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receded from Florence, like the retiring ghost of what she had been; little
by little, the chasm between them widened and seemed deeper; little by
little, all the power of earnestness and tenderness she had shown, was
frozen up in the bold, angry hardihood with which she stood, upon the brink
of a deep precipice unseen by Florence, daring to look down.
There was but one consideration to set against the heavy loss of Edith,
and though it was slight comfort to her burdened heart, she tried to think
it some relief. No longer divided between her affection and duty to the two,
Florence could love both and do no injustice to either. As shadows of her
fond imagination, she could give them equal place in her own bosom, and
wrong them with no doubts
So she tried to do. At times, and often too, wondering speculations on
the cause of this change in Edith, would obtrude themselves upon her mind
and frighten her; but in the calm of its abandonment once more to silent
grief and loneliness, it was not a curious mind. Florence had only to
remember that her star of promise was clouded in the general gloom that hung
upon the house, and to weep and be resigned.
Thus living, in a dream wherein the overflowing love of her young heart
expended itself on airy forms, and in a real world where she had experienced
little but the rolling back of that strong tide upon itself, Florence grew
to be seventeen. Timid and retiring as her solitary life had made her, it
had not embittered her sweet temper, or her earnest nature. A child in
innocent simplicity; a woman m her modest self-reliance, and her deep
intensity of feeling; both child and woman seemed at once expressed in her
face and fragile delicacy of shape, and gracefully to mingle there; - as if
the spring should be unwilling to depart when summer came, and sought to
blend the earlier beauties of the flowers with their bloom. But in her
thrilling voice, in her calm eyes, sometimes in a sage ethereal light that
seemed to rest upon her head, and always in a certain pensive air upon her
beauty, there was an expression, such as had been seen in the dead boy; and
the council in the Servants' Hall whispered so among themselves, and shook
their heads, and ate and drank the more, in a closer bond of
good-fellowship.
This observant body had plenty to say of Mr and Mrs Dombey, and of Mr
Carker, who appeared to be a mediator between them, and who came and went as
if he were trying to make peace, but never could. They all deplored the
uncomfortable state of affairs, and all agreed that Mrs Pipchin (whose
unpopularity was not to be surpassed) had some hand in it; but, upon the
whole, it was agreeable to have so good a subject for a rallying point, and
they made a great deal of it, and enjoyed themselves very much.
The general visitors who came to the house, and those among whom Mr and
Mrs Dombey visited, thought it a pretty equal match, as to haughtiness, at
all events, and thought nothing more about it. The young lady with the back
did not appear for some time after Mrs Skewton's death; observing to some
particular friends, with her usual engaging little scream, that she couldn't
separate the family from a notion of tombstones, and horrors of that sort;
but when she did come, she saw nothing wrong, except Mr Dombey's wearing a
bunch of gold seals to his watch, which shocked her very much, as an
exploded superstition. This youthful fascinator considered a daughter-in-law
objectionable in principle; otherwise, she had nothing to say against
Florence, but that she sadly wanted 'style' - which might mean back,
perhaps. Many, who only came to the house on state occasions, hardly knew
who Florence was, and said, going home, 'Indeed, was that Miss Dombey, in
the corner? Very pretty, but a little delicate and thoughtful in
appearance!'
None the less so, certainly, for her life of the last six months.
Florence took her seat at the dinner-table, on the day before the second
anniversary of her father's marriage to Edith (Mrs Skewton had been lying
stricken with paralysis when the first came round), with an uneasiness,
amounting to dread. She had no other warrant for it, than the occasion, the
expression of her father's face, in the hasty glance she caught of it, and
the presence of Mr Carker, which, always unpleasant to her, was more so on
this day, than she had ever felt it before.
Edith was richly dressed, for she and Mr Dombey were engaged in the
evening to some large assembly, and the dinner-hour that day was late. She
did not appear until they were seated at table, when Mr Carker rose and led
her to her chair. Beautiful and lustrous as she was, there was that in her
face and air which seemed to separate her hopelessly from Florence, and from
everyone, for ever more. And yet, for an instant, Florence saw a beam of
kindness in her eyes, when they were turned on her, that made the distance
to which she had withdrawn herself, a greater cause of sorrow and regret
than ever.
There was very little said at dinner. Florence heard her father speak
to Mr Carker sometimes on business matters, and heard him softly reply, but
she paid little attention to what they said, and only wished the dinner at
an end. When the dessert was placed upon the table, and they were left
alone, with no servant in attendance, Mr Dombey, who had been several times
clearing his throat in a manner that augured no good, said:
'Mrs Dombey, you know, I suppose, that I have instructed the
housekeeper that there will be some company to dinner here to-morrow.
'I do not dine at home,' she answered.
'Not a large party,' pursued Mr Dombey, with an indifferent assumption
of not having heard her; 'merely some twelve or fourteen. My sister, Major
Bagstock, and some others whom you know but slightly.'
I do not dine at home,' she repeated.
'However doubtful reason I may have, Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, still
going majestically on, as if she had not spoken, 'to hold the occasion in
very pleasant remembrance just now, there are appearances in these things
which must be maintained before the world. If you have no respect for
yourself, Mrs Dombey - '
'I have none,' she said.
'Madam,' cried Mr Dombey, striking his hand upon the table, 'hear me if
you please. I say, if you have no respect for yourself - '
'And I say I have none,' she answered.
He looked at her; but the face she showed him in return would not have
changed, if death itself had looked.
'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, turning more quietly to that gentleman, 'as
you have been my medium of communication with Mrs Dombey on former
occasions, and as I choose to preserve the decencies of life, so far as I am
individually concerned, I will trouble you to have the goodness to inform
Mrs Dombey that if she has no respect for herself, I have some respect for
myself, and therefore insist on my arrangements for to-morrow.
'Tell your sovereign master, Sir,' said Edith, 'that I will take leave
to speak to him on this subject by-and-bye, and that I will speak to him
alone.'
'Mr Carker, Madam,' said her husband, 'being in possession of the
reason which obliges me to refuse you that privilege, shall be absolved from
the delivery of any such message.' He saw her eyes move, while he spoke, and
followed them with his own.
'Your daughter is present, Sir,' said Edith.
'My daughter will remain present,' said Mr Dombey.
Florence, who had risen, sat down again, hiding her face in her hands,
and trembling.
'My daughter, Madam' - began Mr Dombey.
But Edith stopped him, in a voice which, although not raised in the
least, was so clear, emphatic, and distinct, that it might have been heard
in a whirlwind.
'I tell you I will speak to you alone,' she said. 'If you are not mad,
heed what I say.'
'I have authority to speak to you, Madam,' returned her husband, 'when
and where I please; and it is my pleasure to speak here and now.'
She rose up as if to leave the room; but sat down again, and looking at
him with all outward composure, said, in the same voice:
'You shall!'
'I must tell you first, that there is a threatening appearance in your
manner, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, 'which does not become you.
She laughed. The shaken diamonds in her hair started and trembled.
There are fables of precious stones that would turn pale, their wearer being
in danger. Had these been such, their imprisoned rays of light would have
taken flight that moment, and they would have been as dull as lead.
Carker listened, with his eyes cast down.
'As to my daughter, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, resuming the thread of his
discourse, 'it is by no means inconsistent with her duty to me, that she
should know what conduct to avoid. At present you are a very strong example
to her of this kind, and I hope she may profit by it.'
'I would not stop you now,' returned his wife, immoveable in eye, and
voice, and attitude; 'I would not rise and go away, and save you the
utterance of one word, if the room were burning.'
Mr Dombey moved his head, as if in a sarcastic acknowledgment of the
attention, and resumed. But not with so much self-possession as before; for
Edith's quick uneasiness in reference to Florence, and Edith's indifference
to him and his censure, chafed and galled him like a stiffening wound.
'Mrs Dombey,' said he, 'it may not be inconsistent with my daughter's
improvement to know how very much to be lamented, and how necessary to be
corrected, a stubborn disposition is, especially when it is indulged in -
unthankfully indulged in, I will add - after the gratification of ambition
and interest. Both of which, I believe, had some share in inducing you to
occupy your present station at this board.'
'No! I would not rise, and go away, and save you the utterance of one
word,' she repeated, exactly as before, 'if the room were burning.'
'It may be natural enough, Mrs Dombey,' he pursued, 'that you should be
uneasy in the presence of any auditors of these disagreeable truths; though
why' - he could not hide his real feeling here, or keep his eyes from
glancing gloomily at Florence - 'why anyone can give them greater force and
point than myself, whom they so nearly concern, I do not pretend to
understand. It may be natural enough that you should object to hear, in
anybody's presence, that there is a rebellious principle within you which
you cannot curb too soon; which you must curb, Mrs Dombey; and which, I
regret to say, I remember to have seen manifested - with some doubt and
displeasure, on more than one occasion before our marriage - towards your
deceased mother. But you have the remedy in your own hands. I by no means
forgot, when I began, that my daughter was present, Mrs Dombey. I beg you
will not forget, to-morrow, that there are several persons present; and
that, with some regard to appearances, you will receive your company in a
becoming manner.
'So it is not enough,' said Edith, 'that you know what has passed
between yourself and me; it is not enough that you can look here,' pointing
at Carker, who still listened, with his eyes cast down, 'and be reminded of
the affronts you have put upon me; it is not enough that you can look here,'
pointing to Florence with a hand that slightly trembled for the first and
only time, 'and think of what you have done, and of the ingenious agony,
daily, hourly, constant, you have made me feel in doing it; it is not enough
that this day, of all others in the year, is memorable to me for a struggle
(well-deserved, but not conceivable by such as you) in which I wish I had
died! You add to all this, do you, the last crowning meanness of making her
a witness of the depth to which I have fallen; when you know that you have
made me sacrifice to her peace, the only gentle feeling and interest of my
life, when you know that for her sake, I would now if I could - but I can
not, my soul recoils from you too much - submit myself wholly to your will,
and be the meekest vassal that you have!'
This was not the way to minister to Mr Dombey's greatness. The old
feeling was roused by what she said, into a stronger and fiercer existence
than it had ever had. Again, his neglected child, at this rough passage of
his life, put forth by even this rebellious woman, as powerful where he was
powerless, and everything where he was nothing!
He turned on Florence, as if it were she who had spoken, and bade her
leave the room. Florence with her covered face obeyed, trembling and weeping
as she went.
'I understand, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, with an angry flush of triumph,
'the spirit of opposition that turned your affections in that channel, but
they have been met, Mrs Dombey; they have been met, and turned back!'
'The worse for you!' she answered, with her voice and manner still
unchanged. 'Ay!' for he turned sharply when she said so, 'what is the worse
for me, is twenty million times the worse for you. Heed that, if you heed
nothing else.'
The arch of diamonds spanning her dark hair, flashed and glittered like
a starry bridge. There was no warning in them, or they would have turned as
dull and dim as tarnished honour. Carker still sat and listened, with his
eyes cast down.
'Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, resuming as much as he could of his
arrogant composure, 'you will not conciliate me, or turn me from any
purpose, by this course of conduct.'
'It is the only true although it is a faint expression of what is
within me,' she replied. 'But if I thought it would conciliate you, I would
repress it, if it were repressible by any human effort. I will do nothing
that you ask.'
'I am not accustomed to ask, Mrs Dombey,' he observed; 'I direct.'
'I will hold no place in your house to-morrow, or on any recurrence of
to-morrow. I will be exhibited to no one, as the refractory slave you
purchased, such a time. If I kept my marriage day, I would keep it as a day
of shame. Self-respect! appearances before the world! what are these to me?
You have done all you can to make them nothing to me, and they are nothing.'
'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, speaking with knitted brows, and after a
moment's consideration, 'Mrs Dombey is so forgetful of herself and me in all
this, and places me in a position so unsuited to my character, that I must
bring this state of matters to a close.'
'Release me, then,' said Edith, immoveable in voice, in look, and
bearing, as she had been throughout, 'from the chain by which I am bound.
Let me go.'
'Madam?' exclaimed Mr Dombey.
'Loose me. Set me free!'
'Madam?' he repeated, 'Mrs Dombey?'
'Tell him,' said Edith, addressing her proud face to Carker, 'that I
wish for a separation between us, That there had better be one. That I
recommend it to him, Tell him it may take place on his own terms - his
wealth is nothing to me - but that it cannot be too soon.'
'Good Heaven, Mrs Dombey!' said her husband, with supreme amazement,
'do you imagine it possible that I could ever listen to such a proposition?
Do you know who I am, Madam? Do you know what I represent? Did you ever hear
of Dombey and Son? People to say that Mr Dombey - Mr Dombey! - was separated
from his wife! Common people to talk of Mr Dombey and his domestic affairs!
Do you seriously think, Mrs Dombey, that I would permit my name to be banded
about in such connexion? Pooh, pooh, Madam! Fie for shame! You're absurd.'
Mr Dombey absolutely laughed.
But not as she did. She had better have been dead than laugh as she
did, in reply, with her intent look fixed upon him. He had better have been
dead, than sitting there, in his magnificence, to hear her.
'No, Mrs Dombey,' he resumed. 'No, Madam. There is no possibility of
separation between you and me, and therefore I the more advise you to be
awakened to a sense of duty. And, Carker, as I was about to say to you -
Mr Carker, who had sat and listened all this time, now raised his eyes,
in which there was a bright unusual light'
As I was about to say to you, resumed Mr Dombey, 'I must beg you, now
that matters have come to this, to inform Mrs Dombey, that it is not the
rule of my life to allow myself to be thwarted by anybody - anybody, Carker
- or to suffer anybody to be paraded as a stronger motive for obedience in
those who owe obedience to me than I am my self. The mention that has been
made of my daughter, and the use that is made of my daughter, in opposition
to me, are unnatural. Whether my daughter is in actual concert with Mrs
Dombey, I do not know, and do not care; but after what Mrs Dombey has said
today, and my daughter has heard to-day, I beg you to make known to Mrs
Dombey, that if she continues to make this house the scene of contention it
has become, I shall consider my daughter responsible in some degree, on that
lady's own avowal, and shall visit her with my severe displeasure. Mrs
Dombey has asked "whether it is not enough," that she had done this and
that. You will please to answer no, it is not enough.'
'A moment!' cried Carker, interposing, 'permit me! painful as my
position is, at the best, and unusually painful in seeming to entertain a
different opinion from you,' addressing Mr Dombey, 'I must ask, had you not
better reconsider the question of a separation. I know how incompatible it
appears with your high public position, and I know how determined you are
when you give Mrs Dombey to understand' - the light in his eyes fell upon
her as he separated his words each from each, with the distinctness of so
many bells - 'that nothing but death can ever part you. Nothing else. But
when you consider that Mrs Dombey, by living in this house, and making it as
you have said, a scene of contention, not only has her part in that
contention, but compromises Miss Dombey every day (for I know how determined
you are), will you not relieve her from a continual irritation of spirit,
and a continual sense of being unjust to another, almost intolerable? Does
this not seem like - I do not say it is - sacrificing Mrs Dombey to the
preservation of your preeminent and unassailable position?'
Again the light in his eyes fell upon her, as she stood looking at her
husband: now with an extraordinary and awful smile upon her face.
'Carker,' returned Mr Dombey, with a supercilious frown, and in a tone
that was intended to be final, 'you mistake your position in offering advice
to me on such a point, and you mistake me (I am surprised to find) in the
character of your advice. I have no more to say.
'Perhaps,' said Carker, with an unusual and indefinable taunt in his
air, 'you mistook my position, when you honoured me with the negotiations in
which I have been engaged here' - with a motion of his hand towards Mrs
Dombey.
'Not at all, Sir, not at all,' returned the other haughtily. 'You were
employed - '
'Being an inferior person, for the humiliation of Mrs Dombey. I forgot'
Oh, yes, it was expressly understood!' said Carker. 'I beg your pardon!'
As he bent his head to Mr Dombey, with an air of deference that
accorded ill with his words, though they were humbly spoken, he moved it
round towards her, and kept his watching eyes that way.
She had better have turned hideous and dropped dead, than have stood up
with such a smile upon her face, in such a fallen spirit's majesty of scorn
and beauty. She lifted her hand to the tiara of bright jewels radiant on her
head, and, plucking it off with a force that dragged and strained her rich
black hair with heedless cruelty, and brought it tumbling wildly on her
shoulders, cast the gems upon the ground. From each arm, she unclasped a
diamond bracelet, flung it down, and trod upon the glittering heap. Without
a word, without a shadow on the fire of her bright eye, without abatement of
her awful smile, she looked on Mr Dombey to the last, in moving to the door;
and left him.
Florence had heard enough before quitting the room, to know that Edith
loved her yet; that she had suffered for her sake; and that she had kept her
sacrifices quiet, lest they should trouble her peace. She did not want to
speak to her of this - she could not, remembering to whom she was opposed -
but she wished, in one silent and affectionate embrace, to assure her that
she felt it all, and thanked her.
Her father went out alone, that evening, and Florence issuing from her
own chamber soon afterwards, went about the house in search of. Edith, but
unavailingly. She was in her own rooms, where Florence had long ceased to
go, and did not dare to venture now, lest she should unconsciously engender
new trouble. Still Florence hoping to meet her before going to bed, changed
from room to room, and wandered through the house so splendid and so dreary,
without remaining anywhere.
She was crossing a gallery of communication that opened at some little
distance on the staircase, and was only lighted on great occasions, when she
saw, through the opening, which was an arch, the figure of a man coming down
some few stairs opposite. Instinctively apprehensive of her father, whom she
supposed it was, she stopped, in the dark, gazing through the arch into the
light. But it was Mr Carker coming down alone, and looking over the railing
into the hall. No bell was rung to announce his departure, and no servant
was in attendance. He went down quietly, opened the door for himself, glided
out, and shut it softly after him.
Her invincible repugnance to this man, and perhaps the stealthy act of
watching anyone, which, even under such innocent circumstances, is in a
manner guilty and oppressive, made Florence shake from head to foot. Her
blood seemed to run cold. As soon as she could - for at first she felt an
insurmountable dread of moving - she went quickly to her own room and locked
her door; but even then, shut in with her dog beside her, felt a chill
sensation of horror, as if there were danger brooding somewhere near her.
It invaded her dreams and disturbed the whole night. Rising in the
morning, unrefreshed, and with a heavy recollection of the domestic
unhappiness of the preceding day, she sought Edith again in all the rooms,
and did so, from time to time, all the morning. But she remained in her own
chamber, and Florence saw nothing of her. Learning, however, that the
projected dinner at home was put off, Florence thought it likely that she
would go out in the evening to fulfil the engagement she had spoken of; and
resolved to try and meet her, then, upon the staircase.
When the evening had set in, she heard, from the room in which she sat
on purpose, a footstep on the stairs that she thought to be Edith's.
Hurrying out, and up towards her room, Florence met her immediately, coming
down alone.
What was Florence's affright and wonder when, at sight of her, with her
tearful face, and outstretched arms, Edith recoiled and shrieked!
'Don't come near me!' she cried. 'Keep away! Let me go by!'
'Mama!' said Florence.
'Don't call me by that name! Don't speak to me! Don't look at me! -
Florence!' shrinking back, as Florence moved a step towards her, 'don't
touch me!'
As Florence stood transfixed before the haggard face and staring eyes,
she noted, as in a dream, that Edith spread her hands over them, and
shuddering through all her form, and crouching down against the wall,
crawled by her like some lower animal, sprang up, and fled away.
Florence dropped upon the stairs in a swoon; and was found there by Mrs
Pipchin, she supposed. She knew nothing more, until she found herself lying
on her own bed, with Mrs Pipchin and some servants standing round her.
'Where is Mama?' was her first question.
'Gone out to dinner,' said Mrs Pipchin.
'And Papa?'
'Mr Dombey is in his own room, Miss Dombey,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'and the
best thing you can do, is to take off your things and go to bed this
minute.' This was the sagacious woman's remedy for all complaints,
particularly lowness of spirits, and inability to sleep; for which offences,
many young victims in the days of the Brighton Castle had been committed to
bed at ten o'clock in the morning.
Without promising obedience, but on the plea of desiring to be very
quiet, Florence disengaged herself, as soon as she could, from the
ministration of Mrs Pipchin and her attendants. Left alone, she thought of
what had happened on the staircase, at first in doubt of its reality; then
with tears; then with an indescribable and terrible alarm, like that she had
felt the night before.
She determined not to go to bed until Edith returned, and if she could
not speak to her, at least to be sure that she was safe at home. What
indistinct and shadowy dread moved Florence to this resolution, she did not
know, and did not dare to think. She only knew that until Edith came back,
there was no repose for her aching head or throbbing heart.
The evening deepened into night; midnight came; no Edith.
Florence could not read, or rest a moment. She paced her own room,
opened the door and paced the staircase-gallery outside, looked out of
window on the night, listened to the wind blowing and the rain falling, sat
down and watched the faces in the fire, got up and watched the moon flying
like a storm-driven ship through the sea of clouds.
All the house was gone to bed, except two servants who were waiting the
return of their mistress, downstairs.
One o'clock. The carriages that rumbled in the distance, turned away,
or stopped short, or went past; the silence gradually deepened, and was more
and more rarely broken, save by a rush of wind or sweep of rain. Two
o'clock. No Edith!
Florence, more agitated, paced her room; and paced the gallery outside;
and looked out at the night, blurred and wavy with the raindrops on the
glass, and the tears in her own eyes; and looked up at the hurry in the sky,
so different from the repose below, and yet so tranquil and solitary. Three
o'clock! There was a terror in every ash that dropped out of the fire. No
Edith yet.
More and more agitated, Florence paced her room, and paced the gallery,
and looked out at the moon with a new fancy of her likeness to a pale
fugitive hurrying away and hiding her guilty face. Four struck! Five! No
Edith yet.
But now there was some cautious stir in the house; and Florence found
that Mrs Pipchin had been awakened by one of those who sat up, had risen and
had gone down to her father's door. Stealing lower down the stairs, and
observing what passed, she saw her father come out in his morning gown, and
start when he was told his wife had not come home. He dispatched a messenger
to the stables to inquire whether the coachman was there; and while the man
was gone, dressed himself very hurriedly.
The man came back, in great haste, bringing the coachman with him, who
said he had been at home and in bed, since ten o'clock. He had driven his
mistress to her old house in Brook Street, where she had been met by Mr
Carker -
Florence stood upon the very spot where she had seen him coming down.
Again she shivered with the nameless terror of that sight, and had hardly
steadiness enough to hear and understand what followed.
- Who had told him, the man went on to say, that his mistress would not
want the carriage to go home in; and had dismissed him.
She saw her father turn white in the face, and heard him ask in a
quick, trembling voice, for Mrs Dombey's maid. The whole house was roused;
for she was there, in a moment, very pale too, and speaking incoherently.
She said she had dressed her mistress early - full two hours before she
went out - and had been told, as she often was, that she would not be wanted
at night. She had just come from her mistress's rooms, but -
'But what! what was it?' Florence heard her father demand like a
madman.
'But the inner dressing-room was locked and the key gone.'
Her father seized a candle that was flaming on the ground - someone had
put it down there, and forgotten it - and came running upstairs with such
fury, that Florence, in her fear, had hardly time to fly before him. She
heard him striking in the door, as she ran on, with her hands widely spread,
and her hair streaming, and her face like a distracted person's, back to her
own room.
When the door yielded, and he rushed in, what did he see there? No one
knew. But thrown down in a costly mass upon the ground, was every ornament
she had had, since she had been his wife; every dress she had worn; and
everything she had possessed. This was the room in which he had seen, in
yonder mirror, the proud face discard him. This was the room in which he had
wondered, idly, how these things would look when he should see them next!
Heaping them back into the drawers, and locking them up in a rage of
haste, he saw some papers on the table. The deed of settlement he had
executed on their marriage, and a letter. He read that she was gone. He read
that he was dishonoured. He read that she had fled, upon her shameful
wedding-day, with the man whom he had chosen for her humiliation; and he
tore out of the room, and out of the house, with a frantic idea of finding
her yet, at the place to which she had been taken, and beating all trace of
beauty out of the triumphant face with his bare hand.
Florence, not knowing what she did, put on a shawl and bonnet, in a
dream of running through the streets until she found Edith, and then
clasping her in her arms, to save and bring her back. But when she hurried
out upon the staircase, and saw the frightened servants going up and down
with lights, and whispering together, and falling away from her father as he
passed down, she awoke to a sense of her own powerlessness; and hiding in
one of the great rooms that had been made gorgeous for this, felt as if her
heart would burst with grief.
Compassion for her father was the first distinct emotion that made head
against the flood of sorrow which overwhelmed her. Her constant nature
turned to him in his distress, as fervently and faithfully, as if, in his
prosperity, he had been the embodiment of that idea which had gradually
become so faint and dim. Although she did not know, otherwise than through
the suggestions of a shapeless fear, the full extent of his calamity, he
stood before her, wronged and deserted; and again her yearning love impelled
her to his side.
He was not long away; for Florence was yet weeping in the great room
and nourishing these thoughts, when she heard him come back. He ordered the
servants to set about their ordinary occupations, and went into his own
apartment, where he trod so heavily that she could hear him walking up and
down from end to end.
Yielding at once to the impulse of her affection, timid at all other
times, but bold in its truth to him in his adversity, and undaunted by past
repulse, Florence, dressed as she was, hurried downstairs. As she set her
light foot in the hall, he came out of his room. She hastened towards him
unchecked, with her arms stretched out, and crying 'Oh dear, dear Papa!' as
if she would have clasped him round the neck.
And so she would have done. But in his frenzy, he lifted up his cruel
arm, and struck her, crosswise, with that heaviness, that she tottered on
the marble floor; and as he dealt the blow, he told her what Edith was, and
bade her follow her, since they had always been in league.
She did not sink down at his feet; she did not shut out the sight of
him with her trembling hands; she did not weep; she did not utter one word
of reproach. But she looked at him, and a cry of desolation issued from her
heart. For as she looked, she saw him murdering that fond idea to which she
had held in spite of him. She saw his cruelty, neglect, and hatred dominant
above it, and stamping it down. She saw she had no father upon earth, and
ran out, orphaned, from his house.
Ran out of his house. A moment, and her hand was on the lock, the cry
was on her lips, his face was there, made paler by the yellow candles
hastily put down and guttering away, and by the daylight coming in above the
door. Another moment, and the close darkness of the shut-up house (forgotten
to be opened, though it was long since day) yielded to the unexpected glare
and freedom of the morning; and Florence, with her head bent down to hide
her agony of tears, was in the streets.
The Flight of Florence
In the wildness of her sorrow, shame, and terror, the forlorn girl
hurried through the sunshine of a bright morning, as if it were the darkness
of a winter night. Wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, insensible to
everything but the deep wound in her breast, stunned by the loss of all she
loved, left like the sole survivor on a lonely shore from the wreck of a
great vessel, she fled without a thought, without a hope, without a purpose,
but to fly somewhere anywhere.
The cheerful vista of the long street, burnished by the morning light,
the sight of the blue sky and airy clouds, the vigorous freshness of the
day, so flushed and rosy in its conquest of the night, awakened no
responsive feelings in her so hurt bosom. Somewhere, anywhere, to hide her
head! somewhere, anywhere, for refuge, never more to look upon the place
from which she fled!
But there were people going to and fro; there were opening shops, and
servants at the doors of houses; there was the rising clash and roar of the
day's struggle. Florence saw surprise and curiosity in the faces flitting
past her; saw long shadows coming back upon the pavement; and heard voices
that were strange to her asking her where she went, and what the matter was;
and though these frightened her the more at first, and made her hurry on the
faster, they did her the good service of recalling her in some degree to
herself, and reminding her of the necessity of greater composure.
Where to go? Still somewhere, anywhere! still going on; but where! She
thought of the only other time she had been lost in the wild wilderness of
London - though not lost as now - and went that way. To the home of Walter's
Uncle.
Checking her sobs, and drying her swollen eyes, and endeavouring to
calm the agitation of her manner, so as to avoid attracting notice,
Florence, resolving to keep to the more quiet streets as long as she could,
was going on more quietly herself, when a familiar little shadow darted past
upon the sunny pavement, stopped short, wheeled about, came close to her,
made off again, bounded round and round her, and Diogenes, panting for
breath, and yet making the street ring with his glad bark, was at her feet.
'Oh, Di! oh, dear, true, faithful Di, how did you come here? How could
I ever leave you, Di, who would never leave me?'
Florence bent down on the pavement, and laid his rough, old, loving,
foolish head against her breast, and they got up together, and went on
together; Di more off the ground than on it, endeavouring to kiss his
mistress flying, tumbling over and getting up again without the least
concern, dashing at big dogs in a jocose defiance of his species, terrifying
with touches of his nose young housemaids who were cleaning doorsteps, and
continually stopping, in the midst of a thousand extravagances, to look back
at Florence, and bark until all the dogs within hearing answered, and all
the dogs who could come out, came out to stare at him.
With this last adherent, Florence hurried away in the advancing
morning, and the strengthening sunshine, to the City. The roar soon grew
more loud, the passengers more numerous, the shops more busy, until she was
carried onward in a stream of life setting that way, and flowing,
indifferently, past marts and mansions, prisons, churches, market-places,
wealth, poverty, good, and evil, like the broad river side by side with it,
awakened from its dreams of rushes, willows, and green moss, and rolling on,
turbid and troubled, among the works and cares of men, to the deep sea.
At length the quarters of the little Midshipman arose in view. Nearer
yet, and the little Midshipman himself was seen upon his post, intent as
ever on his observations. Nearer yet, and the door stood open, inviting her
to enter. Florence, who had again quickened her pace, as she approached the
end of her journey, ran across the road (closely followed by Diogenes, whom
the bustle had somewhat confused), ran in, and sank upon the threshold of
the well-remembered little parlour.
The Captain, in his glazed hat, was standing over the fire, making his
morning's cocoa, with that elegant trifle, his watch, upon the
chimney-piece, for easy reference during the progress of the cookery.
Hearing a footstep and the rustle of a dress, the Captain turned with a
palpitating remembrance of the dreadful Mrs MacStinger, at the instant when
Florence made a motion with her hand towards him, reeled, and fell upon the
floor.
The Captain, pale as Florence, pale in the very knobs upon his face
raised her like a baby, and laid her on the same old sofa upon which she had
slumbered long ago.
'It's Heart's Delight!' said the Captain, looking intently in her face.
'It's the sweet creetur grow'd a woman!'
Captain Cuttle was so respectful of her, and had such a reverence for
her, in this new character, that he would not have held her in his arms,
while she was unconscious, for a thousand pounds.
'My Heart's Delight!' said the Captain, withdrawing to a little
distance, with the greatest alarm and sympathy depicted on his countenance.
'If you can hail Ned Cuttle with a finger, do it!'
But Florence did not stir.
'My Heart's Delight!' said the trembling Captain. 'For the sake of
Wal'r drownded in the briny deep, turn to, and histe up something or
another, if able!'
Finding her insensible to this impressive adjuration also, Captain
Cuttle snatched from his breakfast-table a basin of cold water, and
sprinkled some upon her face. Yielding to the urgency of the case, the
Captain then, using his immense hand with extraordinary gentleness, relieved
her of her bonnet, moistened her lips and forehead, put back her hair,
covered her feet with his own coat which he pulled off for the purpose,
patted her hand - so small in his, that he was struck with wonder when he
touched it - and seeing that her eyelids quivered, and that her lips began
to move, continued these restorative applications with a better heart.
'Cheerily,' said the Captain. 'Cheerily! Stand by, my pretty one, stand
by! There! You're better now. Steady's the word, and steady it is. Keep her
so! Drink a little drop o' this here,' said the Captain. 'There you are!
What cheer now, my pretty, what cheer now?'
At this stage of her recovery, Captain Cuttle, with an imperfect
association of a Watch with a Physician's treatment of a patient, took his
own down from the mantel-shelf, and holding it out on his hook, and taking
Florence's hand in his, looked steadily from one to the other, as expecting
the dial to do something.
'What cheer, my pretty?' said the Captain. 'What cheer now? You've done
her some good, my lad, I believe,' said the Captain, under his breath, and
throwing an approving glance upon his watch. 'Put you back half-an-hour
every morning, and about another quarter towards the arternoon, and you're a
watch as can be ekalled by few and excelled by none. What cheer, my lady
lass!'
'Captain Cuttle! Is it you?' exclaimed Florence, raising herself a
little.
'Yes, yes, my lady lass,' said the Captain, hastily deciding in his own
mind upon the superior elegance of that form of address, as the most courtly
he could think of.
'Is Walter's Uncle here?' asked Florence.
'Here, pretty?' returned the Captain. 'He ain't been here this many a
long day. He ain't been heerd on, since he sheered off arter poor Wal'r.
But,' said the Captain, as a quotation, 'Though lost to sight, to memory
dear, and England, Home, and Beauty!'
'Do you live here?' asked Florence.
'Yes, my lady lass,' returned the Captain.
'Oh, Captain Cuttle!' cried Florence, putting her hands together, and
speaking wildly. 'Save me! keep me here! Let no one know where I am! I'll
tell you what has happened by-and-by, when I can. I have no one in the world
to go to. Do not send me away!'
'Send you away, my lady lass!' exclaimed the Captain. 'You, my Heart's
Delight! Stay a bit! We'll put up this here deadlight, and take a double
turn on the key!'
With these words, the Captain, using his one hand and his hook with the
greatest dexterity, got out the shutter of the door, put it up, made it all
fast, and locked the door itself.
When he came back to the side of Florence, she took his hand, and
kissed it. The helplessness of the action, the appeal it made to him, the
confidence it expressed, the unspeakable sorrow in her face, the pain of
mind she had too plainly suffered, and was suffering then, his knowledge of
her past history, her present lonely, worn, and unprotected appearance, all
so rushed upon the good Captain together, that he fairly overflowed with
compassion and gentleness.
'My lady lass,' said the Captain, polishing the bridge of his nose with
his arm until it shone like burnished copper, 'don't you say a word to
Ed'ard Cuttle, until such times as you finds yourself a riding smooth and
easy; which won't be to-day, nor yet to-morrow. And as to giving of you up,
or reporting where you are, yes verily, and by God's help, so I won't,
Church catechism, make a note on!'
This the Captain said, reference and all, in one breath, and with much
solemnity; taking off his hat at 'yes verily,' and putting it on again, when
he had quite concluded.
Florence could do but one thing more to thank him, and to show him how
she trusted in him; and she did it' Clinging to this rough creature as the
last asylum of her bleeding heart, she laid her head upon his honest
shoulder, and clasped him round his neck, and would have kneeled down to
bless him, but that he divined her purpose, and held her up like a true man.
'Steady!' said the Captain. 'Steady! You're too weak to stand, you see,
my pretty, and must lie down here again. There, there!' To see the Captain
lift her on the sofa, and cover her with his coat, would have been worth a
hundred state sights. 'And now,' said the Captain, 'you must take some
breakfast, lady lass, and the dog shall have some too. And arter that you
shall go aloft to old Sol Gills's room, and fall asleep there, like a
angel.'
Captain Cuttle patted Diogenes when he made allusion to him, and
Diogenes met that overture graciously, half-way. During the administration
of the restoratives he had clearly been in two minds whether to fly at the
Captain or to offer him his friendship; and he had expressed that conflict
of feeling by alternate waggings of his tail, and displays of his teeth,
with now and then a growl or so. But by this time, his doubts were all
removed. It was plain that he considered the Captain one of the most amiable
of men, and a man whom it was an honour to a dog to know.
In evidence of these convictions, Diogenes attended on the Captain
while he made some tea and toast, and showed a lively interest in his
housekeeping. But it was in vain for the kind Captain to make such
preparations for Florence, who sorely tried to do some honour to them, but
could touch nothing, and could only weep and weep again.
'Well, well!' said the compassionate Captain, 'arter turning in, my
Heart's Delight, you'll get more way upon you. Now, I'll serve out your
allowance, my lad.' To Diogenes. 'And you shall keep guard on your mistress
aloft.'
Diogenes, however, although he had been eyeing his intended breakfast
with a watering mouth and glistening eyes, instead of falling to,
ravenously, when it was put before him, pricked up his ears, darted to the
shop-door, and barked there furiously: burrowing with his head at the
bottom, as if he were bent on mining his way out.
'Can there be anybody there!' asked Florence, in alarm.
'No, my lady lass,' returned the Captain. 'Who'd stay there, without
making any noise! Keep up a good heart, pretty. It's only people going by.'
But for all that, Diogenes barked and barked, and burrowed and
burrowed, with pertinacious fury; and whenever he stopped to listen,
appeared to receive some new conviction into his mind, for he set to,
by little, the chasm between them widened and seemed deeper; little by
little, all the power of earnestness and tenderness she had shown, was
frozen up in the bold, angry hardihood with which she stood, upon the brink
of a deep precipice unseen by Florence, daring to look down.
There was but one consideration to set against the heavy loss of Edith,
and though it was slight comfort to her burdened heart, she tried to think
it some relief. No longer divided between her affection and duty to the two,
Florence could love both and do no injustice to either. As shadows of her
fond imagination, she could give them equal place in her own bosom, and
wrong them with no doubts
So she tried to do. At times, and often too, wondering speculations on
the cause of this change in Edith, would obtrude themselves upon her mind
and frighten her; but in the calm of its abandonment once more to silent
grief and loneliness, it was not a curious mind. Florence had only to
remember that her star of promise was clouded in the general gloom that hung
upon the house, and to weep and be resigned.
Thus living, in a dream wherein the overflowing love of her young heart
expended itself on airy forms, and in a real world where she had experienced
little but the rolling back of that strong tide upon itself, Florence grew
to be seventeen. Timid and retiring as her solitary life had made her, it
had not embittered her sweet temper, or her earnest nature. A child in
innocent simplicity; a woman m her modest self-reliance, and her deep
intensity of feeling; both child and woman seemed at once expressed in her
face and fragile delicacy of shape, and gracefully to mingle there; - as if
the spring should be unwilling to depart when summer came, and sought to
blend the earlier beauties of the flowers with their bloom. But in her
thrilling voice, in her calm eyes, sometimes in a sage ethereal light that
seemed to rest upon her head, and always in a certain pensive air upon her
beauty, there was an expression, such as had been seen in the dead boy; and
the council in the Servants' Hall whispered so among themselves, and shook
their heads, and ate and drank the more, in a closer bond of
good-fellowship.
This observant body had plenty to say of Mr and Mrs Dombey, and of Mr
Carker, who appeared to be a mediator between them, and who came and went as
if he were trying to make peace, but never could. They all deplored the
uncomfortable state of affairs, and all agreed that Mrs Pipchin (whose
unpopularity was not to be surpassed) had some hand in it; but, upon the
whole, it was agreeable to have so good a subject for a rallying point, and
they made a great deal of it, and enjoyed themselves very much.
The general visitors who came to the house, and those among whom Mr and
Mrs Dombey visited, thought it a pretty equal match, as to haughtiness, at
all events, and thought nothing more about it. The young lady with the back
did not appear for some time after Mrs Skewton's death; observing to some
particular friends, with her usual engaging little scream, that she couldn't
separate the family from a notion of tombstones, and horrors of that sort;
but when she did come, she saw nothing wrong, except Mr Dombey's wearing a
bunch of gold seals to his watch, which shocked her very much, as an
exploded superstition. This youthful fascinator considered a daughter-in-law
objectionable in principle; otherwise, she had nothing to say against
Florence, but that she sadly wanted 'style' - which might mean back,
perhaps. Many, who only came to the house on state occasions, hardly knew
who Florence was, and said, going home, 'Indeed, was that Miss Dombey, in
the corner? Very pretty, but a little delicate and thoughtful in
appearance!'
None the less so, certainly, for her life of the last six months.
Florence took her seat at the dinner-table, on the day before the second
anniversary of her father's marriage to Edith (Mrs Skewton had been lying
stricken with paralysis when the first came round), with an uneasiness,
amounting to dread. She had no other warrant for it, than the occasion, the
expression of her father's face, in the hasty glance she caught of it, and
the presence of Mr Carker, which, always unpleasant to her, was more so on
this day, than she had ever felt it before.
Edith was richly dressed, for she and Mr Dombey were engaged in the
evening to some large assembly, and the dinner-hour that day was late. She
did not appear until they were seated at table, when Mr Carker rose and led
her to her chair. Beautiful and lustrous as she was, there was that in her
face and air which seemed to separate her hopelessly from Florence, and from
everyone, for ever more. And yet, for an instant, Florence saw a beam of
kindness in her eyes, when they were turned on her, that made the distance
to which she had withdrawn herself, a greater cause of sorrow and regret
than ever.
There was very little said at dinner. Florence heard her father speak
to Mr Carker sometimes on business matters, and heard him softly reply, but
she paid little attention to what they said, and only wished the dinner at
an end. When the dessert was placed upon the table, and they were left
alone, with no servant in attendance, Mr Dombey, who had been several times
clearing his throat in a manner that augured no good, said:
'Mrs Dombey, you know, I suppose, that I have instructed the
housekeeper that there will be some company to dinner here to-morrow.
'I do not dine at home,' she answered.
'Not a large party,' pursued Mr Dombey, with an indifferent assumption
of not having heard her; 'merely some twelve or fourteen. My sister, Major
Bagstock, and some others whom you know but slightly.'
I do not dine at home,' she repeated.
'However doubtful reason I may have, Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, still
going majestically on, as if she had not spoken, 'to hold the occasion in
very pleasant remembrance just now, there are appearances in these things
which must be maintained before the world. If you have no respect for
yourself, Mrs Dombey - '
'I have none,' she said.
'Madam,' cried Mr Dombey, striking his hand upon the table, 'hear me if
you please. I say, if you have no respect for yourself - '
'And I say I have none,' she answered.
He looked at her; but the face she showed him in return would not have
changed, if death itself had looked.
'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, turning more quietly to that gentleman, 'as
you have been my medium of communication with Mrs Dombey on former
occasions, and as I choose to preserve the decencies of life, so far as I am
individually concerned, I will trouble you to have the goodness to inform
Mrs Dombey that if she has no respect for herself, I have some respect for
myself, and therefore insist on my arrangements for to-morrow.
'Tell your sovereign master, Sir,' said Edith, 'that I will take leave
to speak to him on this subject by-and-bye, and that I will speak to him
alone.'
'Mr Carker, Madam,' said her husband, 'being in possession of the
reason which obliges me to refuse you that privilege, shall be absolved from
the delivery of any such message.' He saw her eyes move, while he spoke, and
followed them with his own.
'Your daughter is present, Sir,' said Edith.
'My daughter will remain present,' said Mr Dombey.
Florence, who had risen, sat down again, hiding her face in her hands,
and trembling.
'My daughter, Madam' - began Mr Dombey.
But Edith stopped him, in a voice which, although not raised in the
least, was so clear, emphatic, and distinct, that it might have been heard
in a whirlwind.
'I tell you I will speak to you alone,' she said. 'If you are not mad,
heed what I say.'
'I have authority to speak to you, Madam,' returned her husband, 'when
and where I please; and it is my pleasure to speak here and now.'
She rose up as if to leave the room; but sat down again, and looking at
him with all outward composure, said, in the same voice:
'You shall!'
'I must tell you first, that there is a threatening appearance in your
manner, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, 'which does not become you.
She laughed. The shaken diamonds in her hair started and trembled.
There are fables of precious stones that would turn pale, their wearer being
in danger. Had these been such, their imprisoned rays of light would have
taken flight that moment, and they would have been as dull as lead.
Carker listened, with his eyes cast down.
'As to my daughter, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, resuming the thread of his
discourse, 'it is by no means inconsistent with her duty to me, that she
should know what conduct to avoid. At present you are a very strong example
to her of this kind, and I hope she may profit by it.'
'I would not stop you now,' returned his wife, immoveable in eye, and
voice, and attitude; 'I would not rise and go away, and save you the
utterance of one word, if the room were burning.'
Mr Dombey moved his head, as if in a sarcastic acknowledgment of the
attention, and resumed. But not with so much self-possession as before; for
Edith's quick uneasiness in reference to Florence, and Edith's indifference
to him and his censure, chafed and galled him like a stiffening wound.
'Mrs Dombey,' said he, 'it may not be inconsistent with my daughter's
improvement to know how very much to be lamented, and how necessary to be
corrected, a stubborn disposition is, especially when it is indulged in -
unthankfully indulged in, I will add - after the gratification of ambition
and interest. Both of which, I believe, had some share in inducing you to
occupy your present station at this board.'
'No! I would not rise, and go away, and save you the utterance of one
word,' she repeated, exactly as before, 'if the room were burning.'
'It may be natural enough, Mrs Dombey,' he pursued, 'that you should be
uneasy in the presence of any auditors of these disagreeable truths; though
why' - he could not hide his real feeling here, or keep his eyes from
glancing gloomily at Florence - 'why anyone can give them greater force and
point than myself, whom they so nearly concern, I do not pretend to
understand. It may be natural enough that you should object to hear, in
anybody's presence, that there is a rebellious principle within you which
you cannot curb too soon; which you must curb, Mrs Dombey; and which, I
regret to say, I remember to have seen manifested - with some doubt and
displeasure, on more than one occasion before our marriage - towards your
deceased mother. But you have the remedy in your own hands. I by no means
forgot, when I began, that my daughter was present, Mrs Dombey. I beg you
will not forget, to-morrow, that there are several persons present; and
that, with some regard to appearances, you will receive your company in a
becoming manner.
'So it is not enough,' said Edith, 'that you know what has passed
between yourself and me; it is not enough that you can look here,' pointing
at Carker, who still listened, with his eyes cast down, 'and be reminded of
the affronts you have put upon me; it is not enough that you can look here,'
pointing to Florence with a hand that slightly trembled for the first and
only time, 'and think of what you have done, and of the ingenious agony,
daily, hourly, constant, you have made me feel in doing it; it is not enough
that this day, of all others in the year, is memorable to me for a struggle
(well-deserved, but not conceivable by such as you) in which I wish I had
died! You add to all this, do you, the last crowning meanness of making her
a witness of the depth to which I have fallen; when you know that you have
made me sacrifice to her peace, the only gentle feeling and interest of my
life, when you know that for her sake, I would now if I could - but I can
not, my soul recoils from you too much - submit myself wholly to your will,
and be the meekest vassal that you have!'
This was not the way to minister to Mr Dombey's greatness. The old
feeling was roused by what she said, into a stronger and fiercer existence
than it had ever had. Again, his neglected child, at this rough passage of
his life, put forth by even this rebellious woman, as powerful where he was
powerless, and everything where he was nothing!
He turned on Florence, as if it were she who had spoken, and bade her
leave the room. Florence with her covered face obeyed, trembling and weeping
as she went.
'I understand, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, with an angry flush of triumph,
'the spirit of opposition that turned your affections in that channel, but
they have been met, Mrs Dombey; they have been met, and turned back!'
'The worse for you!' she answered, with her voice and manner still
unchanged. 'Ay!' for he turned sharply when she said so, 'what is the worse
for me, is twenty million times the worse for you. Heed that, if you heed
nothing else.'
The arch of diamonds spanning her dark hair, flashed and glittered like
a starry bridge. There was no warning in them, or they would have turned as
dull and dim as tarnished honour. Carker still sat and listened, with his
eyes cast down.
'Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, resuming as much as he could of his
arrogant composure, 'you will not conciliate me, or turn me from any
purpose, by this course of conduct.'
'It is the only true although it is a faint expression of what is
within me,' she replied. 'But if I thought it would conciliate you, I would
repress it, if it were repressible by any human effort. I will do nothing
that you ask.'
'I am not accustomed to ask, Mrs Dombey,' he observed; 'I direct.'
'I will hold no place in your house to-morrow, or on any recurrence of
to-morrow. I will be exhibited to no one, as the refractory slave you
purchased, such a time. If I kept my marriage day, I would keep it as a day
of shame. Self-respect! appearances before the world! what are these to me?
You have done all you can to make them nothing to me, and they are nothing.'
'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, speaking with knitted brows, and after a
moment's consideration, 'Mrs Dombey is so forgetful of herself and me in all
this, and places me in a position so unsuited to my character, that I must
bring this state of matters to a close.'
'Release me, then,' said Edith, immoveable in voice, in look, and
bearing, as she had been throughout, 'from the chain by which I am bound.
Let me go.'
'Madam?' exclaimed Mr Dombey.
'Loose me. Set me free!'
'Madam?' he repeated, 'Mrs Dombey?'
'Tell him,' said Edith, addressing her proud face to Carker, 'that I
wish for a separation between us, That there had better be one. That I
recommend it to him, Tell him it may take place on his own terms - his
wealth is nothing to me - but that it cannot be too soon.'
'Good Heaven, Mrs Dombey!' said her husband, with supreme amazement,
'do you imagine it possible that I could ever listen to such a proposition?
Do you know who I am, Madam? Do you know what I represent? Did you ever hear
of Dombey and Son? People to say that Mr Dombey - Mr Dombey! - was separated
from his wife! Common people to talk of Mr Dombey and his domestic affairs!
Do you seriously think, Mrs Dombey, that I would permit my name to be banded
about in such connexion? Pooh, pooh, Madam! Fie for shame! You're absurd.'
Mr Dombey absolutely laughed.
But not as she did. She had better have been dead than laugh as she
did, in reply, with her intent look fixed upon him. He had better have been
dead, than sitting there, in his magnificence, to hear her.
'No, Mrs Dombey,' he resumed. 'No, Madam. There is no possibility of
separation between you and me, and therefore I the more advise you to be
awakened to a sense of duty. And, Carker, as I was about to say to you -
Mr Carker, who had sat and listened all this time, now raised his eyes,
in which there was a bright unusual light'
As I was about to say to you, resumed Mr Dombey, 'I must beg you, now
that matters have come to this, to inform Mrs Dombey, that it is not the
rule of my life to allow myself to be thwarted by anybody - anybody, Carker
- or to suffer anybody to be paraded as a stronger motive for obedience in
those who owe obedience to me than I am my self. The mention that has been
made of my daughter, and the use that is made of my daughter, in opposition
to me, are unnatural. Whether my daughter is in actual concert with Mrs
Dombey, I do not know, and do not care; but after what Mrs Dombey has said
today, and my daughter has heard to-day, I beg you to make known to Mrs
Dombey, that if she continues to make this house the scene of contention it
has become, I shall consider my daughter responsible in some degree, on that
lady's own avowal, and shall visit her with my severe displeasure. Mrs
Dombey has asked "whether it is not enough," that she had done this and
that. You will please to answer no, it is not enough.'
'A moment!' cried Carker, interposing, 'permit me! painful as my
position is, at the best, and unusually painful in seeming to entertain a
different opinion from you,' addressing Mr Dombey, 'I must ask, had you not
better reconsider the question of a separation. I know how incompatible it
appears with your high public position, and I know how determined you are
when you give Mrs Dombey to understand' - the light in his eyes fell upon
her as he separated his words each from each, with the distinctness of so
many bells - 'that nothing but death can ever part you. Nothing else. But
when you consider that Mrs Dombey, by living in this house, and making it as
you have said, a scene of contention, not only has her part in that
contention, but compromises Miss Dombey every day (for I know how determined
you are), will you not relieve her from a continual irritation of spirit,
and a continual sense of being unjust to another, almost intolerable? Does
this not seem like - I do not say it is - sacrificing Mrs Dombey to the
preservation of your preeminent and unassailable position?'
Again the light in his eyes fell upon her, as she stood looking at her
husband: now with an extraordinary and awful smile upon her face.
'Carker,' returned Mr Dombey, with a supercilious frown, and in a tone
that was intended to be final, 'you mistake your position in offering advice
to me on such a point, and you mistake me (I am surprised to find) in the
character of your advice. I have no more to say.
'Perhaps,' said Carker, with an unusual and indefinable taunt in his
air, 'you mistook my position, when you honoured me with the negotiations in
which I have been engaged here' - with a motion of his hand towards Mrs
Dombey.
'Not at all, Sir, not at all,' returned the other haughtily. 'You were
employed - '
'Being an inferior person, for the humiliation of Mrs Dombey. I forgot'
Oh, yes, it was expressly understood!' said Carker. 'I beg your pardon!'
As he bent his head to Mr Dombey, with an air of deference that
accorded ill with his words, though they were humbly spoken, he moved it
round towards her, and kept his watching eyes that way.
She had better have turned hideous and dropped dead, than have stood up
with such a smile upon her face, in such a fallen spirit's majesty of scorn
and beauty. She lifted her hand to the tiara of bright jewels radiant on her
head, and, plucking it off with a force that dragged and strained her rich
black hair with heedless cruelty, and brought it tumbling wildly on her
shoulders, cast the gems upon the ground. From each arm, she unclasped a
diamond bracelet, flung it down, and trod upon the glittering heap. Without
a word, without a shadow on the fire of her bright eye, without abatement of
her awful smile, she looked on Mr Dombey to the last, in moving to the door;
and left him.
Florence had heard enough before quitting the room, to know that Edith
loved her yet; that she had suffered for her sake; and that she had kept her
sacrifices quiet, lest they should trouble her peace. She did not want to
speak to her of this - she could not, remembering to whom she was opposed -
but she wished, in one silent and affectionate embrace, to assure her that
she felt it all, and thanked her.
Her father went out alone, that evening, and Florence issuing from her
own chamber soon afterwards, went about the house in search of. Edith, but
unavailingly. She was in her own rooms, where Florence had long ceased to
go, and did not dare to venture now, lest she should unconsciously engender
new trouble. Still Florence hoping to meet her before going to bed, changed
from room to room, and wandered through the house so splendid and so dreary,
without remaining anywhere.
She was crossing a gallery of communication that opened at some little
distance on the staircase, and was only lighted on great occasions, when she
saw, through the opening, which was an arch, the figure of a man coming down
some few stairs opposite. Instinctively apprehensive of her father, whom she
supposed it was, she stopped, in the dark, gazing through the arch into the
light. But it was Mr Carker coming down alone, and looking over the railing
into the hall. No bell was rung to announce his departure, and no servant
was in attendance. He went down quietly, opened the door for himself, glided
out, and shut it softly after him.
Her invincible repugnance to this man, and perhaps the stealthy act of
watching anyone, which, even under such innocent circumstances, is in a
manner guilty and oppressive, made Florence shake from head to foot. Her
blood seemed to run cold. As soon as she could - for at first she felt an
insurmountable dread of moving - she went quickly to her own room and locked
her door; but even then, shut in with her dog beside her, felt a chill
sensation of horror, as if there were danger brooding somewhere near her.
It invaded her dreams and disturbed the whole night. Rising in the
morning, unrefreshed, and with a heavy recollection of the domestic
unhappiness of the preceding day, she sought Edith again in all the rooms,
and did so, from time to time, all the morning. But she remained in her own
chamber, and Florence saw nothing of her. Learning, however, that the
projected dinner at home was put off, Florence thought it likely that she
would go out in the evening to fulfil the engagement she had spoken of; and
resolved to try and meet her, then, upon the staircase.
When the evening had set in, she heard, from the room in which she sat
on purpose, a footstep on the stairs that she thought to be Edith's.
Hurrying out, and up towards her room, Florence met her immediately, coming
down alone.
What was Florence's affright and wonder when, at sight of her, with her
tearful face, and outstretched arms, Edith recoiled and shrieked!
'Don't come near me!' she cried. 'Keep away! Let me go by!'
'Mama!' said Florence.
'Don't call me by that name! Don't speak to me! Don't look at me! -
Florence!' shrinking back, as Florence moved a step towards her, 'don't
touch me!'
As Florence stood transfixed before the haggard face and staring eyes,
she noted, as in a dream, that Edith spread her hands over them, and
shuddering through all her form, and crouching down against the wall,
crawled by her like some lower animal, sprang up, and fled away.
Florence dropped upon the stairs in a swoon; and was found there by Mrs
Pipchin, she supposed. She knew nothing more, until she found herself lying
on her own bed, with Mrs Pipchin and some servants standing round her.
'Where is Mama?' was her first question.
'Gone out to dinner,' said Mrs Pipchin.
'And Papa?'
'Mr Dombey is in his own room, Miss Dombey,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'and the
best thing you can do, is to take off your things and go to bed this
minute.' This was the sagacious woman's remedy for all complaints,
particularly lowness of spirits, and inability to sleep; for which offences,
many young victims in the days of the Brighton Castle had been committed to
bed at ten o'clock in the morning.
Without promising obedience, but on the plea of desiring to be very
quiet, Florence disengaged herself, as soon as she could, from the
ministration of Mrs Pipchin and her attendants. Left alone, she thought of
what had happened on the staircase, at first in doubt of its reality; then
with tears; then with an indescribable and terrible alarm, like that she had
felt the night before.
She determined not to go to bed until Edith returned, and if she could
not speak to her, at least to be sure that she was safe at home. What
indistinct and shadowy dread moved Florence to this resolution, she did not
know, and did not dare to think. She only knew that until Edith came back,
there was no repose for her aching head or throbbing heart.
The evening deepened into night; midnight came; no Edith.
Florence could not read, or rest a moment. She paced her own room,
opened the door and paced the staircase-gallery outside, looked out of
window on the night, listened to the wind blowing and the rain falling, sat
down and watched the faces in the fire, got up and watched the moon flying
like a storm-driven ship through the sea of clouds.
All the house was gone to bed, except two servants who were waiting the
return of their mistress, downstairs.
One o'clock. The carriages that rumbled in the distance, turned away,
or stopped short, or went past; the silence gradually deepened, and was more
and more rarely broken, save by a rush of wind or sweep of rain. Two
o'clock. No Edith!
Florence, more agitated, paced her room; and paced the gallery outside;
and looked out at the night, blurred and wavy with the raindrops on the
glass, and the tears in her own eyes; and looked up at the hurry in the sky,
so different from the repose below, and yet so tranquil and solitary. Three
o'clock! There was a terror in every ash that dropped out of the fire. No
Edith yet.
More and more agitated, Florence paced her room, and paced the gallery,
and looked out at the moon with a new fancy of her likeness to a pale
fugitive hurrying away and hiding her guilty face. Four struck! Five! No
Edith yet.
But now there was some cautious stir in the house; and Florence found
that Mrs Pipchin had been awakened by one of those who sat up, had risen and
had gone down to her father's door. Stealing lower down the stairs, and
observing what passed, she saw her father come out in his morning gown, and
start when he was told his wife had not come home. He dispatched a messenger
to the stables to inquire whether the coachman was there; and while the man
was gone, dressed himself very hurriedly.
The man came back, in great haste, bringing the coachman with him, who
said he had been at home and in bed, since ten o'clock. He had driven his
mistress to her old house in Brook Street, where she had been met by Mr
Carker -
Florence stood upon the very spot where she had seen him coming down.
Again she shivered with the nameless terror of that sight, and had hardly
steadiness enough to hear and understand what followed.
- Who had told him, the man went on to say, that his mistress would not
want the carriage to go home in; and had dismissed him.
She saw her father turn white in the face, and heard him ask in a
quick, trembling voice, for Mrs Dombey's maid. The whole house was roused;
for she was there, in a moment, very pale too, and speaking incoherently.
She said she had dressed her mistress early - full two hours before she
went out - and had been told, as she often was, that she would not be wanted
at night. She had just come from her mistress's rooms, but -
'But what! what was it?' Florence heard her father demand like a
madman.
'But the inner dressing-room was locked and the key gone.'
Her father seized a candle that was flaming on the ground - someone had
put it down there, and forgotten it - and came running upstairs with such
fury, that Florence, in her fear, had hardly time to fly before him. She
heard him striking in the door, as she ran on, with her hands widely spread,
and her hair streaming, and her face like a distracted person's, back to her
own room.
When the door yielded, and he rushed in, what did he see there? No one
knew. But thrown down in a costly mass upon the ground, was every ornament
she had had, since she had been his wife; every dress she had worn; and
everything she had possessed. This was the room in which he had seen, in
yonder mirror, the proud face discard him. This was the room in which he had
wondered, idly, how these things would look when he should see them next!
Heaping them back into the drawers, and locking them up in a rage of
haste, he saw some papers on the table. The deed of settlement he had
executed on their marriage, and a letter. He read that she was gone. He read
that he was dishonoured. He read that she had fled, upon her shameful
wedding-day, with the man whom he had chosen for her humiliation; and he
tore out of the room, and out of the house, with a frantic idea of finding
her yet, at the place to which she had been taken, and beating all trace of
beauty out of the triumphant face with his bare hand.
Florence, not knowing what she did, put on a shawl and bonnet, in a
dream of running through the streets until she found Edith, and then
clasping her in her arms, to save and bring her back. But when she hurried
out upon the staircase, and saw the frightened servants going up and down
with lights, and whispering together, and falling away from her father as he
passed down, she awoke to a sense of her own powerlessness; and hiding in
one of the great rooms that had been made gorgeous for this, felt as if her
heart would burst with grief.
Compassion for her father was the first distinct emotion that made head
against the flood of sorrow which overwhelmed her. Her constant nature
turned to him in his distress, as fervently and faithfully, as if, in his
prosperity, he had been the embodiment of that idea which had gradually
become so faint and dim. Although she did not know, otherwise than through
the suggestions of a shapeless fear, the full extent of his calamity, he
stood before her, wronged and deserted; and again her yearning love impelled
her to his side.
He was not long away; for Florence was yet weeping in the great room
and nourishing these thoughts, when she heard him come back. He ordered the
servants to set about their ordinary occupations, and went into his own
apartment, where he trod so heavily that she could hear him walking up and
down from end to end.
Yielding at once to the impulse of her affection, timid at all other
times, but bold in its truth to him in his adversity, and undaunted by past
repulse, Florence, dressed as she was, hurried downstairs. As she set her
light foot in the hall, he came out of his room. She hastened towards him
unchecked, with her arms stretched out, and crying 'Oh dear, dear Papa!' as
if she would have clasped him round the neck.
And so she would have done. But in his frenzy, he lifted up his cruel
arm, and struck her, crosswise, with that heaviness, that she tottered on
the marble floor; and as he dealt the blow, he told her what Edith was, and
bade her follow her, since they had always been in league.
She did not sink down at his feet; she did not shut out the sight of
him with her trembling hands; she did not weep; she did not utter one word
of reproach. But she looked at him, and a cry of desolation issued from her
heart. For as she looked, she saw him murdering that fond idea to which she
had held in spite of him. She saw his cruelty, neglect, and hatred dominant
above it, and stamping it down. She saw she had no father upon earth, and
ran out, orphaned, from his house.
Ran out of his house. A moment, and her hand was on the lock, the cry
was on her lips, his face was there, made paler by the yellow candles
hastily put down and guttering away, and by the daylight coming in above the
door. Another moment, and the close darkness of the shut-up house (forgotten
to be opened, though it was long since day) yielded to the unexpected glare
and freedom of the morning; and Florence, with her head bent down to hide
her agony of tears, was in the streets.
The Flight of Florence
In the wildness of her sorrow, shame, and terror, the forlorn girl
hurried through the sunshine of a bright morning, as if it were the darkness
of a winter night. Wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, insensible to
everything but the deep wound in her breast, stunned by the loss of all she
loved, left like the sole survivor on a lonely shore from the wreck of a
great vessel, she fled without a thought, without a hope, without a purpose,
but to fly somewhere anywhere.
The cheerful vista of the long street, burnished by the morning light,
the sight of the blue sky and airy clouds, the vigorous freshness of the
day, so flushed and rosy in its conquest of the night, awakened no
responsive feelings in her so hurt bosom. Somewhere, anywhere, to hide her
head! somewhere, anywhere, for refuge, never more to look upon the place
from which she fled!
But there were people going to and fro; there were opening shops, and
servants at the doors of houses; there was the rising clash and roar of the
day's struggle. Florence saw surprise and curiosity in the faces flitting
past her; saw long shadows coming back upon the pavement; and heard voices
that were strange to her asking her where she went, and what the matter was;
and though these frightened her the more at first, and made her hurry on the
faster, they did her the good service of recalling her in some degree to
herself, and reminding her of the necessity of greater composure.
Where to go? Still somewhere, anywhere! still going on; but where! She
thought of the only other time she had been lost in the wild wilderness of
London - though not lost as now - and went that way. To the home of Walter's
Uncle.
Checking her sobs, and drying her swollen eyes, and endeavouring to
calm the agitation of her manner, so as to avoid attracting notice,
Florence, resolving to keep to the more quiet streets as long as she could,
was going on more quietly herself, when a familiar little shadow darted past
upon the sunny pavement, stopped short, wheeled about, came close to her,
made off again, bounded round and round her, and Diogenes, panting for
breath, and yet making the street ring with his glad bark, was at her feet.
'Oh, Di! oh, dear, true, faithful Di, how did you come here? How could
I ever leave you, Di, who would never leave me?'
Florence bent down on the pavement, and laid his rough, old, loving,
foolish head against her breast, and they got up together, and went on
together; Di more off the ground than on it, endeavouring to kiss his
mistress flying, tumbling over and getting up again without the least
concern, dashing at big dogs in a jocose defiance of his species, terrifying
with touches of his nose young housemaids who were cleaning doorsteps, and
continually stopping, in the midst of a thousand extravagances, to look back
at Florence, and bark until all the dogs within hearing answered, and all
the dogs who could come out, came out to stare at him.
With this last adherent, Florence hurried away in the advancing
morning, and the strengthening sunshine, to the City. The roar soon grew
more loud, the passengers more numerous, the shops more busy, until she was
carried onward in a stream of life setting that way, and flowing,
indifferently, past marts and mansions, prisons, churches, market-places,
wealth, poverty, good, and evil, like the broad river side by side with it,
awakened from its dreams of rushes, willows, and green moss, and rolling on,
turbid and troubled, among the works and cares of men, to the deep sea.
At length the quarters of the little Midshipman arose in view. Nearer
yet, and the little Midshipman himself was seen upon his post, intent as
ever on his observations. Nearer yet, and the door stood open, inviting her
to enter. Florence, who had again quickened her pace, as she approached the
end of her journey, ran across the road (closely followed by Diogenes, whom
the bustle had somewhat confused), ran in, and sank upon the threshold of
the well-remembered little parlour.
The Captain, in his glazed hat, was standing over the fire, making his
morning's cocoa, with that elegant trifle, his watch, upon the
chimney-piece, for easy reference during the progress of the cookery.
Hearing a footstep and the rustle of a dress, the Captain turned with a
palpitating remembrance of the dreadful Mrs MacStinger, at the instant when
Florence made a motion with her hand towards him, reeled, and fell upon the
floor.
The Captain, pale as Florence, pale in the very knobs upon his face
raised her like a baby, and laid her on the same old sofa upon which she had
slumbered long ago.
'It's Heart's Delight!' said the Captain, looking intently in her face.
'It's the sweet creetur grow'd a woman!'
Captain Cuttle was so respectful of her, and had such a reverence for
her, in this new character, that he would not have held her in his arms,
while she was unconscious, for a thousand pounds.
'My Heart's Delight!' said the Captain, withdrawing to a little
distance, with the greatest alarm and sympathy depicted on his countenance.
'If you can hail Ned Cuttle with a finger, do it!'
But Florence did not stir.
'My Heart's Delight!' said the trembling Captain. 'For the sake of
Wal'r drownded in the briny deep, turn to, and histe up something or
another, if able!'
Finding her insensible to this impressive adjuration also, Captain
Cuttle snatched from his breakfast-table a basin of cold water, and
sprinkled some upon her face. Yielding to the urgency of the case, the
Captain then, using his immense hand with extraordinary gentleness, relieved
her of her bonnet, moistened her lips and forehead, put back her hair,
covered her feet with his own coat which he pulled off for the purpose,
patted her hand - so small in his, that he was struck with wonder when he
touched it - and seeing that her eyelids quivered, and that her lips began
to move, continued these restorative applications with a better heart.
'Cheerily,' said the Captain. 'Cheerily! Stand by, my pretty one, stand
by! There! You're better now. Steady's the word, and steady it is. Keep her
so! Drink a little drop o' this here,' said the Captain. 'There you are!
What cheer now, my pretty, what cheer now?'
At this stage of her recovery, Captain Cuttle, with an imperfect
association of a Watch with a Physician's treatment of a patient, took his
own down from the mantel-shelf, and holding it out on his hook, and taking
Florence's hand in his, looked steadily from one to the other, as expecting
the dial to do something.
'What cheer, my pretty?' said the Captain. 'What cheer now? You've done
her some good, my lad, I believe,' said the Captain, under his breath, and
throwing an approving glance upon his watch. 'Put you back half-an-hour
every morning, and about another quarter towards the arternoon, and you're a
watch as can be ekalled by few and excelled by none. What cheer, my lady
lass!'
'Captain Cuttle! Is it you?' exclaimed Florence, raising herself a
little.
'Yes, yes, my lady lass,' said the Captain, hastily deciding in his own
mind upon the superior elegance of that form of address, as the most courtly
he could think of.
'Is Walter's Uncle here?' asked Florence.
'Here, pretty?' returned the Captain. 'He ain't been here this many a
long day. He ain't been heerd on, since he sheered off arter poor Wal'r.
But,' said the Captain, as a quotation, 'Though lost to sight, to memory
dear, and England, Home, and Beauty!'
'Do you live here?' asked Florence.
'Yes, my lady lass,' returned the Captain.
'Oh, Captain Cuttle!' cried Florence, putting her hands together, and
speaking wildly. 'Save me! keep me here! Let no one know where I am! I'll
tell you what has happened by-and-by, when I can. I have no one in the world
to go to. Do not send me away!'
'Send you away, my lady lass!' exclaimed the Captain. 'You, my Heart's
Delight! Stay a bit! We'll put up this here deadlight, and take a double
turn on the key!'
With these words, the Captain, using his one hand and his hook with the
greatest dexterity, got out the shutter of the door, put it up, made it all
fast, and locked the door itself.
When he came back to the side of Florence, she took his hand, and
kissed it. The helplessness of the action, the appeal it made to him, the
confidence it expressed, the unspeakable sorrow in her face, the pain of
mind she had too plainly suffered, and was suffering then, his knowledge of
her past history, her present lonely, worn, and unprotected appearance, all
so rushed upon the good Captain together, that he fairly overflowed with
compassion and gentleness.
'My lady lass,' said the Captain, polishing the bridge of his nose with
his arm until it shone like burnished copper, 'don't you say a word to
Ed'ard Cuttle, until such times as you finds yourself a riding smooth and
easy; which won't be to-day, nor yet to-morrow. And as to giving of you up,
or reporting where you are, yes verily, and by God's help, so I won't,
Church catechism, make a note on!'
This the Captain said, reference and all, in one breath, and with much
solemnity; taking off his hat at 'yes verily,' and putting it on again, when
he had quite concluded.
Florence could do but one thing more to thank him, and to show him how
she trusted in him; and she did it' Clinging to this rough creature as the
last asylum of her bleeding heart, she laid her head upon his honest
shoulder, and clasped him round his neck, and would have kneeled down to
bless him, but that he divined her purpose, and held her up like a true man.
'Steady!' said the Captain. 'Steady! You're too weak to stand, you see,
my pretty, and must lie down here again. There, there!' To see the Captain
lift her on the sofa, and cover her with his coat, would have been worth a
hundred state sights. 'And now,' said the Captain, 'you must take some
breakfast, lady lass, and the dog shall have some too. And arter that you
shall go aloft to old Sol Gills's room, and fall asleep there, like a
angel.'
Captain Cuttle patted Diogenes when he made allusion to him, and
Diogenes met that overture graciously, half-way. During the administration
of the restoratives he had clearly been in two minds whether to fly at the
Captain or to offer him his friendship; and he had expressed that conflict
of feeling by alternate waggings of his tail, and displays of his teeth,
with now and then a growl or so. But by this time, his doubts were all
removed. It was plain that he considered the Captain one of the most amiable
of men, and a man whom it was an honour to a dog to know.
In evidence of these convictions, Diogenes attended on the Captain
while he made some tea and toast, and showed a lively interest in his
housekeeping. But it was in vain for the kind Captain to make such
preparations for Florence, who sorely tried to do some honour to them, but
could touch nothing, and could only weep and weep again.
'Well, well!' said the compassionate Captain, 'arter turning in, my
Heart's Delight, you'll get more way upon you. Now, I'll serve out your
allowance, my lad.' To Diogenes. 'And you shall keep guard on your mistress
aloft.'
Diogenes, however, although he had been eyeing his intended breakfast
with a watering mouth and glistening eyes, instead of falling to,
ravenously, when it was put before him, pricked up his ears, darted to the
shop-door, and barked there furiously: burrowing with his head at the
bottom, as if he were bent on mining his way out.
'Can there be anybody there!' asked Florence, in alarm.
'No, my lady lass,' returned the Captain. 'Who'd stay there, without
making any noise! Keep up a good heart, pretty. It's only people going by.'
But for all that, Diogenes barked and barked, and burrowed and
burrowed, with pertinacious fury; and whenever he stopped to listen,
appeared to receive some new conviction into his mind, for he set to,