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very deep,' returned the other, speaking (or so Walter thought) as if some
cruel weapon actually stabbed him as he spoke. 'I imagined all this when he
was a boy. I believed it. It was a truth to me. I saw him lightly walking on
the edge of an unseen gulf where so many others walk with equal gaiety, and
from which
'The old excuse,' interrupted his brother, as he stirred the fire. 'So
many. Go on. Say, so many fall.'
'From which ONE traveller fell,' returned the other, 'who set forward,
on his way, a boy like him, and missed his footing more and more, and
slipped a little and a little lower; and went on stumbling still, until he
fell headlong and found himself below a shattered man. Think what I
suffered, when I watched that boy.'
'You have only yourself to thank for it,' returned the brother.
'Only myself,' he assented with a sigh. 'I don't seek to divide the
blame or shame.'
'You have divided the shame,' James Carker muttered through his teeth.
And, through so many and such close teeth, he could mutter well.
'Ah, James,' returned his brother, speaking for the first time in an
accent of reproach, and seeming, by the sound of his voice, to have covered
his face with his hands, 'I have been, since then, a useful foil to you. You
have trodden on me freely in your climbing up. Don't spurn me with your
heel!'
A silence ensued. After a time, Mr Carker the Manager was heard
rustling among his papers, as if he had resolved to bring the interview to a
conclusion. At the same time his brother withdrew nearer to the door.
'That's all,' he said. 'I watched him with such trembling and such
fear, as was some little punishment to me, until he passed the place where I
first fell; and then, though I had been his father, I believe I never could
have thanked God more devoutly. I didn't dare to warn him, and advise him;
but if I had seen direct cause, I would have shown him my example. I was
afraid to be seen speaking with him, lest it should be thought I did him
harm, and tempted him to evil, and corrupted him: or lest I really should.
There may be such contagion in me; I don't know. Piece out my history, in
connexion with young Walter Gay, and what he has made me feel; and think of
me more leniently, James, if you can.
With these words he came out to where Walter was standing. He turned a
little paler when he saw him there, and paler yet when Walter caught him by
the hand, and said in a whisper:
'Mr Carker, pray let me thank you! Let me say how much I feel for you!
How sorry I am, to have been the unhappy cause of all this! How I almost
look upon you now as my protector and guardian! How very, very much, I feel
obliged to you and pity you!' said Walter, squeezing both his hands, and
hardly knowing, in his agitation, what he did or said.
Mr Morfin's room being close at hand and empty, and the door wide open,
they moved thither by one accord: the passage being seldom free from someone
passing to or fro. When they were there, and Walter saw in Mr Carker's face
some traces of the emotion within, he almost felt as if he had never seen
the face before; it was so greatly changed.
'Walter,' he said, laying his hand on his shoulder. 'I am far removed
from you, and may I ever be. Do you know what I am?'
'What you are!' appeared to hang on Walter's lips, as he regarded him
attentively.
'It was begun,' said Carker, 'before my twenty-first birthday - led up
to, long before, but not begun till near that time. I had robbed them when I
came of age. I robbed them afterwards. Before my twenty-second birthday, it
was all found out; and then, Walter, from all men's society, I died.'
Again his last few words hung trembling upon Walter's lips, but he
could neither utter them, nor any of his own.
'The House was very good to me. May Heaven reward the old man for his
forbearance! This one, too, his son, who was then newly in the Firm, where I
had held great trust! I was called into that room which is now his - I have
never entered it since - and came out, what you know me. For many years I
sat in my present seat, alone as now, but then a known and recognised
example to the rest. They were all merciful to me, and I lived. Time has
altered that part of my poor expiation; and I think, except the three heads
of the House, there is no one here who knows my story rightly. Before the
little boy grows up, and has it told to him, my corner may be vacant. I
would rather that it might be so! This is the only change to me since that
day, when I left all youth, and hope, and good men's company, behind me in
that room. God bless you, Walter! Keep you, and all dear to you, in honesty,
or strike them dead!'
Some recollection of his trembling from head to foot, as if with
excessive cold, and of his bursting into tears, was all that Walter could
add to this, when he tried to recall exactly what had passed between them.
When Walter saw him next, he was bending over his desk in his old
silent, drooping, humbled way. Then, observing him at his work, and feeling
how resolved he evidently was that no further intercourse should arise
between them, and thinking again and again on all he had seen and heard that
morning in so short a time, in connexion with the history of both the
Carkers, Walter could hardly believe that he was under orders for the West
Indies, and would soon be lost to Uncle Sol, and Captain Cuttle, and to
glimpses few and far between of Florence Dombey - no, he meant Paul - and to
all he loved, and liked, and looked for, in his daily life.
But it was true, and the news had already penetrated to the outer
office; for while he sat with a heavy heart, pondering on these things, and
resting his head upon his arm, Perch the messenger, descending from his
mahogany bracket, and jogging his elbow, begged his pardon, but wished to
say in his ear, Did he think he could arrange to send home to England a jar
of preserved Ginger, cheap, for Mrs Perch's own eating, in the course of her
recovery from her next confinement?
Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned, and goes Home for the Holidays
When the Midsummer vacation approached, no indecent manifestations of
joy were exhibited by the leaden-eyed young gentlemen assembled at Doctor
Blimber's. Any such violent expression as 'breaking up,' would have been
quite inapplicable to that polite establishment. The young gentlemen oozed
away, semi-annually, to their own homes; but they never broke up. They would
have scorned the action.
Tozer, who was constantly galled and tormented by a starched white
cambric neckerchief, which he wore at the express desire of Mrs Tozer, his
parent, who, designing him for the Church, was of opinion that he couldn't
be in that forward state of preparation too soon - Tozer said, indeed, that
choosing between two evils, he thought he would rather stay where he was,
than go home. However inconsistent this declaration might appear with that
passage in Tozer's Essay on the subject, wherein he had observed 'that the
thoughts of home and all its recollections, awakened in his mind the most
pleasing emotions of anticipation and delight,' and had also likened himself
to a Roman General, flushed with a recent victory over the Iceni, or laden
with Carthaginian spoil, advancing within a few hours' march of the Capitol,
presupposed, for the purposes of the simile, to be the dwelling-place of Mrs
Tozer, still it was very sincerely made. For it seemed that Tozer had a
dreadful Uncle, who not only volunteered examinations of him, in the
holidays, on abstruse points, but twisted innocent events and things, and
wrenched them to the same fell purpose. So that if this Uncle took him to
the Play, or, on a similar pretence of kindness, carried him to see a Giant,
or a Dwarf, or a Conjuror, or anything, Tozer knew he had read up some
classical allusion to the subject beforehand, and was thrown into a state of
mortal apprehension: not foreseeing where he might break out, or what
authority he might not quote against him.
As to Briggs, his father made no show of artifice about it. He never
would leave him alone. So numerous and severe were the mental trials of that
unfortunate youth in vacation time, that the friends of the family (then
resident near Bayswater, London) seldom approached the ornamental piece of
water in Kensington Gardens,' without a vague expectation of seeing Master
Briggs's hat floating on the surface, and an unfinished exercise lying on
the bank. Briggs, therefore, was not at all sanguine on the subject of
holidays; and these two sharers of little Paul's bedroom were so fair a
sample of the young gentlemen in general, that the most elastic among them
contemplated the arrival of those festive periods with genteel resignation.
It was far otherwise with little Paul. The end of these first holidays
was to witness his separation from Florence, but who ever looked forward to
the end of holidays whose beginning was not yet come! Not Paul, assuredly.
As the happy time drew near, the lions and tigers climbing up the bedroom
walls became quite tame and frolicsome. The grim sly faces in the squares
and diamonds of the floor-cloth, relaxed and peeped out at him with less
wicked eyes. The grave old clock had more of personal interest in the tone
of its formal inquiry; and the restless sea went rolling on all night, to
the sounding of a melancholy strain - yet it was pleasant too - that rose
and fell with the waves, and rocked him, as it were, to sleep.
Mr Feeder, B.A., seemed to think that he, too, would enjoy the holidays
very much. Mr Toots projected a life of holidays from that time forth; for,
as he regularly informed Paul every day, it was his 'last half' at Doctor
Blimber's, and he was going to begin to come into his property directly.
It was perfectly understood between Paul and Mr Toots, that they were
intimate friends, notwithstanding their distance in point of years and
station. As the vacation approached, and Mr Toots breathed harder and stared
oftener in Paul's society, than he had done before, Paul knew that he meant
he was sorry they were going to lose sight of each other, and felt very much
obliged to him for his patronage and good opinion.
It was even understood by Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss
Blimber, as well as by the young gentlemen in general, that Toots had
somehow constituted himself protector and guardian of Dombey, and the
circumstance became so notorious, even to Mrs Pipchin, that the good old
creature cherished feelings of bitterness and jealousy against Toots; and,
in the sanctuary of her own home, repeatedly denounced him as a
'chuckle-headed noodle.' Whereas the innocent Toots had no more idea of
awakening Mrs Pipchin's wrath, than he had of any other definite possibility
or proposition. On the contrary, he was disposed to consider her rather a
remarkable character, with many points of interest about her. For this
reason he smiled on her with so much urbanity, and asked her how she did, so
often, in the course of her visits to little Paul, that at last she one
night told him plainly, she wasn't used to it, whatever he might think; and
she could not, and she would not bear it, either from himself or any other
puppy then existing: at which unexpected acknowledgment of his civilities,
Mr Toots was so alarmed that he secreted himself in a retired spot until she
had gone. Nor did he ever again face the doughty Mrs Pipchin, under Doctor
Blimber's roof.
They were within two or three weeks of the holidays, when, one day,
Cornelia Blimber called Paul into her room, and said, 'Dombey, I am going to
send home your analysis.'
'Thank you, Ma'am,' returned Paul.
'You know what I mean, do you, Dombey?' inquired Miss Blimber, looking
hard at him, through the spectacles.
'No, Ma'am,' said Paul.
'Dombey, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, 'I begin to be afraid you are a
sad boy. When you don't know the meaning of an expression, why don't you
seek for information?'
'Mrs Pipchin told me I wasn't to ask questions,' returned Paul.
'I must beg you not to mention Mrs Pipchin to me, on any account,
Dombey,' returned Miss Blimber. 'I couldn't think of allowing it. The course
of study here, is very far removed from anything of that sort. A repetition
of such allusions would make it necessary for me to request to hear, without
a mistake, before breakfast-time to-morrow morning, from Verbum personale
down to simillimia cygno.'
'I didn't mean, Ma'am - ' began little Paul.
'I must trouble you not to tell me that you didn't mean, if you please,
Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, who preserved an awful politeness in her
admonitions. 'That is a line of argument I couldn't dream of permitting.'
Paul felt it safest to say nothing at all, so he only looked at Miss
Blimber's spectacles. Miss Blimber having shaken her head at him gravely,
referred to a paper lying before her.
'"Analysis of the character of P. Dombey." If my recollection serves
me,' said Miss Blimber breaking off, 'the word analysis as opposed to
synthesis, is thus defined by Walker. "The resolution of an object, whether
of the senses or of the intellect, into its first elements." As opposed to
synthesis, you observe. Now you know what analysis is, Dombey.'
Dombey didn't seem to be absolutely blinded by the light let in upon
his intellect, but he made Miss Blimber a little bow.
'"Analysis,"' resumed Miss Blimber, casting her eye over the paper,
'"of the character of P. Dombey." I find that the natural capacity of Dombey
is extremely good; and that his general disposition to study may be stated
in an equal ratio. Thus, taking eight as our standard and highest number, I
find these qualities in Dombey stated each at six three-fourths!'
Miss Blimber paused to see how Paul received this news. Being undecided
whether six three-fourths meant six pounds fifteen, or sixpence three
farthings, or six foot three, or three quarters past six, or six somethings
that he hadn't learnt yet, with three unknown something elses over, Paul
rubbed his hands and looked straight at Miss Blimber. It happened to answer
as well as anything else he could have done; and Cornelia proceeded.
'"Violence two. Selfishness two. Inclination to low company, as evinced
in the case of a person named Glubb, originally seven, but since reduced.
Gentlemanly demeanour four, and improving with advancing years." Now what I
particularly wish to call your attention to, Dombey, is the general
observation at the close of this analysis.'
Paul set himself to follow it with great care.
'"It may be generally observed of Dombey,"' said Miss Blimber, reading
in a loud voice, and at every second word directing her spectacles towards
the little figure before her: '"that his abilities and inclinations are
good, and that he has made as much progress as under the circumstances could
have been expected. But it is to be lamented of this young gentleman that he
is singular (what is usually termed old-fashioned) in his character and
conduct, and that, without presenting anything in either which distinctly
calls for reprobation, he is often very unlike other young gentlemen of his
age and social position." Now, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, laying down the
paper, 'do you understand that?'
'I think I do, Ma'am,' said Paul.
'This analysis, you see, Dombey,' Miss Blimber continued, 'is going to
be sent home to your respected parent. It will naturally be very painful to
him to find that you are singular in your character and conduct. It is
naturally painful to us; for we can't like you, you know, Dombey, as well as
we could wish.'
She touched the child upon a tender point. He had secretly become more
and more solicitous from day to day, as the time of his departure drew more
near, that all the house should like him. From some hidden reason, very
imperfectly understood by himself - if understood at all - he felt a
gradually increasing impulse of affection, towards almost everything and
everybody in the place. He could not bear to think that they would be quite
indifferent to him when he was gone. He wanted them to remember him kindly;
and he had made it his business even to conciliate a great hoarse shaggy
dog, chained up at the back of the house, who had previously been the terror
of his life: that even he might miss him when he was no longer there.
Little thinking that in this, he only showed again the difference
between himself and his compeers, poor tiny Paul set it forth to Miss
Blimber as well as he could, and begged her, in despite of the official
analysis, to have the goodness to try and like him. To Mrs Blimber, who had
joined them, he preferred the same petition: and when that lady could not
forbear, even in his presence, from giving utterance to her often-repeated
opinion, that he was an odd child, Paul told her that he was sure she was
quite right; that he thought it must be his bones, but he didn't know; and
that he hoped she would overlook it, for he was fond of them all.
'Not so fond,' said Paul, with a mixture of timidity and perfect
frankness, which was one of the most peculiar and most engaging qualities of
the child, 'not so fond as I am of Florence, of course; that could never be.
You couldn't expect that, could you, Ma'am?'
'Oh! the old-fashioned little soul!' cried Mrs Blimber, in a whisper.
'But I like everybody here very much,' pursued Paul, 'and I should
grieve to go away, and think that anyone was glad that I was gone, or didn't
care.'
Mrs Blimber was now quite sure that Paul was the oddest child in the
world; and when she told the Doctor what had passed, the Doctor did not
controvert his wife's opinion. But he said, as he had said before, when Paul
first came, that study would do much; and he also said, as he had said on
that occasion, 'Bring him on, Cornelia! Bring him on!'
Cornelia had always brought him on as vigorously as she could; and Paul
had had a hard life of it. But over and above the getting through his tasks,
he had long had another purpose always present to him, and to which he still
held fast. It was, to be a gentle, useful, quiet little fellow, always
striving to secure the love and attachment of the rest; and though he was
yet often to be seen at his old post on the stairs, or watching the waves
and clouds from his solitary window, he was oftener found, too, among the
other boys, modestly rendering them some little voluntary service. Thus it
came to pass, that even among those rigid and absorbed young anchorites, who
mortified themselves beneath the roof of Doctor Blimber, Paul was an object
of general interest; a fragile little plaything that they all liked, and
that no one would have thought of treating roughly. But he could not change
his nature, or rewrite the analysis; and so they all agreed that Dombey was
old-fashioned.
There were some immunities, however, attaching to the character enjoyed
by no one else. They could have better spared a newer-fashioned child, and
that alone was much. When the others only bowed to Doctor Blimber and family
on retiring for the night, Paul would stretch out his morsel of a hand, and
boldly shake the Doctor's; also Mrs Blimber's; also Cornelia's. If anybody
was to be begged off from impending punishment, Paul was always the
delegate. The weak-eyed young man himself had once consulted him, in
reference to a little breakage of glass and china. And it was darKly
rumoured that the butler, regarding him with favour such as that stern man
had never shown before to mortal boy, had sometimes mingled porter with his
table-beer to make him strong.
Over and above these extensive privileges, Paul had free right of entry
to Mr Feeder's room, from which apartment he had twice led Mr Toots into the
open air in a state of faintness, consequent on an unsuccessful attempt to
smoke a very blunt cigar: one of a bundle which that young gentleman had
covertly purchased on the shingle from a most desperate smuggler, who had
acknowledged, in confidence, that two hundred pounds was the price set upon
his head, dead or alive, by the Custom House. It was a snug room, Mr
Feeder's, with his bed in another little room inside of it; and a flute,
which Mr Feeder couldn't play yet, but was going to make a point of
learning, he said, hanging up over the fireplace. There were some books in
it, too, and a fishing-rod; for Mr Feeder said he should certainly make a
point of learning to fish, when he could find time. Mr Feeder had amassed,
with similar intentions, a beautiful little curly secondhand key-bugle, a
chess-board and men, a Spanish Grammar, a set of sketching materials, and a
pair of boxing-gloves. The art of self-defence Mr Feeder said he should
undoubtedly make a point of learning, as he considered it the duty of every
man to do; for it might lead to the protection of a female in distress. But
Mr Feeder's great possession was a large green jar of snuff, which Mr Toots
had brought down as a present, at the close of the last vacation; and for
which he had paid a high price, having been the genuine property of the
Prince Regent. Neither Mr Toots nor Mr Feeder could partake of this or any
other snuff, even in the most stinted and moderate degree, without being
seized with convulsions of sneezing. Nevertheless it was their great delight
to moisten a box-full with cold tea, stir it up on a piece of parchment with
a paper-knife, and devote themselves to its consumption then and there. In
the course of which cramming of their noses, they endured surprising
torments with the constancy of martyrs: and, drinking table-beer at
intervals, felt all the glories of dissipation.
To little Paul sitting silent in their company, and by the side of his
chief patron, Mr Toots, there was a dread charm in these reckless occasions:
and when Mr Feeder spoke of the dark mysteries of London, and told Mr Toots
that he was going to observe it himself closely in all its ramifications in
the approaching holidays, and for that purpose had made arrangements to
board with two old maiden ladies at Peckham, Paul regarded him as if he were
the hero of some book of travels or wild adventure, and was almost afraid of
such a slashing person.
Going into this room one evening, when the holidays were very near,
Paul found Mr Feeder filling up the blanks in some printed letters, while
some others, already filled up and strewn before him, were being folded and
sealed by Mr Toots. Mr Feeder said, 'Aha, Dombey, there you are, are you?' -
for they were always kind to him, and glad to see him - and then said,
tossing one of the letters towards him, 'And there you are, too, Dombey.
That's yours.'
'Mine, Sir?' said Paul.
'Your invitation,' returned Mr Feeder.
Paul, looking at it, found, in copper-plate print, with the exception
of his own name and the date, which were in Mr Feeder's penmanship, that
Doctor and Mrs Blimber requested the pleasure of Mr P. Dombey's company at
an early party on Wednesday Evening the Seventeenth Instant; and that the
hour was half-past seven o'clock; and that the object was Quadrilles. Mr
Toots also showed him, by holding up a companion sheet of paper, that Doctor
and Mrs Blimber requested the pleasure of Mr Toots's company at an early
party on Wednesday Evening the Seventeenth Instant, when the hour was
half-past seven o'clock, and when the object was Quadrilles. He also found,
on glancing at the table where Mr Feeder sat, that the pleasure of Mr
Briggs's company, and of Mr Tozer's company, and of every young gentleman's
company, was requested by Doctor and Mrs Blimber on the same genteel
Occasion.
Mr Feeder then told him, to his great joy, that his sister was invited,
and that it was a half-yearly event, and that, as the holidays began that
day, he could go away with his sister after the party, if he liked, which
Paul interrupted him to say he would like, very much. Mr Feeder then gave
him to understand that he would be expected to inform Doctor and Mrs
Blimber, in superfine small-hand, that Mr P. Dombey would be happy to have
the honour of waiting on them, in accordance with their polite invitation.
Lastly, Mr Feeder said, he had better not refer to the festive occasion, in
the hearing of Doctor and Mrs Blimber; as these preliminaries, and the whole
of the arrangements, were conducted on principles of classicality and high
breeding; and that Doctor and Mrs Blimber on the one hand, and the young
gentlemen on the other, were supposed, in their scholastic capacities, not
to have the least idea of what was in the wind.
Paul thanked Mr Feeder for these hints, and pocketing his invitation,
sat down on a stool by the side of Mr Toots, as usual. But Paul's head,
which had long been ailing more or less, and was sometimes very heavy and
painful, felt so uneasy that night, that he was obliged to support it on his
hand. And yet it dropped so, that by little and little it sunk on Mr Toots's
knee, and rested there, as if it had no care to be ever lifted up again.
That was no reason why he should be deaf; but he must have been, he
thought, for, by and by, he heard Mr Feeder calling in his ear, and gently
shaking him to rouse his attention. And when he raised his head, quite
scared, and looked about him, he found that Doctor Blimber had come into the
room; and that the window was open, and that his forehead was wet with
sprinkled water; though how all this had been done without his knowledge,
was very curious indeed.
'Ah! Come, come! That's well! How is my little friend now?' said Doctor
Blimber, encouragingly.
'Oh, quite well, thank you, Sir,' said Paul.
But there seemed to be something the matter with the floor, for he
couldn't stand upon it steadily; and with the walls too, for they were
inclined to turn round and round, and could only be stopped by being looked
at very hard indeed. Mr Toots's head had the appearance of being at once
bigger and farther off than was quite natural; and when he took Paul in his
arms, to carry him upstairs, Paul observed with astonishment that the door
was in quite a different place from that in which he had expected to find
it, and almost thought, at first, that Mr Toots was going to walk straight
up the chimney.
It was very kind of Mr Toots to carry him to the top of the house so
tenderly; and Paul told him that it was. But Mr Toots said he would do a
great deal more than that, if he could; and indeed he did more as it was:
for he helped Paul to undress, and helped him to bed, in the kindest manner
possible, and then sat down by the bedside and chuckled very much; while Mr
Feeder, B.A., leaning over the bottom of the bedstead, set all the little
bristles on his head bolt upright with his bony hands, and then made believe
to spar at Paul with great science, on account of his being all right again,
which was so uncommonly facetious, and kind too in Mr Feeder, that Paul, not
being able to make up his mind whether it was best to laugh or cry at him,
did both at once.
How Mr Toots melted away, and Mr Feeder changed into Mrs Pipchin, Paul
never thought of asking; neither was he at all curious to know; but when he
saw Mrs Pipchin standing at the bottom of the bed, instead of Mr Feeder, he
cried out, 'Mrs Pipchin, don't tell Florence!'
'Don't tell Florence what, my little Paul?' said Mrs Pipchin, coming
round to the bedside, and sitting down in the chair.
'About me,' said Paul.
'No, no,' said Mrs Pipchin.
'What do you think I mean to do when I grow up, Mrs Pipchin?' inquired
Paul, turning his face towards her on his pillow, and resting his chin
wistfully on his folded hands.
Mrs Pipchin couldn't guess.
'I mean,' said Paul, 'to put my money all together in one Bank, never
try to get any more, go away into the country with my darling Florence, have
a beautiful garden, fields, and woods, and live there with her all my life!'
'Indeed!' cried Mrs Pipchin.
'Yes,' said Paul. 'That's what I mean to do, when I - ' He stopped, and
pondered for a moment.
Mrs Pipchin's grey eye scanned his thoughtful face.
'If I grow up,' said Paul. Then he went on immediately to tell Mrs
Pipchin all about the party, about Florence's invitation, about the pride he
would have in the admiration that would be felt for her by all the boys,
about their being so kind to him and fond of him, about his being so fond of
them, and about his being so glad of it. Then he told Mrs Pipchin about the
analysis, and about his being certainly old-fashioned, and took Mrs
Pipchin's opinion on that point, and whether she knew why it was, and what
it meant. Mrs Pipchin denied the fact altogether, as the shortest way of
getting out of the difficulty; but Paul was far from satisfied with that
reply, and looked so searchingly at Mrs Pipchin for a truer answer, that she
was obliged to get up and look out of the window to avoid his eyes.
There was a certain calm Apothecary, 'who attended at the establishment
when any of the young gentlemen were ill, and somehow he got into the room
and appeared at the bedside, with Mrs Blimber. How they came there, or how
long they had been there, Paul didn't know; but when he saw them, he sat up
in bed, and answered all the Apothecary's questions at full length, and
whispered to him that Florence was not to know anything about it, if he
pleased, and that he had set his mind upon her coming to the party. He was
very chatty with the Apothecary, and they parted excellent friends. Lying
down again with his eyes shut, he heard the Apothecary say, out of the room
and quite a long way off - or he dreamed it - that there was a want of vital
power (what was that, Paul wondered!) and great constitutional weakness.
That as the little fellow had set his heart on parting with his school-mates
on the seventeenth, it would be better to indulge the fancy if he grew no
worse. That he was glad to hear from Mrs Pipchin, that the little fellow
would go to his friends in London on the eighteenth. That he would write to
Mr Dombey, when he should have gained a better knowledge of the case, and
before that day. That there was no immediate cause for - what? Paul lost
that word And that the little fellow had a fine mind, but was an
old-fashioned boy.
What old fashion could that be, Paul wondered with a palpitating heart,
that was so visibly expressed in him; so plainly seen by so many people!
He could neither make it out, nor trouble himself long with the effort.
Mrs Pipchin was again beside him, if she had ever been away (he thought she
had gone out with the Doctor, but it was all a dream perhaps), and presently
a bottle and glass got into her hands magically, and she poured out the
contents for him. After that, he had some real good jelly, which Mrs Blimber
brought to him herself; and then he was so well, that Mrs Pipchin went home,
at his urgent solicitation, and Briggs and Tozer came to bed. Poor Briggs
grumbled terribly about his own analysis, which could hardly have
discomposed him more if it had been a chemical process; but he was very good
to Paul, and so was Tozer, and so were all the rest, for they every one
looked in before going to bed, and said, 'How are you now, Dombey?' 'Cheer
up, little Dombey!' and so forth. After Briggs had got into bed, he lay
awake for a long time, still bemoaning his analysis, and saying he knew it
was all wrong, and they couldn't have analysed a murderer worse, and - how
would Doctor Blimber like it if his pocket-money depended on it? It was very
easy, Briggs said, to make a galley-slave of a boy all the half-year, and
then score him up idle; and to crib two dinners a-week out of his board, and
then score him up greedy; but that wasn't going to be submitted to, he
believed, was it? Oh! Ah!
Before the weak-eyed young man performed on the gong next morning, he
came upstairs to Paul and told him he was to lie still, which Paul very
gladly did. Mrs Pipchin reappeared a little before the Apothecary, and a
little after the good young woman whom Paul had seen cleaning the stove on
that first morning (how long ago it seemed now!) had brought him his
breakfast. There was another consultation a long way off, or else Paul
dreamed it again; and then the Apothecary, coming back with Doctor and Mrs
Blimber, said:
'Yes, I think, Doctor Blimber, we may release this young gentleman from
his books just now; the vacation being so very near at hand.'
'By all means,' said Doctor Blimber. 'My love, you will inform
Cornelia, if you please.'
'Assuredly,' said Mrs Blimber.
The Apothecary bending down, looked closely into Paul's eyes, and felt
his head, and his pulse, and his heart, with so much interest and care, that
Paul said, 'Thank you, Sir.'
'Our little friend,' observed Doctor Blimber, 'has never complained.'
'Oh no!' replied the Apothecary. 'He was not likely to complain.'
'You find him greatly better?' said Doctor Blimber.
'Oh! he is greatly better, Sir,' returned the Apothecary.
Paul had begun to speculate, in his own odd way, on the subject that
might occupy the Apothecary's mind just at that moment; so musingly had he
answered the two questions of Doctor Blimber. But the Apothecary happening
to meet his little patient's eyes, as the latter set off on that mental
expedition, and coming instantly out of his abstraction with a cheerful
smile, Paul smiled in return and abandoned it.
He lay in bed all that day, dozing and dreaming, and looking at Mr
Toots; but got up on the next, and went downstairs. Lo and behold, there was
something the matter with the great clock; and a workman on a pair of steps
had taken its face off, and was poking instruments into the works by the
light of a candle! This was a great event for Paul, who sat down on the
bottom stair, and watched the operation attentively: now and then glancing
at the clock face, leaning all askew, against the wall hard by, and feeling
a little confused by a suspicion that it was ogling him.
The workman on the steps was very civil; and as he said, when he
observed Paul, 'How do you do, Sir?' Paul got into conversation with him,
and told him he hadn't been quite well lately. The ice being thus broken,
Paul asked him a multitude of questions about chimes and clocks: as, whether
people watched up in the lonely church steeples by night to make them
strike, and how the bells were rung when people died, and whether those were
different bells from wedding bells, or only sounded dismal in the fancies of
the living. Finding that his new acquaintance was not very well informed on
the subject of the Curfew Bell of ancient days, Paul gave him an account of
that institution; and also asked him, as a practical man, what he thought
about King Alfred's idea of measuring time by the burning of candles; to
which the workman replied, that he thought it would be the ruin of the clock
trade if it was to come up again. In fine, Paul looked on, until the clock
had quite recovered its familiar aspect, and resumed its sedate inquiry;
when the workman, putting away his tools in a long basket, bade him good
day, and went away. Though not before he had whispered something, on the
door-mat, to the footman, in which there was the phrase 'old-fashioned' -
for Paul heard it. What could that old fashion be, that seemed to make the
people sorry! What could it be!
Having nothing to learn now, he thought of this frequently; though not
so often as he might have done, if he had had fewer things to think of. But
he had a great many; and was always thinking, all day long.
First, there was Florence coming to the party. Florence would see that
the boys were fond of him; and that would make her happy. This was his great
theme. Let Florence once be sure that they were gentle and good to him, and
that he had become a little favourite among them, and then the would always
think of the time he had passed there, without being very sorry. Florence
might be all the happier too for that, perhaps, when he came back.
When he came back! Fifty times a day, his noiseless little feet went up
the stairs to his own room, as he collected every book, and scrap, and
trifle that belonged to him, and put them all together there, down to the
minutest thing, for taking home! There was no shade of coming back on little
Paul; no preparation for it, or other reference to it, grew out of anything
he thought or did, except this slight one in connexion with his sister. On
the contrary, he had to think of everything familiar to him, in his
contemplative moods and in his wanderings about the house, as being to be
parted with; and hence the many things he had to think of, all day long.
He had to peep into those rooms upstairs, and think how solitary they
would be when he was gone, and wonder through how many silent days, weeks,
months, and years, they would continue just as grave and undisturbed. He had
to think - would any other child (old-fashioned, like himself stray there at
any time, to whom the same grotesque distortions of pattern and furniture
would manifest themselves; and would anybody tell that boy of little Dombey,
who had been there once? He had to think of a portrait on the stairs, which
always looked earnestly after him as he went away, eyeing it over his
shoulder; and which, when he passed it in the company of anyone, still
seemed to gaze at him, and not at his companion. He had much to think of, in
association with a print that hung up in another place, where, in the centre
of a wondering group, one figure that he knew, a figure with a light about
its head - benignant, mild, and merciful - stood pointing upward.
At his own bedroom window, there were crowds of thoughts that mixed
with these, and came on, one upon another, like the rolling waves. Where
those wild birds lived, that were always hovering out at sea in troubled
weather; where the clouds rose and first began; whence the wind issued on
its rushing flight, and where it stopped; whether the spot where he and
Florence had so often sat, and watched, and talked about these things, could
ever be exactly as it used to be without them; whether it could ever be the
same to Florence, if he were in some distant place, and she were sitting
there alone.
He had to think, too, of Mr Toots, and Mr Feeder, B.A., of all the
boys; and of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber; of home, and of
his aunt and Miss Tox; of his father; Dombey and Son, Walter with the poor
old Uncle who had got the money he wanted, and that gruff-voiced Captain
with the iron hand. Besides all this, he had a number of little visits to
pay, in the course of the day; to the schoolroom, to Doctor Blimber's study,
to Mrs Blimber's private apartment, to Miss Blimber's, and to the dog. For
he was free of the whole house now, to range it as he chose; and, in his
desire to part with everybody on affectionate terms, he attended, in his
way, to them all. Sometimes he found places in books for Briggs, who was
always losing them; sometimes he looked up words in dictionaries for other
young gentlemen who were in extremity; sometimes he held skeins of silk for
Mrs Blimber to wind; sometimes he put Cornelia's desk to rights; sometimes
he would even creep into the Doctor's study, and, sitting on the carpet near
his learned feet, turn the globes softly, and go round the world, or take a
flight among the far-off stars.
In those days immediately before the holidays, in short, when the other
young gentlemen were labouring for dear life through a general resumption of
the studies of the whole half-year, Paul was such a privileged pupil as had
never been seen in that house before. He could hardly believe it himself;
but his liberty lasted from hour to hour, and from day to day; and little
Dombey was caressed by everyone. Doctor Blimber was so particular about him,
that he requested Johnson to retire from the dinner-table one day, for
having thoughtlessly spoken to him as 'poor little Dombey;' which Paul
thought rather hard and severe, though he had flushed at the moment, and
wondered why Johnson should pity him. It was the more questionable justice,
Paul thought, in the Doctor, from his having certainly overheard that great
authority give his assent on the previous evening, to the proposition
(stated by Mrs Blimber) that poor dear little Dombey was more old-fashioned
than ever. And now it was that Paul began to think it must surely be
old-fashioned to be very thin, and light, and easily tired, and soon
disposed to lie down anywhere and rest; for he couldn't help feeling that
these were more and more his habits every day.
At last the party-day arrived; and Doctor Blimber said at breakfast,
'Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth of next month.'
Mr Toots immediately threw off his allegiance, and put on his ring: and
mentioning the Doctor in casual conversation shortly afterwards, spoke of
him as 'Blimber'! This act of freedom inspired the older pupils with
admiration and envy; but the younger spirits were appalled, and seemed to
marvel that no beam fell down and crushed him.
Not the least allusion was made to the ceremonies of the evening,
either at breakfast or at dinner; but there was a bustle in the house all
day, and in the course of his perambulations, Paul made acquaintance with
various strange benches and candlesticks, and met a harp in a green
greatcoat standing on the landing outside the drawing-room door. There was
something queer, too, about Mrs Blimber's head at dinner-time, as if she had
screwed her hair up too tight; and though Miss Blimber showed a graceful
bunch of plaited hair on each temple, she seemed to have her own little
curls in paper underneath, and in a play-bill too; for Paul read 'Theatre
Royal' over one of her sparkling spectacles, and 'Brighton' over the other.
There was a grand array of white waistcoats and cravats in the young
gentlemen's bedrooms as evening approached; and such a smell of singed hair,
that Doctor Blimber sent up the footman with his compliments, and wished to
know if the house was on fire. But it was only the hairdresser curling the
young gentlemen, and over-heating his tongs in the ardour of business.
When Paul was dressed - which was very soon done, for he felt unwell
and drowsy, and was not able to stand about it very long - he went down into
the drawing-room; where he found Doctor Blimber pacing up and down the room
full dressed, but with a dignified and unconcerned demeanour, as if he
thought it barely possible that one or two people might drop in by and by.
Shortly afterwards, Mrs Blimber appeared, looking lovely, Paul thought; and
attired in such a number of skirts that it was quite an excursion to walk
round her. Miss Blimber came down soon after her Mama; a little squeezed in
appearance, but very charming.
Mr Toots and Mr Feeder were the next arrivals. Each of these gentlemen
brought his hat in his hand, as if he lived somewhere else; and when they
were announced by the butler, Doctor Blimber said, 'Ay, ay, ay! God bless my
soul!' and seemed extremely glad to see them. Mr Toots was one blaze of
jewellery and buttons; and he felt the circumstance so strongly, that when
he had shaken hands with the Doctor, and had bowed to Mrs Blimber and Miss
Blimber, he took Paul aside, and said, 'What do you think of this, Dombey?'
But notwithstanding this modest confidence in himself, Mr Toots
appeared to be involved in a good deal of uncertainty whether, on the whole,
it was judicious to button the bottom button of his waistcoat, and whether,
on a calm revision of all the circumstances, it was best to wear his
waistbands turned up or turned down. Observing that Mr Feeder's were turned
up, Mr Toots turned his up; but the waistbands of the next arrival being
turned down, Mr Toots turned his down. The differences in point of
waistcoat-buttoning, not only at the bottom, but at the top too, became so
numerous and complicated as the arrivals thickened, that Mr Toots was
continually fingering that article of dress, as if he were performing on
some instrument; and appeared to find the incessant execution it demanded,
quite bewildering. All the young gentlemen, tightly cravatted, curled, and
pumped, and with their best hats in their hands, having been at different
times announced and introduced, Mr Baps, the dancing-master, came,
cruel weapon actually stabbed him as he spoke. 'I imagined all this when he
was a boy. I believed it. It was a truth to me. I saw him lightly walking on
the edge of an unseen gulf where so many others walk with equal gaiety, and
from which
'The old excuse,' interrupted his brother, as he stirred the fire. 'So
many. Go on. Say, so many fall.'
'From which ONE traveller fell,' returned the other, 'who set forward,
on his way, a boy like him, and missed his footing more and more, and
slipped a little and a little lower; and went on stumbling still, until he
fell headlong and found himself below a shattered man. Think what I
suffered, when I watched that boy.'
'You have only yourself to thank for it,' returned the brother.
'Only myself,' he assented with a sigh. 'I don't seek to divide the
blame or shame.'
'You have divided the shame,' James Carker muttered through his teeth.
And, through so many and such close teeth, he could mutter well.
'Ah, James,' returned his brother, speaking for the first time in an
accent of reproach, and seeming, by the sound of his voice, to have covered
his face with his hands, 'I have been, since then, a useful foil to you. You
have trodden on me freely in your climbing up. Don't spurn me with your
heel!'
A silence ensued. After a time, Mr Carker the Manager was heard
rustling among his papers, as if he had resolved to bring the interview to a
conclusion. At the same time his brother withdrew nearer to the door.
'That's all,' he said. 'I watched him with such trembling and such
fear, as was some little punishment to me, until he passed the place where I
first fell; and then, though I had been his father, I believe I never could
have thanked God more devoutly. I didn't dare to warn him, and advise him;
but if I had seen direct cause, I would have shown him my example. I was
afraid to be seen speaking with him, lest it should be thought I did him
harm, and tempted him to evil, and corrupted him: or lest I really should.
There may be such contagion in me; I don't know. Piece out my history, in
connexion with young Walter Gay, and what he has made me feel; and think of
me more leniently, James, if you can.
With these words he came out to where Walter was standing. He turned a
little paler when he saw him there, and paler yet when Walter caught him by
the hand, and said in a whisper:
'Mr Carker, pray let me thank you! Let me say how much I feel for you!
How sorry I am, to have been the unhappy cause of all this! How I almost
look upon you now as my protector and guardian! How very, very much, I feel
obliged to you and pity you!' said Walter, squeezing both his hands, and
hardly knowing, in his agitation, what he did or said.
Mr Morfin's room being close at hand and empty, and the door wide open,
they moved thither by one accord: the passage being seldom free from someone
passing to or fro. When they were there, and Walter saw in Mr Carker's face
some traces of the emotion within, he almost felt as if he had never seen
the face before; it was so greatly changed.
'Walter,' he said, laying his hand on his shoulder. 'I am far removed
from you, and may I ever be. Do you know what I am?'
'What you are!' appeared to hang on Walter's lips, as he regarded him
attentively.
'It was begun,' said Carker, 'before my twenty-first birthday - led up
to, long before, but not begun till near that time. I had robbed them when I
came of age. I robbed them afterwards. Before my twenty-second birthday, it
was all found out; and then, Walter, from all men's society, I died.'
Again his last few words hung trembling upon Walter's lips, but he
could neither utter them, nor any of his own.
'The House was very good to me. May Heaven reward the old man for his
forbearance! This one, too, his son, who was then newly in the Firm, where I
had held great trust! I was called into that room which is now his - I have
never entered it since - and came out, what you know me. For many years I
sat in my present seat, alone as now, but then a known and recognised
example to the rest. They were all merciful to me, and I lived. Time has
altered that part of my poor expiation; and I think, except the three heads
of the House, there is no one here who knows my story rightly. Before the
little boy grows up, and has it told to him, my corner may be vacant. I
would rather that it might be so! This is the only change to me since that
day, when I left all youth, and hope, and good men's company, behind me in
that room. God bless you, Walter! Keep you, and all dear to you, in honesty,
or strike them dead!'
Some recollection of his trembling from head to foot, as if with
excessive cold, and of his bursting into tears, was all that Walter could
add to this, when he tried to recall exactly what had passed between them.
When Walter saw him next, he was bending over his desk in his old
silent, drooping, humbled way. Then, observing him at his work, and feeling
how resolved he evidently was that no further intercourse should arise
between them, and thinking again and again on all he had seen and heard that
morning in so short a time, in connexion with the history of both the
Carkers, Walter could hardly believe that he was under orders for the West
Indies, and would soon be lost to Uncle Sol, and Captain Cuttle, and to
glimpses few and far between of Florence Dombey - no, he meant Paul - and to
all he loved, and liked, and looked for, in his daily life.
But it was true, and the news had already penetrated to the outer
office; for while he sat with a heavy heart, pondering on these things, and
resting his head upon his arm, Perch the messenger, descending from his
mahogany bracket, and jogging his elbow, begged his pardon, but wished to
say in his ear, Did he think he could arrange to send home to England a jar
of preserved Ginger, cheap, for Mrs Perch's own eating, in the course of her
recovery from her next confinement?
Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned, and goes Home for the Holidays
When the Midsummer vacation approached, no indecent manifestations of
joy were exhibited by the leaden-eyed young gentlemen assembled at Doctor
Blimber's. Any such violent expression as 'breaking up,' would have been
quite inapplicable to that polite establishment. The young gentlemen oozed
away, semi-annually, to their own homes; but they never broke up. They would
have scorned the action.
Tozer, who was constantly galled and tormented by a starched white
cambric neckerchief, which he wore at the express desire of Mrs Tozer, his
parent, who, designing him for the Church, was of opinion that he couldn't
be in that forward state of preparation too soon - Tozer said, indeed, that
choosing between two evils, he thought he would rather stay where he was,
than go home. However inconsistent this declaration might appear with that
passage in Tozer's Essay on the subject, wherein he had observed 'that the
thoughts of home and all its recollections, awakened in his mind the most
pleasing emotions of anticipation and delight,' and had also likened himself
to a Roman General, flushed with a recent victory over the Iceni, or laden
with Carthaginian spoil, advancing within a few hours' march of the Capitol,
presupposed, for the purposes of the simile, to be the dwelling-place of Mrs
Tozer, still it was very sincerely made. For it seemed that Tozer had a
dreadful Uncle, who not only volunteered examinations of him, in the
holidays, on abstruse points, but twisted innocent events and things, and
wrenched them to the same fell purpose. So that if this Uncle took him to
the Play, or, on a similar pretence of kindness, carried him to see a Giant,
or a Dwarf, or a Conjuror, or anything, Tozer knew he had read up some
classical allusion to the subject beforehand, and was thrown into a state of
mortal apprehension: not foreseeing where he might break out, or what
authority he might not quote against him.
As to Briggs, his father made no show of artifice about it. He never
would leave him alone. So numerous and severe were the mental trials of that
unfortunate youth in vacation time, that the friends of the family (then
resident near Bayswater, London) seldom approached the ornamental piece of
water in Kensington Gardens,' without a vague expectation of seeing Master
Briggs's hat floating on the surface, and an unfinished exercise lying on
the bank. Briggs, therefore, was not at all sanguine on the subject of
holidays; and these two sharers of little Paul's bedroom were so fair a
sample of the young gentlemen in general, that the most elastic among them
contemplated the arrival of those festive periods with genteel resignation.
It was far otherwise with little Paul. The end of these first holidays
was to witness his separation from Florence, but who ever looked forward to
the end of holidays whose beginning was not yet come! Not Paul, assuredly.
As the happy time drew near, the lions and tigers climbing up the bedroom
walls became quite tame and frolicsome. The grim sly faces in the squares
and diamonds of the floor-cloth, relaxed and peeped out at him with less
wicked eyes. The grave old clock had more of personal interest in the tone
of its formal inquiry; and the restless sea went rolling on all night, to
the sounding of a melancholy strain - yet it was pleasant too - that rose
and fell with the waves, and rocked him, as it were, to sleep.
Mr Feeder, B.A., seemed to think that he, too, would enjoy the holidays
very much. Mr Toots projected a life of holidays from that time forth; for,
as he regularly informed Paul every day, it was his 'last half' at Doctor
Blimber's, and he was going to begin to come into his property directly.
It was perfectly understood between Paul and Mr Toots, that they were
intimate friends, notwithstanding their distance in point of years and
station. As the vacation approached, and Mr Toots breathed harder and stared
oftener in Paul's society, than he had done before, Paul knew that he meant
he was sorry they were going to lose sight of each other, and felt very much
obliged to him for his patronage and good opinion.
It was even understood by Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss
Blimber, as well as by the young gentlemen in general, that Toots had
somehow constituted himself protector and guardian of Dombey, and the
circumstance became so notorious, even to Mrs Pipchin, that the good old
creature cherished feelings of bitterness and jealousy against Toots; and,
in the sanctuary of her own home, repeatedly denounced him as a
'chuckle-headed noodle.' Whereas the innocent Toots had no more idea of
awakening Mrs Pipchin's wrath, than he had of any other definite possibility
or proposition. On the contrary, he was disposed to consider her rather a
remarkable character, with many points of interest about her. For this
reason he smiled on her with so much urbanity, and asked her how she did, so
often, in the course of her visits to little Paul, that at last she one
night told him plainly, she wasn't used to it, whatever he might think; and
she could not, and she would not bear it, either from himself or any other
puppy then existing: at which unexpected acknowledgment of his civilities,
Mr Toots was so alarmed that he secreted himself in a retired spot until she
had gone. Nor did he ever again face the doughty Mrs Pipchin, under Doctor
Blimber's roof.
They were within two or three weeks of the holidays, when, one day,
Cornelia Blimber called Paul into her room, and said, 'Dombey, I am going to
send home your analysis.'
'Thank you, Ma'am,' returned Paul.
'You know what I mean, do you, Dombey?' inquired Miss Blimber, looking
hard at him, through the spectacles.
'No, Ma'am,' said Paul.
'Dombey, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, 'I begin to be afraid you are a
sad boy. When you don't know the meaning of an expression, why don't you
seek for information?'
'Mrs Pipchin told me I wasn't to ask questions,' returned Paul.
'I must beg you not to mention Mrs Pipchin to me, on any account,
Dombey,' returned Miss Blimber. 'I couldn't think of allowing it. The course
of study here, is very far removed from anything of that sort. A repetition
of such allusions would make it necessary for me to request to hear, without
a mistake, before breakfast-time to-morrow morning, from Verbum personale
down to simillimia cygno.'
'I didn't mean, Ma'am - ' began little Paul.
'I must trouble you not to tell me that you didn't mean, if you please,
Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, who preserved an awful politeness in her
admonitions. 'That is a line of argument I couldn't dream of permitting.'
Paul felt it safest to say nothing at all, so he only looked at Miss
Blimber's spectacles. Miss Blimber having shaken her head at him gravely,
referred to a paper lying before her.
'"Analysis of the character of P. Dombey." If my recollection serves
me,' said Miss Blimber breaking off, 'the word analysis as opposed to
synthesis, is thus defined by Walker. "The resolution of an object, whether
of the senses or of the intellect, into its first elements." As opposed to
synthesis, you observe. Now you know what analysis is, Dombey.'
Dombey didn't seem to be absolutely blinded by the light let in upon
his intellect, but he made Miss Blimber a little bow.
'"Analysis,"' resumed Miss Blimber, casting her eye over the paper,
'"of the character of P. Dombey." I find that the natural capacity of Dombey
is extremely good; and that his general disposition to study may be stated
in an equal ratio. Thus, taking eight as our standard and highest number, I
find these qualities in Dombey stated each at six three-fourths!'
Miss Blimber paused to see how Paul received this news. Being undecided
whether six three-fourths meant six pounds fifteen, or sixpence three
farthings, or six foot three, or three quarters past six, or six somethings
that he hadn't learnt yet, with three unknown something elses over, Paul
rubbed his hands and looked straight at Miss Blimber. It happened to answer
as well as anything else he could have done; and Cornelia proceeded.
'"Violence two. Selfishness two. Inclination to low company, as evinced
in the case of a person named Glubb, originally seven, but since reduced.
Gentlemanly demeanour four, and improving with advancing years." Now what I
particularly wish to call your attention to, Dombey, is the general
observation at the close of this analysis.'
Paul set himself to follow it with great care.
'"It may be generally observed of Dombey,"' said Miss Blimber, reading
in a loud voice, and at every second word directing her spectacles towards
the little figure before her: '"that his abilities and inclinations are
good, and that he has made as much progress as under the circumstances could
have been expected. But it is to be lamented of this young gentleman that he
is singular (what is usually termed old-fashioned) in his character and
conduct, and that, without presenting anything in either which distinctly
calls for reprobation, he is often very unlike other young gentlemen of his
age and social position." Now, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, laying down the
paper, 'do you understand that?'
'I think I do, Ma'am,' said Paul.
'This analysis, you see, Dombey,' Miss Blimber continued, 'is going to
be sent home to your respected parent. It will naturally be very painful to
him to find that you are singular in your character and conduct. It is
naturally painful to us; for we can't like you, you know, Dombey, as well as
we could wish.'
She touched the child upon a tender point. He had secretly become more
and more solicitous from day to day, as the time of his departure drew more
near, that all the house should like him. From some hidden reason, very
imperfectly understood by himself - if understood at all - he felt a
gradually increasing impulse of affection, towards almost everything and
everybody in the place. He could not bear to think that they would be quite
indifferent to him when he was gone. He wanted them to remember him kindly;
and he had made it his business even to conciliate a great hoarse shaggy
dog, chained up at the back of the house, who had previously been the terror
of his life: that even he might miss him when he was no longer there.
Little thinking that in this, he only showed again the difference
between himself and his compeers, poor tiny Paul set it forth to Miss
Blimber as well as he could, and begged her, in despite of the official
analysis, to have the goodness to try and like him. To Mrs Blimber, who had
joined them, he preferred the same petition: and when that lady could not
forbear, even in his presence, from giving utterance to her often-repeated
opinion, that he was an odd child, Paul told her that he was sure she was
quite right; that he thought it must be his bones, but he didn't know; and
that he hoped she would overlook it, for he was fond of them all.
'Not so fond,' said Paul, with a mixture of timidity and perfect
frankness, which was one of the most peculiar and most engaging qualities of
the child, 'not so fond as I am of Florence, of course; that could never be.
You couldn't expect that, could you, Ma'am?'
'Oh! the old-fashioned little soul!' cried Mrs Blimber, in a whisper.
'But I like everybody here very much,' pursued Paul, 'and I should
grieve to go away, and think that anyone was glad that I was gone, or didn't
care.'
Mrs Blimber was now quite sure that Paul was the oddest child in the
world; and when she told the Doctor what had passed, the Doctor did not
controvert his wife's opinion. But he said, as he had said before, when Paul
first came, that study would do much; and he also said, as he had said on
that occasion, 'Bring him on, Cornelia! Bring him on!'
Cornelia had always brought him on as vigorously as she could; and Paul
had had a hard life of it. But over and above the getting through his tasks,
he had long had another purpose always present to him, and to which he still
held fast. It was, to be a gentle, useful, quiet little fellow, always
striving to secure the love and attachment of the rest; and though he was
yet often to be seen at his old post on the stairs, or watching the waves
and clouds from his solitary window, he was oftener found, too, among the
other boys, modestly rendering them some little voluntary service. Thus it
came to pass, that even among those rigid and absorbed young anchorites, who
mortified themselves beneath the roof of Doctor Blimber, Paul was an object
of general interest; a fragile little plaything that they all liked, and
that no one would have thought of treating roughly. But he could not change
his nature, or rewrite the analysis; and so they all agreed that Dombey was
old-fashioned.
There were some immunities, however, attaching to the character enjoyed
by no one else. They could have better spared a newer-fashioned child, and
that alone was much. When the others only bowed to Doctor Blimber and family
on retiring for the night, Paul would stretch out his morsel of a hand, and
boldly shake the Doctor's; also Mrs Blimber's; also Cornelia's. If anybody
was to be begged off from impending punishment, Paul was always the
delegate. The weak-eyed young man himself had once consulted him, in
reference to a little breakage of glass and china. And it was darKly
rumoured that the butler, regarding him with favour such as that stern man
had never shown before to mortal boy, had sometimes mingled porter with his
table-beer to make him strong.
Over and above these extensive privileges, Paul had free right of entry
to Mr Feeder's room, from which apartment he had twice led Mr Toots into the
open air in a state of faintness, consequent on an unsuccessful attempt to
smoke a very blunt cigar: one of a bundle which that young gentleman had
covertly purchased on the shingle from a most desperate smuggler, who had
acknowledged, in confidence, that two hundred pounds was the price set upon
his head, dead or alive, by the Custom House. It was a snug room, Mr
Feeder's, with his bed in another little room inside of it; and a flute,
which Mr Feeder couldn't play yet, but was going to make a point of
learning, he said, hanging up over the fireplace. There were some books in
it, too, and a fishing-rod; for Mr Feeder said he should certainly make a
point of learning to fish, when he could find time. Mr Feeder had amassed,
with similar intentions, a beautiful little curly secondhand key-bugle, a
chess-board and men, a Spanish Grammar, a set of sketching materials, and a
pair of boxing-gloves. The art of self-defence Mr Feeder said he should
undoubtedly make a point of learning, as he considered it the duty of every
man to do; for it might lead to the protection of a female in distress. But
Mr Feeder's great possession was a large green jar of snuff, which Mr Toots
had brought down as a present, at the close of the last vacation; and for
which he had paid a high price, having been the genuine property of the
Prince Regent. Neither Mr Toots nor Mr Feeder could partake of this or any
other snuff, even in the most stinted and moderate degree, without being
seized with convulsions of sneezing. Nevertheless it was their great delight
to moisten a box-full with cold tea, stir it up on a piece of parchment with
a paper-knife, and devote themselves to its consumption then and there. In
the course of which cramming of their noses, they endured surprising
torments with the constancy of martyrs: and, drinking table-beer at
intervals, felt all the glories of dissipation.
To little Paul sitting silent in their company, and by the side of his
chief patron, Mr Toots, there was a dread charm in these reckless occasions:
and when Mr Feeder spoke of the dark mysteries of London, and told Mr Toots
that he was going to observe it himself closely in all its ramifications in
the approaching holidays, and for that purpose had made arrangements to
board with two old maiden ladies at Peckham, Paul regarded him as if he were
the hero of some book of travels or wild adventure, and was almost afraid of
such a slashing person.
Going into this room one evening, when the holidays were very near,
Paul found Mr Feeder filling up the blanks in some printed letters, while
some others, already filled up and strewn before him, were being folded and
sealed by Mr Toots. Mr Feeder said, 'Aha, Dombey, there you are, are you?' -
for they were always kind to him, and glad to see him - and then said,
tossing one of the letters towards him, 'And there you are, too, Dombey.
That's yours.'
'Mine, Sir?' said Paul.
'Your invitation,' returned Mr Feeder.
Paul, looking at it, found, in copper-plate print, with the exception
of his own name and the date, which were in Mr Feeder's penmanship, that
Doctor and Mrs Blimber requested the pleasure of Mr P. Dombey's company at
an early party on Wednesday Evening the Seventeenth Instant; and that the
hour was half-past seven o'clock; and that the object was Quadrilles. Mr
Toots also showed him, by holding up a companion sheet of paper, that Doctor
and Mrs Blimber requested the pleasure of Mr Toots's company at an early
party on Wednesday Evening the Seventeenth Instant, when the hour was
half-past seven o'clock, and when the object was Quadrilles. He also found,
on glancing at the table where Mr Feeder sat, that the pleasure of Mr
Briggs's company, and of Mr Tozer's company, and of every young gentleman's
company, was requested by Doctor and Mrs Blimber on the same genteel
Occasion.
Mr Feeder then told him, to his great joy, that his sister was invited,
and that it was a half-yearly event, and that, as the holidays began that
day, he could go away with his sister after the party, if he liked, which
Paul interrupted him to say he would like, very much. Mr Feeder then gave
him to understand that he would be expected to inform Doctor and Mrs
Blimber, in superfine small-hand, that Mr P. Dombey would be happy to have
the honour of waiting on them, in accordance with their polite invitation.
Lastly, Mr Feeder said, he had better not refer to the festive occasion, in
the hearing of Doctor and Mrs Blimber; as these preliminaries, and the whole
of the arrangements, were conducted on principles of classicality and high
breeding; and that Doctor and Mrs Blimber on the one hand, and the young
gentlemen on the other, were supposed, in their scholastic capacities, not
to have the least idea of what was in the wind.
Paul thanked Mr Feeder for these hints, and pocketing his invitation,
sat down on a stool by the side of Mr Toots, as usual. But Paul's head,
which had long been ailing more or less, and was sometimes very heavy and
painful, felt so uneasy that night, that he was obliged to support it on his
hand. And yet it dropped so, that by little and little it sunk on Mr Toots's
knee, and rested there, as if it had no care to be ever lifted up again.
That was no reason why he should be deaf; but he must have been, he
thought, for, by and by, he heard Mr Feeder calling in his ear, and gently
shaking him to rouse his attention. And when he raised his head, quite
scared, and looked about him, he found that Doctor Blimber had come into the
room; and that the window was open, and that his forehead was wet with
sprinkled water; though how all this had been done without his knowledge,
was very curious indeed.
'Ah! Come, come! That's well! How is my little friend now?' said Doctor
Blimber, encouragingly.
'Oh, quite well, thank you, Sir,' said Paul.
But there seemed to be something the matter with the floor, for he
couldn't stand upon it steadily; and with the walls too, for they were
inclined to turn round and round, and could only be stopped by being looked
at very hard indeed. Mr Toots's head had the appearance of being at once
bigger and farther off than was quite natural; and when he took Paul in his
arms, to carry him upstairs, Paul observed with astonishment that the door
was in quite a different place from that in which he had expected to find
it, and almost thought, at first, that Mr Toots was going to walk straight
up the chimney.
It was very kind of Mr Toots to carry him to the top of the house so
tenderly; and Paul told him that it was. But Mr Toots said he would do a
great deal more than that, if he could; and indeed he did more as it was:
for he helped Paul to undress, and helped him to bed, in the kindest manner
possible, and then sat down by the bedside and chuckled very much; while Mr
Feeder, B.A., leaning over the bottom of the bedstead, set all the little
bristles on his head bolt upright with his bony hands, and then made believe
to spar at Paul with great science, on account of his being all right again,
which was so uncommonly facetious, and kind too in Mr Feeder, that Paul, not
being able to make up his mind whether it was best to laugh or cry at him,
did both at once.
How Mr Toots melted away, and Mr Feeder changed into Mrs Pipchin, Paul
never thought of asking; neither was he at all curious to know; but when he
saw Mrs Pipchin standing at the bottom of the bed, instead of Mr Feeder, he
cried out, 'Mrs Pipchin, don't tell Florence!'
'Don't tell Florence what, my little Paul?' said Mrs Pipchin, coming
round to the bedside, and sitting down in the chair.
'About me,' said Paul.
'No, no,' said Mrs Pipchin.
'What do you think I mean to do when I grow up, Mrs Pipchin?' inquired
Paul, turning his face towards her on his pillow, and resting his chin
wistfully on his folded hands.
Mrs Pipchin couldn't guess.
'I mean,' said Paul, 'to put my money all together in one Bank, never
try to get any more, go away into the country with my darling Florence, have
a beautiful garden, fields, and woods, and live there with her all my life!'
'Indeed!' cried Mrs Pipchin.
'Yes,' said Paul. 'That's what I mean to do, when I - ' He stopped, and
pondered for a moment.
Mrs Pipchin's grey eye scanned his thoughtful face.
'If I grow up,' said Paul. Then he went on immediately to tell Mrs
Pipchin all about the party, about Florence's invitation, about the pride he
would have in the admiration that would be felt for her by all the boys,
about their being so kind to him and fond of him, about his being so fond of
them, and about his being so glad of it. Then he told Mrs Pipchin about the
analysis, and about his being certainly old-fashioned, and took Mrs
Pipchin's opinion on that point, and whether she knew why it was, and what
it meant. Mrs Pipchin denied the fact altogether, as the shortest way of
getting out of the difficulty; but Paul was far from satisfied with that
reply, and looked so searchingly at Mrs Pipchin for a truer answer, that she
was obliged to get up and look out of the window to avoid his eyes.
There was a certain calm Apothecary, 'who attended at the establishment
when any of the young gentlemen were ill, and somehow he got into the room
and appeared at the bedside, with Mrs Blimber. How they came there, or how
long they had been there, Paul didn't know; but when he saw them, he sat up
in bed, and answered all the Apothecary's questions at full length, and
whispered to him that Florence was not to know anything about it, if he
pleased, and that he had set his mind upon her coming to the party. He was
very chatty with the Apothecary, and they parted excellent friends. Lying
down again with his eyes shut, he heard the Apothecary say, out of the room
and quite a long way off - or he dreamed it - that there was a want of vital
power (what was that, Paul wondered!) and great constitutional weakness.
That as the little fellow had set his heart on parting with his school-mates
on the seventeenth, it would be better to indulge the fancy if he grew no
worse. That he was glad to hear from Mrs Pipchin, that the little fellow
would go to his friends in London on the eighteenth. That he would write to
Mr Dombey, when he should have gained a better knowledge of the case, and
before that day. That there was no immediate cause for - what? Paul lost
that word And that the little fellow had a fine mind, but was an
old-fashioned boy.
What old fashion could that be, Paul wondered with a palpitating heart,
that was so visibly expressed in him; so plainly seen by so many people!
He could neither make it out, nor trouble himself long with the effort.
Mrs Pipchin was again beside him, if she had ever been away (he thought she
had gone out with the Doctor, but it was all a dream perhaps), and presently
a bottle and glass got into her hands magically, and she poured out the
contents for him. After that, he had some real good jelly, which Mrs Blimber
brought to him herself; and then he was so well, that Mrs Pipchin went home,
at his urgent solicitation, and Briggs and Tozer came to bed. Poor Briggs
grumbled terribly about his own analysis, which could hardly have
discomposed him more if it had been a chemical process; but he was very good
to Paul, and so was Tozer, and so were all the rest, for they every one
looked in before going to bed, and said, 'How are you now, Dombey?' 'Cheer
up, little Dombey!' and so forth. After Briggs had got into bed, he lay
awake for a long time, still bemoaning his analysis, and saying he knew it
was all wrong, and they couldn't have analysed a murderer worse, and - how
would Doctor Blimber like it if his pocket-money depended on it? It was very
easy, Briggs said, to make a galley-slave of a boy all the half-year, and
then score him up idle; and to crib two dinners a-week out of his board, and
then score him up greedy; but that wasn't going to be submitted to, he
believed, was it? Oh! Ah!
Before the weak-eyed young man performed on the gong next morning, he
came upstairs to Paul and told him he was to lie still, which Paul very
gladly did. Mrs Pipchin reappeared a little before the Apothecary, and a
little after the good young woman whom Paul had seen cleaning the stove on
that first morning (how long ago it seemed now!) had brought him his
breakfast. There was another consultation a long way off, or else Paul
dreamed it again; and then the Apothecary, coming back with Doctor and Mrs
Blimber, said:
'Yes, I think, Doctor Blimber, we may release this young gentleman from
his books just now; the vacation being so very near at hand.'
'By all means,' said Doctor Blimber. 'My love, you will inform
Cornelia, if you please.'
'Assuredly,' said Mrs Blimber.
The Apothecary bending down, looked closely into Paul's eyes, and felt
his head, and his pulse, and his heart, with so much interest and care, that
Paul said, 'Thank you, Sir.'
'Our little friend,' observed Doctor Blimber, 'has never complained.'
'Oh no!' replied the Apothecary. 'He was not likely to complain.'
'You find him greatly better?' said Doctor Blimber.
'Oh! he is greatly better, Sir,' returned the Apothecary.
Paul had begun to speculate, in his own odd way, on the subject that
might occupy the Apothecary's mind just at that moment; so musingly had he
answered the two questions of Doctor Blimber. But the Apothecary happening
to meet his little patient's eyes, as the latter set off on that mental
expedition, and coming instantly out of his abstraction with a cheerful
smile, Paul smiled in return and abandoned it.
He lay in bed all that day, dozing and dreaming, and looking at Mr
Toots; but got up on the next, and went downstairs. Lo and behold, there was
something the matter with the great clock; and a workman on a pair of steps
had taken its face off, and was poking instruments into the works by the
light of a candle! This was a great event for Paul, who sat down on the
bottom stair, and watched the operation attentively: now and then glancing
at the clock face, leaning all askew, against the wall hard by, and feeling
a little confused by a suspicion that it was ogling him.
The workman on the steps was very civil; and as he said, when he
observed Paul, 'How do you do, Sir?' Paul got into conversation with him,
and told him he hadn't been quite well lately. The ice being thus broken,
Paul asked him a multitude of questions about chimes and clocks: as, whether
people watched up in the lonely church steeples by night to make them
strike, and how the bells were rung when people died, and whether those were
different bells from wedding bells, or only sounded dismal in the fancies of
the living. Finding that his new acquaintance was not very well informed on
the subject of the Curfew Bell of ancient days, Paul gave him an account of
that institution; and also asked him, as a practical man, what he thought
about King Alfred's idea of measuring time by the burning of candles; to
which the workman replied, that he thought it would be the ruin of the clock
trade if it was to come up again. In fine, Paul looked on, until the clock
had quite recovered its familiar aspect, and resumed its sedate inquiry;
when the workman, putting away his tools in a long basket, bade him good
day, and went away. Though not before he had whispered something, on the
door-mat, to the footman, in which there was the phrase 'old-fashioned' -
for Paul heard it. What could that old fashion be, that seemed to make the
people sorry! What could it be!
Having nothing to learn now, he thought of this frequently; though not
so often as he might have done, if he had had fewer things to think of. But
he had a great many; and was always thinking, all day long.
First, there was Florence coming to the party. Florence would see that
the boys were fond of him; and that would make her happy. This was his great
theme. Let Florence once be sure that they were gentle and good to him, and
that he had become a little favourite among them, and then the would always
think of the time he had passed there, without being very sorry. Florence
might be all the happier too for that, perhaps, when he came back.
When he came back! Fifty times a day, his noiseless little feet went up
the stairs to his own room, as he collected every book, and scrap, and
trifle that belonged to him, and put them all together there, down to the
minutest thing, for taking home! There was no shade of coming back on little
Paul; no preparation for it, or other reference to it, grew out of anything
he thought or did, except this slight one in connexion with his sister. On
the contrary, he had to think of everything familiar to him, in his
contemplative moods and in his wanderings about the house, as being to be
parted with; and hence the many things he had to think of, all day long.
He had to peep into those rooms upstairs, and think how solitary they
would be when he was gone, and wonder through how many silent days, weeks,
months, and years, they would continue just as grave and undisturbed. He had
to think - would any other child (old-fashioned, like himself stray there at
any time, to whom the same grotesque distortions of pattern and furniture
would manifest themselves; and would anybody tell that boy of little Dombey,
who had been there once? He had to think of a portrait on the stairs, which
always looked earnestly after him as he went away, eyeing it over his
shoulder; and which, when he passed it in the company of anyone, still
seemed to gaze at him, and not at his companion. He had much to think of, in
association with a print that hung up in another place, where, in the centre
of a wondering group, one figure that he knew, a figure with a light about
its head - benignant, mild, and merciful - stood pointing upward.
At his own bedroom window, there were crowds of thoughts that mixed
with these, and came on, one upon another, like the rolling waves. Where
those wild birds lived, that were always hovering out at sea in troubled
weather; where the clouds rose and first began; whence the wind issued on
its rushing flight, and where it stopped; whether the spot where he and
Florence had so often sat, and watched, and talked about these things, could
ever be exactly as it used to be without them; whether it could ever be the
same to Florence, if he were in some distant place, and she were sitting
there alone.
He had to think, too, of Mr Toots, and Mr Feeder, B.A., of all the
boys; and of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber; of home, and of
his aunt and Miss Tox; of his father; Dombey and Son, Walter with the poor
old Uncle who had got the money he wanted, and that gruff-voiced Captain
with the iron hand. Besides all this, he had a number of little visits to
pay, in the course of the day; to the schoolroom, to Doctor Blimber's study,
to Mrs Blimber's private apartment, to Miss Blimber's, and to the dog. For
he was free of the whole house now, to range it as he chose; and, in his
desire to part with everybody on affectionate terms, he attended, in his
way, to them all. Sometimes he found places in books for Briggs, who was
always losing them; sometimes he looked up words in dictionaries for other
young gentlemen who were in extremity; sometimes he held skeins of silk for
Mrs Blimber to wind; sometimes he put Cornelia's desk to rights; sometimes
he would even creep into the Doctor's study, and, sitting on the carpet near
his learned feet, turn the globes softly, and go round the world, or take a
flight among the far-off stars.
In those days immediately before the holidays, in short, when the other
young gentlemen were labouring for dear life through a general resumption of
the studies of the whole half-year, Paul was such a privileged pupil as had
never been seen in that house before. He could hardly believe it himself;
but his liberty lasted from hour to hour, and from day to day; and little
Dombey was caressed by everyone. Doctor Blimber was so particular about him,
that he requested Johnson to retire from the dinner-table one day, for
having thoughtlessly spoken to him as 'poor little Dombey;' which Paul
thought rather hard and severe, though he had flushed at the moment, and
wondered why Johnson should pity him. It was the more questionable justice,
Paul thought, in the Doctor, from his having certainly overheard that great
authority give his assent on the previous evening, to the proposition
(stated by Mrs Blimber) that poor dear little Dombey was more old-fashioned
than ever. And now it was that Paul began to think it must surely be
old-fashioned to be very thin, and light, and easily tired, and soon
disposed to lie down anywhere and rest; for he couldn't help feeling that
these were more and more his habits every day.
At last the party-day arrived; and Doctor Blimber said at breakfast,
'Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth of next month.'
Mr Toots immediately threw off his allegiance, and put on his ring: and
mentioning the Doctor in casual conversation shortly afterwards, spoke of
him as 'Blimber'! This act of freedom inspired the older pupils with
admiration and envy; but the younger spirits were appalled, and seemed to
marvel that no beam fell down and crushed him.
Not the least allusion was made to the ceremonies of the evening,
either at breakfast or at dinner; but there was a bustle in the house all
day, and in the course of his perambulations, Paul made acquaintance with
various strange benches and candlesticks, and met a harp in a green
greatcoat standing on the landing outside the drawing-room door. There was
something queer, too, about Mrs Blimber's head at dinner-time, as if she had
screwed her hair up too tight; and though Miss Blimber showed a graceful
bunch of plaited hair on each temple, she seemed to have her own little
curls in paper underneath, and in a play-bill too; for Paul read 'Theatre
Royal' over one of her sparkling spectacles, and 'Brighton' over the other.
There was a grand array of white waistcoats and cravats in the young
gentlemen's bedrooms as evening approached; and such a smell of singed hair,
that Doctor Blimber sent up the footman with his compliments, and wished to
know if the house was on fire. But it was only the hairdresser curling the
young gentlemen, and over-heating his tongs in the ardour of business.
When Paul was dressed - which was very soon done, for he felt unwell
and drowsy, and was not able to stand about it very long - he went down into
the drawing-room; where he found Doctor Blimber pacing up and down the room
full dressed, but with a dignified and unconcerned demeanour, as if he
thought it barely possible that one or two people might drop in by and by.
Shortly afterwards, Mrs Blimber appeared, looking lovely, Paul thought; and
attired in such a number of skirts that it was quite an excursion to walk
round her. Miss Blimber came down soon after her Mama; a little squeezed in
appearance, but very charming.
Mr Toots and Mr Feeder were the next arrivals. Each of these gentlemen
brought his hat in his hand, as if he lived somewhere else; and when they
were announced by the butler, Doctor Blimber said, 'Ay, ay, ay! God bless my
soul!' and seemed extremely glad to see them. Mr Toots was one blaze of
jewellery and buttons; and he felt the circumstance so strongly, that when
he had shaken hands with the Doctor, and had bowed to Mrs Blimber and Miss
Blimber, he took Paul aside, and said, 'What do you think of this, Dombey?'
But notwithstanding this modest confidence in himself, Mr Toots
appeared to be involved in a good deal of uncertainty whether, on the whole,
it was judicious to button the bottom button of his waistcoat, and whether,
on a calm revision of all the circumstances, it was best to wear his
waistbands turned up or turned down. Observing that Mr Feeder's were turned
up, Mr Toots turned his up; but the waistbands of the next arrival being
turned down, Mr Toots turned his down. The differences in point of
waistcoat-buttoning, not only at the bottom, but at the top too, became so
numerous and complicated as the arrivals thickened, that Mr Toots was
continually fingering that article of dress, as if he were performing on
some instrument; and appeared to find the incessant execution it demanded,
quite bewildering. All the young gentlemen, tightly cravatted, curled, and
pumped, and with their best hats in their hands, having been at different
times announced and introduced, Mr Baps, the dancing-master, came,