Страница:
'Don't leave me! be near me! I have no hope but in you! These words she
said a score of times.
Soon she grew calmer, and was full of pity for the tears of Florence,
and for her waking at such untimely hours. And the day now dawning, with
folded her in her arms and laid her down upon her bed, and, not lying down
herself, sat by her, and bade her try to sleep.
'For you are weary, dearest, and unhappy, and should rest.'
'I am indeed unhappy, dear Mama, tonight,' said Florence. 'But you are
weary and unhappy, too.'
'Not when you lie asleep so near me, sweet.'
They kissed each other, and Florence, worn out, gradually fell into a
gentle slumber; but as her eyes closed on the face beside her, it was so sad
to think upon the face downstairs, that her hand drew closer to Edith for
some comfort; yet, even in the act, it faltered, lest it should be deserting
him. So, in her sleep, she tried to reconcile the two together, and to show
them that she loved them both, but could not do it, and her waking grief was
part of her dreams.
Edith, sitting by, looked down at the dark eyelashes lying wet on the
flushed cheeks, and looked with gentleness and pity, for she knew the truth.
But no sleep hung upon her own eyes. As the day came on she still sat
watching and waking, with the placid hand in hers, and sometimes whispered,
as she looked at the hushed face, 'Be near me, Florence. I have no hope but
in you!'
A Separation
With the day, though not so early as the sun, uprose Miss Susan Nipper.
There was a heaviness in this young maiden's exceedingly sharp black eyes,
that abated somewhat of their sparkling, and suggested - which was not their
usual character - the possibility of their being sometimes shut. There was
likewise a swollen look about them, as if they had been crying over-night.
But the Nipper, so far from being cast down, was singularly brisk and bold,
and all her energies appeared to be braced up for some great feat. This was
noticeable even in her dress, which was much more tight and trim than usual;
and in occasional twitches of her head as she went about the house, which
were mightily expressive of determination.
In a word, she had formed a determination, and an aspiring one: it
being nothing less than this - to penetrate to Mr Dombey's presence, and
have speech of that gentleman alone. 'I have often said I would,' she
remarked, in a threatening manner, to herself, that morning, with many
twitches of her head, 'and now I will!'
Spurring herself on to the accomplishment of this desperate design,
with a sharpness that was peculiar to herself, Susan Nipper haunted the hall
and staircase during the whole forenoon, without finding a favourable
opportunity for the assault. Not at all baffled by this discomfiture, which
indeed had a stimulating effect, and put her on her mettle, she diminished
nothing of her vigilance; and at last discovered, towards evening, that her
sworn foe Mrs Pipchin, under pretence of having sat up all night, was dozing
in her own room, and that Mr Dombey was lying on his sofa, unattended.
With a twitch - not of her head merely, this time, but of her whole
self - the Nipper went on tiptoe to Mr Dombey's door, and knocked. 'Come
in!' said Mr Dombey. Susan encouraged herself with a final twitch, and went
in.
Mr Dombey, who was eyeing the fire, gave an amazed look at his visitor,
and raised himself a little on his arm. The Nipper dropped a curtsey.
'What do you want?' said Mr Dombey.
'If you please, Sir, I wish to speak to you,' said Susan.
Mr Dombey moved his lips as if he were repeating the words, but he
seemed so lost in astonishment at the presumption of the young woman as to
be incapable of giving them utterance.
'I have been in your service, Sir,' said Susan Nipper, with her usual
rapidity, 'now twelve 'year a waiting on Miss Floy my own young lady who
couldn't speak plain when I first come here and I was old in this house when
Mrs Richards was new, I may not be Meethosalem, but I am not a child in
arms.'
Mr Dombey, raised upon his arm and looking at her, offered no comment
on this preparatory statement of fact.
'There never was a dearer or a blesseder young lady than is my young
lady, Sir,' said Susan, 'and I ought to know a great deal better than some
for I have seen her in her grief and I have seen her in her joy (there's not
been much of it) and I have seen her with her brother and I have seen her in
her loneliness and some have never seen her, and I say to some and all - I
do!' and here the black-eyed shook her head, and slightly stamped her foot;
'that she's the blessedest and dearest angel is Miss Floy that ever drew the
breath of life, the more that I was torn to pieces Sir the more I'd say it
though I may not be a Fox's Martyr..'
Mr Dombey turned yet paler than his fall had made him, with indignation
and astonishment; and kept his eyes upon the speaker as if he accused them,
and his ears too, of playing him false.
'No one could be anything but true and faithful to Miss Floy, Sir,'
pursued Susan, 'and I take no merit for my service of twelve year, for I
love her - yes, I say to some and all I do!' - and here the black-eyed shook
her head again, and slightly stamped her foot again, and checked a sob; 'but
true and faithful service gives me right to speak I hope, and speak I must
and will now, right or wrong.
'What do you mean, woman?' said Mr Dombey, glaring at her. 'How do you
dare?'
'What I mean, Sir, is to speak respectful and without offence, but out,
and how I dare I know not but I do!'said Susan. 'Oh! you don't know my young
lady Sir you don't indeed, you'd never know so little of her, if you did.'
Mr Dombey, in a fury, put his hand out for the bell-rope; but there was
no bell-rope on that side of the fire, and he could not rise and cross to
the other without assistance. The quick eye of the Nipper detected his
helplessness immediately, and now, as she afterwards observed, she felt she
had got him.
'Miss Floy,' said Susan Nipper, 'is the most devoted and most patient
and most dutiful and beautiful of daughters, there ain't no gentleman, no
Sir, though as great and rich as all the greatest and richest of England put
together, but might be proud of her and would and ought. If he knew her
value right, he'd rather lose his greatness and his fortune piece by piece
and beg his way in rags from door to door, I say to some and all, he would!'
cried Susan Nipper, bursting into tears, 'than bring the sorrow on her
tender heart that I have seen it suffer in this house!'
'Woman,' cried Mr Dombey, 'leave the room.
'Begging your pardon, not even if I am to leave the situation, Sir,'
replied the steadfast Nipper, 'in which I have been so many years and seen
so much - although I hope you'd never have the heart to send me from Miss
Floy for such a cause - will I go now till I have said the rest, I may not
be a Indian widow Sir and I am not and I would not so become but if I once
made up my mind to burn myself alive, I'd do it! And I've made my mind up to
go on.'
Which was rendered no less clear by the expression of Susan Nipper's
countenance, than by her words.
'There ain't a person in your service, Sir,' pursued the black-eyed,
'that has always stood more in awe of you than me and you may think how true
it is when I make so bold as say that I have hundreds and hundreds of times
thought of speaking to you and never been able to make my mind up to it till
last night, but last night decided of me.'
Mr Dombey, in a paroxysm of rage, made another grasp at the bell-rope
that was not there, and, in its absence, pulled his hair rather than
nothing.
'I have seen,' said Susan Nipper, 'Miss Floy strive and strive when
nothing but a child so sweet and patient that the best of women might have
copied from her, I've seen her sitting nights together half the night
through to help her delicate brother with his learning, I've seen her
helping him and watching him at other times - some well know when - I've
seen her, with no encouragement and no help, grow up to be a lady, thank
God! that is the grace and pride of every company she goes in, and I've
always seen her cruelly neglected and keenly feeling of it - I say to some
and all, I have! - and never said one word, but ordering one's self lowly
and reverently towards one's betters, is not to be a worshipper of graven
images, and I will and must speak!'
'Is there anybody there?' cried Mr Dombey, calling out. 'Where are the
men? where are the women? Is there no one there?'
'I left my dear young lady out of bed late last night,' said Susan,
nothing checked, 'and I knew why, for you was ill Sir and she didn't know
how ill and that was enough to make her wretched as I saw it did. I may not
be a Peacock; but I have my eyes - and I sat up a little in my own room
thinking she might be lonesome and might want me, and I saw her steal
downstairs and come to this door as if it was a guilty thing to look at her
own Pa, and then steal back again and go into them lonely drawing-rooms,
a-crying so, that I could hardly bear to hear it. I can not bear to hear
it,' said Susan Nipper, wiping her black eyes, and fixing them undauntingly
on Mr Dombey's infuriated face. 'It's not the first time I have heard it,
not by many and many a time you don't know your own daughter, Sir, you don't
know what you're doing, Sir, I say to some and all,' cried Susan Nipper, in
a final burst, 'that it's a sinful shame!'
'Why, hoity toity!' cried the voice of Mrs Pipchin, as the black
bombazeen garments of that fair Peruvian Miner swept into the room. 'What's
this, indeed?'
Susan favoured Mrs Pipchin with a look she had invented expressly for
her when they first became acquainted, and resigned the reply to Mr Dombey.
'What's this?' repeated Mr Dombey, almost foaming. 'What's this, Madam?
You who are at the head of this household, and bound to keep it in order,
have reason to inquire. Do you know this woman?'
'I know very little good of her, Sir,' croaked Mrs Pipchin. 'How dare
you come here, you hussy? Go along with you!'
But the inflexible Nipper, merely honouring Mrs Pipchin with another
look, remained.
'Do you call it managing this establishment, Madam,' said Mr Dombey,
'to leave a person like this at liberty to come and talk to me! A gentleman
- in his own house - in his own room - assailed with the impertinences of
women-servants!'
'Well, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin, with vengeance in her hard grey eye,
'I exceedingly deplore it; nothing can be more irregular; nothing can be
more out of all bounds and reason; but I regret to say, Sir, that this young
woman is quite beyond control. She has been spoiled by Miss Dombey, and is
amenable to nobody. You know you're not,' said Mrs Pipchin, sharply, and
shaking her head at Susan Nipper. 'For shame, you hussy! Go along with you!'
'If you find people in my service who are not to be controlled, Mrs
Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, turning back towards the fire, 'you know what to
do with them, I presume. You know what you are here for? Take her away!'
'Sir, I know what to do,' retorted Mrs Pipchin, 'and of course shall do
it' Susan Nipper,' snapping her up particularly short, 'a month's warning
from this hour.'
'Oh indeed!' cried Susan, loftily.
'Yes,' returned Mrs Pipchin, 'and don't smile at me, you minx, or I'll
know the reason why! Go along with you this minute!'
'I intend to go this minute, you may rely upon it,' said the voluble
Nipper. 'I have been in this house waiting on my young lady a dozen year and
I won't stop in it one hour under notice from a person owning to the name of
Pipchin trust me, Mrs P.'
'A good riddance of bad rubbish!' said that wrathful old lady. 'Get
along with you, or I'll have you carried out!'
'My comfort is,' said Susan, looking back at Mr Dombey, 'that I have
told a piece of truth this day which ought to have been told long before and
can't be told too often or too plain and that no amount of Pipchinses - I
hope the number of 'em mayn't be great' (here Mrs Pipchin uttered a very
sharp 'Go along with you!' and Miss Nipper repeated the look) 'can unsay
what I have said, though they gave a whole year full of warnings beginning
at ten o'clock in the forenoon and never leaving off till twelve at night
and died of the exhaustion which would be a Jubilee!'
With these words, Miss Nipper preceded her foe out of the room; and
walking upstairs to her own apartments in great state, to the choking
exasperation of the ireful Pipchin, sat down among her boxes and began to
cry.
From this soft mood she was soon aroused, with a very wholesome and
refreshing effect, by the voice of Mrs Pipchin outside the door.
'Does that bold-faced slut,' said the fell Pipchin, 'intend to take her
warning, or does she not?'
Miss Nipper replied from within that the person described did not
inhabit that part of the house, but that her name was Pipchin, and she was
to be found in the housekeeper's room.
'You saucy baggage!' retorted Mrs Pipchin, rattling at the handle of
the door. 'Go along with you this minute. Pack up your things directly! How
dare you talk in this way to a gentle-woman who has seen better days?'
To which Miss Nipper rejoined from her castle, that she pitied the
better days that had seen Mrs Pipchin; and that for her part she considered
the worst days in the year to be about that lady's mark, except that they
were much too good for her.
'But you needn't trouble yourself to make a noise at my door,' said
Susan Nipper, 'nor to contaminate the key-hole with your eye, I'm packing up
and going you may take your affidavit.'
The Dowager expressed her lively satisfaction at this intelligence, and
with some general opinions upon young hussies as a race, and especially upon
their demerits after being spoiled by Miss Dombey, withdrew to prepare the
Nipper~s wages. Susan then bestirred herself to get her trunks in order,
that she might take an immediate and dignified departure; sobbing heartily
all the time, as she thought of Florence.
The object of her regret was not long in coming to her, for the news
soon spread over the house that Susan Nipper had had a disturbance with Mrs
Pipchin, and that they had both appealed to Mr Dombey, and that there had
been an unprecedented piece of work in Mr Dombey's room, and that Susan was
going. The latter part of this confused rumour, Florence found to be so
correct, that Susan had locked the last trunk and was sitting upon it with
her bonnet on, when she came into her room.
'Susan!' cried Florence. 'Going to leave me! You!'
'Oh for goodness gracious sake, Miss Floy,' said Susan, sobbing, 'don't
speak a word to me or I shall demean myself before them' Pipchinses, and I
wouldn't have 'em see me cry Miss Floy for worlds!'
'Susan!' said Florence. 'My dear girl, my old friend! What shall I do
without you! Can you bear to go away so?'
'No-n-o-o, my darling dear Miss Floy, I can't indeed,' sobbed Susan.
'But it can't be helped, I've done my duty' Miss, I have indeed. It's no
fault of mine. I am quite resigned. I couldn't stay my month or I could
never leave you then my darling and I must at last as well as at first,
don't speak to me Miss Floy, for though I'm pretty firm I'm not a marble
doorpost, my own dear.'
'What is it? Why is it?' said Florence, 'Won't you tell me?' For Susan
was shaking her head.
'No-n-no, my darling,' returned Susan. 'Don't ask me, for I mustn't,
and whatever you do don't put in a word for me to stop, for it couldn't be
and you'd only wrong yourself, and so God bless you my own precious and
forgive me any harm I have done, or any temper I have showed in all these
many years!'
With which entreaty, very heartily delivered, Susan hugged her mistress
in her arms.
'My darling there's a many that may come to serve you and be glad to
serve you and who'll serve you well and true,' said Susan, 'but there can't
be one who'll serve you so affectionate as me or love you half as dearly,
that's my comfort' Good-bye, sweet Miss Floy!'
'Where will you go, Susan?' asked her weeping mistress.
'I've got a brother down in the country Miss - a farmer in Essex said
the heart-broken Nipper, 'that keeps ever so many co-o-ows and pigs and I
shall go down there by the coach and sto-op with him, and don't mind me, for
I've got money in the Savings Banks my dear, and needn't take another
service just yet, which I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't do, my heart's own
mistress!' Susan finished with a burst of sorrow, which was opportunely
broken by the voice of Mrs Pipchin talking downstairs; on hearing which, she
dried her red and swollen eyes, and made a melancholy feint of calling
jauntily to Mr Towlinson to fetch a cab and carry down her boxes.
Florence, pale and hurried and distressed, but withheld from useless
interference even here, by her dread of causing any new division between her
father and his wife (whose stern, indignant face had been a warning to her a
few moments since), and by her apprehension of being in some way
unconsciously connected already with the dismissal of her old servant and
friend, followed, weeping, downstairs to Edith's dressing-room, whither
Susan betook herself to make her parting curtsey.
'Now, here's the cab, and here's the boxes, get along with you, do!'
said Mrs Pipchin, presenting herself at the same moment. 'I beg your pardon,
Ma'am, but Mr Dombey's orders are imperative.'
Edith, sitting under the hands of her maid - she was going out to
dinner - preserved her haughty face, and took not the least notice.
'There's your money,' said Mrs Pipchin, who in pursuance of her system,
and in recollection of the Mines, was accustomed to rout the servants about,
as she had routed her young Brighton boarders; to the everlasting
acidulation of Master Bitherstone, 'and the sooner this house sees your back
the better.
Susan had no spirits even for the look that belonged to Ma Pipchin by
right; so she dropped her curtsey to Mrs Dombey (who inclined her head
without one word, and whose eye avoided everyone but Florence), and gave one
last parting hug to her young mistress, and received her parting embrace in
return. Poor Susan's face at this crisis, in the intensity of her feelings
and the determined suffocation of her sobs, lest one should become audible
and be a triumph to Mrs Pipchin, presented a series of the most
extraordinary physiognomical phenomena ever witnessed.
'I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure,' said Towlinson, outside the door
with the boxes, addressing Florence, 'but Mr Toots is in the drawing-room,
and sends his compliments, and begs to know how Diogenes and Master is.'
Quick as thought, Florence glided out and hastened downstairs, where Mr
Toots, in the most splendid vestments, was breathing very hard with doubt
and agitation on the subject of her coming.
'Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, 'God bless my soul!'
This last ejaculation was occasioned by Mr Toots's deep concern at the
distress he saw in Florence's face; which caused him to stop short in a fit
of chuckles, and become an image of despair.
'Dear Mr Toots,' said Florence, 'you are so friendly to me, and so
honest, that I am sure I may ask a favour of you.
'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'if you'll only name one, you'll -
you'll give me an appetite. To which,' said Mr Toots, with some sentiment,
'I have long been a stranger.
'Susan, who is an old friend of mine, the oldest friend I have,' said
Florence, 'is about to leave here suddenly, and quite alone, poor girl. She
is going home, a little way into the country. Might I ask you to take care
of her until she is in the coach?'
'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'you really do me an honour and a
kindness. This proof of your confidence, after the manner in which I was
Beast enough to conduct myself at Brighton - '
'Yes,' said Florence, hurriedly - 'no - don't think of that. Then would
you have the kindness to - to go? and to be ready to meet her when she comes
out? Thank you a thousand times! You ease my mind so much. She doesn't seem
so desolate. You cannot think how grateful I feel to you, or what a good
friend I am sure you are!' and Florence in her earnestness thanked him again
and again; and Mr Toots, in his earnestness, hurried away - but backwards,
that he might lose no glimpse of her.
Florence had not the courage to go out, when she saw poor Susan in the
hall, with Mrs Pipchin driving her forth, and Diogenes jumping about her,
and terrifying Mrs Pipchin to the last degree by making snaps at her
bombazeen skirts, and howling with anguish at the sound of her voice - for
the good duenna was the dearest and most cherished aversion of his breast.
But she saw Susan shake hands with the servants all round, and turn once to
look at her old home; and she saw Diogenes bound out after the cab, and want
to follow it, and testify an impossibility of conviction that he had no
longer any property in the fare; and the door was shut, and the hurry over,
and her tears flowed fast for the loss of an old friend, whom no one could
replace. No one. No one.
Mr Toots, like the leal and trusty soul he was, stopped the cabriolet
in a twinkling, and told Susan Nipper of his commission, at which she cried
more than before.
'Upon my soul and body!' said Mr Toots, taking his seat beside her. 'I
feel for you. Upon my word and honour I think you can hardly know your own
feelings better than I imagine them. I can conceive nothing more dreadful
than to have to leave Miss Dombey.'
Susan abandoned herself to her grief now, and it really was touching to
see her.
'I say,' said Mr Toots, 'now, don't! at least I mean now do, you know!'
'Do what, Mr Toots!' cried Susan.
'Why, come home to my place, and have some dinner before you start,'
said Mr Toots. 'My cook's a most respectable woman - one of the most
motherly people I ever saw - and she'll be delighted to make you
comfortable. Her son,' said Mr Toots, as an additional recommendation, 'was
educated in the Bluecoat School,' and blown up in a powder-mill.'
Susan accepting this kind offer, Mr Toots conducted her to his
dwelling, where they were received by the Matron in question who fully
justified his character of her, and by the Chicken who at first supposed, on
seeing a lady in the vehicle, that Mr Dombey had been doubled up, ably to
his old recommendation, and Miss Dombey abducted. This gentleman awakened in
Miss Nipper some considerable astonishment; for, having been defeated by the
Larkey Boy, his visage was in a state of such great dilapidation, as to be
hardly presentable in society with comfort to the beholders. The Chicken
himself attributed this punishment to his having had the misfortune to get
into Chancery early in the proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the
Larkey one, and heavily grassed. But it appeared from the published records
of that great contest that the Larkey Boy had had it all his own way from
the beginning, and that the Chicken had been tapped, and bunged, and had
received pepper, and had been made groggy, and had come up piping, and had
endured a complication of similar strange inconveniences, until he had been
gone into and finished.
After a good repast, and much hospitality, Susan set out for the
coach-office in another cabriolet, with Mr Toots inside, as before, and the
Chicken on the box, who, whatever distinction he conferred on the little
party by the moral weight and heroism of his character, was scarcely
ornamental to it, physically speaking, on account of his plasters; which
were numerous. But the Chicken had registered a vow, in secret, that he
would never leave Mr Toots (who was secretly pining to get rid of him), for
any less consideration than the good-will and fixtures of a public-house;
and being ambitious to go into that line, and drink himself to death as soon
as possible, he felt it his cue to make his company unacceptable.
The night-coach by which Susan was to go, was on the point of
departure. Mr Toots having put her inside, lingered by the window,
irresolutely, until the driver was about to mount; when, standing on the
step, and putting in a face that by the light of the lamp was anxious and
confused, he said abruptly:
'I say, Susan! Miss Dombey, you know - '
'Yes, Sir.'
'Do you think she could - you know - eh?'
'I beg your pardon, Mr Toots,' said Susan, 'but I don't hear you.
'Do you think she could be brought, you know - not exactly at once, but
in time - in a long time - to - to love me, you know? There!' said poor Mr
Toots.
'Oh dear no!' returned Susan, shaking her head. 'I should say, never.
Never!'
'Thank'ee!' said Mr Toots. 'It's of no consequence. Good-night. It's of
no consequence, thank'ee!'
The Trusty Agent
Edith went out alone that day, and returned home early. It was but a
few minutes after ten o'clock, when her carriage rolled along the street in
which she lived.
There was the same enforced composure on her face, that there had been
when she was dressing; and the wreath upon her head encircled the same cold
and steady brow. But it would have been better to have seen its leaves and
flowers reft into fragments by her passionate hand, or rendered shapeless by
the fitful searches of a throbbing and bewildered brain for any
resting-place, than adorning such tranquillity. So obdurate, so
unapproachable, so unrelenting, one would have thought that nothing could
soften such a woman's nature, and that everything in life had hardened it.
Arrived at her own door, she was alighting, when some one coming
quietly from the hall, and standing bareheaded, offered her his arm. The
servant being thrust aside, she had no choice but to touch it; and she then
knew whose arm it was.
'How is your patient, Sir?' she asked, with a curled lip.
'He is better,' returned Carker. 'He is doing very well. I have left
him for the night.'
She bent her head, and was passing up the staircase, when he followed
and said, speaking at the bottom:
'Madam! May I beg the favour of a minute's audience?'
She stopped and turned her eyes back 'It is an unseasonable time, Sir,
and I am fatigued. Is your business urgent?'
'It is very urgent, returned Carker. 'As I am so fortunate as to have
met you, let me press my petition.'
She looked down for a moment at his glistening mouth; and he looked up
at her, standing above him in her stately dress, and thought, again, how
beautiful she was.
'Where is Miss Dombey?' she asked the servant, aloud.
'In the morning room, Ma'am.'
'Show the way there!' Turning her eyes again on the attentive gentleman
at the bottom of the stairs, and informing him with a slight motion of her
head, that he was at liberty to follow, she passed on.
'I beg your pardon! Madam! Mrs Dombey!' cried the soft and nimble
Carker, at her side in a moment. 'May I be permitted to entreat that Miss
Dombey is not present?'
She confronted him, with a quick look, but with the same
self-possession and steadiness.
'I would spare Miss Dombey,' said Carker, in a low voice, 'the
knowledge of what I have to say. At least, Madam, I would leave it to you to
decide whether she shall know of it or not. I owe that to you. It is my
bounden duty to you. After our former interview, it would be monstrous in me
if I did otherwise.'
She slowly withdrew her eyes from his face, and turning to the servant,
said, 'Some other room.' He led the way to a drawing-room, which he speedily
lighted up and then left them. While he remained, not a word was spoken.
Edith enthroned herself upon a couch by the fire; and Mr Carker, with his
hat in his hand and his eyes bent upon the carpet, stood before her, at some
little distance.
'Before I hear you, Sir,' said Edith, when the door was closed, 'I wish
you to hear me.'
'To be addressed by Mrs Dombey,' he returned, 'even in accents of
unmerited reproach, is an honour I so greatly esteem, that although I were
not her servant in all things, I should defer to such a wish, most readily.'
'If you are charged by the man whom you have just now left, Sir;' Mr
Carker raised his eyes, as if he were going to counterfeit surprise, but she
met them, and stopped him, if such were his intention; 'with any message to
me, do not attempt to deliver it, for I will not receive it. I need scarcely
ask you if you are come on such an errand. I have expected you some time.
'It is my misfortune,' he replied, 'to be here, wholly against my will,
for such a purpose. Allow me to say that I am here for two purposes. That is
one.'
'That one, Sir,' she returned, 'is ended. Or, if you return to it - '
'Can Mrs Dombey believe,' said Carker, coming nearer, 'that I would
return to it in the face of her prohibition? Is it possible that Mrs Dombey,
having no regard to my unfortunate position, is so determined to consider me
inseparable from my instructor as to do me great and wilful injustice?'
'Sir,' returned Edith, bending her dark gaze full upon him, and
speaking with a rising passion that inflated her proud nostril and her
swelling neck, and stirred the delicate white down upon a robe she wore,
thrown loosely over shoulders that could hear its snowy neighbourhood. 'Why
do you present yourself to me, as you have done, and speak to me of love and
duty to my husband, and pretend to think that I am happily married, and that
I honour him? How dare you venture so to affront me, when you know - I do
not know better, Sir: I have seen it in your every glance, and heard it in
your every word - that in place of affection between us there is aversion
and contempt, and that I despise him hardly less than I despise myself for
being his! Injustice! If I had done justice to the torment you have made me
feel, and to my sense of the insult you have put upon me, I should have
slain you!'
She had asked him why he did this. Had she not been blinded by her
pride and wrath, and self-humiliation, - which she was, fiercely as she bent
her gaze upon him, - she would have seen the answer in his face. To bring
her to this declaration.
She saw it not, and cared not whether it was there or no. She saw only
the indignities and struggles she had undergone and had to undergo, and was
writhing under them. As she sat looking fixedly at them, rather than at him,
she plucked the feathers from a pinion of some rare and beautiful bird,
which hung from her wrist by a golden thread, to serve her as a fan, and
rained them on the ground.
He did not shrink beneath her gaze, but stood, until such outward signs
of her anger as had escaped her control subsided, with the air of a man who
had his sufficient reply in reserve and would presently deliver it. And he
then spoke, looking straight into her kindling eyes.
'Madam,' he said, 'I know, and knew before to-day, that I have found no
favour with you; and I knew why. Yes. I knew why. You have spoken so openly
to me; I am so relieved by the possession of your confidence - '
'Confidence!' she repeated, with disdain.
He passed it over.
' - that I will make no pretence of concealment. I did see from the
first, that there was no affection on your part for Mr Dombey - how could it
possibly exist between such different subjects? And I have seen, since, that
stronger feelings than indifference have been engendered in your breast -
how could that possibly be otherwise, either, circumstanced as you have
been? But was it for me to presume to avow this knowledge to you in so many
words?'
'Was it for you, Sir,' she replied, 'to feign that other belief, and
audaciously to thrust it on me day by day?'
'Madam, it was,' he eagerly retorted. 'If I had done less, if I had
done anything but that, I should not be speaking to you thus; and I foresaw
- who could better foresee, for who has had greater experience of Mr Dombey
than myself? - that unless your character should prove to be as yielding and
obedient as that of his first submissive lady, which I did not believe - '
A haughty smile gave him reason to observe that he might repeat this.
'I say, which I did not believe, - the time was likely to come, when
such an understanding as we have now arrived at, would be serviceable.'
'Serviceable to whom, Sir?' she demanded scornfully.
'To you. I will not add to myself, as warning me to refrain even from
that limited commendation of Mr Dombey, in which I can honestly indulge, in
order that I may not have the misfortune of saying anything distasteful to
one whose aversion and contempt,' with great expression, 'are so keen.'
'Is it honest in you, Sir,' said Edith, 'to confess to your "limited
commendation," and to speak in that tone of disparagement, even of him:
being his chief counsellor and flatterer!'
'Counsellor, - yes,' said Carker. 'Flatterer, - no. A little
reservation I fear I must confess to. But our interest and convenience
commonly oblige many of us to make professions that we cannot feel. We have
partnerships of interest and convenience, friendships of interest and
convenience, dealings of interest and convenience, marriages of interest and
convenience, every day.'
She bit her blood-red lip; but without wavering in the dark, stern
watch she kept upon him.
'Madam,' said Mr Carker, sitting down in a chair that was near her,
with an air of the most profound and most considerate respect, 'why should I
hesitate now, being altogether devoted to your service, to speak plainly? It
was natural that a lady, endowed as you are, should think it feasible to
change her husband's character in some respects, and mould him to a better
form.'
'It was not natural to me, Sir,' she rejoined. 'I had never any
expectation or intention of that kind.'
The proud undaunted face showed him it was resolute to wear no mask he
offered, but was set upon a reckless disclosure of itself, indifferent to
any aspect in which it might present itself to such as he.
'At least it was natural,' he resumed, 'that you should deem it quite
possible to live with Mr Dombey as his wife, at once without submitting to
him, and without coming into such violent collision with him. But, Madam,
you did not know Mr Dombey (as you have since ascertained), when you thought
that. You did not know how exacting and how proud he is, or how he is, if I
may say so, the slave of his own greatness, and goes yoked to his own
triumphal car like a beast of burden, with no idea on earth but that it is
behind him and is to be drawn on, over everything and through everything.'
His teeth gleamed through his malicious relish of this conceit, as he
went on talking:
'Mr Dombey is really capable of no more true consideration for you,
Madam, than for me. The comparison is an extreme one; I intend it to be so;
but quite just. Mr Dombey, in the plenitude of his power, asked me - I had
it from his own lips yesterday morning - to be his go-between to you,
because he knows I am not agreeable to you, and because he intends that I
shall be a punishment for your contumacy; and besides that, because he
really does consider, that I, his paid servant, am an ambassador whom it is
derogatory to the dignity - not of the lady to whom I have the happiness of
speaking; she has no existence in his mind - but of his wife, a part of
himself, to receive. You may imagine how regardless of me, how obtuse to the
possibility of my having any individual sentiment or opinion he is, when he
tells me, openly, that I am so employed. You know how perfectly indifferent
to your feelings he is, when he threatens you with such a messenger. As you,
of course, have not forgotten that he did.'
She watched him still attentively. But he watched her too; and he saw
that this indication of a knowledge on his part, of something that had
passed between herself and her husband, rankled and smarted in her haughty
breast, like a poisoned arrow.
'I do not recall all this to widen the breach between yourself and Mr
Dombey, Madam - Heaven forbid! what would it profit me? - but as an example
of the hopelessness of impressing Mr Dombey with a sense that anybody is to
be considered when he is in question. We who are about him, have, in our
various positions, done our part, I daresay, to confirm him in his way of
thinking; but if we had not done so, others would - or they would not have
been about him; and it has always been, from the beginning, the very staple
of his life. Mr Dombey has had to deal, in short, with none but submissive
and dependent persons, who have bowed the knee, and bent the neck, before
him. He has never known what it is to have angry pride and strong resentment
opposed to him.'
'But he will know it now!' she seemed to say; though her lips did not
part, nor her eyes falter. He saw the soft down tremble once again, and he
saw her lay the plumage of the beautiful bird against her bosom for a
moment; and he unfolded one more ring of the coil into which he had gathered
himself.
'Mr Dombey, though a most honourable gentleman,' he said, 'is so prone
to pervert even facts to his own view, when he is at all opposed, in
consequence of the warp in his mind, that he - can I give a better instance
than this! - he sincerely believes (you will excuse the folly of what I am
about to say; it not being mine) that his severe expression of opinion to
his present wife, on a certain special occasion she may remember, before the
lamented death of Mrs Skewton, produced a withering effect, and for the
moment quite subdued her!'
Edith laughed. How harshly and unmusically need not be described. It is
enough that he was glad to hear her.
'Madam,' he resumed, 'I have done with this. Your own opinions are so
strong, and, I am persuaded, so unalterable,' he repeated those words slowly
and with great emphasis, 'that I am almost afraid to incur your displeasure
anew, when I say that in spite of these defects and my full knowledge of
them, I have become habituated to Mr Dombey, and esteem him. But when I say
so, it is not, believe me, for the mere sake of vaunting a feeling that is
so utterly at variance with your own, and for which you can have no
sympathy' - oh how distinct and plain and emphasized this was! - 'but to
give you an assurance of the zeal with which, in this unhappy matter, I am
yours, and the indignation with which I regard the part I am to fill!'
She sat as if she were afraid to take her eyes from his face.
And now to unwind the last ring of the coil!
'It is growing late,' said Carker, after a pause, 'and you are, as you
said, fatigued. But the second object of this interview, I must not forget.
I must recommend you, I must entreat you in the most earnest manner, for
sufficient reasons that I have, to be cautious in your demonstrations of
regard for Miss Dombey.'
'Cautious! What do you mean?'
'To be careful how you exhibit too much affection for that young lady.'
'Too much affection, Sir!' said Edith, knitting her broad brow and
rising. 'Who judges my affection, or measures it out? You?'
'It is not I who do so.' He was, or feigned to be, perplexed.
'Who then?'
'Can you not guess who then?'
'I do not choose to guess,' she answered.
'Madam,' he said after a little hesitation; meantime they had been, and
still were, regarding each other as before; 'I am in a difficulty here. You
have told me you will receive no message, and you have forbidden me to
return to that subject; but the two subjects are so closely entwined, I
find, that unless you will accept this vague caution from one who has now
the honour to possess your confidence, though the way to it has been through
your displeasure, I must violate the injunction you have laid upon me.'
'You know that you are free to do so, Sir,' said Edith. 'Do it.'
So pale, so trembling, so impassioned! He had not miscalculated the
effect then!
'His instructions were,' he said, in a low voice, 'that I should inform
you that your demeanour towards Miss Dombey is not agreeable to him. That it
suggests comparisons to him which are not favourable to himself. That he
desires it may be wholly changed; and that if you are in earnest, he is
confident it will be; for your continued show of affection will not benefit
its object.'
'That is a threat,' she said.
'That is a threat,' he answered, in his voiceless manner of assent:
adding aloud, 'but not directed against you.'
Proud, erect, and dignified, as she stood confronting him; and looking
through him as she did, with her full bright flashing eye; and smiling, as
she was, with scorn and bitterness; she sunk as if the ground had dropped
beneath her, and in an instant would have fallen on the floor, but that he
caught her in his arms. As instantaneously she threw him off, the moment
that he touched her, and, drawing back, confronted him again, immoveable,
with her hand stretched out.
'Please to leave me. Say no more to-night.'
'I feel the urgency of this,' said Mr Carker, 'because it is impossible
to say what unforeseen consequences might arise, or how soon, from your
being unacquainted with his state of mind. I understand Miss Dombey is
concerned, now, at the dismissal of her old servant, which is likely to have
been a minor consequence in itself. You don't blame me for requesting that
Miss Dombey might not be present. May I hope so?'
'I do not. Please to leave me, Sir.'
'I knew that your regard for the young lady, which is very sincere and
strong, I am well persuaded, would render it a great unhappiness to you,
ever to be a prey to the reflection that you had injured her position and
ruined her future hopes,' said Carker hurriedly, but eagerly.
'No more to-night. Leave me, if you please.'
'I shall be here constantly in my attendance upon him, and in the
transaction of business matters. You will allow me to see you again, and to
consult what should be done, and learn your wishes?'
She motioned him towards the door.
'I cannot even decide whether to tell him I have spoken to you yet; or
to lead him to suppose that I have deferred doing so, for want of
opportunity, or for any other reason. It will be necessary that you should
enable me to consult with you very soon.
'At any time but now,' she answered.
'You will understand, when I wish to see you, that Miss Dombey is not
to be present; and that I seek an interview as one who has the happiness to
possess your confidence, and who comes to render you every assistance in his
power, and, perhaps, on many occasions, to ward off evil from her?'
Looking at him still with the same apparent dread of releasing him for
a moment from the influence of her steady gaze, whatever that might be, she
answered, 'Yes!' and once more bade him go.
He bowed, as if in compliance; but turning back, when he had nearly
reached the door, said:
'I am forgiven, and have explained my fault. May I - for Miss Dombey's
sake, and for my own - take your hand before I go?'
She gave him the gloved hand she had maimed last night. He took it in
one of his, and kissed it, and withdrew. And when he had closed the door, he
waved the hand with which he had taken hers, and thrust it in his breast.
Edith saw no one that night, but locked her door, and kept herself
alone.
She did not weep; she showed no greater agitation, outwardly, than when
she was riding home. She laid as proud a head upon her pillow as she had
borne in her carriage; and her prayer ran thus:
'May this man be a liar! For if he has spoken truth, she is lost to me,
and I have no hope left!'
This man, meanwhile, went home musing to bed, thinking, with a dainty
pleasure, how imperious her passion was, how she had sat before him in her
beauty, with the dark eyes that had never turned away but once; how the
white down had fluttered; how the bird's feathers had been strewn upon the
ground.
Recognizant and Reflective
Among sundry minor alterations in Mr Carker's life and habits that
began to take place at this time, none was more remarkable than the
extraordinary diligence with which he applied himself to business, and the
closeness with which he investigated every detail that the affairs of the
House laid open to him. Always active and penetrating in such matters, his
said a score of times.
Soon she grew calmer, and was full of pity for the tears of Florence,
and for her waking at such untimely hours. And the day now dawning, with
folded her in her arms and laid her down upon her bed, and, not lying down
herself, sat by her, and bade her try to sleep.
'For you are weary, dearest, and unhappy, and should rest.'
'I am indeed unhappy, dear Mama, tonight,' said Florence. 'But you are
weary and unhappy, too.'
'Not when you lie asleep so near me, sweet.'
They kissed each other, and Florence, worn out, gradually fell into a
gentle slumber; but as her eyes closed on the face beside her, it was so sad
to think upon the face downstairs, that her hand drew closer to Edith for
some comfort; yet, even in the act, it faltered, lest it should be deserting
him. So, in her sleep, she tried to reconcile the two together, and to show
them that she loved them both, but could not do it, and her waking grief was
part of her dreams.
Edith, sitting by, looked down at the dark eyelashes lying wet on the
flushed cheeks, and looked with gentleness and pity, for she knew the truth.
But no sleep hung upon her own eyes. As the day came on she still sat
watching and waking, with the placid hand in hers, and sometimes whispered,
as she looked at the hushed face, 'Be near me, Florence. I have no hope but
in you!'
A Separation
With the day, though not so early as the sun, uprose Miss Susan Nipper.
There was a heaviness in this young maiden's exceedingly sharp black eyes,
that abated somewhat of their sparkling, and suggested - which was not their
usual character - the possibility of their being sometimes shut. There was
likewise a swollen look about them, as if they had been crying over-night.
But the Nipper, so far from being cast down, was singularly brisk and bold,
and all her energies appeared to be braced up for some great feat. This was
noticeable even in her dress, which was much more tight and trim than usual;
and in occasional twitches of her head as she went about the house, which
were mightily expressive of determination.
In a word, she had formed a determination, and an aspiring one: it
being nothing less than this - to penetrate to Mr Dombey's presence, and
have speech of that gentleman alone. 'I have often said I would,' she
remarked, in a threatening manner, to herself, that morning, with many
twitches of her head, 'and now I will!'
Spurring herself on to the accomplishment of this desperate design,
with a sharpness that was peculiar to herself, Susan Nipper haunted the hall
and staircase during the whole forenoon, without finding a favourable
opportunity for the assault. Not at all baffled by this discomfiture, which
indeed had a stimulating effect, and put her on her mettle, she diminished
nothing of her vigilance; and at last discovered, towards evening, that her
sworn foe Mrs Pipchin, under pretence of having sat up all night, was dozing
in her own room, and that Mr Dombey was lying on his sofa, unattended.
With a twitch - not of her head merely, this time, but of her whole
self - the Nipper went on tiptoe to Mr Dombey's door, and knocked. 'Come
in!' said Mr Dombey. Susan encouraged herself with a final twitch, and went
in.
Mr Dombey, who was eyeing the fire, gave an amazed look at his visitor,
and raised himself a little on his arm. The Nipper dropped a curtsey.
'What do you want?' said Mr Dombey.
'If you please, Sir, I wish to speak to you,' said Susan.
Mr Dombey moved his lips as if he were repeating the words, but he
seemed so lost in astonishment at the presumption of the young woman as to
be incapable of giving them utterance.
'I have been in your service, Sir,' said Susan Nipper, with her usual
rapidity, 'now twelve 'year a waiting on Miss Floy my own young lady who
couldn't speak plain when I first come here and I was old in this house when
Mrs Richards was new, I may not be Meethosalem, but I am not a child in
arms.'
Mr Dombey, raised upon his arm and looking at her, offered no comment
on this preparatory statement of fact.
'There never was a dearer or a blesseder young lady than is my young
lady, Sir,' said Susan, 'and I ought to know a great deal better than some
for I have seen her in her grief and I have seen her in her joy (there's not
been much of it) and I have seen her with her brother and I have seen her in
her loneliness and some have never seen her, and I say to some and all - I
do!' and here the black-eyed shook her head, and slightly stamped her foot;
'that she's the blessedest and dearest angel is Miss Floy that ever drew the
breath of life, the more that I was torn to pieces Sir the more I'd say it
though I may not be a Fox's Martyr..'
Mr Dombey turned yet paler than his fall had made him, with indignation
and astonishment; and kept his eyes upon the speaker as if he accused them,
and his ears too, of playing him false.
'No one could be anything but true and faithful to Miss Floy, Sir,'
pursued Susan, 'and I take no merit for my service of twelve year, for I
love her - yes, I say to some and all I do!' - and here the black-eyed shook
her head again, and slightly stamped her foot again, and checked a sob; 'but
true and faithful service gives me right to speak I hope, and speak I must
and will now, right or wrong.
'What do you mean, woman?' said Mr Dombey, glaring at her. 'How do you
dare?'
'What I mean, Sir, is to speak respectful and without offence, but out,
and how I dare I know not but I do!'said Susan. 'Oh! you don't know my young
lady Sir you don't indeed, you'd never know so little of her, if you did.'
Mr Dombey, in a fury, put his hand out for the bell-rope; but there was
no bell-rope on that side of the fire, and he could not rise and cross to
the other without assistance. The quick eye of the Nipper detected his
helplessness immediately, and now, as she afterwards observed, she felt she
had got him.
'Miss Floy,' said Susan Nipper, 'is the most devoted and most patient
and most dutiful and beautiful of daughters, there ain't no gentleman, no
Sir, though as great and rich as all the greatest and richest of England put
together, but might be proud of her and would and ought. If he knew her
value right, he'd rather lose his greatness and his fortune piece by piece
and beg his way in rags from door to door, I say to some and all, he would!'
cried Susan Nipper, bursting into tears, 'than bring the sorrow on her
tender heart that I have seen it suffer in this house!'
'Woman,' cried Mr Dombey, 'leave the room.
'Begging your pardon, not even if I am to leave the situation, Sir,'
replied the steadfast Nipper, 'in which I have been so many years and seen
so much - although I hope you'd never have the heart to send me from Miss
Floy for such a cause - will I go now till I have said the rest, I may not
be a Indian widow Sir and I am not and I would not so become but if I once
made up my mind to burn myself alive, I'd do it! And I've made my mind up to
go on.'
Which was rendered no less clear by the expression of Susan Nipper's
countenance, than by her words.
'There ain't a person in your service, Sir,' pursued the black-eyed,
'that has always stood more in awe of you than me and you may think how true
it is when I make so bold as say that I have hundreds and hundreds of times
thought of speaking to you and never been able to make my mind up to it till
last night, but last night decided of me.'
Mr Dombey, in a paroxysm of rage, made another grasp at the bell-rope
that was not there, and, in its absence, pulled his hair rather than
nothing.
'I have seen,' said Susan Nipper, 'Miss Floy strive and strive when
nothing but a child so sweet and patient that the best of women might have
copied from her, I've seen her sitting nights together half the night
through to help her delicate brother with his learning, I've seen her
helping him and watching him at other times - some well know when - I've
seen her, with no encouragement and no help, grow up to be a lady, thank
God! that is the grace and pride of every company she goes in, and I've
always seen her cruelly neglected and keenly feeling of it - I say to some
and all, I have! - and never said one word, but ordering one's self lowly
and reverently towards one's betters, is not to be a worshipper of graven
images, and I will and must speak!'
'Is there anybody there?' cried Mr Dombey, calling out. 'Where are the
men? where are the women? Is there no one there?'
'I left my dear young lady out of bed late last night,' said Susan,
nothing checked, 'and I knew why, for you was ill Sir and she didn't know
how ill and that was enough to make her wretched as I saw it did. I may not
be a Peacock; but I have my eyes - and I sat up a little in my own room
thinking she might be lonesome and might want me, and I saw her steal
downstairs and come to this door as if it was a guilty thing to look at her
own Pa, and then steal back again and go into them lonely drawing-rooms,
a-crying so, that I could hardly bear to hear it. I can not bear to hear
it,' said Susan Nipper, wiping her black eyes, and fixing them undauntingly
on Mr Dombey's infuriated face. 'It's not the first time I have heard it,
not by many and many a time you don't know your own daughter, Sir, you don't
know what you're doing, Sir, I say to some and all,' cried Susan Nipper, in
a final burst, 'that it's a sinful shame!'
'Why, hoity toity!' cried the voice of Mrs Pipchin, as the black
bombazeen garments of that fair Peruvian Miner swept into the room. 'What's
this, indeed?'
Susan favoured Mrs Pipchin with a look she had invented expressly for
her when they first became acquainted, and resigned the reply to Mr Dombey.
'What's this?' repeated Mr Dombey, almost foaming. 'What's this, Madam?
You who are at the head of this household, and bound to keep it in order,
have reason to inquire. Do you know this woman?'
'I know very little good of her, Sir,' croaked Mrs Pipchin. 'How dare
you come here, you hussy? Go along with you!'
But the inflexible Nipper, merely honouring Mrs Pipchin with another
look, remained.
'Do you call it managing this establishment, Madam,' said Mr Dombey,
'to leave a person like this at liberty to come and talk to me! A gentleman
- in his own house - in his own room - assailed with the impertinences of
women-servants!'
'Well, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin, with vengeance in her hard grey eye,
'I exceedingly deplore it; nothing can be more irregular; nothing can be
more out of all bounds and reason; but I regret to say, Sir, that this young
woman is quite beyond control. She has been spoiled by Miss Dombey, and is
amenable to nobody. You know you're not,' said Mrs Pipchin, sharply, and
shaking her head at Susan Nipper. 'For shame, you hussy! Go along with you!'
'If you find people in my service who are not to be controlled, Mrs
Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, turning back towards the fire, 'you know what to
do with them, I presume. You know what you are here for? Take her away!'
'Sir, I know what to do,' retorted Mrs Pipchin, 'and of course shall do
it' Susan Nipper,' snapping her up particularly short, 'a month's warning
from this hour.'
'Oh indeed!' cried Susan, loftily.
'Yes,' returned Mrs Pipchin, 'and don't smile at me, you minx, or I'll
know the reason why! Go along with you this minute!'
'I intend to go this minute, you may rely upon it,' said the voluble
Nipper. 'I have been in this house waiting on my young lady a dozen year and
I won't stop in it one hour under notice from a person owning to the name of
Pipchin trust me, Mrs P.'
'A good riddance of bad rubbish!' said that wrathful old lady. 'Get
along with you, or I'll have you carried out!'
'My comfort is,' said Susan, looking back at Mr Dombey, 'that I have
told a piece of truth this day which ought to have been told long before and
can't be told too often or too plain and that no amount of Pipchinses - I
hope the number of 'em mayn't be great' (here Mrs Pipchin uttered a very
sharp 'Go along with you!' and Miss Nipper repeated the look) 'can unsay
what I have said, though they gave a whole year full of warnings beginning
at ten o'clock in the forenoon and never leaving off till twelve at night
and died of the exhaustion which would be a Jubilee!'
With these words, Miss Nipper preceded her foe out of the room; and
walking upstairs to her own apartments in great state, to the choking
exasperation of the ireful Pipchin, sat down among her boxes and began to
cry.
From this soft mood she was soon aroused, with a very wholesome and
refreshing effect, by the voice of Mrs Pipchin outside the door.
'Does that bold-faced slut,' said the fell Pipchin, 'intend to take her
warning, or does she not?'
Miss Nipper replied from within that the person described did not
inhabit that part of the house, but that her name was Pipchin, and she was
to be found in the housekeeper's room.
'You saucy baggage!' retorted Mrs Pipchin, rattling at the handle of
the door. 'Go along with you this minute. Pack up your things directly! How
dare you talk in this way to a gentle-woman who has seen better days?'
To which Miss Nipper rejoined from her castle, that she pitied the
better days that had seen Mrs Pipchin; and that for her part she considered
the worst days in the year to be about that lady's mark, except that they
were much too good for her.
'But you needn't trouble yourself to make a noise at my door,' said
Susan Nipper, 'nor to contaminate the key-hole with your eye, I'm packing up
and going you may take your affidavit.'
The Dowager expressed her lively satisfaction at this intelligence, and
with some general opinions upon young hussies as a race, and especially upon
their demerits after being spoiled by Miss Dombey, withdrew to prepare the
Nipper~s wages. Susan then bestirred herself to get her trunks in order,
that she might take an immediate and dignified departure; sobbing heartily
all the time, as she thought of Florence.
The object of her regret was not long in coming to her, for the news
soon spread over the house that Susan Nipper had had a disturbance with Mrs
Pipchin, and that they had both appealed to Mr Dombey, and that there had
been an unprecedented piece of work in Mr Dombey's room, and that Susan was
going. The latter part of this confused rumour, Florence found to be so
correct, that Susan had locked the last trunk and was sitting upon it with
her bonnet on, when she came into her room.
'Susan!' cried Florence. 'Going to leave me! You!'
'Oh for goodness gracious sake, Miss Floy,' said Susan, sobbing, 'don't
speak a word to me or I shall demean myself before them' Pipchinses, and I
wouldn't have 'em see me cry Miss Floy for worlds!'
'Susan!' said Florence. 'My dear girl, my old friend! What shall I do
without you! Can you bear to go away so?'
'No-n-o-o, my darling dear Miss Floy, I can't indeed,' sobbed Susan.
'But it can't be helped, I've done my duty' Miss, I have indeed. It's no
fault of mine. I am quite resigned. I couldn't stay my month or I could
never leave you then my darling and I must at last as well as at first,
don't speak to me Miss Floy, for though I'm pretty firm I'm not a marble
doorpost, my own dear.'
'What is it? Why is it?' said Florence, 'Won't you tell me?' For Susan
was shaking her head.
'No-n-no, my darling,' returned Susan. 'Don't ask me, for I mustn't,
and whatever you do don't put in a word for me to stop, for it couldn't be
and you'd only wrong yourself, and so God bless you my own precious and
forgive me any harm I have done, or any temper I have showed in all these
many years!'
With which entreaty, very heartily delivered, Susan hugged her mistress
in her arms.
'My darling there's a many that may come to serve you and be glad to
serve you and who'll serve you well and true,' said Susan, 'but there can't
be one who'll serve you so affectionate as me or love you half as dearly,
that's my comfort' Good-bye, sweet Miss Floy!'
'Where will you go, Susan?' asked her weeping mistress.
'I've got a brother down in the country Miss - a farmer in Essex said
the heart-broken Nipper, 'that keeps ever so many co-o-ows and pigs and I
shall go down there by the coach and sto-op with him, and don't mind me, for
I've got money in the Savings Banks my dear, and needn't take another
service just yet, which I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't do, my heart's own
mistress!' Susan finished with a burst of sorrow, which was opportunely
broken by the voice of Mrs Pipchin talking downstairs; on hearing which, she
dried her red and swollen eyes, and made a melancholy feint of calling
jauntily to Mr Towlinson to fetch a cab and carry down her boxes.
Florence, pale and hurried and distressed, but withheld from useless
interference even here, by her dread of causing any new division between her
father and his wife (whose stern, indignant face had been a warning to her a
few moments since), and by her apprehension of being in some way
unconsciously connected already with the dismissal of her old servant and
friend, followed, weeping, downstairs to Edith's dressing-room, whither
Susan betook herself to make her parting curtsey.
'Now, here's the cab, and here's the boxes, get along with you, do!'
said Mrs Pipchin, presenting herself at the same moment. 'I beg your pardon,
Ma'am, but Mr Dombey's orders are imperative.'
Edith, sitting under the hands of her maid - she was going out to
dinner - preserved her haughty face, and took not the least notice.
'There's your money,' said Mrs Pipchin, who in pursuance of her system,
and in recollection of the Mines, was accustomed to rout the servants about,
as she had routed her young Brighton boarders; to the everlasting
acidulation of Master Bitherstone, 'and the sooner this house sees your back
the better.
Susan had no spirits even for the look that belonged to Ma Pipchin by
right; so she dropped her curtsey to Mrs Dombey (who inclined her head
without one word, and whose eye avoided everyone but Florence), and gave one
last parting hug to her young mistress, and received her parting embrace in
return. Poor Susan's face at this crisis, in the intensity of her feelings
and the determined suffocation of her sobs, lest one should become audible
and be a triumph to Mrs Pipchin, presented a series of the most
extraordinary physiognomical phenomena ever witnessed.
'I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure,' said Towlinson, outside the door
with the boxes, addressing Florence, 'but Mr Toots is in the drawing-room,
and sends his compliments, and begs to know how Diogenes and Master is.'
Quick as thought, Florence glided out and hastened downstairs, where Mr
Toots, in the most splendid vestments, was breathing very hard with doubt
and agitation on the subject of her coming.
'Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, 'God bless my soul!'
This last ejaculation was occasioned by Mr Toots's deep concern at the
distress he saw in Florence's face; which caused him to stop short in a fit
of chuckles, and become an image of despair.
'Dear Mr Toots,' said Florence, 'you are so friendly to me, and so
honest, that I am sure I may ask a favour of you.
'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'if you'll only name one, you'll -
you'll give me an appetite. To which,' said Mr Toots, with some sentiment,
'I have long been a stranger.
'Susan, who is an old friend of mine, the oldest friend I have,' said
Florence, 'is about to leave here suddenly, and quite alone, poor girl. She
is going home, a little way into the country. Might I ask you to take care
of her until she is in the coach?'
'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'you really do me an honour and a
kindness. This proof of your confidence, after the manner in which I was
Beast enough to conduct myself at Brighton - '
'Yes,' said Florence, hurriedly - 'no - don't think of that. Then would
you have the kindness to - to go? and to be ready to meet her when she comes
out? Thank you a thousand times! You ease my mind so much. She doesn't seem
so desolate. You cannot think how grateful I feel to you, or what a good
friend I am sure you are!' and Florence in her earnestness thanked him again
and again; and Mr Toots, in his earnestness, hurried away - but backwards,
that he might lose no glimpse of her.
Florence had not the courage to go out, when she saw poor Susan in the
hall, with Mrs Pipchin driving her forth, and Diogenes jumping about her,
and terrifying Mrs Pipchin to the last degree by making snaps at her
bombazeen skirts, and howling with anguish at the sound of her voice - for
the good duenna was the dearest and most cherished aversion of his breast.
But she saw Susan shake hands with the servants all round, and turn once to
look at her old home; and she saw Diogenes bound out after the cab, and want
to follow it, and testify an impossibility of conviction that he had no
longer any property in the fare; and the door was shut, and the hurry over,
and her tears flowed fast for the loss of an old friend, whom no one could
replace. No one. No one.
Mr Toots, like the leal and trusty soul he was, stopped the cabriolet
in a twinkling, and told Susan Nipper of his commission, at which she cried
more than before.
'Upon my soul and body!' said Mr Toots, taking his seat beside her. 'I
feel for you. Upon my word and honour I think you can hardly know your own
feelings better than I imagine them. I can conceive nothing more dreadful
than to have to leave Miss Dombey.'
Susan abandoned herself to her grief now, and it really was touching to
see her.
'I say,' said Mr Toots, 'now, don't! at least I mean now do, you know!'
'Do what, Mr Toots!' cried Susan.
'Why, come home to my place, and have some dinner before you start,'
said Mr Toots. 'My cook's a most respectable woman - one of the most
motherly people I ever saw - and she'll be delighted to make you
comfortable. Her son,' said Mr Toots, as an additional recommendation, 'was
educated in the Bluecoat School,' and blown up in a powder-mill.'
Susan accepting this kind offer, Mr Toots conducted her to his
dwelling, where they were received by the Matron in question who fully
justified his character of her, and by the Chicken who at first supposed, on
seeing a lady in the vehicle, that Mr Dombey had been doubled up, ably to
his old recommendation, and Miss Dombey abducted. This gentleman awakened in
Miss Nipper some considerable astonishment; for, having been defeated by the
Larkey Boy, his visage was in a state of such great dilapidation, as to be
hardly presentable in society with comfort to the beholders. The Chicken
himself attributed this punishment to his having had the misfortune to get
into Chancery early in the proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the
Larkey one, and heavily grassed. But it appeared from the published records
of that great contest that the Larkey Boy had had it all his own way from
the beginning, and that the Chicken had been tapped, and bunged, and had
received pepper, and had been made groggy, and had come up piping, and had
endured a complication of similar strange inconveniences, until he had been
gone into and finished.
After a good repast, and much hospitality, Susan set out for the
coach-office in another cabriolet, with Mr Toots inside, as before, and the
Chicken on the box, who, whatever distinction he conferred on the little
party by the moral weight and heroism of his character, was scarcely
ornamental to it, physically speaking, on account of his plasters; which
were numerous. But the Chicken had registered a vow, in secret, that he
would never leave Mr Toots (who was secretly pining to get rid of him), for
any less consideration than the good-will and fixtures of a public-house;
and being ambitious to go into that line, and drink himself to death as soon
as possible, he felt it his cue to make his company unacceptable.
The night-coach by which Susan was to go, was on the point of
departure. Mr Toots having put her inside, lingered by the window,
irresolutely, until the driver was about to mount; when, standing on the
step, and putting in a face that by the light of the lamp was anxious and
confused, he said abruptly:
'I say, Susan! Miss Dombey, you know - '
'Yes, Sir.'
'Do you think she could - you know - eh?'
'I beg your pardon, Mr Toots,' said Susan, 'but I don't hear you.
'Do you think she could be brought, you know - not exactly at once, but
in time - in a long time - to - to love me, you know? There!' said poor Mr
Toots.
'Oh dear no!' returned Susan, shaking her head. 'I should say, never.
Never!'
'Thank'ee!' said Mr Toots. 'It's of no consequence. Good-night. It's of
no consequence, thank'ee!'
The Trusty Agent
Edith went out alone that day, and returned home early. It was but a
few minutes after ten o'clock, when her carriage rolled along the street in
which she lived.
There was the same enforced composure on her face, that there had been
when she was dressing; and the wreath upon her head encircled the same cold
and steady brow. But it would have been better to have seen its leaves and
flowers reft into fragments by her passionate hand, or rendered shapeless by
the fitful searches of a throbbing and bewildered brain for any
resting-place, than adorning such tranquillity. So obdurate, so
unapproachable, so unrelenting, one would have thought that nothing could
soften such a woman's nature, and that everything in life had hardened it.
Arrived at her own door, she was alighting, when some one coming
quietly from the hall, and standing bareheaded, offered her his arm. The
servant being thrust aside, she had no choice but to touch it; and she then
knew whose arm it was.
'How is your patient, Sir?' she asked, with a curled lip.
'He is better,' returned Carker. 'He is doing very well. I have left
him for the night.'
She bent her head, and was passing up the staircase, when he followed
and said, speaking at the bottom:
'Madam! May I beg the favour of a minute's audience?'
She stopped and turned her eyes back 'It is an unseasonable time, Sir,
and I am fatigued. Is your business urgent?'
'It is very urgent, returned Carker. 'As I am so fortunate as to have
met you, let me press my petition.'
She looked down for a moment at his glistening mouth; and he looked up
at her, standing above him in her stately dress, and thought, again, how
beautiful she was.
'Where is Miss Dombey?' she asked the servant, aloud.
'In the morning room, Ma'am.'
'Show the way there!' Turning her eyes again on the attentive gentleman
at the bottom of the stairs, and informing him with a slight motion of her
head, that he was at liberty to follow, she passed on.
'I beg your pardon! Madam! Mrs Dombey!' cried the soft and nimble
Carker, at her side in a moment. 'May I be permitted to entreat that Miss
Dombey is not present?'
She confronted him, with a quick look, but with the same
self-possession and steadiness.
'I would spare Miss Dombey,' said Carker, in a low voice, 'the
knowledge of what I have to say. At least, Madam, I would leave it to you to
decide whether she shall know of it or not. I owe that to you. It is my
bounden duty to you. After our former interview, it would be monstrous in me
if I did otherwise.'
She slowly withdrew her eyes from his face, and turning to the servant,
said, 'Some other room.' He led the way to a drawing-room, which he speedily
lighted up and then left them. While he remained, not a word was spoken.
Edith enthroned herself upon a couch by the fire; and Mr Carker, with his
hat in his hand and his eyes bent upon the carpet, stood before her, at some
little distance.
'Before I hear you, Sir,' said Edith, when the door was closed, 'I wish
you to hear me.'
'To be addressed by Mrs Dombey,' he returned, 'even in accents of
unmerited reproach, is an honour I so greatly esteem, that although I were
not her servant in all things, I should defer to such a wish, most readily.'
'If you are charged by the man whom you have just now left, Sir;' Mr
Carker raised his eyes, as if he were going to counterfeit surprise, but she
met them, and stopped him, if such were his intention; 'with any message to
me, do not attempt to deliver it, for I will not receive it. I need scarcely
ask you if you are come on such an errand. I have expected you some time.
'It is my misfortune,' he replied, 'to be here, wholly against my will,
for such a purpose. Allow me to say that I am here for two purposes. That is
one.'
'That one, Sir,' she returned, 'is ended. Or, if you return to it - '
'Can Mrs Dombey believe,' said Carker, coming nearer, 'that I would
return to it in the face of her prohibition? Is it possible that Mrs Dombey,
having no regard to my unfortunate position, is so determined to consider me
inseparable from my instructor as to do me great and wilful injustice?'
'Sir,' returned Edith, bending her dark gaze full upon him, and
speaking with a rising passion that inflated her proud nostril and her
swelling neck, and stirred the delicate white down upon a robe she wore,
thrown loosely over shoulders that could hear its snowy neighbourhood. 'Why
do you present yourself to me, as you have done, and speak to me of love and
duty to my husband, and pretend to think that I am happily married, and that
I honour him? How dare you venture so to affront me, when you know - I do
not know better, Sir: I have seen it in your every glance, and heard it in
your every word - that in place of affection between us there is aversion
and contempt, and that I despise him hardly less than I despise myself for
being his! Injustice! If I had done justice to the torment you have made me
feel, and to my sense of the insult you have put upon me, I should have
slain you!'
She had asked him why he did this. Had she not been blinded by her
pride and wrath, and self-humiliation, - which she was, fiercely as she bent
her gaze upon him, - she would have seen the answer in his face. To bring
her to this declaration.
She saw it not, and cared not whether it was there or no. She saw only
the indignities and struggles she had undergone and had to undergo, and was
writhing under them. As she sat looking fixedly at them, rather than at him,
she plucked the feathers from a pinion of some rare and beautiful bird,
which hung from her wrist by a golden thread, to serve her as a fan, and
rained them on the ground.
He did not shrink beneath her gaze, but stood, until such outward signs
of her anger as had escaped her control subsided, with the air of a man who
had his sufficient reply in reserve and would presently deliver it. And he
then spoke, looking straight into her kindling eyes.
'Madam,' he said, 'I know, and knew before to-day, that I have found no
favour with you; and I knew why. Yes. I knew why. You have spoken so openly
to me; I am so relieved by the possession of your confidence - '
'Confidence!' she repeated, with disdain.
He passed it over.
' - that I will make no pretence of concealment. I did see from the
first, that there was no affection on your part for Mr Dombey - how could it
possibly exist between such different subjects? And I have seen, since, that
stronger feelings than indifference have been engendered in your breast -
how could that possibly be otherwise, either, circumstanced as you have
been? But was it for me to presume to avow this knowledge to you in so many
words?'
'Was it for you, Sir,' she replied, 'to feign that other belief, and
audaciously to thrust it on me day by day?'
'Madam, it was,' he eagerly retorted. 'If I had done less, if I had
done anything but that, I should not be speaking to you thus; and I foresaw
- who could better foresee, for who has had greater experience of Mr Dombey
than myself? - that unless your character should prove to be as yielding and
obedient as that of his first submissive lady, which I did not believe - '
A haughty smile gave him reason to observe that he might repeat this.
'I say, which I did not believe, - the time was likely to come, when
such an understanding as we have now arrived at, would be serviceable.'
'Serviceable to whom, Sir?' she demanded scornfully.
'To you. I will not add to myself, as warning me to refrain even from
that limited commendation of Mr Dombey, in which I can honestly indulge, in
order that I may not have the misfortune of saying anything distasteful to
one whose aversion and contempt,' with great expression, 'are so keen.'
'Is it honest in you, Sir,' said Edith, 'to confess to your "limited
commendation," and to speak in that tone of disparagement, even of him:
being his chief counsellor and flatterer!'
'Counsellor, - yes,' said Carker. 'Flatterer, - no. A little
reservation I fear I must confess to. But our interest and convenience
commonly oblige many of us to make professions that we cannot feel. We have
partnerships of interest and convenience, friendships of interest and
convenience, dealings of interest and convenience, marriages of interest and
convenience, every day.'
She bit her blood-red lip; but without wavering in the dark, stern
watch she kept upon him.
'Madam,' said Mr Carker, sitting down in a chair that was near her,
with an air of the most profound and most considerate respect, 'why should I
hesitate now, being altogether devoted to your service, to speak plainly? It
was natural that a lady, endowed as you are, should think it feasible to
change her husband's character in some respects, and mould him to a better
form.'
'It was not natural to me, Sir,' she rejoined. 'I had never any
expectation or intention of that kind.'
The proud undaunted face showed him it was resolute to wear no mask he
offered, but was set upon a reckless disclosure of itself, indifferent to
any aspect in which it might present itself to such as he.
'At least it was natural,' he resumed, 'that you should deem it quite
possible to live with Mr Dombey as his wife, at once without submitting to
him, and without coming into such violent collision with him. But, Madam,
you did not know Mr Dombey (as you have since ascertained), when you thought
that. You did not know how exacting and how proud he is, or how he is, if I
may say so, the slave of his own greatness, and goes yoked to his own
triumphal car like a beast of burden, with no idea on earth but that it is
behind him and is to be drawn on, over everything and through everything.'
His teeth gleamed through his malicious relish of this conceit, as he
went on talking:
'Mr Dombey is really capable of no more true consideration for you,
Madam, than for me. The comparison is an extreme one; I intend it to be so;
but quite just. Mr Dombey, in the plenitude of his power, asked me - I had
it from his own lips yesterday morning - to be his go-between to you,
because he knows I am not agreeable to you, and because he intends that I
shall be a punishment for your contumacy; and besides that, because he
really does consider, that I, his paid servant, am an ambassador whom it is
derogatory to the dignity - not of the lady to whom I have the happiness of
speaking; she has no existence in his mind - but of his wife, a part of
himself, to receive. You may imagine how regardless of me, how obtuse to the
possibility of my having any individual sentiment or opinion he is, when he
tells me, openly, that I am so employed. You know how perfectly indifferent
to your feelings he is, when he threatens you with such a messenger. As you,
of course, have not forgotten that he did.'
She watched him still attentively. But he watched her too; and he saw
that this indication of a knowledge on his part, of something that had
passed between herself and her husband, rankled and smarted in her haughty
breast, like a poisoned arrow.
'I do not recall all this to widen the breach between yourself and Mr
Dombey, Madam - Heaven forbid! what would it profit me? - but as an example
of the hopelessness of impressing Mr Dombey with a sense that anybody is to
be considered when he is in question. We who are about him, have, in our
various positions, done our part, I daresay, to confirm him in his way of
thinking; but if we had not done so, others would - or they would not have
been about him; and it has always been, from the beginning, the very staple
of his life. Mr Dombey has had to deal, in short, with none but submissive
and dependent persons, who have bowed the knee, and bent the neck, before
him. He has never known what it is to have angry pride and strong resentment
opposed to him.'
'But he will know it now!' she seemed to say; though her lips did not
part, nor her eyes falter. He saw the soft down tremble once again, and he
saw her lay the plumage of the beautiful bird against her bosom for a
moment; and he unfolded one more ring of the coil into which he had gathered
himself.
'Mr Dombey, though a most honourable gentleman,' he said, 'is so prone
to pervert even facts to his own view, when he is at all opposed, in
consequence of the warp in his mind, that he - can I give a better instance
than this! - he sincerely believes (you will excuse the folly of what I am
about to say; it not being mine) that his severe expression of opinion to
his present wife, on a certain special occasion she may remember, before the
lamented death of Mrs Skewton, produced a withering effect, and for the
moment quite subdued her!'
Edith laughed. How harshly and unmusically need not be described. It is
enough that he was glad to hear her.
'Madam,' he resumed, 'I have done with this. Your own opinions are so
strong, and, I am persuaded, so unalterable,' he repeated those words slowly
and with great emphasis, 'that I am almost afraid to incur your displeasure
anew, when I say that in spite of these defects and my full knowledge of
them, I have become habituated to Mr Dombey, and esteem him. But when I say
so, it is not, believe me, for the mere sake of vaunting a feeling that is
so utterly at variance with your own, and for which you can have no
sympathy' - oh how distinct and plain and emphasized this was! - 'but to
give you an assurance of the zeal with which, in this unhappy matter, I am
yours, and the indignation with which I regard the part I am to fill!'
She sat as if she were afraid to take her eyes from his face.
And now to unwind the last ring of the coil!
'It is growing late,' said Carker, after a pause, 'and you are, as you
said, fatigued. But the second object of this interview, I must not forget.
I must recommend you, I must entreat you in the most earnest manner, for
sufficient reasons that I have, to be cautious in your demonstrations of
regard for Miss Dombey.'
'Cautious! What do you mean?'
'To be careful how you exhibit too much affection for that young lady.'
'Too much affection, Sir!' said Edith, knitting her broad brow and
rising. 'Who judges my affection, or measures it out? You?'
'It is not I who do so.' He was, or feigned to be, perplexed.
'Who then?'
'Can you not guess who then?'
'I do not choose to guess,' she answered.
'Madam,' he said after a little hesitation; meantime they had been, and
still were, regarding each other as before; 'I am in a difficulty here. You
have told me you will receive no message, and you have forbidden me to
return to that subject; but the two subjects are so closely entwined, I
find, that unless you will accept this vague caution from one who has now
the honour to possess your confidence, though the way to it has been through
your displeasure, I must violate the injunction you have laid upon me.'
'You know that you are free to do so, Sir,' said Edith. 'Do it.'
So pale, so trembling, so impassioned! He had not miscalculated the
effect then!
'His instructions were,' he said, in a low voice, 'that I should inform
you that your demeanour towards Miss Dombey is not agreeable to him. That it
suggests comparisons to him which are not favourable to himself. That he
desires it may be wholly changed; and that if you are in earnest, he is
confident it will be; for your continued show of affection will not benefit
its object.'
'That is a threat,' she said.
'That is a threat,' he answered, in his voiceless manner of assent:
adding aloud, 'but not directed against you.'
Proud, erect, and dignified, as she stood confronting him; and looking
through him as she did, with her full bright flashing eye; and smiling, as
she was, with scorn and bitterness; she sunk as if the ground had dropped
beneath her, and in an instant would have fallen on the floor, but that he
caught her in his arms. As instantaneously she threw him off, the moment
that he touched her, and, drawing back, confronted him again, immoveable,
with her hand stretched out.
'Please to leave me. Say no more to-night.'
'I feel the urgency of this,' said Mr Carker, 'because it is impossible
to say what unforeseen consequences might arise, or how soon, from your
being unacquainted with his state of mind. I understand Miss Dombey is
concerned, now, at the dismissal of her old servant, which is likely to have
been a minor consequence in itself. You don't blame me for requesting that
Miss Dombey might not be present. May I hope so?'
'I do not. Please to leave me, Sir.'
'I knew that your regard for the young lady, which is very sincere and
strong, I am well persuaded, would render it a great unhappiness to you,
ever to be a prey to the reflection that you had injured her position and
ruined her future hopes,' said Carker hurriedly, but eagerly.
'No more to-night. Leave me, if you please.'
'I shall be here constantly in my attendance upon him, and in the
transaction of business matters. You will allow me to see you again, and to
consult what should be done, and learn your wishes?'
She motioned him towards the door.
'I cannot even decide whether to tell him I have spoken to you yet; or
to lead him to suppose that I have deferred doing so, for want of
opportunity, or for any other reason. It will be necessary that you should
enable me to consult with you very soon.
'At any time but now,' she answered.
'You will understand, when I wish to see you, that Miss Dombey is not
to be present; and that I seek an interview as one who has the happiness to
possess your confidence, and who comes to render you every assistance in his
power, and, perhaps, on many occasions, to ward off evil from her?'
Looking at him still with the same apparent dread of releasing him for
a moment from the influence of her steady gaze, whatever that might be, she
answered, 'Yes!' and once more bade him go.
He bowed, as if in compliance; but turning back, when he had nearly
reached the door, said:
'I am forgiven, and have explained my fault. May I - for Miss Dombey's
sake, and for my own - take your hand before I go?'
She gave him the gloved hand she had maimed last night. He took it in
one of his, and kissed it, and withdrew. And when he had closed the door, he
waved the hand with which he had taken hers, and thrust it in his breast.
Edith saw no one that night, but locked her door, and kept herself
alone.
She did not weep; she showed no greater agitation, outwardly, than when
she was riding home. She laid as proud a head upon her pillow as she had
borne in her carriage; and her prayer ran thus:
'May this man be a liar! For if he has spoken truth, she is lost to me,
and I have no hope left!'
This man, meanwhile, went home musing to bed, thinking, with a dainty
pleasure, how imperious her passion was, how she had sat before him in her
beauty, with the dark eyes that had never turned away but once; how the
white down had fluttered; how the bird's feathers had been strewn upon the
ground.
Recognizant and Reflective
Among sundry minor alterations in Mr Carker's life and habits that
began to take place at this time, none was more remarkable than the
extraordinary diligence with which he applied himself to business, and the
closeness with which he investigated every detail that the affairs of the
House laid open to him. Always active and penetrating in such matters, his