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