

                                Charles Dickens

                           Dealings with the Firm of

                                 Dombey and Son

                                    Preface

I make so bold as to believe that the faculty (or the habit) of correctly
observing the characters of men, is a rare one. I have not even found, within my
experience, that the faculty (or the habit) of correctly observing so much as
the faces of men, is a general one by any means. The two commonest mistakes in
judgment that I suppose to arise from the former default, are, the confounding
of shyness with arrogance - a very common mistake indeed - and the not
understanding that an obstinate nature exists in a perpetual struggle with
itself.
    Mr. Dombey undergoes no violent change, either in this book, or in real
life. A sense of his injustice is within him, all along. The more he represses
it, the more unjust he necessarily is. Internal shame and external circumstances
may bring the contest to a close in a week, or a day; but, it has been a contest
for years, and is only fought out after a long balance of victory.
    I began this book by the Lake of Geneva, and went on with it for some months
in France, before pursuing it in England. The association between the writing
and the place of writing is so curiously strong in my mind, that at this day,
although I know, in my fancy, every stair in the little midshipman's house, and
could swear to every pew in the church in which Florence was married, or to
every young gentleman's bedstead in Doctor Blimber's establishment, I yet
confusedly imagine Captain Cuttle as secluding himself from Mrs. Mac-Stinger
among the mountains of Switzerland. Similarly, when I am reminded by any chance
of what it was that the waves were always saying, my remembrance wanders for a
whole winter night about the streets of Paris - as I restlessly did with a heavy
heart, on the night when I had written the chapter in which my little friend and
I parted company.

                                   Chapter I

 

                                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 and recrossed
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; 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!« And again he said »Dom-bey 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. 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 dare say. 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.
    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. I had better ask Doctor Peps if he'll have
the goodness to step up stairs 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 Peps.
    »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 up stairs
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 on
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 that effort successfully,« said Doctor Parker Peps, »then 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 up stairs; 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 boddice, who, running up to him
with a kind of screw in her face and carriage, expressive of suppressed emotion,
flung her arms round 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! 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 dare say 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. 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 admirably 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 a 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 »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.
    »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, has been
working at a little gift for Fanny, which I promised to present. It is only a
pin-cushion for the toilette table, Paul, but I do say, and will say, and must
say, 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.
    »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 any one 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. 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 up stairs 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.«
    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 II

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 up stairs, who
were busy on the family mourning. She delivered it for the behove 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 dare say.«
    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.
    »How's the Baby, Loo?« asked Mr. Chick: to change the subject.
    »What Baby do you mean?« answered Mrs. Chick. »I am sure the morning I have
had, with that dining-room down stairs 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, it becomes necessary to provide a Nurse.«
    »Oh! Ah!« said Mr. Chick. »Toor-rul - 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.
Meanwhile, of course, the child is -«
    »Going to the very Deuce,« 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 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 down stairs 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 to think of their some
day claiming a sort of relationship to Paul! 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.«
    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 shower-baths.
    »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 heard 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.«
    »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 heard 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 the last straw breaks the laden camel's back, this piece of underground
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. For all
his starched, impenetrable dignity and composure, he wiped blinding tears from
his eyes as he did so; 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?
    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.
    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.
    »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 again.«
    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 closely
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 good-bye 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 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 up stairs 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 III

     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 up stairs 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 suit 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
smoke-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.
    Little Paul Dombey's foster-mother had led this life herself, and had
carried little Paul through it for some weeks; and had returned up stairs 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.
    »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.«
    »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 any one 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 drooped 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'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'e, 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.
    »Good-bye!« said 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 ME, 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. 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 beside 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 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.
    »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.
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.
    »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 little 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 was 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 feelings of indifference towards little Florence changed into an
uneasiness of an extraordinary kind. 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. 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 up stairs 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'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 intrenched up
stairs. 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 IV

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 shopdoors of nautical instrument-makers in taking
observations of the hackney coaches.
    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, 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
starfish, 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, seagoing, 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 the 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 weather-glasses 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' 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 mantel-shelf.«
    »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 bird-cage (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'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 dare say. 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 while.
    »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 the 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'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 privateers-man, 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 chockfull 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 his 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 to-day. 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'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 V

                        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.
    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 flattered 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 some one 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 to 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 should 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
commonplace 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 dare
say.«
    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.
    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!«
    »Indeed!« 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
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
dare say 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 commonplace 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 dare say.«
    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,« 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 run down, 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 bed-clothes, 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 acknowledgement 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 sun-beam 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 to-day 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 tressels 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. 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 door-steps,
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 contrary,« returned Susan, »and them two
inspectors Tox and Chick, not intending to be on duty to-morrow, as I heard 'em
say, me and Miss Floy will go along with you to-morrow 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 VI

                           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 jeers 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 utter 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'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-temperedst 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 sound 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'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 herself 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 an'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 that 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.
    »Yes, Ma'am.«
    »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 wagons, 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 dare say. 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 the 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, an'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 re-assured 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, lifting 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 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 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 up stairs, 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, where 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 grandfather.
    »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!« »Goodbye, 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 befell 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 VII

  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.
    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.
    Although Major Bagstock had arrived at what is called in polite literature,
the grand meridian of life, and was proceeding on his journey down-hill 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
connection 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 hardhearted, 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 man-traps; 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 VIII

                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
distinct 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 any one 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 up stairs 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 blaze; 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; »but 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.«
    »Aye! 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 armchair 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 re-assured 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
own 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.«
    »With your usual happy discrimination, my dear Paul,« returned Mrs. Chick,
»you have hit the point at once. Our darling is not 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 up stairs 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 ho 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 sile, »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. If the
dear child,« pursued 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.«
    »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. 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 up stairs 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 gentlemen, 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?« inquired 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 tolerably 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 up stairs 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 by 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
dullness (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 connection 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. My uncle's child made people's
blood run cold, sometimes, 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! You may say nonsense! I an'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 forefinger 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.
    »Good night, Miss!« said 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 down stairs, 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 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 farther 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 IX

               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?«
    »Aye,« 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 it.«
    »I say. Uncle! You mustn'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 on 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, cosey 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 cosey 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, over due: 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, wagons, 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 flag-staffs, as appurtenances to
public-houses; then came slopsellers' 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 sledge-hammers 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 boat building. 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 story,
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 glazed 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 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, and 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-kneed 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 down stairs, 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 an'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 fireplace 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 one security. I'm
another. Your governor's the man to advance the 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 tea-spoons, 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 X

              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. »My little friend here, Sir, will certify for
Joseph Bagstock that he is a thorough-going, downright, 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. 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 heavy
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 any one, 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, stand by!«
    »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.«
    »Aye, aye,« 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 acknowledgement 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'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 tea-spoons, 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 prannum 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 tea-spoons 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 felt 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.
 

                                   Chapter XI

                      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
unabated, 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.
    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 the 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
supposed.«
    »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 unlocked-for announcement of Mr. Dombey as a visitor to Mrs.
Pipchin. The population of the parlour was immediately swept up stairs 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
reestablished. 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 any one 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; probably 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 crying 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, 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. »Ne-ver 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
dare say. I dare say. 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
(beautiful 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 up stairs,« 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 up stairs 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 auspiciously 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 down stairs 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 XII

                               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 semicircular 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 hav'n't been well. I have been a weak child. I couldn't learn a Latin
Grammar when I was out, every day, with old Glubb. I wish you'd tell old Glubb
to come and see me, if you please.«
    »What a dreadful 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. »Aye, aye, aye? 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 school-room, 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, addressed P. Toots, Esquire, Brighton, Sussex, and to preserve them
in his desk with great care.
    These ceremonies passed, Cornelia led Paul up stairs 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 down stairs 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 school-room
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 school-room 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 antechamber - 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 full five minutes before he was
moderately composed, and 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
table-cloth. »Johnson will repeat to me to-morrow 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
to-morrow,« the pupils bowed again, and went to bed.
    In the confidence of their own room up stairs, Briggs said his head ached
ready to split, and that he should wish himself dead if it wasn't'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
story, 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 down stairs, 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 down stairs, 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 school-room, he set off up stairs 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 up stairs.
    »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 hæc 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. 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 up stairs 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 Faux, or artificial Bogle, stuffed full
of scholastic straw.
    He acquitted himself very well, nevertheless; and Miss Blimber, commending
him as giving promise of getting on fast, immediately provided him with subject
B; from which he passed to C, and even D before dinner. It was hard work,
resuming his studies, soon after dinner; and he felt giddy and confused and
drowsy and dull. But all the other young gentlemen had similar sensations, and
were obliged to resume their studies too, if there were any comfort in that. It
was a wonder that the great clock in the hall, instead of being constant to its
first inquiry, never said, »Gentlemen, we will now resume our studies,« for that
phrase was often enough repeated in its neighbourhood. The studies went round
like a mighty wheel, and the young gentlemen were always stretched upon it.
    After tea there were exercises again, and preparations for next day by
candle-light. 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, to-morrow 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
missesses 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 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.«
    »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 leaped 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
paper-hanging 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 down stairs, 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 Saturday 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 XIII

                   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 shady 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, quarried 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 grey, 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, 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 to-day 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 most 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
pen-woman - 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.
    »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 express 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!«
    »In truth, 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 voice 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 some one
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 connection 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 XIV

    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
neck-kerchief, 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 Conjurer, 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'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 acknowledgement 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'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 simillima
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 any one 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 re-write 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
second-hand 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, as 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 up stairs,
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'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
up stairs to Paul and told him he was to lie still, which Paul very gladly did.
Mrs. Pipchin re-appeared 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 down stairs. 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 connection 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 up stairs, 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 any one, 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 school-room, 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 every one. 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 hair-dresser 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, »Aye, aye, aye! 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 wristbands turned up
or turned down. Observing that Mr. Feeder's were turned up, Mr. Toots turned his
up; but the wristbands 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 down stairs 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 up stairs
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 Doctor 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' 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 parted 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.
    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 down stairs 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 some one, 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'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 XV

    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 up stairs.
    »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 contemplative
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 disdains 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.
    »Aye!« 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 ringbolt. 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 exulting
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, some one 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 frowzy 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 wagon-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 timetables; railway hackney-coach and cabstands; 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 chimneysweeper, 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 knew 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
any one, 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 creature!«
    »Why, if it an'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't, though I
may not seem to flatter when I say so, but little Master Paul is very ill, and
told his Pa to-day 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 XVI

                       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 re-passing; 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 re-assure 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
down stairs, 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 so 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 so 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 down stairs, 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 to-morrow? Is she come?«
    Some one 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. »Some one 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!« After 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. »Ah yes,« he said placidly,
»good- 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 that 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!
 

                                  Chapter XVII

          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 resource 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 old 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 and 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 dare say. 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.«
    »Aye, aye, 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- 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 dare say?«
    »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 a 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 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.
    »Aye, aye!« 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 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 a 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 such 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 in-draught 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 creature. 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 any one?« 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 an'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 an'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 up
stairs, 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 to-day, 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 office as 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 XVIII

                              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 any one 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 up stairs 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?
    Some one 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 up stairs 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 every-day 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 green-grocer
in Oxford Market.
    There is sounder sleep and deeper rest in Mr. Dombey's house to-night, 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
acknowledgement 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. Chick. »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 heart-broken?«
    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 eyes.
    »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 up stairs 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 sometimes 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 up
stairs 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 sacred 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 in 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 up stairs 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 housekeeper 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 up stairs 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 Doctor 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
dog 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, to-morrow 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 down stairs, 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 any one 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 wearied 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
cast away - 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 dare say,« 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 antechamber, 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 XIX

                               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
door-post, 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
school-boy 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 tomorrow 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 dare say, 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 lappels, 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.
    »Yes - 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 gently 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 acknowledgement 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.«
    »Aye, 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 fullness 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 yet 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 an't quite
certain where that's to be found, but when found, make a note of. Sol Gills,
heave a-head 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 drink my allowance!«
    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 up stairs 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 up stairs, 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 any one 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 my 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 tea-spoons 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 that I should like to have it. There! Goodbye, 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 tea-spoons 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 up stairs, 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 XX

                        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-starred 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
agreeable. 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 re-assurance 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 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 - I may 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 has 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 de-vilish 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 talebearer, 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'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 wash-leather 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
sepulchre, Miss Tox appearing at her window, waved a lily-white 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 doing' 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
doing' 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 connection 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 very 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 getting' 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, gentlemen,« pursued the father,
looking wistfully at both, and evidently taking the Major into the conversation
with the hope of having his sympathy. »He has got into bad ways. God send he may
come to again, genelmen, but he's on the wrong track now! You could hardly be
off hearing of it somehow, Sir,« said Toodle, again addressing Mr. Dombey
individually; »and it's better I should out and say my boy's gone rather wrong.
Polly's dreadful down about it, genelmen,« said Toodle with the same dejected
look, and another appeal to the Major.
    »A son of this man's whom I caused to be educated, Major,« said Mr. Dombey,
giving him his arm. »The usual return!«
    »Take advice from plain old Joe, and never educate that sort of people,
Sir,« returned the Major. »Damme, Sir, it never does! It always fails!«
    The simple father was beginning to submit that he hoped his son, the quondam
Grinder, huffed and cuffed, and flogged and badged, and taught, as parrots are,
by a brute jobbed into his place of schoolmaster with as much fitness for it as
a hound, might not have been educated on quite a right plan in some undiscovered
respect, when Mr. Dombey angrily repeating »The usual return!« led the Major
away. And the Major being heavy to hoist into Mr. Dombey's carriage, elevated in
mid-air, and having to stop and swear that he would flay the Native alive, and
break every bone in his skin, and visit other physical torments upon him, every
time he couldn't get his foot on the step, and fell back on that dark exile, had
barely time before they started to repeat hoarsely that it would never do: that
it always failed: and that if he were to educate his own vagabond, he would
certainly be hanged.
    Mr. Dombey assented bitterly; but there was something more in his
bitterness, and in his moody way of falling back in the carriage, and looking
with knitted brows at the changing objects without, than the failure of that
noble educational system administered by the Grinders' Company. He had seen upon
the man's rough cap a piece of new crape, and he had assured himself, from his
manner and his answers, that he wore it for his son.
    So! from high to low, at home or abroad, from Florence in his great house to
the coarse churl who was feeding the fire then smoking before them, every one
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 fore-doomed 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. If his son had been his only child, and the same blow had
fallen on him, it would have been heavy to bear; but infinitely lighter than
now, when it might have fallen on her (whom he could have lost, or he believed
it, without a pang), and had not. Her loving and innocent face rising before
him, had no softening or winning influence. He rejected the angel, and took up
with the tormenting spirit crouching in his bosom. Her patience, goodness,
youth, devotion, love, were as so many atoms in the ashes upon which he set his
heel. He saw her image in the blight and blackness all around him, not
irradiating but deepening the gloom. More than once upon this journey, and now
again as he stood pondering at this journey's end, tracing figures in the dust
with his stick, the thought came into his mind, what was there he could
interpose between himself and it?
    The Major, who had been blowing and panting all the way down, like another
engine, and whose eye had often wandered from his newspaper to leer at the
prospect, as if there were a procession of discomfited Miss Toxes pouring out in
the smoke of the train, and flying away over the fields to hide themselves in
any place of refuge, aroused his friend by informing him that the post-horses
were harnessed and the carriage ready.
    »Dombey,« said the Major, rapping him on the arm with his cane, »don't be
thoughtful. It's a bad habit. Old Joe, Sir, wouldn't be as tough as you see him,
if he had ever encouraged it. You are too great a man, Dombey, to be thoughtful.
In your position, Sir, you're far above that kind of thing.«
    The Major even in his friendly remonstrances, thus consulting the dignity
and honour of Mr. Dombey, and showing a lively sense of their importance, Mr.
Dombey felt more than ever disposed to defer to a gentleman possessing so much
good sense and such a well-regulated mind; accordingly he made an effort to
listen to the Major's stories, as they trotted along the turnpike road; and the
Major, finding both the pace and the road a great deal better adapted to his
conversational powers than the mode of travelling they had just relinquished,
came out for his entertainment.
    In this flow of spirits and conversation, only interrupted by his usual
plethoric symptoms, and by intervals of lunch, and from time to time by some
violent assault upon the Native, who wore a pair of ear-rings in his dark-brown
ears, and on whom his European clothes sat with an outlandish impossibility of
adjustment - being, of their own accord, and without any reference to the
tailor's art, long where they ought to be short, short where they ought to be
long, tight where they ought to be loose, and loose where they ought to be tight
- and to which he imparted a new grace, whenever the Major attacked him, by
shrinking into them like a shrivelled nut, or a cold monkey - in this flow of
spirits and conversation, the Major continued all day: so that when evening came
on, and found them trotting through the green and leafy road near Leamington,
the Major's voice, what with talking and eating and chuckling and choking,
appeared to be in the box under the rumble, or in some neighbouring hay-stack.
Nor did the Major improve it at the Royal Hotel, where rooms and dinner had been
ordered, and where he so oppressed his organs of speech by eating and drinking,
that when he retired to bed he had no voice at all, except to cough with, and
could only make himself intelligible to the dark servant by gasping at him.
    He not only rose next morning, however, like a giant refreshed, but
conducted himself, at breakfast, like a giant refreshing. At this meal they
arranged their daily habits. The Major was to take the responsibility of
ordering everything to eat and drink; and they were to have a late breakfast
together every morning, and a late dinner together every day. Mr. Dombey would
prefer remaining in his own room, or walking in the country by himself, on that
first day of their sojourn at Leamington; but next morning he would be happy to
accompany the Major to the Pump-room, and about the town. So they parted until
dinner-time. Mr. Dombey retired to nurse his wholesome thoughts in his own way.
The Major, attended by the Native carrying a camp-stool, a great-coat, and an
umbrella, swaggered up and down through all the public places: looking into
subscription books to find out who was there, looking up old ladies by whom he
was much admired, reporting J. B. tougher than ever, and puffing his rich friend
Dombey wherever he went. There never was a man who stood by a friend more
staunchly than the Major, when in puffing him, he puffed himself.
    It was surprising how much new conversation the Major had to let off at
dinner-time, and what occasion he gave Mr. Dombey to admire his social
qualities. At breakfast next morning, he knew the contents of the latest
newspapers received; and mentioned several subjects in connexion with them, on
which his opinion had recently been sought by persons of such power and might,
that they were only to be obscurely hinted at. Mr. Dombey, who had been so long
shut up within himself, and who had rarely, at any time, overstepped the
enchanted circle within which the operations of Dombey and Son were conducted,
began to think this an improvement on his solitary life; and in place of
excusing himself for another day, as he had thought of doing when alone, walked
out with the Major arm-in-arm.
 

                                  Chapter XXI

                                   New Faces.

The Major, more blue-faced and staring - more over-ripe, as it were, than ever -
and giving vent, every now and then, to one of the horse's coughs, not so much
of necessity as in a spontaneous explosion of importance, walked arm-in-arm with
Mr. Dombey up the sunny side of the way, with his cheeks swelling over his tight
stock, his legs majestically wide apart, and his great head wagging from side to
side, as if he were remonstrating within himself for being such a captivating
object. They had not walked many yards, before the Major encountered somebody he
knew, nor many yards farther before the Major encountered somebody else he knew,
but he merely shook his fingers at them as he passed, and led Mr. Dombey on:
pointing out the localities as they went, and enlivening the walk with any
current scandal suggested by them.
    In this manner the Major and Mr. Dombey were walking arm-in-arm, much to
their own satisfaction, when they beheld advancing towards them, a wheeled
chair, in which a lady was seated, indolently steering her carriage by a kind of
rudder in front, while it was propelled by some unseen power in the rear.
Although the lady was not young, she was very blooming in the face - quite rosy
- and her dress and attitude were perfectly juvenile. Walking by the side of the
chair, and carrying her gossamer parasol with a proud and weary air, as if so
great an effort must be soon abandoned and the parasol dropped, sauntered a much
younger lady, very handsome, very naughty, very wilful, who tossed her head and
drooped her eyelids, as though, if there were anything in all the world worth
looking into, save a mirror, it certainly was not the earth or sky.
    »Why, what the devil have we here, Sir!« cried the Major, stopping as this
little cavalcade drew near.
    »My dearest Edith!« drawled the lady in the chair, »Major Bagstock!«
    The Major no sooner heard the voice, than he relinquished Mr. Dombey's arm,
darted forward, took the hand of the lady in the chair and pressed it to his
lips. With no less gallantry, the Major folded both his gloves upon his heart,
and bowed low to the other lady. And now, the chair having stopped, the motive
power became visible in the shape of a flushed page pushing behind, who seemed
to have in part outgrown and in part out-pushed his strength, for when he stood
upright he was tall, and wan, and thin, and his plight appeared the more forlorn
from his having injured the shape of his hat, by butting at the carriage with
his head to urge it forward, as is sometimes done by elephants in Oriental
countries.
    »Joe Bagstock,« said the Major to both ladies, »is a proud and happy man for
the rest of his life.«
    »You false creature!« said the old lady in the chair, insipidly. »Where do
you come from? I can't bear you.«
    »Then suffer old Joe to present a friend, Ma'am,« said the Major, promptly,
»as a reason for being tolerated. Mr. Dombey, Mrs. Skewton.« The lady in the
chair was gracious. »Mr. Dombey, Mrs. Granger.« The lady with the parasol was
faintly conscious of Mr. Dombey's taking off his hat, and bowing low. »I am
delighted, Sir,« said the Major, »to have this opportunity.«
    The Major seemed in earnest, for he looked at all the three, and leered in
his ugliest manner.
    »Mrs. Skewton, Dombey,« said the Major, »makes havoc in the heart of old
Josh.«
    Mr. Dombey signified that he didn't wonder at it.
    »You perfidious goblin,« said the lady in the chair, »have done! How long
have you been here, bad man?«
    »One day,« replied the Major.
    »And can you be a day, or even a minute,« returned the lady, slightly
settling her false curls and false eyebrows with her fan, and showing her false
teeth, set off by her false complexion, »in the garden of what's-its-name -«
    »Eden, I suppose, Mama,« interrupted the younger lady, scornfully.
    »My dear Edith,« said the other, »I cannot help it. I never can remember
those frightful names - without having your whole Soul and Being inspired by the
sight of Nature; by the perfume,« said Mrs. Skewton, rustling a handkerchief
that was faint and sickly with essences, »of her artless breath, you creature!«
    The discrepancy between Mrs. Skewton's fresh enthusiasm of words, and
forlornly faded manner, was hardly less observable than that between her age,
which was about seventy, and her dress, which would have been youthful for
twenty-seven. Her attitude in the wheeled chair (which she never varied) was one
in which she had been taken in a barouche, some fifty years before, by a then
fashionable artist who had appended to his published sketch the name of
Cleopatra: in consequence of a discovery made by the critics of the time, that
it bore an exact resemblance to that Princess as she reclined on board her
galley. Mrs. Skewton was a beauty then, and bucks threw wine-glasses over their
heads by dozens in her honour. The beauty and the barouche had both passed away,
but she still preserved the attitude, and for this reason expressly, maintained
the wheeled chair and the butting page: there being nothing whatever, except the
attitude, to prevent her from walking.
    »Mr. Dombey is devoted to Nature, I trust?« said Mrs. Skewton, settling her
diamond brooch. And by the way, she chiefly lived upon the reputation of some
diamonds, and her family connections.
    »My friend Dombey, Ma'am,« returned the Major, »may be devoted to her in
secret, but a man who is paramount in the greatest city in the universe -«
    »No one can be a stranger,« said Mrs. Skewton, »to Mr. Dombey's immense
influence.«
    As Mr. Dombey acknowledged the compliment with a bend of his head, the
younger lady glancing at him, met his eyes.
    »You reside here, Madam?« said Mr. Dombey, addressing her.
    »No, we have been to a great many places. To Harrogate and Scarborough, and
into Devonshire. We have been visiting, and resting here and there. Mama likes
change.«
    »Edith of course does not,« said Mrs. Skewton, with a ghastly archness.
    »I have not found that there is any change in such places,« was the answer,
delivered with supreme indifference.
    »They libel me. There is only one change, Mr. Dombey,« observed Mrs.
Skewton, with a mincing sigh, »for which I really care, and that I fear I shall
never be permitted to enjoy. People cannot spare one. But seclusion and
contemplation are my what's-his-name -«
    »If you mean Paradise, Mama, you had better say so, to render yourself
intelligible,« said the younger lady.
    »My dearest Edith,« returned Mrs. Skewton, »you know that I am wholly
dependent upon you for those odious names. I assure you, Mr. Dombey, Nature
intended me for an Arcadian. I am thrown away in society. Cows are my passion.
What I have ever sighed for, has been to retreat to a Swiss farm, and live
entirely surrounded by cows - and china.«
    This curious association of objects, suggesting a remembrance of the
celebrated bull who got by mistake into a crockery shop, was received with
perfect gravity by Mr. Dombey, who intimated his opinion that Nature was, no
doubt, a very respectable institution.
    »What I want,« drawled Mrs. Skewton, pinching her shrivelled throat, »is
heart.« It was frightfully true in one sense, if not in that in which she used
the phrase. »What I want, is frankness, confidence, less conventionality, and
freer play of soul. We are so dreadfully artificial.«
    We were, indeed.
    »In short« said Mrs. Skewton, »I want Nature everywhere. It would be so
extremely charming.«
    »Nature is inviting us away now, Mama, if you are ready,« said the younger
lady, curling her handsome lip. At this hint, the wan page, who had been
surveying the party over the top of the chair, vanished behind it, as if the
ground had swallowed him up.
    »Stop a moment, Withers!« said Mrs. Skewton, as the chair began to move;
calling to the page with all the languid dignity with which she had called in
days of yore to a coachman with a wig, cauliflower nosegay, and silk stockings.
»Where are you staying, abomination?«
    The Major was staying at the Royal Hotel, with his friend Dombey.
    »You may come and see us any evening when you are good,« lisped Mrs.
Skewton. »If Mr. Dombey will honour us, we shall be happy. Withers, go on!«
    The Major again pressed to his blue lips the tips of the fingers that were
disposed on the ledge of the wheeled chair with careful carelessness, after the
Cleopatra model: and Mr. Dombey bowed. The elder lady honoured them both with a
very gracious smile and a girlish wave of her hand; the younger lady with the
very slightest inclination of her head that common courtesy allowed.
    The last glimpse of the wrinkled face of the mother, with that patched
colour on it which the sun made infinitely more haggard and dismal than any want
of colour could have been, and of the proud beauty of the daughter with her
graceful figure and erect deportment, engendered such an involuntary disposition
on the part of both the Major and Mr. Dombey to look after them, that they both
turned at the same moment. The Page, nearly as much aslant as his own shadow,
was toiling after the chair, uphill, like a slow battering-ram; the top of
Cleopatra's bonnet was fluttering in exactly the same corner to the inch as
before; and the Beauty, loitering by herself a little in advance, expressed in
all her elegant form, from head to foot, the same supreme disregard of
everything and everybody.
    »I tell you what, Sir,« said the Major, as they resumed their walk again.
»If Joe Bagstock were a younger man, there's not a woman in the world whom he'd
prefer for Mrs. Bagstock to that woman. By George, Sir!« said the Major, »she's
superb!«
    »Do you mean the daughter?« inquired Mr. Dombey.
    »Is Joey B. a turnip, Dombey,« said the Major, »that he should mean the
mother!«
    »You were complimentary to the mother,« returned Mr. Dombey.
    »An ancient flame, Sir,« chuckled Major Bagstock. »Devilish ancient. I
humour her.«
    »She impresses me as being perfectly genteel,« said Mr. Dombey.
    »Genteel, Sir,« said the Major, stopping short, and staring in his
companion's face. »The Honourable Mrs. Skewton, Sir, is sister to the late Lord
Feenix, and aunt to the present Lord. The family are not wealthy - they're poor,
indeed - and she lives upon a small jointure; but if you come to blood, Sir!«
The Major gave a flourish with his stick and walked on again, in despair of
being able to say what you came to, if you came to that.
    »You addressed the daughter, I observed,« said Mr. Dombey, after a short
pause, »as Mrs. Granger.«
    »Edith Skewton, Sir,« returned the Major, stopping short again, and punching
a mark in the ground with his cane, to represent her, »married (at eighteen)
Granger of Ours;« whom the Major indicated by another punch. »Granger, Sir,«
said the Major, tapping the last ideal portrait, and rolling his head
emphatically, »Colonel of Ours; a de-vilish handsome fellow, Sir, of forty-one.
He died, Sir, in the second year of his marriage.« The Major ran the
representative of the deceased Granger through and through the body with his
walking-stick, and went on again, carrying his stick over his shoulder.
    »How long is this ago?« asked Mr. Dombey, making another halt.
    »Edith Granger, Sir,« replied the Major, shutting one eye, putting his head
on one side, passing his cane into his left hand, and smoothing his shirt-frill
with his right, »is, at this present time, not quite thirty. And, damme, Sir,«
said the Major, shouldering his stick once more, and walking on again, »she's a
peerless woman!«
    »Was there any family?« asked Mr. Dombey presently.
    »Yes, Sir,« said the Major. »There was a boy.«
    Mr. Dombey's eyes sought the ground, and a shade came over his face.
    »Who was drowned, Sir,« pursued the Major. »When a child of four or five
years old.«
    »Indeed?« said Mr. Dombey, raising his head.
    »By the upsetting of a boat in which his nurse had no business to have put
him,« said the Major. »That's his history. Edith Granger is Edith Granger still;
but if tough old Joey B., Sir, were a little younger and a little richer, the
name of that immortal paragon should be Bagstock.«
    The Major heaved his shoulders, and his cheeks, and laughed more like an
over-fed Mephistopheles than ever, as he said the words.
    »Provided the lady made no objection, I suppose?« said Mr. Dombey coldly.
    »By Gad, Sir,« said the Major, »the Bagstock breed are not accustomed to
that sort of obstacle. Though it's true enough that Edith might have married
twen-ty times, but for being proud, Sir, proud.«
    Mr. Dombey seemed, by his face, to think no worse of her for that.
    »It's a great quality after all,« said the Major. »By the Lord, it's a high
quality! Dombey! You are proud yourself, and your friend, Old Joe, respects you
for it, Sir.«
    With this tribute to the character of his ally, which seemed to be wrung
from him by the force of circumstances and the irresistible tendency of their
conversation, the Major closed the subject, and glided into a general exposition
of the extent to which he had been beloved and doted on by splendid women and
brilliant creatures.
    On the next day but one, Mr. Dombey and the Major encountered the Honourable
Mrs. Skewton and her daughter in the Pump-room; on the day after, they met them
again very near the place where they had met them first. After meeting them
thus, three or four times in all, it became a point of mere civility to old
acquaintances that the Major should go there one evening. Mr. Dombey had not
originally intended to pay visits, but on the Major announcing this intention,
he said he would have the pleasure of accompanying him. So the Major told the
Native to go round before dinner, and say, with his and Mr. Dombey's
compliments, that they would have the honour of visiting the ladies that same
evening, if the ladies were alone. In answer to which message, the Native
brought back a very small note with a very large quantity of scent about it,
indited by the Honourable Mrs. Skewton to Major Bagstock, and briefly saying,
»You are a shocking bear, and I have a great mind not to forgive you, but if you
are very good indeed,« which was underlined, »you may come. Compliments (in
which Edith unites) to Mr. Dombey.«
    The Honourable Mrs. Skewton and her daughter, Mrs. Granger, resided, while
at Leamington, in lodgings that were fashionable enough and dear enough, but
rather limited in point of space and conveniences; so that the Honourable Mrs.
Skewton, being in bed, had her feet in the window and her head in the fireplace,
while the Honourable Mrs. Skewton's maid was quartered in a closet within the
drawing-room, so extremely small, that, to avoid developing the whole of its
accommodations, she was obliged to writhe in and out of the door like a
beautiful serpent. Withers, the wan page, slept out of the house immediately
under the tiles at a neighbouring milk-shop; and the wheeled chair, which was
the stone of that young Sisyphus, passed the night in a shed belonging to the
same dairy, where new-laid eggs were produced by the poultry connected with the
establishment, who roosted on a broken donkey-cart, persuaded, to all
appearance, that it grew there, and was a species of tree.
    Mr. Dombey and the Major found Mrs. Skewton arranged, as Cleopatra, among
the cushions of a sofa: very airily dressed; and certainly not resembling
Shakespeare's Cleopatra, whom age could not wither. On their way up stairs they
had heard the sound of a harp, but it had ceased on their being announced, and
Edith now stood beside it handsomer and haughtier than ever. It was a remarkable
characteristic of this lady's beauty that it appeared to vaunt and assert itself
without her aid, and against her will. She knew that she was beautiful: it was
impossible that it could be otherwise: but she seemed with her own pride to defy
her very self.
    Whether she held cheap, attractions that could only call forth admiration
that was worthless to her, or whether she designed to render them more precious
to admirers by this usage of them, those to whom they were precious seldom
paused to consider.
    »I hope, Mrs. Granger,« said Mr. Dombey, advancing a step towards her, »we
are not the cause of your ceasing to play?«
    »You? oh no!«
    »Why do you not go on then, my dearest Edith?« said Cleopatra.
    »I left off as I began - of my own fancy.«
    The exquisite indifference of her manner in saying this: an indifference
quite removed from dullness or insensibility, for it was pointed with proud
purpose: was well set off by the carelessness with which she drew her hand
across the strings, and came from that part of the room.
    »Do you know, Mr. Dombey,« said her languishing mother, playing with a
hand-screen, »that occasionally my dearest Edith and myself actually almost
differ -«
    »Not quite, sometimes, Mama?« said Edith.
    »Oh never quite, my darling! Fie, fie, it would break my heart,« returned
her mother, making a faint attempt to pat her with the screen, which Edith made
no movement to meet, »- about these cold conventionalities of manner that are
observed in little things? Why are we not more natural? Dear me! With all those
yearnings, and gushings, and impulsive throbbings that we have implanted in our
souls, and which are so very charming, why are we not more natural?«
    Mr. Dombey said it was very true, very true.
    »We could be more natural I suppose if we tried?« said Mrs. Skewton.
    Mr. Dombey thought it possible.
    »Devil a bit, Ma'am,« said the Major. »We couldn't afford it. Unless the
world was peopled with J. B.'s - tough and blunt old Joes, Ma'am, plain red
herrings with hard roes, Sir - we couldn't afford it. It wouldn't do.«
    »You naughty Infidel,« said Mrs. Skewton, »be mute.«
    »Cleopatra commands,« returned the Major, kissing his hand, »and Antony
Bagstock obeys.«
    »The man has no sensitiveness,« said Mrs. Skewton, cruelly holding up the
hand-screen so as to shut the Major out. »No sympathy. And what do we live for
but sympathy! What else is so extremely charming! Without that gleam of sunshine
on our cold cold earth,« said Mrs. Skewton, arranging her lace tucker, and
complacently observing the effect of her bare lean arm, looking upward from the
wrist, »how could we possibly bear it? In short, obdurate man!« glancing at the
Major, round the screen, »I would have my world all heart; and Faith is so
excessively charming, that I won't allow you to disturb it, do you hear?«
    The Major replied that it was hard in Cleopatra to require the world to be
all heart, and yet to appropriate to herself the hearts of all the world; which
obliged Cleopatra to remind him that flattery was insupportable to her, and that
if he had the boldness to address her in that strain any more, she would
positively send him home.
    Withers the Wan, at this period, handing round the tea, Mr. Dombey again
addressed himself to Edith.
    »There is not much company here, it would seem?« said Mr. Dombey, in his own
portentous gentlemanly way.
    »I believe not. We see none.«
    »Why really,« observed Mrs. Skewton from her couch; »there are no people
here just now with whom we care to associate.«
    »They have not enough heart,« said Edith, with a smile. The very twilight of
a smile: so singularly were its light and darkness blended.
    »My dearest Edith rallies me, you see!« said her mother, shaking her head:
which shook a little of itself sometimes, as if the palsy twinkled now and then
in opposition to the diamonds. »Wicked one!«
    »You have been here before, if I am not mistaken?« said Mr. Dombey. Still to
Edith.
    »Oh, several times. I think we have been everywhere.«
    »A beautiful country!«
    »I suppose it is. Everybody says so.«
    »Your cousin Feenix raves about it, Edith,« interposed her mother from her
couch.
    The daughter slightly turned her graceful head, and raising her eyebrows by
a hair's-breadth, as if her cousin Feenix were of all the mortal world the least
to be regarded, turned her eyes again towards Mr. Dombey.
    »I hope, for the credit of my good taste, that I am tired of the
neighbourhood,« she said.
    »You have almost reason to be, Madam,« he replied, glancing at a variety of
landscape drawings, of which he had already recognised several as representing
neighbouring points of view, and which were strewn abundantly about the room,
»if these beautiful productions are from your hand.«
    She gave him no reply, but sat in a disdainful beauty, quite amazing.
    »Have they that interest?« said Mr. Dombey. »Are they yours?«
    »Yes.«
    »And you play, I already know.«
    »Yes.«
    »And sing?«
    »Yes.«
    She answered all these questions, with a strange reluctance; and with that
remarkable air of opposition to herself, already noticed as belonging to her
beauty. Yet she was not embarrassed, but wholly self-possessed. Neither did she
seem to wish to avoid the conversation, for she addressed her face, and - so far
as she could - her manner also, to him; and continued to do so, when he was
silent.
    »You have many resources against weariness at least,« said Mr. Dombey.
    »Whatever their efficiency may be,« she returned, »you know them all now. I
have no more.«
    »May I hope to prove them all?« said Mr. Dombey, with solemn gallantry,
laying down a drawing he had held, and motioning towards the harp.
    »Oh certainly! If you desire it!«
    She rose as she spoke, and crossing by her mother's couch, and directing a
stately look towards her, which was instantaneous in its duration, but inclusive
(if any one had seen it) of a multitude of expressions, among which that of the
twilight smile, without the smile itself, overshadowed all the rest, went out of
the room.
    The Major, who was quite forgiven by this time, had wheeled a little table
up to Cleopatra, and was sitting down to play picquet with her. Mr. Dombey, not
knowing the game, sat down to watch them for his edification until Edith should
return.
    »We are going to have some music, Mr. Dombey, I hope?« said Cleopatra.
    »Mrs. Granger has been kind enough to promise so,« said Mr. Dombey.
    »Ah! That's very nice. Do you propose, Major?«
    »No, Ma'am,« said the Major. »Couldn't do it«
    »You are a barbarous being,« replied the lady, »and my hand's destroyed. You
are fond of music, Mr. Dombey?«
    »Eminently so,« was Mr. Dombey's answer.
    »Yes. It's very nice,« said Cleopatra, looking at her cards. »So much heart
in it - undeveloped recollections of a previous state of existence - and all
that - which is so truly charming. Do you know,« simpered Cleopatra, reversing
the knave of clubs, who had come into her game with his heels uppermost, »that
if anything could tempt me to put a period to my life, it would be curiosity to
find out what it's all about, and what it means; there are so many provoking
mysteries, really, that are hidden from us. Major, you to play.«
    The Major played; and Mr. Dombey, looking on for his instruction, would soon
have been in a state of dire confusion, but that he gave no attention to the
game whatever, and sat wondering instead when Edith would come back.
    She came at last, and sat down to her harp, and Mr. Dombey rose and stood
beside her, listening. He had little taste for music, and no knowledge of the
strain she played, but he saw her bending over it, and perhaps he heard among
the sounding strings some distant music of his own, that tamed the monster of
the iron road, and made it less inexorable.
    Cleopatra had a sharp eye, verily, at picquet. It glistened like a bird's,
and did not fix itself upon the game, but pierced the room from end to end, and
gleamed on harp, performer, listener, everything.
    When the haughty beauty had concluded, she arose, and receiving Mr. Dombey's
thanks and compliments in exactly the same manner as before, went with scarcely
any pause to the piano, and began there.
    Edith Granger, any song but that! Edith Granger, you are very handsome, and
your touch upon the keys is brilliant, and your voice is deep and rich; but not
the air that his neglected daughter sang to his dead son!
    Alas, he knows it not; and if he did, what air of hers would stir him, rigid
man! Sleep, lonely Florence, sleep! Peace in thy dreams, although the night has
turned dark, and the clouds are gathering, and threaten to discharge themselves
in hail!
 

                                  Chapter XXII

               A Trifle of Management by Mr. Carker the Manager.

Mr. Carker the Manager sat at his desk, smooth and soft as usual, reading those
letters which were reserved for him to open, backing them occasionally with such
memoranda and references as their business purport required, and parcelling them
out into little heaps for distribution through the several departments of the
House. The post had come in heavy that morning, and Mr. Carker the Manager had a
good deal to do.
    The general action of a man so engaged - pausing to look over a bundle of
papers in his hand, dealing them round in various portions, taking up another
bundle and examining its contents with knitted brows and pursed-out lips -
dealing, and sorting, and pondering by turns - would easily suggest some
whimsical resemblance to a player at cards. The face of Mr. Carker the Manager
was in good keeping with such a fancy. It was the face of a man who studied his
play, warily: who made himself master of all the strong and weak points of the
game: who registered the cards in his mind as they fell about him, knew exactly
what was on them, what they missed, and what they made: who was crafty to find
out what the other players held, and who never betrayed his own hand.
    The letters were in various languages, but Mr. Carker the Manager read them
all. If there had been anything in the offices of Dombey and Son that he could
not read, there would have been a card wanting in the pack. He read almost at a
glance, and made combinations of one letter with another and one business with
another as he went on, adding new matter to the heaps - much as a man would know
the cards at sight, and work out their combinations in his mind after they were
turned. Something too deep for a partner, and much too deep for an adversary,
Mr. Carker the Manager sat in the rays of the sun that came down slanting on him
through the skylight, playing his game alone.
    And although it is not among the instincts wild or domestic of the cat tribe
to play at cards, feline from sole to crown was Mr. Carker the Manager, as he
basked in the strip of summer-light and warmth that shone upon his table and the
ground as if they were a crooked dial-plate, and himself the only figure on it.
With hair and whiskers deficient in colour at all times, but feebler than common
in the rich sunshine, and more like the coat of a sandy tortoise-shell cat; with
long nails, nicely pared and sharpened; with a natural antipathy to any speck of
dirt, which made him pause sometimes and watch the falling motes of dust, and
rub them off his smooth white hand or glossy linen: Mr. Carker the Manager, sly
of manner, sharp of tooth, soft of foot, watchful of eye, oily of tongue, cruel
of heart, nice of habit, sat with a dainty steadfastness and patience at his
work, as if he were waiting at a mouse's hole.
    At length the letters were disposed of, excepting one which he reserved for
a particular audience. Having locked the more confidential correspondence in a
drawer, Mr. Carker the Manager rang his bell.
    »Why do you answer it?« was his reception of his brother.
    »The messenger is out, and I am the next,« was the submissive reply.
    »You are the next?« muttered the Manager. »Yes! Creditable to me! There!«
    Pointing to the heaps of opened letters, he turned disdainfully away, in his
elbow-chair, and broke the seal of that one which he held in his hand.
    »I am sorry to trouble you, James,« said the brother, gathering them up,
»but -«
    »Oh! you have something to say. I knew that. Well?«
    Mr. Carker the Manager did not raise his eyes or turn them on his brother,
but kept them on his letter, though without opening it.
    »Well?« he repeated sharply.
    »I am uneasy about Harriet.«
    »Harriet who? what Harriet? I know nobody of that name.«
    »She is not well, and has changed very much of late.«
    »She changed very much, a great many years ago,« replied the Manager; »and
that is all I have to say.«
    »I think if you would hear me -«
    »Why should I hear you, Brother John?« returned the Manager, laying a
sarcastic emphasis on those two words, and throwing up his head, but not lifting
his eyes. »I tell you, Harriet Carker made her choice many years ago between her
two brothers. She may repent it, but she must abide by it.«
    »Don't mistake me. I do not say she does repent it. It would be black
ingratitude in me to hint at such a thing,« returned the other. »Though believe
me, James, I am as sorry for her sacrifice as you.«
    »As I?« exclaimed the Manager. »As I?«
    »As sorry for her choice - for what you call her choice - as you are angry
at it,« said the Junior.
    »Angry?« repeated the other, with a wide show of his teeth.
    »Displeased. Whatever word you like best. You know my meaning. There is no
offence in my intention.«
    »There is offence in everything you do,« replied his brother, glancing at
him with a sudden scowl, which in a moment gave place to a wider smile than the
last. »Carry those papers away, if you please. I am busy.«
    His politeness was so much more cutting than his wrath, that the Junior went
to the door. But stopping at it, and looking round, he said:
    »When Harriet tried in vain to plead for me with you, on your first just
indignation, and my first disgrace; and when she left you, James, to follow my
broken fortunes, and devote herself, in her mistaken affection, to a ruined
brother, because without her he had no one, and was lost; she was young and
pretty. I think if you could see her now - if you would go and see her - she
would move your admiration and compassion.«
    The Manager inclined his head, and showed his teeth, as who should say, in
answer to some careless small-talk, »Dear me! Is that the case?« but said never
a word.
    »We thought in those days: you and I both: that she would marry young, and
lead a happy and light-hearted life,« pursued the other. »Oh if you knew how
cheerfully she cast those hopes away; how cheerfully she has gone forward on the
path she took, and never once looked back; you never could say again that her
name was strange in your ears. Never!«
    Again the Manager inclined his head, and showed his teeth, and seemed to
say, »Remarkable indeed! You quite surprise me!« And again he uttered never a
word.
    »May I go on?« said John Carker, mildly.
    »On your way?« replied his smiling brother. »If you will have the goodness.«
    John Carker, with a sigh, was passing slowly out at the door, when his
brother's voice detained him for a moment on the threshold.
    »If she has gone, and goes, her own way cheerfully,« he said, throwing the
still unfolded letter on his desk, and putting his hands firmly in his pockets,
»you may tell her that I go as cheerfully on mine. If she has never once looked
back, you may tell her that I have, sometimes, to recall her taking part with
you, and that my resolution is no easier to wear away;« he smiled very sweetly
here; »than marble.«
    »I tell her nothing of you. We never speak about you. Once a year, on your
birthday, Harriet says always, Let us remember James by name, and wish him
happy, but we say no more.«
    »Tell it then, if you please,« returned the other, »to yourself. You can't
repeat it too often, as a lesson to you to avoid the subject in speaking to me.
I know no Harriet Carker. There is no such person. You may have a sister; make
much of her. I have none.«
    Mr. Carker the Manager took up the letter again, and waved it with a smile
of mock courtesy towards the door. Unfolding it as his brother withdrew, and
looking darkly after him as he left the room, he once more turned round in his
elbow-chair, and applied himself to a diligent perusal of its contents.
    It was in the writing of his great chief, Mr. Dombey, and dated from
Leamington. Though he was a quick reader of all other letters, Mr. Carker read
this slowly; weighing the words as he went, and bringing every tooth in his head
to bear upon them. When he had read it through once, he turned it over again,
and picked out these passages. »I find myself benefited by the change, and am
not yet inclined to name any time for my return.« »I wish, Carker, you would
arrange to come down once and see me here, and let me know how things are going
on, in person.« »I omitted to speak to you about young Gay. If not gone per Son
and Heir, or if Son and Heir still lying in the Docks, appoint some other young
man and keep him in the City for the present. I am not decided.« »Now that's
unfortunate!« said Mr. Carker the Manager, expanding his mouth, as if it were
made of India-rubber: »for he is far away.«
    Still that passage, which was in a postscript, attracted his attention and
his teeth, once more.
    »I think,« he said, »my good friend Captain Cuttle mentioned something about
being towed along in the wake of that day. What a pity he's so far away!«
    He refolded the letter, and was sitting trifling with it, standing it
long-wise and broad-wise on his table, and turning it over and over on all sides
- doing pretty much the same thing, perhaps, by its contents - when Mr. Perch
the messenger knocked softly at the door, and coming in on tiptoe, bending his
body at every step as if it were the delight of his life to bow, laid some
papers on the table.
    »Would you please to be engaged, Sir?« asked Mr. Perch, rubbing his hands,
and deferentially putting his head on one side, like a man who felt he had no
business to hold it up in such a presence, and would keep it as much out of the
way as possible.
    »Who wants me?«
    »Why, Sir,« said Mr. Perch, in a soft voice, »really nobody, Sir, to speak
of at present. Mr. Gills the Ship's Instrument-maker, Sir, has looked in, about
a little matter of payment, he says: but I mentioned to him, Sir, that you was
engaged several deep; several deep.«
    Mr. Perch coughed once behind his hand, and waited for further orders.
    »Anybody else?«
    »Well, Sir,« said Mr. Perch, »I wouldn't of my own self take the liberty of
mentioning, Sir, that there was anybody else; but that same young lad that was
here yesterday, Sir, and last week, has been hanging about the place; and it
looks, Sir,« added Mr. Perch, stopping to shut the door, »dreadful
unbusiness-like to see him whistling to the sparrows down the court, and making
of 'em answer him.«
    »You said he wanted something to do, didn't you, Perch?« asked Mr. Carker,
leaning back in his chair and looking at that officer.
    »Why, Sir,« said Mr. Perch, coughing behind his hand again, »his expression
certainly were that he was in wants of a sitiwation, and that he considered
something might be done for him about the Docks, being used to fishing with a
rod and line: but -« Mr. Perch shook his head very dubiously indeed.
    »What does he say when he comes?« asked Mr. Carker.
    »Indeed, Sir,« said Mr. Perch, coughing another cough behind his hand, which
was always his resource as an expression of humility when nothing else occurred
to him, »his observation generally air that he would humbly wish to see one of
the gentlemen, and that he wants to earn a living. But you see, Sir,« added
Perch, dropping his voice to a whisper, and turning, in the inviolable nature of
his confidence, to give the door a thrust with his hand and knee, as if that
would shut it any more when it was shut already, »it's hardly to be bore, Sir,
that a common lad like that should come a prowling here, and saying that his
mother nursed our House's young gentleman, and that he hopes our House will give
him a chance on that account. I am sure, Sir,« observed Mr. Perch, »that
although Mrs. Perch was at that time nursing as thriving a little girl, Sir, as
we've ever took the liberty of adding to our family, I wouldn't have made so
free as drop a hint of her being capable of imparting nourishment, not if it was
never so!«
    Mr. Carker grinned at him like a shark, but in an absent, thoughtful manner.
    »Whether,« submitted Mr. Perch, after a short silence, and another cough,
»it mightn't be best for me to tell him, that if he was seen here any more he
would be given into custody; and to keep to it! With respect to bodily fear,«
said Mr. Perch, »I'm so timid, myself, by nature, Sir, and my nerves is so
unstrung by Mrs. Perch's state, that I could take my affidavit easy.«
    »Let me see this fellow, Perch,« said Mr. Carker. »Bring him in!«
    »Yes, Sir. Begging your pardon, Sir,« said Mr. Perch, hesitating at the
door, »he's rough, Sir, in appearance.«
    »Never mind. If he's there, bring him in. I'll see Mr. Gills directly. Ask
him to wait.«
    Mr. Perch bowed; and shutting the door, as precisely and carefully as if he
were not coming back for a week, went on his quest among the sparrows in the
court. While he was gone, Mr. Carker assumed his favourite attitude before the
fireplace, and stood looking at the door; presenting, with his under lip tucked
into the smile that showed his whole row of upper teeth, a singularly crouching
appearance.
    The messenger was not long in returning, followed by a pair of heavy boots
that came bumping along the passage like boxes. With the unceremonious words
»Come along with you!« - a very unusual form of introduction from his lips - Mr.
Perch then ushered into the presence a strong-built lad of fifteen, with a round
red face, a round sleek head, round black eyes, round limbs, and round body,
who, to carry out the general rotundity of his appearance, had a round hat in
his hand, without a particle of brim to it.
    Obedient to a nod from Mr. Carker, Perch had no sooner confronted the
visitor with that gentleman than he withdrew. The moment they were face to face
alone, Mr. Carker, without a word of preparation, took him by the throat, and
shook him until his head seemed loose upon his shoulders.
    The boy, who in the midst of his astonishment could not help staring wildly
at the gentleman with so many white teeth who was choking him, and at the office
walls, as though determined, if he were choked, that his last look should be at
the mysteries for his intrusion into which he was paying such a severe penalty,
at last contrived to utter -
    »Come, Sir! You let me alone, will you!«
    »Let you alone!« said Mr. Carker. »What! I have got you, have I?« There was
no doubt of that, and tightly too. »You dog,« said Mr. Carker, through his set
jaws, »I'll strangle you!«
    Biler whimpered, would he though? oh no he wouldn't - and what was he doing
of - and why didn't he strangle somebody of his own size and not him: but Biler
was quelled by the extraordinary nature of his reception, and, as his head
became stationary, and he looked the gentleman in the face, or rather in the
teeth, and saw him snarling at him, he so far forgot his manhood as to cry.
    »I haven't done nothing to you, Sir,« said Biler, otherwise Rob, otherwise
Grinder, and always Toodle.
    »You young scoundrel!« replied Mr. Carker, slowly releasing him, and moving
back a step into his favourite position. »What do you mean by daring to come
here?«
    »I didn't mean no harm, Sir,« whimpered Rob, putting one hand to his throat,
and the knuckles of the other to his eyes. »I'll never come again, Sir. I only
wanted work.«
    »Work, young Cain that you are!« repeated Mr. Carker, eyeing him narrowly.
»An't you the idlest vagabond in London?«
    The impeachment, while it much affected Mr. Toodle Junior, attached to his
character so justly, that he could not say a word in denial. He stood looking at
the gentleman, therefore, with a frightened, self-convicted, and remorseful air.
As to his looking at him, it may be observed that he was fascinated by Mr.
Carker, and never took his round eyes off him for an instant.
    »An't you a thief?« said Mr. Carker, with his hands behind him in his
pockets.
    »No, Sir,« pleaded Rob.
    »You are!« said Mr. Carker.
    »I an't indeed, Sir,« whimpered Rob. »I never did such a thing as thieve,
Sir, if you'll believe me. I know I've been going wrong, Sir, ever since I took
to bird-catching and walking-matching. I'm sure a cove might think,« said Mr.
Toodle Junior, with a burst of penitence, »that singing birds was innocent
company, but nobody knows what harm is in them little creeturs and what they
brings you down to.«
    They seemed to have brought him down to a velveteen jacket and trousers very
much the worse for wear, a particularly small red waistcoat like a gorget, an
interval of blue check, and the hat before mentioned.
    »I an't been home twenty times since them birds got their will of me,« said
Rob, »and that's ten months. How can I go home when everybody's miserable to see
me! I wonder,« said Biler, blubbering outright, and smearing his eyes with his
coat-cuff, »that I haven't been and drowned myself over and over again.«
    All of which, including his expression of surprise at not having achieved
this last scarce performance, the boy said, just as if the teeth of Mr. Carker
drew it out of him, and he had no power of concealing anything with that battery
of attraction in full play.
    »You're a nice young gentleman!« said Mr. Carker, shaking his head at him.
»There's hemp-seed sown for you, my fine fellow!«
    »I'm sure, Sir,« returned the wretched Biler, blubbering again, and again
having recourse to his coat-cuff: »I shouldn't care, sometimes, if it was growed
too. My misfortunes all began in wagging, Sir; but what could I do, exceptin'
wag?«
    »Excepting what?« said Mr. Carker.
    »Wag, Sir. Wagging from school.«
    »Do you mean pretending to go there, and not going?« said Mr. Carker.
    »Yes, Sir, that's wagging, Sir,« returned the quondam Grinder, much
affected. »I was chivied through the streets, Sir, when I went there, and
pounded when I got there. So I wagged and hid myself, and that began it.«
    »And you mean to tell me,« said Mr. Carker, taking him by the throat again,
holding him out at arm's-length, and surveying him in silence for some moments,
»that you want a place, do you?«
    »I should be thankful to be tried, Sir,« returned Toodle Junior, faintly.
    Mr. Carker the Manager pushed him backward into a corner - the boy
submitting quietly, hardly venturing to breathe, and never once removing his
eyes from his face - and rang the bell.
    »Tell Mr. Gills to come here.«
    Mr. Perch was too deferential to express surprise or recognition of the
figure in the corner: and Uncle Sol appeared immediately.
    »Mr. Gills!« said Carker, with a smile, »sit down. How do you do? You
continue to enjoy your health, I hope?«
    »Thank you, Sir,« returned Uncle Sol, taking out his pocket-book, and
handing over some notes as he spoke. »Nothing ails me in body but old age.
Twenty-five, Sir.«
    »You are as punctual and exact, Mr. Gills,« replied the smiling Manager,
taking a paper from one of his many drawers, and making an indorsement on it,
while Uncle Sol looked over him, »as one of your own chronometers. Quite right.«
    »The Son and Heir has not been spoken, I find by the list, Sir,« said Uncle
Sol, with a slight addition to the usual tremor in his voice.
    »The Son and Heir has not been spoken,« returned Carker. »There seems to
have been tempestuous weather, Mr. Gills, and she has probably been driven out
of her course.«
    »She is safe, I trust in Heaven!« said old Sol.
    »She is safe, I trust in Heaven!« assented Mr. Carker in that voiceless
manner of his: which made the observant young Toodle tremble again. »Mr. Gills,«
he added aloud, throwing himself back in his chair, »you must miss your nephew
very much?«
    Uncle Sol, standing by him, shook his head and heaved a deep sigh.
    »Mr. Gills,« said Carker, with his soft hand playing round his mouth, and
looking up into the Instrument-maker's face, »it would be company to you to have
a young fellow in your shop just now, and it would be obliging me if you would
give one house-room for the present. No, to be sure,« he added quickly, in
anticipation of what the old man was going to say, »there's not much business
doing there, I know; but you can make him clean the place out, polish up the
instruments; drudge, Mr. Gills. That's the lad!«
    Sol Gills pulled down his spectacles from his forehead to his eyes, and
looked at Toodle Junior standing upright in the corner: his head presenting the
appearance (which it always did) of having been newly drawn out of a bucket of
cold water; his small waistcoat rising and falling quickly in the play of his
emotions; and his eyes intently fixed on Mr. Carker, without the least reference
to his proposed master.
    »Will you give him house-room, Mr. Gills?« said the Manager.
    Old Sol, without being quite enthusiastic on the subject, replied that he
was glad of any opportunity, however slight, to oblige Mr. Carker, whose wish on
such a point was a command: and that the Wooden Midshipman would consider
himself happy to receive in his berth any visitor of Mr. Carker's selecting.
    Mr. Carker bared himself to the tops and bottoms of his gums: making the
watchful Toodle Junior tremble more and more: and acknowledged the
Instrument-maker's politeness in his most affable manner.
    »I'll dispose of him so, then, Mr. Gills,« he answered, rising, and shaking
the old man by the hand, »until I make up my mind what to do with him, and what
he deserves. As I consider myself responsible for him, Mr. Gills,« here he
smiled a wide smile at Rob, who shook before it: »I shall be glad if you'll look
sharply after him, and report his behaviour to me. I'll ask a question or two of
his parents as I ride home this afternoon - respectable people - to confirm some
particulars in his own account of himself; and that done, Mr. Gills, I'll send
him round to you to-morrow morning. Good-bye!«
    His smile at parting was so full of teeth, that it confused old Sol, and
made him vaguely uncomfortable. He went home, thinking of raging seas,
foundering ships, drowning men, an ancient bottle of Madeira never brought to
light, and other dismal matter.
    »Now, boy!« said Mr. Carker, putting his hand on young Toodle's shoulder,
and bringing him out into the middle of the room. »You have heard me?«
    Rob said, »Yes, Sir.«
    »Perhaps you understand,« pursued his patron, »that if you ever deceive or
play tricks with me, you had better have drowned yourself, indeed, once for all,
before you came here?«
    There was nothing in any branch of mental acquisition that Rob seemed to
understand better than that.
    »If you have lied to me,« said Mr. Carker, »in anything, never come in my
way again. If not, you may let me find you waiting for me somewhere near your
mother's house this afternoon. I shall leave this at five o'clock, and ride
there on horseback. Now, give me the address.«
    Rob repeated it slowly, as Mr. Carker wrote it down. Rob, even spelt it over
a second time, letter by letter, as if he thought that the omission of a dot or
scratch would lead to his destruction. Mr. Carker then handed him out of the
room; and Rob, keeping his round eyes fixed upon his patron to the last,
vanished for the time being.
    Mr. Carker the Manager did a great deal of business in the course of the
day, and bestowed his teeth upon a great many people. In the office, in the
court, in the street, and on 'Change, they glistened and bristled to a terrible
extent. Five o'clock arriving, and with it Mr. Carker's bay horse, they got on
horseback, and went gleaming up Cheapside.
    As no one can easily ride fast, even if inclined to do so, through the press
and throng of the City at that hour, and as Mr. Carker was not inclined, he went
leisurely along, picking his way among the carts and carriages, avoiding
whenever he could the wetter and more dirty places in the over-watered road, and
taking infinite pains to keep himself and his steed clean. Glancing at the
passers-by while he was thus ambling on his way, he suddenly encountered the
round eyes of the sleek-headed Rob intently fixed upon his face as if they had
never been taken off, while the boy himself, with a pocket-handkerchief twisted
up like a speckled eel and girded round his waist, made a very conspicuous
demonstration of being prepared to attend upon him, at whatever pace he might
think proper to go.
    This attention, however flattering, being one of an unusual kind, and
attracting some notice from the other passengers, Mr. Carker took advantage of a
clearer thoroughfare and a cleaner road, and broke into a trot. Rob immediately
did the same. Mr. Carker presently tried a canter; Rob was still in attendance.
Then a short gallop; it was all one to the boy. Whenever Mr. Carker turned his
eyes to that side of the road, he still saw Toodle Junior holding his course,
apparently without distress, and working himself along by the elbows after the
most approved manner of professional gentlemen who get over the ground for
wagers.
    Ridiculous as this attendance was, it was a sign of an influence established
over the boy, and therefore Mr. Carker, affecting not to notice it, rode away
into the neighbourhood of Mr. Toodle's house. On his slackening his pace here,
Rob appeared before him to point out the turnings; and when he called to a man
at a neighbouring gateway to hold his horse, pending his visit to the Buildings
that had succeeded Staggs's Gardens, Rob dutifully held the stirrup, while the
Manager dismounted.
    »Now, Sir,« said Mr. Carker, taking him by the shoulder, »come along!«
    The prodigal son was evidently nervous of visiting the parental abode; but
Mr. Carker pushing him on before, he had nothing for it but to open the right
door, and suffer himself to be walked into the midst of his brothers and
sisters, mustered in overwhelming force round the family tea-table. At sight of
the prodigal in the grasp of a stranger, these tender relations united in a
general howl, which smote upon the prodigal's breast so sharply when he saw his
mother stand up among them, pale and trembling, with the baby in her arms, that
he lent his own voice to the chorus.
    Nothing doubting now that the stranger, if not Mr. Ketch in person, was one
of that company, the whole of the young family wailed the louder, while its more
infantine members, unable to control the transports of emotion appertaining to
their time of life, threw themselves on their backs like young birds when
terrified by a hawk, and kicked violently. At length, poor Polly making herself
audible, said, with quivering lips, »Oh Rob, my poor boy, what have you done at
last!«
    »Nothing, mother,« cried Rob, in a piteous voice, »ask the gentleman!«
    »Don't be alarmed,« said Mr. Carker, »I want to do him good.«
    At this announcement, Polly, who had not cried yet, began to do so. The
elder Toodles, who appeared to have been meditating a rescue, unclenched their
fists. The younger Toodles clustered round their mother's gown, and peeped from
under their own chubby arms at their desperado brother and his unknown friend.
Everybody blessed the gentleman with the beautiful teeth, who wanted to do good.
    »This fellow,« said Mr. Carker to Polly, giving him a gentle shake, »is your
son, eh, Ma'am?«
    »Yes, Sir,« sobbed Polly, with a curtsey; »yes, Sir.«
    »A bad son, I am afraid?« said Mr. Carker.
    »Never a bad son to me, Sir,« returned Polly.
    »To whom then?« demanded Mr. Carker.
    »He has been a little wild, Sir,« replied Polly, checking the baby, who was
making convulsive efforts with his arms and legs to launch himself on Biler,
through the ambient air, »and has gone with wrong companions: but I hope he has
seen the misery of that, Sir, and will do well again.«
    Mr. Carker looked at Polly, and the clean room, and the clean children, and
the simple Toodle face, combined of father and mother, that was reflected and
repeated everywhere about him - and seemed to have achieved the real purpose of
his visit.
    »Your husband, I take it, is not at home?« he said.
    »No, Sir,« replied Polly. »He's down the line at present.«
    The prodigal Rob seemed very much relieved to hear it: though still in the
absorption of all his faculties in his patron, he hardly took his eyes from Mr.
Carker's face, unless for a moment at a time to steal a sorrowful glance at his
mother.
    »Then,« said Mr. Carker, »I'll tell you how I have stumbled on this boy of
yours, and who I am, and what I am going to do for him.«
    This Mr. Carker did, in his own way; saying that he at first intended to
have accumulated nameless terrors on his presumptuous head, for coming to the
whereabout of Dombey and Son. That he had relented, in consideration of his
youth, his professed contrition, and his friends. That he was afraid he took a
rash step in doing anything for the boy, and one that might expose him to the
censure of the prudent; but that he did it of himself and for himself, and
risked the consequences single-handed; and that his mother's past connection
with Mr. Dombey's family had nothing to do with it, and that Mr. Dombey had
nothing to do with it, but that he, Mr. Carker, was the be-all and the end-all
of this business. Taking great credit to himself for his goodness, and receiving
no less from all the family then present, Mr. Carker signified, indirectly but
still pretty plainly, that Rob's implicit fidelity, attachment, and devotion,
were for evermore his due, and the least homage he could receive. And with this
great truth Rob himself was so impressed, that standing gazing on his patron
with tears rolling down his cheeks, he nodded his shiny head until it seemed
almost as loose as it had done under the same patron's hands that morning.
    Polly, who had passed Heaven knows how many sleepless nights on account of
this her dissipated firstborn, and had not seen him for weeks and weeks, could
have almost kneeled to Mr. Carker the Manager, as to a Good Spirit - in spite of
his teeth. But Mr. Carker rising to depart, she only thanked him with her
mother's prayers and blessings; thanks so rich when paid out of the Heart's
mint, especially for any service Mr. Carker had rendered, that he might have
given back a large amount of change, and yet been overpaid.
    As that gentleman made his way among the crowding children to the door, Rob
retreated on his mother, and took her and the baby in the same repentant hug.
    »I'll try hard, dear mother, now. Upon my soul I will!« said Rob.
    »Oh do, my dear boy! I am sure you will, for our sakes and your own!« cried
Polly, kissing him. »But you're coming back to speak to me, when you have seen
the gentleman away?«
    »I don't know, mother.« Rob hesitated, and looked down. »Father - when's he
coming home?«
    »Not till two o'clock to-morrow morning.«
    »I'll come back, mother dear!« cried Rob. And passing through the shrill cry
of his brothers and sisters in reception of this promise, he followed Mr. Carker
out.
    »What!« said Mr. Carker, who had heard this. »You have a bad father, have
you?«
    »No, Sir« returned Rob, amazed. »There ain't a better nor a kinder father
going, than mine is.«
    »Why don't you want to see him then?« inquired his patron.
    »There's such a difference between a father and a mother, Sir,« said Rob,
after faltering for a moment. »He couldn't hardly believe yet that I was going
to do better - though I know he'd try to - but a mother - she always believes
what's good, Sir; at least I know my mother does, God bless her!«
    Mr. Carker's mouth expanded, but he said no more until he was mounted on his
horse, and had dismissed the man who held it, when, looking down from the saddle
steadily into the attentive and watchful face of the boy, he said:
    »You'll come to me to-morrow morning, and you shall be shown where that old
gentleman lives; that old gentleman who was with me this morning; where you are
going, as you heard me say.«
    »Yes, Sir,« returned Rob.
    »I have a great interest in that old gentleman, and in serving him, you
serve me, boy, do you understand? Well,« he added, interrupting him, for he saw
his round face brighten when he was told that: »I see you do. I want to know all
about that old gentleman, and how he goes on from day to day - for I am anxious
to be of service to him - and especially who comes there to see him. Do you
understand?«
    Rob nodded his steadfast face, and said »Yes, Sir,« again.
    »I should like to know that he has friends who are attentive to him, and
that they don't desert him - for he lives very much alone now, poor fellow; but
that they are fond of him, and of his nephew who has gone abroad. There is a
very young lady who may perhaps come to see him. I want particularly to know all
about her.«
    »I'll take care, Sir,« said the boy.
    »And take care,« returned his patron, bending forward to advance his
grinning face closer to the boy's, and pat him on the shoulder with the handle
of his whip: »take care you talk about affairs of mine to nobody but me.«
    »To nobody in the world, Sir,« replied Rob, shaking his head.
    »Neither there,« said Mr. Carker, pointing to the place they had just left,
»nor anywhere else. I'll try how true and grateful you can be. I'll prove you!«
Making this, by his display of teeth and by the action of his head, as much a
threat as a promise, he turned from Rob's eyes, which were nailed upon him as if
he had won the boy by a charm, body and soul, and rode away. But again becoming
conscious, after trotting a short distance, that his devoted henchman, girt as
before, was yielding him the same attendance, to the great amusement of sundry
spectators, he reined up, and ordered him off. To insure his obedience, he
turned in the saddle and watched him as he retired. It was curious to see that
even then Rob could not keep his eyes wholly averted from his patron's face,
but, constantly turning and turning again to look after him, involved himself in
a tempest of buffetings and jostlings from the other passengers in the street:
of which, in the pursuit of the one paramount idea, he was perfectly heedless.
    Mr. Carker the Manager rode on at a foot-pace, with the easy air of one who
had performed all the business of the day in a satisfactory manner, and got it
comfortably off his mind. Complacent and affable as man could be, Mr. Carker
picked his way along the streets and hummed a soft tune as he went. He seemed to
purr, he was so glad.
    And in some sort, Mr. Carker, in his fancy, basked upon a hearth too. Coiled
up snugly at certain feet, he was ready for a spring, or for a tear, or for a
scratch, or for a velvet touch, as the humour took him and occasion served. Was
there any bird in a cage, that came in for a share of his regards?
    »A very young lady!« thought Mr. Carker the Manager, through his song. »Ay!
when I saw her last, she was a little child. With dark eyes and hair, I
recollect, and a good face; a very good face! I dare say she's pretty.«
    More affable and pleasant yet, and humming his song until his many teeth
vibrated to it, Mr. Carker picked his way along, and turned at last into the
shady street where Mr. Dombey's house stood. He had been so busy, winding webs
round good faces, and obscuring them with meshes, that he hardly thought of
being at this point of his ride, until, glancing down the cold perspective of
tall houses, he reined in his horse quickly within a few yards of the door. But
to explain why Mr. Carker reined in his horse quickly, and what he looked at in
no small surprise, a few digressive words are necessary.
    Mr. Toots, emancipated from the Blimber thraldom and coming into the
possession of a certain portion of his worldly wealth, »which,« as he had been
wont, during his last half-year's probation, to communicate to Mr. Feeder every
evening as a new discovery, »the executors couldn't keep him out of,« had
applied himself, with great diligence, to the science of Life. Fired with a
noble emulation to pursue a brilliant and distinguished career, Mr. Toots had
furnished a choice set of apartments; had established among them a sporting
bower, embellished with the portraits of winning horses, in which he took no
particle of interest; and a divan, which made him poorly. In this delicious
abode, Mr. Toots devoted himself to the cultivation of those gentle arts which
refine and humanise existence, his chief instructor in which was an interesting
character called the Game Chicken, who was always to be heard of at the bar of
the Black Badger, wore a shaggy white great-coat in the warmest weather, and
knocked Mr. Toots about the head three times a week, for the small consideration
of ten and six per visit.
    The Game Chicken, who was quite the Apollo of Mr. Toots's Pantheon, had
introduced to him a marker who taught billiards, a Life Guard who taught
fencing, a job-master who taught riding, a Cornish gentleman who was up to
anything in the athletic line, and two or three other friends connected no less
intimately with the fine arts. Under whose auspices Mr. Toots could hardly fail
to improve apace, and under whose tuition he went to work.
    But however it came about, it came to pass, even while these gentlemen had
the gloss of novelty upon them, that Mr. Toots felt, he didn't know how,
unsettled and uneasy. There were husks in his corn, that even Game Chickens
couldn't peck up; gloomy giants in his leisure, that even Game Chickens couldn't
knock down. Nothing seemed to do Mr. Toots so much good as incessantly leaving
cards at Mr. Dombey's door. No tax-gatherer in the British dominions - that
wide-spread territory on which the sun never sets, and where the tax-gatherer
never goes to bed - was more regular and persevering in his calls than Mr.
Toots.
    Mr. Toots never went up stairs; and always performed the same ceremonies,
richly dressed for the purpose, at the hall door.
    »Oh! Good morning!« would be Mr. Toots's first remark to the servant. »For
Mr. Dombey,« would be Mr. Toots's next remark, as he handed in a card. »For Miss
Dombey,« would be his next, as he handed in another.
    Mr. Toots would then turn round as if to go away; but the man knew him by
this time, and knew he wouldn't.
    »Oh, I beg your pardon,« Mr. Toots would say, as if a thought had suddenly
descended on him. »Is the young woman at home?«
    The man would rather think she was, but wouldn't quite know. Then he would
ring a bell that rang up stairs, and would look up the staircase, and would say,
yes, she was at home, and was coming down. Then Miss Nipper would appear, and
the man would retire.
    »Oh! How de do?« Mr. Toots would say, with a chuckle and a blush.
    Susan would thank him, and say she was very well.
    »How's Diogenes going on?« would be Mr. Toots's second interrogation.
    Very well indeed. Miss Florence was fonder and fonder of him every day. Mr.
Toots was sure to hail this with a burst of chuckles, like the opening of a
bottle of some effervescent beverage.
    »Miss Florence is quite well, Sir,« Susan would add.
    »Oh, it's of no consequence, thank'ee,« was the invariable reply of Mr.
Toots; and when he had said so, he always went away very fast.
    Now it is certain that Mr. Toots had a filmy something in his mind, which
led him to conclude that if he could aspire successfully in the fullness of time,
to the hand of Florence, he would be fortunate and blessed. It is certain that Mr.
Toots, by some remote and roundabout road, had got to that point, and that there
he made a stand. His heart was wounded; he was touched; he was in love. He had
made a desperate attempt, one night, and had sat up all night for the purpose,
to write an acrostic on Florence, which affected him to tears in the conception.
But he never proceeded in the execution further than the words »For when I
gaze,« - the flow of imagination in which he had previously written down the
initial letters of the other seven lines, deserting him at that point.
    Beyond devising that very artful and politic measure of leaving a card for
Mr. Dombey daily, the brain of Mr. Toots had not worked much in reference to the
subject that held his feelings prisoner. But deep consideration at length
assured Mr. Toots that an important step to gain, was, the conciliation of Miss
Susan Nipper, preparatory to giving her some inkling of his state of mind.
    A little light and playful gallantry towards this lady seemed the means to
employ in that early chapter of the history, for winning her to his interests.
Not being able quite to make up his mind about it, he consulted the Chicken -
without taking that gentleman into his confidence; merely informing him that a
friend in Yorkshire had written to him (Mr. Toots) for his opinion on such a
question. The Chicken replying that his opinion always was, »Go in and win,« and
further, »When your man's before you and your work cut out, go in and do it,«
Mr. Toots considered this a figurative way of supporting his own view of the
case, and heroically resolved to kiss Miss Nipper next day.
    Upon the next day, therefore, Mr. Toots, putting into requisition some of
the greatest marvels that Burgess and Co. had ever turned out, went off to Mr.
Dombey's upon this design. But his heart failed him so much as he approached the
scene of action, that, although he arrived on the ground at three o'clock in the
afternoon, it was six before he knocked at the door.
    Everything happened as usual, down to the point where Susan said her young
mistress was well, and Mr. Toots said it was of no consequence. To her
amazement, Mr. Toots, instead of going off like a rocket, after that
observation, lingered and chuckled.
    »Perhaps you'd like to walk up stairs, Sir!« said Susan.
    »Well, I think I will come in!« said Mr. Toots.
    But instead of walking up stairs, the bold Toots made an awkward plunge at
Susan when the door was shut, and embracing that fair creature, kissed her on
the cheek.
    »Go along with you!« cried Susan, »or I'll tear your eyes out.«
    »Just another!« said Mr. Toots.
    »Go along with you!« exclaimed Susan, giving him a push. »Innocents like
you, too! Who'll begin next? Go along, Sir!«
    Susan was not in any serious strait, for she could hardly speak for
laughing; but Diogenes, on the staircase, hearing a rustling against the wall,
and a shuffling of feet, and seeing through the banisters that there was some
contention going on, and foreign invasion in the house, formed a different
opinion, dashed down to the rescue, and in the twinkling of an eye had Mr. Toots
by the leg.
    Susan screamed, laughed, opened the street-door, and ran down stairs; the
bold Toots tumbled staggering out into the street, with Diogenes holding on to
one leg of his pantaloons, as if Burgess and Co. were his cooks, and had
provided that dainty morsel for his holiday entertainment; Diogenes shaken off,
rolled over and over in the dust, got up again, whirled round the giddy Toots
and snapped at him: and all this turmoil, Mr. Carker, reining up his horse and
sitting a little at a distance, saw to his amazement, issue from the stately
house of Mr. Dombey.
    Mr. Carker remained watching the discomfited Toots, when Diogenes was called
in, and the door shut: and while that gentleman, taking refuge in a doorway near
at hand, bound up the torn leg of his pantaloons with a costly silk handkerchief
that had formed part of his expensive outfit for the adventure.
    »I beg your pardon, Sir,« said Mr. Carker, riding up, with his most
propitiatory smile. »I hope you are not hurt?«
    »Oh no, thank you,« replied Mr. Toots, raising his flushed face, »it's of no
consequence.« Mr. Toots would have signified, if he could, that he liked it very
much.
    »If the dog's teeth have entered the leg, Sir -« began Carker, with a
display of his own.
    »No, thank you,« said Mr. Toots, »it's all quite right. It's very
comfortable, thank you.«
    »I have the pleasure of knowing Mr. Dombey,« observed Carker.
    »Have you though?« rejoined the blushing Toots.
    »And you will allow me, perhaps, to apologise, in his absence,« said Mr.
Carker, taking off his hat, »for such a misadventure, and to wonder how it can
possibly have happened.«
    Mr. Toots is so much gratified by this politeness, and the lucky chance of
making friends with a friend of Mr. Dombey, that he pulls out his card-case,
which he never loses an opportunity of using, and hands his name and address to
Mr. Carker: who responds to that courtesy by giving him his own, and with that
they part.
    As Mr. Carker picks his way so softly past the house, glancing up at the
windows, and trying to make out the pensive face behind the curtain looking at
the children opposite, the rough head of Diogenes came clambering up close by
it, and the dog, regardless of all soothing, barks and growls, and makes at him
from that height, as if he would spring down and tear him limb from limb.
    Well spoken, Di, so near your Mistress! Another, and another with your head
up, your eyes flashing, and your vexed mouth worrying itself, for want of him!
Another, as he picks his way along! You have a good scent, Di, - cats, boy,
cats!
 

                                 Chapter XXIII

               Florence Solitary, and the Midshipman Mysterious.

Florence lived alone in the great dreary house, and day succeeded day, and still
she lived alone; and the blank walls looked down upon her with a vacant stare,
as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare her youth and beauty into stone.
    No magic dwelling-place in magic story, shut up in the heart of a thick
wood, was ever more solitary and deserted to the fancy, than was her father's
mansion in its grim reality, as it stood lowering on the street: always by
night, when lights were shining from neighbouring windows, a blot upon its
scanty brightness; always by day, a frown upon its never-smiling face.
    There were not two dragon sentries keeping ward before the gate of this
abode, as in magic legend are usually found on duty over the wronged innocence
imprisoned; but besides a glowering visage, with its thin lips parted wickedly,
that surveyed all comers from above the archway of the door, there was a
monstrous fantasy of rusty iron, curling and twisting like a petrifaction of an
arbour over the threshold, budding in spikes and corkscrew points, and bearing,
one on either side, two ominous extinguishers, that seemed to say, »Who enter
here, leave light behind!« There were no talismanic characters engraven on the
portal, but the house was now so neglected in appearance, that boys chalked the
railings and the pavement - particularly round the corner where the side wall
was - and drew ghosts on the stable door; and being sometimes driven off by Mr.
Towlinson, made portraits of him, in return, with his ears growing out
horizontally from under his hat. Noise ceased to be, within the shadow of the
roof. The brass band that came into the street once a week, in the morning,
never brayed a note in at those windows; but all such company, down to a poor
little piping organ of weak intellect, with an imbecile party of automaton
dancers, waltzing in and out at folding-doors, fell off from it with one accord,
and shunned it as a hopeless place.
    The spell upon it was more wasting than the spell that used to set enchanted
houses sleeping once upon a time, but left their waking freshness unimpaired.
    The passive desolation of disuse was everywhere silently manifest about it.
Within doors, curtains, drooping heavily, lost their old folds and shapes, and
hung like cumbrous palls. Hecatombs of furniture, still piled and covered up,
shrunk like imprisoned and forgotten men, and changed insensibly. Mirrors were
dim as with the breath of years. Patterns of carpets faded and became perplexed
and faint, like the memory of those years' trifling incidents. Boards, starting
at unwonted footsteps, creaked and shook. Keys rusted in the locks of doors.
Damp started on the walls, and as the stains came out, the pictures seemed to go
in and secrete themselves. Mildew and mould began to lurk in closets. Fungus
trees grew in corners of the cellars. Dust accumulated, nobody knew whence nor
how; spiders, moths, and grubs were heard of every day. An exploratory
black-beetle now and then was found immovable upon the stairs, or in an upper
room, as wondering how he got there. Rats began to squeak and scuffle in the
night-time, through dark galleries they mined behind the panelling.
    The dreary magnificence of the state rooms, seen imperfectly by the doubtful
light admitted through closed shutters, would have answered well enough for an
enchanted abode. Such as the tarnished paws of gilded lions, stealthily put out
from beneath their wrappers; the marble lineaments of busts on pedestals,
fearfully revealing themselves through veils; the clocks that never told the
time, or, if wound up by any chance, told it wrong, and struck unearthly
numbers, which are not upon the dial; the accidental tinklings among the pendant
lustres, more startling than alarm-bells; the softened sounds and laggard air
that made their way among these objects, and a phantom crowd of others, shrouded
and hooded, and made spectral of shade. But, besides, there was the great
staircase, where the lord of the place so rarely set his foot, and by which his
little child had gone up to Heaven. There were other staircases and passages
where no one went for weeks together; there were two closed rooms associated
with dead members of the family, and with whispered recollections of them; and
to all the house but Florence, there was a gentle figure moving through the
solitude and gloom, that gave to every lifeless thing a touch of present human
interest and wonder.
    For Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded day, and
still she lived alone, and the cold walls looked down upon her with a vacant
stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare her youth and beauty into
stone.
    The grass began to grow upon the roof, and in the crevices of the basement
paving. A scaly crumbling vegetation sprouted round the window-sills. Fragments
of mortar lost their hold upon the insides of the unused chimneys, and came
dropping down. The two trees with the smoky trunks were blighted high up, and
the withered branches domineered above the leaves. Through the whole building
white had turned yellow, yellow nearly black; and since the time when the poor
lady died, it had slowly become a dark gap in the long monotonous street.
    But Florence bloomed there, like the king's fair daughter in the story. Her
books, her music, and her daily teachers, were her only real companions, Susan
Nipper and Diogenes excepted: of whom the former, in her attendance on the
studies of her young mistress, began to grow quite learned herself, while the
latter, softened possibly by the same influences, would lay his head upon the
window-ledge, and placidly open and shut his eyes upon the street, all through a
summer morning; sometimes pricking up his head to look with great significance
after some noisy dog in a cart, who was barking his way along, and sometimes,
with an exasperated and unaccountable recollection of his supposed enemy in the
neighbourhood, rushing to the door, whence, after a deafening disturbance, he
would come jogging back with a ridiculous complacency that belonged to him, and
lay his jaw upon the window-ledge again, with the air of a dog who had done a
public service.
    So Florence lived in her wilderness of a home, within the circle of her
innocent pursuits and thoughts, and nothing harmed her. She could go down to her
father's rooms now, and think of him, and suffer her loving heart humbly to
approach him, without fear of repulse. She could look upon the objects that had
surrounded him in his sorrow, and could nestle near his chair, and not dread the
glance that she so well remembered. She could render him such little tokens of
her duty and service, as putting everything in order for him with her own hands,
binding little nosegays for his table, changing them as one by one they
withered, and he did not come back, preparing something for him every day, and
leaving some timid mark of her presence near his usual seat. To-day, it was a
little painted stand for his watch; to-morrow she would be afraid to leave it,
and would substitute some other trifle of her making not so likely to attract
his eye. Waking in the night, perhaps, she would tremble at the thought of his
coming home and angrily rejecting it, and would hurry down with slippered feet
and quickly beating heart, and bring it away. At another time, she would only
lay her face upon his desk, and leave a kiss there, and a tear.
    Still no one knew of this. Unless the household found it out when she was
not there - and they all held Mr. Dombey's rooms in awe - it was as deep a
secret in her breast as what had gone before it. Florence stole into those rooms
at twilight, early in the morning, and at times when meals were served down
stairs. And although they were in every nook the better and the brighter for her
care, she entered and passed out as quietly as any sunbeam, excepting that she
left her light behind.
    Shadowy company attended Florence up and down the echoing house, and sat
with her in the dismantled rooms. As if her life were an enchanted vision, there
arose out of her solitude ministering thoughts, that made it fanciful and
unreal. She imagined so often what her life would have been if her father could
have loved her and she had been a favourite child, that sometimes, for the
moment, she almost believed it was so, and, borne on by the current of that
pensive fiction, seemed to remember how they had watched her brother in his
grave together; how they had freely shared his heart between them; how they were
united in the dear remembrance of him; how they often spoke about him yet; and
her kind father, looking at her gently, told her of their common hope and trust
in God. At other times she pictured to herself her mother yet alive. And oh, the
happiness of falling on her neck, and clinging to her with the love and
confidence of all her soul! And oh, the desolation of the solitary house again,
with evening coming on, and no one there!
    But there was one thought, scarcely shaped out to herself, yet fervent and
strong within her, that upheld Florence when she strove, and filled her true
young heart, so sorely tried, with constancy of purpose. Into her mind, as into
all others contending with the great affliction of our mortal nature, there had
stolen solemn wonderings and hopes, arising in the dim world beyond the present
life, and murmuring, like faint music, of recognition in the far-off land
between her brother and her mother: of some present consciousness in both of
her: some love and commiseration for her: and some knowledge of her as she went
her way upon the earth. It was a soothing consolation to Florence to give
shelter to these thoughts, until one day - it was soon after she had last seen
her father in his own room, late at night - the fancy came upon her, that, in
weeping for his alienated heart, she might stir the spirits of the dead against
him. Wild, weak, childish, as it may have been to think so, and to tremble at
the half-formed thought, it was the impulse of her loving nature; and from that
hour Florence strove against the cruel wound in her breast, and tried to think
of him whose hand had made it only with hope.
    Her father did not know - she held to it from that time - how much she loved
him. She was very young, and had no mother, and had never learned, by some fault
or misfortune, how to express to him that she loved him. She would be patient,
and would try to gain that art in time, and win him to a better knowledge of his
only child.
    This became the purpose of her life. The morning sun shone down upon the
faded house, and found the resolution bright and fresh within the bosom of its
solitary mistress. Through all the duties of the day, it animated her; for
Florence hoped that the more she knew, and the more accomplished she became, the
more glad he would be when he came to know and like her. Sometimes she wondered,
with a swelling heart and rising tear, whether she was proficient enough in
anything to surprise him when they should become companions. Sometimes she tried
to think if there were any kind of knowledge that would bespeak his interest
more readily than another. Always: at her books, her music, and her work: in her
morning walks, and in her nightly prayers: she had her engrossing aim in view.
Strange study for a child, to learn the road to a hard parent's heart!
    There were many careless loungers through the street, as the summer evening
deepened into night, who glanced across the road at the sombre house, and saw
the youthful figure at the window, such a contrast to it, looking upward at the
stars as they began to shine, who would have slept the worse if they had known
on what design she mused so steadfastly. The reputation of the mansion as a
haunted house, would not have been the gayer with some humble dwellers
elsewhere, who were struck by its external gloom in passing and repassing on
their daily avocations, and so named it, if they could have read its story in
the darkening face. But Florence held her sacred purpose, unsuspected and
unaided: and studied only how to bring her father to the understanding that she
loved him, and made no appeal against him in any wandering thought.
    Thus Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded day, and
still she lived alone, and the monotonous walls looked down upon her with a
stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like intent to stare her youth and beauty into
stone.
    Susan Nipper stood opposite to her young mistress one morning, as she folded
and sealed a note she had been writing: and showed in her looks an approving
knowledge of its contents.
    »Better late than never, dear Miss Floy,« said Susan, »and I do say, that
even a visit to them old Skettleses will be a God-send.«
    »It is very good of Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, Susan,« returned Florence,
with a mild correction of that young lady's familiar mention of the family in
question, »to repeat their invitation so kindly.«
    Miss Nipper, who was perhaps the most thorough-going partisan on the face of
the earth, and who carried her partisanship into all matters great or small, and
perpetually waged war with it against society, screwed up her lips and shook her
head, as a protest against any recognition of disinterestedness in the
Skettleses, and a plea in bar that they would have valuable consideration for
their kindness, in the company of Florence.
    »They know what they're about, if ever people did,« murmured Miss Nipper,
drawing in her breath, »oh! trust them Skettleses for that!«
    »I am not very anxious to go to Fulham, Susan, I confess,« said Florence
thoughtfully; »but it will be right to go. I think it will be better.«
    »Much better,« interposed Susan, with another emphatic shake of her head.
    »And so,« said Florence, »though I would prefer to have gone when there was
no one there, instead of in this vacation time, when it seems there are some
young people staying in the house, I have thankfully said yes.«
    »For which I say, Miss Floy, Oh be joyful!« returned Susan. »Ah! h-h!«
    This last ejaculation, with which Miss Nipper frequently wound up a
sentence, at about that epoch of time, was supposed below the level of the hall
to have a general reference to Mr. Dombey, and to be expressive of a yearning in
Miss Nipper to favour that gentleman with a piece of her mind. But she never
explained it; and it had, in consequence, the charm of mystery, in addition to
the advantage of the sharpest expression.
    »How long it is before we have any news of Walter, Susan!« observed
Florence, after a moment's silence.
    »Long indeed, Miss Floy!« replied her maid. »And Perch said, when he came
just now to see for letters - but what signifies what he says!« exclaimed Susan,
reddening and breaking off. »Much he knows about it!«
    Florence raised her eyes quickly, and a flush overspread her face.
    »If I hadn't,« said Susan Nipper, evidently struggling with some latent
anxiety and alarm, and looking full at her young mistress, while endeavouring to
work herself into a state of resentment with the unoffending Mr. Perch's image,
»if I hadn't more manliness than that insipidest of his sex, I'd never take
pride in my hair again, but turn it up behind my ears, and wear coarse caps,
without a bit of border, until death released me from my insignificance. I may
not be a Amazon, Miss Floy, and wouldn't so demean myself by such disfigurement,
but anyways I'm not a giver up, I hope.«
    »Give up! What?« cried Florence, with a face of terror.
    »Why, nothing, Miss,« said Susan. »Good gracious, nothing! It's only that
wet curl-paper of a man Perch, that any one might almost make away with, with a
touch, and really it would be a blessed event for all parties if some one would
take pity on him, and would have the goodness!«
    »Does he give up the ship, Susan?« inquired Florence, very pale.
    »No, Miss,« returned Susan, »I should like to see him make so bold as do it
to my face! No, Miss, but he goes on about some bothering ginger that Mr. Walter
was to send to Mrs. Perch, and shakes his dismal head, and says he hopes it may
be coming; anyhow, he says, it can't come now in time for the intended occasion,
but may do for next, which really,« said Miss Nipper, with aggravated scorn,
»puts me out of patience with the man, for though I can bear a great deal, I am
not a camel, neither am I,« added Susan, after a moment's consideration, »if I
know myself, a dromedary neither.«
    »What else does he say, Susan?« inquired Florence, earnestly. »Won't you
tell me?«
    »As if I wouldn't tell you anything, Miss Floy, and everything!« said Susan.
»Why, Miss, he says that there begins to be a general talk about the ship, and
that they have never had a ship on that voyage half so long unheard of, and that
the Captain's wife was at the office yesterday, and seemed a little put out
about it, but any one could say that, we knew nearly that before.«
    »I must visit Walter's uncle,« said Florence, hurriedly, »before I leave
home. I will go and see him this morning. Let us walk there, directly, Susan.«
    Miss Nipper having nothing to urge against the proposal, but being perfectly
acquiescent, they were soon equipped, and in the streets, and on their way
towards the little Midshipman.
    The state of mind in which poor Walter had gone to Captain Cuttle's, on the
day when Brogley the broker came into possession, and when there seemed to him
to be an execution in the very steeples, was pretty much the same as that in
which Florence now took her way to Uncle Sol's; with this difference, that
Florence suffered the added pain of thinking that she had been, perhaps, the
innocent occasion of involving Walter in peril, and all to whom he was dear,
herself included, in an agony of suspense. For the rest, uncertainty and danger
seemed written upon everything. The weathercocks on spires and housetops were
mysterious with hints of stormy wind, and pointed, like so many ghostly fingers,
out to dangerous seas, where fragments of great wrecks were drifting, perhaps,
and helpless men were rocked upon them into a sleep as deep as the unfathomable
waters. When Florence came into the City, and passed gentlemen who were talking
together, she dreaded to hear them speaking of the ship, and saying it was lost.
Pictures and prints of vessels fighting with the rolling waves filled her with
alarm. The smoke and clouds, though moving gently, moved too fast for her
apprehensions, and made her fear there was a tempest blowing at that moment on
the ocean.
    Susan Nipper may or may not have been affected similarly, but having her
attention much engaged in struggles with boys, whenever there was any press of
people - for, between that grade of human kind and herself, there was some
natural animosity that invariably broke out, whenever they came together - it
would seem that she had not much leisure on the road for intellectual
operations.
    Arriving in good time abreast of the Wooden Midshipman on the opposite side
of the way, and waiting for an opportunity to cross the street, they were a
little surprised at first to see, at the Instrument-maker's door, a round-headed
lad, with his chubby face addressed towards the sky, who, as they looked at him,
suddenly thrust into his capacious mouth two fingers of each hand, and with the
assistance of that machinery whistled, with astonishing shrillness, to some
pigeons at a considerable elevation in the air.
    »Mrs. Richards's eldest, Miss!« said Susan, »and the worrit of Mrs.
Richards's life!«
    As Polly had been to tell Florence of the resuscitated prospects of her son
and heir, Florence was prepared for the meeting: so, a favourable moment
presenting itself, they both hastened across, without any further contemplation
of Mrs. Richards's bane. That sporting character, unconscious of their approach,
again whistled with his utmost might, and then yelled in a rapture of
excitement, »Strays! Whoo-oop! Strays!« which identification had such an effect
upon the conscience-stricken pigeons, that instead of going direct to some town
in the North of England, as appeared to have been their original intention, they
began to wheel and falter; whereupon Mrs. Richards's firstborn pierced them with
another whistle, and again yelled, in a voice that rose above the turmoil of the
street, »Strays! Whoo-oop! Strays!«
    From this transport, he was abruptly recalled to terrestrial objects, by a
poke from Miss Nipper, which sent him into the shop.
    »Is this the way you show your penitence, when Mrs. Richards has been
fretting for you months and months!« said Susan, following the poke. »Where's
Mr. Gills?«
    Rob, who smoothed his first rebellious glance at Miss Nipper when he saw
Florence following, put his knuckles to his hair, in honour of the latter, and
said to the former, that Mr. Gills was out.
    »Fetch him home,« said Miss Nipper, with authority, »and say that my young
lady's here.«
    »I don't know where he's gone,« said Rob.
    »Is that your penitence?« cried Susan, with stinging sharpness.
    »Why how can I go and fetch him when I don't know where to go?« whimpered
the baited Rob. »How can you be so unreasonable?«
    »Did Mr. Gills say when he should be home?« asked Florence.
    »Yes, Miss,« replied Rob, with another application of his knuckles to his
hair. »He said he should be home early in the afternoon; in about a couple of
hours from now, Miss.«
    »Is he very anxious about his nephew?« inquired Susan.
    »Yes, Miss,« returned Rob, preferring to address himself to Florence and
slighting Nipper; »I should say he was very much so. He ain't indoors, Miss, not
a quarter of an hour together. He can't settle in one place five minutes. He
goes about, like a - just like a stray,« said Rob, stooping to get a glimpse of
the pigeons through the window, and checking himself, with his fingers half-way
to his mouth, on the verge of another whistle.
    »Do you know a friend of Mr. Gills, called Captain Cuttle?« inquired
Florence, after a moment's reflection.
    »Him with a hook, Miss?« rejoined Rob, with an illustrative twist of his
left hand. »Yes, Miss. He was here the day before yesterday.«
    »Has he not been here since?« asked Susan.
    »No, Miss,« returned Rob, still addressing his reply to Florence.
    »Perhaps Walter's uncle has gone there, Susan,« observed Florence, turning
to her.
    »To Captain Cuttle's, Miss?« interposed Rob; »no, he's not gone there, Miss.
Because he left particular word that if Captain Cuttle called, I should tell him
how surprised he was not to have seen him yesterday, and should make him stop
till he came back.«
    »Do you know where Captain Cuttle lives?« asked Florence.
    Rob replied in the affirmative, and turning to a greasy parchment book on
the shop desk, read the address aloud.
    Florence again turned to her maid and took counsel with her in a low voice,
while Rob the round-eyed, mindful of his patron's secret charge, looked on and
listened. Florence proposed that they should go to Captain Cuttle's house; hear
from his own lips, what he thought of the absence of any tidings of the Son and
Heir; and bring him, if they could, to comfort Uncle Sol. Susan at first
objected slightly, on the score of distance; but a hackney-coach being mentioned
by her mistress, withdrew that opposition, and gave in her assent. There were
some minutes of discussion between them before they came to this conclusion,
during which the staring Rob paid close attention to both speakers, and inclined
his ear to each by turns, as if he were appointed arbitrator of the arguments.
    In fine, Rob was despatched for a coach, the visitors keeping shop
meanwhile; and when he brought it, they got into it, leaving word for Uncle Sol
that they would be sure to call again, on their way back. Rob having stared
after the coach until it was as invisible as the pigeons had now become, sat
down behind the desk with a most assiduous demeanour; and in order that he might
forget nothing of what had transpired, made notes of it on various small scraps
of paper, with a vast expenditure of ink. There was no danger of these documents
betraying anything, if accidentally lost; for long before a word was dry, it
became as profound a mystery to Rob, as if he had had no part whatever in its
production.
    While he was yet busy with these labours, the hackney-coach, after
encountering unheard-of difficulties from swivel-bridges, soft roads, impassable
canals, caravans of casks, settlements of scarlet-beans and little wash-houses,
and many such obstacles abounding in that country, stopped at the corner of Brig
Place. Alighting here, Florence and Susan Nipper walked down the street, and
sought out the abode of Captain Cuttle.
    It happened by evil chance to be one of Mrs. MacStinger's great cleaning
days. On these occasions, Mrs. MacStinger was knocked up by the policeman at a
quarter before three in the morning, and rarely succumbed before twelve o'clock
next night. The chief object of this institution appeared to be, that Mrs.
MacStinger should move all the furniture into the back garden at early dawn,
walk about the house in pattens all day, and move the furniture back again after
dark. These ceremonies greatly fluttered those doves the young MacStingers, who
were not only unable at such times to find any resting-place for the soles of
their feet, but generally came in for a good deal of pecking from the maternal
bird during the progress of the solemnities.
    At the moment when Florence and Susan Nipper presented themselves at Mrs.
MacStinger's door, that worthy but redoubtable female was in the act of
conveying Alexander MacStinger, aged two years and three months, along the
passage for forcible deposition in a sitting posture on the street pavement;
Alexander being black in the face with holding his breath after punishment, and
a cool paving-stone being usually found to act as a powerful restorative in such
cases.
    The feelings of Mrs. MacStinger, as a woman and a mother, were outraged by
the look of pity for Alexander which she observed on Florence's face. Therefore,
Mrs. MacStinger asserting those finest emotions of our nature, in preference to
weakly gratifying her curiosity, shook and buffeted Alexander both before and
during the application of the paving-stone, and took no further notice of the
strangers.
    »I beg your pardon, ma'am,« said Florence, when the child had found his
breath again, and was using it. »Is this Captain Cuttle's house?«
    »No,« said Mrs. MacStinger.
    »Not Number Nine?« asked Florence, hesitating.
    »Who said it wasn't't Number Nine?« said Mrs. MacStinger.
    Susan Nipper instantly struck in, and begged to inquire what Mrs. MacStinger
meant by that, and if she knew whom she was talking to.
    Mrs. MacStinger in retort, looked at her all over. »What do you want with
Captain Cuttle, I should wish to know?« said Mrs. MacStinger.
    »Should you? Then I'm sorry that you won't be satisfied,« returned Miss
Nipper.
    »Hush, Susan! If you please!« said Florence. »Perhaps you can have the
goodness to tell us where Captain Cuttle lives, ma'am, as he don't live here.«
    »Who says he don't live here?« retorted the implacable MacStinger. »I said
it wasn't't Cap'en Cuttle's house - and it ain't his house - and forbid it, that
it ever should be his house - for Cap'en Cuttle don't know how to keep a house -
and don't deserve to have a house - it's my house - and when I let the upper
floor to Cap'en Cuttle, oh, I do a thankless thing, and cast pearls before
swine!«
    Mrs. MacStinger pitched her voice for the upper windows in offering these
remarks, and cracked off each clause sharply by itself as if from a rifle
possessing an infinity of barrels. After the last shot, the Captain's voice was
heard to say, in feeble remonstrance from his own room, »Steady below!«
    »Since you want Cap'en Cuttle, there he is!« said Mrs. MacStinger, with an
angry motion of her hand. On Florence making bold to enter, without any more
parley, and on Susan following, Mrs. MacStinger recommenced her pedestrian
exercise in pattens, and Alexander MacStinger (still on the paving-stone), who
had stopped in his crying to attend to the conversation, began to wail again,
entertaining himself during that dismal performance, which was quite mechanical,
with a general survey of the prospect, terminating in the hackney-coach.
    The Captain in his own apartment was sitting with his hands in his pockets
and his legs drawn up under his chair, on a very small desolate island, lying
about midway in an ocean of soap and water. The Captain's windows had been
cleaned, the walls had been cleaned, the stove had been cleaned, and everything,
the stove excepted, was wet, and shining with soft soap and sand: the smell of
which drysaltery impregnated the air. In the midst of the dreary scene, the
Captain, cast away upon his island, looked round on the waste of waters with a
rueful countenance, and seemed waiting for some friendly bark to come that way,
and take him off.
    But when the Captain, directing his forlorn visage towards the door, saw
Florence appear with her maid, no words can describe his astonishment. Mrs.
MacStinger's eloquence having rendered all other sounds but imperfectly
distinguishable, he had looked for no rarer visitor than the potboy or the
milkman; wherefore, when Florence appeared, and coming to the confines of the
island, put her hand in his, the Captain stood up, aghast, as if he supposed
her, for the moment, to be some young member of the Flying Dutchman's family.
    Instantly recovering his self-possession, however, the Captain's first care
was to place her on dry land, which he happily accomplished, with one motion of
his arm. Issuing forth, then, upon the main, Captain Cuttle took Miss Nipper
round the waist, and bore her to the island also. Captain Cuttle, then, with
great respect and admiration, raised the hand of Florence to his lips, and
standing off a little (for the island was not large enough for three), beamed on
her from the soap and water like a new description of Triton.
    »You are amazed to see us, I am sure,« said Florence, with a smile.
    The inexpressibly gratified Captain kissed his hook in reply, and growled,
as if a choice and delicate compliment were included in the words, »Stand by!
Stand by!«
    »But I couldn't rest,« said Florence, »without coming to ask you what you
think about dear Walter - who is my brother now - and whether there is anything
to fear, and whether you will not go and console his poor uncle every day, until
we have some intelligence of him?«
    At these words Captain Cuttle, as by an involuntary gesture, clapped his
hand to his head, on which the hard glazed hat was not, and looked discomfited.
    »Have you any fears for Walter's safety?« inquired Florence, from whose face
the Captain (so enraptured he was with it) could not take his eyes: while she,
in her turn, looked earnestly at him, to be assured of the sincerity of his
reply.
    »No, Heart's-delight,« said Captain Cuttle, »I am not afraid. Wal'r is a lad
as'll go through a deal o' hard weather. Wal'r is a lad as'll bring as much
success to that 'ere brig as a lad is capable on. Wal'r,« said the Captain, his
eyes glistening with the praise of his young friend, and his hook raised to
announce a beautiful quotation, »is what you may call a out'ard and visible sign
of a in'ard and spirited grasp, and when found make a note of.«
    Florence, who did not quite understand this, though the Captain evidently
thought it full of meaning, and highly satisfactory, mildly looked to him for
something more.
    »I am not afraid, my Heart's-delight,« resumed the Captain. »There's been
most uncommon bad weather in them latitudes, there's no denyin', and they have
drove and drove and been beat off, may be t'other side the world. But the ship's
a good ship, and the lad's a good lad; and it ain't easy, thank the Lord,« the
Captain made a little bow, »to break up hearts of oak, whether they're in brigs
or buzzums. Here we have 'em both ways, which is bringing it up with a round
turn, and so I ain't a bit afraid as yet.«
    »As yet?« repeated Florence.
    »Not a bit,« returned the Captain, kissing his iron hand; »and afore I begin
to be, my Heart's-delight, Wal'r will have wrote home from the island, or from
some port or another, and made all taut and ship-shape. And with regard to old
Sol Gills,« here the Captain became solemn, »who I'll stand by, and not desert
until death doe us part, and when the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow -
overhaul the Catechism,« said the Captain parenthetically, »and there you'll
find them expressions - if it would console Sol Gills to have the opinion of a
seafaring man as has got a mind equal to any undertaking that he puts it
alongside of, and as was all but smashed in his 'prenticeship, and of which the
name is Bunsby, that 'ere man shall give him such an opinion in his own parlour
as'll stun him. Ah!« said Captain Cuttle, vauntingly, »as much as if he'd gone
and knocked his head again a door!«
    »Let us take this gentleman to see him, and let us hear what he says,« cried
Florence. »Will you go with us now? We have a coach here.«
    Again the Captain clapped his hand to his head, on which the hard glazed hat
was not, and looked discomfited. But at this instant a most remarkable
phenomenon occurred. The door opening, without any note of preparation, and
apparently of itself, the hard glazed hat in question skimmed into the room like
a bird, and alighted heavily at the Captain's feet. The door then shut as
violently as it had opened, and nothing ensued in explanation of the prodigy.
    Captain Cuttle picked up his hat, and having turned it over with a look of
interest and welcome, began to polish it on his sleeve. While doing so, the
Captain eyed his visitors intently, and said in a low voice:
    »You see I should have bore down on Sol Gills yesterday, and this morning,
but she - she took it away and kept it. That's the long and short of the
subject.«
    »Who did, for goodness sake?« asked Susan Nipper.
    »The lady of the house, my dear,« returned the Captain, in a gruff whisper,
and making signals of secrecy. »We had some words about the swabbing of these
here planks, and she - in short,« said the Captain, eyeing the door, and
relieving himself with a long breath, »she stopped my liberty.«
    »Oh! I wish she had me to deal with!« said Susan, reddening with the energy
of the wish. »I'd stop her!«
    »Would you, do you think, my dear?« rejoined the Captain, shaking his head
doubtfully, but regarding the desperate courage of the fair aspirant with
obvious admiration. »I don't know. It's difficult navigation. She's very hard to
carry on with, my dear. You never can tell how she'll head, you see. She's full
one minute, and round upon you next. And when she is a tartar,« said the
Captain, with the perspiration breaking out upon his forehead - There was
nothing but a whistle emphatic enough for the conclusion of the sentence, so the
Captain whistled tremulously. After which he again shook his head, and recurring
to his admiration of Miss Nipper's devoted bravery, timidly repeated, »Would
you, do you think, my dear?«
    Susan only replied with a bridling smile, but that was so very full of
defiance, that there is no knowing how long Captain Cuttle might have stood
entranced in its contemplation, if Florence in her anxiety had not again
proposed their immediately resorting to the oracular Bunsby. Thus reminded of
his duty, Captain Cuttle put on the glazed hat firmly, took up another knobby
stick, with which he had supplied the place of that one given to Walter, and
offering his arm to Florence, prepared to cut his way through the enemy.
    It turned out, however, that Mrs. MacStinger had already changed her course,
and that she headed, as the Captain had remarked she often did, in quite a new
direction. For when they got down stairs, they found that exemplary woman
beating the mats on the door-steps, with Alexander, still upon the paving-stone,
dimly looming through a fog of dust; and so absorbed was Mrs. MacStinger in her
household occupation, that when Captain Cuttle and his visitors passed, she beat
the harder, and neither by word nor gesture showed any consciousness of their
vicinity. The Captain was so well pleased with this easy escape - although the
effect of the door-mats on him was like a copious administration of snuff, and
made him sneeze until the tears ran down his face - that he could hardly believe
his good fortune; but more than once, between the door and the hackney-coach,
looked over his shoulder, with an obvious apprehension of Mrs. MacStinger's
giving chase yet.
    However, they got to the corner of Brig Place without any molestation from
that terrible fire-ship; and the Captain mounting the coach-box - for his
gallantry would not allow him to ride inside with the ladies, though besought to
do so - piloted the driver on his course for Captain Bunsby's vessel, which was
called the Cautious Clara, and was lying hard by Ratcliffe.
    Arrived at the wharf off which this great commander's ship was jammed in
among some five hundred companions, whose tangled rigging looked like monstrous
cobwebs half swept down, Captain Cuttle appeared at the coach window, and
invited Florence and Miss Nipper to accompany him on board; observing that
Bunsby was to the last degree soft-hearted in respect of ladies, and that
nothing would so much tend to bring his expansive intellect into a state of
harmony as their presentation to the Cautious Clara.
    Florence readily consented; and the Captain, taking her little hand in his
prodigious palm, led her, with a mixed expression of patronage, paternity,
pride, and ceremony, that was pleasant to see, over several very dirty decks,
until, coming to the Clara, they found that cautious craft (which lay outside
the tier) with her gangway removed, and half a dozen feet of river interposed
between herself and her nearest neighbour. It appeared, from Captain Cuttle's
explanation, that the great Bunsby, like himself, was cruelly treated by his
landlady, and that when her usage of him for the time being was so hard that he
could bear it no longer, he set this gulf between them as a last resource.
    »Clara a-hoy!« cried the Captain, putting a hand to each side of his mouth.
    »A-hoy!« cried a boy, like the Captain's echo, tumbling up from below.
    »Bunsby aboard?« cried the Captain, hailing the boy in a stentorian voice,
as if he were half-a-mile off instead of two yards.
    »Aye, aye!« cried the boy, in the same tone.
    The boy then shoved out a plank to Captain Cuttle, who adjusted it
carefully, and led Florence across: returning presently for Miss Nipper. So they
stood upon the deck of the Cautious Clara, in whose standing rigging, divers
fluttering articles of dress were curing, in company with a few tongues and some
mackerel.
    Immediately there appeared, coming slowly up above the bulk-head of the
cabin, another bulk-head - human, and very large - with one stationary eye in
the mahogany face, and one revolving one, on the principle of some light-houses.
This head was decorated with shaggy hair, like oakum, which had no governing
inclination towards the north, east, west, or south, but inclined to all four
quarters of the compass, and to every point upon it. The head was followed by a
perfect desert of chin, and by a shirt-collar and neckerchief, and by a
dreadnought pilot-coat, and by a pair of dreadnought pilot-trousers, whereof the
waistband was so very broad and high, that it became a succedaneum for a
waistcoat: being ornamented near the wearer's breast-bone with some massive
wooden buttons, like backgammon men. As the lower portions of these pantaloons
became revealed, Bunsby stood confessed; his hands in their pockets, which were
of vast size; and his gaze directed, not to Captain Cuttle or the ladies, but
the mast-head.
    The profound appearance of this philosopher, who was bulky and strong, and
on whose extremely red face an expression of taciturnity sat enthroned, not
inconsistent with his character, in which that quality was proudly conspicuous,
almost daunted Captain Cuttle, though on familiar terms with him. Whispering to
Florence that Bunsby had never in his life expressed surprise, and was
considered not to know what it meant, the Captain watched him as he eyed his
mast-head, and afterwards swept the horizon; and when the revolving eye seemed
to be coming round in his direction, said:
    »Bunsby, my lad, how fares it?«
    A deep, gruff, husky utterance, which seemed to have no connection with
Bunsby, and certainly had not the least effect upon his face, replied, »Aye,
aye, shipmet, how goes it!« At the same time Bunsby's right hand and arm,
emerging from a pocket, shook the Captain's, and went back again.
    »Bunsby,« said the Captain, striking home at once, »here you are; a man of
mind, and a man as can give an opinion. Here's a young lady as wants to take
that opinion, in regard of my friend Wal'r; likewise my t'other friend, Sol
Gills, which is a character for you to come within hail of, being a man of
science, which is the mother of inwention, and knows no law. Bunsby, will you
wear, to oblige me, and come along with us?«
    The great commander, who seemed by the expression of his visage to be always
on the look-out for something in the extremest distance, and to have no ocular
knowledge of anything within ten miles, made no reply whatever.
    »Here is a man,« said the Captain, addressing himself to his fair auditors,
and indicating the commander with his outstretched hook, »that has fell down
more than any man alive; that has had more accidents happen to his own self than
the Seamen's Hospital to all hands; that took as many spars and bars and bolts
about the outside of his head when he was young, as you'd want a order for on
Chatham-yard to build a pleasure-yacht with; and yet that got his opinions in
that way, it's my belief, for there an't nothing like 'em afloat or ashore.«
    The stolid commander appeared, by a very slight vibration in his elbows, to
express some satisfaction in this encomium; but if his face had been as distant
as his gaze was, it could hardly have enlightened the beholders less in
reference to anything that was passing in his thoughts.
    »Shipmet,« said Bunsby, all of a sudden, and stooping down to look out under
some interposing spar, »what'll the ladies drink?«
    Captain Cuttle, whose delicacy was shocked by such an inquiry in connection
with Florence, drew the sage aside, and seeming to explain in his ear,
accompanied him below; where, that he might not take offence, the Captain drank
a dram himself, which Florence and Susan, glancing down the open skylight, saw
the sage, with difficulty finding room for himself between his berth and a very
little brass fireplace, serve out for self and friend. They soon reappeared on
deck, and Captain Cuttle, triumphing in the success of his enterprise, conducted
Florence back to the coach, while Bunsby followed, escorting Miss Nipper, whom
he hugged upon the way (much to that young lady's indignation) with his
pilot-coated arm, like a blue bear.
    The Captain put his oracle inside, and gloried so much in having secured
him, and having got that mind into a hackney-coach, that he could not refrain
from often peeping in at Florence through the little window behind the driver,
and testifying his delight in smiles, and also in taps upon his forehead, to
hint to her that the brain of Bunsby was hard at it. In the meantime, Bunsby,
still hugging Miss Nipper (for his friend, the Captain, had not exaggerated the
softness of his heart), uniformly preserved his gravity of deportment, and
showed no other consciousness of her or anything.
    Uncle Sol, who had come home, received them at the door, and ushered them
immediately into the little back parlour: strangely altered by the absence of
Walter. On the table, and about the room, were the charts and maps on which the
heavy-hearted Instrument-maker had again and again tracked the missing vessel
across the sea, and on which, with a pair of compasses that he still had in his
hand, he had been measuring, a minute before, how far she must have driven, to
have driven here or there: and trying to demonstrate that a long time must
elapse before hope was exhausted.
    »Whether she can have run,« said Uncle Sol, looking wistfully over the
chart; »but no, that's almost impossible. Or whether she can have been forced by
stress of weather, - but that's not reasonably likely. Or whether there is any
hope she so far changed her course as - but even I can hardly hope that!« With
such broken suggestions, poor old Uncle Sol roamed over the great sheet before
him, and could not find a speck of hopeful probability in it large enough to set
one small point of the compasses upon.
    Florence saw immediately - it would have been difficult to help seeing -
that there was a singular indescribable change in the old man, and that while
his manner was far more restless and unsettled than usual, there was yet a
curious, contradictory decision in it, that perplexed her very much. She fancied
once that he spoke wildly, and at random; for on her saying she regretted not to
have seen him when she had been there before that morning, he at first replied
that he had been to see her, and directly afterwards seemed to wish to recall
that answer.
    »You have been to see me?« said Florence. »To-day?«
    »Yes, my dear young lady,« returned Uncle Sol, looking at her and away from
her in a confused manner. »I wished to see you with my own eyes, and to hear you
with my own ears, once more before -« There he stopped.
    »Before when? Before what?« said Florence, putting her hand upon his arm.
    »Did I say before?« replied old Sol. »If I did, I must have meant before we
should have news of my dear boy.«
    »You are not well,« said Florence, tenderly. »You have been so very anxious.
I am sure you are not well.«
    »I am as well,« returned the old man, shutting up his right hand, and
holding it out to show her: »as well and firm as any man at my time of life can
hope to be. See! It's steady. Is its master not as capable of resolution and
fortitude as many a younger man? I think so. We shall see.«
    There was that in his manner more than in his words, though they remained
with her too, which impressed Florence so much, that she would have confided her
uneasiness to Captain Cuttle at that moment, if the Captain had not seized that
moment for expounding the state of circumstances on which the opinion of the
sagacious Bunsby was requested, and entreating that profound authority to
deliver the same.
    Bunsby, whose eye continued to be addressed to somewhere about the half-way
house between London and Gravesend, two or three times put out his rough right
arm, as seeking to wind it for inspiration round the fair form of Miss Nipper;
but that young female having withdrawn herself, in displeasure, to the opposite
side of the table, the soft heart of the Commander of the Cautious Clara met
with no response to its impulses. After sundry failures in this wise, the
Commander, addressing himself to nobody, thus spoke; or rather the voice within
him said of its own accord, and quite independent of himself, as if he were
possessed by a gruff spirit:
    »My name's Jack Bunsby!«
    »He was christened John,« cried the delighted Captain Cuttle. »Hear him!«
    »And what I says,« pursued the voice, after some deliberation, »I stands
to.«
    The Captain, with Florence on his arm, nodded at the auditory, and seemed to
say, »Now he's coming out. This is what I meant when I brought him.«
    »Whereby,« proceeded the voice, »why not? If so, what odds? Can any man say
otherwise? No. Awast then!«
    When it had pursued its train of argument to this point, the voice stopped,
and rested. It then proceeded very slowly, thus:
    »Do I believe that this here Son and Heir's gone down, my lads? Mayhap. Do I
say so? Which? If a skipper stands out by Sen' George's Channel, making for the
Downs, what's right ahead of him? The Goodwins. He isn't forced to run upon the
Goodwins, but he may. The bearings of this observation lays in the application
on it. That an't no part of my duty. Awast then, keep a bright look-out for'ard,
and good luck to you!«
    The voice here went out of the back parlour and into the street, taking the
Commander of the Cautious Clara with it, and accompanying him on board again
with all convenient expedition, where he immediately turned in, and refreshed
his mind with a nap.
    The students of the sage's precepts, left to their own application of his
wisdom upon a principle which was the main leg of the Bunsby tripod, as it is
perchance of some other oracular stools - looked upon one another in a little
uncertainty; while Rob the Grinder, who had taken the innocent freedom of
peering in, and listening, through the skylight in the roof, came softly down
from the leads, in a state of very dense confusion. Captain Cuttle, however,
whose admiration of Bunsby was, if possible, enhanced by the splendid manner in
which he had justified his reputation and come through this solemn reference,
proceeded to explain that Bunsby meant nothing but confidence; that Bunsby had
no misgivings; and that such an opinion as that man had given, coming from such
a mind as his, was Hope's own anchor, with good roads to cast it in. Florence
endeavoured to believe that the Captain was right; but the Nipper, with her arms
tight folded, shook her head in resolute denial, and had no more trust in Bunsby
than in Mr. Perch himself.
    The philosopher seemed to have left Uncle Sol pretty much where he had found
him, for he still went roaming about the watery world, compasses in hand, and
discovering no rest for them. It was in pursuance of a whisper in his ear from
Florence, while the old man was absorbed in this pursuit, that Captain Cuttle
laid his heavy hand upon his shoulder.
    »What cheer, Sol Gills?« cried the Captain, heartily.
    »But so-so, Ned,« returned the Instrument-maker. »I have been remembering,
all this afternoon, that on the very day when my boy entered Dombey's house and
came home late to dinner, sitting just there where you stand, we talked of storm
and shipwreck, and I could hardly turn him from the subject.«
    But meeting the eyes of Florence, which were fixed with earnest scrutiny
upon his face, the old man stopped and smiled.
    »Stand by, old friend!« cried the Captain. »Look alive! I tell you what, Sol
Gills; arter I've convoyed Heart's-delight safe home,« here the Captain kissed
his hook to Florence, »I'll come back and take you in tow for the rest of this
blessed day. You'll come and eat your dinner along with me, Sol, somewhere or
another.«
    »Not to-day, Ned!« said the old man quickly, and appearing to be
unaccountably startled by the proposition. »Not to-day. I couldn't do it!«
    »Why not?« returned the Captain, gazing at him in astonishment.
    »I - I have so much to do. I - I mean to think of, and arrange. I couldn't
do it, Ned, indeed. I must go out again, and be alone, and turn my mind to many
things to-day.«
    The Captain looked at the Instrument-maker, and looked at Florence, and
again at the Instrument-maker. »To-morrow, then,« he suggested, at last.
    »Yes, yes. To-morrow,« said the old man. »Think of me to-morrow. Say
to-morrow.«
    »I shall come here early, mind, Sol Gills,« stipulated the Captain.
    »Yes, yes. The first thing to-morrow morning,« said old Sol; »and now
good-bye, Ned Cuttle, and God bless you!«
    Squeezing both the Captain's hands, with uncommon fervour, as he said it,
the old man turned to Florence, folded hers in his own, and put them to his
lips; then hurried her out to the coach with very singular precipitation.
Altogether, he made such an effect on Captain Cuttle that the Captain lingered
behind, and instructed Rob to be particularly gentle and attentive to his master
until the morning: which injunction he strengthened with the payment of one
shilling down, and the promise of another sixpence before noon next day. This
kind office performed, Captain Cuttle, who considered himself the natural and
lawful body-guard of Florence, mounted the box with a mighty sense of his trust,
and escorted her home. At parting, he assured her that he would stand by Sol
Gills, close and true; and once again inquired of Susan Nipper, unable to forget
her gallant words in reference to Mrs. MacStinger, »Would you, do you think, my
dear, though!«
    When the desolate house had closed upon the two, the Captain's thoughts
reverted to the old Instrument-maker, and he felt uncomfortable. Therefore,
instead of going home, he walked up and down the street several times, and,
eking out his leisure until evening, dined late at a certain angular little
tavern in the City, with a public parlour like a wedge, to which glazed hats
much resorted. The Captain's principal intention was to pass Sol Gills's after
dark, and look in through the window: which he did. The parlour door stood open,
and he could see his old friend writing busily and steadily at the table within,
while the little Midshipman, already sheltered from the night dews, watched him
from the counter; under which Rob the Grinder made his own bed, preparatory to
shutting the shop. Re-assured by the tranquillity that reigned within the
precincts of the wooden mariner, the Captain headed for Brig Place, resolving to
weigh anchor betimes in the morning.
 

                                  Chapter XXIV

                          The Study of a Loving Heart.

Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, very good people, resided in a pretty villa at
Fulham, on the banks of the Thames; which was one of the most desirable
residences in the world when a rowing-match happened to be going past, but had
its little inconveniences at other times, among which may be enumerated the
occasional appearance of the river in the drawing-room, and the contemporaneous
disappearance of the lawn and shrubbery.
    Sir Barnet Skettles expressed his personal consequence chiefly through an
antique gold snuff-box, and a ponderous silk pocket-handkerchief, which he had
an imposing manner of drawing out of his pocket like a banner, and using with
both hands at once. Sir Barnet's object in life was constantly to extend the
range of his acquaintance. Like a heavy body dropped into water - not to
disparage so worthy a gentleman by the comparison - it was in the nature of
things that Sir Barnet must spread an ever-widening circle about him, until
there was no room left. Or, like a sound in air, the vibration of which,
according to the speculation of an ingenious modern philosopher, may go on
travelling for ever through the interminable fields of space, nothing but coming
to the end of his moral tether could stop Sir Barnet Skettles in his voyage of
discovery through the social system.
    Sir Barnet was proud of making people acquainted with people. He liked the
thing for its own sake, and it advanced his favourite object too. For example,
if Sir Barnet had the good fortune to get hold of a raw recruit, or a country
gentleman, and ensnared him to his hospitable villa, Sir Barnet would say to
him, on the morning after his arrival, »Now, my dear Sir, is there anybody you
would like to know? Who is there you would wish to meet? Do you take any
interest in writing people, or in painting or sculpturing people, or in acting
people, or in anything of that sort?« Possibly the patient answered yes, and
mentioned somebody, of whom Sir Barnet had no more personal knowledge than of
Ptolemy the Great. Sir Barnet replied, that nothing on earth was easier, as he
knew him very well: immediately called on the aforesaid somebody, left his card,
wrote a short note, - »My dear Sir - penalty of your eminent position - friend
at my house naturally desirous - Lady Skettles and myself participate - trust
that genius being superior to ceremonies, you will do us the distinguished
favour of giving us the pleasure,« etc., etc. - and so killed a brace of birds
with one stone, dead as door-nails.
    With the snuff-box and banner in full force, Sir Barnet Skettles propounded
his usual inquiry to Florence on the first morning of her visit. When Florence
thanked him, and said there was no one in particular whom she desired to see, it
was natural she should think with a pang, of poor lost Walter. When Sir Barnet
Skettles, urging his kind offer, said, »My dear Miss Dombey, are you sure you
can remember no one whom your good Papa - to whom I beg you to present the best
compliments of myself and Lady Skettles when you write - might wish you to
know?« it was natural, perhaps, that her poor head should droop a little, and
that her voice should tremble as it softly answered in the negative.
    Skettles Junior, much stiffened as to his cravat, and sobered down as to his
spirits, was at home for the holidays, and appeared to feel himself aggrieved by
the solicitude of his excellent mother that he should be attentive to Florence.
Another and a deeper injury under which the soul of young Barnet chafed, was the
company of Doctor and Mrs. Blimber, who had been invited on a visit to the
paternal roof-tree, and of whom the young gentleman often said he would have
preferred their passing the vacation at Jericho.
    »Is there anybody you can suggest now, Doctor Blimber?« said Sir Barnet
Skettles, turning to that gentleman.
    »You are very kind, Sir Barnet,« returned Doctor Blimber. »Really I am not
aware that there is, in particular. I like to know my fellow-men in general, Sir
Barnet. What does Terence say? Any one who is the parent of a son is interesting
to me.«
    »Has Mrs. Blimber any wish to see any remarkable person?« asked Sir Barnet,
courteously.
    Mrs. Blimber replied, with a sweet smile and a shake of her sky-blue cap,
that if Sir Barnet could have made her known to Cicero, she would have troubled
him; but such an introduction not being feasible, and she already enjoying the
friendship of himself and his amiable lady, and possessing with the Doctor her
husband their joint confidence in regard to their dear son - here young Barnet
was observed to curl his nose - she asked no more.
    Sir Barnet was fain, under these circumstances, to content himself for the
time with the company assembled. Florence was glad of that; for she had a study
to pursue among them, and it lay too near her heart, and was too precious and
momentous, to yield to any other interest.
    There were some children staying in the house. Children who were as frank
and happy with fathers and with mothers as those rosy faces opposite home.
Children who had no restraint upon their love, and freely showed it. Florence
sought to learn their secret; sought to find out what it was she had missed;
what simple art they knew, and she knew not; how she could be taught by them to
show her father that she loved him, and to win his love again.
    Many a day did Florence thoughtfully observe these children. On many a
bright morning did she leave her bed when the glorious sun rose, and walking up
and down upon the river's bank, before any one in the house was stirring, look
up at the windows of their rooms, and think of them, asleep, so gently tended
and affectionately thought of. Florence would feel more lonely then, than in the
great house all alone; and would think sometimes that she was better there than
here, and that there was greater peace in hiding herself than in mingling with
others of her age, and finding how unlike them all she was. But attentive to her
study, though it touched her to the quick at every little leaf she turned in the
hard book, Florence remained among them, and tried with patient hope, to gain
the knowledge that she wearied for.
    Ah! how to gain it! how to know the charm in its beginning! There were
daughters here, who rose up in the morning, and lay down to rest at night,
possessed of fathers' hearts already. They had no repulse to overcome, no
coldness to dread, no frown to smooth away. As the morning advanced, and the
windows opened one by one, and the dew began to dry upon the flowers and grass,
and youthful feet began to move upon the lawn, Florence, glancing round at the
bright faces, thought what was there she could learn from these children? It was
too late to learn from them; each could approach her father fearlessly, and put
up her lips to meet the ready kiss, and wind her arm about the neck that bent
down to caress her. She could not begin by being so bold. Oh! could it be that
there was less and less hope as she studied more and more!
    She remembered well, that even the old woman who had robbed her when a
little child - whose image and whose house, and all she had said and done, were
stamped upon her recollection, with the enduring sharpness of a fearful
impression made at that early period of life - had spoken fondly of her
daughter, and how terribly even she had cried out in the pain of hopeless
separation from her child. But her own mother, she would think again, when she
recalled this, had loved her well. Then, sometimes, when her thoughts reverted
swiftly to the void between herself and her father, Florence would tremble, and
the tears would start upon her face, as she pictured to herself her mother
living on, and coming also to dislike her, because of her wanting the unknown
grace that should conciliate that father naturally, and had never done so from
her cradle. She knew that this imagination did wrong to her mother's memory, and
had no truth in it, or base to rest upon; and yet she tried so hard to justify
him, and to find the whole blame in herself, that she could not resist its
passing, like a wild cloud, through the distance of her mind.
    There came among the other visitors, soon after Florence, one beautiful
girl, three or four years younger than she, who was an orphan child, and who was
accompanied by her aunt, a grey-haired lady, who spoke much to Florence, and who
greatly liked (but that they all did) to hear her sing of an evening, and would
always sit near her at that time, with motherly interest. They had only been two
days in the house, when Florence, being in an arbour in the garden one warm
morning, musingly observant of a youthful group upon the turf, through some
intervening boughs, and wreathing flowers for the head of one little creature
among them who was the pet and plaything of the rest, heard this same lady and
her niece, in pacing up and down a sheltered nook close by, speak of herself.
    »Is Florence an orphan like me, aunt?« said the child.
    »No, my love. She has no mother, but her father is living.«
    »Is she in mourning for her poor mama, now?« inquired the child quickly.
    »No; for her only brother.«
    »Has she no other brother?«
    »None.«
    »No sister?«
    »None.«
    »I am very, very sorry!« said the little girl.
    As they stopped soon afterwards to watch some boats, and had been silent in
the meantime, Florence, who had risen when she heard her name, and had gathered
up her flowers to go and meet them, that they might know of her being within
hearing, resumed her seat and work, expecting to hear no more; but the
conversation recommenced next moment.
    »Florence is a favourite with every one here, and deserves to be, I am
sure,« said the child, earnestly. »Where is her papa?«
    The aunt replied, after a moment's pause, that she did not know. Her tone of
voice arrested Florence, who had started from her seat again; and held her
fastened to the spot, with her work hastily caught up to her bosom, and her two
hands saving it from being scattered on the ground.
    »He is in England, I hope, aunt?« said the child.
    »I believe so. Yes; I know he is, indeed.«
    »Has he ever been here?«
    »I believe not. No.«
    »Is he coming here to see her?«
    »I believe not.«
    »Is he lame, or blind, or ill, aunt?« asked the child.
    The flowers that Florence held to her breast began to fall when she heard
those words, so wonderingly spoken. She held them closer; and her face hung down
upon them.
    »Kate,« said the lady, after another moment of silence, »I will tell you the
whole truth about Florence as I have heard it, and believe it to be. Tell no one
else, my dear, because it may be little known here, and your doing so would give
her pain.«
    »I never will!« exclaimed the child.
    »I know you never will,« returned the lady. »I can trust you as myself. I
fear then, Kate, that Florence's father cares little for her, very seldom sees
her, never was kind to her in her life, and now quite shuns her and avoids her.
She would love him dearly if he would suffer her, but he will not - though for
no fault of hers; and she is greatly to be loved and pitied by all gentle
hearts.«
    More of the flowers that Florence held, fell scattering on the ground; those
that remained were wet, but not with dew; and her face dropped upon her laden
hands.
    »Poor Florence! Dear, good Florence!« cried the child.
    »Do you know why I have told you this, Kate?« said the lady.
    »That I may be very kind to her, and take great care to try to please her.
Is that the reason, aunt?«
    »Partly,« said the lady, »but not all. Though we see her so cheerful; with a
pleasant smile for every one; ready to oblige us all, and bearing her part in
every amusement here: she can hardly be quite happy, do you think she can,
Kate?«
    »I am afraid not,« said the little girl.
    »And you can understand,« pursued the lady, »why her observation of children
who have parents who are fond of them, and proud of them - like many here, just
now - should make her sorrowful in secret?«
    »Yes, dear aunt,« said the child, »I understand that very well. Poor
Florence!«
    More flowers strayed upon the ground, and those she yet held to her breast
trembled as if a wintry wind were rustling them.
    »My Kate,« said the lady, whose voice was serious, but very calm and sweet,
and had so impressed Florence from the first moment of her hearing it, »of all
the youthful people here, you are her natural and harmless friend; you have not
the innocent means, that happier children have -«
    »There are none happier, aunt!« exclaimed the child, who seemed to cling
about her.
    »- As other children have, dear Kate, of reminding her of her misfortune.
Therefore I would have you, when you try to be her little friend, try all the
more for that, and feel that the bereavement you sustained - thank Heaven!
before you knew its weight - gives you claim and hold upon poor Florence.«
    »But I am not without a parent's love, aunt, and I never have been,« said
the child, »with you.«
    »However that may be, my dear,« returned the lady, »your misfortune is a
lighter one than Florence's; for not an orphan in the wide world can be so
deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent's love.«
    The flowers were scattered on the ground like dust; the empty hands were
spread upon the face; and orphaned Florence, shrinking down upon the ground,
wept long and bitterly.
    But true of heart and resolute in her good purpose, Florence held to it as
her dying mother held by her upon the day that gave Paul life. He did not know
how much she loved him. However long the time in coming, and however slow the
interval, she must try to bring that knowledge to her father's heart one day or
other. Meantime she must be careful in no thoughtless word, or look, or burst of
feeling awakened by any chance circumstance, to complain against him, or to give
occasion for these whispers to his prejudice.
    Even in the response she made the orphan child, to whom she was attracted
strongly, and whom she had such occasion to remember, Florence was mindful of
him. If she singled her out too plainly (Florence thought) from among the rest,
she would confirm - in one mind certainly: perhaps in more - the belief that he
was cruel and unnatural. Her own delight was no set-off to this. What she had
overheard was a reason, not for soothing herself, but for saving him; and
Florence did it, in pursuance of the study of her heart.
    She did so always. If a book were read aloud, and there were anything in the
story that pointed at an unkind father, she was in pain for their application of
it to him; not for herself. So with any trifle of an interlude that was acted,
or picture that was shown, or game that was played, among them. The occasions
for such tenderness towards him were so many, that her mind misgave her often,
it would indeed be better to go back to the old house and live again within the
shadow of its dull walls, undisturbed. How few who saw sweet Florence, in her
spring of womanhood, the modest little queen of those small revels, imagined
what a load of sacred care lay heavy in her breast! How few of those who
stiffened in her father's freezing atmosphere, suspected what a heap of fiery
coals was piled upon his head!
    Florence pursued her study patiently, and, failing to acquire the secret of
the nameless grace she sought, among the youthful company who were assembled in
the house, often walked out alone, in the early morning, among the children of
the poor. But still she found them all too far advanced to learn from. They had
won their household places long ago, and did not stand without, as she did, with
a bar across the door.
    There was one man whom she several times observed at work very early, and
often with a girl of about her own age seated near him. He was a very poor man,
who seemed to have no regular employment, but now went roaming about the banks
of the river when the tide was low, looking out for bits and scraps in the mud;
and now worked at the unpromising little patch of garden-ground before his
cottage; and now tinkered up a miserable old boat that belonged to him; or did
some job of that kind for a neighbour, as chance occurred. Whatever the man's
labour, the girl was never employed; but sat, when she was with him, in a
listless, moping state, and idle.
    Florence had often wished to speak to this man; yet she had never taken
courage to do so, as he made no movement towards her. But one morning when she
happened to come upon him suddenly, from a by-path among some pollard willows
which terminated in the little shelving piece of stony ground that lay between
his dwelling and the water, where he was bending over a fire he had made to
caulk the old boat which was lying bottom upwards, close by, he raised his head
at the sound of her footstep, and gave her Good morning.
    »Good morning,« said Florence, approaching nearer, »you are at work early.«
    »I'd be glad to be often at work earlier, Miss, if I had work to do.«
    »Is it so hard to get?« asked Florence.
    »I find it so,« replied the man.
    Florence glanced to where the girl was sitting, drawn together, with her
elbows on her knees, and her chin on her hands, and said:
    »Is that your daughter?«
    He raised his head quickly, and looking towards the girl with a brightened
face, nodded to her, and said »Yes.« Florence looked towards her too, and gave
her a kind salutation; the girl muttered something in return, ungraciously and
sullenly.
    »Is she in want of employment also?« said Florence.
    The man shook his head. »No, Miss,« he said. »I work for both.«
    »Are there only you two, then?« inquired Florence.
    »Only us two,« said the man. »Her mother has been dead these ten year.
Martha!« (he lifted up his head again, and whistled to her) »won't you say a
word to the pretty young lady?«
    The girl made an impatient gesture with her cowering shoulders, and turned
her head another way. Ugly, misshapen, peevish, ill-conditioned, ragged, dirty -
but beloved! Oh, yes! Florence had seen her father's look towards her, and she
knew whose look it had no likeness to.
    »I'm afraid she's worse this morning, my poor girl!« said the man,
suspending his work, and contemplating his ill-favoured child, with a compassion
that was the more tender for being rough.
    »She is ill, then!« said Florence.
    The man drew a deep sigh. »I don't believe my Martha's had five short days'
good health,« he answered, looking at her still, »in as many long years.«
    »Aye! and more than that, John,« said a neighbour, who had come down to help
him with the boat.
    »More than that, you say, do you?« cried the other, pushing back his
battered hat, and drawing his hand across his forehead. »Very like. It seems a
long, long time.«
    »And the more the time,« pursued the neighbour, »the more you've favoured
and humoured her, John, 'till she's got to be a burden to herself, and everybody
else.«
    »Not to me,« said her father, falling to his work again. »Not to me.«
    Florence could feel - who better? - how truly he spoke. She drew a little
closer to him, and would have been glad to touch his rugged hand, and thank him
for his goodness to the miserable object that he looked upon with eyes so
different from any other man's.
    »Who would favour my poor girl - to call it favouring - if I didn't?« said
the father.
    »Aye, aye,« cried the neighbour. »In reason, John. But you! You rob yourself
to give to her. You bind yourself hand and foot on her account. You make your
life miserable along of her. And what does she care! You don't believe she knows
it?«
    The father lifted up his head again, and whistled to her. Martha made the
same impatient gesture with her crouching shoulders, in reply; and he was glad
and happy.
    »Only for that, Miss,« said the neighbour, with a smile, in which there was
more of secret sympathy than he expressed; »only to get that, he never lets her
out of his sight!«
    »Because the day'll come, and has been coming a long while,« observed the
other, bending low over his work, »when to get half as much from that
unfort'nate child of mine - to get the trembling of a finger, or the waving of a
hair - would be to raise the dead.«
    Florence softly put some money near his hand on the old boat, and left him.
    And now Florence began to think, if she were to fall ill, if she were to
fade like her dear brother, would he then know that she had loved him; would she
then grow dear to him; would he come to her bedside, when she was weak and dim
of sight, and take her into his embrace, and cancel all the past? Would he so
forgive her, in that changed condition, for not having been able to lay open her
childish heart to him, as to make it easy to relate with what emotions she had
gone out of his room that night; what she had meant to say if she had had the
courage; and how she had endeavoured, afterwards, to learn the way she never
knew in infancy?
    Yes, she thought if she were dying, he would relent. She thought, that if
she lay, serene and not unwilling to depart, upon the bed that was curtained
round with recollections of their darling boy, he would be touched home, and
would say, »Dear Florence, live for me, and we will love each other as we might
have done, and be as happy as we might have been these many years!« She thought
that if she heard such words from him, and had her arms clasped round him, she
could answer with a smile, »It is too late for anything but this; I never could
be happier, dear father!« and so leave him, with a blessing on her lips.
    The golden water she remembered on the wall, appeared to Florence, in the
light of such reflections, only as a current flowing on to rest, and to a region
where the dear ones, gone before, were waiting, hand in hand; and often when she
looked upon the darker river rippling at her feet, she thought with awful
wonder, but not terror, of that river which her brother had so often said was
bearing him away.
    The father and his sick daughter were yet fresh in Florence's mind, and,
indeed, that incident was not a week old, when Sir Barnet and his lady going out
walking in the lanes one afternoon, proposed to her to bear them company.
Florence readily consenting, Lady Skettles ordered out young Barnet as a matter
of course. For nothing delighted Lady Skettles so much, as beholding her eldest
son with Florence on his arm.
    Barnet, to say the truth, appeared to entertain an opposite sentiment on the
subject, and on such occasions frequently expressed himself audibly, though
indefinitely, in reference to a parcel of girls. As it was not easy to ruffle
her sweet temper, however, Florence generally reconciled the young gentleman to
his fate after a few minutes, and they strolled on amicably: Lady Skettles and
Sir Barnet following, in a state of perfect complacency and high gratification.
    This was the order of procedure on the afternoon in question: and Florence
had almost succeeded in overruling the present objections of Skettles Junior to
his destiny, when a gentleman on horseback came riding by, looked at them
earnestly as he passed, drew in his rein, wheeled round, and came riding back
again, hat in hand.
    The gentleman had looked particularly at Florence; and when the little party
stopped, on his riding back, he bowed to her, before saluting Sir Barnet and his
lady. Florence had no remembrance of having ever seen him, but she started
involuntarily when he came near her, and drew back.
    »My horse is perfectly quiet, I assure you,« said the gentleman.
    It was not that, but something in the gentleman himself - Florence could not
have said what - that made her recoil as if she had been stung.
    »I have the honour to address Miss Dombey, I believe?« said the gentleman,
with a most persuasive smile. On Florence inclining her head, he added, »My name
is Carker. I can hardly hope to be remembered by Miss Dombey, except by name.
Carker.«
    Florence, sensible of a strange inclination to shiver, though the day was
hot, presented him to her host and hostess; by whom he was very graciously
received.
    »I beg pardon,« said Mr. Carker, »a thousand times! But I am going down
to-morrow morning to Mr. Dombey, at Leamington, and if Miss Dombey can entrust
me with any commission, need I say how very happy I shall be?«
    Sir Barnet immediately divining that Florence would desire to write a letter
to her father, proposed to return, and besought Mr. Carker to come home and dine
in his riding gear. Mr. Carker had the misfortune to be engaged to dinner, but
if Miss Dombey wished to write, nothing would delight him more than to accompany
them back, and to be her faithful slave in waiting as long as she pleased. As he
said this with his widest smile, and bent down close to her to pat his horse's
neck, Florence meeting his eyes, saw, rather than heard him say, »There is no
news of the ship!«
    Confused, frightened, shrinking from him, and not even sure that he had said
those words, for he seemed to have shown them to her in some extraordinary
manner through his smile, instead of uttering them, Florence faintly said that
she was obliged to him, but she would not write; she had nothing to say.
    »Nothing to send, Miss Dombey?« said the man of teeth.
    »Nothing,« said Florence, »but my - but my dear love - if you please.«
    Disturbed as Florence was, she raised her eyes to his face with an imploring
and expressive look, that plainly besought him, if he knew - which he as plainly
did - that any message between her and her father was an uncommon charge, but
that one most of all, to spare her. Mr. Carker smiled and bowed low, and being
charged by Sir Barnet with the best compliments of himself and Lady Skettles,
took his leave and rode away: leaving a favourable impression on that worthy
couple. Florence was seized with such a shudder as he went, that Sir Barnet,
adopting the popular superstition, supposed somebody was passing over her grave.
Mr. Carker, turning a corner, on the instant, looked back, and bowed, and
disappeared, as if he rode off to the churchyard straight, to do it.
 

                                  Chapter XXV

                           Strange News of Uncle Sol.

Captain Cuttle, though no sluggard, did not turn out so early on the morning
after he had seen Sol Gills, through the shop-window, writing in the parlour,
with the Midshipman upon the counter, and Rob the Grinder making up his bed
below it, but that the clocks struck six as he raised himself on his elbow, and
took a survey of his little chamber. The Captain's eyes must have done severe
duty, if he usually opened them as wide on awaking as he did that morning; and
were but roughly rewarded for their vigilance, if he generally rubbed them half
as hard. But the occasion was no common one, for Rob the Grinder had certainly
never stood in the doorway of Captain Cuttle's bedroom before, and in it he
stood then, panting at the Captain, with a flushed and touzled air of bed about
him, that greatly heightened both his colour and expression.
    »Holloa!« roared the Captain. »What's the matter?«
    Before Rob could stammer a word in answer, Captain Cuttle turned out, all in
a heap, and covered the boy's mouth with his hand.
    »Steady, my lad,« said the Captain, »don't ye speak a word to me as yet!«
    The Captain, looking at his visitor in great consternation, gently
shouldered him into the next room, after laying this injunction upon him; and
disappearing for a few moments, forthwith returned in the blue suit. Holding up
his hand in token of the injunction not yet being taken off, Captain Cuttle
walked up to the cupboard, and poured himself out a dram; a counterpart of which
he handed to the messenger. The Captain then stood himself up in a corner,
against the wall, as if to forestall the possibility of being knocked backwards
by the communication that was to be made to him; and having swallowed his
liquor, with his eyes fixed on the messenger, and his face as pale as his face
could be, requested him to »heave a-head.«
    »Do you mean, tell you, Captain?« asked Rob, who had been greatly impressed
by these precautions.
    »Aye!« said the Captain.
    »Well, sir;« said Rob, »I ain't got much to tell. But look here!«
    Rob produced a bundle of keys. The Captain surveyed them, remained in his
corner, and surveyed the messenger.
    »And look here!« pursued Rob.
    The boy produced a sealed packet, which Captain Cuttle stared at as he had
stared at the keys.
    »When I woke this morning, Captain,« said Rob, »which was about a quarter
after five, I found these on my pillow. The shop-door was unbolted and unlocked,
and Mr. Gills gone.«
    »Gone!« roared the Captain.
    »Flowed, sir,« returned Rob.
    The Captain's voice was so tremendous, and he came out of his corner with
such way on him, that Rob retreated before him into another corner: holding out
the keys and packet, to prevent himself from being run down.
    »For Captain Cuttle; sir,« cried Rob, »is on the keys, and on the packet
too. Upon my word and honour, Captain Cuttle, I don't know anything more about
it. I wish I may die if I do! Here's a sitiwation for a lad that's just got a
sitiwation,« cried the unfortunate Grinder, screwing his cuff into his face:
»his master bolted with his place, and him blamed for it!«
    These lamentations had reference to Captain Cuttle's gaze, or rather glare,
which was full of vague suspicions, threatenings, and denunciations. Taking the
proffered packet from his hand, the Captain opened it and read as follows: -
    »My dear Ned Cuttle. Enclosed is my will!« The Captain turned it over, with
a doubtful look - »and Testament. - Where's the Testament?« said the Captain,
instantly impeaching the ill-fated Grinder. »What have you done with that, my
lad?«
    »I never see it,« whimpered Rob. »Don't keep on suspecting an innocent lad,
Captain. I never touched the Testament.«
    Captain Cuttle shook his head, implying that somebody must be made
answerable for it; and gravely proceeded: -
    »Which don't break open for a year, or until you have decisive intelligence
of my dear Walter, who is dear to you, Ned, too, I am sure.« The Captain paused
and shook his head in some emotion; then, as a re-establishment of his dignity
in this trying position, looked with exceeding sternness at the Grinder. »If you
should never hear of me, or see me more, Ned, remember an old friend as he will
remember you to the last - kindly; and at least until the period I have
mentioned has expired, keep a home in the old place for Walter. There are no
debts, the loan from Dombey's house is paid off, and all my keys I send with
this. Keep this quiet, and make no inquiry for me; it is useless. So no more,
dear Ned, from your true friend, Solomon Gills.« The Captain took a long breath,
and then read these words, written below: »The boy Rob, well recommended, as I
told you, from Dombey's house. If all else should come to the hammer, take care,
Ned, of the little Midshipman.«
    To convey to posterity any idea of the manner in which the Captain, after
turning this letter over and over, and reading it a score of times, sat down in
his chair, and held a court-martial on the subject in his own mind, would
require the united genius of all the great men, who, discarding their own
untoward days, have determined to go down to posterity, and have never got
there. At first the Captain was too much confounded and distressed to think of
anything but the letter itself; and even when his thoughts began to glance upon
the various attendant facts, they might, perhaps, as well have occupied
themselves with their former theme, for any light they reflected on them. In
this state of mind, Captain Cuttle having the Grinder before the court, and no
one else, found it a great relief to decide, generally, that he was an object of
suspicion: which the Captain so clearly expressed in his visage, that Rob
remonstrated.
    »Oh, don't, Captain!« cried the Grinder. »I wonder how you can! what have I
done to be looked at, like that?«
    »My lad,« said Captain Cuttle, »don't you sing out afore you're hurt. And
don't you commit yourself, whatever you do.«
    »I haven't been and committed nothing, Captain!« answered Rob.
    »Keep her free, then,« said the Captain, impressively, »and ride easy.«
    With a deep sense of the responsibility imposed upon him, and the necessity
of thoroughly fathoming this mysterious affair, as became a man in his relations
with the parties, Captain Cuttle resolved to go down and examine the premises,
and to keep the Grinder with him. Considering that youth as under arrest at
present, the Captain was in some doubt whether it might not be expedient to
handcuff him, or tie his ankles together, or attach a weight to his legs; but
not being clear as to the legality of such formalities, the Captain decided
merely to hold him by the shoulder all the way, and knock him down if he made
any objection.
    However, he made none, and consequently got to the Instrument-maker's house
without being placed under any more stringent restraint. As the shutters were
not yet taken down, the Captain's first care was to have the shop opened; and
when the daylight was freely admitted, he proceeded, with its aid, to further
investigation.
    The Captain's first care was to establish himself in a chair in the shop, as
President of the solemn tribunal that was sitting within him; and to require Rob
to lie down in his bed under the counter, show exactly where he discovered the
keys and packet when he awoke, how he found the door when he went to try it, how
he started off to Brig Place - cautiously preventing the latter imitation from
being carried farther than the threshold - and so on to the end of the chapter.
When all this had been done several times, the Captain shook his head and seemed
to think the matter had a bad look.
    Next, the Captain, with some indistinct idea of finding a body, instituted a
strict search over the whole house; groping in the cellars with a lighted
candle, thrusting his hook behind doors, bringing his head into violent contact
with beams, and covering himself with cobwebs. Mounting up to the old man's
bedroom, they found that he had not been in bed on the previous night, but had
merely lain down on the coverlet, as was evident from the impression yet
remaining there.
    »And I think, Captain,« said Rob, looking round the room, »that when Mr.
Gills was going in and out so often, these last few days, he was taking little
things away, piecemeal, not to attract attention.«
    »Aye!« said the Captain, mysteriously. »Why so, my lad?«
    »Why,« returned Rob, looking about, »I don't see his shaving tackle. Nor his
brushes, Captain. Nor no shirts. Nor yet his shoes.«
    As each of these articles was mentioned, Captain Cuttle took particular
notice of the corresponding department of the Grinder, lest he should appear to
have been in recent use, or should prove to be in present possession thereof.
But Rob had no occasion to shave, certainly was not brushed, and wore the
clothes he had worn for a long time past, beyond all possibility of mistake.
    »And what should you say,« said the Captain - »not committing yourself -
about his time of sheering off? Hey?«
    »Why, I think, Captain,« returned Rob, »that he must have gone pretty soon
after I began to snore.«
    »What o'clock was that?« said the Captain, prepared to be very particular
about the exact time.
    »How can I tell, Captain!« answered Rob. »I only know that I'm a heavy
sleeper at first, and a light one towards morning; and if Mr. Gills had come
through the shop near daybreak, though ever so much on tip-toe, I'm pretty sure
I should have heard him shut the door at all events.«
    On mature consideration of this evidence, Captain Cuttle began to think that
the Instrument-maker must have vanished of his own accord; to which logical
conclusion he was assisted by the letter addressed to himself, which, as being
unquestionably in the old man's handwriting, would seem, with no great forcing,
to bear the construction, that he arranged of his own will, to go, and so went.
The Captain had next to consider where and why? and as there was no way
whatsoever that he saw to the solution of the first difficulty, he confined his
meditations to the second.
    Remembering the old man's curious manner, and the farewell he had taken of
him; unaccountably fervent at the time, but quite intelligible now: a terrible
apprehension strengthened on the Captain, that, overpowered by his anxieties and
regrets for Walter, he had been driven to commit suicide. Unequal to the wear
and tear of daily life, as he had often professed himself to be, and shaken as
he no doubt was by the uncertainty and deferred hope he had undergone, it seemed
no violently strained misgiving, but only too probable.
    Free from debt, and with no fear for his personal liberty, or the seizure of
his goods, what else but such a state of madness could have hurried him away
alone and secretly? As to his carrying some apparel with him, if he had really
done so - and they were not even sure of that - he might have done so, the
Captain argued, to prevent inquiry, to distract attention from his probable
fate, or to ease the very mind that was now revolving all these possibilities.
Such, reduced into plain language, and condensed within a small compass, was the
final result and substance of Captain Cuttle's deliberations: which took a long
time to arrive at this pass, and were, like some more public deliberations, very
discursive and disorderly.
    Dejected and despondent in the extreme, Captain Cuttle felt it just to
release Rob from the arrest in which he had placed him, and to enlarge him,
subject to a kind of honourable inspection which he still resolved to exercise;
and having hired a man, from Brogley the Broker, to sit in the shop during their
absence, the Captain, taking Rob with him, issued forth upon a dismal quest
after the mortal remains of Solomon Gills.
    Not a station-house or bone-house, or work-house in the metropolis escaped a
visitation from the hard glazed hat. Along the wharves, among the shipping on
the bank-side, up the river, down the river, here, there, everywhere, it went
gleaming where men were thickest, like the hero's helmet in an epic battle. For
a whole week the Captain read of all the found and missing people in all the
newspapers and handbills, and went forth on expeditions at all hours of the day
to identify Solomon Gills, in poor little ship-boys who had fallen overboard,
and in tall foreigners with dark beards who had taken poison - »to make sure,«
Captain Cuttle said, »that it warn't him.« It is a sure thing that it never was,
and that the good Captain had no other satisfaction.
    Captain Cuttle at last abandoned these attempts as hopeless, and set himself
to consider what was to be done next. After several new perusals of his poor
friend's letter, he considered that the maintenance of »a home in the old place
for Walter« was the primary duty imposed upon him. Therefore, the Captain's
decision was, that he would keep house on the premises of Solomon Gills himself,
and would go into the instrument-business, and see what came of it.
    But as this step involved the relinquishment of his apartments at Mrs.
MacStinger's, and he knew that resolute woman would never hear of his deserting
them, the Captain took the desperate determination of running away.
    »Now, look ye here, my lad,« said the Captain to Rob, when he had matured
this notable scheme, »to-morrow, I shan't be found in this here roadstead till
night - not till arter midnight p'rhaps. But you keep watch till you hear me
knock, and the moment you do, turn-to, and open the door.«
    »Very good, Captain,« said Rob.
    »You'll continue to be rated on these here books,« pursued the Captain
condescendingly, »and I don't say but what you may get promotion, if you and me
should pull together with a will. But the moment you hear me knock to-morrow
night, whatever time it is, turn-to and show yourself smart with the door.«
    »I'll be sure to do it, Captain,« replied Rob.
    »Because you understand,« resumed the Captain, coming back again to enforce
this charge upon his mind, »there may be, for anything I can say, a chase; and I
might be took while I was waiting, if you didn't show yourself smart with the
door.«
    Rob again assured the Captain that he would be prompt and wakeful; and the
Captain having made this prudent arrangement, went home to Mrs. MacStinger's for
the last time.
    The sense the Captain had of its being the last time, and of the awful
purpose hidden beneath his blue waistcoat, inspired him with such a mortal dread
of Mrs. MacStinger, that the sound of that lady's foot down stairs at any time
of the day, was sufficient to throw him into a fit of trembling. It fell out,
too, that Mrs. MacStinger was in a charming temper - mild and placid as a
house-lamb; and Captain Cuttle's conscience suffered terrible twinges, when she
came up to inquire if she could cook him nothing for his dinner.
    »A nice small kidney-pudding now, Cap'en Cuttle,« said his landlady: »or a
sheep's heart. Don't mind my trouble.«
    »No thank'ee, Ma'am,« returned the Captain.
    »Have a roast fowl,« said Mrs. MacStinger, »with a bit of weal stuffing and
some egg sauce. Come, Cap'en Cuttle. Give yourself a little treat!«
    »No thank'ee, Ma'am,« returned the Captain very humbly.
    »I'm sure you're out of sorts, and want to be stimulated,« said Mrs.
MacStinger. »Why not have, for once in a way a bottle of sherry wine?«
    »Well, Ma'am,« rejoined the Captain, »if you'd be so good as take a glass or
two, I think I would try that. Would you do me the favour, Ma'am,« said the
Captain, torn to pieces by his conscience, »to accept a quarter's rent a-head?«
    »And why so, Cap'en Cuttle?« retorted Mrs. MacStinger - sharply, as the
Captain thought.
    The Captain was frightened to death. »If you would, Ma'am,« he said with
submission, »it would oblige me. I can't keep my money very well. It pays itself
out. I should take it kind if you'd comply.«
    »Well, Cap'en Cuttle,« said the unconscious MacStinger rubbing her hands,
»you can do as you please. It's not for me, with my family, to refuse, no more
than it is to ask.«
    »And would you, Ma'am,« said the Captain, taking down the tin canister in
which he kept his cash, from the top shelf of the cupboard, »be so good as offer
eighteen-pence a-piece to the little family all round? If you could make it
convenient Ma'am, to pass the word presently for them children to come for'ard,
in a body, I should be glad to see 'em.«
    These innocent MacStingers were so many daggers to the Captain's breast,
when they appeared in a swarm, and tore at him with the confiding trustfulness
he so little deserved. The eye of Alexander MacStinger, who had been his
favourite was insupportable to the Captain; the voice of Juliana MacStinger, who
was the picture of her mother, made a coward of him.
    Captain Cuttle kept up appearances, nevertheless, tolerably well, and for an
hour or two was very hardly used and roughly handled by the young MacStingers:
who in their childish frolics, did a little damage also to the glazed hat, by
sitting on it, two at a time, as in a nest, and drumming on the inside of the
crown with their shoes. At length the Captain sorrowfully dismissed them: taking
leave of these cherubs with the poignant remorse and grief of a man who was
going to execution.
    In the silence of night, the Captain packed up his heavier property in a
chest, which he locked, intending to leave it there, in all probability for
ever, but on the forlorn chance of one day finding a man sufficiently bold and
desperate to come and ask for it. Of his lighter necessaries, the Captain made a
bundle; and disposed his plate about his person, ready for flight. At the hour
of midnight, when Brig Place was buried in slumber, and Mrs. MacStinger was
lulled in sweet oblivion, with her infants around her, the guilty Captain,
stealing down on tiptoe, in the dark, opened the door, closed it softly after
him, and took to his heels.
    Pursued by the image of Mrs. MacStinger springing out of bed, and,
regardless of costume, following and bringing him back; pursued also by a
consciousness of his enormous crime; Captain Cuttle held on at a great pace, and
allowed no grass to grow under his feet, between Brig Place and the
Instrument-maker's door. It opened when he knocked - for Rob was on the watch -
and when it was bolted and locked behind him, Captain Cuttle felt comparatively
safe.
    »Whew!« cried the Captain, looking round him. »It's a breather!«
    »Nothing the matter, is there, Captain?« cried the gaping Rob.
    »No, no!« said Captain Cuttle, after changing colour, and listening to a
passing footstep in the street. »But mind ye, my lad; if any lady, except either
of them two as you see t'other day, ever comes and asks for Cap'en Cuttle, be
sure to report no person of that name known, nor never heard of here; observe
them orders, will you?«
    »I'll take care, Captain,« returned Rob.
    »You might say - if you liked,« hesitated the Captain, »that you'd read in
the paper that a Cap'en of that name was gone to Australia, emigrating, along
with a whole ship's complement of people as had all swore never to come back no
more.«
    Rob nodded his understanding of these instructions; and Captain Cuttle
promising to make a man of him, if he obeyed orders, dismissed him, yawning, to
his bed under the counter, and went aloft to the chamber of Solomon Gills.
    What the Captain suffered next day, whenever a bonnet passed, or how often
he darted out of the shop to elude imaginary MacStingers, and sought safety in
the attic, cannot be told. But to avoid the fatigues attendant on this means of
self-preservation, the Captain curtained the glass door of communication between
the shop and parlour, on the inside, fitted a key to it from the bunch that had
been sent to him: and cut a small hole of espial in the wall. The advantage of
this fortification is obvious. On a bonnet appearing, the Captain instantly
slipped into his garrison, locked himself up, and took a secret observation of
the enemy. Finding it a false alarm, the Captain instantly slipped out again.
And the bonnets in the street were so very numerous, and alarms were so
inseparable from their appearance, that the Captain was almost incessantly
slipping in and out all day long.
    Captain Cuttle found time, however, in the midst of this fatiguing service
to inspect the stock; in connexion with which he had the general idea (very
laborious to Rob) that too much friction could not be bestowed upon it, and that
it could not be made too bright. He also ticketed a few attractive-looking
articles at a venture, at prices ranging from ten shillings to fifty pounds, and
exposed them in the window to the great astonishment of the public.
    After effecting these improvements, Captain Cuttle, surrounded by the
instruments, began to feel scientific: and looked up at the stars at night,
through the skylight, when he was smoking his pipe in the little back parlour
before going to bed, as if he had established a kind of property in them. As a
tradesman in the City, too, he began to have an interest in the Lord Mayor, and
the Sheriffs, and in Public Companies; and felt bound to read the quotations of
the Funds every day, though he was unable to make out, on any principle of
navigation, what the figures meant, and could have very well dispensed with the
fractions. Florence, the captain waited on, with his strange news of Uncle Sol,
immediately after taking possession of the Midshipman; but she was away from
home. So the Captain sat himself down in his altered station of life, with no
company but Rob the Grinder; and losing count of time, as men do when great
changes come upon them, thought musingly of Walter, and of Solomon Gills, and
even of Mrs. MacStinger herself, as among the things that had been.
 

                                  Chapter XXVI

                        Shadows of the Past and Future.

»Your most obedient, Sir,« said the Major. »Damme, Sir, a friend of my friend
Dombey's is a friend of mine, and I'm glad to see you!«
    »I am infinitely obliged, Carker,« explained Mr. Dombey, »to Major Bagstock,
for his company and conversation. Major Bagstock has rendered me great service,
Carker.«
    Mr. Carker the Manager, hat in hand, just arrived at Leamington, and just
introduced to the Major, showed the Major his whole double range of teeth, and
trusted he might take the liberty of thanking him with all his heart for having
effected so great an improvement in Mr. Dombey's looks and spirits.
    »By Gad, Sir,« said the Major, in reply, »there are no thanks due to me, for
it's a give and take affair. A great creature like our friend Dombey, Sir,« said
the Major, lowering his voice, but not lowering it so much as to render it
inaudible to that gentleman, »cannot help improving and exalting his friends. He
strengthens and invigorates a man, Sir, does Dombey, in his moral nature.«
    Mr. Carker snapped at the expression. In his moral nature. Exactly. The very
words he had been on the point of suggesting.
    »But when my friend Dombey, Sir,« added the Major, »talks to you of Major
Bagstock, I must crave leave to set him and you right. He means plain Joe, Sir -
Joey B. - Josh. Bagstock - Joseph - rough and tough Old J., Sir. At your
service.«
    Mr. Carker's excessively friendly inclinations towards the Major, and Mr.
Carker's admiration of his roughness, toughness, and plainness, gleamed out of
every tooth in Mr. Carker's head.
    »And now, Sir,« said the Major, »you and Dombey have the devil's own amount
of business to talk over.«
    »By no means, Major,« observed Mr. Dombey.
    »Dombey,« said the Major, defiantly, »I know better; a man of your mark -
the Colossus of commerce - is not to be interrupted. Your moments are precious.
We shall meet at dinner-time. In the interval, old Joseph will be scarce. The
dinner-hour is a sharp seven, Mr. Carker.«
    With that, the Major, greatly swollen as to his face, withdrew; but
immediately putting in his head at the door again, said:
    »I beg your pardon. Dombey, have you any message to 'em?«
    Mr. Dombey in some embarrassment, and not without a glance at the courteous
keeper of his business confidence, entrusted the Major with his compliments.
    »By the Lord, Sir,« said the Major, »you must make it something warmer than
that, or old Joe will be far from welcome.«
    »Regards then, if you will, Major,« returned Mr. Dombey.
    »Damme, Sir,« said the Major, shaking his shoulders and his great cheeks
jocularly: »make it something warmer than that.«
    »What you please, then, Major,« observed Mr. Dombey.
    »Our friend is sly, Sir, sly, Sir, de-vilish sly,« said the Major, staring
round the door at Carker. »So is Bagstock.« But stopping in the midst of a
chuckle, and drawing himself up to his full height, the Major solemnly
exclaimed, as he struck himself on the chest, »Dombey! I envy your feelings. God
bless you!« and withdrew.
    »You must have found the gentleman a great resource,« said Carker, following
him with his teeth.
    »Very great indeed,« said Mr. Dombey.
    »He has friends here, no doubt,« pursued Carker. »I perceive, from what he
has said, that you go into society here. Do you know,« smiling horribly, »I am
so very glad that you go into society!«
    Mr. Dombey acknowledged this display of interest on the part of his second
in command, by twirling his watch-chain, and slightly moving his head.
    »You were formed for society,« said Carker. »Of all the men I know, you are
the best adapted, by nature and by position, for society. Do you know I have
been frequently amazed that you should have held it at arm's length so long!«
    »I have had my reasons, Carker. I have been alone, and indifferent to it.
But you have great social qualifications yourself, and are the more likely to
have been surprised.«
    »Oh! I!« returned the other, with ready self-disparagement. »It's quite
another matter in the case of a man like me. I don't come into comparison with
you.«
    Mr. Dombey put his hand to his neckcloth, settled his chin in it, coughed,
and stood looking at his faithful friend and servant for a few moments in
silence.
    »I shall have the pleasure, Carker,« said Mr. Dombey at length: making as if
he swallowed something a little too large for his throat: »to present you to my
- to the Major's friends. Highly agreeable people.«
    »Ladies among them, I presume?« insinuated the smooth Manager.
    »They are all - that is to say, they are both - ladies,« replied Mr. Dombey.
    »Only two?« smiled Carker.
    »They are only two. I have confined my visits to their residence, and have
made no other acquaintance here.«
    »Sisters, perhaps?« quoth Carker.
    »Mother and daughter,« replied Mr. Dombey.
    As Mr. Dombey dropped his eyes, and adjusted his neckcloth again, the
smiling face of Mr. Carker the Manager became in a moment, and without any stage
of transition, transformed into a most intent and frowning face, scanning his
closely, and with an ugly sneer. As Mr. Dombey raised his eyes, it changed back,
no less quickly, to its old expression, and showed him every gum of which it
stood possessed.
    »You are very kind,« said Carker, »I shall be delighted to know them.
Speaking of daughters, I have seen Miss Dombey.«
    There was a sudden rush of blood to Mr. Dombey's face.
    »I took the liberty of waiting on her,« said Carker, »to inquire if she
could charge me with any little commission. I am not so fortunate as to be the
bearer of any but her - but her dear love.«
    Wolf's face that it was then, with even the hot tongue revealing itself
through the stretched mouth, as the eyes encountered Mr. Dombey's!
    »What business intelligence is there?« inquired the latter gentleman, after
a silence, during which Mr. Carker had produced some memoranda and other papers.
    »There is very little,« returned Carker. »Upon the whole we have not had our
usual good fortune of late, but that is of little moment to you. At Lloyd's,
they give up the Son and Heir for lost. Well, she was insured, from her keel to
her masthead.«
    »Carker,« said Mr. Dombey, taking a chair near him, »I cannot say that young
man, Gay, ever impressed me favourably -«
    »Nor me,« interposed the Manager.
    »But I wish,« said Mr. Dombey, without heeding the interruption, »he had
never gone on board that ship. I wish he had never been sent out.«
    »It is a pity you didn't say so, in good time, is it not?« retorted Carker,
coolly. »However, I think it's all for the best. I really think it's all for the
best. Did I mention that there was something like a little confidence between
Miss Dombey and myself?«
    »No,« said Mr. Dombey, sternly.
    »I have no doubt,« returned Mr. Carker, after an impressive pause, »that
wherever Gay is, he is much better where he is, than at home here. If I were, or
could be, in your place, I should be satisfied of that. I am quite satisfied of
it myself. Miss Dombey is confiding and young - perhaps hardly proud enough, for
your daughter - if she have a fault. Not that that is much though, I am sure.
Will you check these balances with me?«
    Mr. Dombey leaned back in his chair, instead of bending over the papers that
were laid before him, and looked the Manager steadily in the face. The Manager,
with his eyelids slightly raised, affected to be glancing at his figures, and to
await the leisure of his principal. He showed that he affected this, as if from
great delicacy, and with a design to spare Mr. Dombey's feelings; and the
latter, as he looked at him, was cognizant of his intended consideration, and
felt that but for it, this confidential Carker would have said a great deal
more, which he, Mr. Dombey, was too proud to ask for. It was his way in
business, often. Little by little, Mr. Dombey's gaze relaxed, and his attention
became diverted to the papers before him; but while busy with the occupation
they afforded him, he frequently stopped, and looked at Mr. Carker again.
Whenever he did so, Mr. Carker was demonstrative, as before, in his delicacy,
and impressed it on his great chief more and more.
    While they were thus engaged; and under the skilful culture of the Manager,
angry thoughts in reference to poor Florence brooded and bred in Mr. Dombey's
breast, usurping the place of the cold dislike that generally reigned there;
Major Bagstock, much admired by the old ladies of Leamington, and followed by
the Native, carrying the usual amount of light baggage, straddled along the
shady side of the way, to make a morning call on Mrs. Skewton. It being mid-day
when the Major reached the bower of Cleopatra, he had the good fortune to find
his Princess on her usual sofa, languishing over a cup of coffee, with the room
so darkened and shaded for her more luxurious repose, that Withers, who was in
attendance on her, loomed like a phantom page.
    »What insupportable creature is this, coming in!« said Mrs. Skewton. »I
cannot bear it. Go away, whoever you are!«
    »You have not the heart to banish J. B., Ma'am!« said the Major, halting
midway, to remonstrate, with his cane over his shoulder.
    »Oh it's you, is it? On second thoughts, you may enter,« observed Cleopatra.
    The Major entered accordingly, and advancing to the sofa pressed her
charming hand to his lips.
    »Sit down,« said Cleopatra, listlessly waving her fan, »a long way off.
Don't come too near me, for I am frightfully faint and sensitive this morning,
and you smell of the Sun. You are absolutely tropical.«
    »By George, Ma'am,« said the Major, »the time has been when Joseph Bagstock
has been grilled and blistered by the Sun; the time was, when he was forced,
Ma'am, into such full blow, by high hothouse heat in the West Indies, that he
was known as the Flower. A man never heard of Bagstock, Ma'am, in those days; he
heard of the Flower - the Flower of Ours. The Flower may have faded, more or
less, Ma'am,« observed the Major, dropping into a much nearer chair than had
been indicated by his cruel Divinity, »but it is a tough plant yet, and constant
as the evergreen.«
    Here the Major, under cover of the dark room, shut up one eye, rolled his
head like a Harlequin, and, in his great self-satisfaction, perhaps went nearer
to the confines of apoplexy than he had ever gone before.
    »Where is Mrs. Granger?« inquired Cleopatra of her page.
    Withers believed she was in her own room.
    »Very well,« said Mrs. Skewton. »Go away, and shut the door. I am engaged.«
    As Withers disappeared, Mrs. Skewton turned her head languidly towards the
Major, without otherwise moving, and asked him how his friend was?
    »Dombey, Ma'am,« returned the Major, with a facetious gurgling in his
throat, »is as well as a man in his condition can be. His condition is a
desperate one, Ma'am. He is touched, is Dombey! Touched!« cried the Major. »He
is bayonetted through the body.«
    Cleopatra cast a sharp look at the Major, that contrasted forcibly with the
affected drawl in which she presently said -
    »Major Bagstock, although I know but little of the world, - nor can I really
regret my inexperience, for I fear it is a false place, full of withering
conventionalities: where Nature is but little regarded, and where the music of
the heart, and the gushing of the soul, and all that sort of thing, which is so
truly poetical, is seldom heard, - I cannot misunderstand your meaning. There is
an allusion to Edith - to my extremely dear child,« said Mrs. Skewton, tracing
the outline of her eyebrows with her forefinger, »in your words, to which the
tenderest of chords vibrates excessively!«
    »Bluntness, Ma'am,« returned the Major, »has ever been the characteristic of
the Bagstock breed. You are right. Joe admits it.«
    »And that allusion,« pursued Cleopatra, »would involve one of the most - if
not positively the most - touching, and thrilling, and sacred emotions of which
our sadly-fallen nature is susceptible, I conceive.«
    The Major laid his hand upon his lips, and wafted a kiss to Cleopatra, as if
to identify the emotion in question.
    »I feel that I am weak. I feel that I am wanting in that energy, which
should sustain a mama: not to say a parent: on such a subject,« said Mrs.
Skewton, trimming her lips with the laced edge of her pocket-handkerchief; »but
I can hardly approach a topic so excessively momentous to my dearest Edith
without a feeling of faintness. Nevertheless, bad man, as you have boldly
remarked upon it, and as it has occasioned me great anguish:« Mrs. Skewton
touched her left side with her fan: »I will not shrink from my duty.«
    The Major, under cover of the dimness, swelled, and swelled, and rolled his
purple face about, and winked his lobster eye, until he fell into a fit of
wheezing, which obliged him to rise and take a turn or two about the room,
before his fair friend could proceed.
    »Mr. Dombey,« said Mrs. Skewton, when she at length resumed, »was obliging
enough, now many weeks ago, to do us the honour of visiting us here; in company,
my dear Major, with yourself. I acknowledge - let me be open - that it is my
failing to be the creature of impulse, and to wear my heart, as it were,
outside. I know my failing full well. My enemy cannot know it better. But I am
not penitent; I would rather not be frozen by the heartless world, and am
content to bear this imputation justly.«
    Mrs. Skewton arranged her tucker, pinched her wiry throat to give it a soft
surface, and went on, with great complacency.
    »It gave me (my dearest Edith too, I am sure) infinite pleasure to receive
Mr. Dombey. As a friend of yours, my dear Major, we were naturally disposed to
be prepossessed in his favour; and I fancied that I observed an amount of Heart
in Mr. Dombey, that was excessively refreshing.«
    »There is devilish little heart in Dombey now, Ma'am,« said the Major.
    »Wretched man!« cried Mrs. Skewton, looking at him languidly, »pray be
silent.«
    »J. B. is dumb, Ma'am,« said the Major.
    »Mr. Dombey,« pursued Cleopatra, smoothing the rosy hue upon her cheeks,
»accordingly repeated his visit; and possibly finding some attraction in the
simplicity and primitiveness of our tastes - for there is always a charm in
nature - it is so very sweet - became one of our little circle every evening.
Little did I think of the awful responsibility into which I plunged when I
encouraged Mr. Dombey - to -«
    »To beat up these quarters, Ma'am,« suggested Major Bagstock.
    »Coarse person!« said Mrs. Skewton, »you anticipate my meaning, though in
odious language.«
    Here Mrs. Skewton rested her elbow on the little table at her side, and
suffering her wrist to droop in what she considered a graceful and becoming
manner, dangled her fan to and fro, and lazily admired her hand while speaking.
    »The agony I have endured,« she said mincingly, »as the truth has by degrees
dawned upon me, has been too exceedingly terrific to dilate upon. My whole
existence is bound up in my sweetest Edith; and to see her change from day to
day - my beautiful pet, who has positively garnered up her heart since the death
of that most delightful creature, Granger - is the most affecting thing in the
world.«
    Mrs. Skewton's world was not a very trying one, if one might judge of it by
the influence of its most affecting circumstance upon her; but this by the way.
    »Edith,« simpered Mrs. Skewton, »who is the perfect pearl of my life, is
said to resemble me. I believe we are alike.«
    »There is one man in the world who never will admit that any one resembles
you, Ma'am,« said the Major; »and that man's name is Old Joe Bagstock.«
    Cleopatra made as if she would brain the flatterer with her fan, but
relenting, smiled upon him and proceeded:
    »If my charming girl inherits any advantages from me, wicked one!«: the
Major was the wicked one: »she inherits also my foolish nature. She has great
force of character - mine has been said to be immense, though I don't believe it
- but once moved, she is susceptible and sensitive to the last extent. What are
my feelings when I see her pining! They destroy me.«
    The Major advancing his double chin, and pursing up his blue lips into a
soothing expression, affected the profoundest sympathy.
    »The confidence,« said Mrs. Skewton, »that has subsisted between us - the
free development of soul, and openness of sentiment - is touching to think of.
We have been more like sisters than mama and child.«
    »J. B.'s own sentiment,« observed the Major, »expressed by J. B. fifty
thousand times!«
    »Do not interrupt, rude man!« said Cleopatra. »What are my feelings, then,
when I find that there is one subject avoided by us! That there is a
what's-his-name - a gulf - opened between us. That my own artless Edith is
changed to me! They are of the most poignant description, of course.«
    The Major left his chair, and took one nearer to the little table.
    »From day to day I see this, my dear Major,« proceeded Mrs. Skewton. »From
day to day I feel this. From hour to hour I reproach myself for that excess of
faith and trustfulness which has led to such distressing consequences; and
almost from minute to minute, I hope that Mr. Dombey may explain himself, and
relieve the torture I undergo, which is extremely wearing. But nothing happens,
my dear Major; I am the slave of remorse - take care of the coffee-cup: you are
so very awkward - my darling Edith is an altered being; and I really don't see
what is to be done, or what good creature I can advise with.«
    Major Bagstock, encouraged perhaps by the softened and confidential tone
into which Mrs. Skewton, after several times lapsing into it for a moment,
seemed now to have subsided for good, stretched out his hand across the little
table, and said with a leer,
    »Advise with Joe, Ma'am.«
    »Then, you aggravating monster,« said Cleopatra, giving one hand to the
Major, and tapping his knuckles with her fan, which she held in the other: »why
don't you talk to me? you know what I mean. Why don't you tell me something to
the purpose?«
    The Major laughed, and kissed the hand she had bestowed upon him, and
laughed again, immensely.
    »Is there as much Heart in Mr. Dombey as I gave him credit for?« languished
Cleopatra tenderly. »Do you think he is in earnest, my dear Major? Would you
recommend his being spoken to, or his being left alone? Now tell me, like a dear
man, what you would advise.«
    »Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma'am?« chuckled the Major, hoarsely.
    »Mysterious creature?« returned Cleopatra, bringing her fan to bear upon the
Major's nose. »How can we marry him?«
    »Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma'am, I say?« chuckled the Major
again.
    Mrs. Skewton returned no answer in words, but smiled upon the Major with so
much archness and vivacity, that that gallant officer considering himself
challenged, would have imprinted a kiss on her exceedingly red lips, but for her
interposing the fan with a very winning and juvenile dexterity. It might have
been in modesty; it might have been in apprehension of some danger to their
bloom.
    »Dombey, Ma'am,« said the Major, »is a great catch.«
    »Oh, mercenary wretch!« cried Cleopatra, with a little shriek, »I am
shocked.«
    »And Dombey, Ma'am,« pursued the Major, thrusting forward his head, and
distending his eyes, »is in earnest. Joseph says it; Bagstock knows it; J. B.
keeps him to the mark. Leave Dombey to himself, Ma'am. Dombey is safe, Ma'am. Do
as you have done; do no more; and trust to J. B. for the end.«
    »You really think so, my dear Major?« returned Cleopatra, who had eyed him
very cautiously, and very searchingly, in spite of her listless bearing.
    »Sure of it, Ma'am,« rejoined the Major. »Cleopatra the peerless, and her
Antony Bagstock, will often speak of this, triumphantly, when sharing the
elegance and wealth of Edith Dombey's establishment. Dombey's right-hand man,
Ma'am,« said the Major, stopping abruptly in a chuckle, and becoming serious,
»has arrived.«
    »This morning?« said Cleopatra.
    »This morning, Ma'am,« returned the Major. »And Dombey's anxiety for his
arrival, Ma'am, is to be referred - take J. B.'s word for this; for Joe is
de-vilish sly« - the Major tapped his nose, and screwed up one of his eyes
tight: which did not enhance his native beauty - »to his desire that what is in
the wind should become known to him, without Dombey's telling and consulting
him. For Dombey is as proud, Ma'am,« said the Major, »as Lucifer.«
    »A charming quality,« lisped Mrs. Skewton; »reminding one of dearest Edith.«
    »Well, Ma'am,« said the Major. »I have thrown out hints already, and the
right-hand man understands 'em; and I'll throw out more, before the day is done.
Dombey projected this morning a ride to Warwick Castle, and to Kenilworth,
to-morrow, to be preceded by a breakfast with us. I undertook the delivery of
this invitation. Will you honour us so far, Ma'am?« said the Major, swelling
with shortness of breath and slyness, as he produced a note, addressed to the
Honourable Mrs. Skewton, by favour of Major Bagstock, wherein hers ever
faithfully, Paul Dombey, besought her and her amiable and accomplished daughter
to consent to the proposed excursion; and in a postscript unto which, the same
ever faithfully Paul Dombey entreated to be recalled to the remembrance of Mrs.
Granger.
    »Hush!« said Cleopatra, suddenly, »Edith!«
    The loving mother can scarcely be described as resuming her insipid and
affected air when she made this exclamation; for she had never cast it off; nor
was it likely that she ever would or could, in any other place than in the
grave. But hurriedly dismissing whatever shadow of earnestness, or faint
confession of a purpose, laudable or wicked, that her face, or voice, or manner,
had, for the moment, betrayed, she lounged upon the couch, her most insipid and
most languid self again, as Edith entered the room.
    Edith, so beautiful and stately, but so cold and so repelling. Who, slightly
acknowledging the presence of Major Bagstock, and directing a keen glance at her
mother, drew back the curtain from a window, and sat down there, looking out.
    »My dearest Edith,« said Mrs. Skewton, »where on earth have you been? I have
wanted you, my love, most sadly.«
    »You said you were engaged, and I stayed away,« she answered, without
turning her head.
    »It was cruel to Old Joe, Ma'am,« said the Major in his gallantry.
    »It was very cruel, I know,« she said, still looking out - and said with
such calm disdain, that the Major was discomfited, and could think of nothing in
reply.
    »Major Bagstock, my darling Edith,« drawled her mother, »who is generally
the most useless and disagreeable creature in the world: as you know -«
    »It is surely not worth while, Mama,« said Edith, looking round, »to observe
these forms of speech. We are quite alone. We know each other.«
    The quiet scorn that sat upon her handsome face - a scorn that evidently
lighted on herself, no less than them - was so intense and deep, that her
mother's simper, for the instant, though of a hardy constitution, drooped before
it.
    »My darling girl,« she began again.
    »Not woman yet?« said Edith, with a smile.
    »How very odd you are to-day, my dear! Pray let me say, my love, that Major
Bagstock has brought the kindest of notes from Mr. Dombey, proposing that we
should breakfast with him to-morrow, and ride to Warwick and Kenilworth. Will
you go, Edith?«
    »Will I go!« she repeated, turning very red, and breathing quickly as she
looked round at her mother.
    »I knew you would, my own,« observed the latter carelessly. »It is, as you
say, quite a form to ask. Here is Mr. Dombey's letter, Edith.«
    »Thank you. I have no desire to read it,« was her answer.
    »Then perhaps I had better answer it myself,« said Mrs. Skewton, »though I
had thought of asking you to be my secretary, darling.« As Edith made no
movement and no answer, Mrs. Skewton begged the Major to wheel her little table
nearer, and to set open the desk it contained, and to take out pen and paper for
her; all which congenial offices of gallantry the Major discharged, with much
submission and devotion.
    »Your regards, Edith, my dear?« said Mrs. Skewton, pausing, pen in hand, at
the postscript.
    »What you will, Mama,« she answered, without turning her head, and with
supreme indifference.
    Mrs. Skewton wrote what she would, without seeking for any more explicit
directions, and handed her letter to the Major, who receiving it as a precious
charge, made a show of laying it near his heart, but was fain to put it in the
pocket of his pantaloons on account of the insecurity of his waistcoat. The
Major then took a very polished and chivalrous farewell of both ladies, which
the elder one acknowledged in her usual manner, while the younger, sitting with
her face addressed to the window, bent her head so slightly that it would have
been a greater compliment to the Major to have made no sign at all, and to have
left him to infer that he had not been heard or thought of.
    »As to alteration in her, Sir,« mused the Major on his way back; on which
expedition - the afternoon being sunny and hot - he ordered the Native and the
light baggage to the front, and walked in the shadow of that expatriated prince:
»as to alteration, Sir, and pining, and so forth, that won't go down with Joseph
Bagstock. None of that, Sir. It won't do here. But as to there being something
of a division between 'em - or a gulf as the mother calls it - damme, Sir, that
seems true enough. And it's odd enough! Well, Sir!« panted the Major, »Edith
Granger and Dombey are well matched; let 'em fight it out! Bagstock backs the
winner!«
    The Major, by saying these latter words aloud, in the vigour of his
thoughts, caused the unhappy Native to stop, and turn round, in the belief that
he was personally addressed. Exasperated to the last degree by this act of
insubordination, the Major (though he was swelling with enjoyment of his own
humour, at the moment of its occurrence) instantly thrust his cane among the
Native's ribs, and continued to stir him up, at short intervals, all the way to
the Hotel.
    Nor was the Major less exasperated as he dressed for dinner, during which
operation the dark servant underwent the pelting of a shower of miscellaneous
objects, varying in size from a boot to a hairbrush, and including everything
that came within his master's reach. For the Major plumed himself on having the
Native in a perfect state of drill, and visited the least departure from strict
discipline with this kind of fatigue duty. Add to this, that he maintained the
Native about his person as a counter-irritant against the gout, and all other
vexations, mental as well as bodily; and the Native would appear to have earned
his pay - which was not large.
    At length, the Major having disposed of all the missiles that were
convenient to his hand, and having called the Native so many new names as must
have given him great occasion to marvel at the resources of the English
language, submitted to have his cravat put on; and being dressed, and finding
himself in a brisk flow of spirits after this exercise, went down stairs to
enliven Dombey and his right-hand man.
    Dombey was not yet in the room, but the right-hand man was there, and his
dental treasures were, as usual, ready for the Major.
    »Well, Sir!« said the Major. »How have you passed the time since I had the
happiness of meeting you? Have you walked at all?«
    »A saunter of barely half an hour's duration,« returned Carker. »We have
been so much occupied.«
    »Business, eh?« said the Major.
    »A variety of little matters necessary to be gone through,« replied Carker.
»But do you know - this is quite unusual with me, educated in a distrustful
school, and who am not generally disposed to be communicative,« he said,
breaking off, and speaking in a charming tone of frankness - »but I feel quite
confidential with you, Major Bagstock.«
    »You do me honour, Sir,« returned the Major. »You may be.«
    »Do you know, then,« pursued Carker, »that I have not found my friend - our
friend, I ought rather to call him -«
    »Meaning Dombey, Sir?« cried the Major. »You see me, Mr. Carker, standing
here! J. B.?«
    He was puffy enough to see, and blue enough; and Mr. Carker intimated that
he had that pleasure.
    »Then you see a man, Sir, who would go through fire and water to serve
Dombey,« returned Major Bagstock.
    Mr. Carker smiled, and said he was sure of it. »Do you know, Major,« he
proceeded: »to resume where I left off: that I have not found our friend so
attentive to business to-day, as usual?«
    »No?« observed the delighted Major.
    »I have found him a little abstracted, and with his attention disposed to
wander,« said Carker.
    »By Jove, Sir,« cried the Major, »there's a lady in the case.«
    »Indeed, I begin to believe there really is,« returned Carker; »I thought
you might be jesting when you seemed to hint at it; for I know you military men
-«
    The Major gave the horse's cough, and shook his head and shoulders, as much
as to say, »Well! we are gay dogs, there's no denying.« He then seized Mr.
Carker by the button-hole, and with starting eyes whispered in his ear, that she
was a woman of extraordinary charms, Sir. That she was a young widow, Sir. That
she was of a fine family, Sir. That Dombey was over head and ears in love with
her, Sir, and that it would be a good match on both sides; for she had beauty,
blood, and talent, and Dombey had fortune; and what more could any couple have?
Hearing Mr. Dombey's footsteps without, the Major cut himself short by saying,
that Mr. Carker would see her to-morrow morning, and would judge for himself;
and between his mental excitement, and the exertion of saying all this in wheezy
whispers, the Major sat gurgling in the throat and watering at the eyes, until
dinner was ready.
    The Major, like some other noble animals, exhibited himself to great
advantage at feeding-time. On this occasion, he shone resplendent at one end of
the table, supported by the milder lustre of Mr. Dombey at the other; while
Carker on one side lent his ray to either light, or suffered it to merge into
both, as occasion arose.
    During the first course or two, the Major was usually grave; for the Native,
in obedience to general orders, secretly issued, collected every sauce and cruet
round him, and gave him a great deal to do, in taking out the stoppers, and
mixing up the contents in his plate. Besides which, the Native had private zests
and flavours on a side-table, with which the Major daily scorched himself; to
say nothing of strange machines out of which he spirted unknown liquids into the
Major's drink. But on this occasion, Major Bagstock, even amidst these many
occupations, found time to be social; and his sociality consisted in excessive
slyness for the behove of Mr. Carker, and the betrayal of Mr. Dombey's state of
mind.
    »Dombey,« said the Major, »you don't eat; what's the matter?«
    »Thank you,« returned that gentleman, »I am doing very well; I have no great
appetite to-day.«
    »Why, Dombey, what's become of it?« asked the Major. »Where's it gone? You
haven't left it with our friends, I'll swear, for I can answer for their having
none to-day at luncheon. I can answer for one of 'em, at least: I won't say
which.«
    Then the Major winked at Carker, and became so frightfully sly, that his
dark attendant was obliged to pat him on the back, without orders, or he would
probably have disappeared under the table.
    In a later stage of the dinner: that is to say, when the Native stood at the
Major's elbow ready to serve the first bottle of champagne: the Major became
still slyer.
    »Fill this to the brim, you scoundrel,« said the Major, holding up his
glass. »Fill Mr. Carker's to the brim too. And Mr. Dombey's too. By Gad,
gentlemen,« said the Major, winking at his new friend, while Mr. Dombey looked
into his plate with a conscious air, »we'll consecrate this glass of wine to a
Divinity whom Joe is proud to know, and at a distance humbly and reverently to
admire. Edith,« said the Major, »is her name; angelic Edith!«
    »To angelic Edith!« cried the smiling Carker.
    »Edith, by all means,« said Mr. Dombey.
    The entrance of the waiters with new dishes caused the Major to be slyer
yet, but in a more serious vein. »For though among ourselves, Joe Bagstock
mingles jest and earnest on this subject, Sir,« said the Major, laying his
finger on his lips, and speaking half apart to Carker, »he holds that name too
sacred to be made the property of these fellows, or of any fellows. Not a word,
Sir, while they are here!«
    This was respectful and becoming on the Major's part, and Mr. Dombey plainly
felt it so. Although embarrassed in his own frigid way, by the Major's
allusions, Mr. Dombey had no objection to such rallying, it was clear, but
rather courted it. Perhaps the Major had been pretty near the truth, when he had
divined that morning that the great man who was too haughty formally to consult
with, or confide in his prime minister, on such a matter, yet wished him to be
fully possessed of it. Let this be how it may, he often glanced at Mr. Carker
while the Major plied his light artillery, and seemed watchful of its effect
upon him.
    But the Major, having secured an attentive listener, and a smiler who had
not his match in all the world - »in short, a de-vilish intelligent and
agreeable fellow,« as he often afterwards declared - was not going to let him
off with a little slyness personal to Mr. Dombey. Therefore, on the removal of
the cloth, the Major developed himself as a choice spirit in the broader and
more comprehensive range of narrating regimental stories, and cracking
regimental jokes, which he did with such prodigal exuberance, that Carker was
(or feigned to be) quite exhausted with laughter and admiration: while Mr.
Dombey looked on over his starched cravat, like the Major's proprietor, or like
a stately showman who was glad to see his bear dancing well.
    When the Major was too hoarse with meat and drink, and the display of his
social powers, to render himself intelligible any longer, they adjourned to
coffee. After which, the Major inquired of Mr. Carker the Manager, with little
apparent hope of an answer in the affirmative, if he played picquet.
    »Yes, I play picquet a little,« said Mr. Carker.
    »Backgammon, perhaps?« observed the Major, hesitating.
    »Yes, I play backgammon a little too,« replied the man of teeth.
    »Carker plays at all games, I believe,« said Mr. Dombey, laying himself on a
sofa like a man of wood without a hinge or a joint in him; »and plays them
well.«
    In sooth, he played the two in question, to such perfection, that the Major
was astonished, and asked him, at random, if he played chess.
    »Yes, I play chess a little,« answered Carker. »I have sometimes played, and
won a game - it's a mere trick - without seeing the board.«
    »By Gad, Sir!« said the Major, staring, »you are a contrast to Dombey, who
plays nothing.«
    »Oh! He!« returned the Manager. »He has never had occasion to acquire such
little arts. To men like me, they are sometimes useful. As at present, Major
Bagstock, when they enable me to take a hand with you.«
    It might be only the false mouth, so smooth and wide; and yet there seemed
to lurk beneath the humility and subserviency of this short speech, a something
like a snarl; and, for a moment, one might have thought that the white teeth
were prone to bite the hand they fawned upon. But the Major thought nothing
about it; and Mr. Dombey lay meditating with his eyes half shut, during the
whole of the play, which lasted until bed-time.
    By that time, Mr. Carker, though the winner, had mounted high into the
Major's good opinion, insomuch that when he left the Major at his own room
before going to bed, the Major as a special attention, sent the Native - who
always rested on a mattress spread upon the ground at his master's door - along
the gallery, to light him to his room in state.
    There was a faint blur on the surface of the mirror in Mr. Carker's chamber,
and its reflection was, perhaps, a false one. But it showed, that night, the
image of a man, who saw, in his fancy, a crowd of people slumbering on the
ground at his feet, like the poor Native at his master's door: who picked his
way among them: looking down, maliciously enough: but trod upon no upturned face
- as yet.
 

                                 Chapter XXVII

                                Deeper Shadows.

Mr. Carker the Manager rose with the lark, and went out, walking in the summer
day. His meditations - and he meditated with contracted brows while he strolled
along - hardly seemed to soar as high as the lark, or to mount in that
direction; rather they kept close to their nest upon the earth, and looked
about, among the dust and worms. But there was not a bird in the air, singing
unseen, farther beyond the reach of human eye than Mr. Carker's thoughts. He had
his face so perfectly under control, that few could say more, in distinct terms,
of its expression, than that it smiled or that it pondered. It pondered now,
intently. As the lark rose higher, he sank deeper in thought. As the lark poured
out her melody clearer and stronger, he fell into a graver and profounder
silence. At length, when the lark came headlong down, with an accumulating
stream of song, and dropped among the green wheat near him, rippling in the
breath of the morning like a river, he sprang up from his reverie, and looked
round with a sudden smile, as courteous and as soft as if he had had numerous
observers to propitiate; nor did he relapse, after being thus awakened; but
clearing his face, like one who bethought himself that it might otherwise
wrinkle and tell tales, went smiling on, as if for practice.
    Perhaps with an eye to first impressions, Mr. Carker was very carefully and
trimly dressed, that morning. Though always somewhat formal, in his dress, in
imitation of the great man whom he served, he stopped short of the extent of Mr.
Dombey's stiffness: at once perhaps because he knew it to be ludicrous, and
because in doing so he found another means of expressing his sense of the
difference and distance between them. Some people quoted him indeed, in this
respect, as a pointed commentary, and not a flattering one, on his icy patron -
but the world is prone to misconstruction, and Mr. Carker was not accountable
for its bad propensity.
    Clean and florid: with his light complexion, fading as it were, in the sun,
and his dainty step enhancing the softness of the turf: Mr. Carker the Manager
strolled about meadows, and green lanes, and glided among avenues of trees,
until it was time to return to breakfast. Taking a nearer way back, Mr. Carker
pursued it, airing his teeth, and said aloud as he did so, »Now to see the
second Mrs. Dombey!«
    He had strolled beyond the town, and re-entered it by a pleasant walk, where
there was a deep shade of leafy trees, and where there were a few benches here
and there for those who chose to rest. It not being a place of general resort at
any hour, and wearing at that time of the still morning the air of being quite
deserted and retired, Mr. Carker had it, or thought he had it, all to himself.
So, with the whim of an idle man, to whom there yet remained twenty minutes for
reaching a destination easily accessible in ten, Mr. Carker threaded the great
boles of the trees, and went passing in and out, before this one and behind
that, weaving a chain of footsteps on the dewy ground.
    But he found he was mistaken in supposing there was no one in the grove, for
as he softly rounded the trunk of one large tree, on which the obdurate bark was
knotted and over-lapped like the hide of a rhinoceros or some kindred monster of
the ancient days before the Flood, he saw an unexpected figure sitting on a
bench near at hand, about which, in another moment, he would have wound the
chain he was making.
    It was that of a lady, elegantly dressed and very handsome, whose dark proud
eyes were fixed upon the ground, and in whom some passion or struggle was
raging. For as she sat looking down, she held a corner of her under lip within
her mouth, her bosom heaved, her nostril quivered, her head trembled, indignant
tears were on her cheek, and her foot was set upon the moss as though she would
have crushed it into nothing. And yet almost the self-same glance that showed
him this, showed him the self-same lady rising with a scornful air of weariness
and lassitude, and turning away with nothing expressed in face or figure but
careless beauty and imperious disdain.
    A withered and very ugly old woman, dressed not so much like a gipsy as like
any of that medley race of vagabonds who tramp about the country, begging, and
stealing, and tinkering, and weaving rushes, by turns, or all together, had been
observing the lady, too; for, as she rose, this second figure strangely
confronting the first, scrambled up from the ground - out of it, it almost
appeared - and stood in the way.
    »Let me tell your fortune, my pretty lady,« said the old woman, munching
with her jaws, as if the Death's Head beneath her yellow skin were impatient to
get out.
    »I can tell it for myself,« was the reply.
    »Aye, aye, pretty lady; but not right. You didn't tell it right when you
were sitting there. I see you! Give me a piece of silver, pretty lady, and I'll
tell your fortune true. There's riches, pretty lady, in your face.«
    »I know,« returned the lady, passing her with a dark smile, and a proud
step. »I knew it before.«
    »What! You won't give me nothing?« cried the old woman. »You won't give me
nothing to tell your fortune, pretty lady? How much will you give me not to tell
it, then? Give me something, or I'll call it after you!« croaked the old woman,
passionately.
    Mr. Carker, whom the lady was about to pass close, slinking against his tree
as she crossed to gain the path, advanced so as to meet her, and pulling off his
hat as she went by, bade the old woman hold her peace. The lady acknowledged his
interference with an inclination of the head, and went her way.
    »You give me something then, or I'll call it after her!« screamed the old
woman, throwing up her arms, and pressing forward against his outstretched hand.
»Or come,« she added, dropping her voice suddenly, looking at him earnestly, and
seeming in a moment to forget the object of her wrath, »give me something, or
I'll call it after you!«
    »After me, old lady!« returned the Manager, putting his hand in his pocket.
    »Yes,« said the woman, steadfast in her scrutiny, and holding out her
shrivelled hand. »I know!«
    »What do you know?« demanded Carker, throwing her a shilling. »Do you know
who the handsome lady is?«
    Munching like that sailor's wife of yore, who had chestnuts in her lap, and
scowling like the witch who asked for some in vain, the old woman picked the
shilling up, and going backwards, like a crab, or like a heap of crabs: for her
alternately expanding and contracting hands might have represented two of that
species, and her creeping face, some half-a-dozen more: crouched on the veinous
root of an old tree, pulled out a short black pipe from within the crown of her
bonnet, lighted it with a match, and smoked in silence, looking fixedly at her
questioner.
    Mr. Carker laughed, and turned upon his heel.
    »Good!« said the old woman. »One child dead, and one child living: one wife
dead, and one wife coming. Go and meet her!«
    In spite of himself, the Manager looked round again, and stopped. The old
woman, who had not removed her pipe, and was munching and mumbling while she
smoked, as if in conversation with an invisible familiar, pointed with her
finger in the direction he was going, and laughed.
    »What was that you said, Beldamite?« he demanded.
    The woman mumbled, and chattered, and smoked, and still pointed before him;
but remained silent. Muttering a farewell that was not complimentary, Mr. Carker
pursued his way; but as he turned out of that place, and looked over his
shoulder at the root of the old tree, he could yet see the finger pointing
before him, and thought he heard the woman screaming, »Go and meet her!«
    Preparations for a choice repast were completed, he found, at the hotel; and
Mr. Dombey, and the Major, and the breakfast, were awaiting the ladies.
Individual constitution has much to do with the development of such facts, no
doubt; but in this case, appetite carried it hollow over the tender passion; Mr.
Dombey being very cool and collected, and the Major fretting and fuming in a
state of violent heat and irritation. At length the door was thrown open by the
Native, and, after a pause, occupied by her languishing along the gallery, a
very blooming, but not very youthful lady, appeared.
    »My dear Mr. Dombey,« said the lady, »I am afraid we are late, but Edith has
been out already looking for a favourable point of view for a sketch, and kept
me waiting for her. Falsest of Majors,« giving him her little finger, »how do
you do?«
    »Mrs. Skewton,« said Mr. Dombey, »let me gratify my friend Carker:« Mr.
Dombey unconsciously emphasised the word friend, as saying no really; I do allow
him to take credit for that distinction; »by presenting him to you. You have
heard me mention Mr. Carker.«
    »I am charmed, I am sure,« said Mrs. Skewton, graciously.
    Mr. Carker was charmed, of course. Would he have been more charmed on Mr.
Dombey's behalf, if Mrs. Skewton had been (as he at first supposed her) the
Edith whom they had toasted over night?
    »Why, where, for Heaven's sake, is Edith?« exclaimed Mrs. Skewton, looking
round. »Still at the door, giving Withers orders about the mounting of those
drawings! My dear Mr. Dombey, will you have the kindness -«
    Mr. Dombey was already gone to seek her. Next moment he returned, bearing on
his arm the same elegantly dressed and very handsome lady whom Mr. Carker had
encountered underneath the trees.
    »Carker -« began Mr. Dombey. But their recognition of each other was so
manifest, that Mr. Dombey stopped surprised.
    »I am obliged to the gentleman,« said Edith, with a stately bend, »for
sparing me some annoyance from an importunate beggar just now.«
    »I am obliged to my good fortune,« said Mr. Carker, bowing low, »for the
opportunity of rendering so slight a service to one whose servant I am proud to
be.«
    As her eye rested on him for an instant, and then lighted on the ground, he
saw in its bright and searching glance a suspicion that he had not come up at
the moment of his interference, but had secretly observed her sooner. As he saw
that, she saw in his eye that her distrust was not without foundation.
    »Really,« cried Mrs. Skewton, who had taken this opportunity of inspecting
Mr. Carker through her glass, and satisfying herself (as she lisped audibly to
the Major) that he was all heart; »really now, this is one of the most
enchanting coincidences that I ever heard of. The idea! My dearest Edith, there
is such an obvious destiny in it, that really one might almost be induced to
cross one's arms upon one's frock, and say, like those wicked Turks, there is no
What's-his-name but Thingummy, and What-you-may-call-it is his prophet!«
    Edith deigned no revision of this extraordinary quotation from the Koran,
but Mr. Dombey felt it necessary to offer a few polite remarks.
    »It gives me great pleasure,« said Mr. Dombey, with cumbrous gallantry,
»that a gentleman so nearly connected with myself as Carker is, should have had
the honour and happiness of rendering the least assistance to Mrs. Granger.« Mr.
Dombey bowed to her. »But it gives me some pain, and it occasions me to be
really envious of Carker;« he unconsciously laid stress on these words, as
sensible that they must appear to involve a very surprising proposition;
»envious of Carker, that I had not that honour and that happiness myself.« Mr.
Dombey bowed again. Edith, saving for a curl of her lip, was motionless.
    »By the Lord, Sir,« cried the Major, bursting into speech at sight of the
waiter, who was come to announce breakfast, »it's an extraordinary thing to me
that no one can have the honour and happiness of shooting all such beggars
through the head without being brought to book for it. But here's an arm for
Mrs. Granger if she'll do J. B. the honour to accept it; and the greatest
service Joe can render you, Ma'am, just now, is, to lead you in to table!«
    With this, the Major gave his arm to Edith; Mr. Dombey led the way with Mrs.
Skewton; Mr. Carker went last, smiling on the party.
    »I am quite rejoiced, Mr. Carker,« said the lady-mother, at breakfast, after
another approving survey of him through her glass, »that you have timed your
visit so happily, as to go with us to-day. It is the most enchanting
expedition!«
    »Any expedition would be enchanting in such society,« returned Carker; »but
I believe it is, in itself, full of interest.«
    »Oh!« cried Mrs. Skewton, with a faded little scream of rapture, »the Castle
is charming! - associations of the Middle ages - and all that - which is so
truly exquisite. Don't you dote upon the Middle ages, Mr. Carker?«
    »Very much, indeed,« said Mr. Carker.
    »Such charming times!« cried Cleopatra. »So full of faith! So vigorous and
forcible! So picturesque! So perfectly removed from commonplace! Oh dear! If
they would only leave us a little more of the poetry of existence in these
terrible days!«
    Mrs. Skewton was looking sharp after Mr. Dombey all the time she said this,
who was looking at Edith: who was listening, but who never lifted up her eyes.
    »We are dreadfully real, Mr. Carker,« said Mrs. Skewton; »are we not?«
    Few people had less reason to complain of their reality than Cleopatra, who
had as much that was false about her as could well go to the composition of
anybody with a real individual existence. But Mr. Carker commiserated our
reality nevertheless, and agreed that we were very hardly used in that regard.
    »Pictures at the Castle, quite divine!« said Cleopatra. »I hope you dote
upon pictures?«
    »I assure you, Mrs. Skewton,« said Mr. Dombey, with solemn encouragement of
his Manager, »that Carker has a very good taste for pictures; quite a natural
power of appreciating them. He is a very creditable artist himself. He will be
delighted, I am sure, with Mrs. Granger's taste and skill.«
    »Damme, Sir!« cried Major Bagstock, »my opinion is, that you're the
admirable Carker, and can do anything.«
    »Oh!« smiled Carker, with humility, »you are much too sanguine, Major
Bagstock. I can do very little. But Mr. Dombey is so generous in his estimation
of any trivial accomplishment a man like myself may find it almost necessary to
acquire, and to which, in his very different sphere, he is far superior, that -«
Mr. Carker shrugged his shoulders, deprecating further praise, and said no more.
    All this time, Edith never raised her eyes, unless to glance towards her
mother when that lady's fervent spirit shone forth in words. But as Carker
ceased, she looked at Mr. Dombey for a moment. For a moment only; but with a
transient gleam of scornful wonder on her face, not lost on one observer, who
was smiling round the board.
    Mr. Dombey caught the dark eyelash in its descent, and took the opportunity
of arresting it.
    »You have been to Warwick often, unfortunately?« said Mr. Dombey.
    »Several times.«
    »The visit will be tedious to you, I am afraid.«
    »Oh no; not at all.«
    »Ah! You are like your cousin Feenix, my dearest Edith,« said Mrs. Skewton.
»He has been to Warwick Castle fifty times, if he has been there once; yet if he
came to Leamington to-morrow - I wish he would, dear angel! - he would make his
fifty-second visit next day.«
    »We are all enthusiastic, are we not, Mama?« said Edith, with a cold smile.
    »Too much so, for our peace, perhaps, my dear,« returned her mother; »but we
won't complain. Our own emotions are our recompense. If, as your cousin Feenix
says, the sword wears out the what's-its-name -«
    »The scabbard, perhaps,« said Edith.
    »Exactly - a little too fast, it is because it is bright and glowing, you
know, my dearest love.«
    Mrs. Skewton heaved a gentle sigh, supposed to cast a shadow on the surface
of that dagger of lath, whereof her susceptible bosom was the sheath: and
leaning her head on one side, in the Cleopatra manner, looked with pensive
affection on her darling child.
    Edith had turned her face towards Mr. Dombey when he first addressed her,
and had remained in that attitude, while speaking to her mother, and while her
mother spoke to her, as though offering him her attention, if he had anything
more to say. There was something in the manner of this simple courtesy: almost
defiant, and giving it the character of being rendered on compulsion, or as a
matter of traffic to which she was a reluctant party: again not lost upon that
same observer who was smiling round the board. It set him thinking of her as he
had first seen her, when she had believed herself to be alone among the trees.
    Mr. Dombey having nothing else to say, proposed - the breakfast being now
finished, and the Major gorged, like any Boa Constrictor - that they should
start. A barouche being in waiting, according to the orders of that gentleman,
the two ladies, the Major and himself, took their seats in it; the Native and
the wan page mounted the box, Mr. Towlinson being left behind; and Mr. Carker,
on horseback, brought up the rear.
    Mr. Carker cantered behind the carriage, at the distance of a hundred yards
or so, and watched it, during all the ride, as if he were a cat, indeed, and its
four occupants, mice. Whether he looked to one side of the road, or to the other
- over distant landscape, with its smooth undulations, wind-mills, corn, grass,
bean fields, wild-flowers, farm-yards, hayricks, and the spire among the wood -
or upwards in the sunny air, where butterflies were sporting round his head, and
birds were pouring out their songs - or downward, where the shadows of the
branches interlaced, and made a trembling carpet on the road - or onward, where
the overhanging trees formed aisles and arches, dim with the softened light that
steeped through leaves - one corner of his eye was ever on the formal head of
Mr. Dombey, addressed towards him, and the feather in the bonnet, drooping so
neglectfully and scornfully between them; much as he had seen the haughty
eyelids droop; not least so, when the face met that now fronting it. Once, and
once only, did his wary glance release these objects; and that was, when a leap
over a low hedge, and a gallop across a field, enabled him to anticipate the
carriage coming by the road, and to be standing ready, at the journey's end, to
hand the ladies out. Then, and but then, he met her glance for an instant in her
first surprise; but when he touched her, in alighting, with his soft white hand,
it overlooked him altogether as before.
    Mrs. Skewton was bent on taking charge of Mr. Carker herself, and showing
him the beauties of the Castle. She was determined to have his arm, and the
Major's too. It would do that incorrigible creature: who was the most barbarous
infidel in point of poetry: good to be in such company. This chance arrangement
left Mr. Dombey at liberty to escort Edith: which he did, stalking before them
through the apartments with a gentlemanly solemnity.
    »Those darling byegone times, Mr. Carker,« said Cleopatra, »with their
delicious fortresses, and their dear old dungeons, and their delightful places
of torture, and their romantic vengeances, and their picturesque assaults and
sieges, and everything that makes life truly charming! How dreadfully we have
degenerated!«
    »Yes, we have fallen off deplorably,« said Mr. Carker.
    The peculiarity of their conversation was, that Mrs. Skewton, in spite of
her ecstasies, and Mr. Carker, in spite of his urbanity, were both intent on
watching Mr. Dombey and Edith. With all their conversational endowments, they
spoke somewhat distractedly, and at random in consequence.
    »We have no Faith left, positively,« said Mrs. Skewton, advancing her
shrivelled ear; for Mr. Dombey was saying something to Edith. »We have no Faith
in the dear old Barons, who were the most delightful creatures - or in the dear
old Priests, who were the most warlike of men - or even in the days of that
inestimable Queen Bess, upon the wall there, which were so extremely golden.
Dear creature! She was all Heart! And that charming father of hers! I hope you
dote on Harry the Eighth!«
    »I admire him very much,« said Carker.
    »So bluff!« cried Mrs. Skewton, »wasn't't he? So burly. So truly English. Such
a picture, too, he makes, with his dear little peepy eyes, and his benevolent
chin!«
    »Ah, Ma'am!« said Carker, stopping short; »but if you speak of pictures,
there's a composition! What gallery in the world can produce the counterpart of
that!«
    As the smiling gentleman thus spoke, he pointed through a doorway to where
Mr. Dombey and Edith were standing alone in the centre of another room.
    They were not interchanging a word or a look. Standing together, arm in arm,
they had the appearance of being more divided than if seas had rolled between
them. There was a difference even in the pride of the two, that removed them
farther from each other, than if one had been the proudest and the other the
humblest specimen of humanity in all creation. He, self-important, unbending,
formal, austere. She, lovely and graceful in an uncommon degree, but totally
regardless of herself and him and everything around, and spurning her own
attractions with her haughty brow and lip, as if they were a badge or livery she
hated. So unmatched were they, and opposed, so forced and linked together by a
chain which adverse hazard and mischance had forged: that fancy might have
imagined the pictures on the walls around them, startled by the unnatural
conjunction, and observant of it in their several expressions. Grim knights and
warriors looked scowling on them. A churchman, with his hand upraised, denounced
the mockery of such a couple coming to God's altar. Quiet waters in landscapes,
with the sun reflected in their depths, asked, if better means of escape were
not at hand, was there no drowning left? Ruins cried, »Look here, and see what
We are, wedded to uncongenial Time!« Animals, opposed by nature, worried one
another, as a moral to them. Loves and Cupids took to flight afraid, and
Martyrdom had no such torment in its painted history of suffering.
    Nevertheless, Mrs. Skewton was so charmed by the sight to which Mr. Carker
invoked her attention, that she could not refrain from saying, half aloud, how
sweet, how very full of soul it was! Edith, overhearing, looked round, and
flushed indignant scarlet to her hair.
    »My dearest Edith knows I was admiring her!« said Cleopatra, tapping her,
almost timidly, on the back with her parasol. »Sweet pet!«
    Again Mr. Carker saw the strife he had witnessed so unexpectedly among the
trees. Again he saw the haughty languor and indifference come over it, and hide
it like a cloud.
    She did not raise her eyes to him; but with a slight peremptory motion of
them, seemed to bid her mother come near. Mrs. Skewton thought it expedient to
understand the hint, and advancing quickly, with her two cavaliers, kept near
her daughter from that time.
    Mr. Carker now, having nothing to distract his attention, began to discourse
upon the pictures and to select the best, and point them out to Mr. Dombey:
speaking with his usual familiar recognition of Mr. Dombey's greatness, and
rendering homage by adjusting his eye-glass for him, or finding out the right
place in his catalogue, or holding his stick, or the like. These services did
not so much originate with Mr. Carker, in truth, as with Mr. Dombey himself, who
was apt to assert his chieftainship by saying, with subdued authority, and in an
easy way - for him - »Here, Carker, have the goodness to assist me, will you?«
which the smiling gentleman always did with pleasure.
    They made the tour of the pictures, the walls, crow's nest, and so forth;
and as they were still one little party, and the Major was rather in the shade:
being sleepy during the process of digestion: Mr. Carker became communicative
and agreeable. At first, he addressed himself for the most part to Mrs. Skewton;
but as that sensitive lady was in such ecstasies with the works of art, after
the first quarter of an hour, that she could do nothing but yawn (they were such
perfect inspirations, she observed as a reason for that mark of rapture), he
transferred his attentions to Mr. Dombey. Mr. Dombey said little beyond an
occasional »Very true, Carker,« or »Indeed, Carker,« but he tacitly encouraged
Carker to proceed, and inwardly approved of his behaviour very much: deeming it
as well that somebody should talk, and thinking that his remarks, which were, as
one might say, a branch of the parent establishment, might amuse Mrs. Granger.
Mr. Carker, who possessed an excellent discretion, never took the liberty of
addressing that lady, direct; but she seemed to listen, though she never looked
at him; and once or twice, when he was emphatic in his peculiar humility, the
twilight smile stole over her face, not as a light, but as a deep black shadow.
    Warwick Castle being at length pretty well exhausted, and the Major very
much so: to say nothing of Mrs. Skewton, whose peculiar demonstrations of
delight had become very frequent indeed: the carriage was again put in
requisition, and they rode to several admired points of view in the
neighbourhood. Mr. Dombey ceremoniously observed of one of these, that a sketch,
however slight, from the fair hand of Mrs. Granger, would be a remembrance to
him of that agreeable day: though he wanted no artificial remembrance, he was
sure (here Mr. Dombey made another of his bows), which he must always highly
value. Withers the lean having Edith's sketch-book under his arm, was
immediately called upon by Mrs. Skewton to produce the same: and the carriage
stopped, that Edith might make the drawing, which Mr. Dombey was to put away
among his treasures.
    »But I am afraid I trouble you too much,« said Mr. Dombey.
    »By no means. Where would you wish it taken from?« she answered, turning to
him with the same enforced attention as before.
    Mr. Dombey, with another bow, which cracked the starch in his cravat, would
beg to leave that to the Artist.
    »I would rather you chose for yourself,« said Edith.
    »Suppose then,« said Mr. Dombey, »we say from here. It appears a good spot
for the purpose, or - Carker, what do you think?«
    There happened to be in the foreground, at some little distance, a grove of
trees, not unlike that in which Mr. Carker had made his chain of footsteps in
the morning, and with a seat under one tree, greatly resembling, in the general
character of its situation, the point where his chain had broken.
    »Might I venture to suggest to Mrs. Granger,« said Carker, »that that is an
interesting - almost a curious - point of view?«
    She followed the direction of his riding-whip with her eyes, and raised them
quickly to his face. It was the second glance they had exchanged since their
introduction; and would have been exactly like the first, but that its
expression was plainer.
    »Will you like that?« said Edith to Mr. Dombey.
    »I shall be charmed,« said Mr. Dombey to Edith.
    Therefore the carriage was driven to the spot where Mr. Dombey was to be
charmed; and Edith, without moving from her seat, and opening her sketch-book
with her usual proud indifference, began to sketch.
    »My pencils are all pointless,« she said, stopping and turning them over.
    »Pray allow me,« said Mr. Dombey. »Or Carker will do it better, as he
understands these things. Carker, have the goodness to see to these pencils for
Mrs. Granger.«
    Mr. Carker rode up close to the carriage-door on Mrs. Granger's side, and
letting the rein fall on his horse's neck, took the pencils from her hand with a
smile and a bow, and sat in the saddle leisurely mending them. Having done so,
he begged to be allowed to hold them, and to hand them to her as they were
required; and thus Mr. Carker, with many commendations of Mrs. Granger's
extraordinary skill - especially in trees - remained close at her side, looking
over the drawing as she made it. Mr. Dombey in the meantime stood bolt upright
in the carriage like a highly respectable ghost, looking on too; while Cleopatra
and the Major dallied as two ancient doves might do.
    »Are you satisfied with that, or shall I finish it a little more?« said
Edith, showing the sketch to Mr. Dombey.
    Mr. Dombey begged that it might not be touched; it was perfection.
    »It is most extraordinary,« said Carker, bringing every one of his red gums
to bear upon his praise. »I was not prepared for anything so beautiful, and so
unusual altogether.«
    This might have applied to the sketcher no less than to the sketch; but Mr.
Carker's manner was openness itself - not as to his mouth alone, but as to his
whole spirit. So it continued to be while the drawing was laid aside for Mr.
Dombey, and while the sketching materials were put up; then he handed in the
pencils (which were received with a distant acknowledgement of his help, but
without a look), and tightening his rein, fell back, and followed the carriage
again.
    Thinking, perhaps, as he rode, that even this trivial sketch had been made
and delivered to its owner, as if it had been bargained for and bought.
Thinking, perhaps, that although she had assented with such perfect readiness to
his request, her haughty face, bent over the drawing, or glancing at the distant
objects represented in it, had been the face of a proud woman, engaged in a
sordid and miserable transaction. Thinking, perhaps, of such things: but smiling
certainly, and while he seemed to look about him freely, in enjoyment of the air
and exercise, keeping always that sharp corner of his eye upon the carriage.
    A stroll among the haunted ruins of Kenilworth, and more rides to more
points of view; most of which, Mrs. Skewton reminded Mr. Dombey, Edith had
already sketched, as he had seen in looking over her drawings: brought the day's
expedition to a close. Mrs. Skewton and Edith were driven to their own lodgings;
Mr. Carker was graciously invited by Cleopatra to return thither with Mr. Dombey
and the Major, in the evening, to hear some of Edith's music; and the three
gentlemen repaired to their hotel to dinner.
    The dinner was the counterpart of yesterday's, except that the Major was
twenty-four hours more triumphant and less mysterious. Edith was toasted again.
Mr. Dombey was again agreeably embarrassed. And Mr. Carker was full of interest
and praise.
    There were no other visitors at Mrs. Skewton's. Edith's drawings were strewn
about the room, a little more abundantly than usual perhaps; and Withers, the
wan page, handed round a little stronger tea. The harp was there; the piano was
there; and Edith sang and played. But even the music was played by Edith to Mr.
Dombey's order, as it were, in the same uncompromising way. As thus.
    »Edith, my dearest love,« said Mrs. Skewton, half an hour after tea, »Mr.
Dombey is dying to hear you, I know.«
    »Mr. Dombey has life enough left to say so for himself, Mama, I have no
doubt.«
    »I shall be immensely obliged,« said Mr. Dombey.
    »What do you wish?«
    »Piano?« hesitated Mr. Dombey.
    »Whatever you please. You have only to choose.«
    Accordingly, she began with the piano. It was the same with the harp; the
same with her singing; the same with the selection of the pieces that she sang
and played. Such frigid and constrained, yet prompt and pointed acquiescence
with the wishes he imposed upon her, and on no one else, was sufficiently
remarkable to penetrate through all the mysteries of picquet, and impress itself
on Mr. Carker's keen attention. Nor did he lose sight of the fact that Mr.
Dombey was evidently proud of his power, and liked to show it.
    Nevertheless, Mr. Carker played so well - some games with the Major, and
some with Cleopatra, whose vigilance of eye in respect of Mr. Dombey and Edith
no lynx could have surpassed - that he even heightened his position in the
lady-mother's good graces; and when on taking leave he regretted that he would
be obliged to return to London next morning, Cleopatra trusted: community of
feeling not being met with every day: that it was far from being the last time
they would meet.
    »I hope so,« said Mr. Carker, with an expressive look at the couple in the
distance, as he drew towards the door, following the Major. »I think so.«
    Mr. Dombey, who had taken a stately leave of Edith, bent, or made some
approach to a bend, over Cleopatra's couch, and said, in a low voice:
    »I have requested Mrs. Granger's permission to call on her to-morrow morning
- for a purpose - and she has appointed twelve o'clock. May I hope to have the
pleasure of finding you at home, Madam, afterwards?«
    Cleopatra was so much fluttered and moved, by hearing this, of course,
incomprehensible speech, that she could only shut her eyes, and shake her head,
and give Mr. Dombey her hand; which Mr. Dombey, not exactly knowing what to do
with, dropped.
    »Dombey, come along!« cried the Major, looking in at the door. »Damme, Sir,
old Joe has a great mind to propose an alteration in the name of the Royal
Hotel, and that it should be called the Three Jolly Bachelors, in honour of
ourselves and Carker.« With this the Major slapped Mr. Dombey on the back, and
winking over his shoulder at the ladies, with a frightful tendency of blood to
the head, carried him off.
    Mrs. Skewton reposed on her sofa, and Edith sat apart, by her harp, in
silence. The mother, trifling with her fan, looked stealthily at the daughter
more than once, but the daughter, brooding gloomily with downcast eyes, was not
to be disturbed.
    Thus they remained for a long hour, without a word, until Mrs. Skewton's
maid appeared, according to custom, to prepare her gradually for night. At
night, she should have been a skeleton, with dart and hour-glass, rather than a
woman, this attendant; for her touch was as the touch of Death. The painted
object shrivelled underneath her hand; the form collapsed, the hair dropped off,
the arched dark eyebrows changed to scanty tufts of grey; the pale lips shrunk,
the skin became cadaverous and loose; an old, worn, yellow, nodding woman, with
red eyes, alone remained in Cleopatra's place, huddled up, like a slovenly
bundle, in a greasy flannel gown.
    The very voice was changed, as it addressed Edith, when they were alone
again.
    »Why don't you tell me,« it said, sharply, »that he is coming here to-morrow
by appointment?«
    »Because you know it,« returned Edith, »Mother.«
    The mocking emphasis she laid on that one word!
    »You know he has bought me,« she resumed. »Or that he will, to-morrow. He
has considered of his bargain; he has shown it to his friend; he is even rather
proud of it; he thinks that it will suit him, and may be had sufficiently cheap;
and he will buy to- God, that I have lived for this, and that I feel it!«
    Compress into one handsome face the conscious self-abasement, and the
burning indignation of a hundred women, strong in passion and in pride; and
there it hid itself with two white shuddering arms.
    »What do you mean?« returned the angry mother. »Haven't you from a child -«
    »A child!« said Edith, looking at her, »when was I a child! What childhood
did you ever leave to me? I was a woman - artful, designing, mercenary, laying
snares for men - before I knew myself, or you, or even understood the base and
wretched aim of every new display I learnt. You gave birth to a woman. Look upon
her. She is in her pride to-night.«
    And as she spoke, she struck her hand upon her beautiful bosom, as though
she would have beaten down herself.
    »Look at me,« she said, »who have never known what it is to have an honest
heart, and love. Look at me, taught to scheme and plot when children play; and
married in my youth - an old age of design - to one for whom I had no feeling
but indifference. Look at me, whom he left a widow, dying before his inheritance
descended to him - a judgment on you! well deserved! - and tell me what has been
my life for ten years since.«
    »We have been making every effort to endeavour to secure to you a good
establishment,« rejoined her mother. »That has been your life. And now you have
got it.«
    »There is no slave in a market: there is no horse in a fair: so shown and
offered and examined and paraded, Mother, as I have been, for ten shameful
years,« cried Edith, with a burning brow, and the same bitter emphasis on the
one word. »Is it not so? Have I been made the bye-word of all kinds of men? Have
fools, have profligates, have boys, have dotards, dangled after me, and one by
one rejected me, and fallen off, because you were too plain with all your
cunning: yes, and too true, with all those false pretences: until we have almost
come to be notorious? The licence of look and touch,« she said, with flashing
eyes, »have I submitted to it, in half the places of resort upon the map of
England. Have I been hawked and vended here and there, until the last grain of
self-respect is dead within me, and I loathe myself? Has this been my late
childhood? I had none before. Do not tell me that I had, to-night, of all nights
in my life!«
    »You might have been well married,« said her mother, »twenty times at least,
Edith, if you had given encouragement enough.«
    »No! Who takes me, refuse that I am, and as I well deserve to be,« she
answered, raising her head, and trembling in her energy of shame and stormy
pride, »shall take me, as this man does, with no art of mine put forth to lure
him. He sees me at the auction, and he thinks it well to buy me. Let him! When
he came to view me - perhaps to bid - he required to see the roll of my
accomplishments. I gave it to him. When he would have me show one of them, to
justify his purchase to his men, I require of him to say which he demands, and I
exhibit it. I will do no more. He makes the purchase of his own will, and with
his own sense of its worth, and the power of his money; and I hope it may never
disappoint him. I have not vaunted and pressed the bargain; neither have you, so
far as I have been able to prevent you.«
    »You talk strangely to-night, Edith, to your own mother.«
    »It seems so to me; stranger to me than you,« said Edith. »But my education
was completed long ago. I am too old now, and have fallen too low, by degrees,
to take a new course, and to stop yours, and to help myself. The germ of all
that purifies a woman's breast, and makes it true and good, has never stirred in
mine, and I have nothing else to sustain me when I despise myself.« There had
been a touching sadness in her voice, but it was gone, when she went on to say,
with a curled lip, »So, as we are genteel and poor, I am content that we should
be made rich by these means; all I say, is, I have kept the only purpose I have
had the strength to form - I had almost said the power, with you at my side,
Mother - and have not tempted this man on.«
    »This man! You speak,« said her mother, »as if you hated him.«
    »And you thought I loved him, did you not?« she answered, stopping on her
way across the room, and looking round. »Shall I tell you,« she continued, with
her eyes fixed on her mother, »who already knows us thoroughly, and reads us
right, and before whom I have even less of self-respect or confidence than
before my own inward self; being so much degraded by his knowledge of me?«
    »This is an attack, I suppose,« returned her mother coldly, »on poor,
unfortunate what's his-name - Mr. Carker! Your want of self-respect and
confidence, my dear, in reference to that person (who is very agreeable, it
strikes me), is not likely to have much effect on your establishment. Why do you
look at me so hard? Are you ill?«
    Edith suddenly let fall her face, as if it had been stung, and while she
pressed her hands upon it, a terrible tremble crept over her whole frame. It was
quickly gone; and with her usual step, she passed out of the room.
    The maid who should have been a skeleton, then reappeared, and giving one
arm to her mistress, who appeared to have taken off her manner with her charms,
and to have put on paralysis with her flannel gown, collected the ashes of
Cleopatra, and carried them away in the other, ready for to-morrow's
revivification.
 

                                 Chapter XXVIII

                                  Alterations.

»So the day has come at length, Susan,« said Florence to the excellent Nipper,
»when we are going back to our quiet home!«
    Susan drew in her breath with an amount of expression not easily described,
and further relieving her feelings with a smart cough, answered, »Very quiet
indeed, Miss Floy, no doubt. Excessive so.«
    »When I was a child,« said Florence, thoughtfully, and after musing for some
moments, »did you ever see that gentleman who has taken the trouble to ride down
here to speak to me, now three times - three times, I think, Susan?«
    »Three times, Miss,« returned the Nipper. »Once when you was out a walking
with them Sket -«
    Florence gently looked at her, and Miss Nipper checked herself.
    »With Sir Barnet and his lady, I mean to say, Miss, and the young gentleman.
And two evenings since then.«
    »When I was a child, and when company used to come to visit Papa, did you
ever see that gentleman at home, Susan?« asked Florence.
    »Well, Miss,« returned her maid, after considering, »I really couldn't say I
ever did. When your poor dear Ma died, Miss Floy, I was very new in the family,
you see, and my element:« the Nipper bridled, as opining that her merits had
been always designedly extinguished by Mr. Dombey: »was the floor below the
attics.«
    »To be sure,« said Florence, still thoughtfully; »you are not likely to have
known who came to the house. I quite forgot.«
    »Not, Miss, but what we talked about the family and visitors,« said Susan,
»and but what I heard much said, although the nurse before Mrs. Richards did
make unpleasant remarks when I was in company, and hint at little Pitchers, but
that could only be attributed, poor thing,« observed Susan, with composed
forbearance, »to habits of intoxication, for which she was required to leave,
and did.«
    Florence, who was seated at her chamber window, with her face resting on her
hand, sat looking out, and hardly seemed to hear what Susan said, she was so
lost in thought.
    »At all events, Miss,« said Susan, »I remember very well that this same
gentleman, Mr. Carker, was almost, if not quite, as great a gentleman with your
Papa then, as he is now. It used to be said in the house then, Miss, that he was
at the head of all your Pa's affairs in the City, and managed the whole, and
that your Pa minded him more than anybody, which, begging your pardon, Miss
Floy, he might easy do, for he never minded anybody else. I knew that, Pitcher
as I might have been.«
    Susan Nipper, with an injured remembrance of the nurse before Mrs. Richards,
emphasised Pitcher strongly.
    »And that Mr. Carker has not fallen off, Miss,« she pursued, »but has stood
his ground, and kept his credit with your Pa, I know from what is always said
among our people by that Perch, whenever he comes to the house; and though he's
the weakest weed in the world, Miss Floy, and no one can have a moment's
patience with the man, he knows what goes on in the City tolerable well, and
says that your Pa does nothing without Mr. Carker, and leaves all to Mr. Carker,
and acts according to Mr. Carker, and has Mr. Carker always at his elbow, and I
do believe that he believes (that washiest of Perches!) that after your Pa, the
Emperor of India is the child unborn to Mr. Carker.«
    Not a word of this was lost on Florence, who, with an awakened interest in
Susan's speech, no longer gazed abstractedly on the prospect without, but looked
at her, and listened with attention.
    »Yes, Susan,« she said, when that young lady had concluded. »He is in Papa's
confidence, and is his friend, I am sure.«
    Florence's mind ran high on this theme, and had done for some days. Mr.
Carker, in the two visits with which he had followed up his first one, had
assumed a confidence between himself and her - a right on his part to be
mysterious and stealthy, in telling her that the ship was still unheard of - a
kind of mildly restrained power and authority over her - that made her wonder,
and caused her great uneasiness. She had no means of repelling it, or of freeing
herself from the web he was gradually winding about her; for that would have
required some art and knowledge of the world, opposed to such address as his;
and Florence had none. True, he had said no more to her than that there was no
news of the ship, and that he feared the worst; but how he came to know that she
was interested in the ship, and why he had the right to signify his knowledge to
her, so insidiously and darkly, troubled Florence very much.
    This conduct on the part of Mr. Carker, and her habit of often considering
it with wonder and uneasiness, began to invest him with an uncomfortable
fascination in Florence's thoughts. A more distinct remembrance of his features,
voice, and manner: which she sometimes courted, as a means of reducing him to
the level of a real personage, capable of exerting no greater charm over her
than another: did not remove the vague impression. And yet he never frowned, or
looked upon her with an air of dislike or animosity, but was always smiling and
serene.
    Again, Florence, in pursuit of her strong purpose with reference to her
father, and her steady resolution to believe that she was herself unwittingly to
blame for their so cold and distant relations, would recall to mind that this
gentleman was his confidential friend, and would think, with an anxious heart,
could her struggling tendency to dislike and fear him be a part of that
misfortune in her, which had turned her father's love adrift, and left her so
alone? She dreaded that it might be; sometimes believed it was: then she
resolved that she would try to conquer this wrong feeling; persuaded herself
that she was honoured and encouraged by the notice of her father's friend; and
hoped that patient observation of him and trust in him would lead her bleeding
feet along that stony road which ended in her father's heart.
    Thus, with no one to advise her - for she could advise with no one without
seeming to complain against him - gentle Florence tossed on an uneasy sea of
doubt and hope; and Mr. Carker, like a scaly monster of the deep, swam down
below, and kept his shining eye upon her.
    Florence had a new reason in all this for wishing to be at home again. Her
lonely life was better suited to her course of timid hope and doubt; and she
feared sometimes, that in her absence she might miss some hopeful chance of
testifying her affection for her father. Heaven knows, she might have set her
mind at rest, poor child! on this last point; but her slighted love was
fluttering within her, and, even in her sleep, it flew away in dreams, and
nestled, like a wandering bird come home, upon her father's neck.
    Of Walter she thought often. Ah! how often, when the night was gloomy, and
the wind was blowing round the house! But hope was strong in her breast. It is
so difficult for the young and ardent, even with such experience as hers, to
imagine youth and ardour quenched like a weak flame, and the bright day of life
merging into night, at noon, that hope was strong yet. Her tears fell frequently
for Walter's sufferings; but rarely for his supposed death, and never long.
    She had written to the old Instrument-maker, but had received no answer to
her note: which indeed required none. Thus matters stood with Florence on the
morning when she was going home, gladly, to her old secluded life.
    Doctor and Mrs. Blimber, accompanied (much against his will) by their valued
charge, Master Barnet, were already gone back to Brighton, where that young
gentleman and his fellow-pilgrims to Parnassus were then, no doubt, in the
continual resumption of their studies. The holiday time was past and over; most
of the juvenile guests at the villa had taken their departure; and Florence's
long visit was come to an end.
    There was one guest, however, albeit not resident within the house, who had
been very constant in his attention to the family, and who still remained
devoted to them. This was Mr. Toots, who after renewing, some weeks ago, the
acquaintance he had had the happiness of forming with Skettles Junior, on the
night when he burst the Blimberian bonds and soared into freedom with his ring
on, called regularly every other day, and left a perfect pack of cards at the
hall-door; so many indeed, that the ceremony was quite a deal on the part of Mr.
Toots, and a hand at whist on the part of the servant.
    Mr. Toots, likewise, with the bold and happy idea of preventing the family
from forgetting him (but there is reason to suppose that this expedient
originated in the teeming brain of the Chicken), had established a six-oared
cutter, manned by aquatic friends of the Chicken's and steered by that
illustrious character in person, who wore a bright red fireman's coat for the
purpose, and concealed the perpetual black eye with which he was afflicted,
beneath a green shade. Previous to the institution of this equipage, Mr. Toots
sounded the Chicken on a hypothetical case, as, supposing the Chicken to be
enamoured of a young lady named Mary, and to have conceived the intention of
starting a boat of his own, what would he call that boat? The Chicken replied,
with divers strong asseverations, that he would either christen it Poll or The
Chicken's Delight. Improving on this idea, Mr. Toots, after deep study and the
exercise of much invention, resolved to call his boat The Toots's Joy, as a
delicate compliment to Florence, of which no man knowing the parties, could
possibly miss the appreciation.
    Stretched on a crimson cushion in his gallant bark, with his shoes in the
air, Mr. Toots, in the exercise of his project, had come up the river, day after
day, and week after week, and had flitted to and fro, near Sir Barnet's garden,
and had caused his crew to cut across and across the river at sharp angles, for
his better exhibition to any lookers-out from Sir Barnet's windows, and had had
such evolutions performed by the Toots's Joy as had filled all the neighbouring
part of the water-side with astonishment. But whenever he saw any one in Sir
Barnet's garden on the brink of the river, Mr. Toots always feigned to be
passing there, by a combination of coincidences of the most singular and
unlikely description.
    »How are you, Toots?« Sir Barnet would say, waving his hand from the lawn,
while the artful Chicken steered close in shore.
    »How de do, Sir Barnet?« Mr. Toots would answer. »What a surprising thing
that I should see you here!«
    Mr. Toots, in his sagacity, always said this, as if, instead of that being
Sir Barnet's house, it were some deserted edifice on the banks of the Nile, or
Ganges.
    »I never was so surprised!« Mr. Toots would exclaim. - »Is Miss Dombey
there?«
    Whereupon Florence would appear, perhaps.
    »Oh, Diogenes is quite well, Miss Dombey,« Mr. Toots would cry. »I called to
ask this morning.«
    »Thank you very much!« the pleasant voice of Florence would reply.
    »Won't you come ashore, Toots?« Sir Barnet would say then. »Come! you're in
no hurry. Come and see us.«
    »Oh, it's of no consequence, thank you!« Mr. Toots would blushingly rejoin.
»I thought Miss Dombey might like to know, that's all. Good-bye!« And poor Mr.
Toots, who was dying to accept the invitation, but hadn't the courage to do it,
signed to the Chicken, with an aching heart, and away went the Joy, cleaving the
water like an arrow.
    The Joy was lying in a state of extraordinary splendour at the garden steps,
on the morning of Florence's departure. When she went down stairs to take leave,
after her talk with Susan, she found Mr. Toots awaiting her in the drawing-room.
    »Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey?« said the stricken Toots, always dreadfully
disconcerted when the desire of his heart was gained, and he was speaking to
her; »thank you, I'm very well indeed, I hope you're the same, so was Diogenes
yesterday.«
    »You are very kind,« said Florence.
    »Thank you, it's of no consequence,« retorted Mr. Toots. »I thought perhaps
you wouldn't mind, in this fine weather, coming home by water, Miss Dombey.
There's plenty of room in the boat for your maid.«
    »I am very much obliged to you,« said Florence, hesitating. »I really am -
but I would rather not.«
    »Oh, it's of no consequence,« retorted Mr. Toots. »Good morning!«
    »Won't you wait and see Lady Skettles?« asked Florence, kindly.
    »Oh no, thank you,« returned Mr. Toots, »it's of no consequence at all.«
    So shy was Mr. Toots on such occasions, and so flurried! But Lady Skettles
entering at the moment, Mr. Toots was suddenly seized with a passion for asking
her how she did, and hoping she was very well; nor could Mr. Toots by any
possibility leave off shaking hands with her, until Sir Barnet appeared: to whom
he immediately clung with the tenacity of desperation.
    »We are losing, to-day, Toots,« said Sir Barnet, turning towards Florence,
»the light of our house, I assure you.«
    »Oh, it's of no conseq- I mean yes, to be sure,« faltered the embarrassed
Toots. »GOOD morning!«
    Notwithstanding the emphatic nature of this farewell, Mr. Toots, instead of
going away, stood leering about him, vacantly. Florence, to relieve him, bade
adieu, with many thanks, to Lady Skettles, and gave her arm to Sir Barnet.
    »May I beg of you, my dear Miss Dombey,« said her host, as he conducted her
to the carriage, »to present my best compliments to your dear Papa?«
    It was distressing to Florence to receive the commission, for she felt as if
she were imposing on Sir Barnet, by allowing him to believe that a kindness
rendered to her, was rendered to her father. As she could not explain, however,
she bowed her head and thanked him; and again she thought that the dull home,
free from such embarrassments, and such reminders of her sorrow, was her natural
and best retreat.
    Such of her late friends and companions as were yet remaining at the villa,
came running from within, and from the garden, to say good-bye. They were all
attached to her, and very earnest in taking leave of her. Even the household
were sorry for her going, and the servants came nodding and curtseying round the
carriage door. As Florence looked round on the kind faces, and saw among them
those of Sir Barnet and his lady, and of Mr. Toots, who was chuckling and
staring at her from a distance, she was reminded of the night when Paul and she
had come from Doctor Blimber's: and when the carriage drove away, her face was
wet with tears.
    Sorrowful tears, but tears of consolation, too; for all the softer memories
connected with the dull old house to which she was returning made it dear to
her, as they rose up. How long it seemed since she had wandered through the
silent rooms: since she had last crept, softly and afraid, into those her father
occupied: since she had felt the solemn but yet soothing influence of the
beloved dead in every action of her daily life! This new farewell reminded her,
besides, of her parting with poor Walter: of his looks and words that night: and
of the gracious blending she had noticed in him, of tenderness for those he left
behind, with courage and high spirit. His little history was associated with the
old house too, and gave it a new claim and hold upon her heart.
    Even Susan Nipper softened towards the home of so many years, as they were
on their way towards it. Gloomy as it was, and rigid justice as she rendered to
its gloom, she forgave it a great deal. »I shall be glad to see it again, I
don't deny, Miss,« said the Nipper. »There ain't much in it to boast of, but I
wouldn't have it burnt or pulled down, neither!«
    »You'll be glad to go through the old rooms, won't you, Susan?« said
Florence, smiling.
    »Well, Miss,« returned the Nipper, softening more and more towards the
house, as they approached it nearer, »I won't deny but what I shall, though I
shall hate 'em again, to-morrow, very likely.«
    Florence felt that, for her, there was greater peace within it than
elsewhere. It was better and easier to keep her secret shut up there, among the
tall dark walls, than to carry it abroad into the light, and try to hide it from
a crowd of happy eyes. It was better to pursue the study of her loving heart,
alone, and find no new discouragements in loving hearts about her. It was easier
to hope, and pray, and love on, all uncared for, yet with constancy and
patience, in the tranquil sanctuary of such remembrances: although it mouldered,
rusted, and decayed about her: than in a new scene, let its gaiety be what it
would. She welcomed back her old enchanted dream of life, and longed for the old
dark door to close upon her, once again.
    Full of such thoughts, they turned into the long and sombre street. Florence
was not on that side of the carriage which was nearest to her home, and as the
distance lessened between them and it, she looked out of her window for the
children over the way.
    She was thus engaged, when an exclamation from Susan caused her to turn
quickly round.
    »Why, Gracious me!« cried Susan, breathless, »where's our house!«
    »Our house!« said Florence.
    Susan, drawing in her head from the window, thrust it out again, drew it in
again as the carriage stopped, and stared at her mistress in amazement.
    There was a labyrinth of scaffolding raised all round the house from the
basement to the roof. Loads of bricks and stones, and heaps of mortar, and piles
of wood, blocked up half the width and length of the broad street at the side.
Ladders were raised against the walls: labourers were climbing up and down; men
were at work upon the steps of the scaffolding: painters and decorators were
busy inside; great rolls of ornamental paper were being delivered from a cart at
the door; an upholsterer's wagon also stopped the way; no furniture was to be
seen through the gaping and broken windows in any of the rooms; nothing but
workmen, and the implements of their several trades, swarming from the kitchens
to the garrets. Inside and outside alike: bricklayers, painters, carpenters,
masons: hammer, hod, brush, pickaxe, saw, and trowel: all at work together, in
full chorus.
    Florence descended from the coach, half doubting if it were, or could be the
right house, until she recognised Towlinson, with a sun-burnt face, standing at
the door to receive her.
    »There is nothing the matter?« inquired Florence.
    »Oh no, Miss.«
    »There are great alterations going on.«
    »Yes, Miss, great alterations,« said Towlinson.
    Florence passed him as if she were in a dream, and hurried up stairs. The
garish light was in the long-darkened drawing-room, and there were steps and
platforms, and men in paper caps, in the high places. Her mother's picture was
gone with the rest of the moveables, and on the mark where it had been, was
scrawled in chalk, this room in-panel. Green and gold. The staircase was a
labyrinth of posts and planks like the outside of the house, and a whole Olympus
of plumbers and glaziers was reclining in various attitudes, on the skylight.
Her own room was not yet touched within, but there were beams and boards raised
against it without, baulking the daylight. She went up swiftly to that other
bedroom, where the little bed was; and a dark giant of a man with a pipe in his
mouth, and his head tied up in a pocket-handkerchief, was staring in at the
window.
    It was here that Susan Nipper, who had been in quest of Florence, found her,
and said, would she go down stairs to her Papa, who wished to speak to her.
    »At home! and wishing to speak to me!« cried Florence, trembling.
    Susan, who was infinitely more distraught than Florence herself, repeated
her errand; and Florence, pale and agitated, hurried down again, without a
moment's hesitation. She thought upon the way down, would she dare to kiss him?
The longing of her heart resolved her, and she thought she would.
    Her father might have heard that heart beat, when it came into his presence.
One instant, and it would have beat against his breast -
    But he was not alone. There were two ladies there; and Florence stopped.
Striving so hard with her emotion, that if her brute friend Di had not burst in
and overwhelmed her with his caresses as a welcome home - at which one of the
ladies gave a little scream, and that diverted her attention from herself - she
would have swooned upon the floor.
    »Florence,« said her father, putting out his hand: so stiffly that it held
her off: »how do you do?«
    Florence took the hand between her own, and putting it timidly to her lips,
yielded to its withdrawal. It touched the door in shutting it, with quite as
much endearment as it had touched her.
    »What dog is that?« said Mr. Dombey, displeased.
    »It is a dog, Papa - from Brighton.«
    »Well!« said Mr. Dombey; and a cloud passed over his face, for he understood
her.
    »He is very good-tempered,« said Florence, addressing herself with her
natural grace and sweetness to the two lady strangers. »He is only glad to see
me. Pray forgive him.«
    She saw in the glance they interchanged, that the lady who had screamed, and
who was seated, was old; and that the other lady, who stood near her Papa, was
very beautiful, and of an elegant figure.
    »Mrs. Skewton,« said her father, turning to the first, and holding out his
hand, »this is my daughter Florence.«
    »Charming, I am sure,« observed the lady, putting up her glass. »So natural!
My darling Florence, you must kiss me, if you please.«
    Florence having done so, turned towards the other lady, by whom her father
stood waiting.
    »Edith,« said Mr. Dombey, »this is my daughter Florence. Florence, this lady
will soon be your Mama.«
    Florence started, and looked up at the beautiful face in a conflict of
emotions, among which the tears that name awakened, struggled for a moment with
surprise, interest, admiration, and an indefinable sort of fear. Then she cried
out, »Oh, Papa, may you be happy! may you be very, very happy all your life!«
and then fell weeping on the lady's bosom.
    There was a short silence. The beautiful lady, who at first had seemed to
hesitate whether or no she should advance to Florence, held her to her breast,
and pressed the hand with which she clasped her, close about her waist, as if to
reassure her and comfort her. Not one word passed the lady's lips. She bent her
head down over Florence, and she kissed her on the cheek, but she said no word.
    »Shall we go on through the rooms,« said Mr. Dombey, »and see how our
workmen are doing? Pray allow me, my dear madam.«
    He said this in offering his arm to Mrs. Skewton, who had been looking at
Florence through her glass, as though picturing to herself what she might be
made, by the infusion - from her own copious storehouse, no doubt - of a little
more Heart and Nature. Florence was still sobbing on the lady's breast, and
holding to her, when Mr. Dombey was heard to say from the Conservatory:
    »Let us ask Edith. Dear me, where is she?«
    »Edith, my dear!« cried Mrs. Skewton, »where are you? Looking for Mr. Dombey
somewhere, I know. We are here, my love.«
    The beautiful lady released her hold of Florence, and pressing her lips once
more upon her face, withdrew hurriedly, and joined them. Florence remained
standing in the same place: happy, sorry, joyful, and in tears, she knew not
how, or how long, but all at once: when her new Mama came back, and took her in
her arms again.
    »Florence,« said the lady, hurriedly, and looking into her face with great
earnestness. »You will not begin by hating me?«
    »By hating you, Mama?« cried Florence, winding her arm round her neck, and
returning the look.
    »Hush! Begin by thinking well of me,« said the beautiful lady. »Begin by
believing that I will try to make you happy, and that I am prepared to love you,
Florence. Goodbye. We shall meet again soon. Good-bye! Don't stay here, now.«
    Again she pressed her to her breast - she had spoken in a rapid manner, but
firmly - and Florence saw her rejoin them in the other room.
    And now Florence began to hope that she would learn from her new and
beautiful Mama, how to gain her father's love; and in her sleep that night, in
her lost old home, her own Mama smiled radiantly upon the hope, and blessed it.
Dreaming Florence!
 

                                  Chapter XXIX

                     The Opening of the Eyes of Mrs. Chick.

Miss Tox, all unconscious of any such rare appearances in connexion with Mr.
Dombey's house, as scaffoldings and ladders, and men with their heads tied up in
pocket-handkerchiefs, glaring in at the windows like flying genii or strange
birds, - having breakfasted one morning at about this eventful period of time,
on her customary viands; to wit, one French roll rasped, one egg new laid (or
warranted to be), and one little pot of tea, wherein was infused one little
silver scoop-full of that herb on behalf of Miss Tox, and one little silver
scoop-full on behalf of the teapot - a flight of fancy in which good
housekeepers delight; went up stairs to set forth the bird waltz on the
harpsichord, to water and arrange the plants, to dust the nick-nacks, and
according to her daily custom, to make her little drawing-room the garland of
Princess's Place.
    Miss Tox endued herself with the pair of ancient gloves, like dead leaves,
in which she was accustomed to perform these avocations - hidden from human
sight at other times in a table drawer - and went methodically to work;
beginning with the bird waltz; passing, by a natural association of ideas, to
her bird - a very high-shouldered canary, stricken in years, and much rumpled,
but a piercing singer, as Princess's Place well knew; taking, next in order, the
little china ornaments, paper fly-cages, and so forth; and coming round, in good
time, to the plants, which generally required to be snipped here and there with
a pair of scissors, for some botanical reason that was very powerful with Miss
Tox.
    Miss Tox was slow in coming to the plants, this morning. The weather was
warm, the wind southerly; and there was a sigh of the summer-time in Princess's
Place, that turned Miss Tox's thoughts upon the country. The pot-boy attached to
the Princess's Arms had come out with a can and trickled water, in a flowing
pattern, all over Princess's Place, and it gave the weedy ground a fresh scent -
quite a growing scent, Miss Tox said. There was a tiny blink of sun peeping in
from the great street round the corner, and the smoky sparrows hopped over it
and back again, brightening as they passed: or bathed in it, like a stream, and
became glorified sparrows, unconnected with chimneys. Legends in praise of
Ginger-Beer, with pictorial representations of thirsty customers submerged in
the effervescence, or stunned by the flying corks, were conspicuous in the
window of the Princess's Arms. They were making late hay, somewhere out of town;
and though the fragrance had a long way to come, and many counter fragrances to
contend with among the dwellings of the poor (may God reward the worthy
gentlemen who stickle for the Plague as part and parcel of the wisdom of our
ancestors, and who do their little best to keep those dwellings miserable!), yet
it was wafted faintly into Princess's Place, whispering of Nature and her
wholesome air, as such things will, even unto prisoners and captives, and those
who are desolate and oppressed, in very spite of aldermen and knights to boot:
at whose sage nod - and how they nod! - the rolling world stands still!
    Miss Tox sat down upon the window-seat, and thought of her good papa
deceased - Mr. Tox, of the Customs Department of the public service; and of her
childhood, passed at a sea-port, among a considerable quantity of cold tar, and
some rusticity. She fell into a softened remembrance of meadows, in old time,
gleaming with buttercups, like so many inverted firmaments of golden stars; and
how she had made chains of dandelion-stalks for youthful vowers of eternal
constancy, dressed chiefly in nankeen; and how soon those fetters had withered
and broken.
    Sitting on the window-seat, and looking out upon the sparrows and the blink
of sun, Miss Tox thought likewise of her good mama deceased - sister to the
owner of the powdered head and pigtail - of her virtues and her rheumatism. And
when a man with bulgy legs, and a rough voice, and a heavy basket on his head
that crushed his hat into a mere black muffin, came crying flowers down
Princess's Place, making his timid little roots of daisies shudder in the
vibration of every yell he gave, as though he had been an ogre, hawking little
children, summer recollections were so strong upon Miss Tox, that she shook her
head, and murmured she would be comparatively old before she knew it - which
seemed likely.
    In her pensive mood, Miss Tox's thoughts went wandering on Mr. Dombey's
track; probably because the Major had returned home to his lodgings opposite,
and had just bowed to her from his window. What other reason could Miss Tox have
for connecting Mr. Dombey with her summer days and dandelion fetters? Was he
more cheerful? thought Miss Tox. Was he reconciled to the decrees of fate? Would
he ever marry again? and if yes, whom? What sort of person now!
    A flush - it was warm weather - overspread Miss Tox's face, as, while
entertaining these meditations, she turned her head, and was surprised by the
reflection of her thoughtful image in the chimney-glass. Another flush succeeded
when she saw a little carriage drive into Princess's Place, and make straight
for her own door. Miss Tox arose, took up her scissors hastily, and so coming,
at last, to the plants, was very busy with them when Mrs. Chick entered the
room.
    »How is my sweetest friend!« exclaimed Miss Tox, with open arms.
    A little stateliness was mingled with Miss Tox's sweetest friend's
demeanour, but she kissed Miss Tox, and said, »Lucretia, thank you, I am pretty
well. I hope you are the same. Hem!«
    Mrs. Chick was labouring under a peculiar little monosyllabic cough; a sort
of primer, or easy introduction to the art of coughing.
    »You call very early, and how kind that is, my dear!« pursued Miss Tox.
»Now, have you breakfasted?«
    »Thank you, Lucretia,« said Mrs. Chick, »I have. I took an early breakfast«
- the good lady seemed curious on the subject of Princess's Place, and looked
all round it as she spoke - »with my brother, who has come home.«
    »He is better, I trust, my love,« faltered Miss Tox.
    »He is greatly better, thank you. Hem!«
    »My dear Louisa must be careful of that cough,« remarked Miss Tox.
    »It's nothing,« returned Mrs. Chick. »It's merely change of weather. We must
expect change.«
    »Of weather?« asked Miss Tox, in her simplicity.
    »Of everything,« returned Mrs. Chick. »Of course we must. It's a world of
change. Any one would surprise me very much, Lucretia, and would greatly alter
my opinion of their understanding, if they attempted to contradict or evade what
is so perfectly evident. Change!« exclaimed Mrs. Chick, with severe philosophy.
»Why, my gracious me, what is there that does not change! even the silkworm, who
I am sure might be supposed not to trouble itself about such subjects, changes
into all sorts of unexpected things continually.«
    »My Louisa,« said the mild Miss Tox, »is ever happy in her illustrations.«
    »You are so kind, Lucretia,« returned Mrs. Chick, a little softened, »as to
say so, and to think so, I believe. I hope neither of us may ever have any cause
to lessen our opinion of the other, Lucretia.«
    »I am sure of it,« returned Miss Tox.
    Mrs. Chick coughed as before, and drew lines on the carpet with the ivory
end of her parasol. Miss Tox, who had experience of her fair friend, and knew
that under the pressure of any slight fatigue or vexation she was prone to a
discursive kind of irritability, availed herself of the pause, to change the
subject.
    »Pardon me, my dear Louisa,« said Miss Tox, »but have I caught sight of the
manly form of Mr. Chick in the carriage?«
    »He is there,« said Mrs. Chick, »but pray leave him there. He has his
newspaper, and would be quite contented for the next two hours. Go on with your
flowers, Lucretia, and allow me to sit here and rest.«
    »My Louisa knows,« observed Miss Tox, »that between friends like ourselves,
any approach to ceremony would be out of the question. Therefore -« Therefore
Miss Tox finished the sentence, not in words but action; and putting on her
gloves again, which she had taken off, and arming herself once more with her
scissors, began to snip and clip among the leaves with microscopic industry.
    »Florence has returned home also,« said Mrs. Chick, after sitting silent for
some time, with her head on one side, and her parasol sketching on the floor;
»and really Florence is a great deal too old now, to continue to lead that
solitary life to which she has been accustomed. Of course she is. There can be
no doubt about it. I should have very little respect, indeed, for anybody who
could advocate a different opinion. Whatever my wishes might be, I could not
respect them. We cannot command our feelings to such an extent as that.«
    Miss Tox assented, without being particular as to the intelligibility of the
proposition.
    »If she's a strange girl,« said Mrs. Chick, »and if my brother Paul cannot
feel perfectly comfortable in her society, after all the sad things that have
happened, and all the terrible disappointments that have been undergone, then,
what is the reply? That he must make an effort. That he is bound to make an
effort. We have always been a family remarkable for effort. Paul is at the head
of the family; almost the only representative of it left - for what am I - I am
of no consequence -«
    »My dearest love,« remonstrated Miss Tox.
    Mrs. Chick dried her eyes, which were, for the moment, overflowing; and
proceeded:
    »And consequently he is more than ever bound to make an effort. And though
his having done so, comes upon me with a sort of shock - for mine is a very weak
and foolish nature; which is anything but a blessing I am sure; I often wish my
heart was a marble slab, or a paving-stone -«
    »My sweet Louisa,« remonstrated Miss Tox again.
    »Still, it is a triumph to me to know that he is so true to himself, and to
his name of Dombey; although, of course, I always knew he would be. I only
hope,« said Mrs. Chick, after a pause, »that she may be worthy of the name too.«
    Miss Tox filled a little green watering-pot from a jug, and happening to
look up when she had done so, was so surprised by the amount of expression Mrs.
Chick had conveyed into her face, and was bestowing upon her, that she put the
little watering-pot on the table for the present, and sat down near it.
    »My dear Louisa,« said Miss Tox, »will it be the least satisfaction to you,
if I venture to observe in reference to that remark, that I, as a humble
individual, think your sweet niece in every way most promising?«
    »What do you mean, Lucretia?« returned Mrs. Chick, with increased
stateliness of manner. »To what remark of mine, my dear, do you refer?«
    »Her being worthy of her name, my love,« replied Miss Tox.
    »If,« said Mrs. Chick, with solemn patience, »I have not expressed myself
with clearness, Lucretia, the fault of course is mine. There is, perhaps, no
reason why I should express myself at all, except the intimacy that has
subsisted between us, and which I very much hope, Lucretia - confidently hope -
nothing will occur to disturb. Because, why should I do anything else? There is
no reason; it would be absurd. But I wish to express myself clearly, Lucretia;
and therefore to go back to that remark, I must beg to say that it was not
intended to relate to Florence, in any way.«
    »Indeed!« returned Miss Tox.
    »No,« said Mrs. Chick shortly and decisively.
    »Pardon me, my dear,« rejoined her meek friend; »but I cannot have
understood it. I fear I am dull.«
    Mrs. Chick looked round the room and over the way; at the plants, at the
bird, at the watering-pot, at almost everything within view, except Miss Tox;
and finally dropping her glance upon Miss Tox, for a moment, on its way to the
ground, said, looking meanwhile with elevated eyebrows at the carpet:
    »When I speak, Lucretia, of her being worthy of the name, I speak of my
brother Paul's second wife. I believe I have already said, in effect, if not in
the very words I now use, that it is his intention to marry a second wife.«
    Miss Tox left her seat in a hurry, and returned to her plants; clipping
among the stems and leaves, with as little favour as a barber working at so many
pauper heads of hair.
    »Whether she will be fully sensible of the distinction conferred upon her,«
said Mrs. Chick, in a lofty tone, »is quite another question. I hope she may be.
We are bound to think well of one another in this world, and I hope she may be.
I have not been advised with myself. If I had been advised with, I have no doubt
my advice would have been cavalierly received, and therefore it is infinitely
better as it is. I much prefer it as it is.«
    Miss Tox, with head bent down, still clipped among the plants. Mrs. Chick,
with energetic shakings of her own head from time to time, continued to hold
forth, as if in defiance of somebody.
    »If my brother Paul had consulted with me, which he sometimes does - or
rather, sometimes used to do; for he will naturally do that no more now, and
this is a circumstance which I regard as a relief from responsibility,« said
Mrs. Chick, hysterically, »for I thank Heaven I am not jealous -« here Mrs.
Chick again shed tears: »if my brother Paul had come to me, and had said,
Louisa, what kind of qualities would you advise me to look out for, in a wife? I
should certainly have answered, Paul, you must have family, you must have
beauty, you must have dignity, you must have connexion. Those are the words I
should have used. You might have led me to the block immediately afterwards,«
said Mrs. Chick, as if that consequence were highly probable, »but I should have
used them. I should have said, Paul! You to marry a second time without family!
You to marry without beauty! You to marry without dignity! You to marry without
connexion! There is nobody in the world, not mad, who could dream of daring to
entertain such a preposterous idea!«
    Miss Tox stopped clipping; and with her head among the plants, listened
attentively. Perhaps Miss Tox thought there was hope in this exordium, and the
warmth of Mrs. Chick.
    »I should have adopted this course of argument,« pursued the discreet lady,
»because I trust I am not a fool. I make no claim to be considered a person of
superior intellect - though I believe some people have been extraordinary enough
to consider me so; one so little humoured as I am, would very soon be disabused
of any such notion; but I trust I am not a downright fool. And to tell ME,« said
Mrs. Chick with ineffable disdain, »that my brother Paul Dombey could ever
contemplate the possibility of uniting himself to anybody - I don't care who« -
she was more sharp and emphatic in that short clause than in any other part of
her discourse - »not possessing these requisites, would be to insult what
understanding I have got, as much as if I was to be told that I was born and
bred an elephant, which I may be told next,« said Mrs. Chick, with resignation.
»It wouldn't surprise me at all. I expect it.«
    In the moment's silence that ensued, Miss Tox's scissors gave a feeble clip
or two: but Miss Tox's face was still invisible, and Miss Tox's morning gown was
agitated. Mrs. Chick looked sideways at her, through the intervening plants, and
went on to say, in a tone of bland conviction, and as one dwelling on a point of
fact that hardly required to be stated:
    »Therefore, of course my brother Paul has done what was to be expected of
him, and what anybody might have foreseen he would do, if he entered the
marriage state again. I confess it takes me rather by surprise, however
gratifying; because when Paul went out of town I had no idea at all that he
would form any attachment out of town, and he certainly had no attachment when
he left here. However, it seems to be extremely desirable in every point of
view. I have no doubt the mother is a most genteel and elegant creature, and I
have no right whatever to dispute the policy of her living with them: which is
Paul's affair, not mine - and as to Paul's choice, herself, I have only seen her
picture yet, but that is beautiful indeed. Her name is beautiful too,« said Mrs.
Chick, shaking her head with energy, and arranging herself in her chair; »Edith
is at once uncommon, as it strikes me, and distinguished. Consequently,
Lucretia, I have no doubt you will be happy to hear that the marriage is to take
place immediately - of course, you will:« great emphasis again: »and that you
are delighted with this change in the condition of my brother, who has shown you
a great deal of pleasant attention at various times.«
    Miss Tox made no verbal answer, but took up the little watering-pot with a
trembling hand, and looked vacantly round as if considering what article of
furniture would be improved by the contents. The room door opening at this
crisis of Miss Tox's feelings, she started, laughed aloud, and fell into the
arms of the person entering; happily insensible alike of Mrs. Chick's indignant
countenance and of the Major at his window over the way, who had his
double-barrelled eye-glass in full action, and whose face and figure were
dilated with Mephistophelean joy.
    Not so the expatriated Native, amazed supporter of Miss Tox's swooning form,
who, coming straight up stairs, with a polite inquiry touching Miss Tox's health
(in exact pursuance of the Major's malicious instructions), had accidentally
arrived in the very nick of time to catch the delicate burden in his arms, and
to receive the contents of the little watering-pot in his shoe; both of which
circumstances, coupled with his consciousness of being closely watched by the
wrathful Major, who had threatened the usual penalty in regard of every bone in
his skin in case of any failure, combined to render him a moving spectacle of
mental and bodily distress.
    For some moments, this afflicted foreigner remained clasping Miss Tox to his
heart, with an energy of action in remarkable opposition to his disconcerted
face, while that poor lady trickled slowly down upon him the very last
sprinklings of the little watering-pot, as if he were a delicate exotic (which
indeed he was), and might be almost expected to blow while the gentle rain
descended. Mrs. Chick, at length recovering sufficient presence of mind to
interpose, commanded him to drop Miss Tox upon the sofa and withdraw; and the
exile promptly obeying, she applied herself to promote Miss Tox's recovery.
    But none of that gentle concern which usually characterises the daughters of
Eve in their tending of each other; none of that freemasonry in fainting, by
which they are generally bound together in a mysterious bond of sisterhood; was
visible in Mrs. Chick's demeanour. Rather like the executioner who restores the
victim to sensation previous to proceeding with the torture (or was wont to do
so, in the good old times for which all true men wear perpetual mourning), did
Mrs. Chick administer the smelling-bottle, the slapping on the hands, the
dashing of cold water on the face, and the other proved remedies. And when, at
length, Miss Tox opened her eyes, and gradually became restored to animation and
consciousness, Mrs. Chick drew off as from a criminal, and reversing the
precedent of the murdered king of Denmark, regarded her more in anger than in
sorrow.
    »Lucretia!« said Mrs. Chick. »I will not attempt to disguise what I feel. My
eyes are opened, all at once. I wouldn't have believed this, if a Saint had told
it to me.«
    »I am foolish to give way to faintness,« Miss Tox faltered. »I shall be
better presently.«
    »You will be better presently, Lucretia!« repeated Mrs. Chick, with
exceeding scorn. »Do you suppose I am blind? Do you imagine I am in my second
childhood? No, Lucretia! I am obliged to you!«
    Miss Tox directed an imploring, helpless kind of look towards her friend,
and put her handkerchief before her face.
    »If any one had told me this yesterday,« said Mrs. Chick, with majesty, »or
even half-an-hour ago, I should have been tempted, I almost believe, to strike
them to the earth. Lucretia Tox, my eyes are opened to you all at once. The
scales:« here Mrs. Chick cast down an imaginary pair, such as are commonly used
in grocers' shops: »have fallen from my sight. The blindness of my confidence is
past, Lucretia. It has been abused and played upon, and evasion is quite out of
the question now, I assure you.«
    »Oh! to what do you allude so cruelly, my love?« asked Miss Tox, through her
tears.
    »Lucretia,« said Mrs. Chick, »ask your own heart. I must entreat you not to
address me by any such familiar term as you have just used, if you please. I
have some self-respect left, though you may think otherwise.«
    »Oh, Louisa!« cried Miss Tox. »How can you speak to me like that?«
    »How can I speak to you like that?« retorted Mrs. Chick, who, in default of
having any particular argument to sustain herself upon, relied principally on
such repetitions for her most withering effects. »Like that! You may well say
like that, indeed!«
    Miss Tox sobbed pitifully.
    »The idea!« said Mrs. Chick, »of your having basked at my brother's
fireside, like a serpent, and wound yourself, through me, almost into his
confidence, Lucretia, that you might, in secret, entertain designs upon him, and
dare to aspire to contemplate the possibility of his uniting himself to you!
Why, it is an idea,« said Mrs. Chick, with sarcastic dignity, »the absurdity of
which almost relieves its treachery.«
    »Pray, Louisa,« urged Miss Tox, »do not say such dreadful things.«
    »Dreadful things!« repeated Mrs. Chick. »Dreadful things! Is it not a fact,
Lucretia, that you have just now been unable to command your feelings even
before me, whose eyes you had so completely closed?«
    »I have made no complaint,« sobbed Miss Tox. »I have said nothing. If I have
been a little overpowered by your news, Louisa, and have ever had any lingering
thought that Mr. Dombey was inclined to be particular towards me, surely you
will not condemn me.«
    »She is going to say,« said Mrs. Chick, addressing herself to the whole of
the furniture, in a comprehensive glance of resignation and appeal, »She is
going to say - I know it - that I have encouraged her!«
    »I don't wish to exchange reproaches, dear Louisa,« sobbed Miss Tox. »Nor do
I wish to complain. But, in my own defence -«
    »Yes,« cried Mrs. Chick, looking round the room with a prophetic smile,
»that's what she's going to say. I knew it. You had better say it. Say it
openly! Be open, Lucretia Tox,« said Mrs. Chick, with desperate sternness,
»whatever you are.«
    »In my own defence,« faltered Miss Tox, »and only in my own defence against
your unkind words, my dear Louisa, I would merely ask you if you haven't often
favoured such a fancy, and even said it might happen, for anything we could
tell?«
    »There is a point,« said Mrs. Chick, rising, not as if she were going to
stop at the floor, but as if she were about to soar up, high, into her native
skies, »beyond which endurance becomes ridiculous, if not culpable. I can bear
much; but not too much. What spell was on me when I came into this house this
day, I don't know; but I had a presentiment - a dark presentiment,« said Mrs.
Chick, with a shiver, »that something was going to happen. Well may I have had
that foreboding, Lucretia, when my confidence of many years is destroyed in an
instant, when my eyes are opened all at once, and when I find you revealed in
your true colours. Lucretia, I have been mistaken in you. It is better for us
both that this subject should end here. I wish you well, and I shall ever wish
you well. But, as an individual who desires to be true to herself in her own
poor position, whatever that position may be, or may not be - and as the sister
of my brother - and as the sister-in-law of my brother's wife - and as a
connexion by marriage of my brother's wife's mother - may I be permitted to add,
as a Dombey? - I can wish you nothing else but good morning.«
    These words, delivered with cutting suavity, tempered and chastened by a
lofty air of moral rectitude, carried the speaker to the door. There she
inclined her head in a ghostly and statue-like manner, and so withdrew to her
carriage, to seek comfort and consolation in the arms of Mr. Chick her lord.
    Figuratively speaking, that is to say; for the arms of Mr. Chick were full
of his newspaper. Neither did that gentleman address his eyes towards his wife
otherwise than by stealth. Neither did he offer any consolation whatever. In
short, he sat reading, and humming fag ends of tunes, and sometimes glancing
furtively at her without delivering himself of a word, good, bad, or
indifferent.
    In the meantime Mrs. Chick sat swelling and bridling, and tossing her head,
as if she were still repeating that solemn formula of farewell to Lucretia Tox.
At length, she said aloud, »Oh the extent to which her eyes had been opened that
day!«
    »To which your eyes have been opened, my dear!« repeated Mr. Chick.
    »Oh, don't talk to me!« said Mrs. Chick. »If you can bear to see me in this
state, and not ask me what the matter is, you had better hold your tongue for
ever.«
    »What is the matter, my dear?« asked Mr. Chick.
    »To think,« said Mrs. Chick, in a state of soliloquy, »that she should ever
have conceived the base idea of connecting herself with our family by a marriage
with Paul! To think that when she was playing at horses with that dear child who
is now in his grave - I never liked it at the time - she should have been hiding
such a double-faced design! I wonder she was never afraid that something would
happen to her. She is fortunate if nothing does.«
    »I really thought, my dear,« said Mr. Chick slowly, after rubbing the bridge
of his nose for some time with his newspaper, »that you had gone on the same
tack yourself, all along, until this morning; and had thought it would be a
convenient thing enough, if it could have been brought about.«
    Mrs. Chick instantly burst into tears, and told Mr. Chick that if he wished
to trample upon her with his boots, he had better do it.
    »But with Lucretia Tox I have done,« said Mrs. Chick, after abandoning
herself to her feelings for some minutes, to Mr. Chick's great terror. »I can
bear to resign Paul's confidence in favour of one who, I hope and trust, may be
deserving of it, and with whom he has a perfect right to replace poor Fanny if
he chooses; I can bear to be informed, in Paul's cool manner, of such a change
in his plans, and never to be consulted until all is settled and determined; but
deceit I can not bear, and with Lucretia Tox I have done. It is better as it
is,« said Mrs. Chick, piously; »much better. It would have been a long time
before I could have accommodated myself comfortably with her, after this; and I
really don't know, as Paul is going to be very grand, and these are people of
condition, that she would have been quite presentable, and might not have
compromised myself. There's a providence in everything; everything works for the
best; I have been tried to-day, but, upon the whole, I don't regret it.«
    In which Christian spirit, Mrs. Chick dried her eyes, and smoothed her lap,
and sat as became a person calm under a great wrong. Mr. Chick, feeling his
unworthiness no doubt, took an early opportunity of being set down at a street
corner and walking away, whistling, with his shoulders very much raised, and his
hands in his pockets.
    While poor excommunicated Miss Tox, who, if she were a fawner and
toad-eater, was at least an honest and a constant one, and had ever borne a
faithful friendship towards her impeacher, and had been truly absorbed and
swallowed up in devotion to the magnificence of Mr. Dombey - while poor
excommunicated Miss Tox watered her plants with her tears, and felt that it was
winter in Princess's Place.
 

                                  Chapter XXX

                       The Interval Before the Marriage.

Although the enchanted house was no more, and the working world had broken into
it, and was hammering and crashing and tramping up and down stairs all day long,
keeping Diogenes in an incessant paroxysm of barking, from sunrise to sunset -
evidently convinced that his enemy had got the better of him at last, and was
then sacking the premises in triumphant defiance - there was, at first, no other
great change in the method of Florence's life. At night, when the workpeople
went away, the house was dreary and deserted again; and Florence, listening to
their voices echoing through the hall and staircase as they departed, pictured
to herself the cheerful homes to which they were returning, and the children who
were waiting for them, and was glad to think that they were merry and well
pleased to go.
    She welcomed back the evening silence as an old friend, but it came now with
an altered face, and looked more kindly on her. Fresh hope was in it. The
beautiful lady who had soothed and caressed her, in the very room in which her
heart had been so wrung, was a spirit of promise to her. Soft shadows of the
bright life dawning, when her father's affection should be gradually won, and
all, or much should be restored, of what she had lost on the dark day when a
mother's love had faded with a mother's last breath on her cheek, moved about
her in the twilight and were welcome company. Peeping at the rosy children her
neighbours, it was a new and precious sensation to think that they might soon
speak together and know each other; when she would not fear, as of old, to show
herself before them, lest they should be grieved to see her in her black dress
sitting there alone!
    In her thoughts of her new mother, and in the love and trust overflowing her
pure heart towards her, Florence loved her own dead mother more and more. She
had no fear of setting up a rival in her breast. The new flower sprang from the
deep-planted and long-cherished root, she knew. Every gentle word that had
fallen from the lips of the beautiful lady, sounded to Florence like an echo of
the voice long hushed and silent. How could she love that memory less for living
tenderness, when it was her memory of all parental tenderness and love!
    Florence was, one day, sitting reading in her room, and thinking of the lady
and her promised visit soon - for her book turned on a kindred subject - when,
raising her eyes, she saw her standing in the doorway.
    »Mama!« cried Florence, joyfully meeting her. »Come again!«
    »Not Mama yet,« returned the lady, with a serious smile, as she encircled
Florence's neck with her arm.
    »But very soon to be,« cried Florence.
    »Very soon now, Florence: very soon.«
    Edith bent her head a little, so as to press the blooming cheek of Florence
against her own, and for some few moments remained thus silent. There was
something so very tender in her manner, that Florence was even more sensible of
it than on the first occasion of their meeting.
    She led Florence to a chair beside her, and sat down: Florence looking in
her face, quite wondering at its beauty, and willingly leaving her hand in hers.
    »Have you been alone, Florence, since I was here last?«
    »Oh yes!« smiled Florence, hastily.
    She hesitated and cast down her eyes; for her new Mama was very earnest in
her look, and the look was intently and thoughtfully fixed upon her face.
    »I - I - am used to be alone,« said Florence. »I don't mind it at all. Di
and I pass whole days together, sometimes.« Florence might have said, whole
weeks and months.
    »Is Di your maid, love?«
    »My dog, Mama,« said Florence, laughing. »Susan is my maid.«
    »And these are your rooms,« said Edith, looking round. »I was not shown
these rooms the other day. We must have them improved, Florence. They shall be
made the prettiest in the house.«
    »If I might change them, Mama,« returned Florence; »there is one up stairs I
should like much better.«
    »Is this not high enough, dear girl?« asked Edith, smiling.
    »The other was my brother's room,« said Florence, »and I am very fond of it.
I would have spoken to Papa about it when I came home, and found the workmen
here, and everything changing: but -«
    Florence dropped her eyes, lest the same look should make her falter again.
    »- but I was afraid it might distress him; and as you said you would be here
again soon, Mama, and are the mistress of everything, I determined to take
courage and ask you.«
    Edith sat looking at her, with her brilliant eyes intent upon her face,
until Florence raising her own, she, in her turn, withdrew her gaze, and turned
it on the ground. It was then that Florence thought how different this lady's
beauty was, from what she had supposed. She had thought it of a proud and lofty
kind; yet her manner was so subdued and gentle, that if she had been of
Florence's own age and character, it scarcely could have invited confidence
more.
    Except when a constrained and singular reserve crept over her; and then she
seemed (but Florence hardly understood this, though she could not choose but
notice it, and think about it) as if she were humbled before Florence, and ill
at ease. When she had said that she was not her Mama yet, and when Florence had
called her the mistress of everything there, this change in her was quick and
startling; and now, while the eyes of Florence rested on her face, she sat as
though she would have shrunk and hidden from her, rather than as one about to
love and cherish her, in right of such a near connexion.
    She gave Florence her ready promise, about her new room, and said she would
give directions about it herself. She then asked some questions concerning poor
Paul; and when they had sat in conversation for some time, told Florence she had
come to take her to her own home.
    »We have come to London now, my mother and I,« said Edith, »and you shall
stay with us until I am married. I wish that we should know and trust each
other, Florence.«
    »You are very kind to me,« said Florence, »dear Mama. How much I thank you!«
    »Let me say now, for it may be the best opportunity,« continued Edith,
looking round to see that they were quite alone, and speaking in a lower voice,
»that when I am married, and have gone away for some weeks, I shall be easier at
heart if you will come home here. No matter who invites you to stay elsewhere,
come home here. It is better to be alone than - what I would say is,« she added,
checking herself, »that I know well you are best at home, dear Florence.«
    »I will come home on the very day, Mama.«
    »Do so. I rely on that promise. Now, prepare to come with me, dear girl. You
will find me down stairs when you are ready.«
    Slowly and thoughtfully did Edith wander alone through the mansion of which
she was so soon to be the lady: and little heed took she of all the elegance and
splendour it began to display. The same indomitable haughtiness of soul, the
same proud scorn expressed in eye and lip, the same fierce beauty, only tamed by
a sense of its own little worth, and of the little worth of everything around
it, went through the grand saloons and halls, that had got loose among the shady
trees, and raged and rent themselves. The mimic roses on the walls and floors
were set round with sharp thorns, that tore her breast; in every scrap of gold
so dazzling to the eye, she saw some hateful atom of her purchase-money; the
broad high mirrors showed her, at full length, a woman with a noble quality yet
dwelling in her nature, who was too false to her better self, and too debased
and lost, to save herself. She believed that all this was so plain, more or
less, to all eyes, that she had no resource or power of self-assertion but in
pride: and with this pride, which tortured her own heart night and day, she
fought her fate out, braved it, and defied it.
    Was this the woman whom Florence - an innocent girl, strong only in her
earnestness and simple truth - could so impress and quell, that by her side she
was another creature, with her tempest of passion hushed, and her very pride
itself subdued? Was this the woman who now sat beside her in a carriage, with
her arms entwined, and who, while she courted and entreated her to love and
trust her, drew her fair head to nestle on her breast, and would have laid down
life to shield it from wrong or harm?
    Oh, Edith! it were well to die, indeed, at such a time! Better and happier
far, perhaps, to die so, Edith, than to live on to the end!
    The Honourable Mrs. Skewton, who was thinking of anything rather than of
such sentiments - for, like many genteel persons who have existed at various
times, set her face against death altogether, and objected to the mention of any
such low and levelling upstart - had borrowed a house in Brook Street, Grosvenor
Square, from a stately relative (one of the Feenix brood), who was out of town,
and who did not object to lending it, in the handsomest manner, for nuptial
purposes, as the loan implied his final release and acquittance from all further
loans and gifts to Mrs. Skewton and her daughter. It being necessary for the
credit of the family to make a handsome appearance at such a time, Mrs. Skewton,
with the assistance of an accommodating tradesman resident in the parish of
Mary-le-bone, who lent out all sorts of articles to the nobility and gentry,
from a service of plate to an army of footmen, clapped into this house a
silver-headed butler (who was charged extra on that account, as having the
appearance of an ancient family retainer), two very tall young men in livery,
and a select staff of kitchen-servants; so that a legend arose, down stairs,
that Withers the page, released at once from his numerous household duties, and
from the propulsion of the wheeled-chair (inconsistent with the metropolis), had
been several times observed to rub his eyes and pinch his limbs, as if he
misdoubted his having overslept himself at the Leamington milkman's, and being
still in a celestial dream. A variety of requisites in plate and china being
also conveyed to the same establishment from the same convenient source, with
several miscellaneous articles, including a neat chariot and a pair of bays,
Mrs. Skewton cushioned herself on the principal sofa, in the Cleopatra attitude,
and held her court in fair state.
    »And how,« said Mrs. Skewton, on the entrance of her daughter and her
charge, »is my charming Florence? You must come and kiss me, Florence, if you
please, my love.«
    Florence was timidly stooping to pick out a place in the white part of Mrs.
Skewton's face, when that lady presented her ear, and relieved her of her
difficulty.
    »Edith, my dear,« said Mrs. Skewton, »positively, I - stand a little more in
the light, my sweetest Florence, for a moment.«
    Florence blushingly complied.
    »You don't remember, dearest Edith,« said her mother, »what you were when
you were about the same age as our exceedingly precious Florence, or a few years
younger?«
    »I have long forgotten, mother.«
    »For positively, my dear,« said Mrs. Skewton, »I do think that I see a
decided resemblance to what you were then, in our extremely fascinating young
friend. And it shows,« said Mrs. Skewton, in a lower voice, which conveyed her
opinion that Florence was in a very unfinished state, »what cultivation will
do.«
    »It does, indeed,« was Edith's stern reply.
    Her mother eyed her sharply for a moment, and feeling herself on unsafe
ground, said, as a diversion:
    »My charming Florence, you must come and kiss me once more, if you please,
my love.«
    Florence complied, of course, and again imprinted her lips on Mrs. Skewton's
ear.
    »And you have heard, no doubt, my darling pet,« said Mrs. Skewton, detaining
her hand, »that your Papa, whom we all perfectly adore and dote upon, is to be
married to my dearest Edith this day week.«
    »I knew it would be very soon,« returned Florence, »but not exactly when.«
    »My darling Edith,« urged her mother, gaily, »is it possible you have not
told Florence?«
    »Why should I tell Florence?« she returned, so suddenly and harshly, that
Florence could scarcely believe it was the same voice.
    Mrs. Skewton then told Florence, as another and safer diversion, that her
father was coming to dinner, and that he would no doubt be charmingly surprised
to see her; as he had spoken last night of dressing in the City, and had known
nothing of Edith's design, the execution of which, according to Mrs. Skewton's
expectation, would throw him into a perfect ecstasy. Florence was troubled to
hear this; and her distress became so keen, as the dinner-hour approached, that
if she had known how to frame an entreaty to be suffered to return home, without
involving her father in her explanation, she would have hurried back on foot,
bareheaded, breathless, and alone, rather than incur the risk of meeting his
displeasure.
    As the time drew nearer, she could hardly breathe. She dared not approach a
window, lest he should see her from the street. She dared not go up stairs to
hide her emotion, lest, in passing out at the door, she should meet him
unexpectedly; besides which dread, she felt as though she never could come back
again if she were summoned to his presence. In this conflict of fears, she was
sitting by Cleopatra's couch, endeavouring to understand and to reply to the
bald discourse of that lady, when she heard his foot upon the stair.
    »I hear him now!« cried Florence, starting. »He is coming!«
    Cleopatra, who in her juvenility was always playfully disposed, and who in
her self-engrossment did not trouble herself about the nature of this agitation,
pushed Florence behind her couch, and dropped a shawl over her, preparatory to
giving Mr. Dombey a rapture of surprise. It was so quickly done, that in a
moment Florence heard his awful step in the room.
    He saluted his intended mother-in-law, and his intended bride. The strange
sound of his voice thrilled through the whole frame of his child.
    »My dear Dombey,« said Cleopatra, »come here and tell me how your pretty
Florence is.«
    »Florence is very well,« said Mr. Dombey, advancing towards the couch.
    »At home?«
    »At home,« said Mr. Dombey.
    »My dear Dombey,« returned Cleopatra, with bewitching vivacity; »now are you
sure you are not deceiving me? I don't know what my dearest Edith will say to me
when I make such a declaration, but upon my honour I am afraid you are the
falsest of men, my dear Dombey.«
    Though he had been; and had been detected on the spot, in the most enormous
falsehood that was ever said or done: he could hardly have been more
disconcerted than he was, when Mrs. Skewton plucked the shawl away, and
Florence, pale and trembling, rose before him like a ghost. He had not yet
recovered his presence of mind, when Florence had run up to him, clasped her
hands round his neck, kissed his face, and hurried out of the room. He looked
round as if to refer the matter to somebody else, but Edith had gone after
Florence, instantly.
    »Now, confess, my dear Dombey,« said Mrs. Skewton, giving him her hand,
»that you never were more surprised and pleased in your life.«
    »I never was more surprised,« said Mr. Dombey.
    »Nor pleased, my dearest Dombey?« returned Mrs. Skewton, holding up her fan.
    »I - yes, I am exceedingly glad to meet Florence here,« said Mr. Dombey. He
appeared to consider gravely about it for a moment, and then said, more
decidedly, »Yes, I really am very glad indeed to meet Florence here.«
    »You wonder how she comes here?« said Mrs. Skewton, »don't you?«
    »Edith, perhaps -« suggested Mr. Dombey.
    »Ah! wicked guesser!« replied Cleopatra, shaking her head. »Ah! cunning,
cunning man! One shouldn't tell these things; your sex, my dear Dombey, are so
vain, and so apt to abuse our weaknesses; but you know my open soul - very well;
immediately.«
    This was addressed to one of the very tall young men who announced dinner.
    »But Edith, my dear Dombey,« she continued in a whisper, »when she cannot
have you near her - and as I tell her, she cannot expect that always - will at
least have near her something or somebody belonging to you. Well, how extremely
natural that is! And in this spirit, nothing would keep her from riding off
to-day to fetch our darling Florence. Well, how excessively charming that is!«
    As she waited for an answer, Mr. Dombey answered, »Eminently so.«
    »Bless you, my dear Dombey, for that proof of heart!« cried Cleopatra,
squeezing his hand. »But I am growing too serious! Take me down stairs, like an
angel, and let us see what these people intend to give us for dinner. Bless you,
dear Dombey!«
    Cleopatra skipping off her couch with tolerable briskness, after the last
benediction, Mr. Dombey took her arm in his and led her ceremoniously down
stairs; one of the very tall young men on hire, whose organ of veneration was
imperfectly developed, thrusting his tongue into his cheek, for the
entertainment of the other very tall young man on hire, as the couple turned
into the dining-room.
    Florence and Edith were already there, and sitting side by side. Florence
would have risen when her father entered, to resign her chair to him; but Edith
openly put her hand upon her arm, and Mr. Dombey took an opposite place at the
round table.
    The conversation was almost entirely sustained by Mrs. Skewton. Florence
hardly dared to raise her eyes, lest they should reveal the traces of tears; far
less dared to speak; and Edith never uttered one word, unless in answer to a
question. Verily, Cleopatra worked hard, for the establishment that was so
nearly clutched; and verily it should have been a rich one to reward her!
    »And so your preparations are nearly finished at last, my dear Dombey?« said
Cleopatra, when the dessert was put upon the table, and the silver-headed butler
had withdrawn. »Even the lawyers' preparations!«
    »Yes, madam,« replied Mr. Dombey; »the deed of settlement, the professional
gentlemen inform me, is now ready, and as I was mentioning to you, Edith has
only to do us the favour to suggest her own time for its execution.«
    Edith sat like a handsome statue; as cold, as silent, and as still.
    »My dearest love,« said Cleopatra, »do you hear what Mr. Dombey says? Ah, my
dear Dombey!« aside to that gentleman, »how her absence, as the time approaches,
reminds me of the days, when that most agreeable of creatures, her Papa, was in
your situation!«
    »I have nothing to suggest. It shall be when you please,« said Edith,
scarcely looking over the table at Mr. Dombey.
    »To-morrow?« suggested Mr. Dombey.
    »If you please.«
    »Or would next day,« said Mr. Dombey, »suit your engagements better?«
    »I have no engagements. I am always at your disposal. Let it be when you
like.«
    »No engagements, my dear Edith!« remonstrated her mother, »when you are in a
most terrible state of flurry all day long, and have a thousand and one
appointments with all sorts of tradespeople!«
    »They are of your making,« returned Edith, turning on her with a slight
contraction of her brow. »You and Mr. Dombey can arrange between you.«
    »Very true indeed, my love, and most considerate of you!« said Cleopatra.
»My darling Florence, you must really come and kiss me once more, if you please,
my dear!«
    Singular coincidence, that these gushes of interest in Florence hurried
Cleopatra away from almost every dialogue in which Edith had a share, however
trifling! Florence had certainly never undergone so much embracing, and perhaps
had never been, unconsciously, so useful in her life.
    Mr. Dombey was far from quarrelling, in his own breast, with the manner of
his beautiful betrothed. He had that good reason for sympathy with haughtiness
and coldness, which is found in a fellow-feeling. It flattered him to think how
these deferred to him, in Edith's case, and seemed to have no will apart from
his. It flattered him to picture to himself, this proud and stately woman doing
the honours of his house, and chilling his guests after his own manner. The
dignity of Dombey and Son would be heightened and maintained, indeed, in such
hands.
    So thought Mr. Dombey, when he was left alone at the dining-table, and mused
upon his past and future fortunes: finding no uncongeniality in an air of scant
and gloomy state that pervaded the room, in colour a dark brown, with black
hatchments of pictures blotching the walls, and twenty-four black chairs, with
almost as many nails in them as so many coffins, waiting like mutes, upon the
threshold of the Turkey carpet; and two exhausted Negroes holding up two
withered branches of candelabra on the sideboard, and a musty smell prevailing
as if the ashes of ten thousand dinners were entombed in the sarcophagus below
it. The owner of the house lived much abroad; the air of England seldom agreed
long with a member of the Feenix family; and the room had gradually put itself
into deeper and still deeper mourning for him, until it was become so funereal
as to want nothing but a body in it to be quite complete.
    No bad representation of the body, for the nonce, in his unbending form, if
not in his attitude, Mr. Dombey looked down into the cold depths of the dead sea
of mahogany on which the fruit dishes and decanters lay at anchor: as if the
subjects of his thoughts were rising towards the surface one by one, and
plunging down again. Edith was there in all her majesty of brow and figure; and
close to her came Florence, with her timid head turned to him, as it had been,
for an instant, when she left the room; and Edith's eyes upon her, and Edith's
hand put out protectingly. A little figure in a low arm-chair came springing
next into the light, and looked upon him wonderingly, with its bright eyes and
its old-young face, gleaming as in the flickering of an evening fire. Again came
Florence close upon it, and absorbed his whole attention. Whether as a
fore-doomed difficulty and disappointment to him; whether as a rival who had
crossed him in his way, and might again; whether as his child, of whom, in his
successful wooing, he could stoop to think, as claiming, at such a time, to be
no more estranged; or whether as a hint to him that the mere appearance of
caring for his own blood should be maintained in his new relations; he best
knew. Indifferently well, perhaps, at best; for marriage company and marriage
altars, and ambitious scenes - still blotted here and there with Florence -
always Florence - turned up so fast, and so confusedly, that he rose, and went
up stairs, to escape them.
    It was quite late at night before candles were brought; for at present they
made Mrs. Skewton's head ache, she complained; and in the meantime Florence and
Mrs. Skewton talked together (Cleopatra being very anxious to keep her close to
herself), or Florence touched the piano softly for Mrs. Skewton's delight; to
make no mention of a few occasions in the course of the evening, when that
affectionate lady was impelled to solicit another kiss, and which always
happened after Edith had said anything. They were not many, however, for Edith
sat apart by an open window during the whole time (in spite of her mother's
fears that she would take cold), and remained there until Mr. Dombey took leave.
He was serenely gracious to Florence when he did so; and Florence went to bed in
a room within Edith's, so happy and hopeful, that she thought of her late self
as if it were some other poor deserted girl who was to be pitied for her sorrow;
and in her pity, sobbed herself to sleep.
    The week fled fast. There were drives to milliners, dressmakers, jewellers,
lawyers, florists, pastry-cooks; and Florence was always of the party. Florence
was to go to the wedding. Florence was to cast off her mourning, and to wear a
brilliant dress on the occasion. The milliner's intentions on the subject of
this dress - the milliner was a Frenchwoman, and greatly resembled Mrs. Skewton
- were so chaste and elegant, that Mrs. Skewton bespoke one like it for herself.
The milliner said it would become her to admiration, and that all the world
would take her for the young lady's sister.
    The week fled faster. Edith looked at nothing and cared for nothing. Her
rich dresses came home, and were tried on, and were loudly commended by Mrs.
Skewton and the milliners, and were put away without a word from her. Mrs.
Skewton made their plans for every day, and executed them. Sometimes Edith sat
in the carriage when they went to make purchases; sometimes, when it was
absolutely necessary, she went into the shops. But Mrs. Skewton conducted the
whole business, whatever it happened to be; and Edith looked on as uninterested
and with as much apparent indifference as if she had no concern in it. Florence
might perhaps have thought she was haughty and listless, but that she was never
so to her. So Florence quenched her wonder in her gratitude whenever it broke
out, and soon subdued it.
    The week fled faster. It had nearly winged its flight away. The last night
of the week, the night before the marriage was come. In the dark room - for Mrs.
Skewton's head was no better yet, though she expected to recover permanently
to-morrow - were that lady, Edith, and Mr. Dombey. Edith was at her open window
looking out into the street, Mr. Dombey and Cleopatra were talking softly on the
sofa. It was growing late; and Florence being fatigued, had gone to bed.
    »My dear Dombey,« said Cleopatra, »you will leave me Florence to-morrow,
when you deprive me of my sweetest Edith.«
    Mr. Dombey said he would, with pleasure.
    »To have her about me, here, while you are both at Paris, and to think that,
at her age, I am assisting in the formation of her mind, my dear Dombey,« said
Cleopatra, »will be a perfect balm to me in the extremely shattered state to
which I shall be reduced.«
    Edith turned her head suddenly. Her listless manner was exchanged, in a
moment, to one of burning interest, and, unseen in the darkness, she attended
closely to their conversation.
    Mr. Dombey would be delighted to leave Florence in such admirable
guardianship.
    »My dear Dombey,« returned Cleopatra, »a thousand thanks for your good
opinion. I feared you were going, with malice aforethought, as the dreadful
lawyers say - those horrid proses! - to condemn me to utter solitude.«
    »Why do me so great an injustice, my dear madam?« said Mr. Dombey.
    »Because my charming Florence tells me so positively she must go home
to-morrow,« returned Cleopatra, »that I began to be afraid, my dearest Dombey,
you were quite a Bashaw.«
    »I assure you, madam!« said Mr. Dombey, »I have laid no commands on
Florence; and if I had, there are no commands like your wish.«
    »My dear Dombey,« replied Cleopatra, »what a courtier you are! Though I'll
not say so, either; for courtiers have no heart, and yours pervades your
charming life and character. And are you really going so early, my dear Dombey!«
    Oh, indeed! it was late, and Mr. Dombey feared he must.
    »Is this a fact, or is it all a dream!« lisped Cleopatra. »Can I believe, my
dearest Dombey, that you are coming back to-morrow morning to deprive me of my
sweet companion; my own Edith!«
    Mr. Dombey, who was accustomed to take things literally, reminded Mrs.
Skewton that they were to meet first at the church.
    »The pang,« said Mrs. Skewton, »of consigning a child, even to you, my dear
Dombey, is one of the most excruciating imaginable; and combined with a
naturally delicate constitution, and the extreme stupidity of the pastry-cook
who has undertaken the breakfast, is almost too much for my poor strength. But I
shall rally, my dear Dombey, in the morning; do not fear for me, or be uneasy on
my account. Heaven bless you! My dearest Edith!« she cried archly. »Somebody is
going, pet.«
    Edith, who had turned her head again towards the window, and whose interest
in their conversation had ceased, rose up in her place, but made no advance
towards him, and said nothing. Mr. Dombey, with a lofty gallantry adapted to his
dignity and the occasion, betook his creaking boots towards her, put her hand to
his lips, said, »To-morrow morning I shall have the happiness of claiming this
hand as Mrs. Dombey's,« and bowed himself solemnly out.
    Mrs. Skewton rang for candles as soon as the house-door had closed upon him.
With the candles appeared her maid, with the juvenile dress that was to delude
the world to-morrow. The dress had savage retribution in it, as such dresses
ever have, and made her infinitely older and more hideous than her greasy
flannel gown. But Mrs. Skewton tried it on with mincing satisfaction; smirked at
her cadaverous self in the glass, as she thought of its killing effect upon the
Major; and suffering her maid to take it off again, and to prepare her for
repose, tumbled into ruins like a house of painted cards.
    All this time, Edith remained at the dark window looking out into the
street. When she and her mother were at last left alone, she moved from it for
the first time that evening, and came opposite to her. The yawning, shaking,
peevish figure of the mother, with her eyes raised to confront the proud erect
form of the daughter, whose glance of fire was bent downward upon her, had a
conscious air upon it, that no levity or temper could conceal.
    »I am tired to death,« said she. »You can't be trusted for a moment. You are
worse than a child. Child! No child would be half so obstinate and undutiful.«
    »Listen to me, mother,« returned Edith, passing these words by with a scorn
that would not descend to trifle with them. »You must remain alone here until I
return.«
    »Must remain alone here, Edith, until you return!« repeated her mother.
    »Or in that name upon which I shall call to-morrow to witness what I do, so
falsely, and so shamefully, I swear I will refuse the hand of this man in the
church. If I do not, may I fall dead upon the pavement!«
    The mother answered with a look of quick alarm, in no degree diminished by
the look she met.
    »It is enough,« said Edith, steadily, »that we are what we are. I will have
no youth and truth dragged down to my level. I will have no guileless nature
undermined, corrupted, and perverted, to amuse the leisure of a world of
mothers. You know my meaning. Florence must go home.«
    »You are an idiot, Edith,« cried her angry mother. »Do you expect there can
ever be peace for you in that house, till she is married, and away?«
    »Ask me, or ask yourself, if I ever expect peace in that house,« said her
daughter, »and you know the answer.«
    »And am I to be told to-night, after all my pains and labour, and when you
are going, through me, to be rendered independent,« her mother almost shrieked
in her passion, while her palsied head shook like a leaf, »that there is
corruption and contagion in me, and that I am not fit company for a girl! What
are you, pray? What are you?«
    »I have put the question to myself,« said Edith, ashy pale, and pointing to
the window, »more than once when I have been sitting there, and something in the
faded likeness of my sex has wandered past outside; and God knows I have met
with my reply. Oh mother, mother, if you had but left me to my natural heart
when I too was a girl - a younger girl than Florence - how different I might
have been!«
    Sensible that any show of anger was useless here, her mother restrained
herself, and fell a whimpering, and bewailed that she had lived too long, and
that her only child had cast her off, and that duty towards parents was
forgotten in these evil days, and that she had heard unnatural taunts, and cared
for life no longer.
    »If one is to go on living through continual scenes like this,« she whined,
»I am sure it would be much better for me to think of some means of putting an
end to my existence. Oh! The idea of your being my daughter, Edith, and
addressing me in such a strain!«
    »Between us, mother,« returned Edith, mournfully, »the time for mutual
reproaches is past.«
    »Then why do you revive it?« whimpered her mother. »You know that you are
lacerating me in the cruellest manner. You know how sensitive I am to
unkindness. At such a moment, too, when I have so much to think of, and am
naturally anxious to appear to the best advantage! I wonder at you, Edith. To
make your mother a fright upon your wedding-day!«
    Edith bent the same fixed look upon her, as she sobbed and rubbed her eyes;
and said in the same low steady voice, which had neither risen nor fallen since
she first addressed her, »I have said that Florence must go home.«
    »Let her go!« cried the afflicted and affrighted parent, hastily. »I am sure
I am willing she should go. What is the girl to me?«
    »She is so much to me, that rather than communicate, or suffer to be
communicated to her, one grain of the evil that is in my breast, mother, I would
renounce you, as I would (if you gave me cause) renounce him in the church
to-morrow,« replied Edith. »Leave her alone. She shall not, while I can
interpose, be tampered with and tainted by the lessons I have learned. This is
no hard condition on this bitter night.«
    »If you had proposed it in a filial manner, Edith,« whined her mother,
»perhaps not; very likely not. But such extremely cutting words -«
    »They are past and at an end between us now,« said Edith. »Take your own
way, mother; share as you please in what you have gained; spend, enjoy, make
much of it; and be as happy as you will. The object of our lives is won.
Henceforth let us wear it silently. My lips are closed upon the past from this
hour. I forgive you your part in to-morrow's wickedness. May God forgive my
own!«
    Without a tremor in her voice, or frame, and passing onward with a foot that
set itself upon the neck of every soft emotion, she bade her mother good night,
and repaired to her own room.
    But not to rest; for there was no rest in the tumult of her agitation when
alone. To and fro, and to and fro, and to and fro again, five hundred times,
among the splendid preparations for her adornment on the morrow; with her dark
hair shaken down, her dark eyes flashing with a raging light, her broad white
bosom red with the cruel grasp of the relentless hand with which she spurned it
from her, pacing up and down with an averted head, as if she would avoid the
sight of her own fair person, and divorce herself from its companionship. Thus,
in the dead time of the night before her bridal, Edith Granger wrestled with her
unquiet spirit, tearless, friendless, silent, proud, and uncomplaining.
    At length it happened that she touched the open door which led into the room
where Florence lay.
    She started, stopped, and looked in.
    A light was burning there, and showed her Florence in her bloom of innocence
and beauty, fast asleep. Edith held her breath, and felt herself drawn on
towards her.
    Drawn nearer, nearer, nearer yet; at last, drawn so near, that stooping
down, she pressed her lips to the gentle hand that lay outside the bed, and put
it softly to her neck. Its touch was like the prophet's rod of old upon the
rock. Her tears sprung forth beneath it, as she sunk upon her knees, and laid
her aching head and streaming hair upon the pillow by its side.
    Thus Edith Granger passed the night before her bridal. Thus the sun found
her on her bridal morning.

                                  Chapter XXXI

 

                                  The Wedding.

Dawn, with its passionless blank face, steals shivering to the church beneath
which lies the dust of little Paul and his mother, and looks in at the windows.
It is cold and dark. Night crouches yet, upon the pavement, and broods, sombre
and heavy, in nooks and corners of the building. The steeple-clock, perched up
above the houses, emerging from beneath another of the countless ripples in the
tide of time that regularly roll and break on the eternal shore, is greyly
visible, like a stone beacon, recording how the sea flows on; but within doors,
dawn, at first, can only peep at night, and see that it is there.
    Hovering feebly round the church, and looking in, dawn moans and weeps for
its short reign, and its tears trickle on the window-glass, and the trees
against the church-wall bow their heads, and wring their many hands in sympathy.
Night, growing pale before it, gradually fades out of the church, but lingers in
the vaults below, and sits upon the coffins. And now comes bright day,
burnishing the steeple-clock, and reddening the spire, and drying up the tears
of dawn, and stifling its complaining; and the scared dawn, following the night,
and chasing it from its last refuge, shrinks into the vaults itself and hides,
with a frightened face, among the dead, until night returns, refreshed, to drive
it out.
    And now, the mice, who have been busier with the prayer-books than their
proper owners, and with the hassocks, more worn by their little teeth than by
human knees, hide their bright eyes in their holes, and gather close together in
affright at the resounding clashing of the church-door. For the beadle, that man
of power, comes early this morning with the sexton; and Mrs. Miff, the wheezy
little pew-opener - a mighty dry old lady, sparely dressed, with not an inch of
fullness anywhere about her - is also here, and has been waiting at the
church-gate half-an-hour, as her place is, for the beadle.
    A vinegary face has Mrs. Miff, and a mortified bonnet, and eke a thirsty
soul for sixpences and shillings. Beckoning to stray people to come into pews,
has given Mrs. Miff an air of mystery; and there is reservation in the eye of
Mrs. Miff, as always knowing of a softer seat, but having her suspicions of the
fee. There is no such fact as Mr. Miff, nor has there been, these twenty years,
and Mrs. Miff would rather not allude to him. He held some bad opinions, it
would seem, about free seats; and though Mrs. Miff hopes he may be gone upwards,
she couldn't positively undertake to say so.
    Busy is Mrs. Miff this morning at the church-door, beating and dusting the
altar-cloth, the carpet, and the cushions; and much has Mrs. Miff to say, about
the wedding they are going to have. Mrs. Miff is told, that the new furniture
and alterations in the house cost full five thousand pound if they cost a penny;
and Mrs. Miff has heard, upon the best authority, that the lady hasn't got a
sixpence wherewithal to bless herself. Mrs. Miff remembers, likewise, as if it
had happened yesterday, the first wife's funeral, and then the christening, and
then the other funeral; and Mrs. Miff says, by-the-bye she'll soap-and-water
that 'ere tablet presently, against the company arrive. Mr. Sownds, the Beadle,
who is sitting in the sun upon the church steps all this time (and seldom does
anything else, except, in cold weather, sitting by the fire), approves of Mrs.
Miff's discourse, and asks if Mrs. Miff has heard it said, that the lady is
uncommon handsome? The information Mrs. Miff has received, being of this nature,
Mr. Sownds the Beadle, who, though orthodox and corpulent, is still an admirer
of female beauty, observes, with unction, yes, he hears she is a spanker - an
expression that seems somewhat forcible to Mrs. Miff, or would, from any lips
but those of Mr. Sownds the Beadle.
    In Mr. Dombey's house, at this same time, there is great stir and bustle,
more especially among the women: not one of whom has had a wink of sleep since
four o'clock, and all of whom were full dressed before six. Mr. Towlinson is an
object of greater consideration than usual to the housemaid, and the cook says
at breakfast-time that one wedding makes many, which the housemaid can't
believe, and don't think true at all. Mr. Towlinson reserves his sentiments on
this question; being rendered something gloomy by the engagement of a foreigner
with whiskers (Mr. Towlinson is whiskerless himself), who has been hired to
accompany the happy pair to Paris, and who is busy packing the new chariot. In
respect of this personage, Mr. Towlinson admits, presently, that he never knew
of any good that ever come of foreigners; and being charged by the ladies with
prejudice, says, look at Bonaparte who was at the head of 'em, and see what he
was always up to! Which the housemaid says is very true.
    The pastry-cook is hard at work in the funereal room in Brook Street, and
the very tall young men are busy looking on. One of the very tall young men
already smells of sherry, and his eyes have a tendency to become fixed in his
head, and to stare at objects without seeing them. The very tall young man is
conscious of this failing in himself; and informs his comrade that it's his
exciseman. The very tall young man would say excitement, but his speech is hazy.
    The men who play the bells have got scent of the marriage; and the
marrow-bones and cleavers too; and a brass band too. The first are practising in
a back settlement near Battle-bridge; the second put themselves in
communication, through their chief, with Mr. Towlinson, to whom they offer terms
to be bought off; and the third, in the person of an artful trombone, lurks and
dodges round the corner, waiting for some traitor tradesman to reveal the place
and hour of breakfast, for a bribe. Expectation and excitement extend further
yet, and take a wider range. From Balls Pond, Mr. Perch brings Mrs. Perch to
spend the day with Mr. Dombey's servants, and accompany them, surreptitiously,
to see the wedding. In Mr. Toots's lodgings, Mr. Toots attires himself as if he
were at least the Bridegroom; determined to behold the spectacle in splendour
from a secret corner of the gallery, and thither to convey the Chicken: for it
is Mr. Toots's desperate intent to point out Florence to the Chicken, then and
there, and openly to say, »Now, Chicken, I will not deceive you any longer; the
friend I have sometimes mentioned to you is myself; Miss Dombey is the object of
my passion; what are your opinions, Chicken, in this state of things, and what,
on the spot, do you advise?« The so-much-to-be-astonished Chicken, in the
meanwhile, dips his beak into a tankard of strong beer, in Mr. Toots's kitchen,
and pecks up two pounds of beefsteaks. In Princess's Place, Miss Tox is up and
doing; for she too, though in sore distress, is resolved to put a shilling in
the hands of Mrs. Miff, and see the ceremony which has a cruel fascination for
her, from some lonely corner. The quarters of the Wooden Midshipman are all
alive; for Captain Cuttle, in his ankle-jacks and with a huge shirt-collar, is
seated at his breakfast, listening to Rob the Grinder as he reads the marriage
service to him beforehand, under orders, to the end that the Captain may
perfectly understand the solemnity he is about to witness: for which purpose,
the Captain gravely lays injunctions on his chaplain, from time to time, to »put
about,« or to »over-haul that 'ere article again,« or to stick to his own duty,
and leave the Amens to him, the Captain; one of which he repeats, whenever a
pause is made by Rob the Grinder, with sonorous satisfaction.
    Besides all this, and much more, twenty nursery-maids in Mr. Dombey's street
alone, have promised twenty families of little women, whose instinctive interest
in nuptials dates from their cradles, that they shall go and see the marriage.
Truly, Mr. Sownds the Beadle has good reason to feel himself in office, as he
suns his portly figure on the church steps, waiting for the marriage hour.
Truly, Mrs. Miff has cause to pounce on an unlucky dwarf child, with a giant
baby, who peeps in at the porch, and drive her forth with indignation!
    Cousin Feenix has come over from abroad, expressly to attend the marriage.
Cousin Feenix was a man about town, forty years ago; but he is still so juvenile
in figure and in manner, and so well got up, that strangers are amazed when they
discover latent wrinkles in his lordship's face, and crows' feet in his eyes;
and first observe him, not exactly certain when he walks across a room, of going
quite straight to where he wants to go. But Cousin Feenix, getting up at
half-past seven o'clock or so, is quite another thing from Cousin Feenix got up;
and very dim, indeed, he looks, while being shaved at Long's Hotel, in Bond
Street.
    Mr. Dombey leaves his dressing-room, amidst a general whisking away of the
women on the staircase, who disperse in all directions, with a great rustling of
skirts, except Mrs. Perch, who, being (but that she always is) in an interesting
situation, is not nimble, and is obliged to face him, and is ready to sink with
confusion as she curtseys; - may Heaven avert all evil consequences from the
house of Perch! Mr. Dombey walks up to the drawing-room, to bide his time.
Gorgeous are Mr. Dombey's new blue coat, fawn-coloured pantaloons, and lilac
waistcoat; and a whisper goes about the house, that Mr. Dombey's hair is curled.
    A double knock announces the arrival of the Major, who is gorgeous too, and
wears a whole geranium in his button-hole, and has his hair curled tight and
crisp, as well the Native knows.
    »Dombey!« says the Major, putting out both hands, »how are you?«
    »Major,« says Mr. Dombey, »how are You!«
    »By Jove, Sir,« says the Major, »Joey B. is in such case this morning, Sir,«
- and here he hits himself hard upon the breast - »in such case this morning,
Sir, that, damme, Dombey, he has half a mind to make a double marriage of it,
Sir, and take the mother.«
    Mr. Dombey smiles; but faintly, even for him; for Mr. Dombey feels that he
is going to be related to the mother, and that, under those circumstances, she
is not to be joked about.
    »Dombey,« says the Major, seeing this, »I give you joy. I congratulate you,
Dombey. By the Lord, Sir,« says the Major, »you are more to be envied, this day,
than any man in England!«
    Here again Mr. Dombey's assent is qualified; because he is going to confer a
great distinction on a lady; and, no doubt, she is to be envied most.
    »As to Edith Granger, Sir,« pursues the Major, »there is not a woman in all
Europe but might - and would, Sir, you will allow Bagstock to add - and would
give her ears, and her ear-rings, too, to be in Edith Granger's place.«
    »You are good enough to say so, Major,« says Mr. Dombey.
    »Dombey,« returns the Major, »you know it. Let us have no false delicacy.
You know it. Do you know it, or do you not, Dombey?« says the Major, almost in a
passion.
    »Oh, really, Major -«
    »Damme, Sir,« retorts the Major, »do you know that fact, or do you not?
Dombey! Is old Joe your friend? Are we on that footing of unreserved intimacy,
Dombey, that may justify a man - a blunt old Joseph B., Sir - in speaking out;
or am I to take open order, Dombey, and to keep my distance, and to stand on
forms?«
    »My dear Major Bagstock,« says Mr. Dombey, with a gratified air, »you are
quite warm.«
    »By Gad, Sir,« says the Major, »I am warm. Joseph B. does not deny it,
Dombey. He is warm. This is an occasion, Sir, that calls forth all the honest
sympathies remaining in an old, infernal, battered, used-up, invalided, J. B.
carcase. And I tell you what, Dombey - at such a time a man must blurt out what
he feels, or put a muzzle on; and Joseph Bagstock tells you to your face,
Dombey, as he tells his club behind your back, that he never will be muzzled
when Paul Dombey is in question. Now, damme, Sir,« concludes the Major, with
great firmness, »what do you make of that?«
    »Major,« says Mr. Dombey, »I assure you that I am really obliged to you. I
had no idea of checking your too partial friendship.«
    »Not too partial, Sir!« exclaims the choleric Major. »Dombey, I deny it.«
    »Your friendship I will say then,« pursues Mr. Dombey, »on any account. Nor
can I forget, Major, on such an occasion as the present, how much I am indebted
to it.«
    »Dombey,« says the Major, with appropriate action, »that is the hand of
Joseph Bagstock: of plain old Joey B., Sir, if you like that better! That is the
hand of which His Royal Highness the late Duke of York did me the honour to
observe, Sir, to His Royal Highness the late Duke of Kent, that it was the hand
of Josh.: a rough and tough, and possibly an up-to-snuff, old vagabond. Dombey,
may the present moment be the least unhappy of our lives. God bless you!«
    Now enters Mr. Carker, gorgeous likewise, and smiling like a wedding-guest
indeed. He can scarcely let Mr. Dombey's hand go, he is so congratulatory; and
he shakes the Major's hand so heartily at the same time, that his voice shakes
too, in accord with his arms, as it comes sliding from between his teeth.
    »The very day is auspicious,« says Mr. Carker. »The brightest and most
genial weather! I hope I am not a moment late?«
    »Punctual to your time, Sir,« says the Major.
    »I am rejoiced, I am sure,« says Mr. Carker. »I was afraid I might be a few
seconds after the appointed time, for I was delayed by a procession of wagons;
and I took the liberty of riding round to Brook Street« - this to Mr. Dombey -
»to leave a few poor rarities of flowers for Mrs. Dombey. A man in my position,
and so distinguished as to be invited here, is proud to offer some homage in
acknowledgement of his vassalage: and as I have no doubt Mrs. Dombey is
overwhelmed with what is costly and magnificent;« with a strange glance at his
patron; »I hope the very poverty of my offering, may find favour for it.«
    »Mrs. Dombey, that is to be,« returns Mr. Dombey, condescendingly, »will be
very sensible of your attention, Carker, I am sure.«
    »And if she is to be Mrs. Dombey this morning, Sir,« says the Major, putting
down his coffee-cup, and looking at his watch, »it's high time we were off!«
    Forth, in a barouche, ride Mr. Dombey, Major Bagstock, and Mr. Carker, to
the church. Mr. Sownds the Beadle has long risen from the steps, and is in
waiting with his cocked hat in his hand. Mrs. Miff curtseys and proposes chairs
in the vestry. Mr. Dombey prefers remaining in the church. As he looks up at the
organ, Miss Tox in the gallery shrinks behind the fat leg of a cherub on a
monument, with cheeks like a young Wind. Captain Cuttle, on the contrary, stands
up and waves his hook, in token of welcome and encouragement. Mr. Toots informs
the Chicken, behind his hand, that the middle gentleman, he in the fawn-coloured
pantaloons, is the father of his love. The Chicken hoarsely whispers Mr. Toots
that he's as stiff a cove as ever he see, but that it is within the resources of
Science to double him up, with one blow in the waistcoat.
    Mr. Sownds and Mrs. Miff are eyeing Mr. Dombey from a little distance, when
the noise of approaching wheels is heard, and Mr. Sownds goes out; Mrs. Miff,
meeting Mr. Dombey's eye as it is withdrawn from the presumptuous maniac up
stairs, who salutes him with so much urbanity, drops a curtsey, and informs him
that she believes his good lady is come. Then there is a crowding and a
whispering at the door, and the good lady enters, with a haughty step.
    There is no sign upon her face of last night's suffering; there is no trace
in her manner of the woman on the bended knees reposing her wild head, in
beautiful abandonment, upon the pillow of the sleeping girl. That girl, all
gentle and lovely, is at her side - a striking contrast to her own disdainful
and defiant figure, standing there, composed, erect, inscrutable of will,
resplendent and majestic in the zenith of its charms, yet beating down, and
treading on, the admiration that it challenges.
    There is a pause while Mr. Sownds the Beadle glides into the vestry for the
clergyman and clerk. At this juncture, Mrs. Skewton speaks to Mr. Dombey: more
distinctly and emphatically than her custom is, and moving at the same time,
close to Edith.
    »My dear Dombey,« says the good Mama, »I fear I must relinquish darling
Florence after all, and suffer her to go home, as she herself proposed. After my
loss of to-day, my dear Dombey, I feel I shall not have spirits, even for her
society.«
    »Had she not better stay with you?« returns the Bridegroom.
    »I think not, my dear Dombey. No, I think not. I shall be better alone.
Besides, my dearest Edith will be her natural and constant guardian when you
return, and I had better not encroach upon her trust, perhaps. She might be
jealous. Eh, dear Edith?«
    The affectionate Mama presses her daughter's arm, as she says this; perhaps
entreating her attention earnestly.
    »To be serious, my dear Dombey,« she resumes, »I will relinquish our dear
child, and not inflict my gloom upon her. We have settled that, just now. She
fully understands, dear Dombey. Edith, my dear, - she fully understands.«
    Again, the good mother presses her daughter's arm. Mr. Dombey offers no
additional remonstrance; for the clergyman and clerk appear; and Mrs. Miff, and
Mr. Sownds the Beadle, group the party in their proper places at the altar
rails.
    »Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?«
    Cousin Feenix does that. He has come from Baden-Baden on purpose. »Confound
it,« Cousin Feenix says - good-natured creature, Cousin Feenix - »when we do get
a rich City fellow into the family, let us show him some attention; let us do
something for him.«
    »I give this woman to be married to this man,« saith Cousin Feenix
therefore. Cousin Feenix, meaning to go in a straight line, but turning off
sideways by reason of his wilful legs, gives the wrong woman to be married to
this man, at first - to wit, a bridesmaid of some condition, distantly connected
with the family, and ten years Mrs. Skewton's junior - but Mrs. Miff,
interposing her mortified bonnet, dexterously turns him back, and runs him, as
on castors, full at the good lady: whom Cousin Feenix giveth to be married to
this man accordingly.
    And will they in the sight of heaven -?
    Aye, that they will: Mr. Dombey says he will. And what says Edith? She will.
    So, from that day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in
sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do them part, they
plight their troth to one another, and are married.
    In a firm, free hand, the Bride subscribes her name in the register, when
they adjourn to the vestry. »There an't a many ladies comes here,« Mrs. Miff
says with a curtsey - to look at Mrs. Miff, at such a season, is to make her
mortified bonnet go down with a dip - »writes their names like this good lady!«
Mr. Sownds the Beadle thinks it is a truly spanking signature, and worthy of the
writer - this, however, between himself and conscience.
    Florence signs too, but unapplauded, for her hand shakes. All the party
sign; Cousin Feenix last; who puts his noble name into a wrong place, and enrols
himself as having been born that morning.
    The Major now salutes the Bride right gallantly, and carries out that branch
of military tactics in reference to all the ladies: notwithstanding Mrs.
Skewton's being extremely hard to kiss, and squeaking shrilly in the sacred
edifice. The example is followed by Cousin Feenix, and even by Mr. Dombey.
Lastly, Mr. Carker, with his white teeth glistening, approaches Edith, more as
if he meant to bite her, than to taste the sweets that linger on her lips.
    There is a glow upon her proud cheek, and a flashing in her eyes, that may
be meant to stay him; but it does not, for he salutes her as the rest have done,
and wishes her all happiness.
    »If wishes,« says he in a low voice, »are not superfluous, applied to such a
union.«
    »I thank you, Sir,« she answers, with a curled lip, and a heaving bosom.
    But, does Edith feel still, as on the night when she knew that Mr. Dombey
would return to offer his alliance, that Carker knows her thoroughly, and reads
her right, and that she is more degraded by his knowledge of her, than by aught
else? Is it for this reason that her haughtiness shrinks beneath his smile, like
snow within the hand that grasps it firmly, and that her imperious glance droops
in meeting his, and seeks the ground?
    »I am proud to see,« says Mr. Carker, with a servile stooping of his neck,
which the revelations making by his eyes and teeth proclaim to be a lie, »I am
proud to see that my humble offering is graced by Mrs. Dombey's hand, and
permitted to hold so favoured a place in so joyful an occasion.«
    Though she bends her head, in answer, there is something in the momentary
action of her hand, as if she would crush the flowers it holds, and fling them,
with contempt, upon the ground. But, she puts the hand through the arm of her
new husband, who has been standing near, conversing with the Major, and is proud
again, and motionless, and silent.
    The carriages are once more at the church door. Mr. Dombey, with his bride
upon his arm, conducts her through the twenty families of little women who are
on the steps, and every one of whom remembers the fashion and the colour of her
every article of dress from that moment, and reproduces it on her doll, who is
for ever being married. Cleopatra and Cousin Feenix enter the same carriage. The
Major hands into a second carriage, Florence, and the bridesmaid who so narrowly
escaped being given away by mistake, and then enters it himself, and is followed
by Mr. Carker. Horses prance and caper; coachmen and footmen shine in fluttering
favours, flowers, and new-made liveries. Away they dash and rattle through the
streets: and as they pass along, a thousand heads are turned to look at them,
and a thousand sober moralists revenge themselves for not being married too,
that morning, by reflecting that these people little think such happiness can't
last.
    Miss Tox emerges from behind the cherub's leg, when all is quiet, and comes
slowly down from the gallery. Miss Tox's eyes are red, and her
pocket-handkerchief is damp. She is wounded, but not exasperated, and she hopes
they may be happy. She quite admits to herself the beauty of the bride, and her
own comparatively feeble and faded attractions; but the stately image of Mr.
Dombey in his lilac waistcoat, and his fawn-coloured pantaloons, is present to
her mind, and Miss Tox weeps afresh, behind her veil, on her way home to
Princess's Place. Captain Cuttle, having joined in all the amens and responses,
with a devout growl, feels much improved by his religious exercises; and in a
peaceful frame of mind, pervades the body of the church, glazed hat in hand, and
reads the tablet to the memory of little Paul. The gallant Mr. Toots, attended
by the faithful Chicken, leaves the building in torments of love. The Chicken is
as yet unable to elaborate a scheme for winning Florence, but his first idea has
gained possession of him, and he thinks the doubling up of Mr. Dombey would be a
move in the right direction. Mr. Dombey's servants come out of their
hiding-places, and prepare to rush to Brook Street, when they are delayed by
symptoms of indisposition on the part of Mrs. Perch, who entreats a glass of
water, and becomes alarming; Mrs. Perch gets better soon, however, and is borne
away; and Mrs. Miff, and Mr. Sownds the Beadle, sit upon the steps to count what
they have gained by the affair, and talk it over, while the sexton tolls a
funeral.
    Now, the carriages arrive at the Bride's residence, and the players on the
bells begin to jingle, and the band strikes up, and Mr. Punch, that model of
connubial bliss, salutes his wife. Now, the people run and push, and press round
in a gaping throng, while Mr. Dombey, leading Mrs. Dombey by the hand, advances
solemnly into the Feenix Halls. Now, the rest of the wedding party alight, and
enter after them. And why does Mr. Carker, passing through the people to the
hall-door, think of the old woman who called to him in the grove that morning?
Or why does Florence, as she passes, think, with a tremble, of her childhood,
when she was lost, and of the visage of Good Mrs. Brown?
    Now, there are more congratulations on this happiest of days, and more
company, though not much; and now they leave the drawing-room, and range
themselves at table in the dark-brown dining-room, which no confectioner can
brighten up, let him garnish the exhausted Negroes with as many flowers and
love-knots as he will.
    The pastry-cook has done his duty like a man, though, and a rich breakfast
is set forth. Mr. and Mrs. Chick have joined the party, among others. Mrs. Chick
admires that Edith should be, by nature, such a perfect Dombey; and is affable
and confidential to Mrs. Skewton, whose mind is relieved of a great load, and
who takes her share of the champagne. The very tall young man who suffered from
excitement early, is better; but a vague sentiment of repentance has seized upon
him, and he hates the other very tall young man, and wrests dishes from him by
violence, and takes a grim delight in disobliging the company. The company are
cool and calm, and do not outrage the black hatchments of pictures looking down
upon them, by any excess of mirth. Cousin Feenix and the Major are the gayest
there; but Mr. Carker has a smile for the whole table. He has an especial smile
for the Bride, who very, very seldom meets it.
    Cousin Feenix rises, when the company have breakfasted, and the servants
have left the room; and wonderfully young he looks, with his white wristbands
almost covering his hands (otherwise rather bony), and the bloom of the
champagne in his cheeks.
    »Upon my honour,« says Cousin Feenix, »although it's an unusual sort of
thing in a private gentleman's house, I must beg leave to call upon you to drink
what is usually called a - in fact a toast.«
    The Major very hoarsely indicates his approval. Mr. Carker, bending his head
forward over the table in the direction of Cousin Feenix, smiles and nods a
great many times.
    »A - in fact it's not a -« Cousin Feenix beginning again, thus, comes to a
dead stop.
    »Hear, hear!« says the Major, in a tone of conviction.
    Mr. Carker softly claps his hands, and bending forward over the table again,
smiles and nods a great many more times than before, as if he were particularly
struck by this last observation, and desired personally to express his sense of
the good it has done him.
    »It is,« says Cousin Feenix, »an occasion in fact, when the general usages
of life may be a little departed from, without impropriety; and although I never
was an orator in my life, and when I was in the House of Commons, and had the
honour of seconding the address, was - in fact, was laid up for a fortnight with
the consciousness of failure -«
    The Major and Mr. Carker are so much delighted by this fragment of personal
history, that Cousin Feenix laughs, and addressing them individually, goes on to
say:
    »And in point of fact, when I was devilish ill - still, you know, I feel
that a duty devolves upon me. And when a duty devolves upon an Englishman, he is
bound to get out of it, in my opinion, in the best way he can. Well! our family
has had the gratification, to- of connecting itself, in the person of my lovely
and accomplished relative, whom I now see - in point of fact, present -«
    Here there is general applause.
    »Present,« repeats Cousin Feenix, feeling that it is a neat point which will
bear repetition, - »with one who - that is to say, with a man, at whom the
finger of scorn can never - in fact, with my honourable friend Dombey, if he
will allow me to call him so.«
    Cousin Feenix bows to Mr. Dombey; Mr. Dombey solemnly returns the bow;
everybody is more or less gratified and affected by this extraordinary, and
perhaps unprecedented, appeal to the feelings.
    »I have not,« says Cousin Feenix, »enjoyed those opportunities which I could
have desired, of cultivating the acquaintance of my friend Dombey, and studying
those qualities which do equal honour to his head, and, in point of fact, to his
heart; for it has been my misfortune to be, as we used to say in my time in the
House of Commons, when it was not the custom to allude to the Lords, and when
the order of parliamentary proceedings was perhaps better observed than it is
now - to be in - in point of fact,« says Cousin Feenix, cherishing his joke,
with great slyness, and finally bringing it out with a jerk, »in another place!«
    The Major falls into convulsions, and is recovered with difficulty.
    »But I know sufficient of my friend Dombey,« resumes Cousin Feenix in a
graver tone, as if he had suddenly become a sadder and wiser man, »to know that
he is, in point of fact, what may be emphatically called a - a merchant - a
British merchant - and a - and a man. And although I have been resident abroad
for some years (it would give me great pleasure to receive my friend Dombey, and
everybody here, at Baden-Baden, and to have an opportunity of making 'em known
to the Grand Duke), still I know enough, I flatter myself, of my lovely and
accomplished relative, to know that she possesses every requisite to make a man
happy, and that her marriage with my friend Dombey is one of inclination and
affection on both sides.«
    Many smiles and nods from Mr. Carker.
    »Therefore,« says Cousin Feenix, »I congratulate the family of which I am a
member, on the acquisition of my friend Dombey. I congratulate my friend Dombey
on his union with my lovely and accomplished relative who possesses every
requisite to make a man happy; and I take the liberty of calling on you all, in
point of fact, to congratulate both my friend Dombey and my lovely and
accomplished relative, on the present occasion.«
    The speech of Cousin Feenix is received with great applause, and Mr. Dombey
returns thanks on behalf of himself and Mrs. Dombey. J. B. shortly afterwards
proposes Mrs. Skewton. The breakfast languishes when that is done, the violated
hatchments are avenged, and Edith rises to assume her travelling dress.
    All the servants in the meantime, have been breakfasting below. Champagne
has grown too common among them to be mentioned, and roast fowls, raised pies,
and lobster-salad, have become mere drugs. The very tall young man has recovered
his spirits, and again alludes to the exciseman. His comrade's eye begins to
emulate his own, and he, too, stares at objects without taking cognizance
thereof. There is a general redness in the faces of the ladies; in the face of
Mrs. Perch particularly, who is joyous and beaming, and lifted so far above the
cares of life, that if she were asked just now to direct a wayfarer to Ball's
Pond, where her own cares lodge, she would have some difficulty in recalling the
way. Mr. Towlinson has proposed the happy pair; to which the silver-headed
butler has responded neatly, and with emotion; for he half begins to think he is
an old retainer of the family, and that he is bound to be affected by these
changes. The whole party, and especially the ladies, are very frolicsome. Mr.
Dombey's cook, who generally takes the lead in society, has said, it is
impossible to settle down after this, and why not go, in a party, to the play?
Everybody (Mrs. Perch included) has agreed to this: even the Native, who is
tigerish in his drink, and who alarms the ladies (Mrs. Perch particularly) by
the rolling of his eyes. One of the very tall young men has even proposed a ball
after the play, and it presents itself to no one (Mrs. Perch included) in the
light of an impossibility. Words have arisen between the housemaid and Mr.
Towlinson; she, on the authority of an old saw, asserting marriages to be made
in Heaven: he, affecting to trace the manufacture elsewhere; he, supposing that
she says so, because she thinks of being married her own self: she, saying, Lord
forbid, at any rate, that she should ever marry him. To calm these flying
taunts, the silver-headed butler rises to propose the health of Mr. Towlinson,
whom to know is to esteem, and to esteem is to wish well settled in life with
the object of his choice, wherever (here the silver-headed butler eyes the
housemaid) she may be. Mr. Towlinson returns thanks in a speech replete with
feeling, of which the peroration turns on foreigners, regarding whom he says
they may find favour, sometimes with weak and inconstant intellects that can be
led away by hair, but all he hopes, is, he may never hear of no foreigner never
boning nothing out of no travelling chariot. The eye of Mr. Towlinson is so
severe and so expressive here, that the housemaid is turning hysterical, when
she and all the rest, roused by the intelligence that the Bride is going away,
hurry up stairs to witness her departure.
    The chariot is at the door; the Bride is descending to the hall, where Mr.
Dombey waits for her. Florence is ready on the staircase to depart too; and Miss
Nipper, who has held a middle state between the parlour and the kitchen, is
prepared to accompany her. As Edith appears, Florence hastens towards her, to
bid her farewell.
    Is Edith cold, that she should tremble! Is there anything unnatural or
unwholesome in the touch of Florence, that the beautiful form recedes and
contracts, as if it could not bear it! Is there so much hurry in this going
away, that Edith, with a wave of her hand, sweeps on, and is gone!
    Mrs. Skewton, overpowered by her feelings as a mother, sinks on her sofa in
the Cleopatra attitude, when the clatter of the chariot wheels is lost, and
sheds several tears. The Major, coming with the rest of the company from table,
endeavours to comfort her; but she will not be comforted on any terms, and so
the Major takes his leave. Cousin Feenix takes his leave, and Mr. Carker takes
his leave. The guests all go away. Cleopatra, left alone, feels a little giddy
from her strong emotion, and falls asleep.
    Giddiness prevails below stairs too. The very tall young man whose
excitement came on so soon, appears to have his head glued to the table in the
pantry, and cannot be detached from it. A violent revulsion has taken place in
the spirits of Mrs. Perch, who is low on account of Mr. Perch, and tells cook
that she fears he is not so much attached to his home, as he used to be, when
they were only nine in family. Mr. Towlinson has a singing in his ears and a
large wheel going round and round inside his head. The housemaid wishes it
wasn't't wicked to wish that one was dead.
    There is a general delusion likewise, in these lower regions, on the subject
of time; everybody conceiving that it ought to be, at the earliest, ten o'clock
at night, whereas it is not yet three in the afternoon. A shadowy idea of
wickedness committed, haunts every individual in the party; and each one
secretly thinks the other a companion in guilt, whom it would be agreeable to
avoid. No man or woman has the hardihood to hint at the projected visit to the
play. Any one reviving the notion of the ball, would be scouted as a malignant
idiot.
    Mrs. Skewton sleeps up stairs, two hours afterwards, and naps are not yet
over in the kitchen. The hatchments in the dining-room look down on crumbs,
dirty plates, spillings of wine, half-thawed ice, stale discoloured heel-taps,
scraps of lobster, drumsticks of fowls, and pensive jellies, gradually resolving
themselves into a lukewarm gummy soup. The marriage is, by this time, almost as
denuded of its show and garnish as the breakfast. Mr. Dombey's servants moralise
so much about it, and are so repentant over their early tea, at home, that by
eight o'clock or so, they settle down into confirmed seriousness; and Mr. Perch,
arriving at that time from the City, fresh and jocular, with a white waistcoat
and a comic song, ready to spend the evening, and prepared for any amount of
dissipation, is amazed to find himself coldly received, and Mrs. Perch but
poorly, and to have the pleasing duty of escorting that lady home by the next
omnibus.
    Night closes in. Florence having rambled through the handsome house, from
room to room, seeks her own chamber, where the care of Edith has surrounded her
with luxuries and comforts; and divesting herself of her handsome dress, puts on
her old simple mourning for dear Paul, and sits down to read, with Diogenes
winking and blinking on the ground beside her. But Florence cannot read
to-night. The house seems strange and new, and there are loud echoes in it.
There is a shadow on her heart: she knows not why or what: but it is heavy.
Florence shuts her book, and gruff Diogenes, who takes that for a signal, puts
his paws upon her lap, and rubs his ears against her caressing hands. But
Florence cannot see him plainly, in a little time, for there is a mist between
her eyes and him, and her dead brother and dead mother shine in it like angels.
Walter, too, poor wandering shipwrecked boy, oh, where is he!
    The Major don't know; that's for certain; and don't care. The Major, having
choked and slumbered, all the afternoon, has taken a late dinner at his club,
and now sits over his pint of wine, driving a modest young man, with a
fresh-coloured face, at the next table (who would give a handsome sum to be able
to rise and go away, but cannot do it) to the verge of madness, by anecdotes of
Bagstock, Sir, at Dombey's wedding, and Old Joe's devilish gentlemanly friend,
Lord Feenix. While Cousin Feenix, who ought to be at Long's, and in bed, finds
himself, instead, at a gaming-table, where his wilful legs have taken him,
perhaps, in his own despite.
    Night, like a giant, fills the church, from pavement to roof, and holds
dominion through the silent hours. Pale dawn again comes peeping through the
windows; and, giving place to day, sees night withdraw into the vaults, and
follows it, and drives it out, and hides among the dead. The timid mice again
cower close together, when the great door clashes, and Mr. Sownds and Mrs. Miff,
treading the circle of their daily lives, unbroken as a marriage ring, come in.
Again, the cocked hat and the mortified bonnet stand in the background at the
marriage hour; and again this man taketh this woman, and this woman taketh this
man, on the solemn terms:
    »To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for
richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until
death do them part.«
    The very words that Mr. Carker rides into town repeating, with his mouth
stretched to the utmost, as he picks his dainty way.
 

                                 Chapter XXXII

                     The Wooden Midshipman Goes to Pieces.

Honest Captain Cuttle, as the weeks flew over him in his fortified retreat, by
no means abated any of his prudent provisions against surprise, because of the
non-appearance of the enemy. The Captain argued that his present security was
too profound and wonderful to endure much longer; he knew that when the wind
stood in a fair quarter, the weathercock was seldom nailed there; and he was too
well acquainted with the determined and dauntless character of Mrs. MacStinger,
to doubt that that heroic woman had devoted herself to the task of his discovery
and capture. Trembling beneath the weight of these reasons, Captain Cuttle lived
a very close and retired life; seldom stirring abroad until after dark;
venturing even then only into the obscurest streets; never going forth at all on
Sundays; and both within and without the walls of his retreat, avoiding bonnets,
as if they were worn by raging lions.
    The Captain never dreamed that in the event of his being pounced upon by
Mrs. MacStinger, in his walks, it would be possible to offer resistance. He felt
that it could not be done. He saw himself, in his mind's eye, put meekly in a
hackney-coach, and carried off to his old lodgings. He foresaw that, once
immured there, he was a lost man: his hat gone; Mrs. MacStinger watchful of him
day and night; reproaches heaped upon his head, before the infant family;
himself the guilty object of suspicion and distrust; an ogre in the children's
eyes, and in their mother's a detected traitor.
    A violent perspiration, and a lowness of spirits always came over the
Captain as this gloomy picture presented itself to his imagination. It generally
did so previous to his stealing out of doors at night for air and exercise.
Sensible of the risk he ran, the Captain took leave of Rob, at those times, with
the solemnity which became a man who might never return: exhorting him, in the
event of his (the Captain's) being lost sight of, for a time, to tread in the
paths of virtue, and keep the brazen instruments well polished.
    But not to throw away a chance; and to secure to himself a means, in case of
the worst, of holding communication with the external world; Captain Cuttle soon
conceived the happy idea of teaching Rob the Grinder some secret signal, by
which that adherent might make his presence and fidelity known to his commander,
in the hour of adversity. After much cogitation, the Captain decided in favour
of instructing him to whistle the marine melody, »Oh cheerily, cheerily!« and
Rob the Grinder attaining a point as near perfection in that accomplishment as a
landsman could hope to reach, the Captain impressed these mysterious
instructions on his mind:
    »Now, my lad, stand by! If ever I'm took -«
    »Took, Captain!« interposed Rob, with his round eyes wide open.
    »Ah!« said Captain Cuttle darkly, »if ever I goes away, meaning to come back
to supper, and don't come within hail again twenty-four hours arter my loss, go
you to Brig Place and whistle that 'ere tune near my old moorings - not as if
you was a meaning of it, you understand, but as if you'd drifted there,
promiscuous. If I answer in that tune, you sheer off, my lad, and come back
four-and-twenty hours afterwards; if I answer in another tune, do you stand off
and on, and wait till I throw out further signals. Do you understand them
orders, now?«
    »What am I to stand off and on of, Captain?« inquired Rob. »The horse-road?«
    »Here's a smart lad for you!« cried the Captain, eyeing him sternly, »as
don't know his own native alphabet! Go away a bit and come back again alternate
- d'ye understand that?«
    »Yes, Captain,« said Rob.
    »Very good my lad, then,« said the Captain, relenting. »Do it!«
    That he might do it the better, Captain Cuttle sometimes condescended, of an
evening after the shop was shut, to rehearse this scene: retiring into the
parlour for the purpose, as into the lodgings of a supposititious MacStinger,
and carefully observing the behaviour of his ally, from the hole of espial he
had cut in the wall. Rob the Grinder discharged himself of his duty with so much
exactness and judgment, when thus put to the proof, that the Captain presented
him, at divers times, with seven sixpences, in token of satisfaction; and
gradually felt stealing over his spirit the resignation of a man who had made
provision for the worst, and taken every reasonable precaution against an
unrelenting fate.
    Nevertheless, the Captain did not tempt ill-fortune, by being a whit more
venturesome than before. Though he considered it a point of good breeding in
himself, as a general friend of the family, to attend Mr. Dombey's wedding (of
which he had heard from Mr. Perch), and to show that gentleman a pleasant and
approving countenance from the gallery, he had repaired to the church in a
hackney cabriolet with both windows up; and might have scrupled even to make
that venture, in his dread of Mrs. MacStinger, but that the lady's attendance on
the ministry of the Reverend Melchisedech rendered it peculiarly unlikely that
she would be found in communion with the Establishment.
    The Captain got safe home again, and fell into the ordinary routine of his
new life, without encountering any more direct alarm from the enemy than was
suggested to him by the daily bonnets in the street. But other subjects began to
lay heavy on the Captain's mind. Walter's ship was still unheard of. No news
came of old Sol Gills. Florence did not even know of the old man's
disappearance, and Captain Cuttle had not the heart to tell her. Indeed the
Captain, as his own hopes of the generous, handsome, gallant-hearted youth, whom
he had loved, according to his rough manner, from a child, began to fade, and
faded more and more from day to day, shrunk with instinctive pain from the
thought of exchanging a word with Florence. If he had had good news to carry to
her, the honest Captain would have braved the newly decorated house and splendid
furniture - though these, connected with the lady he had seen at church, were
awful to him - and made his way into her presence. With a dark horizon gathering
around their common hopes, however, that darkened every hour, the Captain almost
felt as if he were a new misfortune and affliction to her; and was scarcely less
afraid of a visit from Florence, than from Mrs. MacStinger herself.
    It was a chill dark autumn evening, and Captain Cuttle had ordered a fire to
be kindled in the little back parlour, now more than ever like the cabin of a
ship. The rain fell fast, and the wind blew hard; and straying out on the
house-top by that stormy bedroom of his old friend, to take an observation of
the weather, the Captain's heart died within him when he saw how wild and
desolate it was. Not that he associated the weather of that time with poor
Walter's destiny, or doubted that if Providence had doomed him to be lost and
shipwrecked, it was over, long ago; but that beneath an outward influence, quite
distinct from the subject-matter of his thoughts, the Captain's spirits sank,
and his hopes turned pale, as those of wiser men had often done before him, and
will often do again.
    Captain Cuttle, addressing his face to the sharp wind and slanting rain,
looked up at the heavy scud that was flying fast over the wilderness of
house-tops, and looked for something cheery there in vain. The prospect near at
hand was no better. In sundry tea-chests and other rough boxes at his feet, the
pigeons of Rob the Grinder were cooing like so many dismal breezes getting up. A
crazy weathercock of a midshipman, with a telescope at his eye, once visible
from the street, but long bricked out, creaked and complained upon his rusty
pivot as the shrill blast spun him round and round, and sported with him
cruelly. Upon the Captain's coarse blue vest the cold rain-drops started like
steel beads; and he could hardly maintain himself aslant against the stiff
Nor'-Wester that came pressing against him, importunate to topple him over the
parapet, and throw him on the pavement below. If there were any Hope alive that
evening, the Captain thought, as he held his hat on, it certainly kept house,
and wasn't't out of doors; so the Captain, shaking his head in a despondent
manner, went in to look for it.
    Captain Cuttle descended slowly to the little back parlour, and, seated in
his accustomed chair, looked for it in the fire; but it was not there, though
the fire was bright. He took out his tobacco-box and pipe, and composing himself
to smoke, looked for it in the red glow from the bowl, and in the wreaths of
vapour that curled upward from his lips; but there was not so much as an atom of
the rust of Hope's anchor in either. He tried a glass of grog; but melancholy
truth was at the bottom of that well, and he couldn't finish it. He made a turn
or two in the shop, and looked for Hope among the instruments; but they
obstinately worked out reckonings for the missing ship, in spite of any
opposition he could offer, that ended at the bottom of the lone sea.
    The wind still rushing, and the rain still pattering against the closed
shutters, the Captain brought to before the Wooden Midshipman upon the counter,
and thought, as he dried the little officer's uniform with his sleeve, how many
years the Midshipman had seen, during which few changes - hardly any - had
transpired among his ship's company; how the changes had come all together, one
day, as it might be; and of what a sweeping kind they were. Here was the little
society of the back parlour broken up, and scattered far and wide. Here was no
audience for Lovely Peg, even if there had been anybody to sing it, which there
was not, for the Captain was as morally certain that nobody but he could execute
that ballad, as he was that he had not the spirit, under existing circumstances,
to attempt it. There was no bright face of »Wal'r« in the house; - here the
Captain transferred his sleeve for a moment from the Midshipman's uniform to his
own cheek; - the familiar wig and buttons of Sol Gills were a vision of the
past; Richard Whittington was knocked on the head; and every plan and project,
in connexion with the Midshipman, lay drifting, without mast or rudder, on the
waste of waters.
    As the Captain, with a dejected face, stood revolving these thoughts, and
polishing the Midshipman, partly in the tenderness of old acquaintance, and
partly in the absence of his mind, a knocking at the shop-door communicated a
frightful start to the frame of Rob the Grinder, seated on the counter, whose
large eyes had been intently fixed on the Captain's face, and who had been
debating within himself, for the five hundredth time, whether the Captain could
have done a murder, that he had such an evil conscience, and was always running
away.
    »What's that!« said Captain Cuttle, softly.
    »Somebody's knuckles, Captain,« answered Rob the Grinder.
    The Captain, with an abashed and guilty air, immediately sneaked on tiptoe
to the little parlour and locked himself in. Rob, opening the door, would have
parleyed with the visitor on the threshold if the visitor had come in female
guise; but the figure being of the male sex, and Rob's orders only applying to
women, Rob held the door open and allowed it to enter: which it did very
quickly, glad to get out of the driving rain.
    »A job for Burgess and Co. at any rate,« said the visitor, looking over his
shoulder compassionately at his own legs, which were very wet and covered with
splashes. »Oh, how-de-do, Mr. Gills?«
    The salutation was addressed to the Captain, now emerging from the back
parlour with a most transparent and utterly futile affectation of coming out by
accident.
    »Thankee,« the gentleman went on to say in the same breath; »I'm very well
indeed, myself, I'm much obliged to you. My name is Toots, - Mister Toots.«
    The Captain remembered to have seen this young gentleman at the wedding, and
made him a bow. Mr. Toots replied with a chuckle; and being embarrassed, as he
generally was, breathed hard, shook hands with the Captain for a long time, and
then falling on Rob the Grinder, in the absence of any other resource, shook
hands with him in a most affectionate and cordial manner.
    »I say; I should like to speak a word to you, Mr. Gills, if you please,«
said Toots at length, with surprising presence of mind. »I say! Miss D. O. M.
you know!«
    The Captain, with responsive gravity and mystery, immediately waved his hook
towards the little parlour, whither Mr. Toots followed him.
    »Oh! I beg your pardon though,« said Mr. Toots, looking up in the Captain's
face as he sat down in a chair by the fire, which the Captain placed for him;
»you don't happen to know the Chicken at all; do you, Mr. Gills?«
    »The Chicken?« said the Captain.
    »The Game Chicken,« said Mr. Toots.
    The Captain shaking his head, Mr. Toots explained that the man alluded to
was the celebrated public character who had covered himself and his country with
glory in his contest with the Nobby Shropshire One; but this piece of
information did not appear to enlighten the Captain very much.
    »Because he's outside: that's all,« said Mr. Toots. »But it's of no
consequence; he won't get very wet, perhaps.«
    »I can pass the word for him in a moment,« said the Captain.
    »Well, if you would have the goodness to let him sit in the shop with your
young man,« chuckled Mr. Toots, »I should be glad; because, you know, he's
easily offended, and the damp's rather bad for his stamina. I'll call him in,
Mr. Gills.«
    With that, Mr. Toots repairing to the shop-door, sent a peculiar whistle
into the night, which produced a stoical gentleman in a shaggy white great-coat
and a flat-brimmed hat, with very short hair, a broken nose, and a considerable
tract of bare and sterile country behind each ear.
    »Sit down, Chicken,« said Mr. Toots.
    The compliant Chicken spat out some small pieces of straw on which he was
regaling himself, and took in a fresh supply from a reserve he carried in his
hand.
    »There an't no drain of nothing short handy, is there?« said the Chicken,
generally. »This here sluicing night is hard lines to a man as lives on his
condition.«
    Captain Cuttle proffered a glass of rum, which the Chicken, throwing back
his head, emptied into himself, as into a cask, after proposing the brief
sentiment, »Towards us!« Mr. Toots and the Captain returning then to the
parlour, and taking their seats before the fire, Mr. Toots began:
    »Mr. Gills -«
    »Awast!« said the Captain. »My name's Cuttle.«
    Mr. Toots looked greatly disconcerted, while the Captain proceeded gravely.
    »Cap'en Cuttle is my name, and England is my nation, this here is my
dwelling-place, and blessed be creation - Job,« said the Captain, as an index to
his authority.
    »Oh! I couldn't see Mr. Gills, could I?« said Mr. Toots; »because -«
    »If you could see Sol Gills, young gen'l'm'n,« said the Captain,
impressively, and laying his heavy hand on Mr. Toots's knee, »old Sol, mind you
- with your own eyes - as you sit there - you'd be welcomer to me, than a wind
astarn, to a ship becalmed. But you can't see Sol Gills. And why can't you see
Sol Gills?« said the Captain, apprised by the face of Mr. Toots that he was
making a profound impression on that gentleman's mind. »Because he's inwisible.«
    Mr. Toots in his agitation was going to reply that it was of no consequence
at all. But he corrected himself, and said, »Lor bless me!«
    »That there man,« said the Captain, »has left me in charge here by a piece
of writing, but though he was a'most as good as my sworn brother, I know no more
where he's gone, or why he's gone; if so be to seek his nevy, or if so be along
of being not quite settled in his mind; than you do. One morning at daybreak, he
went over the side,« said the Captain, »without a splash, without a ripple. I
have looked for that man high and low, and never set eyes, nor ears, nor nothing
else, upon him, from that hour.«
    »But, good Gracious, Miss Dombey don't know -« Mr. Toots began.
    »Why, I ask you, as a feeling heart,« said the Captain, dropping his voice,
»why should she know? why should she be made to know, until such time as there
warn't any help for it? She took to old Sol Gills, did that sweet creature, with
a kindness, with a affability, with a - what's the good of saying so? you know
her.«
    »I should hope so,« chuckled Mr. Toots, with a conscious blush that suffused
his whole countenance.
    »And you come here from her?« said the Captain.
    »I should think so,« chuckled Mr. Toots.
    »Then all I need observe, is,« said the Captain, »that you know a angel, and
are chartered by a angel.«
    Mr. Toots instantly seized the Captain's hand, and requested the favour of
his friendship.
    »Upon my word and honour,« said Mr. Toots, earnestly, »I should be very much
obliged to you if you'd improve my acquaintance. I should like to know you,
Captain, very much. I really am in want of a friend, I am. Little Dombey was my
friend at old Blimber's, and would have been now, if he'd have lived. The
Chicken,« said Mr. Toots, in a forlorn whisper, »is very well - admirable in his
way - the sharpest man perhaps in the world; there's not a move he isn't up to,
everybody says so - but I don't know - he's not everything. So she is an angel,
Captain. If there is an angel anywhere, it's Miss Dombey. That's what I've
always said. Really though, you know,« said Mr. Toots, »I should be very much
obliged to you if you'd cultivate my acquaintance.«
    Captain Cuttle received this proposal in a polite manner, but still without
committing himself to its acceptance; merely observing, »Aye, aye, my lad. We
shall see, we shall see;« and reminding Mr. Toots of his immediate mission, by
inquiring to what he was indebted for the honour of that visit.
    »Why the fact is,« replied Mr. Toots, »that it's the young woman I come
from. Not Miss Dombey - Susan, you know.«
    The Captain nodded his head once, with a grave expression of face,
indicative of his regarding that young woman with serious respect.
    »And I'll tell you how it happens,« said Mr. Toots. »You know, I go and call
sometimes, on Miss Dombey. I don't go there on purpose, you know, but I happen
to be in the neighbourhood very often; and when I find myself there, why - why I
call.«
    »Nat'rally,« observed the Captain.
    »Yes,« said Mr. Toots. »I called this afternoon. Upon my word and honour, I
don't think it's possible to form an idea of the angel Miss Dombey was this
afternoon.«
    The Captain answered with a jerk of his head, implying that it might not be
easy to some people, but was quite so to him.
    »As I was coming out,« said Mr. Toots, »the young woman, in the most
unexpected manner, took me into the pantry.«
    The Captain seemed, for the moment, to object to this proceeding: and
leaning back in his chair, looked at Mr. Toots with a distrustful, if not
threatening visage.
    »Where she brought out,« said Mr. Toots, »this newspaper. She told me that
she had kept it from Miss Dombey all day, on account of something that was in
it, about somebody that she and Dombey used to know; and then she read the
passage to me. Very well. Then she said - wait a minute; what was it she said,
though!«
    Mr. Toots, endeavouring to concentrate his mental powers on this question,
unintentionally fixed the Captain's eye, and was so much discomposed by its
stern expression, that his difficulty in resuming the thread of his subject was
enhanced to a painful extent.
    »Oh!« said Mr. Toots after long consideration. »Oh, ah! Yes! She said that
she hoped there was a bare possibility that it mightn't be true; and that as she
couldn't very well come out herself, without surprising Miss Dombey, would I go
down to Mr. Solomon Gills the Instrument-maker's in this street, who was the
party's uncle, and ask whether he believed it was true, or had heard anything
else in the City. She said, if he couldn't speak to me, no doubt Captain Cuttle
could. By the bye!« said Mr. Toots, as the discovery flashed upon him, »you, you
know!«
    The Captain glanced at the newspaper in Mr. Toots's hand, and breathed short
and hurriedly.
    »Well,« pursued Mr. Toots, »the reason why I'm rather late is, because I
went up as far as Finchley first, to get some uncommonly fine chickweed that
grows there, for Miss Dombey's bird. But I came on here, directly afterwards.
You've seen the paper, I suppose?«
    The Captain, who had become cautious of reading the news, lest he should
find himself advertised at full length by Mrs. MacStinger, shook his head.
    »Shall I read the passage to you?« inquired Mr. Toots.
    The Captain making a sign in the affirmative, Mr. Toots read as follows,
from the Shipping Intelligence:
    »Southampton. The barque Defiance, Henry James, Commander, arrived in this
port to-day, with a cargo of sugar, coffee, and rum, reports that being becalmed
on the sixth day of her passage home from Jamaica, in - in such and such a
latitude, you know,« said Mr. Toots, after making a feeble dash at the figures,
and tumbling over them.
    »Aye!« cried the Captain, striking his clenched hand on the table. »Heave
a-head, my lad!«
    »- latitude,« repeated Mr. Toots, with a startled glance at the Captain,
»and longitude so-and-so, - the look-out observed, half an hour before sunset,
some fragments of a wreck, drifting at about the distance of a mile. The weather
being clear, and the barque making no way, a boat was hoisted out, with orders
to inspect the same, when they were found to consist of sundry large spars, and
a part of the main rigging of an English brig, of about five hundred tons
burden, together with a portion of the stern on which the words and letters »Son
and H-« were yet plainly legible. No vestige of any dead body was to be seen
upon the floating fragments. Log of the Defiance states, that a breeze springing
up in the night, the wreck was seen no more. There can be no doubt that all
surmises as to the fate of the missing vessel, the Son and Heir, port of London,
bound for Barbadoes, are now set at rest for ever; that she broke up in the last
hurricane; and that every soul on board perished.«
    Captain Cuttle, like all mankind, little knew how much hope had survived
within him under discouragement, until he felt its death-shock. During the
reading of the paragraph, and for a minute or two afterwards, he sat with his
gaze fixed on the modest Mr. Toots, like a man entranced; then, suddenly rising,
and putting on his glazed hat, which, in his visitor's honour, he had laid upon
the table, the Captain turned his back, and bent his head down on the little
chimney-piece.
    »Oh, upon my word and honour,« cried Mr. Toots, whose tender heart was moved
by the Captain's unexpected distress, »this is a most wretched sort of affair
this world is! Somebody's always dying, or going and doing something
uncomfortable in it. I'm sure I never should have looked forward so much, to
coming into my property, if I had known this. I never saw such a world. It's a
great deal worse than Blimber's.«
    Captain Cuttle, without altering his position, signed to Mr. Toots not to
mind him; and presently turned round, with his glazed hat thrust back upon his
ears, and his hand composing and smoothing his brown face.
    »Wal'r, my dear lad,« said the Captain, »farewell! Wal'r my child, my boy,
and man, I loved you! He warn't my flesh and blood,« said the Captain, looking
at the fire - »I an't got none - but something of what a father feels when he
loses a son, I feel in losing Wal'r. For why?« said the Captain. »Because it
an't one loss, but a round dozen. Where's that there young schoolboy with the
rosy face and curly hair, that used to be as merry in this here parlour, come
round every week, as a piece of music? Gone down with Wal'r. Where's that there
fresh lad, that nothing couldn't tire nor put out, and that sparkled up and
blushed so, when we joked him about Heart's Delight, that he was beautiful to
look at? Gone down with Wal'r. Where's that there man's spirit, all afire, that
wouldn't see the old man hove down for a minute, and cared nothing for itself?
Gone down with Wal'r. It an't one Wal'r. There was a dozen Wal'rs that I know'd
and loved, all holding round his neck when he went down, and they're a-holding
round mine now!«
    Mr. Toots sat silent: folding and refolding the newspaper as small as
possible upon his knee.
    »And Sol Gills,« said the Captain, gazing at the fire, »poor nevyless old
Sol, where are you got to! you was left in charge of me; his last words was,
Take care of my uncle! What came over you, Sol, when you went and gave the
go-bye to Ned Cuttle; and what am I to put in my accounts that he's a looking
down upon, respecting you! Sol Gills, Sol Gills!« said the Captain, shaking his
head slowly, »catch sight of that there newspaper, away from home, with no one
as know'd Wal'r by, to say a word; and broadside to you broach, and down you
pitch, head foremost!«
    Drawing a heavy sigh, the Captain turned to Mr. Toots, and roused himself to
a sustained consciousness of that gentleman's presence.
    »My lad,« said the Captain, »you must tell the young woman honestly that
this here fatal news is too correct. They don't romance, you see, on such pints.
It's entered on the ship's log, and that's the truest book as a man can write.
To-morrow morning,« said the Captain, »I'll step out and make inquiries; but
they'll lead to no good. They can't do it. If you'll give me a look-in in the
forenoon, you shall know what I have heard; but tell the young woman from Cap'en
Cuttle, that it's over. Over!« And the Captain, hooking off his glazed hat,
pulled his handkerchief out of the crown, wiped his grizzled head despairingly,
and tossed the handkerchief in again, with the indifference of deep dejection.
    »Oh! I assure you,« said Mr. Toots, »really I am dreadfully sorry. Upon my
word I am, though I wasn't't acquainted with the party. Do you think Miss Dombey
will be very much affected, Captain Gills - I mean Mr. Cuttle?«
    »Why, Lord love you,« returned the Captain, with something of compassion for
Mr. Toots's innocence. »When she warn't no higher than that, they were as fond
of one another as two young doves.«
    »Were they though!« said Mr. Toots, with a considerably lengthened face.
    »They were made for one another,« said the Captain, mournfully; »but what
signifies that now!«
    »Upon my word and honour,« cried Mr. Toots, blurting out his words through a
singular combination of awkward chuckles and emotion, »I'm even more sorry than
I was before. You know, Captain Gills, I - I positively adore Miss Dombey; - I -
I am perfectly sore with loving her;« the burst with which this confession
forced itself out of the unhappy Mr. Toots, bespoke the vehemence of his
feelings; »but what would be the good of my regarding her in this manner, if I
wasn't't truly sorry for her feeling pain, whatever was the cause of it. Mine an't
a selfish affection, you know,« said Mr. Toots, in the confidence engendered by
his having been a witness of the Captain's tenderness. »It's the sort of thing
with me, Captain Gills, that if I could be run over - or - or trampled upon - or
- or thrown off a very high place - or anything of that sort - for Miss Dombey's
sake, it would be the most delightful thing that could happen to me.«
    All this, Mr. Toots said in a suppressed voice, to prevent its reaching the
jealous ears of the Chicken, who objected to the softer emotions; which effort
of restraint, coupled with the intensity of his feelings, made him red to the
tips of his ears, and caused him to present such an affecting spectacle of
disinterested love to the eyes of Captain Cuttle, that the good Captain patted
him consolingly on the back, and bade him cheer up.
    »Thankee, Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, »it's kind of you, in the midst of
your own troubles, to say so. I'm very much obliged to you. As I said before, I
really want a friend, and should be glad to have your acquaintance. Although I
am very well off,« said Mr. Toots, with energy, »you can't think what a
miserable Beast I am. The hollow crowd, you know, when they see me with the
Chicken, and characters of distinction like that, suppose me to be happy; but
I'm wretched. I suffer for Miss Dombey, Captain Gills. I can't get through my
meals; I have no pleasure in my tailor; I often cry when I'm alone. I assure you
it'll be a satisfaction to me to come back to-morrow, or to come back fifty
times.«
    Mr. Toots, with these words, shook the Captain's hand; and disguising such
traces of his agitation as could be disguised on so short a notice, before the
Chicken's penetrating glance, rejoined that eminent gentleman in the shop. The
Chicken, who was apt to be jealous of his ascendancy, eyed Captain Cuttle with
anything but favour as he took leave of Mr. Toots; but followed his patron
without being otherwise demonstrative of his ill-will: leaving the Captain
oppressed with sorrow; and Rob the Grinder elevated with joy, on account of
having had the honour of staring for nearly half an hour at the conqueror of the
Nobby Shropshire One.
    Long after Rob was fast asleep in his bed under the counter, the Captain sat
looking at the fire; and long after there was no fire to look at, the Captain
sat gazing on the rusty bars, with unavailing thoughts of Walter and old Sol
crowding through his mind. Retirement to the stormy chamber at the top of the
house brought no rest with it; and the Captain rose up in the morning, sorrowful
and unrefreshed.
    As soon as the City offices were open, the Captain issued forth to the
counting-house of Dombey and Son. But there was no opening of the Midshipman's
windows that morning. Rob the Grinder, by the Captain's orders, left the
shutters closed, and the house was as a house of death.
    It chanced that Mr. Carker was entering the office, as Captain Cuttle
arrived at the door. Receiving the Manager's benison gravely and silently,
Captain Cuttle made bold to accompany him into his own room.
    »Well, Captain Cuttle,« said Mr. Carker, taking up his usual position before
the fireplace, and keeping on his hat, »this is a bad business.«
    »You have received the news as was in print yesterday, Sir?« said the
Captain.
    »Yes,« said Mr. Carker, »we have received it! It was accurately stated. The
underwriters suffer a considerable loss. We are very sorry. No help! Such is
life!«
    Mr. Carker pared his nails delicately with a pen-knife, and smiled at the
Captain, who was standing by the door looking at him.
    »I excessively regret poor Gay,« said Carker, »and the crew. I understand
there were some of our very best men among 'em. It always happens so. Many men
with families too. A comfort to reflect that poor Gay had no family, Captain
Cuttle!«
    The Captain stood rubbing his chin, and looking at the Manager. The Manager
glanced at the unopened letters lying on his desk, and took up the newspaper.
    »Is there anything I can do for you, Captain Cuttle?« he asked, looking off
it, with a smiling and expressive glance at the door.
    »I wish you could set my mind at rest, Sir, on something it's uneasy about,«
returned the Captain.
    »Aye!« exclaimed the Manager, »what's that? Come, Captain Cuttle, I must
trouble you to be quick, if you please. I am much engaged.«
    »Lookee here, Sir,« said the Captain, advancing a step. »Afore my friend
Wal'r went on this here disastrous voyage -«
    »Come, come, Captain Cuttle,« interposed the smiling Manager, »don't talk
about disastrous voyages in that way. We have nothing to do with disastrous
voyages here, my good fellow. You must have begun very early on your day's
allowance, Captain, if you don't remember that there are hazards in all voyages
whether by sea or land. You are not made uneasy by the supposition that young
what's-his-name was lost in bad weather that was got up against him in these
offices - are you? Fie, Captain! Sleep, and soda-water, are the best cures for
such uneasiness as that.«
    »My lad,« returned the Captain, slowly - »you are a'most a lad to me, and so
I don't ask your pardon for that slip of a word, - if you find any pleasure in
this here sport, you an't the gentleman I took you for, and if you an't the
gentleman I took you for, may be my mind has call to be uneasy. Now this is what
it is, Mr. Carker. - Afore that poor lad went away, according to orders, he told
me that he warn't a going away for his own good, or for promotion, he know'd. It
was my belief that he was wrong, and I told him so, and I come here, your head
governor being absent, to ask a question or two of you in a civil way, for my
own satisfaction. Them questions you answered - free. Now it'll ease my mind to
know, when all is over, as it is, and when what can't be cured must be endoored
- for which, as a scholar, you'll overhaul the book it's in, and thereof make a
note - to know once more, in a word, that I warn't mistaken; that I warn't
back'ard in my duty when I didn't tell the old man what Wal'r told me; and that
the wind was truly in his sail, when he highsted of it for Barbadoes Harbour.
Mr. Carker,« said the Captain, in the goodness of his nature, »when I was here
last, we was very pleasant together. If I ain't been altogether so pleasant
myself this morning, on account of this poor lad, and if I have chafed again any
observation of yours that I might have fended off, my name is Ed'ard Cuttle, and
I ask your pardon.«
    »Captain Cuttle,« returned the Manager, with all possible politeness, »I
must ask you to do me a favour.«
    »And what is it, Sir?« inquired the Captain.
    »To have the goodness to walk off, if you please,« rejoined the Manager,
stretching forth his arm, »and to carry your jargon somewhere else.«
    Every knob in the Captain's face turned white with astonishment and
indignation; even the red rim on his forehead faded, like a rainbow among the
gathering clouds.
    »I tell you what, Captain Cuttle,« said the Manager, shaking his forefinger
at him, and showing him all his teeth, but still amiably smiling, »I was much
too lenient with you when you came here before. You belong to an artful and
audacious set of people. In my desire to save young what's-his-name from being
kicked out of this place, neck and crop, my good Captain, I tolerated you; but
for once, and only once. Now, go, my friend!«
    The Captain was absolutely rooted to the ground, and speechless.
    »Go,« said the good-humoured Manager, gathering up his skirts, and standing
astride upon the hearth-rug, »like a sensible fellow, and let us have no turning
out, or any such violent measures. If Mr. Dombey were here, Captain, you might
be obliged to leave in a more ignominious manner, possibly. I merely say, Go!«
    The Captain, laying his ponderous hand upon his chest, to assist himself in
fetching a deep breath, looked at Mr. Carker from head to foot, and looked round
the little room, as if he did not clearly understand where he was, or in what
company.
    »You are deep, Captain Cuttle,« pursued Carker, with the easy and vivacious
frankness of a man of the world who knew the world too well to be ruffled by any
discovery of misdoing, when it did not immediately concern himself; »but you are
not quite out of soundings, either - neither you nor your absent friend,
Captain. What have you done with your absent friend, hey?«
    Again the Captain laid his hand upon his chest. After drawing another deep
breath, he conjured himself to »stand by!« But in a whisper.
    »You hatch nice little plots, and hold nice little councils, and make nice
little appointments, and receive nice little visitors, too, Captain, hey?« said
Carker, bending his brows upon him, without showing his teeth any the less: »but
it's a bold measure to come here afterwards. Not like your discretion! You
conspirators, and hiders, and runners-away, should know better than that. Will
you oblige me by going?«
    »My lad,« gasped the Captain, in a choked and trembling voice, and with a
curious action going on in the ponderous fist; »there's a many words I could
wish to say to you, but I don't rightly know where they're stowed just at
present. My young friend, Wal'r, was drowned only last night, according to my
reckoning, and it puts me out, you see. But you and me will come alongside o'
one another again, my lad,« said the Captain, holding up his hook, »if we live.«
    »It will be anything but shrewd in you, my good fellow, if we do,« returned
the Manager, with the same frankness; »for you may rely, I give you fair
warning, upon my detecting and exposing you. I don't pretend to be a more moral
man than my neighbours, my good Captain; but the confidence of this house, or of
any member of this house, is not to be abused and undermined while I have eyes
and ears. Good day!« said Mr. Carker, nodding his head.
    Captain Cuttle, looking at him steadily (Mr. Carker looked full as steadily
at the Captain), went out of the office and left him standing astride before the
fire, as calm and pleasant as if there were no more spots upon his soul than on
his pure white linen, and his smooth sleek skin.
    The Captain glanced, in passing through the outer counting-house, at the
desk where he knew poor Walter had been used to sit, now occupied by another
young boy, with a face almost as fresh and hopeful as his on the day when they
tapped the famous last bottle but one of the old Madeira, in the little back
parlour. The association of ideas, thus awakened, did the Captain a great deal
of good; it softened him in the very height of his anger, and brought the tears
into his eyes.
    Arrived at the Wooden Midshipman's again, and sitting down in a corner of
the dark shop, the Captain's indignation, strong as it was, could make no head
against his grief. Passion seemed not only to do wrong and violence to the
memory of the dead, but to be infected by death, and to droop and decline beside
it. All the living knaves and liars in the world, were nothing to the honesty
and truth of one dead friend.
    The only thing the honest Captain made out clearly, in this state of mind,
besides the loss of Walter was, that with him almost the whole world of Captain
Cuttle had been drowned. If he reproached himself sometimes, and keenly too, for
having ever connived at Walter's innocent deceit, he thought at least as often
of the Mr. Carker whom no sea could ever render up; and the Mr. Dombey, whom he
now began to perceive was as far beyond human recall; and the »Heart's Delight,«
with whom he must never foregather again; and the Lovely Peg, that teak-built
and trim ballad, that had gone ashore upon a rock, and split into mere planks
and beams of rhyme. The Captain sat in the dark shop, thinking of these things,
to the entire exclusion of his own injury; and looking with as sad an eye upon
the ground, as if in contemplation of their actual fragments as they floated
past him.
    But the Captain was not unmindful, for all that, of such decent and
respectful observances in memory of poor Walter, as he felt within his power.
Rousing himself, and rousing Rob the Grinder (who in the unnatural twilight was
fast asleep), the Captain sallied forth with his attendant at his heels, and the
door-key in his pocket, and repairing to one of those convenient slop-selling
establishments of which there is abundant choice at the eastern end of London,
purchased on the spot two suits of mourning - one for Rob the Grinder, which was
immensely too small, and one for himself, which was immensely too large. He also
provided Rob with a species of hat, greatly to be admired for its symmetry and
usefulness, as well as for a happy blending of the mariner with the coal-heaver;
which is usually termed a sou'wester; and which was something of a novelty in
connexion with the instrument business. In their several garments, which the
vendor declared to be such a miracle in point of fit as nothing but a rare
combination of fortuitous circumstances ever brought about, and the fashion of
which was unparalleled within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, the Captain
and Grinder immediately arrayed themselves: presenting a spectacle fraught with
wonder to all who beheld it.
    In this altered form, the Captain received Mr. Toots. »I'm took aback, my
lad, at present,« said the Captain, »and will only confirm that there ill news.
Tell the young woman to break it gentle to the young lady, and for neither of
'em never to think of me no more - 'special, mind you, that is - though I will
think of them, when night comes on a hurricane and seas is mountains rowling,
for which overhaul your Doctor Watts, brother, and when found make a note on.«
    The Captain reserved, until some fitter time, the consideration of Mr.
Toots's offer of friendship, and thus dismissed him. Captain Cuttle's spirits
were so low, in truth, that he half determined, that day, to take no further
precautions against surprise from Mrs. MacStinger, but to abandon himself
recklessly to chance, and be indifferent to what might happen. As evening came
on, he fell into a better frame of mind, however; and spoke much of Walter to
Rob the Grinder, whose attention and fidelity he likewise incidentally
commended. Rob did not blush to hear the Captain earnest in his praises, but sat
staring at him, and affecting to snivel with sympathy, and making a feint of
being virtuous, and treasuring up every word he said (like a young spy as he
was) with very promising deceit.
    When Rob had turned in, and was fast asleep, the Captain trimmed the candle,
put on his spectacles - he had felt it appropriate to take to spectacles on
entering into the Instrument Trade, though his eyes were like a hawk's - and
opened the prayer-book at the Burial Service. And reading softly to himself, in
the little back parlour, and stopping now and then to wipe his eyes, the
Captain, in a true and simple spirit, committed Walter's body to the deep.
 

                                 Chapter XXXIII

                                   Contrasts.

Turn we our eyes upon two homes; not lying side by side, but wide apart, though
both within easy range and reach of the great city of London.
    The first is situated in the green and wooded country near Norwood. It is
not a mansion; it is of no pretensions as to size; but it is beautifully
arranged, and tastefully kept. The lawn, the soft, smooth slope, the
flower-garden, the clumps of trees where graceful forms of ash and willow are
not wanting, the conservatory, the rustic verandah with sweet-smelling creeping
plants entwined about the pillars, the simple exterior of the house, the
well-ordered offices, though all upon the diminutive scale proper to a mere
cottage, bespeak an amount of elegant comfort within, that might serve for a
palace. This indication is not without warrant; for within it is a house of
refinement and luxury. Rich colours, excellently blended, meet the eye at every
turn; in the furniture - its proportions admirably devised to suit the shapes
and sizes of the small rooms; on the walls; upon the floors; tinging and
subduing the light that comes in through the odd glass doors and windows here
and there. There are a few choice prints and pictures too; in quaint nooks and
recesses there is no want of books; and there are games of skill and chance set
forth on tables - fantastic chess-men, dice, back-gammon, cards, and billiards.
    And yet amidst this opulence of comfort, there is something in the general
air that is not well. Is it that the carpets and the cushions are too soft and
noiseless, so that those who move or repose among them seem to act by stealth?
Is it that the prints and pictures do not commemorate great thoughts or deeds,
or render nature in the poetry of landscape, hall, or hut, but are of one
voluptuous cast - mere shows of form and colour - and no more? Is it that the
books have all their gold outside, and that the titles of the greater part
qualify them to be companions of the prints and pictures? Is it that the
completeness and the beauty of the place are here and there belied by an
affectation of humility, in some unimportant and inexpensive regard, which is as
false as the face of the too truly painted portrait hanging yonder, or its
original at breakfast in his easy chair below it? Or is it that, with the daily
breath of that original and master of all here, there issues forth some subtle
portion of himself, which gives a vague expression of himself to everything
about him?
    It is Mr. Carker the Manager who sits in the easy chair. A gaudy parrot in a
burnished cage upon the table tears at the wires with her beak, and goes
walking, upside down, in its dome-top, shaking her house and screeching; but Mr.
Carker is indifferent to the bird, and looks with a musing smile at a picture on
the opposite wall.
    »A most extraordinary accidental likeness, certainly,« says he.
    Perhaps it is a Juno; perhaps a Potiphar's Wife; perhaps some scornful Nymph
- according as the Picture Dealers found the market, when they christened it. It
is the figure of a woman, supremely handsome, who, turning away, but with her
face addressed to the spectator, flashes her proud glance upon him.
    It is like Edith.
    With a passing gesture of his hand at the picture - what! a menace? No; yet
something like it. A wave as of triumph? No; yet more like that. An insolent
salute wafted from his lips? No; yet like that too - he resumes his breakfast,
and calls to the chafing and imprisoned bird, who coming down into a pendant
gilded hoop within the cage, like a great wedding-ring, swings in it, for his
delight.
    The second home is on the other side of London, near to where the busy great
north road of bygone days is silent and almost deserted, except by wayfarers who
toil along on foot. It is a poor, small house, barely and sparely furnished, but
very clean; and there is even an attempt to decorate it, shown in the homely
flowers trained about the porch and in the narrow garden. The neighbourhood in
which it stands has as little of the country to recommend it, as it has of the
town. It is neither of the town nor country. The former, like the giant in his
travelling boots, has made a stride and passed it, and has set his
brick-and-mortar heel a long way in advance; but the intermediate space between
the giant's feet, as yet, is only blighted country, and not town; and, here,
among a few tall chimneys belching smoke all day and night, and among the
brick-fields and the lanes where turf is cut, and where the fences tumble down,
and where the dusty nettles grow, and where a scrap or two of hedge may yet be
seen, and where the bird-catcher still comes occasionally, though he swears
every time to come no more - this second home is to be found.
    She who inhabits it, is she who left the first in her devotion to an outcast
brother. She withdrew from that home its redeeming spirit, and from its master's
breast his solitary angel: but though his liking for her is gone, after this
ungrateful slight as he considers it; and though he abandons her altogether in
return, an old idea of her is not quite forgotten even by him. Let her
flower-garden, in which he never sets his foot, but which is yet maintained,
among all his costly alterations, as if she had quitted it but yesterday, bear
witness!
    Harriet Carker has changed since then, and on her beauty there has fallen a
heavier shade than Time of his unassisted self can cast, all-potent as he is -
the shadow of anxiety and sorrow, and the daily struggle of a poor existence.
But it is beauty still; and still a gentle, quiet, and retiring beauty that must
be sought out, for it cannot vaunt itself; if it could, it would be what it is,
no more.
    Yes. This slight, small, patient figure, neatly dressed in homely stuffs,
and indicating nothing but the dull, household virtues, that have so little in
common with the received idea of heroism and greatness, unless, indeed, any ray
of them should shine through the lives of the great ones of the earth, when it
becomes a constellation and is tracked in Heaven straightway - this slight,
small, patient figure, leaning on the man still young but worn and grey, is she,
his sister, who, of all the world, went over to him in his shame and put her
hand in his, and with a sweet composure and determination, led him hopefully
upon his barren way.
    »It is early, John,« she said. »Why do you go so early?«
    »Not many minutes earlier than usual, Harriet. If I have the time to spare,
I should like, I think - it's a fancy - to walk once by the house where I took
leave of him.«
    »I wish I had ever seen or known him, John.«
    »It is better as it is, my dear, remembering his fate.«
    »But I could not regret it more, though I had known him. Is not your sorrow
mine? And if I had, perhaps you would feel that I was a better companion to you
in speaking about him, than I may seem now.«
    »My dearest sister! Is there anything within the range of rejoicing or
regret, in which I am not sure of your companionship?«
    »I hope you think not, John, for surely there is nothing!«
    »How could you be better to me, or nearer to me then, than you are in this,
or anything?« said her brother. »I feel that you did know him, Harriet, and that
you shared my feelings towards him.«
    She drew the hand which had been resting on his shoulder, round his neck,
and answered, with some hesitation:
    »No, not quite.«
    »True, true!« he said; »you think I might have done him no harm if I had
allowed myself to know him better?«
    »Think! I know it.«
    »Designedly, Heaven knows I would not,« he replied, shaking his head
mournfully; »but his reputation was too precious to be perilled by such
association. Whether you share that knowledge, or do not, my dear -«
    »I do not,« she said quietly.
    »It is still the truth, Harriet, and my mind is lighter when I think of him
for that which made it so much heavier then.« He checked himself in his tone of
melancholy, and smiled upon her as he said »Good-bye!«
    »Good-bye, dear John! In the evening, at the old time and place, I shall
meet you as usual on your way home. Good-bye.«
    The cordial face she lifted up to his to kiss him, was his home, his life,
his universe, and yet it was a portion of his punishment and grief; for in the
cloud he saw upon it - though serene and calm as any radiant cloud at sunset -
and in the constancy and devotion of her life, and in the sacrifice she had made
of ease, enjoyment, and hope, he saw the bitter fruits of his old crime, for
ever ripe and fresh.
    She stood at the door looking after him, with her hands loosely clasped in
each other, as he made his way over the frowzy and uneven patch of ground which
lay before their house, which had once (and not long ago) been a pleasant
meadow, and was now a very waste, with a disorderly crop of beginnings of mean
houses, rising out of the rubbish, as if they had been unskilfully sown there.
Whenever he looked back - as once or twice he did - her cordial face shone like
a light upon his heart; but when he plodded on his way, and saw her not, the
tears were in her eyes as she stood watching him.
    Her pensive form was not long idle at the door. There was daily duty to
discharge, and daily work to do - for such common-place spirits that are not
heroic, often work hard with their hands - and Harriet was soon busy with her
household tasks. These discharged, and the poor house made quite neat and
orderly, she counted her little stock of money, with an anxious face, and went
out thoughtfully to buy some necessaries for their table, planning and
contriving, as she went, how to save. So sordid are the lives of such low
natures, who are not only not heroic to their valets and waiting-women, but have
neither valets nor waiting-women to be heroic to withal!
    While she was absent, and there was no one in the house, there approached it
by a different way from that the brother had taken, a gentleman, a very little
past his prime of life perhaps, but of a healthy florid hue, an upright
presence, and a bright clear aspect, that was gracious and good-humoured. His
eyebrows were still black, and so was much of his hair; the sprinkling of grey
observable among the latter, graced the former very much, and showed his broad
frank brow and honest eyes to great advantage.
    After knocking once at the door, and obtaining no response, this gentleman
sat down on a bench in the little porch to wait. A certain skilful action of his
fingers as he hummed some bars, and beat time on the seat beside him, seemed to
denote the musician; and the extraordinary satisfaction he derived from humming
something very slow and long, which had no recognisable tune, seemed to denote
that he was a scientific one.
    The gentleman was still twirling a theme, which seemed to go round and round
and round, and in and in and in, and to involve itself like a corkscrew twirled
upon a table, without getting any nearer to anything, when Harriet appeared
returning. He rose up as she advanced, and stood with his head uncovered.
    »You are come again, Sir!« she said, faltering.
    »I take that liberty,« he answered. »May I ask for five minutes of your
leisure?«
    After a moment's hesitation, she opened the door, and gave him admission to
the little parlour. The gentleman sat down there, drew his chair to the table
over against her, and said, in a voice that perfectly corresponded to his
appearance, and with a simplicity that was very engaging:
    »Miss Harriet, you cannot be proud. You signified to me, when I called
t'other morning, that you were. Pardon me if I say that I looked into your face
while you spoke, and that it contradicted you. I look into it again,« he added,
laying his hand gently on her arm, for an instant, »and it contradicts you more
and more.«
    She was somewhat confused and agitated, and could make no ready answer.
    »It is the mirror of truth,« said her visitor, »and gentleness. Excuse my
trusting to it, and returning.«
    His manner of saying these words, divested them entirely of the character of
compliments. It was so plain, grave, unaffected, and sincere, that she bent her
head, as if at once to thank him, and acknowledge his sincerity.
    »The disparity between our ages,« said the gentleman, »and the plainness of
my purpose, empower me, I am glad to think, to speak my mind. That is my mind;
and so you see me for the second time.«
    »There is a kind of pride, Sir,« she returned, after a moment's silence, »or
what may be supposed to be pride, which is mere duty. I hope I cherish no
other.«
    »For yourself,« he said.
    »For myself.«
    »But - pardon me -« suggested the gentleman. »For your brother John?«
    »Proud of his love, I am,« said Harriet, looking full upon her visitor, and
changing her manner on the instant - not that it was less composed and quiet,
but that there was a deep impassioned earnestness in it that made the very
tremble in her voice a part of her firmness, »and proud of him. Sir, you who
strangely know the story of his life, and repeated it to me when you were here
last -«
    »Merely to make my way into your confidence,« interposed the gentleman. »For
heaven's sake, don't suppose -«
    »I am sure,« she said, »you revived it, in my hearing, with a kind and good
purpose. I am quite sure of it.«
    »I thank you,« returned her visitor, pressing her hand hastily. »I am much
obliged to you. You do me justice, I assure you. You were going to say, that I,
who know the story of John Carker's life -«
    »May think it pride in me,« she continued, »when I say that I am proud of
him! I am. You know the time was, when I was not - when I could not be - but
that is past. The humility of many years, the uncomplaining expiation, the true
repentance, the terrible regret, the pain I know he has even in my affection,
which he thinks has cost me dear, though Heaven knows I am happy, but for his
sorrow! - oh, Sir, after what I have seen, let me conjure you, if you are in any
place of power, and are ever wronged, never, for any wrong, inflict a punishment
that cannot be recalled; while there is a GOD above us to work changes in the
hearts He made.«
    »Your brother is an altered man,« returned the gentleman, compassionately.
»I assure you I don't doubt it.«
    »He was an altered man when he did wrong,« said Harriet. »He is an altered
man again, and is his true self now, believe me, Sir.«
    »But we go on,« said her visitor, rubbing his forehead, in an absent manner,
with his hand, and then drumming thoughtfully on the table, »we go on in our
clock-work routine, from day to day, and can't make out, or follow, these
changes. They - they're a metaphysical sort of thing. We - we haven't leisure
for it. We - we haven't courage. They're not taught at schools or colleges, and
we don't know how to set about it. In short, we are so d-150\ businesslike,«
said the gentleman, walking to the window, and back, and sitting down again, in
a state of extreme dissatisfaction and vexation.
    »I am sure,« said the gentleman, rubbing his forehead again; and drumming on
the table as before, »I have good reason to believe that a jog-trot life, the
same from day to day, would reconcile one to anything. One don't see anything,
one don't hear anything, one don't know anything; that's the fact. We go on
taking everything for granted, and so we go on, until whatever we do, good, bad,
or indifferent, we do from habit. Habit is all I shall have to report, when I am
called upon to plead to my conscience, on my death-bed. Habit, says I; I was
deaf, dumb, blind, and paralytic, to a million things, from habit. Very
business-like indeed, Mr. What's-your-name, says Conscience, but it won't do
here!«
    The gentleman got up and walked to the window again and back: seriously
uneasy, though giving his uneasiness this peculiar expression.
    »Miss Harriet,« he said, resuming his chair, »I wish you would let me serve
you. Look at me; I ought to look honest, for I know I am so, at present. Do I?«
    »Yes,« she answered with a smile.
    »I believe every word you have said,« he returned. »I am full of
self-reproach that I might have known this and seen this, and known you and seen
you, any time these dozen years, and that I never have. I hardly know how I ever
got here - creature that I am, not only of my own habit, but of other people's!
But having done so, let me do something. I ask it in all honour and respect. You
inspire me with both, in the highest degree. Let me do something.«
    »We are contented, Sir.«
    »No, no, not quite,« returned the gentleman. »I think not quite. There are
some little comforts that might smooth your life, and his. And his!« he
repeated, fancying that had made some impression on her. »I have been in the
habit of thinking that there was nothing wanting to be done for him; that it was
all settled and over; in short, of not thinking at all about it. I am different
now. Let me do something for him. You too,« said the visitor, with careful
delicacy, »have need to watch your health closely, for his sake, and I fear it
fails.«
    »Whoever you may be, Sir,« answered Harriet, raising her eyes to his face,
»I am deeply grateful to you. I feel certain that in all you say, you have no
object in the world but kindness to us. But years have passed since we began
this life; and to take from my brother any part of what has so endeared him to
me, and so proved his better resolution - any fragment of the merit of his
unassisted, obscure, and forgotten reparation - would be to diminish the comfort
it will be to him and me, when that time comes to each of us, of which you spoke
just now. I thank you better with these tears than any words. Believe it, pray.«
    The gentleman was moved, and put the hand she held out, to his lips, much as
a tender father might kiss the hand of a dutiful child. But more reverently.
    »If the day should ever come,« said Harriet, »when he is restored, in part,
to the position he lost -«
    »Restored!« cried the gentleman, quickly. »How can that be hoped for? In
whose hands does the power of any restoration lie? It is no mistake of mine,
surely, to suppose that his having gained the priceless blessing of his life, is
one cause of the animosity shown to him by his brother.«
    »You touch upon a subject that is never breathed between us; not even
between us,« said Harriet.
    »I beg your forgiveness,« said the visitor. »I should have known it. I
entreat you to forget that I have done so, inadvertently. And now, as I dare
urge no more - as I am not sure that I have a right to do so - though Heaven
knows, even that doubt may be habit,« said the gentleman, rubbing his head, as
despondently as before, »let me; though a stranger, yet no stranger; ask two
favours.«
    »What are they?« she inquired.
    »The first, that if you should see cause to change your resolution, you will
suffer me to be as your right hand. My name shall then be at your service: it is
useless now, and always insignificant.«
    »Our choice of friends,« she answered, smiling faintly, »is not so great,
that I need any time for consideration. I can promise that.«
    »The second, that you will allow me sometimes, say every Monday morning, at
nine o'clock - habit again - I must be business-like,« said the gentleman, with
a whimsical inclination to quarrel with himself on that head, »in walking past,
to see you at the door or window. I don't ask to come in, as your brother will
be gone out at that hour. I don't ask to speak to you. I merely ask to see, for
the satisfaction of my own mind, that you are well, and without intrusion to
remind you, by the sight of me, that you have a friend - an elderly friend,
grey-haired already, and fast growing greyer - whom you may ever command.«
    The cordial face looked up in his; confided in it; and promised.
    »I understand, as before,« said the gentleman, rising, »that you purpose not
to mention my visit to John Carker, lest he should be at all distressed by my
acquaintance with his history. I am glad of it, for it is out of the ordinary
course of things, and - habit again!« said the gentleman, checking himself
impatiently, »as if there were no better course than the ordinary course!«
    With that he turned to go, and walking, bare-headed, to the outside of the
little porch, took leave of her with such a happy mixture of unconstrained
respect and unaffected interest, as no breeding could have taught, no truth
mistrusted, and nothing but a pure and single heart expressed.
    Many half-forgotten emotions were awakened in the sister's mind by this
visit. It was so very long since any other visitor had crossed their threshold;
it was so very long since any voice of sympathy had made sad music in her ears;
that the stranger's figure remained present to her, hours afterwards, when she
sat at the window, plying her needle; and his words seemed newly spoken, again
and again. He had touched the spring that opened her whole life; and if she lost
him for a short space, it was only among the many shapes of the one great
recollection of which that life was made.
    Musing and working by turns; now constraining herself to be steady at her
needle for a long time together, and now letting her work fall, unregarded, on
her lap, and straying wheresoever her busier thoughts led, Harriet Carker found
the hours glide by her, and the day steal on. The morning, which had been bright
and clear, gradually became overcast; a sharp wind set in; the rain fell
heavily; and a dark mist drooping over the distant town, hid it from the view.
    She often looked with compassion, at such a time, upon the stragglers who
came wandering into London, by the great highway hard by, and who, footsore and
weary, and gazing fearfully at the huge town before them, as if foreboding that
their misery there would be but as a drop of water in the sea, or as a grain of
sea-sand on the shore, went shrinking on, cowering before the angry weather, and
looking as if the very elements rejected them. Day after day, such travellers
crept past, but always, as she thought, in one direction - always towards the
town. Swallowed up in one phase or other of its immensity, towards which they
seemed impelled by a desperate fascination, they never returned. Food for the
hospitals, the churchyards, the prisons, the river, fever, madness, vice, and
death, - they passed on to the monster, roaring in the distance, and were lost.
    The chill wind was howling, and the rain was falling, and the day was
darkening moodily, when Harriet, raising her eyes from the work on which she had
long since been engaged with unremitting constancy, saw one of these travellers
approaching.
    A woman. A solitary woman of some thirty years of age; tall; well-formed;
handsome; miserably dressed; the soil of many country roads in varied weather -
dust, chalk, clay, gravel - clotted on her grey cloak by the streaming wet; no
bonnet on her head, nothing to defend her rich black hair from the rain, but a
torn handkerchief; with the fluttering ends of which, and with her hair, the
wind blinded her so that she often stopped to push them back, and look upon the
way she was going.
    She was in the act of doing so, when Harriet observed her. As her hands,
parting on her sun-burnt forehead, swept across her face, and threw aside the
hindrances that encroached upon it, there was a reckless and regardless beauty
in it: a dauntless and depraved indifference to more than weather: a
carelessness of what was cast upon her bare head from Heaven or earth: that,
coupled with her misery and loneliness, touched the heart of her fellow-woman.
She thought of all that was perverted and debased within her, no less than
without: of modest graces of the mind, hardened and steeled, like these
attractions of the person; of the many gifts of the Creator flung to the winds
like the wild hair; of all the beautiful ruin upon which the storm was beating
and the night was coming.
    Thinking of this, she did not turn away with a delicate indignation - too
many of her own compassionate and tender sex too often do - but pitied her.
    Her fallen sister came on, looking far before her, trying with her eager
eyes to pierce the mist in which the city was enshrouded, and glancing, now and
then, from side to side, with the bewildered and uncertain aspect of a stranger.
Though her tread was bold and courageous, she was fatigued, and after a moment
of irresolution, sat down upon a heap of stones; seeking no shelter from the
rain, but letting it rain on her as it would.
    She was now opposite the house; raising her head after resting it for a
moment on both hands, her eyes met those of Harriet.
    In a moment, Harriet was at the door: and the other, rising from her seat at
her beck, came slowly, and with no conciliatory look, towards her.
    »Why do you rest in the rain?« said Harriet, gently.
    »Because I have no other resting-place,« was the reply.
    »But there are many places of shelter near here. This,« referring to the
little porch, »is better than where you were. You are very welcome to rest
here.«
    The wanderer looked at her, in doubt and surprise, but without any
expression of thankfulness; and sitting down, and taking off one of her worn
shoes to beat out the fragments of stone and dust that were inside, showed that
her foot was cut and bleeding.
    Harriet uttering an expression of pity, the traveller looked up with a
contemptuous and incredulous smile.
    »Why, what's a torn foot to such as me?« she said. »And what's a torn foot
in such as me, to such as you?«
    »Come in and wash it,« answered Harriet, mildly, »and let me give you
something to bind it up.«
    The woman caught her arm, and drawing it before her own eyes, hid them
against it, and wept. Not like a woman, but like a stern man surprised into that
weakness; with a violent heaving of her breast, and struggle for recovery, that
showed how unusual the emotion was with her.
    She submitted to be led into the house, and, evidently more in gratitude
than in any care for herself, washed and bound the injured place. Harriet then
put before her fragments of her own frugal dinner, and when she had eaten of
them, though sparingly, besought her, before resuming her road (which she showed
her anxiety to do), to dry her clothes before the fire. Again, more in gratitude
than with any evidence of concern in her own behalf, she sat down in front of
it, and unbinding the handkerchief about her head, and letting her thick wet
hair fall down below her waist, sat drying it with the palms of her hands, and
looking at the blaze.
    »I dare say you are thinking,« she said, lifting her head suddenly, »that I
used to be handsome, once. I believe I was - I know I was. Look here!«
    She held up her hair roughly with both hands; seizing it as if she would
have torn it out; then, threw it down again, and flung it back as though it were
a heap of serpents.
    »Are you a stranger in this place?« asked Harriet.
    »A stranger!« she returned, stopping between each short reply, and looking
at the fire. »Yes. Ten or a dozen years a stranger. I have had no almanack where
I have been. Ten or a dozen years. I don't know this part. It's much altered
since I went away.«
    »Have you been far?«
    »Very far. Months upon months over the sea, and far away even then. I have
been where convicts go,« she added, looking full upon her entertainer. »I have
been one myself.«
    »Heaven help you and forgive you!« was the gentle answer.
    »Ah! Heaven help me and forgive me!« she returned, nodding her head at the
fire. »If man would help some of us a little more, God would forgive us all the
sooner perhaps.«
    But she was softened by the earnest manner, and the cordial face so full of
mildness and so free from judgment, of her, and said, less hardily:
    »We may be about the same age, you and me. If I am older, it is not above a
year or two. Oh think of that!«
    She opened her arms, as though the exhibition of her outward form would show
the moral wretch she was; and letting them drop at her sides, hung down her
head.
    »There is nothing we may not hope to repair; it is never too late to amend,«
said Harriet. »You are penitent -«
    »No,« she answered. »I am not! I can't be. I am no such thing. Why should I
be penitent, and all the world go free! They talk to me of my penitence. Who's
penitent for the wrongs that have been done to me!«
    She rose up, bound her handkerchief about her head, and turned to move away.
    »Where are you going?« said Harriet.
    »Yonder,« she answered, pointing with her hand. »To London.«
    »Have you any home to go to?«
    »I think I have a mother. She's as much a mother, as her dwelling is a
home,« she answered with a bitter laugh.
    »Take this,« cried Harriet, putting money in her hand. »Try to do well. It
is very little, but for one day it may keep you from harm.«
    »Are you married?« said the other, faintly, as she took it.
    »No. I live here with my brother. We have not much to spare, or I would give
you more.«
    »Will you let me kiss you?«
    Seeing no scorn or repugnance in her face, the object of her charity bent
over her as she asked the question, and pressed her lips against her cheek. Once
more she caught her arm, and covered her eyes with it; and then was gone.
    Gone into the deepening night, and howling wind, and pelting rain; urging
her way on towards the mist-enshrouded city where the blurred lights gleamed;
and with her black hair, and disordered head-gear, fluttering round her reckless
face.
 

                                 Chapter XXXIV

                          Another Mother and Daughter.

In an ugly and dark room, an old woman, ugly and dark too, sat listening to the
wind and rain, and crouching over a meagre fire. More constant to the last-named
occupation than the first, she never changed her attitude, unless, when any
stray drops of rain fell hissing on the smouldering embers, to raise her head
with an awakened attention to the whistling and pattering outside, and gradually
to let it fall again lower and lower and lower as she sunk into a brooding state
of thought, in which the noises of the night were as indistinctly regarded as is
the monotonous rolling of a sea by one who sits in contemplation on its shore.
    There was no light in the room save that which the fire afforded. Glaring
sullenly from time to time like the eye of a fierce beast half asleep, it
revealed no objects that needed to be jealous of a better display. A heap of
rags, a heap of bones, a wretched bed, two or three mutilated chairs or stools,
the black walls and blacker ceiling, were all its winking brightness shone upon.
As the old woman, with a gigantic and distorted image of herself thrown half
upon the wall behind her, half upon the roof above, sat bending over the few
loose bricks within which it was pent, on the damp hearth of the chimney - for
there was no stove - she looked as if she were watching at some witch's altar
for a favourable token; and but that the movement of her chattering jaws and
trembling chin was too frequent and too fast for the slow flickering of the
fire, it would have seemed an illusion wrought by the light, as it came and
went, upon a face as motionless as the form to which it belonged.
    If Florence could have stood within the room and looked upon the original of
the shadow thrown upon the wall and roof, as it cowered thus over the fire, a
glance might have sufficed to recall the figure of Good Mrs. Brown;
notwithstanding that her childish recollection of that terrible old woman was as
grotesque and exaggerated a presentment of the truth, perhaps, as the shadow on
the wall. But Florence was not there to look on; and Good Mrs. Brown remained
unrecognised, and sat staring at her fire, unobserved.
    Attracted by a louder sputtering than usual, as the rain came hissing down
the chimney in a little stream, the old woman raised her head, impatiently, to
listen afresh. And this time she did not drop it again; for there was a hand
upon the door, and a footstep in the room.
    »Who's that?« she said, looking over her shoulder.
    »One who brings you news,« was the answer, in a woman's voice.
    »News? Where from?«
    »From abroad.«
    »From beyond seas?« cried the old woman, starting up.
    »Aye, from beyond seas.«
    The old woman raked the fire together, hurriedly, and going close to her
visitor who had entered, and shut the door, and who now stood in the middle of
the room, put her hand upon the drenched cloak, and turned the unresisting
figure, so as to have it in the full light of the fire. She did not find what
she had expected, whatever that might be; for she let the cloak go again, and
uttered a querulous cry of disappointment and misery.
    »What is the matter?« asked her visitor.
    »Oho! Oho!« cried the old woman, turning her face upward, with a terrible
howl.
    »What is the matter?« asked the visitor again.
    »It's not my gal!« cried the old woman, tossing up her arms, and clasping
her hands above her head. »Where's my Alice? Where's my handsome daughter?
They've been the death of her!«
    »They've not been the death of her yet, if your name's Marwood,« said the
visitor.
    »Have you seen my gal, then?« cried the old woman. »Has she wrote to me?«
    »She said you couldn't read,« returned the other.
    »No more I can!« exclaimed the old woman, wringing her hands.
    »Have you no light here?« said the other, looking round the room.
    The old woman, mumbling and shaking her head, and muttering to herself about
her handsome daughter, brought a candle from a cupboard in the corner, and
thrusting it into the fire with a trembling hand, lighted it with some
difficulty and set it on the table. Its dirty wick burnt dimly at first, being
choked in its own grease; and when the bleared eyes and failing sight of the old
woman could distinguish anything by its light, her visitor was sitting with her
arms folded, her eyes turned downwards, and a handkerchief she had worn upon her
head lying on the table by her side.
    »She sent to me by word of mouth then, my gal, Alice?« mumbled the old
woman, after waiting for some moments. »What did she say?«
    »Look,« returned the visitor.
    The old woman repeated the word in a scared uncertain way; and, shading her
eyes, looked at the speaker, round the room, and at the speaker once again.
    »Alice said look again, mother;« and the speaker fixed her eyes upon her.
    Again the old woman looked round the room, and at her visitor, and round the
room once more. Hastily seizing the candle, and rising from her seat, she held
it to the visitor's face, uttered a loud cry, set down the light, and fell upon
her neck!
    »It's my gal! It's my Alice! It's my handsome daughter, living and come
back!« screamed the old woman, rocking herself to and fro upon the breast that
coldly suffered her embrace. »It's my gal! It's my Alice! It's my handsome
daughter, living and come back!« she screamed again, dropping on the floor
before her, clasping her knees, laying her head against them, and still rocking
herself to and fro with every frantic demonstration of which her vitality was
capable.
    »Yes, mother,« returned Alice, stooping forward for a moment and kissing
her, but endeavouring, even in the act, to disengage herself from her embrace.
»I am here, at last. Let go, mother; let go. Get up, and sit in your chair. What
good does this do?«
    »She's come back harder than she went!« cried the mother, looking up in her
face, and still holding to her knees. »She don't care for me! after all these
years, and all the wretched life I've led!«
    »Why, mother!« said Alice, shaking her ragged skirts to detach the old woman
from them: »there are two sides to that. There have been years for me as well as
you, and there has been wretchedness for me as well as you. Get up, get up!«
    Her mother rose, and cried, and wrung her hands, and stood at a little
distance gazing on her. Then she took the candle again, and going round her,
surveyed her from head to foot, making a low moaning all the time. Then she put
the candle down, resumed her chair, and beating her hands together to a kind of
weary tune, and rolling herself from side to side, continued moaning and wailing
to herself.
    Alice got up, took off her wet cloak, and laid it aside. That done, she sat
down as before, and with her arms folded, and her eyes gazing at the fire,
remained silently listening with a contemptuous face to her old mother's
inarticulate complainings.
    »Did you expect to see me return as youthful as I went away, mother?« she
said at length, turning her eyes upon the old woman. »Did you think a foreign
life, like mine, was good for good looks? One would believe so, to hear you!«
    »It an't that!« cried the mother. »She knows it!«
    »What is it then?« returned the daughter. »It had best be something that
don't last, mother, or my way out is easier than my way in.«
    »Hear that!« exclaimed the mother. »After all these years she threatens to
desert me in the moment of her coming back again!«
    »I tell you, mother, for the second time, there have been years for me as
well as you,« said Alice. »Come back harder? Of course I have come back harder.
What else did you expect?«
    »Harder to me! To her own dear mother!« cried the old woman.
    »I don't know who began to harden me, if my own dear mother didn't,« she
returned, sitting with her folded arms, and knitted brows, and compressed lips
as if she were bent on excluding, by force, every softer feeling from her
breast. »Listen, mother, to a word or two. If we understand each other now, we
shall not fall out any more, perhaps. I went away a girl, and have come back a
woman. I went away undutiful enough, and have come back no better, you may
swear. But have you been very dutiful to me?«
    »I!« cried the old woman. »To my gal! A mother dutiful to her own child!«
    »It sounds unnatural, don't it?« returned the daughter, looking coldly on
her with her stern, regardless, hardy, beautiful face; »but I have thought of it
sometimes, in the course of my lone years, till I have got used to it. I have
heard some talk about duty first and last; but it has always been of my duty to
other people. I have wondered now and then - to pass away the time - whether no
one ever owed any duty to me.«
    Her mother sat mowing, and mumbling, and shaking her head, but whether
angrily, or remorsefully, or in denial, or only in her physical infirmity, did
not appear.
    »There was a child called Alice Marwood,« said the daughter, with a laugh,
and looking down at herself in terrible derision of herself, »born, among
poverty and neglect, and nursed in it. Nobody taught her, nobody stepped forward
to help her, nobody cared for her.«
    »Nobody!« echoed the mother, pointing to herself, and striking her breast.
    »The only care she knew,« returned the daughter, »was to be beaten, and
stinted, and abused sometimes; and she might have done better without that. She
lived in homes like this, and in the streets, with a crowd of little wretches
like herself; and yet she brought good looks out of this childhood. So much the
worse for her. She had better have been hunted and worried to death for
ugliness.«
    »Go on! go on!« exclaimed the mother.
    »I am going on,« returned the daughter. »There was a girl called Alice
Marwood. She was handsome. She was taught too late, and taught all wrong. She
was too well cared for, too well trained, too well helped on, too much looked
after. You were very fond of her - you were better off then. What came to that
girl comes to thousands every year. It was only ruin, and she was born to it.«
    »After all these years!« whined the old woman. »My gal begins with this.«
    »She'll soon have ended,« said the daughter. »There was a criminal called
Alice Marwood - a girl still, but deserted and an outcast. And she was tried,
and she was sentenced. And lord, how the gentlemen in the court talked about it!
and how grave the judge was on her duty, and on her having perverted the gifts
of nature - as if he didn't know better than anybody there, that they had been
made curses to her! - and how he preached about the strong arm of the Law - so
very strong to save her, when she was an innocent and helpless little wretch;
and how solemn and religious it all was. I have thought of that, many times
since, to be sure!«
    She folded her arms tightly on her breast, and laughed in a tone that made
the howl of the old woman musical.
    »So Alice Marwood was transported, mother,« she pursued, »and was sent to
learn her duty, where there was twenty times less duty, and more wickedness, and
wrong, and infamy, than here. And Alice Marwood is come back a woman. Such a
woman as she ought to be, after all this. In good time, there will be more
solemnity, and more fine talk, and more strong arm, most likely, and there will
be an end of her; but the gentlemen needn't be afraid of being thrown out of
work. There's crowds of little wretches, boy and girl, growing up in any of the
streets they live in, that'll keep them to it till they've made their fortunes.«
    The old woman leaned her elbows on the table, and resting her face upon her
two hands, made a show of being in great distress - or really was, perhaps.
    »There! I have done, mother,« said the daughter, with a motion of her head,
as if in dismissal of the subject. »I have said enough. Don't let you and I talk
of being dutiful, whatever we do. Your childhood was like mine, I suppose. So
much the worse for both of us. I don't want to blame you, or to defend myself;
why should I? That's all over long ago. But I am a woman - not a girl, now - and
you and I needn't make a show of our history, like the gentlemen in the Court.
We know all about it well enough.«
    Lost and degraded as she was, there was a beauty in her, both of face and
form, which, even in its worst expression, could not but be recognised as such
by any one regarding her with the least attention. As she subsided into silence,
and her face which had been harshly agitated, quieted down; while her dark eyes,
fixed upon the fire, exchanged the reckless light that had animated them, for
one that was softened by something like sorrow; there shone through all her
wayworn misery and fatigue, a ray of the departed radiance of the fallen angel.
    Her mother, after watching her for some time without speaking, ventured to
steal her withered hand a little nearer to her across the table; and finding
that she permitted this, to touch her face and smooth her hair. With the feeling
as it seemed, that the old woman was at least sincere in this show of interest,
Alice made no movement to check her; so, advancing by degrees, she bound up her
daughter's hair afresh, took off her wet shoes, if they deserved the name,
spread something dry upon her shoulders, and hovered humbly about her, muttering
to herself, as she recognised her old features and expression more and more.
    »You are very poor, mother, I see,« said Alice, looking round, when she had
sat thus for some time.
    »Bitter poor, my deary,« replied the old woman.
    She admired her daughter, and was afraid of her. Perhaps her admiration,
such as it was, had originated long ago, when she first found anything that was
beautiful appearing in the midst of the squalid fight of her existence. Perhaps
her fear was referable, in some sort, to the retrospect she had so lately heard.
Be this as it might, she stood, submissively and deferentially, before her
child, and inclined her head, as if in a pitiful entreaty to be spared any
further reproach.
    »How have you lived?«
    »By begging, my deary.«
    »And pilfering, mother?«
    »Sometimes, Ally - in a very small way. I am old and timid. I have taken
trifles from children now and then, my deary, but not often. I have tramped
about the country, pet, and I know what I know. I have watched.«
    »Watched?« returned the daughter, looking at her.
    »I have hung about a family, my deary,« said the mother, even more humbly
and submissively than before.
    »What family?«
    »Hush, darling. Don't be angry with me, I did it for the love of you. In
memory of my poor gal beyond seas.« She put out her hand deprecatingly, and
drawing it back again, laid it on her lips.
    »Years ago, my deary,« she pursued, glancing timidly at the attentive and
stern face opposed to her. »I came across his little child, by chance.«
    »Whose child?«
    »Not his, Alice deary; don't look at me like that; not his. How could it be
his? You know he has none.«
    »Whose then?« returned the daughter. »You said his.«
    »Hush, Ally; you frighten me, deary. Mr. Dombey's - only Mr. Dombey's. Since
then, darling, I have seen them often. I have seen him.«
    In uttering this last word, the old woman shrunk and recoiled, as if with a
sudden fear that her daughter would strike her. But though the daughter's face
was fixed upon her, and expressed the most vehement passion, she remained still:
except that she clenched her arms tighter and tighter within each other, on her
bosom, as if to restrain them by that means from doing an injury to herself, or
some one else, in the blind fury of the wrath that suddenly possessed her.
    »Little he thought who I was!« said the old woman, shaking her clenched
hand.
    »And little he cared!« muttered her daughter, between her teeth.
    »But there we were,« said the old woman, »face to face. I spoke to him, and
he spoke to me. I sat and watched him as he went away down a long grove of
trees: and at every step he took, I cursed him soul and body.«
    »He will thrive in spite of that,« returned the daughter disdainfully.
    »Aye, he is thriving,« said the mother.
    She held her peace; for the face and form before her were unshaped by rage.
It seemed as if the bosom would burst with the emotions that strove within it.
The effort that constrained and held it pent up, was no less formidable than the
rage itself: no less bespeaking the violent and dangerous character of the woman
who made it. But it succeeded, and she asked, after a silence:
    »Is he married?«
    »No, deary,« said the mother.
    »Going to be?«
    »Not that I know of, deary. But his master and friend is married. Oh, we may
give him joy! We may give 'em all joy!« cried the old woman, hugging herself
with her lean arms in her exultation. »Nothing but joy to us will come of that
marriage. Mind me!«
    The daughter looked at her for an explanation.
    »But you are wet and tired: hungry and thirsty,« said the old woman,
hobbling to the cupboard; »and there's little here, and little« - diving down
into her pocket, and jingling a few halfpence on the table - »little here. Have
you any money, Alice, deary?«
    The covetous, sharp, eager face with which she asked the question and looked
on, as her daughter took out of her bosom the little gift she had so lately
received, told almost as much of the history of this parent and child as the
child herself had told in words.
    »Is that all?« said the mother.
    »I have no more. I should not have this, but for charity.«
    »But for charity, eh, deary?« said the old woman, bending greedily over the
table to look at the money, which she appeared distrustful of her daughter's
still retaining in her hand, and gazing on. »Humph! six and six is twelve, and
six eighteen - so - we must make the most of it. I'll go buy something to eat
and drink.«
    With greater alacrity than might have been expected in one of her appearance
- for age and misery seemed to have made her as decrepit as ugly - she began to
occupy her trembling hands in tying an old bonnet on her head, and folding a
torn shawl about herself: still eyeing the money in her daughter's hand, with
the same sharp desire.
    »What joy is to come to us of this marriage, mother?« asked the daughter.
»You have not told me that.«
    »The joy,« she replied, attiring herself, with fumbling fingers, »of no love
at all, and much pride and hate, my deary. The joy of confusion and strife among
'em, proud as they are, and of danger - danger, Alice!«
    »What danger?«
    »I have seen what I have seen. I know what I know!« chuckled the mother.
»Let some look to it. Let some be upon their guard. My gal may keep good company
yet!«
    Then, seeing that in the wondering earnestness with which her daughter
regarded her, her hand involuntarily closed upon the money, the old woman made
more speed to secure it, and hurriedly added, »but I'll go buy something; I'll
go buy something.«
    As she stood with her hand stretched out before her daughter, her daughter,
glancing again at the money, put it to her lips before parting with it.
    »What, Ally! Do you kiss it?« chuckled the old woman. »That's like me - I
often do. Oh, it's so good to us!« squeezing her own tarnished halfpence up to
her bag of a throat, »so good to us in everything but not coming in heaps!«
    »I kiss it, mother,« said the daughter, »or I did then - I don't know that I
ever did before - for the giver's sake.«
    »The giver, eh, deary?« retorted the old woman, whose dimmed eyes glistened
as she took it. »Aye! I'll kiss it for the giver's sake, too, when the giver can
make it go farther. But I'll go spend it, deary. I'll be back directly.«
    »You seem to say you know a great deal, mother,« said the daughter,
following her to the door with her eyes. »You have grown very wise since we
parted.«
    »Know!« croaked the old woman, coming back a step or two, »I know more than
you think. I know more than he thinks, deary, as I'll tell you by and bye. I
know all about him.«
    The daughter smiled incredulously.
    »I know of his brother, Alice,« said the old woman, stretching out her neck
with a leer of malice absolutely frightful, »who might have been where you have
been - for stealing money - and who lives with his sister, over yonder, by the
north road out of London.«
    »Where?«
    »By the north road out of London, deary. You shall see the house if you
like. It an't much to boast of, genteel as his own is. No, no, no,« cried the
old woman, shaking her head and laughing; for her daughter had started up, »not
now; it's too far off; it's by the milestone, where the stones are heaped; -
to-morrow, deary, if it's fine, and you are in the humour. But I'll go spend -«
    »Stop!« and the daughter flung herself upon her, with her former passion
raging like a fire. »The sister is a fair-faced Devil, with brown hair?«
    The old woman, amazed and terrified, nodded her head.
    »I see the shadow of him in her face! It's a red house standing by itself.
Before the door there is a small green porch.«
    Again the old woman nodded.
    »In which I sat to-day! Give me back the money.«
    »Alice! Deary!«
    »Give me back the money, or you'll be hurt.«
    She forced it from the old woman's hand as she spoke, and utterly
indifferent to her complainings and entreaties, threw on the garments she had
taken off, and hurried out, with headlong speed.
    The mother followed, limping after her as she could, and expostulating with
no more effect upon her than upon the wind and rain and darkness that
encompassed them. Obdurate and fierce in her own purpose, and indifferent to all
besides, the daughter defied the weather and the distance, as if she had known
no travel or fatigue, and made for the house where she had been relieved. After
some quarter of an hour's walking, the old woman, spent and out of breath,
ventured to hold by her skirts; but she ventured no more, and they travelled on
in silence through the wet and gloom. If the mother now and then uttered a word
of complaint, she stifled it lest her daughter should break away from her and
leave her behind; and the daughter was dumb.
    It was within an hour or so of midnight, when they left the regular streets
behind them, and entered on the deeper gloom of that neutral ground where the
house was situated. The town lay in the distance, lurid and lowering; the bleak
wind howled over the open space; all around was black, wild, desolate.
    »This is a fit place for me!« said the daughter, stopping to look back. »I
thought so, when I was here before, to-day.«
    »Alice, my deary,« cried the mother, pulling her gently by the skirt.
»Alice!«
    »What now, mother?«
    »Don't give the money back, my darling; please don't. We can't afford it. We
want supper, deary. Money is money, whoever gives it. Say what you will, but
keep the money.«
    »See there!« was all the daughter's answer. »That is the house I mean. Is
that it?«
    The old woman nodded in the affirmative; and a few more paces brought them
to the threshold. There was the light of fire and candle in the room where Alice
had sat to dry her clothes; and on her knocking at the door, John Carker
appeared from that room.
    He was surprised to see such visitors at such an hour, and asked Alice what
she wanted.
    »I want your sister,« she said. »The woman who gave me money to-day.«
    At the sound of her raised voice, Harriet came out.
    »Oh!« said Alice. »You are here! Do you remember me?«
    »Yes,« she answered, wondering.
    The face that had humbled itself before her, looked on her now with such
invincible hatred and defiance; and the hand that had gently touched her arm,
was clenched with such a show of evil purpose, as if it would gladly strangle
her; that she drew close to her brother for protection.
    »That I could speak with you, and not know you! That I could come near you,
and not feel what blood was running in your veins, by the tingling of my own!«
said Alice, with a menacing gesture.
    »What do you mean? What have I done?«
    »Done!« returned the other. »You have sat me by your fire; you have given me
food and money; you have bestowed your compassion on me! You! whose name I spit
upon!«
    The old woman, with a malevolence that made her ugliness quite awful, shook
her withered hand at the brother and sister in confirmation of her daughter, but
plucked her by the skirts again, nevertheless, imploring her to keep the money.
    »If I dropped a tear upon your hand, may it wither it up! If I spoke a
gentle word in your hearing, may it deafen you! If I touched you with my lips,
may the touch be poison to you! A curse upon this roof that gave me shelter!
Sorrow and shame upon your head! Ruin upon all belonging to you!«
    As she said the words, she threw the money down upon the ground, and spurned
it with her foot.
    »I tread it in the dust: I wouldn't take it if it paved my way to Heaven! I
would the bleeding foot that brought me here to-day, had rotted off, before it
led me to your house!«
    Harriet, pale and trembling, restrained her brother, and suffered her to go
on uninterrupted.
    »It was well that I should be pitied and forgiven by you, or any one of your
name, in the first hour of my return! It was well that you should act the kind
good lady to me! I'll thank you when I die; I'll pray for you, and all your
race, you may be sure!«
    With a fierce action of her hand, as if she sprinkled hatred on the ground,
and with it devoted those who were standing there to destruction, she looked up
once at the black sky, and strode out into the wild night.
    The mother, who had plucked at her skirts again and again in vain, and had
eyed the money lying on the threshold with an absorbing greed that seemed to
concentrate her faculties upon it, would have prowled about, until the house was
dark, and then groped in the mire on the chance of repossessing herself of it.
But the daughter drew her away, and they set forth, straight, on their return to
their dwelling; the old woman whimpering and bemoaning their loss upon the road,
and fretfully bewailing, as openly as she dared, the undutiful conduct of her
handsome girl in depriving her of a supper, on the very first night of their
re-union.
    Supperless to bed she went, saving for a few coarse fragments; and those she
sat mumbling and munching over a scrap of fire, long after her undutiful
daughter lay asleep.
 
Were this miserable mother, and this miserable daughter, only the reduction to
their lowest grade, of certain social vices sometimes prevailing higher up? In
this round world of many circles within circles, do we make a weary journey from
the high grade to the low, to find at last that they lie close together, that
the two extremes touch, and that our journey's end is but our starting-place?
Allowing for great difference of stuff and texture, was the pattern of this woof
repeated among gentle blood at all?
    Say, Edith Dombey! And Cleopatra, best of mothers, let us have your
testimony!
 

                                  Chapter XXXV

                                The Happy Pair.

The dark blot on the street is gone. Mr. Dombey's mansion, if it be a gap among
the other houses any longer, is only so because it is not to be vied with in its
brightness, and haughtily casts them off. The saying is, that home is home, be
it never so homely. If it hold good in the opposite contingency, and home is
home be it never so stately, what an altar to the Household Gods is raised up
here!
    Lights are sparkling in the windows this evening, and the ruddy glow of
fires is warm and bright upon the hangings and soft carpets, and the dinner
waits to be served, and the dinner-table is handsomely set forth, though only
for four persons, and the sideboard is cumbrous with plate. It is the first time
that the house has been arranged for occupation since its late changes, and the
happy pair are looked for every minute.
    Only second to the wedding morning, in the interest and expectation it
engenders among the household, is this evening of the coming home. Mrs. Perch is
in the kitchen taking tea; and has made the tour of the establishment, and
priced the silks and damasks by the yard, and exhausted every interjection in
the dictionary and out of it expressive of admiration and wonder. The
upholsterer's foreman, who has left his hat, with a pocket-handkerchief in it,
both smelling strongly of varnish, under a chair in the hall, lurks about the
house, gazing upwards at the cornices, and downward at the carpets, and
occasionally, in a silent transport of enjoyment, taking a rule out of his
pocket, and skirmishingly measuring expensive objects, with unutterable
feelings. Cook is in high spirits, and says give her a place where there's
plenty of company (as she'll bet you sixpence there will be now), for she is of
a lively disposition, and she always was from a child, and she don't mind who
knows it; which sentiment elicits from the breast of Mrs. Perch a responsive
murmur of support and approbation. All the housemaid hopes is, happiness for 'em
- but marriage is a lottery, and the more she thinks about it, the more she
feels the independence and the safety of a single life. Mr. Towlinson is
saturnine and grim, and says that's his opinion too, and give him War besides,
and down with the French - for this young man has a general impression that
every foreigner is a Frenchman, and must be by the laws of nature.
    At each new sound of wheels, they all stop, whatever they are saying, and
listen; and more than once there is a general starting up and a cry of »Here
they are!« But here they are not yet; and Cook begins to mourn over the dinner,
which has been put back twice, and the upholsterer's foreman still goes lurking
about the rooms, undisturbed in his blissful reverie!
    Florence is ready to receive her father and her new mama. Whether the
emotions that are throbbing in her breast originate in pleasure or in pain, she
hardly knows. But the fluttering heart sends added colour to her cheeks, and
brightness to her eyes; and they say down stairs, drawing their heads together -
for they always speak softly when they speak of her - how beautiful Miss
Florence looks to-night, and what a sweet young lady she has grown, poor dear! A
pause succeeds; and then Cook, feeling, as president, that her sentiments are
waited for, wonders whether - and there stops. The housemaid wonders too, and so
does Mrs. Perch, who has the happy social faculty of always wondering when other
people wonder, without being at all particular what she wonders at. Mr.
Towlinson, who now descries an opportunity of bringing down the spirits of the
ladies to his own level, says wait and see; he wishes some people were well out
of this. Cook leads a sigh then, and a murmur of »Ah, it's a strange world, it
is indeed!« and when it has gone round the table, adds persuasively, »but Miss
Florence can't well be the worse for any change, Tom.« Mr. Towlinson's
rejoinder, pregnant with frightful meaning, is »Oh, can't she though!« and
sensible that a mere man can scarcely be more prophetic, or improve upon that,
he holds his peace.
    Mrs. Skewton, prepared to greet her darling daughter and dear son-in-law
with open arms, is appropriately attired for that purpose in a very youthful
costume, with short sleeves. At present, however, her ripe charms are blooming
in the shade of her own apartments, whence she has not emerged since she took
possession of them a few hours ago, and where she is fast growing fretful, on
account of the postponement of dinner. The maid who ought to be a skeleton, but
is in truth a buxom damsel, is, on the other hand, in a most amiable state:
considering her quarterly stipend much safer than heretofore, and foreseeing a
great improvement in her board and lodging.
    Where are the happy pair, for whom this brave home is waiting? Do steam,
tide, wind, and horses, all abate their speed, to linger on such happiness? Does
the swarm of loves and graces hovering about them retard their progress by its
numbers? Are there so many flowers in their happy path, that they can scarcely
move along, without entanglement in thornless roses, and sweetest briar?
    They are here at last! The noise of wheels is heard, grows louder, and a
carriage drives up to the door! A thundering knock from the obnoxious foreigner
anticipates the rush of Mr. Towlinson and party to open it; and Mr. Dombey and
his bride alight, and walk in arm in arm.
    »My sweetest Edith!« cries an agitated voice upon the stairs. »My dearest
Dombey!« and the short sleeves wreath themselves about the happy couple in turn,
and embrace them.
    Florence had come down to the hall too, but did not advance: reserving her
timid welcome until these nearer and dearer transports should subside. But the
eyes of Edith sought her out, upon the threshold; and dismissing her sensitive
parent with a slight kiss on the cheek, she hurried on to Florence and embraced
her.
    »How do you do, Florence?« said Mr. Dombey, putting out his hand.
    As Florence, trembling, raised it to her lips, she met his glance. The look
was cold and distant enough, but it stirred her heart to think that she observed
in it something more of interest than he had ever shown before. It even
expressed a kind of faint surprise, and not a disagreeable surprise, at sight of
her. She dared not raise her eyes to his any more; but she felt that he looked
at her once again, and not less favourably. Oh what a thrill of joy shot through
her, awakened by even this intangible and baseless confirmation of her hope that
she would learn to win him, through her new and beautiful mama!
    »You will not be long dressing, Mrs. Dombey, I presume?« said Mr. Dombey.
    »I shall be ready immediately.«
    »Let them send up dinner in a quarter of an hour.«
    With that Mr. Dombey stalked away to his own dressing-room, and Mrs. Dombey
went up stairs to hers. Mrs. Skewton and Florence repaired to the drawing-room,
where that excellent mother considered it incumbent on her to shed a few
irrepressible tears, supposed to be forced from her by her daughter's felicity;
and which she was still drying, very gingerly, with a laced corner of her
pocket-handkerchief, when her son-in-law appeared.
    »And how, my dearest Dombey, did you find that delight-fullest of cities,
Paris?« she asked, subduing her emotion.
    »It was cold,« returned Mr. Dombey.
    »Gay as ever,« said Mrs. Skewton, »of course.«
    »Not particularly. I thought it dull,« said Mr. Dombey.
    »Fie, my dearest Dombey!« archly; »dull!«
    »It made that impression upon me, Madam,« said Mr. Dombey, with grave
politeness. »I believe Mrs. Dombey found it dull too. She mentioned once or
twice that she thought it so.«
    »Why, you naughty girl!« cried Mrs. Skewton, rallying her dear child, who
now entered, »what dreadfully heretical things have you been saying about
Paris?«
    Edith raised her eyebrows with an air of weariness; and passing the
folding-doors which were thrown open to display the suite of rooms in their new
and handsome garniture, and barely glancing at them as she passed, sat down by
Florence.
    »My dear Dombey,« said Mrs. Skewton, »how charmingly these people have
carried out every idea that we hinted. They have made a perfect palace of the
house, positively.«
    »It is handsome,« said Mr. Dombey, looking round. »I directed that no
expense should be spared; and all that money could do, has been done, I
believe.«
    »And what can it not do, dear Dombey?« observed Cleopatra.
    »It is powerful, Madam,« said Mr. Dombey.
    He looked in his solemn way towards his wife, but not a word said she.
    »I hope, Mrs. Dombey,« addressing her after a moment's silence, with
especial distinctness; »that these alterations meet with your approval?«
    »They are as handsome as they can be,« she returned, with haughty
carelessness. »They should be so, of course. And I suppose they are.«
    An expression of scorn was habitual to the proud face, and seemed
inseparable from it; but the contempt with which it received any appeal to
admiration, respect, or consideration on the ground of his riches, no matter how
slight or ordinary in itself, was a new and different expression, unequalled in
intensity by any other of which it was capable. Whether Mr. Dombey, wrapped in
his own greatness, was at all aware of this, or no, there had not been wanting
opportunities already for his complete enlightenment; and at that moment it
might have been effected by the one glance of the dark eye that lighted on him,
after it had rapidly and scornfully surveyed the theme of his
self-glorification. He might have read in that one glance that nothing that his
wealth could do, though it were increased ten thousand fold, could win him for
its own sake, one look of softened recognition from the defiant woman, linked to
him, but arrayed with her whole soul against him. He might have read in that one
glance that even for its sordid and mercenary influence upon herself, she
spurned it, while she claimed its utmost power as her right, her bargain - as
the base and worthless recompense for which she had become his wife. He might
have read in it that, ever baring her own head for the lightning of her own
contempt and pride to strike, the most innocent allusion to the power of his
riches degraded her anew, sunk her deeper in her own respect, and made the
blight and waste within her more complete.
    But dinner was announced, and Mr. Dombey led down Cleopatra; Edith and his
daughter following. Sweeping past the gold and silver demonstration on the
sideboard as if it were heaped-up dirt, and deigning to bestow no look upon the
elegancies around her, she took her place at his board for the first time, and
sat, like a statue, at the feast.
    Mr. Dombey, being a good deal in the statue way himself, was well enough
pleased to see his handsome wife immoveable and proud and cold. Her deportment
being always elegant and graceful, this as a general behaviour was agreeable and
congenial to him. Presiding, therefore, with his accustomed dignity, and not at
all reflecting on his wife by any warmth or hilarity of his own, he performed
his share of the honours of the table with a cool satisfaction; and the
installation dinner, though not regarded down stairs as a great success, or very
promising beginning, passed off, above, in a sufficiently polite, genteel, and
frosty manner.
    Soon after tea, Mrs. Skewton, who affected to be quite overcome and worn out
by her emotions of happiness, arising in the contemplation of her dear child
united to the man of her heart, but who, there is reason to suppose, found this
family party somewhat dull, as she yawned for one hour continually behind her
fan, retired to bed. Edith, also, silently withdrew and came back no more. Thus,
it happened that Florence, who had been up stairs to have some conversation with
Diogenes, returning to the drawing-room with her little work-basket, found no
one there but her father, who was walking to and fro, in dreary magnificence.
    »I beg your pardon. Shall I go away, Papa?« said Florence faintly,
hesitating at the door.
    »No,« returned Mr. Dombey, looking round over his shoulder; »you can come
and go here, Florence, as you please. This is not my private room.«
    Florence entered, and sat down at a distant little table with her work:
finding herself for the first time in her life - for the very first time within
her memory from her infancy to that hour - alone with her father, as his
companion. She, his natural companion, his only child, who in her lonely life
and grief had known the suffering of a breaking heart; who, in her rejected
love, had never breathed his name to God at night, but with a tearful blessing,
heavier on him than a curse; who had prayed to die young, so she might only die
in his arms; who had, all through, repaid the agony of slight and coldness, and
dislike, with patient unexacting love, excusing him, and pleading for him, like
his better angel!
    She trembled, and her eyes were dim. His figure seemed to grow in height and
bulk before her as he paced the room: now it was all blurred and indistinct; now
clear again, and plain; and now she seemed to think that this had happened, just
the same, a multitude of years ago. She yearned towards him, and yet shrunk from
his approach. Unnatural emotion in a child, innocent of wrong! Unnatural the
hand that had directed the sharp plough, which furrowed up her gentle nature for
the sowing of its seeds!
    Bent upon not distressing or offending him by her distress, Florence
controlled herself, and sat quietly at her work. After a few more turns across
and across the room, he left off pacing it; and withdrawing into a shadowy
corner at some distance, where there was an easy chair, covered his head with a
handkerchief, and composed himself to sleep.
    It was enough for Florence to sit there watching him; turning her eyes
towards his chair from time to time; watching him with her thoughts, when her
face was intent upon her work; and sorrowfully glad to think that he could
sleep, while she was there, and that he was not made restless by her strange and
long-forbidden presence.
    What would have been her thoughts if she had known that he was steadily
regarding her; that the veil upon his face, by accident or by design, was so
adjusted that his sight was free, and that it never wandered from her face an
instant! That when she looked towards him, in the obscure dark corner, her
speaking eyes, more earnest and pathetic in their voiceless speech than all the
orators of all the world, and impeaching him more nearly in their mute address,
met his, and did not know it! That when she bent her head again over her work,
he drew his breath more easily, but with the same attention looked upon her
still - upon her white brow and her falling hair, and busy hands; and once
attracted, seemed to have no power to turn his eyes away!
    And what were his thoughts meanwhile? With what emotions did he prolong the
attentive gaze covertly directed on his unknown daughter? Was there reproach to
him in the quiet figure and the mild eyes? Had he begun to feel her disregarded
claims, and did they touch him home at last, and waken him to some sense of his
cruel injustice?
    There are yielding moments in the lives of the sternest and harshest men,
though such men often keep their secret well. The sight of her in her beauty,
almost changed into a woman without his knowledge, may have struck out some such
moments even in his life of pride. Some passing thought that he had had a happy
home within his reach - had had a household spirit bending at his feet - had
overlooked it in his stiff-necked sullen arrogance, and wandered away and lost
himself, may have engendered them. Some simple eloquence distinctly heard,
though only uttered in her eyes, unconscious that he read them, as »By the
death-beds I have tended, by the childhood I have suffered, by our meeting in
this dreary house at midnight, by the cry wrung from me in the anguish of my
heart, oh, father, turn to me and seek a refuge in my love before it is too
late!« may have arrested them. Meaner and lower thoughts, as that his dead boy
was now superseded by new ties, and he could forgive the having been supplanted
in his affection, may have occasioned them. The mere association of her as an
ornament, with all the ornament and pomp about him, may have been sufficient.
But as he looked, he softened to her, more and more. As he looked, she became
blended with the child he had loved, and he could hardly separate the two. As he
looked, he saw her for an instant by a clearer and a brighter light, not bending
over that child's pillow as his rival - monstrous thought - but as the spirit of
his home, and in the action tending himself no less, as he sat once more with
his bowed-down head upon his hand at the foot of the little bed. He felt
inclined to speak to her, and call her to him. The words »Florence, come here!«
were rising to his lips - but slowly and with difficulty, they were so very
strange - when they were checked and stifled by a footstep on the stair.
    It was his wife's. She had exchanged her dinner dress for a loose robe, and
unbound her hair, which fell freely about her neck. But this was not the change
in her that startled him.
    »Florence, dear,« she said, »I have been looking for you everywhere.«
    As she sat down by the side of Florence, she stooped and kissed her hand. He
hardly knew his wife. She was so changed. It was not merely that her smile was
new to him - though that he had never seen; but her manner, the tone of her
voice, the light of her eyes, the interest, and confidence, and winning wish to
please, expressed in all - this was not Edith.
    »Softly, dear Mama. Papa is asleep.«
    It was Edith now. She looked towards the corner where he was, and he knew
that face and manner very well.
    »I scarcely thought you could be here, Florence.«
    Again, how altered and how softened, in an instant!
    »I left here early,« pursued Edith, »purposely to sit up stairs and talk
with you. But, going to your room, I found my bird was flown, and I have been
waiting there ever since, expecting its return.«
    If it had been a bird, indeed, she could not have taken it more tenderly and
gently to her breast, than she did Florence.
    »Come, dear!«
    »Papa will not expect to find me, I suppose, when he wakes,« hesitated
Florence.
    »Do you think he will, Florence?« said Edith, looking full upon her.
    Florence drooped her head, and rose, and put up her work-basket. Edith drew
her hand through her arm, and they went out of the room like sisters. Her very
step was different and new to him, Mr. Dombey thought, as his eyes followed her
to the door.
    He sat in his shadowy corner so long, that the church clocks struck the hour
three times before he moved that night. All that while his face was still intent
upon the spot where Florence had been seated. The room grew darker, as the
candles waned and went out; but a darkness gathered on his face, exceeding any
that the night could cast, and rested there.
    Florence and Edith, seated before the fire in the remote room where little
Paul had died, talked together for a long time. Diogenes, who was of the party,
had at first objected to the admission of Edith, and, even in deference to his
mistress's wish, had only permitted it under growling protest. But, emerging by
little and little from the ante-room, whither he had retired in dudgeon, he soon
appeared to comprehend, that with the most amiable intentions he had made one of
those mistakes which will occasionally arise in the best-regulated dogs' minds;
as a friendly apology for which he stuck himself up on end between the two, in a
very hot place in front of the fire, and sat panting at it, with his tongue out,
and a most imbecile expression of countenance, listening to the conversation.
    It turned, at first, on Florence's books and favourite pursuits, and on the
manner in which she had beguiled the interval since the marriage. The last theme
opened up to her a subject which lay very near her heart, and she said, with the
tears starting to her eyes:
    »Oh, Mama! I have had a great sorrow since that day.«
    »You a great sorrow, Florence!«
    »Yes. Poor Walter is drowned.«
    Florence spread her hands before her face, and wept with all her heart. Many
as were the secret tears which Walter's fate had cost her, they flowed yet, when
she thought or spoke of him.
    »But tell me, dear,« said Edith, soothing her. »Who was Walter? What was he
to you?«
    »He was my brother, Mama. After dear Paul died, we said we would be brother
and sister. I had known him a long time - from a little child. He knew Paul, who
liked him very much; Paul said, almost at the last, Take care of Walter, dear
Papa! I was fond of him! Walter had been brought in to see him, and was there
then - in this room.«
    »And did he take care of Walter?« inquired Edith, sternly.
    »Papa? He appointed him to go abroad. He was drowned in shipwreck on his
voyage,« said Florence, sobbing.
    »Does he know that he is dead?« asked Edith.
    »I cannot tell, Mama. I have no means of knowing. Dear Mama!« cried
Florence, clinging to her as for help, and hiding her face upon her bosom, »I
know that you have seen -«
    »Stay! Stop, Florence.« Edith turned so pale, and spoke so earnestly, that
Florence did not need her restraining hand upon her lips. »Tell me all about
Walter first; let me understand this history all through.«
    Florence related it, and everything belonging to it, even down to the
friendship of Mr. Toots, of whom she could hardly speak in her distress without
a tearful smile, although she was deeply grateful to him. When she had concluded
her account, to the whole of which Edith, holding her hand, listened with close
attention, and when a silence had succeeded, Edith said:
    »What is it that you know I have seen, Florence?«
    »That I am not,« said Florence, with the same mute appeal, and the same
quick concealment of her face as before, »that I am not a favourite child, Mama.
I never have been. I have never known how to be. I have missed the way, and had
no one to show it to me. Oh, let me learn from you how to become dearer to Papa.
Teach me! you, who can so well!« and clinging closer to her, with some broken
fervent words of gratitude and endearment, Florence, relieved of her sad secret,
wept long, but not as painfully as of yore, within the encircling arms of her
new mother.
    Pale even to her lips, and with a face that strove for composure until its
proud beauty was as fixed as death, Edith looked down upon the weeping girl, and
once kissed her. Then gradually disengaging herself, and putting Florence away,
she said, stately, and quiet as a marble image, and in a voice that deepened as
she spoke, but had no other token of emotion in it:
    »Florence, you do not know me! Heaven forbid that you should learn from me!«
    »Not learn from you?« repeated Florence, in surprise.
    »That I should teach you how to love, or be loved, Heaven forbid!« said
Edith. »If you could teach me, that were better; but it is too late. You are
dear to me, Florence. I did not think that anything could ever be so dear to me,
as you are in this little time.«
    She saw that Florence would have spoken here, so checked her with her hand,
and went on.
    »I will be your true friend always. I will cherish you, as much, if not as
well as any one in this world could. You may trust in me - I know it and I say
it, dear, - with the whole confidence even of your pure heart. There are hosts
of women whom he might have married, better and truer in all other respects than
I am, Florence; but there is not one who could come here, his wife, whose heart
could beat with greater truth to you than mine does.«
    »I know it, dear Mama!« cried Florence. »From that first most happy day I
have known it.«
    »Most happy day!« Edith seemed to repeat the words involuntarily, and went
on. »Though the merit is not mine, for I thought little of you until I saw you,
let the undeserved reward be mine in your trust and love. And in this - in this,
Florence; on the first night of my taking up my abode here; I am led on as it is
best I should be, to say it for the first and last time.«
    Florence, without knowing why, felt almost afraid to hear her proceed, but
kept her eyes riveted on the beautiful face so fixed upon her own.
    »Never seek to find in me,« said Edith, laying her hand upon her breast,
»what is not here. Never if you can help it, Florence, fall off from me because
it is not here. Little by little you will know me better, and the time will come
when you will know me, as I know myself. Then, be as lenient to me as you can,
and do not turn to bitterness the only sweet remembrance I shall have.«
    The tears that were visible in her eyes as she kept them fixed on Florence,
showed that the composed face was but as a handsome mask; but she preserved it,
and continued:
    »I have seen what you say, and know how true it is. But believe me - you
will soon, if you cannot now - there is no one on this earth less qualified to
set it right or help you, Florence, than I. Never ask me why, or speak to me
about it or of my husband, more. There should be, so far, a division, and a
silence between us two, like the grave itself.«
    She sat for some time silent; Florence scarcely venturing to breathe
meanwhile, as dim and imperfect shadows of the truth, and all its daily
consequences, chased each other through her terrified, yet incredulous
imagination. Almost as soon as she had ceased to speak, Edith's face began to
subside from its set composure to that quieter and more relenting aspect, which
it usually wore when she and Florence were alone together. She shaded it, after
this change, with her hands; and when she arose, and with an affectionate
embrace bade Florence good night, went quickly, and without looking round.
    But when Florence was in bed, and the room was dark except for the glow of
the fire, Edith returned, and saying that she could not sleep, and that her
dressing-room was lonely, drew a chair upon the hearth, and watched the embers
as they died away. Florence watched them too from her bed, until they, and the
noble figure before them, crowned with its flowing hair, and in its thoughtful
eyes reflecting back their light, became confused and indistinct, and finally
were lost in slumber.
    In her sleep, however, Florence could not lose an undefined impression of
what had so recently passed. It formed the subject of her dreams, and haunted
her; now in one shape, now in another; but always oppressively; and with a sense
of fear. She dreamed of seeking her father in wildernesses, of following his
track up fearful heights, and down into deep mines and caverns; of being charged
with something that would release him from extraordinary suffering - she knew
not what, or why - yet never being able to attain the goal and set him free.
Then she saw him dead, upon that very bed, and in that very room, and knew that
he had never loved her to the last, and fell upon his cold breast, passionately
weeping. Then a prospect opened, and a river flowed, and a plaintive voice she
knew, cried, »It is running on, Floy! It has never stopped! You are moving with
it!« And she saw him at a distance stretching out his arms towards her, while a
figure such as Walter's used to be, stood near him, awfully serene and still. In
every vision, Edith came and went, sometimes to her joy, sometimes to her
sorrow, until they were alone upon the brink of a dark grave, and Edith pointing
down, she looked and saw - what! - another Edith lying at the bottom.
    In the terror of this dream, she cried out and awoke, she thought. A soft
voice seemed to whisper in her ear, »Florence, dear Florence, it is nothing but
a dream!« and stretching out her arms, she returned the caress of her new mama,
who then went out at the door in the light of the grey morning. In a moment,
Florence sat up wondering whether this had really taken place or not; but she
was only certain that it was grey morning indeed, and that the blackened ashes
of the fire were on the hearth, and that she was alone.
    So passed the night on which the happy pair came home.
 

                                 Chapter XXXVI

                                 Housewarming.

Many succeeding days passed in like manner; except that there were numerous
visits received and paid, and that Mrs. Skewton held little levees in her own
apartments, at which Major Bagstock was a frequent attendant, and that Florence
encountered no second look from her father, although she saw him every day. Nor
had she much communication in words with her new mama, who was imperious and
proud to all the house but her - Florence could not but observe that - and who,
although she always sent for her or went to her when she came home from
visiting, and would always go into her room at night, before retiring to rest,
however late the hour, and never lost an opportunity of being with her, was
often her silent and thoughtful companion for a long time together.
    Florence, who had hoped for so much from this marriage, could not help
sometimes comparing the bright house with the faded dreary place out of which it
had arisen, and wondering when, in any shape, it would begin to be a home; for
that it was no home then, for any one, though everything went on luxuriously and
regularly, she had always a secret misgiving. Many an hour of sorrowful
reflection by day and night, and many a tear of blighted hope, Florence bestowed
upon the assurance her new mama had given her so strongly, that there was no one
on the earth more powerless than herself to teach her how to win her father's
heart. And soon Florence began to think - resolved to think would be the truer
phrase - that as no one knew so well, how hopeless of being subdued or changed
her father's coldness to her was, so she had given her this warning, and
forbidden the subject in very compassion. Unselfish here, as in her every act
and fancy, Florence preferred to bear the pain of this new wound, rather than
encourage any faint foreshadowings of the truth as it concerned her father;
tender of him, even in her wandering thoughts. As for his home, she hoped it
would become a better one, when its state of novelty and transition should be
over; and for herself, thought little and lamented less.
    If none of the new family were particularly at home in private, it was
resolved that Mrs. Dombey at least should be at home in public, without delay. A
series of entertainments in celebration of the late nuptials, and in cultivation
of society, were arranged, chiefly by Mr. Dombey and Mrs. Skewton; and it was
settled that the festive proceedings should commence by Mrs. Dombey's being at
home upon a certain evening, and by Mr. and Mrs. Dombey's requesting the honour
of the company of a great many incongruous people to dinner on the same day.
    Accordingly, Mr. Dombey produced a list of sundry eastern magnates who were
to be bidden to this feast on his behalf; to which Mrs. Skewton, acting for her
dearest child, who was haughtily careless on the subject, subjoined a western
list, comprising Cousin Feenix, not yet returned to Baden-Baden, greatly to the
detriment of his personal estate; and a variety of moths of various degrees and
ages, who had, at various times, fluttered round the light of her fair daughter,
or herself, without any lasting injury to their wings. Florence was enrolled as
a member of the dinner-party, by Edith's command - elicited by a moment's doubt
and hesitation on the part of Mrs. Skewton; and Florence, with a wondering
heart, and with a quick instinctive sense of everything that grated on her
father in the least, took her silent share in the proceedings of the day.
    The proceedings commenced by Mr. Dombey, in a cravat of extraordinary height
and stiffness, walking restlessly about the drawing-room until the hour
appointed for dinner; punctual to which, an East India Director, of immense
wealth, in a waistcoat apparently constructed in serviceable deal by some plain
carpenter, but really engendered in the tailor's art, and composed of the
material called nankeen, arrived, and was received by Mr. Dombey alone. The next
stage of the proceedings was Mr. Dombey's sending his compliments to Mrs.
Dombey, with a correct statement of the time; and the next, the East India
Director's falling prostrate, in a conversational point of view, and as Mr.
Dombey was not the man to pick him up, staring at the fire until rescue appeared
in the person of Mrs. Skewton; whom the director, as a pleasant start in life
for the evening, mistook for Mrs. Dombey, and greeted with enthusiasm.
    The next arrival was a Bank Director, reputed to be able to buy up anything
- human Nature generally, if he should take it in his head to influence the
money market in that direction - but who was a wonderfully modest-spoken man,
almost boastfully so, and mentioned his little place at Kingston-upon-Thames,
and its just being barely equal to giving Dombey a bed and a chop, if he would
come and visit it. Ladies, he said, it was not for a man who lived in his quiet
way to take upon himself to invite - but if Mrs. Skewton and her daughter, Mrs.
Dombey, should ever find themselves in that direction, and would do him the
honour to look at a little bit of a shrubbery they would find there, and a poor
little flower-bed or so, and a humble apology for a pinery, and two or three
little attempts of that sort without any pretension, they would distinguish him
very much. Carrying out his character, this gentleman was very plainly dressed,
in a wisp of cambric for a neckcloth, big shoes, a coat that was too loose for
him, and a pair of trousers that were too spare; and mention being made of the
Opera by Mrs. Skewton, he said he very seldom went there, for he couldn't afford
it. It seemed greatly to delight and exhilarate him to say so: and he beamed on
his audience afterwards, with his hands in his pockets, and excessive
satisfaction twinkling in his eyes.
    Now Mrs. Dombey appeared, beautiful and proud, and as disdainful and defiant
of them all as if the bridal wreath upon her head had been a garland of steel
spikes put on to force concession from her which she would die sooner than
yield. With her was Florence. When they entered together, the shadow of the
night of the return again darkened Mr. Dombey's face. But unobserved: for
Florence did not venture to raise her eyes to his, and Edith's indifference was
too supreme to take the least heed of him.
    The arrivals quickly became numerous. More directors, chairmen of public
companies, elderly ladies carrying burdens on their heads for full dress, Cousin
Feenix, Major Bagstock, friends of Mrs. Skewton, with the same bright bloom on
their complexion, and very precious necklaces on very withered necks. Among
these, a young lady of sixty-five, remarkably coolly dressed as to her back and
shoulders, who spoke with an engaging lisp, and whose eyelids wouldn't keep up
well, without a great deal of trouble on her part, and whose manners had that
indefinable charm which so frequently attaches to the giddiness of youth. As the
greater part of Mr. Dombey's list were disposed to be taciturn, and the greater
part of Mrs. Dombey's list were disposed to be talkative, and there was no
sympathy between them, Mrs. Dombey's list, by magnetic agreement, entered into a
bond of union against Mr. Dombey's list, who, wandering about the rooms in a
desolate manner, or seeking refuge in corners, entangled themselves with company
coming in, and became barricaded behind sofas, and had doors opened smartly from
without against their heads, and underwent every sort of discomfiture.
    When dinner was announced, Mr. Dombey took down an old lady like a crimson
velvet pincushion stuffed with bank notes, who might have been the identical old
lady of Thread-needle Street, she was so rich, and looked so unaccommodating;
Cousin Feenix took down Mrs. Dombey; Major Bagstock took down Mrs. Skewton; the
young thing with the shoulders was bestowed, as an extinguisher, upon the East
India Director; and the remaining ladies were left on view in the drawing-room
by the remaining gentlemen, until a forlorn hope volunteered to conduct them
down stairs, and those brave spirits with their captives blocked up the
dining-room door, shutting out seven mild men in the stony-hearted hall. When
all the rest were got in and were seated, one of these mild men still appeared,
in smiling confusion, totally destitute and unprovided for, and escorted by the
butler, made the complete circuit of the table twice before his chair could be
found, which it finally was, on Mrs. Dombey's left hand; after which the mild
man never held up his head again.
    Now, the spacious dining-room, with the company seated round the glittering
table, busy with their glittering spoons, and knives and forks, and plates,
might have been taken for a grown-up exposition of Tom Tiddler's ground, where
children pick up gold and silver. Mr. Dombey, as Tiddler, looked his character
to admiration; and the long plateau of precious metal frosted, separating him
from Mrs. Dombey, whereon frosted Cupids offered scentless flowers to each of
them, was allegorical to see.
    Cousin Feenix was in great force, and looked astonishingly young. But he was
sometimes thoughtless in his good humour - his memory occasionally wandering
like his legs - and on this occasion caused the company to shudder. It happened
thus. The young lady with the back, who regarded Cousin Feenix with sentiments
of tenderness, had entrapped the East India Director into leading her to the
chair next him; in return for which good office, she immediately abandoned the
Director, who, being shaded on the other side by a gloomy black velvet hat
surmounting a bony and speechless female with a fan, yielded to a depression of
spirits and withdrew into himself. Cousin Feenix and the young lady were very
lively and humorous, and the young lady laughed so much at something Cousin
Feenix related to her, that Major Bagstock begged leave to inquire on behalf of
Mrs. Skewton (they were sitting opposite, a little lower down), whether that
might not be considered public property.
    »Why, upon my life,« said Cousin Feenix, »there's nothing in it; it really
is not worth repeating: in point of fact, it's merely an anecdote of Jack Adams.
I dare say my friend Dombey;« for the general attention was concentrated on
Cousin Feenix; »may remember Jack Adams, Jack Adams, not Joe; that was his
brother. Jack - little Jack - man with a cast in his eye, and slight impediment
in his speech - man who sat for somebody's borough. We used to call him in my
parliamentary time W. P. Adams, in consequence of his being Warming Pan for a
young fellow who was in his minority. Perhaps my friend Dombey may have known
the man?«
    Mr. Dombey, who was as likely to have known Guy Fawkes, replied in the
negative. But one of the seven mild men unexpectedly leaped into distinction, by
saying he had known him, and adding - »always wore Hessian boots!«
    »Exactly,« said Cousin Feenix, bending forward to see the mild man, and
smile encouragement at him down the table. »That was Jack. Joe wore -«
    »Tops!« cried the mild man, rising in public estimation every instant.
    »Of course,« said Cousin Feenix, »you were intimate with 'em?«
    »I knew them both,« said the mild man. With whom Mr. Dombey immediately took
wine.
    »Devilish good fellow, Jack!« said Cousin Feenix, again bending forward, and
smiling.
    »Excellent,« returned the mild man, becoming bold on his success. »One of
the best fellows I ever knew.«
    »No doubt you have heard the story?« said Cousin Feenix.
    »I shall know,« replied the bold mild man, »when I have heard your Ludship
tell it.« With that, he leaned back in his chair and smiled at the ceiling, as
knowing it by heart, and being already tickled.
    »In point of fact, it's nothing of a story in itself,« said Cousin Feenix,
addressing the table with a smile, and a gay shake of his head, »and not worth a
word of preface. But it's illustrative of the neatness of Jack's humour. The
fact is, that Jack was invited down to a marriage - which I think took place in
Barkshire?«
    »Shropshire,« said the bold mild man, finding himself appealed to.
    »Was it? Well! In point of fact it might have been in any shire,« said
Cousin Feenix. »So my friend being invited down to this marriage in Anyshire,«
with a pleasant sense of the readiness of this joke, »goes. Just as some of us,
having had the honour of being invited to the marriage of my lovely and
accomplished relative with my friend Dombey, didn't require to be asked twice,
and were devilish glad to be present on so interesting an occasion. - Goes -
Jack goes. Now, this marriage was, in point of fact, the marriage of an
uncommonly fine girl with a man for whom she didn't care a button, but whom she
accepted on account of his property, which was immense. When Jack returned to
town, after the nuptials, a man he knew, meeting him in the lobby of the House
of Commons, says, Well, Jack, how are the ill-matched couple? Ill-matched, says
Jack. Not at all. It's a perfectly fair and equal transaction. She is regularly
bought, and you may take your oath he is as regularly sold!«
    In his full enjoyment of this culminating point of his story, the shudder,
which had gone all round the table like an electric spark, struck Cousin Feenix,
and he stopped. Not a smile occasioned by the only general topic of conversation
broached that day, appeared on any face. A profound silence ensued; and the
wretched mild man, who had been as innocent of any real foreknowledge of the
story as the child unborn, had the exquisite misery of reading in every eye that
he was regarded as the prime mover of the mischief.
    Mr. Dombey's face was not a changeful one, and being cast in its mould of
state that day, showed little other apprehension of the story, if any, than that
which he expressed when he said solemnly, amidst the silence, that it was »Very
good.« There was a rapid glance from Edith towards Florence, but otherwise she
remained, externally, impassive and unconscious.
    Through the various stages of rich meats and wines, continual gold and
silver, dainties of earth, air, fire, and water, heaped-up fruits, and that
unnecessary article in Mr. Dombey's banquets - ice - the dinner slowly made its
way: the later stages being achieved to the sonorous music of incessant double
knocks, announcing the arrival of visitors, whose portion of the feast was
limited to the smell thereof. When Mrs. Dombey rose, it was a sight to see her
lord, with stiff throat and erect head, hold the door open for the withdrawal of
the ladies; and to see how she swept past him with his daughter on her arm.
    Mr. Dombey was a grave sight, behind the decanters, in a state of dignity;
and the East India Director was a forlorn sight near the unoccupied end of the
table, in a state of solitude; and the Major was a military sight, relating
stories of the Duke of York to six of the seven mild men (the ambitious one was
utterly quenched); and the Bank Director was a lowly sight, making a plan of his
little attempt at a pinery, with dessert-knives, for a group of admirers; and
Cousin Feenix was a thoughtful sight, as he smoothed his long wristbands and
stealthily adjusted his wig. But all these sights were of short duration, being
speedily broken up by coffee, and the desertion of the room.
    There was a throng in the state-rooms up stairs, increasing every minute;
but still Mr. Dombey's list of visitors appeared to have some native
impossibility of amalgamation with Mrs. Dombey's list, and no one could have
doubted which was which. The single exception to this rule perhaps was Mr.
Carker, who now smiled among the company, and who, as he stood in the circle
that was gathered about Mrs. Dombey - watchful of her, of them, his chief,
Cleopatra and the Major, Florence, and everything around - appeared at ease with
both divisions of guests, and not marked as exclusively belonging to either.
    Florence had a dread of him, which made his presence in the room a nightmare
to her. She could not avoid the recollection of it, for her eyes were drawn
towards him every now and then, by an attraction of dislike and distrust that
she could not resist. Yet her thoughts were busy with other things; for as she
sat apart - not unadmired or unsought, but in the gentleness of her quiet spirit
- she felt how little part her father had in what was going on, and saw, with
pain, how ill at ease he seemed to be, and how little regarded he was as he
lingered about near the door, for those visitors whom he wished to distinguish
with particular attention, and took them up to introduce them to his wife, who
received them with proud coldness, but showed no interest or wish to please, and
never, after the bare ceremony of reception, in consultation of his wishes, or
in welcome of his friends, opened her lips. It was not the less perplexing or
painful to Florence, that she who acted thus, treated her so kindly and with
such loving consideration, that it almost seemed an ungrateful return on her
part even to know of what was passing before her eyes.
    Happy Florence would have been, might she have ventured to bear her father
company, by so much as a look: and happy Florence was, in little suspecting the
main cause of his uneasiness. But afraid of seeming to know that he was placed
at any disadvantage, lest he should be resentful of that knowledge; and divided
between her impulse towards him, and her grateful affection for Edith; she
scarcely dared to raise her eyes towards either. Anxious and unhappy for them
both, the thought stole on her through the crowd, that it might have been better
for them if this noise of tongues and tread of feet had never come there, - if
the old dullness and decay had never been replaced by novelty and splendour, - if
the neglected child had found no friend in Edith, but had lived her solitary
life, unpitied and forgotten.
    Mrs. Chick had some such thoughts too, but they were not so quietly
developed in her mind. This good matron had been outraged in the first instance
by not receiving an invitation to dinner. That blow partially recovered, she had
gone to a vast expense to make such a figure before Mrs. Dombey at home, as
should dazzle the senses of that lady, and heap mortification, mountains high,
on the head of Mrs. Skewton.
    »But I am made,« said Mrs. Chick to Mr. Chick, »of no more account than
Florence! Who takes the smallest notice of me? No one!«
    »No one, my dear,« assented Mr. Chick, who was seated by the side of Mrs.
Chick against the wall, and could console himself, even there, by softly
whistling.
    »Does it at all appear as if I was wanted here?« exclaimed Mrs. Chick, with
flashing eyes.
    »No, my dear, I don't think it does,« said Mr. Chick.
    »Paul's mad!« said Mrs. Chick.
    Mr. Chick whistled.
    »Unless you are a monster, which I sometimes think you are,« said Mrs. Chick
with candour, »don't sit there humming tunes. How any one with the most distant
feelings of a man, can see that mother-in-law of Paul's, dressed as she is,
going on like that, with Major Bagstock, for whom, among other precious things,
we are indebted to your Lucretia Tox -«
    »My Lucretia Tox, my dear!« said Mr. Chick, astounded.
    »Yes,« retorted Mrs. Chick, with great severity, »your Lucretia Tox - I say
how anybody can see that mother-in-law of Paul's, and that haughty wife of
Paul's, and these indecent old frights with their backs and shoulders, and in
short this at home generally, and hum -,« on which word Mrs. Chick laid a
scornful emphasis that made Mr. Chick start, »is, I thank Heaven, a mystery to
me!«
    Mr. Chick screwed his mouth into a form irreconcilable with humming or
whistling, and looked very contemplative.
    »But I hope I know what is due to myself,« said Mrs. Chick, swelling with
indignation, »though Paul has forgotten what is due to me. I am not going to sit
here, a member of this family, to be taken no notice of. I am not the dirt under
Mrs. Dombey's feet, yet - not quite yet,« said Mrs. Chick, as if she expected to
become so, about the day after to-morrow. »And I shall go. I will not say
(whatever I may think) that this affair has been got up solely to degrade and
insult me. I shall merely go. I shall not be missed!«
    Mrs. Chick rose erect with these words, and took the arm of Mr. Chick, who
escorted her from the room, after half an hour's shady sojourn there. And it is
due to her penetration to observe that she certainly was not missed at all.
    But she was not the only indignant guest; for Mr. Dombey's list (still
constantly in difficulties) were, as a body, indignant with Mrs. Dombey's list,
for looking at them through eye-glasses, and audibly wondering who all those
people were; while Mrs. Dombey's list complained of weariness, and the young
thing with the shoulders, deprived of the attentions of that gay youth Cousin
Feenix (who went away from the dinner-table), confidentially alleged to thirty
or forty friends that she was bored to death. All the old ladies with the
burdens on their heads, had greater or less cause of complaint against Mrs.
Dombey; and the Directors and Chairmen coincided in thinking that if Dombey must
marry, he had better have married somebody nearer his own age, not quite so
handsome, and a little better off. The general opinion among this class of
gentlemen was, that it was a weak thing in Dombey, and he'd live to repent it.
Hardly anybody there, except the mild men, stayed, or went away, without
considering himself or herself neglected and aggrieved by Mr. Dombey or Mrs.
Dombey; and the speechless female in the black velvet hat was found to have been
stricken mute, because the lady in the crimson velvet had been handed down
before her. The nature even of the mild men got corrupted, either from their
curdling it with too much lemonade, or from the general inoculation that
prevailed; and they made sarcastic jokes to one another, and whispered
disparagement on stairs and in bye-places. The general dissatisfaction and
discomfort so diffused itself, that the assembled footmen in the hall were as
well acquainted with it as the company above. Nay, the very linkmen outside got
hold of it, and compared the party to a funeral out of mourning, with none of
the company remembered in the will.
    At last, the guests were all gone, and the linkmen too; and the street,
crowded so long with carriages, was clear; and the dying lights showed no one in
the rooms, but Mr. Dombey and Mr. Carker, who were talking together apart, and
Mrs. Dombey and her mother: the former seated on an ottoman; the latter
reclining in the Cleopatra attitude, awaiting the arrival of her maid. Mr.
Dombey having finished his communication to Carker, the latter advanced
obsequiously to take leave.
    »I trust,« he said, »that the fatigues of this delightful evening will not
inconvenience Mrs. Dombey to-morrow.«
    »Mrs. Dombey,« said Mr. Dombey, advancing, »has sufficiently spared herself
fatigue, to relieve you from any anxiety of that kind. I regret to say, Mrs.
Dombey, that I could have wished you had fatigued yourself a little more on this
occasion.«
    She looked at him with a supercilious glance, that it seemed not worth her
while to protract, and turned away her eyes without speaking.
    »I am sorry, Madam,« said Mr. Dombey, »that you should not have thought it
your duty -«
    She looked at him again.
    »Your duty, Madam,« pursued Mr. Dombey, »to have received my friends with a
little more deference. Some of those whom you have been pleased to slight
to-night in a very marked manner, Mrs. Dombey, confer a distinction upon you, I
must tell you, in any visit they pay you.«
    »Do you know that there is some one here?« she returned, now looking at him
steadily.
    »No! Carker! I beg that you do not. I insist that you do not,« cried Mr.
Dombey, stopping that noiseless gentleman in his withdrawal. »Mr. Carker, Madam,
as you know, possesses my confidence. He is as well acquainted as myself with
the subject on which I speak. I beg to tell you, for your information, Mrs.
Dombey, that I consider these wealthy and important persons confer a distinction
upon me:« and Mr. Dombey drew himself up, as having now rendered them of the
highest possible importance.
    »I ask you,« she repeated, bending her disdainful, steady gaze upon him, »do
you know that there is some one here, Sir?«
    »I must entreat,« said Mr. Carker, stepping forward, »I must beg, I must
demand, to be released. Slight and unimportant as this difference is -«
    Mrs. Skewton, who had been intent upon her daughter's face, took him up
here.
    »My sweetest Edith,« she said, »and my dearest Dombey; our excellent friend
Mr. Carker, for so I am sure I ought to mention him -«
    Mr. Carker murmured, »Too much honour.«
    »- has used the very words that were in my mind, and that I have been dying,
these ages, for an opportunity of introducing. Slight and unimportant! My
sweetest Edith, and my dearest Dombey, do we not know that any difference
between you two - No, Flowers; not now.«
    Flowers was the maid, who, finding gentlemen present, retreated with
precipitation.
    »That any difference between you two,« resumed Mrs. Skewton, »with the Heart
you possess in common, and the excessively charming bond of feeling that there
is between you, must be slight and unimportant? What words could better define
the fact? None. Therefore I am glad to take this slight occasion - this trifling
occasion, that is so replete with Nature, and your individual characters, and
all that - so truly calculated to bring the tears into a parent's eyes - to say
that I attach no importance to them in the least, except as developing these
minor elements of Soul; and that, unlike most mamas-in-law (that odious phrase,
dear Dombey!) as they have been represented to me to exist in this I fear too
artificial world, I never shall attempt to interpose between you, at such a
time, and never can much regret, after all, such little flashes of the torch of
What's-his-name - not Cupid, but the other delightful creature.«
    There was a sharpness in the good mother's glance at both her children as
she spoke, that may have been expressive of a direct and well-considered purpose
hidden between these rambling words. That purpose, providently to detach herself
in the beginning from all the clankings of their chain that were to come, and to
shelter herself with the fiction of her innocent belief in their mutual
affection, and their adaptation to each other.
    »I have pointed out to Mrs. Dombey,« said Mr. Dombey, in his most stately
manner, »that in her conduct thus early in our married life, to which I object,
and which, I request, may be corrected. Carker,« with a nod of dismissal, »good
night to you!«
    Mr. Carker bowed to the imperious form of the Bride, whose sparkling eye was
fixed upon her husband; and stopping at Cleopatra's couch on his way out, raised
to his lips the hand she graciously extended to him, in lowly and admiring
homage.
    If his handsome wife had reproached him, or even changed countenance, or
broken the silence in which she remained, by one word, now that they were alone
(for Cleopatra made off with all speed), Mr. Dombey would have been equal to
some assertion of his case against her. But the intense, unutterable, withering
scorn, with which, after looking upon him, she dropped her eyes, as if he were
too worthless and indifferent to her to be challenged with a syllable - the
ineffable disdain and haughtiness in which she sat before him - the cold
inflexible resolve with which her every feature seemed to bear him down, and put
him by - these, he had no resource against; and he left her, with her whole
overbearing beauty concentrated on despising him.
    Was he coward enough to watch her, an hour afterwards, on the old well
staircase, where he had once seen Florence in the moonlight, toiling up with
Paul? Or was he in the dark by accident, when, looking up, he saw her coming,
with a light, from the room where Florence lay, and marked again the face so
changed, which he could not subdue?
    But it could never alter as his own did. It never, in its utmost pride and
passion, knew the shadow that had fallen on his, in the dark corner, on the
night of the return; and often since; and which deepened on it now as he looked
up.
 

                                 Chapter XXXVII

                            More Warnings Than One.

Florence, Edith, and Mrs. Skewton were together next day, and the carriage was
waiting at the door to take them out. For Cleopatra had her galley again now,
and Withers, no longer the wan, stood upright in a pigeon-breasted jacket and
military trousers, behind her wheel-less chair at dinner-time, and butted no
more. The hair of Withers was radiant with pomatum, in these days of down, and
he wore kid gloves and smelt of the water of Cologne.
    They were assembled in Cleopatra's room. The Serpent of old Nile (not to
mention her disrespectfully) was reposing on her sofa, sipping her morning
chocolate at three o'clock in the afternoon, and Flowers the Maid was fastening
on her youthful cuffs and frills, and performing a kind of private coronation
ceremony on her, with a peach-coloured velvet bonnet; the artificial roses in
which nodded to uncommon advantage, as the palsy trifled with them, like a
breeze.
    »I think I am a little nervous this morning, Flowers,« said Mrs. Skewton.
»My hand quite shakes.«
    »You were the life of the party last night, Ma'am, you know,« returned
Flowers, »and you suffer for it, to-day, you see.«
    Edith, who had beckoned Florence to the window, and was looking out, with
her back turned on the toilet of her esteemed mother, suddenly withdrew from it,
as if it had lightened.
    »My darling child,« cried Cleopatra, languidly, »you are not nervous? Don't
tell me, my dear Edith, that you, so enviably self-possessed, are beginning to
be a martyr too, like your unfortunately constituted mother! Withers, some one
at the door.«
    »Card, Ma'am,« said Withers, taking it towards Mrs. Dombey.
    »I am going out,« she said without looking at it.
    »My dear love,« drawled Mrs. Skewton, »how very odd to send that message
without seeing the name! Bring it here, Withers. Dear me, my love; Mr. Carker,
too! That very sensible person!«
    »I am going out,« repeated Edith, in so imperious a tone that Withers, going
to the door, imperiously informed the servant who was waiting, »Mrs. Dombey is
going out. Get along with you,« and shut it on him.
    But the servant came back after a short absence, and whispered to Withers
again, who once more, and not very willingly, presented himself before Mrs.
Dombey.
    »If you please, Ma'am, Mr. Carker sends his respectful compliments, and begs
you would spare him one minute, if you could - for business, Ma'am, if you
please.«
    »Really, my love,« said Mrs. Skewton in her mildest manner; for her
daughter's face was threatening; »if you would allow me to offer a word, I
should recommend -«
    »Show him this way,« said Edith. As Withers disappeared to execute the
command, she added, frowning on her mother, »As he comes at your recommendation,
let him come to your room.«
    »May I - shall I go away?« asked Florence, hurriedly.
    Edith nodded yes, but on her way to the door Florence met the visitor coming
in. With the same disagreeable mixture of familiarity and forbearance with which
he had first addressed her, he addressed her now in his softest manner - hoped
she was quite well - needed not to ask, with such looks to anticipate the answer
- had scarcely had the honour to know her, last night, she was so greatly
changed - and held the door open for her to pass out; with a secret sense of
power in her shrinking from him, that all the deference and politeness of his
manner could not quite conceal.
    He then bowed himself for a moment over Mrs. Skewton's condescending hand,
and lastly bowed to Edith. Coldly returning his salute without looking at him,
and neither seating herself nor inviting him to be seated, she waited for him to
speak.
    Entrenched in her pride and power, and with all the obduracy of her spirit
summoned about her, still her old conviction that she and her mother had been
known by this man in their worst colours, from their first acquaintance; that
every degradation she had suffered in her own eyes was as plain to him as to
herself; that he read her life as though it were a vile book, and fluttered the
leaves before her in slight looks and tones of voice which no one else could
detect; weakened and undermined her. Proudly as she opposed herself to him, with
her commanding face exacting his humility, her disdainful lip repulsing him, her
bosom angry at his intrusion, and the dark lashes of her eyes sullenly veiling
their light, that no ray of it might shine upon him - and submissively as he
stood before her, with an entreating injured manner, but with complete
submission to her will - she knew, in her own soul, that the cases were
reversed, and that the triumph and superiority were his, and that he knew it
full well.
    »I have presumed,« said Mr. Carker, »to solicit an interview, and I have
ventured to describe it as being one of business, because -«
    »Perhaps you are charged by Mr. Dombey with some message of reproof,« said
Edith. »You possess Mr. Dombey's confidence in such an unusual degree, Sir, that
you would scarcely surprise me if that were your business.«
    »I have no message to the lady who sheds a lustre upon his name,« said Mr.
Carker. »But I entreat that lady, on my own behalf, to be just to a very humble
claimant for justice at her hands - a mere dependant of Mr. Dombey's - which is
a position of humility; and to reflect upon my perfect helplessness last night,
and the impossibility of my avoiding the share that was forced upon me in a very
painful occasion.«
    »My dearest Edith,« hinted Cleopatra in a low voice, as she held her
eye-glass aside, »really very charming of Mr. What's-his-name. And full of
heart!«
    »For I do,« said Mr. Carker, appealing to Mrs. Skewton with a look of
grateful deference, - »I do venture to call it a painful occasion, though merely
because it was so to me, who had the misfortune to be present. So slight a
difference, as between the principals - between those who love each other with
disinterested devotion, and would make any sacrifice of self, in such a cause -
is nothing. As Mrs. Skewton herself expressed, with so much truth and feeling
last night, it is nothing.«
    Edith could not look at him, but she said after a few moments,
    »And your business, Sir -«
    »Edith, my pet,« said Mrs. Skewton, »all this time Mr. Carker is standing!
My dear Mr. Carker, take a seat, I beg.«
    He offered no reply to the mother, but fixed his eyes on the proud daughter,
as though he would only be bidden by her, and was resolved to be bidden by her.
Edith, in spite of herself, sat down, and slightly motioned with her hand to him
to be seated too. No action could be colder, haughtier, more insolent in its air
of supremacy and disrespect, but she had struggled against even that concession
ineffectually, and it was wrested from her. That was enough! Mr. Carker sat
down.
    »May I be allowed, Madam,« said Carker, turning his white teeth on Mrs.
Skewton like a light - »a lady of your excellent sense and quick feeling will
give me credit, for good reason, I am sure - to address what I have to say, to
Mrs. Dombey, and to leave her to impart it to you who are her best and dearest
friend - next to Mr. Dombey?«
    Mrs. Skewton would have retired, but Edith stopped her. Edith would have
stopped him too, and indignantly ordered him to speak openly or not at all, but
that he said, in a low-voice - »Miss Florence - the young lady who has just left
the room -«
    Edith suffered him to proceed. She looked at him now. As he bent forward, to
be nearer, with the utmost show of delicacy and respect, and with his teeth
persuasively arrayed, in a self-depreciating smile, she felt as if she could
have struck him dead.
    »Miss Florence's position,« he began, »has been an unfortunate one. I have a
difficulty in alluding to it to you, whose attachment to her father is naturally
watchful and jealous of every word that applies to him.« Always distinct and
soft in speech, no language could describe the extent of his distinctness and
softness, when he said these words, or came to any others of a similar import.
»But, as one who is devoted to Mr. Dombey in his different way, and whose life
is passed in admiration of Mr. Dombey's character, may I say, without offence to
your tenderness as a wife, that Miss Florence has unhappily been neglected - by
her father? May I say by her father?«
    Edith replied, »I know it.«
    »You know it!« said Mr. Carker, with a great appearance of relief. »It
removes a mountain from my breast. May I hope you know how the neglect
originated; in what an amiable phase of Mr. Dombey's pride - character I mean?«
    »You may pass that by, Sir,« she returned, »and come the sooner to the end
of what you have to say.«
    »Indeed, I am sensible, Madam,« replied Carker, - »trust me, I am deeply
sensible, that Mr. Dombey can require no justification in anything to you. But,
kindly judge of my breast by your own, and you will forgive my interest in him,
if in its excess, it goes at all astray.«
    What a stab to her proud heart, to sit there, face to face with him, and
have him tendering her false oath at the altar again and again for her
acceptance, and pressing it upon her like the dregs of a sickening cup she could
not own her loathing of, or turn away from! How shame, remorse, and passion
raged within her, when, upright and majestic in her beauty before him, she knew
that in her spirit she was down at his feet!
    »Miss Florence,« said Carker, »left to the care - if one may call it care -
of servants and mercenary people, in every way her inferiors, necessarily wanted
some guide and compass in her younger days, and, naturally, for want of them,
has been indiscreet, and has in some degree forgotten her station. There was
some folly about one Walter, a common lad, who is fortunately dead now: and some
very undesirable association, I regret to say, with certain coasting sailors, of
anything but good repute, and a runaway old bankrupt.«
    »I have heard the circumstances, Sir,« said Edith, flashing her disdainful
glance upon him, »and I know that you pervert them. You may not know it, I hope
so.«
    »Pardon me,« said Mr. Carker, »I believe that nobody knows them so well as
I. Your generous and ardent nature, Madam - the same nature which is so nobly
imperative in vindication of your beloved and honoured husband, and which has
blessed him as even his merits deserve - I must respect, defer to, bow before.
But, as regards the circumstances, which is indeed the business I presumed to
solicit your attention to, I can have no doubt, since, in the execution of my
trust as Mr. Dombey's confidential - I presume to say - friend, I have fully
ascertained them. In my execution of that trust; in my deep concern, which you
can so well understand, for everything relating to him, intensified, if you will
(for I fear I labour under your displeasure), by the lower motive of desire to
prove my diligence, and make myself the more acceptable; I have long pursued
these circumstances by myself and trustworthy instruments, and have innumerable
and most minute proofs.«
    She raised her eyes no higher than his mouth, but she saw the means of
mischief vaunted in every tooth it contained.
    »Pardon me, Madam,« he continued, »if in my perplexity, I presume to take
counsel with you, and to consult your pleasure. I think I have observed that you
are greatly interested in Miss Florence?«
    What was there in her he had not observed, and did not know? Humbled and yet
maddened by the thought, in every new presentment of it, however faint, she
pressed her teeth upon her quivering lip to force composure on it, and distantly
inclined her head in reply.
    »This interest, Madam - so touching an evidence of everything associated
with Mr. Dombey being dear to you - induces me to pause before I make him
acquainted with these circumstances, which, as yet, he does not know. It so far
shakes me, if I may make the confession, in my allegiance, that on the
intimation of the least desire to that effect from you, I would suppress them.«
    Edith raised her head quickly, and starting back, bent her dark glance upon
him. He met it with his blandest and most deferential smile, and went on.
    »You say that as I describe them, they are perverted. I fear not - I fear
not: but let us assume that they are. The uneasiness I have for some time felt
on the subject, arises in this: that the mere circumstance of such association
often repeated, on the part of Miss Florence, however innocently and
confidingly, would be conclusive with Mr. Dombey, already predisposed against
her, and would lead him to take some step (I know he has occasionally
contemplated it) of separation and alienation of her from his home. Madam, bear
with me, and remember my intercourse with Mr. Dombey, and my knowledge of him,
and my reverence for him, almost from childhood, when I say that if he has a
fault, it is a lofty stubbornness, rooted in that noble pride and sense of power
which belong to him, and which we must all defer to; which is not assailable
like the obstinacy of other characters; and which grows upon itself from day to
day, and year to year.«
    She bent her glance upon him still; but, look as steadfast as she would, her
haughty nostrils dilated, and her breath came somewhat deeper, and her lip would
slightly curl, as he described that in his patron to which they must all bow
down. He saw it; and though his expression did not change, she knew he saw it.
    »Even so slight an incident as last night's,« he said, »if I might refer to
it once more, would serve to illustrate my meaning, better than a greater one.
Dombey and Son know neither time, nor place, nor season, but bear them all down.
But I rejoice in its occurrence, for it has opened the way for me to approach
Mrs. Dombey with this subject to-day, even if it has entailed upon me the
penalty of her temporary displeasure. Madam, in the midst of my uneasiness and
apprehension on this subject, I was summoned by Mr. Dombey to Leamington. There
I saw you. There I could not help knowing what relation you would shortly occupy
towards him - to his enduring happiness and yours. There I resolved to await the
time of your establishment at home here, and to do as I have now done. I have,
at heart, no fear that I shall be wanting in my duty to Mr. Dombey, if I bury
what I know in your breast; for where there is but one heart and mind between
two persons - as in such a marriage - one almost represents the other. I can
acquit my conscience therefore, almost equally, by confidence, on such a theme,
in you or him. For the reasons I have mentioned I would select you. May I aspire
to the distinction of believing that my confidence is accepted, and that I am
relieved from my responsibility?«
    He long remembered the look she gave him - who could see it, and forget it?
- and the struggle that ensued within her. At last she said:
    »I accept it, Sir. You will please to consider this matter at an end, and
that it goes no farther.«
    He bowed low, and rose. She rose too, and he took leave with all humility.
But Withers, meeting him on the stairs, stood amazed at the beauty of his teeth,
and at his brilliant smile; and as he rode away upon his white-legged horse, the
people took him for a dentist, such was the dazzling show he made. The people
took her, when she rode out in her carriage presently, for a great lady, as
happy as she was rich and fine. But they had not seen her, just before, in her
own room with no one by; and they had not heard her utterance of the three
words, »Oh Florence, Florence!«
    Mrs. Skewton, reposing on her sofa, and sipping her chocolate, had heard
nothing but the low word business, for which she had a mortal aversion, insomuch
that she had long banished it from her vocabulary, and had gone nigh, in a
charming manner and with an immense amount of heart, to say nothing of soul, to
ruin divers milliners and others in consequence. Therefore Mrs. Skewton asked no
questions, and showed no curiosity. Indeed, the peach-velvet bonnet gave her
sufficient occupation out of doors; for being perched on the back of her head,
and the day being rather windy, it was frantic to escape from Mrs. Skewton's
company, and would be coaxed into no sort of compromise. When the carriage was
closed, and the wind shut out, the palsy played among the artificial roses again
like an almshouse-full of superannuated zephyrs; and altogether Mrs. Skewton had
enough to do, and got on but indifferently.
    She got on no better towards night; for when Mrs. Dombey, in her
dressing-room, had been dressed and waiting for her half an hour, and Mr.
Dombey, in the drawing-room, had paraded himself into a state of solemn
fretfulness (they were all three going out to dinner), Flowers the Maid appeared
with a pale face to Mrs. Dombey, saying:
    »If you please, Ma'am, I beg your pardon, but I can't do nothing with
Missis!«
    »What do you mean?« asked Edith.
    »Well, Ma'am,« replied the frightened maid, »I hardly know. She's making
faces!«
    Edith hurried with her to her mother's room. Cleopatra was arrayed in full
dress, with the diamonds, short sleeves, rouge, curls, teeth, and other
juvenility all complete; but Paralysis was not to be deceived, had known her for
the object of its errand, and had struck her at her glass, where she lay like a
horrible doll that had tumbled down.
    They took her to pieces in very shame, and put the little of her that was
real on a bed. Doctors were sent for, and soon came. Powerful remedies were
resorted to; opinions given that she would rally from this shock, but would not
survive another; and there she lay speechless, and staring at the ceiling for
days; sometimes making inarticulate sounds in answer to such questions as did
she know who were present, and the like: sometimes giving no reply either by
sign or gesture, or in her unwinking eyes.
    At length she began to recover consciousness, and in some degree the power
of motion, though not yet of speech. One day the use of her right hand returned;
and showing it to her maid who was in attendance on her, and appearing very
uneasy in her mind, she made signs for a pencil and some paper. This the maid
immediately provided, thinking she was going to make a will, or write some last
request; and Mrs. Dombey being from home, the maid awaited the result with
solemn feelings.
    After much painful scrawling and erasing, and putting in of wrong
characters, which seemed to tumble out of the pencil of their own accord, the
old woman produced this document:
    »Rose-coloured curtains.«
    The maid being perfectly transfixed, and with tolerable reason, Cleopatra
amended the manuscript by adding two words more, when it stood thus:
    »Rose-coloured curtains for doctors.«
    The maid now perceived remotely that she wished these articles to be
provided for the better presentation of her complexion to the faculty; and as
those in the house who knew her best, had no doubt of the correctness of this
opinion, which she was soon able to establish for herself, the rose-coloured
curtains were added to her bed, and she mended with increased rapidity from that
hour. She was soon able to sit up, in curls and a laced cap and night-gown, and
to have a little artificial bloom dropped into the hollow caverns of her cheeks.
    It was a tremendous sight to see this old woman in her finery leering and
mincing at Death, and playing off her youthful tricks upon him as if he had been
the Major; but an alteration in her mind that ensued on the paralytic stroke was
fraught with as much matter for reflection, and was quite as ghastly.
    Whether the weakening of her intellect made her more cunning and false than
before, or whether it confused her between what she had assumed to be and what
she really had been, or whether it had awakened any glimmering of remorse, which
could neither struggle into light nor get back into total darkness, or whether,
in the jumble of her faculties, a combination of these effects had been shaken
up, which is perhaps the more likely supposition, the result was this: - That
she became hugely exacting in respect of Edith's affection and gratitude and
attention to her; highly laudatory of herself as a most inestimable parent; and
very jealous of having any rival in Edith's regard. Further, in place of
remembering that compact made between them for an avoidance of the subject, she
constantly alluded to her daughter's marriage as a proof of her being an
incomparable mother; and all this, with the weakness and peevishness of such a
state, always serving for a sarcastic commentary on her levity and youthfulness.
    »Where is Mrs. Dombey?« she would say to her maid.
    »Gone out, Ma'am.«
    »Gone out! Does she go out to shun her mama, Flowers?«
    »La bless you, no, Ma'am. Mrs. Dombey has only gone out for a ride with Miss
Florence.«
    »Miss Florence. Who's Miss Florence? Don't tell me about Miss Florence.
What's Miss Florence to her, compared to me?«
    The apposite display of the diamonds, or the peach-velvet bonnet (she sat in
the bonnet to receive visitors, weeks before she could stir out of doors), or
the dressing of her up in some gaud or other, usually stopped the tears that
began to flow hereabouts; and she would remain in a complacent state until Edith
came to see her; when, at a glance of the proud face, she would relapse again.
    »Well, I am sure, Edith!« she would cry, shaking her head.
    »What is the matter, mother?«
    »Matter! I really don't know what is the matter. The world is coming to such
an artificial and ungrateful state, that I begin to think there's no Heart - or
anything of that sort - left in it, positively. Withers is more a child to me
than you are. He attends to me much more than my own daughter. I almost wish I
didn't look so young - and all that kind of thing - and then perhaps I should be
more considered.«
    »What would you have, mother?«
    »Oh, a great deal, Edith,« impatiently.
    »Is there anything you want that you have not? It is your own fault if there
be.«
    »My own fault!« beginning to whimper. »The parent I have been to you, Edith:
making you a companion from your cradle! And when you neglect me, and have no
more natural affection for me than if I was a stranger - not a twentieth part of
the affection that you have for Florence - but I am only your mother, and should
corrupt her in a day! - you reproach me with its being my own fault.«
    »Mother, mother, I reproach you with nothing. Why will you always dwell on
this?«
    »Isn't it natural that I should dwell on this, when I am all affection and
sensitiveness, and am wounded in the cruelest way, whenever you look at me?«
    »I do not mean to wound you, mother. Have you no remembrance of what has
been said between us? Let the Past rest.«
    »Yes, rest! And let gratitude to me rest; and let affection for me rest; and
let me rest in my out-of-the-way room, with no society and no attention, while
you find new relations to make much of, who have no earthly claim upon you! Good
gracious, Edith, do you know what an elegant establishment you are at the head
of?«
    »Yes. Hush!«
    »And that gentlemanly creature, Dombey? Do you know that you are married to
him, Edith, and that you have a settlement, and a position, and a carriage, and
I don't know what?«
    »Indeed, I know it, mother; well.«
    »As you would have had with that delightful good soul - what did they call
him? - Granger - if he hadn't died. And who have you to thank for all this,
Edith?«
    »You, mother; you.«
    »Then put your arms round my neck, and kiss me; and show me, Edith, that you
know there never was a better mama than I have been to you. And don't let me
become a perfect fright with teasing and wearing myself at your ingratitude, or
when I'm out again in society no soul will know me, not even that hateful
animal, the Major.«
    But, sometimes, when Edith went nearer to her, and bending down her stately
head, put her cold cheek to hers, the mother would draw back as if she were
afraid of her, and would fall into a fit of trembling, and cry out that there
was a wandering in her wits. And sometimes she would entreat her, with humility,
to sit down on the chair beside her bed, and would look at her (as she sat there
brooding) with a face that even the rose-coloured curtains could not make
otherwise than seared and wild.
    The rose-coloured curtains blushed, in course of time, on Cleopatra's bodily
recovery, and on her dress - more juvenile than ever to repair the ravages of
illness - and on the rouge, and on the teeth, and on the curls, and on the
diamonds, and the short sleeves, and the whole wardrobe of the doll that had
tumbled down before the mirror. They blushed, too, now and then, upon an
indistinctness in her speech which she turned off with a girlish giggle, and on
an occasional failing in her memory, that had no rule in it, but came and went
fantastically, as if in mockery of her fantastic self.
    But they never blushed upon a change in the new manner of her thought and
speech towards her daughter. And though that daughter often came within their
influence, they never blushed upon her loveliness irradiated by a smile, or
softened by the light of filial love, in its stern beauty.
 

                                Chapter XXXVIII

                     Miss Tox Improves an Old Acquaintance.

The forlorn Miss Tox, abandoned by her friend Louisa Chick, and bereft of Mr.
Dombey's countenance - for no delicate pair of wedding cards, united by a silver
thread, graced the chimney-glass in Princess's Place, or the harpsichord, or any
of those little posts of display which Lucretia reserved for holiday occupation
- became depressed in her spirits, and suffered much from melancholy. For a time
the Bird Waltz was unheard in Princess's Place, the plants were neglected, and
dust collected on the miniature of Miss Tox's ancestor with the powdered head
and pigtail.
    Miss Tox, however, was not of an age or of a disposition long to abandon
herself to unavailing regrets. Only two notes of the harpsichord were dumb from
disuse when the Bird Waltz again warbled and trilled in the crooked
drawing-room: only one slip of geranium fell a victim to imperfect nursing,
before she was gardening at her green baskets again, regularly every morning;
the powdered-headed ancestor had not been under a cloud for more than six weeks,
when Miss Tox breathed on his benignant visage, and polished him up with a piece
of wash-leather.
    Still, Miss Tox was lonely, and at a loss. Her attachments, however
ludicrously shown, were real and strong; and she was, as she expressed it,
»deeply hurt by the unmerited contumely she had met with from Louisa.« But there
was no such thing as anger in Miss Tox's composition. If she had ambled on
through life, in her soft-spoken way, without any opinions, she had, at least,
got so far without any harsh passions. The mere sight of Louisa Chick in the
street one day, at a considerable distance, so overpowered her milky nature,
that she was fain to seek immediate refuge in a pastrycook's, and there, in a
musty little back room usually devoted to the consumption of soups, and pervaded
by an ox-tail atmosphere, relieve her feelings by weeping plentifully.
    Against Mr. Dombey Miss Tox hardly felt that she had any reason of
complaint. Her sense of that gentleman's magnificence was such, that once
removed from him, she felt as if her distance always had been immeasurable, and
as if he had greatly condescended in tolerating her at all. No wife could be too
handsome or too stately for him, according to Miss Tox's sincere opinion. It was
perfectly natural that in looking for one, he should look high. Miss Tox with
tears laid down this proposition, and fully admitted it, twenty times a day. She
never recalled the lofty manner in which Mr. Dombey had made her subservient to
his convenience and caprices, and had graciously permitted her to be one of the
nurses of his little son. She only thought, in her own words, »that she had
passed a great many happy hours in that house, which she must ever remember with
gratification, and that she could never cease to regard Mr. Dombey as one of the
most impressive and dignified of men.«
    Cut off, however, from the implacable Louisa, and being shy of the Major
(whom she viewed with some distrust now), Miss Tox found it very irksome to know
nothing of what was going on in Mr. Dombey's establishment. And as she really
had got into the habit of considering Dombey and Son as the pivot on which the
world in general turned, she resolved, rather than be ignorant of intelligence
which so strongly interested her, to cultivate her old acquaintance, Mrs.
Richards, who she knew, since her last memorable appearance before Mr. Dombey,
was in the habit of sometimes holding communication with his servants. Perhaps
Miss Tox, in seeking out the Toodle family, had the tender motive hidden in her
breast of having somebody to whom she could talk about Mr. Dombey, no matter how
humble that somebody might be.
    At all events, towards the Toodle habitation Miss Tox directed her steps one
evening, what time Mr. Toodle, cindery and swart, was refreshing himself with
tea, in the bosom of his family. Mr. Toodle had only three stages of existence.
He was either taking refreshment in the bosom just mentioned, or he was tearing
through the country at from twenty-five to fifty miles an hour, or he was
sleeping after his fatigues. He was always in a whirlwind or a calm, and a
peaceable, contented, easy-going man Mr. Toodle was in either state, who seemed
to have made over all his own inheritance of fuming and fretting to the engines
with which he was connected, which panted, and gasped, and chafed, and wore
themselves out, in a most unsparing manner, while Mr. Toodle led a mild and
equable life.
    »Polly, my gal,« said Mr. Toodle, with a young Toodle on each knee, and two
more making tea for him, and plenty more scattered about - Mr. Toodle was never
out of children, but always kept a good supply on hand - »you an't seen our
Biler lately, have you?«
    »No,« replied Polly, »but he's almost certain to look in to-night. It's his
right evening, and he's very regular.«
    »I suppose,« said Mr. Toodle, relishing his meal infinitely, »as our Biler
is a doing' now about as well as a boy can do, eh, Polly?«
    »Oh! he's a doing beautiful!« responded Polly.
    »He an't got to be at all secret-like - has he, Polly?« inquired Mr. Toodle.
    »No!« said Mrs. Toodle, plumply.
    »I'm glad he an't got to be at all secret-like, Polly,« observed Mr. Toodle
in his slow and measured way, and shovelling in his bread and butter with a
clasp knife, as if he were stoking himself, »because that don't look well; do
it, Polly?«
    »Why, of course it don't, father. How can you ask!«
    »You see, my boys and gals,« said Mr. Toodle, looking round upon his family,
»wotever you're up to in a honest way, it's my opinion as you can't do better
than be open. If you find yourselves in cuttings or in tunnels, don't you play
no secret games. Keep your whistles going, and let's know where you are.«
    The rising Toodles set up a shrill murmur, expressive of their resolution to
profit by the paternal advice.
    »But what makes you say this along of Rob, father?« asked his wife,
anxiously.
    »Polly, old 'ooman,« said Mr. Toodle, »I don't know as I said it particular
along o' Rob, I'm sure. I starts light with Rob only; I comes to a branch; I
takes on what I finds there; and a whole train of ideas gets coupled on to him,
afore I knows where I am, or where they comes from. What a Junction a man's
thoughts is,« said Mr. Toodle, »to-be-sure!«
    This profound reflection Mr. Toodle washed down with a pint mug of tea, and
proceeded to solidify with a great weight of bread and butter; charging his
young daughters meanwhile, to keep plenty of hot water in the pot, as he was
uncommon dry, and should take the indefinite quantity of »a sight of mugs,«
before his thirst was appeased.
    In satisfying himself, however, Mr. Toodle was not regardless of the younger
branches about him, who, although they had made their own evening repast, were
on the look-out for irregular morsels, as possessing a relish. These he
distributed now and then to the expectant circle, by holding out great wedges of
bread and butter, to be bitten at by the family in lawful succession, and by
serving out small doses of tea in like manner with a spoon; which snacks had
such a relish in the mouths of these young Toodles, that, after partaking of the
same, they performed private dances of ecstasy among themselves, and stood on
one leg apiece, and hopped, and indulged in other saltatory tokens of gladness.
These vents for their excitement found, they gradually closed about Mr. Toodle
again, and eyed him hard as he got through more bread and butter and tea;
affecting, however, to have no further expectations of their own in reference to
those viands, but to be conversing on foreign subjects, and whispering
confidentially.
    Mr. Toodle, in the midst of this family group, and setting an awful example
to his children in the way of appetite, was conveying the two young Toodles on
his knees to Birmingham by special engine, and was contemplating the rest over a
barrier of bread and butter, when Rob the Grinder, in his sou'wester hat and
mourning slops, presented himself, and was received with a general rush of
brothers and sisters.
    »Well, mother!« said Rob, dutifully kissing her; »how are you, mother?«
    »There's my boy!« cried Polly, giving him a hug and a pat on the back.
»Secret! Bless you, father, not he!«
    This was intended for Mr. Toodle's private edification, but Rob the Grinder,
whose withers were not unwrung, caught the words as they were spoken.
    »What! father's been a saying something more again me, has he?« cried the
injured innocent. »Oh, what a hard thing it is that when a cove has once gone a
little wrong, a cove's own father should be always a throwing it in his face
behind his back! It's enough,« cried Rob, resorting to his coat-cuff in anguish
of spirit, »to make a cove go and do something out of spite!«
    »My poor boy!« cried Polly, »father didn't mean anything.«
    »If father didn't mean anything,« blubbered the injured Grinder, »why did he
go and say anything, mother? Nobody thinks half so bad of me as my own father
does. What a unnatural thing! I wish somebody'd take and chop my head off.
Father wouldn't mind doing it, I believe, and I'd much rather he did that than
t'other.«
    At these desperate words all the young Toodles shrieked; a pathetic effect,
which the Grinder improved by ironically adjuring them not to cry for him, for
they ought to hate him, they ought, if they was good boys and girls; and this so
touched the youngest Toodle but one, who was easily moved, that it touched him
not only in his spirit but in his wind too; making him so purple that Mr. Toodle
in consternation carried him out to the water-butt, and would have put him under
the tap, but for his being recovered by the sight of that instrument.
    Matters having reached this point, Mr. Toodle explained, and the virtuous
feelings of his son being thereby calmed, they shook hands, and harmony reigned
again.
    »Will you do as I do, Biler, my boy?« inquired his father, returning to his
tea with new strength.
    »No, thank'ee, father. Master and I had tea together.«
    »And how is master, Rob?« said Polly.
    »Well, I don't know, mother; not much to boast on. There ain't no bis'ness
done, you see. He don't know anything about it, the Cap'en don't. There was a
man come into the shop this very day, and says, I want a so-and-so, he says -
some hard name or another. A which? says the Cap'en. A so-and-so, says the man.
Brother, says the Cap'en, will you take a observation round the shop? Well, says
the man, I've done it. Do you see wot you want? says the Cap'en. No, I don't,
says the man. Do you know it wen you do see it? says the Cap'en. No, I don't,
says the man. Why, then I tell you wot, my lad, says the Cap'en, you'd better go
back and ask wot it's like, outside, for no more don't I!«
    »That ain't the way to make money, though, is it?« said Polly.
    »Money, mother! He'll never make money. He has such ways as I never see. He
ain't a bad master though, I'll say that for him. But that ain't much to me, for
I don't think I shall stop with him long.«
    »Not stop in your place, Rob!« cried his mother; while Mr. Toodle opened his
eyes.
    »Not in that place, p'raps,« returned the Grinder, with a wink. »I shouldn't
wonder - friends at court you know - but never you mind, mother, just now; I'm
all right, that's all.«
    The indisputable proof afforded in these hints, and in the Grinder's
mysterious manner, of his not being subject to that failing which Mr. Toodle
had, by implication, attributed to him, might have led to a renewal of his
wrongs, and of the sensation in the family, but for the opportune arrival of
another visitor, who, to Polly's great surprise, appeared at the door, smiling
patronage and friendship on all there.
    »How do you do, Mrs. Richards?« said Miss Tox. »I have come to see you. May
I come in?«
    The cheery face of Mrs. Richards shone with a hospitable reply, and Miss
Tox, accepting the proffered chair, and gracefully recognising Mr. Toodle on her
way to it, untied her bonnet strings, and said that in the first place she must
beg the dear children, one and all, to come and kiss her.
    The ill-starred youngest Toodle but one, who would appear, from the
frequency of his domestic troubles, to have been born under an unlucky planet,
was prevented from performing his part in this general salutation by having
fixed the sou'wester hat (with which he had been previously trifling) deep on
his head, hind side before, and being unable to get it off again; which accident
presenting to his terrified imagination a dismal picture of his passing the rest
of his days in darkness, and in hopeless seclusion from his friends and family,
caused him to struggle with great violence, and to utter suffocating cries.
Being released, his face was discovered to be very hot, and red, and damp; and
Miss Tox took him on her lap, much exhausted.
    »You have almost forgotten me, Sir, I dare say,« said Miss Tox to Mr.
Toodle.
    »No, Ma'am, no,« said Toodle. »But we've all on us got a little older since
then.«
    »And how do you find yourself, Sir?« inquired Miss Tox, blandly.
    »Hearty, Ma'am, thank'ee,« replied Toodle. »How do you find yourself, Ma'am?
Do the rheumaticks keep off pretty well, Ma'am? We must all expect to grow into
'em, as we gets on.«
    »Thank you,« said Miss Tox. »I have not felt any inconvenience from that
disorder yet.«
    »You're very fortunate, Ma'am,« returned Mr. Toodle. »Many people at your
time of life, Ma'am, is martyrs to it. There was my mother -« But catching his
wife's eye here, Mr. Toodle judiciously buried the rest in another mug of tea.
    »You never mean to say, Mrs. Richards,« cried Miss Tox, looking at Rob,
»that that is your -«
    »Eldest, Ma'am,« said Polly. »Yes, indeed, it is. That's the little fellow,
Ma'am, that was the innocent cause of so much.«
    »This here, Ma'am,« said Toodle, »is him with the short legs - and they
was,« said Mr. Toodle, with a touch of poetry in his tone, »unusual short for
leathers - as Mr. Dombey made a Grinder on.«
    The recollection almost overpowered Miss Tox. The subject of it had a
peculiar interest for her directly. She asked him to shake hands, and
congratulated his mother on his frank, ingenuous face. Rob, overhearing her,
called up a look, to justify the eulogium, but it was hardly the right look.
    »And now, Mrs. Richards,« said Miss Tox, - »and you too, Sir,« addressing
Toodle - »I'll tell you, plainly and truly, what I have come here for. You may
be aware, Mrs. Richards - and, possibly, you may be aware too, Sir - that a
little distance has interposed itself between me and some of my friends, and
that where I used to visit a good deal, I do not visit now.«
    Polly, who, with a woman's tact, understood this at once, expressed as much
in a little look. Mr. Toodle, who had not the faintest idea of what Miss Tox was
talking about, expressed that also, in a stare.
    »Of course,« said Miss Tox, »how our little coolness has arisen is of no
moment, and does not require to be discussed. It is sufficient for me to say,
that I have the greatest possible respect for, and interest in, Mr. Dombey;«
Miss Tox's voice faltered; »and everything that relates to him.«
    Mr. Toodle, enlightened, shook his head, and said he had heard it said, and,
for his own part, he did think, as Mr. Dombey was a difficult subject.
    »Pray don't say so, Sir, if you please,« returned Miss Tox. »Let me entreat
you not to say so, Sir, either now, or at any future time. Such observations
cannot but be very painful to me; and to a gentleman, whose mind is constituted
as I am quite sure yours is, can afford no permanent satisfaction.«
    Mr. Toodle, who had not entertained the least doubt of offering a remark
that would be received with acquiescence, was greatly confounded.
    »All that I wish to say, Mrs. Richards,« resumed Miss Tox, - »and I address
myself to you too, Sir, - is this. That any intelligence of the proceedings of
the family, of the welfare of the family, of the health of the family, that
reaches you, will be always most acceptable to me. That I shall be always very
glad to chat with Mrs. Richards about the family, and about old times. And as
Mrs. Richards and I never had the least difference (though I could wish now that
we had been better acquainted, but I have no one but myself to blame for that),
I hope she will not object to our being very good friends now, and to my coming
backwards and forwards here, when I like, without being a stranger. Now, I
really hope, Mrs. Richards,« said Miss Tox, earnestly, »that you will take this,
as I mean it, like a good-humoured creature, as you always were.«
    Polly was gratified, and showed it. Mr. Toodle didn't know whether he was
gratified or not, and preserved a stolid calmness.
    »You see, Mrs. Richards,« said Miss Tox - »and I hope you see too, Sir -
there are many little ways in which I can be slightly useful to you, if you will
make no stranger of me; and in which I shall be delighted to be so. For
instance, I can teach your children something. I shall bring a few little books,
if you'll allow me, and some work, and of an evening now and then, they'll learn
- dear me, they'll learn a great deal, I trust, and be a credit to their
teacher.«
    Mr. Toodle, who had a great respect for learning, jerked his head
approvingly at his wife, and moistened his hands with dawning satisfaction.
    »Then, not being a stranger, I shall be in nobody's way,« said Miss Tox,
»and everything will go on just as if I were not here. Mrs. Richards will do her
mending, or her ironing, or her nursing, whatever it is, without minding me: and
you'll smoke your pipe, too, if you're so disposed, Sir, won't you?«
    »Thank'ee, Mum,« said Mr. Toodle. »Yes; I'll take my bit of backer.«
    »Very good of you to say so, Sir,« rejoined Miss Tox, »and I really do
assure you now, unfeignedly, that it will be a great comfort to me, and that
whatever good I may be fortunate enough to do the children, you will more than
pay back to me, if you'll enter into this little bargain comfortably, and
easily, and good-naturedly, without another word about it.«
    The bargain was ratified on the spot; and Miss Tox found herself so much at
home already, that without delay she instituted a preliminary examination of the
children all round - which Mr. Toodle much admired - and booked their ages,
names, and acquirements, on a piece of paper. This ceremony, and a little
attendant gossip, prolonged the time until after their usual hour of going to
bed, and detained Miss Tox at the Toodle fireside until it was too late for her
to walk home alone. The gallant Grinder, however, being still there, politely
offered to attend her to her own door; and as it was something to Miss Tox to be
seen home by a youth whom Mr. Dombey had first inducted into those manly
garments which are rarely mentioned by name, she very readily accepted the
proposal.
    After shaking hands with Mr. Toodle and Polly, and kissing all the children,
Miss Tox left the house, therefore, with unlimited popularity, and carrying away
with her so light a heart that it might have given Mrs. Chick offence if that
good lady could have weighed it.
    Rob the Grinder, in his modesty, would have walked behind, but Miss Tox
desired him to keep beside her, for conversational purposes; and, as she
afterwards expressed it to his mother, drew him out upon the road.
    He drew out so bright, and clear, and shining, that Miss Tox was charmed
with him. The more Miss Tox drew him out, the finer he came - like wire. There
never was a better or more promising youth - a more affectionate, steady,
prudent, sober, honest, meek, candid young man - than Rob drew out that night.
    »I am quite glad,« said Miss Tox, arrived at her own door, »to know you. I
hope you'll consider me your friend, and that you'll come and see me as often as
you like. Do you keep a money-box?«
    »Yes, Ma'am,« returned Rob; »I'm saving up against I've got enough to put in
the Bank, Ma'am.«
    »Very laudable indeed,« said Miss Tox. »I'm glad to hear it. Put this
half-crown into it, if you please.«
    »Oh thank you, Ma'am,« replied Rob, »but really I couldn't think of
depriving you.«
    »I commend your independent spirit,« said Miss Tox, »but it's no
deprivation, I assure you. I shall be offended if you don't take it, as a mark
of my good-will. Good night, Robin.«
    »Good night, Ma'am,« said Rob, »and thank you!«
    Who ran sniggering off to get change, and tossed it away with a pieman. But
they never taught honour at the Grinders' School, where the system that
prevailed was particularly strong in the engendering of hypocrisy. Insomuch,
that many of the friends and masters of past Grinders said, if this were what
came of education for the common people, let us have none. Some more rational
said, let us have a better one. But the governing powers of the Grinders'
Company were always ready for them, by picking out a few boys who had turned out
well, in spite of the system, and roundly asserting that they could have only
turned out well because of it. Which settled the business of those objectors out
of hand, and established the glory of the Grinders' Institution.
 

                                 Chapter XXXIX

             Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner.

Time, sure of foot and strong of will, had so pressed onward, that the year
enjoined by the old Instrument-maker, as the term during which his friend should
refrain from opening the sealed packet accompanying the letter he had left for
him, was now nearly expired, and Captain Cuttle began to look at it, of an
evening, with feelings of mystery and uneasiness.
    The Captain, in his honour, would as soon have thought of opening the parcel
one hour before the expiration of the term, as he would have thought of opening
himself, to study his own anatomy. He merely brought it out, at a certain stage
of his first evening pipe, laid it on the table, and sat gazing at the outside
of it, through the smoke, in silent gravity, for two or three hours at a spell.
Sometimes, when he had contemplated it thus for a pretty long while, the Captain
would hitch his chair, by degrees, farther and farther off, as if to get beyond
the range of its fascination; but if this were his design, he never succeeded:
for even when he was brought up by the parlour wall, the packet still attracted
him; or if his eyes, in thoughtful wandering, roved to the ceiling or the fire,
its image immediately followed, and posted itself conspicuously among the coals,
or took up an advantageous position on the whitewash.
    In respect of Heart's Delight, the Captain's parental regard and admiration
knew no change. But since his last interview with Mr. Carker, Captain Cuttle had
come to entertain doubts whether his former intervention in behalf of that young
lady and his dear boy Wal'r, had proved altogether so favourable as he could
have wished, and as he at the time believed. The Captain was troubled with a
serious misgiving that he had done more harm than good, in short; and in his
remorse and modesty he made the best atonement he could think of, by putting
himself out of the way of doing any harm to any one, and, as it were, throwing
himself overboard for a dangerous person.
    Self-buried, therefore, among the instruments, the Captain never went near
Mr. Dombey's house, or reported himself in any way to Florence or Miss Nipper.
He even severed himself from Mr. Perch, on the occasion of his next visit, by
dryly informing that gentleman, that he thanked him for his company, but had cut
himself adrift from all such acquaintance, as he didn't know what magazine he
mightn't blow up, without meaning of it. In this self-imposed retirement, the
Captain passed whole days and weeks without interchanging a word with any one
but Rob the Grinder, whom he esteemed as a pattern of disinterested attachment
and fidelity. In this retirement, the Captain, gazing at the packet of an
evening, would sit smoking, and thinking of Florence and poor Walter, until they
both seemed to his homely fancy to be dead, and to have passed away into eternal
youth, the beautiful and innocent children of his first remembrance.
    The Captain did not, however, in his musings, neglect his own improvement,
or the mental culture of Rob the Grinder. That young man was generally required
to read out of some book to the Captain, for one hour, every evening; and as the
Captain implicitly believed that all books were true, he accumulated, by this
means, many remarkable facts. On Sunday nights, the Captain always read for
himself, before going to bed, a certain Divine Sermon once delivered on a Mount;
and although he was accustomed to quote the text, without book, after his own
manner, he appeared to read it with as reverent an understanding of its heavenly
spirit, as if he had got it all by heart in Greek, and had been able to write
any number of fierce theological disquisitions on its every phrase.
    Rob the Grinder, whose reverence for the inspired writings, under the
admirable system of the Grinders' School, had been developed by a perpetual
bruising of his intellectual shins against all the proper names of all the
tribes of Judah, and by the monotonous repetition of hard verses, especially by
way of punishment, and by the parading of him at six years old in leather
breeches, three times a Sunday, very high up, in a very hot church, with a great
organ buzzing against his drowsy head, like an exceedingly busy bee - Rob the
Grinder made a mighty show of being edified when the Captain ceased to read, and
generally yawned and nodded while the reading was in progress. The latter fact
being never so much as suspected by the good Captain.
    Captain Cuttle, also, as a man of business, took to keeping books. In these
he entered observations on the weather, and on the currents of the wagons and
other vehicles: which he observed, in that quarter, to set westward in the
morning and during the greater part of the day, and eastward towards the
evening. Two or three stragglers appearing in one week, who »spoke him« - so the
Captain entered it - on the subject of spectacles, and who, without positively
purchasing, said they would look in again, the Captain decided that the business
was improving, and made an entry in the day-book to that effect: the wind then
blowing (which he first recorded) pretty fresh, west and by north; having
changed in the night.
    One of the Captain's chief difficulties was Mr. Toots, who called
frequently, and who without saying much seemed to have an idea that the little
back parlour was an eligible room to chuckle in, as he would sit and avail
himself of its accommodations in that regard by the half-hour together, without
at all advancing in intimacy with the Captain. The Captain, rendered cautious by
his late experience, was unable quite to satisfy his mind whether Mr. Toots was
the mild subject he appeared to be, or was a profoundly artful and dissimulating
hypocrite. His frequent reference to Miss Dombey was suspicious; but the Captain
had a secret kindness for Mr. Toots's apparent reliance on him, and forbore to
decide against him for the present; merely eyeing him, with a sagacity not to be
described, whenever he approached the subject that was nearest to his heart.
    »Captain Gills,« blurted out Mr. Toots, one day all at once, as his manner
was, »do you think you could think favourably of that proposition of mine, and
give me the pleasure of your acquaintance?«
    »Why, I tell you what it is, my lad,« replied the Captain, who had at length
concluded on a course of action; »I've been turning that there over.«
    »Captain Gills, it's very kind of you,« retorted Mr. Toots. »I'm much
obliged to you. Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills, it would be a charity to
give me the pleasure of your acquaintance. It really would.«
    »You see, brother,« argued the Captain slowly, »I don't know you.«
    »But you never can know me, Captain Gills,« replied Mr. Toots, steadfast to
his point, »if you don't give me the pleasure of your acquaintance.«
    The Captain seemed struck by the originality and power of this remark, and
looked at Mr. Toots as if he thought there was a great deal more in him than he
had expected.
    »Well said, my lad,« observed the Captain, nodding his head thoughtfully;
»and true. Now look'ee here: You've made some observations to me, which gives me
to understand as you admire a certain sweet creature. Hey?«
    »Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, gesticulating violently with the hand in
which he held his hat, »Admiration is not the word. Upon my honour, you have no
conception what my feelings are. If I could be dyed black, and made Miss
Dombey's slave, I should consider it a compliment. If, at the sacrifice of all
my property, I could get transmigrated into Miss Dombey's dog - I - I really
think I should never leave off wagging my tail. I should be so perfectly happy,
Captain Gills!«
    Mr. Toots said it with watery eyes, and pressed his hat against his bosom
with deep emotion.
    »My lad,« returned the Captain, moved to compassion, »if you're in arnest -«
    »Captain Gills,« cried Mr. Toots, »I'm in such a state of mind, and am so
dreadfully in earnest, that if I could swear to it upon a hot piece of iron, or
a live coal, or melted lead, or burning sealing-wax, or anything of that sort, I
should be glad to hurt myself, as a relief to my feelings.« And Mr. Toots looked
hurriedly about the room, as if for some sufficiently painful means of
accomplishing his dread purpose.
    The Captain pushed his glazed hat back upon his head, stroked his face down
with his heavy hand - making his nose more mottled in the process - and planting
himself before Mr. Toots, and hooking him by the lapel of his coat, addressed
him in these words, while Mr. Toots looked up into his face, with much attention
and some wonder.
    »If you're in arnest, you see, my lad,« said the Captain, »you're a object
of clemency, and clemency is the brightest jewel in the crown of a Briton's
head, for which you'll overhaul the constitution as laid down in Rule Britannia,
and, when found, that is the charter as them garden angels was a singing of, so
many times over. Stand by! This here proposal o' you'rn takes me a little aback.
And why? Because I holds my own only, you understand, in these here waters, and
haven't got no consort, and may be don't wish for none. Steady! You hailed me
first, along of a certain young lady, as you was chartered by. Now if you and me
is to keep one another's company at all, that there young creature's name must
never be named nor referred to. I don't know what harm mayn't have been done by
naming of it too free, afore now, and thereby I brings up short. D'ye make me
out pretty clear, brother?«
    »Well, you'll excuse me, Captain Gills,« replied Mr. Toots, »if I don't
quite follow you sometimes. But upon my word I - it's a hard thing, Captain
Gills, not to be able to mention Miss Dombey. I really have got such a dreadful
load here!« - Mr. Toots pathetically touched his shirt-front with both hands -
»that I feel night and day, exactly as if somebody was sitting upon me.«
    »Them,« said the Captain, »is the terms I offer. If they're hard upon you,
brother, as mayhap they are, give 'em a wide berth, sheer off, and part company
cheerily!«
    »Captain Gills,« returned Mr. Toots, »I hardly know how it is, but after
what you told me when I came here, for the first time, I - I feel that I'd
rather think about Miss Dombey in your society than talk about her in almost
anybody else's. Therefore, Captain Gills, if you'll give me the pleasure of your
acquaintance, I shall be very happy to accept it on your own conditions. I wish
to be honourable, Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, holding back his extended hand
for a moment, »and therefore I am obliged to say that I can not help thinking
about Miss Dombey. It's impossible for me to make a promise not to think about
her.«
    »My lad,« said the Captain, whose opinion of Mr. Toots was much improved by
this candid avowal, »a man's thoughts is like the winds, and nobody can't answer
for 'em for certain, any length of time together. Is it a treaty as to words?«
    »As to words, Captain Gills,« returned Mr. Toots, »I think I can bind
myself.«
    Mr. Toots gave Captain Cuttle his hand upon it, then and there; and the
Captain with a pleasant and gracious show of condescension, bestowed his
acquaintance upon him formally. Mr. Toots seemed much relieved and gladdened by
the acquisition, and chuckled rapturously during the remainder of his visit. The
Captain, for his part, was not ill pleased to occupy that position of patronage,
and was exceedingly well satisfied by his own prudence and foresight.
    But rich as Captain Cuttle was in the latter quality, he received a surprise
that same evening from a no less ingenuous and simple youth, than Rob the
Grinder. That artless lad, drinking tea at the same table, and bending meekly
over his cup and saucer, having taken sidelong observations of his master for
some time, who was reading the newspaper with great difficulty, but much
dignity, through his glasses, broke silence by saying -
    »Oh! I beg your pardon, Captain, but you mayn't be in want of any pigeons,
may you, Sir?«
    »No, my lad,« replied the Captain.
    »Because I was wishing to dispose of mine, Captain,« said Rob.
    »Aye, aye?« cried the Captain, lifting up his bushy eyebrows a little.
    »Yes; I'm going, Captain, if you please,« said Rob.
    »Going? Where are you going?« asked the Captain, looking round at him over
the glasses.
    »What? didn't you know that I was going to leave you, Captain?« asked Rob,
with a sneaking smile.
    The Captain put down the paper, took off his spectacles, and brought his
eyes to bear on the deserter.
    »Oh yes, Captain, I am going to give you warning. I thought you'd have known
that beforehand, perhaps,« said Rob, rubbing his hands, and getting up. »If you
could be so good as provide yourself soon, Captain, it would be a great
convenience to me. You couldn't provide yourself by to-morrow morning, I am
afraid, Captain: could you, do you think?«
    »And you're a going to desert your colours, are you, my lad?« said the
Captain, after a long examination of his face.
    »Oh, it's very hard upon a cove, Captain,« cried the tender Rob, injured and
indignant in a moment, »that he can't give lawful warning, without being frowned
at in that way, and called a deserter. You haven't any right to call a poor cove
names, Captain. It ain't because I'm a servant and you're a master, that you're
to go and libel me. What wrong have I done? Come, Captain, let me know what my
crime is, will you?«
    The stricken Grinder wept, and put his coat-cuff in his eye.
    »Come, Captain,« cried the injured youth, »give my crime a name! What have I
been and done? Have I stolen any of the property? have I set the house a-fire?
If I have, why don't you give me in charge, and try it? But to take away the
character of a lad that's been a good servant to you, because he can't afford to
stand in his own light for your good, what a injury it is, and what a bad return
for faithful service! This is the way young coves is spiled and drove wrong. I
wonder at you, Captain, I do.«
    All of which the Grinder howled forth in a lachrymose whine, and backing
carefully towards the door.
    »And so you've got another berth, have you, my lad?« said the Captain,
eyeing him intently.
    »Yes, Captain, since you put it in that shape, I have got another berth,«
cried Rob, backing more and more; »a better berth than I've got here, and one
where I don't so much as want your good word, Captain, which is fort'nate for
me, after all the dirt you've throw'd at me, because I'm poor, and can't afford
to stand in my own light for your good. Yes, I have got another berth; and if it
wasn't't for leaving you unprovided, Captain, I'd go to it now, sooner than I'd
take them names from you, because I'm poor, and can't afford to stand in my own
light for your good. Why do you reproach me for being poor, and not standing in
my own light for your good, Captain? How can you so demean yourself?«
    »Look ye here, my boy,« replied the peaceful Captain. »Don't you pay out no
more of them words.«
    »Well, then, don't you pay in no more of your words, Captain,« retorted the
roused innocent, getting louder in his whine, and backing into the shop. »I'd
sooner you took my blood than my character.«
    »Because,« pursued the Captain calmly, »you have heard, may be, of such a
thing as a rope's end.«
    »Oh, have I though, Captain?« cried the taunting Grinder. »No I haven't. I
never heard of any such a article!«
    »Well,« said the Captain, »it's my belief as you'll know more about it
pretty soon, if you don't keep a bright lookout. I can read your signals, my
lad. You may go.«
    »Oh! I may go at once, may I, Captain?« cried Rob, exulting in his success.
»But mind! I never asked to go at once, Captain. You are not to take away my
character again, because you send me off of your own accord. And you're not to
stop any of my wages, Captain!«
    His employer settled the last point by producing the tin canister and
telling the Grinder's money out in full upon the table. Rob, snivelling and
sobbing, and grievously wounded in his feelings, took up the pieces one by one,
with a sob and a snivel for each, and tied them up separately in knots in his
pocket-handkerchief; then he ascended to the roof of the house and filled his
hat and pockets with pigeons; then, came down to his bed under the counter and
made up his bundle, snivelling and sobbing louder as if he were cut to the heart
by old associations; then he whined, »Good night, Captain. I leave you without
malice!« and then, going out upon the door-step, pulled the little Midshipman's
nose as a parting indignity, and went away down the street grinning triumph.
    The Captain, left to himself, resumed his perusal of the news as if nothing
unusual or unexpected had taken place, and went reading on with the greatest
assiduity. But never a word did Captain Cuttle understand, though he read a vast
number, for Rob the Grinder was scampering up one column and down another all
through the newspaper.
    It is doubtful whether the worthy Captain had ever felt himself quite
abandoned until now; but now, old Sol Gills, Walter, and Heart's Delight were
lost to him indeed, and now Mr. Carker deceived and jeered him cruelly. They
were all represented in the false Rob, to whom he had held forth many a time on
the recollections that were warm within him; he had believed in the false Rob,
and had been glad to believe in him; he had made a companion of him as the last
of the old ship's company; he had taken the command of the little Midshipman
with him at his right hand; he had meant to do his duty by him, and had felt
almost as kindly towards the boy as if they had been shipwrecked and cast upon a
desert place together. And now, that the false Rob had brought distrust,
treachery, and meanness into the very parlour, which was a kind of sacred place,
Captain Cuttle felt as if the parlour might have gone down next, and not
surprised him much by its sinking, or given him any very great concern.
    Therefore Captain Cuttle read the newspaper with profound attention and no
comprehension, and therefore Captain Cuttle said nothing whatever about Rob to
himself, or admitted to himself that he was thinking about him, or would
recognise in the most distant manner that Rob had anything to do with his
feeling as lonely as Robinson Crusoe.
    In the same composed, business-like way, the Captain stepped over to
Leadenhall Market in the dusk, and effected an arrangement with a private
watchman on duty there, to come and put up and take down the shutters of the
Wooden Midshipman every night and morning. He then called in at the eating-house
to diminish by one half the daily rations theretofore supplied to the
Midshipman, and at the public-house to stop the traitor's beer. »My young man,«
said the Captain, in explanation to the young lady at the bar, »my young man
having bettered himself, Miss.« Lastly, the Captain resolved to take possession
of the bed under the counter, and to turn in there o' nights instead of up
stairs, as sole guardian of the property.
    From this bed Captain Cuttle daily rose thenceforth, and clapped on his
glazed hat at six o'clock in the morning, with the solitary air of Crusoe
finishing his toilet with his goat-skin cap; and although his fears of a
visitation from the savage tribe, MacStinger, were somewhat cooled, as similar
apprehensions on the part of that lone mariner used to be by the lapse of a long
interval without any symptoms of the cannibals, he still observed a regular
routine of defensive operations, and never encountered a bonnet without previous
survey from his castle of retreat. In the meantime (during which he received no
call from Mr. Toots, who wrote to say he was out of town) his own voice began to
have a strange sound in his ears; and he acquired such habits of profound
meditation from much polishing and stowing away of the stock, and from much
sitting behind the counter reading, or looking out of window, that the red rim
made on his forehead by the hard glazed hat, sometimes ached again with excess
of reflection.
    The year being now expired, Captain Cuttle deemed it expedient to open the
packet; but as he had always designed doing this in the presence of Rob the
Grinder, who had brought it to him, and as he had an idea that it would be
regular and ship-shape to open it in the presence of somebody, he was sadly put
to it for want of a witness. In this difficulty, he hailed one day with unusual
delight the announcement in the Shipping Intelligence of the arrival of the
Cautious Clara, Captain John Bunsby, from a coasting voyage; and to that
philosopher immediately dispatched a letter by post, enjoining inviolable
secrecy as to his place of residence, and requesting to be favoured with an
early visit, in the evening season.
    Bunsby, who was one of those sages who act upon conviction, took some days
to get the conviction thoroughly into his mind, that he had received a letter to
this effect. But when he had grappled with the fact, and mastered it, he
promptly sent his boy with the message, »He's a coming to-night.« Who being
instructed to deliver those words and disappear, fulfilled his mission like a
tarry spirit, charged with a mysterious warning.
    The Captain, well pleased to receive it, made preparation of pipes and rum
and water, and awaited his visitor in the back parlour. At the hour of eight, a
deep lowing, as of a nautical Bull, outside the shop-door, succeeded by the
knocking of a stick on the panel, announced to the listening ear of Captain
Cuttle, that Bunsby was alongside: whom he instantly admitted, shaggy and loose,
and with his stolid mahogany visage, as usual, appearing to have no
consciousness of anything before it, but to be attentively observing something
that was taking place in quite another part of the world.
    »Bunsby,« said the Captain, grasping him by the hand, »what cheer, my lad,
what cheer?«
    »Shipmet,« replied the voice within Bunsby, unaccompanied by any sign on the
part of the Commander himself, »hearty, hearty.«
    »Bunsby!« said the Captain, rendering irrepressible homage to his genius,
»here you are! a man as can give an opinion as is brighter than di'monds - and
give me the lad with the tarry trousers as shines to me like di'monds bright,
for which you'll overhaul the Stanfell's Budget, and when found make a note.
Here you are, a man as gave an opinion in this here very place, that has come
true, every letter on it,« which the Captain sincerely believed.
    »Aye, aye?« growled Bunsby.
    »Every letter,« said the Captain.
    »For why?« growled Bunsby, looking at his friend for the first time. »Which
way? If so, why not? Therefore.« With these oracular words - they seemed almost
to make the Captain giddy; they launched him upon such a sea of speculation and
conjecture - the sage submitted to be helped off with his pilot-coat, and
accompanied his friend into the back parlour, where his hand presently alighted
on the rum-bottle, from which he brewed a stiff glass of grog; and presently
afterwards on a pipe, which he filled, lighted, and began to smoke.
    Captain Cuttle, imitating his visitor in the matter of these particulars,
though the rapt and imperturbable manner of the great Commander was far above
his powers, sat in the opposite corner of the fireside, observing him
respectfully, and as if he waited for some encouragement or expression of
curiosity on Bunsby's part which should lead him to his own affairs. But as the
mahogany philosopher gave no evidence of being sentient of anything but warmth
and tobacco, except once, when taking his pipe from his lips to make room for
his glass, he incidentally remarked with exceeding gruffness, that his name was
Jack Bunsby - a declaration that presented but small opening for conversation -
the Captain bespeaking his attention in a short complimentary exordium, narrated
the whole history of Uncle Sol's departure, with the change it had produced in
his own life and fortunes; and concluded by placing the packet on the table.
    After a long pause, Mr. Bunsby nodded his head.
    »Open?« said the Captain.
    Bunsby nodded again.
    The Captain accordingly broke the seal, and disclosed to view two folded
papers, of which he severally read the indorsements, thus: »Last Will and
Testament of Solomon Gills.« »Letter for Ned Cuttle.«
    Bunsby, with his eye on the coast of Greenland, seemed to listen for the
contents. The Captain therefore hemmed to clear his throat, and read the letter
aloud.
    »My dear Ned Cuttle. When I left home for the West Indies -«
    Here the Captain stopped, and looked hard at Bunsby, who looked fixedly at
the coast of Greenland.
    - »in forlorn search of intelligence of my dear boy, I knew that if you were
acquainted with my design, you would thwart it, or accompany me; and therefore I
kept it secret. If you ever read this letter, Ned, I am likely to be dead. You
will easily forgive an old friend's folly then, and will feel for the
restlessness and uncertainty in which he wandered away on such a wild voyage. So
no more of that. I have little hope that my poor boy will ever read these words,
or gladden your eyes with the sight of his frank face any more. No, no; no
more,« said Captain Cuttle, sorrowfully meditating; »no more. There he lays, all
his days -«
    Mr. Bunsby, who had a musical ear, suddenly bellowed, »In the Bays of
Biscay, O!« which so affected the good Captain, as an appropriate tribute to
departed worth, that he shook him by the hand in acknowledgement, and was fain to
wipe his eyes.
    »Well, well!« said the Captain with a sigh, as the Lament of Bunsby ceased
to ring and vibrate in the skylight. »Affliction sore, long time he bore, and
let us overhaul the wollume, and there find it.«
    »Physicians,« observed Bunsby, »was in vain.«
    »Aye, aye, to be sure,« said the Captain, »what's the good o' them in two or
three hundred fathoms o' water!« Then returning to the letter, he read on: -
»But if he should be by, when it is opened;« the Captain involuntarily looked
round, and shook his head; »or should know of it at any other time;« the Captain
shook his head again; »my blessing on him! In case the accompanying paper is not
legally written, it matters very little, for there is no one interested but you
and he, and my plain wish is, that if he is living he should have what little
there may be, and if (as I fear) otherwise, that you should have it, Ned. You
will respect my wish, I know. God bless you for it, and for all your
friendliness besides, to SOLOMON GILLS. Bunsby!« said the Captain, appealing to
him solemnly, »what do you make of this? There you sit, a man as has had his
head broke from infancy up'ards, and has got a new opinion into it at every seam
as has been opened. Now, what do you make o' this?«
    »If so be,« returned Bunsby, with unusual promptitude, »as he's dead, my
opinion is he won't come back no more. If so be as he's alive, my opinion is he
will. Do I say he will? No. Why not? Because the bearings of this obserwation
lays in the application on it.«
    »Bunsby!« said Captain Cuttle, who would seem to have estimated the value of
his distinguished friend's opinions in proportion to the immensity of the
difficulty he experienced in making anything out of them; »Bunsby,« said the
Captain, quite confounded by admiration, »you carry a weight of mind easy, as
would swamp one of my tonnage soon. But in regard o' this here will, I don't
mean to take no steps towards the property - Lord forbid! - except to keep it
for a more rightful owner; and I hope yet as the rightful owner, Sol Gills, is
living and 'll come back, strange as it is that he ain't forwarded no
dispatches. Now, what is your opinion, Bunsby, as to stowing of these here
papers away again, and marking outside as they was opened, such a day, in the
presence of John Bunsby and Ed'ard Cuttle?«
    Bunsby, descrying no objection, on the coast of Greenland or elsewhere, to
this proposal, it was carried into execution; and that great man, bringing his
eye into the present for a moment, affixed his sign-manual to the cover, totally
abstaining, with characteristic modesty, from the use of capital letters.
Captain Cuttle, having attached his own left-handed signature, and locked up the
packet in the iron safe, entreated his guest to mix another glass and smoke
another pipe; and doing the like himself, fell a musing over the fire on the
possible fortunes of the poor old Instrument-maker.
    And now a surprise occurred, so overwhelming and terrific that Captain
Cuttle, unsupported by the presence of Bunsby, must have sunk beneath it, and
been a lost man from that fatal hour.
    How the Captain, even in the satisfaction of admitting such a guest, could
have only shut the door, and not locked it, of which negligence he was
undoubtedly guilty, is one of those questions that must for ever remain mere
points of speculation, or vague charges against destiny. But by that unlocked
door, at this quiet moment, did the fell MacStinger dash into the parlour,
bringing Alexander MacStinger in her parental arms, and confusion and vengeance
(not to mention Juliana MacStinger, and the sweet child's brother, Charles
MacStinger, popularly known about the scenes of his youthful sports, as Chowley)
in her train. She came so swiftly and so silently, like a rushing air from the
neighbourhood of the East India Docks, that Captain Cuttle found himself in the
very act of sitting looking at her, before the calm face with which he had been
meditating, changed to one of horror and dismay.
    But the moment Captain Cuttle understood the full extent of his misfortune,
self-preservation dictated an attempt at flight. Darting at the little door
which opened from the parlour on the steep little range of cellar-steps, the
Captain made a rush, head-foremost, at the latter, like a man indifferent to
bruises and contusions, who only sought to hide himself in the bowels of the
earth. In this gallant effort he would probably have succeeded, but for the
affectionate dispositions of Juliana and Chowley, who pinning him by the legs -
one of those dear children holding on to each - claimed him as their friend,
with lamentable cries. In the meantime, Mrs. MacStinger, who never entered upon
any action of importance without previously inverting Alexander MacStinger, to
bring him within the range of a brisk battery of slaps, and then sitting him
down to cool as the reader first beheld him, performed that solemn rite, as if
on this occasion it were a sacrifice to the Furies; and having deposited the
victim on the floor, made at the Captain with a strength of purpose that
appeared to threaten scratches to the interposing Bunsby.
    The cries of the two elder MacStingers, and the wailing of young Alexander,
who may be said to have passed a piebald childhood, forasmuch as he was black in
the face during one half of that fairy period of existence, combined to make
this visitation the more awful. But when silence reigned again, and the Captain,
in a violent perspiration, stood meekly looking at Mrs. MacStinger, its terrors
were at their height.
    »Oh, Cap'en Cuttle, Cap'en Cuttle!« said Mrs. MacStinger, making her chin
rigid, and shaking it in unison with what, but for the weakness of her sex,
might be described as her fist. »Oh, Cap'en Cuttle, Cap'en Cuttle, do you dare
to look me in the face, and not be struck down in the herth!«
    The Captain, who looked anything but daring, feebly muttered »Stand by!«
    »Oh I was a weak and trusting Fool when I took you under my roof, Cap'en
Cuttle, I was!« cried Mrs. MacStinger. »To think of the benefits I've showered
on that man, and the way in which I brought my children up to love and honour
him as if he was a father to 'em, when there an't a 'ousekeeper, no nor a lodger
in our street, don't know that I lost money by that man, and by his guzzlings
and his muzzlings« - Mrs. MacStinger used the last word for the joint sake of
alliteration and aggravation, rather than for the expression of any idea - »and
when they cried out one and all, shame upon him for putting upon an industrious
woman, up early and late for the good of her young family, and keeping her poor
place so clean that a individual might have ate his dinner, yes, and his tea
too, if he was so disposed, off any one of the floors or stairs, in spite of all
his guzzlings and his muzzlings, such was the care and pains bestowed upon him!«
    Mrs. MacStinger stopped to fetch her breath; and her face flushed with
triumph in this second happy introduction of Captain Cuttle's muzzlings.
    »And he runs away-a-a-ay!« cried Mrs. MacStinger, with a lengthening out of
the last syllable that made the unfortunate Captain regard himself as the
meanest of men; »and keeps away a twelvemonth! From a woman! Sitch is his
conscience! He hasn't the courage to meet her hi-i-i-igh;« long syllable again;
»but steals away, like a felion. Why, if that baby of mine,« said Mrs.
MacStinger, with sudden rapidity, »was to offer to go and steal away, I'd do my
duty as a mother by him, till he was covered with wales!«
    The young Alexander, interpreting this into a positive promise, to be
shortly redeemed, tumbled over with fear and grief, and lay upon the floor,
exhibiting the soles of his shoes and making such a deafening outcry, that Mrs.
MacStinger found it necessary to take him up in her arms, where she quieted him,
ever and anon, as he broke out again, by a shake that seemed enough to loosen
his teeth.
    »A pretty sort of a man is Cap'en Cuttle,« said Mrs. MacStinger, with a
sharp stress on the first syllable of the Captain's name, »to take on for - and
to lose sleep for - and to faint along of - and to think dead forsooth - and to
go up and down the blessed town like a mad woman, asking questions after! Oh, a
pretty sort of a man! Ha ha ha ha! He's worth all that trouble and distress of
mind, and much more. That's nothing, bless you! Ha ha ha ha! Cap'en Cuttle,«
said Mrs. MacStinger, with severe re-action in her voice and manner, »I wish to
know if you're a-coming home.«
    The frightened Captain looked into his hat, as if he saw nothing for it but
to put it on, and give himself up.
    »Cap'en Cuttle,« repeated Mrs. MacStinger, in the same determined manner, »I
wish to know if you're a-coming home, Sir.«
    The Captain seemed quite ready to go, but faintly suggested something to the
effect of »not making so much noise about it.«
    »Aye, aye, aye,« said Bunsby, in a soothing tone. »Awast, my lass, awast!«
    »And who may YOU be, if you please!« retorted Mrs. MacStinger, with chaste
loftiness. »Did you ever lodge at Number Nine, Brig Place, Sir? My memory may be
bad, but not with me, I think. There was a Mrs. Jollson lived at Number Nine
before me, and perhaps you're mistaking me for her. That is my only ways of
accounting for your familiarity, Sir.«
    »Come, come, my lass, awast, awast!« said Bunsby.
    Captain Cuttle could hardly believe it, even of this great man, though he
saw it done with his waking eyes; but Bunsby, advancing boldly, put his shaggy
blue arm round Mrs. MacStinger, and so softened her by his magic way of doing
it, and by these few words - he said no more - that she melted into tears, after
looking upon him for a few moments, and observed that a child might conquer her
now, she was so low in her courage.
    Speechless and utterly amazed, the Captain saw him gradually persuade this
inexorable woman into the shop, return for rum and water and a candle, take them
to her, and pacify her without appearing to utter one word. Presently he looked
in with his pilot-coat on, and said, »Cuttle, I'm a-going to act as convoy
home;« and Captain Cuttle, more to his confusion than if he had been put in
irons himself, for safe transport to Brig Place, saw the family pacifically
filing off, with Mrs. MacStinger at their head. He had scarcely time to take
down his canister, and stealthily convey some money into the hands of Juliana
MacStinger, his former favourite, and Chowley, who had the claim upon him that
he was naturally of a maritime build, before the Midshipman was abandoned by
them all; and Bunsby whispering that he'd carry on smart, and hail Ned Cuttle
again before he went aboard, shut the door upon himself, as the last member of
the party.
    Some uneasy ideas that he must be walking in his sleep, or that he had been
troubled with phantoms, and not a family of flesh and blood, beset the Captain
at first, when he went back to the little parlour, and found himself alone.
Illimitable faith in, and immeasurable admiration of, the Commander of the
Cautious Clara, succeeded, and threw the Captain into a wondering trance.
    Still, as time wore on, and Bunsby failed to reappear, the Captain began to
entertain uncomfortable doubts of another kind. Whether Bunsby had been artfully
decoyed to Brig Place, and was there detained in safe custody as hostage for his
friend; in which case it would become the Captain, as a man of honour, to
release him, by the sacrifice of his own liberty. Whether he had been attacked
and defeated by Mrs. MacStinger, and was ashamed to show himself after his
discomfiture. Whether Mrs. MacStinger, thinking better of it, in the uncertainty
of her temper, had turned back to board the Midshipman again, and Bunsby,
pretending to conduct her by a short cut, was endeavouring to lose the family
amid the wilds and savage places of the City. Above all, what it would behove
him, Captain Cuttle, to do, in case of his hearing no more, either of the
MacStingers or of Bunsby, which, in these wonderful and unforeseen conjunctions
of events, might possibly happen.
    He debated all this until he was tired; and still no Bunsby. He made up his
bed under the counter, all ready for turning in; and still no Bunsby. At length,
when the Captain had given him up, for that night at least, and had begun to
undress, the sound of approaching wheels was heard, and, stopping at the door,
was succeeded by Bunsby's hail.
    The Captain trembled to think that Mrs. MacStinger was not to be got rid of,
and had been brought back in a coach.
    But no. Bunsby was accompanied by nothing but a large box, which he hauled
into the shop with his own hands, and as soon as he had hauled in, sat upon.
Captain Cuttle knew it for the chest he had left at Mrs. MacStinger's house, and
looking, candle in hand, at Bunsby more attentively, believed that he was three
sheets in the wind, or, in plain words, drunk. It was difficult, however, to be
sure of this; the Commander having no trace of expression in his face when
sober.
    »Cuttle,« said the Commander, getting off the chest, and opening the lid,
»are these here your traps?«
    Captain Cuttle looked in and identified his property.
    »Done pretty taut and trim, hey, shipmet?« said Bunsby.
    The grateful and bewildered Captain grasped him by the hand, and was
launching into a reply expressive of his astonished feelings, when Bunsby
disengaged himself by a jerk of his wrist, and seemed to make an effort to wink
with his revolving eye, the only effect of which attempt, in his condition, was
nearly to overbalance him. He then abruptly opened the door, and shot away to
rejoin the Cautious Clara with all speed - supposed to be his invariable custom,
whenever he considered he had made a point.
    As it was not his humour to be often sought, Captain Cuttle decided not to
go or send to him next day, or until he should make his gracious pleasure known
in such wise, or failing that, until some little time should have elapsed. The
Captain, therefore, renewed his solitary life next morning, and thought
profoundly, many mornings, noons, and nights, of old Sol Gills, and Bunsby's
sentiments concerning him, and the hopes there were of his return. Much of such
thinking strengthened Captain Cuttle's hopes; and he humoured them and himself
by watching for the Instrument-maker at the door as he ventured to do now, in
his strange liberty - and setting his chair in its place, and arranging the
little parlour as it used to be, in case he should come home unexpectedly. He
likewise, in his thoughtfulness, took down a certain little miniature of Walter
as a schoolboy, from its accustomed nail, lest it should shock the old man on
his return. The Captain had his presentiments, too, sometimes, that he would
come on such a day; and one particular Sunday, even ordered a double allowance
of dinner, he was so sanguine. But come, old Solomon did not; and still the
neighbours noticed how the seafaring man in the glazed hat, stood at the
shop-door of an evening, looking up and down the street.
 

                                   Chapter XL

                              Domestic Relations.

It was not in the nature of things that a man of Mr. Dombey's mood, opposed to
such a spirit as he had raised against himself, should be softened in the
imperious asperity of his temper; or that the cold hard armour of pride in which
he lived encased, should be made more flexible by constant collision with
haughty scorn and defiance. It is the curse of such a nature - it is a main part
of the heavy retribution on itself it bears within itself - that while deference
and concession swell its evil qualities, and are the food it grows upon,
resistance and a questioning of its exacting claims, foster it too, no less. The
evil that is in it finds equally its means of growth and propagation in
opposites. It draws support and life from sweets and bitters; bowed down before,
or unacknowledged, it still enslaves the breast in which it has its throne; and,
worshipped or rejected, is as hard a master as the Devil in dark fables.
    Towards his first wife, Mr. Dombey, in his cold and lofty arrogance, had
borne himself like the removed Being he almost conceived himself to be. He had
been Mr. Dombey with her when she first saw him, and he was Mr. Dombey when she
died. He had asserted his greatness during their whole married life, and she had
meekly recognised it. He had kept his distant seat of state on the top of his
throne, and she her humble station on its lowest step; and much good it had done
him, so to live in solitary bondage to his one idea! He had imagined that the
proud character of his second wife would have been added to his own - would have
merged into it, and exalted his greatness. He had pictured himself haughtier
than ever, with Edith's haughtiness subservient to his. He had never entertained
the possibility of its arraying itself against him. And now, when he found it
rising in his path at every step and turn of his daily life, fixing its cold,
defiant, and contemptuous face upon him, this pride of his, instead of
withering, or hanging down its head beneath the shock, put forth new shoots,
became more concentrated and intense, more gloomy, sullen, irksome, and
unyielding, than it had ever been before.
    Who wears such armour, too, bears with him ever another heavy retribution.
It is of proof against conciliation, love, and confidence! against all gentle
sympathy from without, all trust, all tenderness, all soft emotion; but to deep
stabs in the self-love, it is as vulnerable as the bare breast to steel; and
such tormenting festers rankle there, as follow on no other wounds, no, though
dealt with the mailed hand of Pride itself, on weaker pride, disarmed and thrown
down.
    Such wounds were his. He felt them sharply, in the solitude of his old
rooms; whither he now began often to retire again, and pass long solitary hours.
It seemed his fate to be ever proud and powerful; ever humbled and powerless
where he would be most strong. Who seemed fated to work out that doom?
    Who? Who was it who could win his wife as she had won his boy? Who was it
who had shown him that new victory, as he sat in the dark corner? Who was it
whose least word did what his utmost means could not? Who was it who, unaided by
his love, regard or notice, thrived and grew beautiful when those so aided died?
Who could it be, but the same child at whom he had often glanced uneasily in her
motherless infancy, with a kind of dread, lest he might come to hate her; and of
whom his foreboding was fulfilled, for he DID hate her in his heart?
    Yes, and he would have it hatred, and he made it hatred, though some
sparkles of the light in which she had appeared before him on the memorable
night of his return home with his Bride, occasionally hung about her still. He
knew now that she was beautiful; he did not dispute that she was graceful and
winning, and that in the bright dawn of her womanhood she had come upon him, a
surprise. But he turned even this against her. In his sullen and unwholesome
brooding, the unhappy man, with a dull perception of his alienation from all
hearts, and a vague yearning for what he had all his life repelled, made a
distorted picture of his rights and wrongs, and justified himself with it
against her. The worthier she promised to be of him, the greater claim he was
disposed to ante-date upon her duty and submission. When had she ever shown him
duty and submission? Did she grace his life - or Edith's? Had her attractions
been manifested first to him - or Edith? Why, he and she had never been, from
her birth, like father and child! They had always been estranged. She had
crossed him every way and everywhere. She was leagued against him now. Her very
beauty softened natures that were obdurate to him, and insulted him with an
unnatural triumph.
    It may have been that in all this there were mutterings of an awakened
feeling in his breast, however selfishly aroused by his position of
disadvantage, in comparison with what she might have made his life. But he
silenced the distant thunder with the rolling of his sea of pride. He would bear
nothing but his pride. And in his pride, a heap of inconsistency, and misery,
and self-inflicted torment, he hated her.
    To the moody, stubborn, sullen demon, that possessed him, his wife opposed
her different pride in its full force. They never could have led a happy life
together; but nothing could have made it more unhappy, than the wilful and
determined warfare of such elements. His pride was set upon maintaining his
magnificent supremacy, and forcing recognition of it from her. She would have
been racked to death, and turned but her haughty glance of calm inflexible
disdain upon him, to the last. Such recognition from Edith! He little knew
through what a storm and struggle she had been driven onward to the crowning
honour of his hand. He little knew how much she thought she had conceded, when
she suffered him to call her wife.
    Mr. Dombey was resolved to show her that he was supreme. There must be no
will but his. Proud he desired that she should be, but she must be proud for,
not against him. As he sat alone, hardening, he would often hear her go out and
come home, treading the round of London life with no more heed of his liking or
disliking, pleasure or displeasure, than if he had been her groom. Her cold
supreme indifference - his own unquestioned attribute usurped - stung him more
than any other kind of treatment could have done; and he determined to bend her
to his magnificent and stately will.
    He had been long communing with these thoughts, when one night he sought her
in her own apartment, after he had heard her return home late. She was alone, in
her brilliant dress, and had but that moment come from her mother's room. Her
face was melancholy and pensive, when he came upon her; but it marked him at the
door; for, glancing at the mirror before it, he saw immediately, as in a
picture-frame, the knitted brow, and darkened beauty that he knew so well.
    »Mrs. Dombey,« he said, entering, »I must beg leave to have a few words with
you.«
    »To-morrow,« she replied.
    »There is no time like the present, Madam,« he returned. »You mistake your
position. I am used to choose my own times; not to have them chosen for me. I
think you scarcely understand who and what I am, Mrs. Dombey.«
    »I think,« she answered, »that I understand you very well.«
    She looked upon him as she said so, and folding her white arms, sparkling
with gold and gems, upon her swelling breast, turned away her eyes.
    If she had been less handsome, and less stately in her cold composure, she
might not have had the power of impressing him with the sense of disadvantage
that penetrated through his utmost pride. But she had the power, and he felt it
keenly. He glanced round the room: saw how the splendid means of personal
adornment, and the luxuries of dress, were scattered here and there, and
disregarded; not in mere caprice and carelessness (or so he thought), but in a
steadfast, haughty disregard of costly things: and felt it more and more.
Chaplets of flowers, plumes of feathers, jewels, laces, silks and satins; look
where he would, he saw riches, despised, poured out, and made of no account. The
very diamonds - a marriage gift - that rose and fell impatiently upon her bosom,
seemed to pant to break the chain that clasped them round her neck, and roll
down on the floor where she might tread upon them.
    He felt his disadvantage, and he showed it. Solemn and strange among this
wealth of colour and voluptuous glitter, strange and constrained towards its
haughty mistress, whose repellent beauty it repeated, and presented all around
him, as in so many fragments of a mirror, he was conscious of embarrassment and
awkwardness. Nothing that ministered to her disdainful self-possession could
fail to gall him. Galled and irritated with himself, he sat down, and went on in
no improved humour:
    »Mrs. Dombey, it is very necessary that there should be some understanding
arrived at between us. Your conduct does not please me, Madam.«
    She merely glanced at him again, and again averted her eyes; but she might
have spoken for an hour, and expressed less.
    »I repeat, Mrs. Dombey, does not please me. I have already taken occasion to
request that it may be corrected. I now insist upon it.«
    »You chose a fitting occasion for your first remonstrance, Sir, and you
adopt a fitting manner, and a fitting word for your second. You insist! To me!«
    »Madam,« said Mr. Dombey, with his most offensive air of state, »I have made
you my wife. You bear my name. You are associated with my position and my
reputation. I will not say that the world in general may be disposed to think
you honoured by that association; but I will say that I am accustomed to insist,
to my connections and dependants.«
    »Which may you be pleased to consider me?« she asked.
    »Possibly I may think that my wife should partake - or does partake, and
cannot help herself - of both characters, Mrs. Dombey.«
    She bent her eyes upon him steadily, and set her trembling lips. He saw her
bosom throb, and saw her face flush and turn white. All this he could know, and
did: but he could not know that one word was whispering in the deep recesses of
her heart, to keep her quiet; and that the word was Florence.
    Blind idiot, rushing to a precipice! He thought she stood in awe of him!
    »You are too expensive, Madam,« said Mr. Dombey. »You are extravagant. You
waste a great deal of money - or what would be a great deal in the pockets of
most gentlemen - in cultivating a kind of society that is useless to me, and,
indeed, that upon the whole is disagreeable to me. I have to insist upon a total
change in all these respects. I know that in the novelty of possessing a tithe
of such means as Fortune has placed at your disposal, ladies are apt to run into
a sudden extreme. There has been more than enough of that extreme. I beg that
Mrs. Granger's very different experiences may now come to the instruction of
Mrs. Dombey.«
    Still the fixed look, the trembling lips, the throbbing breast, the face now
crimson and now white; and still the deep whisper Florence, Florence, speaking
to her in the beating of her heart.
    His insolence of self-importance dilated as he saw this alteration in her.
Swollen no less by her past scorn of him, and his so recent feeling of
disadvantage, than by her present submission (as he took it to be), it became
too mighty for his breast, and burst all bounds. Why, who could long resist his
lofty will and pleasure! He had resolved to conquer her, and look here!
    »You will further please, Madam,« said Mr. Dombey, in a tone of sovereign
command, »to understand distinctly, that I am to be deferred to and obeyed. That
I must have a positive show and confession of deference before the world, Madam.
I am used to this. I require it as my right. In short I will have it. I consider
it no unreasonable return for the worldly advancement that has befallen you; and
I believe nobody will be surprised, either at its being required from you, or at
your making it. - To Me - To Me!« he added, with emphasis.
    No word from her. No change in her. Her eyes upon him.
    »I have learnt from your mother, Mrs. Dombey,« said Mr. Dombey, with
magisterial importance, »what no doubt you know, namely, that Brighton is
recommended for her health. Mr. Carker has been so good -«
    She changed suddenly. Her face and bosom glowed as if the red light of an
angry sunset had been flung upon them. Not unobservant of the change, and
putting his own interpretation upon it, Mr. Dombey resumed:
    »Mr. Carker has been so good as to go down and secure a house there, for a
time. On the return of the establishment to London, I shall take such steps for
its better management as I consider necessary. One of these, will be the
engagement at Brighton (if it is to be effected), of a very respectable reduced
person there, a Mrs. Pipchin, formerly employed in a situation of trust in my
family, to act as housekeeper. An establishment like this, presided over but
nominally, Mrs. Dombey, requires a competent head.«
    She had changed her attitude before he arrived at these words, and now sat -
still looking at him fixedly - turning a bracelet round and round upon her arm;
not winding it about with a light, womanly touch, but pressing and dragging it
over the smooth skin, until the white limb showed a bar of red.
    »I observed,« said Mr. Dombey - »and this concludes what I deem it necessary
to say to you at present, Mrs. Dombey - I observed a moment ago, Madam, that my
allusion to Mr. Carker was received in a peculiar manner. On the occasion of my
happening to point out to you, before that confidential agent, the objection I
had to your mode of receiving my visitors, you were pleased to object to his
presence. You will have to get the better of that objection, Madam, and to
accustom yourself to it very probably on many similar occasions; unless you
adopt the remedy which is in your own hands, of giving me no cause of complaint.
Mr. Carker,« said Mr. Dombey, who, after the emotion he had just seen, set great
store by this means of reducing his proud wife, and who was perhaps sufficiently
willing to exhibit his power to that gentleman in a new and triumphant aspect,
»Mr. Carker being in my confidence, Mrs. Dombey, may very well be in yours to
such an extent. I hope, Mrs. Dombey,« he continued, after a few moments, during
which, in his increasing haughtiness, he had improved on his idea, »I may not
find it necessary ever to entrust Mr. Carker with any message of objection or
remonstrance to you; but as it would be derogatory to my position and reputation
to be frequently holding trivial disputes with a lady upon whom I have conferred
the highest distinction that it is in my power to bestow, I shall not scruple to
avail myself of his services if I see occasion.«
    »And now,« he thought, rising in his moral magnificence, and rising a
stiffer and more impenetrable man than ever, »she knows me and my resolution.«
    The hand that had so pressed the bracelet was laid heavily upon her breast,
but she looked at him still, with an unaltered face, and said in a low voice:
    »Wait! For God's sake! I must speak to you.«
    Why did she not, and what was the inward struggle that rendered her
incapable of doing so, for minutes, while, in the strong constraint she put upon
her face, it was as fixed as any statue's - looking upon him with neither
yielding nor unyielding, liking nor hatred, pride nor humility: nothing but a
searching gaze?
    »Did I ever tempt you to seek my hand? Did I ever use any art to win you?
Was I ever more conciliating to you when you pursued me, than I have been since
our marriage? Was I ever other to you than I am?«
    »It is wholly unnecessary, Madam,« said Mr. Dombey, »to enter upon such
discussions.«
    »Did you think I loved you? Did you know I did not? Did you ever care, Man!
for my heart, or propose to yourself to win the worthless thing? Was there any
poor pretence of any in our bargain? Upon your side, or on mine?«
    »These questions,« said Mr. Dombey, »are all wide of the purpose, Madam.«
    She moved between him and the door to prevent his going away, and drawing
her majestic figure to its height, looked steadily upon him still.
    »You answer each of them. You answer me before I speak, I see. How can you
help it; you who know the miserable truth as well as I? Now, tell me. If I loved
you to devotion, could I do more than render up my whole will and being to you,
as you have just demanded? If my heart were pure and all untried, and you its
idol, could you ask more; could you have more?«
    »Possibly not, Madam,« he returned coolly.
    »You know how different I am. You see me looking on you now, and you can
read the warmth of passion for you that is breathing in my face.« Not a curl of
the proud lip, not a flash of the dark eye, nothing but the same intent and
searching look, accompanied these words. »You know my general history. You have
spoken of my mother. Do you think you can degrade, or bend or break, me to
submission and obedience?«
    Mr. Dombey smiled, as he might have smiled at an inquiry whether he thought
he could raise ten thousand pounds.
    »If there is anything unusual here,« she said, with a slight motion of her
hand before her brow, which did not for a moment flinch from its immoveable and
otherwise expressionless gaze, »as I know there are unusual feelings here,«
raising the hand she pressed upon her bosom, and heavily returning it, »consider
that there is no common meaning in the appeal I am going to make you. Yes, for I
am going;« she said it as in prompt reply to something in his face; »to appeal
to you.«
    Mr. Dombey, with a slightly condescending bend of his chin that rustled and
crackled his stiff cravat, sat down on a sofa that was near him, to hear the
appeal.
    »If you can believe that I am of such a nature now,« - he fancied he saw
tears glistening in her eyes, and he thought, complacently, that he had forced
them from her, though none fell on her cheek, and she regarded him as steadily
as ever, - »as would make what I now say almost incredible to myself, said to
any man who had become my husband, but, above all, said to you, you may,
perhaps, attach the greater weight to it. In the dark end to which we are
tending, and may come, we shall not involve ourselves alone (that might not be
much) but others.«
    Others! He knew at whom that word pointed, and frowned heavily.
    »I speak to you for the sake of others. Also your own sake; and for mine.
Since our marriage, you have been arrogant to me; and I have repaid you in kind.
You have shown to me and every one around us, every day and hour, that you think
I am graced and distinguished by your alliance. I do not think so, and have
shown that too. It seems you do not understand, or (so far as your power can go)
intend that each of us shall take a separate course; and you expect from me
instead, a homage you will never have.«
    Although her face was still the same, there was emphatic confirmation of
this Never in the very breath she drew.
    »I feel no tenderness towards you; that you know. You would care nothing for
it, if I did or could. I know as well that you feel none towards me. But we are
linked together; and in the knot that ties us, as I have said, others are bound
up. We must both die; we are both connected with the dead already, each by a
little child. Let us forbear.«
    Mr. Dombey took a long respiration, as if he would have said, Oh! was this
all!
    »There is no wealth,« she went on, turning paler as she watched him, while
her eyes grew yet more lustrous in their earnestness, »that could buy these
words of me, and the meaning that belongs to them. Once cast away as idle
breath, no wealth or power can bring them back. I mean them; I have weighed
them; and I will be true to what I undertake. If you will promise to forbear on
your part, I will promise to forbear on mine. We are a most unhappy pair, in
whom, from different causes, every sentiment that blesses marriage, or justifies
it, is rooted out; but in the course of time, some friendship, or some fitness
for each other, may arise between us. I will try to hope so, if you will make
the endeavour too; and I will look forward to a better and a happier use of age
than I have made of youth or prime.«
    Throughout she had spoken in a low plain voice, that neither rose nor fell;
ceasing, she dropped the hand with which she had enforced herself to be so
passionless and distinct, but not the eyes with which she had so steadily
observed him.
    »Madam,« said Mr. Dombey, with his utmost dignity, »I cannot entertain any
proposal of this extraordinary nature.«
    She looked at him yet, without the least change.
    »I cannot,« said Mr. Dombey, rising as he spoke, »consent to temporise or
treat with you, Mrs. Dombey, upon a subject as to which you are in possession of
my opinions and expectations. I have stated my ultimatum, Madam, and have only
to request your very serious attention to it.«
    To see the face change to its old expression, deepened in intensity! To see
the eyes droop as from some mean and odious object! To see the lighting of the
haughty brow! To see scorn, anger, indignation, and abhorrence starting into
sight, and the pale blank earnestness vanish like a mist! He could not choose
but look, although he looked to his dismay.
    »Go, Sir!« she said, pointing with an imperious hand towards the door. »Our
first and last confidence is at an end. Nothing can make us stranger to each
other than we are henceforth.«
    »I shall take my rightful course, Madam,« said Mr. Dombey, »undeterred, you
may be sure, by any general declamation.«
    She turned her back upon him, and, without reply, sat down before her glass.
    »I place my reliance on your improved sense of duty, and more correct
feeling, and better reflection, Madam,« said Mr. Dombey.
    She answered not one word. He saw no more expression of any heed of him, in
the mirror, than if he had been an unseen spider on the wall, or beetle on the
floor, or rather, than if he had been the one or other, seen and crushed when
she last turned from him, and forgotten among the ignominious and dead vermin of
the ground.
    He looked back, as he went out at the door, upon the well-lighted and
luxurious room, the beautiful and glittering objects everywhere displayed, the
shape of Edith in its rich dress seated before her glass, and the face of Edith
as the glass presented it to him; and betook himself to his old chamber of
cogitation, carrying away with him a vivid picture in his mind of all these
things, and a rambling and unaccountable speculation (such as sometimes comes
into a man's head) how they would all look when he saw them next.
    For the rest, Mr. Dombey was very taciturn, and very dignified, and very
confident of carrying out his purpose; and remained so.
    He did not design accompanying the family to Brighton; but he graciously
informed Cleopatra at breakfast, on the morning of departure, which arrived a
day or two afterwards, that he might be expected down, soon. There was no time
to be lost in getting Cleopatra to any place recommended as being salutary; for,
indeed, she seemed upon the wane, and turning of the earth, earthy.
    Without having undergone any decided second attack of her malady, the old
woman seemed to have crawled backward in her recovery from the first. She was
more lean and shrunken, more uncertain in her imbecility, and made stranger
confusions in her mind and memory. Among other symptoms of this last affliction,
she fell into the habit of confounding the names of her two sons-in-law, the
living and the deceased; and in general called Mr. Dombey, either Grangeby, or
Domber, or indifferently, both.
    But she was youthful, very youthful still; and in her youthfulness appeared
at breakfast, before going away, in a new bonnet made express, and a travelling
robe that was embroidered and braided like an old baby's. It was not easy to put
her into a fly-away bonnet now, or to keep the bonnet in its place on the back
of her poor nodding head, when it was got on. In this instance, it had not only
the extraneous effect of being always on one side, but of being perpetually
tapped on the crown by Flowers the maid, who attended in the background during
breakfast to perform that duty.
    »Now, my dearest Grangeby,« said Mrs. Skewton, »you must posively prom,« she
cut some of her words short, and cut out others altogether, »come down very
soon.«
    »I said just now, Madam,« returned Mr. Dombey, loudly and laboriously, »that
I am coming in a day or two.«
    »Bless you, Domber!«
    Here the Major, who was come to take leave of the ladies, and who was
staring through his apoplectic eyes at Mrs. Skewton's face, with the
disinterested composure of an immortal being, said:
    »Begad, Ma'am, you don't ask old Joe to come!«
    »Sterious wretch, who's he?« lisped Cleopatra. But a tap on the bonnet from
Flowers seeming to jog her memory, she added, »Oh! You mean yourself, you
naughty creature!«
    »Devilish queer, Sir,« whispered the Major to Mr. Dombey. »Bad case. Never
did wrap up enough;« the Major being buttoned to the chin. »Why who should J. B.
mean by Joe, but old Joe Bagstock - Joseph - your slave - Joe, Ma'am? Here!
Here's the man! Here are the Bagstock bellows, Ma'am!« cried the Major, striking
himself a sounding blow on the chest.
    »My dearest Edith - Grangeby - it's most trordinry thing,« said Cleopatra,
pettishly, »that Major -«
    »Bagstock! J. B.!« cried the Major, seeing that she faltered for his name.
    »Well, it don't matter,« said Cleopatra. »Edith, my love, you know I never
could remember names - what was it? oh! - most trordinry thing that so many
people want to come down to see me. I'm not going for long. I'm coming back.
Surely they can wait, till I come back!«
    Cleopatra looked all round the table as she said it, and appeared very
uneasy.
    »I won't have visitors - really don't want visitors,« she said; »little
repose - and all that sort of thing - is what I quire. No odious brutes must
proach me till I've shaken off this numbness;« and in a grisly resumption of her
coquettish ways, she made a dab at the Major with her fan, but overset Mr.
Dombey's breakfast cup instead, which was in quite a different direction.
    Then she called for Withers, and charged him to see particularly that word
was left about some trivial alterations in her room, which must be all made
before she came back, and which must be set about immediately, as there was no
saying how soon she might come back; for she had a great many engagements, and
all sorts of people to call upon. Withers received these directions with
becoming deference, and gave his guarantee for their execution; but when he
withdrew a pace or two behind her, it appeared as if he couldn't help looking
strangely at the Major, who couldn't help looking strangely at Mr. Dombey, who
couldn't help looking strangely at Cleopatra, who couldn't help nodding her
bonnet over one eye, and rattling her knife and fork upon her plate in using
them, as if she were playing castanets.
    Edith alone never lifted her eyes to any face at the table, and never seemed
dismayed by anything her mother said or did. She listened to her disjointed
talk, or at least, turned her head towards her when addressed; replied in a few
low words when necessary; and sometimes stopped her when she was rambling, or
brought her thoughts back with a monosyllable, to the point from which they had
strayed. The mother, however unsteady in other things, was constant in this -
that she was always observant of her. She would look at the beautiful face, in
its marble stillness and severity, now with a kind of fearful admiration; now in
a giggling foolish effort to move it to a smile; now with capricious tears and
jealous shakings of her head, as imagining herself neglected by it; always with
an attraction towards it, that never fluctuated like her other ideas, but had
constant possession of her. From Edith she would sometimes look at Florence, and
back again at Edith, in a manner that was wild enough; and sometimes she would
try to look elsewhere, as if to escape from her daughter's face; but back to it
she seemed forced to come, although it never sought hers unless sought, or
troubled her with one single glance.
    The breakfast concluded, Mrs. Skewton, affecting to lean girlishly upon the
Major's arm, but heavily supported on the other side by Flowers the maid, and
propped up behind by Withers the page, was conducted to the carriage, which was
to take her, Florence, and Edith to Brighton.
    »And is Joseph absolutely banished?« said the Major, thrusting in his purple
face over the steps. »Damme, Ma'am, is Cleopatra so hard-hearted as to forbid
her faithful Antony Bagstock to approach the presence?«
    »Go along!« said Cleopatra, »I can't bear you. You shall see me when I come
back, if you are very good.«
    »Tell Joseph, he may live in hope, Ma'am,« said the Major; »or he'll die in
despair.«
    Cleopatra shuddered, and leaned back. »Edith, my dear,« she said. »Tell him
-«
    »What?«
    »Such dreadful words,« said Cleopatra. »He uses such dreadful words!«
    Edith signed to him to retire, gave the word to go on, and left the
objectionable Major to Mr. Dombey. To whom he returned, whistling.
    »I'll tell you what, Sir,« said the Major, with his hands behind him, and
his legs very wide asunder, »a fair friend of ours has removed to Queer Street.«
    »What do you mean, Major?« inquired Mr. Dombey.
    »I mean to say, Dombey,« returned the Major, »that you'll soon be an
orphan-in-law.«
    Mr. Dombey appeared to relish this waggish description of himself so very
little, that the Major wound up with the horse's cough, as an expression of
gravity.
    »Damme, Sir,« said the Major, »there is no use in disguising a fact. Joe is
blunt, Sir. That's his nature. If you take old Josh at all, you take him as you
find him; and a de-vilish rusty, old rasper, of a close-toothed, J. B. file, you
do find him. Dombey,« said the Major, »your wife's mother is on the move, Sir.«
    »I fear,« returned Mr. Dombey, with much philosophy, »that Mrs. Skewton is
shaken.«
    »Shaken, Dombey!« said the Major. »Smashed!«
    »Change, however,« pursued Mr. Dombey, »and attention may do much yet.«
    »Don't believe it, Sir,« returned the Major. »Damme, Sir, she never wrapped
up enough. If a man don't wrap up,« said the Major, taking in another button of
his buff waistcoat, »he has nothing to fall back upon. But some people will die.
They will do it. Damme, they will. They're obstinate. I tell you what, Dombey,
it may not be ornamental; it may not be refined; it may be rough and tough; but
a little of the genuine old English Bagstock stamina, Sir, would do all the good
in the world to the human breed.«
    After imparting this precious piece of information, the Major, who was
certainly true-blue, whatever other endowments he may have possessed or wanted,
coming within the genuine old English classification, which has never been
exactly ascertained, took his lobster-eyes and his apoplexy to the club, and
choked there all day.
    Cleopatra, at one time fretful, at another self-complacent, sometimes awake,
sometimes asleep, and at all times juvenile, reached Brighton the same night,
fell to pieces as usual, and was put away in bed; where a gloomy fancy might
have pictured a more potent skeleton than the maid, who should have been one,
watching at the rose-coloured curtains, which were carried down to shed their
bloom upon her.
    It was settled in high council of medical authority that she should take a
carriage airing every day, and that it was important she should get out every
day, and walk if she could. Edith was ready to attend her - always ready to
attend her, with the same mechanical attention and immoveable beauty - and they
drove out alone; for Edith had an uneasiness in the presence of Florence, now
that her mother was worse, and told Florence, with a kiss, that she would rather
they two went alone.
    Mrs. Skewton, on one particular day, was in the irresolute, exacting,
jealous temper that had developed itself on her recovery from her first attack.
After sitting silent in the carriage watching Edith for some time, she took her
hand and kissed it passionately. The hand was neither given nor withdrawn, but
simply yielded to her raising of it, and being released, dropped down again,
almost as if it were insensible. At this she began to whimper and moan, and say
what a mother she had been, and how she was forgotten! This she continued to do
at capricious intervals, even when they had alighted: when she herself was
halting along with the joint support of Withers and a stick, and Edith was
walking by her side, and the carriage slowly following at a little distance.
    It was a bleak, lowering, windy day, and they were out upon the Downs with
nothing but a bare sweep of land between them and the sky. The mother, with a
querulous satisfaction in the monotony of her complaint, was still repeating it
in a low voice from time to time, and the proud form of her daughter moved
beside her slowly, when there came advancing over a dark ridge before them, two
other figures, which in the distance, were so like an exaggerated imitation of
their own, that Edith stopped.
    Almost as she stopped, the two figures stopped; and that one which to
Edith's thinking was like a distorted shadow of her mother, spoke to the other,
earnestly, and with a pointing hand towards them. That one seemed inclined to
turn back, but the other, in which Edith recognised enough that was like herself
to strike her with an unusual feeling, not quite free from fear, came on; and
then they came on together.
    The greater part of this observation, she made while walking towards them,
for her stoppage had been momentary. Nearer observation showed her that they
were poorly dressed, as wanderers about the country; that the younger woman
carried knitted work or some such goods for sale; and that the old one toiled on
empty-handed.
    And yet, however far removed she was in dress, in dignity, in beauty, Edith
could not but compare the younger woman with herself, still. It may have been
that she saw upon her face some traces which she knew were lingering in her own
soul, if not yet written on that index; but, as the woman came on, returning her
gaze, fixing her shining eyes upon her, undoubtedly presenting something of her
own air and stature, and appearing to reciprocate her own thoughts, she felt a
chill creep over her, as if the day were darkening, and the wind were colder.
    They had now come up. The old woman holding out her hand importunately,
stopped to beg of Mrs. Skewton. The younger one stopped too, and she and Edith
looked in one another's eyes.
    »What is it that you have to sell?« said Edith.
    »Only this,« returned the woman, holding out her wares, without looking at
them. »I sold myself long ago.«
    »My Lady, don't believe her,« croaked the old woman to Mrs. Skewton; »don't
believe what she says. She loves to talk like that. She's my handsome and
undutiful daughter. She gives me nothing but reproaches, my Lady, for all I have
done for her. Look at her now, my Lady, how she turns upon her poor old mother
with her looks.«
    As Mrs. Skewton drew her purse out with a trembling hand, and eagerly
fumbled for some money, which the other old woman greedily watched for - their
heads all but touching, in their hurry and decrepitude - Edith interposed:
    »I have seen you,« addressing the old woman, »before.«
    »Yes, my Lady,« with a curtsey. »Down in Warwickshire. The morning among the
trees. When you wouldn't give me nothing. But the gentleman, he give me
something! Oh, bless him, bless him!« mumbled the old woman, holding up her
skinny hand, and grinning frightfully at her daughter.
    »It's of no use attempting to stay me, Edith!« said Mrs. Skewton, angrily
anticipating an objection from her. »You know nothing about it. I won't be
dissuaded. I am sure this is an excellent woman, and a good mother.«
    »Yes, my Lady, yes,« chattered the old woman, holding out her avaricious
hand. »Thankee, my Lady. Lord bless you, my Lady. Sixpence more, my pretty Lady,
as a good mother yourself.«
    »And treated undutifully enough, too, my good old creature, sometimes, I
assure you,« said Mrs. Skewton, whimpering. »There! Shake hands with me. You're
a very good old creature - full of what's-his-name - and all that. You're all
affection and et cetera, an't you?«
    »Oh, yes, my Lady!«
    »Yes, I'm sure you are; and so's that gentlemanly creature Grangeby. I must
really shake hands with you again. And now you can go, you know; and I hope,«
addressing the daughter, »that you'll show more gratitude, and natural
what's-its-name, and all the rest of it - but I never did remember names - for
there never was a better mother than the good old creature's been to you. Come,
Edith!«
    As the ruin of Cleopatra tottered off whimpering, and wiping its eyes with a
gingerly remembrance of rouge in their neighbourhood, the old woman hobbled
another way, mumbling and counting her money. Not one word more, nor one other
gesture, had been exchanged between Edith and the younger woman, but neither had
removed her eyes from the other for a moment. They had remained confronted until
now, when Edith, as awakening from a dream, passed slowly on.
    »You're a handsome woman,« muttered her shadow, looking after her; »but good
looks won't save us. And you're a proud woman; but pride won't save us. We had
need to know each other when we meet again!«
 

                                  Chapter XLI

                            New Voices in the Waves.

All is going on as it was wont. The waves are hoarse with repetition of their
mystery; the dust lies piled upon the shore; the sea-birds soar and hover; the
winds and clouds go forth upon their trackless flight; the white arms beckon, in
the moonlight, to the invisible country far away.
    With a tender melancholy pleasure, Florence finds herself again on the old
ground so sadly trodden, yet so happily, and thinks of him in the quiet place,
where he and she have many and many a time conversed together, with the water
welling up about his couch. And now, as she sits pensive there, she hears in the
wild low murmur of the sea, his little story told again, his very words
repeated; and finds that all her life and hopes, and griefs, since - in the
solitary house, and in the pageant it has changed to - have a portion in the
burden of the marvellous song.
    And gentle Mr. Toots, who wanders at a distance, looking wistfully towards
the figure that he doats upon, and has followed there, but cannot in his
delicacy disturb at such a time, likewise hears the requiem of little Dombey on
the waters, rising and falling in the lulls of their eternal madrigal in praise
of Florence. Yes! and he faintly understands, poor Mr. Toots, that they are
saying something of a time when he was sensible of being brighter and not
addle-brained; and the tears rising in his eyes when he fears that he is dull
and stupid now, and good for little but to be laughed at, diminish his
satisfaction in their soothing reminder that he is relieved from present
responsibility to the Chicken, by the absence of that game head of poultry in
the country, training (at Toots's cost) for his great mill with the Larkey Boy.
    But Mr. Toots takes courage, when they whisper a kind thought to him; and by
slow degrees and with many indecisive stoppages on the way, approaches Florence.
Stammering and blushing, Mr. Toots affects amazement when he comes near her, and
says (having followed close on the carriage in which she travelled, every inch
of the way from London, loving even to be choked by the dust of its wheels) that
he never was so surprised in all his life.
    »And you've brought Diogenes, too, Miss Dombey!« says Mr. Toots, thrilled
through and through by the touch of the small hand so pleasantly and frankly
given him.
    No doubt Diogenes is there, and no doubt Mr. Toots has reason to observe
him, for he comes straightway at Mr. Toots's legs, and tumbles over himself in
the desperation with which he makes at him, like a very dog of Montargis. But he
is checked by his sweet mistress.
    »Down, Di, down. Don't you remember who first made us friends, Di? For
shame!«
    Oh! Well may Di lay his loving cheek against her hand, and run off, and run
back, and run round her, barking, and run headlong at anybody coming by, to show
his devotion. Mr. Toots would run headlong at anybody, too. A military gentleman
goes past, and Mr. Toots would like nothing better than to run at him, full
tilt.
    »Diogenes is quite in his native air, isn't he, Miss Dombey?« says Mr.
Toots.
    Florence assents, with a grateful smile.
    »Miss Dombey,« says Mr. Toots, »beg your pardon, but if you would like to
walk to Blimber's, I - I'm going there.«
    Florence puts her arm in that of Mr. Toots without a word, and they walk
away together, with Diogenes going on before. Mr. Toots's legs shake under him;
and though he is splendidly dressed, he feels misfits, and sees wrinkles, in the
masterpieces of Burgess and Co., and wishes he had put on that brightest pair of
boots.
    Doctor Blimber's house, outside, has as scholastic and studious an air as
ever: and up there is the window where she used to look for the pale face, and
where the pale face brightened when it saw her, and the wasted little hand waved
kisses as she passed. The door is opened by the same weak-eyed young man, whose
imbecility of grin at sight of Mr. Toots is feebleness of character personified.
They are shown into the Doctor's study, where blind Homer and Minerva give them
audience as of yore, to the sober ticking of the great clock in the hall; and
where the globes stand still in their accustomed places, as if the world were
stationary too, and nothing in it ever perished in obedience to the universal
law, that, while it keeps it on the roll, calls everything to earth.
    And here is Doctor Blimber, with his learned legs; and here is Mrs. Blimber,
with her sky-blue cap; and here is Cornelia, with her sandy little row of curls,
and her bright spectacles, still working like a sexton in the graves of
languages. Here is the table upon which he sat forlorn and strange, the new boy
of the school; and hither comes the distant cooing of the old boys, at their old
lives in the old room on the old principle!
    »Toots,« says Doctor Blimber, »I am very glad to see you, Toots.«
    Mr. Toots chuckles in reply.
    »Also to see you, Toots, in such good company,« says Doctor Blimber.
    Mr. Toots, with a scarlet visage, explains that he has met Miss Dombey by
accident, and that Miss Dombey wishing, like himself, to see the old place, they
have come together.
    »You will like,« says Doctor Blimber, »to step among our young friends, Miss
Dombey, no doubt. All fellow-students of yours, Toots, once. I think we have no
new disciples in our little portico, my dear,« says Doctor Blimber to Cornelia,
»since Mr. Toots left us.«
    »Except Bitherstone,« returns Cornelia.
    »Aye, truly,« says the Doctor. »Bitherstone is new to Mr. Toots.«
    New to Florence, too, almost; for, in the schoolroom, Bitherstone - no
longer Master Bitherstone of Mrs. Pipchin's - shows in collars and a neckcloth,
and wears a watch. But Bitherstone, born beneath some Bengal star of ill-omen,
is extremely inky; and his Lexicon has got so dropsical from constant reference,
that it won't shut, and yawns as if it really could not bear to be so bothered.
So does Bitherstone its master, forced at Doctor Blimber's highest pressure; but
in the yawn of Bitherstone there is malice and snarl, and he has been heard to
say that he wishes he could catch old Blimber in India. He'd precious soon find
himself carried up the country by a few of his (Bitherstone's) Coolies, and
handed over to the Thugs; he can tell him that.
    Briggs is still grinding in the mill of knowledge; and Tozer, too; and
Johnson, too; and all the rest; the older pupils being principally engaged in
forgetting, with prodigious labour, everything they knew when they were younger.
All are as polite and as pale as ever; and among them, Mr. Feeder, B. A., with
his bony hand and bristly head, is still hard at it: with his Herodotus stop on
just at present, and his other barrels on a shelf behind him.
    A mighty sensation is created, even among these grave young gentlemen, by a
visit from the emancipated Toots; who is regarded with a kind of awe, as one who
has passed the Rubicon, and is pledged never to come back, and concerning the
cut of whose clothes, and fashion of whose jewellery, whispers go about, behind
hands; the bilious Bitherstone, who is not of Mr. Toots's time, affecting to
despise the latter to the smaller boys, and saying he knows better, and that he
should like to see him coming that sort of thing in Bengal, where his mother has
got an emerald belonging to him that was taken out of the footstool of a Rajah.
Come now!
    Bewildering emotions are awakened also by the sight of Florence, with whom
every young gentleman immediately falls in love, again: except, as aforesaid,
the bilious Bitherstone, who declines to do so, out of contradiction. Black
jealousies of Mr. Toots arise, and Briggs is of opinion that he an't so very old
after all. But this disparaging insinuation is speedily made nought by Mr. Toots
saying aloud to Mr. Feeder, B. A., »How are you, Feeder?« and asking him to come
and dine with him to-day at the Bedford; in right of which feats he might set up
as Old Parr, if he chose, unquestioned.
    There is much shaking of hands, and much bowing, and a great desire on the
part of each young gentleman to take Toots down in Miss Dombey's good graces;
and then, Mr. Toots having bestowed a chuckle on his old desk, Florence and he
withdraw with Mrs. Blimber and Cornelia; and Doctor Blimber is heard to observe
behind them as he comes out last, and shuts the door, »Gentlemen, we will now
resume our studies.« For that and little else is what the Doctor hears the sea
say, or has heard it saying all his life.
    Florence then steals away and goes up stairs to the old bedroom with Mrs.
Blimber and Cornelia; Mr. Toots, who feels that neither he nor anybody else is
wanted there, stands talking to the Doctor at the study-door, or rather hearing
the Doctor talk to him, and wondering how he ever thought the study a great
sanctuary, and the Doctor, with his round turned legs, like a clerical
pianoforte, an awful man. Florence soon comes down and takes leave; Mr. Toots
takes leave; and Diogenes, who has been worrying the weak-eyed young man
pitilessly all the time, shoots out at the door, and barks a glad defiance down
the cliff; while 'Melia, and another of the Doctor's female domestics, look out
of an upper window, laughing at that there Toots, and saying of Miss Dombey,
»But really though, now - ain't she like her brother, only prettier?«
    Mr. Toots, who saw when Florence came down that there were tears upon her
face, is desperately anxious and uneasy, and at first fears that he did wrong in
proposing the visit. But he is soon relieved by her saying she is very glad to
have been there again, and by her talking quite cheerfully about it all, as they
walked on by the sea. What with the voices there, and her sweet voice, when they
come near Mr. Dombey's house, and Mr. Toots must leave her, he is so enslaved
that he has not a scrap of free-will left; when she gives him her hand at
parting, he cannot let it go.
    »Miss Dombey, I beg your pardon,« says Mr. Toots, in a sad fluster, »but if
you would allow me to - to -«
    The smiling and unconscious look of Florence brings him to a dead stop.
    »If you would allow me to - if you would not consider it a liberty, Miss
Dombey, if I was to - without any encouragement at all, if I was to hope, you
know,« says Mr. Toots.
    Florence looks at him inquiringly.
    »Miss Dombey,« says Mr. Toots, who feels that he is in for it now, »I really
am in that state of adoration of you that I don't know what to do with myself. I
am the most deplorable wretch. If it wasn't't at the corner of the Square at
present, I should go down on my knees, and beg and entreat of you, without any
encouragement at all, just to let me hope that I may - may think it possible
that you -«
    »Oh, if you please, don't!« cries Florence, for the moment quite alarmed and
distressed. »Oh, pray don't, Mr. Toots. Stop, if you please. Don't say any more.
As a kindness and a favour to me, don't.«
    Mr. Toots is dreadfully abashed, and his mouth opens.
    »You have been so good to me,« says Florence, »I am so grateful to you, I
have such reason to like you for being a kind friend to me, and I do like you so
much;« and here the ingenuous face smiles upon him with the pleasantest look of
honesty in the world; »that I am sure you are only going to say good-bye!«
    »Certainly, Miss Dombey,« says Mr. Toots, »I - I - that's exactly what I
mean. It's of no consequence.«
    »Good-bye!« cries Florence.
    »Good-bye, Miss Dombey!« stammers Mr. Toots. »I hope you won't think
anything about it. It's - it's of no consequence, thank you. It's not of the
least consequence in the world.«
    Poor Mr. Toots goes home to his Hotel in a state of desperation, locks
himself into his bedroom, flings himself upon his bed, and lies there for a long
time; as if it were of the greatest consequence, nevertheless. But Mr. Feeder,
B. A., is coming to dinner, which happens well for Mr. Toots, or there is no
knowing when he might get up again. Mr. Toots is obliged to get up to receive
him, and to give him hospitable entertainment.
    And the generous influence of that social virtue, hospitality (to make no
mention of wine and good cheer), opens Mr. Toots's heart, and warms him to
conversation. He does not tell Mr. Feeder, B. A., what passed at the corner of
the Square; but when Mr. Feeder asks him »When it is to come off?« Mr. Toots
replies, »that there are certain subjects« - which brings Mr. Feeder down a peg
or two immediately. Mr. Toots adds, that he don't know what right Blimber had to
notice his being in Miss Dombey's company, and that if he thought he meant
impudence by it, he'd have him out, Doctor or no Doctor; but he supposes it's
only his ignorance. Mr. Feeder says he has no doubt of it.
    Mr. Feeder, however, as an intimate friend, is not excluded from the
subject. Mr. Toots merely requires that it should be mentioned mysteriously, and
with feeling. After a few glasses of wine, he gives Miss Dombey's health,
observing, »Feeder, you have no idea of the sentiments with which I propose that
toast.« Mr. Feeder replies, »Oh, yes, I have, my dear Toots; and greatly they
redound to your honour, old boy.« Mr. Feeder is then agitated by friendship, and
shakes hands; and says, if ever Toots wants a brother, he knows where to find
him, either by post or parcel. Mr. Feeder likewise says, that if he may advise,
he would recommend Mr. Toots to learn the guitar, or, at least the flute; for
women like music, when you are paying your addresses to 'em, and he has found
the advantage of it himself.
    This brings Mr. Feeder, B. A., to the confession that he has his eye upon
Cornelia Blimber. He informs Mr. Toots that he don't object to spectacles, and
that if the Doctor were to do the handsome thing and give up the business, why,
there they are - provided for. He says it's his opinion that when a man has made
a handsome sum by his business, he is bound to give it up; and that Cornelia
would be an assistance in it which any man might be proud of. Mr. Toots replies
by launching wildly out into Miss Dombey's praises, and by insinuations that
sometimes he thinks he should like to blow his brains out. Mr. Feeder strongly
urges that it would be a rash attempt, and shows him, as a reconcilement to
existence, Cornelia's portrait, spectacles and all.
    Thus these quiet spirits pass the evening; and when it has yielded place to
night, Mr. Toots walks home with Mr. Feeder, and parts with him at Doctor
Blimber's door. But Mr. Feeder only goes up the steps, and when Mr. Toots is
gone, comes down again, to stroll upon the beach alone, and think about his
prospects. Mr. Feeder plainly hears the waves informing him, as he loiters
along, that Doctor Blimber will give up the business; and he feels a soft
romantic pleasure in looking at the outside of the house, and thinking that the
Doctor will first paint it, and put it into thorough repair.
    Mr. Toots is likewise roaming up and down, outside the casket that contains
his jewel; and in a deplorable condition of mind, and not unsuspected by the
police, gazes at a window where he sees a light, and which he has no doubt is
Florence's. But it is not, for that is Mrs. Skewton's room; and while Florence,
sleeping in another chamber, dreams lovingly, in the midst of the old scenes and
their old associations lives again, the figure which in grim reality is
substituted for the patient boy's on the same theatre, once more to connect it -
but how differently! - with decay and death, is stretched there, wakeful and
complaining. Ugly and haggard it lies upon its bed of unrest; and by it, in the
terror of her unimpassioned loveliness - for it has terror in the sufferer's
failing eyes - sits Edith. What do the waves say, in the stillness of the night,
to them!
    »Edith, what is that stone arm raised to strike me? Don't you see it?«
    »There is nothing, mother, but your fancy.«
    »But my fancy! Everything is my fancy. Look! Is it possible that you don't
see it!«
    »Indeed, mother, there is nothing. Should I sit unmoved, if there were any
such thing there?«
    »Unmoved?« looking wildly at her - »it's gone now - and why are you so
unmoved? That is not my fancy, Edith. It turns me cold to see you sitting at my
side.«
    »I am sorry, mother.«
    »Sorry! You seem always sorry. But it is not for me!«
    With that, she cries; and tossing her restless head from side to side upon
her pillow, runs on about neglect, and the mother she has been, and the mother
the good old creature was, whom they met, and the cold return the daughters of
such mothers make. In the midst of her incoherence, she stops, looks at her
daughter, cries out that her wits are going, and hides her face upon the bed.
    Edith, in compassion, bends over her and speaks to her. The sick old woman
clutches her round the neck, and says, with a look of horror,
    »Edith! we are going home soon; going back. You mean that I shall go home
again?«
    »Yes, mother, yes.«
    »And what he said - what's-his-name, I never could remember names - Major -
that dreadful word, when we came away - it's not true? Edith!« with a shriek and
a stare, »it's not that that is the matter with me.«
    Night after night, the light burns in the window, and the figure lies upon
the bed, and Edith sits beside it, and the restless waves are calling to them
both the whole night long. Night after night, the waves are hoarse with
repetition of their mystery; the dust lies piled upon the shore; the sea-birds
soar and hover; the winds and clouds are on their trackless flight; the white
arms beckon, in the moonlight, to the invisible country far away.
    And still the sick old woman looks into the corner, where the stone arm -
part of a figure of some tomb, she says - is raised to strike her. At last it
falls; and then a dumb old woman lies upon the bed, and she is crooked and
shrunk up, and half of her is dead.
    Such is the figure, painted and patched for the sun to mock, that is drawn
slowly through the crowd from day to day; looking, as it goes, for the good old
creature who was such a mother, and making mouths as it peers among the crowd in
vain. Such is the figure that is often wheeled down to the margin of the sea,
and stationed there; but on which no wind can blow freshness, and for which the
murmur of the ocean has no soothing word. She lies and listens to it by the
hour; but its speech is dark and gloomy to her, and a dread is on her face, and
when her eyes wander over the expanse, they see but a broad stretch of
desolation between earth and heaven.
    Florence she seldom sees, and when she does, is angry with and mows at.
Edith is beside her always, and keeps Florence away; and Florence, in her bed at
night, trembles at the thought of death in such a shape, and often wakes and
listens, thinking it has come. No one attends on her but Edith. It is better
that few eyes should see her; and her daughter watches alone by the bedside.
    A shadow even on that shadowed face, a sharpening even of the sharpened
features, and a thickening of the veil before the eyes into a pall that shuts
out the dim world, is come. Her wandering hands upon the coverlet join feebly
palm to palm, and move towards her daughter; and a voice not like hers, not like
any voice that speaks our mortal language - says, »For I nursed you!«
    Edith, without a tear, kneels down to bring her voice closer to the sinking
head, and answers:
    »Mother, can you hear me?«
    Staring wide, she tries to nod in answer.
    »Can you recollect the night before I married?«
    The head is motionless, but it expresses somehow that she does.
    »I told you then that I forgave your part in it, and prayed God to forgive
my own. I told you that the past was at an end between us. I say so now, again.
Kiss me, mother.«
    Edith touches the white lips, and for a moment all is still. A moment
afterwards, her mother, with her girlish laugh, and the skeleton of the
Cleopatra manner, rises in her bed.
    Draw the rose-coloured curtains. There is something else upon its flight
besides the wind and clouds. Draw the rose-coloured curtains close!
 
Intelligence of the event is sent to Mr. Dombey in town, who waits upon Cousin
Feenix (not yet able to make up his mind for Baden-Baden), who has just received
it too. A good-natured creature like Cousin Feenix is the very man for a
marriage or a funeral, and his position in the family renders it right that he
should be consulted.
    »Dombey,« said Cousin Feenix, »upon my soul, I am very much shocked to see
you on such a melancholy occasion. My poor aunt! She was a devilish lively
woman.«
    Mr. Dombey replies, »Very much so.«
    »And made up,« says Cousin Feenix, »really young, you know, considering. I
am sure, on the day of your marriage, I thought she was good for another twenty
years. In point of fact, I said so to a man at Brooks's - little Billy Joper -
you know him, no doubt - man with a glass in his eye?«
    Mr. Dombey bows a negative. »In reference to the obsequies,« he hints,
»whether there is any suggestion -«
    »Well, upon my life,« says Cousin Feenix, stroking his chin, which he has
just enough of hand below his wristbands to do; »I really don't know. There's a
Mausoleum down at my place, in the park, but I'm afraid it's in bad repair, and,
in point of fact, in a devil of a state. But for being a little out at elbows, I
should have had it put to rights; but I believe the people come and make pic-nic
parties there inside the iron railings.«
    Mr. Dombey is clear that this won't do.
    »There's an uncommon good church in the village,« says Cousin Feenix,
thoughtfully; »pure specimen of the Anglo-Norman style, and admirably well
sketched too by Lady Jane Finchbury - woman with tight stays - but they've
spoilt it with whitewash, I understand, and it's a long journey.« »Perhaps
Brighton itself,« Mr. Dombey suggests.
    »Upon my honour, Dombey, I don't think we could do better,« says Cousin
Feenix. »It's on the spot, you see, and a very cheerful place.«
    »And when,« hints Mr. Dombey, »would it be convenient?«
    »I shall make a point,« says Cousin Feenix, »of pledging myself for any day
you think best. I shall have great pleasure (melancholy pleasure, of course) in
following my poor aunt to the confines of the - in point of fact, to the grave,«
says Cousin Feenix, failing in the other turn of speech.
    »Would Monday do for leaving town?« says Mr. Dombey.
    »Monday would suit me to perfection,« replies Cousin Feenix. Therefore Mr.
Dombey arranges to take Cousin Feenix down on that day, and presently takes his
leave, attended to the stairs by Cousin Feenix, who says, at parting, »I'm
really excessively sorry, Dombey, that you should have so much trouble about
it;« to which Mr. Dombey answers, »Not at all.«
    At the appointed time, Cousin Feenix and Mr. Dombey meet, and go down to
Brighton, and representing, in their two selves, all the other mourners for the
deceased lady's loss, attend her remains to their place of rest. Cousin Feenix,
sitting in the mourning-coach, recognises innumerable acquaintances on the road,
but takes no other notice of them, in decorum, than checking them off aloud, as
they go by, for Mr. Dombey's information, as »Tom Johnson. Man with cork leg
from White's. What, are you here, Tommy? Foley on a blood mare. The Smalder
girls« - and so forth. At the ceremony Cousin Feenix is depressed, observing,
that these are the occasions to make a man think, in point of fact, that he is
getting shaky; and his eyes are really moistened, when it is over. But he soon
recovers; and so do the rest of Mrs. Skewton's relatives and friends, of whom
the Major continually tells the club that she never did wrap up enough; while
the young lady with the back, who has so much trouble with her eyelids, says,
with a little scream, that she must have been enormously old, and that she died
of all kinds of horrors, and you mustn't mention it.
    So Edith's mother lies unmentioned of her dear friends, who are deaf to the
waves that are hoarse with repetition of their mystery, and blind to the dust
that is piled upon the shore, and to the white arms that are beckoning, in the
moonlight, to the invisible country far away. But all goes on, as it was wont,
upon the margin of the unknown sea; and Edith standing there alone, and
listening to its waves, has dank weed cast up at her feet, to strew her path in
life withal.
 

                                  Chapter XLII

                          Confidential and Accidental.

Attired no more in Captain Cuttle's sable slops and sou'-wester hat, but dressed
in a substantial suit of brown livery, which, while it affected to be a very
sober and demure livery indeed, was really as self-satisfied and confident a one
as tailor need desire to make, Rob the Grinder, thus transformed as to his outer
man, and all regardless within of the Captain and the Midshipman, except when he
devoted a few minutes of his leisure time to crowing over those inseparable
worthies, and recalling, with much applauding music from that brazen instrument,
his conscience, the triumphant manner in which he had disembarrassed himself of
their company, now served his patron, Mr. Carker. Inmate of Mr. Carker's house,
and serving about his person, Rob kept his round eyes on the white teeth with
fear and trembling, and felt that he had need to open them wider than ever.
    He could not have quaked more, through his whole being, before the teeth,
though he had come into the service of some powerful enchanter, and they had
been his strongest spell. The boy had a sense of power and authority in this
patron of his that engrossed his whole attention and exacted his most implicit
submission and obedience. He hardly considered himself safe in thinking about
him when he was absent, lest he should feel himself immediately taken by the
throat again, as on the morning when he first became bound to him, and should
see every one of the teeth finding him out, and taxing him with every fancy of
his mind. Face to face with him, Rob had no more doubt that Mr. Carker read his
secret thoughts, or that he could read them by the least exertion of his will if
he were so inclined, than he had that Mr. Carker saw him when he looked at him.
The ascendancy was so complete, and held him in such enthralment, that, hardly
daring to think at all, but with his mind filled with a constantly dilating
impression of his patron's irresistible command over him, and power of doing
anything with him, he would stand watching his pleasure, and trying to
anticipate his orders, in a state of mental suspension, as to all other things.
    Rob had not informed himself perhaps - in his then state of mind it would
have been an act of no common temerity to inquire - whether he yielded so
completely to this influence in any part, because he had floating suspicions of
his patron's being a master of certain treacherous arts in which he had himself
been a poor scholar at the Grinders' School. But certainly Rob admired him, as
well as feared him. Mr. Carker, perhaps, was better acquainted with the sources
of his power, which lost nothing by his management of it.
    On the very night when he left the Captain's service, Rob, after disposing
of his pigeons, and even making a bad bargain in his hurry, had gone straight
down to Mr. Carker's house, and hotly presented himself before his new master
with a glowing face that seemed to expect commendation.
    »What, scapegrace!« said Mr. Carker, glancing at his bundle. »Have you left
your situation and come to me?«
    »Oh if you please, Sir,« faltered Rob, »you said, you know, when I come here
last -«
    »I said,« returned Mr. Carker, »what did I say?«
    »If you please, Sir, you didn't say nothing at all, Sir,« returned Rob,
warned by the manner of this inquiry, and very much disconcerted.
    His patron looked at him with a wide display of gums, and shaking his
forefinger, observed:
    »You'll come to an evil end, my vagabond friend, I foresee. There's ruin in
store for you.«
    »Oh if you please, don't, Sir!« cried Rob, with his legs trembling under
him. »I'm sure, Sir, I only want to work for you, Sir, and to wait upon you,
Sir, and to do faithful whatever I'm bid, Sir.«
    »You had better do faithfully whatever you are bid,« returned his patron,
»if you have anything to do with me.«
    »Yes, I know that, Sir,« pleaded the submissive Rob; »I'm sure of that, Sir.
If you'll only be so good as try me, Sir! And if ever you find me out, Sir,
doing anything against your wishes, I give you leave to kill me.«
    »You dog!« said Mr. Carker, leaning back in his chair, and smiling at him
serenely. »That's nothing to what I'd do to you, if you tried to deceive me.«
    »Yes, Sir,« replied the abject Grinder, »I'm sure you would be down upon me
dreadful, Sir. I wouldn't attempt for to go and do it, Sir, not if I was bribed
with golden guineas.«
    Thoroughly checked in his expectations of commendation, the crestfallen
Grinder stood looking at his patron, and vainly endeavouring not to look at him,
with the uneasiness which a cur will often manifest in a similar situation.
    »So you have left your old service, and come here to ask me to take you into
mine, eh?« said Mr. Carker.
    »Yes, if you please, Sir,« returned Rob, who, in doing so, had acted on his
patron's own instructions, but dared not justify himself by the least
insinuation to that effect.
    »Well!« said Mr. Carker. »You know me, boy?«
    »Please, Sir, yes, Sir,« returned Rob, fumbling with his hat, and still
fixed by Mr. Carker's eye, and fruitlessly endeavouring to unfix himself.
    Mr. Carker nodded. »Take care, then!«
    Rob expressed in a number of short bows his lively understanding of this
caution, and was bowing himself back to the door, greatly relieved by the
prospect of getting on the outside of it, when his patron stopped him.
    »Halloa!« he cried, calling him roughly back. »You have been - shut that
door.«
    Rob obeyed as if his life had depended on his alacrity.
    »You have been used to eaves-dropping. Do you know what that means?«
    »Listening, Sir?« Rob hazarded, after some embarrassed reflection.
    His patron nodded. »And watching, and so forth.«
    »I wouldn't do such a thing here, Sir,« answered Rob; »upon my word and
honour, I wouldn't, Sir, I wish I may die if I would, Sir, for anything that
could be promised to me. I should consider it is as much as all the world was
worth, to offer to do such a thing, unless I was ordered, Sir.«
    »You had better not. You have been used, too, to babbling and tattling,«
said his patron with perfect coolness. »Beware of that here, or you're a lost
rascal,« and he smiled again, and again cautioned him with his forefinger.
    The Grinder's breath came short and thick with consternation. He tried to
protest the purity of his intentions, but could only stare at the smiling
gentleman in a stupor of submission, with which the smiling gentleman seemed
well enough satisfied, for he ordered him down stairs, after observing him for
some moments in silence, and gave him to understand that he was retained in his
employment.
    This was the manner of Rob the Grinder's engagement by Mr. Carker, and his
awe-stricken devotion to that gentleman had strengthened and increased, if
possible, with every minute of his service.
    It was a service of some months' duration, when early one morning, Rob
opened the garden gate to Mr. Dombey, who was come to breakfast with his master,
by appointment. At the same moment his master himself came, hurrying forth to
receive the distinguished guest, and give him welcome with all his teeth.
    »I never thought,« said Carker, when he had assisted him to alight from his
horse, »to see you here, I'm sure. This is an extraordinary day in my calendar.
No occasion is very special to a man like you, who may do anything; but to a man
like me, the case is widely different.«
    »You have a tasteful place here, Carker,« said Mr. Dombey, condescending to
stop upon the lawn, to look about him.
    »You can afford to say so,« returned Carker. »Thank you.«
    »Indeed,« said Mr. Dombey, in his lofty patronage, »any one might say so. As
far as it goes, it is a very commodious and well-arranged place - quite
elegant.«
    »As far as it goes, truly,« returned Carker, with an air of disparagement.
»It wants that qualification. Well! we have said enough about it; and though you
can afford to praise it, I thank you none the less. Will you walk in?«
    Mr. Dombey, entering the house, noticed, as he had reason to do, the
complete arrangement of the rooms, and the numerous contrivances for comfort and
effect that abounded there. Mr. Carker, in his ostentation of humility, received
this notice with a deferential smile, and said he understood its delicate
meaning, and appreciated it, but in truth the cottage was good enough for one in
his position - better, perhaps, than such a man should occupy, poor as it was.
    »But perhaps to you, who are so far removed, it really does look better than
it is,« he said, with his false mouth distended to its fullest stretch. »Just as
monarchs imagine attractions in the lives of beggars.«
    He directed a sharp glance and a sharp smile at Mr. Dombey as he spoke, and
a sharper glance, and a sharper smile yet, when Mr. Dombey, drawing himself up
before the fire, in the attitude so often copied by his second in command,
looked round at the pictures on the walls. Cursorily as his cold eye wandered
over them, Carker's keen glance accompanied his, and kept pace with his, marking
exactly where it went, and what it saw. As it rested on one picture in
particular, Carker hardly seemed to breathe, his sidelong scrutiny was so
catlike and vigilant, but the eye of his great chief passed from that, as from
the others, and appeared no more impressed by it than by the rest.
    Carker looked at it - it was the picture that resembled Edith - as if it
were a living thing; and with a wicked, silent laugh upon his face, that seemed
in part addressed to it, though it was all derisive of the great man standing so
unconscious beside him. Breakfast was soon set upon the table: and, inviting Mr.
Dombey to a chair which had its back towards this picture, he took his own seat
opposite to it as usual.
    Mr. Dombey was even graver than it was his custom to be, and quite silent.
The parrot, swinging in the gilded hoop within her gaudy cage, attempted in vain
to attract notice, for Carker was too observant of his visitor to heed her; and
the visitor, abstracted in meditation, looked fixedly, not to say sullenly, over
his stiff neckcloth, without raising his eyes from the table-cloth. As to Rob,
who was in attendance, all his faculties and energies were so locked up in
observation of his master, that he scarcely ventured to give shelter to the
thought that the visitor was the great gentleman before whom he had been carried
as a certificate of the family health, in his childhood, and to whom he had been
indebted for his leather smalls.
    »Allow me,« said Carker suddenly, »to ask how Mrs. Dombey is?«
    He leaned forward obsequiously, as he made the inquiry, with his chin
resting on his hand; and at the same time his eyes went up to the picture, as if
he said to it, »Now, see, how I will lead him on!«
    Mr. Dombey reddened as he answered:
    »Mrs. Dombey is quite well. You remind me, Carker, of some conversation that
I wish to have with you.«
    »Robin, you can leave us,« said his master, at whose mild tones Robin
started and disappeared, with his eyes fixed on his patron to the last. »You
don't remember that boy, of course?« he added, when the immeshed Grinder was
gone.
    »No,« said Mr. Dombey, with magnificent indifference.
    »Not likely that a man like you would. Hardly possible,« murmured Carker.
»But he is one of that family from whom you took a nurse. Perhaps you may
remember having generously charged yourself with his education?«
    »Is it that boy?« said Mr. Dombey, with a frown. »He does little credit to
his education, I believe.«
    »Why, he is a young rip, I am afraid,« returned Carker, with a shrug. »He
bears that character. But the truth is, I took him into my service because,
being able to get no other employment, he conceived (had been taught at home, I
dare say) that he had some sort of claim upon you, and was constantly trying to
dog your heels with his petition. And although my defined and recognised
connexion with your affairs is merely of a business character, still I have that
spontaneous interest in everything belonging to you, that -«
    He stopped again, as if to discover whether he had led Mr. Dombey far enough
yet. And again, with his chin resting on his hand, he leered at the picture.
    »Carker,« said Mr. Dombey, »I am sensible that you do not limit your -«
    »Service,« suggested his smiling entertainer.
    »No; I prefer to say your regard,« observed Mr. Dombey; very sensible, as he
said so, that he was paying him a handsome and flattering compliment, »to our
mere business relations. Your consideration for my feelings, hopes, and
disappointments, in the little instance you have just now mentioned, is an
example in point. I am obliged to you, Carker.«
    Mr. Carker bent his head slowly, and very softly rubbed his hands, as if he
were afraid by any action to disturb the current of Mr. Dombey's confidence.
    »Your allusion to it is opportune,« said Mr. Dombey, after a little
hesitation; »for it prepares the way to what I was beginning to say to you, and
reminds me that that involves no absolutely new relations between us, although
it may involve more personal confidence on my part than I have hitherto -«
    »Distinguished me with,« suggested Carker, bending his head again: »I will
not say to you how honoured I am; for a man like you well knows how much honour
he has in his power to bestow at pleasure.«
    »Mrs. Dombey and myself,« said Mr. Dombey, passing this compliment with
august self-denial, »are not quite agreed upon some points. We do not appear to
understand each other yet. Mrs. Dombey has something to learn.«
    »Mrs. Dombey is distinguished by many rare attractions; and has been
accustomed, no doubt, to receive much adulation,« said the smooth, sleek watcher
of his slightest look and tone. »But where there is affection, duty, and
respect, any little mistakes engendered by such causes are soon set right.«
    Mr. Dombey's thoughts instinctively flew back to the face that had looked at
him in his wife's dressing-room, when an imperious hand was stretched towards
the door; and remembering the affection, duty, and respect, expressed in it, he
felt the blood rush to his own face quite as plainly as the watchful eyes upon
him saw it there.
    »Mrs. Dombey and myself,« he went on to say, »had some discussion, before
Mrs. Skewton's death, upon the causes of my dissatisfaction; of which you will
have formed a general understanding from having been a witness of what passed
between Mrs. Dombey and myself on the evening when you were at our - at my
house.«
    »When I so much regretted being present,« said the smiling Carker. »Proud as
a man in my position necessarily must be of your familiar notice - though I give
you no credit for it; you may do anything you please without losing caste - and
honoured as I was by an early presentation to Mrs. Dombey, before she was made
eminent by bearing your name, I almost regretted that night, I assure you, that
I had been the object of such especial good fortune.«
    That any man could, under any possible circumstances, regret the being
distinguished by his condescension and patronage, was a moral phenomenon which
Mr. Dombey could not comprehend. He therefore responded, with a considerable
accession of dignity. »Indeed! And why, Carker?«
    »I fear,« returned the confidential agent, »that Mrs. Dombey, never very
much disposed to regard me with favourable interest - one in my position could
not expect that, from a lady naturally proud, and whose pride becomes her so
well - may not easily forgive my innocent part in that conversation. Your
displeasure is no light matter, you must remember; and to be visited with it
before a third party -«
    »Carker,« said Mr. Dombey, arrogantly; »I presume that I am the first
consideration?«
    »Oh! Can there be a doubt about it?« replied the other, with the impatience
of a man admitting a notorious and incontrovertible fact.
    »Mrs. Dombey becomes a secondary consideration, when we are both in
question, I imagine,« said Mr. Dombey. »Is that so?«
    »Is it so?« returned Carker. »Do you know better than any one, that you have
no need to ask?«
    »Then I hope, Carker,« said Mr. Dombey, »that your regret in the acquisition
of Mrs. Dombey's displeasure, may be almost counterbalanced by your satisfaction
in retaining my confidence and good opinion.«
    »I have the misfortune, I find,« returned Carker, »to have incurred that
displeasure. Mrs. Dombey has expressed it to you?«
    »Mrs. Dombey has expressed various opinions,« said Mr. Dombey, with majestic
coldness and indifference, »in which I do not participate, and which I am not
inclined to discuss, or to recall. I made Mrs. Dombey acquainted, some time
since, as I have already told you, with certain points of domestic deference and
submission on which I felt it necessary to insist. I failed to convince Mrs.
Dombey of the expediency of her immediately altering her conduct in those
respects, with a view to her own peace and welfare, and my dignity; and I
informed Mrs. Dombey that if I should find it necessary to object or remonstrate
again, I should express my opinion to her through yourself, my confidential
agent.«
    Blended with the look that Carker bent upon him, was a devilish look at the
picture over his head, that struck upon it like a flash of lightning.
    »Now, Carker,« said Mr. Dombey, »I do not hesitate to say to you that I will
carry my point. I am not to be trifled with. Mrs. Dombey must understand that my
will is law, and that I cannot allow of one exception to the whole rule of my
life. You will have the goodness to undertake this charge, which, coming from
me, is not unacceptable to you, I hope, whatever regret you may politely profess
- for which I am obliged to you on behalf of Mrs. Dombey; and you will have the
goodness, I am persuaded, to discharge it as exactly as any other commission.«
    »You know,« said Mr. Carker, »that you have only to command me.«
    »I know,« said Mr. Dombey, with a majestic indication of assent, »that I
have only to command you. It is necessary that I should proceed in this. Mrs.
Dombey is a lady undoubtedly highly qualified, in many respects, to -«
    »To do credit even to your choice,« suggested Carker, with a fawning show of
teeth.
    »Yes; if you please to adopt that form of words,« said Mr. Dombey, in his
tone of state; »and at present I do not conceive that Mrs. Dombey does that
credit to it, to which it is entitled. There is a principle of opposition in
Mrs. Dombey that must be eradicated; that must be overcome: Mrs. Dombey does not
appear to understand,« said Mr. Dombey, forcibly, »that the idea of opposition
to Me is monstrous and absurd.«
    »We, in the City, know you better,« replied Carker, with a smile from ear to
ear.
    »You know me better,« said Mr. Dombey. »I hope so. Though, indeed, I am
bound to do Mrs. Dombey the justice of saying, however inconsistent it may seem
with her subsequent conduct (which remains unchanged), that on my expressing my
disapprobation and determination to her, with some severity, on the occasion to
which I have referred, my admonition appeared to produce a very powerful
effect.« Mr. Dombey delivered himself of those words with most portentous
stateliness. »I wish you to have the goodness, then, to inform Mrs. Dombey,
Carker, from me, that I must recall our former conversation to her remembrance,
in some surprise that it has not yet had its effect. That I must insist upon her
regulating her conduct by the injunctions laid upon her in that conversation.
That I am not satisfied with her conduct. That I am greatly dissatisfied with
it. And that I shall be under the very disagreeable necessity of making you the
bearer of yet more unwelcome and explicit communications, if she has not the
good sense and the proper feeling to adapt herself to my wishes, as the first
Mrs. Dombey did, and, I believe I may add, as any other lady in her place
would.«
    »The first Mrs. Dombey lived very happily,« said Carker.
    »The first Mrs. Dombey had great good sense,« said Mr. Dombey, in a
gentlemanly toleration of the dead, »and very correct feeling.«
    »Is Miss Dombey like her mother, do you think?« said Carker.
    Swiftly and darkly, Mr. Dombey's face changed. His confidential agent eyed
it keenly.
    »I have approached a painful subject,« he said, in a soft regretful tone of
voice, irreconcilable with his eager eye. »Pray forgive me. I forget these
chains of association in the interest I have. Pray forgive me.«
    But for all he said, his eager eye scanned Mr. Dombey's downcast face none
the less closely; and then it shot a strange triumphant look at the picture, as
appealing to it to bear witness how he led him on again, and what was coming.
    »Carker,« said Mr. Dombey, looking here and there upon the table, and
speaking in a somewhat altered and more hurried voice, and with a paler lip,
»there is no occasion for apology. You mistake. The association is with the
matter in hand, and not with any recollection, as you suppose. I do not approve
of Mrs. Dombey's behaviour towards my daughter.«
    »Pardon me,« said Mr. Carker, »I don't quite understand.«
    »Understand then,« returned Mr. Dombey, »that you may make that - that you
will make that, if you please - matter of direct objection from me to Mrs.
Dombey. You will please to tell her that her show of devotion for my daughter is
disagreeable to me. It is likely to be noticed. It is likely to induce people to
contrast Mrs. Dombey in her relation towards my daughter, with Mrs. Dombey in
her relation towards myself. You will have the goodness to let Mrs. Dombey know,
plainly, that I object to it; and that I expect her to defer, immediately, to my
objection. Mrs. Dombey may be in earnest, or she may be pursuing a whim, or she
may be opposing me; but I object to it in any case, and in every case. If Mrs.
Dombey is in earnest, so much the less reluctant should she be to desist; for
she will not serve my daughter by any such display. If my wife has any
superfluous gentleness and duty over and above her proper submission to me, she
may bestow them where she pleases, perhaps; but I will have submission first! -
Carker,« said Mr. Dombey, checking the unusual emotion with which he had spoken,
and falling into a tone more like that in which he was accustomed to assert his
greatness, »you will have the goodness not to omit or slur this point, but to
consider it a very important part of your instructions.«
    Mr. Carker bowed his head, and rising from the table, and standing
thoughtfully before the fire, with his hand to his smooth chin, looked down at
Mr. Dombey with the evil slyness of some monkish carving, half human and half
brute; or like a leering face on an old water-spout. Mr. Dombey, recovering his
composure by degrees, or cooling his emotion in his sense of having taken a high
position, sat gradually stiffening again, and looking at the parrot as she swung
to and fro, in her great wedding ring.
    »I beg your pardon,« said Carker, after a silence, suddenly resuming his
chair, and drawing it opposite to Mr. Dombey's, »but let me understand. Mrs.
Dombey is aware of the probability of your making me the organ of your
displeasure?«
    »Yes,« replied Mr. Dombey. »I have said so.«
    »Yes,« rejoined Carker, quickly; »but why?«
    »Why!« Mr. Dombey repeated, not without hesitation. »Because I told her.«
    »Aye,« replied Carker. »But why did you tell her? You see,« he continued
with a smile, and softly laying his velvet hand, as a cat might have laid its
sheathed claws, on Mr. Dombey's arm; »if I perfectly understand what is in your
mind, I am so much more likely to be useful, and to have the happiness of being
effectually employed. I think I do understand. I have not the honour of Mrs.
Dombey's good opinion. In my position, I have no reason to expect it; but I take
the fact to be, that I have not got it?«
    »Possibly not,« said Mr. Dombey.
    »Consequently,« pursued Carker, »your making these communications to Mrs.
Dombey through me, is sure to be particularly unpalatable to that lady?«
    »It appears to me,« said Mr. Dombey, with haughty reserve, and yet with some
embarrassment, »that Mrs. Dombey's views upon the subject form no part of it as
it presents itself to you and me, Carker. But it may be so.«
    »And - pardon me - do I misconceive you,« said Carker, »when I think you
descry in this, a likely means of humbling Mrs. Dombey's pride - I use the word
as expressive of a quality which, kept within due bounds, adorns and graces a
lady so distinguished for her beauty and accomplishments - and, not to say of
punishing her, but of reducing her to the submission you so naturally and justly
require?«
    »I am not accustomed, Carker, as you know,« said Mr. Dombey, »to give such
close reasons for any course of conduct I think proper to adopt, but I will
gainsay nothing of this. If you have any objection to found upon it, that is
indeed another thing, and the mere statement that you have one will be
sufficient. But I have not supposed, I confess, that any confidence I could
entrust to you, would be likely to degrade you -«
    »Oh! I degraded!« exclaimed Carker. »In your service!«
    »- or to place you,« pursued Mr. Dombey, »in a false position.«
    »I in a false position!« exclaimed Carker. »I shall be proud - delighted -
to execute your trust. I could have wished, I own, to have given the lady at
whose feet I would lay my humble duty and devotion - for is she not your wife! -
no new cause of dislike; but a wish from you is, of course, paramount to every
other consideration on earth. Besides, when Mrs. Dombey is converted from these
little errors of judgment, incidental, I would presume to say, to the novelty of
her situation, I shall hope that she will perceive in the slight part I take,
only a grain - my removed and different sphere gives room for little more - of
the respect for you, and sacrifice of all considerations to you, of which it
will be her pleasure and privilege to garner up a great store every day.«
    Mr. Dombey seemed, at the moment, again to see her with her hand stretched
out towards the door, and again to hear through the mild speech of his
confidential agent an echo of the words, »Nothing can make us stranger to each
other than we are henceforth!« But he shook off the fancy, and did not shake in
his resolution, and said, »Certainly, no doubt.«
    »There is nothing more,« quoth Carker, drawing his chair back to its old
place - for they had taken little breakfast as yet - and pausing for an answer
before he sat down.
    »Nothing,« said Mr. Dombey, »but this. You will be good enough to observe,
Carker, that no message to Mrs. Dombey with which you are or may be charged,
admits of reply. You will be good enough to bring me no reply. Mrs. Dombey is
informed that it does not become me to temporise or treat upon any matter that
is at issue between us, and that what I say is final.«
    Mr. Carker signified his understanding of these credentials, and they fell
to breakfast with what appetite they might. The Grinder also, in due time,
reappeared, keeping his eyes upon his master without a moment's respite, and
passing the time in a reverie of worshipful terror. Breakfast concluded, Mr.
Dombey's horse was ordered out again, and Mr. Carker mounting his own, they rode
off for the City together.
    Mr. Carker was in capital spirits, and talked much. Mr. Dombey received his
conversation with the sovereign air of a man who had a right to be talked to,
and occasionally condescended to throw in a few words to carry on the
conversation. So they rode on characteristically enough. But Mr. Dombey, in his
dignity, rode with very long stirrups, and a very loose rein, and very rarely
deigned to look down to see where his horse went. In consequence of which it
happened that Mr. Dombey's horse, while going at a round trot, stumbled on some
loose stones, threw him, rolled over him, and lashing out with his iron-shod
feet, in his struggles to get up, kicked him.
    Mr. Carker, quick of eye, steady of hand, and a good horseman, was afoot,
and had the struggling animal upon his legs and by the bridle, in a moment.
Otherwise that moming's confidence would have been Mr. Dombey's last. Yet even
with the flush and hurry of this action red upon him, he bent over his prostrate
chief with every tooth disclosed, and muttered as he stooped down, »I have given
good cause of offence to Mrs. Dombey now, if she knew it!«
    Mr. Dombey being insensible, and bleeding from the head and face, was
carried by certain menders of the road, under Carker's direction, to the nearest
public-house, which was not far off, and where he was soon attended by divers
surgeons, who arrived in quick succession from all parts, and who seemed to come
by some mysterious instinct, as vultures are said to gather about a camel who
dies in the desert. After being at some pains to restore him to consciousness,
these gentlemen examined into the nature of his injuries. One surgeon who lived
hard by was strong for a compound fracture of the leg, which was the landlord's
opinion also; but two surgeons who lived at a distance, and were only in that
neighbourhood by accident, combated this opinion so disinterestedly, that it was
decided at last that the patient, though severely cut and bruised, had broken no
bones but a lesser rib or so, and might be carefully taken home before night.
His injuries being dressed and bandaged, which was a long operation, and he at
length left to repose, Mr. Carker mounted his horse again, and rode away to
carry the intelligence home.
    Crafty and cruel as his face was at the best of times, though it was a
sufficiently fair face as to form and regularity of feature, it was at its worst
when he set forth on this errand; animated by the craft and cruelty of thoughts
within him, suggestions of remote possibility rather than of design or plot,
that made him ride as if he hunted men and women. Drawing rein at length, and
slackening in his speed, as he came into the more public roads, he checked his
white-legged horse into picking his way along as usual, and hid himself beneath
his sleek, hushed, crouched manner, and his ivory smile, as he best could.
    He rode direct to Mr. Dombey's house, alighted at the door, and begged to
see Mrs. Dombey on an affair of importance. The servant who showed him to Mr.
Dombey's own room, soon returned to say that it was not Mrs. Dombey's hour for
receiving visitors, and that he begged pardon for not having mentioned it
before.
    Mr. Carker, who was quite prepared for a cold reception, wrote upon a card
that he must take the liberty of pressing for an interview, and that he would
not be so bold as to do so, for the second time (this he underlined), if he were
not equally sure of the occasion being sufficient for his justification. After a
trifling delay, Mrs. Dombey's maid appeared, and conducted him to a morning room
up stairs, where Edith and Florence were together.
    He had never thought Edith half so beautiful before. Much as he admired the
graces of her face and form, and freshly as they dwelt within his sensual
remembrance, he had never thought her half so beautiful.
    Her glance fell haughtily upon him in the doorway; but he looked at Florence
- though only in the act of bending his head, as he came in - with some
irrepressible expression of the new power he held; and it was his triumph to see
the glance droop and falter, and to see that Edith half rose up to receive him.
    He was very sorry, he was deeply grieved; he couldn't say with what
unwillingness he came to prepare her for the intelligence of a very slight
accident. He entreated Mrs. Dombey to compose herself. Upon his sacred word of
honour, there was no cause of alarm. But Mr. Dombey -
    Florence uttered a sudden cry. He did not look at her, but at Edith. Edith
composed and reassured her. She uttered no cry of distress. No, no.
    Mr. Dombey had met with an accident in riding. His horse had slipped, and he
had been thrown.
    Florence wildly exclaimed that he was badly hurt; that he was killed!
    No. Upon his honour, Mr. Dombey, though stunned at first, was soon
recovered, and though certainly hurt was in no kind of danger. If this were not
the truth, he, the distressed intruder, never could have had the courage to
present himself before Mrs. Dombey. It was the truth indeed, he solemnly assured
her.
    All this he said as if he were answering Edith, and not Florence, and with
his eyes and his smile fastened on Edith.
    He then went on to tell her where Mr. Dombey was lying, and to request that
a carriage might be placed at his disposal to bring him home.
    »Mama,« faltered Florence in tears, »if I might venture to go!«
    Mr. Carker, having his eyes on Edith when he heard these words, gave her a
secret look and slightly shook his head. He saw how she battled with herself
before she answered him with her handsome eyes, but he wrested the answer from
her - he showed her that he would have it, or that he would speak and cut
Florence to the heart - and she gave it to him. As he had looked at the picture
in the morning, so he looked at her afterwards, when she turned her eyes away.
    »I am directed to request,« he said, »that the new housekeeper - Mrs.
Pipchin, I think, is the name -«
    Nothing escaped him. He saw in an instant, that she was another slight of
Mr. Dombey's on his wife.
    »- may be informed that Mr. Dombey wishes to have his bed prepared in his
own apartments down stairs, as he prefers those rooms to any other. I shall
return to Mr. Dombey almost immediately. That every possible attention has been
paid to his comfort, and that he is the object of every possible solicitude, I
need not assure you, Madam. Let me again say, there is no cause for the least
alarm. Even you may be quite at ease, believe me.«
    He bowed himself out, with his extremest show of deference and conciliation;
and having returned to Mr. Dombey's room, and there arranged for a carriage
being sent after him to the City, mounted his horse again, and rode slowly
thither. He was very thoughtful as he went along, and very thoughtful there, and
very thoughtful in the carriage on his way back to the place where Mr. Dombey
had been left. It was only when sitting by that gentleman's couch that he was
quite himself again, and conscious of his teeth.
    About the time of twilight, Mr. Dombey, grievously afflicted with aches and
pains, was helped into his carriage, and propped with cloaks and pillows on one
side of it, while his confidential agent bore him company upon the other. As he
was not to be shaken, they moved at little more than a foot pace; and hence it
was quite dark when he was brought home. Mrs. Pipchin, bitter and grim, and not
oblivious of the Peruvian mines, as the establishment in general had good reason
to know, received him at the door, and freshened the domestics with several
little sprinklings of wordy vinegar, while they assisted in conveying him to his
room. Mr. Carker remained in attendance until he was safe in bed, and then, as
he declined to receive any female visitor, but the excellent Ogress who presided
over his household, waited on Mrs. Dombey once more, with his report on her
lord's condition.
    He again found Edith alone with Florence, and he again addressed the whole
of his soothing speech to Edith, as if she were a prey to the liveliest and most
affectionate anxieties. So earnest he was in his respectful sympathy, that on
taking leave, he ventured - with one more glance towards Florence at the moment
- to take her hand, and bending over it, to touch it with his lips.
    Edith did not withdraw the hand, nor did she strike his fair face with it,
despite the flush upon her cheek, the bright light in her eyes, and the dilation
of her whole form. But when she was alone in her own room, she struck it on the
marble chimney-shelf, so that, at one blow, it was bruised, and bled; and held
it from her, near the shining fire, as if she could have thrust it in and burned
it.
    Far into the night she sat alone, by the sinking blaze, in dark and
threatening beauty, watching the murky shadows looming on the wall, as if her
thoughts were tangible, and cast them there. Whatever shapes of outrage and
affront, and black foreshadowings of things that might happen, flickered,
indistinct and giant-like, before her, one resented figure marshalled them
against her. And that figure was her husband.
 

                                 Chapter XLIII

                           The Watches of the Night.

Florence, long since awakened from her dream, mournfully observed the
estrangement between her father and Edith, and saw it widen more and more, and
knew that there was greater bitterness between them every day. Each day's added
knowledge deepened the shade upon her love and hope, roused up the old sorrow
that had slumbered for a little time, and made it even heavier to bear than it
had been before.
    It had been hard - how hard may none but Florence ever know! - to have the
natural affection of a true and earnest nature turned to agony; and slight, or
stern repulse, substituted for the tenderest protection and the dearest care. It
had been hard to feel in her deep heart what she had felt, and never know the
happiness of one touch of response. But it was much more hard to be compelled to
doubt either her father or Edith, so affectionate and dear to her, and to think
of her love for each of them, by turns, with fear, distrust, and wonder.
    Yet Florence now began to do so; and the doing of it was a task imposed upon
her by the very purity of her soul, as one she could not fly from. She saw her
father cold and obdurate to Edith, as to her; hard, inflexible, unyielding.
Could it be, she asked herself with starting tears, that her own dear mother had
been made unhappy by such treatment, and had pined away and died? Then she would
think how proud and stately Edith was to every one but her, with what disdain
she treated him, how distantly she kept apart from him, and what she had said on
the night when she came home; and quickly it would come on Florence, almost as a
crime, that she loved one who was set in opposition to her father, and that her
father knowing of it, must think of her in his solitary room as the unnatural
child who added this wrong to the old fault, so much wept for, of never having
won his fatherly affection from her birth. The next kind word from Edith, the
next kind glance, would shake these thoughts again, and make them seem like
black ingratitude; for who but she had cheered the drooping heart of Florence,
so lonely and so hurt, and been its best of comforters! Thus, with her gentle
nature yearning to them both, feeling the misery of both, and whispering doubts
of her own duty to both, Florence in her wider and expanded love, and by the
side of Edith, endured more than when she had hoarded up her undivided secret in
the mournful house, and her beautiful Mama had never dawned upon it.
    One exquisite unhappiness that would have far outweighed this, Florence was
spared. She never had the least suspicion that Edith by her tenderness for her
widened the separation from her father, or gave him new cause of dislike. If
Florence had conceived the possibility of such an effect being wrought by such a
cause, what grief she would have felt, what sacrifice she would have tried to
make, poor loving girl, how fast and sure her quiet passage might have been
beneath it to the presence of that higher Father who does not reject his
children's love, or spurn their tried and broken hearts, Heaven knows! But it
was otherwise, and that was well.
    No word was ever spoken between Florence and Edith now, on these subjects.
Edith had said there ought to be between them, in that wise, a division and a
silence like the grave itself: and Florence felt that she was right.
    In this state of affairs her father was brought home suffering and disabled:
and gloomily retired to his own rooms, where he was tended by servants, not
approached by Edith, and had no friend or companion but Mr. Carker, who withdrew
near midnight.
    »And nice company he is, Miss Floy,« said Susan Nipper. »Oh, he's a precious
piece of goods! If ever he wants a character don't let him come to me whatever
he does, that's all I tell him.«
    »Dear Susan,« urged Florence, »don't!«
    »Oh, it's very well to say don't Miss Floy,« returned the Nipper, much
exasperated; »but raly begging your pardon we're coming to such passes that it
turns all the blood in a person's body into pins and needles, with their pints
all ways. Don't mistake me, Miss Floy, I don't mean nothing again your ma-in-law
who has always treated me as a lady should though she is rather high I must say
not that I have any right to object to that particular, but when we come to Mrs.
Pipchinses and having them put over us and keeping guard at your pa's door like
crocodiles (only make us thankful that they lay no eggs!) we are a growing too
outrageous!«
    »Papa thinks well of Mrs. Pipchin, Susan,« returned Florence, »and has a
right to choose his housekeeper, you know. Pray don't!«
    »Well Miss Floy,« returned the Nipper, »when you say don't, I never do I
hope but Mrs. Pipchin acts like early gooseberries upon me Miss, and nothing
less.«
    Susan was unusually emphatic and destitute of punctuation in her discourse
on this night, which was the night of Mr. Dombey's being brought home, because,
having been sent down stairs by Florence to inquire after him, she had been
obliged to deliver her message to her mortal enemy Mrs. Pipchin; who, without
carrying it in to Mr. Dombey, had taken upon herself to return what Miss Nipper
called a huffish answer, on her own responsibility. This, Susan Nipper construed
into presumption on the part of that exemplary sufferer by the Peruvian mines,
and a deed of disparagement upon her young lady, that was not to be forgiven;
and so far her emphatic state was special. But she had been in a condition of
greatly increased suspicion and distrust, ever since the marriage; for, like
most persons of her quality of mind, who form a strong and sincere attachment to
one in the different station which Florence occupied, Susan was very jealous,
and her jealousy naturally attached to Edith, who divided her old empire, and
came between them. Proud and glad as Susan Nipper truly was, that her young
mistress should be advanced towards her proper place in the scene of her old
neglect, and that she should have her father's handsome wife for her companion
and protectress, she could not relinquish any part of her own dominion to the
handsome wife, without a grudge and a vague feeling of ill-will, for which she
did not fail to find a disinterested justification in her sharp perception of
the pride and passion of the lady's character. From the background to which she
had necessarily retired somewhat, since the marriage, Miss Nipper looked on,
therefore, at domestic affairs in general, with a resolute conviction that no
good would come of Mrs. Dombey: always being very careful to publish on all
possible occasions, that she had nothing to say against her.
    »Susan,« said Florence, who was sitting thoughtfully at her table, »it is
very late. I shall want nothing more to-night.«
    »Ah, Miss Floy!« returned the Nipper, »I'm sure I often wish for them old
times when I sat up with you hours later than this and fell asleep through being
tired out when you was as broad awake as spectacles, but you've ma's-in-law to
come and sit with you now Miss Floy and I'm thankful for it I'm sure. I've not a
word to say against 'em.«
    »I shall not forget who was my old companion when I had none, Susan,«
returned Florence, gently, »never.« And looking up, she put her arm round the
neck of her humble friend, drew her face down to hers, and bidding her good
night, kissed it; which so mollified Miss Nipper, that she fell a sobbing.
    »Now my dear Miss Floy,« said Susan, »let me go down stairs again and see
how your pa is, I know you're wretched about him, do let me go down stairs again
and knock at his door my own self.«
    »No,« said Florence, »go to bed. We shall hear more in the morning. I will
inquire myself in the morning. Mama has been down, I dare say;« Florence
blushed, for she had no such hope; »or is there now, perhaps. Good night!«
    Susan was too much softened to express her private opinion on the
probability of Mrs. Dombey's being in attendance on her husband; and silently
withdrew. Florence left alone, soon hid her head upon her hands as she had often
done in other days, and did not restrain the tears from coursing down her face.
The misery of this domestic discord and unhappiness; the withered hope she
cherished now, if hope it could be called, of ever being taken to her father's
heart; her doubts and fears between the two; the yearning of her innocent breast
to both; the heavy disappointment and regret of such an end as this, to what had
been a vision of bright hope and promise to her; all crowded on her mind and
made her tears flow fast. Her mother and her brother dead, her father unmoved
towards her, Edith opposed to him and casting him away, but loving her, and
loved by her, it seemed as if her affection could never prosper, rest where it
would. That weak thought was soon hushed, but the thoughts in which it had
arisen were too true and strong to be dismissed with it; and they made the night
desolate.
    Among such reflections there rose up, as there had risen up all day, the
image of her father, wounded and in pain, alone in his own room, untended by
those who should be nearest to him, and passing the tardy hours in lonely
suffering. A frightened thought which made her start and clasp her hands -
though it was not a new one in her mind - that he might die, and never see her
or pronounce her name, thrilled her whole frame. In her agitation she thought,
and trembled while she thought, of once more stealing down stairs, and venturing
to his door.
    She listened at her own. The house was quiet, and all the lights were out.
It was a long, long time, she thought, since she used to make her nightly
pilgrimages to his door! It was a long, long time, she tried to think, since she
had entered his room at midnight, and he had led her back to the stair-foot!
    With the same child's heart within her, as of old: even with the child's
sweet timid eyes and clustering hair: Florence, as strange to her father in her
early maiden bloom, as in her nursery time, crept down the staircase listening
as she went, and drew near to his room. No one was stirring in the house. The
door was partly open to admit air; and all was so still within, that she could
hear the burning of the fire, and count the ticking of the clock that stood upon
the chimney-piece.
    She looked in. In that room, the housekeeper wrapped in a blanket was fast
asleep in an easy chair before the fire. The doors between it and the next were
partly closed, and a screen was drawn before them; but there was a light there,
and it shone upon the cornice of his bed. All was so very still that she could
hear from his breathing that he was asleep. This gave her courage to pass round
the screen, and look into his chamber.
    It was as great a start to come upon his sleeping face as if she had not
expected to see it. Florence stood arrested on the spot, and if he had awakened
then, must have remained there.
    There was a cut upon his forehead, and they had been wetting his hair, which
lay bedabbled and entangled on the pillow. One of his arms, resting outside the
bed, was bandaged up, and he was very white. But it was not this, that after the
first quick glance, and first assurance of his sleeping quietly, held Florence
rooted to the ground. It was something very different from this, and more than
this, that made him look so solemn in her eyes.
    She had never seen his face in all her life, but there had been upon it - or
she fancied so - some disturbing consciousness of her. She had never seen his
face in all her life, but hope had sunk within her, and her timid glance had
drooped before its stern, unloving, and repelling harshness. As she looked upon
it now, she saw it, for the first time, free from the cloud that had darkened
her childhood. Calm, tranquil night was reigning in its stead. He might have
gone to sleep, for anything she saw there, blessing her.
    Awake, unkind father! Awake, now, sullen man! The time is flitting by; the
hour is coming with an angry tread. Awake!
    There was no change upon his face; and as she watched it, awfully, its
motionless repose recalled the faces that were gone. So they looked, so would
he; so she, his weeping child, who should say when! so all the world of love and
hatred and indifference around them! When that time should come, it would not be
the heavier to him, for this that she was going to do; and it might fall
something lighter upon her.
    She stole close to the bed, and drawing in her breath bent down, and softly
kissed him on the face, and laid her own for one brief moment by its side, and
put the arm, with which she dared not touch him, round about him on the pillow.
    Awake, doomed man, while she is near. The time is flitting by; the hour is
coming with an angry tread; its foot is in the house. Awake!
    In her mind, she prayed to God to bless her father, and to soften him
towards her, if it might be so; and if not, to forgive him if he was wrong, and
pardon her the prayer which almost seemed impiety. And doing so, and looking
back at him with blinded eyes, and stealing timidly away, passed out of his
room, and crossed the other, and was gone.
    He may sleep on now. He may sleep on while he may. But let him look for that
slight figure when he wakes, and find it near him when the hour is come!
    Sad and grieving was the heart of Florence, as she crept up stairs. The
quiet house had grown more dismal since she came down. The sleep she had been
looking on, in the dead of night, had the solemnity to her of death and life in
one. The secrecy and silence of her own proceeding made the night secret,
silent, and oppressive. She felt unwilling, almost unable, to go on to her own
chamber; and turning into the drawing-rooms, where the clouded moon was shining
through the blinds, looked out into the empty streets.
    The wind was blowing drearily. The lamps looked pale, and shook as if they
were cold. There was a distant glimmer of something that was not quite darkness,
rather than of light, in the sky; and foreboding night was shivering and
restless, as the dying are who make a troubled end. Florence remembered how, as
a watcher, by a sick bed, she had noted this bleak time, and felt its influence,
as if in some hidden natural antipathy to it; and now it was very, very gloomy.
    Her Mama had not come to her room that night, which was one cause of her
having sat late out of her bed. In her general uneasiness, no less than in her
ardent longing to have somebody to speak to, and to break the spell of gloom and
silence, Florence directed her steps towards the chamber where she slept.
    The door was not fastened within, and yielded smoothly to her hesitating
hand. She was surprised to find a bright light burning; still more surprised, on
looking in, to see that her Mama, but partially undressed, was sitting near the
ashes of the fire, which had crumbled and dropped away. Her eyes were intently
bent upon the air; and in their light, and in her face, and in her form, and in
the grasp with which she held the elbows of her chair as if about to start up,
Florence saw such fierce emotion that it terrified her.
    »Mama!« she cried, »what is the matter!«
    Edith started; looking at her with such a strange dread in her face, that
Florence was more frightened than before.
    »Mama!« said Florence, hurriedly advancing. »Dear Mama! what is the matter!«
    »I have not been well,« said Edith, shaking, and still looking at her in the
same strange way. »I have had bad dreams, my love.«
    »And not yet been to bed, Mama?«
    »No,« she returned. »Half-waking dreams.«
    Her features gradually softened; and suffering Florence to come close to
her, within her embrace, she said in a tender manner, »But what does my bird do
here! What does my bird do here!«
    »I have been uneasy, Mama, in not seeing you to-night, and in not knowing
how Papa was; and I -«
    Florence stopped there, and said no more.
    »Is it late?« asked Edith, fondly putting back the curls that mingled with
her own dark hair, and strayed upon her face.
    »Very late. Near day.«
    »Near day!« she repeated in surprise.
    »Dear Mama, what have you done to your hand?« said Florence.
    Edith drew it suddenly away, and, for a moment, looked at her with the same
strange dread (there was a sort of wild avoidance in it) as before; but she
presently said, »Nothing, nothing. A blow.« And then she said, »My Florence!«
and then her bosom heaved, and she was weeping passionately.
    »Mama!« said Florence. »Oh Mama, what can I do, what should I do, to make us
happier? Is there anything!«
    »Nothing,« she replied.
    »Are you sure of that? Can it never be? If I speak now of what is in my
thoughts, in spite of what we have agreed,« said Florence, »you will not blame
me, will you?«
    »It is useless,« she replied, »useless. I have told you, dear, that I have
had bad dreams. Nothing can change them, or prevent their coming back.«
    »I do not understand,« said Florence, gazing on her agitated face, which
seemed to darken as she looked.
    »I have dreamed,« said Edith in a low voice, »of a pride that is all
powerless for good, all powerful for evil; of a pride that has been galled and
goaded, through many shameful years, and has never recoiled except upon itself;
a pride that has debased its owner with the consciousness of deep humiliation,
and never helped its owner boldly to resent it or avoid it, or to say, »This
shall not be!« a pride that, rightly guided, might have led perhaps to better
things, but which, misdirected and perverted, like all else belonging to the
same possessor, has been self-contempt, mere hardihood, and ruin.«
    She neither looked nor spoke to Florence now, but went on as if she were
alone.
    »I have dreamed,« she said, »of such indifference and callousness, arising
from this self-contempt; this wretched, inefficient, miserable pride; that it
has gone on with listless steps even to the altar, yielding to the old,
familiar, beckoning finger, - oh mother, oh mother! - while it spurned it; and
willing to be hateful to itself for once and for all, rather than to be stung
daily in some new form. Mean, poor thing!«
    And now with gathering and darkening emotion, she looked as she had looked
when Florence entered.
    »And I have dreamed,« she said, »that in a first late effort to achieve a
purpose, it has been trodden on, and trodden down by a base foot, but turns and
looks upon him. I have dreamed that it is wounded, hunted, set upon by dogs, but
that it stands at bay, and will not yield; no, that it cannot if it would; but
that it is urged on to hate him, rise against him, and defy him!«
    Her clenched hand tightened on the trembling arm she had in hers, and as she
looked down on the alarmed and wondering face, her own subsided. »Oh Florence!«
she said, »I think I have been nearly mad to-night!« and humbled her proud head
upon her neck, and wept again.
    »Don't leave me! be near me! I have no hope but in you!« These words she
said a score of times.
    Soon she grew calmer, and was full of pity for the tears of Florence, and
for her waking at such untimely hours. And the day now dawning, Edith folded her
in her arms and laid her down upon her bed, and, not lying down herself, sat by
her, and bade her try to sleep.
    »For you are weary, dearest, and unhappy, and should rest.«
    »I am indeed unhappy, dear Mama, to-night,« said Florence. »But you are
weary and unhappy, too.«
    »Not when you lie asleep so near me, sweet.«
    They kissed each other, and Florence, worn out, gradually fell into a gentle
slumber; but as her eyes closed on the face beside her, it was so sad to think
upon the face down stairs, that her hand drew closer to Edith for some comfort;
yet, even in the act, it faltered, lest it should be deserting him. So, in her
sleep, she tried to reconcile the two together, and to show them that she loved
them both, but could not do it, and her waking grief was part of her dreams.
    Edith, sitting by, looked down at the dark eyelashes lying wet on the
flushed cheeks, and looked with gentleness and pity, for she knew the truth. But
no sleep hung upon her own eyes. As the day came on she still sat watching and
waking, with the placid hand in hers, and sometimes whispered, as she looked at
the hushed face, »Be near me, Florence, I have no hope but in you!«
 

                                  Chapter XLIV

                                 A Separation.

With the day, though not so early as the sun, uprose Miss Susan Nipper. There
was a heaviness in this young maiden's exceedingly sharp black eyes, that abated
somewhat of their sparkling, and suggested - which was not their usual character
- the possibility of their being sometimes shut. There was likewise a swollen
look about them, as if they had been crying over-night. But the Nipper, so far
from being cast down, was singularly brisk and bold, and all her energies
appeared to be braced up for some great feat. This was noticeable even in her
dress, which was much more tight and trim than usual; and in occasional twitches
of her head as she went about the house, which were mightily expressive of
determination.
    In a word, she had formed a determination, and an aspiring one: it being
nothing less than this - to penetrate to Mr. Dombey's presence, and have speech
of that gentleman alone. »I have often said I would,« she remarked, in a
threatening manner, to herself, that morning, with many twitches of her head,
»and now I will!«
    Spurring herself on to the accomplishment of this desperate design, with a
sharpness that was peculiar to herself, Susan Nipper haunted the hall and
staircase during the whole forenoon, without finding a favourable opportunity
for the assault. Not at all baffled by this discomfiture, which indeed had a
stimulating effect, and put her on her mettle, she diminished nothing of her
vigilance; and at last discovered, towards evening, that her sworn foe Mrs.
Pipchin, under pretence of having sat up all night, was dozing in her own room,
and that Mr. Dombey was lying on his sofa, unattended.
    With a twitch - not of her head merely, this time, but of her whole self -
the Nipper went on tiptoe to Mr. Dombey's door, and knocked. »Come in!« said Mr.
Dombey. Susan encouraged herself with a final twitch, and went in.
    Mr. Dombey, who was eyeing the fire, gave an amazed look at his visitor, and
raised himself a little on his arm. The Nipper dropped a curtsey.
    »What do you want?« said Mr. Dombey.
    »If you please, Sir, I wish to speak to you,« said Susan.
    Mr. Dombey moved his lips as if he were repeating the words, but he seemed
so lost in astonishment at the presumption of the young woman as to be incapable
of giving them utterance.
    »I have been in your service, Sir,« said Susan Nipper, with her usual
rapidity, »now twelve year a waiting on Miss Floy my own young lady who couldn't
speak plain when I first come here and I was old in this house when Mrs.
Richards was new, I may not be Meethosalem, but I am not a child in arms.«
    Mr. Dombey, raised upon his arm and looking at her, offered no comment on
this preparatory statement of facts.
    »There never was a dearer or a blesseder young lady than is my young lady,
Sir,« said Susan, »and I ought to know a great deal better than some for I have
seen her in her grief and I have seen her in her joy (there's not been much of
it) and I have seen her with her brother and I have seen her in her loneliness
and some have never seen her, and I say to some and all - I do!« and here the
black-eyed shook her head, and slightly stamped her foot; »that she's the
blessedest and dearest angel is Miss Floy that ever drew the breath of life, the
more that I was torn to pieces Sir the more I'd say it though I may not be a
Fox's Martyr.«
    Mr. Dombey turned yet paler than his fall had made him, with indignation and
astonishment; and kept his eyes upon the speaker as if he accused them, and his
ears too, of playing him false.
    »No one could be anything but true and faithful to Miss Floy, Sir,« pursued
Susan, »and I take no merit for my service of twelve year, for I love her - yes,
I say to some and all I do!« - and here the black-eyed shook her head again, and
slightly stamped her foot again, and checked a sob; »but true and faithful
service gives me right to speak I hope, and speak I must and will now, right or
wrong.«
    »What do you mean, woman!« said Mr. Dombey, glaring at her. »How do you
dare?«
    »What I mean, Sir, is to speak respectful and without offence, but out, and
how I dare I know not but I do!« said Susan. »Oh! you don't know my young lady
Sir you don't indeed, you'd never know so little of her, if you did.«
    Mr. Dombey, in a fury, put his hand out for the bell-rope; but there was no
bell-rope on that side of the fire, and he could not rise and cross to the other
without assistance. The quick eye of the Nipper detected his helplessness
immediately, and now, as she afterwards observed, she felt she had got him.
    »Miss Floy,« said Susan Nipper, »is the most devoted and most patient and
most dutiful and beautiful of daughters, there an't no gentleman, no Sir, though
as great and rich as all the greatest and richest of England put together, but
might be proud of her and would and ought. If he knew her value right, he'd
rather lose his greatness and his fortune piece by piece and beg his way in rags
from door to door, I say to some and all, he would!« cried Susan Nipper,
bursting into tears, »than bring the sorrow on her tender heart that I have seen
it suffer in this house!«
    »Woman,« cried Mr. Dombey, »leave the room.«
    »Begging your pardon, not even if I am to leave the situation, Sir,« replied
the steadfast Nipper, »in which I have been so many years and seen so much -
although I hope you'd never have the heart to send me from Miss Floy for such a
cause - will I go now till I have said the rest, I may not be a Indian widow Sir
and I am not and I would not so become but if I once made up my mind to burn
myself alive, I'd do it! And I've made my mind up to go on.«
    Which was rendered no less clear by the expression of Susan Nipper's
countenance, than by her words.
    »There an't a person in your service, Sir,« pursued the black-eyed, »that
has always stood more in awe of you than me and you may think how true it is
when I make so bold as say that I have hundreds and hundreds of times thought of
speaking to you and never been able to make my mind up to it till last night,
but last night decided of me.«
    Mr. Dombey, in a paroxysm of rage, made another grasp at the bell-rope that
was not there, and, in its absence, pulled his hair rather than nothing.
    »I have seen,« said Susan Nipper, »Miss Floy strive and strive when nothing
but a child so sweet and patient that the best of women might have copied from
her, I've seen her sitting nights together half the night through to help her
delicate brother with his learning, I've seen her helping him and watching him
at other times - some well know when - I've seen her, with no encouragement and
no help, grow up to be a lady, thank God! that is the grace and pride of every
company she goes in, and I've always seen her cruelly neglected and keenly
feeling of it - I say to some and all, I have! - and never said one word, but
ordering one's self lowly and reverently towards one's betters, is not to be a
worshipper of graven images, and I will and must speak!«
    »Is there anybody there!« cried Mr. Dombey, calling out. »Where are the men!
where are the women! Is there no one there!«
    »I left my dear young lady out of bed late last night,« said Susan, nothing
checked, »and I knew why, for you was ill Sir and she didn't know how ill and
that was enough to make her wretched as I saw it did. I may not be a Peacock;
but I have my eyes - and I sat up a little in my own room thinking she might be
lonesome and might want me, and I saw her steal down stairs and come to this
door as if it was a guilty thing to look at her own Pa, and then steal back
again and go into them lonely drawing-rooms, a crying so, that I could hardly
bear to hear it. I can not bear to hear it,« said Susan Nipper, wiping her black
eyes, and fixing them undauntingly on Mr. Dombey's infuriated face. »It's not
the first time I have heard it, not by many and many a time you don't know your
own daughter, Sir, you don't know what you're doing, Sir, I say to some and
all,« cried Susan Nipper, in a final burst, »that it's a sinful shame!«
    »Why, hoity toity!« cried the voice of Mrs. Pipchin, as the black bombazeen
garments of that fair Peruvian Miner swept into the room. »What's this, indeed!«
    Susan favoured Mrs. Pipchin with a look she had invented expressly for her
when they first became acquainted, and resigned the reply to Mr. Dombey.
    »What's this!« repeated Mr. Dombey, almost foaming. »What's this, Madam? You
who are at the head of this household, and bound to keep it in order, have
reason to inquire. Do you know this woman?«
    »I know very little good of her, Sir,« croaked Mrs. Pipchin. »How dare you
come here, you hussy? Go along with you!«
    But the inflexible Nipper, merely honouring Mrs. Pipchin with another look,
remained.
    »Do you call it managing this establishment, Madam,« said Mr. Dombey, »to
leave a person like this at liberty to come and talk to me! A gentleman - in his
own house - in his own room - assailed with the impertinences of women
servants!«
    »Well, Sir,« returned Mrs. Pipchin, with vengeance in her hard grey eye, »I
exceedingly deplore it; nothing can be more irregular; nothing can be more out
of all bounds and reason; but I regret to say, Sir, that this young woman is
quite beyond control. She has been spoiled by Miss Dombey, and is amenable to
nobody. You know you're not,« said Mrs. Pipchin, sharply, and shaking her head
at Susan Nipper. »For shame, you hussy! Go along with you!«
    »If you find people in my service who are not to be controlled, Mrs.
Pipchin,« said Mr. Dombey, turning back towards the fire, »you know what to do
with them, I presume. You know what you are here for? Take her away!«
    »Sir, I know what to do,« retorted Mrs. Pipchin, »and of course shall do it.
Susan Nipper,« snapping her up particularly short, »a month's warning from this
hour.«
    »Oh indeed!« cried Susan, loftily.
    »Yes,« returned Mrs. Pipchin, »and don't smile at me, you minx, or I'll know
the reason why! Go along with you this minute!«
    »I intend to go this minute, you may rely upon it,« said the voluble Nipper.
»I have been in this house waiting on my young lady a dozen year and I won't
stop in it one hour under notice from a person owning to the name of Pipchin,
trust me, Mrs. P.«
    »A good riddance of bad rubbish!« said that wrathful old lady. »Get along
with you, or I'll have you carried out!«
    »My comfort is,« said Susan, looking back at Mr. Dombey, »that I have told a
piece of truth this day which ought to have been told long before and can't be
told too often or too plain and that no amount of Pipchinses - I hope the number
of 'em mayn't be great« (here Mrs. Pipchin uttered a very sharp »Go along with
you!« and Miss Nipper repeated the look) »can unsay what I have said, though
they gave a whole year full of warnings beginning at ten o'clock in the forenoon
and never leaving off till twelve at night and died of the exhaustion which
would be a Jubilee!«
    With these words, Miss Nipper preceded her foe out of the room; and walking
up stairs to her own apartments in great state, to the choking exasperation of
the ireful Pipchin, sat down among her boxes and began to cry.
    From this soft mood she was soon aroused, with a very wholesome and
refreshing effect, by the voice of Mrs. Pipchin outside the door.
    »Does that bold-faced slut,« said the fell Pipchin, »intend to take her
warning, or does she not?«
    Miss Nipper replied from within that the person described did not inhabit
that part of the house, but that her name was Pipchin, and she was to be found
in the housekeeper's room.
    »You saucy baggage!« retorted Mrs. Pipchin, rattling at the handle of the
door. »Go along with you this minute. Pack up your things directly! How dare you
talk in this way to a gentlewoman who has seen better days?«
    To which Miss Nipper rejoined from her castle, that she pitied the better
days that had seen Mrs. Pipchin; and that for her part she considered the worst
days in the year to be about that lady's mark, except that they were much too
good for her.
    »But you needn't trouble yourself to make a noise at my door,« said Susan
Nipper, »nor to contaminate the key-hole with your eye, I'm packing up and going
you may take your affidavit.«
    The Dowager expressed her lively satisfaction at this intelligence, and with
some general opinions upon young hussies as a race, and especially upon their
demerits after being spoiled by Miss Dombey, withdrew to prepare the Nipper's
wages. Susan then bestirred herself to get her trunks in order, that she might
take an immediate and dignified departure; sobbing heartily all the time, as she
thought of Florence.
    The object of her regret was not long in coming to her, for the news soon
spread over the house that Susan Nipper had had a disturbance with Mrs. Pipchin,
and that they had both appealed to Mr. Dombey, and that there had been an
unprecedented piece of work in Mr. Dombey's room, and that Susan was going. The
latter part of this confused rumour, Florence found to be so correct, that Susan
had locked the last trunk and was sitting upon it with her bonnet on, when she
came into her room.
    »Susan!« cried Florence. »Going to leave me! You!«
    »Oh for goodness gracious sake, Miss Floy,« said Susan, sobbing, »don't
speak a word to me or I shall demean myself before them Pi-i-ipchinses, and I
wouldn't have 'em see me cry Miss Floy for worlds!«
    »Susan!« said Florence. »My dear girl, my old friend! What shall I do
without you! Can you bear to go away so?«
    »No-n-o-o, my darling dear Miss Floy, I can't indeed,« sobbed Susan. »But it
can't be helped, I've done my duty Miss, I have indeed. It's no fault of mine. I
am quite resi-igned. I couldn't stay my month or I could never leave you then my
darling and I must at last as well as at first, don't speak to me Miss Floy, for
though I'm pretty firm I'm not a marble doorpost, my own dear.«
    »What is it? Why is it?« said Florence. »Won't you tell me?« For Susan was
shaking her head.
    »No-n-no, my darling,« returned Susan. »Don't ask me, for I mustn't, and
whatever you do don't put in a word for me to stop, for it couldn't be and you'd
only wrong yourself, and so God bless you my own precious and forgive me any
harm I have done, or any temper I have showed in all these many years!«
    With which entreaty, very heartily delivered, Susan hugged her mistress in
her arms.
    »My darling there's a many that may come to serve you and be glad to serve
you and who'll serve you well and true,« said Susan, »but there can't be one
who'll serve you so affectionate as me or love you half as dearly, that's my
comfort. Go-ood-bye, sweet Miss Floy!«
    »Where will you go, Susan?« asked her weeping mistress.
    »I've got a brother down in the country Miss - a farmer in Essex,« said the
heart-broken Nipper, »that keeps ever so many co-o-ows and pigs and I shall go
down there by the coach and sto-op with him, and don't mind me, for I've got
money in the Savings' Banks my dear, and needn't take another service just yet,
which I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't do, my heart's own mistress!« Susan
finished with a burst of sorrow, which was opportunely broken by the voice of
Mrs. Pipchin talking down stairs; on hearing which, she dried her red and
swollen eyes, and made a melancholy feint of calling jauntily to Mr. Towlinson
to fetch a cab and carry down her boxes.
    Florence, pale and hurried and distressed, but withheld from useless
interference even here, by her dread of causing any new division between her
father and his wife (whose stern, indignant face had been a warning to her a few
moments since), and by her apprehension of being in some way unconsciously
connected already with the dismissal of her old servant and friend, followed,
weeping, down stairs to Edith's dressing-room, whither Susan betook herself to
make her parting curtsey.
    »Now, here's the cab, and here's the boxes, get along with you, do!« said
Mrs. Pipchin, presenting herself at the same moment. »I beg your pardon, Ma'am,
but Mr. Dombey's orders are imperative.«
    Edith, sitting under the hands of her maid - she was going out to dinner -
preserved her haughty face, and took not the least notice.
    »There's your money,« said Mrs. Pipchin, who in pursuance of her system, and
in recollection of the mines, was accustomed to rout the servants about, as she
had routed her young Brighton boarders; to the everlasting acidulation of Master
Bitherstone, »and the sooner this house sees your back the better.«
    Susan had no spirits even for the look that belonged to Mrs. Pipchin by
right; so she dropped her curtsey to Mrs. Dombey (who inclined her head without
one word, and whose eye avoided every one but Florence), and gave one last
parting hug to her young mistress, and received her parting embrace in return.
Poor Susan's face at this crisis, in the intensity of her feelings and the
determined suffocation of her sobs, lest one should become audible and be a
triumph to Mrs. Pipchin, presented a series of the most extraordinary
physiognomical phenomena ever witnessed.
    »I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure,« said Towlinson, outside the door with
the boxes, addressing Florence, »but Mr. Toots is in the drawing-room, and sends
his compliments, and begs to know how Diogenes and Master is.«
    Quick as thought, Florence glided out and hastened down stairs, where Mr.
Toots, in the most splendid vestments, was breathing very hard with doubt and
agitation on the subject of her coming.
    »Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey,« said Mr. Toots, »God bless my soul!«
    This last ejaculation was occasioned by Mr. Toots's deep concern at the
distress he saw in Florence's face; which caused him to stop short in a fit of
chuckles, and become an image of despair.
    »Dear Mr. Toots,« said Florence, »you are so friendly to me, and so honest,
that I am sure I may ask a favour of you.«
    »Miss Dombey,« returned Mr. Toots, »if you'll only name one, you'll - you'll
give me an appetite. To which,« said Mr. Toots, with some sentiment, »I have
long been a stranger.«
    »Susan, who is an old friend of mine, the oldest friend I have,« said
Florence, »is about to leave here suddenly, and quite alone, poor girl. She is
going home, a little way into the country. Might I ask you to take care of her
until she is in the coach?«
    »Miss Dombey,« returned Mr. Toots, »you really do me an honour and a
kindness. This proof of your confidence, after the manner in which I was Beast
enough to conduct myself at Brighton -«
    »Yes,« said Florence, hurriedly - »no - don't think of that. Then would you
have the kindness to - to go? and to be ready to meet her when she comes out?
Thank you a thousand times! You ease my mind so much. She doesn't't seem so
desolate. You cannot think how grateful I feel to you, or what a good friend I
am sure you are!« And Florence in her earnestness thanked him again and again;
and Mr. Toots, in his earnestness, hurried away - but backwards, that he might
lose no glimpse of her.
    Florence had not the courage to go out, when she saw poor Susan in the hall,
with Mrs. Pipchin driving her forth, and Diogenes jumping about her, and
terrifying Mrs. Pipchin to the last degree by making snaps at her bombazeen
skirts, and howling with anguish at the sound of her voice - for the good duenna
was the dearest and most cherished aversion of his breast. But she saw Susan
shake hands with the servants all round, and turn once to look at her old home;
and she saw Diogenes bound out after the cab, and want to follow it, and testify
an impossibility of conviction that he had no longer any property in the fare;
and the door was shut, and the hurry over, and her tears flowed fast for the
loss of an old friend, whom no one could replace. No one. No one.
    Mr. Toots, like the leal and trusty soul he was, stopped the cabriolet in a
twinkling, and told Susan Nipper of his commission, at which she cried more than
before.
    »Upon my soul and body!« said Mr. Toots, taking his seat beside her, »I feel
for you. Upon my word and honour I think you can hardly know your own feelings
better than I imagine them. I can conceive nothing more dreadful than to have to
leave Miss Dombey.«
    Susan abandoned herself to her grief now, and it really was touching to see
her.
    »I say,« said Mr. Toots, »now, don't! at least I mean now do, you know!«
    »Do what, Mr. Toots?« cried Susan.
    »Why, come home to my place, and have some dinner before you start,« said
Mr. Toots. »My cook's a most respectable woman - one of the most motherly people
I ever saw - and she'll be delighted to make you comfortable. Her son,« said Mr.
Toots, as an additional recommendation, »was educated in the Blue-coat School,
and blown up in a powder-mill.«
    Susan accepting this kind offer, Mr. Toots conducted her to his dwelling,
where they were received by the Matron in question who fully justified his
character of her, and by the Chicken, who at first supposed, on seeing a lady in
the vehicle, that Mr. Dombey had been doubled up, agreeably to his old
recommendation, and Miss Dombey abducted. This gentleman awakened in Miss Nipper
some considerable astonishment; for, having been defeated by the Larkey Boy, his
visage was in a state of such great dilapidation, as to be hardly presentable in
society with comfort to the beholders. The Chicken himself attributed this
punishment to his having had the misfortune to get into Chancery early in the
proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the Larkey one, and heavily grassed.
But it appeared from the published records of that great contest that the Larkey
Boy had had it all his own way from the beginning, and that the Chicken had been
tapped, and bunged, and had received pepper, and had been made groggy, and had
come up piping, and had endured a complication of similar strange
inconveniences, until he had been gone into and finished.
    After a good repast, and much hospitality, Susan set out for the
coach-office in another cabriolet, with Mr. Toots inside, as before, and the
Chicken on the box, who, whatever distinction he conferred on the little party
by the moral weight and heroism of his character, was scarcely ornamental to it,
physically speaking, on account of his plasters; which were numerous. But the
Chicken had registered a vow, in secret, that he would never leave Mr. Toots
(who was secretly pining to get rid of him), for any less consideration than the
good-will and fixtures of a public-house; and being ambitious to go into that
line, and drink himself to death as soon as possible, he felt it his cue to make
his company unacceptable.
    The night-coach by which Susan was to go, was on the point of departure. Mr.
Toots having put her inside, lingered by the window, irresolutely, until the
driver was about to mount; when, standing on the step, and putting in a face
that by the light of the lamp was anxious and confused, he said abruptly:
    »I say, Susan! Miss Dombey, you know -«
    »Yes, Sir.«
    »Do you think she could - you know - eh?«
    »I beg your pardon, Mr. Toots,« said Susan, »but I don't hear you.«
    »Do you think she could be brought, you know - not exactly at once, but in
time - in a long time - to - to love me, you know! There!« said poor Mr. Toots.
    »Oh dear no!« returned Susan, shaking her head. »I should say, never.
Ne-ver!«
    »Thank'ee!« said Mr. Toots. »It's of no consequence. Good night. It's of no
consequence, thank'ee!«
 

                                  Chapter XLV

                               The Trusty Agent.

Edith went out alone that day, and returned home early. It was but a few minutes
after ten o'clock, when her carriage rolled along the street in which she lived.
    There was the same enforced composure on her face, that there had been when
she was dressing; and the wreath upon her head encircled the same cold and
steady brow. But it would have been better to have seen its leaves and flowers
reft into fragments by her passionate hand, or rendered shapeless by the fitful
searches of a throbbing and bewildered brain for any resting-place, than
adorning such tranquillity. So obdurate, so unapproachable, so unrelenting, one
would have thought that nothing could soften such a woman's nature, and that
everything in life had hardened it.
    Arrived at her own door, she was alighting, when some one coming quietly
from the hall, and standing bareheaded, offered her his arm. The servant being
thrust aside, she had no choice but to touch it; and she then knew whose arm it
was.
    »How is your patient, Sir?« she said, with a curled lip.
    »He is better,« returned Carker. »He is doing very well. I have left him for
the night.«
    She bent her head, and was passing up the staircase, when he followed and
said, speaking at the bottom:
    »Madam! May I beg the favour of a minute's audience?«
    She stopped and turned her eyes back. »It is an unreasonable time, Sir, and
I am fatigued. Is your business urgent?«
    »It is very urgent,« returned Carker. »As I am so fortunate as to have met
you, let me press my petition.«
    She looked down for a moment at his glistening mouth; and he looked up at
her, standing above him in her stately dress, and thought, again, how beautiful
she was.
    »Where is Miss Dombey?« she asked the servant, aloud.
    »In the morning room, Ma'am.«
    »Show the way there!« Turning her eyes again on the attentive gentleman at
the bottom of the stairs, and informing him with a slight motion of her head,
that he was at liberty to follow, she passed on.
    »I beg your pardon! Madam! Mrs. Dombey!« cried the soft and nimble Carker at
her side in a moment. »May I be permitted to entreat that Miss Dombey is not
present?«
    She confronted him, with a quick look, but with the same self-possession and
steadiness.
    »I would spare Miss Dombey,« said Carker, in a low voice, »the knowledge of
what I have to say. At least, Madam, I would leave it to you to decide whether
she shall know of it or not. I owe that to you. It is my bounden duty to you.
After our former interview, it would be monstrous in me if I did otherwise.«
    She slowly withdrew her eyes from his face, and turning to the servant,
said, »Some other room.« He led the way to a drawing-room, which he speedily
lighted up and then left them. While he remained, not a word was spoken. Edith
enthroned herself upon a couch by the fire; and Mr. Carker, with his hat in his
hand and his eyes bent upon the carpet, stood before her, at some little
distance.
    »Before I hear you, Sir,« said Edith, when the door was closed, »I wish you
to hear me.«
    »To be addressed by Mrs. Dombey,« he returned, »even in accents of unmerited
reproach, is an honour I so greatly esteem, that although I were not her servant
in all things, I should defer to such a wish, most readily.«
    »If you are charged by the man whom you have just now left, Sir;« Mr. Carker
raised his eyes, as if he were going to counterfeit surprise, but she met them,
and stopped him, if such were his intention; »with any message to me, do not
attempt to deliver it, for I will not receive it. I need scarcely ask you if you
are come on such an errand. I have expected you some time.«
    »It is my misfortune,« he replied, »to be here, wholly against my will, for
such a purpose. Allow me to say that I am here for two purposes. That is one.«
    »That one, Sir,« she returned, »is ended. Or, if you return to it -«
    »Can Mrs. Dombey believe,« said Carker, coming nearer, »that I would return
to it in the face of her prohibition? Is it possible that Mrs. Dombey, having no
regard to my unfortunate position, is so determined to consider me inseparable
from my instructor as to do me great and wilful injustice?«
    »Sir,« returned Edith, bending her dark gaze full upon him, and speaking
with a rising passion that inflated her proud nostril and her swelling neck, and
stirred the delicate white down upon a robe she wore, thrown loosely over
shoulders that could bear its snowy neighbourhood. »Why do you present yourself
to me, as you have done, and speak to me of love and duty to my husband, and
pretend to think that I am happily married, and that I honour him? How dare you
venture so to affront me, when you know - I do not know better, Sir: I have seen
it in your every glance, and heard it in your every word - that in place of
affection between us there is aversion and contempt, and that I despise him
hardly less than I despise myself for being his! Injustice! If I had done
justice to the torment you have made me feel, and to my sense of the insult you
have put upon me, I should have slain you!«
    She had asked him why he did this. Had she not been blinded by her pride and
wrath, and self-humiliation, - which she was, fiercely as she bent her gaze upon
him, - she would have seen the answer in his face. To bring her to this
declaration.
    She saw it not, and cared not whether it was there or no. She saw only the
indignities and struggles she had undergone, and had to undergo, and was
writhing under them. As she sat looking fixedly at them, rather than at him, she
plucked the feathers from a pinion of some rare and beautiful bird, which hung
from her wrist by a golden thread, to serve her as a fan, and rained them on the
ground.
    He did not shrink beneath her gaze, but stood, until such outward signs of
her anger as had escaped her control subsided, with the air of a man who had his
sufficient reply in reserve and would presently deliver it. And he then spoke,
looking straight into her kindling eyes.
    »Madam,« he said, »I know, and knew before to- that I have found no favour
with you; and I knew why. Yes. I knew why. You have spoken so openly to me; I am
so relieved by the possession of your confidence -«
    »Confidence!« she repeated, with disdain.
    He passed it over.
    »- that I will make no pretence of concealment. I did see from the first,
that there was no affection on your part for Mr. Dombey - how could it possibly
exist between such different subjects? And I have seen, since, that stronger
feelings than indifference have been engendered in your breast - how could that
possibly be otherwise, either, circumstanced as you have been? But was it for me
to presume to avow this knowledge to you in so many words?«
    »Was it for you, Sir,« she replied, »to feign that other belief, and
audaciously to thrust it on me day by day?«
    »Madam, it was,« he eagerly retorted. »If I had done less, if I had done
anything but that, I should not be speaking to you thus; and I foresaw - who
could better foresee, for who has had greater experience of Mr. Dombey than
myself? - that unless your character should prove to be as yielding and obedient
as that of his first submissive lady, which I did not believe -«
    A haughty smile gave dim reason to observe that he might repeat this.
    »I say, which I did not believe, - the time was likely to come, when such an
understanding as we have now arrived at, would be serviceable.«
    »Serviceable to whom, Sir?« she demanded scornfully.
    »To you. I will not add to myself, as warning me to refrain even from that
limited commendation of Mr. Dombey, in which I can honestly indulge, in order
that I may not have the misfortune of saying anything distasteful to one whose
aversion and contempt,« with great expression, »are so keen.«
    »Is it honest in you, sir,« said Edith, »to confess to your limited
commendation, and to speak in that tone of disparagement, even of him: being his
chief counsellor and flatterer!«
    »Counsellor, - yes,« said Carker. »Flatterer, - no. A little reservation I
fear I must confess to. But our interest and convenience commonly oblige many of
us to make professions that we cannot feel. We have partnerships of interest and
convenience, friendships of interest and convenience, dealings of interest and
convenience, marriages of interest and convenience, every day.«
    She bit her blood-red lip; but without wavering in the dark, stern watch she
kept upon him.
    »Madam,« said Mr. Carker, sitting down in a chair that was near her, with an
air of the most profound and most considerate respect, »why should I hesitate
now, being altogether devoted to your service, to speak plainly! It was natural
that a lady, endowed as you are, should think it feasible to change her
husband's character in some respects, and mould him to a better form.«
    »It was not natural to me, Sir,« she rejoined. »I had never any expectation
or intention of that kind.«
    The proud undaunted face showed him it was resolute to wear no mask he
offered, but was set upon a reckless disclosure of itself, indifferent to any
aspect in which it might present itself to such as he.
    »At least it was natural,« he resumed, »that you should deem it quite
possible to live with Mr. Dombey as his wife, at once without submitting to him,
and without coming into such violent collision with him. But, Madam, you did not
know Mr. Dombey (as you have since ascertained), when you thought that. You did
not know how exacting and how proud he is, or how he is, if I may say so, the
slave of his own greatness, and goes yoked to his own triumphal car like a beast
of burden, with no idea on earth but that it is behind him and is to be drawn
on, over everything and through everything.«
    His teeth gleamed through his malicious relish of this conceit, as he went
on talking:
    »Mr. Dombey is really capable of no more true consideration for you, Madam,
than for me. The comparison is an extreme one; I intend it to be so; but quite
just. Mr. Dombey, in the plenitude of his power, asked me - I had it from his
own lips yesterday morning - to be his go-between to you, because he knows I am
not agreeable to you, and because he intends that I shall be a punishment for
your contumacy; and besides that, because he really does consider, that I, his
paid servant, am an ambassador whom it is derogatory to the dignity - not of the
lady to whom I have the happiness of speaking; she has no existence in his mind
- but of his wife, a part of himself, to receive. You may imagine how regardless
of me, how obtuse to the possibility of my having any individual sentiment or
opinion he is, when he tells me, openly, that I am so employed. You know how
perfectly indifferent to your feelings he is, when he threatens you with such a
messenger. As you, of course, have not forgotten that he did.«
    She watched him still attentively. But he watched her too; and he saw that
this indication of a knowledge on his part, of something that had passed between
herself and her husband, rankled and smarted in her haughty breast, like a
poisoned arrow.
    »I do not recall all this to widen the breach between yourself and Mr.
Dombey, Madam - Heaven forbid! what would it profit me? - but as an example of
the hopelessness of impressing Mr. Dombey with a sense that anybody is to be
considered when he is in question. We who are about him, have, in our various
positions, done our part, I dare say, to confirm him in his way of thinking; but
if we had not done so, others would - or they would not have been about him; and
it has always been from the beginning, the very staple of his life. Mr. Dombey
has had to deal, in short, with none but submissive and dependent persons, who
have bowed the knee, and bent the neck, before him. He has never known what it
is to have angry pride and strong resentment opposed to him.«
    »But he will know it now!« she seemed to say; though her lips did not part,
nor her eyes falter. He saw the soft down tremble once again, and he saw her lay
the plumage of the beautiful bird against her bosom for a moment; and he
unfolded one more ring of the coil into which he had gathered himself.
    »Mr. Dombey, though a most honourable gentleman,« he said, »is so prone to
pervert even facts to his own view, when he is at all opposed, in consequence of
the warp in his mind, that he - can I give a better instance than this! - he
sincerely believes (you will excuse the folly of what I am about to say; it not
being mine) that his severe expression of opinion to his present wife, on a
certain special occasion she may remember, before the lamented death of Mrs.
Skewton, produced a withering effect, and for the moment quite subdued her!«
    Edith laughed. How harshly and unmusically need not be described. It is
enough that he was glad to hear her.
    »Madam,« he resumed, »I have done with this. Your own opinions are so
strong, and, I am persuaded, so unalterable,« he repeated those words slowly and
with great emphasis, »that I am almost afraid to incur your displeasure anew,
when I say that in spite of these defects and my full knowledge of them, I have
become habituated to Mr. Dombey, and esteem him. But when I say so, it is not,
believe me, for the mere sake of vaunting a feeling that is so utterly at
variance with your own, and for which you can have no sympathy« - oh how
distinct and plain and emphasized this was! - »but to give you an assurance of
the zeal with which, in this unhappy matter, I am yours, and the indignation
with which I regard the part I am required to fill!«
    She sat as if she were afraid to take her eyes from his face.
    And now to unwind the last ring of the coil!
    »It is growing late,« said Carker, after a pause, »and you are, as you said,
fatigued. But the second object of this interview, I must not forget. I must
recommend you, I must entreat you in the most earnest manner, for sufficient
reasons that I have, to be cautious in your demonstrations of regard for Miss
Dombey.«
    »Cautious! What do you mean?«
    »To be careful how you exhibit too much affection for that young lady.«
    »Too much affection, Sir!« said Edith, knitting her broad brow and rising.
»Who judges my affection, or measures it out? You?«
    »It is not I who do so.« He was, or feigned to be, perplexed.
    »Who then?«
    »Can you not guess who then?«
    »I do not choose to guess,« she answered.
    »Madam,« he said after a little hesitation; meantime they had been, and
still were, regarding each other as before; »I am in a difficulty here. You have
told me you will receive no message, and you have forbidden me to return to that
subject; but the two subjects are so closely entwined, I find, that unless you
will accept this vague caution from one who has now the honour to possess your
confidence, though the way to it has been through your displeasure, I must
violate the injunction you have laid upon me.«
    »You know that you are free to do so, Sir,« said Edith. »Do it.«
    So pale, so trembling, so impassioned! He had not miscalculated the effect
then!
    »His instructions were,« he said, in a low voice, »that I should inform you
that your demeanour towards Miss Dombey is not agreeable to him. That it
suggests comparisons to him which are not favourable to himself. That he desires
it may be wholly changed; and that if you are in earnest, he is confident it
will be; for your continued show of affection will not benefit its object.«
    »That is a threat,« she said.
    »That is a threat,« he answered, in his voiceless manner of assent: adding
aloud, »but not directed against you.«
    Proud, erect, and dignified, as she stood confronting him; and looking
through him as she did, with her full bright flashing eye; and smiling, as she
was, with scorn and bitterness; she sunk as if the ground had dropped beneath
her, and in an instant would have fallen on the floor, but that he caught her in
his arms. As instantaneously she threw him off, the moment that he touched her,
and, drawing back, confronted him again, immoveable, with her hand stretched
out.
    »Please to leave me. Say no more to-night.«
    »I feel the urgency of this,« said Mr. Carker, »because it is impossible to
say what unforeseen consequences might arise, or how soon, from your being
unacquainted with his state of mind. I understand Miss Dombey is concerned, now,
at the dismissal of her old servant, which is likely to have been a minor
consequence in itself. You don't blame me for requesting that Miss Dombey might
not be present. May I hope so?«
    »I do not. Please to leave me, Sir.«
    »I knew that your regard for the young lady, which is very sincere and
strong, I am well persuaded, would render it a great unhappiness to you, ever to
be a prey to the reflection that you had injured her position and ruined her
future hopes,« said Carker hurriedly, but eagerly.
    »No more to-night. Leave me, if you please.«
    »I shall be here constantly in my attendance upon him, and in the
transaction of business matters. You will allow me to see you again, and to
consult what should be done, and learn your wishes?«
    She motioned him towards the door.
    »I cannot even decide whether to tell him I have spoken to you yet; or to
lead him to suppose that I have deferred doing so, for want of opportunity, or
for any other reason. It will be necessary that you should enable me to consult
with you very soon.«
    »At any time but now,« she answered.
    »You will understand, when I wish to see you, that Miss Dombey is not to be
present; and that I seek an interview as one who has the happiness to possess
your confidence, and who comes to render you every assistance in his power, and,
perhaps, on many occasions, to ward off evil from her?«
    Looking at him still with the same apparent dread of releasing him for a
moment from the influence of her steady gaze, whatever that might be, she
answered, »Yes!« and once more bade him go.
    He bowed, as if in compliance; but turning back, when he had nearly reached
the door, said:
    »I am forgiven, and have explained my fault. May I - for Miss Dombey's sake,
and for my own - take your hand before I go?«
    She gave him the gloved hand she had maimed last night. He took it in one of
his, and kissed it, and withdrew. And when he had closed the door, he waved the
hand with which he had taken hers, and thrust it in his breast.
 

                                  Chapter XLVI

                          Recognizant and Reflective.

Among sundry minor alterations in Mr. Carker's life and habits that began to
take place at this time, none was more remarkable than the extraordinary
diligence with which he applied himself to business, and the closeness with
which he investigated every detail that the affairs of the House laid open to
him. Always active and penetrating in such matters, his lynx-eyed vigilance now
increased twenty-fold. Not only did his weary watch keep pace with every present
point that every day presented to him in some new form, but in the midst of
these engrossing occupations he found leisure - that is, he made it - to review
the past transactions of the Firm, and his share in them, during a long series
of years. Frequently when the clerks were all gone, the offices dark and empty,
and all similar places of business shut up, Mr. Carker, with the whole anatomy
of the iron room laid bare before him, would explore the mysteries of books and
papers, with the patient progress of a man who was dissecting the minutest
nerves and fibres of his subject. Perch, the messenger, who usually remained on
these occasions, to entertain himself with the perusal of the Price Current by
the light of one candle, or to doze over the fire in the outer office, at the
imminent risk every moment of diving head foremost into the coal-box, could not
withhold the tribute of his admiration from this zealous conduct, although it
much contracted his domestic enjoyments; and again, and again, expatiated to
Mrs. Perch (now nursing twins) on the industry and acuteness of their managing
gentleman in the City.
    The same increased and sharp attention that Mr. Carker bestowed on the
business of the House, he applied to his own personal affairs. Though not a
partner in the concern - a distinction hitherto reserved solely to inheritors of
the great name of Dombey - he was in the receipt of some per centage on its
dealings; and, participating in all its facilities for the employment of money
to advantage, was considered, by the minnows among the tritons of the East, a
rich man. It began to be said, among these shrewd observers, that Jem Carker, of
Dombey's, was looking about him to see what he was worth; and that he was
calling in his money at a good time, like the long-headed fellow he was; and
bets were even offered on the Stock Exchange that Jem was going to marry a rich
widow.
    Yet these cares did not in the least interfere with Mr. Carker's watching of
his chief, or with his cleanness, neatness, sleekness, or any cat-like quality
he possessed. It was not so much that there was a change in him, in reference to
any of his habits, as that the whole man was intensified. Everything that had
been observable in him before, was observable now, but with a greater amount of
concentration. He did each single thing, as if he did nothing else - a pretty
certain indication in a man of that range of ability and purpose, that he is
doing something which sharpens and keeps alive his keenest powers.
    The only decided alteration in him was, that as he rode to and fro along the
streets, he would fall into deep fits of musing, like that in which he had come
away from Mr. Dombey's house, on the morning of that gentleman's disaster. At
such times, he would keep clear of the obstacles in his way, mechanically; and
would appear to see and hear nothing until arrival at his destination, or some
sudden chance or effort roused him.
    Walking his white-legged horse thus, to the counting-house of Dombey and Son
one day, he was as unconscious of the observation of two pairs of women's eyes,
as of the fascinated orbs of Rob the Grinder, who, in waiting a street's length
from the appointed place, as a demonstration of punctuality, vainly touched and
retouched his hat to attract attention, and trotted along on foot, by his
master's side, prepared to hold his stirrup when he should alight.
    »See where he goes!« cried one of these two women, an old creature, who
stretched out her shrivelled arm to point him out to her companion, a young
woman, who stood close beside her, withdrawn like herself into a gateway.
    Mrs. Brown's daughter looked out, at this bidding on the part of Mrs. Brown;
and there were wrath and vengeance in her face.
    »I never thought to look at him again,« she said, in a low voice; »but it's
well I should, perhaps. I see. I see!«
    »Not changed!« said the old woman, with a look of eager malice.
    »He changed!« returned the other. »What for? What has he suffered? There is
change enough for twenty in me. Isn't that enough?«
    »See where he goes!« muttered the old woman, watching her daughter with her
red eyes; »so easy and so trim, a-horseback, while we are in the mud -«
    »And of it,« said her daughter impatiently. »We are mud, underneath his
horse's feet. What should we be?«
    In the intentness with which she looked after him again, she made a hasty
gesture with her hand when the old woman began to reply, as if her view could be
obstructed by mere sound. Her mother watching her, and not him, remained silent;
until her kindling glance subsided, and she drew a long breath, as if in the
relief of his being gone.
    »Deary!« said the old woman then. »Alice! Handsome gal! Ally!« She gently
shook her sleeve to arouse her attention. »Will you let him go like that, when
you can wring money from him? Why, it's a wickedness, my daughter.«
    »Haven't I told you, that I will not have money from him?« she returned.
»And don't you yet believe me? Did I take his sister's money? Would I touch a
penny, if I knew it, that had gone through his white hands - unless it was,
indeed, that I could poison it, and send it back to him? Peace, mother, and come
away.«
    »And him so rich?« murmured the old woman. »And us so poor!«
    »Poor in not being able to pay him any of the harm we owe him,« returned her
daughter. »Let him give me that sort of riches, and I'll take them from him, and
use them. Come away. It's no good looking at his horse. Come away, mother!«
    But the old woman, for whom the spectacle of Rob the Grinder returning down
the street, leading the riderless horse, appeared to have some extraneous
interest that it did not possess in itself, surveyed that young man with the
utmost earnestness; and seeming to have whatever doubts she entertained resolved
as he drew nearer, glanced at her daughter with brightened eyes and with her
finger on her lip, and emerging from the gateway at the moment of his passing,
touched him on the shoulder.
    »Why, where's my sprightly Rob been, all this time!« she said, as he turned
round.
    The sprightly Rob, whose sprightliness was very much diminished by the
salutation, looked exceedingly dismayed, and said, with the water rising in his
eyes:
    »Oh! why can't you leave a poor cove alone, Misses Brown, when he's getting
an honest livelihood and conducting himself respectable? What do you come and
deprive a cove of his character for, by talking to him in the streets, when he's
taking his master's horse to a honest stable - a horse you'd go and sell for
cats' and dogs' meat if you had your way! Why, I thought,« said the Grinder,
producing his concluding remark as if it were the climax of all his injuries,
»that you was dead long ago!«
    »This is the way,« cried the old woman, appealing to her daughter, »that he
talks to me, who knew him weeks and months together, my deary, and have stood
his friend many and many a time among the pigeon-fancying tramps and
bird-catchers.«
    »Let the birds be, will you, Misses Brown?« retorted Rob, in a tone of the
acutest anguish. »I think a cove had better have to do with lions than them
little creeturs, for they're always flying back in your face when you least
expect it. Well, how d'ye do and what do you want?« These polite inquiries the
Grinder uttered, as it were under protest, and with great exasperation and
vindictiveness.
    »Hark how he speaks to an old friend, my deary!« said Mrs. Brown, again
appealing to her daughter. »But there's some of his old friends not so patient
as me. If I was to tell some that he knows, and has sported and cheated with,
where to find him -«
    »Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?« interrupted the miserable
Grinder, glancing quickly round, as though he expected to see his master's teeth
shining at his elbow. »What do you take a pleasure in ruining a cove for? At
your time of life too! when you ought to be thinking of a variety of things!«
    »What a gallant horse!« said the old woman, patting the animal's neck.
    »Let him alone, will you, Misses Brown?« cried Rob, pushing away her hand.
»You're enough to drive a penitent cove mad!«
    »Why, what hurt do I do him, child?« returned the old woman.
    »Hurt?« said Rob. »He's got a master that would find it out if he was
touched with a straw.« And he blew upon the place where the old woman's hand had
rested for a moment, and smoothed it gently with his finger, as if he seriously
believed what he said.
    The old woman looking back to mumble and mouth at her daughter, who
followed, kept close to Rob's heels as he walked on with the bridle in his hand;
and pursued the conversation.
    »A good place, Rob, eh?« said she. »You're in luck, my child.«
    »Oh don't talk about luck, Misses Brown,« returned the wretched Grinder,
facing round and stopping. »If you'd never come, or if you'd go away, then
indeed a cove might be considered tolerably lucky. Can't you go along, Misses
Brown, and not foller me!« blubbered Rob, with sudden defiance. »If the young
woman's a friend of yours, why don't she take you away, instead of letting you
make yourself so disgraceful!«
    »What!« croaked the old woman, putting her face close to his, with a
malevolent grin upon it that puckered up the loose skin down in her very throat.
»Do you deny your old chum! Have you lurked to my house fifty times, and slept
sound in a corner when you had no other bed but the paving-stones, and do you
talk to me like this! Have I bought and sold with you, and helped you in my way
of business, schoolboy, sneak, and what not, and do you tell me to go along!
Could I raise a crowd of old company about you to-morrow morning, that would
follow you to ruin like copies of your own shadow, and do you turn on me with
your bold looks! I'll go. Come, Alice.«
    »Stop, Misses Brown!« cried the distracted Grinder. »What are you doing of?
Don't put yourself in a passion! Don't let her go, if you please. I haven't
meant any offence. I said how d'ye do, at first, didn't I? But you wouldn't
answer. How do you do? Besides,« said Rob piteously, »look here! How can a cove
stand talking in the street with his master's prad a wanting to be took to be
rubbed down, and his master up to every individgle thing that happens!«
    The old woman made a show of being partially appeased, but shook her head,
and mouthed and muttered still.
    »Come along to the stables, and have a glass of something that's good for
you, Misses Brown, can't you?« said Rob, »instead of going on, like that, which
is no good to you, nor anybody else? Come along with her, will you be so kind?«
said Rob. »I'm sure I'm delighted to see her, if it wasn't't for the horse!«
    With this apology, Rob turned away, a rueful picture of despair, and walked
his charge down a bye-street. The old woman, mouthing at her daughter, followed
close upon him. The daughter followed.
    Turning into a silent little square or court-yard that had a great church
tower rising above it, and a packer's warehouse, and a bottle-maker's warehouse,
for its places of business, Rob the Grinder delivered the white-legged horse to
the hostler of a quaint stable at the corner; and inviting Mrs. Brown and her
daughter to seat themselves upon a stone bench at the gate of that
establishment, soon reappeared from a neighbouring public-house with a pewter
measure and a glass.
    »Here's master - Mr. Carker, child!« said the old woman, slowly, as her
sentiment before drinking. »Lord bless him!«
    »Why, I didn't tell you who he was?« observed Rob, with staring eyes.
    »We know him by sight,« said Mrs. Brown, whose working mouth and nodding
head stopped for the moment, in the fixedness of her attention. »We saw him pass
this morning, afore he got off his horse; when you were ready to take it.«
    »Aye, aye?« returned Rob, appearing to wish that his readiness had carried
him to any other place. - »What's the matter with her? Won't she drink?«
    This inquiry had reference to Alice, who, folded in her cloak, sat a little
apart profoundly inattentive to his offer of the replenished glass.
    The old woman shook her head. »Don't mind her,« she said; »she's a strange
creature, if you know'd her, Rob. But Mr. Carker -«
    »Hush!« said Rob, glancing cautiously up at the packer's, and at the
bottle-maker's, as if, from any one of the tiers of warehouses, Mr. Carker might
be looking down. »Softly.«
    »Why, he ain't here!« cried Mrs. Brown.
    »I don't know that,« muttered Rob, whose glance even wandered to the church
tower, as if he might be there, with a supernatural power of hearing.
    »Good master?« inquired Mrs. Brown.
    Rob nodded; and added, in a low voice, »precious sharp.«
    »Lives out of town, don't he, lovey?« said the old woman.
    »When he's at home,« returned Rob; »but we don't live at home just now.«
    »Where then?« asked the old woman.
    »Lodgings; up near Mr. Dombey's,« returned Rob.
    The younger woman fixed her eyes so searchingly upon him, and so suddenly,
that Rob was quite confounded, and offered the glass again, but with no more
effect upon her than before.
    »Mr. Dombey - you and I used to talk about him, sometimes, you know,« said
Rob to Mrs. Brown. »You used to get me to talk about him.«
    The old woman nodded.
    »Well, Mr. Dombey, he's had a fall from his horse,« said Rob, unwillingly;
»and my master has to be up there, more than usual, either with him, or Mrs.
Dombey, or some of 'em; and so we've come to town.«
    »Are they good friends, lovey?« asked the old woman.
    »Who?« retorted Rob.
    »He and she?«
    »What, Mr. and Mrs. Dombey?« said Rob. »How should I know!«
    »Not them - Master and Mrs. Dombey, chick,« replied the old woman,
coaxingly.
    »I don't know,« said Rob, looking round him again. »I suppose so. How
curious you are, Misses Brown! Least said, soonest mended.«
    »Why there's no harm in it!« exclaimed the old woman, with a laugh, and a
clap of her hands. »Sprightly Rob has grown tame since he has been well off!
There's no harm in it.«
    »No, there's no harm in it, I know,« returned Rob, with the same distrustful
glance at the packer's and the bottle-maker's, and the church; »but blabbing, if
it's only about the number of buttons on my master's coat, won't do. I tell you
it won't do with him. A cove had better drown himself. He says so. I shouldn't
have so much as told you what his name was, if you hadn't known it. Talk about
somebody else.«
    As Rob took another cautious survey of the yard, the old woman made a secret
motion to her daughter. It was momentary, but the daughter, with a slight look
of intelligence, withdrew her eyes from the boy's face, and sat folded in her
cloak as before.
    »Rob, lovey!« said the old woman, beckoning him to the other end of the
bench. »You were always a pet and favourite of mine. Now, weren't you? Don't you
know you were?«
    »Yes, Misses Brown,« replied the Grinder, with a very bad grace.
    »And you could leave me!« said the old woman, flinging her arms about his
neck. »You could go away, and grow almost out of knowledge, and never come to
tell your poor old friend how fortunate you were, proud lad! Oho, Oho!«
    »Oh here's a dreadful go for a cove that's got a master wide awake in the
neighbourhood!« exclaimed the wretched Grinder. »To be howled over like this
here!«
    »Won't you come and see me, Robby?« cried Mrs. Brown. »Oho, won't you ever
come and see me?«
    »Yes, I tell you! Yes, I will!« returned the Grinder.
    »That's my own Rob! That's my lovey!« said Mrs. Brown, drying the tears upon
her shrivelled face, and giving him a tender squeeze. »At the old place, Rob?«
    »Yes,« replied the Grinder.
    »Soon, Robby dear?« cried Mrs. Brown; »and often?«
    »Yes. Yes. Yes,« replied Rob. »I will indeed, upon my soul and body.«
    »And then,« said Mrs. Brown, with her arms uplifted towards the sky, and her
head thrown back and shaking, »if he's true to his word, I'll never come a-near
him, though I know where he is, and never breathe a syllable about him! Never!«
    This ejaculation seemed a drop of comfort to the miserable Grinder, who
shook Mrs. Brown by the hand upon it, and implored her with tears in his eyes to
leave a cove and not destroy his prospects. Mrs. Brown, with another fond
embrace, assented; but in the act of following her daughter, turned back, with
her finger stealthily raised, and asked in a hoarse whisper for some money.
    »A shilling, dear!« she said, with her eager avaricious face, »or sixpence!
For old acquaintance sake. I'm so poor. And my handsome gal« - looking over her
shoulder - »she's my gal, Rob - half starves me.«
    But as the reluctant Grinder put it in her hand, her daughter, coming
quietly back, caught the hand in hers, and twisted out the coin.
    »What,« she said, »mother! always money! money from the first, and to the
last. Do you mind so little what I said but now? Here. Take it!«
    The old woman uttered a moan as the money was restored, but without in any
other way opposing its restoration, hobbled at her daughter's side out of the
yard, and along the bye-street upon which it opened. The astonished and dismayed
Rob staring after them, saw that they stopped, and fell to earnest conversation
very soon; and more than once observed a darkly threatening action of the
younger woman's hand (obviously having reference to some one of whom they
spoke), and a crooning feeble imitation of it on the part of Mrs. Brown, that
made him earnestly hope he might not be the subject of their discourse.
    With the present consolation that they were gone, and with the prospective
comfort that Mrs. Brown could not live for ever, and was not likely to live long
to trouble him, the Grinder, not otherwise regretting his misdeeds than as they
were attended with such disagreeable incidental consequences, composed his
ruffled features to a more serene expression by thinking of the admirable manner
in which he had disposed of Captain Cuttle (a reflection that seldom failed to
put him in a flow of spirits), and went to the Dombey Counting House to receive
his master's orders.
    There his master, so subtle and vigilant of eye, that Rob quaked before him,
more than half expecting to be taxed with Mrs. Brown, gave him the usual
morning's box of papers for Mr. Dombey, and a note for Mrs. Dombey: merely
nodding his head as an enjoinder to be careful, and to use dispatch - a
mysterious admonition, fraught in the Grinder's imagination with dismal warnings
and threats; and more powerful with him than any words.
    Alone again, in his own room, Mr. Carker applied himself to work, and worked
all day. He saw many visitors; overlooked a number of documents; went in and
out, to and from, sundry places of mercantile resort; and indulged in no more
abstraction until the day's business was done. But, when the usual clearance of
papers from his table was made at last, he fell into his thoughtful mood once
more.
    He was standing in his accustomed place and attitude, with his eyes intently
fixed upon the ground, when his brother entered to bring back some letters that
had been taken out in the course of the day. He put them quietly on the table,
and was going immediately, when Mr. Carker the Manager, whose eyes had rested on
him, on his entrance, as if they had all this time had him for the subject of
their contemplation, instead of the office-floor, said:
    »Well, John Carker, and what brings you here?«
    His brother pointed to the letters, and was again withdrawing.
    »I wonder,« said the Manager, »that you can come and go, without inquiring
how our master is.«
    »We had word this morning in the counting-house, that Mr. Dombey was doing
well,« replied his brother.
    »You are such a meek fellow,« said the Manager, with a smile, - »but you
have grown so, in the course of years - that if any harm came to him, you'd be
miserable, I dare swear now.«
    »I should be truly sorry, James,« returned the other.
    »He would be sorry!« said the Manager, pointing at him, as if there were
some other person present to whom he was appealing. »He would be truly sorry!
This brother of mine! This junior of the place, this slighted piece of lumber,
pushed aside with his face to the wall, like a rotten picture, and left so, for
Heaven knows how many years: he's all gratitude and respect, and devotion too,
he would have me believe!«
    »I would have you believe nothing, James,« returned the other. »Be as just
to me as you would to any other man below you. You ask a question, and I answer
it.«
    »And have you nothing, Spaniel,« said the Manager, with unusual
irascibility, »to complain of in him? No proud treatment to resent, no
insolence, no foolery of state, no exaction of any sort! What the devil! are you
man or mouse?«
    »It would be strange if any two persons could be together for so many years,
especially as superior and inferior, without each having something to complain
of in the other - as he thought, at all events,« replied John Carker. »But apart
from my history here -«
    »His history here!« exclaimed the Manager. »Why, there it is. The very fact
that makes him an extreme case, puts him out of the whole chapter! Well?«
    »Apart from that, which, as you hint, gives me a reason to be thankful that
I alone (happily for all the rest) possess, surely there is no one in the House
who would not say and feel at least as much. You do not think that anybody here
would be indifferent to a mischance or misfortune happening to the head of the
House, or anything than truly sorry for it?«
    »You have good reason to be bound to him too!« said the Manager,
contemptuously. »Why, don't you believe that you are kept here as a cheap
example, and a famous instance of the clemency of Dombey and Son, redounding to
the credit of the illustrious House?«
    »No,« replied his brother, mildly, »I have long believed that I am kept here
for more kind and disinterested reasons.«
    »But you were going,« said the Manager, with the snarl of a tiger-cat, »to
recite some Christian precept, I observed.«
    »Nay, James,« returned the other, »though the tie of brotherhood between us
has been long broken and thrown away -«
    »Who broke it, good Sir?« said the Manager.
    »I, by my misconduct. I do not charge it upon you.«
    The Manager replied, with that mute action of his bristling mouth, »Oh, you
don't charge it upon me!« and bade him go on.
    »I say, though there is not that tie between us, do not, I entreat, assail
me with unnecessary taunts, or misinterpret what I say, or would say. I was only
going to suggest to you that it would be a mistake to suppose that it is only
you, who have been selected here, above all others, for advancement, confidence
and distinction (selected, in the beginning, I know, for your great ability and
trustfulness), and who communicate more freely with Mr. Dombey than any one, and
stand, it may be said, on equal terms with him, and have been favoured and
enriched by him - that it would be a mistake to suppose that it is only you who
are tender of his welfare and reputation. There is no one in the House, from
yourself down to the lowest, I sincerely believe, who does not participate in
that feeling.«
    »You lie!« said the Manager, red with sudden anger. »You're a hypocrite,
John Carker, and you lie.«
    »James!« cried the other, flushing in his turn. »What do you mean by these
insulting words? Why do you so basely use them to me, unprovoked?«
    »I tell you,« said the Manager, »that your hypocrisy and meekness - that all
the hypocrisy and meekness of this place - is not worth that to me,« snapping
his thumb and finger, »and that I see through it as if it were air! There is not
a man employed here, standing between myself and the lowest in place (of whom
you are very considerate, and with reason, for he is not far off), who wouldn't
be glad at heart to see his master humbled: who does not hate him, secretly: who
does not wish him evil rather than good: and who would not turn upon him, if he
had the power and boldness. The nearer to his favour, the nearer to his
insolence; the closer to him, the farther from him. That's the creed here!«
    »I don't know,« said his brother, whose roused feelings had soon yielded to
surprise, »who may have abused your ear with such representations; or why you
have chosen to try me, rather than another. But that you have been trying me,
and tampering with me, I am now sure. You have a different manner and a
different aspect from any that I ever saw in you. I will only say to you, once
more, you are deceived.«
    »I know I am,« said the Manager. »I have told you so.«
    »Not by me,« returned his brother. »By your informant, if you have one. If
not, by your own thoughts and suspicions.«
    »I have no suspicions,« said the Manager. »Mine are certainties. You
pusillanimous, abject, cringing dogs! All making the same show, all canting the
same story, all whining the same professions, all harbouring the same
transparent secret.«
    His brother withdrew, without saying more, and shut the door as he
concluded. Mr. Carker the Manager drew a chair close before the fire, and fell
to beating the coals softly with the poker.
    »The faint-hearted, fawning knaves,« he muttered, with his two shining rows
of teeth laid bare. »There's not one among them, who wouldn't feign to be so
shocked and outraged -! Bah! There's not one among them, but if he had at once
the power, and the wit and daring to use it, would scatter Dombey's pride and
lay it low, as ruthlessly as I rake out these ashes.«
    As he broke them up and strewed them in the grate, he looked on with a
thoughtful smile at what he was doing. »Without the same queen beckoner too!« he
added presently; »and there is pride there, not to be forgotten - witness our
own acquaintance!« With that he fell into a deeper reverie, and sat pondering
over the blackening grate, until he rose up like a man who had been absorbed in
a book, and looking round him took his hat and gloves, went to where his horse
was waiting, mounted, and rode away through the lighted streets, for it was
evening.
    He rode near Mr. Dombey's house; and falling into a walk as he approached
it, looked up at the windows. The window where he had once seen Florence sitting
with her dog, attracted his attention first, though there was no light in it;
but he smiled as he carried his eyes up the tall front of the house, and seemed
to leave that object superciliously behind.
    »Time was,« he said, »when it was well to watch even your rising little
star, and know in what quarter there were clouds, to shadow you if needful. But
a planet has arisen, and you are lost in its light.«
    He turned the white-legged horse round the street corner, and sought one
shining window from among those at the back of the house. Associated with it was
a certain stately presence, a gloved hand, the remembrance how the feathers of a
beautiful bird's wing had been showered down upon the floor, and how the light
white down upon a robe had stirred and rustled, as in the rising of a distant
storm. These were the things he carried with him as he turned away again, and
rode through the darkening and deserted Parks at a quick rate.
    In fatal truth, these were associated with a woman, a proud woman, who hated
him, but who by slow and sure degrees had been led on by his craft, and her
pride and resentment, to endure his company, and little by little to receive him
as one who had the privilege to talk to her of her own defiant disregard of her
own husband, and her abandonment of high consideration for herself. They were
associated with a woman who hated him deeply, and who knew him, and who
mistrusted him because she knew him, and because he knew her; but who fed her
fierce resentment by suffering him to draw nearer and yet nearer to her every
day, in spite of the hate she cherished for him. In spite of it! For that very
reason; since its depths, too far down for her threatening eye to pierce, though
she could see into them dimly, lay the dark retaliation, whose faintest shadow
seen once and shuddered at, and never seen again, would have been sufficient
stain upon her soul.
    Did the phantom of such a woman flit about him on his ride; true to the
reality, and obvious to him?
    Yes. He saw her in his mind, exactly as she was. She bore him company with
her pride, resentment, hatred, all as plain to him as her beauty; with nothing
plainer to him than her hatred of him. He saw her sometimes haughty and
repellent at his side, and sometimes down among his horse's feet, fallen and in
the dust. But he always saw her as she was, without disguise, and watched her on
the dangerous way that she was going.
    And when his ride was over, and he was newly dressed, and came into the
light of her bright room with his bent head, soft voice, and soothing smile, he
saw her yet as plainly. He even suspected the mystery of the gloved hand, and
held it all the longer in his own for that suspicion. Upon the dangerous way
that she was going, he was still; and not a footprint did she mark upon it, but
he set his own there, straight.
 

                                 Chapter XLVII

                                The Thunderbolt.

The barrier between Mr. Dombey and his wife was not weakened by time.
Ill-assorted couple, unhappy in themselves and in each other, bound together by
no tie but the manacle that joined their fettered hands, and straining that so
harshly, in their shrinking asunder, that it wore and chafed to the bone, Time,
consoler of affliction and softener of anger, could do nothing to help them.
Their pride, however different in kind and object, was equal in degree; and, in
their flinty opposition, struck out fire between them which might smoulder or
might blaze, as circumstances were, but burned up everything within their mutual
reach, and made their marriage way a road of ashes.
    Let us be just to him: In the monstrous delusion of his life, swelling with
every grain of sand that shifted in its glass, he urged her on, he little
thought to what, or considered how; but still his feeling towards her, such as
it was, remained as at first. She had the grand demerit of unaccountably putting
herself in opposition to the recognition of his vast importance, and to the
acknowledgement of her complete submission to it, and so far it was necessary to
correct and reduce her; but otherwise he still considered her, in his cold way,
a lady capable of doing honour, if she would, to his choice and name, and of
reflecting credit on his proprietorship.
    Now, she, with all her might of passionate and proud resentment, bent her
dark glance from day to day, and hour to hour - from that night in her own
chamber, when she had sat gazing at the shadows on the wall, to the deeper night
fast coming - upon one figure directing a crowd of humiliations and
exasperations against her; and that figure, still her husband's.
    Was Mr. Dombey's master-vice, that ruled him so inexorably, an unnatural
characteristic? It might be worth while, sometimes, to inquire what Nature is,
and how men work to change her, and whether, in the enforced distortions so
produced, it is not natural to be unnatural. Coop any son or daughter of our
mighty mother within narrow range, and bind the prisoner to one idea, and foster
it by servile worship of it on the part of the few timid or designing people
standing round, and what is Nature to the willing captive who has never risen up
upon the wings of a free mind - drooping and useless soon - to see her in her
comprehensive truth!
    Alas! are there so few things in the world, about us, most unnatural, and
yet most natural in being so! Hear the magistrate or judge admonish the
unnatural outcasts of society; unnatural in brutal habits, unnatural in want of
decency, unnatural in losing and confounding all distinctions between good and
evil; unnatural in ignorance, in vice, in recklessness, in contumacy, in mind,
in looks, in everything. But follow the good clergyman or doctor, who, with his
life imperilled at every breath he draws, goes down into their dens, lying
within the echoes of our carriage wheels and daily tread upon the pavement
stones. Look round upon the world of odious sights - millions of immortal
creatures have no other world on earth - at the lightest mention of which
humanity revolts, and dainty delicacy living in the next street, stops her ears,
and lisps »I don't believe it!« Breathe the polluted air, foul with every
impurity that is poisonous to health and life; and have every sense, conferred
upon our race for its delight and happiness, offended, sickened and disgusted,
and made a channel by which misery and death alone can enter. Vainly attempt to
think of any simple plant, or flower, or wholesome weed, that, set in this
foetid bed, could have its natural growth, or put its little leaves off to the
sun as GOD designed it. And then, calling up some ghastly child, with stunted
form and wicked face, hold forth on its unnatural sinfulness, and lament its
being, so early, far away from Heaven - but think a little of its having been
conceived, and born and bred, in Hell!
    Those who study the physical sciences, and bring them to bear upon the
health of Man, tell us that if the noxious particles that rise from vitiated air
were palpable to the sight, we should see them lowering in a dense black cloud
above such haunts, and rolling slowly on to corrupt the better portions of a
town. But if the moral pestilence that rises with them, and in the eternal laws
of outraged Nature, is inseparable from them, could be made discernible too, how
terrible the revelation! Then should we see depravity, impiety, drunkenness,
theft, murder, and a long train of nameless sins against the natural affections
and repulsions of mankind, overhanging the devoted spots, and creeping on, to
blight the innocent and spread contagion among the pure. Then should we see how
the same poisoned fountains that flow into our hospitals and lazar-houses,
inundate the jails, and make the convict-ships swim deep, and roll across the
seas, and over-run vast continents with crime. Then should we stand appalled to
know, that where we generate disease to strike our children down and entail
itself on unborn generations, there also we breed, by the same certain process,
infancy that knows no innocence, youth without modesty or shame, maturity that
is mature in nothing but in suffering and guilt, blasted old age that is a
scandal on the form we bear. Unnatural humanity! When we shall gather grapes
from thorns, and figs from thistles; when fields of grain shall spring up from
the offal in the bye-ways of our wicked cities, and roses bloom in the fat
churchyards that they cherish; then we may look for natural humanity and find it
growing from such seed.
    Oh for a good spirit who would take the house-tops off, with a more potent
and benignant hand than the lame demon in the tale, and show a Christian people
what dark shapes issue from amidst their homes, to swell the retinue of the
Destroying Angel as he moves forth among them! For only one night's view of the
pale phantoms rising from the scenes of our too-long neglect; and from the thick
and sullen air where Vice and Fever propagate together, raining the tremendous
social retributions which are ever pouring down, and ever coming thicker! Bright
and blessed the morning that should rise on such a night: for men, delayed no more
by stumbling-blocks of their own making, which are but specks of dust upon the
path between them and eternity, would then apply themselves, like creatures of
one common origin, owing one duty to the Father of one family, and tending to
one common end, to make the world a better place!
    Not the less bright and blessed would that day be for rousing some who never
have looked out upon the world of human life around them, to a knowledge of
their own relation to it, and for making them acquainted with a perversion of
nature in their own contracted sympathies and estimates; as great, and yet as
natural in its development when once begun, as the lowest degradation known.
    But no such day had ever dawned on Mr. Dombey, or his wife; and the course
of each was taken.
    Through six months that ensued upon his accident, they held the same
relations one towards the other. A marble rock could not have stood more
obdurately in his way than she; and no chilled spring, lying uncheered by any
ray of light in the depths of a deep cave, could be more sullen or more cold
than he.
    The hope that had fluttered within her when the promise of her new home
dawned, was quite gone from the heart of Florence now. That home was nearly two
years old; and even the patient trust that was in her, could not survive the
daily blight of such experience. If she had any lingering fancy in the nature of
hope left, that Edith and her father might be happier together, in some distant
time, she had none, now, that her father would ever love her. The little
interval in which she had imagined that she saw some small relenting in him, was
forgotten in the long remembrance of his coldness since and before, or only
remembered as a sorrowful delusion.
    Florence loved him still, but, by degrees, had come to love him rather as
some dear one who had been, or who might have been, than as the hard reality
before her eyes. Something of the softened sadness with which she loved the
memory of little Paul, or of her mother, seemed to enter now into her thoughts
of him, and to make them, as it were, a dear remembrance. Whether it was that he
was dead to her, and that partly for this reason, partly for his share in those
old objects of her affection, and partly for the long association of him with
hopes that were withered and tendernesses he had frozen, she could not have
told; but the father whom she loved began to be a vague and dreamy idea to her:
hardly more substantially connected with her real life, than the image she would
sometimes conjure up, of her dear brother yet alive, and growing to be a man,
who would protect and cherish her.
    The change, if it may be called one, had stolen on her like the change from
childhood to womanhood, and had come with it. Florence was almost seventeen,
when, in her lonely musings, she was conscious of these thoughts.
    She was often alone now, for the old association between her and her mama
was greatly changed. At the time of her father's accident, and when he was lying
in his room down stairs, Florence had first observed that Edith avoided her.
Wounded and shocked, and yet unable to reconcile this with her affection when
they did meet, she sought her in her own room at night, once more.
    »Mama,« said Florence, stealing softly to her side, »have I offended you?«
    Edith answered »No.«
    »I must have done something,« said Florence. »Tell me what it is. You have
changed your manner to me, dear Mama. I cannot say how instantly I feel the
least change; for I love you with my whole heart.«
    »As I do you,« said Edith. »Ah, Florence, believe me never more than now!«
    »Why do you go away from me so often, and keep away?« asked Florence. »And
why do you sometimes look so strangely on me, dear Mama? You do so, do you not?«
    Edith signified assent with her dark eyes.
    »Why?« returned Florence imploringly. »Tell me why, that I may know how to
please you better; and tell me this shall not be so any more.«
    »My Florence,« answered Edith, taking the hand that embraced her neck, and
looking into the eyes that looked into hers so lovingly, as Florence knelt upon
the ground before her; »why it is, I cannot tell you. It is neither for me to
say, nor you to hear; but that it is, and that it must be, I know. Should I do
it if I did not?«
    »Are we to be estranged, Mama?« asked Florence, gazing at her like one
frightened.
    Edith's silent lips formed »Yes.«
    Florence looked at her with increasing fear and wonder, until she could see
her no more through the blinding tears that ran down her face.
    »Florence! my life!« said Edith, hurriedly, »listen to me. I cannot bear to
see this grief. Be calmer. You see that I am composed, and is it nothing to me?«
    She resumed her steady voice and manner as she said the latter words, and
added presently:
    »Not wholly estranged. Partially: and only that, in appearance, Florence,
for in my own breast I am still the same to you, and ever will be. But what I do
is not done for myself.«
    »Is it for me, Mama?« asked Florence.
    »It is enough,« said Edith, after a pause, »to know what it is; why, matters
little. Dear Florence, it is better - it is necessary - it must be - that our
association should be less frequent. The confidence there has been between us
must be broken off.«
    »When?« cried Florence. »Oh, Mama, when?«
    »Now,« said Edith.
    »For all time to come?« asked Florence.
    »I do not say that,« answered Edith. »I do not know that. Nor will I say
that companionship between us is, at the best, an ill-assorted and unholy union,
of which I might have known no good could come. My way here has been through
paths that you will never tread, and my way henceforth may lie - God knows - I
do not see it -«
    Her voice died away into silence; and she sat, looking at Florence, and
almost shrinking from her, with the same strange dread and wild avoidance that
Florence had noticed once before. The same dark pride and rage succeeded,
sweeping over her form and features like an angry chord across the strings of a
wild harp. But no softness or humility ensued on that. She did not lay her head
down now, and weep, and say that she had no hope but in Florence. She held it up
as if she were a beautiful Medusa, looking on him, face to face, to strike him
dead. Yes, and she would have done it, if she had had the charm.
    »Mama,« said Florence, anxiously, »there is a change in you, in more than
what you say to me, which alarms me. Let me stay with you a little.«
    »No,« said Edith, »no, dearest. I am best left alone now, and I do best to
keep apart from you, of all else. Ask me no questions, but believe that what I
am when I seem fickle or capricious to you, I am not of my own will, or for
myself. Believe, though we are stranger to each other than we have been, that I
am unchanged to you within. Forgive me for having ever darkened your dark home -
I am a shadow on it, I know well - and let us never speak of this again.«
    »Mama,« sobbed Florence, »we are not to part?«
    »We do this that we may not part,« said Edith. »Ask no more. Go, Florence!
My love and my remorse go with you!«
    She embraced her, and dismissed her; and as Florence passed out of her room,
Edith looked on the retiring figure, as if her good angel went out in that form,
and left her to the haughty and indignant passions that now claimed her for
their own, and set their seal upon her brow.
    From that hour, Florence and she were, as they had been, no more. For days
together, they would seldom meet, except at table, and when Mr. Dombey was
present. Then Edith, imperious, inflexible, and silent, never looked at her.
Whenever Mr. Carker was of the party, as he often was, during the progress of
Mr. Dombey's recovery, and afterwards, Edith held herself more removed from her,
and was more distant towards her, than at other times. Yet she and Florence
never encountered, when there was no one by, but she would embrace her as
affectionately as of old, though not with the same relenting of her proud
aspect; and often, when she had been out late, she would steal up to Florence's
room, as she had been used to do, in the dark, and whisper »Good Night,« on her
pillow. When unconscious, in her slumber, of such visits, Florence would
sometimes awake, as from a dream of those words, softly spoken, and would seem
to feel the touch of lips upon her face. But less and less often as the months
went on.
    And now the void in Florence's own heart began again, indeed, to make a
solitude around her. As the image of the father whom she loved had insensibly
become a mere abstraction, so Edith, following the fate of all the rest about
whom her affections had entwined themselves, was fleeting, fading, growing paler
in the distance, every day. Little by little, she receded from Florence, like
the retiring ghost of what she had been; little by little, the chasm between
them widened and seemed deeper; little by little, all the power of earnestness
and tenderness she had shown, was frozen up in bold, angry hardihood with which
she stood, upon the brink of a deep precipice unseen by Florence, daring to look
down.
    There was but one consideration to set against the heavy loss of Edith, and
though it was slight comfort to her burdened heart, she tried to think it some
relief. No longer divided between her affection and duty to the two, Florence
could love both and do no injustice to either. As shadows of her fond
imagination, she could give them equal place in her own bosom, and wrong them
with no doubts.
    So she tried to do. At times, and often too, wondering speculations on the
cause of this change in Edith would obtrude themselves upon her mind and
frighten her; but in the calm of its abandonment once more to silent grief and
loneliness, it was not a curious mind. Florence had only to remember that her
star of promise was clouded in the general gloom that hung upon the house, and
to weep and be resigned.
    Thus living, in a dream wherein the overflowing love of her young heart
expended itself on airy forms, and in a real world where she had experienced
little but the rolling back of that strong tide upon itself, Florence grew to be
seventeen. Timid and retiring as her solitary life had made her, it had not
embittered her sweet temper, or her earnest nature. A child in innocent
simplicity; a woman in her modest self-reliance, and her deep intensity of
feeling; both child and woman seemed at once expressed in her fair face and
fragile delicacy of shape, and gracefully to mingle there; - as if the spring
should be unwilling to depart when summer came, and sought to blend the earlier
beauties of the flowers with their bloom. But in her thrilling voice, in her
calm eyes, sometimes in a strange ethereal light that seemed to rest upon her
head, and always in a certain pensive air upon her beauty, there was an
expression, such as had been seen in the dead boy; and the council in the
Servants' Hall whispered so among themselves, and shook their heads, and ate and
drank the more, in a closer bond of good-fellowship.
    This observant body had plenty to say of Mr. and Mrs. Dombey, and of Mr.
Carker, who appeared to be a mediator between them, and who came and went as if
he were trying to make peace, but never could. They all deplored the
uncomfortable state of affairs, and all agreed that Mrs. Pipchin (whose
unpopularity was not to be surpassed) had some hand in it; but, upon the whole,
it was agreeable to have so good a subject for a rallying point, and they made a
great deal of it, and enjoyed themselves very much.
    The general visitors who came to the house, and those among whom Mr. and
Mrs. Dombey visited, thought it a pretty equal match, as to haughtiness, at all
events, and thought nothing more about it. The young lady with the back did not
appear for some time after Mrs. Skewton's death; observing to some particular
friends, with her usual engaging little scream, that she couldn't separate the
family from a notion of tombstones, and horrors of that sort; but when she did
come, she saw nothing wrong, except Mr. Dombey's wearing a bunch of gold seals
to his watch, which shocked her very much, as an exploded superstition. This
youthful fascinator considered a daughter-in-law objectionable in principle;
otherwise, she had nothing to say against Florence, but that she sadly wanted
style - which might mean back, perhaps. Many, who only came to the house on
state occasions, hardly knew who Florence was, and said, going home, »Indeed,
was that Miss Dombey, in the corner? Very pretty, but a little delicate and
thoughtful in appearance!«
    None the less so, certainly, for her life of the last six months, Florence
took her seat at the dinner-table, on the day before the second anniversary of
her father's marriage to Edith (Mrs. Skewton had been lying stricken with
paralysis when the first came round), with an uneasiness, amounting to dread.
She had no other warrant for it, than the occasion, the expression of her
father's face, in the hasty glance she caught of it, and the presence of Mr.
Carker, which, always unpleasant to her, was more so on this day, than she had
ever felt it before.
    Edith was richly dressed, for she and Mr. Dombey were engaged in the evening
to some large assembly, and the dinner-hour that day was late. She did not
appear until they were seated at table, when Mr. Carker rose and led her to her
chair. Beautiful and lustrous as she was, there was that in her face and air
which seemed to separate her hopelessly from Florence, and from every one, for
ever more. And yet, for an instant, Florence saw a beam of kindness in her eyes,
when they were turned on her, that made the distance to which she had withdrawn
herself, a greater cause of sorrow and regret than ever.
    There was very little said at dinner. Florence heard her father speak to Mr.
Carker sometimes on business matters, and heard him softly reply, but she paid
little attention to what they said, and only wished the dinner at an end. When
the dessert was placed upon the table, and they were left alone, with no servant
in attendance, Mr. Dombey, who had been several times clearing his throat in a
manner that augured no good, said:
    »Mrs. Dombey, you know, I suppose, that I have instructed the housekeeper
that there will be some company to dinner here to-morrow.«
    »I do not dine at home,« she answered.
    »Not a large party,« pursued Mr. Dombey, with an indifferent assumption of
not having heard her; »merely some twelve or fourteen. My sister, Major
Bagstock, and some others whom you know but slightly.«
    »I do not dine at home,« she repeated.
    »However doubtful reason I may have, Mrs. Dombey,« said Mr. Dombey, still
going majestically on, as if she had not spoken, »to hold the occasion in very
pleasant remembrance just now, there are appearances in these things which must
be maintained before the world. If you have no respect for yourself, Mrs. Dombey
-«
    »I have none,« she said.
    »Madam,« cried Mr. Dombey, striking his hand upon the table, »hear me if you
please. I say, if you have no respect for yourself -«
    »And I say I have none,« she answered.
    He looked at her; but the face she showed him in return would not have
changed, if death itself had looked.
    »Carker,« said Mr. Dombey, turning more quietly to that gentleman, »as you
have been my medium of communication with Mrs. Dombey on former occasions, and
as I choose to preserve the decencies of life, so far as I am individually
concerned, I will trouble you to have the goodness to inform Mrs. Dombey that if
she has no respect for herself, I have some respect for myself, and therefore
insist on my arrangements for to-morrow.«
    »Tell your sovereign master, Sir,« said Edith, »that I will take leave to
speak to him on this subject by-and-bye, and that I will speak to him alone.«
    »Mr. Carker, Madam,« said her husband, »being in possession of the reason
which obliges me to refuse you that privilege, shall be absolved from the
delivery of any such message.« He saw her eyes move, while he spoke, and
followed them with his own.
    »Your daughter is present, Sir,« said Edith.
    »My daughter will remain present,« said Mr. Dombey.
    Florence, who had risen, sat down again, hiding her face in her hands, and
trembling.
    »My daughter, Madam« - began Mr. Dombey.
    But Edith stopped him, in a voice which, although not raised in the least,
was so clear, emphatic, and distinct, that it might have been heard in a
whirlwind.
    »I tell you I will speak to you alone,« she said. »If you are not mad, heed
what I say.«
    »I have authority to speak to you, Madam,« returned her husband, »when and
where I please; and it is my pleasure to speak here and now.«
    She rose up as if to leave the room; but sat down again, and looking at him
with all outward composure, said, in the same voice:
    »You shall!«
    »I must tell you first, that there is a threatening appearance in your
manner, Madam,« said Mr. Dombey, »which does not become you.«
    She laughed. The shaken diamonds in her hair started and trembled. There are
fables of precious stones that would turn pale, their wearer being in danger.
Had these been such, their imprisoned rays of light would have taken flight that
moment, and they would have been as dull as lead.
    Carker listened, with his eyes cast down.
    »As to my daughter, Madam,« said Mr. Dombey, resuming the thread of his
discourse, »it is by no means inconsistent with her duty to me, that she should
know what conduct to avoid. At present you are a very strong example to her of
this kind, and I hope she may profit by it.«
    »I would not stop you now,« returned his wife, immoveable in eye, and voice,
and attitude; »I would not rise and go away, and save you the utterance of one
word, if the room were burning.«
    Mr. Dombey moved his head, as if in a sarcastic acknowledgement of the
attention, and resumed. But not with so much self-possession as before; for
Edith's quick uneasiness in reference to Florence, and Edith's indifference to
him and his censure, chafed and galled him like a stiffening wound.
    »Mrs. Dombey,« said he, »it may not be inconsistent with my daughter's
improvement to know how very much to be lamented, and how necessary to be
corrected, a stubborn disposition is, especially when it is indulged in -
unthankfully indulged in, I will add - after the gratification of ambition and
interest. Both of which, I believe, had some share in inducing you to occupy
your present station at this board.«
    »No! I would not rise, and go away, and save you the utterance of one word,«
she repeated, exactly as before, »if the room were burning.«
    »It may be natural enough, Mrs. Dombey,« he pursued, »that you should be
uneasy in the presence of any auditors of these disagreeable truths; though why«
- he could not hide his real feelings here, or keep his eyes from glancing
gloomily at Florence - »why any one can give them greater force and point than
myself, whom they so nearly concern, I do not pretend to understand. It may be
natural enough that you should object to hear, in anybody's presence, that there
is a rebellious principle within you which you cannot curb too soon; which you
must curb, Mrs. Dombey; and which, I regret to say, I remember to have seen
manifested - with some doubt and displeasure, on more than one occasion before
our marriage - towards your deceased mother. But you have the remedy in your own
hands. I by no means forgot, when I began, that my daughter was present, Mrs.
Dombey. I beg you will not forget, to-morrow, that there are several persons
present; and that, with some regard to appearances, you will receive your
company in a becoming manner.«
    »So it is not enough,« said Edith, »that you know what has passed between
yourself and me; it is not enough that you can look here,« pointing at Carker,
who still listened, with his eyes cast down, »and be reminded of the affronts
you have put upon me; it is not enough that you can look here,« pointing to
Florence with a hand that slightly trembled for the first and only time, »and
think of what you have done, and of the ingenious agony, daily, hourly,
constant, you have made me feel in doing it; it is not enough that this day, of
all others in the year, is memorable to me for a struggle (well-deserved, but
not conceivable by such as you) in which I wish I had died! You add to all this,
do you, the last crowning meanness of making her a witness of the depth to which
I have fallen; when you know that you have made me sacrifice to her peace, the
only gentle feeling and interest of my life, when you know that for her sake, I
would now if I could - but I can not, my soul recoils from you too much - submit
myself wholly to your will and be the meekest vassal that you have!«
    This was not the way to minister to Mr. Dombey's greatness. The old feeling
was roused by what she said, into a stronger and fiercer existence than it had
ever had. Again, his neglected child, at this rough passage of his life, put
forth by even this rebellious woman, as powerful where he was powerless, and
everything where he was nothing!
    He turned on Florence, as if it were she who had spoken, and bade her leave
the room. Florence with her covered face obeyed, trembling and weeping as she
went.
    »I understand, Madam,« said Mr. Dombey, with an angry flush of triumph, »the
spirit of opposition that turned your affections in that channel, but they have
been met, Mrs. Dombey; they have been met, and turned back!«
    »The worse for you!« she answered, with her voice and manner still
unchanged. »Aye!« for he turned sharply when she said so, »what is the worse for
me, is twenty million times the worse for you. Heed that, if you heed nothing
else.«
    The arch of diamonds spanning her dark hair, flashed and glittered like a
starry bridge. There was no warning in them, or they would have turned as dull
and dim as tarnished honour. Carker still sat and listened, with his eyes cast
down.
    »Mrs. Dombey,« said Mr. Dombey, resuming as much as he could of his arrogant
composure, »you will not conciliate me, or turn me from any purpose, by this
course of conduct.«
    »It is the only true although it is a faint expression of what is within
me,« she replied. »But if I thought it would conciliate you, I would repress it,
if it were repressible by any human effort. I will do nothing that you ask.«
    »I am not accustomed to ask, Mrs. Dombey,« he observed; »I direct.«
    »I will hold no place in your house to-morrow, or on any recurrence of
to-morrow. I will be exhibited to no one, as the refractory slave you purchased,
such a time. If I kept my marriage-day, I would keep it as a day of shame.
Self-respect! appearances before the world! what are these to me? You have done
all you can to make them nothing to me, and they are nothing.«
    »Carker,« said Mr. Dombey, speaking with knitted brows, and after a moment's
consideration, »Mrs. Dombey is so forgetful of herself and me in all this, and
places me in a position so unsuited to my character, that I must bring this
state of matters to a close.«
    »Release me, then,« said Edith, immoveable in voice, in look, and bearing,
as she had been throughout, »from the chain by which I am bound. Let me go.«
    »Madam?« exclaimed Mr. Dombey.
    »Loose me. Set me free!«
    »Madam?« he repeated, »Mrs. Dombey?«
    »Tell him,« said Edith, addressing her proud face to Carker, »that I wish
for a separation between us. That there had better be one. That I recommend it
to him. Tell him it may take place on his own terms - his wealth is nothing to
me - but that it cannot be too soon.«
    »Good Heaven, Mrs. Dombey!« said her husband, with supreme amazement, »do
you imagine it possible that I could ever listen to such a proposition? Do you
know who I am, Madam? Do you know what I represent? Did you ever hear of Dombey
and Son? People to say that Mr. Dombey - Mr. Dombey! - was separated from his
wife! Common people to talk of Mr. Dombey and his domestic affairs! Do you
seriously think, Mrs. Dombey, that I would permit my name to be handed about in
such connexion? Pooh, pooh, Madam! Fie for shame! You're absurd.« Mr. Dombey
absolutely laughed.
    But not as she did. She had better have been dead than laugh as she did, in
reply, with her intent look fixed upon him. He had better have been dead, than
sitting there, in his magnificence, to hear her.
    »No, Mrs. Dombey,« he resumed. »No, Madam. There is no possibility of
separation between you and me, and therefore I the more advise you to be
awakened to a sense of duty. And, Carker, as I was about to say to you -«
    Mr. Carker, who had sat and listened all this time, now raised his eyes, in
which there was a bright unusual light.
    »- As I was about to say to you,« resumed Mr. Dombey, »I must beg you, now
that matters have come to this, to inform Mrs. Dombey, that it is not the rule
of my life to allow myself to be thwarted by anybody - anybody, Carker - or to
suffer anybody to be paraded as a stronger motive for obedience in those who owe
obedience to me than I am myself. The mention that has been made of my daughter,
and the use that is made of my daughter, in opposition to me, are unnatural.
Whether my daughter is in actual concert with Mrs. Dombey, I do not know, and do
not care; but after what Mrs. Dombey has said to-day, and my daughter has heard
to-day, I beg you to make known to Mrs. Dombey, that if she continues to make
this house the scene of contention it has become, I shall consider my daughter
responsible in some degree, on that lady's own avowal, and shall visit her with
my severe displeasure. Mrs. Dombey has asked whether it is not enough, that she
had done this and that. You will please to answer no, it is not enough.«
    »A moment!« cried Carker, interposing, »permit me! painful as my position
is, at the best, and unusually painful in seeming to entertain a different
opinion from you,« addressing Mr. Dombey, »I must ask, had you not better
re-consider the question of a separation? I know how incompatible it appears
with your high public position, and I know how determined you are when you give
Mrs. Dombey to understand« - the light in his eyes fell upon her as he separated
his words each from each, with the distinctness of so many bells - »that nothing
but death can ever part you. Nothing else. But when you consider that Mrs.
Dombey, by living in this house, and making it as you have said, a scene of
contention, not only as her part in that contention, but compromises Miss Dombey
every day (for I know how determined you are), will you not relieve her from a
continual irritation of spirit, and a continual sense of being unjust to
another, almost intolerable? Does this not seem like - I do not say it is -
sacrificing Mrs. Dombey to the preservation of your pre-eminent and unassailable
position?«
    Again the light in his eyes fell upon her, as she stood looking at her
husband: now with an extraordinary and awful smile upon her face.
    »Carker,« returned Mr. Dombey, with a supercilious frown, and in a tone that
was intended to be final, »you mistake your position in offering advice to me on
such a point, and you mistake me (I am surprised to find) in the character of
your advice. I have no more to say.«
    »Perhaps,« said Carker, with an unusual and indefinable taunt in his air, »
you mistook my position, when you honoured me with the negotiations in which I
have been engaged here« - with a motion of his hand towards Mrs. Dombey.
    »Not at all, Sir, not at all,« returned the other haughtily. »You were
employed -«
    »Being an inferior person, for the humiliation of Mrs. Dombey. I forgot. Oh,
yes, it was expressly understood!« said Carker. »I beg your pardon!«
    As he bent his head to Mr. Dombey, with an air of deference that accorded
ill with his words, though they were humbly spoken, he moved it round towards
her, and kept his watching eyes that way.
    She had better have turned hideous and dropped dead, than have stood up with
such a smile upon her face, in such a fallen spirit's majesty of scorn and
beauty. She lifted her hand to the tiara of bright jewels radiant on her head,
and, plucking it off with a force that dragged and strained her rich black hair
with heedless cruelty, and brought it tumbling wildly on her shoulders, cast the
gems upon the ground. From each arm, she unclasped a diamond bracelet, flung it
down, and trod upon the glittering heap. Without a word, without a shadow on the
fire of her bright eye, without abatement of her awful smile, she looked on Mr.
Dombey to the last, in moving to the door; and left him.
    Florence had heard enough before quitting the room, to know that Edith loved
her yet; that she had suffered for her sake; and that she had kept her
sacrifices quiet, lest they should trouble her peace. She did not want to speak
to her of this - she could not, remembering to whom she was opposed - but she
wished, in one silent and affectionate embrace, to assure her that she felt it
all, and thanked her.
    Her father went out alone, that evening, and Florence issuing from her own
chamber soon afterwards, went about the house in search of Edith, but
unavailingly. She was in her own rooms, where Florence had long ceased to go,
and did not dare to venture now, lest she should unconsciously engender new
trouble. Still Florence hoping to meet her before going to bed, changed from
room to room, and wandered through the house so splendid and so dreary, without
remaining anywhere.
    She was crossing a gallery of communication that opened at some little
distance on the staircase, and was only lighted on great occasions, when she
saw, through the opening, which was an arch, the figure of a man coming down
some few stairs opposite. Instinctively apprehensive of her father, whom she
supposed it was, she stopped, in the dark, gazing through the arch into the
light. But it was Mr. Carker coming down alone, and looking over the railing
into the hall. No bell was rung to announce his departure, and no servant was in
attendance. He went down quietly, opened the door for himself, glided out, and
shut it softly after him.
    Her invincible repugnance to this man, and perhaps the stealthy act of
watching any one, which, even under such innocent circumstances, is in a manner
guilty and oppressive, made Florence shake from head to foot. Her blood seemed
to run cold. As soon as she could - for at first she felt an insurmountable
dread of moving - she went quickly to her own room and locked her door; but even
then, shut in with her dog beside her, felt a chill sensation of horror, as if
there were danger brooding somewhere near her.
    It invaded her dreams and disturbed the whole night. Rising in the morning,
unrefreshed, and with a heavy recollection of the domestic unhappiness of the
preceding day, she sought Edith again in all the rooms, and did so, from time to
time, all the morning. But she remained in her own chamber, and Florence saw
nothing of her. Learning, however, that the projected dinner at home was put
off, Florence thought it likely that she would go out in the evening to fulfil
the engagement she had spoken of; and resolved to try and meet her, then, upon
the staircase.
    When the evening had set in, she heard, from the room in which she sat on
purpose, a footstep on the stairs that she thought to be Edith's. Hurrying out,
and up towards her room, Florence met her immediately, coming down alone.
    What was Florence's affright and wonder when, at sight of her, with her
tearful face, and outstretched arms, Edith recoiled and shrieked!
    »Don't come near me!« she cried. »Keep away! Let me go by!«
    »Mama!« said Florence.
    »Don't call me by that name! Don't speak to me! Don't look at me! -
Florence!« shrinking back, as Florence moved a step towards her, »don't touch
me!«
    As Florence stood transfixed before the haggard face and staring eyes, she
noted, as in a dream, that Edith spread her hands over them, and shuddering
through all her form, and crouching down against the wall, crawled by her like
some lower animal, sprang up, and fled away.
    Florence dropped upon the stairs in a swoon; and was found there by Mrs.
Pipchin, she supposed. She knew nothing more, until she found herself lying on
her own bed, with Mrs. Pipchin and some servants standing round her.
    »Where is Mama?« was her first question.
    »Gone out to dinner,« said Mrs. Pipchin.
    »And Papa?«
    »Mr. Dombey is in his own room, Miss Dombey,« said Mrs. Pipchin, »and the
best thing you can do, is to take off your things and go to bed this minute.«
This was the sagacious woman's remedy for all complaints, particularly lowness
of spirits, and inability to sleep; for which offences, many young victims in
the days of the Brighton Castle had been committed to bed at ten o'clock in the
morning.
    Without promising obedience, but on the plea of desiring to be very quiet,
Florence disengaged herself, as soon as she could, from the ministration of Mrs.
Pipchin and her attendants. Left alone, she thought of what had happened on the
staircase, at first in doubt of its reality; then with tears; then with an
indescribable and terrible alarm, like that she had felt the night before.
    She determined not to go to bed until Edith returned, and if she could not
speak to her, at least to be sure that she was safe at home. What indistinct and
shadowy dread moved Florence to this resolution, she did not know, and did not
dare to think. She only knew that until Edith came back, there was no repose for
her aching head or throbbing heart.
    The evening deepened into night: midnight came; no Edith.
    Florence could not read, or rest a moment. She paced her own room, opened
the door and paced the staircase-gallery outside, looked out of window on the
night, listened to the wind blowing and the rain falling, sat down and watched
the faces in the fire, got up and watched the moon flying like a storm-driven
ship through the sea of clouds.
    All the house was gone to bed, except two servants who were waiting the
return of their mistress, down stairs.
    One o'clock. The carriages that rumbled in the distance, turned away, or
stopped short, or went past; the silence gradually deepened, and was more and
more rarely broken, save by a rush of wind or sweep of rain. Two o'clock. No
Edith!
    Florence, more agitated, paced her room, and paced the gallery outside; and
looked out at the night, blurred and wavy with the rain-drops on the glass, and
the tears in her own eyes; and looked up at the hurry in the sky, so different
from the repose below, and yet so tranquil and solitary. Three o'clock! There
was a terror in every ash that dropped out of the fire. No Edith yet.
    More and more agitated, Florence paced her room, and paced the gallery, and
looked out at the moon with a new fancy of her likeness to a pale fugitive
hurrying away and hiding her guilty face. Four struck! Five! No Edith yet.
    But now there was some cautious stir in the house; and Florence found that
Mrs. Pipchin had been awakened by one of those who sat up, had risen and had
gone down to her father's door. Stealing lower down the stairs, and observing
what passed, she saw her father come out in his morning gown, and start when he
was told his wife had not come home. He dispatched a messenger to the stables to
inquire whether the coachman was there; and while the man was gone, dressed
himself very hurriedly.
    The man came back, in great haste, bringing the coachman with him, who said
he had been at home and in bed since ten o'clock. He had driven his mistress to
her old house in Brook Street, where she had been met by Mr. Carker -
    Florence stood upon the very spot where she had seen him coming down. Again
she shivered with the nameless terror of that sight, and had hardly steadiness
enough to hear and understand what followed.
    - Who had told him, the man went on to say, that his mistress would not want
the carriage to go home in; and had dismissed him.
    She saw her father turn white in the face, and heard him ask in a quick,
trembling voice for Mrs. Dombey's maid. The whole house was roused; for she was
there, in a moment, very pale too, and speaking incoherently.
    She said she had dressed her mistress early - full two hours before she went
out - and had been told, as she often was, that she would not be wanted at
night. She had just come from her mistress's rooms, but -
    »But what! what was it?« Florence heard her father demand like a madman.
    »But the inner dressing-room was locked, and the key gone.«
    Her father seized a candle that was flaming on the ground - some one had put
it down there, and forgotten it - and came running up stairs with such fury,
that Florence, in her fear, had hardly time to fly before him. She heard him
striking in the door as she ran on, with her hands widely spread, and her hair
streaming, and her face like a distracted person's, back to her own room.
    When the door yielded, and he rushed in, what did he see there? No one knew.
But thrown down in a costly mass upon the ground, was every ornament she had
had, since she had been his wife: every dress she had worn; and everything she
had possessed. This was the room in which he had seen, in yonder mirror, the
proud face discard him. This was the room in which he had wondered, idly, how
these things would look when he should see them next!
    Heaping them back into the drawers, and locking them up in a rage of haste,
he saw some papers on the table. The deed of settlement he had executed on their
marriage, and a letter. He read that she was gone. He read that she was
dishonoured. He read that she had fled, upon her shameful wedding-day, with the
man whom he had chosen for her humiliation; and he tore out of the room, and out
of the house, with a frantic idea of finding her yet, at the place to which she
had been taken, and beating all trace of beauty out of the triumphant face with
his bare hand.
    Florence, not knowing what she did, put on a shawl and bonnet, in a dream of
running through the streets until she found Edith, and then clasping her in her
arms, to save and bring her back. But when she hurried out upon the staircase,
and saw the frightened servants going up and down with lights, and whispering
together, and falling away from her father as he passed down, she awoke to a
sense of her own powerlessness; and hiding in one of the great rooms that had
been made gorgeous for this, felt as if her heart would burst with grief.
    Compassion for her father was the first distinct emotion that made head
against the flood of sorrow which overwhelmed her. Her constant nature turned to
him in his distress, as fervently and faithfully, as if, in his prosperity, he
had been the embodiment of that idea which had gradually become so faint and
dim. Although she did not know, otherwise than through the suggestions of a
shapeless fear, the full extent of his calamity, he stood before her wronged and
deserted; and again her yearning love impelled her to his side.
    He was not long away: for Florence was yet weeping in the great room and
nourishing these thoughts, when she heard him come back. He ordered the servants
to set about their ordinary occupations, and went into his own apartment, where
he trod so heavily that she could hear him walking up and down from end to end.
    Yielding at once to the impulse of her affection, timid at all other times,
but bold in its truth to him in his adversity, and undaunted by past repulse,
Florence, dressed as she was, hurried down stairs. As she set her light foot in
the hall, he came out of his room. She hastened towards him unchecked, with her
arms stretched out, and crying »Oh dear, dear Papa!« as if she would have
clasped him round the neck.
    And so she would have done. But in his frenzy, he lifted up his cruel arm,
and struck her, crosswise, with that heaviness, that she tottered on the marble
floor; and as he dealt the blow, he told her what Edith was, and bade her follow
her, since they had always been in league.
    She did not sink down at his feet; she did not shut out the sight of him
with her trembling hands; she did not weep; she did not utter one word of
reproach. But she looked at him, and a cry of desolation issued from her heart.
For as she looked, she saw him murdering that fond idea to which she had held in
spite of him. She saw his cruelty, neglect, and hatred dominant above it, and
stamping it down. She saw she had no father upon earth, and ran out, orphaned,
from his house.
    Ran out of his house. A moment, and her hand was on the lock, the cry was on
her lips, his face was there, made paler by the yellow candles hastily put down
and guttering away, and by the daylight coming in above the door. Another
moment, and the close darkness of the shut-up house (forgotten to be opened,
though it was long since day) yielded to the unexpected glare and freedom of the
morning; and Florence, with her head bent down to hide her agony of tears, was
in the streets.
 

                                 Chapter XLVIII

                            The Flight of Florence.

In the wildness of her sorrow, shame, and terror, the forlorn girl hurried
through the sunshine of a bright morning, as if it were the darkness of a winter
night. Wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, insensible to everything but the
deep wound in her breast, stunned by the loss of all she loved, left like the
sole survivor on a lonely shore from the wreck of a great vessel, she fled
without a thought, without a hope, without a purpose, but to fly somewhere -
anywhere.
    The cheerful vista of the long street, burnished by the morning light, the
sight of the blue sky and airy clouds, the vigorous freshness of the day, so
flushed and rosy in its conquest of the night, awakened no responsive feelings
in her so hurt bosom. Somewhere, anywhere, to hide her head! somewhere,
anywhere, for refuge, never more to look upon the place from which she fled!
    But there were people going to and fro; there were opening shops, and
servants at the doors of houses; there was the rising clash and roar of the
day's struggle. Florence saw surprise and curiosity in the faces flitting past
her; saw long shadows coming back upon the pavement; and heard voices that were
strange to her asking her where she went, and what the matter was; and though
these frightened her the more at first, and made her hurry on the faster, they
did her the good service of recalling her in some degree to herself, and
reminding her of the necessity of greater composure.
    Where to go? Still somewhere, anywhere! still going on; but where! She
thought of the only other time she had been lost in the wild wilderness of
London - though not lost as now - and went that way. To the home of Walter's
uncle.
    Checking her sobs, and drying her swollen eyes, and endeavouring to calm the
agitation of her manner, so as to avoid attracting notice, Florence, resolving
to keep to the more quiet streets as long as she could, was going on more
quietly herself, when a familiar little shadow darted past upon the sunny
pavement, stopped short, wheeled about, came close to her, made off again,
bounded round and round her, and Diogenes, panting for breath, and yet making
the street ring with his glad bark, was at her feet.
    »Oh, Di! oh, dear, true, faithful Di, how did you come here! How could I
ever leave you, Di, who would never leave me!«
    Florence bent down on the pavement, and laid his rough, old, loving, foolish
head against her breast, and they got up together, and went on together; Di more
off the ground than on it, endeavouring to kiss his mistress flying, tumbling
over and getting up again without the least concern, dashing at big dogs in a
jocose defiance of his species, terrifying with touches of his nose young
housemaids who were cleaning door-steps, and continually stopping, in the midst
of a thousand extravagances, to look back at Florence, and bark until all the
dogs within hearing answered, and all the dogs who could come out, came out to
stare at him.
    With this last adherent, Florence hurried away in the advancing morning, and
the strengthening sunshine, to the City. The roar soon grew more loud, the
passengers more numerous, the shops more busy, until she was carried onward in a
stream of life setting that way, and flowing, indifferently, past marts and
mansions, prisons, churches, market-places, wealth, poverty, good, and evil,
like the broad river side by side with it, awakened from its dreams of rushes,
willows, and green moss, and rolling on, turbid and troubled, among the works
and cares of men, to the deep sea.
    At length the quarters of the little Midshipman arose in view. Nearer yet,
and the little Midshipman himself was seen upon his post, intent as ever, on his
observations. Nearer yet, and the door stood open, inviting her to enter.
Florence, who had again quickened her pace, as she approached the end of her
journey, ran across the road (closely followed by Diogenes, whom the bustle had
somewhat confused), ran in, and sank upon the threshold of the well-remembered
little parlour.
    The Captain, in his glazed hat, was standing over the fire, making his
morning's cocoa, with that elegant trifle, his watch, upon the chimney-piece,
for easy reference during the progress of the cookery. Hearing a footstep and
the rustle of a dress, the Captain turned with a palpitating remembrance of the
dreadful Mrs. MacStinger, at the instant when Florence made a motion with her
hand towards him, reeled, and fell upon the floor.
    The Captain, pale as Florence, pale in the very knobs upon his face, raised
her like a baby, and laid her on the same old sofa upon which she had slumbered
long ago.
    »It's Heart's Delight!« said the Captain, looking intently in her face.
»It's the sweet creature grow'd a woman!«
    Captain Cuttle was so respectful of her, and had such a reverence for her,
in this new character, that he would not have held her in his arms, while she
was unconscious, for a thousand pounds.
    »My Heart's Delight!« said the Captain, withdrawing to a little distance,
with the greatest alarm and sympathy depicted on his countenance. »If you can
hail Ned Cuttle with a finger, do it!«
    But Florence did not stir.
    »My Heart's Delight!« said the trembling Captain. »For the sake of Wal'r
drowned in the briny deep, turn to, and histe up something or another, if
able.«
    Finding her insensible to this impressive adjuration also, Captain Cuttle
snatched from his breakfast-table a basin of cold water, and sprinkled some upon
her face. Yielding to the urgency of the case, the Captain then, using his
immense hand with extraordinary gentleness, relieved her of her bonnet,
moistened her lips and forehead, put back her hair, covered her feet with his
own coat which he pulled off for the purpose, patted her hand - so small in his,
that he was struck with wonder when he touched it - and seeing that her eyelids
quivered, and that her lips began to move, continued these restorative
applications with a better heart.
    »Cheerily,« said the Captain. »Cheerily! Stand by, my pretty one, stand by!
There! You're better now. Steady's the word, and steady it is. Keep her so!
Drink a little drop o' this here,« said the Captain. »There you are! What cheer
now, my pretty, what cheer now?«
    At this stage of her recovery, Captain Cuttle, with an imperfect association
of a Watch with a Physician's treatment of a patient, took his own down from the
mantel-shelf, and holding it out on his hook, and taking Florence's hand in his,
looked steadily from one to the other, as expecting the dial to do something.
    »What cheer, my pretty?« said the Captain. »What cheer now? You've done her
some good, my lad, I believe,« said the Captain, under his breath, and throwing
an approving glance upon his watch. »Put you back half-an-hour every morning,
and about another quarter towards the afternoon, and you're a watch as can be
ekalled by few and excelled by none. What cheer, my lady lass!«
    »Captain Cuttle! Is it you!« exclaimed Florence, raising herself a little.
    »Yes, yes, my lady lass,« said the Captain, hastily deciding in his own mind
upon the superior elegance of that form of address, as the most courtly he could
think of.
    »Is Walter's uncle here?« asked Florence.
    »Here, pretty!« returned the Captain. »He an't been here this many a long
day. He an't been heard on, since he sheered off arter poor Wal'r. But,« said
the Captain, as a quotation, »Though lost to sight, to memory dear, and England,
Home, and Beauty!«
    »Do you live here?« asked Florence.
    »Yes, my lady lass,« returned the Captain.
    »Oh, Captain Cuttle!« cried Florence, putting her hands together, and
speaking wildly. »Save me! keep me here! Let no one know where I am! I'll tell
you what has happened by-and-by, when I can. I have no one in the world to go
to. Do not send me away!«
    »Send you away, my lady lass!« exclaimed the Captain. »You, my Heart's
Delight! Stay a bit! We'll put up this here dead-light, and take a double turn
on the key!«
    With these words, the Captain, using his one hand and his hook with the
greatest dexterity, got out the shutter of the door, put it up, made it all
fast, and locked the door itself.
    When he came back to the side of Florence, she took his hand, and kissed it.
The helplessness of the action, the appeal it made to him, the confidence it
expressed, the unspeakable sorrow in her face, the pain of mind she had too
plainly suffered, and was suffering then, his knowledge of her past history, her
present lonely, worn, and unprotected appearance, all so rushed upon the good
Captain together, that he fairly overflowed with compassion and gentleness.
    »My lady lass,« said the Captain, polishing the bridge of his nose with his
arm until it shone like burnished copper, »don't you say a word to Ed'ard
Cuttle, until such times as you finds yourself a riding smooth and easy; which
won't be to-day, nor yet to-morrow. And as to giving of you up, or reporting
where you are, yes verily, and by God's help, so I won't, Church catechism, make
a note on!«
    This the Captain said, reference and all, in one breath, and with much
solemnity; taking off his hat at yes verily, and putting it on again, when he
had quite concluded.
    Florence could do but one thing more to thank him, and to show him how she
trusted in him; and she did it. Clinging to this rough creature as the last
asylum of her bleeding heart, she laid her head upon his honest shoulder, and
clasped him round his neck, and would have kneeled down to bless him, but that
he divined her purpose, and held her up like a true man.
    »Steady!« said the Captain. »Steady! You're too weak to stand, you see, my
pretty, and must lie down here again. There, there!« To see the Captain lift her
on the sofa, and cover her with his coat, would have been worth a hundred state
sights. »And now,« said the Captain, »you must take some breakfast, lady lass,
and the dog shall have some too. And arter that you shall go aloft to old Sol
Gills's room, and fall asleep there, like a angel.«
    Captain Cuttle patted Diogenes when he made allusion to him, and Diogenes
met that overture graciously, half-way. During the administration of the
restoratives he had clearly been in two minds whether to fly at the Captain or
to offer him his friendship; and he had expressed that conflict of feeling by
alternate waggings of his tail, and displays of his teeth, with now and then a
growl or so. But by this time his doubts were all removed. It was plain that he
considered the Captain one of the most amiable of men, and a man whom it was an
honour to a dog to know.
    In evidence of these convictions, Diogenes attended on the Captain while he
made some tea and toast, and showed a lively interest in his housekeeping. But
it was in vain for the kind Captain to make such preparations for Florence, who
sorely tried to do some honour to them, but could touch nothing, and could only
weep and weep again.
    »Well, well!« said the compassionate Captain, »arter turning in, my Heart's
Delight, you'll get more way upon you. Now, I'll serve out your allowance, my
lad.« To Diogenes. »And you shall keep guard on your mistress aloft.«
    Diogenes, however, although he had been eyeing his intended breakfast with a
watering mouth and glistening eyes, instead of falling to, ravenously, when it
was put before him, pricked up his ears, darted to the shop-door, and barked
there furiously: burrowing with his head at the bottom, as if he were bent on
mining his way out.
    »Can there be anybody there!« asked Florence, in alarm.
    »No, my lady lass,« returned the Captain. »Who'd stay there, without making
any noise! Keep up a good heart, pretty. It's only people going by.«
    But for all that, Diogenes barked and barked, and burrowed and burrowed,
with pertinacious fury; and whenever he stopped to listen, appeared to receive
some new conviction into his mind, for he set to, barking and burrowing again, a
dozen times. Even when he was persuaded to return to his breakfast, he came
jogging back to it, with a very doubtful air; and was off again, in another
paroxysm, before touching a morsel.
    »If there should be some one listening and watching,« whispered Florence.
»Some one who saw me come - who followed me, perhaps.«
    »It an't the young woman, lady lass, is it?« said the Captain, taken with a
bright idea.
    »Susan?« said Florence, shaking her head. »Ah no! Susan has been gone from
me a long time.«
    »Not deserted, I hope?« said the Captain. »Don't say that that there young
woman's run, my pretty!«
    »Oh, no, no!« cried Florence. »She is one of the truest hearts in the
world!«
    The Captain was greatly relieved by this reply, and expressed his
satisfaction by taking off his hard glazed hat, and dabbing his head all over
with his handkerchief, rolled up like a ball, observing several times, with
infinite complacency, and with a beaming countenance, that he know'd it.
    »So you're quiet now, are you, brother?« said the Captain to Diogenes.
»There warn't nobody there, my lady lass, bless you!«
    Diogenes was not so sure of that. The door still had an attraction for him
at intervals; and he went snuffing about it, and growling to himself, unable to
forget the subject. This incident, coupled with the Captain's observation of
Florence's fatigue and faintness, decided him to prepare Sol Gills's chamber as
a place of retirement for her immediately. He therefore hastily betook himself
to the top of the house, and made the best arrangement of it that his
imagination and his means suggested.
    It was very clean already; and the Captain being an orderly man, and
accustomed to make things ship-shape, converted the bed into a couch, by
covering it all over with a clean white drapery. By a similar contrivance, the
Captain converted the little dressing-table into a species of altar, on which he
set forth two silver teaspoons, a flower-pot, a telescope, his celebrated watch,
a pocket-comb, and a song-book, as a small collection of rarities, that made a
choice appearance. Having darkened the window, and straightened the pieces of
carpet on the floor, the Captain surveyed these preparations with great delight,
and descended to the little parlour again, to bring Florence to her bower.
    Nothing would induce the Captain to believe that it was possible for
Florence to walk up stairs. If he could have got the idea into his head, he
would have considered it an outrageous breach of hospitality to allow her to do
so. Florence was too weak to dispute the point, and the Captain carried her up
out of hand, laid her down, and covered her with a great watch-coat.
    »My lady lass!« said the Captain, »you're as safe here as if you was at the
top of St. Paul's Cathedral, with the ladder cast off. Sleep is what you want,
afore all other things, and may you be able to show yourself smart with that
there balsam for the still small woice of a wownded mind! When there's anything
you want, my Heart's Delight, as this here humble house or town can offer, pass
the word to Ed'ard Cuttle, as'll stand off and on outside that door, and that
there man will wibrate with joy.« The Captain concluded by kissing the hand that
Florence stretched out to him, with the chivalry of any old knight-errant, and
walking on tip-toe out of the room.
    Descending to the little parlour, Captain Cuttle, after holding a hasty
council with himself, decided to open the shop-door for a few minutes, and
satisfy himself that now, at all events, there was no one loitering about it.
Accordingly he set it open, and stood upon the threshold, keeping a bright
look-out, and sweeping the whole street with his spectacles.
    »How de do, Captain Gills?« said a voice beside him. The Captain, looking
down, found that he had been boarded by Mr. Toots while sweeping the horizon.
    »How are you, my lad?« replied the Captain.
    »Well, I'm pretty well, thank'ee, Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots. »You know
I'm never quite what I could wish to be, now. I don't expect that I ever shall
be any more.«
    Mr. Toots never approached any nearer than this to the great theme of his
life, when in conversation with Captain Cuttle, on account of the agreement
between them.
    »Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, »if I could have the pleasure of a word
with you, it's - it's rather particular.«
    »Why, you see, my lad,« replied the Captain, leading the way into the
parlour, »I an't what you may call exactly free this morning; and therefore if
you can clap on a bit, I should take it kindly.«
    »Certainly, Captain Gills,« replied Mr. Toots, who seldom had any notion of
the Captain's meaning. »To clap on, is exactly what I could wish to do.
Naturally.«
    »If so be, my lad,« returned the Captain, »do it!«
    The Captain was so impressed by the possession of his tremendous secret - by
the fact of Miss Dombey being at that moment under his roof, while the innocent
and unconscious Toots sat opposite to him - that a perspiration broke out on his
forehead, and he found it impossible while slowly drying the same, glazed hat in
hand, to keep his eyes off Mr. Toots's face. Mr. Toots, who himself appeared to
have some secret reasons for being in a nervous state, was so unspeakably
disconcerted by the Captain's stare, that after looking at him vacantly for some
time in silence, and shifting uneasily on his chair, he said:
    »I beg your pardon, Captain Gills, but you don't happen to see anything
particular in me, do you?«
    »No, my lad,« returned the Captain. »No.«
    »Because you know,« said Mr. Toots with a chuckle, »I KNOW I'm wasting away.
You needn't at all mind alluding to that. I - I should like it. Burgess and Co.
have altered my measure, I'm in that state of thinness. It's a gratification to
me. I - I'm glad of it. I - I'd a great deal rather go into a decline, if I
could. I'm a mere brute you know, grazing upon the surface of the earth, Captain
Gills.«
    The more Mr. Toots went on in this way, the more the Captain was weighed
down by his secret, and stared at him. What with this cause of uneasiness, and
his desire to get rid of Mr. Toots, the Captain was in such a scared and strange
condition, indeed, that if he had been in conversation with a ghost, he could
hardly have evinced greater discomposure.
    »But I was going to say, Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots. »Happening to be
this way early this morning - to tell you the truth, I was coming to breakfast
with you. As to sleep, you know, I never sleep now. I might be a Watchman,
except that I don't get any pay, and he's got nothing on his mind.«
    »Carry on, my lad!« said the Captain, in an admonitory voice.
    »Certainly, Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots. »Perfectly true! Happening to be
this way early this morning (an hour or so ago), and finding the door shut -«
    »What! were you waiting there, brother?« demanded the Captain.
    »Not at all, Captain Gills,« returned Mr. Toots. »I didn't stop a moment. I
thought you were out. But the person said - by the bye you don't keep a dog, do
you, Captain Gills?«
    The Captain shook his head.
    »To be sure,« said Mr. Toots, »that's exactly what I said. I knew you
didn't. There is a dog, Captain Gills, connected with - but excuse me. That's
forbidden ground.«
    The Captain stared at Mr. Toots until he seemed to swell to twice his
natural size; and again the perspiration broke out on the Captain's forehead,
when he thought of Diogenes taking it into his head to come down and make a
third in the parlour.
    »The person said,« continued Mr. Toots, »that he had heard a dog barking in
the shop: which I knew couldn't be, and I told him so. But he was as positive as
if he had seen the dog.«
    »What person, my lad?« inquired the Captain.
    »Why, you see there it is, Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, with a
perceptible increase in the nervousness of his manner. »It's not for me to say
what may have taken place, or what may not have taken place. Indeed, I don't
know. I get mixed up with all sorts of things that I don't quite understand, and
I think there's something rather weak in my - in my head, in short.«
    The Captain nodded his own, as a mark of assent.
    »But the person said, as we were walking away,« continued Mr. Toots, »that
you knew what, under existing circumstances, might occur - he said might, very
strongly - and that if you were requested to prepare yourself, you would, no
doubt, come prepared.«
    »Person, my lad!« the Captain repeated.
    »I don't know what person, I'm sure, Captain Gills,« replied Mr. Toots, »I
haven't the least idea. But coming to the door, I found him waiting there; and
he said was I coming back again, and I said yes; and he said did I know you, and
I said yes, I had the pleasure of your acquaintance - you had given me the
pleasure of your acquaintance, after some persuasion; and he said, if that was
the case, would I say to you what I have said, about existing circumstances and
coming prepared, and as soon as ever I saw you, would I ask you to step round
the corner, if it was only for one minute, on most important business, to Mr.
Brogley's the Broker's. Now, I tell you what, Captain Gills - whatever it is, I
am convinced it's very important; and if you like to step round, now, I'll wait
here till you come back.«
    The Captain, divided between his fear of compromising Florence in some way
by not going, and his horror of leaving Mr. Toots in possession of the house
with a chance of finding out the secret, was a spectacle of mental disturbance
that even Mr. Toots could not be blind to. But that young gentleman, considering
his nautical friend as merely in a state of preparation for the interview he was
going to have, was quite satisfied, and did not review his own discreet conduct
without chuckles.
    At length the Captain decided, as the lesser of two evils, to run round to
Brogley's the Broker's: previously locking the door that communicated with the
upper part of the house, and putting the key in his pocket. »If so be,« said the
Captain to Mr. Toots, with not a little shame and hesitation, »as you'll excuse
my doing of it, brother.«
    »Captain Gills,« returned Mr. Toots, »whatever you do, is satisfactory to
me.«
    The Captain thanked him heartily, and promising to come back in less than
five minutes, went out in quest of the person who had entrusted Mr. Toots with
this mysterious message. Poor Mr. Toots, left to himself, lay down upon the
sofa, little thinking who had reclined there last, and, gazing up at the
skylight and resigning himself to visions of Miss Dombey, lost all heed of time
and place.
    It was as well that he did so; for although the Captain was not gone long,
he was gone much longer than he had proposed. When he came back, he was very
pale indeed, and greatly agitated, and even looked as if he had been shedding
tears. He seemed to have lost the faculty of speech, until he had been to the
cupboard and taken a dram of rum from the case-bottle, when he fetched a deep
breath, and sat down in a chair with his hand before his face.
    »Captain Gills,« said Toots, kindly, »I hope and trust there's nothing
wrong?«
    »Thank'ee, my lad, not a bit,« said the Captain. »Quite contrary.«
    »You have the appearance of being overcome, Captain Gills,« observed Mr.
Toots.
    »Why, my lad, I am took aback,« the Captain admitted. »I am.«
    »Is there anything I can do, Captain Gills?« inquired Mr. Toots. »If there
is, make use of me.«
    The Captain removed his hand from his face, looked at him with a remarkable
expression of pity and tenderness, and took him by the hand and shook it hard.
    »No, thank'ee,« said the Captain. »Nothing. Only I'll take it as a favour if
you'll part company for the present. I believe, brother,« wringing his hand
again, »that, after Wal'r, and on a different model, you're as good a lad as
ever stepped.«
    »Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills,« returned Mr. Toots, giving the
Captain's hand a preliminary slap before shaking it again, »it's delightful to
me to possess your good opinion. Thank'ee.«
    »And bear a hand and cheer up,« said the Captain, patting him on the back.
»What! There's more than one sweet creature in the world!«
    »Not to me, Captain Gills,« replied Mr. Toots gravely. »Not to me, I assure
you. The state of my feelings towards Miss Dombey is of that unspeakable
description, that my heart is a desert island, and she lives in it alone. I'm
getting more used up every day, and I'm proud to be so. If you could see my legs
when I take my boots off, you'd form some idea of what unrequited affection is.
I have been prescribed bark, but I don't take it, for I don't wish to have any
tone whatever given to my constitution. I'd rather not. This, however, is
forbidden ground. Captain Gills, good-bye!«
    Captain Cuttle cordially reciprocating the warmth of Mr. Toots's farewell,
locked the door behind him, and shaking his head with the same remarkable
expression of pity and tenderness as he had regarded him with before, went up to
see if Florence wanted him.
    There was an entire change in the Captain's face as he went up stairs. He
wiped his eyes with his handkerchief, and he polished the bridge of his nose
with his sleeve as he had done already that morning, but his face was absolutely
changed. Now, he might have been thought supremely happy; now, he might have
been thought sad; but the kind of gravity that sat upon his features was quite
new to them, and was as great an improvement to them as if they had undergone
some sublimating process.
    He knocked softly, with his hook, at Florence's door, twice or thrice; but,
receiving no answer, ventured first to peep in, and then to enter: emboldened to
take the latter step, perhaps, by the familiar recognition of Diogenes, who,
stretched upon the ground by the side of her couch, wagged his tail, and winked
his eyes at the Captain, without being at the trouble of getting up.
    She was sleeping heavily, and moaning in her sleep; and Captain Cuttle, with
a perfect awe of her youth and beauty, and her sorrow, raised her head, and
adjusted the coat that covered her, where it had fallen off, and darkened the
window a little more that she might sleep on, and crept out again, and took his
post of watch upon the stairs. All this, with a touch and tread as light as
Florence's own.
    Long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of decision, which
is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty's goodness - the delicate fingers
that are formed for sensitiveness and sympathy of touch, and made to minister to
pain and grief, or the rough hard Captain Cuttle hand, that the heart teaches,
guides, and softens in a moment!
    Florence slept upon her couch, forgetful of her homelessness and orphanage,
and Captain Cuttle watched upon the stairs. A louder sob or moan than usual,
brought him sometimes to her door; but by degrees she slept more peacefully, and
the Captain's watch was undisturbed.
 

                                  Chapter XLIX

                       The Midshipman Makes a Discovery.

It was long before Florence awoke. The day was in its prime, the day was in its
wane, and still, uneasy in mind and body, she slept on; unconscious of her
strange bed, of the noise and turmoil in the street, and of the light that shone
outside the shaded window. Perfect unconsciousness of what had happened in the
home that existed no more, even the deep slumber of exhaustion could not
produce. Some undefined and mournful recollection of it, dozing uneasily but
never sleeping, pervaded all her rest. A dull sorrow, like a half-lulled sense
of pain, was always present to her; and her pale cheek was oftener wet with
tears than the honest Captain, softly putting in his head from time to time at
the half-closed door, could have desired to see it.
    The sun was getting low in the west, and, glancing out of a red mist,
pierced with its rays opposite loop-holes and pieces of fret-work in the spires
of city churches, as if with golden arrows that struck through and through them
- and far away athwart the river and its flat banks, it was gleaming like a path
of fire - and out at sea it was irradiating sails of ships - and, looked
towards, from quiet churchyards, upon hill-tops in the country, it was steeping
distant prospects in a flush and glow that seemed to mingle earth and sky
together in one glorious suffusion - when Florence, opening her heavy eyes, lay
at first, looking without interest or recognition at the unfamiliar walls around
her, and listening in the same regardless manner to the noises in the street.
But presently she started up upon her couch, gazed round with a surprised and
vacant look, and recollected all.
    »My pretty,« said the Captain, knocking at the door, »what cheer!«
    »Dear friend,« cried Florence, hurrying to him, »is it you?«
    The Captain felt so much pride in the name, and was so pleased by the gleam
of pleasure in her face, when she saw him, that he kissed his hook, by way of
reply, in speechless gratification.
    »What cheer, bright di'mond!« said the Captain.
    »I have surely slept very long,« returned Florence. »When did I come here?
Yesterday?«
    »This here blessed day, my lady lass,« replied the Captain.
    »Has there been no night? Is it still day?« asked Florence.
    »Getting on for evening now, my pretty,« said the Captain, drawing back the
curtain of the window. »See!«
    Florence, with her hand upon the Captain's arm, so sorrowful and timid, and
the Captain with his rough face and burly figure, so quietly protective of her,
stood in the rosy light of the bright evening sky, without saying a word.
However strange the form of speech into which he might have fashioned the
feeling, if he had had to give it utterance, the Captain felt, as sensibly as
the most eloquent of men could have done, that there was something in the
tranquil time and in its softened beauty that would make the wounded heart of
Florence overflow; and that it was better that such tears should have their way.
So not a word spoke Captain Cuttle. But when he felt his arm clasped closer and
when he felt the lonely head come nearer to it, and lay itself against his
homely coarse blue sleeve, he pressed it gently with his rugged hand, and
understood it, and was understood.
    »Better now, my pretty!« said the Captain. »Cheerily, cheerily; I'll go down
below, and get some dinner ready. Will you come down of your own self,
afterwards, pretty, or shall Ed'ard Cuttle come and fetch you?«
    As Florence assured him that she was quite able to walk down stairs, the
Captain, though evidently doubtful of his own hospitality in permitting it, left
her to do so, and immediately set about roasting a fowl at the fire in the
little parlour. To achieve his cookery with the greater skill, he pulled off his
coat, tucked up his wristbands, and put on his glazed hat, without which
assistant he never applied himself to any nice or difficult undertaking.
    After cooling her aching head and burning face in the fresh water which the
Captain's care had provided for her while she slept, Florence went to the little
mirror to bind up her disordered hair. Then she knew - in a moment, for she
shunned it instantly - that on her breast there was the darkening mark of an
angry hand.
    Her tears burst forth afresh at the sight; she was ashamed and afraid of it;
but it moved her to no anger against him. Homeless and fatherless, she forgave
him everything; hardly thought that she had need to forgive him, or that she
did; but she fled from the idea of him as she had fled from the reality, and he
was utterly gone and lost. There was no such Being in the world.
    What to do, or where to live, Florence - poor, inexperienced girl! - could
not yet consider. She had indistinct dreams of finding, a long way off, some
little sisters to instruct, who would be gentle with her, and to whom, under
some feigned name, she might attach herself, and who would grow up in their
happy home, and marry, and be good to their old governess, and perhaps entrust
her, in time, with the education of their own daughters. And she thought how
strange and sorrowful it would be, thus to become a grey-haired woman, carrying
her secret to the grave, when Florence Dombey was forgotten. But it was all dim
and clouded to her now. She only knew that she had no Father upon earth, and she
said so, many times, with her suppliant head hidden from all but her Father who
was in Heaven.
    Her little stock of money amounted to but a few guineas. With a part of
this, it would be necessary to buy some clothes, for she had none but those she
wore. She was too desolate to think how soon her money would be gone - too much
a child in worldly matters to be greatly troubled on that score yet, even if her
other trouble had been less. She tried to calm her thoughts and stay her tears;
to quiet the hurry in her throbbing head, and bring herself to believe that what
had happened were but the events of a few hours ago, instead of weeks or months,
as they appeared; and went down to her kind protector.
    The Captain had spread the cloth with great care, and was making some
egg-sauce in a little saucepan: basting the fowl from time to time during the
process with a strong interest, as it turned and browned on a string before the
fire. Having propped Florence up with cushions on the sofa, which was already
wheeled into a warm corner for her greater comfort, the Captain pursued his
cooking with extraordinary skill, making hot gravy in a second little saucepan,
boiling a handful of potatoes in a third, never forgetting the egg-sauce in the
first, and making an impartial round of basting and stirring with the most
useful of spoons every minute. Besides these cares, the Captain had to keep his
eye on a diminutive frying-pan, in which some sausages were hissing and bubbling
in a most musical manner; and there was never such a radiant cook as the Captain
looked, in the height and heat of these functions: it being impossible to say
whether his face or his glazed hat shone the brighter.
    The dinner being at length quite ready, Captain Cuttle dished and served it
up, with no less dexterity than he had cooked it. He then dressed for dinner, by
taking off his glazed hat and putting on his coat. That done, he wheeled the
table close against Florence on the sofa, said grace, unscrewed his hook,
screwed his fork into its place, and did the honours of the table.
    »My lady lass,« said the Captain, »cheer up, and try to eat a deal. Stand
by, my deary! Liver wing it is. Sarse it is. Sassage it is. And potato!« all
which the Captain ranged symmetrically on a plate, and pouring hot gravy on the
whole with the useful spoon, set before his cherished guest.
    »The whole row o' dead lights is up, for'ard, lady lass,« observed the
Captain, encouragingly, »and everythink is made snug. Try and pick a bit, my
pretty. If Wal'r was here -«
    »Ah! If I had him for my brother now!« cried Florence.
    »Don't! don't take on, my pretty!« said the Captain, »awast to obleege me!
He was your nat'ral born friend like, warn't he, Pet?«
    Florence had no words to answer with. She only said, »Oh, dear, dear Paul!
oh, Walter!«
    »The very planks she walked on,« murmured the Captain, looking at her
drooping face, »was as high esteemed by Wal'r, as the water brooks is by the
hart which never rejices! I see him now, the very day as he was rated on them
Dombey books, a speaking of her with his face a glistening with doo - leastways
with his modest sentiments - like a new blowed rose, at dinner. Well, well! If
our poor Wal'r was here, my lady lass - or if he could be - for he's drowned,
an't he?«
    Florence shook her head.
    »Yes, yes; drowned,« said the Captain, soothingly; »as I was saying, if he
could be here he'd beg and pray of you, my precious, to pick a leetle bit, with
a look-out for your own sweet health. Whereby, hold your own, my lady lass, as
if it was for Wal'r's sake, and lay your pretty head to the wind.«
    Florence essayed to eat a morsel, for the Captain's pleasure. The Captain,
meanwhile, who seemed to have quite forgotten his own dinner, laid down his
knife and fork, and drew his chair to the sofa.
    »Wal'r was a trim lad, warn't he, precious?« said the Captain, after sitting
for some time silently rubbing his chin, with his eyes fixed upon her, »and a
brave lad, and a good lad?«
    Florence tearfully assented.
    »And he's drowned, Beauty, an't he?« said the Captain, in a soothing voice.
    Florence could not but assent again.
    »He was older than you, my lady lass,« pursued the Captain, »but you was
like two children together, at first; warn't you?«
    Florence answered »Yes.«
    »And Wal'r's drowned,« said the Captain. »An't he?«
    The repetition of this inquiry was a curious source of consolation, but it
seemed to be one to Captain Cuttle, for he came back to it again and again.
Florence, fain to push from her her untasted dinner, and to lie back on her
sofa, gave him her hand, feeling that she had disappointed him, though truly
wishing to have pleased him after all his trouble, but he held it in his own
(which shook as he held it), and appearing to have quite forgotten all about the
dinner and her want of appetite, went on growling at intervals, in a ruminating
tone of sympathy, »Poor Wal'r. Aye, aye! Drownded. An't he?« And always waited
for her answer, in which the great point of these singular reflections appeared
to consist.
    The fowl and sausages were cold, and the gravy and the egg-sauce stagnant,
before the Captain remembered that they were on the board, and fell to with the
assistance of Diogenes, whose united efforts quickly dispatched the banquet. The
Captain's delight and wonder at the quiet housewifery of Florence in assisting
to clear the table, arrange the parlour, and sweep up the hearth - only to be
equalled by the fervency of his protest when she began to assist him - were
gradually raised to that degree, that at last he could not choose but do nothing
himself, and stand looking at her as if she were some Fairy, daintily performing
these offices for him; the red rim on his forehead glowing again, in his
unspeakable admiration.
    But when Florence, taking down his pipe from the mantel-shelf gave it into
his hand, and entreated him to smoke it, the good Captain was so bewildered by
her attention that he held it as if he had never held a pipe in all his life.
Likewise, when Florence, looking into the little cupboard, took out the
case-bottle and mixed a perfect glass of grog for him, unasked, and set it at
his elbow, his ruddy nose turned pale, he felt himself so graced and honoured.
When he had filled his pipe in an absolute reverie of satisfaction, Florence
lighted it for him - the Captain having no power to object, or to prevent her -
and resuming her place on the old sofa, looked at him with a smile so loving and
so grateful, a smile that showed him so plainly how her forlorn heart turned to
him, as her face did, through grief, that the smoke of the pipe got into the
Captain's throat and made him cough, and got into the Captain's eyes, and made
them blink and water.
    The manner in which the Captain tried to make believe that the cause of
these effects lay hidden in the pipe itself, and the way in which he looked into
the bowl for it, and not finding it there, pretended to blow it out of the stem,
was wonderfully pleasant. The pipe soon getting into better condition, he fell
into that state of repose becoming a good smoker; but sat with his eyes fixed on
Florence, and, with a beaming placidity not to be described, and stopping every
now and then to discharge a little cloud from his lips, slowly puffed it forth,
as if it were a scroll coming out of his mouth, bearing the legend »Poor Wal'r,
aye, aye. Drownded, an't he?« after which he would resume his smoking with
infinite gentleness.
    Unlike as they were externally - and there could scarcely be a more decided
contrast than between Florence in her delicate youth and beauty, and Captain
Cuttle with his knobby face, his great broad weather - beaten person, and his
gruff voice - in simple innocence of the world's ways and the world's
perplexities and dangers, they were nearly on a level. No child could have
surpassed Captain Cuttle in inexperience of everything but wind and weather; in
simplicity, credulity, and generous trustfulness. Faith, hope, and charity
shared his whole nature among them. An odd sort of romance, perfectly
unimaginative yet perfectly unreal, and subject to no considerations of worldly
prudence or practicability, was the only partner they had in his character. As
the Captain sat and smoked, and looked at Florence, God knows what impossible
pictures, in which she was the principal figure, presented themselves to his
mind. Equally vague and uncertain, though not so sanguine, were her own thoughts
of the life before her; and even as her tears made prismatic colours in the
light she gazed at, so, through her new and heavy grief, she already saw a
rainbow faintly shining in the far-off sky. A wandering princess and a good
monster in a story-book might have sat by the fireside, and talked as Captain
Cuttle and poor Florence thought - and not have looked very much unlike them.
    The Captain was not troubled with the faintest idea of any difficulty in
retaining Florence, or of any responsibility thereby incurred. Having put up the
shutters and locked the door, he was quite satisfied on this head. If she had
been a Ward in Chancery, it would have made no difference at all to Captain
Cuttle. He was the last man in the world to be troubled by any such
considerations.
    So the Captain smoked his pipe very comfortably, and Florence and he
meditated after their own manner. When the pipe was out, they had some tea; and
then Florence entreated him to take her to some neighbouring shop, where she
could buy the few necessaries she immediately wanted. It being quite dark, the
Captain consented: peeping carefully out first, as he had been wont to do in his
time of hiding from Mrs. MacStinger; and arming himself with his large stick, in
case of an appeal to arms being rendered necessary by any unforeseen
circumstance.
    The pride Captain Cuttle had, in giving his arm to Florence, and escorting
her some two or three hundred yards, keeping a bright look-out all the time, and
attracting the attention of every one who passed them, by his great vigilance
and numerous precautions, was extreme. Arrived at the shop, the Captain felt it
a point of delicacy to retire during the making of the purchases, as they were
to consist of wearing apparel; but he previously deposited his tin canister on
the counter, and informing the young lady of the establishment that it contained
fourteen pound two, requested her, in case that amount of property should not be
sufficient to defray the expenses of his niece's little outfit - at the word
niece, he bestowed a most significant look on Florence, accompanied with
pantomime, expressive of sagacity and mystery - to have the goodness to sing
out, and he would make up the difference from his pocket. Casually consulting
his big watch, as a deep means of dazzling the establishment, and impressing it
with a sense of property, the Captain then kissed his hook to his niece, and
retired outside the window, where it was a choice sight to see his great face
looking in from time to time, among the silks and ribbons, with an obvious
misgiving that Florence had been spirited away by a back door.
    »Dear Captain Cuttle,« said Florence, when she came out with a parcel, the
size of which greatly disappointed the Captain, who had expected to see a porter
following with a bale of goods, »I don't want this money, indeed. I have not
spent any of it. I have money of my own.«
    »My lady lass,« returned the baffled Captain, looking straight down the
street before them, »take care on it for me, will you be so good, till such time
as I ask ye for it?«
    »May I put it back in its usual place,« said Florence, »and keep it there?«
    The Captain was not at all gratified by this proposal, but he answered,
»Aye, aye, put it anywheres, my lady lass, so long as you know where to find it
again. It an't o' no use to me,« said the Captain. »I wonder I haven't chucked
it away afore now.«
    The Captain was quite disheartened for the moment, but he revived at the
first touch of Florence's arm, and they returned with the same precautions as
they had come; the Captain opening the door of the little Midshipman's berth,
and diving in, with a suddenness which his great practice only could have taught
him. During Florence's slumber in the morning, he had engaged the daughter of an
elderly lady, who usually sat under a blue umbrella in Leadenhall Market,
selling poultry, to come and put her room in order, and render her any little
services she required; and this damsel now appearing, Florence found everything
about her as convenient and orderly, if not as handsome, as in the terrible
dream she had once called Home.
    When they were alone again, the Captain insisted on her eating a slice of
dry toast, and drinking a glass of spiced negus (which he made to perfection);
and, encouraging her with every kind word and inconsequential quotation he could
possibly think of, led her up stairs to her bedroom. But he too had something on
his mind, and was not easy in his manner.
    »Good night, dear heart,« said Captain Cuttle to her at her chamber-door.
    Florence raised her lips to his face, and kissed him.
    At any other time the Captain would have been over-balanced by such a token
of her affection and gratitude; but now, although he was very sensible of it, he
looked in her face with even more uneasiness than he had testified before, and
seemed unwilling to leave her.
    »Poor Wal'r!« said the Captain.
    »Poor, poor Walter!« sighed Florence.
    »Drownded, an't he?« said the Captain.
    Florence shook her head, and sighed.
    »Good night, my lady lass!« said Captain Cuttle, putting out his hand.
    »God bless you, dear, kind friend!«
    But the Captain lingered still.
    »Is anything the matter, dear Captain Cuttle?« said Florence, easily alarmed
in her then state of mind. »Have you anything to tell me?«
    »To tell you, lady lass!« replied the Captain, meeting her eyes in
confusion. »No, no; what should I have to tell you, pretty! You don't expect as
I've got anything good to tell you, sure?«
    »No!« said Florence, shaking her head.
    The Captain looked at her wistfully, and repeated »No,« - still lingering,
and still showing embarrassment.
    »Poor Wal'r!« said the Captain. »My Wal'r, as I used to call you! Old Sol
Gills's nevy! Welcome to all as knew you, as the flowers in May! Where are you
got to, brave boy! Drownded, an't he?«
    Concluding his apostrophe with this abrupt appeal to Florence, the Captain
bade her good night, and descended the stairs, while Florence remained at the
top, holding the candle out to light him down. He was lost in the obscurity,
and, judging from the sound of his receding footsteps, was in the act of turning
into the little parlour, when his head and shoulders unexpectedly emerged again,
as from the deep, apparently for no other purpose than to repeat, »Drownded,
an't he, pretty?« For when he had said that in a tone of tender condolence, he
disappeared.
    Florence was very sorry that she should unwittingly, though naturally, have
awakened these associations in the mind of her protector, by taking refuge
there; and sitting down before the little table where the Captain had arranged
the telescope and song-book, and those other rarities, thought of Walter, and of
all that was connected with him in the past, until she could have almost wished
to lie down on her bed and fade away. But in her lonely yearning to the dead
whom she had loved, no thought of home - no possibility of going back - no
presentation of it as yet existing, or as sheltering her father - once entered
her thoughts. She had seen the murder done. In the last lingering natural aspect
in which she had cherished him through so much, he had been torn out of her
heart, defaced, and slain. The thought of it was so appalling to her, that she
covered her eyes, and shrunk trembling from the least remembrance of the deed,
or of the cruel hand that did it. If her fond heart could have held his image
after that, it must have broken; but it could not; and the void was filled with
a wild dread that fled from all confronting with its shattered fragments - with
such a dread as could have risen out of nothing but the depths of such a love,
so wronged.
    She dared not look into the glass; for the sight of the darkening mark upon
her bosom made her afraid of herself, as if she bore about her something wicked.
She covered it up, with a hasty, faltering hand, and in the dark; and laid her
weary head down, weeping.
    The Captain did not go to bed for a long time. He walked to and fro in the
shop and in the little parlour, for a full hour, and, appearing to have composed
himself by that exercise, sat down with a grave and thoughtful face, and read
out of a Prayer-book the forms of prayer appointed to be used at sea. These were
not easily disposed of; the good Captain being a mighty slow, gruff reader, and
frequently stopping at a hard word to give himself such encouragement as »Now,
my lad! With a will!« or, »Steady, Ed'ard Cuttle, steady!« which had a great
effect in helping him out of any difficulty. Moreover, his spectacles greatly
interfered with his powers of vision. But notwithstanding these drawbacks, the
Captain, being heartily in earnest, read the service to the very last line, and
with genuine feeling too; and approving of it very much when he had done, turned
in under the counter (but not before he had been up stairs, and listened at
Florence's door), with a serene breast, and a most benevolent visage.
    The Captain turned out several times in the course of the night, to assure
himself that his charge was resting quietly; and once, at daybreak, found that
she was awake: for she called to know if it were he, on hearing footsteps near
her door.
    »Yes, my lady lass,« replied the Captain, in a growling whisper. »Are you
all right, di'mond?«
    Florence thanked him, and said »Yes.«
    The Captain could not lose so favourable an opportunity of applying his
mouth to the keyhole, and calling through it, like a hoarse breeze, »Poor Wal'r!
Drownded, an't he?« After which he withdrew, and turning in again, slept till
seven o'clock.
    Nor was he free from his uneasy and embarrassed manner all that day; though
Florence, being busy with her needle in the little parlour, was more calm and
tranquil than she had been on the day preceding. Almost always when she raised
her eyes from her work, she observed the Captain looking at her, and
thoughtfully stroking his chin; and he so often hitched his arm-chair close to
her, as if he were going to say something very confidential, and hitched it away
again, as not being able to make up his mind how to begin, that in the course of
the day he cruised completely round the parlour in that frail bark, and more
than once went ashore against the wainscot or the closet door, in a very
distressed condition.
    It was not until the twilight that Captain Cuttle, fairly dropping anchor,
at last, by the side of Florence, began to talk at all connectedly. But when the
light of the fire was shining on the walls and ceiling of the little room, and
on the tea-board and the cups and saucers that were ranged upon the table, and
on her calm face turned towards the flame, and reflecting it in the tears that
filled her eyes, the Captain broke a long silence thus:
    »You never was at sea, my own?«
    »No,« replied Florence.
    »Aye,« said the Captain, reverentially; »it's a almighty element. There's
wonders in the deep, my pretty. Think on it when the winds is roaring and the
waves is rowling. Think on it when the stormy nights is so pitch dark,« said the
Captain, solemnly holding up his hook, »as you can't see your hand afore you,
excepting when the wiwid lightning reweals the same; and when you drive, drive,
drive through the storm and dark, as if you was a driving, head on, to the world
without end, evermore, amen, and when found making a note of. Them's the times,
my beauty, when a man may say to his messmate (previously a overhauling of the
wollume), A stiff nor'-wester's blowing, Bill; hark, don't you hear it roar now!
Lord help 'em, how I pitys all unhappy folks ashore now!« Which quotation, as
particularly applicable to the terrors of the ocean, the Captain delivered in a
most impressive manner, concluding with a sonorous »Stand by!«
    »Were you ever in a dreadful storm?« asked Florence.
    »Why aye, my lady lass, I've seen my share of bad weather,« said the
Captain, tremulously wiping his head, »and I've had my share of knocking about;
but - but it an't of myself as I was a meaning to speak. Our dear boy,« drawing
closer to her, »Wal'r, darling, as was drowned.«
    The Captain spoke in such a trembling voice, and looked at Florence with a
face so pale and agitated, that she clung to his hand in affright.
    »Your face is changed,« cried Florence. »You are altered in a moment. What
is it? Dear Captain Cuttle, it turns me cold to see you!«
    »What! Lady lass,« returned the Captain, supporting her with his hand,
»don't be took aback. No, no? All's well, all's well, my dear. As I was a saying
- Wal'r - he's - he's drowned. An't he?«
    Florence looked at him intently; her colour came and went; and she laid her
hand upon her breast.
    »There's perils and dangers on the deep, my beauty,« said the Captain; »and
over many a brave ship, and many and many a bould heart, the secret waters has
closed up, and never told no tales. But there's escapes upon the deep, too, and
sometimes one man out of a score, - ah! maybe out of a hundred, pretty, - has
been saved by the mercy of God, and come home after being given over for dead,
and told of all hands lost. I - I know a story, Heart's Delight,« stammered the
Captain, »o' this natur, as was told to me once; and being on this here tack,
and you and me sitting alone by the fire, maybe you'd like to hear me tell it.
Would you, deary?«
    Florence, trembling with an agitation which she could not control or
understand, involuntarily followed his glance, which went behind her into the
shop, where a lamp was burning. The instant that she turned her head, the
Captain sprung out of his chair, and interposed his hand.
    »There's nothing there, my beauty,« said the Captain. »Don't look there.«
    »Why not?« asked Florence.
    The Captain murmured something about its being dull that way, and about the
fire being cheerful. He drew the door ajar, which had been standing open until
now, and resumed his seat. Florence followed him with her eyes, and looked
intently in his face.
    »The story was about a ship, my lady lass,« began the Captain, »as sailed
out of the Port of London, with a fair wind and in fair weather, bound for -
don't be took aback, my lady lass, she was only out'ard bound, pretty, only
out'ard bound!«
    The expression on Florence's face alarmed the Captain, who was himself very
hot and flurried, and showed scarcely less agitation than she did.
    »Shall I go on, Beauty?« said the Captain.
    »Yes, yes, pray!« cried Florence.
    The Captain made a gulp as if to get down something that was sticking in his
throat, and nervously proceeded:
    »That there unfort'nate ship met with such foul weather, out at sea, as
don't blow once in twenty year, my darling. There was hurricanes ashore as tore
up forests and blowed down towns, and there was gales at sea in them latitudes,
as not the stoutest wessel ever launched could live in. Day arter day that there
unfort'nate ship behaved noble, I'm told, and did her duty brave, my pretty, but
at one blow a'most her bulwarks was stove in, her masts and rudder carried away,
her best men swept overboard, and she left to the mercy of the storm as had no
mercy but blowed harder and harder yet, while the waves dashed over her, and
beat her in, and every time they come a thundering at her, broke her like a
shell. Every black spot in every mountain of water that rolled away was a bit o'
the ship's life or a living man, and so she went to pieces, Beauty, and no grass
will never grow upon the graves of them as manned that ship.«
    »They were not all lost!« cried Florence. »Some were saved! - Was one?«
    »Aboard o' that there unfort'nate wessel,« said the Captain, rising from his
chair, and clenching his hand with prodigious energy and exultation, »was a lad,
a gallant lad - as I've heard tell - that had loved, when he was a boy, to read
and talk about brave actions in shipwrecks - I've heard him! I've heard him! -
and he remembered of 'em in his hour of need; for when the stoutest hearts and
oldest hands was hove down, he was firm and cheery. It warn't the want of
objects to like and love ashore that gave him courage, it was his nat'ral mind.
I've seen it in his face, when he was no more than a child - aye, many a time! -
and when I thought it nothing but his good looks, bless him!«
    »And was he saved!« cried Florence. »Was he saved!«
    »That brave lad,« said the Captain, - »look at me, pretty! Don't look round
-«
    Florence had hardly power to repeat, »Why not?«
    »Because there's nothing there, my deary,« said the Captain. »Don't be took
aback, pretty creature! Don't, for the sake of Wal'r, as was dear to all on us!
That there lad,« said the Captain, »arter working with the best, and standing by
the faint-hearted, and never making no complaint nor sign of fear, and keeping
up a spirit in all hands that made 'em honour him as if he'd been a admiral -
that lad, along with the second-mate and one seaman, was left, of all the
beatin' hearts that went aboard that ship, the only living creeturs - lashed to
a fragment of the wreck, and driftin' on the stormy sea.«
    »Were they saved!« cried Florence.
    »Days and nights they drifted on them endless waters,« said the Captain,
»until at last - No! Don't look that way, pretty! - a sail bore down upon 'em,
and they was, by the Lord's mercy, took aboard: two living and one dead.«
    »Which of them was dead?« cried Florence.
    »Not the lad I speak on,« said the Captain.
    »Thank God! oh thank God!«
    »Amen!« returned the Captain hurriedly. »Don't be took aback! A minute more,
my lady lass! with a good heart! - aboard that ship, they went a long voyage,
right away across the chart (for there warn't no touching nowhere), and on that
voyage the seaman as was picked up with him died. But he was spared, and -«
    The Captain, without knowing what he did, had cut a slice of bread from the
loaf, and put it on his hook (which was his usual toasting-fork), on which he
now held it to the fire; looking behind Florence with great emotion in his face,
and suffering the bread to blaze and burn like fuel.
    »Was spared,« repeated Florence, »and -?«
    »And come home in that ship,« said the Captain, still looking in the same
direction, »and - don't be frightened, pretty - and landed; and one morning come
cautiously to his own door to take a obserwation, knowing that his friends would
think him drowned, when he sheered off at the unexpected -«
    »At the unexpected barking of a dog?« cried Florence, quickly.
    »Yes,« roared the Captain. »Steady, darling! courage! Don't look round yet.
See there! upon the wall!«
    There was the shadow of a man upon the wall close to her. She started up,
looked round, and with a piercing cry, saw Walter Gay behind her!
    She had no thought of him but as a brother, a brother rescued from the
grave; a shipwrecked brother saved and at her side; and rushed into his arms. In
all the world, he seemed to be her hope, her comfort, refuge, natural protector.
»Take care of Walter, I was fond of Walter!« The dear remembrance of the
plaintive voice that said so, rushed upon her soul, like music in the night. »Oh
welcome home, dear Walter! Welcome to this stricken breast!« She felt the words,
although she could not utter them, and held him in her pure embrace.
    Captain Cuttle, in a fit of delirium, attempted to wipe his head with the
blackened toast upon his hook: and finding it an uncongenial substance for the
purpose, put it into the crown of his glazed hat, put the glazed hat on with
some difficulty, essayed to sing a verse of Lovely Peg, broke down at the first
word, and retired into the shop, whence he presently came back, express, with a
face all flushed and besmeared, and the starch completely taken out of his
shirt-collar, to say these words:
    »Wal'r, my lad, here is a little bit of property as I should wish to make
over, jintly!«
    The Captain hastily produced the big watch, the teaspoons, the sugar-tongs,
and the canister, and laying them on the table, swept them with his great hand
into Walter's hat; but in handing that singular strong box to Walter, he was so
overcome again, that he was fain to make another retreat into the shop, and
absent himself for a longer space of time than on his first retirement.
    But Walter sought him out, and brought him back; and then the Captain's
great apprehension was, that Florence would suffer from this new shock. He felt
it so earnestly, that he turned quite rational, and positively interdicted any
further allusion to Walter's adventures for some days to come. Captain Cuttle
then became sufficiently composed to relieve himself of the toast in his hat,
and to take his place at the tea-board; but finding Walter's grasp upon his
shoulder, on one side, and Florence whispering her tearful congratulations on
the other, the Captain suddenly bolted again, and was missing for a good ten
minutes.
    But never in all his life had the Captain's face so shone and glistened, as
when, at last, he sat stationary at the tea-board, looking from Florence to
Walter, and from Walter to Florence. Nor was this effect produced or at all
heightened by the immense quantity of polishing he had administered to his face
with his coat-sleeve during the last half-hour. It was solely the effect of his
internal emotions. There was a glory and delight within the Captain that spread
itself over his whole visage, and made a perfect illumination there.
    The pride with which the Captain looked upon the bronzed cheek and the
courageous eyes of his recovered boy; with which he saw the generous fervour of
his youth and all its frank and hopeful qualities, shining once more in the
fresh, wholesome manner and the ardent face, would have kindled something of
this light in his countenance. The admiration and sympathy with which he turned
his eyes on Florence, whose beauty, grace, and innocence could have won no truer
or more zealous champion than himself, would have had an equal influence upon
him. But the fullness of the glow he shed around him could only have been
engendered in his contemplation of the two together, and in all the fancies
springing out of that association, that came sparkling and beaming into his
head, and danced about it.
    How they talked of poor old Uncle Sol, and dwelt on every little
circumstance relating to his disappearance; how their joy was moderated by the
old man's absence and by the misfortunes of Florence; how they released
Diogenes, whom the Captain had decoyed up stairs some time before, lest he
should bark again; the Captain, though he was in one continual flutter, and made
many more short plunges into the shop, fully comprehended. But he no more
dreamed that Walter looked on Florence, as it were, from a new and far-off
place; that while his eyes often sought the lovely face, they seldom met its
open glance of sisterly affection, but withdrew themselves when hers were raised
towards him; than he believed that it was Walter's ghost who sat beside him. He
saw them there together in their youth and beauty, and he knew the story of
their younger days, and he had no inch of room beneath his great blue waistcoat
for anything save admiration of such a pair, and gratitude for their being
re-united.
    They sat thus, until it grew late. The Captain would have been content to
sit so for a week. But Walter rose, to take leave for the night.
    »Going, Walter!« said Florence. »Where?«
    »He slings his hammock for the present, lady lass,« said Captain Cuttle,
»round at Brogley's. Within hail, Heart's Delight.«
    »I am the cause of your going away, Walter,« said Florence. »There is a
houseless sister in your place.«
    »Dear Miss Dombey,« replied Walter, hesitating - »if it is not too bold to
call you so! -«
    »- Walter!« she exclaimed, surprised.
    »If anything could make me happier in being allowed to see and speak to you,
would it not be the discovery that I had any means on earth of doing you a
moment's service! Where would I not go, what would I not do for your sake?«
    She smiled, and called him brother.
    »You are so changed,« said Walter -
    »I changed!« she interrupted.
    »To me,« said Walter, softly, as if he were thinking aloud, »changed to me.
I left you such a child, and find you - oh! something so different -«
    »But your sister, Walter. You have not forgotten what we promised to each
other, when we parted?«
    »Forgotten!« But he said no more.
    »And if you had - if suffering and danger had driven it from your thoughts -
which it has not - you would remember it now, Walter, when you find me poor and
abandoned, with no home but this, and no friends but the two who hear me speak!«
    »I would! Heaven knows I would!« said Walter.
    »Oh, Walter,« exclaimed Florence, through her sobs and tears. »Dear brother!
Show me some way through the world - some humble path that I may take alone, and
labour in, and sometimes think of you as one who will protect and care for me as
for a sister! Oh, help me, Walter, for I need help so much!«
    »Miss Dombey! Florence! I would die to help you. But your friends are proud
and rich. Your father -«
    »No, no! Walter!« She shrieked, and put her hands up to her head, in an
attitude of terror that transfixed him where he stood. »Don't say that word!«
    He never, from that hour, forgot the voice and look with which she stopped
him at the name. He felt that if he were to live a hundred years, he never could
forget it.
    Somewhere - anywhere - but never home! All past, all gone, all lost, and
broken up! The whole history of her untold slight and suffering was in the cry
and look; and he felt he never could forget it, and he never did.
    She laid her gentle face upon the Captain's shoulder, and related how and
why she had fled. If every sorrowing tear she shed in doing so, had been a curse
upon the head of him she never named or blamed, it would have been better for
him, Walter thought, with awe, than to be renounced out of such a strength and
might of love.
    »There, precious!« said the Captain, when she ceased; and deep attention the
Captain had paid to her while she spoke; listening, with his glazed hat all awry
and his mouth wide open. »Awast, awast, my eyes! Wal'r, dear lad, sheer off for
to-night, and leave the pretty one to me!«
    Walter took her hand in both of his, and put it to his lips, and kissed it.
He knew now that she was, indeed, a homeless wandering fugitive; but, richer to
him so than in all the wealth and pride of her right station, she seemed farther
off than even on the height that had made him giddy in his boyish dreams.
    Captain Cuttle, perplexed by no such meditations, guarded Florence to her
room, and watched at intervals upon the charmed ground outside her door - for
such it truly was to him - until he felt sufficiently easy in his mind about her
to turn in under the counter. On abandoning his watch for that purpose, he could
not help calling once, rapturously, through the keyhole, »Drownded. An't he,
pretty?« - or, when he got down stairs, making another trial at that verse of
Lovely Peg. But it stuck in his throat somehow, and he could make nothing of it;
so he went to bed, and dreamed that old Sol Gills was married to Mrs.
MacStinger, and kept prisoner by that lady in a secret chamber on a short
allowance of victuals.
 

                                   Chapter L

                             Mr. Toots's Complaint.

There was an empty room above-stairs at the Wooden Midshipman's, which, in days
of yore, had been Walter's bedroom. Walter, rousing up the Captain betimes in
the morning, proposed that they should carry thither such furniture out of the
little parlour as would grace it best, so that Florence might take possession of
it when she rose. As nothing could be more agreeable to Captain Cuttle than
making himself very red and short of breath in such a cause, he turned to (as he
himself said) with a will; and, in a couple of hours, this garret was
transformed into a species of land-cabin, adorned with all the choicest
moveables out of the parlour, inclusive even of the Tartar frigate, which the
Captain hung up over the chimney-piece with such extreme delight, that he could
do nothing for half-an-hour afterwards but walk backward from it, lost in
admiration.
    The Captain could be induced by no persuasion of Walter's to wind up the big
watch, or to take back the canister, or to touch the sugar-tongs and tea-spoons.
»No, no, my lad,« was the Captain's invariable reply to any solicitation of the
kind, »I've made that there little property over, jintly.« These words he
repeated with great unction and gravity, evidently believing that they had the
virtue of an Act of Parliament, and that unless he committed himself by some new
admission of ownership, no flaw could be found in such a form of conveyance.
    It was an advantage of the new arrangement, that besides the greater
seclusion it afforded Florence, it admitted of the Midshipman being restored to
his usual post of observation, and also of the shop shutters being taken down.
The latter ceremony, however little importance the unconscious Captain attached
to it, was not wholly superfluous; for, on the previous day, so much excitement
had been occasioned in the neighbourhood by the shutters remaining unopened,
that the Instrument-maker's house had been honoured with an unusual share of
public observation, and had been intently stared at from the opposite side of
the way, by groups of hungry gazers, at any time between sunrise and sunset. The
idlers and vagabonds had been particularly interested in the Captain's fate;
constantly grovelling in the mud to apply their eyes to the cellar-grating under
the shop-window, and delighting their imaginations with the fancy that they
could see a piece of his coat as he hung in a corner; though this settlement of
him was stoutly disputed by an opposite faction, who were of opinion that he lay
murdered with a hammer, on the stairs. It was not without exciting some
discontent, therefore, that the subject of these rumours was seen early in the
morning standing at his shop-door as hale and hearty as if nothing had happened;
and the beadle of that quarter, a man of an ambitious character, who had
expected to have the distinction of being present at the breaking open of the
door, and of giving evidence in full uniform before the coroner, went so far as
to say to an opposite neighbour, that the chap in the glazed hat had better not
try it on there - without more particularly mentioning what - and further, that
he, the Beadle, would keep his eye upon him.
    »Captain Cuttle,« said Walter, musing, when they stood resting from their
labours at the shop-door, looking down the old familiar street; it being still
early in the morning; »nothing at all of Uncle Sol, in all that time!«
    »Nothing at all, my lad,« replied the Captain, shaking his head.
    »Gone in search of me, dear, kind old man,« said Walter: »yet never write to
you! But why not? He says, in effect, in this packet that you gave me,« taking
the paper from his pocket, which had been opened in the presence of the
enlightened Bunsby, »that if you never hear from him before opening it, you may
believe him dead. Heaven forbid! But you would have heard of him, even if he
were dead! Some one would have written, surely, by his desire, if he could not;
and have said, on such a day, there died in my house, or under my care, or so
forth, Mr. Solomon Gills of London, who left this last remembrance and this last
request to you.«
    The Captain, who had never climbed to such a clear height of probability
before, was greatly impressed by the wide prospect it opened, and answered, with
a thoughtful shake of his head, »Well said, my lad; very well said.«
    »I have been thinking of this, or, at least,« said Walter, colouring, »I
have been thinking of one thing and another, all through a sleepless night, and
I cannot believe, Captain Cuttle, but that my Uncle Sol (Lord bless him!) is
alive, and will return. I don't so much wonder at his going away, because,
leaving out of consideration that spice of the marvellous which was always in
his character, and his great affection for me, before which every other
consideration of his life became nothing, as no one ought to know so well as I
who had the best of fathers in him,« - Walter's voice was indistinct and husky
here, and he looked away, along the street, - »leaving that out of
consideration, I say, I have often read and heard of people who, having some
near and dear relative, who was supposed to be shipwrecked at sea, have gone
down to live on that part of the sea-shore where any tidings of the missing ship
might be expected to arrive, though only an hour or two sooner than elsewhere,
or have even gone upon her track to the place whither she was bound, as if their
going would create intelligence. I think I should do such a thing myself, as
soon as another, or sooner than many, perhaps. But why my uncle shouldn't write
to you, when he so clearly intended to do so, or how he should die abroad, and
you not know it through some other hand, I cannot make out.«
    Captain Cuttle observed, with a shake of his head, that Jack Bunsby himself
hadn't made it out, and that he was a man as could give a pretty taut opinion
too.
    »If my uncle had been a heedless young man, likely to be entrapped by jovial
company to some drinking-place, where he was to be got rid of for the sake of
what money he might have about him,« said Walter; »or if he had been a reckless
sailor, going ashore with two or three months' pay in his pocket, I could
understand his disappearing, and leaving no trace behind. But, being what he was
- and is, I hope - I can't believe it.«
    »Wal'r, my lad,« inquired the Captain, wistfully eyeing him as he pondered
and pondered, »what do you make of it, then?«
    »Captain Cuttle,« returned Walter, »I don't know what to make of it. I
suppose he never has written! There is no doubt about that?«
    »If so be as Sol Gills wrote, my lad,« replied the Captain, argumentatively,
»where's his dispatch?«
    »Say that he entrusted it to some private hand,« suggested Walter, »and that
it has been forgotten, or carelessly thrown aside, or lost. Even that is more
probable to me, than the other event. In short, I not only cannot bear to
contemplate that other event, Captain Cuttle, but I can't, and won't.«
    »Hope, you see, Wal'r,« said the Captain, sagely, »Hope. It's that as
animates you. Hope is a buoy, for which you overhaul your Little Warbler,
sentimental diwision, but Lord, my lad, like any other buoy, it only floats; it
can't be steered nowhere. Along with the figure-head of Hope,« said the Captain,
»there's a anchor; but what's the good of my having a anchor, if I can't find no
bottom to let it go in?«
    Captain Cuttle said this rather in his character of a sagacious citizen and
householder, bound to impart a morsel from his stores of wisdom to an
inexperienced youth, than in his own proper person. Indeed, his face was quite
luminous as he spoke, with new hope, caught from Walter; and he appropriately
concluded by slapping him on the back; and saying, with enthusiasm, »Hooroar, my
lad! Indiwidually, I'm o' your opinion.«
    Walter, with this cheerful laugh, returned the salutation, and said:
    »Only one word more about my uncle at present, Captain Cuttle. I suppose it
is impossible that he can have written in the ordinary course - by mail packet,
or ship letter, you understand -«
    »Aye, aye, my lad,« said the Captain approvingly.
    »- And that you have missed the letter anyhow?«
    »Why, Wal'r,« said the Captain, turning his eyes upon him with a faint
approach to a severe expression, »an't I been on the look out for any tidings of
that man o' science, old Sol Gills, your uncle, day and night, ever since I lost
him? An't my heart been heavy and watchful always, along of him and you?
Sleeping and waking, an't I been upon my post, and wouldn't I scorn to quit it
while this here Midshipman held together!«
    »Yes, Captain Cuttle,« replied Walter, grasping his hand, »I know you would,
and I know how faithful and earnest all you say and feel is. I am sure of it.
You don't doubt that I am as sure of it as I am that my foot is again upon this
door-step, or that I again have hold of this true hand. Do you?«
    »No, no, Wal'r,« returned the Captain, with his beaming face.
    »I'll hazard no more conjectures,« said Walter, fervently shaking the hard
hand of the Captain, who shook his with no less good-will. »All I will add is,
Heaven forbid that I should touch my uncle's possessions, Captain Cuttle!
Everything that he left here, shall remain in the care of the truest of stewards
and kindest of men - and if his name is not Cuttle, he has no name! Now, best of
friends, about - Miss Dombey.«
    There was a change in Walter's manner, as he came to these two words; and
when he uttered them, all his confidence and cheerfulness appeared to have
deserted him.
    »I thought, before Miss Dombey stopped me when I spoke of her father last
night,« said Walter, »- you remember how?«
    The Captain well remembered, and shook his head.
    »I thought,« said Walter, »before that, that we had but one hard duty to
perform, and that it was, to prevail upon her to communicate with her friends,
and to return home.«
    The Captain muttered a feeble »Awast!« or a »Stand by!« or something or
other, equally pertinent to the occasion; but it was rendered so extremely
feeble by the total discomfiture with which he received this announcement, that
what it was, is mere matter of conjecture.
    »But,« said Walter, »that is over. I think so no longer. I would sooner be
put back again upon that piece of wreck, on which I have so often floated, since
my preservation, in my dreams, and there left to drift, and drive, and die!«
    »Hooroar, my lad!« exclaimed the Captain, in a burst of uncontrollable
satisfaction. »Hooroar! hooroar! hooroar!«
    »To think that she, so young, so good, and beautiful,« said Walter, »so
delicately brought up, and born to such a different fortune, should strive with
the rough world! But we have seen the gulf that cuts off all behind her, though
no one but herself can know how deep it is; and there is no return.«
    Captain Cuttle, without quite understanding this, greatly approved of it,
and observed, in a tone of strong corroboration, that the wind was quite abaft.
    »She ought not to be alone here; ought she, Captain Cuttle?« said Walter,
anxiously.
    »Well, my lad,« replied the Captain, after a little sagacious consideration.
»I don't know. You being here to keep her company, you see, and you two being
jintly -«
    »Dear Captain Cuttle!« remonstrated Walter. »I being here! Miss Dombey, in
her guileless innocent heart, regards me as her adopted brother; but what would
the guile and guilt of my heart be, if I pretended to believe that I had any
right to approach her, familiarly, in that character - if I pretended to forget
that I am bound, in honour, not to do it!«
    »Wal'r, my lad,« hinted the Captain, with some revival of his discomfiture,
»an't there no other character as -«
    »Oh!« returned Walter, »would you have me die in her esteem - in such esteem
as hers - and put a veil between myself and her angel's face for ever, by taking
advantage of her being here for refuge, so trusting and so unprotected, to
endeavour to exalt myself into her lover! What do I say? There is no one in the
world who would be more opposed to me if I could do so, than you.«
    »Wal'r, my lad,« said the Captain, drooping more and more, »prowiding as
there is any just cause or impediment why two persons should not be jined
together in the house of bondage, for which you'll overhaul the place and make a
note, I hope I should declare it as promised and wowed in the banns. So there
an't no other character; an't there, my lad!«
    Walter briskly waved his hand in the negative.
    »Well, my lad,« growled the Captain slowly, »I won't deny but what I find
myself very much down by the head, along o' this here, or but what I've gone
clean about. But as to Lady-lass, Wal'r, mind you, wot's respect and duty to her
is respect and duty in my articles, howsumwer disapinting; and therefore I
follows in your wake, my lad, and feel as you are, no doubt, acting up to
yourself. And there an't no other character, an't there!« said the Captain,
musing over the ruins of his fallen castle with a very despondent face.
    »Now, Captain Cuttle,« said Walter, starting a fresh point with a gayer air,
to cheer the Captain up - but nothing could do that; he was too much concerned -
»I think we should exert ourselves to find some one who would be a proper
attendant for Miss Dombey while she remains here, and who may be trusted. None
of her relations may. It's clear Miss Dombey feels that they are all subservient
to her father. What has become of Susan?«
    »The young woman?« returned the Captain. »It's my belief as she was sent
away again the will of Heart's Delight. I made a signal for her when Lady-lass
first come, and she rated of her very high, and said she had been gone a long
time.«
    »Then,« said Walter, »do you ask Miss Dombey where she's gone, and we'll try
to find her. The morning's getting on, and Miss Dombey will soon be rising. You
are her best friend. Wait for her up stairs, and leave me to take care of all
down here.«
    The Captain, very crest-fallen indeed, echoed the sigh with which Walter
said this, and complied. Florence was delighted with her new room, anxious to
see Walter, and overjoyed at the prospect of greeting her old friend Susan. But
Florence could not say where Susan was gone, except that it was in Essex, and no
one could say, she remembered, unless it were Mr. Toots.
    With this information the melancholy Captain returned to Walter, and gave
him to understand that Mr. Toots was the young gentleman whom he had encountered
on the door-step, and that he was a friend of his, and that he was a young
gentleman of property, and that he hopelessly adored Miss Dombey. The Captain
also related how the intelligence of Walter's supposed fate had first made him
acquainted with Mr. Toots, and how there was solemn treaty and compact between
them, that Mr. Toots should be mute upon the subject of his love.
    The question then was, whether Florence could trust Mr. Toots; and Florence
saying, with a smile, »Oh, yes, with her whole heart!« it became important to
find out where Mr. Toots lived. This Florence didn't know, and the Captain had
forgotten; and the Captain was telling Walter, in the little parlour, that Mr.
Toots was sure to be there soon, when in came Mr. Toots himself.
    »Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, rushing into the parlour without any
ceremony, »I'm in a state of mind bordering on distraction!«
    Mr. Toots had discharged those words, as from a mortar, before he observed
Walter, whom he recognised with what may be described as a chuckle of misery.
    »You'll excuse me, Sir,« said Mr. Toots, holding his forehead, »but I'm at
present in that state that my brain is going, if not gone, and anything
approaching to politeness in an individual so situated would be a hollow
mockery. Captain Gills, I beg to request the favour of a private interview.«
    »Why, Brother,« returned the Captain, taking him by the hand, »you are the
man as we was on the look-out for.«
    »Oh, Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, »what a look-out that must be, of which
I am the object! I haven't dared to shave, I'm in that rash state. I haven't had
my clothes brushed. My hair is matted together. I told the Chicken that if he
offered to clean my boots, I'd stretch him a corpse before me!«
    All these indications of a disordered mind were verified in Mr. Toots's
appearance, which was wild and savage.
    »See here, Brother,« said the Captain. »This here's old Sol Gills's nevy
Wal'r. Him as was supposed to have perished at sea.«
    Mr. Toots took his hand from his forehead, and stared at Walter.
    »Good gracious me!« stammered Mr. Toots. »What a complication of misery!
How-de-do? I - I - I'm afraid you must have got very wet. Captain Gills, will
you allow me a word in the shop?«
    He took the Captain by the coat, and going out with him whispered:
    »That then, Captain Gills, is the party you spoke of, when you said that he
and Miss Dombey were made for one another?«
    »Why, aye, my lad,« replied the disconsolate Captain; »I was of that mind
once.«
    »And at this time!« exclaimed Mr. Toots, with his hand to his forehead
again. »Of all others! - a hated rival! At least, he an't a hated rival,« said
Mr. Toots, stopping short, on second thoughts, and taking away his hand; »what
should I hate him for? No. If my affection has been truly disinterested, Captain
Gills, let me prove it now!«
    Mr. Toots shot back abruptly into the parlour, and said, wringing Walter by
the hand:
    »How-de-do? I hope you didn't take any cold. I - I shall be very glad if
you'll give me the pleasure of your acquaintance. I wish you many happy returns
of the day. Upon my word and honour,« said Mr. Toots, warming as he became
better acquainted with Walter's face and figure, »I'm very glad to see you!«
    »Thank you, heartily,« said Walter. »I couldn't desire a more genuine and
genial welcome.«
    »Couldn't you, though?« said Mr. Toots, still shaking his hand. »It's very
kind of you. I'm much obliged to you. How-de-do? I hope you left everybody quite
well over the - that is, upon the - I mean wherever you came from last, you
know.«
    All these good wishes, and better intentions, Walter responded to manfully.
    »Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, »I should wish to be strictly honourable;
but I trust I may be allowed now, to allude to a certain subject that -«
    »Aye, aye, my lad,« returned the Captain. »Freely, freely.«
    »Then, Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, »and Lieutenant Walters, are you
aware that the most dreadful circumstance have been happening at Mr. Dombey's
house, and that Miss Dombey herself has left her father, who, in my opinion,«
said Mr. Toots, with great excitement, »is a Brute, that it would be a flattery
to call a - a marble monument, or a bird of prey, - and that she is not to be
found, and has gone no one knows where?«
    »May I ask how you heard this?« inquired Walter.
    »Lieutenant Walters,« said Mr. Toots, who had arrived at that appellation by
a process peculiar to himself; probably by jumbling up his Christian name with
the seafaring profession, and supposing some relationship between him and the
Captain, which would extend, as a matter of course, to their titles; »Lieutenant
Walters, I can have no objection to make a straightforward reply. The fact is,
that feeling extremely interested in everything that relates to Miss Dombey -
not for any selfish reason, Lieutenant Walters, for I am well aware that the
most agreeable thing I could do for all parties would be to put an end to my
existence, which can only be regarded as an inconvenience - I have been in the
habit of bestowing a trifle now and then upon a footman; a most respectable
young man, of the name of Towlinson, who has lived in the family some time; and
Towlinson informed me, yesterday evening, that this was the state of things.
Since which, Captain Gills - and Lieutenant Walters - I have been perfectly
frantic, and have been lying down on the sofa all night, the Ruin you behold.«
    »Mr. Toots,« said Walter, »I am happy to be able to relieve your mind. Pray
calm yourself. Miss Dombey is safe and well.«
    »Sir!« cried Mr. Toots, starting from his chair and shaking hands with him
anew, »the relief is so excessive, and unspeakable, that if you were to tell me
now that Miss Dombey was married even, I could smile. Yes, Captain Gills,« said
Mr. Toots, appealing to him, »upon my soul and body, I really think, whatever I
might do to myself immediately afterwards, that I could smile, I am so
relieved.«
    »It will be a greater relief and delight still, to such a generous mind as
yours,« said Walter, not at all slow in returning his greeting, »to find that
you can render service to Miss Dombey. Captain Cuttle, will you have the
kindness to take Mr. Toots up stairs?«
    The Captain beckoned to Mr. Toots, who followed him with a bewildered
countenance, and, ascending to the top of the house, was introduced, without a
word of preparation from his conductor, into Florence's new retreat.
    Poor Mr. Toots's amazement and pleasure at sight of her were such, that they
could find a vent in nothing but extravagance. He ran up to her, seized her
hand, kissed it, dropped it, seized it again, fell upon one knee, shed tears,
chuckled, and was quite regardless of his danger of being pinned by Diogenes,
who, inspired by the belief that there was something hostile to his mistress in
these demonstrations, worked round and round him, as if only undecided at what
particular point to go in for the assault, but quite resolved to do him a
fearful mischief.
    »Oh Di, you bad, forgetful dog! Dear Mr. Toots, I am so rejoiced to see
you!«
    »Thankee,« said Mr. Toots, »I am pretty well, I'm much obliged to you, Miss
Dombey. I hope all the family are the same.«
    Mr. Toots said this without the least notion of what he was talking about,
and sat down on a chair, staring at Florence with the liveliest contention of
delight and despair going on in his face that any face could exhibit.
    »Captain Gills and Lieutenant Walters have mentioned, Miss Dombey,« gasped
Mr. Toots, »that I can do you some service. If I could by any means wash out the
remembrance of that day at Brighton, when I conducted myself - much more like a
Parricide than a person of independent property,« said Mr. Toots, with severe
self-accusation, »I should sink into the silent tomb with a gleam of joy.«
    »Pray, Mr. Toots,« said Florence, »do not wish me to forget anything in our
acquaintance. I never can, believe me. You have been far too kind and good to
me, always.«
    »Miss Dombey,« returned Mr. Toots, »your consideration for my feelings is a
part of your angelic character. Thank you a thousand times. It's of no
consequence at all.«
    »What we thought of asking you,« said Florence, »is, whether you remember
where Susan, whom you were so kind as to accompany to the coach-office when she
left me, is to be found.«
    »Why, I do not certainly, Miss Dombey,« said Mr. Toots, after a little
consideration, »remember the exact name of the place that was on the coach; and
I do recollect that she said she was not going to stop there, but was going
farther on. But, Miss Dombey, if your object is to find her, and to have her
here, myself and the Chicken will produce her with every dispatch that devotion
on my part, and great intelligence on the Chicken's, can insure.«
    Mr. Toots was so manifestly delighted and revived by the prospect of being
useful, and the disinterested sincerity of his devotion was so unquestionable,
that it would have been cruel to refuse him. Florence, with an instinctive
delicacy, forbore to urge the least obstacle, though she did not forbear to
overpower him with thanks; and Mr. Toots proudly took the commission upon
himself for immediate execution.
    »Miss Dombey,« said Mr. Toots, touching her proffered hand, with a pang of
hopeless love visibly shooting through him, and flashing out in his face,
»Good-bye! Allow me to take the liberty of saying, that your misfortunes make me
perfectly wretched, and that you may trust me, next to Captain Gills himself. I
am quite aware, Miss Dombey, of my own deficiencies - they're not of the least
consequence, thank you - but I am entirely to be relied upon, I do assure you,
Miss Dombey.«
    With that Mr. Toots came out of the room, again accompanied by the Captain,
who, standing at a little distance, holding his hat under his arm and arranging
his scattered locks with his hook, had been a not uninterested witness of what
passed. And when the door closed behind them, the light of Mr. Toots's life was
darkly clouded again.
    »Captain Gills,« said that gentleman, stopping near the bottom of the
stairs, and turning round, »to tell you the truth, I am not in a frame of mind
at the present moment, in which I could see Lieutenant Walters with that
entirely friendly feeling towards him that I should wish to harbour in my
breast. We cannot always command our feelings, Captain Gills, and I should take
it as a particular favour if you'd let me out at the private door.«
    »Brother,« returned the Captain, »you shall shape your own course. Wotever
course you take, is plain and seaman-like, I'm very sure.«
    »Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, »you're extremely kind. Your good opinion
is a consolation to me. There is one thing,« said Mr. Toots, standing in the
passage, behind the half-opened door, »that I hope you'll bear in mind, Captain
Gills, and that I should wish Lieutenant Walters to be made acquainted with. I
have quite come into my property now, you know, and - and I don't know what to
do with it. If I could be at all useful in a pecuniary point of view, I should
glide into the silent tomb with ease and smoothness.«
    Mr. Toots said no more, but slipped out quietly and shut the door upon
himself, to cut the Captain off from any reply.
    Florence thought of this good creature, long after he had left her, with
mingled emotions of pain and pleasure. He was so honest and warm-hearted, that
to see him again and be assured of his truth to her in her distress, was a joy
and comfort beyond all price; but for that very reason, it was so affecting to
think that she caused him a moment's unhappiness, or ruffled, by a breath, the
harmless current of his life, that her eyes filled with tears, and her bosom
overflowed with pity. Captain Cuttle, in his different way, thought much of Mr.
Toots too; and so did Walter; and when the evening came, and they were all
sitting together in Florence's new room, Walter praised him in a most
impassioned manner, and told Florence what he had said on leaving the house,
with every graceful setting-off in the way of comment and appreciation that his
own honesty and sympathy could surround it with.
    Mr. Toots did not return upon the next day, or the next, or for several
days; and in the meanwhile Florence, without any new alarm, lived like a quiet
bird in a cage, at the top of the old Instrument-maker's house. But Florence
drooped and hung her head more and more plainly, as the days went on; and the
expression that had been seen in the face of the dead child, was often turned to
the sky from her high window, as if it sought his angel out, on the bright shore
of which he had spoken: lying on his little bed.
    Florence had been weak and delicate of late, and the agitation she had
undergone was not without its influences on her health. But it was no bodily
illness that affected her now. She was distressed in mind; and the cause of her
distress was Walter.
    Interested in her, anxious for her, proud and glad to serve her, and showing
all this with the enthusiasm and ardour of his character, Florence saw that he
avoided her. All the long day through, he seldom approached her room. If she
asked for him, he came, again for the moment as earnest and as bright as she
remembered him when she was a lost child in the staring streets; but he soon
became constrained - her quick affection was too watchful not to know it - and
uneasy, and soon left her. Unsought, he never came, all day, between the morning
and the night. When the evening closed in, he was always there, and that was her
happiest time, for then she half believed that the old Walter of her childhood
was not changed. But, even then, some trivial word, look, or circumstance would
show her that there was an indefinable division between them which could not be
passed.
    And she could not but see that these revealings of a great alteration in
Walter manifested themselves in despite of his utmost efforts to hide them. In
his consideration for her, she thought, and in the earnestness of his desire to
spare her any wound from his kind hand, he resorted to innumerable little
artifices and disguises. So much the more did Florence feel the greatness of the
alteration in him; so much the oftener did she weep at this estrangement of her
brother.
    The good Captain - her untiring, tender, ever zealous friend - saw it, too,
Florence thought, and it pained him. He was less cheerful and hopeful than he
had been at first, and would steal looks at her and Walter, by turns, when they
were all three together of an evening, with quite a sad face.
    Florence resolved, at last, to speak to Walter. She believed she knew now
what the cause of his estrangement was, and she thought it would be a relief to
her full heart, and would set him more at ease, if she told him she had found it
out, and quite submitted to it, and did not reproach him.
    It was on a certain Sunday afternoon, that Florence took this resolution.
The faithful Captain, in an amazing shirt-collar, was sitting by her, reading
with his spectacles on, and she asked him where Walter was.
    »I think he's down below, my lady lass,« returned the Captain.
    »I should like to speak to him,« said Florence, rising hurriedly as if to go
down stairs.
    »I'll rouse him up here, Beauty,« said the Captain, »in a trice.«
    Thereupon the Captain, with much alacrity, shouldered his book - for he made
it a point of duty to read none but very large books on a Sunday, as having a
more staid appearance: and had bargained, years ago, for a prodigious volume at
a book-stall, five lines of which utterly confounded him at any time, insomuch
that he had not yet ascertained of what subject it treated - and withdrew.
Walter soon appeared.
    »Captain Cuttle tells me, Miss Dombey,« he eagerly began on coming in - but
stopped when he saw her face.
    »You are not so well to-day. You look distressed. You have been weeping.«
    He spoke so kindly, and with such a fervent tremor in his voice, that the
tears gushed into her eyes at the sound of his words.
    »Walter,« said Florence, gently, »I am not quite well, and I have been
weeping. I want to speak to you.«
    He sat down opposite to her, looking at her beautiful and innocent face; and
his own turned pale, and his lips trembled.
    »You said, upon the night when I knew that you were saved - and oh! dear
Walter, what I felt that night, and what I hoped!« -
    He put his trembling hand upon the table between them, and sat looking at
her. - »that I was changed. I was surprised to hear you say so, but I
understand, now, that I am. Don't be angry with me, Walter. I was too much
overjoyed to think of it, then.«
    She seemed a child to him again. It was the ingenuous, confiding, loving
child he saw and heard. Not the dear woman, at whose feet he would have laid the
riches of the earth.
    »You remember the last time I saw you, Walter, before you went away?«
    He put his hand into his breast, and took out a little purse.
    »I have always worn it round my neck! If I had gone down in the deep, it
would have been with me at the bottom of the sea.«
    »And you will wear it still, Walter, for my old sake?«
    »Until I die!«
    She laid her hand on his, as fearlessly and simply, as if not a day had
intervened since she gave him the little token of remembrance.
    »I am glad of that. I shall be always glad to think so, Walter. Do you
recollect that a thought of this change seemed to come into our minds at the
same time that evening, when we were talking together?«
    »No!« he answered, in a wondering tone.
    »Yes, Walter. I had been the means of injuring your hopes and prospects even
then. I feared to think so, then, but I know it now. If you were able, then, in
your generosity, to hide from me that you knew it too, you cannot do so now,
although you try as generously as before. You do. I thank you for it, Walter,
deeply, truly; but you cannot succeed. You have suffered too much in your own
hardships, and in those of your dearest relation, quite to overlook the innocent
cause of all the peril and affliction that has befallen you. You cannot quite
forget me in that character, and we can be brother and sister no longer. But,
dear Walter, do not think that I complain of you in this. I might have known it
- ought to have known it - but forgot it in my joy. All I hope is that you may
think of me less irksomely when this feeling is no more a secret one; and all I
ask is, Walter, in the name of the poor child who was your sister once, that you
will not struggle with yourself, and pain yourself, for my sake, now that I know
all!«
    Walter had looked upon her while she said this, with a face so full of
wonder and amazement, that it had room for nothing else. Now he caught up the
hand that touched his, so entreatingly, and held it between his own.
    »Oh, Miss Dombey,« he said, »is it possible that while I have been suffering
so much, in striving with my sense of what is due to you, and must be rendered
to you, I have made you suffer what your words disclose to me? Never, never,
before Heaven, have I thought of you but as the single, bright, pure, blessed
recollection of my boyhood and my youth. Never have I from the first, and never
shall I to the last, regard your part in my life, but as something sacred, never
to be lightly thought of, never to be esteemed enough, never, until death, to be
forgotten. Again to see you look, and hear you speak, as you did on that night
when we parted, is happiness to me that there are no words to utter; and to be
loved and trusted as your brother, is the next great gift I could receive and
prize!«
    »Walter,« said Florence, looking at him earnestly, but with a changing face,
»what is that which is due to me, and must be rendered to me, at the sacrifice
of all this?«
    »Respect,« said Walter, in a low tone. »Reverence.«
    The colour dawned in her face, and she timidly and thoughtfully withdrew her
hand; still looking at him with unabated earnestness.
    »I have not a brother's right,« said Walter. »I have not a brother's claim.
I left a child. I find a woman.«
    The colour overspread her face. She made a gesture as if of entreaty that he
would say no more, and her face dropped upon her hands.
    They were both silent for a time; she weeping.
    »I owe it to a heart so trusting, pure, and good,« said Walter, »even to
tear myself from it, though I rend my own. How dare I say it is my sister's!«
    She was weeping still.
    »If you had been happy; surrounded as you should be by loving and admiring
friends, and by all that makes the station you were born to enviable,« said
Walter; »and if you had called me brother, then, in your affectionate
remembrance of the past, I could have answered to the name from my distant
place, with no inward assurance that I wronged your spotless truth by doing so.
But here - and now!« -
    »Oh thank you, thank you, Walter! Forgive my having wronged you so much. I
had no one to advise me. I am quite alone.«
    »Florence!« said Walter, passionately. »I am hurried on to say, what I
thought, but a few moments ago, nothing could have forced from my lips. If I had
been prosperous; if I had any means or hope of being one day able to restore you
to a station near your own; I would have told you that there was one name you
might bestow upon me - a right above all others, to protect and cherish you -
that I was worthy of in nothing but the love and honour that I bore you, and in
my whole heart being yours. I would have told you that it was the only claim
that you could give me to defend and guard you, which I dare accept and dare
assert; but that if I had that right, I would regard it as a trust so precious
and so priceless, that the undivided truth and fervour of my life would poorly
acknowledge its worth.«
    The head was still bent down, the tears still falling, and the bosom
swelling with its sobs.
    »Dear Florence! Dearest Florence! whom I called so in my thoughts before I
could consider how presumptuous and wild it was. One last time let me call you
by your own dear name, and touch this gentle hand in token of your sisterly
forgetfulness of what I have said.«
    She raised her head, and spoke to him with such a solemn sweetness in her
eyes; with such a calm, bright, placid smile shining on him through her tears;
with such a low, soft tremble in her frame and voice; that the innermost chords
of his heart were touched, and his sight was dim as he listened.
    »No, Walter, I cannot forget it. I would not forget it, for the world. Are
you - are you very poor?«
    »I am but a wanderer,« said Walter, »making voyages to live across the sea.
That is my calling now.«
    »Are you soon going away again, Walter.«
    »Very soon.«
    She sat looking at him for a moment; then timidly put her trembling hand in
his.
    »If you will take me for your wife, Walter, I will love you dearly. If you
will let me go with you, Walter, I will go to the world's end without fear. I
can give up nothing for you - I have nothing to resign, and no one to forsake;
but all my love and life shall be devoted to you, and with my last breath I will
breathe your name to God if I have sense and memory left.«
    He caught her to his heart, and laid her cheek against his own, and now, no
more repulsed, no more forlorn, she wept indeed, upon the breast of her dear
lover.
    Blessed Sunday Bells, ringing so tranquilly in their entranced and happy
ears! Blessed Sunday peace and quiet, harmonising with the calmness in their
souls, and making holy air around them! Blessed twilight stealing on, and
shading her so soothingly and gravely, as she falls asleep, like a hushed child,
upon the bosom she has clung to!
    Oh load of love and trustfulness that lies so lightly there! Aye, look down
on the closed eyes, Walter, with a proudly tender gaze; for in all the wide wide
world they seek but thee now - only thee!
 
The Captain remained in the little parlour until it was quite dark. He took the
chair on which Walter had been sitting, and looked up at the skylight, until the
day, by little and little, faded away, and the stars peeped down. He lighted a
candle, lighted a pipe, smoked it out, and wondered what on earth was going on
up stairs, and why they didn't call him to tea.
    Florence came to his side while he was in the height of his wonderment.
    »Aye! lady lass!« cried the Captain. »Why, you and Wal'r have had a long
spell o' talk, my beauty.«
    Florence put her little hand round one of the great buttons of his coat, and
said, looking down into his face:
    »Dear Captain, I want to tell you something, if you please.«
    The Captain raised his head pretty smartly, to hear what it was. Catching by
this means a more distinct view of Florence, he pushed back his chair, and
himself with it as far as they could go.
    »What! Heart's Delight!« cried the Captain, suddenly elated. »Is it that?«
    »Yes!« said Florence, eagerly.
    »Wal'r! Husband! THAT?« roared the Captain, tossing up his glazed hat into
the skylight.
    »Yes!« cried Florence, laughing and crying together.
    The Captain immediately hugged her; and then, picking up the glazed hat and
putting it on, drew her arm through his, and conducted her up stairs again;
where he felt that the great joke of his life was now to be made.
    »What, Wal'r my lad!« said the Captain, looking in at the door, with his
face like an amiable warming-pan. »So there ain't NO other character, ain't
there?«
    He had like to have suffocated himself with this pleasantry, which he
repeated at least forty times during tea; polishing his radiant face with the
sleeve of his coat, and dabbing his head all over with his pocket-handkerchief,
in the intervals. But he was not without a graver source of enjoyment to fall
back upon, when so disposed, for he was repeatedly heard to say in an under
tone, as he looked with ineffable delight at Walter and Florence:
    »Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad, you never shaped a better course in your life, than
when you made that there little property over, jintly!«
 

                                   Chapter LI

                           Mr. Dombey and the World.

What is the proud man doing, while the days go by? Does he ever think of his
daughter, or wonder where she is gone? Does he suppose she has come home, and is
leading her old life in the weary house? No one can answer for him. He has never
uttered her name, since. His household dread him too much to approach a subject
on which he is resolutely dumb; and the only person who dare question him, he
silences immediately.
    »My dear Paul!« murmurs his sister, sidling into the room, on the day of
Florence's departure, »your wife! that upstart woman! Is it possible that what I
hear confusedly, is true, and that this is her return for your unparalleled
devotion to her; extending, I am sure, even to the sacrifice of your own
relations, to her caprices and haughtiness? My poor brother!«
    With this speech, feelingly reminiscent of her not having been asked to
dinner on the day of the first party, Mrs. Chick makes great use of her
pocket-handkerchief, and falls on Mr. Dombey's neck. But Mr. Dombey frigidly
lifts her off, and hands her to a chair.
    »I thank you, Louisa,« he says, »for this mark of your affection; but desire
that our conversation may refer to any other subject. When I bewail my fate,
Louisa, or express myself as being in want of consolation, you can offer it, if
you will have the goodness.«
    »My dear Paul,« rejoins his sister, with her handkerchief to her face, and
shaking her head, »I know your great spirit, and will say no more upon a theme
so painful and revolting;« on the heads of which two adjectives, Mrs. Chick
visits scathing indignation; »but pray let me ask you - though I dread to hear
something that will shock and distress me - that unfortunate child Florence -«
    »Louisa!« says her brother, sternly, »silence. Not another word of this!«
    Mrs. Chick can only shake her head, and use her handkerchief, and moan over
degenerate Dombeys, who are no Dombeys. But whether Florence has been inculpated
in the flight of Edith, or has followed her, or has done too much, or too
little, or anything, or nothing, she has not the least idea.
    He goes on, without deviation, keeping his thoughts and feelings close
within his own breast, and imparting them to no one. He makes no search for his
daughter. He may think that she is with his sister, or that she is under his own
roof. He may think of her constantly, or he may never think about her. It is all
one for any sign he makes.
    But this is sure; he does not think that he has lost her. He has no
suspicion of the truth. He has lived too long shut up in his towering supremacy,
seeing her, a patient gentle creature, in the path below it, to have any fear of
that. Shaken as he is by his disgrace, he is not yet humbled to the level earth.
The root is broad and deep, and in the course of years its fibres have spread
out and gathered nourishment from everything around it. The tree is struck, but
not down.
    Though he hide the world within him from the world without - which he
believes has but one purpose for the time, and that, to watch him eagerly
wherever he goes - he cannot hide those rebel traces of it, which escape in
hollow eyes and cheeks, a haggard forehead, and a moody, brooding air.
Impenetrable as before, he is still an altered man: and, proud as ever, he is
humbled, or those marks would not be there.
    The world. What the world thinks of him, how it looks at him, what it sees
in him, and what it says - this is the haunting demon of his mind. It is
everywhere where he is; and, worse than that, it is everywhere where he is not.
It comes out with him among his servants, and yet he leaves it whispering
behind; he sees it pointing after him in the street; it is waiting for him in
his counting-house; it leers over the shoulders of rich men among the merchants;
it goes beckoning and babbling among the crowd; it always anticipates him, in
every place; and is always busiest, he knows, when he has gone away. When he is
shut up in his room at night, it is in his house, outside it, audible in
footsteps on the pavement, visible in print upon the table, steaming to and fro
on railroads and in ships: restless and busy everywhere, with nothing else but
him.
    It is not a phantom of his imagination. It is as active in other people's
minds as in his. Witness Cousin Feenix, who comes from Baden-Baden, purposely to
talk to him. Witness Major Bagstock, who accompanies Cousin Feenix on that
friendly mission.
    Mr. Dombey receives them with his usual dignity, and stands erect, in his
old attitude, before the fire. He feels that the world is looking at him out of
their eyes. That it is in the stare of the pictures. That Mr. Pitt, upon the
book-case, represents it. That there are eyes in its own map, hanging on the
wall.
    »An unusually cold spring,« says Mr. Dombey - to deceive the world.
    »Damme, Sir,« says the Major, in the warmth of friendship, »Joseph Bagstock
is a bad hand at a counterfeit. If you want to hold your friends off, Dombey,
and to give them the cold shoulder, J. B. is not the man for your purpose. Joe
is rough and tough, Sir; blunt, Sir, blunt, is Joe. His Royal Highness the late
Duke of York did me the honour to say, deservedly or undeservedly - never mind
that - If there is a man in the service on whom I can depend for coming to the
point, that man is Joe - Joe Bagstock.«
    Mr. Dombey intimates his acquiescence.
    »Now, Dombey,« says the Major, »I am a man of the world. Our friend Feenix -
if I may presume to -«
    »Honoured, I am sure,« says Cousin Feenix.
    »- is,« proceeds the Major, with a wag of his head, »also a man of the
world, Dombey, you are a man of the world. Now, when three men of the world meet
together, and are friends - as I believe« - again appealing to Cousin Feenix.
    »I am sure,« says Cousin Feenix, »most friendly.«
    »- and are friends,« resumes the Major, »Old Joe's opinion is (J. may be
wrong), that the opinion of the world on any particular subject, is very easily
got at.«
    »Undoubtedly,« says Cousin Feenix. »In point of fact, it's quite a
self-evident sort of thing. I am extremely anxious, Major, that my friend Dombey
should hear me express my very great astonishment and regret, that my lovely and
accomplished relative, who was possessed of every qualification to make a man
happy, should have so far forgotten what was due to - in point of fact, to the
world - as to commit herself in such a very extraordinary manner. I have been in
a devilish state of depression ever since; and said indeed to Long Saxby last
night - man of six foot ten, with whom my friend Dombey is probably acquainted -
that it had upset me in a confounded way, and made me bilious. It induces a man
to reflect, this kind of fatal catastrophe,« says Cousin Feenix, »that events do
occur in quite a Providential manner; for if my Aunt had been living at the
time, I think the effect upon a devilish lively woman like herself, would have
been prostration, and that she would have fallen, in point of fact, a victim.«
    »Now, Dombey! -« says the Major, resuming his discourse with great energy.
    »I beg your pardon,« interposes Cousin Feenix. »Allow me another word. My
friend Dombey will permit me to say, that if any circumstance could have added
to the most infernal state of pain in which I find myself on this occasion, it
would be the natural amazement of the world at my lovely and accomplished
relative (as I must still beg leave to call her) being supposed to have so
committed herself with a person - man with white teeth, in point of fact - of
very inferior station to her husband. But while I must, rather peremptorily,
request my friend Dombey not to criminate my lovely and accomplished relative
until her criminality is perfectly established, I beg to assure my friend Dombey
that the family I represent, and which is now almost extinct (devilish sad
reflection for a man), will interpose no obstacle in his way, and will be happy
to assent to any honourable course of proceeding, with a view to the future,
that he may point out. I trust my friend Dombey will give me credit for the
intentions by which I am animated in this very melancholy affair, and - a - in
point of fact, I am not aware that I need trouble my friend Dombey with any
further observations.«
    Mr. Dombey bows, without raising his eyes, and is silent.
    »Now, Dombey,« says the Major, »our friend Feenix having, with an amount of
eloquence that Old Joe B. has never heard surpassed - no, by the Lord, Sir!
never!« - says the Major, very blue, indeed, and grasping his cane in the middle
- »stated the case as regards the lady, I shall presume upon our friendship,
Dombey, to offer a word on another aspect of it. Sir,« says the Major, with the
horse's cough, »the world in these things has opinions, which must be
satisfied.«
    »I know it,« rejoins Mr. Dombey.
    »Of course you know it, Dombey,« says the Major. »Damme, Sir, I know you
know it. A man of your calibre is not likely to be ignorant of it.«
    »I hope not,« replies Mr. Dombey.
    »Dombey!« says the Major, »you will guess the rest. I speak out -
prematurely, perhaps - because the Bagstock breed have always spoken out.
Little, Sir, have they ever got by doing it; but it's in the Bagstock blood. A
shot is to be taken at this man. You have J. B. at your elbow. He claims the
name of friend. God bless you!«
    »Major,« returns Mr. Dombey, »I am obliged. I shall put myself in your hands
when the time comes. The time not being come, I have forborne to speak to you.«
    »Where is the fellow, Dombey?« inquires the Major, after gasping and looking
at him, for a minute.
    »I don't know.«
    »Any intelligence of him?« asks the Major.
    »Yes.«
    »Dombey, I am rejoiced to hear it,« says the Major. »I congratulate you.«
    »You will excuse - even you, Major,« replies Mr. Dombey, »my entering into
any further detail at present. The intelligence is of a singular kind, and
singularly obtained. It may turn out to be valueless; it may turn out to be
true; I cannot say at present. My explanation must stop here.«
    Although this is but a dry reply to the Major's purple enthusiasm, the Major
receives it graciously, and is delighted to think that the world has such a fair
prospect of soon receiving its due. Cousin Feenix is then presented with his
meed of acknowledgement by the husband of his lovely and accomplished relative,
and Cousin Feenix and Major Bagstock retire, leaving that husband to the world
again, and to ponder at leisure on their representation of its state of mind
concerning his affairs, and on its just and reasonable expectations.
    But who sits in the housekeeper's room, shedding tears, and talking to Mrs.
Pipchin in a low tone, with uplifted hands? It is a lady with her face concealed
in a very close black bonnet, which appears not to belong to her. It is Miss
Tox, who has borrowed this disguise from her servant, and comes from Princess's
Place, thus secretly, to revive her old acquaintance with Mrs. Pipchin, in order
to get certain information of the state of Mr. Dombey.
    »How does he bear it, my dear creature?« asks Miss Tox.
    »Well,« says Mrs. Pipchin, in her snappish way, »he's pretty much as usual.«
    »Externally,« suggests Miss Tox. »But what he feels within!«
    Mrs. Pipchin's hard grey eye looks doubtful as she answers, in three
distinct jerks, »Ah! Perhaps. I suppose so.«
    »To tell you my mind, Lucretia,« says Mrs. Pipchin; she still calls Miss Tox
Lucretia, on account of having made her first experiments in the child-quelling
line of business on that lady, when an unfortunate and weazen little girl of
tender years; »to tell you my mind, Lucretia, I think it's a good riddance. I
don't want any of your brazen faces here, myself!«
    »Brazen indeed! Well may you say brazen, Mrs. Pipchin!« returns Miss Tox.
»To leave him! Such a noble figure of a man!« And here Miss Tox is overcome.
    »I don't know about noble, I'm sure,« observes Mrs. Pipchin, irascibly
rubbing her nose. »But I know this - that when people meet with trials, they
must bear 'em. Hoity toity! I have had enough to bear myself, in my time! What a
fuss there is! She's gone and well got rid of. Nobody wants her back, I should
think!«
    This hint of the Peruvian Mines, causes Miss Tox to rise to go away; when
Mrs. Pipchin rings the bell for Towlinson to show her out. Mr. Towlinson, not
having seen Miss Tox for ages, grins, and hopes she's well; observing that he
didn't know her at first, in that bonnet.
    »Pretty well, Towlinson, I thank you,« says Miss Tox. »I beg you'll have the
goodness, when you happen to see me here, not to mention it. My visits are
merely to Mrs. Pipchin.«
    »Very good, Miss,« says Towlinson.
    »Shocking circumstances occur, Towlinson,« says Miss Tox.
    »Very much so indeed, Miss,« rejoins Towlinson.
    »I hope, Towlinson,« says Miss Tox, who, in her instruction of the Toodle
family, has acquired an admonitorial tone, and a habit of improving passing
occasions, »that what has happened here, will be a warning to you, Towlinson.«
    »Thank you, Miss, I'm sure,« says Towlinson.
    He appears to be falling into a consideration of the manner in which this
warning ought to operate in his particular case, when the vinegary Mrs. Pipchin,
suddenly stirring him up with a »What are you doing! Why don't you show the lady
to the door!« he ushers Miss Tox forth. As she passes Mr. Dombey's room, she
shrinks into the inmost depths of the black bonnet, and walks on tip-toe; and
there is not another atom in the world which haunts him so, that feels such
sorrow and solicitude about him, as Miss Tox takes out under the black bonnet
into the street, and tries to carry home shadowed from the newly-lighted lamps.
    But Miss Tox is not a part of Mr. Dombey's world. She comes back every
evening at dusk; adding clogs and an umbrella to the bonnet on wet nights; and
bears the grins of Towlinson, and the huffs and rebuffs of Mrs. Pipchin, and all
to ask how he does, and how he bears his misfortune: but she has nothing to do
with Mr. Dombey's world. Exacting and harassing as ever, it goes on without her;
and she, a by no means bright or particular star, moves in her little orbit in
the corner of another system, and knows it quite well, and comes, and cries, and
goes away, and is satisfied. Verily Miss Tox is easier of satisfaction than the
world that troubles Mr. Dombey so much!
    At the Counting House, the clerks discuss the great disaster in all its
lights and shades, but chiefly wonder who will get Mr. Carker's place. They are
generally of opinion that it will be shorn of some of its emoluments, and made
uncomfortable by newly-devised checks and restrictions; and those who are beyond
all hope of it, are quite sure they would rather not have it, and don't at all
envy the person for whom it may prove to be reserved. Nothing like the
prevailing sensation has existed in the Counting House since Mr. Dombey's little
son died; but all such excitements there take a social, not to say a jovial
turn, and lead to the cultivation of good fellowship. A reconciliation is
established on this propitious occasion between the acknowledged wit of the
Counting House and an aspiring rival, with whom he has been at deadly feud for
months; and a little dinner being proposed, in commemoration of their happily
restored amity, takes place at a neighbouring tavern; the wit in the chair; the
rival acting as Vice-President. The orations following the removal of the cloth
are opened by the Chair, who says, Gentlemen, he can't disguise from himself
that this is not a time for private dissensions. Recent occurrences to which he
need not more particularly allude, but which have not been altogether without
notice in some Sunday Papers, and in a daily paper which he need not name (here
every other member of the company names it in an audible murmur), have caused
him to reflect; and he feels that for him and Robinson to have any personal
differences at such a moment, would be for ever to deny that good feeling in the
general cause, for which he has reason to think and hope that the gentlemen in
Dombey's House have always been distinguished. Robinson replies to this like a
man and a brother; and one gentleman who has been in the office three years,
under continual notice to quit on account of lapses in his arithmetic, appears
in a perfectly new light, suddenly bursting out with a thrilling speech, in
which he says, May their respected chief never again know the desolation which
has fallen on his hearth! and says a great variety of things, beginning with
»May he never again,« which are received with thunders of applause. In short, a
most delightful evening is passed, only interrupted by a difference between two
juniors, who, quarrelling about the probable amount of Mr. Carker's late
receipts per annum, defy each other with decanters, and are taken out greatly
excited. Soda water is in general request at the office next day, and most of
the party deem the bill an imposition.
    As to Perch, the messenger, he is in a fair way of being ruined for life. He
finds himself again constantly in bars of public-houses, being treated and lying
dreadfully. It appears that he met everybody concerned in the late transaction,
everywhere, and said to them, »Sir,« or »Madam,« as the case was, »why do you
look so pale?« at which each shuddered from head to foot, and said, »Oh, Perch!«
and ran away. Either the consciousness of these enormities, or the reaction
consequent on liquor, reduces Mr. Perch to an extreme state of low spirits at
that hour of the evening when he usually seeks consolation in the society of
Mrs. Perch at Balls Pond; and Mrs. Perch frets a good deal, for she fears his
confidence in woman is shaken now, and that he half expects on coming home at
night to find her gone off with some Viscount.
    Mr. Dombey's servants are becoming, at the same time, quite dissipated, and
unfit for other service. They have hot suppers every night, and talk it over
with smoking drinks upon the board. Mr. Towlinson is always maudlin after
half-past ten, and frequently begs to know whether he didn't say that no good
would ever come of living in a corner house? They whisper about Miss Florence,
and wonder where she is; but agree that if Mr. Dombey don't know, Mrs. Dombey
does. This brings them to the latter, of whom Cook says, She had a stately way
though, hadn't she? But she was too high! They all agree that she was too high,
and Mr. Towlinson's old flame, the housemaid (who is very virtuous), entreats
that you will never talk to her any more about people who hold their heads up,
as if the ground wasn't't good enough for 'em.
    Everything that is said and done about it, except by Mr. Dombey, is done in
chorus. Mr. Dombey and the world are alone together.
 

                                  Chapter LII

                              Secret Intelligence.

Good Mrs. Brown and her daughter Alice kept silent company together, in their
own dwelling. It was early in the evening, and late in the spring. But a few
days had elapsed since Mr. Dombey had told Major Bagstock of his singular
intelligence, singularly obtained, which might turn out to be valueless, and
might turn out to be true; and the world was not satisfied yet.
    The mother and daughter sat for a long time without interchanging a word:
almost without motion. The old woman's face was shrewdly anxious and expectant;
that of her daughter was expectant too, but in a less sharp degree, and
sometimes it darkened, as if with gathering disappointment and incredulity. The
old woman, without heeding these changes in its expression, though her eyes were
often turned towards it, sat mumbling and munching, and listening confidently.
    Their abode, though poor and miserable, was not so utterly wretched as in
the days when only Good Mrs. Brown inhabited it. Some few attempts at
cleanliness and order were manifest, though made in a reckless, gipsy way, that
might have connected them, at a glance, with the younger woman. The shades of
evening thickened and deepened as the two kept silence, until the blackened
walls were nearly lost in the prevailing gloom.
    Then Alice broke the silence which had lasted so long, and said:
    »You may give him up, mother. He'll not come here.«
    »Death give him up!« returned the old woman, impatiently. »He will come
here.«
    »We shall see,« said Alice.
    »We shall see him,« returned her mother.
    »And doomsday,« said the daughter.
    »You think I'm in my second childhood, I know!« croaked the old woman.
»That's the respect and duty that I get from my own gal, but I'm wiser than you
take me for. He'll come. T'other day when I touched his coat in the street, he
looked round as if I was a toad. But Lord, to see him when I said their names,
and asked him if he'd like to find out where they was!«
    »Was it so angry?« asked her daughter, roused to interest in a moment.
    »Angry? ask if it was bloody. That's more like the word. Angry? Ha, ha! To
call that only angry!« said the old woman, hobbling to the cupboard, and
lighting a candle, which displayed the workings of her mouth to ugly advantage,
as she brought it to the table. »I might as well call your face only angry, when
you think or talk about 'em.«
    It was something different from that, truly, as she sat as still as a
crouched tigress, with her kindling eyes.
    »Hark!« said the old woman, triumphantly. »I hear a step coming. It's not
the tread of any one that lives about here, or comes this way often. We don't
walk like that. We should grow proud on such neighbours! Do you hear him?«
    »I believe you are right, mother,« replied Alice, in a low voice. »Peace!
open the door.«
    As she drew herself within her shawl, and gathered it about her, the old
woman complied; and peering out, and beckoning, gave admission to Mr. Dombey,
who stopped when he had set his foot within the door, and looked distrustfully
around.
    »It's a poor place for a great gentleman like your worship,« said the old
woman, curtseying and chattering. »I told you so, but there's no harm in it.«
    »Who is that?« asked Mr. Dombey, looking at her companion.
    »That's my handsome daughter,« said the old woman. »Your worship won't mind
her. She knows all about it.«
    A shadow fell upon his face not less expressive than if he had groaned
aloud, »Who does not know all about it!« but he looked at her steadily, and she,
without any acknowledgement of his presence, looked at him. The shadow on his
face was darker when he turned his glance away from her; and even then it
wandered back again, furtively, as if he were haunted by her bold eyes, and some
remembrance they inspired.
    »Woman,« said Mr. Dombey to the old witch who was chuckling and leering
close at his elbow, and who, when he turned to address her, pointed stealthily
at her daughter, and rubbed her hands, and pointed again, »Woman! I believe that
I am weak and forgetful of my station in coming here, but you know why I come,
and what you offered when you stopped me in the street the other day. What is it
that you have to tell me concerning what I want to know; and how does it happen
that I can find voluntary intelligence in a hovel like this,« with a disdainful
glance about him, »when I have exerted my power and means to obtain it in vain?
I do not think,« he said, after a moment's pause, during which he had observed
her, sternly, »that you are so audacious as to mean to trifle with me, or
endeavour to impose upon me. But if you have that purpose, you had better stop
on the threshold of your scheme. My humour is not a trifling one, and my
acknowledgement will be severe.«
    »Oh, a proud, hard gentleman!« chuckled the old woman, shaking her head, and
rubbing her shrivelled hands, »oh hard, hard, hard! But your worship shall see
with your own eyes and hear with your own ears; not with ours - and if your
worship's put upon their track, you won't mind paying something for it, will
you, honourable deary?«
    »Money,« returned Mr. Dombey, apparently relieved, and reassured by this
enquiry, »will bring about unlikely things, I know. It may turn even means as
unexpected and unpromising as these, to account. Yes. For any reliable
information I receive, I will pay. But I must have the information first, and
judge for myself of its value.«
    »Do you know nothing more powerful than money?« asked the younger woman,
without rising, or altering her attitude.
    »Not here, I should imagine,« said Mr. Dombey.
    »You should know of something that is more powerful elsewhere, as I judge,«
she returned. »Do you know nothing of a woman's anger?«
    »You have a saucy tongue, Jade,« said Mr. Dombey.
    »Not usually,« she answered, without any show of emotion: »I speak to you
now, that you may understand us better, and rely more on us. A woman's anger is
pretty much the same here, as in your fine house. I am angry. I have been so,
many years. I have as good cause for my anger as you have for yours, and its
object is the same man.«
    He started, in spite of himself, and looked at her with astonishment.
    »Yes,« she said, with a kind of laugh. »Wide as the distance may seem
between us, it is so. How it is so, is no matter; that is my story, and I keep
my story to myself. I would bring you and him together, because I have a rage
against him. My mother there, is avaricious and poor; and she would sell any
tidings she could glean, or anything, or anybody, for money. It is fair enough,
perhaps, that you should pay her some, if she can help you to what you want to
know. But that is not my motive. I have told you what mine is, and it would be
as strong and all-sufficient with me if you haggled and bargained with her for a
sixpence. I have done. My saucy tongue says no more, if you wait here till
sunrise to-morrow.«
    The old woman, who had shown great uneasiness during this speech, which had
a tendency to depreciate her expected gains, pulled Mr. Dombey softly by the
sleeve, and whispered to him not to mind her. He glanced at them both, by turns,
with a haggard look, and said, in a deeper voice than was usual with him:
    »Go on - what do you know?«
    »Oh, not so fast, your worship! we must wait for some one,« answered the old
woman. »It's to be got from some one else - wormed out - screwed and twisted
from him.«
    »What do you mean?« said Mr. Dombey.
    »Patience,« she croaked, laying her hand, like a claw, upon his arm.
»Patience. I'll get at it. I know I can! If he was to hold it back from me,«
said Good Mrs. Brown, crooking her ten fingers, »I'd tear it out of him!«
    Mr. Dombey followed her with his eyes as she hobbled to the door, and looked
out again: and then his glance sought her daughter; but she remained impassive,
silent, and regardless of him.
    »Do you tell me, woman,« he said, when the bent figure of Mrs. Brown came
back, shaking its head and chattering to itself, »that there is another person
expected here?«
    »Yes!« said the old woman, looking up into his face, and nodding.
    »From whom you are to exact the intelligence that is to be useful to me?«
    »Yes,« said the old woman, nodding again.
    »A stranger?«
    »Chut!« said the old woman, with a shrill laugh. »What signifies! Well,
well; no. No stranger to your worship. But he won't see you. He'd be afraid of
you, and wouldn't talk. You'll stand behind that door, and judge him for
yourself. We don't ask to be believed on trust. What! Your worship doubts the
room behind the door? Oh the suspicion of you rich gentlefolks! Look at it,
then.«
    Her sharp eye had detected an involuntary expression of this feeling on his
part, which was not unreasonable under the circumstances. In satisfaction of it
she now took the candle to the door she spoke of. Mr. Dombey looked in; assured
himself that it was an empty, crazy room; and signed to her to put the light
back in its place.
    »How long,« he asked, »before this person comes?«
    »Not long,« she answered. »Would your worship sit down for a few odd
minutes?«
    He made no answer; but began pacing the room with an irresolute air, as if
he were undecided whether to remain or depart, and as if he had some quarrel
with himself for being there at all. But soon his tread grew slower and heavier,
and his face more sternly thoughtful: as the object with which he had come,
fixed itself in his mind, and dilated there again.
    While he thus walked up and down with his eyes on the ground, Mrs. Brown, in
the chair from which she had risen to receive him, sat listening anew. The
monotony of his step, or the uncertainty of age, made her so slow of hearing,
that a footfall without had sounded in her daughter's ears for some moments, and
she had looked up hastily to warn her mother of its approach, before the old
woman was roused by it. But then she started from her seat, and whispering »Here
he is!« hurried her visitor to his place of observation, and put a bottle and
glass upon the table, with such alacrity as to be ready to fling her arms round
the neck of Rob the Grinder on his appearance at the door.
    »And here's my bonny boy,« cried Mrs. Brown, »at last! - oho, oho! You're
like my own son, Robby!«
    »Oh! Misses Brown!« remonstrated the Grinder. »Don't! Can't you be fond of a
cove without squeedging and throttling of him! Take care of the birdcage in my
hand, will you?«
    »Thinks of a birdcage, afore me!« cried the old woman, apostrophizing the
ceiling. »Me that feels more than a mother for him!«
    »Well, I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you, Misses Brown,« said the
unfortunate youth, greatly aggravated; »but you're so jealous of a cove. I'm
very fond of you myself, and all that, of course; but I don't smother you, do I,
Misses Brown?«
    He looked and spoke as if he would have been far from objecting to do so,
however, on a favourable occasion.
    »And to talk about birdcages, too!« whimpered the Grinder. »As if that was a
crime! Why, look'ee here! Do you know who this belongs to?«
    »To Master, dear?« said the old woman with a grin.
    »Ah!« replied the Grinder, lifting a large cage tied up in a wrapper, on the
table, and untying it with his teeth and hands. »It's our parrot, this is.«
    »Mr. Carker's parrot, Rob?«
    »Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?« returned the goaded Grinder.
»What do you go naming names for? I'm blessed,« said Rob, pulling his hair with
both hands in the exasperation of his feelings, »if she an't enough to make a
cove run wild!«
    »What! Do you snub me, thankless boy!« cried the old woman, with ready
vehemence.
    »Good gracious, Misses Brown, no!« returned the Grinder, with tears in his
eyes. »Was there ever such a -! Don't I dote upon you, Misses Brown?«
    »Do you, sweet Rob? Do you truly, chickabiddy?« With that, Mrs. Brown held
him in her fond embrace once more; and did not release him until he had made
several violent and ineffectual struggles with his legs, and his hair was
standing on end all over his head.
    »Oh!« returned the Grinder, »what a thing it is to be perfectly pitched into
with affection like this here. I wish she was - How have you been, Misses
Brown?«
    »Ah! Not here since this night week!« said the old woman, contemplating him
with a look of reproach.
    »Good gracious, Misses Brown,« returned the Grinder, »I said to-night's a
week, that I'd come to-night, didn't I? And here I am. How you do go on! I wish
you'd be a little rational, Misses Brown. I'm hoarse with saying things in my
defence, and my very face is shiny with being hugged.« He rubbed it hard with
his sleeve, as if to remove the tender polish in question.
    »Drink a little drop to comfort you, my Robin,« said the old woman, filling
the glass from the bottle and giving it to him.
    »Thank'ee, Misses Brown,« returned the Grinder. »Here's your health. And
long may you - et ceterer.« Which to judge from the expression of his face, did
not include any very choice blessings. »And here's her health,« said the
Grinder, glancing at Alice, who sat with her eyes fixed, as it seemed to him, on
the wall behind him, but in reality on Mr. Dombey's face at the door, »and
wishing her the same and many of 'em!«
    He drained the glass to these two sentiments, and set it down.
    »Well, I say, Misses Brown!« he proceeded. »To go on a little rational now.
You're a judge of birds, and up to their ways, as I know to my cost.«
    »Cost!« repeated Mrs. Brown.
    »Satisfaction, I mean,« returned the Grinder. »How you do take up a cove,
Misses Brown! You've put it all out of my head again.«
    »Judge of birds, Robby,« suggested the old woman.
    »Ah!« said the Grinder. »Well, I've got to take care of this parrot -
certain things being sold, and a certain establishment broke up - and as I don't
want no notice took at present, I wish you'd attend to her for a week or so, and
give her board and lodging, will you? If I must come backwards and forwards,«
mused the Grinder with a dejected face, »I may as well have something to come
for.«
    »Something to come for?« screamed the old woman.
    »Besides you, I mean, Misses Brown,« returned the craven Rob. »Not that I
want any inducement but yourself, Misses Brown, I'm sure. Don't begin again, for
goodness' sake.«
    »He don't care for me! He don't care for me, as I care for him!« cried Mrs.
Brown, lifting up her skinny hands. »But I'll take care of his bird.«
    »Take good care of it too, you know, Mrs. Brown,« said Rob, shaking his
head. »If you was so much as to stroke its feathers once the wrong way, I
believe it would be found out.«
    »Ah, so sharp as that, Rob?« said Mrs. Brown, quickly.
    »Sharp, Misses Brown!« repeated Rob. »But this is not to be talked about.«
    Checking himself abruptly, and not without a fearful glance across the room,
Rob filled the glass again, and having slowly emptied it, shook his head, and
began to draw his fingers across and across the wires of the parrot's cage by
way of a diversion from the dangerous theme that had just been broached.
    The old woman eyed him slyly, and hitching her chair nearer his, and looking
in at the parrot, who came down from the gilded dome at her call, said:
    »Out of place now, Robby?«
    »Never you mind, Misses Brown,« returned the Grinder, shortly.
    »Board wages, perhaps, Rob?« said Mrs. Brown.
    »Pretty Polly!« said the Grinder.
    The old woman darted a glance at him that might have warned him to consider
his ears in danger, but it was his turn to look in at the parrot now, and
however expressive his imagination may have made her angry scowl, it was unseen
by his bodily eyes.
    »I wonder Master didn't take you with him, Rob,« said the old woman, in a
wheedling voice, but with increased malignity of aspect.
    Rob was so absorbed in contemplation of the parrot, and in trolling his
forefinger on the wires, that he made no answer.
    The old woman had her clutch within a hair's breadth of his shock of hair as
it stooped over the table; but she restrained her fingers, and said, in a voice
that choked with its efforts to be coaxing:
    »Robby, my child.«
    »Well, Misses Brown,« returned the Grinder.
    »I say I wonder Master didn't take you with him, dear.«
    »Never you mind, Misses Brown,« returned the Grinder.
    Mrs. Brown instantly directed the clutch of her right hand at his hair, and
the clutch of her left hand at his throat, and held on to the object of her fond
affection with such extraordinary fury, that his face began to blacken in a
moment.
    »Misses Brown!« exclaimed the Grinder, »let go, will you! What are you doing
of! Help, young woman! Misses Brow - Brow -!«
    The young woman, however, equally unmoved by his direct appeal to her, and
by his inarticulate utterance, remained quite neutral, until, after struggling
with his assailant into a corner, Rob disengaged himself, and stood there
panting and fenced in by his own elbows, while the old woman, panting too, and
stamping with rage and eagerness, appeared to be collecting her energies for
another swoop upon him. At this crisis Alice interposed her voice, but not in
the Grinder's favour, by saying,
    »Well done, mother. Tear him to pieces!«
    »What, young woman!« blubbered Rob; »are you against me too? What have I
been and done? What am I to be tore to pieces for, I should like to know? Why do
you take and choke a cove who has never done you any harm, neither of you? Call
yourselves females, too!« said the frightened and afflicted Grinder, with his
coat-cuff at his eye. »I'm surprised at you! Where's your feminine tenderness?«
    »You thankless dog!« gasped Mrs. Brown. »You impudent insulting dog!«
    »What have I been and done to go and give you offence, Misses Brown?«
retorted the fearful Rob. »You was very much attached to me a minute ago.«
    »To cut me off with his short answers and his sulky words,« said the old
woman. »Me! Because I happen to be curious to have a little bit of gossip about
Master and the lady, to dare to play at fast and loose with me! But I'll talk to
you no more, my lad. Now go!«
    »I'm sure, Misses Brown,« returned the abject Grinder, »I never insiniwated
that I wished to go. Don't talk like that, Misses Brown, if you please.«
    »I won't talk at all,« said Mrs. Brown, with an action of her crooked
fingers that made him shrink into half his natural compass in the corner. »Not
another word with him shall pass my lips. He's an ungrateful hound. I cast him
off. Now let him go! And I'll slip those after him that shall talk too much;
that won't be shook away; that'll hang to him like leeches, and slink arter him
like foxes. What! He knows 'em. He knows his old games and his old ways. If he's
forgotten 'em, they'll soon remind him. Now let him go, and see how he'll do
Master's business, and keep Master's secrets, with such company always following
him up and down. Ha, ha, ha! He'll find 'em a different sort from you and me,
Ally; close as he is with you and me. Now let him go, now let him go!«
    The old woman, to the unspeakable dismay of the Grinder, walked her twisted
finger round and round, in a ring of some four feet in diameter, constantly
repeating these words, and shaking her fist above her head, and working her
mouth about.
    »Misses Brown,« pleaded Rob, coming a little out of his corner, »I'm sure
you wouldn't injure a cove, on second thoughts, and in cold blood, would you?«
    »Don't talk to me,« said Mrs. Brown, still wrathfully pursuing her circle.
»Now let him go, now let him go!«
    »Misses Brown,« urged the tormented Grinder, »I didn't mean to - Oh, what a
thing it is for a cove to get into such a line as this! - I was only careful of
talking, Misses Brown, because I always am, on account of his being up to
everything; but I might have known it wouldn't have gone any further. I'm sure
I'm quite agreeable,« with a wretched face, »for any little bit of gossip,
Misses Brown. Don't go on like this, if you please. Oh, couldn't you have the
goodness to put in a word for a miserable cove, here!« said the Grinder,
appealing in desperation to the daughter.
    »Come, mother, you hear what he says,« she interposed, in her stern voice,
and with an impatient action of her head; »try him once more, and if you fall
out with him again, ruin him, if you like, and have done with him.«
    Mrs. Brown, moved as it seemed by this very tender exhortation, presently
began to howl; and softening by degrees, took the apologetic Grinder to her
arms, who embraced her with a face of unutterable woe, and like a victim as he
was, resumed his former seat, close by the side of his venerable friend, whom he
suffered, not without much constrained sweetness of countenance, combating very
expressive physiognomical revelations of an opposite character, to draw his arm
through hers, and keep it there.
    »And how's Master, deary dear?« said Mrs. Brown, when, sitting in this
amicable posture, they had pledged each other.
    »Hush! If you'd be so good, Misses Brown, as to speak a little lower,« Rob
implored. »Why, he's pretty well, thank'ee, I suppose.«
    »You're not out of place, Robby?« said Mrs. Brown in a wheedling tone.
    »Why, I'm not exactly out of place, nor in,« faltered Rob. »I - I'm still in
pay, Misses Brown.«
    »And nothing to do, Rob?«
    »Nothing particular to do just now, Misses Brown, but to - keep my eyes
open,« said the Grinder, rolling them in a forlorn way.
    »Master abroad, Rob?«
    »Oh, for goodness' sake, Misses Brown, couldn't you gossip with a cove about
anything else!« cried the Grinder, in a burst of despair.
    The impetuous Mrs. Brown rising directly, the tortured Grinder detained her,
stammering »Ye-es, Misses Brown, I believe he's abroad. What's she staring at?«
he added, in allusion to the daughter, whose eyes were fixed upon the face that
now again looked out behind him.
    »Don't mind her, lad,« said the old woman, holding him closer to prevent his
turning round. »It's her way - her way. Tell me, Rob. Did you ever see the lady,
deary?«
    »Oh, Misses Brown, what lady?« cried the Grinder in a tone of piteous
supplication.
    »What lady?« she retorted. »The lady; Mrs. Dombey.«
    »Yes, I believe I see her once,« replied Rob.
    »The night she went away, Robby, eh?« said the old woman in his ear, and
taking note of every change in his face. »Aha! I know it was that night.«
    »Well, if you know it was that night, you know, Misses Brown,« replied Rob,
»it's no use putting pinchers into a cove to make him say so.«
    »Where did they go that night, Rob? Straight away? How did they go? Where
did you see her? Did she laugh? Did she cry? Tell me all about it,« cried the
old hag, holding him closer yet, patting the hand that was drawn through his arm
against her other hand, and searching every line in his face with her bleared
eyes. »Come! Begin! I want to be told all about it. What, Rob, boy! You and me
can keep a secret together, eh? We've done so before now. Where did they go
first, Rob!«
    The wretched Grinder made a gasp, and a pause.
    »Are you dumb?« said the old woman, angrily.
    »Lord, Misses Brown, no! You expect a cove to be a flash of lightning. I
wish I was the electric fluency,« muttered the bewildered Grinder. »I'd have a
shock at somebody, that would settle their business.«
    »What do you say?« asked the old woman, with a grin.
    »I'm wishing my love to you, Misses Brown,« returned the false Rob, seeking
consolation in the glass. »Where did they go to first, was it! Him and her, do
you mean?«
    »Ah!« said the old woman, eagerly. »Them two.«
    »Why, they didn't go nowhere - not together, I mean,« answered Rob.
    The old woman looked at him, as though she had a strong impulse upon her to
make another clutch at his head and throat, but was restrained by a certain
dogged mystery in his face.
    »That was the art of it,« said the reluctant Grinder; »that's the way nobody
saw 'em go, or has been able to say how they did go. They went different ways, I
tell you, Misses Brown.«
    »Ay, ay, ay! To meet at an appointed place,« chuckled the old woman, after a
moment's silent and keen scrutiny of his face.
    »Why, if they weren't a going to meet somewhere, I suppose they might as
well have stayed at home, mightn't they, Misses Brown?« returned the unwilling
Grinder.
    »Well, Rob? Well?« said the old woman, drawing his arm yet tighter through
her own, as if, in her eagerness, she were afraid of his slipping away.
    »What, haven't we talked enough yet, Misses Brown?« returned the Grinder,
who, between his sense of injury, his sense of liquor, and his sense of being on
the rack, had become so lachrymose, that at almost every answer he scooped his
coat-cuff into one or other of his eyes, and uttered an unavailing whine of
remonstrance. »Did she laugh that night, was it? Didn't you ask if she laughed,
Misses Brown?«
    »Or cried?« added the old woman, nodding assent.
    »Neither,« said the Grinder. »She kept as steady when she and me - oh, I see
you will have it out of me, Misses Brown! But take your solemn oath now, that
you'll never tell anybody.«
    This Mrs. Brown very readily did: being naturally Jesuitical; and having no
other intention in the matter than that her concealed visitor should hear for
himself.
    »She kept as steady, then, when she and me went down to Southampton,« said
the Grinder, »as a image. In the morning she was just the same, Misses Brown.
And when she went away in the packet before daylight, by herself - me pretending
to be her servant, and seeing her safe aboard - she was just the same. Now, are
you contented, Misses Brown?«
    »No, Rob. Not yet,« answered Mrs. Brown, decisively.
    »Oh, here's a woman for you!« cried the unfortunate Rob, in an outburst of
feeble lamentation over his own helplessness. »What did you wish to know next,
Misses Brown?«
    »What became of Master? Where did he go?« she inquired, still holding him
tight, and looking close into his face, with her sharp eyes.
    »Upon my soul, I don't know, Misses Brown,« answered Rob. »Upon my soul I
don't know what he did, nor where he went, nor anything about him. I only know
what he said to me as a caution to hold my tongue, when we parted; and I tell
you this, Misses Brown, as a friend, that sooner than ever repeat a word of what
we're saying now, you had better take and shoot yourself, or shut yourself up in
this house, and set it a-fire, for there's nothing he wouldn't do, to be
revenged upon you. You don't know him half as well as I do, Misses Brown. You're
never safe from him, I tell you.«
    »Haven't I taken an oath,« retorted the old woman, »and won't I keep it?«
    »Well, I'm sure I hope you will, Misses Brown,« returned Rob, somewhat
doubtfully, and not without a latent threatening in his manner. »For your own
sake quite as much as mine.«
    He looked at her as he gave her this friendly caution, and emphasized it
with a nodding of his head; but finding it uncomfortable to encounter the yellow
face with its grotesque action, and the ferret eyes with their keen old wintry
gaze, so close to his own, he looked down uneasily and sat shuffling in his
chair, as if he were trying to bring himself to a sullen declaration that he
would answer no more questions. The old woman, still holding him as before, took
this opportunity of raising the forefinger of her right hand, in the air, as a
stealthy signal to the concealed observer to give particular attention to what
was about to follow.
    »Rob,« she said, in her most coaxing tone.
    »Good gracious, Misses Brown, what's the matter now?« returned the
exasperated Grinder.
    »Rob! where did the lady and Master appoint to meet?«
    Rob shuffled more and more, and looked up and looked down, and bit his
thumb, and dried it on his waistcoat, and finally said, eyeing his tormentor
askant, »How should I know, Misses Brown?«
    The old woman held up her finger again, as before, and replying, »Come, lad!
It's no use leading me to that, and there leaving me. I want to know« - waited
for his answer.
    Rob, after a discomfited pause, suddenly broke out with, »How can I
pronounce the names of foreign places, Mrs. Brown? What an unreasonable woman
you are!«
    »But you have heard it said, Robby,« she retorted firmly, »and you know what
it sounded like. Come!«
    »I never heard it said, Misses Brown,« returned the Grinder.
    »Then,« retorted the old woman quickly, »you have seen it written, and you
can spell it.«
    Rob, with a petulant exclamation between laughing and crying - for he was
penetrated with some admiration of Mrs. Brown's cunning, even through this
persecution - after some reluctant fumbling in his waistcoat pocket, produced
from it a little piece of chalk. The old woman's eyes sparkled when she saw it
between his thumb and finger, and hastily clearing a space on the deal table,
that he might write the word there, she once more made her signal with a shaking
hand.
    »Now I tell you beforehand what it is, Misses Brown,« said Rob, »it's no use
asking me anything else. I won't answer anything else; I can't. How long it was
to be before they met, or whose plan it was that they was to go away alone, I
don't know no more than you do. I don't know any more about it. If I was to tell
you how I found out this word, you'd believe that. Shall I tell you, Misses
Brown?«
    »Yes, Rob.«
    »Well then, Misses Brown. The way - now you won't ask any more, you know?«
said Rob, turning his eyes, which were now fast getting drowsy and stupid, upon
her.
    »Not another word,« said Mrs. Brown.
    »Well then, the way was this. When a certain person left the lady with me,
he put a piece of paper with a direction written on it in the lady's hand,
saying it was in case she should forget. She wasn't't afraid of forgetting, for
she tore it up as soon as his back was turned, and when I put up the carriage
steps, I shook out one of the pieces - she sprinkled the rest out of the window,
I suppose, for there was none there afterwards, though I looked for 'em. There
was only one word on it, and that was this, if you must and will know. But
remember! You're upon your oath, Misses Brown!«
    Mrs. Brown knew that, she said. Rob, having nothing more to say, began to
chalk, slowly and laboriously, on the table.
    »D,« the old woman read aloud, when he had formed the letter.
    »Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?« he exclaimed, covering it with
his hand, and turning impatiently upon her. »I won't have it read out. Be quiet,
will you!«
    »Then write large, Rob,« she returned, repeating her secret signal; »for my
eyes are not good, even at print.«
    Muttering to himself, and returning to his work with an ill will, Rob went
on with the word. As he bent his head down, the person for whose information he
so unconsciously laboured, moved from the door behind him to within a short
stride of his shoulder, and looked eagerly towards the creeping track of his
hand upon the table. At the same time, Alice, from her opposite chair, watched
it narrowly as it shaped the letters, and repeated each one on her lips as he
made it, without articulating it aloud. At the end of every letter her eyes and
Mr. Dombey's met, as if each of them sought to be confirmed by the other; and
thus they both spelt D. I. J. O. N.
    »There!« said the Grinder, moistening the palm of his hand hastily, to
obliterate the word; and not content with smearing it out, rubbing and planing
all trace of it away with his coat-sleeve, until the very colour of the chalk
was gone from the table. »Now, I hope you're contented, Misses Brown!«
    The old woman, in token of her being so, released his arm and patted his
back; and the Grinder, overcome with mortification, cross-examination, and
liquor, folded his arms on the table, laid his head upon them, and fell asleep.
    Not until he had been heavily asleep some time, and was snoring roundly, did
the old woman turn towards the door, where Mr. Dombey stood concealed, and
beckon him to come through the room, and pass out. Even then, she hovered over
Rob, ready to blind him with her hands, or strike his head down, if he should
raise it while the secret step was crossing to the door. But though her glance
took sharp cognizance of the sleeper, it was sharp too for the waking man; and
when he touched her hand with his, and in spite of all his caution, made a
chinking, golden sound, it was as bright and greedy as a raven's.
    The daughter's dark gaze followed him to the door, and noted well how pale
he was, and how his hurried tread indicated that the least delay was an
insupportable restraint upon him, and how he was burning to be active and away.
As he closed the door behind him, she looked round at her mother. The old woman
trotted to her; opened her hand to show what was within; and, tightly closing it
again in her jealousy and avarice, whispered:
    »What will he do, Ally?«
    »Mischief,« said the daughter.
    »Murder?« asked the old woman.
    »He's a madman in his wounded pride, and may do that, for anything we can
say, or he either.«
    Her glance was brighter than her mother's, and the fire that shone in it was
fiercer; but her face was colourless, even to her lips.
    They said no more, but sat apart; the mother communing with her money; the
daughter with her thoughts; the glance of each shining in the gloom of the
feebly lighted room. Rob slept and snored. The disregarded parrot only was in
action. It twisted and pulled at the wires of its cage with its crooked beak,
and crawled up to the dome, and along its roof like a fly, and down again head
foremost, and shook, and bit, and rattled at every slender bar, as if it knew
its master's danger, and was wild to force a passage out and fly away to warn
him of it.
 

                                  Chapter LIII

                               More Intelligence.

There were two of the traitor's own blood - his renounced brother and sister -
on whom the weight of his guilt rested almost more heavily, at this time, than
on the man whom he had so deeply injured. Prying and tormenting as the world
was, it did Mr. Dombey the service of nerving him to pursuit and revenge. It
roused his passion, stung his pride, twisted the one idea of his life into a new
shape, and made some gratification of his wrath the object into which his whole
intellectual existence resolved itself. All the stubbornness and implacability
of his nature, all its hard impenetrable quality, all its gloom and moroseness,
all its exaggerated sense of personal importance, all its jealous disposition to
resent the least flaw in the ample recognition of his importance by others, set
this way like many streams united into one, and bore him on upon their tide. The
most impetuously passionate and violently impulsive of mankind would have been a
milder enemy to encounter than the sullen Mr. Dombey wrought to this. A wild
beast would have been easier turned or soothed than the grave gentleman without
a wrinkle in his starched cravat.
    But the very intensity of his purpose became almost a substitute for action
in it. While he was yet uninformed of the traitor's retreat, it served to divert
his mind from his own calamity, and to entertain it with another prospect. The
brother and sister of his false favourite had no such relief; everything in
their history, past and present, gave his delinquency a more afflicting meaning
to them.
    The sister may have sometimes sadly thought that if she had remained with
him, the companion and friend she had been once, he might have escaped the crime
into which he had fallen. If she ever thought so, it was still without regret
for what she had done, without the least doubt of her duty, without any pricing
or enhancing of her self-devotion. But when this possibility presented itself to
the erring and repentant brother, as it sometimes did, it smote upon his heart
with such a keen, reproachful touch as he could hardly bear. No idea of retort
upon his cruel brother came into his mind. New accusation of himself, fresh
inward lamentings over his own unworthiness, and the ruin in which it was at
once his consolation and his self-reproach that he did not stand alone, were the
sole kind of reflections to which the discovery gave rise in him.
    It was on the very same day whose evening set upon the last chapter, and
when Mr. Dombey's world was busiest with the elopement of his wife, that the
window of the room in which the brother and sister sat at their early breakfast,
was darkened by the unexpected shadow of a man coming to the little porch: which
man was Perch the Messenger.
    »I've stepped over from Balls Pond at a early hour,« said Mr. Perch,
confidentially looking in at the room door, and stopping on the mat to wipe his
shoes all round, which had no mud upon them, »agreeable to my instructions last
night. They was, to be sure and bring a note to you, Mr. Carker, before you went
out in the morning. I should have been here a good hour and a half ago,« said
Mr. Perch, meekly, »but for the state of health of Mrs. P., who I thought I
should have lost in the night, I do assure you, five distinct times.«
    »Is your wife so ill?« asked Harriet.
    »Why, you see,« said Mr. Perch, first turning round to shut the door
carefully, »she takes what has happened in our House so much to heart, Miss. Her
nerves is so very delicate, you see, and soon unstrung. Not but what the
strongest nerves had good need to be shook, I'm sure. You feel it very much
yourself, no doubts.«
    Harriet repressed a sigh, and glanced at her brother.
    »I'm sure I feel it myself, in my humble way,« Mr. Perch went on to say,
with a shake of his head, »in a manner I couldn't have believed if I hadn't been
called upon to undergo. It has almost the effect of drink upon me. I literally
feels every morning as if I had been taking more than was good for me
over-night.«
    Mr. Perch's appearance corroborated this recital of his symptoms. There was
an air of feverish lassitude about it, that seemed referable to drams; and
which, in fact, might no doubt have been traced to those numerous discoveries of
himself in the bars of public-houses, being treated and questioned, which he was
in the daily habit of making.
    »Therefore I can judge,« said Mr. Perch, shaking his head again, and
speaking in a silvery murmur, »of the feelings of such as is at all peculiarly
sitiwated in this most painful rewelation.«
    Here Mr. Perch waited to be confided in; and receiving no confidence,
coughed behind his hand. This leading to nothing, he coughed behind his hat; and
that leading to nothing, he put his hat on the ground and sought in his breast
pocket for the letter.
    »If I rightly recollect, there was no answer,« said Mr. Perch, with an
affable smile; »but perhaps you'll be so good as cast your eye over it, Sir.«
    John Carker broke the seal, which was Mr. Dombey's, and possessing himself
of the contents, which were very brief, replied, »No. No answer is expected.«
    »Then I shall wish you good morning, Miss,« said Perch, taking a step toward
the door, »and hoping, I'm sure, that you'll not permit yourself to be more
reduced in mind than you can help, by the late painful rewelation. The Papers,«
said Mr. Perch, taking two steps back again, and comprehensively addressing both
the brother and sister in a whisper of increased mystery, »is more eager for
news of it than you'd suppose possible. One of the Sunday ones, in a blue cloak
and a white hat, that had previously offered for to bribe me - need I say with
what success? - was dodging about our court last night as late as twenty minutes
after eight o'clock. I see him myself, with his eye at the counting-house
keyhole, which being patent is impervious. Another one,« said Mr. Perch, »with
milintary frogs, is in the parlour of the King's Arms all the blessed day. I
happened, last week, to let a little obserwation fall there, and next morning,
which was Sunday, I see it worked up in print, in a most surprising manner.«
    Mr. Perch resorted to his breast pocket, as if to produce the paragraph, but
receiving no encouragement, pulled out his beaver gloves, picked up his hat, and
took his leave; and before it was high noon, Mr. Perch had related to several
select audiences at the King's Arms and elsewhere, how Miss Carker, bursting
into tears, had caught him by both hands, and said, »Oh! dear dear Perch, the
sight of you is all the comfort I have left!« and how Mr. John Carker had said,
in an awful voice, »Perch, I disown him. Never let me hear him mentioned as a
brother more!«
    »Dear John,« said Harriet, when they were left alone, and had remained
silent for some few moments. »There are bad tidings in that letter.«
    »Yes. But nothing unexpected,« he replied. »I saw the writer yesterday.«
    »The writer?«
    »Mr. Dombey. He passed twice through the counting-house while I was there. I
had been able to avoid him before, but of course could not hope to do that long.
I know how natural it was that he should regard my presence as something
offensive; I felt it must be so, myself.«
    »He did not say so?«
    »No; he said nothing: but I saw that his glance rested on me for a moment,
and I was prepared for what would happen - for what has happened. I am
dismissed!«
    She looked as little shocked and as hopeful as she could, but it was
distressing news, for many reasons.
    »I need not tell you,« said John Carker, reading the letter, »why your name
would henceforth have an unnatural sound, in however remote a connexion with
mine, or why the daily sight of any one who bears it, would be unendurable to
me. I have to notify the cessation of all engagements between us, from this
date, and to request that no renewal of any communication with me, or my
establishment, be ever attempted by you. - Enclosed is an equivalent in money to
a generously long notice, and this is my discharge. Heaven knows, Harriet, it is
a lenient and considerate one, when we remember all!«
    »If it be lenient and considerate to punish you at all, John, for the
misdeed of another,« she replied gently, »yes.«
    »We have been an ill-omened race to him,« said John Carker. »He has reason
to shrink from the sound of our name, and to think that there is something
cursed and wicked in our blood. I should almost think it too, Harriet, but for
you.«
    »Brother, don't speak like this. If you have any special reason, as you say
you have, and think you have - though I say, No! - to love me, spare me the
hearing of such wild mad words!«
    He covered his face with both his hands; but soon permitted her, coming near
him, to take one in her own.
    »After so many years, this parting is a melancholy thing, I know,« said his
sister, »and the cause of it is dreadful to us both. We have to live, too, and
must look about us for the means. Well, well! We can do so, undismayed. It is
our pride, not our trouble, to strive, John, and to strive together!«
    A smile played on her lips, as she kissed his cheek, and entreated him to be
of good cheer.
    »Oh, dearest sister! Tied, of your own noble will, to a ruined man! whose
reputation is blighted; who has no friend himself, and has driven every friend
of yours away!«
    »John!« she laid her hand hastily upon his lips, »for my sake! In
remembrance of our long companionship!« He was silent. »Now let me tell you,
dear,« quietly sitting by his side, »I have, as you have, expected this; and
when I have been thinking of it, and fearing that it would happen, and preparing
myself for it, as well as I could, I have resolved to tell you, if it should be
so, that I have kept a secret from you, and that we have a friend.«
    »What's our friend's name, Harriet?« he answered with a sorrowful smile.
    »Indeed, I don't know, but he once made a very earnest protestation to me of
his friendship and his wish to serve us: and to this day I believe him.«
    »Harriet!« exclaimed her wondering brother, »where does this friend live?«
    »Neither do I know that,« she returned. »But he knows us both, and our
history - all our little history, John. That is the reason why, at his own
suggestion, I have kept the secret of his coming here, from you, lest his
acquaintance with it should distress you.«
    »Here! Has he been here, Harriet?«
    »Here, in this room. Once.«
    »What kind of man?«
    »Not young. Grey-headed, as he said, and fast growing greyer. But generous,
and frank, and good, I am sure.«
    »And only seen once, Harriet?«
    »In this room only once,« said his sister, with the slightest and most
transient glow upon her cheek; »but when here, he entreated me to suffer him to
see me once a week as he passed by, in token of our being well, and continuing
to need nothing at his hands. For I told him, when he proffered us any service
he could render - which was the object of his visit - that we needed nothing.«
    »And once a week -«
    »Once every week since then, and always on the same day, and at the same
hour, he has gone past; always on foot; always going in the same direction -
towards London; and never pausing longer than to bow to me, and wave his hand
cheerfully, as a kind guardian might. He made that promise when he proposed
these curious interviews, and has kept it so faithfully and pleasantly, that if
I ever felt any trifling uneasiness about them in the beginning (which I don't
think I did, John; his manner was so plain and true) it very soon vanished, and
left me quite glad when the day was coming. Last Monday - the first since this
terrible event - he did not go by; and I have wondered whether his absence can
have been in any way connected with what has happened.«
    »How?« inquired her brother.
    »I don't know how. I have only speculated on the coincidence; I have not
tried to account for it. I feel sure he will return. When he does, dear John,
let me tell him that I have at last spoken to you, and let me bring you
together. He will certainly help us to a new livelihood. His entreaty was that
he might do something to smooth my life and yours; and I gave him my promise
that if we ever wanted a friend, I would remember him. Then his name was to be
no secret.«
    »Harriet,« said her brother, who had listened with close attention,
»describe this gentleman to me. I surely ought to know one who knows me so
well.«
    His sister painted, as vividly as she could, the features, stature, and
dress of her visitor; but John Carker, either from having no knowledge of the
original, or from some fault in her description, or from some abstraction of his
thoughts as he walked to and fro, pondering, could not recognise the portrait
she presented to him.
    However, it was agreed between them that he should see the original when he
next appeared. This concluded, the sister applied herself, with a less anxious
breast, to her domestic occupations; and the grey-haired man, late Junior of
Dombey's, devoted the first day of his unwonted liberty to working in the
garden.
    It was quite late at night, and the brother was reading aloud while the
sister plied her needle, when they were interrupted by a knocking at the door.
In the atmosphere of vague anxiety and dread that lowered about them in
connexion with their fugitive brother, this sound, unusual there, became almost
alarming. The brother going to the door, the sister sat and listened timidly.
Some one spoke to him, and he replied and seemed surprised; and after a few
words, the two approached together.
    »Harriet,« said her brother, lighting in their late visitor, and speaking in
a low voice, »Mr. Morfin - the gentleman so long in Dombey's House with James.«
    His sister started back, as if a ghost had entered. In the doorway stood the
unknown friend, with the dark hair sprinkled with grey, the ruddy face, the
broad clear brow, and hazel eyes, whose secret she had kept so long!
    »John!« she said, half-breathless. »It is the gentleman I told you of,
to-day!«
    »The gentleman, Miss Harriet,« said the visitor, coming in - for he had
stopped a moment in the doorway - »is greatly relieved to hear you say that: he
has been devising ways and means, all the way here, of explaining himself, and
has been satisfied with none. Mr. John, I am not quite a stranger here. You were
stricken with astonishment when you saw me at your door just now. I observe you
are more astonished at present. Well! That's reasonable enough under existing
circumstances. If we were not such creatures of habit as we are, we shouldn't
have reason to be astonished half so often.«
    By this time, he had greeted Harriet with that agreeable mingling of
cordiality and respect which she recollected so well, and had sat down near her,
pulled off his gloves, and thrown them into his hat upon the table.
    »There's nothing astonishing,« he said, »in my having conceived a desire to
see your sister, Mr. John, or in my having gratified it in my own way. As to the
regularity of my visits since (which she may have mentioned to you), there is
nothing extraordinary in that. They soon grew into a habit; and we are creatures
of habit - creatures of habit!«
    Putting his hands into his pockets, and leaning back in his chair, he looked
at the brother and sister as if it were interesting to him to see them together;
and went on to say, with a kind of irritable thoughtfulness: »It's this same
habit that confirms some of us, who are capable of better things, in Lucifer's
own pride and stubbornness - that confirms and deepens others of us in villainy -
more of us in indifference - that hardens us from day to day, according to the
temper of our clay, like images, and leaves us as susceptible as images to new
impressions and convictions. You shall judge of its influence on me, John. For
more years than I need name, I had my small, and exactly defined share, in the
management of Dombey's House, and saw your brother (who has proved himself a
scoundrel! Your sister will forgive my being obliged to mention it) extending
and extending his influence, until the business and its owner were his football;
and saw you toiling at your obscure desk every day; and was quite content to be
as little troubled as I might be, out of my own strip of duty, and to let
everything about me go on, day by day, unquestioned, like a great machine - that
was its habit and mine - and to take it all for granted, and consider it all
right. My Wednesday nights came regularly round, our quartette parties came
regularly off, my violoncello was in good tune, and there was nothing wrong in
my world - or if anything not much - or little or much, it was no affair of
mine.«
    »I can answer for your being more respected and beloved during all that time
than anybody in the House, Sir,« said John Carker.
    »Pooh! Good-natured and easy enough, I dare say,« returned the other, »a
habit I had. It suited the Manager; it suited the man he managed: it suited me
best of all. I did what was allotted to me to do, made no court to either of
them, and was glad to occupy a station in which none was required. So I should
have gone on till now, but that my room had a thin wall. You can tell your
sister that it was divided from the Manager's room by a wainscot partition.«
    »They were adjoining rooms; had been one, perhaps, originally; and were
separated, as Mr. Morfin says,« said her brother, looking back to him for the
resumption of his explanation.
    »I have whistled, hummed tunes, gone accurately through the whole of
Beethoven's Sonata in B, to let him know that I was within hearing,« said Mr.
Morfin; »but he never heeded me. It happened seldom enough that I was within
hearing of anything of a private nature, certainly. But when I was, and couldn't
otherwise avoid knowing something of it, I walked out. I walked out once, John,
during a conversation between two brothers, to which, in the beginning, young
Walter Gay was a party. But I overheard some of it before I left the room. You
remember it sufficiently, perhaps, to tell your sister what its nature was?«
    »It referred, Harriet,« said her brother in a low voice, »to the past, and
to our relative positions in the House.«
    »Its matter was not new to me, but was presented in a new aspect. It shook
me in my habit - the habit of nine-tenths of the world - of believing that all
was right about me, because I was used to it,« said their visitor; »and induced
me to recall the history of the two brothers, and to ponder on it. I think it
was almost the first time in my life when I fell into this train of reflection -
how will many things that are familiar, and quite matters of course to us now,
look when we come to see them from that new and distant point of view which we
must all take up, one day or other? I was something less good-natured, as the
phrase goes, after that morning, less easy and complacent altogether.«
    He sat for a minute or so, drumming with one hand on the table; and resumed
in a hurry, as if he were anxious to get rid of his confession.
    »Before I knew what to do, or whether I could do anything, there was a
second conversation between the same two brothers, in which their sister was
mentioned. I had no scruples of conscience in suffering all the waifs and strays
of that conversation to float to me as freely as they would. I considered them
mine by right. After that, I came here to see the sister for myself. The first
time I stopped at the garden gate, I made a pretext of inquiring into the
character of a poor neighbour; but I wandered out of that tract, and I think
Miss Harriet mistrusted me. The second time I asked leave to come in; came in;
and said what I wished to say. Your sister showed me reasons which I dared not
dispute, for receiving no assistance from me then; but I established a means of
communication between us, which remained unbroken until within these few days,
when I was prevented, by important matters that have lately devolved upon me,
from maintaining them.«
    »How little I have suspected this,« said John Carker, »when I have seen you
every day, Sir! If Harriet could have guessed your name -«
    »Why, to tell you the truth, John,« interposed the visitor, »I kept it to
myself for two reasons. I don't know that the first might have been binding
alone; but one has no business to take credit for good intentions, and I made up
my mind, at all events, not to disclose myself until I should be able to do you
some real service or other. My second reason was, that I always hoped there
might be some lingering possibility of your brother's relenting towards you
both; and in that case, I felt that where there was the chance of a man of his
suspicious, watchful character, discovering that you had been secretly
befriended by me, there was the chance of a new and fatal cause of division. I
resolved, to be sure, at the risk of turning his displeasure against myself -
which would have been no matter - to watch my opportunity of serving you with
the head of the House; but the distractions of death, courtship, marriage, and
domestic unhappiness, have left us no head but your brother for this long, long
time. And it would have been better for us,« said the visitor, dropping his
voice, »to have been a lifeless trunk.«
    He seemed conscious that these latter words had escaped him against his
will, and stretching out a hand to the brother, and a hand to the sister,
continued:
    »All I could desire to say, and more, I have now said. All I mean goes
beyond words, as I hope you understand and believe. The time has come, John -
though most unfortunately and unhappily come - when I may help you without
interfering with that redeeming struggle, which has lasted through so many
years; since you were discharged from it to-day by no act of your own. It is
late; I need say no more to-night. You will guard the treasure you have here,
without advice or reminder from me.«
    With these words he rose to go.
    »But go you first, John,« he said good-humouredly, »with a light, without
saying what you want to say, whatever that may be;« John Carker's heart was
full, and he would have relieved it in speech, if he could; »and let me have a
word with your sister. We have talked alone before, and in this room too; though
it looks more natural with you here.«
    Following him out with his eyes, he turned kindly to Harriet, and said in a
lower voice, and with an altered and graver manner:
    »You wish to ask me something of the man whose sister it is your misfortune
to be.«
    »I dread to ask,« said Harriet.
    »You have looked so earnestly at me more than once,« rejoined the visitor,
»that I think I can divine your question. Has he taken money? Is it that?«
    »Yes.«
    »He has not.«
    »I thank Heaven!« said Harriet. »For the sake of John.«
    »That he has abused his trust in many ways,« said Mr. Morfin; »that he has
oftener dealt and speculated to advantage for himself, than for the House he
represented; that he has led the House on, to prodigious ventures, often
resulting in enormous losses; that he has always pampered the vanity and
ambition of his employer, when it was his duty to have held them in check, and
shown, as it was in his power to do, to what they tended here or there; will
not, perhaps, surprise you now. Undertakings have been entered on, to swell the
reputation of the House for vast resources, and to exhibit it in magnificent
contrast to other merchants' houses, of which it requires a steady head to
contemplate the possibly - a few disastrous changes of affairs might render them
the probably - ruinous consequences. In the midst of the many transactions of
the House, in most parts of the world: a great labyrinth of which only he has
held the clue: he has had the opportunity, and he seems to have used it, of
keeping the various results afloat, when ascertained, and substituting estimates
and generalities for facts. But latterly - you follow me, Miss Harriet?«
    »Perfectly, perfectly,« she answered, with her frightened face fixed on his.
»Pray tell me all the worst at once.«
    »Latterly, he appears to have devoted the greatest pains to making these
results so plain and clear, that reference to the private books enables one to
grasp them, numerous and varying as they are, with extraordinary ease. As if he
had resolved to show his employer at one broad view what has been brought upon
him by ministration to his ruling passion! That it has been his constant
practice to minister to that passion basely, and to flatter it corruptly, is
indubitable. In that, his criminality, as it is connected with the affairs of
the House, chiefly consists.«
    »One other word before you leave me, dear Sir,« said Harriet. »There is no
danger in all this?«
    »How danger?« he returned, with a little hesitation.
    »To the credit of the House?«
    »I cannot help answering you plainly, and trusting you completely,« said Mr.
Morfin, after a moment's survey of her face.
    »You may. Indeed you may!«
    »I am sure I may. Danger to the House's credit? No; none. There may be
difficulty, greater or less difficulty, but no danger, unless - unless, indeed -
the head of the House, unable to bring his mind to the reduction of its
enterprises, and positively refusing to believe that it is, or can be, in any
position but the position in which he has always represented it to himself,
should urge it beyond its strength. Then it would totter.«
    »But there is no apprehension of that?« said Harriet.
    »There shall be no half-confidence,« he replied, shaking her hand, »between
us. Mr. Dombey is unapproachable by any one, and his state of mind is haughty,
rash, unreasonable, and ungovernable, now. But he is disturbed and agitated now
beyond all common bounds, and it may pass. You now know all, both worst and
best. No more to-night, and good night!«
    With that he kissed her hand, and, passing out to the door where her brother
stood awaiting his coming, put him cheerfully aside when he essayed to speak;
told him that, as they would see each other soon and often, he might speak at
another time, if he would, but there was no leisure for it then; and went away
at a round pace, in order that no word of gratitude might follow him.
    The brother and sister sat conversing by the fireside, until it was almost
day; made sleepless by this glimpse of the new world that opened before them,
and feeling like two people shipwrecked long ago upon a solitary coast, to whom
a ship had come at last, when they were old in resignation, and had lost all
thought of any other home. But another and different kind of disquietude kept
them waking too. The darkness out of which this light had broken on them
gathered around; and the shadow of their guilty brother was in the house where
his foot had never trod.
    Nor was it to be driven out, nor did it fade before the sun. Next morning it
was there; at noon; at night. Darkest and most distinct at night, as is now to
be told.
    John Carker had gone out, in pursuance of a letter of appointment from their
friend, and Harriet was left in the house alone. She had been alone some hours.
A dull, grave evening, and a deepening twilight, were not favourable to the
removal of the oppression on her spirits. The idea of this brother, long unseen
and unknown, flitted about her in frightful shapes. He was dead, dying, calling
to her, staring at her, frowning on her. The pictures in her mind were so
obtrusive and exact that, as the twilight deepened, she dreaded to raise her
head and look at the dark corners of the room, lest his wraith, the offspring of
her excited imagination, should be waiting there, to startle her. Once she had
such a fancy of his being in the next room, hiding - though she knew quite well
what a distempered fancy it was, and had no belief in it - that she forced
herself to go there, for her own conviction. But in vain. The room resumed its
shadowy terrors, the moment she left it; and she had no more power to divest
herself of these vague impressions of dread, than if they had been stone giants,
rooted in the solid earth.
    It was almost dark, and she was sitting near the window, with her head upon
her hand, looking down, when, sensible of a sudden increase in the gloom of the
apartment, she raised her eyes, and uttered an involuntary cry. Close to the
glass, a pale scared face gazed in; vacantly, for an instant, as searching for
an object; then the eyes rested on herself, and lighted up.
    »Let me in! Let me in! I want to speak to you!« and the hand rattled on the
glass.
    She recognised immediately the woman with the long dark hair, to whom she
had given warmth, food, and shelter, one wet night. Naturally afraid of her,
remembering her violent behaviour, Harriet, retreating a little from the window,
stood undecided and alarmed.
    »Let me in! Let me speak to you! I am thankful - quiet - humble - anything
you like. But let me speak to you.«
    The vehement manner of the entreaty, the earnest expression of the face, the
trembling of the two hands that were raised imploringly, a certain dread and
terror in the voice akin to her own condition at the moment, prevailed with
Harriet. She hastened to the door and opened it.
    »May I come in, or shall I speak here?« said the woman, catching at her
hand.
    »What is it that you want? What is it that you have to say?«
    »Not much, but let me say it out, or I shall never say it. I am tempted now
to go away. There seem to be hands dragging me from the door. Let me come in, if
you can trust me for this once!«
    Her energy again prevailed, and they passed into the firelight of the little
kitchen, where she had before sat, and ate, and dried her clothes.
    »Sit there,« said Alice, kneeling down beside her, »and look at me. You
remember me?«
    »I do.«
    »You remember what I told you I had been, and where I came from, ragged and
lame, with the fierce wind and weather beating on my head?«
    »Yes.«
    »You know how I came back that night, and threw your money in the dirt, and
cursed you and your race. Now, see me here, upon my knees. Am I less earnest
now, than I was then?«
    »If what you ask,« said Harriet, gently, »is forgiveness -«
    »But it's not!« returned the other, with a proud, fierce look. »What I ask
is to be believed. Now you shall judge if I am worthy of belief, both as I was,
and as I am.«
    Still upon her knees, and with her eyes upon the fire, and the fire shining
on her ruined beauty and her wild black hair, one long tress of which she pulled
over her shoulder, and wound about her hand, and thoughtfully bit and tore while
speaking, she went on:
    »When I was young and pretty, and this,« plucking contemptuously at the hair
she held, »was only handled delicately, and couldn't be admired enough, my
mother, who had not been very mindful of me as a child, found out my merits, and
was fond of me, and proud of me. She was covetous and poor, and thought to make
a sort of property of me. No great lady ever thought that of a daughter yet, I'm
sure, or acted as if she did - it's never done, we all know - and that shows
that the only instances of mothers bringing up their daughters wrong, and evil
coming of it, are among such miserable folks as us.«
    Looking at the fire, as if she were forgetful, for the moment, of having any
auditor, she continued in a dreamy way, as she wound the long tress of hair
tight round and round her hand.
    »What came of that, I needn't say. Wretched marriages don't come of such
things, in our degree; only wretchedness and ruin. Wretchedness and ruin came on
me - came on me.«
    Raising her eyes swiftly from their moody gaze upon the fire, to Harriet's
face, she said:
    »I am wasting time, and there is none to spare; yet if I hadn't thought of
all, I shouldn't be here now. Wretchedness and ruin came on me, I say. I was
made a short-lived toy, and flung aside more cruelly and carelessly than even
such things are. By whose hand do you think?«
    »Why do you ask me?« said Harriet.
    »Why do you tremble?« rejoined Alice, with an eager look. »His usage made a
Devil of me. I sunk in wretchedness and ruin, lower and lower yet. I was
concerned in a robbery - in every part of it but the gains - and was found out,
and sent to be tried, without a friend, without a penny. Though I was but a
girl, I would have gone to Death, sooner than ask him for a word, if a word of
his could have saved me. I would! To any death that could have been invented.
But my mother, covetous always, sent to him in my name, told the true story of
my case, and humbly prayed and petitioned for a small last gift - for not so
many pounds as I have fingers on this hand. Who was it, do you think, who
snapped his fingers at me in my misery, lying, as he believed, at his feet, and
left me without even this poor sign of remembrance; well satisfied that I should
be sent abroad, beyond the reach of further trouble to him, and should die, and
rot there? Who was this, do you think?«
    »Why do you ask me?« repeated Harriet.
    »Why do you tremble?« said Alice, laying her hand upon her arm, and looking
in her face, »but that the answer is on your lips! It was your brother James.«
    Harriet trembled more and more, but did not avert her eyes from the eager
look that rested on them.
    »When I knew you were his sister - which was on that night - I came back,
weary and lame, to spurn your gift. I felt that night as if I could have
travelled, weary and lame, over the whole world, to stab him, if I could have
found him in a lonely place with no one near. Do you believe that I was earnest
in all that?«
    »I do! Good Heaven, why are you come again?«
    »Since then,« said Alice, with the same grasp of her arm, and the same look
in her face, »I have seen him! I have followed him with my eyes, in the broad
day. If any spark of my resentment slumbered in my bosom, it sprung into a blaze
when my eyes rested on him. You know he has wronged a proud man, and made him
his deadly enemy. What if I had given information of him to that man?«
    »Information!« repeated Harriet.
    »What if I had found out one who knew your brother's secret; who knew the
manner of his flight; who knew where he and the companion of his flight were
gone? What if I had made him utter all his knowledge, word by word, before his
enemy, concealed to hear it? What if I had sat by at the time, looking into this
enemy's face, and seeing it change till it was scarcely human? What if I had
seen him rush away, mad, in pursuit? What if I knew, now, that he was on his
road, more fiend than man, and must, in so many hours, come up with him?«
    »Remove your hand!« said Harriet, recoiling. »Go away! Your touch is
dreadful to me!«
    »I have done this,« pursued the other, with her eager look, regardless of
the interruption. »Do I speak and look as if I really had? Do you believe what I
am saying?«
    »I fear I must. Let my arm go!«
    »Not yet. A moment more. You can think what my revengeful purpose must have
been, to last so long, and urge me to do this?«
    »Dreadful!« said Harriet.
    »Then when you see me now,« said Alice hoarsely, »here again, kneeling
quietly on the ground, with my touch upon your arm, with my eyes upon your face,
you may believe that there is no common earnestness in what I say, and that no
common struggle has been battling in my breast. I am ashamed to speak the words,
but I relent. I despise myself; I have fought with myself all day, and all last
night; but I relent towards him without reason, and wish to repair what I have
done, if it is possible. I wouldn't have them come together while his pursuer is
so blind and headlong. If you had seen him as he went out last night, you would
know the danger better.«
    »How shall it be prevented! What can I do!« cried Harriet.
    »All night long,« pursued the other, hurriedly, »I had dreams of him - and
yet I didn't sleep - in his blood. All day, I have had him near me.«
    »What can I do!« cried Harriet, shuddering at these words.
    »If there is any one who'll write, or send, or go to him, let them lose no
time. He is at Dijon. Do you know the name, and where it is?«
    »Yes.«
    »Warn him that the man he has made his enemy is in a frenzy, and that he
doesn't't know him if he makes light of his approach. Tell him that he is on the
road - I know he is! - and hurrying on. Urge him to get away while there is time
- if there is time - and not to meet him yet. A month or so will make years of
difference. Let them not encounter, through me. Anywhere but there! Any time but
now! Let his foe follow him, and find him for himself, but not through me! There
is enough upon my head without.«
    The fire ceased to be reflected in her jet black hair, uplifted face, and
eager eyes; her hand was gone from Harriet's arm; and the place where she had
been was empty.
 

                                  Chapter LIV

                                 The Fugitives.

The time, an hour short of midnight; the place, a French Apartment, comprising
some half-dozen rooms; - a dull cold hall or corridor, a dining-room, a
drawing-room, a bed-chamber, and an inner drawing-room, or boudoir, smaller and
more retired than the rest. All these shut in by one large pair of doors on the
main staircase, but each room provided with two or three pairs of doors of its
own, establishing several means of communication with the remaining portion of
the apartment, or with certain small passages within the wall, leading, as is
not unusual in such houses, to some back stairs with an obscure outlet below.
The whole situated on the first floor of so large an Hotel, that it did not
absorb one entire row of windows upon one side of the square court-yard in the
centre, upon which the whole four sides of the mansion looked.
    An air of splendour, sufficiently faded to be melancholy, and sufficiently
dazzling to clog and embarrass the details of life with a show of state, reigned
in these rooms. The walls and ceilings were gilded and painted; the floors were
waxed and polished; crimson drapery hung in festoons from window, door, and
mirror; candelabra, gnarled and intertwisted, like the branches of trees, or
horns of animals, stuck out from the panels of the wall. But in the day-time,
when the lattice-blinds (now closely shut) were opened, and the light let in,
traces were discernible among this finery, of wear and tear and dust, of sun and
damp and smoke, and lengthened intervals of want of use and habitation, when
such shows and toys of life seem sensitive like life, and waste as men shut up
in prison do. Even night, and clusters of burning candles, could not wholly
efface them, though the general glitter threw them in the shade.
    The glitter of bright tapers, and their reflection in looking-glasses,
scraps of gilding and gay colours, were confined, on this night, to one room -
that smaller room within the rest, just now enumerated. Seen from the hall,
where a lamp was feebly burning, through the dark perspective of open doors, it
looked as shining and precious as a gem. In the heart of its radiance sat a
beautiful woman - Edith.
    She was alone. The same defiant, scornful woman still. The cheek a little
worn, the eye a little larger in appearance, and more lustrous, but the haughty
bearing just the same. No shame upon her brow; no late repentance bending her
disdainful neck. Imperious and stately yet, and yet regardless of herself and of
all else, she sat with her dark eyes cast down, waiting for some one.
    No book, no work, no occupation of any kind but her own thought, beguiled
the tardy time. Some purpose, strong enough to fill up any pause, possessed her.
With her lips pressed together, and quivering if for a moment she released them
from her control; with her nostril inflated; her hands clasped in one another;
and her purpose swelling in her breast; she sat, and waited.
    At the sound of a key in the outer door, and a footstep in the hall, she
started up, and cried »Who's that?« The answer was in French, and two men came
in with jingling trays, to make preparation for supper.
    »Who had bade them to do so?« she asked.
    »Monsieur had commanded it, when it was his pleasure to take the apartment.
Monsieur had said, when he stayed there for an hour, en route, and left the
letter for Madame - Madame had received it surely?«
    »Yes.«
    »A thousand pardons! The sudden apprehension that it might have been
forgotten had struck him;« a bald man, with a large beard from a neighbouring
restaurant: »with despair! Monsieur had said that supper was to be ready at that
hour: also that he had forewarned Madame of the commands he had given, in his
letter. Monsieur had done the Golden Head the honour to request that the supper
should be choice and delicate. Monsieur would find that his confidence in the
Golden Head was not misplaced.«
    Edith said no more, but looked on thoughtfully while they prepared the table
for two persons, and set the wine upon it. She arose before they had finished,
and taking a lamp, passed into the bed-chamber and into the drawing-room, where
she hurriedly but narrowly examined all the doors; particularly one in the
former room that opened on the passage in the wall. From this she took the key,
and put it on the outer side. She then came back.
    The men - the second of whom was a dark, bilious subject, in a jacket, close
shaved, and with a black head of hair close cropped - had completed their
preparation of the table, and were standing looking at it. He who had spoken
before, inquired whether Madame thought it would be long before Monsieur
arrived?
    »She couldn't say. It was all one.«
    »Pardon! There was the supper! It should be eaten on the instant. Monsieur
(who spoke French like an Angel - or a Frenchman - it was all the same) had
spoken with great emphasis of his punctuality. But the English nation had so
grand a genius for punctuality. Ah! what noise! Great Heaven, here was Monsieur.
Behold him!«
    In effect, Monsieur, admitted by the other of the two, came, with his
gleaming teeth, through the dark rooms, like a mouth; and arriving in that
sanctuary of light and colour, a figure at full length, embraced Madame, and
addressed her in the French tongue as his charming wife.
    »My God! Madame is going to faint. Madame is overcome with joy!« The bald
man with the beard observed it, and cried out.
    Madame had only shrunk and shivered. Before the words were spoken, she was
standing with her hand upon the velvet back of a great chair; her figure drawn
up to its full height, and her face immoveable.
    »François has flown over to the Golden Head for supper. He flies on these
occasions like an angel or a bird. The baggage of Monsieur is in his room. All
is arranged. The supper will be here this moment.« These facts the bald man
notified with bows and smiles, and presently the supper came.
    The hot dishes were on a chafing-dish; the cold already set forth, with the
change of service on a side-board. Monsieur was satisfied with this arrangement.
The supper table being small, it pleased him very well. Let them set the
chafing-dish upon the floor, and go. He would remove the dishes with his own
hands.
    »Pardon!« said the bald man, politely. »It was impossible!«
    Monsieur was of another opinion. He required no further attendance that
night.
    »But Madame -« the bald man hinted.
    »Madame,« replied Monsieur, »had her own maid. It was enough.«
    »A million pardons! No! Madame had no maid!«
    »I came here alone,« said Edith. »It was my choice to do so. I am well used
to travelling; I want no attendance. They need send nobody to me.«
    Monsieur accordingly, persevering in his first proposed impossibility,
proceeded to follow the two attendants to the outer door, and secure it after
them for the night. The bald man turning round to bow, as he went out, observed
that Madame still stood with her hand upon the velvet back of the great chair,
and that her face was quite regardless of him, though she was looking straight
before her.
    As the sound of Carker's fastening the door resounded through the
intermediate rooms, and seemed to come hushed and stifled into that last distant
one, the sound of the Cathedral clock striking twelve mingled with it, in
Edith's ears. She heard him pause, as if he heard it too and listened; and then
came back towards her, laying a long train of footsteps through the silence, and
shutting all the doors behind him as he came along. Her hand, for a moment, left
the velvet chair to bring a knife within her reach upon the table; then she
stood as she had stood before.
    »How strange to come here by yourself, my love!« he said as he entered.
    »What?« she returned.
    Her tone was so harsh; the quick turn of her head so fierce; her attitude so
repellent; and her frown so black; that he stood, with the lamp in his hand,
looking at her, as if she had struck him motionless.
    »I say,« he at length repeated, putting down the lamp, and smiling his most
courtly smile, »how strange to come here alone! It was unnecessary caution
surely, and might have defeated itself. You were to have engaged an attendant at
Havre or Rouen, and have had abundance of time for the purpose, though you had
been the most capricious and difficult (as you are the most beautiful, my love)
of women.«
    Her eyes gleamed strangely on him, but she stood with her hand resting on
the chair, and said not a word.
    »I have never,« resumed Carker, »seen you look so handsome, as you do
to-night. Even the picture I have carried in my mind during this cruel
probation, and which I have contemplated night and day, is exceeded by the
reality.«
    Not a word. Not a look. Her eyes completely hidden by their drooping lashes,
but her head held up.
    »Hard, unrelenting terms they were!« said Carker, with a smile, »but they
are all fulfilled and passed, and make the present more delicious and more safe.
Sicily shall be the place of our retreat. In the idlest and easiest part of the
world, my soul, we'll both seek compensation for old slavery.«
    He was coming gaily towards her, when, in an instant, she caught the knife
up from the table, and started one pace back.
    »Stand still!« she said, »or I shall murder you!«
    The sudden change in her, the towering fury and intense abhorrence sparkling
in her eyes and lighting up her brow, made him stop as if a fire had stopped
him.
    »Stand still!« she said, »come no nearer me, upon your life!«
    They both stood looking at each other. Rage and astonishment were in his
face, but he controlled them, and said lightly,
    »Come, come! Tush, we are alone, and out of everybody's sight and hearing.
Do you think to frighten me with these tricks of virtue?«
    »Do you think to frighten me,« she answered fiercely, »from any purpose that
I have, and any course I am resolved upon, by reminding me of the solitude of
this place, and there being no help near? Me, who am here alone, designedly? If
I feared you, should I not have avoided you? If I feared you, should I be here,
in the dead of night, telling you to your face what I am going to tell?«
    »And what is that,« he said, »you handsome shrew? Handsomer so, than any
other woman in her best humour?«
    »I tell you nothing,« she returned, »until you go back to that chair -
except this, once again - Don't come near me! Not a step nearer. I tell you, if
you do, as Heaven sees us, I shall murder you!«
    »Do you mistake me for your husband?« he retorted, with a grin.
    Disdaining to reply, she stretched her arm out, pointing to the chair. He
bit his lip, frowned, laughed, and sat down in it, with a baffled, irresolute,
impatient air, he was unable to conceal; and biting his nail nervously, and
looking at her sideways, with bitter discomfiture, even while he feigned to be
amused by her caprice.
    She put the knife down upon the table, and touching her bosom with her hand,
said:
    »I have something lying here that is no love trinket; and sooner than endure
your touch once more, I would use it on you - and you know it, while I speak -
with less reluctance than I would on any other creeping thing that lives.«
    He affected to laugh jestingly, and entreated her to act her play out
quickly, for the supper was growing cold. But the secret look with which he
regarded her, was more sullen and lowering, and he struck his foot once upon the
floor with a muttered oath.
    »How many times,« said Edith, bending her darkest glance upon him, »has your
bold knavery assailed me with outrage and insult? How many times in your smooth
manner, and mocking words and looks, have I been twitted with my courtship and
my marriage? How many times have you laid bare my wound of love for that sweet,
injured girl, and lacerated it? How often have you fanned the fire on which, for
two years, I have writhed; and tempted me to take a desperate revenge, when it
has most tortured me?«
    »I have no doubt, Ma'am,« he replied, »that you have kept a good account,
and that it's pretty accurate. Come, Edith. To your husband, poor wretch, this
was well enough -«
    »Why, if,« she said, surveying him with a haughty contempt and disgust, that
he shrunk under, let him brave it as he would, »if all my other reasons for
despising him could have been blown away like feathers, his having you for his
counsellor and favourite, would have almost been enough to hold their place.«
    »Is that a reason why you have run away with me?« he asked her, tauntingly.
    »Yes, and why we are face to face for the last time. Wretch! We meet
to-night, and part to-night. For not one moment after I have ceased to speak,
will I stay here!«
    He turned upon her with his ugliest look, and griped the table with his
hand; but neither rose, nor otherwise answered or threatened her.
    »I am a woman,« she said, confronting him steadfastly, »who from her very
childhood has been shamed and steeled. I have been offered and rejected, put up
and appraised, until my very soul has sickened. I have not had an accomplishment
or grace that might have been a resource to me, but it has been paraded and
vended to enhance my value, as if the common crier had called it through the
streets. My poor, proud friends, have looked on and approved; and every tie
between us has been deadened in my breast. There is not one of them for whom I
care, as I could care for a pet-dog. I stand alone in the world, remembering
well what a hollow world it has been to me, and what a hollow part of it I have
been myself. You know this, and you know that my fame with it is worthless to
me.«
    »Yes; I imagined that,« he said.
    »And calculated on it,« she rejoined, »and so pursued me. Grown too
indifferent for any opposition but indifference, to the daily working of the
hands that had moulded me to this; and knowing that my marriage would at least
prevent their hawking of me up and down; I suffered myself to be sold as
infamously as any woman with a halter round her neck is sold in any
market-place. You know that.«
    »Yes,« he said, showing all his teeth. »I know that.«
    »And calculated on it,« she rejoined once more, »and so pursued me. From my
marriage day, I found myself exposed to such new shame - to such solicitation
and pursuit (expressed as clearly as if it had been written in the coarsest
words, and thrust into my hand at every turn) from one mean villain, that I felt
as if I had never known humiliation till that time. This shame my husband fixed
upon me; hemmed me round with, himself; steeped me in, with his own hands, and
of his own act, repeated hundreds of times. And thus - forced by the two from
every point of rest I had - forced by the two to yield up the last retreat of
love and gentleness within me, or to be a new misfortune on its innocent object
- driven from each to each, and beset by one when I escaped the other - my anger
rose almost to distraction against both. I do not know against which it rose
higher - the master or the man!«
    He watched her closely, as she stood before him in the very triumph of her
indignant beauty. She was resolute, he saw; undauntable; with no more fear of
him than of a worm.
    »What should I say of honour or of chastity to you!« she went on. »What
meaning would it have to you; what meaning would it have from me! But if I tell
you that the lightest touch of your hand makes my blood cold with antipathy;
that from the hour when I first saw and hated you, to now, when my instinctive
repugnance is enhanced by every minute's knowledge of you I have since had, you
have been a loathsome creature to me which has not its like on earth; how then?«
    He answered, with a faint laugh, »Aye! How then, my queen?«
    »On that night, when, emboldened by the scene you had assisted at, you dared
come to my room and speak to me,« she said, »what passed?«
    He shrugged his shoulders, and laughed again.
    »What passed?« she said.
    »Your memory is so distinct,« he returned, »that I have no doubt you can
recall it.«
    »I can,« she said. »Hear it! Proposing then, this flight - not this flight,
but the flight you thought it - you told me that in the having given you that
meeting, and leaving you to be discovered there, if you so thought fit; and in
the having suffered you to be alone with me many times before, - and having made
the opportunities, you said, - and in the having openly avowed to you that I had
no feeling for my husband but aversion, and no care for myself - I was lost; I
had given you the power to traduce my name; and I lived, in virtuous reputation,
at the pleasure of your breath.«
    »All stratagems in love -« he interrupted, smiling. »The old adage -«
    »On that night,« said Edith, »and then the struggle that I long had had with
something that was not respect for my good fame - that was I know not what -
perhaps the clinging to that last retreat - was ended. On that night, and then,
I turned from everything but passion and resentment. I struck a blow that laid
your lofty master in the dust, and set you there, before me, looking at me now,
and knowing what I mean.«
    He sprung up from his chair with a great oath. She put her hand into her
bosom, and not a finger trembled, not a hair upon her head was stirred. He stood
still: she too: the table and chair between them.
    »When I forget that this man put his lips to mine that night, and held me in
his arms as he has done again to-night,« said Edith, pointing at him; »when I
forget the taint of his kiss upon my cheek - the cheek that Florence would have
laid her guiltless face against - when I forget my meeting with her, while that
taint was hot upon me, and in what a flood the knowledge rushed upon me when I
saw her, that in releasing her from the persecution I had caused by my love, I
brought a shame and degradation on her name through mine, and in all time to
come should be the solitary figure representing in her mind her first avoidance
of a guilty creature - then, Husband, from whom I stand divorced henceforth, I
will forget these last two years, and undo what I have done, and undeceive you!«
    Her flashing eyes, uplifted for a moment, lighted again on Carker, and she
held some letters out in her left hand.
    »See these!« she said, contemptuously. »You have addressed these to me in
the false name you go by; one here, some elsewhere on my road. The seals are
unbroken. Take them back!«
    She crunched them in her hand, and tossed them to his feet. And as she
looked upon him now, a smile was on her face.
    »We meet and part to-night,« she said. »You have fallen on Sicilian days and
sensual rest, too soon. You might have cajoled, and fawned, and played your
traitor's part, a little longer, and grown richer. You purchase your voluptuous
retirement dear!«
    »Edith!« he retorted, menacing her with his hand. »Sit down! Have done with
this! What devil possesses you?«
    »Their name is Legion,« she replied, uprearing her proud form as if she
would have crushed him; »you and your master have raised them in a fruitful
house, and they shall tear you both. False to him, false to his innocent child,
false every way and everywhere, go forth and boast of me, and gnash your teeth
for once to know that you are lying!«
    He stood before her muttering and menacing, and scowling round as if for
something that would help him to conquer her; but with the same indomitable
spirit she opposed him, without faltering.
    »In every vaunt you make,« she said, »I have my triumph. I single out in you
the meanest man I know, the parasite and tool of the proud tyrant, that his
wound may go the deeper and may rankle more. Boast, and revenge me on him! You
know how you came here to-night; you know how you stand cowering there; you see
yourself in colours quite as despicable, if not as odious, as those in which I
see you. Boast then, and revenge me on yourself.«
    The foam was on his lips; the wet stood on his forehead. If she would have
faltered once for only one half-moment, he would have pinioned her; but she was
as firm as rock, and her searching eyes never left him.
    »We don't part so,« he said. »Do you think I am drivelling, to let you go in
your mad temper?«
    »Do you think,« she answered, »that I am to be stayed?«
    »I'll try, my dear,« he said with a ferocious gesture of his head.
    »God's mercy on you, if you try by coming near me!« she replied.
    »And what,« he said, »if there are none of these same boasts and vaunts on
my part? What if I were to turn too? Come!« and his teeth fairly shone again.
»We must make a treaty of this, or I may take some unexpected course. Sit down,
sit down!«
    »Too late!« she cried, with eyes that seemed to sparkle fire. »I have thrown
my fame and good name to the winds! I have resolved to bear the shame that will
attach to me - resolved to know that it attaches falsely - that you know it too
- and that he does not, never can, and never shall. I'll die, and make no sign.
For this I am here alone with you, at the dead of night. For this I have met you
here, in a false name, as your wife. For this, I have been seen here by those
men, and left here. Nothing can save you now.«
    He would have sold his soul to root her, in her beauty, to the floor, and
make her arms drop at her sides, and have her at his mercy. But he could not
look at her, and not be afraid of her. He saw a strength within her that was
resistless. He saw that she was desperate, and that her unquenchable hatred of
him would stop at nothing. His eyes followed the hand that was put with such
rugged uncongenial purpose into her white bosom, and he thought that if it
struck at him, and failed, it would strike there, just as soon.
    He did not venture, therefore, to advance towards her: but the door by which
he had entered was behind him, and he stepped back to lock it.
    »Lastly, take my warning! Look to yourself!« she said, and smiled again.
»You have been betrayed, as all betrayers are. It has been made known that you
are in this place, or were to be, or have been. If I live, I saw my husband in a
carriage in the street to-night!«
    »Strumpet, it's false!« cried Carker.
    At the moment, the bell rang loudly in the hall. He turned white, as she
held her hand up like an enchantress, at whose invocation the sound had come.
    »Hark! do you hear it?«
    He set his back against the door; for he saw a change in her, and fancied
she was coming on to pass him. But, in a moment, she was gone through the
opposite doors communicating with the bed-chamber, and they shut upon her.
    Once turned, once changed in her inflexible unyielding look, he felt that he
could cope with her. He thought a sudden terror, occasioned by this night-alarm,
had subdued her; not the less readily, for her overwrought condition. Throwing
open the doors, he followed, almost instantly.
    But the room was dark; and as she made no answer to his call, he was fain to
go back for the lamp. He held it up, and looked round everywhere, expecting to
see her crouching in some corner; but the room was empty. So, into the
drawing-room and dining-room he went, in succession, with the uncertain steps of
a man in a strange place; looking fearfully about, and prying behind screens and
couches; but she was not there. No, nor in the hall, which was so bare that he
could see that, at a glance.
    All this time, the ringing at the bell was constantly renewed; and those
without were beating at the door. He put his lamp down at a distance, and going
near it, listened. There were several voices talking together: at least two of
them in English; and though the door was thick, and there was great confusion,
he knew one of these too well to doubt whose voice it was.
    He took up his lamp again, and came back quickly through all the rooms,
stopping as he quitted each, and looking round for her, with the light raised
above his head. He was standing thus in the bed-chamber, when the door, leading
to the little passage in the wall, caught his eye. He went to it, and found it
fastened on the other side; but she had dropped a veil in going through, and
shut it in the door.
    All this time the people on the stairs were ringing at the bell, and
knocking with their hands and feet.
    He was not a coward: but these sounds; what had gone before; the strangeness
of the place, which had confused him, even in his return from the hall; the
frustration of his schemes (for, strange to say, he would have been much bolder,
if they had succeeded); the unseasonable time; the recollection of having no one
near to whom he could appeal for any friendly office; above all, the sudden
sense, which made even his heart beat like lead, that the man whose confidence
he had outraged, and whom he had so treacherously deceived, was there to
recognise and challenge him with his mask plucked off his face; struck a panic
through him. He tried the door in which the veil was shut, but couldn't force
it. He opened one of the windows, and looked down through the lattice of the
blind, into the court-yard; but it was a high leap, and the stones were
pitiless.
    The ringing and knocking still continuing - his panic too - he went back to
the door in the bed-chamber, and with some new efforts, each more stubborn than
the last, wrenched it open. Seeing the little staircase not far off, and feeling
the night-air coming up, he stole back for his hat and coat, made the door as
secure after him as he could, crept down lamp in hand, extinguished it on seeing
the street, and having put it in a corner, went out where the stars were
shining.
 

                                   Chapter LV

                        Rob the Grinder Loses His Place.

The porter at the iron gate which shut the court-yard from the street, had left
the little wicket of his house open, and was gone away; no doubt to mingle in
the distant noise at the door of the great staircase. Lifting the latch softly,
Carker crept out, and shutting the jangling gate after him with as little noise
as possible, hurried off.
    In the fever of his mortification and unavailing rage, the panic that had
seized upon him mastered him completely. It rose to such a height that he would
have blindly encountered almost any risk, rather than meet the man of whom, two
hours ago, he had been utterly regardless. His fierce arrival, which he had
never expected; the sound of his voice; their having been so near a meeting,
face to face, he would have braved out this, after the first momentary shock of
alarm, and would have put as bold a front upon his guilt as any villain. But the
springing of his mine upon himself, seemed to have rent and shivered all his
hardihood and self-reliance. Spurned like any reptile; entrapped and mocked;
turned upon, and trodden down by the proud woman whose mind he had slowly
poisoned, as he thought, until she had sunk into the mere creature of his
pleasure; undeceived in his deceit, and with his fox's hide stripped off, he
sneaked away, abashed, degraded, and afraid.
    Some other terror came upon him quite removed from this of being pursued,
suddenly, like an electric shock, as he was creeping through the streets. Some
visionary terror, unintelligible and inexplicable, associated with a trembling
of the ground, - a rush and sweep of something through the air, like Death upon
the wing. He shrunk, as if to let the thing go by. It was not gone, it never had
been there, yet what a startling horror it had left behind.
    He raised his wicked face, so full of trouble, to the night sky, where the
stars, so full of peace, were shining on him as they had been when he first
stole out into the air; and stopped to think what he should do. The dread of
being hunted in a strange remote place, where the laws might not protect him -
the novelty of the feeling that it was strange and remote, originating in his
being left alone so suddenly amid the ruins of his plans - his greater dread of
seeking refuge now, in Italy or in Sicily, where men might be hired to
assassinate him, he thought, at any dark street corner - the waywardness of
guilt and fear - perhaps some sympathy of action with the turning back of all
his schemes - impelled him to turn back too, and go to England.
    »I am safer there, in any case. If I should not decide,« he thought, »to
give this fool a meeting, I am less likely to be traced there, than abroad here,
now. And if I should (this cursed fit being over), at least I shall not be
alone, without a soul to speak to, or advise with, or stand by me. I shall not
be run in upon and worried like a rat.«
    He muttered Edith's name, and clenched his hand. As he crept along, in the
shadow of the massive buildings, he set his teeth, and muttered dreadful
imprecations on her head, and looked from side to side, as if in search of her.
Thus, he stole on to the gate of an inn-yard. The people were a-bed; but his
ringing at the bell soon produced a man with a lantern, in company with whom he
was presently in a dim coach-house, bargaining for the hire of an old phaeton,
to Paris.
    The bargain was a short one; and the horses were soon sent for. Leaving word
that the carriage was to follow him when they came, he stole away again, beyond
the town, past the old ramparts, out on the open road, which seemed to glide
away along the dark plain, like a stream.
    Whither did it flow? What was the end of it? As he paused, with some such
suggestion within him, looking over the gloomy flat where the slender trees
marked out the way, again that flight of Death came rushing up, again went on,
impetuous and resistless, again was nothing but a horror in his mind, dark as
the scene and undefined as its remotest verge.
    There was no wind; there was no passing shadow on the deep shade of the
night; there was no noise. The city lay behind him, lighted here and there, and
starry worlds were hidden by the masonry of spire and roof that hardly made out
any shapes against the sky. Dark and lonely distance lay around him everywhere,
and the clocks were faintly striking two.
    He went forward for what appeared a long time, and a long way; often
stopping to listen. At last the ringing of horses' bells greeted his anxious
ears. Now softer, and now louder, now inaudible, now ringing very slowly over
bad ground, now brisk and merry, it came on; until with a loud shouting and
lashing, a shadowy postilion muffled to the eyes, checked his four struggling
horses at his side.
    »Who goes there! Monsieur?«
    »Yes.«
    »Monsieur has walked a long way in the dark midnight.«
    »No matter. Every one to his taste. Were there any other horses ordered at
the Post-house?«
    »A thousand devils! - and pardons! other horses? at this hour? No.«
    »Listen, my friend. I am much hurried. Let us see how fast we can travel!
The faster, the more money there will be to drink. Off we go then! Quick!«
    »Halloa! whoop! Halloa! Hi!« Away, at a gallop, over the black landscape,
scattering the dust and dirt like spray!
    The clatter and commotion echoed to the hurry and discordance of the
fugitive's ideas. Nothing clear without, and nothing clear within. Objects
flitting past, merging into one another, dimly descried, confusedly lost sight
of, gone! Beyond the changing scraps of fence and cottage immediately upon the
road, a lowering waste. Beyond the shifting images that rose up in his mind and
vanished as they showed themselves, a black expanse of dread and rage and
baffled villainy. Occasionally, a sigh of mountain air came from the distant
Jura, fading along the plain. Sometimes that rush which was so furious and
horrible, again came sweeping through his fancy, passed away, and left a chill
upon his blood.
    The lamps, gleaming on the medley of horses' heads, jumbled with the shadowy
driver, and the fluttering of his cloak, made a thousand indistinct shapes,
answering to his thoughts. Shadows of familiar people, stooping at their desks
and books, in their remembered attitudes; strange apparitions of the man whom he
was flying from, or of Edith; repetitions in the ringing bells and rolling
wheels, of words that had been spoken; confusions of time and place, making last
night a month ago, a month ago last night - home now distant beyond hope, now
instantly accessible; commotion, discord, hurry, darkness, and confusion in his
mind, and all around him. - Hallo! Hi! away at a gallop over the black
landscape; dust and dirt flying like spray, the smoking horses snorting and
plunging as if each of them were ridden by a demon, away in a frantic triumph on
the dark road - whither!
    Again the nameless shock comes speeding up, and as it passes, the bells ring
in his ears whither? The wheels roar in his ears whither? All the noise and
rattle shapes itself into that cry. The lights and shadows dance upon the
horses' heads like imps. No stopping now: no slackening! On, on! Away with him
upon the dark road wildly!
    He could not think to any purpose. He could not separate one subject of
reflection from another, sufficiently to dwell upon it, by itself, for a minute
at a time. The crash of his project for the gaining of a voluptuous compensation
for past restraint; the overthrow of his treachery to one who had been true and
generous to him, but whose least proud word and look he had treasured up, at
interest, for years - for false and subtle men will always secretly despise and
dislike the object upon which they fawn, and always resent the payment and
receipt of homage that they know to be worthless; these were the themes
uppermost in his mind. A lurking rage against the woman who had so entrapped him
and avenged herself was always there; crude and misshapen schemes of retaliation
upon her, floated in his brain; but nothing was distinct. A hurry and
contradiction pervaded all his thoughts. Even while he was so busy with this
fevered, ineffectual thinking, his one constant idea was, that he would postpone
reflection until some indefinite time.
    Then, the old days before the second marriage rose up in his remembrance. He
thought how jealous he had been of the boy, how jealous he had been of the girl,
how artfully he had kept intruders at a distance, and drawn a circle round his
dupe that none but himself should cross; and then he thought, had he done all
this to be flying now, like a scared thief, from only the poor dupe?
    He could have laid hands upon himself for his cowardice, but it was the very
shadow of his defeat, and could not be separated from it. To have his confidence
in his own knavery so shattered at a blow - to be within his own knowledge such
a miserable tool - was like being paralysed. With an impotent ferocity he raged
at Edith, and hated Mr. Dombey and hated himself, but still he fled, and could
do nothing else.
    Again and again he listened for the sound of wheels behind. Again and again
his fancy heard it, coming on louder and louder. At last he was so persuaded of
this, that he cried out, »Stop!« preferring even the loss of ground to such
uncertainty.
    The word soon brought carriage, horses, driver, all in a heap together,
across the road.
    »The devil!« cried the driver, looking over his shoulder, »what's the
matter!«
    »Hark! What's that?«
    »What?«
    »That noise?«
    »Ah Heaven, be quiet, cursed brigand!« to a horse who shook his bells. »What
noise?«
    »Behind. Is it not another carriage at a gallop? There! what's that?«
    »Miscreant with a pig's head, stand still!« to another horse, who bit
another, who frightened the other two, who plunged and backed. »There is nothing
coming.«
    »Nothing.«
    »No, nothing but the day yonder.«
    »You are right, I think. I hear nothing now, indeed. Go on!«
    The entangled equipage, half hidden in the reeking cloud from the horses,
goes on slowly at first, for the driver, checked unnecessarily in his progress,
sulkily takes out a pocket-knife, and puts a new lash to his whip. Then »Hallo,
whoop! Hallo, hi!« Away once more, savagely.
    And now the stars faded, and the day glimmered, and standing in the
carriage, looking back, he could discern the track by which he had come, and see
that there was no traveller within view, on all the heavy expanse. And soon it
was broad day, and the sun began to shine on cornfields and vineyards; and
solitary labourers, risen from little temporary huts by heaps of stones upon the
road, were, here and there, at work repairing the highway, or eating bread. By
and by, there were peasants going to their daily labour, or to market, or
lounging at the doors of poor cottages, gazing idly at him as he passed. And
then there was a postyard, ankle-deep in mud, with steaming dunghills and vast
outhouses half ruined; and looking on this dainty prospect, an immense, old,
shadeless, glaring, stone chateau, with half its windows blinded, and green damp
crawling lazily over it, from the balustraded terrace to the taper tips of the
extinguishers upon the turrets.
    Gathered up moodily in a corner of the carriage, and only intent on going
fast - except when he stood up, for a mile together, and looked back; which he
would do whenever there was a piece of open country - he went on, still
postponing thought indefinitely, and still always tormented with thinking to no
purpose.
    Shame, disappointment, and discomfiture gnawed at his heart; a constant
apprehension of being overtaken, or met - for he was groundlessly afraid even of
travellers, who came towards him by the way he was going - oppressed him
heavily. The same intolerable awe and dread that had come upon him in the night,
returned unweakened in the day. The monotonous ringing of the bells and tramping
of the horses; the monotony of his anxiety, and useless rage; the monotonous
wheel of fear, regret, and passion, he kept turning round and round; made the
journey like a vision, in which nothing was quite real but his own torment.
    It was a vision of long roads; that stretched away to an horizon, always
receding and never gained; of ill-paved towns, up hill and down, where faces
came to dark doors and ill-glazed windows, and where rows of mud-bespattered
cows and oxen were tied up for sale in the long narrow streets, butting and
lowing, and receiving blows on their blunt heads from bludgeons that might have
beaten them in; of bridges, crosses, churches, postyards, new horses being put
in against their wills, and the horses of the last stage reeking, panting, and
laying their drooping heads together dolefully at stable doors; of little
cemeteries with black crosses settled sideways in the graves, and withered
wreaths upon them dropping away; again of long, long roads, dragging themselves
out, up hill and down, to the treacherous horizon.
    Of morning, noon, and sunset; night, and the rising of an early moon. Of
long roads temporarily left behind, and a rough pavement reached; of battering
and clattering over it, and looking up, among house-roofs, at a great
church-tower; of getting out and eating hastily, and drinking draughts of wine
that had no cheering influence; of coming forth afoot, among a host of beggars -
blind men with quivering eyelids, led by old women holding candles to their
faces; idiot girls; the lame, the epileptic, and the palsied - of passing
through the clamour, and looking from his seat at the upturned countenances and
outstretched hands, with a hurried dread of recognising some pursuer pressing
forward - of galloping away again, upon the long, long road, gathered up, dull
and stunned, in his corner, or rising to see where the moon shone faintly on a
patch of the same endless road miles away, or looking back to see who followed.
    Of never sleeping, but sometimes dozing with unclosed eyes, and springing up
with a start, and a reply aloud to an imaginary voice. Of cursing himself for
being there, for having fled, for having let her go, for not having confronted
and defied him. Of having a deadly quarrel with the whole world, but chiefly
with himself. Of blighting everything with his black mood as he was carried on
and away.
    It was a fevered vision of things past and present all confounded together;
of his life and journey blended into one. Of being madly hurried somewhere,
whither he must go. Of old scenes starting up among the novelties through which
he travelled. Of musing and brooding over what was past and distant, and seeming
to take no notice of the actual objects he encountered, but with a wearisome
exhausting consciousness of being bewildered by them, and having their images
all crowded in his hot brain after they were gone.
    A vision of change upon change, and still the same monotony of bells and
wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. Of town and country, postyards, horses,
drivers, hill and valley, light and darkness, road and pavement, height and
hollow, wet weather and dry, and still the same monotony of bells and wheels,
and horses' feet, and no rest. A vision of tending on at last, towards the
distant capital, by busier roads, and sweeping round, by old cathedrals, and
dashing through small towns and villages, less thinly scattered on the road than
formerly, and sitting shrouded in his corner, with his cloak up to his face, as
people passing by looked at him.
    Of rolling on and on, always postponing thought, and always racked with
thinking; of being unable to reckon up the hours he had been upon the road, or
to comprehend the points of time and place in his journey. Of being parched and
giddy, and half mad. Of pressing on, in spite of all, as if he could not stop,
and coming into Paris, where the turbid river held its swift course undisturbed,
between two brawling streams of life and motion.
    A troubled vision, then, of bridges, quays, interminable streets; of
wine-shops, water-carriers, great crowds of people, soldiers, coaches, military
drums, arcades. Of the monotony of bells and wheels and horses' feet being at
length lost in the universal din and uproar. Of the gradual subsidence of that
noise as he passed out in another carriage by a different barrier from that by
which he had entered. Of the restoration, as he travelled on towards the
sea-coast, of the monotony of bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest.
    Of sunset once again, and nightfall. Of long roads again, and dead of night,
and feeble lights in windows by the road-side; and still the old monotony of
bells and wheels, and horses' feet, and no rest. Of dawn, and daybreak, and the
rising of the sun. Of toiling slowly up a hill, and feeling on its top the fresh
sea-breeze; and seeing the morning light upon the edges of the distant waves. Of
coming down into a harbour when the tide was at its full, and seeing
fishing-boats float on, and glad women and children waiting for them. Of nets
and seamen's clothes spread out to dry upon the shore; of busy sailors, and
their voices high among ships' masts and rigging; of the buoyancy and brightness
of the water, and the universal sparkling.
    Of receding from the coast, and looking back upon it from the deck when it
was a haze upon the water, with here and there a little opening of bright land
where the Sun struck. Of the swell, and flash, and murmur of the calm sea. Of
another grey line on the ocean, on the vessel's track, fast growing clearer and
higher. Of cliffs and buildings, and a windmill, and a church, becoming more and
more visible upon it. Of steaming on at last into smooth water, and mooring to a
pier whence groups of people looked down, greeting friends on board. Of
disembarking, passing among them quickly, shunning every one; and of being at
last again in England.
    He had thought, in his dream, of going down into a remote country-place he
knew, and lying quiet there, while he secretly informed himself of what
transpired, and determined how to act. Still in the same stunned condition, he
remembered a certain station on the railway, where he would have to branch off
to his place of destination, and where there was a quiet Inn. Here, he
indistinctly resolved to tarry and rest.
    With this purpose he slunk into a railway carriage as quickly as he could,
and lying there wrapped in his cloak as if he were asleep, was soon borne far
away from the sea, and deep into the inland green. Arrived at his destination he
looked out, and surveyed it carefully. He was not mistaken in his impression of
the place. It was a retired spot, on the borders of a little wood. Only one
house, newly-built or altered for the purpose, stood there, surrounded by its
neat garden; the small town that was nearest, was some miles away. Here he
alighted then; and going straight into the tavern, unobserved by any one,
secured two rooms up stairs comunicating with each other, sufficiently retired.
    His object was to rest, and recover the command of himself, and the balance
of his mind. Imbecile discomfiture and rage - so that, as he walked about his
room, he ground his teeth - had complete possession of him. His thoughts, not to
be stopped or directed, still wandered where they would, and dragged him after
them. He was stupefied, and he was wearied to death.
    But, as if there were a curse upon him that he should never rest again, his
drowsy senses would not lose their consciousness. He had no more influence with
them in this regard, than if they had been another man's. It was not that they
forced him to take note of present sounds and objects, but that they would not
be diverted from the whole hurried vision of his journey. It was constantly
before him all at once. She stood there, with her dark disdainful eyes again
upon him; and he was riding on nevertheless, through town and country, light and
darkness, wet weather and dry, over road and pavement, hill and valley, height
and hollow, jaded and scared by the monotony of bells and wheels, and horses'
feet, and no rest.
    »What day is this?« he asked of the waiter, who was making preparations for
his dinner.
    »Day, Sir?«
    »Is it Wednesday?«
    »Wednesday, Sir? No, Sir. Thursday, Sir.«
    »I forgot. How goes the time? My watch is unwound.«
    »Wants a few minutes of five o'clock, Sir. Been travelling a long time, Sir,
perhaps?«
    »Yes.«
    »By rail, Sir?«
    »Yes.«
    »Very confusing, Sir. Not much in the habit of travelling by rail myself,
Sir, but gentlemen frequently say so.«
    »Do many gentlemen come here?«
    »Pretty well, Sir, in general. Nobody here at present. Rather slack just
now, Sir. Everything is slack, Sir.«
    He made no answer; but had risen into a sitting posture on the sofa where he
had been lying, and leaned forward with an arm on each knee, staring at the
ground. He could not master his own attention for a minute together. It rushed
away where it would, but it never, for an instant, lost itself in sleep.
    He drank a quantity of wine after dinner, in vain. No such artificial means
would bring sleep to his eyes. His thoughts, more incoherent, dragged him more
unmercifully after them - as if a wretch, condemned to such expiation, were
drawn at the heels of wild horses. No oblivion, and no rest.
    How long he sat, drinking and brooding, and being dragged in imagination
hither and thither, no one could have told less correctly than he. But he knew
that he had been sitting a long time by candle-light, when he started up and
listened, in a sudden terror.
    For now, indeed, it was no fancy. The ground shook, the house rattled, the
fierce impetuous rush was in the air! He felt it come up, and go darting by; and
even when he had hurried to the window, and saw what it was, he stood, shrinking
from it, as if it were not safe to look.
    A curse upon the fiery devil, thundering along so smoothly, tracked through
the distant valley by a glare of light and lurid smoke, and gone! He felt as if
he had been plucked out of its path, and saved from being torn asunder. It made
him shrink and shudder even now, when its faintest hum was hushed, and when the
lines of iron road he could trace in the moonlight, running to a point, were as
empty and as silent as a desert.
    Unable to rest, and irresistibly attracted - or he thought so - to this
road, he went out and lounged on the brink of it, marking the way the train had
gone, by the yet smoking cinders that were lying in its track. After a lounge of
some half hour in the direction by which it had disappeared, he turned and
walked the other way - still keeping to the brink of the road - past the inn
garden, and a long way down; looking curiously at the bridges, signals, lamps,
and wondering when another Devil would come by.
    A trembling of the ground, and quick vibration in his ears; a distant
shriek; a dull light advancing, quickly changed to two red eyes, and a fierce
fire, dropping glowing coals; an irresistible bearing on of a great roaring and
dilating mass; a high wind, and a rattle - another come and gone, and he holding
to a gate, as if to save himself!
    He waited for another, and for another. He walked back to his former point,
and back again to that, and still, through the wearisome vision of his journey,
looked for these approaching monsters. He loitered about the station, waiting
until one should stay to call there; and when one did, and was detached for
water, he stood parallel with it, watching its heavy wheels and brazen front,
and thinking what a cruel power and might it had. Ugh! To see the great wheels
slowly turning, and to think of being run down and crushed!
    Disordered with wine and want of rest - that want which nothing, although he
was so weary, would appease - these ideas and objects assumed a diseased
importance in his thoughts. When he went back to his room, which was not until
near midnight, they still haunted him, and he sat listening for the coming of
another.
    So in his bed, whither he repaired with no hope of sleep. He still lay
listening; and when he felt the trembling and vibration, got up and went to the
window, to watch (as he could from its position) the dull light changing to the
two red eyes, and the fierce fire dropping glowing coals, and the rush of the
giant as it fled past, and the track of glare and smoke along the valley. Then
he would glance in the direction by which he intended to depart at sunrise, as
there was no rest for him there; and would lie down again, to be troubled by the
vision of his journey, and the old monotony of bells and wheels and horses'
feet, until another came. This lasted all night. So far from resuming the
mastery of himself, he seemed, if possible, to lose it more and more, as the
night crept on. When the dawn appeared, he was still tormented with thinking,
still postponing thought until he should be in a better state; the past,
present, and future, all floated confusedly before him, and he had lost all
power of looking steadily at any one of them.
    »At what time,« he asked the man who had waited on him over-night, now
entering with a candle, »do I leave here, did you say?«
    »About a quarter after four, Sir. Express comes through at four, Sir. - It
don't stop.«
    He passed his hand across his throbbing head, and looked at his watch.
Nearly half-past three.
    »Nobody going with you, Sir, probably,« observed the man. »Two gentlemen
here, Sir, but they're waiting for the train to London.«
    »I thought you said there was nobody here,« said Carker, turning upon him
with the ghost of his old smile, when he was angry or suspicious.
    »Not then, Sir. Two gentlemen came in the night by the short train that
stops here, Sir. Warm water, Sir?«
    »No; and take away the candle. There's day enough for me.«
    Having thrown himself upon the bed, half-dressed, he was at the window as
the man left the room. The cold light of morning had succeeded to night, and
there was already, in the sky, the red suffusion of the coming sun. He bathed
his head and face with water - there was no cooling influence in it for him -
hurriedly put on his clothes, paid what he owed, and went out.
    The air struck chill and comfortless, as it breathed upon him. There was a
heavy dew; and, hot as he was, it made him shiver. After a glance at the place
where he had walked last night, and at the signal-lights burning feebly in the
morning, and bereft of their significance, he turned to where the sun was
rising, and beheld it, in its glory, as it broke upon the scene.
    So awful, so transcendent in its beauty, so divinely solemn. As he cast his
faded eyes upon it, where it rose, tranquil and serene, unmoved by all the wrong
and wickedness on which its beams had shone since the beginning of the world,
who shall say that some weak sense of virtue upon Earth, and its reward in
Heaven, did not manifest itself, even to him? If ever he remembered sister or
brother with a touch of tenderness and remorse, who shall say it was not then?
    He needed some such touch then. Death was on him. He was marked off from the
living world, and going down into his grave.
    He paid the money for his journey to the country-place he had thought of;
and was walking to and fro, alone, looking along the lines of iron, across the
valley in one direction, and towards a dark bridge near at hand in the other;
when, turning in his walk, where it was bounded by one end of the wooden stage
on which he paced up and down, he saw the man from whom he had fled, emerging
from the door by which he himself had entered there. And their eyes met.
    In the quick unsteadiness of the surprise, he staggered, and slipped on to
the road below him. But recovering his feet immediately, he stepped back a pace
or two upon that road, to interpose some wider space between them, and looked at
his pursuer, breathing short and quick.
    He heard a shout - another - saw the face change from its vindictive passion
to a faint sickness and terror - felt the earth tremble - knew in a moment that
the rush was come - uttered a shriek - looked round - saw the red eyes, bleared
and dim in the daylight, close upon him - was beaten down, caught up, and
whirled away upon a jagged mill, that spun him round and round, and struck him
limb from limb, and licked his stream of life up with its fiery heat, and cast
his mutilated fragments in the air.
    When the traveller, who had been recognised, recovered from a swoon, he saw
them bringing from a distance something covered that lay heavy and still upon a
board, between four men, and saw that others drove some dogs away that sniffed
upon the road, and soaked his blood up with a train of ashes.
 

                                  Chapter LVI

           Several People Delighted, and the Game Chicken Disgusted.

The Midshipman was all alive. Mr. Toots and Susan had arrived at last. Susan had
run up stairs like a young woman bereft of her senses, and Mr. Toots and the
Chicken had gone into the parlour.
    »Oh my own pretty darling sweet Miss Floy!« cried the Nipper, running into
Florence's room, »to think that it should come to this and I should find you
here my own dear dove with nobody to wait upon you and no home to call your own
but never never will I go away again Miss Floy for though I may not gather moss
I'm not a rolling stone nor is my heart a stone or else it wouldn't bust as it
is busting now oh dear oh dear!«
    Pouring out these words, without the faintest indication of a stop, of any
sort, Miss Nipper, on her knees beside her mistress, hugged her close.
    »Oh love!« cried Susan, »I know all that's past I know it all my tender pet
and I'm a choking give me air!«
    »Susan, dear good Susan!« said Florence.
    »Oh bless her! I that was her little maid when she was a little child! and
is she really, really truly going to be married!« exclaimed Susan, in a burst of
pain and pleasure, pride and grief, and Heaven knows how many other conflicting
feelings.
    »Who told you so?« said Florence.
    »Oh gracious me! that innocentest creature Toots,« returned Susan
hysterically. »I knew he must be right my dear because he took on so. He's the
devotedest and innocentest infant! And is my darling,« pursued Susan, with
another close embrace and burst of tears, »really really going to be married!«
    The mixture of compassion, pleasure, tenderness, protection, and regret with
which the Nipper constantly recurred to this subject, and at every such
recurrence, raised her head to look in the young face and kiss it, and then laid
her head again upon her mistress's shoulder, caressing her and sobbing, was as
womanly and good a thing, in its way, as ever was seen in the world.
    »There, there!« said the soothing voice of Florence presently. »Now you're
quite yourself, dear Susan!«
    Miss Nipper, sitting down upon the floor, at her mistress's feet, laughing
and sobbing, holding her pocket-handkerchief to her eyes with one hand, and
patting Diogenes with the other as he licked her face, confessed to being more
composed, and laughed and cried a little more in proof of it.
    »I - I - I never did see such a creature as that Toots,« said Susan, »in all
my born days never!«
    »So kind,« suggested Florence.
    »And so comic!« Susan sobbed. »The way he's been going on inside with me
with that disrespectable Chicken on the box!«
    »About what, Susan!« inquired Florence timidly.
    »Oh about Lieutenant Walters, and Captain Gills, and you my dear Miss Floy,
and the silent tomb,« said Susan.
    »The silent tomb!« repeated Florence.
    »He says,« here Susan burst into a violent hysterical laugh, »that he'll go
down into it now immediately and quite comfortable, but bless your heart my dear
Miss Floy he won't, he's a great deal too happy in seeing other people happy for
that, he may not be a Solomon,« pursued the Nipper, with her usual volubility,
»nor do I say he is but this I do say a less selfish human creature human nature
never knew!«
    Miss Nipper being still hysterical, laughed immoderately after making this
energetic declaration, and then informed Florence that he was waiting below to
see her; which would be a rich repayment for the trouble he had had in his late
expedition.
    Florence entreated Susan to beg of Mr. Toots as a favour that she might have
the pleasure of thanking him for his kindness; and Susan, in a few moments,
produced that young gentleman, still very much dishevelled in appearance, and
stammering exceedingly.
    »Miss Dombey,« said Mr. Toots. »To be again permitted to - to - gaze - at
least, not to gaze, but - I don't exactly know what I was going to say, but it's
of no consequence.«
    »I have to thank you so often,« returned Florence, giving him both her
hands, with all her innocent gratitude beaming in her face, »that I have no
words left, and don't know how to do it.«
    »Miss Dombey,« said Mr. Toots, in an awful voice, »if it was possible that
you could, consistently with your angelic nature, Curse me, you would - if I may
be allowed to say so - floor me infinitely less, than by these undeserved
expressions of kindness. Their effect upon me - is - but,« said Mr. Toots,
abruptly, »this is a digression, and 's of no consequence at all.«
    As there seemed to be no means of replying to this, but by thanking him
again, Florence thanked him again.
    »I could wish,« said Mr. Toots, »to take this opportunity, Miss Dombey, if I
might, of entering into a word of explanation. I should have had the pleasure of
- of returning with Susan at an earlier period; but, in the first place, we
didn't know the name of the relation to whose house she had gone, and, in the
second, as she had left that relation's and gone to another at a distance, I
think that scarcely anything short of the sagacity of the Chicken, would have
found her out in the time.«
    Florence was sure of it.
    »This, however,« said Mr. Toots, »is not the point. The company of Susan has
been, I assure you, Miss Dombey, a consolation and satisfaction to me, in my
state of mind, more easily conceived than described. The journey has been its
own reward. That, however, still, is not the point. Miss Dombey, I have before
observed that I know I am not what is considered a quick person. I am perfectly
aware of that. I don't think anybody could be better acquainted with his own -
if it was not too strong an expression, I should say with the thickness of his
own head - than myself. But, Miss Dombey, I do, notwithstanding, perceive the
state of - of things - with Lieutenant Walters. Whatever agony that state of
things may have caused me (which is of no consequence at all), I am bound to
say, that Lieutenant Walters is a person who appears to be worthy of the
blessing that has fallen on his - on his brow. May he wear it long, and
appreciate it, as a very different, and very unworthy individual, that it is of
no consequence to name, would have done! That, however, still, is not the point.
Miss Dombey, Captain Gills is a friend of mine; and during the interval that is
now elapsing, I believe it would afford Captain Gills pleasure to see me
occasionally coming backwards and forwards here. It would afford me pleasure so
to come. But I cannot forget that I once committed myself, fatally, at the
corner of the Square at Brighton; and if my presence will be, in the least
degree, unpleasant to you, I only ask you to name it to me now, and assure you
that I shall perfectly understand you. I shall not consider it at all unkind,
and shall only be too delighted and happy to be honoured with your confidence.«
    »Mr. Toots,« returned Florence, »if you, who are so old and true a friend of
mine, were to stay away from this house now, you would make me very unhappy. It
can never, never, give me any feeling but pleasure to see you.«
    »Miss Dombey,« said Mr. Toots, taking out his pocket-handkerchief, »if I
shed a tear, it is a tear of joy. It is of no consequence, and I am very much
obliged to you. I may be allowed to remark, after what you have so kindly said,
that it is not my intention to neglect my person any longer.«
    Florence received this intimation with the prettiest expression of
perplexity possible.
    »I mean,« said Mr. Toots, »that I shall consider it my duty as a
fellow-creature generally, until I am claimed by the silent tomb, to make the
best of myself, and to - to have my boots as brightly polished, as - as
circumstances will admit of. This is the last time, Miss Dombey, of my intruding
any observation of a private and personal nature. I thank you very much indeed.
If I am not, in a general way, as sensible as my friends could wish me to be, or
as I could wish myself, I really am, upon my word and honour, particularly
sensible of what is considerate and kind. I feel,« said Mr. Toots, in an
impassioned tone, »as if I could express my feelings, at the present moment, in
a most remarkable manner, if - if - I could only get a start.«
    Appearing not to get it, after waiting a minute or two to see if it would
come, Mr. Toots took a hasty leave, and went below to seek the Captain, whom he
found in the shop.
    »Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, »what is now to take place between us,
takes place under the sacred seal of confidence. It is the sequel, Captain
Gills, of what has taken place between myself and Miss Dombey, up stairs.«
    »Alow and aloft, eh, my lad?« murmured the Captain.
    »Exactly so, Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, whose fervour of acquiescence
was greatly heightened by his entire ignorance of the Captain's meaning. »Miss
Dombey, I believe, Captain Gills, is to be shortly united to Lieutenant
Walters?«
    »Why, aye, my lad. We're all shipmets here, - Wal'r and sweetheart will be
jined together in the house of bondage, as soon as the askings is over,«
whispered Captain Cuttle, in his ear.
    »The askings, Captain Gills!« repeated Mr. Toots.
    »In the church, down yonder,« said the Captain, pointing his thumb over his
shoulder.
    »Oh! Yes!« returned Mr. Toots.
    »And then,« said the Captain, in his hoarse whisper, and tapping Mr. Toots
on the chest with the back of his hand, and falling from him with a look of
infinite admiration, »what follers? That there pretty creature, as delicately
brought up as a foreign bird, goes away upon the roaring main with Wal'r on a
woyage to China!«
    »Lord, Captain Gills!« said Mr. Toots.
    »Aye!« nodded the Captain. »The ship as took him up, when he was wrecked in
the hurricane that had drove her clean out of her course, was a China trader,
and Wal'r made the woyage, and got into favour, aboard and ashore - being as
smart and good a lad as ever stepped - and so, the supercargo dying at Canton,
he got made (having acted as clerk afore), and now he's supercargo aboard
another ship, same owners. And so, you see,« repeated the Captain, thoughtfully,
»the pretty creature goes away upon the roaring main with Wal'r, on a woyage to
China.«
    Mr. Toots and Captain Cuttle heaved a sigh in concert.
    »What then?« said the Captain. »She loves him true. He loves her true. Them
as should have loved and tended of her, treated of her like the beasts as
perish. When she, cast out of home, come here to me, and dropped upon them
planks, her wownded heart was broke. I know it. I, Ed'ard Cuttle, see it.
There's nowt but true, kind, steady love, as can ever piece it up again. If so
be I didn't know that, and didn't know as Wal'r was her true love, brother, and
she his, I'd have these here blue arms and legs chopped off, afore I'd let her
go. But I do know it, and what then? Why, then, I say, Heaven go with 'em both,
and so it will! Amen!«
    »Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, »let me have the pleasure of shaking hands.
You've a way of saying things that gives me an agreeable warmth, all up my back.
I say Amen. You are aware, Captain Gills, that I, too, have adored Miss Dombey.«
    »Cheer up!« said the Captain, laying his hand on Mr. Toots's shoulder.
»Stand by, boy!«
    »It is my intention, Captain Gills,« returned the spirited Mr. Toots, »to
cheer up. Also to stand by, as much as possible. When the silent tomb shall
yawn, Captain Gills, I shall be ready for burial; not before. But not being
certain, just at present, of my power over myself, what I wish to say to you,
and what I shall take it as a particular favour if you will mention to
Lieutenant Walters, is as follows.«
    »Is as follers,« echoed the Captain. »Steady!«
    »Miss Dombey being so inexpressibly kind,« continued Mr. Toots with watery
eyes, »as to say that my presence is the reverse of disagreeable to her, and you
and everybody here being no less forbearing and tolerant towards one who - who
certainly,« said Mr. Toots, with momentary dejection, »would appear to have been
born by mistake, I shall come backwards and forwards of an evening, during the
short time we can all be together. But what I ask is this. If, at any moment, I
find that I cannot endure the contemplation of Lieutenant Walters's bliss, and
should rush out, I hope, Captain Gills, that you and he will both consider it as
my misfortune and not my fault, or the want of inward conflict. That you'll feel
convinced I bear no malice to any living creature - least of all to Lieutenant
Walters himself - and that you'll casually remark that I have gone out for a
walk, or probably to see what o'clock it is by the Royal Exchange. Captain
Gills, if you could enter into this arrangement, and could answer for Lieutenant
Walters, it would be a relief to my feelings that I should think cheap at the
sacrifice of a considerable portion of my property.«
    »My lad,« returned the Captain, »say no more. There ain't a colour you can
run up, as won't be made out, and answered to, by Wal'r and self.«
    »Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots, »my mind is greatly relieved. I wish to
preserve the good opinion of all here. I - I - mean well, upon my honour,
however badly I may show it. You know,« said Mr. Toots, »it's exactly as if
Burgess and Co. wished to oblige a customer with a most extraordinary pair of
trousers, and could not cut out what they had in their minds.«
    With this apposite illustration, of which he seemed a little proud, Mr.
Toots gave Captain Cuttle his blessing and departed.
    The honest Captain, with his Hearth's Delight in the house, and Susan
tending her, was a beaming and a happy man. As the days flew by, he grew more
beaming and more happy every day. After some conferences with Susan (for whose
wisdom the Captain had a profound respect, and whose valiant precipitation of
herself on Mrs. MacStinger he could never forget), he proposed to Florence that
the daughter of the elderly lady who usually sat under the blue umbrella in
Leadenhall Market, should, for prudential reasons and considerations of privacy,
be superseded in the temporary discharge of the household duties, by some one
who was not unknown to them, and in whom they could safely confide. Susan, being
present, then named, in furtherance of a suggestion she had previously offered
to the Captain, Mrs. Richards. Florence brightened at the name. And Susan,
setting off that very afternoon to the Toodle domicile, to sound Mrs. Richards,
returned in triumph the same evening, accompanied by the identical rosy-cheeked
apple-faced Polly, whose demonstrations, when brought into Florence's presence,
were hardly less affectionate than those of Susan Nipper herself.
    This piece of generalship accomplished; from which the Captain derived
uncommon satisfaction, as he did, indeed, from everything else that was done,
whatever it happened to be; Florence had next to prepare Susan for their
approaching separation. This was a much more difficult task, as Miss Nipper was
of a resolute disposition, and had fully made up her mind that she had come back
never to be parted from her old mistress any more.
    »As to wages dear Miss Floy,« she said, »you wouldn't hint and wrong me so
as think of naming them, for I've put money by and wouldn't sell my love and
duty at a time like this even if the Savings' Banks and me were total strangers
or the Banks were broke to pieces, but you've never been without me darling from
the time your poor dear Ma was took away, and though I'm nothing to be boasted
of you're used to me and oh my own dear mistress through so many years don't
think of going anywhere without me, for it mustn't and can't be!«
    »Dear Susan, I am going on a long, long voyage.«
    »Well Miss Floy, and what of that? the more you'll want me. Lengths of
voyages ain't an object in my eyes, thank God!« said the impetuous Susan Nipper.
    »But, Susan, I am going with Walter, and I would go with Walter anywhere -
everywhere! Walter is poor, and I am very poor, and I must learn, now, both to
help myself, and help him.«
    »Dear Miss Floy!« cried Susan, bursting out afresh, and shaking her head
violently, »it's nothing new to you to help yourself and others too and be the
patientest and truest of noble hearts, but let me talk to Mr. Walter Gay and
settle it with him, for suffer you to go away across the world alone I cannot,
and I won't.«
    »Alone, Susan?« returned Florence. »Alone? and Walter taking me with him!«
Ah, what a bright, amazed, enraptured smile was on her face! - He should have
seen it. »I am sure you will not speak to Walter if I ask you not,« she added
tenderly; »and pray don't, dear.«
    Susan sobbed »Why not, Miss Floy?«
    »Because,« said Florence, »I am going to be his wife, to give him up my
whole heart, and to live with him and die with him. He might think, if you said
to him what you have said to me, that I am afraid of what is before me, or that
you have some cause to be afraid for me. Why, Susan, dear. I love him!«
    Miss Nipper was so much affected by the quiet fervour of these words, and
the simple, heartfelt, all-pervading earnestness expressed in them, and making
the speaker's face more beautiful and pure than ever, that she could only cling
to her again, crying Was her little mistress really, really going to be married,
and pitying, caressing, and protecting her, as she had done before.
    But the Nipper, though susceptible of womanly weaknesses, was almost as
capable of putting constraint upon herself as of attacking the redoubtable
MacStinger. From that time, she never returned to the subject, but was always
cheerful, active, bustling, and hopeful. She did, indeed, inform Mr. Toots
privately, that she was only keeping up for the time, and that when it was all
over, and Miss Dombey was gone, she might be expected to become a spectacle
distressful; and Mr. Toots did also express that it was his case too, and that
they would mingle their tears together; but she never otherwise indulged her
private feelings in the presence of Florence or within the precincts of the
Midshipman.
    Limited and plain as Florence's wardrobe was - what a contrast to that
prepared for the last marriage in which she had taken part! - there was a good
deal to do in getting it ready, and Susan Nipper worked away at her side, all
day, with the concentrated zeal of fifty sempstresses. The wonderful
contributions Captain Cuttle would have made to this branch of the outfit, if he
had been permitted - as pink parasols, tinted silk stockings, blue shoes, and
other articles no less necessary on shipboard - would occupy some space in the
recital. He was induced, however, by various fraudulent representations, to
limit his contributions to a workbox and dressing-case, of each of which he
purchased the very largest specimen that could be got for money. For ten days or
a fortnight afterwards, he generally sat, during the greater part of the day,
gazing at these boxes; divided between extreme admiration of them, and dejected
misgivings that they were not gorgeous enough, and frequently diving out into
the street to purchase some wild article that he deemed necessary to their
completeness. But his master-stroke was, the bearing of them both off, suddenly,
one morning, and getting the two words FLORENCE GAY engraved upon a brass heart
inlaid over the lid of each. After this, he smoked four pipes successively in
the little parlour by himself, and was discovered chuckling, at the expiration
of as many hours.
    Walter was busy and away all day, but came there every morning early to see
Florence, and always passed the evening with her. Florence never left her high
rooms but to steal down stairs to wait for him when it was his time to come, or,
sheltered by his proud, encircling arm, to bear him company to the door again,
and sometimes peep into the street. In the twilight they were always together.
Oh blessed time! Oh wandering heart at rest! Oh deep, exhaustless, mighty well
of love, in which so much was sunk!
    The cruel mark was on her bosom yet. It rose against her father with the
breath she drew, it lay between her and her lover when he pressed her to his
heart. But she forgot it. In the beating of that heart for her, and in the
beating of her own for him, all harsher music was unheard, all stern unloving
hearts forgotten. Fragile and delicate she was, but with a might of love within
her that could, and did, create a world to fly to, and to rest in, out of his
one image.
    How often did the great house, and the old days, come before her in the
twilight time, when she was sheltered by the arm, so proud, so fond, and,
creeping closer to him, shrunk within it at the recollection! How often, from
remembering the night when she went down to that room and met the never-to-be-
look, did she raise her eyes to those that watched her with such loving
earnestness, and weep with happiness in such a refuge! The more she clung to it,
the more the dear dead child was in her thoughts: but as if the last time she
had seen her father, had been when he was sleeping and she kissed his face, she
always left him so, and never, in her fancy, passed that hour.
    »Walter, dear,« said Florence, one evening, when it was almost dark. »Do you
know what I have been thinking to-day?«
    »Thinking how the time is flying on, and how soon we shall be upon the sea,
sweet Florence?«
    »I don't mean that, Walter, though I think of that too. I have been thinking
what a charge I am to you.«
    »A precious, sacred charge, dear heart! Why I think that sometimes.«
    »You are laughing, Walter. I know that's much more in your thoughts than
mine. But I mean a cost.«
    »A cost, my own?«
    »In money, dear. All these preparations that Susan and I are so busy with -
I have been able to purchase very little for myself. You were poor before. But
how much poorer I shall make you, Walter!«
    »And how much richer, Florence!«
    Florence laughed, and shook her head.
    »Besides,« said Walter, »long ago - before I went to sea - I had a little
purse presented to me, dearest, which had money in it.«
    »Ah!« returned Florence, laughing sorrowfully, »very little! Very little,
Walter! But, you must not think,« and here she laid her light hand on his
shoulder, and looked into his face, »that I regret to be this burden on you. No,
dear love, I am glad of it. I am happy in it. I wouldn't have it otherwise for
all the world!«
    »Nor I, indeed, dear Florence.«
    »Aye! but, Walter, you can never feel it as I do. I am so proud of you! It
makes my heart swell with such delight to know that those who speak of you must
say you married a poor disowned girl, who had taken shelter here; who had no
other home, no other friends; who had nothing - nothing! Oh, Walter, if I could
have brought you millions, I never could have been so happy for your sake, as I
am!«
    »And you, dear Florence? are you nothing?« he returned.
    »No, nothing, Walter. Nothing but your wife.« The light hand stole about his
neck, and the voice came nearer - nearer. »I am nothing any more, that is not
you. I have no earthly hope any more, that is not you. I have nothing dear to me
any more, that is not you.«
    Oh! well might Mr. Toots leave the little company that evening, and twice go
out to correct his watch by the Royal Exchange, and once to keep an appointment
with a banker which he suddenly remembered, and once to take a little turn to
Aldgate Pump and back!
    But before he went upon these expeditions, or indeed before he came, and
before lights were brought, Walter said:
    »Florence, love, the lading of our ship is nearly finished, and probably on
the very day of our marriage she will drop down the river. Shall we go away that
morning, and stay in Kent until we go on board at Gravesend within a week?«
    »If you please, Walter. I shall be happy anywhere. But -«
    »Yes, my life?«
    »You know,« said Florence, »that we shall have no marriage party, and that
nobody will distinguish us by our dress from other people. As we leave the same
day, will you - will you take me somewhere that morning, Walter - early - before
we go to church?«
    Walter seemed to understand her, as so true a lover so truly loved should,
and confirmed his ready promise with a kiss - with more than one perhaps, or two
or three, or five or six; and in the grave, peaceful evening, Florence was very
happy.
    Then into the quiet room came Susan Nipper and the candles: shortly
afterwards, the tea, the Captain, and the excursive Mr. Toots, who, as above
mentioned, was frequently on the move afterwards, and passed but a restless
evening. This, however, was not his habit: for he generally got on very well, by
dint of playing at cribbage with the Captain under the advice and guidance of
Miss Nipper, and distracting his mind with the calculations incidental to the
game; which he found to be a very effectual means of utterly confounding
himself.
    The Captain's visage on these occasions presented one of the finest examples
of combination and succession of expression ever observed. His instinctive
delicacy and his chivalrous feeling towards Florence, taught him that it was not
a time for any boisterous jollity, or violent display of satisfaction. Certain
floating reminiscences of Lovely Peg, on the other hand, were constantly
struggling for a vent, and urging the Captain to commit himself by some
irreparable demonstration. Anon, his admiration of Florence and Walter -
well-matched, truly, and full of grace and interest in their youth, and love,
and good looks, as they sat apart - would take such complete possession of him,
that he would lay down his cards, and beam upon them, dabbing his head all over
with his pocket-handkerchief; until warned, perhaps, by the sudden rushing forth
of Mr. Toots, that he had unconsciously been very instrumental, indeed, in
making that gentleman miserable. This reflection would make the Captain
profoundly melancholy, until the return of Mr. Toots; when he would fall to his
cards again, with many side winks and nods, and polite waves of his hook at Miss
Nipper, importing that he wasn't't going to do so any more. The state that ensued
on this, was, perhaps, his best; for then, endeavouring to discharge all
expression from his face, he would sit, staring round the room, with all these
expressions conveyed into it at once, and each wrestling with the other.
Delighted admiration of Florence and Walter always overthrew the rest, and
remained victorious and undisguised, unless Mr. Toots made another rush into the
air, and then the Captain would sit, like a remorseful culprit, until he came
back again, occasionally calling upon himself, in a low reproachful voice, to
»Stand by!« or growling some remonstrance to »Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad,« on the
want of caution observable in his behaviour.
    One of Mr. Toots's hardest trials, however, was of his own seeking. On the
approach of the Sunday which was to witness the last of those askings in church
of which the Captain had spoken, Mr. Toots thus stated his feelings to Susan
Nipper.
    »Susan,« said Mr. Toots, »I am drawn towards the building. The words which
cut me off from Miss Dombey for ever, will strike upon my ears like a knell, you
know, but upon my word and honour, I feel that I must hear them. There-fore,«
said Mr. Toots, »will you accompany me to-morrow, to the sacred edifice?«
    Miss Nipper expressed her readiness to do so, if that would be any
satisfaction to Mr. Toots, but besought him to abandon his idea of going.
    »Susan,« returned Mr. Toots, with much solemnity, »before my whiskers began
to be observed by anybody but myself, I adored Miss Dombey. While yet a victim
to the thraldom of Blimber, I adored Miss Dombey. When I could no longer be kept
out of my property, in a legal point of view, and - and accordingly came into it
- I adored Miss Dombey. The banns which consign her to Lieutenant Walters, and
me to - to Gloom, you know,« said Mr. Toots, after hesitating for a strong
expression, »may be dreadful, will be dreadful; but I feel that I should wish to
hear them spoken. I feel that I should wish to know that the ground was
certainly cut from under me, and that I hadn't a hope to cherish, or a - or a
leg, in short, to - to go upon.«
    Susan Nipper could only commiserate Mr. Toots's unfortunate condition, and
agree, under these circumstances, to accompany him; which she did next morning.
    The church Walter had chosen for the purpose, was a mouldy old church in a
yard, hemmed in by a labyrinth of back streets and courts, with a little
burying-ground round it, and itself buried in a kind of vault, formed by the
neighbouring houses, and paved with echoing stones. It was a great dim, shabby
pile, with high old oaken pews, among which about a score of people lost
themselves every Sunday; while the clergyman's voice drowsily resounded through
the emptiness, and the organ rumbled and rolled as if the church had got the
colic, for want of a congregation to keep the wind and damp out. But so far was
this city church from languishing for the company of other churches, that spires
were clustered round it, as the masts of shipping cluster on the river. It would
have been hard to count them from its steeple-top, they were so many. In almost
every yard and blind-place near, there was a church. The confusion of bells when
Susan and Mr. Toots betook themselves towards it on the Sunday morning, was
deafening. There were twenty churches close together, clamouring for people to
come in.
    The two stray sheep in question were penned by a beadle in a commodious pew,
and, being early, sat for some time counting the congregation, listening to the
disappointed bell high up in the tower, or looking at a shabby little old man in
the porch behind the screen, who was ringing the same, like the Bull in Cock
Robin, with his foot in a stirrup. Mr. Toots, after a lengthened survey of the
large books on the reading-desk, whispered Miss Nipper that he wondered where
the banns were kept, but that young lady merely shook her head and frowned;
repelling for the time all approaches of a temporal nature.
    Mr. Toots, however, appearing unable to keep his thoughts from the banns,
was evidently looking out for them during the whole preliminary portion of the
service. As the time for reading them approached, the poor young gentleman
manifested great anxiety and trepidation, which was not diminished by the
unexpected apparition of the Captain in the front row of the gallery. When the
clerk handed up a list to the clergyman, Mr. Toots, being then seated, held on
by the seat of the pew; but when the names of Walter Gay and Florence Dombey
were read aloud as being in the third and last stage of that association, he was
so entirely conquered by his feelings as to rush from the church without his
hat, followed by the beadle and pew-opener, and two gentlemen of the medical
profession, who happened to be present; of whom the first-named presently
returned for that article, informing Miss Nipper in a whisper that she was not
to make herself uneasy about the gentleman, as the gentleman said his
indisposition was of no consequence.
    Miss Nipper, feeling that the eyes of that integral portion of Europe which
lost itself weekly among the high-backed pews, were upon her, would have been
sufficiently embarrassed by this incident, though it had terminated here; the
more so, as the Captain in the front row of the gallery, was in a state of
unmitigated consciousness which could hardly fail to express to the congregation
that he had some mysterious connexion with it. But the extreme restlessness of
Mr. Toots painfully increased and protracted the delicacy of her situation. That
young gentleman, incapable, in his state of mind, of remaining alone in the
churchyard, a prey to solitary meditation, and also desirous, no doubt, of
testifying his respect for the offices he had in some measure interrupted,
suddenly returned - not coming back to the pew, but stationing himself on a free
seat in the aisle, between two elderly females who were in the habit of
receiving their portion of a weekly dole of bread then set forth on a shelf in
the porch. In this conjunction Mr. Toots remained, greatly disturbing the
congregation, who felt it impossible to avoid looking at him, until his feelings
overcame him again, when he departed silently and suddenly. Not venturing to
trust himself in the church any more, and yet wishing to have some social
participation in what was going on there, Mr. Toots was, after this, seen from
time to time, looking in, with a lorn aspect, at one or other of the windows;
and as there were several windows accessible to him from without, and as his
restlessness was very great, it not only became difficult to conceive at which
window he would appear next, but likewise became necessary, as it were, for the
whole congregation to speculate upon the chances of the different windows,
during the comparative leisure afforded them by the sermon. Mr. Toots's
movements in the churchyard were so eccentric, that he seemed generally to
defeat all calculation, and to appear, like the conjurer's figure, where he was
least expected; and the effect of these mysterious presentations was much
increased by its being difficult to him to see in, and easy to everybody else to
see out: which occasioned his remaining, every time, longer than might have been
expected, with his face close to the glass, until he all at once became aware
that all eyes were upon him, and vanished.
    These proceedings on the part of Mr. Toots, and the strong individual
consciousness of them that was exhibited by the Captain, rendered Miss Nipper's
position so responsible a one, that she was mightily relieved by the conclusion
of the service; and was hardly so affable to Mr. Toots as usual, when he
informed her and the Captain, on the way back, that now he was sure he had no
hope, you know, he felt more comfortable - at least not exactly more
comfortable, but more comfortably and completely miserable.
    Swiftly now, indeed, the time flew by until it was the evening before the
day appointed for the marriage. They were all assembled in the upper room at the
Midshipman's, and had no fear of interruption; for there were no lodgers in the
house now, and the Midshipman had it all to himself. They were grave and quiet
in the prospect of to-morrow, but moderately cheerful too. Florence, with Walter
close beside her, was finishing a little piece of work intended as a parting
gift to the Captain. The Captain was playing cribbage with Mr. Toots. Mr. Toots
was taking counsel as to his hand, of Susan Nipper. Miss Nipper was giving it,
with all due secrecy and circumspection. Diogenes was listening, and
occasionally breaking out into a gruff half-smothered fragment of a bark, of
which he afterwards seemed half-ashamed, as if he doubted having any reason for
it.
    »Steady, steady!« said the Captain to Diogenes, »what's amiss with you? You
don't seem easy in your mind to-night, my boy!«
    Diogenes wagged his tail, but pricked up his ears immediately afterwards,
and gave utterance to another fragment of a bark; for which he apologised to the
Captain, by again wagging his tail.
    »It's my opinion, Di,« said the Captain, looking thoughtfully at his cards,
and stroking his chin with his hook, »as you have your doubts of Mrs. Richards;
but if you're the animal I take you to be, you'll think better o' that; for her
looks is her commission. Now, Brother:« to Mr. Toots. »if so be as you're ready,
heave ahead.«
    The Captain spoke with all composure and attention to the game, but suddenly
his cards dropped out of his hand, his mouth and eyes opened wide, his legs drew
themselves up and stuck out in front of his chair, and he sat staring at the
door with blank amazement. Looking round upon the company, and seeing that none
of them observed him or the cause of his astonishment, the Captain recovered
himself with a great gasp, struck the table a tremendous blow, cried in a
stentorian roar, »Sol Gills ahoy!« and tumbled into the arms of a weather-beaten
pea-coat that had come with Polly into the room.
    In another moment, Walter was in the arms of the weather-beaten pea-coat. In
another moment, Florence was in the arms of the weather-beaten pea-coat. In
another moment, Captain Cuttle had embraced Mrs. Richards and Miss Nipper, and
was violently shaking hands with Mr. Toots, exclaiming, as he waved his hook
above his head, »Hooroar, my lad, hooroar!« To which Mr. Toots, wholly at a loss
to account for these proceedings, replied with great politeness, »Certainly,
Captain Gills, whatever you think proper!«
    The weather-beaten pea-coat, and a no less weather-beaten cap and comforter
belonging to it, turned from the Captain and from Florence back to Walter, and
sounds came from the weather-beaten pea-coat, cap, and comforter, as of an old
man sobbing underneath them; while the shaggy sleeves clasped Walter tight.
During this pause, there was a universal silence, and the Captain polished his
nose with great diligence. But when the pea-coat, cap, and comforter lifted
themselves up again, Florence gently moved towards them; and she and Walter
taking them off, disclosed the old Instrument-maker, a little thinner and more
careworn than of old, in his old Welsh wig and his old coffee-coloured coat and
basket buttons, with his old infallible chronometer ticking away in his pocket.
    »Chock full o' science,« said the radiant Captain, »as ever he was! Sol
Gills, Sol Gills, what have you been up to, for this many a long day, my ould
boy?«
    »I'm half blind, Ned,« said the old man, »and almost deaf and dumb with
joy.«
    »His very woice,« said the Captain, looking round with an exultation to
which even his face could hardly render justice - »his very woice as chock full
o' science as ever it was! Sol Gills, lay to, my lad, upon your own wines and
fig-trees, like a taut ould patriark as you are, and overhaul them there
adwentures o' yourn, in your own formilior woice. 'Tis the woice,« said the
Captain, impressively, and announcing a quotation with his hook, »of the
sluggard, I heard him complain, you have woke me too soon, I must slumber again.
Scatter his ene-mies, and make 'em fall!«
    The Captain sat down with the air of a man who had happily expressed the
feeling of everybody present, and immediately rose again to present Mr. Toots,
who was much disconcerted by the arrival of anybody, appearing to prefer a claim
to the name of Gills.
    »Although,« stammered Mr. Toots, »I had not the pleasure of your
acquaintance, Sir, before you were - you were -«
    »Lost to sight, to memory dear,« suggested the Captain, in a low voice.
    »Exactly so, Captain Gills!« assented Mr. Toots. »Although I had not the
pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr. - Mr. Sols,« said Toots, hitting on that name
in the inspiration of a bright idea, »before that happened, I have the greatest
pleasure, I assure you, in - you know, in knowing you. I hope,« said Mr. Toots,
»that you're as well as can be expected.«
    With these courteous words, Mr. Toots sat down blushing and chuckling.
    The old Instrument-maker, seated in a corner between Walter and Florence,
and nodding at Polly, who was looking on, all smiles and delight, answered the
Captain thus:
    »Ned Cuttle, my dear boy, although I have heard something of the changes of
events here, from my pleasant friend there - what a pleasant face she has to be
sure, to welcome a wanderer home!« said the old man, breaking off, and rubbing
his hands in his old dreamy way.
    »Hear him!« cried the Captain gravely. »'Tis woman as seduces all mankind.
For which,« aside to Mr. Toots, »you'll overhaul your Adam and Eve, brother.«
    »I shall make a point of doing so, Captain Gills,« said Mr. Toots.
    »Although I have heard something of the changes of events, from her,«
resumed the Instrument-maker, taking his old spectacles from his pocket, and
putting them on his forehead in his old manner, »they are so great and
unexpected, and I am so overpowered by the sight of my dear boy, and by the,« -
glancing at the downcast eyes of Florence, and not attempting to finish the
sentence - »that I - I can't say much to-night. But my dear Ned Cuttle, why
didn't you write?«
    The astonishment depicted in the Captain's features positively frightened
Mr. Toots, whose eyes were quite fixed by it, so that he could not withdraw them
from his face.
    »Write!« echoed the Captain. »Write, Sol Gills?«
    »Aye,« said the old man, »either to Barbados, or Jamaica, or Demerara. That
was what I asked.«
    »What you asked, Sol Gills?« repeated the Captain.
    »Aye,« said the old man. »Don't you know, Ned? Sure you have not forgotten?
Every time I wrote to you.«
    The Captain took off his glazed hat, hung it on his hook, and smoothing his
hair from behind with his hand, sat gazing at the group around him: a perfect
image of wondering resignation.
    »You don't appear to understand me, Ned!« observed old Sol.
    »Sol Gills,« returned the Captain, after staring at him and the rest for a
long time, without speaking, »I'm gone about and adrift. Pay out a word or two
respecting them adwenturs, will you! Can't I bring up, nohows? Nohows?« said the
Captain, ruminating, and staring all round.
    »You know, Ned,« said Sol Gills, »why I left here. Did you open my packet,
Ned?«
    »Why, aye, aye,« said the Captain. »To be sure, I opened the packet.«
    »And read it?« said the old man.
    »And read it,« answered the Captain, eyeing him attentively, and proceeding
to quote it from memory. »My dear Ned Cuttle, when I left home for the West
Indies in forlorn search of intelligence of my dear - There he sits! There's
Wal'r!« said the Captain, as if he were relieved by getting hold of anything
that was real and indisputable.
    »Well, Ned. Now attend a moment!« said the old man. »When I wrote first -
that was from Barbados - I said that though you would receive that letter long
before the year was out, I should be glad if you would open the packet, as it
explained the reason of my going away. Very good, Ned. When I wrote the second,
third, and perhaps the fourth times - that was from Jamaica - I said I was in
just the same state, couldn't rest, and couldn't come away from that part of the
world, without knowing that my boy was lost or saved. When I wrote next - that,
I think, was from Demerara, wasn't't it?«
    »That he thinks was from Demerara, warn't it!« said the Captain, looking
hopelessly round.
    »- I said,« proceeded old Sol, »that still there was no certain information
got yet. That I found many captains and others, in that part of the world, who
had known me for years, and who assisted me with a passage here and there, and
for whom I was able, now and then, to do a little in return, in my own craft.
That every one was sorry for me, and seemed to take a sort of interest in my
wanderings; and that I began to think it would be my fate to cruise about in
search of tidings of my boy until I died.«
    »Began to think as how he was a scientific flying Dutchman!« said the
Captain, as before, and with great seriousness.
    »But when the news come one day, Ned, - that was to Barbados, after I got
back there, - that a China trader home'ard bound had been spoke, that had my boy
aboard, then, Ned, I took passage in the next ship and came home; arrived at
home to-night to find it true, thank God!« said the old man, devoutly.
    The Captain, after bowing his head with great reverence, stared all round
the circle, beginning with Mr. Toots, and ending with the Instrument-maker; then
gravely said:
    »Sol Gills! The observation as I'm a-going to make is calc'lated to blow
every stitch of sail as you can carry clean out of the bolt-ropes, and bring you
on your beam ends with a lurch. Not one of them letters was ever delivered to
Ed'ard Cuttle. Not one o' them letters,« repeated the Captain, to make his
declaration the more solemn and impressive, »was ever delivered unto Ed'ard
Cuttle, Mariner, of England, as lives at home at ease, and doth improve each
shining hour!«
    »And posted by my own hand! And directed by my own hand, Number nine Brig
Place!« exclaimed old Sol.
    The colour all went out of the Captain's face, and all came back again in a
glow.
    »What do you mean, Sol Gills, my friend, by Number nine Brig Place?«
inquired the Captain.
    »Mean? Your lodgings, Ned,« returned the old man. »Mrs. What's-her-name! I
shall forget my own name next, but I am behind the present time - I always was,
you recollect - and very much confused. Mrs. -«
    »Sol Gills!« said the Captain, as if he were putting the most improbable
case in the world, »it ain't the name of MacStinger as you're a trying to
remember?«
    »Of course it is!« exclaimed the Instrument-maker. To be sure, Ned. Mrs.
MacStinger!«
    Captain Cuttle, whose eyes were now as wide open as they could be, and the
knobs upon whose face were perfectly luminous, gave a long shrill whistle of a
most melancholy sound, and stood gazing at everybody in a state of
speechlessness.
    »Overhaul that there again, Sol Gills, will you be so kind?« he said at
last.
    »All these letters,« returned Uncle Sol, beating time with the forefinger of
his right hand upon the palm of his left, with a steadiness and distinctness
that might have done honour, even to the infallible chronometer in his pocket,
»I posted with my own hand, and directed with my own hand, to Captain Cuttle, at
Mrs. MacStinger's, Number nine Brig Place.«
    The Captain took his glazed hat off his hook, looked into it, put it on, and
sat down.
    »Why, friends all,« said the Captain, staring round in the last state of
discomfiture, »I cut and run from there!«
    »And no one knew where you were gone, Captain Cuttle?« cried Walter hastily.
    »Bless your heart, Wal'r,« said the Captain, shaking his head, »she'd never
have allowed o' my coming to take charge o' this here property. Nothing could be
done but cut and run. Lord love you, Wal'r!« said the Captain, »you've only seen
her in a calm! But see her when her angry passions rise - and make a note on!«
    »I'd give it her!« remarked the Nipper, softly.
    »Would you, do you think, my dear?« returned the Captain with feeble
admiration. »Well, my dear, it does you credit. But there ain't no wild animal I
would sooner face myself. I only got my chest away by means of a friend as
nobody's a match for. It was no good sending any letter there. She wouldn't take
in any letter, bless you,« said the Captain, »under them circumstances! Why, you
could hardly make it worth a man's while to be the postman!«
    »Then it's pretty clear, Captain Cuttle, that all of us, and you and Uncle
Sol especially,« said Walter, »may thank Mrs. MacStinger for no small anxiety.«
    The general obligation in this wise to the determined relict of the late Mr.
MacStinger, was so apparent, that the Captain did not contest the point; but
being in some measure ashamed of his position, though nobody dwelt upon the
subject, and Walter especially avoided it, remembering the last conversation he
and the Captain had held together respecting it, he remained under a cloud for
nearly five minutes - an extraordinary period for him - when that sun, his face,
broke out once more, shining on all beholders with extraordinary brilliancy; and
he fell into a fit of shaking hands with everybody over and over again.
    At an early hour, but not before Uncle Sol and Walter had questioned each
other at some length about their voyages and dangers, they all, except Walter,
vacated Florence's room, and went down to the parlour. Here they were soon
afterwards joined by Walter, who told them Florence was a little sorrowful and
heavy-hearted, and had gone to bed. Though they could not have disturbed her
with their voices down there, they all spoke in a whisper after this: and each,
in his different way, felt very lovingly and gently towards Walter's fair young
bride: and a long explanation there was of everything relating to her, for the
satisfaction of Uncle Sol; and very sensible Mr. Toots was of the delicacy with
which Walter made his name and services important, and his presence necessary to
their little council.
    »Mr. Toots,« said Walter, on parting with him at the house door, »we shall
see each other to-morrow morning?«
    »Lieutenant Walters,« returned Mr. Toots, grasping his hand fervently, »I
shall certainly be present.«
    »This is the last night we shall meet for a long time - the last night we
may ever meet,« said Walter. »Such a noble heart as yours, must feel, I think,
when another heart is bound to it. I hope you know that I am very grateful to
you?«
    »Walters,« replied Mr. Toots, quite touched, »I should be glad to feel that
you had reason to be so.«
    »Florence,« said Walter, »on this last night of her bearing her own name,
has made me promise - it was only just now, when you left us together - that I
would tell you - with her dear love -«
    Mr. Toots laid his hand upon the doorpost, and his eyes upon his hand.
    »- with her dear love,« said Walter, »that she can never have a friend whom
she will value above you. That the recollection of your true consideration for
her always, can never be forgotten by her. That she remembers you in her prayers
to-night, and hopes that you will think of her when she is far away. Shall I say
anything for you?«
    »Say, Walters,« replied Mr. Toots indistinctly, »that I shall think of her
every day, but never without feeling happy to know that she is married to the
man she loves, and who loves her. Say, if you please, that I am sure her husband
deserves her - even her! - and that I am glad of her choice.«
    Mr. Toots got more distinct as he came to these last words, and raising his
eyes from the doorpost, said them stoutly. He then shook Walter's hand again
with a fervour that Walter was not slow to return, and started homeward.
    Mr. Toots was accompanied by the Chicken, whom he had of late brought with
him every evening, and left in the shop, with an idea that unforeseen
circumstances might arise from without, in which the prowess of that
distinguished character would be of service to the Midshipman. The Chicken did
not appear to be in a particularly good humour on this occasion. Either the
gas-lamps were treacherous, or he cocked his eye in a hideous manner, and
likewise distorted his nose, when Mr. Toots, crossing the road, looked back over
his shoulder at the room where Florence slept. On the road home, he was more
demonstrative of aggressive intentions against the other foot-passengers, than
comported with a professor of the peaceful art of self-defence. Arrived at home,
instead of leaving Mr. Toots in his apartments when he had escorted him thither,
he remained before him weighing his white hat in both hands by the brim, and
twitching his head and nose (both of which had been many times broken, and but
indifferently repaired), with an air of decided disrespect.
    His patron being much engaged with his own thoughts, did not observe this
for some time, nor indeed until the Chicken, determined not to be overlooked,
had made divers clicking sounds with his tongue and teeth, to attract attention.
    »Now, Master,« said the Chicken, doggedly, when he, at length, caught Mr.
Toots's eye, »I want to know whether this here gammon is to finish it, or
whether you're a going in to win?«
    »Chicken,« returned Mr. Toots, »explain yourself.«
    »Why then, here's all about it, Master,« said the Chicken. »I ain't a cove
to chuck a word away. Here's wot it is. Are any on 'em to be doubled up?«
    When the Chicken put this question he dropped his hat, made a dodge and a
feint with his left hand, hit a supposed enemy a violent blow with his right,
shook his head smartly, and recovered himself.
    »Come, Master,« said the Chicken. »Is it to be gammon or pluck? Which?«
    »Chicken,« returned Mr. Toots, »your expressions are coarse, and your
meaning is obscure.«
    »Why, then, I tell you what, Master,« said the Chicken. »This is where it
is. It's mean.«
    »What is mean, Chicken?« asked Mr. Toots.
    »It is,« said the Chicken, with a frightful corrugation of his broken nose.
»There! Now, Master! Wot! Wen you could go and blow on this here match to the
stiff 'un;« by which depreciatory appellation it has been since supposed that
the Game One intended to signify Mr. Dombey; »and when you could knock the
winner and all the kit of 'em dead out o' wind and time, are you going to give
in? To give in?« said the Chicken, with contemptuous emphasis. »Wy, it's mean!«
    »Chicken,« said Mr. Toots, severely, »you're a perfect Vulture! Your
sentiments are atrocious.«
    »My sentiments is Game and Fancy, Master,« returned the Chicken. »That's wot
my sentiments is. I can't abear a meanness. I'm afore the public, I'm to be
heard on at the bar of the Little Helephant, and no Gov'ner o' mine mustn't go
and do what's mean. Wy, it's mean,« said the Chicken, with increased expression.
»That's where it is. It's mean.«
    »Chicken!« said Mr. Toots, »you disgust me.«
    »Master,« returned the Chicken, putting on his hat, »there's a pair on us,
then. Come! Here's a offer! You've spoke to me more than once't or twice't about
the public line. Never mind! Give me a fi'typunnote to-morrow, and let me go.«
    »Chicken,« returned Mr. Toots, »after the odious sentiments you have
expressed, I shall be glad to part on such terms.«
    »Done then,« said the Chicken. »It's a bargain. This here conduct of yourn
won't suit my book, Master. Wy, it's mean,« said the Chicken; who seemed equally
unable to get beyond that point, and to stop short of it. »That's where it is;
it's mean!«
    So Mr. Toots and the Chicken agreed to part on this incompatibility of moral
perception; and Mr. Toots lying down to sleep, dreamed happily of Florence, who
had thought of him as her friend upon the last night of her maiden life, and who
had sent him her dear love.
 

                                  Chapter LVII

                                Another Wedding.

Mr. Sownds the beadle, and Mrs. Miff the pew-opener, are early at their posts in
the fine church where Mr. Dombey was married. A yellow-faced old gentleman from
India, is going to take unto himself a young wife this morning, and six
carriages full of company are expected, and Mrs. Miff has been informed that the
yellow-faced old gentleman could pave the road to church with diamonds and
hardly miss them. The nuptial benediction is to be a superior one, proceeding
from a very reverend, a dean, and the lady is to be given away, as an
extraordinary present, by somebody who comes express from the Horse Guards.
    Mrs. Miff is more intolerant of common people this morning than she
generally is; and she has always strong opinions on that subject, for it is
associated with free sittings. Mrs. Miff is not a student of political economy
(she thinks the science is connected with dissenters; »Baptists or Wesleyans, or
some o' them,« she says), but she can never understand what business your common
folks have to be married. »Drat 'em,« says Mrs. Miff, »you read the same things
over 'em, and instead of sovereigns get sixpences!«
    Mr. Sownds the beadle is more liberal than Mrs. Miff - but then he is not a
pew-opener. »It must be done, Ma'am,« he says. »We must marry 'em. We must have
our national schools to walk at the head of, and we must have our standing
armies. We must marry 'em, Ma'am,« says Mr. Sownds, »and keep the country
going.«
    Mr. Sownds is sitting on the steps and Mrs. Miff is dusting in the church,
when a young couple, plainly dressed, come in. The mortified bonnet of Mrs. Miff
is sharply turned towards them, for she espies in this early visit indications
of a runaway match. But they don't want to be married - »Only,« says the
gentleman, »to walk round the church.« And as he slips a genteel compliment into
the palm of Mrs. Miff, her vinegary face relaxes, and her mortified bonnet and
her spare dry figure dip and crackle.
    Mrs. Miff resumes her dusting and plumps up her cushions - for the
yellow-faced old gentleman is reported to have tender knees - but keeps her
glazed, pew-opening eye on the young couple who are walking round the church.
»Ahem,« coughs Mrs. Miff, whose cough is drier than the hay in any hassock in
her charge, »you'll come to us one of these mornings, my dears, unless I'm much
mistaken!«
    They are looking at a tablet on the wall, erected to the memory of some one
dead. They are a long way off from Mrs. Miff, but Mrs. Miff can see with half an
eye how she is leaning on his arm, and how his head is bent down over her.
»Well, well,« says Mrs. Miff, »you might do worse. For you're a tidy pair!«
    There is nothing personal in Mrs. Miff's remark. She merely speaks of
stock-in-trade. She is hardly more curious in couples than in coffins. She is
such a spare, straight, dry old lady - such a pew of a woman - that you should
find as many individual sympathies in a chip. Mr. Sownds, now, who is fleshy,
and has scarlet in his coat, is of a different temperament. He says, as they
stand upon the steps watching the young couple away, that she has a pretty
figure, hasn't she, and as well as he could see (for she held her head down
coming out), an uncommon pretty face. »Altogether, Mrs. Miff,« says Mr. Sownds
with a relish, »she is what you may call a rosebud.«
    Mrs. Miff assents with a spare nod of her mortified bonnet; but approves of
this so little, that she inwardly resolves she wouldn't be the wife of Mr.
Sownds for any money he could give her, Beadle as he is.
    And what are the young couple saying as they leave the church, and go out at
the gate?
    »Dear Walter, thank you! I can go away, now, happy.«
    »And when we come back, Florence, we will come and see his grave again.«
    Florence lifts her eyes, so bright with tears, to his kind face; and clasps
her disengaged hand on that other modest little hand which clasps his arm.
    »It is very early, Walter, and the streets are almost empty yet. Let us
walk.«
    »But you will be so tired, my love.«
    »Oh no! I was very tired the first time that we ever walked together, but I
shall not be so to-day.«
    And thus - not much changed - she, as innocent and earnest-hearted - he, as
frank, as hopeful, and more proud of her - Florence and Walter, on their bridal
morning, walk through the streets together.
    Not even in that childish walk of long ago, were they so far removed from
all the world about them as to-day. The childish feet of long ago did not tread
such enchanted ground as theirs do now. The confidence and love of children may
be given many times, and will spring up in many places; but the woman's heart of
Florence, with its undivided treasure, can be yielded only once, and under
slight or change, can only droop and die.
    They take the streets that are the quietest, and do not go near that in
which her old home stands. It is a fair, warm summer morning, and the sun shines
on them, as they walk towards the darkening mist that overspreads the City.
Riches are uncovering in shops; jewels, gold, and silver flash in the
goldsmith's sunny windows; and great houses cast a stately shade upon them as
they pass. But through the light, and through the shade, they go on lovingly
together, lost to everything around; thinking of no other riches, and no prouder
home, than they have now in one another.
    Gradually they come into the darker, narrower streets, where the sun, now
yellow, and now red, is seen through the mist, only at street corners, and in
small open spaces where there is a tree, or one of the innumerable churches, or
a paved way and a flight of steps, or a curious little patch of garden, or a
burying-ground, where the few tombs and tombstones are almost black. Lovingly
and trustfully, through all the narrow yards and alleys and the shady streets,
Florence goes, clinging to his arm, to be his wife.
    Her heart beats quicker now, for Walter tells her that their church is very
near. They pass a few great stacks of warehouses, with wagons at the doors, and
busy carmen stopping up the way - but Florence does not see or hear them - and
then the air is quiet, and the day is darkened, and she is trembling in a church
which has a strange smell like a cellar.
    The shabby little old man, ringer of the disappointed bell, is standing in
the porch, and has put his hat in the font - for he is quite at home there,
being sexton. He ushers them into an old brown, panelled, dusty vestry, like a
corner-cupboard with the shelves taken out; where the wormy registers diffuse a
smell like faded snuff, which has set the tearful Nipper sneezing.
    Youthful, and how beautiful, the young bride looks, in this old dusty place,
with no kindred object near her but her husband. There is a dusty old clerk, who
keeps a sort of evaporated news shop underneath an archway opposite, behind a
perfect fortification of posts. There is a dusty old pew-opener who only keeps
herself, and finds that quite enough to do. There is a dusty old beadle (these
are Mr. Toots's beadle and pew-opener of last Sunday), who has something to do
with a Worshipful Company who have got a Hall in the next yard, with a
stained-glass window in it that no mortal, ever saw. There are dusty wooden
ledges and cornices poked in and out over the altar, and over the screen and
round the gallery, and over the inscription about what the Master and Wardens of
the Worshipful Company did in one thousand six hundred and ninety-four. There
are dusty old sounding-boards over the pulpit and reading-desk, looking like
lids to be let down on the officiating ministers, in case of their giving
offence. There is every possible provision for the accommodation of dust, except
in the churchyard, where the facilities in that respect are very limited.
    The Captain, Uncle Sol, and Mr. Toots are come; the clergyman is putting on
his surplice in the vestry, while the clerk walks round him, blowing the dust
off it; and the bride and bridegroom stand before the altar. There is no
bridesmaid, unless Susan Nipper is one; and no better father than Captain
Cuttle. A man with a wooden leg, chewing a faint apple and carrying a blue bag
in his hand, looks in to see what is going on; but finding it nothing
entertaining, stumps off again, and pegs his way among the echoes out of doors.
    No gracious ray of light is seen to fall on Florence, kneeling at the altar
with her timid head bowed down. The morning luminary is built out, and don't
shine there. There is a meagre tree outside, where the sparrows are chirping a
little; and there is a blackbird in an eyelet-hole of sun in a dyer's garret,
over against the window, who whistles loudly whilst the service is performing;
and there is the man with the wooden leg stumping away. The amens of the dusty
clerk appear, like Macbeth's, to stick in his throat a little; but Captain
Cuttle helps him out, and does it with so much goodwill that he interpolates
three entirely new responses of that word, never introduced into the service
before.
    They are married, and have signed their names in one of the old sneezy
registers, and the clergyman's surplice is restored to the dust, and the
clergyman is gone home. In a dark corner of the dark church, Florence has turned
to Susan Nipper, and is weeping in her arms. Mr. Toots's eyes are red. The
Captain lubricates his nose. Uncle Sol has pulled down his spectacles from his
forehead, and walked out to the door.
    »God bless you, Susan; dearest Susan! If you ever can bear witness to the
love I have for Walter, and the reason that I have to love him, do it for his
sake. Good-bye! Good-bye!«
    They have thought it better not to go back to the Midshipman, but to part
so; a coach is waiting for them, near at hand.
    Miss Nipper cannot speak; she only sobs and chokes, and hugs her mistress.
Mr. Toots advances, urges her to cheer up, and takes charge of her. Florence
gives him her hand - gives him, in the fullness of her heart, her lips - kisses
Uncle Sol, and Captain Cuttle, and is borne away by her young husband.
    But Susan cannot bear that Florence should go away with a mournful
recollection of her. She had meant to be so different, that she reproaches
herself bitterly. Intent on making one last effort to redeem her character, she
breaks from Mr. Toots and runs away to find the coach, and show a parting smile.
The Captain, divining her object, sets off after her; for he feels it his duty
also to dismiss them with a cheer, if possible. Uncle Sol and Mr. Toots are left
behind together, outside the church, to wait for them.
    The coach is gone, but the street is steep, and narrow, and blocked up, and
Susan can see it at a stand-still in the distance, she is sure. Captain Cuttle
follows her as she flies down the hill, and waves his glazed hat as a general
signal, which may attract the right coach and which may not.
    Susan outstrips the Captain, and comes up with it. She looks in at the
window, sees Walter, with the gentle face beside him, and claps her hands and
screams:
    »Miss Floy, my darling! look at me! We are all so happy now, dear! One more
good-bye, my precious, one more?«
    How Susan does it, she don't know, but she reaches to the window, kisses
her, and has her arms about her neck, in a moment.
    »We are all so - so happy now, my dear Miss Floy!« says Susan, with a
suspicious catching in her breath. »You, you won't be angry with me now. Now
will you?«
    »Angry, Susan!«
    »No, no; I am sure you won't. I say you won't, my pet, my dearest!« exclaims
Susan; »and here's the Captain, too - your friend the Captain, you know - to say
good-bye once more!«
    »Hooroar, my Heart's Delight!« vociferates the Captain, with a countenance
of strong emotion. »Hooroar, Wal'r my lad. Hooroar! Hooroar!«
    What with the young husband at one window, and the young wife at the other;
the Captain hanging on at this door, and Susan Nipper holding fast by that; the
coach obliged to go on whether it will or no, and all the other carts and
coaches turbulent because it hesitates; there never was so much confusion on
four wheels. But Susan Nipper gallantly maintains her point. She keeps a smiling
face upon her mistress, smiling through her tears, until the last. Even when she
is left behind, the Captain continues to appear and disappear at the door,
crying »Hooroar, my lad! Hooroar, my Heart's Delight!« with his shirt-collar in
a violent state of agitation, until it is hopeless to attempt to keep up with
the coach any longer. Finally, when the coach is gone, Susan Nipper, being
rejoined by the Captain, falls into a state of insensibility, and is taken into
a baker's shop to recover.
    Uncle Sol and Mr. Toots wait patiently in the churchyard, sitting on the
coping-stone of the railings, until Captain Cuttle and Susan come back. Neither
being at all desirous to speak, or to be spoken to, they are excellent company,
and quite satisfied. When they all arrive again at the little Midshipman, and
sit down to breakfast, nobody can touch a morsel. Captain Cuttle makes a feint
of being voracious about toast, but gives it up as a swindle. Mr. Toots says,
after breakfast, he will come back in the evening; and goes wandering about the
town all day, with a vague sensation upon him as if he hadn't been to bed for a
fortnight.
    There is a strange charm in the house, and in the room, in which they have
been used to be together, and out of which so much is gone. It aggravates, and
yet it soothes, the sorrow of the separation. Mr. Toots tells Susan Nipper when
he comes at night, that he hasn't been so wretched all day long, and yet he
likes it. He confides in Susan Nipper, being alone with her, and tells her what
his feelings were when she gave him that candid opinion as to the probability of
Miss Dombey's ever loving him. In the vein of confidence engendered by these
common recollections, and their tears, Mr. Toots proposes that they shall go out
together, and buy something for supper. Miss Nipper assenting, they buy a good
many little things; and, with the aid of Mrs. Richards, set the supper out quite
showily before the Captain and old Sol came home.
    The Captain and old Sol have been on board the ship, and have established Di
there, and have seen the chests put aboard. They have much to tell about the
popularity of Walter, and the comforts he will have about him, and the quiet way
in which it seems he has been working early and late, to make his cabin what the
Captain calls »a picter,« to surprise his little wife. »A admiral's cabin, mind
you,« says the Captain, »ain't more trim.«
    But one of the Captain's chief delights is, that he knows the big watch, and
the sugar-tongs, and tea-spoons, are on board: and again and again he murmurs to
himself, »Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad, you never shaped a better course in your life
than when you made that there little property over jintly. You see how the land
bore, Ed'ard,« says the Captain, »and it does you credit, my lad.«
    The old Instrument-maker is more distraught and misty than he used to be,
and takes the marriage and the parting very much to heart. But he is greatly
comforted by having his old ally, Ned Cuttle, at his side; and he sits down to
supper with a grateful and contented face.
    »My boy has been preserved and thrives,« says old Sol Gills, rubbing his
hands. »What right have I to be otherwise than thankful and happy!«
    The Captain, who has not yet taken his seat at the table, but who has been
fidgeting about for some time, and now stands hesitating in his place, looks
doubtfully at Mr. Gills, and says:
    »Sol! There's the last bottle of the old Madeira down below. Would you wish
to have it up to-night, my boy, and drink to Wal'r and his wife?«
    The Instrument-maker, looking wistfully at the Captain, puts his hand into
the breast-pocket of his coffee-coloured coat, brings forth his pocket-book, and
takes a letter out.
    »To Mr. Dombey,« says the old man. »From Walter. To be sent in three weeks'
time. I'll read it.«
    »Sir. I am married to your daughter. She is gone with me upon a distant
voyage. To be devoted to her is to have no claim on her or you, but God knows
that I am.
    Why, loving her beyond all earthly things, I have yet, without remorse,
united her to the uncertainties and dangers of my life, I will not say to you.
You know why, and you are her father.
    Do not reproach her. She has never reproached you.
    I do not think or hope that you will ever forgive me. There is nothing I
expect less. But if an hour should come when it will comfort you to believe that
Florence has some one ever near her, the great charge of whose life is to cancel
her remembrance of past sorrow, I solemnly assure you, you may, in that hour,
rest in that belief.«
    Solomon puts back the letter carefully in his pocket-book, and puts back his
pocket-book in his coat.
    »We won't drink the last bottle of the old Madeira yet, Ned,« says the old
man thoughtfully. »Not yet.«
    »Not yet,« assents the Captain. »No. Not yet.«
    Susan and Mr. Toots are of the same opinion. After a silence they all sit
down to supper, and drink to the young husband and wife in something else; and
the last bottle of the old Madeira still remains among its dust and cobwebs,
undisturbed.
 
A few days have elapsed, and a stately ship is out at sea, spreading its white
wings to the favouring wind.
    Upon the deck, image to the roughest man on board of something that is
graceful, beautiful, and harmless - something that it is good and pleasant to
have there, and that should make the voyage prosperous - is Florence. It is
night, and she and Walter sit alone, watching the solemn path of light upon the
sea between them and the moon.
    At length she cannot see it plainly, for the tears that fill her eyes; and
then she lays her head down on his breast, and puts her arms around his neck,
saying, »Oh Walter, dearest love, I am so happy!«
    Her husband holds her to his heart, and they are very quiet, and the stately
ship goes on serenely.
    »As I hear the sea,« says Florence, »and sit watching it, it brings so many
days into my mind. It makes me think so much -«
    »Of Paul, my love. I know it does.«
    Of Paul and Walter. And the voices in the waves are always whispering to
Florence, in their ceaseless murmuring, of love - of love, eternal and
illimitable, not bounded by the confines of this world, or by the end of time,
but ranging still, beyond the sea, beyond the sky, to the invisible country far
away!
 

                                 Chapter LVIII

                                 After a Lapse.

The sea had ebbed and flowed, through a whole year. Through a whole year, the
winds and clouds had come and gone; the ceaseless work of Time had been
performed, in storm and sunshine. Through a whole year, the tides of human
chance and change had set in their allotted courses. Through a whole year, the
famous House of Dombey and Son had fought a fight for life, against cross
accidents, doubtful rumours, unsuccessful ventures, unpropitious times, and most
of all, against the infatuation of its head, who would not contract its
enterprises by a hair's breadth, and would not listen to a word of warning that
the ship he strained so hard against the storm, was weak, and could not bear it.
    The year was out, and the great House was down.
    One summer afternoon; a year, wanting some odd days, after the marriage in
the City church; there was a buzz and whisper upon 'Change of a great failure. A
certain cold proud man, well known there, was not there, nor was he represented
there. Next day it was noised abroad that Dombey and Son had stopped, and next
night there was a List of Bankrupts published, headed by that name.
    The world was very busy now, in sooth, and had a deal to say. It was an
innocently credulous and a much ill-used world. It was a world in which there
was no other sort of bankruptcy whatever. There were no conspicuous people in
it, trading far and wide on rotten banks of religion, patriotism, virtue,
honour. There was no amount worth mentioning of mere paper in circulation, on
which anybody lived pretty handsomely, promising to pay great sums of goodness
with no effects. There were no short-comings anywhere, in anything but money.
The world was very angry indeed; and the people especially, who, in a worse
world, might have been supposed to be bankrupt traders themselves in shows and
pretences, were observed to be mightily indignant.
    Here was a new inducement to dissipation, presented to that sport of
circumstances, Mr. Perch the Messenger! It was apparently the fate of Mr. Perch
to be always waking up, and finding himself famous. He had but yesterday, as one
might say, subsided into private life from the celebrity of the elopement and
the events that followed it; and now he was made a more important man than ever,
by the bankruptcy. Gliding from his bracket in the outer office where he now
sat, watching the strange faces of accountants and others, who quickly
superseded nearly all the old clerks, Mr. Perch had but to show himself in the
court outside, or, at farthest, in the bar of the King's Arms, to be asked a
multitude of questions, almost certain to include that interesting question,
what would he take to drink? Then would Mr. Perch descant upon the hours of
acute uneasiness he and Mrs. Perch had suffered out at Balls Pond, when they
first suspected »things was going wrong.« Then would Mr. Perch relate to gaping
listeners, in a low voice, as if the corpse of the deceased House were lying
unburied in the next room, how Mrs. Perch had first come to surmise that things
was going wrong by hearing him (Perch) moaning in his sleep, »twelve and
ninepence in the pound, twelve and ninepence in the pound!« Which act of
somnambulism he supposed to have originated in the impression made upon him by
the change in Mr. Dombey's face. Then would he inform them how he had once said,
»Might I make so bold as ask, Sir, are you unhappy in your mind?« and how Mr.
Dombey had replied, »My faithful Perch - but no, it cannot be!« and with that
had struck his hand upon his forehead, and said, »Leave me, Perch!« Then, in
short, would Mr. Perch, a victim to his position, tell all manner of lies;
affecting himself to tears by those that were of a moving nature, and really
believing that the inventions of yesterday had, on repetition, a sort of truth
about them to-day.
    Mr. Perch always closed these conferences by meekly remarking, That, of
course, whatever his suspicions might have been (as if he had ever had any!) it
wasn't't for him to betray his trust, was it? Which sentiment (there never being
any creditors present) was received as doing great honour to his feelings. Thus,
he generally brought away a soothed conscience and left an agreeable impression
behind him, when he returned to his bracket: again to sit watching the strange
faces of the accountants and others, making so free with the great mysteries,
the Books; or now and then to go on tiptoe into Mr. Dombey's empty room, and
stir the fire; or to take an airing at the door, and have a little more doleful
chat with any straggler whom he knew; or to propitiate, with various small
attentions, the head accountant: from whom Mr. Perch had expectations of a
messengership in a Fire Office, when the affairs of the House should be wound
up.
    To Major Bagstock, the bankruptcy was quite a calamity. The Major was not a
sympathetic character - his attention being wholly concentrated on J. B. - nor
was he a man subject to lively emotions, except in the physical regards of
gasping and choking. But he had so paraded his friend Dombey at the club; had so
flourished him at the heads of the members in general, and so put them down by
continual assertion of his riches; that the club, being but human, was delighted
to retort upon the Major, by asking him, with a show of great concern, whether
this tremendous smash had been at all expected, and how his friend Dombey bore
it. To such questions, the Major, waxing very purple, would reply that it was a
bad world, Sir, altogether; that Joey knew a thing or two, but had been done,
Sir, done like an infant; that if you had foretold this, Sir, to J. Bagstock,
when he went abroad with Dombey and was chasing that vagabond up and down
France, J. Bagstock would have pooh-pooh'd you - would have pooh-pooh'd you,
Sir, by the Lord! That Joe had been deceived, Sir, taken in, hoodwinked,
blindfolded, but was broad awake again and staring; insomuch, Sir, that if Joe's
father were to rise up from the grave to-morrow, he wouldn't trust the old blade
with a penny piece, but would tell him that his son Josh was too old a soldier
to be done again, Sir. That he was a suspicious, crabbed, cranky, used-up, J. B.
infidel, Sir; and that if it were consistent with the dignity of a rough and
tough old Major, of the old school, who had had the honour of being personally
known to, and commended by, their late Royal Highnesses the Dukes of Kent and
York, to retire to a tub and live in it, by Gad! Sir, he'd have a tub in Pall
Mall to-morrow, to show his contempt for mankind!
    Of all this, and many variations of the same tune, the Major would deliver
himself with so many apoplectic symptoms, such rollings of his head, and such
violent growls of ill usage and resentment, that the younger members of the club
surmised he had invested money in his friend Dombey's House, and lost it; though
the older soldiers and deeper dogs, who knew Joe better, wouldn't hear of such a
thing. The unfortunate Native, expressing no opinion, suffered dreadfully; not
merely in his moral feelings, which were regularly fusilladed by the Major every
hour in the day, and riddled through and through, but in his sensitiveness to
bodily knocks and bumps, which was kept continually on the stretch. For six
entire weeks after the bankruptcy, this miserable foreigner lived in a rainy
season of boot-jacks and brushes.
    Mrs. Chick had three ideas upon the subject of the terrible reverse. The
first was that she could not understand it. The second, that her brother had not
made an effort. The third, that if she had been invited to dinner on the day of
that first party, it never would have happened; and that she had said so, at the
time.
    Nobody's opinion stayed the misfortune, lightened it, or made it heavier. It
was understood that the affairs of the House were to be wound up as they best
could be; that Mr. Dombey freely resigned everything he had, and asked for no
favour from any one. That any resumption of the business was out of the
question, as he would listen to no friendly negotiation having that compromise
in view; that he had relinquished every post of trust or distinction he had
held, as a man respected among merchants; that he was dying, according to some;
that he was going melancholy mad, according to others; that he was a broken man,
according to all.
    The clerks dispersed after holding a little dinner of condolence among
themselves, which was enlivened by comic singing, and went off admirably. Some
took places abroad, and some engaged in other Houses at home; some looked up
relations in the country, for whom they suddenly remembered they had a
particular affection; and some advertised for employment in the newspapers. Mr.
Perch alone remained of all the late establishment, sitting on his bracket
looking at the accountants, or starting off it, to propitiate the head
accountant, who was to get him into the Fire Office. The Counting House soon got
to be dirty and neglected. The principal slipper and dogs' collar seller, at the
corner of the court, would have doubted the propriety of throwing up his
forefinger to the brim of his hat, any more, if Mr. Dombey had appeared there
now; and the ticket porter, with his hands under his white apron, moralised good
sound morality about ambition, which (he observed) was not, in his opinion, made
to rhyme to perdition, for nothing.
    Mr. Morfin, the hazel-eyed bachelor, with the hair and whiskers sprinkled
with grey, was perhaps the only person within the atmosphere of the House - its
head, of course, excepted - who was heartily and deeply affected by the disaster
that had befallen it. He had treated Mr. Dombey with due respect and deference
through many years, but he had never disguised his natural character, or meanly
truckled to him, or pampered his master passion for the advancement of his own
purposes. He had, therefore, no self-disrespect to avenge; no long-tightened
springs to release with a quick recoil. He worked early and late to unravel
whatever was complicated or difficult in the records of the transactions of the
House; was always in attendance to explain whatever required explanation; sat in
his old room sometimes very late at night, studying points by his mastery of
which he could spare Mr. Dombey the pain of being personally referred to; and
then would go home to Islington, and calm his mind by producing the most dismal
and forlorn sounds out of his violoncello before going to bed.
    He was solacing himself with this melodious grumbler one evening, and,
having been much dispirited by the proceedings of the day, was scraping
consolation out of its deepest notes, when his landlady (who was fortunately
deaf, and had no other consciousness of these performances than a sensation of
something rumbling in her bones) announced a lady.
    »In mourning,« she said.
    The violoncello stopped immediately; and the performer, laying it on the
sofa with great tenderness and care, made a sign that the lady was to come in.
He followed directly, and met Harriet Carker on the stair.
    »Alone!« he said, »and John here this morning! Is there anything the matter,
my dear? But no,« he added, »your face tells quite another story.«
    »I am afraid it is a selfish revelation that you see there, then,« she
answered.
    »It is a very pleasant one,« said he; »and, if selfish, a novelty too, worth
seeing in you. But I don't believe that.«
    He had placed a chair for her by this time, and sat down opposite; the
violoncello lying snugly on the sofa between them.
    »You will not be surprised at my coming alone, or at John's not having told
you I was coming,« said Harriet; »and you will believe that, when I tell you why
I have come. May I do so now?«
    »You can do nothing better.«
    »You were not busy?«
    He pointed to the violoncello lying on the sofa, and said, »I have been, all
day. Here's my witness. I have been confiding all my cares to it. I wish I had
none but my own to tell.«
    »Is the House at an end?« said Harriet, earnestly.
    »Completely at an end.«
    »Will it never be resumed?«
    »Never.«
    The bright expression of her face was not overshadowed as her lips silently
repeated the word. He seemed to observe this with some little involuntary
surprise: and said again:
    »Never. You remember what I told you. It has been, all along, impossible to
convince him; impossible to reason with him; sometimes, impossible even to
approach him. The worst has happened; and the House has fallen, never to be
built up any more.«
    »And Mr. Dombey, is he personally ruined?«
    »Ruined.«
    »Will he have no private fortune left? Nothing?«
    A certain eagerness in her voice, and something that was almost joyful in
her look, seemed to surprise him more and more; to disappoint him too, and jar
discordantly against his own emotions. He drummed with the fingers of one hand
on the table, looking wistfully at her, and shaking his head, said, after a
pause:
    »The extent of Mr. Dombey's resources is not accurately within my knowledge;
but though they are doubtless very large, his obligations are enormous. He is a
gentleman of high honour and integrity. Any man in his position could, and many
a man in his position would, have saved himself, by making terms which would
have very slightly, almost insensibly, increased the losses of those who had had
dealings with him, and left him a remnant to live upon. But he is resolved on
payment to the last farthing of his means. His own words are, that they will
clear, or nearly clear, the House, and that no one can lose much. Ah, Miss
Harriet, it would do us no harm to remember oftener than we do, that vices are
sometimes only virtues carried to excess! His pride shows well in this.«
    She heard him with little or no change in her expression, and with a divided
attention that showed her to be busy with something in her own mind. When he was
silent, she asked him hurriedly:
    »Have you seen him lately?«
    »No one sees him. When this crisis of his affairs renders it necessary for
him to come out of his house, he comes out for the occasion, and again goes
home, and shuts himself up, and will see no one. He has written me a letter,
acknowledging our past connexion in higher terms than it deserved, and parting
from me. I am delicate of obtruding myself upon him now, never having had much
intercourse with him in better times; but I have tried to do so. I have written,
gone there, entreated. Quite in vain.«
    He watched her, as in the hope that she would testify some greater concern
than she had yet shown; and spoke gravely and feelingly, as if to impress her
the more; but there was no change in her.
    »Well, well, Miss Harriet,« he said, with a disappointed air, »this is not
to the purpose. You have not come here to hear this. Some other and pleasanter
theme is in your mind. Let it be in mine, too, and we shall talk upon more equal
terms. Come!«
    »No, it is the same theme,« returned Harriet, with frank and quick surprise.
»Is it not likely that it should be? Is it not natural that John and I should
have been thinking and speaking very much of late of these great changes? Mr.
Dombey, whom he served so many years - you know upon what terms - reduced, as
you describe; and we quite rich!«
    Good, true face, as that face of hers was, and pleasant as it had been to
him, Mr. Morfin, the hazel-eyed bachelor, since the first time he had ever
looked upon it, it pleased him less at that moment, lighted with a ray of
exultation, than it had ever pleased him before.
    »I need not remind you,« said Harriet, casting down her eyes upon her black
dress, »through what means our circumstances changed. You have not forgotten
that our brother James, upon that dreadful day, left no will, no relations but
ourselves.«
    The face was pleasanter to him now, though it was pale and melancholy, than
it had been a moment since. He seemed to breathe more cheerily.
    »You know,« she said, »our history, the history of both my brothers, in
connexion with the unfortunate, unhappy gentleman, of whom you have spoken so
truly. You know how few our wants are - John's and mine - and what little use we
have for money, after the life we have led together for so many years; and now
that he is earning an income that is ample for us, through your kindness. You
are not unprepared to hear what favour I have come to ask of you?«
    »I hardly know. I was, a minute ago. Now, I think, I am not.«
    »Of my dead brother I say nothing. If the dead know what we do - but you
understand me. Of my living brother I could say much: but what need I say more,
than that this act of duty, in which I have come to ask your indispensable
assistance, is his own, and that he cannot rest until it is performed!«
    She raised her eyes again; and the light of exultation in her face began to
appear beautiful, in the observant eyes that watched her.
    »Dear Sir,« she went on to say, »it must be done very quietly and secretly.
Your experience and knowledge will point out a way of doing it. Mr. Dombey may,
perhaps, be led to believe that it is something saved, unexpectedly, from the
wreck of his fortunes; or that it is a voluntary tribute to his honourable and
upright character, from some of those with whom he has had great dealings; or
that it is some old lost debt repaid. There must be many ways of doing it. I
know you will choose the best. The favour I have come to ask is, that you will
do it for us in your own kind, generous, considerate manner. That you will never
speak of it to John, whose chief happiness in this act of restitution is to do
it secretly, unknown, and unapproved of: that only a very small part of the
inheritance may be reserved to us, until Mr. Dombey shall have possessed the
interest of the rest for the remainder of his life; that you will keep our
secret, faithfully - but that I am sure you will; and that, from this time, it
may seldom be whispered, even between you and me, but may live in my thoughts
only as a new reason for thankfulness to Heaven, and joy and pride in my
brother.«
    Such a look of exultation there may be on Angels' faces, when the one
repentant sinner enters Heaven, among ninety-nine just men. It was not dimmed or
tarnished by the joyful tears that filled her eyes, but was the brighter for
them.
    »My dear Harriet,« said Mr. Morfin, after a silence, »I was not prepared for
this. Do I understand you that you wish to make your own part in the inheritance
available for your good purpose, as well as John's?«
    »Oh yes,« she returned. »When we have shared everything together for so long
a time, and have had no care, hope, or purpose apart, could I bear to be
excluded from my share in this? May I not urge a claim to be my brother's
partner and companion to the last?«
    »Heaven forbid that I should dispute it!« he replied.
    »We may rely on your friendly help?« she said. »I knew we might!«
    »I should be a worse man than, - than I hope I am, or would willingly
believe myself, if I could not give you that assurance from my heart and soul.
You may, implicitly. Upon my honour, I will keep your secret. And if it should
be found that Mr. Dombey is so reduced as I fear he will be, acting on a
determination that there seem to be no means of influencing, I will assist you
to accomplish the design, on which you and John are jointly resolved.«
    She gave him her hand, and thanked him with a cordial, happy face.
    »Harriet,« he said, detaining it in his. »To speak to you of the worth of
any sacrifice that you can make now - above all, of any sacrifice of mere money
- would be idle and presumptuous. To put before you any appeal to reconsider
your purpose or to set narrow limits to it, would be, I feel, not less so. I
have no right to mar the great end of a great history, by any obtrusion of my
own weak self. I have every right to bend my head before what you confide to me,
satisfied that it comes from a higher and better source of inspiration than my
poor worldly knowledge. I will say only this: I am your faithful steward; and I
would rather be so, and your chosen friend, than I would be anybody in the
world, except yourself.«
    She thanked him again, cordially, and wished him good night.
    »Are you going home?« he said. »Let me go with you.«
    »Not to-night. I am not going home now; I have a visit to make alone. Will
you come to-morrow?«
    »Well, well,« said he, »I'll come to-morrow. In the meantime, I'll think of
this, and how we can best proceed. And perhaps you'll think of it, dear Harriet,
and - and - think of me a little in connexion with it.«
    He handed her down to a coach she had in waiting at the door; and if his
landlady had not been deaf, she would have heard him muttering as he went back
up stairs, when the coach had driven off, that we were creatures of habit, and
it was a sorrowful habit to be an old bachelor.
    The violoncello lying on the sofa between the two chairs, he took it up,
without putting away the vacant chair, and sat droning on it, and slowly shaking
his head at the vacant chair, for a long, long time. The expression he
communicated to the instrument at first, though monstrously pathetic and bland,
was nothing to the expression he communicated to his own face, and bestowed upon
the empty chair: which was so sincere, that he was obliged to have recourse to
Captain Cuttle's remedy more than once, and to rub his face with his sleeve. By
degrees, however, the violoncello, in unison with his own frame of mind, glided
melodiously into the Harmonious Blacksmith, which he played over and over again,
until his ruddy and serene face gleamed like true metal on the anvil of a
veritable blacksmith. In fine, the violoncello and the empty chair were the
companions of his bachelorhood until nearly midnight; and when he took his
supper, the violoncello set up on end in the sofa corner, big with the latent
harmony of a whole foundry full of harmonious blacksmiths, seemed to ogle the
empty chair out of its crooked eyes, with unutterable intelligence.
    When Harriet left the house, the driver of her hired coach, taking a course
that was evidently no new one to him, went in and out by bye-ways, through that
part of the suburbs, until he arrived at some open ground, where there were a
few quiet little old houses standing among gardens. At the garden-gate of one of
these he stopped, and Harriet alighted.
    Her gentle ringing at the bell was responded to by a dolorous-looking woman,
of light complexion, with raised eyebrows, and head drooping on one side, who
curtseyed at sight of her, and conducted her across the garden to the house.
    »How is your patient, nurse, to-night?« said Harriet.
    »In a poor way, Miss, I am afraid. Oh how she do remind me, sometimes, of my
uncle's Betsy Jane!« returned the woman of the light complexion, in a sort of
doleful rapture.
    »In what respect?« asked Harriet.
    »Miss, in all respects,« replied the other, »except that she's grown up, and
Betsy Jane, when at death's door, was but a child.«
    »But you have told me she recovered,« observed Harriet mildly; »so there is
the more reason for hope, Mrs. Wickam.«
    »Ah, Miss, hope is an excellent thing for such as has the spirits to bear
it!« said Mrs. Wickam, shaking her head. »My own spirits is not equal to it, but
I don't owe it any grudge. I envys them that is so blessed!«
    »You should try to be more cheerful,« remarked Harriet.
    »Thank you, Miss, I'm sure,« said Mrs. Wickam grimly. »If I was so inclined,
the loneliness of this situation - you'll excuse my speaking so free - would put
it out of my power in four and twenty hours; but I an't at all. I'd rather not.
The little spirits that I ever had, I was bereaved of at Brighton some few years
ago, and I think I feel myself the better for it.«
    In truth, this was the very Mrs. Wickam who had superseded Mrs. Richards as
the nurse of little Paul, and who considered herself to have gained the loss in
question, under the roof of the amiable Pipchin. The excellent and thoughtful
old system, hallowed by long prescription, which has usually picked out from the
rest of mankind the most dreary and uncomfortable people that could possibly be
laid hold of, to act as instructors of youth, finger-posts to the virtues,
matrons, monitors, attendants on sick beds, and the like, had established Mrs.
Wickam in very good business as a nurse, and had led to her serious qualities
being particularly commended by an admiring and numerous connexion.
    Mrs. Wickam, with her eyebrows elevated, and her head on one side, lighted
the way up stairs to a clean, neat chamber, opening on another chamber dimly
lighted, where there was a bed. In the first room, an old woman sat mechanically
staring out at the open window, on the darkness. In the second, stretched upon
the bed, lay the shadow of a figure that had spurned the wind and rain one
wintry night; hardly to be recognised now, but by the long black hair that
showed so very black against the colourless face, and all the white things about
it.
    Oh, the strong eyes, and the weak frame! The eyes that turned so eagerly and
brightly to the door when Harriet came in; the feeble head that could not raise
itself, and moved so slowly round upon its pillow!
    »Alice!« said the visitor's mild voice, »am I late tonight?«
    »You always seem late, but are always early.«
    Harriet had sat down by the bedside now, and put her hand upon the thin hand
lying there.
    »You are better?«
    Mrs. Wickam, standing at the foot of the bed, like a disconsolate spectre,
most decidedly and forcibly shook her head to negative this position.
    »It matters very little!« said Alice, with a faint smile. »Better or worse
to-day, is but a day's difference - perhaps not so much.«
    Mrs. Wickam, as a serious character, expressed her approval with a groan;
and having made some cold dabs at the bottom of the bed-clothes, as feeling for
the patient's feet and expecting to find them stony, went clinking among the
medicine bottles on the table, as who should say, »while we are here, let us
repeat the mixture as before.«
    »No,« said Alice, whispering to her visitor, »evil courses, and remorse,
travel, want, and weather, storm within, and storm without, have worn my life
away. It will not last much longer.«
    She drew the hand up as she spoke, and laid her face against it.
    »I lie here, sometimes, thinking I should like to live until I had had a
little time to show you how grateful I could be! It is a weakness, and soon
passes. Better for you as it is. Better for me!«
    How different her hold upon the hand, from what it had been when she took it
by the fireside on the bleak winter evening! Scorn, rage, defiance,
recklessness, look here! This is the end.
    Mrs. Wickam having clinked sufficiently among the bottles, now produced the
mixture. Mrs. Wickam looked hard at her patient in the act of drinking, screwed
her mouth up tight, her eyebrows also, and shook her head, expressing that
tortures shouldn't make her say it was a hopeless case. Mrs. Wickam then
sprinkled a little cooling-stuff about the room, with the air of a female
grave-digger, who was strewing ashes on ashes, dust on dust - for she was a
serious character - and withdrew to partake of certain funeral baked meats down
stairs.
    »How long is it,« asked Alice, »since I went to you and told you what I had
done, and when you were advised it was too late for any one to follow?«
    »It is a year and more,« said Harriet.
    »A year and more,« said Alice, thoughtfully intent upon her face. »Months
upon months since you brought me here!«
    Harriet answered »Yes.«
    »Brought me here, by force of gentleness and kindness. Me!« said Alice,
shrinking with her face behind the hand, »and made me human by woman's looks and
words, and angel's deeds!«
    Harriet bending over her, composed and soothed her. By and bye, Alice lying
as before, with the hand against her face, asked to have her mother called.
    Harriet called to her more than once, but the old woman was so absorbed
looking out at the open window on the darkness, that she did not hear. It was
not until Harriet went to her and touched her, that she rose up, and came.
    »Mother,« said Alice, taking the hand again, and fixing her lustrous eyes
lovingly upon her visitor, while she merely addressed a motion of her finger to
the old woman, »tell her what you know.«
    »To-night, my deary?«
    »Aye, mother,« answered Alice, faintly and solemnly, »to-night!«
    The old woman, whose wits appeared disordered by alarm, remorse, or grief,
came creeping along the side of the bed, opposite to that on which Harriet sat;
and kneeling down, so as to bring her withered face upon a level with the
coverlet, and stretching out her hand, so as to touch her daughter's arm, began:
    »My handsome gal -«
    Heaven, what a cry was that, with which she stopped there, gazing at the
poor form lying on the bed!
    »Changed, long ago, mother! Withered, long ago,« said Alice, without looking
at her. »Don't grieve for that now.«
    »- My daughter,« faltered the old woman, »my gal who'll soon get better, and
shame 'em all with her good looks.«
    Alice smiled mournfully at Harriet, and fondled her hand a little closer,
but said nothing.
    »Who'll soon get better, I say,« repeated the old woman, menacing the vacant
air with her shrivelled fist, »and who'll shame 'em all with her good looks -
she will. I say she will! she shall!« - as if she were in passionate contention
with some unseen opponent at the bedside, who contradicted her - »my daughter
has been turned away from, and cast out, but she could boast relationship to
proud folks too, if she chose. Ah! To proud folks! There's relationship without
your clergy and your wedding rings - they may make it, but they can't break it -
and my daughter's well related. Show me Mrs. Dombey, and I'll show you my
Alice's first cousin.«
    Harriet glanced from the old woman to the lustrous eyes intent upon her
face, and derived corroboration from them.
    »What!« cried the old woman, her nodding head bridling with a ghastly
vanity. »Though I am old and ugly now, - much older by life and habit than years
though, - I was once as young as any. Ah! as pretty too, as many! I was a fresh
country wench in my time, darling,« stretching out her arm to Harriet, across
the bed, »and looked it, too. Down in my country, Mrs. Dombey's father and his
brother were the gayest gentlemen and the best-liked that came a visiting from
London - they have long been dead, though! Lord, Lord, this long while! The
brother, who was my Ally's father, longest of the two.«
    She raised her head a little, and peered at her daughter's face; as if from
the remembrance of her own youth, she had flown to the remembrance of her
child's. Then, suddenly, she laid her face down on the bed, and shut her head up
in her hands and arms.
    »They were as like,« said the old woman, without looking up, »as you could
see two brothers, so near an age - there wasn't't much more than a year between
them, as I recollect - and if you could have seen my gal, as I have seen her
once, side by side with the other's daughter, you'd have seen, for all the
difference of dress and life, that they were like each other. Oh! is the
likeness gone, and is it my gal - only my gal - that's to change so!«
    »We shall all change, mother, in our turn,« said Alice.
    »Turn!« cried the old woman, »but why not hers as soon as my gal's! The
mother must have changed - she looked as old as me, and full as wrinkled through
her paint - but she was handsome. What have I done, I, what have I done worse
than her, that only my gal is to lie there fading!«
    With another of those wild cries, she went running out into the room from
which she had come; but immediately, in her uncertain mood, returned, and
creeping up to Harriet, said:
    »That's what Alice bade me tell you, deary. That's all. I found it out when
I began to ask who she was, and all about her, away in Warwickshire there, one
summer-time. Such relations was no good to me, then. They wouldn't have owned
me, and had nothing to give me. I should have asked 'em, maybe, for a little
money, afterwards, if it hadn't been for my Alice; she'd almost have killed me,
if I had, I think. She was as proud as t'other in her way,« said the old woman,
touching the face of her daughter fearfully, and withdrawing her hand, »for all
she's so quiet now; but she'll shame 'em with her good looks yet. Ha, ha! She'll
shame 'em, will my handsome daughter!«
    Her laugh, as she retreated, was worse than her cry; worse than the burst of
imbecile lamentation in which it ended; worse than the doting air with which she
sat down in her old seat, and stared out at the darkness.
    The eyes of Alice had all this time been fixed on Harriet, whose hand she
had never released. She said now:
    »I have felt, lying here, that I should like you to know this. It might
explain, I have thought, something that used to help to harden me. I had heard
so much, in my wrongdoing, of my neglected duty, that I took up with the belief
that duty had not been done to me, and that as the seed was sown, the harvest
grew. I somehow made it out that when ladies had bad homes and mothers, they
went wrong in their way, too; but that their way was not so foul a one as mine,
and they had need to bless God for it. That is all past. It is like a dream,
now, which I cannot quite remember or understand. It has been more and more like
a dream, every day, since you began to sit here, and to read to me. I only tell
it you, as I can recollect it. Will you read to me a little more?«
    Harriet was withdrawing her hand to open the book, when Alice detained it
for a moment.
    »You will not forget my mother? I forgive her, if I have any cause. I know
that she forgives me, and is sorry in her heart. You will not forget her?«
    »Never, Alice!«
    »A moment yet. Lay my head so, dear, that as you read I may see the words in
your kind face.«
    Harriet complied and read - read the eternal book for all the weary and the
heavy-laden; for all the wretched, fallen, and neglected of this earth - read
the blessed history, in which the blind lame palsied beggar, the criminal, the
woman stained with shame, the shunned of all our dainty clay, has each a
portion, that no human pride, indifference, or sophistry, through all the ages
that this world shall last, can take away, or by the thousandth atom of a grain
reduce - read the ministry of Him who, through the round of human life, and all
its hopes and griefs, from birth to death, from infancy to age, had sweet
compassion for, and interest in, its every scene and stage, its every suffering
and sorrow.
    »I shall come,« said Harriet, when she shut the book, »very early in the
morning.«
    The lustrous eyes, yet fixed upon her face, closed for a moment, then
opened; and Alice kissed and blessed her.
    The same eyes followed her to the door; and in their light, and on the
tranquil face, there was a smile when it was closed.
    They never turned away. She laid her hand upon her breast, murmuring the
sacred name that had been read to her; and life passed from her face, like light
removed.
    Nothing lay there, any longer, but the ruin of the mortal house on which the
rain had beaten, and the black hair that had fluttered in the wintry wind.
 

                                  Chapter LIX

                                  Retribution.

Changes have come again upon the great house in the long dull street, once the
scene of Florence's childhood and loneliness. It is a great house still, proof
against wind and weather, without breaches in the roof, or shattered windows, or
dilapidated walls; but it is a ruin none the less, and the rats fly from it.
    Mr. Towlinson and company are, at first, incredulous in respect of the
shapeless rumours that they hear. Cook says our people's credit ain't so easy
shook as that comes to, thank God; and Mr. Towlinson expects to hear it reported
that the Bank of England's a going to break, or the jewels in the Tower to be
sold up. But, next come the Gazette, and Mr. Perch: and Mr. Perch brings Mrs.
Perch to talk it over in the kitchen, and to spend a pleasant evening.
    As soon as there is no doubt about it, Mr. Towlinson's main anxiety is that
the failure should be a good round one - not less than a hundred thousand pound.
Mr. Perch don't think himself that a hundred thousand pound will nearly cover
it. The women, led by Mrs. Perch and Cook, often repeat »a hun-dred thou-sand
pound!« with awful satisfaction - as if handling the words were like handling
the money; and the housemaid, who has her eye on Mr. Towlinson, wishes she had
only a hundredth part of the sum to bestow on the man of her choice. Mr.
Towlinson, still mindful of his old wrong, opines that a foreigner would hardly
know what to do with so much money, unless he spent it on his whiskers; which
bitter sarcasm causes the housemaid to withdraw in tears.
    But not to remain long absent; for Cook, who has the reputation of being
extremely good-hearted, says, whatever they do, let 'em stand by one another
now, Towlinson, for there's no telling how soon they may be divided. They have
been in that house (says Cook) through a funeral, a wedding, and a running-away;
and let it not be said that they couldn't agree among themselves at such a time
as the present. Mrs. Perch is immensely affected by this moving address, and
openly remarks that Cook is an angel. Mr. Towlinson replies to Cook, far be it
from him to stand in the way of that good feeling which he could wish to see;
and adjourning in quest of the housemaid, and presently returning with that
young lady on his arm, informs the kitchen that foreigners is only his fun, and
that him and Anne have now resolved to take one another for better for worse,
and to settle in Oxford Market in the general green-grocery and herb and leech
line, where your kind favours is particular requested. This announcement is
received with acclamation; and Mrs. Perch, projecting her soul into futurity,
says, »girls,« in Cook's ear, in a solemn whisper.
    Misfortune in the family without feasting, in these lower regions couldn't
be. Therefore Cook tosses up a hot dish or two for supper, and Mr. Towlinson
compounds a lobster salad to be devoted to the same hospitable purpose. Even
Mrs. Pipchin, agitated by the occasion, rings her bell, and sends down word that
she requests to have that little bit of sweetbread that was left, warmed up for
her supper, and sent to her on a tray with about a quarter of a tumbler-full of
mulled sherry; for she feels poorly.
    There is a little talk about Mr. Dombey, but very little. It is chiefly
speculation as to how long he has known that this was going to happen. Cook says
shrewdly, »Oh a long time, bless you! Take your oath of that.« And reference
being made to Mr. Perch, he confirms her view of the case. Somebody wonders what
he'll do, and whether he'll go out in any situation. Mr. Towlinson thinks not,
and hints at a refuge in one of them gen-teel almshouses of the better kind.
»Ah, where he'll have his little garden, you know,« says Cook plaintively, »and
bring up sweet peas in the spring.« »Exactly so,« says Mr. Towlinson, »and be
one of the Brethren of something or another.« »We are all brethren,« says Mrs.
Perch, in a pause of her drink. »Except the sisters,« says Mr. Perch. »How are
the mighty fallen!« remarks Cook. »Pride shall have a fall, and it always was
and will be so!« observes the housemaid.
    It is wonderful how good they feel in making these reflections; and what a
Christian unanimity they are sensible of in bearing the common shock with
resignation. There is only one interruption to this excellent state of mind,
which is occasioned by a young kitchen-maid of inferior rank - in black
stockings - who, having sat with her mouth open for a long time, unexpectedly
discharges from it words to this effect, »Suppose the wages shouldn't be paid!«
The company sit for a moment speechless; but Cook recovering first, turns upon
the young woman, and requests to know how she dares insult the family, whose
bread she eats, by such a dishonest supposition, and whether she thinks that
anybody, with a scrap of honour left, could deprive poor servants of their
pittance? »Because if that is your religious feelings, Mary Daws,« says Cook
warmly, »I don't know where you mean to go to.«
    Mr. Towlinson don't know either; nor anybody; and the young kitchen-maid,
appearing not to know exactly, herself, and scouted by the general voice, is
covered with confusion, as with a garment.
    After a few days, strange people begin to call at the house, and to make
appointments with one another in the dining-room, as if they lived there.
Especially, there is a gentleman, of a Mosaic Arabian cast of countenance, with
a very massive watch-guard, who whistles in the drawing-room, and, while he is
waiting for the other gentleman, who always has pen and ink in his pocket, asks
Mr. Towlinson (by the easy name of Old Cock,) if he happens to know what the
figure of them crimson and gold hangings might have been, when new bought. The
callers and appointments in the dining-room become more numerous every day, and
every gentleman seems to have pen and ink in his pocket, and to have some
occasion to use it. At last it is said that there is going to be a Sale; and
then more people arrive, with pen and ink in their pockets, commanding a
detachment of men with carpet caps, who immediately begin to pull up the
carpets, and knock the furniture about, and to print off thousands of
impressions of their shoes upon the hall and staircase.
    The council down stairs are in full conclave all this time, and, having
nothing to do, perform perfect feats of eating. At length, they are one day
summoned in a body to Mrs. Pipchin's room, and thus addressed by the fair
Peruvian:
    »Your master's in difficulties,« says Mrs. Pipchin, tartly. »You know that,
I suppose?«
    Mr. Towlinson, as spokesman, admits a general knowledge of the fact.
    »And you're all on the look-out for yourselves, I warrant you,« says Mrs.
Pipchin, shaking her head at them.
    A shrill voice from the rear exclaims, »No more than yourself!«
    »That's your opinion, Mrs. Impudence, is it?« says the ireful Pipchin,
looking with a fiery eye over the intermediate heads.
    »Yes, Mrs. Pipchin, it is,« replies Cook, advancing. »And what then, pray?«
    »Why, then you may go as soon as you like,« says Mrs. Pipchin. »The sooner
the better; and I hope I shall never see your face again.«
    With this the doughty Pipchin produces a canvas bag; and tells her wages out
to that day, and a month beyond it: and clutches the money tight until a receipt
for the same is duly signed, to the last up-stroke; when she grudgingly lets it
go. This form of proceeding Mrs. Pipchin repeats with every member of the
household, until all are paid.
    »Now those that choose can go about their business,« says Mrs. Pipchin, »and
those that choose can stay here on board wages for a week or so, and make
themselves useful. Except,« says the inflammable Pipchin, »that slut of a cook,
who'll go immediately.«
    »That,« says Cook, »she certainly will! I wish you good day, Mrs. Pipchin,
and sincerely wish I could compliment you on the sweetness of your appearance!«
    »Get along with you,« says Mrs. Pipchin, stamping her foot.
    Cook sails off with an air of beneficent dignity, highly exasperating to
Mrs. Pipchin, and is shortly joined below stairs by the rest of the
confederation.
    Mr. Towlinson then says that, in the first place, he would beg to propose a
little snack of something to eat; and over that snack would desire to offer a
suggestion which he thinks will meet the position in which they find themselves.
The refreshment being produced, and very heartily partaken of, Mr. Towlinson's
suggestion is, in effect, that Cook is going, and that if we are not true to
ourselves, nobody will be true to us. That they have lived in that house a long
time, and exerted themselves very much to be sociable together. (At this, Cook
says, with emotion, »Hear, hear!« and Mrs. Perch, who is there again, and full
to the throat, sheds tears.) And that he thinks, at the present time, the
feeling ought to be »Go one, go all!« The housemaid is much affected by this
generous sentiment, and warmly seconds it. Cook says she feels it's right, and
only hopes it's not done as a compliment to her, but from a sense of duty. Mr.
Towlinson replies, from a sense of duty; and that now he is driven to express
his opinions, he will openly say, that he does not think it over-respectable to
remain in a house where Sales and suchlike are carrying forwards. The housemaid
is sure of it; and relates, in confirmation, that a strange man, in a carpet
cap, offered this very morning to kiss her on the stairs. Hereupon, Mr.
Towlinson is starting from his chair, to seek and smash the offender; when he is
laid hold on by the ladies, who beseech him to calm himself, and to reflect that
it is easier and wiser to leave the scene of such indecencies at once. Mrs.
Perch, presenting the case in a new light, even shows that delicacy towards Mr.
Dombey, shut up in his own rooms, imperatively demands precipitate retreat. »For
what,« says the good woman, »must his feelings be, if he was to come upon any of
the poor servants that he once deceived into thinking him immensely rich!« Cook
is so struck by this moral consideration that Mrs. Perch improves it with
several pious axioms, original and selected. It becomes a clear case that they
must all go. Boxes are packed, cabs fetched, and at dusk that evening there is
not one member of the party left.
    The house stands, large and weather-proof, in the long dull street; but it
is a ruin, and the rats fly from it.
    The men in the carpet caps go on tumbling the furniture about; and the
gentlemen with the pens and ink make out inventories of it, and sit upon pieces
of furniture never made to be sat upon, and eat bread and cheese from the
public-house on other pieces of furniture never made to be eaten on, and seem to
have a delight in appropriating precious articles to strange uses. Chaotic
combinations of furniture also take place. Mattresses and bedding appear in the
dining-room; the glass and china get into the conservatory; the great dinner
service is set out in heaps on the long divan in the large drawing-room; and the
stair-wires, made into fasces, decorate the marble chimney-pieces. Finally, a
rug, with a printed bill upon it, is hung out from the balcony; and a similar
appendage graces either side of the hall door.
    Then, all day long, there is a retinue of mouldy gigs and chaise-carts in
the street; and herds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, over-run the house,
sounding the plate-glass mirrors with their knuckles, striking discordant
octaves on the Grand Piano, drawing wet forefingers over the pictures, breathing
on the blades of the best dinner-knives, punching the squabs of chairs and sofas
with their dirty fists, touzling the feather beds, opening and shutting all the
drawers, balancing the silver spoons and forks, looking into the very threads of
the drapery and linen, and disparaging everything. There is not a secret place
in the whole house. Fluffy and snuffy strangers stare into the kitchen-range as
curiously as into the attic clothes-press. Stout men with napless hats on, look
out of the bedroom windows, and cut jokes with friends in the street. Quiet,
calculating spirits withdraw into the dressing-rooms with catalogues, and make
marginal notes thereon, with stumps of pencils. Two brokers invade the very
fire-escape, and take a panoramic survey of the neighbourhood from the top of
the house. The swarm and buzz, and going up and down, endure for days. The
Capital Modern Household Furniture, etc., is on view.
    Then there is a palisade of tables made in the best drawing-room; and on the
capital, french-polished, extending, telescopic range of Spanish mahogany
dining-tables with turned legs, the pulpit of the Auctioneer is erected; and the
herds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, the strangers fluffy and snuffy,
and the stout men with the napless hats, congregate about it and sit upon
everything within reach, mantel-pieces included, and begin to bid. Hot, humming,
and dusty are the rooms all day; and - high above the heat, hum, and dust - the
head and shoulders, voice and hammer, of the Auctioneer, are ever at work. The
men in the carpet caps get flustered and vicious with tumbling the Lots about,
and still the Lots are going, going, gone; still coming on. Sometimes there is
joking and a general roar. This lasts all day and three days following. The
Capital Modern Household Furniture, etc., is on sale.
    Then the mouldy gigs and chaise-carts reappear; and with them come
spring-vans and wagons, and an army of porters with knots. All day long, the
men with carpet caps are screwing at screw-drivers and bed-winches, or
staggering by the dozen together on the staircase under heavy burdens, or
upheaving perfect rocks of Spanish mahogany, best rosewood, or plate-glass, into
the gigs and chaise-carts, vans and wagons. All sorts of vehicles of burden are
in attendance, from a tilted wagon to a wheel-barrow. Poor Paul's little
bedstead is carried off in a donkey-tandem. For nearly a whole week, the Capital
Modern Household Furniture, etc., is in course of removal.
    At last it is all gone. Nothing is left about the house but scattered leaves
of catalogues, littered scraps of straw and hay, and a battery of pewter pots
behind the hall-door. The men with the carpet caps gather up their screw-drivers
and bed-winches into bags, shoulder them, and walk off. One of the pen-and-ink
gentlemen goes over the house as a last attention; sticking up bills in the
windows respecting the lease of this desirable family mansion, and shutting the
shutters. At length he follows the men with the carpet caps. None of the
invaders remain. The house is a ruin, and the rats fly from it.
    Mrs. Pipchin's apartments, together with those locked rooms on the
ground-floor where the window-blinds are drawn down close, have been spared the
general devastation. Mrs. Pipchin has remained austere and stony during the
proceedings in her own room; or has occasionally looked in at the sale to see
what the goods are fetching, and to bid for one particular easy chair. Mrs.
Pipchin has been the highest bidder for the easy chair, and sits upon her
property when Mrs. Chick comes to see her.
    »How is my brother, Mrs. Pipchin?« says Mrs. Chick.
    »I don't know any more than the deuce,« says Mrs. Pipchin. »He never does me
the honour to speak to me. He has his meat and drink put in the next room to his
own; and what he takes, he comes out and takes when there's nobody there. It's
no use asking me. I know no more about him than the man in the south who burnt
his mouth by eating cold plum porridge.«
    This the acrimonious Pipchin says with a flounce.
    »But good gracious me!« cries Mrs. Chick blandly. »How long is this to last!
If my brother will not make an effort, Mrs. Pipchin, what is to become of him? I
am sure I should have thought he had seen enough of the consequences of not
making an effort, by this time, to be warned against that fatal error.«
    »Hoity toity!« says Mrs. Pipchin, rubbing her nose. »There's a great fuss, I
think, about it. It an't so wonderful a case. People have had misfortunes before
now, and been obliged to part with their furniture. I'm sure I have!«
    »My brother,« pursues Mrs. Chick profoundly, »is so peculiar - so strange a
man. He is the most peculiar man I ever saw. Would any one believe that when he
received news of the marriage and emigration of that unnatural child - it's a
comfort to me, now, to remember that I always said there was something
extraordinary about that child: but nobody minds me - would anybody believe, I
say, that he should then turn round upon me and say he had supposed, from my
manner, that she had come to my house? Why, my gracious! And would anybody
believe that when I merely say to him, Paul, I may be very foolish, and I have
no doubt I am, but I cannot understand how your affairs can have got into this
state, he should actually fly at me, and request that I will come to see him no
more until he asks me! Why, my goodness!«
    »Ah!« says Mrs. Pipchin. »It's a pity he hadn't a little more to do with
mines. They'd have tried his temper for him.«
    »And what,« resumes Mrs. Chick, quite regardless of Mrs. Pipchin's
observations, »is it to end in? That's what I want to know. What does my brother
mean to do? He must do something. It's of no use remaining shut up in his own
rooms. Business won't come to him. No. He must go to it. Then why don't he go!
He knows where to go, I suppose, having been a man of business all his life.
Very good. Then why not go there?«
    Mrs. Chick, after forging this powerful chain of reasoning, remains silent
for a minute to admire it.
    »Besides,« says the discreet lady, with an argumentative air, »who ever
heard of such obstinacy as his staying shut up here through all these dreadful
disagreeables? It's not as if there was no place for him to go to. Of course he
could have come to our house. He knows he is at home there, I suppose? Mr. Chick
has perfectly bored about it, and I said with my own lips, Why surely, Paul, you
don't imagine that because your affairs have got into this state, you are the
less at home to such near relatives as ourselves? You don't imagine that we are
like the rest of the world? But no; here he stays all through, and here he is.
Why, good gracious me, suppose the house was to be let! What would he do then?
He couldn't remain here then. If he attempted to do so, there would be an
ejectment, an action for Doe, and all sorts of things; and then he must go. Then
why not go at first instead of at last? And that brings me back to what I said
just now, and I naturally ask what is to be the end of it?«
    »I know what's to be the end of it, as far as I am concerned,« replies Mrs.
Pipchin, »and that's enough for me. I'm going to take myself off in a jiffy.«
    »In a which, Mrs. Pipchin,« says Mrs. Chick.
    »In a jiffy,« retorts Mrs. Pipchin sharply.
    »Ah, well! really I can't blame you, Mrs. Pipchin,« says Mrs. Chick, with
frankness.
    »It would be pretty much the same to me, if you could,« replies the sardonic
Pipchin. »At any rate I'm going. I can't stop here. I should be dead in a week.
I had to cook my own pork chop yesterday, and I'm not used to it. My
constitution will be giving way next. Besides, I had a very fair connexion at
Brighton when I came here - little Pankey's folks alone were worth a good eighty
pounds a-year to me - and I can't afford to throw it away. I've written to my
niece, and she expects me by this time.«
    »Have you spoken to my brother?« inquires Mrs. Chick.
    »Oh, yes, it's very easy to say speak to him,« retorts Mrs. Pipchin. »How is
it done! I called out to him yesterday, that I was no use here, and that he had
better let me send for Mrs. Richards. He grunted something or other that meant
yes, and I sent! Grunt indeed! If he had been Mr. Pipchin, he'd have had some
reason to grunt. Yah! I've no patience with it!«
    Here this exemplary female, who has pumped up so much fortitude and virtue
from the depths of the Peruvian mines, rises from her cushioned property to see
Mrs. Chick to the door. Mrs. Chick, deploring to the last the peculiar character
of her brother, noiselessly retires, much occupied with her own sagacity and
clearness of head.
    In the dusk of the evening Mr. Toodle, being off duty, arrives with Polly
and a box, and leaves them, with a sounding kiss, in the hall of the empty
house, the retired character of which affects Mr. Toodle's spirits strongly.
    »I tell you what, Polly, my dear,« says Mr. Toodle, »being now an
ingein-driver, and well to do in the world, I shouldn't allow of your coming
here, to be made dull-like, if it warn't for favours past. But favours past,
Polly, is never to be forgot. To them which is in adversity, besides, your face
is a cord'l. So lets have another kiss on it, my dear. You wish no better than
to do a right act, I know; and my views is, that it's right and dutiful to do
this. Good night, Polly!«
    Mrs. Pipchin by this time looms dark in her black bombazeen skirts, black
bonnet, and shawl; and has her personal property packed up; and has her chair
(late a favourite chair of Mr. Dombey's and the dead bargain of the sale) ready
near the street door; and is only waiting for a fly van, going to-night to
Brighton on private service, which is to call for her, by private contract, and
convey her home.
    Presently it comes. Mrs. Pipchin's wardrobe being handed in and stowed away,
Mrs. Pipchin's chair is next handed in, and placed in a convenient corner among
certain trusses of hay; it being the intention of the amiable woman to occupy
the chair during her journey. Mrs. Pipchin herself is next handed in, and grimly
takes her seat. There is a snaky gleam in her hard grey eye, as of anticipated
rounds of buttered toast, relays of hot chops, worryings and quellings of young
children, sharp snappings at poor Berry, and all the other delights of her
Ogress's castle. Mrs. Pipchin almost laughs as the Fly Van drives off, and she
composes her black bombazeen skirts, and settles herself among the cushions of
her easy chair.
    The house is such a ruin that the rats have fled, and there is not one left.
    But Polly, though alone in the deserted mansion - for there is no
companionship in the shut-up rooms in which its late master hides his head - is
not alone long. It is night; and she is sitting at work in the housekeeper's
room, trying to forget what a lonely house it is, and what a history belongs to
it; when there is a knock at the hall door, as loud sounding as any knock can
be, striking into such an empty place. Opening it, she returns across the
echoing hall, accompanied by a female figure in a close black bonnet. It is Miss
Tox, and Miss Tox's eyes are red.
    »Oh, Polly,« says Miss Tox, »when I looked in to have a little lesson with
the children just now, I got the message that you left for me; and as soon as I
could recover my spirits at all, I came on after you. Is there no one here but
you?«
    »Ah! not a soul,« says Polly.
    »Have you seen him?« whispers Miss Tox.
    »Bless you,« returns Polly, »no; he has not been seen this many a day. They
tell me he never leaves his room.«
    »Is he said to be ill?« inquires Miss Tox.
    »No, ma'am, not that I know of,« returns Polly, »except in his mind. He must
be very bad there, poor gentleman!«
    Miss Tox's sympathy is such that she can scarcely speak. She is no chicken,
but she has not grown tough with age and celibacy. Her heart is very tender, her
compassion very genuine, her homage very real. Beneath the locket with the fishy
eye in it, Miss Tox bears better qualities than many a less whimsical outside;
such qualities as will outlive, by many courses of the sun, the best outsides
and brightest husks that fall in the harvest of the great reaper.
    It is long before Miss Tox goes away, and before Polly, with a candle
flaring on the blank stairs, looks after her, for company, down the street, and
feels unwilling to go back into the dreary house, and jar its emptiness with the
heavy fastenings of the door, and glide away to bed. But all this Polly does;
and in the morning sets in one of those darkened rooms such matters as she has
been advised to prepare, and then retires and enters them no more until next
morning at the same hour. There are bells there, but they never ring; and though
she can sometimes hear a footfall going to and fro, it never comes out.
    Miss Tox returns early in the day. It then begins to be Miss Tox's
occupation to prepare little dainties - or what are such to her - to be carried
into these rooms next morning. She derives so much satisfaction from the
pursuit, that she enters on it regularly from that time; and brings daily in her
little basket, various choice condiments selected from the scanty stores of the
deceased owner of the powdered head and pigtail. She likewise brings, in sheets
of curl-paper, morsels of cold meats, tongues of sheep, halves of fowls, for her
own dinner; and sharing these collations with Polly, passes the greater part of
her time in the ruined house that the rats have fled from: hiding, in a fright
at every sound, stealing in and out like a criminal; only desiring to be true to
the fallen object of her admiration, unknown to him, unknown to all the world
but one poor simple woman.
    The Major knows it; but no one is the wiser for that, though the Major is
much the merrier. The Major, in a fit of curiosity, has charged the Native to
watch the house sometimes, and find out what becomes of Dombey. The Native has
reported Miss Tox's fidelity, and the Major has nearly choked himself dead with
laughter. He is permanently bluer from that hour, and constantly wheezes to
himself, his lobster eyes starting out of his head, »Damme, Sir, the woman's a
born idiot!«
    And the ruined man. How does he pass the hours, alone?
    »Let him remember it in that room, years to come!« He did remember it. It
was heavy on his mind now; heavier than all the rest.
    »Let him remember it in that room, years to come! The rain that falls upon
the roof, the wind that mourns outside the door, may have foreknowledge in their
melancholy sound. Let him remember it in that room, years to come!«
    He did remember it. In the miserable night he thought of it; in the dreary
day, the wretched dawn, the ghostly, memory-haunted twilight. He did remember
it. In agony, in sorrow, in remorse, in despair! »Papa! Papa! Speak to me, dear
Papa!« He heard the words again, and saw the face. He saw it fall upon the
trembling hands, and heard the one prolonged low cry go upward.
    He was fallen, never to be raised up any more. For the night of his worldly
ruin there was no to-morrow's sun; for the stain of his domestic shame there was
no purification; nothing, thank Heaven, could bring his dead child back to life.
But that which he might have made so different in all the Past - which might
have made the Past itself so different, though this he hardly thought of now -
that which was his own work, that which he could so easily have wrought into a
blessing, and had set himself so steadily for years to form into a curse: that
was the sharp grief of his soul.
    Oh! He did remember it! The rain that fell upon the roof, the wind that
mourned outside the door that night, had had foreknowledge in their melancholy
sound. He knew, now, what he had done. He knew, now, that he had called down
that upon his head, which bowed it lower than the heaviest stroke of fortune. He
knew, now, what it was to be rejected and deserted; now, when every loving
blossom he had withered in his innocent daughter's heart was snowing down in
ashes on him.
    He thought of her, as she had been that night when he and his bride came
home. He thought of her as she had been, in all the home-events of the abandoned
House. He thought, now, that of all around him, she alone had never changed. His
boy had faded into dust, his proud wife had sunk into a polluted creature, his
flatterer and friend had been transformed into the worst of villains, his riches
had melted away, the very walls that sheltered him looked on him as a stranger;
she alone had turned the same mild gentle look upon him always. Yes, to the
latest and the last. She had never changed to him - nor had he ever changed to
her - and she was lost.
    As, one by one, they fell away before his mind - his baby-hope, his wife,
his friend, his fortune - oh how the mist, through which he had seen her,
cleared, and showed him her true self! Oh, how much better than this that he had
loved her as he had his boy, and lost her as he had his boy, and laid them in
their early grave together!
    In his pride - for he was proud yet - he let the world go from him freely.
As it fell away, he shook it off. Whether he imagined its face as expressing
pity for him, or indifference to him, he shunned it alike. It was in the same
degree to be avoided, in either aspect. He had no idea of any one companion in
his misery, but the one he had driven away. What he would have said to her, or
what consolation submitted to receive from her, he never pictured to himself.
But he always knew she would have been true to him, if he had suffered her. He
always knew she would have loved him better now, than at any other time: he was
as certain that it was in her nature, as he was that there was a sky above him;
and he sat thinking so, in his loneliness, from hour to hour. Day after day
uttered this speech; night after night showed him this knowledge.
    It began, beyond all doubt (however slow it advanced for some time), in the
receipt of her young husband's letter, and the certainty that she was gone. And
yet - so proud he was in his ruin, or so reminiscent of her, only as something
that might have been his, but was lost beyond redemption - that if he could have
heard her voice in an adjoining room, he would not have gone to her. If he could
have seen her in the street, and she had done no more than look at him as she
had been used to look, he would have passed on with his old cold unforgiving
face, and not addressed her, or relaxed it, though his heart should have broken
soon afterwards. However turbulent his thoughts, or harsh his anger had been, at
first, concerning her marriage, or her husband, that was all past now. He
chiefly thought of what might have been, and what was not. What was, was all
summed up in this: that she was lost, and he bowed down with sorrow and remorse.
    And now he felt that he had had two children born to him in that house, and
that between him and the bare wide empty walls there, was a tie, mournful, but
hard to rend asunder, connected with a double childhood, and a double loss. He
had thought to leave the house - knowing he must go, not knowing whither - upon
the evening of the day on which this feeling first struck root in his breast;
but he resolved to stay another night, and in the night to ramble through the
rooms once more.
    He came out of his solitude when it was the dead of night, and with a candle
in his hand went softly up the stairs. Of all the footmarks there, making them
as common as the common street, there was not one, he thought, but had seemed at
the time to set itself upon his brain while he had kept close, listening. He
looked at their number, and their hurry, and contention - foot treading foot
out, and upward track and downward jostling one another - and thought, with
absolute dread and wonder, how much he must have suffered during that trial, and
what a changed man he had cause to be. He thought, besides, oh was there,
somewhere in the world, a light footstep that might have worn out in a moment
half those marks! - and bent his head, and wept as he went up.
    He almost saw it, going on before. He stopped, looking up towards the
skylight; and a figure, childish itself, but carrying a child, and singing as it
went, seemed to be there again. Anon, it was the same figure, alone, stopping
for an instant, with suspended breath; the bright hair clustering loosely round
its tearful face; and looking back at him.
    He wandered through the rooms: lately so luxurious; now so bare and dismal
and so changed, apparently, even in their shape and size. The press of footsteps
was as thick here; and the same consideration of the suffering he had had,
perplexed and terrified him. He began to fear that all this intricacy in his
brain would drive him mad; and that his thoughts already lost coherence as the
footprints did, and were pieced on to one another, with the same trackless
involutions, and varieties of indistinct shapes.
    He did not so much as know in which of these rooms she had lived, when she
was alone. He was glad to leave them, and go wandering higher up. Abundance of
associations were here, connected with his false wife, his false friend and
servant, his false grounds of pride; but he put them all by now, and only
recalled miserably, weakly, fondly, his two children.
    Everywhere, the footsteps! They had had no respect for the old room high up,
where the little bed had been; he could hardly find a clear space there, to
throw himself down, on the floor, against the wall, poor broken man, and let his
tears flow as they would. He had shed so many tears here, long ago, that he was
less ashamed of his weakness in this place than in any other - perhaps, with
that consciousness, had made excuses to himself for coming here. Here, with
stooping shoulders, and his chin dropped on his breast, he had come. Here,
thrown upon the bare boards, in the dead of night, he wept, alone - a proud man,
even then; who, if a kind hand could have been stretched out, or a kind face
could have looked in, would have risen up, and turned away, and gone down to his
cell.
    When the day broke he was shut up in his rooms again. He had meant to go
away to-day, but clung to this tie in the house as the last and only thing left
to him. He would go to-morrow. To-morrow came. He would go to-morrow. Every
night, within the knowledge of no human creature, he came forth, and wandered
through the despoiled house like a ghost. Many a morning when the day broke, his
altered face, drooping behind the closed blind in his window, imperfectly
transparent to the light as yet, pondered on the loss of his two children. It
was one child no more. He re-united them in his thoughts, and they were never
asunder. Oh, that he could have united them in his past love, and in death, and
that one had not been so much worse than dead!
    Strong mental agitation and disturbance was no novelty to him, even before
his late sufferings. It never is, to obstinate and sullen natures; for they
struggle hard to be such. Ground, long undermined, will often fall down in a
moment; what was undermined here in so many ways, weakened, and crumbled, little
by little, more and more, as the hand moved on the dial.
    At last he began to think he need not go at all. He might yet give up what
his creditors had spared him (that they had not spared him more, was his own
act), and only sever the tie between him and the ruined house, by severing that
other link -
    It was then that his footfall was audible in the late housekeeper's room, as
he walked to and fro; but not audible in its true meaning, or it would have had
an appalling sound.
    The world was very busy and restless about him. He became aware of that
again. It was whispering and babbling. It was never quiet. This, and the
intricacy and complication of the footsteps, harassed him to death. Objects
began to take a bleared and russet colour in his eyes. Dombey and Son was no
more - his children no more. This must be thought of, well, to-morrow.
    He thought of it to-morrow; and sitting thinking in his chair, saw in the
glass, from time to time, this picture:
    A spectral, haggard, wasted likeness of himself, brooded and brooded over
the empty fireplace. Now it lifted up its head, examining the lines and hollows
in its face; now hung it down again, and brooded afresh. Now it rose and walked
about; now passed into the next room, and came back with something from the
dressing-table in its breast. Now, it was looking at the bottom of the door, and
thinking.
    - Hush! what?
    It was thinking that if blood were to trickle that way, and to leak out into
the hall, it must be a long time going so far. It would move so stealthily and
slowly, creeping on, with here a lazy little pool, and there a start, and then
another little pool, that a desperately wounded man could only be discovered
through its means, either dead or dying. When it had thought of this a long
while, it got up again, and walked to and fro with its hand in its breast. He
glanced at it occasionally, very curious to watch its motions, and he marked how
wicked and murderous that hand looked.
    Now it was thinking again! What was it thinking?
    Whether they would tread in the blood when it crept so far, and carry it
about the house among those many prints of feet, or even out into the street.
    It sat down, with its eyes upon the empty fireplace, and as it lost itself
in thought there shone into the room a gleam of light; a ray of sun. It was
quite unmindful, and sat thinking. Suddenly it rose, with a terrible face, and
that guilty hand grasping what was in its breast. Then it was arrested by a cry
- a wild, loud, piercing, loving, rapturous cry - and he only saw his own
reflection in the glass, and at his knees, his daughter!
    Yes. His daughter! Look at her! Look here! Down upon the ground, clinging to
him, calling to him, folding her hands, praying to him.
    »Papa! Dearest Papa! Pardon me, forgive me! I have come back to ask
forgiveness on my knees. I never can be happy more, without it!«
    Unchanged still. Of all the world, unchanged. Raising the same face to his,
as on that miserable night. Asking his forgiveness!
    »Dear Papa, oh don't look strangely on me! I never meant to leave you. I
never thought of it, before or afterwards. I was frightened when I went away,
and could not think. Papa, dear, I am changed. I am penitent. I know my fault. I
know my duty better now. Papa, don't cast me off, or I shall die!«
    He tottered to his chair. He felt her draw his arms about her neck; he felt
her put her own round his; he felt her kisses on his face; he felt her wet cheek
laid against his own; he felt - oh, how deeply! - all that he had done.
    Upon the breast that he had bruised, against the heart that he had almost
broken, she laid his face, now covered with his hands, and said, sobbing:
    »Papa, love, I am a mother. I have a child who will soon call Walter by the
name by which I call you. When it was born, and when I knew how much I loved it,
I knew what I had done in leaving you. Forgive me, dear Papa! oh say God bless
me, and my little child!«
    He would have said it, if he could. He would have raised his hands and
besought her for pardon, but she caught them in her own, and put them down,
hurriedly.
    »My little child was born at sea, Papa. I prayed to God (and so did Walter
for me) to spare me, that I might come home. The moment I could land, I came
back to you. Never let us be parted any more, Papa!«
    His head, now grey, was encircled by her arm; and he groaned to think that
never, never, had it rested so before.
    »You will come home with me, Papa, and see my baby. A boy, Papa. His name is
Paul. I think - I hope - he's like -«
    Her tears stopped her.
    »Dear Papa, for the sake of my child, for the sake of the name we have given
him, for my sake, pardon Walter. He is so kind and tender to me. I am so happy
with him. It was not his fault that we were married. It was mine. I loved him so
much.«
    She clung closer to him, more endearing and more earnest.
    »He is the darling of my heart, Papa. I would die for him. He will love and
honour you as I will. We will teach our little child to love and honour you; and
we will tell him, when he can understand, that you had a son of that name once,
and that he died, and you were very sorry; but that he is gone to Heaven, where
we all hope to see him when our time for resting comes. Kiss me, Papa, as a
promise that you will be reconciled to Walter - to my dearest husband - to the
father of the little child who taught me to come back, Papa. Who taught me to
come back!«
    As she clung closer to him, in another burst of tears, he kissed her on her
lips, and, lifting up his eyes, said, »Oh my God, forgive me, for I need it very
much!«
    With that he dropped his head again, lamenting over and caressing her, and
there was not a sound in all the house for a long, long time; they remaining
clasped in one another's arms, in the glorious sunshine that had crept in with
Florence.
    He dressed himself for going out, with a docile submission to her entreaty;
and walking with a feeble gait, and looking back, with a tremble, at the room in
which he had been so long shut up, and where he had seen the picture in the
glass, passed out with her into the hall. Florence, hardly glancing round her,
lest she should remind him freshly of their last parting - for their feet were
on the very stones where he had struck her in his madness - and keeping close to
him, with her eyes upon his face, and his arm about her, led him out to a coach
that was waiting at the door, and carried him away.
    Then, Miss Tox and Polly came out of their concealment, and exulted
tearfully. And then they packed his clothes, and books, and so forth, with great
care; and consigned them in due course to certain persons sent by Florence in
the evening, to fetch them. And then they took a last cup of tea in the lonely
house.
    »And so Dombey and Son, as I observed upon a certain sad occasion,« said
Miss Tox, winding up a host of recollections, »is indeed a daughter, Polly,
after all.«
    »And a good one!« exclaimed Polly.
    »You are right,« said Miss Tox; »and it's a credit to you, Polly, that you
were always her friend when she was a little child. You were her friend long
before I was, Polly,« said Miss Tox; »and you're a good creature. Robin!«
    Miss Tox addressed herself to a bullet-headed young man, who appeared to be
in but indifferent circumstances, and in depressed spirits, and who was sitting
in a remote corner. Rising, he disclosed to view the form and features of the
Grinder.
    »Robin,« said Miss Tox, »I have just observed to your mother, as you may
have heard, that she is a good creature.«
    »And so she is, Miss,« quoth the Grinder, with some feeling.
    »Very well, Robin,« said Miss Tox, »I am glad to hear you say so. Now,
Robin, as I am going to give you a trial, at your urgent request, as my
domestic, with a view to your restoration to respectability, I will take this
impressive occasion of remarking that I hope you will never forget that you
have, and have always had, a good mother, and that you will endeavour so to
conduct yourself as to be a comfort to her.«
    »Upon my soul I will, Miss,« returned the Grinder. »I have come through a
good deal, and my intentions is now as straightfor'ard. Miss, as a cove's -«
    »I must get you to break yourself of that word, Robin, if you please,«
interposed Miss Tox, politely.
    »If you please, Miss, as a chap's -«
    »Thankee, Robin, no,« returned Miss Tox. »I should prefer individual.«
    »As a indiwiddle's,« said the Grinder.
    »Much better,« remarked Miss Tox, complacently; »infinitely more
expressive!«
    »- can be,« pursued Rob. »If I hadn't been and got made a Grinder on. Miss
and Mother, which was a most unfortunate circumstance for a young co -
indiwiddle.«
    »Very good indeed,« observed Miss Tox, approvingly.
    »- and if I hadn't been led away by birds, and then fallen into a bad
service,« said the Grinder, »I hope I might have done better. But it's never too
late for a -«
    »Indi -« suggested Miss Tox.
    »- widdle,« said the Grinder, »to mend; and I hope to mend, Miss, with your
kind trial; and wishing, mother, my love to father, and brothers and sisters,
and saying of it.«
    »I am very glad indeed to hear it,« observed Miss Tox. »Will you take a
little bread and butter, and a cup of tea, before we go, Robin?«
    »Thankee, Miss,« returned the Grinder; who immediately began to use his own
personal grinders in a most remarkable manner, as if he had been on very short
allowance for a considerable period.
    Miss Tox being, in good time, bonneted and shawled, and Polly too, Rob
hugged his mother, and followed his new mistress away; so much to the hopeful
admiration of Polly, that something in her eyes made luminous rings round the
gas-lamps as she looked after him. Polly then put out her light, locked the
house-door, delivered the key at an agent's hard by, and went home as fast as
she could go; rejoicing in the shrill delight that her unexpected arrival would
occasion there. The great house, dumb as to all that had been suffered in it,
and the changes it had witnessed, stood frowning like a dark mute on the street;
baulking any nearer inquiries with the staring announcement that the lease of
this desirable Family Mansion was to be disposed of.
 

                                   Chapter LX

                              Chiefly Matrimonial.

The grand half-yearly festival holden by Doctor and Mrs. Blimber, on which
occasion they requested the pleasure of the company of every young gentleman
pursuing his studies in that genteel establishment, at an early party, when the
hour was half-past seven o'clock, and when the object was quadrilles, had duly
taken place, about this time; and the young gentlemen, with no unbecoming
demonstrations of levity, had betaken themselves, in a state of scholastic
repletion, to their own homes. Mr. Skettles had repaired abroad, permanently to
grace the establishment of his father Sir Barnet Skettles, whose popular manners
had obtained him a diplomatic appointment, the honours of which were discharged
by himself and Lady Skettles, to the satisfaction even of their own countrymen
and countrywomen: which was considered almost miraculous. Mr. Tozer, now a young
man of lofty stature, in Wellington boots, was so extremely full of antiquity as
to be nearly on a par with a genuine ancient Roman in his knowledge of English:
a triumph that affected his good parents with the tenderest emotions, and caused
the father and mother of Mr. Briggs (whose learning, like ill-arranged luggage,
was so tightly packed that he couldn't get at anything he wanted) to hide their
diminished heads. The fruit laboriously gathered from the tree of knowledge by
this latter young gentleman, in fact, had been subjected to so much pressure,
that it had become a kind of intellectual Norfolk Biffin, and had nothing of its
original form or flavour remaining. Master Bitherstone now, on whom the forcing
system had the happier and not uncommon effect of leaving no impression
whatever, when the forcing apparatus ceased to work, was in a much more
comfortable plight; and being then on shipboard, bound for Bengal, found himself
forgetting, with such admirable rapidity, that it was doubtful whether his
declensions of noun-substantives would hold out to the end of the voyage.
    When Doctor Blimber, in pursuance of the usual course, would have said to
the young gentlemen, on the morning of the party, »Gentlemen, we will resume our
studies on the twenty-fifth of next month,« he departed from the usual course,
and said, »Gentlemen, when our friend Cincinnatus retired to his farm, he did
not present to the senate any Roman whom he sought to nominate as his successor.
But there is a Roman here,« said Doctor Blimber, laying his hand on the shoulder
of Mr. Feeder, B. A., »adolescens imprimis gravis et doctus, gentlemen, whom I,
a retiring Cincinnatus, wish to present to my little senate, as their future
Dictator. Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth of next
month, under the auspices of Mr. Feeder, B. A.« At this (which Doctor Blimber
had previously called upon all the parents, and urbanely explained), the young
gentlemen cheered; and Mr. Tozer, on behalf of the rest, instantly presented the
Doctor with a silver inkstand, in a speech containing very little of the
mother-tongue, but fifteen quotations from the Latin, and seven from the Greek,
which moved the younger of the young gentlemen to discontent and envy: they
remarking, »Oh, ah! It was all very well for old Tozer, but they didn't
subscribe money for old Tozer to show off with, they supposed; did they? What
business was it of old Tozer's more than anybody else's? It wasn't't his inkstand.
Why couldn't he leave the boys' property alone?« and murmuring other expressions
of their dissatisfaction, which seemed to find a greater relief in calling him
old Tozer, than in any other available vent.
    Not a word had been said to the young gentlemen, nor a hint dropped, of
anything like a contemplated marriage between Mr. Feeder, B. A., and the fair
Cornelia Blimber. Doctor Blimber, especially, seemed to take pains to look as if
nothing would surprise him more; but it was perfectly well known to all the
young gentlemen nevertheless, and when they departed for the society of their
relations and friends, they took leave of Mr. Feeder with awe.
    Mr. Feeder's most romantic visions were fulfilled. The Doctor had determined
to paint the house outside, and put it in thorough repair; and to give up the
business, and to give up Cornelia. The painting and repairing began upon the
very day of the young gentlemen's departure, and now behold! the wedding morning
was come, and Cornelia, in a new pair of spectacles, was waiting to be led to
the hymeneal altar.
    The Doctor with his learned legs, and Mrs. Blimber in a lilac bonnet, and
Mr. Feeder, B. A., with his long knuckles and his bristly head of hair, and Mr.
Feeder's brother, the Reverend Alfred Feeder, M. A., who was to perform the
ceremony, were all assembled in the drawing-room, and Cornelia with her
orange-flowers and bridesmaids had just come down, and looked, as of old, a
little squeezed in appearance, but very charming, when the door opened, and the
weak-eyed young man, in a loud voice, made the following proclamation:
    »MR. AND MRS. TOOTS!«
    Upon which there entered Mr. Toots, grown extremely stout, and on his arm a
lady very handsomely and becomingly dressed, with very bright black eyes.
    »Mrs. Blimber,« said Mr. Toots, »allow me to present my wife.«
    Mrs. Blimber was delighted to receive her. Mrs. Blimber was a little
condescending, but extremely kind.
    »And as you've known me for a long time, you know,« said Mr. Toots, »let me
assure you that she is one of the most remarkable women that ever lived.«
    »My dear!« remonstrated Mrs. Toots.
    »Upon my word and honour she is,« said Mr. Toots. »I - I assure you, Mrs.
Blimber, she's a most extraordinary woman.«
    Mrs. Toots laughed merrily, and Mrs. Blimber led her to Cornelia. Mr. Toots
having paid his respects in that direction, and having saluted his old
preceptor, who said, in allusion to his conjugal state, »Well, Toots, well,
Toots! So you are one of us, are you, Toots?« - retired with Mr. Feeder, B. A.,
into a window.
    Mr. Feeder, B. A., being in great spirits, made a spar at Mr. Toots, and
tapped him skilfully with the back of his hand on the breast-bone.
    »Well, old Buck!« said Mr. Feeder with a laugh. »Well! Here we are! Taken in
and done for. Eh?«
    »Feeder,« returned Mr. Toots. »I give you joy. If you're as - as - as
perfectly blissful in a matrimonial life, as I am myself, you'll have nothing to
desire.«
    »I don't forget my old friends, you see,« said Mr. Feeder. »I ask 'em to my
wedding, Toots.«
    »Feeder,« replied Mr. Toots gravely, »the fact is, that there were several
circumstances which prevented me from communicating with you until after my
marriage had been solemnised. In the first place, I had made a perfect Brute of
myself to you, on the subject of Miss Dombey; and I felt that if you were asked
to any wedding of mine, you would naturally expect that it was with Miss Dombey,
which involved explanations, that upon my word and honour, at that crisis, would
have knocked me completely over. In the second place, our wedding was strictly
private; there being nobody present but one friend of myself and Mrs. Toots's,
who is a Captain in - I don't exactly know in what,« said Mr. Toots, »but it's
of no consequence. I hope, Feeder, that in writing a statement of what had
occurred before Mrs. Toots and myself went abroad upon our foreign tour, I fully
discharged the offices of friendship.«
    »Toots, my boy,« said Mr. Feeder, shaking his hands, »I was joking.«
    »And now, Feeder,« said Mr. Toots, »I should be glad to know what you think
of my union.«
    »Capital!« returned Mr. Feeder.
    »You think it's capital, do you, Feeder?« said Mr. Toots solemnly. »Then how
capital must it be to Me! For you can never know what an extraordinary woman
that is.«
    Mr. Feeder was willing to take it for granted. But Mr. Toots shook his head,
and wouldn't hear of that being possible.
    »You see,« said Mr. Toots, »what I wanted in a wife was - in short, was
sense. Money, Feeder, I had. Sense I - I had not, particularly.«
    Mr. Feeder murmured, »Oh, yes, you had, Toots!« But Mr. Toots said:
    »No, Feeder, I had not. Why should I disguise it? I had not. I knew that
sense was There,« said Mr. Toots, stretching out his hand towards his wife, »in
perfect heaps. I had no relation to object or be offended, on the score of
station; for I had no relation. I have never had anybody belonging to me but my
guardian, and him, Feeder, I have always considered as a Pirate and a Corsair.
Therefore, you know it was not likely,« said Mr. Toots, »that I should take his
opinion.«
    »No,« said Mr. Feeder.
    »Accordingly,« resumed Mr. Toots, »I acted on my own. Bright was the day on
which I did so,! Feeder! Nobody but myself can tell what the capacity of that
woman's mind is. If ever the Rights of Women, and all that kind of thing, are
properly attended to, it will be through her powerful intellect. - Susan, my
dear!« said Mr. Toots, looking abruptly out of the window-curtains, »pray do not
exert yourself!«
    »My dear,« said Mrs. Toots, »I was only talking.«
    »But, my love,« said Mr. Toots, »pray do not exert yourself. You really must
be careful. Do not, my dear Susan, exert yourself. She's so easily excited,«
said Mr. Toots, apart to Mrs. Blimber, »and then she forgets the medical man
altogether.«
    Mrs. Blimber was impressing on Mrs. Toots the necessity of caution, when Mr.
Feeder, B. A., offered her his arm, and led her down to the carriages that were
in waiting to go to church. Doctor Blimber escorted Mrs. Toots. Mr. Toots
escorted the fair bride, around whose lambent spectacles two gauzy little
bridesmaids fluttered like moths. Mr. Feeder's brother, Mr. Alfred Feeder, M.
A., had already gone on, in advance, to assume his official functions.
    The ceremony was performed in an admirable manner. Cornelia, with her crisp
little curls, »went in,« as the Chicken might have said, with great composure;
and Doctor Blimber gave her away, like a man who had quite made up his mind to
it. The gauzy little bridesmaids appeared to suffer most. Mrs. Blimber was
affected, but gently so; and told the Reverend Mr. Alfred Feeder, M. A., on the
way home, that if she could only have seen Cicero in his retirement at Tusculum,
she would not have had a wish, now, ungratified.
    There was a breakfast afterwards, limited to the same small party; at which
the spirits of Mr. Feeder, B. A., were tremendous, and so communicated
themselves to Mrs. Toots that Mr. Toots was several times heard to observe,
across the table, »My dear Susan, don't exert yourself!« The best of it was,
that Mr. Toots felt it incumbent on him to make a speech; and in spite of a
whole code of telegraphic dissuasions from Mrs. Toots, appeared on his legs for
the first time in his life.
    »I really,« said Mr. Toots, »in this house, where whatever was done to me in
the way of - of any mental confusion sometimes - which is of no consequence and
I impute to nobody - I was always treated like one of Doctor Blimber's family,
and had a desk to myself for a considerable period - can - not - allow - my
friend Feeder to be -«
    Mrs. Toots suggested »married.«
    »It may not be inappropriate to the occasion, or altogether uninteresting,«
said Mr. Toots with a delighted face, »to observe that my wife is a most
extraordinary woman, and would do this much better than myself - allow my friend
Feeder to be married - especially to -«
    Mrs. Toots suggested »to Miss Blimber.«
    »To Mrs. Feeder, my love!« said Mr. Toots, in a subdued tone of private
discussion: »whom God hath joined, you know, let no man - don't you know? I
cannot allow my friend Feeder to be married - especially to Mrs. Feeder -
without proposing their - their - Toasts; and may,« said Mr. Toots, fixing his
eyes on his wife, as if for inspiration in a high flight, »may the torch of
Hymen be the beacon of joy, and may the flowers we have this day strewed in
their path, be the - the banishers of - of gloom!«
    Doctor Blimber, who had a taste for metaphor, was pleased with this, and
said, »Very good, Toots! Very well said, indeed, Toots!« and nodded his head and
patted his hands. Mr. Feeder made in reply, a comic speech chequered with
sentiment. Mr. Alfred Feeder, M. A., was afterwards very happy on Doctor and
Mrs. Blimber; Mr. Feeder, B. A., scarcely less so, on the gauzy little
bridesmaids. Doctor Blimber then, in a sonorous voice, delivered a few thoughts
in the pastoral style, relative to the rushes among which it was the intention
of himself and Mrs. Blimber to dwell, and the bee that would hum around their
cot. Shortly after which, as the Doctor's eyes were twinkling in a remarkable
manner, and his son-in-law had already observed that time was made for slaves,
and had inquired whether Mrs. Toots sang, the discreet Mrs. Blimber dissolved
the sitting, and sent Cornelia away, very cool and comfortable, in a
post-chaise, with the man of her heart.
    Mr. and Mrs. Toots withdrew to the Bedford (Mrs. Toots had been there before
in old times, under her maiden name of Nipper), and there found a letter, which
it took Mr. Toots such an enormous time to read, that Mrs. Toots was frightened.
    »My dear Susan,« said Mr. Toots, »fright is worse than exertion. Pray be
calm!«
    »Who is it from?« asked Mrs. Toots.
    »Why, my love,« said Mr. Toots, »it's from Captain Gills. Do not excite
yourself. Walters and Miss Dombey are expected home!«
    »My dear,« said Mrs. Toots, raising herself quickly from the sofa, very
pale, »don't try to deceive me, for it's no use, they're come home - I see it
plainly in your face!«
    »She's a most extraordinary woman!« exclaimed Mr. Toots, in rapturous
admiration. »You're perfectly right, my love, they have come home. Miss Dombey
has seen her father, and they are reconciled!«
    »Reconciled!« cried Mrs. Toots, clapping her hands.
    »My dear,« said Mr. Toots; »pray do not exert yourself. Do remember the
medical man! Captain Gills says - at least he don't say, but I imagine, from
what I can make out, he means - that Miss Dombey has brought her unfortunate
father away from his old house, to one where she and Walters are living; that he
is lying very ill there - supposed to be dying; and that she attends upon him
night and day.«
    Mrs. Toots began to cry quite bitterly.
    »My dearest Susan,« replied Mr. Toots, »do, do, if you possibly can,
remember the medical man! If you can't, it's of no consequence - but do
endeavour to!«
    His wife, with her old manner suddenly restored, so pathetically entreated
him to take her to her precious pet, her little mistress, her own darling, and
the like, that Mr. Toots, whose sympathy and admiration were of the strongest
kind, consented from his very heart of hearts; and they agreed to depart
immediately, and present themselves in answer to the Captain's letter.
    Now some hidden sympathies of things, or some coincidences, had that day
brought the Captain himself (toward whom Mr. and Mrs. Toots were soon
journeying) into the flowery train of wedlock; not as a principal, but as an
accessory. It happened accidentally, and thus:
    The Captain, having seen Florence and her baby for a moment, to his
unbounded content, and having had a long talk with Walter, turned out for a
walk; feeling it necessary to have some solitary meditation on the changes of
human affairs, and to shake his glazed hat profoundly over the fall of Mr.
Dombey, for whom the generosity and simplicity of his nature were awakened in a
lively manner. The Captain would have been very low, indeed, on the unhappy
gentleman's account, but for the recollection of the baby; which afforded him
such intense satisfaction whenever it arose, that he laughed aloud as he went
along the street, and, indeed, more than once, in a sudden impulse of joy, threw
up his glazed hat and caught it again; much to the amazement of the spectators.
The rapid alternations of light and shade to which these two conflicting
subjects of reflection exposed the Captain, were so very trying to his spirits,
that he felt a long walk necessary to his composure; and as there is a great
deal in the influence of harmonious associations, he chose, for the scene of
this walk, his old neighbourhood, down among the mast, oar, and block makers,
ship-biscuit bakers, coal-whippers, pitch-kettles, sailors, canals, docks,
swing-bridges, and other soothing objects.
    These peaceful scenes, and particularly the region of Limehouse Hole and
thereabouts, were so influential in calming the Captain, that he walked on with
restored tranquillity, and was, in fact, regaling himself, under his breath,
with the ballad of Lovely Peg, when, on turning a corner, he was suddenly
transfixed and rendered speechless by a triumphant procession that he beheld
advancing towards him.
    This awful demonstration was headed by that determined woman, Mrs.
MacStinger, who, preserving a countenance of inexorable resolution, and wearing
conspicuously attached to her obdurate bosom a stupendous watch and appendages,
which the Captain recognised at a glance as the property of Bunsby, conducted
under her arm no other than that sagacious mariner; he, with the distraught and
melancholy visage of a captive borne into a foreign land, meekly resigning
himself to her will. Behind them appeared the young MacStingers, in a body,
exulting. Behind them, two ladies of a terrible and steadfast aspect, leading
between them a short gentleman in a tall hat, who likewise exulted. In the wake,
appeared Bunsby's boy, bearing umbrellas. The whole were in good marching order;
and a dreadful smartness that pervaded the party would have sufficiently
announced, if the intrepid countenances of the ladies had been wanting, that it
was a procession of sacrifice, and that the victim was Bunsby.
    The first impulse of the Captain was to run away. This also appeared to be
the first impulse of Bunsby, hopeless as its execution must have proved. But a
cry of recognition proceeding from the party, and Alexander MacStinger running
up to the Captain with open arms, the Captain struck.
    »Well, Cap'en Cuttle!« said Mrs. MacStinger. »This is indeed a meeting! I
bear no malice now. Cap'en Cuttle - you needn't fear that I'm a going to cast
any reflections. I hope to go to the altar in another spirit.« Here Mrs.
MacStinger paused, and drawing herself up, and inflating her bosom with a long
breath, said, in allusion to the victim, »My husband, Cap'en Cuttle!«
    The abject Bunsby looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor at his
bride, nor at his friend, but straight before him at nothing. The Captain
putting out his hand, Bunsby put out his; but, in answer to the Captain's
greeting, spoke no word.
    »Cap'en Cuttle,« said Mrs. MacStinger, »if you would wish to heal up past
animosities, and to see the last of your friend, my husband, as a single person,
we should be appy of your company to chapel. Here is a lady here,« said Mrs.
MacStinger, turning round to the more intrepid of the two, »my bridesmaid, that
will be glad of your protection, Cap'en Cuttle.«
    The short gentleman in the tall hat, who it appeared was the husband of the
other lady, and who evidently exulted at the reduction of a fellow-creature to
his own condition, gave place at this, and resigned the lady to Captain Cuttle.
The lady immediately seized him, and, observing that there was no time to lose,
gave the word, in a strong voice, to advance.
    The Captain's concern for his friend, not unmingled, at first, with some
concern for himself - for a shadowy terror that he might be married by violence,
possessed him, until his knowledge of the service came to his relief, and
remembering the legal obligation of saying, »I will,« he felt himself personally
safe so long as he resolved, if asked any question, distinctly to reply »I
won't« - threw him into a profuse perspiration; and rendered him, for a time,
insensible to the movements of the procession, of which he now formed a feature,
and to the conversation of his fair companion. But as he became less agitated,
he learnt from this lady that she was the widow of a Mr. Bokum, who had held an
employment in the Custom House; that she was the dearest friend of Mrs.
MacStinger, whom she considered a pattern for her sex; that she had often heard
of the Captain, and now hoped he had repented of his past life; that she trusted
Mr. Bunsby knew what a blessing he had gained, but that she feared men seldom
did know what such blessings were, until they had lost them; with more to the
same purpose.
    All this time, the Captain could not but observe that Mrs. Bokum kept her
eyes steadily on the bridegroom, and that whenever they came near a court or
other narrow turning which appeared favourable for flight, she was on the alert
to cut him off if he attempted escape. The other lady, too, as well as her
husband, the short gentleman with the tall hat, were plainly on guard, according
to a preconcerted plan; and the wretched man was so secured by Mrs. MacStinger,
that any effort at self-preservation by flight was rendered futile. This,
indeed, was apparent to the mere populace, who expressed their perception of the
fact by jeers and cries; to all of which, the dread MacStinger was inflexibly
indifferent, while Bunsby himself appeared in a state of unconsciousness.
    The Captain made many attempts to accost the philosopher, if only in a
monosyllable or a signal; but always failed, in consequence of the vigilance of
the guard, and the difficulty, at all times peculiar to Bunsby's constitution,
of having his attention aroused by any outward and visible sign whatever. Thus
they approached the chapel, a neat whitewashed edifice, recently engaged by the
Reverend Melchisedech Howler, who had consented, on very urgent solicitation, to
give the world another two years of existence, but had informed his followers
that, then, it must positively go.
    While the Reverend Melchisedech was offering up some extemporary orisons,
the Captain found an opportunity of growling in the bridegroom's ear:
    »What cheer, my lad, what cheer?«
    To which Bunsby replied, with a forgetfulness of the Reverend Melchisedech,
which nothing but his desperate circumstances could have excused:
    »D-d bad.«
    »Jack Bunsby,« whispered the Captain, »do you do this here, o' your own free
will?«
    Mr. Bunsby answered »No.«
    »Why do you do it, then, my lad?« inquired the Captain, not unnaturally.
    Bunsby, still looking, and always looking with an immoveable countenance, at
the opposite side of the world, made no reply.
    »Why not sheer off?« said the Captain.
    »Eh?« whispered Bunsby, with a momentary gleam of hope.
    »Sheer off,« said the Captain.
    »Where's the good?« reported the forlorn sage. »She'd capter me again.«
    »Try!« replied the Captain. »Cheer up! Come! Now's your time. Sheer off,
Jack Bunsby!«
    Jack Bunsby, however, instead of profiting by the advice, said in a doleful
whisper:
    »It all began in that there chest o' yourn. Why did I ever conwoy her into
port that night?«
    »My lad,« faltered the Captain, »I thought as you had come over her; not as
she had come over you. A man as has got such opinions as you have!«
    Mr. Bunsby merely uttered a suppressed groan.
    »Come!« said the Captain, nudging him with his elbow, »now's your time!
Sheer off! I'll cover your retreat. The time's a flying. Bunsby! It's for
liberty. Will you once?«
    Bunsby was immoveable.
    »Bunsby!« whispered the Captain, »will you twice?«
    Bunsby wouldn't twice.
    »Bunsby!« urged the Captain, »it's for liberty; will you three times? Now or
never!«
    Bunsby didn't then, and didn't ever; for Mrs. MacStinger immediately
afterwards married him.
    One of the most frightful circumstances of the ceremony to the Captain, was
the deadly interest exhibited therein by Juliana MacStinger; and the fatal
concentration of her faculties, with which that promising child, already the
image of her parent, observed the whole proceedings. The Captain saw in this a
succession of man-traps stretching out infinitely; a series of ages of
oppression and coercion, through which the seafaring line was doomed. It was a
more memorable sight than the unflinching steadiness of Mrs. Bokum and the other
lady, the exultation of the short gentleman in the tall hat, or even the fell
inflexibility of Mrs. MacStinger. The Master MacStingers understood little of
what was going on, and cared less; being chiefly engaged, during the ceremony,
in treading on one another's half-boots; but the contrast afforded by those
wretched infants only set off and adorned the precocious woman in Juliana.
Another year or two, the Captain thought, and to lodge where that child was,
would be destruction.
    The ceremony was concluded by a general spring of the young family on Mr.
Bunsby, whom they hailed by the endearing name of father, and from whom they
solicited halfpence. These gushes of affection over, the procession was about to
issue forth again, when it was delayed for some little time by an unexpected
transport on the part of Alexander MacStinger. That dear child, it seemed,
connecting a chapel with tombstones, when it was entered for any purpose apart
from the ordinary religious exercises, could not be persuaded but that his
mother was now to be decently interred, and lost to him for ever. In the anguish
of this conviction, he screamed with astonishing force, and turned black in the
face. However touching these marks of a tender disposition were to his mother,
it was not in the character of that remarkable woman to permit her recognition
of them to degenerate into weakness. Therefore, after vainly endeavouring to
convince his reason by shakes, pokes, bawlings-out, and similar applications to
his head, she led him into the air, and tried another method; which was
manifested to the marriage party by a quick succession of sharp sounds,
resembling applause, and subsequently, by their seeing Alexander in contact with
the coolest paving-stone in the court, greatly flushed, and loudly lamenting.
    The procession being then in a condition to form itself once more, and
repair to Brig Place, where a marriage feast was in readiness, returned as it
had come; not without the receipt, by Bunsby, of many humorous congratulations
from the populace on his recently-acquired happiness. The Captain accompanied it
as far as the house-door, but, being made uneasy by the gentler manner of Mrs.
Bokum, who, now that she was relieved from her engrossing duty - for the
watchfulness and alacrity of the ladies sensibly diminished when the bridegroom
was safely married - had greater leisure to show an interest in his behalf,
there left it and the captive; faintly pleading an appointment, and promising to
return presently. The Captain had another cause for uneasiness, in remorsefully
reflecting that he had been the first means of Bunsby's entrapment, though
certainly without intending it, and through his unbounded faith in the resources
of that philosopher.
    To go back to old Sol Gills at the Wooden Midshipman's, and not first go
round to ask how Mr. Dombey fared - albeit the house where he lay was out of
London, and away on the borders of a fresh heath - was quite out of the
Captain's course. So he got a lift when he was tired, and made out the journey
gaily.
    The blinds were pulled down, and the house so quiet, that the Captain was
almost afraid to knock; but listening at the door, he heard low voices within,
very near it, and, knocking softly, was admitted by Mr. Toots. Mr. Toots and his
wife had, in fact, just arrived there; having been at the Midshipman's to seek
him, and having there obtained the address.
    They were not so recently arrived, but that Mrs. Toots had caught the baby
from somebody, taken it in her arms, and sat down on the stairs, hugging and
fondling it. Florence was stooping down beside her; and no one could have said
which Mrs. Toots was hugging and fondling most, the mother or the child, or
which was the tenderer, Florence of Mrs. Toots, or Mrs. Toots of her, or both of
the baby; it was such a little group of love and agitation.
    »And is your Pa very ill, my darling dear Miss Floy?« asked Susan.
    »He is very, very ill,« said Florence. »But, Susan, dear, you must not speak
to me as you used to speak. And what's this?« said Florence, touching her
clothes, in amazement. »Your old dress, dear? Your old cap, curls, and all?«
    Susan burst into tears, and showered kisses on the little hand that had
touched her so wonderingly.
    »My dear Miss Dombey,« said Mr. Toots, stepping forward, »I'll explain.
She's the most extraordinary woman. There are not many to equal her! She has
always said - she said before we were married, and has said to this day - that
whenever you came home, she'd come to you in no dress but the dress she used to
serve you in, for fear she might seem strange to you, and you might like her
less. I admire the dress myself,« said Mr. Toots, »of all things. I adore her in
it! My dear Miss Dombey, she'll be your maid again, your nurse, all that she
ever was, and more. There's no change in her. But, Susan, my dear,« said Mr.
Toots, who had spoken with great feeling and high admiration, »all I ask is,
that you'll remember the medical man, and not exert yourself too much.«
 

                                  Chapter LXI

                                   Relenting.

Florence had need of help. Her father's need of it was sore, and made the aid of
her old friend invaluable. Death stood at his pillow. A shade, already, of what
he had been, shattered in mind, and perilously sick in body, he laid his weary
head down on the bed his daughter's hands prepared for him, and had never raised
it since.
    She was always with him. He knew her, generally; though, in the wandering of
his brain, he often confused the circumstances under which he spoke to her. Thus
he would address her, sometimes, as if his boy were newly dead; and would tell
her, that although he had said nothing of her ministering at the little bedside,
yet he had seen it - he had seen it; and then would hide his face and sob, and
put out his worn hand. Sometimes he would ask her for herself. »Where is
Florence?« »I am here, Papa, I am here.« »I don't know her!« he would cry. »We
have been parted so long, that I don't know her!« and then a staring dread would
be upon him, until she could soothe his perturbation; and recall the tears she
tried so hard, at other times, to dry.
    He rambled through the scenes of his old pursuits - through many where
Florence lost him as she listened - sometimes for hours. He would repeat that
childish question, »What is money?« and ponder on it, and think about it, and
reason with himself, more or less connectedly, for a good answer; as if it had
never been proposed to him until that moment. He would go on with a musing
repetition of the title of his old firm twenty thousand times, and at every one
of them, would turn his head upon his pillow. He would count his children - one
- two - stop, and go back, and begin again in the same way.
    But this was when his mind was in its most distracted state. In all the
other phases of its illness, and in those to which it was most constant, it
always turned on Florence. What he would oftenest do was this: he would recall
that night he had so recently remembered, the night on which she came down to
his room, and would imagine that his heart smote him, and that he went out after
her, and up the stairs to seek her. Then, confounding that time with the later
days of the many footsteps, he would be amazed at their number, and begin to
count them as he followed her. Here, of a sudden, was a bloody footstep going on
among the others; and after it there began to be, at intervals, doors standing
open, through which certain terrible pictures were seen, in mirrors, of haggard
men, concealing something in their breasts. Still, among the many footsteps and
the bloody footsteps here and there, was the step of Florence. Still she was
going on before. Still the restless mind went, following and counting, ever
farther, ever higher, as to the summit of a mighty tower that it took years to
climb.
    One day he inquired if that were not Susan who had spoken a long while ago.
    Florence said »Yes, dear Papa;« and asked him would he like to see her?
    He said »very much.« And Susan, with no little trepidation, showed herself
at his bedside.
    It seemed a great relief to him. He begged her not to go; to understand that
he forgave her what she had said; and that she was to stay. Florence and he were
very different now, he said, and very happy. Let her look at this! He meant his
drawing the gentle head down to his pillow, and laying it beside him.
    He remained like this for days and weeks. At length, lying, the faint feeble
semblance of a man, upon his bed, and speaking in a voice so low that they could
only hear him by listening very near to his lips, he became quiet. It was dimly
pleasant to him now, to lie there, with the window open, looking out at the
summer sky and the trees: and, in the evening, at the sunset. To watch the
shadows of the clouds and leaves, and seem to feel a sympathy with shadows. It
was natural that he should. To him, life and the world were nothing else.
    He began to show now that he thought of Florence's fatigue: and often taxed
his weakness to whisper to her, »Go and walk, my dearest, in the sweet air. Go
to your good husband!« One time when Walter was in his room, he beckoned him to
come near, and to stoop down; and pressing his hand, whispered an assurance to
him that he knew he could trust him with his child when he was dead.
    It chanced one evening, towards sunset, when Florence and Walter were
sitting in his room together, as he liked to see them, that Florence, having her
baby in her arms, began in a low voice to sing to the little fellow, and sang
the old tune she had so often sung to the dead child. He could not bear it at
the time; he held up his trembling hand, imploring her to stop; but next day he
asked her to repeat it, and to do so often of an evening: which she did. He
listening, with his face turned away.
    Florence was sitting on a certain time by his window, with her work-basket
between her and her old attendant, who was still her faithful companion. He had
fallen into a doze. It was a beautiful evening, with two hours of light to come
yet; and the tranquillity and quiet made Florence very thoughtful. She was lost
to everything for the moment, but the occasion when the so altered figure on the
bed had first presented her to her beautiful mama; when a touch from Walter
leaning on the back of her chair, made her start.
    »My dear,« said Walter, »there is some one down stairs who wishes to speak
to you.«
    She fancied Walter looked grave, and asked him if anything had happened.
    »No, no, my love!« said Walter. »I have seen the gentleman myself, and
spoken with him. Nothing has happened. Will you come?«
    Florence put her arm through his; and confiding her father to the black-eyed
Mrs. Toots, who sat as brisk and smart at her work as black-eyed woman could,
accompanied her husband down stairs. In the pleasant little parlour opening on
the garden, sat a gentleman, who rose to advance towards her when she came in,
but turned off, by reason of some peculiarity in his legs, and was only stopped
by the table.
    Florence then remembered Cousin Feenix, whom she had not at first recognised
in the shade of the leaves. Cousin Feenix took her hand, and congratulated her
upon her marriage.
    »I could have wished, I am sure,« said Cousin Feenix, sitting down as
Florence sat, »to have had an earlier opportunity of offering my
congratulations; but, in point of fact, so many painful occurrences have
happened, treading, as a man may say, on one another's heels, that I have been
in a devil of a state myself, and perfectly unfit for every description of
society. The only description of society I have kept, has been my own; and it
certainly is anything but flattering to a man's good opinion of his own
resources, to know that, in point of fact, he has the capacity of boring himself
to a perfectly unlimited extent.«
    Florence divined, from some indefinable constraint and anxiety in this
gentleman's manner - which was always a gentleman's, in spite of the harmless
little eccentricities that attached to it - and from Walter's manner no less,
that something more immediately tending to some object was to follow this.
    »I have been mentioning to my friend Mr. Gay, if I may be allowed to have
the honour of calling him so,« said Cousin Feenix, »that I am rejoiced to hear
that my friend Dombey is very decidedly mending. I trust my friend Dombey will
not allow his mind to be too much preyed upon, by any mere loss of fortune. I
cannot say that I have ever experienced any very great loss of fortune myself:
never having had, in point of fact, any great amount of fortune to lose. But as
much as I could lose, I have lost; and I don't find that I particularly care
about it. I know my friend Dombey to be a devilish honourable man; and it's
calculated to console my friend Dombey very much, to know, that this is the
universal sentiment. Even Tommy Screwzer, - a man of an extremely bilious habit,
with whom my friend Gay is probably acquainted - cannot say a syllable in
disputation of the fact.«
    Florence felt, more than ever, that there was something to come; and looked
earnestly for it. So earnestly, that Cousin Feenix answered, as if she had
spoken.
    »The fact is,« said Cousin Feenix, »that my friend Gay and myself have been
discussing the propriety of entreating a favour at your hands; and that I have
the consent of my friend Gay - who has met me in an exceedingly kind and open
manner, for which I am very much indebted to him - to solicit it. I am sensible
that so amiable a lady as the lovely and accomplished daughter of my friend
Dombey, will not require much urging; but I am happy to know, that I am
supported by my friend Gay's influence and approval. As in my parliamentary
time, when a man had a motion to make of any sort - which happened seldom in
those days, for we were kept very tight in hand, the leaders on both sides being
regular Martinets, which was a devilish good thing for the rank and file, like
myself, and prevented our exposing ourselves continually, as a great many of us
had a feverish anxiety to do - as, in my parliamentary time, I was about to say,
when a man had leave to let off any little private popgun, it was always
considered a great point for him to say that he had the happiness of believing
that his sentiments were not without an echo in the breast of Mr. Pitt; the
pilot, in point of fact, who had weathered the storm. Upon which, a devilish
large number of fellows immediately cheered, and put him in spirits. Though the
fact is, that these fellows, being under orders to cheer most excessively
whenever Mr. Pitt's name was mentioned, became so proficient that it always woke
'em. And they were so entirely innocent of what was going on, otherwise, that it
used to be commonly said by Conversation Brown - four-bottle man at the Treasury
Board, with whom the father of my friend Gay was probably acquainted, for it was
before my friend Gay's time - that if a man had risen in his place, and said
that he regretted to inform the house that there was an Honourable Member in the
last stage of convulsions in the Lobby, and that the Honourable Member's name
was Pitt, the approbation would have been vociferous.«
    This postponement of the point, put Florence in a flutter; and she looked
from Cousin Feenix to Walter, in increasing agitation.
    »My love,« said Walter, »there is nothing the matter.«
    »There is nothing the matter, upon my honour,« said Cousin Feenix; »and I am
deeply distressed at being the means of causing you a moment's uneasiness. I beg
to assure you that there is nothing the matter. The favour that I have to ask
is, simply - but it really does seem so exceeding singular, that I should be in
the last degree obliged to my friend Gay if he would have the goodness to break
the - in point of fact, the ice,« said Cousin Feenix.
    Walter thus appealed to, and appealed to no less in the look that Florence
turned towards him, said:
    »My dearest, it is no more than this. That you will ride to London with this
gentleman, whom you know.«
    »And my friend Gay, also - I beg your pardon!« interrupted Cousin Feenix.
    »- And with me - and make a visit somewhere.«
    »To whom?« asked Florence, looking from one to the other.
    »If I might entreat,« said Cousin Feenix, »that you would not press for an
answer to that question, I would venture to take the liberty of making the
request.«
    »Do you know, Walter?«
    »Yes.«
    »And think it right?«
    »Yes. Only because I am sure that you would too. Though there may be reasons
I very well understand, which make it better that nothing more should be said
beforehand.«
    »If Papa is still asleep, or can spare me if he is awake, I will go
immediately,« said Florence. And rising quietly, and glancing at them with a
look that was a little alarmed but perfectly confiding, left the room.
    When she came back, ready to bear them company, they were talking together,
gravely, at the window; and Florence could not but wonder what the topic was,
that had made them so well acquainted in so short a time. She did not wonder at
the look of pride and love with which her husband broke off as she entered; for
she never saw him, but that rested on her.
    »I will leave,« said Cousin Feenix, »a card for my friend Dombey, sincerely
trusting that he will pick up health and strength with every returning hour. And
I hope my friend Dombey will do me the favour to consider me a man who has a
devilish warm admiration of his character, as, in point of fact, a British
merchant and a devilish upright gentleman. My place in the country is in a most
confounded state of dilapidation, but if my friend Dombey should require a
change of air, and would take up his quarters there, he would find it a
remarkably healthy spot - as it need be, for it's amazingly dull. If my friend
Dombey suffers from bodily weakness, and would allow me to recommend what has
frequently done myself good, as a man who has been extremely queer at times, and
who lived pretty freely in the days when men lived very freely, I should say,
let it be in point of fact the yolk of an egg, beat up with sugar and nutmeg, in
a glass of sherry, and taken in the morning with a slice of dry toast. Jackson,
who kept the boxing-rooms in Bond Street - man of very superior qualifications,
with whose reputation my friend Gay is no doubt acquainted - used to mention
that in training for the ring they substituted rum for sherry. I should
recommend sherry in this case, on account of my friend Dombey being in an
invalided condition; which might occasion rum to fly - in point of fact to his
head - and throw him into a devil of a state.«
    Of all this, Cousin Feenix delivered himself with an obviously nervous and
discomposed air. Then, giving his arm to Florence, and putting the strongest
possible constraint upon his wilful legs, which seemed determined to go out into
the garden, he led her to the door, and handed her into a carriage that was
ready for her reception.
    Walter entered after him, and they drove away.
    Their ride was six or eight miles long. When they drove through certain dull
and stately streets, lying westward in London, it was growing dusk. Florence
had, by this time, put her hand in Walter's; and was looking very earnestly, and
with increasing agitation, into every new street into which they turned.
    When the carriage stopped, at last, before that house in Brook Street, where
her father's unhappy marriage had been celebrated, Florence said, »Walter, what
is this? Who is here?« Walter cheering her, and not replying, she glanced up at
the house-front, and saw that all the windows were shut, as if it were
uninhabited. Cousin Feenix had by this time alighted, and was offering his hand.
    »Are you not coming, Walter?«
    »No, I will remain here. Don't tremble! there is nothing to fear, dearest
Florence.«
    »I know that, Walter, with you so near. I am sure of that, but -«
    The door was softly opened, without any knock, and Cousin Feenix led her out
of the summer evening air into the close dull house. More sombre and brown than
ever, it seemed to have been shut up from the wedding-day, and to have hoarded
darkness and sadness ever since.
    Florence ascended the dusky staircase, trembling; and stopped, with her
conductor, at the drawing-room door. He opened it, without speaking, and signed
an entreaty to her to advance into the inner room, while he remained there.
Florence, after hesitating an instant, complied.
    Sitting by the window at a table, where she seemed to have been writing or
drawing, was a lady, whose head, turned away towards the dying light, was
resting on her hand. Florence advancing, doubtfully, all at once stood still, as
if she had lost the power of motion. The lady turned her head.
    »Great Heaven!« she said, »what is this?«
    »No, no!« cried Florence, shrinking back as she rose up, and putting out her
hands to keep her off. »Mama!«
    They stood looking at each other. Passion and pride had worn it, but it was
the face of Edith, and beautiful and stately yet. It was the face of Florence,
and through all the terrified avoidance it expressed, there was pity in it,
sorrow, a grateful tender memory. On each face, wonder and fear were painted
vividly; each so still and silent, looking at the other over the black gulf of
the irrevocable past.
    Florence was the first to change. Bursting into tears, she said from her
full heart, »Oh, Mama, Mama! why do we meet like this? Why were you ever kind to
me when there was no one else, that we should meet like this?«
    Edith stood before her, dumb and motionless. Her eyes were fixed upon her
face.
    »I dare not think of that,« said Florence, »I am come from Papa's sick bed.
We are never asunder now; we never shall be, any more. If you would have me ask
his pardon, I will do it, Mama. I am almost sure he will grant it now, if I ask
him. May Heaven grant it to you, too, and comfort you!«
    She answered not a word.
    »Walter - I am married to him, and we have a son,« said Florence, timidly -
»is at the door, and has brought me here. I will tell him that you are
repentant; that you are changed,« said Florence, looking mournfully upon her;
»and he will speak to Papa with me, I know. Is there anything but this that I
can do?«
    Edith, breaking her silence, without moving eye or limb, answered slowly:
    »The stain upon your name, upon your husband's, on your child's. Will that
ever be forgiven, Florence?«
    »Will it ever be, Mama? It is! Freely, freely, both by Walter and by me. If
that is any consolation to you, there is nothing that you may believe more
certainly. You do not - you do not,« faltered Florence, »speak of Papa; but I am
sure you wish that I should ask him for his forgiveness. I am sure you do.«
    She answered not a word.
    »I will!« said Florence. »I will bring it you, if you will let me; and then,
perhaps, we may take leave of each other, more like what we used to be to one
another. I have not,« said Florence very gently, and drawing nearer to her, »I
have not shrunk back from you, Mama, because I fear you, or because I dread to
be disgraced by you. I only wish to do my duty to Papa. I am very dear to him,
and he is very dear to me. But I never can forget that you were very good to me.
Oh, pray to Heaven,« cried Florence, falling on her bosom, »pray to Heaven,
Mama, to forgive you all this sin and shame, and to forgive me if I cannot help
doing this (if it is wrong), when I remember what you used to be!«
    Edith, as if she fell beneath her touch, sunk down on her knees, and caught
her round the neck.
    »Florence!« she cried. »My better angel! Before I am mad again, before my
stubbornness comes back and strikes me dumb, believe me, upon my soul I am
innocent.«
    »Mama!«
    »Guilty of much! Guilty of that which sets a waste between us evermore.
Guilty of what must separate me, through the whole remainder of my life, from
purity and innocence - from you, of all the earth. Guilty of a blind and
passionate resentment, of which I do not, cannot, will not, even now, repent;
but not guilty with that dead man. Before God!«
    Upon her knees upon the ground, she held up both her hands, and swore it.
    »Florence!« she said, »purest and best of natures, - whom I love - who might
have changed me long ago, and did for a time work some change even in the woman
that I am, - believe me, I am innocent of that; and once more, on my desolate
heart, let me lay this dear head, for the last time!«
    She was moved and weeping. Had she been oftener thus in older days, she had
been happier now.
    »There is nothing else in all the world« she said, »that would have wrung
denial from me. No love, no hatred, no hope, no threat. I said that I would die,
and make no sign. I could have done so, and I would, if we had never met,
Florence.«
    »I trust,« said Cousin Feenix, ambling in at the door, and speaking, half in
the room, and half out of it, »that my lovely and accomplished relative will
excuse my having, by a little stratagem, effected this meeting. I cannot say
that I was, at first, wholly incredulous as to the possibility of my lovely and
accomplished relative having, very unfortunately, committed herself with the
deceased person with white teeth; because, in point of fact, one does see, in
this world - which is remarkable for devilish strange arrangements, and for
being decidedly the most unintelligible thing within a man's experience - very
odd conjunctions of that sort. But as I mentioned to my friend Dombey, I could
not admit the criminality of my lovely and accomplished relative until it was
perfectly established. And feeling, when the deceased person was, in point of
fact, destroyed in a devilish horrible manner, that her position was a very
painful one - and feeling besides that our family had been a little to blame in
not paying more attention to her, and that we are a careless family - and also
that my aunt, though a devilish lively woman, had perhaps not been the very best
of mothers - I took the liberty of seeking her in France, and offering her such
protection as a man very much out at elbows could offer. Upon which occasion, my
lovely and accomplished relative did me the honour to express that she believed
I was, in my way, a devilish good sort of fellow; and that therefore she put
herself under my protection. Which in point of fact I understood to be a kind
thing on the part of my lovely and accomplished relative, as I am getting
extremely shaky, and have derived great comfort from her solicitude.«
    Edith, who had taken Florence to a sofa, made a gesture with her hand as if
she would have begged him to say no more.
    »My lovely and accomplished relative,« resumed Cousin Feenix, still ambling
about at the door, »will excuse me, if, for her satisfaction, and my own, and
that of my friend Dombey, whose lovely and accomplished daughter we so much
admire, I complete the thread of my observations. She will remember that, from
the first, she and I have never alluded to the subject of her elopement. My
impression, certainly, has always been, that there was a mystery in the affair
which she could explain if so inclined. But my lovely and accomplished relative
being a devilish resolute woman, I knew that she was not, in point of fact, to
be trifled with, and therefore did not involve myself in any discussions. But
observing lately, that her accessible point did appear to be a very strong
description of tenderness for the daughter of my friend Dombey, it occurred to
me that if I could bring about a meeting, unexpected on both sides, it might
lead to beneficial results. Therefore, we being in London, in the present
private way, before going to the South of Italy, there to establish ourselves,
in point of fact, until we go to our long homes, which is a devilish
disagreeable reflection for a man, I applied myself to the discovery of the
residence of my friend Gay - handsome man of an uncommonly frank disposition,
who is probably known to my lovely and accomplished relative - and had the
happiness of bringing his amiable wife to the present place. And now,« said
Cousin Feenix, with a real and genuine earnestness shining through the levity of
his manner and his slipshod speech, »I do conjure my relative, not to stop half
way, but to set right, as far as she can, whatever she has done wrong - not for
the honour of her family, not for her own fame, not for any of those
considerations which unfortunate circumstances have induced her to regard as
hollow, and in point of fact, as approaching to humbug - but because it is
wrong, and not right.«
    Cousin Feenix's legs consented to take him away after this; and leaving them
alone together, he shut the door.
    Edith remained silent for some minutes, with Florence sitting close beside
her. Then she took from her bosom a sealed paper.
    »I debated with myself a long time,« she said in a low voice, »whether to
write this at all, in case of dying suddenly or by accident, and feeling the
want of it upon me. I have deliberated, ever since, when and how to destroy it.
Take it, Florence. The truth is written in it.«
    »Is it for Papa?« asked Florence.
    »It is for whom you will,« she answered. »It is given to you, and is
obtained by you. He never could have had it otherwise.«
    Again they sat silent, in the deepening darkness.
    »Mama,« said Florence, »he has lost his fortune; he has been at the point of
death; he may not recover, even now. Is there any word that I shall say to him
from you?«
    »Did you tell me,« asked Edith, »that you were very dear to him?«
    »Yes!« said Florence, in a thrilling voice.
    »Tell him I am sorry that we ever met.«
    »No more?« said Florence after a pause.
    »Tell him, if he asks, that I do not repent of what I have done - not yet -
for if it were to do again to-morrow, I should do it. But if he is a changed man
-«
    She stopped. There was something in the silent touch of Florence's hand that
stopped her.
    »- But that being a changed man, he knows, now, it would never be. Tell him
I wish it never had been.«
    »May I say,« said Florence, »that you grieved to hear of the afflictions he
has suffered?«
    »Not,« she replied, »if they have taught him that his daughter is very dear
to him. He will not grieve for them himself, one day, if they have brought that
lesson, Florence.«
    »You wish well to him, and would have him happy. I am sure you would!« said
Florence. »Oh! let me be able, if I have the occasion at some future time, to
say so?«
    Edith sat with her dark eyes gazing steadfastly before her, and did not
reply until Florence had repeated her entreaty; when she drew her hand within
her arm, and said, with the same thoughtful gaze upon the night outside:
    »Tell him that if, in his own present, he can find any reason to
compassionate my past, I sent word that I asked him to do so. Tell him that if,
in his own present, he can find a reason to think less bitterly of me, I asked
him to do so. Tell him, that, dead as we are to one another, never more to meet
on this side of eternity, he knows there is one feeling in common between us
now, that there never was before.«
    Her sternness seemed to yield, and there were tears in her dark eyes.
    »I trust myself to that,« she said, »for his better thoughts of me, and mine
of him. When he loves his Florence most, he will hate me least. When he is most
proud and happy in her and her children, he will be most repentant of his own
part in the dark vision of our married life. At that time, I will be repentant
too - let him know it then - and think that when I thought so much of all the
causes that had made me what I was, I needed to have allowed more for the causes
that had made him what he was. I will try, then, to forgive him his share of
blame. Let him try to forgive me mine!«
    »Oh Mama!« said Florence. »How it lightens my heart, even in such a meeting
and parting, to hear this!«
    »Strange words in my own ears,« said Edith, »and foreign to the sound of my
own voice! But even if I had been the wretched creature I have given him
occasion to believe me, I think I could have said them still, hearing that you
and he were very dear to one another. Let him, when you are dearest, ever feel
that he is most forbearing in his thoughts of me - that I am most forbearing in
my thoughts of him! Those are the last words I send him! Now, good-bye, my
life!«
    She clasped her in her arms, and seemed to pour out all her woman's soul of
love and tenderness at once.
    »This kiss for your child! These kisses for a blessing on your head! My own
dear Florence, my sweet girl, farewell!«
    »To meet again!« cried Florence.
    »Never again! Never again! When you leave me in this dark room, think that
you have left me in the grave. Remember only that I was once, and that I loved
you!«
    And Florence left her, seeing her face no more, but accompanied by her
embraces and caresses to the last.
    Cousin Feenix met her at the door, and took her down to Walter in the dingy
dining-room: upon whose shoulder she laid her head weeping.
    »I am devilish sorry,« said Cousin Feenix, lifting his wristbands to his
eyes in the simplest manner possible, and without the least concealment, »that
the lovely and accomplished daughter of my friend Dombey and amiable wife of my
friend Gay, should have had her sensitive nature so very much distressed and cut
up by the interview which is just concluded. But I hope and trust I have acted
for the best, and that my honourable friend Dombey will find his mind relieved
by the disclosures which have taken place. I exceedingly lament that my friend
Dombey should have got himself, in point of fact, into the devil's own state of
conglomeration by an alliance with our family; but am strongly of opinion that
if it hadn't been for the infernal scoundrel Barker - man with white teeth -
everything would have gone on pretty smoothly. In regard to my relative who does
me the honour to have formed an uncommonly good opinion of myself, I can assure
the amiable wife of my friend Gay, that she may rely on my being, in point of
fact, a father to her. And in regard to the changes of human life, and the
extraordinary manner in which we are perpetually conducting ourselves, all I can
say is, with my friend Shakespeare - man who wasn't't for an age but for all time,
and with whom my friend Gay is no doubt acquainted - that it's like the shadow
of a dream.«
 

                                  Chapter LXII

                                     Final.

A bottle that has been long excluded from the light of day, and is hoary with
dust and cobwebs, has been brought into the sunshine; and the golden wine within
it sheds a lustre on the table.
    It is the last bottle of the old Madeira.
    »You are quite right, Mr. Gills,« says Mr. Dombey. »This is a very rare and
most delicious wine.«
    The Captain, who is of the party, beams with joy. There is a very halo of
delight round his glowing forehead.
    »We always promised ourselves, Sir,« observes Mr. Gills, »Ned and myself, I
mean -«
    Mr. Dombey nods at the Captain, who shines more and more with speechless
gratification.
    »- that we would drink this, one day or other, to Walter safe at home:
though such a home we never thought of. If you don't object to our old whim,
Sir, let us devote this first glass to Walter and his wife.«
    »To Walter and his wife!« says Mr. Dombey. »Florence, my child« - and turns
to kiss her.
    »To Walter and his wife!« says Mr. Toots.
    »To Wal'r and his wife!« exclaims the Captain. »Hooroar!« and the Captain
exhibiting a strong desire to clink his glass against some other glass, Mr.
Dombey, with a ready hand, holds out his. The others follow; and there is a
blithe and merry ringing, as of a little peal of marriage bells.
 
Other buried wine grows older, as the old Madeira did in its time; and dust and
cobwebs thicken on the bottles.
    Mr. Dombey is a white-haired gentleman, whose face bears heavy marks of care
and suffering; but they are traces of a storm that has passed on for ever, and
left a clear evening in its track.
    Ambitious projects trouble him no more. His only pride is in his daughter
and her husband. He has a silent, thoughtful, quiet manner, and is always with
his daughter. Miss Tox is not unfrequently of the family party, and is quite
devoted to it, and a great favourite. Her admiration of her once stately patron
is, and has been ever since the morning of her shock in Princess's Place,
platonic, but not weakened in the least.
    Nothing has drifted to him from the wreck of his fortunes, but a certain
annual sum that comes he knows not how, with an earnest entreaty that he will
not seek to discover, and with the assurance that it is a debt, and an act of
reparation. He has consulted with his old clerk about this, who is clear it may
be honourably accepted, and has no doubt it arises out of some forgotten
transaction in the times of the old House.
    That hazel-eyed bachelor, a bachelor no more, is married now, and to the
sister of the grey-haired Junior. He visits his old chief sometimes, but seldom.
There is a reason in the grey-haired Junior's history, and yet a stronger reason
in his name, why he should keep retired from his old employer; and as he lives
with his sister and her husband, they participate in that retirement. Walter
sees them sometimes - Florence too - and the pleasant house resounds with
profound duets arranged for the Piano-Forte and Violoncello, and with the
labours of Harmonious Blacksmiths.
    And how goes the Wooden Midshipman in these changed days? Why, here he still
is, right leg foremost, hard at work upon the hackney coaches, and more on the
alert than ever, being newly painted from his cocked hat to his buckled shoes;
and up above him, in golden characters, these names shine refulgent, GILLS AND
CUTTLE.
    Not another stroke of business does the Midshipman achieve beyond his usual
easy trade. But they do say, in a circuit of some half-mile round the blue
umbrella in Leadenhall Market, that some of Mr. Gills's old investments are
coming out wonderfully well; and that instead of being behind the time in those
respects, as he supposed, he was, in truth, a little before it, and had to wait
the fullness of the time and the design. The whisper is that Mr. Gills's money
has begun to turn itself, and that it is turning itself over and over pretty
briskly. Certain it is that, standing at his shop-door, in his coffee-coloured
suit, with his chronometer in his pocket, and his spectacles on his forehead, he
don't appear to break his heart at customers not coming, but looks very jovial
and contented, though full as misty as of yore.
    As to his partner, Captain Cuttle, there is a fiction of a business in the
Captain's mind which is better than any reality. The Captain is as satisfied of
the Midshipman's importance to the commerce and navigation of the country, as he
could possibly be, if no ship left the Port of London without the Midshipman's
assistance. His delight in his own name over the door, is inexhaustible. He
crosses the street, twenty times a day, to look at it from the other side of the
way; and invariably says, on these occasions, »Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad, if your
mother could ha' know'd as you would ever be a man o' science, the good old
creature would ha' been took aback in-deed!«
    But here is Mr. Toots descending on the Midshipman with violent rapidity,
and Mr. Toots's face is very red as he bursts into the little parlour.
    »Captain Gills,« says Mr. Toots, »and Mr. Sols, I am happy to inform you
that Mrs. Toots has had an increase to her family.«
    »And it does her credit!« cries the Captain.
    »I give you joy, Mr. Toots!« says old Sol.
    »Thank'ee,« chuckles Mr. Toots, »I'm very much obliged to you. I knew that
you'd be glad to hear, and so I came down myself. We're positively getting on,
you know. There's Florence, and Susan, and now here's another little stranger.«
    »A female stranger?« inquires the Captain.
    »Yes, Captain Gills,« says Mr. Toots, »and I'm glad of it. The oftener we
can repeat that most extraordinary woman, my opinion is, the better!«
    »Stand by!« says the Captain, turning to the old case-bottle with no throat
- for it is evening, and the Midshipman's usual moderate provision of pipes and
glasses is on the board. »Here's to her, and may she have ever so many more!«
    »Thank'ee, Captain Gills,« says the delighted Mr. Toots. »I echo the
sentiment. If you'll allow me, as my so doing cannot be unpleasant to anybody,
under the circumstances, I think I'll take a pipe.«
    Mr. Toots begins to smoke, accordingly, and in the openness of his heart is
very loquacious.
    »Of all the remarkable instances that that delightful woman has given of her
excellent sense, Captain Gills and Mr. Sols,« said Toots, »I think none is more
remarkable than the perfection with which she has understood my devotion to Miss
Dombey.«
    Both his auditors assent.
    »Because you know,« says Mr. Toots, »I have never changed my sentiments
towards Miss Dombey. They are the same as ever. She is the same bright vision to
me, at present, that she was before I made Walters's acquaintance. When Mrs.
Toots and myself first began to talk of - in short, of the tender passion, you
know, Captain Gills.«
    »Aye, aye, my lad,« says the Captain, »as makes us all slue round - for
which you'll overhaul the book -«
    »I shall certainly do so, Captain Gills,« says Mr. Toots, with great
earnestness; »when we first began to mention such subjects, I explained that I
was what you may call a Blighted Flower, you know.«
    The Captain approves of this figure greatly; and murmurs that no flower as
blows, is like the rose.
    »But Lord bless me,« pursues Mr. Toots, »she was as entirely conscious of
the state of my feelings as I was myself. There was nothing I could tell her.
She was the only person who could have stood between me and the silent Tomb, and
she did it, in a manner to command my everlasting admiration. She knows that
there's nobody in the world I look up to, as I do to Miss Dombey. She knows that
there's nothing on earth I wouldn't do for Miss Dombey. She knows that I
consider Miss Dombey the most beautiful, the most amiable, the most angelic of
her sex. What is her observation upon that? The perfection of sense. My dear,
you're right. I think so too.«
    »And so do I!« says the Captain.
    »So do I,« says Sol Gills.
    »Then,« resumes Mr. Toots, after some contemplative pulling at his pipe,
during which his visage has expressed the most contented reflection, »what an
observant woman my wife is! What sagacity she possesses! What remarks she makes!
It was only last night, when we were sitting in the enjoyment of connubial bliss
- which, upon my word and honour, is a feeble term to express my feelings in the
society of my wife - that she said how remarkable it was to consider the present
position of our friend Walters. Here, observes my wife, he is, released from
sea-going, after that first long voyage with his young bride - as you know he
was, Mr. Sols.«
    »Quite true,« says the old Instrument-maker, rubbing his hands.
    »Here he is, says my wife, released from that, immediately; appointed by the
same establishment to a post of great trust and confidence at home; showing
himself again worthy; mounting up the ladder with the greatest expedition;
beloved by everybody; assisted by his uncle at the very best possible time of
his fortunes - which I think is the case, Mr. Sols? My wife is always correct.«
    »Why yes, yes - some of our lost ships, freighted with gold, have come home,
truly,« returns old Sol, laughing. »Small craft, Mr. Toots, but serviceable to
my boy!«
    »Exactly so,« says Mr. Toots. »You'll never find my wife wrong. Here he is,
says that most remarkable woman, so situated, - and what follows? What follows?
observed Mrs. Toots. Now pray remark, Captain Gills, and Mr. Sols, the depth of
my wife's penetration. Why that, under the very eye of Mr. Dombey, there is a
foundation going on, upon which a - an Edifice; that was Mrs. Toots's word,«
says Mr. Toots exultingly, »is gradually rising, perhaps to equal, perhaps
excel, that of which he was once the head, and the small beginnings of which (a
common fault, but a bad one, Mrs. Toots said) escaped his memory. Thus, said my
wife, from his daughter, after all, another Dombey and Son will ascend - no
rise; that was Mrs. Toots's word - triumphant.«
    Mr. Toots, with the assistance of his pipe - which he is extremely glad to
devote to oratorical purposes, as its proper use affects him with a very
uncomfortable sensation - does such grand justice to this prophetic sentence of
his wife's, that the Captain, throwing away his glazed hat in a state of the
greatest excitement, cries:
    »Sol Gills, you man of science and my ould pardner, what did I tell Wal'r to
overhaul on that there night when he first took to business? Was it this here
quotation, Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are old
you will never depart from it? Was it them words, Sol Gills?«
    »It certainly was, Ned,« replied the old Instrument-maker. »I remember
well.«
    »Then I tell you what,« says the Captain, leaning back in his chair, and
composing his chest for a prodigious roar. »I'll give you Lovely Peg right
through; and stand by, both on you, for the chorus!«
 
Buried wine grows older, as the old Madeira did, in its time; and dust and
cobwebs thicken on the bottles.
    Autumn days are shining, and on the sea-beach there are often a young lady,
and a white-haired gentleman. With them, or near them, are two children: boy and
girl. And an old dog is generally in their company.
    The white-haired gentleman walks with the little boy, talks with him, helps
him in his play, attends upon him, watches him, as if he were the object of his
life. If he be thoughtful, the white-haired gentleman is thoughtful too; and
sometimes when the child is sitting by his side, and looks up in his face,
asking him questions, he takes the tiny hand in his, and holding it, forgets to
answer. Then the child says:
    »What, grandpapa! Am I so like my poor little uncle again?«
    »Yes, Paul. But he was weak, and you are very strong.«
    »Oh yes, I am very strong.«
    »And he lay on a little bed beside the sea, and you can run about.«
    And so they range away again, busily, for the white-haired gentleman likes
best to see the child free and stirring; and as they go about together, the
story of the bond between them goes about, and follows them.
    But no one, except Florence, knows the measure of the white-haired
gentleman's affection for the girl. That story never goes about. The child
herself almost wonders at a certain secrecy he keeps in it. He hoards her in his
heart. He cannot bear to see a cloud upon her face. He cannot bear to see her
sit apart. He fancies that she feels a slight, when there is none. He steals
away to look at her, in her sleep. It pleases him to have her come, and wake him
in the morning. He is fondest of her and most loving to her, when there is no
creature by. The child says then, sometimes:
    »Dear grandpapa, why do you cry when you kiss me?«
    He only answers, »Little Florence! Little Florence!« and smooths away the
curls that shade her earnest eyes.
