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appellation, Mr Toodle was generally known in the family.
'There again!' said Jemima. 'What a pity! Father took his dinner with
him this morning, and isn't coming home till night. But he's always talking
of you, Polly, and telling the children about you; and is the peaceablest,
patientest, best-temperedest soul in the world, as he always was and will
be!'
'Thankee, Jemima,' cried the simple Polly; delighted by the speech, and
disappointed by the absence.
'Oh you needn't thank me, Polly,' said her sister, giving her a
sounding kiss upon the cheek, and then dancing little Paul cheerfully. 'I
say the same of you sometimes, and think it too.'
In spite of the double disappointment, it was impossible to regard in
the light of a failure a visit which was greeted with such a reception; so
the sisters talked hopefully about family matters, and about Biler, and
about all his brothers and sisters: while the black-eyed, having performed
several journeys to Banbury Cross and back, took sharp note of the
furniture, the Dutch clock, the cupboard, the castle on the mantel-piece
with red and green windows in it, susceptible of illumination by a
candle-end within; and the pair of small black velvet kittens, each with a
lady's reticule in its mouth; regarded by the Staggs's Gardeners as
prodigies of imitative art. The conversation soon becoming general lest the
black-eyed should go off at score and turn sarcastic, that young lady
related to Jemima a summary of everything she knew concerning Mr Dombey, his
prospects, family, pursuits, and character. Also an exact inventory of her
personal wardrobe, and some account of her principal relations and friends.
Having relieved her mind of these disclosures, she partook of shrimps and
porter, and evinced a disposition to swear eternal friendship.
Little Florence herself was not behind-hand in improving the occasion;
for, being conducted forth by the young Toodles to inspect some toad-stools
and other curiosities of the Gardens, she entered with them, heart and soul,
on the formation of a temporary breakwater across a small green pool that
had collected in a corner. She was still busily engaged in that labour, when
sought and found by Susan; who, such was her sense of duty, even under the
humanizing influence of shrimps, delivered a moral address to her
(punctuated with thumps) on her degenerate nature, while washing her face
and hands; and predicted that she would bring the grey hairs of her family
in general, with sorrow to the grave. After some delay, occasioned by a
pretty long confidential interview above stairs on pecuniary subjects,
between Polly and Jemima, an interchange of babies was again effected - for
Polly had all this timeretained her own child, and Jemima little Paul - and
the visitors took leave.
But first the young Toodles, victims of a pious fraud, were deluded
into repairing in a body to a chandler's shop in the neighbourhood, for the
ostensible purpose of spending a penny; and when the coast was quite clear,
Polly fled: Jemima calling after her that if they could only go round
towards the City Road on their way back, they would be sure to meet little
Biler coming from school.
'Do you think that we might make time to go a little round in that
direction, Susan?' inquired Polly, when they halted to take breath.
'Why not, Mrs Richards?' returned Susan.
'It's getting on towards our dinner time you know,' said Polly.
But lunch had rendered her companion more than indifferent to this
grave consideration, so she allowed no weight to it, and they resolved to go
'a little round.'
Now, it happened that poor Biler's life had been, since yesterday
morning, rendered weary by the costume of the Charitable Grinders. The youth
of the streets could not endure it. No young vagabond could be brought to
bear its contemplation for a moment, without throwing himself upon the
unoffending wearer, and doing him a mischief. His social existence had been
more like that of an early Christian, than an innocent child of the
nineteenth century. He had been stoned in the streets. He had been
overthrown into gutters; bespattered with mud; violently flattened against
posts. Entire strangers to his person had lifted his yellow cap off his
head, and cast it to the winds. His legs had not only undergone verbal
criticisms and revilings, but had been handled and pinched. That very
morning, he had received a perfectly unsolicited black eye on his way to the
Grinders' establishment, and had been punished for it by the master: a
superannuated old Grinder of savage disposition, who had been appointed
schoolmaster because he didn't know anything, and wasn't fit for anything,
and for whose cruel cane all chubby little boys had a perfect fascination.'
Thus it fell out that Biler, on his way home, sought unfrequented
paths; and slunk along by narrow passages and back streets, to avoid his
tormentors. Being compelled to emerge into the main road, his ill fortune
brought him at last where a small party of boys, headed by a ferocious young
butcher, were lying in wait for any means of pleasurable excitement that
might happen. These, finding a Charitable Grinder in the midst of them -
unaccountably delivered over, as it were, into their hands - set up a
general yell and rushed upon him.
But it so fell out likewise, that, at the same time, Polly, looking
hopelessly along the road before her, after a good hour's walk, had said it
was no use going any further, when suddenly she saw this sight. She no
sooner saw it than, uttering a hasty exclamation, and giving Master Dombey
to the black-eyed, she started to the rescue of her unhappy little son.
Surprises, like misfortunes, rarely come alone. The astonished Susan
Nipper and her two young charges were rescued by the bystanders from under
the very wheels of a passing carriage before they knew what had happened;
and at that moment (it was market day) a thundering alarm of 'Mad Bull!' was
raised.
With a wild confusion before her, of people running up and down, and
shouting, and wheels running over them, and boys fighting, and mad bulls
coming up, and the nurse in the midst of all these dangers being torn to
pieces, Florence screamed and ran. She ran till she was exhausted, urging
Susan to do the same; and then, stopping and wringing her hands as she
remembered they had left the other nurse behind, found, with a sensation of
terror not to be described, that she was quite alone.
'Susan! Susan!' cried Florence, clapping her hands in the very ecstasy
of her alarm. 'Oh, where are they? where are they?'
'Where are they?' said an old woman, coming hobbling across as fast as
she could from the opposite side of the way. 'Why did you run away from
'em?'
'I was frightened,' answered Florence. 'I didn't know what I did. I
thought they were with me. Where are they?'
The old woman took her by the wrist, and said, 'I'll show you.'
She was a very ugly old woman, with red rims round her eyes, and a
mouth that mumbled and chattered of itself when she was not speaking. She
was miserably dressed, and carried some skins over her arm. She seemed to
have followed Florence some little way at all events, for she had lost her
breath; and this made her uglier still, as she stood trying to regain it:
working her shrivelled yellow face and throat into all sorts of contortions.
Florence was afraid of her, and looked, hesitating, up the street, of
which she had almost reached the bottom. It was a solitary place - more a
back road than a street - and there was no one in it but her- self and the
old woman.
'You needn't be frightened now,' said the old woman, still holding her
tight. 'Come along with me.'
'I - I don't know you. What's your name?' asked Florence.
'Mrs Brown,' said the old woman. 'Good Mrs Brown.'
'Are they near here?' asked Florence, beginning to be led away.
'Susan ain't far off,' said Good Mrs Brown; 'and the others are close
to her.'
'Is anybody hurt?' cried Florence.
'Not a bit of it,' said Good Mrs Brown.
The child shed tears of delight on hearing this, and accompanied the
old woman willingly; though she could not help glancing at her face as they
went along - particularly at that industrious mouth - and wondering whether
Bad Mrs Brown, if there were such a person, was at all like her.
They had not gone far, but had gone by some very uncomfortable places,
such as brick-fields and tile-yards, when the old woman turned down a dirty
lane, where the mud lay in deep black ruts in the middle of the road. She
stopped before a shabby little house, as closely shut up as a house that was
full of cracks and crevices could be. Opening the door with a key she took
out of her bonnet, she pushed the child before her into a back room, where
there was a great heap of rags of different colours lying on the floor; a
heap of bones, and a heap of sifted dust or cinders; but there was no
furniture at all, and the walls and ceiling were quite black.
The child became so terrified the she was stricken speechless, and
looked as though about to swoon.
'Now don't be a young mule,' said Good Mrs Brown, reviving her with a
shake. 'I'm not a going to hurt you. Sit upon the rags.'
Florence obeyed her, holding out her folded hands, in mute
supplication.
'I'm not a going to keep you, even, above an hour,' said Mrs Brown.
'D'ye understand what I say?'
The child answered with great difficulty, 'Yes.'
'Then,' said Good Mrs Brown, taking her own seat on the bones, 'don't
vex me. If you don't, I tell you I won't hurt you. But if you do, I'll kill
you. I could have you killed at any time - even if you was in your own bed
at home. Now let's know who you are, and what you are, and all about it.'
The old woman's threats and promises; the dread of giving her offence;
and the habit, unusual to a child, but almost natural to Florence now, of
being quiet, and repressing what she felt, and feared, and hoped; enabled
her to do this bidding, and to tell her little history, or what she knew of
it. Mrs Brown listened attentively, until she had finished.
'So your name's Dombey, eh?' said Mrs Brown.
'I want that pretty frock, Miss Dombey,' said Good Mrs Brown, 'and that
little bonnet, and a petticoat or two, and anything else you can spare.
Come! Take 'em off.'
Florence obeyed, as fast as her trembling hands would allow; keeping,
all the while, a frightened eye on Mrs Brown. When she had divested herself
of all the articles of apparel mentioned by that lady, Mrs B. examined them
at leisure, and seemed tolerably well satisfied with their quality and
value.
'Humph!' she said, running her eyes over the child's slight figure, 'I
don't see anything else - except the shoes. I must have the shoes, Miss
Dombey.'
Poor little Florence took them off with equal alacrity, only too glad
to have any more means of conciliation about her. The old woman then
produced some wretched substitutes from the bottom of the heap of rags,
which she turned up for that purpose; together with a girl's cloak, quite
worn out and very old; and the crushed remains of a bonnet that had probably
been picked up from some ditch or dunghill. In this dainty raiment, she
instructed Florence to dress herself; and as such preparation seemed a
prelude to her release, the child complied with increased readiness, if
possible.
In hurriedly putting on the bonnet, if that may be called a bonnet
which was more like a pad to carry loads on, she caught it in her hair which
grew luxuriantly, and could not immediately disentangle it. Good Mrs Brown
whipped out a large pair of scissors, and fell into an unaccountable state
of excitement.
'Why couldn't you let me be!' said Mrs Brown, 'when I was contented?
You little fool!'
'I beg your pardon. I don't know what I have done,' panted Florence. 'I
couldn't help it.'
'Couldn't help it!' cried Mrs Brown. 'How do you expect I can help it?
Why, Lord!' said the old woman, ruffling her curls with a furious pleasure,
'anybody but me would have had 'em off, first of all.' Florence was so
relieved to find that it was only her hair and not her head which Mrs Brown
coveted, that she offered no resistance or entreaty, and merely raised her
mild eyes towards the face of that good soul.
'If I hadn't once had a gal of my own - beyond seas now- that was proud
of her hair,' said Mrs Brown, 'I'd have had every lock of it. She's far
away, she's far away! Oho! Oho!'
Mrs Brown's was not a melodious cry, but, accompanied with a wild
tossing up of her lean arms, it was full of passionate grief, and thrilled
to the heart of Florence, whom it frightened more than ever. It had its
part, perhaps, in saving her curls; for Mrs Brown, after hovering about her
with the scissors for some moments, like a new kind of butterfly, bade her
hide them under the bonnet and let no trace of them escape to tempt her.
Having accomplished this victory over herself, Mrs Brown resumed her seat on
the bones, and smoked a very short black pipe, mowing and mumbling all the
time, as if she were eating the stem.
When the pipe was smoked out, she gave the child a rabbit-skin to
carry, that she might appear the more like her ordinary companion, and told
her that she was now going to lead her to a public street whence she could
inquire her way to her friends. But she cautioned her, with threats of
summary and deadly vengeance in case of disobedience, not to talk to
strangers, nor to repair to her own home (which may have been too near for
Mrs Brown's convenience), but to her father's office in the City; also to
wait at the street corner where she would be left, until the clock struck
three. These directions Mrs Brown enforced with assurances that there would
be potent eyes and ears in her employment cognizant of all she did; and
these directions Florence promised faithfully and earnestly to observe.
At length, Mrs Brown, issuing forth, conducted her changed and ragged
little friend through a labyrinth of narrow streets and lanes and alleys,
which emerged, after a long time, upon a stable yard, with a gateway at the
end, whence the roar of a great thoroughfare made itself audible. Pointing
out this gateway, and informing Florence that when the clocks struck three
she was to go to the left, Mrs Brown, after making a parting grasp at her
hair which seemed involuntary and quite beyond her own control, told her she
knew what to do, and bade her go and do it: remembering that she was
watched.
With a lighter heart, but still sore afraid, Florence felt herself
released, and tripped off to the corner. When she reached it, she looked
back and saw the head of Good Mrs Brown peeping out of the low wooden
passage, where she had issued her parting injunctions; likewise the fist of
Good Mrs Brown shaking towards her. But though she often looked back
afterwards - every minute, at least, in her nervous recollection of the old
woman - she could not see her again.
Florence remained there, looking at the bustle in the street, and more
and more bewildered by it; and in the meanwhile the clocks appeared to have
made up their minds never to strike three any more. At last the steeples
rang out three o'clock; there was one close by, so she couldn't be mistaken;
and - after often looking over her shoulder, and often going a little way,
and as often coming back again, lest the all-powerful spies of Mrs Brown
should take offence - she hurried off, as fast as she could in her slipshod
shoes, holding the rabbit-skin tight in her hand.
All she knew of her father's offices was that they belonged to Dombey
and Son, and that that was a great power belonging to the City. So she could
only ask the way to Dombey and Son's in the City; and as she generally made
inquiry of children - being afraid to ask grown people - she got very little
satisfaction indeed. But by dint of asking her way to the City after a
while, and dropping the rest of her inquiry for the present, she really did
advance, by slow degrees, towards the heart of that great region which is
governed by the terrible Lord Mayor.
Tired of walking, repulsed and pushed about, stunned by the noise and
confusion, anxious for her brother and the nurses, terrified by what she had
undergone, and the prospect of encountering her angry father in such an
altered state; perplexed and frightened alike by what had passed, and what
was passing, and what was yet before her; Florence went upon her weary way
with tearful eyes, and once or twice could not help stopping to ease her
bursting heart by crying bitterly. But few people noticed her at those
times, in the garb she wore: or if they did, believed that she was tutored
to excite compassion, and passed on. Florence, too, called to her aid all
the firmness and self-reliance of a character that her sad experience had
prematurely formed and tried: and keeping the end she had in view steadily
before her, steadily pursued it.
It was full two hours later in the afternoon than when she had started
on this strange adventure, when, escaping from the clash and clangour of a
narrow street full of carts and waggons, she peeped into a kind of wharf or
landing-place upon the river-side, where there were a great many packages,
casks, and boxes, strewn about; a large pair of wooden scales; and a little
wooden house on wheels, outside of which, looking at the neighbouring masts
and boats, a stout man stood whistling, with his pen behind his ear, and his
hands in his pockets, as if his day's work were nearly done.
'Now then! 'said this man, happening to turn round. 'We haven't got
anything for you, little girl. Be off!'
'If you please, is this the City?' asked the trembling daughter of the
Dombeys.
'Ah! It's the City. You know that well enough, I daresay. Be off! We
haven't got anything for you.'
'I don't want anything, thank you,' was the timid answer. 'Except to
know the way to Dombey and Son's.'
The man who had been strolling carelessly towards her, seemed surprised
by this reply, and looking attentively in her face, rejoined:
'Why, what can you want with Dombey and Son's?'
'To know the way there, if you please.'
The man looked at her yet more curiously, and rubbed the back of his
head so hard in his wonderment that he knocked his own hat off.
'Joe!' he called to another man - a labourer- as he picked it up and
put it on again.
'Joe it is!' said Joe.
'Where's that young spark of Dombey's who's been watching the shipment
of them goods?'
'Just gone, by t'other gate,' said Joe.
'Call him back a minute.'
Joe ran up an archway, bawling as he went, and very soon returned
with a blithe-looking boy.
'You're Dombey's jockey, ain't you?' said the first man.
'I'm in Dombey's House, Mr Clark,' returned the boy.
'Look'ye here, then,' said Mr Clark.
Obedient to the indication of Mr Clark's hand, the boy approached
towards Florence, wondering, as well he might, what he had to do with her.
But she, who had heard what passed, and who, besides the relief of so
suddenly considering herself safe at her journey's end, felt reassured
beyond all measure by his lively youthful face and manner, ran eagerly up to
him, leaving one of the slipshod shoes upon the ground and caught his hand
in both of hers.
'I am lost, if you please!' said Florence.
'Lost!' cried the boy.
'Yes, I was lost this morning, a long way from here - and I have had my
clothes taken away, since - and I am not dressed in my own now - and my name
is Florence Dombey, my little brother's only sister - and, oh dear, dear,
take care of me, if you please!' sobbed Florence, giving full vent to the
childish feelings she had so long suppressed, and bursting into tears. At
the same time her miserable bonnet falling off, her hair came tumbling down
about her face: moving to speechless admiration and commiseration, young
Walter, nephew of Solomon Gills, Ships' Instrument-maker in general.
Mr Clark stood rapt in amazement: observing under his breath, I never
saw such a start on this wharf before. Walter picked up the shoe, and put it
on the little foot as the Prince in the story might have fitted Cinderella's
slipper on. He hung the rabbit-skin over his left arm; gave the right to
Florence; and felt, not to say like Richard Whittington - that is a tame
comparison - but like Saint George of England, with the dragon lying dead
before him.
'Don't cry, Miss Dombey,' said Walter, in a transport of
enthusiasm.
'What a wonderful thing for me that I am here! You are as safe now as
if you were guarded by a whole boat's crew of picked men from a man-of-war.
Oh, don't cry.'
'I won't cry any more,' said Florence. 'I am only crying for joy.'
'Crying for joy!' thought Walter, 'and I'm the cause of it! Come along,
Miss Dombey. There's the other shoe off now! Take mine, Miss Dombey.'
'No, no, no,' said Florence, checking him in the act of impetuously
pulling off his own. 'These do better. These do very well.'
'Why, to be sure,' said Walter, glancing at her foot, 'mine are a mile
too large. What am I thinking about! You never could walk in mine! Come
along, Miss Dombey. Let me see the villain who will dare molest you now.'
So Walter, looking immensely fierce, led off Florence, looking very
happy; and they went arm-in-arm along the streets, perfectly indifferent to
any astonishment that their appearance might or did excite by the way.
It was growing dark and foggy, and beginning to rain too; but they
cared nothing for this: being both wholly absorbed in the late adventures of
Florence, which she related with the innocent good faith and confidence of
her years, while Walter listened as if, far from the mud and grease of
Thames Street, they were rambling alone among the broad leaves and tall
trees of some desert island in the tropics - as he very likely fancied, for
the time, they were.
'Have we far to go?' asked Florence at last, lilting up her eyes to her
companion's face.
'Ah! By-the-bye,' said Walter, stopping, 'let me see; where are we? Oh!
I know. But the offices are shut up now, Miss Dombey. There's nobody there.
Mr Dombey has gone home long ago. I suppose we must go home too? or, stay.
Suppose I take you to my Uncle's, where I live - it's very near here - and
go to your house in a coach to tell them you are safe, and bring you back
some clothes. Won't that be best?'
'I think so,' answered Florence. 'Don't you? What do you think?'
As they stood deliberating in the street, a man passed them, who
glanced quickly at Walter as he went by, as if he recognised him; but
seeming to correct that first impression, he passed on without stopping.
'Why, I think it's Mr Carker,' said Walter. 'Carker in our House. Not
Carker our Manager, Miss Dombey - the other Carker; the Junior - Halloa! Mr
Carker!'
'Is that Walter Gay?' said the other, stopping and returning. 'I
couldn't believe it, with such a strange companion.
As he stood near a lamp, listening with surprise to Walter's hurried
explanation, he presented a remarkable contrast to the two youthful figures
arm-in-arm before him. He was not old, but his hair was white; his body was
bent, or bowed as if by the weight of some great trouble: and there were
deep lines in his worn and melancholy face. The fire of his eyes, the
expression of his features, the very voice in which he spoke, were all
subdued and quenched, as if the spirit within him lay in ashes. He was
respectably, though very plainly dressed, in black; but his clothes, moulded
to the general character of his figure, seemed to shrink and abase
themselves upon him, and to join in the sorrowful solicitation which the
whole man from head to foot expressed, to be left unnoticed, and alone in
his humility.
And yet his interest in youth and hopefulness was not extinguished with
the other embers of his soul, for he watched the boy's earnest countenance
as he spoke with unusual sympathy, though with an inexplicable show of
trouble and compassion, which escaped into his looks, however hard he strove
to hold it prisoner. When Walter, in conclusion, put to him the question he
had put to Florence, he still stood glancing at him with the same
expression, as if he had read some fate upon his face, mournfully at
variance with its present brightness.
'What do you advise, Mr Carker?' said Walter, smiling. 'You always give
me good advice, you know, when you do speak to me. That's not often,
though.'
'I think your own idea is the best,' he answered: looking from Florence
to Walter, and back again.
'Mr Carker,' said Walter, brightening with a generous thought, 'Come!
Here's a chance for you. Go you to Mr Dombey's, and be the messenger of good
news. It may do you some good, Sir. I'll remain at home. You shall go.'
'I!' returned the other.
'Yes. Why not, Mr Carker?' said the boy.
He merely shook him by the hand in answer; he seemed in a manner
ashamed and afraid even to do that; and bidding him good-night, and advising
him to make haste, turned away.
'Come, Miss Dombey,' said Walter, looking after him as they turned away
also, 'we'll go to my Uncle's as quick as we can. Did you ever hear Mr
Dombey speak of Mr Carker the Junior, Miss Florence?'
'No,' returned the child, mildly, 'I don't often hear Papa speak.'
'Ah! true! more shame for him,' thought Walter. After a minute's pause,
during which he had been looking down upon the gentle patient little face
moving on at his side, he said, 'The strangest man, Mr Carker the Junior is,
Miss Florence, that ever you heard of. If you could understand what an
extraordinary interest he takes in me, and yet how he shuns me and avoids
me; and what a low place he holds in our office, and how he is never
advanced, and never complains, though year after year he sees young men
passed over his head, and though his brother (younger than he is), is our
head Manager, you would be as much puzzled about him as I am.'
As Florence could hardly be expected to understand much about it,
Walter bestirred himself with his accustomed boyish animation and
restlessness to change the subject; and one of the unfortunate shoes coming
off again opportunely, proposed to carry Florence to his uncle's in his
arms. Florence, though very tired, laughingly declined the proposal, lest he
should let her fall; and as they were already near the wooden Midshipman,
and as Walter went on to cite various precedents, from shipwrecks and other
moving accidents, where younger boys than he had triumphantly rescued and
carried off older girls than Florence, they were still in full conversation
about it when they arrived at the Instrument-maker's door.
'Holloa, Uncle Sol!' cried Walter, bursting into the shop, and speaking
incoherently and out of breath, from that time forth, for the rest of the
evening. 'Here's a wonderful adventure! Here's Mr Dombey's daughter lost in
the streets, and robbed of her clothes by an old witch of a woman - found by
me - brought home to our parlour to rest - look here!'
'Good Heaven!' said Uncle Sol, starting back against his favourite
compass-case. 'It can't be! Well, I - '
'No, nor anybody else,' said Walter, anticipating the rest. 'Nobody
would, nobody could, you know. Here! just help me lift the little sofa near
the fire, will you, Uncle Sol - take care of the plates - cut some dinner
for her, will you, Uncle - throw those shoes under the grate. Miss Florence
- put your feet on the fender to dry - how damp they are - here's an
adventure, Uncle, eh? - God bless my soul, how hot I am!'
Solomon Gills was quite as hot, by sympathy, and in excessive
bewilderment. He patted Florence's head, pressed her to eat, pressed her to
drink, rubbed the soles of her feet with his pocket-handkerchief heated at
the fire, followed his locomotive nephew with his eyes, and ears, and had no
clear perception of anything except that he was being constantly knocked
against and tumbled over by that excited young gentleman, as he darted about
the room attempting to accomplish twenty things at once, and doing nothing
at all.
'Here, wait a minute, Uncle,' he continued, catching up a candle, 'till
I run upstairs, and get another jacket on, and then I'll be off. I say,
Uncle, isn't this an adventure?'
'My dear boy,' said Solomon, who, with his spectacles on his forehead
and the great chronometer in his pocket, was incessantly oscillating between
Florence on the sofa, and his nephew in all parts of the parlour, 'it's the
most extraordinary - '
'No, but do, Uncle, please - do, Miss Florence - dinner, you know,
Uncle.'
'Yes, yes, yes,' cried Solomon, cutting instantly into a leg of mutton,
as if he were catering for a giant. 'I'll take care of her, Wally! I
understand. Pretty dear! Famished, of course. You go and get ready. Lord
bless me! Sir Richard Whittington thrice Lord Mayor of London.'
Walter was not very long in mounting to his lofty garret and descending
from it, but in the meantime Florence, overcome by fatigue, had sunk into a
doze before the fire. The short interval of quiet, though only a few minutes
in duration, enabled Solomon Gills so far to collect his wits as to make
some little arrangements for her comfort, and to darken the room, and to
screen her from the blaze. Thus, when the boy returned, she was sleeping
peacefully.
'That's capital!' he whispered, giving Solomon such a hug that it
squeezed a new expression into his face. 'Now I'm off. I'll just take a
crust of bread with me, for I'm very hungry - and don't wake her, Uncle
Sol.'
'No, no,' said Solomon. 'Pretty child.'
'Pretty, indeed!' cried Walter. 'I never saw such a face, Uncle Sol.
Now I'm off.'
'That's right,' said Solomon, greatly relieved.
'I say, Uncle Sol,' cried Walter, putting his face in at the door.
'Here he is again,' said Solomon.
'How does she look now?'
'Quite happy,' said Solomon.
'That's famous! now I'm off.'
'I hope you are,' said Solomon to himself.
'I say, Uncle Sol,' cried Walter, reappearing at the door.
'Here he is again!' said Solomon.
'We met Mr Carker the Junior in the street, queerer than ever. He bade
me good-bye, but came behind us here - there's an odd thing! - for when we
reached the shop door, I looked round, and saw him going quietly away, like
a servant who had seen me home, or a faithful dog. How does she look now,
Uncle?'
'Pretty much the same as before, Wally,' replied Uncle Sol.
'That's right. Now I am off!'
And this time he really was: and Solomon Gills, with no appetite for
dinner, sat on the opposite side of the fire, watching Florence in her
slumber, building a great many airy castles of the most fantastic
architecture; and looking, in the dim shade, and in the close vicinity of
all the instruments, like a magician disguised in a Welsh wig and a suit of
coffee colour, who held the child in an enchanted sleep.
In the meantime, Walter proceeded towards Mr Dombey's house at a pace
seldom achieved by a hack horse from the stand; and yet with his head out of
window every two or three minutes, in impatient remonstrance with the
driver. Arriving at his journey's end, he leaped out, and breathlessly
announcing his errand to the servant, followed him straight into the
library, we there was a great confusion of tongues, and where Mr Dombey, his
sister, and Miss Tox, Richards, and Nipper, were all congregated together.
'Oh! I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Walter, rushing up to him, 'but I'm
happy to say it's all right, Sir. Miss Dombey's found!'
The boy with his open face, and flowing hair, and sparkling eyes,
panting with pleasure and excitement, was wonderfully opposed to Mr Dombey,
as he sat confronting him in his library chair.
'I told you, Louisa, that she would certainly be found,' said Mr
Dombey, looking slightly over his shoulder at that lady, who wept in company
with Miss Tox. 'Let the servants know that no further steps are necessary.
This boy who brings the information, is young Gay, from the office. How was
my daughter found, Sir? I know how she was lost.' Here he looked
majestically at Richards. 'But how was she found? Who found her?'
'Why, I believe I found Miss Dombey, Sir,' said Walter modestly, 'at
least I don't know that I can claim the merit of having exactly found her,
Sir, but I was the fortunate instrument of - '
'What do you mean, Sir,' interrupted Mr Dombey, regarding the boy's
evident pride and pleasure in his share of the transaction with an
instinctive dislike, 'by not having exactly found my daughter, and by being
a fortunate instrument? Be plain and coherent, if you please.'
It was quite out of Walter's power to be coherent; but he rendered
himself as explanatory as he could, in his breathless state, and stated why
he had come alone.
'You hear this, girl?' said Mr Dombey sternly to the black-eyed. 'Take
what is necessary, and return immediately with this young man to fetch Miss
Florence home. Gay, you will be rewarded to-morrow.
'Oh! thank you, Sir,' said Walter. 'You are very kind. I'm sure I was
not thinking of any reward, Sir.'
'You are a boy,' said Mr Dombey, suddenly and almost fiercely; 'and
what you think of, or affect to think of, is of little consequence. You have
done well, Sir. Don't undo it. Louisa, please to give the lad some wine.'
Mr Dombey's glance followed Walter Gay with sharp disfavour, as he left
the room under the pilotage of Mrs Chick; and it may be that his mind's eye
followed him with no greater relish, as he rode back to his Uncle's with
Miss Susan Nipper.
There they found that Florence, much refreshed by sleep, had dined, and
greatly improved the acquaintance of Solomon Gills, with whom she was on
terms of perfect confidence and ease. The black-eyed (who had cried so much
that she might now be called the red-eyed, and who was very silent and
depressed) caught her in her arms without a word of contradiction or
reproach, and made a very hysterical meeting of it. Then converting the
parlour, for the nonce, into a private tiring room, she dressed her, with
great care, in proper clothes; and presently led her forth, as like a Dombey
as her natural disqualifications admitted of her being made.
'Good-night!' said Florence, running up to Solomon. 'You have been very
good to me.
Old Sol was quite delighted, and kissed her like her grand-father.
'Good-night, Walter! Good-bye!' said Florence.
'Good-bye!' said Walter, giving both his hands.
'I'll never forget you,' pursued Florence. 'No! indeed I never will.
Good-bye, Walter!' In the innocence of her grateful heart, the child lifted
up her face to his. Walter, bending down his own, raised it again, all red
and burning; and looked at Uncle Sol, quite sheepishly.
'Where's Walter?' 'Good-night, Walter!' 'Good-bye, Walter!' 'Shake
hands once more, Walter!' This was still Florence's cry, after she was shut
up with her little maid, in the coach. And when the coach at length moved
off, Walter on the door-step gaily turned the waving of her handkerchief,
while the wooden Midshipman behind him seemed, like himself, intent upon
that coach alone, excluding all the other passing coaches from his
observation.
In good time Mr Dombey's mansion was gained again, and again there was
a noise of tongues in the library. Again, too, the coach was ordered to wait
- 'for Mrs Richards,' one of Susan's fellow-servants ominously whispered, as
she passed with Florence.
The entrance of the lost child made a slight sensation, but not much.
Mr Dombey, who had never found her, kissed her once upon the forehead, and
cautioned her not to run away again, or wander anywhere with treacherous
attendants. Mrs Chick stopped in her lamentations on the corruption of human
nature, even when beckoned to the paths of virtue by a Charitable Grinder;
and received her with a welcome something short of the reception due to none
but perfect Dombeys. Miss Tox regulated her feelings by the models before
her. Richards, the culprit Richards, alone poured out her heart in broken
words of welcome, and bowed herself over the little wandering head as if she
really loved it.
'Ah, Richards!' said Mrs Chick, with a sigh. 'It would have been much
more satisfactory to those who wish to think well of their fellow creatures,
and much more becoming in you, if you had shown some proper feeling, in
time, for the little child that is now going to be prematurely deprived of
its natural nourishment.
'Cut off,' said Miss Tox, in a plaintive whisper, 'from one common
fountain!'
'If it was ungrateful case,' said Mrs Chick, solemnly, 'and I had your
reflections, Richards, I should feel as if the Charitable Grinders' dress
would blight my child, and the education choke him.'
For the matter of that - but Mrs Chick didn't know it - he had been
pretty well blighted by the dress already; and as to the education, even its
retributive effect might be produced in time, for it was a storm of sobs and
blows.
'Louisa!' said Mr Dombey. 'It is not necessary to prolong these
observations. The woman is discharged and paid. You leave this house,
Richards, for taking my son - my son,' said Mr Dombey, emphatically
repeating these two words, 'into haunts and into society which are not to be
thought of without a shudder. As to the accident which befel Miss Florence
this morning, I regard that as, in one great sense, a happy and fortunate
circumstance; inasmuch as, but for that occurrence, I never could have known
- and from your own lips too - of what you had been guilty. I think, Louisa,
the other nurse, the young person,' here Miss Nipper sobbed aloud, 'being so
much younger, and necessarily influenced by Paul's nurse, may remain. Have
the goodness to direct that this woman's coach is paid to' - Mr Dombey
stopped and winced - 'to Staggs's Gardens.'
Polly moved towards the door, with Florence holding to her dress, and
crying to her in the most pathetic manner not to go away. It was a dagger in
the haughty father's heart, an arrow in his brain, to see how the flesh and
blood he could not disown clung to this obscure stranger, and he sitting by.
Not that he cared to whom his daughter turned, or from whom turned away. The
swift sharp agony struck through him, as he thought of what his son might
do.
His son cried lustily that night, at all events. Sooth to say, poor
Paul had better reason for his tears than sons of that age often have, for
he had lost his second mother - his first, so far as he knew - by a stroke
as sudden as that natural affliction which had darkened the beginning of his
life. At the same blow, his sister too, who cried herself to sleep so
mournfully, had lost as good and true a friend. But that is quite beside the
question. Let us waste no words about it.
A Bird's-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox's Dwelling-place: also of the State of
Miss Tox's Affections
Miss Tox inhabited a dark little house that had been squeezed, at some
remote period of English History, into a fashionable neighbourhood at the
west end of the town, where it stood in the shade like a poor relation of
the great street round the corner, coldly looked down upon by mighty
mansions. It was not exactly in a court, and it was not exactly in a yard;
but it was in the dullest of No-Thoroughfares, rendered anxious and haggard
by distant double knocks. The name of this retirement, where grass grew
between the chinks in the stone pavement, was Princess's Place; and in
Princess's Place was Princess's Chapel, with a tinkling bell, where
sometimes as many as five-and-twenty people attended service on a Sunday.
The Princess's Arms was also there, and much resorted to by splendid
footmen. A sedan chair was kept inside the railing before the Princess's
Arms, but it had never come out within the memory of man; and on fine
mornings, the top of every rail (there were eight-and-forty, as Miss Tox had
often counted) was decorated with a pewter-pot.
There was another private house besides Miss Tox's in Princess's Place:
not to mention an immense Pair of gates, with an immense pair of lion-headed
knockers on them, which were never opened by any chance, and were supposed
to constitute a disused entrance to somebody's stables. Indeed, there was a
smack of stabling in the air of Princess's Place; and Miss Tox's bedroom
(which was at the back) commanded a vista of Mews, where hostlers, at
whatever sort of work engaged, were continually accompanying themselves with
effervescent noises; and where the most domestic and confidential garments
of coachmen and their wives and families, usually hung, like Macbeth's
banners, on the outward walls.'
At this other private house in Princess's Place, tenanted by a retired
butler who had married a housekeeper, apartments were let Furnished, to a
single gentleman: to wit, a wooden-featured, blue-faced Major, with his eyes
starting out of his head, in whom Miss Tox recognised, as she herself
expressed it, 'something so truly military;' and between whom and herself,
an occasional interchange of newspapers and pamphlets, and such Platonic
dalliance, was effected through the medium of a dark servant of the Major's
who Miss Tox was quite content to classify as a 'native,' without connecting
him with any geographical idea whatever.
Perhaps there never was a smaller entry and staircase, than the entry
and staircase of Miss Tox's house. Perhaps, taken altogether, from top to
bottom, it was the most inconvenient little house in England, and the
crookedest; but then, Miss Tox said, what a situation! There was very little
daylight to be got there in the winter: no sun at the best of times: air was
out of the question, and traffic was walled out. Still Miss Tox said, think
of the situation! So said the blue-faced Major, whose eyes were starting out
of his head: who gloried in Princess's Place: and who delighted to turn the
conversation at his club, whenever he could, to something connected with
some of the great people in the great street round the corner, that he might
have the satisfaction of saying they were his neighbours.
In short, with Miss Tox and the blue-faced Major, it was enough for
Princess's Place - as with a very small fragment of society, it is enough
for many a little hanger-on of another sort - to be well connected, and to
have genteel blood in its veins. It might be poor, mean, shabby, stupid,
dull. No matter. The great street round the corner trailed off into
Princess's Place; and that which of High Holborn would have become a
choleric word, spoken of Princess's Place became flat blasphemy.
The dingy tenement inhabited by Miss Tox was her own; having been
devised and bequeathed to her by the deceased owner of the fishy eye in the
locket, of whom a miniature portrait, with a powdered head and a pigtail,
balanced the kettle-holder on opposite sides of the parlour fireplace. The
greater part of the furniture was of the powdered-head and pig-tail period:
comprising a plate-warmer, always languishing and sprawling its four
attenuated bow legs in somebody's way; and an obsolete harpsichord,
illuminated round the maker's name with a painted garland of sweet peas. In
any part of the house, visitors were usually cognizant of a prevailing
mustiness; and in warm weather Miss Tox had been seen apparently writing in
sundry chinks and crevices of the wainscoat with the the wrong end of a pen
dipped in spirits of turpentine.
Although Major Bagstock had arrived at what is called in polite
literature, the grand meridian of life, and was proceeding on his journey
downhill with hardly any throat, and a very rigid pair of jaw-bones, and
long-flapped elephantine ears, and his eyes and complexion in the state of
artificial excitement already mentioned, he was mightily proud of awakening
an interest in Miss Tox, and tickled his vanity with the fiction that she
was a splendid woman who had her eye on him. This he had several times
hinted at the club: in connexion with little jocularities, of which old Joe
Bagstock, old Joey Bagstock, old J. Bagstock, old Josh Bagstock, or so
forth, was the perpetual theme: it being, as it were, the Major's stronghold
'There again!' said Jemima. 'What a pity! Father took his dinner with
him this morning, and isn't coming home till night. But he's always talking
of you, Polly, and telling the children about you; and is the peaceablest,
patientest, best-temperedest soul in the world, as he always was and will
be!'
'Thankee, Jemima,' cried the simple Polly; delighted by the speech, and
disappointed by the absence.
'Oh you needn't thank me, Polly,' said her sister, giving her a
sounding kiss upon the cheek, and then dancing little Paul cheerfully. 'I
say the same of you sometimes, and think it too.'
In spite of the double disappointment, it was impossible to regard in
the light of a failure a visit which was greeted with such a reception; so
the sisters talked hopefully about family matters, and about Biler, and
about all his brothers and sisters: while the black-eyed, having performed
several journeys to Banbury Cross and back, took sharp note of the
furniture, the Dutch clock, the cupboard, the castle on the mantel-piece
with red and green windows in it, susceptible of illumination by a
candle-end within; and the pair of small black velvet kittens, each with a
lady's reticule in its mouth; regarded by the Staggs's Gardeners as
prodigies of imitative art. The conversation soon becoming general lest the
black-eyed should go off at score and turn sarcastic, that young lady
related to Jemima a summary of everything she knew concerning Mr Dombey, his
prospects, family, pursuits, and character. Also an exact inventory of her
personal wardrobe, and some account of her principal relations and friends.
Having relieved her mind of these disclosures, she partook of shrimps and
porter, and evinced a disposition to swear eternal friendship.
Little Florence herself was not behind-hand in improving the occasion;
for, being conducted forth by the young Toodles to inspect some toad-stools
and other curiosities of the Gardens, she entered with them, heart and soul,
on the formation of a temporary breakwater across a small green pool that
had collected in a corner. She was still busily engaged in that labour, when
sought and found by Susan; who, such was her sense of duty, even under the
humanizing influence of shrimps, delivered a moral address to her
(punctuated with thumps) on her degenerate nature, while washing her face
and hands; and predicted that she would bring the grey hairs of her family
in general, with sorrow to the grave. After some delay, occasioned by a
pretty long confidential interview above stairs on pecuniary subjects,
between Polly and Jemima, an interchange of babies was again effected - for
Polly had all this timeretained her own child, and Jemima little Paul - and
the visitors took leave.
But first the young Toodles, victims of a pious fraud, were deluded
into repairing in a body to a chandler's shop in the neighbourhood, for the
ostensible purpose of spending a penny; and when the coast was quite clear,
Polly fled: Jemima calling after her that if they could only go round
towards the City Road on their way back, they would be sure to meet little
Biler coming from school.
'Do you think that we might make time to go a little round in that
direction, Susan?' inquired Polly, when they halted to take breath.
'Why not, Mrs Richards?' returned Susan.
'It's getting on towards our dinner time you know,' said Polly.
But lunch had rendered her companion more than indifferent to this
grave consideration, so she allowed no weight to it, and they resolved to go
'a little round.'
Now, it happened that poor Biler's life had been, since yesterday
morning, rendered weary by the costume of the Charitable Grinders. The youth
of the streets could not endure it. No young vagabond could be brought to
bear its contemplation for a moment, without throwing himself upon the
unoffending wearer, and doing him a mischief. His social existence had been
more like that of an early Christian, than an innocent child of the
nineteenth century. He had been stoned in the streets. He had been
overthrown into gutters; bespattered with mud; violently flattened against
posts. Entire strangers to his person had lifted his yellow cap off his
head, and cast it to the winds. His legs had not only undergone verbal
criticisms and revilings, but had been handled and pinched. That very
morning, he had received a perfectly unsolicited black eye on his way to the
Grinders' establishment, and had been punished for it by the master: a
superannuated old Grinder of savage disposition, who had been appointed
schoolmaster because he didn't know anything, and wasn't fit for anything,
and for whose cruel cane all chubby little boys had a perfect fascination.'
Thus it fell out that Biler, on his way home, sought unfrequented
paths; and slunk along by narrow passages and back streets, to avoid his
tormentors. Being compelled to emerge into the main road, his ill fortune
brought him at last where a small party of boys, headed by a ferocious young
butcher, were lying in wait for any means of pleasurable excitement that
might happen. These, finding a Charitable Grinder in the midst of them -
unaccountably delivered over, as it were, into their hands - set up a
general yell and rushed upon him.
But it so fell out likewise, that, at the same time, Polly, looking
hopelessly along the road before her, after a good hour's walk, had said it
was no use going any further, when suddenly she saw this sight. She no
sooner saw it than, uttering a hasty exclamation, and giving Master Dombey
to the black-eyed, she started to the rescue of her unhappy little son.
Surprises, like misfortunes, rarely come alone. The astonished Susan
Nipper and her two young charges were rescued by the bystanders from under
the very wheels of a passing carriage before they knew what had happened;
and at that moment (it was market day) a thundering alarm of 'Mad Bull!' was
raised.
With a wild confusion before her, of people running up and down, and
shouting, and wheels running over them, and boys fighting, and mad bulls
coming up, and the nurse in the midst of all these dangers being torn to
pieces, Florence screamed and ran. She ran till she was exhausted, urging
Susan to do the same; and then, stopping and wringing her hands as she
remembered they had left the other nurse behind, found, with a sensation of
terror not to be described, that she was quite alone.
'Susan! Susan!' cried Florence, clapping her hands in the very ecstasy
of her alarm. 'Oh, where are they? where are they?'
'Where are they?' said an old woman, coming hobbling across as fast as
she could from the opposite side of the way. 'Why did you run away from
'em?'
'I was frightened,' answered Florence. 'I didn't know what I did. I
thought they were with me. Where are they?'
The old woman took her by the wrist, and said, 'I'll show you.'
She was a very ugly old woman, with red rims round her eyes, and a
mouth that mumbled and chattered of itself when she was not speaking. She
was miserably dressed, and carried some skins over her arm. She seemed to
have followed Florence some little way at all events, for she had lost her
breath; and this made her uglier still, as she stood trying to regain it:
working her shrivelled yellow face and throat into all sorts of contortions.
Florence was afraid of her, and looked, hesitating, up the street, of
which she had almost reached the bottom. It was a solitary place - more a
back road than a street - and there was no one in it but her- self and the
old woman.
'You needn't be frightened now,' said the old woman, still holding her
tight. 'Come along with me.'
'I - I don't know you. What's your name?' asked Florence.
'Mrs Brown,' said the old woman. 'Good Mrs Brown.'
'Are they near here?' asked Florence, beginning to be led away.
'Susan ain't far off,' said Good Mrs Brown; 'and the others are close
to her.'
'Is anybody hurt?' cried Florence.
'Not a bit of it,' said Good Mrs Brown.
The child shed tears of delight on hearing this, and accompanied the
old woman willingly; though she could not help glancing at her face as they
went along - particularly at that industrious mouth - and wondering whether
Bad Mrs Brown, if there were such a person, was at all like her.
They had not gone far, but had gone by some very uncomfortable places,
such as brick-fields and tile-yards, when the old woman turned down a dirty
lane, where the mud lay in deep black ruts in the middle of the road. She
stopped before a shabby little house, as closely shut up as a house that was
full of cracks and crevices could be. Opening the door with a key she took
out of her bonnet, she pushed the child before her into a back room, where
there was a great heap of rags of different colours lying on the floor; a
heap of bones, and a heap of sifted dust or cinders; but there was no
furniture at all, and the walls and ceiling were quite black.
The child became so terrified the she was stricken speechless, and
looked as though about to swoon.
'Now don't be a young mule,' said Good Mrs Brown, reviving her with a
shake. 'I'm not a going to hurt you. Sit upon the rags.'
Florence obeyed her, holding out her folded hands, in mute
supplication.
'I'm not a going to keep you, even, above an hour,' said Mrs Brown.
'D'ye understand what I say?'
The child answered with great difficulty, 'Yes.'
'Then,' said Good Mrs Brown, taking her own seat on the bones, 'don't
vex me. If you don't, I tell you I won't hurt you. But if you do, I'll kill
you. I could have you killed at any time - even if you was in your own bed
at home. Now let's know who you are, and what you are, and all about it.'
The old woman's threats and promises; the dread of giving her offence;
and the habit, unusual to a child, but almost natural to Florence now, of
being quiet, and repressing what she felt, and feared, and hoped; enabled
her to do this bidding, and to tell her little history, or what she knew of
it. Mrs Brown listened attentively, until she had finished.
'So your name's Dombey, eh?' said Mrs Brown.
'I want that pretty frock, Miss Dombey,' said Good Mrs Brown, 'and that
little bonnet, and a petticoat or two, and anything else you can spare.
Come! Take 'em off.'
Florence obeyed, as fast as her trembling hands would allow; keeping,
all the while, a frightened eye on Mrs Brown. When she had divested herself
of all the articles of apparel mentioned by that lady, Mrs B. examined them
at leisure, and seemed tolerably well satisfied with their quality and
value.
'Humph!' she said, running her eyes over the child's slight figure, 'I
don't see anything else - except the shoes. I must have the shoes, Miss
Dombey.'
Poor little Florence took them off with equal alacrity, only too glad
to have any more means of conciliation about her. The old woman then
produced some wretched substitutes from the bottom of the heap of rags,
which she turned up for that purpose; together with a girl's cloak, quite
worn out and very old; and the crushed remains of a bonnet that had probably
been picked up from some ditch or dunghill. In this dainty raiment, she
instructed Florence to dress herself; and as such preparation seemed a
prelude to her release, the child complied with increased readiness, if
possible.
In hurriedly putting on the bonnet, if that may be called a bonnet
which was more like a pad to carry loads on, she caught it in her hair which
grew luxuriantly, and could not immediately disentangle it. Good Mrs Brown
whipped out a large pair of scissors, and fell into an unaccountable state
of excitement.
'Why couldn't you let me be!' said Mrs Brown, 'when I was contented?
You little fool!'
'I beg your pardon. I don't know what I have done,' panted Florence. 'I
couldn't help it.'
'Couldn't help it!' cried Mrs Brown. 'How do you expect I can help it?
Why, Lord!' said the old woman, ruffling her curls with a furious pleasure,
'anybody but me would have had 'em off, first of all.' Florence was so
relieved to find that it was only her hair and not her head which Mrs Brown
coveted, that she offered no resistance or entreaty, and merely raised her
mild eyes towards the face of that good soul.
'If I hadn't once had a gal of my own - beyond seas now- that was proud
of her hair,' said Mrs Brown, 'I'd have had every lock of it. She's far
away, she's far away! Oho! Oho!'
Mrs Brown's was not a melodious cry, but, accompanied with a wild
tossing up of her lean arms, it was full of passionate grief, and thrilled
to the heart of Florence, whom it frightened more than ever. It had its
part, perhaps, in saving her curls; for Mrs Brown, after hovering about her
with the scissors for some moments, like a new kind of butterfly, bade her
hide them under the bonnet and let no trace of them escape to tempt her.
Having accomplished this victory over herself, Mrs Brown resumed her seat on
the bones, and smoked a very short black pipe, mowing and mumbling all the
time, as if she were eating the stem.
When the pipe was smoked out, she gave the child a rabbit-skin to
carry, that she might appear the more like her ordinary companion, and told
her that she was now going to lead her to a public street whence she could
inquire her way to her friends. But she cautioned her, with threats of
summary and deadly vengeance in case of disobedience, not to talk to
strangers, nor to repair to her own home (which may have been too near for
Mrs Brown's convenience), but to her father's office in the City; also to
wait at the street corner where she would be left, until the clock struck
three. These directions Mrs Brown enforced with assurances that there would
be potent eyes and ears in her employment cognizant of all she did; and
these directions Florence promised faithfully and earnestly to observe.
At length, Mrs Brown, issuing forth, conducted her changed and ragged
little friend through a labyrinth of narrow streets and lanes and alleys,
which emerged, after a long time, upon a stable yard, with a gateway at the
end, whence the roar of a great thoroughfare made itself audible. Pointing
out this gateway, and informing Florence that when the clocks struck three
she was to go to the left, Mrs Brown, after making a parting grasp at her
hair which seemed involuntary and quite beyond her own control, told her she
knew what to do, and bade her go and do it: remembering that she was
watched.
With a lighter heart, but still sore afraid, Florence felt herself
released, and tripped off to the corner. When she reached it, she looked
back and saw the head of Good Mrs Brown peeping out of the low wooden
passage, where she had issued her parting injunctions; likewise the fist of
Good Mrs Brown shaking towards her. But though she often looked back
afterwards - every minute, at least, in her nervous recollection of the old
woman - she could not see her again.
Florence remained there, looking at the bustle in the street, and more
and more bewildered by it; and in the meanwhile the clocks appeared to have
made up their minds never to strike three any more. At last the steeples
rang out three o'clock; there was one close by, so she couldn't be mistaken;
and - after often looking over her shoulder, and often going a little way,
and as often coming back again, lest the all-powerful spies of Mrs Brown
should take offence - she hurried off, as fast as she could in her slipshod
shoes, holding the rabbit-skin tight in her hand.
All she knew of her father's offices was that they belonged to Dombey
and Son, and that that was a great power belonging to the City. So she could
only ask the way to Dombey and Son's in the City; and as she generally made
inquiry of children - being afraid to ask grown people - she got very little
satisfaction indeed. But by dint of asking her way to the City after a
while, and dropping the rest of her inquiry for the present, she really did
advance, by slow degrees, towards the heart of that great region which is
governed by the terrible Lord Mayor.
Tired of walking, repulsed and pushed about, stunned by the noise and
confusion, anxious for her brother and the nurses, terrified by what she had
undergone, and the prospect of encountering her angry father in such an
altered state; perplexed and frightened alike by what had passed, and what
was passing, and what was yet before her; Florence went upon her weary way
with tearful eyes, and once or twice could not help stopping to ease her
bursting heart by crying bitterly. But few people noticed her at those
times, in the garb she wore: or if they did, believed that she was tutored
to excite compassion, and passed on. Florence, too, called to her aid all
the firmness and self-reliance of a character that her sad experience had
prematurely formed and tried: and keeping the end she had in view steadily
before her, steadily pursued it.
It was full two hours later in the afternoon than when she had started
on this strange adventure, when, escaping from the clash and clangour of a
narrow street full of carts and waggons, she peeped into a kind of wharf or
landing-place upon the river-side, where there were a great many packages,
casks, and boxes, strewn about; a large pair of wooden scales; and a little
wooden house on wheels, outside of which, looking at the neighbouring masts
and boats, a stout man stood whistling, with his pen behind his ear, and his
hands in his pockets, as if his day's work were nearly done.
'Now then! 'said this man, happening to turn round. 'We haven't got
anything for you, little girl. Be off!'
'If you please, is this the City?' asked the trembling daughter of the
Dombeys.
'Ah! It's the City. You know that well enough, I daresay. Be off! We
haven't got anything for you.'
'I don't want anything, thank you,' was the timid answer. 'Except to
know the way to Dombey and Son's.'
The man who had been strolling carelessly towards her, seemed surprised
by this reply, and looking attentively in her face, rejoined:
'Why, what can you want with Dombey and Son's?'
'To know the way there, if you please.'
The man looked at her yet more curiously, and rubbed the back of his
head so hard in his wonderment that he knocked his own hat off.
'Joe!' he called to another man - a labourer- as he picked it up and
put it on again.
'Joe it is!' said Joe.
'Where's that young spark of Dombey's who's been watching the shipment
of them goods?'
'Just gone, by t'other gate,' said Joe.
'Call him back a minute.'
Joe ran up an archway, bawling as he went, and very soon returned
with a blithe-looking boy.
'You're Dombey's jockey, ain't you?' said the first man.
'I'm in Dombey's House, Mr Clark,' returned the boy.
'Look'ye here, then,' said Mr Clark.
Obedient to the indication of Mr Clark's hand, the boy approached
towards Florence, wondering, as well he might, what he had to do with her.
But she, who had heard what passed, and who, besides the relief of so
suddenly considering herself safe at her journey's end, felt reassured
beyond all measure by his lively youthful face and manner, ran eagerly up to
him, leaving one of the slipshod shoes upon the ground and caught his hand
in both of hers.
'I am lost, if you please!' said Florence.
'Lost!' cried the boy.
'Yes, I was lost this morning, a long way from here - and I have had my
clothes taken away, since - and I am not dressed in my own now - and my name
is Florence Dombey, my little brother's only sister - and, oh dear, dear,
take care of me, if you please!' sobbed Florence, giving full vent to the
childish feelings she had so long suppressed, and bursting into tears. At
the same time her miserable bonnet falling off, her hair came tumbling down
about her face: moving to speechless admiration and commiseration, young
Walter, nephew of Solomon Gills, Ships' Instrument-maker in general.
Mr Clark stood rapt in amazement: observing under his breath, I never
saw such a start on this wharf before. Walter picked up the shoe, and put it
on the little foot as the Prince in the story might have fitted Cinderella's
slipper on. He hung the rabbit-skin over his left arm; gave the right to
Florence; and felt, not to say like Richard Whittington - that is a tame
comparison - but like Saint George of England, with the dragon lying dead
before him.
'Don't cry, Miss Dombey,' said Walter, in a transport of
enthusiasm.
'What a wonderful thing for me that I am here! You are as safe now as
if you were guarded by a whole boat's crew of picked men from a man-of-war.
Oh, don't cry.'
'I won't cry any more,' said Florence. 'I am only crying for joy.'
'Crying for joy!' thought Walter, 'and I'm the cause of it! Come along,
Miss Dombey. There's the other shoe off now! Take mine, Miss Dombey.'
'No, no, no,' said Florence, checking him in the act of impetuously
pulling off his own. 'These do better. These do very well.'
'Why, to be sure,' said Walter, glancing at her foot, 'mine are a mile
too large. What am I thinking about! You never could walk in mine! Come
along, Miss Dombey. Let me see the villain who will dare molest you now.'
So Walter, looking immensely fierce, led off Florence, looking very
happy; and they went arm-in-arm along the streets, perfectly indifferent to
any astonishment that their appearance might or did excite by the way.
It was growing dark and foggy, and beginning to rain too; but they
cared nothing for this: being both wholly absorbed in the late adventures of
Florence, which she related with the innocent good faith and confidence of
her years, while Walter listened as if, far from the mud and grease of
Thames Street, they were rambling alone among the broad leaves and tall
trees of some desert island in the tropics - as he very likely fancied, for
the time, they were.
'Have we far to go?' asked Florence at last, lilting up her eyes to her
companion's face.
'Ah! By-the-bye,' said Walter, stopping, 'let me see; where are we? Oh!
I know. But the offices are shut up now, Miss Dombey. There's nobody there.
Mr Dombey has gone home long ago. I suppose we must go home too? or, stay.
Suppose I take you to my Uncle's, where I live - it's very near here - and
go to your house in a coach to tell them you are safe, and bring you back
some clothes. Won't that be best?'
'I think so,' answered Florence. 'Don't you? What do you think?'
As they stood deliberating in the street, a man passed them, who
glanced quickly at Walter as he went by, as if he recognised him; but
seeming to correct that first impression, he passed on without stopping.
'Why, I think it's Mr Carker,' said Walter. 'Carker in our House. Not
Carker our Manager, Miss Dombey - the other Carker; the Junior - Halloa! Mr
Carker!'
'Is that Walter Gay?' said the other, stopping and returning. 'I
couldn't believe it, with such a strange companion.
As he stood near a lamp, listening with surprise to Walter's hurried
explanation, he presented a remarkable contrast to the two youthful figures
arm-in-arm before him. He was not old, but his hair was white; his body was
bent, or bowed as if by the weight of some great trouble: and there were
deep lines in his worn and melancholy face. The fire of his eyes, the
expression of his features, the very voice in which he spoke, were all
subdued and quenched, as if the spirit within him lay in ashes. He was
respectably, though very plainly dressed, in black; but his clothes, moulded
to the general character of his figure, seemed to shrink and abase
themselves upon him, and to join in the sorrowful solicitation which the
whole man from head to foot expressed, to be left unnoticed, and alone in
his humility.
And yet his interest in youth and hopefulness was not extinguished with
the other embers of his soul, for he watched the boy's earnest countenance
as he spoke with unusual sympathy, though with an inexplicable show of
trouble and compassion, which escaped into his looks, however hard he strove
to hold it prisoner. When Walter, in conclusion, put to him the question he
had put to Florence, he still stood glancing at him with the same
expression, as if he had read some fate upon his face, mournfully at
variance with its present brightness.
'What do you advise, Mr Carker?' said Walter, smiling. 'You always give
me good advice, you know, when you do speak to me. That's not often,
though.'
'I think your own idea is the best,' he answered: looking from Florence
to Walter, and back again.
'Mr Carker,' said Walter, brightening with a generous thought, 'Come!
Here's a chance for you. Go you to Mr Dombey's, and be the messenger of good
news. It may do you some good, Sir. I'll remain at home. You shall go.'
'I!' returned the other.
'Yes. Why not, Mr Carker?' said the boy.
He merely shook him by the hand in answer; he seemed in a manner
ashamed and afraid even to do that; and bidding him good-night, and advising
him to make haste, turned away.
'Come, Miss Dombey,' said Walter, looking after him as they turned away
also, 'we'll go to my Uncle's as quick as we can. Did you ever hear Mr
Dombey speak of Mr Carker the Junior, Miss Florence?'
'No,' returned the child, mildly, 'I don't often hear Papa speak.'
'Ah! true! more shame for him,' thought Walter. After a minute's pause,
during which he had been looking down upon the gentle patient little face
moving on at his side, he said, 'The strangest man, Mr Carker the Junior is,
Miss Florence, that ever you heard of. If you could understand what an
extraordinary interest he takes in me, and yet how he shuns me and avoids
me; and what a low place he holds in our office, and how he is never
advanced, and never complains, though year after year he sees young men
passed over his head, and though his brother (younger than he is), is our
head Manager, you would be as much puzzled about him as I am.'
As Florence could hardly be expected to understand much about it,
Walter bestirred himself with his accustomed boyish animation and
restlessness to change the subject; and one of the unfortunate shoes coming
off again opportunely, proposed to carry Florence to his uncle's in his
arms. Florence, though very tired, laughingly declined the proposal, lest he
should let her fall; and as they were already near the wooden Midshipman,
and as Walter went on to cite various precedents, from shipwrecks and other
moving accidents, where younger boys than he had triumphantly rescued and
carried off older girls than Florence, they were still in full conversation
about it when they arrived at the Instrument-maker's door.
'Holloa, Uncle Sol!' cried Walter, bursting into the shop, and speaking
incoherently and out of breath, from that time forth, for the rest of the
evening. 'Here's a wonderful adventure! Here's Mr Dombey's daughter lost in
the streets, and robbed of her clothes by an old witch of a woman - found by
me - brought home to our parlour to rest - look here!'
'Good Heaven!' said Uncle Sol, starting back against his favourite
compass-case. 'It can't be! Well, I - '
'No, nor anybody else,' said Walter, anticipating the rest. 'Nobody
would, nobody could, you know. Here! just help me lift the little sofa near
the fire, will you, Uncle Sol - take care of the plates - cut some dinner
for her, will you, Uncle - throw those shoes under the grate. Miss Florence
- put your feet on the fender to dry - how damp they are - here's an
adventure, Uncle, eh? - God bless my soul, how hot I am!'
Solomon Gills was quite as hot, by sympathy, and in excessive
bewilderment. He patted Florence's head, pressed her to eat, pressed her to
drink, rubbed the soles of her feet with his pocket-handkerchief heated at
the fire, followed his locomotive nephew with his eyes, and ears, and had no
clear perception of anything except that he was being constantly knocked
against and tumbled over by that excited young gentleman, as he darted about
the room attempting to accomplish twenty things at once, and doing nothing
at all.
'Here, wait a minute, Uncle,' he continued, catching up a candle, 'till
I run upstairs, and get another jacket on, and then I'll be off. I say,
Uncle, isn't this an adventure?'
'My dear boy,' said Solomon, who, with his spectacles on his forehead
and the great chronometer in his pocket, was incessantly oscillating between
Florence on the sofa, and his nephew in all parts of the parlour, 'it's the
most extraordinary - '
'No, but do, Uncle, please - do, Miss Florence - dinner, you know,
Uncle.'
'Yes, yes, yes,' cried Solomon, cutting instantly into a leg of mutton,
as if he were catering for a giant. 'I'll take care of her, Wally! I
understand. Pretty dear! Famished, of course. You go and get ready. Lord
bless me! Sir Richard Whittington thrice Lord Mayor of London.'
Walter was not very long in mounting to his lofty garret and descending
from it, but in the meantime Florence, overcome by fatigue, had sunk into a
doze before the fire. The short interval of quiet, though only a few minutes
in duration, enabled Solomon Gills so far to collect his wits as to make
some little arrangements for her comfort, and to darken the room, and to
screen her from the blaze. Thus, when the boy returned, she was sleeping
peacefully.
'That's capital!' he whispered, giving Solomon such a hug that it
squeezed a new expression into his face. 'Now I'm off. I'll just take a
crust of bread with me, for I'm very hungry - and don't wake her, Uncle
Sol.'
'No, no,' said Solomon. 'Pretty child.'
'Pretty, indeed!' cried Walter. 'I never saw such a face, Uncle Sol.
Now I'm off.'
'That's right,' said Solomon, greatly relieved.
'I say, Uncle Sol,' cried Walter, putting his face in at the door.
'Here he is again,' said Solomon.
'How does she look now?'
'Quite happy,' said Solomon.
'That's famous! now I'm off.'
'I hope you are,' said Solomon to himself.
'I say, Uncle Sol,' cried Walter, reappearing at the door.
'Here he is again!' said Solomon.
'We met Mr Carker the Junior in the street, queerer than ever. He bade
me good-bye, but came behind us here - there's an odd thing! - for when we
reached the shop door, I looked round, and saw him going quietly away, like
a servant who had seen me home, or a faithful dog. How does she look now,
Uncle?'
'Pretty much the same as before, Wally,' replied Uncle Sol.
'That's right. Now I am off!'
And this time he really was: and Solomon Gills, with no appetite for
dinner, sat on the opposite side of the fire, watching Florence in her
slumber, building a great many airy castles of the most fantastic
architecture; and looking, in the dim shade, and in the close vicinity of
all the instruments, like a magician disguised in a Welsh wig and a suit of
coffee colour, who held the child in an enchanted sleep.
In the meantime, Walter proceeded towards Mr Dombey's house at a pace
seldom achieved by a hack horse from the stand; and yet with his head out of
window every two or three minutes, in impatient remonstrance with the
driver. Arriving at his journey's end, he leaped out, and breathlessly
announcing his errand to the servant, followed him straight into the
library, we there was a great confusion of tongues, and where Mr Dombey, his
sister, and Miss Tox, Richards, and Nipper, were all congregated together.
'Oh! I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Walter, rushing up to him, 'but I'm
happy to say it's all right, Sir. Miss Dombey's found!'
The boy with his open face, and flowing hair, and sparkling eyes,
panting with pleasure and excitement, was wonderfully opposed to Mr Dombey,
as he sat confronting him in his library chair.
'I told you, Louisa, that she would certainly be found,' said Mr
Dombey, looking slightly over his shoulder at that lady, who wept in company
with Miss Tox. 'Let the servants know that no further steps are necessary.
This boy who brings the information, is young Gay, from the office. How was
my daughter found, Sir? I know how she was lost.' Here he looked
majestically at Richards. 'But how was she found? Who found her?'
'Why, I believe I found Miss Dombey, Sir,' said Walter modestly, 'at
least I don't know that I can claim the merit of having exactly found her,
Sir, but I was the fortunate instrument of - '
'What do you mean, Sir,' interrupted Mr Dombey, regarding the boy's
evident pride and pleasure in his share of the transaction with an
instinctive dislike, 'by not having exactly found my daughter, and by being
a fortunate instrument? Be plain and coherent, if you please.'
It was quite out of Walter's power to be coherent; but he rendered
himself as explanatory as he could, in his breathless state, and stated why
he had come alone.
'You hear this, girl?' said Mr Dombey sternly to the black-eyed. 'Take
what is necessary, and return immediately with this young man to fetch Miss
Florence home. Gay, you will be rewarded to-morrow.
'Oh! thank you, Sir,' said Walter. 'You are very kind. I'm sure I was
not thinking of any reward, Sir.'
'You are a boy,' said Mr Dombey, suddenly and almost fiercely; 'and
what you think of, or affect to think of, is of little consequence. You have
done well, Sir. Don't undo it. Louisa, please to give the lad some wine.'
Mr Dombey's glance followed Walter Gay with sharp disfavour, as he left
the room under the pilotage of Mrs Chick; and it may be that his mind's eye
followed him with no greater relish, as he rode back to his Uncle's with
Miss Susan Nipper.
There they found that Florence, much refreshed by sleep, had dined, and
greatly improved the acquaintance of Solomon Gills, with whom she was on
terms of perfect confidence and ease. The black-eyed (who had cried so much
that she might now be called the red-eyed, and who was very silent and
depressed) caught her in her arms without a word of contradiction or
reproach, and made a very hysterical meeting of it. Then converting the
parlour, for the nonce, into a private tiring room, she dressed her, with
great care, in proper clothes; and presently led her forth, as like a Dombey
as her natural disqualifications admitted of her being made.
'Good-night!' said Florence, running up to Solomon. 'You have been very
good to me.
Old Sol was quite delighted, and kissed her like her grand-father.
'Good-night, Walter! Good-bye!' said Florence.
'Good-bye!' said Walter, giving both his hands.
'I'll never forget you,' pursued Florence. 'No! indeed I never will.
Good-bye, Walter!' In the innocence of her grateful heart, the child lifted
up her face to his. Walter, bending down his own, raised it again, all red
and burning; and looked at Uncle Sol, quite sheepishly.
'Where's Walter?' 'Good-night, Walter!' 'Good-bye, Walter!' 'Shake
hands once more, Walter!' This was still Florence's cry, after she was shut
up with her little maid, in the coach. And when the coach at length moved
off, Walter on the door-step gaily turned the waving of her handkerchief,
while the wooden Midshipman behind him seemed, like himself, intent upon
that coach alone, excluding all the other passing coaches from his
observation.
In good time Mr Dombey's mansion was gained again, and again there was
a noise of tongues in the library. Again, too, the coach was ordered to wait
- 'for Mrs Richards,' one of Susan's fellow-servants ominously whispered, as
she passed with Florence.
The entrance of the lost child made a slight sensation, but not much.
Mr Dombey, who had never found her, kissed her once upon the forehead, and
cautioned her not to run away again, or wander anywhere with treacherous
attendants. Mrs Chick stopped in her lamentations on the corruption of human
nature, even when beckoned to the paths of virtue by a Charitable Grinder;
and received her with a welcome something short of the reception due to none
but perfect Dombeys. Miss Tox regulated her feelings by the models before
her. Richards, the culprit Richards, alone poured out her heart in broken
words of welcome, and bowed herself over the little wandering head as if she
really loved it.
'Ah, Richards!' said Mrs Chick, with a sigh. 'It would have been much
more satisfactory to those who wish to think well of their fellow creatures,
and much more becoming in you, if you had shown some proper feeling, in
time, for the little child that is now going to be prematurely deprived of
its natural nourishment.
'Cut off,' said Miss Tox, in a plaintive whisper, 'from one common
fountain!'
'If it was ungrateful case,' said Mrs Chick, solemnly, 'and I had your
reflections, Richards, I should feel as if the Charitable Grinders' dress
would blight my child, and the education choke him.'
For the matter of that - but Mrs Chick didn't know it - he had been
pretty well blighted by the dress already; and as to the education, even its
retributive effect might be produced in time, for it was a storm of sobs and
blows.
'Louisa!' said Mr Dombey. 'It is not necessary to prolong these
observations. The woman is discharged and paid. You leave this house,
Richards, for taking my son - my son,' said Mr Dombey, emphatically
repeating these two words, 'into haunts and into society which are not to be
thought of without a shudder. As to the accident which befel Miss Florence
this morning, I regard that as, in one great sense, a happy and fortunate
circumstance; inasmuch as, but for that occurrence, I never could have known
- and from your own lips too - of what you had been guilty. I think, Louisa,
the other nurse, the young person,' here Miss Nipper sobbed aloud, 'being so
much younger, and necessarily influenced by Paul's nurse, may remain. Have
the goodness to direct that this woman's coach is paid to' - Mr Dombey
stopped and winced - 'to Staggs's Gardens.'
Polly moved towards the door, with Florence holding to her dress, and
crying to her in the most pathetic manner not to go away. It was a dagger in
the haughty father's heart, an arrow in his brain, to see how the flesh and
blood he could not disown clung to this obscure stranger, and he sitting by.
Not that he cared to whom his daughter turned, or from whom turned away. The
swift sharp agony struck through him, as he thought of what his son might
do.
His son cried lustily that night, at all events. Sooth to say, poor
Paul had better reason for his tears than sons of that age often have, for
he had lost his second mother - his first, so far as he knew - by a stroke
as sudden as that natural affliction which had darkened the beginning of his
life. At the same blow, his sister too, who cried herself to sleep so
mournfully, had lost as good and true a friend. But that is quite beside the
question. Let us waste no words about it.
A Bird's-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox's Dwelling-place: also of the State of
Miss Tox's Affections
Miss Tox inhabited a dark little house that had been squeezed, at some
remote period of English History, into a fashionable neighbourhood at the
west end of the town, where it stood in the shade like a poor relation of
the great street round the corner, coldly looked down upon by mighty
mansions. It was not exactly in a court, and it was not exactly in a yard;
but it was in the dullest of No-Thoroughfares, rendered anxious and haggard
by distant double knocks. The name of this retirement, where grass grew
between the chinks in the stone pavement, was Princess's Place; and in
Princess's Place was Princess's Chapel, with a tinkling bell, where
sometimes as many as five-and-twenty people attended service on a Sunday.
The Princess's Arms was also there, and much resorted to by splendid
footmen. A sedan chair was kept inside the railing before the Princess's
Arms, but it had never come out within the memory of man; and on fine
mornings, the top of every rail (there were eight-and-forty, as Miss Tox had
often counted) was decorated with a pewter-pot.
There was another private house besides Miss Tox's in Princess's Place:
not to mention an immense Pair of gates, with an immense pair of lion-headed
knockers on them, which were never opened by any chance, and were supposed
to constitute a disused entrance to somebody's stables. Indeed, there was a
smack of stabling in the air of Princess's Place; and Miss Tox's bedroom
(which was at the back) commanded a vista of Mews, where hostlers, at
whatever sort of work engaged, were continually accompanying themselves with
effervescent noises; and where the most domestic and confidential garments
of coachmen and their wives and families, usually hung, like Macbeth's
banners, on the outward walls.'
At this other private house in Princess's Place, tenanted by a retired
butler who had married a housekeeper, apartments were let Furnished, to a
single gentleman: to wit, a wooden-featured, blue-faced Major, with his eyes
starting out of his head, in whom Miss Tox recognised, as she herself
expressed it, 'something so truly military;' and between whom and herself,
an occasional interchange of newspapers and pamphlets, and such Platonic
dalliance, was effected through the medium of a dark servant of the Major's
who Miss Tox was quite content to classify as a 'native,' without connecting
him with any geographical idea whatever.
Perhaps there never was a smaller entry and staircase, than the entry
and staircase of Miss Tox's house. Perhaps, taken altogether, from top to
bottom, it was the most inconvenient little house in England, and the
crookedest; but then, Miss Tox said, what a situation! There was very little
daylight to be got there in the winter: no sun at the best of times: air was
out of the question, and traffic was walled out. Still Miss Tox said, think
of the situation! So said the blue-faced Major, whose eyes were starting out
of his head: who gloried in Princess's Place: and who delighted to turn the
conversation at his club, whenever he could, to something connected with
some of the great people in the great street round the corner, that he might
have the satisfaction of saying they were his neighbours.
In short, with Miss Tox and the blue-faced Major, it was enough for
Princess's Place - as with a very small fragment of society, it is enough
for many a little hanger-on of another sort - to be well connected, and to
have genteel blood in its veins. It might be poor, mean, shabby, stupid,
dull. No matter. The great street round the corner trailed off into
Princess's Place; and that which of High Holborn would have become a
choleric word, spoken of Princess's Place became flat blasphemy.
The dingy tenement inhabited by Miss Tox was her own; having been
devised and bequeathed to her by the deceased owner of the fishy eye in the
locket, of whom a miniature portrait, with a powdered head and a pigtail,
balanced the kettle-holder on opposite sides of the parlour fireplace. The
greater part of the furniture was of the powdered-head and pig-tail period:
comprising a plate-warmer, always languishing and sprawling its four
attenuated bow legs in somebody's way; and an obsolete harpsichord,
illuminated round the maker's name with a painted garland of sweet peas. In
any part of the house, visitors were usually cognizant of a prevailing
mustiness; and in warm weather Miss Tox had been seen apparently writing in
sundry chinks and crevices of the wainscoat with the the wrong end of a pen
dipped in spirits of turpentine.
Although Major Bagstock had arrived at what is called in polite
literature, the grand meridian of life, and was proceeding on his journey
downhill with hardly any throat, and a very rigid pair of jaw-bones, and
long-flapped elephantine ears, and his eyes and complexion in the state of
artificial excitement already mentioned, he was mightily proud of awakening
an interest in Miss Tox, and tickled his vanity with the fiction that she
was a splendid woman who had her eye on him. This he had several times
hinted at the club: in connexion with little jocularities, of which old Joe
Bagstock, old Joey Bagstock, old J. Bagstock, old Josh Bagstock, or so
forth, was the perpetual theme: it being, as it were, the Major's stronghold