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Dombey and Son
DOMBEY AND SON ***
Produced by Neil McLachlan, Ted Davis, and David Widger
DOMBEY AND SON
By Charles Dickens
CONTENTS
1. Dombey and Son
2. In which Timely Provision is made for an Emergency that
will sometimes arise in the best-regulated Families
3. In which Mr Dombey, as a Man and a Father, is seen at the
Head of the Home-Department
4. In which some more First Appearances are made on the
Stage of these Adventures
5. Paul’s Progress and Christening
6. Paul’s Second Deprivation
7. A Bird’s-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox’s Dwelling-place; also
of the State of Miss Tox’s Affections
8. Paul’s further Progress, Growth, and Character
9. In which the Wooden Midshipman gets into Trouble
10. Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman’s Disaster
11. Paul’s Introduction to a New Scene
12. Paul’s Education
13. Shipping Intelligence and Office Business
14. Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned, and goes Home
for the holidays
15. Amazing Artfulness of Captain Cuttle, and a new Pursuit
for Walter Gay
16. What the Waves were always saying
17. Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young people
18. Father and Daughter
19. Walter goes away
20. Mr Dombey goes upon a journey
21. New Faces
22. A Trifle of Management by Mr Carker the Manager
23. Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious
24. The Study of a Loving Heart
25. Strange News of Uncle Sol
26. Shadows of the Past and Future
27. Deeper shadows
28. Alterations
29. The Opening of the Eyes of Mrs Chick
30. The Interval before the Marriage
31. The Wedding
32. The Wooden Midshipman goes to Pieces
33. Contrasts
34. Another Mother and Daughter
35. The Happy Pair
36. Housewarming
37. More Warnings than One
38. Miss Tox improves an Old Acquaintance
39. Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner
40. Domestic Relations
41. New Voices in the Waves
42. Confidential and Accidental
43. The Watches of the Night
44. A Separation
45. The Trusty Agent
46. Recognizant and Reflective
47. The Thunderbolt
48. The Flight of Florence
49. The Midshipman makes a Discovery
50. Mr Toots’s Complaint
51. Mr Dombey and the World
52. Secret Intelligence
53. More Intelligence
54. The Fugitives
55. Rob the Grinder loses his Place
56. Several People delighted, and the Game Chicken disgusted
57. Another Wedding
58. After a Lapse
59. Retribution
60. Chiefly Matrimonial
61. Relenting
62. Final
CHAPTER 1. Dombey and Son
Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair
by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead,
carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and
close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin,
and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new.
Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about eight-and-forty
minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and though a handsome
well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance, to be prepossessing.
Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of course) an undeniably
fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his general effect, as yet.
On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother Care had set some marks, as
on a tree that was to come down in good time--remorseless twins they are
for striding through their human forests, notching as they go--while the
countenance of Son was crossed with a thousand little creases, which the
same deceitful Time would take delight in smoothing out and wearing away
with the flat part of his scythe, as a preparation of the surface for
his deeper operations.
Dombey, exulting in the long-looked-for event, jingled and jingled the
heavy gold watch-chain that depended from below his trim blue coat,
whereof the buttons sparkled phosphorescently in the feeble rays of the
distant fire. Son, with his little fists curled up and clenched, seemed,
in his feeble way, to be squaring at existence for having come upon him
so unexpectedly.
‘The House will once again, Mrs Dombey,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘be not only in
name but in fact Dombey and Son;’ and he added, in a tone of luxurious
satisfaction, with his eyes half-closed as if he were reading the name
in a device of flowers, and inhaling their fragrance at the same time;
‘Dom-bey and Son!’
The words had such a softening influence, that he appended a term of
endearment to Mrs Dombey’s name (though not without some hesitation,
as being a man but little used to that form of address): and said, ‘Mrs
Dombey, my--my dear.’
A transient flush of faint surprise overspread the sick lady’s face as
she raised her eyes towards him.
‘He will be christened Paul, my--Mrs Dombey--of course.’
She feebly echoed, ‘Of course,’ or rather expressed it by the motion of
her lips, and closed her eyes again.
‘His father’s name, Mrs Dombey, and his grandfather’s! I wish his
grandfather were alive this day! There is some inconvenience in the
necessity of writing Junior,’ said Mr Dombey, making a fictitious
autograph on his knee; ‘but it is merely of a private and personal
complexion. It doesn’t enter into the correspondence of the House.
Its signature remains the same.’ And again he said ‘Dombey and Son,’ in
exactly the same tone as before.
Those three words conveyed the one idea of Mr Dombey’s life. The earth
was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon were made
to give them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float their ships;
rainbows gave them promise of fair weather; winds blew for or against
their enterprises; stars and planets circled in their orbits, to
preserve inviolate a system of which they were the centre. Common
abbreviations took new meanings in his eyes, and had sole reference
to them. A. D. had no concern with Anno Domini, but stood for anno
Dombei--and Son.
He had risen, as his father had before him, in the course of life and
death, from Son to Dombey, and for nearly twenty years had been the
sole representative of the Firm. Of those years he had been married,
ten--married, as some said, to a lady with no heart to give him; whose
happiness was in the past, and who was content to bind her broken spirit
to the dutiful and meek endurance of the present. Such idle talk was
little likely to reach the ears of Mr Dombey, whom it nearly concerned;
and probably no one in the world would have received it with such utter
incredulity as he, if it had reached him. Dombey and Son had often dealt
in hides, but never in hearts. They left that fancy ware to boys and
girls, and boarding-schools and books. Mr Dombey would have reasoned:
That a matrimonial alliance with himself must, in the nature of things,
be gratifying and honourable to any woman of common sense. That the
hope of giving birth to a new partner in such a House, could not fail
to awaken a glorious and stirring ambition in the breast of the least
ambitious of her sex. That Mrs Dombey had entered on that social
contract of matrimony: almost necessarily part of a genteel and wealthy
station, even without reference to the perpetuation of family Firms:
with her eyes fully open to these advantages. That Mrs Dombey had had
daily practical knowledge of his position in society. That Mrs Dombey
had always sat at the head of his table, and done the honours of his
house in a remarkably lady-like and becoming manner. That Mrs Dombey
must have been happy. That she couldn’t help it.
Or, at all events, with one drawback. Yes. That he would have allowed.
With only one; but that one certainly involving much. With the drawback
of hope deferred. That hope deferred, which, (as the Scripture very
correctly tells us, Mr Dombey would have added in a patronising way;
for his highest distinct idea even of Scripture, if examined, would
have been found to be; that as forming part of a general whole, of which
Dombey and Son formed another part, it was therefore to be commended
and upheld) maketh the heart sick. They had been married ten years, and
until this present day on which Mr Dombey sat jingling and jingling his
heavy gold watch-chain in the great arm-chair by the side of the bed,
had had no issue.
--To speak of; none worth mentioning. There had been a girl some six
years before, and the child, who had stolen into the chamber unobserved,
was now crouching timidly, in a corner whence she could see her mother’s
face. But what was a girl to Dombey and Son! In the capital of the
House’s name and dignity, such a child was merely a piece of base coin
that couldn’t be invested--a bad Boy--nothing more.
Mr Dombey’s cup of satisfaction was so full at this moment, however,
that he felt he could afford a drop or two of its contents, even to
sprinkle on the dust in the by-path of his little daughter.
So he said, ‘Florence, you may go and look at your pretty brother, if
you like, I daresay. Don’t touch him!’
The child glanced keenly at the blue coat and stiff white cravat, which,
with a pair of creaking boots and a very loud ticking watch, embodied
her idea of a father; but her eyes returned to her mother’s face
immediately, and she neither moved nor answered.
‘Her insensibility is as proof against a brother as against every thing
else,’ said Mr Dombey to himself He seemed so confirmed in a previous
opinion by the discovery, as to be quite glad of it.’
Next moment, the lady had opened her eyes and seen the child; and the
child had run towards her; and, standing on tiptoe, the better to hide
her face in her embrace, had clung about her with a desperate affection
very much at variance with her years.
‘Oh Lord bless me!’ said Mr Dombey, rising testily. ‘A very ill-advised
and feverish proceeding this, I am sure. Please to ring there for Miss
Florence’s nurse. Really the person should be more care-’
‘Wait! I--had better ask Doctor Peps if he’ll have the goodness to step
upstairs again perhaps. I’ll go down. I’ll go down. I needn’t beg you,’
he added, pausing for a moment at the settee before the fire, ‘to take
particular care of this young gentleman, Mrs ----’
‘Blockitt, Sir?’ suggested the nurse, a simpering piece of faded
gentility, who did not presume to state her name as a fact, but merely
offered it as a mild suggestion.
‘Of this young gentleman, Mrs Blockitt.’
‘No, Sir, indeed. I remember when Miss Florence was born--’
‘Ay, ay, ay,’ said Mr Dombey, bending over the basket bedstead, and
slightly bending his brows at the same time. ‘Miss Florence was all very
well, but this is another matter. This young gentleman has to accomplish
a destiny. A destiny, little fellow!’ As he thus apostrophised the
infant he raised one of his hands to his lips, and kissed it; then,
seeming to fear that the action involved some compromise of his dignity,
went, awkwardly enough, away.
Doctor Parker Peps, one of the Court Physicians, and a man of immense
reputation for assisting at the increase of great families, was
walking up and down the drawing-room with his hands behind him, to the
unspeakable admiration of the family Surgeon, who had regularly puffed
the case for the last six weeks, among all his patients, friends, and
acquaintances, as one to which he was in hourly expectation day and
night of being summoned, in conjunction with Doctor Parker Pep.
‘Well, Sir,’ said Doctor Parker Peps in a round, deep, sonorous voice,
muffled for the occasion, like the knocker; ‘do you find that your dear
lady is at all roused by your visit?’
‘Stimulated as it were?’ said the family practitioner faintly: bowing at
the same time to the Doctor, as much as to say, ‘Excuse my putting in a
word, but this is a valuable connexion.’
Mr Dombey was quite discomfited by the question. He had thought so
little of the patient, that he was not in a condition to answer it. He
said that it would be a satisfaction to him, if Doctor Parker Peps would
walk upstairs again.
‘Good! We must not disguise from you, Sir,’ said Doctor Parker Peps,
‘that there is a want of power in Her Grace the Duchess--I beg your
pardon; I confound names; I should say, in your amiable lady. That there
is a certain degree of languor, and a general absence of elasticity,
which we would rather--not--’
‘See,’ interposed the family practitioner with another inclination of
the head.
‘Quite so,’ said Doctor Parker Peps, ‘which we would rather not see. It
would appear that the system of Lady Cankaby--excuse me: I should say of
Mrs Dombey: I confuse the names of cases--’
‘So very numerous,’ murmured the family practitioner--‘can’t be expected
I’m sure--quite wonderful if otherwise--Doctor Parker Peps’s West-End
practice--’
‘Thank you,’ said the Doctor, ‘quite so. It would appear, I was
observing, that the system of our patient has sustained a shock, from
which it can only hope to rally by a great and strong--’
‘And vigorous,’ murmured the family practitioner.
‘Quite so,’ assented the Doctor--‘and vigorous effort. Mr Pilkins here,
who from his position of medical adviser in this family--no one better
qualified to fill that position, I am sure.’
‘Oh!’ murmured the family practitioner. ‘“Praise from Sir Hubert
Stanley!”’
‘You are good enough,’ returned Doctor Parker Peps, ‘to say so. Mr
Pilkins who, from his position, is best acquainted with the patient’s
constitution in its normal state (an acquaintance very valuable to us in
forming our opinions in these occasions), is of opinion, with me, that
Nature must be called upon to make a vigorous effort in this instance;
and that if our interesting friend the Countess of Dombey--I beg your
pardon; Mrs Dombey--should not be--’
‘Able,’ said the family practitioner.
‘To make,’ said Doctor Parker Peps.
‘That effort,’ said the family practitioner.
‘Successfully,’ said they both together.
‘Then,’ added Doctor Parker Peps, alone and very gravely, ‘a crisis might
arise, which we should both sincerely deplore.’
With that, they stood for a few seconds looking at the ground. Then,
on the motion--made in dumb show--of Doctor Parker Peps, they went
upstairs; the family practitioner opening the room door for that
distinguished professional, and following him out, with most obsequious
politeness.
To record of Mr Dombey that he was not in his way affected by this
intelligence, would be to do him an injustice. He was not a man of whom
it could properly be said that he was ever startled, or shocked; but
he certainly had a sense within him, that if his wife should sicken and
decay, he would be very sorry, and that he would find a something gone
from among his plate and furniture, and other household possessions,
which was well worth the having, and could not be lost without sincere
regret. Though it would be a cool, business-like, gentlemanly,
self-possessed regret, no doubt.
His meditations on the subject were soon interrupted, first by the
rustling of garments on the staircase, and then by the sudden whisking
into the room of a lady rather past the middle age than otherwise but
dressed in a very juvenile manner, particularly as to the tightness of
her bodice, who, running up to him with a kind of screw in her face and
carriage, expressive of suppressed emotion, flung her arms around his
neck, and said, in a choking voice,
‘My dear Paul! He’s quite a Dombey!’
‘Well, well!’ returned her brother--for Mr Dombey was her brother--‘I
think he is like the family. Don’t agitate yourself, Louisa.’
‘It’s very foolish of me,’ said Louisa, sitting down, and taking out her
pocket-handkerchief, ‘but he’s--he’s such a perfect Dombey!’
Mr Dombey coughed.
‘It’s so extraordinary,’ said Louisa; smiling through her tears,
which indeed were not overpowering, ‘as to be perfectly ridiculous. So
completely our family. I never saw anything like it in my life!’
‘But what is this about Fanny, herself?’ said Mr Dombey. ‘How is Fanny?’
‘My dear Paul,’ returned Louisa, ‘it’s nothing whatever. Take my word,
it’s nothing whatever. There is exhaustion, certainly, but nothing like
what I underwent myself, either with George or Frederick. An effort
is necessary. That’s all. If dear Fanny were a Dombey!--But I daresay
she’ll make it; I have no doubt she’ll make it. Knowing it to be
required of her, as a duty, of course she’ll make it. My dear Paul, it’s
very weak and silly of me, I know, to be so trembly and shaky from head
to foot; but I am so very queer that I must ask you for a glass of wine
and a morsel of that cake.’
Mr Dombey promptly supplied her with these refreshments from a tray on
the table.
‘I shall not drink my love to you, Paul,’ said Louisa: ‘I shall drink to
the little Dombey. Good gracious me!--it’s the most astonishing thing I
ever knew in all my days, he’s such a perfect Dombey.’
Quenching this expression of opinion in a short hysterical laugh which
terminated in tears, Louisa cast up her eyes, and emptied her glass.
‘I know it’s very weak and silly of me,’ she repeated, ‘to be so trembly
and shaky from head to foot, and to allow my feelings so completely
to get the better of me, but I cannot help it. I thought I should have
fallen out of the staircase window as I came down from seeing dear
Fanny, and that tiddy ickle sing.’ These last words originated in a
sudden vivid reminiscence of the baby.
They were succeeded by a gentle tap at the door.
‘Mrs Chick,’ said a very bland female voice outside, ‘how are you now,
my dear friend?’
‘My dear Paul,’ said Louisa in a low voice, as she rose from her seat,
‘it’s Miss Tox. The kindest creature! I never could have got here
without her! Miss Tox, my brother Mr Dombey. Paul, my dear, my very
particular friend Miss Tox.’
The lady thus specially presented, was a long lean figure, wearing such
a faded air that she seemed not to have been made in what linen-drapers
call ‘fast colours’ originally, and to have, by little and little,
washed out. But for this she might have been described as the very pink
of general propitiation and politeness. From a long habit of listening
admiringly to everything that was said in her presence, and looking at
the speakers as if she were mentally engaged in taking off impressions
of their images upon her soul, never to part with the same but with
life, her head had quite settled on one side. Her hands had contracted
a spasmodic habit of raising themselves of their own accord as in
involuntary admiration. Her eyes were liable to a similar affection. She
had the softest voice that ever was heard; and her nose, stupendously
aquiline, had a little knob in the very centre or key-stone of the
bridge, whence it tended downwards towards her face, as in an invincible
determination never to turn up at anything.
Miss Tox’s dress, though perfectly genteel and good, had a certain
character of angularity and scantiness. She was accustomed to wear
odd weedy little flowers in her bonnets and caps. Strange grasses were
sometimes perceived in her hair; and it was observed by the curious,
of all her collars, frills, tuckers, wristbands, and other gossamer
articles--indeed of everything she wore which had two ends to it
intended to unite--that the two ends were never on good terms, and
wouldn’t quite meet without a struggle. She had furry articles for
winter wear, as tippets, boas, and muffs, which stood up on end in
rampant manner, and were not at all sleek. She was much given to the
carrying about of small bags with snaps to them, that went off like
little pistols when they were shut up; and when full-dressed, she wore
round her neck the barrenest of lockets, representing a fishy old eye,
with no approach to speculation in it. These and other appearances of a
similar nature, had served to propagate the opinion, that Miss Tox was
a lady of what is called a limited independence, which she turned to
the best account. Possibly her mincing gait encouraged the belief,
and suggested that her clipping a step of ordinary compass into two or
three, originated in her habit of making the most of everything.
‘I am sure,’ said Miss Tox, with a prodigious curtsey, ‘that to have
the honour of being presented to Mr Dombey is a distinction which I have
long sought, but very little expected at the present moment. My dear Mrs
Chick--may I say Louisa!’
Mrs Chick took Miss Tox’s hand in hers, rested the foot of her
wine-glass upon it, repressed a tear, and said in a low voice, ‘God
bless you!’
‘My dear Louisa then,’ said Miss Tox, ‘my sweet friend, how are you
now?’
‘Better,’ Mrs Chick returned. ‘Take some wine. You have been almost as
anxious as I have been, and must want it, I am sure.’
Mr Dombey of course officiated, and also refilled his sister’s glass,
which she (looking another way, and unconscious of his intention)
held straight and steady the while, and then regarded with great
astonishment, saying, ‘My dear Paul, what have you been doing!’
‘Miss Tox, Paul,’ pursued Mrs Chick, still retaining her hand, ‘knowing
how much I have been interested in the anticipation of the event of
to-day, and how trembly and shaky I have been from head to foot in
expectation of it, has been working at a little gift for Fanny, which I
promised to present. Miss Tox is ingenuity itself.’
‘My dear Louisa,’ said Miss Tox. ‘Don’t say so.’
‘It is only a pincushion for the toilette table, Paul,’ resumed his
sister; ‘one of those trifles which are insignificant to your sex in
general, as it’s very natural they should be--we have no business to
expect they should be otherwise--but to which we attach some interest.’
‘Miss Tox is very good,’ said Mr Dombey.
‘And I do say, and will say, and must say,’ pursued his sister, pressing
the foot of the wine-glass on Miss Tox’s hand, at each of the three
clauses, ‘that Miss Tox has very prettily adapted the sentiment to the
occasion. I call “Welcome little Dombey” Poetry, myself!’
‘Is that the device?’ inquired her brother.
‘That is the device,’ returned Louisa.
‘But do me the justice to remember, my dear Louisa,’ said Miss Tox in
a tone of low and earnest entreaty, ‘that nothing but the--I have some
difficulty in expressing myself--the dubiousness of the result would
have induced me to take so great a liberty: “Welcome, Master Dombey,”
would have been much more congenial to my feelings, as I am sure you
know. But the uncertainty attendant on angelic strangers, will, I hope,
excuse what must otherwise appear an unwarrantable familiarity.’ Miss
Tox made a graceful bend as she spoke, in favour of Mr Dombey, which
that gentleman graciously acknowledged. Even the sort of recognition of
Dombey and Son, conveyed in the foregoing conversation, was so palatable
to him, that his sister, Mrs Chick--though he affected to consider her
a weak good-natured person--had perhaps more influence over him than
anybody else.
‘My dear Paul,’ that lady broke out afresh, after silently contemplating
his features for a few moments, ‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry
when I look at you, I declare, you do so remind me of that dear baby
upstairs.’
‘Well!’ said Mrs Chick, with a sweet smile, ‘after this, I forgive Fanny
everything!’
It was a declaration in a Christian spirit, and Mrs Chick felt that it
did her good. Not that she had anything particular to forgive in her
sister-in-law, nor indeed anything at all, except her having married her
brother--in itself a species of audacity--and her having, in the course
of events, given birth to a girl instead of a boy: which, as Mrs Chick
had frequently observed, was not quite what she had expected of her, and
was not a pleasant return for all the attention and distinction she had
met with.
Mr Dombey being hastily summoned out of the room at this moment, the two
ladies were left alone together. Miss Tox immediately became spasmodic.
‘I knew you would admire my brother. I told you so beforehand, my dear,’
said Louisa. Miss Tox’s hands and eyes expressed how much. ‘And as to
his property, my dear!’
‘Ah!’ said Miss Tox, with deep feeling.
‘Im-mense!’
‘But his deportment, my dear Louisa!’ said Miss Tox. ‘His presence! His
dignity! No portrait that I have ever seen of anyone has been half
so replete with those qualities. Something so stately, you know: so
uncompromising: so very wide across the chest: so upright! A pecuniary
Duke of York, my love, and nothing short of it!’ said Miss Tox. ‘That’s
what I should designate him.’
‘Why, my dear Paul!’ exclaimed his sister, as he returned, ‘you look
quite pale! There’s nothing the matter?’
‘I am sorry to say, Louisa, that they tell me that Fanny--’
‘Now, my dear Paul,’ returned his sister rising, ‘don’t believe it. Do
not allow yourself to receive a turn unnecessarily. Remember of what
importance you are to society, and do not allow yourself to be worried
by what is so very inconsiderately told you by people who ought to know
better. Really I’m surprised at them.’
‘I hope I know, Louisa,’ said Mr Dombey, stiffly, ‘how to bear myself
before the world.’
‘Nobody better, my dear Paul. Nobody half so well. They would be
ignorant and base indeed who doubted it.’
‘Ignorant and base indeed!’ echoed Miss Tox softly.
‘But,’ pursued Louisa, ‘if you have any reliance on my experience, Paul,
you may rest assured that there is nothing wanting but an effort on
Fanny’s part. And that effort,’ she continued, taking off her bonnet,
and adjusting her cap and gloves, in a business-like manner, ‘she must
be encouraged, and really, if necessary, urged to make. Now, my dear
Paul, come upstairs with me.’
Mr Dombey, who, besides being generally influenced by his sister for the
reason already mentioned, had really faith in her as an experienced
and bustling matron, acquiesced; and followed her, at once, to the sick
chamber.
The lady lay upon her bed as he had left her, clasping her little
daughter to her breast. The child clung close about her, with the same
intensity as before, and never raised her head, or moved her soft cheek
from her mother’s face, or looked on those who stood around, or spoke,
or moved, or shed a tear.
‘Restless without the little girl,’ the Doctor whispered Mr Dombey. ‘We
found it best to have her in again.’
‘Can nothing be done?’ asked Mr Dombey.
The Doctor shook his head. ‘We can do no more.’
The windows stood open, and the twilight was gathering without.
The scent of the restoratives that had been tried was pungent in
the room, but had no fragrance in the dull and languid air the lady
breathed.
There was such a solemn stillness round the bed; and the two medical
attendants seemed to look on the impassive form with so much compassion
and so little hope, that Mrs Chick was for the moment diverted from her
purpose. But presently summoning courage, and what she called presence
of mind, she sat down by the bedside, and said in the low precise tone
of one who endeavours to awaken a sleeper:
‘Fanny! Fanny!’
There was no sound in answer but the loud ticking of Mr Dombey’s watch
and Doctor Parker Peps’s watch, which seemed in the silence to be
running a race.
‘Fanny, my dear,’ said Mrs Chick, with assumed lightness, ‘here’s Mr
Dombey come to see you. Won’t you speak to him? They want to lay your
little boy--the baby, Fanny, you know; you have hardly seen him yet, I
think--in bed; but they can’t till you rouse yourself a little. Don’t
you think it’s time you roused yourself a little? Eh?’
She bent her ear to the bed, and listened: at the same time looking
round at the bystanders, and holding up her finger.
‘Eh?’ she repeated, ‘what was it you said, Fanny? I didn’t hear you.’
No word or sound in answer. Mr Dombey’s watch and Dr Parker Peps’s watch
seemed to be racing faster.
‘Now, really, Fanny my dear,’ said the sister-in-law, altering her
position, and speaking less confidently, and more earnestly, in spite
of herself, ‘I shall have to be quite cross with you, if you don’t rouse
yourself. It’s necessary for you to make an effort, and perhaps a very
great and painful effort which you are not disposed to make; but this is
a world of effort you know, Fanny, and we must never yield, when so much
depends upon us. Come! Try! I must really scold you if you don’t!’
The race in the ensuing pause was fierce and furious. The watches seemed
to jostle, and to trip each other up.
‘Fanny!’ said Louisa, glancing round, with a gathering alarm. ‘Only look
at me. Only open your eyes to show me that you hear and understand me;
will you? Good Heaven, gentlemen, what is to be done!’
The two medical attendants exchanged a look across the bed; and the
Physician, stooping down, whispered in the child’s ear. Not having
understood the purport of his whisper, the little creature turned her
perfectly colourless face and deep dark eyes towards him; but without
loosening her hold in the least.
The whisper was repeated.
‘Mama!’ said the child.
The little voice, familiar and dearly loved, awakened some show of
consciousness, even at that ebb. For a moment, the closed eye lids
trembled, and the nostril quivered, and the faintest shadow of a smile
was seen.
‘Mama!’ cried the child sobbing aloud. ‘Oh dear Mama! oh dear Mama!’
The Doctor gently brushed the scattered ringlets of the child, aside
from the face and mouth of the mother. Alas how calm they lay there; how
little breath there was to stir them!
Thus, clinging fast to that slight spar within her arms, the mother
drifted out upon the dark and unknown sea that rolls round all the
world.
CHAPTER 2. In which Timely Provision is made for an Emergency that will
sometimes arise in the best-regulated Families.
‘I shall never cease to congratulate myself,’ said Mrs Chick,’ on having
said, when I little thought what was in store for us,--really as if I
was inspired by something,--that I forgave poor dear Fanny everything.
Whatever happens, that must always be a comfort to me!’
Mrs Chick made this impressive observation in the drawing-room, after
having descended thither from the inspection of the mantua-makers
upstairs, who were busy on the family mourning. She delivered it for the
behoof of Mr Chick, who was a stout bald gentleman, with a very large
face, and his hands continually in his pockets, and who had a tendency
in his nature to whistle and hum tunes, which, sensible of the indecorum
of such sounds in a house of grief, he was at some pains to repress at
present.
‘Don’t you over-exert yourself, Loo,’ said Mr Chick, ‘or you’ll be laid
up with spasms, I see. Right tol loor rul! Bless my soul, I forgot!
We’re here one day and gone the next!’
Mrs Chick contented herself with a glance of reproof, and then proceeded
with the thread of her discourse.
‘I am sure,’ she said, ‘I hope this heart-rending occurrence will be a
warning to all of us, to accustom ourselves to rouse ourselves, and to
make efforts in time where they’re required of us. There’s a moral in
everything, if we would only avail ourselves of it. It will be our own
faults if we lose sight of this one.’
Mr Chick invaded the grave silence which ensued on this remark with
the singularly inappropriate air of ‘A cobbler there was;’ and checking
himself, in some confusion, observed, that it was undoubtedly our own
faults if we didn’t improve such melancholy occasions as the present.
‘Which might be better improved, I should think, Mr C.,’ retorted his
helpmate, after a short pause, ‘than by the introduction, either of
the college hornpipe, or the equally unmeaning and unfeeling remark of
rump-te-iddity, bow-wow-wow!’--which Mr Chick had indeed indulged in,
under his breath, and which Mrs Chick repeated in a tone of withering
scorn.
‘Merely habit, my dear,’ pleaded Mr Chick.
‘Nonsense! Habit!’ returned his wife. ‘If you’re a rational being, don’t
make such ridiculous excuses. Habit! If I was to get a habit (as you
call it) of walking on the ceiling, like the flies, I should hear enough
of it, I daresay.’
It appeared so probable that such a habit might be attended with
some degree of notoriety, that Mr Chick didn’t venture to dispute the
position.
‘Bow-wow-wow!’ repeated Mrs Chick with an emphasis of blighting
contempt on the last syllable. ‘More like a professional singer with the
hydrophobia, than a man in your station of life!’
‘How’s the Baby, Loo?’ asked Mr Chick: to change the subject.
‘What Baby do you mean?’ answered Mrs Chick.
‘The poor bereaved little baby,’ said Mr Chick. ‘I don’t know of any
other, my dear.’
‘You don’t know of any other,’ retorted Mrs Chick. ‘More shame for you, I
was going to say.’
Mr Chick looked astonished.
‘I am sure the morning I have had, with that dining-room downstairs, one
mass of babies, no one in their senses would believe.’
‘One mass of babies!’ repeated Mr Chick, staring with an alarmed
expression about him.
‘It would have occurred to most men,’ said Mrs Chick, ‘that poor dear
Fanny being no more,--those words of mine will always be a balm and
comfort to me,’ here she dried her eyes; ‘it becomes necessary to
provide a Nurse.’
‘Oh! Ah!’ said Mr Chick. ‘Toor-ru!--such is life, I mean. I hope you are
suited, my dear.’
‘Indeed I am not,’ said Mrs Chick; ‘nor likely to be, so far as I can
see, and in the meantime the poor child seems likely to be starved to
death. Paul is so very particular--naturally so, of course, having set
his whole heart on this one boy--and there are so many objections to
everybody that offers, that I don’t see, myself, the least chance of an
arrangement. Meanwhile, of course, the child is--’
‘Going to the Devil,’ said Mr Chick, thoughtfully, ‘to be sure.’
Admonished, however, that he had committed himself, by the indignation
expressed in Mrs Chick’s countenance at the idea of a Dombey going
there; and thinking to atone for his misconduct by a bright suggestion,
he added:
‘Couldn’t something temporary be done with a teapot?’
If he had meant to bring the subject prematurely to a close, he could
not have done it more effectually. After looking at him for some moments
in silent resignation, Mrs Chick said she trusted he hadn’t said it in
aggravation, because that would do very little honour to his heart. She
trusted he hadn’t said it seriously, because that would do very little
honour to his head. As in any case, he couldn’t, however sanguine his
disposition, hope to offer a remark that would be a greater outrage on
human nature in general, we would beg to leave the discussion at that
point.
Mrs Chick then walked majestically to the window and peeped through
the blind, attracted by the sound of wheels. Mr Chick, finding that his
destiny was, for the time, against him, said no more, and walked off.
But it was not always thus with Mr Chick. He was often in the
ascendant himself, and at those times punished Louisa roundly. In
their matrimonial bickerings they were, upon the whole, a well-matched,
fairly-balanced, give-and-take couple. It would have been, generally
speaking, very difficult to have betted on the winner. Often when Mr
Chick seemed beaten, he would suddenly make a start, turn the tables,
clatter them about the ears of Mrs Chick, and carry all before him.
Being liable himself to similar unlooked for checks from Mrs Chick,
their little contests usually possessed a character of uncertainty that
was very animating.
Miss Tox had arrived on the wheels just now alluded to, and came running
into the room in a breathless condition.
‘My dear Louisa,’ said Miss Tox, ‘is the vacancy still unsupplied?’
‘You good soul, yes,’ said Mrs Chick.
‘Then, my dear Louisa,’ returned Miss Tox, ‘I hope and believe--but in
one moment, my dear, I’ll introduce the party.’
Running downstairs again as fast as she had run up, Miss Tox got the
party out of the hackney-coach, and soon returned with it under convoy.
It then appeared that she had used the word, not in its legal or
business acceptation, when it merely expresses an individual, but as
a noun of multitude, or signifying many: for Miss Tox escorted a plump
rosy-cheeked wholesome apple-faced young woman, with an infant in her
arms; a younger woman not so plump, but apple-faced also, who led
a plump and apple-faced child in each hand; another plump and also
apple-faced boy who walked by himself; and finally, a plump and
apple-faced man, who carried in his arms another plump and apple-faced
boy, whom he stood down on the floor, and admonished, in a husky
whisper, to ‘kitch hold of his brother Johnny.’
‘My dear Louisa,’ said Miss Tox, ‘knowing your great anxiety, and
wishing to relieve it, I posted off myself to the Queen Charlotte’s
Royal Married Females,’ which you had forgot, and put the question, Was
there anybody there that they thought would suit? No, they said there
was not. When they gave me that answer, I do assure you, my dear, I was
almost driven to despair on your account. But it did so happen, that one
of the Royal Married Females, hearing the inquiry, reminded the matron
of another who had gone to her own home, and who, she said, would in
all likelihood be most satisfactory. The moment I heard this, and had
it corroborated by the matron--excellent references and unimpeachable
character--I got the address, my dear, and posted off again.’
‘Like the dear good Tox, you are!’ said Louisa.
‘Not at all,’ returned Miss Tox. ‘Don’t say so. Arriving at the house
(the cleanest place, my dear! You might eat your dinner off the floor),
I found the whole family sitting at table; and feeling that no account
of them could be half so comfortable to you and Mr Dombey as the sight
of them all together, I brought them all away. This gentleman,’ said
Miss Tox, pointing out the apple-faced man, ‘is the father. Will you
have the goodness to come a little forward, Sir?’
The apple-faced man having sheepishly complied with this request, stood
chuckling and grinning in a front row.
‘This is his wife, of course,’ said Miss Tox, singling out the young
woman with the baby. ‘How do you do, Polly?’
‘I’m pretty well, I thank you, Ma’am,’ said Polly.
By way of bringing her out dexterously, Miss Tox had made the inquiry
as in condescension to an old acquaintance whom she hadn’t seen for a
fortnight or so.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Miss Tox. ‘The other young woman is her
unmarried sister who lives with them, and would take care of her
children. Her name’s Jemima. How do you do, Jemima?’
‘I’m pretty well, I thank you, Ma’am,’ returned Jemima.
‘I’m very glad indeed to hear it,’ said Miss Tox. ‘I hope you’ll keep
so. Five children. Youngest six weeks. The fine little boy with the
blister on his nose is the eldest. The blister, I believe,’ said
Miss Tox, looking round upon the family, ‘is not constitutional, but
accidental?’
The apple-faced man was understood to growl, ‘Flat iron.’
‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ said Miss Tox, ‘did you--’
‘Flat iron,’ he repeated.
‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Tox. ‘Yes! quite true. I forgot. The little
creature, in his mother’s absence, smelt a warm flat iron. You’re quite
right, Sir. You were going to have the goodness to inform me, when we
arrived at the door that you were by trade a--’
‘Stoker,’ said the man.
‘A choker!’ said Miss Tox, quite aghast.
‘Stoker,’ said the man. ‘Steam ingine.’
‘Oh-h! Yes!’ returned Miss Tox, looking thoughtfully at him, and seeming
still to have but a very imperfect understanding of his meaning.
‘And how do you like it, Sir?’
‘Which, Mum?’ said the man.
‘That,’ replied Miss Tox. ‘Your trade.’
‘Oh! Pretty well, Mum. The ashes sometimes gets in here;’ touching his
chest: ‘and makes a man speak gruff, as at the present time. But it is
ashes, Mum, not crustiness.’
Miss Tox seemed to be so little enlightened by this reply, as to find
a difficulty in pursuing the subject. But Mrs Chick relieved her, by
entering into a close private examination of Polly, her children, her
marriage certificate, testimonials, and so forth. Polly coming out
unscathed from this ordeal, Mrs Chick withdrew with her report to her
brother’s room, and as an emphatic comment on it, and corroboration of
it, carried the two rosiest little Toodles with her. Toodle being the
family name of the apple-faced family.
Mr Dombey had remained in his own apartment since the death of his wife,
absorbed in visions of the youth, education, and destination of his baby
son. Something lay at the bottom of his cool heart, colder and heavier
than its ordinary load; but it was more a sense of the child’s loss than
his own, awakening within him an almost angry sorrow. That the life
and progress on which he built such hopes, should be endangered in the
outset by so mean a want; that Dombey and Son should be tottering for
a nurse, was a sore humiliation. And yet in his pride and jealousy, he
viewed with so much bitterness the thought of being dependent for the
very first step towards the accomplishment of his soul’s desire, on a
hired serving-woman who would be to the child, for the time, all that
even his alliance could have made his own wife, that in every new
rejection of a candidate he felt a secret pleasure. The time had now
come, however, when he could no longer be divided between these two sets
of feelings. The less so, as there seemed to be no flaw in the title of
Polly Toodle after his sister had set it forth, with many commendations
on the indefatigable friendship of Miss Tox.
‘These children look healthy,’ said Mr Dombey. ‘But my God, to think of
their some day claiming a sort of relationship to Paul!’
‘But what relationship is there!’ Louisa began--
‘Is there!’ echoed Mr Dombey, who had not intended his sister to
participate in the thought he had unconsciously expressed. ‘Is there,
did you say, Louisa!’
‘Can there be, I mean--’
‘Why none,’ said Mr Dombey, sternly. ‘The whole world knows that, I
presume. Grief has not made me idiotic, Louisa. Take them away, Louisa!
Let me see this woman and her husband.’
Mrs Chick bore off the tender pair of Toodles, and presently returned
with that tougher couple whose presence her brother had commanded.
‘My good woman,’ said Mr Dombey, turning round in his easy chair, as
one piece, and not as a man with limbs and joints, ‘I understand you are
poor, and wish to earn money by nursing the little boy, my son, who has
been so prematurely deprived of what can never be replaced. I have no
objection to your adding to the comforts of your family by that means.
So far as I can tell, you seem to be a deserving object. But I must
impose one or two conditions on you, before you enter my house in that
capacity. While you are here, I must stipulate that you are always known
as--say as Richards--an ordinary name, and convenient. Have you any
objection to be known as Richards? You had better consult your husband.’
‘Well?’ said Mr Dombey, after a pretty long pause. ‘What does your
husband say to your being called Richards?’
As the husband did nothing but chuckle and grin, and continually draw
his right hand across his mouth, moistening the palm, Mrs Toodle, after
nudging him twice or thrice in vain, dropped a curtsey and replied ‘that
perhaps if she was to be called out of her name, it would be considered
in the wages.’
‘Oh, of course,’ said Mr Dombey. ‘I desire to make it a question of
wages, altogether. Now, Richards, if you nurse my bereaved child, I
wish you to remember this always. You will receive a liberal stipend in
return for the discharge of certain duties, in the performance of which,
I wish you to see as little of your family as possible. When those
duties cease to be required and rendered, and the stipend ceases to be
paid, there is an end of all relations between us. Do you understand
me?’
Mrs Toodle seemed doubtful about it; and as to Toodle himself, he had
evidently no doubt whatever, that he was all abroad.
‘You have children of your own,’ said Mr Dombey. ‘It is not at all in
this bargain that you need become attached to my child, or that my child
need become attached to you. I don’t expect or desire anything of the
kind. Quite the reverse. When you go away from here, you will have
concluded what is a mere matter of bargain and sale, hiring and letting:
and will stay away. The child will cease to remember you; and you will
cease, if you please, to remember the child.’
Mrs Toodle, with a little more colour in her cheeks than she had had
before, said ‘she hoped she knew her place.’
‘I hope you do, Richards,’ said Mr Dombey. ‘I have no doubt you know
it very well. Indeed it is so plain and obvious that it could hardly be
otherwise. Louisa, my dear, arrange with Richards about money, and let
her have it when and how she pleases. Mr what’s-your name, a word with
you, if you please!’
Thus arrested on the threshold as he was following his wife out of the
room, Toodle returned and confronted Mr Dombey alone. He was a strong,
loose, round-shouldered, shuffling, shaggy fellow, on whom his clothes
sat negligently: with a good deal of hair and whisker, deepened in its
natural tint, perhaps by smoke and coal-dust: hard knotty hands: and a
square forehead, as coarse in grain as the bark of an oak. A
thorough contrast in all respects, to Mr Dombey, who was one of those
close-shaved close-cut moneyed gentlemen who are glossy and crisp like
new bank-notes, and who seem to be artificially braced and tightened as
by the stimulating action of golden showerbaths.
‘You have a son, I believe?’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Four on ‘em, Sir. Four hims and a her. All alive!’
‘Why, it’s as much as you can afford to keep them!’ said Mr Dombey.
‘I couldn’t hardly afford but one thing in the world less, Sir.’
‘What is that?’
‘To lose ‘em, Sir.’
‘Can you read?’ asked Mr Dombey.
‘Why, not partick’ler, Sir.’
‘Write?’
‘With chalk, Sir?’
‘With anything?’
‘I could make shift to chalk a little bit, I think, if I was put to it,’
said Toodle after some reflection.
‘And yet,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘you are two or three and thirty, I suppose?’
‘Thereabouts, I suppose, Sir,’ answered Toodle, after more reflection
‘Then why don’t you learn?’ asked Mr Dombey.
‘So I’m a going to, Sir. One of my little boys is a going to learn me,
when he’s old enough, and been to school himself.’
‘Well,’ said Mr Dombey, after looking at him attentively, and with no
great favour, as he stood gazing round the room (principally round the
ceiling) and still drawing his hand across and across his mouth. ‘You
heard what I said to your wife just now?’
‘Polly heerd it,’ said Toodle, jerking his hat over his shoulder in the
direction of the door, with an air of perfect confidence in his better
half. ‘It’s all right.’
‘But I ask you if you heard it. You did, I suppose, and understood it?’
pursued Mr Dombey.
‘I heerd it,’ said Toodle, ‘but I don’t know as I understood it rightly
Sir, ‘account of being no scholar, and the words being--ask your
pardon--rayther high. But Polly heerd it. It’s all right.’
‘As you appear to leave everything to her,’ said Mr Dombey, frustrated
in his intention of impressing his views still more distinctly on the
husband, as the stronger character, ‘I suppose it is of no use my saying
anything to you.’
‘Not a bit,’ said Toodle. ‘Polly heerd it. She’s awake, Sir.’
‘I won’t detain you any longer then,’ returned Mr Dombey, disappointed.
‘Where have you worked all your life?’
‘Mostly underground, Sir, ‘till I got married. I come to the level then.
I’m a going on one of these here railroads when they comes into full
play.’
As he added in one of his hoarse whispers, ‘We means to bring up little
Biler to that line,’ Mr Dombey inquired haughtily who little Biler was.
‘The eldest on ‘em, Sir,’ said Toodle, with a smile. ‘It ain’t a common
name. Sermuchser that when he was took to church the gen’lm’n said, it
wam’t a chris’en one, and he couldn’t give it. But we always calls him
Biler just the same. For we don’t mean no harm. Not we.’
‘Do you mean to say, Man,’ inquired Mr Dombey; looking at him with
marked displeasure, ‘that you have called a child after a boiler?’
‘No, no, Sir,’ returned Toodle, with a tender consideration for his
mistake. ‘I should hope not! No, Sir. Arter a BILER Sir. The Steamingine
was a’most as good as a godfather to him, and so we called him Biler,
don’t you see!’
As the last straw breaks the laden camel’s back, this piece of
information crushed the sinking spirits of Mr Dombey. He motioned his
child’s foster-father to the door, who departed by no means unwillingly:
and then turning the key, paced up and down the room in solitary
wretchedness.
It would be harsh, and perhaps not altogether true, to say of him that
he felt these rubs and gratings against his pride more keenly than he
had felt his wife’s death: but certainly they impressed that event upon
him with new force, and communicated to it added weight and bitterness.
It was a rude shock to his sense of property in his child, that these
people--the mere dust of the earth, as he thought them--should be
necessary to him; and it was natural that in proportion as he felt
disturbed by it, he should deplore the occurrence which had made them
so. For all his starched, impenetrable dignity and composure, he wiped
blinding tears from his eyes as he paced up and down his room; and often
said, with an emotion of which he would not, for the world, have had a
witness, ‘Poor little fellow!’
It may have been characteristic of Mr Dombey’s pride, that he pitied
himself through the child. Not poor me. Not poor widower, confiding by
constraint in the wife of an ignorant Hind who has been working ‘mostly
underground’ all his life, and yet at whose door Death had never
knocked, and at whose poor table four sons daily sit--but poor little
fellow!
Those words being on his lips, it occurred to him--and it is an instance
of the strong attraction with which his hopes and fears and all his
thoughts were tending to one centre--that a great temptation was being
placed in this woman’s way. Her infant was a boy too. Now, would it be
possible for her to change them?
Though he was soon satisfied that he had dismissed the idea as romantic
and unlikely--though possible, there was no denying--he could not help
pursuing it so far as to entertain within himself a picture of what his
condition would be, if he should discover such an imposture when he was
grown old. Whether a man so situated would be able to pluck away the
result of so many years of usage, confidence, and belief, from the
impostor, and endow a stranger with it?
But it was idle speculating thus. It couldn’t happen. In a moment
afterwards he determined that it could, but that such women were
constantly observed, and had no opportunity given them for the
accomplishment of such a design, even when they were so wicked as to
entertain it. In another moment, he was remembering how few such cases
seemed to have ever happened. In another moment he was wondering whether
they ever happened and were not found out.
As his unusual emotion subsided, these misgivings gradually melted away,
though so much of their shadow remained behind, that he was constant in
his resolution to look closely after Richards himself, without appearing
to do so. Being now in an easier frame of mind, he regarded the woman’s
station as rather an advantageous circumstance than otherwise, by
placing, in itself, a broad distance between her and the child, and
rendering their separation easy and natural. Thence he passed to the
contemplation of the future glories of Dombey and Son, and dismissed the
memory of his wife, for the time being, with a tributary sigh or two.
Meanwhile terms were ratified and agreed upon between Mrs Chick and
Richards, with the assistance of Miss Tox; and Richards being with much
ceremony invested with the Dombey baby, as if it were an Order, resigned
her own, with many tears and kisses, to Jemima. Glasses of wine were
then produced, to sustain the drooping spirits of the family; and Miss
Tox, busying herself in dispensing ‘tastes’ to the younger branches,
bred them up to their father’s business with such surprising expedition,
that she made chokers of four of them in a quarter of a minute.
‘You’ll take a glass yourself, Sir, won’t you?’ said Miss Tox, as Toodle
appeared.
‘Thankee, Mum,’ said Toodle, ‘since you are suppressing.’
‘And you’re very glad to leave your dear good wife in such a comfortable
home, ain’t you, Sir?’ said Miss Tox, nodding and winking at him
stealthily.
‘No, Mum,’ said Toodle. ‘Here’s wishing of her back agin.’
Polly cried more than ever at this. So Mrs Chick, who had her matronly
apprehensions that this indulgence in grief might be prejudicial to the
little Dombey [‘acid, indeed,’ she whispered Miss Tox), hastened to the
rescue.
‘Your little child will thrive charmingly with your sister Jemima,
Richards,’ said Mrs Chick; ‘and you have only to make an effort--this is
a world of effort, you know, Richards--to be very happy indeed. You have
been already measured for your mourning, haven’t you, Richards?’
‘Ye--es, Ma’am,’ sobbed Polly.
‘And it’ll fit beautifully. I know,’ said Mrs Chick, ‘for the same young
person has made me many dresses. The very best materials, too!’
‘Lor, you’ll be so smart,’ said Miss Tox, ‘that your husband won’t know
you; will you, Sir?’
‘I should know her,’ said Toodle, gruffly, ‘anyhows and anywheres.’
Toodle was evidently not to be bought over.
‘As to living, Richards, you know,’ pursued Mrs Chick, ‘why, the very
best of everything will be at your disposal. You will order your little
dinner every day; and anything you take a fancy to, I’m sure will be as
readily provided as if you were a Lady.’
‘Yes to be sure!’ said Miss Tox, keeping up the ball with great
sympathy. ‘And as to porter!--quite unlimited, will it not, Louisa?’
‘Oh, certainly!’ returned Mrs Chick in the same tone. ‘With a little
abstinence, you know, my dear, in point of vegetables.’
‘And pickles, perhaps,’ suggested Miss Tox.
‘With such exceptions,’ said Louisa, ‘she’ll consult her choice
entirely, and be under no restraint at all, my love.’
‘And then, of course, you know,’ said Miss Tox, ‘however fond she is of
her own dear little child--and I’m sure, Louisa, you don’t blame her for
being fond of it?’
‘Oh no!’ cried Mrs Chick, benignantly.
‘Still,’ resumed Miss Tox, ‘she naturally must be interested in her
young charge, and must consider it a privilege to see a little cherub
connected with the superior classes, gradually unfolding itself from day
to day at one common fountain--is it not so, Louisa?’
‘Most undoubtedly!’ said Mrs Chick. ‘You see, my love, she’s already
quite contented and comfortable, and means to say goodbye to her sister
Jemima and her little pets, and her good honest husband, with a light
heart and a smile; don’t she, my dear?’
‘Oh yes!’ cried Miss Tox. ‘To be sure she does!’
Notwithstanding which, however, poor Polly embraced them all round in
great distress, and coming to her spouse at last, could not make up her
mind to part from him, until he gently disengaged himself, at the close
of the following allegorical piece of consolation:
‘Polly, old ‘ooman, whatever you do, my darling, hold up your head
and fight low. That’s the only rule as I know on, that’ll carry anyone
through life. You always have held up your head and fought low, Polly.
Do it now, or Bricks is no longer so. God bless you, Polly! Me and
J’mima will do your duty by you; and with relating to your’n, hold up
your head and fight low, Polly, and you can’t go wrong!’
Fortified by this golden secret, Polly finally ran away to avoid any
more particular leave-taking between herself and the children. But the
stratagem hardly succeeded as well as it deserved; for the smallest boy
but one divining her intent, immediately began swarming upstairs after
her--if that word of doubtful etymology be admissible--on his arms and
legs; while the eldest (known in the family by the name of Biler, in
remembrance of the steam engine) beat a demoniacal tattoo with his
boots, expressive of grief; in which he was joined by the rest of the
family.
A quantity of oranges and halfpence thrust indiscriminately on each
young Toodle, checked the first violence of their regret, and the
family were speedily transported to their own home, by means of the
hackney-coach kept in waiting for that purpose. The children, under the
guardianship of Jemima, blocked up the window, and dropped out oranges
and halfpence all the way along. Mr Toodle himself preferred to ride
behind among the spikes, as being the mode of conveyance to which he was
best accustomed.
CHAPTER 3. In which Mr Dombey, as a Man and a Father, is seen at the
Head of the Home-Department
The funeral of the deceased lady having been ‘performed’ to the entire
satisfaction of the undertaker, as well as of the neighbourhood at
large, which is generally disposed to be captious on such a point,
and is prone to take offence at any omissions or short-comings in the
ceremonies, the various members of Mr Dombey’s household subsided into
their several places in the domestic system. That small world, like the
great one out of doors, had the capacity of easily forgetting its
dead; and when the cook had said she was a quiet-tempered lady, and the
house-keeper had said it was the common lot, and the butler had said
who’d have thought it, and the housemaid had said she couldn’t hardly
believe it, and the footman had said it seemed exactly like a dream,
they had quite worn the subject out, and began to think their mourning
was wearing rusty too.
On Richards, who was established upstairs in a state of honourable
captivity, the dawn of her new life seemed to break cold and grey.
Mr Dombey’s house was a large one, on the shady side of a tall, dark,
dreadfully genteel street in the region between Portland Place and
Bryanstone Square. It was a corner house, with great wide areas
containing cellars frowned upon by barred windows, and leered at by
crooked-eyed doors leading to dustbins. It was a house of dismal state,
with a circular back to it, containing a whole suite of drawing-rooms
looking upon a gravelled yard, where two gaunt trees, with blackened
trunks and branches, rattled rather than rustled, their leaves were so
smoked-dried. The summer sun was never on the street, but in the morning
about breakfast-time, when it came with the water-carts and the old
clothes men, and the people with geraniums, and the umbrella-mender, and
the man who trilled the little bell of the Dutch clock as he went along.
It was soon gone again to return no more that day; and the bands of
music and the straggling Punch’s shows going after it, left it a prey
to the most dismal of organs, and white mice; with now and then a
porcupine, to vary the entertainments; until the butlers whose families
were dining out, began to stand at the house-doors in the twilight, and
the lamp-lighter made his nightly failure in attempting to brighten up
the street with gas.
It was as blank a house inside as outside. When the funeral was over,
Mr Dombey ordered the furniture to be covered up--perhaps to preserve it
for the son with whom his plans were all associated--and the rooms to be
ungarnished, saving such as he retained for himself on the ground floor.
Accordingly, mysterious shapes were made of tables and chairs,
heaped together in the middle of rooms, and covered over with great
winding-sheets. Bell-handles, window-blinds, and looking-glasses, being
papered up in journals, daily and weekly, obtruded fragmentary accounts
of deaths and dreadful murders. Every chandelier or lustre, muffled in
holland, looked like a monstrous tear depending from the ceiling’s eye.
Odours, as from vaults and damp places, came out of the chimneys. The
dead and buried lady was awful in a picture-frame of ghastly bandages.
Every gust of wind that rose, brought eddying round the corner from
the neighbouring mews, some fragments of the straw that had been strewn
before the house when she was ill, mildewed remains of which were still
cleaving to the neighbourhood: and these, being always drawn by
some invisible attraction to the threshold of the dirty house to let
immediately opposite, addressed a dismal eloquence to Mr Dombey’s
windows.
The apartments which Mr Dombey reserved for his own inhabiting, were
attainable from the hall, and consisted of a sitting-room; a library,
which was in fact a dressing-room, so that the smell of hot-pressed
paper, vellum, morocco, and Russia leather, contended in it with the
smell of divers pairs of boots; and a kind of conservatory or little
glass breakfast-room beyond, commanding a prospect of the trees before
mentioned, and, generally speaking, of a few prowling cats. These three
rooms opened upon one another. In the morning, when Mr Dombey was at his
breakfast in one or other of the two first-mentioned of them, as well
as in the afternoon when he came home to dinner, a bell was rung for
Richards to repair to this glass chamber, and there walk to and fro with
her young charge. From the glimpses she caught of Mr Dombey at these
times, sitting in the dark distance, looking out towards the infant from
among the dark heavy furniture--the house had been inhabited for years
by his father, and in many of its appointments was old-fashioned and
grim--she began to entertain ideas of him in his solitary state, as if
he were a lone prisoner in a cell, or a strange apparition that was not
to be accosted or understood. Mr Dombey came to be, in the course of a
few days, invested in his own person, to her simple thinking, with all
the mystery and gloom of his house. As she walked up and down the glass
room, or sat hushing the baby there--which she very often did for hours
together, when the dusk was closing in, too--she would sometimes try to
pierce the gloom beyond, and make out how he was looking and what he
was doing. Sensible that she was plainly to be seen by him, however, she
never dared to pry in that direction but very furtively and for a moment
at a time. Consequently she made out nothing, and Mr Dombey in his den
remained a very shade.
Little Paul Dombey’s foster-mother had led this life herself, and had
carried little Paul through it for some weeks; and had returned upstairs
one day from a melancholy saunter through the dreary rooms of state (she
never went out without Mrs Chick, who called on fine mornings, usually
accompanied by Miss Tox, to take her and Baby for an airing--or in other
words, to march them gravely up and down the pavement, like a walking
funeral); when, as she was sitting in her own room, the door was slowly
and quietly opened, and a dark-eyed little girl looked in.
‘It’s Miss Florence come home from her aunt’s, no doubt,’ thought
Richards, who had never seen the child before. ‘Hope I see you well,
Miss.’
‘Is that my brother?’ asked the child, pointing to the Baby.
‘Yes, my pretty,’ answered Richards. ‘Come and kiss him.’
But the child, instead of advancing, looked her earnestly in the face,
and said:
‘What have you done with my Mama?’
‘Lord bless the little creeter!’ cried Richards, ‘what a sad question! I
done? Nothing, Miss.’
‘What have they done with my Mama?’ inquired the child, with exactly the
same look and manner.
‘I never saw such a melting thing in all my life!’ said Richards, who
naturally substituted for this child one of her own, inquiring for
herself in like circumstances. ‘Come nearer here, my dear Miss! Don’t be
afraid of me.’
‘I am not afraid of you,’ said the child, drawing nearer. ‘But I want to
know what they have done with my Mama.’
Her heart swelled so as she stood before the woman, looking into her
eyes, that she was fain to press her little hand upon her breast and
hold it there. Yet there was a purpose in the child that prevented both
her slender figure and her searching gaze from faltering.
‘My darling,’ said Richards, ‘you wear that pretty black frock in
remembrance of your Mama.’
‘I can remember my Mama,’ returned the child, with tears springing to
her eyes, ‘in any frock.’
‘But people put on black, to remember people when they’re gone.’
‘Where gone?’ asked the child.
‘Come and sit down by me,’ said Richards, ‘and I’ll tell you a story.’
With a quick perception that it was intended to relate to what she had
asked, little Florence laid aside the bonnet she had held in her hand
until now, and sat down on a stool at the Nurse’s feet, looking up into
her face.
‘Once upon a time,’ said Richards, ‘there was a lady--a very good lady,
and her little daughter dearly loved her.’
‘A very good lady and her little daughter dearly loved her,’ repeated
the child.
‘Who, when God thought it right that it should be so, was taken ill and
died.’
The child shuddered.
‘Died, never to be seen again by anyone on earth, and was buried in the
ground where the trees grow.’
‘The cold ground?’ said the child, shuddering again.
‘No! The warm ground,’ returned Polly, seizing her advantage, ‘where the
ugly little seeds turn into beautiful flowers, and into grass, and corn,
and I don’t know what all besides. Where good people turn into bright
angels, and fly away to Heaven!’
The child, who had dropped her head, raised it again, and sat looking at
her intently.
‘So; let me see,’ said Polly, not a little flurried between this earnest
scrutiny, her desire to comfort the child, her sudden success, and her
very slight confidence in her own powers. ‘So, when this lady died,
wherever they took her, or wherever they put her, she went to GOD! and
she prayed to Him, this lady did,’ said Polly, affecting herself beyond
measure; being heartily in earnest, ‘to teach her little daughter to
be sure of that in her heart: and to know that she was happy there and
loved her still: and to hope and try--Oh, all her life--to meet her
there one day, never, never, never to part any more.’
‘It was my Mama!’ exclaimed the child, springing up, and clasping her
round the neck.
‘And the child’s heart,’ said Polly, drawing her to her breast: ‘the
little daughter’s heart was so full of the truth of this, that even when
she heard it from a strange nurse that couldn’t tell it right, but was a
poor mother herself and that was all, she found a comfort in it--didn’t
feel so lonely--sobbed and cried upon her bosom--took kindly to the baby
lying in her lap--and--there, there, there!’ said Polly, smoothing the
child’s curls and dropping tears upon them. ‘There, poor dear!’
‘Oh well, Miss Floy! And won’t your Pa be angry neither!’ cried a quick
voice at the door, proceeding from a short, brown, womanly girl of
fourteen, with a little snub nose, and black eyes like jet beads. ‘When
it was ‘tickerlerly given out that you wasn’t to go and worrit the wet
nurse.’
‘She don’t worry me,’ was the surprised rejoinder of Polly. ‘I am very
fond of children.’
‘Oh! but begging your pardon, Mrs Richards, that don’t matter, you
know,’ returned the black-eyed girl, who was so desperately sharp and
biting that she seemed to make one’s eyes water. ‘I may be very fond of
pennywinkles, Mrs Richards, but it don’t follow that I’m to have ‘em for
tea.’
‘Well, it don’t matter,’ said Polly.
‘Oh, thank’ee, Mrs Richards, don’t it!’ returned the sharp girl.
‘Remembering, however, if you’ll be so good, that Miss Floy’s under my
charge, and Master Paul’s under your’n.’
‘But still we needn’t quarrel,’ said Polly.
‘Oh no, Mrs Richards,’ rejoined Spitfire. ‘Not at all, I don’t wish it,
we needn’t stand upon that footing, Miss Floy being a permanency, Master
Paul a temporary.’ Spitfire made use of none but comma pauses; shooting
out whatever she had to say in one sentence, and in one breath, if
possible.
‘Miss Florence has just come home, hasn’t she?’ asked Polly.
‘Yes, Mrs Richards, just come, and here, Miss Floy, before you’ve been
in the house a quarter of an hour, you go a smearing your wet face
against the expensive mourning that Mrs Richards is a wearing for your
Ma!’ With this remonstrance, young Spitfire, whose real name was Susan
Nipper, detached the child from her new friend by a wrench--as if she
were a tooth. But she seemed to do it, more in the excessively sharp
exercise of her official functions, than with any deliberate unkindness.
‘She’ll be quite happy, now she has come home again,’ said Polly,
nodding to her with an encouraging smile upon her wholesome face, ‘and
will be so pleased to see her dear Papa to-night.’
‘Lork, Mrs Richards!’ cried Miss Nipper, taking up her words with a
jerk. ‘Don’t. See her dear Papa indeed! I should like to see her do it!’
‘Won’t she then?’ asked Polly.
‘Lork, Mrs Richards, no, her Pa’s a deal too wrapped up in somebody
else, and before there was a somebody else to be wrapped up in she never
was a favourite, girls are thrown away in this house, Mrs Richards, I
assure you.’
The child looked quickly from one nurse to the other, as if she
understood and felt what was said.
‘You surprise me!’ cried Polly. ‘Hasn’t Mr Dombey seen her since--’
‘No,’ interrupted Susan Nipper. ‘Not once since, and he hadn’t hardly
set his eyes upon her before that for months and months, and I don’t
think he’d have known her for his own child if he had met her in the
streets, or would know her for his own child if he was to meet her in
the streets to-morrow, Mrs Richards, as to me,’ said Spitfire, with a
giggle, ‘I doubt if he’s aweer of my existence.’
‘Pretty dear!’ said Richards; meaning, not Miss Nipper, but the little
Florence.
‘Oh! there’s a Tartar within a hundred miles of where we’re now in
conversation, I can tell you, Mrs Richards, present company always
excepted too,’ said Susan Nipper; ‘wish you good morning, Mrs Richards,
now Miss Floy, you come along with me, and don’t go hanging back like a
naughty wicked child that judgments is no example to, don’t!’
In spite of being thus adjured, and in spite also of some hauling on
the part of Susan Nipper, tending towards the dislocation of her
right shoulder, little Florence broke away, and kissed her new friend,
affectionately.
‘Oh dear! after it was given out so ‘tickerlerly, that Mrs Richards
wasn’t to be made free with!’ exclaimed Susan. ‘Very well, Miss Floy!’
‘God bless the sweet thing!’ said Richards, ‘Good-bye, dear!’
‘Good-bye!’ returned the child. ‘God bless you! I shall come to see you
again soon, and you’ll come to see me? Susan will let us. Won’t you,
Susan?’
Spitfire seemed to be in the main a good-natured little body, although
a disciple of that school of trainers of the young idea which holds that
childhood, like money, must be shaken and rattled and jostled about
a good deal to keep it bright. For, being thus appealed to with some
endearing gestures and caresses, she folded her small arms and shook her
head, and conveyed a relenting expression into her very-wide-open black
eyes.
‘It ain’t right of you to ask it, Miss Floy, for you know I can’t refuse
you, but Mrs Richards and me will see what can be done, if Mrs Richards
likes, I may wish, you see, to take a voyage to Chaney, Mrs Richards,
but I mayn’t know how to leave the London Docks.’
Richards assented to the proposition.
‘This house ain’t so exactly ringing with merry-making,’ said Miss
Nipper, ‘that one need be lonelier than one must be. Your Toxes and
your Chickses may draw out my two front double teeth, Mrs Richards, but
that’s no reason why I need offer ‘em the whole set.’
This proposition was also assented to by Richards, as an obvious one.
‘So I’m agreeable, I’m sure,’ said Susan Nipper, ‘to live friendly, Mrs
Richards, while Master Paul continues a permanency, if the means can be
planned out without going openly against orders, but goodness gracious
Miss Floy, you haven’t got your things off yet, you naughty child, you
haven’t, come along!’
With these words, Susan Nipper, in a transport of coercion, made a
charge at her young ward, and swept her out of the room.
The child, in her grief and neglect, was so gentle, so quiet, and
uncomplaining; was possessed of so much affection that no one seemed to
care to have, and so much sorrowful intelligence that no one seemed to
mind or think about the wounding of, that Polly’s heart was sore when
she was left alone again. In the simple passage that had taken place
between herself and the motherless little girl, her own motherly heart
had been touched no less than the child’s; and she felt, as the child
did, that there was something of confidence and interest between them
from that moment.
Notwithstanding Mr Toodle’s great reliance on Polly, she was perhaps in
point of artificial accomplishments very little his superior. She had
been good-humouredly working and drudging for her life all her life,
and was a sober steady-going person, with matter-of-fact ideas about the
butcher and baker, and the division of pence into farthings. But she
was a good plain sample of a nature that is ever, in the mass, better,
truer, higher, nobler, quicker to feel, and much more constant to
retain, all tenderness and pity, self-denial and devotion, than the
nature of men. And, perhaps, unlearned as she was, she could have
brought a dawning knowledge home to Mr Dombey at that early day, which
would not then have struck him in the end like lightning.
But this is from the purpose. Polly only thought, at that time, of
improving on her successful propitiation of Miss Nipper, and devising
some means of having little Florence aide her, lawfully, and without
rebellion. An opening happened to present itself that very night.
She had been rung down into the glass room as usual, and had walked
about and about it a long time, with the baby in her arms, when, to her
great surprise and dismay, Mr Dombey--whom she had seen at first leaning
on his elbow at the table, and afterwards walking up and down the middle
room, drawing, each time, a little nearer, she thought, to the open
folding doors--came out, suddenly, and stopped before her.
‘Good evening, Richards.’
Just the same austere, stiff gentleman, as he had appeared to her on
that first day. Such a hard-looking gentleman, that she involuntarily
dropped her eyes and her curtsey at the same time.
‘How is Master Paul, Richards?’
‘Quite thriving, Sir, and well.’
‘He looks so,’ said Mr Dombey, glancing with great interest at the tiny
face she uncovered for his observation, and yet affecting to be half
careless of it. ‘They give you everything you want, I hope?’
‘Oh yes, thank you, Sir.’
She suddenly appended such an obvious hesitation to this reply, however,
that Mr Dombey, who had turned away; stopped, and turned round again,
inquiringly.
‘If you please, Sir, the child is very much disposed to take notice of
things,’ said Richards, with another curtsey, ‘and--upstairs is a little
dull for him, perhaps, Sir.’
‘I begged them to take you out for airings, constantly,’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Very well! You shall go out oftener. You’re quite right to mention it.’
‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ faltered Polly, ‘but we go out quite plenty
Sir, thank you.’
‘What would you have then?’ asked Mr Dombey.
‘Indeed Sir, I don’t exactly know,’ said Polly, ‘unless--’
‘Yes?’
‘I believe nothing is so good for making children lively and cheerful,
Sir, as seeing other children playing about ‘em,’ observed Polly, taking
courage.
‘I think I mentioned to you, Richards, when you came here,’ said Mr
Dombey, with a frown, ‘that I wished you to see as little of your family
as possible.’
‘Oh dear yes, Sir, I wasn’t so much as thinking of that.’
‘I am glad of it,’ said Mr Dombey hastily. ‘You can continue your walk
if you please.’
With that, he disappeared into his inner room; and Polly had the
satisfaction of feeling that he had thoroughly misunderstood her object,
and that she had fallen into disgrace without the least advancement of
her purpose.
Next night, she found him walking about the conservatory when she came
down. As she stopped at the door, checked by this unusual sight, and
uncertain whether to advance or retreat, he called her in. His mind was
too much set on Dombey and Son, it soon appeared, to admit of his having
forgotten her suggestion.
‘If you really think that sort of society is good for the child,’ he
said sharply, as if there had been no interval since she proposed it,
‘where’s Miss Florence?’
‘Nothing could be better than Miss Florence, Sir,’ said Polly eagerly,
‘but I understood from her maid that they were not to--’
Mr Dombey rang the bell, and walked till it was answered.
‘Tell them always to let Miss Florence be with Richards when she
chooses, and go out with her, and so forth. Tell them to let the
children be together, when Richards wishes it.’
The iron was now hot, and Richards striking on it boldly--it was a
good cause and she bold in it, though instinctively afraid of Mr
Dombey--requested that Miss Florence might be sent down then and there,
to make friends with her little brother.
She feigned to be dandling the child as the servant retired on this
errand, but she thought that she saw Mr Dombey’s colour changed; that
the expression of his face quite altered; that he turned, hurriedly, as
if to gainsay what he had said, or she had said, or both, and was only
deterred by very shame.
And she was right. The last time he had seen his slighted child, there
had been that in the sad embrace between her and her dying mother, which
was at once a revelation and a reproach to him. Let him be absorbed
as he would in the Son on whom he built such high hopes, he could not
forget that closing scene. He could not forget that he had had no part
in it. That, at the bottom of its clear depths of tenderness and truth
lay those two figures clasped in each other’s arms, while he stood on
the bank above them, looking down a mere spectator--not a sharer with
them--quite shut out.
Unable to exclude these things from his remembrance, or to keep his
mind free from such imperfect shapes of the meaning with which they were
fraught, as were able to make themselves visible to him through the
mist of his pride, his previous feeling of indifference towards little
Florence changed into an uneasiness of an extraordinary kind. Young as
she was, and possessing in any eyes but his (and perhaps in his too)
even more than the usual amount of childish simplicity and confidence,
he almost felt as if she watched and distrusted him. As if she held the
clue to something secret in his breast, of the nature of which he
was hardly informed himself. As if she had an innate knowledge of one
jarring and discordant string within him, and her very breath could
sound it.
His feeling about the child had been negative from her birth. He had
never conceived an aversion to her: it had not been worth his while or
in his humour. She had never been a positively disagreeable object to
him. But now he was ill at ease about her. She troubled his peace. He
would have preferred to put her idea aside altogether, if he had known
how. Perhaps--who shall decide on such mysteries!--he was afraid that he
might come to hate her.
When little Florence timidly presented herself, Mr Dombey stopped in his
pacing up and down and looked towards her. Had he looked with greater
interest and with a father’s eye, he might have read in her keen glance
the impulses and fears that made her waver; the passionate desire to run
clinging to him, crying, as she hid her face in his embrace, ‘Oh father,
try to love me! there’s no one else!’ the dread of a repulse; the fear
of being too bold, and of offending him; the pitiable need in which she
stood of some assurance and encouragement; and how her overcharged young
heart was wandering to find some natural resting-place, for its sorrow
and affection.
But he saw nothing of this. He saw her pause irresolutely at the door
and look towards him; and he saw no more.
‘Come in,’ he said, ‘come in: what is the child afraid of?’
She came in; and after glancing round her for a moment with an uncertain
air, stood pressing her small hands hard together, close within the
door.
‘Come here, Florence,’ said her father, coldly. ‘Do you know who I am?’
‘Yes, Papa.’
‘Have you nothing to say to me?’
The tears that stood in her eyes as she raised them quickly to his face,
were frozen by the expression it wore. She looked down again, and put
out her trembling hand.
Mr Dombey took it loosely in his own, and stood looking down upon her
for a moment, as if he knew as little as the child, what to say or do.
‘There! Be a good girl,’ he said, patting her on the head, and regarding
her as it were by stealth with a disturbed and doubtful look. ‘Go to
Richards! Go!’
His little daughter hesitated for another instant as though she would
have clung about him still, or had some lingering hope that he might
raise her in his arms and kiss her. She looked up in his face once more.
He thought how like her expression was then, to what it had been when
she looked round at the Doctor--that night--and instinctively dropped
her hand and turned away.
It was not difficult to perceive that Florence was at a great
disadvantage in her father’s presence. It was not only a constraint upon
the child’s mind, but even upon the natural grace and freedom of her
actions. As she sported and played about her baby brother that night,
her manner was seldom so winning and so pretty as it naturally was,
and sometimes when in his pacing to and fro, he came near her (she had,
perhaps, for the moment, forgotten him) it changed upon the instant and
became forced and embarrassed.
Still, Polly persevered with all the better heart for seeing this; and,
judging of Mr Dombey by herself, had great confidence in the mute appeal
of poor little Florence’s mourning dress. ‘It’s hard indeed,’ thought
Polly, ‘if he takes only to one little motherless child, when he has
another, and that a girl, before his eyes.’
So, Polly kept her before his eyes, as long as she could, and managed
so well with little Paul, as to make it very plain that he was all the
livelier for his sister’s company. When it was time to withdraw
upstairs again, she would have sent Florence into the inner room to say
good-night to her father, but the child was timid and drew back; and
when she urged her again, said, spreading her hands before her eyes, as
if to shut out her own unworthiness, ‘Oh no, no! He don’t want me. He
don’t want me!’
The little altercation between them had attracted the notice of Mr
Dombey, who inquired from the table where he was sitting at his wine,
what the matter was.
‘Miss Florence was afraid of interrupting, Sir, if she came in to say
good-night,’ said Richards.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ returned Mr Dombey. ‘You can let her come and go
without regarding me.’
The child shrunk as she listened--and was gone, before her humble friend
looked round again.
However, Polly triumphed not a little in the success of her
well-intentioned scheme, and in the address with which she had brought
it to bear: whereof she made a full disclosure to Spitfire when she was
once more safely entrenched upstairs. Miss Nipper received that proof
of her confidence, as well as the prospect of their free association
for the future, rather coldly, and was anything but enthusiastic in her
demonstrations of joy.
‘I thought you would have been pleased,’ said Polly.
‘Oh yes, Mrs Richards, I’m very well pleased, thank you,’ returned
Susan, who had suddenly become so very upright that she seemed to have
put an additional bone in her stays.
‘You don’t show it,’ said Polly.
‘Oh! Being only a permanency I couldn’t be expected to show it like a
temporary,’ said Susan Nipper. ‘Temporaries carries it all before ‘em
here, I find, but though there’s a excellent party-wall between this
house and the next, I mayn’t exactly like to go to it, Mrs Richards,
notwithstanding!’
CHAPTER 4. In which some more First Appearances are made on the Stage of
these Adventures
Though the offices of Dombey and Son were within the liberties of the
City of London, and within hearing of Bow Bells, when their clashing
voices were not drowned by the uproar in the streets, yet were there
hints of adventurous and romantic story to be observed in some of the
adjacent objects. Gog and Magog held their state within ten minutes’
walk; the Royal Exchange was close at hand; the Bank of England, with
its vaults of gold and silver ‘down among the dead men’ underground, was
their magnificent neighbour. Just round the corner stood the rich East
India House, teeming with suggestions of precious stuffs and stones,
tigers, elephants, howdahs, hookahs, umbrellas, palm trees, palanquins,
and gorgeous princes of a brown complexion sitting on carpets, with
their slippers very much turned up at the toes. Anywhere in the
immediate vicinity there might be seen pictures of ships speeding away
full sail to all parts of the world; outfitting warehouses ready to pack
off anybody anywhere, fully equipped in half an hour; and little timber
midshipmen in obsolete naval uniforms, eternally employed outside the
shop doors of nautical Instrument-makers in taking observations of the
hackney carriages.
Sole master and proprietor of one of these effigies--of that which might
be called, familiarly, the woodenest--of that which thrust itself
out above the pavement, right leg foremost, with a suavity the least
endurable, and had the shoe buckles and flapped waistcoat the least
reconcileable to human reason, and bore at its right eye the most
offensively disproportionate piece of machinery--sole master and
proprietor of that Midshipman, and proud of him too, an elderly
gentleman in a Welsh wig had paid house-rent, taxes, rates, and dues,
for more years than many a full-grown midshipman of flesh and blood has
numbered in his life; and midshipmen who have attained a pretty green
old age, have not been wanting in the English Navy.
The stock-in-trade of this old gentleman comprised chronometers,
barometers, telescopes, compasses, charts, maps, sextants, quadrants,
and specimens of every kind of instrument used in the working of a
ship’s course, or the keeping of a ship’s reckoning, or the prosecuting
of a ship’s discoveries. Objects in brass and glass were in his drawers
and on his shelves, which none but the initiated could have found the
top of, or guessed the use of, or having once examined, could have ever
got back again into their mahogany nests without assistance. Everything
was jammed into the tightest cases, fitted into the narrowest corners,
fenced up behind the most impertinent cushions, and screwed into the
acutest angles, to prevent its philosophical composure from being
disturbed by the rolling of the sea. Such extraordinary precautions were
taken in every instance to save room, and keep the thing compact; and
so much practical navigation was fitted, and cushioned, and screwed into
every box (whether the box was a mere slab, as some were, or something
between a cocked hat and a star-fish, as others were, and those quite
mild and modest boxes as compared with others); that the shop itself,
partaking of the general infection, seemed almost to become a snug,
sea-going, ship-shape concern, wanting only good sea-room, in the event
of an unexpected launch, to work its way securely to any desert island
in the world.
Many minor incidents in the household life of the Ships’
Instrument-maker who was proud of his little Midshipman, assisted and
bore out this fancy. His acquaintance lying chiefly among ship-chandlers
and so forth, he had always plenty of the veritable ships’ biscuit on
his table. It was familiar with dried meats and tongues, possessing an
extraordinary flavour of rope yarn. Pickles were produced upon it, in
great wholesale jars, with ‘dealer in all kinds of Ships’ Provisions’ on
the label; spirits were set forth in case bottles with no throats. Old
prints of ships with alphabetical references to their various mysteries,
hung in frames upon the walls; the Tartar Frigate under weigh, was
on the plates; outlandish shells, seaweeds, and mosses, decorated the
chimney-piece; the little wainscotted back parlour was lighted by a
sky-light, like a cabin.
Here he lived too, in skipper-like state, all alone with his nephew
Walter: a boy of fourteen who looked quite enough like a midshipman,
to carry out the prevailing idea. But there it ended, for Solomon Gills
himself (more generally called old Sol) was far from having a maritime
appearance. To say nothing of his Welsh wig, which was as plain and
stubborn a Welsh wig as ever was worn, and in which he looked like
anything but a Rover, he was a slow, quiet-spoken, thoughtful old
fellow, with eyes as red as if they had been small suns looking at
you through a fog; and a newly-awakened manner, such as he might have
acquired by having stared for three or four days successively through
every optical instrument in his shop, and suddenly came back to the
world again, to find it green. The only change ever known in his outward
man, was from a complete suit of coffee-colour cut very square, and
ornamented with glaring buttons, to the same suit of coffee-colour minus
the inexpressibles, which were then of a pale nankeen. He wore a very
precise shirt-frill, and carried a pair of first-rate spectacles on his
forehead, and a tremendous chronometer in his fob, rather than doubt
which precious possession, he would have believed in a conspiracy
against it on part of all the clocks and watches in the City, and even
of the very Sun itself. Such as he was, such he had been in the shop
and parlour behind the little Midshipman, for years upon years; going
regularly aloft to bed every night in a howling garret remote from the
lodgers, where, when gentlemen of England who lived below at ease had
little or no idea of the state of the weather, it often blew great guns.
It is half-past five o’clock, and an autumn afternoon, when the reader
and Solomon Gills become acquainted. Solomon Gills is in the act of
seeing what time it is by the unimpeachable chronometer. The usual daily
clearance has been making in the City for an hour or more; and the human
tide is still rolling westward. ‘The streets have thinned,’ as Mr
Gills says, ‘very much.’ It threatens to be wet to-night. All the
weatherglasses in the shop are in low spirits, and the rain already
shines upon the cocked hat of the wooden Midshipman.
‘Where’s Walter, I wonder!’ said Solomon Gills, after he had carefully
put up the chronometer again. ‘Here’s dinner been ready, half an hour,
and no Walter!’
Turning round upon his stool behind the counter, Mr Gills looked out
among the instruments in the window, to see if his nephew might be
crossing the road. No. He was not among the bobbing umbrellas, and he
certainly was not the newspaper boy in the oilskin cap who was slowly
working his way along the piece of brass outside, writing his name over
Mr Gills’s name with his forefinger.
‘If I didn’t know he was too fond of me to make a run of it, and go
and enter himself aboard ship against my wishes, I should begin to be
fidgetty,’ said Mr Gills, tapping two or three weather-glasses with
his knuckles. ‘I really should. All in the Downs, eh! Lots of moisture!
Well! it’s wanted.’
‘I believe,’ said Mr Gills, blowing the dust off the glass top of a
compass-case, ‘that you don’t point more direct and due to the back
parlour than the boy’s inclination does after all. And the parlour
couldn’t bear straighter either. Due north. Not the twentieth part of a
point either way.’
‘Halloa, Uncle Sol!’
‘Halloa, my boy!’ cried the Instrument-maker, turning briskly round.
‘What! you are here, are you?’
A cheerful looking, merry boy, fresh with running home in the rain;
fair-faced, bright-eyed, and curly-haired.
‘Well, Uncle, how have you got on without me all day? Is dinner ready?
I’m so hungry.’
‘As to getting on,’ said Solomon good-naturedly, ‘it would be odd if I
couldn’t get on without a young dog like you a great deal better than
with you. As to dinner being ready, it’s been ready this half hour and
waiting for you. As to being hungry, I am!’
‘Come along then, Uncle!’ cried the boy. ‘Hurrah for the admiral!’
‘Confound the admiral!’ returned Solomon Gills. ‘You mean the Lord
Mayor.’
‘No I don’t!’ cried the boy. ‘Hurrah for the admiral! Hurrah for the
admiral! For-ward!’
At this word of command, the Welsh wig and its wearer were borne without
resistance into the back parlour, as at the head of a boarding party of
five hundred men; and Uncle Sol and his nephew were speedily engaged on
a fried sole with a prospect of steak to follow.
‘The Lord Mayor, Wally,’ said Solomon, ‘for ever! No more admirals. The
Lord Mayor’s your admiral.’
‘Oh, is he though!’ said the boy, shaking his head. ‘Why, the Sword
Bearer’s better than him. He draws his sword sometimes.’
‘And a pretty figure he cuts with it for his pains,’ returned the Uncle.
‘Listen to me, Wally, listen to me. Look on the mantelshelf.’
‘Why who has cocked my silver mug up there, on a nail?’ exclaimed the
boy.
‘I have,’ said his Uncle. ‘No more mugs now. We must begin to drink out
of glasses to-day, Walter. We are men of business. We belong to the
City. We started in life this morning.’
‘Well, Uncle,’ said the boy, ‘I’ll drink out of anything you like, so
long as I can drink to you. Here’s to you, Uncle Sol, and Hurrah for
the--’
‘Lord Mayor,’ interrupted the old man.
‘For the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, Common Council, and Livery,’ said the
boy. ‘Long life to ‘em!’
The uncle nodded his head with great satisfaction. ‘And now,’ he said,
‘let’s hear something about the Firm.’
‘Oh! there’s not much to be told about the Firm, Uncle,’ said the boy,
plying his knife and fork. ‘It’s a precious dark set of offices, and in
the room where I sit, there’s a high fender, and an iron safe, and some
cards about ships that are going to sail, and an almanack, and some
desks and stools, and an inkbottle, and some books, and some boxes, and
a lot of cobwebs, and in one of ‘em, just over my head, a shrivelled-up
blue-bottle that looks as if it had hung there ever so long.’
‘Nothing else?’ said the Uncle.
‘No, nothing else, except an old birdcage (I wonder how that ever came
there!) and a coal-scuttle.’
‘No bankers’ books, or cheque books, or bills, or such tokens of wealth
rolling in from day to day?’ said old Sol, looking wistfully at his
nephew out of the fog that always seemed to hang about him, and laying
an unctuous emphasis upon the words.
‘Oh yes, plenty of that I suppose,’ returned his nephew carelessly;
‘but all that sort of thing’s in Mr Carker’s room, or Mr Morfin’s, or Mr
Dombey’s.’
‘Has Mr Dombey been there to-day?’ inquired the Uncle.
‘Oh yes! In and out all day.’
‘He didn’t take any notice of you, I suppose?’.
‘Yes he did. He walked up to my seat,--I wish he wasn’t so solemn and
stiff, Uncle,--and said, “Oh! you are the son of Mr Gills the Ships’
Instrument-maker.” “Nephew, Sir,” I said. “I said nephew, boy,” said he.
But I could take my oath he said son, Uncle.’
‘You’re mistaken I daresay. It’s no matter.’
‘No, it’s no matter, but he needn’t have been so sharp, I thought. There
was no harm in it though he did say son. Then he told me that you had
spoken to him about me, and that he had found me employment in the House
accordingly, and that I was expected to be attentive and punctual, and
then he went away. I thought he didn’t seem to like me much.’
‘You mean, I suppose,’ observed the Instrument-maker, ‘that you didn’t
seem to like him much?’
‘Well, Uncle,’ returned the boy, laughing. ‘Perhaps so; I never thought
of that.’
Solomon looked a little graver as he finished his dinner, and glanced
from time to time at the boy’s bright face. When dinner was done, and
the cloth was cleared away (the entertainment had been brought from a
neighbouring eating-house), he lighted a candle, and went down
below into a little cellar, while his nephew, standing on the mouldy
staircase, dutifully held the light. After a moment’s groping here and
there, he presently returned with a very ancient-looking bottle, covered
with dust and dirt.
‘Why, Uncle Sol!’ said the boy, ‘what are you about? that’s the
wonderful Madeira!--there’s only one more bottle!’
Uncle Sol nodded his head, implying that he knew very well what he was
about; and having drawn the cork in solemn silence, filled two glasses
and set the bottle and a third clean glass on the table.
‘You shall drink the other bottle, Wally,’ he said, ‘when you come to
good fortune; when you are a thriving, respected, happy man; when the
start in life you have made to-day shall have brought you, as I pray
Heaven it may!--to a smooth part of the course you have to run, my
child. My love to you!’
Some of the fog that hung about old Sol seemed to have got into his
throat; for he spoke huskily. His hand shook too, as he clinked his
glass against his nephew’s. But having once got the wine to his lips, he
tossed it off like a man, and smacked them afterwards.
‘Dear Uncle,’ said the boy, affecting to make light of it, while the
tears stood in his eyes, ‘for the honour you have done me, et cetera,
et cetera. I shall now beg to propose Mr Solomon Gills with three times
three and one cheer more. Hurrah! and you’ll return thanks, Uncle, when
we drink the last bottle together; won’t you?’
They clinked their glasses again; and Walter, who was hoarding his wine,
took a sip of it, and held the glass up to his eye with as critical an
air as he could possibly assume.
His Uncle sat looking at him for some time in silence. When their eyes
at last met, he began at once to pursue the theme that had occupied his
thoughts, aloud, as if he had been speaking all the time.
‘You see, Walter,’ he said, ‘in truth this business is merely a habit
with me. I am so accustomed to the habit that I could hardly live if
I relinquished it: but there’s nothing doing, nothing doing. When that
uniform was worn,’ pointing out towards the little Midshipman, ‘then
indeed, fortunes were to be made, and were made. But competition,
competition--new invention, new invention--alteration, alteration--the
world’s gone past me. I hardly know where I am myself, much less where
my customers are.’
‘Never mind ‘em, Uncle!’
‘Since you came home from weekly boarding-school at Peckham, for
instance--and that’s ten days,’ said Solomon, ‘I don’t remember more
than one person that has come into the shop.’
‘Two, Uncle, don’t you recollect? There was the man who came to ask for
change for a sovereign--’
‘That’s the one,’ said Solomon.
‘Why Uncle! don’t you call the woman anybody, who came to ask the way to
Mile-End Turnpike?’
‘Oh! it’s true,’ said Solomon, ‘I forgot her. Two persons.’
‘To be sure, they didn’t buy anything,’ cried the boy.
‘No. They didn’t buy anything,’ said Solomon, quietly.
‘Nor want anything,’ cried the boy.
‘No. If they had, they’d gone to another shop,’ said Solomon, in the
same tone.
‘But there were two of ‘em, Uncle,’ cried the boy, as if that were a
great triumph. ‘You said only one.’
‘Well, Wally,’ resumed the old man, after a short pause: ‘not being like
the Savages who came on Robinson Crusoe’s Island, we can’t live on a man
who asks for change for a sovereign, and a woman who inquires the way
to Mile-End Turnpike. As I said just now, the world has gone past me.
I don’t blame it; but I no longer understand it. Tradesmen are not the
same as they used to be, apprentices are not the same, business is not
the same, business commodities are not the same. Seven-eighths of my
stock is old-fashioned. I am an old-fashioned man in an old-fashioned
shop, in a street that is not the same as I remember it. I have fallen
behind the time, and am too old to catch it again. Even the noise it
makes a long way ahead, confuses me.’
Walter was going to speak, but his Uncle held up his hand.
‘Therefore, Wally--therefore it is that I am anxious you should be early
in the busy world, and on the world’s track. I am only the ghost of this
business--its substance vanished long ago; and when I die, its ghost
will be laid. As it is clearly no inheritance for you then, I have
thought it best to use for your advantage, almost the only fragment of
the old connexion that stands by me, through long habit. Some people
suppose me to be wealthy. I wish for your sake they were right. But
whatever I leave behind me, or whatever I can give you, you in such a
House as Dombey’s are in the road to use well and make the most of. Be
diligent, try to like it, my dear boy, work for a steady independence,
and be happy!’
‘I’ll do everything I can, Uncle, to deserve your affection. Indeed I
will,’ said the boy, earnestly.
‘I know it,’ said Solomon. ‘I am sure of it,’ and he applied himself
to a second glass of the old Madeira, with increased relish. ‘As to the
Sea,’ he pursued, ‘that’s well enough in fiction, Wally, but it won’t do
in fact: it won’t do at all. It’s natural enough that you should think
about it, associating it with all these familiar things; but it won’t
do, it won’t do.’
Solomon Gills rubbed his hands with an air of stealthy enjoyment, as he
talked of the sea, though; and looked on the seafaring objects about him
with inexpressible complacency.
‘Think of this wine for instance,’ said old Sol, ‘which has been to the
East Indies and back, I’m not able to say how often, and has been once
round the world. Think of the pitch-dark nights, the roaring winds, and
rolling seas:’
‘The thunder, lightning, rain, hail, storm of all kinds,’ said the boy.
‘To be sure,’ said Solomon,--‘that this wine has passed through. Think
what a straining and creaking of timbers and masts: what a whistling and
howling of the gale through ropes and rigging:’
‘What a clambering aloft of men, vying with each other who shall lie
out first upon the yards to furl the icy sails, while the ship rolls and
pitches, like mad!’ cried his nephew.
‘Exactly so,’ said Solomon: ‘has gone on, over the old cask that held
this wine. Why, when the Charming Sally went down in the--’
‘In the Baltic Sea, in the dead of night; five-and-twenty minutes past
twelve when the captain’s watch stopped in his pocket; he lying
dead against the main-mast--on the fourteenth of February, seventeen
forty-nine!’ cried Walter, with great animation.
‘Ay, to be sure!’ cried old Sol, ‘quite right! Then, there were five
hundred casks of such wine aboard; and all hands (except the first mate,
first lieutenant, two seamen, and a lady, in a leaky boat) going to work
to stave the casks, got drunk and died drunk, singing “Rule Britannia”,
when she settled and went down, and ending with one awful scream in
chorus.’
‘But when the George the Second drove ashore, Uncle, on the coast of
Cornwall, in a dismal gale, two hours before daybreak, on the fourth
of March, ‘seventy-one, she had near two hundred horses aboard; and the
horses breaking loose down below, early in the gale, and tearing to and
fro, and trampling each other to death, made such noises, and set up
such human cries, that the crew believing the ship to be full of devils,
some of the best men, losing heart and head, went overboard in despair,
and only two were left alive, at last, to tell the tale.’
‘And when,’ said old Sol, ‘when the Polyphemus--’
‘Private West India Trader, burden three hundred and fifty tons,
Captain, John Brown of Deptford. Owners, Wiggs and Co.,’ cried Walter.
‘The same,’ said Sol; ‘when she took fire, four days’ sail with a fair
wind out of Jamaica Harbour, in the night--’
‘There were two brothers on board,’ interposed his nephew, speaking very
fast and loud, ‘and there not being room for both of them in the only
boat that wasn’t swamped, neither of them would consent to go, until
the elder took the younger by the waist, and flung him in. And then
the younger, rising in the boat, cried out, “Dear Edward, think of your
promised wife at home. I’m only a boy. No one waits at home for me. Leap
down into my place!” and flung himself in the sea!’
The kindling eye and heightened colour of the boy, who had risen from
his seat in the earnestness of what he said and felt, seemed to remind
old Sol of something he had forgotten, or that his encircling mist had
hitherto shut out. Instead of proceeding with any more anecdotes, as he
had evidently intended but a moment before, he gave a short dry cough,
and said, ‘Well! suppose we change the subject.’
The truth was, that the simple-minded Uncle in his secret attraction
towards the marvellous and adventurous--of which he was, in some sort,
a distant relation, by his trade--had greatly encouraged the same
attraction in the nephew; and that everything that had ever been put
before the boy to deter him from a life of adventure, had had the usual
unaccountable effect of sharpening his taste for it. This is invariable.
It would seem as if there never was a book written, or a story told,
expressly with the object of keeping boys on shore, which did not lure
and charm them to the ocean, as a matter of course.
But an addition to the little party now made its appearance, in the
shape of a gentleman in a wide suit of blue, with a hook instead of a
hand attached to his right wrist; very bushy black eyebrows; and a thick
stick in his left hand, covered all over (like his nose) with knobs.
He wore a loose black silk handkerchief round his neck, and such a very
large coarse shirt collar, that it looked like a small sail. He was
evidently the person for whom the spare wine-glass was intended, and
evidently knew it; for having taken off his rough outer coat, and hung
up, on a particular peg behind the door, such a hard glazed hat as a
sympathetic person’s head might ache at the sight of, and which left a
red rim round his own forehead as if he had been wearing a tight basin,
he brought a chair to where the clean glass was, and sat himself down
behind it. He was usually addressed as Captain, this visitor; and had
been a pilot, or a skipper, or a privateersman, or all three perhaps;
and was a very salt-looking man indeed.
His face, remarkable for a brown solidity, brightened as he shook hands
with Uncle and nephew; but he seemed to be of a laconic disposition, and
merely said:
‘How goes it?’
‘All well,’ said Mr Gills, pushing the bottle towards him.
He took it up, and having surveyed and smelt it, said with extraordinary
expression:
‘The?’
‘The,’ returned the Instrument-maker.
Upon that he whistled as he filled his glass, and seemed to think they
were making holiday indeed.
‘Wal’r!’ he said, arranging his hair (which was thin) with his hook, and
then pointing it at the Instrument-maker, ‘Look at him! Love! Honour!
And Obey! Overhaul your catechism till you find that passage, and when
found turn the leaf down. Success, my boy!’
He was so perfectly satisfied both with his quotation and his reference
to it, that he could not help repeating the words again in a low voice,
and saying he had forgotten ‘em these forty year.
‘But I never wanted two or three words in my life that I didn’t know
where to lay my hand upon ‘em, Gills,’ he observed. ‘It comes of not
wasting language as some do.’
The reflection perhaps reminded him that he had better, like young
Norval’s father, “increase his store.” At any rate he became silent, and
remained so, until old Sol went out into the shop to light it up, when
he turned to Walter, and said, without any introductory remark:--
‘I suppose he could make a clock if he tried?’
‘I shouldn’t wonder, Captain Cuttle,’ returned the boy.
‘And it would go!’ said Captain Cuttle, making a species of serpent in
the air with his hook. ‘Lord, how that clock would go!’
For a moment or two he seemed quite lost in contemplating the pace of
this ideal timepiece, and sat looking at the boy as if his face were the
dial.
‘But he’s chock-full of science,’ he observed, waving his hook towards
the stock-in-trade. ‘Look’ye here! Here’s a collection of ‘em. Earth,
air, or water. It’s all one. Only say where you’ll have it. Up in a
balloon? There you are. Down in a bell? There you are. D’ye want to put
the North Star in a pair of scales and weigh it? He’ll do it for you.’
It may be gathered from these remarks that Captain Cuttle’s reverence
for the stock of instruments was profound, and that his philosophy knew
little or no distinction between trading in it and inventing it.
‘Ah!’ he said, with a sigh, ‘it’s a fine thing to understand ‘em. And
yet it’s a fine thing not to understand ‘em. I hardly know which
is best. It’s so comfortable to sit here and feel that you might be
weighed, measured, magnified, electrified, polarized, played the very
devil with: and never know how.’
Nothing short of the wonderful Madeira, combined with the occasion
(which rendered it desirable to improve and expand Walter’s mind), could
have ever loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance to this
prodigious oration. He seemed quite amazed himself at the manner in
which it opened up to view the sources of the taciturn delight he had
had in eating Sunday dinners in that parlour for ten years. Becoming a
sadder and a wiser man, he mused and held his peace.
‘Come!’ cried the subject of this admiration, returning. ‘Before you
have your glass of grog, Ned, we must finish the bottle.’
‘Stand by!’ said Ned, filling his glass. ‘Give the boy some more.’
‘No more, thank’e, Uncle!’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Sol, ‘a little more. We’ll finish the bottle, to the
House, Ned--Walter’s House. Why it may be his House one of these
days, in part. Who knows? Sir Richard Whittington married his master’s
daughter.’
‘“Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are old you
will never depart from it,”’ interposed the Captain. ‘Wal’r! Overhaul
the book, my lad.’
‘And although Mr Dombey hasn’t a daughter,’ Sol began.
‘Yes, yes, he has, Uncle,’ said the boy, reddening and laughing.
‘Has he?’ cried the old man. ‘Indeed I think he has too.’
‘Oh! I know he has,’ said the boy. ‘Some of ‘em were talking about it in
the office today. And they do say, Uncle and Captain Cuttle,’ lowering
his voice, ‘that he’s taken a dislike to her, and that she’s left,
unnoticed, among the servants, and that his mind’s so set all the while
upon having his son in the House, that although he’s only a baby now,
he is going to have balances struck oftener than formerly, and the
books kept closer than they used to be, and has even been seen (when
he thought he wasn’t) walking in the Docks, looking at his ships and
property and all that, as if he was exulting like, over what he and
his son will possess together. That’s what they say. Of course, I don’t
know.’
‘He knows all about her already, you see,’ said the instrument-maker.
‘Nonsense, Uncle,’ cried the boy, still reddening and laughing,
boy-like. ‘How can I help hearing what they tell me?’
‘The son’s a little in our way at present, I’m afraid, Ned,’ said the
old man, humouring the joke.
‘Very much,’ said the Captain.
‘Nevertheless, we’ll drink him,’ pursued Sol. ‘So, here’s to Dombey and
Son.’
‘Oh, very well, Uncle,’ said the boy, merrily. ‘Since you have
introduced the mention of her, and have connected me with her and have
said that I know all about her, I shall make bold to amend the toast. So
here’s to Dombey--and Son--and Daughter!’
CHAPTER 5. Paul’s Progress and Christening
Little Paul, suffering no contamination from the blood of the Toodles,
grew stouter and stronger every day. Every day, too, he was more
and more ardently cherished by Miss Tox, whose devotion was so far
appreciated by Mr Dombey that he began to regard her as a woman of
great natural good sense, whose feelings did her credit and deserved
encouragement. He was so lavish of this condescension, that he not only
bowed to her, in a particular manner, on several occasions, but even
entrusted such stately recognitions of her to his sister as ‘pray tell
your friend, Louisa, that she is very good,’ or ‘mention to Miss
Tox, Louisa, that I am obliged to her;’ specialities which made a deep
impression on the lady thus distinguished.
Whether Miss Tox conceived that having been selected by the Fates
to welcome the little Dombey before he was born, in Kirby, Beard and
Kirby’s Best Mixed Pins, it therefore naturally devolved upon her to
greet him with all other forms of welcome in all other early stages
of his existence--or whether her overflowing goodness induced her to
volunteer into the domestic militia as a substitute in some sort for his
deceased Mama--or whether she was conscious of any other motives--are
questions which in this stage of the Firm’s history herself only could
have solved. Nor have they much bearing on the fact (of which there
is no doubt), that Miss Tox’s constancy and zeal were a heavy
discouragement to Richards, who lost flesh hourly under her patronage,
and was in some danger of being superintended to death.
Miss Tox was often in the habit of assuring Mrs Chick, that nothing
could exceed her interest in all connected with the development of
that sweet child; and an observer of Miss Tox’s proceedings might have
inferred so much without declaratory confirmation. She would
preside over the innocent repasts of the young heir, with ineffable
satisfaction, almost with an air of joint proprietorship with Richards
in the entertainment. At the little ceremonies of the bath and toilette,
she assisted with enthusiasm. The administration of infantine doses of
physic awakened all the active sympathy of her character; and being on
one occasion secreted in a cupboard (whither she had fled in modesty),
when Mr Dombey was introduced into the nursery by his sister, to behold
his son, in the course of preparation for bed, taking a short walk
uphill over Richards’s gown, in a short and airy linen jacket, Miss
Tox was so transported beyond the ignorant present as to be unable to
refrain from crying out, ‘Is he not beautiful Mr Dombey! Is he not
a Cupid, Sir!’ and then almost sinking behind the closet door with
confusion and blushes.
‘Louisa,’ said Mr Dombey, one day, to his sister, ‘I really think I must
present your friend with some little token, on the occasion of Paul’s
christening. She has exerted herself so warmly in the child’s behalf
from the first, and seems to understand her position so thoroughly (a
very rare merit in this world, I am sorry to say), that it would really
be agreeable to me to notice her.’
Let it be no detraction from the merits of Miss Tox, to hint that in Mr
Dombey’s eyes, as in some others that occasionally see the light, they
only achieved that mighty piece of knowledge, the understanding of their
own position, who showed a fitting reverence for his. It was not so much
their merit that they knew themselves, as that they knew him, and bowed
low before him.
‘My dear Paul,’ returned his sister, ‘you do Miss Tox but justice, as a
man of your penetration was sure, I knew, to do. I believe if there
are three words in the English language for which she has a respect
amounting almost to veneration, those words are, Dombey and Son.’
‘Well,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘I believe it. It does Miss Tox credit.’
‘And as to anything in the shape of a token, my dear Paul,’ pursued
his sister, ‘all I can say is that anything you give Miss Tox will be
hoarded and prized, I am sure, like a relic. But there is a way, my dear
Paul, of showing your sense of Miss Tox’s friendliness in a still more
flattering and acceptable manner, if you should be so inclined.’
‘How is that?’ asked Mr Dombey.
‘Godfathers, of course,’ continued Mrs Chick, ‘are important in point of
connexion and influence.’
‘I don’t know why they should be, to my son,’ said Mr Dombey, coldly.
‘Very true, my dear Paul,’ retorted Mrs Chick, with an extraordinary
show of animation, to cover the suddenness of her conversion; ‘and
spoken like yourself. I might have expected nothing else from you. I
might have known that such would have been your opinion. Perhaps;’ here
Mrs Chick faltered again, as not quite comfortably feeling her way;
‘perhaps that is a reason why you might have the less objection to
allowing Miss Tox to be godmother to the dear thing, if it were only as
deputy and proxy for someone else. That it would be received as a great
honour and distinction, Paul, I need not say.’
‘Louisa,’ said Mr Dombey, after a short pause, ‘it is not to be
supposed--’
‘Certainly not,’ cried Mrs Chick, hastening to anticipate a refusal, ‘I
never thought it was.’
Mr Dombey looked at her impatiently.
‘Don’t flurry me, my dear Paul,’ said his sister; ‘for that destroys
me. I am far from strong. I have not been quite myself, since poor dear
Fanny departed.’
Mr Dombey glanced at the pocket-handkerchief which his sister applied to
her eyes, and resumed:
‘It is not be supposed, I say--’
‘And I say,’ murmured Mrs Chick, ‘that I never thought it was.’
‘Good Heaven, Louisa!’ said Mr Dombey.
‘No, my dear Paul,’ she remonstrated with tearful dignity, ‘I must
really be allowed to speak. I am not so clever, or so reasoning, or so
eloquent, or so anything, as you are. I know that very well. So much the
worse for me. But if they were the last words I had to utter--and
last words should be very solemn to you and me, Paul, after poor dear
Fanny--I would still say I never thought it was. And what is more,’
added Mrs Chick with increased dignity, as if she had withheld her
crushing argument until now, ‘I never did think it was.’
Mr Dombey walked to the window and back again.
‘It is not to be supposed, Louisa,’ he said (Mrs Chick had nailed her
colours to the mast, and repeated ‘I know it isn’t,’ but he took no
notice of it), ‘but that there are many persons who, supposing that
I recognised any claim at all in such a case, have a claim upon me
superior to Miss Tox’s. But I do not. I recognise no such thing. Paul
and myself will be able, when the time comes, to hold our own--the
House, in other words, will be able to hold its own, and maintain its
own, and hand down its own of itself, and without any such common-place
aids. The kind of foreign help which people usually seek for their
children, I can afford to despise; being above it, I hope. So that
Paul’s infancy and childhood pass away well, and I see him becoming
qualified without waste of time for the career on which he is destined
to enter, I am satisfied. He will make what powerful friends he pleases
in after-life, when he is actively maintaining--and extending, if that
is possible--the dignity and credit of the Firm. Until then, I am enough
for him, perhaps, and all in all. I have no wish that people should step
in between us. I would much rather show my sense of the obliging conduct
of a deserving person like your friend. Therefore let it be so; and
your husband and myself will do well enough for the other sponsors, I
daresay.’
In the course of these remarks, delivered with great majesty and
grandeur, Mr Dombey had truly revealed the secret feelings of his
breast. An indescribable distrust of anybody stepping in between himself
and his son; a haughty dread of having any rival or partner in the boy’s
respect and deference; a sharp misgiving, recently acquired, that he was
not infallible in his power of bending and binding human wills; as sharp
a jealousy of any second check or cross; these were, at that time the
master keys of his soul. In all his life, he had never made a friend.
His cold and distant nature had neither sought one, nor found one. And
now, when that nature concentrated its whole force so strongly on a
partial scheme of parental interest and ambition, it seemed as if its
icy current, instead of being released by this influence, and running
clear and free, had thawed for but an instant to admit its burden, and
then frozen with it into one unyielding block.
Elevated thus to the godmothership of little Paul, in virtue of her
insignificance, Miss Tox was from that hour chosen and appointed to
office; and Mr Dombey further signified his pleasure that the ceremony,
already long delayed, should take place without further postponement.
His sister, who had been far from anticipating so signal a success,
withdrew as soon as she could, to communicate it to her best of friends;
and Mr Dombey was left alone in his library. He had already laid his
hand upon the bellrope to convey his usual summons to Richards, when his
eye fell upon a writing-desk, belonging to his deceased wife, which had
been taken, among other things, from a cabinet in her chamber. It was
not the first time that his eye had lighted on it He carried the key
in his pocket; and he brought it to his table and opened it now--having
previously locked the room door--with a well-accustomed hand.
From beneath a leaf of torn and cancelled scraps of paper, he took one
letter that remained entire. Involuntarily holding his breath as he
opened this document, and ‘bating in the stealthy action something of
his arrogant demeanour, he sat down, resting his head upon one hand,
and read it through.
He read it slowly and attentively, and with a nice particularity
to every syllable. Otherwise than as his great deliberation seemed
unnatural, and perhaps the result of an effort equally great, he allowed
no sign of emotion to escape him. When he had read it through, he
folded and refolded it slowly several times, and tore it carefully into
fragments. Checking his hand in the act of throwing these away, he put
them in his pocket, as if unwilling to trust them even to the chances
of being re-united and deciphered; and instead of ringing, as usual, for
little Paul, he sat solitary, all the evening, in his cheerless room.
There was anything but solitude in the nursery; for there, Mrs Chick and
Miss Tox were enjoying a social evening, so much to the disgust of Miss
Susan Nipper, that that young lady embraced every opportunity of making
wry faces behind the door. Her feelings were so much excited on the
occasion, that she found it indispensable to afford them this relief,
even without having the comfort of any audience or sympathy whatever.
As the knight-errants of old relieved their minds by carving their
mistress’s names in deserts, and wildernesses, and other savage places
where there was no probability of there ever being anybody to read them,
so did Miss Susan Nipper curl her snub nose into drawers and wardrobes,
put away winks of disparagement in cupboards, shed derisive squints into
stone pitchers, and contradict and call names out in the passage.
The two interlopers, however, blissfully unconscious of the young lady’s
sentiments, saw little Paul safe through all the stages of undressing,
airy exercise, supper and bed; and then sat down to tea before the fire.
The two children now lay, through the good offices of Polly, in
one room; and it was not until the ladies were established at their
tea-table that, happening to look towards the little beds, they thought
of Florence.
‘How sound she sleeps!’ said Miss Tox.
‘Why, you know, my dear, she takes a great deal of exercise in the
course of the day,’ returned Mrs Chick, ‘playing about little Paul so
much.’
‘She is a curious child,’ said Miss Tox.
‘My dear,’ retorted Mrs Chick, in a low voice: ‘Her Mama, all over!’
‘In-deed!’ said Miss Tox. ‘Ah dear me!’
A tone of most extraordinary compassion Miss Tox said it in, though she
had no distinct idea why, except that it was expected of her.
‘Florence will never, never, never be a Dombey,’ said Mrs Chick, ‘not if
she lives to be a thousand years old.’
Miss Tox elevated her eyebrows, and was again full of commiseration.
‘I quite fret and worry myself about her,’ said Mrs Chick, with a sigh
of modest merit. ‘I really don’t see what is to become of her when she
grows older, or what position she is to take. She don’t gain on her Papa
in the least. How can one expect she should, when she is so very unlike
a Dombey?’
Miss Tox looked as if she saw no way out of such a cogent argument as
that, at all.
‘And the child, you see,’ said Mrs Chick, in deep confidence, ‘has poor
dear Fanny’s nature. She’ll never make an effort in after-life, I’ll
venture to say. Never! She’ll never wind and twine herself about her
Papa’s heart like--’
‘Like the ivy?’ suggested Miss Tox.
‘Like the ivy,’ Mrs Chick assented. ‘Never! She’ll never glide and
nestle into the bosom of her Papa’s affections like--the--’
‘Startled fawn?’ suggested Miss Tox.
‘Like the startled fawn,’ said Mrs Chick. ‘Never! Poor Fanny! Yet, how I
loved her!’
‘You must not distress yourself, my dear,’ said Miss Tox, in a soothing
voice. ‘Now really! You have too much feeling.’
‘We have all our faults,’ said Mrs Chick, weeping and shaking her head.
‘I daresay we have. I never was blind to hers. I never said I was. Far
from it. Yet how I loved her!’
What a satisfaction it was to Mrs Chick--a common-place piece of folly
enough, compared with whom her sister-in-law had been a very angel of
womanly intelligence and gentleness--to patronise and be tender to the
memory of that lady: in exact pursuance of her conduct to her in her
lifetime: and to thoroughly believe herself, and take herself in, and
make herself uncommonly comfortable on the strength of her toleration!
What a mighty pleasant virtue toleration should be when we are right, to
be so very pleasant when we are wrong, and quite unable to demonstrate
how we come to be invested with the privilege of exercising it!
Mrs Chick was yet drying her eyes and shaking her head, when Richards
made bold to caution her that Miss Florence was awake and sitting in her
bed. She had risen, as the nurse said, and the lashes of her eyes were
wet with tears. But no one saw them glistening save Polly. No one else
leant over her, and whispered soothing words to her, or was near enough
to hear the flutter of her beating heart.
‘Oh! dear nurse!’ said the child, looking earnestly up in her face, ‘let
me lie by my brother!’
‘Why, my pet?’ said Richards.
‘Oh! I think he loves me,’ cried the child wildly. ‘Let me lie by him.
Pray do!’
Mrs Chick interposed with some motherly words about going to sleep like
a dear, but Florence repeated her supplication, with a frightened look,
and in a voice broken by sobs and tears.
‘I’ll not wake him,’ she said, covering her face and hanging down her
head. ‘I’ll only touch him with my hand, and go to sleep. Oh, pray,
pray, let me lie by my brother to-night, for I believe he’s fond of me!’
Richards took her without a word, and carrying her to the little bed in
which the infant was sleeping, laid her down by his side. She crept as
near him as she could without disturbing his rest; and stretching out
one arm so that it timidly embraced his neck, and hiding her face on
the other, over which her damp and scattered hair fell loose, lay
motionless.
‘Poor little thing,’ said Miss Tox; ‘she has been dreaming, I daresay.’
Dreaming, perhaps, of loving tones for ever silent, of loving eyes for
ever closed, of loving arms again wound round her, and relaxing in that
dream within the dam which no tongue can relate. Seeking, perhaps--in
dreams--some natural comfort for a heart, deeply and sorely wounded,
though so young a child’s: and finding it, perhaps, in dreams, if not
in waking, cold, substantial truth. This trivial incident had so
interrupted the current of conversation, that it was difficult
of resumption; and Mrs Chick moreover had been so affected by the
contemplation of her own tolerant nature, that she was not in spirits.
The two friends accordingly soon made an end of their tea, and a servant
was despatched to fetch a hackney cabriolet for Miss Tox. Miss Tox had
great experience in hackney cabs, and her starting in one was generally
a work of time, as she was systematic in the preparatory arrangements.
‘Have the goodness, if you please, Towlinson,’ said Miss Tox, ‘first of
all, to carry out a pen and ink and take his number legibly.’
‘Yes, Miss,’ said Towlinson.
‘Then, if you please, Towlinson,’ said Miss Tox, ‘have the goodness
to turn the cushion. Which,’ said Miss Tox apart to Mrs Chick, ‘is
generally damp, my dear.’
‘Yes, Miss,’ said Towlinson.
‘I’ll trouble you also, if you please, Towlinson,’ said Miss Tox,
‘with this card and this shilling. He’s to drive to the card, and is to
understand that he will not on any account have more than the shilling.’
‘No, Miss,’ said Towlinson.
‘And--I’m sorry to give you so much trouble, Towlinson,’ said Miss Tox,
looking at him pensively.
‘Not at all, Miss,’ said Towlinson.
‘Mention to the man, then, if you please, Towlinson,’ said Miss Tox,
‘that the lady’s uncle is a magistrate, and that if he gives her any of
his impertinence he will be punished terribly. You can pretend to say
that, if you please, Towlinson, in a friendly way, and because you know
it was done to another man, who died.’
‘Certainly, Miss,’ said Towlinson.
‘And now good-night to my sweet, sweet, sweet, godson,’ said Miss Tox,
with a soft shower of kisses at each repetition of the adjective; ‘and
Louisa, my dear friend, promise me to take a little something warm
before you go to bed, and not to distress yourself!’
It was with extreme difficulty that Nipper, the black-eyed, who
looked on steadfastly, contained herself at this crisis, and until the
subsequent departure of Mrs Chick. But the nursery being at length free
of visitors, she made herself some recompense for her late restraint.
‘You might keep me in a strait-waistcoat for six weeks,’ said Nipper,
‘and when I got it off I’d only be more aggravated, who ever heard the
like of them two Griffins, Mrs Richards?’
‘And then to talk of having been dreaming, poor dear!’ said Polly.
‘Oh you beauties!’ cried Susan Nipper, affecting to salute the door by
which the ladies had departed. ‘Never be a Dombey won’t she? It’s to be
hoped she won’t, we don’t want any more such, one’s enough.’
‘Don’t wake the children, Susan dear,’ said Polly.
‘I’m very much beholden to you, Mrs Richards,’ said Susan, who was
not by any means discriminating in her wrath, ‘and really feel it as a
honour to receive your commands, being a black slave and a mulotter.
Mrs Richards, if there’s any other orders, you can give me, pray mention
‘em.’
‘Nonsense; orders,’ said Polly.
‘Oh! bless your heart, Mrs Richards,’ cried Susan, ‘temporaries always
orders permanencies here, didn’t you know that, why wherever was you
born, Mrs Richards? But wherever you was born, Mrs Richards,’ pursued
Spitfire, shaking her head resolutely, ‘and whenever, and however (which
is best known to yourself), you may bear in mind, please, that it’s one
thing to give orders, and quite another thing to take ‘em. A person may
tell a person to dive off a bridge head foremost into five-and-forty
feet of water, Mrs Richards, but a person may be very far from diving.’
‘There now,’ said Polly, ‘you’re angry because you’re a good little
thing, and fond of Miss Florence; and yet you turn round on me, because
there’s nobody else.’
‘It’s very easy for some to keep their tempers, and be soft-spoken, Mrs
Richards,’ returned Susan, slightly mollified, ‘when their child’s made
as much of as a prince, and is petted and patted till it wishes its
friends further, but when a sweet young pretty innocent, that never
ought to have a cross word spoken to or of it, is rundown, the case is
very different indeed. My goodness gracious me, Miss Floy, you naughty,
sinful child, if you don’t shut your eyes this minute, I’ll call in them
hobgoblins that lives in the cock-loft to come and eat you up alive!’
Here Miss Nipper made a horrible lowing, supposed to issue from a
conscientious goblin of the bull species, impatient to discharge the
severe duty of his position. Having further composed her young charge
by covering her head with the bedclothes, and making three or four angry
dabs at the pillow, she folded her arms, and screwed up her mouth, and
sat looking at the fire for the rest of the evening.
Though little Paul was said, in nursery phrase, ‘to take a deal of
notice for his age,’ he took as little notice of all this as of
the preparations for his christening on the next day but one; which
nevertheless went on about him, as to his personal apparel, and that of
his sister and the two nurses, with great activity. Neither did he, on
the arrival of the appointed morning, show any sense of its importance;
being, on the contrary, unusually inclined to sleep, and unusually
inclined to take it ill in his attendants that they dressed him to go
out.
It happened to be an iron-grey autumnal day, with a shrewd east wind
blowing--a day in keeping with the proceedings. Mr Dombey represented in
himself the wind, the shade, and the autumn of the christening. He stood
in his library to receive the company, as hard and cold as the weather;
and when he looked out through the glass room, at the trees in the
little garden, their brown and yellow leaves came fluttering down, as if
he blighted them.
Ugh! They were black, cold rooms; and seemed to be in mourning, like the
inmates of the house. The books precisely matched as to size, and
drawn up in line, like soldiers, looked in their cold, hard, slippery
uniforms, as if they had but one idea among them, and that was a
freezer. The bookcase, glazed and locked, repudiated all familiarities.
Mr Pitt, in bronze, on the top, with no trace of his celestial origin
about him, guarded the unattainable treasure like an enchanted Moor.
A dusty urn at each high corner, dug up from an ancient tomb, preached
desolation and decay, as from two pulpits; and the chimney-glass,
reflecting Mr Dombey and his portrait at one blow, seemed fraught with
melancholy meditations.
The stiff and stark fire-irons appeared to claim a nearer relationship
than anything else there to Mr Dombey, with his buttoned coat, his white
cravat, his heavy gold watch-chain, and his creaking boots. But this
was before the arrival of Mr and Mrs Chick, his lawful relatives, who
soon presented themselves.
‘My dear Paul,’ Mrs Chick murmured, as she embraced him, ‘the beginning,
I hope, of many joyful days!’
‘Thank you, Louisa,’ said Mr Dombey, grimly. ‘How do you do, Mr John?’
‘How do you do, Sir?’ said Chick.
He gave Mr Dombey his hand, as if he feared it might electrify him. Mr
Dombey took it as if it were a fish, or seaweed, or some such clammy
substance, and immediately returned it to him with exalted politeness.
‘Perhaps, Louisa,’ said Mr Dombey, slightly turning his head in his
cravat, as if it were a socket, ‘you would have preferred a fire?’
‘Oh, my dear Paul, no,’ said Mrs Chick, who had much ado to keep her
teeth from chattering; ‘not for me.’
‘Mr John,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘you are not sensible of any chill?’
Mr John, who had already got both his hands in his pockets over the
wrists, and was on the very threshold of that same canine chorus which
had given Mrs Chick so much offence on a former occasion, protested that
he was perfectly comfortable.
He added in a low voice, ‘With my tiddle tol toor rul’--when he was
providentially stopped by Towlinson, who announced:
‘Miss Tox!’
And enter that fair enslaver, with a blue nose and indescribably frosty
face, referable to her being very thinly clad in a maze of fluttering
odds and ends, to do honour to the ceremony.
‘How do you do, Miss Tox?’ said Mr Dombey.
Miss Tox, in the midst of her spreading gauzes, went down altogether
like an opera-glass shutting-up; she curtseyed so low, in acknowledgment
of Mr Dombey’s advancing a step or two to meet her.
‘I can never forget this occasion, Sir,’ said Miss Tox, softly. ‘’Tis
impossible. My dear Louisa, I can hardly believe the evidence of my
senses.’
If Miss Tox could believe the evidence of one of her senses, it was a
very cold day. That was quite clear. She took an early opportunity of
promoting the circulation in the tip of her nose by secretly chafing
it with her pocket handkerchief, lest, by its very low temperature, it
should disagreeably astonish the baby when she came to kiss it.
The baby soon appeared, carried in great glory by Richards; while
Florence, in custody of that active young constable, Susan Nipper,
brought up the rear. Though the whole nursery party were dressed by
this time in lighter mourning than at first, there was enough in the
appearance of the bereaved children to make the day no brighter. The
baby too--it might have been Miss Tox’s nose--began to cry. Thereby, as
it happened, preventing Mr Chick from the awkward fulfilment of a very
honest purpose he had; which was, to make much of Florence. For this
gentleman, insensible to the superior claims of a perfect Dombey
(perhaps on account of having the honour to be united to a Dombey
himself, and being familiar with excellence), really liked her, and
showed that he liked her, and was about to show it in his own way now,
when Paul cried, and his helpmate stopped him short--
‘Now Florence, child!’ said her aunt, briskly, ‘what are you doing,
love? Show yourself to him. Engage his attention, my dear!’
The atmosphere became or might have become colder and colder, when Mr
Dombey stood frigidly watching his little daughter, who, clapping her
hands, and standing on tip-toe before the throne of his son and heir,
lured him to bend down from his high estate, and look at her. Some
honest act of Richards’s may have aided the effect, but he did look
down, and held his peace. As his sister hid behind her nurse, he
followed her with his eyes; and when she peeped out with a merry cry to
him, he sprang up and crowed lustily--laughing outright when she ran in
upon him; and seeming to fondle her curls with his tiny hands, while she
smothered him with kisses.
Was Mr Dombey pleased to see this? He testified no pleasure by the
relaxation of a nerve; but outward tokens of any kind of feeling were
unusual with him. If any sunbeam stole into the room to light the
children at their play, it never reached his face. He looked on so
fixedly and coldly, that the warm light vanished even from the laughing
eyes of little Florence, when, at last, they happened to meet his.
It was a dull, grey, autumn day indeed, and in a minute’s pause and
silence that took place, the leaves fell sorrowfully.
‘Mr John,’ said Mr Dombey, referring to his watch, and assuming his hat
and gloves. ‘Take my sister, if you please: my arm today is Miss Tox’s.
You had better go first with Master Paul, Richards. Be very careful.’
In Mr Dombey’s carriage, Dombey and Son, Miss Tox, Mrs Chick, Richards,
and Florence. In a little carriage following it, Susan Nipper and the
owner Mr Chick. Susan looking out of window, without intermission, as
a relief from the embarrassment of confronting the large face of that
gentleman, and thinking whenever anything rattled that he was putting up
in paper an appropriate pecuniary compliment for herself.
Once upon the road to church, Mr Dombey clapped his hands for the
amusement of his son. At which instance of parental enthusiasm Miss
Tox was enchanted. But exclusive of this incident, the chief difference
between the christening party and a party in a mourning coach consisted
in the colours of the carriage and horses.
Arrived at the church steps, they were received by a portentous beadle.
Mr Dombey dismounting first to help the ladies out, and standing near
him at the church door, looked like another beadle. A beadle less
gorgeous but more dreadful; the beadle of private life; the beadle of
our business and our bosoms.
Miss Tox’s hand trembled as she slipped it through Mr Dombey’s arm,
and felt herself escorted up the steps, preceded by a cocked hat and
a Babylonian collar. It seemed for a moment like that other solemn
institution, ‘Wilt thou have this man, Lucretia?’ ‘Yes, I will.’
‘Please to bring the child in quick out of the air there,’ whispered the
beadle, holding open the inner door of the church.
Little Paul might have asked with Hamlet ‘into my grave?’ so chill and
earthy was the place. The tall, shrouded pulpit and reading desk; the
dreary perspective of empty pews stretching away under the galleries,
and empty benches mounting to the roof and lost in the shadow of the
great grim organ; the dusty matting and cold stone slabs; the grisly
free seats in the aisles; and the damp corner by the bell-rope, where
the black trestles used for funerals were stowed away, along with some
shovels and baskets, and a coil or two of deadly-looking rope; the
strange, unusual, uncomfortable smell, and the cadaverous light; were
all in unison. It was a cold and dismal scene.
‘There’s a wedding just on, Sir,’ said the beadle, ‘but it’ll be over
directly, if you’ll walk into the westry here.’
Before he turned again to lead the way, he gave Mr Dombey a bow and a
half smile of recognition, importing that he (the beadle) remembered to
have had the pleasure of attending on him when he buried his wife, and
hoped he had enjoyed himself since.
The very wedding looked dismal as they passed in front of the altar. The
bride was too old and the bridegroom too young, and a superannuated beau
with one eye and an eyeglass stuck in its blank companion, was giving
away the lady, while the friends were shivering. In the vestry the fire
was smoking; and an over-aged and over-worked and under-paid attorney’s
clerk, ‘making a search,’ was running his forefinger down the parchment
pages of an immense register (one of a long series of similar volumes)
gorged with burials. Over the fireplace was a ground-plan of the vaults
underneath the church; and Mr Chick, skimming the literary portion of
it aloud, by way of enlivening the company, read the reference to Mrs
Dombey’s tomb in full, before he could stop himself.
After another cold interval, a wheezy little pew-opener afflicted with
an asthma, appropriate to the churchyard, if not to the church, summoned
them to the font--a rigid marble basin which seemed to have been playing
a churchyard game at cup and ball with its matter of fact pedestal, and
to have been just that moment caught on the top of it. Here they waited
some little time while the marriage party enrolled themselves; and
meanwhile the wheezy little pew-opener--partly in consequence of her
infirmity, and partly that the marriage party might not forget her--went
about the building coughing like a grampus.
Presently the clerk (the only cheerful-looking object there, and he was
an undertaker) came up with a jug of warm water, and said something, as
he poured it into the font, about taking the chill off; which millions
of gallons boiling hot could not have done for the occasion. Then the
clergyman, an amiable and mild-looking young curate, but obviously
afraid of the baby, appeared like the principal character in a
ghost-story, ‘a tall figure all in white;’ at sight of whom Paul rent
the air with his cries, and never left off again till he was taken out
black in the face.
Even when that event had happened, to the great relief of everybody,
he was heard under the portico, during the rest of the ceremony, now
fainter, now louder, now hushed, now bursting forth again with an
irrepressible sense of his wrongs. This so distracted the attention of
the two ladies, that Mrs Chick was constantly deploying into the centre
aisle, to send out messages by the pew-opener, while Miss Tox kept her
Prayer-book open at the Gunpowder Plot, and occasionally read responses
from that service.
During the whole of these proceedings, Mr Dombey remained as impassive
and gentlemanly as ever, and perhaps assisted in making it so cold, that
the young curate smoked at the mouth as he read. The only time that he
unbent his visage in the least, was when the clergyman, in delivering
(very unaffectedly and simply) the closing exhortation, relative to the
future examination of the child by the sponsors, happened to rest his
eye on Mr Chick; and then Mr Dombey might have been seen to express by a
majestic look, that he would like to catch him at it.
It might have been well for Mr Dombey, if he had thought of his own
dignity a little less; and had thought of the great origin and purpose
of the ceremony in which he took so formal and so stiff a part, a little
more. His arrogance contrasted strangely with its history.
When it was all over, he again gave his arm to Miss Tox, and conducted
her to the vestry, where he informed the clergyman how much pleasure
it would have given him to have solicited the honour of his company
at dinner, but for the unfortunate state of his household affairs. The
register signed, and the fees paid, and the pew-opener (whose cough was
very bad again) remembered, and the beadle gratified, and the sexton
(who was accidentally on the doorsteps, looking with great interest at
the weather) not forgotten, they got into the carriage again, and drove
home in the same bleak fellowship.
There they found Mr Pitt turning up his nose at a cold collation, set
forth in a cold pomp of glass and silver, and looking more like a dead
dinner lying in state than a social refreshment. On their arrival Miss
Tox produced a mug for her godson, and Mr Chick a knife and fork and
spoon in a case. Mr Dombey also produced a bracelet for Miss Tox; and,
on the receipt of this token, Miss Tox was tenderly affected.
‘Mr John,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘will you take the bottom of the table, if
you please? What have you got there, Mr John?’
‘I have got a cold fillet of veal here, Sir,’ replied Mr Chick, rubbing
his numbed hands hard together. ‘What have you got there, Sir?’
‘This,’ returned Mr Dombey, ‘is some cold preparation of calf’s head, I
think. I see cold fowls--ham--patties--salad--lobster. Miss Tox will do
me the honour of taking some wine? Champagne to Miss Tox.’
There was a toothache in everything. The wine was so bitter cold that it
forced a little scream from Miss Tox, which she had great difficulty in
turning into a ‘Hem!’ The veal had come from such an airy pantry, that
the first taste of it had struck a sensation as of cold lead to Mr
Chick’s extremities. Mr Dombey alone remained unmoved. He might have
been hung up for sale at a Russian fair as a specimen of a frozen
gentleman.
The prevailing influence was too much even for his sister. She made
no effort at flattery or small talk, and directed all her efforts to
looking as warm as she could.
‘Well, Sir,’ said Mr Chick, making a desperate plunge, after a long
silence, and filling a glass of sherry; ‘I shall drink this, if you’ll
allow me, Sir, to little Paul.’
‘Bless him!’ murmured Miss Tox, taking a sip of wine.
‘Dear little Dombey!’ murmured Mrs Chick.
‘Mr John,’ said Mr Dombey, with severe gravity, ‘my son would feel and
express himself obliged to you, I have no doubt, if he could appreciate
the favour you have done him. He will prove, in time to come, I trust,
equal to any responsibility that the obliging disposition of his
relations and friends, in private, or the onerous nature of our
position, in public, may impose upon him.’
The tone in which this was said admitting of nothing more, Mr Chick
relapsed into low spirits and silence. Not so Miss Tox, who, having
listened to Mr Dombey with even a more emphatic attention than usual,
and with a more expressive tendency of her head to one side, now leant
across the table, and said to Mrs Chick softly:
‘Louisa!’
‘My dear,’ said Mrs Chick.
‘Onerous nature of our position in public may--I have forgotten
the exact term.’
‘Expose him to,’ said Mrs Chick.
‘Pardon me, my dear,’ returned Miss Tox, ‘I think not. It was more
rounded and flowing. Obliging disposition of relations and friends in
private, or onerous nature of position in public--may--impose upon him!’
‘Impose upon him, to be sure,’ said Mrs Chick.
Miss Tox struck her delicate hands together lightly, in triumph; and
added, casting up her eyes, ‘eloquence indeed!’
Mr Dombey, in the meanwhile, had issued orders for the attendance of
Richards, who now entered curtseying, but without the baby; Paul being
asleep after the fatigues of the morning. Mr Dombey, having delivered a
glass of wine to this vassal, addressed her in the following words: Miss
Tox previously settling her head on one side, and making other little
arrangements for engraving them on her heart.
‘During the six months or so, Richards, which have seen you an inmate
of this house, you have done your duty. Desiring to connect some little
service to you with this occasion, I considered how I could best effect
that object, and I also advised with my sister, Mrs--’
‘Chick,’ interposed the gentleman of that name.
‘Oh, hush if you please!’ said Miss Tox.
‘I was about to say to you, Richards,’ resumed Mr Dombey, with an
appalling glance at Mr John, ‘that I was further assisted in my
decision, by the recollection of a conversation I held with your husband
in this room, on the occasion of your being hired, when he disclosed to
me the melancholy fact that your family, himself at the head, were sunk
and steeped in ignorance.’
Richards quailed under the magnificence of the reproof.
‘I am far from being friendly,’ pursued Mr Dombey, ‘to what is called by
persons of levelling sentiments, general education. But it is necessary
that the inferior classes should continue to be taught to know their
position, and to conduct themselves properly. So far I approve of
schools. Having the power of nominating a child on the foundation of an
ancient establishment, called (from a worshipful company) the Charitable
Grinders; where not only is a wholesome education bestowed upon the
scholars, but where a dress and badge is likewise provided for them;
I have (first communicating, through Mrs Chick, with your family)
nominated your eldest son to an existing vacancy; and he has this day, I
am informed, assumed the habit. The number of her son, I believe,’ said
Mr Dombey, turning to his sister and speaking of the child as if he were
a hackney-coach, is one hundred and forty-seven. Louisa, you can tell
her.’
‘One hundred and forty-seven,’ said Mrs Chick ‘The dress, Richards, is
a nice, warm, blue baize tailed coat and cap, turned up with orange
coloured binding; red worsted stockings; and very strong leather
small-clothes. One might wear the articles one’s self,’ said Mrs Chick,
with enthusiasm, ‘and be grateful.’
‘There, Richards!’ said Miss Tox. ‘Now, indeed, you may be proud. The
Charitable Grinders!’
‘I am sure I am very much obliged, Sir,’ returned Richards faintly, ‘and
take it very kind that you should remember my little ones.’ At the same
time a vision of Biler as a Charitable Grinder, with his very small legs
encased in the serviceable clothing described by Mrs Chick, swam before
Richards’s eyes, and made them water.
‘I am very glad to see you have so much feeling, Richards,’ said Miss
Tox.
‘It makes one almost hope, it really does,’ said Mrs Chick, who prided
herself on taking trustful views of human nature, ‘that there may yet be
some faint spark of gratitude and right feeling in the world.’
Richards deferred to these compliments by curtseying and murmuring
her thanks; but finding it quite impossible to recover her spirits from
the disorder into which they had been thrown by the image of her son in
his precocious nether garments, she gradually approached the door and
was heartily relieved to escape by it.
Such temporary indications of a partial thaw that had appeared with her,
vanished with her; and the frost set in again, as cold and hard as ever.
Mr Chick was twice heard to hum a tune at the bottom of the table, but
on both occasions it was a fragment of the Dead March in Saul. The party
seemed to get colder and colder, and to be gradually resolving itself
into a congealed and solid state, like the collation round which it was
assembled. At length Mrs Chick looked at Miss Tox, and Miss Tox returned
the look, and they both rose and said it was really time to go. Mr
Dombey receiving this announcement with perfect equanimity, they took
leave of that gentleman, and presently departed under the protection of
Mr Chick; who, when they had turned their backs upon the house and left
its master in his usual solitary state, put his hands in his pockets,
threw himself back in the carriage, and whistled ‘With a hey ho chevy!’
all through; conveying into his face as he did so, an expression of such
gloomy and terrible defiance, that Mrs Chick dared not protest, or in
any way molest him.
Richards, though she had little Paul on her lap, could not forget her
own first-born. She felt it was ungrateful; but the influence of the
day fell even on the Charitable Grinders, and she could hardly help
regarding his pewter badge, number one hundred and forty-seven, as,
somehow, a part of its formality and sternness. She spoke, too, in the
nursery, of his ‘blessed legs,’ and was again troubled by his spectre in
uniform.
‘I don’t know what I wouldn’t give,’ said Polly, ‘to see the poor little
dear before he gets used to ‘em.’
‘Why, then, I tell you what, Mrs Richards,’ retorted Nipper, who had
been admitted to her confidence, ‘see him and make your mind easy.’
‘Mr Dombey wouldn’t like it,’ said Polly.
‘Oh, wouldn’t he, Mrs Richards!’ retorted Nipper, ‘he’d like it very
much, I think when he was asked.’
‘You wouldn’t ask him, I suppose, at all?’ said Polly.
‘No, Mrs Richards, quite contrairy,’ returned Susan, ‘and them two
inspectors Tox and Chick, not intending to be on duty tomorrow, as I
heard ‘em say, me and Miss Floy will go along with you tomorrow morning,
and welcome, Mrs Richards, if you like, for we may as well walk there as
up and down a street, and better too.’
Polly rejected the idea pretty stoutly at first; but by little and
little she began to entertain it, as she entertained more and more
distinctly the forbidden pictures of her children, and her own home.
At length, arguing that there could be no great harm in calling for a
moment at the door, she yielded to the Nipper proposition.
The matter being settled thus, little Paul began to cry most piteously,
as if he had a foreboding that no good would come of it.
‘What’s the matter with the child?’ asked Susan.
‘He’s cold, I think,’ said Polly, walking with him to and fro, and
hushing him.
It was a bleak autumnal afternoon indeed; and as she walked, and hushed,
and, glancing through the dreary windows, pressed the little fellow
closer to her breast, the withered leaves came showering down.
CHAPTER 6. Paul’s Second Deprivation
Polly was beset by so many misgivings in the morning, that but for
the incessant promptings of her black-eyed companion, she would have
abandoned all thoughts of the expedition, and formally petitioned for
leave to see number one hundred and forty-seven, under the awful shadow
of Mr Dombey’s roof. But Susan who was personally disposed in favour
of the excursion, and who (like Tony Lumpkin), if she could bear the
disappointments of other people with tolerable fortitude, could not
abide to disappoint herself, threw so many ingenious doubts in the way
of this second thought, and stimulated the original intention with so
many ingenious arguments, that almost as soon as Mr Dombey’s stately
back was turned, and that gentleman was pursuing his daily road towards
the City, his unconscious son was on his way to Staggs’s Gardens.
This euphonious locality was situated in a suburb, known by the
inhabitants of Staggs’s Gardens by the name of Camberling Town; a
designation which the Strangers’ Map of London, as printed (with a
view to pleasant and commodious reference) on pocket handkerchiefs,
condenses, with some show of reason, into Camden Town. Hither the two
nurses bent their steps, accompanied by their charges; Richards carrying
Paul, of course, and Susan leading little Florence by the hand, and
giving her such jerks and pokes from time to time, as she considered it
wholesome to administer.
The first shock of a great earthquake had, just at that period, rent the
whole neighbourhood to its centre. Traces of its course were visible
on every side. Houses were knocked down; streets broken through and
stopped; deep pits and trenches dug in the ground; enormous heaps of
earth and clay thrown up; buildings that were undermined and shaking,
propped by great beams of wood. Here, a chaos of carts, overthrown and
jumbled together, lay topsy-turvy at the bottom of a steep unnatural
hill; there, confused treasures of iron soaked and rusted in something
that had accidentally become a pond. Everywhere were bridges that led
nowhere; thoroughfares that were wholly impassable; Babel towers
of chimneys, wanting half their height; temporary wooden houses
and enclosures, in the most unlikely situations; carcases of ragged
tenements, and fragments of unfinished walls and arches, and piles of
scaffolding, and wildernesses of bricks, and giant forms of cranes, and
tripods straddling above nothing. There were a hundred thousand shapes
and substances of incompleteness, wildly mingled out of their places,
upside down, burrowing in the earth, aspiring in the air, mouldering
in the water, and unintelligible as any dream. Hot springs and
fiery eruptions, the usual attendants upon earthquakes, lent their
contributions of confusion to the scene. Boiling water hissed and heaved
within dilapidated walls; whence, also, the glare and roar of flames
came issuing forth; and mounds of ashes blocked up rights of way, and
wholly changed the law and custom of the neighbourhood.
In short, the yet unfinished and unopened Railroad was in progress; and,
from the very core of all this dire disorder, trailed smoothly away,
upon its mighty course of civilisation and improvement.
But as yet, the neighbourhood was shy to own the Railroad. One or two
bold speculators had projected streets; and one had built a little,
but had stopped among the mud and ashes to consider farther of it. A
bran-new Tavern, redolent of fresh mortar and size, and fronting nothing
at all, had taken for its sign The Railway Arms; but that might be rash
enterprise--and then it hoped to sell drink to the workmen. So, the
Excavators’ House of Call had sprung up from a beer-shop; and the
old-established Ham and Beef Shop had become the Railway Eating House,
with a roast leg of pork daily, through interested motives of a similar
immediate and popular description. Lodging-house keepers were favourable
in like manner; and for the like reasons were not to be trusted. The
general belief was very slow. There were frowzy fields, and
cow-houses, and dunghills, and dustheaps, and ditches, and gardens,
and summer-houses, and carpet-beating grounds, at the very door of the
Railway. Little tumuli of oyster shells in the oyster season, and of
lobster shells in the lobster season, and of broken crockery and faded
cabbage leaves in all seasons, encroached upon its high places. Posts,
and rails, and old cautions to trespassers, and backs of mean houses,
and patches of wretched vegetation, stared it out of countenance.
Nothing was the better for it, or thought of being so. If the miserable
waste ground lying near it could have laughed, it would have laughed it
to scorn, like many of the miserable neighbours.
Staggs’s Gardens was uncommonly incredulous. It was a little row of
houses, with little squalid patches of ground before them, fenced off
with old doors, barrel staves, scraps of tarpaulin, and dead bushes;
with bottomless tin kettles and exhausted iron fenders, thrust into the
gaps. Here, the Staggs’s Gardeners trained scarlet beans, kept fowls
and rabbits, erected rotten summer-houses (one was an old boat), dried
clothes, and smoked pipes. Some were of opinion that Staggs’s Gardens
derived its name from a deceased capitalist, one Mr Staggs, who had
built it for his delectation. Others, who had a natural taste for the
country, held that it dated from those rural times when the antlered
herd, under the familiar denomination of Staggses, had resorted to its
shady precincts. Be this as it may, Staggs’s Gardens was regarded by
its population as a sacred grove not to be withered by Railroads; and so
confident were they generally of its long outliving any such ridiculous
inventions, that the master chimney-sweeper at the corner, who was
understood to take the lead in the local politics of the Gardens, had
publicly declared that on the occasion of the Railroad opening, if ever
it did open, two of his boys should ascend the flues of his dwelling,
with instructions to hail the failure with derisive cheers from the
chimney-pots.
To this unhallowed spot, the very name of which had hitherto been
carefully concealed from Mr Dombey by his sister, was little Paul now
borne by Fate and Richards
‘That’s my house, Susan,’ said Polly, pointing it out.
‘Is it, indeed, Mrs Richards?’ said Susan, condescendingly.
‘And there’s my sister Jemima at the door, I do declare’ cried Polly,
‘with my own sweet precious baby in her arms!’
The sight added such an extensive pair of wings to Polly’s impatience,
that she set off down the Gardens at a run, and bouncing on Jemima,
changed babies with her in a twinkling; to the unutterable astonishment
of that young damsel, on whom the heir of the Dombeys seemed to have
fallen from the clouds.
‘Why, Polly!’ cried Jemima. ‘You! what a turn you have given me! who’d
have thought it! come along in Polly! How well you do look to be sure!
The children will go half wild to see you Polly, that they will.’
That they did, if one might judge from the noise they made, and the
way in which they dashed at Polly and dragged her to a low chair in the
chimney corner, where her own honest apple face became immediately the
centre of a bunch of smaller pippins, all laying their rosy cheeks close
to it, and all evidently the growth of the same tree. As to Polly, she
was full as noisy and vehement as the children; and it was not until she
was quite out of breath, and her hair was hanging all about her flushed
face, and her new christening attire was very much dishevelled, that any
pause took place in the confusion. Even then, the smallest Toodle but
one remained in her lap, holding on tight with both arms round her neck;
while the smallest Toodle but two mounted on the back of the chair, and
made desperate efforts, with one leg in the air, to kiss her round the
corner.
‘Look! there’s a pretty little lady come to see you,’ said Polly; ‘and
see how quiet she is! what a beautiful little lady, ain’t she?’
This reference to Florence, who had been standing by the door not
unobservant of what passed, directed the attention of the younger
branches towards her; and had likewise the happy effect of leading to
the formal recognition of Miss Nipper, who was not quite free from a
misgiving that she had been already slighted.
‘Oh do come in and sit down a minute, Susan, please,’ said Polly. ‘This
is my sister Jemima, this is. Jemima, I don’t know what I should ever do
with myself, if it wasn’t for Susan Nipper; I shouldn’t be here now but
for her.’
‘Oh do sit down, Miss Nipper, if you please,’ quoth Jemima.
Susan took the extreme corner of a chair, with a stately and ceremonious
aspect.
‘I never was so glad to see anybody in all my life; now really I never
was, Miss Nipper,’ said Jemima.
Susan relaxing, took a little more of the chair, and smiled graciously.
‘Do untie your bonnet-strings, and make yourself at home, Miss Nipper,
please,’ entreated Jemima. ‘I am afraid it’s a poorer place than you’re
used to; but you’ll make allowances, I’m sure.’
The black-eyed was so softened by this deferential behaviour, that
she caught up little Miss Toodle who was running past, and took her to
Banbury Cross immediately.
‘But where’s my pretty boy?’ said Polly. ‘My poor fellow? I came all
this way to see him in his new clothes.’
‘Ah what a pity!’ cried Jemima. ‘He’ll break his heart, when he hears
his mother has been here. He’s at school, Polly.’
‘Gone already!’
‘Yes. He went for the first time yesterday, for fear he should lose any
learning. But it’s half-holiday, Polly: if you could only stop till he
comes home--you and Miss Nipper, leastways,’ said Jemima, mindful in
good time of the dignity of the black-eyed.
‘And how does he look, Jemima, bless him!’ faltered Polly.
‘Well, really he don’t look so bad as you’d suppose,’ returned Jemima.
‘Ah!’ said Polly, with emotion, ‘I knew his legs must be too short.’
‘His legs is short,’ returned Jemima; ‘especially behind; but they’ll get
longer, Polly, every day.’
It was a slow, prospective kind of consolation; but the cheerfulness and
good nature with which it was administered, gave it a value it did not
intrinsically possess. After a moment’s silence, Polly asked, in a more
sprightly manner:
‘And where’s Father, Jemima dear?’--for by that patriarchal appellation,
Mr Toodle was generally known in the family.
‘There again!’ said Jemima. ‘What a pity! Father took his dinner with
him this morning, and isn’t coming home till night. But he’s always
talking of you, Polly, and telling the children about you; and is the
peaceablest, patientest, best-temperedest soul in the world, as he
always was and will be!’
‘Thankee, Jemima,’ cried the simple Polly; delighted by the speech, and
disappointed by the absence.
‘Oh you needn’t thank me, Polly,’ said her sister, giving her a sounding
kiss upon the cheek, and then dancing little Paul cheerfully. ‘I say the
same of you sometimes, and think it too.’
In spite of the double disappointment, it was impossible to regard in
the light of a failure a visit which was greeted with such a reception;
so the sisters talked hopefully about family matters, and about Biler,
and about all his brothers and sisters: while the black-eyed, having
performed several journeys to Banbury Cross and back, took sharp note
of the furniture, the Dutch clock, the cupboard, the castle on
the mantel-piece with red and green windows in it, susceptible of
illumination by a candle-end within; and the pair of small black velvet
kittens, each with a lady’s reticule in its mouth; regarded by the
Staggs’s Gardeners as prodigies of imitative art. The conversation soon
becoming general lest the black-eyed should go off at score and turn
sarcastic, that young lady related to Jemima a summary of everything
she knew concerning Mr Dombey, his prospects, family, pursuits, and
character. Also an exact inventory of her personal wardrobe, and some
account of her principal relations and friends. Having relieved her mind
of these disclosures, she partook of shrimps and porter, and evinced a
disposition to swear eternal friendship.
Little Florence herself was not behind-hand in improving the occasion;
for, being conducted forth by the young Toodles to inspect some
toad-stools and other curiosities of the Gardens, she entered with them,
heart and soul, on the formation of a temporary breakwater across a
small green pool that had collected in a corner. She was still busily
engaged in that labour, when sought and found by Susan; who, such was
her sense of duty, even under the humanizing influence of shrimps,
delivered a moral address to her (punctuated with thumps) on her
degenerate nature, while washing her face and hands; and predicted that
she would bring the grey hairs of her family in general, with sorrow to
the grave. After some delay, occasioned by a pretty long confidential
interview above stairs on pecuniary subjects, between Polly and Jemima,
an interchange of babies was again effected--for Polly had all this
time retained her own child, and Jemima little Paul--and the visitors
took leave.
But first the young Toodles, victims of a pious fraud, were deluded into
repairing in a body to a chandler’s shop in the neighbourhood, for the
ostensible purpose of spending a penny; and when the coast was quite
clear, Polly fled: Jemima calling after her that if they could only go
round towards the City Road on their way back, they would be sure to
meet little Biler coming from school.
‘Do you think that we might make time to go a little round in that
direction, Susan?’ inquired Polly, when they halted to take breath.
‘Why not, Mrs Richards?’ returned Susan.
‘It’s getting on towards our dinner time you know,’ said Polly.
But lunch had rendered her companion more than indifferent to this grave
consideration, so she allowed no weight to it, and they resolved to go
‘a little round.’
Now, it happened that poor Biler’s life had been, since yesterday
morning, rendered weary by the costume of the Charitable Grinders. The
youth of the streets could not endure it. No young vagabond could be
brought to bear its contemplation for a moment, without throwing himself
upon the unoffending wearer, and doing him a mischief. His social
existence had been more like that of an early Christian, than an
innocent child of the nineteenth century. He had been stoned in the
streets. He had been overthrown into gutters; bespattered with mud;
violently flattened against posts. Entire strangers to his person had
lifted his yellow cap off his head, and cast it to the winds. His legs
had not only undergone verbal criticisms and revilings, but had been
handled and pinched. That very morning, he had received a perfectly
unsolicited black eye on his way to the Grinders’ establishment, and
had been punished for it by the master: a superannuated old Grinder
of savage disposition, who had been appointed schoolmaster because he
didn’t know anything, and wasn’t fit for anything, and for whose cruel
cane all chubby little boys had a perfect fascination.
Thus it fell out that Biler, on his way home, sought unfrequented
paths; and slunk along by narrow passages and back streets, to avoid
his tormentors. Being compelled to emerge into the main road, his ill
fortune brought him at last where a small party of boys, headed by a
ferocious young butcher, were lying in wait for any means of pleasurable
excitement that might happen. These, finding a Charitable Grinder in
the midst of them--unaccountably delivered over, as it were, into their
hands--set up a general yell and rushed upon him.
But it so fell out likewise, that, at the same time, Polly, looking
hopelessly along the road before her, after a good hour’s walk, had said
it was no use going any further, when suddenly she saw this sight. She
no sooner saw it than, uttering a hasty exclamation, and giving Master
Dombey to the black-eyed, she started to the rescue of her unhappy
little son.
Surprises, like misfortunes, rarely come alone. The astonished Susan
Nipper and her two young charges were rescued by the bystanders from
under the very wheels of a passing carriage before they knew what had
happened; and at that moment (it was market day) a thundering alarm of
‘Mad Bull!’ was raised.
With a wild confusion before her, of people running up and down, and
shouting, and wheels running over them, and boys fighting, and mad bulls
coming up, and the nurse in the midst of all these dangers being torn
to pieces, Florence screamed and ran. She ran till she was exhausted,
urging Susan to do the same; and then, stopping and wringing her hands
as she remembered they had left the other nurse behind, found, with a
sensation of terror not to be described, that she was quite alone.
‘Susan! Susan!’ cried Florence, clapping her hands in the very ecstasy
of her alarm. ‘Oh, where are they? where are they?’
‘Where are they?’ said an old woman, coming hobbling across as fast as
she could from the opposite side of the way. ‘Why did you run away from
‘em?’
‘I was frightened,’ answered Florence. ‘I didn’t know what I did. I
thought they were with me. Where are they?’
The old woman took her by the wrist, and said, ‘I’ll show you.’
She was a very ugly old woman, with red rims round her eyes, and a mouth
that mumbled and chattered of itself when she was not speaking. She was
miserably dressed, and carried some skins over her arm. She seemed to
have followed Florence some little way at all events, for she had lost
her breath; and this made her uglier still, as she stood trying to
regain it: working her shrivelled yellow face and throat into all sorts
of contortions.
Florence was afraid of her, and looked, hesitating, up the street, of
which she had almost reached the bottom. It was a solitary place--more a
back road than a street--and there was no one in it but her-self and the
old woman.
‘You needn’t be frightened now,’ said the old woman, still holding her
tight. ‘Come along with me.’
‘I--I don’t know you. What’s your name?’ asked Florence.
‘Mrs Brown,’ said the old woman. ‘Good Mrs Brown.’
‘Are they near here?’ asked Florence, beginning to be led away.
‘Susan ain’t far off,’ said Good Mrs Brown; ‘and the others are close to
her.’
‘Is anybody hurt?’ cried Florence.
‘Not a bit of it,’ said Good Mrs Brown.
The child shed tears of delight on hearing this, and accompanied the old
woman willingly; though she could not help glancing at her face as
they went along--particularly at that industrious mouth--and wondering
whether Bad Mrs Brown, if there were such a person, was at all like her.
They had not gone far, but had gone by some very uncomfortable places,
such as brick-fields and tile-yards, when the old woman turned down a
dirty lane, where the mud lay in deep black ruts in the middle of the
road. She stopped before a shabby little house, as closely shut up as
a house that was full of cracks and crevices could be. Opening the door
with a key she took out of her bonnet, she pushed the child before her
into a back room, where there was a great heap of rags of different
colours lying on the floor; a heap of bones, and a heap of sifted dust
or cinders; but there was no furniture at all, and the walls and ceiling
were quite black.
The child became so terrified the she was stricken speechless, and
looked as though about to swoon.
‘Now don’t be a young mule,’ said Good Mrs Brown, reviving her with a
shake. ‘I’m not a going to hurt you. Sit upon the rags.’
Florence obeyed her, holding out her folded hands, in mute supplication.
‘I’m not a going to keep you, even, above an hour,’ said Mrs Brown.
‘D’ye understand what I say?’
The child answered with great difficulty, ‘Yes.’
‘Then,’ said Good Mrs Brown, taking her own seat on the bones, ‘don’t
vex me. If you don’t, I tell you I won’t hurt you. But if you do, I’ll
kill you. I could have you killed at any time--even if you was in your
own bed at home. Now let’s know who you are, and what you are, and all
about it.’
The old woman’s threats and promises; the dread of giving her offence;
and the habit, unusual to a child, but almost natural to Florence now,
of being quiet, and repressing what she felt, and feared, and hoped;
enabled her to do this bidding, and to tell her little history, or what
she knew of it. Mrs Brown listened attentively, until she had finished.
‘So your name’s Dombey, eh?’ said Mrs Brown.
‘I want that pretty frock, Miss Dombey,’ said Good Mrs Brown, ‘and that
little bonnet, and a petticoat or two, and anything else you can spare.
Come! Take ‘em off.’
Florence obeyed, as fast as her trembling hands would allow; keeping,
all the while, a frightened eye on Mrs Brown. When she had divested
herself of all the articles of apparel mentioned by that lady, Mrs B.
examined them at leisure, and seemed tolerably well satisfied with their
quality and value.
‘Humph!’ she said, running her eyes over the child’s slight figure, ‘I
don’t see anything else--except the shoes. I must have the shoes, Miss
Dombey.’
Poor little Florence took them off with equal alacrity, only too glad
to have any more means of conciliation about her. The old woman then
produced some wretched substitutes from the bottom of the heap of rags,
which she turned up for that purpose; together with a girl’s cloak,
quite worn out and very old; and the crushed remains of a bonnet that
had probably been picked up from some ditch or dunghill. In this
dainty raiment, she instructed Florence to dress herself; and as such
preparation seemed a prelude to her release, the child complied with
increased readiness, if possible.
In hurriedly putting on the bonnet, if that may be called a bonnet which
was more like a pad to carry loads on, she caught it in her hair which
grew luxuriantly, and could not immediately disentangle it. Good
Mrs Brown whipped out a large pair of scissors, and fell into an
unaccountable state of excitement.
‘Why couldn’t you let me be!’ said Mrs Brown, ‘when I was contented? You
little fool!’
‘I beg your pardon. I don’t know what I have done,’ panted Florence. ‘I
couldn’t help it.’
‘Couldn’t help it!’ cried Mrs Brown. ‘How do you expect I can help
it? Why, Lord!’ said the old woman, ruffling her curls with a furious
pleasure, ‘anybody but me would have had ‘em off, first of all.’
Florence was so relieved to find that it was only her hair and not
her head which Mrs Brown coveted, that she offered no resistance or
entreaty, and merely raised her mild eyes towards the face of that good
soul.
‘If I hadn’t once had a gal of my own--beyond seas now--that was proud
of her hair,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘I’d have had every lock of it. She’s far
away, she’s far away! Oho! Oho!’
Mrs Brown’s was not a melodious cry, but, accompanied with a wild
tossing up of her lean arms, it was full of passionate grief, and
thrilled to the heart of Florence, whom it frightened more than ever.
It had its part, perhaps, in saving her curls; for Mrs Brown, after
hovering about her with the scissors for some moments, like a new kind
of butterfly, bade her hide them under the bonnet and let no trace of
them escape to tempt her. Having accomplished this victory over herself,
Mrs Brown resumed her seat on the bones, and smoked a very short black
pipe, mowing and mumbling all the time, as if she were eating the stem.
When the pipe was smoked out, she gave the child a rabbit-skin to carry,
that she might appear the more like her ordinary companion, and told her
that she was now going to lead her to a public street whence she could
inquire her way to her friends. But she cautioned her, with threats of
summary and deadly vengeance in case of disobedience, not to talk to
strangers, nor to repair to her own home (which may have been too near
for Mrs Brown’s convenience), but to her father’s office in the City;
also to wait at the street corner where she would be left, until the
clock struck three. These directions Mrs Brown enforced with assurances
that there would be potent eyes and ears in her employment cognizant
of all she did; and these directions Florence promised faithfully and
earnestly to observe.
At length, Mrs Brown, issuing forth, conducted her changed and ragged
little friend through a labyrinth of narrow streets and lanes and
alleys, which emerged, after a long time, upon a stable yard, with a
gateway at the end, whence the roar of a great thoroughfare made itself
audible. Pointing out this gateway, and informing Florence that when the
clocks struck three she was to go to the left, Mrs Brown, after making a
parting grasp at her hair which seemed involuntary and quite beyond her
own control, told her she knew what to do, and bade her go and do it:
remembering that she was watched.
With a lighter heart, but still sore afraid, Florence felt herself
released, and tripped off to the corner. When she reached it, she looked
back and saw the head of Good Mrs Brown peeping out of the low wooden
passage, where she had issued her parting injunctions; likewise the fist
of Good Mrs Brown shaking towards her. But though she often looked back
afterwards--every minute, at least, in her nervous recollection of the
old woman--she could not see her again.
Florence remained there, looking at the bustle in the street, and more
and more bewildered by it; and in the meanwhile the clocks appeared to
have made up their minds never to strike three any more. At last the
steeples rang out three o’clock; there was one close by, so she couldn’t
be mistaken; and--after often looking over her shoulder, and often going
a little way, and as often coming back again, lest the all-powerful
spies of Mrs Brown should take offence--she hurried off, as fast as she
could in her slipshod shoes, holding the rabbit-skin tight in her hand.
All she knew of her father’s offices was that they belonged to Dombey
and Son, and that that was a great power belonging to the City. So
she could only ask the way to Dombey and Son’s in the City; and as
she generally made inquiry of children--being afraid to ask grown
people--she got very little satisfaction indeed. But by dint of asking
her way to the City after a while, and dropping the rest of her inquiry
for the present, she really did advance, by slow degrees, towards the
heart of that great region which is governed by the terrible Lord Mayor.
Tired of walking, repulsed and pushed about, stunned by the noise and
confusion, anxious for her brother and the nurses, terrified by what she
had undergone, and the prospect of encountering her angry father in such
an altered state; perplexed and frightened alike by what had passed, and
what was passing, and what was yet before her; Florence went upon her
weary way with tearful eyes, and once or twice could not help stopping
to ease her bursting heart by crying bitterly. But few people noticed
her at those times, in the garb she wore: or if they did, believed that
she was tutored to excite compassion, and passed on. Florence, too,
called to her aid all the firmness and self-reliance of a character that
her sad experience had prematurely formed and tried: and keeping the end
she had in view steadily before her, steadily pursued it.
It was full two hours later in the afternoon than when she had started
on this strange adventure, when, escaping from the clash and clangour
of a narrow street full of carts and waggons, she peeped into a kind
of wharf or landing-place upon the river-side, where there were a great
many packages, casks, and boxes, strewn about; a large pair of wooden
scales; and a little wooden house on wheels, outside of which, looking
at the neighbouring masts and boats, a stout man stood whistling, with
his pen behind his ear, and his hands in his pockets, as if his day’s
work were nearly done.
‘Now then!’ said this man, happening to turn round. ‘We haven’t got
anything for you, little girl. Be off!’
‘If you please, is this the City?’ asked the trembling daughter of the
Dombeys.
‘Ah! It’s the City. You know that well enough, I daresay. Be off! We
haven’t got anything for you.’
‘I don’t want anything, thank you,’ was the timid answer. ‘Except to
know the way to Dombey and Son’s.’
The man who had been strolling carelessly towards her, seemed surprised
by this reply, and looking attentively in her face, rejoined:
‘Why, what can you want with Dombey and Son’s?’
‘To know the way there, if you please.’
The man looked at her yet more curiously, and rubbed the back of his
head so hard in his wonderment that he knocked his own hat off.
‘Joe!’ he called to another man--a labourer--as he picked it up and put
it on again.
‘Joe it is!’ said Joe.
‘Where’s that young spark of Dombey’s who’s been watching the shipment
of them goods?’
‘Just gone, by t’other gate,’ said Joe.
‘Call him back a minute.’
Joe ran up an archway, bawling as he went, and very soon returned
with a blithe-looking boy.
‘You’re Dombey’s jockey, ain’t you?’ said the first man.
‘I’m in Dombey’s House, Mr Clark,’ returned the boy.
‘Look’ye here, then,’ said Mr Clark.
Obedient to the indication of Mr Clark’s hand, the boy approached
towards Florence, wondering, as well he might, what he had to do with
her. But she, who had heard what passed, and who, besides the relief
of so suddenly considering herself safe at her journey’s end, felt
reassured beyond all measure by his lively youthful face and manner, ran
eagerly up to him, leaving one of the slipshod shoes upon the ground and
caught his hand in both of hers.
‘I am lost, if you please!’ said Florence.
‘Lost!’ cried the boy.
‘Yes, I was lost this morning, a long way from here--and I have had my
clothes taken away, since--and I am not dressed in my own now--and my
name is Florence Dombey, my little brother’s only sister--and, oh dear,
dear, take care of me, if you please!’ sobbed Florence, giving full vent
to the childish feelings she had so long suppressed, and bursting into
tears. At the same time her miserable bonnet falling off, her hair
came tumbling down about her face: moving to speechless admiration
and commiseration, young Walter, nephew of Solomon Gills, Ships’
Instrument-maker in general.
Mr Clark stood rapt in amazement: observing under his breath, I never
saw such a start on this wharf before. Walter picked up the shoe, and
put it on the little foot as the Prince in the story might have fitted
Cinderella’s slipper on. He hung the rabbit-skin over his left arm;
gave the right to Florence; and felt, not to say like Richard
Whittington--that is a tame comparison--but like Saint George of
England, with the dragon lying dead before him.
‘Don’t cry, Miss Dombey,’ said Walter, in a transport of enthusiasm.
‘What a wonderful thing for me that I am here! You are as safe now as if
you were guarded by a whole boat’s crew of picked men from a man-of-war.
Oh, don’t cry.’
‘I won’t cry any more,’ said Florence. ‘I am only crying for joy.’
‘Crying for joy!’ thought Walter, ‘and I’m the cause of it! Come along,
Miss Dombey. There’s the other shoe off now! Take mine, Miss Dombey.’
‘No, no, no,’ said Florence, checking him in the act of impetuously
pulling off his own. ‘These do better. These do very well.’
‘Why, to be sure,’ said Walter, glancing at her foot, ‘mine are a mile
too large. What am I thinking about! You never could walk in mine! Come
along, Miss Dombey. Let me see the villain who will dare molest you
now.’
So Walter, looking immensely fierce, led off Florence, looking very
happy; and they went arm-in-arm along the streets, perfectly indifferent
to any astonishment that their appearance might or did excite by the
way.
It was growing dark and foggy, and beginning to rain too; but they cared
nothing for this: being both wholly absorbed in the late adventures of
Florence, which she related with the innocent good faith and confidence
of her years, while Walter listened as if, far from the mud and grease
of Thames Street, they were rambling alone among the broad leaves and
tall trees of some desert island in the tropics--as he very likely
fancied, for the time, they were.
‘Have we far to go?’ asked Florence at last, lilting up her eyes to her
companion’s face.
‘Ah! By-the-bye,’ said Walter, stopping, ‘let me see; where are we? Oh!
I know. But the offices are shut up now, Miss Dombey. There’s nobody
there. Mr Dombey has gone home long ago. I suppose we must go home too?
or, stay. Suppose I take you to my Uncle’s, where I live--it’s very near
here--and go to your house in a coach to tell them you are safe, and
bring you back some clothes. Won’t that be best?’
‘I think so,’ answered Florence. ‘Don’t you? What do you think?’
As they stood deliberating in the street, a man passed them, who glanced
quickly at Walter as he went by, as if he recognised him; but seeming to
correct that first impression, he passed on without stopping.
‘Why, I think it’s Mr Carker,’ said Walter. ‘Carker in our House. Not
Carker our Manager, Miss Dombey--the other Carker; the Junior--Halloa!
Mr Carker!’
‘Is that Walter Gay?’ said the other, stopping and returning. ‘I
couldn’t believe it, with such a strange companion.’
As he stood near a lamp, listening with surprise to Walter’s hurried
explanation, he presented a remarkable contrast to the two youthful
figures arm-in-arm before him. He was not old, but his hair was white;
his body was bent, or bowed as if by the weight of some great trouble:
and there were deep lines in his worn and melancholy face. The fire of
his eyes, the expression of his features, the very voice in which he
spoke, were all subdued and quenched, as if the spirit within him lay
in ashes. He was respectably, though very plainly dressed, in black; but
his clothes, moulded to the general character of his figure, seemed
to shrink and abase themselves upon him, and to join in the sorrowful
solicitation which the whole man from head to foot expressed, to be left
unnoticed, and alone in his humility.
And yet his interest in youth and hopefulness was not extinguished
with the other embers of his soul, for he watched the boy’s earnest
countenance as he spoke with unusual sympathy, though with an
inexplicable show of trouble and compassion, which escaped into his
looks, however hard he strove to hold it prisoner. When Walter, in
conclusion, put to him the question he had put to Florence, he still
stood glancing at him with the same expression, as if he had read some
fate upon his face, mournfully at variance with its present brightness.
‘What do you advise, Mr Carker?’ said Walter, smiling. ‘You always give
me good advice, you know, when you do speak to me. That’s not often,
though.’
‘I think your own idea is the best,’ he answered: looking from Florence
to Walter, and back again.
‘Mr Carker,’ said Walter, brightening with a generous thought, ‘Come!
Here’s a chance for you. Go you to Mr Dombey’s, and be the messenger of
good news. It may do you some good, Sir. I’ll remain at home. You shall
go.’
‘I!’ returned the other.
‘Yes. Why not, Mr Carker?’ said the boy.
He merely shook him by the hand in answer; he seemed in a manner ashamed
and afraid even to do that; and bidding him good-night, and advising him
to make haste, turned away.
‘Come, Miss Dombey,’ said Walter, looking after him as they turned away
also, ‘we’ll go to my Uncle’s as quick as we can. Did you ever hear Mr
Dombey speak of Mr Carker the Junior, Miss Florence?’
‘No,’ returned the child, mildly, ‘I don’t often hear Papa speak.’
‘Ah! true! more shame for him,’ thought Walter. After a minute’s pause,
during which he had been looking down upon the gentle patient little
face moving on at his side, he said, ‘The strangest man, Mr Carker
the Junior is, Miss Florence, that ever you heard of. If you could
understand what an extraordinary interest he takes in me, and yet how he
shuns me and avoids me; and what a low place he holds in our office, and
how he is never advanced, and never complains, though year after year
he sees young men passed over his head, and though his brother (younger
than he is), is our head Manager, you would be as much puzzled about him
as I am.’
As Florence could hardly be expected to understand much about it, Walter
bestirred himself with his accustomed boyish animation and restlessness
to change the subject; and one of the unfortunate shoes coming off again
opportunely, proposed to carry Florence to his uncle’s in his arms.
Florence, though very tired, laughingly declined the proposal, lest
he should let her fall; and as they were already near the wooden
Midshipman, and as Walter went on to cite various precedents, from
shipwrecks and other moving accidents, where younger boys than he had
triumphantly rescued and carried off older girls than Florence, they
were still in full conversation about it when they arrived at the
Instrument-maker’s door.
‘Holloa, Uncle Sol!’ cried Walter, bursting into the shop, and speaking
incoherently and out of breath, from that time forth, for the rest of
the evening. ‘Here’s a wonderful adventure! Here’s Mr Dombey’s daughter
lost in the streets, and robbed of her clothes by an old witch of a
woman--found by me--brought home to our parlour to rest--look here!’
‘Good Heaven!’ said Uncle Sol, starting back against his favourite
compass-case. ‘It can’t be! Well, I--’
‘No, nor anybody else,’ said Walter, anticipating the rest. ‘Nobody
would, nobody could, you know. Here! just help me lift the little sofa
near the fire, will you, Uncle Sol--take care of the plates--cut some
dinner for her, will you, Uncle--throw those shoes under the grate. Miss
Florence--put your feet on the fender to dry--how damp they are--here’s
an adventure, Uncle, eh?--God bless my soul, how hot I am!’
Solomon Gills was quite as hot, by sympathy, and in excessive
bewilderment. He patted Florence’s head, pressed her to eat, pressed
her to drink, rubbed the soles of her feet with his pocket-handkerchief
heated at the fire, followed his locomotive nephew with his eyes, and
ears, and had no clear perception of anything except that he was being
constantly knocked against and tumbled over by that excited young
gentleman, as he darted about the room attempting to accomplish twenty
things at once, and doing nothing at all.
‘Here, wait a minute, Uncle,’ he continued, catching up a candle, ‘till
I run upstairs, and get another jacket on, and then I’ll be off. I say,
Uncle, isn’t this an adventure?’
‘My dear boy,’ said Solomon, who, with his spectacles on his forehead
and the great chronometer in his pocket, was incessantly oscillating
between Florence on the sofa, and his nephew in all parts of the
parlour, ‘it’s the most extraordinary--’
‘No, but do, Uncle, please--do, Miss Florence--dinner, you know, Uncle.’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ cried Solomon, cutting instantly into a leg of mutton,
as if he were catering for a giant. ‘I’ll take care of her, Wally! I
understand. Pretty dear! Famished, of course. You go and get ready. Lord
bless me! Sir Richard Whittington thrice Lord Mayor of London.’
Walter was not very long in mounting to his lofty garret and descending
from it, but in the meantime Florence, overcome by fatigue, had sunk
into a doze before the fire. The short interval of quiet, though only
a few minutes in duration, enabled Solomon Gills so far to collect his
wits as to make some little arrangements for her comfort, and to darken
the room, and to screen her from the blaze. Thus, when the boy returned,
she was sleeping peacefully.
‘That’s capital!’ he whispered, giving Solomon such a hug that it
squeezed a new expression into his face. ‘Now I’m off. I’ll just take a
crust of bread with me, for I’m very hungry--and don’t wake her, Uncle
Sol.’
‘No, no,’ said Solomon. ‘Pretty child.’
‘Pretty, indeed!’ cried Walter. ‘I never saw such a face, Uncle Sol. Now
I’m off.’
‘That’s right,’ said Solomon, greatly relieved.
‘I say, Uncle Sol,’ cried Walter, putting his face in at the door.
‘Here he is again,’ said Solomon.
‘How does she look now?’
‘Quite happy,’ said Solomon.
‘That’s famous! now I’m off.’
‘I hope you are,’ said Solomon to himself.
‘I say, Uncle Sol,’ cried Walter, reappearing at the door.
‘Here he is again!’ said Solomon.
‘We met Mr Carker the Junior in the street, queerer than ever. He bade
me good-bye, but came behind us here--there’s an odd thing!--for when we
reached the shop door, I looked round, and saw him going quietly away,
like a servant who had seen me home, or a faithful dog. How does she
look now, Uncle?’
‘Pretty much the same as before, Wally,’ replied Uncle Sol.
‘That’s right. Now I am off!’
And this time he really was: and Solomon Gills, with no appetite for
dinner, sat on the opposite side of the fire, watching Florence in
her slumber, building a great many airy castles of the most fantastic
architecture; and looking, in the dim shade, and in the close vicinity
of all the instruments, like a magician disguised in a Welsh wig and a
suit of coffee colour, who held the child in an enchanted sleep.
In the meantime, Walter proceeded towards Mr Dombey’s house at a pace
seldom achieved by a hack horse from the stand; and yet with his head
out of window every two or three minutes, in impatient remonstrance
with the driver. Arriving at his journey’s end, he leaped out, and
breathlessly announcing his errand to the servant, followed him straight
into the library, we there was a great confusion of tongues, and where
Mr Dombey, his sister, and Miss Tox, Richards, and Nipper, were all
congregated together.
‘Oh! I beg your pardon, Sir,’ said Walter, rushing up to him, ‘but I’m
happy to say it’s all right, Sir. Miss Dombey’s found!’
The boy with his open face, and flowing hair, and sparkling eyes,
panting with pleasure and excitement, was wonderfully opposed to Mr
Dombey, as he sat confronting him in his library chair.
‘I told you, Louisa, that she would certainly be found,’ said Mr Dombey,
looking slightly over his shoulder at that lady, who wept in company
with Miss Tox. ‘Let the servants know that no further steps are
necessary. This boy who brings the information, is young Gay, from the
office. How was my daughter found, Sir? I know how she was lost.’ Here
he looked majestically at Richards. ‘But how was she found? Who found
her?’
‘Why, I believe I found Miss Dombey, Sir,’ said Walter modestly, ‘at
least I don’t know that I can claim the merit of having exactly found
her, Sir, but I was the fortunate instrument of--’
‘What do you mean, Sir,’ interrupted Mr Dombey, regarding the boy’s
evident pride and pleasure in his share of the transaction with an
instinctive dislike, ‘by not having exactly found my daughter, and by
being a fortunate instrument? Be plain and coherent, if you please.’
It was quite out of Walter’s power to be coherent; but he rendered
himself as explanatory as he could, in his breathless state, and stated
why he had come alone.
‘You hear this, girl?’ said Mr Dombey sternly to the black-eyed. ‘Take
what is necessary, and return immediately with this young man to fetch
Miss Florence home. Gay, you will be rewarded to-morrow.’
‘Oh! thank you, Sir,’ said Walter. ‘You are very kind. I’m sure I was
not thinking of any reward, Sir.’
‘You are a boy,’ said Mr Dombey, suddenly and almost fiercely; ‘and what
you think of, or affect to think of, is of little consequence. You
have done well, Sir. Don’t undo it. Louisa, please to give the lad some
wine.’
Mr Dombey’s glance followed Walter Gay with sharp disfavour, as he left
the room under the pilotage of Mrs Chick; and it may be that his mind’s
eye followed him with no greater relish, as he rode back to his Uncle’s
with Miss Susan Nipper.
There they found that Florence, much refreshed by sleep, had dined, and
greatly improved the acquaintance of Solomon Gills, with whom she was on
terms of perfect confidence and ease. The black-eyed (who had cried so
much that she might now be called the red-eyed, and who was very silent
and depressed) caught her in her arms without a word of contradiction or
reproach, and made a very hysterical meeting of it. Then converting the
parlour, for the nonce, into a private tiring room, she dressed her,
with great care, in proper clothes; and presently led her forth, as like
a Dombey as her natural disqualifications admitted of her being made.
‘Good-night!’ said Florence, running up to Solomon. ‘You have been very
good to me.’
Old Sol was quite delighted, and kissed her like her grand-father.
‘Good-night, Walter! Good-bye!’ said Florence.
‘Good-bye!’ said Walter, giving both his hands.
‘I’ll never forget you,’ pursued Florence. ‘No! indeed I never will.
Good-bye, Walter!’
In the innocence of her grateful heart, the child lifted up her face to
his. Walter, bending down his own, raised it again, all red and burning;
and looked at Uncle Sol, quite sheepishly.
‘Where’s Walter?’ ‘Good-night, Walter!’ ‘Good-bye, Walter!’ ‘Shake hands
once more, Walter!’ This was still Florence’s cry, after she was shut up
with her little maid, in the coach. And when the coach at length
moved off, Walter on the door-step gaily returned the waving of her
handkerchief, while the wooden Midshipman behind him seemed, like
himself, intent upon that coach alone, excluding all the other passing
coaches from his observation.
In good time Mr Dombey’s mansion was gained again, and again there was
a noise of tongues in the library. Again, too, the coach was ordered
to wait--‘for Mrs Richards,’ one of Susan’s fellow-servants ominously
whispered, as she passed with Florence.
The entrance of the lost child made a slight sensation, but not much. Mr
Dombey, who had never found her, kissed her once upon the forehead, and
cautioned her not to run away again, or wander anywhere with treacherous
attendants. Mrs Chick stopped in her lamentations on the corruption of
human nature, even when beckoned to the paths of virtue by a Charitable
Grinder; and received her with a welcome something short of the
reception due to none but perfect Dombeys. Miss Tox regulated her
feelings by the models before her. Richards, the culprit Richards, alone
poured out her heart in broken words of welcome, and bowed herself over
the little wandering head as if she really loved it.
‘Ah, Richards!’ said Mrs Chick, with a sigh. ‘It would have been much
more satisfactory to those who wish to think well of their fellow
creatures, and much more becoming in you, if you had shown some
proper feeling, in time, for the little child that is now going to be
prematurely deprived of its natural nourishment.
‘Cut off,’ said Miss Tox, in a plaintive whisper, ‘from one common
fountain!’
‘If it was my ungrateful case,’ said Mrs Chick, solemnly, ‘and I had your
reflections, Richards, I should feel as if the Charitable Grinders’
dress would blight my child, and the education choke him.’
For the matter of that--but Mrs Chick didn’t know it--he had been pretty
well blighted by the dress already; and as to the education, even its
retributive effect might be produced in time, for it was a storm of sobs
and blows.
‘Louisa!’ said Mr Dombey. ‘It is not necessary to prolong these
observations. The woman is discharged and paid. You leave this house,
Richards, for taking my son--my son,’ said Mr Dombey, emphatically
repeating these two words, ‘into haunts and into society which are not
to be thought of without a shudder. As to the accident which befel Miss
Florence this morning, I regard that as, in one great sense, a happy and
fortunate circumstance; inasmuch as, but for that occurrence, I never
could have known--and from your own lips too--of what you had been
guilty. I think, Louisa, the other nurse, the young person,’ here Miss
Nipper sobbed aloud, ‘being so much younger, and necessarily influenced
by Paul’s nurse, may remain. Have the goodness to direct that this
woman’s coach is paid to’--Mr Dombey stopped and winced--‘to Staggs’s
Gardens.’
Polly moved towards the door, with Florence holding to her dress, and
crying to her in the most pathetic manner not to go away. It was a
dagger in the haughty father’s heart, an arrow in his brain, to see how
the flesh and blood he could not disown clung to this obscure stranger,
and he sitting by. Not that he cared to whom his daughter turned, or
from whom turned away. The swift sharp agony struck through him, as he
thought of what his son might do.
His son cried lustily that night, at all events. Sooth to say, poor Paul
had better reason for his tears than sons of that age often have, for he
had lost his second mother--his first, so far as he knew--by a stroke
as sudden as that natural affliction which had darkened the beginning of
his life. At the same blow, his sister too, who cried herself to sleep
so mournfully, had lost as good and true a friend. But that is quite
beside the question. Let us waste no words about it.
CHAPTER 7. A Bird’s-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox’s Dwelling-place: also of
the State of Miss Tox’s Affections
Miss Tox inhabited a dark little house that had been squeezed, at some
remote period of English History, into a fashionable neighbourhood
at the west end of the town, where it stood in the shade like a poor
relation of the great street round the corner, coldly looked down
upon by mighty mansions. It was not exactly in a court, and it was
not exactly in a yard; but it was in the dullest of No-Thoroughfares,
rendered anxious and haggard by distant double knocks. The name of this
retirement, where grass grew between the chinks in the stone pavement,
was Princess’s Place; and in Princess’s Place was Princess’s Chapel,
with a tinkling bell, where sometimes as many as five-and-twenty people
attended service on a Sunday. The Princess’s Arms was also there, and
much resorted to by splendid footmen. A sedan chair was kept inside the
railing before the Princess’s Arms, but it had never come out within the
memory of man; and on fine mornings, the top of every rail (there were
eight-and-forty, as Miss Tox had often counted) was decorated with a
pewter-pot.
There was another private house besides Miss Tox’s in Princess’s
Place: not to mention an immense Pair of gates, with an immense pair of
lion-headed knockers on them, which were never opened by any chance, and
were supposed to constitute a disused entrance to somebody’s stables.
Indeed, there was a smack of stabling in the air of Princess’s Place;
and Miss Tox’s bedroom (which was at the back) commanded a vista of
Mews, where hostlers, at whatever sort of work engaged, were continually
accompanying themselves with effervescent noises; and where the most
domestic and confidential garments of coachmen and their wives and
families, usually hung, like Macbeth’s banners, on the outward walls.
At this other private house in Princess’s Place, tenanted by a retired
butler who had married a housekeeper, apartments were let Furnished, to
a single gentleman: to wit, a wooden-featured, blue-faced Major, with
his eyes starting out of his head, in whom Miss Tox recognised, as she
herself expressed it, ‘something so truly military;’ and between whom
and herself, an occasional interchange of newspapers and pamphlets,
and such Platonic dalliance, was effected through the medium of a dark
servant of the Major’s who Miss Tox was quite content to classify as a
‘native,’ without connecting him with any geographical idea whatever.
Perhaps there never was a smaller entry and staircase, than the entry
and staircase of Miss Tox’s house. Perhaps, taken altogether, from top
to bottom, it was the most inconvenient little house in England, and the
crookedest; but then, Miss Tox said, what a situation! There was very
little daylight to be got there in the winter: no sun at the best of
times: air was out of the question, and traffic was walled out. Still
Miss Tox said, think of the situation! So said the blue-faced Major,
whose eyes were starting out of his head: who gloried in Princess’s
Place: and who delighted to turn the conversation at his club, whenever
he could, to something connected with some of the great people in the
great street round the corner, that he might have the satisfaction of
saying they were his neighbours.
In short, with Miss Tox and the blue-faced Major, it was enough for
Princess’s Place--as with a very small fragment of society, it is enough
for many a little hanger-on of another sort--to be well connected, and
to have genteel blood in its veins. It might be poor, mean, shabby,
stupid, dull. No matter. The great street round the corner trailed off
into Princess’s Place; and that which of High Holborn would have become
a choleric word, spoken of Princess’s Place became flat blasphemy.
The dingy tenement inhabited by Miss Tox was her own; having been
devised and bequeathed to her by the deceased owner of the fishy eye
in the locket, of whom a miniature portrait, with a powdered head and
a pigtail, balanced the kettle-holder on opposite sides of the parlour
fireplace. The greater part of the furniture was of the powdered-head
and pig-tail period: comprising a plate-warmer, always languishing
and sprawling its four attenuated bow legs in somebody’s way; and an
obsolete harpsichord, illuminated round the maker’s name with a painted
garland of sweet peas. In any part of the house, visitors were usually
cognizant of a prevailing mustiness; and in warm weather Miss Tox
had been seen apparently writing in sundry chinks and crevices of
the wainscoat with the the wrong end of a pen dipped in spirits of
turpentine.
Although Major Bagstock had arrived at what is called in polite
literature, the grand meridian of life, and was proceeding on his
journey downhill with hardly any throat, and a very rigid pair
of jaw-bones, and long-flapped elephantine ears, and his eyes and
complexion in the state of artificial excitement already mentioned, he
was mightily proud of awakening an interest in Miss Tox, and tickled his
vanity with the fiction that she was a splendid woman who had her eye
on him. This he had several times hinted at the club: in connexion with
little jocularities, of which old Joe Bagstock, old Joey Bagstock, old
J. Bagstock, old Josh Bagstock, or so forth, was the perpetual theme:
it being, as it were, the Major’s stronghold and donjon-keep of light
humour, to be on the most familiar terms with his own name.
‘Joey B., Sir,’ the Major would say, with a flourish of his
walking-stick, ‘is worth a dozen of you. If you had a few more of the
Bagstock breed among you, Sir, you’d be none the worse for it. Old Joe,
Sir, needn’t look far for a wife even now, if he was on the look-out;
but he’s hard-hearted, Sir, is Joe--he’s tough, Sir, tough, and
de-vilish sly!’ After such a declaration, wheezing sounds would be
heard; and the Major’s blue would deepen into purple, while his eyes
strained and started convulsively.
Notwithstanding his very liberal laudation of himself, however, the
Major was selfish. It may be doubted whether there ever was a more
entirely selfish person at heart; or at stomach is perhaps a better
expression, seeing that he was more decidedly endowed with that latter
organ than with the former. He had no idea of being overlooked or
slighted by anybody; least of all, had he the remotest comprehension of
being overlooked and slighted by Miss Tox.
And yet, Miss Tox, as it appeared, forgot him--gradually forgot him. She
began to forget him soon after her discovery of the Toodle family. She
continued to forget him up to the time of the christening. She went on
forgetting him with compound interest after that. Something or somebody
had superseded him as a source of interest.
‘Good morning, Ma’am,’ said the Major, meeting Miss Tox in Princess’s
Place, some weeks after the changes chronicled in the last chapter.
‘Good morning, Sir,’ said Miss Tox; very coldly.
‘Joe Bagstock, Ma’am,’ observed the Major, with his usual gallantry,
‘has not had the happiness of bowing to you at your window, for a
considerable period. Joe has been hardly used, Ma’am. His sun has been
behind a cloud.’
Miss Tox inclined her head; but very coldly indeed.
‘Joe’s luminary has been out of town, Ma’am, perhaps,’ inquired the
Major.
‘I? out of town? oh no, I have not been out of town,’ said Miss Tox.
‘I have been much engaged lately. My time is nearly all devoted to some
very intimate friends. I am afraid I have none to spare, even now. Good
morning, Sir!’
As Miss Tox, with her most fascinating step and carriage, disappeared
from Princess’s Place, the Major stood looking after her with a bluer
face than ever: muttering and growling some not at all complimentary
remarks.
‘Why, damme, Sir,’ said the Major, rolling his lobster eyes round and
round Princess’s Place, and apostrophizing its fragrant air, ‘six months
ago, the woman loved the ground Josh Bagstock walked on. What’s the
meaning of it?’
The Major decided, after some consideration, that it meant mantraps;
that it meant plotting and snaring; that Miss Tox was digging pitfalls.
‘But you won’t catch Joe, Ma’am,’ said the Major. ‘He’s tough, Ma’am,
tough, is J.B. Tough, and de-vilish sly!’ over which reflection he
chuckled for the rest of the day.
But still, when that day and many other days were gone and past, it
seemed that Miss Tox took no heed whatever of the Major, and thought
nothing at all about him. She had been wont, once upon a time, to look
out at one of her little dark windows by accident, and blushingly return
the Major’s greeting; but now, she never gave the Major a chance,
and cared nothing at all whether he looked over the way or not. Other
changes had come to pass too. The Major, standing in the shade of his
own apartment, could make out that an air of greater smartness had
recently come over Miss Tox’s house; that a new cage with gilded wires
had been provided for the ancient little canary bird; that divers
ornaments, cut out of coloured card-boards and paper, seemed to decorate
the chimney-piece and tables; that a plant or two had suddenly sprung up
in the windows; that Miss Tox occasionally practised on the harpsichord,
whose garland of sweet peas was always displayed ostentatiously, crowned
with the Copenhagen and Bird Waltzes in a Music Book of Miss Tox’s own
copying.
Over and above all this, Miss Tox had long been dressed with uncommon
care and elegance in slight mourning. But this helped the Major out of
his difficulty; and he determined within himself that she had come into
a small legacy, and grown proud.
It was on the very next day after he had eased his mind by arriving
at this decision, that the Major, sitting at his breakfast, saw
an apparition so tremendous and wonderful in Miss Tox’s little
drawing-room, that he remained for some time rooted to his chair;
then, rushing into the next room, returned with a double-barrelled
opera-glass, through which he surveyed it intently for some minutes.
‘It’s a Baby, Sir,’ said the Major, shutting up the glass again, ‘for
fifty thousand pounds!’
The Major couldn’t forget it. He could do nothing but whistle, and stare
to that extent, that his eyes, compared with what they now became, had
been in former times quite cavernous and sunken. Day after day, two,
three, four times a week, this Baby reappeared. The Major continued to
stare and whistle. To all other intents and purposes he was alone in
Princess’s Place. Miss Tox had ceased to mind what he did. He might have
been black as well as blue, and it would have been of no consequence to
her.
The perseverance with which she walked out of Princess’s Place to fetch
this baby and its nurse, and walked back with them, and walked home
with them again, and continually mounted guard over them; and the
perseverance with which she nursed it herself, and fed it, and played
with it, and froze its young blood with airs upon the harpsichord, was
extraordinary. At about this same period too, she was seized with a
passion for looking at a certain bracelet; also with a passion for
looking at the moon, of which she would take long observations from
her chamber window. But whatever she looked at; sun, moon, stars, or
bracelet; she looked no more at the Major. And the Major whistled, and
stared, and wondered, and dodged about his room, and could make nothing
of it.
‘You’ll quite win my brother Paul’s heart, and that’s the truth, my
dear,’ said Mrs Chick, one day.
Miss Tox turned pale.
‘He grows more like Paul every day,’ said Mrs Chick.
Miss Tox returned no other reply than by taking the little Paul in her
arms, and making his cockade perfectly flat and limp with her caresses.
‘His mother, my dear,’ said Miss Tox, ‘whose acquaintance I was to have
made through you, does he at all resemble her?’
‘Not at all,’ returned Louisa
‘She was--she was pretty, I believe?’ faltered Miss Tox.
‘Why, poor dear Fanny was interesting,’ said Mrs Chick, after some
judicial consideration. ‘Certainly interesting. She had not that air
of commanding superiority which one would somehow expect, almost as
a matter of course, to find in my brother’s wife; nor had she that
strength and vigour of mind which such a man requires.’
Miss Tox heaved a deep sigh.
‘But she was pleasing:’ said Mrs Chick: ‘extremely so. And she
meant!--oh, dear, how well poor Fanny meant!’
‘You Angel!’ cried Miss Tox to little Paul. ‘You Picture of your own
Papa!’
If the Major could have known how many hopes and ventures, what a
multitude of plans and speculations, rested on that baby head; and
could have seen them hovering, in all their heterogeneous confusion
and disorder, round the puckered cap of the unconscious little Paul;
he might have stared indeed. Then would he have recognised, among the
crowd, some few ambitious motes and beams belonging to Miss Tox; then
would he perhaps have understood the nature of that lady’s faltering
investment in the Dombey Firm.
If the child himself could have awakened in the night, and seen,
gathered about his cradle-curtains, faint reflections of the dreams that
other people had of him, they might have scared him, with good reason.
But he slumbered on, alike unconscious of the kind intentions of Miss
Tox, the wonder of the Major, the early sorrows of his sister, and
the stern visions of his father; and innocent that any spot of earth
contained a Dombey or a Son.
CHAPTER 8. Paul’s Further Progress, Growth and Character
Beneath the watching and attentive eyes of Time--so far another
Major--Paul’s slumbers gradually changed. More and more light broke
in upon them; distincter and distincter dreams disturbed them; an
accumulating crowd of objects and impressions swarmed about his rest;
and so he passed from babyhood to childhood, and became a talking,
walking, wondering Dombey.
On the downfall and banishment of Richards, the nursery may be said to
have been put into commission: as a Public Department is sometimes, when
no individual Atlas can be found to support it The Commissioners were,
of course, Mrs Chick and Miss Tox: who devoted themselves to their
duties with such astonishing ardour that Major Bagstock had every day
some new reminder of his being forsaken, while Mr Chick, bereft of
domestic supervision, cast himself upon the gay world, dined at clubs
and coffee-houses, smelt of smoke on three different occasions, went to
the play by himself, and in short, loosened (as Mrs Chick once told him)
every social bond, and moral obligation.
Yet, in spite of his early promise, all this vigilance and care could
not make little Paul a thriving boy. Naturally delicate, perhaps, he
pined and wasted after the dismissal of his nurse, and, for a long time,
seemed but to wait his opportunity of gliding through their hands, and
seeking his lost mother. This dangerous ground in his steeple-chase
towards manhood passed, he still found it very rough riding, and was
grievously beset by all the obstacles in his course. Every tooth was a
break-neck fence, and every pimple in the measles a stone wall to him.
He was down in every fit of the hooping-cough, and rolled upon and
crushed by a whole field of small diseases, that came trooping on each
other’s heels to prevent his getting up again. Some bird of prey got
into his throat instead of the thrush; and the very chickens turning
ferocious--if they have anything to do with that infant malady to which
they lend their name--worried him like tiger-cats.
The chill of Paul’s christening had struck home, perhaps to some
sensitive part of his nature, which could not recover itself in the cold
shade of his father; but he was an unfortunate child from that day. Mrs
Wickam often said she never see a dear so put upon.
Mrs Wickam was a waiter’s wife--which would seem equivalent to being any
other man’s widow--whose application for an engagement in Mr Dombey’s
service had been favourably considered, on account of the apparent
impossibility of her having any followers, or anyone to follow; and who,
from within a day or two of Paul’s sharp weaning, had been engaged as
his nurse. Mrs Wickam was a meek woman, of a fair complexion, with her
eyebrows always elevated, and her head always drooping; who was always
ready to pity herself, or to be pitied, or to pity anybody else; and
who had a surprising natural gift of viewing all subjects in an utterly
forlorn and pitiable light, and bringing dreadful precedents to bear
upon them, and deriving the greatest consolation from the exercise of
that talent.
It is hardly necessary to observe, that no touch of this quality ever
reached the magnificent knowledge of Mr Dombey. It would have been
remarkable, indeed, if any had; when no one in the house--not even Mrs
Chick or Miss Tox--dared ever whisper to him that there had, on any one
occasion, been the least reason for uneasiness in reference to little
Paul. He had settled, within himself, that the child must necessarily
pass through a certain routine of minor maladies, and that the sooner
he did so the better. If he could have bought him off, or provided a
substitute, as in the case of an unlucky drawing for the militia, he
would have been glad to do so, on liberal terms. But as this was not
feasible, he merely wondered, in his haughty manner, now and then, what
Nature meant by it; and comforted himself with the reflection that there
was another milestone passed upon the road, and that the great end of
the journey lay so much the nearer. For the feeling uppermost in his
mind, now and constantly intensifying, and increasing in it as Paul grew
older, was impatience. Impatience for the time to come, when his visions
of their united consequence and grandeur would be triumphantly realized.
Some philosophers tell us that selfishness is at the root of our best
loves and affections. Mr Dombey’s young child was, from the beginning,
so distinctly important to him as a part of his own greatness, or (which
is the same thing) of the greatness of Dombey and Son, that there is no
doubt his parental affection might have been easily traced, like many
a goodly superstructure of fair fame, to a very low foundation. But he
loved his son with all the love he had. If there were a warm place in
his frosty heart, his son occupied it; if its very hard surface could
receive the impression of any image, the image of that son was there;
though not so much as an infant, or as a boy, but as a grown man--the
‘Son’ of the Firm. Therefore he was impatient to advance into the
future, and to hurry over the intervening passages of his history.
Therefore he had little or no anxiety about them, in spite of his love;
feeling as if the boy had a charmed life, and must become the man with
whom he held such constant communication in his thoughts, and for whom
he planned and projected, as for an existing reality, every day.
Thus Paul grew to be nearly five years old. He was a pretty little
fellow; though there was something wan and wistful in his small face,
that gave occasion to many significant shakes of Mrs Wickam’s head, and
many long-drawn inspirations of Mrs Wickam’s breath. His temper gave
abundant promise of being imperious in after-life; and he had as hopeful
an apprehension of his own importance, and the rightful subservience
of all other things and persons to it, as heart could desire. He was
childish and sportive enough at times, and not of a sullen disposition;
but he had a strange, old-fashioned, thoughtful way, at other times, of
sitting brooding in his miniature arm-chair, when he looked (and talked)
like one of those terrible little Beings in the Fairy tales, who, at a
hundred and fifty or two hundred years of age, fantastically represent
the children for whom they have been substituted. He would frequently
be stricken with this precocious mood upstairs in the nursery; and would
sometimes lapse into it suddenly, exclaiming that he was tired: even
while playing with Florence, or driving Miss Tox in single harness.
But at no time did he fall into it so surely, as when, his little chair
being carried down into his father’s room, he sat there with him after
dinner, by the fire. They were the strangest pair at such a time that
ever firelight shone upon. Mr Dombey so erect and solemn, gazing at the
glare; his little image, with an old, old face, peering into the red
perspective with the fixed and rapt attention of a sage. Mr Dombey
entertaining complicated worldly schemes and plans; the little image
entertaining Heaven knows what wild fancies, half-formed thoughts, and
wandering speculations. Mr Dombey stiff with starch and arrogance; the
little image by inheritance, and in unconscious imitation. The two so
very much alike, and yet so monstrously contrasted.
On one of these occasions, when they had both been perfectly quiet for
a long time, and Mr Dombey only knew that the child was awake by
occasionally glancing at his eye, where the bright fire was sparkling
like a jewel, little Paul broke silence thus:
‘Papa! what’s money?’
The abrupt question had such immediate reference to the subject of Mr
Dombey’s thoughts, that Mr Dombey was quite disconcerted.
‘What is money, Paul?’ he answered. ‘Money?’
‘Yes,’ said the child, laying his hands upon the elbows of his little
chair, and turning the old face up towards Mr Dombey’s; ‘what is money?’
Mr Dombey was in a difficulty. He would have liked to give him
some explanation involving the terms circulating-medium, currency,
depreciation of currency, paper, bullion, rates of exchange, value of
precious metals in the market, and so forth; but looking down at the
little chair, and seeing what a long way down it was, he answered:
‘Gold, and silver, and copper. Guineas, shillings, half-pence. You know
what they are?’
‘Oh yes, I know what they are,’ said Paul. ‘I don’t mean that, Papa. I
mean what’s money after all?’
Heaven and Earth, how old his face was as he turned it up again towards
his father’s!
‘What is money after all!’ said Mr Dombey, backing his chair a little,
that he might the better gaze in sheer amazement at the presumptuous
atom that propounded such an inquiry.
‘I mean, Papa, what can it do?’ returned Paul, folding his arms (they
were hardly long enough to fold), and looking at the fire, and up at
him, and at the fire, and up at him again.
Mr Dombey drew his chair back to its former place, and patted him on the
head. ‘You’ll know better by-and-by, my man,’ he said. ‘Money, Paul,
can do anything.’ He took hold of the little hand, and beat it softly
against one of his own, as he said so.
But Paul got his hand free as soon as he could; and rubbing it gently to
and fro on the elbow of his chair, as if his wit were in the palm, and
he were sharpening it--and looking at the fire again, as though the fire
had been his adviser and prompter--repeated, after a short pause:
‘Anything, Papa?’
‘Yes. Anything--almost,’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Anything means everything, don’t it, Papa?’ asked his son: not
observing, or possibly not understanding, the qualification.
‘It includes it: yes,’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Why didn’t money save me my Mama?’ returned the child. ‘It isn’t cruel,
is it?’
‘Cruel!’ said Mr Dombey, settling his neckcloth, and seeming to resent
the idea. ‘No. A good thing can’t be cruel.’
‘If it’s a good thing, and can do anything,’ said the little fellow,
thoughtfully, as he looked back at the fire, ‘I wonder why it didn’t
save me my Mama.’
He didn’t ask the question of his father this time. Perhaps he had
seen, with a child’s quickness, that it had already made his father
uncomfortable. But he repeated the thought aloud, as if it were quite
an old one to him, and had troubled him very much; and sat with his chin
resting on his hand, still cogitating and looking for an explanation in
the fire.
Mr Dombey having recovered from his surprise, not to say his alarm (for
it was the very first occasion on which the child had ever broached the
subject of his mother to him, though he had had him sitting by his side,
in this same manner, evening after evening), expounded to him how
that money, though a very potent spirit, never to be disparaged on any
account whatever, could not keep people alive whose time was come to
die; and how that we must all die, unfortunately, even in the City,
though we were never so rich. But how that money caused us to be
honoured, feared, respected, courted, and admired, and made us powerful
and glorious in the eyes of all men; and how that it could, very often,
even keep off death, for a long time together. How, for example, it had
secured to his Mama the services of Mr Pilkins, by which he, Paul, had
often profited himself; likewise of the great Doctor Parker Peps, whom
he had never known. And how it could do all, that could be done. This,
with more to the same purpose, Mr Dombey instilled into the mind of his
son, who listened attentively, and seemed to understand the greater part
of what was said to him.
‘It can’t make me strong and quite well, either, Papa; can it?’ asked
Paul, after a short silence; rubbing his tiny hands.
‘Why, you are strong and quite well,’ returned Mr Dombey. ‘Are you not?’
Oh! the age of the face that was turned up again, with an expression,
half of melancholy, half of slyness, on it!
‘You are as strong and well as such little people usually are? Eh?’ said
Mr Dombey.
‘Florence is older than I am, but I’m not as strong and well as
Florence, ‘I know,’ returned the child; ‘and I believe that when
Florence was as little as me, she could play a great deal longer at a
time without tiring herself. I am so tired sometimes,’ said little Paul,
warming his hands, and looking in between the bars of the grate, as if
some ghostly puppet-show were performing there, ‘and my bones ache so
(Wickam says it’s my bones), that I don’t know what to do.’
‘Ay! But that’s at night,’ said Mr Dombey, drawing his own chair closer
to his son’s, and laying his hand gently on his back; ‘little people
should be tired at night, for then they sleep well.’
‘Oh, it’s not at night, Papa,’ returned the child, ‘it’s in the day;
and I lie down in Florence’s lap, and she sings to me. At night I dream
about such cu-ri-ous things!’
And he went on, warming his hands again, and thinking about them, like
an old man or a young goblin.
Mr Dombey was so astonished, and so uncomfortable, and so perfectly at
a loss how to pursue the conversation, that he could only sit looking at
his son by the light of the fire, with his hand resting on his back, as
if it were detained there by some magnetic attraction. Once he advanced
his other hand, and turned the contemplative face towards his own for
a moment. But it sought the fire again as soon as he released it;
and remained, addressed towards the flickering blaze, until the nurse
appeared, to summon him to bed.
‘I want Florence to come for me,’ said Paul.
‘Won’t you come with your poor Nurse Wickam, Master Paul?’ inquired that
attendant, with great pathos.
‘No, I won’t,’ replied Paul, composing himself in his arm-chair again,
like the master of the house.
Invoking a blessing upon his innocence, Mrs Wickam withdrew, and
presently Florence appeared in her stead. The child immediately started
up with sudden readiness and animation, and raised towards his father in
bidding him good-night, a countenance so much brighter, so much younger,
and so much more child-like altogether, that Mr Dombey, while he felt
greatly reassured by the change, was quite amazed at it.
After they had left the room together, he thought he heard a soft voice
singing; and remembering that Paul had said his sister sung to him, he
had the curiosity to open the door and listen, and look after them. She
was toiling up the great, wide, vacant staircase, with him in her arms;
his head was lying on her shoulder, one of his arms thrown negligently
round her neck. So they went, toiling up; she singing all the way, and
Paul sometimes crooning out a feeble accompaniment. Mr Dombey looked
after them until they reached the top of the staircase--not without
halting to rest by the way--and passed out of his sight; and then he
still stood gazing upwards, until the dull rays of the moon, glimmering
in a melancholy manner through the dim skylight, sent him back to his
room.
Mrs Chick and Miss Tox were convoked in council at dinner next day;
and when the cloth was removed, Mr Dombey opened the proceedings by
requiring to be informed, without any gloss or reservation, whether
there was anything the matter with Paul, and what Mr Pilkins said about
him.
‘For the child is hardly,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘as stout as I could wish.’
‘My dear Paul,’ returned Mrs Chick, ‘with your usual happy
discrimination, which I am weak enough to envy you, every time I am in
your company; and so I think is Miss Tox.’
‘Oh my dear!’ said Miss Tox, softly, ‘how could it be otherwise?
Presumptuous as it is to aspire to such a level; still, if the bird of
night may--but I’ll not trouble Mr Dombey with the sentiment. It merely
relates to the Bulbul.’
Mr Dombey bent his head in stately recognition of the Bulbuls as an
old-established body.
‘With your usual happy discrimination, my dear Paul,’ resumed Mrs Chick,
‘you have hit the point at once. Our darling is altogether as stout as
we could wish. The fact is, that his mind is too much for him. His soul
is a great deal too large for his frame. I am sure the way in which
that dear child talks!’ said Mrs Chick, shaking her head; ‘no one would
believe. His expressions, Lucretia, only yesterday upon the subject of
Funerals!’
‘I am afraid,’ said Mr Dombey, interrupting her testily, ‘that some of
those persons upstairs suggest improper subjects to the child. He was
speaking to me last night about his--about his Bones,’ said Mr Dombey,
laying an irritated stress upon the word. ‘What on earth has anybody to
do with the--with the--Bones of my son? He is not a living skeleton, I
suppose.’
‘Very far from it,’ said Mrs Chick, with unspeakable expression.
‘I hope so,’ returned her brother. ‘Funerals again! who talks to the
child of funerals? We are not undertakers, or mutes, or grave-diggers, I
believe.’
‘Very far from it,’ interposed Mrs Chick, with the same profound
expression as before.
‘Then who puts such things into his head?’ said Mr Dombey. ‘Really I
was quite dismayed and shocked last night. Who puts such things into his
head, Louisa?’
‘My dear Paul,’ said Mrs Chick, after a moment’s silence, ‘it is of no
use inquiring. I do not think, I will tell you candidly that Wickam is a
person of very cheerful spirit, or what one would call a--’
‘A daughter of Momus,’ Miss Tox softly suggested.
‘Exactly so,’ said Mrs Chick; ‘but she is exceedingly attentive and
useful, and not at all presumptuous; indeed I never saw a more biddable
woman. I would say that for her, if I was put upon my trial before a
Court of Justice.’
‘Well! you are not put upon your trial before a Court of Justice, at
present, Louisa,’ returned Mr Dombey, chafing, ‘and therefore it don’t
matter.’
‘My dear Paul,’ said Mrs Chick, in a warning voice, ‘I must be spoken
to kindly, or there is an end of me,’ at the same time a premonitory
redness developed itself in Mrs Chick’s eyelids which was an invariable
sign of rain, unless the weather changed directly.
‘I was inquiring, Louisa,’ observed Mr Dombey, in an altered voice, and
after a decent interval, ‘about Paul’s health and actual state.’
‘If the dear child,’ said Mrs Chick, in the tone of one who was summing
up what had been previously quite agreed upon, instead of saying it all
for the first time, ‘is a little weakened by that last attack, and is
not in quite such vigorous health as we could wish; and if he has some
temporary weakness in his system, and does occasionally seem about to
lose, for the moment, the use of his--’
Mrs Chick was afraid to say limbs, after Mr Dombey’s recent objection to
bones, and therefore waited for a suggestion from Miss Tox, who, true to
her office, hazarded ‘members.’
‘Members!’ repeated Mr Dombey.
‘I think the medical gentleman mentioned legs this morning, my dear
Louisa, did he not?’ said Miss Tox.
‘Why, of course he did, my love,’ retorted Mrs Chick, mildly
reproachful. ‘How can you ask me? You heard him. I say, if our dear Paul
should lose, for the moment, the use of his legs, these are casualties
common to many children at his time of life, and not to be prevented
by any care or caution. The sooner you understand that, Paul, and admit
that, the better. If you have any doubt as to the amount of care, and
caution, and affection, and self-sacrifice, that has been bestowed
upon little Paul, I should wish to refer the question to your medical
attendant, or to any of your dependants in this house. Call Towlinson,’
said Mrs Chick, ‘I believe he has no prejudice in our favour; quite the
contrary. I should wish to hear what accusation Towlinson can make!’
‘Surely you must know, Louisa,’ observed Mr Dombey, ‘that I don’t
question your natural devotion to, and regard for, the future head of my
house.’
‘I am glad to hear it, Paul,’ said Mrs Chick; ‘but really you are very
odd, and sometimes talk very strangely, though without meaning it, I
know. If your dear boy’s soul is too much for his body, Paul, you should
remember whose fault that is--who he takes after, I mean--and make the
best of it. He’s as like his Papa as he can be. People have noticed it
in the streets. The very beadle, I am informed, observed it, so long ago
as at his christening. He’s a very respectable man, with children of his
own. He ought to know.’
‘Mr Pilkins saw Paul this morning, I believe?’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Yes, he did,’ returned his sister. ‘Miss Tox and myself were present.
Miss Tox and myself are always present. We make a point of it. Mr
Pilkins has seen him for some days past, and a very clever man I believe
him to be. He says it is nothing to speak of; which I can confirm,
if that is any consolation; but he recommended, to-day, sea-air. Very
wisely, Paul, I feel convinced.’
‘Sea-air,’ repeated Mr Dombey, looking at his sister.
‘There is nothing to be made uneasy by, in that,’ said Mrs Chick. ‘My
George and Frederick were both ordered sea-air, when they were about his
age; and I have been ordered it myself a great many times. I quite
agree with you, Paul, that perhaps topics may be incautiously mentioned
upstairs before him, which it would be as well for his little mind not
to expatiate upon; but I really don’t see how that is to be helped, in
the case of a child of his quickness. If he were a common child, there
would be nothing in it. I must say I think, with Miss Tox, that a short
absence from this house, the air of Brighton, and the bodily and mental
training of so judicious a person as Mrs Pipchin for instance--’
‘Who is Mrs Pipchin, Louisa?’ asked Mr Dombey; aghast at this familiar
introduction of a name he had never heard before.
‘Mrs Pipchin, my dear Paul,’ returned his sister, ‘is an elderly
lady--Miss Tox knows her whole history--who has for some time devoted
all the energies of her mind, with the greatest success, to the study
and treatment of infancy, and who has been extremely well connected. Her
husband broke his heart in--how did you say her husband broke his heart,
my dear? I forget the precise circumstances.
‘In pumping water out of the Peruvian Mines,’ replied Miss Tox.
‘Not being a Pumper himself, of course,’ said Mrs Chick, glancing at her
brother; and it really did seem necessary to offer the explanation, for
Miss Tox had spoken of him as if he had died at the handle; ‘but having
invested money in the speculation, which failed. I believe that Mrs
Pipchin’s management of children is quite astonishing. I have heard it
commended in private circles ever since I was--dear me--how high!’ Mrs
Chick’s eye wandered about the bookcase near the bust of Mr Pitt, which
was about ten feet from the ground.
‘Perhaps I should say of Mrs Pipchin, my dear Sir,’ observed Miss Tox,
with an ingenuous blush, ‘having been so pointedly referred to, that
the encomium which has been passed upon her by your sweet sister is
well merited. Many ladies and gentleman, now grown up to be interesting
members of society, have been indebted to her care. The humble
individual who addresses you was once under her charge. I believe
juvenile nobility itself is no stranger to her establishment.’
‘Do I understand that this respectable matron keeps an establishment,
Miss Tox?’ the Mr Dombey, condescendingly.
‘Why, I really don’t know,’ rejoined that lady, ‘whether I am justified
in calling it so. It is not a Preparatory School by any means. Should
I express my meaning,’ said Miss Tox, with peculiar sweetness, ‘if I
designated it an infantine Boarding-House of a very select description?’
‘On an exceedingly limited and particular scale,’ suggested Mrs Chick,
with a glance at her brother.
‘Oh! Exclusion itself!’ said Miss Tox.
There was something in this. Mrs Pipchin’s husband having broken his
heart of the Peruvian mines was good. It had a rich sound. Besides, Mr
Dombey was in a state almost amounting to consternation at the idea
of Paul remaining where he was one hour after his removal had been
recommended by the medical practitioner. It was a stoppage and delay
upon the road the child must traverse, slowly at the best, before the
goal was reached. Their recommendation of Mrs Pipchin had great weight
with him; for he knew that they were jealous of any interference with
their charge, and he never for a moment took it into account that they
might be solicitous to divide a responsibility, of which he had, as
shown just now, his own established views. Broke his heart of the
Peruvian mines, mused Mr Dombey. Well! a very respectable way of doing
It.
‘Supposing we should decide, on to-morrow’s inquiries, to send Paul down
to Brighton to this lady, who would go with him?’ inquired Mr Dombey,
after some reflection.
‘I don’t think you could send the child anywhere at present without
Florence, my dear Paul,’ returned his sister, hesitating. ‘It’s quite an
infatuation with him. He’s very young, you know, and has his fancies.’
Mr Dombey turned his head away, and going slowly to the bookcase, and
unlocking it, brought back a book to read.
‘Anybody else, Louisa?’ he said, without looking up, and turning over
the leaves.
‘Wickam, of course. Wickam would be quite sufficient, I should say,’
returned his sister. ‘Paul being in such hands as Mrs Pipchin’s, you
could hardly send anybody who would be a further check upon her. You
would go down yourself once a week at least, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Mr Dombey; and sat looking at one page for an hour
afterwards, without reading one word.
This celebrated Mrs Pipchin was a marvellous ill-favoured,
ill-conditioned old lady, of a stooping figure, with a mottled face,
like bad marble, a hook nose, and a hard grey eye, that looked as if it
might have been hammered at on an anvil without sustaining any injury.
Forty years at least had elapsed since the Peruvian mines had been the
death of Mr Pipchin; but his relict still wore black bombazeen, of such
a lustreless, deep, dead, sombre shade, that gas itself couldn’t light
her up after dark, and her presence was a quencher to any number of
candles. She was generally spoken of as ‘a great manager’ of children;
and the secret of her management was, to give them everything that they
didn’t like, and nothing that they did--which was found to sweeten their
dispositions very much. She was such a bitter old lady, that one was
tempted to believe there had been some mistake in the application of
the Peruvian machinery, and that all her waters of gladness and milk of
human kindness, had been pumped out dry, instead of the mines.
The Castle of this ogress and child-queller was in a steep by-street
at Brighton; where the soil was more than usually chalky, flinty, and
sterile, and the houses were more than usually brittle and thin; where
the small front-gardens had the unaccountable property of producing
nothing but marigolds, whatever was sown in them; and where snails were
constantly discovered holding on to the street doors, and other
public places they were not expected to ornament, with the tenacity of
cupping-glasses. In the winter time the air couldn’t be got out of the
Castle, and in the summer time it couldn’t be got in. There was such
a continual reverberation of wind in it, that it sounded like a great
shell, which the inhabitants were obliged to hold to their ears
night and day, whether they liked it or no. It was not, naturally, a
fresh-smelling house; and in the window of the front parlour, which was
never opened, Mrs Pipchin kept a collection of plants in pots, which
imparted an earthy flavour of their own to the establishment. However
choice examples of their kind, too, these plants were of a kind
peculiarly adapted to the embowerment of Mrs Pipchin. There were
half-a-dozen specimens of the cactus, writhing round bits of lath, like
hairy serpents; another specimen shooting out broad claws, like a green
lobster; several creeping vegetables, possessed of sticky and adhesive
leaves; and one uncomfortable flower-pot hanging to the ceiling, which
appeared to have boiled over, and tickling people underneath with
its long green ends, reminded them of spiders--in which Mrs Pipchin’s
dwelling was uncommonly prolific, though perhaps it challenged
competition still more proudly, in the season, in point of earwigs.
Mrs Pipchin’s scale of charges being high, however, to all who could
afford to pay, and Mrs Pipchin very seldom sweetening the equable
acidity of her nature in favour of anybody, she was held to be an old
‘lady of remarkable firmness, who was quite scientific in her knowledge
of the childish character.’ On this reputation, and on the broken heart
of Mr Pipchin, she had contrived, taking one year with another, to eke
out a tolerable sufficient living since her husband’s demise. Within
three days after Mrs Chick’s first allusion to her, this excellent old
lady had the satisfaction of anticipating a handsome addition to
her current receipts, from the pocket of Mr Dombey; and of receiving
Florence and her little brother Paul, as inmates of the Castle.
Mrs Chick and Miss Tox, who had brought them down on the previous night
(which they all passed at an Hotel), had just driven away from the door,
on their journey home again; and Mrs Pipchin, with her back to the fire,
stood, reviewing the new-comers, like an old soldier. Mrs Pipchin’s
middle-aged niece, her good-natured and devoted slave, but possessing a
gaunt and iron-bound aspect, and much afflicted with boils on her nose,
was divesting Master Bitherstone of the clean collar he had worn on
parade. Miss Pankey, the only other little boarder at present, had that
moment been walked off to the Castle Dungeon (an empty apartment at the
back, devoted to correctional purposes), for having sniffed thrice, in
the presence of visitors.
‘Well, Sir,’ said Mrs Pipchin to Paul, ‘how do you think you shall like
me?’
‘I don’t think I shall like you at all,’ replied Paul. ‘I want to go
away. This isn’t my house.’
‘No. It’s mine,’ retorted Mrs Pipchin.
‘It’s a very nasty one,’ said Paul.
‘There’s a worse place in it than this though,’ said Mrs Pipchin, ‘where
we shut up our bad boys.’
‘Has he ever been in it?’ asked Paul: pointing out Master Bitherstone.
Mrs Pipchin nodded assent; and Paul had enough to do, for the rest
of that day, in surveying Master Bitherstone from head to foot,
and watching all the workings of his countenance, with the interest
attaching to a boy of mysterious and terrible experiences.
At one o’clock there was a dinner, chiefly of the farinaceous and
vegetable kind, when Miss Pankey (a mild little blue-eyed morsel of a
child, who was shampoo’d every morning, and seemed in danger of being
rubbed away, altogether) was led in from captivity by the ogress
herself, and instructed that nobody who sniffed before visitors ever
went to Heaven. When this great truth had been thoroughly impressed upon
her, she was regaled with rice; and subsequently repeated the form of
grace established in the Castle, in which there was a special clause,
thanking Mrs Pipchin for a good dinner. Mrs Pipchin’s niece, Berinthia,
took cold pork. Mrs Pipchin, whose constitution required warm
nourishment, made a special repast of mutton-chops, which were brought
in hot and hot, between two plates, and smelt very nice.
As it rained after dinner, and they couldn’t go out walking on the
beach, and Mrs Pipchin’s constitution required rest after chops, they
went away with Berry (otherwise Berinthia) to the Dungeon; an empty room
looking out upon a chalk wall and a water-butt, and made ghastly by a
ragged fireplace without any stove in it. Enlivened by company, however,
this was the best place after all; for Berry played with them there, and
seemed to enjoy a game at romps as much as they did; until Mrs Pipchin
knocking angrily at the wall, like the Cock Lane Ghost revived, they
left off, and Berry told them stories in a whisper until twilight.
For tea there was plenty of milk and water, and bread and butter, with
a little black tea-pot for Mrs Pipchin and Berry, and buttered toast
unlimited for Mrs Pipchin, which was brought in, hot and hot, like the
chops. Though Mrs Pipchin got very greasy, outside, over this dish, it
didn’t seem to lubricate her internally, at all; for she was as fierce
as ever, and the hard grey eye knew no softening.
After tea, Berry brought out a little work-box, with the Royal Pavilion
on the lid, and fell to working busily; while Mrs Pipchin, having put on
her spectacles and opened a great volume bound in green baize, began to
nod. And whenever Mrs Pipchin caught herself falling forward into the
fire, and woke up, she filliped Master Bitherstone on the nose for
nodding too.
At last it was the children’s bedtime, and after prayers they went to
bed. As little Miss Pankey was afraid of sleeping alone in the dark,
Mrs Pipchin always made a point of driving her upstairs herself, like a
sheep; and it was cheerful to hear Miss Pankey moaning long afterwards,
in the least eligible chamber, and Mrs Pipchin now and then going in
to shake her. At about half-past nine o’clock the odour of a warm
sweet-bread (Mrs Pipchin’s constitution wouldn’t go to sleep without
sweet-bread) diversified the prevailing fragrance of the house, which
Mrs Wickam said was ‘a smell of building;’ and slumber fell upon the
Castle shortly after.
The breakfast next morning was like the tea over night, except that Mrs
Pipchin took her roll instead of toast, and seemed a little more irate
when it was over. Master Bitherstone read aloud to the rest a pedigree
from Genesis (judiciously selected by Mrs Pipchin), getting over the
names with the ease and clearness of a person tumbling up the treadmill.
That done, Miss Pankey was borne away to be shampoo’d; and Master
Bitherstone to have something else done to him with salt water, from
which he always returned very blue and dejected. Paul and Florence went
out in the meantime on the beach with Wickam--who was constantly in
tears--and at about noon Mrs Pipchin presided over some Early Readings.
It being a part of Mrs Pipchin’s system not to encourage a child’s mind
to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by
force like an oyster, the moral of these lessons was usually of a
violent and stunning character: the hero--a naughty boy--seldom, in the
mildest catastrophe, being finished off anything less than a lion, or a
bear.
Such was life at Mrs Pipchin’s. On Saturday Mr Dombey came down; and
Florence and Paul would go to his Hotel, and have tea. They passed the
whole of Sunday with him, and generally rode out before dinner; and on
these occasions Mr Dombey seemed to grow, like Falstaff’s assailants,
and instead of being one man in buckram, to become a dozen. Sunday
evening was the most melancholy evening in the week; for Mrs Pipchin
always made a point of being particularly cross on Sunday nights. Miss
Pankey was generally brought back from an aunt’s at Rottingdean, in deep
distress; and Master Bitherstone, whose relatives were all in India, and
who was required to sit, between the services, in an erect position
with his head against the parlour wall, neither moving hand nor foot,
suffered so acutely in his young spirits that he once asked Florence,
on a Sunday night, if she could give him any idea of the way back to
Bengal.
But it was generally said that Mrs Pipchin was a woman of system with
children; and no doubt she was. Certainly the wild ones went home tame
enough, after sojourning for a few months beneath her hospitable roof.
It was generally said, too, that it was highly creditable of Mrs Pipchin
to have devoted herself to this way of life, and to have made such
a sacrifice of her feelings, and such a resolute stand against her
troubles, when Mr Pipchin broke his heart in the Peruvian mines.
At this exemplary old lady, Paul would sit staring in his little
arm-chair by the fire, for any length of time. He never seemed to know
what weariness was, when he was looking fixedly at Mrs Pipchin. He was
not fond of her; he was not afraid of her; but in those old, old moods
of his, she seemed to have a grotesque attraction for him. There he
would sit, looking at her, and warming his hands, and looking at her,
until he sometimes quite confounded Mrs Pipchin, Ogress as she was. Once
she asked him, when they were alone, what he was thinking about.
‘You,’ said Paul, without the least reserve.
‘And what are you thinking about me?’ asked Mrs Pipchin.
‘I’m thinking how old you must be,’ said Paul.
‘You mustn’t say such things as that, young gentleman,’ returned the
dame. ‘That’ll never do.’
‘Why not?’ asked Paul.
‘Because it’s not polite,’ said Mrs Pipchin, snappishly.
‘Not polite?’ said Paul.
‘No.’
‘It’s not polite,’ said Paul, innocently, ‘to eat all the mutton chops
and toast’, Wickam says.
‘Wickam,’ retorted Mrs Pipchin, colouring, ‘is a wicked, impudent,
bold-faced hussy.’
‘What’s that?’ inquired Paul.
‘Never you mind, Sir,’ retorted Mrs Pipchin. ‘Remember the story of the
little boy that was gored to death by a mad bull for asking questions.’
‘If the bull was mad,’ said Paul, ‘how did he know that the boy had
asked questions? Nobody can go and whisper secrets to a mad bull. I
don’t believe that story.’
‘You don’t believe it, Sir?’ repeated Mrs Pipchin, amazed.
‘No,’ said Paul.
‘Not if it should happen to have been a tame bull, you little Infidel?’
said Mrs Pipchin.
As Paul had not considered the subject in that light, and had founded
his conclusions on the alleged lunacy of the bull, he allowed himself
to be put down for the present. But he sat turning it over in his mind,
with such an obvious intention of fixing Mrs Pipchin presently, that
even that hardy old lady deemed it prudent to retreat until he should
have forgotten the subject.
From that time, Mrs Pipchin appeared to have something of the same odd
kind of attraction towards Paul, as Paul had towards her. She would make
him move his chair to her side of the fire, instead of sitting opposite;
and there he would remain in a nook between Mrs Pipchin and the fender,
with all the light of his little face absorbed into the black bombazeen
drapery, studying every line and wrinkle of her countenance, and peering
at the hard grey eye, until Mrs Pipchin was sometimes fain to shut it,
on pretence of dozing. Mrs Pipchin had an old black cat, who generally
lay coiled upon the centre foot of the fender, purring egotistically,
and winking at the fire until the contracted pupils of his eyes were
like two notes of admiration. The good old lady might have been--not
to record it disrespectfully--a witch, and Paul and the cat her two
familiars, as they all sat by the fire together. It would have been
quite in keeping with the appearance of the party if they had all sprung
up the chimney in a high wind one night, and never been heard of any
more.
This, however, never came to pass. The cat, and Paul, and Mrs Pipchin,
were constantly to be found in their usual places after dark; and Paul,
eschewing the companionship of Master Bitherstone, went on studying Mrs
Pipchin, and the cat, and the fire, night after night, as if they were a
book of necromancy, in three volumes.
Mrs Wickam put her own construction on Paul’s eccentricities; and being
confirmed in her low spirits by a perplexed view of chimneys from the
room where she was accustomed to sit, and by the noise of the wind, and
by the general dulness (gashliness was Mrs Wickam’s strong expression)
of her present life, deduced the most dismal reflections from the
foregoing premises. It was a part of Mrs Pipchin’s policy to prevent
her own ‘young hussy’--that was Mrs Pipchin’s generic name for female
servant--from communicating with Mrs Wickam: to which end she devoted
much of her time to concealing herself behind doors, and springing
out on that devoted maiden, whenever she made an approach towards Mrs
Wickam’s apartment. But Berry was free to hold what converse she could
in that quarter, consistently with the discharge of the multifarious
duties at which she toiled incessantly from morning to night; and to
Berry Mrs Wickam unburdened her mind.
‘What a pretty fellow he is when he’s asleep!’ said Berry, stopping to
look at Paul in bed, one night when she took up Mrs Wickam’s supper.
‘Ah!’ sighed Mrs Wickam. ‘He need be.’
‘Why, he’s not ugly when he’s awake,’ observed Berry.
‘No, Ma’am. Oh, no. No more was my Uncle’s Betsey Jane,’ said Mrs
Wickam.
Berry looked as if she would like to trace the connexion of ideas
between Paul Dombey and Mrs Wickam’s Uncle’s Betsey Jane.
‘My Uncle’s wife,’ Mrs Wickam went on to say, ‘died just like his Mama.
My Uncle’s child took on just as Master Paul do.’
‘Took on! You don’t think he grieves for his Mama, sure?’ argued Berry,
sitting down on the side of the bed. ‘He can’t remember anything about
her, you know, Mrs Wickam. It’s not possible.’
‘No, Ma’am,’ said Mrs Wickam ‘No more did my Uncle’s child. But my
Uncle’s child said very strange things sometimes, and looked very
strange, and went on very strange, and was very strange altogether. My
Uncle’s child made people’s blood run cold, some times, she did!’
‘How?’ asked Berry.
‘I wouldn’t have sat up all night alone with Betsey Jane!’ said Mrs
Wickam, ‘not if you’d have put Wickam into business next morning for
himself. I couldn’t have done it, Miss Berry.
Miss Berry naturally asked why not? But Mrs Wickam, agreeably to the
usage of some ladies in her condition, pursued her own branch of the
subject, without any compunction.
‘Betsey Jane,’ said Mrs Wickam, ‘was as sweet a child as I could wish
to see. I couldn’t wish to see a sweeter. Everything that a child could
have in the way of illnesses, Betsey Jane had come through. The cramps
was as common to her,’ said Mrs Wickam, ‘as biles is to yourself, Miss
Berry.’ Miss Berry involuntarily wrinkled her nose.
‘But Betsey Jane,’ said Mrs Wickam, lowering her voice, and looking
round the room, and towards Paul in bed, ‘had been minded, in her
cradle, by her departed mother. I couldn’t say how, nor I couldn’t say
when, nor I couldn’t say whether the dear child knew it or not, but
Betsey Jane had been watched by her mother, Miss Berry!’ and Mrs Wickam,
with a very white face, and with watery eyes, and with a tremulous
voice, again looked fearfully round the room, and towards Paul in bed.
‘Nonsense!’ cried Miss Berry--somewhat resentful of the idea.
‘You may say nonsense! I ain’t offended, Miss. I hope you may be able
to think in your own conscience that it is nonsense; you’ll find
your spirits all the better for it in this--you’ll excuse my being so
free--in this burying-ground of a place; which is wearing of me down.
Master Paul’s a little restless in his sleep. Pat his back, if you
please.’
‘Of course you think,’ said Berry, gently doing what she was asked,
‘that he has been nursed by his mother, too?’
‘Betsey Jane,’ returned Mrs Wickam in her most solemn tones, ‘was put
upon as that child has been put upon, and changed as that child has
changed. I have seen her sit, often and often, think, think, thinking,
like him. I have seen her look, often and often, old, old, old, like
him. I have heard her, many a time, talk just like him. I consider that
child and Betsey Jane on the same footing entirely, Miss Berry.’
‘Is your Uncle’s child alive?’ asked Berry.
‘Yes, Miss, she is alive,’ returned Mrs Wickam with an air of triumph,
for it was evident. Miss Berry expected the reverse; ‘and is married to
a silver-chaser. Oh yes, Miss, SHE is alive,’ said Mrs Wickam, laying
strong stress on her nominative case.
It being clear that somebody was dead, Mrs Pipchin’s niece inquired who
it was.
‘I wouldn’t wish to make you uneasy,’ returned Mrs Wickam, pursuing her
supper. ‘Don’t ask me.’
This was the surest way of being asked again. Miss Berry repeated her
question, therefore; and after some resistance, and reluctance, Mrs
Wickam laid down her knife, and again glancing round the room and at
Paul in bed, replied:
‘She took fancies to people; whimsical fancies, some of them; others,
affections that one might expect to see--only stronger than common. They
all died.’
This was so very unexpected and awful to Mrs Pipchin’s niece, that
she sat upright on the hard edge of the bedstead, breathing short, and
surveying her informant with looks of undisguised alarm.
Mrs Wickam shook her left fore-finger stealthily towards the bed where
Florence lay; then turned it upside down, and made several emphatic
points at the floor; immediately below which was the parlour in which
Mrs Pipchin habitually consumed the toast.
‘Remember my words, Miss Berry,’ said Mrs Wickam, ‘and be thankful that
Master Paul is not too fond of you. I am, that he’s not too fond of
me, I assure you; though there isn’t much to live for--you’ll excuse my
being so free--in this jail of a house!’
Miss Berry’s emotion might have led to her patting Paul too hard on the
back, or might have produced a cessation of that soothing monotony, but
he turned in his bed just now, and, presently awaking, sat up in it with
his hair hot and wet from the effects of some childish dream, and asked
for Florence.
She was out of her own bed at the first sound of his voice; and bending
over his pillow immediately, sang him to sleep again. Mrs Wickam shaking
her head, and letting fall several tears, pointed out the little group
to Berry, and turned her eyes up to the ceiling.
‘He’s asleep now, my dear,’ said Mrs Wickam after a pause, ‘you’d better
go to bed again. Don’t you feel cold?’
‘No, nurse,’ said Florence, laughing. ‘Not at all.’
‘Ah!’ sighed Mrs Wickam, and she shook her head again, expressing to the
watchful Berry, ‘we shall be cold enough, some of us, by and by!’
Berry took the frugal supper-tray, with which Mrs Wickam had by this
time done, and bade her good-night.
‘Good-night, Miss!’ returned Wickam softly. ‘Good-night! Your aunt is an
old lady, Miss Berry, and it’s what you must have looked for, often.’
This consolatory farewell, Mrs Wickam accompanied with a look of
heartfelt anguish; and being left alone with the two children again, and
becoming conscious that the wind was blowing mournfully, she indulged in
melancholy--that cheapest and most accessible of luxuries--until she was
overpowered by slumber.
Although the niece of Mrs Pipchin did not expect to find that exemplary
dragon prostrate on the hearth-rug when she went downstairs, she was
relieved to find her unusually fractious and severe, and with every
present appearance of intending to live a long time to be a comfort to
all who knew her. Nor had she any symptoms of declining, in the course
of the ensuing week, when the constitutional viands still continued to
disappear in regular succession, notwithstanding that Paul studied her
as attentively as ever, and occupied his usual seat between the black
skirts and the fender, with unwavering constancy.
But as Paul himself was no stronger at the expiration of that time than
he had been on his first arrival, though he looked much healthier in the
face, a little carriage was got for him, in which he could lie at his
ease, with an alphabet and other elementary works of reference, and be
wheeled down to the sea-side. Consistent in his odd tastes, the child
set aside a ruddy-faced lad who was proposed as the drawer of this
carriage, and selected, instead, his grandfather--a weazen, old,
crab-faced man, in a suit of battered oilskin, who had got tough and
stringy from long pickling in salt water, and who smelt like a weedy
sea-beach when the tide is out.
With this notable attendant to pull him along, and Florence always
walking by his side, and the despondent Wickam bringing up the rear, he
went down to the margin of the ocean every day; and there he would sit
or lie in his carriage for hours together: never so distressed as by the
company of children--Florence alone excepted, always.
‘Go away, if you please,’ he would say to any child who came to bear him
company. ‘Thank you, but I don’t want you.’
Some small voice, near his ear, would ask him how he was, perhaps.
‘I am very well, I thank you,’ he would answer. ‘But you had better go
and play, if you please.’
Then he would turn his head, and watch the child away, and say to
Florence, ‘We don’t want any others, do we? Kiss me, Floy.’
He had even a dislike, at such times, to the company of Wickam, and was
well pleased when she strolled away, as she generally did, to pick up
shells and acquaintances. His favourite spot was quite a lonely one, far
away from most loungers; and with Florence sitting by his side at work,
or reading to him, or talking to him, and the wind blowing on his face,
and the water coming up among the wheels of his bed, he wanted nothing
more.
‘Floy,’ he said one day, ‘where’s India, where that boy’s friends live?’
‘Oh, it’s a long, long distance off,’ said Florence, raising her eyes
from her work.
‘Weeks off?’ asked Paul.
‘Yes dear. Many weeks’ journey, night and day.’
‘If you were in India, Floy,’ said Paul, after being silent for a
minute, ‘I should--what is it that Mama did? I forget.’
‘Loved me!’ answered Florence.
‘No, no. Don’t I love you now, Floy? What is it?--Died. If you were in
India, I should die, Floy.’
She hurriedly put her work aside, and laid her head down on his pillow,
caressing him. And so would she, she said, if he were there. He would be
better soon.
‘Oh! I am a great deal better now!’ he answered. ‘I don’t mean that. I
mean that I should die of being so sorry and so lonely, Floy!’
Another time, in the same place, he fell asleep, and slept quietly for a
long time. Awaking suddenly, he listened, started up, and sat listening.
Florence asked him what he thought he heard.
‘I want to know what it says,’ he answered, looking steadily in her
face. ‘The sea’ Floy, what is it that it keeps on saying?’
She told him that it was only the noise of the rolling waves.
‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘But I know that they are always saying something.
Always the same thing. What place is over there?’ He rose up, looking
eagerly at the horizon.
She told him that there was another country opposite, but he said he
didn’t mean that: he meant further away--farther away!
Very often afterwards, in the midst of their talk, he would break off,
to try to understand what it was that the waves were always saying; and
would rise up in his couch to look towards that invisible region, far
away.
CHAPTER 9. In which the Wooden Midshipman gets into Trouble
That spice of romance and love of the marvellous, of which there was a
pretty strong infusion in the nature of young Walter Gay, and which the
guardianship of his Uncle, old Solomon Gills, had not very much weakened
by the waters of stern practical experience, was the occasion of his
attaching an uncommon and delightful interest to the adventure of
Florence with Good Mrs Brown. He pampered and cherished it in his
memory, especially that part of it with which he had been associated:
until it became the spoiled child of his fancy, and took its own way,
and did what it liked with it.
The recollection of those incidents, and his own share in them, may have
been made the more captivating, perhaps, by the weekly dreamings of
old Sol and Captain Cuttle on Sundays. Hardly a Sunday passed, without
mysterious references being made by one or other of those worthy chums
to Richard Whittington; and the latter gentleman had even gone so far as
to purchase a ballad of considerable antiquity, that had long fluttered
among many others, chiefly expressive of maritime sentiments, on a dead
wall in the Commercial Road: which poetical performance set forth the
courtship and nuptials of a promising young coal-whipper with a certain
‘lovely Peg,’ the accomplished daughter of the master and part-owner of
a Newcastle collier. In this stirring legend, Captain Cuttle descried a
profound metaphysical bearing on the case of Walter and Florence; and it
excited him so much, that on very festive occasions, as birthdays and a
few other non-Dominical holidays, he would roar through the whole song
in the little back parlour; making an amazing shake on the word Pe-e-eg,
with which every verse concluded, in compliment to the heroine of the
piece.
But a frank, free-spirited, open-hearted boy, is not much given to
analysing the nature of his own feelings, however strong their hold upon
him: and Walter would have found it difficult to decide this point. He
had a great affection for the wharf where he had encountered Florence,
and for the streets (albeit not enchanting in themselves) by which they
had come home. The shoes that had so often tumbled off by the way, he
preserved in his own room; and, sitting in the little back parlour of
an evening, he had drawn a whole gallery of fancy portraits of Good Mrs
Brown. It may be that he became a little smarter in his dress after that
memorable occasion; and he certainly liked in his leisure time to walk
towards that quarter of the town where Mr Dombey’s house was situated,
on the vague chance of passing little Florence in the street. But the
sentiment of all this was as boyish and innocent as could be. Florence
was very pretty, and it is pleasant to admire a pretty face. Florence
was defenceless and weak, and it was a proud thought that he had been
able to render her any protection and assistance. Florence was the most
grateful little creature in the world, and it was delightful to see her
bright gratitude beaming in her face. Florence was neglected and coldly
looked upon, and his breast was full of youthful interest for the
slighted child in her dull, stately home.
Thus it came about that, perhaps some half-a-dozen times in the course
of the year, Walter pulled off his hat to Florence in the street,
and Florence would stop to shake hands. Mrs Wickam (who, with a
characteristic alteration of his name, invariably spoke of him as
‘Young Graves’) was so well used to this, knowing the story of their
acquaintance, that she took no heed of it at all. Miss Nipper, on the
other hand, rather looked out for these occasions: her sensitive young
heart being secretly propitiated by Walter’s good looks, and inclining
to the belief that its sentiments were responded to.
In this way, Walter, so far from forgetting or losing sight of his
acquaintance with Florence, only remembered it better and better. As to
its adventurous beginning, and all those little circumstances which gave
it a distinctive character and relish, he took them into account, more
as a pleasant story very agreeable to his imagination, and not to be
dismissed from it, than as a part of any matter of fact with which he
was concerned. They set off Florence very much, to his fancy; but not
himself. Sometimes he thought (and then he walked very fast) what a
grand thing it would have been for him to have been going to sea on the
day after that first meeting, and to have gone, and to have done wonders
there, and to have stopped away a long time, and to have come back an
Admiral of all the colours of the dolphin, or at least a Post-Captain
with epaulettes of insupportable brightness, and have married Florence
(then a beautiful young woman) in spite of Mr Dombey’s teeth, cravat,
and watch-chain, and borne her away to the blue shores of somewhere or
other, triumphantly. But these flights of fancy seldom burnished the
brass plate of Dombey and Son’s Offices into a tablet of golden hope, or
shed a brilliant lustre on their dirty skylights; and when the Captain
and Uncle Sol talked about Richard Whittington and masters’ daughters,
Walter felt that he understood his true position at Dombey and Son’s,
much better than they did.
So it was that he went on doing what he had to do from day to day, in
a cheerful, pains-taking, merry spirit; and saw through the sanguine
complexion of Uncle Sol and Captain Cuttle; and yet entertained a
thousand indistinct and visionary fancies of his own, to which theirs
were work-a-day probabilities. Such was his condition at the Pipchin
period, when he looked a little older than of yore, but not much; and
was the same light-footed, light-hearted, light-headed lad, as when
he charged into the parlour at the head of Uncle Sol and the imaginary
boarders, and lighted him to bring up the Madeira.
‘Uncle Sol,’ said Walter, ‘I don’t think you’re well. You haven’t eaten
any breakfast. I shall bring a doctor to you, if you go on like this.’
‘He can’t give me what I want, my boy,’ said Uncle Sol. ‘At least he is
in good practice if he can--and then he wouldn’t.’
‘What is it, Uncle? Customers?’
‘Ay,’ returned Solomon, with a sigh. ‘Customers would do.’
‘Confound it, Uncle!’ said Walter, putting down his breakfast cup with
a clatter, and striking his hand on the table: ‘when I see the people
going up and down the street in shoals all day, and passing and
re-passing the shop every minute, by scores, I feel half tempted to rush
out, collar somebody, bring him in, and make him buy fifty pounds’ worth
of instruments for ready money. What are you looking in at the door
for?--’ continued Walter, apostrophizing an old gentleman with a
powdered head (inaudibly to him of course), who was staring at a ship’s
telescope with all his might and main. ‘That’s no use. I could do that.
Come in and buy it!’
The old gentleman, however, having satiated his curiosity, walked calmly
away.
‘There he goes!’ said Walter. ‘That’s the way with ‘em all. But,
Uncle--I say, Uncle Sol’--for the old man was meditating and had not
responded to his first appeal. ‘Don’t be cast down. Don’t be out of
spirits, Uncle. When orders do come, they’ll come in such a crowd, you
won’t be able to execute ‘em.’
‘I shall be past executing ‘em, whenever they come, my boy,’ returned
Solomon Gills. ‘They’ll never come to this shop again, till I am out of
t.’
‘I say, Uncle! You musn’t really, you know!’ urged Walter. ‘Don’t!’
Old Sol endeavoured to assume a cheery look, and smiled across the
little table at him as pleasantly as he could.
‘There’s nothing more than usual the matter; is there, Uncle?’ said
Walter, leaning his elbows on the tea tray, and bending over, to speak
the more confidentially and kindly. ‘Be open with me, Uncle, if there
is, and tell me all about it.’
‘No, no, no,’ returned Old Sol. ‘More than usual? No, no. What should
there be the matter more than usual?’
Walter answered with an incredulous shake of his head. ‘That’s what I
want to know,’ he said, ‘and you ask me! I’ll tell you what, Uncle, when
I see you like this, I am quite sorry that I live with you.’
Old Sol opened his eyes involuntarily.
‘Yes. Though nobody ever was happier than I am and always have been with
you, I am quite sorry that I live with you, when I see you with anything
in your mind.’
‘I am a little dull at such times, I know,’ observed Solomon, meekly
rubbing his hands.
‘What I mean, Uncle Sol,’ pursued Walter, bending over a little more
to pat him on the shoulder, ‘is, that then I feel you ought to have,
sitting here and pouring out the tea instead of me, a nice little
dumpling of a wife, you know,--a comfortable, capital, cosy old lady,
who was just a match for you, and knew how to manage you, and keep you
in good heart. Here am I, as loving a nephew as ever was (I am sure I
ought to be!) but I am only a nephew, and I can’t be such a companion
to you when you’re low and out of sorts as she would have made herself,
years ago, though I’m sure I’d give any money if I could cheer you up.
And so I say, when I see you with anything on your mind, that I feel
quite sorry you haven’t got somebody better about you than a blundering
young rough-and-tough boy like me, who has got the will to console you,
Uncle, but hasn’t got the way--hasn’t got the way,’ repeated Walter,
reaching over further yet, to shake his Uncle by the hand.
‘Wally, my dear boy,’ said Solomon, ‘if the cosy little old lady had
taken her place in this parlour five and forty years ago, I never could
have been fonder of her than I am of you.’
‘I know that, Uncle Sol,’ returned Walter. ‘Lord bless you, I know that.
But you wouldn’t have had the whole weight of any uncomfortable secrets
if she had been with you, because she would have known how to relieve
you of ‘em, and I don’t.’
‘Yes, yes, you do,’ returned the Instrument-maker.
‘Well then, what’s the matter, Uncle Sol?’ said Walter, coaxingly.
‘Come! What’s the matter?’
Solomon Gills persisted that there was nothing the matter; and
maintained it so resolutely, that his nephew had no resource but to make
a very indifferent imitation of believing him.
‘All I can say is, Uncle Sol, that if there is--’
‘But there isn’t,’ said Solomon.
‘Very well,’ said Walter. ‘Then I’ve no more to say; and that’s lucky,
for my time’s up for going to business. I shall look in by-and-by when
I’m out, to see how you get on, Uncle. And mind, Uncle! I’ll never
believe you again, and never tell you anything more about Mr Carker the
Junior, if I find out that you have been deceiving me!’
Solomon Gills laughingly defied him to find out anything of the kind;
and Walter, revolving in his thoughts all sorts of impracticable ways
of making fortunes and placing the wooden Midshipman in a position of
independence, betook himself to the offices of Dombey and Son with a
heavier countenance than he usually carried there.
There lived in those days, round the corner--in Bishopsgate Street
Without--one Brogley, sworn broker and appraiser, who kept a shop where
every description of second-hand furniture was exhibited in the most
uncomfortable aspect, and under circumstances and in combinations the
most completely foreign to its purpose. Dozens of chairs hooked on to
washing-stands, which with difficulty poised themselves on the shoulders
of sideboards, which in their turn stood upon the wrong side of
dining-tables, gymnastic with their legs upward on the tops of other
dining-tables, were among its most reasonable arrangements. A banquet
array of dish-covers, wine-glasses, and decanters was generally to
be seen, spread forth upon the bosom of a four-post bedstead, for the
entertainment of such genial company as half-a-dozen pokers, and a hall
lamp. A set of window curtains with no windows belonging to them, would
be seen gracefully draping a barricade of chests of drawers, loaded with
little jars from chemists’ shops; while a homeless hearthrug severed
from its natural companion the fireside, braved the shrewd east wind
in its adversity, and trembled in melancholy accord with the shrill
complainings of a cabinet piano, wasting away, a string a day, and
faintly resounding to the noises of the street in its jangling and
distracted brain. Of motionless clocks that never stirred a finger, and
seemed as incapable of being successfully wound up, as the pecuniary
affairs of their former owners, there was always great choice in Mr
Brogley’s shop; and various looking-glasses, accidentally placed at
compound interest of reflection and refraction, presented to the eye an
eternal perspective of bankruptcy and ruin.
Mr Brogley himself was a moist-eyed, pink-complexioned, crisp-haired
man, of a bulky figure and an easy temper--for that class of Caius
Marius who sits upon the ruins of other people’s Carthages, can keep up
his spirits well enough. He had looked in at Solomon’s shop sometimes,
to ask a question about articles in Solomon’s way of business; and
Walter knew him sufficiently to give him good day when they met in the
street. But as that was the extent of the broker’s acquaintance with
Solomon Gills also, Walter was not a little surprised when he came back
in the course of the forenoon, agreeably to his promise, to find Mr
Brogley sitting in the back parlour with his hands in his pockets, and
his hat hanging up behind the door.
‘Well, Uncle Sol!’ said Walter. The old man was sitting ruefully on the
opposite side of the table, with his spectacles over his eyes, for a
wonder, instead of on his forehead. ‘How are you now?’
Solomon shook his head, and waved one hand towards the broker, as
introducing him.
‘Is there anything the matter?’ asked Walter, with a catching in his
breath.
‘No, no. There’s nothing the matter, said Mr Brogley. ‘Don’t let it put
you out of the way.’
Walter looked from the broker to his Uncle in mute
amazement.
‘The fact is,’ said Mr Brogley, ‘there’s a little payment on a bond debt
--three hundred and seventy odd, overdue: and I’m in possession.’
‘In possession!’ cried Walter, looking round at the shop.
‘Ah!’ said Mr Brogley, in confidential assent, and nodding his head
as if he would urge the advisability of their all being comfortable
together. ‘It’s an execution. That’s what it is. Don’t let it put you
out of the way. I come myself, because of keeping it quiet and sociable.
You know me. It’s quite private.’
‘Uncle Sol!’ faltered Walter.
‘Wally, my boy,’ returned his uncle. ‘It’s the first time. Such a
calamity never happened to me before. I’m an old man to begin.’ Pushing
up his spectacles again (for they were useless any longer to conceal his
emotion), he covered his face with his hand, and sobbed aloud, and his
tears fell down upon his coffee-coloured waistcoat.
‘Uncle Sol! Pray! oh don’t!’ exclaimed Walter, who really felt a thrill
of terror in seeing the old man weep. ‘For God’s sake don’t do that. Mr
Brogley, what shall I do?’
‘I should recommend you looking up a friend or so,’ said Mr Brogley,
‘and talking it over.’
‘To be sure!’ cried Walter, catching at anything. ‘Certainly! Thankee.
Captain Cuttle’s the man, Uncle. Wait till I run to Captain Cuttle.
Keep your eye upon my Uncle, will you, Mr Brogley, and make him as
comfortable as you can while I am gone? Don’t despair, Uncle Sol. Try
and keep a good heart, there’s a dear fellow!’
Saying this with great fervour, and disregarding the old man’s broken
remonstrances, Walter dashed out of the shop again as hard as he could
go; and, having hurried round to the office to excuse himself on the
plea of his Uncle’s sudden illness, set off, full speed, for Captain
Cuttle’s residence.
Everything seemed altered as he ran along the streets. There were the
usual entanglement and noise of carts, drays, omnibuses, waggons,
and foot passengers, but the misfortune that had fallen on the wooden
Midshipman made it strange and new. Houses and shops were different from
what they used to be, and bore Mr Brogley’s warrant on their fronts
in large characters. The broker seemed to have got hold of the very
churches; for their spires rose into the sky with an unwonted air. Even
the sky itself was changed, and had an execution in it plainly.
Captain Cuttle lived on the brink of a little canal near the India
Docks, where there was a swivel bridge which opened now and then to
let some wandering monster of a ship come roaming up the street like
a stranded leviathan. The gradual change from land to water, on the
approach to Captain Cuttle’s lodgings, was curious. It began with the
erection of flagstaffs, as appurtenances to public-houses; then came
slop-sellers’ shops, with Guernsey shirts, sou’wester hats, and canvas
pantaloons, at once the tightest and the loosest of their order, hanging
up outside. These were succeeded by anchor and chain-cable forges, where
sledgehammers were dinging upon iron all day long. Then came rows of
houses, with little vane-surmounted masts uprearing themselves from
among the scarlet beans. Then, ditches. Then, pollard willows. Then,
more ditches. Then, unaccountable patches of dirty water, hardly to be
descried, for the ships that covered them. Then, the air was perfumed
with chips; and all other trades were swallowed up in mast, oar,
and block-making, and boatbuilding. Then, the ground grew marshy and
unsettled. Then, there was nothing to be smelt but rum and sugar. Then,
Captain Cuttle’s lodgings--at once a first floor and a top storey, in
Brig Place--were close before you.
The Captain was one of those timber-looking men, suits of oak as well
as hearts, whom it is almost impossible for the liveliest imagination
to separate from any part of their dress, however insignificant.
Accordingly, when Walter knocked at the door, and the Captain instantly
poked his head out of one of his little front windows, and hailed him,
with the hard glared hat already on it, and the shirt-collar like a
sail, and the wide suit of blue, all standing as usual, Walter was as
fully persuaded that he was always in that state, as if the Captain had
been a bird and those had been his feathers.
‘Wal’r, my lad!’ said Captain Cuttle. ‘Stand by and knock again. Hard!
It’s washing day.’
Walter, in his impatience, gave a prodigious thump with the knocker.
‘Hard it is!’ said Captain Cuttle, and immediately drew in his head, as
if he expected a squall.
Nor was he mistaken: for a widow lady, with her sleeves rolled up to
her shoulders, and her arms frothy with soap-suds and smoking with hot
water, replied to the summons with startling rapidity. Before she looked
at Walter she looked at the knocker, and then, measuring him with her
eyes from head to foot, said she wondered he had left any of it.
‘Captain Cuttle’s at home, I know,’ said Walter with a conciliatory
smile.
‘Is he?’ replied the widow lady. ‘In-deed!’
‘He has just been speaking to me,’ said Walter, in breathless
explanation.
‘Has he?’ replied the widow lady. ‘Then p’raps you’ll give him Mrs
MacStinger’s respects, and say that the next time he lowers himself and
his lodgings by talking out of the winder she’ll thank him to come down
and open the door too.’ Mrs MacStinger spoke loud, and listened for any
observations that might be offered from the first floor.
‘I’ll mention it,’ said Walter, ‘if you’ll have the goodness to let me
in, Ma’am.’
For he was repelled by a wooden fortification extending across the
doorway, and put there to prevent the little MacStingers in their
moments of recreation from tumbling down the steps.
‘A boy that can knock my door down,’ said Mrs MacStinger,
contemptuously, ‘can get over that, I should hope!’ But Walter, taking
this as a permission to enter, and getting over it, Mrs MacStinger
immediately demanded whether an Englishwoman’s house was her castle
or not; and whether she was to be broke in upon by ‘raff.’ On these
subjects her thirst for information was still very importunate,
when Walter, having made his way up the little staircase through an
artificial fog occasioned by the washing, which covered the banisters
with a clammy perspiration, entered Captain Cuttle’s room, and found
that gentleman in ambush behind the door.
‘Never owed her a penny, Wal’r,’ said Captain Cuttle, in a low voice,
and with visible marks of trepidation on his countenance. ‘Done her
a world of good turns, and the children too. Vixen at times, though.
Whew!’
‘I should go away, Captain Cuttle,’ said Walter.
‘Dursn’t do it, Wal’r,’ returned the Captain. ‘She’d find me out,
wherever I went. Sit down. How’s Gills?’
The Captain was dining (in his hat) off cold loin of mutton, porter, and
some smoking hot potatoes, which he had cooked himself, and took out of
a little saucepan before the fire as he wanted them. He unscrewed his
hook at dinner-time, and screwed a knife into its wooden socket instead,
with which he had already begun to peel one of these potatoes for
Walter. His rooms were very small, and strongly impregnated with
tobacco-smoke, but snug enough: everything being stowed away, as if
there were an earthquake regularly every half-hour.
‘How’s Gills?’ inquired the Captain.
Walter, who had by this time recovered his breath, and lost his
spirits--or such temporary spirits as his rapid journey had given
him--looked at his questioner for a moment, said ‘Oh, Captain Cuttle!’
and burst into tears.
No words can describe the Captain’s consternation at this sight. Mrs
MacStinger faded into nothing before it. He dropped the potato and the
fork--and would have dropped the knife too if he could--and sat gazing
at the boy, as if he expected to hear next moment that a gulf had opened
in the City, which had swallowed up his old friend, coffee-coloured
suit, buttons, chronometer, spectacles, and all.
But when Walter told him what was really the matter, Captain Cuttle,
after a moment’s reflection, started up into full activity. He emptied
out of a little tin canister on the top shelf of the cupboard, his whole
stock of ready money (amounting to thirteen pounds and half-a-crown),
which he transferred to one of the pockets of his square blue coat;
further enriched that repository with the contents of his plate chest,
consisting of two withered atomies of tea-spoons, and an obsolete pair
of knock-knee’d sugar-tongs; pulled up his immense double-cased silver
watch from the depths in which it reposed, to assure himself that that
valuable was sound and whole; re-attached the hook to his right wrist;
and seizing the stick covered over with knobs, bade Walter come along.
Remembering, however, in the midst of his virtuous excitement, that Mrs
MacStinger might be lying in wait below, Captain Cuttle hesitated at
last, not without glancing at the window, as if he had some thoughts
of escaping by that unusual means of egress, rather than encounter his
terrible enemy. He decided, however, in favour of stratagem.
‘Wal’r,’ said the Captain, with a timid wink, ‘go afore, my lad. Sing
out, “good-bye, Captain Cuttle,” when you’re in the passage, and shut
the door. Then wait at the corner of the street ‘till you see me.
These directions were not issued without a previous knowledge of the
enemy’s tactics, for when Walter got downstairs, Mrs MacStinger glided
out of the little back kitchen, like an avenging spirit. But not gliding
out upon the Captain, as she had expected, she merely made a further
allusion to the knocker, and glided in again.
Some five minutes elapsed before Captain Cuttle could summon courage
to attempt his escape; for Walter waited so long at the street corner,
looking back at the house, before there were any symptoms of the
hard glazed hat. At length the Captain burst out of the door with the
suddenness of an explosion, and coming towards him at a great pace, and
never once looking over his shoulder, pretended, as soon as they were
well out of the street, to whistle a tune.
‘Uncle much hove down, Wal’r?’ inquired the Captain, as they were
walking along.
‘I am afraid so. If you had seen him this morning, you would never have
forgotten it.’
‘Walk fast, Wal’r, my lad,’ returned the Captain, mending his pace; ‘and
walk the same all the days of your life. Overhaul the catechism for that
advice, and keep it!’
The Captain was too busy with his own thoughts of Solomon Gills, mingled
perhaps with some reflections on his late escape from Mrs MacStinger, to
offer any further quotations on the way for Walter’s moral improvement
They interchanged no other word until they arrived at old Sol’s door,
where the unfortunate wooden Midshipman, with his instrument at his eye,
seemed to be surveying the whole horizon in search of some friend to
help him out of his difficulty.
‘Gills!’ said the Captain, hurrying into the back parlour, and taking
him by the hand quite tenderly. ‘Lay your head well to the wind, and
we’ll fight through it. All you’ve got to do,’ said the Captain, with
the solemnity of a man who was delivering himself of one of the most
precious practical tenets ever discovered by human wisdom, ‘is to lay
your head well to the wind, and we’ll fight through it!’
Old Sol returned the pressure of his hand, and thanked him.
Captain Cuttle, then, with a gravity suitable to the nature of
the occasion, put down upon the table the two tea-spoons and the
sugar-tongs, the silver watch, and the ready money; and asked Mr
Brogley, the broker, what the damage was.
‘Come! What do you make of it?’ said Captain Cuttle.
‘Why, Lord help you!’ returned the broker; ‘you don’t suppose that
property’s of any use, do you?’
‘Why not?’ inquired the Captain.
‘Why? The amount’s three hundred and seventy, odd,’ replied the broker.
‘Never mind,’ returned the Captain, though he was evidently dismayed by
the figures: ‘all’s fish that comes to your net, I suppose?’
‘Certainly,’ said Mr Brogley. ‘But sprats ain’t whales, you know.’
The philosophy of this observation seemed to strike the Captain. He
ruminated for a minute; eyeing the broker, meanwhile, as a deep genius;
and then called the Instrument-maker aside.
‘Gills,’ said Captain Cuttle, ‘what’s the bearings of this business?
Who’s the creditor?’
‘Hush!’ returned the old man. ‘Come away. Don’t speak before Wally. It’s
a matter of security for Wally’s father--an old bond. I’ve paid a good
deal of it, Ned, but the times are so bad with me that I can’t do more
just now. I’ve foreseen it, but I couldn’t help it. Not a word before
Wally, for all the world.’
‘You’ve got some money, haven’t you?’ whispered the Captain.
‘Yes, yes--oh yes--I’ve got some,’ returned old Sol, first putting his
hands into his empty pockets, and then squeezing his Welsh wig between
them, as if he thought he might wring some gold out of it; ‘but I--the
little I have got, isn’t convertible, Ned; it can’t be got at. I have
been trying to do something with it for Wally, and I’m old fashioned,
and behind the time. It’s here and there, and--and, in short, it’s as
good as nowhere,’ said the old man, looking in bewilderment about him.
He had so much the air of a half-witted person who had been hiding his
money in a variety of places, and had forgotten where, that the Captain
followed his eyes, not without a faint hope that he might remember some
few hundred pounds concealed up the chimney, or down in the cellar. But
Solomon Gills knew better than that.
‘I’m behind the time altogether, my dear Ned,’ said Sol, in resigned
despair, ‘a long way. It’s no use my lagging on so far behind it. The
stock had better be sold--it’s worth more than this debt--and I had
better go and die somewhere, on the balance. I haven’t any energy left.
I don’t understand things. This had better be the end of it. Let ‘em
sell the stock and take him down,’ said the old man, pointing feebly to
the wooden Midshipman, ‘and let us both be broken up together.’
‘And what d’ye mean to do with Wal’r?’ said the Captain. ‘There, there!
Sit ye down, Gills, sit ye down, and let me think o’ this. If I warn’t a
man on a small annuity, that was large enough till to-day, I hadn’t need
to think of it. But you only lay your head well to the wind,’ said the
Captain, again administering that unanswerable piece of consolation,
‘and you’re all right!’
Old Sol thanked him from his heart, and went and laid it against the
back parlour fire-place instead.
Captain Cuttle walked up and down the shop for some time, cogitating
profoundly, and bringing his bushy black eyebrows to bear so heavily on
his nose, like clouds setting on a mountain, that Walter was afraid to
offer any interruption to the current of his reflections. Mr Brogley,
who was averse to being any constraint upon the party, and who had
an ingenious cast of mind, went, softly whistling, among the stock;
rattling weather-glasses, shaking compasses as if they were physic,
catching up keys with loadstones, looking through telescopes,
endeavouring to make himself acquainted with the use of the globes,
setting parallel rulers astride on to his nose, and amusing himself with
other philosophical transactions.
‘Wal’r!’ said the Captain at last. ‘I’ve got it.’
‘Have you, Captain Cuttle?’ cried Walter, with great animation.
‘Come this way, my lad,’ said the Captain. ‘The stock’s the security.
I’m another. Your governor’s the man to advance money.’
‘Mr Dombey!’ faltered Walter.
The Captain nodded gravely. ‘Look at him,’ he said. ‘Look at Gills.
If they was to sell off these things now, he’d die of it. You know he
would. We mustn’t leave a stone unturned--and there’s a stone for you.’
‘A stone!--Mr Dombey!’ faltered Walter.
‘You run round to the office, first of all, and see if he’s there,’ said
Captain Cuttle, clapping him on the back. ‘Quick!’
Walter felt he must not dispute the command--a glance at his Uncle would
have determined him if he had felt otherwise--and disappeared to execute
it. He soon returned, out of breath, to say that Mr Dombey was not
there. It was Saturday, and he had gone to Brighton.
‘I tell you what, Wal’r!’ said the Captain, who seemed to have prepared
himself for this contingency in his absence. ‘We’ll go to Brighton.
I’ll back you, my boy. I’ll back you, Wal’r. We’ll go to Brighton by the
afternoon’s coach.’
If the application must be made to Mr Dombey at all, which was awful
to think of, Walter felt that he would rather prefer it alone and
unassisted, than backed by the personal influence of Captain Cuttle, to
which he hardly thought Mr Dombey would attach much weight. But as the
Captain appeared to be of quite another opinion, and was bent upon it,
and as his friendship was too zealous and serious to be trifled with
by one so much younger than himself, he forbore to hint the least
objection. Cuttle, therefore, taking a hurried leave of Solomon Gills,
and returning the ready money, the teaspoons, the sugar-tongs, and
the silver watch, to his pocket--with a view, as Walter thought, with
horror, to making a gorgeous impression on Mr Dombey--bore him off to
the coach-office, without a minute’s delay, and repeatedly assured
him, on the road, that he would stick by him to the last.
CHAPTER 10. Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman’s Disaster
Major Bagstock, after long and frequent observation of Paul, across
Princess’s Place, through his double-barrelled opera-glass; and after
receiving many minute reports, daily, weekly, and monthly, on that
subject, from the native who kept himself in constant communication with
Miss Tox’s maid for that purpose; came to the conclusion that Dombey,
Sir, was a man to be known, and that J. B. was the boy to make his
acquaintance.
Miss Tox, however, maintaining her reserved behaviour, and frigidly
declining to understand the Major whenever he called (which he often
did) on any little fishing excursion connected with this project, the
Major, in spite of his constitutional toughness and slyness, was fain
to leave the accomplishment of his desire in some measure to chance,
‘which,’ as he was used to observe with chuckles at his club, ‘has been
fifty to one in favour of Joey B., Sir, ever since his elder brother
died of Yellow Jack in the West Indies.’
It was some time coming to his aid in the present instance, but it
befriended him at last. When the dark servant, with full particulars,
reported Miss Tox absent on Brighton service, the Major was suddenly
touched with affectionate reminiscences of his friend Bill Bitherstone
of Bengal, who had written to ask him, if he ever went that way, to
bestow a call upon his only son. But when the same dark servant reported
Paul at Mrs Pipchin’s, and the Major, referring to the letter favoured
by Master Bitherstone on his arrival in England--to which he had
never had the least idea of paying any attention--saw the opening
that presented itself, he was made so rabid by the gout, with which
he happened to be then laid up, that he threw a footstool at the dark
servant in return for his intelligence, and swore he would be the death
of the rascal before he had done with him: which the dark servant was
more than half disposed to believe.
At length the Major being released from his fit, went one Saturday
growling down to Brighton, with the native behind him; apostrophizing
Miss Tox all the way, and gloating over the prospect of carrying by
storm the distinguished friend to whom she attached so much mystery, and
for whom she had deserted him.
‘Would you, Ma’am, would you!’ said the Major, straining with
vindictiveness, and swelling every already swollen vein in his head.
‘Would you give Joey B. the go-by, Ma’am? Not yet, Ma’am, not yet!
Damme, not yet, Sir. Joe is awake, Ma’am. Bagstock is alive, Sir. J. B.
knows a move or two, Ma’am. Josh has his weather-eye open, Sir. You’ll
find him tough, Ma’am. Tough, Sir, tough is Joseph. Tough, and de-vilish
sly!’
And very tough indeed Master Bitherstone found him, when he took that
young gentleman out for a walk. But the Major, with his complexion
like a Stilton cheese, and his eyes like a prawn’s, went roving about,
perfectly indifferent to Master Bitherstone’s amusement, and dragging
Master Bitherstone along, while he looked about him high and low, for Mr
Dombey and his children.
In good time the Major, previously instructed by Mrs Pipchin, spied
out Paul and Florence, and bore down upon them; there being a stately
gentleman (Mr Dombey, doubtless) in their company. Charging with Master
Bitherstone into the very heart of the little squadron, it fell out, of
course, that Master Bitherstone spoke to his fellow-sufferers. Upon that
the Major stopped to notice and admire them; remembered with amazement
that he had seen and spoken to them at his friend Miss Tox’s in
Princess’s Place; opined that Paul was a devilish fine fellow, and his
own little friend; inquired if he remembered Joey B. the Major; and
finally, with a sudden recollection of the conventionalities of life,
turned and apologised to Mr Dombey.
‘But my little friend here, Sir,’ said the Major, ‘makes a boy of me
again: An old soldier, Sir--Major Bagstock, at your service--is not
ashamed to confess it.’ Here the Major lifted his hat. ‘Damme, Sir,’
cried the Major with sudden warmth, ‘I envy you.’ Then he recollected
himself, and added, ‘Excuse my freedom.’
Mr Dombey begged he wouldn’t mention it.
‘An old campaigner, Sir,’ said the Major, ‘a smoke-dried, sun-burnt,
used-up, invalided old dog of a Major, Sir, was not afraid of being
condemned for his whim by a man like Mr Dombey. I have the honour of
addressing Mr Dombey, I believe?’
‘I am the present unworthy representative of that name, Major,’ returned
Mr Dombey.
‘By G--, Sir!’ said the Major, ‘it’s a great name. It’s a name, Sir,’
said the Major firmly, as if he defied Mr Dombey to contradict him, and
would feel it his painful duty to bully him if he did, ‘that is known
and honoured in the British possessions abroad. It is a name, Sir,
that a man is proud to recognise. There is nothing adulatory in Joseph
Bagstock, Sir. His Royal Highness the Duke of York observed on more than
one occasion, “there is no adulation in Joey. He is a plain old soldier
is Joe. He is tough to a fault is Joseph:” but it’s a great name, Sir.
By the Lord, it’s a great name!’ said the Major, solemnly.
‘You are good enough to rate it higher than it deserves, perhaps,
Major,’ returned Mr Dombey.
‘No, Sir,’ said the Major, in a severe tone. No, Mr Dombey, let us
understand each other. That is not the Bagstock vein, Sir. You don’t
know Joseph B. He is a blunt old blade is Josh. No flattery in him, Sir.
Nothing like it.’
Mr Dombey inclined his head, and said he believed him to be in earnest,
and that his high opinion was gratifying.
‘My little friend here, Sir,’ croaked the Major, looking as amiably
as he could, on Paul, ‘will certify for Joseph Bagstock that he is a
thorough-going, down-right, plain-spoken, old Trump, Sir, and nothing
more. That boy, Sir,’ said the Major in a lower tone, ‘will live in
history. That boy, Sir, is not a common production. Take care of him, Mr
Dombey.’
Mr Dombey seemed to intimate that he would endeavour to do so.
‘Here is a boy here, Sir,’ pursued the Major, confidentially, and
giving him a thrust with his cane. ‘Son of Bitherstone of Bengal. Bill
Bitherstone formerly of ours. That boy’s father and myself, Sir, were
sworn friends. Wherever you went, Sir, you heard of nothing but Bill
Bitherstone and Joe Bagstock. Am I blind to that boy’s defects? By no
means. He’s a fool, Sir.’
Mr Dombey glanced at the libelled Master Bitherstone, of whom he knew at
least as much as the Major did, and said, in quite a complacent manner,
‘Really?’
‘That is what he is, sir,’ said the Major. ‘He’s a fool. Joe Bagstock
never minces matters. The son of my old friend Bill Bitherstone, of
Bengal, is a born fool, Sir.’ Here the Major laughed till he was almost
black. ‘My little friend is destined for a public school, I presume,
Mr Dombey?’ said the Major when he had recovered.
‘I am not quite decided,’ returned Mr Dombey. ‘I think not. He is
delicate.’
‘If he’s delicate, Sir,’ said the Major, ‘you are right. None but the
tough fellows could live through it, Sir, at Sandhurst. We put each
other to the torture there, Sir. We roasted the new fellows at a slow
fire, and hung ‘em out of a three pair of stairs window, with their
heads downwards. Joseph Bagstock, Sir, was held out of the window by the
heels of his boots, for thirteen minutes by the college clock.’
The Major might have appealed to his countenance in corroboration of
this story. It certainly looked as if he had hung out a little too long.
‘But it made us what we were, Sir,’ said the Major, settling his shirt
frill. ‘We were iron, Sir, and it forged us. Are you remaining here, Mr
Dombey?’
‘I generally come down once a week, Major,’ returned that gentleman. ‘I
stay at the Bedford.’
‘I shall have the honour of calling at the Bedford, Sir, if you’ll
permit me,’ said the Major. ‘Joey B., Sir, is not in general a calling
man, but Mr Dombey’s is not a common name. I am much indebted to my
little friend, Sir, for the honour of this introduction.’
Mr Dombey made a very gracious reply; and Major Bagstock, having patted
Paul on the head, and said of Florence that her eyes would play the
Devil with the youngsters before long--‘and the oldsters too, Sir, if
you come to that,’ added the Major, chuckling very much--stirred up
Master Bitherstone with his walking-stick, and departed with that young
gentleman, at a kind of half-trot; rolling his head and coughing with
great dignity, as he staggered away, with his legs very wide asunder.
In fulfilment of his promise, the Major afterwards called on Mr Dombey;
and Mr Dombey, having referred to the army list, afterwards called on
the Major. Then the Major called at Mr Dombey’s house in town; and came
down again, in the same coach as Mr Dombey. In short, Mr Dombey and
the Major got on uncommonly well together, and uncommonly fast: and Mr
Dombey observed of the Major, to his sister, that besides being quite
a military man he was really something more, as he had a very admirable
idea of the importance of things unconnected with his own profession.
At length Mr Dombey, bringing down Miss Tox and Mrs Chick to see the
children, and finding the Major again at Brighton, invited him to dinner
at the Bedford, and complimented Miss Tox highly, beforehand, on her
neighbour and acquaintance.
‘My dearest Louisa,’ said Miss Tox to Mrs Chick, when they were alone
together, on the morning of the appointed day, ‘if I should seem at all
reserved to Major Bagstock, or under any constraint with him, promise me
not to notice it.’
‘My dear Lucretia,’ returned Mrs Chick, ‘what mystery is involved in
this remarkable request? I must insist upon knowing.’
‘Since you are resolved to extort a confession from me, Louisa,’ said
Miss Tox instantly, ‘I have no alternative but to confide to you that
the Major has been particular.’
‘Particular!’ repeated Mrs Chick.
‘The Major has long been very particular indeed, my love, in his
attentions,’ said Miss Tox, ‘occasionally they have been so very marked,
that my position has been one of no common difficulty.’
‘Is he in good circumstances?’ inquired Mrs Chick.
‘I have every reason to believe, my dear--indeed I may say I know,’
returned Miss Tox, ‘that he is wealthy. He is truly military, and full
of anecdote. I have been informed that his valour, when he was in active
service, knew no bounds. I am told that he did all sorts of things in
the Peninsula, with every description of fire-arm; and in the East and
West Indies, my love, I really couldn’t undertake to say what he did not
do.’
‘Very creditable to him indeed,’ said Mrs Chick, ‘extremely so; and you
have given him no encouragement, my dear?’
‘If I were to say, Louisa,’ replied Miss Tox, with every demonstration
of making an effort that rent her soul, ‘that I never encouraged Major
Bagstock slightly, I should not do justice to the friendship which
exists between you and me. It is, perhaps, hardly in the nature of
woman to receive such attentions as the Major once lavished upon myself
without betraying some sense of obligation. But that is past--long past.
Between the Major and me there is now a yawning chasm, and I will not
feign to give encouragement, Louisa, where I cannot give my heart. My
affections,’ said Miss Tox--‘but, Louisa, this is madness!’ and departed
from the room.
All this Mrs Chick communicated to her brother before dinner: and it
by no means indisposed Mr Dombey to receive the Major with unwonted
cordiality. The Major, for his part, was in a state of plethoric
satisfaction that knew no bounds: and he coughed, and choked, and
chuckled, and gasped, and swelled, until the waiters seemed positively
afraid of him.
‘Your family monopolises Joe’s light, Sir,’ said the Major, when he had
saluted Miss Tox. ‘Joe lives in darkness. Princess’s Place is changed
into Kamschatka in the winter time. There is no ray of sun, Sir, for
Joey B., now.’
‘Miss Tox is good enough to take a great deal of interest in Paul,
Major,’ returned Mr Dombey on behalf of that blushing virgin.
‘Damme Sir,’ said the Major, ‘I’m jealous of my little friend. I’m
pining away Sir. The Bagstock breed is degenerating in the forsaken
person of old Joe.’ And the Major, becoming bluer and bluer and puffing
his cheeks further and further over the stiff ridge of his tight cravat,
stared at Miss Tox, until his eyes seemed as if he were at that moment
being overdone before the slow fire at the military college.
Notwithstanding the palpitation of the heart which these allusions
occasioned her, they were anything but disagreeable to Miss Tox, as they
enabled her to be extremely interesting, and to manifest an occasional
incoherence and distraction which she was not at all unwilling to
display. The Major gave her abundant opportunities of exhibiting this
emotion: being profuse in his complaints, at dinner, of her desertion of
him and Princess’s Place: and as he appeared to derive great enjoyment
from making them, they all got on very well.
None the worse on account of the Major taking charge of the whole
conversation, and showing as great an appetite in that respect as in
regard of the various dainties on the table, among which he may
be almost said to have wallowed: greatly to the aggravation of his
inflammatory tendencies. Mr Dombey’s habitual silence and reserve
yielding readily to this usurpation, the Major felt that he was coming
out and shining: and in the flow of spirits thus engendered, rang
such an infinite number of new changes on his own name that he quite
astonished himself. In a word, they were all very well pleased. The
Major was considered to possess an inexhaustible fund of conversation;
and when he took a late farewell, after a long rubber, Mr Dombey again
complimented the blushing Miss Tox on her neighbour and acquaintance.
But all the way home to his own hotel, the Major incessantly said to
himself, and of himself, ‘Sly, Sir--sly, Sir--de-vil-ish sly!’ And
when he got there, sat down in a chair, and fell into a silent fit
of laughter, with which he was sometimes seized, and which was always
particularly awful. It held him so long on this occasion that the dark
servant, who stood watching him at a distance, but dared not for his
life approach, twice or thrice gave him over for lost. His whole form,
but especially his face and head, dilated beyond all former experience;
and presented to the dark man’s view, nothing but a heaving mass of
indigo. At length he burst into a violent paroxysm of coughing, and when
that was a little better burst into such ejaculations as the following:
‘Would you, Ma’am, would you? Mrs Dombey, eh, Ma’am? I think not, Ma’am.
Not while Joe B. can put a spoke in your wheel, Ma’am. J. B.’s even
with you now, Ma’am. He isn’t altogether bowled out, yet, Sir, isn’t
Bagstock. She’s deep, Sir, deep, but Josh is deeper. Wide awake is old
Joe--broad awake, and staring, Sir!’ There was no doubt of this last
assertion being true, and to a very fearful extent; as it continued to
be during the greater part of that night, which the Major chiefly passed
in similar exclamations, diversified with fits of coughing and choking
that startled the whole house.
It was on the day after this occasion (being Sunday) when, as Mr Dombey,
Mrs Chick, and Miss Tox were sitting at breakfast, still eulogising the
Major, Florence came running in: her face suffused with a bright colour,
and her eyes sparkling joyfully: and cried,
‘Papa! Papa! Here’s Walter! and he won’t come in.’
‘Who?’ cried Mr Dombey. ‘What does she mean? What is this?’
‘Walter, Papa!’ said Florence timidly; sensible of having approached the
presence with too much familiarity. ‘Who found me when I was lost.’
‘Does she mean young Gay, Louisa?’ inquired Mr Dombey, knitting his
brows. ‘Really, this child’s manners have become very boisterous. She
cannot mean young Gay, I think. See what it is, will you?’
Mrs Chick hurried into the passage, and returned with the information
that it was young Gay, accompanied by a very strange-looking person; and
that young Gay said he would not take the liberty of coming in, hearing
Mr Dombey was at breakfast, but would wait until Mr Dombey should
signify that he might approach.
‘Tell the boy to come in now,’ said Mr Dombey. ‘Now, Gay, what is the
matter? Who sent you down here? Was there nobody else to come?’
‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ returned Walter. ‘I have not been sent. I have
been so bold as to come on my own account, which I hope you’ll pardon
when I mention the cause.
But Mr Dombey, without attending to what he said, was looking
impatiently on either side of him (as if he were a pillar in his way) at
some object behind.
‘What’s that?’ said Mr Dombey. ‘Who is that? I think you have made some
mistake in the door, Sir.’
‘Oh, I’m very sorry to intrude with anyone, Sir,’ cried Walter, hastily:
‘but this is--this is Captain Cuttle, Sir.’
‘Wal’r, my lad,’ observed the Captain in a deep voice: ‘stand by!’
At the same time the Captain, coming a little further in, brought out
his wide suit of blue, his conspicuous shirt-collar, and his knobby
nose in full relief, and stood bowing to Mr Dombey, and waving his hook
politely to the ladies, with the hard glazed hat in his one hand, and a
red equator round his head which it had newly imprinted there.
Mr Dombey regarded this phenomenon with amazement and indignation, and
seemed by his looks to appeal to Mrs Chick and Miss Tox against it.
Little Paul, who had come in after Florence, backed towards Miss Tox as
the Captain waved his hook, and stood on the defensive.
‘Now, Gay,’ said Mr Dombey. ‘What have you got to say to me?’
Again the Captain observed, as a general opening of the conversation
that could not fail to propitiate all parties, ‘Wal’r, standby!’
‘I am afraid, Sir,’ began Walter, trembling, and looking down at the
ground, ‘that I take a very great liberty in coming--indeed, I am sure
I do. I should hardly have had the courage to ask to see you, Sir, even
after coming down, I am afraid, if I had not overtaken Miss Dombey,
and--’
‘Well!’ said Mr Dombey, following his eyes as he glanced at the
attentive Florence, and frowning unconsciously as she encouraged him
with a smile. ‘Go on, if you please.’
‘Ay, ay,’ observed the Captain, considering it incumbent on him, as a
point of good breeding, to support Mr Dombey. ‘Well said! Go on, Wal’r.’
Captain Cuttle ought to have been withered by the look which Mr Dombey
bestowed upon him in acknowledgment of his patronage. But quite innocent
of this, he closed one eye in reply, and gave Mr Dombey to understand,
by certain significant motions of his hook, that Walter was a little
bashful at first, and might be expected to come out shortly.
‘It is entirely a private and personal matter, that has brought me here,
Sir,’ continued Walter, faltering, ‘and Captain Cuttle--’
‘Here!’ interposed the Captain, as an assurance that he was at hand, and
might be relied upon.
‘Who is a very old friend of my poor Uncle’s, and a most excellent man,
Sir,’ pursued Walter, raising his eyes with a look of entreaty in the
Captain’s behalf, ‘was so good as to offer to come with me, which I
could hardly refuse.’
‘No, no, no;’ observed the Captain complacently. ‘Of course not. No call
for refusing. Go on, Wal’r.’
‘And therefore, Sir,’ said Walter, venturing to meet Mr Dombey’s eye,
and proceeding with better courage in the very desperation of the case,
now that there was no avoiding it, ‘therefore I have come, with him,
Sir, to say that my poor old Uncle is in very great affliction and
distress. That, through the gradual loss of his business, and not being
able to make a payment, the apprehension of which has weighed very
heavily upon his mind, months and months, as indeed I know, Sir, he has
an execution in his house, and is in danger of losing all he has, and
breaking his heart. And that if you would, in your kindness, and in your
old knowledge of him as a respectable man, do anything to help him out
of his difficulty, Sir, we never could thank you enough for it.’
Walter’s eyes filled with tears as he spoke; and so did those of
Florence. Her father saw them glistening, though he appeared to look at
Walter only.
‘It is a very large sum, Sir,’ said Walter. ‘More than three hundred
pounds. My Uncle is quite beaten down by his misfortune, it lies so
heavy on him; and is quite unable to do anything for his own relief. He
doesn’t even know yet, that I have come to speak to you. You would wish
me to say, Sir,’ added Walter, after a moment’s hesitation, ‘exactly
what it is I want. I really don’t know, Sir. There is my Uncle’s stock,
on which I believe I may say, confidently, there are no other demands,
and there is Captain Cuttle, who would wish to be security too. I--I
hardly like to mention,’ said Walter, ‘such earnings as mine; but if
you would allow them--accumulate--payment--advance--Uncle--frugal,
honourable, old man.’ Walter trailed off, through these broken
sentences, into silence: and stood with downcast head, before his
employer.
Considering this a favourable moment for the display of the valuables,
Captain Cuttle advanced to the table; and clearing a space among the
breakfast-cups at Mr Dombey’s elbow, produced the silver watch, the
ready money, the teaspoons, and the sugar-tongs; and piling them up into
a heap that they might look as precious as possible, delivered himself
of these words:
‘Half a loaf’s better than no bread, and the same remark holds good with
crumbs. There’s a few. Annuity of one hundred pound premium also ready
to be made over. If there is a man chock full of science in the world,
it’s old Sol Gills. If there is a lad of promise--one flowing,’ added
the Captain, in one of his happy quotations, ‘with milk and honey--it’s
his nevy!’
The Captain then withdrew to his former place, where he stood arranging
his scattered locks with the air of a man who had given the finishing
touch to a difficult performance.
When Walter ceased to speak, Mr Dombey’s eyes were attracted to little
Paul, who, seeing his sister hanging down her head and silently weeping
in her commiseration for the distress she had heard described, went over
to her, and tried to comfort her: looking at Walter and his father as he
did so, with a very expressive face. After the momentary distraction of
Captain Cuttle’s address, which he regarded with lofty indifference, Mr
Dombey again turned his eyes upon his son, and sat steadily regarding
the child, for some moments, in silence.
‘What was this debt contracted for?’ asked Mr Dombey, at length. ‘Who is
the creditor?’
‘He don’t know,’ replied the Captain, putting his hand on Walter’s
shoulder. ‘I do. It came of helping a man that’s dead now, and that’s
cost my friend Gills many a hundred pound already. More particulars in
private, if agreeable.’
‘People who have enough to do to hold their own way,’ said Mr Dombey,
unobservant of the Captain’s mysterious signs behind Walter, and still
looking at his son, ‘had better be content with their own obligations
and difficulties, and not increase them by engaging for other men. It
is an act of dishonesty and presumption, too,’ said Mr Dombey, sternly;
‘great presumption; for the wealthy could do no more. Paul, come here!’
The child obeyed: and Mr Dombey took him on his knee.
‘If you had money now--’ said Mr Dombey. ‘Look at me!’
Paul, whose eyes had wandered to his sister, and to Walter, looked his
father in the face.
‘If you had money now,’ said Mr Dombey; ‘as much money as young Gay has
talked about; what would you do?’
‘Give it to his old Uncle,’ returned Paul.
‘Lend it to his old Uncle, eh?’ retorted Mr Dombey. ‘Well! When you
are old enough, you know, you will share my money, and we shall use it
together.’
‘Dombey and Son,’ interrupted Paul, who had been tutored early in the
phrase.
‘Dombey and Son,’ repeated his father. ‘Would you like to begin to be
Dombey and Son, now, and lend this money to young Gay’s Uncle?’
‘Oh! if you please, Papa!’ said Paul: ‘and so would Florence.’
‘Girls,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘have nothing to do with Dombey and Son. Would
you like it?’
‘Yes, Papa, yes!’
‘Then you shall do it,’ returned his father. ‘And you see, Paul,’ he
added, dropping his voice, ‘how powerful money is, and how anxious
people are to get it. Young Gay comes all this way to beg for money,
and you, who are so grand and great, having got it, are going to let him
have it, as a great favour and obligation.’
Paul turned up the old face for a moment, in which there was a sharp
understanding of the reference conveyed in these words: but it was a
young and childish face immediately afterwards, when he slipped down
from his father’s knee, and ran to tell Florence not to cry any more,
for he was going to let young Gay have the money.
Mr Dombey then turned to a side-table, and wrote a note and sealed it.
During the interval, Paul and Florence whispered to Walter, and
Captain Cuttle beamed on the three, with such aspiring and ineffably
presumptuous thoughts as Mr Dombey never could have believed in. The
note being finished, Mr Dombey turned round to his former place, and
held it out to Walter.
‘Give that,’ he said, ‘the first thing to-morrow morning, to Mr Carker.
He will immediately take care that one of my people releases your Uncle
from his present position, by paying the amount at issue; and that such
arrangements are made for its repayment as may be consistent with your
Uncle’s circumstances. You will consider that this is done for you by
Master Paul.’
Walter, in the emotion of holding in his hand the means of releasing his
good Uncle from his trouble, would have endeavoured to express something
of his gratitude and joy. But Mr Dombey stopped him short.
‘You will consider that it is done,’ he repeated, ‘by Master Paul. I
have explained that to him, and he understands it. I wish no more to be
said.’
As he motioned towards the door, Walter could only bow his head and
retire. Miss Tox, seeing that the Captain appeared about to do the same,
interposed.
‘My dear Sir,’ she said, addressing Mr Dombey, at whose munificence
both she and Mrs Chick were shedding tears copiously; ‘I think you have
overlooked something. Pardon me, Mr Dombey, I think, in the nobility
of your character, and its exalted scope, you have omitted a matter of
detail.’
‘Indeed, Miss Tox!’ said Mr Dombey.
‘The gentleman with the--Instrument,’ pursued Miss Tox, glancing at
Captain Cuttle, ‘has left upon the table, at your elbow--’
‘Good Heaven!’ said Mr Dombey, sweeping the Captain’s property from
him, as if it were so much crumb indeed. ‘Take these things away. I am
obliged to you, Miss Tox; it is like your usual discretion. Have the
goodness to take these things away, Sir!’
Captain Cuttle felt he had no alternative but to comply. But he was so
much struck by the magnanimity of Mr Dombey, in refusing treasures lying
heaped up to his hand, that when he had deposited the teaspoons and
sugar-tongs in one pocket, and the ready money in another, and had
lowered the great watch down slowly into its proper vault, he could not
refrain from seizing that gentleman’s right hand in his own solitary
left, and while he held it open with his powerful fingers, bringing the
hook down upon its palm in a transport of admiration. At this touch of
warm feeling and cold iron, Mr Dombey shivered all over.
Captain Cuttle then kissed his hook to the ladies several times, with
great elegance and gallantry; and having taken a particular leave of
Paul and Florence, accompanied Walter out of the room. Florence was
running after them in the earnestness of her heart, to send some message
to old Sol, when Mr Dombey called her back, and bade her stay where she
was.
‘Will you never be a Dombey, my dear child!’ said Mrs Chick, with
pathetic reproachfulness.
‘Dear aunt,’ said Florence. ‘Don’t be angry with me. I am so thankful to
Papa!’
She would have run and thrown her arms about his neck if she had dared;
but as she did not dare, she glanced with thankful eyes towards him, as
he sat musing; sometimes bestowing an uneasy glance on her, but, for the
most part, watching Paul, who walked about the room with the new-blown
dignity of having let young Gay have the money.
And young Gay--Walter--what of him?
He was overjoyed to purge the old man’s hearth from bailiffs and
brokers, and to hurry back to his Uncle with the good tidings. He was
overjoyed to have it all arranged and settled next day before noon;
and to sit down at evening in the little back parlour with old Sol and
Captain Cuttle; and to see the Instrument-maker already reviving, and
hopeful for the future, and feeling that the wooden Midshipman was his
own again. But without the least impeachment of his gratitude to Mr
Dombey, it must be confessed that Walter was humbled and cast down. It
is when our budding hopes are nipped beyond recovery by some rough wind,
that we are the most disposed to picture to ourselves what flowers they
might have borne, if they had flourished; and now, when Walter found
himself cut off from that great Dombey height, by the depth of a new
and terrible tumble, and felt that all his old wild fancies had been
scattered to the winds in the fall, he began to suspect that they might
have led him on to harmless visions of aspiring to Florence in the
remote distance of time.
The Captain viewed the subject in quite a different light. He appeared
to entertain a belief that the interview at which he had assisted was so
very satisfactory and encouraging, as to be only a step or two removed
from a regular betrothal of Florence to Walter; and that the late
transaction had immensely forwarded, if not thoroughly established,
the Whittingtonian hopes. Stimulated by this conviction, and by the
improvement in the spirits of his old friend, and by his own consequent
gaiety, he even attempted, in favouring them with the ballad of ‘Lovely
Peg’ for the third time in one evening, to make an extemporaneous
substitution of the name ‘Florence;’ but finding this difficult, on
account of the word Peg invariably rhyming to leg (in which personal
beauty the original was described as having excelled all competitors),
he hit upon the happy thought of changing it to Fle-e-eg; which he
accordingly did, with an archness almost supernatural, and a voice quite
vociferous, notwithstanding that the time was close at hand when he must
seek the abode of the dreadful Mrs MacStinger.
That same evening the Major was diffuse at his club, on the subject of
his friend Dombey in the City. ‘Damme, Sir,’ said the Major, ‘he’s a
prince, is my friend Dombey in the City. I tell you what, Sir. If you
had a few more men among you like old Joe Bagstock and my friend Dombey
in the City, Sir, you’d do!’
CHAPTER 11. Paul’s Introduction to a New Scene
Mrs Pipchin’s constitution was made of such hard metal, in spite of its
liability to the fleshly weaknesses of standing in need of repose after
chops, and of requiring to be coaxed to sleep by the soporific agency
of sweet-breads, that it utterly set at naught the predictions of Mrs
Wickam, and showed no symptoms of decline. Yet, as Paul’s rapt interest
in the old lady continued unbated, Mrs Wickam would not budge an inch
from the position she had taken up. Fortifying and entrenching herself
on the strong ground of her Uncle’s Betsey Jane, she advised Miss Berry,
as a friend, to prepare herself for the worst; and forewarned her that
her aunt might, at any time, be expected to go off suddenly, like a
powder-mill.
‘I hope, Miss Berry,’ Mrs Wickam would observe, ‘that you’ll come into
whatever little property there may be to leave. You deserve it, I am
sure, for yours is a trying life. Though there don’t seem much worth
coming into--you’ll excuse my being so open--in this dismal den.’
Poor Berry took it all in good part, and drudged and slaved away
as usual; perfectly convinced that Mrs Pipchin was one of the most
meritorious persons in the world, and making every day innumerable
sacrifices of herself upon the altar of that noble old woman. But all
these immolations of Berry were somehow carried to the credit of
Mrs Pipchin by Mrs Pipchin’s friends and admirers; and were made to
harmonise with, and carry out, that melancholy fact of the deceased Mr
Pipchin having broken his heart in the Peruvian mines.
For example, there was an honest grocer and general dealer in the
retail line of business, between whom and Mrs Pipchin there was a small
memorandum book, with a greasy red cover, perpetually in question, and
concerning which divers secret councils and conferences were continually
being held between the parties to that register, on the mat in the
passage, and with closed doors in the parlour. Nor were there wanting
dark hints from Master Bitherstone (whose temper had been made
revengeful by the solar heats of India acting on his blood), of balances
unsettled, and of a failure, on one occasion within his memory, in the
supply of moist sugar at tea-time. This grocer being a bachelor and not
a man who looked upon the surface for beauty, had once made honourable
offers for the hand of Berry, which Mrs Pipchin had, with contumely and
scorn, rejected. Everybody said how laudable this was in Mrs Pipchin,
relict of a man who had died of the Peruvian mines; and what a staunch,
high, independent spirit the old lady had. But nobody said anything
about poor Berry, who cried for six weeks (being soundly rated by
her good aunt all the time), and lapsed into a state of hopeless
spinsterhood.
‘Berry’s very fond of you, ain’t she?’ Paul once asked Mrs Pipchin when
they were sitting by the fire with the cat.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Pipchin.
‘Why?’ asked Paul.
‘Why!’ returned the disconcerted old lady. ‘How can you ask such things,
Sir! why are you fond of your sister Florence?’
‘Because she’s very good,’ said Paul. ‘There’s nobody like Florence.’
‘Well!’ retorted Mrs Pipchin, shortly, ‘and there’s nobody like me, I
suppose.’
‘Ain’t there really though?’ asked Paul, leaning forward in his chair,
and looking at her very hard.
‘No,’ said the old lady.
‘I am glad of that,’ observed Paul, rubbing his hands thoughtfully.
‘That’s a very good thing.’
Mrs Pipchin didn’t dare to ask him why, lest she should receive some
perfectly annihilating answer. But as a compensation to her wounded
feelings, she harassed Master Bitherstone to that extent until bed-time,
that he began that very night to make arrangements for an overland
return to India, by secreting from his supper a quarter of a round of
bread and a fragment of moist Dutch cheese, as the beginning of a stock
of provision to support him on the voyage.
Mrs Pipchin had kept watch and ward over little Paul and his sister for
nearly twelve months. They had been home twice, but only for a few days;
and had been constant in their weekly visits to Mr Dombey at the hotel.
By little and little Paul had grown stronger, and had become able to
dispense with his carriage; though he still looked thin and delicate;
and still remained the same old, quiet, dreamy child that he had been
when first consigned to Mrs Pipchin’s care. One Saturday afternoon,
at dusk, great consternation was occasioned in the Castle by the
unlooked-for announcement of Mr Dombey as a visitor to Mrs Pipchin. The
population of the parlour was immediately swept upstairs as on the wings
of a whirlwind, and after much slamming of bedroom doors, and trampling
overhead, and some knocking about of Master Bitherstone by Mrs Pipchin,
as a relief to the perturbation of her spirits, the black bombazeen
garments of the worthy old lady darkened the audience-chamber where Mr
Dombey was contemplating the vacant arm-chair of his son and heir.
‘Mrs Pipchin,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘How do you do?’
‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Mrs Pipchin, ‘I am pretty well, considering.’
Mrs Pipchin always used that form of words. It meant, considering her
virtues, sacrifices, and so forth.
‘I can’t expect, Sir, to be very well,’ said Mrs Pipchin, taking a chair
and fetching her breath; ‘but such health as I have, I am grateful for.’
Mr Dombey inclined his head with the satisfied air of a patron, who felt
that this was the sort of thing for which he paid so much a quarter.
After a moment’s silence he went on to say:
‘Mrs Pipchin, I have taken the liberty of calling, to consult you in
reference to my son. I have had it in my mind to do so for some time
past; but have deferred it from time to time, in order that his health
might be thoroughly re-established. You have no misgivings on that
subject, Mrs Pipchin?’
‘Brighton has proved very beneficial, Sir,’ returned Mrs Pipchin. ‘Very
beneficial, indeed.’
‘I purpose,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘his remaining at Brighton.’
Mrs Pipchin rubbed her hands, and bent her grey eyes on the fire.
‘But,’ pursued Mr Dombey, stretching out his forefinger, ‘but possibly
that he should now make a change, and lead a different kind of life
here. In short, Mrs Pipchin, that is the object of my visit. My son is
getting on, Mrs Pipchin. Really, he is getting on.’
There was something melancholy in the triumphant air with which Mr
Dombey said this. It showed how long Paul’s childish life had been to
him, and how his hopes were set upon a later stage of his existence.
Pity may appear a strange word to connect with anyone so haughty and so
cold, and yet he seemed a worthy subject for it at that moment.
‘Six years old!’ said Mr Dombey, settling his neckcloth--perhaps to hide
an irrepressible smile that rather seemed to strike upon the surface
of his face and glance away, as finding no resting-place, than to play
there for an instant. ‘Dear me, six will be changed to sixteen, before
we have time to look about us.’
‘Ten years,’ croaked the unsympathetic Pipchin, with a frosty glistening
of her hard grey eye, and a dreary shaking of her bent head, ‘is a long
time.’
‘It depends on circumstances, returned Mr Dombey; ‘at all events, Mrs
Pipchin, my son is six years old, and there is no doubt, I fear, that in
his studies he is behind many children of his age--or his youth,’ said
Mr Dombey, quickly answering what he mistrusted was a shrewd twinkle of
the frosty eye, ‘his youth is a more appropriate expression. Now, Mrs
Pipchin, instead of being behind his peers, my son ought to be before
them; far before them. There is an eminence ready for him to mount upon.
There is nothing of chance or doubt in the course before my son. His way
in life was clear and prepared, and marked out before he existed. The
education of such a young gentleman must not be delayed. It must not be
left imperfect. It must be very steadily and seriously undertaken, Mrs
Pipchin.’
‘Well, Sir,’ said Mrs Pipchin, ‘I can say nothing to the contrary.’
‘I was quite sure, Mrs Pipchin,’ returned Mr Dombey, approvingly, ‘that
a person of your good sense could not, and would not.’
‘There is a great deal of nonsense--and worse--talked about young people
not being pressed too hard at first, and being tempted on, and all the
rest of it, Sir,’ said Mrs Pipchin, impatiently rubbing her hooked
nose. ‘It never was thought of in my time, and it has no business to be
thought of now. My opinion is “keep ‘em at it”.’
‘My good madam,’ returned Mr Dombey, ‘you have not acquired your
reputation undeservedly; and I beg you to believe, Mrs Pipchin, that
I am more than satisfied with your excellent system of management,
and shall have the greatest pleasure in commending it whenever my poor
commendation--’ Mr Dombey’s loftiness when he affected to disparage his
own importance, passed all bounds--‘can be of any service. I have been
thinking of Doctor Blimber’s, Mrs Pipchin.’
‘My neighbour, Sir?’ said Mrs Pipchin. ‘I believe the Doctor’s is an
excellent establishment. I’ve heard that it’s very strictly conducted,
and there is nothing but learning going on from morning to night.’
‘And it’s very expensive,’ added Mr Dombey.
‘And it’s very expensive, Sir,’ returned Mrs Pipchin, catching at the
fact, as if in omitting that, she had omitted one of its leading merits.
‘I have had some communication with the Doctor, Mrs Pipchin,’ said Mr
Dombey, hitching his chair anxiously a little nearer to the fire, ‘and
he does not consider Paul at all too young for his purpose. He mentioned
several instances of boys in Greek at about the same age. If I have any
little uneasiness in my own mind, Mrs Pipchin, on the subject of this
change, it is not on that head. My son not having known a mother has
gradually concentrated much--too much--of his childish affection on
his sister. Whether their separation--’ Mr Dombey said no more, but sat
silent.
‘Hoity-toity!’ exclaimed Mrs Pipchin, shaking out her black bombazeen
skirts, and plucking up all the ogress within her. ‘If she don’t like
it, Mr Dombey, she must be taught to lump it.’ The good lady apologised
immediately afterwards for using so common a figure of speech, but said
(and truly) that that was the way she reasoned with ‘em.
Mr Dombey waited until Mrs Pipchin had done bridling and shaking her
head, and frowning down a legion of Bitherstones and Pankeys; and then
said quietly, but correctively, ‘He, my good madam, he.’
Mrs Pipchin’s system would have applied very much the same mode of cure
to any uneasiness on the part of Paul, too; but as the hard grey eye was
sharp enough to see that the recipe, however Mr Dombey might admit its
efficacy in the case of the daughter, was not a sovereign remedy for the
son, she argued the point; and contended that change, and new society,
and the different form of life he would lead at Doctor Blimber’s, and
the studies he would have to master, would very soon prove sufficient
alienations. As this chimed in with Mr Dombey’s own hope and belief,
it gave that gentleman a still higher opinion of Mrs Pipchin’s
understanding; and as Mrs Pipchin, at the same time, bewailed the loss
of her dear little friend (which was not an overwhelming shock to her,
as she had long expected it, and had not looked, in the beginning, for
his remaining with her longer than three months), he formed an equally
good opinion of Mrs Pipchin’s disinterestedness. It was plain that he
had given the subject anxious consideration, for he had formed a plan,
which he announced to the ogress, of sending Paul to the Doctor’s as a
weekly boarder for the first half year, during which time Florence
would remain at the Castle, that she might receive her brother there, on
Saturdays. This would wean him by degrees, Mr Dombey said; possibly
with a recollection of his not having been weaned by degrees on a former
occasion.
Mr Dombey finished the interview by expressing his hope that Mrs Pipchin
would still remain in office as general superintendent and overseer of
his son, pending his studies at Brighton; and having kissed Paul, and
shaken hands with Florence, and beheld Master Bitherstone in his collar
of state, and made Miss Pankey cry by patting her on the head (in which
region she was uncommonly tender, on account of a habit Mrs Pipchin had
of sounding it with her knuckles, like a cask), he withdrew to his hotel
and dinner: resolved that Paul, now that he was getting so old and well,
should begin a vigorous course of education forthwith, to qualify him
for the position in which he was to shine; and that Doctor Blimber
should take him in hand immediately.
Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor Blimber, he
might consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The Doctor only
undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had, always ready, a
supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; and it was at
once the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with
it.
In fact, Doctor Blimber’s establishment was a great hot-house, in which
there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew
before their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, and
intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries
(very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere
sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber’s cultivation. Every description
of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs of boys, under
the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at all. No
matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made
him bear to pattern, somehow or other.
This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing was
attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right taste
about the premature productions, and they didn’t keep well. Moreover,
one young gentleman, with a swollen nose and an excessively large head
(the oldest of the ten who had ‘gone through’ everything), suddenly left
off blowing one day, and remained in the establishment a mere stalk. And
people did say that the Doctor had rather overdone it with young Toots,
and that when he began to have whiskers he left off having brains.
There young Toots was, at any rate; possessed of the gruffest of voices
and the shrillest of minds; sticking ornamental pins into his shirt, and
keeping a ring in his waistcoat pocket to put on his little finger by
stealth, when the pupils went out walking; constantly falling in love by
sight with nurserymaids, who had no idea of his existence; and looking
at the gas-lighted world over the little iron bars in the left-hand
corner window of the front three pairs of stairs, after bed-time, like a
greatly overgrown cherub who had sat up aloft much too long.
The Doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with strings
at his knees, and stockings below them. He had a bald head, highly
polished; a deep voice; and a chin so very double, that it was a wonder
how he ever managed to shave into the creases. He had likewise a pair of
little eyes that were always half shut up, and a mouth that was always
half expanded into a grin, as if he had, that moment, posed a boy, and
were waiting to convict him from his own lips. Insomuch, that when the
Doctor put his right hand into the breast of his coat, and with his
other hand behind him, and a scarcely perceptible wag of his head, made
the commonest observation to a nervous stranger, it was like a sentiment
from the sphynx, and settled his business.
The Doctor’s was a mighty fine house, fronting the sea. Not a joyful
style of house within, but quite the contrary. Sad-coloured curtains,
whose proportions were spare and lean, hid themselves despondently
behind the windows. The tables and chairs were put away in rows, like
figures in a sum; fires were so rarely lighted in the rooms of ceremony,
that they felt like wells, and a visitor represented the bucket; the
dining-room seemed the last place in the world where any eating or
drinking was likely to occur; there was no sound through all the house
but the ticking of a great clock in the hall, which made itself audible
in the very garrets; and sometimes a dull cooing of young gentlemen
at their lessons, like the murmurings of an assemblage of melancholy
pigeons.
Miss Blimber, too, although a slim and graceful maid, did no soft
violence to the gravity of the house. There was no light nonsense about
Miss Blimber. She kept her hair short and crisp, and wore spectacles.
She was dry and sandy with working in the graves of deceased languages.
None of your live languages for Miss Blimber. They must be dead--stone
dead--and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a Ghoul.
Mrs Blimber, her Mama, was not learned herself, but she pretended to
be, and that did quite as well. She said at evening parties, that if she
could have known Cicero, she thought she could have died contented. It
was the steady joy of her life to see the Doctor’s young gentlemen go
out walking, unlike all other young gentlemen, in the largest possible
shirt-collars, and the stiffest possible cravats. It was so classical,
she said.
As to Mr Feeder, B.A., Doctor Blimber’s assistant, he was a kind
of human barrel-organ, with a little list of tunes at which he was
continually working, over and over again, without any variation. He
might have been fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early
life, if his destiny had been favourable; but it had not been; and he
had only one, with which, in a monotonous round, it was his occupation
to bewilder the young ideas of Doctor Blimber’s young gentlemen. The
young gentlemen were prematurely full of carking anxieties. They knew no
rest from the pursuit of stony-hearted verbs, savage noun-substantives,
inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of exercises that appeared
to them in their dreams. Under the forcing system, a young gentleman
usually took leave of his spirits in three weeks. He had all the cares
of the world on his head in three months. He conceived bitter sentiments
against his parents or guardians in four; he was an old misanthrope, in
five; envied Curtius that blessed refuge in the earth, in six; and at
the end of the first twelvemonth had arrived at the conclusion, from
which he never afterwards departed, that all the fancies of the poets,
and lessons of the sages, were a mere collection of words and grammar,
and had no other meaning in the world.
But he went on blow, blow, blowing, in the Doctor’s hothouse, all the
time; and the Doctor’s glory and reputation were great, when he took his
wintry growth home to his relations and friends.
Upon the Doctor’s door-steps one day, Paul stood with a fluttering
heart, and with his small right hand in his father’s. His other hand was
locked in that of Florence. How tight the tiny pressure of that one; and
how loose and cold the other!
Mrs Pipchin hovered behind the victim, with her sable plumage and her
hooked beak, like a bird of ill-omen. She was out of breath--for
Mr Dombey, full of great thoughts, had walked fast--and she croaked
hoarsely as she waited for the opening of the door.
‘Now, Paul,’ said Mr Dombey, exultingly. ‘This is the way indeed to be
Dombey and Son, and have money. You are almost a man already.’
‘Almost,’ returned the child.
Even his childish agitation could not master the sly and quaint yet
touching look, with which he accompanied the reply.
It brought a vague expression of dissatisfaction into Mr Dombey’s face;
but the door being opened, it was quickly gone.
‘Doctor Blimber is at home, I believe?’ said Mr Dombey.
The man said yes; and as they passed in, looked at Paul as if he were a
little mouse, and the house were a trap. He was a weak-eyed young man,
with the first faint streaks or early dawn of a grin on his countenance.
It was mere imbecility; but Mrs Pipchin took it into her head that it
was impudence, and made a snap at him directly.
‘How dare you laugh behind the gentleman’s back?’ said Mrs Pipchin. ‘And
what do you take me for?’
‘I ain’t a laughing at nobody, and I’m sure I don’t take you for
nothing, Ma’am,’ returned the young man, in consternation.
‘A pack of idle dogs!’ said Mrs Pipchin, ‘only fit to be turnspits. Go
and tell your master that Mr Dombey’s here, or it’ll be worse for you!’
The weak-eyed young man went, very meekly, to discharge himself of this
commission; and soon came back to invite them to the Doctor’s study.
‘You’re laughing again, Sir,’ said Mrs Pipchin, when it came to her
turn, bringing up the rear, to pass him in the hall.
‘I ain’t,’ returned the young man, grievously oppressed. ‘I never see
such a thing as this!’
‘What is the matter, Mrs Pipchin?’ said Mr Dombey, looking round.
‘Softly! Pray!’
Mrs Pipchin, in her deference, merely muttered at the young man as she
passed on, and said, ‘Oh! he was a precious fellow’--leaving the young
man, who was all meekness and incapacity, affected even to tears by the
incident. But Mrs Pipchin had a way of falling foul of all meek people;
and her friends said who could wonder at it, after the Peruvian mines!
The Doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at each
knee, books all round him, Homer over the door, and Minerva on the
mantel-shelf. ‘And how do you do, Sir?’ he said to Mr Dombey, ‘and how
is my little friend?’ Grave as an organ was the Doctor’s speech; and
when he ceased, the great clock in the hall seemed (to Paul at least) to
take him up, and to go on saying, ‘how, is, my, lit, tle, friend? how,
is, my, lit, tle, friend?’ over and over and over again.
The little friend being something too small to be seen at all from where
the Doctor sat, over the books on his table, the Doctor made several
futile attempts to get a view of him round the legs; which Mr Dombey
perceiving, relieved the Doctor from his embarrassment by taking Paul up
in his arms, and sitting him on another little table, over against the
Doctor, in the middle of the room.
‘Ha!’ said the Doctor, leaning back in his chair with his hand in his
breast. ‘Now I see my little friend. How do you do, my little friend?’
The clock in the hall wouldn’t subscribe to this alteration in the form
of words, but continued to repeat how, is, my, lit, tle, friend? how,
is, my, lit, tle, friend?’
‘Very well, I thank you, Sir,’ returned Paul, answering the clock quite
as much as the Doctor.
‘Ha!’ said Doctor Blimber. ‘Shall we make a man of him?’
‘Do you hear, Paul?’ added Mr Dombey; Paul being silent.
‘Shall we make a man of him?’ repeated the Doctor.
‘I had rather be a child,’ replied Paul.
‘Indeed!’ said the Doctor. ‘Why?’
The child sat on the table looking at him, with a curious expression of
suppressed emotion in his face, and beating one hand proudly on his
knee as if he had the rising tears beneath it, and crushed them. But
his other hand strayed a little way the while, a little farther--farther
from him yet--until it lighted on the neck of Florence. ‘This is why,’
it seemed to say, and then the steady look was broken up and gone; the
working lip was loosened; and the tears came streaming forth.
‘Mrs Pipchin,’ said his father, in a querulous manner, ‘I am really very
sorry to see this.’
‘Come away from him, do, Miss Dombey,’ quoth the matron.
‘Never mind,’ said the Doctor, blandly nodding his head, to keep
Mrs Pipchin back. ‘Never mind; we shall substitute new cares and new
impressions, Mr Dombey, very shortly. You would still wish my little
friend to acquire--’
‘Everything, if you please, Doctor,’ returned Mr Dombey, firmly.
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, who, with his half-shut eyes, and his usual
smile, seemed to survey Paul with the sort of interest that might attach
to some choice little animal he was going to stuff. ‘Yes, exactly. Ha!
We shall impart a great variety of information to our little friend, and
bring him quickly forward, I daresay. I daresay. Quite a virgin soil, I
believe you said, Mr Dombey?’
‘Except some ordinary preparation at home, and from this lady,’ replied
Mr Dombey, introducing Mrs Pipchin, who instantly communicated a
rigidity to her whole muscular system, and snorted defiance beforehand,
in case the Doctor should disparage her; ‘except so far, Paul has, as
yet, applied himself to no studies at all.’
Doctor Blimber inclined his head, in gentle tolerance of such
insignificant poaching as Mrs Pipchin’s, and said he was glad to hear
it. It was much more satisfactory, he observed, rubbing his hands, to
begin at the foundation. And again he leered at Paul, as if he would
have liked to tackle him with the Greek alphabet, on the spot.
‘That circumstance, indeed, Doctor Blimber,’ pursued Mr Dombey, glancing
at his little son, ‘and the interview I have already had the pleasure of
holding with you, renders any further explanation, and consequently, any
further intrusion on your valuable time, so unnecessary, that--’
‘Now, Miss Dombey!’ said the acid Pipchin.
‘Permit me,’ said the Doctor, ‘one moment. Allow me to present Mrs
Blimber and my daughter; who will be associated with the domestic life
of our young Pilgrim to Parnassus Mrs Blimber,’ for the lady, who had
perhaps been in waiting, opportunely entered, followed by her daughter,
that fair Sexton in spectacles, ‘Mr Dombey. My daughter Cornelia, Mr
Dombey. Mr Dombey, my love,’ pursued the Doctor, turning to his wife,
‘is so confiding as to--do you see our little friend?’
Mrs Blimber, in an excess of politeness, of which Mr Dombey was the
object, apparently did not, for she was backing against the little
friend, and very much endangering his position on the table. But,
on this hint, she turned to admire his classical and intellectual
lineaments, and turning again to Mr Dombey, said, with a sigh, that she
envied his dear son.
‘Like a bee, Sir,’ said Mrs Blimber, with uplifted eyes, ‘about to
plunge into a garden of the choicest flowers, and sip the sweets for the
first time Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Terence, Plautus, Cicero. What a world
of honey have we here. It may appear remarkable, Mr Dombey, in one who
is a wife--the wife of such a husband--’
‘Hush, hush,’ said Doctor Blimber. ‘Fie for shame.’
‘Mr Dombey will forgive the partiality of a wife,’ said Mrs Blimber,
with an engaging smile.
Mr Dombey answered ‘Not at all:’ applying those words, it is to be
presumed, to the partiality, and not to the forgiveness.
‘And it may seem remarkable in one who is a mother also,’ resumed Mrs
Blimber.
‘And such a mother,’ observed Mr Dombey, bowing with some confused idea
of being complimentary to Cornelia.
‘But really,’ pursued Mrs Blimber, ‘I think if I could have known
Cicero, and been his friend, and talked with him in his retirement at
Tusculum (beau-ti-ful Tusculum!), I could have died contented.’
A learned enthusiasm is so very contagious, that Mr Dombey half believed
this was exactly his case; and even Mrs Pipchin, who was not, as we have
seen, of an accommodating disposition generally, gave utterance to a
little sound between a groan and a sigh, as if she would have said that
nobody but Cicero could have proved a lasting consolation under that
failure of the Peruvian Mines, but that he indeed would have been a very
Davy-lamp of refuge.
Cornelia looked at Mr Dombey through her spectacles, as if she would
have liked to crack a few quotations with him from the authority in
question. But this design, if she entertained it, was frustrated by a
knock at the room-door.
‘Who is that?’ said the Doctor. ‘Oh! Come in, Toots; come in. Mr Dombey,
Sir.’ Toots bowed. ‘Quite a coincidence!’ said Doctor Blimber. ‘Here
we have the beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega. Our head boy, Mr
Dombey.’
The Doctor might have called him their head and shoulders boy, for he
was at least that much taller than any of the rest. He blushed very much
at finding himself among strangers, and chuckled aloud.
‘An addition to our little Portico, Toots,’ said the Doctor; ‘Mr
Dombey’s son.’
Young Toots blushed again; and finding, from a solemn silence which
prevailed, that he was expected to say something, said to Paul, ‘How are
you?’ in a voice so deep, and a manner so sheepish, that if a lamb had
roared it couldn’t have been more surprising.
‘Ask Mr Feeder, if you please, Toots,’ said the Doctor, ‘to prepare
a few introductory volumes for Mr Dombey’s son, and to allot him a
convenient seat for study. My dear, I believe Mr Dombey has not seen the
dormitories.’
‘If Mr Dombey will walk upstairs,’ said Mrs Blimber, ‘I shall be more
than proud to show him the dominions of the drowsy god.’
With that, Mrs Blimber, who was a lady of great suavity, and a wiry
figure, and who wore a cap composed of sky-blue materials, proceeded
upstairs with Mr Dombey and Cornelia; Mrs Pipchin following, and looking
out sharp for her enemy the footman.
While they were gone, Paul sat upon the table, holding Florence by the
hand, and glancing timidly from the Doctor round and round the room,
while the Doctor, leaning back in his chair, with his hand in his breast
as usual, held a book from him at arm’s length, and read. There
was something very awful in this manner of reading. It was such a
determined, unimpassioned, inflexible, cold-blooded way of going to
work. It left the Doctor’s countenance exposed to view; and when the
Doctor smiled suspiciously at his author, or knit his brows, or shook
his head and made wry faces at him, as much as to say, ‘Don’t tell me,
Sir; I know better,’ it was terrific.
Toots, too, had no business to be outside the door, ostentatiously
examining the wheels in his watch, and counting his half-crowns. But
that didn’t last long; for Doctor Blimber, happening to change the
position of his tight plump legs, as if he were going to get up, Toots
swiftly vanished, and appeared no more.
Mr Dombey and his conductress were soon heard coming downstairs again,
talking all the way; and presently they re-entered the Doctor’s study.
‘I hope, Mr Dombey,’ said the Doctor, laying down his book, ‘that the
arrangements meet your approval.’
‘They are excellent, Sir,’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Very fair, indeed,’ said Mrs Pipchin, in a low voice; never disposed to
give too much encouragement.
‘Mrs Pipchin,’ said Mr Dombey, wheeling round, ‘will, with your
permission, Doctor and Mrs Blimber, visit Paul now and then.’
‘Whenever Mrs Pipchin pleases,’ observed the Doctor.
‘Always happy to see her,’ said Mrs Blimber.
‘I think,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘I have given all the trouble I need, and may
take my leave. Paul, my child,’ he went close to him, as he sat upon the
table. ‘Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye, Papa.’
The limp and careless little hand that Mr Dombey took in his, was
singularly out of keeping with the wistful face. But he had no part
in its sorrowful expression. It was not addressed to him. No, no. To
Florence--all to Florence.
If Mr Dombey in his insolence of wealth, had ever made an enemy, hard
to appease and cruelly vindictive in his hate, even such an enemy might
have received the pang that wrung his proud heart then, as compensation
for his injury.
He bent down, over his boy, and kissed him. If his sight were dimmed as
he did so, by something that for a moment blurred the little face, and
made it indistinct to him, his mental vision may have been, for that
short time, the clearer perhaps.
‘I shall see you soon, Paul. You are free on Saturdays and Sundays, you
know.’
‘Yes, Papa,’ returned Paul: looking at his sister. ‘On Saturdays and
Sundays.’
‘And you’ll try and learn a great deal here, and be a clever man,’ said
Mr Dombey; ‘won’t you?’
‘I’ll try,’ returned the child, wearily.
‘And you’ll soon be grown up now!’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Oh! very soon!’ replied the child. Once more the old, old look passed
rapidly across his features like a strange light. It fell on Mrs
Pipchin, and extinguished itself in her black dress. That excellent
ogress stepped forward to take leave and to bear off Florence, which she
had long been thirsting to do. The move on her part roused Mr Dombey,
whose eyes were fixed on Paul. After patting him on the head, and
pressing his small hand again, he took leave of Doctor Blimber, Mrs
Blimber, and Miss Blimber, with his usual polite frigidity, and walked
out of the study.
Despite his entreaty that they would not think of stirring, Doctor
Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber all pressed forward to attend him
to the hall; and thus Mrs Pipchin got into a state of entanglement with
Miss Blimber and the Doctor, and was crowded out of the study before
she could clutch Florence. To which happy accident Paul stood afterwards
indebted for the dear remembrance, that Florence ran back to throw her
arms round his neck, and that hers was the last face in the doorway:
turned towards him with a smile of encouragement, the brighter for the
tears through which it beamed.
It made his childish bosom heave and swell when it was gone; and sent
the globes, the books, blind Homer and Minerva, swimming round the room.
But they stopped, all of a sudden; and then he heard the loud clock in
the hall still gravely inquiring ‘how, is, my, lit, tle, friend? how,
is, my, lit, tle, friend?’ as it had done before.
He sat, with folded hands, upon his pedestal, silently listening. But
he might have answered ‘weary, weary! very lonely, very sad!’ And there,
with an aching void in his young heart, and all outside so cold, and
bare, and strange, Paul sat as if he had taken life unfurnished, and the
upholsterer were never coming.
CHAPTER 12. Paul’s Education
After the lapse of some minutes, which appeared an immense time to
little Paul Dombey on the table, Doctor Blimber came back. The Doctor’s
walk was stately, and calculated to impress the juvenile mind with
solemn feelings. It was a sort of march; but when the Doctor put out his
right foot, he gravely turned upon his axis, with a semi-circular sweep
towards the left; and when he put out his left foot, he turned in the
same manner towards the right. So that he seemed, at every stride he
took, to look about him as though he were saying, ‘Can anybody have
the goodness to indicate any subject, in any direction, on which I am
uninformed? I rather think not.’
Mrs Blimber and Miss Blimber came back in the Doctor’s company; and the
Doctor, lifting his new pupil off the table, delivered him over to Miss
Blimber.
‘Cornelia,’ said the Doctor, ‘Dombey will be your charge at first. Bring
him on, Cornelia, bring him on.’
Miss Blimber received her young ward from the Doctor’s hands; and Paul,
feeling that the spectacles were surveying him, cast down his eyes.
‘How old are you, Dombey?’ said Miss Blimber.
‘Six,’ answered Paul, wondering, as he stole a glance at the young lady,
why her hair didn’t grow long like Florence’s, and why she was like a
boy.
‘How much do you know of your Latin Grammar, Dombey?’ said Miss Blimber.
‘None of it,’ answered Paul. Feeling that the answer was a shock to Miss
Blimber’s sensibility, he looked up at the three faces that were looking
down at him, and said:
‘I haven’t been well. I have been a weak child. I couldn’t learn a
Latin Grammar when I was out, every day, with old Glubb. I wish you’d
tell old Glubb to come and see me, if you please.’
‘What a dreadfully low name’ said Mrs Blimber. ‘Unclassical to a degree!
Who is the monster, child?’
‘What monster?’ inquired Paul.
‘Glubb,’ said Mrs Blimber, with a great disrelish.
‘He’s no more a monster than you are,’ returned Paul.
‘What!’ cried the Doctor, in a terrible voice. ‘Ay, ay, ay? Aha! What’s
that?’
Paul was dreadfully frightened; but still he made a stand for the absent
Glubb, though he did it trembling.
‘He’s a very nice old man, Ma’am,’ he said. ‘He used to draw my couch.
He knows all about the deep sea, and the fish that are in it, and the
great monsters that come and lie on rocks in the sun, and dive into the
water again when they’re startled, blowing and splashing so, that they
can be heard for miles. There are some creatures, said Paul, warming
with his subject, ‘I don’t know how many yards long, and I forget their
names, but Florence knows, that pretend to be in distress; and when a
man goes near them, out of compassion, they open their great jaws, and
attack him. But all he has got to do,’ said Paul, boldly tendering this
information to the very Doctor himself, ‘is to keep on turning as he
runs away, and then, as they turn slowly, because they are so long, and
can’t bend, he’s sure to beat them. And though old Glubb don’t know why
the sea should make me think of my Mama that’s dead, or what it is that
it is always saying--always saying! he knows a great deal about it. And
I wish,’ the child concluded, with a sudden falling of his countenance,
and failing in his animation, as he looked like one forlorn, upon the
three strange faces, ‘that you’d let old Glubb come here to see me, for
I know him very well, and he knows me.’
‘Ha!’ said the Doctor, shaking his head; ‘this is bad, but study will do
much.’
Mrs Blimber opined, with something like a shiver, that he was an
unaccountable child; and, allowing for the difference of visage, looked
at him pretty much as Mrs Pipchin had been used to do.
‘Take him round the house, Cornelia,’ said the Doctor, ‘and familiarise
him with his new sphere. Go with that young lady, Dombey.’
Dombey obeyed; giving his hand to the abstruse Cornelia, and looking at
her sideways, with timid curiosity, as they went away together. For
her spectacles, by reason of the glistening of the glasses, made her
so mysterious, that he didn’t know where she was looking, and was not
indeed quite sure that she had any eyes at all behind them.
Cornelia took him first to the schoolroom, which was situated at the
back of the hall, and was approached through two baize doors, which
deadened and muffled the young gentlemen’s voices. Here, there were
eight young gentlemen in various stages of mental prostration, all very
hard at work, and very grave indeed. Toots, as an old hand, had a desk
to himself in one corner: and a magnificent man, of immense age, he
looked, in Paul’s young eyes, behind it.
Mr Feeder, B.A., who sat at another little desk, had his Virgil stop
on, and was slowly grinding that tune to four young gentlemen. Of the
remaining four, two, who grasped their foreheads convulsively, were
engaged in solving mathematical problems; one with his face like a
dirty window, from much crying, was endeavouring to flounder through a
hopeless number of lines before dinner; and one sat looking at his
task in stony stupefaction and despair--which it seemed had been his
condition ever since breakfast time.
The appearance of a new boy did not create the sensation that might have
been expected. Mr Feeder, B.A. (who was in the habit of shaving his head
for coolness, and had nothing but little bristles on it), gave him a
bony hand, and told him he was glad to see him--which Paul would have
been very glad to have told him, if he could have done so with the least
sincerity. Then Paul, instructed by Cornelia, shook hands with the four
young gentlemen at Mr Feeder’s desk; then with the two young gentlemen
at work on the problems, who were very feverish; then with the young
gentleman at work against time, who was very inky; and lastly with the
young gentleman in a state of stupefaction, who was flabby and quite
cold.
Paul having been already introduced to Toots, that pupil merely chuckled
and breathed hard, as his custom was, and pursued the occupation in
which he was engaged. It was not a severe one; for on account of his
having ‘gone through’ so much (in more senses than one), and also of his
having, as before hinted, left off blowing in his prime, Toots now had
licence to pursue his own course of study: which was chiefly to write
long letters to himself from persons of distinction, adds ‘P. Toots,
Esquire, Brighton, Sussex,’ and to preserve them in his desk with great
care.
These ceremonies passed, Cornelia led Paul upstairs to the top of the
house; which was rather a slow journey, on account of Paul being obliged
to land both feet on every stair, before he mounted another. But they
reached their journey’s end at last; and there, in a front room, looking
over the wild sea, Cornelia showed him a nice little bed with white
hangings, close to the window, on which there was already beautifully
written on a card in round text--down strokes very thick, and up strokes
very fine--DOMBEY; while two other little bedsteads in the same room
were announced, through like means, as respectively appertaining unto
BRIGGS and TOZER.
Just as they got downstairs again into the hall, Paul saw the weak-eyed
young man who had given that mortal offence to Mrs Pipchin, suddenly
seize a very large drumstick, and fly at a gong that was hanging up, as
if he had gone mad, or wanted vengeance. Instead of receiving warning,
however, or being instantly taken into custody, the young man left off
unchecked, after having made a dreadful noise. Then Cornelia Blimber
said to Dombey that dinner would be ready in a quarter of an hour, and
perhaps he had better go into the schoolroom among his ‘friends.’
So Dombey, deferentially passing the great clock which was still as
anxious as ever to know how he found himself, opened the schoolroom door
a very little way, and strayed in like a lost boy: shutting it after
him with some difficulty. His friends were all dispersed about the
room except the stony friend, who remained immoveable. Mr Feeder was
stretching himself in his grey gown, as if, regardless of expense, he
were resolved to pull the sleeves off.
‘Heigh ho hum!’ cried Mr Feeder, shaking himself like a cart-horse. ‘Oh
dear me, dear me! Ya-a-a-ah!’
Paul was quite alarmed by Mr Feeder’s yawning; it was done on such a
great scale, and he was so terribly in earnest. All the boys too (Toots
excepted) seemed knocked up, and were getting ready for dinner--some
newly tying their neckcloths, which were very stiff indeed; and
others washing their hands or brushing their hair, in an adjoining
ante-chamber--as if they didn’t think they should enjoy it at all.
Young Toots who was ready beforehand, and had therefore nothing to do,
and had leisure to bestow upon Paul, said, with heavy good nature:
‘Sit down, Dombey.’
‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Paul.
His endeavouring to hoist himself on to a very high window-seat, and his
slipping down again, appeared to prepare Toots’s mind for the reception
of a discovery.
‘You’re a very small chap;’ said Mr Toots.
‘Yes, Sir, I’m small,’ returned Paul. ‘Thank you, Sir.’
For Toots had lifted him into the seat, and done it kindly too.
‘Who’s your tailor?’ inquired Toots, after looking at him for some
moments.
‘It’s a woman that has made my clothes as yet,’ said Paul. ‘My sister’s
dressmaker.’
‘My tailor’s Burgess and Co.,’ said Toots. ‘Fash’nable. But very dear.’
Paul had wit enough to shake his head, as if he would have said it was
easy to see that; and indeed he thought so.
‘Your father’s regularly rich, ain’t he?’ inquired Mr Toots.
‘Yes, Sir,’ said Paul. ‘He’s Dombey and Son.’
‘And which?’ demanded Toots.
‘And Son, Sir,’ replied Paul.
Mr Toots made one or two attempts, in a low voice, to fix the Firm in
his mind; but not quite succeeding, said he would get Paul to mention
the name again to-morrow morning, as it was rather important. And indeed
he purposed nothing less than writing himself a private and confidential
letter from Dombey and Son immediately.
By this time the other pupils (always excepting the stony boy) gathered
round. They were polite, but pale; and spoke low; and they were so
depressed in their spirits, that in comparison with the general tone of
that company, Master Bitherstone was a perfect Miller, or complete Jest
Book.’ And yet he had a sense of injury upon him, too, had Bitherstone.
‘You sleep in my room, don’t you?’ asked a solemn young gentleman, whose
shirt-collar curled up the lobes of his ears.
‘Master Briggs?’ inquired Paul.
‘Tozer,’ said the young gentleman.
Paul answered yes; and Tozer pointing out the stony pupil, said that was
Briggs. Paul had already felt certain that it must be either Briggs or
Tozer, though he didn’t know why.
‘Is yours a strong constitution?’ inquired Tozer.
Paul said he thought not. Tozer replied that he thought not also,
judging from Paul’s looks, and that it was a pity, for it need be. He
then asked Paul if he were going to begin with Cornelia; and on Paul
saying ‘yes,’ all the young gentlemen (Briggs excepted) gave a low
groan.
It was drowned in the tintinnabulation of the gong, which sounding again
with great fury, there was a general move towards the dining-room; still
excepting Briggs the stony boy, who remained where he was, and as he
was; and on its way to whom Paul presently encountered a round of bread,
genteelly served on a plate and napkin, and with a silver fork lying
crosswise on the top of it. Doctor Blimber was already in his place in
the dining-room, at the top of the table, with Miss Blimber and Mrs
Blimber on either side of him. Mr Feeder in a black coat was at the
bottom. Paul’s chair was next to Miss Blimber; but it being found, when
he sat in it, that his eyebrows were not much above the level of the
table-cloth, some books were brought in from the Doctor’s study, on
which he was elevated, and on which he always sat from that time--
carrying them in and out himself on after occasions, like a little
elephant and castle.
Grace having been said by the Doctor, dinner began. There was some nice
soup; also roast meat, boiled meat, vegetables, pie, and cheese. Every
young gentleman had a massive silver fork, and a napkin; and all the
arrangements were stately and handsome. In particular, there was a
butler in a blue coat and bright buttons, who gave quite a winey flavour
to the table beer; he poured it out so superbly.
Nobody spoke, unless spoken to, except Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and
Miss Blimber, who conversed occasionally. Whenever a young gentleman was
not actually engaged with his knife and fork or spoon, his eye, with an
irresistible attraction, sought the eye of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber,
or Miss Blimber, and modestly rested there. Toots appeared to be the
only exception to this rule. He sat next Mr Feeder on Paul’s side of the
table, and frequently looked behind and before the intervening boys to
catch a glimpse of Paul.
Only once during dinner was there any conversation that included the
young gentlemen. It happened at the epoch of the cheese, when the
Doctor, having taken a glass of port wine, and hemmed twice or thrice,
said:
‘It is remarkable, Mr Feeder, that the Romans--’
At the mention of this terrible people, their implacable enemies, every
young gentleman fastened his gaze upon the Doctor, with an assumption of
the deepest interest. One of the number who happened to be drinking,
and who caught the Doctor’s eye glaring at him through the side of his
tumbler, left off so hastily that he was convulsed for some moments, and
in the sequel ruined Doctor Blimber’s point.
‘It is remarkable, Mr Feeder,’ said the Doctor, beginning again slowly,
‘that the Romans, in those gorgeous and profuse entertainments of which
we read in the days of the Emperors, when luxury had attained a height
unknown before or since, and when whole provinces were ravaged to supply
the splendid means of one Imperial Banquet--’
Here the offender, who had been swelling and straining, and waiting in
vain for a full stop, broke out violently.
‘Johnson,’ said Mr Feeder, in a low reproachful voice, ‘take some
water.’
The Doctor, looking very stern, made a pause until the water was
brought, and then resumed:
‘And when, Mr Feeder--’
But Mr Feeder, who saw that Johnson must break out again, and who knew
that the Doctor would never come to a period before the young gentlemen
until he had finished all he meant to say, couldn’t keep his eye off
Johnson; and thus was caught in the fact of not looking at the Doctor,
who consequently stopped.
‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ said Mr Feeder, reddening. ‘I beg your pardon,
Doctor Blimber.’
‘And when,’ said the Doctor, raising his voice, ‘when, Sir, as we
read, and have no reason to doubt--incredible as it may appear to the
vulgar--of our time--the brother of Vitellius prepared for him a feast,
in which were served, of fish, two thousand dishes--’
‘Take some water, Johnson--dishes, Sir,’ said Mr Feeder.
‘Of various sorts of fowl, five thousand dishes.’
‘Or try a crust of bread,’ said Mr Feeder.
‘And one dish,’ pursued Doctor Blimber, raising his voice still higher
as he looked all round the table, ‘called, from its enormous dimensions,
the Shield of Minerva, and made, among other costly ingredients, of the
brains of pheasants--’
‘Ow, ow, ow!’ (from Johnson.)
‘Woodcocks--’
‘Ow, ow, ow!’
‘The sounds of the fish called scari--’
‘You’ll burst some vessel in your head,’ said Mr Feeder. ‘You had better
let it come.’
‘And the spawn of the lamprey, brought from the Carpathian Sea,’
pursued the Doctor, in his severest voice; ‘when we read of costly
entertainments such as these, and still remember, that we have a
Titus--’
‘What would be your mother’s feelings if you died of apoplexy!’ said Mr
Feeder.
‘A Domitian--’
‘And you’re blue, you know,’ said Mr Feeder.
‘A Nero, a Tiberius, a Caligula, a Heliogabalus, and many more, pursued
the Doctor; ‘it is, Mr Feeder--if you are doing me the honour to
attend--remarkable; VERY remarkable, Sir--’
But Johnson, unable to suppress it any longer, burst at that moment into
such an overwhelming fit of coughing, that although both his immediate
neighbours thumped him on the back, and Mr Feeder himself held a glass
of water to his lips, and the butler walked him up and down several
times between his own chair and the sideboard, like a sentry, it was a
full five minutes before he was moderately composed. Then there was a
profound silence.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Doctor Blimber, ‘rise for Grace! Cornelia, lift Dombey
down’--nothing of whom but his scalp was accordingly seen above
the tablecloth. ‘Johnson will repeat to me tomorrow morning before
breakfast, without book, and from the Greek Testament, the first chapter
of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians. We will resume our
studies, Mr Feeder, in half-an-hour.’
The young gentlemen bowed and withdrew. Mr Feeder did likewise.
During the half-hour, the young gentlemen, broken into pairs, loitered
arm-in-arm up and down a small piece of ground behind the house, or
endeavoured to kindle a spark of animation in the breast of Briggs. But
nothing happened so vulgar as play. Punctually at the appointed time,
the gong was sounded, and the studies, under the joint auspices of
Doctor Blimber and Mr Feeder, were resumed.
As the Olympic game of lounging up and down had been cut shorter than
usual that day, on Johnson’s account, they all went out for a walk
before tea. Even Briggs (though he hadn’t begun yet) partook of this
dissipation; in the enjoyment of which he looked over the cliff two or
three times darkly. Doctor Blimber accompanied them; and Paul had the
honour of being taken in tow by the Doctor himself: a distinguished
state of things, in which he looked very little and feeble.
Tea was served in a style no less polite than the dinner; and after tea,
the young gentlemen rising and bowing as before, withdrew to fetch up
the unfinished tasks of that day, or to get up the already looming tasks
of to-morrow. In the meantime Mr Feeder withdrew to his own room; and
Paul sat in a corner wondering whether Florence was thinking of him, and
what they were all about at Mrs Pipchin’s.
Mr Toots, who had been detained by an important letter from the Duke of
Wellington, found Paul out after a time; and having looked at him for a
long while, as before, inquired if he was fond of waistcoats.
Paul said ‘Yes, Sir.’
‘So am I,’ said Toots.
No word more spoke Toots that night; but he stood looking at Paul as
if he liked him; and as there was company in that, and Paul was not
inclined to talk, it answered his purpose better than conversation.
At eight o’clock or so, the gong sounded again for prayers in the
dining-room, where the butler afterwards presided over a side-table, on
which bread and cheese and beer were spread for such young gentlemen as
desired to partake of those refreshments. The ceremonies concluded by
the Doctor’s saying, ‘Gentlemen, we will resume our studies at seven
to-morrow;’ and then, for the first time, Paul saw Cornelia Blimber’s
eye, and saw that it was upon him. When the Doctor had said these words,
‘Gentlemen, we will resume our studies at seven tomorrow,’ the pupils
bowed again, and went to bed.
In the confidence of their own room upstairs, Briggs said his head ached
ready to split, and that he should wish himself dead if it wasn’t for
his mother, and a blackbird he had at home. Tozer didn’t say much, but he
sighed a good deal, and told Paul to look out, for his turn would come
to-morrow. After uttering those prophetic words, he undressed himself
moodily, and got into bed. Briggs was in his bed too, and Paul in
his bed too, before the weak-eyed young man appeared to take away the
candle, when he wished them good-night and pleasant dreams. But
his benevolent wishes were in vain, as far as Briggs and Tozer were
concerned; for Paul, who lay awake for a long while, and often woke
afterwards, found that Briggs was ridden by his lesson as a nightmare:
and that Tozer, whose mind was affected in his sleep by similar causes,
in a minor degree talked unknown tongues, or scraps of Greek and
Latin--it was all one to Paul--which, in the silence of night, had an
inexpressibly wicked and guilty effect.
Paul had sunk into a sweet sleep, and dreamed that he was walking hand
in hand with Florence through beautiful gardens, when they came to a
large sunflower which suddenly expanded itself into a gong, and began
to sound. Opening his eyes, he found that it was a dark, windy morning,
with a drizzling rain: and that the real gong was giving dreadful note
of preparation, down in the hall.
So he got up directly, and found Briggs with hardly any eyes, for
nightmare and grief had made his face puffy, putting his boots on: while
Tozer stood shivering and rubbing his shoulders in a very bad humour.
Poor Paul couldn’t dress himself easily, not being used to it, and asked
them if they would have the goodness to tie some strings for him; but as
Briggs merely said ‘Bother!’ and Tozer, ‘Oh yes!’ he went down when he
was otherwise ready, to the next storey, where he saw a pretty young
woman in leather gloves, cleaning a stove. The young woman seemed
surprised at his appearance, and asked him where his mother was. When
Paul told her she was dead, she took her gloves off, and did what he
wanted; and furthermore rubbed his hands to warm them; and gave him a
kiss; and told him whenever he wanted anything of that sort--meaning in
the dressing way--to ask for ‘Melia; which Paul, thanking her very
much, said he certainly would. He then proceeded softly on his journey
downstairs, towards the room in which the young gentlemen resumed their
studies, when, passing by a door that stood ajar, a voice from within
cried, ‘Is that Dombey?’ On Paul replying, ‘Yes, Ma’am:’ for he knew the
voice to be Miss Blimber’s: Miss Blimber said, ‘Come in, Dombey.’ And in
he went.
Miss Blimber presented exactly the appearance she had presented
yesterday, except that she wore a shawl. Her little light curls were as
crisp as ever, and she had already her spectacles on, which made
Paul wonder whether she went to bed in them. She had a cool little
sitting-room of her own up there, with some books in it, and no fire But
Miss Blimber was never cold, and never sleepy.
Now, Dombey,’ said Miss Blimber, ‘I am going out for a constitutional.’
Paul wondered what that was, and why she didn’t send the footman out to
get it in such unfavourable weather. But he made no observation on the
subject: his attention being devoted to a little pile of new books, on
which Miss Blimber appeared to have been recently engaged.
‘These are yours, Dombey,’ said Miss Blimber.
‘All of ‘em, Ma’am?’ said Paul.
‘Yes,’ returned Miss Blimber; ‘and Mr Feeder will look you out some more
very soon, if you are as studious as I expect you will be, Dombey.’
‘Thank you, Ma’am,’ said Paul.
‘I am going out for a constitutional,’ resumed Miss Blimber; ‘and while
I am gone, that is to say in the interval between this and breakfast,
Dombey, I wish you to read over what I have marked in these books, and
to tell me if you quite understand what you have got to learn. Don’t
lose time, Dombey, for you have none to spare, but take them downstairs,
and begin directly.’
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ answered Paul.
There were so many of them, that although Paul put one hand under the
bottom book and his other hand and his chin on the top book, and hugged
them all closely, the middle book slipped out before he reached the
door, and then they all tumbled down on the floor. Miss Blimber said,
‘Oh, Dombey, Dombey, this is really very careless!’ and piled them up
afresh for him; and this time, by dint of balancing them with great
nicety, Paul got out of the room, and down a few stairs before two of
them escaped again. But he held the rest so tight, that he only left one
more on the first floor, and one in the passage; and when he had got the
main body down into the schoolroom, he set off upstairs again to collect
the stragglers. Having at last amassed the whole library, and climbed
into his place, he fell to work, encouraged by a remark from Tozer to
the effect that he ‘was in for it now;’ which was the only interruption
he received till breakfast time. At that meal, for which he had no
appetite, everything was quite as solemn and genteel as at the others;
and when it was finished, he followed Miss Blimber upstairs.
‘Now, Dombey,’ said Miss Blimber. ‘How have you got on with those
books?’
They comprised a little English, and a deal of Latin--names of things,
declensions of articles and substantives, exercises thereon, and
preliminary rules--a trifle of orthography, a glance at ancient history,
a wink or two at modern ditto, a few tables, two or three weights and
measures, and a little general information. When poor Paul had spelt
out number two, he found he had no idea of number one; fragments whereof
afterwards obtruded themselves into number three, which slided into
number four, which grafted itself on to number two. So that whether
twenty Romuluses made a Remus, or hic haec hoc was troy weight, or
a verb always agreed with an ancient Briton, or three times four was
Taurus a bull, were open questions with him.
‘Oh, Dombey, Dombey!’ said Miss Blimber, ‘this is very shocking.’
‘If you please,’ said Paul, ‘I think if I might sometimes talk a little
to old Glubb, I should be able to do better.’
‘Nonsense, Dombey,’ said Miss Blimber. ‘I couldn’t hear of it. This is
not the place for Glubbs of any kind. You must take the books down,
I suppose, Dombey, one by one, and perfect yourself in the day’s
instalment of subject A, before you turn at all to subject B. I am
sorry to say, Dombey, that your education appears to have been very much
neglected.’
‘So Papa says,’ returned Paul; ‘but I told you--I have been a weak
child. Florence knows I have. So does Wickam.’
‘Who is Wickam?’ asked Miss Blimber.
‘She has been my nurse,’ Paul answered.
‘I must beg you not to mention Wickam to me, then,’ said Miss Blimber. ‘I
couldn’t allow it’.
‘You asked me who she was,’ said Paul.
‘Very well,’ returned Miss Blimber; ‘but this is all very different
indeed from anything of that sort, Dombey, and I couldn’t think of
permitting it. As to having been weak, you must begin to be strong. And
now take away the top book, if you please, Dombey, and return when you
are master of the theme.’
Miss Blimber expressed her opinions on the subject of Paul’s
uninstructed state with a gloomy delight, as if she had expected
this result, and were glad to find that they must be in constant
communication. Paul withdrew with the top task, as he was told, and
laboured away at it, down below: sometimes remembering every word of it,
and sometimes forgetting it all, and everything else besides: until at
last he ventured upstairs again to repeat the lesson, when it was nearly
all driven out of his head before he began, by Miss Blimber’s shutting
up the book, and saying, ‘Go on, Dombey!’ a proceeding so suggestive of
the knowledge inside of her, that Paul looked upon the young lady with
consternation, as a kind of learned Guy Fawkes, or artificial Bogle,
stuffed full of scholastic straw.
He acquitted himself very well, nevertheless; and Miss Blimber,
commending him as giving promise of getting on fast, immediately
provided him with subject B; from which he passed to C, and even D
before dinner. It was hard work, resuming his studies, soon after
dinner; and he felt giddy and confused and drowsy and dull. But all the
other young gentlemen had similar sensations, and were obliged to resume
their studies too, if there were any comfort in that. It was a wonder
that the great clock in the hall, instead of being constant to its first
inquiry, never said, ‘Gentlemen, we will now resume our studies,’ for
that phrase was often enough repeated in its neighbourhood. The studies
went round like a mighty wheel, and the young gentlemen were always
stretched upon it.
After tea there were exercises again, and preparations for next day
by candlelight. And in due course there was bed; where, but for that
resumption of the studies which took place in dreams, were rest and
sweet forgetfulness.
Oh Saturdays! Oh happy Saturdays, when Florence always came at noon, and
never would, in any weather, stay away, though Mrs Pipchin snarled and
growled, and worried her bitterly. Those Saturdays were Sabbaths for at
least two little Christians among all the Jews, and did the holy Sabbath
work of strengthening and knitting up a brother’s and a sister’s love.
Not even Sunday nights--the heavy Sunday nights, whose shadow darkened
the first waking burst of light on Sunday mornings--could mar those
precious Saturdays. Whether it was the great sea-shore, where they sat,
and strolled together; or whether it was only Mrs Pipchin’s dull back
room, in which she sang to him so softly, with his drowsy head upon her
arm; Paul never cared. It was Florence. That was all he thought of. So,
on Sunday nights, when the Doctor’s dark door stood agape to swallow him
up for another week, the time was come for taking leave of Florence; no
one else.
Mrs Wickam had been drafted home to the house in town, and Miss Nipper,
now a smart young woman, had come down. To many a single combat with
Mrs Pipchin, did Miss Nipper gallantly devote herself, and if ever Mrs
Pipchin in all her life had found her match, she had found it now.
Miss Nipper threw away the scabbard the first morning she arose in Mrs
Pipchin’s house. She asked and gave no quarter. She said it must be war,
and war it was; and Mrs Pipchin lived from that time in the midst of
surprises, harassings, and defiances, and skirmishing attacks that came
bouncing in upon her from the passage, even in unguarded moments of
chops, and carried desolation to her very toast.
Miss Nipper had returned one Sunday night with Florence, from walking
back with Paul to the Doctor’s, when Florence took from her bosom a
little piece of paper, on which she had pencilled down some words.
‘See here, Susan,’ she said. ‘These are the names of the little books
that Paul brings home to do those long exercises with, when he is so
tired. I copied them last night while he was writing.’
‘Don’t show ‘em to me, Miss Floy, if you please,’ returned Nipper, ‘I’d
as soon see Mrs Pipchin.’
‘I want you to buy them for me, Susan, if you will, tomorrow morning. I
have money enough,’ said Florence.
‘Why, goodness gracious me, Miss Floy,’ returned Miss Nipper, ‘how
can you talk like that, when you have books upon books already, and
masterses and mississes a teaching of you everything continual, though
my belief is that your Pa, Miss Dombey, never would have learnt you
nothing, never would have thought of it, unless you’d asked him--when he
couldn’t well refuse; but giving consent when asked, and offering when
unasked, Miss, is quite two things; I may not have my objections to a
young man’s keeping company with me, and when he puts the question, may
say “yes,” but that’s not saying “would you be so kind as like me.”’
‘But you can buy me the books, Susan; and you will, when you know why I
want them.’
‘Well, Miss, and why do you want ‘em?’ replied Nipper; adding, in
a lower voice, ‘If it was to fling at Mrs Pipchin’s head, I’d buy a
cart-load.’
‘Paul has a great deal too much to do, Susan,’ said Florence, ‘I am sure
of it.’
‘And well you may be, Miss,’ returned her maid, ‘and make your mind
quite easy that the willing dear is worked and worked away. If those is
Latin legs,’ exclaimed Miss Nipper, with strong feeling--in allusion to
Paul’s; ‘give me English ones.’
‘I am afraid he feels lonely and lost at Doctor Blimber’s, Susan,’
pursued Florence, turning away her face.
‘Ah,’ said Miss Nipper, with great sharpness, ‘Oh, them “Blimbers”’
‘Don’t blame anyone,’ said Florence. ‘It’s a mistake.’
‘I say nothing about blame, Miss,’ cried Miss Nipper, ‘for I know that
you object, but I may wish, Miss, that the family was set to work
to make new roads, and that Miss Blimber went in front and had the
pickaxe.’
After this speech, Miss Nipper, who was perfectly serious, wiped her
eyes.
‘I think I could perhaps give Paul some help, Susan, if I had these
books,’ said Florence, ‘and make the coming week a little easier to
him. At least I want to try. So buy them for me, dear, and I will never
forget how kind it was of you to do it!’
It must have been a harder heart than Susan Nipper’s that could have
rejected the little purse Florence held out with these words, or the
gentle look of entreaty with which she seconded her petition. Susan put
the purse in her pocket without reply, and trotted out at once upon her
errand.
The books were not easy to procure; and the answer at several shops was,
either that they were just out of them, or that they never kept them, or
that they had had a great many last month, or that they expected a great
many next week But Susan was not easily baffled in such an enterprise;
and having entrapped a white-haired youth, in a black calico apron, from
a library where she was known, to accompany her in her quest, she led
him such a life in going up and down, that he exerted himself to the
utmost, if it were only to get rid of her; and finally enabled her to
return home in triumph.
With these treasures then, after her own daily lessons were over,
Florence sat down at night to track Paul’s footsteps through the thorny
ways of learning; and being possessed of a naturally quick and sound
capacity, and taught by that most wonderful of masters, love, it was not
long before she gained upon Paul’s heels, and caught and passed him.
Not a word of this was breathed to Mrs Pipchin: but many a night when
they were all in bed, and when Miss Nipper, with her hair in papers and
herself asleep in some uncomfortable attitude, reposed unconscious by
her side; and when the chinking ashes in the grate were cold and grey;
and when the candles were burnt down and guttering out;--Florence tried
so hard to be a substitute for one small Dombey, that her fortitude and
perseverance might have almost won her a free right to bear the name
herself.
And high was her reward, when one Saturday evening, as little Paul was
sitting down as usual to ‘resume his studies,’ she sat down by his side,
and showed him all that was so rough, made smooth, and all that was so
dark, made clear and plain, before him. It was nothing but a startled
look in Paul’s wan face--a flush--a smile--and then a close embrace--but
God knows how her heart leapt up at this rich payment for her trouble.
‘Oh, Floy!’ cried her brother, ‘how I love you! How I love you, Floy!’
‘And I you, dear!’
‘Oh! I am sure of that, Floy.’
He said no more about it, but all that evening sat close by her, very
quiet; and in the night he called out from his little room within hers,
three or four times, that he loved her.
Regularly, after that, Florence was prepared to sit down with Paul on
Saturday night, and patiently assist him through so much as they could
anticipate together of his next week’s work. The cheering thought that
he was labouring on where Florence had just toiled before him, would, of
itself, have been a stimulant to Paul in the perpetual resumption of his
studies; but coupled with the actual lightening of his load, consequent
on this assistance, it saved him, possibly, from sinking underneath the
burden which the fair Cornelia Blimber piled upon his back.
It was not that Miss Blimber meant to be too hard upon him, or that
Doctor Blimber meant to bear too heavily on the young gentlemen in
general. Cornelia merely held the faith in which she had been bred; and
the Doctor, in some partial confusion of his ideas, regarded the young
gentlemen as if they were all Doctors, and were born grown up. Comforted
by the applause of the young gentlemen’s nearest relations, and urged
on by their blind vanity and ill-considered haste, it would have been
strange if Doctor Blimber had discovered his mistake, or trimmed his
swelling sails to any other tack.
Thus in the case of Paul. When Doctor Blimber said he made great
progress and was naturally clever, Mr Dombey was more bent than ever on
his being forced and crammed. In the case of Briggs, when Doctor Blimber
reported that he did not make great progress yet, and was not naturally
clever, Briggs senior was inexorable in the same purpose. In short,
however high and false the temperature at which the Doctor kept his
hothouse, the owners of the plants were always ready to lend a helping
hand at the bellows, and to stir the fire.
Such spirits as he had in the outset, Paul soon lost of course. But he
retained all that was strange, and old, and thoughtful in his character:
and under circumstances so favourable to the development of those
tendencies, became even more strange, and old, and thoughtful, than
before.
The only difference was, that he kept his character to himself. He grew
more thoughtful and reserved, every day; and had no such curiosity
in any living member of the Doctor’s household, as he had had in Mrs
Pipchin. He loved to be alone; and in those short intervals when he was
not occupied with his books, liked nothing so well as wandering about
the house by himself, or sitting on the stairs, listening to the great
clock in the hall. He was intimate with all the paperhanging in the
house; saw things that no one else saw in the patterns; found out
miniature tigers and lions running up the bedroom walls, and squinting
faces leering in the squares and diamonds of the floor-cloth.
The solitary child lived on, surrounded by this arabesque work of his
musing fancy, and no one understood him. Mrs Blimber thought him ‘odd,’
and sometimes the servants said among themselves that little Dombey
‘moped;’ but that was all.
Unless young Toots had some idea on the subject, to the expression of
which he was wholly unequal. Ideas, like ghosts (according to the common
notion of ghosts), must be spoken to a little before they will explain
themselves; and Toots had long left off asking any questions of his own
mind. Some mist there may have been, issuing from that leaden casket,
his cranium, which, if it could have taken shape and form, would have
become a genie; but it could not; and it only so far followed the
example of the smoke in the Arabian story, as to roll out in a thick
cloud, and there hang and hover. But it left a little figure visible
upon a lonely shore, and Toots was always staring at it.
‘How are you?’ he would say to Paul, fifty times a day. ‘Quite well,
Sir, thank you,’ Paul would answer. ‘Shake hands,’ would be Toots’s next
advance.
Which Paul, of course, would immediately do. Mr Toots generally said
again, after a long interval of staring and hard breathing, ‘How are
you?’ To which Paul again replied, ‘Quite well, Sir, thank you.’
One evening Mr Toots was sitting at his desk, oppressed by
correspondence, when a great purpose seemed to flash upon him. He laid
down his pen, and went off to seek Paul, whom he found at last, after a
long search, looking through the window of his little bedroom.
‘I say!’ cried Toots, speaking the moment he entered the room, lest he
should forget it; ‘what do you think about?’
‘Oh! I think about a great many things,’ replied Paul.
‘Do you, though?’ said Toots, appearing to consider that fact in itself
surprising. ‘If you had to die,’ said Paul, looking up into his face--Mr
Toots started, and seemed much disturbed.
‘Don’t you think you would rather die on a moonlight night, when the sky
was quite clear, and the wind blowing, as it did last night?’
Mr Toots said, looking doubtfully at Paul, and shaking his head, that he
didn’t know about that.
‘Not blowing, at least,’ said Paul, ‘but sounding in the air like the
sea sounds in the shells. It was a beautiful night. When I had listened
to the water for a long time, I got up and looked out. There was a boat
over there, in the full light of the moon; a boat with a sail.’
The child looked at him so steadfastly, and spoke so earnestly, that
Mr Toots, feeling himself called upon to say something about this boat,
said, ‘Smugglers.’ But with an impartial remembrance of there being two
sides to every question, he added, ‘or Preventive.’
‘A boat with a sail,’ repeated Paul, ‘in the full light of the moon. The
sail like an arm, all silver. It went away into the distance, and what
do you think it seemed to do as it moved with the waves?’
‘Pitch,’ said Mr Toots.
‘It seemed to beckon,’ said the child, ‘to beckon me to come!--There she
is! There she is!’
Toots was almost beside himself with dismay at this sudden exclamation,
after what had gone before, and cried ‘Who?’
‘My sister Florence!’ cried Paul, ‘looking up here, and waving her hand.
She sees me--she sees me! Good-night, dear, good-night, good-night.’
His quick transition to a state of unbounded pleasure, as he stood at
his window, kissing and clapping his hands: and the way in which the
light retreated from his features as she passed out of his view, and
left a patient melancholy on the little face: were too remarkable wholly
to escape even Toots’s notice. Their interview being interrupted at this
moment by a visit from Mrs Pipchin, who usually brought her black skirts
to bear upon Paul just before dusk, once or twice a week, Toots had
no opportunity of improving the occasion: but it left so marked an
impression on his mind that he twice returned, after having exchanged
the usual salutations, to ask Mrs Pipchin how she did. This the
irascible old lady conceived to be a deeply devised and long-meditated
insult, originating in the diabolical invention of the weak-eyed young
man downstairs, against whom she accordingly lodged a formal complaint
with Doctor Blimber that very night; who mentioned to the young man that
if he ever did it again, he should be obliged to part with him.
The evenings being longer now, Paul stole up to his window every evening
to look out for Florence. She always passed and repassed at a certain
time, until she saw him; and their mutual recognition was a gleam of
sunshine in Paul’s daily life. Often after dark, one other figure walked
alone before the Doctor’s house. He rarely joined them on the Saturdays
now. He could not bear it. He would rather come unrecognised, and look
up at the windows where his son was qualifying for a man; and wait, and
watch, and plan, and hope.
Oh! could he but have seen, or seen as others did, the slight spare boy
above, watching the waves and clouds at twilight, with his earnest eyes,
and breasting the window of his solitary cage when birds flew by, as if
he would have emulated them, and soared away!
CHAPTER 13. Shipping Intelligence and Office Business
Mr Dombey’s offices were in a court where there was an old-established
stall of choice fruit at the corner: where perambulating merchants, of
both sexes, offered for sale at any time between the hours of ten and
five, slippers, pocket-books, sponges, dogs’ collars, and Windsor soap;
and sometimes a pointer or an oil-painting.
The pointer always came that way, with a view to the Stock Exchange,
where a sporting taste (originating generally in bets of new hats)
is much in vogue. The other commodities were addressed to the general
public; but they were never offered by the vendors to Mr Dombey. When
he appeared, the dealers in those wares fell off respectfully. The
principal slipper and dogs’ collar man--who considered himself a public
character, and whose portrait was screwed on to an artist’s door in
Cheapside--threw up his forefinger to the brim of his hat as Mr Dombey
went by. The ticket-porter, if he were not absent on a job, always ran
officiously before, to open Mr Dombey’s office door as wide as possible,
and hold it open, with his hat off, while he entered.
The clerks within were not a whit behind-hand in their demonstrations of
respect. A solemn hush prevailed, as Mr Dombey passed through the outer
office. The wit of the Counting-House became in a moment as mute as the
row of leathern fire-buckets hanging up behind him. Such vapid and flat
daylight as filtered through the ground-glass windows and skylights,
leaving a black sediment upon the panes, showed the books and papers,
and the figures bending over them, enveloped in a studious gloom, and as
much abstracted in appearance, from the world without, as if they were
assembled at the bottom of the sea; while a mouldy little strong room in
the obscure perspective, where a shaded lamp was always burning, might
have represented the cavern of some ocean monster, looking on with a red
eye at these mysteries of the deep.
When Perch the messenger, whose place was on a little bracket, like a
timepiece, saw Mr Dombey come in--or rather when he felt that he was
coming, for he had usually an instinctive sense of his approach--he
hurried into Mr Dombey’s room, stirred the fire, carried fresh coals
from the bowels of the coal-box, hung the newspaper to air upon the
fender, put the chair ready, and the screen in its place, and was
round upon his heel on the instant of Mr Dombey’s entrance, to take his
great-coat and hat, and hang them up. Then Perch took the newspaper,
and gave it a turn or two in his hands before the fire, and laid it,
deferentially, at Mr Dombey’s elbow. And so little objection had Perch
to being deferential in the last degree, that if he might have laid
himself at Mr Dombey’s feet, or might have called him by some such title
as used to be bestowed upon the Caliph Haroun Alraschid, he would have
been all the better pleased.
As this honour would have been an innovation and an experiment, Perch
was fain to content himself by expressing as well as he could, in his
manner, You are the light of my Eyes. You are the Breath of my Soul. You
are the commander of the Faithful Perch! With this imperfect happiness
to cheer him, he would shut the door softly, walk away on tiptoe, and
leave his great chief to be stared at, through a dome-shaped window in
the leads, by ugly chimney-pots and backs of houses, and especially by
the bold window of a hair-cutting saloon on a first floor, where a waxen
effigy, bald as a Mussulman in the morning, and covered, after eleven
o’clock in the day, with luxuriant hair and whiskers in the latest
Christian fashion, showed him the wrong side of its head for ever.
Between Mr Dombey and the common world, as it was accessible through
the medium of the outer office--to which Mr Dombey’s presence in his own
room may be said to have struck like damp, or cold air--there were two
degrees of descent. Mr Carker in his own office was the first step;
Mr Morfin, in his own office, was the second. Each of these gentlemen
occupied a little chamber like a bath-room, opening from the passage
outside Mr Dombey’s door. Mr Carker, as Grand Vizier, inhabited the room
that was nearest to the Sultan. Mr Morfin, as an officer of inferior
state, inhabited the room that was nearest to the clerks.
The gentleman last mentioned was a cheerful-looking, hazel-eyed elderly
bachelor: gravely attired, as to his upper man, in black; and as to his
legs, in pepper-and-salt colour. His dark hair was just touched here and
there with specks of gray, as though the tread of Time had splashed
it; and his whiskers were already white. He had a mighty respect for Mr
Dombey, and rendered him due homage; but as he was of a genial temper
himself, and never wholly at his ease in that stately presence, he was
disquieted by no jealousy of the many conferences enjoyed by Mr Carker,
and felt a secret satisfaction in having duties to discharge, which
rarely exposed him to be singled out for such distinction. He was a
great musical amateur in his way--after business; and had a paternal
affection for his violoncello, which was once in every week transported
from Islington, his place of abode, to a certain club-room hard by the
Bank, where quartettes of the most tormenting and excruciating nature
were executed every Wednesday evening by a private party.
Mr Carker was a gentleman thirty-eight or forty years old, of a florid
complexion, and with two unbroken rows of glistening teeth, whose
regularity and whiteness were quite distressing. It was impossible to
escape the observation of them, for he showed them whenever he spoke;
and bore so wide a smile upon his countenance (a smile, however, very
rarely, indeed, extending beyond his mouth), that there was something in
it like the snarl of a cat. He affected a stiff white cravat, after the
example of his principal, and was always closely buttoned up and tightly
dressed. His manner towards Mr Dombey was deeply conceived and perfectly
expressed. He was familiar with him, in the very extremity of his sense
of the distance between them. ‘Mr Dombey, to a man in your position
from a man in mine, there is no show of subservience compatible with the
transaction of business between us, that I should think sufficient. I
frankly tell you, Sir, I give it up altogether. I feel that I could
not satisfy my own mind; and Heaven knows, Mr Dombey, you can afford to
dispense with the endeavour.’ If he had carried these words about with
him printed on a placard, and had constantly offered it to Mr Dombey’s
perusal on the breast of his coat, he could not have been more explicit
than he was.
This was Carker the Manager. Mr Carker the Junior, Walter’s friend, was
his brother; two or three years older than he, but widely removed in
station. The younger brother’s post was on the top of the official
ladder; the elder brother’s at the bottom. The elder brother never
gained a stave, or raised his foot to mount one. Young men passed above
his head, and rose and rose; but he was always at the bottom. He was
quite resigned to occupy that low condition: never complained of it: and
certainly never hoped to escape from it.
‘How do you do this morning?’ said Mr Carker the Manager, entering Mr
Dombey’s room soon after his arrival one day: with a bundle of papers in
his hand.
‘How do you do, Carker?’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Coolish!’ observed Carker, stirring the fire.
‘Rather,’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Any news of the young gentleman who is so important to us all?’ asked
Carker, with his whole regiment of teeth on parade.
‘Yes--not direct news--I hear he’s very well,’ said Mr Dombey. Who had
come from Brighton over-night. But no one knew It.
‘Very well, and becoming a great scholar, no doubt?’ observed the
Manager.
‘I hope so,’ returned Mr Dombey.
‘Egad!’ said Mr Carker, shaking his head, ‘Time flies!’
‘I think so, sometimes,’ returned Mr Dombey, glancing at his newspaper.
‘Oh! You! You have no reason to think so,’ observed Carker. ‘One who
sits on such an elevation as yours, and can sit there, unmoved, in all
seasons--hasn’t much reason to know anything about the flight of
time. It’s men like myself, who are low down and are not superior in
circumstances, and who inherit new masters in the course of Time, that
have cause to look about us. I shall have a rising sun to worship,
soon.’
‘Time enough, time enough, Carker!’ said Mr Dombey, rising from his
chair, and standing with his back to the fire. ‘Have you anything there
for me?’
‘I don’t know that I need trouble you,’ returned Carker, turning over
the papers in his hand. ‘You have a committee today at three, you know.’
‘And one at three, three-quarters,’ added Mr Dombey.
‘Catch you forgetting anything!’ exclaimed Carker, still turning over
his papers. ‘If Mr Paul inherits your memory, he’ll be a troublesome
customer in the House. One of you is enough.’
‘You have an accurate memory of your own,’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Oh! I!’ returned the manager. ‘It’s the only capital of a man like me.’
Mr Dombey did not look less pompous or at all displeased, as he stood
leaning against the chimney-piece, surveying his (of course unconscious)
clerk, from head to foot. The stiffness and nicety of Mr Carker’s dress,
and a certain arrogance of manner, either natural to him or imitated
from a pattern not far off, gave great additional effect to his
humility. He seemed a man who would contend against the power that
vanquished him, if he could, but who was utterly borne down by the
greatness and superiority of Mr Dombey.
‘Is Morfin here?’ asked Mr Dombey after a short pause, during which Mr
Carker had been fluttering his papers, and muttering little abstracts of
their contents to himself.
‘Morfin’s here,’ he answered, looking up with his widest and almost
sudden smile; ‘humming musical recollections--of his last night’s
quartette party, I suppose--through the walls between us, and driving
me half mad. I wish he’d make a bonfire of his violoncello, and burn his
music-books in it.’
‘You respect nobody, Carker, I think,’ said Mr Dombey.
‘No?’ inquired Carker, with another wide and most feline show of his
teeth. ‘Well! Not many people, I believe. I wouldn’t answer perhaps,’ he
murmured, as if he were only thinking it, ‘for more than one.’
A dangerous quality, if real; and a not less dangerous one, if feigned.
But Mr Dombey hardly seemed to think so, as he still stood with his back
to the fire, drawn up to his full height, and looking at his head-clerk
with a dignified composure, in which there seemed to lurk a stronger
latent sense of power than usual.
‘Talking of Morfin,’ resumed Mr Carker, taking out one paper from the
rest, ‘he reports a junior dead in the agency at Barbados, and proposes
to reserve a passage in the Son and Heir--she’ll sail in a month or
so--for the successor. You don’t care who goes, I suppose? We have
nobody of that sort here.’
Mr Dombey shook his head with supreme indifference.
‘It’s no very precious appointment,’ observed Mr Carker, taking up a
pen, with which to endorse a memorandum on the back of the paper. ‘I
hope he may bestow it on some orphan nephew of a musical friend. It may
perhaps stop his fiddle-playing, if he has a gift that way. Who’s that?
Come in!’
‘I beg your pardon, Mr Carker. I didn’t know you were here, Sir,’
answered Walter; appearing with some letters in his hand, unopened, and
newly arrived. ‘Mr Carker the junior, Sir--’
At the mention of this name, Mr Carker the Manager was or affected to
be, touched to the quick with shame and humiliation. He cast his eyes
full on Mr Dombey with an altered and apologetic look, abased them on
the ground, and remained for a moment without speaking.
‘I thought, Sir,’ he said suddenly and angrily, turning on Walter, ‘that
you had been before requested not to drag Mr Carker the Junior into your
conversation.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ returned Walter. ‘I was only going to say that Mr
Carker the Junior had told me he believed you were gone out, or I should
not have knocked at the door when you were engaged with Mr Dombey. These
are letters for Mr Dombey, Sir.’
‘Very well, Sir,’ returned Mr Carker the Manager, plucking them sharply
from his hand. ‘Go about your business.’
But in taking them with so little ceremony, Mr Carker dropped one on the
floor, and did not see what he had done; neither did Mr Dombey observe
the letter lying near his feet. Walter hesitated for a moment, thinking
that one or other of them would notice it; but finding that neither did,
he stopped, came back, picked it up, and laid it himself on Mr Dombey’s
desk. The letters were post-letters; and it happened that the one in
question was Mrs Pipchin’s regular report, directed as usual--for Mrs
Pipchin was but an indifferent penwoman--by Florence. Mr Dombey, having
his attention silently called to this letter by Walter, started, and
looked fiercely at him, as if he believed that he had purposely selected
it from all the rest.
‘You can leave the room, Sir!’ said Mr Dombey, haughtily.
He crushed the letter in his hand; and having watched Walter out at the
door, put it in his pocket without breaking the seal.
‘These continual references to Mr Carker the Junior,’ Mr Carker
the Manager began, as soon as they were alone, ‘are, to a man in my
position, uttered before one in yours, so unspeakably distressing--’
‘Nonsense, Carker,’ Mr Dombey interrupted. ‘You are too sensitive.’
‘I am sensitive,’ he returned. ‘If one in your position could by any
possibility imagine yourself in my place: which you cannot: you would be
so too.’
As Mr Dombey’s thoughts were evidently pursuing some other subject, his
discreet ally broke off here, and stood with his teeth ready to present
to him, when he should look up.
‘You want somebody to send to the West Indies, you were saying,’
observed Mr Dombey, hurriedly.
‘Yes,’ replied Carker.
‘Send young Gay.’
‘Good, very good indeed. Nothing easier,’ said Mr Carker, without any
show of surprise, and taking up the pen to re-endorse the letter, as
coolly as he had done before. ‘“Send young Gay.”’
‘Call him back,’ said Mr Dombey.
Mr Carker was quick to do so, and Walter was quick to return.
‘Gay,’ said Mr Dombey, turning a little to look at him over his
shoulder. ‘Here is a--’
‘An opening,’ said Mr Carker, with his mouth stretched to the utmost.
‘In the West Indies. At Barbados. I am going to send you,’ said
Mr Dombey, scorning to embellish the bare truth, ‘to fill a junior
situation in the counting-house at Barbados. Let your Uncle know from
me, that I have chosen you to go to the West Indies.’
Walter’s breath was so completely taken away by his astonishment,
that he could hardly find enough for the repetition of the words ‘West
Indies.’
‘Somebody must go,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘and you are young and healthy, and
your Uncle’s circumstances are not good. Tell your Uncle that you are
appointed. You will not go yet. There will be an interval of a month--or
two perhaps.’
‘Shall I remain there, Sir?’ inquired Walter.
‘Will you remain there, Sir!’ repeated Mr Dombey, turning a little more
round towards him. ‘What do you mean? What does he mean, Carker?’
‘Live there, Sir,’ faltered Walter.
‘Certainly,’ returned Mr Dombey.
Walter bowed.
‘That’s all,’ said Mr Dombey, resuming his letters. ‘You will explain to
him in good time about the usual outfit and so forth, Carker, of course.
He needn’t wait, Carker.’
‘You needn’t wait, Gay,’ observed Mr Carker: bare to the gums.
‘Unless,’ said Mr Dombey, stopping in his reading without looking off
the letter, and seeming to listen. ‘Unless he has anything to say.’
‘No, Sir,’ returned Walter, agitated and confused, and almost stunned,
as an infinite variety of pictures presented themselves to his
mind; among which Captain Cuttle, in his glazed hat, transfixed with
astonishment at Mrs MacStinger’s, and his uncle bemoaning his loss in
the little back parlour, held prominent places. ‘I hardly know--I--I am
much obliged, Sir.’
‘He needn’t wait, Carker,’ said Mr Dombey.
And as Mr Carker again echoed the words, and also collected his papers
as if he were going away too, Walter felt that his lingering any longer
would be an unpardonable intrusion--especially as he had nothing to
say--and therefore walked out quite confounded.
Going along the passage, with the mingled consciousness and helplessness
of a dream, he heard Mr Dombey’s door shut again, as Mr Carker came out:
and immediately afterwards that gentleman called to him.
‘Bring your friend Mr Carker the Junior to my room, Sir, if you please.’
Walter went to the outer office and apprised Mr Carker the Junior of his
errand, who accordingly came out from behind a partition where he sat
alone in one corner, and returned with him to the room of Mr Carker the
Manager.
That gentleman was standing with his back to the fire, and his hands
under his coat-tails, looking over his white cravat, as unpromisingly as
Mr Dombey himself could have looked. He received them without any change
in his attitude or softening of his harsh and black expression: merely
signing to Walter to close the door.
‘John Carker,’ said the Manager, when this was done, turning suddenly
upon his brother, with his two rows of teeth bristling as if he would
have bitten him, ‘what is the league between you and this young man, in
virtue of which I am haunted and hunted by the mention of your name? Is
it not enough for you, John Carker, that I am your near relation, and
can’t detach myself from that--’
‘Say disgrace, James,’ interposed the other in a low voice, finding that
he stammered for a word. ‘You mean it, and have reason, say disgrace.’
‘From that disgrace,’ assented his brother with keen emphasis, ‘but is
the fact to be blurted out and trumpeted, and proclaimed continually
in the presence of the very House! In moments of confidence too? Do you
think your name is calculated to harmonise in this place with trust and
confidence, John Carker?’
‘No,’ returned the other. ‘No, James. God knows I have no such thought.’
‘What is your thought, then?’ said his brother, ‘and why do you thrust
yourself in my way? Haven’t you injured me enough already?’
‘I have never injured you, James, wilfully.’
‘You are my brother,’ said the Manager. ‘That’s injury enough.’
‘I wish I could undo it, James.’
‘I wish you could and would.’
During this conversation, Walter had looked from one brother to the
other, with pain and amazement. He who was the Senior in years, and
Junior in the House, stood, with his eyes cast upon the ground, and
his head bowed, humbly listening to the reproaches of the other. Though
these were rendered very bitter by the tone and look with which they
were accompanied, and by the presence of Walter whom they so much
surprised and shocked, he entered no other protest against them than by
slightly raising his right hand in a deprecatory manner, as if he would
have said, ‘Spare me!’ So, had they been blows, and he a brave man,
under strong constraint, and weakened by bodily suffering, he might have
stood before the executioner.
Generous and quick in all his emotions, and regarding himself as the
innocent occasion of these taunts, Walter now struck in, with all the
earnestness he felt.
‘Mr Carker,’ he said, addressing himself to the Manager. ‘Indeed,
indeed, this is my fault solely. In a kind of heedlessness, for which I
cannot blame myself enough, I have, I have no doubt, mentioned Mr Carker
the Junior much oftener than was necessary; and have allowed his name
sometimes to slip through my lips, when it was against your expressed
wish. But it has been my own mistake, Sir. We have never exchanged one
word upon the subject--very few, indeed, on any subject. And it has not
been,’ added Walter, after a moment’s pause, ‘all heedlessness on my
part, Sir; for I have felt an interest in Mr Carker ever since I have
been here, and have hardly been able to help speaking of him sometimes,
when I have thought of him so much!’
Walter said this from his soul, and with the very breath of honour. For
he looked upon the bowed head, and the downcast eyes, and upraised hand,
and thought, ‘I have felt it; and why should I not avow it in behalf of
this unfriended, broken man!’
Mr Carker the Manager looked at him, as he spoke, and when he had
finished speaking, with a smile that seemed to divide his face into two
parts.
‘You are an excitable youth, Gay,’ he said; ‘and should endeavour to
cool down a little now, for it would be unwise to encourage feverish
predispositions. Be as cool as you can, Gay. Be as cool as you can.
You might have asked Mr John Carker himself (if you have not done so)
whether he claims to be, or is, an object of such strong interest.’
‘James, do me justice,’ said his brother. ‘I have claimed nothing; and I
claim nothing. Believe me, on my--’
‘Honour?’ said his brother, with another smile, as he warmed himself
before the fire.
‘On my Me--on my fallen life!’ returned the other, in the same low
voice, but with a deeper stress on his words than he had yet seemed
capable of giving them. ‘Believe me, I have held myself aloof, and kept
alone. This has been unsought by me. I have avoided him and everyone.
‘Indeed, you have avoided me, Mr Carker,’ said Walter, with the tears
rising to his eyes; so true was his compassion. ‘I know it, to my
disappointment and regret. When I first came here, and ever since, I
am sure I have tried to be as much your friend, as one of my age could
presume to be; but it has been of no use.
‘And observe,’ said the Manager, taking him up quickly, ‘it will be of
still less use, Gay, if you persist in forcing Mr John Carker’s name on
people’s attention. That is not the way to befriend Mr John Carker. Ask
him if he thinks it is.’
‘It is no service to me,’ said the brother. ‘It only leads to such a
conversation as the present, which I need not say I could have well
spared. No one can be a better friend to me:’ he spoke here very
distinctly, as if he would impress it upon Walter: ‘than in forgetting
me, and leaving me to go my way, unquestioned and unnoticed.’
‘Your memory not being retentive, Gay, of what you are told by others,’
said Mr Carker the Manager, warming himself with great and increased
satisfaction, ‘I thought it well that you should be told this from the
best authority,’ nodding towards his brother. ‘You are not likely to
forget it now, I hope. That’s all, Gay. You can go.’
Walter passed out at the door, and was about to close it after him,
when, hearing the voices of the brothers again, and also the mention of
his own name, he stood irresolutely, with his hand upon the lock, and
the door ajar, uncertain whether to return or go away. In this position
he could not help overhearing what followed.
‘Think of me more leniently, if you can, James,’ said John Carker, ‘when
I tell you I have had--how could I help having, with my history, written
here’--striking himself upon the breast--‘my whole heart awakened by
my observation of that boy, Walter Gay. I saw in him when he first came
here, almost my other self.’
‘Your other self!’ repeated the Manager, disdainfully.
‘Not as I am, but as I was when I first came here too; as sanguine,
giddy, youthful, inexperienced; flushed with the same restless and
adventurous fancies; and full of the same qualities, fraught with the
same capacity of leading on to good or evil.’
‘I hope not,’ said his brother, with some hidden and sarcastic meaning
in his tone.
‘You strike me sharply; and your hand is steady, and your thrust is very
deep,’ returned the other, speaking (or so Walter thought) as if some
cruel weapon actually stabbed him as he spoke. ‘I imagined all this when
he was a boy. I believed it. It was a truth to me. I saw him lightly
walking on the edge of an unseen gulf where so many others walk with
equal gaiety, and from which--’
‘The old excuse,’ interrupted his brother, as he stirred the fire. ‘So
many. Go on. Say, so many fall.’
‘From which ONE traveller fell,’ returned the other, ‘who set forward,
on his way, a boy like him, and missed his footing more and more, and
slipped a little and a little lower; and went on stumbling still, until
he fell headlong and found himself below a shattered man. Think what I
suffered, when I watched that boy.’
‘You have only yourself to thank for it,’ returned the brother.
‘Only myself,’ he assented with a sigh. ‘I don’t seek to divide the
blame or shame.’
‘You have divided the shame,’ James Carker muttered through his teeth.
And, through so many and such close teeth, he could mutter well.
‘Ah, James,’ returned his brother, speaking for the first time in an
accent of reproach, and seeming, by the sound of his voice, to have
covered his face with his hands, ‘I have been, since then, a useful foil
to you. You have trodden on me freely in your climbing up. Don’t spurn
me with your heel!’
A silence ensued. After a time, Mr Carker the Manager was heard rustling
among his papers, as if he had resolved to bring the interview to a
conclusion. At the same time his brother withdrew nearer to the door.
‘That’s all,’ he said. ‘I watched him with such trembling and such fear,
as was some little punishment to me, until he passed the place where I
first fell; and then, though I had been his father, I believe I never
could have thanked God more devoutly. I didn’t dare to warn him, and
advise him; but if I had seen direct cause, I would have shown him my
example. I was afraid to be seen speaking with him, lest it should be
thought I did him harm, and tempted him to evil, and corrupted him: or
lest I really should. There may be such contagion in me; I don’t know.
Piece out my history, in connexion with young Walter Gay, and what he
has made me feel; and think of me more leniently, James, if you can.’
With these words he came out to where Walter was standing. He turned a
little paler when he saw him there, and paler yet when Walter caught him
by the hand, and said in a whisper:
‘Mr Carker, pray let me thank you! Let me say how much I feel for you!
How sorry I am, to have been the unhappy cause of all this! How I almost
look upon you now as my protector and guardian! How very, very much,
I feel obliged to you and pity you!’ said Walter, squeezing both his
hands, and hardly knowing, in his agitation, what he did or said.
Mr Morfin’s room being close at hand and empty, and the door wide open,
they moved thither by one accord: the passage being seldom free from
someone passing to or fro. When they were there, and Walter saw in Mr
Carker’s face some traces of the emotion within, he almost felt as if he
had never seen the face before; it was so greatly changed.
‘Walter,’ he said, laying his hand on his shoulder. ‘I am far removed
from you, and may I ever be. Do you know what I am?’
‘What you are!’ appeared to hang on Walter’s lips, as he regarded him
attentively.
‘It was begun,’ said Carker, ‘before my twenty-first birthday--led up
to, long before, but not begun till near that time. I had robbed them
when I came of age. I robbed them afterwards. Before my twenty-second
birthday, it was all found out; and then, Walter, from all men’s
society, I died.’
Again his last few words hung trembling upon Walter’s lips, but he could
neither utter them, nor any of his own.
‘The House was very good to me. May Heaven reward the old man for his
forbearance! This one, too, his son, who was then newly in the Firm,
where I had held great trust! I was called into that room which is now
his--I have never entered it since--and came out, what you know me. For
many years I sat in my present seat, alone as now, but then a known
and recognised example to the rest. They were all merciful to me, and
I lived. Time has altered that part of my poor expiation; and I think,
except the three heads of the House, there is no one here who knows my
story rightly. Before the little boy grows up, and has it told to him,
my corner may be vacant. I would rather that it might be so! This is the
only change to me since that day, when I left all youth, and hope, and
good men’s company, behind me in that room. God bless you, Walter! Keep
you, and all dear to you, in honesty, or strike them dead!’
Some recollection of his trembling from head to foot, as if with
excessive cold, and of his bursting into tears, was all that Walter
could add to this, when he tried to recall exactly what had passed
between them.
When Walter saw him next, he was bending over his desk in his old
silent, drooping, humbled way. Then, observing him at his work, and
feeling how resolved he evidently was that no further intercourse should
arise between them, and thinking again and again on all he had seen and
heard that morning in so short a time, in connexion with the history of
both the Carkers, Walter could hardly believe that he was under orders
for the West Indies, and would soon be lost to Uncle Sol, and Captain
Cuttle, and to glimpses few and far between of Florence Dombey--no, he
meant Paul--and to all he loved, and liked, and looked for, in his daily
life.
But it was true, and the news had already penetrated to the outer
office; for while he sat with a heavy heart, pondering on these things,
and resting his head upon his arm, Perch the messenger, descending from
his mahogany bracket, and jogging his elbow, begged his pardon, but
wished to say in his ear, Did he think he could arrange to send home to
England a jar of preserved Ginger, cheap, for Mrs Perch’s own eating, in
the course of her recovery from her next confinement?
CHAPTER 14. Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned, and goes Home for
the Holidays
When the Midsummer vacation approached, no indecent manifestations
of joy were exhibited by the leaden-eyed young gentlemen assembled at
Doctor Blimber’s. Any such violent expression as ‘breaking up,’ would
have been quite inapplicable to that polite establishment. The young
gentlemen oozed away, semi-annually, to their own homes; but they never
broke up. They would have scorned the action.
Tozer, who was constantly galled and tormented by a starched white
cambric neckerchief, which he wore at the express desire of Mrs Tozer,
his parent, who, designing him for the Church, was of opinion that he
couldn’t be in that forward state of preparation too soon--Tozer said,
indeed, that choosing between two evils, he thought he would rather stay
where he was, than go home. However inconsistent this declaration might
appear with that passage in Tozer’s Essay on the subject, wherein he had
observed ‘that the thoughts of home and all its recollections, awakened
in his mind the most pleasing emotions of anticipation and delight,’
and had also likened himself to a Roman General, flushed with a recent
victory over the Iceni, or laden with Carthaginian spoil, advancing
within a few hours’ march of the Capitol, presupposed, for the purposes
of the simile, to be the dwelling-place of Mrs Tozer, still it was very
sincerely made. For it seemed that Tozer had a dreadful Uncle, who
not only volunteered examinations of him, in the holidays, on abstruse
points, but twisted innocent events and things, and wrenched them to the
same fell purpose. So that if this Uncle took him to the Play, or, on a
similar pretence of kindness, carried him to see a Giant, or a Dwarf,
or a Conjuror, or anything, Tozer knew he had read up some classical
allusion to the subject beforehand, and was thrown into a state of
mortal apprehension: not foreseeing where he might break out, or what
authority he might not quote against him.
As to Briggs, his father made no show of artifice about it. He never
would leave him alone. So numerous and severe were the mental trials of
that unfortunate youth in vacation time, that the friends of the family
(then resident near Bayswater, London) seldom approached the ornamental
piece of water in Kensington Gardens, without a vague expectation of
seeing Master Briggs’s hat floating on the surface, and an unfinished
exercise lying on the bank. Briggs, therefore, was not at all sanguine
on the subject of holidays; and these two sharers of little Paul’s
bedroom were so fair a sample of the young gentlemen in general, that
the most elastic among them contemplated the arrival of those festive
periods with genteel resignation.
It was far otherwise with little Paul. The end of these first holidays
was to witness his separation from Florence, but who ever looked forward
to the end of holidays whose beginning was not yet come! Not Paul,
assuredly. As the happy time drew near, the lions and tigers climbing up
the bedroom walls became quite tame and frolicsome. The grim sly faces
in the squares and diamonds of the floor-cloth, relaxed and peeped out
at him with less wicked eyes. The grave old clock had more of personal
interest in the tone of its formal inquiry; and the restless sea went
rolling on all night, to the sounding of a melancholy strain--yet it was
pleasant too--that rose and fell with the waves, and rocked him, as it
were, to sleep.
Mr Feeder, B.A., seemed to think that he, too, would enjoy the holidays
very much. Mr Toots projected a life of holidays from that time forth;
for, as he regularly informed Paul every day, it was his ‘last half’ at
Doctor Blimber’s, and he was going to begin to come into his property
directly.
It was perfectly understood between Paul and Mr Toots, that they were
intimate friends, notwithstanding their distance in point of years and
station. As the vacation approached, and Mr Toots breathed harder and
stared oftener in Paul’s society, than he had done before, Paul knew
that he meant he was sorry they were going to lose sight of each other,
and felt very much obliged to him for his patronage and good opinion.
It was even understood by Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber,
as well as by the young gentlemen in general, that Toots had somehow
constituted himself protector and guardian of Dombey, and the
circumstance became so notorious, even to Mrs Pipchin, that the good old
creature cherished feelings of bitterness and jealousy against Toots;
and, in the sanctuary of her own home, repeatedly denounced him as a
‘chuckle-headed noodle.’ Whereas the innocent Toots had no more idea
of awakening Mrs Pipchin’s wrath, than he had of any other definite
possibility or proposition. On the contrary, he was disposed to consider
her rather a remarkable character, with many points of interest about
her. For this reason he smiled on her with so much urbanity, and asked
her how she did, so often, in the course of her visits to little Paul,
that at last she one night told him plainly, she wasn’t used to it,
whatever he might think; and she could not, and she would not bear
it, either from himself or any other puppy then existing: at which
unexpected acknowledgment of his civilities, Mr Toots was so alarmed
that he secreted himself in a retired spot until she had gone. Nor did
he ever again face the doughty Mrs Pipchin, under Doctor Blimber’s roof.
They were within two or three weeks of the holidays, when, one day,
Cornelia Blimber called Paul into her room, and said, ‘Dombey, I am
going to send home your analysis.’
‘Thank you, Ma’am,’ returned Paul.
‘You know what I mean, do you, Dombey?’ inquired Miss Blimber, looking
hard at him, through the spectacles.
‘No, Ma’am,’ said Paul.
‘Dombey, Dombey,’ said Miss Blimber, ‘I begin to be afraid you are a
sad boy. When you don’t know the meaning of an expression, why don’t you
seek for information?’
‘Mrs Pipchin told me I wasn’t to ask questions,’ returned Paul.
‘I must beg you not to mention Mrs Pipchin to me, on any account,
Dombey,’ returned Miss Blimber. ‘I couldn’t think of allowing it. The
course of study here, is very far removed from anything of that sort. A
repetition of such allusions would make it necessary for me to request
to hear, without a mistake, before breakfast-time to-morrow morning,
from Verbum personale down to simillimia cygno.’
‘I didn’t mean, Ma’am--’ began little Paul.
‘I must trouble you not to tell me that you didn’t mean, if you please,
Dombey,’ said Miss Blimber, who preserved an awful politeness in
her admonitions. ‘That is a line of argument I couldn’t dream of
permitting.’
Paul felt it safest to say nothing at all, so he only looked at Miss
Blimber’s spectacles. Miss Blimber having shaken her head at him
gravely, referred to a paper lying before her.
‘“Analysis of the character of P. Dombey.” If my recollection serves
me,’ said Miss Blimber breaking off, ‘the word analysis as opposed to
synthesis, is thus defined by Walker. “The resolution of an object,
whether of the senses or of the intellect, into its first elements.”
As opposed to synthesis, you observe. Now you know what analysis is,
Dombey.’
Dombey didn’t seem to be absolutely blinded by the light let in upon his
intellect, but he made Miss Blimber a little bow.
‘“Analysis,”’ resumed Miss Blimber, casting her eye over the paper, ‘“of
the character of P. Dombey.” I find that the natural capacity of Dombey
is extremely good; and that his general disposition to study may be
stated in an equal ratio. Thus, taking eight as our standard and
highest number, I find these qualities in Dombey stated each at six
three-fourths!’
Miss Blimber paused to see how Paul received this news. Being undecided
whether six three-fourths meant six pounds fifteen, or sixpence three
farthings, or six foot three, or three quarters past six, or six
somethings that he hadn’t learnt yet, with three unknown something elses
over, Paul rubbed his hands and looked straight at Miss Blimber. It
happened to answer as well as anything else he could have done; and
Cornelia proceeded.
‘“Violence two. Selfishness two. Inclination to low company, as evinced
in the case of a person named Glubb, originally seven, but since
reduced. Gentlemanly demeanour four, and improving with advancing
years.” Now what I particularly wish to call your attention to, Dombey,
is the general observation at the close of this analysis.’
Paul set himself to follow it with great care.
‘“It may be generally observed of Dombey,”’ said Miss Blimber, reading
in a loud voice, and at every second word directing her spectacles
towards the little figure before her: ‘“that his abilities and
inclinations are good, and that he has made as much progress as under
the circumstances could have been expected. But it is to be lamented
of this young gentleman that he is singular (what is usually termed
old-fashioned) in his character and conduct, and that, without
presenting anything in either which distinctly calls for reprobation,
he is often very unlike other young gentlemen of his age and social
position.” Now, Dombey,’ said Miss Blimber, laying down the paper, ‘do
you understand that?’
‘I think I do, Ma’am,’ said Paul.
‘This analysis, you see, Dombey,’ Miss Blimber continued, ‘is going to
be sent home to your respected parent. It will naturally be very painful
to him to find that you are singular in your character and conduct. It
is naturally painful to us; for we can’t like you, you know, Dombey, as
well as we could wish.’
She touched the child upon a tender point. He had secretly become more
and more solicitous from day to day, as the time of his departure drew
more near, that all the house should like him. From some hidden reason,
very imperfectly understood by himself--if understood at all--he felt a
gradually increasing impulse of affection, towards almost everything and
everybody in the place. He could not bear to think that they would be
quite indifferent to him when he was gone. He wanted them to remember
him kindly; and he had made it his business even to conciliate a
great hoarse shaggy dog, chained up at the back of the house, who had
previously been the terror of his life: that even he might miss him when
he was no longer there.
Little thinking that in this, he only showed again the difference
between himself and his compeers, poor tiny Paul set it forth to Miss
Blimber as well as he could, and begged her, in despite of the official
analysis, to have the goodness to try and like him. To Mrs Blimber,
who had joined them, he preferred the same petition: and when that lady
could not forbear, even in his presence, from giving utterance to her
often-repeated opinion, that he was an odd child, Paul told her that he
was sure she was quite right; that he thought it must be his bones, but
he didn’t know; and that he hoped she would overlook it, for he was fond
of them all.
‘Not so fond,’ said Paul, with a mixture of timidity and perfect
frankness, which was one of the most peculiar and most engaging
qualities of the child, ‘not so fond as I am of Florence, of course;
that could never be. You couldn’t expect that, could you, Ma’am?’
‘Oh! the old-fashioned little soul!’ cried Mrs Blimber, in a whisper.
‘But I like everybody here very much,’ pursued Paul, ‘and I should
grieve to go away, and think that anyone was glad that I was gone, or
didn’t care.’
Mrs Blimber was now quite sure that Paul was the oddest child in the
world; and when she told the Doctor what had passed, the Doctor did not
controvert his wife’s opinion. But he said, as he had said before, when
Paul first came, that study would do much; and he also said, as he had
said on that occasion, ‘Bring him on, Cornelia! Bring him on!’
Cornelia had always brought him on as vigorously as she could; and Paul
had had a hard life of it. But over and above the getting through his
tasks, he had long had another purpose always present to him, and to
which he still held fast. It was, to be a gentle, useful, quiet little
fellow, always striving to secure the love and attachment of the rest;
and though he was yet often to be seen at his old post on the stairs, or
watching the waves and clouds from his solitary window, he was oftener
found, too, among the other boys, modestly rendering them some little
voluntary service. Thus it came to pass, that even among those rigid and
absorbed young anchorites, who mortified themselves beneath the roof of
Doctor Blimber, Paul was an object of general interest; a fragile little
plaything that they all liked, and that no one would have thought of
treating roughly. But he could not change his nature, or rewrite the
analysis; and so they all agreed that Dombey was old-fashioned.
There were some immunities, however, attaching to the character enjoyed
by no one else. They could have better spared a newer-fashioned child,
and that alone was much. When the others only bowed to Doctor Blimber
and family on retiring for the night, Paul would stretch out his morsel
of a hand, and boldly shake the Doctor’s; also Mrs Blimber’s; also
Cornelia’s. If anybody was to be begged off from impending punishment,
Paul was always the delegate. The weak-eyed young man himself had once
consulted him, in reference to a little breakage of glass and china. And
it was darkly rumoured that the butler, regarding him with favour such
as that stern man had never shown before to mortal boy, had sometimes
mingled porter with his table-beer to make him strong.
Over and above these extensive privileges, Paul had free right of entry
to Mr Feeder’s room, from which apartment he had twice led Mr Toots
into the open air in a state of faintness, consequent on an unsuccessful
attempt to smoke a very blunt cigar: one of a bundle which that young
gentleman had covertly purchased on the shingle from a most desperate
smuggler, who had acknowledged, in confidence, that two hundred pounds
was the price set upon his head, dead or alive, by the Custom House. It
was a snug room, Mr Feeder’s, with his bed in another little room inside
of it; and a flute, which Mr Feeder couldn’t play yet, but was going to
make a point of learning, he said, hanging up over the fireplace. There
were some books in it, too, and a fishing-rod; for Mr Feeder said he
should certainly make a point of learning to fish, when he could find
time. Mr Feeder had amassed, with similar intentions, a beautiful little
curly secondhand key-bugle, a chess-board and men, a Spanish Grammar,
a set of sketching materials, and a pair of boxing-gloves. The art
of self-defence Mr Feeder said he should undoubtedly make a point of
learning, as he considered it the duty of every man to do; for it might
lead to the protection of a female in distress.
But Mr Feeder’s great possession was a large green jar of snuff, which Mr
Toots had brought down as a present, at the close of the last vacation;
and for which he had paid a high price, having been the genuine property
of the Prince Regent. Neither Mr Toots nor Mr Feeder could partake of
this or any other snuff, even in the most stinted and moderate degree,
without being seized with convulsions of sneezing. Nevertheless it was
their great delight to moisten a box-full with cold tea, stir it up on a
piece of parchment with a paper-knife, and devote themselves to its
consumption then and there. In the course of which cramming of their
noses, they endured surprising torments with the constancy of martyrs:
and, drinking table-beer at intervals, felt all the glories of
dissipation.
To little Paul sitting silent in their company, and by the side of
his chief patron, Mr Toots, there was a dread charm in these reckless
occasions: and when Mr Feeder spoke of the dark mysteries of London, and
told Mr Toots that he was going to observe it himself closely in all its
ramifications in the approaching holidays, and for that purpose had
made arrangements to board with two old maiden ladies at Peckham, Paul
regarded him as if he were the hero of some book of travels or wild
adventure, and was almost afraid of such a slashing person.
Going into this room one evening, when the holidays were very near, Paul
found Mr Feeder filling up the blanks in some printed letters, while
some others, already filled up and strewn before him, were being folded
and sealed by Mr Toots. Mr Feeder said, ‘Aha, Dombey, there you are, are
you?’--for they were always kind to him, and glad to see him--and then
said, tossing one of the letters towards him, ‘And there you are, too,
Dombey. That’s yours.’
‘Mine, Sir?’ said Paul.
‘Your invitation,’ returned Mr Feeder.
Paul, looking at it, found, in copper-plate print, with the exception
of his own name and the date, which were in Mr Feeder’s penmanship, that
Doctor and Mrs Blimber requested the pleasure of Mr P. Dombey’s company
at an early party on Wednesday Evening the Seventeenth Instant; and
that the hour was half-past seven o’clock; and that the object was
Quadrilles. Mr Toots also showed him, by holding up a companion sheet of
paper, that Doctor and Mrs Blimber requested the pleasure of Mr Toots’s
company at an early party on Wednesday Evening the Seventeenth Instant,
when the hour was half-past seven o’clock, and when the object was
Quadrilles. He also found, on glancing at the table where Mr Feeder sat,
that the pleasure of Mr Briggs’s company, and of Mr Tozer’s company,
and of every young gentleman’s company, was requested by Doctor and Mrs
Blimber on the same genteel Occasion.
Mr Feeder then told him, to his great joy, that his sister was invited,
and that it was a half-yearly event, and that, as the holidays began
that day, he could go away with his sister after the party, if he liked,
which Paul interrupted him to say he would like, very much. Mr Feeder
then gave him to understand that he would be expected to inform Doctor
and Mrs Blimber, in superfine small-hand, that Mr P. Dombey would be
happy to have the honour of waiting on them, in accordance with their
polite invitation. Lastly, Mr Feeder said, he had better not refer to
the festive occasion, in the hearing of Doctor and Mrs Blimber; as these
preliminaries, and the whole of the arrangements, were conducted on
principles of classicality and high breeding; and that Doctor and Mrs
Blimber on the one hand, and the young gentlemen on the other, were
supposed, in their scholastic capacities, not to have the least idea of
what was in the wind.
Paul thanked Mr Feeder for these hints, and pocketing his invitation,
sat down on a stool by the side of Mr Toots, as usual. But Paul’s head,
which had long been ailing more or less, and was sometimes very heavy
and painful, felt so uneasy that night, that he was obliged to support
it on his hand. And yet it dropped so, that by little and little it sunk
on Mr Toots’s knee, and rested there, as if it had no care to be ever
lifted up again.
That was no reason why he should be deaf; but he must have been, he
thought, for, by and by, he heard Mr Feeder calling in his ear, and
gently shaking him to rouse his attention. And when he raised his head,
quite scared, and looked about him, he found that Doctor Blimber had
come into the room; and that the window was open, and that his forehead
was wet with sprinkled water; though how all this had been done without
his knowledge, was very curious indeed.
‘Ah! Come, come! That’s well! How is my little friend now?’ said Doctor
Blimber, encouragingly.
‘Oh, quite well, thank you, Sir,’ said Paul.
But there seemed to be something the matter with the floor, for he
couldn’t stand upon it steadily; and with the walls too, for they were
inclined to turn round and round, and could only be stopped by being
looked at very hard indeed. Mr Toots’s head had the appearance of being
at once bigger and farther off than was quite natural; and when he took
Paul in his arms, to carry him upstairs, Paul observed with astonishment
that the door was in quite a different place from that in which he had
expected to find it, and almost thought, at first, that Mr Toots was
going to walk straight up the chimney.
It was very kind of Mr Toots to carry him to the top of the house so
tenderly; and Paul told him that it was. But Mr Toots said he would do
a great deal more than that, if he could; and indeed he did more as
it was: for he helped Paul to undress, and helped him to bed, in the
kindest manner possible, and then sat down by the bedside and chuckled
very much; while Mr Feeder, B.A., leaning over the bottom of the
bedstead, set all the little bristles on his head bolt upright with his
bony hands, and then made believe to spar at Paul with great science, on
account of his being all right again, which was so uncommonly facetious,
and kind too in Mr Feeder, that Paul, not being able to make up his mind
whether it was best to laugh or cry at him, did both at once.
How Mr Toots melted away, and Mr Feeder changed into Mrs Pipchin, Paul
never thought of asking; neither was he at all curious to know; but
when he saw Mrs Pipchin standing at the bottom of the bed, instead of Mr
Feeder, he cried out, ‘Mrs Pipchin, don’t tell Florence!’
‘Don’t tell Florence what, my little Paul?’ said Mrs Pipchin, coming
round to the bedside, and sitting down in the chair.
‘About me,’ said Paul.
‘No, no,’ said Mrs Pipchin.
‘What do you think I mean to do when I grow up, Mrs Pipchin?’ inquired
Paul, turning his face towards her on his pillow, and resting his chin
wistfully on his folded hands.
Mrs Pipchin couldn’t guess.
‘I mean,’ said Paul, ‘to put my money all together in one Bank, never
try to get any more, go away into the country with my darling Florence,
have a beautiful garden, fields, and woods, and live there with her all
my life!’
‘Indeed!’ cried Mrs Pipchin.
‘Yes,’ said Paul. ‘That’s what I mean to do, when I--’ He stopped, and
pondered for a moment.
Mrs Pipchin’s grey eye scanned his thoughtful face.
‘If I grow up,’ said Paul. Then he went on immediately to tell Mrs
Pipchin all about the party, about Florence’s invitation, about the
pride he would have in the admiration that would be felt for her by all
the boys, about their being so kind to him and fond of him, about his
being so fond of them, and about his being so glad of it. Then he
told Mrs Pipchin about the analysis, and about his being certainly
old-fashioned, and took Mrs Pipchin’s opinion on that point, and whether
she knew why it was, and what it meant. Mrs Pipchin denied the fact
altogether, as the shortest way of getting out of the difficulty; but
Paul was far from satisfied with that reply, and looked so searchingly
at Mrs Pipchin for a truer answer, that she was obliged to get up and
look out of the window to avoid his eyes.
There was a certain calm Apothecary, who attended at the establishment
when any of the young gentlemen were ill, and somehow he got into the
room and appeared at the bedside, with Mrs Blimber. How they came there,
or how long they had been there, Paul didn’t know; but when he saw them,
he sat up in bed, and answered all the Apothecary’s questions at full
length, and whispered to him that Florence was not to know anything
about it, if he pleased, and that he had set his mind upon her coming
to the party. He was very chatty with the Apothecary, and they parted
excellent friends. Lying down again with his eyes shut, he heard the
Apothecary say, out of the room and quite a long way off--or he dreamed
it--that there was a want of vital power (what was that, Paul wondered!)
and great constitutional weakness. That as the little fellow had set his
heart on parting with his school-mates on the seventeenth, it would be
better to indulge the fancy if he grew no worse. That he was glad to
hear from Mrs Pipchin, that the little fellow would go to his friends
in London on the eighteenth. That he would write to Mr Dombey, when he
should have gained a better knowledge of the case, and before that day.
That there was no immediate cause for--what? Paul lost that word. And
that the little fellow had a fine mind, but was an old-fashioned boy.
What old fashion could that be, Paul wondered with a palpitating heart,
that was so visibly expressed in him; so plainly seen by so many people!
He could neither make it out, nor trouble himself long with the effort.
Mrs Pipchin was again beside him, if she had ever been away (he thought
she had gone out with the Doctor, but it was all a dream perhaps),
and presently a bottle and glass got into her hands magically, and
she poured out the contents for him. After that, he had some real good
jelly, which Mrs Blimber brought to him herself; and then he was so
well, that Mrs Pipchin went home, at his urgent solicitation, and Briggs
and Tozer came to bed. Poor Briggs grumbled terribly about his own
analysis, which could hardly have discomposed him more if it had been a
chemical process; but he was very good to Paul, and so was Tozer, and so
were all the rest, for they every one looked in before going to bed,
and said, ‘How are you now, Dombey?’ ‘Cheer up, little Dombey!’ and
so forth. After Briggs had got into bed, he lay awake for a long time,
still bemoaning his analysis, and saying he knew it was all wrong, and
they couldn’t have analysed a murderer worse, and--how would Doctor
Blimber like it if his pocket-money depended on it? It was very easy,
Briggs said, to make a galley-slave of a boy all the half-year, and then
score him up idle; and to crib two dinners a-week out of his board, and
then score him up greedy; but that wasn’t going to be submitted to, he
believed, was it? Oh! Ah!
Before the weak-eyed young man performed on the gong next morning, he
came upstairs to Paul and told him he was to lie still, which Paul very
gladly did. Mrs Pipchin reappeared a little before the Apothecary, and a
little after the good young woman whom Paul had seen cleaning the stove
on that first morning (how long ago it seemed now!) had brought him his
breakfast. There was another consultation a long way off, or else Paul
dreamed it again; and then the Apothecary, coming back with Doctor and
Mrs Blimber, said:
‘Yes, I think, Doctor Blimber, we may release this young gentleman from
his books just now; the vacation being so very near at hand.’
‘By all means,’ said Doctor Blimber. ‘My love, you will inform Cornelia,
if you please.’
‘Assuredly,’ said Mrs Blimber.
The Apothecary bending down, looked closely into Paul’s eyes, and felt
his head, and his pulse, and his heart, with so much interest and care,
that Paul said, ‘Thank you, Sir.’
‘Our little friend,’ observed Doctor Blimber, ‘has never complained.’
‘Oh no!’ replied the Apothecary. ‘He was not likely to complain.’
‘You find him greatly better?’ said Doctor Blimber.
‘Oh! he is greatly better, Sir,’ returned the Apothecary.
Paul had begun to speculate, in his own odd way, on the subject that
might occupy the Apothecary’s mind just at that moment; so musingly
had he answered the two questions of Doctor Blimber. But the Apothecary
happening to meet his little patient’s eyes, as the latter set off on
that mental expedition, and coming instantly out of his abstraction with
a cheerful smile, Paul smiled in return and abandoned it.
He lay in bed all that day, dozing and dreaming, and looking at Mr
Toots; but got up on the next, and went downstairs. Lo and behold, there
was something the matter with the great clock; and a workman on a pair
of steps had taken its face off, and was poking instruments into the
works by the light of a candle! This was a great event for Paul, who sat
down on the bottom stair, and watched the operation attentively: now
and then glancing at the clock face, leaning all askew, against the wall
hard by, and feeling a little confused by a suspicion that it was ogling
him.
The workman on the steps was very civil; and as he said, when he
observed Paul, ‘How do you do, Sir?’ Paul got into conversation with
him, and told him he hadn’t been quite well lately. The ice being thus
broken, Paul asked him a multitude of questions about chimes and clocks:
as, whether people watched up in the lonely church steeples by night
to make them strike, and how the bells were rung when people died, and
whether those were different bells from wedding bells, or only sounded
dismal in the fancies of the living. Finding that his new acquaintance
was not very well informed on the subject of the Curfew Bell of ancient
days, Paul gave him an account of that institution; and also asked
him, as a practical man, what he thought about King Alfred’s idea of
measuring time by the burning of candles; to which the workman replied,
that he thought it would be the ruin of the clock trade if it was
to come up again. In fine, Paul looked on, until the clock had quite
recovered its familiar aspect, and resumed its sedate inquiry; when the
workman, putting away his tools in a long basket, bade him good day,
and went away. Though not before he had whispered something, on
the door-mat, to the footman, in which there was the phrase
‘old-fashioned’--for Paul heard it.
What could that old fashion be, that seemed to make the people sorry!
What could it be!
Having nothing to learn now, he thought of this frequently; though not
so often as he might have done, if he had had fewer things to think of.
But he had a great many; and was always thinking, all day long.
First, there was Florence coming to the party. Florence would see that
the boys were fond of him; and that would make her happy. This was his
great theme. Let Florence once be sure that they were gentle and good to
him, and that he had become a little favourite among them, and then she
would always think of the time he had passed there, without being very
sorry. Florence might be all the happier too for that, perhaps, when he
came back.
When he came back! Fifty times a day, his noiseless little feet went up
the stairs to his own room, as he collected every book, and scrap, and
trifle that belonged to him, and put them all together there, down to
the minutest thing, for taking home! There was no shade of coming back
on little Paul; no preparation for it, or other reference to it, grew
out of anything he thought or did, except this slight one in connexion
with his sister. On the contrary, he had to think of everything familiar
to him, in his contemplative moods and in his wanderings about the
house, as being to be parted with; and hence the many things he had to
think of, all day long.
He had to peep into those rooms upstairs, and think how solitary they
would be when he was gone, and wonder through how many silent days,
weeks, months, and years, they would continue just as grave and
undisturbed. He had to think--would any other child (old-fashioned, like
himself) stray there at any time, to whom the same grotesque distortions
of pattern and furniture would manifest themselves; and would anybody
tell that boy of little Dombey, who had been there once?
He had to think of a portrait on the stairs, which always looked
earnestly after him as he went away, eyeing it over his shoulder; and
which, when he passed it in the company of anyone, still seemed to gaze
at him, and not at his companion. He had much to think of, in
association with a print that hung up in another place, where, in the
centre of a wondering group, one figure that he knew, a figure with a
light about its head--benignant, mild, and merciful--stood pointing
upward.
At his own bedroom window, there were crowds of thoughts that mixed
with these, and came on, one upon another, like the rolling waves. Where
those wild birds lived, that were always hovering out at sea in troubled
weather; where the clouds rose and first began; whence the wind issued
on its rushing flight, and where it stopped; whether the spot where
he and Florence had so often sat, and watched, and talked about these
things, could ever be exactly as it used to be without them; whether it
could ever be the same to Florence, if he were in some distant place,
and she were sitting there alone.
He had to think, too, of Mr Toots, and Mr Feeder, B.A., of all the boys;
and of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber; of home, and of
his aunt and Miss Tox; of his father; Dombey and Son, Walter with the
poor old Uncle who had got the money he wanted, and that gruff-voiced
Captain with the iron hand. Besides all this, he had a number of little
visits to pay, in the course of the day; to the schoolroom, to Doctor
Blimber’s study, to Mrs Blimber’s private apartment, to Miss Blimber’s,
and to the dog. For he was free of the whole house now, to range it
as he chose; and, in his desire to part with everybody on affectionate
terms, he attended, in his way, to them all. Sometimes he found places
in books for Briggs, who was always losing them; sometimes he looked up
words in dictionaries for other young gentlemen who were in extremity;
sometimes he held skeins of silk for Mrs Blimber to wind; sometimes he
put Cornelia’s desk to rights; sometimes he would even creep into the
Doctor’s study, and, sitting on the carpet near his learned feet, turn
the globes softly, and go round the world, or take a flight among the
far-off stars.
In those days immediately before the holidays, in short, when the
other young gentlemen were labouring for dear life through a general
resumption of the studies of the whole half-year, Paul was such a
privileged pupil as had never been seen in that house before. He could
hardly believe it himself; but his liberty lasted from hour to hour,
and from day to day; and little Dombey was caressed by everyone. Doctor
Blimber was so particular about him, that he requested Johnson to retire
from the dinner-table one day, for having thoughtlessly spoken to him as
‘poor little Dombey;’ which Paul thought rather hard and severe, though
he had flushed at the moment, and wondered why Johnson should pity him.
It was the more questionable justice, Paul thought, in the Doctor, from
his having certainly overheard that great authority give his assent on
the previous evening, to the proposition (stated by Mrs Blimber) that
poor dear little Dombey was more old-fashioned than ever. And now it
was that Paul began to think it must surely be old-fashioned to be
very thin, and light, and easily tired, and soon disposed to lie down
anywhere and rest; for he couldn’t help feeling that these were more and
more his habits every day.
At last the party-day arrived; and Doctor Blimber said at breakfast,
‘Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth of next
month.’ Mr Toots immediately threw off his allegiance, and put on
his ring: and mentioning the Doctor in casual conversation shortly
afterwards, spoke of him as ‘Blimber’! This act of freedom inspired
the older pupils with admiration and envy; but the younger spirits were
appalled, and seemed to marvel that no beam fell down and crushed him.
Not the least allusion was made to the ceremonies of the evening, either
at breakfast or at dinner; but there was a bustle in the house all day,
and in the course of his perambulations, Paul made acquaintance with
various strange benches and candlesticks, and met a harp in a green
greatcoat standing on the landing outside the drawing-room door. There
was something queer, too, about Mrs Blimber’s head at dinner-time, as if
she had screwed her hair up too tight; and though Miss Blimber showed
a graceful bunch of plaited hair on each temple, she seemed to have her
own little curls in paper underneath, and in a play-bill too; for
Paul read ‘Theatre Royal’ over one of her sparkling spectacles, and
‘Brighton’ over the other.
There was a grand array of white waistcoats and cravats in the young
gentlemen’s bedrooms as evening approached; and such a smell of singed
hair, that Doctor Blimber sent up the footman with his compliments, and
wished to know if the house was on fire. But it was only the hairdresser
curling the young gentlemen, and over-heating his tongs in the ardour of
business.
When Paul was dressed--which was very soon done, for he felt unwell and
drowsy, and was not able to stand about it very long--he went down into
the drawing-room; where he found Doctor Blimber pacing up and down the
room full dressed, but with a dignified and unconcerned demeanour, as
if he thought it barely possible that one or two people might drop in by
and by. Shortly afterwards, Mrs Blimber appeared, looking lovely, Paul
thought; and attired in such a number of skirts that it was quite an
excursion to walk round her. Miss Blimber came down soon after her Mama;
a little squeezed in appearance, but very charming.
Mr Toots and Mr Feeder were the next arrivals. Each of these gentlemen
brought his hat in his hand, as if he lived somewhere else; and when
they were announced by the butler, Doctor Blimber said, ‘Ay, ay, ay! God
bless my soul!’ and seemed extremely glad to see them. Mr Toots was
one blaze of jewellery and buttons; and he felt the circumstance so
strongly, that when he had shaken hands with the Doctor, and had bowed
to Mrs Blimber and Miss Blimber, he took Paul aside, and said, ‘What do
you think of this, Dombey?’
But notwithstanding this modest confidence in himself, Mr Toots appeared
to be involved in a good deal of uncertainty whether, on the whole, it
was judicious to button the bottom button of his waistcoat, and whether,
on a calm revision of all the circumstances, it was best to wear his
waistbands turned up or turned down. Observing that Mr Feeder’s were
turned up, Mr Toots turned his up; but the waistbands of the next
arrival being turned down, Mr Toots turned his down. The differences
in point of waistcoat-buttoning, not only at the bottom, but at the top
too, became so numerous and complicated as the arrivals thickened, that
Mr Toots was continually fingering that article of dress, as if he
were performing on some instrument; and appeared to find the incessant
execution it demanded, quite bewildering.
All the young gentlemen, tightly cravatted, curled, and pumped, and with
their best hats in their hands, having been at different times announced
and introduced, Mr Baps, the dancing-master, came, accompanied by Mrs
Baps, to whom Mrs Blimber was extremely kind and condescending. Mr Baps
was a very grave gentleman, with a slow and measured manner of speaking;
and before he had stood under the lamp five minutes, he began to talk to
Toots (who had been silently comparing pumps with him) about what you
were to do with your raw materials when they came into your ports in
return for your drain of gold. Mr Toots, to whom the question seemed
perplexing, suggested ‘Cook ‘em.’ But Mr Baps did not appear to think
that would do.
Paul now slipped away from the cushioned corner of a sofa, which had
been his post of observation, and went downstairs into the tea-room to
be ready for Florence, whom he had not seen for nearly a fortnight, as
he had remained at Doctor Blimber’s on the previous Saturday and Sunday,
lest he should take cold. Presently she came: looking so beautiful in
her simple ball dress, with her fresh flowers in her hand, that when she
knelt down on the ground to take Paul round the neck and kiss him (for
there was no one there, but his friend and another young woman waiting
to serve out the tea), he could hardly make up his mind to let her go
again, or to take away her bright and loving eyes from his face.
‘But what is the matter, Floy?’ asked Paul, almost sure that he saw a
tear there.
‘Nothing, darling; nothing,’ returned Florence.
Paul touched her cheek gently with his finger--and it was a tear! ‘Why,
Floy!’ said he.
‘We’ll go home together, and I’ll nurse you, love,’ said Florence.
‘Nurse me!’ echoed Paul.
Paul couldn’t understand what that had to do with it, nor why the two
young women looked on so seriously, nor why Florence turned away her
face for a moment, and then turned it back, lighted up again with
smiles.
‘Floy,’ said Paul, holding a ringlet of her dark hair in his hand. ‘Tell
me, dear, Do you think I have grown old-fashioned?’
His sister laughed, and fondled him, and told him ‘No.’
‘Because I know they say so,’ returned Paul, ‘and I want to know what
they mean, Floy.’
But a loud double knock coming at the door, and Florence hurrying to the
table, there was no more said between them. Paul wondered again when he
saw his friend whisper to Florence, as if she were comforting her; but a
new arrival put that out of his head speedily.
It was Sir Barnet Skettles, Lady Skettles, and Master Skettles. Master
Skettles was to be a new boy after the vacation, and Fame had been busy,
in Mr Feeder’s room, with his father, who was in the House of Commons,
and of whom Mr Feeder had said that when he did catch the Speaker’s
eye (which he had been expected to do for three or four years), it was
anticipated that he would rather touch up the Radicals.
‘And what room is this now, for instance?’ said Lady Skettles to Paul’s
friend, ‘Melia.
‘Doctor Blimber’s study, Ma’am,’ was the reply.
Lady Skettles took a panoramic survey of it through her glass, and said
to Sir Barnet Skettles, with a nod of approval, ‘Very good.’ Sir Barnet
assented, but Master Skettles looked suspicious and doubtful.
‘And this little creature, now,’ said Lady Skettles, turning to Paul.
‘Is he one of the--’
‘Young gentlemen, Ma’am; yes, Ma’am,’ said Paul’s friend.
‘And what is your name, my pale child?’ said Lady Skettles.
‘Dombey,’ answered Paul.
Sir Barnet Skettles immediately interposed, and said that he had had the
honour of meeting Paul’s father at a public dinner, and that he hoped
he was very well. Then Paul heard him say to Lady Skettles, ‘City--very
rich--most respectable--Doctor mentioned it.’ And then he said to Paul,
‘Will you tell your good Papa that Sir Barnet Skettles rejoiced to hear
that he was very well, and sent him his best compliments?’
‘Yes, Sir,’ answered Paul.
‘That is my brave boy,’ said Sir Barnet Skettles. ‘Barnet,’ to Master
Skettles, who was revenging himself for the studies to come, on the
plum-cake, ‘this is a young gentleman you ought to know. This is a
young gentleman you may know, Barnet,’ said Sir Barnet Skettles, with an
emphasis on the permission.
‘What eyes! What hair! What a lovely face!’ exclaimed Lady Skettles
softly, as she looked at Florence through her glass.
‘My sister,’ said Paul, presenting her.
The satisfaction of the Skettleses was now complete. And as Lady Skettles
had conceived, at first sight, a liking for Paul, they all went upstairs
together: Sir Barnet Skettles taking care of Florence, and young Barnet
following.
Young Barnet did not remain long in the background after they had
reached the drawing-room, for Dr Blimber had him out in no time, dancing
with Florence. He did not appear to Paul to be particularly happy, or
particularly anything but sulky, or to care much what he was about; but
as Paul heard Lady Skettles say to Mrs Blimber, while she beat time with
her fan, that her dear boy was evidently smitten to death by that angel
of a child, Miss Dombey, it would seem that Skettles Junior was in a
state of bliss, without showing it.
Little Paul thought it a singular coincidence that nobody had occupied
his place among the pillows; and that when he came into the room again,
they should all make way for him to go back to it, remembering it was
his. Nobody stood before him either, when they observed that he liked to
see Florence dancing, but they left the space in front quite clear, so
that he might follow her with his eyes. They were so kind, too, even
the strangers, of whom there were soon a great many, that they came and
spoke to him every now and then, and asked him how he was, and if his
head ached, and whether he was tired. He was very much obliged to them
for all their kindness and attention, and reclining propped up in
his corner, with Mrs Blimber and Lady Skettles on the same sofa, and
Florence coming and sitting by his side as soon as every dance was
ended, he looked on very happily indeed.
Florence would have sat by him all night, and would not have danced at
all of her own accord, but Paul made her, by telling her how much
it pleased him. And he told her the truth, too; for his small heart
swelled, and his face glowed, when he saw how much they all admired her,
and how she was the beautiful little rosebud of the room.
From his nest among the pillows, Paul could see and hear almost
everything that passed as if the whole were being done for his
amusement. Among other little incidents that he observed, he observed Mr
Baps the dancing-master get into conversation with Sir Barnet Skettles,
and very soon ask him, as he had asked Mr Toots, what you were to do
with your raw materials, when they came into your ports in return for
your drain of gold--which was such a mystery to Paul that he was quite
desirous to know what ought to be done with them. Sir Barnet Skettles
had much to say upon the question, and said it; but it did not appear
to solve the question, for Mr Baps retorted, Yes, but supposing Russia
stepped in with her tallows; which struck Sir Barnet almost dumb, for
he could only shake his head after that, and say, Why then you must fall
back upon your cottons, he supposed.
Sir Barnet Skettles looked after Mr Baps when he went to cheer up
Mrs Baps (who, being quite deserted, was pretending to look over the
music-book of the gentleman who played the harp), as if he thought him a
remarkable kind of man; and shortly afterwards he said so in those words
to Doctor Blimber, and inquired if he might take the liberty of asking
who he was, and whether he had ever been in the Board of Trade.
Doctor Blimber answered no, he believed not; and that in fact he was a
Professor of--’
‘Of something connected with statistics, I’ll swear?’ observed Sir
Barnet Skettles.
‘Why no, Sir Barnet,’ replied Doctor Blimber, rubbing his chin. ‘No, not
exactly.’
‘Figures of some sort, I would venture a bet,’ said Sir Barnet Skettles.
‘Why yes,’ said Doctor Blimber, yes, but not of that sort. Mr Baps is a
very worthy sort of man, Sir Barnet, and--in fact he’s our Professor of
dancing.’
Paul was amazed to see that this piece of information quite altered Sir
Barnet Skettles’s opinion of Mr Baps, and that Sir Barnet flew into
a perfect rage, and glowered at Mr Baps over on the other side of the
room. He even went so far as to D-- Mr Baps to Lady Skettles, in telling
her what had happened, and to say that it was like his most con-sum-mate
and con-foun-ded impudence.
There was another thing that Paul observed. Mr Feeder, after imbibing
several custard-cups of negus, began to enjoy himself. The dancing in
general was ceremonious, and the music rather solemn--a little like
church music in fact--but after the custard-cups, Mr Feeder told Mr
Toots that he was going to throw a little spirit into the thing. After
that, Mr Feeder not only began to dance as if he meant dancing and
nothing else, but secretly to stimulate the music to perform wild tunes.
Further, he became particular in his attentions to the ladies; and
dancing with Miss Blimber, whispered to her--whispered to her!--though
not so softly but that Paul heard him say this remarkable poetry,
‘Had I a heart for falsehood framed,
I ne’er could injure You!’
This, Paul heard him repeat to four young ladies, in succession. Well
might Mr Feeder say to Mr Toots, that he was afraid he should be the
worse for it to-morrow!
Mrs Blimber was a little alarmed by this--comparatively
speaking--profligate behaviour; and especially by the alteration in the
character of the music, which, beginning to comprehend low melodies that
were popular in the streets, might not unnaturally be supposed to give
offence to Lady Skettles. But Lady Skettles was so very kind as to beg
Mrs Blimber not to mention it; and to receive her explanation that
Mr Feeder’s spirits sometimes betrayed him into excesses on these
occasions, with the greatest courtesy and politeness; observing, that
he seemed a very nice sort of person for his situation, and that she
particularly liked the unassuming style of his hair--which (as already
hinted) was about a quarter of an inch long.
Once, when there was a pause in the dancing, Lady Skettles told Paul
that he seemed very fond of music. Paul replied, that he was; and if
she was too, she ought to hear his sister, Florence, sing. Lady Skettles
presently discovered that she was dying with anxiety to have that
gratification; and though Florence was at first very much frightened at
being asked to sing before so many people, and begged earnestly to be
excused, yet, on Paul calling her to him, and saying, ‘Do, Floy! Please!
For me, my dear!’ she went straight to the piano, and began. When they
all drew a little away, that Paul might see her; and when he saw her
sitting there all alone, so young, and good, and beautiful, and kind
to him; and heard her thrilling voice, so natural and sweet, and such
a golden link between him and all his life’s love and happiness, rising
out of the silence; he turned his face away, and hid his tears. Not,
as he told them when they spoke to him, not that the music was too
plaintive or too sorrowful, but it was so dear to him.
They all loved Florence. How could they help it! Paul had known
beforehand that they must and would; and sitting in his cushioned
corner, with calmly folded hands; and one leg loosely doubled under him,
few would have thought what triumph and delight expanded his childish
bosom while he watched her, or what a sweet tranquillity he felt. Lavish
encomiums on ‘Dombey’s sister’ reached his ears from all the boys:
admiration of the self-possessed and modest little beauty was on every
lip: reports of her intelligence and accomplishments floated past him,
constantly; and, as if borne in upon the air of the summer night, there
was a half intelligible sentiment diffused around, referring to Florence
and himself, and breathing sympathy for both, that soothed and touched
him.
He did not know why. For all that the child observed, and felt, and
thought, that night--the present and the absent; what was then and
what had been--were blended like the colours in the rainbow, or in
the plumage of rich birds when the sun is shining on them, or in the
softening sky when the same sun is setting. The many things he had had
to think of lately, passed before him in the music; not as claiming
his attention over again, or as likely evermore to occupy it, but as
peacefully disposed of and gone. A solitary window, gazed through years
ago, looked out upon an ocean, miles and miles away; upon its waters,
fancies, busy with him only yesterday, were hushed and lulled to rest
like broken waves. The same mysterious murmur he had wondered at, when
lying on his couch upon the beach, he thought he still heard sounding
through his sister’s song, and through the hum of voices, and the tread
of feet, and having some part in the faces flitting by, and even in the
heavy gentleness of Mr Toots, who frequently came up to shake him by
the hand. Through the universal kindness he still thought he heard it,
speaking to him; and even his old-fashioned reputation seemed to be
allied to it, he knew not how. Thus little Paul sat musing, listening,
looking on, and dreaming; and was very happy.
Until the time arrived for taking leave: and then, indeed, there was a
sensation in the party. Sir Barnet Skettles brought up Skettles Junior
to shake hands with him, and asked him if he would remember to tell his
good Papa, with his best compliments, that he, Sir Barnet Skettles,
had said he hoped the two young gentlemen would become intimately
acquainted. Lady Skettles kissed him, and patted his hair upon his brow,
and held him in her arms; and even Mrs Baps--poor Mrs Baps! Paul was
glad of that--came over from beside the music-book of the gentleman who
played the harp, and took leave of him quite as heartily as anybody in
the room.
‘Good-bye, Doctor Blimber,’ said Paul, stretching out his hand.
‘Good-bye, my little friend,’ returned the Doctor.
‘I’m very much obliged to you, Sir,’ said Paul, looking innocently up
into his awful face. ‘Ask them to take care of Diogenes, if you please.’
Diogenes was the dog: who had never in his life received a friend into
his confidence, before Paul. The Doctor promised that every attention
should be paid to Diogenes in Paul’s absence, and Paul having again
thanked him, and shaken hands with him, bade adieu to Mrs Blimber and
Cornelia with such heartfelt earnestness that Mrs Blimber forgot from
that moment to mention Cicero to Lady Skettles, though she had fully
intended it all the evening. Cornelia, taking both Paul’s hands in hers,
said, ‘Dombey, Dombey, you have always been my favourite pupil. God bless
you!’ And it showed, Paul thought, how easily one might do injustice to
a person; for Miss Blimber meant it--though she was a Forcer--and felt
it.
A buzz then went round among the young gentlemen, of ‘Dombey’s going!’
‘Little Dombey’s going!’ and there was a general move after Paul and
Florence down the staircase and into the hall, in which the whole
Blimber family were included. Such a circumstance, Mr Feeder said aloud,
as had never happened in the case of any former young gentleman within
his experience; but it would be difficult to say if this were sober fact
or custard-cups. The servants, with the butler at their head, had all an
interest in seeing Little Dombey go; and even the weak-eyed young man,
taking out his books and trunks to the coach that was to carry him and
Florence to Mrs Pipchin’s for the night, melted visibly.
Not even the influence of the softer passion on the young gentlemen--and
they all, to a boy, doted on Florence--could restrain them from taking
quite a noisy leave of Paul; waving hats after him, pressing downstairs
to shake hands with him, crying individually ‘Dombey, don’t forget me!’
and indulging in many such ebullitions of feeling, uncommon among those
young Chesterfields. Paul whispered Florence, as she wrapped him up
before the door was opened, Did she hear them? Would she ever forget
it? Was she glad to know it? And a lively delight was in his eyes as he
spoke to her.
Once, for a last look, he turned and gazed upon the faces thus addressed
to him, surprised to see how shining and how bright, and numerous they
were, and how they were all piled and heaped up, as faces are at crowded
theatres. They swam before him as he looked, like faces in an agitated
glass; and next moment he was in the dark coach outside, holding close
to Florence. From that time, whenever he thought of Doctor Blimber’s, it
came back as he had seen it in this last view; and it never seemed to be
a real place again, but always a dream, full of eyes.
This was not quite the last of Doctor Blimber’s, however. There was
something else. There was Mr Toots. Who, unexpectedly letting down
one of the coach-windows, and looking in, said, with a most egregious
chuckle, ‘Is Dombey there?’ and immediately put it up again, without
waiting for an answer. Nor was this quite the last of Mr Toots, even;
for before the coachman could drive off, he as suddenly let down the
other window, and looking in with a precisely similar chuckle, said in
a precisely similar tone of voice, ‘Is Dombey there?’ and disappeared
precisely as before.
How Florence laughed! Paul often remembered it, and laughed himself
whenever he did so.
But there was much, soon afterwards--next day, and after that--which
Paul could only recollect confusedly. As, why they stayed at Mrs
Pipchin’s days and nights, instead of going home; why he lay in bed,
with Florence sitting by his side; whether that had been his father in
the room, or only a tall shadow on the wall; whether he had heard his
doctor say, of someone, that if they had removed him before the occasion
on which he had built up fancies, strong in proportion to his own
weakness, it was very possible he might have pined away.
He could not even remember whether he had often said to Florence, ‘Oh
Floy, take me home, and never leave me!’ but he thought he had. He
fancied sometimes he had heard himself repeating, ‘Take me home, Floy!
take me home!’
But he could remember, when he got home, and was carried up the
well-remembered stairs, that there had been the rumbling of a coach for
many hours together, while he lay upon the seat, with Florence still
beside him, and old Mrs Pipchin sitting opposite. He remembered his old
bed too, when they laid him down in it: his aunt, Miss Tox, and Susan:
but there was something else, and recent too, that still perplexed him.
‘I want to speak to Florence, if you please,’ he said. ‘To Florence by
herself, for a moment!’
She bent down over him, and the others stood away.
‘Floy, my pet, wasn’t that Papa in the hall, when they brought me from
the coach?’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘He didn’t cry, and go into his room, Floy, did he, when he saw me
coming in?’
Florence shook her head, and pressed her lips against his cheek.
‘I’m very glad he didn’t cry,’ said little Paul. ‘I thought he did.
Don’t tell them that I asked.’
CHAPTER 15. Amazing Artfulness of Captain Cuttle, and a new Pursuit for
Walter Gay
Walter could not, for several days, decide what to do in the Barbados
business; and even cherished some faint hope that Mr Dombey might not
have meant what he had said, or that he might change his mind, and tell
him he was not to go. But as nothing occurred to give this idea (which
was sufficiently improbable in itself) any touch of confirmation, and as
time was slipping by, and he had none to lose, he felt that he must act,
without hesitating any longer.
Walter’s chief difficulty was, how to break the change in his affairs to
Uncle Sol, to whom he was sensible it would be a terrible blow. He
had the greater difficulty in dashing Uncle Sol’s spirits with such an
astounding piece of intelligence, because they had lately recovered
very much, and the old man had become so cheerful, that the little back
parlour was itself again. Uncle Sol had paid the first appointed portion
of the debt to Mr Dombey, and was hopeful of working his way through
the rest; and to cast him down afresh, when he had sprung up so manfully
from his troubles, was a very distressing necessity.
Yet it would never do to run away from him. He must know of it
beforehand; and how to tell him was the point. As to the question of
going or not going, Walter did not consider that he had any power of
choice in the matter. Mr Dombey had truly told him that he was young,
and that his Uncle’s circumstances were not good; and Mr Dombey had
plainly expressed, in the glance with which he had accompanied that
reminder, that if he declined to go he might stay at home if he chose,
but not in his counting-house. His Uncle and he lay under a great
obligation to Mr Dombey, which was of Walter’s own soliciting. He might
have begun in secret to despair of ever winning that gentleman’s favour,
and might have thought that he was now and then disposed to put a slight
upon him, which was hardly just. But what would have been duty without
that, was still duty with it--or Walter thought so--and duty must be
done.
When Mr Dombey had looked at him, and told him he was young, and that
his Uncle’s circumstances were not good, there had been an expression of
disdain in his face; a contemptuous and disparaging assumption that he
would be quite content to live idly on a reduced old man, which stung
the boy’s generous soul. Determined to assure Mr Dombey, in so far as it
was possible to give him the assurance without expressing it in words,
that indeed he mistook his nature, Walter had been anxious to show even
more cheerfulness and activity after the West Indian interview than he
had shown before: if that were possible, in one of his quick and zealous
disposition. He was too young and inexperienced to think, that possibly
this very quality in him was not agreeable to Mr Dombey, and that it
was no stepping-stone to his good opinion to be elastic and hopeful of
pleasing under the shadow of his powerful displeasure, whether it were
right or wrong. But it may have been--it may have been--that the great
man thought himself defied in this new exposition of an honest spirit,
and purposed to bring it down.
‘Well! at last and at least, Uncle Sol must be told,’ thought Walter,
with a sigh. And as Walter was apprehensive that his voice might perhaps
quaver a little, and that his countenance might not be quite as hopeful
as he could wish it to be, if he told the old man himself, and saw the
first effects of his communication on his wrinkled face, he resolved to
avail himself of the services of that powerful mediator, Captain Cuttle.
Sunday coming round, he set off therefore, after breakfast, once more to
beat up Captain Cuttle’s quarters.
It was not unpleasant to remember, on the way thither, that Mrs
MacStinger resorted to a great distance every Sunday morning, to attend
the ministry of the Reverend Melchisedech Howler, who, having been one
day discharged from the West India Docks on a false suspicion (got up
expressly against him by the general enemy) of screwing gimlets into
puncheons, and applying his lips to the orifice, had announced the
destruction of the world for that day two years, at ten in the morning,
and opened a front parlour for the reception of ladies and gentlemen
of the Ranting persuasion, upon whom, on the first occasion of their
assemblage, the admonitions of the Reverend Melchisedech had produced
so powerful an effect, that, in their rapturous performance of a sacred
jig, which closed the service, the whole flock broke through into a
kitchen below, and disabled a mangle belonging to one of the fold.
This the Captain, in a moment of uncommon conviviality, had confided
to Walter and his Uncle, between the repetitions of lovely Peg, on the
night when Brogley the broker was paid out. The Captain himself was
punctual in his attendance at a church in his own neighbourhood, which
hoisted the Union Jack every Sunday morning; and where he was good
enough--the lawful beadle being infirm--to keep an eye upon the boys,
over whom he exercised great power, in virtue of his mysterious hook.
Knowing the regularity of the Captain’s habits, Walter made all the
haste he could, that he might anticipate his going out; and he made such
good speed, that he had the pleasure, on turning into Brig Place, to
behold the broad blue coat and waistcoat hanging out of the Captain’s
open window, to air in the sun.
It appeared incredible that the coat and waistcoat could be seen by
mortal eyes without the Captain; but he certainly was not in them,
otherwise his legs--the houses in Brig Place not being lofty--would have
obstructed the street door, which was perfectly clear. Quite wondering
at this discovery, Walter gave a single knock.
‘Stinger,’ he distinctly heard the Captain say, up in his room, as if
that were no business of his. Therefore Walter gave two knocks.
‘Cuttle,’ he heard the Captain say upon that; and immediately afterwards
the Captain, in his clean shirt and braces, with his neckerchief hanging
loosely round his throat like a coil of rope, and his glazed hat
on, appeared at the window, leaning out over the broad blue coat and
waistcoat.
‘Wal’r!’ cried the Captain, looking down upon him in amazement.
‘Ay, ay, Captain Cuttle,’ returned Walter, ‘only me’
‘What’s the matter, my lad?’ inquired the Captain, with great concern.
‘Gills an’t been and sprung nothing again?’
‘No, no,’ said Walter. ‘My Uncle’s all right, Captain Cuttle.’
The Captain expressed his gratification, and said he would come down
below and open the door, which he did.
‘Though you’re early, Wal’r,’ said the Captain, eyeing him still
doubtfully, when they got upstairs:
‘Why, the fact is, Captain Cuttle,’ said Walter, sitting down, ‘I was
afraid you would have gone out, and I want to benefit by your friendly
counsel.’
‘So you shall,’ said the Captain; ‘what’ll you take?’
‘I want to take your opinion, Captain Cuttle,’ returned Walter, smiling.
‘That’s the only thing for me.’
‘Come on then,’ said the Captain. ‘With a will, my lad!’
Walter related to him what had happened; and the difficulty in which he
felt respecting his Uncle, and the relief it would be to him if Captain
Cuttle, in his kindness, would help him to smooth it away; Captain
Cuttle’s infinite consternation and astonishment at the prospect
unfolded to him, gradually swallowing that gentleman up, until it left
his face quite vacant, and the suit of blue, the glazed hat, and the
hook, apparently without an owner.
‘You see, Captain Cuttle,’ pursued Walter, ‘for myself, I am young, as
Mr Dombey said, and not to be considered. I am to fight my way through
the world, I know; but there are two points I was thinking, as I came
along, that I should be very particular about, in respect to my Uncle.
I don’t mean to say that I deserve to be the pride and delight of his
life--you believe me, I know--but I am. Now, don’t you think I am?’
The Captain seemed to make an endeavour to rise from the depths of
his astonishment, and get back to his face; but the effort being
ineffectual, the glazed hat merely nodded with a mute, unutterable
meaning.
‘If I live and have my health,’ said Walter, ‘and I am not afraid of
that, still, when I leave England I can hardly hope to see my Uncle
again. He is old, Captain Cuttle; and besides, his life is a life of
custom--’
‘Steady, Wal’r! Of a want of custom?’ said the Captain, suddenly
reappearing.
‘Too true,’ returned Walter, shaking his head: ‘but I meant a life of
habit, Captain Cuttle--that sort of custom. And if (as you very truly
said, I am sure) he would have died the sooner for the loss of the
stock, and all those objects to which he has been accustomed for so many
years, don’t you think he might die a little sooner for the loss of--’
‘Of his Nevy,’ interposed the Captain. ‘Right!’
‘Well then,’ said Walter, trying to speak gaily, ‘we must do our best to
make him believe that the separation is but a temporary one, after all;
but as I know better, or dread that I know better, Captain Cuttle, and
as I have so many reasons for regarding him with affection, and duty,
and honour, I am afraid I should make but a very poor hand at that, if
I tried to persuade him of it. That’s my great reason for wishing you to
break it out to him; and that’s the first point.’
‘Keep her off a point or so!’ observed the Captain, in a comtemplative
voice.
‘What did you say, Captain Cuttle?’ inquired Walter.
‘Stand by!’ returned the Captain, thoughtfully.
Walter paused to ascertain if the Captain had any particular information
to add to this, but as he said no more, went on.
‘Now, the second point, Captain Cuttle. I am sorry to say, I am not a
favourite with Mr Dombey. I have always tried to do my best, and I have
always done it; but he does not like me. He can’t help his likings and
dislikings, perhaps. I say nothing of that. I only say that I am certain
he does not like me. He does not send me to this post as a good one; he
disclaims to represent it as being better than it is; and I doubt very
much if it will ever lead me to advancement in the House--whether it
does not, on the contrary, dispose of me for ever, and put me out of the
way. Now, we must say nothing of this to my Uncle, Captain Cuttle, but
must make it out to be as favourable and promising as we can; and when I
tell you what it really is, I only do so, that in case any means should
ever arise of lending me a hand, so far off, I may have one friend at
home who knows my real situation.
‘Wal’r, my boy,’ replied the Captain, ‘in the Proverbs of Solomon you
will find the following words, “May we never want a friend in need, nor
a bottle to give him!” When found, make a note of.’
Here the Captain stretched out his hand to Walter, with an air of
downright good faith that spoke volumes; at the same time repeating (for
he felt proud of the accuracy and pointed application of his quotation),
‘When found, make a note of.’
‘Captain Cuttle,’ said Walter, taking the immense fist extended to him
by the Captain in both his hands, which it completely filled, next to
my Uncle Sol, I love you. There is no one on earth in whom I can more
safely trust, I am sure. As to the mere going away, Captain Cuttle, I
don’t care for that; why should I care for that! If I were free to seek
my own fortune--if I were free to go as a common sailor--if I were free
to venture on my own account to the farthest end of the world--I would
gladly go! I would have gladly gone, years ago, and taken my chance of
what might come of it. But it was against my Uncle’s wishes, and against
the plans he had formed for me; and there was an end of that. But what I
feel, Captain Cuttle, is that we have been a little mistaken all along,
and that, so far as any improvement in my prospects is concerned, I
am no better off now than I was when I first entered Dombey’s
House--perhaps a little worse, for the House may have been kindly
inclined towards me then, and it certainly is not now.’
‘Turn again, Whittington,’ muttered the disconsolate Captain, after
looking at Walter for some time.
‘Ay,’ replied Walter, laughing, ‘and turn a great many times, too,
Captain Cuttle, I’m afraid, before such fortune as his ever turns
up again. Not that I complain,’ he added, in his lively, animated,
energetic way. ‘I have nothing to complain of. I am provided for. I can
live. When I leave my Uncle, I leave him to you; and I can leave him
to no one better, Captain Cuttle. I haven’t told you all this because
I despair, not I; it’s to convince you that I can’t pick and choose in
Dombey’s House, and that where I am sent, there I must go, and what I
am offered, that I must take. It’s better for my Uncle that I should
be sent away; for Mr Dombey is a valuable friend to him, as he proved
himself, you know when, Captain Cuttle; and I am persuaded he won’t be
less valuable when he hasn’t me there, every day, to awaken his dislike.
So hurrah for the West Indies, Captain Cuttle! How does that tune go
that the sailors sing?
‘For the Port of Barbados, Boys!
Cheerily!
Leaving old England behind us, Boys!
Cheerily!’
Here the Captain roared in chorus--
‘Oh cheerily, cheerily!
Oh cheer-i-ly!’
The last line reaching the quick ears of an ardent skipper not quite
sober, who lodged opposite, and who instantly sprung out of bed, threw
up his window, and joined in, across the street, at the top of his
voice, produced a fine effect. When it was impossible to sustain the
concluding note any longer, the skipper bellowed forth a terrific
‘ahoy!’ intended in part as a friendly greeting, and in part to show
that he was not at all breathed. That done, he shut down his window, and
went to bed again.
‘And now, Captain Cuttle,’ said Walter, handing him the blue coat and
waistcoat, and bustling very much, ‘if you’ll come and break the news to
Uncle Sol (which he ought to have known, days upon days ago, by
rights), I’ll leave you at the door, you know, and walk about until the
afternoon.’
The Captain, however, scarcely appeared to relish the commission, or to
be by any means confident of his powers of executing it. He had arranged
the future life and adventures of Walter so very differently, and so
entirely to his own satisfaction; he had felicitated himself so often on
the sagacity and foresight displayed in that arrangement, and had found
it so complete and perfect in all its parts; that to suffer it to go
to pieces all at once, and even to assist in breaking it up, required a
great effort of his resolution. The Captain, too, found it difficult to
unload his old ideas upon the subject, and to take a perfectly new
cargo on board, with that rapidity which the circumstances required,
or without jumbling and confounding the two. Consequently, instead of
putting on his coat and waistcoat with anything like the impetuosity
that could alone have kept pace with Walter’s mood, he declined to
invest himself with those garments at all at present; and informed
Walter that on such a serious matter, he must be allowed to ‘bite his
nails a bit’.
‘It’s an old habit of mine, Wal’r,’ said the Captain, ‘any time these
fifty year. When you see Ned Cuttle bite his nails, Wal’r, then you may
know that Ned Cuttle’s aground.’
Thereupon the Captain put his iron hook between his teeth, as if it
were a hand; and with an air of wisdom and profundity that was the very
concentration and sublimation of all philosophical reflection and grave
inquiry, applied himself to the consideration of the subject in its
various branches.
‘There’s a friend of mine,’ murmured the Captain, in an absent manner,
‘but he’s at present coasting round to Whitby, that would deliver such
an opinion on this subject, or any other that could be named, as would
give Parliament six and beat ‘em. Been knocked overboard, that man,’
said the Captain, ‘twice, and none the worse for it. Was beat in his
apprenticeship, for three weeks (off and on), about the head with a
ring-bolt. And yet a clearer-minded man don’t walk.’
In spite of his respect for Captain Cuttle, Walter could not help
inwardly rejoicing at the absence of this sage, and devoutly hoping that
his limpid intellect might not be brought to bear on his difficulties
until they were quite settled.
‘If you was to take and show that man the buoy at the Nore,’ said
Captain Cuttle in the same tone, ‘and ask him his opinion of it, Wal’r,
he’d give you an opinion that was no more like that buoy than your
Uncle’s buttons are. There ain’t a man that walks--certainly not on two
legs--that can come near him. Not near him!’
‘What’s his name, Captain Cuttle?’ inquired Walter, determined to be
interested in the Captain’s friend.
‘His name’s Bunsby,’ said the Captain. ‘But Lord, it might be anything
for the matter of that, with such a mind as his!’
The exact idea which the Captain attached to this concluding piece of
praise, he did not further elucidate; neither did Walter seek to draw
it forth. For on his beginning to review, with the vivacity natural to
himself and to his situation, the leading points in his own affairs, he
soon discovered that the Captain had relapsed into his former profound
state of mind; and that while he eyed him steadfastly from beneath his
bushy eyebrows, he evidently neither saw nor heard him, but remained
immersed in cogitation.
In fact, Captain Cuttle was labouring with such great designs, that far
from being aground, he soon got off into the deepest of water, and could
find no bottom to his penetration. By degrees it became perfectly plain
to the Captain that there was some mistake here; that it was undoubtedly
much more likely to be Walter’s mistake than his; that if there were
really any West India scheme afoot, it was a very different one from
what Walter, who was young and rash, supposed; and could only be some
new device for making his fortune with unusual celerity. ‘Or if there
should be any little hitch between ‘em,’ thought the Captain, meaning
between Walter and Mr Dombey, ‘it only wants a word in season from a
friend of both parties, to set it right and smooth, and make all taut
again.’ Captain Cuttle’s deduction from these considerations was, that
as he already enjoyed the pleasure of knowing Mr Dombey, from having
spent a very agreeable half-hour in his company at Brighton (on the
morning when they borrowed the money); and that, as a couple of men of
the world, who understood each other, and were mutually disposed to make
things comfortable, could easily arrange any little difficulty of this
sort, and come at the real facts; the friendly thing for him to do would
be, without saying anything about it to Walter at present, just to step
up to Mr Dombey’s house--say to the servant ‘Would ye be so good, my
lad, as report Cap’en Cuttle here?’--meet Mr Dombey in a confidential
spirit--hook him by the button-hole--talk it over--make it all
right--and come away triumphant!
As these reflections presented themselves to the Captain’s mind, and
by slow degrees assumed this shape and form, his visage cleared like
a doubtful morning when it gives place to a bright noon. His eyebrows,
which had been in the highest degree portentous, smoothed their rugged
bristling aspect, and became serene; his eyes, which had been nearly
closed in the severity of his mental exercise, opened freely; a smile
which had been at first but three specks--one at the right-hand corner
of his mouth, and one at the corner of each eye--gradually overspread
his whole face, and, rippling up into his forehead, lifted the glazed
hat: as if that too had been aground with Captain Cuttle, and were now,
like him, happily afloat again.
Finally, the Captain left off biting his nails, and said, ‘Now, Wal’r,
my boy, you may help me on with them slops.’ By which the Captain meant
his coat and waistcoat.
Walter little imagined why the Captain was so particular in the
arrangement of his cravat, as to twist the pendent ends into a sort of
pigtail, and pass them through a massive gold ring with a picture of
a tomb upon it, and a neat iron railing, and a tree, in memory of some
deceased friend. Nor why the Captain pulled up his shirt-collar to
the utmost limits allowed by the Irish linen below, and by so doing
decorated himself with a complete pair of blinkers; nor why he changed
his shoes, and put on an unparalleled pair of ankle-jacks, which he only
wore on extraordinary occasions. The Captain being at length attired to
his own complete satisfaction, and having glanced at himself from
head to foot in a shaving-glass which he removed from a nail for that
purpose, took up his knotted stick, and said he was ready.
The Captain’s walk was more complacent than usual when they got out
into the street; but this Walter supposed to be the effect of the
ankle-jacks, and took little heed of. Before they had gone very far,
they encountered a woman selling flowers; when the Captain stopping
short, as if struck by a happy idea, made a purchase of the largest
bundle in her basket: a most glorious nosegay, fan-shaped, some two feet
and a half round, and composed of all the jolliest-looking flowers that
blow.
Armed with this little token which he designed for Mr Dombey, Captain
Cuttle walked on with Walter until they reached the Instrument-maker’s
door, before which they both paused.
‘You’re going in?’ said Walter.
‘Yes,’ returned the Captain, who felt that Walter must be got rid
of before he proceeded any further, and that he had better time his
projected visit somewhat later in the day.
‘And you won’t forget anything?’
‘No,’ returned the Captain.
‘I’ll go upon my walk at once,’ said Walter, ‘and then I shall be out of
the way, Captain Cuttle.’
‘Take a good long ‘un, my lad!’ replied the Captain, calling after him.
Walter waved his hand in assent, and went his way.
His way was nowhere in particular; but he thought he would go out into
the fields, where he could reflect upon the unknown life before him, and
resting under some tree, ponder quietly. He knew no better fields than
those near Hampstead, and no better means of getting at them than by
passing Mr Dombey’s house.
It was as stately and as dark as ever, when he went by and glanced up
at its frowning front. The blinds were all pulled down, but the upper
windows stood wide open, and the pleasant air stirring those curtains
and waving them to and fro was the only sign of animation in the whole
exterior. Walter walked softly as he passed, and was glad when he had
left the house a door or two behind.
He looked back then; with the interest he had always felt for the place
since the adventure of the lost child, years ago; and looked especially
at those upper windows. While he was thus engaged, a chariot drove to
the door, and a portly gentleman in black, with a heavy watch-chain,
alighted, and went in. When he afterwards remembered this gentleman and
his equipage together, Walter had no doubt he was a physician; and then
he wondered who was ill; but the discovery did not occur to him until he
had walked some distance, thinking listlessly of other things.
Though still, of what the house had suggested to him; for Walter
pleased himself with thinking that perhaps the time might come, when the
beautiful child who was his old friend and had always been so grateful
to him and so glad to see him since, might interest her brother in his
behalf and influence his fortunes for the better. He liked to imagine
this--more, at that moment, for the pleasure of imagining her continued
remembrance of him, than for any worldly profit he might gain: but
another and more sober fancy whispered to him that if he were alive
then, he would be beyond the sea and forgotten; she married, rich,
proud, happy. There was no more reason why she should remember him with
any interest in such an altered state of things, than any plaything she
ever had. No, not so much.
Yet Walter so idealised the pretty child whom he had found wandering in
the rough streets, and so identified her with her innocent gratitude
of that night and the simplicity and truth of its expression, that he
blushed for himself as a libeller when he argued that she could ever
grow proud. On the other hand, his meditations were of that fantastic
order that it seemed hardly less libellous in him to imagine her grown a
woman: to think of her as anything but the same artless, gentle, winning
little creature, that she had been in the days of Good Mrs Brown. In
a word, Walter found out that to reason with himself about Florence at
all, was to become very unreasonable indeed; and that he could do
no better than preserve her image in his mind as something precious,
unattainable, unchangeable, and indefinite--indefinite in all but its
power of giving him pleasure, and restraining him like an angel’s hand
from anything unworthy.
It was a long stroll in the fields that Walter took that day, listening
to the birds, and the Sunday bells, and the softened murmur of the
town--breathing sweet scents; glancing sometimes at the dim horizon
beyond which his voyage and his place of destination lay; then looking
round on the green English grass and the home landscape. But he hardly
once thought, even of going away, distinctly; and seemed to put off
reflection idly, from hour to hour, and from minute to minute, while he
yet went on reflecting all the time.
Walter had left the fields behind him, and was plodding homeward in
the same abstracted mood, when he heard a shout from a man, and then
a woman’s voice calling to him loudly by name. Turning quickly in his
surprise, he saw that a hackney-coach, going in the contrary direction,
had stopped at no great distance; that the coachman was looking back
from his box and making signals to him with his whip; and that a young
woman inside was leaning out of the window, and beckoning with immense
energy. Running up to this coach, he found that the young woman was
Miss Nipper, and that Miss Nipper was in such a flutter as to be almost
beside herself.
‘Staggs’s Gardens, Mr Walter!’ said Miss Nipper; ‘if you please, oh do!’
‘Eh?’ cried Walter; ‘what is the matter?’
‘Oh, Mr Walter, Staggs’s Gardens, if you please!’ said Susan.
‘There!’ cried the coachman, appealing to Walter, with a sort of
exalting despair; ‘that’s the way the young lady’s been a goin’ on
for up’ards of a mortal hour, and me continivally backing out of no
thoroughfares, where she would drive up. I’ve had a many fares in this
coach, first and last, but never such a fare as her.’
‘Do you want to go to Staggs’s Gardens, Susan?’ inquired Walter.
‘Ah! She wants to go there! WHERE IS IT?’ growled the coachman.
‘I don’t know where it is!’ exclaimed Susan, wildly. ‘Mr Walter, I was
there once myself, along with Miss Floy and our poor darling Master
Paul, on the very day when you found Miss Floy in the City, for we lost
her coming home, Mrs Richards and me, and a mad bull, and Mrs Richards’s
eldest, and though I went there afterwards, I can’t remember where it
is, I think it’s sunk into the ground. Oh, Mr Walter, don’t desert
me, Staggs’s Gardens, if you please! Miss Floy’s darling--all our
darlings--little, meek, meek Master Paul! Oh Mr Walter!’
‘Good God!’ cried Walter. ‘Is he very ill?’
‘The pretty flower!’ cried Susan, wringing her hands, ‘has took the
fancy that he’d like to see his old nurse, and I’ve come to bring her to
his bedside, Mrs Staggs, of Polly Toodle’s Gardens, someone pray!’
Greatly moved by what he heard, and catching Susan’s earnestness
immediately, Walter, now that he understood the nature of her errand,
dashed into it with such ardour that the coachman had enough to do
to follow closely as he ran before, inquiring here and there and
everywhere, the way to Staggs’s Gardens.
There was no such place as Staggs’s Gardens. It had vanished from the
earth. Where the old rotten summer-houses once had stood, palaces now
reared their heads, and granite columns of gigantic girth opened a
vista to the railway world beyond. The miserable waste ground, where the
refuse-matter had been heaped of yore, was swallowed up and gone; and in
its frowsy stead were tiers of warehouses, crammed with rich goods and
costly merchandise. The old by-streets now swarmed with passengers and
vehicles of every kind: the new streets that had stopped disheartened
in the mud and waggon-ruts, formed towns within themselves, originating
wholesome comforts and conveniences belonging to themselves, and never
tried nor thought of until they sprung into existence. Bridges that had
led to nothing, led to villas, gardens, churches, healthy public walks.
The carcasses of houses, and beginnings of new thoroughfares, had
started off upon the line at steam’s own speed, and shot away into the
country in a monster train.
As to the neighbourhood which had hesitated to acknowledge the railroad
in its straggling days, that had grown wise and penitent, as any
Christian might in such a case, and now boasted of its powerful and
prosperous relation. There were railway patterns in its drapers’ shops,
and railway journals in the windows of its newsmen. There were railway
hotels, office-houses, lodging-houses, boarding-houses; railway plans,
maps, views, wrappers, bottles, sandwich-boxes, and time-tables;
railway hackney-coach and stands; railway omnibuses, railway streets and
buildings, railway hangers-on and parasites, and flatterers out of all
calculation. There was even railway time observed in clocks, as if
the sun itself had given in. Among the vanquished was the master
chimney-sweeper, whilom incredulous at Staggs’s Gardens, who now lived
in a stuccoed house three stories high, and gave himself out, with
golden flourishes upon a varnished board, as contractor for the
cleansing of railway chimneys by machinery.
To and from the heart of this great change, all day and night, throbbing
currents rushed and returned incessantly like its life’s blood. Crowds
of people and mountains of goods, departing and arriving scores upon
scores of times in every four-and-twenty hours, produced a fermentation
in the place that was always in action. The very houses seemed disposed
to pack up and take trips. Wonderful Members of Parliament, who, little
more than twenty years before, had made themselves merry with the wild
railroad theories of engineers, and given them the liveliest rubs in
cross-examination, went down into the north with their watches in their
hands, and sent on messages before by the electric telegraph, to say
that they were coming. Night and day the conquering engines rumbled at
their distant work, or, advancing smoothly to their journey’s end, and
gliding like tame dragons into the allotted corners grooved out to the
inch for their reception, stood bubbling and trembling there, making the
walls quake, as if they were dilating with the secret knowledge of great
powers yet unsuspected in them, and strong purposes not yet achieved.
But Staggs’s Gardens had been cut up root and branch. Oh woe the day
when ‘not a rood of English ground’--laid out in Staggs’s Gardens--is
secure!
At last, after much fruitless inquiry, Walter, followed by the coach and
Susan, found a man who had once resided in that vanished land, and who
was no other than the master sweep before referred to, grown stout,
and knocking a double knock at his own door. He knowed Toodle, he said,
well. Belonged to the Railroad, didn’t he?
‘Yes sir, yes!’ cried Susan Nipper from the coach window.
Where did he live now? hastily inquired Walter.
He lived in the Company’s own Buildings, second turning to the right,
down the yard, cross over, and take the second on the right again. It
was number eleven; they couldn’t mistake it; but if they did, they had
only to ask for Toodle, Engine Fireman, and any one would show them
which was his house. At this unexpected stroke of success Susan Nipper
dismounted from the coach with all speed, took Walter’s arm, and set
off at a breathless pace on foot; leaving the coach there to await their
return.
‘Has the little boy been long ill, Susan?’ inquired Walter, as they
hurried on.
‘Ailing for a deal of time, but no one knew how much,’ said Susan;
adding, with excessive sharpness, ‘Oh, them Blimbers!’
‘Blimbers?’ echoed Walter.
‘I couldn’t forgive myself at such a time as this, Mr Walter,’ said
Susan, ‘and when there’s so much serious distress to think about, if
I rested hard on anyone, especially on them that little darling Paul
speaks well of, but I may wish that the family was set to work in a
stony soil to make new roads, and that Miss Blimber went in front, and
had the pickaxe!’
Miss Nipper then took breath, and went on faster than before, as if this
extraordinary aspiration had relieved her. Walter, who had by this time
no breath of his own to spare, hurried along without asking any more
questions; and they soon, in their impatience, burst in at a little door
and came into a clean parlour full of children.
‘Where’s Mrs Richards?’ exclaimed Susan Nipper, looking round. ‘Oh Mrs
Richards, Mrs Richards, come along with me, my dear creetur!’
‘Why, if it ain’t Susan!’ cried Polly, rising with her honest face and
motherly figure from among the group, in great surprise.
‘Yes, Mrs Richards, it’s me,’ said Susan, ‘and I wish it wasn’t, though
I may not seem to flatter when I say so, but little Master Paul is very
ill, and told his Pa today that he would like to see the face of his
old nurse, and him and Miss Floy hope you’ll come along with me--and Mr
Walter, Mrs Richards--forgetting what is past, and do a kindness to the
sweet dear that is withering away. Oh, Mrs Richards, withering away!’
Susan Nipper crying, Polly shed tears to see her, and to hear what she
had said; and all the children gathered round (including numbers of new
babies); and Mr Toodle, who had just come home from Birmingham, and was
eating his dinner out of a basin, laid down his knife and fork, and put
on his wife’s bonnet and shawl for her, which were hanging up behind the
door; then tapped her on the back; and said, with more fatherly feeling
than eloquence, ‘Polly! cut away!’
So they got back to the coach, long before the coachman expected them;
and Walter, putting Susan and Mrs Richards inside, took his seat on the
box himself that there might be no more mistakes, and deposited them
safely in the hall of Mr Dombey’s house--where, by the bye, he saw a
mighty nosegay lying, which reminded him of the one Captain Cuttle had
purchased in his company that morning. He would have lingered to know
more of the young invalid, or waited any length of time to see if
he could render the least service; but, painfully sensible that such
conduct would be looked upon by Mr Dombey as presumptuous and forward,
he turned slowly, sadly, anxiously, away.
He had not gone five minutes’ walk from the door, when a man came
running after him, and begged him to return. Walter retraced his steps
as quickly as he could, and entered the gloomy house with a sorrowful
foreboding.
CHAPTER 16. What the Waves were always saying
Paul had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening to
the noises in the street, quite tranquilly; not caring much how the time
went, but watching it and watching everything about him with observing
eyes.
When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and
quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that evening
was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. As the reflection
died away, and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he watched it deepen,
deepen, deepen, into night. Then he thought how the long streets were
dotted with lamps, and how the peaceful stars were shining overhead. His
fancy had a strange tendency to wander to the river, which he knew was
flowing through the great city; and now he thought how black it was,
and how deep it would look, reflecting the hosts of stars--and more than
all, how steadily it rolled away to meet the sea.
As it grew later in the night, and footsteps in the street became so
rare that he could hear them coming, count them as they passed, and lose
them in the hollow distance, he would lie and watch the many-coloured
ring about the candle, and wait patiently for day. His only trouble was,
the swift and rapid river. He felt forced, sometimes, to try to stop
it--to stem it with his childish hands--or choke its way with sand--and
when he saw it coming on, resistless, he cried out! But a word from
Florence, who was always at his side, restored him to himself; and
leaning his poor head upon her breast, he told Floy of his dream, and
smiled.
When day began to dawn again, he watched for the sun; and when
its cheerful light began to sparkle in the room, he pictured to
himself--pictured! he saw--the high church towers rising up into the
morning sky, the town reviving, waking, starting into life once more,
the river glistening as it rolled (but rolling fast as ever), and the
country bright with dew. Familiar sounds and cries came by degrees into
the street below; the servants in the house were roused and busy; faces
looked in at the door, and voices asked his attendants softly how he
was. Paul always answered for himself, ‘I am better. I am a great deal
better, thank you! Tell Papa so!’
By little and little, he got tired of the bustle of the day, the noise
of carriages and carts, and people passing and repassing; and would fall
asleep, or be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense again--the
child could hardly tell whether this were in his sleeping or his waking
moments--of that rushing river. ‘Why, will it never stop, Floy?’ he
would sometimes ask her. ‘It is bearing me away, I think!’
But Floy could always soothe and reassure him; and it was his daily
delight to make her lay her head down on his pillow, and take some rest.
‘You are always watching me, Floy, let me watch you, now!’ They would
prop him up with cushions in a corner of his bed, and there he would
recline the while she lay beside him: bending forward oftentimes to kiss
her, and whispering to those who were near that she was tired, and how
she had sat up so many nights beside him.
Thus, the flush of the day, in its heat and light, would gradually
decline; and again the golden water would be dancing on the wall.
He was visited by as many as three grave doctors--they used to assemble
downstairs, and come up together--and the room was so quiet, and Paul
was so observant of them (though he never asked of anybody what they
said), that he even knew the difference in the sound of their watches.
But his interest centred in Sir Parker Peps, who always took his seat
on the side of the bed. For Paul had heard them say long ago, that that
gentleman had been with his Mama when she clasped Florence in her arms,
and died. And he could not forget it, now. He liked him for it. He was
not afraid.
The people round him changed as unaccountably as on that first night at
Doctor Blimber’s--except Florence; Florence never changed--and what had
been Sir Parker Peps, was now his father, sitting with his head upon
his hand. Old Mrs Pipchin dozing in an easy chair, often changed to Miss
Tox, or his aunt; and Paul was quite content to shut his eyes again, and
see what happened next, without emotion. But this figure with its head
upon its hand returned so often, and remained so long, and sat so still
and solemn, never speaking, never being spoken to, and rarely lifting up
its face, that Paul began to wonder languidly, if it were real; and in
the night-time saw it sitting there, with fear.
‘Floy!’ he said. ‘What is that?’
‘Where, dearest?’
‘There! at the bottom of the bed.’
‘There’s nothing there, except Papa!’
The figure lifted up its head, and rose, and coming to the bedside,
said: ‘My own boy! Don’t you know me?’
Paul looked it in the face, and thought, was this his father? But the
face so altered to his thinking, thrilled while he gazed, as if it were
in pain; and before he could reach out both his hands to take it between
them, and draw it towards him, the figure turned away quickly from the
little bed, and went out at the door.
Paul looked at Florence with a fluttering heart, but he knew what she
was going to say, and stopped her with his face against her lips. The
next time he observed the figure sitting at the bottom of the bed, he
called to it.
‘Don’t be sorry for me, dear Papa! Indeed I am quite happy!’
His father coming and bending down to him--which he did quickly, and
without first pausing by the bedside--Paul held him round the neck, and
repeated those words to him several times, and very earnestly; and Paul
never saw him in his room again at any time, whether it were day or
night, but he called out, ‘Don’t be sorry for me! Indeed I am quite
happy!’ This was the beginning of his always saying in the morning that
he was a great deal better, and that they were to tell his father so.
How many times the golden water danced upon the wall; how many nights
the dark, dark river rolled towards the sea in spite of him; Paul never
counted, never sought to know. If their kindness, or his sense of it,
could have increased, they were more kind, and he more grateful every
day; but whether they were many days or few, appeared of little moment
now, to the gentle boy.
One night he had been thinking of his mother, and her picture in the
drawing-room downstairs, and thought she must have loved sweet Florence
better than his father did, to have held her in her arms when she felt
that she was dying--for even he, her brother, who had such dear love
for her, could have no greater wish than that. The train of thought
suggested to him to inquire if he had ever seen his mother? for he could
not remember whether they had told him, yes or no, the river running
very fast, and confusing his mind.
‘Floy, did I ever see Mama?’
‘No, darling, why?’
‘Did I ever see any kind face, like Mama’s, looking at me when I was a
baby, Floy?’
He asked, incredulously, as if he had some vision of a face before him.
‘Oh yes, dear!’
‘Whose, Floy?’
‘Your old nurse’s. Often.’
‘And where is my old nurse?’ said Paul. ‘Is she dead too? Floy, are we
all dead, except you?’
There was a hurry in the room, for an instant--longer, perhaps; but it
seemed no more--then all was still again; and Florence, with her face
quite colourless, but smiling, held his head upon her arm. Her arm
trembled very much.
‘Show me that old nurse, Floy, if you please!’
‘She is not here, darling. She shall come to-morrow.’
‘Thank you, Floy!’
Paul closed his eyes with those words, and fell asleep. When he awoke,
the sun was high, and the broad day was clear and warm. He lay a little,
looking at the windows, which were open, and the curtains rustling in
the air, and waving to and fro: then he said, ‘Floy, is it tomorrow? Is
she come?’
Someone seemed to go in quest of her. Perhaps it was Susan. Paul thought
he heard her telling him when he had closed his eyes again, that she
would soon be back; but he did not open them to see. She kept her
word--perhaps she had never been away--but the next thing that happened
was a noise of footsteps on the stairs, and then Paul woke--woke mind
and body--and sat upright in his bed. He saw them now about him. There
was no grey mist before them, as there had been sometimes in the night.
He knew them every one, and called them by their names.
‘And who is this? Is this my old nurse?’ said the child, regarding with
a radiant smile, a figure coming in.
Yes, yes. No other stranger would have shed those tears at sight of
him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor blighted
child. No other woman would have stooped down by his bed, and taken up
his wasted hand, and put it to her lips and breast, as one who had some
right to fondle it. No other woman would have so forgotten everybody
there but him and Floy, and been so full of tenderness and pity.
‘Floy! this is a kind good face!’ said Paul. ‘I am glad to see it again.
Don’t go away, old nurse! Stay here.’
His senses were all quickened, and he heard a name he knew.
‘Who was that, who said “Walter”?’ he asked, looking round. ‘Someone
said Walter. Is he here? I should like to see him very much.’
Nobody replied directly; but his father soon said to Susan, ‘Call him
back, then: let him come up!’ Alter a short pause of expectation, during
which he looked with smiling interest and wonder, on his nurse, and saw
that she had not forgotten Floy, Walter was brought into the room.
His open face and manner, and his cheerful eyes, had always made him a
favourite with Paul; and when Paul saw him’ he stretched Out his hand,
and said ‘Good-bye!’
‘Good-bye, my child!’ said Mrs Pipchin, hurrying to his bed’s head. ‘Not
good-bye?’
For an instant, Paul looked at her with the wistful face with which he
had so often gazed upon her in his corner by the fire. ‘Yes,’ he said
placidly, ‘good-bye! Walter dear, good-bye!’--turning his head to where
he stood, and putting out his hand again. ‘Where is Papa?’
He felt his father’s breath upon his cheek, before the words had parted
from his lips.
‘Remember Walter, dear Papa,’ he whispered, looking in his face.
‘Remember Walter. I was fond of Walter!’ The feeble hand waved in the
air, as if it cried ‘good-bye!’ to Walter once again.
‘Now lay me down,’ he said, ‘and, Floy, come close to me, and let me see
you!’
Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden
light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together.
‘How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes, Floy!
But it’s very near the sea. I hear the waves! They always said so!’
Presently he told her the motion of the boat upon the stream was lulling
him to rest. How green the banks were now, how bright the flowers
growing on them, and how tall the rushes! Now the boat was out at sea,
but gliding smoothly on. And now there was a shore before him. Who stood
on the bank?--
He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his prayers. He
did not remove his arms to do it; but they saw him fold them so, behind
her neck.
‘Mama is like you, Floy. I know her by the face! But tell them that the
print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. The light about
the head is shining on me as I go!’
The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred
in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our
first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its
course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old
fashion--Death!
Oh thank GOD, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of
Immortality! And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards
not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean!
‘Dear me, dear me! To think,’ said Miss Tox, bursting out afresh that
night, as if her heart were broken, ‘that Dombey and Son should be a
Daughter after all!’
CHAPTER 17. Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young People
Captain Cuttle, in the exercise of that surprising talent for deep-laid
and unfathomable scheming, with which (as is not unusual in men of
transparent simplicity) he sincerely believed himself to be endowed by
nature, had gone to Mr Dombey’s house on the eventful Sunday, winking
all the way as a vent for his superfluous sagacity, and had presented
himself in the full lustre of the ankle-jacks before the eyes of
Towlinson. Hearing from that individual, to his great concern, of the
impending calamity, Captain Cuttle, in his delicacy, sheered off
again confounded; merely handing in the nosegay as a small mark of his
solicitude, and leaving his respectful compliments for the family in
general, which he accompanied with an expression of his hope that they
would lay their heads well to the wind under existing circumstances, and
a friendly intimation that he would ‘look up again’ to-morrow.
The Captain’s compliments were never heard of any more. The Captain’s
nosegay, after lying in the hall all night, was swept into the dust-bin
next morning; and the Captain’s sly arrangement, involved in one
catastrophe with greater hopes and loftier designs, was crushed to
pieces. So, when an avalanche bears down a mountain-forest, twigs and
bushes suffer with the trees, and all perish together.
When Walter returned home on the Sunday evening from his long walk, and
its memorable close, he was too much occupied at first by the tidings he
had to give them, and by the emotions naturally awakened in his breast
by the scene through which he had passed, to observe either that his
Uncle was evidently unacquainted with the intelligence the Captain had
undertaken to impart, or that the Captain made signals with his hook,
warning him to avoid the subject. Not that the Captain’s signals were
calculated to have proved very comprehensible, however attentively
observed; for, like those Chinese sages who are said in their
conferences to write certain learned words in the air that are wholly
impossible of pronunciation, the Captain made such waves and flourishes
as nobody without a previous knowledge of his mystery, would have been
at all likely to understand.
Captain Cuttle, however, becoming cognisant of what had happened,
relinquished these attempts, as he perceived the slender chance that now
existed of his being able to obtain a little easy chat with Mr Dombey
before the period of Walter’s departure. But in admitting to himself,
with a disappointed and crestfallen countenance, that Sol Gills must
be told, and that Walter must go--taking the case for the present as he
found it, and not having it enlightened or improved beforehand by the
knowing management of a friend--the Captain still felt an unabated
confidence that he, Ned Cuttle, was the man for Mr Dombey; and that, to
set Walter’s fortunes quite square, nothing was wanted but that they two
should come together. For the Captain never could forget how well he and
Mr Dombey had got on at Brighton; with what nicety each of them had put
in a word when it was wanted; how exactly they had taken one another’s
measure; nor how Ned Cuttle had pointed out that resources in the first
extremity, and had brought the interview to the desired termination. On
all these grounds the Captain soothed himself with thinking that though
Ned Cuttle was forced by the pressure of events to ‘stand by’ almost
useless for the present, Ned would fetch up with a wet sail in good
time, and carry all before him.
Under the influence of this good-natured delusion, Captain Cuttle even
went so far as to revolve in his own bosom, while he sat looking at
Walter and listening with a tear on his shirt-collar to what he related,
whether it might not be at once genteel and politic to give Mr Dombey a
verbal invitation, whenever they should meet, to come and cut his mutton
in Brig Place on some day of his own naming, and enter on the question
of his young friend’s prospects over a social glass. But the uncertain
temper of Mrs MacStinger, and the possibility of her setting up her rest
in the passage during such an entertainment, and there delivering
some homily of an uncomplimentary nature, operated as a check on the
Captain’s hospitable thoughts, and rendered him timid of giving them
encouragement.
One fact was quite clear to the Captain, as Walter, sitting thoughtfully
over his untasted dinner, dwelt on all that had happened; namely, that
however Walter’s modesty might stand in the way of his perceiving it
himself, he was, as one might say, a member of Mr Dombey’s family.
He had been, in his own person, connected with the incident he so
pathetically described; he had been by name remembered and commended
in close association with it; and his fortunes must have a particular
interest in his employer’s eyes. If the Captain had any lurking doubt
whatever of his own conclusions, he had not the least doubt that they
were good conclusions for the peace of mind of the Instrument-maker.
Therefore he availed himself of so favourable a moment for breaking
the West Indian intelligence to his friend, as a piece of extraordinary
preferment; declaring that for his part he would freely give a hundred
thousand pounds (if he had it) for Walter’s gain in the long-run, and
that he had no doubt such an investment would yield a handsome premium.
Solomon Gills was at first stunned by the communication, which fell
upon the little back-parlour like a thunderbolt, and tore up the hearth
savagely. But the Captain flashed such golden prospects before his dim
sight: hinted so mysteriously at Whittingtonian consequences; laid such
emphasis on what Walter had just now told them: and appealed to it so
confidently as a corroboration of his predictions, and a great advance
towards the realisation of the romantic legend of Lovely Peg: that he
bewildered the old man. Walter, for his part, feigned to be so full of
hope and ardour, and so sure of coming home again soon, and backed up
the Captain with such expressive shakings of his head and rubbings of
his hands, that Solomon, looking first at him then at Captain Cuttle,
began to think he ought to be transported with joy.
‘But I’m behind the time, you understand,’ he observed in apology,
passing his hand nervously down the whole row of bright buttons on his
coat, and then up again, as if they were beads and he were telling
them twice over: ‘and I would rather have my dear boy here. It’s
an old-fashioned notion, I daresay. He was always fond of the sea
He’s’--and he looked wistfully at Walter--‘he’s glad to go.’
‘Uncle Sol!’ cried Walter, quickly, ‘if you say that, I won’t go. No,
Captain Cuttle, I won’t. If my Uncle thinks I could be glad to leave
him, though I was going to be made Governor of all the Islands in the
West Indies, that’s enough. I’m a fixture.’
‘Wal’r, my lad,’ said the Captain. ‘Steady! Sol Gills, take an
observation of your nevy.’
Following with his eyes the majestic action of the Captain’s hook, the
old man looked at Walter.
‘Here is a certain craft,’ said the Captain, with a magnificent sense of
the allegory into which he was soaring, ‘a-going to put out on a certain
voyage. What name is wrote upon that craft indelibly? Is it The Gay?
or,’ said the Captain, raising his voice as much as to say, observe the
point of this, ‘is it The Gills?’
‘Ned,’ said the old man, drawing Walter to his side, and taking his
arm tenderly through his, ‘I know. I know. Of course I know that Wally
considers me more than himself always. That’s in my mind. When I say
he is glad to go, I mean I hope he is. Eh? look you, Ned and you too,
Wally, my dear, this is new and unexpected to me; and I’m afraid my
being behind the time, and poor, is at the bottom of it. Is it really
good fortune for him, do you tell me, now?’ said the old man, looking
anxiously from one to the other. ‘Really and truly? Is it? I can
reconcile myself to almost anything that advances Wally, but I won’t
have Wally putting himself at any disadvantage for me, or keeping
anything from me. You, Ned Cuttle!’ said the old man, fastening on the
Captain, to the manifest confusion of that diplomatist; ‘are you dealing
plainly by your old friend? Speak out, Ned Cuttle. Is there anything
behind? Ought he to go? How do you know it first, and why?’
As it was a contest of affection and self-denial, Walter struck in
with infinite effect, to the Captain’s relief; and between them they
tolerably reconciled old Sol Gills, by continued talking, to the
project; or rather so confused him, that nothing, not even the pain of
separation, was distinctly clear to his mind.
He had not much time to balance the matter; for on the very next day,
Walter received from Mr Carker the Manager, the necessary credentials
for his passage and outfit, together with the information that the Son
and Heir would sail in a fortnight, or within a day or two afterwards at
latest. In the hurry of preparation: which Walter purposely enhanced as
much as possible: the old man lost what little self-possession he ever
had; and so the time of departure drew on rapidly.
The Captain, who did not fail to make himself acquainted with all that
passed, through inquiries of Walter from day to day, found the time
still tending on towards his going away, without any occasion offering
itself, or seeming likely to offer itself, for a better understanding
of his position. It was after much consideration of this fact, and much
pondering over such an unfortunate combination of circumstances, that
a bright idea occurred to the Captain. Suppose he made a call on Mr
Carker, and tried to find out from him how the land really lay!
Captain Cuttle liked this idea very much. It came upon him in a moment
of inspiration, as he was smoking an early pipe in Brig Place after
breakfast; and it was worthy of the tobacco. It would quiet his
conscience, which was an honest one, and was made a little uneasy by
what Walter had confided to him, and what Sol Gills had said; and it
would be a deep, shrewd act of friendship. He would sound Mr Carker
carefully, and say much or little, just as he read that gentleman’s
character, and discovered that they got on well together or the reverse.
Accordingly, without the fear of Walter before his eyes (who he knew
was at home packing), Captain Cuttle again assumed his ankle-jacks
and mourning brooch, and issued forth on this second expedition. He
purchased no propitiatory nosegay on the present occasion, as he was
going to a place of business; but he put a small sunflower in his
button-hole to give himself an agreeable relish of the country; and
with this, and the knobby stick, and the glazed hat, bore down upon the
offices of Dombey and Son.
After taking a glass of warm rum-and-water at a tavern close by, to
collect his thoughts, the Captain made a rush down the court, lest its
good effects should evaporate, and appeared suddenly to Mr Perch.
‘Matey,’ said the Captain, in persuasive accents. ‘One of your Governors
is named Carker.’
Mr Perch admitted it; but gave him to understand, as in official duty
bound, that all his Governors were engaged, and never expected to be
disengaged any more.
‘Look’ee here, mate,’ said the Captain in his ear; ‘my name’s Cap’en
Cuttle.’
The Captain would have hooked Perch gently to him, but Mr Perch eluded
the attempt; not so much in design, as in starting at the sudden thought
that such a weapon unexpectedly exhibited to Mrs Perch might, in her
then condition, be destructive to that lady’s hopes.
‘If you’ll be so good as just report Cap’en Cuttle here, when you get a
chance,’ said the Captain, ‘I’ll wait.’
Saying which, the Captain took his seat on Mr Perch’s bracket, and
drawing out his handkerchief from the crown of the glazed hat which he
jammed between his knees (without injury to its shape, for nothing human
could bend it), rubbed his head well all over, and appeared refreshed.
He subsequently arranged his hair with his hook, and sat looking round
the office, contemplating the clerks with a serene respect.
The Captain’s equanimity was so impenetrable, and he was altogether so
mysterious a being, that Perch the messenger was daunted.
‘What name was it you said?’ asked Mr Perch, bending down over him as he
sat on the bracket.
‘Cap’en,’ in a deep hoarse whisper.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Perch, keeping time with his head.
‘Cuttle.’
‘Oh!’ said Mr Perch, in the same tone, for he caught it, and couldn’t
help it; the Captain, in his diplomacy, was so impressive. ‘I’ll see if
he’s disengaged now. I don’t know. Perhaps he may be for a minute.’
‘Ay, ay, my lad, I won’t detain him longer than a minute,’ said the
Captain, nodding with all the weighty importance that he felt within
him. Perch, soon returning, said, ‘Will Captain Cuttle walk this way?’
Mr Carker the Manager, standing on the hearth-rug before the empty
fireplace, which was ornamented with a castellated sheet of brown paper,
looked at the Captain as he came in, with no very special encouragement.
‘Mr Carker?’ said Captain Cuttle.
‘I believe so,’ said Mr Carker, showing all his teeth.
The Captain liked his answering with a smile; it looked pleasant. ‘You
see,’ began the Captain, rolling his eyes slowly round the little
room, and taking in as much of it as his shirt-collar permitted; ‘I’m a
seafaring man myself, Mr Carker, and Wal’r, as is on your books here, is
almost a son of mine.’
‘Walter Gay?’ said Mr Carker, showing all his teeth again.
‘Wal’r Gay it is,’ replied the Captain, ‘right!’ The Captain’s manner
expressed a warm approval of Mr Carker’s quickness of perception. ‘I’m a
intimate friend of his and his Uncle’s. Perhaps,’ said the Captain, ‘you
may have heard your head Governor mention my name?--Captain Cuttle.’
‘No!’ said Mr Carker, with a still wider demonstration than before.
‘Well,’ resumed the Captain, ‘I’ve the pleasure of his acquaintance.
I waited upon him down on the Sussex coast there, with my young friend
Wal’r, when--in short, when there was a little accommodation wanted.’
The Captain nodded his head in a manner that was at once comfortable,
easy, and expressive. ‘You remember, I daresay?’
‘I think,’ said Mr Carker, ‘I had the honour of arranging the business.’
‘To be sure!’ returned the Captain. ‘Right again! you had. Now I’ve took
the liberty of coming here--
‘Won’t you sit down?’ said Mr Carker, smiling.
‘Thank’ee,’ returned the Captain, availing himself of the offer. ‘A man
does get more way upon himself, perhaps, in his conversation, when he
sits down. Won’t you take a cheer yourself?’
‘No thank you,’ said the Manager, standing, perhaps from the force of
winter habit, with his back against the chimney-piece, and looking down
upon the Captain with an eye in every tooth and gum. ‘You have taken the
liberty, you were going to say--though it’s none--’
‘Thank’ee kindly, my lad,’ returned the Captain: ‘of coming here, on
account of my friend Wal’r. Sol Gills, his Uncle, is a man of science,
and in science he may be considered a clipper; but he ain’t what I
should altogether call a able seaman--not man of practice. Wal’r is as
trim a lad as ever stepped; but he’s a little down by the head in one
respect, and that is, modesty. Now what I should wish to put to
you,’ said the Captain, lowering his voice, and speaking in a kind of
confidential growl, ‘in a friendly way, entirely between you and me, and
for my own private reckoning, ‘till your head Governor has wore round a
bit, and I can come alongside of him, is this.--Is everything right and
comfortable here, and is Wal’r out’ard bound with a pretty fair wind?’
‘What do you think now, Captain Cuttle?’ returned Carker, gathering up
his skirts and settling himself in his position. ‘You are a practical
man; what do you think?’
The acuteness and the significance of the Captain’s eye as he cocked
it in reply, no words short of those unutterable Chinese words before
referred to could describe.
‘Come!’ said the Captain, unspeakably encouraged, ‘what do you say? Am I
right or wrong?’
So much had the Captain expressed in his eye, emboldened and incited
by Mr Carker’s smiling urbanity, that he felt himself in as fair a
condition to put the question, as if he had expressed his sentiments
with the utmost elaboration.
‘Right,’ said Mr Carker, ‘I have no doubt.’
‘Out’ard bound with fair weather, then, I say,’ cried Captain Cuttle.
Mr Carker smiled assent.
‘Wind right astarn, and plenty of it,’ pursued the Captain.
Mr Carker smiled assent again.
‘Ay, ay!’ said Captain Cuttle, greatly relieved and pleased. ‘I know’d
how she headed, well enough; I told Wal’r so. Thank’ee, thank’ee.’
‘Gay has brilliant prospects,’ observed Mr Carker, stretching his mouth
wider yet: ‘all the world before him.’
‘All the world and his wife too, as the saying is,’ returned the
delighted Captain.
At the word ‘wife’ (which he had uttered without design), the Captain
stopped, cocked his eye again, and putting the glazed hat on the top
of the knobby stick, gave it a twirl, and looked sideways at his always
smiling friend.
‘I’d bet a gill of old Jamaica,’ said the Captain, eyeing him
attentively, ‘that I know what you’re a smiling at.’
Mr Carker took his cue, and smiled the more.
‘It goes no farther?’ said the Captain, making a poke at the door with
the knobby stick to assure himself that it was shut.
‘Not an inch,’ said Mr Carker.
‘You’re thinking of a capital F perhaps?’ said the Captain.
Mr Carker didn’t deny it.
‘Anything about a L,’ said the Captain, ‘or a O?’
Mr Carker still smiled.
‘Am I right, again?’ inquired the Captain in a whisper, with the scarlet
circle on his forehead swelling in his triumphant joy.
Mr Carker, in reply, still smiling, and now nodding assent, Captain
Cuttle rose and squeezed him by the hand, assuring him, warmly, that
they were on the same tack, and that as for him (Cuttle) he had laid his
course that way all along. ‘He know’d her first,’ said the Captain, with
all the secrecy and gravity that the subject demanded, ‘in an uncommon
manner--you remember his finding her in the street when she was a’most
a babby--he has liked her ever since, and she him, as much as two
youngsters can. We’ve always said, Sol Gills and me, that they was cut
out for each other.’
A cat, or a monkey, or a hyena, or a death’s-head, could not have shown
the Captain more teeth at one time, than Mr Carker showed him at this
period of their interview.
‘There’s a general indraught that way,’ observed the happy Captain.
‘Wind and water sets in that direction, you see. Look at his being
present t’other day!’
‘Most favourable to his hopes,’ said Mr Carker.
‘Look at his being towed along in the wake of that day!’ pursued the
Captain. ‘Why what can cut him adrift now?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Mr Carker.
‘You’re right again,’ returned the Captain, giving his hand another
squeeze. ‘Nothing it is. So! steady! There’s a son gone: pretty little
creetur. Ain’t there?’
‘Yes, there’s a son gone,’ said the acquiescent Carker.
‘Pass the word, and there’s another ready for you,’ quoth the Captain.
‘Nevy of a scientific Uncle! Nevy of Sol Gills! Wal’r! Wal’r, as is
already in your business! And’--said the Captain, rising gradually to
a quotation he was preparing for a final burst, ‘who--comes from Sol
Gills’s daily, to your business, and your buzzums.’
The Captain’s complacency as he gently jogged Mr Carker with his elbow,
on concluding each of the foregoing short sentences, could be surpassed
by nothing but the exultation with which he fell back and eyed him when
he had finished this brilliant display of eloquence and sagacity; his
great blue waistcoat heaving with the throes of such a masterpiece, and
his nose in a state of violent inflammation from the same cause.
‘Am I right?’ said the Captain.
‘Captain Cuttle,’ said Mr Carker, bending down at the knees, for a
moment, in an odd manner, as if he were falling together to hug the
whole of himself at once, ‘your views in reference to Walter Gay are
thoroughly and accurately right. I understand that we speak together in
confidence.
‘Honour!’ interposed the Captain. ‘Not a word.’
‘To him or anyone?’ pursued the Manager.
Captain Cuttle frowned and shook his head.
‘But merely for your own satisfaction and guidance--and guidance, of
course,’ repeated Mr Carker, ‘with a view to your future proceedings.’
‘Thank’ee kindly, I am sure,’ said the Captain, listening with great
attention.
‘I have no hesitation in saying, that’s the fact. You have hit the
probabilities exactly.’
‘And with regard to your head Governor,’ said the Captain, ‘why an
interview had better come about nat’ral between us. There’s time
enough.’
Mr Carker, with his mouth from ear to ear, repeated, ‘Time enough.’ Not
articulating the words, but bowing his head affably, and forming them
with his tongue and lips.
‘And as I know--it’s what I always said--that Wal’r’s in a way to make
his fortune,’ said the Captain.
‘To make his fortune,’ Mr Carker repeated, in the same dumb manner.
‘And as Wal’r’s going on this little voyage is, as I may say, in his
day’s work, and a part of his general expectations here,’ said the
Captain.
‘Of his general expectations here,’ assented Mr Carker, dumbly as
before.
‘Why, so long as I know that,’ pursued the Captain, ‘there’s no hurry,
and my mind’s at ease.
Mr Carker still blandly assenting in the same voiceless manner, Captain
Cuttle was strongly confirmed in his opinion that he was one of the most
agreeable men he had ever met, and that even Mr Dombey might improve
himself on such a model. With great heartiness, therefore, the Captain
once again extended his enormous hand (not unlike an old block in
colour), and gave him a grip that left upon his smoother flesh a proof
impression of the chinks and crevices with which the Captain’s palm was
liberally tattooed.
‘Farewell!’ said the Captain. ‘I ain’t a man of many words, but I take
it very kind of you to be so friendly, and above-board. You’ll excuse me
if I’ve been at all intruding, will you?’ said the Captain.
‘Not at all,’ returned the other.
‘Thank’ee. My berth ain’t very roomy,’ said the Captain, turning back
again, ‘but it’s tolerably snug; and if you was to find yourself near
Brig Place, number nine, at any time--will you make a note of it?--and
would come upstairs, without minding what was said by the person at the
door, I should be proud to see you.
With that hospitable invitation, the Captain said ‘Good day!’ and walked
out and shut the door; leaving Mr Carker still reclining against the
chimney-piece. In whose sly look and watchful manner; in whose false
mouth, stretched but not laughing; in whose spotless cravat and very
whiskers; even in whose silent passing of his soft hand over his white
linen and his smooth face; there was something desperately cat-like.
The unconscious Captain walked out in a state of self-glorification that
imparted quite a new cut to the broad blue suit. ‘Stand by, Ned!’
said the Captain to himself. ‘You’ve done a little business for the
youngsters today, my lad!’
In his exultation, and in his familiarity, present and prospective,
with the House, the Captain, when he reached the outer office, could
not refrain from rallying Mr Perch a little, and asking him whether he
thought everybody was still engaged. But not to be bitter on a man who
had done his duty, the Captain whispered in his ear, that if he felt
disposed for a glass of rum-and-water, and would follow, he would be
happy to bestow the same upon him.
Before leaving the premises, the Captain, somewhat to the astonishment
of the clerks, looked round from a central point of view, and took a
general survey of the officers part and parcel of a project in which his
young friend was nearly interested. The strong-room excited his especial
admiration; but, that he might not appear too particular, he limited
himself to an approving glance, and, with a graceful recognition of the
clerks as a body, that was full of politeness and patronage, passed
out into the court. Being promptly joined by Mr Perch, he conveyed that
gentleman to the tavern, and fulfilled his pledge--hastily, for Perch’s
time was precious.
‘I’ll give you for a toast,’ said the Captain, ‘Wal’r!’
‘Who?’ submitted Mr Perch.
‘Wal’r!’ repeated the Captain, in a voice of thunder.
Mr Perch, who seemed to remember having heard in infancy that there was
once a poet of that name, made no objection; but he was much astonished
at the Captain’s coming into the City to propose a poet; indeed, if
he had proposed to put a poet’s statue up--say Shakespeare’s for
example--in a civic thoroughfare, he could hardly have done a greater
outrage to Mr Perch’s experience. On the whole, he was such a mysterious
and incomprehensible character, that Mr Perch decided not to mention
him to Mrs Perch at all, in case of giving rise to any disagreeable
consequences.
Mysterious and incomprehensible, the Captain, with that lively sense
upon him of having done a little business for the youngsters, remained
all day, even to his most intimate friends; and but that Walter
attributed his winks and grins, and other such pantomimic reliefs of
himself, to his satisfaction in the success of their innocent deception
upon old Sol Gills, he would assuredly have betrayed himself before
night. As it was, however, he kept his own secret; and went home late
from the Instrument-maker’s house, wearing the glazed hat so much on
one side, and carrying such a beaming expression in his eyes, that Mrs
MacStinger (who might have been brought up at Doctor Blimber’s, she was
such a Roman matron) fortified herself, at the first glimpse of
him, behind the open street door, and refused to come out to the
contemplation of her blessed infants, until he was securely lodged in
his own room.
CHAPTER 18. Father and Daughter
There is a hush through Mr Dombey’s house. Servants gliding up and
down stairs rustle, but make no sound of footsteps. They talk together
constantly, and sit long at meals, making much of their meat and drink,
and enjoying themselves after a grim unholy fashion. Mrs Wickam, with
her eyes suffused with tears, relates melancholy anecdotes; and tells
them how she always said at Mrs Pipchin’s that it would be so, and takes
more table-ale than usual, and is very sorry but sociable. Cook’s state
of mind is similar. She promises a little fry for supper, and struggles
about equally against her feelings and the onions. Towlinson begins to
think there’s a fate in it, and wants to know if anybody can tell him
of any good that ever came of living in a corner house. It seems to all
of them as having happened a long time ago; though yet the child lies,
calm and beautiful, upon his little bed.
After dark there come some visitors--noiseless visitors, with shoes of
felt--who have been there before; and with them comes that bed of
rest which is so strange a one for infant sleepers. All this time, the
bereaved father has not been seen even by his attendant; for he sits
in an inner corner of his own dark room when anyone is there, and never
seems to move at other times, except to pace it to and fro. But in the
morning it is whispered among the household that he was heard to go
upstairs in the dead night, and that he stayed there--in the room--until
the sun was shining.
At the offices in the City, the ground-glass windows are made more
dim by shutters; and while the lighted lamps upon the desks are half
extinguished by the day that wanders in, the day is half extinguished
by the lamps, and an unusual gloom prevails. There is not much business
done. The clerks are indisposed to work; and they make assignations to
eat chops in the afternoon, and go up the river. Perch, the messenger,
stays long upon his errands; and finds himself in bars of public-houses,
invited thither by friends, and holding forth on the uncertainty of
human affairs. He goes home to Ball’s Pond earlier in the evening than
usual, and treats Mrs Perch to a veal cutlet and Scotch ale. Mr Carker
the Manager treats no one; neither is he treated; but alone in his
own room he shows his teeth all day; and it would seem that there is
something gone from Mr Carker’s path--some obstacle removed--which
clears his way before him.
Now the rosy children living opposite to Mr Dombey’s house, peep from
their nursery windows down into the street; for there are four black
horses at his door, with feathers on their heads; and feathers tremble
on the carriage that they draw; and these, and an array of men with
scarves and staves, attract a crowd. The juggler who was going to twirl
the basin, puts his loose coat on again over his fine dress; and his
trudging wife, one-sided with her heavy baby in her arms, loiters to
see the company come out. But closer to her dingy breast she presses her
baby, when the burden that is so easily carried is borne forth; and
the youngest of the rosy children at the high window opposite, needs
no restraining hand to check her in her glee, when, pointing with her
dimpled finger, she looks into her nurse’s face, and asks ‘What’s that?’
And now, among the knot of servants dressed in mourning, and the weeping
women, Mr Dombey passes through the hall to the other carriage that is
waiting to receive him. He is not ‘brought down,’ these observers think,
by sorrow and distress of mind. His walk is as erect, his bearing is as
stiff as ever it has been. He hides his face behind no handkerchief, and
looks before him. But that his face is something sunk and rigid, and is
pale, it bears the same expression as of old. He takes his place within
the carriage, and three other gentlemen follow. Then the grand funeral
moves slowly down the street. The feathers are yet nodding in the
distance, when the juggler has the basin spinning on a cane, and has the
same crowd to admire it. But the juggler’s wife is less alert than
usual with the money-box, for a child’s burial has set her thinking that
perhaps the baby underneath her shabby shawl may not grow up to be a
man, and wear a sky-blue fillet round his head, and salmon-coloured
worsted drawers, and tumble in the mud.
The feathers wind their gloomy way along the streets, and come within
the sound of a church bell. In this same church, the pretty boy received
all that will soon be left of him on earth--a name. All of him that is
dead, they lay there, near the perishable substance of his mother. It
is well. Their ashes lie where Florence in her walks--oh lonely, lonely
walks!--may pass them any day.
The service over, and the clergyman withdrawn, Mr Dombey looks round,
demanding in a low voice, whether the person who has been requested to
attend to receive instructions for the tablet, is there?
Someone comes forward, and says ‘Yes.’
Mr Dombey intimates where he would have it placed; and shows him, with
his hand upon the wall, the shape and size; and how it is to follow
the memorial to the mother. Then, with his pencil, he writes out the
inscription, and gives it to him: adding, ‘I wish to have it done at
once.
‘It shall be done immediately, Sir.’
‘There is really nothing to inscribe but name and age, you see.’
The man bows, glancing at the paper, but appears to hesitate. Mr Dombey
not observing his hesitation, turns away, and leads towards the porch.
‘I beg your pardon, Sir;’ a touch falls gently on his mourning cloak;
‘but as you wish it done immediately, and it may be put in hand when I
get back--’
‘Well?’
‘Will you be so good as read it over again? I think there’s a mistake.’
‘Where?’
The statuary gives him back the paper, and points out, with his pocket
rule, the words, ‘beloved and only child.’
‘It should be, “son,” I think, Sir?’
‘You are right. Of course. Make the correction.’
The father, with a hastier step, pursues his way to the coach. When the
other three, who follow closely, take their seats, his face is hidden
for the first time--shaded by his cloak. Nor do they see it any more
that day. He alights first, and passes immediately into his own room.
The other mourners (who are only Mr Chick, and two of the medical
attendants) proceed upstairs to the drawing-room, to be received by
Mrs Chick and Miss Tox. And what the face is, in the shut-up chamber
underneath: or what the thoughts are: what the heart is, what the
contest or the suffering: no one knows.
The chief thing that they know, below stairs, in the kitchen, is that
‘it seems like Sunday.’ They can hardly persuade themselves but that
there is something unbecoming, if not wicked, in the conduct of the
people out of doors, who pursue their ordinary occupations, and wear
their everyday attire. It is quite a novelty to have the blinds up, and
the shutters open; and they make themselves dismally comfortable over
bottles of wine, which are freely broached as on a festival. They are
much inclined to moralise. Mr Towlinson proposes with a sigh, ‘Amendment
to us all!’ for which, as Cook says with another sigh, ‘There’s room
enough, God knows.’ In the evening, Mrs Chick and Miss Tox take to
needlework again. In the evening also, Mr Towlinson goes out to take the
air, accompanied by the housemaid, who has not yet tried her mourning
bonnet. They are very tender to each other at dusky street-corners, and
Towlinson has visions of leading an altered and blameless existence as a
serious greengrocer in Oxford Market.
There is sounder sleep and deeper rest in Mr Dombey’s house tonight,
than there has been for many nights. The morning sun awakens the old
household, settled down once more in their old ways. The rosy children
opposite run past with hoops. There is a splendid wedding in the church.
The juggler’s wife is active with the money-box in another quarter of
the town. The mason sings and whistles as he chips out P-A-U-L in the
marble slab before him.
And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one weak
creature makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing but
the width and depth of vast eternity can fill it up! Florence, in her
innocent affliction, might have answered, ‘Oh my brother, oh my dearly
loved and loving brother! Only friend and companion of my slighted
childhood! Could any less idea shed the light already dawning on your
early grave, or give birth to the softened sorrow that is springing into
life beneath this rain of tears!’
‘My dear child,’ said Mrs Chick, who held it as a duty incumbent on her,
to improve the occasion, ‘when you are as old as I am--’
‘Which will be the prime of life,’ observed Miss Tox.
‘You will then,’ pursued Mrs Chick, gently squeezing Miss Tox’s hand
in acknowledgment of her friendly remark, ‘you will then know that all
grief is unavailing, and that it is our duty to submit.’
‘I will try, dear aunt I do try,’ answered Florence, sobbing.
‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Mrs Chick, ‘because; my love, as our dear
Miss Tox--of whose sound sense and excellent judgment, there cannot
possibly be two opinions--’
‘My dear Louisa, I shall really be proud, soon,’ said Miss Tox.
‘--will tell you, and confirm by her experience,’ pursued Mrs Chick,
‘we are called upon on all occasions to make an effort It is required of
us. If any--my dear,’ turning to Miss Tox, ‘I want a word. Mis--Mis-’
‘Demeanour?’ suggested Miss Tox.
‘No, no, no,’ said Mrs Chic ‘How can you! Goodness me, it’s on, the end
of my tongue. Mis-’
‘Placed affection?’ suggested Miss Tox, timidly.
‘Good gracious, Lucretia!’ returned Mrs Chick ‘How very monstrous!
Misanthrope, is the word I want. The idea! Misplaced affection! I say,
if any misanthrope were to put, in my presence, the question “Why were
we born?” I should reply, “To make an effort”.’
‘Very good indeed,’ said Miss Tox, much impressed by the originality of
the sentiment ‘Very good.’
‘Unhappily,’ pursued Mrs Chick, ‘we have a warning under our own eyes.
We have but too much reason to suppose, my dear child, that if an effort
had been made in time, in this family, a train of the most trying and
distressing circumstances might have been avoided. Nothing shall ever
persuade me,’ observed the good matron, with a resolute air, ‘but that
if that effort had been made by poor dear Fanny, the poor dear darling
child would at least have had a stronger constitution.’
Mrs Chick abandoned herself to her feelings for half a moment; but, as a
practical illustration of her doctrine, brought herself up short, in the
middle of a sob, and went on again.
‘Therefore, Florence, pray let us see that you have some strength of
mind, and do not selfishly aggravate the distress in which your poor
Papa is plunged.’
‘Dear aunt!’ said Florence, kneeling quickly down before her, that she
might the better and more earnestly look into her face. ‘Tell me more
about Papa. Pray tell me about him! Is he quite heartbroken?’
Miss Tox was of a tender nature, and there was something in this appeal
that moved her very much. Whether she saw it in a succession, on the
part of the neglected child, to the affectionate concern so often
expressed by her dead brother--or a love that sought to twine itself
about the heart that had loved him, and that could not bear to be shut
out from sympathy with such a sorrow, in such sad community of love and
grief--or whether she only recognised the earnest and devoted spirit
which, although discarded and repulsed, was wrung with tenderness long
unreturned, and in the waste and solitude of this bereavement cried
to him to seek a comfort in it, and to give some, by some small
response--whatever may have been her understanding of it, it moved Miss
Tox. For the moment she forgot the majesty of Mrs Chick, and, patting
Florence hastily on the cheek, turned aside and suffered the tears to
gush from her eyes, without waiting for a lead from that wise matron.
Mrs Chick herself lost, for a moment, the presence of mind on which
she so much prided herself; and remained mute, looking on the beautiful
young face that had so long, so steadily, and patiently, been turned
towards the little bed. But recovering her voice--which was synonymous
with her presence of mind, indeed they were one and the same thing--she
replied with dignity:
‘Florence, my dear child, your poor Papa is peculiar at times; and to
question me about him, is to question me upon a subject which I really
do not pretend to understand. I believe I have as much influence with
your Papa as anybody has. Still, all I can say is, that he has said very
little to me; and that I have only seen him once or twice for a minute
at a time, and indeed have hardly seen him then, for his room has been
dark. I have said to your Papa, “Paul!”--that is the exact expression
I used--“Paul! why do you not take something stimulating?” Your Papa’s
reply has always been, “Louisa, have the goodness to leave me. I
want nothing. I am better by myself.” If I was to be put upon my oath
to-morrow, Lucretia, before a magistrate,’ said Mrs Chick, ‘I have no
doubt I could venture to swear to those identical words.’
Miss Tox expressed her admiration by saying, ‘My Louisa is ever
methodical!’
‘In short, Florence,’ resumed her aunt, ‘literally nothing has passed
between your poor Papa and myself, until to-day; when I mentioned to
your Papa that Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles had written exceedingly kind
notes--our sweet boy! Lady Skettles loved him like a--where’s my pocket
handkerchief?’
Miss Tox produced one.
‘Exceedingly kind notes, proposing that you should visit them for change
of scene. Mentioning to your Papa that I thought Miss Tox and myself
might now go home (in which he quite agreed), I inquired if he had any
objection to your accepting this invitation. He said, “No, Louisa, not
the least!”’
Florence raised her tearful eye.
‘At the same time, if you would prefer staying here, Florence, to paying
this visit at present, or to going home with me--’
‘I should much prefer it, aunt,’ was the faint rejoinder.
‘Why then, child,’ said Mrs Chick, ‘you can. It’s a strange choice, I
must say. But you always were strange. Anybody else at your time of
life, and after what has passed--my dear Miss Tox, I have lost my pocket
handkerchief again--would be glad to leave here, one would suppose.’
‘I should not like to feel,’ said Florence, ‘as if the house was
avoided. I should not like to think that the--his--the rooms upstairs
were quite empty and dreary, aunt. I would rather stay here, for the
present. Oh my brother! oh my brother!’
It was a natural emotion, not to be suppressed; and it would make way
even between the fingers of the hands with which she covered up her
face. The overcharged and heavy-laden breast must some times have that
vent, or the poor wounded solitary heart within it would have fluttered
like a bird with broken wings, and sunk down in the dust.
‘Well, child!’ said Mrs Chick, after a pause ‘I wouldn’t on any account
say anything unkind to you, and that I’m sure you know. You will remain
here, then, and do exactly as you like. No one will interfere with you,
Florence, or wish to interfere with you, I’m sure.’
Florence shook her head in sad assent.
‘I had no sooner begun to advise your poor Papa that he really ought to
seek some distraction and restoration in a temporary change,’ said Mrs
Chick, ‘than he told me he had already formed the intention of going
into the country for a short time. I’m sure I hope he’ll go very
soon. He can’t go too soon. But I suppose there are some arrangements
connected with his private papers and so forth, consequent on the
affliction that has tried us all so much--I can’t think what’s become of
mine: Lucretia, lend me yours, my dear--that may occupy him for one or
two evenings in his own room. Your Papa’s a Dombey, child, if ever there
was one,’ said Mrs Chick, drying both her eyes at once with great care
on opposite corners of Miss Tox’s handkerchief ‘He’ll make an effort.
There’s no fear of him.’
‘Is there nothing, aunt,’ said Florence, trembling, ‘I might do to--’
‘Lord, my dear child,’ interposed Mrs Chick, hastily, ‘what are you
talking about? If your Papa said to Me--I have given you his exact
words, “Louisa, I want nothing; I am better by myself”--what do you
think he’d say to you? You mustn’t show yourself to him, child. Don’t
dream of such a thing.’
‘Aunt,’ said Florence, ‘I will go and lie down on my bed.’
Mrs Chick approved of this resolution, and dismissed her with a
kiss. But Miss Tox, on a faint pretence of looking for the mislaid
handkerchief, went upstairs after her; and tried in a few stolen minutes
to comfort her, in spite of great discouragement from Susan Nipper. For
Miss Nipper, in her burning zeal, disparaged Miss Tox as a crocodile;
yet her sympathy seemed genuine, and had at least the vantage-ground of
disinterestedness--there was little favour to be won by it.
And was there no one nearer and dearer than Susan, to uphold the
striving heart in its anguish? Was there no other neck to clasp; no
other face to turn to? no one else to say a soothing word to such deep
sorrow? Was Florence so alone in the bleak world that nothing else
remained to her? Nothing. Stricken motherless and brotherless at
once--for in the loss of little Paul, that first and greatest loss fell
heavily upon her--this was the only help she had. Oh, who can tell how
much she needed help at first!
At first, when the house subsided into its accustomed course, and they
had all gone away, except the servants, and her father shut up in his
own rooms, Florence could do nothing but weep, and wander up and down,
and sometimes, in a sudden pang of desolate remembrance, fly to her
own chamber, wring her hands, lay her face down on her bed, and know
no consolation: nothing but the bitterness and cruelty of grief.
This commonly ensued upon the recognition of some spot or object very
tenderly associated with him; and it made the miserable house, at first,
a place of agony.
But it is not in the nature of pure love to burn so fiercely and
unkindly long. The flame that in its grosser composition has the taint
of earth may prey upon the breast that gives it shelter; but the fire
from heaven is as gentle in the heart, as when it rested on the heads
of the assembled twelve, and showed each man his brother, brightened and
unhurt. The image conjured up, there soon returned the placid face, the
softened voice, the loving looks, the quiet trustfulness and peace; and
Florence, though she wept still, wept more tranquilly, and courted the
remembrance.
It was not very long before the golden water, dancing on the wall, in
the old place, at the old serene time, had her calm eye fixed upon it
as it ebbed away. It was not very long before that room again knew
her, often; sitting there alone, as patient and as mild as when she had
watched beside the little bed. When any sharp sense of its being empty
smote upon her, she could kneel beside it, and pray GOD--it was the
pouring out of her full heart--to let one angel love her and remember
her.
It was not very long before, in the midst of the dismal house so
wide and dreary, her low voice in the twilight, slowly and stopping
sometimes, touched the old air to which he had so often listened, with
his drooping head upon her arm. And after that, and when it was quite
dark, a little strain of music trembled in the room: so softly played
and sung, that it was more like the mournful recollection of what she
had done at his request on that last night, than the reality repeated.
But it was repeated, often--very often, in the shadowy solitude; and
broken murmurs of the strain still trembled on the keys, when the sweet
voice was hushed in tears.
Thus she gained heart to look upon the work with which her fingers had
been busy by his side on the sea-shore; and thus it was not very long
before she took to it again--with something of a human love for it, as
if it had been sentient and had known him; and, sitting in a window,
near her mother’s picture, in the unused room so long deserted, wore
away the thoughtful hours.
Why did the dark eyes turn so often from this work to where the rosy
children lived? They were not immediately suggestive of her loss; for
they were all girls: four little sisters. But they were motherless like
her--and had a father.
It was easy to know when he had gone out and was expected home, for the
elder child was always dressed and waiting for him at the drawing-room
window, or on the balcony; and when he appeared, her expectant face
lighted up with joy, while the others at the high window, and always on
the watch too, clapped their hands, and drummed them on the sill, and
called to him. The elder child would come down to the hall, and put
her hand in his, and lead him up the stairs; and Florence would see her
afterwards sitting by his side, or on his knee, or hanging coaxingly
about his neck and talking to him: and though they were always gay
together, he would often watch her face as if he thought her like her
mother that was dead. Florence would sometimes look no more at this,
and bursting into tears would hide behind the curtain as if she were
frightened, or would hurry from the window. Yet she could not help
returning; and her work would soon fall unheeded from her hands again.
It was the house that had been empty, years ago. It had remained so for
a long time. At last, and while she had been away from home, this family
had taken it; and it was repaired and newly painted; and there were
birds and flowers about it; and it looked very different from its old
self. But she never thought of the house. The children and their father
were all in all.
When he had dined, she could see them, through the open windows, go down
with their governess or nurse, and cluster round the table; and in
the still summer weather, the sound of their childish voices and clear
laughter would come ringing across the street, into the drooping air of
the room in which she sat. Then they would climb and clamber upstairs
with him, and romp about him on the sofa, or group themselves at his
knee, a very nosegay of little faces, while he seemed to tell them
some story. Or they would come running out into the balcony; and then
Florence would hide herself quickly, lest it should check them in their
joy, to see her in her black dress, sitting there alone.
The elder child remained with her father when the rest had gone away,
and made his tea for him--happy little house-keeper she was then!--and
sat conversing with him, sometimes at the window, sometimes in the room,
until the candles came. He made her his companion, though she was some
years younger than Florence; and she could be as staid and pleasantly
demure, with her little book or work-box, as a woman. When they had
candles, Florence from her own dark room was not afraid to look again.
But when the time came for the child to say ‘Good-night, Papa,’ and go
to bed, Florence would sob and tremble as she raised her face to him,
and could look no more.
Though still she would turn, again and again, before going to bed
herself from the simple air that had lulled him to rest so often, long
ago, and from the other low soft broken strain of music, back to that
house. But that she ever thought of it, or watched it, was a secret
which she kept within her own young breast.
And did that breast of Florence--Florence, so ingenuous and true--so
worthy of the love that he had borne her, and had whispered in his last
faint words--whose guileless heart was mirrored in the beauty of her
face, and breathed in every accent of her gentle voice--did that young
breast hold any other secret? Yes. One more.
When no one in the house was stirring, and the lights were all
extinguished, she would softly leave her own room, and with noiseless
feet descend the staircase, and approach her father’s door. Against
it, scarcely breathing, she would rest her face and head, and press
her lips, in the yearning of her love. She crouched upon the cold stone
floor outside it, every night, to listen even for his breath; and in
her one absorbing wish to be allowed to show him some affection, to be a
consolation to him, to win him over to the endurance of some tenderness
from her, his solitary child, she would have knelt down at his feet, if
she had dared, in humble supplication.
No one knew it. No one thought of it. The door was ever closed, and he
shut up within. He went out once or twice, and it was said in the house
that he was very soon going on his country journey; but he lived in
those rooms, and lived alone, and never saw her, or inquired for her.
Perhaps he did not even know that she was in the house.
One day, about a week after the funeral, Florence was sitting at her
work, when Susan appeared, with a face half laughing and half crying, to
announce a visitor.
‘A visitor! To me, Susan!’ said Florence, looking up in astonishment.
‘Well, it is a wonder, ain’t it now, Miss Floy?’ said Susan; ‘but I wish
you had a many visitors, I do, indeed, for you’d be all the better for
it, and it’s my opinion that the sooner you and me goes even to them old
Skettleses, Miss, the better for both, I may not wish to live in crowds,
Miss Floy, but still I’m not a oyster.’
To do Miss Nipper justice, she spoke more for her young mistress than
herself; and her face showed it.
‘But the visitor, Susan,’ said Florence.
Susan, with an hysterical explosion that was as much a laugh as a sob,
and as much a sob as a laugh, answered,
‘Mr Toots!’
The smile that appeared on Florence’s face passed from it in a moment,
and her eyes filled with tears. But at any rate it was a smile, and that
gave great satisfaction to Miss Nipper.
‘My own feelings exactly, Miss Floy,’ said Susan, putting her apron to
her eyes, and shaking her head. ‘Immediately I see that Innocent in the
Hall, Miss Floy, I burst out laughing first, and then I choked.’
Susan Nipper involuntarily proceeded to do the like again on the
spot. In the meantime Mr Toots, who had come upstairs after her, all
unconscious of the effect he produced, announced himself with his
knuckles on the door, and walked in very briskly.
‘How d’ye do, Miss Dombey?’ said Mr Toots. ‘I’m very well, I thank you;
how are you?’
Mr Toots--than whom there were few better fellows in the world, though
there may have been one or two brighter spirits--had laboriously
invented this long burst of discourse with the view of relieving the
feelings both of Florence and himself. But finding that he had
run through his property, as it were, in an injudicious manner, by
squandering the whole before taking a chair, or before Florence had
uttered a word, or before he had well got in at the door, he deemed it
advisable to begin again.
‘How d’ye do, Miss Dombey?’ said Mr Toots. ‘I’m very well, I thank you;
how are you?’
Florence gave him her hand, and said she was very well.
‘I’m very well indeed,’ said Mr Toots, taking a chair. ‘Very well
indeed, I am. I don’t remember,’ said Mr Toots, after reflecting a
little, ‘that I was ever better, thank you.’
‘It’s very kind of you to come,’ said Florence, taking up her work, ‘I
am very glad to see you.’
Mr Toots responded with a chuckle. Thinking that might be too lively,
he corrected it with a sigh. Thinking that might be too melancholy, he
corrected it with a chuckle. Not thoroughly pleasing himself with either
mode of reply, he breathed hard.
‘You were very kind to my dear brother,’ said Florence, obeying her
own natural impulse to relieve him by saying so. ‘He often talked to me
about you.’
‘Oh it’s of no consequence,’ said Mr Toots hastily. ‘Warm, ain’t it?’
‘It is beautiful weather,’ replied Florence.
‘It agrees with me!’ said Mr Toots. ‘I don’t think I ever was so well as
I find myself at present, I’m obliged to you.
After stating this curious and unexpected fact, Mr Toots fell into a
deep well of silence.
‘You have left Dr Blimber’s, I think?’ said Florence, trying to help him
out.
‘I should hope so,’ returned Mr Toots. And tumbled in again.
He remained at the bottom, apparently drowned, for at least ten minutes.
At the expiration of that period, he suddenly floated, and said,
‘Well! Good morning, Miss Dombey.’
‘Are you going?’ asked Florence, rising.
‘I don’t know, though. No, not just at present,’ said Mr Toots, sitting
down again, most unexpectedly. ‘The fact is--I say, Miss Dombey!’
‘Don’t be afraid to speak to me,’ said Florence, with a quiet smile, ‘I
should be very glad if you would talk about my brother.’
‘Would you, though?’ retorted Mr Toots, with sympathy in every fibre
of his otherwise expressionless face. ‘Poor Dombey! I’m sure I never
thought that Burgess and Co.--fashionable tailors (but very dear),
that we used to talk about--would make this suit of clothes for such a
purpose.’ Mr Toots was dressed in mourning. ‘Poor Dombey! I say! Miss
Dombey!’ blubbered Toots.
‘Yes,’ said Florence.
‘There’s a friend he took to very much at last. I thought you’d lIke to
have him, perhaps, as a sort of keepsake. You remember his remembering
Diogenes?’
‘Oh yes! oh yes’ cried Florence.
‘Poor Dombey! So do I,’ said Mr Toots.
Mr Toots, seeing Florence in tears, had great difficulty in getting
beyond this point, and had nearly tumbled into the well again. But a
chuckle saved him on the brink.
‘I say,’ he proceeded, ‘Miss Dombey! I could have had him stolen for ten
shillings, if they hadn’t given him up: and I would: but they were glad
to get rid of him, I think. If you’d like to have him, he’s at the door.
I brought him on purpose for you. He ain’t a lady’s dog, you know,’ said
Mr Toots, ‘but you won’t mind that, will you?’
In fact, Diogenes was at that moment, as they presently ascertained from
looking down into the street, staring through the window of a hackney
cabriolet, into which, for conveyance to that spot, he had been
ensnared, on a false pretence of rats among the straw. Sooth to say, he
was as unlike a lady’s dog as might be; and in his gruff anxiety to get
out, presented an appearance sufficiently unpromising, as he gave short
yelps out of one side of his mouth, and overbalancing himself by the
intensity of every one of those efforts, tumbled down into the straw,
and then sprung panting up again, putting out his tongue, as if he had
come express to a Dispensary to be examined for his health.
But though Diogenes was as ridiculous a dog as one would meet with on
a summer’s day; a blundering, ill-favoured, clumsy, bullet-headed
dog, continually acting on a wrong idea that there was an enemy in the
neighbourhood, whom it was meritorious to bark at; and though he was far
from good-tempered, and certainly was not clever, and had hair all over
his eyes, and a comic nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff voice;
he was dearer to Florence, in virtue of that parting remembrance of him,
and that request that he might be taken care of, than the most valuable
and beautiful of his kind. So dear, indeed, was this same ugly Diogenes,
and so welcome to her, that she took the jewelled hand of Mr Toots and
kissed it in her gratitude. And when Diogenes, released, came tearing
up the stairs and bouncing into the room (such a business as there was,
first, to get him out of the cabriolet!), dived under all the furniture,
and wound a long iron chain, that dangled from his neck, round legs
of chairs and tables, and then tugged at it until his eyes became
unnaturally visible, in consequence of their nearly starting out of his
head; and when he growled at Mr Toots, who affected familiarity; and
went pell-mell at Towlinson, morally convinced that he was the enemy
whom he had barked at round the corner all his life and had never seen
yet; Florence was as pleased with him as if he had been a miracle of
discretion.
Mr Toots was so overjoyed by the success of his present, and was so
delighted to see Florence bending down over Diogenes, smoothing his
coarse back with her little delicate hand--Diogenes graciously allowing
it from the first moment of their acquaintance--that he felt it
difficult to take leave, and would, no doubt, have been a much longer
time in making up his mind to do so, if he had not been assisted by
Diogenes himself, who suddenly took it into his head to bay Mr Toots,
and to make short runs at him with his mouth open. Not exactly seeing
his way to the end of these demonstrations, and sensible that they
placed the pantaloons constructed by the art of Burgess and Co. in
jeopardy, Mr Toots, with chuckles, lapsed out at the door: by which,
after looking in again two or three times, without any object at all,
and being on each occasion greeted with a fresh run from Diogenes, he
finally took himself off and got away.
‘Come, then, Di! Dear Di! Make friends with your new mistress. Let us
love each other, Di!’ said Florence, fondling his shaggy head. And Di,
the rough and gruff, as if his hairy hide were pervious to the tear that
dropped upon it, and his dog’s heart melted as it fell, put his nose up
to her face, and swore fidelity.
Diogenes the man did not speak plainer to Alexander the Great than
Diogenes the dog spoke to Florence. He subscribed to the offer of
his little mistress cheerfully, and devoted himself to her service. A
banquet was immediately provided for him in a corner; and when he had
eaten and drunk his fill, he went to the window where Florence was
sitting, looking on, rose up on his hind legs, with his awkward fore
paws on her shoulders, licked her face and hands, nestled his great
head against her heart, and wagged his tail till he was tired. Finally,
Diogenes coiled himself up at her feet and went to sleep.
Although Miss Nipper was nervous in regard of dogs, and felt it
necessary to come into the room with her skirts carefully collected
about her, as if she were crossing a brook on stepping-stones; also
to utter little screams and stand up on chairs when Diogenes stretched
himself, she was in her own manner affected by the kindness of Mr Toots,
and could not see Florence so alive to the attachment and society
of this rude friend of little Paul’s, without some mental comments
thereupon that brought the water to her eyes. Mr Dombey, as a part of
her reflections, may have been, in the association of ideas, connected
with the dog; but, at any rate, after observing Diogenes and his
mistress all the evening, and after exerting herself with much good-will
to provide Diogenes a bed in an ante-chamber outside his mistress’s
door, she said hurriedly to Florence, before leaving her for the night:
‘Your Pa’s a going off, Miss Floy, tomorrow morning.’
‘To-morrow morning, Susan?’
‘Yes, Miss; that’s the orders. Early.’
‘Do you know,’ asked Florence, without looking at her, ‘where Papa is
going, Susan?’
‘Not exactly, Miss. He’s going to meet that precious Major first, and
I must say if I was acquainted with any Major myself (which Heavens
forbid), it shouldn’t be a blue one!’
‘Hush, Susan!’ urged Florence gently.
‘Well, Miss Floy,’ returned Miss Nipper, who was full of burning
indignation, and minded her stops even less than usual. ‘I can’t help
it, blue he is, and while I was a Christian, although humble, I would
have natural-coloured friends, or none.’
It appeared from what she added and had gleaned downstairs, that Mrs
Chick had proposed the Major for Mr Dombey’s companion, and that Mr
Dombey, after some hesitation, had invited him.
‘Talk of him being a change, indeed!’ observed Miss Nipper to herself
with boundless contempt. ‘If he’s a change, give me a constancy.’
‘Good-night, Susan,’ said Florence.
‘Good-night, my darling dear Miss Floy.’
Her tone of commiseration smote the chord so often roughly touched, but
never listened to while she or anyone looked on. Florence left alone,
laid her head upon her hand, and pressing the other over her swelling
heart, held free communication with her sorrows.
It was a wet night; and the melancholy rain fell pattering and dropping
with a weary sound. A sluggish wind was blowing, and went moaning round
the house, as if it were in pain or grief. A shrill noise quivered
through the trees. While she sat weeping, it grew late, and dreary
midnight tolled out from the steeples.
Florence was little more than a child in years--not yet fourteen--and the
loneliness and gloom of such an hour in the great house where Death
had lately made its own tremendous devastation, might have set an older
fancy brooding on vague terrors. But her innocent imagination was too
full of one theme to admit them. Nothing wandered in her thoughts but
love--a wandering love, indeed, and castaway--but turning always to her
father.
There was nothing in the dropping of the rain, the moaning of the wind,
the shuddering of the trees, the striking of the solemn clocks, that
shook this one thought, or diminished its interest. Her recollections of
the dear dead boy--and they were never absent--were itself, the same
thing. And oh, to be shut out: to be so lost: never to have looked into
her father’s face or touched him, since that hour!
She could not go to bed, poor child, and never had gone yet, since then,
without making her nightly pilgrimage to his door. It would have been
a strange sad sight, to see her now, stealing lightly down the stairs
through the thick gloom, and stopping at it with a beating heart, and
blinded eyes, and hair that fell down loosely and unthought of; and
touching it outside with her wet cheek. But the night covered it, and no
one knew.
The moment that she touched the door on this night, Florence found
that it was open. For the first time it stood open, though by but a
hair’s-breadth: and there was a light within. The first impulse of the
timid child--and she yielded to it--was to retire swiftly. Her next, to
go back, and to enter; and this second impulse held her in irresolution
on the staircase.
In its standing open, even by so much as that chink, there seemed to
be hope. There was encouragement in seeing a ray of light from within,
stealing through the dark stern doorway, and falling in a thread upon
the marble floor. She turned back, hardly knowing what she did, but
urged on by the love within her, and the trial they had undergone
together, but not shared: and with her hands a little raised and
trembling, glided in.
Her father sat at his old table in the middle room. He had been
arranging some papers, and destroying others, and the latter lay in
fragile ruins before him. The rain dripped heavily upon the glass panes
in the outer room, where he had so often watched poor Paul, a baby; and
the low complainings of the wind were heard without.
But not by him. He sat with his eyes fixed on the table, so immersed in
thought, that a far heavier tread than the light foot of his child could
make, might have failed to rouse him. His face was turned towards
her. By the waning lamp, and at that haggard hour, it looked worn and
dejected; and in the utter loneliness surrounding him, there was an
appeal to Florence that struck home.
‘Papa! Papa! speak to me, dear Papa!’
He started at her voice, and leaped up from his seat. She was close
before him with extended arms, but he fell back.
‘What is the matter?’ he said, sternly. ‘Why do you come here? What has
frightened you?’
If anything had frightened her, it was the face he turned upon her. The
glowing love within the breast of his young daughter froze before it,
and she stood and looked at him as if stricken into stone.
There was not one touch of tenderness or pity in it. There was not one
gleam of interest, parental recognition, or relenting in it. There was
a change in it, but not of that kind. The old indifference and cold
constraint had given place to something: what, she never thought and did
not dare to think, and yet she felt it in its force, and knew it well
without a name: that as it looked upon her, seemed to cast a shadow on
her head.
Did he see before him the successful rival of his son, in health and
life? Did he look upon his own successful rival in that son’s affection?
Did a mad jealousy and withered pride, poison sweet remembrances that
should have endeared and made her precious to him? Could it be possible
that it was gall to him to look upon her in her beauty and her promise:
thinking of his infant boy!
Florence had no such thoughts. But love is quick to know when it is
spurned and hopeless: and hope died out of hers, as she stood looking in
her father’s face.
‘I ask you, Florence, are you frightened? Is there anything the matter,
that you come here?’
‘I came, Papa--’
‘Against my wishes. Why?’
She saw he knew why: it was written broadly on his face: and dropped her
head upon her hands with one prolonged low cry.
Let him remember it in that room, years to come. It has faded from
the air, before he breaks the silence. It may pass as quickly from his
brain, as he believes, but it is there. Let him remember it in that
room, years to come!
He took her by the arm. His hand was cold, and loose, and scarcely
closed upon her.
‘You are tired, I daresay,’ he said, taking up the light, and leading
her towards the door, ‘and want rest. We all want rest. Go, Florence.
You have been dreaming.’
The dream she had had, was over then, God help her! and she felt that it
could never more come back.
‘I will remain here to light you up the stairs. The whole house is
yours above there,’ said her father, slowly. ‘You are its mistress now.
Good-night!’
Still covering her face, she sobbed, and answered ‘Good-night, dear
Papa,’ and silently ascended. Once she looked back as if she would have
returned to him, but for fear. It was a momentary thought, too
hopeless to encourage; and her father stood there with the light--hard,
unresponsive, motionless--until the fluttering dress of his fair child
was lost in the darkness.
Let him remember it in that room, years to come. The rain that
falls upon the roof: the wind that mourns outside the door: may have
foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. Let him remember it in that
room, years to come!
The last time he had watched her, from the same place, winding up those
stairs, she had had her brother in her arms. It did not move his heart
towards her now, it steeled it: but he went into his room, and locked
his door, and sat down in his chair, and cried for his lost boy.
Diogenes was broad awake upon his post, and waiting for his little
mistress.
‘Oh, Di! Oh, dear Di! Love me for his sake!’
Diogenes already loved her for her own, and didn’t care how much he
showed it. So he made himself vastly ridiculous by performing a variety
of uncouth bounces in the ante-chamber, and concluded, when poor
Florence was at last asleep, and dreaming of the rosy children opposite,
by scratching open her bedroom door: rolling up his bed into a pillow:
lying down on the boards, at the full length of his tether, with his
head towards her: and looking lazily at her, upside down, out of the
tops of his eyes, until from winking and winking he fell asleep himself,
and dreamed, with gruff barks, of his enemy.
CHAPTER 19. Walter goes away
The wooden Midshipman at the Instrument-maker’s door, like the
hard-hearted little Midshipman he was, remained supremely indifferent to
Walter’s going away, even when the very last day of his sojourn in the
back parlour was on the decline. With his quadrant at his round black
knob of an eye, and his figure in its old attitude of indomitable
alacrity, the Midshipman displayed his elfin small-clothes to the best
advantage, and, absorbed in scientific pursuits, had no sympathy with
worldly concerns. He was so far the creature of circumstances, that a
dry day covered him with dust, and a misty day peppered him with little
bits of soot, and a wet day brightened up his tarnished uniform for
the moment, and a very hot day blistered him; but otherwise he was a
callous, obdurate, conceited Midshipman, intent on his own discoveries,
and caring as little for what went on about him, terrestrially, as
Archimedes at the taking of Syracuse.
Such a Midshipman he seemed to be, at least, in the then position of
domestic affairs. Walter eyed him kindly many a time in passing in and
out; and poor old Sol, when Walter was not there, would come and lean
against the doorpost, resting his weary wig as near the shoe-buckles
of the guardian genius of his trade and shop as he could. But no fierce
idol with a mouth from ear to ear, and a murderous visage made of
parrot’s feathers, was ever more indifferent to the appeals of its
savage votaries, than was the Midshipman to these marks of attachment.
Walter’s heart felt heavy as he looked round his old bedroom, up among
the parapets and chimney-pots, and thought that one more night already
darkening would close his acquaintance with it, perhaps for ever.
Dismantled of his little stock of books and pictures, it looked
coldly and reproachfully on him for his desertion, and had already a
foreshadowing upon it of its coming strangeness. ‘A few hours more,’
thought Walter, ‘and no dream I ever had here when I was a schoolboy
will be so little mine as this old room. The dream may come back in my
sleep, and I may return waking to this place, it may be: but the dream
at least will serve no other master, and the room may have a score, and
every one of them may change, neglect, misuse it.’
But his Uncle was not to be left alone in the little back parlour, where
he was then sitting by himself; for Captain Cuttle, considerate in his
roughness, stayed away against his will, purposely that they should have
some talk together unobserved: so Walter, newly returned home from his
last day’s bustle, descended briskly, to bear him company.
‘Uncle,’ he said gaily, laying his hand upon the old man’s shoulder,
‘what shall I send you home from Barbados?’
‘Hope, my dear Wally. Hope that we shall meet again, on this side of the
grave. Send me as much of that as you can.’
‘So I will, Uncle: I have enough and to spare, and I’ll not be chary of
it! And as to lively turtles, and limes for Captain Cuttle’s punch, and
preserves for you on Sundays, and all that sort of thing, why I’ll send
you ship-loads, Uncle: when I’m rich enough.’
Old Sol wiped his spectacles, and faintly smiled.
‘That’s right, Uncle!’ cried Walter, merrily, and clapping him half a
dozen times more upon the shoulder. ‘You cheer up me! I’ll cheer up
you! We’ll be as gay as larks to-morrow morning, Uncle, and we’ll fly as
high! As to my anticipations, they are singing out of sight now.’
‘Wally, my dear boy,’ returned the old man, ‘I’ll do my best, I’ll do my
best.’
‘And your best, Uncle,’ said Walter, with his pleasant laugh, ‘is the
best best that I know. You’ll not forget what you’re to send me, Uncle?’
‘No, Wally, no,’ replied the old man; ‘everything I hear about Miss
Dombey, now that she is left alone, poor lamb, I’ll write. I fear it
won’t be much though, Wally.’
‘Why, I’ll tell you what, Uncle,’ said Walter, after a moment’s
hesitation, ‘I have just been up there.’
‘Ay, ay, ay?’ murmured the old man, raising his eyebrows, and his
spectacles with them.
‘Not to see her,’ said Walter, ‘though I could have seen her, I daresay,
if I had asked, Mr Dombey being out of town: but to say a parting word
to Susan. I thought I might venture to do that, you know, under the
circumstances, and remembering when I saw Miss Dombey last.’
‘Yes, my boy, yes,’ replied his Uncle, rousing himself from a temporary
abstraction.
‘So I saw her,’ pursued Walter, ‘Susan, I mean: and I told her I was
off and away to-morrow. And I said, Uncle, that you had always had an
interest in Miss Dombey since that night when she was here, and always
wished her well and happy, and always would be proud and glad to serve
her in the least: I thought I might say that, you know, under the
circumstances. Don’t you think so?’
‘Yes, my boy, yes,’ replied his Uncle, in the tone as before.
‘And I added,’ pursued Walter, ‘that if she--Susan, I mean--could ever
let you know, either through herself, or Mrs Richards, or anybody else
who might be coming this way, that Miss Dombey was well and happy, you
would take it very kindly, and would write so much to me, and I should
take it very kindly too. There! Upon my word, Uncle,’ said Walter, ‘I
scarcely slept all last night through thinking of doing this; and could
not make up my mind when I was out, whether to do it or not; and yet I
am sure it is the true feeling of my heart, and I should have been quite
miserable afterwards if I had not relieved it.’
His honest voice and manner corroborated what he said, and quite
established its ingenuousness.
‘So, if you ever see her, Uncle,’ said Walter, ‘I mean Miss Dombey
now--and perhaps you may, who knows!--tell her how much I felt for her;
how much I used to think of her when I was here; how I spoke of her,
with the tears in my eyes, Uncle, on this last night before I went away.
Tell her that I said I never could forget her gentle manner, or her
beautiful face, or her sweet kind disposition that was better than all.
And as I didn’t take them from a woman’s feet, or a young lady’s: only
a little innocent child’s,’ said Walter: ‘tell her, if you don’t mind,
Uncle, that I kept those shoes--she’ll remember how often they fell off,
that night--and took them away with me as a remembrance!’
They were at that very moment going out at the door in one of Walter’s
trunks. A porter carrying off his baggage on a truck for shipment at the
docks on board the Son and Heir, had got possession of them; and wheeled
them away under the very eye of the insensible Midshipman before their
owner had well finished speaking.
But that ancient mariner might have been excused his insensibility to
the treasure as it rolled away. For, under his eye at the same moment,
accurately within his range of observation, coming full into the sphere
of his startled and intensely wide-awake look-out, were Florence and
Susan Nipper: Florence looking up into his face half timidly, and
receiving the whole shock of his wooden ogling!
More than this, they passed into the shop, and passed in at the parlour
door before they were observed by anybody but the Midshipman. And
Walter, having his back to the door, would have known nothing of their
apparition even then, but for seeing his Uncle spring out of his own
chair, and nearly tumble over another.
‘Why, Uncle!’ exclaimed Walter. ‘What’s the matter?’
Old Solomon replied, ‘Miss Dombey!’
‘Is it possible?’ cried Walter, looking round and starting up in his
turn. ‘Here!’
Why, It was so possible and so actual, that, while the words were on his
lips, Florence hurried past him; took Uncle Sol’s snuff-coloured lapels,
one in each hand; kissed him on the cheek; and turning, gave her hand to
Walter with a simple truth and earnestness that was her own, and no one
else’s in the world!
‘Going away, Walter?’ said Florence.
‘Yes, Miss Dombey,’ he replied, but not so hopefully as he endeavoured:
‘I have a voyage before me.’
‘And your Uncle,’ said Florence, looking back at Solomon. ‘He is sorry
you are going, I am sure. Ah! I see he is! Dear Walter, I am very sorry
too.’
‘Goodness knows,’ exclaimed Miss Nipper, ‘there’s a many we could spare
instead, if numbers is a object, Mrs Pipchin as a overseer would come
cheap at her weight in gold, and if a knowledge of black slavery should
be required, them Blimbers is the very people for the sitiwation.’
With that Miss Nipper untied her bonnet strings, and after looking
vacantly for some moments into a little black teapot that was set forth
with the usual homely service on the table, shook her head and a tin
canister, and began unasked to make the tea.
In the meantime Florence had turned again to the Instrument-maker, who
was as full of admiration as surprise. ‘So grown!’ said old Sol. ‘So
improved! And yet not altered! Just the same!’
‘Indeed!’ said Florence.
‘Ye--yes,’ returned old Sol, rubbing his hands slowly, and considering
the matter half aloud, as something pensive in the bright eyes looking
at him arrested his attention. ‘Yes, that expression was in the younger
face, too!’
‘You remember me,’ said Florence with a smile, ‘and what a little
creature I was then?’
‘My dear young lady,’ returned the Instrument-maker, ‘how could I forget
you, often as I have thought of you and heard of you since! At the very
moment, indeed, when you came in, Wally was talking about you to me, and
leaving messages for you, and--’
‘Was he?’ said Florence. ‘Thank you, Walter! Oh thank you, Walter! I was
afraid you might be going away and hardly thinking of me;’ and again she
gave him her little hand so freely and so faithfully that Walter held it
for some moments in his own, and could not bear to let it go.
Yet Walter did not hold it as he might have held it once, nor did its
touch awaken those old day-dreams of his boyhood that had floated past
him sometimes even lately, and confused him with their indistinct and
broken shapes. The purity and innocence of her endearing manner, and
its perfect trustfulness, and the undisguised regard for him that lay
so deeply seated in her constant eyes, and glowed upon her fair face
through the smile that shaded--for alas! it was a smile too sad to
brighten--it, were not of their romantic race. They brought back to his
thoughts the early death-bed he had seen her tending, and the love the
child had borne her; and on the wings of such remembrances she seemed to
rise up, far above his idle fancies, into clearer and serener air.
‘I--I am afraid I must call you Walter’s Uncle, Sir,’ said Florence to
the old man, ‘if you’ll let me.’
‘My dear young lady,’ cried old Sol. ‘Let you! Good gracious!’
‘We always knew you by that name, and talked of you,’ said Florence,
glancing round, and sighing gently. ‘The nice old parlour! Just the
same! How well I recollect it!’
Old Sol looked first at her, then at his nephew, and then rubbed his
hands, and rubbed his spectacles, and said below his breath, ‘Ah! time,
time, time!’
There was a short silence; during which Susan Nipper skilfully impounded
two extra cups and saucers from the cupboard, and awaited the drawing of
the tea with a thoughtful air.
‘I want to tell Walter’s Uncle,’ said Florence, laying her hand timidly
upon the old man’s as it rested on the table, to bespeak his attention,
‘something that I am anxious about. He is going to be left alone, and
if he will allow me--not to take Walter’s place, for that I couldn’t
do, but to be his true friend and help him if I ever can while Walter
is away, I shall be very much obliged to him indeed. Will you? May I,
Walter’s Uncle?’
The Instrument-maker, without speaking, put her hand to his lips,
and Susan Nipper, leaning back with her arms crossed, in the chair of
presidency into which she had voted herself, bit one end of her bonnet
strings, and heaved a gentle sigh as she looked up at the skylight.
‘You will let me come to see you,’ said Florence, ‘when I can; and you
will tell me everything about yourself and Walter; and you will have no
secrets from Susan when she comes and I do not, but will confide in us,
and trust us, and rely upon us. And you’ll try to let us be a comfort to
you? Will you, Walter’s Uncle?’
The sweet face looking into his, the gentle pleading eyes, the soft
voice, and the light touch on his arm made the more winning by a child’s
respect and honour for his age, that gave to all an air of graceful
doubt and modest hesitation--these, and her natural earnestness, so
overcame the poor old Instrument-maker, that he only answered:
‘Wally! say a word for me, my dear. I’m very grateful.’
‘No, Walter,’ returned Florence with her quiet smile. ‘Say nothing for
him, if you please. I understand him very well, and we must learn to
talk together without you, dear Walter.’
The regretful tone in which she said these latter words, touched Walter
more than all the rest.
‘Miss Florence,’ he replied, with an effort to recover the cheerful
manner he had preserved while talking with his Uncle, ‘I know no more
than my Uncle, what to say in acknowledgment of such kindness, I am
sure. But what could I say, after all, if I had the power of talking for
an hour, except that it is like you?’
Susan Nipper began upon a new part of her bonnet string, and nodded at
the skylight, in approval of the sentiment expressed.
‘Oh! but, Walter,’ said Florence, ‘there is something that I wish to say
to you before you go away, and you must call me Florence, if you please,
and not speak like a stranger.’
‘Like a stranger!’ returned Walter, ‘No. I couldn’t speak so. I am sure,
at least, I couldn’t feel like one.’
‘Ay, but that is not enough, and is not what I mean. For, Walter,’ added
Florence, bursting into tears, ‘he liked you very much, and said before
he died that he was fond of you, and said “Remember Walter!” and if
you’ll be a brother to me, Walter, now that he is gone and I have none
on earth, I’ll be your sister all my life, and think of you like one
wherever we may be! This is what I wished to say, dear Walter, but I
cannot say it as I would, because my heart is full.’
And in its fulness and its sweet simplicity, she held out both her hands
to him. Walter taking them, stooped down and touched the tearful face
that neither shrunk nor turned away, nor reddened as he did so, but
looked up at him with confidence and truth. In that one moment, every
shadow of doubt or agitation passed away from Walter’s soul. It seemed
to him that he responded to her innocent appeal, beside the dead child’s
bed: and, in the solemn presence he had seen there, pledged himself to
cherish and protect her very image, in his banishment, with brotherly
regard; to garner up her simple faith, inviolate; and hold himself
degraded if he breathed upon it any thought that was not in her own
breast when she gave it to him.
Susan Nipper, who had bitten both her bonnet strings at once, and
imparted a great deal of private emotion to the skylight, during this
transaction, now changed the subject by inquiring who took milk and who
took sugar; and being enlightened on these points, poured out the tea.
They all four gathered socially about the little table, and took tea
under that young lady’s active superintendence; and the presence of
Florence in the back parlour, brightened the Tartar frigate on the wall.
Half an hour ago Walter, for his life, would have hardly called her by
her name. But he could do so now when she entreated him. He could think
of her being there, without a lurking misgiving that it would have been
better if she had not come. He could calmly think how beautiful she was,
how full of promise, what a home some happy man would find in such a
heart one day. He could reflect upon his own place in that heart, with
pride; and with a brave determination, if not to deserve it--he still
thought that far above him--never to deserve it less.
Some fairy influence must surely have hovered round the hands of Susan
Nipper when she made the tea, engendering the tranquil air that reigned
in the back parlour during its discussion. Some counter-influence must
surely have hovered round the hands of Uncle Sol’s chronometer, and
moved them faster than the Tartar frigate ever went before the wind. Be
this as it may, the visitors had a coach in waiting at a quiet corner
not far off; and the chronometer, on being incidentally referred to,
gave such a positive opinion that it had been waiting a long time, that
it was impossible to doubt the fact, especially when stated on such
unimpeachable authority. If Uncle Sol had been going to be hanged by his
own time, he never would have allowed that the chronometer was too fast,
by the least fraction of a second.
Florence at parting recapitulated to the old man all that she had said
before, and bound him to their compact. Uncle Sol attended her lovingly
to the legs of the wooden Midshipman, and there resigned her to Walter,
who was ready to escort her and Susan Nipper to the coach.
‘Walter,’ said Florence by the way, ‘I have been afraid to ask before
your Uncle. Do you think you will be absent very long?’
‘Indeed,’ said Walter, ‘I don’t know. I fear so. Mr Dombey signified as
much, I thought, when he appointed me.’
‘Is it a favour, Walter?’ inquired Florence, after a moment’s
hesitation, and looking anxiously in his face.
‘The appointment?’ returned Walter.
‘Yes.’
Walter would have given anything to have answered in the affirmative,
but his face answered before his lips could, and Florence was too
attentive to it not to understand its reply.
‘I am afraid you have scarcely been a favourite with Papa,’ she said,
timidly.
‘There is no reason,’ replied Walter, smiling, ‘why I should be.’
‘No reason, Walter!’
‘There was no reason,’ said Walter, understanding what she meant. ‘There
are many people employed in the House. Between Mr Dombey and a young man
like me, there’s a wide space of separation. If I do my duty, I do what
I ought, and do no more than all the rest.’
Had Florence any misgiving of which she was hardly conscious: any
misgiving that had sprung into an indistinct and undefined existence
since that recent night when she had gone down to her father’s room:
that Walter’s accidental interest in her, and early knowledge of her,
might have involved him in that powerful displeasure and dislike? Had
Walter any such idea, or any sudden thought that it was in her mind at
that moment? Neither of them hinted at it. Neither of them spoke at all,
for some short time. Susan, walking on the other side of Walter, eyed
them both sharply; and certainly Miss Nipper’s thoughts travelled in
that direction, and very confidently too.
‘You may come back very soon,’ said Florence, ‘perhaps, Walter.’
‘I may come back,’ said Walter, ‘an old man, and find you an old lady.
But I hope for better things.’
‘Papa,’ said Florence, after a moment, ‘will--will recover from his
grief, and--speak more freely to me one day, perhaps; and if he should,
I will tell him how much I wish to see you back again, and ask him to
recall you for my sake.’
There was a touching modulation in these words about her father, that
Walter understood too well.
The coach being close at hand, he would have left her without speaking,
for now he felt what parting was; but Florence held his hand when she
was seated, and then he found there was a little packet in her own.
‘Walter,’ she said, looking full upon him with her affectionate eyes,
‘like you, I hope for better things. I will pray for them, and believe
that they will arrive. I made this little gift for Paul. Pray take it
with my love, and do not look at it until you are gone away. And now,
God bless you, Walter! never forget me. You are my brother, dear!’
He was glad that Susan Nipper came between them, or he might have left
her with a sorrowful remembrance of him. He was glad too that she
did not look out of the coach again, but waved the little hand to him
instead, as long as he could see it.
In spite of her request, he could not help opening the packet that night
when he went to bed. It was a little purse: and there was money in
it.
Bright rose the sun next morning, from his absence in strange countries
and up rose Walter with it to receive the Captain, who was already at
the door: having turned out earlier than was necessary, in order to
get under weigh while Mrs MacStinger was still slumbering. The Captain
pretended to be in tip-top spirits, and brought a very smoky tongue in
one of the pockets of the broad blue coat for breakfast.
‘And, Wal’r,’ said the Captain, when they took their seats at table, if
your Uncle’s the man I think him, he’ll bring out the last bottle of the
Madeira on the present occasion.’
‘No, no, Ned,’ returned the old man. ‘No! That shall be opened when
Walter comes home again.’
‘Well said!’ cried the Captain. ‘Hear him!’
‘There it lies,’ said Sol Gills, ‘down in the little cellar, covered
with dirt and cobwebs. There may be dirt and cobwebs over you and me
perhaps, Ned, before it sees the light.’
‘Hear him!’ cried the Captain. ‘Good morality! Wal’r, my lad. Train up
a fig-tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under the
shade on it. Overhaul the--Well,’ said the Captain on second thoughts,
‘I ain’t quite certain where that’s to be found, but when found, make a
note of. Sol Gills, heave ahead again!’
‘But there or somewhere, it shall lie, Ned, until Wally comes back to
claim it,’ said the old man. ‘That’s all I meant to say.’
‘And well said too,’ returned the Captain; ‘and if we three don’t crack
that bottle in company, I’ll give you two leave to.’
Notwithstanding the Captain’s excessive joviality, he made but a poor
hand at the smoky tongue, though he tried very hard, when anybody looked
at him, to appear as if he were eating with a vast appetite. He was
terribly afraid, likewise, of being left alone with either Uncle or
nephew; appearing to consider that his only chance of safety as to
keeping up appearances, was in there being always three together.
This terror on the part of the Captain, reduced him to such ingenious
evasions as running to the door, when Solomon went to put his coat on,
under pretence of having seen an extraordinary hackney-coach pass: and
darting out into the road when Walter went upstairs to take leave of the
lodgers, on a feint of smelling fire in a neighbouring chimney. These
artifices Captain Cuttle deemed inscrutable by any uninspired observer.
Walter was coming down from his parting expedition upstairs, and was
crossing the shop to go back to the little parlour, when he saw a faded
face he knew, looking in at the door, and darted towards it.
‘Mr Carker!’ cried Walter, pressing the hand of John Carker the Junior.
‘Pray come in! This is kind of you, to be here so early to say good-bye
to me. You knew how glad it would make me to shake hands with you, once,
before going away. I cannot say how glad I am to have this opportunity.
Pray come in.’
‘It is not likely that we may ever meet again, Walter,’ returned
the other, gently resisting his invitation, ‘and I am glad of this
opportunity too. I may venture to speak to you, and to take you by the
hand, on the eve of separation. I shall not have to resist your frank
approaches, Walter, any more.’
There was a melancholy in his smile as he said it, that showed he had
found some company and friendship for his thoughts even in that.
‘Ah, Mr Carker!’ returned Walter. ‘Why did you resist them? You could
have done me nothing but good, I am very sure.’
He shook his head. ‘If there were any good,’ he said, ‘I could do on
this earth, I would do it, Walter, for you. The sight of you from day to
day, has been at once happiness and remorse to me. But the pleasure has
outweighed the pain. I know that, now, by knowing what I lose.’
‘Come in, Mr Carker, and make acquaintance with my good old Uncle,’
urged Walter. ‘I have often talked to him about you, and he will be glad
to tell you all he hears from me. I have not,’ said Walter, noticing his
hesitation, and speaking with embarrassment himself: ‘I have not told
him anything about our last conversation, Mr Carker; not even him,
believe me.
The grey Junior pressed his hand, and tears rose in his eyes.
‘If I ever make acquaintance with him, Walter,’ he returned, ‘it will be
that I may hear tidings of you. Rely on my not wronging your forbearance
and consideration. It would be to wrong it, not to tell him all the
truth, before I sought a word of confidence from him. But I have no
friend or acquaintance except you: and even for your sake, am little
likely to make any.’
‘I wish,’ said Walter, ‘you had suffered me to be your friend indeed. I
always wished it, Mr Carker, as you know; but never half so much as now,
when we are going to part.’
‘It is enough,’ replied the other, ‘that you have been the friend of my
own breast, and that when I have avoided you most, my heart inclined the
most towards you, and was fullest of you. Walter, good-bye!’
‘Good-bye, Mr Carker. Heaven be with you, Sir!’ cried Walter with
emotion.
‘If,’ said the other, retaining his hand while he spoke; ‘if when you
come back, you miss me from my old corner, and should hear from anyone
where I am lying, come and look upon my grave. Think that I might have
been as honest and as happy as you! And let me think, when I know time
is coming on, that some one like my former self may stand there, for a
moment, and remember me with pity and forgiveness! Walter, good-bye!’
His figure crept like a shadow down the bright, sun-lighted street, so
cheerful yet so solemn in the early summer morning; and slowly passed
away.
The relentless chronometer at last announced that Walter must turn his
back upon the wooden Midshipman: and away they went, himself, his Uncle,
and the Captain, in a hackney-coach to a wharf, where they were to take
steam-boat for some Reach down the river, the name of which, as the
Captain gave it out, was a hopeless mystery to the ears of landsmen.
Arrived at this Reach (whither the ship had repaired by last night’s
tide), they were boarded by various excited watermen, and among others
by a dirty Cyclops of the Captain’s acquaintance, who, with his one
eye, had made the Captain out some mile and a half off, and had been
exchanging unintelligible roars with him ever since. Becoming the lawful
prize of this personage, who was frightfully hoarse and constitutionally
in want of shaving, they were all three put aboard the Son and Heir. And
the Son and Heir was in a pretty state of confusion, with sails lying
all bedraggled on the wet decks, loose ropes tripping people up, men in
red shirts running barefoot to and fro, casks blockading every foot of
space, and, in the thickest of the fray, a black cook in a black caboose
up to his eyes in vegetables and blinded with smoke.
The Captain immediately drew Walter into a corner, and with a great
effort, that made his face very red, pulled up the silver watch, which
was so big, and so tight in his pocket, that it came out like a bung.
‘Wal’r,’ said the Captain, handing it over, and shaking him heartily
by the hand, ‘a parting gift, my lad. Put it back half an hour every
morning, and about another quarter towards the arternoon, and it’s a
watch that’ll do you credit.’
‘Captain Cuttle! I couldn’t think of it!’ cried Walter, detaining him,
for he was running away. ‘Pray take it back. I have one already.’
‘Then, Wal’r,’ said the Captain, suddenly diving into one of his pockets
and bringing up the two teaspoons and the sugar-tongs, with which he
had armed himself to meet such an objection, ‘take this here trifle of
plate, instead.’
‘No, no, I couldn’t indeed!’ cried Walter, ‘a thousand thanks! Don’t
throw them away, Captain Cuttle!’ for the Captain was about to jerk them
overboard. ‘They’ll be of much more use to you than me. Give me your
stick. I have often thought I should like to have it. There! Good-bye,
Captain Cuttle! Take care of my Uncle! Uncle Sol, God bless you!’
They were over the side in the confusion, before Walter caught another
glimpse of either; and when he ran up to the stern, and looked after
them, he saw his Uncle hanging down his head in the boat, and Captain
Cuttle rapping him on the back with the great silver watch (it must have
been very painful), and gesticulating hopefully with the teaspoons
and sugar-tongs. Catching sight of Walter, Captain Cuttle dropped the
property into the bottom of the boat with perfect unconcern, being
evidently oblivious of its existence, and pulling off the glazed hat
hailed him lustily. The glazed hat made quite a show in the sun with its
glistening, and the Captain continued to wave it until he could be
seen no longer. Then the confusion on board, which had been rapidly
increasing, reached its height; two or three other boats went away with
a cheer; the sails shone bright and full above, as Walter watched
them spread their surface to the favourable breeze; the water flew in
sparkles from the prow; and off upon her voyage went the Son and Heir,
as hopefully and trippingly as many another son and heir, gone down, had
started on his way before her.
Day after day, old Sol and Captain Cuttle kept her reckoning in the
little back parlour and worked out her course, with the chart spread
before them on the round table. At night, when old Sol climbed upstairs,
so lonely, to the attic where it sometimes blew great guns, he looked
up at the stars and listened to the wind, and kept a longer watch than
would have fallen to his lot on board the ship. The last bottle of the
old Madeira, which had had its cruising days, and known its dangers of
the deep, lay silently beneath its dust and cobwebs, in the meanwhile,
undisturbed.
CHAPTER 20. Mr Dombey goes upon a Journey
‘Mr Dombey, Sir,’ said Major Bagstock, ‘Joey’ B. is not in general a man
of sentiment, for Joseph is tough. But Joe has his feelings, Sir, and
when they are awakened--Damme, Mr Dombey,’ cried the Major with sudden
ferocity, ‘this is weakness, and I won’t submit to it!’
Major Bagstock delivered himself of these expressions on receiving
Mr Dombey as his guest at the head of his own staircase in Princess’s
Place. Mr Dombey had come to breakfast with the Major, previous to their
setting forth on their trip; and the ill-starved Native had already
undergone a world of misery arising out of the muffins, while, in
connexion with the general question of boiled eggs, life was a burden to
him.
‘It is not for an old soldier of the Bagstock breed,’ observed the
Major, relapsing into a mild state, ‘to deliver himself up, a prey to
his own emotions; but--damme, Sir,’ cried the Major, in another spasm of
ferocity, ‘I condole with you!’
The Major’s purple visage deepened in its hue, and the Major’s lobster
eyes stood out in bolder relief, as he shook Mr Dombey by the hand,
imparting to that peaceful action as defiant a character as if it had
been the prelude to his immediately boxing Mr Dombey for a thousand
pounds a side and the championship of England. With a rotatory motion
of his head, and a wheeze very like the cough of a horse, the Major
then conducted his visitor to the sitting-room, and there welcomed him
(having now composed his feelings) with the freedom and frankness of a
travelling companion.
‘Dombey,’ said the Major, ‘I’m glad to see you. I’m proud to see you.
There are not many men in Europe to whom J. Bagstock would say that--for
Josh is blunt. Sir: it’s his nature--but Joey B. is proud to see you,
Dombey.’
‘Major,’ returned Mr Dombey, ‘you are very obliging.’
‘No, Sir,’ said the Major, ‘Devil a bit! That’s not my character.
If that had been Joe’s character, Joe might have been, by this time,
Lieutenant-General Sir Joseph Bagstock, K.C.B., and might have received
you in very different quarters. You don’t know old Joe yet, I find. But
this occasion, being special, is a source of pride to me. By the Lord,
Sir,’ said the Major resolutely, ‘it’s an honour to me!’
Mr Dombey, in his estimation of himself and his money, felt that
this was very true, and therefore did not dispute the point. But the
instinctive recognition of such a truth by the Major, and his plain
avowal of it, were very able. It was a confirmation to Mr Dombey, if
he had required any, of his not being mistaken in the Major. It was
an assurance to him that his power extended beyond his own immediate
sphere; and that the Major, as an officer and a gentleman, had a no less
becoming sense of it, than the beadle of the Royal Exchange.
And if it were ever consolatory to know this, or the like of this, it
was consolatory then, when the impotence of his will, the instability
of his hopes, the feebleness of wealth, had been so direfully impressed
upon him. What could it do, his boy had asked him. Sometimes, thinking
of the baby question, he could hardly forbear inquiring, himself, what
could it do indeed: what had it done?
But these were lonely thoughts, bred late at night in the sullen
despondency and gloom of his retirement, and pride easily found its
reassurance in many testimonies to the truth, as unimpeachable and
precious as the Major’s. Mr Dombey, in his friendlessness, inclined to
the Major. It cannot be said that he warmed towards him, but he thawed
a little, The Major had had some part--and not too much--in the days by
the seaside. He was a man of the world, and knew some great people. He
talked much, and told stories; and Mr Dombey was disposed to regard him
as a choice spirit who shone in society, and who had not that poisonous
ingredient of poverty with which choice spirits in general are too much
adulterated. His station was undeniable. Altogether the Major was a
creditable companion, well accustomed to a life of leisure, and to
such places as that they were about to visit, and having an air of
gentlemanly ease about him that mixed well enough with his own City
character, and did not compete with it at all. If Mr Dombey had any
lingering idea that the Major, as a man accustomed, in the way of his
calling, to make light of the ruthless hand that had lately crushed his
hopes, might unconsciously impart some useful philosophy to him, and
scare away his weak regrets, he hid it from himself, and left it lying
at the bottom of his pride, unexamined.
‘Where is my scoundrel?’ said the Major, looking wrathfully round the
room.
The Native, who had no particular name, but answered to any vituperative
epithet, presented himself instantly at the door and ventured to come no
nearer.
‘You villain!’ said the choleric Major, ‘where’s the breakfast?’
The dark servant disappeared in search of it, and was quickly heard
reascending the stairs in such a tremulous state, that the plates and
dishes on the tray he carried, trembling sympathetically as he came,
rattled again, all the way up.
‘Dombey,’ said the Major, glancing at the Native as he arranged the
table, and encouraging him with an awful shake of his fist when he upset
a spoon, ‘here is a devilled grill, a savoury pie, a dish of kidneys,
and so forth. Pray sit down. Old Joe can give you nothing but camp fare,
you see.’
‘Very excellent fare, Major,’ replied his guest; and not in mere
politeness either; for the Major always took the best possible care of
himself, and indeed ate rather more of rich meats than was good for him,
insomuch that his Imperial complexion was mainly referred by the faculty
to that circumstance.
‘You have been looking over the way, Sir,’ observed the Major. ‘Have you
seen our friend?’
‘You mean Miss Tox,’ retorted Mr Dombey. ‘No.’
‘Charming woman, Sir,’ said the Major, with a fat laugh rising in his
short throat, and nearly suffocating him.
‘Miss Tox is a very good sort of person, I believe,’ replied Mr Dombey.
The haughty coldness of the reply seemed to afford Major Bagstock
infinite delight. He swelled and swelled, exceedingly: and even laid
down his knife and fork for a moment, to rub his hands.
‘Old Joe, Sir,’ said the Major, ‘was a bit of a favourite in
that quarter once. But Joe has had his day. J. Bagstock is
extinguished--outrivalled--floored, Sir.’
‘I should have supposed,’ Mr Dombey replied, ‘that the lady’s day for
favourites was over: but perhaps you are jesting, Major.’
‘Perhaps you are jesting, Dombey?’ was the Major’s rejoinder.
There never was a more unlikely possibility. It was so clearly expressed
in Mr Dombey’s face, that the Major apologised.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I see you are in earnest. I tell you
what, Dombey.’ The Major paused in his eating, and looked mysteriously
indignant. ‘That’s a de-vilish ambitious woman, Sir.’
Mr Dombey said ‘Indeed?’ with frigid indifference: mingled perhaps with
some contemptuous incredulity as to Miss Tox having the presumption to
harbour such a superior quality.
‘That woman, Sir,’ said the Major, ‘is, in her way, a Lucifer. Joey
B. has had his day, Sir, but he keeps his eyes. He sees, does Joe. His
Royal Highness the late Duke of York observed of Joey, at a levee, that
he saw.’
The Major accompanied this with such a look, and, between eating,
drinking, hot tea, devilled grill, muffins, and meaning, was altogether
so swollen and inflamed about the head, that even Mr Dombey showed some
anxiety for him.
‘That ridiculous old spectacle, Sir,’ pursued the Major, ‘aspires. She
aspires sky-high, Sir. Matrimonially, Dombey.’
‘I am sorry for her,’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Don’t say that, Dombey,’ returned the Major in a warning voice.
‘Why should I not, Major?’ said Mr Dombey.
The Major gave no answer but the horse’s cough, and went on eating
vigorously.
‘She has taken an interest in your household,’ said the Major, stopping
short again, ‘and has been a frequent visitor at your house for some
time now.’
‘Yes,’ replied Mr Dombey with great stateliness, ‘Miss Tox was
originally received there, at the time of Mrs Dombey’s death, as a
friend of my sister’s; and being a well-behaved person, and showing a
liking for the poor infant, she was permitted--may I say encouraged--to
repeat her visits with my sister, and gradually to occupy a kind of
footing of familiarity in the family. I have,’ said Mr Dombey, in the
tone of a man who was making a great and valuable concession, ‘I have a
respect for Miss Tox. She his been so obliging as to render many little
services in my house: trifling and insignificant services perhaps,
Major, but not to be disparaged on that account: and I hope I have had
the good fortune to be enabled to acknowledge them by such attention and
notice as it has been in my power to bestow. I hold myself indebted to
Miss Tox, Major,’ added Mr Dombey, with a slight wave of his hand, ‘for
the pleasure of your acquaintance.’
‘Dombey,’ said the Major, warmly: ‘no! No, Sir! Joseph Bagstock can
never permit that assertion to pass uncontradicted. Your knowledge of
old Joe, Sir, such as he is, and old Joe’s knowledge of you, Sir, had
its origin in a noble fellow, Sir--in a great creature, Sir. Dombey!’
said the Major, with a struggle which it was not very difficult to
parade, his whole life being a struggle against all kinds of apoplectic
symptoms, ‘we knew each other through your boy.’
Mr Dombey seemed touched, as it is not improbable the Major designed he
should be, by this allusion. He looked down and sighed: and the Major,
rousing himself fiercely, again said, in reference to the state of mind
into which he felt himself in danger of falling, that this was weakness,
and nothing should induce him to submit to it.
‘Our friend had a remote connexion with that event,’ said the Major,
‘and all the credit that belongs to her, J. B. is willing to give her,
Sir. Notwithstanding which, Ma’am,’ he added, raising his eyes from his
plate, and casting them across Princess’s Place, to where Miss Tox was
at that moment visible at her window watering her flowers, ‘you’re
a scheming jade, Ma’am, and your ambition is a piece of monstrous
impudence. If it only made yourself ridiculous, Ma’am,’ said the Major,
rolling his head at the unconscious Miss Tox, while his starting eyes
appeared to make a leap towards her, ‘you might do that to your heart’s
content, Ma’am, without any objection, I assure you, on the part of
Bagstock.’ Here the Major laughed frightfully up in the tips of his ears
and in the veins of his head. ‘But when, Ma’am,’ said the Major, ‘you
compromise other people, and generous, unsuspicious people too, as a
repayment for their condescension, you stir the blood of old Joe in his
body.’
‘Major,’ said Mr Dombey, reddening, ‘I hope you do not hint at anything
so absurd on the part of Miss Tox as--’
‘Dombey,’ returned the Major, ‘I hint at nothing. But Joey B. has lived
in the world, Sir: lived in the world with his eyes open, Sir, and his
ears cocked: and Joe tells you, Dombey, that there’s a devilish artful
and ambitious woman over the way.’
Mr Dombey involuntarily glanced over the way; and an angry glance he
sent in that direction, too.
‘That’s all on such a subject that shall pass the lips of Joseph
Bagstock,’ said the Major firmly. ‘Joe is not a tale-bearer, but there
are times when he must speak, when he will speak!--confound your arts,
Ma’am,’ cried the Major, again apostrophising his fair neighbour,
with great ire,--‘when the provocation is too strong to admit of his
remaining silent.’
The emotion of this outbreak threw the Major into a paroxysm of horse’s
coughs, which held him for a long time. On recovering he added:
‘And now, Dombey, as you have invited Joe--old Joe, who has no other
merit, Sir, but that he is tough and hearty--to be your guest and guide
at Leamington, command him in any way you please, and he is wholly
yours. I don’t know, Sir,’ said the Major, wagging his double chin with
a jocose air, ‘what it is you people see in Joe to make you hold him in
such great request, all of you; but this I know, Sir, that if he wasn’t
pretty tough, and obstinate in his refusals, you’d kill him among you
with your invitations and so forth, in double-quick time.’
Mr Dombey, in a few words, expressed his sense of the preference he
received over those other distinguished members of society who were
clamouring for the possession of Major Bagstock. But the Major cut him
short by giving him to understand that he followed his own inclinations,
and that they had risen up in a body and said with one accord, ‘J. B.,
Dombey is the man for you to choose as a friend.’
The Major being by this time in a state of repletion, with essence of
savoury pie oozing out at the corners of his eyes, and devilled grill
and kidneys tightening his cravat: and the time moreover approaching for
the departure of the railway train to Birmingham, by which they were
to leave town: the Native got him into his great-coat with immense
difficulty, and buttoned him up until his face looked staring and
gasping, over the top of that garment, as if he were in a barrel. The
Native then handed him separately, and with a decent interval between
each supply, his washleather gloves, his thick stick, and his hat; which
latter article the Major wore with a rakish air on one side of his head,
by way of toning down his remarkable visage. The Native had previously
packed, in all possible and impossible parts of Mr Dombey’s chariot,
which was in waiting, an unusual quantity of carpet-bags and small
portmanteaus, no less apoplectic in appearance than the Major himself:
and having filled his own pockets with Seltzer water, East India sherry,
sandwiches, shawls, telescopes, maps, and newspapers, any or all of
which light baggage the Major might require at any instant of the
journey, he announced that everything was ready. To complete the
equipment of this unfortunate foreigner (currently believed to be a
prince in his own country), when he took his seat in the rumble by the
side of Mr Towlinson, a pile of the Major’s cloaks and great-coats was
hurled upon him by the landlord, who aimed at him from the pavement
with those great missiles like a Titan, and so covered him up, that he
proceeded, in a living tomb, to the railroad station.
But before the carriage moved away, and while the Native was in the
act of sepulture, Miss Tox appearing at her window, waved a lilywhite
handkerchief. Mr Dombey received this parting salutation very
coldly--very coldly even for him--and honouring her with the slightest
possible inclination of his head, leaned back in the carriage with a
very discontented look. His marked behaviour seemed to afford the
Major (who was all politeness in his recognition of Miss Tox) unbounded
satisfaction; and he sat for a long time afterwards, leering, and
choking, like an over-fed Mephistopheles.
During the bustle of preparation at the railway, Mr Dombey and the Major
walked up and down the platform side by side; the former taciturn and
gloomy, and the latter entertaining him, or entertaining himself, with
a variety of anecdotes and reminiscences, in most of which Joe Bagstock
was the principal performer. Neither of the two observed that in the
course of these walks, they attracted the attention of a working man who
was standing near the engine, and who touched his hat every time they
passed; for Mr Dombey habitually looked over the vulgar herd, not at
them; and the Major was looking, at the time, into the core of one of
his stories. At length, however, this man stepped before them as they
turned round, and pulling his hat off, and keeping it off, ducked his
head to Mr Dombey.
‘Beg your pardon, Sir,’ said the man, ‘but I hope you’re a doin’ pretty
well, Sir.’
He was dressed in a canvas suit abundantly besmeared with coal-dust and
oil, and had cinders in his whiskers, and a smell of half-slaked ashes
all over him. He was not a bad-looking fellow, nor even what could be
fairly called a dirty-looking fellow, in spite of this; and, in short,
he was Mr Toodle, professionally clothed.
‘I shall have the honour of stokin’ of you down, Sir,’ said Mr Toodle.
‘Beg your pardon, Sir.--I hope you find yourself a coming round?’
Mr Dombey looked at him, in return for his tone of interest, as if a man
like that would make his very eyesight dirty.
‘’Scuse the liberty, Sir,’ said Toodle, seeing he was not clearly
remembered, ‘but my wife Polly, as was called Richards in your family--’
A change in Mr Dombey’s face, which seemed to express recollection of
him, and so it did, but it expressed in a much stronger degree an angry
sense of humiliation, stopped Mr Toodle short.
‘Your wife wants money, I suppose,’ said Mr Dombey, putting his hand in
his pocket, and speaking (but that he always did) haughtily.
‘No thank’ee, Sir,’ returned Toodle, ‘I can’t say she does. I don’t.’
Mr Dombey was stopped short now in his turn: and awkwardly: with his
hand in his pocket.
‘No, Sir,’ said Toodle, turning his oilskin cap round and round; ‘we’re
a doin’ pretty well, Sir; we haven’t no cause to complain in the worldly
way, Sir. We’ve had four more since then, Sir, but we rubs on.’
Mr Dombey would have rubbed on to his own carriage, though in so doing
he had rubbed the stoker underneath the wheels; but his attention was
arrested by something in connexion with the cap still going slowly round
and round in the man’s hand.
‘We lost one babby,’ observed Toodle, ‘there’s no denyin’.’
‘Lately,’ added Mr Dombey, looking at the cap.
‘No, Sir, up’ard of three years ago, but all the rest is hearty. And in
the matter o readin’, Sir,’ said Toodle, ducking again, as if to remind
Mr Dombey of what had passed between them on that subject long ago,
‘them boys o’ mine, they learned me, among ‘em, arter all. They’ve made
a wery tolerable scholar of me, Sir, them boys.’
‘Come, Major!’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Beg your pardon, Sir,’ resumed Toodle, taking a step before them and
deferentially stopping them again, still cap in hand: ‘I wouldn’t have
troubled you with such a pint except as a way of gettin’ in the name
of my son Biler--christened Robin--him as you was so good as to make a
Charitable Grinder on.’
‘Well, man,’ said Mr Dombey in his severest manner. ‘What about him?’
‘Why, Sir,’ returned Toodle, shaking his head with a face of great
anxiety and distress, ‘I’m forced to say, Sir, that he’s gone wrong.’
‘He has gone wrong, has he?’ said Mr Dombey, with a hard kind of
satisfaction.
‘He has fell into bad company, you see, genelmen,’ pursued the father,
looking wistfully at both, and evidently taking the Major into the
conversation with the hope of having his sympathy. ‘He has got into bad
ways. God send he may come to again, genelmen, but he’s on the wrong
track now! You could hardly be off hearing of it somehow, Sir,’ said
Toodle, again addressing Mr Dombey individually; ‘and it’s better I
should out and say my boy’s gone rather wrong. Polly’s dreadful down
about it, genelmen,’ said Toodle with the same dejected look, and
another appeal to the Major.
‘A son of this man’s whom I caused to be educated, Major,’ said Mr
Dombey, giving him his arm. ‘The usual return!’
‘Take advice from plain old Joe, and never educate that sort of people,
Sir,’ returned the Major. ‘Damme, Sir, it never does! It always fails!’
The simple father was beginning to submit that he hoped his son, the
quondam Grinder, huffed and cuffed, and flogged and badged, and taught,
as parrots are, by a brute jobbed into his place of schoolmaster with as
much fitness for it as a hound, might not have been educated on quite
a right plan in some undiscovered respect, when Mr Dombey angrily
repeating ‘The usual return!’ led the Major away. And the Major being
heavy to hoist into Mr Dombey’s carriage, elevated in mid-air, and
having to stop and swear that he would flay the Native alive, and break
every bone in his skin, and visit other physical torments upon him,
every time he couldn’t get his foot on the step, and fell back on that
dark exile, had barely time before they started to repeat hoarsely that
it would never do: that it always failed: and that if he were to educate
‘his own vagabond,’ he would certainly be hanged.
Mr Dombey assented bitterly; but there was something more in his
bitterness, and in his moody way of falling back in the carriage, and
looking with knitted brows at the changing objects without, than the
failure of that noble educational system administered by the Grinders’
Company. He had seen upon the man’s rough cap a piece of new crape, and
he had assured himself, from his manner and his answers, that he wore it
for his son.
Sol from high to low, at home or abroad, from Florence in his great
house to the coarse churl who was feeding the fire then smoking before
them, everyone set up some claim or other to a share in his dead boy,
and was a bidder against him! Could he ever forget how that woman had
wept over his pillow, and called him her own child! or how he, waking
from his sleep, had asked for her, and had raised himself in his bed and
brightened when she came in!
To think of this presumptuous raker among coals and ashes going on
before there, with his sign of mourning! To think that he dared
to enter, even by a common show like that, into the trial and
disappointment of a proud gentleman’s secret heart! To think that
this lost child, who was to have divided with him his riches, and his
projects, and his power, and allied with whom he was to have shut out
all the world as with a double door of gold, should have let in such a
herd to insult him with their knowledge of his defeated hopes, and their
boasts of claiming community of feeling with himself, so far removed:
if not of having crept into the place wherein he would have lorded it,
alone!
He found no pleasure or relief in the journey. Tortured by these
thoughts he carried monotony with him, through the rushing landscape,
and hurried headlong, not through a rich and varied country, but a
wilderness of blighted plans and gnawing jealousies. The very speed at
which the train was whirled along, mocked the swift course of the young
life that had been borne away so steadily and so inexorably to its
foredoomed end. The power that forced itself upon its iron way--its
own--defiant of all paths and roads, piercing through the heart of
every obstacle, and dragging living creatures of all classes, ages, and
degrees behind it, was a type of the triumphant monster, Death.
Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, from the town, burrowing
among the dwellings of men and making the streets hum, flashing out into
the meadows for a moment, mining in through the damp earth, booming
on in darkness and heavy air, bursting out again into the sunny day so
bright and wide; away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, through
the fields, through the woods, through the corn, through the hay,
through the chalk, through the mould, through the clay, through the
rock, among objects close at hand and almost in the grasp, ever flying
from the traveller, and a deceitful distance ever moving slowly within
him: like as in the track of the remorseless monster, Death!
Through the hollow, on the height, by the heath, by the orchard, by the
park, by the garden, over the canal, across the river, where the sheep
are feeding, where the mill is going, where the barge is floating, where
the dead are lying, where the factory is smoking, where the stream is
running, where the village clusters, where the great cathedral rises,
where the bleak moor lies, and the wild breeze smooths or ruffles it at
its inconstant will; away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, and
no trace to leave behind but dust and vapour: like as in the track of
the remorseless monster, Death!
Breasting the wind and light, the shower and sunshine, away, and still
away, it rolls and roars, fierce and rapid, smooth and certain, and
great works and massive bridges crossing up above, fall like a beam of
shadow an inch broad, upon the eye, and then are lost. Away, and still
away, onward and onward ever: glimpses of cottage-homes, of houses,
mansions, rich estates, of husbandry and handicraft, of people, of old
roads and paths that look deserted, small, and insignificant as they are
left behind: and so they do, and what else is there but such glimpses,
in the track of the indomitable monster, Death!
Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, plunging down into the
earth again, and working on in such a storm of energy and perseverance,
that amidst the darkness and whirlwind the motion seems reversed, and
to tend furiously backward, until a ray of light upon the wet wall shows
its surface flying past like a fierce stream. Away once more into the
day, and through the day, with a shrill yell of exultation, roaring,
rattling, tearing on, spurning everything with its dark breath,
sometimes pausing for a minute where a crowd of faces are, that in a
minute more are not; sometimes lapping water greedily, and before the
spout at which it drinks has ceased to drip upon the ground, shrieking,
roaring, rattling through the purple distance!
Louder and louder yet, it shrieks and cries as it comes tearing on
resistless to the goal: and now its way, still like the way of Death,
is strewn with ashes thickly. Everything around is blackened. There are
dark pools of water, muddy lanes, and miserable habitations far below.
There are jagged walls and falling houses close at hand, and through the
battered roofs and broken windows, wretched rooms are seen, where want
and fever hide themselves in many wretched shapes, while smoke and
crowded gables, and distorted chimneys, and deformity of brick and
mortar penning up deformity of mind and body, choke the murky distance.
As Mr Dombey looks out of his carriage window, it is never in his
thoughts that the monster who has brought him there has let the light
of day in on these things: not made or caused them. It was the journey’s
fitting end, and might have been the end of everything; it was so
ruinous and dreary.
So, pursuing the one course of thought, he had the one relentless
monster still before him. All things looked black, and cold, and
deadly upon him, and he on them. He found a likeness to his misfortune
everywhere. There was a remorseless triumph going on about him, and it
galled and stung him in his pride and jealousy, whatever form it took:
though most of all when it divided with him the love and memory of his
lost boy.
There was a face--he had looked upon it, on the previous night, and it
on him with eyes that read his soul, though they were dim with tears,
and hidden soon behind two quivering hands--that often had attended
him in fancy, on this ride. He had seen it, with the expression of last
night, timidly pleading to him. It was not reproachful, but there was
something of doubt, almost of hopeful incredulity in it, which, as he
once more saw that fade away into a desolate certainty of his dislike,
was like reproach. It was a trouble to him to think of this face of
Florence.
Because he felt any new compunction towards it? No. Because the feeling
it awakened in him--of which he had had some old foreshadowing in older
times--was full-formed now, and spoke out plainly, moving him too much,
and threatening to grow too strong for his composure. Because the face
was abroad, in the expression of defeat and persecution that seemed to
encircle him like the air. Because it barbed the arrow of that cruel and
remorseless enemy on which his thoughts so ran, and put into its grasp a
double-handed sword. Because he knew full well, in his own breast, as he
stood there, tinging the scene of transition before him with the morbid
colours of his own mind, and making it a ruin and a picture of decay,
instead of hopeful change, and promise of better things, that life had
quite as much to do with his complainings as death. One child was gone,
and one child left. Why was the object of his hope removed instead of
her?
The sweet, calm, gentle presence in his fancy, moved him to no
reflection but that. She had been unwelcome to him from the first; she
was an aggravation of his bitterness now.
