady
he had seen at church, were awful to him - and made his way into her
presence. With a dark horizon gathering around their common hopes,
however, that darkened every hour, the Captain almost felt as if he
were a new misfortune and affliction to her; and was scarcely less
afraid of a visit from Florence, than from Mrs MacStinger herself.
It was a chill dark autumn evening, and Captain Cuttle had ordered
a fire to be kindled in the little back parlour, now more than ever
like the cabin of a ship. The rain fell fast, and the wind blew hard;
and straying out on the house-top by that stormy bedroom of his old
friend, to take an observation of the weather, the Captain's heart
died within him, when he saw how wild and desolate it was. Not that he
associated the weather of that time with poor Walter's destiny, or
doubted that if Providence had doomed him to be lost and shipwrecked,
it was over, long ago; but that beneath an outward influence, quite
distinct from the subject-matter of his thoughts, the Captain's
spirits sank, and his hopes turned pale, as those of wiser men had
often done before him, and will often do again.
Captain Cuttle, addressing his face to the sharp wind and slanting
rain, looked up at the heavy scud that was flying fast over the
wilderness of house-tops, and looked for something cheery there in
vain. The prospect near at hand was no better. In sundry tea-chests
and other rough boxes at his feet, the pigeons of Rob the Grinder were
cooing like so many dismal breezes getting up. A crazy weathercock of
a midshipman, with a telescope at his eye, once visible from the
street, but long bricked out, creaked and complained upon his rusty
pivot as the shrill blast spun him round and round, and sported with
him cruelly. Upon the Captain's coarse blue vest the cold raindrops
started like steel beads; and he could hardly maintain himself aslant
against the stiff Nor'-Wester that came pressing against him,
importunate to topple him over the parapet, and throw him on the
pavement below. If there were any Hope alive that evening, the Captain
thought, as he held his hat on, it certainly kept house, and wasn't
out of doors; so the Captain, shaking his head in a despondent manner,
went in to look for it.
Captain Cuttle descended slowly to the little back parlour, and,
seated in his accustomed chair, looked for it in the fire; but it was
not there, though the fire was bright. He took out his tobacco-box and
pipe, and composing himself to smoke, looked for it in the red glow
from the bowl, and in the wreaths of vapour that curled upward from
his lips; but there was not so much as an atom of the rust of Hope's
anchor in either. He tried a glass of grog; but melancholy truth was
at the bottom of that well, and he couldn't finish it. He made a turn
or two in the shop, and looked for Hope among the instruments; but
they obstinately worked out reckonings for the missing ship, in spite
of any opposition he could offer, that ended at the bottom of the lone
sea.
The wind still rushing, and the rain still pattering, against the
closed shutters, the Captain brought to before the wooden Midshipman
upon the counter, and thought, as he dried the little officer's
uniform with his sleeve, how many years the Midshipman had seen,
during which few changes - hardly any - had transpired among his
ship's company; how the changes had come all together, one day, as it
might be; and of what a sweeping kind they web Here was the little
society of the back parlour broken up, and scattered far and wide.
Here was no audience for Lovely Peg, even if there had been anybody to
sing it, which there was not; for the Captain was as morally certain
that nobody but he could execute that ballad, he was that he had not
the spirit, under existing circumstances, to attempt it. There was no
bright face of 'Wal'r' In the house; - here the Captain transferred
his sleeve for a moment from the Midshipman's uniform to his own
cheek; - the familiar wig and buttons of Sol Gills were a vision of
the past; Richard Whittington was knocked on the head; and every plan
and project in connexion with the Midshipman, lay drifting, without
mast or rudder, on the waste of waters.
As the Captain, with a dejected face, stood revolving these
thoughts, and polishing the Midshipman, partly in the tenderness of
old acquaintance, and partly in the absence of his mind, a knocking at
the shop-door communicated a frightful start to the frame of Rob the
Grinder, seated on the counter, whose large eyes had been intently
fixed on the Captain's face, and who had been debating within himself,
for the five hundredth time, whether the Captain could have done a
murder, that he had such an evil conscience, and was always running
away.
'What's that?' said Captain Cuttle, softly.
'Somebody's knuckles, Captain,' answered Rob the Grinder.
The Captain, with an abashed and guilty air, immediately walked on
tiptoe to the little parlour and locked himself in. Rob, opening the
door, would have parleyed with the visitor on the threshold if the
visitor had come in female guise; but the figure being of the male
sex, and Rob's orders only applying to women, Rob held the door open
and allowed it to enter: which it did very quickly, glad to get out of
the driving rain.
'A job for Burgess and Co. at any rate,' said the visitor, looking
over his shoulder compassionately at his own legs, which were very wet
and covered with splashes. 'Oh, how-de-do, Mr Gills?'
The salutation was addressed to the Captain, now emerging from the
back parlour with a most transparent and utterly futile affectation of
coming out by accidence.
'Thankee,' the gentleman went on to say in the same breath; 'I'm
very well indeed, myself, I'm much obliged to you. My name is Toots, -
Mister Toots.'
The Captain remembered to have seen this young gentleman at the
wedding, and made him a bow. Mr Toots replied with a chuckle; and
being embarrassed, as he generally was, breathed hard, shook hands
with the Captain for a long time, and then falling on Rob the Grinder,
in the absence of any other resource, shook hands with him in a most
affectionate and cordial manner.
'I say! I should like to speak a word to you, Mr Gills, if you
please,' said Toots at length, with surprising presence of mind. 'I
say! Miss D.O.M. you know!'
The Captain, with responsive gravity and mystery, immediately waved
his hook towards the little parlour, whither Mr Toots followed him.
'Oh! I beg your pardon though,' said Mr Toots, looking up In the
Captain's face as he sat down in a chair by the fire, which the
Captain placed for him; 'you don't happen to know the Chicken at all;
do you, Mr Gills?'
'The Chicken?' said the Captain.
'The Game Chicken,' said Mr Toots.
The Captain shaking his head, Mr Toots explained that the man
alluded to was the celebrated public character who had covered himself
and his country with glory in his contest with the Nobby Shropshire
One; but this piece of information did not appear to enlighten the
Captain very much.
'Because he's outside: that's all,' said Mr Toots. 'But it's of no
consequence; he won't get very wet, perhaps.'
'I can pass the word for him in a moment,' said the Captain.
'Well, if you would have the goodness to let him sit in the shop
with your young man,' chuckled Mr Toots, 'I should be glad; because,
you know, he's easily offended, and the damp's rather bad for his
stamina. I'll call him in, Mr Gills.'
With that, Mr Toots repairing to the shop-door, sent a peculiar
whistle into the night, which produced a stoical gentleman in a shaggy
white great-coat and a flat-brimmed hat, with very short hair, a
broken nose, and a considerable tract of bare and sterile country
behind each ear.
'Sit down, Chicken,' said Mr Toots.
The compliant Chicken spat out some small pieces of straw on which
he was regaling himself, and took in a fresh supply from a reserve he
carried in his hand.
'There ain't no drain of nothing short handy, is there?' said the
Chicken, generally. 'This here sluicing night is hard lines to a man
as lives on his condition.
Captain Cuttle proffered a glass of rum, which the Chicken,
throwing back his head, emptied into himself, as into a cask, after
proposing the brief sentiment, 'Towards us!' Mr Toots and the Captain
returning then to the parlour, and taking their seats before the fire,
Mr Toots began:
'Mr Gills - '
'Awast!' said the Captain. 'My name's Cuttle.'
Mr Toots looked greatly disconcerted, while the Captain proceeded
gravely.
'Cap'en Cuttle is my name, and England is my nation, this here is
my dwelling-place, and blessed be creation - Job,' said the Captain,
as an index to his authority.
'Oh! I couldn't see Mr Gills, could I?' said Mr Toots; 'because - '
'If you could see Sol Gills, young gen'l'm'n,' said the Captain,
impressively, and laying his heavy hand on Mr Toots's knee, 'old Sol,
mind you - with your own eyes - as you sit there - you'd be welcomer
to me, than a wind astern, to a ship becalmed. But you can't see Sol
Gills. And why can't you see Sol Gills?' said the Captain, apprised by
the face of Mr Toots that he was making a profound impression on that
gentleman's mind. 'Because he's inwisible.'
Mr Toots in his agitation was going to reply that it was of no
consequence at all. But he corrected himself, and said, 'Lor bless
me!'
'That there man,' said the Captain, 'has left me in charge here by
a piece of writing, but though he was a'most as good as my sworn
brother, I know no more where he's gone, or why he's gone; if so be to
seek his nevy, or if so be along of being not quite settled in his
mind; than you do. One morning at daybreak, he went over the side,'
said the Captain, 'without a splash, without a ripple I have looked
for that man high and low, and never set eyes, nor ears, nor nothing
else, upon him from that hour.'
'But, good Gracious, Miss Dombey don't know - ' Mr Toots began.
'Why, I ask you, as a feeling heart,' said the Captain, dropping
his voice, 'why should she know? why should she be made to know, until
such time as there wam't any help for it? She took to old Sol Gills,
did that sweet creetur, with a kindness, with a affability, with a -
what's the good of saying so? you know her.'
'I should hope so,' chuckled Mr Toots, with a conscious blush that
suffused his whole countenance.
'And you come here from her?' said the Captain.
'I should think so,' chuckled Mr Toots.
'Then all I need observe, is,' said the Captain, 'that you know a
angel, and are chartered a angel.'
Mr Toots instantly seized the Captain's hand, and requested the
favour of his friendship.
'Upon my word and honour,' said Mr Toots, earnestly, 'I should be
very much obliged to you if you'd improve my acquaintance I should
like to know you, Captain, very much. I really am In want of a friend,
I am. Little Dombey was my friend at old Blimber's, and would have
been now, if he'd have lived. The Chicken,' said Mr Toots, in a
forlorn whisper, 'is very well - admirable in his way - the sharpest
man perhaps in the world; there's not a move he isn't up to, everybody
says so - but I don't know - he's not everything. So she is an angel,
Captain. If there is an angel anywhere, it's Miss Dombey. That's what
I've always said. Really though, you know,' said Mr Toots, 'I should
be very much obliged to you if you'd cultivate my acquaintance.'
Captain Cuttle received this proposal in a polite manner, but still
without committing himself to its acceptance; merely observing, 'Ay,
ay, my lad. We shall see, we shall see;' and reminding Mr Toots of his
immediate mission, by inquiring to what he was indebted for the honour
of that visit.
'Why the fact is,' replied Mr Toots, 'that it's the young woman I
come from. Not Miss Dombey - Susan, you know.
The Captain nodded his head once, with a grave expression of face
indicative of his regarding that young woman with serious respect.
'And I'll tell you how it happens,' said Mr Toots. 'You know, I go
and call sometimes, on Miss Dombey. I don't go there on purpose, you
know, but I happen to be in the neighbourhood very often; and when I
find myself there, why - why I call.'
'Nat'rally,' observed the Captain.
'Yes,' said Mr Toots. 'I called this afternoon. Upon my word and
honour, I don't think it's possible to form an idea of the angel Miss
Dombey was this afternoon.'
The Captain answered with a jerk of his head, implying that it
might not be easy to some people, but was quite so to him.
'As I was coming out,' said Mr Toots, 'the young woman, in the most
unexpected manner, took me into the pantry.
The Captain seemed, for the moment, to object to this proceeding;
and leaning back in his chair, looked at Mr Toots with a distrustful,
if not threatening visage.
'Where she brought out,' said Mr Toots, 'this newspaper. She told
me that she had kept it from Miss Dombey all day, on account of
something that was in it, about somebody that she and Dombey used to
know; and then she read the passage to me. Very well. Then she said -
wait a minute; what was it she said, though!'
Mr Toots, endeavouring to concentrate his mental powers on this
question, unintentionally fixed the Captain's eye, and was so much
discomposed by its stern expression, that his difficulty in resuming
the thread of his subject was enhanced to a painful extent.
'Oh!' said Mr Toots after long consideration. 'Oh, ah! Yes! She
said that she hoped there was a bare possibility that it mightn't be
true; and that as she couldn't very well come out herself, without
surprising Miss Dombey, would I go down to Mr Solomon Gills the
Instrument-maker's in this street, who was the party's Uncle, and ask
whether he believed it was true, or had heard anything else in the
City. She said, if he couldn't speak to me, no doubt Captain Cuttle
could. By the bye!' said Mr Toots, as the discovery flashed upon him,
'you, you know!'
The Captain glanced at the newspaper in Mr Toots's hand, and
breathed short and hurriedly.
'Well, pursued Mr Toots, 'the reason why I'm rather late is,
because I went up as far as Finchley first, to get some uncommonly
fine chickweed that grows there, for Miss Dombey's bird. But I came on
here, directly afterwards. You've seen the paper, I suppose?'
The Captain, who had become cautious of reading the news, lest he
should find himself advertised at full length by Mrs MacStinger, shook
his head.
'Shall I read the passage to you?' inquired Mr Toots.
The Captain making a sign in the affirmative, Mr Toots read as
follows, from the Shipping Intelligence:
'"Southampton. The barque Defiance, Henry James, Commander, arrived
in this port to-day, with a cargo of sugar, coffee, and rum, reports
that being becalmed on the sixth day of her passage home from Jamaica,
in" - in such and such a latitude, you know,' said Mr Toots, after
making a feeble dash at the figures, and tumbling over them.
'Ay!' cried the Captain, striking his clenched hand on the table.
'Heave ahead, my lad!'
' - latitude,' repeated Mr Toots, with a startled glance at the
Captain, 'and longitude so-and-so, - "the look-out observed, half an
hour before sunset, some fragments of a wreck, drifting at about the
distance of a mile. The weather being clear, and the barque making no
way, a boat was hoisted out, with orders to inspect the same, when
they were found to consist of sundry large spars, and a part of the
main rigging of an English brig, of about five hundred tons burden,
together with a portion of the stem on which the words and letters
'Son and H-' were yet plainly legible. No vestige of any dead body was
to be seen upon the floating fragments. Log of the Defiance states,
that a breeze springing up in the night, the wreck was seen no more.
There can be no doubt that all surmises as to the fate of the missing
vessel, the Son and Heir, port of London, bound for Barbados, are now
set at rest for ever; that she broke up in the last hurricane; and
that every soul on board perished."'
Captain Cuttle, like all mankind, little knew how much hope had
survived within him under discouragement, until he felt its
death-shock. During the reading of the paragraph, and for a minute or
two afterwards, he sat with his gaze fixed on the modest Mr Toots,
like a man entranced; then, suddenly rising, and putting on his glazed
hat, which, in his visitor's honour, he had laid upon the table, the
Captain turned his back, and bent his head down on the little
chimneypiece.
'Oh' upon my word and honour,' cried Mr Toots, whose tender heart
was moved by the Captain's unexpected distress, 'this is a most
wretched sort of affair this world is! Somebody's always dying, or
going and doing something uncomfortable in it. I'm sure I never should
have looked forward so much, to coming into my property, if I had
known this. I never saw such a world. It's a great deal worse than
Blimber's.'
Captain Cuttle, without altering his position, signed to Mr Toots
not to mind him; and presently turned round, with his glazed hat
thrust back upon his ears, and his hand composing and smoothing his
brown face.
'Wal'r, my dear lad,' said the Captain, 'farewell! Wal'r my child,
my boy, and man, I loved you! He warn't my flesh and blood,' said the
Captain, looking at the fire - 'I ain't got none - but something of
what a father feels when he loses a son, I feel in losing Wal'r. For
why?' said the Captain. 'Because it ain't one loss, but a round dozen.
Where's that there young school-boy with the rosy face and curly hair,
that used to be as merry in this here parlour, come round every week,
as a piece of music? Gone down with Wal'r. Where's that there fresh
lad, that nothing couldn't tire nor put out, and that sparkled up and
blushed so, when we joked him about Heart's Delight, that he was
beautiful to look at? Gone down with Wal'r. Where's that there man's
spirit, all afire, that wouldn't see the old man hove down for a
minute, and cared nothing for itself? Gone down with Wal'r. It ain't
one Wal'r. There was a dozen Wal'rs that I know'd and loved, all
holding round his neck when he went down, and they're a-holding round
mine now!'
Mr Toots sat silent: folding and refolding the newspaper as small
as possible upon his knee.
'And Sol Gills,' said the Captain, gazing at the fire, 'poor
nevyless old Sol, where are you got to! you was left in charge of me;
his last words was, "Take care of my Uncle!" What came over you, Sol,
when you went and gave the go-bye to Ned Cuttle; and what am I to put
In my accounts that he's a looking down upon, respecting you! Sol
Gills, Sol Gills!' said the Captain, shaking his head slowly, 'catch
sight of that there newspaper, away from home, with no one as know'd
Wal'r by, to say a word; and broadside to you broach, and down you
pitch, head foremost!'
Drawing a heavy sigh, the Captain turned to Mr Toots, and roused
himself to a sustained consciousness of that gentleman's presence.
'My lad,' said the Captain, 'you must tell the young woman honestly
that this here fatal news is too correct. They don't romance, you see,
on such pints. It's entered on the ship's log, and that's the truest
book as a man can write. To-morrow morning,' said the Captain, 'I'll
step out and make inquiries; but they'll lead to no good. They can't
do it. If you'll give me a look-in in the forenoon, you shall know
what I have heerd; but tell the young woman from Cap'en Cuttle, that
it's over. Over!' And the Captain, hooking off his glazed hat, pulled
his handkerchief out of the crown, wiped his grizzled head
despairingly, and tossed the handkerchief in again, with the
indifference of deep dejection.
'Oh! I assure you,' said Mr Toots, 'really I am dreadfully sorry.
Upon my word I am, though I wasn't acquainted with the party. Do you
think Miss Dombey will be very much affected, Captain Gills - I mean
Mr Cuttle?'
'Why, Lord love you,' returned the Captain, with something of
compassion for Mr Toots's innocence. When she warn't no higher than
that, they were as fond of one another as two young doves.'
'Were they though!' said Mr Toots, with a considerably lengthened
face.
'They were made for one another,' said the Captain, mournfully;
'but what signifies that now!'
'Upon my word and honour,' cried Mr Toots, blurting out his words
through a singular combination of awkward chuckles and emotion, 'I'm
even more sorry than I was before. You know, Captain Gills, I - I
positively adore Miss Dombey; - I - I am perfectly sore with loving
her;' the burst with which this confession forced itself out of the
unhappy Mr Toots, bespoke the vehemence of his feelings; 'but what
would be the good of my regarding her in this manner, if I wasn't
truly sorry for her feeling pain, whatever was the cause of it. Mine
ain't a selfish affection, you know,' said Mr Toots, in the confidence
engendered by his having been a witness of the Captain's tenderness.
'It's the sort of thing with me, Captain Gills, that if I could be run
over - or - or trampled upon - or - or thrown off a very high place
-or anything of that sort - for Miss Dombey's sake, it would be the
most delightful thing that could happen to me.
All this, Mr Toots said in a suppressed voice, to prevent its
reaching the jealous ears of the Chicken, who objected to the softer
emotions; which effort of restraint, coupled with the intensity of his
feelings, made him red to the tips of his ears, and caused him to
present such an affecting spectacle of disinterested love to the eyes
of Captain Cuttle, that the good Captain patted him consolingly on the
back, and bade him cheer up.
'Thankee, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'it's kind of you, in the
midst of your own troubles, to say so. I'm very much obliged to you.
As I said before, I really want a friend, and should be glad to have
your acquaintance. Although I am very well off,' said Mr Toots, with
energy, 'you can't think what a miserable Beast I am. The hollow
crowd, you know, when they see me with the Chicken, and characters of
distinction like that, suppose me to be happy; but I'm wretched. I
suffer for Miss Dombey, Captain Gills. I can't get through my meals; I
have no pleasure in my tailor; I often cry when I'm alone. I assure
you it'll be a satisfaction to me to come back to-morrow, or to come
back fifty times.'
Mr Toots, with these words, shook the Captain's hand; and
disguising such traces of his agitation as could be disguised on so
short a notice, before the Chicken's penetrating glance, rejoined that
eminent gentleman in the shop. The Chicken, who was apt to be jealous
of his ascendancy, eyed Captain Cuttle with anything but favour as he
took leave of Mr Toots, but followed his patron without being
otherwise demonstrative of his ill-will: leaving the Captain oppressed
with sorrow; and Rob the Grinder elevated with joy, on account of
having had the honour of staring for nearly half an hour at the
conqueror of the Nobby Shropshire One.
Long after Rob was fast asleep in his bed under the counter, the
Captain sat looking at the fire; and long after there was no fire to
look at, the Captain sat gazing on the rusty bars, with unavailing
thoughts of Walter and old Sol crowding through his mind. Retirement
to the stormy chamber at the top of the house brought no rest with it;
and the Captain rose up in the morning, sorrowful and unrefreshed.
As soon as the City offices were opened, the Captain issued forth
to the counting-house of Dombey and Son. But there was no opening of
the Midshipman's windows that morning. Rob the Grinder, by the
Captain's orders, left the shutters closed, and the house was as a
house of death.
It chanced that Mr Carker was entering the office, as Captain
Cuttle arrived at the door. Receiving the Manager's benison gravely
and silently, Captain Cuttle made bold to accompany him into his own
room.
'Well, Captain Cuttle,' said Mr Carker, taking up his usual
position before the fireplace, and keeping on his hat, 'this is a bad
business.'
'You have received the news as was in print yesterday, Sir?' said
the Captain.
'Yes,' said Mr Carker, 'we have received it! It was accurately
stated. The underwriters suffer a considerable loss. We are very
sorry. No help! Such is life!'
Mr Carker pared his nails delicately with a penknife, and smiled at
the Captain, who was standing by the door looking at him.
'I excessively regret poor Gay,' said Carker, 'and the crew. I
understand there were some of our very best men among 'em. It always
happens so. Many men with families too. A comfort to reflect that poor
Gay had no family, Captain Cuttle!'
The Captain stood rubbing his chin, and looking at the Manager. The
Manager glanced at the unopened letters lying on his desk, and took up
the newspaper.
'Is there anything I can do for you, Captain Cuttle?' he asked
looking off it, with a smiling and expressive glance at the door.
'I wish you could set my mind at rest, Sir, on something it's
uneasy about,' returned the Captain.
'Ay!' exclaimed the Manager, 'what's that? Come, Captain Cuttle, I
must trouble you to be quick, if you please. I am much engaged.'
'Lookee here, Sir,' said the Captain, advancing a step. 'Afore my
friend Wal'r went on this here disastrous voyage -
'Come, come, Captain Cuttle,' interposed the smiling Manager,
'don't talk about disastrous voyages in that way. We have nothing to
do with disastrous voyages here, my good fellow. You must have begun
very early on your day's allowance, Captain, if you don't remember
that there are hazards in all voyages, whether by sea or land. You are
not made uneasy by the supposition that young what's-his-name was lost
in bad weather that was got up against him in these offices - are you?
Fie, Captain! Sleep, and soda-water, are the best cures for such
uneasiness as that.
'My lad,' returned the Captain, slowly - 'you are a'most a lad to
me, and so I don't ask your pardon for that slip of a word, - if you
find any pleasure in this here sport, you ain't the gentleman I took
you for. And if you ain't the gentleman I took you for, may be my mind
has call to be uneasy. Now this is what it is, Mr Carker. - Afore that
poor lad went away, according to orders, he told me that he warn't a
going away for his own good, or for promotion, he know'd. It was my
belief that he was wrong, and I told him so, and I come here, your
head governor being absent, to ask a question or two of you in a civil
way, for my own satisfaction. Them questions you answered - free. Now
it'll ease my mind to know, when all is over, as it is, and when what
can't be cured must be endoored - for which, as a scholar, you'll
overhaul the book it's in, and thereof make a note - to know once
more, in a word, that I warn't mistaken; that I warn't back'ard in my
duty when I didn't tell the old man what Wal'r told me; and that the
wind was truly in his sail, when he highsted of it for Barbados
Harbour. Mr Carker,' said the Captain, in the goodness of his nature,
'when I was here last, we was very pleasant together. If I ain't been
altogether so pleasant myself this morning, on account of this poor
lad, and if I have chafed again any observation of yours that I might
have fended off, my name is Ed'ard Cuttle, and I ask your pardon.'
'Captain Cuttle,' returned the Manager, with all possible
politeness, 'I must ask you to do me a favour.'
'And what is it, Sir?' inquired the Captain.
'To have the goodness to walk off, if you please,' rejoined the
Manager, stretching forth his arm, 'and to carry your jargon somewhere
else.'
Every knob in the Captain's face turned white with astonishment and
indignation; even the red rim on his forehead faded, like a rainbow
among the gathering clouds.
'I tell you what, Captain Cuttle,' said the Manager, shaking his
forefinger at him, and showing him all his teeth, but still amiably
smiling, 'I was much too lenient with you when you came here before.
You belong to an artful and audacious set of people. In my desire to
save young what's-his-name from being kicked out of this place, neck
and crop, my good Captain, I tolerated you; but for once, and only
once. Now, go, my friend!'
The Captain was absolutely rooted to the ground, and speechless -
'Go,' said the good-humoured Manager, gathering up his skirts, and
standing astride upon the hearth-rug, 'like a sensible fellow, and let
us have no turning out, or any such violent measures. If Mr Dombey
were here, Captain, you might be obliged to leave in a more
ignominious manner, possibly. I merely say, Go!'
The Captain, laying his ponderous hand upon his chest, to assist
himself in fetching a deep breath, looked at Mr Carker from head to
foot, and looked round the little room, as if he did not clearly
understand where he was, or in what company.
'You are deep, Captain Cuttle,' pursued Carker, with the easy and
vivacious frankness of a man of the world who knew the world too well
to be ruffled by any discovery of misdoing, when it did not
immediately concern himself, 'but you are not quite out of soundings,
either - neither you nor your absent friend, Captain. What have you
done with your absent friend, hey?'
Again the Captain laid his hand upon his chest. After drawing
another deep breath, he conjured himself to 'stand by!' But In a
whisper.
'You hatch nice little plots, and hold nice little councils, and
make nice little appointments, and receive nice little visitors, too,
Captain, hey?' said Carker, bending his brows upon him, without
showing his teeth any the less: 'but it's a bold measure to come here
afterwards. Not like your discretion! You conspirators, and hiders,
and runners-away, should know better than that. Will you oblige me by
going?'
'My lad,' gasped the Captain, in a choked and trembling voice, and
with a curious action going on in the ponderous fist; 'there's a many
words I could wish to say to you, but I don't rightly know where
they're stowed just at present. My young friend, Wal'r, was drownded
only last night, according to my reckoning, and it puts me out, you
see. But you and me will come alongside o'one another again, my lad,'
said the Captain, holding up his hook, if we live.'
'It will be anything but shrewd in you, my good fellow, if we do,'
returned the Manager, with the same frankness; 'for you may rely, I
give you fair warning, upon my detecting and exposing you. I don't
pretend to be a more moral man than my neighbours, my good Captain;
but the confidence of this House, or of any member of this House, is
not to be abused and undermined while I have eyes and ears. Good day!'
said Mr Carker, nodding his head.
Captain Cuttle, looking at him steadily (Mr Carker looked full as
steadily at the Captain), went out of the office and left him standing
astride before the fire, as calm and pleasant as if there were no more
spots upon his soul than on his pure white linen, and his smooth sleek
skin.
The Captain glanced, in passing through the outer counting-house,
at the desk where he knew poor Walter had been used to sit, now
occupied by another young boy, with a face almost as fresh and hopeful
as his on the day when they tapped the famous last bottle but one of
the old Madeira, in the little back parlour. The nation of ideas, thus
awakened, did the Captain a great deal of good; it softened him in the
very height of his anger, and brought the tears into his eyes.
Arrived at the wooden Midshipman's again, and sitting down in a
corner of the dark shop, the Captain's indignation, strong as it was,
could make no head against his grief. Passion seemed not only to do
wrong and violence to the memory of the dead, but to be infected by
death, and to droop and decline beside it. All the living knaves and
liars in the world, were nothing to the honesty and truth of one dead
friend.
The only thing the honest Captain made out clearly, in this state
of mind, besides the loss of Walter, was, that with him almost the
whole world of Captain Cuttle had been drowned. If he reproached
himself sometimes, and keenly too, for having ever connived at
Walter's innocent deceit, he thought at least as often of the Mr
Carker whom no sea could ever render up; and the Mr Dombey, whom he
now began to perceive was as far beyond human recall; and the 'Heart's
Delight,' with whom he must never foregather again; and the Lovely
Peg, that teak-built and trim ballad, that had gone ashore upon a
rock, and split into mere planks and beams of rhyme. The Captain sat
in the dark shop, thinking of these things, to the entire exclusion of
his own injury; and looking with as sad an eye upon the ground, as if
in contemplation of their actual fragments, as they floated past
But the Captain was not unmindful, for all that, of such decent and
rest observances in memory of poor Walter, as he felt within his
power. Rousing himself, and rousing Rob the Grinder (who in the
unnatural twilight was fast asleep), the Captain sallied forth with
his attendant at his heels, and the door-key in his pocket, and
repairing to one of those convenient slop-selling establishments of
which there is abundant choice at the eastern end of London, purchased
on the spot two suits of mourning - one for Rob the Grinder, which was
immensely too small, and one for himself, which was immensely too
large. He also provided Rob with a species of hat, greatly to be
admired for its symmetry and usefulness, as well as for a happy
blending of the mariner with the coal-heaver; which is usually termed
a sou'wester; and which was something of a novelty in connexion with
the instrument business. In their several garments, which the vendor
declared to be such a miracle in point of fit as nothing but a rare
combination of fortuitous circumstances ever brought about, and the
fashion of which was unparalleled within the memory of the oldest
inhabitant, the Captain and Grinder immediately arrayed themselves:
presenting a spectacle fraught with wonder to all who beheld it.
In this altered form, the Captain received Mr Toots. 'I'm took
aback, my lad, at present,' said the Captain, 'and will only confirm
that there ill news. Tell the young woman to break it gentle to the
young lady, and for neither of 'em never to think of me no more -
'special, mind you, that is - though I will think of them, when night
comes on a hurricane and seas is mountains rowling, for which overhaul
your Doctor Watts, brother, and when found make a note on."
The Captain reserved, until some fitter time, the consideration of
Mr Toots's offer of friendship, and thus dismissed him. Captain
Cuttle's spirits were so low, in truth, that he half determined, that
day, to take no further precautions against surprise from Mrs
MacStinger, but to abandon himself recklessly to chance, and be
indifferent to what might happen. As evening came on, he fell into a
better frame of mind, however; and spoke much of Walter to Rob the
Grinder, whose attention and fidelity he likewise incidentally
commended. Rob did not blush to hear the Captain earnest in his
praises, but sat staring at him, and affecting to snivel with
sympathy, and making a feint of being virtuous, and treasuring up
every word he said (like a young spy as he was) with very promising
deceit.
When Rob had turned in, and was fast asleep, the Captain trimmed
the candle, put on his spectacles - he had felt it appropriate to take
to spectacles on entering into the Instrument Trade, though his eyes
were like a hawk's - and opened the prayer-book at the Burial Service.
And reading softly to himself, in the little back parlour, and
stopping now and then to wipe his eyes, the Captain, In a true and
simple spirit, committed Walter's body to the deep.
CHAPTER 33.
Contrasts
Turn we our eyes upon two homes; not lying side by side, but wide
apart, though both within easy range and reach of the great city of
London.
The first is situated in the green and wooded country near Norwood.
It is not a mansion; it is of no pretensions as to size; but it is
beautifully arranged, and tastefully kept. The lawn, the soft, smooth
slope, the flower-garden, the clumps of trees where graceful forms of
ash and willow are not wanting, the conservatory, the rustic verandah
with sweet-smelling creeping plants entwined about the pillars, the
simple exterior of the house, the well-ordered offices, though all
upon the diminutive scale proper to a mere cottage, bespeak an amount
of elegant comfort within, that might serve for a palace. This
indication is not without warrant; for, within, it is a house of
refinement and luxury. Rich colours, excellently blended, meet the eye
at every turn; in the furniture - its proportions admirably devised to
suit the shapes and sizes of the small rooms; on the walls; upon the
floors; tingeing and subduing the light that comes in through the odd
glass doors and windows here and there. There are a few choice prints
and pictures too; in quaint nooks and recesses there is no want of
books; and there are games of skill and chance set forth on tables -
fantastic chessmen, dice, backgammon, cards, and billiards.
And yet amidst this opulence of comfort, there is something in the
general air that is not well. Is it that the carpets and the cushions
are too soft and noiseless, so that those who move or repose among
them seem to act by stealth? Is it that the prints and pictures do not
commemorate great thoughts or deeds, or render nature in the Poetry of
landscape, hall, or hut, but are of one voluptuous cast - mere shows
of form and colour - and no more? Is it that the books have all their
gold outside, and that the titles of the greater part qualify them to
be companions of the prints and pictures? Is it that the completeness
and the beauty of the place are here and there belied by an
affectation of humility, in some unimportant and inexpensive regard,
which is as false as the face of the too truly painted portrait
hanging yonder, or its original at breakfast in his easy chair below
it? Or is it that, with the daily breath of that original and master
of all here, there issues forth some subtle portion of himself, which
gives a vague expression of himself to everything about him?
It is Mr Carker the Manager who sits in the easy chair. A gaudy
parrot in a burnished cage upon the table tears at the wires with her
beak, and goes walking, upside down, in its dome-top, shaking her
house and screeching; but Mr Carker is indifferent to the bird, and
looks with a musing smile at a picture on the opposite wall.
'A most extraordinary accidental likeness, certainly,' says he.
Perhaps it is a Juno; perhaps a Potiphar's Wife'; perhaps some
scornful Nymph - according as the Picture Dealers found the market,
when they christened it. It is the figure of a woman, supremely
handsome, who, turning away, but with her face addressed to the
spectator, flashes her proud glance upon him.
It is like Edith.
With a passing gesture of his hand at the picture - what! a menace?
No; yet something like it. A wave as of triumph? No; yet more like
that. An insolent salute wafted from his lips? No; yet like that too -
he resumes his breakfast, and calls to the chafing and imprisoned
bird, who coming down into a pendant gilded hoop within the cage, like
a great wedding-ring, swings in it, for his delight.
The second home is on the other side of London, near to where the
busy great north road of bygone days is silent and almost deserted,
except by wayfarers who toil along on foot. It is a poor small house,
barely and sparely furnished, but very clean; and there is even an
attempt to decorate it, shown in the homely flowers trained about the
porch and in the narrow garden. The neighbourhood in which it stands
has as little of the country to recommend'it, as it has of the town.
It is neither of the town nor country. The former, like the giant in
his travelling boots, has made a stride and passed it, and has set his
brick-and-mortar heel a long way in advance; but the intermediate
space between the giant's feet, as yet, is only blighted country, and
not town; and, here, among a few tall chimneys belching smoke all day
and night, and among the brick-fields and the lanes where turf is cut,
and where the fences tumble down, and where the dusty nettles grow,
and where a scrap or two of hedge may yet be seen, and where the
bird-catcher still comes occasionally, though he swears every time to
come no more - this second home is to be found.'
She who inhabits it, is she who left the first in her devotion to
an outcast brother. She withdrew from that home its redeeming spirit,
and from its master's breast his solitary angel: but though his liking
for her is gone, after this ungrateful slight as he considers it; and
though he abandons her altogether in return, an old idea of her is not
quite forgotten even by him. Let her flower-garden, in which he never
sets his foot, but which is yet maintained, among all his costly
alterations, as if she had quitted it but yesterday, bear witness!
Harriet Carker has changed since then, and on her beauty there has
fallen a heavier shade than Time of his unassisted self can cast,
all-potent as he is - the shadow of anxiety and sorrow, and the daily
struggle of a poor existence. But it is beauty still; and still a
gentle, quiet, and retiring beauty that must be sought out, for it
cannot vaunt itself; if it could, it would be what it is, no more.
Yes. This slight, small, patient figure, neatly dressed in homely
stuffs, and indicating nothing but the dull, household virtues, that
have so little in common with the received idea of heroism and
greatness, unless, indeed, any ray of them should shine through the
lives of the great ones of the earth, when it becomes a constellation
and is tracked in Heaven straightway - this slight, small, patient
figure, leaning on the man still young but worn and grey, is she, his
sister, who, of all the world, went over to him in his shame and put
her hand in his, and with a sweet composure and determination, led him
hopefully upon his barren way.
'It is early, John,' she said. 'Why do you go so early?'
'Not many minutes earlier than usual, Harriet. If I have the time
to spare, I should like, I think - it's a fancy - to walk once by the
house where I took leave of him.'
'I wish I had ever seen or known him, John.'
'It is better as it is, my dear, remembering his fate.'
'But I could not regret it more, though I had known him. Is not
your sorrow mine? And if I had, perhaps you would feel that I was a
better companion to you in speaking about him, than I may seem now.
'My dearest sister! Is there anything within the range of rejoicing
or regret, in which I am not sure of your companionship?'
'I hope you think not, John, for surely there is nothing!'
'How could you be better to me, or nearer to me then, than you are
in this, or anything?' said her brother. 'I feel that you did know
him, Harriet, and that you shared my feelings towards him.'
She drew the hand which had been resting on his shoulder, round his
neck, and answered, with some hesitation:
'No, not quite.'
'True, true!' he said; 'you think I might have done him no harm if
I had allowed myself to know him better?'
'Think! I know it.'
'Designedly, Heaven knows I would not,' he replied, shaking his
head mournfully; 'but his reputation was too precious to be perilled
by such association. Whether you share that knowledge, or do not, my
dear - '
'I do not,' she said quietly.
'It is still the truth, Harriet, and my mind is lighter when I
think of him for that which made it so much heavier then.' He checked
himself in his tone of melancholy, and smiled upon her as he said
'Good-bye!'
'Good-bye, dear John! In the evening, at the old time and place, I
shall meet you as usual on your way home. Good-bye.'
The cordial face she lifted up to his to kiss him, was his home,
his life, his universe, and yet it was a portion of his punishment and
grief; for in the cloud he saw upon it - though serene and calm as any
radiant cloud at sunset - and in the constancy and devotion of her
life, and in the sacrifice she had made of ease, enjoyment, and hope,
he saw the bitter fruits of his old crime, for ever ripe and fresh.
She stood at the door looking after him, with her hands loosely
clasped in each other, as he made his way over the frowzy and uneven
patch of ground which lay before their house, which had once (and not
long ago) been a pleasant meadow, and was now a very waste, with a
disorderly crop of beginnings of mean houses, rising out of the
rubbish, as if they had been unskilfully sown there. Whenever he
looked back - as once or twice he did - her cordial face shone like a
light upon his heart; but when he plodded on his way, and saw her not,
the tears were in her eyes as she stood watching him.
Her pensive form was not long idle at the door. There was daily
duty to discharge, and daily work to do - for such commonplace spirits
that are not heroic, often work hard with their hands - and Harriet
was soon busy with her household tasks. These discharged, and the poor
house made quite neat and orderly, she counted her little stock of
money, with an anxious face, and went out thoughtfully to buy some
necessaries for their table, planning and conniving, as she went, how
to save. So sordid are the lives of such lo natures, who are not only
not heroic to their valets and waiting-women, but have neither valets
nor waiting-women to be heroic to withal!
While she was absent, and there was no one in the house, there
approached it by a different way from that the brother had taken, a
gentleman, a very little past his prime of life perhaps, but of a
healthy florid hue, an upright presence, and a bright clear aspect,
that was gracious and good-humoured. His eyebrows were still black,
and so was much of his hair; the sprinkling of grey observable among
the latter, graced the former very much, and showed his broad frank
brow and honest eyes to great advantage.
After knocking once at the door, and obtaining no response, this
gentleman sat down on a bench in the little porch to wait. A certain
skilful action of his fingers as he hummed some bars, and beat time on
the seat beside him, seemed to denote the musician; and the
extraordinary satisfaction he derived from humming something very slow
and long, which had no recognisable tune, seemed to denote that he was
a scientific one.
The gentleman was still twirlIng a theme, which seemed to go round
and round and round, and in and in and in, and to involve itself like
a corkscrew twirled upon a table, without getting any nearer to
anything, when Harriet appeared returning. He rose up as she advanced,
and stood with his head uncovered.
'You are come again, Sir!' she said, faltering.
'I take that liberty,' he answered. 'May I ask for five minutes of
your leisure?'
After a moment's hesitation, she opened the door, and gave him
admission to the little parlour. The gentleman sat down there, drew
his chair to the table over against her, and said, in a voice that
perfectly corresponded to his appearance, and with a simplicity that
was very engaging:
'Miss Harriet, you cannot be proud. You signified to me, when I
called t'other morning, that you were. Pardon me if I say that I
looked into your face while you spoke, and that it contradicted you. I
look into it again,' he added, laying his hand gently on her arm, for
an instant, 'and it contradicts you more and more.'
She was somewhat confused and agitated, and could make no ready
answer.
'It is the mirror of truth,' said her visitor, 'and gentleness.
Excuse my trusting to it, and returning.'
His manner of saying these words, divested them entirely of the
character of compliments. It was so plain, grave, unaffected, and
sincere, that she bent her head, as if at once to thank him, and
acknowledge his sincerity.
'The disparity between our ages,' said the gentleman, 'and the
plainness of my purpose, empower me, I am glad to think, to speak my
mind. That is my mind; and so you see me for the second time.'
'There is a kind of pride, Sir,' she returned, after a moment's
silence, 'or what may be supposed to be pride, which is mere duty. I
hope I cherish no other.'
'For yourself,' he said.
'For myself.'
'But - pardon me - ' suggested the gentleman. 'For your brother
John?'
'Proud of his love, I am,' said Harriet, looking full upon her
visitor, and changing her manner on the instant - not that it was less
composed and quiet, but that there was a deep impassioned earnestness
in it that made the very tremble in her voice a part of her firmness,
'and proud of him. Sir, you who strangely know the story of his life,
and repeated it to me when you were here last - '
'Merely to make my way into your confidence,' interposed the
gentleman. 'For heaven's sake, don't suppose - '
'I am sure,' she said, 'you revived it, in my hearing, with a kind
and good purpose. I am quite sure of it.'
'I thank you,' returned her visitor, pressing her hand hastily. 'I
am much obliged to you. You do me justice, I assure you. You were
going to say, that I, who know the story of John Carker's life - '
'May think it pride in me,' she continued, 'when I say that I am
proud of him! I am. You know the time was, when I was not - when I
could not be - but that is past. The humility of many years, the
uncomplaining expiation, the true repentance, the terrible regret, the
pain I know he has even in my affection, which he thinks has cost me
dear, though Heaven knows I am happy, but for his sorrow I - oh, Sir,
after what I have seen, let me conjure you, if you are in any place of
power, and are ever wronged, never, for any wrong, inflict a
punishment that cannot be recalled; while there is a GOD above us to
work changes in the hearts He made.'
'Your brother is an altered man,' returned the gentleman,
compassionately. 'I assure you I don't doubt it.'
'He was an altered man when he did wrong,' said Harriet. 'He is an
altered man again, and is his true self now, believe me, Sir.'
'But we go on, said her visitor, rubbing his forehead, in an absent
manner, with his hand, and then drumming thoughtfully on the table,
'we go on in our clockwork routine, from day to day, and can't make
out, or follow, these changes. They - they're a metaphysical sort of
thing. We - we haven't leisure for it. We - we haven't courage.
They're not taught at schools or colleges, and we don't know how to
set about it. In short, we are so d-------d business-like,' said the
gentleman, walking to the window, and back, and sitting down again, in
a state of extreme dissatisfaction and vexation.
'I am sure,' said the gentleman, rubbing his forehead again; and
drumming on the table as before, 'I have good reason to believe that a
jog-trot life, the same from day to day, would reconcile one to
anything. One don't see anything, one don't hear anything, one don't
know anything; that's the fact. We go on taking everything for
granted, and so we go on, until whatever we do, good, bad, or
indifferent, we do from habit. Habit is all I shall have to report,
when I am called upon to plead to my conscience, on my death-bed.
''Habit," says I; ''I was deaf, dumb, blind, and paralytic, to a
million things, from habit." ''Very business-like indeed, Mr
What's-your-name,' says Conscience, ''but it won't do here!"'
The gentleman got up and walked to the window again and back:
seriously uneasy, though giving his uneasiness this peculiar
expression.
'Miss Harriet,' he said, resuming his chair, 'I wish you would let
me serve you. Look at me; I ought to look honest, for I know I am so,
at present. Do I?'
'Yes,' she answered with a smile.
'I believe every word you have said,' he returned. 'I am full of
self-reproach that I might have known this and seen this, and known
you and seen you, any time these dozen years, and that I never have. I
hardly know how I ever got here - creature that I am, not only of my
own habit, but of other people'sl But having done so, let me do
something. I ask it in all honour and respect. You inspire me with
both, in the highest degree. Let me do something.'
'We are contented, Sir.'
'No, no, not quite,' returned the gentleman. 'I think not quite.
There are some little comforts that might smooth your life, and his.
And his!' he repeated, fancying that had made some impression on her.
'I have been in the habit of thinking that there was nothing wanting
to be done for him; that it was all settled and over; in short, of not
thinking at all about it. I am different now. Let me do something for
him. You too,' said the visitor, with careful delicacy, 'have need to
watch your health closely, for his sake, and I fear it fails.'
'Whoever you may be, Sir,' answered Harriet, raising her eyes to
his face, 'I am deeply grateful to you. I feel certain that in all you
say, you have no object in the world but kindness to us. But years
have passed since we began this life; and to take from my brother any
part of what has so endeared him to me, and so proved his better
resolution - any fragment of the merit of his unassisted, obscure, and
forgotten reparation - would be to diminish the comfort it will be to
him and me, when that time comes to each of us, of which you spoke
just now. I thank you better with these tears than any words. Believe
it, pray.
The gentleman was moved, and put the hand she held out, to his
lips, much as a tender father might kiss the hand of a dutiful child.
But more reverently.
'If the day should ever come, said Harriet, 'when he is restored,
in part, to the position he lost - '
'Restored!' cried the gentleman, quickly. 'How can that be hoped
for? In whose hands does the power of any restoration lie? It is no
mistake of mine, surely, to suppose that his having gained the
priceless blessing of his life, is one cause of the animosity shown to
him by his brother.'
'You touch upon a subject that is never breathed between us; not
even between us,' said Harriet.
'I beg your forgiveness,' said the visitor. 'I should have known
it. I entreat you to forget that I have done so, inadvertently. And
now, as I dare urge no more - as I am not sure that I have a right to
do so - though Heaven knows, even that doubt may be habit,' said the
gentleman, rubbing his head, as despondently as before, 'let me;
though a stranger, yet no stranger; ask two favours.'
'What are they?' she inquired.
'The first, that if you should see cause to change your resolution,
you will suffer me to be as your right hand. My name shall then be at
your service; it is useless now, and always insignificant.'
'Our choice of friends,' she answered, smiling faintly, 'is not so
great, that I need any time for consideration. I can promise that.'
'The second, that you will allow me sometimes, say every Monday
morning, at nine o'clock - habit again - I must be businesslike,' said
the gentleman, with a whimsical inclination to quarrel with himself on
that head, 'in walking past, to see you at the door or window. I don't
ask to come in, as your brother will be gone out at that hour. I don't
ask to speak to you. I merely ask to see, for the satisfaction of my
own mind, that you are well, and without intrusion to remind you, by
the sight of me, that you have a friend - an elderly friend,
grey-haired already, and fast growing greyer - whom you may ever
command.'
The cordial face looked up in his; confided in it; and promised.
'I understand, as before,' said the gentleman, rising, 'that you
purpose not to mention my visit to John Carker, lest he should be at
all distressed by my acquaintance with his history. I am glad of it,
for it is out of the ordinary course of things, and - habit again!'
said the gentleman, checking himself impatiently, 'as if there were no
better course than the ordinary course!'
With that he turned to go, and walking, bareheaded, to the outside
of the little porch, took leave of her with such a happy mixture of
unconstrained respect and unaffected interest, as no breeding could
have taught, no truth mistrusted, and nothing but a pure and single
heart expressed.
Many half-forgotten emotions were awakened in the sister's mind by
this visit. It was so very long since any other visitor had crossed
their threshold; it was so very long since any voice of apathy had
made sad music in her ears; that the stranger's figure remained
present to her, hours afterwards, when she sat at the window, plying
her needle; and his words seemed newly spoken, again and again. He had
touched the spring that opened her whole life; and if she lost him for
a short space, it was only among the many shapes of the one great
recollection of which that life was made.
Musing and working by turns; now constraining herself to be steady
at her needle for a long time together, and now letting her work fall,
unregarded, on her lap, and straying wheresoever her busier thoughts
led, Harriet Carker found the hours glide by her, and the day steal
on. The morning, which had been bright and clear, gradually became
overcast; a sharp wind set in; the rain fell heavily; and a dark mist
drooping over the distant town, hid it from the view.
She often looked with compassion, at such a time, upon the
stragglers who came wandering into London, by the great highway hard
by, and who, footsore and weary, and gazing fearfully at the huge town
before them, as if foreboding that their misery there would be but as
a drop of water in the sea, or as a grain of sea-sand on the shore,
went shrinking on, cowering before the angry weather, and looking as
if the very elements rejected them. Day after day, such travellers
crept past, but always, as she thought, In one direction - always
towards the town. Swallowed up in one phase or other of its immensity,
towards which they seemed impelled by a desperate fascination, they
never returned. Food for the hospitals, the churchyards, the prisons,
the river, fever, madness, vice, and death, - they passed on to the
monster, roaring in the distance, and were lost.
The chill wind was howling, and the rain was falling, and the day
was darkening moodily, when Harriet, raising her eyes from the work on
which she had long since been engaged with unremitting constancy, saw
one of these travellers approaching.
A woman. A solitary woman of some thirty years of age; tall;
well-formed; handsome; miserably dressed; the soil of many country
roads in varied weather - dust, chalk, clay, gravel - clotted on her
grey cloak by the streaming wet; no bonnet on her head, nothing to
defend her rich black hair from the rain, but a torn handkerchief;
with the fluttering ends of which, and with her hair, the wind blinded
her so that she often stopped to push them back, and look upon the way
she was going.
She was in the act of doing so, when Harriet observed her. As her
hands, parting on her sunburnt forehead, swept across her face, and
threw aside the hindrances that encroached upon it, there was a
reckless and regardless beauty in it: a dauntless and depraved
indifference to more than weather: a carelessness of what was cast
upon her bare head from Heaven or earth: that, coupled with her misery
and loneliness, touched the heart of her fellow-woman. She thought of
all that was perverted and debased within her, no less than without:
of modest graces of the mind, hardened and steeled, like these
attractions of the person; of the many gifts of the Creator flung to
the winds like the wild hair; of all the beautiful ruin upon which the
storm was beating and the night was coming.
Thinking of this, she did not turn away with a delicate indignation
- too many of her own compassionate and tender sex too often do - but
pitied her.
Her fallen sister came on, looking far before her, trying with her
eager eyes to pierce the mist in which the city was enshrouded, and
glancing, now and then, from side to side, with the bewildered - and
uncertain aspect of a stranger. Though her tread was bold and
courageous, she was fatigued, and after a moment of irresolution, -
sat down upon a heap of stones; seeking no shelter from the rain, but
letting it rain on her as it would.
She was now opposite the house; raising her head after resting it
for a moment on both hands, her eyes met those of Harriet.
In a moment, Harriet was at the door; and the other, rising from
her seat at her beck, came slowly, and with no conciliatory look,
towards her.
'Why do you rest in the rain?' said Harriet, gently.
'Because I have no other resting-place,' was the reply.
'But there are many places of shelter near here. This,' referring
to the little porch, 'is better than where you were. You are very
welcome to rest here.'
The wanderer looked at her, in doubt and surprise, but without any
expression of thankfulness; and sitting down, and taking off one of
her worn shoes to beat out the fragments of stone and dust that were
inside, showed that her foot was cut and bleeding.
Harriet uttering an expression of pity, the traveller looked up
with a contemptuous and incredulous smile.
'Why, what's a torn foot to such as me?' she said. 'And what's a
torn foot in such as me, to such as you?'
'Come in and wash it,' answered Harriet, mildly, 'and let me give
you something to bind it up.'
The woman caught her arm, and drawing it before her own eyes, hid
them against it, and wept. Not like a woman, but like a stern man
surprised into that weakness; with a violent heaving of her breast,
and struggle for recovery, that showed how unusual the emotion was
with her.
She submitted to be led into the house, and, evidently more in
gratitude than in any care for herself, washed and bound the injured
place. Harriet then put before her fragments of her own frugal dinner,
and when she had eaten of them, though sparingly, besought her, before
resuming her road (which she showed her anxiety to do), to dry her
clothes before the fire. Again, more in gratitude than with any
evidence of concern in her own behalf, she sat down in front of it,
and unbinding the handkerchief about her head, and letting her thick
wet hair fall down below her waist, sat drying it with the palms of
her hands, and looking at the blaze.
'I daresay you are thinking,' she said, lifting her head suddenly,
'that I used to be handsome, once. I believe I was - I know I was -
Look here!' She held up her hair roughly with both hands; seizing it
as if she would have torn it out; then, threw it down again, and flung
it back as though it were a heap of serpents.
'Are you a stranger in this place?' asked Harriet.
'A stranger!' she returned, stopping between each short reply, and
looking at the fire. 'Yes. Ten or a dozen years a stranger. I have had
no almanack where I have been. Ten or a dozen years. I don't know this
part. It's much altered since I went away.'
'Have you been far?'
'Very far. Months upon months over the sea, and far away even then.
I have been where convicts go,' she added, looking full upon her
entertainer. 'I have been one myself.'
'Heaven help you and forgive you!' was the gentle answer.
'Ah! Heaven help me and forgive me!' she returned, nodding her head
at the fire. 'If man would help some of us a little more, God would
forgive us all the sooner perhaps.'
But she was softened by the earnest manner, and the cordial face so
full of mildness and so free from judgment, of her, and said, less
hardily:
'We may be about the same age, you and me. If I am older, it is not
above a year or two. Oh think of that!'
She opened her arms, as though the exhibition of her outward form
would show the moral wretch she was; and letting them drop at her
sides, hung down her head.
'There is nothing we may not hope to repair; it is never too late
to amend,' said Harriet. 'You are penitent
'No,' she answered. 'I am not! I can't be. I am no such thing. Why
should I be penitent, and all the world go free? They talk to me of my
penitence. Who's penitent for the wrongs that have been done to me?'
She rose up, bound her handkerchief about her head, and turned to
move away.
'Where are you going?' said Harriet.
'Yonder,' she answered, pointing with her hand. 'To London.'
'Have you any home to go to?'
'I think I have a mother. She's as much a mother, as her dwelling
is a home,' she answered with a bitter laugh.
'Take this,' cried Harriet, putting money in her hand. 'Try to do
well. It is very little, but for one day it may keep you from harm.'
'Are you married?' said the other, faintly, as she took it.
'No. I live here with my brother. We have not much to spare, or I
would give you more.'
'Will you let me kiss you?'
Seeing no scorn or repugnance in her face, the object of her
charity bent over her as she asked the question, and pressed her lips
against her cheek. Once more she caught her arm, and covered her eyes
with it; and then was gone.
Gone into the deepening night, and howling wind, and pelting rain;
urging her way on towards the mist-enshrouded city where the blurred
lights gleamed; and with her black hair, and disordered head-gear,
fluttering round her reckless face.
CHAPTER 34.
Another Mother and Daughter
In an ugly and dark room, an old woman, ugly and dark too, sat
listening to the wind and rain, and crouching over a meagre fire. More
constant to the last-named occupation than the first, she never
changed her attitude, unless, when any stray drops of rain fell
hissing on the smouldering embers, to raise her head with an awakened
attention to the whistling and pattering outside, and gradually to let
it fall again lower and lower and lower as she sunk into a brooding
state of thought, in which the noises of the night were as
indistinctly regarded as is the monotonous rolling of a sea by one who
sits in contemplation on its shore.
There was no light in the room save that which the fire afforded.
Glaring sullenly from time to time like the eye of a fierce beast half
asleep, it revealed no objects that needed to be jealous of a better
display. A heap of rags, a heap of bones, a wretched bed, two or three
mutilated chairs or stools, the black walls and blacker ceiling, were
all its winking brightness shone upon. As the old woman, with a
gigantic and distorted image of herself thrown half upon the wall
behind her, half upon the roof above, sat bending over the few loose
bricks within which it was pent, on the damp hearth of the chimney -
for there was no stove - she looked as if she were watching at some
witch's altar for a favourable token; and but that the movement of her
chattering jaws and trembling chin was too frequent and too fast for
the slow flickering of the fire, it would have seemed an illusion
wrought by the light, as it came and went, upon a face as motionless
as the form to which it belonged.
If Florence could have stood within the room and looked upon the
original of the shadow thrown upon the wall and roof as it cowered
thus over the fire, a glance might have sufficed to recall the figure
of Good Mrs Brown; notwithstanding that her childish recollection of
that terrible old woman was as grotesque and exaggerated a presentment
of the truth, perhaps, as the shadow on the wall. But Florence was not
there to look on; and Good Mrs Brown remained unrecognised, and sat
staring at her fire, unobserved.
Attracted by a louder sputtering than usual, as the rain came
hissing down the chimney in a little stream, the old woman raised her
head, impatiently, to listen afresh. And this time she did not drop it
again; for there was a hand upon the door, and a footstep in the room.
'Who's that?' she said, looking over her shoulder.
'One who brings you news, was the answer, in a woman's voice.
'News? Where from?'
'From abroad.'
'From beyond seas?' cried the old woman, starting up.
'Ay, from beyond seas.'
The old woman raked the fire together, hurriedly, and going close
to her visitor who had entered, and shut the door, and who now stood
in the middle of the room, put her hand upon the drenched cloak, and
turned the unresisting figure, so as to have it in the full light of
the fire. She did not find what she had expected, whatever that might
be; for she let the cloak go again, and uttered a querulous cry of
disappointment and misery.
'What is the matter?' asked her visitor.
'Oho! Oho!' cried the old woman, turning her face upward, with a
terrible howl.
'What is the matter?' asked the visitor again.
'It's not my gal!' cried the old woman, tossing up her arms, and
clasping her hands above her head. 'Where's my Alice? Where's my
handsome daughter? They've been the death of her!'
'They've not been the death of her yet, if your name's Marwood,'
said the visitor.
'Have you seen my gal, then?' cried the old woman. 'Has she wrote
to me?'
'She said you couldn't read,' returned the other.
'No more I can!' exclaimed the old woman, wringing her hands.
'Have you no light here?' said the other, looking round the room.
The old woman, mumbling and shaking her head, and muttering to
herself about her handsome daughter, brought a candle from a cupboard
in the corner, and thrusting it into the fire with a trembling hand,
lighted it with some difficulty and set it on the table. Its dirty
wick burnt dimly at first, being choked in its own grease; and when
the bleared eyes and failing sight of the old woman could distinguish
anything by its light, her visitor was sitting with her arms folded,
her eyes turned downwards, and a handkerchief she had worn upon her
head lying on the table by her side.
'She sent to me by word of mouth then, my gal, Alice?' mumbled the
old woman, after waiting for some moments. 'What did she say?'
'Look,' returned the visitor.
The old woman repeated the word in a scared uncertain way; and,
shading her eyes, looked at the speaker, round the room, and at the
speaker once again.
'Alice said look again, mother;' and the speaker fixed her eyes
upon her.
Again the old woman looked round the room, and at her visitor, and
round the room once more. Hastily seizing the candle, and rising from
her seat, she held it to the visitor's face, uttered a loud cry, set
down the light, and fell upon her neck!
'It's my gal! It's my Alice! It's my handsome daughter, living and
come back!' screamed the old woman, rocking herself to and fro upon
the breast that coldly suffered her embrace. 'It's my gal! It's my
Alice! It's my handsome daughter, living and come back!' she screamed
again, dropping on the floor before her, clasping her knees, laying
her head against them, and still rocking herself to and fro with every
frantic demonstration of which her vitality was capable.
'Yes, mother,' returned Alice, stooping forward for a moment and
kissing her, but endeavouring, even in the act, to disengage herself
from her embrace. 'I am here, at last. Let go, mother; let go. Get up,
and sit in your chair. What good does this do?'
'She's come back harder than she went!' cried the mother, looking
up in her face, and still holding to her knees. 'She don't care for
me! after all these years, and all the wretched life I've led!'
'Why> mother!' said Alice, shaking her ragged skirts to detach the
old woman from them: 'there are two sides to that. There have been
years for me as well as you, and there has been wretchedness for me as
well as you. Get up, get up!'
Her mother rose, and cried, and wrung her hands, and stood at a
little distance gazing on her. Then she took the candle again, and
going round her, surveyed her from head to foot, making a low moaning
all the time. Then she put the candle down, resumed her chair, and
beating her hands together to a kind of weary tune, and rolling
herself from side to side, continued moaning and wailing to herself.
Alice got up, took off her wet cloak, and laid it aside. That done,
she sat down as before, and with her arms folded, and her eyes gazing
at the fire, remained silently listening with a contemptuous face to
her old mother's inarticulate complainings.
'Did you expect to see me return as youthful as I went away,
mother?' she said at length, turning her eyes upon the old woman. 'Did
you think a foreign life, like mine, was good for good looks? One
would believe so, to hear you!'
'It ain't that!' cried the mother. 'She knows it!'
'What is it then?' returned the daughter. 'It had best be something
that don't last, mother, or my way out is easier than my way in.
'Hear that!' exclaimed the mother. 'After all these years she
threatens to desert me in the moment of her coming back again!'
'I tell you, mother, for the second time, there have been years for
me as well as you,' said Alice. 'Come back harder? Of course I have
come back harder. What else did you expect?'
'Harder to me! To her own dear mother!' cried the old woman
'I don't know who began to harden me, if my own dear mother
didn't,' she returned, sitting with her folded arms, and knitted
brows, and compressed lips as if she were bent on excluding, by force,
every softer feeling from her breast. 'Listen, mother, to a word or
two. If we understand each other now, we shall not fall out any more,
perhaps. I went away a girl, and have come back a woman. I went away
undutiful enough, and have come back no better, you may swear. But
have you been very dutiful to me?'
'I!' cried the old woman. 'To my gal! A mother dutiful to her own
child!'
'It sounds unnatural, don't it?' returned the daughter, looking
coldly on her with her stern, regardless, hardy, beautiful face; 'but
I have thought of it sometimes, in the course of my lone years, till I
have got used to it. I have heard some talk about duty first and last;
but it has always been of my duty to other people. I have wondered now
and then - to pass away the time - whether no one ever owed any duty
to me.
Her mother sat mowing, and mumbling, and shaking her head, but
whether angrily or remorsefully, or in denial, or only in her physical
infirmity, did not appear.
'There was a child called Alice Marwood,' said the daughter, with a
laugh, and looking down at herself in terrible derision of herself,
'born, among poverty and neglect, and nursed in it. Nobody taught her,
nobody stepped forward to help her, nobody cared for her.'
'Nobody!' echoed the mother, pointing to herself, and striking her
breast.
'The only care she knew,' returned the daughter, 'was to be beaten,
and stinted, and abused sometimes; and she might have done better
without that. She lived in homes like this, and in the streets, with a
crowd of little wretches like herself; and yet she brought good looks
out of this childhood. So much the worse for her. She had better have
been hunted and worried to death for ugliness.'
'Go on! go on!' exclaimed the mother.
'I am going on,' returned the daughter. 'There was a girl called
Alice Marwood. She was handsome. She was taught too late, and taught
all wrong. She was too well cared for, too well trained, too well
helped on, too much looked after. You were very fond of her - you were
better off then. What came to that girl comes to thousands every year.
It was only ruin, and she was born to it.'
'After all these years!' whined the old woman. 'My gal begins with
this.'
'She'll soon have ended,' said the daughter. 'There was a criminal
called Alice Marwood - a girl still, but deserted and an outcast. And
she was tried, and she was sentenced. And lord, how the gentlemen in
the Court talked about it! and how grave the judge was on her duty,
and on her having perverted the gifts of nature - as if he didn't know
better than anybody there, that they had been made curses to her! -
and how he preached about the strong arm of the Law - so very strong
to save her, when she was an innocent and helpless little wretch! -
and how solemn and religious it all was! I have thought of that, many
times since, to be sure!'
She folded her arms tightly on her breast, and laughed in a tone
that made the howl of the old woman musical.
'So Alice Marwood was transported, mother,' she pursued, 'and was
sent to learn her duty, where there was twenty times less duty, and
more wickedness, and wrong, and infamy, than here. And Alice Marwood
is come back a woman. Such a woman as she ought to be, after all this.
In good time, there will be more solemnity, and more fine talk, and
more strong arm, most likely, and there will be an end of her; but the
gentlemen needn't be afraid of being thrown out of work. There's
crowds of little wretches, boy and girl, growing up in any of the
streets they live in, that'll keep them to it till they've made their
fortunes.'
The old woman leaned her elbows on the table, and resting her face
upon her two hands, made a show of being in great distress - or really
was, perhaps.
'There! I have done, mother,' said the daughter, with a motion of
her head, as if in dismissal of the subject. 'I have said enough.
Don't let you and I talk of being dutiful, whatever we do. Your
childhood was like mine, I suppose. So much the worse for both of us.
I don't want to blame you, or to defend myself; why should I? That's
all over long ago. But I am a woman - not a girl, now - and you and I
needn't make a show of our history, like the gentlemen in the Court.
We know all about it, well enough.'
Lost and degraded as she was, there was a beauty in her, both of
face and form, which, even in its worst expression, could not but be
recognised as such by anyone regarding her with the least attention.
As she subsided into silence, and her face which had been harshly
agitated, quieted down; while her dark eyes, fixed upon the fire,
exchanged the reckless light that had animated them, for one that was
softened by something like sorrow; there shone through all her wayworn
misery and fatigue, a ray of the departed radiance of the fallen
angel.'
Her mother, after watching her for some time without speaking,
ventured to steal her withered hand a little nearer to her across the
table; and finding that she permitted this, to touch her face, and
smooth her hair. With the feeling, as it seemed, that the old woman
was at least sincere in this show of interest, Alice made no movement
to check her; so, advancing by degrees, she bound up her daughter's
hair afresh, took off her wet shoes, if they deserved the name, spread
something dry upon her shoulders, and hovered humbly about her,
muttering to herself, as she recognised her old features and
expression more and more.
'You are very poor, mother, I see,' said Alice, looking round, when
she had sat thus for some time.
'Bitter poor, my deary,' replied the old woman.
She admired her daughter, and was afraid of her. Perhaps her
admiration, such as it was, had originated long ago, when she first
found anything that was beautiful appearing in the midst of the
squalid fight of her existence. Perhaps her fear was referable, in
some sort, to the retrospect she had so lately heard. Be this as it
might, she stood, submissively and deferentially, before her child,
and inclined her head, as if in a pitiful entreaty to be spared any
further reproach.
'How have you lived?'
'By begging, my deary.
'And pilfering, mother?'
'Sometimes, Ally - in a very small way. I am old and timid. I have
taken trifles from children now and then, my deary, but not often. I
have tramped about the country, pet, and I know what I know. I have
watched.'
'Watched?' returned the daughter, looking at her.
'I have hung about a family, my deary,' said the mother, even more
humbly and submissively than before.
'What family?'
'Hush, darling. Don't be angry with me. I did it for the love of
you. In memory of my poor gal beyond seas.' She put out her hand
deprecatingly, and drawing it back again, laid it on her lips.
'Years ago, my deary,' she pursued, glancing timidly at the
attentive and stem face opposed to her, 'I came across his little
child, by chance.'
'Whose child?'
'Not his, Alice deary; don't look at me like that; not his. How
could it be his? You know he has none.'
'Whose then?' returned the daughter. 'You said his.'
'Hush, Ally; you frighten me, deary. Mr Dombey's - only Mr
Dombey's. Since then, darling, I have seen them often. I have seen
him.'
In uttering this last word, the old woman shrunk and recoiled, as
if with sudden fear that her daughter would strike her. But though the
daughter's face was fixed upon her, and expressed the most vehement
passion, she remained still: except that she clenched her arms tighter
and tighter within each other, on her bosom, as if to restrain them by
that means from doing an injury to herself, or someone else, in the
blind fury of the wrath that suddenly possessed her.
'Little he thought who I was!' said the old woman, shaking her
clenched hand.
'And little he cared!' muttered her daughter, between her teeth.
'But there we were, said the old woman, 'face to face. I spoke to
him, and he spoke to me. I sat and watched him as he went away down a
long grove of trees: and at every step he took, I cursed him soul and
body.'
'He will thrive in spite of that,' returned the daughter
disdainfully.
'Ay, he is thriving,' said the mother.
She held her peace; for the face and form before her were unshaped
by rage. It seemed as if the bosom would burst with the emotions that
strove within it. The effort that constrained and held it pent up, was
no less formidable than the rage itself: no less bespeaking the
violent and dangerous character of the woman who made it. But it
succeeded, and she asked, after a silence:
'Is he married?'
'No, deary,' said the mother.
'Going to be?'
'Not that I know of, deary. But his master and friend is married.
Oh, we may give him joy! We may give 'em all joy!' cried the old
woman, hugging herself with her lean arms in her exultation. 'Nothing
but joy to us will come of that marriage. Mind met'
The daughter looked at her for an explanation.
'But you are wet and tired; hungry and thirsty,' said the old
woman, hobbling to the cupboard; 'and there's little here, and little'
- diving down into her pocket, and jingling a few half- pence on the
table - 'little here. Have you any money, Alice, deary?'
The covetous, sharp, eager face, with which she 'asked the question
and looked on, as her daughter took out of her bosom the little gift
she had so lately received, told almost as much of the history of this
parent and child as the child herself had told in words.
'Is that all?' said the mother.
'I have no more. I should not have this, but for charity.'
'But for charity, eh, deary?' said the old woman, bending greedily
over the table to look at the money, which she appeared distrustful of
her daughter's still retaining in her hand, and gazing on. 'Humph! six
and six is twelve, and six eighteen - so - we must make the most of
it. I'll go buy something to eat and drink.'
With greater alacrity than might have been expected in one of her
appearance - for age and misery seemed to have made her as decrepit as
ugly - she began to occupy her trembling hands in tying an old bonnet
on her head, and folding a torn shawl about herself: still eyeing the
money in her daughter's hand, with the same sharp desire.
'What joy is to come to us of this marriage, mother?' asked the
daughter. 'You have not told me that.'
'The joy,' she replied, attiring herself, with fumbling fingers,
'of no love at all, and much pride and hate, my deary. The joy of
confusion and strife among 'em, proud as they are, and of danger -
danger, Alice!'
'What danger?'
'I have seen what I have seen. I know what I know!' chuckled the
mother. 'Let some look to it. Let some be upon their guard. My gal may
keep good company yet!'
Then, seeing that in the wondering earnestness with which her
daughter regarded her, her hand involuntarily closed upon the money,
the old woman made more speed to secure it, and hurriedly added, 'but
I'll go buy something; I'll go buy something.'
As she stood with her hand stretched out before her daughter, her
daughter, glancing again at the money, put it to her lips before
parting with it.
'What, Ally! Do you kiss it?' chuckled the old woman. 'That's like
me - I often do. Oh, it's so good to us!' squeezing her own tarnished
halfpence up to her bag of a throat, 'so good to us in everything but
not coming in heaps!'
'I kiss it, mother,' said the daughter, 'or I did then - I don't
know that I ever did before - for the giver's sake.'
'The giver, eh, deary?' retorted the old woman, whose dimmed eyes
glistened as she took it. 'Ay! I'll kiss it for the giver's sake, too,
when the giver can make it go farther. But I'll go spend it, deary.
I'll be back directly.'
'You seem to say you know a great deal, mother,' said the daughter,
following her to the door with her eyes. 'You have grown very wise
since we parted.'
'Know!' croaked the old woman, coming back a step or two, 'I know
more than you think I know more than he thinks, deary, as I'll tell
you by and bye. I know all'
The daughter smiled incredulously.
'I know of his brother, Alice,' said the old woman, stretching out
her neck with a leer of malice absolutely frightful, 'who might have
been where you have been - for stealing money - and who lives with his
sister, over yonder, by the north road out of London.'
'Where?'
'By the north road out of London, deary. You shall see the house if
you like. It ain't much to boast of, genteel as his own is. No, no,
no,' cried the old woman, shaking her head and laughing; for her
daughter had started up, 'not now; it's too far off; it's by the
milestone, where the stones are heaped; - to-morrow, deary, if it's
fine, and you are in the humour. But I'll go spend - '
'Stop!' and the daughter flung herself upon her, with her former
passion raging like a fire. 'The sister is a fair-faced Devil, with
brown hair?'
The old woman, amazed and terrified, nodded her head.
'I see the shadow of him in her face! It's a red house standing by
itself. Before the door there is a small green porch.'
Again the old woman nodded.
'In which I sat to-day! Give me back the money.'
'Alice! Deary!'
'Give me back the money, or you'll be hurt.'
She forced it from the old woman's hand as she spoke, and utterly
indifferent to her complainings and entreaties, threw on the garments
she had taken off, and hurried out, with headlong speed.
The mother followed, limping after her as she could, and
expostulating with no more effect upon her than upon the wind and rain
and darkness that encompassed them. Obdurate and fierce in her own
purpose, and indifferent to all besides, the daughter defied the
weather and the distance, as if she had known no travel or fatigue,
and made for the house where she had been relieved. After some quarter
of an hour's walking, the old woman, spent and out of breath, ventured
to hold by her skirts; but she ventured no more, and they travelled on
in silence through the wet and gloom. If the mother now and then
uttered a word of complaint, she stifled it lest her daughter should
break away from her and leave her behind; and the daughter was dumb.
It was within an hour or so of midnight, when they left the regular
streets behind them, and entered on the deeper gloom of that neutral
ground where the house was situated. The town lay in the distance,
lurid and lowering; the bleak wind howled over the open space; all
around was black, wild, desolate.
'This is a fit place for me!' said the daughter, stopping to look
back. 'I thought so, when I was here before, to-day.'
'Alice, my deary,' cried the mother, pulling her gently by the
skirt. 'Alice!'
'What now, mother?'
'Don't give the money back, my darling; please don't. We can't
afford it. We want supper, deary. Money is money, whoever gives it.
Say what you will, but keep the money.'
'See there!' was all the daughter's answer. 'That is the house I
mean. Is that it?'
The old woman nodded in the affirmative; and a few more paces
brought them to the threshold. There was the light of fire and candle
in the room where Alice had sat to dry her clothes; and on her
knocking at the door, John Carker appeared from that room.
He was surprised to see such visitors at such an hour, and asked
Alice what she wanted.
'I want your sister,' she said. 'The woman who gave me money
to-day.'
At the sound of her raised voice, Harriet came out.
'Oh!' said Alice. 'You are here! Do you remember me?'
'Yes,' she answered, wondering.
The face that had humbled itself before her, looked on her now with
such invincible hatred and defiance; and the hand that had gently
touched her arm, was clenched with such a show of evil purpose, as if
it would gladly strangle her; that she drew close to her brother for
protection.
'That I could speak with you, and not know you! That I could come
near you, and not feel what blood was running in your veins, by the
tingling of my own!' said Alice, with a menacing gesture.
'What do you mean? What have I done?'
'Done!' returned the other. 'You have sat me by your fire; you have
given me food and money; you have bestowed your compassion on me! You!
whose name I spit upon!'
The old woman, with a malevolence that made her uglIness quite
awful, shook her withered hand at the brother and sister in
confirmation of her daughter, but plucked her by the skirts again,
nevertheless, imploring her to keep the money.
'If I dropped a tear upon your hand, may it wither it up! If I
spoke a gentle word in your hearing, may it deafen you! If I touched
you with my lips, may the touch be poison to you! A curse upon this
roof that gave me shelter! Sorrow and shame upon your head! Ruin upon
all belonging to you!'
As she said the words, she threw the money down upon the ground,
and spurned it with her foot.
'I tread it in the dust: I wouldn't take it if it paved my way to
Heaven! I would the bleeding foot that brought me here to-day, had
rotted off, before it led me to your house!'
Harriet, pale and trembling, restrained her brother, and suffered
her to go on uninterrupted.
'It was well that I should be pitied and forgiven by you, or anyone
of your name, in the first hour of my return! It was well that you
should act the kind good lady to me! I'll thank you when I die; I'll
pray for you, and all your race, you may be sure!'
With a fierce action of her hand, as if she sprinkled hatred on the
ground, and with it devoted those who were standing there to
destruction, she looked up once at the black sky, and strode out into
the wild night.
The mother, who had plucked at her skirts again and again in vain,
and had eyed the money lying on the threshold with an absorbing greed
that seemed to concentrate her faculties upon it, would have prowled
about, until the house was dark, and then groped in the mire on the
chance of repossessing herself of it. But the daughter drew her away,
and they set forth, straight, on their return to their dwelling; the
old woman whimpering and bemoaning their loss upon the road, and
fretfully bewailing, as openly as she dared, the undutiful conduct of
her handsome girl in depriving her of a supper, on the very first
night of their reunion.
Supperless to bed she went, saving for a few coarse fragments; and
those she sat mumbling and munching over a scrap of fire, long after
her undutiful daughter lay asleep.
Were this miserable mother, and this miserable daughter, only the
reduction to their lowest grade, of certain social vices sometimes
prevailing higher up? In this round world of many circles within
circles, do we make a weary journey from the high grade to the low, to
find at last that they lie close together, that the two extremes
touch, and that our journey's end is but our starting-place? Allowing
for great difference of stuff and texture, was the pattern of this
woof repeated among gentle blood at all?
Say, Edith Dombey! And Cleopatra, best of mothers, let us have your
testimony!
CHAPTER 35.
The Happy Pair
The dark blot on the street is gone. Mr Dombey's mansion, if it be
a gap among the other houses any longer, is only so because it is not
to be vied with in its brightness, and haughtily casts them off. The
saying is, that home is home, be it never so homely. If it hold good
in the opposite contingency, and home is home be it never so stately,
what an altar to the Household Gods is raised up here!
Lights are sparkling in the windows this evening, and the ruddy
glow of fires is warm and bright upon the hangings and soft carpets,
and the dinner waits to be served, and the dinner-table is handsomely
set forth, though only for four persons, and the side board is
cumbrous with plate. It is the first time that the house has been
arranged for occupation since its late changes, and the happy pair are
looked for every minute.
Only second to the wedding morning, in the interest and expectation
it engenders among the household, is this evening of the coming home.
Mrs Perch is in the kitchen taking tea; and has made the tour of the
establishment, and priced the silks and damasks by the yard, and
exhausted every interjection in the dictionary and out of it
expressive of admiration and wonder. The upholsterer's foreman, who
has left his hat, with a pocket-handkerchief in it, both smelling
strongly of varnish, under a chair in the hall, lurks about the house,
gazing upwards at the cornices, and downward at the carpets, and
occasionally, in a silent transport of enjoyment, taking a rule out of
his pocket, and skirmishingly measuring expensive objects, with
unutterable feelings. Cook is in high spirits, and says give her a
place where there's plenty of company (as she'll bet you sixpence
there will be now), for she is of a lively disposition, and she always
was from a child, and she don't mind who knows it; which sentiment
elicits from the breast of Mrs Perch a responsive murmur of support
and approbation. All the housemaid hopes is, happiness for 'em - but
marriage is a lottery, and the more she thinks about it, the more she
feels the independence and the safety of a single life. Mr Towlinson
is saturnine and grim' and says that's his opinion too, and give him
War besides, and down with the French - for this young man has a
general impression that every foreigner is a Frenchman, and must be by
the laws of nature.
At each new sound of wheels, they all stop> whatever they are
saying, and listen; and more than once there is a general starting up
and a cry of 'Here they are!' But here they are not yet; and Cook
begins to mourn over the dinner, which has been put back twice, and
the upholsterer's foreman still goes lurking about the rooms,
undisturbed in his blissful reverie!
Florence is ready to receive her father and her new Mama Whether
the emotions that are throbbing in her breast originate In pleasure or
in pain, she hardly knows. But the fluttering heart sends added colour
to her cheeks, and brightness to her eyes; and they say downstairs,
drawing their heads together - for they always speak softly when they
speak of her - how beautiful Miss Florence looks to-night, and what a
sweet young lady she has grown, poor dear! A pause succeeds; and then
Cook, feeling, as president, that her sentiments are waited for,
wonders whether - and there stops. The housemaid wonders too, and so
does Mrs Perch, who has the happy social faculty of always wondering
when other people wonder, without being at all particular what she
wonders at. Mr Towlinson, who now descries an opportunity of bringing
down the spirits of the ladies to his own level, says wait and see; he
wishes some people were well out of this. Cook leads a sigh then, and
a murmur of 'Ah, it's a strange world, it is indeed!' and when it has
gone round the table, adds persuasively, 'but Miss Florence can't well
be the worse for any change, Tom.' Mr Towlinson's rejoinder, pregnant
with frightful meaning, is 'Oh, can't she though!' and sensible that a
mere man can scarcely be more prophetic, or improve upon that, he
holds his peace.
Mrs Skewton, prepared to greet her darling daughter and dear
son-in-law with open arms, is appropriately attired for that purpose
in a very youthful costume, with short sleeves. At present, however,
her ripe charms are blooming in the shade of her own apartments,
whence she had not emerged since she took possession of them a few
hours ago, and where she is fast growing fretful, on account of the
postponement of dinner. The maid who ought to be a skeleton, but is in
truth a buxom damsel, is, on the other hand, In a most amiable state:
considering her quarterly stipend much safer than heretofore, and
foreseeing a great improvement in her board and lodging.
Where are the happy pair, for whom this brave home is waiting? Do
steam, tide, wind, and horses, all abate their speed, to linger on
such happiness? Does the swarm of loves and graces hovering about them
retard their progress by its numbers? Are there so many flowers in
their happy path, that they can scarcely move along, without
entanglement in thornless roses, and sweetest briar?
They are here at last! The noise of wheels is heard, grows louder,
and a carriage drives up to the door! A thundering knock from the
obnoxious foreigner anticipates the rush of Mr Towlinson and party to
open it; and Mr Dombey and his bride alight, and walk in arm in arm.
'My sweetest Edith!' cries an agitated voice upon the stairs. 'My
dearest Dombey!' and the short sleeves wreath themselves about the
happy couple in turn, and embrace them.
Florence had come down to the hall too, but did not advance:
reserving her timid welcome until these nearer and dearer transports
should subside. But the eyes of Edith sought her out, upon the
threshold; and dismissing her sensitive parent with a slight kiss on
the cheek, she hurried on to Florence and embraced her.
'How do you do, Florence?' said Mr Dombey, putting out his hand.
As Florence, trembling, raised it to her lips, she met his glance.
The look was cold and distant enough, but it stirred her heart to
think that she observed in it something more of interest than he had
ever shown before. It even expressed a kind of faint surprise, and not
a disagreeable surprise, at sight of her. She dared not raise her eyes
to his any more; but she felt that he looked at her once again, and
not less favourably. Oh what a thrill of joy shot through her,
awakened by even this intangible and baseless confirmation of her hope
that she would learn to win him, through her new and beautiful Mama!
'You will not be long dressing, Mrs Dombey, I presume?' said Mr
Dombey.
'I shall be ready immediately.'
'Let them send up dinner in a quarter of an hour.'
With that Mr Dombey stalked away to his own dressing-room, and Mrs
Dombey went upstairs to hers. Mrs Skewton and Florence repaired to the
drawing-room, where that excellent mother considered it incumbent on
her to shed a few irrepressible tears, supposed to be forced from her
by her daughter's felicity; and which she was still drying, very
gingerly, with a laced corner of her pocket-handkerchief, when her
son-in-law appeared.
'And how, my dearest Dombey, did you find that delightfullest of
cities, Paris?' she asked, subduing her emotion.
'It was cold,' returned Mr Dombey.
'Gay as ever,' said Mrs Skewton, 'of course.
'Not particularly. I thought it dull,' said Mr Dombey.
'Fie, my dearest Dombey!' archly; 'dull!'
'It made that impression upon me, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, with
grave politeness. 'I believe Mrs Dombey found it dull too. She
mentioned once or twice that she thought it so.'
'Why, you naughty girl!' cried Mrs Skewton, rallying her dear
child, who now entered, 'what dreadfully heretical things have you
been saying about Paris?'
Edith raised her eyebrows with an air of weariness; and passing the
folding-doors which were thrown open to display the suite of rooms in
their new and handsome garniture, and barely glancing at them as she
passed, sat down by Florence.
'My dear Dombey,' said Mrs Skewton, 'how charmingly these people
have carried out every idea that we hinted. They have made a perfect
palace of the house, positively.'
'It is handsome,' said Mr Dombey, looking round. 'I directed that
no expense should be spared; and all that money could do, has been
done, I believe.'
'And what can it not do, dear Dombey?' observed Cleopatra.
'It is powerful, Madam,' said Mr Dombey.
He looked in his solemn way towards his wife, but not a word said
she.
'I hope, Mrs Dombey,' addressing her after a moment's silence, with
especial distinctness; 'that these alterations meet with your
approval?'
'They are as handsome as they can be,' she returned, with haughty
carelessness. 'They should be so, of' course. And I suppose they are.'
An expression of scorn was habitual to the proud face, and seemed
inseparable from it; but the contempt with which it received any
appeal to admiration, respect, or consideration on the ground of his
riches, no matter how slight or ordinary in itself, was a new and
different expression, unequalled in intensity by any other of which it
was capable. Whether Mr Dombey, wrapped in his own greatness, was at
all aware of this, or no, there had not been wanting opportunities
already for his complete enlightenment; and at that moment it might
have been effected by the one glance of the dark eye that lighted on
him, after it had rapidly and scornfully surveyed the theme of his
self-glorification. He might have read in that one glance that nothing
that his wealth could do, though it were increased ten thousand fold,
could win him for its own sake, one look of softened recognition from
the defiant woman, linked to him, but arrayed with her whole soul
against him. He might have read in that one glance that even for its
sordid and mercenary influence upon herself, she spurned it, while she
claimed its utmost power as her right, her bargain - as the base and
worthless recompense for which she had become his wife. He might have
read in it that, ever baring her own head for the lightning of her own
contempt and pride to strike, the most innocent allusion to the power
of his riches degraded her anew, sunk her deeper in her own respect,
and made the blight and waste within her more complete.
But dinner was announced, and Mr Dombey led down Cleopatra; Edith
and his daughter following. Sweeping past the gold and silver
demonstration on the sideboard as if it were heaped-up dirt, and
deigning to bestow no look upon the elegancies around her, she took
her place at his board for the first time, and sat, like a statue, at
the feast.
Mr Dombey, being a good deal in the statue way himself, was well
enough pleased to see his handsome wife immovable and proud and cold.
Her deportment being always elegant and graceful, this as a general
behaviour was agreeable and congenial to him. Presiding, therefore,
with his accustomed dignity, and not at all reflecting on his wife by
any warmth or hilarity of his own, he performed his share of the
honours of the table with a cool satisfaction; and the installation
dinner, though not regarded downstairs as a great success, or very
promising beginning, passed oil, above, in a sufficiently polite,
genteel, and frosty manner.
Soon after tea' Mrs Skewton, who affected to be quite overcome and
worn Out by her emotions of happiness, arising in the contemplation of
her dear child united to the man of her heart, but who, there is
reason to suppose, found this family party somewhat dull, as she
yawned for one hour continually behind her fan, retired to bed. Edith,
also, silently withdrew and came back' no more. Thus, it happened that
Florence, who had been upstairs to have some conversation with
Diogenes, returning to the drawing-room with her little work-basket,
found no one there but her father, who was walking to and fro, in
dreary magnificence.
'I beg your pardon. Shall I go away, Papa?' said Florence faintly,
hesitating at the door.
'No,' returned Mr Dombey, looking round over his shoulder; you can
come and go here, Florence, as you please. This is not my private
room.
Florence entered, and sat down at a distant little table with her
work: finding herself for the first time in her life - for the very
first time within her memory from her infancy to that hour - alone
with her father, as his companion. She, his natural companion, his
only child, who in her lonely life and grief had known the suffering
of a breaking heart; who, in her rejected love, had never breathed his
name to God at night, but with a tearful blessing, heavier on him than
a curse; who had prayed to die young, so she might only die in his
arms; who had, all through, repaid the agony of slight and coldness,
and dislike, with patient unexacting love, excusing him, and pleading
for him, like his better angel!
She trembled, and her eyes were dim. His figure seemed to grow in
height and bulk before her as he paced the room: now it was all
blurred and indistinct; now clear again, and plain; and now she seemed
to think that this had happened, just the same, a multitude of years
ago. She yearned towards him, and yet shrunk from his approach.
Unnatural emotion in a child, innocent of wrong! Unnatural the hand
that had directed the sharp plough, which furrowed up her gentle
nature for the sowing of its seeds!
Bent upon not distressing or offending him by her distress,
Florence controlled herself, and sat quietly at her work. After a few
more turns across and across the room, he left off pacing it; and
withdrawing into a shadowy corner at some distance, where there was an
easy chair, covered his head with a handkerchief, and composed himself
to sleep.
It was enough for Florence to sit there watching him; turning her
eyes towards his chair from time to time; watching him with her
thoughts, when her face was intent upon her work; and sorrowfully glad
to think that he could sleep, while she was there, and that he was not
made restless by her strange and long-forbidden presence.
What would have been her thoughts if she had known that he was
steadily regarding her; that the veil upon his face, by accident or by
design, was so adjusted that his sight was free, and that itnever
wandered from her face face an instant That when she looked towards
him' In the obscure dark corner, her speaking eyes, more earnest and
pathetic in their voiceless speech than all the orators of all the
world, and impeaching him more nearly in their mute address, met his,
and did not know it! That when she bent her head again over her work,
he drew his breath more easily, but with the same attention looked
upon her still - upon her white brow and her falling hair, and busy
hands; and once attracted, seemed to have no power to turn his eyes
away!
And what were his thoughts meanwhile? With what emotions did he
prolong the attentive gaze covertly directed on his unknown daughter?
Was there reproach to him in the quiet figure and the mild eyes? Had
he begun to her disregarded claims and did they touch him home at
last, and waken him to some sense of his cruel injustice?
There are yielding moments in the lives of the sternest and
harshest men, though such men often keep their secret well. The sight
ofher in her beauty, almost changed into a woman without his
knowledge, may have struck out some such moments even In his life of
pride. Some passing thought that he had had a happy home within his
reach-had had a household spirit bending at has feet - had overlooked
it in his stiffnecked sullen arrogance, and wandered away and lost
himself, may have engendered them. Some simple eloquence distinctly
heard, though only uttered in her eyes, unconscious that he read them'
as'By the death-beds I have tended, by the childhood I have suffered,
by our meeting in this dreary house at midnight, by the cry wrung from
me in the anguish of my heart, oh, father, turn to me and seek a
refuge in my love before it is too late!' may have arrested them.
Meaner and lower thoughts, as that his dead boy was now superseded by
new ties, and he could forgive the having been supplanted in his
affection, may have occasioned them. The mere association of her as an
ornament, with all the ornament and pomp about him, may have been
sufficient. But as he looked, he softened to her, more and more. As he
looked, she became blended with the child he had loved, and he could
hardly separate the two. As he looked, he saw her for an instant by a
clearer and a brighter light, not bending over that child's pillow as
his rival - monstrous thought - but as the spirit of his home, and in
the action tending himself no less, as he sat once more with his
bowed-down head upon his hand at the foot of the little bed. He felt
inclined to speak to her, and call her to him. The words 'Florence,
come here!' were rising to his lips - but slowly and with difficulty,
they were so very strange - when they were checked and stifled by a
footstep on the stair.
It was his wife's. She had exchanged her dinner dress for a loose
robe, and unbound her hair, which fell freely about her neck. But this
was not the change in her that startled him.
'Florence, dear,' she said, 'I have been looking for you
everywhere.'
As she sat down by the side of Florence, she stooped and kissed her
hand. He hardly knew his wife. She was so changed. It was not merely
that her smile was new to him - though that he had never seen; but her
manner, the tone of her voice, the light of her eyes, the interest,
and confidence, and winning wish to please, expressed in all-this was
not Edith.
'Softly, dear Mama. Papa is asleep.'
It was Edith now. She looked towards the corner where he was, and
he knew that face and manner very well.
'I scarcely thought you could be here, Florence.'
Again, how altered and how softened, in an instant!
'I left here early,' pursued Edith, 'purposely to sit upstairs and
talk with you. But, going to your room, I found my bird was flown, and
I have been waiting there ever since, expecting its return.
If it had been a bird, indeed, she could not have taken it more
tenderly and gently to her breast, than she did Florence.
'Come, dear!'
'Papa will not expect to find me, I suppose, when he wakes,'
hesitated Florence.
'Do you think he will, Florence?' said Edith, looking full upon
her.
Florence drooped her head, and rose, and put up her work-basket
Edith drew her hand through her arm, and they went out of the room
like sisters. Her very step was different and new to him' Mr Dombey
thought, as his eyes followed her to the door.
He sat in his shadowy corner so long, that the church clocks struck
the hour three times before he moved that night. All that while his
face was still intent upon the spot where Florence had been seated.
The room grew darker, as the candles waned and went out; but a
darkness gathered on his face, exceeding any that the night could
cast, and rested there.
Florence and Edith, seated before the fire in the remote room where
little Paul had died, talked together for a long time. Diogenes, who
was of the party, had at first objected to the admission of Edith,
and, even In deference to his mistress's wish, had only permitted it
under growling protest. But, emerging by little and little from the
ante-room, whither he had retired in dudgeon, he soon appeared to
comprehend, that with the most amiable intentions he had made one of
those mistakes which will occasionally arise in the best-regulated
dogs' minds; as a friendly apology for which he stuck himself up on
end between the two, in a very hot place in front of the fire, and sat
panting at it, with his tongue out, and a most imbecile expression of
countenance, listening to the conversation.
It turned, at first, on Florence's books and favourite pursuits,
and on the manner in which she had beguiled the interval since the
marriage. The last theme opened up to her a subject which lay very
near her heart, and she said, with the tears starting to her eyes:
'Oh, Mama! I have had a great sorrow since that day.'
'You a great sorrow, Florence!'
'Yes. Poor Walter is drowned.'
Florence spread her hands before her face, and wept with all her
heart. Many as were the secret tears which Walter's fate had cost her,
they flowed yet, when she thought or spoke of him.
'But tell me, dear,' said Edith, soothing her. 'Who was Walter?
What was he to you?'
'He was my brother, Mama. After dear Paul died, we said we would be
brother and sister. I had known him a long time - from a little child.
He knew Paul, who liked him very much; Paul said, almost at the last,
"Take care of Walter, dear Papa! I was fond of him!" Walter had been
brought in to see him, and was there then - in this room.
'And did he take care of Walter?' inquired Edith, sternly.
'Papa? He appointed him to go abroad. He was drowned in shipwreck
on his voyage,' said Florence, sobbing.
'Does he know that he is dead?' asked Edith.
'I cannot tell, Mama. I have no means of knowing. Dear Mama!' cried
Florence, clinging to her as for help, and hiding her face upon her
bosom, 'I know that you have seen - '
'Stay! Stop, Florence.' Edith turned so pale, and spoke so
earnestly, that Florence did not need her restraining hand upon her
lips. 'Tell me all about Walter first; let me understand this history
all through.'
Florence related it, and everything belonging to it, even down to
the friendship of Mr Toots, of whom she could hardly speak in her
distress without a tearful smile, although she was deeply grateful to
him. When she had concluded her account, to the whole of which Edith,
holding her hand, listened with close attention, and when a silence
had succeeded, Edith said:
'What is it that you know I have seen, Florence?'
'That I am not,' said Florence, with the same mute appeal, and the
same quick concealment of her face as before, 'that I am not a
favourite child, Mama. I never have been. I have never known how to
be. I have missed the way, and had no one to show it to me. Oh, let me
learn from you how to become dearer to Papa Teach me! you, who can so
well!' and clinging closer to her, with some broken fervent words of
gratitude and endearment, Florence, relieved of her sad secret, wept
long, but not as painfully as of yore, within the encircling arms of
her new mother.
Pale even to her lips, and with a face that strove for composure
until its proud beauty was as fixed as death, Edith looked down upon
the weeping girl, and once kissed her. Then gradually disengaging
herself, and putting Florence away, she said, stately, and quiet as a
marble image, and in a voice that deepened as she spoke, but had no
other token of emotion in it:
'Florence, you do not know me! Heaven forbid that you should learn
from me!'
'Not learn from you?' repeated Florence, in surprise.
'That I should teach you how to love, or be loved, Heaven forbid!'
said Edith. 'If you could teach me, that were better; but it is too
late. You are dear to me, Florence. I did not think that anything
could ever be so dear to me, as you are in this little time.'
She saw that Florence would have spoken here, so checked her with
her hand, and went on.
'I will be your true friend always. I will cherish you, as much, if
not as well as anyone in this world could. You may trust in me - I
know it and I say it, dear, - with the whole confidence even of your
pure heart. There are hosts of women whom he might have married,
better and truer in all other respects than I am, Florence; but there
is not one who could come here, his wife, whose heart could beat with
greater truth to you than mine does.'
'I know it, dear Mama!' cried Florence. 'From that first most happy
day I have known it.'
'Most happy day!' Edith seemed to repeat the words involuntarily,
and went on. 'Though the merit is not mine, for I thought little of
you until I saw you, let the undeserved reward be mine in your trust
and love. And in this - in this, Florence; on the first night of my
taking up my abode here; I am led on as it is best I should be, to say
it for the first and last time.'
Florence, without knowing why, felt almost afraid to hear her
proceed, but kept her eyes riveted on the beautiful face so fixed upon
her own.
'Never seek to find in me,' said Edith, laying her hand upon her
breast, 'what is not here. Never if you can help it, Florence, fall
off from me because it is not here. Little by little you will know me
better, and the time will come when you will know me, as I know
myself. Then, be as lenient to me as you can, and do not turn to
bitterness the only sweet remembrance I shall have.
The tears that were visible in her eyes as she kept them fixed on
Florence, showed that the composed face was but as a handsome mask;
but she preserved it, and continued:
'I have seen what you say, and know how true it is. But believe me
- you will soon, if you cannot now - there is no one on this earth
less qualified to set it right or help you, Florence, than I. Never
ask me why, or speak to me about it or of my husband, more. There
should be, so far, a division, and a silence between us two, like the
grave itself.'
She sat for some time silent; Florence scarcely venturing to
breathe meanwhile, as dim and imperfect shadows of the truth, and all
its daily consequences, chased each other through her terrified, yet
incredulous imagination. Almost as soon as she had ceased to speak,
Edith's face began to subside from its set composure to that quieter
and more relenting aspect, which it usually wore when she and Florence
were alone together. She shaded it, after this change, with her hands;
and when she arose, and with an affectionate embrace bade Florence
good-night, went quickly, and without looking round.
But when Florence was in bed, and the room was dark except for the
glow of the fire, Edith returned, and saying that she could not sleep,
and that her dressing-room was lonely, drew a chair upon the hearth,
and watched the embers as they died away. Florence watched them too
from her bed, until they, and the noble figure before them, crowned
with its flowing hair, and in its thoughtful eyes reflecting back
their light, became confused and indistinct, and finally were lost in
slumber.
In her sleep, however, Florence could not lose an undefined
impression of what had so recently passed. It formed the subject of
her dreams, and haunted her; now in one shape, now in another; but
always oppressively; and with a sense of fear. She dreamed of seeking
her father in wildernesses, of following his track up fearful heights,
and down into deep mines and caverns; of being charged with something
that would release him from extraordinary suffering - she knew not
what, or why - yet never being able to attain the goal and set him
free. Then she saw him dead, upon that very bed, and in that very
room, and knew that he had never loved her to the last, and fell upon
his cold breast, passionately weeping. Then a prospect opened, and a
river flowed, and a plaintive voice she knew, cried, 'It is running
on, Floy! It has never stopped! You are moving with it!' And she saw
him at a distance stretching out his arms towards her, while a figure
such as Walter's used to be, stood near him, awfully serene and still.
In every vision, Edith came and went, sometimes to her joy, sometimes
to her sorrow, until they were alone upon the brink of a dark grave,
and Edith pointing down, she looked and saw - what! - another Edith
lying at the bottom.
In the terror of this dream, she cried out and awoke, she thought.
A soft voice seemed to whisper in her ear, 'Florence, dear Florence,
it is nothing but a dream!' and stretching out her arms, she returned
the caress of her new Mama, who then went out at the door in the light
of the grey morning. In a moment, Florence sat up wondering whether
this had really taken place or not; but she was only certain that it
was grey morning indeed, and that the blackened ashes of the fire were
on the hearth, and that she was alone.
So passed the night on which the happy pair came home.
CHAPTER 36.
Housewarming
Many succeeding days passed in like manner; except that there were
numerous visits received and paid, and that Mrs Skewton held little
levees in her own apartments, at which Major Bagstock was a frequent
attendant, and that Florence encountered no second look from her
father, although she saw him every day. Nor had she much communication
in words with her new Mama, who was imperious and proud to all the
house but her - Florence could not but observe that - and who,
although she always sent for her or went to her when she came home
from visiting, and would always go into her room at night, before
retiring to rest, however late the hour, and never lost an opportunity
of being with her, was often her silent and thoughtful companion for a
long time together.
Florence, who had hoped for so much from this marriage, could not
help sometimes comparing the bright house with the faded dreary place
out of which it had arisen, and wondering when, in any shape, it would
begin to be a home; for that it was no home then, for anyone, though
everything went on luxuriously and regularly, she had always a secret
misgiving. Many an hour of sorrowful reflection by day and night, and
many a tear of blighted hope, Florence bestowed upon the assurance her
new Mama had given her so strongly, that there was no one on the earth
more powerless than herself to teach her how to win her father's
heart. And soon Florence began to think - resolved to think would be
the truer phrase - that as no one knew so well, how hopeless of being
subdued or changed her father's coldness to her was, so she had given
her this warning, and forbidden the subject in very compassion.
Unselfish here, as in her every act and fancy, Florence preferred to
bear the pain of this new wound, rather than encourage any faint
foreshadowings of the truth as it concerned her father; tender of him,
even in her wandering thoughts. As for his home, she hoped it would
become a better one, when its state of novelty and transition should
be over; and for herself, thought little and lamented less.
If none of the new family were particularly at home in private, it
was resolved that Mrs Dombey at least should be at home in public,
without delay. A series of entertainments in celebration of the late
nuptials, and in cultivation of society, were arranged, chiefly by Mr
Dombey and Mrs Skewton; and it was settled that the festive
proceedings should commence by Mrs Dombey's being at home upon a
certain evening, and by Mr and Mrs Dombey's requesting the honour of
the company of a great many incongruous people to dinner on the same
day.
Accordingly, Mr Dombey produced a list of sundry eastern magnates
who were to be bidden to this feast on his behalf; to which Mrs
Skewton, acting for her dearest child, who was haughtily careless on
the subject, subjoined a western list, comprising Cousin Feenix, not
yet returned to Baden-Baden, greatly to the detriment of his personal
estate; and a variety of moths of various degrees and ages, who had,
at various times, fluttered round the light of her fair daughter, or
herself, without any lasting injury to their wings. Florence was
enrolled as a member of the dinner-party, by Edith's command -
elicited by a moment's doubt and hesitation on the part of Mrs
Skewton; and Florence, with a wondering heart, and with a quick
instinctive sense of everything that grated on her father in the
least, took her silent share in the proceedings of the day.
The proceedings commenced by Mr Dombey, in a cravat of
extraordinary height and stiffness, walking restlessly about the
drawing-room until the hour appointed for dinner; punctual to which,
an East India Director,' of immense wealth, in a waistcoat apparently
constructed in serviceable deal by some plain carpenter, but really
engendered in the tailor's art, and composed of the material called
nankeen, arrived and was received by Mr Dombey alone. The next stage
of the proceedings was Mr Dombey's sending his compliments to Mrs
Dombey, with a correct statement of the time; and the next, the East
India Director's falling prostrate, in a conversational point of view,
and as Mr Dombey was not the man to pick him up, staring at the fire
until rescue appeared in the shape of Mrs Skewton; whom the director,
as a pleasant start in life for the evening, mistook for Mrs Dombey,
and greeted with enthusiasm.
The next arrival was a Bank Director, reputed to be able to buy up
anything - human Nature generally, if he should take it in his head to
influence the money market in that direction - but who was a
wonderfully modest-spoken man, almost boastfully so, and mentioned his
'little place' at Kingston-upon-Thames, and its just being barely
equal to giving Dombey a bed and a chop, if he would come and visit
it. Ladies, he said, it was not for a man who lived in his quiet way
to take upon himself to invite - but if Mrs Skewton and her daughter,
Mrs Dombey, should ever find themselves in that direction, and would
do him the honour to look at a little bit of a shrubbery they would
find there, and a poor little flower-bed or so, and a humble apology
for a pinery, and two or three little attempts of that sort without
any pretension, they would distinguish him very much. Carrying out his
character, this gentleman was very plainly dressed, in a wisp of
cambric for a neckcloth, big shoes, a coat that was too loose for him,
and a pair of trousers that were too spare; and mention being made of
the Opera by Mrs Skewton, he said he very seldom went there, for he
couldn't afford it. It seemed greatly to delight and exhilarate him to
say so: and he beamed on his audience afterwards, with his hands in
his pockets, and excessive satisfaction twinkling in his eyes.
Now Mrs Dombey appeared, beautiful and proud, and as disdainful and
defiant of them all as if the bridal wreath upon her head had been a
garland of steel spikes put on to force concession from her which she
would die sooner than yield. With her was Florence. When they entered
together, the shadow of the night of the return again darkened Mr
Dombey's face. But unobserved; for Florence did not venture to raise
her eyes to his, and Edith's indifference was too supreme to take the
least heed of him.
The arrivals quickly became numerous. More directors, chairmen of
public companies, elderly ladies carrying burdens on their heads for
full dress, Cousin Feenix, Major Bagstock, friends of Mrs Skewton,
with the same bright bloom on their complexion, and very precious
necklaces on very withered necks. Among these, a young lady of
sixty-five, remarkably coolly dressed as to her back and shoulders,
who spoke with an engaging lisp, and whose eyelids wouldn't keep up
well, without a great deal of trouble on her part, and whose manners
had that indefinable charm which so frequently attaches to the
giddiness of youth. As the greater part of Mr Dombey's list were
disposed to be taciturn, and the greater part of Mrs Dombey's list
were disposed to be talkative, and there was no sympathy between them,
Mrs Dombey's list, by magnetic agreement, entered into a bond of union
against Mr Dombey's list, who, wandering about the rooms in a desolate
manner, or seeking refuge in corners, entangled themselves with
company coming in, and became barricaded behind sofas, and had doors
opened smartly from without against their heads, and underwent every
sort of discomfiture.
When dinner was announced, Mr Dombey took down an old lady like a
crimson velvet pincushion stuffed with bank notes, who might have been
the identical old lady of Threadneedle Street, she was so rich, and
looked so unaccommodating; Cousin Feenix took down Mrs Dombey; Major
Bagstock took down Mrs Skewton; the young thing with the shoulders was
bestowed, as an extinguisher, upon the East India Director; and the
remaining ladies were left on view in the drawing-room by the
remaining gentlemen, until a forlorn hope volunteered to conduct them
downstairs, and those brave spirits with their captives blocked up the
dining-room door, shutting out seven mild men in the stony-hearted
hall. When all the rest were got in and were seated, one of these mild
men still appeared, in smiling confusion, totally destitute and
unprovided for, and, escorted by the butler, made the complete circuit
of the table twice before his chair could be found, which it finally
was, on Mrs Dombey's left hand; after which the mild man never held up
his head again.
Now, the spacious dining-room, with the company seated round the
glittering table, busy with their glittering spoons, and knives and
forks, and plates, might have been taken for a grown-up exposition of
Tom Tiddler's ground, where children pick up gold and silver.' Mr
Dombey, as Tiddler, looked his character to admiration; and the long
plateau of precious metal frosted, separating him from Mrs Dombey,
whereon frosted Cupids offered scentless flowers to each of them, was
allegorical to see.
Cousin Feenix was in great force, and looked astonishingly young.
But he was sometimes thoughtless in his good humour - his memory
occasionally wandering like his legs - and on this occasion caused the
company to shudder. It happened thus. The young lady with the back,
who regarded Cousin Feenix with sentiments of tenderness, had
entrapped the East India Director into leading her to the chair next
him; in return for which good office, she immediately abandoned the
Director, who, being shaded on the other side by a gloomy black velvet
hat surmounting a bony and speechless female with a fan, yielded to a
depression of spirits and withdrew into himself. Cousin Feenix and the
young lady were very lively and humorous, and the young lady laughed
so much at something Cousin Feenix related to her, that Major Bagstock
begged leave to inquire on behalf of Mrs Skewton (they were sitting
opposite, a little lower down), whether that might not be considered
public property.
'Why, upon my life,' said Cousin Feenix, 'there's nothing in it; it
really is not worth repeating: in point of fact, it's merely an
anecdote of Jack Adams. I dare say my friend Dombey;' for the general
attention was concentrated on Cousin Feenix; 'may remember Jack Adams,
Jack Adams, not Joe; that was his brother. Jack - little Jack - man
with a cast in his eye, and slight impediment in his speech - man who
sat for somebody's borough. We used to call him in my parliamentary
time W. P. Adams, in consequence of his being Warming Pan for a young
fellow who was in his minority. Perhaps my friend Dombey may have
known the man?'
Mr Dombey, who was as likely to have known Guy Fawkes, replied in
the negative. But one of the seven mild men unexpectedly leaped into
distinction, by saying he had known him, and adding - 'always wore
Hessian boots!'
'Exactly,' said Cousin Feenix, bending forward to see the mild man,
and smile encouragement at him down the table. 'That was Jack. Joe
wore - '
'Tops!' cried the mild man, rising in public estimation every
Instant.
'Of course,' said Cousin Feenix, 'you were intimate with em?'
'I knew them both,' said the mild man. With whom Mr Dombey
immediately took wine.
'Devilish good fellow, Jack!' said Cousin Feenix, again bending
forward, and smiling.
'Excellent,' returned the mild man, becoming bold on his success.
'One of the best fellows I ever knew.'
'No doubt you have heard the story?' said Cousin Feenix.
'I shall know,' replied the bold mild man, 'when I have heard your
Ludship tell it.' With that, he leaned back in his chair and smiled at
the ceiling, as knowing it by heart, and being already tickled.
'In point of fact, it's nothing of a story in itself,' said Cousin
Feenix, addressing the table with a smile, and a gay shake of his
head, 'and not worth a word of preface. But it's illustrative of the
neatness of Jack's humour. The fact is, that Jack was invited down to
a marriage - which I think took place in Berkshire?'
'Shropshire,' said the bold mild man, finding himself appealed to.
'Was it? Well! In point of fact it might have been in any shire,'
said Cousin Feenix. 'So my friend being invited down to this marriage
in Anyshire,' with a pleasant sense of the readiness of this joke,
'goes. Just as some of us, having had the honour of being invited to
the marriage of my lovely and accomplished relative with my friend
Dombey, didn't require to be asked twice, and were devilish glad to be
present on so interesting an occasion. - Goes - Jack goes. Now, this
marriage was, in point of fact, the marriage of an uncommonly fine
girl with a man for whom she didn't care a button, but whom she
accepted on account of his property, which was immense. When Jack
returned to town, after the nuptials, a man he knew, meeting him in
the lobby of the House of Commons, says, "Well, Jack, how are the
ill-matched couple?" "Ill-matched," says Jack "Not at all. It's a
perfectly and equal transaction. She is regularly bought, and you may
take your oath he is as regularly sold!"'
In his full enjoyment of this culminating point of his story, the
shudder, which had gone all round the table like an electric spark,
struck Cousin Feenix, and he stopped. Not a smile occasioned by the
only general topic of conversation broached that day, appeared on any
face. A profound silence ensued; and the wretched mild man, who had
been as innocent of any real foreknowledge of the story as the child
unborn, had the exquisite misery of reading in every eye that he was
regarded as the prime mover of the mischief.
Mr Dombey's face was not a changeful one, and being cast in its
mould of state that day, showed little other apprehension of the
story, if any, than that which he expressed when he said solemnly,
amidst the silence, that it was 'Very good.' There was a rapid glance
from Edith towards Florence, but otherwise she remained, externally,
impassive and unconscious.
Through the various stages of rich meats and wines, continual gold
and silver, dainties of earth, air, fire, and water, heaped-up fruits,
and that unnecessary article in Mr Dombey's banquets - ice- the dinner
slowly made its way: the later stages being achieved to the sonorous
music of incessant double knocks, announcing the arrival of visitors,
whose portion of the feast was limited to the smell thereof. When Mrs
Dombey rose, it was a sight to see her lord, with stiff throat and
erect head, hold the door open for the withdrawal of the ladies; and
to see how she swept past him with his daughter on her arm.
Mr Dombey was a grave sight, behind the decanters, in a state of
dignity; and the East India Director was a forlorn sight near the
unoccupied end of the table, in a state of solitude; and the Major was
a military sight, relating stories of the Duke of York to six of the
seven mild men (the ambitious one was utterly quenched); and the Bank
Director was a lowly sight, making a plan of his little attempt at a
pinery, with dessert-knives, for a group of admirers; and Cousin
Feenix was a thoughtful sight, as he smoothed his long wristbands and
stealthily adjusted his wig. But all these sights were of short
duration, being speedily broken up by coffee, and the desertion of the
room.
There was a throng in the state-rooms upstairs, increasing every
minute; but still Mr Dombey's list of visitors appeared to have some
native impossibility of amalgamation with Mrs Dombey's list, and no
one could have doubted which was which. The single exception to this
rule perhaps was Mr Carker, who now smiled among the company, and who,
as he stood in the circle that was gathered about Mrs Dombey -
watchful of her, of them, his chief, Cleopatra and the Major,
Florence, and everything around - appeared at ease with both divisions
of guests, and not marked as exclusively belonging to either.
Florence had a dread of him, which made his presence in the room a
nightmare to her. She could not avoid the recollection of it, for her
eyes were drawn towards him every now and then, by an attraction of
dislike and distrust that she could not resist. Yet her thoughts were
busy with other things; for as she sat apart - not unadmired or
unsought, but in the gentleness of her quiet spirit - she felt how
little part her father had in what was going on, and saw, with pain,
how ill at ease he seemed to be, and how little regarded he was as he
lingered about near the door, for those visitors whom he wished to
distinguish with particular attention, and took them up to introduce
them to his wife, who received them with proud coldness, but showed no
interest or wish to please, and never, after the bare ceremony of
reception, in consultation of his wishes, or in welcome of his
friends, opened her lips. It was not the less perplexing or painful to
Florence, that she who acted thus, treated her so kindly and with such
loving consideration, that it almost seemed an ungrateful return on
her part even to know of what was passing before her eyes.
Happy Florence would have been, might she have ventured to bear her
father company, by so much as a look; and happy Florence was, in
little suspecting the main cause of his uneasiness. But afraid of
seeming to know that he was placed at any did advantage, lest he
should be resentful of that knowledge; and divided between her impulse
towards him, and her grateful affection for Edith; she scarcely dared
to raise her eyes towards either. Anxious and unhappy for them both,
the thought stole on her through the crowd, that it might have been
better for them if this noise of tongues and tread of feet had never
come there, - if the old dulness and decay had never been replaced by
novelty and splendour, - if the neglected child had found no friend in
Edith, but had lived her solitary life, unpitied and forgotten.
Mrs Chick had some such thoughts too, but they were not so quietly
developed in her mind. This good matron had been outraged in the first
instance by not receiving an invitation to dinner. That blow partially
recovered, she had gone to a vast expense to make such a figure before
Mrs Dombey at home, as should dazzle the senses of that lady, and heap
mortification, mountains high, on the head of Mrs Skewton.
'But I am made,' said Mrs Chick to Mr Chick, 'of no more account
than Florence! Who takes the smallest notice of me? No one!'
'No one, my dear,' assented Mr Chick, who was seated by the side of
Mrs Chick against the wall, and could console himself, even there, by
softly whistling.
'Does it at all appear as if I was wanted here?' exclaimed Mrs
Chick, with flashing eyes.
'No, my dear, I don't think it does,' said Mr Chic
'Paul's mad!' said Mrs Chic
Mr Chick whistled.
'Unless you are a monster, which I sometimes think you are,' said
Mrs Chick with candour, 'don't sit there humming tunes. How anyone
with the most distant feelings of a man, can see that mother-in-law of
Paul's, dressed as she is, going on like that, with Major Bagstock,
for whom, among other precious things, we are indebted to your
Lucretia Tox
'My Lucretia Tox, my dear!' said Mr Chick, astounded.
'Yes,' retorted Mrs Chick, with great severity, 'your Lucretia Tox
- I say how anybody can see that mother-in-law of Paul's, and that
haughty wife of Paul's, and these indecent old frights with their
backs and shoulders, and in short this at home generally, and hum - '
on which word Mrs Chick laid a scornful emphasis that made Mr Chick
start, 'is, I thank Heaven, a mystery to me!
Mr Chick screwed his mouth into a form irreconcilable with humming
or whistling, and looked very contemplative.
'But I hope I know what is due to myself,' said Mrs Chick, swelling
with indignation, 'though Paul has forgotten what is due to me. I am
not going to sit here, a member of this family, to be taken no notice
of. I am not the dirt under Mrs Dombey's feet, yet - not quite yet,'
said Mrs Chick, as if she expected to become so, about the day after
to-morrow. 'And I shall go. I will not say (whatever I may think) that
this affair has been got up solely to degrade and insult me. I shall
merely go. I shall not be missed!'
Mrs Chick rose erect with these words, and took the arm of Mr
Chick, who escorted her from the room, after half an hour's shady
sojourn there. And it is due to her penetration to observe that she
certainly was not missed at all.
But she was not the only indignant guest; for Mr Dombey's list
(still constantly in difficulties) were, as a body, indignant with Mrs
Dombey's list, for looking at them through eyeglasses, and audibly
wondering who all those people were; while Mrs Dombey's list
complained of weariness, and the young thing with the shoulders,
deprived of the attentions of that gay youth Cousin Feenix (who went
away from the dinner-table), confidentially alleged to thirty or forty
friends that she was bored to death. All the old ladies with the
burdens on their heads, had greater or less cause of complaint against
Mr Dombey; and the Directors and Chairmen coincided in thinking that
if Dombey must marry, he had better have married somebody nearer his
own age, not quite so handsome, and a little better off. The general
opinion among this class of gentlemen was, that it was a weak thing in
Dombey, and he'd live to repent it. Hardly anybody there, except the
mild men, stayed, or went away, without considering himself or herself
neglected and aggrieved by Mr Dombey or Mrs Dombey; and the speechless
female in the black velvet hat was found to have been stricken mute,
because the lady in the crimson velvet had been handed down before
her. The nature even of the mild men got corrupted, either from their
curdling it with too much lemonade, or from the general inoculation
that prevailed; and they made sarcastic jokes to one another, and
whispered disparagement on stairs and in bye-places. The general
dissatisfaction and discomfort so diffused itself, that the assembled
footmen in the hall were as well acquainted with it as the company
above. Nay, the very linkmen outside got hold of it, and compared the
party to a funeral out of mourning, with none of the company
remembered in the will. At last, the guests were all gone, and the
linkmen too; and the street, crowded so long with carriages, was
clear; and the dying lights showed no one in the rooms, but Mr Dombey
and Mr Carker, who were talking together apart, and Mrs Dombey and her
mother: the former seated on an ottoman; the latter reclining in the
Cleopatra attitude, awaiting the arrival of her maid. Mr Dombey having
finished his communication to Carker, the latter advanced obsequiously
to take leave.
'I trust,' he said, 'that the fatigues of this delightful evening
will not inconvenience Mrs Dombey to-morrow.'
'Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, advancing, 'has sufficiently spared
herself fatigue, to relieve you from any anxiety of that kind. I
regret to say, Mrs Dombey, that I could have wished you had fatigued
yourself a little more on this occasion.
She looked at him with a supercilious glance, that it seemed not
worth her while to protract, and turned away her eyes without
speaking.
'I am sorry, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, 'that you should not have
thought it your duty -
She looked at him again.
'Your duty, Madam,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'to have received my friends
with a little more deference. Some of those whom you have been pleased
to slight to-night in a very marked manner, Mrs Dombey, confer a
distinction upon you, I must tell you, in any visit they pay you.
'Do you know that there is someone here?' she returned, now looking
at him steadily.
'No! Carker! I beg that you do not. I insist that you do not,'
cried Mr Dombey, stopping that noiseless gentleman in his withdrawal.
'Mr Carker, Madam, as you know, possesses my confidence. He is as well
acquainted as myself with the subject on which I speak. I beg to tell
you, for your information, Mrs Dombey, that I consider these wealthy
and important persons confer a distinction upon me:' and Mr Dombey
drew himself up, as having now rendered them of the highest possible
importance.
'I ask you,' she repeated, bending her disdainful, steady gaze upon
him, 'do you know that there is someone here, Sir?'
'I must entreat,' said Mr Carker, stepping forward, 'I must beg, I
must demand, to be released. Slight and unimportant as this difference
is - '
Mrs Skewton, who had been intent upon her daughter's face, took him
up here.
'My sweetest Edith,' she said, 'and my dearest Dombey; our
excellent friend Mr Carker, for so I am sure I ought to mention him -
'
Mr Carker murmured, 'Too much honour.'
' - has used the very words that were in my mind, and that I have
been dying, these ages, for an opportunity of introducing. Slight and
unimportant! My sweetest Edith, and my dearest Dombey, do we not know
that any difference between you two - No, Flowers; not now.
Flowers was the maid, who, finding gentlemen present, retreated
with precipitation.
'That any difference between you two,' resumed Mrs Skewton, 'with
the Heart you possess in common, and the excessively charming bond of
feeling that there is between you, must be slight and unimportant?
What words could better define the fact? None. Therefore I am glad to
take this slight occasion - this trifling occasion, that is so replete
with Nature, and your individual characters, and all that - so truly
calculated to bring the tears into a parent's eyes - to say that I
attach no importance to them in the least, except as developing these
minor elements of Soul; and that, unlike most Mamas-in-law (that
odious phrase, dear Dombey!) as they have been represented to me to
exist in this I fear too artificial world, I never shall attempt to
interpose between you, at such a time, and never can much regret,
after all, such little flashes of the torch of What's-his-name - not
Cupid, but the other delightful creature.
There was a sharpness in the good mother's glance at both her
children as she spoke, that may have been expressive of a direct and
well-considered purpose hidden between these rambling words. That
purpose, providently to detach herself in the beginning from all the
clankings of their chain that were to come, and to shelter herself
with the fiction of her innocent belief in their mutual affection, and
their adaptation to each other.
'I have pointed out to Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, in his most
stately manner, 'that in her conduct thus early in our married life,
to which I object, and which, I request, may be corrected. Carker,'
with a nod of dismissal, 'good-night to you!'
Mr Carker bowed to the imperious form of the Bride, whose sparkling
eye was fixed upon her husband; and stopping at Cleopatra's couch on
his way out, raised to his lips the hand she graciously extended to
him, in lowly and admiring homage.
If his handsome wife had reproached him, or even changed
countenance, or broken the silence in which she remained, by one word,
now that they were alone (for Cleopatra made off with all speed), Mr
Dombey would have been equal to some assertion of his case against
her. But the intense, unutterable, withering scorn, with which, after
looking upon him, she dropped her eyes, as if he were too worthless
and indifferent to her to be challenged with a syllable - the
ineffable disdain and haughtiness in which she sat before him - the
cold inflexible resolve with which her every feature seemed to bear
him down, and put him by - these, he had no resource against; and he
left her, with her whole overbearing beauty concentrated on despising
him.
Was he coward enough to watch her, an hour afterwards, on the old
well staircase, where he had once seen Florence in the moonlight,
toiling up with Paul? Or was he in the dark by accident, when, looking
up, he saw her coming, with a light, from the room where Florence lay,
and marked again the face so changed, which he could not subdue?
But it could never alter as his own did. It never, in its uttermost
pride and passion, knew the shadow that had fallen on his, in the dark
corner, on the night of the return; and often since; and which
deepened on it now, as he looked up.
CHAPTER 37.
More Warnings than One
Florence, Edith, and Mrs Skewton were together next day, and the
carriage was waiting at the door to take them out. For Cleopatra had
her galley again now, and Withers, no longer the-wan, stood upright in
a pigeon-breasted jacket and military trousers, behind her wheel-less
chair at dinner-time and butted no more. The hair of Withers was
radiant with pomatum, in these days of down, and he wore kid gloves
and smelt of the water of Cologne.
They were assembled in Cleopatra's room The Serpent of old Nile
(not to mention her disrespectfully) was reposing on her sofa, sipping
her morning chocolate at three o'clock in the afternoon, and Flowers
the Maid was fastening on her youthful cuffs and frills, and
performing a kind of private coronation ceremony on her, with a
peach-coloured velvet bonnet; the artificial roses in which nodded to
uncommon advantage, as the palsy trifled with them, like a breeze.
'I think I am a little nervous this morning, Flowers,' said Mrs
Skewton. 'My hand quite shakes.'
'You were the life of the party last night, Ma'am, you know,'
returned Flowers, ' and you suffer for it, to-day, you see.'
Edith, who had beckoned Florence to the window, and was looking
out, with her back turned on the toilet of her esteemed mother,
suddenly withdrew from it, as if it had lightened.
'My darling child,' cried Cleopatra, languidly, 'you are not
nervous? Don't tell me, my dear Edith, that you, so enviably
self-possessed, are beginning to be a martyr too, like your
unfortunately constituted mother! Withers, someone at the door.'
'Card, Ma'am,' said Withers, taking it towards Mrs Dombey.
'I am going out,' she said without looking at it.
'My dear love,' drawled Mrs Skewton, 'how very odd to send that
message without seeing the name! Bring it here, Withers. Dear me, my
love; Mr Carker, too! That very sensible person!'
'I am going out,' repeated Edith, in so imperious a tone that
Withers, going to the door, imperiously informed the servant who was
waiting, 'Mrs Dombey is going out. Get along with you,' and shut it on
him.'
But the servant came back after a short absence, and whispered to
Withers again, who once more, and not very willingly, presented
himself before Mrs Dombey.
'If you please, Ma'am, Mr Carker sends his respectful compliments,
and begs you would spare him one minute, if you could - for business,
Ma'am, if you please.'
'Really, my love,' said Mrs Skewton in her mildest manner; for her
daughter's face was threatening; 'if you would allow me to offer a
word, I should recommend - '
'Show him this way,' said Edith. As Withers disappeared to execute
the command, she added, frowning on her mother, 'As he comes at your
recommendation, let him come to your room.'
'May I - shall I go away?' asked Florence, hurriedly.
Edith nodded yes, but on her way to the door Florence met the
visitor coming in. With the same disagreeable mixture of familiarity
and forbearance, with which he had first addressed her, he addressed
her now in his softest manner - hoped she was quite well - needed not
to ask, with such looks to anticipate the answer - had scarcely had
the honour to know her, last night, she was so greatly changed - and
held the door open for her to pass out; with a secret sense of power
in her shrinking from him, that all the deference and politeness of
his manner could not quite conceal.
He then bowed himself for a moment over Mrs Skewton's condescending
hand, and lastly bowed to Edith. Coldly returning his salute without
looking at him, and neither seating herself nor inviting him to be
seated, she waited for him to speak.
Entrenched in her pride and power, and with all the obduracy of her
spirit summoned about her, still her old conviction that she and her
mother had been known by this man in their worst colours, from their
first acquaintance; that every degradation she had suffered in her own
eyes was as plain to him as to herself; that he read her life as
though it were a vile book, and fluttered the leaves before her in
slight looks and tones of voice which no one else could detect;
weakened and undermined her. Proudly as she opposed herself to him,
with her commanding face exacting his humility, her disdainful lip
repulsing him, her bosom angry at his intrusion, and the dark lashes
of her eyes sullenly veiling their light, that no ray of it might
shine upon him - and submissively as he stood before her, with an
entreating injured manner, but with complete submission to her will -
she knew, in her own soul, that the cases were reversed, and that the
triumph and superiority were his, and that he knew it full well.
'I have presumed,' said Mr Carker, 'to solicit an interview, and I
have ventured to describe it as being one of business, because - '
'Perhaps you are charged by Mr Dombey with some message of
reproof,' said Edit 'You possess Mr Dombey's confidence in such an
unusual degree, Sir, that you would scarcely surprise me if that were
your business.'
'I have no message to the lady who sheds a lustre upon his name,'
said Mr Carker. 'But I entreat that lady, on my own behalf to be just
to a very humble claimant for justice at her hands - a mere dependant
of Mr Dombey's - which is a position of humility; and to reflect upon
my perfect helplessness last night, and the impossibility of my
avoiding the share that was forced upon me in a very painful
occasion.'
'My dearest Edith,' hinted Cleopatra in a low voice, as she held
her eye-glass aside, 'really very charming of Mr What's-his-name. And
full of heart!'
'For I do,' said Mr Carker, appealing to Mrs Skewton with a look of
grateful deference, - 'I do venture to call it a painful occasion,
though merely because it was so to me, who had the misfortune to be
present. So slight a difference, as between the principals - between
those who love each other with disinterested devotion, and would make
any sacrifice of self in such a cause - is nothing. As Mrs Skewton
herself expressed, with so much truth and feeling last night, it is
nothing.'
Edith could not look at him, but she said after a few moments,
'And your business, Sir - '
'Edith, my pet,' said Mrs Skewton, 'all this time Mr Carker is
standing! My dear Mr Carker, take a seat, I beg.'
He offered no reply to the mother, but fixed his eyes on the proud
daughter, as though he would only be bidden by her, and was resolved
to he bidden by her. Edith, in spite of herself sat down, and slightly
motioned with her hand to him to be seated too. No action could be
colder, haughtier, more insolent in its air of supremacy and
disrespect, but she had struggled against even that concession
ineffectually, and it was wrested from her. That was enough! Mr Carker
sat down.
'May I be allowed, Madam,' said Carker, turning his white teeth on
Mrs Skewton like a light - 'a lady of your excellent sense and quick
feeling will give me credit, for good reason, I am sure - to address
what I have to say, to Mrs Dombey, and to leave her to impart it to
you who are her best and dearest friend - next to Mr Dombey?'
Mrs Skewton would have retired, but Edith stopped her. Edith would
have stopped him too, and indignantly ordered him to speak openly or
not at all, but that he said, in a low Voice - 'Miss Florence - the
young lady who has just left the room - '
Edith suffered him to proceed. She looked at him now. As he bent
forward, to be nearer, with the utmost show of delicacy and respect,
and with his teeth persuasively arrayed, in a self-depreciating smile,
she felt as if she could have struck him dead.
'Miss Florence's position,' he began, 'has been an unfortunate one.
I have a difficulty in alluding to it to you, whose attachment to her
father is naturally watchful and jealous of every word that applies to
him.' Always distinct and soft in speech, no language could describe
the extent of his distinctness and softness, when he said these words,
or came to any others of a similar import. 'But, as one who is devoted
to Mr Dombey in his different way, and whose life is passed in
admiration of Mr Dombey's character, may I say, without offence to
your tenderness as a wife, that Miss Florence has unhappily been
neglected - by her father. May I say by her father?'
Edith replied, 'I know it.'
'You know it!' said Mr Carker, with a great appearance of relief.
'It removes a mountain from my breast. May I hope you know how the
neglect originated; in what an amiable phase of Mr Dombey's pride -
character I mean?'
'You may pass that by, Sir,' she returned, 'and come the sooner to
the end of what you have to say.'
'Indeed, I am sensible, Madam,' replied Carker, - 'trust me, I am
deeply sensible, that Mr Dombey can require no justification in
anything to you. But, kindly judge of my breast by your own, and you
will forgive my interest in him, if in its excess, it goes at all
astray.
What a stab to her proud heart, to sit there, face to face with
him, and have him tendering her false oath at the altar again and
again for her acceptance, and pressing it upon her like the dregs of a
sickening cup she could not own her loathing of or turn away from'.
How shame, remorse, and passion raged within her, when, upright and
majestic in her beauty before him, she knew that in her spirit she was
down at his feet!
'Miss Florence,' said Carker, 'left to the care - if one may call
it care - of servants and mercenary people, in every way her
inferiors, necessarily wanted some guide and compass in her younger
days, and, naturally, for want of them, has been indiscreet, and has
in some degree forgotten her station. There was some folly about one
Walter, a common lad, who is fortunately dead now: and some very
undesirable association, I regret to say, with certain coasting
sailors, of anything but good repute, and a runaway old bankrupt.'
'I have heard the circumstances, Sir,' said Edith, flashing her
disdainful glance upon him, 'and I know that you pervert them. You may
not know it. I hope so.'
'Pardon me,' said Mr Carker, 'I believe that nobody knows them so
well as I. Your generous and ardent nature, Madam - the same nature
which is so nobly imperative in vindication of your beloved and
honoured husband, and which has blessed him as even his merits deserve
- I must respect, defer to, bow before. But, as regards the
circumstances, which is indeed the business I presumed to solicit your
attention to, I can have no doubt, since, in the execution of my trust
as Mr Dombey's confidential - I presume to say - friend, I have fully
ascertained them. In my execution of that trust; in my deep concern,
which you can so well understand, for everything relating to him,
intensified, if you will (for I fear I labour under your displeasure),
by the lower motive of desire to prove my diligence, and make myself
the more acceptable; I have long pursued these circumstances by myself
and trustworthy instruments, and have innumerable and most minute
proofs.'
She raised her eyes no higher than his mouth, but she saw the means
of mischief vaunted in every tooth it contained.
'Pardon me, Madam,' he continued, 'if in my perplexity, I presume
to take counsel with you, and to consult your pleasure. I think I have
observed that you are greatly interested in Miss Florence?'
What was there in her he had not observed, and did not know?
Humbled and yet maddened by the thought, in every new presentment of
it, however faint, she pressed her teeth upon her quivering lip to
force composure on it, and distantly inclined her head in reply.
'This interest, Madam - so touching an evidence of everything
associated with Mr Dombey being dear to you - induces me to pause
before I make him acquainted with these circumstances, which, as yet,
he does not know. It so shakes me, if I may make the confession, in my
allegiance, that on the intimation of the least desire to that effect
from you, I would suppress them.'
Edith raised her head quickly, and starting back, bent her dark
glance upon him. He met it with his blandest and most deferential
smile, and went on.
'You say that as I describe them, they are perverted. I fear not -
I fear not: but let us assume that they are. The uneasiness I have for
some time felt on the subject, arises in this: that the mere
circumstance of such association often repeated, on the part of Miss
Florence, however innocently and confidingly, would be conclusive with
Mr Dombey, already predisposed against her, and would lead him to take
some step (I know he has occasionally contemplated it) of separation
and alienation of her from his home. Madam, bear with me, and remember
my intercourse with Mr Dombey, and my knowledge of him, and my
reverence for him, almost from childhood, when I say that if he has a
fault, it is a lofty stubbornness, rooted in that noble pride and
sense of power which belong to him, and which we must all defer to;
which is not assailable like the obstinacy of other characters; and
which grows upon itself from day to day, and year to year.
She bent her glance upon him still; but, look as steadfast as she
would, her haughty nostrils dilated, and her breath came somewhat
deeper, and her lip would slightly curl, as he described that in his
patron to which they must all bow down. He saw it; and though his
expression did not change, she knew he saw it.
'Even so slight an incident as last night's,' he said, 'if I might
refer to it once more, would serve to illustrate my meaning, better
than a greater one. Dombey and Son know neither time, nor place, nor
season, but bear them all down. But I rejoice in its occurrence, for
it has opened the way for me to approach Mrs Dombey with this subject
to-day, even if it has entailed upon me the penalty of her temporary
displeasure. Madam, in the midst of my uneasiness and apprehension on
this subject, I was summoned by Mr Dombey to Leamington. There I saw
you. There I could not help knowing what relation you would shortly
occupy towards him - to his enduring happiness and yours. There I
resolved to await the time of your establishment at home here, and to
do as I have now done. I have, at heart, no fear that I shall be
wanting in my duty to Mr Dombey, if I bury what I know in your breast;
for where there is but one heart and mind between two persons - as in
such a marriage - one almost represents the other. I can acquit my
conscience therefore, almost equally, by confidence, on such a theme,
in you or him. For the reasons I have mentioned I would select you.
May I aspire to the distinction of believing that my confidence is
accepted, and that I am relieved from my responsibility?'
He long remembered the look she gave him - who could see it, and
forget it? - and the struggle that ensued within her. At last she
said:
'I accept it, Sir You will please to consider this matter at an
end, and that it goes no farther.'
He bowed low, and rose. She rose too, and he took leave with all
humility. But Withers, meeting him on the stairs, stood amazed at the
beauty of his teeth, and at his brilliant smile; and as he rode away
upon his white-legged horse, the people took him for a dentist, such
was the dazzling show he made. The people took her, when she rode out
in her carriage presently, for a great lady, as happy as she was rich
and fine. But they had not seen her, just before, in her own room with
no one by; and they had not heard her utterance of the three words,
'Oh Florence, Florence!'
Mrs Skewton, reposing on her sofa, and sipping her chocolate, had
heard nothing but the low word business, for which she had a mortal
aversion, insomuch that she had long banished it from her vocabulary,
and had gone nigh, in a charming manner and with an immense amount of
heart, to say nothing of soul, to ruin divers milliners and others in
consequence. Therefore Mrs Skewton asked no questions, and showed no
curiosity. Indeed, the peach-velvet bonnet gave her sufficient
occupation out of doors; for being perched on the back of her head,
and the day being rather windy, it was frantic to escape from Mrs
Skewton's company, and would be coaxed into no sort of compromise.
When the carriage was closed, and the wind shut out, the palsy played
among the artificial roses again like an almshouse-full of
superannuated zephyrs; and altogether Mrs Skewton had enough to do,
and got on but indifferently.
She got on no better towards night; for when Mrs Dombey, in her
dressing-room, had been dressed and waiting for her half an hour, and
Mr Dombey, in the drawing-room, had paraded himself into a state of
solemn fretfulness (they were all three going out to dinner), Flowers
the Maid appeared with a pale face to Mrs Dombey, saying:
'If you please, Ma'am, I beg your pardon, but I can't do nothing
with Missis!'
'What do you mean?' asked Edith.
'Well, Ma'am,' replied the frightened maid, 'I hardly know. She's
making faces!'
Edith hurried with her to her mother's room. Cleopatra was arrayed
in full dress, with the diamonds, short sleeves, rouge, curls, teeth,
and other juvenility all complete; but Paralysis was not to be
deceived, had known her for the object of its errand, and had struck
her at her glass, where she lay like a horrible doll that had tumbled
down.
They took her to pieces in very shame, and put the little of her
that was real on a bed. Doctors were sent for, and soon came. Powerful
remedies were resorted to; opinions given that she would rally from
this shock, but would not survive another; and there she lay
speechless, and staring at the ceiling, for days; sometimes making
inarticulate sounds in answer to such questions as did she know who
were present, and the like: sometimes giving no reply either by sign
or gesture, or in her unwinking eyes.
At length she began to recover consciousness, and in some degree
the power of motion, though not yet of speech. One day the use of her
right hand returned; and showing it to her maid who was in attendance
on her, and appearing very uneasy in her mind, she made signs for a
pencil and some paper. This the maid immediately provided, thinking
she was going to make a will, or write some last request; and Mrs
Dombey being from home, the maid awaited the result with solemn
feelings.
After much painful scrawling and erasing, and putting in of wrong
characters, which seemed to tumble out of the pencil of their own
accord, the old woman produced this document:
'Rose-coloured curtains.'
The maid being perfectly transfixed, and with tolerable reason,
Cleopatra amended the manuscript by adding two words more, when it
stood thus:
'Rose-coloured curtains for doctors.'
The maid now perceived remotely that she wished these articles to
be provided for the better presentation of her complexion to the
faculty; and as those in the house who knew her best, had no doubt of
the correctness of this opinion, which she was soon able to establish
for herself the rose-coloured curtains were added to her bed, and she
mended with increased rapidity from that hour. She was soon able to
sit up, in curls and a laced cap and nightgown, and to have a little
artificial bloom dropped into the hollow caverns of her cheeks.
It was a tremendous sight to see this old woman in her finery
leering and mincing at Death, and playing off her youthful tricks upon
him as if he had been the Major; but an alteration in her mind that
ensued on the paralytic stroke was fraught with as much matter for
reflection, and was quite as ghastly.
Whether the weakening of her intellect made her more cunning and
false than before, or whether it confused her between what she had
assumed to be and what she really had been, or whether it had awakened
any glimmering of remorse, which could neither struggle into light nor
get back into total darkness, or whether, in the jumble of her
faculties, a combination of these effects had been shaken up, which is
perhaps the more likely supposition, the result was this: - That she
became hugely exacting in respect of Edith's affection and gratitude
and attention to her; highly laudatory of herself as a most
inestimable parent; and very jealous of having any rival in Edith's
regard. Further, in place of remembering that compact made between
them for an avoidance of the subject, she constantly alluded to her
daughter's marriage as a proof of her being an incomparable mother;
and all this, with the weakness and peevishness of such a state,
always serving for a sarcastic commentary on her levity and
youthfulness.
'Where is Mrs Dombey? she would say to her maid.
'Gone out, Ma'am.'
'Gone out! Does she go out to shun her Mama, Flowers?'
'La bless you, no, Ma'am. Mrs Dombey has only gone out for a ride
with Miss Florence.'
'Miss Florence. Who's Miss Florence? Don't tell me about Miss
Florence. What's Miss Florence to her, compared to me?'
The apposite display of the diamonds, or the peach-velvet bonnet
(she sat in the bonnet to receive visitors, weeks before she could
stir out of doors), or the dressing of her up in some gaud or other,
usually stopped the tears that began to flow hereabouts; and she would
remain in a complacent state until Edith came to see her; when, at a
glance of the proud face, she would relapse again.
'Well, I am sure, Edith!' she would cry, shaking her head.
'What is the matter, mother?'
'Matter! I really don't know what is the matter. The world is
coming to such an artificial and ungrateful state, that I begin to
think there's no Heart - or anything of that sort - left in it,
positively. Withers is more a child to me than you are. He attends to
me much more than my own daughter. I almost wish I didn't look so
young - and all that kind of thing - and then perhaps I should be more
considered.'
'What would you have, mother?'
'Oh, a great deal, Edith,' impatiently.
'Is there anything you want that you have not? It is your own fault
if there be.'
'My own fault!' beginning to whimper. 'The parent I have been to
you, Edith: making you a companion from your cradle! And when you
neglect me, and have no more natural affection for me than if I was a
stranger - not a twentieth part of the affection that you have for
Florence - but I am only your mother, and should corrupt her in a day!
- you reproach me with its being my own fault.'
'Mother, mother, I reproach you with nothing. Why will you always
dwell on this?'
'Isn't it natural that I should dwell on this, when I am all
affection and sensitiveness, and am wounded in the cruellest way,
whenever you look at me?'
'I do not mean to wound you, mother. Have you no remembrance of
what has been said between us? Let the Past rest.'
'Yes, rest! And let gratitude to me rest; and let affection for me
rest; and let me rest in my out-of-the-way room, with no society and
no attention, while you find new relations to make much of, who have
no earthly claim upon you! Good gracious, Edith, do you know what an
elegant establishment you are at the head of?'
'Yes. Hush!'
'And that gentlemanly creature, Dombey? Do you know that you are
married to him, Edith, and that you have a settlement and a position,
and a carriage, and I don't know what?'
'Indeed, I know it, mother; well.'
'As you would have had with that delightful good soul - what did
they call him? - Granger - if he hadn't died. And who have you to
thank for all this, Edith?'
'You, mother; you.'
'Then put your arms round my neck, and kiss me; and show me, Edith,
that you know there never was a better Mama than I have been to you.
And don't let me become a perfect fright with teasing and wearing
myself at your ingratitude, or when I'm out again in society no soul
will know me, not even that hateful animal, the Major.'
But, sometimes, when Edith went nearer to her, and bending down her
stately head, Put her cold cheek to hers, the mother would draw back
as If she were afraid of her, and would fall into a fit of trembling,
and cry out that there was a wandering in her wits. And sometimes she
would entreat her, with humility, to sit down on the chair beside her
bed, and would look at her (as she sat there brooding) with a face
that even the rose-coloured curtains could not make otherwise than
scared and wild.
The rose-coloured curtains blushed, in course of time, on
Cleopatra's bodily recovery, and on her dress - more juvenile than
ever, to repair the ravages of illness - and on the rouge, and on the
teeth, and on the curls, and on the diamonds, and the short sleeves,
and the whole wardrobe of the doll that had tumbled down before the
mirror. They blushed, too, now and then, upon an indistinctness in her
speech which she turned off with a girlish giggle, and on an
occasional failing In her memory, that had no rule in it, but came and
went fantastically, as if in mockery of her fantastic self.
But they never blushed upon a change in the new manner of her
thought and speech towards her daughter. And though that daughter
often came within their influence, they never blushed upon her
loveliness irradiated by a smile, or softened by the light of filial
love, in its stem beauty.
CHAPTER 38.
Miss Tox improves an Old Acquaintance
The forlorn Miss Tox, abandoned by her friend Louisa Chick, and
bereft of Mr Dombey's countenance - for no delicate pair of wedding
cards, united by a silver thread, graced the chimney-glass in
Princess's Place, or the harpsichord, or any of those little posts of
display which Lucretia reserved for holiday occupation - became
depressed in her spirits, and suffered much from melancholy. For a
time the Bird Waltz was unheard in Princess's Place, the plants were
neglected, and dust collected on the miniature of Miss Tox's ancestor
with the powdered head and pigtail.
Miss Tox, however, was not of an age or of a disposition long to
abandon herself to unavailing regrets. Only two notes of the
harpsichord were dumb from disuse when the Bird Waltz again warbled
and trilled in the crooked drawing-room: only one slip of geranium
fell a victim to imperfect nursing, before she was gardening at her
green baskets again, regularly every morning; the powdered-headed
ancestor had not been under a cloud for more than six weeks, when Miss
Tox breathed on his benignant visage, and polished him up with a piece
of wash-leather.
Still, Miss Tox was lonely, and at a loss. Her attachments, however
ludicrously shown, were real and strong; and she was, as she expressed
it, 'deeply hurt by the unmerited contumely she had met with from
Louisa.' But there was no such thing as anger in Miss Tox's
composition. If she had ambled on through life, in her soft spoken
way, without any opinions, she had, at least, got so far without any
harsh passions. The mere sight of Louisa Chick in the street one day,
at a considerable distance, so overpowered her milky nature, that she
was fain to seek immediate refuge in a pastrycook's, and there, in a
musty little back room usually devoted to the consumption of soups,
and pervaded by an ox-tail atmosphere, relieve her feelings by weeping
plentifully.
Against Mr Dombey Miss Tox hardly felt that she had any reason of
complaint. Her sense of that gentleman's magnificence was such, that
once removed from him, she felt as if her distance always had been
immeasurable, and as if he had greatly condescended in tolerating her
at all. No wife could be too handsome or too stately for him,
according to Miss Tox's sincere opinion. It was perfectly natural that
in looking for one, he should look high. Miss Tox with tears laid down
this proposition, and fully admitted it, twenty times a day. She never
recalled the lofty manner in which Mr Dombey had made her subservient
to his convenience and caprices, and had graciously permitted her to
be one of the nurses of his little son. She only thought, in her own
words, 'that she had passed a great many happy hours in that house,
which she must ever remember with gratification, and that she could
never cease to regard Mr Dombey as one of the most impressive and
dignified of men.'
Cut off, however, from the implacable Louisa, and being shy of the
Major (whom she viewed with some distrust now), Miss Tox found it very
irksome to know nothing of what was going on in Mr Dombey's
establishment. And as she really had got into the habit of considering
Dombey and Son as the pivot on which the world in general turned, she
resolved, rather than be ignorant of intelligence which so strongly
interested her, to cultivate her old acquaintance, Mrs Richards, who
she knew, since her last memorable appearance before Mr Dombey, was in
the habit of sometimes holding communication with his servants.
Perhaps Miss Tox, in seeking out the Toodle family, had the tender
motive hidden in her breast of having somebody to whom she could talk
about Mr Dombey, no matter how humble that somebody might be.
At all events, towards the Toodle habitation Miss Tox directed her
steps one evening, what time Mr Toodle, cindery and swart, was
refreshing himself with tea, in the bosom of his family. Mr Toodle had
only three stages of existence. He was either taking refreshment in
the bosom just mentioned, or he was tearing through the country at
from twenty-five to fifty miles an hour, or he was sleeping after his
fatigues. He was always in a whirlwind or a calm, and a peaceable,
contented, easy-going man Mr Toodle was in either state, who seemed to
have made over all his own inheritance of fuming and fretting to the
engines with which he was connected, which panted, and gasped, and
chafed, and wore themselves out, in a most unsparing manner, while Mr
Toodle led a mild and equable life.
'Polly, my gal,' said Mr Toodle, with a young Toodle on each knee,
and two more making tea for him, and plenty more scattered about - Mr
Toodle was never out of children, but always kept a good supply on
hand - 'you ain't seen our Biler lately, have you?'
'No,' replied Polly, 'but he's almost certain to look in tonight.
It's his right evening, and he's very regular.'
'I suppose,' said Mr Toodle, relishing his meal infinitely, 'as our
Biler is a doin' now about as well as a boy can do, eh, Polly?'
'Oh! he's a doing beautiful!' responded Polly.
'He ain't got to be at all secret-like - has he, Polly?' inquired
Mr Toodle.
'No!' said Mrs Toodle, plumply.
'I'm glad he ain't got to be at all secret-like, Polly,' observed
Mr Toodle in his slow and measured way, and shovelling in his bread
and butter with a clasp knife, as if he were stoking himself, 'because
that don't look well; do it, Polly?'
'Why, of course it don't, father. How can you ask!'
'You see, my boys and gals,' said Mr Toodle, looking round upon his
family, 'wotever you're up to in a honest way, it's my opinion as you
can't do better than be open. If you find yourselves in cuttings or in
tunnels, don't you play no secret games. Keep your whistles going, and
let's know where you are.
The rising Toodles set up a shrill murmur, expressive of their
resolution to profit by the paternal advice.
'But what makes you say this along of Rob, father?' asked his wife,
anxiously.
'Polly, old ooman,' said Mr Toodle, 'I don't know as I said it
partickler along o' Rob, I'm sure. I starts light with Rob only; I
comes to a branch; I takes on what I finds there; and a whole train of
ideas gets coupled on to him, afore I knows where I am, or where they
comes from. What a Junction a man's thoughts is,' said Mr Toodle,
'to-be-sure!'
This profound reflection Mr Toodle washed down with a pint mug of
tea, and proceeded to solidify with a great weight of bread and
butter; charging his young daughters meanwhile, to keep plenty of hot
water in the pot, as he was uncommon dry, and should take the
indefinite quantity of 'a sight of mugs,' before his thirst was
appeased.
In satisfying himself, however, Mr Toodle was not regardless of the
younger branches about him, who, although they had made their own
evening repast, were on the look-out for irregular morsels, as
possessing a relish. These he distributed now and then to the
expectant circle, by holding out great wedges of bread and butter, to
be bitten at by the family in lawful succession, and by serving out
small doses of tea in like manner with a spoon; which snacks had such
a relish in the mouths of these young Toodles, that, after partaking
of the same, they performed private dances of ecstasy among
themselves, and stood on one leg apiece, and hopped, and indulged in
other saltatory tokens of gladness. These vents for their excitement
found, they gradually closed about Mr Toodle again, and eyed him hard
as he got through more bread and butter and tea; affecting, however,
to have no further expectations of their own in reference to those
viands, but to be conversing on foreign subjects, and whispering
confidentially.
Mr Toodle, in the midst of this family group, and setting an awful
example to his children in the way of appetite, was conveying the two
young Toodles on his knees to Birmingham by special engine, and was
contemplating the rest over a barrier of bread and butter, when Rob
the Grinder, in his sou'wester hat and mourning slops, presented
himself, and was received with a general rush of brothers and sisters.
'Well, mother!' said Rob, dutifully kissing her; 'how are you,
mother?'
'There's my boy!' cried Polly, giving him a hug and a pat on the
back. 'Secret! Bless you, father, not he!'
This was intended for Mr Toodle's private edification, but Rob the
Grinder, whose withers were not unwrung, caught the words as they were
spoken.
'What! father's been a saying something more again me, has he?'
cried the injured innocent. 'Oh, what a hard thing it is that when a
cove has once gone a little wrong, a cove's own father should be
always a throwing it in his face behind his back! It's enough,' cried
Rob, resorting to his coat-cuff in anguish of spirit, 'to make a cove
go and do something, out of spite!'
'My poor boy!' cried Polly, 'father didn't mean anything.'
'If father didn't mean anything,' blubbered the injured Grinder,
'why did he go and say anything, mother? Nobody thinks half so bad of
me as my own father does. What a unnatural thing! I wish somebody'd
take and chop my head off. Father wouldn't mind doing it, I believe,
and I'd much rather he did that than t'other.'
At these desperate words all the young Toodles shrieked; a pathetic
effect, which the Grinder improved by ironically adjuring them not to
cry for him, for they ought to hate him, they ought, if they was good
boys and girls; and this so touched the youngest Toodle but one, who
was easily moved, that it touched him not only in his spirit but in
his wind too; making him so purple that Mr Toodle in consternation
carried him out to the water-butt, and would have put him under the
tap, but for his being recovered by the sight of that instrument.
Matters having reached this point, Mr Toodle explained, and the
virtuous feelings of his son being thereby calmed, they shook hands,
and harmony reigned again.
'Will you do as I do, Biler, my boy?' inquired his father,
returning to his tea with new strength.
'No, thank'ee, father. Master and I had tea together.'
'And how is master, Rob?' said Polly.
'Well, I don't know, mother; not much to boast on. There ain't no
bis'ness done, you see. He don't know anything about it - the Cap'en
don't. There was a man come into the shop this very day, and says, "I
want a so-and-so," he says - some hard name or another. "A which?"
says the Cap'en. "A so-and-so," says the man. "Brother," says the
Cap'en, "will you take a observation round the shop." "Well," says the
man, "I've done" "Do you see wot you want?" says the Cap'en "No, I
don't," says the man. "Do you know it wen you do see it?" says the
Cap'en. "No, I don't," says the man. "Why, then I tell you wot, my
lad," says the Cap'en, "you'd better go back and ask wot it's like,
outside, for no more don't I!"'
'That ain't the way to make money, though, is it?' said Polly.
'Money, mother! He'll never make money. He has such ways as I never
see. He ain't a bad master though, I'll say that for him. But that
ain't much to me, for I don't think I shall stop with him long.'
'Not stop in your place, Rob!' cried his mother; while Mr Toodle
opened his eyes.
'Not in that place, p'raps,' returned the Grinder, with a wink. 'I
shouldn't wonder - friends at court you know - but never you mind,
mother, just now; I'm all right, that's all.'
The indisputable proof afforded in these hints, and in the
Grinder's mysterious manner, of his not being subject to that failing
which Mr Toodle had, by implication, attributed to him, might have led
to a renewal of his wrongs, and of the sensation in the family, but
for the opportune arrival of another visitor, who, to Polly's great
surprise, appeared at the door, smiling patronage and friendship on
all there.
'How do you do, Mrs Richards?' said Miss Tox. 'I have come to see
you. May I come in?'
The cheery face of Mrs Richards shone with a hospitable reply, and
Miss Tox, accepting the proffered chair, and grab fully recognising Mr
Toodle on her way to it, untied her bonnet strings, and said that in
the first place she must beg the dear children, one and all, to come
and kiss her.
The ill-starred youngest Toodle but one, who would appear, from the
frequency of his domestic troubles, to have been born under an unlucky
planet, was prevented from performing his part in this general
salutation by having fixed the sou'wester hat (with which he had been
previously trifling) deep on his head, hind side before, and being
unable to get it off again; which accident presenting to his terrified
imagination a dismal picture of his passing the rest of his days in
darkness, and in hopeless seclusion from his friends and family,
caused him to struggle with great violence, and to utter suffocating
cries. Being released, his face was discovered to be very hot, and
red, and damp; and Miss Tox took him on her lap, much exhausted.
'You have almost forgotten me, Sir, I daresay,' said Miss Tox to Mr
Toodle.
'No, Ma'am, no,' said Toodle. 'But we've all on us got a little
older since then.'
'And how do you find yourself, Sir?' inquired Miss Tox, blandly.
'Hearty, Ma'am, thank'ee,' replied Toodle. 'How do you find
yourself, Ma'am? Do the rheumaticks keep off pretty well, Ma'am? We
must all expect to grow into 'em, as we gets on.'
'Thank you,' said Miss Tox. 'I have not felt any inconvenience from
that disorder yet.'
'You're wery fortunate, Ma'am,' returned Mr Toodle. 'Many people at
your time of life, Ma'am, is martyrs to it. There was my mother - '
But catching his wife's eye here, Mr Toodle judiciously buried the
rest in another mug of tea
'You never mean to say, Mrs Richards,' cried Miss Tox, looking at
Rob, 'that that is your - '
'Eldest, Ma'am,' said Polly. 'Yes, indeed, it is. That's the little
fellow, Ma'am, that was the innocent cause of so much.'
'This here, Ma'am,' said Toodle, 'is him with the short legs - and
they was,' said Mr Toodle, with a touch of poetry in his tone,
'unusual short for leathers - as Mr Dombey made a Grinder on.'
The recollection almost overpowered Miss Tox. The subject of it had
a peculiar interest for her directly. She asked him to shake hands,
and congratulated his mother on his frank, ingenuous face. Rob,
overhearing her, called up a look, to justify the eulogium, but it was
hardly the right look.
'And now, Mrs Richards,' said Miss Tox, - 'and you too, Sir,'
addressing Toodle - 'I'll tell you, plainly and truly, what I have
come here for. You may be aware, Mrs Richards - and, possibly, you may
be aware too, Sir - that a little distance has interposed itself
between me and some of my friends, and that where I used to visit a
good deal, I do not visit now.'
Polly, who, with a woman's tact, understood this at once, expressed
as much in a little look. Mr Toodle, who had not the faintest idea of
what Miss Tox was talking about, expressed that also, in a stare.
'Of course,' said Miss Tox, 'how our little coolness has arisen is
of no moment, and does not require to be discussed. It is sufficient
for me to say, that I have the greatest possible respect for, and
interest in, Mr Dombey;' Miss Tox's voice faltered; 'and everything
that relates to him.'
Mr Toodle, enlightened, shook his head, and said he had heerd it
said, and, for his own part, he did think, as Mr Dombey was a
difficult subject.
'Pray don't say so, Sir, if you please,' returned Miss Tox. 'Let me
entreat you not to say so, Sir, either now, or at any future time.
Such observations cannot but be very painful to me; and to a
gentleman, whose mind is constituted as, I am quite sure, yours is,
can afford no permanent satisfaction.'
Mr Toodle, who had not entertained the least doubt of offering a
remark that would be received with acquiescence, was greatly
confounded.
'All that I wish to say, Mrs Richards,' resumed Miss Tox, - 'and I
address myself to you too, Sir, - is this. That any intelligence of
the proceedings of the family, of the welfare of the family, of the
health of the family, that reaches you, will be always most acceptable
to me. That I shall be always very glad to chat with Mrs Richards
about the family, and about old time And as Mrs Richards and I never
had the least difference (though I could wish now that we had been
better acquainted, but I have no one but myself to blame for that), I
hope she will not object to our being very good friends now, and to my
coming backwards and forwards here, when I like, without being a
stranger. Now, I really hope, Mrs Richards,' said Miss Tox -
earnestly, 'that you will take this, as I mean it, like a
good-humoured creature, as you always were.'
Polly was gratified, and showed it. Mr Toodle didn't know whether
he was gratified or not, and preserved a stolid calmness.
'You see, Mrs Richards,' said Miss Tox - 'and I hope you see too,
Sir - there are many little ways in which I can be slightly useful to
you, if you will make no stranger of me; and in which I shall be
delighted to be so. For instance, I can teach your children something.
I shall bring a few little books, if you'll allow me, and some work,
and of an evening now and then, they'll learn - dear me, they'll learn
a great deal, I trust, and be a credit to their teacher.'
Mr Toodle, who had a great respect for learning, jerked his head
approvingly at his wife, and moistened his hands with dawning
satisfaction.
'Then, not being a stranger, I shall be in nobody's way,' said Miss
Tox, 'and everything will go on just as if I were not here. Mrs
Richards will do her mending, or her ironing, or her nursing, whatever
it is, without minding me: and you'll smoke your pipe, too, if you're
so disposed, Sir, won't you?'
'Thank'ee, Mum,' said Mr Toodle. 'Yes; I'll take my bit of backer.'
'Very good of you to say so, Sir,' rejoined Miss Tox, 'and I really
do assure you now, unfeignedly, that it will be a great comfort to me,
and that whatever good I may be fortunate enough to do the children,
you will more than pay back to me, if you'll enter into this little
bargain comfortably, and easily, and good-naturedly, without another
word about it.'
The bargain was ratified on the spot; and Miss Tox found herself so
much at home already, that without delay she instituted a preliminary
examination of the children all round - which Mr Toodle much admired -
and booked their ages, names, and acquirements, on a piece of paper.
This ceremony, and a little attendant gossip, prolonged the time until
after their usual hour of going to bed, and detained Miss Tox at the
Toodle fireside until it was too late for her to walk home alone. The
gallant Grinder, however, being still there, politely offered to
attend her to her own door; and as it was something to Miss Tox to be
seen home by a youth whom Mr Dombey had first inducted into those
manly garments which are rarely mentioned by name,' she very readily
accepted the proposal.
After shaking hands with Mr Toodle and Polly, and kissing all the
children, Miss Tox left the house, therefore, with unlimited
popularity, and carrying away with her so light a heart that it might
have given Mrs Chick offence if that good lady could have weighed it.
Rob the Grinder, in his modesty, would have walked behind, but Miss
Tox desired him to keep beside her, for conversational purposes; and,
as she afterwards expressed it to his mother, 'drew him out,' upon the
road.
He drew out so bright, and clear, and shining, that Miss Tox was
charmed with him. The more Miss Tox drew him out, the finer he came -
like wire. There never was a better or more promising youth - a more
affectionate, steady, prudent, sober, honest, meek, candid young man -
than Rob drew out, that night.
'I am quite glad,' said Miss Tox, arrived at her own door, 'to know
you. I hope you'll consider me your friend, and that you'll come and
see me as often as you like. Do you keep a money-box?'
'Yes, Ma'am,' returned Rob; 'I'm saving up, against I've got enough
to put in the Bank, Ma'am.
'Very laudable indeed,' said Miss Tox. 'I'm glad to hear it. Put
this half-crown into it, if you please.'
'Oh thank you, Ma'am,' replied Rob, 'but really I couldn't think of
depriving you.'
'I commend your independent spirit,' said Miss Tox, 'but it's no
deprivation, I assure you. I shall be offended if you don't take it,
as a mark of my good-will. Good-night, Robin.'
'Good-night, Ma'am,' said Rob, 'and thank you!'
Who ran sniggering off to get change, and tossed it away with a
pieman. But they never taught honour at the Grinders' School, where
the system that prevailed was particularly strong in the engendering
of hypocrisy. Insomuch, that many of the friends and masters of past
Grinders said, if this were what came of education for the common
people, let us have none. Some more rational said, let us have a
better one. But the governing powers of the Grinders' Company were
always ready for them, by picking out a few boys who had turned out
well in spite of the system, and roundly asserting that they could
have only turned out well because of it. Which settled the business of
those objectors out of hand, and established the glory of the
Grinders' Institution.
CHAPTER 39.
Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner
Time, sure of foot and strong of will, had so pressed onward, that
the year enjoined by the old Instrument-maker, as the term during
which his friend should refrain from opening the sealed packet
accompanying the letter he had left for him, was now nearly expired,
and Captain Cuttle began to look at it, of an evening, with feelings
of mystery and uneasiness
The Captain, in his honour, would as soon have thought of opening
the parcel one hour before the expiration of the term, as he would
have thought of opening himself, to study his own anatomy. He merely
brought it out, at a certain stage of his first evening pipe, laid it
on the table, and sat gazing at the outside of it, through the smoke,
in silent gravity, for two or three hours at a spell. Sometimes, when
he had contemplated it thus for a pretty long while, the Captain would
hitch his chair, by degrees, farther and farther off, as if to get
beyond the range of its fascination; but if this were his design, he
never succeeded: for even when he was brought up by the parlour wall,
the packet still attracted him; or if his eyes, in thoughtful
wandering, roved to the ceiling or the fire, its image immediately
followed, and posted itself conspicuously among the coals, or took up
an advantageous position on the whitewash.
In respect of Heart's Delight, the Captain's parental and
admiration knew no change. But since his last interview with Mr
Carker, Captain Cuttle had come to entertain doubts whether his former
intervention in behalf of that young lady and his dear boy Wal'r, had
proved altogether so favourable as he could have wished, and as he at
the time believed. The Captain was troubled with a serious misgiving
that he had done more harm than good, in short; and in his remorse and
modesty he made the best atonement he could think of, by putting
himself out of the way of doing any harm to anyone, and, as it were,
throwing himself overboard for a dangerous person.
Self-buried, therefore, among the instruments, the Captain never
went near Mr Dombey's house, or reported himself in any way to
Florence or Miss Nipper. He even severed himself from Mr Perch, on the
occasion of his next visit, by dryly informing that gentleman, that he
thanked him for his company, but had cut himself adrift from all such
acquaintance, as he didn't know what magazine he mightn't blow up,
without meaning of it. In this self-imposed retirement, the Captain
passed whole days and weeks without interchanging a word with anyone
but Rob the Grinder, whom he esteemed as a pattern of disinterested
attachment and fidelity. In this retirement, the Captain, gazing at
the packet of an evening, would sit smoking, and thinking of Florence
and poor Walter, until they both seemed to his homely fancy to be
dead, and to have passed away into eternal youth, the beautiful and
innocent children of his first remembrance.
The Captain did not, however, in his musings, neglect his own
improvement, or the mental culture of Rob the Grinder. That young man
was generally required to read out of some book to the Captain, for
one hour, every evening; and as the Captain implicitly believed that
all books were true, he accumulated, by this means, many remarkable
facts. On Sunday nights, the Captain always read for himself, before
going to bed, a certain Divine Sermon once delivered on a Mount; and
although he was accustomed to quote the text, without book, after his
own manner, he appeared to read it with as reverent an understanding
of its heavenly spirit, as if he had got it all by heart in Greek, and
had been able to write any number of fierce theological disquisitions
on its every phrase.
Rob the Grinder, whose reverence for the inspired writings, under
the admirable system of the Grinders' School, had been developed by a
perpetual bruising of his intellectual shins against all the proper
names of all the tribes of Judah, and by the monotonous repetition of
hard verses, especially by way of punishment, and by the parading of
him at six years old in leather breeches, three times a Sunday, very
high up, in a very hot church, with a great organ buzzing against his
drowsy head, like an exceedingly busy bee - Rob the Grinder made a
mighty show of being edified when the Captain ceased to read, and
generally yawned and nodded while the reading was in progress. The
latter fact being never so much as suspected by the good Captain.
Captain Cuttle, also, as a man of business; took to keeping books.
In these he entered observations on the weather, and on the currents
of the waggons and other vehicles: which he observed, in that quarter,
to set westward in the morning and during the greater part of the day,
and eastward towards the evening. Two or three stragglers appearing in
one week, who 'spoke him' - so the Captain entered it- on the subject
of spectacles, and who, without positively purchasing, said they would
look in again, the Captain decided that the business was improving,
and made an entry in the day-book to that effect: the wind then
blowing (which he first recorded) pretty fresh, west and by north;
having changed in the night.
One of the Captain's chief difficulties was Mr Toots, who called
frequently, and who without saying much seemed to have an idea that
the little back parlour was an eligible room to chuckle in, as he
would sit and avail himself of its accommodations in that regard by
the half-hour together, without at all advancing in intimacy with the
Captain. The Captain, rendered cautious by his late experience, was
unable quite to satisfy his mind whether Mr Toots was the mild subject
he appeared to be, or was a profoundly artful and dissimulating
hypocrite. His frequent reference to Miss Dombey was suspicious; but
the Captain had a secret kindness for Mr Toots's apparent reliance on
him, and forbore to decide against him for the present; merely eyeing
him, with a sagacity not to be described, whenever he approached the
subject that was nearest to his heart.
'Captain Gills,' blurted out Mr Toots, one day all at once, as his
manner was, 'do you think you could think favourably of that
proposition of mine, and give me the pleasure of your acquaintance?'
'Why, I tell you what it is, my lad,' replied the Captain, who had
at length concluded on a course of action; 'I've been turning that
there, over.'
'Captain Gills, it's very kind of you,' retorted Mr Toots. 'I'm
much obliged to you. Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills, it would
be a charity to give me the pleasure of your acquaintance. It really
would.'
'You see, brother,' argued the Captain slowly, 'I don't know you.
'But you never can know me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots,
steadfast to his point, 'if you don't give me the pleasure of your
acquaintance.
The Captain seemed struck by the originality and power of this
remark, and looked at Mr Toots as if he thought there was a great deal
more in him than he had expected.
'Well said, my lad,' observed the Captain, nodding his head
thoughtfully; 'and true. Now look'ee here: You've made some
observations to me, which gives me to understand as you admire a
certain sweet creetur. Hey?'
'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, gesticulating violently with the
hand in which he held his hat, 'Admiration is not the word. Upon my
honour, you have no conception what my feelings are. If I could be
dyed black, and made Miss Dombey's slave, I should consider it a
compliment. If, at the sacrifice of all my property, I could get
transmigrated into Miss Dombey's dog - I - I really think I should
never leave off wagging my tail. I should be so perfectly happy,
Captain Gills!'
Mr Toots said it with watery eyes, and pressed his hat against his
bosom with deep emotion.
'My lad,' returned the Captain, moved to compassion, 'if you're in
arnest -
'Captain Gills,' cried Mr Toots, 'I'm in such a state of mind, and
am so dreadfully in earnest, that if I could swear to it upon a hot
piece of iron, or a live coal, or melted lead, or burning sealing-wax,
Or anything of that sort, I should be glad to hurt myself, as a relief
to my feelings.' And Mr Toots looked hurriedly about the room, as if
for some sufficiently painful means of accomplishing his dread
purpose.
The Captain pushed his glazed hat back upon his head, stroked his
face down with his heavy hand - making his nose more mottled in the
process - and planting himself before Mr Toots, and hooking him by the
lapel of his coat, addressed him in these words, while Mr Toots looked
up into his face, with much attention and some wonder.
'If you're in arnest, you see, my lad,' said the Captain, 'you're a
object of clemency, and clemency is the brightest jewel in the crown
of a Briton's head, for which you'll overhaul the constitution as laid
down in Rule Britannia, and, when found, that is the charter as them
garden angels was a singing of, so many times over. Stand by! This
here proposal o' you'rn takes me a little aback. And why? Because I
holds my own only, you understand, in these here waters, and haven't
got no consort, and may be don't wish for none. Steady! You hailed me
first, along of a certain young lady, as you was chartered by. Now if
you and me is to keep one another's company at all, that there young
creetur's name must never be named nor referred to. I don't know what
harm mayn't have been done by naming of it too free, afore now, and
thereby I brings up short. D'ye make me out pretty clear, brother?'
'Well, you'll excuse me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, 'if I
don't quite follow you sometimes. But upon my word I - it's a hard
thing, Captain Gills, not to be able to mention Miss Dombey. I really
have got such a dreadful load here!' - Mr Toots pathetically touched
his shirt-front with both hands - 'that I feel night and day, exactly
as if somebody was sitting upon me.
'Them,' said the Captain, 'is the terms I offer. If they're hard
upon you, brother, as mayhap they are, give 'em a wide berth, sheer
off, and part company cheerily!'
'Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'I hardly know how it is, but
after what you told me when I came here, for the first time, I - I
feel that I'd rather think about Miss Dombey in your society than talk
about her in almost anybody else's. Therefore, Captain Gills, if
you'll give me the pleasure of your acquaintance, I shall be very
happy to accept it on your own conditions. I wish to be honourable,
Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, holding back his extended hand for a
moment, 'and therefore I am obliged to say that I can not help
thinking about Miss Dombey. It's impossible for me to make a promise
not to think about her.'
'My lad,' said the Captain, whose opinion of Mr Toots was much
improved by this candid avowal, 'a man's thoughts is like the winds,
and nobody can't answer for 'em for certain, any length of time
together. Is it a treaty as to words?'
'As to words, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'I think I can
bind myself.'
Mr Toots gave Captain Cuttle his hand upon it, then and there; and
the Captain with a pleasant and gracious show of condescension,
bestowed his acquaintance upon him formally. Mr Toots seemed much
relieved and gladdened by the acquisition, and chuckled rapturously
during the remainder of his visit. The Captain, for his part, was not
ill pleased to occupy that position of patronage, and was exceedingly
well satisfied by his own prudence and foresight.
But rich as Captain Cuttle was in the latter quality, he received a
surprise that same evening from a no less ingenuous and simple youth,
than Rob the Grinder. That artless lad, drinking tea at the same
table, and bending meekly over his cup and saucer, having taken
sidelong observations of his master for some time, who was reading the
newspaper with great difficulty, but much dignity, through his
glasses, broke silence by saying -
'Oh! I beg your pardon, Captain, but you mayn't be in want of any
pigeons, may you, Sir?'
'No, my lad,' replied the Captain.
'Because I was wishing to dispose of mine, Captain,' said Rob.
'Ay, ay?' cried the Captain, lifting up his bushy eyebrows a
little.
'Yes; I'm going, Captain, if you please,' said Rob.
'Going? Where are you going?' asked the Captain, looking round at
him over the glasses.
'What? didn't you know that I was going to leave you, Captain?'
asked Rob, with a sneaking smile.
The Captain put down the paper, took off his spectacles, and
brought his eyes to bear on the deserter.
'Oh yes, Captain, I am going to give you warning. I thought you'd
have known that beforehand, perhaps,' said Rob, rubbing his hands, and
getting up. 'If you could be so good as provide yourself soon,
Captain, it would be a great convenience to me. You couldn't provide
yourself by to-morrow morning, I am afraid, Captain: could you, do you
think?'
'And you're a going to desert your colours, are you, my lad?' said
the Captain, after a long examination of his face.
'Oh, it's very hard upon a cove, Captain,' cried the tender Rob,
injured and indignant in a moment, 'that he can't give lawful warning,
without being frowned at in that way, and called a deserter. You
haven't any right to call a poor cove names, Captain. It ain't because
I'm a servant and you're a master, that you're to go and libel me.
What wrong have I done? Come, Captain, let me know what my crime is,
will you?'
The stricken Grinder wept, and put his coat-cuff in his eye.
'Come, Captain,' cried the injured youth, 'give my crime a name!
What have I been and done? Have I stolen any of the property? have I
set the house a-fire? If I have, why don't you give me in charge, and
try it? But to take away the character of a lad that's been a good
servant to you, because he can't afford to stand in his own light for
your good, what a injury it is, and what a bad return for faithful
service! This is the way young coves is spiled and drove wrong. I
wonder at you, Captain, I do.'
All of which the Grinder howled forth in a lachrymose whine, and
backing carefully towards the door.
'And so you've got another berth, have you, my lad?' said the
Captain, eyeing him intently.
'Yes, Captain, since you put it in that shape, I have got another
berth,' cried Rob, backing more and more; 'a better berth than I've
got here, and one where I don't so much as want your good word,
Captain, which is fort'nate for me, after all the dirt you've throw'd
at me, because I'm poor, and can't afford to stand in my own light for
your good. Yes, I have got another berth; and if it wasn't for leaving
you unprovided, Captain, I'd go to it now, sooner than I'd take them
names from you, because I'm poor, and can't afford to stand in my own
light for your good. Why do you reproach me for being poor, and not
standing in my own light for your good, Captain? How can you so demean
yourself?'
'Look ye here, my boy,' replied the peaceful Captain. 'Don't you
pay out no more of them words.'
'Well, then, don't you pay in no more of your words, Captain,'
retorted the roused innocent, getting louder in his whine, and backing
into the shop. 'I'd sooner you took my blood than my character.'
'Because,' pursued the Captain calmly, 'you have heerd, may be, of
such a thing as a rope's end.'
'Oh, have I though, Captain?' cried the taunting Grinder. 'No I
haven't. I never heerd of any such a article!'
'Well,' said the Captain, 'it's my belief as you'll know more about
it pretty soon, if you don't keep a bright look-out. I can read your
signals, my lad. You may go.'
'Oh! I may go at once, may I, Captain?' cried Rob, exulting in his
success. 'But mind! I never asked to go at once, Captain. You are not
to take away my character again, because you send me off of your own
accord. And you're not to stop any of my wages, Captain!'
His employer settled the last point by producing the tin canister
and telling the Grinder's money out in full upon the table. Rob,
snivelling and sobbing, and grievously wounded in his feelings, took
up the pieces one by one, with a sob and a snivel for each, and tied
them up separately in knots in his pockethandkerchief; then he
ascended to the roof of the house and filled his hat and pockets with
pigeons; then, came down to his bed under the counter and made up his
bundle, snivelling and sobbing louder, as if he were cut to the heart
by old associations; then he whined, 'Good-night, Captain. I leave you
without malice!' and then, going out upon the door-step, pulled the
little Midshipman's nose as a parting indignity, and went away down
the street grinning triumphantly.
The Captain, left to himself, resumed his perusal of the news as if
nothing unusual or unexpected had taken place, and went reading on
with the greatest assiduity. But never a word did Captain Cuttle
understand, though he read a vast number, for Rob the Grinder was
scampering up one column and down another all through the newspaper.
It is doubtful whether the worthy Captain had ever felt himself
quite abandoned until now; but now, old Sol Gills, Walter, and Heart's
Delight were lost to him indeed, and now Mr Carker deceived and jeered
him cruelly. They were all represented in the false Rob, to whom he
had held forth many a time on the recollections that were warm within
him; he had believed in the false Rob, and had been glad to believe in
him; he had made a companion of him as the last of the old ship's
company; he had taken the command of the little Midshipman with him at
his right hand; he had meant to do his duty by him, and had felt
almost as kindly towards the boy as if they had been shipwrecked and
cast upon a desert place together. And now, that the false Rob had
brought distrust, treachery, and meanness into the very parlour, which
was a kind of sacred place, Captain Cuttle felt as if the parlour
might have gone down next, and not surprised him much by its sinking,
or given him any very great concern.
Therefore Captain Cuttle read the newspaper with profound attention
and no comprehension, and therefore Captain Cuttle said nothing
whatever about Rob to himself, or admitted to himself that he was
thinking about him, or would recognise in the most distant manner that
Rob had anything to do with his feeling as lonely as Robinson Crusoe.
In the same composed, business-like way, the Captain stepped over
to Leadenhall Market in the dusk, and effected an arrangement with a
private watchman on duty there, to come and put up and take down the
shutters of the wooden Midshipman every night and morning. He then
called in at the eating-house to diminish by one half the daily
rations theretofore supplied to the Midshipman, and at the
public-house to stop the traitor's beer. 'My young man,' said the
Captain, in explanation to the young lady at the bar, 'my young man
having bettered himself, Miss.' Lastly, the Captain resolved to take
possession of the bed under the counter, and to turn in there o'
nights instead of upstairs, as sole guardian of the property.
From this bed Captain Cuttle daily rose thenceforth, and clapped on
his glazed hat at six o'clock in the morning, with the solitary air of
Crusoe finishing his toilet with his goat-skin cap; and although his
fears of a visitation from the savage tribe, MacStinger, were somewhat
cooled, as similar apprehensions on the part of that lone mariner used
to be by the lapse of a long interval without any symptoms of the
cannibals, he still observed a regular routine of defensive
operations, and never encountered a bonnet without previous survey
from his castle of retreat. In the meantime (during which he received
no call from Mr Toots, who wrote to say he was out of town) his own
voice began to have a strange sound in his ears; and he acquired such
habits of profound meditation from much polishing and stowing away of
the stock, and from much sitting behind the counter reading, or
looking out of window, that the red rim made on his forehead by the
hard glazed hat, sometimes ached again with excess of reflection.
The year being now expired, Captain Cuttle deemed it expedient to
open the packet; but as he had always designed doing this in the
presence of Rob the Grinder, who had brought it to him, and as he had
an idea that it would be regular and ship-shape to open it in the
presence of somebody, he was sadly put to it for want of a witness. In
this difficulty, he hailed one day with unusual delight the
announcement in the Shipping Intelligence of the arrival of the
Cautious Clara, Captain John Bunsby, from a coasting voyage; and to
that philosopher immediately dispatched a letter by post, enjoining
inviolable secrecy as to his place of residence, and requesting to be
favoured with an early visit, in the evening season.
Bunsby, who was one of those sages who act upon conviction, took
some days to get the conviction thoroughly into his mind, that he had
received a letter to this effect. But when he had grappled with the
fact, and mastered it, he promptly sent his boy with the message,
'He's a coming to-night.' Who being instructed to deliver those words
and disappear, fulfilled his mission like a tarry spirit, charged with
a mysterious warning.
The Captain, well pleased to receive it, made preparation of pipes
and rum and water, and awaited his visitor in the back parlour. At the
hour of eight, a deep lowing, as of a nautical Bull, outside the
shop-door, succeeded by the knocking of a stick on the panel,
announced to the listening ear of Captain Cuttle, that Bunsby was
alongside; whom he instantly admitted, shaggy and loose, and with his
stolid mahogany visage, as usual, appearing to have no consciousness
of anything before it, but to be attentively observing something that
was taking place in quite another part of the world.
'Bunsby,' said the Captain, grasping him by the hand, 'what cheer,
my lad, what cheer?'
'Shipmet,' replied the voice within Bunsby, unaccompanied by any
sign on the part of the Commander himself, 'hearty, hearty.'
'Bunsby!' said the Captain, rendering irrepressible homage to his
genius, 'here you are! a man as can give an opinion as is brighter
than di'monds - and give me the lad with the tarry trousers as shines
to me like di'monds bright, for which you'll overhaul the Stanfell's
Budget, and when found make a note.' Here you are, a man as gave an
opinion in this here very place, that has come true, every letter on
it,' which the Captain sincerely believed.
'Ay, ay?' growled Bunsby.
'Every letter,' said the Captain.
'For why?' growled Bunsby, looking at his friend for the first
time. 'Which way? If so, why not? Therefore.' With these oracular
words - they seemed almost to make the Captain giddy; they launched
him upon such a sea of speculation and conjecture - the sage submitted
to be helped off with his pilot-coat, and accompanied his friend into
the back parlour, where his hand presently alighted on the rum-bottle,
from which he brewed a stiff glass of grog; and presently afterwards
on a pipe, which he filled, lighted, and began to smoke.
Captain Cuttle, imitating his visitor in the matter of these
particulars, though the rapt and imperturbable manner of the great
Commander was far above his powers, sat in the opposite corner of the
fireside, observing him respectfully, and as if he waited for some
encouragement or expression of curiosity on Bunsby's part which should
lead him to his own affairs. But as the mahogany philosopher gave no
evidence of being sentient of anything but warmth and tobacco, except
once, when taking his pipe from his lips to make room for his glass,
he incidentally remarked with exceeding gruffness, that his name was
Jack Bunsby - a declaration that presented but small opening for
conversation - the Captain bespeaking his attention in a short
complimentary exordium, narrated the whole history of Uncle Sol's
departure, with the change it had produced in his own life and
fortunes; and concluded by placing the packet on the table.
After a long pause, Mr Bunsby nodded his head.
'Open?' said the Captain.
Bunsby nodded again.
The Captain accordingly broke the seal, and disclosed to view two
folded papers, of which he severally read the endorsements, thus:
'Last Will and Testament of Solomon Gills.' 'Letter for Ned Cuttle.'
Bunsby, with his eye on the coast of Greenland, seemed to listen
for the contents. The Captain therefore hemmed to clear his throat,
and read the letter aloud.
'"My dear Ned Cuttle. When I left home for the West Indies" - '
Here the Captain stopped, and looked hard at Bunsby, who looked
fixedly at the coast of Greenland.
' - "in forlorn search of intelligence of my dear boy, I knew that
if you were acquainted with my design, you would thwart it, or
accompany me; and therefore I kept it secret. If you ever read this
letter, Ned, I am likely to be dead. You will easily forgive an old
friend's folly then, and will feel for the restlessness and
uncertainty in which he wandered away on such a wild voyage. So no
more of that. I have little hope that my poor boy will ever read these
words, or gladden your eyes with the sight of his frank face any
more." No, no; no more,' said Captain Cuttle, sorrowfully meditating;
'no more. There he lays, all his days - '
Mr Bunsby, who had a musical ear, suddenly bellowed, 'In the Bays
of Biscay, O!' which so affected the good Captain, as an appropriate
tribute to departed worth, that he shook him by the hand in
acknowledgment, and was fain to wipe his eyes.
'Well, well!' said the Captain with a sigh, as the Lament of Bunsby
ceased to ring and vibrate in the skylight. 'Affliction sore, long
time he bore, and let us overhaul the wollume, and there find it.'
'Physicians,' observed Bunsby, 'was in vain."
'Ay, ay, to be sure,' said the Captain, 'what's the good o' them in
two or three hundred fathoms o' water!' Then, returning to the letter,
he read on: - '"But if he should be by, when it is opened;"' the
Captain involuntarily looked round, and shook his head; '"or should
know of it at any other time;"' the Captain shook his head again; '"my
blessing on him! In case the accompanying paper is not legally
written, it matters very little, for there is no one interested but
you and he, and my plain wish is, that if he is living he should have
what little there may be, and if (as I fear) otherwise, that you
should have it, Ned. You will respect my wish, I know. God bless you
for it, and for all your friendliness besides, to Solomon Gills."
Bunsby!' said the Captain, appealing to him solemnly, 'what do you
make of this? There you sit, a man as has had his head broke from
infancy up'ards, and has got a new opinion into it at every seam as
has been opened. Now, what do you make o' this?'
'If so be,' returned Bunsby, with unusual promptitude, 'as he's
dead, my opinion is he won't come back no more. If so be as he's
alive, my opinion is he will. Do I say he will? No. Why not? Because
the bearings of this obserwation lays in the application on it.'
'Bunsby!' said Captain Cuttle, who would seem to have estimated the
value of his distinguished friend's opinions in proportion to the
immensity of the difficulty he experienced in making anything out of
them; 'Bunsby,' said the Captain, quite confounded by admiration, 'you
carry a weight of mind easy, as would swamp one of my tonnage soon.
But in regard o' this here will, I don't mean to take no steps towards
the property - Lord forbid! - except to keep it for a more rightful
owner; and I hope yet as the rightful owner, Sol Gills, is living
and'll come back, strange as it is that he ain't forwarded no
dispatches. Now, what is your opinion, Bunsby, as to stowing of these
here papers away again, and marking outside as they was opened, such a
day, in the presence of John Bunsby and Ed'ard Cuttle?'
Bunsby, descrying no objection, on the coast of Greenland or
elsewhere, to this proposal, it was carried into execution; and that
great man, bringing his eye into the present for a moment, affixed his
sign-manual to the cover, totally abstaining, with characteristic
modesty, from the use of capital letters. Captain Cuttle, having
attached his own left-handed signature, and locked up the packet in
the iron safe, entreated his guest to mix another glass and smoke
another pipe; and doing the like himself, fell a musing over the fire
on the possible fortunes of the poor old Instrument-maker.
And now a surprise occurred, so overwhelming and terrific that
Captain Cuttle, unsupported by the presence of Bunsby, must have sunk
beneath it, and been a lost man from that fatal hour.
How the Captain, even in the satisfaction of admitting such a
guest, could have only shut the door, and not locked it, of which
negligence he was undoubtedly guilty, is one of those questions that
must for ever remain mere points of speculation, or vague charges
against destiny. But by that unlocked door, at this quiet moment, did
the fell MacStinger dash into the parlour, bringing Alexander
MacStinger in her parental arms, and confusion and vengeance (not to
mention Juliana MacStinger, and the sweet child's brother, Charles
MacStinger, popularly known about the scenes of his youthful sports,
as Chowley) in her train. She came so swiftly and so silently, like a
rushing air from the neighbourhood of the East India Docks, that
Captain Cuttle found himself in the very act of sitting looking at
her, before the calm face with which he had been meditating, changed
to one of horror and dismay.
But the moment Captain Cuttle understood the full extent of his
misfortune, self-preservation dictated an attempt at flight. Darting
at the little door which opened from the parlour on the steep little
range of cellar-steps, the Captain made a rush, head-foremost, at the
latter, like a man indifferent to bruises and contusions, who only
sought to hide himself in the bowels of the earth. In this gallant
effort he would probably have succeeded, but for the affectionate
dispositions of Juliana and Chowley, who pinning him by the legs - one
of those dear children holding on to each - claimed him as their
friend, with lamentable cries. In the meantime, Mrs MacStinger, who
never entered upon any action of importance without previously
inverting Alexander MacStinger, to bring him within the range of a
brisk battery of slaps, and then sitting him down to cool as the
reader first beheld him, performed that solemn rite, as if on this
occasion it were a sacrifice to the Furies; and having deposited the
victim on the floor, made at the Captain with a strength of purpose
that appeared to threaten scratches to the interposing Bunsby.
The cries of the two elder MacStingers, and the wailing of young
Alexander, who may be said to have passed a piebald childhood,
forasmuch as he was black in the face during one half of that fairy
period of existence, combined to make this visitation the more awful.
But when silence reigned again, and the Captain, in a violent
perspiration, stood meekly looking at Mrs MacStinger, its terrors were
at their height.
'Oh, Cap'en Cuttle, Cap'en Cuttle!' said Mrs MacStinger, making her
chin rigid, and shaking it in unison with what, but for the weakness
of her sex, might be described as her fist. 'Oh, Cap'en Cuttle, Cap'en
Cuttle, do you dare to look me in the face, and not be struck down in
the herth!'
The Captain, who looked anything but daring, feebly muttered
'Standby!'
'Oh I was a weak and trusting Fool when I took you under my roof,
Cap'en Cuttle, I was!' cried Mrs MacStinger. 'To think of the benefits
I've showered on that man, and the way in which I brought my children
up to love and honour him as if he was a father to 'em, when there
ain't a housekeeper, no nor a lodger in our street, don't know that I
lost money by that man, and by his guzzlings and his muzzlings' - Mrs
MacStinger used the last word for the joint sake of alliteration and
aggravation, rather than for the expression of any idea - 'and when
they cried out one and all, shame upon him for putting upon an
industrious woman, up early and late for the good of her young family,
and keeping her poor place so clean that a individual might have ate
his dinner, yes, and his tea too, if he was so disposed, off any one
of the floors or stairs, in spite of all his guzzlings and his
muzzlings, such was the care and pains bestowed upon him!'
Mrs MacStinger stopped to fetch her breath; and her face flushed
with triumph in this second happy introduction of Captain Cuttle's
muzzlings.
'And he runs awa-a-a-y!'cried Mrs MacStinger, with a lengthening
out of the last syllable that made the unfortunate Captain regard
himself as the meanest of men; 'and keeps away a twelve-month! From a
woman! Such is his conscience! He hasn't the courage to meet her
hi-i-igh;' long syllable again; 'but steals away, like a felion. Why,
if that baby of mine,' said Mrs MacStinger, with sudden rapidity, 'was
to offer to go and steal away, I'd do my duty as a mother by him, till
he was covered with wales!'
The young Alexander, interpreting this into a positive promise, to
be shortly redeemed, tumbled over with fear and grief, and lay upon
the floor, exhibiting the soles of his shoes and making such a
deafening outcry, that Mrs MacStinger found it necessary to take him
up in her arms, where she quieted him, ever and anon, as he broke out
again, by a shake that seemed enough to loosen his teeth.
'A pretty sort of a man is Cap'en Cuttle,' said Mrs MacStinger,
with a sharp stress on the first syllable of the Captain's name, 'to
take on for - and to lose sleep for- and to faint along of- and to
think dead forsooth - and to go up and down the blessed town like a
madwoman, asking questions after! Oh, a pretty sort of a man! Ha ha ha
ha! He's worth all that trouble and distress of mind, and much more.
That's nothing, bless you! Ha ha ha ha! Cap'en Cuttle,' said Mrs
MacStinger, with severe reaction in her voice and manner, 'I wish to
know if you're a-coming home.
The frightened Captain looked into his hat, as if he saw nothing
for it but to put it on, and give himself up.
'Cap'en Cuttle,' repeated Mrs MacStinger, in the same determined
manner, 'I wish to know if you're a-coming home, Sir.'
The Captain seemed quite ready to go, but faintly suggested
something to the effect of 'not making so much noise about it.'
'Ay, ay, ay,' said Bunsby, in a soothing tone. 'Awast, my lass,
awast!'
'And who may you be, if you please!' retorted Mrs MacStinger, with
chaste loftiness. 'Did you ever lodge at Number Nine, Brig Place, Sir?
My memory may be bad, but not with me, I think. There was a Mrs
Jollson lived at Number Nine before me, and perhaps you're mistaking
me for her. That is my only ways of accounting for your familiarity,
Sir.'
'Come, come, my lass, awast, awast!' said Bunsby.
Captain Cuttle could hardly believe it, even of this great man,
though he saw it done with his waking eyes; but Bunsby, advancing
boldly, put his shaggy blue arm round Mrs MacStinger, and so softened
her by his magic way of doing it, and by these few words - he said no
more - that she melted into tears, after looking upon him for a few
moments, and observed that a child might conquer her now, she was so
low in her courage.
Speechless and utterly amazed, the Captain saw him gradually
persuade this inexorable woman into the shop, return for rum and water
and a candle, take them to her, and pacify her without appearing to
utter one word. Presently he looked in with his pilot-coat on, and
said, 'Cuttle, I'm a-going to act as convoy home;' and Captain Cuttle,
more to his confusion than if he had been put in irons himself, for
safe transport to Brig Place, saw the family pacifically filing off,
with Mrs MacStinger at their head. He had scarcely time to take down
his canister, and stealthily convey some money into the hands of
Juliana MacStinger, his former favourite, and Chowley, who had the
claim upon him that he was naturally of a maritime build, before the
Midshipman was abandoned by them all; and Bunsby whispering that he'd
carry on smart, and hail Ned Cuttle again before he went aboard, shut
the door upon himself, as the last member of the party.
Some uneasy ideas that he must be walking in his sleep, or that he
had been troubled with phantoms, and not a family of flesh and blood,
beset the Captain at first, when he went back to the little parlour,
and found himself alone. Illimitable faith in, and immeasurable
admiration of, the Commander of the Cautious Clara, succeeded, and
threw the Captain into a wondering trance.
Still, as time wore on, and Bunsby failed to reappear, the Captain
began to entertain uncomfortable doubts of another kind. Whether
Bunsby had been artfully decoyed to Brig Place, and was there detained
in safe custody as hostage for his friend; in which case it would
become the Captain, as a man of honour, to release him, by the
sacrifice of his own liberty. Whether he had been attacked and
defeated by Mrs MacStinger, and was ashamed to show himself after his
discomfiture. Whether Mrs MacStinger, thinking better of it, in the
uncertainty of her temper, had turned back to board the Midshipman
again, and Bunsby, pretending to conduct her by a short cut, was
endeavouring to lose the family amid the wilds and savage places of
the City. Above all, what it would behove him, Captain Cuttle, to do,
in case of his hearing no more, either of the MacStingers or of
Bunsby, which, in these wonderful and unforeseen conjunctions of
events, might possibly happen.
He debated all this until he was tired; and still no Bunsby. He
made up his bed under the counter, all ready for turning in; and still
no Bunsby. At length, when the Captain had given him up, for that
night at least, and had begun to undress, the sound of approaching
wheels was heard, and, stopping at the door, was succeeded by Bunsby's
hail.
The Captain trembled to think that Mrs MacStinger was not to be got
rid of, and had been brought back in a coach.
But no. Bunsby was accompanied by nothing but a large box, which he
hauled into the shop with his own hands, and as soon as he had hauled
in, sat upon. Captain Cuttle knew it for the chest he had left at Mrs
MacStinger's house, and looking, candle in hand, at Bunsby more
attentively, believed that he was three sheets in the wind, or, in
plain words, drunk. It was difficult, however, to be sure of this; the
Commander having no trace of expression in his face when sober.
'Cuttle,' said the Commander, getting off the chest, and opening
the lid, 'are these here your traps?'
Captain Cuttle looked in and identified his property.
'Done pretty taut and trim, hey, shipmet?' said Bunsby.
The grateful and bewildered Captain grasped him by the hand, and
was launching into a reply expressive of his astonished feelings, when
Bunsby disengaged himself by a jerk of his wrist, and seemed to make
an effort to wink with his revolving eye, the only effect of which
attempt, in his condition, was nearly to over-balance him. He then
abruptly opened the door, and shot away to rejoin the Cautious Clara
with all speed - supposed to be his invariable custom, whenever he
considered he had made a point.
As it was not his humour to be often sought, Captain Cuttle decided
not to go or send to him next day, or until he should make his
gracious pleasure known in such wise, or failing that, until some
little time should have lapsed. The Captain, therefore, renewed his
solitary life next morning, and thought profoundly, many mornings,
noons, and nights, of old Sol Gills, and Bunsby's sentiments
concerning him, and the hopes there were of his return. Much of such
thinking strengthened Captain Cuttle's hopes; and he humoured them and
himself by watching for the Instrument-maker at the door - as he
ventured to do now, in his strange liberty - and setting his chair in
its place, and arranging the little parlour as it used to be, in case
he should come home unexpectedly. He likewise, in his thoughtfulness,
took down a certain little miniature of Walter as a schoolboy, from
its accustomed nail, lest it should shock the old man on his return.
The Captain had his presentiments, too, sometimes, that he would come
on such a day; and one particular Sunday, even ordered a double
allowance of dinner, he was so sanguine. But come, old Solomon did
not; and still the neighbours noticed how the seafaring man in the
glazed hat, stood at the shop-door of an evening, looking up and down
the street.
CHAPTER 40.
Domestic Relations
It was not in the nature of things that a man of Mr Dombey's mood,
opposed to such a spirit as he had raised against himself, should be
softened in the imperious asperity of his temper; or that the cold
hard armour of pride in which he lived encased, should be made more
flexible by constant collision with haughty scorn and defiance. It is
the curse of such a nature - it is a main part of the heavy
retribution on itself it bears within itself - that while deference
and concession swell its evil qualities, and are the food it grows
upon, resistance and a questioning of its exacting claims, foster it
too, no less. The evil that is in it finds equally its means of growth
and propagation in opposites. It draws support and life from sweets
and bitters; bowed down before, or unacknowledged, it still enslaves
the breast in which it has its throne; and, worshipped or rejected, is
as hard a master as the Devil in dark fables.
Towards his first wife, Mr Dombey, in his cold and lofty arrogance,
had borne himself like the removed Being he almost conceived himself
to be. He had been 'Mr Dombey' with her when she first saw him, and he
was 'Mr Dombey' when she died. He had asserted his greatness during
their whole married life, and she had meekly recognised it. He had
kept his distant seat of state on the top of his throne, and she her
humble station on its lowest step; and much good it had done him, so
to live in solitary bondage to his one idea. He had imagined that the
proud character of his second wife would have been added to his own -
would have merged into it, and exalted his greatness. He had pictured
himself haughtier than ever, with Edith's haughtiness subservient to
his. He had never entertained the possibility of its arraying itself
against him. And now, when he found it rising in his path at every
step and turn of his daily life, fixing its cold, defiant, and
contemptuous face upon him, this pride of his, instead of withering,
or hanging down its head beneath the shock, put forth new shoots,
became more concentrated and intense, more gloomy, sullen, irksome,
and unyielding, than it had ever been before.
Who wears such armour, too, bears with him ever another heavy
retribution. It is of proof against conciliation, love, and
confidence; against all gentle sympathy from without, all trust, all
tenderness, all soft emotion; but to deep stabs in the self-love, it
is as vulnerable as the bare breast to steel; and such tormenting
festers rankle there, as follow on no other wounds, no, though dealt
with the mailed hand of Pride itself, on weaker pride, disarmed and
thrown down.
Such wounds were his. He felt them sharply, in the solitude of his
old rooms; whither he now began often to retire again, and pass long
solitary hours. It seemed his fate to be ever proud and powerful; ever
humbled and powerless where he would be most strong. Who seemed fated
to work out that doom?
Who? Who was it who could win his wife as she had won his boy? Who
was it who had shown him that new victory, as he sat in the dark
corner? Who was it whose least word did what his utmost means could
not? Who was it who, unaided by his love, regard or notice, thrived
and grew beautiful when those so aided died? Who could it be, but the
same child at whom he had often glanced uneasily in her motherless
infancy, with a kind of dread, lest he might come to hate her; and of
whom his foreboding was fulfilled, for he DID hate her in his heart?
Yes, and he would have it hatred, and he made it hatred, though
some sparkles of the light in which she had appeared before him on the
memorable night of his return home with his Bride, occasionally hung
about her still. He knew now that she was beautiful; he did not
dispute that she was graceful and winning, and that in the bright dawn
of her womanhood she had come upon him, a surprise. But he turned even
this against her. In his sullen and unwholesome brooding, the unhappy
man, with a dull perception of his alienation from all hearts, and a
vague yearning for what he had all his life repelled, made a distorted
picture of his rights and wrongs, and justified himself with it
against her. The worthier she promised to be of him, the greater claim
he was disposed to antedate upon her duty and submission. When had she
ever shown him duty and submission? Did she grace his life - or
Edith's? Had her attractions been manifested first to him - or Edith?
Why, he and she had never been, from her birth, like father and child!
They had always been estranged. She had crossed him every way and
everywhere. She was leagued against him now. Her very beauty softened
natures that were obdurate to him, and insulted him with an unnatural
triumph.
It may have been that in all this there were mutterings of an
awakened feeling in his breast, however selfishly aroused by his
position of disadvantage, in comparison with what she might have made
his life. But he silenced the distant thunder with the rolling of his
sea of pride. He would bear nothing but his pride. And in his pride, a
heap of inconsistency, and misery, and self-inflicted torment, he
hated her.
To the moody, stubborn, sullen demon, that possessed him, his wife
opposed her different pride in its full force. They never could have
led a happy life together; but nothing could have made it more
unhappy, than the wilful and determined warfare of such elements. His
pride was set upon maintaining his magnificent supremacy, and forcing
recognition of it from her. She would have been racked to death, and
turned but her haughty glance of calm inflexible disdain upon him, to
the last. Such recognition from Edith! He little knew through what a
storm and struggle she had been driven onward to the crowning honour
of his hand. He little knew how much she thought she had conceded,
when she suffered him to call her wife.
Mr Dombey was resolved to show her that he was supreme. There must
be no will but his. Proud he desired that she should be, but she must
be proud for, not against him. As he sat alone, hardening, he would
often hear her go out and come home, treading the round of London life
with no more heed of his liking or disliking, pleasure or displeasure,
than if he had been her groom. Her cold supreme indifference - his own
unquestioned attribute usurped - stung him more than any other kind of
treatment could have done; and he determined to bend her to his
magnificent and stately will.
He had been long communing with these thoughts, when one night he
sought her in her own apartment, after he had heard her return home
late. She was alone, in her brilliant dress, and had but that moment
come from her mother's room. Her face was melancholy and pensive, when
he came upon her; but it marked him at the door; for, glancing at the
mirror before it, he saw immediately, as in a picture-frame, the
knitted brow, and darkened beauty that he knew so well.
'Mrs Dombey,' he said, entering, 'I must beg leave to have a few
words with you.'
'To-morrow,' she replied.
'There is no time like the present, Madam,' he returned. 'You
mistake your position. I am used to choose my own times; not to have
them chosen for me. I think you scarcely understand who and what I am,
Mrs Dombey.
'I think,' she answered, 'that I understand you very well.'
She looked upon him as she said so, and folding her white arms,
sparkling with gold and gems, upon her swelling breast, turned away
her eyes.
If she had been less handsome, and less stately in her cold
composure, she might not have had the power of impressing him with the
sense of disadvantage that penetrated through his utmost pride. But
she had the power, and he felt it keenly. He glanced round the room:
saw how the splendid means of personal adornment, and the luxuries of
dress, were scattered here and there, and disregarded; not in mere
caprice and carelessness (or so he thought), but in a steadfast
haughty disregard of costly things: and felt it more and more.
Chaplets of flowers, plumes of feathers, jewels, laces, silks and
satins; look where he would, he saw riches, despised, poured out, and.
made of no account. The very diamonds - a marriage gift - that rose
and fell impatiently upon her bosom, seemed to pant to break the chain
that clasped them round her neck, and roll down on the floor where she
might tread upon them.
He felt his disadvantage, and he showed it. Solemn and strange
among this wealth of colour and voluptuous glitter, strange and
constrained towards its haughty mistress, whose repellent beauty it
repeated, and presented all around him, as in so many fragments of a
mirror, he was conscious of embarrassment and awkwardness. Nothing
that ministered to her disdainful self-possession could fail to gall
him. Galled and irritated with himself, he sat down, and went on, in
no improved humour:
'Mrs Dombey, it is very necessary that there should be some
understanding arrived at between us. Your conduct does not please me,
Madam.'
She merely glanced at him again, and again averted her eyes; but
she might have spoken for an hour, and expressed less.
'I repeat, Mrs Dombey, does not please me. I have already taken
occasion to request that it may be corrected. I now insist upon it.'
'You chose a fitting occasion for your first remonstrance, Sir, and
you adopt a fitting manner, and a fitting word for your second. You
insist! To me!'
'Madam,' said Mr Dombey, with his most offensive air of state, 'I
have made you my wife. You bear my name. You are associated with my
position and my reputation. I will not say that the world in general
may be disposed to think you honoured by that association; but I will
say that I am accustomed to "insist," to my connexions and
dependents.'
'Which may you be pleased to consider me? she asked.
'Possibly I may think that my wife should partake - or does
partake, and cannot help herself - of both characters, Mrs Dombey.'
She bent her eyes upon him steadily, and set her trembling lips. He
saw her bosom throb, and saw her face flush and turn white. All this
he could know, and did: but he could not know that one word was
whispering in the deep recesses of her heart, to keep her quiet; and
that the word was Florence.
Blind idiot, rushing to a precipice! He thought she stood in awe of
him.
'You are too expensive, Madam,' said Mr Dombey. 'You are
extravagant. You waste a great deal of money - or what would be a
great deal in the pockets of most gentlemen - in cultivating a kind of
society that is useless to me, and, indeed, that upon the whole is
disagreeable to me. I have to insist upon a total change in all these
respects. I know that in the novelty of possessing a tithe of such
means as Fortune has placed at your disposal, ladies are apt to run
into a sudden extreme. There has been more than enough of that
extreme. I beg that Mrs Granger's very different experiences may now
come to the instruction of Mrs Dombey.'
Still the fixed look, the trembling lips, the throbbing breast, the
face now crimson and now white; and still the deep whisper Florence,
Florence, speaking to her in the beating of her heart.
His insolence of self-importance dilated as he saw this alteration
in her. Swollen no less by her past scorn of him, and his so recent
feeling of disadvantage, than by her present submission (as he took it
to be), it became too mighty for his breast, and burst all bounds.
Why, who could long resist his lofty will and pleasure! He had
resolved to conquer her, and look here!
'You will further please, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, in a tone of
sovereign command, 'to understand distinctly, that I am to be deferred
to and obeyed. That I must have a positive show and confession of
deference before the world, Madam. I am used to this. I require it as
my right. In short I will have it. I consider it no unreasonable
return for the worldly advancement that has befallen you; and I
believe nobody will be surprised, either at its being required from
you, or at your making it. - To Me - To Me!' he added, with emphasis.
No word from her. No change in her. Her eyes upon him.
'I have learnt from your mother, Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, with
magisterial importance, what no doubt you know, namely, that Brighton
is recommended for her health. Mr Carker has been so good
She changed suddenly. Her face and bosom glowed as if the red light
of an angry sunset had been flung upon them. Not unobservant of the
change, and putting his own interpretation upon it, Mr Dombey resumed:
'Mr Carker has been so good as to go down and secure a house there,
for a time. On the return of the establishment to London, I shall take
such steps for its better management as I consider necessary. One of
these, will be the engagement at Brighton (if it is to be effected),
of a very respectable reduced person there, a Mrs Pipchin, formerly
employed in a situation of trust in my family, to act as housekeeper.
An establishment like this, presided over but nominally, Mrs Dombey,
requires a competent head.'
She had changed her attitude before he arrived at these words, and
now sat - still looking at him fixedly - turning a bracelet round and
round upon her arm; not winding it about with a light, womanly touch,
but pressing and dragging it over the smooth skin, until the white
limb showed a bar of red.
'I observed,' said Mr Dombey - 'and this concludes what I deem it
necessary to say to you at present, Mrs Dombey - I observed a moment
ago, Madam, that my allusion to Mr Carker was received in a peculiar
manner. On the occasion of my happening to point out to you, before
that confidential agent, the objection I had to your mode of receiving
my visitors, you were pleased to object to his presence. You will have
to get the better of that objection, Madam, and to accustom yourself
to it very probably on many similar occasions; unless you adopt the
remedy which is in your own hands, of giving me no cause of complaint.
Mr Carker,' said Mr Dombey, who, after the emotion he had just seen,
set great store by this means of reducing his proud wife, and who was
perhaps sufficiently willing to exhibit his power to that gentleman in
a new and triumphant aspect, 'Mr Carker being in my confidence, Mrs
Dombey, may very well be in yours to such an extent. I hope, Mrs
Dombey,' he continued, after a few moments, during which, in his
increasing haughtiness, he had improved on his idea, 'I may not find
it necessary ever to entrust Mr Carker with any message of objection
or remonstrance to you; but as it would be derogatory to my position
and reputation to be frequently holding trivial disputes with a lady
upon whom I have conferred the highest distinction that it is in my
power to bestow, I shall not scruple to avail myself of his services
if I see occasion.'
'And now,' he thought, rising in his moral magnificence, and rising
a stiffer and more impenetrable man than ever, 'she knows me and my
resolution.'
The hand that had so pressed the bracelet was laid heavily upon her
breast, but she looked at him still, with an unaltered face, and said
in a low voice:
'Wait! For God's sake! I must speak to you.'
Why did she not, and what was the inward struggle that rendered her
incapable of doing so, for minutes, while, in the strong constraint
she put upon her face, it was as fixed as any statue's - looking upon
him with neither yielding nor unyielding, liking nor hatred, pride not
humility: nothing but a searching gaze?
'Did I ever tempt you to seek my hand? Did I ever use any art to
win you? Was I ever more conciliating to you when you pursued me, than
I have been since our marriage? Was I ever other to you than I am?'
'It is wholly unnecessary, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, 'to enter upon
such discussions.'
'Did you think I loved you? Did you know I did not? Did you ever
care, Man! for my heart, or propose to yourself to win the worthless
thing? Was there any poor pretence of any in our bargain? Upon your
side, or on mine?'
'These questions,' said Mr Dombey, 'are all wide of the purpose,
Madam.'
She moved between him and the door to prevent his going away, and
drawing her majestic figure to its height, looked steadily upon him
still.
'You answer each of them. You answer me before I speak, I see. How
can you help it; you who know the miserable truth as well as I? Now,
tell me. If I loved you to devotion, could I do more than render up my
whole will and being to you, as you have just demanded? If my heart
were pure and all untried, and you its idol, could you ask more; could
you have more?'
'Possibly not, Madam,' he returned coolly.
'You know how different I am. You see me looking on you now, and
you can read the warmth of passion for you that is breathing in my
face.' Not a curl of the proud lip, not a flash of the dark eye,
nothing but the same intent and searching look, accompanied these
words. 'You know my general history. You have spoken of my mother. Do
you think you can degrade, or bend or break, me to submission and
obedience?'
Mr Dombey smiled, as he might have smiled at an inquiry whether he
thought he could raise ten thousand pounds.
'If there is anything unusual here,' she said, with a slight motion
of her hand before her brow, which did not for a moment flinch from
its immovable and otherwise expressionless gaze, 'as I know there are
unusual feelings here,' raising the hand she pressed upon her bosom,
and heavily returning it, 'consider that there is no common meaning in
the appeal I am going to make you. Yes, for I am going;' she said it
as in prompt reply to something in his face; 'to appeal to you.'
Mr Dombey, with a slightly condescending bend of his chin that
rustled and crackled his stiff cravat, sat down on a sofa that was
near him, to hear the appeal.
'If you can believe that I am of such a nature now,' - he fancied
he saw tears glistening in her eyes, and he thought, complacently,
that he had forced them from her, though none fell on her cheek, and
she regarded him as steadily as ever, - 'as would make what I now say
almost incredible to myself, said to any man who had become my
husband, but, above all, said to you, you may, perhaps, attach the
greater weight to it. In the dark end to which we are tending, and may
come, we shall not involve ourselves alone (that might not be much)
but others.'
Others! He knew at whom that word pointed, and frowned heavily.
'I speak to you for the sake of others. Also your own sake; and for
mine. Since our marriage, you have been arrogant to me; and I have
repaid you in kind. You have shown to me and everyone around us, every
day and hour, that you think I am graced and distinguished by your
alliance. I do not think so, and have shown that too. It seems you do
not understand, or (so far as your power can go) intend that each of
us shall take a separate course; and you expect from me instead, a
homage you will never have.'
Although her face was still the same, there was emphatic
confirmation of this 'Never' in the very breath she drew.
'I feel no tenderness towards you; that you know. You would care
nothing for it, if I did or could. I know as well that you feel none
towards me. But we are linked together; and in the knot that ties us,
as I have said, others are bound up. We must both die; we are both
connected with the dead already, each by a little child. Let us
forbear.'
Mr Dombey took a long respiration, as if he would have said, Oh!
was this all!
'There is no wealth,' she went on, turning paler as she watched
him, while her eyes grew yet more lustrous in their earnestness, 'that
could buy these words of me, and the meaning that belongs to them.
Once cast away as idle breath, no wealth or power can bring them back.
I mean them; I have weighed them; and I will be true to what I
undertake. If you will promise to forbear on your part, I will promise
to forbear on mine. We are a most unhappy pair, in whom, from
different causes, every sentiment that blesses marriage, or justifies
it, is rooted out; but in the course of time, some friendship, or some
fitness for each other, may arise between us. I will try to hope so,
if you will make the endeavour too; and I will look forward to a
better and a happier use of age than I have made of youth or prime.
Throughout she had spoken in a low plain voice, that neither rose
nor fell; ceasing, she dropped the hand with which she had enforced
herself to be so passionless and distinct, but not the eyes with which
she had so steadily observed him.
'Madam,' said Mr Dombey, with his utmost dignity, 'I cannot
entertain any proposal of this extraordinary nature.
She looked at him yet, without the least change.
'I cannot,' said Mr Dombey, rising as he spoke, 'consent to
temporise or treat with you, Mrs Dombey, upon a subject as to which
you are in possession of my opinions and expectations. I have stated
my ultimatum, Madam, and have only to request your very serious
attention to it.'
To see the face change to its old expression, deepened in
intensity! To see the eyes droop as from some mean and odious object!
To see the lighting of the haughty brow! To see scorn, anger,
indignation, and abhorrence starting into sight, and the pale blank
earnestness vanish like a mist! He could not choose but look, although
he looked to his dismay.
'Go, Sir!' she said, pointing with an imperious hand towards the
door. 'Our first and last confidence is at an end. Nothing can make us
stranger to each other than we are henceforth.'
'I shall take my rightful course, Madam,' said Mr Dombey,
'undeterred, you may be sure, by any general declamation.'
She turned her back upon him, and, without reply, sat down before
her glass.
'I place my reliance on your improved sense of duty, and more
correct feeling, and better reflection, Madam,' said Mr Dombey.
She answered not one word. He saw no more expression of any heed of
him, in the mirror, than if he had been an unseen spider on the wall,
or beetle on the floor, or rather, than if he had been the one or
other, seen and crushed when she last turned from him, and forgotten
among the ignominious and dead vermin of the ground.
He looked back, as he went out at the door, upon the well-lighted
and luxurious room, the beautiful and glittering objects everywhere
displayed, the shape of Edith in its rich dress seated before her
glass, and the face of Edith as the glass presented it to him; and
betook himself to his old chamber of cogitation, carrying away with
him a vivid picture in his mind of all these things, and a rambling
and unaccountable speculation (such as sometimes comes into a man's
head) how they would all look when he saw them next.
For the rest, Mr Dombey was very taciturn, and very dignified, and
very confident of carrying out his purpose; and remained so.
He did not design accompanying the family to Brighton; but he
graciously informed Cleopatra at breakfast, on the morning of
departure, which arrived a day or two afterwards, that he might be
expected down, soon. There was no time to be lost in getting Cleopatra
to any place recommended as being salutary; for, indeed, she seemed
upon the wane, and turning of the earth, earthy.
Without having undergone any decided second attack of her malady,
the old woman seemed to have crawled backward in her recovery from the
first. She was more lean and shrunken, more uncertain in her
imbecility, and made stranger confusions in her mind and memory. Among
other symptoms of this last affliction, she fell into the habit of
confounding the names of her two sons-in-law, the living and the
deceased; and in general called Mr Dombey, either 'Grangeby,' or
'Domber,' or indifferently, both.
But she was youthful, very youthful still; and in her youthfulness
appeared at breakfast, before going away, in a new bonnet made
express, and a travelling robe that was embroidered and braided like
an old baby's. It was not easy to put her into a fly-away bonnet now,
or to keep the bonnet in its place on the back of her poor nodding
head, when it was got on. In this instance, it had not only the
extraneous effect of being always on one side, but of being
perpetually tapped on the crown by Flowers the maid, who attended in
the background during breakfast to perform that duty.
'Now, my dearest Grangeby,' said Mrs Skewton, 'you must posively
prom,' she cut some of her words short, and cut out others altogether,
'come down very soon.'
'I said just now, Madam,' returned Mr Dombey, loudly and
laboriously, 'that I am coming in a day or two.'
'Bless you, Domber!'
Here the Major, who was come to take leave of the ladies, and who
was staring through his apoplectic eyes at Mrs Skewton's face with the
disinterested composure of an immortal being, said:
'Begad, Ma'am, you don't ask old Joe to come!'
'Sterious wretch, who's he?' lisped Cleopatra. But a tap on the
bonnet from Flowers seeming to jog her memory, she added, 'Oh! You
mean yourself, you naughty creature!'
'Devilish queer, Sir,' whispered the Major to Mr Dombey. 'Bad case.
Never did wrap up enough;' the Major being buttoned to the chin. 'Why
who should J. B. mean by Joe, but old Joe Bagstock - Joseph - your
slave - Joe, Ma'am? Here! Here's the man! Here are the Bagstock
bellows, Ma'am!' cried the Major, striking himself a sounding blow on
the chest.
'My dearest Edith - Grangeby - it's most trordinry thing,' said
Cleopatra, pettishly, 'that Major - '
'Bagstock! J. B.!' cried the Major, seeing that she faltered for
his name.
'Well, it don't matter,' said Cleopatra. 'Edith, my love, you know
I never could remember names - what was it? oh! - most trordinry thing
that so many people want to come down to see me. I'm not going for
long. I'm coming back. Surely they can wait, till I come back!'
Cleopatra looked all round the table as she said it, and appeared
very uneasy.
'I won't have Vistors - really don't want visitors,' she said;
'little repose - and all that sort of thing - is what I quire. No
odious brutes must proach me till I've shaken off this numbness;' and
in a grisly resumption of her coquettish ways, she made a dab at the
Major with her fan, but overset Mr Dombey's breakfast cup instead,
which was in quite a different direction.
Then she called for Withers, and charged him to see particularly
that word was left about some trivial alterations in her room, which
must be all made before she came back, and which must be set about
immediately, as there was no saying how soon she might come back; for
she had a great many engagements, and all sorts of people to call
upon. Withers received these directions with becoming deference, and
gave his guarantee for their execution; but when he withdrew a pace or
two behind her, it appeared as if he couldn't help looking strangely
at the Major, who couldn't help looking strangely at Mr Dombey, who
couldn't help looking strangely at Cleopatra, who couldn't help
nodding her bonnet over one eye, and rattling her knife and fork upon
her plate in using them, as if she were playing castanets.
Edith alone never lifted her eyes to any face at the table, and
never seemed dismayed by anything her mother said or did. She listened
to her disjointed talk, or at least, turned her head towards her when
addressed; replied in a few low words when necessary; and sometimes
stopped her when she was rambling, or brought her thoughts back with a
monosyllable, to the point from which they had strayed. The mother,
however unsteady in other things, was constant in this - that she was
always observant of her. She would look at the beautiful face, in its
marble stillness and severity, now with a kind of fearful admiration;
now in a giggling foolish effort to move it to a smile; now with
capricious tears and jealous shakings of her head, as imagining
herself neglected by it; always with an attraction towards it, that
never fluctuated like her other ideas, but had constant possession of
her. From Edith she would sometimes look at Florence, and back again
at Edith, in a manner that was wild enough; and sometimes she would
try to look elsewhere, as if to escape from her daughter's face; but
back to it she seemed forced to come, although it never sought hers
unless sought, or troubled her with one single glance.
The best concluded, Mrs Skewton, affecting to lean girlishly upon
the Major's arm, but heavily supported on the other side by Flowers
the maid, and propped up behind by Withers the page, was conducted to
the carriage, which was to take her, Florence, and Edith to Brighton.
'And is Joseph absolutely banished?' said the Major, thrusting in
his purple face over the steps. 'Damme, Ma'am, is Cleopatra so
hard-hearted as to forbid her faithful Antony Bagstock to approach the
presence?'
'Go along!' said Cleopatra, 'I can't bear you. You shall see me
when I come back, if you are very good.'
'Tell Joseph, he may live in hope, Ma'am,' said the Major; 'or
he'll die in despair.'
Cleopatra shuddered, and leaned back. 'Edith, my dear,' she said.
'Tell him - '
'What?'
'Such dreadful words,' said Cleopatra. 'He uses such dreadful
words!'
Edith signed to him to retire, gave the word to go on, and left the
objectionable Major to Mr Dombey. To whom he returned, whistling.
'I'll tell you what, Sir,' said the Major, with his hands behind
him, and his legs very wide asunder, 'a fair friend of ours has
removed to Queer Street.'
'What do you mean, Major?' inquired Mr Dombey.
'I mean to say, Dombey,' returned the Major, 'that you'll soon be
an orphan-in-law.'
Mr Dombey appeared to relish this waggish description of himself so
very little, that the Major wound up with the horse's cough, as an
expression of gravity.
'Damme, Sir,' said the Major, 'there is no use in disguising a
fact. Joe is blunt, Sir. That's his nature. If you take old Josh at
all, you take him as you find him; and a devilish rusty, old rasper,
of a close-toothed, J. B. file, you do find him. Dombey,' said the
Major, 'your wife's mother is on the move, Sir.'
'I fear,' returned Mr Dombey, with much philosophy, 'that Mrs
Skewton is shaken.'
'Shaken, Dombey!' said the Major. 'Smashed!'
'Change, however,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'and attention, may do much
yet.'
'Don't believe it, Sir,' returned the Major. 'Damme, Sir, she never
wrapped up enough. If a man don't wrap up,' said the Major, taking in
another button of his buff waistcoat, 'he has nothing to fall back
upon. But some people will die. They will do it. Damme, they will.
They're obstinate. I tell you what, Dombey, it may not be ornamental;
it may not be refined; it may be rough and tough; but a little of the
genuine old English Bagstock stamina, Sir, would do all the good in
the world to the human breed.'
After imparting this precious piece of information, the Major, who
was certainly true-blue, whatever other endowments he may have had or
wanted, coming within the 'genuine old English' classification, which
has never been exactly ascertained, took his lobster-eyes and his
apoplexy to the club, and choked there all day.
Cleopatra, at one time fretful, at another self-complacent,
sometimes awake, sometimes asleep, and at all times juvenile, reached
Brighton the same night, fell to pieces as usual, and was put away in
bed; where a gloomy fancy might have pictured a more potent skeleton
than the maid, who should have been one, watching at the rose-coloured
curtains, which were carried down to shed their bloom upon her.
It was settled in high council of medical authority that she should
take a carriage airing every day, and that it was important she should
get out every day, and walk if she could. Edith was ready to attend
her - always ready to attend her, with the same mechanical attention
and immovable beauty - and they drove out alone; for Edith had an
uneasiness in the presence of Florence, now that her mother was worse,
and told Florence, with a kiss, that she would rather they two went
alone.
Mrs Skewton, on one particular day, was in the irresolute,
exacting, jealous temper that had developed itself on her recovery
from her first attack. After sitting silent in the carriage watching
Edith for some time, she took her hand and kissed it passionately. The
hand was neither given nor withdrawn, but simply yielded to her
raising of it, and being released, dropped down again, almost as if it
were insensible. At this she began to whimper and moan, and say what a
mother she had been, and how she was forgotten! This she continued to
do at capricious intervals, even when they had alighted: when she
herself was halting along with the joint support of Withers and a
stick, and Edith was walking by her side, and the carriage slowly
following at a little distance.
It was a bleak, lowering, windy day, and they were out upon the
Downs with nothing but a bare sweep of land between them and the sky.
The mother, with a querulous satisfaction in the monotony of her
complaint, was still repeating it in a low voice from time to time,
and the proud form of her daughter moved beside her slowly, when there
came advancing over a dark ridge before them, two other figures, which
in the distance, were so like an exaggerated imitation of their own,
that Edith stopped.
Almost as she stopped, the two figures stopped; and that one which
to Edith's thinking was like a distorted shadow of her mother, spoke
to the other, earnestly, and with a pointing hand towards them. That
one seemed inclined to turn back, but the other, in which Edith
recognised enough that was like herself to strike her with an unusual
feeling, not quite free from fear, came on; and then they came on
together.
The greater part of this observation, she made while walking
towards them, for her stoppage had been momentary. Nearer observation
showed her that they were poorly dressed, as wanderers about the
country; that the younger woman carried knitted work or some such
goods for sale; and that the old one toiled on empty-handed.
And yet, however far removed she was in dress, in dignity, in
beauty, Edith could not but compare the younger woman with herself,
still. It may have been that she saw upon her face some traces which
she knew were lingering in her own soul, if not yet written on that
index; but, as the woman came on, returning her gaze, fixing her
shining eyes upon her, undoubtedly presenting something of her own air
and stature, and appearing to reciprocate her own thoughts, she felt a
chill creep over her, as if the day were darkening, and the wind were
colder.
They had now come up. The old woman, holding out her hand
importunately, stopped to beg of Mrs Skewton. The younger one stopped
too, and she and Edith looked in one another's eyes.
'What is it that you have to sell?' said Edith.
'Only this,' returned the woman, holding out her wares, without
looking at them. 'I sold myself long ago.'
'My Lady, don't believe her,' croaked the old woman to Mrs Skewton;
'don't believe what she says. She loves to talk like that. She's my
handsome and undutiful daughter. She gives me nothing but reproaches,
my Lady, for all I have done for her. Look at her now, my Lady, how
she turns upon her poor old mother with her looks.'
As Mrs Skewton drew her purse out with a trembling hand, and
eagerly fumbled for some money, which the other old woman greedily
watched for - their heads all but touching, in their hurry and
decrepitude - Edith interposed:
'I have seen you,' addressing the old woman, 'before.'
'Yes, my Lady,' with a curtsey. 'Down in Warwickshire. The morning
among the trees. When you wouldn't give me nothing. But the gentleman,
he give me something! Oh, bless him, bless him!' mumbled the old
woman, holding up her skinny hand, and grinning frightfully at her
daughter.
'It's of no use attempting to stay me, Edith!' said Mrs Skewton,
angrily anticipating an objection from her. 'You know nothing about
it. I won't be dissuaded. I am sure this is an excellent woman, and a
good mother.'
'Yes, my Lady, yes,' chattered the old woman, holding out her
avaricious hand. 'Thankee, my Lady. Lord bless you, my Lady. Sixpence
more, my pretty Lady, as a good mother yourself.'
'And treated undutifully enough, too, my good old creature,
sometimes, I assure you,' said Mrs Skewton, whimpering. 'There! Shake
hands with me. You're a very good old creature - full of
what's-his-name - and all that. You're all affection and et cetera,
ain't you?'
'Oh, yes, my Lady!'
'Yes, I'm sure you are; and so's that gentlemanly creature
Grangeby. I must really shake hands with you again. And now you can
go, you know; and I hope,' addressing the daughter, 'that you'll show
more gratitude, and natural what's-its-name, and all the rest of it -
but I never remember names - for there never was a better mother than
the good old creature's been to you. Come, Edith!'
As the ruin of Cleopatra tottered off whimpering, and wiping its
eyes with a gingerly remembrance of rouge in their neighbourhood, the
old woman hobbled another way, mumbling and counting her money. Not
one word more, nor one other gesture, had been exchanged between Edith
and the younger woman, but neither had removed her eyes from the other
for a moment. They had remained confronted until now, when Edith, as
awakening from a dream, passed slowly on.
'You're a handsome woman,' muttered her shadow, looking after her;
'but good looks won't save us. And you're a proud woman; but pride
won't save us. We had need to know each other when we meet again!'
CHAPTER 41.
New Voices in the Waves
All is going on as it was wont. The waves are hoarse with
repetition of their mystery; the dust lies piled upon the shore; the
sea-birds soar and hover; the winds and clouds go forth upon their
trackless flight; the white arms beckon, in the moonlight, to the
invisible country far away.
With a tender melancholy pleasure, Florence finds herself again on
the old ground so sadly trodden, yet so happily, and thinks of him in
the quiet place, where he and she have many and many a time conversed
together, with the water welling up about his couch. And now, as she
sits pensive there, she hears in the wild low murmur of the sea, his
little story told again, his very words repeated; and finds that all
her life and hopes, and griefs, since - in the solitary house, and in
the pageant it has changed to - have a portion in the burden of the
marvellous song.
And gentle Mr Toots, who wanders at a distance, looking wistfully
towards the figure that he dotes upon, and has followed there, but
cannot in his delicacy disturb at such a time, likewise hears the
requiem of little Dombey on the waters, rising and falling in the
lulls of their eternal madrigal in praise of Florence. Yes! and he
faintly understands, poor Mr Toots, that they are saying something of
a time when he was sensible of being brighter and not addle-brained;
and the tears rising in his eyes when he fears that he is dull and
stupid now, and good for little but to be laughed at, diminish his
satisfaction in their soothing reminder that he is relieved from
present responsibility to the Chicken, by the absence of that game
head of poultry in the country, training (at Toots's cost) for his
great mill with the Larkey Boy.
But Mr Toots takes courage, when they whisper a kind thought to
him; and by slow degrees and with many indecisive stoppages on the
way, approaches Florence. Stammering and blushing, Mr Toots affects
amazement when he comes near her, and says (having followed close on
the carriage in which she travelled, every inch of the way from
London, loving even to be choked by the dust of its wheels) that he
never was so surprised in all his life.
'And you've brought Diogenes, too, Miss Dombey!' says Mr Toots,
thrilled through and through by the touch of the small hand so
pleasantly and frankly given him.
No doubt Diogenes is there, and no doubt Mr Toots has reason to
observe him, for he comes straightway at Mr Toots's legs, and tumbles
over himself in the desperation with which he makes at him, like a
very dog of Montargis. But he is checked by his sweet mistress.
'Down, Di, down. Don't you remember who first made us friends, Di?
For shame!'
Oh! Well may Di lay his loving cheek against her hand, and run off,
and run back, and run round her, barking, and run headlong at anybody
coming by, to show his devotion. Mr Toots would run headlong at
anybody, too. A military gentleman goes past, and Mr Toots would like
nothing better than to run at him, full tilt.
'Diogenes is quite in his native air, isn't he, Miss Dombey?' says
Mr Toots.
Florence assents, with a grateful smile.
'Miss Dombey,' says Mr Toots, 'beg your pardon, but if you would
like to walk to Blimber's, I - I'm going there.'
Florence puts her arm in that of Mr Toots without a word, and they
walk away together, with Diogenes going on before. Mr Toots's legs
shake under him; and though he is splendidly dressed, he feels
misfits, and sees wrinkles, in the masterpieces of Burgess and Co.,
and wishes he had put on that brightest pair of boots.
Doctor Blimber's house, outside, has as scholastic and studious an
air as ever; and up there is the window where she used to look for the
pale face, and where the pale face brightened when it saw her, and the
wasted little hand waved kisses as she passed. The door is opened by
the same weak-eyed young man, whose imbecility of grin at sight of Mr
Toots is feebleness of character personified. They are shown into the
Doctor's study, where blind Homer and Minerva give them audience as of
yore, to the sober ticking of the great clock in the hall; and where
the globes stand still in their accustomed places, as if the world
were stationary too, and nothing in it ever perished in obedience to
the universal law, that, while it keeps it on the roll, calls
everything to earth.
And here is Doctor Blimber, with his learned legs; and here is Mrs
Blimber, with her sky-blue cap; and here Cornelia, with her sandy
little row of curls, and her bright spectacles, still working like a
sexton in the graves of languages. Here is the table upon which he sat
forlorn and strange, the 'new boy' of the school; and hither comes the
distant cooing of the old boys, at their old lives in the old room on
the old principle!
'Toots,' says Doctor Blimber, 'I am very glad to see you, Toots.'
Mr Toots chuckles in reply.
'Also to see you, Toots, in such good company,' says Doctor
Blimber.
Mr Toots, with a scarlet visage, explains that he has met Miss
Dombey by accident, and that Miss Dombey wishing, like himself, to see
the old place, they have come together.
'You will like,' says Doctor Blimber, 'to step among our young
friends, Miss Dombey, no doubt. All fellow-students of yours, Toots,
once. I think we have no new disciples in our little portico, my
dear,' says Doctor Blimber to Cornelia, 'since Mr Toots left us.'
'Except Bitherstone,' returns Cornelia.
'Ay, truly,' says the Doctor. 'Bitherstone is new to Mr Toots.'
New to Florence, too, almost; for, in the schoolroom, Bitherstone -
no longer Master Bitherstone of Mrs Pipchin's - shows in collars and a
neckcloth, and wears a watch. But Bitherstone, born beneath some
Bengal star of ill-omen, is extremely inky; and his Lexicon has got so
dropsical from constant reference, that it won't shut, and yawns as if
it really could not bear to be so bothered. So does Bitherstone its
master, forced at Doctor Blimber's highest pressure; but in the yawn
of Bitherstone there is malice and snarl, and he has been heard to say
that he wishes he could catch 'old Blimber' in India. He'd precious
soon find himself carried up the country by a few of his
(Bitherstone's) Coolies, and handed over to the Thugs; he can tell him
that.
Briggs is still grinding in the mill of knowledge; and Tozer, too;
and Johnson, too; and all the rest; the older pupils being principally
engaged in forgetting, with prodigious labour, everything they knew
when they were younger. All are as polite and as pale as ever; and
among them, Mr Feeder, B.A., with his bony hand and bristly head, is
still hard at it; with his Herodotus stop on just at present, and his
other barrels on a shelf behind him.
A mighty sensation is created, even among these grave young
gentlemen, by a visit from the emancipated Toots; who is regarded with
a kind of awe, as one who has passed the Rubicon, and is pledged never
to come back, and concerning the cut of whose clothes, and fashion of
whose jewellery, whispers go about, behind hands; the bilious
Bitherstone, who is not of Mr Toots's time, affecting to despise the
latter to the smaller boys, and saying he knows better, and that he
should like to see him coming that sort of thing in Bengal, where his
mother had got an emerald belonging to him that was taken out of the
footstool of a Rajah. Come now!
Bewildering emotions are awakened also by the sight of Florence,
with whom every young gentleman immediately falls in love, again;
except, as aforesaid, the bilious Bitherstone, who declines to do so,
out of contradiction. Black jealousies of Mr Toots arise, and Briggs
is of opinion that he ain't so very old after all. But this
disparaging insinuation is speedily made nought by Mr Toots saying
aloud to Mr Feeder, B.A., 'How are you, Feeder?' and asking him to
come and dine with him to-day at the Bedford; in right of which feats
he might set up as Old Parr, if he chose, unquestioned.
There is much shaking of hands, and much bowing, and a great desire
on the part of each young gentleman to take Toots down in Miss
Dombey's good graces; and then, Mr Toots having bestowed a chuckle on
his old desk, Florence and he withdraw with Mrs Blimber and Cornelia;
and Doctor Blimber is heard to observe behind them as he comes out
last, and shuts the door, 'Gentlemen, we will now resume our studies,'
For that and little else is what the Doctor hears the sea say, or has
heard it saying all his life.
Florence then steals away and goes upstairs to the old bedroom with
Mrs Blimber and Cornelia; Mr Toots, who feels that neither he nor
anybody else is wanted there, stands talking to the Doctor at the
study-door, or rather hearing the Doctor talk to him, and wondering
how he ever thought the study a great sanctuary, and the Doctor, with
his round turned legs, like a clerical pianoforte, an awful man.
Florence soon comes down and takes leave; Mr Toots takes leave; and
Diogenes, who has been worrying the weak-eyed young man pitilessly all
the time, shoots out at the door, and barks a glad defiance down the
cliff; while Melia, and another of the Doctor's female domestics,
looks out of an upper window, laughing 'at that there Toots,' and
saying of Miss Dombey, 'But really though, now - ain't she like her
brother, only prettier?'
Mr Toots, who saw when Florence came down that there were tears
upon her face, is desperately anxious and uneasy, and at first fears
that he did wrong in proposing the visit. But he is soon relieved by
her saying she is very glad to have been there again, and by her
talking quite cheerfully about it all, as they walked on by the sea.
What with the voices there, and her sweet voice, when they come near
Mr Dombey's house, and Mr Toots must leave her, he is so enslaved that
he has not a scrap of free-will left; when she gives him her hand at
parting, he cannot let it go.
'Miss Dombey, I beg your pardon,' says Mr Toots, in a sad fluster,
'but if you would allow me to - to -
The smiling and unconscious look of Florence brings him to a dead
stop.
'If you would allow me to - if you would not consider it a liberty,
Miss Dombey, if I was to - without any encouragement at all, if I was
to hope, you know,' says Mr Toots.
Florence looks at him inquiringly.
'Miss Dombey,' says Mr Toots, who feels that he is in for it now,
'I really am in that state of adoration of you that I don't know what
to do with myself. I am the most deplorable wretch. If it wasn't at
the corner of the Square at present, I should go down on my knees, and
beg and entreat of you, without any encouragement at all, just to let
me hope that I may - may think it possible that you -
'Oh, if you please, don't!' cries Florence, for the moment quite
alarmed and distressed. 'Oh, pray don't, Mr Toots. Stop, if you
please. Don't say any more. As a kindness and a favour to me, don't.'
Mr Toots is dreadfully abashed, and his mouth opens.
'You have been so good to me,' says Florence, 'I am so grateful to
you, I have such reason to like you for being a kind friend to me, and
I do like you so much;' and here the ingenuous face smiles upon him
with the pleasantest look of honesty in the world; 'that I am sure you
are only going to say good-bye!'
'Certainly, Miss Dombey,' says Mr Toots, 'I - I - that's exactly
what I mean. It's of no consequence.'
'Good-bye!' cries Florence.
'Good-bye, Miss Dombey!' stammers Mr Toots. 'I hope you won't think
anything about it. It's - it's of no consequence, thank you. It's not
of the least consequence in the world.'
Poor Mr Toots goes home to his hotel in a state of desperation,
locks himself into his bedroom, flings himself upon his bed, and lies
there for a long time; as if it were of the greatest consequence,
nevertheless. But Mr Feeder, B.A., is coming to dinner, which happens
well for Mr Toots, or there is no knowing when he might get up again.
Mr Toots is obliged to get up to receive him, and to give him
hospitable entertainment.
And the generous influence of that social virtue, hospitality (to
make no mention of wine and good cheer), opens Mr Toots's heart, and
warms him to conversation. He does not tell Mr Feeder, B.A., what
passed at the corner of the Square; but when Mr Feeder asks him 'When
it is to come off?' Mr Toots replies, 'that there are certain
subjects' - which brings Mr Feeder down a peg or two immediately. Mr
Toots adds, that he don't know what right Blimber had to notice his
being in Miss Dombey's company, and that if he thought he meant
impudence by it, he'd have him out, Doctor or no Doctor; but he
supposes its only his ignorance. Mr Feeder says he has no doubt of it.
Mr Feeder, however, as an intimate friend, is not excluded from the
subject. Mr Toots merely requires that it should be mentioned
mysteriously, and with feeling. After a few glasses of wine, he gives
Miss Dombey's health, observing, 'Feeder, you have no idea of the
sentiments with which I propose that toast.' Mr Feeder replies, 'Oh,
yes, I have, my dear Toots; and greatly they redound to your honour,
old boy.' Mr Feeder is then agitated by friendship, and shakes hands;
and says, if ever Toots wants a brother, he knows where to find him,
either by post or parcel. Mr Feeder like-wise says, that if he may
advise, he would recommend Mr Toots to learn the guitar, or, at least
the flute; for women like music, when you are paying your addresses to
'em, and he has found the advantage of it himself.
This brings Mr Feeder, B.A., to the confession that he has his eye
upon Cornelia Blimber. He informs Mr Toots that he don't object to
spectacles, and that if the Doctor were to do the handsome thing and
give up the business, why, there they are - provided for. He says it's
his opinion that when a man has made a handsome sum by his business,
he is bound to give it up; and that Cornelia would be an assistance in
it which any man might be proud of. Mr Toots replies by launching
wildly out into Miss Dombey's praises, and by insinuations that
sometimes he thinks he should like to blow his brains out. Mr Feeder
strongly urges that it would be a rash attempt, and shows him, as a
reconcilement to existence, Cornelia's portrait, spectacles and all.
Thus these quiet spirits pass the evening; and when it has yielded
place to night, Mr Toots walks home with Mr Feeder, and parts with him
at Doctor Blimber's door. But Mr Feeder only goes up the steps, and
when Mr Toots is gone, comes down again, to stroll upon the beach
alone, and think about his prospects. Mr Feeder plainly hears the
waves informing him, as he loiters along, that Doctor Blimber will
give up the business; and he feels a soft romantic pleasure in looking
at the outside of the house, and thinking that the Doctor will first
paint it, and put it into thorough repair.
Mr Toots is likewise roaming up and down, outside the casket that
contains his jewel; and in a deplorable condition of mind, and not
unsuspected by the police, gazes at a window where he sees a light,
and which he has no doubt is Florence's. But it is not, for that is
Mrs Skewton's room; and while Florence, sleeping in another chamber,
dreams lovingly, in the midst of the old scenes, and their old
associations live again, the figure which in grim reality is
substituted for the patient boy's on the same theatre, once more to
connect it - but how differently! - with decay and death, is stretched
there, wakeful and complaining. Ugly and haggard it lies upon its bed
of unrest; and by it, in the terror of her unimpassioned loveliness -
for it has terror in the sufferer's failing eyes - sits Edith. What do
the waves say, in the stillness of the night, to them?
'Edith, what is that stone arm raised to strike me? Don't you see
it?'
There is nothing, mother, but your fancy.'
'But my fancy! Everything is my fancy. Look! Is it possible that
you don't see it?'
'Indeed, mother, there is nothing. Should I sit unmoved, if there
were any such thing there?'
'Unmoved?' looking wildly at her - 'it's gone now - and why are you
so unmoved? That is not my fancy, Edith. It turns me cold to see you
sitting at my side.'
'I am sorry, mother.'
'Sorry! You seem always sorry. But it is not for me!'
With that, she cries; and tossing her restless head from side to
side upon her pillow, runs on about neglect, and the mother she has
been, and the mother the good old creature was, whom they met, and the
cold return the daughters of such mothers make. In the midst of her
incoherence, she stops, looks at her daughter, cries out that her wits
are going, and hides her face upon the bed.
Edith, in compassion, bends over her and speaks to her. The sick
old woman clutches her round the neck, and says, with a look of
horror,
'Edith! we are going home soon; going back. You mean that I shall
go home again?'
'Yes, mother, yes.'
'And what he said - what's-his-name, I never could remember names -
Major - that dreadful word, when we came away - it's not true? Edith!'
with a shriek and a stare, 'it's not that that is the matter with me.'
Night after night, the lights burn in the window, and the figure
lies upon the bed, and Edith sits beside it, and the restless waves
are calling to them both the whole night long. Night after night, the
waves are hoarse with repetition of their mystery; the dust lies piled
upon the shore; the sea-birds soar and hover; the winds and clouds are
on their trackless flight; the white arms beckon, in the moonlight, to
the invisible country far away.
And still the sick old woman looks into the corner, where the stone
arm - part of a figure of some tomb, she says - is raised to strike
her. At last it falls; and then a dumb old woman lies upon the the
bed, and she is crooked and shrunk up, and half of her is dead.
Such is the figure, painted and patched for the sun to mock, that
is drawn slowly through the crowd from day to day; looking, as it
goes, for the good old creature who was such a mother, and making
mouths as it peers among the crowd in vain. Such is the figure that is
often wheeled down to the margin of the sea, and stationed there; but
on which no wind can blow freshness, and for which the murmur of the
ocean has no soothing word. She lies and listens to it by the hour;
but its speech is dark and gloomy to her, and a dread is on her face,
and when her eyes wander over the expanse, they see but a broad
stretch of desolation between earth and heaven.
Florence she seldom sees, and when she does, is angry with and mows
at. Edith is beside her always, and keeps Florence away; and Florence,
in her bed at night, trembles at the thought of death in such a shape,
and often wakes and listens, thinking it has come. No one attends on
her but Edith. It is better that few eyes should see her; and her
daughter watches alone by the bedside.
A shadow even on that shadowed face, a sharpening even of the
sharpened features, and a thickening of the veil before the eyes into
a pall that shuts out the dim world, is come. Her wandering hands upon
the coverlet join feebly palm to palm, and move towards her daughter;
and a voice not like hers, not like any voice that speaks our mortal
language - says, 'For I nursed you!'
Edith, without a tear, kneels down to bring her voice closer to the
sinking head, and answers:
'Mother, can you hear me?'
Staring wide, she tries to nod in answer.
'Can you recollect the night before I married?'
The head is motionless, but it expresses somehow that she does.
'I told you then that I forgave your part in it, and prayed God to
forgive my own. I told you that time past was at an end between us. I
say so now, again. Kiss me, mother.'
Edith touches the white lips, and for a moment all is still. A
moment afterwards, her mother, with her girlish laugh, and the
skeleton of the Cleopatra manner, rises in her bed.
Draw the rose-coloured curtains. There is something else upon its
flight besides the wind and clouds. Draw the rose-coloured curtains
close!
Intelligence of the event is sent to Mr Dombey in town, who waits
upon Cousin Feenix (not yet able to make up his mind for Baden-Baden),
who has just received it too. A good-natured creature like Cousin
Feenix is the very man for a marriage or a funeral, and his position
in the family renders it right that he should be consulted.
'Dombey,' said Cousin Feenix, 'upon my soul, I am very much shocked
to see you on such a melancholy occasion. My poor aunt! She was a
devilish lively woman.'
Mr Dombey replies, 'Very much so.'
'And made up,' says Cousin Feenix, 'really young, you know,
considering. I am sure, on the day of your marriage, I thought she was
good for another twenty years. In point of fact, I said so to a man at
Brooks's - little Billy Joper - you know him, no doubt - man with a
glass in his eye?'
Mr Dombey bows a negative. 'In reference to the obsequies,' he
hints, 'whether there is any suggestion - '
'Well, upon my life,' says Cousin Feenix, stroking his chin, which
he has just enough of hand below his wristbands to do; 'I really don't
know. There's a Mausoleum down at my place, in the park, but I'm
afraid it's in bad repair, and, in point of fact, in a devil of a
state. But for being a little out at elbows, I should have had it put
to rights; but I believe the people come and make pic-nic parties
there inside the iron railings.'
Mr Dombey is clear that this won't do.
'There's an uncommon good church in the village,' says Cousin
Feenix, thoughtfully; 'pure specimen of the Anglo-Norman style, and
admirably well sketched too by Lady Jane Finchbury - woman with tight
stays - but they've spoilt it with whitewash, I understand, and it's a
long journey.
'Perhaps Brighton itself,' Mr Dombey suggests.
'Upon my honour, Dombey, I don't think we could do better,' says
Cousin Feenix. 'It's on the spot, you see, and a very cheerful place.'
'And when,' hints Mr Dombey, 'would it be convenient?'
'I shall make a point,' says Cousin Feenix, 'of pledging myself for
any day you think best. I shall have great pleasure (melancholy
pleasure, of course) in following my poor aunt to the confines of the
- in point of fact, to the grave,' says Cousin Feenix, failing in the
other turn of speech.
'Would Monday do for leaving town?' says Mr Dombey.
'Monday would suit me to perfection,' replies Cousin Feenix.
Therefore Mr Dombey arranges to take Cousin Feenix down on that day,
and presently takes his leave, attended to the stairs by Cousin
Feenix, who says, at parting, 'I'm really excessively sorry, Dombey,
that you should have so much trouble about it;' to which Mr Dombey
answers, 'Not at all.'
At the appointed time, Cousin Feenix and Mr Dombey meet, and go
down to Brighton, and representing, in their two selves, all the other
mourners for the deceased lady's loss, attend her remains to their
place of rest. Cousin Feenix, sitting in the mourning-coach,
recognises innumerable acquaintances on the road, but takes no other
notice of them, in decorum, than checking them off aloud, as they go
by, for Mr Dombey's information, as 'Tom Johnson. Man with cork leg,
from White's. What, are you here, Tommy? Foley on a blood mare. The
Smalder girls' - and so forth. At the ceremony Cousin Feenix is
depressed, observing, that these are the occasions to make a man
think, in point of fact, that he is getting shaky; and his eyes are
really moistened, when it is over. But he soon recovers; and so do the
rest of Mrs Skewton's relatives and friends, of whom the Major
continually tells the club that she never did wrap up enough; while
the young lady with the back, who has so much trouble with her
eyelids, says, with a little scream, that she must have been
enormously old, and that she died of all kinds of horrors, and you
mustn't mention it.
So Edith's mother lies unmentioned of her dear friends, who are
deaf to the waves that are hoarse with repetition of their mystery,
and blind to the dust that is piled upon the shore, and to the white
arms that are beckoning, in the moonlight, to the invisible country
far away. But all goes on, as it was wont, upon the margin of the
unknown sea; and Edith standing there alone, and listening to its
waves, has dank weed cast up at her feet, to strew her path in life
withal.
CHAPTER 42.
Confidential and Accidental
Attired no more in Captain Cuttle's sable slops and sou'-wester
hat, but dressed in a substantial suit of brown livery, which, while
it affected to be a very sober and demure livery indeed, was really as
self-satisfied and confident a one as tailor need desire to make, Rob
the Grinder, thus transformed as to his outer man, and all regardless
within of the Captain and the Midshipman, except when he devoted a few
minutes of his leisure time to crowing over those inseparable
worthies, and recalling, with much applauding music from that brazen
instrument, his conscience, the triumphant manner in which he had
disembarrassed himself of their company, now served his patron, Mr
Carker. Inmate of Mr Carker's house, and serving about his person, Rob
kept his round eyes on the white teeth with fear and trembling, and
felt that he had need to open them wider than ever.
He could not have quaked more, through his whole being, before the
teeth, though he had come into the service of some powerful enchanter,
and they had been his strongest spells. The boy had a sense of power
and authority in this patron of his that engrossed his whole attention
and exacted his most implicit submission and obedience. He hardly
considered himself safe in thinking about him when he was absent, lest
he should feel himself immediately taken by the throat again, as on
the morning when he first became bound to him, and should see every
one of the teeth finding him out, and taxing him with every fancy of
his mind. Face to face with him, Rob had no more doubt that Mr Carker
read his secret thoughts, or that he could read them by the least
exertion of his will if he were so inclined, than he had that Mr
Carker saw him when he looked at him. The ascendancy was so complete,
and held him in such enthralment, that, hardly daring to think at all,
but with his mind filled with a constantly dilating impression of his
patron's irresistible command over him, and power of doing anything
with him, he would stand watching his pleasure, and trying to
anticipate his orders, in a state of mental suspension, as to all
other things.
Rob had not informed himself perhaps - in his then state of mind it
would have been an act of no common temerity to inquire - whether he
yielded so completely to this influence in any part, because he had
floating suspicions of his patron's being a master of certain
treacherous arts in which he had himself been a poor scholar at the
Grinders' School. But certainly Rob admired him, as well as feared
him. Mr Carker, perhaps, was better acquainted with the sources of his
power, which lost nothing by his management of it.
On the very night when he left the Captain's service, Rob, after
disposing of his pigeons, and even making a bad bargain in his hurry,
had gone straight down to Mr Carker's house, and hotly presented
himself before his new master with a glowing face that seemed to
expect commendation.
'What, scapegrace!' said Mr Carker, glancing at his bundle 'Have
you left your situation and come to me?'
'Oh if you please, Sir,' faltered Rob, 'you said, you know, when I
come here last - '
'I said,' returned Mr Carker, 'what did I say?'
'If you please, Sir, you didn't say nothing at all, Sir,' returned
Rob, warned by the manner of this inquiry, and very much disconcerted.
His patron looked at him with a wide display of gums, and shaking
his forefinger, observed:
'You'll come to an evil end, my vagabond friend, I foresee. There's
ruin in store for you.
'Oh if you please, don't, Sir!' cried Rob, with his legs trembling
under him. ' I'm sure, Sir, I only want to work for you, Sir, and to
wait upon you, Sir, and to do faithful whatever I'm bid, Sir.'
'You had better do faithfully whatever you are bid,' returned his
patron, 'if you have anything to do with me.'
'Yes, I know that, Sir,' pleaded the submissive Rob; 'I'm sure of
that, SIr. If you'll only be so good as try me, Sir! And if ever you
find me out, Sir, doing anything against your wishes, I give you leave
to kill me.'
'You dog!' said Mr Carker, leaning back in his chair, and smiling
at him serenely. 'That's nothing to what I'd do to you, if you tried
to deceive me.'
'Yes, Sir,' replied the abject Grinder, 'I'm sure you would be down
upon me dreadful, Sir. I wouldn't attempt for to go and do it, Sir,
not if I was bribed with golden guineas.'
Thoroughly checked in his expectations of commendation, the
crestfallen Grinder stood looking at his patron, and vainly
endeavouring not to look at him, with the uneasiness which a cur will
often manifest in a similar situation.
'So you have left your old service, and come here to ask me to take
you into mine, eh?' said Mr Carker.
'Yes, if you please, Sir,' returned Rob, who, in doing so, had
acted on his patron's own instructions, but dared not justify himself
by the least insinuation to that effect.
'Well!' said Mr Carker. 'You know me, boy?'
'Please, Sir, yes, Sir,' returned Rob, tumbling with his hat, and
still fixed by Mr Carker's eye, and fruitlessly endeavouring to unfix
himself.
Mr Carker nodded. 'Take care, then!'
Rob expressed in a number of short bows his lively understanding of
this caution, and was bowing himself back to the door, greatly
relieved by the prospect of getting on the outside of it, when his
patron stopped him.
'Halloa!' he cried, calling him roughly back. 'You have been - shut
that door.'
Rob obeyed as if his life had depended on his alacrity.
'You have been used to eaves-dropping. Do you know what that
means?'
'Listening, Sir?' Rob hazarded, after some embarrassed reflection.
His patron nodded. 'And watching, and so forth.'
'I wouldn't do such a thing here, Sir,' answered Rob; 'upon my word
and honour, I wouldn't, Sir, I wish I may die if I would, Sir, for
anything that could be promised to me. I should consider it is as much
as all the world was worth, to offer to do such a thing, unless I was
ordered, Sir.'
'You had better not' You have been used, too, to babbling and
tattling,' said his patron with perfect coolness. 'Beware of that
here, or you're a lost rascal,' and he smiled again, and again
cautioned him with his forefinger.
The Grinder's breath came short and thick with consternation. He
tried to protest the purity of his intentions, but could only stare at
the smiling gentleman in a stupor of submission, with which the
smiling gentleman seemed well enough satisfied, for he ordered him
downstairs, after observing him for some moments in silence, and gave
him to understand that he was retained in his employment. This was the
manner of Rob the Grinder's engagement by Mr Carker, and his
awe-stricken devotion to that gentleman had strengthened and
increased, if possible, with every minute of his service.
It was a service of some months' duration, when early one morning,
Rob opened the garden gate to Mr Dombey, who was come to breakfast
with his master, by appointment. At the same moment his master himself
came, hurrying forth to receive the distinguished guest, and give him
welcome with all his teeth.
'I never thought,' said Carker, when he had assisted him to alight
from his horse, 'to see you here, I'm sure. This is an extraordinary
day in my calendar. No occasion is very special to a man like you, who
may do anything; but to a man like me, the case is widely different.
'You have a tasteful place here, Carker,' said Mr Dombey,
condescending to stop upon the lawn, to look about him.
'You can afford to say so,' returned Carker. 'Thank you.'
'Indeed,' said Mr Dombey, in his lofty patronage, 'anyone might say
so. As far as it goes, it is a very commodious and well-arranged place
- quite elegant.'
'As far as it goes, truly,' returned Carker, with an air of
disparagement' 'It wants that qualification. Well! we have said enough
about it; and though you can afford to praise it, I thank you
nonetheless. Will you walk in?'
Mr Dombey, entering the house, noticed, as he had reason to do, the
complete arrangement of the rooms, and the numerous contrivances for
comfort and effect that abounded there. Mr Carker, in his ostentation
of humility, received this notice with a deferential smile, and said
he understood its delicate meaning, and appreciated it, but in truth
the cottage was good enough for one in his position - better, perhaps,
than such a man should occupy, poor as it was.
'But perhaps to you, who are so far removed, it really does look
better than it is,' he said, with his false mouth distended to its
fullest stretch. 'Just as monarchs imagine attractions in the lives of
beggars.'
He directed a sharp glance and a sharp smile at Mr Dombey as he
spoke, and a sharper glance, and a sharper smile yet, when Mr Dombey,
drawing himself up before the fire, in the attitude so often copied by
his second in command, looked round at the pictures on the walls.
Cursorily as his cold eye wandered over them, Carker's keen glance
accompanied his, and kept pace with his, marking exactly where it
went, and what it saw. As it rested on one picture in particular,
Carker hardly seemed to breathe, his sidelong scrutiny was so cat-like
and vigilant, but the eye of his great chief passed from that, as from
the others, and appeared no more impressed by it than by the rest.
Carker looked at it - it was the picture that resembled Edith - as
if it were a living thing; and with a wicked, silent laugh upon his
face, that seemed in part addressed to it, though it was all derisive
of the great man standing so unconscious beside him. Breakfast was
soon set upon the table; and, inviting Mr Dombey to a chair which had
its back towards this picture, he took his own seat opposite to it as
usual.
Mr Dombey was even graver than it was his custom to be, and quite
silent. The parrot, swinging in the gilded hoop within her gaudy cage,
attempted in vain to attract notice, for Carker was too observant of
his visitor to heed her; and the visitor, abstracted in meditation,
looked fixedly, not to say sullenly, over his stiff neckcloth, without
raising his eyes from the table-cloth. As to Rob, who was in
attendance, all his faculties and energies were so locked up in
observation of his master, that he scarcely ventured to give shelter
to the thought that the visitor was the great gentleman before whom he
had been carried as a certificate of the family health, in his
childhood, and to whom he had been indebted for his leather smalls.
'Allow me,' said Carker suddenly, 'to ask how Mrs Dombey is?'
He leaned forward obsequiously, as he made the inquiry, with his
chin resting on his hand; and at the same time his eyes went up to the
picture, as if he said to it, 'Now, see, how I will lead him on!'
Mr Dombey reddened as he answered:
'Mrs Dombey is quite well. You remind me, Carker, of some
conversation that I wish to have with you.'
'Robin, you can leave us,' said his master, at whose mild tones
Robin started and disappeared, with his eyes fixed on his patron to
the last. 'You don't remember that boy, of course?' he added, when the
enmeshed Grinder was gone.
'No,' said Mr Dombey, with magnificent indifference.
'Not likely that a man like you would. Hardly possible,' murmured
Carker. 'But he is one of that family from whom you took a nurse.
Perhaps you may remember having generously charged yourself with his
education?'
'Is it that boy?' said Mr Dombey, with a frown. 'He does little
credit to his education, I believe.'
'Why, he is a young rip, I am afraid,' returned Carker, with a
shrug. 'He bears that character. But the truth is, I took him into my
service because, being able to get no other employment, he conceived
(had been taught at home, I daresay) that he had some sort of claim
upon you, and was constantly trying to dog your heels with his
petition. And although my defined and recognised connexion with your
affairs is merely of a business character, still I have that
spontaneous interest in everything belonging to you, that - '
He stopped again, as if to discover whether he had led Mr Dombey
far enough yet. And again, with his chin resting on his hand, he
leered at the picture.
'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, 'I am sensible that you do not limit your
- '
'Service,' suggested his smiling entertainer.
'No; I prefer to say your regard,' observed Mr Dombey; very
sensible, as he said so, that he was paying him a handsome and
flattering compliment, 'to our mere business relations. Your
consideration for my feelings, hopes, and disappointments, in the
little instance you have just now mentioned, is an example in point. I
I am obliged to you, Carker.'
Mr Carker bent his head slowly, and very softly rubbed his hands,
as if he were afraid by any action to disturb the current of Mr
Dombey's confidence.
'Your allusion to it is opportune,' said Mr Dombey, after a little
hesitation; 'for it prepares the way to what I was beginning to say to
you, and reminds me that that involves no absolutely new relations
between us, although it may involve more personal confidence on my
part than I have hitherto - '
'Distinguished me with,' suggested Carker, bending his head again:
'I will not say to you how honoured I am; for a man like you well
knows how much honour he has in his power to bestow at pleasure.'
'Mrs Dombey and myself,' said Mr Dombey, passing this compliment
with august self-denial, 'are not quite agreed upon some points. We do
not appear to understand each other yet' Mrs Dombey has something to
learn.'
'Mrs Dombey is distinguished by many rare attractions; and has been
accustomed, no doubt, to receive much adulation,' said the smooth,
sleek watcher of his slightest look and tone. 'But where there is
affection, duty, and respect, any little mistakes engendered by such
causes are soon set right.'
Mr Dombey's thoughts instinctively flew back to the face that had
looked at him in his wife's dressing-room when an imperious hand was
stretched towards the door; and remembering the affection, duty, and
respect, expressed in it, he felt the blood rush to his own face quite
as plainly as the watchful eyes upon him saw it there.
'Mrs Dombey and myself,' he went on to say, 'had some discussion,
before Mrs Skewton's death, upon the causes of my dissatisfaction; of
which you will have formed a general understanding from having been a
witness of what passed between Mrs Dombey and myself on the evening
when you were at our - at my house.'
'When I so much regretted being present,' said the smiling Carker.
'Proud as a man in my position nay must be of your familiar notice -
though I give you no credit for it; you may do anything you please
without losing caste - and honoured as I was by an early presentation
to Mrs Dombey, before she was made eminent by bearing your name, I
almost regretted that night, I assure you, that I had been the object
of such especial good fortune'
That any man could, under any possible circumstances, regret the
being distinguished by his condescension and patronage, was a moral
phenomenon which Mr Dombey could not comprehend. He therefore
responded, with a considerable accession of dignity. 'Indeed! And why,
Carker?'
'I fear,' returned the confidential agent, 'that Mrs Dombey, never
very much disposed to regard me with favourable interest - one in my
position could not expect that, from a lady naturally proud, and whose
pride becomes her so well - may not easily forgive my innocent part in
that conversation. Your displeasure is no light matter, you must
remember; and to be visited with it before a third party -
'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, arrogantly; 'I presume that I am the
first consideration?'
'Oh! Can there be a doubt about it?' replied the other, with the
impatience of a man admitting a notorious and incontrovertible fact'
'Mrs Dombey becomes a secondary consideration, when we are both in
question, I imagine,' said Mr Dombey. 'Is that so?'
'Is it so?' returned Carker. 'Do you know better than anyone, that
you have no need to ask?'
'Then I hope, Carker,' said Mr Dombey, 'that your regret in the
acquisition of Mrs Dombey's displeasure, may be almost counterbalanced
by your satisfaction in retaining my confidence and good opinion.'
'I have the misfortune, I find,' returned Carker, 'to have incurred
that displeasure. Mrs Dombey has expressed it to you?'
'Mrs Dombey has expressed various opinions,' said Mr Dombey, with
majestic coldness and indifference, 'in which I do not participate,
and which I am not inclined to discuss, or to recall. I made Mr's
Dombey acquainted, some time since, as I have already told you, with
certain points of domestic deference and submission on which I felt it
necessary to insist. I failed to convince Mrs Dombey of the expediency
of her immediately altering her conduct in those respects, with a view
to her own peace and welfare, and my dignity; and I informed Mrs
Dombey that if I should find it necessary to object or remonstrate
again, I should express my opinion to her through yourself, my
confidential agent.'
Blended with the look that Carker bent upon him, was a devilish
look at the picture over his head, that struck upon it like a flash of
lightning.
'Now, Carker,' said Mr Dombey, 'I do not hesitate to say to you
that I will carry my point. I am not to be trifled with. Mrs Dombey
must understand that my will is law, and that I cannot allow of one
exception to the whole rule of my life. You will have the goodness to
undertake this charge, which, coming from me, is not unacceptable to
you, I hope, whatever regret you may politely profess - for which I am
obliged to you on behalf of Mrs Dombey; and you will have the
goodness, I am persuaded, to discharge it as exactly as any other
commission.'
'You know,' said Mr Carker, 'that you have only to command me.
'I know,' said Mr Dombey, with a majestic indication of assent,
'that I have only to command you. It is necessary that I should
proceed in this. Mrs Dombey is a lady undoubtedly highly qualified, in
many respects, to -
'To do credit even to your choice,' suggested Carker, with a
yawning show of teeth.
'Yes; if you please to adopt that form of words,' said Mr Dombey,
in his tone of state; 'and at present I do not conceive that Mrs
Dombey does that credit to it, to which it is entitled. There is a
principle of opposition in Mrs Dombey that must be eradicated; that
must be overcome: Mrs Dombey does not appear to understand,' said Mr
Dombey, forcibly, 'that the idea of opposition to Me is monstrous and
absurd.'
'We, in the City, know you better,' replied Carker, with a smile
from ear to ear.
'You know me better,' said Mr Dombey. 'I hope so. Though, indeed, I
am bound to do Mrs Dombey the justice of saying, however inconsistent
it may seem with her subsequent conduct (which remains unchanged),
that on my expressing my disapprobation and determination to her, with
some severity, on the occasion to which I have referred, my admonition
appeared to produce a very powerful effect.' Mr Dombey delivered
himself of those words with most portentous stateliness. 'I wish you
to have the goodness, then, to inform Mrs Dombey, Carker, from me,
that I must recall our former conversation to her remembrance, in some
surprise that it has not yet had its effect. That I must insist upon
her regulating her conduct by the injunctions laid upon her in that
conversation. That I am not satisfied with her conduct. That I am
greatly dissatisfied with it. And that I shall be under the very
disagreeable necessity of making you the bearer of yet more unwelcome
and explicit communications, if she has not the good sense and the
proper feeling to adapt herself to my wishes, as the first Mrs Dombey
did, and, I believe I may add, as any other lady in her place would.'
'The first Mrs Dombey lived very happily,' said Carker.
'The first Mrs Dombey had great good sense,' said Mr Dombey, in a
gentlemanly toleration of the dead, 'and very correct feeling.'
'Is Miss Dombey like her mother, do you think?' said Carker.
Swiftly and darkly, Mr Dombey's face changed. His confidential
agent eyed it keenly.
'I have approached a painful subject,' he said, in a soft regretful
tone of voice, irreconcilable with his eager eye. 'Pray forgive me. I
forget these chains of association in the interest I have. Pray
forgive me.'
But for all he said, his eager eye scanned Mr Dombey's downcast
face none the less closely; and then it shot a strange triumphant look
at the picture, as appealing to it to bear witness how he led him on
again, and what was coming.
Carker,' said Mr Dombey, looking here and there upon the table, and
saying in a somewhat altered and more hurried voice, and with a paler
lip, 'there is no occasion for apology. You mistake. The association
is with the matter in hand, and not with any recollection, as you
suppose. I do not approve of Mrs Dombey's behaviour towards my
daughter.'
'Pardon me,' said Mr Carker, 'I don't quite understand.'
'Understand then,' returned Mr Dombey, 'that you may make that -
that you will make that, if you please - matter of direct objection
from me to Mrs Dombey. You will please to tell her that her show of
devotion for my daughter is disagreeable to me. It is likely to be
noticed. It is likely to induce people to contrast Mrs Dombey in her
relation towards my daughter, with Mrs Dombey in her relation towards
myself. You will have the goodness to let Mrs Dombey know, plainly,
that I object to it; and that I expect her to defer, immediately, to
my objection. Mrs Dombey may be in earnest, or she may be pursuing a
whim, or she may be opposing me; but I object to it in any case, and
in every case. If Mrs Dombey is in earnest, so much the less reluctant
should she be to desist; for she will not serve my daughter by any
such display. If my wife has any superfluous gentleness, and duty over
and above her proper submission to me, she may bestow them where she
pleases, perhaps; but I will have submission first! - Carker,' said Mr
Dombey, checking the unusual emotion with which he had spoken, and
falling into a tone more like that in which he was accustomed to
assert his greatness, 'you will have the goodness not to omit or slur
this point, but to consider it a very important part of your
instructions.'
Mr Carker bowed his head, and rising from the table, and standing
thoughtfully before the fire, with his hand to his smooth chin, looked
down at Mr Dombey with the evil slyness of some monkish carving, half
human and half brute; or like a leering face on an old water-spout. Mr
Dombey, recovering his composure by degrees, or cooling his emotion in
his sense of having taken a high position, sat gradually stiffening
again, and looking at the parrot as she swung to and fro, in her great
wedding ring.
'I beg your pardon,' said Carker, after a silence, suddenly
resuming his chair, and drawing it opposite to Mr Dombey's, 'but let
me understand. Mrs Dombey is aware of the probability of your making
me the organ of your displeasure?'
'Yes,' replied Mr Dombey. 'I have said so.'
'Yes,' rejoined Carker, quickly; 'but why?'
'Why!' Mr Dombey repeated, not without hesitation. 'Because I told
her.'
'Ay,' replied Carker. 'But why did you tell her? You see,' he
continued with a smile, and softly laying his velvet hand, as a cat
might have laid its sheathed claws, on Mr Dombey's arm; 'if I
perfectly understand what is in your mind, I am so much more likely to
be useful, and to have the happiness of being effectually employed. I
think I do understand. I have not the honour of Mrs Dombey's good
opinion. In my position, I have no reason to expect it; but I take the
fact to be, that I have not got it?'
'Possibly not,' said Mr Dombey.
'Consequently,' pursued Carker, 'your making the communications to
Mrs Dombey through me, is sure to be particularly unpalatable to that
lady?'
'It appears to me,' said Mr Dombey, with haughty reserve, and yet
with some embarrassment, 'that Mrs Dombey's views upon the subject
form no part of it as it presents itself to you and me, Carker. But it
may be so.'
'And - pardon me - do I misconceive you,' said Carker, 'when I
think you descry in this, a likely means of humbling Mrs Dombey's
pride - I use the word as expressive of a quality which, kept within
due bounds, adorns and graces a lady so distinguished for her beauty
and accomplishments - and, not to say of punishing her, but of
reducing her to the submission you so naturally and justly require?'
'I am not accustomed, Carker, as you know,' said Mr Dombey, 'to
give such close reasons for any course of conduct I think proper to
adopt, but I will gainsay nothing of this. If you have any objection
to found upon it, that is indeed another thing, and the mere statement
that you have one will be sufficient. But I have not supposed, I
confess, that any confidence I could entrust to you, would be likely
to degrade you - '
'Oh! I degraded!' exclaimed Carker. 'In your service!'
'or to place you,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'in a false position.'
'I in a false position!' exclaimed Carker. 'I shall be proud -
delighted - to execute your trust. I could have wished, I own, to have
given the lady at whose feet I would lay my humble duty and devotion -
for is she not your wife! - no new cause of dislike; but a wish from
you is, of course, paramount to every other consideration on earth.
Besides, when Mrs Dombey is converted from these little errors of
judgment, incidental, I would presume to say, to the novelty of her
situation, I shall hope that she will perceive in the slight part I
take, only a grain - my removed and different sphere gives room for
little more - of the respect for you, and sacrifice of all
considerations to you, of which it will be her pleasure and privilege
to garner up a great store every day.'
Mr Dombey seemed, at the moment, again to see her with her hand
stretched out towards the door, and again to hear through the mild
speech of his confidential agent an echo of the words, 'Nothing can
make us stranger to each other than we are henceforth!' But he shook
off the fancy, and did not shake in his resolution, and said,
'Certainly, no doubt.'
'There is nothing more,' quoth Carker, drawing his chair back to
its old place - for they had taken little breakfast as yet- and
pausing for an answer before he sat down.
'Nothing,' said Mr Dombey, 'but this. You will be good enough to
observe, Carker, that no message to Mrs Dombey with which you are or
may be charged, admits of reply. You will be good enough to bring me
no reply. Mrs Dombey is informed that it does not become me to
temporise or treat upon any matter that is at issue between us, and
that what I say is final.'
Mr Carker signIfied his understanding of these credentials, and
they fell to breakfast with what appetite they might. The Grinder
also, in due time reappeared, keeping his eyes upon his master without
a moment's respite, and passing the time in a reverie of worshipful
tenor. Breakfast concluded, Mr Dombey's horse was ordered out again,
and Mr Carker mounting his own, they rode off for the City together.
Mr Carker was in capital spirits, and talked much. Mr Dombey
received his conversation with the sovereign air of a man who had a
right to be talked to, and occasionally condescended to throw in a few
words to carry on the conversation. So they rode on characteristically
enough. But Mr Dombey, in his dignity, rode with very long stirrups,
and a very loose rein, and very rarely deigned to look down to see
where his horse went. In consequence of which it happened that Mr
Dombey's horse, while going at a round trot, stumbled on some loose
stones, threw him, rolled over him, and lashing out with his iron-shod
feet, in his struggles to get up, kicked him.
Mr Carker, quick of eye, steady of hand, and a good horseman, was
afoot, and had the struggling animal upon his legs and by the bridle,
in a moment. Otherwise that morning's confidence would have been Mr
Dombey's last. Yet even with the flush and hurry of this action red
upon him, he bent over his prostrate chief with every tooth disclosed,
and muttered as he stooped down, 'I have given good cause of offence
to Mrs Dombey now, if she knew it!'
Mr Dombey being insensible, and bleeding from the head and face,
was carried by certain menders of the road, under Carker's direction,
to the nearest public-house, which was not far off, and where he was
soon attended by divers surgeons, who arrived in quick succession from
all parts, and who seemed to come by some mysterious instinct, as
vultures are said to gather about a camel who dies in the desert.
After being at some pains to restore him to consciousness, these
gentlemen examined into the nature of his injuries.
One surgeon who lived hard by was strong for a compound fracture of
the leg, which was the landlord's opinion also; but two surgeons who
lived at a distance, and were only in that neighbourhood by accident,
combated this opinion so disinterestedly, that it was decided at last
that the patient, though severely cut and bruised, had broken no bones
but a lesser rib or so, and might be carefully taken home before
night. His injuries being dressed and bandaged, which was a long
operation, and he at length left to repose, Mr Carker mounted his
horse again, and rode away to carry the intelligence home.
Crafty and cruel as his face was at the best of times, though it
was a sufficiently fair face as to form and regularity of feature, it
was at its worst when he set forth on this errand; animated by the
craft and cruelty of thoughts within him, suggestions of remote
possibility rather than of design or plot, that made him ride as if he
hunted men and women. Drawing rein at length, and slackening in his
speed, as he came into the more public roads, he checked his
white-legged horse into picking his way along as usual, and hid
himself beneath his sleek, hushed, crouched manner, and his ivory
smile, as he best could.
He rode direct to Mr Dombey's house, alighted at the door, and
begged to see Mrs Dombey on an affair of importance. The servant who
showed him to Mr Dombey's own room, soon returned to say that it was
not Mrs Dombey's hour for receiving visitors, and that he begged
pardon for not having mentioned it before.
Mr Carker, who was quite prepared for a cold reception, wrote upon
a card that he must take the liberty of pressing for an interview, and
that he would not be so bold as to do so, for the second time (this he
underlined), if he were not equally sure of the occasion being
sufficient for his justification. After a trifling delay, Mrs Dombey's
maid appeared, and conducted him to a morning room upstairs, where
Edith and Florence were together.
He had never thought Edith half so beautiful before. Much as he
admired the graces of her face and form, and freshly as they dwelt
within his sensual remembrance, he had never thought her half so
beautiful.
Her glance fell haughtily upon him in the doorway; but he looked at
Florence - though only in the act of bending his head, as he came in -
with some irrepressible expression of the new power he held; and it
was his triumph to see the glance droop and falter, and to see that
Edith half rose up to receive him.
He was very sorry, he was deeply grieved; he couldn't say with what
unwillingness he came to prepare her for the intelligence of a very
slight accident. He entreated Mrs Dombey to compose herself. Upon his
sacred word of honour, there was no cause of alarm. But Mr Dombey -
Florence uttered a sudden cry. He did not look at her, but at
Edith. Edith composed and reassured her. She uttered no cry of
distress. No, no.
Mr Dombey had met with an accident in riding. His horse had
slipped, and he had been thrown.
Florence wildly exclaimed that he was badly hurt; that he was
killed!
No. Upon his honour, Mr Dombey, though stunned at first, was soon
recovered, and though certainly hurt was in no kind of danger. If this
were not the truth, he, the distressed intruder, never could have had
the courage to present himself before Mrs Dombey. It was the truth
indeed, he solemnly assured her.
All this he said as if he were answering Edith, and not Florence,
and with his eyes and his smile fastened on Edith.
He then went on to tell her where Mr Dombey was lying, and to
request that a carriage might be placed at his disposal to bring him
home.
'Mama,' faltered Florence in tears, 'if I might venture to go!'
Mr Carker, having his eyes on Edith when he heard these words, gave
her a secret look and slightly shook his head. He saw how she battled
with herself before she answered him with her handsome eyes, but he
wrested the answer from her - he showed her that he would have it, or
that he would speak and cut Florence to the heart - and she gave it to
him. As he had looked at the picture in the morning, so he looked at
her afterwards, when she turned her eyes away.
'I am directed to request,' he said, 'that the new housekeeper -
Mrs Pipchin, I think, is the name - '
Nothing escaped him. He saw in an instant, that she was another
slight of Mr Dombey's on his wife.
' - may be informed that Mr Dombey wishes to have his bed prepared
in his own apartments downstairs, as he prefers those rooms to any
other. I shall return to Mr Dombey almost immediately. That every
possible attention has been paid to his comfort, and that he is the
object of every possible solicitude, I need not assure you, Madam. Let
me again say, there is no cause for the least alarm. Even you may be
quite at ease, believe me.'
He bowed himself out, with his extremest show of deference and
conciliation; and having returned to Mr Dombey's room, and there
arranged for a carriage being sent after him to the City, mounted his
horse again, and rode slowly thither. He was very thoughtful as he
went along, and very thoughtful there, and very thoughtful in the
carriage on his way back to the place where Mr Dombey had been left.
It was only when sitting by that gentleman's couch that he was quite
himself again, and conscious of his teeth.
About the time of twilight, Mr Dombey, grievously afflicted with
aches and pains, was helped into his carriage, and propped with cloaks
and pillows on one side of it, while his confidential agent bore him
company upon the other. As he was not to be shaken, they moved at
little more than a foot pace; and hence it was quite dark when he was
brought home. Mrs Pipchin, bitter and grim, and not oblivious of the
Peruvian mines, as the establishment in general had good reason to
know, received him at the door, and freshened the domestics with
several little sprinklings of wordy vinegar, while they assisted in
conveying him to his room. Mr Carker remained in attendance until he
was safe in bed, and then, as he declined to receive any female
visitor, but the excellent Ogress who presided over his household,
waited on Mrs Dombey once more, with his report on her lord's
condition.
He again found Edith alone with Florence, and he again addressed
the whole of his soothing speech to Edith, as if she were a prey to
the liveliest and most affectionate anxieties. So earnest he was in
his respectful sympathy, that on taking leave, he ventured - with one
more glance towards Florence at the moment - to take her hand, and
bending over it, to touch it with his lips.
Edith did not withdraw the hand, nor did she strike his fair face
with it, despite the flush upon her cheek, the bright light in her
eyes, and the dilation of her whole form. But when she was alone in
her own room, she struck it on the marble chimney-shelf, so that, at
one blow, it was bruised, and bled; and held it from her, near the
shining fire, as if she could have thrust it in and burned it'
Far into the night she sat alone, by the sinking blaze, in dark and
threatening beauty, watching the murky shadows looming on the wall, as
if her thoughts were tangible, and cast them there. Whatever shapes of
outrage and affront, and black foreshadowings of things that might
happen, flickered, indistinct and giant-like, before her, one resented
figure marshalled them against her. And that figure was her husband.
CHAPTER 43.
The Watches of the Night
Florence, long since awakened from her dream, mournfully observed
the estrangement between her father and Edith, and saw it widen more
and more, and knew that there was greater bitterness between them
every day. Each day's added knowledge deepened the shade upon her love
and hope, roused up the old sorrow that had slumbered for a little
time, and made it even heavier to bear than it had been before.
It had been hard - how hard may none but Florence ever know! - to
have the natural affection of a true and earnest nature turned to
agony; and slight, or stern repulse, substituted for the tenderest
protection and the dearest care. It had been hard to feel in her deep
heart what she had felt, and never know the happiness of one touch of
response. But it was much more hard to be compelled to doubt either
her father or Edith, so affectionate and dear to her, and to think of
her love for each of them, by turns, with fear, distrust, and wonder.
Yet Florence now began to do so; and the doing of it was a task
imposed upon her by the very purity of her soul, as one she could not
fly from. She saw her father cold and obdurate to Edith, as to her;
hard, inflexible, unyielding. Could it be, she asked herself with
starting tears, that her own dear mother had been made unhappy by such
treatment, and had pined away and died? Then she would think how proud
and stately Edith was to everyone but her, with what disdain she
treated him, how distantly she kept apart from him, and what she had
said on the night when they came home; and quickly it would come on
Florence, almost as a crime, that she loved one who was set in
opposition to her father, and that her father knowing of it, must
think of her in his solitary room as the unnatural child who added
this wrong to the old fault, so much wept for, of never having won his
fatherly affection from her birth. The next kind word from Edith, the
next kind glance, would shake these thoughts again, and make them seem
like black ingratitude; for who but she had cheered the drooping heart
of Florence, so lonely and so hurt, and been its best of comforters!
Thus, with her gentle nature yearning to them both, feeling for the
misery of both, and whispering doubts of her own duty to both,
Florence in her wider and expanded love, and by the side of Edith,
endured more than when she had hoarded up her undivided secret in the
mournful house, and her beautiful Mama had never dawned upon it.
One exquisite unhappiness that would have far outweighed this,
Florence was spared. She never had the least suspicion that Edith by
her tenderness for her widened the separation from her father, or gave
him new cause of dislike. If Florence had conceived the possIbility of
such an effect being wrought by such a cause, what grief she would
have felt, what sacrifice she would have tried to make, poor loving
girl, how fast and sure her quiet passage might have been beneath it
to the presence of that higher Father who does not reject his
children's love, or spurn their tried and broken hearts, Heaven knows!
But it was otherwise, and that was well.
No word was ever spoken between Florence and Edith now, on these
subjects. Edith had said there ought to be between them, in that wise,
a division and a silence like the grave itself: and Florence felt she
was right'
In this state of affairs her father was brought home, suffering and
disabled; and gloomily retired to his own rooms, where he was tended
by servants, not approached by Edith, and had no friend or companion
but Mr Carker, who withdrew near midnight.
'And nice company he is, Miss Floy,' said Susan Nipper. 'Oh, he's a
precious piece of goods! If ever he wants a character don't let him
come to me whatever he does, that's all I tell him.'
'Dear Susan,' urged Florence, 'don't!'
'Oh, it's very well to say "don't" Miss Floy,' returned the Nipper,
much exasperated; 'but raly begging your pardon we're coming to such
passes that it turns all the blood in a person's body into pins and
needles, with their pints all ways. Don't mistake me, Miss Floy, I
don't mean nothing again your ma-in-law who has always treated me as a
lady should though she is rather high I must say not that I have any
right to object to that particular, but when we come to Mrs Pipchinses
and having them put over us and keeping guard at your Pa's door like
crocodiles (only make us thankful that they lay no eggs!) we are a
growing too outrageous!'
'Papa thinks well of Mrs Pipchin, Susan,' returned Florence, 'and
has a right to choose his housekeeper, you know. Pray don't!'
'Well Miss Floy,' returned the Nipper, 'when you say don't, I never
do I hope but Mrs Pipchin acts like early gooseberries upon me Miss,
and nothing less.'
Susan was unusually emphatic and destitute of punctuation in her
discourse on this night, which was the night of Mr Dombey's being
brought home, because, having been sent downstairs by Florence to
inquire after him, she had been obliged to deliver her message to her
mortal enemy Mrs Pipchin; who, without carrying it in to Mr Dombey,
had taken upon herself to return what Miss Nipper called a huffish
answer, on her own responsibility. This, Susan Nipper construed into
presumption on the part of that exemplary sufferer by the Peruvian
mines, and a deed of disparagement upon her young lady, that was not
to be forgiven; and so far her emphatic state was special. But she had
been in a condition of greatly increased suspicion and distrust, ever
since the marriage; for, like most persons of her quality of mind, who
form a strong and sincere attachment to one in the different station
which Florence occupied, Susan was very jealous, and her jealousy
naturally attached to Edith, who divided her old empire, and came
between them. Proud and glad as Susan Nipper truly was, that her young
mistress should be advanced towards her proper place in the scene of
her old neglect, and that she should have her father's handsome wife
for her companion and protectress, she could not relinquish any part
of her own dominion to the handsome wife, without a grudge and a vague
feeling of ill-will, for which she did not fail to find a
disinterested justification in her sharp perception of the pride and
passion of the lady's character. From the background to which she had
necessarily retired somewhat, since the marriage, Miss Nipper looked
on, therefore, at domestic affairs in general, with a resolute
conviction that no good would come of Mrs Dombey: always being very
careful to publish on all possible occasions, that she had nothing to
say against her.
'Susan,' said Florence, who was sitting thoughtfully at her table,
'it is very late. I shall want nothing more to-night.'
'Ah, Miss Floy!' returned the Nipper, 'I'm sure I often wish for
them old times when I sat up with you hours later than this and fell
asleep through being tired out when you was as broad awake as
spectacles, but you've ma's-in-law to come and sit with you now Miss
Floy and I'm thankful for it I'm sure. I've not a word to say against
'em.'
'I shall not forget who was my old companion when I had none,
Susan,' returned Florence, gently, 'never!' And looking up, she put
her arm round the neck of her humble friend, drew her face down to
hers, and bidding her good-night, kissed it; which so mollified Miss
Nipper, that she fell a sobbing.
'Now my dear Miss Floy, said Susan, 'let me go downstairs again and
see how your Pa is, I know you're wretched about him, do let me go
downstairs again and knock at his door my own self.'
'No,' said Florence, 'go to bed. We shall hear more in the morning.
I will inquire myself in the morning. Mama has been down, I daresay;'
Florence blushed, for she had no such hope; 'or is there now, perhaps.
Good-night!'
Susan was too much softened to express her private opinion on the
probability of Mrs Dombey's being in attendance on her husband, and
silently withdrew. Florence left alone, soon hid her head upon her
hands as she had often done in other days, and did not restrain the
tears from coursing down her face. The misery of this domestic discord
and unhappiness; the withered hope she cherished now, if hope it could
be called, of ever being taken to her father's heart; her doubts and
fears between the two; the yearning of her innocent breast to both;
the heavy disappointment and regret of such an end as this, to what
had been a vision of bright hope and promise to her; all crowded on
her mind and made her tears flow fast. Her mother and her brother
dead, her father unmoved towards her, Edith opposed to him and casting
him away, but loving her, and loved by her, it seemed as if her
affection could never prosper, rest where it would. That weak thought
was soon hushed, but the thoughts in which it had arisen were too true
and strong to be dismissed with it; and they made the night desolate.
Among such reflections there rose up, as there had risen up all
day, the image of her father, wounded and in pain, alone in his own
room, untended by those who should be nearest to him, and passing the
tardy hours in lonely suffering. A frightened thought which made her
start and clasp her hands - though it was not a new one in her mind -
that he might die, and never see her or pronounce her name, thrilled
her whole frame. In her agitation she thought, and trembled while she
thought, of once more stealing downstairs, and venturing to his door.
She listened at her own. The house was quiet, and all the lights
were out. It was a long, long time, she thought, since she used to
make her nightly pilgrimages to his door! It was a long, long time,
she tried to think, since she had entered his room at midnight, and he
had led her back to the stair-foot!
With the same child's heart within her, as of old: even with the
child's sweet timid eyes and clustering hair: Florence, as strange to
her father in her early maiden bloom, as in her nursery time, crept
down the staircase listening as she went, and drew near to his room.
No one was stirring in the house. The door was partly open to admit
air; and all was so still within, that she could hear the burning of
the fire, and count the ticking of the clock that stood upon the
chimney-piece.
She looked in. In that room, the housekeeper wrapped in a blanket
was fast asleep in an easy chair before the fire. The doors between it
and the next were partly closed, and a screen was drawn before them;
but there was a light there, and it shone upon the cornice of his bed.
All was so very still that she could hear from his breathing that he
was asleep. This gave her courage to pass round the screen, and look
into his chamber.
It was as great a start to come upon his sleeping face as if she
had not expected to see it. Florence stood arrested on the spot, and
if he had awakened then, must have remained there.
There was a cut upon his forehead, and they had been wetting his
hair, which lay bedabbled and entangled on the pillow. One of his
arms, resting outside the bed, was bandaged up, and he was very white.
But it was not this, that after the first quick glance, and first
assurance of his sleeping quietly, held Florence rooted to the ground.
It was something very different from this, and more than this, that
made him look so solemn in her eye
She had never seen his face in all her life, but there had been
upon it - or she fancied so - some disturbing consciousness of her.
She had never seen his face in all her life, but hope had sunk within
her, and her timid glance had dropped before its stern, unloving, and
repelling harshness. As she looked upon it now, she saw it, for the
first time, free from the cloud that had darkened her childhood. Calm,
tranquil night was reigning in its stead. He might have gone to sleep,
for anything she saw there, blessing her.
Awake, unkind father! Awake, now, sullen man! The time is flitting
by; the hour is coming with an angry tread. Awake!
There was no change upon his face; and as she watched it, awfully,
its motionless reponse recalled the faces that were gone. So they
looked, so would he; so she, his weeping child, who should say when!
so all the world of love and hatred and indifference around them! When
that time should come, it would not be the heavier to him, for this
that she was going to do; and it might fall something lighter upon
her.
She stole close to the bed, and drawing in her breath, bent down,
and softly kissed him on the face, and laid her own for one brief
moment by its side, and put the arm, with which she dared not touch
him, round about him on the pillow.
Awake, doomed man, while she is near! The time is flitting by; the
hour is coming with an angry tread; its foot is in the house. Awake!
In her mind, she prayed to God to bless her father, and to soften
him towards her, if it might be so; and if not, to forgive him if he
was wrong, and pardon her the prayer which almost seemed impiety. And
doing so, and looking back at him with blinded eyes, and stealing
timidly away, passed out of his room, and crossed the other, and was
gone.
He may sleep on now. He may sleep on while he may. But let him look
for that slight figure when he wakes, and find it near him when the
hour is come!
Sad and grieving was the heart of Florence, as she crept upstairs.
The quiet house had grown more dismal since she came down. The sleep
she had been looking on, in the dead of night, had the solemnity to
her of death and life in one. The secrecy and silence of her own
proceeding made the night secret, silent, and oppressive. She felt
unwilling, almost unable, to go on to her own chamber; and turnIng
into the drawing-rooms, where the clouded moon was shining through the
blinds, looked out into the empty streets.
The wind was blowing drearily. The lamps looked pale, and shook as
if they were cold. There was a distant glimmer of something that was
not quite darkness, rather than of light, in the sky; and foreboding
night was shivering and restless, as the dying are who make a troubled
end. Florence remembered how, as a watcher, by a sick-bed, she had
noted this bleak time, and felt its influence, as if in some hidden
natural antipathy to it; and now it was very, very gloomy.
Her Mama had not come to her room that night, which was one cause
of her having sat late out of her bed. In her general uneasiness, no
less than in her ardent longing to have somebody to speak to, and to
break the spell of gloom and silence, Florence directed her steps
towards the chamber where she slept.
The door was not fastened within, and yielded smoothly to her
hesitating hand. She was surprised to find a bright light burning;
still more surprised, on looking in, to see that her Mama, but
partially undressed, was sitting near the ashes of the fire, which had
crumbled and dropped away. Her eyes were intently bent upon the air;
and in their light, and in her face, and in her form, and in the grasp
with which she held the elbows of her chair as if about to start up,
Florence saw such fierce emotion that it terrified her.
'Mama!' she cried, 'what is the matter?'
Edith started; looking at her with such a strange dread in her
face, that Florence was more frightened than before.
'Mama!' said Florence, hurriedly advancing. 'Dear Mama! what is the
matter?'
'I have not been well,' said Edith, shaking, and still looking at
her in the same strange way. 'I have had had dreams, my love.'
'And not yet been to bed, Mama?'
'No,' she returned. 'Half-waking dreams.'
Her features gradually softened; and suffering Florence to come
closer to her, within her embrace, she said in a tender manner, 'But
what does my bird do here? What does my bird do here?'
'I have been uneasy, Mama, in not seeing you to-night, and in not
knowing how Papa was; and I - '
Florence stopped there, and said no more.
'Is it late?' asked Edith, fondly putting back the curls that
mingled with her own dark hair, and strayed upon her face.
'Very late. Near day.'
'Near day!' she repeated in surprise.
'Dear Mama, what have you done to your hand?' said Florence.
Edith drew it suddenly away, and, for a moment, looked at her with
the same strange dread (there was a sort of wild avoidance in it) as
before; but she presently said, 'Nothing, nothing. A blow.' And then
she said, 'My Florence!' and then her bosom heaved, and she was
weeping passionately.
'Mama!' said Florence. 'Oh Mama, what can I do, what should I do,
to make us happier? Is there anything?'
'Nothing,' she replied.
'Are you sure of that? Can it never be? If I speak now of what is
in my thoughts, in spite of what we have agreed,' said Florence, 'you
will not blame me, will you?'
'It is useless,' she replied, 'useless. I have told you, dear, that
I have had bad dreams. Nothing can change them, or prevent them coming
back.'
'I do not understand,' said Florence, gazing on her agitated face
which seemed to darken as she looked.
'I have dreamed,' said Edith in a low voice, 'of a pride that is
all powerless for good, all powerful for evil; of a pride that has
been galled and goaded, through many shameful years, and has never
recoiled except upon itself; a pride that has debased its owner with
the consciousness of deep humiliation, and never helped its owner
boldly to resent it or avoid it, or to say, "This shall not be!" a
pride that, rightly guided, might have led perhaps to better things,
but which, misdirected and perverted, like all else belonging to the
same possessor, has been self-contempt, mere hardihood and ruin.'
She neither looked nor spoke to Florence now, but went on as if she
were alone.
'I have dreamed,' she said, 'of such indifference and callousness,
arising from this self-contempt; this wretched, inefficient, miserable
pride; that it has gone on with listless steps even to the altar,
yielding to the old, familiar, beckoning finger, - oh mother, oh
mother! - while it spurned it; and willing to be hateful to itself for
once and for all, rather than to be stung daily in some new form.
Mean, poor thing!'
And now with gathering and darkening emotion, she looked as she had
looked when Florence entered.
'And I have dreamed,' she said, 'that in a first late effort to
achieve a purpose, it has been trodden on, and trodden down by a base
foot, but turns and looks upon him. I have dreamed that it is wounded,
hunted, set upon by dogs, but that it stands at hay, and will not
yield; no, that it cannot if it would; but that it is urged on to hate
Her clenched hand tightened on the trembling arm she had in hers,
and as she looked down on the alarmed and wondering face, frown
subsided. 'Oh Florence!' she said, 'I think I have been nearly mad
to-night!' and humbled her proud head upon her neck and wept again.
'Don't leave me! be near me! I have no hope but in you! These words
she said a score of times.
Soon she grew calmer, and was full of pity for the tears of
Florence, and for her waking at such untimely hours. And the day now
dawning, with folded her in her arms and laid her down upon her bed,
and, not lying down herself, sat by her, and bade her try to sleep.
'For you are weary, dearest, and unhappy, and should rest.'
'I am indeed unhappy, dear Mama, tonight,' said Florence. 'But you
are weary and unhappy, too.'
'Not when you lie asleep so near me, sweet.'
They kissed each other, and Florence, worn out, gradually fell into
a gentle slumber; but as her eyes closed on the face beside her, it
was so sad to think upon the face downstairs, that her hand drew
closer to Edith for some comfort; yet, even in the act, it faltered,
lest it should be deserting him. So, in her sleep, she tried to
reconcile the two together, and to show them that she loved them both,
but could not do it, and her waking grief was part of her dreams.
Edith, sitting by, looked down at the dark eyelashes lying wet on
the flushed cheeks, and looked with gentleness and pity, for she knew
the truth. But no sleep hung upon her own eyes. As the day came on she
still sat watching and waking, with the placid hand in hers, and
sometimes whispered, as she looked at the hushed face, 'Be near me,
Florence. I have no hope but in you!'
CHAPTER 44.
A Separation
With the day, though not so early as the sun, uprose Miss Susan
Nipper. There was a heaviness in this young maiden's exceedingly sharp
black eyes, that abated somewhat of their sparkling, and suggested -
which was not their usual character - the possibility of their being
sometimes shut. There was likewise a swollen look about them, as if
they had been crying over-night. But the Nipper, so far from being
cast down, was singularly brisk and bold, and all her energies
appeared to be braced up for some great feat. This was noticeable even
in her dress, which was much more tight and trim than usual; and in
occasional twitches of her head as she went about the house, which
were mightily expressive of determination.
In a word, she had formed a determination, and an aspiring one: it
being nothing less than this - to penetrate to Mr Dombey's presence,
and have speech of that gentleman alone. 'I have often said I would,'
she remarked, in a threatening manner, to herself, that morning, with
many twitches of her head, 'and now I will!'
Spurring herself on to the accomplishment of this desperate design,
with a sharpness that was peculiar to herself, Susan Nipper haunted
the hall and staircase during the whole forenoon, without finding a
favourable opportunity for the assault. Not at all baffled by this
discomfiture, which indeed had a stimulating effect, and put her on
her mettle, she diminished nothing of her vigilance; and at last
discovered, towards evening, that her sworn foe Mrs Pipchin, under
pretence of having sat up all night, was dozing in her own room, and
that Mr Dombey was lying on his sofa, unattended.
With a twitch - not of her head merely, this time, but of her whole
self - the Nipper went on tiptoe to Mr Dombey's door, and knocked.
'Come in!' said Mr Dombey. Susan encouraged herself with a final
twitch, and went in.
Mr Dombey, who was eyeing the fire, gave an amazed look at his
visitor, and raised himself a little on his arm. The Nipper dropped a
curtsey.
'What do you want?' said Mr Dombey.
'If you please, Sir, I wish to speak to you,' said Susan.
Mr Dombey moved his lips as if he were repeating the words, but he
seemed so lost in astonishment at the presumption of the young woman
as to be incapable of giving them utterance.
'I have been in your service, Sir,' said Susan Nipper, with her
usual rapidity, 'now twelve 'year a waiting on Miss Floy my own young
lady who couldn't speak plain when I first come here and I was old in
this house when Mrs Richards was new, I may not be Meethosalem, but I
am not a child in arms.'
Mr Dombey, raised upon his arm and looking at her, offered no
comment on this preparatory statement of fact.
'There never was a dearer or a blesseder young lady than is my
young lady, Sir,' said Susan, 'and I ought to know a great deal better
than some for I have seen her in her grief and I have seen her in her
joy (there's not been much of it) and I have seen her with her brother
and I have seen her in her loneliness and some have never seen her,
and I say to some and all - I do!' and here the black-eyed shook her
head, and slightly stamped her foot; 'that she's the blessedest and
dearest angel is Miss Floy that ever drew the breath of life, the more
that I was torn to pieces Sir the more I'd say it though I may not be
a Fox's Martyr..'
Mr Dombey turned yet paler than his fall had made him, with
indignation and astonishment; and kept his eyes upon the speaker as if
he accused them, and his ears too, of playing him false.
'No one could be anything but true and faithful to Miss Floy, Sir,'
pursued Susan, 'and I take no merit for my service of twelve year, for
I love her - yes, I say to some and all I do!' - and here the
black-eyed shook her head again, and slightly stamped her foot again,
and checked a sob; 'but true and faithful service gives me right to
speak I hope, and speak I must and will now, right or wrong.
'What do you mean, woman?' said Mr Dombey, glaring at her. 'How do
you dare?'
'What I mean, Sir, is to speak respectful and without offence, but
out, and how I dare I know not but I do!'said Susan. 'Oh! you don't
know my young lady Sir you don't indeed, you'd never know so little of
her, if you did.'
Mr Dombey, in a fury, put his hand out for the bell-rope; but there
was no bell-rope on that side of the fire, and he could not rise and
cross to the other without assistance. The quick eye of the Nipper
detected his helplessness immediately, and now, as she afterwards
observed, she felt she had got him.
'Miss Floy,' said Susan Nipper, 'is the most devoted and most
patient and most dutiful and beautiful of daughters, there ain't no
gentleman, no Sir, though as great and rich as all the greatest and
richest of England put together, but might be proud of her and would
and ought. If he knew her value right, he'd rather lose his greatness
and his fortune piece by piece and beg his way in rags from door to
door, I say to some and all, he would!' cried Susan Nipper, bursting
into tears, 'than bring the sorrow on her tender heart that I have
seen it suffer in this house!'
'Woman,' cried Mr Dombey, 'leave the room.
'Begging your pardon, not even if I am to leave the situation,
Sir,' replied the steadfast Nipper, 'in which I have been so many
years and seen so much - although I hope you'd never have the heart to
send me from Miss Floy for such a cause - will I go now till I have
said the rest, I may not be a Indian widow Sir and I am not and I
would not so become but if I once made up my mind to burn myself
alive, I'd do it! And I've made my mind up to go on.'
Which was rendered no less clear by the expression of Susan
Nipper's countenance, than by her words.
'There ain't a person in your service, Sir,' pursued the
black-eyed, 'that has always stood more in awe of you than me and you
may think how true it is when I make so bold as say that I have
hundreds and hundreds of times thought of speaking to you and never
been able to make my mind up to it till last night, but last night
decided of me.'
Mr Dombey, in a paroxysm of rage, made another grasp at the
bell-rope that was not there, and, in its absence, pulled his hair
rather than nothing.
'I have seen,' said Susan Nipper, 'Miss Floy strive and strive when
nothing but a child so sweet and patient that the best of women might
have copied from her, I've seen her sitting nights together half the
night through to help her delicate brother with his learning, I've
seen her helping him and watching him at other times - some well know
when - I've seen her, with no encouragement and no help, grow up to be
a lady, thank God! that is the grace and pride of every company she
goes in, and I've always seen her cruelly neglected and keenly feeling
of it - I say to some and all, I have! - and never said one word, but
ordering one's self lowly and reverently towards one's betters, is not
to be a worshipper of graven images, and I will and must speak!'
'Is there anybody there?' cried Mr Dombey, calling out. 'Where are
the men? where are the women? Is there no one there?'
'I left my dear young lady out of bed late last night,' said Susan,
nothing checked, 'and I knew why, for you was ill Sir and she didn't
know how ill and that was enough to make her wretched as I saw it did.
I may not be a Peacock; but I have my eyes - and I sat up a little in
my own room thinking she might be lonesome and might want me, and I
saw her steal downstairs and come to this door as if it was a guilty
thing to look at her own Pa, and then steal back again and go into
them lonely drawing-rooms, a-crying so, that I could hardly bear to
hear it. I can not bear to hear it,' said Susan Nipper, wiping her
black eyes, and fixing them undauntingly on Mr Dombey's infuriated
face. 'It's not the first time I have heard it, not by many and many a
time you don't know your own daughter, Sir, you don't know what you're
doing, Sir, I say to some and all,' cried Susan Nipper, in a final
burst, 'that it's a sinful shame!'
'Why, hoity toity!' cried the voice of Mrs Pipchin, as the black
bombazeen garments of that fair Peruvian Miner swept into the room.
'What's this, indeed?'
Susan favoured Mrs Pipchin with a look she had invented expressly
for her when they first became acquainted, and resigned the reply to
Mr Dombey.
'What's this?' repeated Mr Dombey, almost foaming. 'What's this,
Madam? You who are at the head of this household, and bound to keep it
in order, have reason to inquire. Do you know this woman?'
'I know very little good of her, Sir,' croaked Mrs Pipchin. 'How
dare you come here, you hussy? Go along with you!'
But the inflexible Nipper, merely honouring Mrs Pipchin with
another look, remained.
'Do you call it managing this establishment, Madam,' said Mr
Dombey, 'to leave a person like this at liberty to come and talk to
me! A gentleman - in his own house - in his own room - assailed with
the impertinences of women-servants!'
'Well, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin, with vengeance in her hard grey
eye, 'I exceedingly deplore it; nothing can be more irregular; nothing
can be more out of all bounds and reason; but I regret to say, Sir,
that this young woman is quite beyond control. She has been spoiled by
Miss Dombey, and is amenable to nobody. You know you're not,' said Mrs
Pipchin, sharply, and shaking her head at Susan Nipper. 'For shame,
you hussy! Go along with you!'
'If you find people in my service who are not to be controlled, Mrs
Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, turning back towards the fire, 'you know
what to do with them, I presume. You know what you are here for? Take
her away!'
'Sir, I know what to do,' retorted Mrs Pipchin, 'and of course
shall do it' Susan Nipper,' snapping her up particularly short, 'a
month's warning from this hour.'
'Oh indeed!' cried Susan, loftily.
'Yes,' returned Mrs Pipchin, 'and don't smile at me, you minx, or
I'll know the reason why! Go along with you this minute!'
'I intend to go this minute, you may rely upon it,' said the
voluble Nipper. 'I have been in this house waiting on my young lady a
dozen year and I won't stop in it one hour under notice from a person
owning to the name of Pipchin trust me, Mrs P.'
'A good riddance of bad rubbish!' said that wrathful old lady. 'Get
along with you, or I'll have you carried out!'
'My comfort is,' said Susan, looking back at Mr Dombey, 'that I
have told a piece of truth this day which ought to have been told long
before and can't be told too often or too plain and that no amount of
Pipchinses - I hope the number of 'em mayn't be great' (here Mrs
Pipchin uttered a very sharp 'Go along with you!' and Miss Nipper
repeated the look) 'can unsay what I have said, though they gave a
whole year full of warnings beginning at ten o'clock in the forenoon
and never leaving off till twelve at night and died of the exhaustion
which would be a Jubilee!'
With these words, Miss Nipper preceded her foe out of the room; and
walking upstairs to her own apartments in great state, to the choking
exasperation of the ireful Pipchin, sat down among her boxes and began
to cry.
From this soft mood she was soon aroused, with a very wholesome and
refreshing effect, by the voice of Mrs Pipchin outside the door.
'Does that bold-faced slut,' said the fell Pipchin, 'intend to take
her warning, or does she not?'
Miss Nipper replied from within that the person described did not
inhabit that part of the house, but that her name was Pipchin, and she
was to be found in the housekeeper's room.
'You saucy baggage!' retorted Mrs Pipchin, rattling at the handle
of the door. 'Go along with you this minute. Pack up your things
directly! How dare you talk in this way to a gentle-woman who has seen
better days?'
To which Miss Nipper rejoined from her castle, that she pitied the
better days that had seen Mrs Pipchin; and that for her part she
considered the worst days in the year to be about that lady's mark,
except that they were much too good for her.
'But you needn't trouble yourself to make a noise at my door,' said
Susan Nipper, 'nor to contaminate the key-hole with your eye, I'm
packing up and going you may take your affidavit.'
The Dowager expressed her lively satisfaction at this intelligence,
and with some general opinions upon young hussies as a race, and
especially upon their demerits after being spoiled by Miss Dombey,
withdrew to prepare the Nipper~s wages. Susan then bestirred herself
to get her trunks in order, that she might take an immediate and
dignified departure; sobbing heartily all the time, as she thought of
Florence.
The object of her regret was not long in coming to her, for the
news soon spread over the house that Susan Nipper had had a
disturbance with Mrs Pipchin, and that they had both appealed to Mr
Dombey, and that there had been an unprecedented piece of work in Mr
Dombey's room, and that Susan was going. The latter part of this
confused rumour, Florence found to be so correct, that Susan had
locked the last trunk and was sitting upon it with her bonnet on, when
she came into her room.
'Susan!' cried Florence. 'Going to leave me! You!'
'Oh for goodness gracious sake, Miss Floy,' said Susan, sobbing,
'don't speak a word to me or I shall demean myself before them'
Pipchinses, and I wouldn't have 'em see me cry Miss Floy for worlds!'
'Susan!' said Florence. 'My dear girl, my old friend! What shall I
do without you! Can you bear to go away so?'
'No-n-o-o, my darling dear Miss Floy, I can't indeed,' sobbed
Susan. 'But it can't be helped, I've done my duty' Miss, I have
indeed. It's no fault of mine. I am quite resigned. I couldn't stay my
month or I could never leave you then my darling and I must at last as
well as at first, don't speak to me Miss Floy, for though I'm pretty
firm I'm not a marble doorpost, my own dear.'
'What is it? Why is it?' said Florence, 'Won't you tell me?' For
Susan was shaking her head.
'No-n-no, my darling,' returned Susan. 'Don't ask me, for I
mustn't, and whatever you do don't put in a word for me to stop, for
it couldn't be and you'd only wrong yourself, and so God bless you my
own precious and forgive me any harm I have done, or any temper I have
showed in all these many years!'
With which entreaty, very heartily delivered, Susan hugged her
mistress in her arms.
'My darling there's a many that may come to serve you and be glad
to serve you and who'll serve you well and true,' said Susan, 'but
there can't be one who'll serve you so affectionate as me or love you
half as dearly, that's my comfort' Good-bye, sweet Miss Floy!'
'Where will you go, Susan?' asked her weeping mistress.
'I've got a brother down in the country Miss - a farmer in Essex
said the heart-broken Nipper, 'that keeps ever so many co-o-ows and
pigs and I shall go down there by the coach and sto-op with him, and
don't mind me, for I've got money in the Savings Banks my dear, and
needn't take another service just yet, which I couldn't, couldn't,
couldn't do, my heart's own mistress!' Susan finished with a burst of
sorrow, which was opportunely broken by the voice of Mrs Pipchin
talking downstairs; on hearing which, she dried her red and swollen
eyes, and made a melancholy feint of calling jauntily to Mr Towlinson
to fetch a cab and carry down her boxes.
Florence, pale and hurried and distressed, but withheld from
useless interference even here, by her dread of causing any new
division between her father and his wife (whose stern, indignant face
had been a warning to her a few moments since), and by her
apprehension of being in some way unconsciously connected already with
the dismissal of her old servant and friend, followed, weeping,
downstairs to Edith's dressing-room, whither Susan betook herself to
make her parting curtsey.
'Now, here's the cab, and here's the boxes, get along with you,
do!' said Mrs Pipchin, presenting herself at the same moment. 'I beg
your pardon, Ma'am, but Mr Dombey's orders are imperative.'
Edith, sitting under the hands of her maid - she was going out to
dinner - preserved her haughty face, and took not the least notice.
'There's your money,' said Mrs Pipchin, who in pursuance of her
system, and in recollection of the Mines, was accustomed to rout the
servants about, as she had routed her young Brighton boarders; to the
everlasting acidulation of Master Bitherstone, 'and the sooner this
house sees your back the better.
Susan had no spirits even for the look that belonged to Ma Pipchin
by right; so she dropped her curtsey to Mrs Dombey (who inclined her
head without one word, and whose eye avoided everyone but Florence),
and gave one last parting hug to her young mistress, and received her
parting embrace in return. Poor Susan's face at this crisis, in the
intensity of her feelings and the determined suffocation of her sobs,
lest one should become audible and be a triumph to Mrs Pipchin,
presented a series of the most extraordinary physiognomical phenomena
ever witnessed.
'I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure,' said Towlinson, outside the
door with the boxes, addressing Florence, 'but Mr Toots is in the
drawing-room, and sends his compliments, and begs to know how Diogenes
and Master is.'
Quick as thought, Florence glided out and hastened downstairs,
where Mr Toots, in the most splendid vestments, was breathing very
hard with doubt and agitation on the subject of her coming.
'Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, 'God bless my soul!'
This last ejaculation was occasioned by Mr Toots's deep concern at
the distress he saw in Florence's face; which caused him to stop short
in a fit of chuckles, and become an image of despair.
'Dear Mr Toots,' said Florence, 'you are so friendly to me, and so
honest, that I am sure I may ask a favour of you.
'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'if you'll only name one, you'll
- you'll give me an appetite. To which,' said Mr Toots, with some
sentiment, 'I have long been a stranger.
'Susan, who is an old friend of mine, the oldest friend I have,'
said Florence, 'is about to leave here suddenly, and quite alone, poor
girl. She is going home, a little way into the country. Might I ask
you to take care of her until she is in the coach?'
'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'you really do me an honour and a
kindness. This proof of your confidence, after the manner in which I
was Beast enough to conduct myself at Brighton - '
'Yes,' said Florence, hurriedly - 'no - don't think of that. Then
would you have the kindness to - to go? and to be ready to meet her
when she comes out? Thank you a thousand times! You ease my mind so
much. She doesn't seem so desolate. You cannot think how grateful I
feel to you, or what a good friend I am sure you are!' and Florence in
her earnestness thanked him again and again; and Mr Toots, in his
earnestness, hurried away - but backwards, that he might lose no
glimpse of her.
Florence had not the courage to go out, when she saw poor Susan in
the hall, with Mrs Pipchin driving her forth, and Diogenes jumping
about her, and terrifying Mrs Pipchin to the last degree by making
snaps at her bombazeen skirts, and howling with anguish at the sound
of her voice - for the good duenna was the dearest and most cherished
aversion of his breast. But she saw Susan shake hands with the
servants all round, and turn once to look at her old home; and she saw
Diogenes bound out after the cab, and want to follow it, and testify
an impossibility of conviction that he had no longer any property in
the fare; and the door was shut, and the hurry over, and her tears
flowed fast for the loss of an old friend, whom no one could replace.
No one. No one.
Mr Toots, like the leal and trusty soul he was, stopped the
cabriolet in a twinkling, and told Susan Nipper of his commission, at
which she cried more than before.
'Upon my soul and body!' said Mr Toots, taking his seat beside her.
'I feel for you. Upon my word and honour I think you can hardly know
your own feelings better than I imagine them. I can conceive nothing
more dreadful than to have to leave Miss Dombey.'
Susan abandoned herself to her grief now, and it really was
touching to see her.
'I say,' said Mr Toots, 'now, don't! at least I mean now do, you
know!'
'Do what, Mr Toots!' cried Susan.
'Why, come home to my place, and have some dinner before you
start,' said Mr Toots. 'My cook's a most respectable woman - one of
the most motherly people I ever saw - and she'll be delighted to make
you comfortable. Her son,' said Mr Toots, as an additional
recommendation, 'was educated in the Bluecoat School,' and blown up in
a powder-mill.'
Susan accepting this kind offer, Mr Toots conducted her to his
dwelling, where they were received by the Matron in question who fully
justified his character of her, and by the Chicken who at first
supposed, on seeing a lady in the vehicle, that Mr Dombey had been
doubled up, ably to his old recommendation, and Miss Dombey abducted.
This gentleman awakened in Miss Nipper some considerable astonishment;
for, having been defeated by the Larkey Boy, his visage was in a state
of such great dilapidation, as to be hardly presentable in society
with comfort to the beholders. The Chicken himself attributed this
punishment to his having had the misfortune to get into Chancery early
in the proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the Larkey one, and
heavily grassed. But it appeared from the published records of that
great contest that the Larkey Boy had had it all his own way from the
beginning, and that the Chicken had been tapped, and bunged, and had
received pepper, and had been made groggy, and had come up piping, and
had endured a complication of similar strange inconveniences, until he
had been gone into and finished.
After a good repast, and much hospitality, Susan set out for the
coach-office in another cabriolet, with Mr Toots inside, as before,
and the Chicken on the box, who, whatever distinction he conferred on
the little party by the moral weight and heroism of his character, was
scarcely ornamental to it, physically speaking, on account of his
plasters; which were numerous. But the Chicken had registered a vow,
in secret, that he would never leave Mr Toots (who was secretly pining
to get rid of him), for any less consideration than the good-will and
fixtures of a public-house; and being ambitious to go into that line,
and drink himself to death as soon as possible, he felt it his cue to
make his company unacceptable.
The night-coach by which Susan was to go, was on the point of
departure. Mr Toots having put her inside, lingered by the window,
irresolutely, until the driver was about to mount; when, standing on
the step, and putting in a face that by the light of the lamp was
anxious and confused, he said abruptly:
'I say, Susan! Miss Dombey, you know - '
'Yes, Sir.'
'Do you think she could - you know - eh?'
'I beg your pardon, Mr Toots,' said Susan, 'but I don't hear you.
'Do you think she could be brought, you know - not exactly at once,
but in time - in a long time - to - to love me, you know? There!' said
poor Mr Toots.
'Oh dear no!' returned Susan, shaking her head. 'I should say,
never. Never!'
'Thank'ee!' said Mr Toots. 'It's of no consequence. Good-night.
It's of no consequence, thank'ee!'
CHAPTER 45.
The Trusty Agent
Edith went out alone that day, and returned home early. It was but
a few minutes after ten o'clock, when her carriage rolled along the
street in which she lived.
There was the same enforced composure on her face, that there had
been when she was dressing; and the wreath upon her head encircled the
same cold and steady brow. But it would have been better to have seen
its leaves and flowers reft into fragments by her passionate hand, or
rendered shapeless by the fitful searches of a throbbing and
bewildered brain for any resting-place, than adorning such
tranquillity. So obdurate, so unapproachable, so unrelenting, one
would have thought that nothing could soften such a woman's nature,
and that everything in life had hardened it.
Arrived at her own door, she was alighting, when some one coming
quietly from the hall, and standing bareheaded, offered her his arm.
The servant being thrust aside, she had no choice but to touch it; and
she then knew whose arm it was.
'How is your patient, Sir?' she asked, with a curled lip.
'He is better,' returned Carker. 'He is doing very well. I have
left him for the night.'
She bent her head, and was passing up the staircase, when he
followed and said, speaking at the bottom:
'Madam! May I beg the favour of a minute's audience?'
She stopped and turned her eyes back 'It is an unseasonable time,
Sir, and I am fatigued. Is your business urgent?'
'It is very urgent, returned Carker. 'As I am so fortunate as to
have met you, let me press my petition.'
She looked down for a moment at his glistening mouth; and he looked
up at her, standing above him in her stately dress, and thought,
again, how beautiful she was.
'Where is Miss Dombey?' she asked the servant, aloud.
'In the morning room, Ma'am.'
'Show the way there!' Turning her eyes again on the attentive
gentleman at the bottom of the stairs, and informing him with a slight
motion of her head, that he was at liberty to follow, she passed on.
'I beg your pardon! Madam! Mrs Dombey!' cried the soft and nimble
Carker, at her side in a moment. 'May I be permitted to entreat that
Miss Dombey is not present?'
She confronted him, with a quick look, but with the same
self-possession and steadiness.
'I would spare Miss Dombey,' said Carker, in a low voice, 'the
knowledge of what I have to say. At least, Madam, I would leave it to
you to decide whether she shall know of it or not. I owe that to you.
It is my bounden duty to you. After our former interview, it would be
monstrous in me if I did otherwise.'
She slowly withdrew her eyes from his face, and turning to the
servant, said, 'Some other room.' He led the way to a drawing-room,
which he speedily lighted up and then left them. While he remained,
not a word was spoken. Edith enthroned herself upon a couch by the
fire; and Mr Carker, with his hat in his hand and his eyes bent upon
the carpet, stood before her, at some little distance.
'Before I hear you, Sir,' said Edith, when the door was closed, 'I
wish you to hear me.'
'To be addressed by Mrs Dombey,' he returned, 'even in accents of
unmerited reproach, is an honour I so greatly esteem, that although I
were not her servant in all things, I should defer to such a wish,
most readily.'
'If you are charged by the man whom you have just now left, Sir;'
Mr Carker raised his eyes, as if he were going to counterfeit
surprise, but she met them, and stopped him, if such were his
intention; 'with any message to me, do not attempt to deliver it, for
I will not receive it. I need scarcely ask you if you are come on such
an errand. I have expected you some time.
'It is my misfortune,' he replied, 'to be here, wholly against my
will, for such a purpose. Allow me to say that I am here for two
purposes. That is one.'
'That one, Sir,' she returned, 'is ended. Or, if you return to it -
'
'Can Mrs Dombey believe,' said Carker, coming nearer, 'that I would
return to it in the face of her prohibition? Is it possible that Mrs
Dombey, having no regard to my unfortunate position, is so determined
to consider me inseparable from my instructor as to do me great and
wilful injustice?'
'Sir,' returned Edith, bending her dark gaze full upon him, and
speaking with a rising passion that inflated her proud nostril and her
swelling neck, and stirred the delicate white down upon a robe she
wore, thrown loosely over shoulders that could hear its snowy
neighbourhood. 'Why do you present yourself to me, as you have done,
and speak to me of love and duty to my husband, and pretend to think
that I am happily married, and that I honour him? How dare you venture
so to affront me, when you know - I do not know better, Sir: I have
seen it in your every glance, and heard it in your every word - that
in place of affection between us there is aversion and contempt, and
that I despise him hardly less than I despise myself for being his!
Injustice! If I had done justice to the torment you have made me feel,
and to my sense of the insult you have put upon me, I should have
slain you!'
She had asked him why he did this. Had she not been blinded by her
pride and wrath, and self-humiliation, - which she was, fiercely as
she bent her gaze upon him, - she would have seen the answer in his
face. To bring her to this declaration.
She saw it not, and cared not whether it was there or no. She saw
only the indignities and struggles she had undergone and had to
undergo, and was writhing under them. As she sat looking fixedly at
them, rather than at him, she plucked the feathers from a pinion of
some rare and beautiful bird, which hung from her wrist by a golden
thread, to serve her as a fan, and rained them on the ground.
He did not shrink beneath her gaze, but stood, until such outward
signs of her anger as had escaped her control subsided, with the air
of a man who had his sufficient reply in reserve and would presently
deliver it. And he then spoke, looking straight into her kindling
eyes.
'Madam,' he said, 'I know, and knew before to-day, that I have
found no favour with you; and I knew why. Yes. I knew why. You have
spoken so openly to me; I am so relieved by the possession of your
confidence - '
'Confidence!' she repeated, with disdain.
He passed it over.
' - that I will make no pretence of concealment. I did see from the
first, that there was no affection on your part for Mr Dombey - how
could it possibly exist between such different subjects? And I have
seen, since, that stronger feelings than indifference have been
engendered in your breast - how could that possibly be otherwise,
either, circumstanced as you have been? But was it for me to presume
to avow this knowledge to you in so many words?'
'Was it for you, Sir,' she replied, 'to feign that other belief,
and audaciously to thrust it on me day by day?'
'Madam, it was,' he eagerly retorted. 'If I had done less, if I had
done anything but that, I should not be speaking to you thus; and I
foresaw - who could better foresee, for who has had greater experience
of Mr Dombey than myself? - that unless your character should prove to
be as yielding and obedient as that of his first submissive lady,
which I did not believe - '
A haughty smile gave him reason to observe that he might repeat
this.
'I say, which I did not believe, - the time was likely to come,
when such an understanding as we have now arrived at, would be
serviceable.'
'Serviceable to whom, Sir?' she demanded scornfully.
'To you. I will not add to myself, as warning me to refrain even
from that limited commendation of Mr Dombey, in which I can honestly
indulge, in order that I may not have the misfortune of saying
anything distasteful to one whose aversion and contempt,' with great
expression, 'are so keen.'
'Is it honest in you, Sir,' said Edith, 'to confess to your
"limited commendation," and to speak in that tone of disparagement,
even of him: being his chief counsellor and flatterer!'
'Counsellor, - yes,' said Carker. 'Flatterer, - no. A little
reservation I fear I must confess to. But our interest and convenience
commonly oblige many of us to make professions that we cannot feel. We
have partnerships of interest and convenience, friendships of interest
and convenience, dealings of interest and convenience, marriages of
interest and convenience, every day.'
She bit her blood-red lip; but without wavering in the dark, stern
watch she kept upon him.
'Madam,' said Mr Carker, sitting down in a chair that was near her,
with an air of the most profound and most considerate respect, 'why
should I hesitate now, being altogether devoted to your service, to
speak plainly? It was natural that a lady, endowed as you are, should
think it feasible to change her husband's character in some respects,
and mould him to a better form.'
'It was not natural to me, Sir,' she rejoined. 'I had never any
expectation or intention of that kind.'
The proud undaunted face showed him it was resolute to wear no mask
he offered, but was set upon a reckless disclosure of itself,
indifferent to any aspect in which it might present itself to such as
he.
'At least it was natural,' he resumed, 'that you should deem it
quite possible to live with Mr Dombey as his wife, at once without
submitting to him, and without coming into such violent collision with
him. But, Madam, you did not know Mr Dombey (as you have since
ascertained), when you thought that. You did not know how exacting and
how proud he is, or how he is, if I may say so, the slave of his own
greatness, and goes yoked to his own triumphal car like a beast of
burden, with no idea on earth but that it is behind him and is to be
drawn on, over everything and through everything.'
His teeth gleamed through his malicious relish of this conceit, as
he went on talking:
'Mr Dombey is really capable of no more true consideration for you,
Madam, than for me. The comparison is an extreme one; I intend it to
be so; but quite just. Mr Dombey, in the plenitude of his power, asked
me - I had it from his own lips yesterday morning - to be his
go-between to you, because he knows I am not agreeable to you, and
because he intends that I shall be a punishment for your contumacy;
and besides that, because he really does consider, that I, his paid
servant, am an ambassador whom it is derogatory to the dignity - not
of the lady to whom I have the happiness of speaking; she has no
existence in his mind - but of his wife, a part of himself, to
receive. You may imagine how regardless of me, how obtuse to the
possibility of my having any individual sentiment or opinion he is,
when he tells me, openly, that I am so employed. You know how
perfectly indifferent to your feelings he is, when he threatens you
with such a messenger. As you, of course, have not forgotten that he
did.'
She watched him still attentively. But he watched her too; and he
saw that this indication of a knowledge on his part, of something that
had passed between herself and her husband, rankled and smarted in her
haughty breast, like a poisoned arrow.
'I do not recall all this to widen the breach between yourself and
Mr Dombey, Madam - Heaven forbid! what would it profit me? - but as an
example of the hopelessness of impressing Mr Dombey with a sense that
anybody is to be considered when he is in question. We who are about
him, have, in our various positions, done our part, I daresay, to
confirm him in his way of thinking; but if we had not done so, others
would - or they would not have been about him; and it has always been,
from the beginning, the very staple of his life. Mr Dombey has had to
deal, in short, with none but submissive and dependent persons, who
have bowed the knee, and bent the neck, before him. He has never known
what it is to have angry pride and strong resentment opposed to him.'
'But he will know it now!' she seemed to say; though her lips did
not part, nor her eyes falter. He saw the soft down tremble once
again, and he saw her lay the plumage of the beautiful bird against
her bosom for a moment; and he unfolded one more ring of the coil into
which he had gathered himself.
'Mr Dombey, though a most honourable gentleman,' he said, 'is so
prone to pervert even facts to his own view, when he is at all
opposed, in consequence of the warp in his mind, that he - can I give
a better instance than this! - he sincerely believes (you will excuse
the folly of what I am about to say; it not being mine) that his
severe expression of opinion to his present wife, on a certain special
occasion she may remember, before the lamented death of Mrs Skewton,
produced a withering effect, and for the moment quite subdued her!'
Edith laughed. How harshly and unmusically need not be described.
It is enough that he was glad to hear her.
'Madam,' he resumed, 'I have done with this. Your own opinions are
so strong, and, I am persuaded, so unalterable,' he repeated those
words slowly and with great emphasis, 'that I am almost afraid to
incur your displeasure anew, when I say that in spite of these defects
and my full knowledge of them, I have become habituated to Mr Dombey,
and esteem him. But when I say so, it is not, believe me, for the mere
sake of vaunting a feeling that is so utterly at variance with your
own, and for which you can have no sympathy' - oh how distinct and
plain and emphasized this was! - 'but to give you an assurance of the
zeal with which, in this unhappy matter, I am yours, and the
indignation with which I regard the part I am to fill!'
She sat as if she were afraid to take her eyes from his face.
And now to unwind the last ring of the coil!
'It is growing late,' said Carker, after a pause, 'and you are, as
you said, fatigued. But the second object of this interview, I must
not forget. I must recommend you, I must entreat you in the most
earnest manner, for sufficient reasons that I have, to be cautious in
your demonstrations of regard for Miss Dombey.'
'Cautious! What do you mean?'
'To be careful how you exhibit too much affection for that young
lady.'
'Too much affection, Sir!' said Edith, knitting her broad brow and
rising. 'Who judges my affection, or measures it out? You?'
'It is not I who do so.' He was, or feigned to be, perplexed.
'Who then?'
'Can you not guess who then?'
'I do not choose to guess,' she answered.
'Madam,' he said after a little hesitation; meantime they had been,
and still were, regarding each other as before; 'I am in a difficulty
here. You have told me you will receive no message, and you have
forbidden me to return to that subject; but the two subjects are so
closely entwined, I find, that unless you will accept this vague
caution from one who has now the honour to possess your confidence,
though the way to it has been through your displeasure, I must violate
the injunction you have laid upon me.'
'You know that you are free to do so, Sir,' said Edith. 'Do it.'
So pale, so trembling, so impassioned! He had not miscalculated the
effect then!
'His instructions were,' he said, in a low voice, 'that I should
inform you that your demeanour towards Miss Dombey is not agreeable to
him. That it suggests comparisons to him which are not favourable to
himself. That he desires it may be wholly changed; and that if you are
in earnest, he is confident it will be; for your continued show of
affection will not benefit its object.'
'That is a threat,' she said.
'That is a threat,' he answered, in his voiceless manner of assent:
adding aloud, 'but not directed against you.'
Proud, erect, and dignified, as she stood confronting him; and
looking through him as she did, with her full bright flashing eye; and
smiling, as she was, with scorn and bitterness; she sunk as if the
ground had dropped beneath her, and in an instant would have fallen on
the floor, but that he caught her in his arms. As instantaneously she
threw him off, the moment that he touched her, and, drawing back,
confronted him again, immoveable, with her hand stretched out.
'Please to leave me. Say no more to-night.'
'I feel the urgency of this,' said Mr Carker, 'because it is
impossible to say what unforeseen consequences might arise, or how
soon, from your being unacquainted with his state of mind. I
understand Miss Dombey is concerned, now, at the dismissal of her old
servant, which is likely to have been a minor consequence in itself.
You don't blame me for requesting that Miss Dombey might not be
present. May I hope so?'
'I do not. Please to leave me, Sir.'
'I knew that your regard for the young lady, which is very sincere
and strong, I am well persuaded, would render it a great unhappiness
to you, ever to be a prey to the reflection that you had injured her
position and ruined her future hopes,' said Carker hurriedly, but
eagerly.
'No more to-night. Leave me, if you please.'
'I shall be here constantly in my attendance upon him, and in the
transaction of business matters. You will allow me to see you again,
and to consult what should be done, and learn your wishes?'
She motioned him towards the door.
'I cannot even decide whether to tell him I have spoken to you yet;
or to lead him to suppose that I have deferred doing so, for want of
opportunity, or for any other reason. It will be necessary that you
should enable me to consult with you very soon.
'At any time but now,' she answered.
'You will understand, when I wish to see you, that Miss Dombey is
not to be present; and that I seek an interview as one who has the
happiness to possess your confidence, and who comes to render you
every assistance in his power, and, perhaps, on many occasions, to
ward off evil from her?'
Looking at him still with the same apparent dread of releasing him
for a moment from the influence of her steady gaze, whatever that
might be, she answered, 'Yes!' and once more bade him go.
He bowed, as if in compliance; but turning back, when he had nearly
reached the door, said:
'I am forgiven, and have explained my fault. May I - for Miss
Dombey's sake, and for my own - take your hand before I go?'
She gave him the gloved hand she had maimed last night. He took it
in one of his, and kissed it, and withdrew. And when he had closed the
door, he waved the hand with which he had taken hers, and thrust it in
his breast.
Edith saw no one that night, but locked her door, and kept herself
alone.
She did not weep; she showed no greater agitation, outwardly, than
when she was riding home. She laid as proud a head upon her pillow as
she had borne in her carriage; and her prayer ran thus:
'May this man be a liar! For if he has spoken truth, she is lost to
me, and I have no hope left!'
This man, meanwhile, went home musing to bed, thinking, with a
dainty pleasure, how imperious her passion was, how she had sat before
him in her beauty, with the dark eyes that had never turned away but
once; how the white down had fluttered; how the bird's feathers had
been strewn upon the ground.
CHAPTER 46.
Recognizant and Reflective
Among sundry minor alterations in Mr Carker's life and habits that
began to take place at this time, none was more remarkable than the
extraordinary diligence with which he applied himself to business, and
the closeness with which he investigated every detail that the affairs
of the House laid open to him. Always active and penetrating in such
matters, his lynx-eyed vigilance now increased twenty-fold. Not only
did his weary watch keep pace with every present point that every day
presented to him in some new form, but in the midst of these
engrossing occupations he found leisure - that is, he made it - to
review the past transactions of the Firm, and his share in them,
during a long series of years. Frequently when the clerks were all
gone, the offices dark and empty, and all similar places of business
shut up, Mr Carker, with the whole anatomy of the iron room laid bare
before him, would explore the mysteries of books and papers, with the
patient progress of a man who was dissecting the minutest nerves and
fibres of his subject. Perch, the messenger, who usually remained on
these occasions, to entertain himself with the perusal of the Price
Current by the light of one candle, or to doze over the fire in the
outer office, at the imminent risk every moment of diving head
foremost into the coal-box, could not withhold the tribute of his
admiration from this zealous conduct, although it much contracted his
domestic enjoyments; and again, and again, expatiated to Mrs Perch
(now nursing twins) on the industry and acuteness of their managing
gentleman in the City.
The same increased and sharp attention that Mr Carker bestowed on
the business of the House, he applied to his own personal affairs.
Though not a partner in the concern - a distinction hitherto reserved
solely to inheritors of the great name of Dombey - he was in the
receipt of some percentage on its dealings; and, participating in all
its facilities for the employment of money to advantage, was
considered, by the minnows among the tritons of the East, a rich man.
It began to be said, among these shrewd observers, that Jem Carker, of
Dombey's, was looking about him to see what he was worth; and that he
was calling in his money at a good time, like the long-headed fellow
he was; and bets were even offered on the Stock Exchange that Jem was
going to marry a rich widow.
Yet these cares did not in the least interfere with Mr Carker's
watching of his chief, or with his cleanness, neatness, sleekness, or
any cat-like quality he possessed. It was not so much that there was a
change in him, in reference to any of his habits, as that the whole
man was intensified. Everything that had been observable in him
before, was observable now, but with a greater amount of
concentration. He did each single thing, as if he did nothing else - a
pretty certain indication in a man of that range of ability and
purpose, that he is doing something which sharpens and keeps alive his
keenest powers.
The only decided alteration in him was, that as he rode to and fro
along the streets, he would fall into deep fits of musing, like that
in which he had come away from Mr Dombey's house, on the morning of
that gentleman's disaster. At such times, he would keep clear of the
obstacles in his way, mechanically; and would appear to see and hear
nothing until arrival at his destination, or some sudden chance or
effort roused him.
Walking his white-legged horse thus, to the counting-house of
Dombey and Son one day, he was as unconscious of the observation of
two pairs of women's eyes, as of the fascinated orbs of Rob the
Grinder, who, in waiting a street's length from the appointed place,
as a demonstration of punctuality, vainly touched and retouched his
hat to attract attention, and trotted along on foot, by his master's
side, prepared to hold his stirrup when he should alight.
'See where he goes!' cried one of these two women, an old creature,
who stretched out her shrivelled arm to point him out to her
companion, a young woman, who stood close beside her, withdrawn like
herself into a gateway.
Mrs Brown's daughter looked out, at this bidding on the part of Mrs
Brown; and there were wrath and vengeance in her face.
'I never thought to look at him again,' she said, in a low voice;
'but it's well I should, perhaps. I see. I see!'
'Not changed!' said the old woman, with a look of eager malice.
'He changed!' returned the other. 'What for? What has he suffered?
There is change enough for twenty in me. Isn't that enough?'
'See where he goes!' muttered the old woman, watching her daughter
with her red eyes; 'so easy and so trim a-horseback, while we are in
the mud.'
'And of it,' said her daughter impatiently. 'We are mud, underneath
his horse's feet. What should we be?'
In the intentness with which she looked after him again, she made a
hasty gesture with her hand when the old woman began to reply, as if
her view could be obstructed by mere sound. Her mother watching her,
and not him, remained silent; until her kindling glance subsided, and
she drew a long breath, as if in the relief of his being gone.
'Deary!' said the old woman then. 'Alice! Handsome gall Ally!' She
gently shook her sleeve to arouse her attention. 'Will you let him go
like that, when you can wring money from him? Why, it's a wickedness,
my daughter.'
'Haven't I told you, that I will not have money from him?' she
returned. 'And don't you yet believe me? Did I take his sister's
money? Would I touch a penny, if I knew it, that had gone through his
white hands - unless it was, indeed, that I could poison it, and send
it back to him? Peace, mother, and come away.
'And him so rich?' murmured the old woman. 'And us so poor!'
'Poor in not being able to pay him any of the harm we owe him,'
returned her daughter. 'Let him give me that sort of riches, and I'll
take them from him, and use them. Come away. Its no good looking at
his horse. Come away, mother!'
But the old woman, for whom the spectacle of Rob the Grinder
returning down the street, leading the riderless horse, appeared to
have some extraneous interest that it did not possess in itself,
surveyed that young man with the utmost earnestness; and seeming to
have whatever doubts she entertained, resolved as he drew nearer,
glanced at her daughter with brightened eyes and with her finger on
her lip, and emerging from the gateway at the moment of his passing,
touched him on the shoulder.
'Why, where's my sprightly Rob been, all this time!' she said, as
he turned round.
The sprightly Rob, whose sprightliness was very much diminished by
the salutation, looked exceedingly dismayed, and said, with the water
rising in his eyes:
'Oh! why can't you leave a poor cove alone, Misses Brown, when he's
getting an honest livelihood and conducting himself respectable? What
do you come and deprive a cove of his character for, by talking to him
in the streets, when he's taking his master's horse to a honest stable
- a horse you'd go and sell for cats' and dogs' meat if you had your
way! Why, I thought,' said the Grinder, producing his concluding
remark as if it were the climax of all his injuries, 'that you was
dead long ago!'
'This is the way,' cried the old woman, appealing to her daughter,
'that he talks to me, who knew him weeks and months together, my
deary, and have stood his friend many and many a time among the
pigeon-fancying tramps and bird-catchers.'
'Let the birds be, will you, Misses Brown?' retorted Rob, in a tone
of the acutest anguish. 'I think a cove had better have to do with
lions than them little creeturs, for they're always flying back in
your face when you least expect it. Well, how d'ye do and what do you
want?' These polite inquiries the Grinder uttered, as it were under
protest, and with great exasperation and vindictiveness.
'Hark how he speaks to an old friend, my deary!' said Mrs Brown,
again appealing to her daughter. 'But there's some of his old friends
not so patient as me. If I was to tell some that he knows, and has
spotted and cheated with, where to find him - '
'Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?' interrupted the
miserable Grinder, glancing quickly round, as though he expected to
see his master's teeth shining at his elbow. 'What do you take a
pleasure in ruining a cove for? At your time of life too! when you
ought to be thinking of a variety of things!'
'What a gallant horse!' said the old woman, patting the animal's
neck.
'Let him alone, will you, Misses Brown?' cried Rob, pushing away
her hand. 'You're enough to drive a penitent cove mad!'
'Why, what hurt do I do him, child?' returned the old woman.
'Hurt?' said Rob. 'He's got a master that would find it out if he
was touched with a straw.' And he blew upon the place where the old
woman's hand had rested for a moment, and smoothed it gently with his
finger, as if he seriously believed what he said.
The old woman looking back to mumble and mouth at her daughter, who
followed, kept close to Rob's heels as he walked on with the bridle in
his hand; and pursued the conversation.
'A good place, Rob, eh?' said she. 'You're in luck, my child.'
'Oh don't talk about luck, Misses Brown,' returned the wretched
Grinder, facing round and stopping. 'If you'd never come, or if you'd
go away, then indeed a cove might be considered tolerable lucky. Can't
you go along, Misses Brown, and not foller me!' blubbered Rob, with
sudden defiance. 'If the young woman's a friend of yours, why don't
she take you away, instead of letting you make yourself so
disgraceful!'
'What!' croaked the old woman, putting her face close to his, with
a malevolent grin upon it that puckered up the loose skin down in her
very throat. 'Do you deny your old chum! Have you lurked to my house
fifty times, and slept sound in a corner when you had no other bed but
the paving-stones, and do you talk to me like this! Have I bought and
sold with you, and helped you in my way of business, schoolboy, sneak,
and what not, and do you tell me to go along? Could I raise a crowd of
old company about you to-morrow morning, that would follow you to ruin
like copies of your own shadow, and do you turn on me with your bold
looks! I'll go. Come, Alice.'
'Stop, Misses Brown!' cried the distracted Grinder. 'What are you
doing of? Don't put yourself in a passion! Don't let her go, if you
please. I haven't meant any offence. I said "how d'ye do," at first,
didn't I? But you wouldn't answer. How you do? Besides,' said Rob
piteously, 'look here! How can a cove stand talking in the street with
his master's prad a wanting to be took to be rubbed down, and his
master up to every individgle thing that happens!'
The old woman made a show of being partially appeased, but shook
her head, and mouthed and muttered still.
'Come along to the stables, and have a glass of something that's
good for you, Misses Brown, can't you?' said Rob, 'instead of going
on, like that, which is no good to you, nor anybody else. Come along
with her, will you be so kind?' said Rob. 'I'm sure I'm delighted to
see her, if it wasn't for the horse!'
With this apology, Rob turned away, a rueful picture of despair,
and walked his charge down a bye street' The old woman, mouthing at
her daughter, followed close upon him. The daughter followed.
Turning into a silent little square or court-yard that had a great
church tower rising above it, and a packer's warehouse, and a
bottle-maker's warehouse, for its places of business, Rob the Grinder
delivered the white-legged horse to the hostler of a quaint stable at
the corner; and inviting Mrs Brown and her daughter to seat themselves
upon a stone bench at the gate of that establishment, soon reappeared
from a neighbouring public-house with a pewter measure and a glass.
'Here's master - Mr Carker, child!' said the old woman, slowly, as
her sentiment before drinking. 'Lord bless him!'
'Why, I didn't tell you who he was,' observed Rob, with staring
eyes.
'We know him by sight,' said Mrs Brown, whose working mouth and
nodding head stopped for the moment, in the fixedness of her
attention. 'We saw him pass this morning, afore he got off his horse;
when you were ready to take it.'
'Ay, ay,' returned Rob, appearing to wish that his readiness had
carried him to any other place. - 'What's the matter with her? Won't
she drink?'
This inquiry had reference to Alice, who, folded in her cloak, sat
a little apart, profoundly inattentive to his offer of the replenished
glass.
The old woman shook her head. 'Don't mind her,' she said; 'she's a
strange creetur, if you know'd her, Rob. But Mr Carker
'Hush!' said Rob, glancing cautiously up at the packer's, and at
the bottle-maker's, as if, from any one of the tiers of warehouses, Mr
Carker might be looking down. 'Softly.'
'Why, he ain't here!' cried Mrs Brown.
'I don't know that,' muttered Rob, whose glance even wandered to
the church tower, as if he might be there, with a supernatural power
of hearing.
'Good master?' inquired Mrs Brown.
Rob nodded; and added, in a low voice, 'precious sharp.'
'Lives out of town, don't he, lovey?' said the old woman.
'When he's at home,' returned Rob; 'but we don't live at home just
now.'
'Where then?' asked the old woman.
'Lodgings; up near Mr Dombey's,' returned Rob.
The younger woman fixed her eyes so searchingly upon him, and so
suddenly, that Rob was quite confounded, and offered the glass again,
but with no more effect upon her than before.
'Mr Dombey - you and I used to talk about him, sometimes, you
know,' said Rob to Mrs Brown. 'You used to get me to talk about him.'
The old woman nodded.
'Well, Mr Dombey, he's had a fall from his horse,' said Rob,
unwillingly; 'and my master has to be up there, more than usual,
either with him, or Mrs Dombey, or some of 'em; and so we've come to
town.'
'Are they good friends, lovey?'asked the old woman.
'Who?' retorted Rob.
'He and she?'
'What, Mr and Mrs Dombey?' said Rob. 'How should I know!'
'Not them - Master and Mrs Dombey, chick,' replied the old woman,
coaxingly.
'I don't know,' said Rob, looking round him again. 'I suppose so.
How curious you are, Misses Brown! Least said, soonest mended.'
'Why there's no harm in it!' exclaimed the old woman, with a laugh,
and a clap of her hands. 'Sprightly Rob, has grown tame since he has
been well off! There's no harm in It.
'No, there's no harm in it, I know,' returned Rob, with the same
distrustful glance at the packer's and the bottle-maker's, and the
church; 'but blabbing, if it's only about the number of buttons on my
master's coat, won't do. I tell you it won't do with him. A cove had
better drown himself. He says so. I shouldn't have so much as told you
what his name was, if you hadn't known it. Talk about somebody else.'
As Rob took another cautious survey of the yard, the old woman made
a secret motion to her daughter. It was momentary, but the daughter,
with a slight look of intelligence, withdrew her eyes from the boy's
face, and sat folded in her cloak as before.
'Rob, lovey!' said the old woman, beckoning him to the other end of
the bench. 'You were always a pet and favourite of mine. Now, weren't
you? Don't you know you were?'
'Yes, Misses Brown,' replied the Grinder, with a very bad grace.
'And you could leave me!' said the old woman, flinging her arms
about his neck. 'You could go away, and grow almost out of knowledge,
and never come to tell your poor old friend how fortunate you were,
proud lad! Oho, Oho!'
'Oh here's a dreadful go for a cove that's got a master wide awake
in the neighbourhood!' exclaimed the wretched Grinder. 'To be howled
over like this here!'
'Won't you come and see me, Robby?' cried Mrs Brown. 'Oho, won't
you ever come and see me?'
'Yes, I tell you! Yes, I will!' returned the Grinder.
'That's my own Rob! That's my lovey!' said Mrs Brown, drying the
tears upon her shrivelled face, and giving him a tender squeeze. 'At
the old place, Rob?'
'Yes,' replied the Grinder.
'Soon, Robby dear?' cried Mrs Brown; 'and often?'
'Yes. Yes. Yes,' replied Rob. 'I will indeed, upon my soul and
body.'
'And then,' said Mrs Brown, with her arms uplifted towards the sky,
and her head thrown back and shaking, 'if he's true to his word, I'll
never come a-near him though I know where he is, and never breathe a
syllable about him! Never!'
This ejaculation seemed a drop of comfort to the miserable Grinder,
who shook Mrs Brown by the hand upon it, and implored her with tears
in his eyes, to leave a cove and not destroy his prospects. Mrs Brown,
with another fond embrace, assented; but in the act of following her
daughter, turned back, with her finger stealthily raised, and asked in
a hoarse whisper for some money.
'A shilling, dear!' she said, with her eager avaricious face, 'or
sixpence! For old acquaintance sake. I'm so poor. And my handsome gal'
- looking over her shoulder - 'she's my gal, Rob - half starves me.
But as the reluctant Grinder put it in her hand, her daughter,
coming quietly back, caught the hand in hen, and twisted out the coin.
'What,' she said, 'mother! always money! money from the first, and
to the last' Do you mind so little what I said but now? Here. Take
it!'
The old woman uttered a moan as the money was restored, but without
in any other way opposing its restoration, hobbled at her daughter's
side out of the yard, and along the bye street upon which it opened.
The astonished and dismayed Rob staring after them, saw that they
stopped, and fell to earnest conversation very soon; and more than
once observed a darkly threatening action of the younger woman's hand
(obviously having reference to someone of whom they spoke), and a
crooning feeble imitation of it on the part of Mrs Brown, that made
him earnestly hope he might not be the subject of their discourse.
With the present consolation that they were gone, and with the
prospective comfort that Mrs Brown could not live for ever, and was
not likely to live long to trouble him, the Grinder, not otherwise
regretting his misdeeds than as they were attended with such
disagreeable incidental consequences, composed his ruffled features to
a more serene expression by thinking of the admirable manner in which
he had disposed of Captain Cuttle (a reflection that seldom failed to
put him in a flow of spirits), and went to the Dombey Counting House
to receive his master's orders.
There his master, so subtle and vigilant of eye, that Rob quaked
before him, more than half expecting to be taxed with Mrs Brown, gave
him the usual morning's box of papers for Mr Dombey, and a note for
Mrs Dombey: merely nodding his head as an enjoinder to be careful, and
to use dispatch - a mysterious admonition, fraught in the Grinder's
imagination with dismal warnings and threats; and more powerful with
him than any words.
Alone again, in his own room, Mr Carker applied himself to work,
and worked all day. He saw many visitors; overlooked a number of
documents; went in and out, to and from, sundry places of mercantile
resort; and indulged in no more abstraction until the day's business
was done. But, when the usual clearance of papers from his table was
made at last, he fell into his thoughtful mood once more.
He was standing in his accustomed place and attitude, with his eyes
intently fixed upon the ground, when his brother entered to bring back
some letters that had been taken out in the course of the day. He put
them quietly on the table, and was going immediately, when Mr Carker
the Manager, whose eyes had rested on him, on his entrance, as if they
had all this time had him for the subject of their contemplation,
instead of the office-floor, said:
'Well, John Carker, and what brings you here?'
His brother pointed to the letters, and was again withdrawing.
'I wonder,' said the Manager, 'that you can come and go, without
inquiring how our master is'.
'We had word this morning in the Counting House, that Mr Dombey was
doing well,' replied his brother.
'You are such a meek fellow,' said the Manager, with a smile, -
'but you have grown so, in the course of years - that if any harm came
to him, you'd be miserable, I dare swear now.'
'I should be truly sorry, James,' returned the other.
'He would be sorry!' said the Manager, pointing at him, as if there
were some other person present to whom he was appealing. 'He would be
truly sorry! This brother of mine! This junior of the place, this
slighted piece of lumber, pushed aside with his face to the wall, like
a rotten picture, and left so, for Heaven knows how many years he's
all gratitude and respect, and devotion too, he would have me
believe!'
'I would have you believe nothing, James,' returned the other. 'Be
as just to me as you would to any other man below you. You ask a
question, and I answer it.'
'And have you nothing, Spaniel,' said the Manager, with unusual
irascibility, 'to complain of in him? No proud treatment to resent, no
insolence, no foolery of state, no exaction of any sort! What the
devil! are you man or mouse?'
'It would be strange if any two persons could be together for so
many years, especially as superior and inferior, without each having
something to complain of in the other - as he thought, at all events,
replied John Carker. 'But apart from my history here - '
'His history here!' exclaimed the Manager. 'Why, there it is. The
very fact that makes him an extreme case, puts him out of the whole
chapter! Well?'
'Apart from that, which, as you hint, gives me a reason to be
thankful that I alone (happily for all the rest) possess, surely there
is no one in the House who would not say and feel at least as much.
You do not think that anybody here would be indifferent to a mischance
or misfortune happening to the head of the House, or anything than
truly sorry for it?'
'You have good reason to be bound to him too!' said the Manager,
contemptuously. 'Why, don't you believe that you are kept here, as a
cheap example, and a famous instance of the clemency of Dombey and
Son, redounding to the credit of the illustrious House?'
'No,' replied his brother, mildly, 'I have long believed that I am
kept here for more kind and disinterested reasons.
'But you were going,' said the Manager, with the snarl of a
tiger-cat, 'to recite some Christian precept, I observed.'
'Nay, James,' returned the other, 'though the tie of brotherhood
between us has been long broken and thrown away - '
'Who broke it, good Sir?' said the Manager.
'I, by my misconduct. I do not charge it upon you.'
The Manager replied, with that mute action of his bristling mouth,
'Oh, you don't charge it upon me!' and bade him go on.
'I say, though there is not that tie between us, do not, I entreat,
assail me with unnecessary taunts, or misinterpret what I say, or
would say. I was only going to suggest to you that it would be a
mistake to suppose that it is only you, who have been selected here,
above all others, for advancement, confidence and distinction
(selected, in the beginning, I know, for your great ability and
trustfulness), and who communicate more freely with Mr Dombey than
anyone, and stand, it may be said, on equal terms with him, and have
been favoured and enriched by him - that it would be a mistake to
suppose that it is only you who are tender of his welfare and
reputation. There is no one in the House, from yourself down to the
lowest, I sincerely believe, who does not participate in that
feeling.'
'You lie!' said the Manager, red with sudden anger. 'You're a
hypocrite, John Carker, and you lie.'
'James!' cried the other, flushing in his turn. 'What do you mean
by these insulting words? Why do you so basely use them to me,
unprovoked?'
'I tell you,' said the Manager, 'that your hypocrisy and meekness -
that all the hypocrisy and meekness of this place - is not worth that
to me,' snapping his thumb and finger, 'and that I see through it as
if it were air! There is not a man employed here, standing between
myself and the lowest in place (of whom you are very considerate, and
with reason, for he is not far off), who wouldn't be glad at heart to
see his master humbled: who does not hate him, secretly: who does not
wish him evil rather than good: and who would not turn upon him, if he
had the power and boldness. The nearer to his favour, the nearer to
his insolence; the closer to him, the farther from him. That's the
creed here!'
'I don't know,' said his brother, whose roused feelings had soon
yielded to surprise, 'who may have abused your ear with such
representations; or why you have chosen to try me, rather than
another. But that you have been trying me, and tampering with me, I am
now sure. You have a different manner and a different aspect from any
that I ever saw m you. I will only say to you, once more, you are
deceived.'
'I know I am,' said the Manager. 'I have told you so.'
'Not by me,' returned his brother. 'By your informant, if you have
one. If not, by your own thoughts and suspicions.'
'I have no suspicions,' said the Manager. 'Mine are certainties.
You pusillanimous, abject, cringing dogs! All making the same show,
all canting the same story, all whining the same professions, all
harbouring the same transparent secret.'
His brother withdrew, without saying more, and shut the door as he
concluded. Mr Carker the Manager drew a chair close before the fire,
and fell to beating the coals softly with the poker.
'The faint-hearted, fawning knaves,' he muttered, with his two
shining rows of teeth laid bare. 'There's not one among them, who
wouldn't feign to be so shocked and outraged - ! Bah! There's not one
among them, but if he had at once the power, and the wit and daring to
use it, would scatter Dombey's pride and lay it low, as ruthlessly as
I rake out these ashes.'
As he broke them up and strewed them in the grate, he looked on
with a thoughtful smile at what he was doing. 'Without the same queen
beckoner too!' he added presently; 'and there is pride there, not to
be forgotten - witness our own acquaintance!' With that he fell into a
deeper reverie, and sat pondering over the blackening grate, until he
rose up like a man who had been absorbed in a book, and looking round
him took his hat and gloves, went to where his horse was waiting,
mounted, and rode away through the lighted streets, for it was
evening.
He rode near Mr Dombey's house; and falling into a walk as he
approached it, looked up at the windows The window where he had once
seen Florence sitting with her dog attracted his attention first,
though there was no light in it; but he smiled as he carried his eyes
up the tall front of the house, and seemed to leave that object
superciliously behind.
'Time was,' he said, 'when it was well to watch even your rising
little star, and know in what quarter there were clouds, to shadow you
if needful. But a planet has arisen, and you are lost in its light.'
He turned the white-legged horse round the street corner, and
sought one shining window from among those at the back of the house.
Associated with it was a certain stately presence, a gloved hand, the
remembrance how the feathers of a beautiful bird's wing had been
showered down upon the floor, and how the light white down upon a robe
had stirred and rustled, as in the rising of a distant storm. These
were the things he carried with him as he turned away again, and rode
through the darkening and deserted Parks at a quick rate.
In fatal truth, these were associated with a woman, a proud woman,
who hated him, but who by slow and sure degrees had been led on by his
craft, and her pride and resentment, to endure his company, and little
by little to receive him as one who had the privilege to talk to her
of her own defiant disregard of her own husband, and her abandonment
of high consideration for herself. They were associated with a woman
who hated him deeply, and who knew him, and who mistrusted him because
she knew him, and because he knew her; but who fed her fierce
resentment by suffering him to draw nearer and yet nearer to her every
day, in spite of the hate she cherished for him. In spite of it! For
that very reason; since in its depths, too far down for her
threatening eye to pierce, though she could see into them dimly, lay
the dark retaliation, whose faintest shadow seen once and shuddered
at, and never seen again, would have been sufficient stain upon her
soul.
Did the phantom of such a woman flit about him on his ride; true to
the reality, and obvious to him?
Yes. He saw her in his mind, exactly as she was. She bore him
company with her pride, resentment, hatred, all as plain to him as her
beauty; with nothing plainer to him than her hatred of him. He saw her
sometimes haughty and repellent at his side, and some times down among
his horse's feet, fallen and in the dust. But he always saw her as she
was, without disguise, and watched her on the dangerous way that she
was going.
And when his ride was over, and he was newly dressed, and came into
the light of her bright room with his bent head, soft voice, and
soothing smile, he saw her yet as plainly. He even suspected the
mystery of the gloved hand, and held it all the longer in his own for
that suspicion. Upon the dangerous way that she was going, he was,
still; and not a footprint did she mark upon it, but he set his own
there, straight'
CHAPTER 47.
The Thunderbolt
The barrier between Mr Dombey and his wife was not weakened by
time. Ill-assorted couple, unhappy in themselves and in each other,
bound together by no tie but the manacle that joined their fettered
hands, and straining that so harshly, in their shrinking asunder, that
it wore and chafed to the bone, Time, consoler of affliction and
softener of anger, could do nothing to help them. Their pride, however
different in kind and object, was equal in degree; and, in their
flinty opposition, struck out fire between them which might smoulder
or might blaze, as circumstances were, but burned up everything within
their mutual reach, and made their marriage way a road of ashes.
Let us be just to him. In the monstrous delusion of his life,
swelling with every grain of sand that shifted in its glass, he urged
her on, he little thought to what, or considered how; but still his
feeling towards her, such as it was, remained as at first. She had the
grand demerit of unaccountably putting herself in opposition to the
recognition of his vast importance, and to the acknowledgment of her
complete submission to it, and so far it was necessary to correct and
reduce her; but otherwise he still considered her, in his cold way, a
lady capable of doing honour, if she would, to his choice and name,
and of reflecting credit on his proprietorship.
Now, she, with all her might of passionate and proud resentment,
bent her dark glance from day to day, and hour to hour - from that
night in her own chamber, when she had sat gazing at the shadows on
the wall, to the deeper night fast coming - upon one figure directing
a crowd of humiliations and exasperations against her; and that
figure, still her husband's.
Was Mr Dombey's master-vice, that ruled him so inexorably, an
unnatural characteristic? It might be worthwhile, sometimes, to
inquire what Nature is, and how men work to change her, and whether,
in the enforced distortions so produced, it is not natural to be
unnatural. Coop any son or daughter of our mighty mother within narrow
range, and bind the prisoner to one idea, and foster it by servile
worship of it on the part of the few timid or designing people
standing round, and what is Nature to the willing captive who has
never risen up upon the wings of a free mind - drooping and useless
soon - to see her in her comprehensive truth!
Alas! are there so few things in the world, about us, most
unnatural, and yet most natural in being so? Hear the magistrate or
judge admonish the unnatural outcasts of society; unnatural in brutal
habits, unnatural in want of decency, unnatural in losing and
confounding all distinctions between good and evil; unnatural in
ignorance, in vice, in recklessness, in contumacy, in mind, in looks,
in everything. But follow the good clergyman or doctor, who, with his
life imperilled at every breath he draws, goes down into their dens,
lying within the echoes of our carriage wheels and daily tread upon
the pavement stones. Look round upon the world of odious sights -
millions of immortal creatures have no other world on earth - at the
lightest mention of which humanity revolts, and dainty delicacy living
in the next street, stops her ears, and lisps 'I don't believe it!'
Breathe the polluted air, foul with every impurity that is poisonous
to health and life; and have every sense, conferred upon our race for
its delight and happiness, offended, sickened and disgusted, and made
a channel by which misery and death alone can enter. Vainly attempt to
think of any simple plant, or flower, or wholesome weed, that, set in
this foetid bed, could have its natural growth, or put its little
leaves off to the sun as GOD designed it. And then, calling up some
ghastly child, with stunted form and wicked face, hold forth on its
unnatural sinfulness, and lament its being, so early, far away from
Heaven - but think a little of its having been conceived, and born and
bred, in Hell!
Those who study the physical sciences, and bring them to bear upon
the health of Man, tell us that if the noxious particles that rise
from vitiated air were palpable to the sight, we should see them
lowering in a dense black cloud above such haunts, and rolling slowly
on to corrupt the better portions of a town. But if the moral
pestilence that rises with them, and in the eternal laws of our
Nature, is inseparable from them, could be made discernible too, how
terrible the revelation! Then should we see depravity, impiety,
drunkenness, theft, murder, and a long train of nameless sins against
the natural affections and repulsions of mankind, overhanging the
devoted spots, and creeping on, to blight the innocent and spread
contagion among the pure. Then should we see how the same poisoned
fountains that flow into our hospitals and lazar-houses, inundate the
jails, and make the convict-ships swim deep, and roll across the seas,
and over-run vast continents with crime. Then should we stand appalled
to know, that where we generate disease to strike our children down
and entail itself on unborn generations, there also we breed, by the
same certain process, infancy that knows no innocence, youth without
modesty or shame, maturity that is mature in nothing but in suffering
and guilt, blasted old age that is a scandal on the form we bear.
unnatural humanity! When we shall gather grapes from thorns, and figs
from thistles; when fields of grain shall spring up from the offal in
the bye-ways of our wicked cities, and roses bloom in the fat
churchyards that they cherish; then we may look for natural humanity,
and find it growing from such seed.
Oh for a good spirit who would take the house-tops off, with a mole
potent and benignant hand than the lame demon in the tale, and show a
Christian people what dark shapes issue from amidst their homes, to
swell the retinue of the Destroying Angel as he moves forth among
them! For only one night's view of the pale phantoms rising from the
scenes of our too-long neglect; and from the thick and sullen air
where Vice and Fever propagate together, raining the tremendous social
retributions which are ever pouring down, and ever coming thicker!
Bright and blest the morning that should rise on such a night: for
men, delayed no more by stumbling-blocks of their own making, which
are but specks of dust upon the path between them and eternity, would
then apply themselves, like creatures of one common origin, owing one
duty to the Father of one family, and tending to one common end, to
make the world a better place!
Not the less bright and blest would that day be for rousing some
who never have looked out upon the world of human life around them, to
a knowledge of their own relation to it, and for making them
acquainted with a perversion of nature in their own contracted
sympathies and estimates; as great, and yet as natural in its
development when once begun, as the lowest degradation known.'
But no such day had ever dawned on Mr Dombey, or his wife; and the
course of each was taken.
Through six months that ensued upon his accident, they held the
same relations one towards the other. A marble rock could not have
stood more obdurately in his way than she; and no chilled spring,
lying uncheered by any ray of light in the depths of a deep cave,
could be more sullen or more cold than he.
The hope that had fluttered within her when the promise of her new
home dawned, was quite gone from the heart of Florence now. That home
was nearly two years old; and even the patient trust that was in her,
could not survive the daily blight of such experience. If she had any
lingering fancy in the nature of hope left, that Edith and her father
might be happier together, in some distant time, she had none, now,
that her father would ever love her. The little interval in which she
had imagined that she saw some small relenting in him, was forgotten
in the long remembrance of his coldness since and before, or only
remembered as a sorrowful delusion.
Florence loved him still, but, by degrees, had come to love him
rather as some dear one who had been, or who might have been, than as
the hard reality before her eyes. Something of the softened sadness
with which she loved the memory of little Paul, or of her mother,
seemed to enter now into her thoughts of him, and to make them, as it
were, a dear remembrance. Whether it was that he was dead to her, and
that partly for this reason, partly for his share in those old objects
of her affection, and partly for the long association of him with
hopes that were withered and tendernesses he had frozen, she could not
have told; but the father whom she loved began to be a vague and
dreamy idea to her: hardly more substantially connected with her real
life, than the image she would sometimes conjure up, of her dear
brother yet alive, and growing to be a man, who would protect and
cherish her.
The change, if it may be called one, had stolen on her like the
change from childhood to womanhood, and had come with it. Florence was
almost seventeen, when, in her lonely musings, she was conscious of
these thoughts.'
She was often alone now, for the old association between her and
her Mama was greatly changed. At the time of her father's accident,
and when he was lying in his room downstairs, Florence had first
observed that Edith avoided her. Wounded and shocked, and yet unable
to reconcile this with her affection when they did meet, she sought
her in her own room at night, once more.
'Mama,' said Florence, stealing softly to her side, 'have I
offended you?'
Edith answered 'No.'
'I must have done something,' said Florence. 'Tell me what it is.
You have changed your manner to me, dear Mama. I cannot say how
instantly I feel the least change; for I love you with my whole
heart.'
'As I do you,' said Edith. 'Ah, Florence, believe me never more
than now!'
'Why do you go away from me so often, and keep away?' asked
Florence. 'And why do you sometimes look so strangely on me, dear
Mama? You do so, do you not?'
Edith signified assent with her dark eyes.
'Why?' returned Florence imploringly. 'Tell me why, that I may know
how to please you better; and tell me this shall not be so any more.
'My Florence,' answered Edith, taking the hand that embraced her
neck, and looking into the eyes that looked into hers so lovingly, as
Florence knelt upon the ground before her; 'why it is, I cannot tell
you. It is neither for me to say, nor you to hear; but that it is, and
that it must be, I know. Should I do it if I did not?'
'Are we to be estranged, Mama?' asked Florence, gazing at her like
one frightened.
Edith's silent lips formed 'Yes.'
Florence looked at her with increasing fear and wonder, until she
could see her no more through the blinding tears that ran down her
face.
'Florence! my life!' said Edith, hurriedly, 'listen to me. I cannot
bear to see this grief. Be calmer. You see that I am composed, and is
it nothing to me?'
She resumed her steady voice and manner as she said the latter
words, and added presently:
'Not wholly estranged. Partially: and only that, in appearance,
Florence, for in my own breast I am still the same to you, and ever
will be. But what I do is not done for myself.'
'Is it for me, Mama?' asked Florence.
'It is enough,' said Edith, after a pause, 'to know what it is;
why, matters little. Dear Florence, it is better - it is necessary -
it must be - that our association should be less frequent. The
confidence there has been between us must be broken off.'
'When?' cried Florence. 'Oh, Mama, when?'
'Now,' said Edith.
'For all time to come?' asked Florence.
'I do not say that,' answered Edith. 'I do not know that. Nor will
I say that companionship between us is, at the best, an ill-assorted
and unholy union, of which I might have known no good could come. My
way here has been through paths that you will never tread, and my way
henceforth may lie - God knows - I do not see it - '
Her voice died away into silence; and she sat, looking at Florence,
and almost shrinking from her, with the same strange dread and wild
avoidance that Florence had noticed once before. The same dark pride
and rage succeeded, sweeping over her form and features like an angry
chord across the strings of a wild harp. But no softness or humility
ensued on that. She did not lay her head down now, and weep, and say
that she had no hope but in Florence. She held it up as if she were a
beautiful Medusa, looking on him, face to face, to strike him dead.
Yes, and she would have done it, if she had had the charm.
'Mama,' said Florence, anxiously, 'there is a change in you, in
more than what you say to me, which alarms me. Let me stay with you a
little.'
'No,' said Edith, 'no, dearest. I am best left alone now, and I do
best to keep apart from you, of all else. Ask me no questions, but
believe that what I am when I seem fickle or capricious to you, I am
not of my own will, or for myself. Believe, though we are stranger to
each other than we have been, that I am unchanged to you within.
Forgive me for having ever darkened your dark home - I am a shadow on
it, I know well - and let us never speak of this again.'
'Mama,' sobbed Florence, 'we are not to part?'
'We do this that we may not part,' said Edith. 'Ask no more. Go,
Florence! My love and my remorse go with you!'
She embraced her, and dismissed her; and as Florence passed out of
her room, Edith looked on the retiring figure, as if her good angel
went out in that form, and left her to the haughty and indignant
passions that now claimed her for their own, and set their seal upon
her brow.
From that hour, Florence and she were, as they had been, no more.
For days together, they would seldom meet, except at table, and when
Mr Dombey was present. Then Edith, imperious, inflexible, and silent,
never looked at her. Whenever Mr Carker was of the party, as he often
was, during the progress of Mr Dombey's recovery, and afterwards,
Edith held herself more removed from her, and was more distant towards
her, than at other times. Yet she and Florence never encountered, when
there was no one by, but she would embrace her as affectionately as of
old, though not with the same relenting of her proud aspect; and
often, when she had been out late, she would steal up to Florence's
room, as she had been used to do, in the dark, and whisper
'Good-night,' on her pillow. When unconscious, in her slumber, of such
visits, Florence would sometimes awake, as from a dream of those
words, softly spoken, and would seem to feel the touch of lips upon
her face. But less and less often as the months went on.
And now the void in Florence's own heart began again, indeed, to
make a solitude around her. As the image of the father whom she loved
had insensibly become a mere abstraction, so Edith, following the fate
of all the rest about whom her affections had entwined themselves, was
fleeting, fading, growing paler in the distance, every day. Little by
little, she receded from Florence, like the retiring ghost of what she
had been; little by little, the chasm between them widened and seemed
deeper; little by little, all the power of earnestness and tenderness
she had shown, was frozen up in the bold, angry hardihood with which
she stood, upon the brink of a deep precipice unseen by Florence,
daring to look down.
There was but one consideration to set against the heavy loss of
Edith, and though it was slight comfort to her burdened heart, she
tried to think it some relief. No longer divided between her affection
and duty to the two, Florence could love both and do no injustice to
either. As shadows of her fond imagination, she could give them equal
place in her own bosom, and wrong them with no doubts
So she tried to do. At times, and often too, wondering speculations
on the cause of this change in Edith, would obtrude themselves upon
her mind and frighten her; but in the calm of its abandonment once
more to silent grief and loneliness, it was not a curious mind.
Florence had only to remember that her star of promise was clouded in
the general gloom that hung upon the house, and to weep and be
resigned.
Thus living, in a dream wherein the overflowing love of her young
heart expended itself on airy forms, and in a real world where she had
experienced little but the rolling back of that strong tide upon
itself, Florence grew to be seventeen. Timid and retiring as her
solitary life had made her, it had not embittered her sweet temper, or
her earnest nature. A child in innocent simplicity; a woman m her
modest self-reliance, and her deep intensity of feeling; both child
and woman seemed at once expressed in her face and fragile delicacy of
shape, and gracefully to mingle there; - as if the spring should be
unwilling to depart when summer came, and sought to blend the earlier
beauties of the flowers with their bloom. But in her thrilling voice,
in her calm eyes, sometimes in a sage ethereal light that seemed to
rest upon her head, and always in a certain pensive air upon her
beauty, there was an expression, such as had been seen in the dead
boy; and the council in the Servants' Hall whispered so among
themselves, and shook their heads, and ate and drank the more, in a
closer bond of good-fellowship.
This observant body had plenty to say of Mr and Mrs Dombey, and of
Mr Carker, who appeared to be a mediator between them, and who came
and went as if he were trying to make peace, but never could. They all
deplored the uncomfortable state of affairs, and all agreed that Mrs
Pipchin (whose unpopularity was not to be surpassed) had some hand in
it; but, upon the whole, it was agreeable to have so good a subject
for a rallying point, and they made a great deal of it, and enjoyed
themselves very much.
The general visitors who came to the house, and those among whom Mr
and Mrs Dombey visited, thought it a pretty equal match, as to
haughtiness, at all events, and thought nothing more about it. The
young lady with the back did not appear for some time after Mrs
Skewton's death; observing to some particular friends, with her usual
engaging little scream, that she couldn't separate the family from a
notion of tombstones, and horrors of that sort; but when she did come,
she saw nothing wrong, except Mr Dombey's wearing a bunch of gold
seals to his watch, which shocked her very much, as an exploded
superstition. This youthful fascinator considered a daughter-in-law
objectionable in principle; otherwise, she had nothing to say against
Florence, but that she sadly wanted 'style' - which might mean back,
perhaps. Many, who only came to the house on state occasions, hardly
knew who Florence was, and said, going home, 'Indeed, was that Miss
Dombey, in the corner? Very pretty, but a little delicate and
thoughtful in appearance!'
None the less so, certainly, for her life of the last six months.
Florence took her seat at the dinner-table, on the day before the
second anniversary of her father's marriage to Edith (Mrs Skewton had
been lying stricken with paralysis when the first came round), with an
uneasiness, amounting to dread. She had no other warrant for it, than
the occasion, the expression of her father's face, in the hasty glance
she caught of it, and the presence of Mr Carker, which, always
unpleasant to her, was more so on this day, than she had ever felt it
before.
Edith was richly dressed, for she and Mr Dombey were engaged in the
evening to some large assembly, and the dinner-hour that day was late.
She did not appear until they were seated at table, when Mr Carker
rose and led her to her chair. Beautiful and lustrous as she was,
there was that in her face and air which seemed to separate her
hopelessly from Florence, and from everyone, for ever more. And yet,
for an instant, Florence saw a beam of kindness in her eyes, when they
were turned on her, that made the distance to which she had withdrawn
herself, a greater cause of sorrow and regret than ever.
There was very little said at dinner. Florence heard her father
speak to Mr Carker sometimes on business matters, and heard him softly
reply, but she paid little attention to what they said, and only
wished the dinner at an end. When the dessert was placed upon the
table, and they were left alone, with no servant in attendance, Mr
Dombey, who had been several times clearing his throat in a manner
that augured no good, said:
'Mrs Dombey, you know, I suppose, that I have instructed the
housekeeper that there will be some company to dinner here to-morrow.
'I do not dine at home,' she answered.
'Not a large party,' pursued Mr Dombey, with an indifferent
assumption of not having heard her; 'merely some twelve or fourteen.
My sister, Major Bagstock, and some others whom you know but
slightly.'
I do not dine at home,' she repeated.
'However doubtful reason I may have, Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey,
still going majestically on, as if she had not spoken, 'to hold the
occasion in very pleasant remembrance just now, there are appearances
in these things which must be maintained before the world. If you have
no respect for yourself, Mrs Dombey - '
'I have none,' she said.
'Madam,' cried Mr Dombey, striking his hand upon the table, 'hear
me if you please. I say, if you have no respect for yourself - '
'And I say I have none,' she answered.
He looked at her; but the face she showed him in return would not
have changed, if death itself had looked.
'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, turning more quietly to that gentleman,
'as you have been my medium of communication with Mrs Dombey on former
occasions, and as I choose to preserve the decencies of life, so far
as I am individually concerned, I will trouble you to have the
goodness to inform Mrs Dombey that if she has no respect for herself,
I have some respect for myself, and therefore insist on my
arrangements for to-morrow.
'Tell your sovereign master, Sir,' said Edith, 'that I will take
leave to speak to him on this subject by-and-bye, and that I will
speak to him alone.'
'Mr Carker, Madam,' said her husband, 'being in possession of the
reason which obliges me to refuse you that privilege, shall be
absolved from the delivery of any such message.' He saw her eyes move,
while he spoke, and followed them with his own.
'Your daughter is present, Sir,' said Edith.
'My daughter will remain present,' said Mr Dombey.
Florence, who had risen, sat down again, hiding her face in her
hands, and trembling.
'My daughter, Madam' - began Mr Dombey.
But Edith stopped him, in a voice which, although not raised in the
least, was so clear, emphatic, and distinct, that it might have been
heard in a whirlwind.
'I tell you I will speak to you alone,' she said. 'If you are not
mad, heed what I say.'
'I have authority to speak to you, Madam,' returned her husband,
'when and where I please; and it is my pleasure to speak here and
now.'
She rose up as if to leave the room; but sat down again, and
looking at him with all outward composure, said, in the same voice:
'You shall!'
'I must tell you first, that there is a threatening appearance in
your manner, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, 'which does not become you.
She laughed. The shaken diamonds in her hair started and trembled.
There are fables of precious stones that would turn pale, their wearer
being in danger. Had these been such, their imprisoned rays of light
would have taken flight that moment, and they would have been as dull
as lead.
Carker listened, with his eyes cast down.
'As to my daughter, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, resuming the thread of
his discourse, 'it is by no means inconsistent with her duty to me,
that she should know what conduct to avoid. At present you are a very
strong example to her of this kind, and I hope she may profit by it.'
'I would not stop you now,' returned his wife, immoveable in eye,
and voice, and attitude; 'I would not rise and go away, and save you
the utterance of one word, if the room were burning.'
Mr Dombey moved his head, as if in a sarcastic acknowledgment of
the attention, and resumed. But not with so much self-possession as
before; for Edith's quick uneasiness in reference to Florence, and
Edith's indifference to him and his censure, chafed and galled him
like a stiffening wound.
'Mrs Dombey,' said he, 'it may not be inconsistent with my
daughter's improvement to know how very much to be lamented, and how
necessary to be corrected, a stubborn disposition is, especially when
it is indulged in - unthankfully indulged in, I will add - after the
gratification of ambition and interest. Both of which, I believe, had
some share in inducing you to occupy your present station at this
board.'
'No! I would not rise, and go away, and save you the utterance of
one word,' she repeated, exactly as before, 'if the room were
burning.'
'It may be natural enough, Mrs Dombey,' he pursued, 'that you
should be uneasy in the presence of any auditors of these disagreeable
truths; though why' - he could not hide his real feeling here, or keep
his eyes from glancing gloomily at Florence - 'why anyone can give
them greater force and point than myself, whom they so nearly concern,
I do not pretend to understand. It may be natural enough that you
should object to hear, in anybody's presence, that there is a
rebellious principle within you which you cannot curb too soon; which
you must curb, Mrs Dombey; and which, I regret to say, I remember to
have seen manifested - with some doubt and displeasure, on more than
one occasion before our marriage - towards your deceased mother. But
you have the remedy in your own hands. I by no means forgot, when I
began, that my daughter was present, Mrs Dombey. I beg you will not
forget, to-morrow, that there are several persons present; and that,
with some regard to appearances, you will receive your company in a
becoming manner.
'So it is not enough,' said Edith, 'that you know what has passed
between yourself and me; it is not enough that you can look here,'
pointing at Carker, who still listened, with his eyes cast down, 'and
be reminded of the affronts you have put upon me; it is not enough
that you can look here,' pointing to Florence with a hand that
slightly trembled for the first and only time, 'and think of what you
have done, and of the ingenious agony, daily, hourly, constant, you
have made me feel in doing it; it is not enough that this day, of all
others in the year, is memorable to me for a struggle (well-deserved,
but not conceivable by such as you) in which I wish I had died! You
add to all this, do you, the last crowning meanness of making her a
witness of the depth to which I have fallen; when you know that you
have made me sacrifice to her peace, the only gentle feeling and
interest of my life, when you know that for her sake, I would now if I
could - but I can not, my soul recoils from you too much - submit
myself wholly to your will, and be the meekest vassal that you have!'
This was not the way to minister to Mr Dombey's greatness. The old
feeling was roused by what she said, into a stronger and fiercer
existence than it had ever had. Again, his neglected child, at this
rough passage of his life, put forth by even this rebellious woman, as
powerful where he was powerless, and everything where he was nothing!
He turned on Florence, as if it were she who had spoken, and bade
her leave the room. Florence with her covered face obeyed, trembling
and weeping as she went.
'I understand, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, with an angry flush of
triumph, 'the spirit of opposition that turned your affections in that
channel, but they have been met, Mrs Dombey; they have been met, and
turned back!'
'The worse for you!' she answered, with her voice and manner still
unchanged. 'Ay!' for he turned sharply when she said so, 'what is the
worse for me, is twenty million times the worse for you. Heed that, if
you heed nothing else.'
The arch of diamonds spanning her dark hair, flashed and glittered
like a starry bridge. There was no warning in them, or they would have
turned as dull and dim as tarnished honour. Carker still sat and
listened, with his eyes cast down.
'Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, resuming as much as he could of his
arrogant composure, 'you will not conciliate me, or turn me from any
purpose, by this course of conduct.'
'It is the only true although it is a faint expression of what is
within me,' she replied. 'But if I thought it would conciliate you, I
would repress it, if it were repressible by any human effort. I will
do nothing that you ask.'
'I am not accustomed to ask, Mrs Dombey,' he observed; 'I direct.'
'I will hold no place in your house to-morrow, or on any recurrence
of to-morrow. I will be exhibited to no one, as the refractory slave
you purchased, such a time. If I kept my marriage day, I would keep it
as a day of shame. Self-respect! appearances before the world! what
are these to me? You have done all you can to make them nothing to me,
and they are nothing.'
'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, speaking with knitted brows, and after a
moment's consideration, 'Mrs Dombey is so forgetful of herself and me
in all this, and places me in a position so unsuited to my character,
that I must bring this state of matters to a close.'
'Release me, then,' said Edith, immoveable in voice, in look, and
bearing, as she had been throughout, 'from the chain by which I am
bound. Let me go.'
'Madam?' exclaimed Mr Dombey.
'Loose me. Set me free!'
'Madam?' he repeated, 'Mrs Dombey?'
'Tell him,' said Edith, addressing her proud face to Carker, 'that
I wish for a separation between us, That there had better be one. That
I recommend it to him, Tell him it may take place on his own terms -
his wealth is nothing to me - but that it cannot be too soon.'
'Good Heaven, Mrs Dombey!' said her husband, with supreme
amazement, 'do you imagine it possible that I could ever listen to
such a proposition? Do you know who I am, Madam? Do you know what I
represent? Did you ever hear of Dombey and Son? People to say that Mr
Dombey - Mr Dombey! - was separated from his wife! Common people to
talk of Mr Dombey and his domestic affairs! Do you seriously think,
Mrs Dombey, that I would permit my name to be banded about in such
connexion? Pooh, pooh, Madam! Fie for shame! You're absurd.' Mr Dombey
absolutely laughed.
But not as she did. She had better have been dead than laugh as she
did, in reply, with her intent look fixed upon him. He had better have
been dead, than sitting there, in his magnificence, to hear her.
'No, Mrs Dombey,' he resumed. 'No, Madam. There is no possibility
of separation between you and me, and therefore I the more advise you
to be awakened to a sense of duty. And, Carker, as I was about to say
to you -
Mr Carker, who had sat and listened all this time, now raised his
eyes, in which there was a bright unusual light'
As I was about to say to you, resumed Mr Dombey, 'I must beg you,
now that matters have come to this, to inform Mrs Dombey, that it is
not the rule of my life to allow myself to be thwarted by anybody -
anybody, Carker - or to suffer anybody to be paraded as a stronger
motive for obedience in those who owe obedience to me than I am my
self. The mention that has been made of my daughter, and the use that
is made of my daughter, in opposition to me, are unnatural. Whether my
daughter is in actual concert with Mrs Dombey, I do not know, and do
not care; but after what Mrs Dombey has said today, and my daughter
has heard to-day, I beg you to make known to Mrs Dombey, that if she
continues to make this house the scene of contention it has become, I
shall consider my daughter responsible in some degree, on that lady's
own avowal, and shall visit her with my severe displeasure. Mrs Dombey
has asked "whether it is not enough," that she had done this and that.
You will please to answer no, it is not enough.'
'A moment!' cried Carker, interposing, 'permit me! painful as my
position is, at the best, and unusually painful in seeming to
entertain a different opinion from you,' addressing Mr Dombey, 'I must
ask, had you not better reconsider the question of a separation. I
know how incompatible it appears with your high public position, and I
know how determined you are when you give Mrs Dombey to understand' -
the light in his eyes fell upon her as he separated his words each
from each, with the distinctness of so many bells - 'that nothing but
death can ever part you. Nothing else. But when you consider that Mrs
Dombey, by living in this house, and making it as you have said, a
scene of contention, not only has her part in that contention, but
compromises Miss Dombey every day (for I know how determined you are),
will you not relieve her from a continual irritation of spirit, and a
continual sense of being unjust to another, almost intolerable? Does
this not seem like - I do not say it is - sacrificing Mrs Dombey to
the preservation of your preeminent and unassailable position?'
Again the light in his eyes fell upon her, as she stood looking at
her husband: now with an extraordinary and awful smile upon her face.
'Carker,' returned Mr Dombey, with a supercilious frown, and in a
tone that was intended to be final, 'you mistake your position in
offering advice to me on such a point, and you mistake me (I am
surprised to find) in the character of your advice. I have no more to
say.
'Perhaps,' said Carker, with an unusual and indefinable taunt in
his air, 'you mistook my position, when you honoured me with the
negotiations in which I have been engaged here' - with a motion of his
hand towards Mrs Dombey.
'Not at all, Sir, not at all,' returned the other haughtily. 'You
were employed - '
'Being an inferior person, for the humiliation of Mrs Dombey. I
forgot' Oh, yes, it was expressly understood!' said Carker. 'I beg
your pardon!'
As he bent his head to Mr Dombey, with an air of deference that
accorded ill with his words, though they were humbly spoken, he moved
it round towards her, and kept his watching eyes that way.
She had better have turned hideous and dropped dead, than have
stood up with such a smile upon her face, in such a fallen spirit's
majesty of scorn and beauty. She lifted her hand to the tiara of
bright jewels radiant on her head, and, plucking it off with a force
that dragged and strained her rich black hair with heedless cruelty,
and brought it tumbling wildly on her shoulders, cast the gems upon
the ground. From each arm, she unclasped a diamond bracelet, flung it
down, and trod upon the glittering heap. Without a word, without a
shadow on the fire of her bright eye, without abatement of her awful
smile, she looked on Mr Dombey to the last, in moving to the door; and
left him.
Florence had heard enough before quitting the room, to know that
Edith loved her yet; that she had suffered for her sake; and that she
had kept her sacrifices quiet, lest they should trouble her peace. She
did not want to speak to her of this - she could not, remembering to
whom she was opposed - but she wished, in one silent and affectionate
embrace, to assure her that she felt it all, and thanked her.
Her father went out alone, that evening, and Florence issuing from
her own chamber soon afterwards, went about the house in search of.
Edith, but unavailingly. She was in her own rooms, where Florence had
long ceased to go, and did not dare to venture now, lest she should
unconsciously engender new trouble. Still Florence hoping to meet her
before going to bed, changed from room to room, and wandered through
the house so splendid and so dreary, without remaining anywhere.
She was crossing a gallery of communication that opened at some
little distance on the staircase, and was only lighted on great
occasions, when she saw, through the opening, which was an arch, the
figure of a man coming down some few stairs opposite. Instinctively
apprehensive of her father, whom she supposed it was, she stopped, in
the dark, gazing through the arch into the light. But it was Mr Carker
coming down alone, and looking over the railing into the hall. No bell
was rung to announce his departure, and no servant was in attendance.
He went down quietly, opened the door for himself, glided out, and
shut it softly after him.
Her invincible repugnance to this man, and perhaps the stealthy act
of watching anyone, which, even under such innocent circumstances, is
in a manner guilty and oppressive, made Florence shake from head to
foot. Her blood seemed to run cold. As soon as she could - for at
first she felt an insurmountable dread of moving - she went quickly to
her own room and locked her door; but even then, shut in with her dog
beside her, felt a chill sensation of horror, as if there were danger
brooding somewhere near her.
It invaded her dreams and disturbed the whole night. Rising in the
morning, unrefreshed, and with a heavy recollection of the domestic
unhappiness of the preceding day, she sought Edith again in all the
rooms, and did so, from time to time, all the morning. But she
remained in her own chamber, and Florence saw nothing of her.
Learning, however, that the projected dinner at home was put off,
Florence thought it likely that she would go out in the evening to
fulfil the engagement she had spoken of; and resolved to try and meet
her, then, upon the staircase.
When the evening had set in, she heard, from the room in which she
sat on purpose, a footstep on the stairs that she thought to be
Edith's. Hurrying out, and up towards her room, Florence met her
immediately, coming down alone.
What was Florence's affright and wonder when, at sight of her, with
her tearful face, and outstretched arms, Edith recoiled and shrieked!
'Don't come near me!' she cried. 'Keep away! Let me go by!'
'Mama!' said Florence.
'Don't call me by that name! Don't speak to me! Don't look at me! -
Florence!' shrinking back, as Florence moved a step towards her,
'don't touch me!'
As Florence stood transfixed before the haggard face and staring
eyes, she noted, as in a dream, that Edith spread her hands over them,
and shuddering through all her form, and crouching down against the
wall, crawled by her like some lower animal, sprang up, and fled away.
Florence dropped upon the stairs in a swoon; and was found there by
Mrs Pipchin, she supposed. She knew nothing more, until she found
herself lying on her own bed, with Mrs Pipchin and some servants
standing round her.
'Where is Mama?' was her first question.
'Gone out to dinner,' said Mrs Pipchin.
'And Papa?'
'Mr Dombey is in his own room, Miss Dombey,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'and
the best thing you can do, is to take off your things and go to bed
this minute.' This was the sagacious woman's remedy for all
complaints, particularly lowness of spirits, and inability to sleep;
for which offences, many young victims in the days of the Brighton
Castle had been committed to bed at ten o'clock in the morning.
Without promising obedience, but on the plea of desiring to be very
quiet, Florence disengaged herself, as soon as she could, from the
ministration of Mrs Pipchin and her attendants. Left alone, she
thought of what had happened on the staircase, at first in doubt of
its reality; then with tears; then with an indescribable and terrible
alarm, like that she had felt the night before.
She determined not to go to bed until Edith returned, and if she
could not speak to her, at least to be sure that she was safe at home.
What indistinct and shadowy dread moved Florence to this resolution,
she did not know, and did not dare to think. She only knew that until
Edith came back, there was no repose for her aching head or throbbing
heart.
The evening deepened into night; midnight came; no Edith.
Florence could not read, or rest a moment. She paced her own room,
opened the door and paced the staircase-gallery outside, looked out of
window on the night, listened to the wind blowing and the rain
falling, sat down and watched the faces in the fire, got up and
watched the moon flying like a storm-driven ship through the sea of
clouds.
All the house was gone to bed, except two servants who were waiting
the return of their mistress, downstairs.
One o'clock. The carriages that rumbled in the distance, turned
away, or stopped short, or went past; the silence gradually deepened,
and was more and more rarely broken, save by a rush of wind or sweep
of rain. Two o'clock. No Edith!
Florence, more agitated, paced her room; and paced the gallery
outside; and looked out at the night, blurred and wavy with the
raindrops on the glass, and the tears in her own eyes; and looked up
at the hurry in the sky, so different from the repose below, and yet
so tranquil and solitary. Three o'clock! There was a terror in every
ash that dropped out of the fire. No Edith yet.
More and more agitated, Florence paced her room, and paced the
gallery, and looked out at the moon with a new fancy of her likeness
to a pale fugitive hurrying away and hiding her guilty face. Four
struck! Five! No Edith yet.
But now there was some cautious stir in the house; and Florence
found that Mrs Pipchin had been awakened by one of those who sat up,
had risen and had gone down to her father's door. Stealing lower down
the stairs, and observing what passed, she saw her father come out in
his morning gown, and start when he was told his wife had not come
home. He dispatched a messenger to the stables to inquire whether the
coachman was there; and while the man was gone, dressed himself very
hurriedly.
The man came back, in great haste, bringing the coachman with him,
who said he had been at home and in bed, since ten o'clock. He had
driven his mistress to her old house in Brook Street, where she had
been met by Mr Carker -
Florence stood upon the very spot where she had seen him coming
down. Again she shivered with the nameless terror of that sight, and
had hardly steadiness enough to hear and understand what followed.
- Who had told him, the man went on to say, that his mistress would
not want the carriage to go home in; and had dismissed him.
She saw her father turn white in the face, and heard him ask in a
quick, trembling voice, for Mrs Dombey's maid. The whole house was
roused; for she was there, in a moment, very pale too, and speaking
incoherently.
She said she had dressed her mistress early - full two hours before
she went out - and had been told, as she often was, that she would not
be wanted at night. She had just come from her mistress's rooms, but -
'But what! what was it?' Florence heard her father demand like a
madman.
'But the inner dressing-room was locked and the key gone.'
Her father seized a candle that was flaming on the ground - someone
had put it down there, and forgotten it - and came running upstairs
with such fury, that Florence, in her fear, had hardly time to fly
before him. She heard him striking in the door, as she ran on, with
her hands widely spread, and her hair streaming, and her face like a
distracted person's, back to her own room.
When the door yielded, and he rushed in, what did he see there? No
one knew. But thrown down in a costly mass upon the ground, was every
ornament she had had, since she had been his wife; every dress she had
worn; and everything she had possessed. This was the room in which he
had seen, in yonder mirror, the proud face discard him. This was the
room in which he had wondered, idly, how these things would look when
he should see them next!
Heaping them back into the drawers, and locking them up in a rage
of haste, he saw some papers on the table. The deed of settlement he
had executed on their marriage, and a letter. He read that she was
gone. He read that he was dishonoured. He read that she had fled, upon
her shameful wedding-day, with the man whom he had chosen for her
humiliation; and he tore out of the room, and out of the house, with a
frantic idea of finding her yet, at the place to which she had been
taken, and beating all trace of beauty out of the triumphant face with
his bare hand.
Florence, not knowing what she did, put on a shawl and bonnet, in a
dream of running through the streets until she found Edith, and then
clasping her in her arms, to save and bring her back. But when she
hurried out upon the staircase, and saw the frightened servants going
up and down with lights, and whispering together, and falling away
from her father as he passed down, she awoke to a sense of her own
powerlessness; and hiding in one of the great rooms that had been made
gorgeous for this, felt as if her heart would burst with grief.
Compassion for her father was the first distinct emotion that made
head against the flood of sorrow which overwhelmed her. Her constant
nature turned to him in his distress, as fervently and faithfully, as
if, in his prosperity, he had been the embodiment of that idea which
had gradually become so faint and dim. Although she did not know,
otherwise than through the suggestions of a shapeless fear, the full
extent of his calamity, he stood before her, wronged and deserted; and
again her yearning love impelled her to his side.
He was not long away; for Florence was yet weeping in the great
room and nourishing these thoughts, when she heard him come back. He
ordered the servants to set about their ordinary occupations, and went
into his own apartment, where he trod so heavily that she could hear
him walking up and down from end to end.
Yielding at once to the impulse of her affection, timid at all
other times, but bold in its truth to him in his adversity, and
undaunted by past repulse, Florence, dressed as she was, hurried
downstairs. As she set her light foot in the hall, he came out of his
room. She hastened towards him unchecked, with her arms stretched out,
and crying 'Oh dear, dear Papa!' as if she would have clasped him
round the neck.
And so she would have done. But in his frenzy, he lifted up his
cruel arm, and struck her, crosswise, with that heaviness, that she
tottered on the marble floor; and as he dealt the blow, he told her
what Edith was, and bade her follow her, since they had always been in
league.
She did not sink down at his feet; she did not shut out the sight
of him with her trembling hands; she did not weep; she did not utter
one word of reproach. But she looked at him, and a cry of desolation
issued from her heart. For as she looked, she saw him murdering that
fond idea to which she had held in spite of him. She saw his cruelty,
neglect, and hatred dominant above it, and stamping it down. She saw
she had no father upon earth, and ran out, orphaned, from his house.
Ran out of his house. A moment, and her hand was on the lock, the
cry was on her lips, his face was there, made paler by the yellow
candles hastily put down and guttering away, and by the daylight
coming in above the door. Another moment, and the close darkness of
the shut-up house (forgotten to be opened, though it was long since
day) yielded to the unexpected glare and freedom of the morning; and
Florence, with her head bent down to hide her agony of tears, was in
the streets.
CHAPTER 48.
The Flight of Florence
In the wildness of her sorrow, shame, and terror, the forlorn girl
hurried through the sunshine of a bright morning, as if it were the
darkness of a winter night. Wringing her hands and weeping bitterly,
insensible to everything but the deep wound in her breast, stunned by
the loss of all she loved, left like the sole survivor on a lonely
shore from the wreck of a great vessel, she fled without a thought,
without a hope, without a purpose, but to fly somewhere anywhere.
The cheerful vista of the long street, burnished by the morning
light, the sight of the blue sky and airy clouds, the vigorous
freshness of the day, so flushed and rosy in its conquest of the
night, awakened no responsive feelings in her so hurt bosom.
Somewhere, anywhere, to hide her head! somewhere, anywhere, for
refuge, never more to look upon the place from which she fled!
But there were people going to and fro; there were opening shops,
and servants at the doors of houses; there was the rising clash and
roar of the day's struggle. Florence saw surprise and curiosity in the
faces flitting past her; saw long shadows coming back upon the
pavement; and heard voices that were strange to her asking her where
she went, and what the matter was; and though these frightened her the
more at first, and made her hurry on the faster, they did her the good
service of recalling her in some degree to herself, and reminding her
of the necessity of greater composure.
Where to go? Still somewhere, anywhere! still going on; but where!
She thought of the only other time she had been lost in the wild
wilderness of London - though not lost as now - and went that way. To
the home of Walter's Uncle.
Checking her sobs, and drying her swollen eyes, and endeavouring to
calm the agitation of her manner, so as to avoid attracting notice,
Florence, resolving to keep to the more quiet streets as long as she
could, was going on more quietly herself, when a familiar little
shadow darted past upon the sunny pavement, stopped short, wheeled
about, came close to her, made off again, bounded round and round her,
and Diogenes, panting for breath, and yet making the street ring with
his glad bark, was at her feet.
'Oh, Di! oh, dear, true, faithful Di, how did you come here? How
could I ever leave you, Di, who would never leave me?'
Florence bent down on the pavement, and laid his rough, old,
loving, foolish head against her breast, and they got up together, and
went on together; Di more off the ground than on it, endeavouring to
kiss his mistress flying, tumbling over and getting up again without
the least concern, dashing at big dogs in a jocose defiance of his
species, terrifying with touches of his nose young housemaids who were
cleaning doorsteps, and continually stopping, in the midst of a
thousand extravagances, to look back at Florence, and bark until all
the dogs within hearing answered, and all the dogs who could come out,
came out to stare at him.
With this last adherent, Florence hurried away in the advancing
morning, and the strengthening sunshine, to the City. The roar soon
grew more loud, the passengers more numerous, the shops more busy,
until she was carried onward in a stream of life setting that way, and
flowing, indifferently, past marts and mansions, prisons, churches,
market-places, wealth, poverty, good, and evil, like the broad river
side by side with it, awakened from its dreams of rushes, willows, and
green moss, and rolling on, turbid and troubled, among the works and
cares of men, to the deep sea.
At length the quarters of the little Midshipman arose in view.
Nearer yet, and the little Midshipman himself was seen upon his post,
intent as ever on his observations. Nearer yet, and the door stood
open, inviting her to enter. Florence, who had again quickened her
pace, as she approached the end of her journey, ran across the road
(closely followed by Diogenes, whom the bustle had somewhat confused),
ran in, and sank upon the threshold of the well-remembered little
parlour.
The Captain, in his glazed hat, was standing over the fire, making
his morning's cocoa, with that elegant trifle, his watch, upon the
chimney-piece, for easy reference during the progress of the cookery.
Hearing a footstep and the rustle of a dress, the Captain turned with
a palpitating remembrance of the dreadful Mrs MacStinger, at the
instant when Florence made a motion with her hand towards him, reeled,
and fell upon the floor.
The Captain, pale as Florence, pale in the very knobs upon his face
raised her like a baby, and laid her on the same old sofa upon which
she had slumbered long ago.
'It's Heart's Delight!' said the Captain, looking intently in her
face. 'It's the sweet creetur grow'd a woman!'
Captain Cuttle was so respectful of her, and had such a reverence
for her, in this new character, that he would not have held her in his
arms, while she was unconscious, for a thousand pounds.
'My Heart's Delight!' said the Captain, withdrawing to a little
distance, with the greatest alarm and sympathy depicted on his
countenance. 'If you can hail Ned Cuttle with a finger, do it!'
But Florence did not stir.
'My Heart's Delight!' said the trembling Captain. 'For the sake of
Wal'r drownded in the briny deep, turn to, and histe up something or
another, if able!'
Finding her insensible to this impressive adjuration also, Captain
Cuttle snatched from his breakfast-table a basin of cold water, and
sprinkled some upon her face. Yielding to the urgency of the case, the
Captain then, using his immense hand with extraordinary gentleness,
relieved her of her bonnet, moistened her lips and forehead, put back
her hair, covered her feet with his own coat which he pulled off for
the purpose, patted her hand - so small in his, that he was struck
with wonder when he touched it - and seeing that her eyelids quivered,
and that her lips began to move, continued these restorative
applications with a better heart.
'Cheerily,' said the Captain. 'Cheerily! Stand by, my pretty one,
stand by! There! You're better now. Steady's the word, and steady it
is. Keep her so! Drink a little drop o' this here,' said the Captain.
'There you are! What cheer now, my pretty, what cheer now?'
At this stage of her recovery, Captain Cuttle, with an imperfect
association of a Watch with a Physician's treatment of a patient, took
his own down from the mantel-shelf, and holding it out on his hook,
and taking Florence's hand in his, looked steadily from one to the
other, as expecting the dial to do something.
'What cheer, my pretty?' said the Captain. 'What cheer now? You've
done her some good, my lad, I believe,' said the Captain, under his
breath, and throwing an approving glance upon his watch. 'Put you back
half-an-hour every morning, and about another quarter towards the
arternoon, and you're a watch as can be ekalled by few and excelled by
none. What cheer, my lady lass!'
'Captain Cuttle! Is it you?' exclaimed Florence, raising herself a
little.
'Yes, yes, my lady lass,' said the Captain, hastily deciding in his
own mind upon the superior elegance of that form of address, as the
most courtly he could think of.
'Is Walter's Uncle here?' asked Florence.
'Here, pretty?' returned the Captain. 'He ain't been here this many
a long day. He ain't been heerd on, since he sheered off arter poor
Wal'r. But,' said the Captain, as a quotation, 'Though lost to sight,
to memory dear, and England, Home, and Beauty!'
'Do you live here?' asked Florence.
'Yes, my lady lass,' returned the Captain.
'Oh, Captain Cuttle!' cried Florence, putting her hands together,
and speaking wildly. 'Save me! keep me here! Let no one know where I
am! I'll tell you what has happened by-and-by, when I can. I have no
one in the world to go to. Do not send me away!'
'Send you away, my lady lass!' exclaimed the Captain. 'You, my
Heart's Delight! Stay a bit! We'll put up this here deadlight, and
take a double turn on the key!'
With these words, the Captain, using his one hand and his hook with
the greatest dexterity, got out the shutter of the door, put it up,
made it all fast, and locked the door itself.
When he came back to the side of Florence, she took his hand, and
kissed it. The helplessness of the action, the appeal it made to him,
the confidence it expressed, the unspeakable sorrow in her face, the
pain of mind she had too plainly suffered, and was suffering then, his
knowledge of her past history, her present lonely, worn, and
unprotected appearance, all so rushed upon the good Captain together,
that he fairly overflowed with compassion and gentleness.
'My lady lass,' said the Captain, polishing the bridge of his nose
with his arm until it shone like burnished copper, 'don't you say a
word to Ed'ard Cuttle, until such times as you finds yourself a riding
smooth and easy; which won't be to-day, nor yet to-morrow. And as to
giving of you up, or reporting where you are, yes verily, and by God's
help, so I won't, Church catechism, make a note on!'
This the Captain said, reference and all, in one breath, and with
much solemnity; taking off his hat at 'yes verily,' and putting it on
again, when he had quite concluded.
Florence could do but one thing more to thank him, and to show him
how she trusted in him; and she did it' Clinging to this rough
creature as the last asylum of her bleeding heart, she laid her head
upon his honest shoulder, and clasped him round his neck, and would
have kneeled down to bless him, but that he divined her purpose, and
held her up like a true man.
'Steady!' said the Captain. 'Steady! You're too weak to stand, you
see, my pretty, and must lie down here again. There, there!' To see
the Captain lift her on the sofa, and cover her with his coat, would
have been worth a hundred state sights. 'And now,' said the Captain,
'you must take some breakfast, lady lass, and the dog shall have some
too. And arter that you shall go aloft to old Sol Gills's room, and
fall asleep there, like a angel.'
Captain Cuttle patted Diogenes when he made allusion to him, and
Diogenes met that overture graciously, half-way. During the
administration of the restoratives he had clearly been in two minds
whether to fly at the Captain or to offer him his friendship; and he
had expressed that conflict of feeling by alternate waggings of his
tail, and displays of his teeth, with now and then a growl or so. But
by this time, his doubts were all removed. It was plain that he
considered the Captain one of the most amiable of men, and a man whom
it was an honour to a dog to know.
In evidence of these convictions, Diogenes attended on the Captain
while he made some tea and toast, and showed a lively interest in his
housekeeping. But it was in vain for the kind Captain to make such
preparations for Florence, who sorely tried to do some honour to them,
but could touch nothing, and could only weep and weep again.
'Well, well!' said the compassionate Captain, 'arter turning in, my
Heart's Delight, you'll get more way upon you. Now, I'll serve out
your allowance, my lad.' To Diogenes. 'And you shall keep guard on
your mistress aloft.'
Diogenes, however, although he had been eyeing his intended
breakfast with a watering mouth and glistening eyes, instead of
falling to, ravenously, when it was put before him, pricked up his
ears, darted to the shop-door, and barked there furiously: burrowing
with his head at the bottom, as if he were bent on mining his way out.
'Can there be anybody there!' asked Florence, in alarm.
'No, my lady lass,' returned the Captain. 'Who'd stay there,
without making any noise! Keep up a good heart, pretty. It's only
people going by.'
But for all that, Diogenes barked and barked, and burrowed and
burrowed, with pertinacious fury; and whenever he stopped to listen,
appeared to receive some new conviction into his mind, for he set to,
barking and burrowing again, a dozen times. Even when he was persuaded
to return to his breakfast, he came jogging back to it, with a very
doubtful air; and was off again, in another paroxysm, before touching
a morsel.
'If there should be someone listening and watching,' whispered
Florence. 'Someone who saw me come - who followed me, perhaps.'
'It ain't the young woman, lady lass, is it?' said the Captain,
taken with a bright idea
'Susan?' said Florence, shaking her head. 'Ah no! Susan has been
gone from me a long time.'
'Not deserted, I hope?' said the Captain. 'Don't say that that
there young woman's run, my pretty!'
'Oh, no, no!' cried Florence. 'She is one of the truest hearts in
the world!'
The Captain was greatly relieved by this reply, and expressed his
satisfaction by taking off his hard glazed hat, and dabbing his head
all over with his handkerchief, rolled up like a ball, observing
several times, with infinite complacency, and with a beaming
countenance, that he know'd it.
'So you're quiet now, are you, brother?' said the Captain to
Diogenes. 'There warn't nobody there, my lady lass, bless you!'
Diogenes was not so sure of that. The door still had an attraction
for him at intervals; and he went snuffing about it, and growling to
himself, unable to forget the subject. This incident, coupled with the
Captain's observation of Florence's fatigue and faintness, decided him
to prepare Sol Gills's chamber as a place of retirement for her
immediately. He therefore hastily betook himself to the top of the
house, and made the best arrangement of it that his imagination and
his means suggested.
It was very clean already; and the Captain being an orderly man,
and accustomed to make things ship-shape, converted the bed into a
couch, by covering it all over with a clean white drapery. By a
similar contrivance, the Captain converted the little dressing-table
into a species of altar, on which he set forth two silver teaspoons, a
flower-pot, a telescope, his celebrated watch, a pocket-comb, and a
song-book, as a small collection of rarities, that made a choice
appearance. Having darkened the window, and straightened the pieces of
carpet on the floor, the Captain surveyed these preparations with
great delight, and descended to the little parlour again, to bring
Florence to her bower.
Nothing would induce the Captain to believe that it was possible
for Florence to walk upstairs. If he could have got the idea into his
head, he would have considered it an outrageous breach of hospitality
to allow her to do so. Florence was too weak to dispute the point, and
the Captain carried her up out of hand, laid her down, and covered her
with a great watch-coat.
'My lady lass!' said the Captain, 'you're as safe here as if you
was at the top of St Paul's Cathedral, with the ladder cast off. Sleep
is what you want, afore all other things, and may you be able to show
yourself smart with that there balsam for the still small woice of a
wounded mind! When there's anything you want, my Heart's Delight, as
this here humble house or town can offer, pass the word to Ed'ard
Cuttle, as'll stand off and on outside that door, and that there man
will wibrate with joy.' The Captain concluded by kissing the hand that
Florence stretched out to him, with the chivalry of any old
knight-errant, and walking on tiptoe out of the room.
Descending to the little parlour, Captain Cuttle, after holding a
hasty council with himself, decided to open the shop-door for a few
minutes, and satisfy himself that now, at all events, there was no one
loitering about it. Accordingly he set it open, and stood upon the
threshold, keeping a bright look-out, and sweeping the whole street
with his spectacles.
'How de do, Captain Gills?' said a voice beside him. The Captain,
looking down, found that he had been boarded by Mr Toots while
sweeping the horizon.
'How are, you, my lad?' replied the Captain.
'Well, I m pretty well, thank'ee, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots.
'You know I'm never quite what I could wish to be, now. I don't expect
that I ever shall be any more.'
Mr Toots never approached any nearer than this to the great theme
of his life, when in conversation with Captain Cuttle, on account of
the agreement between them.
'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'if I could have the pleasure of a
word with you, it's - it's rather particular.'
'Why, you see, my lad,' replied the Captain, leading the way into
the parlour, 'I ain't what you may call exactly free this morning; and
therefore if you can clap on a bit, I should take it kindly.'
'Certainly, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, who seldom had any
notion of the Captain's meaning. 'To clap on, is exactly what I could
wish to do. Naturally.'
'If so be, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'Do it!'
The Captain was so impressed by the possession of his tremendous
secret - by the fact of Miss Dombey being at that moment under his
roof, while the innocent and unconscious Toots sat opposite to him -
that a perspiration broke out on his forehead, and he found it
impossible, while slowly drying the same, glazed hat in hand, to keep
his eyes off Mr Toots's face. Mr Toots, who himself appeared to have
some secret reasons for being in a nervous state, was so unspeakably
disconcerted by the Captain's stare, that after looking at him
vacantly for some time in silence, and shifting uneasily on his chair,
he said:
'I beg your pardon, Captain Gills, but you don't happen to see
anything particular in me, do you?'
'No, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'No.'
'Because you know,' said Mr Toots with a chuckle, 'I kNOW I'm
wasting away. You needn't at all mind alluding to that. I - I should
like it. Burgess and Co. have altered my measure, I'm in that state of
thinness. It's a gratification to me. I - I'm glad of it. I - I'd a
great deal rather go into a decline, if I could. I'm a mere brute you
know, grazing upon the surface of the earth, Captain Gills.'
The more Mr Toots went on in this way, the more the Captain was
weighed down by his secret, and stared at him. What with this cause of
uneasiness, and his desire to get rid of Mr Toots, the Captain was in
such a scared and strange condition, indeed, that if he had been in
conversation with a ghost, he could hardly have evinced greater
discomposure.
'But I was going to say, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Happening
to be this way early this morning - to tell you the truth, I was
coming to breakfast with you. As to sleep, you know, I never sleep
now. I might be a Watchman, except that I don't get any pay, and he's
got nothing on his mind.'
'Carry on, my lad!' said the Captain, in an admonitory voice.
'Certainly, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Perfectly true!
Happening to be this way early this morning (an hour or so ago), and
finding the door shut - '
'What! were you waiting there, brother?' demanded the Captain.
'Not at all, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots. 'I didn't stop a
moment. I thought you were out. But the person said - by the bye, you
don't keep a dog, you, Captain Gills?'
The Captain shook his head.
'To be sure,' said Mr Toots, 'that's exactly what I said. I knew
you didn't. There is a dog, Captain Gills, connected with - but excuse
me. That's forbidden ground.'
The Captain stared at Mr Toots until he seemed to swell to twice
his natural size; and again the perspiration broke out on the
Captain's forehead, when he thought of Diogenes taking it into his
head to come down and make a third in the parlour.
'The person said,' continued Mr Toots, 'that he had heard a dog
barking in the shop: which I knew couldn't be, and I told him so. But
he was as positive as if he had seen the dog.'
'What person, my lad?' inquired the Captain.
'Why, you see there it is, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, with a
perceptible increase in the nervousness of his manner. 'It's not for
me to say what may have taken place, or what may not have taken place.
Indeed, I don't know. I get mixed up with all sorts of things that I
don't quite understand, and I think there's something rather weak in
my - in my head, in short.'
The Captain nodded his own, as a mark of assent.
'But the person said, as we were walking away,' continued Mr Toots,
'that you knew what, under existing circumstances, might occur - he
said "might," very strongly - and that if you were requested to
prepare yourself, you would, no doubt, come prepared.'
'Person, my lad' the Captain repeated.
'I don't know what person, I'm sure, Captain Gills,' replied Mr
Toots, 'I haven't the least idea. But coming to the door, I found him
waiting there; and he said was I coming back again, and I said yes;
and he said did I know you, and I said, yes, I had the pleasure of
your acquaintance - you had given me the pleasure of your
acquaintance, after some persuasion; and he said, if that was the
case, would I say to you what I have said, about existing
circumstances and coming prepared, and as soon as ever I saw you,
would I ask you to step round the corner, if it was only for one
minute, on most important business, to Mr Brogley's the Broker's. Now,
I tell you what, Captain Gills - whatever it is, I am convinced it's
very important; and if you like to step round, now, I'll wait here
till you come back.'
The Captain, divided between his fear of compromising Florence in
some way by not going, and his horror of leaving Mr Toots in
possession of the house with a chance of finding out the secret, was a
spectacle of mental disturbance that even Mr Toots could not be blind
to. But that young gentleman, considering his nautical friend as
merely in a state of preparation for the interview he was going to
have, was quite satisfied, and did not review his own discreet conduct
without chuckle
At length the Captain decided, as the lesser of two evils, to run
round to Brogley's the Broker's: previously locking the door that
communicated with the upper part of the house, and putting the key in
his pocket. 'If so be,' said the Captain to Mr Toots, with not a
little shame and hesitation, 'as you'll excuse my doing of it,
brother.'
'Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'whatever you do, is
satisfactory to me.
The Captain thanked him heartily, and promising to come back in
less than five minutes, went out in quest of the person who had
entrusted Mr Toots with this mysterious message. Poor Mr Toots, left
to himself, lay down upon the sofa, little thinking who had reclined
there last, and, gazing up at the skylight and resigning himself to
visions of Miss Dombey, lost all heed of time and place.
It was as well that he did so; for although the Captain was not
gone long, he was gone much longer than he had proposed. When he came
back, he was very pale indeed, and greatly agitated, and even looked
as if he had been shedding tears. He seemed to have lost the faculty
of speech, until he had been to the cupboard and taken a dram of rum
from the case-bottle, when he fetched a deep breath, and sat down in a
chair with his hand before his face.
'Captain Gills,' said Toots, kindly, 'I hope and trust there's
nothing wrong?'
'Thank'ee, my lad, not a bit,' said the Captain. 'Quite contrairy.'
'You have the appearance of being overcome, Captain Gills,'
observed Mr Toots.
'Why, my lad, I am took aback,' the Captain admitted. 'I am.'
'Is there anything I can do, Captain Gills?' inquired Mr Toots. 'If
there is, make use of me.'
The Captain removed his hand from his face, looked at him with a
remarkable expression of pity and tenderness, and took him by the
hand, and shook it hard.
'No, thank'ee,' said the Captain. 'Nothing. Only I'll take it as a
favour if you'll part company for the present. I believe, brother,'
wringing his hand again, 'that, after Wal'r, and on a different model,
you're as good a lad as ever stepped.'
'Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, giving
the Captain's hand a preliminary slap before shaking it again, 'it's
delightful to me to possess your good opinion. Thank'ee.
'And bear a hand and cheer up,' said the Captain, patting him on
the back. 'What! There's more than one sweet creetur in the world!'
'Not to me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots gravely. 'Not to me, I
assure you. The state of my feelings towards Miss Dombey is of that
unspeakable description, that my heart is a desert island, and she
lives in it alone. I'm getting more used up every day, and I'm proud
to be so. If you could see my legs when I take my boots off, you'd
form some idea of what unrequited affection is. I have been prescribed
bark, but I don't take it, for I don't wish to have any tone whatever
given to my constitution. I'd rather not. This, however, is forbidden
ground. Captain Gills, goodbye!'
Captain Cuttle cordially reciprocating the warmth of Mr Toots's
farewell, locked the door behind him, and shaking his head with the
same remarkable expression of pity and tenderness as he had regarded
him with before, went up to see if Florence wanted him.
There was an entire change in the Captain's face as he went
upstairs. He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief, and he polished the
bridge of his nose with his sleeve as he had done already that
morning, but his face was absolutely changed. Now, he might have been
thought supremely happy; now, he might have been thought sad; but the
kind of gravity that sat upon his features was quite new to them, and
was as great an improvement to them as if they had undergone some
sublimating process.
He knocked softly, with his hook, at Florence's door, twice or
thrice; but, receiving no answer, ventured first to peep in, and then
to enter: emboldened to take the latter step, perhaps, by the familiar
recognition of Diogenes, who, stretched upon the ground by the side of
her couch, wagged his tail, and winked his eyes at the Captain,
without being at the trouble of getting up.
She was sleeping heavily, and moaning in her sleep; and Captain
Cuttle, with a perfect awe of her youth, and beauty, and her sorrow,
raised her head, and adjusted the coat that covered her, where it had
fallen off, and darkened the window a little more that she might sleep
on, and crept out again, and took his post of watch upon the stairs.
All this, with a touch and tread as light as Florence's own.
Long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of
decision, which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty's
goodness - the delicate fingers that are formed for sensitiveness and
sympathy of touch, and made to minister to pain and grief, or the
rough hard Captain Cuttle hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and
softens in a moment!
Florence slept upon her couch, forgetful of her homelessness and
orphanage, and Captain Cuttle watched upon the stairs. A louder sob or
moan than usual, brought him sometimes to her door; but by degrees she
slept more peacefully, and the Captain's watch was undisturbed.
CHAPTER 49.
The Midshipman makes a Discovery
It was long before Florence awoke. The day was in its prime, the
day was in its wane, and still, uneasy in mind and body, she slept on;
unconscious of her strange bed, of the noise and turmoil in the
street, and of the light that shone outside the shaded window. Perfect
unconsciousness of what had happened in the home that existed no more,
even the deep slumber of exhaustion could not produce. Some undefined
and mournful recollection of it, dozing uneasily but never sleeping,
pervaded all her rest. A dull sorrow, like a half-lulled sense of
pain, was always present to her; and her pale cheek was oftener wet
with tears than the honest Captain, softly putting in his head from
time to time at the half-closed door, could have desired to see it.
The sun was getting low in the west, and, glancing out of a red
mist, pierced with its rays opposite loopholes and pieces of fretwork
in the spires of city churches, as if with golden arrows that struck
through and through them - and far away athwart the river and its flat
banks, it was gleaming like a path of fire - and out at sea it was
irradiating sails of ships - and, looked towards, from quiet
churchyards, upon hill-tops in the country, it was steeping distant
prospects in a flush and glow that seemed to mingle earth and sky
together in one glorious suffusion - when Florence, opening her heavy
eyes, lay at first, looking without interest or recognition at the
unfamiliar walls around her, and listening in the same regardless
manner to the noises in the street. But presently she started up upon
her couch, gazed round with a surprised and vacant look, and
recollected all.
'My pretty,' said the Captain, knocking at the door, 'what cheer?'
'Dear friend,' cried Florence, hurrying to him, 'is it you?'
The Captain felt so much pride in the name, and was so pleased by
the gleam of pleasure in her face, when she saw him, that he kissed
his hook, by way of reply, in speechless gratification.
'What cheer, bright di'mond?' said the Captain.
'I have surely slept very long,' returned Florence. 'When did I
come here? Yesterday?'
'This here blessed day, my lady lass,' replied the Captain.
'Has there been no night? Is it still day?' asked Florence.
'Getting on for evening now, my pretty,' said the Captain, drawing
back the curtain of the window. 'See!'
Florence, with her hand upon the Captain's arm, so sorrowful and
timid, and the Captain with his rough face and burly figure, so
quietly protective of her, stood in the rosy light of the bright
evening sky, without saying a word. However strange the form of speech
into which he might have fashioned the feeling, if he had had to give
it utterance, the Captain felt, as sensibly as the most eloquent of
men could have done, that there was something in the tranquil time and
in its softened beauty that would make the wounded heart of Florence
overflow; and that it was better that such tears should have their
way. So not a word spake Captain Cuttle. But when he felt his arm
clasped closer, and when he felt the lonely head come nearer to it,
and lay itself against his homely coarse blue sleeve, he pressed it
gently with his rugged hand, and understood it, and was understood.
'Better now, my pretty!' said the Captain. 'Cheerily, cheerily,
I'll go down below, and get some dinner ready. Will you come down of
your own self, arterwards, pretty, or shall Ed'ard Cuttle come and
fetch you?'
As Florence assured him that she was quite able to walk downstairs,
the Captain, though evidently doubtful of his own hospitality in
permitting it, left her to do so, and immediately set about roasting a
fowl at the fire in the little parlour. To achieve his cookery with
the greater skill, he pulled off his coat, tucked up his wristbands,
and put on his glazed hat, without which assistant he never applied
himself to any nice or difficult undertaking.
After cooling her aching head and burning face in the fresh water
which the Captain's care had provided for her while she slept,
Florence went to the little mirror to bind up her disordered hair.
Then she knew - in a moment, for she shunned it instantly, that on her
breast there was the darkening mark of an angry hand.
Her tears burst forth afresh at the sight; she was ashamed and
afraid of it; but it moved her to no anger against him. Homeless and
fatherless, she forgave him everything; hardly thought that she had
need to forgive him, or that she did; but she fled from the idea of
him as she had fled from the reality, and he was utterly gone and
lost. There was no such Being in the world.
What to do, or where to live, Florence - poor, inexperienced girl!
- could not yet consider. She had indistinct dreams of finding, a long
way off, some little sisters to instruct, who would be gentle with
her, and to whom, under some feigned name, she might attach herself,
and who would grow up in their happy home, and marry, and be good to
their old governess, and perhaps entrust her, in time, with the
education of their own daughters. And she thought how strange and
sorrowful it would be, thus to become a grey-haired woman, carrying
her secret to the grave, when Florence Dombey was forgotten. But it
was all dim and clouded to her now. She only knew that she had no
Father upon earth, and she said so, many times, with her suppliant
head hidden from all, but her Father who was in Heaven.
Her little stock of money amounted to but a few guineas. With a
part of this, it would be necessary to buy some clothes, for she had
none but those she wore. She was too desolate to think how soon her
money would be gone - too much a child in worldly matters to be
greatly troubled on that score yet, even if her other trouble had been
less. She tried to calm her thoughts and stay her tears; to quiet the
hurry in her throbbing head, and bring herself to believe that what
had happened were but the events of a few hours ago, instead of weeks
or months, as they appeared; and went down to her kind protector.
The Captain had spread the cloth with great care, and was making
some egg-sauce in a little saucepan: basting the fowl from time to
time during the process with a strong interest, as it turned and
browned on a string before the fire. Having propped Florence up with
cushions on the sofa, which was already wheeled into a warm corner for
her greater comfort, the Captain pursued his cooking with
extraordinary skill, making hot gravy in a second little saucepan,
boiling a handful of potatoes in a third, never forgetting the
egg-sauce in the first, and making an impartial round of basting and
stirring with the most useful of spoons every minute. Besides these
cares, the Captain had to keep his eye on a diminutive frying-pan, in
which some sausages were hissing and bubbling in a most musical
manner; and there was never such a radiant cook as the Captain looked,
in the height and heat of these functions: it being impossible to say
whether his face or his glazed hat shone the brighter.
The dinner being at length quite ready, Captain Cuttle dished and
served it up, with no less dexterity than he had cooked it. He then
dressed for dinner, by taking off his glazed hat and putting on his
coat. That done, he wheeled the table close against Florence on the
sofa, said grace, unscrewed his hook, screwed his fork into its place,
and did the honours of the table
'My lady lass,' said the Captain, 'cheer up, and try to eat a deal.
Stand by, my deary! Liver wing it is. Sarse it is. Sassage it is. And
potato!' all which the Captain ranged symmetrically on a plate, and
pouring hot gravy on the whole with the useful spoon, set before his
cherished guest.
'The whole row o' dead lights is up, for'ard, lady lass,' observed
the Captain, encouragingly, 'and everythink is made snug. Try and pick
a bit, my pretty. If Wal'r was here - '
'Ah! If I had him for my brother now!' cried Florence.
'Don't! don't take on, my pretty!' said the Captain, 'awast, to
obleege me! He was your nat'ral born friend like, warn't he, Pet?'
Florence had no words to answer with. She only said, 'Oh, dear,
dear Paul! oh, Walter!'
'The wery planks she walked on,' murmured the Captain, looking at
her drooping face, 'was as high esteemed by Wal'r, as the water brooks
is by the hart which never rejices! I see him now, the wery day as he
was rated on them Dombey books, a speaking of her with his face a
glistening with doo - leastways with his modest sentiments - like a
new blowed rose, at dinner. Well, well! If our poor Wal'r was here, my
lady lass - or if he could be - for he's drownded, ain't he?'
Florence shook her head.
'Yes, yes; drownded,' said the Captain, soothingly; 'as I was
saying, if he could be here he'd beg and pray of you, my precious, to
pick a leetle bit, with a look-out for your own sweet health. Whereby,
hold your own, my lady lass, as if it was for Wal'r's sake, and lay
your pretty head to the wind.'
Florence essayed to eat a morsel, for the Captain's pleasure. The
Captain, meanwhile, who seemed to have quite forgotten his own dinner,
laid down his knife and fork, and drew his chair to the sofa.
'Wal'r was a trim lad, warn't he, precious?' said the Captain,
after sitting for some time silently rubbing his chin, with his eyes
fixed upon her, 'and a brave lad, and a good lad?'
Florence tearfully assented.
'And he's drownded, Beauty, ain't he?' said the Captain, in a
soothing voice.
Florence could not but assent again.
'He was older than you, my lady lass,' pursued the Captain, 'but
you was like two children together, at first; wam't you?'
Florence answered 'Yes.'
'And Wal'r's drownded,' said the Captain. 'Ain't he?'
The repetition of this inquiry was a curious source of consolation,
but it seemed to be one to Captain Cuttle, for he came back to it
again and again. Florence, fain to push from her her untasted dinner,
and to lie back on her sofa, gave him her hand, feeling that she had
disappointed him, though truly wishing to have pleased him after all
his trouble, but he held it in his own (which shook as he held it),
and appearing to have quite forgotten all about the dinner and her
want of appetite, went on growling at intervals, in a ruminating tone
of sympathy, 'Poor Wal'r. Ay, ay! Drownded. Ain't he?' And always
waited for her answer, in which the great point of these singular
reflections appeared to consist.
The fowl and sausages were cold, and the gravy and the egg-sauce
stagnant, before the Captain remembered that they were on the board,
and fell to with the assistance of Diogenes, whose united efforts
quickly dispatched the banquet. The Captain's delight and wonder at
the quiet housewifery of Florence in assisting to clear the table,
arrange the parlour, and sweep up the hearth - only to be equalled by
the fervency of his protest when she began to assist him - were
gradually raised to that degree, that at last he could not choose but
do nothing himself, and stand looking at her as if she were some
Fairy, daintily performing these offices for him; the red rim on his
forehead glowing again, in his unspeakable admiration.
But when Florence, taking down his pipe from the mantel-shelf gave
it into his hand, and entreated him to smoke it, the good Captain was
so bewildered by her attention that he held it as if he had never held
a pipe, in all his life. Likewise, when Florence, looking into the
little cupboard, took out the case-bottle and mixed a perfect glass of
grog for him, unasked, and set it at his elbow, his ruddy nose turned
pale, he felt himself so graced and honoured. When he had filled his
pipe in an absolute reverie of satisfaction, Florence lighted it for
him - the Captain having no power to object, or to prevent her - and
resuming her place on the old sofa, looked at him with a smile so
loving and so grateful, a smile that showed him so plainly how her
forlorn heart turned to him, as her face did, through grief, that the
smoke of the pipe got into the Captain's throat and made him cough,
and got into the Captain's eyes, and made them blink and water.
The manner in which the Captain tried to make believe that the
cause of these effects lay hidden in the pipe itself, and the way in
which he looked into the bowl for it, and not finding it there,
pretended to blow it out of the stem, was wonderfully pleasant. The
pipe soon getting into better condition, he fell into that state of
repose becoming a good smoker; but sat with his eyes fixed on
Florence, and, with a beaming placidity not to be described, and
stopping every now and then to discharge a little cloud from his lips,
slowly puffed it forth, as if it were a scroll coming out of his
mouth, bearing the legend 'Poor Wal'r, ay, ay. Drownded, ain't he?'
after which he would resume his smoking with infinite gentleness.
Unlike as they were externally - and there could scarcely be a more
decided contrast than between Florence in her delicate youth and
beauty, and Captain Cuttle with his knobby face, his great broad
weather-beaten person, and his gruff voice - in simple innocence of
the world's ways and the world's perplexities and dangers, they were
nearly on a level. No child could have surpassed Captain Cuttle in
inexperience of everything but wind and weather; in simplicity,
credulity, and generous trustfulness. Faith, hope, and charity, shared
his whole nature among them. An odd sort of romance, perfectly
unimaginative, yet perfectly unreal, and subject to no considerations
of worldly prudence or practicability, was the only partner they had
in his character. As the Captain sat, and smoked, and looked at
Florence, God knows what impossible pictures, in which she was the
principal figure, presented themselves to his mind. Equally vague and
uncertain, though not so sanguine, were her own thoughts of the life
before her; and even as her tears made prismatic colours in the light
she gazed at, so, through her new and heavy grief, she already saw a
rainbow faintly shining in the far-off sky. A wandering princess and a
good monster in a storybook might have sat by the fireside, and talked
as Captain Cuttle and poor Florence talked - and not have looked very
much unlike them.
The Captain was not troubled with the faintest idea of any
difficulty in retaining Florence, or of any responsibility thereby
incurred. Having put up the shutters and locked the door, he was quite
satisfied on this head. If she had been a Ward in Chancery, it would
have made no difference at all to Captain Cuttle. He was the last man
in the world to be troubled by any such considerations.
So the Captain smoked his pipe very comfortably, and Florence and
he meditated after their own manner. When the pipe was out, they had
some tea; and then Florence entreated him to take her to some
neighbouring shop, where she could buy the few necessaries she
immediately wanted. It being quite dark, the Captain consented:
peeping carefully out first, as he had been wont to do in his time of
hiding from Mrs MacStinger; and arming himself with his large stick,
in case of an appeal to arms being rendered necessary by any
unforeseen circumstance.
The pride Captain Cuttle had, in giving his arm to Florence, and
escorting her some two or three hundred yards, keeping a bright
look-out all the time, and attracting the attention of everyone who
passed them, by his great vigilance and numerous precautions, was
extreme. Arrived at the shop, the Captain felt it a point of delicacy
to retire during the making of the purchases, as they were to consist
of wearing apparel; but he previously deposited his tin canister on
the counter, and informing the young lady of the establishment that it
contained fourteen pound two, requested her, in case that amount of
property should not be sufficient to defray the expenses of his
niece's little outfit - at the word 'niece,' he bestowed a most
significant look on Florence, accompanied with pantomime, expressive
of sagacity and mystery - to have the goodness to 'sing out,' and he
would make up the difference from his pocket. Casually consulting his
big watch, as a deep means of dazzling the establishment, and
impressing it with a sense of property, the Captain then kissed his
hook to his niece, and retired outside the window, where it was a
choice sight to see his great face looking in from time to time, among
the silks and ribbons, with an obvious misgiving that Florence had
been spirited away by a back door.
'Dear Captain Cuttle,' said Florence, when she came out with a
parcel, the size of which greatly disappointed the Captain, who had
expected to see a porter following with a bale of goods, 'I don't want
this money, indeed. I have not spent any of it. I have money of my
own.'
'My lady lass,' returned the baffled Captain, looking straight down
the street before them, 'take care on it for me, will you be so good,
till such time as I ask ye for it?'
'May I put it back in its usual place,' said Florence, 'and keep it
there?'
The Captain was not at all gratified by this proposal, but he
answered, 'Ay, ay, put it anywheres, my lady lass, so long as you know
where to find it again. It ain't o' no use to me,' said the Captain.
'I wonder I haven't chucked it away afore now.
The Captain was quite disheartened for the moment, but he revived
at the first touch of Florence's arm, and they returned with the same
precautions as they had come; the Captain opening the door of the
little Midshipman's berth, and diving in, with a suddenness which his
great practice only could have taught him. During Florence's slumber
in the morning, he had engaged the daughter of an elderly lady who
usually sat under a blue umbrella in Leadenhall Market, selling
poultry, to come and put her room in order, and render her any little
services she required; and this damsel now appearing, Florence found
everything about her as convenient and orderly, if not as handsome, as
in the terrible dream she had once called Home.
When they were alone again, the Captain insisted on her eating a
slice of dry toast' and drinking a glass of spiced negus (which he
made to perfection); and, encouraging her with every kind word and
inconsequential quotation be could possibly think of, led her upstairs
to her bedroom. But he too had something on his mind, and was not easy
in his manner.
'Good-night, dear heart,' said Captain Cuttle to her at her
chamber-door.
Florence raised her lips to his face, and kissed him.
At any other time the Captain would have been overbalanced by such
a token of her affection and gratitude; but now, although he was very
sensible of it, he looked in her face with even more uneasiness than
he had testified before, and seemed unwilling to leave her.
'Poor Wal'r!' said the Captain.
'Poor, poor Walter!' sighed Florence.
'Drownded, ain't he?' said the Captain.
Florence shook her head, and sighed.
'Good-night, my lady lass!' said Captain Cuttle, putting out his
hand.
'God bless you, dear, kind friend!'
But the Captain lingered still.
'Is anything the matter, dear Captain Cuttle?' said Florence,
easily alarmed in her then state of mind. 'Have you anything to tell
me?'
'To tell you, lady lass!' replied the Captain, meeting her eyes in
confusion. 'No, no; what should I have to tell you, pretty! You don't
expect as I've got anything good to tell you, sure?'
'No!' said Florence, shaking her head.
The Captain looked at her wistfully, and repeated 'No,' - ' still
lingering, and still showing embarrassment.
'Poor Wal'r!' said the Captain. 'My Wal'r, as I used to call you!
Old Sol Gills's nevy! Welcome to all as knowed you, as the flowers in
May! Where are you got to, brave boy? Drownded, ain't he?'
Concluding his apostrophe with this abrupt appeal to Florence, the
Captain bade her good-night, and descended the stairs, while Florence
remained at the top, holding the candle out to light him down. He was
lost in the obscurity, and, judging from the sound of his receding
footsteps, was in the act of turning into the little parlour, when his
head and shoulders unexpectedly emerged again, as from the deep,
apparently for no other purpose than to repeat, 'Drownded, ain't he,
pretty?' For when he had said that in a tone of tender condolence, he
disappeared.
Florence was very sorry that she should unwittingly, though
naturally, have awakened these associations in the mind of her
protector, by taking refuge there; and sitting down before the little
table where the Captain had arranged the telescope and song-book, and
those other rarities, thought of Walter, and of all that was connected
with him in the past, until she could have almost wished to lie down
on her bed and fade away. But in her lonely yearning to the dead whom
she had loved, no thought of home - no possibility of going back - no
presentation of it as yet existing, or as sheltering her father - once
entered her thoughts. She had seen the murder done. In the last
lingering natural aspect in which she had cherished him through so
much, he had been torn out of her heart, defaced, and slain. The
thought of it was so appalling to her, that she covered her eyes, and
shrunk trembling from the least remembrance of the deed, or of the
cruel hand that did it. If her fond heart could have held his image
after that, it must have broken; but it could not; and the void was
filled with a wild dread that fled from all confronting with its
shattered fragments - with such a dread as could have risen out of
nothing but the depths of such a love, so wronged.
She dared not look into the glass; for the sight of the darkening
mark upon her bosom made her afraid of herself, as if she bore about
her something wicked. She covered it up, with a hasty, faltering hand,
and in the dark; and laid her weary head down, weeping.
The Captain did not go to bed for a long time. He walked to and fro
in the shop and in the little parlour, for a full hour, and, appearing
to have composed himself by that exercise, sat down with a grave and
thoughtful face, and read out of a Prayer-book the forms of prayer
appointed to be used at sea. These were not easily disposed of; the
good Captain being a mighty slow, gruff reader, and frequently
stopping at a hard word to give himself such encouragement as Now, my
lad! With a will!' or, 'Steady, Ed'ard Cuttle, steady!' which had a
great effect in helping him out of any difficulty. Moreover, his
spectacles greatly interfered with his powers of vision. But
notwithstanding these drawbacks, the Captain, being heartily in
earnest, read the service to the very last line, and with genuine
feeling too; and approving of it very much when he had done, turned
in, under the counter (but not before he had been upstairs, and
listened at Florence's door), with a serene breast, and a most
benevolent visage.
The Captain turned out several times in the course of the night, to
assure himself that his charge was resting quietly; and once, at
daybreak, found that she was awake: for she called to know if it were
he, on hearing footsteps near her door.
'Yes' my lady lass,' replied the Captain, in a growling whisper.
'Are you all right, di'mond?'
Florence thanked him, and said 'Yes.'
The Captain could not lose so favourable an opportunity of applying
his mouth to the keyhole, and calling through it, like a hoarse
breeze, 'Poor Wal'r! Drownded, ain't he?' after which he withdrew, and
turning in again, slept till seven o'clock.
Nor was he free from his uneasy and embarrassed manner all that
day; though Florence, being busy with her needle in the little
parlour, was more calm and tranquil than she had been on the day
preceding. Almost always when she raised her eyes from her work, she
observed the captain looking at her, and thoughtfully stroking his
chin; and he so often hitched his arm-chair close to her, as if he
were going to say something very confidential, and hitched it away
again, as not being able to make up his mind how to begin, that in the
course of the day he cruised completely round the parlour in that
frail bark, and more than once went ashore against the wainscot or the
closet door, in a very distressed condition.
It was not until the twilight that Captain Cuttle, fairly dropping
anchor, at last, by the side of Florence, began to talk at all
connectedly. But when the light of the fire was shining on the walls
and ceiling of the little room, and on the tea-board and the cups and
saucers that were ranged upon the table, and on her calm face turned
towards the flame, and reflecting it in the tears that filled her
eyes, the Captain broke a long silence thus:
'You never was at sea, my own?'
'No,' replied Florence.
'Ay,' said the Captain, reverentially; 'it's a almighty element.
There's wonders in the deep, my pretty. Think on it when the winds is
roaring and the waves is rowling. Think on it when the stormy nights
is so pitch dark,' said the Captain, solemnly holding up his hook, 'as
you can't see your hand afore you, excepting when the wiwid lightning
reweals the same; and when you drive, drive, drive through the storm
and dark, as if you was a driving, head on, to the world without end,
evermore, amen, and when found making a note of. Them's the times, my
beauty, when a man may say to his messmate (previously a overhauling
of the wollume), "A stiff nor'wester's blowing, Bill; hark, don't you
hear it roar now! Lord help 'em, how I pitys all unhappy folks ashore
now!"' Which quotation, as particularly applicable to the terrors of
the ocean, the Captain delivered in a most impressive manner,
concluding with a sonorous 'Stand by!'
'Were you ever in a dreadful storm?' asked Florence.
'Why ay, my lady lass, I've seen my share of bad weather,' said the
Captain, tremulously wiping his head, 'and I've had my share of
knocking about; but - but it ain't of myself as I was a meaning to
speak. Our dear boy,' drawing closer to her, 'Wal'r, darling, as was
drownded.'
The Captain spoke in such a trembling voice, and looked at Florence
with a face so pale and agitated, that she clung to his hand in
affright.
'Your face is changed,' cried Florence. 'You are altered in a
moment. What is it? Dear Captain Cuttle, it turns me cold to see you!'
'What! Lady lass,' returned the Captain, supporting her with his
hand, 'don't be took aback. No, no! All's well, all's well, my dear.
As I was a saying - Wal'r - he's - he's drownded. Ain't he?'
Florence looked at him intently; her colour came and went; and she
laid her hand upon her breast.
'There's perils and dangers on the deep, my beauty,' said the
Captain; 'and over many a brave ship, and many and many a bould heart,
the secret waters has closed up, and never told no tales. But there's
escapes upon the deep, too, and sometimes one man out of a score, -
ah! maybe out of a hundred, pretty, - has been saved by the mercy of
God, and come home after being given over for dead, and told of all
hands lost. I - I know a story, Heart's Delight,' stammered the
Captain, 'o' this natur, as was told to me once; and being on this
here tack, and you and me sitting alone by the fire, maybe you'd like
to hear me tell it. Would you, deary?'
Florence, trembling with an agitation which she could not control
or understand, involuntarily followed his glance, which went behind
her into the shop, where a lamp was burning. The instant that she
turned her head, the Captain sprung out of his chair, and interposed
his hand.
'There's nothing there, my beauty,' said the Captain. 'Don't look
there.'
'Why not?' asked Florence.
The Captain murmured something about its being dull that way, and
about the fire being cheerful. He drew the door ajar, which had been
standing open until now, and resumed his seat. Florence followed him
with her eyes, and looked intently in his face.
'The story was about a ship, my lady lass,' began the Captain, 'as
sailed out of the Port of London, with a fair wind and in fair
weather, bound for - don't be took aback, my lady lass, she was only
out'ard bound, pretty, only out'ard bound!'
The expression on Florence's face alarmed the Captain, who was
himself very hot and flurried, and showed scarcely less agitation than
she did.
'Shall I go on, Beauty?' said the Captain.
'Yes, yes, pray!' cried Florence.
The Captain made a gulp as if to get down something that was
sticking in his throat, and nervously proceeded:
'That there unfort'nate ship met with such foul weather, out at
sea, as don't blow once in twenty year, my darling. There was
hurricanes ashore as tore up forests and blowed down towns, and there
was gales at sea in them latitudes, as not the stoutest wessel ever
launched could live in. Day arter day that there unfort'nate ship
behaved noble, I'm told, and did her duty brave, my pretty, but at one
blow a'most her bulwarks was stove in, her masts and rudder carved
away, her best man swept overboard, and she left to the mercy of the
storm as had no mercy but blowed harder and harder yet, while the
waves dashed over her, and beat her in, and every time they come a
thundering at her, broke her like a shell. Every black spot in every
mountain of water that rolled away was a bit o' the ship's life or a
living man, and so she went to pieces, Beauty, and no grass will never
grow upon the graves of them as manned that ship.'
'They were not all lost!' cried Florence. 'Some were saved! - Was
one?'
'Aboard o' that there unfort'nate wessel,' said the Captain, rising
from his chair, and clenching his hand with prodigious energy and
exultation, 'was a lad, a gallant lad - as I've heerd tell - that had
loved, when he was a boy, to read and talk about brave actions in
shipwrecks - I've heerd him! I've heerd him! - and he remembered of
'em in his hour of need; for when the stoutest and oldest hands was
hove down, he was firm and cheery. It warn't the want of objects to
like and love ashore that gave him courage, it was his nat'ral mind.
I've seen it in his face, when he was no more than a child - ay, many
a time! - and when I thought it nothing but his good looks, bless
him!'
'And was he saved!' cried Florence. 'Was he saved!'
'That brave lad,' said the Captain, - 'look at me, pretty! Don't
look round - '
Florence had hardly power to repeat, 'Why not?'
'Because there's nothing there, my deary,' said the Captain. 'Don't
be took aback, pretty creetur! Don't, for the sake of Wal'r, as was
dear to all on us! That there lad,' said the Captain, 'arter working
with the best, and standing by the faint-hearted, and never making no
complaint nor sign of fear, and keeping up a spirit in all hands that
made 'em honour him as if he'd been a admiral - that lad, along with
the second-mate and one seaman, was left, of all the beatin' hearts
that went aboard that ship, the only living creeturs - lashed to a
fragment of the wreck, and driftin' on the stormy sea.
Were they saved?' cried Florence.
'Days and nights they drifted on them endless waters,' said the
Captain, 'until at last - No! Don't look that way, pretty! - a sail
bore down upon 'em, and they was, by the Lord's mercy, took aboard:
two living and one dead.'
'Which of them was dead?' cried Florence.
'Not the lad I speak on,' said the Captain.
'Thank God! oh thank God!'
'Amen!' returned the Captain hurriedly. 'Don't be took aback! A
minute more, my lady lass! with a good heart! - aboard that ship, they
went a long voyage, right away across the chart (for there warn't no
touching nowhere), and on that voyage the seaman as was picked up with
him died. But he was spared, and - '
The Captain, without knowing what he did, had cut a slice of bread
from the loaf, and put it on his hook (which was his usual
toasting-fork), on which he now held it to the fire; looking behind
Florence with great emotion in his face, and suffering the bread to
blaze and burn like fuel.
'Was spared,' repeated Florence, 'and-?'
'And come home in that ship,' said the Captain, still looking in
the same direction, 'and - don't be frightened, pretty - and landed;
and one morning come cautiously to his own door to take a obserwation,
knowing that his friends would think him drownded, when he sheered off
at the unexpected - '
'At the unexpected barking of a dog?' cried Florence, quickly.
'Yes,' roared the Captain. 'Steady, darling! courage! Don't look
round yet. See there! upon the wall!'
There was the shadow of a man upon the wall close to her. She
started up, looked round, and with a piercing cry, saw Walter Gay
behind her!
She had no thought of him but as a brother, a brother rescued from
the grave; a shipwrecked brother saved and at her side; and rushed
into his arms. In all the world, he seemed to be her hope, her
comfort, refuge, natural protector. 'Take care of Walter, I was fond
of Walter!' The dear remembrance of the plaintive voice that said so,
rushed upon her soul, like music in the night. 'Oh welcome home, dear
Walter! Welcome to this stricken breast!' She felt the words, although
she could not utter them, and held him in her pure embrace.
Captain Cuttle, in a fit of delirium, attempted to wipe his head
with the blackened toast upon his hook: and finding it an uncongenial
substance for the purpose, put it into the crown of his glazed hat,
put the glazed hat on with some difficulty, essayed to sing a verse of
Lovely Peg, broke down at the first word, and retired into the shop,
whence he presently came back express, with a face all flushed and
besmeared, and the starch completely taken out of his shirt-collar, to
say these words:
'Wal'r, my lad, here is a little bit of property as I should wish
to make over, jintly!'
The Captain hastily produced the big watch, the teaspoons, the
sugar-tongs, and the canister, and laying them on the table, swept
them with his great hand into Walter's hat; but in handing that
singular strong box to Walter, he was so overcome again, that he was
fain to make another retreat into the shop, and absent himself for a
longer space of time than on his first retirement.
But Walter sought him out, and brought him back; and then the
Captain's great apprehension was, that Florence would suffer from this
new shock. He felt it so earnestly, that he turned quite rational, and
positively interdicted any further allusion to Walter's adventures for
some days to come. Captain Cuttle then became sufficiently composed to
relieve himself of the toast in his hat, and to take his place at the
tea-board; but finding Walter's grasp upon his shoulder, on one side,
and Florence whispering her tearful congratulations on the other, the
Captain suddenly bolted again, and was missing for a good ten minutes.
But never in all his life had the Captain's face so shone and
glistened, as when, at last, he sat stationary at the tea-board,
looking from Florence to Walter, and from Walter to Florence. Nor was
this effect produced or at all heightened by the immense quantity of
polishing he had administered to his face with his coat-sleeve during
the last half-hour. It was solely the effect of his internal emotions.
There was a glory and delight within the Captain that spread itself
over his whole visage, and made a perfect illumination there.
The pride with which the Captain looked upon the bronzed cheek and
the courageous eyes of his recovered boy; with which he saw the
generous fervour of his youth, and all its frank and hopeful
qualities, shining once more, in the fresh, wholesome manner, and the
ardent face, would have kindled something of this light in his
countenance. The admiration and sympathy with which he turned his eyes
on Florence, whose beauty, grace, and innocence could have won no
truer or more zealous champion than himself, would have had an equal
influence upon him. But the fulness of the glow he shed around him
could only have been engendered in his contemplation of the two
together, and in all the fancies springing out of that association,
that came sparkling and beaming into his head, and danced about it.
How they talked of poor old Uncle Sol, and dwelt on every little
circumstance relating to his disappearance; how their joy was
moderated by the old man's absence and by the misfortunes of Florence;
how they released Diogenes, whom the Captain had decoyed upstairs some
time before, lest he should bark again; the Captain, though he was in
one continual flutter, and made many more short plunges into the shop,
fully comprehended. But he no more dreamed that Walter looked on
Florence, as it were, from a new and far-off place; that while his
eyes often sought the lovely face, they seldom met its open glance of
sisterly affection, but withdrew themselves when hers were raised
towards him; than he believed that it was Walter's ghost who sat
beside him. He saw them together in their youth and beauty, and he
knew the story of their younger days, and he had no inch of room
beneath his great blue waistcoat for anything save admiration of such
a pair, and gratitude for their being reunited.
They sat thus, until it grew late. The Captain would have been
content to sit so for a week. But Walter rose, to take leave for the
night.
'Going, Walter!' said Florence. 'Where?'
'He slings his hammock for the present, lady lass,' said Captain
Cuttle, 'round at Brogley's. Within hail, Heart's Delight.'
'I am the cause of your going away, Walter,' said Florence. 'There
is a houseless sister in your place.'
'Dear Miss Dombey,' replied Walter, hesitating - 'if it is not too
bold to call you so!
Walter!' she exclaimed, surprised.
'If anything could make me happier in being allowed to see and
speak to you, would it not be the discovery that I had any means on
earth of doing you a moment's service! Where would I not go, what
would I not do, for your sake?'
She smiled, and called him brother.
'You are so changed,' said Walter -
'I changed!' she interrupted.
'To me,' said Walter, softly, as if he were thinking aloud,
'changed to me. I left you such a child, and find you - oh! something
so different - '
'But your sister, Walter. You have not forgotten what we promised
to each other, when we parted?'
'Forgotten!' But he said no more.
'And if you had - if suffering and danger had driven it from your
thoughts - which it has not - you would remember it now, Walter, when
you find me poor and abandoned, with no home but this, and no friends
but the two who hear me speak!'
'I would! Heaven knows I would!' said Walter.
'Oh, Walter,' exclaimed Florence, through her sobs and tears. 'Dear
brother! Show me some way through the world - some humble path that I
may take alone, and labour in, and sometimes think of you as one who
will protect and care for me as for a sister! Oh, help me, Walter, for
I need help so much!'
'Miss Dombey! Florence! I would die to help you. But your friends
are proud and rich. Your father - '
'No, no! Walter!' She shrieked, and put her hands up to her head,
in an attitude of terror that transfixed him where he stood. 'Don't
say that word!'
He never, from that hour, forgot the voice and look with which she
stopped him at the name. He felt that if he were to live a hundred
years, he never could forget it.
Somewhere - anywhere - but never home! All past, all gone, all
lost, and broken up! The whole history of her untold slight and
suffering was in the cry and look; and he felt he never could forget
it, and he never did.
She laid her gentle face upon the Captain's shoulder, and related
how and why she had fled. If every sorrowing tear she shed in doing
so, had been a curse upon the head of him she never named or blamed,
it would have been better for him, Walter thought, with awe, than to
be renounced out of such a strength and might of love.
'There, precious!' said the Captain, when she ceased; and deep
attention the Captain had paid to her while she spoke; listening, with
his glazed hat all awry and his mouth wide open. 'Awast, awast, my
eyes! Wal'r, dear lad, sheer off for to-night, and leave the pretty
one to me!'
Walter took her hand in both of his, and put it to his lips, and
kissed it. He knew now that she was, indeed, a homeless wandering
fugitive; but, richer to him so, than in all the wealth and pride of
her right station, she seemed farther off than even on the height that
had made him giddy in his boyish dreams.
Captain Cuttle, perplexed by no such meditations, guarded Florence
to her room, and watched at intervals upon the charmed ground outside
her door - for such it truly was to him - until he felt sufficiently
easy in his mind about her, to turn in under the counter. On
abandoning his watch for that purpose, he could not help calling once,
rapturously, through the keyhole, 'Drownded. Ain't he, pretty?' - or,
when he got downstairs, making another trial at that verse of Lovely
Peg. But it stuck in his throat somehow, and he could make nothing of
it; so he went to bed, and dreamed that old Sol Gills was married to
Mrs MacStinger, and kept prisoner by that lady in a secret chamber on
a short allowance of victuals.
CHAPTER 50.
Mr Toots's Complaint
There was an empty room above-stairs at the wooden Midshipman's,
which, in days of yore, had been Walter's bedroom. Walter, rousing up
the Captain betimes in the morning, proposed that they should carry
thither such furniture out of the little parlour as would grace it
best, so that Florence might take possession of it when she rose. As
nothing could be more agreeable to Captain Cuttle than making himself
very red and short of breath in such a cause, he turned to (as he
himself said) with a will; and, in a couple of hours, this garret was
transformed into a species of land-cabin, adorned with all the
choicest moveables out of the parlour, inclusive even of the Tartar
frigate, which the Captain hung up over the chimney-piece with such
extreme delight, that he could do nothing for half-an-hour afterwards
but walk backward from it, lost in admiration.
The Captain could be indueed by no persuasion of Walter's to wind
up the big watch, or to take back the canister, or to touch the
sugar-tongs and teaspoons. 'No, no, my lad;' was the Captain's
invariable reply to any solicitation of the kind, 'I've made that
there little property over, jintly.' These words he repeated with
great unction and gravity, evidently believing that they had the
virtue of an Act of Parliament, and that unless he committed himself
by some new admission of ownership, no flaw could be found in such a
form of conveyance.
It was an advantage of the new arrangement, that besides the
greater seclusion it afforded Florence, it admitted of the Midshipman
being restored to his usual post of observation, and also of the shop
shutters being taken down. The latter ceremony, however little
importance the unconscious Captain attached to it, was not wholly
superfluous; for, on the previous day, so much excitement had been
occasioned in the neighbourhood, by the shutters remaining unopened,
that the Instrument-maker's house had been honoured with an unusual
share of public observation, and had been intently stared at from the
opposite side of the way, by groups of hungry gazers, at any time
between sunrise and sunset. The idlers and vagabonds had been
particularly interested in the Captain's fate; constantly grovelling
in the mud to apply their eyes to the cellar-grating, under the
shop-window, and delighting their imaginations with the fancy that
they could see a piece of his coat as he hung in a corner; though this
settlement of him was stoutly disputed by an opposite faction, who
were of opinion that he lay murdered with a hammer, on the stairs. It
was not without exciting some discontent, therefore, that the subject
of these rumours was seen early in the morning standing at his
shop-door as hale and hearty as if nothing had happened; and the
beadle of that quarter, a man of an ambitious character, who had
expected to have the distinction of being present at the breaking open
of the door, and of giving evidence in full uniform before the
coroner, went so far as to say to an opposite neighbour, that the chap
in the glazed hat had better not try it on there - without more
particularly mentioning what - and further, that he, the beadle, would
keep his eye upon him.
'Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, musing, when they stood resting from
their labours at the shop-door, looking down the old familiar street;
it being still early in the morning; 'nothing at all of Uncle Sol, in
all that time!'
'Nothing at all, my lad,' replied the Captain, shaking his head.
'Gone in search of me, dear, kind old man,' said Walter: 'yet never
write to you! But why not? He says, in effect, in this packet that you
gave me,' taking the paper from his pocket, which had been opened in
the presence of the enlightened Bunsby, 'that if you never hear from
him before opening it, you may believe him dead. Heaven forbid! But
you would have heard of him, even if he were dead! Someone would have
written, surely, by his desire, if he could not; and have said, "on
such a day, there died in my house," or "under my care," or so forth,
"Mr Solomon Gills of London, who left this last remembrance and this
last request to you".'
The Captain, who had never climbed to such a clear height of
probability before, was greatly impressed by the wide prospect it
opened, and answered, with a thoughtful shake of his head, 'Well said,
my lad; wery well said.'
'I have been thinking of this, or, at least,' said Walter,
colouring, 'I have been thinking of one thing and another, all through
a sleepless night, and I cannot believe, Captain Cuttle, but that my
Uncle Sol (Lord bless him!) is alive, and will return. I don't so much
wonder at his going away, because, leaving out of consideration that
spice of the marvellous which was always in his character, and his
great affection for me, before which every other consideration of his
life became nothing, as no one ought to know so well as I who had the
best of fathers in him,' - Walter's voice was indistinct and husky
here, and he looked away, along the street, - 'leaving that out of
consideration, I say, I have often read and heard of people who,
having some near and dear relative, who was supposed to be shipwrecked
at sea, have gone down to live on that part of the sea-shore where any
tidings of the missing ship might be expected to arrive, though only
an hour or two sooner than elsewhere, or have even gone upon her track
to the place whither she was bound, as if their going would create
intelligence. I think I should do such a thing myself, as soon as
another, or sooner than many, perhaps. But why my Uncle shouldn't
write to you, when he so clearly intended to do so, or how he should
die abroad, and you not know it through some other hand, I cannot make
out.'
Captain Cuttle observed, with a shake of his head, that Jack Bunsby
himself hadn't made it out, and that he was a man as could give a
pretty taut opinion too.
'If my Uncle had been a heedless young man, likely to be entrapped
by jovial company to some drinking-place, where he was to be got rid
of for the sake of what money he might have about him,' said Walter;
'or if he had been a reckless sailor, going ashore with two or three
months' pay in his pocket, I could understand his disappearing, and
leaving no trace behind. But, being what he was - and is, I hope - I
can't believe it.'
'Wal'r, my lad,' inquired the Captain, wistfully eyeing him as he
pondered and pondered, 'what do you make of it, then?'
'Captain Cuttle,' returned Walter, 'I don't know what to make of
it. I suppose he never has written! There is no doubt about that?'
'If so be as Sol Gills wrote, my lad,' replied the Captain,
argumentatively, 'where's his dispatch?'
'Say that he entrusted it to some private hand,' suggested Walter,
'and that it has been forgotten, or carelessly thrown aside, or lost.
Even that is more probable to me, than the other event. In short, I
not only cannot bear to contemplate that other event, Captain Cuttle,
but I can't, and won't.'
'Hope, you see, Wal'r,' said the Captain, sagely, 'Hope. It's that
as animates you. Hope is a buoy, for which you overhaul your Little
Warbler, sentimental diwision, but Lord, my lad, like any other buoy,
it only floats; it can't be steered nowhere. Along with the
figure-head of Hope,' said the Captain, 'there's a anchor; but what's
the good of my having a anchor, if I can't find no bottom to let it go
in?'
Captain Cuttle said this rather in his character of a sagacious
citizen and householder, bound to impart a morsel from his stores of
wisdom to an inexperienced youth, than in his own proper person.
Indeed, his face was quite luminous as he spoke, with new hope, caught
from Walter; and he appropriately concluded by slapping him on the
back; and saying, with enthusiasm, 'Hooroar, my lad! Indiwidually, I'm
o' your opinion.' Walter, with his cheerful laugh, returned the
salutation, and said:
'Only one word more about my Uncle at present' Captain Cuttle. I
suppose it is impossible that he can have written in the ordinary
course - by mail packet, or ship letter, you understand - '
'Ay, ay, my lad,' said the Captain approvingly.
And that you have missed the letter, anyhow?'
'Why, Wal'r,' said the Captain, turning his eyes upon him with a
faint approach to a severe expression, 'ain't I been on the look-out
for any tidings of that man o' science, old Sol Gills, your Uncle, day
and night, ever since I lost him? Ain't my heart been heavy and
watchful always, along of him and you? Sleeping and waking, ain't I
been upon my post, and wouldn't I scorn to quit it while this here
Midshipman held together!'
'Yes, Captain Cuttle,' replied Walter, grasping his hand, 'I know
you would, and I know how faithful and earnest all you say and feel
is. I am sure of it. You don't doubt that I am as sure of it as I am
that my foot is again upon this door-step, or that I again have hold
of this true hand. Do you?'
'No, no, Wal'r,' returned the Captain, with his beaming
'I'll hazard no more conjectures,' said Walter, fervently shaking
the hard hand of the Captain, who shook his with no less goodwill.
'All I will add is, Heaven forbid that I should touch my Uncle's
possessions, Captain Cuttle! Everything that he left here, shall
remain in the care of the truest of stewards and kindest of men - and
if his name is not Cuttle, he has no name! Now, best of friends, about
- Miss Dombey.'
There was a change in Walter's manner, as he came to these two
words; and when he uttered them, all his confidence and cheerfulness
appeared to have deserted him.
'I thought, before Miss Dombey stopped me when I spoke of her
father last night,' said Walter, ' - you remember how?'
The Captain well remembered, and shook his head.
'I thought,' said Walter, 'before that, that we had but one hard
duty to perform, and that it was, to prevail upon her to communicate
with her friends, and to return home.'
The Captain muttered a feeble 'Awast!' or a 'Stand by!' or
something or other, equally pertinent to the occasion; but it was
rendered so extremely feeble by the total discomfiture with which he
received this announcement, that what it was, is mere matter of
conjecture.
'But,' said Walter, 'that is over. I think so, no longer. I would
sooner be put back again upon that piece of wreck, on which I have so
often floated, since my preservation, in my dreams, and there left to
drift, and drive, and die!'
'Hooroar, my lad!' exclaimed the Captain, in a burst of
uncontrollable satisfaction. 'Hooroar! hooroar! hooroar!'
'To think that she, so young, so good, and beautiful,' said Walter,
'so delicately brought up, and born to such a different fortune,
should strive with the rough world! But we have seen the gulf that
cuts off all behind her, though no one but herself can know how deep
it is; and there is no return.
Captain Cuttle, without quite understanding this, greatly approved
of it, and observed in a tone of strong corroboration, that the wind
was quite abaft.
'She ought not to be alone here; ought she, Captain Cuttle?' said
Walter, anxiously.
'Well, my lad,' replied the Captain, after a little sagacious
consideration. 'I don't know. You being here to keep her company, you
see, and you two being jintly - '
'Dear Captain Cuttle!' remonstrated Walter. 'I being here! Miss
Dombey, in her guileless innocent heart, regards me as her adopted
brother; but what would the guile and guilt of my heart be, if I
pretended to believe that I had any right to approach her, familiarly,
in that character - if I pretended to forget that I am bound, in
honour, not to do it?'
'Wal'r, my lad,' hinted the Captain, with some revival of his
discomfiture, 'ain't there no other character as - '
'Oh!' returned Walter, 'would you have me die in her esteem - in
such esteem as hers - and put a veil between myself and her angel's
face for ever, by taking advantage of her being here for refuge, so
trusting and so unprotected, to endeavour to exalt myself into her
lover? What do I say? There is no one in the world who would be more
opposed to me if I could do so, than you.'
'Wal'r, my lad,' said the Captain, drooping more and more,
'prowiding as there is any just cause or impediment why two persons
should not be jined together in the house of bondage, for which you'll
overhaul the place and make a note, I hope I should declare it as
promised and wowed in the banns. So there ain't no other character;
ain't there, my lad?'
Walter briskly waved his hand in the negative.
'Well, my lad,' growled the Captain slowly, 'I won't deny but what
I find myself wery much down by the head, along o' this here, or but
what I've gone clean about. But as to Lady lass, Wal'r, mind you,
wot's respect and duty to her, is respect and duty in my articles,
howsumever disapinting; and therefore I follows in your wake, my lad,
and feel as you are, no doubt, acting up to yourself. And there ain't
no other character, ain't there?' said the Captain, musing over the
ruins of his fallen castle, with a very despondent face.
'Now, Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, starting a fresh point with a
gayer air, to cheer the Captain up - but nothing could do that; he was
too much concerned - 'I think we should exert ourselves to find
someone who would be a proper attendant for Miss Dombey while she
remains here, and who may be trusted. None of her relations may. It's
clear Miss Dombey feels that they are all subservient to her father.
What has become of Susan?'
'The young woman?' returned the Captain. 'It's my belief as she was
sent away again the will of Heart's Delight. I made a signal for her
when Lady lass first come, and she rated of her wery high, and said
she had been gone a long time.'
'Then,' said Walter, 'do you ask Miss Dombey where she's gone, and
we'll try to find her. The morning's getting on, and Miss Dombey will
soon be rising. You are her best friend. Wait for her upstairs, and
leave me to take care of all down here.'
The Captain, very crest-fallen indeed, echoed the sigh with which
Walter said this, and complied. Florence was delighted with her new
room, anxious to see Walter, and overjoyed at the prospect of greeting
her old friend Susan. But Florence could not say where Susan was gone,
except that it was in Essex, and no one could say, she remembered,
unless it were Mr Toots.
With this information the melancholy Captain returned to Walter,
and gave him to understand that Mr Toots was the young gentleman whom
he had encountered on the door-step, and that he was a friend of his,
and that he was a young gentleman of property, and that he hopelessly
adored Miss Dombey. The Captain also related how the intelligence of
Walter's supposed fate had first made him acquainted with Mr Toots,
and how there was solemn treaty and compact between them, that Mr
Toots should be mute upon the subject of his love.
The question then was, whether Florence could trust Mr Toots; and
Florence saying, with a smile, 'Oh, yes, with her whole heart!' it
became important to find out where Mr Toots lived. This, Florence
didn't know, and the Captain had forgotten; and the Captain was
telling Walter, in the little parlour, that Mr Toots was sure to be
there soon, when in came Mr Toots himself.
'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, rushing into the parlour without
any ceremony, 'I'm in a state of mind bordering on distraction!'
Mr Toots had discharged those words, as from a mortar, before he
observed Walter, whom he recognised with what may be described as a
chuckle of misery.
'You'll excuse me, Sir,' said Mr Toots, holding his forehead, 'but
I'm at present in that state that my brain is going, if not gone, and
anything approaching to politeness in an individual so situated would
be a hollow mockery. Captain Gills, I beg to request the favour of a
private interview.'
'Why, Brother,' returned the Captain, taking him by the hand, 'you
are the man as we was on the look-out for.'
'Oh, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'what a look-out that must be,
of which I am the object! I haven't dared to shave, I'm in that rash
state. I haven't had my clothes brushed. My hair is matted together. I
told the Chicken that if he offered to clean my boots, I'd stretch him
a Corpse before me!'
All these indications of a disordered mind were verified in Mr
Toots's appearance, which was wild and savage.
'See here, Brother,' said the Captain. 'This here's old Sol Gills's
nevy Wal'r. Him as was supposed to have perished at sea'
Mr Toots took his hand from his forehead, and stared at Walter.
'Good gracious me!' stammered Mr Toots. 'What a complication of
misery! How-de-do? I - I - I'm afraid you must have got very wet.
Captain Gills, will you allow me a word in the shop?'
He took the Captain by the coat, and going out with him whispered:
'That then, Captain Gills, is the party you spoke of, when you said
that he and Miss Dombey were made for one another?'
'Why, ay, my lad,' replied the disconsolate Captain; 'I was of that
mind once.'
'And at this time!' exclaimed Mr Toots, with his hand to his
forehead again. 'Of all others! - a hated rival! At least, he ain't a
hated rival,' said Mr Toots, stopping short, on second thoughts, and
taking away his hand; 'what should I hate him for? No. If my affection
has been truly disinterested, Captain Gills, let me prove it now!'
Mr Toots shot back abruptly into the parlour, and said, wringing
Walter by the hand:
'How-de-do? I hope you didn't take any cold. I - I shall be very
glad if you'll give me the pleasure of your acquaintance. I wish you
many happy returns of the day. Upon my word and honour,' said Mr
Toots, warming as he became better acquainted with Walter's face and
figure, 'I'm very glad to see you!'
'Thank you, heartily,' said Walter. 'I couldn't desire a more
genuine and genial welcome.'
'Couldn't you, though?' said Mr Toots, still shaking his hand.
'It's very kind of you. I'm much obliged to you. How-de-do? I hope you
left everybody quite well over the - that is, upon the - I mean
wherever you came from last, you know.'
All these good wishes, and better intentions, Walter responded to
manfully.
'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'I should wish to be strictly
honourable; but I trust I may be allowed now, to allude to a certain
subject that - '
'Ay, ay, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'Freely, freely.'
'Then, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'and Lieutenant Walters - are
you aware that the most dreadful circumstances have been happening at
Mr Dombey's house, and that Miss Dombey herself has left her father,
who, in my opinion,' said Mr Toots, with great excitement, 'is a
Brute, that it would be a flattery to call a - a marble monument, or a
bird of prey, - and that she is not to be found, and has gone no one
knows where?'
'May I ask how you heard this?' inquired Walter.
'Lieutenant Walters,' said Mr Toots, who had arrived at that
appellation by a process peculiar to himself; probably by jumbling up
his Christian name with the seafaring profession, and supposing some
relationship between him and the Captain, which would extend, as a
matter of course, to their titles; 'Lieutenant Walters, I can have no
objection to make a straightforward reply. The fact is, that feeling
extremely interested in everything that relates to Miss Dombey - not
for any selfish reason, Lieutenant Walters, for I am well aware that
the most able thing I could do for all parties would be to put an end
to my existence, which can only be regarded as an inconvenience - I
have been in the habit of bestowing a trifle now and then upon a
footman; a most respectable young man, of the name of Towlinson, who
has lived in the family some time; and Towlinson informed me,
yesterday evening, that this was the state of things. Since which,
Captain Gills - and Lieutenant Walters - I have been perfectly
frantic, and have been lying down on the sofa all night, the Ruin you
behold.'
'Mr Toots,' said Walter, 'I am happy to be able to relieve your
mind. Pray calm yourself. Miss Dombey is safe and well.'
'Sir!' cried Mr Toots, starting from his chair and shaking hands
with him anew, 'the relief is so excessive, and unspeakable, that if
you were to tell me now that Miss Dombey was married even, I could
smile. Yes, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, appealing to him, 'upon my
soul and body, I really think, whatever I might do to myself
immediately afterwards, that I could smile, I am so relieved.'
'It will be a greater relief and delight still, to such a generous
mind as yours,' said Walter, not at all slow in returning his
greeting, 'to find that you can render service to Miss Dombey. Captain
Cuttle, will you have the kindness to take Mr Toots upstairs?'
The Captain beckoned to Mr Toots, who followed him with a
bewildered countenance, and, ascending to the top of the house, was
introduced, without a word of preparation from his conductor, into
Florence's new retreat.
Poor Mr Toots's amazement and pleasure at sight of her were such,
that they could find a vent in nothing but extravagance. He ran up to
her, seized her hand, kissed it, dropped it, seized it again, fell
upon one knee, shed tears, chuckled, and was quite regardless of his
danger of being pinned by Diogenes, who, inspired by the belief that
there was something hostile to his mistress in these demonstrations,
worked round and round him, as if only undecided at what particular
point to go in for the assault, but quite resolved to do him a fearful
mischief.
'Oh Di, you bad, forgetful dog! Dear Mr Toots, I am so rejoiced to
see you!'
'Thankee,' said Mr Toots, 'I am pretty well, I'm much obliged to
you, Miss Dombey. I hope all the family are the same.'
Mr Toots said this without the least notion of what he was talking
about, and sat down on a chair, staring at Florence with the liveliest
contention of delight and despair going on in his face that any face
could exhibit.
'Captain Gills and Lieutenant Walters have mentioned, Miss Dombey,'
gasped Mr Toots, 'that I can do you some service. If I could by any
means wash out the remembrance of that day at Brighton, when I
conducted myself - much more like a Parricide than a person of
independent property,' said Mr Toots, with severe self-accusation, 'I
should sink into the silent tomb with a gleam of joy.'
'Pray, Mr Toots,' said Florence, 'do not wish me to forget anything
in our acquaintance. I never can, believe me. You have been far too
kind and good to me always.'
'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'your consideration for my
feelings is a part of your angelic character. Thank you a thousand
times. It's of no consequence at all.'
'What we thought of asking you,' said Florence, 'is, whether you
remember where Susan, whom you were so kind as to accompany to the
coach-office when she left me, is to be found.'
'Why I do not certainly, Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, after a
little consideration, 'remember the exact name of the place that was
on the coach; and I do recollect that she said she was not going to
stop there, but was going farther on. But, Miss Dombey, if your object
is to find her, and to have her here, myself and the Chicken will
produce her with every dispatch that devotion on my part, and great
intelligence on the Chicken's, can ensure.
Mr Toots was so manifestly delighted and revived by the prospect of
being useful, and the disinterested sincerity of his devotion was so
unquestionable, that it would have been cruel to refuse him. Florence,
with an instinctive delicacy, forbore to urge the least obstacle,
though she did not forbear to overpower him with thanks; and Mr Toots
proudly took the commission upon himself for immediate execution.
'Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, touching her proffered hand, with a
pang of hopeless love visibly shooting through him, and flashing out
in his face, 'Good-bye! Allow me to take the liberty of saying, that
your misfortunes make me perfectly wretched, and that you may trust
me, next to Captain Gills himself. I am quite aware, Miss Dombey, of
my own deficiencies - they're not of the least consequence, thank you
- but I am entirely to be relied upon, I do assure you, Miss Dombey.'
With that Mr Toots came out of the room, again accompanied by the
Captain, who, standing at a little distance, holding his hat under his
arm and arranging his scattered locks with his hook, had been a not
uninterested witness of what passed. And when the door closed behind
them, the light of Mr Toots's life was darkly clouded again.
'Captain Gills,' said that gentleman, stopping near the bottom of
the stairs, and turning round, 'to tell you the truth, I am not in a
frame of mind at the present moment, in which I could see Lieutenant
Walters with that entirely friendly feeling towards him that I should
wish to harbour in my breast. We cannot always command our feelings,
Captain Gills, and I should take it as a particular favour if you'd
let me out at the private door.'
'Brother,' returned the Captain, 'you shall shape your own course.
Wotever course you take, is plain and seamanlike, I'm wery sure.
'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'you're extremely kind. Your good
opinion is a consolation to me. There is one thing,' said Mr Toots,
standing in the passage, behind the half-opened door, 'that I hope
you'll bear in mind, Captain Gills, and that I should wish Lieutenant
Walters to be made acquainted with. I have quite come into my property
now, you know, and - and I don't know what to do with it. If I could
be at all useful in a pecuniary point of view, I should glide into the
silent tomb with ease and smoothness.'
Mr Toots said no more, but slipped out quietly and shut the door
upon himself, to cut the Captain off from any reply.
Florence thought of this good creature, long after he had left her,
with mingled emotions of pain and pleasure. He was so honest and
warm-hearted, that to see him again and be assured of his truth to her
in her distress, was a joy and comfort beyond all price; but for that
very reason, it was so affecting to think that she caused him a
moment's unhappiness, or ruffled, by a breath, the harmless current of
his life, that her eyes filled with tears, and her bosom overflowed
with pity. Captain Cuttle, in his different way, thought much of Mr
Toots too; and so did Walter; and when the evening came, and they were
all sitting together in Florence's new room, Walter praised him in a
most impassioned manner, and told Florence what he had said on leaving
the house, with every graceful setting-off in the way of comment and
appreciation that his own honesty and sympathy could surround it with.
Mr Toots did not return upon the next day, or the next, or for
several days; and in the meanwhile Florence, without any new alarm,
lived like a quiet bird in a cage, at the top of the old
Instrument-maker's house. But Florence drooped and hung her head more
and more plainly, as the days went on; and the expression that had
been seen in the face of the dead child, was often turned to the sky
from her high window, as if it sought his angel out, on the bright
shore of which he had spoken: lying on his little bed.
Florence had been weak and delicate of late, and the agitation she
had undergone was not without its influences on her health. But it was
no bodily illness that affected her now. She was distressed in mind;
and the cause of her distress was Walter.
Interested in her, anxious for her, proud and glad to serve her,
and showing all this with the enthusiasm and ardour of his character,
Florence saw that he avoided her. All the long day through, he seldom
approached her room. If she asked for him, he came, again for the
moment as earnest and as bright as she remembered him when she was a
lost child in the staring streets; but he soon became constrained -
her quick affection was too watchful not to know it - and uneasy, and
soon left her. Unsought, he never came, all day, between the morning
and the night. When the evening closed in, he was always there, and
that was her happiest time, for then she half believed that the old
Walter of her childhood was not changed. But, even then, some trivial
word, look, or circumstance would show her that there was an
indefinable division between them which could not be passed.
And she could not but see that these revealings of a great
alteration in Walter manifested themselves in despite of his utmost
efforts to hide them. In his consideration for her, she thought, and
in the earnestness of his desire to spare her any wound from his kind
hand, he resorted to innumerable little artifices and disguises. So
much the more did Florence feel the greatness of the alteration in
him; so much the oftener did she weep at this estrangement of her
brother.
The good Captain - her untiring, tender, ever zealous friend - saw
it, too, Florence thought, and it pained him. He was less cheerful and
hopeful than he had been at first, and would steal looks at her and
Walter, by turns, when they were all three together of an evening,
with quite a sad face.
Florence resolved, at last, to speak to Walter. She believed she
knew now what the cause of his estrangement was, and she thought it
would be a relief to her full heart, and would set him more at ease,
if she told him she had found it out, and quite submitted to it, and
did not reproach him.
It was on a certain Sunday afternoon, that Florence took this
resolution. The faithful Captain, in an amazing shirt-collar, was
sitting by her, reading with his spectacles on, and she asked him
where Walter was.
'I think he's down below, my lady lass,' returned the Captain.
'I should like to speak to him,' said Florence, rising hurriedly as
if to go downstairs.
'I'll rouse him up here, Beauty,' said the Captain, 'in a trice.'
Thereupon the Captain, with much alacrity, shouldered his book -
for he made it a point of duty to read none but very large books on a
Sunday, as having a more staid appearance: and had bargained, years
ago, for a prodigious volume at a book-stall, five lines of which
utterly confounded him at any time, insomuch that he had not yet
ascertained of what subject it treated - and withdrew. Walter soon
appeared.
'Captain Cuttle tells me, Miss Dombey,' he eagerly began on coming
in - but stopped when he saw her face.
'You are not so well to-day. You look distressed. You have been
weeping.'
He spoke so kindly, and with such a fervent tremor in his voice,
that the tears gushed into her eyes at the sound of his words.
'Walter,' said Florence, gently, 'I am not quite well, and I have
been weeping. I want to speak to you.'
He sat down opposite to her, looking at her beautiful and innocent
face; and his own turned pale, and his lips trembled.
'You said, upon the night when I knew that you were saved - and oh!
dear Walter, what I felt that night, and what I hoped!' - '
He put his trembling hand upon the table between them, and sat
looking at her.
- 'that I was changed. I was surprised to hear you say so, but I
understand, now, that I am. Don't be angry with me, Walter. I was too
much overjoyed to think of it, then.'
She seemed a child to him again. It was the ingenuous, confiding,
loving child he saw and heard. Not the dear woman, at whose feet he
would have laid the riches of the earth.
'You remember the last time I saw you, Walter, before you went
away?'
He put his hand into his breast, and took out a little purse.
'I have always worn it round my neck! If I had gone down in the
deep, it would have been with me at the bottom of the sea.'
'And you will wear it still, Walter, for my old sake?'
'Until I die!'
She laid her hand on his, as fearlessly and simply, as if not a day
had intervened since she gave him the little token of remembrance.
'I am glad of that. I shall be always glad to think so, Walter. Do
you recollect that a thought of this change seemed to come into our
minds at the same time that evening, when we were talking together?'
'No!' he answered, in a wondering tone.
'Yes, Walter. I had been the means of injuring your hopes and
prospects even then. I feared to think so, then, but I know it now. If
you were able, then, in your generosity, to hide from me that you knew
it too, you cannot do so now, although you try as generously as
before. You do. I thank you for it, Walter, deeply, truly; but you
cannot succeed. You have suffered too much in your own hardships, and
in those of your dearest relation, quite to overlook the innocent
cause of all the peril and affliction that has befallen you. You
cannot quite forget me in that character, and we can be brother and
sister no longer. But, dear Walter, do not think that I complain of
you in this. I might have known it - ought to have known it - but
forgot it in my joy. All I hope is that you may think of me less
irksomely when this feeling is no more a secret one; and all I ask is,
Walter, in the name of the poor child who was your sister once, that
you will not struggle with yourself, and pain yourself, for my sake,
now that I know all!'
Walter had looked upon her while she said this, with a face so full
of wonder and amazement, that it had room for nothing else. Now he
caught up the hand that touched his, so entreatingly, and held it
between his own.
'Oh, Miss Dombey,' he said, 'is it possible that while I have been
suffering so much, in striving with my sense of what is due to you,
and must be rendered to you, I have made you suffer what your words
disclose to me? Never, never, before Heaven, have I thought of you but
as the single, bright, pure, blessed recollection of my boyhood and my
youth. Never have I from the first, and never shall I to the last,
regard your part in my life, but as something sacred, never to be
lightly thought of, never to be esteemed enough, never, until death,
to be forgotten. Again to see you look, and hear you speak, as you did
on that night when we parted, is happiness to me that there are no
words to utter; and to be loved and trusted as your brother, is the
next gift I could receive and prize!'
'Walter,' said Florence, looking at him earnestly, but with a
changing face, 'what is that which is due to me, and must be rendered
to me, at the sacrifice of all this?'
'Respect,' said Walter, in a low tone. 'Reverence.
The colour dawned in her face, and she timidly and thoughtfully
withdrew her hand; still looking at him with unabated earnestness.
'I have not a brother's right,' said Walter. 'I have not a
brother's claim. I left a child. I find a woman.'
The colour overspread her face. She made a gesture as if of
entreaty that he would say no more, and her face dropped upon her
hands.
They were both silent for a time; she weeping.
'I owe it to a heart so trusting, pure, and good,' said Walter,
'even to tear myself from it, though I rend my own. How dare I say it
is my sister's!'
She was weeping still.
'If you had been happy; surrounded as you should be by loving and
admiring friends, and by all that makes the station you were born to
enviable,' said Walter; 'and if you had called me brother, then, in
your affectionate remembrance of the past, I could have answered to
the name from my distant place, with no inward assurance that I
wronged your spotless truth by doing so. But here - and now!'
'Oh thank you, thank you, Walter! Forgive my having wronged you so
much. I had no one to advise me. I am quite alone.'
'Florence!' said Walter, passionately. 'I am hurried on to say,
what I thought, but a few moments ago, nothing could have forced from
my lips. If I had been prosperous; if I had any means or hope of being
one day able to restore you to a station near your own; I would have
told you that there was one name you might bestow upon - me - a right
above all others, to protect and cherish you - that I was worthy of in
nothing but the love and honour that I bore you, and in my whole heart
being yours. I would have told you that it was the only claim that you
could give me to defend and guard you, which I dare accept and dare
assert; but that if I had that right, I would regard it as a trust so
precious and so priceless, that the undivided truth and fervour of my
life would poorly acknowledge its worth.'
The head was still bent down, the tears still falling, and the
bosom swelling with its sobs.
'Dear Florence! Dearest Florence! whom I called so in my thoughts
before I could consider how presumptuous and wild it was. One last
time let me call you by your own dear name, and touch this gentle hand
in token of your sisterly forgetfulness of what I have said.'
She raised her head, and spoke to him with such a solemn sweetness
in her eyes; with such a calm, bright, placid smile shining on him
through her tears; with such a low, soft tremble in her frame and
voice; that the innermost chords of his heart were touched, and his
sight was dim as he listened.
'No, Walter, I cannot forget it. I would not forget it, for the
world. Are you - are you very poor?'
'I am but a wanderer,' said Walter, 'making voyages to live, across
the sea. That is my calling now.
'Are you soon going away again, Walter?'
'Very soon.
She sat looking at him for a moment; then timidly put her trembling
hand in his.
'If you will take me for your wife, Walter, I will love you dearly.
If you will let me go with you, Walter, I will go to the world's end
without fear. I can give up nothing for you - I have nothing to
resign, and no one to forsake; but all my love and life shall be
devoted to you, and with my last breath I will breathe your name to
God if I have sense and memory left.'
He caught her to his heart, and laid her cheek against his own, and
now, no more repulsed, no more forlorn, she wept indeed, upon the
breast of her dear lover.
Blessed Sunday Bells, ringing so tranquilly in their entranced and
happy ears! Blessed Sunday peace and quiet, harmonising with the
calmness in their souls, and making holy air around them! Blessed
twilight stealing on, and shading her so soothingly and gravely, as
she falls asleep, like a hushed child, upon the bosom she has clung
to!
Oh load of love and trustfulness that lies to lightly there! Ay,
look down on the closed eyes, Walter, with a proudly tender gaze; for
in all the wide wide world they seek but thee now - only thee!
The Captain remained in the little parlour until it was quite dark.
He took the chair on which Walter had been sitting, and looked up at
the skylight, until the day, by little and little, faded away, and the
stars peeped down. He lighted a candle, lighted a pipe, smoked it out,
and wondered what on earth was going on upstairs, and why they didn't
call him to tea.
Florence came to his side while he was in the height of his
wonderment.
'Ay! lady lass!' cried the Captain. 'Why, you and Wal'r have had a
long spell o' talk, my beauty.'
Florence put her little hand round one of the great buttons of his
coat, and said, looking down into his face:
'Dear Captain, I want to tell you something, if you please.
The Captain raised his head pretty smartly, to hear what it was.
Catching by this means a more distinct view of Florence, he pushed
back his chair, and himself with it, as far as they could go.
'What! Heart's Delight!' cried the Captain, suddenly elated, 'Is it
that?'
'Yes!' said Florence, eagerly.
'Wal'r! Husband! THAT?' roared the Captain, tossing up his glazed
hat into the skylight.
'Yes!' cried Florence, laughing and crying together.
The Captain immediately hugged her; and then, picking up the glazed
hat and putting it on, drew her arm through his, and conducted her
upstairs again; where he felt that the great joke of his life was now
to be made.
'What, Wal'r my lad!' said the Captain, looking in at the door,
with his face like an amiable warming-pan. 'So there ain't NO other
character, ain't there?'
He had like to have suffocated himself with this pleasantry, which
he repeated at least forty times during tea; polishing his radiant
face with the sleeve of his coat, and dabbing his head all over with
his pocket-handkerchief, in the intervals. But he was not without a
graver source of enjoyment to fall back upon, when so disposed, for he
was repeatedly heard to say in an undertone, as he looked with
ineffable delight at Walter and Florence:
'Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad, you never shaped a better course in your
life, than when you made that there little property over, jintly!'
CHAPTER 51.
Mr Dombey and the World
What is the proud man doing, while the days go by? Does he ever
think of his daughter, or wonder where she is gone? Does he suppose
she has come home, and is leading her old life in the weary house? No
one can answer for him. He has never uttered her name, since. His
household dread him too much to approach a subject on which he is
resolutely dumb; and the only person who dares question him, he
silences immediately.
'My dear Paul!' murmurs his sister, sidling into the room, on the
day of Florence's departure, 'your wife! that upstart woman! Is it
possible that what I hear confusedly, is true, and that this is her
return for your unparalleled devotion to her; extending, I am sure,
even to the sacrifice of your own relations, to her caprices and
haughtiness? My poor brother!'
With this speech feelingly reminiscent of her not having been asked
to dinner on the day of the first party, Mrs Chick makes great use of
her pocket-handkerchief, and falls on Mr Dombey's neck. But Mr Dombey
frigidly lifts her off, and hands her to a chair.
'I thank you, Louisa,' he says, 'for this mark of your affection;
but desire that our conversation may refer to any other subject. When
I bewail my fate, Louisa, or express myself as being in want of
consolation, you can offer it, if you will have the goodness.'
'My dear Paul,' rejoins his sister, with her handkerchief to her
face, and shaking her head, 'I know your great spirit, and will say no
more upon a theme so painful and revolting;' on the heads of which two
adjectives, Mrs Chick visits scathing indignation; 'but pray let me
ask you - though I dread to hear something that will shock and
distress me - that unfortunate child Florence -
'Louisa!' says her brother, sternly, 'silence! Not another word of
this!'
Mrs Chick can only shake her head, and use her handkerchief, and
moan over degenerate Dombeys, who are no Dombeys. But whether Florence
has been inculpated in the flight of Edith, or has followed her, or
has done too much, or too little, or anything, or nothing, she has not
the least idea.
He goes on, without deviation, keeping his thoughts and feelings
close within his own breast, and imparting them to no one. He makes no
search for his daughter. He may think that she is with his sister, or
that she is under his own roof. He may think of her constantly, or he
may never think about her. It is all one for any sign he makes.
But this is sure; he does not think that he has lost her. He has no
suspicion of the truth. He has lived too long shut up in his towering
supremacy, seeing her, a patient gentle creature, in the path below
it, to have any fear of that. Shaken as he is by his disgrace, he is
not yet humbled to the level earth. The root is broad and deep, and in
the course of years its fibres have spread out and gathered
nourishment from everything around it. The tree is struck, but not
down.
Though he hide the world within him from the world without - which
he believes has but one purpose for the time, and that, to watch him
eagerly wherever he goes - he cannot hide those rebel traces of it,
which escape in hollow eyes and cheeks, a haggard forehead, and a
moody, brooding air. Impenetrable as before, he is still an altered
man; and, proud as ever, he is humbled, or those marks would not be
there.
The world. What the world thinks of him, how it looks at him, what
it sees in him, and what it says - this is the haunting demon of his
mind. It is everywhere where he is; and, worse than that, it is
everywhere where he is not. It comes out with him among his servants,
and yet he leaves it whispering behind; he sees it pointing after him
in the street; it is waiting for him in his counting-house; it leers
over the shoulders of rich men among the merchants; it goes beckoning
and babbling among the crowd; it always anticipates him, in every
place; and is always busiest, he knows, when he has gone away. When he
is shut up in his room at night, it is in his house, outside it,
audible in footsteps on the pavement, visible in print upon the table,
steaming to and fro on railroads and in ships; restless and busy
everywhere, with nothing else but him.
It is not a phantom of his imagination. It is as active in other
people's minds as in his. Witness Cousin Feenix, who comes from
Baden-Baden, purposely to talk to him. Witness Major Bagstock, who
accompanies Cousin Feenix on that friendly mission.
Mr Dombey receives them with his usual dignity, and stands erect,
in his old attitude, before the fire. He feels that the world is
looking at him out of their eyes. That it is in the stare of the
pictures. That Mr Pitt, upon the bookcase, represents it. That there
are eyes in its own map, hanging on the wall.
'An unusually cold spring,' says Mr Dombey - to deceive the world.
'Damme, Sir,' says the Major, in the warmth of friendship, 'Joseph
Bagstock is a bad hand at a counterfeit. If you want to hold your
friends off, Dombey, and to give them the cold shoulder, J. B. is not
the man for your purpose. Joe is rough and tough, Sir; blunt, Sir,
blunt, is Joe. His Royal Highness the late Duke of York did me the
honour to say, deservedly or undeservedly - never mind that - "If
there is a man in the service on whom I can depend for coming to the
point, that man is Joe - Joe Bagstock."'
Mr Dombey intimates his acquiescence.
'Now, Dombey,' says the Major, 'I am a man of the world. Our friend
Feenix - if I may presume to - '
'Honoured, I am sure,' says Cousin Feenix.
' - is,' proceeds the Major, with a wag of his head, 'also a man of
the world. Dombey, you are a man of the world. Now, when three men of
the world meet together, and are friends - as I believe - ' again
appealing to Cousin Feenix.
'I am sure,' says Cousin Feenix, 'most friendly.'
' - and are friends,' resumes the Major, 'Old Joe's opinion is (I
may be wrong), that the opinion of the world on any particular
subject, is very easily got at.
'Undoubtedly,' says Cousin Feenix. 'In point of fact, it's quite a
self-evident sort of thing. I am extremely anxious, Major, that my
friend Dombey should hear me express my very great astonishment and
regret, that my lovely and accomplished relative, who was possessed of
every qualification to make a man happy, should have so far forgotten
what was due to - in point of fact, to the world - as to commit
herself in such a very extraordinary manner. I have been in a devilish
state of depression ever since; and said indeed to Long Saxby last
night - man of six foot ten, with whom my friend Dombey is probably
acquainted - that it had upset me in a confounded way, and made me
bilious. It induces a man to reflect, this kind of fatal catastrophe,'
says Cousin Feenix, 'that events do occur in quite a providential
manner; for if my Aunt had been living at the time, I think the effect
upon a devilish lively woman like herself, would have been
prostration, and that she would have fallen, in point of fact, a
victim.'
'Now, Dombey! - ' says the Major, resuming his discourse with great
energy.
'I beg your pardon,' interposes Cousin Feenix. 'Allow me another
word. My friend Dombey will permit me to say, that if any circumstance
could have added to the most infernal state of pain in which I find
myself on this occasion, it would be the natural amazement of the
world at my lovely and accomplished relative (as I must still beg
leave to call her) being supposed to have so committed herself with a
person - man with white teeth, in point of fact - of very inferior
station to her husband. But while I must, rather peremptorily, request
my friend Dombey not to criminate my lovely and accomplished relative
until her criminality is perfectly established, I beg to assure my
friend Dombey that the family I represent, and which is now almost
extinct (devilish sad reflection for a man), will interpose no
obstacle in his way, and will be happy to assent to any honourable
course of proceeding, with a view to the future, that he may point
out. I trust my friend Dombey will give me credit for the intentions
by which I am animated in this very melancholy affair, and - a - in
point of fact, I am not aware that I need trouble my friend Dombey
with any further observations.'
Mr Dombey bows, without raising his eyes, and is silent.
'Now, Dombey,' says the Major, 'our friend Feenix having, with an
amount of eloquence that Old Joe B. has never heard surpassed - no, by
the Lord, Sir! never!' - says the Major, very blue, indeed, and
grasping his cane in the middle - 'stated the case as regards the
lady, I shall presume upon our friendship, Dombey, to offer a word on
another aspect of it. Sir,' says the Major, with the horse's cough,
'the world in these things has opinions, which must be satisfied.'
'I know it,' rejoins Mr Dombey.
'Of course you know it, Dombey,' says the Major, 'Damme, Sir, I
know you know it. A man of your calibre is not likely to be ignorant
of it.'
'I hope not,' replies Mr Dombey.
'Dombey!' says the Major, 'you will guess the rest. I speak out -
prematurely, perhaps - because the Bagstock breed have always spoke
out. Little, Sir, have they ever got by doing it; but it's in the
Bagstock blood. A shot is to be taken at this man. You have J. B. at
your elbow. He claims the name of friend. God bless you!'
'Major,' returns Mr Dombey, 'I am obliged. I shall put myself in
your hands when the time comes. The time not being come, I have
forborne to speak to you.'
'Where is the fellow, Dombey?' inquires the Major, after gasping
and looking at him, for a minute.
'I don't know.'
'Any intelligence of him?' asks the Major.
'Yes.'
'Dombey, I am rejoiced to hear it,' says the Major. 'I congratulate
you.'
'You will excuse - even you, Major,' replies Mr Dombey, 'my
entering into any further detail at present. The intelligence is of a
singular kind, and singularly obtained. It may turn out to be
valueless; it may turn out to be true; I cannot say at present. My
explanation must stop here.'
Although this is but a dry reply to the Major's purple enthusiasm,
the Major receives it graciously, and is delighted to think that the
world has such a fair prospect of soon receiving its due. Cousin
Feenix is then presented with his meed of acknowledgment by the
husband of his lovely and accomplished relative, and Cousin Feenix and
Major Bagstock retire, leaving that husband to the world again, and to
ponder at leisure on their representation of its state of mind
concerning his affairs, and on its just and reasonable expectations.
But who sits in the housekeeper's room, shedding tears, and talking
to Mrs Pipchin in a low tone, with uplifted hands? It is a lady with
her face concealed in a very close black bonnet, which appears not to
belong to her. It is Miss Tox, who has borrowed this disguise from her
servant, and comes from Princess's Place, thus secretly, to revive her
old acquaintance with Mrs Pipchin, in order to get certain information
of the state of Mr Dombey.
'How does he bear it, my dear creature?' asks Miss Tox.
'Well,' says Mrs Pipchin, in her snappish way, 'he's pretty much as
usual.'
'Externally,' suggests Miss Tox 'But what he feels within!'
Mrs Pipchin's hard grey eye looks doubtful as she answers, in three
distinct jerks, 'Ah! Perhaps. I suppose so.'
'To tell you my mind, Lucretia,' says Mrs Pipchin; she still calls
Miss Tox Lucretia, on account of having made her first experiments in
the child-quelling line of business on that lady, when an unfortunate
and weazen little girl of tender years; 'to tell you my mind,
Lucretia, I think it's a good riddance. I don't want any of your
brazen faces here, myself!'
'Brazen indeed! Well may you say brazen, Mrs Pipchin!' returned
Miss Tox. 'To leave him! Such a noble figure of a man!' And here Miss
Tox is overcome.
'I don't know about noble, I'm sure,' observes Mrs Pipchin;
irascibly rubbing her nose. 'But I know this - that when people meet
with trials, they must bear 'em. Hoity, toity! I have had enough to
bear myself, in my time! What a fuss there is! She's gone, and well
got rid of. Nobody wants her back, I should think!' This hint of the
Peruvian Mines, causes Miss Tox to rise to go away; when Mrs Pipchin
rings the bell for Towlinson to show her out, Mr Towlinson, not having
seen Miss Tox for ages, grins, and hopes she's well; observing that he
didn't know her at first, in that bonnet.
'Pretty well, Towlinson, I thank you,' says Miss Tox. 'I beg you'll
have the goodness, when you happen to see me here, not to mention it.
My visits are merely to Mrs Pipchin.'
'Very good, Miss,' says Towlinson.
'Shocking circumstances occur, Towlinson,' says Miss Tox.
'Very much so indeed, Miss,' rejoins Towlinson.
'I hope, Towlinson,' says Miss Tox, who, in her instruction of the
Toodle family, has acquired an admonitorial tone, and a habit of
improving passing occasions, 'that what has happened here, will be a
warning to you, Towlinson.'
'Thank you, Miss, I'm sure,' says Towlinson.
He appears to be falling into a consideration of the manner in
which this warning ought to operate in his particular case, when the
vinegary Mrs Pipchin, suddenly stirring him up with a 'What are you
doing? Why don't you show the lady to the door?' he ushers Miss Tox
forth. As she passes Mr Dombey's room, she shrinks into the inmost
depths of the black bonnet, and walks, on tip-toe; and there is not
another atom in the world which haunts him so, that feels such sorrow
and solicitude about him, as Miss Tox takes out under the black bonnet
into the street, and tries to carry home shadowed it from the
newly-lighted lamps
But Miss Tox is not a part of Mr Dombey's world. She comes back
every evening at dusk; adding clogs and an umbrella to the bonnet on
wet nights; and bears the grins of Towlinson, and the huffs and
rebuffs of Mrs Pipchin, and all to ask how he does, and how he bears
his misfortune: but she has nothing to do with Mr Dombey's world.
Exacting and harassing as ever, it goes on without her; and she, a by
no means bright or particular star, moves in her little orbit in the
corner of another system, and knows it quite well, and comes, and
cries, and goes away, and is satisfied. Verily Miss Tox is easier of
satisfaction than the world that troubles Mr Dombey so much!
At the Counting House, the clerks discuss the great disaster in all
its lights and shades, but chiefly wonder who will get Mr Carker's
place. They are generally of opinion that it will be shorn of some of
its emoluments, and made uncomfortable by newly-devised checks and
restrictions; and those who are beyond all hope of it are quite sure
they would rather not have it, and don't at all envy the person for
whom it may prove to be reserved. Nothing like the prevailing
sensation has existed in the Counting House since Mr Dombey's little
son died; but all such excitements there take a social, not to say a
jovial turn, and lead to the cultivation of good fellowship. A
reconciliation is established on this propitious occasion between the
acknowledged wit of the Counting House and an aspiring rival, with
whom he has been at deadly feud for months; and a little dinner being
proposed, in commemoration of their happily restored amity, takes
place at a neighbouring tavern; the wit in the chair; the rival acting
as Vice-President. The orations following the removal of the cloth are
opened by the Chair, who says, Gentlemen, he can't disguise from
himself that this is not a time for private dissensions. Recent
occurrences to which he need not more particularly allude, but which
have not been altogether without notice in some Sunday Papers,' and in
a daily paper which he need not name (here every other member of the
company names it in an audible murmur), have caused him to reflect;
and he feels that for him and Robinson to have any personal
differences at such a moment, would be for ever to deny that good
feeling in the general cause, for which he has reason to think and
hope that the gentlemen in Dombey's House have always been
distinguished. Robinson replies to this like a man and a brother; and
one gentleman who has been in the office three years, under continual
notice to quit on account of lapses in his arithmetic, appears in a
perfectly new light, suddenly bursting out with a thrilling speech, in
which he says, May their respected chief never again know the
desolation which has fallen on his hearth! and says a great variety of
things, beginning with 'May he never again,' which are received with
thunders of applause. In short, a most delightful evening is passed,
only interrupted by a difference between two juniors, who, quarrelling
about the probable amount of Mr Carker's late receipts per annum, defy
each other with decanters, and are taken out greatly excited. Soda
water is in general request at the office next day, and most of the
party deem the bill an imposition.
As to Perch, the messenger, he is in a fair way of being ruined for
life. He finds himself again constantly in bars of public-houses,
being treated and lying dreadfully. It appears that he met everybody
concerned in the late transaction, everywhere, and said to them,
'Sir,' or 'Madam,' as the case was, 'why do you look so pale?' at
which each shuddered from head to foot, and said, 'Oh, Perch!' and ran
away. Either the consciousness of these enormities, or the reaction
consequent on liquor, reduces Mr Perch to an extreme state of low
spirits at that hour of the evening when he usually seeks consolation
in the society of Mrs Perch at Balls Pond; and Mrs Perch frets a good
deal, for she fears his confidence in woman is shaken now, and that he
half expects on coming home at night to find her gone off with some
Viscount - 'which,' as she observes to an intimate female friend, 'is
what these wretches in the form of woman have to answer for, Mrs P. It
ain't the harm they do themselves so much as what they reflect upon
us, Ma'am; and I see it in Perch's eye.
Mr Dombey's servants are becoming, at the same time, quite
dissipated, and unfit for other service. They have hot suppers every
night, and 'talk it over' with smoking drinks upon the board. Mr
Towlinson is always maudlin after half-past ten, and frequently begs
to know whether he didn't say that no good would ever come of living
in a corner house? They whisper about Miss Florence, and wonder where
she is; but agree that if Mr Dombey don't know, Mrs Dombey does. This
brings them to the latter, of whom Cook says, She had a stately way
though, hadn't she? But she was too high! They all agree that she was
too high, and Mr Towlinson's old flame, the housemaid (who is very
virtuous), entreats that you will never talk to her any more about
people who hold their heads up, as if the ground wasn't good enough
for 'em.
Everything that is said and done about it, except by Mr Dombey, is
done in chorus. Mr Dombey and the world are alone together.
CHAPTER 52.
Secret Intelligence
Good Mrs Brown and her daughter Alice kept silent company together,
in their own dwelling. It was early in the evening, and late in the
spring. But a few days had elapsed since Mr Dombey had told Major
Bagstock of his singular intelligence, singularly obtained, which
might turn out to be valueless, and might turn out to be true; and the
world was not satisfied yet.
The mother and daughter sat for a long time without interchanging a
word: almost without motion. The old woman's face was shrewdly anxious
and expectant; that of her daughter was expectant too, but in a less
sharp degree, and sometimes it darkened, as if with gathering
disappointment and incredulity. The old woman, without heeding these
changes in its expression, though her eyes were often turned towards
it, sat mumbling and munching, and listening confidently.
Their abode, though poor and miserable, was not so utterly wretched
as in the days when only Good Mrs Brown inhabited it. Some few
attempts at cleanliness and order were manifest, though made in a
reckless, gipsy way, that might have connected them, at a glance, with
the younger woman. The shades of evening thickened and deepened as the
two kept silence, until the blackened walls were nearly lost in the
prevailing gloom.
Then Alice broke the silence which had lasted so long, and said:
'You may give him up, mother. He'll not come here.'
'Death give him up!' returned the old woman, impatiently. 'He will
come here.'
'We shall see,' said Alice.
'We shall see him,' returned her mother.
'And doomsday,' said the daughter.
'You think I'm in my second childhood, I know!' croaked the old
woman. 'That's the respect and duty that I get from my own gal, but
I'm wiser than you take me for. He'll come. T'other day when I touched
his coat in the street, he looked round as if I was a toad. But Lord,
to see him when I said their names, and asked him if he'd like to find
out where they was!'
'Was it so angry?' asked her daughter, roused to interest in a
moment.
'Angry? ask if it was bloody. That's more like the word. Angry? Ha,
ha! To call that only angry!' said the old woman, hobbling to the
cupboard, and lighting a candle, which displayed the workings of her
mouth to ugly advantage, as she brought it to the table. 'I might as
well call your face only angry, when you think or talk about 'em.'
It was something different from that, truly, as she sat as still as
a crouched tigress, with her kindling eyes.
'Hark!' said the old woman, triumphantly. 'I hear a step coming.
It's not the tread of anyone that lives about here, or comes this way
often. We don't walk like that. We should grow proud on such
neighbours! Do you hear him?'
'I believe you are right, mother,' replied Alice, in a low voice.
'Peace! open the door.'
As she drew herself within her shawl, and gathered it about her,
the old woman complied; and peering out, and beckoning, gave admission
to Mr Dombey, who stopped when he had set his foot within the door,
and looked distrustfully around.
'It's a poor place for a great gentleman like your worship,' said
the old woman, curtseying and chattering. 'I told you so, but there's
no harm in it.'
'Who is that?' asked Mr Dombey, looking at her companion.
'That's my handsome daughter,' said the old woman. 'Your worship
won't mind her. She knows all about it.'
A shadow fell upon his face not less expressive than if he had
groaned aloud, 'Who does not know all about it!' but he looked at her
steadily, and she, without any acknowledgment of his presence, looked
at him. The shadow on his face was darker when he turned his glance
away from her; and even then it wandered back again, furtively, as if
he were haunted by her bold eyes, and some remembrance they inspired.
'Woman,' said Mr Dombey to the old witch who was chucKling and
leering close at his elbow, and who, when he turned to address her,
pointed stealthily at her daughter, and rubbed her hands, and pointed
again, 'Woman! I believe that I am weak and forgetful of my station in
coming here, but you know why I come, and what you offered when you
stopped me in the street the other day. What is it that you have to
tell me concerning what I want to know; and how does it happen that I
can find voluntary intelligence in a hovel like this,' with a
disdainful glance about him, 'when I have exerted my power and means
to obtain it in vain? I do not think,' he said, after a moment's
pause, during which he had observed her, sternly, 'that you are so
audacious as to mean to trifle with me, or endeavour to impose upon
me. But if you have that purpose, you had better stop on the threshold
of your scheme. My humour is not a trifling one, and my acknowledgment
will be severe.'
'Oh a proud, hard gentleman!' chuckled the old woman, shaking her
head, and rubbing her shrivelled hands, 'oh hard, hard, hard! But your
worship shall see with your own eyes and hear with your own ears; not
with ours - and if your worship's put upon their track, you won't mind
paying something for it, will you, honourable deary?'
'Money,' returned Mr Dombey, apparently relieved, and assured by
this inquiry, 'will bring about unlikely things, I know. It may turn
even means as unexpected and unpromising as these, to account. Yes.
For any reliable information I receive, I will pay. But I must have
the information first, and judge for myself of its value.'
'Do you know nothing more powerful than money?' asked the younger
woman, without rising, or altering her attitude.
'Not here, I should imagine,' said Mr Dombey.
'You should know of something that is more powerful elsewhere, as I
judge,' she returned. 'Do you know nothing of a woman's anger?'
'You have a saucy tongue, Jade,' said Mr Dombey.
'Not usually,' she answered, without any show of emotion: 'I speak
to you now, that you may understand us better, and rely more on us. A
woman's anger is pretty much the same here, as in your fine house. I
am angry. I have been so, many years. I have as good cause for my
anger as you have for yours, and its object is the same man.'
He started, in spite of himself, and looked at her with
astonishment.
'Yes,' she said, with a kind of laugh. 'Wide as the distance may
seem between us, it is so. How it is so, is no matter; that is my
story, and I keep my story to myself. I would bring you and him
together, because I have a rage against him. My mother there, is
avaricious and poor; and she would sell any tidings she could glean,
or anything, or anybody, for money. It is fair enough, perhaps, that
you should pay her some, if she can help you to what you want to know.
But that is not my motive. I have told you what mine is, and it would
be as strong and all-sufficient with me if you haggled and bargained
with her for a sixpence. I have done. My saucy tongue says no more, if
you wait here till sunrise tomorrow.'
The old woman, who had shown great uneasiness during this speech,
which had a tendency to depreciate her expected gains, pulled Mr
Dombey softly by the sleeve, and whispered to him not to mind her. He
glared at them both, by turns, with a haggard look, and said, in a
deeper voice than was usual with him:
'Go on - what do you know?'
'Oh, not so fast, your worship! we must wait for someone,' answered
the old woman. 'It's to be got from someone else - wormed out -
screwed and twisted from him.'
'What do you mean?' said Mr Dombey.
'Patience,' she croaked, laying her hand, like a claw, upon his
arm. 'Patience. I'll get at it. I know I can! If he was to hold it
back from me,' said Good Mrs Brown, crooking her ten fingers, 'I'd
tear it out of him!'
Mr Dombey followed her with his eyes as she hobbled to the door,
and looked out again: and then his glance sought her daughter; but she
remained impassive, silent, and regardless of him.
'Do you tell me, woman,' he said, when the bent figure of Mrs Brown
came back, shaking its head and chattering to itself, 'that there is
another person expected here?'
'Yes!' said the old woman, looking up into his face, and nodding.
'From whom you are to exact the intelligence that is to be useful
to me?'
'Yes,' said the old woman, nodding again.
'A stranger?'
'Chut!' said the old woman, with a shrill laugh. 'What signifies!
Well, well; no. No stranger to your worship. But he won't see you.
He'd be afraid of you, and wouldn't talk. You'll stand behind that
door, and judge him for yourself. We don't ask to be believed on trust
What! Your worship doubts the room behind the door? Oh the suspicion
of you rich gentlefolks! Look at it, then.'
Her sharp eye had detected an involuntary expression of this
feeling on his part, which was not unreasonable under the
circumstances. In satisfaction of it she now took the candle to the
door she spoke of. Mr Dombey looked in; assured himself that it was an
empty, crazy room; and signed to her to put the light back in its
place.
'How long,' he asked, 'before this person comes?'
'Not long,' she answered. 'Would your worship sit down for a few
odd minutes?'
He made no answer; but began pacing the room with an irresolute
air, as if he were undecided whether to remain or depart, and as if he
had some quarrel with himself for being there at all. But soon his
tread grew slower and heavier, and his face more sternly thoughtful!;
as the object with which he had come, fixed itself in his mind, and
dilated there again.
While he thus walked up and down with his eyes on the ground, Mrs
Brown, in the chair from which she had risen to receive him, sat
listening anew. The monotony of his step, or the uncertainty of age,
made her so slow of hearing, that a footfall without had sounded in
her daughter's ears for some moments, and she had looked up hastily to
warn her mother of its approach, before the old woman was roused by
it. But then she started from her seat, and whispering 'Here he is!'
hurried her visitor to his place of observation, and put a bottle and
glass upon the table, with such alacrity, as to be ready to fling her
arms round the neck of Rob the Grinder on his appearance at the door.
'And here's my bonny boy,' cried Mrs Brown, 'at last! - oho, oho!
You're like my own son, Robby!'
'Oh! Misses Brown!' remonstrated the Grinder. 'Don't! Can't you be
fond of a cove without squeedging and throttling of him? Take care of
the birdcage in my hand, will you?'
'Thinks of a birdcage, afore me!' cried the old woman,
apostrophizing the ceiling. 'Me that feels more than a mother for
him!'
'Well, I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you, Misses Brown,' said
the unfortunate youth, greatly aggravated; 'but you're so jealous of a
cove. I'm very fond of you myself, and all that, of course; but I
don't smother you, do I, Misses Brown?'
He looked and spoke as if he wOuld have been far from objecting to
do so, however, on a favourable occasion.
'And to talk about birdcages, too!' whimpered the Grinder. 'As If
that was a crime! Why, look'ee here! Do you know who this belongs to?'
'To Master, dear?' said the old woman with a grin.
'Ah!' replied the Grinder, lifting a large cage tied up in a
wrapper, on the table, and untying it with his teeth and hands. 'It's
our parrot, this is.'
'Mr Carker's parrot, Rob?'
'Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?' returned the goaded
Grinder. 'What do you go naming names for? I'm blest,' said Rob,
pulling his hair with both hands in the exasperation of his feelings,
'if she ain't enough to make a cove run wild!'
'What! Do you snub me, thankless boy!' cried the old woman, with
ready vehemence.
'Good gracious, Misses Brown, no!' returned the Grinder, with tears
in his eyes. 'Was there ever such a - ! Don't I dote upon you, Misses
Brown?'
'Do you, sweet Rob? Do you truly, chickabiddy?' With that, Mrs
Brown held him in her fond embrace once more; and did not release him
until he had made several violent and ineffectual struggles with his
legs, and his hair was standing on end all over his head.
'Oh!' returned the Grinder, 'what a thing it is to be perfectly
pitched into with affection like this here. I wish she was - How have
you been, Misses Brown?'
'Ah! Not here since this night week!' said the old woman,
contemplating him with a look of reproach.
'Good gracious, Misses Brown,' returned the Grinder, 'I said
tonight's a week, that I'd come tonight, didn't I? And here I am. How
you do go on! I wish you'd be a little rational, Misses Brown. I'm
hoarse with saying things in my defence, and my very face is shiny
with being hugged!' He rubbed it hard with his sleeve, as if to remove
the tender polish in question.
'Drink a little drop to comfort you, my Robin,' said the old woman,
filling the glass from the bottle and giving it to him.
'Thank'ee, Misses Brown,' returned the Grinder. 'Here's your
health. And long may you - et ceterer.' Which, to judge from the
expression of his face, did not include any very choice blessings.
'And here's her health,' said the Grinder, glancing at Alice, who sat
with her eyes fixed, as it seemed to him, on the wall behind him, but
in reality on Mr Dombey's face at the door, 'and wishing her the same
and many of 'em!'
He drained the glass to these two sentiments, and set it down.
'Well, I say, Misses Brown!' he proceeded. 'To go on a little
rational now. You're a judge of birds, and up to their ways, as I know
to my cost.'
'Cost!' repeated Mrs Brown.
'Satisfaction, I mean,' returned the Grinder. 'How you do take up a
cove, Misses Brown! You've put it all out of my head again.'
'Judge of birds, Robby,' suggested the old woman.
'Ah!' said the Grinder. 'Well, I've got to take care of this parrot
- certain things being sold, and a certain establishment broke up -
and as I don't want no notice took at present, I wish you'd attend to
her for a week or so, and give her board and lodging, will you? If I
must come backwards and forwards,' mused the Grinder with a dejected
face, 'I may as well have something to come for.'
'Something to come for?' screamed the old woman.
'Besides you, I mean, Misses Brown,' returned the craven Rob. 'Not
that I want any inducement but yourself, Misses Brown, I'm sure. Don't
begin again, for goodness' sake.'
'He don't care for me! He don't care for me, as I care for him!'
cried Mrs Brown, lifting up her skinny hands. 'But I'll take care of
his bird.'
'Take good care of it too, you know, Mrs Brown,' said Rob, shaking
his head. 'If you was so much as to stroke its feathers once the wrong
way, I believe it would be found out.'
'Ah, so sharp as that, Rob?' said Mrs Brown, quickly.
'Sharp, Misses Brown!' repeated Rob. 'But this is not to be talked
about.'
Checking himself abruptly, and not without a fearful glance across
the room, Rob filled the glass again, and having slowly emptied it,
shook his head, and began to draw his fingers across and across the
wires of the parrot's cage by way of a diversion from the dangerous
theme that had just been broached.
The old woman eyed him slily, and hitching her chair nearer his,
and looking in at the parrot, who came down from the gilded dome at
her call, said:
'Out of place now, Robby?'
'Never you mind, Misses Brown,' returned the Grinder, shortly.
'Board wages, perhaps, Rob?' said Mrs Brown.
'Pretty Polly!' said the Grinder.
The old woman darted a glance at him that might have warned him to
consider his ears in danger, but it was his turn to look in at the
parrot now, and however expressive his imagination may have made her
angry scowl, it was unseen by his bodily eyes.
'I wonder Master didn't take you with him, Rob,' said the old
woman, in a wheedling voice, but with increased malignity of aspect.
Rob was so absorbed in contemplation of the parrot, and in trolling
his forefinger on the wires, that he made no answer.
The old woman had her clutch within a hair's breadth of his shock
of hair as it stooped over the table; but she restrained her fingers,
and said, in a voice that choked with its efforts to be coaxing:
'Robby, my child.'
'Well, Misses Brown,' returned the Grinder.
'I say I wonder Master didn't take you with him, dear.'
'Never you mind, Misses Brown,' returned the Grinder.
Mrs Brown instantly directed the clutch of her right hand at his
hair, and the clutch of her left hand at his throat, and held on to
the object of her fond affection with such extraordinary fury, that
his face began to blacken in a moment.
'Misses Brown!' exclaimed the Grinder, 'let go, will you? What are
you doing of? Help, young woman! Misses Brow- Brow- !'
The young woman, however, equally unmoved by his direct appeal to
her, and by his inarticulate utterance, remained quite neutral, until,
after struggling with his assailant into a corner, Rob disengaged
himself, and stood there panting and fenced in by his own elbows,
while the old woman, panting too, and stamping with rage and
eagerness, appeared to be collecting her energies for another swoop
upon him. At this crisis Alice interposed her voice, but not in the
Grinder's favour, by saying,
'Well done, mother. Tear him to pieces!'
'What, young woman!' blubbered Rob; 'are you against me too? What
have I been and done? What am I to be tore to pieces for, I should
like to know? Why do you take and choke a cove who has never done you
any harm, neither of you? Call yourselves females, too!' said the
frightened and afflicted Grinder, with his coat-cuff at his eye. 'I'm
surprised at you! Where's your feminine tenderness?'
'You thankless dog!' gasped Mrs Brown. 'You impudent insulting
dog!'
'What have I been and done to go and give you offence, Misses
Brown?' retorted the fearful Rob. 'You was very much attached to me a
minute ago.'
'To cut me off with his short answers and his sulky words,' said
the old woman. 'Me! Because I happen to be curious to have a little
bit of gossip about Master and the lady, to dare to play at fast and
loose with me! But I'll talk to you no more, my lad. Now go!'
'I'm sure, Misses Brown,' returned the abject Grinder, 'I never
Insiniwated that I wished to go. Don't talk like that, Misses Brown,
if you please.'
'I won't talk at all,' said Mrs Brown, with an action of her
crooked fingers that made him shrink into half his natural compass in
the corner. 'Not another word with him shall pass my lips. He's an
ungrateful hound. I cast him off. Now let him go! And I'll slip those
after him that shall talk too much; that won't be shook away; that'll
hang to him like leeches, and slink arter him like foxes. What! He
knows 'em. He knows his old games and his old ways. If he's forgotten
'em, they'll soon remind him. Now let him go, and see how he'll do
Master's business, and keep Master's secrets, with such company always
following him up and down. Ha, ha, ha! He'll find 'em a different sort
from you and me, Ally; Close as he is with you and me. Now let him go,
now let him go!'
The old woman, to the unspeakable dismay of the Grinder, walked her
twisted figure round and round, in a ring of some four feet in
diameter, constantly repeating these words, and shaking her fist above
her head, and working her mouth about.
'Misses Brown,' pleaded Rob, coming a little out of his corner,
'I'm sure you wouldn't injure a cove, on second thoughts, and in cold
blood, would you?'
'Don't talk to me,' said Mrs Brown, still wrathfully pursuing her
circle. 'Now let him go, now let him go!'
'Misses Brown,' urged the tormented Grinder, 'I didn't mean to -
Oh, what a thing it is for a cove to get into such a line as this! - I
was only careful of talking, Misses Brown, because I always am, on
account of his being up to everything; but I might have known it
wouldn't have gone any further. I'm sure I'm quite agreeable,' with a
wretched face, 'for any little bit of gossip, Misses Brown. Don't go
on like this, if you please. Oh, couldn't you have the goodness to put
in a word for a miserable cove, here?' said the Grinder, appealing in
desperation to the daughter.
'Come, mother, you hear what he says,' she interposed, in her stern
voice, and with an impatient action of her head; 'try him once more,
and if you fall out with him again, ruin him, if you like, and have
done with him.'
Mrs Brown, moved as it seemed by this very tender exhortation,
presently began to howl; and softening by degrees, took the apologetic
Grinder to her arms, who embraced her with a face of unutterable woe,
and like a victim as he was, resumed his former seat, close by the
side of his venerable friend, whom he suffered, not without much
constrained sweetness of countenance, combating very expressive
physiognomical revelations of an opposite character to draw his arm
through hers, and keep it there.
'And how's Master, deary dear?' said Mrs Brown, when, sitting in
this amicable posture, they had pledged each other.
'Hush! If you'd be so good, Misses Brown, as to speak a little
lower,' Rob implored. 'Why, he's pretty well, thank'ee, I suppose.'
'You're not out of place, Robby?' said Mrs Brown, in a wheedling
tone.
'Why, I'm not exactly out of place, nor in,' faltered Rob. 'I - I'm
still in pay, Misses Brown.'
'And nothing to do, Rob?'
'Nothing particular to do just now, Misses Brown, but to - keep my
eyes open, said the Grinder, rolling them in a forlorn way.
'Master abroad, Rob?'
'Oh, for goodness' sake, Misses Brown, couldn't you gossip with a
cove about anything else?' cried the Grinder, in a burst of despair.
The impetuous Mrs Brown rising directly, the tortured Grinder
detained her, stammering 'Ye-es, Misses Brown, I believe he's abroad.
What's she staring at?' he added, in allusion to the daughter, whose
eyes were fixed upon the face that now again looked out behind
'Don't mind her, lad,' said the old woman, holding him closer to
prevent his turning round. 'It's her way - her way. Tell me, Rob. Did
you ever see the lady, deary?'
'Oh, Misses Brown, what lady?' cried the Grinder in a tone of
piteous supplication.
'What lady?' she retorted. 'The lady; Mrs Dombey.'
'Yes, I believe I see her once,' replied Rob.
'The night she went away, Robby, eh?' said the old woman in his
ear, and taking note of every change in his face. 'Aha! I know it was
that night.'
'Well, if you know it was that night, you know, Misses Brown,'
replied Rob, 'it's no use putting pinchers into a cove to make him say
so.
'Where did they go that night, Rob? Straight away? How did they go?
Where did you see her? Did she laugh? Did she cry? Tell me all about
it,' cried the old hag, holding him closer yet, patting the hand that
was drawn through his arm against her other hand, and searching every
line in his face with her bleared eyes. 'Come! Begin! I want to be
told all about it. What, Rob, boy! You and me can keep a secret
together, eh? We've done so before now. Where did they go first, Rob?'
The wretched Grinder made a gasp, and a pause.
'Are you dumb?' said the old woman, angrily.
'Lord, Misses Brown, no! You expect a cove to be a flash of
lightning. I wish I was the electric fluency,' muttered the bewildered
Grinder. 'I'd have a shock at somebody, that would settle their
business.'
'What do you say?' asked the old woman, with a grin.
'I'm wishing my love to you, Misses Brown,' returned the false Rob,
seeking consolation in the glass. 'Where did they go to first was it?
Him and her, do you mean?'
'Ah!' said the old woman, eagerly. 'Them two.'
'Why, they didn't go nowhere - not together, I mean,' answered Rob.
The old woman looked at him, as though she had a strong impulse
upon her to make another clutch at his head and throat, but was
restrained by a certain dogged mystery in his face.
'That was the art of it,' said the reluctant Grinder; 'that's the
way nobody saw 'em go, or has been able to say how they did go. They
went different ways, I tell you Misses Brown.
'Ay, ay, ay! To meet at an appointed place,' chuckled the old
woman, after a moment's silent and keen scrutiny of his face.
'Why, if they weren't a going to meet somewhere, I suppose they
might as well have stayed at home, mightn't they, Brown?' returned the
unwilling Grinder.
'Well, Rob? Well?' said the old woman, drawing his arm yet tighter
through her own, as if, in her eagerness, she were afraid of his
slipping away.
'What, haven't we talked enough yet, Misses Brown?' returned the
Grinder, who, between his sense of injury, his sense of liquor, and
his sense of being on the rack, had become so lachrymose, that at
almost every answer he scooped his coats into one or other of his
eyes, and uttered an unavailing whine of remonstrance. 'Did she laugh
that night, was it? Didn't you ask if she laughed, Misses Brown?'
'Or cried?' added the old woman, nodding assent.
'Neither,' said the Grinder. 'She kept as steady when she and me -
oh, I see you will have it out of me, Misses Brown! But take your
solemn oath now, that you'll never tell anybody.'
This Mrs Brown very readily did: being naturally Jesuitical; and
having no other intention in the matter than that her concealed
visitor should hear for himself.
'She kept as steady, then, when she and me went down to
Southampton,' said the Grinder, 'as a image. In the morning she was
just the same, Misses Brown. And when she went away in the packet
before daylight, by herself - me pretending to be her servant, and
seeing her safe aboard - she was just the same. Now, are you
contented, Misses Brown?'
'No, Rob. Not yet,' answered Mrs Brown, decisively.
'Oh, here's a woman for you!' cried the unfortunate Rob, in an
outburst of feeble lamentation over his own helplessness.
'What did you wish to know next, Misses Brown?'
'What became of Master? Where did he go?' she inquired, still
holding hIm tight, and looking close into his face, with her sharp
eyes.
'Upon my soul, I don't know, Misses Brown,' answered Rob.
'Upon my soul I don't know what he did, nor where he went, nor
anything about him I only know what he said to me as a caution to hold
my tongue, when we parted; and I tell you this, Misses Brown, as a
friend, that sooner than ever repeat a word of what we're saying now,
you had better take and shoot yourself, or shut yourself up in this
house, and set it a-fire, for there's nothing he wouldn't do, to be
revenged upon you. You don't know him half as well as I do, Misses
Brown. You're never safe from him, I tell you.'
'Haven't I taken an oath,' retorted the old woman, 'and won't I
keep it?'
'Well, I'm sure I hope you will, Misses Brown,' returned Rob,
somewhat doubtfully, and not without a latent threatening in his
manner. 'For your own sake, quite as much as mine'
He looked at her as he gave her this friendly caution, and
emphasized it with a nodding of his head; but finding it uncomfortable
to encounter the yellow face with its grotesque action, and the ferret
eyes with their keen old wintry gaze, so close to his own, he looked
down uneasily and sat skulking in his chair, as if he were trying to
bring hImself to a sullen declaration that he would answer no more
questions. The old woman, still holding him as before, took this
opportunity of raising the forefinger of her right hand, in the air,
as a stealthy signal to the concealed observer to give particular
attention to what was about to follow.
'Rob,' she said, in her most coaxing tone.
'Good gracious, Misses Brown, what's the matter now?' returned the
exasperated Grinder.
'Rob! where did the lady and Master appoint to meet?'
Rob shuffled more and more, and looked up and looked down, and bit
his thumb, and dried it on his waistcoat, and finally said, eyeing his
tormentor askance, 'How should I know, Misses Brown?'
The old woman held up her finger again, as before, and replying,
'Come, lad! It's no use leading me to that, and there leaving me. I
want to know' waited for his answer. Rob, after a discomfited pause,
suddenly broke out with, 'How can I pronounce the names of foreign
places, Mrs Brown? What an unreasonable woman you are!'
'But you have heard it said, Robby,' she retorted firmly, 'and you
know what it sounded like. Come!'
'I never heard it said, Misses Brown,' returned the Grinder.
'Then,' retorted the old woman quickly, 'you have seen it written,
and you can spell it.'
Rob, with a petulant exclamation between laughing and crying - for
he was penetrated with some admiration of Mrs Brown's cunning, even
through this persecution - after some reluctant fumbling in his
waistcoat pocket, produced from it a little piece of chalk. The old
woman's eyes sparkled when she saw it between his thumb and finger,
and hastily clearing a space on the deal table, that he might write
the word there, she once more made her signal with a shaking hand.
'Now I tell you beforehand what it is, Misses Brown,' said Rob,
'it's no use asking me anything else. I won't answer anything else; I
can't. How long it was to be before they met, or whose plan it was
that they was to go away alone, I don't know no more than you do. I
don't know any more about it. If I was to tell you how I found out
this word, you'd believe that. Shall I tell you, Misses Brown?'
'Yes, Rob.'
'Well then, Misses Brown. The way - now you won't ask any more, you
know?' said Rob, turning his eyes, which were now fast getting drowsy
and stupid, upon her.
'Not another word,' said Mrs Brown.
'Well then, the way was this. When a certain person left the lady
with me, he put a piece of paper with a direction written on it in the
lady's hand, saying it was in case she should forget. She wasn't
afraid of forgetting, for she tore it up as soon as his back was
turned, and when I put up the carriage steps, I shook out one of the
pieces - she sprinkled the rest out of the window, I suppose, for
there was none there afterwards, though I looked for 'em. There was
only one word on it, and that was this, if you must and will know. But
remember! You're upon your oath, Misses Brown!'
Mrs Brown knew that, she said. Rob, having nothing more to say,
began to chalk, slowly and laboriously, on the table.
'"D,"' the old woman read aloud, when he had formed the letter.
'Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?' he exclaimed, covering
it with his hand, and turning impatiently upon her. 'I won't have it
read out. Be quiet, will you!'
'Then write large, Rob,' she returned, repeating her secret signal;
'for my eyes are not good, even at print.'
Muttering to himself, and returning to his work with an ill will,
Rob went on with the word. As he bent his head down, the person for
whose information he so unconsciously laboured, moved from the door
behind him to within a short stride of his shoulder, and looked
eagerly towards the creeping track of his hand upon the table. At the
same time, Alice, from her opposite chair, watched it narrowly as it
shaped the letters, and repeated each one on her lips as he made it,
without articulating it aloud. At the end of every letter her eyes and
Mr Dombey's met, as if each of them sought to be confirmed by the
other; and thus they both spelt D.I.J.O.N.
'There!' said the Grinder, moistening the palm of his hand hastily,
to obliterate the word; and not content with smearing it out, rubbing
and planing all trace of it away with his coat-sleeve, until the very
colour of the chalk was gone from the table. 'Now, I hope you're
contented, Misses Brown!'
The old woman, in token of her being so, released his arm and
patted his back; and the Grinder, overcome with mortification,
cross-examination, and liquor, folded his arms on the table, laid his
head upon them, and fell asleep.
Not until he had been heavily asleep some time, and was snoring
roundly, did the old woman turn towards the door where Mr Dombey stood
concealed, and beckon him to come through the room, and pass out. Even
then, she hovered over Rob, ready to blind him with her hands, or
strike his head down, if he should raise it while the secret step was
crossing to the door. But though her glance took sharp cognizance of
the sleeper, it was sharp too for the waking man; and when he touched
her hand with his, and in spite of all his caution, made a chinking,
golden sound, it was as bright and greedy as a raven's.
The daughter's dark gaze followed him to the door, and noted well
how pale he was, and how his hurried tread indicated that the least
delay was an insupportable restraint upon him, and how he was burning
to be active and away. As he closed the door behind him, she looked
round at her mother. The old woman trotted to her; opened her hand to
show what was within; and, tightly closing it again in her jealousy
and avarice, whispered:
'What will he do, Ally?'
'Mischief,' said the daughter.
'Murder?' asked the old woman.
'He's a madman, in his wounded pride, and may do that, for anything
we can say, or he either.'
Her glance was brighter than her mother's, and the fire that shone
in it was fiercer; but her face was colourless, even to her lips
They said no more, but sat apart; the mother communing with her
money; the daughter with her thoughts; the glance of each, shining in
the gloom of the feebly lighted room. Rob slept and snored. The
disregarded parrot only was in action. It twisted and pulled at the
wires of its cage, with its crooked beak, and crawled up to the dome,
and along its roof like a fly, and down again head foremost, and
shook, and bit, and rattled at every slender bar, as if it knew its
master's danger, and was wild to force a passage out, and fly away to
warn him of it.
CHAPTER 53.
More Intelligence
There were two of the traitor's own blood - his renounced brother
and sister - on whom the weight of his guilt rested almost more
heavily, at this time, than on the man whom he had so deeply injured.
Prying and tormenting as the world was, it did Mr Dombey the service
of nerving him to pursuit and revenge. It roused his passion, stung
his pride, twisted the one idea of his life into a new shape, and made
some gratification of his wrath, the object into which his whole
intellectual existence resolved itself. All the stubbornness and
implacability of his nature, all its hard impenetrable quality, all
its gloom and moroseness, all its exaggerated sense of personal
importance, all its jealous disposition to resent the least flaw in
the ample recognition of his importance by others, set this way like
many streams united into one, and bore him on upon their tide. The
most impetuously passionate and violently impulsive of mankind would
have been a milder enemy to encounter than the sullen Mr Dombey
wrought to this. A wild beast would have been easier turned or soothed
than the grave gentleman without a wrinkle in his starched cravat.
But the very intensity of his purpose became almost a substitute
for action in it. While he was yet uninformed of the traitor's
retreat, it served to divert his mind from his own calamity, and to
entertain it with another prospect. The brother and sister of his
false favourite had no such relief; everything in their history, past
and present, gave his delinquency a more afflicting meaning to them.
The sister may have sometimes sadly thought that if she had
remained with him, the companion and friend she had been once, he
might have escaped the crime into which he had fallen. If she ever
thought so, it was still without regret for what she had done, without
the least doubt of her duty, without any pricing or enhancing of her
self-devotion. But when this possibility presented itself to the
erring and repentant brother, as it sometimes did, it smote upon his
heart with such a keen, reproachful touch as he could hardly bear. No
idea of retort upon his cruel brother came into his mind. New
accusation of himself, fresh inward lamentings over his own
unworthiness, and the ruin in which it was at once his consolation and
his self-reproach that he did not stand alone, were the sole kind of
reflections to which the discovery gave rise in him.
It was on the very same day whose evening set upon the last
chapter, and when Mr Dombey's world was busiest with the elopement of
his wife, that the window of the room in which the brother and sister
sat at their early breakfast, was darkened by the unexpected shadow of
a man coming to the little porch: which man was Perch the Messenger.
'I've stepped over from Balls Pond at a early hour,' said Mr Perch,
confidentially looking in at the room door, and stopping on the mat to
wipe his shoes all round, which had no mud upon them, 'agreeable to my
instructions last night. They was, to be sure and bring a note to you,
Mr Carker, before you went out in the morning. I should have been here
a good hour and a half ago,' said Mr Perch, meekly, 'but fOr the state
of health of Mrs P., who I thought I should have lost in the night, I
do assure you, five distinct times.'
'Is your wife so ill?' asked Harriet.
'Why, you see,' said Mr Perch, first turning round to shut the door
carefully, 'she takes what has happened in our House so much to heart,
Miss. Her nerves is so very delicate, you see, and soon unstrung. Not
but what the strongest nerves had good need to be shook, I'm sure. You
feel it very much yourself, no doubts.
Harriet repressed a sigh, and glanced at her brother.
'I'm sure I feel it myself, in my humble way,' Mr Perch went on to
say, with a shake of his head, 'in a manner I couldn't have believed
if I hadn't been called upon to undergo. It has almost the effect of
drink upon me. I literally feels every morning as if I had been taking
more than was good for me over-night.'
Mr Perch's appearance corroborated this recital of his symptoms.
There was an air of feverish lassitude about it, that seemed referable
to drams; and, which, in fact, might no doubt have been traced to
those numerous discoveries of himself in the bars of public-houses,
being treated and questioned, which he was in the daily habit of
making.
'Therefore I can judge,' said Mr Perch, shaking his head and
speaking in a silvery murmur, 'of the feelings of such as is at all
peculiarly sitiwated in this most painful rewelation.'
Here Mr Perch waited to be confided in; and receiving no
confidence, coughed behind his hand. This leading to nothing, he
coughed behind his hat; and that leading to nothing, he put his hat on
the ground and sought in his breast pocket for the letter.
'If I rightly recollect, there was no answer,' said Mr Perch, with
an affable smile; 'but perhaps you'll be so good as cast your eye over
it, Sir.'
John Carker broke the seal, which was Mr Dombey's, and possessing
himself of the contents, which were very brief, replied,
'No. No answer is expected.'
'Then I shall wish you good morning, Miss,' said Perch, taking a
step toward the door, and hoping, I'm sure, that you'll not permit
yourself to be more reduced in mind than you can help, by the late
painful rewelation. The Papers,' said Mr Perch, taking two steps back
again, and comprehensively addressing both the brother and sister in a
whisper of increased mystery, 'is more eager for news of it than you'd
suppose possible. One of the Sunday ones, in a blue cloak and a white
hat, that had previously offered for to bribe me - need I say with
what success? - was dodging about our court last night as late as
twenty minutes after eight o'clock. I see him myself, with his eye at
the counting-house keyhole, which being patent is impervious. Another
one,' said Mr Perch, 'with military frogs, is in the parlour of the
King's Arms all the blessed day. I happened, last week, to let a
little obserwation fall there, and next morning, which was Sunday, I
see it worked up in print, in a most surprising manner.'
Mr Perch resorted to his breast pocket, as if to produce the
paragraph but receiving no encouragement, pulled out his beaver
gloves, picked up his hat, and took his leave; and before it was high
noon, Mr Perch had related to several select audiences at the King's
Arms and elsewhere, how Miss Carker, bursting into tears, had caught
him by both hands, and said, 'Oh! dear dear Perch, the sight of you is
all the comfort I have left!' and how Mr John Carker had said, in an
awful voice, 'Perch, I disown him. Never let me hear hIm mentioned as
a brother more!'
'Dear John,' said Harriet, when they were left alone, and had
remained silent for some few moments. 'There are bad tidings in that
letter.'
'Yes. But nothing unexpected,' he replied. 'I saw the writer
yesterday.'
'The writer?'
'Mr Dombey. He passed twice through the Counting House while I was
there. I had been able to avoid him before, but of course could not
hope to do that long. I know how natural it was that he should regard
my presence as something offensive; I felt it must be so, myself.'
'He did not say so?'
'No; he said nothing: but I saw that his glance rested on me for a
moment, and I was prepared for what would happen - for what has
happened. I am dismissed!'
She looked as little shocked and as hopeful as she could, but it
was distressing news, for many reasons.
'"I need not tell you"' said John Carker, reading the letter, '"why
your name would henceforth have an unnatural sound, in however remote
a connexion with mine, or why the daily sight of anyone who bears it,
would be unendurable to me. I have to notify the cessation of all
engagements between us, from this date, and to request that no renewal
of any communication with me, or my establishment, be ever attempted
by you." - Enclosed is an equivalent in money to a generously long
notice, and this is my discharge." Heaven knows, Harriet, it is a
lenient and considerate one, when we remember all!'
'If it be lenient and considerate to punish you at all, John, for
the misdeed of another,' she replied gently, 'yes.'
'We have been an ill-omened race to him,' said John Carker. 'He has
reason to shrink from the sound of our name, and to think that there
is something cursed and wicked in our blood. I should almost think it
too, Harriet, but for you.'
'Brother, don't speak like this. If you have any special reason, as
you say you have, and think you have - though I say, No!- to love me,
spare me the hearing of such wild mad words!'
He covered his face with both his hands; but soon permitted her,
coming near him, to take one in her own.
'After so many years, this parting is a melancholy thing, I know,'
said his sister, 'and the cause of it is dreadful to us both. We have
to live, too, and must look about us for the means. Well, well! We can
do so, undismayed. It is our pride, not our trouble, to strive, John,
and to strive together!'
A smile played on her lips, as she kissed his cheek, and entreated
him to be of of good cheer.
'Oh, dearest sister! Tied, of your own noble will, to a ruined man!
whose reputation is blighted; who has no friend himself, and has
driven every friend of yours away!'
'John!' she laid her hand hastily upon his lips, 'for my sake! In
remembrance of our long companionship!' He was silent 'Now, let me
tell you, dear,' quietly sitting by his side, 'I have, as you have,
expected this; and when I have been thinking of it, and fearing that
it would happen, and preparing myself for it, as well as I could, I
have resolved to tell you, if it should be so, that I have kept a
secret from you, and that we have a friend.'
'What's our friend's name, Harriet?' he answered with a sorrowful
smile.
'Indeed, I don't know, but he once made a very earnest protestation
to me of his friendship and his wish to serve us: and to this day I
believe 'him.'
'Harriet!' exclaimed her wondering brother, 'where does this friend
live?'
'Neither do I know that,' she returned. 'But he knows us both, and
our history - all our little history, John. That is the reason why, at
his own suggestion, I have kept the secret of his coming, here, from
you, lest his acquaintance with it should distress you.
'Here! Has he been here, Harriet?'
'Here, in this room. Once.'
'What kind of man?'
'Not young. "Grey-headed," as he said, "and fast growing greyer."
But generous, and frank, and good, I am sure.'
'And only seen once, Harriet?'
'In this room only once,' said his sister, with the slightest and
most transient glow upon her cheek; 'but when here, he entreated me to
suffer him to see me once a week as he passed by, in token of our
being well, and continuing to need nothing at his hands. For I told
him, when he proffered us any service he could render - which was the
object of his visit - that we needed nothing.'
'And once a week - '
'Once every week since then, and always on the same day, and at the
same hour, he his gone past; always on foot; always going in the same
direction - towards London; and never pausing longer than to bow to
me, and wave his hand cheerfully, as a kind guardian might. He made
that promise when he proposed these curious interviews, and has kept
it so faithfully and pleasantly, that if I ever felt any trifling
uneasiness about them in the beginning (which I don't think I did,
John; his manner was so plain and true) It very soon vanished, and
left me quite glad when the day was coming. Last Monday - the first
since this terrible event - he did not go by; and I have wondered
whether his absence can have been in any way connected with what has
happened.'
'How?' inquired her brother.
'I don't know how. I have only speculated on the coincidence; I
have not tried to account for it. I feel sure he will return. When he
does, dear John, let me tell him that I have at last spoken to you,
and let me bring you together. He will certainly help us to a new
livelihood. His entreaty was that he might do something to smooth my
life and yours; and I gave him my promise that if we ever wanted a
friend, I would remember him.'
'Then his name was to be no secret, 'Harriet,' said her brother,
who had listened with close attention, 'describe this gentleman to me.
I surely ought to know one who knows me so well.'
His sister painted, as vividly as she could, the features, stature,
and dress of her visitor; but John Carker, either from having no
knowledge of the original, or from some fault in her description, or
from some abstraction of his thoughts as he walked to and fro,
pondering, could not recognise the portrait she presented to him.
However, it was agreed between them that he should see the original
when he next appeared. This concluded, the sister applied herself,
with a less anxious breast, to her domestic occupations; and the
grey-haired man, late Junior of Dombey's, devoted the first day of his
unwonted liberty to working in the garden.
It was quite late at night, and the brother was reading aloud while
the sister plied her needle, when they were interrupted by a knocking
at the door. In the atmosphere of vague anxiety and dread that lowered
about them in connexion with their fugitive brother, this sound,
unusual there, became almost alarming. The brother going to the door,
the sister sat and listened timidly. Someone spoke to him, and he
replied and seemed surprised; and after a few words, the two
approached together.
'Harriet,' said her brother, lighting in their late visitor, and
speaking in a low voice, 'Mr Morfin - the gentleman so long in
Dombey's House with James.'
His sister started back, as if a ghost had entered. In the doorway
stood the unknown friend, with the dark hair sprinkled with grey, the
ruddy face, the broad clear brow, and hazel eyes, whose secret she had
kept so long!
'John!' she said, half-breathless. 'It is the gentleman I told you
of, today!'
'The gentleman, Miss Harriet,' said the visitor, coming in - for he
had stopped a moment in the doorway - 'is greatly relieved to hear you
say that: he has been devising ways and means, all the way here, of
explaining himself, and has been satisfied with none. Mr John, I am
not quite a stranger here. You were stricken with astonishment when
you saw me at your door just now. I observe you are more astonished at
present. Well! That's reasonable enough under existing circumstances.
If we were not such creatures of habit as we are, we shouldn't have
reason to be astonished half so often.'
By this time, he had greeted Harriet with that able mingling of
cordiality and respect which she recollected so well, and had sat down
near her, pulled off his gloves, and thrown them into his hat upon the
table.
'There's nothing astonishing,' he said, 'in my having conceived a
desire to see your sister, Mr John, or in my having gratified it in my
own way. As to the regularity of my visits since (which she may have
mentioned to you), there is nothing extraordinary in that. They soon
grew into a habit; and we are creatures of habit - creatures of
habit!'
Putting his hands into his pockets, and leaning back in his chair,
he looked at the brother and sister as if it were interesting to him
to see them together; and went on to say, with a kind of irritable
thoughtfulness:
'It's this same habit that confirms some of us, who are capable of
better things, in Lucifer's own pride and stubbornness - that confirms
and deepens others of us in villainy - more of us in indifference -
that hardens us from day to day, according to the temper of our clay,
like images, and leaves us as susceptible as images to new impressions
and convictions. You shall judge of its influence on me, John. For
more years than I need name, I had my small, and exactly defined
share, in the management of Dombey's House, and saw your brother (who
has proved himself a scoundrel! Your sister will forgive my being
obliged to mention it) extending and extending his influence, until
the business and its owner were his football; and saw you toiling at
your obscure desk every day; and was quite content to be as little
troubled as I might be, out of my own strip of duty, and to let
everything about me go on, day by day, unquestioned, like a great
machine - that was its habit and mine - and to take it all for
granted, and consider it all right. My Wednesday nights came regularly
round, our quartette parties came regularly off, my violoncello was in
good tune, and there was nothing wrong in my world - or if anything
not much - or little or much, it was no affair of mine.'
'I can answer for your being more respected and beloved during all
that time than anybody in the House, Sir,' said John Carker.
'Pooh! Good-natured and easy enough, I daresay,'returned the other,
'a habit I had. It suited the Manager; it suited the man he managed:
it suited me best of all. I did what was allotted to me to do, made no
court to either of them, and was glad to occupy a station in which
none was required. So I should have gone on till now, but that my room
had a thin wall. You can tell your sister that it was divided from the
Manager's room by a wainscot partition.'
'They were adjoining rooms; had been one, Perhaps, originally; and
were separated, as Mr Morfin says,' said her brother, looking back to
him for the resumption of his explanation.
'I have whistled, hummed tunes, gone accurately through the whole
of Beethoven's Sonata in B,' to let him know that I was within
hearing,' said Mr Morfin; 'but he never heeded me. It happened seldom
enough that I was within hearing of anything of a private nature,
certainly. But when I was, and couldn't otherwise avoid knowing
something of it, I walked out. I walked out once, John, during a
conversation between two brothers, to which, in the beginning, young
Walter Gay was a party. But I overheard some of it before I left the
room. You remember it sufficiently, perhaps, to tell your sister what
its nature was?'
'It referred, Harriet,' said her brother in a low voice, 'to the
past, and to our relative positions in the House.'
'Its matter was not new to me, but was presented in a new aspect.
It shook me in my habit - the habit of nine-tenths of the world - of
believing that all was right about me, because I was used to it,' said
their visitor; 'and induced me to recall the history of the two
brothers, and to ponder on it. I think it was almost the first time in
my life when I fell into this train of reflection - how will many
things that are familiar, and quite matters of course to us now, look,
when we come to see them from that new and distant point of view which
we must all take up, one day or other? I was something less
good-natured, as the phrase goes, after that morning, less easy and
complacent altogether.'
He sat for a minute or so, drumming with one hand on the table; and
resumed in a hurry, as if he were anxious to get rid of his
confession.
'Before I knew what to do, or whether I could do anything, there
was a second conversation between the same two brothers, in which
their sister was mentioned. I had no scruples of conscience in
suffering all the waifs and strays of that conversation to float to me
as freely as they would. I considered them mine by right. After that,
I came here to see the sister for myself. The first time I stopped at
the garden gate, I made a pretext of inquiring into the character of a
poor neighbour; but I wandered out of that tract, and I think Miss
Harriet mistrusted me. The second time I asked leave to come in; came
in; and said what I wished to say. Your sister showed me reasons which
I dared not dispute, for receiving no assistance from me then; but I
established a means of communication between us, which remained
unbroken until within these few days, when I was prevented, by
important matters that have lately devolved upon me, from maintaining
them'
'How little I have suspected this,' said John Carker, 'when I have
seen you every day, Sir! If Harriet could have guessed your name - '
'Why, to tell you the truth, John,' interposed the visitor, 'I kept
it to myself for two reasons. I don't know that the first might have
been binding alone; but one has no business to take credit for good
intentions, and I made up my mind, at all events, not to disclose
myself until I should be able to do you some real service or other. My
second reason was, that I always hoped there might be some lingering
possibility of your brother's relenting towards you both; and in that
case, I felt that where there was the chance of a man of his
suspicious, watchful character, discovering that you had been secretly
befriended by me, there was the chance of a new and fatal cause of
division. I resolved, to be sure, at the risk of turning his
displeasure against myself - which would have been no matter - to
watch my opportunity of serving you with the head of the House; but
the distractions of death, courtship, marriage, and domestic
unhappiness, have left us no head but your brother for this long, long
time. And it would have been better for us,' said the visitor,
dropping his voice, 'to have been a lifeless trunk.'
He seemed conscious that these latter words had escaped hIm against
his will, and stretching out a hand to the brother, and a hand to the
sister, continued: 'All I could desire to say, and more, I have now
said. All I mean goes beyond words, as I hope you understand and
believe. The time has come, John - though most unfortunately and
unhappily come - when I may help you without interfering with that
redeeming struggle, which has lasted through so many years; since you
were discharged from it today by no act of your own. It is late; I
need say no more to-night. You will guard the treasure you have here,
without advice or reminder from me.'
With these words he rose to go.
'But go you first, John,' he said goodhumouredly, 'with a light,
without saying what you want to say, whatever that maybe;' John
Carker's heart was full, and he would have relieved it in speech,' if
he could; 'and let me have a word with your sister. We have talked
alone before, and in this room too; though it looks more natural with
you here.'
Following him out with his eyes, he turned kindly to Harriet, and
said in a lower voice, and with an altered and graver manner:
'You wish to ask me something of the man whose sister it is your
misfortune to be.'
'I dread to ask,' said Harriet.
'You have looked so earnestly at me more than once,' rejoined the
visitor, 'that I think I can divine your question. Has he taken money?
Is it that?'
'Yes.'
'He has not.'
'I thank Heaven!' said Harriet. 'For the sake of John.'
'That he has abused his trust in many ways,' said Mr Morfin; 'that
he has oftener dealt and speculated to advantage for himself, than for
the House he represented; that he has led the House on, to prodigious
ventures, often resulting in enormous losses; that he has always
pampered the vanity and ambition of his employer, when it was his duty
to have held them in check, and shown, as it was in his power to do,
to what they tended here or there; will not, perhaps, surprise you
now. Undertakings have been entered on, to swell the reputation of the
House for vast resources, and to exhibit it in magnificent contrast to
other merchants' Houses, of which it requires a steady head to
contemplate the possibly - a few disastrous changes of affairs might
render them the probably - ruinous consequences. In the midst of the
many transactions of the House, in most parts of the world: a great
labyrinth of which only he has held the clue: he has had the
opportunity, and he seems to have used it, of keeping the various
results afloat, when ascertained, and substituting estimates and
generalities for facts. But latterly - you follow me, Miss Harriet?'
'Perfectly, perfectly,' she answered, with her frightened face
fixed on his. 'Pray tell me all the worst at once.
'Latterly, he appears to have devoted the greatest pains to making
these results so plain and clear, that reference to the private books
enables one to grasp them, numerous and varying as they are, with
extraordinary ease. As if he had resolved to show his employer at one
broad view what has been brought upon him by ministration to his
ruling passion! That it has been his constant practice to minister to
that passion basely, and to flatter it corruptly, is indubitable. In
that, his criminality, as it is connected with the affairs of the
House, chiefly consists.'
'One other word before you leave me, dear Sir,' said Harriet.
'There is no danger in all this?'
'How danger?' he returned, with a little hesitation.
'To the credit of the House?'
'I cannot help answering you plainly, and trusting you completely,'
said Mr Morfin, after a moment's survey of her face.
'You may. Indeed you may!'
'I am sure I may. Danger to the House's credit? No; none There may
be difficulty, greater or less difficulty, but no danger, unless -
unless, indeed - the head of the House, unable to bring his mind to
the reduction of its enterprises, and positively refusing to believe
that it is, or can be, in any position but the position in which he
has always represented it to himself, should urge it beyond its
strength. Then it would totter.'
'But there is no apprehension of that?' said Harriet.
'There shall be no half-confidence,' he replied, shaking her hand,
'between us. Mr Dombey is unapproachable by anyone, and his state of
mind is haughty, rash, unreasonable, and ungovernable, now. But he is
disturbed and agitated now beyond all common bounds, and it may pass.
You now know all, both worst and best. No more to-night, and
good-night!'
With that he kissed her hand, and, passing out to the door where
her brother stood awaiting his coming, put him cheerfully aside when
he essayed to speak; told him that, as they would see each other soon
and often, he might speak at another time, if he would, but there was
no leisure for it then; and went away at a round pace, in order that
no word of gratitude might follow him.
The brother and sister sat conversing by the fireside, until it was
almost day; made sleepless by this glimpse of the new world that
opened before them, and feeling like two people shipwrecked long ago,
upon a solitary coast, to whom a ship had come at last, when they were
old in resignation, and had lost all thought of any other home. But
another and different kind of disquietude kept them waking too. The
darkness out of which this light had broken on them gathered around;
and the shadow of their guilty brother was in the house where his foot
had never trod.
Nor was it to be driven out, nor did it fade before the sun. Next
morning it was there; at noon; at night Darkest and most distinct at
night, as is now to be told.
John Carker had gone out, in pursuance of a letter of appointment
from their friend, and Harriet was left in the house alone. She had
been alone some hours. A dull, grave evening, and a deepening
twilight, were not favourable to the removal of the oppression on her
spirits. The idea of this brother, long unseen and unknown, flitted
about her in frightful shapes He was dead, dying, calling to her,
staring at her, frowning on her. The pictures in her mind were so
obtrusive and exact that, as the twilight deepened, she dreaded to
raise her head and look at the dark corners of the room, lest his
wraith, the offspring of her excited imagination, should be waiting
there, to startle her. Once she had such a fancy of his being in the
next room, hiding - though she knew quite well what a distempered
fancy it was, and had no belief in it - that she forced herself to go
there, for her own conviction. But in vain. The room resumed its
shadowy terrors, the moment she left it; and she had no more power to
divest herself of these vague impressions of dread, than if they had
been stone giants, rooted in the solid earth.
It was almost dark, and she was sitting near the window, with her
head upon her hand, looking down, when, sensible of a sudden increase
in the gloom of the apartment, she raised her eyes, and uttered an
involuntary cry. Close to the glass, a pale scared face gazed in;
vacantly, for an instant, as searching for an object; then the eyes
rested on herself, and lighted up.
'Let me in! Let me in! I want to speak to you!' and the hand
rattled on the glass.
She recognised immediately the woman with the long dark hair, to
whom she had given warmth, food, and shelter, one wet night. Naturally
afraid of her, remembering her violent behaviour, Harriet, retreating
a little from the window, stood undecided and alarmed.
'Let me in! Let me speak to you! I am thankful - quiet - humble -
anything you like. But let me speak to you.'
The vehement manner of the entreaty, the earnest expression of the
face, the trembling of the two hands that were raised imploringly, a
certain dread and terror in the voice akin to her own condition at the
moment, prevailed with Harriet. She hastened to the door and opened
it.
'May I come in, or shall I speak here?' said the woman, catching at
her hand.
'What is it that you want? What is it that you have to say?'
'Not much, but let me say it out, or I shall never say it. I am
tempted now to go away. There seem to be hands dragging me from the
door. Let me come in, if you can trust me for this once!'
Her energy again prevailed, and they passed into the firelight of
the little kitchen, where she had before sat, and ate, and dried her
clothes.
'Sit there,' said Alice, kneeling down beside her, 'and look at me.
You remember me?'
'I do.'
'You remember what I told you I had been, and where I came from,
ragged and lame, with the fierce wind and weather beating on my head?'
'Yes.'
'You know how I came back that night, and threw your money in the
dirt, and you and your race. Now, see me here, upon my knees. Am l
less earnest now, than I was then?'
'If what you ask,' said Harriet, gently, 'is forgiveness - '
'But it's not!' returned the other, with a proud, fierce look 'What
I ask is to be believed. Now you shall judge if I am worthy of belief,
both as I was, and as I am.'
Still upon her knees, and with her eyes upon the fire, and the fire
shining on her ruined beauty and her wild black hair, one long tress
of which she pulled over her shoulder, and wound about her hand, and
thoughtfully bit and tore while speaking, she went on:
'When I was young and pretty, and this,' plucking contemptuously at
the hair she held, was only handled delicately, and couldn't be
admired enough, my mother, who had not been very mindful of me as a
child, found out my merits, and was fond of me, and proud of me. She
was covetous and poor, and thought to make a sort of property of me.
No great lady ever thought that of a daughter yet, I'm sure, or acted
as if she did - it's never done, we all know - and that shows that the
only instances of mothers bringing up their daughters wrong, and evil
coming of it, are among such miserable folks as us.'
Looking at the fire, as if she were forgetful, for the moment, of
having any auditor, she continued in a dreamy way, as she wound the
long tress of hair tight round and round her hand.
'What came of that, I needn't say. Wretched marriages don't come of
such things, in our degree; only wretchedness and ruin. Wretchedness
and ruin came on me - came on me.
Raising her eyes swiftly from their moody gaze upon the fire, to
Harriet's face, she said:
'I am wasting time, and there is none to spare; yet if I hadn't
thought of all, I shouldn't be here now. Wretchedness and ruin came on
me, I say. I was made a short-lived toy, and flung aside more cruelly
and carelessly than even such things are. By whose hand do you think?'
'Why do you ask me?' said Harriet.
'Why do you tremble?' rejoined Alice, with an eager look. 'His
usage made a Devil of me. I sunk in wretchedness and ruin, lower and
lower yet. I was concerned in a robbery - in every part of it but the
gains - and was found out, and sent to be tried, without a friend,
without a penny. Though I was but a girl, I would have gone to Death,
sooner than ask him for a word, if a word of his could have saved me.
I would! To any death that could have been invented. But my mother,
covetous always, sent to him in my name, told the true story of my
case, and humbly prayed and petitioned for a small last gift - for not
so many pounds as I have fingers on this hand. Who was it, do you
think, who snapped his fingers at me in my misery, lying, as he
believed, at his feet, and left me without even this poor sign of
remembrance; well satisfied that I should be sent abroad, beyond the
reach of farther trouble to him, and should die, and rot there? Who
was this, do you think?'
'Why do you ask me?' repeated Harriet.
'Why do you tremble?' said Alice, laying her hand upon her arm' and
looking in her face, 'but that the answer is on your lips! It was your
brother James.
Harriet trembled more and more, but did not avert her eyes from the
eager look that rested on them.
'When I knew you were his sister - which was on that night - I came
back, weary and lame, to spurn your gift. I felt that night as if I
could have travelled, weary and lame, over the whole world, to stab
him, if I could have found him in a lonely place with no one near. Do
you believe that I was earnest in all that?'
'I do! Good Heaven, why are you come again?'
'Since then,' said Alice, with the same grasp of her arm, and the
same look in her face, 'I have seen him! I have followed him with my
eyes, In the broad day. If any spark of my resentment slumbered in my
bosom, it sprung into a blaze when my eyes rested on him. You know he
has wronged a proud man, and made him his deadly enemy. What if I had
given information of him to that man?'
'Information!' repeated Harriet.
'What if I had found out one who knew your brother's secret; who
knew the manner of his flight, who knew where he and the companion of
his flight were gone? What if I had made him utter all his knowledge,
word by word, before his enemy, concealed to hear it? What if I had
sat by at the time, looking into this enemy's face, and seeing it
change till it was scarcely human? What if I had seen him rush away,
mad, in pursuit? What if I knew, now, that he was on his road, more
fiend than man, and must, in so many hours, come up with him?'
'Remove your hand!' said Harriet, recoiling. 'Go away! Your touch
is dreadful to me!'
'I have done this,' pursued the other, with her eager look,
regardless of the interruption. 'Do I speak and look as if I really
had? Do you believe what I am saying?'
'I fear I must. Let my arm go!'
'Not yet. A moment more. You can think what my revengeful purpose
must have been, to last so long, and urge me to do this?'
'Dreadful!' said Harriet.
'Then when you see me now,' said Alice hoarsely, 'here again,
kneeling quietly on the ground, with my touch upon your arm, with my
eyes upon your face, you may believe that there is no common
earnestness in what I say, and that no common struggle has been
battling in my breast. I am ashamed to speak the words, but I relent.
I despise myself; I have fought with myself all day, and all last
night; but I relent towards him without reason, and wish to repair
what I have done, if it is possible. I wouldn't have them come
together while his pursuer is so blind and headlong. If you had seen
him as he went out last night, you would know the danger better.
'How can it be prevented? What can I do?' cried Harriet.
'All night long,' pursued the other, hurriedly, 'I had dreams of
him - and yet I didn't sleep - in his blood. All day, I have had him
near me.
'What can I do?' cried Harriet, shuddering at these words.
'If there is anyone who'll write, or send, or go to him, let them
lose no time. He is at Dijon. Do you know the name, and where it is?'
'Yes.'
'Warn him that the man he has made his enemy is in a frenzy, and
that he doesn't know him if he makes light of his approach. Tell him
that he is on the road - I know he is! - and hurrying on. Urge him to
get away while there is time - if there is time - and not to meet him
yet. A month or so will make years of difference. Let them not
encounter, through me. Anywhere but there! Any time but now! Let his
foe follow him, and find him for himself, but not through me! There is
enough upon my head without.'
The fire ceased to be reflected in her jet black hair, uplifted
face, and eager eyes; her hand was gone from Harriet's arm; and the
place where she had been was empty.
CHAPTER 54.
The Fugitives
Tea-time, an hour short of midnight; the place, a French apartment,
comprising some half-dozen rooms; - a dull cold hall or corridor, a
dining-room, a drawing-room, a bed-room, and an inner drawingroom, or
boudoir, smaller and more retired than the rest. All these shut in by
one large pair of doors on the main staircase, but each room provided
with two or three pairs of doors of its own, establishing several
means of communication with the remaining portion of the apartment, or
with certain small passages within the wall, leading, as is not
unusual in such houses, to some back stairs with an obscure outlet
below. The whole situated on the first floor of so large an Hotel,
that it did not absorb one entire row of windows upon one side of the
square court-yard in the centre, upon which the whole four sides of
the mansion looked.
An air of splendour, sufficiently faded to be melancholy, and
sufficiently dazzling to clog and embarrass the details of life with a
show of state, reigned in these rooms The walls and ceilings were
gilded and painted; the floors were waxed and polished; crimson
drapery hung in festoons from window, door, and mirror; and
candelabra, gnarled and intertwisted like the branches of trees, or
horns of animals, stuck out from the panels of the wall. But in the
day-time, when the lattice-blinds (now closely shut) were opened, and
the light let in, traces were discernible among this finery, of wear
and tear and dust, of sun and damp and smoke, and lengthened intervals
of want of use and habitation, when such shows and toys of life seem
sensitive like life, and waste as men shut up in prison do. Even
night, and clusters of burning candles, could not wholly efface them,
though the general glitter threw them in the shade.
The glitter of bright tapers, and their reflection in
looking-glasses, scraps of gilding and gay colours, were confined, on
this night, to one room - that smaller room within the rest, just now
enumerated. Seen from the hall, where a lamp was feebly burning,
through the dark perspective of open doors, it looked as shining and
precious as a gem. In the heart of its radiance sat a beautiful woman
- Edith.
She was alone. The same defiant, scornful woman still. The cheek a
little worn, the eye a little larger in appearance, and more lustrous,
but the haughty bearing just the same. No shame upon her brow; no late
repentance bending her disdainful neck. Imperious and stately yet, and
yet regardless of herself and of all else, she sat wIth her dark eyes
cast down, waiting for someone.
No book, no work, no occupation of any kind but her own thought,
beguiled the tardy time. Some purpose, strong enough to fill up any
pause, possessed her. With her lips pressed together, and quivering if
for a moment she released them from her control; with her nostril
inflated; her hands clasped in one another; and her purpose swelling
in her breast; she sat, and waited.
At the sound of a key in the outer door, and a footstep in the
hall, she started up, and cried 'Who's that?' The answer was in
French, and two men came in with jingling trays, to make preparation
for supper.
'Who had bade them to do so?' she asked.
'Monsieur had commanded it, when it was his pleasure to take the
apartment. Monsieur had said, when he stayed there for an hour, en
route, and left the letter for Madame - Madame had received it
surely?'
'Yes.'
'A thousand pardons! The sudden apprehension that it might have
been forgotten had struck hIm;' a bald man, with a large beard from a
neighbouring restaurant; 'with despair! Monsieur had said that supper
was to be ready at that hour: also that he had forewarned Madame of
the commands he had given, in his letter. Monsieur had done the Golden
Head the honour to request that the supper should be choice and
delicate. Monsieur would find that his confidence in the Golden Head
was not misplaced.'
Edith said no more, but looked on thoughtfully while they prepared
the table for two persons, and set the wine upon it. She arose before
they had finished, and taking a lamp, passed into the bed-chamber and
into the drawing-room, where she hurriedly but narrowly examined all
the doors; particularly one in the former room that opened on the
passage in the wall. From this she took the key, and put it on the
outer side. She then came back.
The men - the second of whom was a dark, bilious subject, in a
jacket, close shaved, and with a black head of hair close cropped -
had completed their preparation of the table, and were standing
looking at it. He who had spoken before, inquired whether Madame
thought it would be long before Monsieur arrived?
'She couldn't say. It was all one.'
'Pardon! There was the supper! It should be eaten on the instant.
Monsieur (who spoke French like an Angel - or a Frenchman - it was all
the same) had spoken with great emphasis of his punctuality. But the
English nation had so grand a genius for punctuality. Ah! what noise!
Great Heaven, here was Monsieur. Behold him!'
In effect, Monsieur, admitted by the other of the two, came, with
his gleaming teeth, through the dark rooms, like a mouth; and arriving
in that sanctuary of light and colour, a figure at full length,
embraced Madame, and addressed her in the French tongue as his
charming wife
'My God! Madame is going to faint. Madame is overcome with joy!'
The bald man with the beard observed it, and cried out.
Madame had only shrunk and shivered. Before the words were spoken,
she was standing with her hand upon the velvet back of a great chair;
her figure drawn up to its full height, and her face immoveable.
'Francois has flown over to the Golden Head for supper. He flies on
these occasions like an angel or a bird. The baggage of Monsieur is in
his room. All is arranged. The supper will be here this moment.' These
facts the bald man notified with bows and smiles, and presently the
supper came.
The hot dishes were on a chafing-dish; the cold already set forth,
with the change of service on a sideboard. Monsieur was satisfied with
this arrangement. The supper table being small, it pleased him very
well. Let them set the chafing-dish upon the floor, and go. He would
remove the dishes with his own hands.
'Pardon!' said the bald man, politely. 'It was impossible!'
Monsieur was of another opinion. He required no further attendance
that night.
'But Madame - ' the bald man hinted.
'Madame,' replied Monsieur, 'had her own maid. It was enough.'
'A million pardons! No! Madame had no maid!'
'I came here alone,' said Edith 'It was my choice to do so. I am
well used to travelling; I want no attendance. They need send nobody
to me.
Monsieur accordingly, persevering in his first proposed
impossibility, proceeded to follow the two attendants to the outer
door, and secure it after them for the night. The bald man turning
round to bow, as he went out, observed that Madame still stood with
her hand upon the velvet back of the great chair, and that her face
was quite regardless of him, though she was looking straight before
her.
As the sound of Carker's fastening the door resounded through the
intermediate rooms, and seemed to come hushed and stilled into that
last distant one, the sound of the Cathedral clock striking twelve
mingled with it, in Edith's ears She heard him pause, as if he heard
it too and listened; and then came back towards her, laying a long
train of footsteps through the silence, and shutting all the doors
behind him as he came along. Her hand, for a moment, left the velvet
chair to bring a knife within her reach upon the table; then she stood
as she had stood before.
'How strange to come here by yourself, my love!' he said as he
entered.
'What?' she returned.
Her tone was so harsh; the quick turn of her head so fierce; her
attitude so repellent; and her frown so black; that he stood, with the
lamp in his hand, looking at her, as if she had struck him motionless.
'I say,' he at length repeated, putting down the lamp, and smiling
his most courtly smile, 'how strange to come here alone! It was
unnecessarty caution surely, and might have defeated itself. You were
to have engaged an attendant at Havre or Rouen, and have had abundance
of time for the purpose, though you had been the most capricious and
difficult (as you are the most beautiful, my love) of women.'
Her eyes gleamed strangely on him, but she stood with her hand
resting on the chair, and said not a word.
'I have never,' resumed Carker, 'seen you look so handsome, as you
do to-night. Even the picture I have carried in my mind during this
cruel probation, and which I have contemplated night and day, is
exceeded by the reality.'
Not a word. Not a look Her eyes completely hidden by their drooping
lashes, but her head held up.
'Hard, unrelenting terms they were!' said Carker, with a smile,
'but they are all fulfilled and passed, and make the present more
delicious and more safe. Sicily shall be the Place of our retreat. In
the idlest and easiest part of the world, my soul, we'll both seek
compensation for old slavery.'
He was coming gaily towards her, when, in an instant, she caught
the knife up from the table, and started one pace back.
'Stand still!' she said, 'or I shall murder you!'
The sudden change in her, the towering fury and intense abhorrence
sparkling in her eyes and lighting up her brow, made him stop as if a
fire had stopped him.
'Stand still!' she said, 'come no nearer me, upon your life!'
They both stood looking at each other. Rage and astonishment were
in his face, but he controlled them, and said lightly,
'Come, come! Tush, we are alone, and out of everybody's sight and
hearing. Do you think to frighten me with these tricks of virtue?'
'Do you think to frighten me,' she answered fiercely, 'from any
purpose that I have, and any course I am resolved upon, by reminding
me of the solitude of this place, and there being no help near? Me,
who am here alone, designedly? If I feared you, should I not have
avoided you? If I feared you, should I be here, in the dead of night,
telling you to your face what I am going to tell?'
'And what is that,' he said, 'you handsome shrew? Handsomer so,
than any other woman in her best humour?'
'I tell you nothing,' she returned, until you go back to that chair
- except this, once again - Don't come near me! Not a step nearer. I
tell you, if you do, as Heaven sees us, I shall murder you!'
'Do you mistake me for your husband?' he retorted, with a grin.
Disdaining to reply, she stretched her arm out, pointing to the
chair. He bit his lip, frowned, laughed, and sat down in it, with a
baffled, irresolute, impatient air, he was unable to conceal; and
biting his nail nervously, and looking at her sideways, with bitter
discomfiture, even while he feigned to be amused by her caprice.
She put the knife down upon the table, and touching her bosom wIth
her hand, said:
'I have something lying here that is no love trinket, and sooner
than endure your touch once more, I would use it on you - and you know
it, while I speak - with less reluctance than I would on any other
creeping thing that lives.'
He affected to laugh jestingly, and entreated her to act her play
out quickly, for the supper was growing cold. But the secret look with
which he regarded her, was more sullen and lowering, and he struck his
foot once upon the floor with a muttered oath.
'How many times,' said Edith, bending her darkest glance upon him'
'has your bold knavery assailed me with outrage and insult? How many
times in your smooth manner, and mocking words and looks, have I been
twitted with my courtship and my marriage? How many times have you
laid bare my wound of love for that sweet, injured girl and lacerated
it? How often have you fanned the fire on which, for two years, I have
writhed; and tempted me to take a desperate revenge, when it has most
tortured me?'
'I have no doubt, Ma'am,' he replied, 'that you have kept a good
account, and that it's pretty accurate. Come, Edith. To your husband,
poor wretch, this was well enough - '
'Why, if,' she said, surveying him with a haughty contempt and
disgust, that he shrunk under, let him brave it as he would, 'if all
my other reasons for despising him could have been blown away like
feathers, his having you for his counsellor and favourite, would have
almost been enough to hold their place.'
'Is that a reason why you have run away with me?' he asked her,
tauntingly.
'Yes, and why we are face to face for the last time. Wretch! We
meet tonight, and part tonight. For not one moment after I have ceased
to speak, will I stay here!'
He turned upon her with his ugliest look, and gripped the table
with his hand; but neither rose, nor otherwise answered or threatened
her.
'I am a woman,' she said, confronting him steadfastly, 'who from
her childhood has been shamed and steeled. I have been offered and
rejected, put up and appraised, until my very soul has sickened. I
have not had an accomplishment or grace that might have been a
resource to me, but it has been paraded and vended to enhance my
value, as if the common crier had called it through the streets. My
poor, proud friends, have looked on and approved; and every tie
between us has been deadened in my breast. There is not one of them
for whom I care, as I could care for a pet dog. I stand alone in the
world, remembering well what a hollow world it has been to me, and
what a hollow part of it I have been myself. You know this, and you
know that my fame with it is worthless to me.'
'Yes; I imagined that,' he said.
'And calculated on it,' she rejoined, 'and so pursued me. Grown too
indifferent for any opposition but indifference, to the daily working
of the hands that had moulded me to this; and knowing that my marriage
would at least prevent their hawking of me up and down; I suffered
myself to be sold, as infamously as any woman with a halter round her
neck is sold in any market-place. You know that.'
'Yes,' he said, showing all his teeth 'I know that.'
'And calculated on it,' she rejoined once more, 'and so pursued me.
From my marriage day, I found myself exposed to such new shame - to
such solicitation and pursuit (expressed as clearly as if it had been
written in the coarsest words, and thrust into my hand at every turn)
from one mean villain, that I felt as if I had never known humiliation
till that time. This shame my husband fixed upon me; hemmed me round
with, himself; steeped me in, with his own hands, and of his own act,
repeated hundreds of times. And thus - forced by the two from every
point of rest I had - forced by the two to yield up the last retreat
of love and gentleness within me, or to be a new misfortune on its
innocent object - driven from each to each, and beset by one when I
escaped the other - my anger rose almost to distraction against both I
do not know against which it rose higher - the master or the man!'
He watched her closely, as she stood before him in the very triumph
of her indignant beauty. She was resolute, he saw; undauntable; with
no more fear of him than of a worm.
'What should I say of honour or of chastity to you!' she went on.
'What meaning would it have to you; what meaning would it have from
me! But if I tell you that the lightest touch of your hand makes my
blood cold with antipathy; that from the hour when I first saw and
hated you, to now, when my instinctive repugnance is enhanced by every
minute's knowledge of you I have since had, you have been a loathsome
creature to me which has not its like on earth; how then?'
He answered with a faint laugh, 'Ay! How then, my queen?'
'On that night, when, emboldened by the scene you had assisted at,
you dared come to my room and speak to me,' she said, 'what passed?'
He shrugged his shoulders, and laughed
'What passed?' she said.
'Your memory is so distinct,' he said, 'that I have no doubt you
can recall it.'
'I can,' she said. 'Hear it! Proposing then, this flight - not this
flight, but the flight you thought it - you told me that in the having
given you that meeting, and leaving you to be discovered there, if you
so thought fit; and in the having suffered you to be alone with me
many times before, - and having made the opportunities, you said, -
and in the having openly avowed to you that I had no feeling for my
husband but aversion, and no care for myself - I was lost; I had given
you the power to traduce my name; and I lived, in virtuous reputation,
at the pleasure of your breath'
'All stratagems in love - ' he interrupted, smiling. 'The old
adage - '
'On that night,' said Edith, 'and then, the struggle that I long
had had with something that was not respect for my good fame - that
was I know not what - perhaps the clinging to that last retreat- was
ended. On that night, and then, I turned from everything but passion
and resentment. I struck a blow that laid your lofty master in the
dust, and set you there, before me, looking at me now, and knowing
what I mean.'
He sprung up from his chair with a great oath. She put her hand
into her bosom, and not a finger trembled, not a hair upon her head
was stirred. He stood still: she too: the table and chair between
them.~
'When I forget that this man put his lips to mine that night, and
held me in his arms as he has done again to-night,' said Edith,
pointing at him; 'when I forget the taint of his kiss upon my cheek -
the cheek that Florence would have laid her guiltless face against -
when I forget my meeting with her, while that taint was hot upon me,
and in what a flood the knowledge rushed upon me when I saw her, that
in releasing her from the persecution I had caused by my love, I
brought a shame and degradation on her name through mine, and in all
time to come should be the solitary figure representing in her mind
her first avoidance of a guilty creature - then, Husband, from whom I
stand divorced henceforth, I will forget these last two years, and
undo what I have done, and undeceive you!'
Her flashing eyes, uplifted for a moment, lighted again on Carker,
and she held some letters out in her left hand.
'See these!' she said, contemptuously. 'You have addressed these to
me in the false name you go by; one here, some elsewhere on my road.
The seals are unbroken. Take them back!'
She crunched them in her hand, and tossed them to his feet. And as
she looked upon him now, a smile was on her face.
'We meet and part to-night,' she said. 'You have fallen on Sicilian
days and sensual rest, too soon. You might have cajoled, and fawned,
and played your traitor's part, a little longer, and grown richer. You
purchase your voluptuous retirement dear!'
'Edith!' he retorted, menacing her with his hand. 'Sit down! Have
done with this! What devil possesses you?'
'Their name is Legion,' she replied, uprearing her proud form as if
she would have crushed him; 'you and your master have raised them in a
fruitful house, and they shall tear you both. False to him, false to
his innocent child, false every way and everywhere, go forth and boast
of me, and gnash your teeth, for once, to know that you are lying!'
He stood before her, muttering and menacing, and scowling round as
if for something that would help him to conquer her; but with the same
indomitable spirit she opposed him, without faltering.
'In every vaunt you make,' she said, 'I have my triumph I single
out in you the meanest man I know, the parasite and tool of the proud
tyrant, that his wound may go the deeper, and may rankle more. Boast,
and revenge me on him! You know how you came here to-night; you know
how you stand cowering there; you see yourself in colours quite as
despicable, if not as odious, as those in which I see you. Boast then,
and revenge me on yourself.'
The foam was on his lips; the wet stood on his forehead. If she
would have faltered once for only one half-moment, he would have
pinioned her; but she was as firm as rock, and her searching eyes
never left him.
'We don't part so,' he said. 'Do you think I am drivelling, to let
you go in your mad temper?'
'Do you think,' she answered, 'that I am to be stayed?'
'I'll try, my dear,' he said with a ferocious gesture of his head.
'God's mercy on you, if you try by coming near me!' she replied.
'And what,' he said, 'if there are none of these same boasts and
vaunts on my part? What if I were to turn too? Come!' and his teeth
fairly shone again. 'We must make a treaty of this, or I may take some
unexpected course. Sit down, sit down!'
'Too late!' she cried, with eyes that seemed to sparkle fire. 'I
have thrown my fame and good name to the winds! I have resolved to
bear the shame that will attach to me - resolved to know that it
attaches falsely - that you know it too - and that he does not, never
can, and never shall. I'll die, and make no sign. For this, I am here
alone with you, at the dead of night. For this, I have met you here,
in a false name, as your wife. For this, I have been seen here by
those men, and left here. Nothing can save you now.
He would have sold his soul to root her, in her beauty, to the
floor, and make her arms drop at her sides, and have her at his mercy.
But he could not look at her, and not be afraid of her. He saw a
strength within her that was resistless. He saw that she was
desperate, and that her unquenchable hatred of him would stop at
nothing. His eyes followed the hand that was put with such rugged
uncongenial purpose into her white bosom, and he thought that if it
struck at hIm, and failed, it would strike there, just as soon.
He did not venture, therefore, to advance towards her; but the door
by which he had entered was behind him, and he stepped back to lock
it.
'Lastly, take my warning! Look to yourself!' she said, and smiled
again. 'You have been betrayed, as all betrayers are. It has been made
known that you are in this place, or were to be, or have been. If I
live, I saw my husband in a carriage in the street to-night!'
'Strumpet, it's false!' cried Carker.
At the moment, the bell rang loudly in the hall. He turned white,
as she held her hand up like an enchantress, at whose invocation the
sound had come.
'Hark! do you hear it?'
He set his back against the door; for he saw a change in her, and
fancied she was coming on to pass him. But, in a moment, she was gone
through the opposite doors communicating with the bed-chamber, and
they shut upon her.
Once turned, once changed in her inflexible unyielding look, he
felt that he could cope with her. He thought a sudden terror,
occasioned by this night-alarm, had subdued her; not the less readily,
for her overwrought condition. Throwing open the doors, he followed,
almost instantly.
But the room was dark; and as she made no answer to his call, he
was fain to go back for the lamp. He held it up, and looked round,
everywhere, expecting to see her crouching in some corner; but the
room was empty. So, into the drawing-room and dining-room he went, in
succession, with the uncertain steps of a man in a strange place;
looking fearfully about, and prying behind screens and couches; but
she was not there. No, nor in the hall, which was so bare that he
could see that, at a glance.
All this time, the ringing at the bell was constantly renewed, and
those without were beating at the door. He put his lamp down at a
distance, and going near it, listened. There were several voices
talking together: at least two of them in English; and though the door
was thick, and there was great confusion, he knew one of these too
well to doubt whose voice it was.
He took up his lamp again, and came back quickly through all the
rooms, stopping as he quitted each, and looking round for her, with
the light raised above his head. He was standing thus in the
bed-chamber, when the door, leading to the little passage in the wall,
caught his eye. He went to it, and found it fastened on the other
side; but she had dropped a veil in going through, and shut it in the
door.
All this time the people on the stairs were ringing at the bell,
and knocking with their hands and feet.
He was not a coward: but these sounds; what had gone before; the
strangeness of the place, which had confused him, even in his return
from the hall; the frustration of his schemes (for, strange to say, he
would have been much bolder, if they had succeeded); the unseasonable
time; the recollection of having no one near to whom he could appeal
for any friendly office; above all, the sudden sense, which made even
his heart beat like lead, that the man whose confidence he had
outraged, and whom he had so treacherously deceived, was there to
recognise and challenge him with his mask plucked off his face; struck
a panic through him. He tried the door in which the veil was shut, but
couldn't force it. He opened one of the windows, and looked down
through the lattice of the blind, into the court-yard; but it was a
high leap, and the stones were pitiless.
The ringing and knocking still continuing - his panic too - he went
back to the door in the bed-chamber, and with some new efforts, each
more stubborn than the last, wrenched it open. Seeing the little
staircase not far off, and feeling the night-air coming up, he stole
back for his hat and coat, made the door as secure after hIm as he
could, crept down lamp in hand, extinguished it on seeing the street,
and having put it in a corner, went out where the stars were shining.
CHAPTER 55.
Rob the Grinder loses his Place
The Porter at the iron gate which shut the court-yard from the
street, had left the little wicket of his house open, and was gone
away; no doubt to mingle in the distant noise at the door of the great
staircase. Lifting the latch softly, Carker crept out, and shutting
the jangling gate after him with as little noise as possible, hurried
off.
In the fever of his mortification and unavailing rage, the panic
that had seized upon him mastered him completely. It rose to such a
height that he would have blindly encountered almost any risk, rather
than meet the man of whom, two hours ago, he had been utterly
regardless. His fierce arrival, which he had never expected; the sound
of his voice; their having been so near a meeting, face to face; he
would have braved out this, after the first momentary shock of alarm,
and would have put as bold a front upon his guilt as any villain. But
the springing of his mine upon himself, seemed to have rent and
shivered all his hardihood and self-reliance. Spurned like any
reptile; entrapped and mocked; turned upon, and trodden down by the
proud woman whose mind he had slowly poisoned, as he thought, until
she had sunk into the mere creature of his pleasure; undeceived in his
deceit, and with his fox's hide stripped off, he sneaked away,
abashed, degraded, and afraid.
Some other terror came upon hIm quite removed from this of being
pursued, suddenly, like an electric shock, as he was creeping through
the streets Some visionary terror, unintelligible and inexplicable,
asssociated with a trembling of the ground, - a rush and sweep of
something through the air, like Death upon the wing. He shrunk, as if
to let the thing go by. It was not gone, it never had been there, yet
what a startling horror it had left behind.
He raised his wicked face so full of trouble, to the night sky,
where the stars, so full of peace, were shining on him as they had
been when he first stole out into the air; and stopped to think what
he should do. The dread of being hunted in a strange remote place,
where the laws might not protect him - the novelty of the feeling that
it was strange and remote, originating in his being left alone so
suddenly amid the ruins of his plans - his greater dread of seeking
refuge now, in Italy or in Sicily, where men might be hired to
assissinate him, he thought, at any dark street corner-the waywardness
of guilt and fear - perhaps some sympathy of action with the turning
back of all his schemes - impelled him to turn back too, and go to
England.
'I am safer there, in any case. If I should not decide,' he
thought, 'to give this fool a meeting, I am less likely to be traced
there, than abroad here, now. And if I should (this cursed fit being
over), at least I shall not be alone, with out a soul to speak to, or
advise with, or stand by me. I shall not be run in upon and worried
like a rat.'
He muttered Edith's name, and clenched his hand. As he crept along,
in the shadow of the massive buildings, he set his teeth, and muttered
dreadful imprecations on her head, and looked from side to side, as if
in search of her. Thus, he stole on to the gate of an inn-yard. The
people were a-bed; but his ringing at the bell soon produced a man
with a lantern, in company with whom he was presently in a dim
coach-house, bargaining for the hire of an old phaeton, to Paris.
The bargain was a short one; and the horses were soon sent for.
Leaving word that the carriage was to follow him when they came, he
stole away again, beyond the town, past the old ramparts, out on the
open road, which seemed to glide away along the dark plain, like a
stream.
Whither did it flow? What was the end of it? As he paused, with
some such suggestion within him, looking over the gloomy flat where
the slender trees marked out the way, again that flight of Death came
rushing up, again went on, impetuous and resistless, again was nothing
but a horror in his mind, dark as the scene and undefined as its
remotest verge.
There was no wind; there was no passing shadow on the deep shade of
the night; there was no noise. The city lay behind hIm, lighted here
and there, and starry worlds were hidden by the masonry of spire and
roof that hardly made out any shapes against the sky. Dark and lonely
distance lay around him everywhere, and the clocks were faintly
striking two.
He went forward for what appeared a long time, and a long way;
often stopping to listen. At last the ringing of horses' bells greeted
his anxious ears. Now softer, and now louder, now inaudible, now
ringing very slowly over bad ground, now brisk and merry, it came on;
until with a loud shouting and lashing, a shadowy postillion muffled
to the eyes, checked his four struggling horses at his side.
'Who goes there! Monsieur?'
'Yes.'
'Monsieur has walked a long way in the dark midnight.'
'No matter. Everyone to his task. Were there any other horses
ordered at the Post-house?'
'A thousand devils! - and pardons! other horses? at this hour? No.'
'Listen, my friend. I am much hurried. Let us see how fast we can
travel! The faster, the more money there will be to drink. Off we go
then! Quick!'
'Halloa! whoop! Halloa! Hi!' Away, at a gallop, over the black
landscape, scattering the dust and dirt like spray!
The clatter and commotion echoed to the hurry and discordance of
the fugitive's ideas. Nothing clear without, and nothing clear within.
Objects flitting past, merging into one another, dimly descried,
confusedly lost sight of, gone! Beyond the changing scraps of fence
and cottage immediately upon the road, a lowering waste. Beyond the
shifting images that rose up in his mind and vanished as they showed
themselves, a black expanse of dread and rage and baffled villainy.
Occasionally, a sigh of mountain air came from the distant Jura,
fading along the plain. Sometimes that rush which was so furious and
horrible, again came sweeping through his fancy, passed away, and left
a chill upon his blood.
The lamps, gleaming on the medley of horses' heads, jumbled with
the shadowy driver, and the fluttering of his cloak, made a thousand
indistinct shapes, answering to his thoughts. Shadows of familiar
people, stooping at their desks and books, in their remembered
attitudes; strange apparitions of the man whom he was flying from, or
of Edith; repetitions in the ringing bells and rolling wheels, of
words that had been spoken; confusions of time and place, making last
night a month ago, a month ago last night - home now distant beyond
hope, now instantly accessible; commotion, discord, hurry, darkness,
and confusion in his mind, and all around him. - Hallo! Hi! away at a
gallop over the black landscape; dust and dirt flying like spray, the
smoking horses snorting and plunging as if each of them were ridden by
a demon, away in a frantic triumph on the dark road - whither?
Again the nameless shock comes speeding up, and as it passes, the
bells ring in his ears 'whither?' The wheels roar in his ears
'whither?' All the noise and rattle shapes itself into that cry. The
lights and shadows dance upon the horses' heads like imps. No stopping
now: no slackening! On, on Away with him upon the dark road wildly!
He could not think to any purpose. He could not separate one
subject of reflection from another, sufficiently to dwell upon it, by
itself, for a minute at a time. The crash of his project for the
gaining of a voluptuous compensation for past restraint; the overthrow
of his treachery to one who had been true and generous to him, but
whose least proud word and look he had treasured up, at interest, for
years - for false and subtle men will always secretly despise and
dislike the object upon which they fawn and always resent the payment
and receipt of homage that they know to be worthless; these were the
themes uppermost in his mind. A lurking rage against the woman who had
so entrapped him and avenged herself was always there; crude and
misshapen schemes of retaliation upon her, floated in his brain; but
nothing was distinct. A hurry and contradiction pervaded all his
thoughts. Even while he was so busy with this fevered, ineffectual
thinking, his one constant idea was, that he would postpone reflection
until some indefinite time.
Then, the old days before the second marriage rose up in his
remembrance. He thought how jealous he had been of the boy, how
jealous he had been of the girl, how artfully he had kept intruders at
a distance, and drawn a circle round his dupe that none but himself
should cross; and then he thought, had he done all this to be flying
now, like a scared thief, from only the poor dupe?
He could have laid hands upon himself for his cowardice, but it was
the very shadow of his defeat, and could not be separated from it. To
have his confidence in his own knavery so shattered at a blow - to be
within his own knowledge such a miserable tool - was like being
paralysed. With an impotent ferocity he raged at Edith, and hated Mr
Dombey and hated himself, but still he fled, and could do nothing
else.
Again and again he listened for the sound of wheels behind. Again
and again his fancy heard it, coming on louder and louder. At last he
was so persuaded of this, that he cried out, 'Stop' preferring even
the loss of ground to such uncertainty.
The word soon brought carriage, horses, driver, all in a heap
together, across the road.
'The devil!' cried the driver, looking over his shoulder, 'what's
the matter?'
'Hark! What's that?'
'What?'
'That noise?'
'Ah Heaven, be quiet, cursed brigand!' to a horse who shook his
bells 'What noise?'
'Behind. Is it not another carriage at a gallop? There! what's
that?' Miscreant with a Pig's head, stand still!' to another horse,
who bit another, who frightened the other two, who plunged and backed.
'There is nothing coming.'
'Nothing.'
'No, nothing but the day yonder.'
'You are right, I think. I hear nothing now, indeed. Go on!'
The entangled equipage, half hidden in the reeking cloud from the
horses, goes on slowly at first, for the driver, checked unnecessarily
in his progress, sulkily takes out a pocket-knife, and puts a new lash
to his whip. Then 'Hallo, whoop! Hallo, hi!' Away once more, savagely.
And now the stars faded, and the day glimmered, and standing in the
carriage, looking back, he could discern the track by which he had
come, and see that there was no traveller within view, on all the
heavy expanse. And soon it was broad day, and the sun began to shine
on cornfields and vineyards; and solitary labourers, risen from little
temporary huts by heaps of stones upon the road, were, here and there,
at work repairing the highway, or eating bread. By and by, there were
peasants going to their daily labour, or to market, or lounging at the
doors of poor cottages, gazing idly at him as he passed. And then
there was a postyard, ankle-deep in mud, with steaming dunghills and
vast outhouses half ruined; and looking on this dainty prospect, an
immense, old, shadeless, glaring, stone chateau, with half its windows
blinded, and green damp crawling lazily over it, from the balustraded
terrace to the taper tips of the extinguishers upon the turrets.
Gathered up moodily in a corner of the carriage, and only intent on
going fast - except when he stood up, for a mile together, and looked
back; which he would do whenever there was a piece of open country -
he went on, still postponing thought indefinitely, and still always
tormented with thinking to no purpose.
Shame, disappointment, and discomfiture gnawed at his heart; a
constant apprehension of being overtaken, or met - for he was
groundlessly afraid even of travellers, who came towards him by the
way he was going - oppressed him heavily. The same intolerable awe and
dread that had come upon him in the night, returned unweakened in the
day. The monotonous ringing of the bells and tramping of the horses;
the monotony of his anxiety, and useless rage; the monotonous wheel of
fear, regret, and passion, he kept turning round and round; made the
journey like a vision, in which nothing was quite real but his own
torment.
It was a vision of long roads, that stretched away to an horizon,
always receding and never gained; of ill-paved towns, up hill and
down, where faces came to dark doors and ill-glazed windows, and where
rows of mudbespattered cows and oxen were tied up for sale in the long
narrow streets, butting and lowing, and receiving blows on their blunt
heads from bludgeons that might have beaten them in; of bridges,
crosses, churches, postyards, new horses being put in against their
wills, and the horses of the last stage reeking, panting, and laying
their drooping heads together dolefully at stable doors; of little
cemeteries with black crosses settled sideways in the graves, and
withered wreaths upon them dropping away; again of long, long roads,
dragging themselves out, up hill and down, to the treacherous horizon.
Of morning, noon, and sunset; night, and the rising of an early
moon. Of long roads temporarily left behind, and a rough pavement
reached; of battering and clattering over it, and looking up, among
house-roofs, at a great church-tower; of getting out and eating
hastily, and drinking draughts of wine that had no cheering influence;
of coming forth afoot, among a host of beggars - blind men with
quivering eyelids, led by old women holding candles to their faces;
idiot girls; the lame, the epileptic, and the palsied - of passing
through the clamour, and looking from his seat at the upturned
countenances and outstretched hands, with a hurried dread of
recognising some pursuer pressing forward - of galloping away again,
upon the long, long road, gathered up, dull and stunned, in his
corner, or rising to see where the moon shone faintly on a patch of
the same endless road miles away, or looking back to see who followed.
Of never sleeping, but sometimes dozing with unclosed eyes, and
springing up with a start, and a reply aloud to an imaginary voice. Of
cursing himself for being there, for having fled, for having let her
go, for not having confronted and defied him. Of having a deadly
quarrel with the whole world, but chiefly with himself. Of blighting
everything with his black mood as he was carried on and away.
It was a fevered vision of things past and present all confounded
together; of his life and journey blended into one. Of being madly
hurried somewhere, whither he must go. Of old scenes starting up among
the novelties through which he travelled. Of musing and brooding over
what was past and distant, and seeming to take no notice of the actual
objects he encountered, but with a wearisome exhausting consciousness
of being bewildered by them, and having their images all crowded in
his hot brain after they were gone.
A vision of change upon change, and still the same monotony of
bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. Of town and country,
postyards, horses, drivers, hill and valley, light and darkness, road
and pavement, height and hollow, wet weather and dry, and still the
same monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. A
vision of tending on at last, towards the distant capital, by busier
roads, and sweeping round, by old cathedrals, and dashing through
small towns and villages, less thinly scattered on the road than
formerly, and sitting shrouded in his corner, with his cloak up to his
face, as people passing by looked at him.
Of rolling on and on, always postponing thought, and always racked
with thinking; of being unable to reckon up the hours he had been upon
the road, or to comprehend the points of time and place in his
journey. Of being parched and giddy, and half mad. Of pressing on, in
spite of all, as if he could not stop, and coming into Paris, where
the turbid river held its swift course undisturbed, between two
brawling streams of life and motion.
A troubled vision, then, of bridges, quays, interminable streets;
of wine-shops, water-carriers, great crowds of people, soldiers,
coaches, military drums, arcades. Of the monotony of bells and wheels
and horses' feet being at length lost in the universal din and uproar.
Of the gradual subsidence of that noise as he passed out in another
carriage by a different barrier from that by which he had entered. Of
the restoration, as he travelled on towards the seacoast, of the
monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest.
Of sunset once again, and nightfall. Of long roads again, and dead
of night, and feeble lights in windows by the roadside; and still the
old monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. Of
dawn, and daybreak, and the rising of the sun. Of tolling slowly up a
hill, and feeling on its top the fresh sea-breeze; and seeing the
morning light upon the edges of the distant waves. Of coming down into
a harbour when the tide was at its full, and seeing fishing-boats
float on, and glad women and children waiting for them. Of nets and
seamen's clothes spread out to dry upon the shore; of busy saIlors,
and their voices high among ships' masts and rigging; of the buoyancy
and brightness of the water, and the universal sparkling.
Of receding from the coast, and looking back upon it from the deck
when it was a haze upon the water, with here and there a little
opening of bright land where the Sun struck. Of the swell, and flash,
and murmur of the calm sea. Of another grey line on the ocean, on the
vessel's track, fast growing clearer and higher. Of cliffs and
buildings, and a windmill, and a church, becoming more and more
visible upon it. Of steaming on at last into smooth water, and mooring
to a pier whence groups of people looked down, greeting friends on
board. Of disembarking, passing among them quickly, shunning every
one; and of being at last again in England.
He had thought, in his dream, of going down into a remote
country-place he knew, and lying quiet there, while he secretly
informed himself of what transpired, and determined how to act, Still
in the same stunned condition, he remembered a certain station on the
railway, where he would have to branch off to his place of
destination, and where there was a quiet Inn. Here, he indistinctly
resolved to tarry and rest.
With this purpose he slunk into a railway carriage as quickly as he
could, and lying there wrapped in his cloak as if he were asleep, was
soon borne far away from the sea, and deep into the inland green.
Arrived at his destination he looked out, and surveyed it carefully.
He was not mistaken in his impression of the place. It was a retired
spot, on the borders of a little wood. Only one house, newly-built or
altered for the purpose, stood there, surrounded by its neat garden;
the small town that was nearest, was some miles away. Here he alighted
then; and going straight into the tavern, unobserved by anyone,
secured two rooms upstairs communicating with each other, and
sufficiently retired.
His object was to rest, and recover the command of himself, and the
balance of his mind. Imbecile discomfiture and rage - so that, as he
walked about his room, he ground his teeth - had complete possession
of him. His thoughts, not to be stopped or directed, still wandered
where they would, and dragged him after them. He was stupefied, and he
was wearied to death.
But, as if there were a curse upon him that he should never rest
again, his drowsy senses would not lose their consciousness. He had no
more influence with them, in this regard, than if they had been
another man's. It was not that they forced him to take note of present
sounds and objects, but that they would not be diverted from the whole
hurried vision of his journey. It was constantly before him all at
once. She stood there, with her dark disdainful eyes again upon him;
and he was riding on nevertheless, through town and country, light and
darkness, wet weather and dry, over road and pavement, hill and
valley, height and hollow, jaded and scared by the monotony of bells
and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest.
'What day is this?' he asked of the waiter, who was making
preparations for his dinner.
'Day, Sir?'
'Is it Wednesday?'
'Wednesday, Sir? No, Sir. Thursday, Sir.'
'I forgot. How goes the time? My watch is unwound.'
'Wants a few minutes of five o'clock, Sir. Been travelling a long
time, Sir, perhaps?'
'Yes'
'By rail, Sir?'
'Yes'
'Very confusing, Sir. Not much in the habit of travelling by rail
myself, Sir, but gentlemen frequently say so.'
'Do many gentlemen come here?
'Pretty well, Sir, in general. Nobody here at present. Rather slack
just now, Sir. Everything is slack, Sir.'
He made no answer; but had risen into a sitting posture on the sofa
where he had been lying, and leaned forward with an arm on each knee,
staring at the ground. He could not master his own attention for a
minute together. It rushed away where it would, but it never, for an
instant, lost itself in sleep.
He drank a quantity of wine after dinner, in vain. No such
artificial means would bring sleep to his eyes. His thoughts, more
incoherent, dragged him more unmercifully after them - as if a wretch,
condemned to such expiation, were drawn at the heels of wild horses.
No oblivion, and no rest.
How long he sat, drinking and brooding, and being dragged in
imagination hither and thither, no one could have told less correctly
than he. But he knew that he had been sitting a long time by
candle-light, when he started up and listened, in a sudden terror.
For now, indeed, it was no fancy. The ground shook, the house
rattled, the fierce impetuous rush was in the air! He felt it come up,
and go darting by; and even when he had hurried to the window, and saw
what it was, he stood, shrinking from it, as if it were not safe to
look.
A curse upon the fiery devil, thundering along so smoothly, tracked
through the distant valley by a glare of light and lurid smoke, and
gone! He felt as if he had been plucked out of its path, and saved
from being torn asunder. It made him shrink and shudder even now, when
its faintest hum was hushed, and when the lines of iron road he could
trace in the moonlight, running to a point, were as empty and as
silent as a desert.
Unable to rest, and irresistibly attracted - or he thought so - to
this road, he went out, and lounged on the brink of it, marking the
way the train had gone, by the yet smoking cinders that were lying in
its track. After a lounge of some half hour in the direction by which
it had disappeared, he turned and walked the other way - still keeping
to the brink of the road - past the inn garden, and a long way down;
looking curiously at the bridges, signals, lamps, and wondering when
another Devil would come by.
A trembling of the ground, and quick vibration in his ears; a
distant shriek; a dull light advancing, quickly changed to two red
eyes, and a fierce fire, dropping glowing coals; an irresistible
bearing on of a great roaring and dilating mass; a high wind, and a
rattle - another come and gone, and he holding to a gate, as if to
save himself!
He waited for another, and for another. He walked back to his
former point, and back again to that, and still, through the wearisome
vision of his journey, looked for these approaching monsters. He
loitered about the station, waiting until one should stay to call
there; and when one did, and was detached for water, he stood parallel
with it, watching its heavy wheels and brazen front, and thinking what
a cruel power and might it had. Ugh! To see the great wheels slowly
turning, and to think of being run down and crushed!
Disordered with wine and want of rest - that want which nothing,
although he was so weary, would appease - these ideas and objects
assumed a diseased importance in his thoughts. When he went back to
his room, which was not until near midnight, they still haunted him,
and he sat listening for the coming of another.
So in his bed, whither he repaired with no hope of sleep. He still
lay listening; and when he felt the trembling and vibration, got up
and went to the window, to watch (as he could from its position) the
dull light changing to the two red eyes, and the fierce fire dropping
glowing coals, and the rush of the giant as it fled past, and the
track of glare and smoke along the valley. Then he would glance in the
direction by which he intended to depart at sunrise, as there was no
rest for him there; and would lie down again, to be troubled by the
vision of his journey, and the old monotony of bells and wheels and
horses' feet, until another came. This lasted all night. So far from
resuming the mastery of himself, he seemed, if possible, to lose it
more and more, as the night crept on. When the dawn appeared, he was
still tormented with thinking, still postponing thought until he
should be in a better state; the past, present, and future all floated
confusedly before him, and he had lost all power of looking steadily
at any one of them.
'At what time,' he asked the man who had waited on hIm over-night,
now entering with a candle, 'do I leave here, did you say?'
'About a quarter after four, Sir. Express comes through at four,
Sir. - It don't stop.
He passed his hand across his throbbing head, and looked at his
watch. Nearly half-past three.
'Nobody going with you, Sir, probably,' observed the man. 'Two
gentlemen here, Sir, but they're waiting for the train to London.'
'I thought you said there was nobody here,' said Carker, turning
upon him with the ghost of his old smile, when he was angry or
suspicious.
'Not then, sir. Two gentlemen came in the night by the short train
that stops here, Sir. Warm water, Sir?'
'No; and take away the candle. There's day enough for me.'
Having thrown himself upon the bed, half-dressed he was at the
window as the man left the room. The cold light of morning had
succeeded to night and there was already, in the sky, the red
suffusion of the coming sun. He bathed his head and face with water -
there was no cooling influence in it for him - hurriedly put on his
clothes, paid what he owed, and went out.
The air struck chill and comfortless as it breathed upon him. There
was a heavy dew; and, hot as he was, it made him shiver. After a
glance at the place where he had walked last night, and at the
signal-lights burning in the morning, and bereft of their
significance, he turned to where the sun was rising, and beheld it, in
its glory, as it broke upon the scene.
So awful, so transcendent in its beauty, so divinely solemn. As he
cast his faded eyes upon it, where it rose, tranquil and serene,
unmoved by all the wrong and wickedness on which its beams had shone
since the beginning of the world, who shall say that some weak sense
of virtue upon Earth, and its in Heaven, did not manifest itself, even
to him? If ever he remembered sister or brother with a touch of
tenderness and remorse, who shall say it was not then?
He needed some such touch then. Death was on him. He was marked off
- the living world, and going down into his grave.
He paid the money for his journey to the country-place he had
thought of; and was walking to and fro, alone, looking along the lines
of iron, across the valley in one direction, and towards a dark bridge
near at hand in the other; when, turning in his walk, where it was
bounded by one end of the wooden stage on which he paced up and down,
he saw the man from whom he had fled, emerging from the door by which
he himself had entered
And their eyes met.
In the quick unsteadiness of the surprise, he staggered, and
slipped on to the road below him. But recovering his feet immediately,
he stepped back a pace or two upon that road, to interpose some wider
space between them, and looked at his pursuer, breathing short and
quick.
He heard a shout - another - saw the face change from its
vindictive passion to a faint sickness and terror - felt the earth
tremble - knew in a moment that the rush was come - uttered a shriek -
looked round - saw the red eyes, bleared and dim, in the daylight,
close upon him - was beaten down, caught up, and whirled away upon a
jagged mill, that spun him round and round, and struck him limb from
limb, and licked his stream of life up with its fiery heat, and cast
his mutilated fragments in the air.
When the traveller, who had been recognised, recovered from a
swoon, he saw them bringing from a distance something covered, that
lay heavy and still, upon a board, between four men, and saw that
others drove some dogs away that sniffed upon the road, and soaked his
blood up, with a train of ashes.
CHAPTER 56.
Several People delighted, and the Game Chicken disgusted
The Midshipman was all alive. Mr Toots and Susan had arrived at
last. Susan had run upstairs like a young woman bereft of her senses,
and Mr Toots and the Chicken had gone into the Parlour.
'Oh my own pretty darling sweet Miss Floy!' cried the Nipper,
running into Florence's room, 'to think that it should come to this
and I should find you here my own dear dove with nobody to wait upon
you and no home to call your own but never never will I go away again
Miss Floy for though I may not gather moss I'm not a rolling stone nor
is my heart a stone or else it wouldn't bust as it is busting now oh
dear oh dear!'
Pouring out these words, without the faintest indication of a stop,
of any sort, Miss Nipper, on her knees beside her mistress, hugged her
close.
'Oh love!' cried Susan, 'I know all that's past I know it all my
tender pet and I'm a choking give me air!'
'Susan, dear good Susan!' said Florence. 'Oh bless her! I that was
her little maid when she was a little child! and is she really, really
truly going to be married?'exclaimed Susan, in a burst of pain and
pleasure, pride and grief, and Heaven knows how many other conflicting
feelings.
'Who told you so?' said Florence.
'Oh gracious me! that innocentest creetur Toots,' returned Susan
hysterically. 'I knew he must be right my dear, because he took on so.
He's the devotedest and innocentest infant! And is my darling,'
pursued Susan, with another close embrace and burst of tears, 'really
really going to be married!'
The mixture of compassion, pleasure, tenderness, protection, and
regret with which the Nipper constantly recurred to this subject, and
at every such once, raised her head to look in the young face and kiss
it, and then laid her head again upon her mistress's shoulder,
caressing her and sobbing, was as womanly and good a thing, in its
way, as ever was seen in the world.
'There, there!' said the soothing voice of Florence presently. 'Now
you're quite yourself, dear Susan!'
Miss Nipper, sitting down upon the floor, at her mistress's feet,
laughing and sobbing, holding her pocket-handkerchief to her eyes with
one hand, and patting Diogenes with the other as he licked her face,
confessed to being more composed, and laughed and cried a little more
in proof of it.
'I-I-I never did see such a creetur as that Toots,' said Susan, 'in
all my born days never!'
'So kind,' suggested Florence.
'And so comic!' Susan sobbed. 'The way he's been going on inside
with me with that disrespectable Chicken on the box!'
'About what, Susan?' inquired Florence, timidly.
'Oh about Lieutenant Walters, and Captain Gills, and you my dear
Miss Floy, and the silent tomb,' said Susan.
'The silent tomb!' repeated Florence.
'He says,' here Susan burst into a violent hysterical laugh, 'that
he'll go down into it now immediately and quite comfortable, but bless
your heart my dear Miss Floy he won't, he's a great deal too happy in
seeing other people happy for that, he may not be a Solomon,' pursued
the Nipper, with her usual volubility, 'nor do I say he is but this I
do say a less selfish human creature human nature never knew!' Miss
Nipper being still hysterical, laughed immoderately after making this
energetic declaration, and then informed Florence that he was waiting
below to see her; which would be a rich repayment for the trouble he
had had in his late expedition.
Florence entreated Susan to beg of Mr Toots as a favour that she
might have the pleasure of thanking him for his kindness; and Susan,
in a few moments, produced that young gentleman, still very much
dishevelled in appearance, and stammering exceedingly.
'Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots. 'To be again permitted to - to - gaze
- at least, not to gaze, but - I don't exactly know what I was going
to say, but it's of no consequence.
'I have to thank you so often,' returned Florence, giving him both
her hands, with all her innocent gratitude beaming in her face, 'that
I have no words left, and don't know how to do it.'
'Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, in an awful voice, 'if it was
possible that you could, consistently with your angelic nature, Curse
me, you would - if I may be allowed to say so - floor me infinitely
less, than by these undeserved expressions of kindness Their effect
upon me - is - but,' said Mr Toots, abruptly, 'this is a digression,
and of no consequence at all.'
As there seemed to be no means of replying to this, but by thanking
him again, Florence thanked him again.
'I could wish,' said Mr Toots, 'to take this opportunity, Miss
Dombey, if I might, of entering into a word of explanation. I should
have had the pleasure of - of returning with Susan at an earlier
period; but, in the first place, we didn't know the name of the
relation to whose house she had gone, and, in the second, as she had
left that relation's and gone to another at a distance, I think that
scarcely anything short of the sagacity of the Chicken, would have
found her out in the time.'
Florence was sure of it.
'This, however,' said Mr Toots, 'is not the point. The company of
Susan has been, I assure you, Miss Dombey, a consolation and
satisfaction to me, in my state of mind, more easily conceived than
described. The journey has been its own reward. That, however, still,
is not the point. Miss Dombey, I have before observed that I know I am
not what is considered a quick person. I am perfectly aware of that. I
don't think anybody could be better acquainted with his own - if it
was not too strong an expression, I should say with the thickness of
his own head - than myself. But, Miss Dombey, I do, notwithstanding,
perceive the state of - of things - with Lieutenant Walters. Whatever
agony that state of things may have caused me (which is of no
consequence at all), I am bound to say, that Lieutenant Walters is a
person who appears to be worthy of the blessing that has fallen on his
- on his brow. May he wear it long, and appreciate it, as a very
different, and very unworthy individual, that it is of no consequence
to name, would have done! That, however, still, is not the point. Miss
Dombey, Captain Gills is a friend of mine; and during the interval
that is now elapsing, I believe it would afford Captain Gills pleasure
to see me occasionally coming backwards and forwards here. It would
afford me pleasure so to come. But I cannot forget that I once
committed myself, fatally, at the corner of the Square at Brighton;
and if my presence will be, in the least degree, unpleasant to you, I
only ask you to name it to me now, and assure you that I shall
perfectly understand you. I shall not consider it at all unkind, and
shall only be too delighted and happy to be honoured with your
confidence.'
'Mr Toots,' returned Florence, 'if you, who are so old and true a
friend of mine, were to stay away from this house now, you would make
me very unhappy. It can never, never, give me any feeling but pleasure
to see you.
'Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, taking out his pocket-handkerchief,
'if I shed a tear, it is a tear of joy. It is of no consequence, and I
am very much obliged to you. I may be allowed to remark, after what
you have so kindly said, that it is not my intention to neglect my
person any longer.'
Florence received this intimation with the prettiest expression of
perplexity possible.
'I mean,' said Mr Toots, 'that I shall consider it my duty as a
fellow-creature generally, until I am claimed by the silent tomb, to
make the best of myself, and to - to have my boots as brightly
polished, as - as -circumstances will admit of. This is the last time,
Miss Dombey, of my intruding any observation of a private and personal
nature. I thank you very much indeed. if I am not, in a general way,
as sensible as my friends could wish me to be, or as I could wish
myself, I really am, upon my word and honour, particularly sensible of
what is considerate and kind. I feel,' said Mr Toots, in an
impassioned tone, 'as if I could express my feelings, at the present
moment, in a most remarkable manner, if - if - I could only get a
start.'
Appearing not to get it, after waiting a minute or two to see if it
would come, Mr Toots took a hasty leave, and went below to seek the
Captain, whom he found in the shop.
'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'what is now to take place between
us, takes place under the sacred seal of confidence. It is the sequel,
Captain Gills, of what has taken place between myself and Miss Dombey,
upstairs.'
'Alow and aloft, eh, my lad?' murmured the Captain.
'Exactly so, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, whose fervour of
acquiescence was greatly heightened by his entire ignorance of the
Captain's meaning. 'Miss Dombey, I believe, Captain Gills, is to be
shortly united to Lieutenant Walters?'
'Why, ay, my lad. We're all shipmets here, - Wal'r and sweet- heart
will be jined together in the house of bondage, as soon as the askings
is over,' whispered Captain Cuttle, in his ear.
'The askings, Captain Gills!' repeated Mr Toots.
'In the church, down yonder,' said the Captain, pointing his thumb
over his shoulder.
'Oh! Yes!' returned Mr Toots.
'And then,' said the Captain, in his hoarse whisper, and tapping Mr
Toots on the chest with the back of his hand, and falling from him
with a look of infinite admiration, 'what follers? That there pretty
creetur, as delicately brought up as a foreign bird, goes away upon
the roaring main with Wal'r on a woyage to China!'
'Lord, Captain Gills!' said Mr Toots.
'Ay!' nodded the Captain. 'The ship as took him up, when he was
wrecked in the hurricane that had drove her clean out of her course,
was a China trader, and Wal'r made the woyage, and got into favour,
aboard and ashore - being as smart and good a lad as ever stepped -
and so, the supercargo dying at Canton, he got made (having acted as
clerk afore), and now he's supercargo aboard another ship, same
owners. And so, you see,' repeated the Captain, thoughtfully, 'the
pretty creetur goes away upon the roaring main with Wal'r, on a woyage
to China.'
Mr Toots and Captain Cuttle heaved a sigh in concert. 'What then?'
said the Captain. 'She loves him true. He loves her true. Them as
should have loved and tended of her, treated of her like the beasts as
perish. When she, cast out of home, come here to me, and dropped upon
them planks, her wownded heart was broke. I know it. I, Ed'ard Cuttle,
see it. There's nowt but true, kind, steady love, as can ever piece it
up again. If so be I didn't know that, and didn't know as Wal'r was
her true love, brother, and she his, I'd have these here blue arms and
legs chopped off, afore I'd let her go. But I know it, and what then!
Why, then, I say, Heaven go with 'em both, and so it will! Amen!'
'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'let me have the pleasure of
shaking hands You've a way of saying things, that gives me an
agreeable warmth, all up my back. I say Amen. You are aware, Captain
Gills, that I, too, have adored Miss Dombey.'
'Cheer up!' said the Captain, laying his hand on Mr Toots's
shoulder. 'Stand by, boy!'
'It is my intention, Captain Gills,' returned the spirited Mr
Toots, 'to cheer up. Also to standby, as much as possible. When the
silent tomb shall yawn, Captain Gills, I shall be ready for burial;
not before. But not being certain, just at present, of my power over
myself, what I wish to say to you, and what I shall take it as a
particular favour if you will mention to Lieutenant Walters, is as
follows.'
'Is as follers,' echoed the Captain. 'Steady!'
'Miss Dombey being so inexpressably kind,' continued Mr Toots with
watery eyes, 'as to say that my presence is the reverse of
disagreeable to her, and you and everybody here being no less
forbearing and tolerant towards one who - who certainly,' said Mr
Toots, with momentary dejection, 'would appear to have been born by
mistake, I shall come backwards and forwards of an evening, during the
short time we can all be together. But what I ask is this. If, at any
moment, I find that I cannot endure the contemplation of Lieutenant
Walters's bliss, and should rush out, I hope, Captain Gills, that you
and he will both consider it as my misfortune and not my fault, or the
want of inward conflict. That you'll feel convinced I bear no malice
to any living creature-least of all to Lieutenant Walters himself -
and that you'll casually remark that I have gone out for a walk, or
probably to see what o'clock it is by the Royal Exchange. Captain
Gills, if you could enter into this arrangement, and could answer for
Lieutenant Walters, it would be a relief to my feelings that I should
think cheap at the sacrifice of a considerable portion of my
property.'
'My lad,' returned the Captain, 'say no more. There ain't a colour
you can run up, as won't be made out, and answered to, by Wal'r and
self.'
'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'my mind is greatly relieved. I
wish to preserve the good opinion of all here. I - I - mean well, upon
my honour, however badly I may show it. You know,' said Mr Toots,
'it's as exactly as Burgess and Co. wished to oblige a customer with a
most extraordinary pair of trousers, and could not cut out what they
had in their minds.'
With this apposite illustration, of which he seemed a little Proud,
Mr Toots gave Captain Cuttle his blessing and departed.
The honest Captain, with his Heart's Delight in the house, and
Susan tending her, was a beaming and a happy man. As the days flew by,
he grew more beaming and more happy, every day. After some conferences
with Susan (for whose wisdom the Captain had a profound respect, and
whose valiant precipitation of herself on Mrs MacStinger he could
never forget), he proposed to Florence that the daughter of the
elderly lady who usually sat under the blue umbrella in Leadenhall
Market, should, for prudential reasons and considerations of privacy,
be superseded in the temporary discharge of the household duties, by
someone who was not unknown to them, and in whom they could safely
confide. Susan, being present, then named, in furtherance of a
suggestion she had previously offered to the Captain, Mrs Richards.
Florence brightened at the name. And Susan, setting off that very
afternoon to the Toodle domicile, to sound Mrs Richards, returned in
triumph the same evening, accompanied by the identical rosy-cheeked
apple-faced Polly, whose demonstrations, when brought into Florence's
presence, were hardly less affectionate than those of Susan Nipper
herself.
This piece of generalship accomplished; from which the Captain
derived uncommon satisfaction, as he did, indeed, from everything else
that was done, whatever it happened to be; Florence had next to
prepare Susan for their approaching separation. This was a much more
difficult task, as Miss Nipper was of a resolute disposition, and had
fully made up her mind that she had come back never to be parted from
her old mistress any more.
'As to wages dear Miss Floy,' she said, 'you wouldn't hint and
wrong me so as think of naming them, for I've put money by and
wouldn't sell my love and duty at a time like this even if the
Savings' Banks and me were total strangers or the Banks were broke to
pieces, but you've never been without me darling from the time your
poor dear Ma was took away, and though I'm nothing to be boasted of
you're used to me and oh my own dear mistress through so many years
don't think of going anywhere without me, for it mustn't and can't
be!'
'Dear Susan, I am going on a long, long voyage.'
'Well Miss Floy, and what of that? the more you'll want me. Lengths
of voyages ain't an object in my eyes, thank God!' said the impetuous
Susan Nipper.
'But, Susan, I am going with Walter, and I would go with Walter
anywhere - everywhere! Walter is poor, and I am very poor, and I must
learn, now, both to help myself, and help him.'
'Dear Miss Floy!' cried Susan, bursting out afresh, and shaking her
head violently, 'it's nothing new to you to help yourself and others
too and be the patientest and truest of noble hearts, but let me talk
to Mr Walter Gay and settle it with him, for suffer you to go away
across the world alone I cannot, and I won't.'
'Alone, Susan?' returned Florence. 'Alone? and Walter taking me
with him!' Ah, what a bright, amazed, enraptured smile was on her
face! - He should have seen it. 'I am sure you will not speak to
Walter if I ask you not,' she added tenderly; 'and pray don't, dear.'
Susan sobbed 'Why not, Miss Floy?'
'Because,' said Florence, 'I am going to be his wife, to give him
up my whole heart, and to live with him and die with him. He might
think, if you said to him what you have said to me, that I am afraid
of what is before me, or that you have some cause to be afraid for me.
Why, Susan, dear, I love him!'
Miss Nipper was so much affected by the quiet fervour of these
words, and the simple, heartfelt, all-pervading earnestness expressed
in them, and making the speaker's face more beautiful and pure than
ever, that she could only cling to her again, crying. Was her little
mistress really, really going to be married, and pitying, caressing,
and protecting her, as she had done before. But the Nipper, though
susceptible of womanly weaknesses, was almost as capable of putting
constraint upon herself as of attacking the redoubtable MacStinger.
From that time, she never returned to the subject, but was always
cheerful, active, bustling, and hopeful. She did, indeed, inform Mr
Toots privately, that she was only 'keeping up' for the time, and that
when it was all over, and Miss Dombey was gone, she might be expected
to become a spectacle distressful; and Mr Toots did also express that
it was his case too, and that they would mingle their tears together;
but she never otherwise indulged her private feelings in the presence
of Florence or within the precincts of the Midshipman.
Limited and plain as Florence's wardrobe was - what a contrast to
that prepared for the last marriage in which she had taken part! -
there was a good deal to do in getting it ready, and Susan Nipper
worked away at her side, all day, with the concentrated zeal of fifty
sempstresses. The wonderful contributions Captain Cuttle would have
made to this branch of the outfit, if he had been permitted - as pink
parasols, tinted silk stockings, blue shoes, and other articles no
less necessary on shipboard - would occupy some space in the recital.
He was induced, however, by various fraudulent representations, to
limit his contributions to a work-box and dressing case, of each of
which he purchased the very largest specimen that could be got for
money. For ten days or a fortnight afterwards, he generally sat,
during the greater part of the day, gazing at these boxes; divided
between extreme admiration of them, and dejected misgivings that they
were not gorgeous enough, and frequently diving out into the street to
purchase some wild article that he deemed necessary to their
completeness. But his master-stroke was, the bearing of them both off,
suddenly, one morning, and getting the two words FLORENCE GAY engraved
upon a brass heart inlaid over the lid of each. After this, he smoked
four pipes successively in the little parlour by himself, and was
discovered chuckling, at the expiration of as many hours.
Walter was busy and away all day, but came there every morning
early to see Florence, and always passed the evening with her.
Florence never left her high rooms but to steal downstairs to wait for
him when it was his time to come, or, sheltered by his proud,
encircling arm, to bear him company to the door again, and sometimes
peep into the street. In the twilight they were always together. Oh
blessed time! Oh wandering heart at rest! Oh deep, exhaustless, mighty
well of love, in which so much was sunk!
The cruel mark was on her bosom yet. It rose against her father
with the breath she drew, it lay between her and her lover when he
pressed her to his heart. But she forgot it. In the beating of that
heart for her, and in the beating of her own for him, all harsher
music was unheard, all stern unloving hearts forgotten. Fragile and
delicate she was, but with a might of love within her that could, and
did, create a world to fly to, and to rest in, out of his one image.
How often did the great house, and the old days, come before her in
the twilight time, when she was sheltered by the arm, so proud, so
fond, and, creeping closer to him, shrunk within it at the
recollection! How often, from remembering the night when she went down
to that room and met the never-to-be forgotten look, did she raise her
eyes to those that watched her with such loving earnestness, and weep
with happiness in such a refuge! The more she clung to it, the more
the dear dead child was in her thoughts: but as if the last time she
had seen her father, had been when he was sleeping and she kissed his
face, she always left him so, and never, in her fancy, passed that
hour.
'Walter, dear,' said Florence, one evening, when it was almost
dark.'Do you know what I have been thinking to-day?'
'Thinking how the time is flying on, and how soon we shall be upon
the sea, sweet Florence?'
'I don't mean that, Walter, though I think of that too. I have been
thinking what a charge I am to you.
'A precious, sacred charge, dear heart! Why, I think that
sometimes.'
'You are laughing, Walter. I know that's much more in your thoughts
than mine. But I mean a cost.
'A cost, my own?'
'In money, dear. All these preparations that Susan and I are so
busy with - I have been able to purchase very little for myself. You
were poor before. But how much poorer I shall make you, Walter!'
'And how much richer, Florence!'
Florence laughed, and shook her head.
'Besides,' said Walter, 'long ago - before I went to sea - I had a
little purse presented to me, dearest, which had money in it.'
'Ah!' returned Florence, laughing sorrowfully, 'very little! very
little, Walter! But, you must not think,' and here she laid her light
hand on his shoulder, and looked into his face, 'that I regret to be
this burden on you. No, dear love, I am glad of it. I am happy in it.
I wouldn't have it otherwise for all the world!'
'Nor I, indeed, dear Florence.'
'Ay! but, Walter, you can never feel it as I do. I am so proud of
you! It makes my heart swell with such delight to know that those who
speak of you must say you married a poor disowned girl, who had taken
shelter here; who had no other home, no other friends; who had nothing
- nothing! Oh, Walter, if I could have brought you millions, I never
could have been so happy for your sake, as I am!'
'And you, dear Florence? are you nothing?' he returned.
'No, nothing, Walter. Nothing but your wife.' The light hand stole
about his neck, and the voice came nearer - nearer. 'I am nothing any
more, that is not you. I have no earthly hope any more, that is not
you. I have nothing dear to me any more, that is not you.
Oh! well might Mr Toots leave the little company that evening, and
twice go out to correct his watch by the Royal Exchange, and once to
keep an appointment with a banker which he suddenly remembered, and
once to take a little turn to Aldgate Pump and back!
But before he went upon these expeditions, or indeed before he
came, and before lights were brought, Walter said:
'Florence, love, the lading of our ship is nearly finished, and
probably on the very day of our marriage she will drop down the river.
Shall we go away that morning, and stay in Kent until we go on board
at Gravesend within a week?'
'If you please, Walter. I shall be happy anywhere. But - '
'Yes, my life?'
'You know,' said Florence, 'that we shall have no marriage party,
and that nobody will distinguish us by our dress from other people. As
we leave the same day, will you - will you take me somewhere that
morning, Walter - early - before we go to church?'
Walter seemed to understand her, as so true a lover so truly loved
should, and confirmed his ready promise with a kiss - with more than
one perhaps, or two or threes or five or six; and in the grave,
peaceful evening, Florence was very happy.
Then into the quiet room came Susan Nipper and the candles; shortly
afterwards, the tea, the Captain, and the excursive Mr Toots, who, as
above mentioned, was frequently on the move afterwards, and passed but
a restless evening. This, however, was not his habit: for he generally
got on very well, by dint of playing at cribbage with the Captain
under the advice and guidance of Miss Nipper, and distracting his mind
with the calculations incidental to the game; which he found to be a
very effectual means of utterly confounding himself.
The Captain's visage on these occasions presented one of the finest
examples of combination and succession of expression ever observed.
His instinctive delicacy and his chivalrous feeling towards Florence,
taught him that it was not a time for any boisterous jollity, or
violent display of satisfaction; floating reminiscences of Lovely Peg,
on the other hand, were constantly struggling for a vent, and urging
the Captain to commit himself by some irreparable demonstration. Anon,
his admiration of Florence and Walter - well-matched, truly, and full
of grace and interest in their youth, and love, and good looks, as
they sat apart - would take such complete possession of hIm, that he
would lay down his cards, and beam upon them, dabbing his head all
over with his pockethandkerchief; until warned, perhaps, by the sudden
rushing forth of Mr Toots, that he had unconsciously been very
instrumental, indeed, in making that gentleman miserable. This
reflection would make the Captain profoundly melancholy, until the
return of Mr Toots; when he would fall to his cards again, with many
side winks and nods, and polite waves of his hook at Miss Nipper,
importing that he wasn't going to do so any more. The state that
ensued on this, was, perhaps, his best; for then, endeavouring to
discharge all expression from his face, he would sit staring round the
room, with all these expressions conveyed into it at once, and each
wrestling with the other. Delighted admiration of Florence and Walter
always overthrew the rest, and remained victorious and undisguised,
unless Mr Toots made another rush into the air, and then the Captain
would sit, like a remorseful culprit, until he came back again,
occasionally calling upon himself, in a low reproachful voice, to
'Stand by!' or growling some remonstrance to 'Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad,'
on the want of caution observabl in his behaviour.
One of Mr Toots's hardest trials, however, was of his own seeking.
On the approach of the Sunday which was to witness the last of those
askings in church of which the Captain had spoken, Mr Toots thus
stated his feelings to Susan Nipper.
'Susan,' said Mr Toots, 'I am drawn towards the building. The words
which cut me off from Miss Dombey for ever, will strike upon my ears
like a knell you know, but upon my word and honour, I feel that I must
hear them. Therefore,' said Mr Toots, 'will you accompany me
to-morrow, to the sacred edifice?'
Miss Nipper expressed her readiness to do so, if that would be any
satisfaction to Mr Toots, but besought him to abandon his idea of
going.
'Susan,' returned Mr Toots, with much solemnity, 'before my
whiskers began to be observed by anybody but myself, I adored Miss
Dombey. While yet a victim to the thraldom of Blimber, I adored Miss
Dombey. When I could no longer be kept out of my property, in a legal
point of view, and - and accordingly came into it - I adored Miss
Dombey. The banns which consign her to Lieutenant Walters, and me to -
to Gloom, you know,' said Mr Toots, after hesitating for a strong
expression, 'may be dreadful, will be dreadful; but I feel that I
should wish to hear them spoken. I feel that I should wish to know
that the ground wascertainly cut from under me, and that I hadn't a
hope to cherish, or a - or a leg, in short, to - to go upon.'
Susan Nipper could only commiserate Mr Toots's unfortunate
condition, and agree, under these circumstances, to accompany him;
which she did next morning.
The church Walter had chosen for the purpose, was a mouldy old
church in a yard, hemmed in by a labyrinth of back streets and courts,
with a little burying-ground round it, and itself buried in a kind of
vault, formed by the neighbouring houses, and paved with echoing
stones It was a great dim, shabby pile, with high old oaken pews,
among which about a score of people lost themselves every Sunday;
while the clergyman's voice drowsily resounded through the emptiness,
and the organ rumbled and rolled as if the church had got the colic,
for want of a congregation to keep the wind and damp out. But so far
was this city church from languishing for the company of other
churches, that spires were clustered round it, as the masts of
shipping cluster on the river. It would have been hard to count them
from its steeple-top, they were so many. In almost every yard and
blind-place near, there was a church. The confusion of bells when
Susan and Mr Toots betook themselves towards it on the Sunday morning,
was deafening. There were twenty churches close together, clamouring
for people to come in.
The two stray sheep in question were penned by a beadle in a
commodious pew, and, being early, sat for some time counting the
congregation, listening to the disappointed bell high up in the tower,
or looking at a shabby little old man in the porch behind the screen,
who was ringing the same, like the Bull in Cock Robin,' with his foot
in a stirrup. Mr Toots, after a lengthened survey of the large books
on the reading-desk, whispered Miss Nipper that he wondered where the
banns were kept, but that young lady merely shook her head and
frowned; repelling for the time all approaches of a temporal nature.
Mr Toots, however, appearing unable to keep his thoughts from the
banns, was evidently looking out for them during the whole preliminary
portion of the service. As the time for reading them approached, the
poor young gentleman manifested great anxiety and trepidation, which
was not diminished by the unexpected apparition of the Captain in the
front row of the gallery. When the clerk handed up a list to the
clergyman, Mr Toots, being then seated, held on by the seat of the
pew; but when the names of Walter Gay and Florence Dombey were read
aloud as being in the third and last stage of that association, he was
so entirley conquered by his feelings as to rush from the church
without his hat, followed by the beadle and pew-opener, and two
gentlemen of the medical profeesion, who happened to be present; of
whom the first-named presently returned for that article, informing
Miss Nipper in a whisper that she was not to make herself uneasy about
the gentleman, as the gentleman said his indisposition was of no
consequence.
Miss Nipper, feeling that the eyes of that integral portion of
Europe which lost itself weekly among the high-backed pews, were upon
her, would have been sufficient embarrassed by this incident, though
it had terminated here; the more so, as the Captain in the front row
of the gallery, was in a state of unmitigated consciousness which
could hardly fail to express to the congregation that he had some
mysterious connection with it. But the extreme restlessness of Mr
Toots painfully increased and protracted the delicacy of her
situation. That young gentleman, incapable, in his state of mind, of
remaining alone in the churchyard, a prey to solitary meditation, and
also desirous, no doubt, of testifying his respect for the offices he
had in some measure interrupted, suddenly returned - not coming back
to the pew, but stationing himself on a free seat in the aisle,
between two elderly females who were in the habit of receiving their
portion of a weekly dole of bread then set forth on a shelf in the
porch. In this conjunction Mr Toots remained, greatly disturbing the
congregation, who felt it impossible to avoid looking at him, until
his feelings overcame him again, when he departed silently and
suddenly. Not venturing to trust himself in the church any more, and
yet wishing to have some social participation in what was going on
there, Mr Toots was, after this, seen from time to time, looking in,
with a lorn aspect, at one or other of the windows; and as there were
several windows accessible to him from without, and as his
restlessness was very great, it not only became difficult to conceive
at which window he would appear next, but likewise became necessary,
as it were, for the whole congregation to speculate upon the chances
of the different windows, during the comparative leisure afforded them
by the sermon. Mr Toots's movements in the churchyard were so
eccentric, that he seemed generally to defeat all calculation, and to
appear, like the conjuror's figure, where he was least expected; and
the effect of these mysterious presentations was much increased by its
being difficult to him to see in, and easy to everybody else to see
out: which occasioned his remaining, every time, longer than might
have been expected, with his face close to the glass, until he all at
once became aware that all eyes were upon him, and vanished.
These proceedings on the part of Mr Toots, and the strong
individual consciousness of them that was exhibited by the Captain,
rendered Miss Nipper's position so responsible a one, that she was
mightily relieved by the conclusion of the service; and was hardly so
affable to Mr Toots as usual, when he informed her and the Captain, on
the way back, that now he was sure he had no hope, you know, he felt
more comfortable - at least not exactly more comfortable, but more
comfortably and completely miserable.
Swiftly now, indeed, the time flew by until it was the evening
before the day appointed for the marriage. They were all assembled in
the upper room at the Midshipman's, and had no fear of interruption;
for there were no lodgers in the house now, and the Midshipman had it
all to himself. They were grave and quiet in the prospect of
to-morrow, but moderately cheerful too. Florence, with Walter close
beside her, was finishing a little piece of work intended as a parting
gift to the Captain. The Captain was playing cribbage with Mr Toots.
Mr Toots was taking counsel as to his hand, of Susan Nipper. Miss
Nipper was giving it, with all due secrecy and circumspection.
Diogenes was listening, and occasionally breaking out into a gruff
half-smothered fragment of a bark, of which he afterwards seemed
half-ashamed, as if he doubted having any reason for it.
'Steady, steady!' said the Captain to Diogenes, 'what's amiss with
you? You don't seem easy in your mind to-night, my boy!'
Diogenes wagged his tail, but pricked up his ears immediately
afterwards, and gave utterance to another fragment of a bark; for
which he apologised to the Captain, by again wagging his tail.
'It's my opinion, Di,' said the Captain, looking thoughtfully at
his cards, and stroking his chin with his hook, 'as you have your
doubts of Mrs Richards; but if you're the animal I take you to be,
you'll think better o' that; for her looks is her commission. Now,
Brother:' to Mr Toots: 'if so be as you're ready, heave ahead.'
The Captain spoke with all composure and attention to the game, but
suddenly his cards dropped out of his hand, his mouth and eyes opened
wide, his legs drew themselves up and stuck out in front of his chair,
and he sat staring at the door with blank amazement. Looking round
upon the company, and seeing that none of them observed him or the
cause of his astonishment, the Captain recovered himself with a great
gasp, struck the table a tremendous blow, cried in a stentorian roar,
'Sol Gills ahoy!' and tumbled into the arms of a weather-beaten
pea-coat that had come with Polly into the room.
In another moment, Walter was in the arms of the weather-beaten
pea-coat. In another moment, Florence was in the arms of the
weather-beaten pea-coat. In another moment, Captain Cuttle had
embraced Mrs Richards and Miss Nipper, and was violently shaking hands
with Mr Toots, exclaiming, as he waved his hook above his head,
'Hooroar, my lad, hooroar!' To which Mr Toots, wholly at a loss to
account for these proceedings, replied with great politeness,
'Certainly, Captain Gills, whatever you think proper!'
The weather-beaten pea-coat, and a no less weather-beaten cap and
comforter belonging to it, turned from the Captain and from Florence
back to Walter, and sounds came from the weather-beaten pea-coat, cap,
and comforter, as of an old man sobbing underneath them; while the
shaggy sleeves clasped Walter tight. During this pause, there was an
universal silence, and the Captain polished his nose with great
diligence. But when the pea-coat, cap, and comforter lifted themselves
up again, Florence gently moved towards them; and she and Walter
taking them off, disclosed the old Instrument-maker, a little thinner
and more careworn than of old, in his old Welsh wig and his old
coffee-coloured coat and basket buttons, with his old infallible
chronometer ticking away in his pocket.
'Chock full o' science,' said the radiant Captain, 'as ever he was!
Sol Gills, Sol Gills, what have you been up to, for this many a long
day, my ould boy?'
'I'm half blind, Ned,' said the old man, 'and almost deaf and dumb
with joy.'
'His wery woice,' said the Captain, looking round with an
exultation to which even his face could hardly render justice - 'his
wery woice as chock full o' science as ever it was! Sol Gills, lay to,
my lad, upon your own wines and fig-trees like a taut ould patriark as
you are, and overhaul them there adwentures o' yourn, in your own
formilior woice. 'Tis the woice,' said the Captain, impressively, and
announcing a quotation with his hook, 'of the sluggard, I heerd him
complain, you have woke me too soon, I must slumber again. Scatter his
ene-mies, and make 'em fall!'
The Captain sat down with the air of a man who had happily
expressed the feeling of everybody present, and immediately rose again
to present Mr Toots, who was much disconcerted by the arrival of
anybody, appearing to prefer a claim to the name of Gills.
'Although,' stammered Mr Toots, 'I had not the pleasure of your
acquaintance, Sir, before you were - you were - '
'Lost to sight, to memory dear,' suggested the Captain, in a low
voice.
Exactly so, Captain Gills!' assented Mr Toots. 'Although I had not
the pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr - Mr Sols,' said Toots, hitting
on that name in the inspiration of a bright idea, 'before that
happened, I have the greatest pleasure, I assure you, in - you know,
in knowing you. I hope,' said Mr Toots, 'that you're as well as can be
expected.'
With these courteous words, Mr Toots sat down blushing and
chuckling.
The old Instrument-maker, seated in a corner between Walter and
Florence, and nodding at Polly, who was looking on, all smiles and
delight, answered the Captain thus:
'Ned Cuttle, my dear boy, although I have heard something of the
changes of events here, from my pleasant friend there - what a
pleasant face she has to be sure, to welcome a wanderer home!' said
the old man, breaking off, and rubbing his hands in his old dreamy
way.
'Hear him!' cried the Captain gravely. ''Tis woman as seduces all
mankind. For which,' aside to Mr Toots, 'you'll overhaul your Adam and
Eve, brother.'
'I shall make a point of doing so, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots.
'Although I have heard something of the changes of events, from
her,' resumed the Instrument-maker, taking his old spectacles from his
pocket, and putting them on his forehead in his old manner, 'they are
so great and unexpected, and I am so overpowered by the sight of my
dear boy, and by the,' - glancing at the downcast eyes of Florence,
and not attempting to finish the sentence - 'that I - I can't say much
to-night. But my dear Ned Cuttle, why didn't you write?'
The astonishment depicted in the Captain's features positively
frightened Mr Toots, whose eyes were quite fixed by it, so that he
could not withdraw them from his face.
'Write!' echoed the Captain. 'Write, Sol Gills?'
'Ay,' said the old man, 'either to Barbados, or Jamaica, or
Demerara, That was what I asked.'
'What you asked, Sol Gills?' repeated the Captain.
'Ay,' said the old man. 'Don't you know, Ned? Sure you have not
forgotten? Every time I wrote to you.'
The Captain took off his glazed hat, hung it on his hook, and
smoothing his hair from behind with his hand, sat gazing at the group
around him: a perfect image of wondering resignation.
'You don't appear to understand me, Ned!' observed old Sol.
'Sol Gills,' returned the Captain, after staring at him and the
rest for a long time, without speaking, 'I'm gone about and adrift.
Pay out a word or two respecting them adwenturs, will you! Can't I
bring up, nohows? Nohows?' said the Captain, ruminating, and staring
all round.
'You know, Ned,' said Sol Gills, 'why I left here. Did you open my
packet, Ned?'
'Why, ay, ay,' said the Captain. 'To be sure, I opened the packet.'
'And read it?' said the old man.
'And read it,' answered the Captain, eyeing him attentively, and
proceeding to quote it from memory. '"My dear Ned Cuttle, when I left
home for the West Indies in forlorn search of intelligence of my
dear-" There he sits! There's Wal'r!' said the Captain, as if he were
relieved by getting hold of anything that was real and indisputable.
'Well, Ned. Now attend a moment!' said the old man. 'When I wrote
first - that was from Barbados - I said that though you would receive
that letter long before the year was out, I should be glad if you
would open the packet, as it explained the reason of my going away.
Very good, Ned. When I wrote the second, third, and perhaps the fourth
times - that was from Jamaica - I said I was in just the same state,
couldn't rest, and couldn't come away from that part of the world,
without knowing that my boy was lost or saved. When I wrote next -
that, I think, was from Demerara, wasn't it?'
'That he thinks was from Demerara, warn't it!' said the Captain,
looking hopelessly round.
'I said,' proceeded old Sol, 'that still there was no certain
information got yet. That I found many captains and others, in that
part of the world, who had known me for years, and who assisted me
with a passage here and there, and for whom I was able, now and then,
to do a little in return, in my own craft. That everyone was sorry for
me, and seemed to take a sort of interest in my wanderings; and that I
began to think it would be my fate to cruise about in search of
tidings of my boy, until I died.'
'Began to think as how he was a scientific Flying Dutchman!' said
the Captain, as before, and with great seriousness.
'But when the news come one day, Ned, - that was to Barbados, after
I got back there, - that a China trader home'ard bound had been spoke,
that had my boy aboard, then, Ned, I took passage in the next ship and
came home; arrived at home to-night to find it true, thank God!' said
the old man, devoutly.
The Captain, after bowing his head with great reverence, stared all
round the circle, beginning with Mr Toots, and ending with the
Instrument-maker; then gravely said:
'Sol Gills! The observation as I'm a-going to make is calc'lated to
blow every stitch of sail as you can carry, clean out of the
bolt-ropes, and bring you on your beam ends with a lurch. Not one of
them letters was ever delivered to Ed'ard Cuttle. Not one o' them
letters,' repeated the Captain, to make his declaration the more
solemn and impressive, 'was ever delivered unto Ed'ard Cuttle,
Mariner, of England, as lives at home at ease, and doth improve each
shining hour!'
'And posted by my own hand! And directed by my own hand, Number
nine Brig Place!' exclaimed old Sol.
The colour all went out of the Captain's face and all came back
again in a glow.
'What do you mean, Sol Gills, my friend, by Number nine Brig
Place?' inquired the Captain.
'Mean? Your lodgings, Ned,' returned the old man. 'Mrs
What's-her-name! I shall forget my own name next, but I am behind the
present time - I always was, you recollect - and very much confused.
Mrs - '
'Sol Gills!' said the Captain, as if he were putting the most
improbable case in the world, 'it ain't the name of MacStinger as
you're a trying to remember?'
'Of course it is!' exclaimed the Instrument-maker. 'To be sure Ned.
Mrs MacStinger!'
Captain Cuttle, whose eyes were now as wide open as they would be,
and the knobs upon whose face were perfectly luminous, gave a long
shrill whistle of a most melancholy sound, and stood gazing at
everybody in a state of speechlessness.
'Overhaul that there again, Sol Gills, will you be so kind?' he
said at last.
'All these letters,' returned Uncle Sol, beating time with the
forefinger of his right hand upon the palm of his left, with a
steadiness and distinctness that might have done honour, even to the
infallible chronometer in his pocket, 'I posted with my own hand, and
directed with my own hand, to Captain Cuttle, at Mrs MacStinger's,
Number nine Brig Place.'
The Captain took his glazed hat off his hook, looked into it, put
it on, and sat down.
'Why, friends all,' said the Captain, staring round in the last
state of discomfiture, 'I cut and run from there!'
'And no one knew where you were gone, Captain Cuttle?' cried Walter
hastily.
'Bless your heart, Wal'r,' said the Captain, shaking his head,
'she'd never have allowed o' my coming to take charge o' this here
property. Nothing could be done but cut and run. Lord love you,
Wal'r!' said the Captain, 'you've only seen her in a calm! But see her
when her angry passions rise - and make a note on!'
'I'd give it her!' remarked the Nipper, softly.
'Would you, do you think, my dear?' returned the Captain, with
feeble admiration. 'Well, my dear, it does you credit. But there ain't
no wild animal I wouldn't sooner face myself. I only got my chest away
by means of a friend as nobody's a match for. It was no good sending
any letter there. She wouldn't take in any letter, bless you,' said
the Captain, 'under them circumstances! Why, you could hardly make it
worth a man's while to be the postman!'
'Then it's pretty clear, Captain Cuttle, that all of us, and you
and Uncle Sol especially,' said Walter, 'may thank Mrs MacStinger for
no small anxiety.'
The general obligation in this wise to the determined relict of the
late Mr MacStinger, was so apparent, that the Captain did not contest
the point; but being in some measure ashamed of his position, though
nobody dwelt upon the subject, and Walter especially avoided it,
remembering the last conversation he and the Captain had held together
respecting it, he remained under a cloud for nearly five minutes - an
extraordinary period for him when that sun, his face, broke out once
more, shining on all beholders with extraordinary brilliancy; and he
fell into a fit of shaking hands with everybody over and over again.
At an early hour, but not before Uncle Sol and Walter had
questioned each other at some length about their voyages and dangers,
they all, except Walter, vacated Florence's room, and went down to the
parlour. Here they were soon afterwards joined by Walter, who told
them Florence was a little sorrowful and heavy-hearted, and had gone
to bed. Though they could not have disturbed her with their voices
down there, they all spoke in a whisper after this: and each, in his
different way, felt very lovingly and gently towards Walter's fair
young bride: and a long explanation there was of everything relating
to her, for the satisfaction of Uncle Sol; and very sensible Mr Toots
was of the delicacy with which Walter made his name and services
important, and his presence necessary to their little council.
'Mr Toots,' said Walter, on parting with him at the house door, 'we
shall see each other to-morrow morning?'
'Lieutenant Walters,' returned Mr Toots, grasping his hand
fervently, 'I shall certainly be present.
'This is the last night we shall meet for a long time - the last
night we may ever meet,' said Walter. 'Such a noble heart as yours,
must feel, I think, when another heart is bound to it. I hope you know
that I am very grateful to you?'
'Walters,' replied Mr Toots, quite touched, 'I should be glad to
feel that you had reason to be so.'
'Florence,' said Walter, 'on this last night of her bearing her own
name, has made me promise - it was only just now, when you left us
together - that I would tell you - with her dear love - '
Mr Toots laid his hand upon the doorpost, and his eyes upon his
hand.
- with her dear love,' said Walter, 'that she can never have a
friend whom she will value above you. That the recollection of your
true consideration for her always, can never be forgotten by her. That
she remembers you in her prayers to-night, and hopes that you will
think of her when she is far away. Shall I say anything for you?'
'Say, Walter,' replied Mr Toots indistinctly, 'that I shall think
of her every day, but never without feeling happy to know that she is
married to the man she loves, and who loves her. Say, if you please,
that I am sure her husband deserves her - even her!- and that I am
glad of her choice.'
Mr Toots got more distinct as he came to these last words, and
raising his eyes from the doorpost, said them stoutly. He then shook
Walter's hand again with a fervour that Walter was not slow to return
and started homeward.
Mr Toots was accompanied by the Chicken, whom he had of late
brought with him every evening, and left in the shop, with an idea
that unforeseen circumstances might arise from without, in which the
prowess of that distinguished character would be of service to the
Midshipman. The Chicken did not appear to be in a particularly good
humour on this occasion. Either the gas-lamps were treacherous, or he
cocked his eye in a hideous manner, and likewise distorted his nose,
when Mr Toots, crossing the road, looked back over his shoulder at the
room where Florence slept. On the road home, he was more demonstrative
of aggressive intentions against the other foot-passengers, than
comported with a professor of the peaceful art of self-defence.
Arrived at home, instead of leaving Mr Toots in his apartments when he
had escorted him thither, he remained before him weighing his white
hat in both hands by the brim, and twitching his head and nose (both
of which had been many times broken, and but indifferently repaired),
with an air of decided disrespect.
His patron being much engaged with his own thoughts, did not
observe this for some time, nor indeed until the Chicken, determined
not to be overlooked, had made divers clicking sounds with his tongue
and teeth, to attract attention.
'Now, Master,' said the Chicken, doggedly, when he, at length,
caught Mr Toots's eye, 'I want to know whether this here gammon is to
finish it, or whether you're a going in to win?'
'Chicken,' returned Mr Toots, 'explain yourself.'
'Why then, here's all about it, Master,' said the Chicken. 'I ain't
a cove to chuck a word away. Here's wot it is. Are any on 'em to be
doubled up?'
When the Chicken put this question he dropped his hat, made a dodge
and a feint with his left hand, hit a supposed enemy a violent blow
with his right, shook his head smartly, and recovered himself'
'Come, Master,' said the Chicken. 'Is it to be gammon or pluck?
Which?'
Chicken,' returned Mr Toots, 'your expressions are coarse, and your
meaning is obscure.'
'Why, then, I tell you what, Master,' said the Chicken. 'This is
where it is. It's mean.'
'What is mean, Chicken?' asked Mr Toots.
'It is,' said the Chicken, with a frightful corrugation of his
broken nose. 'There! Now, Master! Wot! When you could go and blow on
this here match to the stiff'un;' by which depreciatory appellation it
has been since supposed that the Game One intended to signify Mr
Dombey; 'and when you could knock the winner and all the kit of 'em
dead out o' wind and time, are you going to give in? To give in? 'said
the Chicken, with contemptuous emphasis. 'Wy, it's mean!'
'Chicken,' said Mr Toots, severely, 'you're a perfect Vulture! Your
sentiments are atrocious.'
'My sentiments is Game and Fancy, Master,' returned the Chicken.
'That's wot my sentiments is. I can't abear a meanness. I'm afore the
public, I'm to be heerd on at the bar of the Little Helephant, and no
Gov'ner o' mine mustn't go and do what's mean. Wy, it's mean,' said
the Chicken, with increased expression. 'That's where it is. It's
mean.'
'Chicken,' said Mr Toots, 'you disgust me.'
'Master,' returned the Chicken, putting on his hat, 'there's a pair
on us, then. Come! Here's a offer! You've spoke to me more than once't
or twice't about the public line. Never mind! Give me a fi'typunnote
to-morrow, and let me go.'
'Chicken,' returned Mr Toots, 'after the odious sentiments you have
expressed, I shall be glad to part on such terms.'
'Done then,' said the Chicken. 'It's a bargain. This here conduct
of yourn won't suit my book, Master. Wy, it's mean,' said the Chicken;
who seemed equally unable to get beyond that point, and to stop short
of it. 'That's where it is; it's mean!'
So Mr Toots and the Chicken agreed to part on this incompatibility
of moral perception; and Mr Toots lying down to sleep, dreamed happily
of Florence, who had thought of him as her friend upon the last night
of her maiden life, and who had sent him her dear love.
CHAPTER 57.
Another Wedding
Mr Sownds the beadle, and Mrs Miff the pew-opener, are early at
their posts in the fine church where Mr Dombey was married. A
yellow-faced old gentleman from India, is going to take unto himself a
young wife this morning, and six carriages full of company are
expected, and Mrs Miff has been informed that the yellow-faced old
gentleman could pave the road to church with diamonds and hardly miss
them. The nuptial benediction is to be a superior one, proceeding from
a very reverend, a dean, and the lady is to be given away, as an
extraordinary present, by somebody who comes express from the Horse
Guards
Mrs Miff is more intolerant of common people this morning, than she
generally is; and she his always strong opinions on that subject, for
it is associated with free sittings. Mrs Miff is not a student of
political economy (she thinks the science is connected with
dissenters; 'Baptists or Wesleyans, or some o' them,' she says), but
she can never understand what business your common folks have to be
married. 'Drat 'em,' says Mrs Miff 'you read the same things over 'em'
and instead of sovereigns get sixpences!'
Mr Sownds the beadle is more liberal than Mrs Miff - but then he is
not a pew-opener. 'It must be done, Ma'am,' he says. 'We must marry
'em. We must have our national schools to walk at the head of, and we
must have our standing armies. We must marry 'em, Ma'am,' says Mr
Sownds, 'and keep the country going.'
Mr Sownds is sitting on the steps and Mrs Miff is dusting in the
church, when a young couple, plainly dressed, come in. The mortified
bonnet of Mrs Miff is sharply turned towards them, for she espies in
this early visit indications of a runaway match. But they don't want
to be married - 'Only,' says the gentleman, 'to walk round the
church.' And as he slips a genteel compliment into the palm of Mrs
Miff, her vinegary face relaxes, and her mortified bonnet and her
spare dry figure dip and crackle.
Mrs Miff resumes her dusting and plumps up her cushions - for the
yellow-faced old gentleman is reported to have tender knees - but
keeps her glazed, pew-opening eye on the young couple who are walking
round the church. 'Ahem,' coughs Mrs Miff whose cough is drier than
the hay in any hassock in her charge, 'you'll come to us one of these
mornings, my dears, unless I'm much mistaken!'
They are looking at a tablet on the wall, erected to the memory of
someone dead. They are a long way off from Mrs Miff, but Mrs Miff can
see with half an eye how she is leaning on his arm, and how his head
is bent down over her. 'Well, well,' says Mrs Miff, 'you might do
worse. For you're a tidy pair!'
There is nothing personal in Mrs Miff's remark. She merely speaks
of stock-in-trade. She is hardly more curious in couples than in
coffins. She is such a spare, straight, dry old lady - such a pew of a
woman - that you should find as many individual sympathies in a chip.
Mr Sownds, now, who is fleshy, and has scarlet in his coat, is of a
different temperament. He says, as they stand upon the steps watching
the young couple away, that she has a pretty figure, hasn't she, and
as well as he could see (for she held her head down coming out), an
uncommon pretty face. 'Altogether, Mrs Miff,' says Mr Sownds with a
relish, 'she is what you may call a rose-bud.'
Mrs Miff assents with a spare nod of her mortified bonnet; but
approves of this so little, that she inwardly resolves she wouldn't be
the wife of Mr Sownds for any money he could give her, Beadle as he
is.
And what are the young couple saying as they leave the church, and
go out at the gate?
'Dear Walter, thank you! I can go away, now, happy.'
'And when we come back, Florence, we will come and see his grave
again.'
Florence lifts her eyes, so bright with tears, to his kind face;
and clasps her disengaged hand on that other modest little hand which
clasps his arm.
'It is very early, Walter, and the streets are almost empty yet.
Let us walk.'
'But you will be so tired, my love.'
'Oh no! I was very tired the first time that we ever walked
together, but I shall not be so to-day.' And thus - not much changed -
she, as innocent and earnest-hearted - he, as frank, as hopeful, and
more proud of her - Florence and Walter, on their bridal morning, walk
through the streets together.
Not even in that childish walk of long ago, were they so far
removed from all the world about them as to-day. The childish feet of
long ago, did not tread such enchanted ground as theirs do now. The
confidence and love of children may be given many times, and will
spring up in many places; but the woman's heart of Florence, with its
undivided treasure, can be yielded only once, and under slight or
change, can only droop and die.
They take the streets that are the quietest, and do not go near
that in which her old home stands. It is a fair, warm summer morning,
and the sun shines on them, as they walk towards the darkening mist
that overspreads the City. Riches are uncovering in shops; jewels,
gold, and silver flash in the goldsmith's sunny windows; and great
houses cast a stately shade upon them as they pass. But through the
light, and through the shade, they go on lovingly together, lost to
everything around; thinking of no other riches, and no prouder home,
than they have now in one another.
Gradually they come into the darker, narrower streets, where the
sun, now yellow, and now red, is seen through the mist, only at street
corners, and in small open spaces where there is a tree, or one of the
innumerable churches, or a paved way and a flight of steps, or a
curious little patch of garden, or a burying-ground, where the few
tombs and tombstones are almost black. Lovingly and trustfully,
through all the narrow yards and alleys and the shady streets,
Florence goes, clinging to his arm, to be his wife.
Her heart beats quicker now, for Walter tells her that their church
is very near. They pass a few great stacks of warehouses, with waggons
at the doors, and busy carmen stopping up the way - but Florence does
not see or hear them - and then the air is quiet, and the day is
darkened, and she is trembling in a church which has a strange smell
like a cellar.
The shabby little old man, ringer of the disappointed bell, is
standing in the porch, and has put his hat in the font - for he is
quite at home there, being sexton. He ushers them into an old brown,
panelled, dusty vestry, like a corner-cupboard with the shelves taken
out; where the wormy registers diffuse a smell like faded snuff, which
has set the tearful Nipper sneezing.
Youthful, and how beautiful, the young bride looks, in this old
dusty place, with no kindred object near her but her husband. There is
a dusty old clerk, who keeps a sort of evaporated news shop underneath
an archway opposite, behind a perfect fortification of posts. There is
a dusty old pew-opener who only keeps herself, and finds that quite
enough to do. There is a dusty old beadle (these are Mr Toots's beadle
and pew-opener of last Sunday), who has something to do with a
Worshipful Company who have got a Hall in the next yard, with a
stained-glass window in it that no mortal ever saw. There are dusty
wooden ledges and cornices poked in and out over the altar, and over
the screen and round the gallery, and over the inscription about what
the Master and Wardens of the Worshipful Company did in one thousand
six hundred and ninety-four. There are dusty old sounding-boards over
the pulpit and reading-desk, looking like lids to be let down on the
officiating ministers in case of their giving offence. There is every
possible provision for the accommodation of dust, except in the
churchyard, where the facilities in that respect are very limited. The
Captain, Uncle Sol, and Mr Toots are come; the clergyman is putting on
his surplice in the vestry, while the clerk walks round him, blowing
the dust off it; and the bride and bridegroom stand before the altar.
There is no bridesmaid, unless Susan Nipper is one; and no better
father than Captain Cuttle. A man with a wooden leg, chewing a faint
apple and carrying a blue bag in has hand, looks in to see what is
going on; but finding it nothing entertaining, stumps off again, and
pegs his way among the echoes out of doors.
No gracious ray of light is seen to fall on Florence, kneeling at
the altar with her timid head bowed down. The morning luminary is
built out, and don't shine there. There is a meagre tree outside,
where the sparrows are chirping a little; and there is a blackbird in
an eyelet-hole of sun in a dyer's garret, over against the window, who
whistles loudly whilst the service is performing; and there is the man
with the wooden leg stumping away. The amens of the dusty clerk
appear, like Macbeth's, to stick in his throat a little'; but Captain
Cuttle helps him out, and does it with so much goodwill that he
interpolates three entirely new responses of that word, never
introduced into the service before.
They are married, and have signed their names in one of the old
sneezy registers, and the clergyman's surplice is restored to the
dust, and the clergymam is gone home. In a dark corner of the dark
church, Florence has turned to Susan Nipper, and is weeping in her
arms. Mr Toots's eyes are red. The Captain lubricates his nose. Uncle
Sol has pulled down his spectacles from his forehead, and walked out
to the door.
'God bless you, Susan; dearest Susan! If you ever can bear witness
to the love I have for Walter, and the reason that I have to love him,
do it for his sake. Good-bye! Good-bye!'
They have thought it better not to go back to the Midshipman, but
to part so; a coach is waiting for them, near at hand.
Miss Nipper cannot speak; she only sobs and chokes, and hugs her
mistress. Mr Toots advances, urges her to cheer up, and takes charge
of her. Florence gives him her hand - gives him, in the fulness of her
heart, her lips - kisses Uncle Sol, and Captain Cuttle, and is borne
away by her young husband.
But Susan cannot bear that Florence should go away with a mournful
recollection of her. She had meant to be so different, that she
reproaches herself bitterly. Intent on making one last effort to
redeem her character, she breaks from Mr Toots and runs away to find
the coach, and show a parting smile. The Captain, divining her object,
sets off after her; for he feels it his duty also to dismiss them with
a cheer, if possible. Uncle Sol and Mr Toots are left behind together,
outside the church, to wait for them.
The coach is gone, but the street is steep, and narrow, and blocked
up, and Susan can see it at a stand-still in the distance, she is
sure. Captain Cuttle follows her as she flies down the hill, and waves
his glazed hat as a general signal, which may attract the right coach
and which may not.
Susan outstrips the Captain, and comes up with it. She looks in at
the window, sees Walter, with the gentle face beside him, and claps
her hands and screams:
'Miss Floy, my darling! look at me! We are all so happy now, dear!
One more good-bye, my precious, one more!'
How Susan does it, she don't know, but she reaches to the window,
kisses her, and has her arms about her neck, in a moment.
We are all so happy now, my dear Miss Floy!' says Susan, with a
suspicious catching in her breath. 'You, you won't be angry with me
now. Now will you?'
'Angry, Susan!'
'No, no; I am sure you won't. I say you won't, my pet, my dearest!'
exclaims Susan; 'and here's the Captain too - your friend the Captain,
you know - to say good-bye once more!'
'Hooroar, my Heart's Delight!' vociferates the Captain, with a
countenance of strong emotion. 'Hooroar, Wal'r my lad. Hooroar!
Hooroar!'
What with the young husband at one window, and the young wife at
the other; the Captain hanging on at this door, and Susan Nipper
holding fast by that; the coach obliged to go on whether it will or
no, and all the other carts and coaches turbulent because it
hesitates; there never was so much confusion on four wheels. But Susan
Nipper gallantly maintains her point. She keeps a smiling face upon
her mistress, smiling through her tears, until the last. Even when she
is left behind, the Captain continues to appear and disappear at the
door, crying 'Hooroar, my lad! Hooroar, my Heart's Delight!' with his
shirt-collar in a violent state of agitation, until it is hopeless to
attempt to keep up with the coach any longer. Finally, when the coach
is gone, Susan Nipper, being rejoined by the Captain, falls into a
state of insensibility, and is taken into a baker's shop to recover.
Uncle Sol and Mr Toots wait patiently in the churchyard, sitting on
the coping-stone of the railings, until Captain Cuttle and Susan come
back, Neither being at all desirous to speak, or to be spoken to, they
are excellent company, and quite satisfied. When they all arrive again
at the little Midshipman, and sit down to breakfast, nobody can touch
a morsel. Captain Cuttle makes a feint of being voracious about toast,
but gives it up as a swindle. Mr Toots says, after breakfast, he will
come back in the evening; and goes wandering about the town all day,
with a vague sensation upon him as if he hadn't been to bed for a
fortnight.
There is a strange charm in the house, and in the room, in which
they have been used to be together, and out of which so much is gone.
It aggravates, and yet it soothes, the sorrow of the separation. Mr
Toots tells Susan Nipper when he comes at night, that he hasn't been
so wretched all day long, and yet he likes it. He confides in Susan
Nipper, being alone with her, and tells her what his feelings were
when she gave him that candid opinion as to the probability of Miss
Dombey's ever loving him. In the vein of confidence engendered by
these common recollections, and their tears, Mr Toots proposes that
they shall go out together, and buy something for supper. Miss Nipper
assenting, they buy a good many little things; and, with the aid of
Mrs Richards, set the supper out quite showily before the Captain and
old Sol came home.
The Captain and old Sol have been on board the ship, and have
established Di there, and have seen the chests put aboard. They have
much to tell about the popularity of Walter, and the comforts he will
have about him, and the quiet way in which it seems he has been
working early and late, to make his cabin what the Captain calls 'a
picter,' to surprise his little wife. 'A admiral's cabin, mind you,'
says the Captain, 'ain't more trim.'
But one of the Captain's chief delights is, that he knows the big
watch, and the sugar-tongs, and tea-spoons, are on board: and again
and again he murmurs to himself, 'Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad, you never
shaped a better course in your life than when you made that there
little property over jintly. You see how the land bore, Ed'ard,' says
the Captain, 'and it does you credit, my lad.'
The old Instrument-maker is more distraught and misty than he used
to be, and takes the marriage and the parting very much to heart. But
he is greatly comforted by having his old ally, Ned Cuttle, at his
side; and he sits down to supper with a grateful and contented face.
'My boy has been preserved and thrives,' says old Sol Gills,
rubbing his hands. 'What right have I to be otherwise than thankful
and happy!'
The Captain, who has not yet taken his seat at the table, but who
has been fidgeting about for some time, and now stands hesitating in
his place, looks doubtfully at Mr Gills, and says:
'Sol! There's the last bottle of the old Madeira down below. Would
you wish to have it up to-night, my boy, and drink to Wal'r and his
wife?'
The Instrument-maker, looking wistfully at the Captain, puts his
hand into the breast-pocket of his coffee-coloured coat, brings forth
his pocket-book, and takes a letter out.
'To Mr Dombey,' says the old man. 'From Walter. To be sent in three
weeks' time. I'll read it.'
'"Sir. I am married to your daughter. She is gone with me upon a
distant voyage. To be devoted to her is to have no claim on her or
you, but God knows that I am.
'"Why, loving her beyond all earthly things, I have yet, without
remorse, united her to the uncertainties and dangers of my life, I
will not say to you. You know why, and you are her father.
'"Do not reproach her. She has never reproached you.
'"I do not think or hope that you will ever forgive me. There is
nothing I expect less. But if an hour should come when it will comfort
you to believe that Florence has someone ever near her, the great
charge of whose life is to cancel her remembrance of past sorrow, I
solemnly assure you, you may, in that hour, rest in that belief."'
Solomon puts back the letter carefully in his pocket-book, and puts
back his pocket-book in his coat.
'We won't drink the last bottle of the old Madeira yet, Ned,' says
the old man thoughtfully. 'Not yet.
'Not yet,' assents the Captain. 'No. Not yet.'
Susan and Mr Toots are of the same opinion. After a silence they
all sit down to supper, and drink to the young husband and wife in
something else; and the last bottle of the old Madeira still remains
among its dust and cobwebs, undisturbed.
A few days have elapsed, and a stately ship is out at sea,
spreading its white wings to the favouring wind.
Upon the deck, image to the roughest man on board of something that
is graceful, beautiful, and harmless - something that it is good and
pleasant to have there, and that should make the voyage prosperous -
is Florence. It is night, and she and Walter sit alone, watching the
solemn path of light upon the sea between them and the moon.
At length she cannot see it plainly, for the tears that fill her
eyes; and then she lays her head down on his breast, and puts her arms
around his neck, saying, 'Oh Walter, dearest love, I am so happy!'
Her husband holds her to his heart, and they are very quiet, and
the stately ship goes on serenely.
'As I hear the sea,' says Florence, 'and sit watching it, it brings
so many days into my mind. It makes me think so much - '
'Of Paul, my love. I know it does.'
Of Paul and Walter. And the voices in the waves are always
whispering to Florence, in their ceaseless murmuring, of love - of
love, eternal and illimitable, not bounded by the confines of this
world, or by the end of time, but ranging still, beyond the sea,
beyond the sky, to the invisible country far away!
CHAPTER 58.
After a Lapse
The sea had ebbed and flowed, through a whole year. Through a whole
year, the winds and clouds had come and gone; the ceaseless work of
Time had been performed, in storm and sunshine. Through a whole year,
the tides of human chance and change had set in their allotted
courses. Through a whole year, the famous House of Dombey and Son had
fought a fight for life, against cross accidents, doubtful rumours,
unsuccessful ventures, unpropitious times, and most of all, against
the infatuation of its head, who would not contract its enterprises by
a hair's breadth, and would not listen to a word of warning that the
ship he strained so hard against the storm, was weak, and could not
bear it. The year was out, and the great House was down.
One summer afternoon; a year, wanting some odd days, after the
marriage in the City church; there was a buzz and whisper upon 'Change
of a great failure. A certain cold proud man, well known there, was
not there, nor was he represented there. Next day it was noised abroad
that Dombey and Son had stopped, and next night there was a List of
Bankrupts published, headed by that name.
The world was very busy now, in sooth, and had a deal to say. It
was an innocently credulous and a much ill-used world. It was a world
in which there was 'no other sort of bankruptcy whatever. There were
no conspicuous people in it, trading far and wide on rotten banks of
religion, patriotism, virtue, honour. There was no amount worth
mentioning of mere paper in circulation, on which anybody lived pretty
handsomely, promising to pay great sums of goodness with no effects.
There were no shortcomings anywhere, in anything but money. The world
was very angry indeed; and the people especially, who, in a worse
world, might have been supposed to be apt traders themselves in shows
and pretences, were observed to be mightily indignant.
Here was a new inducement to dissipation, presented to that sport
of circumstances, Mr Perch the Messenger! It was apparently the fate
of Mr Perch to be always waking up, and finding himself famous. He had
but yesterday, as one might say, subsided into private life from the
celebrity of the elopement and the events that followed it; and now he
was made a more important man than ever, by the bankruptcy. Gliding
from his bracket in the outer office where he now sat, watching the
strange faces of accountants and others, who quickly superseded nearly
all the old clerks, Mr Perch had but to show himself in the court
outside, or, at farthest, in the bar of the King's Arms, to be asked a
multitude of questions, almost certain to include that interesting
question, what would he take to drink? Then would Mr Perch descant
upon the hours of acute uneasiness he and Mrs Perch had suffered out
at Balls Pond, when they first suspected 'things was going wrong.'
Then would Mr Perch relate to gaping listeners, in a low voice, as if
the corpse of the deceased House were lying unburied in the next room,
how Mrs Perch had first come to surmise that things was going wrong by
hearing him (Perch) moaning in his sleep, 'twelve and ninepence in the
pound, twelve and ninepence in the pound!' Which act of somnambulism
he supposed to have originated in the impression made upon him by the
change in Mr Dombey's face. Then would he inform them how he had once
said, 'Might I make so bold as ask, Sir, are you unhappy in your
mind?' and how Mr Dombey had replied, 'My faithful Perch - but no, it
cannot be!' and with that had struck his hand upon his forehead, and
said, 'Leave me, Perch!' Then, in short, would Mr Perch, a victim to
his position, tell all manner of lies; affecting himself to tears by
those that were of a moving nature, and really believing that the
inventions of yesterday had, on repetition, a sort of truth about them
to-day.
Mr Perch always closed these conferences by meekly remarking, That,
of course, whatever his suspicions might have been (as if he had ever
had any!) it wasn't for him to betray his trust, was it? Which
sentiment (there never being any creditors present) was received as
doing great honour to his feelings. Thus, he generally brought away a
soothed conscience and left an agreeable impression behind him, when
he returned to his bracket: again to sit watching the strange faces of
the accountants and others, making so free with the great mysteries,
the Books; or now and then to go on tiptoe into Mr Dombey's empty
room, and stir the fire; or to take an airing at the door, and have a
little more doleful chat with any straggler whom he knew; or to
propitiate, with various small attentions, the head accountant: from
whom Mr Perch had expectations of a messengership in a Fire Office,
when the affairs of the House should be wound up.
To Major Bagstock, the bankruptcy was quite a calamity. The Major
was not a sympathetic character - his attention being wholly
concentrated on J. B. - nor was he a man subject to lively emotions,
except in the physical regards of gasping and choking. But he had so
paraded his friend Dombey at the club; had so flourished him at the
heads of the members in general, and so put them down by continual
assertion of his riches; that the club, being but human, was delighted
to retort upon the Major, by asking him, with a show of great concern,
whether this tremendous smash had been at all expected, and how his
friend Dombey bore it. To such questions, the Major, waxing very
purple, would reply that it was a bad world, Sir, altogether; that
Joey knew a thing or two, but had been done, Sir, done like an infant;
that if you had foretold this, Sir, to J. Bagstock, when he went
abroad with Dombey and was chasing that vagabond up and down France,
J. Bagstock would have pooh-pooh'd you - would have pooh- pooh'd you,
Sir, by the Lord! That Joe had been deceived, Sir, taken in,
hoodwinked, blindfolded, but was broad awake again and staring;
insomuch, Sir, that if Joe's father were to rise up from the grave
to-morrow, he wouldn't trust the old blade with a penny piece, but
would tell him that his son Josh was too old a soldier to be done
again, Sir. That he was a suspicious, crabbed, cranky, used-up, J. B.
infidel, Sir; and that if it were consistent with the dignity of a
rough and tough old Major, of the old school, who had had the honour
of being personally known to, and commended by, their late Royal
Highnesses the Dukes of Kent and York, to retire to a tub and live in
it, by Gad! Sir, he'd have a tub in Pall Mall to-morrow, to show his
contempt for mankind!'
Of all this, and many variations of the same tune, the Major would
deliver himself with so many apoplectic symptoms, such rollings of his
head, and such violent growls of ill usage and resentment, that the
younger members of the club surmised he had invested money in his
friend Dombey's House, and lost it; though the older soldiers and
deeper dogs, who knew Joe better, wouldn't hear of such a thing. The
unfortunate Native, expressing no opinion, suffered dreadfully; not
merely in his moral feelings, which were regularly fusilladed by the
Major every hour in the day, and riddled through and through, but in
his sensitiveness to bodily knocks and bumps, which was kept
continually on the stretch. For six entire weeks after the bankruptcy,
this miserable foreigner lived in a rainy season of boot-jacks and
brushes.
Mrs Chick had three ideas upon the subject of the terrible reverse.
The first was that she could not understand it. The second, that her
brother had not made an effort. The third, that if she had been
invited to dinner on the day of that first party, it never would have
happened; and that she had said so, at the time.
Nobody's opinion stayed the misfortune, lightened it, or made it
heavier. It was understood that the affairs of the House were to be
wound up as they best could be; that Mr Dombey freely resigned
everything he had, and asked for no favour from anyone. That any
resumption of the business was out of the question, as he would listen
to no friendly negotiation having that compromise in view; that he had
relinquished every post of trust or distinction he had held, as a man
respected among merchants; that he was dying, according to some; that
he was going melancholy mad, according to others; that he was a broken
man, according to all.
The clerks dispersed after holding a little dinner of condolence
among themselves, which was enlivened by comic singing, and went off
admirably. Some took places abroad, and some engaged in other Houses
at home; some looked up relations in the country, for whom they
suddenly remembered they had a particular affection; and some
advertised for employment in the newspapers. Mr Perch alone remained
of all the late establishment, sitting on his bracket looking at the
accountants, or starting off it, to propitiate the head accountant,
who was to get him into the Fire Office. The Counting House soon got
to be dirty and neglected. The principal slipper and dogs' collar
seller, at the corner of the court, would have doubted the propriety
of throwing up his forefinger to the brim of his hat, any more, if Mr
Dombey had appeared there now; and the ticket porter, with his hands
under his white apron, moralised good sound morality about ambition,
which (he observed) was not, in his opinion, made to rhyme to
perdition, for nothing.
Mr Morfin, the hazel-eyed bachelor, with the hair and whiskers
sprinkled with grey, was perhaps the only person within the atmosphere
of the House - its head, of course, excepted - who was heartily and
deeply affected by the disaster that had befallen it. He had treated
Mr Dombey with due respect and deference through many years, but he
had never disguised his natural character, or meanly truckled to him,
or pampered his master passion for the advancement of his own
purposes. He had, therefore, no self-disrespect to avenge; no
long-tightened springs to release with a quick recoil. He worked early
and late to unravel whatever was complicated or difficult in the
records of the transactions of the House; was always in attendance to
explain whatever required explanation; sat in his old room sometimes
very late at night, studying points by his mastery of which he could
spare Mr Dombey the pain of being personally referred to; and then
would go home to Islington, and calm his mind by producing the most
dismal and forlorn sounds out of his violoncello before going to bed.
He was solacing himself with this melodious grumbler one evening,
and, having been much dispirited by the proceedings of the day, was
scraping consolation out of its deepest notes, when his landlady (who
was fortunately deaf, and had no other consciousness of these
performances than a sensation of something rumbling in her bones)
announced a lady.
'In mourning,' she said.
The violoncello stopped immediately; and the performer, laying it
on the sofa with great tenderness and care, made a sign that the lady
was to come in. He followed directly, and met Harriet Carker on the
stair.
'Alone!' he said, 'and John here this morning! Is there anything
the matter, my dear? But no,' he added, 'your face tells quite another
story.'
'I am afraid it is a selfish revelation that you see there, then,'
she answered.
'It is a very pleasant one,' said he; 'and, if selfish, a novelty
too, worth seeing in you. But I don't believe that.'
He had placed a chair for her by this time, and sat down opposite;
the violoncello lying snugly on the sofa between them.
'You will not be surprised at my coming alone, or at John's not
having told you I was coming,' said Harriet; 'and you will believe
that, when I tell you why I have come. May I do so now?'
'You can do nothing better.'
'You were not busy?'
He pointed to the violoncello lying on the sofa, and said 'I have
been, all day. Here's my witness. I have been confiding all my cares
to it. I wish I had none but my own to tell.'
'Is the House at an end?' said Harriet, earnestly.
'Completely at an end.'
'Will it never be resumed?'
'Never.'
The bright expression of her face was not overshadowed as her lips
silently repeated the word. He seemed to observe this with some little
involuntary surprise: and said again:
'Never. You remember what I told you. It has been, all along,
impossible to convince him; impossible to reason with him; sometimes,
impossible even to approach him. The worst has happened; and the House
has fallen, never to be built up any more.'
'And Mr Dombey, is he personally ruined?'
'Ruined.'
'Will he have no private fortune left? Nothing?'
A certain eagerness in her voice, and something that was almost
joyful in her look, seemed to surprise him more and more; to
disappoint him too, and jar discordantly against his own emotions. He
drummed with the fingers of one hand on the table, looking wistfully
at her, and shaking his head, said, after a pause:
'The extent of Mr Dombey's resources is not accurately within my
knowledge; but though they are doubtless very large, his obligations
are enormous. He is a gentleman of high honour and integrity. Any man
in his position could, and many a man in his position would, have
saved himself, by making terms which would have very slightly, almost
insensibly, increased the losses of those who had had dealings with
him, and left him a remnant to live upon. But he is resolved on
payment to the last farthing of his means. His own words are, that
they will clear, or nearly clear, the House, and that no one can lose
much. Ah, Miss Harriet, it would do us no harm to remember oftener
than we do, that vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!
His pride shows well in this.'
She heard him with little or no change in her expression, and with
a divided attention that showed her to be busy with something in her
own mind. When he was silent, she asked him hurriedly:
'Have you seen him lately?'
'No one sees him. When this crisis of his affairs renders it
necessary for him to come out of his house, he comes out for the
occasion, and again goes home, and shuts himself up, and will sea no
one. He has written me a letter, acknowledging our past connexion in
higher terms than it deserved, and parting from me. I am delicate of
obtruding myself upon him now, never having had much intercourse with
him in better times; but I have tried to do so. I have written, gone
there, entreated. Quite in vain.'
He watched her, as in the hope that she would testify some greater
concern than she had yet shown; and spoke gravely and feelingly, as if
to impress her the more; but there was no change in her.
'Well, well, Miss Harriet,' he said, with a disappointed air, 'this
is not to the purpose. You have not come here to hear this. Some other
and pleasanter theme is in your mind. Let it be in mine, too, and we
shall talk upon more equal terms. Come!'
'No, it is the same theme,' returned Harriet, with frank and quick
surprise. 'Is it not likely that it should be? Is it not natural that
John and I should have been thinking and speaking very much of late of
these great changes? Mr Dombey, whom he served so many years - you
know upon what terms - reduced, as you describe; and we quite rich!'
Good, true face, as that face of hers was, and pleasant as it had
been to him, Mr Morfin, the hazel-eyed bachelor, since the first time
he had ever looked upon it, it pleased him less at that moment,
lighted with a ray of exultation, than it had ever pleased him before.
'I need not remind you,' said Harriet, casting down her eyes upon
her black dress, 'through what means our circumstances changed. You
have not forgotten that our brother James, upon that dreadful day,
left no will, no relations but ourselves.'
The face was pleasanter to him now, though it was pale and
melancholy, than it had been a moment since. He seemed to breathe more
cheerily.
'You know,' she said, 'our history, the history of both my
brothers, in connexion with the unfortunate, unhappy gentleman, of
whom you have spoken so truly. You know how few our wants are - John's
and mine - and what little use we have for money, after the life we
have led together for so many years; and now that he is earning an
income that is ample for us, through your kindness. You are not
unprepared to hear what favour I have come to ask of you?'
'I hardly know. I was, a minute ago. Now, I think, I am not.'
'Of my dead brother I say nothing. If the dead know what we do -
but you understand me. Of my living brother I could say much; but what
need I say more, than that this act of duty, in which I have come to
ask your indispensable assistance, is his own, and that he cannot rest
until it is performed!'
She raised her eyes again; and the light of exultation in her face
began to appear beautiful, in the observant eyes that watched her.
'Dear Sir,' she went on to say, 'it must be done very quietly and
secretly. Your experience and knowledge will point out a way of doing
it. Mr Dombey may, perhaps, be led to believe that it is something
saved, unexpectedly, from the wreck of his fortunes; or that it is a
voluntary tribute to his honourable and upright character, from some
of those with whom he has had great dealings; or that it is some old
lost debt repaid. There must be many ways of doing it. I know you will
choose the best. The favour I have come to ask is, that you will do it
for us in your own kind, generous, considerate manner. That you will
never speak of it to John, whose chief happiness in this act of
restitution is to do it secretly, unknown, and unapproved of: that
only a very small part of the inheritance may be reserved to us, until
Mr Dombey shall have possessed the interest of the rest for the
remainder of his life; that you will keep our secret, faithfully - but
that I am sure you will; and that, from this time, it may seldom be
whispered, even between you and me, but may live in my thoughts only
as a new reason for thankfulness to Heaven, and joy and pride in my
brother.'
Such a look of exultation there may be on Angels' faces when the
one repentant sinner enters Heaven, among ninety-nine just men. It was
not dimmed or tarnished by the joyful tears that filled her eyes, but
was the brighter for them.
'My dear Harriet,' said Mr Morfin, after a silence, 'I was not
prepared for this. Do I understand you that you wish to make your own
part in the inheritance available for your good purpose, as well as
John's?'
'Oh, yes,' she returned 'When we have shared everything together
for so long a time, and have had no care, hope, or purpose apart,
could I bear to be excluded from my share in this? May I not urge a
claim to be my brother's partner and companion to the last?'
'Heaven forbid that I should dispute it!' he replied.
'We may rely on your friendly help?' she said. 'I knew we might!'
'I should be a worse man than, - than I hope I am, or would
willingly believe myself, if I could not give you that assurance from
my heart and soul. You may, implicitly. Upon my honour, I will keep
your secret. And if it should be found that Mr Dombey is so reduced as
I fear he will be, acting on a determination that there seem to be no
means of influencing, I will assist you to accomplish the design, on
which you and John are jointly resolved.'
She gave him her hand, and thanked him with a cordial, happy face.
'Harriet,' he said, detaining it in his. 'To speak to you of the
worth of any sacrifice that you can make now - above all, of any
sacrifice of mere money - would be idle and presumptuous. To put
before you any appeal to reconsider your purpose or to set narrow
limits to it, would be, I feel, not less so. I have no right to mar
the great end of a great history, by any obtrusion of my own weak
self. I have every right to bend my head before what you confide to
me, satisfied that it comes from a higher and better source of
inspiration than my poor worldly knowledge. I will say only this: I am
your faithful steward; and I would rather be so, and your chosen
friend, than I would be anybody in the world, except yourself.'
She thanked him again, cordially, and wished him good-night. 'Are
you going home?' he said. 'Let me go with you.'
'Not to-night. I am not going home now; I have a visit to make
alone. Will you come to-morrow?'
'Well, well,' said he, 'I'll come to-morrow. In the meantime, I'll
think of this, and how we can best proceed. And perhaps I'll think of
it, dear Harriet, and - and - think of me a little in connexion with
it.'
He handed her down to a coach she had in waiting at the door; and
if his landlady had not been deaf, she would have heard him muttering
as he went back upstairs, when the coach had driven off, that we were
creatures of habit, and it was a sorrowful habit to be an old
bachelor.
The violoncello lying on the sofa between the two chairs, he took
it up, without putting away the vacant chair, and sat droning on it,
and slowly shaking his head at the vacant chair, for a long, long
time. The expression he communicated to the instrument at first,
though monstrously pathetic and bland, was nothing to the expression
he communicated to his own face, and bestowed upon the empty chair:
which was so sincere, that he was obliged to have recourse to Captain
Cuttle's remedy more than once, and to rub his face with his sleeve.
By degrees, however, the violoncello, in unison with his own frame of
mind, glided melodiously into the Harmonious Blacksmith, which he
played over and over again, until his ruddy and serene face gleamed
like true metal on the anvil of a veritable blacksmith. In fine, the
violoncello and the empty chair were the companions of his
bachelorhood until nearly midnight; and when he took his supper, the
violoncello set up on end in the sofa corner, big with the latent
harmony of a whole foundry full of harmonious blacksmiths, seemed to
ogle the empty chair out of its crooked eyes, with unutterable
intelligence.
When Harriet left the house, the driver of her hired coach, taking
a course that was evidently no new one to him, went in and out by
bye-ways, through that part of the suburbs, until he arrived at some
open ground, where there were a few quiet little old houses standing
among gardens. At the garden-gate of one of these he stopped, and
Harriet alighted.
Her gentle ringing at the bell was responded to by a
dolorous-looking woman, of light complexion, with raised eyebrows, and
head drooping on one side, who curtseyed at sight of her, and
conducted her across the garden to the house.
'How is your patient, nurse, to-night?' said Harriet.
'In a poor way, Miss, I am afraid. Oh how she do remind me,
sometimes, of my Uncle's Betsey Jane!' returned the woman of the light
complexion, in a sort of doleful rapture.
'In what respect?' asked Harriet.
'Miss, in all respects,' replied the other, 'except that she's
grown up, and Betsey Jane, when at death's door, was but a child.'
'But you have told me she recovered,' observed Harriet mildly; 'so
there is the more reason for hope, Mrs Wickam.'
'Ah, Miss, hope is an excellent thing for such as has the spirits
to bear it!' said Mrs Wickam, shaking her head. 'My own spirits is not
equal to it, but I don't owe it any grudge. I envys them that is so
blest!'
'You should try to be more cheerful,' remarked Harriet.
'Thank you, Miss, I'm sure,' said Mrs Wickam grimly. 'If I was so
inclined, the loneliness of this situation - you'll excuse my speaking
so free - would put it out of my power, in four and twenty hours; but
I ain't at all. I'd rather not. The little spirits that I ever had, I
was bereaved of at Brighton some few years ago, and I think I feel
myself the better for it.'
In truth, this was the very Mrs Wickam who had superseded Mrs
Richards as the nurse of little Paul, and who considered herself to
have gained the loss in question, under the roof of the amiable
Pipchin. The excellent and thoughtful old system, hallowed by long
prescription, which has usually picked out from the rest of mankind
the most dreary and uncomfortable people that could possibly be laid
hold of, to act as instructors of youth, finger-posts to the virtues,
matrons, monitors, attendants on sick beds, and the like, had
established Mrs Wickam in very good business as a nurse, and had led
to her serious qualities being particularly commended by an admiring
and numerous connexion.
Mrs Wickam, with her eyebrows elevated, and her head on one side,
lighted the way upstairs to a clean, neat chamber, opening on another
chamber dimly lighted, where there was a bed. In the first room, an
old woman sat mechanically staring out at the open window, on the
darkness. In the second, stretched upon the bed, lay the shadow of a
figure that had spurned the wind and rain, one wintry night; hardly to
be recognised now, but by the long black hair that showed so very
black against the colourless face, and all the white things about it.
Oh, the strong eyes, and the weak frame! The eyes that turned so
eagerly and brightly to the door when Harriet came in; the feeble head
that could not raise itself, and moved so slowly round upon its
pillow!
'Alice!' said the visitor's mild voice, 'am I late to-night?'
'You always seem late, but are always early.'
Harriet had sat down by the bedside now, and put her hand upon the
thin hand lying there.
'You are better?'
Mrs Wickam, standing at the foot of the bed, like a disconsolate
spectre, most decidedly and forcibly shook her head to negative this
position.
'It matters very little!' said Alice, with a faint smile. 'Better
or worse to-day, is but a day's difference - perhaps not so much.'
Mrs Wickam, as a serious character, expressed her approval with a
groan; and having made some cold dabs at the bottom of the bedclothes,
as feeling for the patient's feet and expecting to find them stony;
went clinking among the medicine bottles on the table, as who should
say, 'while we are here, let us repeat the mixture as before.'
'No,' said Alice, whispering to her visitor, 'evil courses, and
remorse, travel, want, and weather, storm within, and storm without,
have worn my life away. It will not last much longer.
She drew the hand up as she spoke, and laid her face against it.
'I lie here, sometimes, thinking I should like to live until I had
had a little time to show you how grateful I could be! It is a
weakness, and soon passes. Better for you as it is. Better for me!'
How different her hold upon the hand, from what it had been when
she took it by the fireside on the bleak winter evening! Scorn, rage,
defiance, recklessness, look here! This is the end.
Mrs Wickam having clinked sufficiently among the bottles, now
produced the mixture. Mrs Wickam looked hard at her patient in the act
of drinking, screwed her mouth up tight, her eyebrows also, and shook
her head, expressing that tortures shouldn't make her say it was a
hopeless case. Mrs Wickam then sprinkled a little cooling-stuff about
the room, with the air of a female grave-digger, who was strewing
ashes on ashes, dust on dust - for she was a serious character - and
withdrew to partake of certain funeral baked meats downstairs.
'How long is it,' asked Alice, 'since I went to you and told you
what I had done, and when you were advised it was too late for anyone
to follow?'
'It is a year and more,' said Harriet.
'A year and more,' said Alice, thoughtfully intent upon her face.
'Months upon months since you brought me here!'
Harriet answered 'Yes.'
'Brought me here, by force of gentleness and kindness. Me!' said
Alice, shrinking with her face behind her hand, 'and made me human by
woman's looks and words, and angel's deeds!'
Harriet bending over her, composed and soothed her. By and bye,
Alice lying as before, with the hand against her face, asked to have
her mother called.
Harriet called to her more than once, but the old woman was so
absorbed looking out at the open window on the darkness, that she did
not hear. It was not until Harriet went to her and touched her, that
she rose up, and came.
'Mother,' said Alice, taking the hand again, and fixing her
lustrous eyes lovingly upon her visitor, while she merely addressed a
motion of her finger to the old woman, 'tell her what you know.'
'To-night, my deary?'
'Ay, mother,' answered Alice, faintly and solemnly, 'to-night!'
The old woman, whose wits appeared disorderly by alarm, remorse, or
grief, came creeping along the side of the bed, opposite to that on
which Harriet sat; and kneeling down, so as to bring her withered face
upon a level with the coverlet, and stretching out her hand, so as to
touch her daughter's arm, began:
'My handsome gal - '
Heaven, what a cry was that, with which she stopped there, gazing
at the poor form lying on the bed!
'Changed, long ago, mother! Withered, long ago,' said Alice,
without looking at her. 'Don't grieve for that now.
'My daughter,' faltered the old woman, 'my gal who'll soon get
better, and shame 'em all with her good looks.'
Alice smiled mournfully at Harriet, and fondled her hand a little
closer, but said nothing.
'Who'll soon get better, I say,' repeated the old woman, menacing
the vacant air with her shrivelled fist, 'and who'll shame 'em all
with her good looks - she will. I say she will! she shall!' - as if
she were in passionate contention with some unseen opponent at the
bedside, who contradicted her - 'my daughter has been turned away
from, and cast out, but she could boast relationship to proud folks
too, if she chose. Ah! To proud folks! There's relationship without
your clergy and your wedding rings - they may make it, but they can't
break it - and my daughter's well related. Show me Mrs Dombey, and
I'll show you my Alice's first cousin.'
Harriet glanced from the old woman to the lustrous eyes intent upon
her face, and derived corroboration from them.
'What!' cried the old woman, her nodding head bridling with a
ghastly vanity. 'Though I am old and ugly now, - much older by life
and habit than years though, - I was once as young as any. Ah! as
pretty too, as many! I was a fresh country wench in my time, darling,'
stretching out her arm to Harriet, across the bed, 'and looked it,
too. Down in my country, Mrs Dombey's father and his brother were the
gayest gentlemen and the best-liked that came a visiting from London -
they have long been dead, though! Lord, Lord, this long while! The
brother, who was my Ally's father, longest of the two.'
She raised her head a little, and peered at her daughter's face; as
if from the remembrance of her own youth, she had flown to the
remembrance of her child's. Then, suddenly, she laid her face down on
the bed, and shut her head up in her hands and arms.
'They were as like,' said the old woman, without looking up, as you
could see two brothers, so near an age - there wasn't much more than a
year between them, as I recollect - and if you could have seen my gal,
as I have seen her once, side by side with the other's daughter, you'd
have seen, for all the difference of dress and life, that they were
like each other. Oh! is the likeness gone, and is it my gal - only my
gal - that's to change so!'
'We shall all change, mother, in our turn,' said Alice.
'Turn!' cried the old woman, 'but why not hers as soon as my gal's!
The mother must have changed - she looked as old as me, and full as
wrinkled through her paint - but she was handsome. What have I done,
I, what have I done worse than her, that only my gal is to lie there
fading!' With another of those wild cries, she went running out into
the room from which she had come; but immediately, in her uncertain
mood, returned, and creeping up to Harriet, said:
'That's what Alice bade me tell you, deary. That's all. I found it
out when I began to ask who she was, and all about her, away in
Warwickshire there, one summer-time. Such relations was no good to me,
then. They wouldn't have owned me, and had nothing to give me. I
should have asked 'em, maybe, for a little money, afterwards, if it
hadn't been for my Alice; she'd a'most have killed me, if I had, I
think She was as proud as t'other in her way,' said the old woman,
touching the face of her daughter fearfully, and withdrawing her hand,
'for all she's so quiet now; but she'll shame 'em with her good looks
yet. Ha, ha! She'll shame 'em, will my handsome daughter!'
Her laugh, as she retreated, was worse than her cry; worse than the
burst of imbecile lamentation in which it ended; worse than the doting
air with which she sat down in her old seat, and stared out at the
darkness.
The eyes of Alice had all this time been fixed on Harriet, whose
hand she had never released. She said now:
'I have felt, lying here, that I should like you to know this. It
might explain, I have thought, something that used to help to harden
me. I had heard so much, in my wrongdoing, of my neglected duty, that
I took up with the belief that duty had not been done to me, and that
as the seed was sown, the harvest grew. I somehow made it out that
when ladies had bad homes and mothers, they went wrong in their way,
too; but that their way was not so foul a one as mine, and they had
need to bless God for it.' That is all past. It is like a dream, now,
which I cannot quite remember or understand. It has been more and more
like a dream, every day, since you began to sit here, and to read to
me. I only tell it you, as I can recollect it. Will you read to me a
little more?'
Harriet was withdrawing her hand to open the book, when Alice
detained it for a moment.
'You will not forget my mother? I forgive her, if I have any cause.
I know that she forgives me, and is sorry in her heart. You will not
forget her?'
'Never, Alice!'
'A moment yet. Lay your head so, dear, that as you read I may see
the words in your kind face.'
Harriet complied and read - read the eternal book for all the
weary, and the heavy-laden; for all the wretched, fallen, and
neglected of this earth - read the blessed history, in which the blind
lame palsied beggar, the criminal, the woman stained with shame, the
shunned of all our dainty clay, has each a portion, that no human
pride, indifference, or sophistry, through all the ages that this
world shall last, can take away, or by the thousandth atom of a grain
reduce - read the ministry of Him who, through the round of human
life, and all its hopes and griefs, from birth to death, from infancy
to age, had sweet compassion for, and interest in, its every scene and
stage, its every suffering and sorrow.
'I shall come,' said Harriet, when she shut the book, 'very early
in the morning.'
The lustrous eyes, yet fixed upon her face, closed for a moment,
then opened; and Alice kissed and blest her.
The same eyes followed her to the door; and in their light, and on
the tranquil face, there was a smile when it was closed.
They never turned away. She laid her hand upon her breast,
murmuring the sacred name that had been read to her; and life passed
from her face, like light removed.
Nothing lay there, any longer, but the ruin of the mortal house on
which the rain had beaten, and the black hair that had fluttered in
the wintry wind.
CHAPTER 59.
Retribution
Changes have come again upon the great house in the long dull
street, once the scene of Florence's childhood and loneliness. It is a
great house still, proof against wind and weather, without breaches in
the roof, or shattered windows, or dilapidated walls; but it is a ruin
none the less, and the rats fly from it.
Mr Towlinson and company are, at first, incredulous in respect of
the shapeless rumours that they hear. Cook says our people's credit
ain't so easy shook as that comes to, thank God; and Mr Towlinson
expects to hear it reported next, that the Bank of England's a-going
to break, or the jewels in the Tower to be sold up. But, next come the
Gazette, and Mr Perch; and Mr Perch brings Mrs Perch to talk it over
in the kitchen, and to spend a pleasant evening.
As soon as there is no doubt about it, Mr Towlinson's main anxiety
is that the failure should be a good round one - not less than a
hundred thousand pound. Mr Perch don't think himself that a hundred
thousand pound will nearly cover it. The women, led by Mrs Perch and
Cook, often repeat 'a hun-dred thou-sand pound!' with awful
satisfaction - as if handling the words were like handling the money;
and the housemaid, who has her eye on Mr Towlinson, wishes she had
only a hundredth part of the sum to bestow on the man of her choice.
Mr Towlinson, still mindful of his old wrong, opines that a foreigner
would hardly know what to do with so much money, unless he spent it on
his whiskers; which bitter sarcasm causes the housemaid to withdraw in
tears.
But not to remain long absent; for Cook, who has the reputation of
being extremely good-hearted, says, whatever they do, let 'em stand by
one another now, Towlinson, for there's no telling how soon they may
be divided. They have been in that house (says Cook) through a
funeral, a wedding, and a running-away; and let it not be said that
they couldn't agree among themselves at such a time as the present.
Mrs Perch is immensely affected by this moving address, and openly
remarks that Cook is an angel. Mr Towlinson replies to Cook, far be it
from him to stand in the way of that good feeling which he could wish
to see; and adjourning in quest of the housemaid, and presently
returning with that young lady on his arm, informs the kitchen that
foreigners is only his fun, and that him and Anne have now resolved to
take one another for better for worse, and to settle in Oxford Market
in the general greengrocery and herb and leech line, where your kind
favours is particular requested. This announcement is received with
acclamation; and Mrs Perch, projecting her soul into futurity, says,
'girls,' in Cook's ear, in a solemn whisper.
Misfortune in the family without feasting, in these lower regions,
couldn't be. Therefore Cook tosses up a hot dish or two for supper,
and Mr Towlinson compounds a lobster salad to be devoted to the same
hospitable purpose. Even Mrs Pipchin, agitated by the occasion, rings
her bell, and sends down word that she requests to have that little
bit of sweetbread that was left, warmed up for her supper, and sent to
her on a tray with about a quarter of a tumbler-full of mulled sherry;
for she feels poorly.
There is a little talk about Mr Dombey, but very little. It is
chiefly speculation as to how long he has known that this was going to
happen. Cook says shrewdly, 'Oh a long time, bless you! Take your oath
of that.' And reference being made to Mr Perch, he confirms her view
of the case. Somebody wonders what he'll do, and whether he'll go out
in any situation. Mr Towlinson thinks not, and hints at a refuge in
one of them genteel almshouses of the better kind. 'Ah, where he'll
have his little garden, you know,' says Cook plaintively, 'and bring
up sweet peas in the spring.' 'Exactly so,' says Mr Towlinson, 'and be
one of the Brethren of something or another.' 'We are all brethren,'
says Mrs Perch, in a pause of her drink. 'Except the sisters,' says Mr
Perch. 'How are the mighty fallen!' remarks Cook. 'Pride shall have a
fall, and it always was and will be so!' observes the housemaid.
It is wonderful how good they feel, in making these reflections;
and what a Christian unanimity they are sensible of, in bearing the
common shock with resignation. There is only one interruption to this
excellent state of mind, which is occasioned by a young kitchen-maid
of inferior rank - in black stockings - who, having sat with her mouth
open for a long time, unexpectedly discharges from it words to this
effect, 'Suppose the wages shouldn't be paid!' The company sit for a
moment speechless; but Cook recovering first, turns upon the young
woman, and requests to know how she dares insult the family, whose
bread she eats, by such a dishonest supposition, and whether she
thinks that anybody, with a scrap of honour left, could deprive poor
servants of their pittance? 'Because if that is your religious
feelings, Mary Daws,' says Cook warmly, 'I don't know where you mean
to go to.
Mr Towlinson don't know either; nor anybody; and the young
kitchen-maid, appearing not to know exactly, herself, and scouted by
the general voice, is covered with confusion, as with a garment.
After a few days, strange people begin to call at the house, and to
make appointments with one another in the dining-room, as if they
lived there. Especially, there is a gentleman, of a Mosaic Arabian
cast of countenance, with a very massive watch-guard, who whistles in
the drawing-room, and, while he is waiting for the other gentleman,
who always has pen and ink in his pocket, asks Mr Towlinson (by the
easy name of 'Old Cock,') if he happens to know what the figure of
them crimson and gold hangings might have been, when new bought. The
callers and appointments in the dining-room become more numerous every
day, and every gentleman seems to have pen and ink in his pocket, and
to have some occasion to use it. At last it is said that there is
going to be a Sale; and then more people arrive, with pen and ink in
their pockets, commanding a detachment of men with carpet caps, who
immediately begin to pull up the carpets, and knock the furniture
about, and to print off thousands of impressions of their shoes upon
the hall and staircase.
The council downstairs are in full conclave all this time, and,
having nothing to do, perform perfect feats of eating. At length, they
are one day summoned in a body to Mrs Pipchin's room, and thus
addressed by the fair Peruvian:
'Your master's in difficulties,' says Mrs Pipchin, tartly. 'You
know that, I suppose?'
Mr Towlinson, as spokesman, admits a general knowledge of the fact.
'And you're all on the look-out for yourselves, I warrant you, says
Mrs Pipchin, shaking her head at them.
A shrill voice from the rear exclaims, 'No more than yourself!'
'That's your opinion, Mrs Impudence, is it?' says the ireful
Pipchin, looking with a fiery eye over the intermediate heads.
'Yes, Mrs Pipchin, it is,' replies Cook, advancing. 'And what then,
pray?'
'Why, then you may go as soon as you like,' says Mrs Pipchin. 'The
sooner the better; and I hope I shall never see your face again.'
With this the doughty Pipchin produces a canvas bag; and tells her
wages out to that day, and a month beyond it; and clutches the money
tight, until a receipt for the same is duly signed, to the last
upstroke; when she grudgingly lets it go. This form of proceeding Mrs
Pipchin repeats with every member of the household, until all are
paid.
'Now those that choose, can go about their business,' says Mrs
Pipchin, 'and those that choose can stay here on board wages for a
week or so, and make themselves useful. Except,' says the inflammable
Pipchin, 'that slut of a cook, who'll go immediately.'
'That,' says Cook, 'she certainly will! I wish you good day, Mrs
Pipchin, and sincerely wish I could compliment you on the sweetness of
your appearance!'
'Get along with you,' says Mrs Pipchin, stamping her foot.
Cook sails off with an air of beneficent dignity, highly
exasperating to Mrs Pipchin, and is shortly joined below stairs by the
rest of the confederation.
Mr Towlinson then says that, in the first place, he would beg to
propose a little snack of something to eat; and over that snack would
desire to offer a suggestion which he thinks will meet the position in
which they find themselves. The refreshment being produced, and very
heartily partaken of, Mr Towlinson's suggestion is, in effect, that
Cook is going, and that if we are not true to ourselves, nobody will
be true to us. That they have lived in that house a long time, and
exerted themselves very much to be sociable together. (At this, Cook
says, with emotion, 'Hear, hear!' and Mrs Perch, who is there again,
and full to the throat, sheds tears.) And that he thinks, at the
present time, the feeling ought to be 'Go one, go all!' The housemaid
is much affected by this generous sentiment, and warmly seconds it.
Cook says she feels it's right, and only hopes it's not done as a
compliment to her, but from a sense of duty. Mr Towlinson replies,
from a sense of duty; and that now he is driven to express his
opinions, he will openly say, that he does not think it
over-respectable to remain in a house where Sales and such-like are
carrying forwards. The housemaid is sure of it; and relates, in
confirmation, that a strange man, in a carpet cap, offered, this very
morning, to kiss her on the stairs. Hereupon, Mr Towlinson is starting
from his chair, to seek and 'smash' the offender; when he is laid hold
on by the ladies, who beseech him to calm himself, and to reflect that
it is easier and wiser to leave the scene of such indecencies at once.
Mrs Perch, presenting the case in a new light, even shows that
delicacy towards Mr Dombey, shut up in his own rooms, imperatively
demands precipitate retreat. 'For what,' says the good woman, 'must
his feelings be, if he was to come upon any of the poor servants that
he once deceived into thinking him immensely rich!' Cook is so struck
by this moral consideration, that Mrs Perch improves it with several
pious axioms, original and selected. It becomes a clear case that they
must all go. Boxes are packed, cabs fetched, and at dusk that evening
there is not one member of the party left.
The house stands, large and weather-proof, in the long dull street;
but it is a ruin, and the rats fly from it.
The men in the carpet caps go on tumbling the furniture about; and
the gentlemen with the pens and ink make out inventories of it, and
sit upon pieces of furniture never made to be sat upon, and eat bread
and cheese from the public-house on other pieces of furniture never
made to be eaten on, and seem to have a delight in appropriating
precious articles to strange uses. Chaotic combinations of furniture
also take place. Mattresses and bedding appear in the dining-room; the
glass and china get into the conservatory; the great dinner service is
set out in heaps on the long divan in the large drawing-room; and the
stair-wires, made into fasces, decorate the marble chimneypieces.
Finally, a rug, with a printed bill upon it, is hung out from the
balcony; and a similar appendage graces either side of the hall door.
Then, all day long, there is a retinue of mouldy gigs and
chaise-carts in the street; and herds of shabby vampires, Jew and
Christian, over-run the house, sounding the plate-glass minors with
their knuckles, striking discordant octaves on the Grand Piano,
drawing wet forefingers over the pictures, breathing on the blades of
the best dinner-knives, punching the squabs of chairs and sofas with
their dirty fists, touzling the feather beds, opening and shutting all
the drawers, balancing the silver spoons and forks, looking into the
very threads of the drapery and linen, and disparaging everything.
There is not a secret place in the whole house. Fluffy and snuffy
strangers stare into the kitchen-range as curiously as into the attic
clothes-press. Stout men with napless hats on, look out of the bedroom
windows, and cut jokes with friends in the street. Quiet, calculating
spirits withdraw into the dressing-rooms with catalogues, and make
marginal notes thereon, with stumps of pencils. Two brokers invade the
very fire-escape, and take a panoramic survey of the neighbourhood
from the top of the house. The swarm and buzz, and going up and down,
endure for days. The Capital Modern Household Furniture, &c., is on
view.
Then there is a palisade of tables made in the best drawing-room;
and on the capital, french-polished, extending, telescopic range of
Spanish mahogany dining-tables with turned legs, the pulpit of the
Auctioneer is erected; and the herds of shabby vampires, Jew and
Christian, the strangers fluffy and snuffy, and the stout men with the
napless hats, congregate about it and sit upon everything within
reach, mantel-pieces included, and begin to bid. Hot, humming, and
dusty are the rooms all day; and - high above the heat, hum, and dust
- the head and shoulders, voice and hammer, of the Auctioneer, are
ever at work. The men in the carpet caps get flustered and vicious
with tumbling the Lots about, and still the Lots are going, going,
gone; still coming on. Sometimes there is joking and a general roar.
This lasts all day and three days following. The Capital Modern
Household Furniture, &c., is on sale.
Then the mouldy gigs and chaise-carts reappear; and with them come
spring-vans and waggons, and an army of porters with knots. All day
long, the men with carpet caps are screwing at screw-drivers and
bed-winches, or staggering by the dozen together on the staircase
under heavy burdens, or upheaving perfect rocks of Spanish mahogany,
best rose-wood, or plate-glass, into the gigs and chaise-carts, vans
and waggons. All sorts of vehicles of burden are in attendance, from a
tilted waggon to a wheelbarrow. Poor Paul's little bedstead is carried
off in a donkey-tandem. For nearly a whole week, the Capital Modern
Household Furniture, & c., is in course of removal.
At last it is all gone. Nothing is left about the house but
scattered leaves of catalogues, littered scraps of straw and hay, and
a battery of pewter pots behind the hall-door. The men with the
carpet-caps gather up their screw-drivers and bed-winches into bags,
shoulder them, and walk off. One of the pen-and-ink gentlemen goes
over the house as a last attention; sticking up bills in the windows
respecting the lease of this desirable family mansion, and shutting
the shutters. At length he follows the men with the carpet caps. None
of the invaders remain. The house is a ruin, and the rats fly from it.
Mrs Pipchin's apartments, together with those locked rooms on the
ground-floor where the window-blinds are drawn down close, have been
spared the general devastation. Mrs Pipchin has remained austere and
stony during the proceedings, in her own room; or has occasionally
looked in at the sale to see what the goods are fetching, and to bid
for one particular easy chair. Mrs Pipchin has been the highest bidder
for the easy chair, and sits upon her property when Mrs Chick comes to
see her.
'How is my brother, Mrs Pipchin?' says Mrs Chick.
'I don't know any more than the deuce,' says Mrs Pipchin. 'He never
does me the honour to speak to me. He has his meat and drink put in
the next room to his own; and what he takes, he comes out and takes
when there's nobody there. It's no use asking me. I know no more about
him than the man in the south who burnt his mouth by eating cold plum
porridge."
This the acrimonious Pipchin says with a flounce.
'But good gracious me!' cries Mrs Chick blandly. 'How long is this
to last! If my brother will not make an effort, Mrs Pipchin, what is
to become of him? I am sure I should have thought he had seen enough
of the consequences of not making an effort, by this time, to be
warned against that fatal error.'
'Hoity toity!' says Mrs Pipchin, rubbing her nose. 'There's a great
fuss, I think, about it. It ain't so wonderful a case. People have had
misfortunes before now, and been obliged to part with their furniture.
I'm sure I have!'
'My brother,' pursues Mrs Chick profoundly, 'is so peculiar - so
strange a man. He is the most peculiar man I ever saw. Would anyone
believe that when he received news of the marriage and emigration of
that unnatural child - it's a comfort to me, now, to remember that I
always said there was something extraordinary about that child: but
nobody minds me - would anybody believe, I say, that he should then
turn round upon me and say he had supposed, from my manner, that she
had come to my house? Why, my gracious! And would anybody believe that
when I merely say to him, "Paul, I may be very foolish, and I have no
doubt I am, but I cannot understand how your affairs can have got into
this state," he should actually fly at me, and request that I will
come to see him no more until he asks me! Why, my goodness!'
'Ah'!' says Mrs Pipchin. 'It's a pity he hadn't a little more to do
with mines. They'd have tried his temper for him.'
'And what,' resumes Mrs Chick, quite regardless of Mrs Pipchin's
observations, 'is it to end in? That's what I want to know. What does
my brother mean to do? He must do something. It's of no use remaining
shut up in his own rooms. Business won't come to him. No. He must go
to it. Then why don't he go? He knows where to go, I suppose, having
been a man of business all his life. Very good. Then why not go
there?'
Mrs Chick, after forging this powerful chain of reasoning, remains
silent for a minute to admire it.
'Besides,' says the discreet lady, with an argumentative air, 'who
ever heard of such obstinacy as his staying shut up here through all
these dreadful disagreeables? It's not as if there was no place for
him to go to. Of course he could have come to our house. He knows he
is at home there, I suppose? Mr Chick has perfectly bored about it,
and I said with my own lips, "Why surely, Paul, you don't imagine that
because your affairs have got into this state, you are the less at
home to such near relatives as ourselves? You don't imagine that we
are like the rest of the world?" But no; here he stays all through,
and here he is. Why, good gracious me, suppose the house was to be
let! What would he do then? He couldn't remain here then. If he
attempted to do so, there would be an ejectment, an action for Doe,
and all sorts of things; and then he must go. Then why not go at first
instead of at last? And that brings me back to what I said just now,
and I naturally ask what is to be the end of it?'
'I know what's to be the end of it, as far as I am concerned,'
replies Mrs Pipchin, 'and that's enough for me. I'm going to take
myself off in a jiffy.'
'In a which, Mrs Pipchin,' says Mrs Chick.
'In a jiffy,' retorts Mrs Pipchin sharply.
'Ah, well! really I can't blame you, Mrs Pipchin,' says Mrs Chick,
with frankness.
'It would be pretty much the same to me, if you could,' replies the
sardonic Pipchin. 'At any rate I'm going. I can't stop here. I should
be dead in a week. I had to cook my own pork chop yesterday, and I'm
not used to it. My constitution will be giving way next. Besides, I
had a very fair connexion at Brighton when I came here - little
Pankey's folks alone were worth a good eighty pounds a-year to me -
and I can't afford to throw it away. I've written to my niece, and she
expects me by this time.'
'Have you spoken to my brother?' inquires Mrs Chick
'Oh, yes, it's very easy to say speak to him,' retorts Mrs Pipchin.
'How is it done? I called out to him yesterday, that I was no use
here, and that he had better let me send for Mrs Richards. He grunted
something or other that meant yes, and I sent. Grunt indeed! If he had
been Mr Pipchin, he'd have had some reason to grunt. Yah! I've no
patience with it!'
Here this exemplary female, who has pumped up so much fortitude and
virtue from the depths of the Peruvian mines, rises from her cushioned
property to see Mrs Chick to the door. Mrs Chick, deploring to the
last the peculiar character of her brother, noiselessly retires, much
occupied with her own sagacity and clearness of head.
In the dusk of the evening Mr Toodle, being off duty, arrives with
Polly and a box, and leaves them, with a sounding kiss, in the hall of
the empty house, the retired character of which affects Mr Toodle's
spirits strongly.
'I tell you what, Polly, me dear,' says Mr Toodle, 'being now an
ingine-driver, and well to do in the world, I shouldn't allow of your
coming here, to be made dull-like, if it warn't for favours past. But
favours past, Polly, is never to be forgot. To them which is in
adversity, besides, your face is a cord'l. So let's have another kiss
on it, my dear. You wish no better than to do a right act, I know; and
my views is, that it's right and dutiful to do this. Good-night,
Polly!'
Mrs Pipchin by this time looms dark in her black bombazeen skirts,
black bonnet, and shawl; and has her personal property packed up; and
has her chair (late a favourite chair of Mr Dombey's and the dead
bargain of the sale) ready near the street door; and is only waiting
for a fly-van, going to-night to Brighton on private service, which is
to call for her, by private contract, and convey her home.
Presently it comes. Mrs Pipchin's wardrobe being handed in and
stowed away, Mrs Pipchin's chair is next handed in, and placed in a
convenient corner among certain trusses of hay; it being the intention
of the amiable woman to occupy the chair during her journey. Mrs
Pipchin herself is next handed in, and grimly takes her seat. There is
a snaky gleam in her hard grey eye, as of anticipated rounds of
buttered toast, relays of hot chops, worryings and quellings of young
children, sharp snappings at poor Berry, and all the other delights of
her Ogress's castle. Mrs Pipchin almost laughs as the fly-van drives
off, and she composes her black bombazeen skirts, and settles herself
among the cushions of her easy chair.
The house is such a ruin that the rats have fled, and there is not
one left.
But Polly, though alone in the deserted mansion - for there is no
companionship in the shut-up rooms in which its late master hides his
head - is not alone long. It is night; and she is sitting at work in
the housekeeper's room, trying to forget what a lonely house it is,
and what a history belongs to it; when there is a knock at the hall
door, as loud sounding as any knock can be, striking into such an
empty place. Opening it, she returns across the echoing hall,
accompanied by a female figure in a close black bonnet. It is Miss
Tox, and Miss Tox's eyes are red.
'Oh, Polly,' says Miss Tox, 'when I looked in to have a little
lesson with the children just now, I got the message that you left for
me; and as soon as I could recover my spirits at all, I came on after
you. Is there no one here but you?'
'Ah! not a soul,' says Polly.
'Have you seen him?' whispers Miss Tox.
'Bless you,' returns Polly, 'no; he has not been seen this many a
day. They tell me he never leaves his room.'
'Is he said to be ill?' inquires Miss Tox.
'No, Ma'am, not that I know of,' returns Polly, 'except in his
mind. He must be very bad there, poor gentleman!'
Miss Tox's sympathy is such that she can scarcely speak. She is no
chicken, but she has not grown tough with age and celibacy. Her heart
is very tender, her compassion very genuine, her homage very real.
Beneath the locket with the fishy eye in it, Miss Tox bears better
qualities than many a less whimsical outside; such qualities as will
outlive, by many courses of the sun, the best outsides and brightest
husks that fall in the harvest of the great reaper.
It is long before Miss Tox goes away, and before Polly, with a
candle flaring on the blank stairs, looks after her, for company, down
the street, and feels unwilling to go back into the dreary house, and
jar its emptiness with the heavy fastenings of the door, and glide
away to bed. But all this Polly does; and in the morning sets in one
of those darkened rooms such matters as she has been advised to
prepare, and then retires and enters them no more until next morning
at the same hour. There are bells there, but they never ring; and
though she can sometimes hear a footfall going to and fro, it never
comes out.
Miss Tox returns early in the day. It then begins to be Miss Tox's
occupation to prepare little dainties - or what are such to her - to
be carried into these rooms next morning. She derives so much
satisfaction from the pursuit, that she enters on it regularly from
that time; and brings daily in her little basket, various choice
condiments selected from the scanty stores of the deceased owner of
the powdered head and pigtail. She likewise brings, in sheets of
curl-paper, morsels of cold meats, tongues of sheep, halves of fowls,
for her own dinner; and sharing these collations with Polly, passes
the greater part of her time in the ruined house that the rats have
fled from: hiding, in a fright at every sound, stealing in and out
like a criminal; only desiring to be true to the fallen object of her
admiration, unknown to him, unknown to all the world but one poor
simple woman.
The Major knows it; but no one is the wiser for that, though the
Major is much the merrier. The Major, in a fit of curiosity, has
charged the Native to watch the house sometimes, and find out what
becomes of Dombey. The Native has reported Miss Tox's fidelity, and
the Major has nearly choked himself dead with laughter. He is
permanently bluer from that hour, and constantly wheezes to himself,
his lobster eyes starting out of his head, 'Damme, Sir, the woman's a
born idiot!'
And the ruined man. How does he pass the hours, alone?
'Let him remember it in that room, years to come!' He did remember
it. It was heavy on his mind now; heavier than all the rest.
'Let him remember it in that room, years to come! The rain that
falls upon the roof, the wind that mourns outside the door, may have
foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. Let him remember it in that
room, years to come!'
He did remember it. In the miserable night he thought of it; in the
dreary day, the wretched dawn, the ghostly, memory-haunted twilight.
He did remember it. In agony, in sorrow, in remorse, in despair!
'Papa! Papa! Speak to me, dear Papa!' He heard the words again, and
saw the face. He saw it fall upon the trembling hands, and heard the
one prolonged low cry go upward.
He was fallen, never to be raised up any more. For the night of his
worldly ruin there was no to-morrow's sun; for the stain of his
domestic shame there was no purification; nothing, thank Heaven, could
bring his dead child back to life. But that which he might have made
so different in all the Past - which might have made the Past itself
so different, though this he hardly thought of now - that which was
his own work, that which he could so easily have wrought into a
blessing, and had set himself so steadily for years to form into a
curse: that was the sharp grief of his soul.
Oh! He did remember it! The rain that fell upon the roof, the wind
that mourned outside the door that night, had had foreknowledge in
their melancholy sound. He knew, now, what he had done. He knew, now,
that he had called down that upon his head, which bowed it lower than
the heaviest stroke of fortune. He knew, now, what it was to be
rejected and deserted; now, when every loving blossom he had withered
in his innocent daughter's heart was snowing down in ashes on him.
He thought of her, as she had been that night when he and his bride
came home. He thought of her as she had been, in all the home-events
of the abandoned house. He thought, now, that of all around him, she
alone had never changed. His boy had faded into dust, his proud wife
had sunk into a polluted creature, his flatterer and friend had been
transformed into the worst of villains, his riches had melted away,
the very walls that sheltered him looked on him as a stranger; she
alone had turned the same mild gentle look upon him always. Yes, to
the latest and the last. She had never changed to him - nor had he
ever changed to her - and she was lost.
As, one by one, they fell away before his mind - his baby- hope,
his wife, his friend, his fortune - oh how the mist, through which he
had seen her, cleared, and showed him her true self! Oh, how much
better than this that he had loved her as he had his boy, and lost her
as he had his boy, and laid them in their early grave together!
In his pride - for he was proud yet - he let the world go from him
freely. As it fell away, he shook it off. Whether he imagined its face
as expressing pity for him, or indifference to him, he shunned it
alike. It was in the same degree to be avoided, in either aspect. He
had no idea of any one companion in his misery, but the one he had
driven away. What he would have said to her, or what consolation
submitted to receive from her, he never pictured to himself. But he
always knew she would have been true to him, if he had suffered her.
He always knew she would have loved him better now, than at any other
time; he was as certain that it was in her nature, as he was that
there was a sky above him; and he sat thinking so, in his loneliness,
from hour to hour. Day after day uttered this speech; night after
night showed him this knowledge.
It began, beyond all doubt (however slow it advanced for some
time), in the receipt of her young husband's letter, and the certainty
that she was gone. And yet - so proud he was in his ruin, or so
reminiscent of her only as something that might have been his, but was
lost beyond redemption - that if he could have heard her voice in an
adjoining room, he would not have gone to her. If he could have seen
her in the street, and she had done no more than look at him as she
had been used to look, he would have passed on with his old cold
unforgiving face, and not addressed her, or relaxed it, though his
heart should have broken soon afterwards. However turbulent his
thoughts, or harsh his anger had been, at first, concerning her
marriage, or her husband, that was all past now. He chiefly thought of
what might have been, and what was not. What was, was all summed up in
this: that she was lost, and he bowed down with sorrow and remorse.
And now he felt that he had had two children born to him in that
house, and that between him and the bare wide empty walls there was a
tie, mournful, but hard to rend asunder, connected with a double
childhood, and a double loss. He had thought to leave the house -
knowing he must go, not knowing whither - upon the evening of the day
on which this feeling first struck root in his breast; but he resolved
to stay another night, and in the night to ramble through the rooms
once more.
He came out of his solitude when it was the dead of night, and with
a candle in his hand went softly up the stairs. Of all the footmarks
there, making them as common as the common street, there was not one,
he thought, but had seemed at the time to set itself upon his brain
while he had kept close, listening. He looked at their number, and
their hurry, and contention - foot treading foot out, and upward track
and downward jostling one another - and thought, with absolute dread
and wonder, how much he must have suffered during that trial, and what
a changed man he had cause to be. He thought, besides, oh was there,
somewhere in the world, a light footstep that might have worn out in a
moment half those marks! - and bent his head, and wept as he went up.
He almost saw it, going on before. He stopped, looking up towards
the skylight; and a figure, childish itself, but carrying a child, and
singing as it went, seemed to be there again. Anon, it was the same
figure, alone, stopping for an instant, with suspended breath; the
bright hair clustering loosely round its tearful face; and looking
back at him.
He wandered through the rooms: lately so luxurious; now so bare and
dismal and so changed, apparently, even in their shape and size. The
press of footsteps was as thick here; and the same consideration of
the suffering he had had, perplexed and terrified him. He began to
fear that all this intricacy in his brain would drive him mad; and
that his thoughts already lost coherence as the footprints did, and
were pieced on to one another, with the same trackless involutions,
and varieties of indistinct shapes.
He did not so much as know in which of these rooms she had lived,
when she was alone. He was glad to leave them, and go wandering higher
up. Abundance of associations were here, connected with his false
wife, his false friend and servant, his false grounds of pride; but he
put them all by now, and only recalled miserably, weakly, fondly, his
two children.
Everywhere, the footsteps! They had had no respect for the old room
high up, where the little bed had been; he could hardly find a clear
space there, to throw himself down, on the floor, against the wall,
poor broken man, and let his tears flow as they would. He had shed so
many tears here, long ago, that he was less ashamed of his weakness in
this place than in any other - perhaps, with that consciousness, had
made excuses to himself for coming here. Here, with stooping
shoulders, and his chin dropped on his breast, he had come. Here,
thrown upon the bare boards, in the dead of night, he wept, alone - a
proud man, even then; who, if a kind hand could have been stretched
out, or a kind face could have looked in, would have risen up, and
turned away, and gone down to his cell.
When the day broke he was shut up in his rooms again. He had meant
to go away to-day, but clung to this tie in the house as the last and
only thing left to him. He would go to-morrow. To-morrow came. He
would go to-morrow. Every night, within the knowledge of no human
creature, he came forth, and wandered through the despoiled house like
a ghost. Many a morning when the day broke, his altered face, drooping
behind the closed blind in his window, imperfectly transparent to the
light as yet, pondered on the loss of his two children. It was one
child no more. He reunited them in his thoughts, and they were never
asunder. Oh, that he could have united them in his past love, and in
death, and that one had not been so much worse than dead!
Strong mental agitation and disturbance was no novelty to him, even
before his late sufferings. It never is, to obstinate and sullen
natures; for they struggle hard to be such. Ground, long undermined,
will often fall down in a moment; what was undermined here in so many
ways, weakened, and crumbled, little by little, more and more, as the
hand moved on the dial.
At last he began to think he need not go at all. He might yet give
up what his creditors had spared him (that they had not spared him
more, was his own act), and only sever the tie between him and the
ruined house, by severing that other link -
It was then that his footfall was audible in the late housekeeper's
room, as he walked to and fro; but not audible in its true meaning, or
it would have had an appalling sound.
The world was very busy and restless about him. He became aware of
that again. It was whispering and babbling. It was never quiet. This,
and the intricacy and complication of the footsteps, harassed him to
death. Objects began to take a bleared and russet colour in his eyes.
Dombey and Son was no more - his children no more. This must be
thought of, well, to-morrow.
He thought of it to-morrow; and sitting thinking in his chair, saw
in the glass, from time to time, this picture:
A spectral, haggard, wasted likeness of himself, brooded and
brooded over the empty fireplace. Now it lifted up its head, examining
the lines and hollows in its face; now hung it down again, and brooded
afresh. Now it rose and walked about; now passed into the next room,
and came back with something from the dressing-table in its breast.
Now, it was looking at the bottom of the door, and thinking.
Hush! what? It was thinking that if blood were to trickle that way,
and to leak out into the hall, it must be a long time going so far. It
would move so stealthily and slowly, creeping on, with here a lazy
little pool, and there a start, and then another little pool, that a
desperately wounded man could only be discovered through its means,
either dead or dying. When it had thought of this a long while, it got
up again, and walked to and fro with its hand in its breast. He
glanced at it occasionally, very curious to watch its motions, and he
marked how wicked and murderous that hand looked.
Now it was thinking again! What was it thinking?
Whether they would tread in the blood when it crept so far, and
carry it about the house among those many prints of feet, or even out
into the street.
It sat down, with its eyes upon the empty fireplace, and as it lost
itself in thought there shone into the room a gleam of light; a ray of
sun. It was quite unmindful, and sat thinking. Suddenly it rose, with
a terrible face, and that guilty hand grasping what was in its breast.
Then it was arrested by a cry - a wild, loud, piercing, loving,
rapturous cry - and he only saw his own reflection in the glass, and
at his knees, his daughter!
Yes. His daughter! Look at her! Look here! Down upon the ground,
clinging to him, calling to him, folding her hands, praying to him.
'Papa! Dearest Papa! Pardon me, forgive me! I have come back to ask
forgiveness on my knees. I never can be happy more, without it!'
Unchanged still. Of all the world, unchanged. Raising the same face
to his, as on that miserable night. Asking his forgiveness!
'Dear Papa, oh don't look strangely on me! I never meant to leave
you. I never thought of it, before or afterwards. I was frightened
when I went away, and could not think. Papa, dear, I am changed. I am
penitent. I know my fault. I know my duty better now. Papa, don't cast
me off, or I shall die!'
He tottered to his chair. He felt her draw his arms about her neck;
he felt her put her own round his; he felt her kisses on his face; he
felt her wet cheek laid against his own; he felt - oh, how deeply! -
all that he had done.
Upon the breast that he had bruised, against the heart that he had
almost broken, she laid his face, now covered with his hands, and
said, sobbing:
'Papa, love, I am a mother. I have a child who will soon call
Walter by the name by which I call you. When it was born, and when I
knew how much I loved it, I knew what I had done in leaving you.
Forgive me, dear Papa! oh say God bless me, and my little child!'
He would have said it, if he could. He would have raised his hands
and besought her for pardon, but she caught them in her own, and put
them down, hurriedly.
'My little child was born at sea, Papa I prayed to God (and so did
Walter for me) to spare me, that I might come home. The moment I could
land, I came back to you. Never let us be parted any more, Papa. Never
let us be parted any more!'
His head, now grey, was encircled by her arm; and he groaned to
think that never, never, had it rested so before.
'You will come home with me, Papa, and see my baby. A boy, Papa.
His name is Paul. I think - I hope - he's like - '
Her tears stopped her.
'Dear Papa, for the sake of my child, for the sake of the name we
have given him, for my sake, pardon Walter. He is so kind and tender
to me. I am so happy with him. It was not his fault that we were
married. It was mine. I loved him so much.'
She clung closer to him, more endearing and more earnest.
'He is the darling of my heart, Papa I would die for him. He will
love and honour you as I will. We will teach our little child to love
and honour you; and we will tell him, when he can understand, that you
had a son of that name once, and that he died, and you were very
sorry; but that he is gone to Heaven, where we all hope to see him
when our time for resting comes. Kiss me, Papa, as a promise that you
will be reconciled to Walter - to my dearest husband - to the father
of the little child who taught me to come back, Papa Who taught me to
come back!'
As she clung closer to him, in another burst of tears, he kissed
her on her lips, and, lifting up his eyes, said, 'Oh my God, forgive
me, for I need it very much!'
With that he dropped his head again, lamenting over and caressing
her, and there was not a sound in all the house for a long, long time;
they remaining clasped in one another's arms, in the glorious sunshine
that had crept in with Florence.
He dressed himself for going out, with a docile submission to her
entreaty; and walking with a feeble gait, and looking back, with a
tremble, at the room in which he had been so long shut up, and where
he had seen the picture in the glass, passed out with her into the
hall. Florence, hardly glancing round her, lest she should remind him
freshly of their last parting - for their feet were on the very stones
where he had struck her in his madness - and keeping close to him,
with her eyes upon his face, and his arm about her, led him out to a
coach that was waiting at the door, and carried him away.
Then, Miss Tox and Polly came out of their concealment, and exulted
tearfully. And then they packed his clothes, and books, and so forth,
with great care; and consigned them in due course to certain persons
sent by Florence, in the evening, to fetch them. And then they took a
last cup of tea in the lonely house.
'And so Dombey and Son, as I observed upon a certain sad occasion,'
said Miss Tox, winding up a host of recollections, 'is indeed a
daughter, Polly, after all.'
'And a good one!' exclaimed Polly.
'You are right,' said Miss Tox; 'and it's a credit to you, Polly,
that you were always her friend when she was a little child. You were
her friend long before I was, Polly,' said Miss Tox; 'and you're a
good creature. Robin!'
Miss Tox addressed herself to a bullet-headed young man, who
appeared to be in but indifferent circumstances, and in depressed
spirits, and who was sitting in a remote corner. Rising, he disclosed
to view the form and features of the Grinder.
'Robin,' said Miss Tox, 'I have just observed to your mother, as
you may have heard, that she is a good creature.
'And so she is, Miss,' quoth the Grinder, with some feeling.
'Very well, Robin,' said Miss Tox, 'I am glad to hear you say so.
Now, Robin, as I am going to give you a trial, at your urgent request,
as my domestic, with a view to your restoration to respectability, I
will take this impressive occasion of remarking that I hope you will
never forget that you have, and have always had, a good mother, and
that you will endeavour so to conduct yourself as to be a comfort to
her.'
'Upon my soul I will, Miss,' returned the Grinder. 'I have come
through a good deal, and my intentions is now as straightfor'ard,
Miss, as a cove's - '
'I must get you to break yourself of that word, Robin, if you
Please,' interposed Miss Tox, politely.
'If you please, Miss, as a chap's - '
'Thankee, Robin, no,' returned Miss Tox, 'I should prefer
individual.'
'As a indiwiddle's,' said the Grinder.
'Much better,' remarked Miss Tox, complacently; 'infinitely more
expressive!'
' - can be,' pursued Rob. 'If I hadn't been and got made a Grinder
on, Miss and Mother, which was a most unfortunate circumstance for a
young co - indiwiddle.'
'Very good indeed,' observed Miss Tox, approvingly.
' - and if I hadn't been led away by birds, and then fallen into a
bad service,' said the Grinder, 'I hope I might have done better. But
it's never too late for a - '
'Indi - ' suggested Miss Tox.
' - widdle,' said the Grinder, 'to mend; and I hope to mend, Miss,
with your kind trial; and wishing, Mother, my love to father, and
brothers and sisters, and saying of it.'
'I am very glad indeed to hear it,' observed Miss Tox. 'Will you
take a little bread and butter, and a cup of tea, before we go,
Robin?'
'Thankee, Miss,' returned the Grinder; who immediately began to use
his own personal grinders in a most remarkable manner, as if he had
been on very short allowance for a considerable period.
Miss Tox, being, in good time, bonneted and shawled, and Polly too,
Rob hugged his mother, and followed his new mistress away; so much to
the hopeful admiration of Polly, that something in her eyes made
luminous rings round the gas-lamps as she looked after him. Polly then
put out her light, locked the house-door, delivered the key at an
agent's hard by, and went home as fast as she could go; rejoicing in
the shrill delight that her unexpected arrival would occasion there.
The great house, dumb as to all that had been suffered in it, and the
changes it had witnessed, stood frowning like a dark mute on the
street; baulking any nearer inquiries with the staring announcement
that the lease of this desirable Family Mansion was to be disposed of.
CHAPTER 60.
Chiefly Matrimonial
The grand half-yearly festival holden by Doctor and Mrs Blimber, on
which occasion they requested the pleasure of the company of every
young gentleman pursuing his studies in that genteel establishment, at
an early party, when the hour was half-past seven o'clock, and when
the object was quadrilles, had duly taken place, about this time; and
the young gentlemen, with no unbecoming demonstrations of levity, had
betaken themselves, in a state of scholastic repletion, to their own
homes. Mr Skettles had repaired abroad, permanently to grace the
establishment of his father Sir Barnet Skettles, whose popular manners
had obtained him a diplomatic appointment, the honours of which were
discharged by himself and Lady Skettles, to the satisfaction even of
their own countrymen and countrywomen: which was considered almost
miraculous. Mr Tozer, now a young man of lofty stature, in Wellington
boots, was so extremely full of antiquity as to be nearly on a par
with a genuine ancient Roman in his knowledge of English: a triumph
that affected his good parents with the tenderest emotions, and caused
the father and mother of Mr Briggs (whose learning, like ill-arranged
luggage, was so tightly packed that he couldn't get at anything he
wanted) to hide their diminished heads. The fruit laboriously gathered
from the tree of knowledge by this latter young gentleman, in fact,
had been subjected to so much pressure, that it had become a kind of
intellectual Norfolk Biffin, and had nothing of its original form or
flavour remaining. Master Bitherstone now, on whom the forcing system
had the happier and not uncommon effect of leaving no impression
whatever, when the forcing apparatus ceased to work, was in a much
more comfortable plight; and being then on shipboard, bound for
Bengal, found himself forgetting, with such admirable rapidity, that
it was doubtful whether his declensions of noun-substantives would
hold out to the end of the voyage.
When Doctor Blimber, in pursuance of the usual course, would have
said to the young gentlemen, on the morning of the party, 'Gentlemen,
we will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth of next month,' he
departed from the usual course, and said, 'Gentlemen, when our friend
Cincinnatus retired to his farm, he did not present to the senate any
Roman who he sought to nominate as his successor.' But there is a
Roman here,' said Doctor Blimber, laying his hand on the shoulder of
Mr Feeder, B.A., adolescens imprimis gravis et doctus, gentlemen, whom
I, a retiring Cincinnatus, wish to present to my little senate, as
their future Dictator. Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the
twenty-fifth of next month, under the auspices of Mr Feeder, B.A.' At
this (which Doctor Blimber had previously called upon all the parents,
and urbanely explained), the young gentlemen cheered; and Mr Tozer, on
behalf of the rest, instantly presented the Doctor with a silver
inkstand, in a speech containing very little of the mother-tongue, but
fifteen quotations from the Latin, and seven from the Greek, which
moved the younger of the young gentlemen to discontent and envy: they
remarking, 'Oh, ah. It was all very well for old Tozer, but they
didn't subscribe money for old Tozer to show off with, they supposed;
did they? What business was it of old Tozer's more than anybody
else's? It wasn't his inkstand. Why couldn't he leave the boys'
property alone?' and murmuring other expressions of their
dissatisfaction, which seemed to find a greater relief in calling him
old Tozer, than in any other available vent.
Not a word had been said to the young gentlemen, nor a hint
dropped, of anything like a contemplated marriage between Mr Feeder,
B.A., and the fair Cornelia Blimber. Doctor Blimber, especially,
seemed to take pains to look as if nothing would surprise him more;
but it was perfectly well known to all the young gentlemen
nevertheless, and when they departed for the society of their
relations and friends, they took leave of Mr Feeder with awe.
Mr Feeder's most romantic visions were fulfilled. The Doctor had
determined to paint the house outside, and put it in thorough repair;
and to give up the business, and to give up Cornelia. The painting and
repairing began upon the very day of the young gentlemen's departure,
and now behold! the wedding morning was come, and Cornelia, in a new
pair of spectacles, was waiting to be led to the hymeneal altar.
The Doctor with his learned legs, and Mrs Blimber in a lilac
bonnet, and Mr Feeder, B.A., with his long knuckles and his bristly
head of hair, and Mr Feeder's brother, the Reverend Alfred Feeder,
M.A., who was to perform the ceremony, were all assembled in the
drawing-room, and Cornelia with her orange-flowers and bridesmaids had
just come down, and looked, as of old, a little squeezed in
appearance, but very charming, when the door opened, and the weak-eyed
young man, in a loud voice, made the following proclamation:
'MR AND MRS TOOTS!'
Upon which there entered Mr Toots, grown extremely stout, and on
his arm a lady very handsomely and becomingly dressed, with very
bright black eyes. 'Mrs Blimber,' said Mr Toots, 'allow me to present
my wife.'
Mrs Blimber was delighted to receive her. Mrs Blimber was a little
condescending, but extremely kind.
'And as you've known me for a long time, you know,' said Mr Toots,
'let me assure you that she is one of the most remarkable women that
ever lived.'
'My dear!' remonstrated Mrs Toots.
'Upon my word and honour she is,' said Mr Toots. 'I - I assure you,
Mrs Blimber, she's a most extraordinary woman.'
Mrs Toots laughed merrily, and Mrs Blimber led her to Cornelia. Mr
Toots having paid his respects in that direction and having saluted
his old preceptor, who said, in allusion to his conjugal state, 'Well,
Toots, well, Toots! So you are one of us, are you, Toots?' - retired
with Mr Feeder, B.A., into a window.
Mr Feeder, B.A., being in great spirits, made a spar at Mr Toots,
and tapped him skilfully with the back of his hand on the breastbone.
'Well, old Buck!' said Mr Feeder with a laugh. 'Well! Here we are!
Taken in and done for. Eh?'
'Feeder,' returned Mr Toots. 'I give you joy. If you're as - as- as
perfectly blissful in a matrimonial life, as I am myself, you'll have
nothing to desire.'
'I don't forget my old friends, you see,' said Mr Feeder. 'I ask em
to my wedding, Toots.'
'Feeder,' replied Mr Toots gravely, 'the fact is, that there were
several circumstances which prevented me from communicating with you
until after my marriage had been solemnised. In the first place, I had
made a perfect Brute of myself to you, on the subject of Miss Dombey;
and I felt that if you were asked to any wedding of mine, you would
naturally expect that it was with Miss Dombey, which involved
explanations, that upon my word and honour, at that crisis, would have
knocked me completely over. In the second place, our wedding was
strictly private; there being nobody present but one friend of myself
and Mrs Toots's, who is a Captain in - I don't exactly know in what,'
said Mr Toots, 'but it's of no consequence. I hope, Feeder, that in
writing a statement of what had occurred before Mrs Toots and myself
went abroad upon our foreign tour, I fully discharged the offices of
friendship.'
'Toots, my boy,' said Mr Feeder, shaking his hands, 'I was joking.'
'And now, Feeder,' said Mr Toots, 'I should be glad to know what
you think of my union.'
'Capital!' returned Mr Feeder.
'You think it's capital, do you, Feeder?'said Mr Toots solemnly.
'Then how capital must it be to Me! For you can never know what an
extraordinary woman that is.'
Mr Feeder was willing to take it for granted. But Mr Toots shook
his head, and wouldn't hear of that being possible.
'You see,' said Mr Toots, 'what I wanted in a wife was - in short,
was sense. Money, Feeder, I had. Sense I - I had not, particularly.'
Mr Feeder murmured, 'Oh, yes, you had, Toots!' But Mr Toots said:
'No, Feeder, I had not. Why should I disguise it? I had not. I knew
that sense was There,' said Mr Toots, stretching out his hand towards
his wife, 'in perfect heaps. I had no relation to object or be
offended, on the score of station; for I had no relation. I have never
had anybody belonging to me but my guardian, and him, Feeder, I have
always considered as a Pirate and a Corsair. Therefore, you know it
was not likely,' said Mr Toots, 'that I should take his opinion.'
'No,' said Mr Feeder.
'Accordingly,' resumed Mr Toots, 'I acted on my own. Bright was the
day on which I did so! Feeder! Nobody but myself can tell what the
capacity of that woman's mind is. If ever the Rights of Women, and all
that kind of thing, are properly attended to, it will be through her
powerful intellect - Susan, my dear!' said Mr Toots, looking abruptly
out of the windows 'pray do not exert yourself!'
'My dear,' said Mrs Toots, 'I was only talking.'
'But, my love,' said Mr Toots, 'pray do not exert yourself. You
really must be careful. Do not, my dear Susan, exert yourself. She's
so easily excited,' said Mr Toots, apart to Mrs Blimber, 'and then she
forgets the medical man altogether.'
Mrs Blimber was impressing on Mrs Toots the necessity of caution,
when Mr Feeder, B.A., offered her his arm, and led her down to the
carriages that were waiting to go to church. Doctor Blimber escorted
Mrs Toots. Mr Toots escorted the fair bride, around whose lambent
spectacles two gauzy little bridesmaids fluttered like moths. Mr
Feeder's brother, Mr Alfred Feeder, M.A., had already gone on, in
advance, to assume his official functions.
The ceremony was performed in an admirable manner. Cornelia, with
her crisp little curls, 'went in,' as the Chicken might have said,
with great composure; and Doctor Blimber gave her away, like a man who
had quite made up his mind to it. The gauzy little bridesmaids
appeared to suffer most. Mrs Blimber was affected, but gently so; and
told the Reverend Mr Alfred Feeder, M.A., on the way home, that if she
could only have seen Cicero in his retirement at Tusculum, she would
not have had a wish, now, ungratified.
There was a breakfast afterwards, limited to the same small party;
at which the spirits of Mr Feeder, B.A., were tremendous, and so
communicated themselves to Mrs Toots that Mr Toots was several times
heard to observe, across the table, 'My dear Susan, don't exert
yourself!' The best of it was, that Mr Toots felt it incunbent on him
to make a speech; and in spite of a whole code of telegraphic
dissuasions from Mrs Toots, appeared on his legs for the first time in
his life.
'I really,' said Mr Toots, 'in this house, where whatever was done
to me in the way of - of any mental confusion sometimes - which is of
no consequence and I impute to nobody - I was always treated like one
of Doctor Blimber's family, and had a desk to myself for a
considerable period - can - not - allow - my friend Feeder to be - '
Mrs Toots suggested 'married.'
'It may not be inappropriate to the occasion, or altogether
uninteresting,' said Mr Toots with a delighted face, 'to observe that
my wife is a most extraordinary woman, and would do this much better
than myself - allow my friend Feeder to be married - especially to - '
Mrs Toots suggested 'to Miss Blimber.'
'To Mrs Feeder, my love!' said Mr Toots, in a subdued tone of
private discussion: "'whom God hath joined," you know, "let no man" -
don't you know? I cannot allow my friend Feeder to be married -
especially to Mrs Feeder - without proposing their - their - Toasts;
and may,' said Mr Toots, fixing his eyes on his wife, as if for
inspiration in a high flight, 'may the torch of Hymen be the beacon of
joy, and may the flowers we have this day strewed in their path, be
the - the banishers of- of gloom!'
Doctor Blimber, who had a taste for metaphor, was pleased with
this, and said, 'Very good, Toots! Very well said, indeed, Toots!' and
nodded his head and patted his hands. Mr Feeder made in reply, a comic
speech chequered with sentiment. Mr Alfred Feeder, M.A, was afterwards
very happy on Doctor and Mrs Blimber; Mr Feeder, B.A., scarcely less
so, on the gauzy little bridesmaids. Doctor Blimber then, in a
sonorous voice, delivered a few thoughts in the pastoral style,
relative to the rushes among which it was the intention of himself and
Mrs Blimber to dwell, and the bee that would hum around their cot.
Shortly after which, as the Doctor's eyes were twinkling in a
remarkable manner, and his son-in-law had already observed that time
was made for slaves, and had inquired whether Mrs Toots sang, the
discreet Mrs Blimber dissolved the sitting, and sent Cornelia away,
very cool and comfortable, in a post-chaise, with the man of her heart
Mr and Mrs Toots withdrew to the Bedford (Mrs Toots had been there
before in old times, under her maiden name of Nipper), and there found
a letter, which it took Mr Toots such an enormous time to read, that
Mrs Toots was frightened.
'My dear Susan,' said Mr Toots, 'fright is worse than exertion.
Pray be calm!'
'Who is it from?' asked Mrs Toots.
'Why, my love,' said Mr Toots, 'it's from Captain Gills. Do not
excite yourself. Walters and Miss Dombey are expected home!'
'My dear,' said Mrs Toots, raising herself quickly from the sofa,
very pale, 'don't try to deceive me, for it's no use, they're come
home - I see it plainly in your face!'
'She's a most extraordinary woman!' exclaimed Mr Toots, in
rapturous admiration. 'You're perfectly right, my love, they have come
home. Miss Dombey has seen her father, and they are reconciled!'
'Reconciled!' cried Mrs Toots, clapping her hands.
'My dear,' said Mr Toots; 'pray do not exert yourself. Do remember
the medical man! Captain Gills says - at least he don't say, but I
imagine, from what I can make out, he means - that Miss Dombey has
brought her unfortunate father away from his old house, to one where
she and Walters are living; that he is lying very ill there - supposed
to be dying; and that she attends upon him night and day.'
Mrs Toots began to cry quite bitterly.
'My dearest Susan,' replied Mr Toots, 'do, do, if you possibly can,
remember the medical man! If you can't, it's of no consequence - but
do endeavour to!'
His wife, with her old manner suddenly restored, so pathetically
entreated him to take her to her precious pet, her little mistress,
her own darling, and the like, that Mr Toots, whose sympathy and
admiration were of the strongest kind, consented from his very heart
of hearts; and they agreed to depart immediately, and present
themselves in answer to the Captain's letter.
Now some hidden sympathies of things, or some coincidences, had
that day brought the Captain himself (toward whom Mr and Mrs Toots
were soon journeying) into the flowery train of wedlock; not as a
principal, but as an accessory. It happened accidentally, and thus:
The Captain, having seen Florence and her baby for a moment, to his
unbounded content, and having had a long talk with Walter, turned out
for a walk; feeling it necessary to have some solitary meditation on
the changes of human affairs, and to shake his glazed hat profoundly
over the fall of Mr Dombey, for whom the generosity and simplicity of
his nature were awakened in a lively manner. The Captain would have
been very low, indeed, on the unhappy gentleman's account, but for the
recollection of the baby; which afforded him such intense satisfaction
whenever it arose, that he laughed aloud as he went along the street,
and, indeed, more than once, in a sudden impulse of joy, threw up his
glazed hat and caught it again; much to the amazement of the
spectators. The rapid alternations of light and shade to which these
two conflicting subjects of reflection exposed the Captain, were so
very trying to his spirits, that he felt a long walk necessary to his
composure; and as there is a great deal in the influence of harmonious
associations, he chose, for the scene of this walk, his old
neighbourhood, down among the mast, oar, and block makers,
ship-biscuit bakers, coal-whippers, pitch-kettles, sailors, canals,
docks, swing-bridges, and other soothing objects.
These peaceful scenes, and particularly the region of Limehouse
Hole and thereabouts, were so influential in calming the Captain, that
he walked on with restored tranquillity, and was, in fact, regaling
himself, under his breath, with the ballad of Lovely Peg, when, on
turning a corner, he was suddenly transfixed and rendered speechless
by a triumphant procession that he beheld advancing towards him.
This awful demonstration was headed by that determined woman Mrs
MacStinger, who, preserving a countenance of inexorable resolution,
and wearing conspicuously attached to her obdurate bosom a stupendous
watch and appendages, which the Captain recognised at a glance as the
property of Bunsby, conducted under her arm no other than that
sagacious mariner; he, with the distraught and melancholy visage of a
captive borne into a foreign land, meekly resigning himself to her
will. Behind them appeared the young MacStingers, in a body, exulting.
Behind them, M~ two ladies of a terrible and steadfast
aspect, leading between them a short gentleman in a tall hat, who
likewise exulted. In the wake, appeared Bunsby's boy, bearing
umbrellas. The whole were in good marching order; and a dreadful
smartness that pervaded the party would have sufficiently announced,
if the intrepid countenances of the ladies had been wanting, that it
was a procession of sacrifice, and that the victim was Bunsby.
The first impulse of the Captain was to run away. This also
appeared to be the first impulse of Bunsby, hopeless as its execution
must have proved. But a cry of recognition proceeding from the party,
and Alexander MacStinger running up to the Captain with open arms, the
Captain struck.
'Well, Cap'en Cuttle!' said Mrs MacStinger. 'This is indeed a
meeting! I bear no malice now, Cap'en Cuttle - you needn't fear that
I'm a going to cast any reflections. I hope to go to the altar in
another spirit.' Here Mrs MacStinger paused, and drawing herself up,
and inflating her bosom with a long breath, said, in allusion to the
victim, 'My 'usband, Cap'en Cuttle!'
The abject Bunsby looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor
at his bride, nor at his friend, but straight before him at nothing.
The Captain putting out his hand, Bunsby put out his; but, in answer
to the Captain's greeting, spake no word.
'Cap'en Cuttle,' said Mrs MacStinger, 'if you would wish to heal up
past animosities, and to see the last of your friend, my 'usband, as a
single person, we should be 'appy of your company to chapel. Here is a
lady here,' said Mrs MacStinger, turning round to the more intrepid of
the two, 'my bridesmaid, that will be glad of your protection, Cap'en
Cuttle.'
The short gentleman in the tall hat, who it appeared was the
husband of the other lady, and who evidently exulted at the reduction
of a fellow creature to his own condition, gave place at this, and
resigned the lady to Captain Cuttle. The lady immediately seized him,
and, observing that there was no time to lose, gave the word, in a
strong voice, to advance.
The Captain's concern for his friend, not unmingled, at first, with
some concern for himself - for a shadowy terror that he might be
married by violence, possessed him, until his knowledge of the service
came to his relief, and remembering the legal obligation of saying, 'I
will,' he felt himself personally safe so long as he resolved, if
asked any question, distinctly to reply I won't' - threw him into a
profuse perspiration; and rendered him, for a time, insensible to the
movements of the procession, of which he now formed a feature, and to
the conversation of his fair companion. But as he became less
agitated, he learnt from this lady that she was the widow of a Mr
Bokum, who had held an employment in the Custom House; that she was
the dearest friend of Mrs MacStinger, whom she considered a pattern
for her sex; that she had often heard of the Captain, and now hoped he
had repented of his past life; that she trusted Mr Bunsby knew what a
blessing he had gained, but that she feared men seldom did know what
such blessings were, until they had lost them; with more to the same
purpose.
All this time, the Captain could not but observe that Mrs Bokum
kept her eyes steadily on the bridegroom, and that whenever they came
near a court or other narrow turning which appeared favourable for
flight, she was on the alert to cut him off if he attempted escape.
The other lady, too, as well as her husband, the short gentleman with
the tall hat, were plainly on guard, according to a preconcerted plan;
and the wretched man was so secured by Mrs MacStinger, that any effort
at self-preservation by flight was rendered futile. This, indeed, was
apparent to the mere populace, who expressed their perception of the
fact by jeers and cries; to all of which, the dread MacStinger was
inflexibly indifferent, while Bunsby himself appeared in a state of
unconsciousness.
The Captain made many attempts to accost the philosopher, if only
in a monosyllable or a signal; but always failed, in consequence of
the vigilance of the guard, and the difficulty, at all times peculiar
to Bunsby's constitution, of having his attention aroused by any
outward and visible sign whatever. Thus they approached the chapel, a
neat whitewashed edifice, recently engaged by the Reverend
Melchisedech Howler, who had consented, on very urgent solicitation,
to give the world another two years of existence, but had informed his
followers that, then, it must positively go.
While the Reverend Melchisedech was offering up some extemporary
orisons, the Captain found an opportunity of growling in the
bridegroom's ear:
'What cheer, my lad, what cheer?'
To which Bunsby replied, with a forgetfulness of the Reverend
Melchisedech, which nothing but his desperate circumstances could have
excused:
'D-----d bad,'
'Jack Bunsby,' whispered the Captain, 'do you do this here, of your
own free will?'
Mr Bunsby answered 'No.'
'Why do you do it, then, my lad?' inquired the Captain, not
unnaturally.
Bunsby, still looking, and always looking with an immovable
countenance, at the opposite side of the world, made no reply.
'Why not sheer off?' said the Captain. 'Eh?' whispered Bunsby, with
a momentary gleam of hope. 'Sheer off,' said the Captain.
'Where's the good?' retorted the forlorn sage. 'She'd capter me
agen.
'Try!' replied the Captain. 'Cheer up! Come! Now's your time. Sheer
off, Jack Bunsby!'
Jack Bunsby, however, instead of profiting by the advice, said in a
doleful whisper:
'It all began in that there chest o' yourn. Why did I ever conwoy
her into port that night?'
'My lad,' faltered the Captain, 'I thought as you had come over
her; not as she had come over you. A man as has got such opinions as
you have!'
Mr Bunsby merely uttered a suppressed groan.
'Come!' said the Captain, nudging him with his elbow, 'now's your
time! Sheer off! I'll cover your retreat. The time's a flying. Bunsby!
It's for liberty. Will you once?'
Bunsby was immovable. 'Bunsby!' whispered the Captain, 'will you
twice ?' Bunsby wouldn't twice.
'Bunsby!' urged the Captain, 'it's for liberty; will you three
times? Now or never!'
Bunsby didn't then, and didn't ever; for Mrs MacStinger immediately
afterwards married him.
One of the most frightful circumstances of the ceremony to the
Captain, was the deadly interest exhibited therein by Juliana
MacStinger; and the fatal concentration of her faculties, with which
that promising child, already the image of her parent, observed the
whole proceedings. The Captain saw in this a succession of man-traps
stretching out infinitely; a series of ages of oppression and
coercion, through which the seafaring line was doomed. It was a more
memorable sight than the unflinching steadiness of Mrs Bokum and the
other lady, the exultation of the short gentleman in the tall hat, or
even the fell inflexibility of Mrs MacStinger. The Master MacStingers
understood little of what was going on, and cared less; being chiefly
engaged, during the ceremony, in treading on one another's half-boots;
but the contrast afforded by those wretched infants only set off and
adorned the precocious woman in Juliana. Another year or two, the
Captain thought, and to lodge where that child was, would be
destruction.
The ceremony was concluded by a general spring of the young family
on Mr Bunsby, whom they hailed by the endearing name of father, and
from whom they solicited half-pence. These gushes of affection over,
the procession was about to issue forth again, when it was delayed for
some little time by an unexpected transport on the part of Alexander
MacStinger. That dear child, it seemed, connecting a chapel with
tombstones, when it was entered for any purpose apart from the
ordinary religious exercises, could not be persuaded but that his
mother was now to be decently interred, and lost to him for ever. In
the anguish of this conviction, he screamed with astonishing force,
and turned black in the face. However touching these marks of a tender
disposition were to his mother, it was not in the character of that
remarkable woman to permit her recognition of them to degenerate into
weakness. Therefore, after vainly endeavouring to convince his reason
by shakes, pokes, bawlings-out, and similar applications to his head,
she led him into the air, and tried another method; which was
manifested to the marriage party by a quick succession of sharp
sounds, resembling applause, and subsequently, by their seeing
Alexander in contact with the coolest paving-stone in the court,
greatly flushed, and loudly lamenting.
The procession being then in a condition to form itself once more,
and repair to Brig Place, where a marriage feast was in readiness,
returned as it had come; not without the receipt, by Bunsby, of many
humorous congratulations from the populace on his recently-acquired
happiness. The Captain accompanied it as far as the house-door, but,
being made uneasy by the gentler manner of Mrs Bokum, who, now that
she was relieved from her engrossing duty - for the watchfulness and
alacrity of the ladies sensibly diminished when the bridegroom was
safely married - had greater leisure to show an interest in his
behalf, there left it and the captive; faintly pleading an
appointment, and promising to return presently. The Captain had
another cause for uneasiness, in remorsefully reflecting that he had
been the first means of Bunsby's entrapment, though certainly without
intending it, and through his unbounded faith in the resources of that
philosopher.
To go back to old Sol Gills at the wooden Midshipman's, and not
first go round to ask how Mr Dombey was - albeit the house where he
lay was out of London, and away on the borders of a fresh heath - was
quite out of the Captain's course. So he got a lift when he was tired,
and made out the journey gaily.
The blinds were pulled down, and the house so quiet, that the
Captain was almost afraid to knock; but listening at the door, he
heard low voices within, very near it, and, knocking softly, was
admitted by Mr Toots. Mr Toots and his wife had, in fact, just arrived
there; having been at the Midshipman's to seek him, and having there
obtained the address.
They were not so recently arrived, but that Mrs Toots had caught
the baby from somebody, taken it in her arms, and sat down on the
stairs, hugging and fondling it. Florence was stooping down beside
her; and no one could have said which Mrs Toots was hugging and
fondling most, the mother or the child, or which was the tenderer,
Florence of Mrs Toots, or Mrs Toots of her, or both of the baby; it
was such a little group of love and agitation.
'And is your Pa very ill, my darling dear Miss Floy?' asked Susan.
'He is very, very ill,' said Florence. 'But, Susan, dear, you must
not speak to me as you used to speak. And what's this?' said Florence,
touching her clothes, in amazement. 'Your old dress, dear? Your old
cap, curls, and all?'
Susan burst into tears, and showered kisses on the little hand that
had touched her so wonderingly.
'My dear Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, stepping forward, 'I'll
explain. She's the most extraordinary woman. There are not many to
equal her! She has always said - she said before we were married, and
has said to this day - that whenever you came home, she'd come to you
in no dress but the dress she used to serve you in, for fear she might
seem strange to you, and you might like her less. I admire the dress
myself,' said Mr Toots, 'of all things. I adore her in it! My dear
Miss Dombey, she'll be your maid again, your nurse, all that she ever
was, and more. There's no change in her. But, Susan, my dear,' said Mr
Toots, who had spoken with great feeling and high admiration, 'all I
ask is, that you'll remember the medical man, and not exert yourself
too much!'
CHAPTER 61.
Relenting
Florence had need of help. Her father's need of it was sore, and
made the aid of her old friend invaluable. Death stood at his pillow.
A shade, already, of what he had been, shattered in mind, and
perilously sick in body, he laid his weary head down on the bed his
daughter's hands prepared for him, and had never raised it since.
She was always with him. He knew her, generally; though, in the
wandering of his brain, he often confused the circumstances under
which he spoke to her. Thus he would address her, sometimes, as if his
boy were newly dead; and would tell her, that although he had said
nothing of her ministering at the little bedside, yet he had seen it -
he had seen it; and then would hide his face and sob, and put out his
worn hand. Sometimes he would ask her for herself. 'Where is
Florence?' 'I am here, Papa, I am here.' 'I don't know her!' he would
cry. 'We have been parted so long, that I don't know her!' and then a
staring dread would he upon him, until she could soothe his
perturbation; and recall the tears she tried so hard, at other times,
to dry.
He rambled through the scenes of his old pursuits - through many
where Florence lost him as she listened - sometimes for hours. He
would repeat that childish question, 'What is money?' and ponder on
it, and think about it, and reason with himself, more or less
connectedly, for a good answer; as if it had never been proposed to
him until that moment. He would go on with a musing repetition of the
title of his old firm twenty thousand times, and at every one of them,
would turn his head upon his pillow. He would count his children - one
- two - stop, and go back, and begin again in the same way.
But this was when his mind was in its most distracted state. In all
the other phases of its illness, and in those to which it was most
constant, it always turned on Florence. What he would oftenest do was
this: he would recall that night he had so recently remembered, the
night on which she came down to his room, and would imagine that his
heart smote him, and that he went out after her, and up the stairs to
seek her. Then, confounding that time with the later days of the many
footsteps, he would be amazed at their number, and begin to count them
as he followed her. Here, of a sudden, was a bloody footstep going on
among the others; and after it there began to be, at intervals, doors
standing open, through which certain terrible pictures were seen, in
mirrors, of haggard men, concealing something in their breasts. Still,
among the many footsteps and the bloody footsteps here and there, was
the step of Florence. Still she was going on before. Still the
restless mind went, following and counting, ever farther, ever higher,
as to the summit of a mighty tower that it took years to climb.
One day he inquired if that were not Susan who had spoken a long
while ago.
Florence said 'Yes, dear Papa;' and asked him would he like to see
her?
He said 'very much.' And Susan, with no little trepidation, showed
herself at his bedside.
It seemed a great relief to him. He begged her not to go; to
understand that he forgave her what she had said; and that she was to
stay. Florence and he were very different now, he said, and very
happy. Let her look at this! He meant his drawing the gentle head down
to his pillow, and laying it beside him.
He remained like this for days and weeks. At length, lying, the
faint feeble semblance of a man, upon his bed, and speaking in a voice
so low that they could only hear him by listening very near to his
lips, he became quiet. It was dimly pleasant to him now, to lie there,
with the window open, looking out at the summer sky and the trees:
and, in the evening, at the sunset. To watch the shadows of the clouds
and leaves, and seem to feel a sympathy with shadows. It was natural
that he should. To him, life and the world were nothing else.
He began to show now that he thought of Florence's fatigue: and
often taxed his weakness to whisper to her, 'Go and walk, my dearest,
in the sweet air. Go to your good husband!' One time when Walter was
in his room, he beckoned him to come near, and to stoop down; and
pressing his hand, whispered an assurance to him that he knew he could
trust him with his child when he was dead.
It chanced one evening, towards sunset, when Florence and Walter
were sitting in his room together, as he liked to see them, that
Florence, having her baby in her arms, began in a low voice to sing to
the little fellow, and sang the old tune she had so often sung to the
dead child: He could not bear it at the time; he held up his trembling
hand, imploring her to stop; but next day he asked her to repeat it,
and to do so often of an evening: which she did. He listening, with
his face turned away.
Florence was sitting on a certain time by his window, with her
work-basket between her and her old attendant, who was still her
faithful companion. He had fallen into a doze. It was a beautiful
evening, with two hours of light to come yet; and the tranquillity and
quiet made Florence very thoughtful. She was lost to everything for
the moment, but the occasion when the so altered figure on the bed had
first presented her to her beautiful Mama; when a touch from Walter
leaning on the back of her chair, made her start.
'My dear,' said Walter, 'there is someone downstairs who wishes to
speak to you.
She fancied Walter looked grave, and asked him if anything had
happened.
'No, no, my love!' said Walter. 'I have seen the gentleman myself,
and spoken with him. Nothing has happened. Will you come?'
Florence put her arm through his; and confiding her father to the
black-eyed Mrs Toots, who sat as brisk and smart at her work as
black-eyed woman could, accompanied her husband downstairs. In the
pleasant little parlour opening on the garden, sat a gentleman, who
rose to advance towards her when she came in, but turned off, by
reason of some peculiarity in his legs, and was only stopped by the
table.
Florence then remembered Cousin Feenix, whom she had not at first
recognised in the shade of the leaves. Cousin Feenix took her hand,
and congratulated her upon her marriage.
'I could have wished, I am sure,' said Cousin Feenix, sitting down
as Florence sat, to have had an earlier opportunity of offering my
congratulations; but, in point of fact, so many painful occurrences
have happened, treading, as a man may say, on one another's heels,
that I have been in a devil of a state myself, and perfectly unfit for
every description of society. The only description of society I have
kept, has been my own; and it certainly is anything but flattering to
a man's good opinion of his own sources, to know that, in point of
fact, he has the capacity of boring himself to a perfectly unlimited
extent.'
Florence divined, from some indefinable constraint and anxiety in
this gentleman's manner - which was always a gentleman's, in spite of
the harmless little eccentricities that attached to it - and from
Walter's manner no less, that something more immediately tending to
some object was to follow this.
'I have been mentioning to my friend Mr Gay, if I may be allowed to
have the honour of calling him so,' said Cousin Feenix, 'that I am
rejoiced to hear that my friend Dombey is very decidedly mending. I
trust my friend Dombey will not allow his mind to be too much preyed
upon, by any mere loss of fortune. I cannot say that I have ever
experienced any very great loss of fortune myself: never having had,
in point of fact, any great amount of fortune to lose. But as much as
I could lose, I have lost; and I don't find that I particularly care
about it. I know my friend Dombey to be a devilish honourable man; and
it's calculated to console my friend Dombey very much, to know, that
this is the universal sentiment. Even Tommy Screwzer, - a man of an
extremely bilious habit, with whom my friend Gay is probably
acquainted - cannot say a syllable in disputation of the fact.'
Florence felt, more than ever, that there was something to come;
and looked earnestly for it. So earnestly, that Cousin Feenix
answered, as if she had spoken.
'The fact is,' said Cousin Feenix, 'that my friend Gay and myself
have been discussing the propriety of entreating a favour at your
hands; and that I have the consent of my friend Gay - who has met me
in an exceedingly kind and open manner, for which I am very much
indebted to him - to solicit it. I am sensible that so amiable a lady
as the lovely and accomplished daughter of my friend Dombey will not
require much urging; but I am happy to know, that I am supported by my
friend Gay's influence and approval. As in my parliamentary time, when
a man had a motion to make of any sort - which happened seldom in
those days, for we were kept very tight in hand, the leaders on both
sides being regular Martinets, which was a devilish good thing for the
rank and file, like myself, and prevented our exposing ourselves
continually, as a great many of us had a feverish anxiety to do - as'
in my parliamentary time, I was about to say, when a man had leave to
let off any little private popgun, it was always considered a great
point for him to say that he had the happiness of believing that his
sentiments were not without an echo in the breast of Mr Pitt; the
pilot, in point of fact, who had weathered the storm. Upon which, a
devilish large number of fellows immediately cheered, and put him in
spirits. Though the fact is, that these fellows, being under orders to
cheer most excessively whenever Mr Pitt's name was mentioned, became
so proficient that it always woke 'em. And they were so entirely
innocent of what was going on, otherwise, that it used to be commonly
said by Conversation Brown - four-bottle man at the Treasury Board,
with whom the father of my friend Gay was probably acquainted, for it
was before my friend Gay's time - that if a man had risen in his
place, and said that he regretted to inform the house that there was
an Honourable Member in the last stage of convulsions in the Lobby,
and that the Honourable Member's name was Pitt, the approbation would
have been vociferous.'
This postponement of the point, put Florence in a flutter; and she
looked from Cousin Feenix to Walter, in increasing agitatioN
'My love,' said Walter, 'there is nothing the matter.
'There is nothing the matter, upon my honour,' said Cousin Feenix;
'and I am deeply distressed at being the means of causing you a
moment's uneasiness. I beg to assure you that there is nothing the
matter. The favour that I have to ask is, simply - but it really does
seem so exceedingly singular, that I should be in the last degree
obliged to my friend Gay if he would have the goodness to break the -
in point of fact, the ice,' said Cousin Feenix.
Walter thus appealed to, and appealed to no less in the look that
Florence turned towards him, said:
'My dearest, it is no more than this. That you will ride to London
with this gentleman, whom you know.
'And my friend Gay, also - I beg your pardon!' interrupted Cousin
Feenix.
And with me - and make a visit somewhere.'
'To whom?' asked Florence, looking from one to the other.
'If I might entreat,' said Cousin Feenix, 'that you would not press
for an answer to that question, I would venture to take the liberty of
making the request.'
'Do you know, Walter?'
'Yes.'
'And think it right?'
'Yes. Only because I am sure that you would too. Though there may
be reasons I very well understand, which make it better that nothing
more should be said beforehand.'
'If Papa is still asleep, or can spare me if he is awake, I will go
immediately,' said Florence. And rising quietly, and glancing at them
with a look that was a little alarmed but perfectly confiding, left
the room.
When she came back, ready to bear them company, they were talking
together, gravely, at the window; and Florence could not but wonder
what the topic was, that had made them so well acquainted in so short
a time. She did not wonder at the look of pride and love with which
her husband broke off as she entered; for she never saw him, but that
rested on her.
'I will leave,' said Cousin Feenix, 'a card for my friend Dombey,
sincerely trusting that he will pick up health and strength with every
returning hour. And I hope my friend Dombey will do me the favour to
consider me a man who has a devilish warm admiration of his character,
as, in point of fact, a British merchant and a devilish upright
gentleman. My place in the country is in a most confounded state of
dilapidation, but if my friend Dombey should require a change of air,
and would take up his quarters there, he would find it a remarkably
healthy spot - as it need be, for it's amazingly dull. If my friend
Dombey suffers from bodily weakness, and would allow me to recommend
what has frequently done myself good, as a man who has been extremely
queer at times, and who lived pretty freely in the days when men lived
very freely, I should say, let it be in point of fact the yolk of an
egg, beat up with sugar and nutmeg, in a glass of sherry, and taken in
the morning with a slice of dry toast. Jackson, who kept the
boxing-rooms in Bond Street - man of very superior qualifications,
with whose reputation my friend Gay is no doubt acquainted - used to
mention that in training for the ring they substituted rum for sherry.
I should recommend sherry in this case, on account of my friend Dombey
being in an invalided condition; which might occasion rum to fly - in
point of fact to his head - and throw him into a devil of a state.'
Of all this, Cousin Feenix delivered himself with an obviously
nervous and discomposed air. Then, giving his arm to Florence, and
putting the strongest possible constraint upon his wilful legs, which
seemed determined to go out into the garden, he led her to the door,
and handed her into a carriage that was ready for her reception.
Walter entered after him, and they drove away.
Their ride was six or eight miles long. When they drove through
certain dull and stately streets, lying westward in London, it was
growing dusk. Florence had, by this time, put her hand in Walter's;
and was looking very earnestly, and with increasing agitation, into
every new street into which they turned.
When the carriage stopped, at last, before that house in Brook
Street, where her father's unhappy marriage had been celebrated,
Florence said, 'Walter, what is this? Who is here?' Walter cheering
her, and not replying, she glanced up at the house-front, and saw that
all the windows were shut, as if it were uninhabited. Cousin Feenix
had by this time alighted, and was offering his hand.
'Are you not coming, Walter?'
'No, I will remain here. Don't tremble there is nothing to fear,
dearest Florence.'
'I know that, Walter, with you so near. I am sure of that, but - '
The door was softly opened, without any knock, and Cousin Feenix
led her out of the summer evening air into the close dull house. More
sombre and brown than ever, it seemed to have been shut up from the
wedding-day, and to have hoarded darkness and sadness ever since.
Florence ascended the dusky staircase, trembling; and stopped, with
her conductor, at the drawing-room door. He opened it, without
speaking, and signed an entreaty to her to advance into the inner
room, while he remained there. Florence, after hesitating an instant,
complied.
Sitting by the window at a table, where she seemed to have been
writing or drawing, was a lady, whose head, turned away towards the
dying light, was resting on her hand. Florence advancing, doubtfully,
all at once stood still, as if she had lost the power of motion. The
lady turned her head.
'Great Heaven!' she said, 'what is this?'
'No, no!' cried Florence, shrinking back as she rose up and putting
out her hands to keep her off. 'Mama!'
They stood looking at each other. Passion and pride had worn it,
but it was the face of Edith, and beautiful and stately yet. It was
the face of Florence, and through all the terrified avoidance it
expressed, there was pity in it, sorrow, a grateful tender memory. On
each face, wonder and fear were painted vividly; each so still and
silent, looking at the other over the black gulf of the irrevocable past.
Florence was the first to change. Bursting into tears, she said
from her full heart, 'Oh, Mama, Mama! why do we meet like this? Why
were you ever kind to me when there was no one else, that we should
meet like this?'
Edith stood before her, dumb and motionless. Her eyes were fixed
upon her face.
'I dare not think of that,' said Florence, 'I am come from Papa's
sick bed. We are never asunder now; we never shall be' any more. If
you would have me ask his pardon, I will do it, Mama. I am almost sure
he will grant it now, if I ask him. May Heaven grant it to you, too,
and comfort you!'
She answered not a word.
'Walter - I am married to him, and we have a son,' said Florence,
timidly - 'is at the door, and has brought me here. I will tell him
that you are repentant; that you are changed,' said Florence, looking
mournfully upon her; 'and he will speak to Papa with me, I know. Is
there anything but this that I can do?'
Edith, breaking her silence, without moving eye or limb, answered
slowly:
'The stain upon your name, upon your husband's, on your child's.
Will that ever be forgiven, Florence?'
'Will it ever be, Mama? It is! Freely, freely, both by Walter and
by me. If that is any consolation to you, there is nothing that you
may believe more certainly. You do not - you do not,' faltered
Florence, 'speak of Papa; but I am sure you wish that I should ask him
for his forgiveness. I am sure you do.'
She answered not a word.
'I will!' said Florence. 'I will bring it you, if you will let me;
and then, perhaps, we may take leave of each other, more like what we
used to be to one another. I have not,' said Florence very gently, and
drawing nearer to her, 'I have not shrunk back from you, Mama, because
I fear you, or because I dread to be disgraced by you. I only wish to
do my duty to Papa. I am very dear to him, and he is very dear to me.
But I never can forget that you were very good to me. Oh, pray to
Heaven,' cried Florence, falling on her bosom, 'pray to Heaven, Mama,
to forgive you all this sin and shame, and to forgive me if I cannot
help doing this (if it is wrong), when I remember what you used to
be!'
Edith, as if she fell beneath her touch, sunk down on her knees,
and caught her round the neck.
'Florence!' she cried. 'My better angel! Before I am mad again,
before my stubbornness comes back and strikes me dumb, believe me,
upon my soul I am innocent!'
'Mama!'
'Guilty of much! Guilty of that which sets a waste between us
evermore. Guilty of what must separate me, through the whole remainder
of my life, from purity and innocence - from you, of all the earth.
Guilty of a blind and passionate resentment, of which I do not,
cannot, will not, even now, repent; but not guilty with that dead man.
Before God!'
Upon her knees upon the ground, she held up both her hands, and
swore it.
'Florence!' she said, 'purest and best of natures, - whom I love -
who might have changed me long ago, and did for a time work some
change even in the woman that I am, - believe me, I am innocent of
that; and once more, on my desolate heart, let me lay this dear head,
for the last time!'
She was moved and weeping. Had she been oftener thus in older days,
she had been happier now.
'There is nothing else in all the world,' she said, 'that would
have wrung denial from me. No love, no hatred, no hope, no threat. I
said that I would die, and make no sign. I could have done so, and I
would, if we had never met, Florence.
'I trust,' said Cousin Feenix, ambling in at the door, and
speaking, half in the room, and half out of it, 'that my lovely and
accomplished relative will excuse my having, by a little stratagem,
effected this meeting. I cannot say that I was, at first, wholly
incredulous as to the possibility of my lovely and accomplished
relative having, very unfortunately, committed herself with the
deceased person with white teeth; because in point of fact, one does
see, in this world - which is remarkable for devilish strange
arrangements, and for being decidedly the most unintelligible thing
within a man's experience - very odd conjunctions of that sort. But as
I mentioned to my friend Dombey, I could not admit the criminality of
my lovely and accomplished relative until it was perfectly
established. And feeling, when the deceased person was, in point of
fact, destroyed in a devilish horrible manner, that her position was a
very painful one - and feeling besides that our family had been a
little to blame in not paying more attention to her, and that we are a
careless family - and also that my aunt, though a devilish lively
woman, had perhaps not been the very best of mothers - I took the
liberty of seeking her in France, and offering her such protection as
a man very much out at elbows could offer. Upon which occasion, my
lovely and accomplished relative did me the honour to express that she
believed I was, in my way, a devilish good sort of fellow; and that
therefore she put herself under my protection. Which in point of fact
I understood to be a kind thing on the part of my lovely and
accomplished relative, as I am getting extremely shaky, and have
derived great comfort from her solicitude.'
Edith, who had taken Florence to a sofa, made a gesture with her
hand as if she would have begged him to say no more.
'My lovely and accomplished relative,' resumed Cousin Feenix, still
ambling about at the door, 'will excuse me, if, for her satisfaction,
and my own, and that of my friend Dombey, whose lovely and
accomplished daughter we so much admire, I complete the thread of my
observations. She will remember that, from the first, she and I never
alluded to the subject of her elopement. My impression, certainly, has
always been, that there was a mystery in the affair which she could
explain if so inclined. But my lovely and accomplished relative being
a devilish resolute woman, I knew that she was not, in point of fact,
to be trifled with, and therefore did not involve myself in any
discussions. But, observing lately, that her accessible point did
appear to be a very strong description of tenderness for the daughter
of my friend Dombey, it occurred to me that if I could bring about a
meeting, unexpected on both sides, it might lead to beneficial
results. Therefore, we being in London, in the present private way,
before going to the South of Italy, there to establish ourselves, in
point of fact, until we go to our long homes, which is a devilish
disagreeable reflection for a man, I applied myself to the discovery
of the residence of my friend Gay - handsome man of an uncommonly
frank disposition, who is probably known to my lovely and accomplished
relative - and had the happiness of bringing his amiable wife to the
present place. And now,' said Cousin Feenix, with a real and genuine
earnestness shining through the levity of his manner and his slipshod
speech, 'I do conjure my relative, not to stop half way, but to set
right, as far as she can, whatever she has done wrong - not for the
honour of her family, not for her own fame, not for any of those
considerations which unfortunate circumstances have induced her to
regard as hollow, and in point of fact, as approaching to humbug - but
because it is wrong, and not right.'
Cousin Feenix's legs consented to take him away after this; and
leaving them alone together, he shut the door.
Edith remained silent for some minutes, with Florence sitting close
beside her. Then she took from her bosom a sealed paper.
'I debated with myself a long time,' she said in a low voice,
'whether to write this at all, in case of dying suddenly or by
accident, and feeling the want of it upon me. I have deliberated, ever
since, when and how to destroy it. Take it, Florence. The truth is
written in it.'
'Is it for Papa?' asked Florence.
'It is for whom you will,' she answered. 'It is given to you, and
is obtained by you. He never could have had it otherwise.'
Again they sat silent, in the deepening darkness.
'Mama,' said Florence, 'he has lost his fortune; he has been at the
point of death; he may not recover, even now. Is there any word that I
shall say to him from you?'
'Did you tell me,' asked Edith, 'that you were very dear to him?'
'Yes!' said Florence, in a thrilling voice.
'Tell him I am sorry that we ever met.
'No more?' said Florence after a pause.
'Tell him, if he asks, that I do not repent of what I have done -
not yet - for if it were to do again to-morrow, I should do it. But if
he is a changed man - '
She stopped. There was something in the silent touch of Florence's
hand that stopped her.
'But that being a changed man, he knows, now, it would never be.
Tell him I wish it never had been.'
'May I say,' said Florence, 'that you grieved to hear of the
afflictions he has suffered?'
'Not,' she replied, 'if they have taught him that his daughter is
very dear to him. He will not grieve for them himself, one day, if
they have brought that lesson, Florence.'
'You wish well to him, and would have him happy. I am sure you
would!' said Florence. 'Oh! let me be able, if I have the occasion at
some future time, to say so?'
Edith sat with her dark eyes gazing steadfastly before her, and did
not reply until Florence had repeated her entreaty; when she drew her
hand within her arm, and said, with the same thoughtful gaze upon the
night outside:
'Tell him that if, in his own present, he can find any reason to
compassionate my past, I sent word that I asked him to do so. Tell him
that if, in his own present, he can find a reason to think less
bitterly of me, I asked him to do so. Tell him, that, dead as we are
to one another, never more to meet on this side of eternity, he knows
there is one feeling in common between us now, that there never was
before.'
Her sternness seemed to yield, and there were tears in her dark
eyes.
'I trust myself to that,' she said, 'for his better thoughts of me,
and mine of him. When he loves his Florence most, he will hate me
least. When he is most proud and happy in her and her children, he
will be most repentant of his own part in the dark vision of our
married life. At that time, I will be repentant too - let him know it
then - and think that when I thought so much of all the causes that
had made me what I was, I needed to have allowed more for the causes
that had made him what he was. I will try, then, to forgive him his
share of blame. Let him try to forgive me mine!'
'Oh Mama!' said Florence. 'How it lightens my heart, even in such a
strange meeting and parting, to hear this!'
'Strange words in my own ears,' said Edith, 'and foreign to the
sound of my own voice! But even if I had been the wretched creature I
have given him occasion to believe me, I think I could have said them
still, hearing that you and he were very dear to one another. Let him,
when you are dearest, ever feel that he is most forbearing in his
thoughts of me - that I am most forbearing in my thoughts of him!
Those are the last words I send him! Now, goodbye, my life!'
She clasped her in her arms, and seemed to pour out all her woman's
soul of love and tenderness at once.
'This kiss for your child! These kisses for a blessing on your
head! My own dear Florence, my sweet girl, farewell!'
'To meet again!' cried Florence.
'Never again! Never again! When you leave me in this dark room,
think that you have left me in the grave. Remember only that I was
once, and that I loved you!'
And Florence left her, seeing her face no more, but accompanied by
her embraces and caresses to the last.
Cousin Feenix met her at the door, and took her down to Walter in
the dingy dining room, upon whose shoulder she laid her head weeping.
'I am devilish sorry,' said Cousin Feenix, lifting his wristbands
to his eyes in the simplest manner possible, and without the least
concealment, 'that the lovely and accomplished daughter of my friend
Dombey and amiable wife of my friend Gay, should have had her
sensitive nature so very much distressed and cut up by the interview
which is just concluded. But I hope and trust I have acted for the
best, and that my honourable friend Dombey will find his mind relieved
by the disclosures which have taken place. I exceedingly lament that
my friend Dombey should have got himself, in point of fact, into the
devil's own state of conglomeration by an alliance with our family;
but am strongly of opinion that if it hadn't been for the infernal
scoundrel Barker - man with white teeth - everything would have gone
on pretty smoothly. In regard to my relative who does me the honour to
have formed an uncommonly good opinion of myself, I can assure the
amiable wife of my friend Gay, that she may rely on my being, in point
of fact, a father to her. And in regard to the changes of human life,
and the extraordinary manner in which we are perpetually conducting
ourselves, all I can say is, with my friend Shakespeare - man who
wasn't for an age but for all time, and with whom my friend Gay is no
doubt acquainted - that its like the shadow of a dream.'
CHAPTER 62.
Final
A bottle that has been long excluded from the light of day, and is
hoary with dust and cobwebs, has been brought into the sunshine; and
the golden wine within it sheds a lustre on the table.
It is the last bottle of the old Madiera.
'You are quite right, Mr Gills,' says Mr Dombey. 'This is a very
rare and most delicious wine.'
The Captain, who is of the party, beams with joy. There is a very
halo of delight round his glowing forehead.
'We always promised ourselves, Sir,' observes Mr Gills,' Ned and
myself, I mean - '
Mr Dombey nods at the Captain, who shines more and more with
speechless gratification.
'-that we would drink this, one day or other, to Walter safe at
home: though such a home we never thought of. If you don't object to
our old whim, Sir, let us devote this first glass to Walter and his
wife.'
'To Walter and his wife!' says Mr Dombey. 'Florence, my child' -
and turns to kiss her.
'To Walter and his wife!' says Mr Toots.
'To Wal'r and his wife!' exclaims the Captain. 'Hooroar!' and the
Captain exhibiting a strong desire to clink his glass against some
other glass, Mr Dombey, with a ready hand, holds out his. The others
follow; and there is a blithe and merry ringing, as of a little peal
of marriage bells.
Other buried wine grows older, as the old Madeira did in its time;
and dust and cobwebs thicken on the bottles.
Mr Dombey is a white-haired gentleman, whose face bears heavy marks
of care and suffering; but they are traces of a storm that has passed
on for ever, and left a clear evening in its track.
Ambitious projects trouble him no more. His only pride is in his
daughter and her husband. He has a silent, thoughtful, quiet manner,
and is always with his daughter. Miss Tox is not infrequently of the
family party, and is quite devoted to it, and a great favourite. Her
admiration of her once stately patron is, and has been ever since the
morning of her shock in Princess's Place, platonic, but not weakened
in the least.
Nothing has drifted to him from the wreck of his fortunes, but a
certain annual sum that comes he knows not how, with an earnest
entreaty that he will not seek to discover, and with the assurance
that it is a debt, and an act of reparation. He has consulted with his
old clerk about this, who is clear it may be honourably accepted, and
has no doubt it arises out of some forgotten transaction in the times
of the old House.
That hazel-eyed bachelor, a bachelor no more, is married now, and
to the sister of the grey-haired Junior. He visits his old chief
sometimes, but seldom. There is a reason in the greyhaired Junior's
history, and yet a stronger reason in his name, why he should keep
retired from his old employer; and as he lives with his sister and her
husband, they participate in that retirement. Walter sees them
sometimes - Florence too - and the pleasant house resounds with
profound duets arranged for the Piano-Forte and Violoncello, and with
the labours of Harmonious Blacksmiths.
And how goes the wooden Midshipman in these changed days? Why, here
he still is, right leg foremost, hard at work upon the hackney
coaches, and more on the alert than ever, being newly painted from his
cocked hat to his buckled shoes; and up above him, in golden
characters, these names shine refulgent, GILLS AND CUTTLE.
Not another stroke of business does the Midshipman achieve beyond
his usual easy trade. But they do say, in a circuit of some half-mile
round the blue umbrella in Leadenhall Market, that some of Mr Gills's
old investments are coming out wonderfully well; and that instead of
being behind the time in those respects, as he supposed, he was, in
truth, a little before it, and had to wait the fulness of the time and
the design. The whisper is that Mr Gills's money has begun to turn
itself, and that it is turning itself over and over pretty briskly.
Certain it is that, standing at his shop-door, in his coffee-coloured
suit, with his chronometer in his pocket, and his spectacles on his
forehead, he don't appear to break his heart at customers not coming,
but looks very jovial and contented, though full as misty as of yore.
As to his partner, Captain Cuttle, there is a fiction of a business
in the Captain's mind which is better than any reality. The Captain is
as satisfied of the Midshipman's importance to the commerce and
navigation of the country, as he could possibly be, if no ship left
the Port of London without the Midshipman's assistance. His delight in
his own name over the door, is inexhaustible. He crosses the street,
twenty times a day, to look at it from the other side of the way; and
invariably says, on these occasions, 'Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad, if your
mother could ha' know'd as you would ever be a man o' science, the
good old creetur would ha' been took aback in-deed!'
But here is Mr Toots descending on the Midshipman with violent
rapidity, and Mr Toots's face is very red as he bursts into the little
parlour.
'Captain Gills,' says Mr Toots, 'and Mr Sols, I am happy to inform
you that Mrs Toots has had an increase to her family.
'And it does her credit!' cries the Captain.
'I give you joy, Mr Toots!' says old Sol.
'Thank'ee,' chuckles Mr Toots, 'I'm very much obliged to you. I
knew that you'd be glad to hear, and so I came down myself. We're
positively getting on, you know. There's Florence, and Susan, and now
here's another little stranger.'
'A female stranger?' inquires the Captain.
'Yes, Captain Gills,' says Mr Toots, 'and I'm glad of it. The
oftener we can repeat that most extraordinary woman, my opinion is,
the better!'
'Stand by!' says the Captain, turning to the old case-bottle with
no throat - for it is evening, and the Midshipman's usual moderate
provision of pipes and glasses is on the board. 'Here's to her, and
may she have ever so many more!'
'Thank'ee, Captain Gills,' says the delighted Mr Toots. 'I echo the
sentiment. If you'll allow me, as my so doing cannot be unpleasant to
anybody, under the circumstances, I think I'll take a pipe.'
Mr Toots begins to smoke, accordingly, and in the openness of his
heart is very loquacious.
'Of all the remarkable instances that that delightful woman has
given of her excellent sense, Captain Gills and Mr Sols,' said Mr
Toots, 'I think none is more remarkable than the perfection with which
she has understood my devotion to Miss Dombey.'
Both his auditors assent.
'Because you know,' says Mr Toots, 'I have never changed my
sentiments towards Miss Dombey. They are the same as ever. She is the
same bright vision to me, at present, that she was before I made
Walters's acquaintance. When Mrs Toots and myself first began to talk
of - in short, of the tender passion, you know, Captain Gills.'
'Ay, ay, my lad,' says the Captain, 'as makes us all slue round -
for which you'll overhaul the book - '
'I shall certainly do so, Captain Gills,' says Mr Toots, with great
earnestness; 'when we first began to mention such subjects, I
explained that I was what you may call a Blighted Flower, you know.'
The Captain approves of this figure greatly; and murmurs that no
flower as blows, is like the rose.
'But Lord bless me,' pursues Mr Toots, 'she was as entirely
conscious of the state of my feelings as I was myself. There was
nothing I could tell her. She was the only person who could have stood
between me and the silent Tomb, and she did it, in a manner to command
my everlasting admiration. She knows that there's nobody in the world
I look up to, as I do to Miss Dombey. Knows that there's nothing on
earth I wouldn't do for Miss Dombey. She knows that I consider Miss
Dombey the most beautiful, the most amiable, the most angelic of her
sex. What is her observation upon that? The perfection of sense. "My
dear, you're right. I think so too."'
'And so do I!' says the Captain.
'So do I,' says Sol Gills.
'Then,' resumes Mr Toots, after some contemplative pulling at his
pipe, during which his visage has expressed the most contented
reflection, 'what an observant woman my wife is! What sagacity she
possesses! What remarks she makes! It was only last night, when we
were sitting in the enjoyment of connubial bliss - which, upon my word
and honour, is a feeble term to express my feelings in the society of
my wife - that she said how remarkable it was to consider the present
position of our friend Walters. "Here," observes my wife, "he is,
released from sea-going, after that first long voyage with his young
bride" - as you know he was, Mr Sols.'
'Quite true,' says the old Instrument-maker, rubbing his hands.
"'Here he is," says my wife, "released from that, immediately;
appointed by the same establishment to a post of great trust and
confidence at home; showing himself again worthy; mounting up the
ladder with the greatest expedition; beloved by everybody; assisted by
his uncle at the very best possible time of his fortunes" - which I
think is the case, Mr Sols? My wife is always correct.'
'Why yes, yes - some of our lost ships, freighted with gold, have
come home, truly,' returns old Sol, laughing. 'Small craft, Mr Toots,
but serviceable to my boy!'
'Exactly so,' says Mr Toots. 'You'll never find my wife wrong.
"Here he is," says that most remarkable woman, "so situated, - and
what follows? What follows?" observed Mrs Toots. Now pray remark,
Captain Gills, and Mr Sols, the depth of my wife's penetration. "Why
that, under the very eye of Mr Dombey, there is a foundation going on,
upon which a - an Edifice;" that was Mrs Toots's word,' says Mr Toots
exultingly, "'is gradually rising, perhaps to equal, perhaps excel,
that of which he was once the head, and the small beginnings of which
(a common fault, but a bad one, Mrs Toots said) escaped his memory.
Thus," said my wife, "from his daughter, after all, another Dombey and
Son will ascend" - no "rise;" that was Mrs Toots's word -
"triumphant!"'
Mr Toots, with the assistance of his pipe - which he is extremely
glad to devote to oratorical purposes, as its proper use affects him
with a very uncomfortable sensation - does such grand justice to this
prophetic sentence of his wife's, that the Captain, throwing away his
glazed hat in a state of the greatest excitement, cries:
'Sol Gills, you man of science and my ould pardner, what did I tell
Wal'r to overhaul on that there night when he first took to business?
Was it this here quotation, "Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of
London, and when you are old you will never depart from it". Was it
them words, Sol Gills?'
'It certainly was, Ned,' replied the old Instrument-maker. 'I
remember well.'
'Then I tell you what,' says the Captain, leaning back in his
chair, and composing his chest for a prodigious roar. 'I'll give you
Lovely Peg right through; and stand by, both on you, for the chorus!'
Buried wine grows older, as the old Madeira did, in its time; and
dust and cobwebs thicken on the bottles.
Autumn days are shining, and on the sea-beach there are often a
young lady, and a white-haired gentleman. With them, or near them, are
two children: boy and girl. And an old dog is generally in their
company.
The white-haired gentleman walks with the little boy, talks with
him, helps him in his play, attends upon him, watches him as if he
were the object of his life. If he be thoughtful, the white-haired
gentleman is thoughtful too; and sometimes when the child is sitting
by his side, and looks up in his face, asking him questions, he takes
the tiny hand in his, and holding it, forgets to answer. Then the
child says:
'What, grandpa! Am I so like my poor little Uncle again?'
'Yes, Paul. But he was weak, and you are very strong.'
'Oh yes, I am very strong.'
'And he lay on a little bed beside the sea, and you can run about.'
And so they range away again, busily, for the white-haired
gentleman likes best to see the child free and stirring; and as they
go about together, the story of the bond between them goes about, and
follows them.
But no one, except Florence, knows the measure of the white-haired
gentleman's affection for the girl. That story never goes about. The
child herself almost wonders at a certain secrecy he keeps in it. He
hoards her in his heart. He cannot bear to see a cloud upon her face.
He cannot bear to see her sit apart. He fancies that she feels a
slight, when there is none. He steals away to look at her, in her
sleep. It pleases him to have her come, and wake him in the morning.
He is fondest of her and most loving to her, when there is no creature
by. The child says then, sometimes:
'Dear grandpapa, why do you cry when you kiss me?'
He only answers, 'Little Florence! little Florence!' and smooths
away the curls that shade her earnest eyes.
The voices in the waves speak low to him of Florence, day and night
- plainest when he, his blooming daughter, and her husband, beside
them in the evening, or sit at an open window, listening to their
roar. They speak to him of Florence and his altered heart; of Florence
and their ceaseless murmuring to her of the love, eternal and
illimitable, extending still, beyond the sea, beyond the sky, to the
invisible country far away.
Never from the mighty sea may voices rise too late, to come between
us and the unseen region on the other shore! Better, far better, that
they whispered of that region in our childish ears, and the swift
river hurried us away!
End of the
PREFACE OF 1848
I cannot forego my usual opportunity of saying
farewell to my readers in this greetingplace,
though I have only to acknowledge the unbounded
warmth and earnestness of their sympathy in every
stage of the journey we have just concluded.
If any of them have felt a sorrow in one of the
principal incidents on which this fiction turns, I
hope it may be a sorrow of that sort which endears
the sharers in it, one to another. This is not
unselfish in me. I may claim to have felt it, at least
as much as anybody else; and I would fain be
remembered kindly for my part in the experience.
DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,
Twenty-Fourth March, 1848.
PREFACE OF 1867
I make so bold as to believe that the faculty (or the habit) of
correctly observing the characters of men, is a rare one. I have not
even found, within my experience, that the faculty (or the habit) of
correctly observing so much as the faces of men, is a general one
by any means. The two commonest mistakes in judgement that I
suppose to arise from the former default, are, the confounding of
shyness with arrogance - a very common mistake indeed - and the
not understanding that an obstinate nature exists in a perpetual
struggle with itself.
Mr Dombey undergoes no violent change, either in this book, or
in real life. A sense of his injustice is within him, all along. The
more he represses it, the more unjust he necessarily is. Internal
shame and external circumstances may bring the contest to a close
in a week, or a day; but, it has been a contest for years, and is only
fought out after a long balance of victory.
I began this book by the Lake of Geneva, and went on with it
for some months in France, before pursuing it in England. The
association between the writing and the place of writing is so
curiously strong in my mind, that at this day, although I know, in
my fancy, every stair in the little midshipman's house, and could
swear to every pew in the church in which Florence was married,
or to every young gentleman's bedstead in Doctor Blimber's
establishment, I yet confusedly imagine Captain Cuttle as secluding
himself from Mrs MacStinger among the mountains of Switzerland.
Similarly, when I am reminded by any chance of what it was
that the waves were always saying, my remembrance wanders for
a whole winter night about the streets of Paris - as I restlessly did
with a heavy heart, on the night when I had written the chapter in
which my little friend and I parted company.