Bot-S: Dombey and Son

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 remonstrances, 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;
accordingly 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 everything 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 from 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 twinkled
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 after 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 of him, 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 tremble 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 bestowed 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 Carker, 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 of his 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 worldly 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 Dombey’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 of no 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 pantaloons, 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 friends 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 if he 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 steadfastly. 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! h--h!’

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, and 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! Whoo-oop! 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! Whoo-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 could go to Captain
Cuttle’s house; hear from his own lips, what he thought of the absence
of any tidings of the 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 Cuttle 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
evidently 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
ship-shape.’ 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 kept it. That’s the long and short
of the 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 invention, 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 anything 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 satisfaction in this encomium; but if his face had
been as distant as his gaze was, it could hardly have enlightened
the beholders less in reference to anything that was passing in his
thoughts.

‘Shipmet,’ 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 testifying 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),
uniformly 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 forced 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 in 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!’ (he 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 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, Bedlamite?’ 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; Mr 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 contents 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 appearance 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 prosers!--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-by 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 were. 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, as 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 low 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’s! 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 me!’

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 off, 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 it never 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 of her 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 disadvantage, 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 Chick.

‘Paul’s mad!’ said Mrs Chick.

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 Edith ‘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 be 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
berth!’

The Captain, who looked anything but daring, feebly muttered ‘Stand by!’

‘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 fellon. 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 visitors--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 breakfast 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.
Dombey and Son - Part 2
