Страница:
I've been at all intruding, will you?' said the Captain.
'Not at all,' returned the other.
'Thank'ee. My berth ain't very roomy,' said the Captain, turning back
again, 'but it's tolerably snug; and if you was to find yourself near Brig
Place, number nine, at any time - will you make a note of it? - and would
come upstairs, without minding what was said by the person at the door, I
should be proud to see you.
With that hospitable invitation, the Captain said 'Good day!' and
walked out and shut the door; leaving Mr Carker still reclining against the
chimney-piece. In whose sly look and watchful manner; in whose false mouth,
stretched but not laughing; in whose spotless cravat and very whiskers; even
in whose silent passing of his soft hand over his white linen and his smooth
face; there was something desperately cat-like.
The unconscious Captain walked out in a state of self-glorification
that imparted quite a new cut to the broad blue suit. 'Stand by, Ned!' said
the Captain to himself. 'You've done a little business for the youngsters
today, my lad!'
In his exultation, and in his familiarity, present and prospective,
with the House, the Captain, when he reached the outer office, could not
refrain from rallying Mr Perch a little, and asking him whether he thought
everybody was still engaged. But not to be bitter on a man who had done his
duty, the Captain whispered in his ear, that if he felt disposed for a glass
of rum-and-water, and would follow, he would be happy to bestow the same
upon him.
Before leaving the premises, the Captain, somewhat to the astonishment
of the clerks, looked round from a central point of view, and took a general
survey of the officers part and parcel of a project in which his young
friend was nearly interested. The strong-room excited his especial
admiration; but, that he might not appear too particular, he limited himself
to an approving glance, and, with a graceful recognition of the clerks as a
body, that was full of politeness and patronage, passed out into the court.
Being promptly joined by Mr Perch, he conveyed that gentleman to the tavern,
and fulfilled his pledge - hastily, for Perch's time was precious.
'I'll give you for a toast,' said the Captain, 'Wal'r!'
'Who?' submitted Mr Perch.
'Wal'r!' repeated the Captain, in a voice of thunder.
Mr Perch, who seemed to remember having heard in infancy that there was
once a poet of that name, made no objection; but he was much astonished at
the Captain's coming into the City to propose a poet; indeed, if he had
proposed to put a poet's statue up - say Shakespeare's for example - in a
civic thoroughfare, he could hardly have done a greater outrage to Mr
Perch's experience. On the whole, he was such a mysterious and
incomprehensible character, that Mr Perch decided not to mention him to Mrs
Perch at all, in case of giving rise to any disagreeable consequences.
Mysterious and incomprehensible, the Captain, with that lively sense
upon him of having done a little business for the youngsters, remained all
day, even to his most intimate friends; and but that Walter attributed his
winks and grins, and other such pantomimic reliefs of himself, to his
satisfaction in the success of their innocent deception upon old Sol Gills,
he would assuredly have betrayed himself before night. As it was, however,
he kept his own secret; and went home late from the Instrument-maker's
house, wearing the glazed hat so much on one side, and carrying such a
beaming expression in his eyes, that Mrs MacStinger (who might have been
brought up at Doctor Blimber's, she was such a Roman matron) fortified
herself, at the first glimpse of him, behind the open street door, and
refused to come out to the contemplation of her blessed infants, until he
was securely lodged in his own room.
Father and Daughter
There is a hush through Mr Dombey's house. Servants gliding up and down
stairs rustle, but make no sound of footsteps. They talk together
constantly, and sit long at meals, making much of their meat and drink, and
enjoying themselves after a grim unholy fashion. Mrs Wickam, with her eyes
suffused with tears, relates melancholy anecdotes; and tells them how she
always said at Mrs Pipchin's that it would be so, and takes more table-ale
than usual, and is very sorry but sociable. Cook's state of mind is similar.
She promises a little fry for supper, and struggles about equally against
her feelings and the onions. Towlinson begins to think there's a fate in it,
and wants to know if anybody can tell him ofany good that ever came of
living in a corner house. It seems to all of them as having happened a long
time ago; though yet the child lies, calm and beautiful, upon his little
bed.
After dark there come some visitors - noiseless visitors, with shoes of
felt - who have been there before; and with them comes that bed of rest
which is so strange a one for infant sleepers. All this time, the bereaved
father has not been seen even by his attendant; for he sits in an inner
corner of his own dark room when anyone is there, and never seems to move at
other times, except to pace it to and fro. But in the morning it is
whispered among the household that he was heard to go upstairs in the dead
night, and that he stayed there - in the room - until the sun was shining.
At the offices in the City, the ground-glass windows are made more dim
by shutters; and while the lighted lamps upon the desks are half
extinguished by the day that wanders in, the day is half extinguished by the
lamps, and an unusual gloom prevails. There is not much business done. The
clerks are indisposed to work; and they make assignations to eat chops in
the afternoon, and go up the river. Perch, the messenger, stays long upon
his errands; and finds himself in bars of public-houses, invited thither by
friends, and holding forth on the uncertainty of human affairs. He goes home
to Ball's Pond earlier in the evening than usual, and treats Mrs Perch to a
veal cutlet and Scotch ale. Mr Carker the Manager treats no one; neither is
he treated; but alone in his own room he shows his teeth all day; and it
would seem that there is something gone from Mr Carker's path - some
obstacle removed - which clears his way before him.
Now the rosy children living opposite to Mr Dombey's house, peep from
their nursery windows down into the street; for there are four black horses
at his door, with feathers on their heads; and feathers tremble on the
carriage that they draw; and these, and an array of men with scarves and
staves, attract a crowd. The juggler who was going to twirl the basin, puts
his loose coat on again over his fine dress; and his trudging wife,
one-sided with her heavy baby in her arms, loiters to see the company come
out. But closer to her dingy breast she presses her baby, when the burden
that is so easily carried is borne forth; and the youngest of the rosy
children at the high window opposite, needs no restraining hand to check her
in her glee, when, pointing with her dimpled finger, she looks into her
nurse's face, and asks 'What's that?'
And now, among the knot of servants dressed in mourning, and the
weeping women, Mr Dombey passes through the hall to the other carriage that
is waiting to receive him. He is not 'brought down,' these observers think,
by sorrow and distress of mind. His walk is as erect, his bearing is as
stiff as ever it has been. He hides his face behind no handkerchief, and
looks before him. But that his face is something sunk and rigid, and is
pale, it bears the same expression as of old. He takes his place within the
carriage, and three other gentlemen follow. Then the grand funeral moves
slowly down the street. The feathers are yet nodding in the distance, when
the juggler has the basin spinning on a cane, and has the same crowd to
admire it. But the juggler's wife is less alert than usual with the
money-box, for a child's burial has set her thinking that perhaps the baby
underneath her shabby shawl may not grow up to be a man, and wear a sky-blue
fillet round his head, and salmon-coloured worsted drawers, and tumble in
the mud.
The feathers wind their gloomy way along the streets, and come within
the sound of a church bell. In this same church, the pretty boy received all
that will soon be left of him on earth - a name. All of him that is dead,
they lay there, near the perishable substance of his mother. It is well.
Their ashes lie where Florence in her walks - oh lonely, lonely walks! - may
pass them any day.
The service over, and the clergyman withdrawn, Mr Dombey looks round,
demanding in a low voice, whether the person who has been requested to
attend to receive instructions for the tablet, is there?
Someone comes forward, and says 'Yes.'
Mr Dombey intimates where he would have it placed; and shows him, with
his hand upon the wall, the shape and size; and how it is to follow the
memorial to the mother. Then, with his pencil, he writes out the
inscription, and gives it to him: adding, 'I wish to have it done at once.
'It shall be done immediately, Sir.'
'There is really nothing to inscribe but name and age, you see.'
The man bows, glancing at the paper, but appears to hesitate. Mr Dombey
not observing his hesitation, turns away, and leads towards the porch.
'I beg your pardon, Sir;' a touch falls gently on his mourning cloak;
'but as you wish it done immediately, and it may be put in hand when I get
back - '
'Well?'
'Will you be so good as read it over again? I think there's a mistake.'
'Where?'
The statuary gives him back the paper, and points out, with his pocket
rule, the words, 'beloved and only child.'
'It should be, "son," I think, Sir?'
'You are right. Of course. Make the correction.'
The father, with a hastier step, pursues his way to the coach. When the
other three, who follow closely, take their seats, his face is hidden for
the first time - shaded by his cloak. Nor do they see it any more that day.
He alights first, and passes immediately into his own room. The other
mourners (who are only Mr Chick, and two of the medical attendants) proceed
upstairs to the drawing-room, to be received by Mrs Chick and Miss Tox. And
what the face is, in the shut-up chamber underneath: or what the thoughts
are: what the heart is, what the contest or the suffering: no one knows.
The chief thing that they know, below stairs, in the kitchen, is that
'it seems like Sunday.' They can hardly persuade themselves but that there
is something unbecoming, if not wicked, in the conduct of the people out of
doors, who pursue their ordinary occupations, and wear their everyday
attire. It is quite a novelty to have the blinds up, and the shutters open;
and they make themselves dismally comfortable over bottles of wine, which
are freely broached as on a festival. They are much inclined to moralise. Mr
Towlinson proposes with a sigh, 'Amendment to us all!' for which, as Cook
says with another sigh, 'There's room enough, God knows.' In the evening,
Mrs Chick and Miss Tox take to needlework again. In the evening also, Mr
Towlinson goes out to take the air, accompanied by the housemaid, who has
not yet tried her mourning bonnet. They are very tender to each other at
dusky street-corners, and Towlinson has visions of leading an altered and
blameless existence as a serious greengrocer in Oxford Market.
There is sounder sleep and deeper rest in Mr Dombey's house tonight,
than there has been for many nights. The morning sun awakens the old
household, settled down once more in their old ways. The rosy children
opposite run past with hoops. There is a splendid wedding in the church. The
juggler's wife is active with the money-box in another quarter of the town.
The mason sings and whistles as he chips out P-A-U-L in the marble slab
before him.
And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one weak
creature makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing but the
width and depth of vast eternity can fill it up! Florence, in her innocent
affliction, might have answered, 'Oh my brother, oh my dearly loved and
loving brother! Only friend and companion of my slighted childhood! Could
any less idea shed the light already dawning on your early grave, or give
birth to the softened sorrow that is springing into life beneath this rain
of tears!'
'My dear child,' said Mrs Chick, who held it as a duty incumbent on
her, to improve the occasion, 'when you are as old as I am - '
'Which will be the prime of life,' observed Miss Tox.
'You will then,' pursued Mrs Chick, gently squeezing Miss Tox's hand in
acknowledgment of her friendly remark, 'you will then know that all grief is
unavailing, and that it is our duty to submit.'
'I will try, dear aunt I do try,' answered Florence, sobbing.
'I am glad to hear it,' said Mrs Chick, 'because; my love, as our dear
Miss Tox - of whose sound sense and excellent judgment, there cannot
possibly be two opinions - '
'My dear Louisa, I shall really be proud, soon,' said Miss Tox
- 'will tell you, and confirm by her experience,' pursued Mrs Chick,
'we are called upon on all occasions to make an effort It is required of us.
If any - my dear,' turning to Miss Tox, 'I want a word. Mis- Mis-'
'Demeanour?' suggested Miss Tox.
'No, no, no,' said Mrs Chic 'How can you! Goodness me, it's on, the end
of my tongue. Mis-'
Placed affection?' suggested Miss Tox, timidly.
'Good gracious, Lucretia!' returned Mrs Chick 'How very monstrous!
Misanthrope, is the word I want. The idea! Misplaced affection! I say, if
any misanthrope were to put, in my presence, the question "Why were we
born?" I should reply, "To make an effort"'
'Very good indeed,' said Miss Tox, much impressed by the originality of
the sentiment 'Very good.'
'Unhappily,' pursued Mrs Chick, 'we have a warning under our own eyes.
We have but too much reason to suppose, my dear child, that if an effort had
been made in time, in this family, a train of the most trying and
distressing circumstances might have been avoided. Nothing shall ever
persuade me,' observed the good matron, with a resolute air, 'but that if
that effort had been made by poor dear Fanny, the poor dear darling child
would at least have had a stronger constitution.'
Mrs Chick abandoned herself to her feelings for half a moment; but, as
a practical illustration of her doctrine, brought herself up short, in the
middle of a sob, and went on again.
'Therefore, Florence, pray let us see that you have some strength of
mind, and do not selfishly aggravate the distress in which your poor Papa is
plunged.'
'Dear aunt!' said Florence, kneeling quickly down before her, that she
might the better and more earnestly look into her face. 'Tell me more about
Papa. Pray tell me about him! Is he quite heartbroken?'
Miss Tox was of a tender nature, and there was something in this appeal
that moved her very much. Whether she saw it in a succession, on the part of
the neglected child, to the affectionate concern so often expressed by her
dead brother - or a love that sought to twine itself about the heart that
had loved him, and that could not bear to be shut out from sympathy with
such a sorrow, in such sad community of love and grief - or whether the only
recognised the earnest and devoted spirit which, although discarded and
repulsed, was wrung with tenderness long unreturned, and in the waste and
solitude of this bereavement cried to him to seek a comfort in it, and to
give some, by some small response - whatever may have been her understanding
of it, it moved Miss Tox. For the moment she forgot the majesty of Mrs
Chick, and, patting Florence hastily on the cheek, turned aside and suffered
the tears to gush from her eyes, without waiting for a lead from that wise
matron.
Mrs Chick herself lost, for a moment, the presence of mind on which she
so much prided herself; and remained mute, looking on the beautiful young
face that had so long, so steadily, and patiently, been turned towards the
little bed. But recovering her voice - which was synonymous with her
presence of mind, indeed they were one and the same thing - she replied with
dignity:
'Florence, my dear child, your poor Papa is peculiar at times; and to
question me about him, is to question me upon a subject which I really do
not pretend to understand. I believe I have as much influence with your Papa
as anybody has. Still, all I can say is, that he has said very little to me;
and that I have only seen him once or twice for a minute at a time, and
indeed have hardly seen him then, for his room has been dark. I have said to
your Papa, "Paul!" - that is the exact expression I used - "Paul! why do you
not take something stimulating?" Your Papa's reply has always been, "Louisa,
have the goodness to leave me. I want nothing. I am better by myself." If I
was to be put upon my oath to-morrow, Lucretia, before a magistrate,' said
Mrs Chick, 'I have no doubt I could venture to swear to those identical
words.'
Miss Tox expressed her admiration by saying, 'My Louisa is ever
methodical!'
'In short, Florence,' resumed her aunt, 'literally nothing has passed
between your poor Papa and myself, until to-day; when I mentioned to your
Papa that Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles had written exceedingly kind notes -
our sweet boy! Lady Skettles loved him like a - where's my pocket
handkerchief?'
Miss Tox produced one.
'Exceedingly kind notes, proposing that you should visit them for
change of scene. Mentioning to your Papa that I thought Miss Tox and myself
might now go home (in which he quite agreed), I inquired if he had any
objection to your accepting this invitation. He said, "No, Louisa, not the
least!"' Florence raised her tearful eye
'At the same time, if you would prefer staying here, Florence, to
paying this visit at present, or to going home with me - '
'I should much prefer it, aunt,' was the faint rejoinder.
'Why then, child,'said Mrs Chick, 'you can. It's a strange choice, I
must say. But you always were strange. Anybody else at your time of life,
and after what has passed - my dear Miss Tox, I have lost my pocket
handkerchief again - would be glad to leave here, one would suppose.
'I should not like to feel,' said Florence, 'as if the house was
avoided. I should not like to think that the - his - the rooms upstairs were
quite empty and dreary, aunt. I would rather stay here, for the present. Oh
my brother! oh my brother!'
It was a natural emotion, not to be suppressed; and it would make way
even between the fingers of the hands with which she covered up her face.
The overcharged and heavy-laden breast must some times have that vent, or
the poor wounded solitary heart within it would have fluttered like a bird
with broken wings, and sunk down in the dust'
'Well, child!' said Mrs Chick, after a pause 'I wouldn't on any account
say anything unkind to you, and that I'm sure you know. You will remain
here, then, and do exactly as you like. No one will interfere with you,
Florence, or wish to interfere with you, I'm sure.
Florence shook her head in sad assent'
'I had no sooner begun to advise your poor Papa that he really ought to
seek some distraction and restoration in a temporary change,' said Mrs
Chick, 'than he told me he had already formed the intention of going into
the country for a short time. I'm sure I hope he'll go very soon. He can't
go too soon. But I suppose there are some arrangements connected with his
private papers and so forth, consequent on the affliction that has tried us
all so much - I can't think what's become of mine: Lucretia, lend me yours,
my dear - that may occupy him for one or two evenings in his own room. Your
Papa's a Dombey, child, if ever there was one,' said Mrs Chick, drying both
her eyes at once with great care on opposite corners of Miss Tox's
handkerchief 'He'll make an effort. There's no fear of him.'
'Is there nothing, aunt,' said Florence, trembling, 'I might do to -
'Lord, my dear child,' interposed Mrs Chick, hastily, 'what are you
talking about? If your Papa said to Me - I have given you his exact words,
"Louisa, I want nothing; I am better by myself" - what do you think he'd say
to you? You mustn't show yourself to him, child. Don't dream of such a
thing.'
'Aunt,' said Florence, 'I will go and lie down on my bed.'
Mrs Chick approved of this resolution, and dismissed her with a kiss.
But Miss Tox, on a faint pretence of looking for the mislaid handkerchief,
went upstairs after her; and tried in a few stolen minutes to comfort her,
in spite of great discouragement from Susan Nipper. For Miss Nipper, in her
burning zeal, disparaged Miss Tox as a crocodile; yet her sympathy seemed
genuine, and had at least the vantage-ground of disinterestedness - there
was little favour to be won by it.
And was there no one nearer and dearer than Susan, to uphold the
striving heart in its anguish? Was there no other neck to clasp; no other
face to turn to? no one else to say a soothing word to such deep sorrow? Was
Florence so alone in the bleak world that nothing else remained to her?
Nothing. Stricken motherless and brotherless at once - for in the loss of
little Paul, that first and greatest loss fell heavily upon her - this was
the only help she had. Oh, who can tell how much she needed help at first!
At first, when the house subsided into its accustomed course, and they
had all gone away, except the servants, and her father shut up in his own
rooms, Florence could do nothing but weep, and wander up and down, and
sometimes, in a sudden pang of desolate remembrance, fly to her own chamber,
wring her hands, lay her face down on her bed, and know no consolation:
nothing but the bitterness and cruelty of grief. This commonly ensued upon
the recognition of some spot or object very tenderly dated with him; and it
made the ale house, at first, a place of agony.
But it is not in the nature of pure love to burn so fiercely and
unkindly long. The flame that in its grosser composition has the taint of
earth may prey upon the breast that gives it shelter; but the fire from
heaven is as gentle in the heart, as when it rested on the heads of the
assembled twelve, and showed each man his brother, brightened and unhurt.
The image conjured up, there soon returned the placid face, the softened
voice, the loving looks, the quiet trustfulness and peace; and Florence,
though she wept still, wept more tranquilly, and courted the remembrance.
It was not very long before the golden water, dancing on the wall, in
the old place, at the old serene time, had her calm eye fixed upon it as it
ebbed away. It was not very long before that room again knew her, often;
sitting there alone, as patient and as mild as when she had watched beside
the little bed. When any sharp sense of its being empty smote upon her, she
could kneel beside it, and pray GOD - it was the pouring out of her full
heart - to let one angel love her and remember her.
It was not very long before, in the midst of the dismal house so wide
and dreary, her low voice in the twilight, slowly and stopping sometimes,
touched the old air to which he had so often listened, with his drooping
head upon her arm. And after that, and when it was quite dark, a little
strain of music trembled in the room: so softly played and sung, that it was
more lIke the mournful recollection of what she had done at his request on
that last night, than the reality repeated. But it was repeated, often -
very often, in the shadowy solitude; and broken murmurs of the strain still
trembled on the keys, when the sweet voice was hushed in tears.
Thus she gained heart to look upon the work with which her fingers had
been busy by his side on the sea-shore; and thus it was not very long before
she took to it again - with something of a human love for it, as if it had
been sentient and had known him; and, sitting in a window, near her mother's
picture, in the unused room so long deserted, wore away the thoughtful
hours.
Why did the dark eyes turn so often from this work to where the rosy
children lived? They were not immediate!y suggestive of her loss; for they
were all girls: four little sisters. But they were motherless like her - and
had a father.
It was easy to know when he had gone out and was expected home, for the
elder child was always dressed and waiting for him at the drawing-room
window, or n the balcony; and when he appeared, her expectant face lighted
up with joy, while the others at the high window, and always on the watch
too, clapped their hands, and drummed them on the sill, and called to him.
The elder child would come down to the hall, and put her hand in his, and
lead him up the stairs; and Florence would see her afterwards sitting by his
side, or on his knee, or hanging coaxingly about his neck and talking to
him: and though they were always gay together, he would often watch her face
as if he thought her like her mother that was dead. Florence would sometimes
look no more at this, and bursting into tears would hide behind the curtain
as if she were frightened, or would hurry from the window. Yet she could not
help returning; and her work would soon fall unheeded from her hands again.
It was the house that had been empty, years ago. It had remained so for
a long time. At last, and while she had been away from home, this family had
taken it; and it was repaired and newly painted; and there were birds and
flowers about it; and it looked very different from its old self. But she
never thought of the house. The children and their father were all in all.
When he had dined, she could see them, through the open windows, go
down with their governess or nurse, and cluster round the table; and in the
still summer weather, the sound of their childish voices and clear laughter
would come ringing across the street, into the drooping air of the room in
which she sat. Then they would climb and clamber upstairs with him, and romp
about him on the sofa, or group themselves at his knee, a very nosegay of
little faces, while he seemed to tell them some story. Or they would come
running out into the balcony; and then Florence would hide herself quickly,
lest it should check them in their joy, to see her in her black dress,
sitting there alone.
The elder child remained with her father when the rest had gone away,
and made his tea for him - happy little house-keeper she was then! - and sat
conversing with him, sometimes at the window, sometimes in the room, until
the candles came. He made her his companion, though she was some years
younger than Florence; and she could be as staid and pleasantly demure, with
her little book or work-box, as a woman. When they had candles, Florence
from her own dark room was not afraid to look again. But when the time came
for the child to say 'Good-night, Papa,' and go to bed, Florence would sob
and tremble as she raised her face to him, and could look no more.
Though still she would turn, again and again, before going to bed
herself from the simple air that had lulled him to rest so often, long ago,
and from the other low soft broken strain of music, back to that house. But
that she ever thought of it, or watched it, was a secret which she kept
within her own young breast.
And did that breast of Florence - Florence, so ingenuous and true - so
worthy of the love that he had borne her, and had whispered in his last
faint words - whose guileless heart was mirrored in the beauty of her face,
and breathed in every accent of her gentle voice - did that young breast
hold any other secret? Yes. One more.
When no one in the house was stirring, and the lights were all
extinguished, she would softly leave her own room, and with noiseless feet
descend the staircase, and approach her father's door. Against it, scarcely
breathing, she would rest her face and head, and press her lips, in the
yearning of her love. She crouched upon the cold stone floor outside it,
every night, to listen even for his breath; and in her one absorbing wish to
be allowed to show him some affection, to be a consolation to him, to win
him over to the endurance of some tenderness from her, his solitary child,
she would have knelt down at his feet, if she had dared, in humble
supplication.
No one knew it' No one thought of it. The door was ever closed, and he
shut up within. He went out once or twice, and it was said in the house that
he was very soon going on his country journey; but he lived in those rooms,
and lived alone, and never saw her, or inquired for her. Perhaps he did not
even know that she was in the house.
One day, about a week after the funeral, Florence was sitting at her
work, when Susan appeared, with a face half laughing and half crying, to
announce a visitor.
'A visitor! To me, Susan!' said Florence, looking up in astonishment.
'Well, it is a wonder, ain't it now, Miss Floy?' said Susan; 'but I
wish you had a many visitors, I do, indeed, for you'd be all the better for
it, and it's my opinion that the sooner you and me goes even to them old
Skettleses, Miss, the better for both, I may not wish to live in crowds,
Miss Floy, but still I'm not a oyster.'
To do Miss Nipper justice, she spoke more for her young mistress than
herself; and her face showed it.
'But the visitor, Susan,' said Florence.
Susan, with an hysterical explosion that was as much a laugh as a sob,
and as much a sob as a laugh, answered,
'Mr Toots!'
The smile that appeared on Florence's face passed from it in a moment,
and her eyes filled with tears. But at any rate it was a smile, and that
gave great satisfaction to Miss Nipper.
'My own feelings exactly, Miss Floy,' said Susan, putting her apron to
her eyes, and shaking her head. 'Immediately I see that Innocent in the
Hall, Miss Floy, I burst out laughing first, and then I choked.'
Susan Nipper involuntarily proceeded to do the like again on the spot.
In the meantime Mr Toots, who had come upstairs after her, all unconscious
of the effect he produced, announced himself with his knuckles on the door,
and walked in very brisKly.
'How d'ye do, Miss Dombey?' said Mr Toots. 'I'm very well, I thank you;
how are you?'
Mr Toots - than whom there were few better fellows in the world, though
there may have been one or two brighter spirits - had laboriously invented
this long burst of discourse with the view of relieving the feelings both of
Florence and himself. But finding that he had run through his property, as
it were, in an injudicious manner, by squandering the whole before taking a
chair, or before Florence had uttered a word, or before he had well got in
at the door, he deemed it advisable to begin again.
'How d'ye do, Miss Dombey?' said Mr Toots. 'I'm very well, I thank you;
how are you?'
Florence gave him her hand, and said she was very well.
'I'm very well indeed,' said Mr Toots, taking a chair. 'Very well
indeed, I am. I don't remember,' said Mr Toots, after reflecting a little,
'that I was ever better, thank you.'
'It's very kind of you to come,' said Florence, taking up her work, 'I
am very glad to see you.'
Mr Toots responded with a chuckle. Thinking that might be too lively,
he corrected it with a sigh. Thinking that might be too melancholy, he
corrected it with a chuckle. Not thoroughly pleasing himself with either
mode of reply, he breathed hard.
'You were very kind to my dear brother,' said Florence, obeying her own
natural impulse to relieve him by saying so. 'He often talked to me about
you.'
'Oh it's of no consequence,' said Mr Toots hastily. 'Warm, ain't it?'
'It is beautiful weather,' replied Florence.
'It agrees with me!' said Mr Toots. 'I don't think I ever was so well
as I find myself at present, I'm obliged to you.
After stating this curious and unexpected fact, Mr Toots fell into a
deep well of silence.
'You have left Dr Blimber's, I think?' said Florence, trying to help
him out.
'I should hope so,' returned Mr Toots. And tumbled in again.
He remained at the bottom, apparently drowned, for at least ten
minutes. At the expiration of that period, he suddenly floated, and said,
'Well! Good morning, Miss Dombey.'
'Are you going?' asked Florence, rising.
'I don't know, though. No, not just at present,' said Mr Toots, sitting
down again, most unexpectedly. 'The fact is - I say, Miss Dombey!'
'Don't be afraid to speak to me,' said Florence, with a quiet smile, 'I
should he very glad if you would talk about my brother.'
'Would you, though?' retorted Mr Toots, with sympathy in every fibre of
his otherwise expressionless face. 'Poor Dombey! I'm sure I never thought
that Burgess and Co. - fashionable tailors (but very dear), that we used to
talk about - would make this suit of clothes for such a purpose.' Mr Toots
was dressed in mourning. 'Poor Dombey! I say! Miss Dombey!' blubbered Toots.
'Yes,' said Florence.
'There's a friend he took to very much at last. I thought you'd lIke to
have him, perhaps, as a sort of keepsake. You remember his remembering
Diogenes?'
'Oh yes! oh yes' cried Florence.
'Poor Dombey! So do I,' said Mr Toots.
Mr Toots, seeing Florence in tears, had great difficulty in getting
beyond this point, and had nearly tumbled into the well again. But a chucKle
saved him on the brink.
'I say,' he proceeded, 'Miss Dombey! I could have had him stolen for
ten shillings, if they hadn't given him up: and I would: but they were glad
to get rid of him, I think. If you'd like to have him, he's at the door. I
brought him on purpose for you. He ain't a lady's dog, you know,' said Mr
Toots, 'but you won't mind that, will you?'
In fact, Diogenes was at that moment, as they presently ascertained
from looking down into the street, staring through the window of a hackney
cabriolet, into which, for conveyance to that spot, he had been ensnared, on
a false pretence of rats among the straw. Sooth to say, he was as unlike a
lady's dog as might be; and in his gruff anxiety to get out, presented an
appearance sufficiently unpromising, as he gave short yelps out of one side
of his mouth, and overbalancing himself by the intensity of every one of
those efforts, tumbled down into the straw, and then sprung panting up
again, putting out his tongue, as if he had come express to a Dispensary to
be examined for his health.
But though Diogenes was as ridiculous a dog as one would meet with on a
summer's day; a blundering, ill-favoured, clumsy, bullet-headed dog,
continually acting on a wrong idea that there was an enemy in the
neighbourhood, whom it was meritorious to bark at; and though he was far
from good-tempered, and certainly was not clever, and had hair all over his
eyes, and a comic nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff voice; he was
dearer to Florence, in virtue of that parting remembrance of him, and that
request that he might be taken care of, than the most valuable and beautiful
of his kind. So dear, indeed, was this same ugly Diogenes, and so welcome to
her, that she took the jewelled hand of Mr Toots and kissed it in her
gratitude. And when Diogenes, released, came tearing up the stairs and
bouncing into the room (such a business as there was, first, to get him out
of the cabriolet!), dived under all the furniture, and wound a long iron
chain, that dangled from his neck, round legs of chairs and tables, and then
tugged at it until his eyes became unnaturally visible, in consequence of
their nearly starting out of his head; and when he growled at Mr Toots, who
affected familiarity; and went pell-mell at Towlinson, morally convinced
that he was the enemy whom he had barked at round the corner all his life
and had never seen yet; Florence was as pleased with him as if he had been a
miracle of discretion.
Mr Toots was so overjoyed by the success of his present, and was so
delighted to see Florence bending down over Diogenes, smoothing his coarse
back with her little delicate hand - Diogenes graciously allowing it from
the first moment of their acquaintance - that he felt it difficult to take
leave, and would, no doubt, have been a much longer time in making up his
mind to do so, if he had not been assisted by Diogenes himself, who suddenly
took it into his head to bay Mr Toots, and to make short runs at him with
his mouth open. Not exactly seeing his way to the end of these
demonstrations, and sensible that they placed the pantaloons constructed by
the art of Burgess and Co. in jeopardy, Mr Toots, with chuckles, lapsed out
at the door: by which, after looking in again two or three times, without
any object at all, and being on each occasion greeted with a fresh run from
Diogenes, he finally took himself off and got away.
'Come, then, Di! Dear Di! Make friends with your new mistress. Let us
love each other, Di!'said Florence, fondling his shaggy head. And Di, the
rough and gruff, as if his hairy hide were pervious to the tear that dropped
upon it, and his dog's heart melted as it fell, put his nose up to her face,
and swore fidelity.
Diogenes the man did not speak plainer to Alexander the Great than
Diogenes the dog spoke to Florence.' He subscribed to the offer of his
little mistress cheerfully, and devoted himself to her service. A banquet
was immediately provided for him in a corner; and when he had eaten and
drunk his fill, he went to the window where Florence was sitting, looking
on, rose up on his hind legs, with his awkward fore paws on her shoulders,
licked her face and hands, nestled his great head against her heart, and
wagged his tail till he was tired. Finally, Diogenes coiled himself up at
her feet and went to sleep.
Although Miss Nipper was nervous in regard of dogs, and felt it
necessary to come into the room with her skirts carefully collected about
her, as if she were crossing a brook on stepping-stones; also to utter
little screams and stand up on chairs when Diogenes stretched himself, she
was in her own manner affected by the kindness of Mr Toots, and could not
see Florence so alive to the attachment and society of this rude friend of
little Paul's, without some mental comments thereupon that brought the water
to her eyes. Mr Dombey, as a part of her reflections, may have been, in the
association of ideas, connected with the dog; but, at any rate, after
observing Diogenes and his mistress all the evening, and after exerting
herself with much good-will to provide Diogenes a bed in an ante-chamber
outside his mistress's door, she said hurriedly to Florence, before leaving
her for the night:
'Your Pa's a going off, Miss Floy, tomorrow morning.'
'To-morrow morning, Susan?'
'Yes, Miss; that's the orders. Early.'
'Do you know,' asked Florence, without looking at her, 'where Papa is
going, Susan?'
'Not exactly, Miss. He's going to meet that precious Major first, and I
must say if I was acquainted with any Major myself (which Heavens forbid),
it shouldn't be a blue one!'
'Hush, Susan!' urged Florence gently.
'Well, Miss Floy,' returned Miss Nipper, who was full of burning
indignation, and minded her stops even less than usual. 'I can't help it,
blue he is, and while I was a Christian, although humble, I would have
natural-coloured friends, or none.'
It appeared from what she added and had gleaned downstairs, that Mrs
Chick had proposed the Major for Mr Dombey's companion, and that Mr Dombey,
after some hesitation, had invited him.
'Talk of him being a change, indeed!' observed Miss Nipper to herself
with boundless contempt. 'If he's a change, give me a constancy.
'Good-night, Susan,' said Florence.
'Good-night, my darling dear Miss Floy.'
Her tone of commiseration smote the chord so often roughly touched, but
never listened to while she or anyone looked on. Florence left alone, laid
her head upon her hand, and pressing the other over her swelling heart, held
free communication with her sorrows.
It was a wet night; and the melancholy rain fell pattering and dropping
with a weary sound. A sluggish wind was blowing, and went moaning round the
house, as if it were in pain or grief. A shrill noise quivered through the
trees. While she sat weeping, it grew late, and dreary midnight tolled out
from the steeples.
Florence was little more than a child in years - not yet fourteen- and
the loneliness and gloom of such an hour in the great house where Death had
lately made its own tremendous devastation, might have set an older fancy
brooding on vague terrors. But her innocent imagination was too full of one
theme to admit them. Nothing wandered in her thoughts but love - a wandering
love, indeed, and castaway - but turning always to her father. There was
nothing in the dropping of the rain, the moaning of the wind, the shuddering
of the trees, the striking of the solemn clocks, that shook this one
thought, or diminished its interest' Her recollections of the dear dead boy
- and they were never absent - were itself, the same thing. And oh, to be
shut out: to be so lost: never to have looked into her father's face or
touched him, since that hour!
She could not go to bed, poor child, and never had gone yet, since
then, without making her nightly pilgrimage to his door. It would have been
a strange sad sight, to see her' now, stealing lightly down the stairs
through the thick gloom, and stopping at it with a beating heart, and
blinded eyes, and hair that fell down loosely and unthought of; and touching
it outside with her wet cheek. But the night covered it, and no one knew.
The moment that she touched the door on this night, Florence found that
it was open. For the first time it stood open, though by but a
hair's-breadth: and there was a light within. The first impulse of the timid
child - and she yielded to it - was to retire swiftly. Her next, to go back,
and to enter; and this second impulse held her in irresolution on the
staircase.
In its standing open, even by so much as that chink, there seemed to be
hope. There was encouragement in seeing a ray of light from within, stealing
through the dark stern doorway, and falling in a thread upon the marble
floor. She turned back, hardly knowing what she did, but urged on by the
love within her, and the trial they had undergone together, but not shared:
and with her hands a little raised and trembling, glided in.
Her father sat at his old table in the middle room. He had been
arranging some papers, and destroying others, and the latter lay in fragile
ruins before him. The rain dripped heavily upon the glass panes in the outer
room, where he had so often watched poor Paul, a baby; and the low
complainings of the wind were heard without.
But not by him. He sat with his eyes fixed on the table, so immersed in
thought, that a far heavier tread than the light foot of his child could
make, might have failed to rouse him. His face was turned towards her. By
the waning lamp, and at that haggard hour, it looked worn and dejected; and
in the utter loneliness surrounding him, there was an appeal to Florence
that struck home.
'Papa! Papa! speak to me, dear Papa!'
He started at her voice, and leaped up from his seat. She was close
before him' with extended arms, but he fell back.
'What is the matter?' he said, sternly. 'Why do you come here? What has
frightened you?'
If anything had frightened her, it was the face he turned upon her. The
glowing love within the breast of his young daughter froze before it, and
she stood and looked at him as if stricken into stone.
There was not one touch of tenderness or pity in it. There was not one
gleam of interest, parental recognition, or relenting in it. There was a
change in it, but not of that kind. The old indifference and cold constraint
had given place to something: what, she never thought and did not dare to
think, and yet she felt it in its force, and knew it well without a name:
that as it looked upon her, seemed to cast a shadow on her head.
Did he see before him the successful rival of his son, in health and
life? Did he look upon his own successful rival in that son's affection? Did
a mad jealousy and withered pride, poison sweet remembrances that should
'Not at all,' returned the other.
'Thank'ee. My berth ain't very roomy,' said the Captain, turning back
again, 'but it's tolerably snug; and if you was to find yourself near Brig
Place, number nine, at any time - will you make a note of it? - and would
come upstairs, without minding what was said by the person at the door, I
should be proud to see you.
With that hospitable invitation, the Captain said 'Good day!' and
walked out and shut the door; leaving Mr Carker still reclining against the
chimney-piece. In whose sly look and watchful manner; in whose false mouth,
stretched but not laughing; in whose spotless cravat and very whiskers; even
in whose silent passing of his soft hand over his white linen and his smooth
face; there was something desperately cat-like.
The unconscious Captain walked out in a state of self-glorification
that imparted quite a new cut to the broad blue suit. 'Stand by, Ned!' said
the Captain to himself. 'You've done a little business for the youngsters
today, my lad!'
In his exultation, and in his familiarity, present and prospective,
with the House, the Captain, when he reached the outer office, could not
refrain from rallying Mr Perch a little, and asking him whether he thought
everybody was still engaged. But not to be bitter on a man who had done his
duty, the Captain whispered in his ear, that if he felt disposed for a glass
of rum-and-water, and would follow, he would be happy to bestow the same
upon him.
Before leaving the premises, the Captain, somewhat to the astonishment
of the clerks, looked round from a central point of view, and took a general
survey of the officers part and parcel of a project in which his young
friend was nearly interested. The strong-room excited his especial
admiration; but, that he might not appear too particular, he limited himself
to an approving glance, and, with a graceful recognition of the clerks as a
body, that was full of politeness and patronage, passed out into the court.
Being promptly joined by Mr Perch, he conveyed that gentleman to the tavern,
and fulfilled his pledge - hastily, for Perch's time was precious.
'I'll give you for a toast,' said the Captain, 'Wal'r!'
'Who?' submitted Mr Perch.
'Wal'r!' repeated the Captain, in a voice of thunder.
Mr Perch, who seemed to remember having heard in infancy that there was
once a poet of that name, made no objection; but he was much astonished at
the Captain's coming into the City to propose a poet; indeed, if he had
proposed to put a poet's statue up - say Shakespeare's for example - in a
civic thoroughfare, he could hardly have done a greater outrage to Mr
Perch's experience. On the whole, he was such a mysterious and
incomprehensible character, that Mr Perch decided not to mention him to Mrs
Perch at all, in case of giving rise to any disagreeable consequences.
Mysterious and incomprehensible, the Captain, with that lively sense
upon him of having done a little business for the youngsters, remained all
day, even to his most intimate friends; and but that Walter attributed his
winks and grins, and other such pantomimic reliefs of himself, to his
satisfaction in the success of their innocent deception upon old Sol Gills,
he would assuredly have betrayed himself before night. As it was, however,
he kept his own secret; and went home late from the Instrument-maker's
house, wearing the glazed hat so much on one side, and carrying such a
beaming expression in his eyes, that Mrs MacStinger (who might have been
brought up at Doctor Blimber's, she was such a Roman matron) fortified
herself, at the first glimpse of him, behind the open street door, and
refused to come out to the contemplation of her blessed infants, until he
was securely lodged in his own room.
Father and Daughter
There is a hush through Mr Dombey's house. Servants gliding up and down
stairs rustle, but make no sound of footsteps. They talk together
constantly, and sit long at meals, making much of their meat and drink, and
enjoying themselves after a grim unholy fashion. Mrs Wickam, with her eyes
suffused with tears, relates melancholy anecdotes; and tells them how she
always said at Mrs Pipchin's that it would be so, and takes more table-ale
than usual, and is very sorry but sociable. Cook's state of mind is similar.
She promises a little fry for supper, and struggles about equally against
her feelings and the onions. Towlinson begins to think there's a fate in it,
and wants to know if anybody can tell him ofany good that ever came of
living in a corner house. It seems to all of them as having happened a long
time ago; though yet the child lies, calm and beautiful, upon his little
bed.
After dark there come some visitors - noiseless visitors, with shoes of
felt - who have been there before; and with them comes that bed of rest
which is so strange a one for infant sleepers. All this time, the bereaved
father has not been seen even by his attendant; for he sits in an inner
corner of his own dark room when anyone is there, and never seems to move at
other times, except to pace it to and fro. But in the morning it is
whispered among the household that he was heard to go upstairs in the dead
night, and that he stayed there - in the room - until the sun was shining.
At the offices in the City, the ground-glass windows are made more dim
by shutters; and while the lighted lamps upon the desks are half
extinguished by the day that wanders in, the day is half extinguished by the
lamps, and an unusual gloom prevails. There is not much business done. The
clerks are indisposed to work; and they make assignations to eat chops in
the afternoon, and go up the river. Perch, the messenger, stays long upon
his errands; and finds himself in bars of public-houses, invited thither by
friends, and holding forth on the uncertainty of human affairs. He goes home
to Ball's Pond earlier in the evening than usual, and treats Mrs Perch to a
veal cutlet and Scotch ale. Mr Carker the Manager treats no one; neither is
he treated; but alone in his own room he shows his teeth all day; and it
would seem that there is something gone from Mr Carker's path - some
obstacle removed - which clears his way before him.
Now the rosy children living opposite to Mr Dombey's house, peep from
their nursery windows down into the street; for there are four black horses
at his door, with feathers on their heads; and feathers tremble on the
carriage that they draw; and these, and an array of men with scarves and
staves, attract a crowd. The juggler who was going to twirl the basin, puts
his loose coat on again over his fine dress; and his trudging wife,
one-sided with her heavy baby in her arms, loiters to see the company come
out. But closer to her dingy breast she presses her baby, when the burden
that is so easily carried is borne forth; and the youngest of the rosy
children at the high window opposite, needs no restraining hand to check her
in her glee, when, pointing with her dimpled finger, she looks into her
nurse's face, and asks 'What's that?'
And now, among the knot of servants dressed in mourning, and the
weeping women, Mr Dombey passes through the hall to the other carriage that
is waiting to receive him. He is not 'brought down,' these observers think,
by sorrow and distress of mind. His walk is as erect, his bearing is as
stiff as ever it has been. He hides his face behind no handkerchief, and
looks before him. But that his face is something sunk and rigid, and is
pale, it bears the same expression as of old. He takes his place within the
carriage, and three other gentlemen follow. Then the grand funeral moves
slowly down the street. The feathers are yet nodding in the distance, when
the juggler has the basin spinning on a cane, and has the same crowd to
admire it. But the juggler's wife is less alert than usual with the
money-box, for a child's burial has set her thinking that perhaps the baby
underneath her shabby shawl may not grow up to be a man, and wear a sky-blue
fillet round his head, and salmon-coloured worsted drawers, and tumble in
the mud.
The feathers wind their gloomy way along the streets, and come within
the sound of a church bell. In this same church, the pretty boy received all
that will soon be left of him on earth - a name. All of him that is dead,
they lay there, near the perishable substance of his mother. It is well.
Their ashes lie where Florence in her walks - oh lonely, lonely walks! - may
pass them any day.
The service over, and the clergyman withdrawn, Mr Dombey looks round,
demanding in a low voice, whether the person who has been requested to
attend to receive instructions for the tablet, is there?
Someone comes forward, and says 'Yes.'
Mr Dombey intimates where he would have it placed; and shows him, with
his hand upon the wall, the shape and size; and how it is to follow the
memorial to the mother. Then, with his pencil, he writes out the
inscription, and gives it to him: adding, 'I wish to have it done at once.
'It shall be done immediately, Sir.'
'There is really nothing to inscribe but name and age, you see.'
The man bows, glancing at the paper, but appears to hesitate. Mr Dombey
not observing his hesitation, turns away, and leads towards the porch.
'I beg your pardon, Sir;' a touch falls gently on his mourning cloak;
'but as you wish it done immediately, and it may be put in hand when I get
back - '
'Well?'
'Will you be so good as read it over again? I think there's a mistake.'
'Where?'
The statuary gives him back the paper, and points out, with his pocket
rule, the words, 'beloved and only child.'
'It should be, "son," I think, Sir?'
'You are right. Of course. Make the correction.'
The father, with a hastier step, pursues his way to the coach. When the
other three, who follow closely, take their seats, his face is hidden for
the first time - shaded by his cloak. Nor do they see it any more that day.
He alights first, and passes immediately into his own room. The other
mourners (who are only Mr Chick, and two of the medical attendants) proceed
upstairs to the drawing-room, to be received by Mrs Chick and Miss Tox. And
what the face is, in the shut-up chamber underneath: or what the thoughts
are: what the heart is, what the contest or the suffering: no one knows.
The chief thing that they know, below stairs, in the kitchen, is that
'it seems like Sunday.' They can hardly persuade themselves but that there
is something unbecoming, if not wicked, in the conduct of the people out of
doors, who pursue their ordinary occupations, and wear their everyday
attire. It is quite a novelty to have the blinds up, and the shutters open;
and they make themselves dismally comfortable over bottles of wine, which
are freely broached as on a festival. They are much inclined to moralise. Mr
Towlinson proposes with a sigh, 'Amendment to us all!' for which, as Cook
says with another sigh, 'There's room enough, God knows.' In the evening,
Mrs Chick and Miss Tox take to needlework again. In the evening also, Mr
Towlinson goes out to take the air, accompanied by the housemaid, who has
not yet tried her mourning bonnet. They are very tender to each other at
dusky street-corners, and Towlinson has visions of leading an altered and
blameless existence as a serious greengrocer in Oxford Market.
There is sounder sleep and deeper rest in Mr Dombey's house tonight,
than there has been for many nights. The morning sun awakens the old
household, settled down once more in their old ways. The rosy children
opposite run past with hoops. There is a splendid wedding in the church. The
juggler's wife is active with the money-box in another quarter of the town.
The mason sings and whistles as he chips out P-A-U-L in the marble slab
before him.
And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one weak
creature makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing but the
width and depth of vast eternity can fill it up! Florence, in her innocent
affliction, might have answered, 'Oh my brother, oh my dearly loved and
loving brother! Only friend and companion of my slighted childhood! Could
any less idea shed the light already dawning on your early grave, or give
birth to the softened sorrow that is springing into life beneath this rain
of tears!'
'My dear child,' said Mrs Chick, who held it as a duty incumbent on
her, to improve the occasion, 'when you are as old as I am - '
'Which will be the prime of life,' observed Miss Tox.
'You will then,' pursued Mrs Chick, gently squeezing Miss Tox's hand in
acknowledgment of her friendly remark, 'you will then know that all grief is
unavailing, and that it is our duty to submit.'
'I will try, dear aunt I do try,' answered Florence, sobbing.
'I am glad to hear it,' said Mrs Chick, 'because; my love, as our dear
Miss Tox - of whose sound sense and excellent judgment, there cannot
possibly be two opinions - '
'My dear Louisa, I shall really be proud, soon,' said Miss Tox
- 'will tell you, and confirm by her experience,' pursued Mrs Chick,
'we are called upon on all occasions to make an effort It is required of us.
If any - my dear,' turning to Miss Tox, 'I want a word. Mis- Mis-'
'Demeanour?' suggested Miss Tox.
'No, no, no,' said Mrs Chic 'How can you! Goodness me, it's on, the end
of my tongue. Mis-'
Placed affection?' suggested Miss Tox, timidly.
'Good gracious, Lucretia!' returned Mrs Chick 'How very monstrous!
Misanthrope, is the word I want. The idea! Misplaced affection! I say, if
any misanthrope were to put, in my presence, the question "Why were we
born?" I should reply, "To make an effort"'
'Very good indeed,' said Miss Tox, much impressed by the originality of
the sentiment 'Very good.'
'Unhappily,' pursued Mrs Chick, 'we have a warning under our own eyes.
We have but too much reason to suppose, my dear child, that if an effort had
been made in time, in this family, a train of the most trying and
distressing circumstances might have been avoided. Nothing shall ever
persuade me,' observed the good matron, with a resolute air, 'but that if
that effort had been made by poor dear Fanny, the poor dear darling child
would at least have had a stronger constitution.'
Mrs Chick abandoned herself to her feelings for half a moment; but, as
a practical illustration of her doctrine, brought herself up short, in the
middle of a sob, and went on again.
'Therefore, Florence, pray let us see that you have some strength of
mind, and do not selfishly aggravate the distress in which your poor Papa is
plunged.'
'Dear aunt!' said Florence, kneeling quickly down before her, that she
might the better and more earnestly look into her face. 'Tell me more about
Papa. Pray tell me about him! Is he quite heartbroken?'
Miss Tox was of a tender nature, and there was something in this appeal
that moved her very much. Whether she saw it in a succession, on the part of
the neglected child, to the affectionate concern so often expressed by her
dead brother - or a love that sought to twine itself about the heart that
had loved him, and that could not bear to be shut out from sympathy with
such a sorrow, in such sad community of love and grief - or whether the only
recognised the earnest and devoted spirit which, although discarded and
repulsed, was wrung with tenderness long unreturned, and in the waste and
solitude of this bereavement cried to him to seek a comfort in it, and to
give some, by some small response - whatever may have been her understanding
of it, it moved Miss Tox. For the moment she forgot the majesty of Mrs
Chick, and, patting Florence hastily on the cheek, turned aside and suffered
the tears to gush from her eyes, without waiting for a lead from that wise
matron.
Mrs Chick herself lost, for a moment, the presence of mind on which she
so much prided herself; and remained mute, looking on the beautiful young
face that had so long, so steadily, and patiently, been turned towards the
little bed. But recovering her voice - which was synonymous with her
presence of mind, indeed they were one and the same thing - she replied with
dignity:
'Florence, my dear child, your poor Papa is peculiar at times; and to
question me about him, is to question me upon a subject which I really do
not pretend to understand. I believe I have as much influence with your Papa
as anybody has. Still, all I can say is, that he has said very little to me;
and that I have only seen him once or twice for a minute at a time, and
indeed have hardly seen him then, for his room has been dark. I have said to
your Papa, "Paul!" - that is the exact expression I used - "Paul! why do you
not take something stimulating?" Your Papa's reply has always been, "Louisa,
have the goodness to leave me. I want nothing. I am better by myself." If I
was to be put upon my oath to-morrow, Lucretia, before a magistrate,' said
Mrs Chick, 'I have no doubt I could venture to swear to those identical
words.'
Miss Tox expressed her admiration by saying, 'My Louisa is ever
methodical!'
'In short, Florence,' resumed her aunt, 'literally nothing has passed
between your poor Papa and myself, until to-day; when I mentioned to your
Papa that Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles had written exceedingly kind notes -
our sweet boy! Lady Skettles loved him like a - where's my pocket
handkerchief?'
Miss Tox produced one.
'Exceedingly kind notes, proposing that you should visit them for
change of scene. Mentioning to your Papa that I thought Miss Tox and myself
might now go home (in which he quite agreed), I inquired if he had any
objection to your accepting this invitation. He said, "No, Louisa, not the
least!"' Florence raised her tearful eye
'At the same time, if you would prefer staying here, Florence, to
paying this visit at present, or to going home with me - '
'I should much prefer it, aunt,' was the faint rejoinder.
'Why then, child,'said Mrs Chick, 'you can. It's a strange choice, I
must say. But you always were strange. Anybody else at your time of life,
and after what has passed - my dear Miss Tox, I have lost my pocket
handkerchief again - would be glad to leave here, one would suppose.
'I should not like to feel,' said Florence, 'as if the house was
avoided. I should not like to think that the - his - the rooms upstairs were
quite empty and dreary, aunt. I would rather stay here, for the present. Oh
my brother! oh my brother!'
It was a natural emotion, not to be suppressed; and it would make way
even between the fingers of the hands with which she covered up her face.
The overcharged and heavy-laden breast must some times have that vent, or
the poor wounded solitary heart within it would have fluttered like a bird
with broken wings, and sunk down in the dust'
'Well, child!' said Mrs Chick, after a pause 'I wouldn't on any account
say anything unkind to you, and that I'm sure you know. You will remain
here, then, and do exactly as you like. No one will interfere with you,
Florence, or wish to interfere with you, I'm sure.
Florence shook her head in sad assent'
'I had no sooner begun to advise your poor Papa that he really ought to
seek some distraction and restoration in a temporary change,' said Mrs
Chick, 'than he told me he had already formed the intention of going into
the country for a short time. I'm sure I hope he'll go very soon. He can't
go too soon. But I suppose there are some arrangements connected with his
private papers and so forth, consequent on the affliction that has tried us
all so much - I can't think what's become of mine: Lucretia, lend me yours,
my dear - that may occupy him for one or two evenings in his own room. Your
Papa's a Dombey, child, if ever there was one,' said Mrs Chick, drying both
her eyes at once with great care on opposite corners of Miss Tox's
handkerchief 'He'll make an effort. There's no fear of him.'
'Is there nothing, aunt,' said Florence, trembling, 'I might do to -
'Lord, my dear child,' interposed Mrs Chick, hastily, 'what are you
talking about? If your Papa said to Me - I have given you his exact words,
"Louisa, I want nothing; I am better by myself" - what do you think he'd say
to you? You mustn't show yourself to him, child. Don't dream of such a
thing.'
'Aunt,' said Florence, 'I will go and lie down on my bed.'
Mrs Chick approved of this resolution, and dismissed her with a kiss.
But Miss Tox, on a faint pretence of looking for the mislaid handkerchief,
went upstairs after her; and tried in a few stolen minutes to comfort her,
in spite of great discouragement from Susan Nipper. For Miss Nipper, in her
burning zeal, disparaged Miss Tox as a crocodile; yet her sympathy seemed
genuine, and had at least the vantage-ground of disinterestedness - there
was little favour to be won by it.
And was there no one nearer and dearer than Susan, to uphold the
striving heart in its anguish? Was there no other neck to clasp; no other
face to turn to? no one else to say a soothing word to such deep sorrow? Was
Florence so alone in the bleak world that nothing else remained to her?
Nothing. Stricken motherless and brotherless at once - for in the loss of
little Paul, that first and greatest loss fell heavily upon her - this was
the only help she had. Oh, who can tell how much she needed help at first!
At first, when the house subsided into its accustomed course, and they
had all gone away, except the servants, and her father shut up in his own
rooms, Florence could do nothing but weep, and wander up and down, and
sometimes, in a sudden pang of desolate remembrance, fly to her own chamber,
wring her hands, lay her face down on her bed, and know no consolation:
nothing but the bitterness and cruelty of grief. This commonly ensued upon
the recognition of some spot or object very tenderly dated with him; and it
made the ale house, at first, a place of agony.
But it is not in the nature of pure love to burn so fiercely and
unkindly long. The flame that in its grosser composition has the taint of
earth may prey upon the breast that gives it shelter; but the fire from
heaven is as gentle in the heart, as when it rested on the heads of the
assembled twelve, and showed each man his brother, brightened and unhurt.
The image conjured up, there soon returned the placid face, the softened
voice, the loving looks, the quiet trustfulness and peace; and Florence,
though she wept still, wept more tranquilly, and courted the remembrance.
It was not very long before the golden water, dancing on the wall, in
the old place, at the old serene time, had her calm eye fixed upon it as it
ebbed away. It was not very long before that room again knew her, often;
sitting there alone, as patient and as mild as when she had watched beside
the little bed. When any sharp sense of its being empty smote upon her, she
could kneel beside it, and pray GOD - it was the pouring out of her full
heart - to let one angel love her and remember her.
It was not very long before, in the midst of the dismal house so wide
and dreary, her low voice in the twilight, slowly and stopping sometimes,
touched the old air to which he had so often listened, with his drooping
head upon her arm. And after that, and when it was quite dark, a little
strain of music trembled in the room: so softly played and sung, that it was
more lIke the mournful recollection of what she had done at his request on
that last night, than the reality repeated. But it was repeated, often -
very often, in the shadowy solitude; and broken murmurs of the strain still
trembled on the keys, when the sweet voice was hushed in tears.
Thus she gained heart to look upon the work with which her fingers had
been busy by his side on the sea-shore; and thus it was not very long before
she took to it again - with something of a human love for it, as if it had
been sentient and had known him; and, sitting in a window, near her mother's
picture, in the unused room so long deserted, wore away the thoughtful
hours.
Why did the dark eyes turn so often from this work to where the rosy
children lived? They were not immediate!y suggestive of her loss; for they
were all girls: four little sisters. But they were motherless like her - and
had a father.
It was easy to know when he had gone out and was expected home, for the
elder child was always dressed and waiting for him at the drawing-room
window, or n the balcony; and when he appeared, her expectant face lighted
up with joy, while the others at the high window, and always on the watch
too, clapped their hands, and drummed them on the sill, and called to him.
The elder child would come down to the hall, and put her hand in his, and
lead him up the stairs; and Florence would see her afterwards sitting by his
side, or on his knee, or hanging coaxingly about his neck and talking to
him: and though they were always gay together, he would often watch her face
as if he thought her like her mother that was dead. Florence would sometimes
look no more at this, and bursting into tears would hide behind the curtain
as if she were frightened, or would hurry from the window. Yet she could not
help returning; and her work would soon fall unheeded from her hands again.
It was the house that had been empty, years ago. It had remained so for
a long time. At last, and while she had been away from home, this family had
taken it; and it was repaired and newly painted; and there were birds and
flowers about it; and it looked very different from its old self. But she
never thought of the house. The children and their father were all in all.
When he had dined, she could see them, through the open windows, go
down with their governess or nurse, and cluster round the table; and in the
still summer weather, the sound of their childish voices and clear laughter
would come ringing across the street, into the drooping air of the room in
which she sat. Then they would climb and clamber upstairs with him, and romp
about him on the sofa, or group themselves at his knee, a very nosegay of
little faces, while he seemed to tell them some story. Or they would come
running out into the balcony; and then Florence would hide herself quickly,
lest it should check them in their joy, to see her in her black dress,
sitting there alone.
The elder child remained with her father when the rest had gone away,
and made his tea for him - happy little house-keeper she was then! - and sat
conversing with him, sometimes at the window, sometimes in the room, until
the candles came. He made her his companion, though she was some years
younger than Florence; and she could be as staid and pleasantly demure, with
her little book or work-box, as a woman. When they had candles, Florence
from her own dark room was not afraid to look again. But when the time came
for the child to say 'Good-night, Papa,' and go to bed, Florence would sob
and tremble as she raised her face to him, and could look no more.
Though still she would turn, again and again, before going to bed
herself from the simple air that had lulled him to rest so often, long ago,
and from the other low soft broken strain of music, back to that house. But
that she ever thought of it, or watched it, was a secret which she kept
within her own young breast.
And did that breast of Florence - Florence, so ingenuous and true - so
worthy of the love that he had borne her, and had whispered in his last
faint words - whose guileless heart was mirrored in the beauty of her face,
and breathed in every accent of her gentle voice - did that young breast
hold any other secret? Yes. One more.
When no one in the house was stirring, and the lights were all
extinguished, she would softly leave her own room, and with noiseless feet
descend the staircase, and approach her father's door. Against it, scarcely
breathing, she would rest her face and head, and press her lips, in the
yearning of her love. She crouched upon the cold stone floor outside it,
every night, to listen even for his breath; and in her one absorbing wish to
be allowed to show him some affection, to be a consolation to him, to win
him over to the endurance of some tenderness from her, his solitary child,
she would have knelt down at his feet, if she had dared, in humble
supplication.
No one knew it' No one thought of it. The door was ever closed, and he
shut up within. He went out once or twice, and it was said in the house that
he was very soon going on his country journey; but he lived in those rooms,
and lived alone, and never saw her, or inquired for her. Perhaps he did not
even know that she was in the house.
One day, about a week after the funeral, Florence was sitting at her
work, when Susan appeared, with a face half laughing and half crying, to
announce a visitor.
'A visitor! To me, Susan!' said Florence, looking up in astonishment.
'Well, it is a wonder, ain't it now, Miss Floy?' said Susan; 'but I
wish you had a many visitors, I do, indeed, for you'd be all the better for
it, and it's my opinion that the sooner you and me goes even to them old
Skettleses, Miss, the better for both, I may not wish to live in crowds,
Miss Floy, but still I'm not a oyster.'
To do Miss Nipper justice, she spoke more for her young mistress than
herself; and her face showed it.
'But the visitor, Susan,' said Florence.
Susan, with an hysterical explosion that was as much a laugh as a sob,
and as much a sob as a laugh, answered,
'Mr Toots!'
The smile that appeared on Florence's face passed from it in a moment,
and her eyes filled with tears. But at any rate it was a smile, and that
gave great satisfaction to Miss Nipper.
'My own feelings exactly, Miss Floy,' said Susan, putting her apron to
her eyes, and shaking her head. 'Immediately I see that Innocent in the
Hall, Miss Floy, I burst out laughing first, and then I choked.'
Susan Nipper involuntarily proceeded to do the like again on the spot.
In the meantime Mr Toots, who had come upstairs after her, all unconscious
of the effect he produced, announced himself with his knuckles on the door,
and walked in very brisKly.
'How d'ye do, Miss Dombey?' said Mr Toots. 'I'm very well, I thank you;
how are you?'
Mr Toots - than whom there were few better fellows in the world, though
there may have been one or two brighter spirits - had laboriously invented
this long burst of discourse with the view of relieving the feelings both of
Florence and himself. But finding that he had run through his property, as
it were, in an injudicious manner, by squandering the whole before taking a
chair, or before Florence had uttered a word, or before he had well got in
at the door, he deemed it advisable to begin again.
'How d'ye do, Miss Dombey?' said Mr Toots. 'I'm very well, I thank you;
how are you?'
Florence gave him her hand, and said she was very well.
'I'm very well indeed,' said Mr Toots, taking a chair. 'Very well
indeed, I am. I don't remember,' said Mr Toots, after reflecting a little,
'that I was ever better, thank you.'
'It's very kind of you to come,' said Florence, taking up her work, 'I
am very glad to see you.'
Mr Toots responded with a chuckle. Thinking that might be too lively,
he corrected it with a sigh. Thinking that might be too melancholy, he
corrected it with a chuckle. Not thoroughly pleasing himself with either
mode of reply, he breathed hard.
'You were very kind to my dear brother,' said Florence, obeying her own
natural impulse to relieve him by saying so. 'He often talked to me about
you.'
'Oh it's of no consequence,' said Mr Toots hastily. 'Warm, ain't it?'
'It is beautiful weather,' replied Florence.
'It agrees with me!' said Mr Toots. 'I don't think I ever was so well
as I find myself at present, I'm obliged to you.
After stating this curious and unexpected fact, Mr Toots fell into a
deep well of silence.
'You have left Dr Blimber's, I think?' said Florence, trying to help
him out.
'I should hope so,' returned Mr Toots. And tumbled in again.
He remained at the bottom, apparently drowned, for at least ten
minutes. At the expiration of that period, he suddenly floated, and said,
'Well! Good morning, Miss Dombey.'
'Are you going?' asked Florence, rising.
'I don't know, though. No, not just at present,' said Mr Toots, sitting
down again, most unexpectedly. 'The fact is - I say, Miss Dombey!'
'Don't be afraid to speak to me,' said Florence, with a quiet smile, 'I
should he very glad if you would talk about my brother.'
'Would you, though?' retorted Mr Toots, with sympathy in every fibre of
his otherwise expressionless face. 'Poor Dombey! I'm sure I never thought
that Burgess and Co. - fashionable tailors (but very dear), that we used to
talk about - would make this suit of clothes for such a purpose.' Mr Toots
was dressed in mourning. 'Poor Dombey! I say! Miss Dombey!' blubbered Toots.
'Yes,' said Florence.
'There's a friend he took to very much at last. I thought you'd lIke to
have him, perhaps, as a sort of keepsake. You remember his remembering
Diogenes?'
'Oh yes! oh yes' cried Florence.
'Poor Dombey! So do I,' said Mr Toots.
Mr Toots, seeing Florence in tears, had great difficulty in getting
beyond this point, and had nearly tumbled into the well again. But a chucKle
saved him on the brink.
'I say,' he proceeded, 'Miss Dombey! I could have had him stolen for
ten shillings, if they hadn't given him up: and I would: but they were glad
to get rid of him, I think. If you'd like to have him, he's at the door. I
brought him on purpose for you. He ain't a lady's dog, you know,' said Mr
Toots, 'but you won't mind that, will you?'
In fact, Diogenes was at that moment, as they presently ascertained
from looking down into the street, staring through the window of a hackney
cabriolet, into which, for conveyance to that spot, he had been ensnared, on
a false pretence of rats among the straw. Sooth to say, he was as unlike a
lady's dog as might be; and in his gruff anxiety to get out, presented an
appearance sufficiently unpromising, as he gave short yelps out of one side
of his mouth, and overbalancing himself by the intensity of every one of
those efforts, tumbled down into the straw, and then sprung panting up
again, putting out his tongue, as if he had come express to a Dispensary to
be examined for his health.
But though Diogenes was as ridiculous a dog as one would meet with on a
summer's day; a blundering, ill-favoured, clumsy, bullet-headed dog,
continually acting on a wrong idea that there was an enemy in the
neighbourhood, whom it was meritorious to bark at; and though he was far
from good-tempered, and certainly was not clever, and had hair all over his
eyes, and a comic nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff voice; he was
dearer to Florence, in virtue of that parting remembrance of him, and that
request that he might be taken care of, than the most valuable and beautiful
of his kind. So dear, indeed, was this same ugly Diogenes, and so welcome to
her, that she took the jewelled hand of Mr Toots and kissed it in her
gratitude. And when Diogenes, released, came tearing up the stairs and
bouncing into the room (such a business as there was, first, to get him out
of the cabriolet!), dived under all the furniture, and wound a long iron
chain, that dangled from his neck, round legs of chairs and tables, and then
tugged at it until his eyes became unnaturally visible, in consequence of
their nearly starting out of his head; and when he growled at Mr Toots, who
affected familiarity; and went pell-mell at Towlinson, morally convinced
that he was the enemy whom he had barked at round the corner all his life
and had never seen yet; Florence was as pleased with him as if he had been a
miracle of discretion.
Mr Toots was so overjoyed by the success of his present, and was so
delighted to see Florence bending down over Diogenes, smoothing his coarse
back with her little delicate hand - Diogenes graciously allowing it from
the first moment of their acquaintance - that he felt it difficult to take
leave, and would, no doubt, have been a much longer time in making up his
mind to do so, if he had not been assisted by Diogenes himself, who suddenly
took it into his head to bay Mr Toots, and to make short runs at him with
his mouth open. Not exactly seeing his way to the end of these
demonstrations, and sensible that they placed the pantaloons constructed by
the art of Burgess and Co. in jeopardy, Mr Toots, with chuckles, lapsed out
at the door: by which, after looking in again two or three times, without
any object at all, and being on each occasion greeted with a fresh run from
Diogenes, he finally took himself off and got away.
'Come, then, Di! Dear Di! Make friends with your new mistress. Let us
love each other, Di!'said Florence, fondling his shaggy head. And Di, the
rough and gruff, as if his hairy hide were pervious to the tear that dropped
upon it, and his dog's heart melted as it fell, put his nose up to her face,
and swore fidelity.
Diogenes the man did not speak plainer to Alexander the Great than
Diogenes the dog spoke to Florence.' He subscribed to the offer of his
little mistress cheerfully, and devoted himself to her service. A banquet
was immediately provided for him in a corner; and when he had eaten and
drunk his fill, he went to the window where Florence was sitting, looking
on, rose up on his hind legs, with his awkward fore paws on her shoulders,
licked her face and hands, nestled his great head against her heart, and
wagged his tail till he was tired. Finally, Diogenes coiled himself up at
her feet and went to sleep.
Although Miss Nipper was nervous in regard of dogs, and felt it
necessary to come into the room with her skirts carefully collected about
her, as if she were crossing a brook on stepping-stones; also to utter
little screams and stand up on chairs when Diogenes stretched himself, she
was in her own manner affected by the kindness of Mr Toots, and could not
see Florence so alive to the attachment and society of this rude friend of
little Paul's, without some mental comments thereupon that brought the water
to her eyes. Mr Dombey, as a part of her reflections, may have been, in the
association of ideas, connected with the dog; but, at any rate, after
observing Diogenes and his mistress all the evening, and after exerting
herself with much good-will to provide Diogenes a bed in an ante-chamber
outside his mistress's door, she said hurriedly to Florence, before leaving
her for the night:
'Your Pa's a going off, Miss Floy, tomorrow morning.'
'To-morrow morning, Susan?'
'Yes, Miss; that's the orders. Early.'
'Do you know,' asked Florence, without looking at her, 'where Papa is
going, Susan?'
'Not exactly, Miss. He's going to meet that precious Major first, and I
must say if I was acquainted with any Major myself (which Heavens forbid),
it shouldn't be a blue one!'
'Hush, Susan!' urged Florence gently.
'Well, Miss Floy,' returned Miss Nipper, who was full of burning
indignation, and minded her stops even less than usual. 'I can't help it,
blue he is, and while I was a Christian, although humble, I would have
natural-coloured friends, or none.'
It appeared from what she added and had gleaned downstairs, that Mrs
Chick had proposed the Major for Mr Dombey's companion, and that Mr Dombey,
after some hesitation, had invited him.
'Talk of him being a change, indeed!' observed Miss Nipper to herself
with boundless contempt. 'If he's a change, give me a constancy.
'Good-night, Susan,' said Florence.
'Good-night, my darling dear Miss Floy.'
Her tone of commiseration smote the chord so often roughly touched, but
never listened to while she or anyone looked on. Florence left alone, laid
her head upon her hand, and pressing the other over her swelling heart, held
free communication with her sorrows.
It was a wet night; and the melancholy rain fell pattering and dropping
with a weary sound. A sluggish wind was blowing, and went moaning round the
house, as if it were in pain or grief. A shrill noise quivered through the
trees. While she sat weeping, it grew late, and dreary midnight tolled out
from the steeples.
Florence was little more than a child in years - not yet fourteen- and
the loneliness and gloom of such an hour in the great house where Death had
lately made its own tremendous devastation, might have set an older fancy
brooding on vague terrors. But her innocent imagination was too full of one
theme to admit them. Nothing wandered in her thoughts but love - a wandering
love, indeed, and castaway - but turning always to her father. There was
nothing in the dropping of the rain, the moaning of the wind, the shuddering
of the trees, the striking of the solemn clocks, that shook this one
thought, or diminished its interest' Her recollections of the dear dead boy
- and they were never absent - were itself, the same thing. And oh, to be
shut out: to be so lost: never to have looked into her father's face or
touched him, since that hour!
She could not go to bed, poor child, and never had gone yet, since
then, without making her nightly pilgrimage to his door. It would have been
a strange sad sight, to see her' now, stealing lightly down the stairs
through the thick gloom, and stopping at it with a beating heart, and
blinded eyes, and hair that fell down loosely and unthought of; and touching
it outside with her wet cheek. But the night covered it, and no one knew.
The moment that she touched the door on this night, Florence found that
it was open. For the first time it stood open, though by but a
hair's-breadth: and there was a light within. The first impulse of the timid
child - and she yielded to it - was to retire swiftly. Her next, to go back,
and to enter; and this second impulse held her in irresolution on the
staircase.
In its standing open, even by so much as that chink, there seemed to be
hope. There was encouragement in seeing a ray of light from within, stealing
through the dark stern doorway, and falling in a thread upon the marble
floor. She turned back, hardly knowing what she did, but urged on by the
love within her, and the trial they had undergone together, but not shared:
and with her hands a little raised and trembling, glided in.
Her father sat at his old table in the middle room. He had been
arranging some papers, and destroying others, and the latter lay in fragile
ruins before him. The rain dripped heavily upon the glass panes in the outer
room, where he had so often watched poor Paul, a baby; and the low
complainings of the wind were heard without.
But not by him. He sat with his eyes fixed on the table, so immersed in
thought, that a far heavier tread than the light foot of his child could
make, might have failed to rouse him. His face was turned towards her. By
the waning lamp, and at that haggard hour, it looked worn and dejected; and
in the utter loneliness surrounding him, there was an appeal to Florence
that struck home.
'Papa! Papa! speak to me, dear Papa!'
He started at her voice, and leaped up from his seat. She was close
before him' with extended arms, but he fell back.
'What is the matter?' he said, sternly. 'Why do you come here? What has
frightened you?'
If anything had frightened her, it was the face he turned upon her. The
glowing love within the breast of his young daughter froze before it, and
she stood and looked at him as if stricken into stone.
There was not one touch of tenderness or pity in it. There was not one
gleam of interest, parental recognition, or relenting in it. There was a
change in it, but not of that kind. The old indifference and cold constraint
had given place to something: what, she never thought and did not dare to
think, and yet she felt it in its force, and knew it well without a name:
that as it looked upon her, seemed to cast a shadow on her head.
Did he see before him the successful rival of his son, in health and
life? Did he look upon his own successful rival in that son's affection? Did
a mad jealousy and withered pride, poison sweet remembrances that should