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their own untoward days, have determined to go down to posterity, and have
never got there. At first the Captain was too much confounded and distressed
to think of anything but the letter itself; and even when his thoughts began
to glance upon the various attendant facts, they might, perhaps, as well
have occupied themselves with their former theme, for any light they
reflected on them. In this state of mind, Captain Cuttle having the Grinder
before the court, and no one else, found it a great relief to decide,
generally, that he was an object of suspicion: which the Captain so clearly
expressed in his visage, that Rob remonstrated.
'Oh, don't, Captain!' cried the Grinder. 'I wonder how you can! what
have I done to be looked at, like that?'
'My lad,' said Captain Cuttle, 'don't you sing out afore you're hurt.
And don't you commit yourself, whatever you do.'
'I haven't been and committed nothing, Captain!' answered Rob.
'Keep her free, then,' said the Captain, impressively, 'and ride easy.
With a deep sense of the responsibility imposed upon him' and the
necessity of thoroughly fathoming this mysterious affair as became a man in
his relations with the parties, Captain Cuttle resolved to go down and
examine the premises, and to keep the Grinder with him. Considering that
youth as under arrest at present, the Captain was in some doubt whether it
might not be expedient to handcuff him, or tie his ankles together, or
attach a weight to his legs; but not being clear as to the legality of such
formalities, the Captain decided merely to hold him by the shoulder all the
way, and knock him down if he made any objection.
However, he made none, and consequently got to the Instrument-maker's
house without being placed under any more stringent restraint. As the
shutters were not yet taken down, the Captain's first care was to have the
shop opened; and when the daylight was freely admitted, he proceeded, with
its aid, to further investigation.
The Captain's first care was to establish himself in a chair in the
shop, as President of the solemn tribunal that was sitting within him; and
to require Rob to lie down in his bed under the counter, show exactly where
he discovered the keys and packet when he awoke, how he found the door when
he went to try it, how he started off to Brig Place - cautiously preventing
the latter imitation from being carried farther than the threshold - and so
on to the end of the chapter. When all this had been done several times, the
Captain shook his head and seemed to think the matter had a bad look.
Next, the Captain, with some indistinct idea of finding a body,
instituted a strict search over the whole house; groping in the cellars with
a lighted candle, thrusting his hook behind doors, bringing his head into
violent contact with beams, and covering himself with cobwebs. Mounting up
to the old man's bed-room, they found that he had not been in bed on the
previous night, but had merely lain down on the coverlet, as was evident
from the impression yet remaining there.
'And I think, Captain,' said Rob, looking round the room, 'that when Mr
Gills was going in and out so often, these last few days, he was taking
little things away, piecemeal, not to attract attention.'
'Ay!' said the Captain, mysteriously. 'Why so, my lad?'
'Why,' returned Rob, looking about, 'I don't see his shaving tackle.
Nor his brushes, Captain. Nor no shirts. Nor yet his shoes.'
As each of these articles was mentioned, Captain Cuttle took particular
notice of the corresponding department of the Grinder, lest he should appear
to have been in recent use, or should prove to be in present possession
thereof. But Rob had no occasion to shave, was not brushed, and wore the
clothes he had on for a long time past, beyond all possibility of a mistake.
'And what should you say,' said the Captain - 'not committing yourself
- about his time of sheering off? Hey?'
'Why, I think, Captain,' returned Rob, 'that he must have gone pretty
soon after I began to snore.'
'What o'clock was that?' said the Captain, prepared to be very
particular about the exact time.
'How can I tell, Captain!' answered Rob. 'I only know that I'm a heavy
sleeper at first, and a light one towards morning; and if Mr Gills had come
through the shop near daybreak, though ever so much on tiptoe, I'm pretty
sure I should have heard him shut the door at all events.
On mature consideration of this evidence, Captain Cuttle began to think
that the Instrument-maker must have vanished of his own accord; to which
logical conclusion he was assisted by the letter addressed to himself,
which, as being undeniably in the old man's handwriting, would seem, with no
great forcing, to bear the construction, that he arranged of his own will to
go, and so went. The Captain had next to consider where and why? and as
there was no way whatsoever that he saw to the solution of the first
difficulty, he confined his meditations to the second.
Remembering the old man's curious manner, and the farewell he had taken
of him; unaccountably fervent at the time, but quite intelligible now: a
terrible apprehension strengthened on the Captain, that, overpowered by his
anxieties and regrets for Walter, he had been driven to commit suicide.
Unequal to the wear and tear of daily life, as he had often professed
himself to be, and shaken as he no doubt was by the uncertainty and deferred
hope he had undergone, it seemed no violently strained misgiving, but only
too probable. Free from debt, and with no fear for his personal liberty, or
the seizure of his goods, what else but such a state of madness could have
hurried him away alone and secretly? As to his carrying some apparel with
him, if he had really done so - and they were not even sure of that - he
might have done so, the Captain argued, to prevent inquiry, to distract
attention from his probable fate, or to ease the very mind that was now
revolving all these possibilities. Such, reduced into plain language, and
condensed within a small compass, was the final result and substance of
Captain Cuttle's deliberations: which took a long time to arrive at this
pass, and were, like some more public deliberations, very discursive and
disorderly.
Dejected and despondent in the extreme, Captain Cuttle felt it just to
release Rob from the arrest in which he had placed him, and to enlarge him,
subject to a kind of honourable inspection which he still resolved to
exercise; and having hired a man, from Brogley the Broker, to sit in the
shop during their absence, the Captain, taking Rob with him, issued forth
upon a dismal quest after the mortal remains of Solomon Gills.
Not a station-house, or bone-house, or work-house in the metropolis
escaped a visitation from the hard glazed hat. Along the wharves, among the
shipping on the bank-side, up the river, down the river, here, there,
everywhere, it went gleaming where men were thickest, like the hero's helmet
in an epic battle. For a whole week the Captain read of all the found and
missing people in all the newspapers and handbills, and went forth on
expeditions at all hours of the day to identify Solomon Gills, in poor
little ship-boys who had fallen overboard, and in tall foreigners with dark
beards who had taken poison - 'to make sure,' Captain Cuttle said, 'that it
wam't him.' It is a sure thing that it never was, and that the good Captain
had no other satisfaction.
Captain Cuttle at last abandoned these attempts as hopeless, and set
himself to consider what was to be done next. After several new perusals of
his poor friend's letter, he considered that the maintenance of' a home in
the old place for Walter' was the primary duty imposed upon him. Therefore,
the Captain's decision was, that he would keep house on the premises of
Solomon Gills himself, and would go into the instrument-business, and see
what came of it.
But as this step involved the relinquishment of his apartments at Mrs
MacStinger's, and he knew that resolute woman would never hear of his
deserting them, the Captain took the desperate determination of running
away.
'Now, look ye here, my lad,' said the Captain to Rob, when he had
matured this notable scheme, 'to-morrow, I shan't be found in this here
roadstead till night - not till arter midnight p'rhaps. But you keep watch
till you hear me knock, and the moment you do, turn-to, and open the door.'
'Very good, Captain,' said Rob.
'You'll continue to be rated on these here books,' pursued the Captain
condescendingly, 'and I don't say but what you may get promotion, if you and
me should pull together with a will. But the moment you hear me knock
to-morrow night, whatever time it is, turn-to and show yourself smart with
the door.'
'I'll be sure to do it, Captain,' replied Rob.
'Because you understand,' resumed the Captain, coming back again to
enforce this charge upon his mind, 'there may be, for anything I can say, a
chase; and I might be took while I was waiting, if you didn't show yourself
smart with the door.'
Rob again assured the Captain that he would be prompt and wakeful; and
the Captain having made this prudent arrangement, went home to Mrs
MacStinger's for the last time.
The sense the Captain had of its being the last time, and of the awful
purpose hidden beneath his blue waistcoat, inspired him with such a mortal
dread of Mrs MacStinger, that the sound of that lady's foot downstairs at
any time of the day, was sufficient to throw him into a fit of trembling. It
fell out, too, that Mrs MacStinger was in a charming temper - mild and
placid as a house- lamb; and Captain Cuttle's conscience suffered terrible
twinges, when she came up to inquire if she could cook him nothing for his
dinner.
'A nice small kidney-pudding now, Cap'en Cuttle,' said his landlady:
'or a sheep's heart. Don't mind my trouble.'
'No thank'ee, Ma'am,' returned the Captain.
'Have a roast fowl,' said Mrs MacStinger, 'with a bit of weal stuffing
and some egg sauce. Come, Cap'en Cuttle! Give yourself a little treat!'
'No thank'ee, Ma'am,' returned the Captain very humbly.
'I'm sure you're out of sorts, and want to be stimulated,' said Mrs
MacStinger. 'Why not have, for once in a way, a bottle of sherry wine?'
'Well, Ma'am,' rejoined the Captain, 'if you'd be so good as take a
glass or two, I think I would try that. Would you do me the favour, Ma'am,'
said the Captain, torn to pieces by his conscience, 'to accept a quarter's
rent ahead?'
'And why so, Cap'en Cuttle?' retorted Mrs MacStinger - sharply, as the
Captain thought.
The Captain was frightened to dead 'If you would Ma'am,' he said with
submission, 'it would oblige me. I can't keep my money very well. It pays
itself out. I should take it kind if you'd comply.'
'Well, Cap'en Cuttle,' said the unconscious MacStinger, rubbing her
hands, 'you can do as you please. It's not for me, with my family, to
refuse, no more than it is to ask'
'And would you, Ma'am,' said the Captain, taking down the tin canister
in which he kept his cash' from the top shelf of the cupboard, 'be so good
as offer eighteen-pence a-piece to the little family all round? If you could
make it convenient, Ma'am, to pass the word presently for them children to
come for'ard, in a body, I should be glad to see 'em'
These innocent MacStingers were so many daggers to the Captain's
breast, when they appeared in a swarm, and tore at him with the confiding
trustfulness he so little deserved. The eye of Alexander MacStinger, who had
been his favourite, was insupportable to the Captain; the voice of Juliana
MacStinger, who was the picture of her mother, made a coward of him.
Captain Cuttle kept up appearances, nevertheless, tolerably well, and
for an hour or two was very hardly used and roughly handled by the young
MacStingers: who in their childish frolics, did a little damage also to the
glazed hat, by sitting in it, two at a time, as in a nest, and drumming on
the inside of the crown with their shoes. At length the Captain sorrowfully
dismissed them: taking leave of these cherubs with the poignant remorse and
grief of a man who was going to execution.
In the silence of night, the Captain packed up his heavier property in
a chest, which he locked, intending to leave it there, in all probability
for ever, but on the forlorn chance of one day finding a man sufficiently
bold and desperate to come and ask for it. Of his lighter necessaries, the
Captain made a bundle; and disposed his plate about his person, ready for
flight. At the hour of midnight, when Brig Place was buried in slumber, and
Mrs MacStinger was lulled in sweet oblivion, with her infants around her,
the guilty Captain, stealing down on tiptoe, in the dark, opened the door,
closed it softly after him, and took to his heels
Pursued by the image of Mrs MacStinger springing out of bed, and,
regardless of costume, following and bringing him back; pursued also by a
consciousness of his enormous crime; Captain Cuttle held on at a great pace,
and allowed no grass to grow under his feet, between Brig Place and the
Instrument-maker's door. It opened when he knocked - for Rob was on the
watch - and when it was bolted and locked behind him, Captain Cuttle felt
comparatively safe.
'Whew!' cried the Captain, looking round him. 'It's a breather!'
'Nothing the matter, is there, Captain?' cried the gaping Rob.
'No, no!' said Captain Cuttle, after changing colour, and listening to
a passing footstep in the street. 'But mind ye, my lad; if any lady, except
either of them two as you see t'other day, ever comes and asks for Cap'en
Cuttle, be sure to report no person of that name known, nor never heard of
here; observe them orders, will you?'
'I'll take care, Captain,' returned Rob.
'You might say - if you liked,' hesitated the Captain, 'that you'd read
in the paper that a Cap'en of that name was gone to Australia, emigrating,
along with a whole ship's complement of people as had all swore never to
come back no more.
Rob nodded his understanding of these instructions; and Captain Cuttle
promising to make a man of him, if he obeyed orders, dismissed him, yawning,
to his bed under the counter, and went aloft to the chamber of Solomon
Gills.
What the Captain suffered next day, whenever a bonnet passed, or how
often he darted out of the shop to elude imaginary MacStingers, and sought
safety in the attic, cannot be told. But to avoid the fatigues attendant on
this means of self-preservation, the Captain curtained the glass door of
communication between the shop and parlour, on the inside; fitted a key to
it from the bunch that had been sent to him; and cut a small hole of espial
in the wall. The advantage of this fortification is obvious. On a bonnet
appearing, the Captain instantly slipped into his garrison, locked himself
up, and took a secret observation of the enemy. Finding it a false alarm,
the Captain instantly slipped out again. And the bonnets in the street were
so very numerous, and alarms were so inseparable from their appearance, that
the Captain was almost incessantly slipping in and out all day long.
Captain Cuttle found time, however, in the midst of this fatiguing
service to inspect the stock; in connexion with which he had the general
idea (very laborious to Rob) that too much friction could not be bestowed
upon it, and that it could not be made too bright. He also ticketed a few
attractive-looking articles at a venture, at prices ranging from ten
shillings to fifty pounds, and exposed them in the window to the great
astonishment of the public.
After effecting these improvements, Captain Cuttle, surrounded by the
instruments, began to feel scientific: and looked up at the stars at night,
through the skylight, when he was smoking his pipe in the little back
parlour before going to bed, as if he had established a kind of property in
them. As a tradesman in the City, too, he began to have an interest in the
Lord Mayor, and the Sheriffs, and in Public Companies; and felt bound to
read the quotations of the Funds every day, though he was unable to make
out, on any principle of navigation, what the figures meant, and could have
very well dispensed with the fractions. Florence, the Captain waited on,
with his strange news of Uncle Sol, immediately after taking possession of
the Midshipman; but she was away from home. So the Captain sat himself down
in his altered station of life, with no company but Rob the Grinder; and
losing count of time, as men do when great changes come upon them, thought
musingly of Walter, and of Solomon Gills, and even of Mrs MacStinger
herself, as among the things that had been.
Shadows of the Past and Future
'Your most obedient, Sir,' said the Major. 'Damme, Sir, a friend of my
friend Dombey's is a friend of mine, and I'm glad to see you!'
'I am infinitely obliged, Carker,' explained Mr Dombey, 'to Major
Bagstock, for his company and conversation. 'Major Bagstock has rendered me
great service, Carker.'
Mr Carker the Manager, hat in hand, just arrived at Leamington, and
just introduced to the Major, showed the Major his whole double range of
teeth, and trusted he might take the liberty of thanking him with all his
heart for having effected so great an Improvement in Mr Dombey's looks and
spirits'
'By Gad, Sir,' said the Major, in reply, 'there are no thanks due to
me, for it's a give and take affair. A great creature like our friend
Dombey, Sir,' said the Major, lowering his voice, but not lowering it so
much as to render it inaudible to that gentleman, 'cannot help improving and
exalting his friends. He strengthens and invigorates a man, Sir, does
Dombey, in his moral nature.'
Mr Carker snapped at the expression. In his moral nature. Exactly. The
very words he had been on the point of suggesting.
'But when my friend Dombey, Sir,' added the Major, 'talks to you of
Major Bagstock, I must crave leave to set him and you right. He means plain
Joe, Sir - Joey B. - Josh. Bagstock - Joseph- rough and tough Old J., Sir.
At your service.'
Mr Carker's excessively friendly inclinations towards the Major, and Mr
Carker's admiration of his roughness, toughness, and plainness, gleamed out
of every tooth in Mr Carker's head.
'And now, Sir,' said the Major, 'you and Dombey have the devil's own
amount of business to talk over.'
'By no means, Major,' observed Mr Dombey.
'Dombey,' said the Major, defiantly, 'I know better; a man of your mark
- the Colossus of commerce - is not to be interrupted. Your moments are
precious. We shall meet at dinner-time. In the interval, old Joseph will be
scarce. The dinner-hour is a sharp seven, Mr Carker.'
With that, the Major, greatly swollen as to his face, withdrew; but
immediately putting in his head at the door again, said:
'I beg your pardon. Dombey, have you any message to 'em?'
Mr Dombey in some embarrassment, and not without a glance at the
courteous keeper of his business confidence, entrusted the Major with his
compliments.
'By the Lord, Sir,' said the Major, 'you must make it something warmer
than that, or old Joe will be far from welcome.'
'Regards then, if you will, Major,' returned Mr Dombey.
'Damme, Sir,' said the Major, shaking his shoulders and his great
cheeks jocularly: 'make it something warmer than that.'
'What you please, then, Major,' observed Mr Dombey.
'Our friend is sly, Sir, sly, Sir, de-vilish sly,' said the Major,
staring round the door at Carker. 'So is Bagstock.' But stopping in the
midst of a chuckle, and drawing himself up to his full height, the Major
solemnly exclaimed, as he struck himself on the chest, 'Dombey! I envy your
feelings. God bless you!' and withdrew.
'You must have found the gentleman a great resource,' said Carker,
following him with his teeth.
'Very great indeed,' said Mr Dombey.
'He has friends here, no doubt,' pursued Carker. 'I perceive, from what
he has said, that you go into society here. Do you know,' smiling horribly,
'I am so very glad that you go into society!'
Mr Dombey acknowledged this display of interest on the part of his
second in command, by twirling his watch-chain, and slightly moving his
head.
'You were formed for society,' said Carker. 'Of all the men I know, you
are the best adapted, by nature and by position, for society. Do you know I
have been frequently amazed that you should have held it at arm's length so
long!'
'I have had my reasons, Carker. I have been alone, and indifferent to
it. But you have great social qualifications yourself, and are the more
likely to have been surprised.'
'Oh! I!' returned the other, with ready self-disparagement. 'It's quite
another matter in the case of a man like me. I don't come into comparison
with you.'
Mr Dombey put his hand to his neckcloth, settled his chin in it,
coughed, and stood looking at his faithful friend and servant for a few
moments in silence.
'I shall have the pleasure, Carker,' said Mr Dombey at length: making
as if he swallowed something a little too large for his throat: 'to present
you to my - to the Major's friends. Highly agreeable people.'
'Ladies among them, I presume?' insinuated the smooth Manager.
'They are all - that is to say, they are both - ladies,' replied Mr
Dombey.
'Only two?' smiled Carker.
'They are only two. I have confined my visits to their residence, and
have made no other acquaintance here.'
'Sisters, perhaps?' quoth Carker.
'Mother and daughter,' replied Mr Dombey.
As Mr Dombey dropped his eyes, and adjusted his neckcloth again, the
smiling face of Mr Carker the Manager became in a moment, and without any
stage of transition, transformed into a most intent and frowning face,
scanning his closely, and with an ugly sneer. As Mr Dombey raised his eyes,
it changed back, no less quickly, to its old expression, and showed him
every gum of which it stood possessed.
'You are very kind,' said Carker, 'I shall be delighted to know them.
Speaking of daughters, I have seen Miss Dombey.'
There was a sudden rush of blood to Mr Dombey's face.
'I took the liberty of waiting on her,' said Carker, 'to inquire if she
could charge me with any little commission. I am not so fortunate as to be
the bearer of any but her - but her dear love.'
Wolf's face that it was then, with even the hot tongue revealing itself
through the stretched mouth, as the eyes encountered Mr Dombey's!
'What business intelligence is there?' inquired the latter gentleman,
after a silence, during which Mr Carker had produced some memoranda and
other papers.
'There is very little,' returned Carker. 'Upon the whole we have not
had our usual good fortune of late, but that is of little moment to you. At
Lloyd's, they give up the Son and Heir for lost. Well, she was insured, from
her keel to her masthead.'
'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, taking a chair near him, 'I cannot say that
young man, Gay, ever impressed me favourably
'Nor me,' interposed the Manager.
'But I wish,' said Mr Dombey, without heeding the interruption, 'he had
never gone on board that ship. I wish he had never been sent out.
'It is a pity you didn't say so, in good time, is it not?' retorted
Carker, coolly. 'However, I think it's all for the best. I really, think
it's all for the best. Did I mention that there was something like a little
confidence between Miss Dombey and myself?'
'No,' said Mr Dombey, sternly.
'I have no doubt,' returned Mr Carker, after an impressive pause, 'that
wherever Gay is, he is much better where he is, than at home here. If I
were, or could be, in your place, I should be satisfied of that. I am quite
satisfied of it myself. Miss Dombey is confiding and young - perhaps hardly
proud enough, for your daughter - if she have a fault. Not that that is much
though, I am sure. Will you check these balances with me?'
Mr Dombey leaned back in his chair, instead of bending over the papers
that were laid before him, and looked the Manager steadily in the face. The
Manager, with his eyelids slightly raised, affected to be glancing at his
figures, and to await the leisure of his principal. He showed that he
affected this, as if from great delicacy, and with a design to spare Mr
Dombey's feelings; and the latter, as he looked at him, was cognizant of his
intended consideration, and felt that but for it, this confidential Carker
would have said a great deal more, which he, Mr Dombey, was too proud to ask
for. It was his way in business, often. Little by little, Mr Dombey's gaze
relaxed, and his attention became diverted to the papers before him; but
while busy with the occupation they afforded him, he frequently stopped, and
looked at Mr Carker again. Whenever he did so, Mr Carker was demonstrative,
as before, in his delicacy, and impressed it on his great chief more and
more.
While they were thus engaged; and under the skilful culture of the
Manager, angry thoughts in reference to poor Florence brooded and bred in Mr
Dombey's breast, usurping the place of the cold dislike that generally
reigned there; Major Bagstock, much admired by the old ladies of Leamington,
and followed by the Native, carrying the usual amount of light baggage,
straddled along the shady side of the way, to make a morning call on Mrs
Skewton. It being midday when the Major reached the bower of Cleopatra, he
had the good fortune to find his Princess on her usual sofa, languishing
over a cup of coffee, with the room so darkened and shaded for her more
luxurious repose, that Withers, who was in attendance on her, loomed like a
phantom page.
'What insupportable creature is this, coming in?' said Mrs Skewton, 'I
cannot hear it. Go away, whoever you are!'
'You have not the heart to banish J. B., Ma'am!' said the Major halting
midway, to remonstrate, with his cane over his shoulder.
'Oh it's you, is it? On second thoughts, you may enter,' observed
Cleopatra.
The Major entered accordingly, and advancing to the sofa pressed her
charming hand to his lips.
'Sit down,' said Cleopatra, listlessly waving her fan, 'a long way off.
Don't come too near me, for I am frightfully faint and sensitive this
morning, and you smell of the Sun. You are absolutely tropical.'
'By George, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'the time has been when Joseph
Bagstock has been grilled and blistered by the Sun; then time was, when he
was forced, Ma'am, into such full blow, by high hothouse heat in the West
Indies, that he was known as the Flower. A man never heard of Bagstock,
Ma'am, in those days; he heard of the Flower - the Flower of Ours. The
Flower may have faded, more or less, Ma'am,' observed the Major, dropping
into a much nearer chair than had been indicated by his cruel Divinity, 'but
it is a tough plant yet, and constant as the evergreen.'
Here the Major, under cover of the dark room, shut up one eye, rolled
his head like a Harlequin, and, in his great self-satisfaction, perhaps went
nearer to the confines of apoplexy than he had ever gone before.
'Where is Mrs Granger?' inquired Cleopatra of her page.
Withers believed she was in her own room.
'Very well,' said Mrs Skewton. 'Go away, and shut the door. I am
engaged.'
As Withers disappeared, Mrs Skewton turned her head languidly towards
the Major, without otherwise moving, and asked him how his friend was.
'Dombey, Ma'am,' returned the Major, with a facetious gurgling in his
throat, 'is as well as a man in his condition can be. His condition is a
desperate one, Ma'am. He is touched, is Dombey! Touched!' cried the Major.
'He is bayonetted through the body.'
Cleopatra cast a sharp look at the Major, that contrasted forcibly with
the affected drawl in which she presently said:
'Major Bagstock, although I know but little of the world, - nor can I
really regret my experience, for I fear it is a false place, full of
withering conventionalities: where Nature is but little regarded, and where
the music of the heart, and the gushing of the soul, and all that sort of
thing, which is so truly poetical, is seldom heard, - I cannot misunderstand
your meaning. There is an allusion to Edith - to my extremely dear child,'
said Mrs Skewton, tracing the outline of her eyebrows with her forefinger,
'in your words, to which the tenderest of chords vibrates excessively.'
'Bluntness, Ma'am,' returned the Major, 'has ever been the
characteristic of the Bagstock breed. You are right. Joe admits it.'
'And that allusion,' pursued Cleopatra, 'would involve one of the most
- if not positively the most - touching, and thrilling, and sacred emotions
of which our sadly-fallen nature is susceptible, I conceive.'
The Major laid his hand upon his lips, and wafted a kiss to Cleopatra,
as if to identify the emotion in question.
'I feel that I am weak. I feel that I am wanting in that energy, which
should sustain a Mama: not to say a parent: on such a subject,' said Mrs
Skewton, trimming her lips with the laced edge of her pocket-handkerchief;
'but I can hardly approach a topic so excessively momentous to my dearest
Edith without a feeling of faintness. Nevertheless, bad man, as you have
boldly remarked upon it, and as it has occasioned me great anguish:' Mrs
Skewton touched her left side with her fan: 'I will not shrink from my
duty.'
The Major, under cover of the dimness, swelled, and swelled, and rolled
his purple face about, and winked his lobster eye, until he fell into a fit
of wheezing, which obliged him to rise and take a turn or two about the
room, before his fair friend could proceed.
'Mr Dombey,' said Mrs Skewton, when she at length resumed, 'was
obliging enough, now many weeks ago, to do us the honour of visiting us
here; in company, my dear Major, with yourself. I acknowledge - let me be
open - that it is my failing to be the creature of impulse, and to wear my
heart as it were, outside. I know my failing full well. My enemy cannot know
it better. But I am not penitent; I would rather not be frozen by the
heartless world, and am content to bear this imputation justly.'
Mrs Skewton arranged her tucker, pinched her wiry throat to give it a
soft surface, and went on, with great complacency.
'It gave me (my dearest Edith too, I am sure) infinite pleasure to
receive Mr Dombey. As a friend of yours, my dear Major, we were naturally
disposed to be prepossessed in his favour; and I fancied that I observed an
amount of Heart in Mr Dombey, that was excessively refreshing.'
'There is devilish little heart in Dombey now, Ma'am,' said the Major.
'Wretched man!' cried Mrs Skewton, looking at him languidly, 'pray be
silent.'
'J. B. is dumb, Ma'am,' said the Major.
'Mr Dombey,' pursued Cleopatra, smoothing the rosy hue upon her cheeks,
'accordingly repeated his visit; and possibly finding some attraction in the
simplicity and primitiveness of our tastes - for there is always a charm in
nature - it is so very sweet - became one of our little circle every
evening. Little did I think of the awful responsibility into which I plunged
when I encouraged Mr Dombey - to -
'To beat up these quarters, Ma'am,' suggested Major Bagstock.
'Coarse person! 'said Mrs Skewton, 'you anticipate my meaning, though
in odious language.
Here Mrs Skewton rested her elbow on the little table at her side, and
suffering her wrist to droop in what she considered a graceful and becoming
manner, dangled her fan to and fro, and lazily admired her hand while
speaking.
'The agony I have endured,' she said mincingly, 'as the truth has by
degrees dawned upon me, has been too exceedingly terrific to dilate upon. My
whole existence is bound up in my sweetest Edith; and to see her change from
day to day - my beautiful pet, who has positively garnered up her heart
since the death of that most delightful creature, Granger - is the most
affecting thing in the world.'
Mrs Skewton's world was not a very trying one, if one might judge of it
by the influence of its most affecting circumstance upon her; but this by
the way.
'Edith,' simpered Mrs Skewton, 'who is the perfect pearl of my life, is
said to resemble me. I believe we are alike.'
'There is one man in the world who never will admit that anyone
resembles you, Ma'am,' said the Major; 'and that man's name is Old Joe
Bagstock.'
Cleopatra made as if she would brain the flatterer with her fan, but
relenting, smiled upon him and proceeded:
'If my charming girl inherits any advantages from me, wicked one!': the
Major was the wicked one: 'she inherits also my foolish nature. She has
great force of character - mine has been said to be immense, though I don't
believe it - but once moved, she is susceptible and sensitive to the last
extent. What are my feelings when I see her pining! They destroy me.
The Major advancing his double chin, and pursing up his blue lips into
a soothing expression, affected the profoundest sympathy.
'The confidence,' said Mrs Skewton, 'that has subsisted between us -
the free development of soul, and openness of sentiment - is touching to
think of. We have been more like sisters than Mama and child.'
'J. B.'s own sentiment,' observed the Major, 'expressed by J. B. fifty
thousand times!'
'Do not interrupt, rude man!' said Cleopatra. 'What are my feelings,
then, when I find that there is one subject avoided by us! That there is a
what's-his-name - a gulf - opened between us. That my own artless Edith is
changed to me! They are of the most poignant description, of course.'
The Major left his chair, and took one nearer to the little table.
'From day to day I see this, my dear Major,' proceeded Mrs Skewton.
'From day to day I feel this. From hour to hour I reproach myself for that
excess of faith and trustfulness which has led to such distressing
consequences; and almost from minute to minute, I hope that Mr Dombey may
explain himself, and relieve the torture I undergo, which is extremely
wearing. But nothing happens, my dear Major; I am the slave of remorse -
take care of the coffee-cup: you are so very awkward - my darling Edith is
an altered being; and I really don't see what is to be done, or what good
creature I can advise with.'
Major Bagstock, encouraged perhaps by the softened and confidential
tone into which Mrs Skewton, after several times lapsing into it for a
moment, seemed now to have subsided for good, stretched out his hand across
the little table, and said with a leer,
'Advise with Joe, Ma'am.'
'Then, you aggravating monster,' said Cleopatra, giving one hand to the
Major, and tapping his knuckles with her fan, which she held in the other:
'why don't you talk to me? you know what I mean. Why don't you tell me
something to the purpose?'
The Major laughed, and kissed the hand she had bestowed upon him, and
laughed again immensely.
'Is there as much Heart in Mr Dombey as I gave him credit for?'
languished Cleopatra tenderly. 'Do you think he is in earnest, my dear
Major? Would you recommend his being spoken to, or his being left alone? Now
tell me, like a dear man, what would you advise.'
'Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma'am?' chuckled the Major,
hoarsely.
'Mysterious creature!' returned Cleopatra, bringing her fan to bear
upon the Major's nose. 'How can we marry him?'
'Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma'am, I say?' chuckled the Major
again.
Mrs Skewton returned no answer in words, but smiled upon the Major with
so much archness and vivacity, that that gallant officer considering himself
challenged, would have imprinted a kiss on her exceedingly red lips, but for
her interposing the fan with a very winning and juvenile dexterity. It might
have been in modesty; it might have been in apprehension of some danger to
their bloom.
'Dombey, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'is a great catch.'
'Oh, mercenary wretch!' cried Cleopatra, with a little shriek, 'I am
shocked.'
'And Dombey, Ma'am,' pursued the Major, thrusting forward his head, and
distending his eyes, 'is in earnest. Joseph says it; Bagstock knows it; J.
B. keeps him to the mark. Leave Dombey to himself, Ma'am. Dombey is safe,
Ma'am. Do as you have done; do no more; and trust to J. B. for the end.'
'You really think so, my dear Major?' returned Cleopatra, who had eyed
him very cautiously, and very searchingly, in spite of her listless bearing.
'Sure of it, Ma'am,' rejoined the Major. 'Cleopatra the peerless, and
her Antony Bagstock, will often speak of this, triumphantly, when sharing
the elegance and wealth of Edith Dombey's establishment. Dombey's right-hand
man, Ma'am,' said the Major, stopping abruptly in a chuckle, and becoming
serious, 'has arrived.'
'This morning?' said Cleopatra.
'This morning, Ma'am,' returned the Major. 'And Dombey's anxiety for
his arrival, Ma'am, is to be referred - take J. B.'s word for this; for Joe
is devilish sly' - the Major tapped his nose, and screwed up one of his eyes
tight: which did not enhance his native beauty - 'to his desire that what is
in the wind should become known to him' without Dombey's telling and
consulting him. For Dombey is as proud, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'as
Lucifer.'
'A charming quality,' lisped Mrs Skewton; 'reminding one of dearest
Edith.'
'Well, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'I have thrown out hints already, and
the right-hand man understands 'em; and I'll throw out more, before the day
is done. Dombey projected this morning a ride to Warwick Castle, and to
Kenilworth, to-morrow, to be preceded by a breakfast with us. I undertook
the delivery of this invitation. Will you honour us so far, Ma'am?' said the
Major, swelling with shortness of breath and slyness, as he produced a note,
addressed to the Honourable Mrs Skewton, by favour of Major Bagstock,
wherein hers ever faithfully, Paul Dombey, besought her and her amiable and
accomplished daughter to consent to the proposed excursion; and in a
postscript unto which, the same ever faithfully Paul Dombey entreated to be
recalled to the remembrance of Mrs Granger.
'Hush!' said Cleopatra, suddenly, 'Edith!'
The loving mother can scarcely be described as resuming her insipid and
affected air when she made this exclamation; for she had never cast it off;
nor was it likely that she ever would or could, in any other place than in
the grave. But hurriedly dismissing whatever shadow of earnestness, or faint
confession of a purpose, laudable or wicked, that her face, or voice, or
manner: had, for the moment, betrayed, she lounged upon the couch, her most
insipid and most languid self again, as Edith entered the room.
Edith, so beautiful and stately, but so cold and so repelling. Who,
slightly acknowledging the presence of Major Bagstock, and directing a keen
glance at her mother, drew back the from a window, and sat down there,
looking out.
'My dearest Edith,' said Mrs Skewton, 'where on earth have you been? I
have wanted you, my love, most sadly.'
'You said you were engaged, and I stayed away,' she answered, without
turning her head.
'It was cruel to Old Joe, Ma'am,' said the Major in his gallantry.
'It was very cruel, I know,' she said, still looking out - and said
with such calm disdain, that the Major was discomfited, and could think of
nothing in reply.
'Major Bagstock, my darling Edith,' drawled her mother, 'who is
generally the most useless and disagreeable creature in the world: as you
know - '
'It is surely not worthwhile, Mama,' said Edith, looking round, 'to
observe these forms of speech. We are quite alone. We know each other.'
The quiet scorn that sat upon her handsome face - a scorn that
evidently lighted on herself, no less than them - was so intense and deep,
that her mother's simper, for the instant, though of a hardy constitution,
drooped before it.
'My darling girl,' she began again.
'Not woman yet?' said Edith, with a smile.
'How very odd you are to-day, my dear! Pray let me say, my love, that
Major Bagstock has brought the kindest of notes from Mr Dombey, proposing
that we should breakfast with him to-morrow, and ride to Warwick and
Kenilworth. Will you go, Edith?'
'Will I go!' she repeated, turning very red, and breathing quickly as
she looked round at her mother.
'I knew you would, my own, observed the latter carelessly. 'It is, as
you say, quite a form to ask. Here is Mr Dombey's letter, Edith.'
'Thank you. I have no desire to read it,' was her answer.
'Then perhaps I had better answer it myself,' said Mrs Skewton, 'though
I had thought of asking you to be my secretary, darling.' As Edith made no
movement, and no answer, Mrs Skewton begged the Major to wheel her little
table nearer, and to set open the desk it contained, and to take out pen and
paper for her; all which congenial offices of gallantry the Major
discharged, with much submission and devotion.
'Your regards, Edith, my dear?' said Mrs Skewton, pausing, pen in hand,
at the postscript.
'What you will, Mama,' she answered, without turning her head, and with
supreme indifference.
Mrs Skewton wrote what she would, without seeking for any more explicit
directions, and handed her letter to the Major, who receiving it as a
precious charge, made a show of laying it near his heart, but was fain to
put it in the pocket of his pantaloons on account of the insecurity of his
waistcoat The Major then took a very polished and chivalrous farewell of
both ladies, which the elder one acknowledged in her usual manner, while the
younger, sitting with her face addressed to the window, bent her head so
slightly that it would have been a greater compliment to the Major to have
made no sign at all, and to have left him to infer that he had not been
heard or thought of.
'As to alteration in her, Sir,' mused the Major on his way back; on
which expedition - the afternoon being sunny and hot - he ordered the Native
and the light baggage to the front, and walked in the shadow of that
expatriated prince: 'as to alteration, Sir, and pining, and so forth, that
won't go down with Joseph Bagstock, None of that, Sir. It won't do here. But
as to there being something of a division between 'em - or a gulf as the
mother calls it - damme, Sir, that seems true enough. And it's odd enough!
Well, Sir!' panted the Major, 'Edith Granger and Dombey are well matched;
let 'em fight it out! Bagstock backs the winner!'
The Major, by saying these latter words aloud, in the vigour of his
thoughts, caused the unhappy Native to stop, and turn round, in the belief
that he was personally addressed. Exasperated to the last degree by this act
of insubordination, the Major (though he was swelling with enjoyment of his
own humour, at the moment of its occurrence instantly thrust his cane among
the Native's ribs, and continued to stir him up, at short intervals, all the
way to the hotel.
Nor was the Major less exasperated as he dressed for dinner, during
which operation the dark servant underwent the pelting of a shower of
miscellaneous objects, varying in size from a boot to a hairbrush, and
including everything that came within his master's reach. For the Major
plumed himself on having the Native in a perfect state of drill, and visited
the least departure from strict discipline with this kind of fatigue duty.
Add to this, that he maintained the Native about his person as a
counter-irritant against the gout, and all other vexations, mental as well
as bodily; and the Native would appear to have earned his pay - which was
not large.
At length, the Major having disposed of all the missiles that were
convenient to his hand, and having called the Native so many new names as
must have given him great occasion to marvel at the resources of the English
language, submitted to have his cravat put on; and being dressed, and
finding himself in a brisk flow of spirits after this exercise, went
downstairs to enliven 'Dombey' and his right-hand man.
Dombey was not yet in the room, but the right-hand man was there, and
his dental treasures were, as usual, ready for the Major.
'Well, Sir!' said the Major. 'How have you passed the time since I had
the happiness of meeting you? Have you walked at all?'
never got there. At first the Captain was too much confounded and distressed
to think of anything but the letter itself; and even when his thoughts began
to glance upon the various attendant facts, they might, perhaps, as well
have occupied themselves with their former theme, for any light they
reflected on them. In this state of mind, Captain Cuttle having the Grinder
before the court, and no one else, found it a great relief to decide,
generally, that he was an object of suspicion: which the Captain so clearly
expressed in his visage, that Rob remonstrated.
'Oh, don't, Captain!' cried the Grinder. 'I wonder how you can! what
have I done to be looked at, like that?'
'My lad,' said Captain Cuttle, 'don't you sing out afore you're hurt.
And don't you commit yourself, whatever you do.'
'I haven't been and committed nothing, Captain!' answered Rob.
'Keep her free, then,' said the Captain, impressively, 'and ride easy.
With a deep sense of the responsibility imposed upon him' and the
necessity of thoroughly fathoming this mysterious affair as became a man in
his relations with the parties, Captain Cuttle resolved to go down and
examine the premises, and to keep the Grinder with him. Considering that
youth as under arrest at present, the Captain was in some doubt whether it
might not be expedient to handcuff him, or tie his ankles together, or
attach a weight to his legs; but not being clear as to the legality of such
formalities, the Captain decided merely to hold him by the shoulder all the
way, and knock him down if he made any objection.
However, he made none, and consequently got to the Instrument-maker's
house without being placed under any more stringent restraint. As the
shutters were not yet taken down, the Captain's first care was to have the
shop opened; and when the daylight was freely admitted, he proceeded, with
its aid, to further investigation.
The Captain's first care was to establish himself in a chair in the
shop, as President of the solemn tribunal that was sitting within him; and
to require Rob to lie down in his bed under the counter, show exactly where
he discovered the keys and packet when he awoke, how he found the door when
he went to try it, how he started off to Brig Place - cautiously preventing
the latter imitation from being carried farther than the threshold - and so
on to the end of the chapter. When all this had been done several times, the
Captain shook his head and seemed to think the matter had a bad look.
Next, the Captain, with some indistinct idea of finding a body,
instituted a strict search over the whole house; groping in the cellars with
a lighted candle, thrusting his hook behind doors, bringing his head into
violent contact with beams, and covering himself with cobwebs. Mounting up
to the old man's bed-room, they found that he had not been in bed on the
previous night, but had merely lain down on the coverlet, as was evident
from the impression yet remaining there.
'And I think, Captain,' said Rob, looking round the room, 'that when Mr
Gills was going in and out so often, these last few days, he was taking
little things away, piecemeal, not to attract attention.'
'Ay!' said the Captain, mysteriously. 'Why so, my lad?'
'Why,' returned Rob, looking about, 'I don't see his shaving tackle.
Nor his brushes, Captain. Nor no shirts. Nor yet his shoes.'
As each of these articles was mentioned, Captain Cuttle took particular
notice of the corresponding department of the Grinder, lest he should appear
to have been in recent use, or should prove to be in present possession
thereof. But Rob had no occasion to shave, was not brushed, and wore the
clothes he had on for a long time past, beyond all possibility of a mistake.
'And what should you say,' said the Captain - 'not committing yourself
- about his time of sheering off? Hey?'
'Why, I think, Captain,' returned Rob, 'that he must have gone pretty
soon after I began to snore.'
'What o'clock was that?' said the Captain, prepared to be very
particular about the exact time.
'How can I tell, Captain!' answered Rob. 'I only know that I'm a heavy
sleeper at first, and a light one towards morning; and if Mr Gills had come
through the shop near daybreak, though ever so much on tiptoe, I'm pretty
sure I should have heard him shut the door at all events.
On mature consideration of this evidence, Captain Cuttle began to think
that the Instrument-maker must have vanished of his own accord; to which
logical conclusion he was assisted by the letter addressed to himself,
which, as being undeniably in the old man's handwriting, would seem, with no
great forcing, to bear the construction, that he arranged of his own will to
go, and so went. The Captain had next to consider where and why? and as
there was no way whatsoever that he saw to the solution of the first
difficulty, he confined his meditations to the second.
Remembering the old man's curious manner, and the farewell he had taken
of him; unaccountably fervent at the time, but quite intelligible now: a
terrible apprehension strengthened on the Captain, that, overpowered by his
anxieties and regrets for Walter, he had been driven to commit suicide.
Unequal to the wear and tear of daily life, as he had often professed
himself to be, and shaken as he no doubt was by the uncertainty and deferred
hope he had undergone, it seemed no violently strained misgiving, but only
too probable. Free from debt, and with no fear for his personal liberty, or
the seizure of his goods, what else but such a state of madness could have
hurried him away alone and secretly? As to his carrying some apparel with
him, if he had really done so - and they were not even sure of that - he
might have done so, the Captain argued, to prevent inquiry, to distract
attention from his probable fate, or to ease the very mind that was now
revolving all these possibilities. Such, reduced into plain language, and
condensed within a small compass, was the final result and substance of
Captain Cuttle's deliberations: which took a long time to arrive at this
pass, and were, like some more public deliberations, very discursive and
disorderly.
Dejected and despondent in the extreme, Captain Cuttle felt it just to
release Rob from the arrest in which he had placed him, and to enlarge him,
subject to a kind of honourable inspection which he still resolved to
exercise; and having hired a man, from Brogley the Broker, to sit in the
shop during their absence, the Captain, taking Rob with him, issued forth
upon a dismal quest after the mortal remains of Solomon Gills.
Not a station-house, or bone-house, or work-house in the metropolis
escaped a visitation from the hard glazed hat. Along the wharves, among the
shipping on the bank-side, up the river, down the river, here, there,
everywhere, it went gleaming where men were thickest, like the hero's helmet
in an epic battle. For a whole week the Captain read of all the found and
missing people in all the newspapers and handbills, and went forth on
expeditions at all hours of the day to identify Solomon Gills, in poor
little ship-boys who had fallen overboard, and in tall foreigners with dark
beards who had taken poison - 'to make sure,' Captain Cuttle said, 'that it
wam't him.' It is a sure thing that it never was, and that the good Captain
had no other satisfaction.
Captain Cuttle at last abandoned these attempts as hopeless, and set
himself to consider what was to be done next. After several new perusals of
his poor friend's letter, he considered that the maintenance of' a home in
the old place for Walter' was the primary duty imposed upon him. Therefore,
the Captain's decision was, that he would keep house on the premises of
Solomon Gills himself, and would go into the instrument-business, and see
what came of it.
But as this step involved the relinquishment of his apartments at Mrs
MacStinger's, and he knew that resolute woman would never hear of his
deserting them, the Captain took the desperate determination of running
away.
'Now, look ye here, my lad,' said the Captain to Rob, when he had
matured this notable scheme, 'to-morrow, I shan't be found in this here
roadstead till night - not till arter midnight p'rhaps. But you keep watch
till you hear me knock, and the moment you do, turn-to, and open the door.'
'Very good, Captain,' said Rob.
'You'll continue to be rated on these here books,' pursued the Captain
condescendingly, 'and I don't say but what you may get promotion, if you and
me should pull together with a will. But the moment you hear me knock
to-morrow night, whatever time it is, turn-to and show yourself smart with
the door.'
'I'll be sure to do it, Captain,' replied Rob.
'Because you understand,' resumed the Captain, coming back again to
enforce this charge upon his mind, 'there may be, for anything I can say, a
chase; and I might be took while I was waiting, if you didn't show yourself
smart with the door.'
Rob again assured the Captain that he would be prompt and wakeful; and
the Captain having made this prudent arrangement, went home to Mrs
MacStinger's for the last time.
The sense the Captain had of its being the last time, and of the awful
purpose hidden beneath his blue waistcoat, inspired him with such a mortal
dread of Mrs MacStinger, that the sound of that lady's foot downstairs at
any time of the day, was sufficient to throw him into a fit of trembling. It
fell out, too, that Mrs MacStinger was in a charming temper - mild and
placid as a house- lamb; and Captain Cuttle's conscience suffered terrible
twinges, when she came up to inquire if she could cook him nothing for his
dinner.
'A nice small kidney-pudding now, Cap'en Cuttle,' said his landlady:
'or a sheep's heart. Don't mind my trouble.'
'No thank'ee, Ma'am,' returned the Captain.
'Have a roast fowl,' said Mrs MacStinger, 'with a bit of weal stuffing
and some egg sauce. Come, Cap'en Cuttle! Give yourself a little treat!'
'No thank'ee, Ma'am,' returned the Captain very humbly.
'I'm sure you're out of sorts, and want to be stimulated,' said Mrs
MacStinger. 'Why not have, for once in a way, a bottle of sherry wine?'
'Well, Ma'am,' rejoined the Captain, 'if you'd be so good as take a
glass or two, I think I would try that. Would you do me the favour, Ma'am,'
said the Captain, torn to pieces by his conscience, 'to accept a quarter's
rent ahead?'
'And why so, Cap'en Cuttle?' retorted Mrs MacStinger - sharply, as the
Captain thought.
The Captain was frightened to dead 'If you would Ma'am,' he said with
submission, 'it would oblige me. I can't keep my money very well. It pays
itself out. I should take it kind if you'd comply.'
'Well, Cap'en Cuttle,' said the unconscious MacStinger, rubbing her
hands, 'you can do as you please. It's not for me, with my family, to
refuse, no more than it is to ask'
'And would you, Ma'am,' said the Captain, taking down the tin canister
in which he kept his cash' from the top shelf of the cupboard, 'be so good
as offer eighteen-pence a-piece to the little family all round? If you could
make it convenient, Ma'am, to pass the word presently for them children to
come for'ard, in a body, I should be glad to see 'em'
These innocent MacStingers were so many daggers to the Captain's
breast, when they appeared in a swarm, and tore at him with the confiding
trustfulness he so little deserved. The eye of Alexander MacStinger, who had
been his favourite, was insupportable to the Captain; the voice of Juliana
MacStinger, who was the picture of her mother, made a coward of him.
Captain Cuttle kept up appearances, nevertheless, tolerably well, and
for an hour or two was very hardly used and roughly handled by the young
MacStingers: who in their childish frolics, did a little damage also to the
glazed hat, by sitting in it, two at a time, as in a nest, and drumming on
the inside of the crown with their shoes. At length the Captain sorrowfully
dismissed them: taking leave of these cherubs with the poignant remorse and
grief of a man who was going to execution.
In the silence of night, the Captain packed up his heavier property in
a chest, which he locked, intending to leave it there, in all probability
for ever, but on the forlorn chance of one day finding a man sufficiently
bold and desperate to come and ask for it. Of his lighter necessaries, the
Captain made a bundle; and disposed his plate about his person, ready for
flight. At the hour of midnight, when Brig Place was buried in slumber, and
Mrs MacStinger was lulled in sweet oblivion, with her infants around her,
the guilty Captain, stealing down on tiptoe, in the dark, opened the door,
closed it softly after him, and took to his heels
Pursued by the image of Mrs MacStinger springing out of bed, and,
regardless of costume, following and bringing him back; pursued also by a
consciousness of his enormous crime; Captain Cuttle held on at a great pace,
and allowed no grass to grow under his feet, between Brig Place and the
Instrument-maker's door. It opened when he knocked - for Rob was on the
watch - and when it was bolted and locked behind him, Captain Cuttle felt
comparatively safe.
'Whew!' cried the Captain, looking round him. 'It's a breather!'
'Nothing the matter, is there, Captain?' cried the gaping Rob.
'No, no!' said Captain Cuttle, after changing colour, and listening to
a passing footstep in the street. 'But mind ye, my lad; if any lady, except
either of them two as you see t'other day, ever comes and asks for Cap'en
Cuttle, be sure to report no person of that name known, nor never heard of
here; observe them orders, will you?'
'I'll take care, Captain,' returned Rob.
'You might say - if you liked,' hesitated the Captain, 'that you'd read
in the paper that a Cap'en of that name was gone to Australia, emigrating,
along with a whole ship's complement of people as had all swore never to
come back no more.
Rob nodded his understanding of these instructions; and Captain Cuttle
promising to make a man of him, if he obeyed orders, dismissed him, yawning,
to his bed under the counter, and went aloft to the chamber of Solomon
Gills.
What the Captain suffered next day, whenever a bonnet passed, or how
often he darted out of the shop to elude imaginary MacStingers, and sought
safety in the attic, cannot be told. But to avoid the fatigues attendant on
this means of self-preservation, the Captain curtained the glass door of
communication between the shop and parlour, on the inside; fitted a key to
it from the bunch that had been sent to him; and cut a small hole of espial
in the wall. The advantage of this fortification is obvious. On a bonnet
appearing, the Captain instantly slipped into his garrison, locked himself
up, and took a secret observation of the enemy. Finding it a false alarm,
the Captain instantly slipped out again. And the bonnets in the street were
so very numerous, and alarms were so inseparable from their appearance, that
the Captain was almost incessantly slipping in and out all day long.
Captain Cuttle found time, however, in the midst of this fatiguing
service to inspect the stock; in connexion with which he had the general
idea (very laborious to Rob) that too much friction could not be bestowed
upon it, and that it could not be made too bright. He also ticketed a few
attractive-looking articles at a venture, at prices ranging from ten
shillings to fifty pounds, and exposed them in the window to the great
astonishment of the public.
After effecting these improvements, Captain Cuttle, surrounded by the
instruments, began to feel scientific: and looked up at the stars at night,
through the skylight, when he was smoking his pipe in the little back
parlour before going to bed, as if he had established a kind of property in
them. As a tradesman in the City, too, he began to have an interest in the
Lord Mayor, and the Sheriffs, and in Public Companies; and felt bound to
read the quotations of the Funds every day, though he was unable to make
out, on any principle of navigation, what the figures meant, and could have
very well dispensed with the fractions. Florence, the Captain waited on,
with his strange news of Uncle Sol, immediately after taking possession of
the Midshipman; but she was away from home. So the Captain sat himself down
in his altered station of life, with no company but Rob the Grinder; and
losing count of time, as men do when great changes come upon them, thought
musingly of Walter, and of Solomon Gills, and even of Mrs MacStinger
herself, as among the things that had been.
Shadows of the Past and Future
'Your most obedient, Sir,' said the Major. 'Damme, Sir, a friend of my
friend Dombey's is a friend of mine, and I'm glad to see you!'
'I am infinitely obliged, Carker,' explained Mr Dombey, 'to Major
Bagstock, for his company and conversation. 'Major Bagstock has rendered me
great service, Carker.'
Mr Carker the Manager, hat in hand, just arrived at Leamington, and
just introduced to the Major, showed the Major his whole double range of
teeth, and trusted he might take the liberty of thanking him with all his
heart for having effected so great an Improvement in Mr Dombey's looks and
spirits'
'By Gad, Sir,' said the Major, in reply, 'there are no thanks due to
me, for it's a give and take affair. A great creature like our friend
Dombey, Sir,' said the Major, lowering his voice, but not lowering it so
much as to render it inaudible to that gentleman, 'cannot help improving and
exalting his friends. He strengthens and invigorates a man, Sir, does
Dombey, in his moral nature.'
Mr Carker snapped at the expression. In his moral nature. Exactly. The
very words he had been on the point of suggesting.
'But when my friend Dombey, Sir,' added the Major, 'talks to you of
Major Bagstock, I must crave leave to set him and you right. He means plain
Joe, Sir - Joey B. - Josh. Bagstock - Joseph- rough and tough Old J., Sir.
At your service.'
Mr Carker's excessively friendly inclinations towards the Major, and Mr
Carker's admiration of his roughness, toughness, and plainness, gleamed out
of every tooth in Mr Carker's head.
'And now, Sir,' said the Major, 'you and Dombey have the devil's own
amount of business to talk over.'
'By no means, Major,' observed Mr Dombey.
'Dombey,' said the Major, defiantly, 'I know better; a man of your mark
- the Colossus of commerce - is not to be interrupted. Your moments are
precious. We shall meet at dinner-time. In the interval, old Joseph will be
scarce. The dinner-hour is a sharp seven, Mr Carker.'
With that, the Major, greatly swollen as to his face, withdrew; but
immediately putting in his head at the door again, said:
'I beg your pardon. Dombey, have you any message to 'em?'
Mr Dombey in some embarrassment, and not without a glance at the
courteous keeper of his business confidence, entrusted the Major with his
compliments.
'By the Lord, Sir,' said the Major, 'you must make it something warmer
than that, or old Joe will be far from welcome.'
'Regards then, if you will, Major,' returned Mr Dombey.
'Damme, Sir,' said the Major, shaking his shoulders and his great
cheeks jocularly: 'make it something warmer than that.'
'What you please, then, Major,' observed Mr Dombey.
'Our friend is sly, Sir, sly, Sir, de-vilish sly,' said the Major,
staring round the door at Carker. 'So is Bagstock.' But stopping in the
midst of a chuckle, and drawing himself up to his full height, the Major
solemnly exclaimed, as he struck himself on the chest, 'Dombey! I envy your
feelings. God bless you!' and withdrew.
'You must have found the gentleman a great resource,' said Carker,
following him with his teeth.
'Very great indeed,' said Mr Dombey.
'He has friends here, no doubt,' pursued Carker. 'I perceive, from what
he has said, that you go into society here. Do you know,' smiling horribly,
'I am so very glad that you go into society!'
Mr Dombey acknowledged this display of interest on the part of his
second in command, by twirling his watch-chain, and slightly moving his
head.
'You were formed for society,' said Carker. 'Of all the men I know, you
are the best adapted, by nature and by position, for society. Do you know I
have been frequently amazed that you should have held it at arm's length so
long!'
'I have had my reasons, Carker. I have been alone, and indifferent to
it. But you have great social qualifications yourself, and are the more
likely to have been surprised.'
'Oh! I!' returned the other, with ready self-disparagement. 'It's quite
another matter in the case of a man like me. I don't come into comparison
with you.'
Mr Dombey put his hand to his neckcloth, settled his chin in it,
coughed, and stood looking at his faithful friend and servant for a few
moments in silence.
'I shall have the pleasure, Carker,' said Mr Dombey at length: making
as if he swallowed something a little too large for his throat: 'to present
you to my - to the Major's friends. Highly agreeable people.'
'Ladies among them, I presume?' insinuated the smooth Manager.
'They are all - that is to say, they are both - ladies,' replied Mr
Dombey.
'Only two?' smiled Carker.
'They are only two. I have confined my visits to their residence, and
have made no other acquaintance here.'
'Sisters, perhaps?' quoth Carker.
'Mother and daughter,' replied Mr Dombey.
As Mr Dombey dropped his eyes, and adjusted his neckcloth again, the
smiling face of Mr Carker the Manager became in a moment, and without any
stage of transition, transformed into a most intent and frowning face,
scanning his closely, and with an ugly sneer. As Mr Dombey raised his eyes,
it changed back, no less quickly, to its old expression, and showed him
every gum of which it stood possessed.
'You are very kind,' said Carker, 'I shall be delighted to know them.
Speaking of daughters, I have seen Miss Dombey.'
There was a sudden rush of blood to Mr Dombey's face.
'I took the liberty of waiting on her,' said Carker, 'to inquire if she
could charge me with any little commission. I am not so fortunate as to be
the bearer of any but her - but her dear love.'
Wolf's face that it was then, with even the hot tongue revealing itself
through the stretched mouth, as the eyes encountered Mr Dombey's!
'What business intelligence is there?' inquired the latter gentleman,
after a silence, during which Mr Carker had produced some memoranda and
other papers.
'There is very little,' returned Carker. 'Upon the whole we have not
had our usual good fortune of late, but that is of little moment to you. At
Lloyd's, they give up the Son and Heir for lost. Well, she was insured, from
her keel to her masthead.'
'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, taking a chair near him, 'I cannot say that
young man, Gay, ever impressed me favourably
'Nor me,' interposed the Manager.
'But I wish,' said Mr Dombey, without heeding the interruption, 'he had
never gone on board that ship. I wish he had never been sent out.
'It is a pity you didn't say so, in good time, is it not?' retorted
Carker, coolly. 'However, I think it's all for the best. I really, think
it's all for the best. Did I mention that there was something like a little
confidence between Miss Dombey and myself?'
'No,' said Mr Dombey, sternly.
'I have no doubt,' returned Mr Carker, after an impressive pause, 'that
wherever Gay is, he is much better where he is, than at home here. If I
were, or could be, in your place, I should be satisfied of that. I am quite
satisfied of it myself. Miss Dombey is confiding and young - perhaps hardly
proud enough, for your daughter - if she have a fault. Not that that is much
though, I am sure. Will you check these balances with me?'
Mr Dombey leaned back in his chair, instead of bending over the papers
that were laid before him, and looked the Manager steadily in the face. The
Manager, with his eyelids slightly raised, affected to be glancing at his
figures, and to await the leisure of his principal. He showed that he
affected this, as if from great delicacy, and with a design to spare Mr
Dombey's feelings; and the latter, as he looked at him, was cognizant of his
intended consideration, and felt that but for it, this confidential Carker
would have said a great deal more, which he, Mr Dombey, was too proud to ask
for. It was his way in business, often. Little by little, Mr Dombey's gaze
relaxed, and his attention became diverted to the papers before him; but
while busy with the occupation they afforded him, he frequently stopped, and
looked at Mr Carker again. Whenever he did so, Mr Carker was demonstrative,
as before, in his delicacy, and impressed it on his great chief more and
more.
While they were thus engaged; and under the skilful culture of the
Manager, angry thoughts in reference to poor Florence brooded and bred in Mr
Dombey's breast, usurping the place of the cold dislike that generally
reigned there; Major Bagstock, much admired by the old ladies of Leamington,
and followed by the Native, carrying the usual amount of light baggage,
straddled along the shady side of the way, to make a morning call on Mrs
Skewton. It being midday when the Major reached the bower of Cleopatra, he
had the good fortune to find his Princess on her usual sofa, languishing
over a cup of coffee, with the room so darkened and shaded for her more
luxurious repose, that Withers, who was in attendance on her, loomed like a
phantom page.
'What insupportable creature is this, coming in?' said Mrs Skewton, 'I
cannot hear it. Go away, whoever you are!'
'You have not the heart to banish J. B., Ma'am!' said the Major halting
midway, to remonstrate, with his cane over his shoulder.
'Oh it's you, is it? On second thoughts, you may enter,' observed
Cleopatra.
The Major entered accordingly, and advancing to the sofa pressed her
charming hand to his lips.
'Sit down,' said Cleopatra, listlessly waving her fan, 'a long way off.
Don't come too near me, for I am frightfully faint and sensitive this
morning, and you smell of the Sun. You are absolutely tropical.'
'By George, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'the time has been when Joseph
Bagstock has been grilled and blistered by the Sun; then time was, when he
was forced, Ma'am, into such full blow, by high hothouse heat in the West
Indies, that he was known as the Flower. A man never heard of Bagstock,
Ma'am, in those days; he heard of the Flower - the Flower of Ours. The
Flower may have faded, more or less, Ma'am,' observed the Major, dropping
into a much nearer chair than had been indicated by his cruel Divinity, 'but
it is a tough plant yet, and constant as the evergreen.'
Here the Major, under cover of the dark room, shut up one eye, rolled
his head like a Harlequin, and, in his great self-satisfaction, perhaps went
nearer to the confines of apoplexy than he had ever gone before.
'Where is Mrs Granger?' inquired Cleopatra of her page.
Withers believed she was in her own room.
'Very well,' said Mrs Skewton. 'Go away, and shut the door. I am
engaged.'
As Withers disappeared, Mrs Skewton turned her head languidly towards
the Major, without otherwise moving, and asked him how his friend was.
'Dombey, Ma'am,' returned the Major, with a facetious gurgling in his
throat, 'is as well as a man in his condition can be. His condition is a
desperate one, Ma'am. He is touched, is Dombey! Touched!' cried the Major.
'He is bayonetted through the body.'
Cleopatra cast a sharp look at the Major, that contrasted forcibly with
the affected drawl in which she presently said:
'Major Bagstock, although I know but little of the world, - nor can I
really regret my experience, for I fear it is a false place, full of
withering conventionalities: where Nature is but little regarded, and where
the music of the heart, and the gushing of the soul, and all that sort of
thing, which is so truly poetical, is seldom heard, - I cannot misunderstand
your meaning. There is an allusion to Edith - to my extremely dear child,'
said Mrs Skewton, tracing the outline of her eyebrows with her forefinger,
'in your words, to which the tenderest of chords vibrates excessively.'
'Bluntness, Ma'am,' returned the Major, 'has ever been the
characteristic of the Bagstock breed. You are right. Joe admits it.'
'And that allusion,' pursued Cleopatra, 'would involve one of the most
- if not positively the most - touching, and thrilling, and sacred emotions
of which our sadly-fallen nature is susceptible, I conceive.'
The Major laid his hand upon his lips, and wafted a kiss to Cleopatra,
as if to identify the emotion in question.
'I feel that I am weak. I feel that I am wanting in that energy, which
should sustain a Mama: not to say a parent: on such a subject,' said Mrs
Skewton, trimming her lips with the laced edge of her pocket-handkerchief;
'but I can hardly approach a topic so excessively momentous to my dearest
Edith without a feeling of faintness. Nevertheless, bad man, as you have
boldly remarked upon it, and as it has occasioned me great anguish:' Mrs
Skewton touched her left side with her fan: 'I will not shrink from my
duty.'
The Major, under cover of the dimness, swelled, and swelled, and rolled
his purple face about, and winked his lobster eye, until he fell into a fit
of wheezing, which obliged him to rise and take a turn or two about the
room, before his fair friend could proceed.
'Mr Dombey,' said Mrs Skewton, when she at length resumed, 'was
obliging enough, now many weeks ago, to do us the honour of visiting us
here; in company, my dear Major, with yourself. I acknowledge - let me be
open - that it is my failing to be the creature of impulse, and to wear my
heart as it were, outside. I know my failing full well. My enemy cannot know
it better. But I am not penitent; I would rather not be frozen by the
heartless world, and am content to bear this imputation justly.'
Mrs Skewton arranged her tucker, pinched her wiry throat to give it a
soft surface, and went on, with great complacency.
'It gave me (my dearest Edith too, I am sure) infinite pleasure to
receive Mr Dombey. As a friend of yours, my dear Major, we were naturally
disposed to be prepossessed in his favour; and I fancied that I observed an
amount of Heart in Mr Dombey, that was excessively refreshing.'
'There is devilish little heart in Dombey now, Ma'am,' said the Major.
'Wretched man!' cried Mrs Skewton, looking at him languidly, 'pray be
silent.'
'J. B. is dumb, Ma'am,' said the Major.
'Mr Dombey,' pursued Cleopatra, smoothing the rosy hue upon her cheeks,
'accordingly repeated his visit; and possibly finding some attraction in the
simplicity and primitiveness of our tastes - for there is always a charm in
nature - it is so very sweet - became one of our little circle every
evening. Little did I think of the awful responsibility into which I plunged
when I encouraged Mr Dombey - to -
'To beat up these quarters, Ma'am,' suggested Major Bagstock.
'Coarse person! 'said Mrs Skewton, 'you anticipate my meaning, though
in odious language.
Here Mrs Skewton rested her elbow on the little table at her side, and
suffering her wrist to droop in what she considered a graceful and becoming
manner, dangled her fan to and fro, and lazily admired her hand while
speaking.
'The agony I have endured,' she said mincingly, 'as the truth has by
degrees dawned upon me, has been too exceedingly terrific to dilate upon. My
whole existence is bound up in my sweetest Edith; and to see her change from
day to day - my beautiful pet, who has positively garnered up her heart
since the death of that most delightful creature, Granger - is the most
affecting thing in the world.'
Mrs Skewton's world was not a very trying one, if one might judge of it
by the influence of its most affecting circumstance upon her; but this by
the way.
'Edith,' simpered Mrs Skewton, 'who is the perfect pearl of my life, is
said to resemble me. I believe we are alike.'
'There is one man in the world who never will admit that anyone
resembles you, Ma'am,' said the Major; 'and that man's name is Old Joe
Bagstock.'
Cleopatra made as if she would brain the flatterer with her fan, but
relenting, smiled upon him and proceeded:
'If my charming girl inherits any advantages from me, wicked one!': the
Major was the wicked one: 'she inherits also my foolish nature. She has
great force of character - mine has been said to be immense, though I don't
believe it - but once moved, she is susceptible and sensitive to the last
extent. What are my feelings when I see her pining! They destroy me.
The Major advancing his double chin, and pursing up his blue lips into
a soothing expression, affected the profoundest sympathy.
'The confidence,' said Mrs Skewton, 'that has subsisted between us -
the free development of soul, and openness of sentiment - is touching to
think of. We have been more like sisters than Mama and child.'
'J. B.'s own sentiment,' observed the Major, 'expressed by J. B. fifty
thousand times!'
'Do not interrupt, rude man!' said Cleopatra. 'What are my feelings,
then, when I find that there is one subject avoided by us! That there is a
what's-his-name - a gulf - opened between us. That my own artless Edith is
changed to me! They are of the most poignant description, of course.'
The Major left his chair, and took one nearer to the little table.
'From day to day I see this, my dear Major,' proceeded Mrs Skewton.
'From day to day I feel this. From hour to hour I reproach myself for that
excess of faith and trustfulness which has led to such distressing
consequences; and almost from minute to minute, I hope that Mr Dombey may
explain himself, and relieve the torture I undergo, which is extremely
wearing. But nothing happens, my dear Major; I am the slave of remorse -
take care of the coffee-cup: you are so very awkward - my darling Edith is
an altered being; and I really don't see what is to be done, or what good
creature I can advise with.'
Major Bagstock, encouraged perhaps by the softened and confidential
tone into which Mrs Skewton, after several times lapsing into it for a
moment, seemed now to have subsided for good, stretched out his hand across
the little table, and said with a leer,
'Advise with Joe, Ma'am.'
'Then, you aggravating monster,' said Cleopatra, giving one hand to the
Major, and tapping his knuckles with her fan, which she held in the other:
'why don't you talk to me? you know what I mean. Why don't you tell me
something to the purpose?'
The Major laughed, and kissed the hand she had bestowed upon him, and
laughed again immensely.
'Is there as much Heart in Mr Dombey as I gave him credit for?'
languished Cleopatra tenderly. 'Do you think he is in earnest, my dear
Major? Would you recommend his being spoken to, or his being left alone? Now
tell me, like a dear man, what would you advise.'
'Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma'am?' chuckled the Major,
hoarsely.
'Mysterious creature!' returned Cleopatra, bringing her fan to bear
upon the Major's nose. 'How can we marry him?'
'Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma'am, I say?' chuckled the Major
again.
Mrs Skewton returned no answer in words, but smiled upon the Major with
so much archness and vivacity, that that gallant officer considering himself
challenged, would have imprinted a kiss on her exceedingly red lips, but for
her interposing the fan with a very winning and juvenile dexterity. It might
have been in modesty; it might have been in apprehension of some danger to
their bloom.
'Dombey, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'is a great catch.'
'Oh, mercenary wretch!' cried Cleopatra, with a little shriek, 'I am
shocked.'
'And Dombey, Ma'am,' pursued the Major, thrusting forward his head, and
distending his eyes, 'is in earnest. Joseph says it; Bagstock knows it; J.
B. keeps him to the mark. Leave Dombey to himself, Ma'am. Dombey is safe,
Ma'am. Do as you have done; do no more; and trust to J. B. for the end.'
'You really think so, my dear Major?' returned Cleopatra, who had eyed
him very cautiously, and very searchingly, in spite of her listless bearing.
'Sure of it, Ma'am,' rejoined the Major. 'Cleopatra the peerless, and
her Antony Bagstock, will often speak of this, triumphantly, when sharing
the elegance and wealth of Edith Dombey's establishment. Dombey's right-hand
man, Ma'am,' said the Major, stopping abruptly in a chuckle, and becoming
serious, 'has arrived.'
'This morning?' said Cleopatra.
'This morning, Ma'am,' returned the Major. 'And Dombey's anxiety for
his arrival, Ma'am, is to be referred - take J. B.'s word for this; for Joe
is devilish sly' - the Major tapped his nose, and screwed up one of his eyes
tight: which did not enhance his native beauty - 'to his desire that what is
in the wind should become known to him' without Dombey's telling and
consulting him. For Dombey is as proud, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'as
Lucifer.'
'A charming quality,' lisped Mrs Skewton; 'reminding one of dearest
Edith.'
'Well, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'I have thrown out hints already, and
the right-hand man understands 'em; and I'll throw out more, before the day
is done. Dombey projected this morning a ride to Warwick Castle, and to
Kenilworth, to-morrow, to be preceded by a breakfast with us. I undertook
the delivery of this invitation. Will you honour us so far, Ma'am?' said the
Major, swelling with shortness of breath and slyness, as he produced a note,
addressed to the Honourable Mrs Skewton, by favour of Major Bagstock,
wherein hers ever faithfully, Paul Dombey, besought her and her amiable and
accomplished daughter to consent to the proposed excursion; and in a
postscript unto which, the same ever faithfully Paul Dombey entreated to be
recalled to the remembrance of Mrs Granger.
'Hush!' said Cleopatra, suddenly, 'Edith!'
The loving mother can scarcely be described as resuming her insipid and
affected air when she made this exclamation; for she had never cast it off;
nor was it likely that she ever would or could, in any other place than in
the grave. But hurriedly dismissing whatever shadow of earnestness, or faint
confession of a purpose, laudable or wicked, that her face, or voice, or
manner: had, for the moment, betrayed, she lounged upon the couch, her most
insipid and most languid self again, as Edith entered the room.
Edith, so beautiful and stately, but so cold and so repelling. Who,
slightly acknowledging the presence of Major Bagstock, and directing a keen
glance at her mother, drew back the from a window, and sat down there,
looking out.
'My dearest Edith,' said Mrs Skewton, 'where on earth have you been? I
have wanted you, my love, most sadly.'
'You said you were engaged, and I stayed away,' she answered, without
turning her head.
'It was cruel to Old Joe, Ma'am,' said the Major in his gallantry.
'It was very cruel, I know,' she said, still looking out - and said
with such calm disdain, that the Major was discomfited, and could think of
nothing in reply.
'Major Bagstock, my darling Edith,' drawled her mother, 'who is
generally the most useless and disagreeable creature in the world: as you
know - '
'It is surely not worthwhile, Mama,' said Edith, looking round, 'to
observe these forms of speech. We are quite alone. We know each other.'
The quiet scorn that sat upon her handsome face - a scorn that
evidently lighted on herself, no less than them - was so intense and deep,
that her mother's simper, for the instant, though of a hardy constitution,
drooped before it.
'My darling girl,' she began again.
'Not woman yet?' said Edith, with a smile.
'How very odd you are to-day, my dear! Pray let me say, my love, that
Major Bagstock has brought the kindest of notes from Mr Dombey, proposing
that we should breakfast with him to-morrow, and ride to Warwick and
Kenilworth. Will you go, Edith?'
'Will I go!' she repeated, turning very red, and breathing quickly as
she looked round at her mother.
'I knew you would, my own, observed the latter carelessly. 'It is, as
you say, quite a form to ask. Here is Mr Dombey's letter, Edith.'
'Thank you. I have no desire to read it,' was her answer.
'Then perhaps I had better answer it myself,' said Mrs Skewton, 'though
I had thought of asking you to be my secretary, darling.' As Edith made no
movement, and no answer, Mrs Skewton begged the Major to wheel her little
table nearer, and to set open the desk it contained, and to take out pen and
paper for her; all which congenial offices of gallantry the Major
discharged, with much submission and devotion.
'Your regards, Edith, my dear?' said Mrs Skewton, pausing, pen in hand,
at the postscript.
'What you will, Mama,' she answered, without turning her head, and with
supreme indifference.
Mrs Skewton wrote what she would, without seeking for any more explicit
directions, and handed her letter to the Major, who receiving it as a
precious charge, made a show of laying it near his heart, but was fain to
put it in the pocket of his pantaloons on account of the insecurity of his
waistcoat The Major then took a very polished and chivalrous farewell of
both ladies, which the elder one acknowledged in her usual manner, while the
younger, sitting with her face addressed to the window, bent her head so
slightly that it would have been a greater compliment to the Major to have
made no sign at all, and to have left him to infer that he had not been
heard or thought of.
'As to alteration in her, Sir,' mused the Major on his way back; on
which expedition - the afternoon being sunny and hot - he ordered the Native
and the light baggage to the front, and walked in the shadow of that
expatriated prince: 'as to alteration, Sir, and pining, and so forth, that
won't go down with Joseph Bagstock, None of that, Sir. It won't do here. But
as to there being something of a division between 'em - or a gulf as the
mother calls it - damme, Sir, that seems true enough. And it's odd enough!
Well, Sir!' panted the Major, 'Edith Granger and Dombey are well matched;
let 'em fight it out! Bagstock backs the winner!'
The Major, by saying these latter words aloud, in the vigour of his
thoughts, caused the unhappy Native to stop, and turn round, in the belief
that he was personally addressed. Exasperated to the last degree by this act
of insubordination, the Major (though he was swelling with enjoyment of his
own humour, at the moment of its occurrence instantly thrust his cane among
the Native's ribs, and continued to stir him up, at short intervals, all the
way to the hotel.
Nor was the Major less exasperated as he dressed for dinner, during
which operation the dark servant underwent the pelting of a shower of
miscellaneous objects, varying in size from a boot to a hairbrush, and
including everything that came within his master's reach. For the Major
plumed himself on having the Native in a perfect state of drill, and visited
the least departure from strict discipline with this kind of fatigue duty.
Add to this, that he maintained the Native about his person as a
counter-irritant against the gout, and all other vexations, mental as well
as bodily; and the Native would appear to have earned his pay - which was
not large.
At length, the Major having disposed of all the missiles that were
convenient to his hand, and having called the Native so many new names as
must have given him great occasion to marvel at the resources of the English
language, submitted to have his cravat put on; and being dressed, and
finding himself in a brisk flow of spirits after this exercise, went
downstairs to enliven 'Dombey' and his right-hand man.
Dombey was not yet in the room, but the right-hand man was there, and
his dental treasures were, as usual, ready for the Major.
'Well, Sir!' said the Major. 'How have you passed the time since I had
the happiness of meeting you? Have you walked at all?'