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forward, and smiling.
'Excellent,' returned the mild man, becoming bold on his success. 'One
of the best fellows I ever knew.'
'No doubt you have heard the story?' said Cousin Feenix.
'I shall know,' replied the bold mild man, 'when I have heard your
Ludship tell it.' With that, he leaned back in his chair and smiled at the
ceiling, as knowing it by heart, and being already tickled.
'In point of fact, it's nothing of a story in itself,' said Cousin
Feenix, addressing the table with a smile, and a gay shake of his head, 'and
not worth a word of preface. But it's illustrative of the neatness of Jack's
humour. The fact is, that Jack was invited down to a marriage - which I
think took place in Berkshire?'
'Shropshire,' said the bold mild man, finding himself appealed to.
'Was it? Well! In point of fact it might have been in any shire,' said
Cousin Feenix. 'So my friend being invited down to this marriage in
Anyshire,' with a pleasant sense of the readiness of this joke, 'goes. Just
as some of us, having had the honour of being invited to the marriage of my
lovely and accomplished relative with my friend Dombey, didn't require to be
asked twice, and were devilish glad to be present on so interesting an
occasion. - Goes - Jack goes. Now, this marriage was, in point of fact, the
marriage of an uncommonly fine girl with a man for whom she didn't care a
button, but whom she accepted on account of his property, which was immense.
When Jack returned to town, after the nuptials, a man he knew, meeting him
in the lobby of the House of Commons, says, "Well, Jack, how are the
ill-matched couple?" "Ill-matched," says Jack "Not at all. It's a perfectly
and equal transaction. She is regularly bought, and you may take your oath
he is as regularly sold!"'
In his full enjoyment of this culminating point of his story, the
shudder, which had gone all round the table like an electric spark, struck
Cousin Feenix, and he stopped. Not a smile occasioned by the only general
topic of conversation broached that day, appeared on any face. A profound
silence ensued; and the wretched mild man, who had been as innocent of any
real foreknowledge of the story as the child unborn, had the exquisite
misery of reading in every eye that he was regarded as the prime mover of
the mischief.
Mr Dombey's face was not a changeful one, and being cast in its mould
of state that day, showed little other apprehension of the story, if any,
than that which he expressed when he said solemnly, amidst the silence, that
it was 'Very good.' There was a rapid glance from Edith towards Florence,
but otherwise she remained, externally, impassive and unconscious.
Through the various stages of rich meats and wines, continual gold and
silver, dainties of earth, air, fire, and water, heaped-up fruits, and that
unnecessary article in Mr Dombey's banquets - ice- the dinner slowly made
its way: the later stages being achieved to the sonorous music of incessant
double knocks, announcing the arrival of visitors, whose portion of the
feast was limited to the smell thereof. When Mrs Dombey rose, it was a sight
to see her lord, with stiff throat and erect head, hold the door open for
the withdrawal of the ladies; and to see how she swept past him with his
daughter on her arm.
Mr Dombey was a grave sight, behind the decanters, in a state of
dignity; and the East India Director was a forlorn sight near the unoccupied
end of the table, in a state of solitude; and the Major was a military
sight, relating stories of the Duke of York to six of the seven mild men
(the ambitious one was utterly quenched); and the Bank Director was a lowly
sight, making a plan of his little attempt at a pinery, with dessert-knives,
for a group of admirers; and Cousin Feenix was a thoughtful sight, as he
smoothed his long wristbands and stealthily adjusted his wig. But all these
sights were of short duration, being speedily broken up by coffee, and the
desertion of the room.
There was a throng in the state-rooms upstairs, increasing every
minute; but still Mr Dombey's list of visitors appeared to have some native
impossibility of amalgamation with Mrs Dombey's list, and no one could have
doubted which was which. The single exception to this rule perhaps was Mr
Carker, who now smiled among the company, and who, as he stood in the circle
that was gathered about Mrs Dombey - watchful of her, of them, his chief,
Cleopatra and the Major, Florence, and everything around - appeared at ease
with both divisions of guests, and not marked as exclusively belonging to
either.
Florence had a dread of him, which made his presence in the room a
nightmare to her. She could not avoid the recollection of it, for her eyes
were drawn towards him every now and then, by an attraction of dislike and
distrust that she could not resist. Yet her thoughts were busy with other
things; for as she sat apart - not unadmired or unsought, but in the
gentleness of her quiet spirit - she felt how little part her father had in
what was going on, and saw, with pain, how ill at ease he seemed to be, and
how little regarded he was as he lingered about near the door, for those
visitors whom he wished to distinguish with particular attention, and took
them up to introduce them to his wife, who received them with proud
coldness, but showed no interest or wish to please, and never, after the
bare ceremony of reception, in consultation of his wishes, or in welcome of
his friends, opened her lips. It was not the less perplexing or painful to
Florence, that she who acted thus, treated her so kindly and with such
loving consideration, that it almost seemed an ungrateful return on her part
even to know of what was passing before her eyes.
Happy Florence would have been, might she have ventured to bear her
father company, by so much as a look; and happy Florence was, in little
suspecting the main cause of his uneasiness. But afraid of seeming to know
that he was placed at any did advantage, lest he should be resentful of that
knowledge; and divided between her impulse towards him, and her grateful
affection for Edith; she scarcely dared to raise her eyes towards either.
Anxious and unhappy for them both, the thought stole on her through the
crowd, that it might have been better for them if this noise of tongues and
tread of feet had never come there, - if the old dulness and decay had never
been replaced by novelty and splendour, - if the neglected child had found
no friend in Edith, but had lived her solitary life, unpitied and forgotten.
Mrs Chick had some such thoughts too, but they were not so quietly
developed in her mind. This good matron had been outraged in the first
instance by not receiving an invitation to dinner. That blow partially
recovered, she had gone to a vast expense to make such a figure before Mrs
Dombey at home, as should dazzle the senses of that lady, and heap
mortification, mountains high, on the head of Mrs Skewton.
'But I am made,' said Mrs Chick to Mr Chick, 'of no more account than
Florence! Who takes the smallest notice of me? No one!'
'No one, my dear,' assented Mr Chick, who was seated by the side of Mrs
Chick against the wall, and could console himself, even there, by softly
whistling.
'Does it at all appear as if I was wanted here?' exclaimed Mrs Chick,
with flashing eyes.
'No, my dear, I don't think it does,' said Mr Chic
'Paul's mad!' said Mrs Chic
Mr Chick whistled.
'Unless you are a monster, which I sometimes think you are,' said Mrs
Chick with candour, 'don't sit there humming tunes. How anyone with the most
distant feelings of a man, can see that mother-in-law of Paul's, dressed as
she is, going on like that, with Major Bagstock, for whom, among other
precious things, we are indebted to your Lucretia Tox
'My Lucretia Tox, my dear!' said Mr Chick, astounded.
'Yes,' retorted Mrs Chick, with great severity, 'your Lucretia Tox - I
say how anybody can see that mother-in-law of Paul's, and that haughty wife
of Paul's, and these indecent old frights with their backs and shoulders,
and in short this at home generally, and hum - ' on which word Mrs Chick
laid a scornful emphasis that made Mr Chick start, 'is, I thank Heaven, a
mystery to me!
Mr Chick screwed his mouth into a form irreconcilable with humming or
whistling, and looked very contemplative.
'But I hope I know what is due to myself,' said Mrs Chick, swelling
with indignation, 'though Paul has forgotten what is due to me. I am not
going to sit here, a member of this family, to be taken no notice of. I am
not the dirt under Mrs Dombey's feet, yet - not quite yet,' said Mrs Chick,
as if she expected to become so, about the day after to-morrow. 'And I shall
go. I will not say (whatever I may think) that this affair has been got up
solely to degrade and insult me. I shall merely go. I shall not be missed!'
Mrs Chick rose erect with these words, and took the arm of Mr Chick,
who escorted her from the room, after half an hour's shady sojourn there.
And it is due to her penetration to observe that she certainly was not
missed at all.
But she was not the only indignant guest; for Mr Dombey's list (still
constantly in difficulties) were, as a body, indignant with Mrs Dombey's
list, for looking at them through eyeglasses, and audibly wondering who all
those people were; while Mrs Dombey's list complained of weariness, and the
young thing with the shoulders, deprived of the attentions of that gay youth
Cousin Feenix (who went away from the dinner-table), confidentially alleged
to thirty or forty friends that she was bored to death. All the old ladies
with the burdens on their heads, had greater or less cause of complaint
against Mr Dombey; and the Directors and Chairmen coincided in thinking that
if Dombey must marry, he had better have married somebody nearer his own
age, not quite so handsome, and a little better off. The general opinion
among this class of gentlemen was, that it was a weak thing in Dombey, and
he'd live to repent it. Hardly anybody there, except the mild men, stayed,
or went away, without considering himself or herself neglected and aggrieved
by Mr Dombey or Mrs Dombey; and the speechless female in the black velvet
hat was found to have been stricken mute, because the lady in the crimson
velvet had been handed down before her. The nature even of the mild men got
corrupted, either from their curdling it with too much lemonade, or from the
general inoculation that prevailed; and they made sarcastic jokes to one
another, and whispered disparagement on stairs and in bye-places. The
general dissatisfaction and discomfort so diffused itself, that the
assembled footmen in the hall were as well acquainted with it as the company
above. Nay, the very linkmen outside got hold of it, and compared the party
to a funeral out of mourning, with none of the company remembered in the
will. At last, the guests were all gone, and the linkmen too; and the
street, crowded so long with carriages, was clear; and the dying lights
showed no one in the rooms, but Mr Dombey and Mr Carker, who were talking
together apart, and Mrs Dombey and her mother: the former seated on an
ottoman; the latter reclining in the Cleopatra attitude, awaiting the
arrival of her maid. Mr Dombey having finished his communication to Carker,
the latter advanced obsequiously to take leave.
'I trust,' he said, 'that the fatigues of this delightful evening will
not inconvenience Mrs Dombey to-morrow.'
'Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, advancing, 'has sufficiently spared
herself fatigue, to relieve you from any anxiety of that kind. I regret to
say, Mrs Dombey, that I could have wished you had fatigued yourself a little
more on this occasion.
She looked at him with a supercilious glance, that it seemed not worth
her while to protract, and turned away her eyes without speaking.
'I am sorry, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, 'that you should not have thought
it your duty -
She looked at him again.
'Your duty, Madam,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'to have received my friends
with a little more deference. Some of those whom you have been pleased to
slight to-night in a very marked manner, Mrs Dombey, confer a distinction
upon you, I must tell you, in any visit they pay you.
'Do you know that there is someone here?' she returned, now looking at
him steadily.
'No! Carker! I beg that you do not. I insist that you do not,' cried Mr
Dombey, stopping that noiseless gentleman in his withdrawal. 'Mr Carker,
Madam, as you know, possesses my confidence. He is as well acquainted as
myself with the subject on which I speak. I beg to tell you, for your
information, Mrs Dombey, that I consider these wealthy and important persons
confer a distinction upon me:' and Mr Dombey drew himself up, as having now
rendered them of the highest possible importance.
'I ask you,' she repeated, bending her disdainful, steady gaze upon
him, 'do you know that there is someone here, Sir?'
'I must entreat,' said Mr Carker, stepping forward, 'I must beg, I must
demand, to be released. Slight and unimportant as this difference is - '
Mrs Skewton, who had been intent upon her daughter's face, took him up
here.
'My sweetest Edith,' she said, 'and my dearest Dombey; our excellent
friend Mr Carker, for so I am sure I ought to mention him - '
Mr Carker murmured, 'Too much honour.'
' - has used the very words that were in my mind, and that I have been
dying, these ages, for an opportunity of introducing. Slight and
unimportant! My sweetest Edith, and my dearest Dombey, do we not know that
any difference between you two - No, Flowers; not now.
Flowers was the maid, who, finding gentlemen present, retreated with
precipitation.
'That any difference between you two,' resumed Mrs Skewton, 'with the
Heart you possess in common, and the excessively charming bond of feeling
that there is between you, must be slight and unimportant? What words could
better define the fact? None. Therefore I am glad to take this slight
occasion - this trifling occasion, that is so replete with Nature, and your
individual characters, and all that - so truly calculated to bring the tears
into a parent's eyes - to say that I attach no importance to them in the
least, except as developing these minor elements of Soul; and that, unlike
most Mamas-in-law (that odious phrase, dear Dombey!) as they have been
represented to me to exist in this I fear too artificial world, I never
shall attempt to interpose between you, at such a time, and never can much
regret, after all, such little flashes of the torch of What's-his-name - not
Cupid, but the other delightful creature.
There was a sharpness in the good mother's glance at both her children
as she spoke, that may have been expressive of a direct and well-considered
purpose hidden between these rambling words. That purpose, providently to
detach herself in the beginning from all the clankings of their chain that
were to come, and to shelter herself with the fiction of her innocent belief
in their mutual affection, and their adaptation to each other.
'I have pointed out to Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, in his most stately
manner, 'that in her conduct thus early in our married life, to which I
object, and which, I request, may be corrected. Carker,' with a nod of
dismissal, 'good-night to you!'
Mr Carker bowed to the imperious form of the Bride, whose sparkling eye
was fixed upon her husband; and stopping at Cleopatra's couch on his way
out, raised to his lips the hand she graciously extended to him, in lowly
and admiring homage.
If his handsome wife had reproached him, or even changed countenance,
or broken the silence in which she remained, by one word, now that they were
alone (for Cleopatra made off with all speed), Mr Dombey would have been
equal to some assertion of his case against her. But the intense,
unutterable, withering scorn, with which, after looking upon him, she
dropped her eyes, as if he were too worthless and indifferent to her to be
challenged with a syllable - the ineffable disdain and haughtiness in which
she sat before him - the cold inflexible resolve with which her every
feature seemed to bear him down, and put him by - these, he had no resource
against; and he left her, with her whole overbearing beauty concentrated on
despising him.
Was he coward enough to watch her, an hour afterwards, on the old well
staircase, where he had once seen Florence in the moonlight, toiling up with
Paul? Or was he in the dark by accident, when, looking up, he saw her
coming, with a light, from the room where Florence lay, and marked again the
face so changed, which he could not subdue?
But it could never alter as his own did. It never, in its uttermost
pride and passion, knew the shadow that had fallen on his, in the dark
corner, on the night of the return; and often since; and which deepened on
it now, as he looked up.
More Warnings than One
Florence, Edith, and Mrs Skewton were together next day, and the
carriage was waiting at the door to take them out. For Cleopatra had her
galley again now, and Withers, no longer the-wan, stood upright in a
pigeon-breasted jacket and military trousers, behind her wheel-less chair at
dinner-time and butted no more. The hair of Withers was radiant with
pomatum, in these days of down, and he wore kid gloves and smelt of the
water of Cologne.
They were assembled in Cleopatra's room The Serpent of old Nile (not to
mention her disrespectfully) was reposing on her sofa, sipping her morning
chocolate at three o'clock in the afternoon, and Flowers the Maid was
fastening on her youthful cuffs and frills, and performing a kind of private
coronation ceremony on her, with a peach-coloured velvet bonnet; the
artificial roses in which nodded to uncommon advantage, as the palsy trifled
with them, like a breeze.
'I think I am a little nervous this morning, Flowers,' said Mrs
Skewton. 'My hand quite shakes.'
'You were the life of the party last night, Ma'am, you know,' returned
Flowers, ' and you suffer for it, to-day, you see.'
Edith, who had beckoned Florence to the window, and was looking out,
with her back turned on the toilet of her esteemed mother, suddenly withdrew
from it, as if it had lightened.
'My darling child,' cried Cleopatra, languidly, 'you are not nervous?
Don't tell me, my dear Edith, that you, so enviably self-possessed, are
beginning to be a martyr too, like your unfortunately constituted mother!
Withers, someone at the door.'
'Card, Ma'am,' said Withers, taking it towards Mrs Dombey.
'I am going out,' she said without looking at it.
'My dear love,' drawled Mrs Skewton, 'how very odd to send that message
without seeing the name! Bring it here, Withers. Dear me, my love; Mr
Carker, too! That very sensible person!'
'I am going out,' repeated Edith, in so imperious a tone that Withers,
going to the door, imperiously informed the servant who was waiting, 'Mrs
Dombey is going out. Get along with you,' and shut it on him.'
But the servant came back after a short absence, and whispered to
Withers again, who once more, and not very willingly, presented himself
before Mrs Dombey.
'If you please, Ma'am, Mr Carker sends his respectful compliments, and
begs you would spare him one minute, if you could - for business, Ma'am, if
you please.'
'Really, my love,' said Mrs Skewton in her mildest manner; for her
daughter's face was threatening; 'if you would allow me to offer a word, I
should recommend - '
'Show him this way,' said Edith. As Withers disappeared to execute the
command, she added, frowning on her mother, 'As he comes at your
recommendation, let him come to your room.'
'May I - shall I go away?' asked Florence, hurriedly.
Edith nodded yes, but on her way to the door Florence met the visitor
coming in. With the same disagreeable mixture of familiarity and
forbearance, with which he had first addressed her, he addressed her now in
his softest manner - hoped she was quite well - needed not to ask, with such
looks to anticipate the answer - had scarcely had the honour to know her,
last night, she was so greatly changed - and held the door open for her to
pass out; with a secret sense of power in her shrinking from him, that all
the deference and politeness of his manner could not quite conceal.
He then bowed himself for a moment over Mrs Skewton's condescending
hand, and lastly bowed to Edith. Coldly returning his salute without looking
at him, and neither seating herself nor inviting him to be seated, she
waited for him to speak.
Entrenched in her pride and power, and with all the obduracy of her
spirit summoned about her, still her old conviction that she and her mother
had been known by this man in their worst colours, from their first
acquaintance; that every degradation she had suffered in her own eyes was as
plain to him as to herself; that he read her life as though it were a vile
book, and fluttered the leaves before her in slight looks and tones of voice
which no one else could detect; weakened and undermined her. Proudly as she
opposed herself to him, with her commanding face exacting his humility, her
disdainful lip repulsing him, her bosom angry at his intrusion, and the dark
lashes of her eyes sullenly veiling their light, that no ray of it might
shine upon him - and submissively as he stood before her, with an entreating
injured manner, but with complete submission to her will - she knew, in her
own soul, that the cases were reversed, and that the triumph and superiority
were his, and that he knew it full well.
'I have presumed,' said Mr Carker, 'to solicit an interview, and I have
ventured to describe it as being one of business, because - '
'Perhaps you are charged by Mr Dombey with some message of reproof,'
said Edit 'You possess Mr Dombey's confidence in such an unusual degree,
Sir, that you would scarcely surprise me if that were your business.'
'I have no message to the lady who sheds a lustre upon his name,' said
Mr Carker. 'But I entreat that lady, on my own behalf to be just to a very
humble claimant for justice at her hands - a mere dependant of Mr Dombey's -
which is a position of humility; and to reflect upon my perfect helplessness
last night, and the impossibility of my avoiding the share that was forced
upon me in a very painful occasion.'
'My dearest Edith,' hinted Cleopatra in a low voice, as she held her
eye-glass aside, 'really very charming of Mr What's-his-name. And full of
heart!'
'For I do,' said Mr Carker, appealing to Mrs Skewton with a look of
grateful deference, - 'I do venture to call it a painful occasion, though
merely because it was so to me, who had the misfortune to be present. So
slight a difference, as between the principals - between those who love each
other with disinterested devotion, and would make any sacrifice of self in
such a cause - is nothing. As Mrs Skewton herself expressed, with so much
truth and feeling last night, it is nothing.'
Edith could not look at him, but she said after a few moments,
'And your business, Sir - '
'Edith, my pet,' said Mrs Skewton, 'all this time Mr Carker is
standing! My dear Mr Carker, take a seat, I beg.'
He offered no reply to the mother, but fixed his eyes on the proud
daughter, as though he would only be bidden by her, and was resolved to he
bidden by her. Edith, in spite of herself sat down, and slightly motioned
with her hand to him to be seated too. No action could be colder, haughtier,
more insolent in its air of supremacy and disrespect, but she had struggled
against even that concession ineffectually, and it was wrested from her.
That was enough! Mr Carker sat down.
'May I be allowed, Madam,' said Carker, turning his white teeth on Mrs
Skewton like a light - 'a lady of your excellent sense and quick feeling
will give me credit, for good reason, I am sure - to address what I have to
say, to Mrs Dombey, and to leave her to impart it to you who are her best
and dearest friend - next to Mr Dombey?'
Mrs Skewton would have retired, but Edith stopped her. Edith would have
stopped him too, and indignantly ordered him to speak openly or not at all,
but that he said, in a low Voice - 'Miss Florence - the young lady who has
just left the room - '
Edith suffered him to proceed. She looked at him now. As he bent
forward, to be nearer, with the utmost show of delicacy and respect, and
with his teeth persuasively arrayed, in a self-depreciating smile, she felt
as if she could have struck him dead.
'Miss Florence's position,' he began, 'has been an unfortunate one. I
have a difficulty in alluding to it to you, whose attachment to her father
is naturally watchful and jealous of every word that applies to him.' Always
distinct and soft in speech, no language could describe the extent of his
distinctness and softness, when he said these words, or came to any others
of a similar import. 'But, as one who is devoted to Mr Dombey in his
different way, and whose life is passed in admiration of Mr Dombey's
character, may I say, without offence to your tenderness as a wife, that
Miss Florence has unhappily been neglected - by her father. May I say by her
father?'
Edith replied, 'I know it.'
'You know it!' said Mr Carker, with a great appearance of relief. 'It
removes a mountain from my breast. May I hope you know how the neglect
originated; in what an amiable phase of Mr Dombey's pride - character I
mean?'
'You may pass that by, Sir,' she returned, 'and come the sooner to the
end of what you have to say.'
'Indeed, I am sensible, Madam,' replied Carker, - 'trust me, I am
deeply sensible, that Mr Dombey can require no justification in anything to
you. But, kindly judge of my breast by your own, and you will forgive my
interest in him, if in its excess, it goes at all astray.
What a stab to her proud heart, to sit there, face to face with him,
and have him tendering her false oath at the altar again and again for her
acceptance, and pressing it upon her like the dregs of a sickening cup she
could not own her loathing of or turn away from'. How shame, remorse, and
passion raged within her, when, upright and majestic in her beauty before
him, she knew that in her spirit she was down at his feet!
'Miss Florence,' said Carker, 'left to the care - if one may call it
care - of servants and mercenary people, in every way her inferiors,
necessarily wanted some guide and compass in her younger days, and,
naturally, for want of them, has been indiscreet, and has in some degree
forgotten her station. There was some folly about one Walter, a common lad,
who is fortunately dead now: and some very undesirable association, I regret
to say, with certain coasting sailors, of anything but good repute, and a
runaway old bankrupt.'
'I have heard the circumstances, Sir,' said Edith, flashing her
disdainful glance upon him, 'and I know that you pervert them. You may not
know it. I hope so.'
'Pardon me,' said Mr Carker, 'I believe that nobody knows them so well
as I. Your generous and ardent nature, Madam - the same nature which is so
nobly imperative in vindication of your beloved and honoured husband, and
which has blessed him as even his merits deserve - I must respect, defer to,
bow before. But, as regards the circumstances, which is indeed the business
I presumed to solicit your attention to, I can have no doubt, since, in the
execution of my trust as Mr Dombey's confidential - I presume to say -
friend, I have fully ascertained them. In my execution of that trust; in my
deep concern, which you can so well understand, for everything relating to
him, intensified, if you will (for I fear I labour under your displeasure),
by the lower motive of desire to prove my diligence, and make myself the
more acceptable; I have long pursued these circumstances by myself and
trustworthy instruments, and have innumerable and most minute proofs.'
She raised her eyes no higher than his mouth, but she saw the means of
mischief vaunted in every tooth it contained.
'Pardon me, Madam,' he continued, 'if in my perplexity, I presume to
take counsel with you, and to consult your pleasure. I think I have observed
that you are greatly interested in Miss Florence?'
What was there in her he had not observed, and did not know? Humbled
and yet maddened by the thought, in every new presentment of it, however
faint, she pressed her teeth upon her quivering lip to force composure on
it, and distantly inclined her head in reply.
'This interest, Madam - so touching an evidence of everything
associated with Mr Dombey being dear to you - induces me to pause before I
make him acquainted with these circumstances, which, as yet, he does not
know. It so shakes me, if I may make the confession, in my allegiance, that
on the intimation of the least desire to that effect from you, I would
suppress them.'
Edith raised her head quickly, and starting back, bent her dark glance
upon him. He met it with his blandest and most deferential smile, and went
on.
'You say that as I describe them, they are perverted. I fear not - I
fear not: but let us assume that they are. The uneasiness I have for some
time felt on the subject, arises in this: that the mere circumstance of such
association often repeated, on the part of Miss Florence, however innocently
and confidingly, would be conclusive with Mr Dombey, already predisposed
against her, and would lead him to take some step (I know he has
occasionally contemplated it) of separation and alienation of her from his
home. Madam, bear with me, and remember my intercourse with Mr Dombey, and
my knowledge of him, and my reverence for him, almost from childhood, when I
say that if he has a fault, it is a lofty stubbornness, rooted in that noble
pride and sense of power which belong to him, and which we must all defer
to; which is not assailable like the obstinacy of other characters; and
which grows upon itself from day to day, and year to year.
She bent her glance upon him still; but, look as steadfast as she
would, her haughty nostrils dilated, and her breath came somewhat deeper,
and her lip would slightly curl, as he described that in his patron to which
they must all bow down. He saw it; and though his expression did not change,
she knew he saw it.
'Even so slight an incident as last night's,' he said, 'if I might
refer to it once more, would serve to illustrate my meaning, better than a
greater one. Dombey and Son know neither time, nor place, nor season, but
bear them all down. But I rejoice in its occurrence, for it has opened the
way for me to approach Mrs Dombey with this subject to-day, even if it has
entailed upon me the penalty of her temporary displeasure. Madam, in the
midst of my uneasiness and apprehension on this subject, I was summoned by
Mr Dombey to Leamington. There I saw you. There I could not help knowing
what relation you would shortly occupy towards him - to his enduring
happiness and yours. There I resolved to await the time of your
establishment at home here, and to do as I have now done. I have, at heart,
no fear that I shall be wanting in my duty to Mr Dombey, if I bury what I
know in your breast; for where there is but one heart and mind between two
persons - as in such a marriage - one almost represents the other. I can
acquit my conscience therefore, almost equally, by confidence, on such a
theme, in you or him. For the reasons I have mentioned I would select you.
May I aspire to the distinction of believing that my confidence is accepted,
and that I am relieved from my responsibility?'
He long remembered the look she gave him - who could see it, and forget
it? - and the struggle that ensued within her. At last she said:
'I accept it, Sir You will please to consider this matter at an end,
and that it goes no farther.'
He bowed low, and rose. She rose too, and he took leave with all
humility. But Withers, meeting him on the stairs, stood amazed at the beauty
of his teeth, and at his brilliant smile; and as he rode away upon his
white-legged horse, the people took him for a dentist, such was the dazzling
show he made. The people took her, when she rode out in her carriage
presently, for a great lady, as happy as she was rich and fine. But they had
not seen her, just before, in her own room with no one by; and they had not
heard her utterance of the three words, 'Oh Florence, Florence!'
Mrs Skewton, reposing on her sofa, and sipping her chocolate, had heard
nothing but the low word business, for which she had a mortal aversion,
insomuch that she had long banished it from her vocabulary, and had gone
nigh, in a charming manner and with an immense amount of heart, to say
nothing of soul, to ruin divers milliners and others in consequence.
Therefore Mrs Skewton asked no questions, and showed no curiosity. Indeed,
the peach-velvet bonnet gave her sufficient occupation out of doors; for
being perched on the back of her head, and the day being rather windy, it
was frantic to escape from Mrs Skewton's company, and would be coaxed into
no sort of compromise. When the carriage was closed, and the wind shut out,
the palsy played among the artificial roses again like an almshouse-full of
superannuated zephyrs; and altogether Mrs Skewton had enough to do, and got
on but indifferently.
She got on no better towards night; for when Mrs Dombey, in her
dressing-room, had been dressed and waiting for her half an hour, and Mr
Dombey, in the drawing-room, had paraded himself into a state of solemn
fretfulness (they were all three going out to dinner), Flowers the Maid
appeared with a pale face to Mrs Dombey, saying:
'If you please, Ma'am, I beg your pardon, but I can't do nothing with
Missis!'
'What do you mean?' asked Edith.
'Well, Ma'am,' replied the frightened maid, 'I hardly know. She's
making faces!'
Edith hurried with her to her mother's room. Cleopatra was arrayed in
full dress, with the diamonds, short sleeves, rouge, curls, teeth, and other
juvenility all complete; but Paralysis was not to be deceived, had known her
for the object of its errand, and had struck her at her glass, where she lay
like a horrible doll that had tumbled down.
They took her to pieces in very shame, and put the little of her that
was real on a bed. Doctors were sent for, and soon came. Powerful remedies
were resorted to; opinions given that she would rally from this shock, but
would not survive another; and there she lay speechless, and staring at the
ceiling, for days; sometimes making inarticulate sounds in answer to such
questions as did she know who were present, and the like: sometimes giving
no reply either by sign or gesture, or in her unwinking eyes.
At length she began to recover consciousness, and in some degree the
power of motion, though not yet of speech. One day the use of her right hand
returned; and showing it to her maid who was in attendance on her, and
appearing very uneasy in her mind, she made signs for a pencil and some
paper. This the maid immediately provided, thinking she was going to make a
will, or write some last request; and Mrs Dombey being from home, the maid
awaited the result with solemn feelings.
After much painful scrawling and erasing, and putting in of wrong
characters, which seemed to tumble out of the pencil of their own accord,
the old woman produced this document:
'Rose-coloured curtains.'
The maid being perfectly transfixed, and with tolerable reason,
Cleopatra amended the manuscript by adding two words more, when it stood
thus:
'Rose-coloured curtains for doctors.'
The maid now perceived remotely that she wished these articles to be
provided for the better presentation of her complexion to the faculty; and
as those in the house who knew her best, had no doubt of the correctness of
this opinion, which she was soon able to establish for herself the
rose-coloured curtains were added to her bed, and she mended with increased
rapidity from that hour. She was soon able to sit up, in curls and a laced
cap and nightgown, and to have a little artificial bloom dropped into the
hollow caverns of her cheeks.
It was a tremendous sight to see this old woman in her finery leering
and mincing at Death, and playing off her youthful tricks upon him as if he
had been the Major; but an alteration in her mind that ensued on the
paralytic stroke was fraught with as much matter for reflection, and was
quite as ghastly.
Whether the weakening of her intellect made her more cunning and false
than before, or whether it confused her between what she had assumed to be
and what she really had been, or whether it had awakened any glimmering of
remorse, which could neither struggle into light nor get back into total
darkness, or whether, in the jumble of her faculties, a combination of these
effects had been shaken up, which is perhaps the more likely supposition,
the result was this: - That she became hugely exacting in respect of Edith's
affection and gratitude and attention to her; highly laudatory of herself as
a most inestimable parent; and very jealous of having any rival in Edith's
regard. Further, in place of remembering that compact made between them for
an avoidance of the subject, she constantly alluded to her daughter's
marriage as a proof of her being an incomparable mother; and all this, with
the weakness and peevishness of such a state, always serving for a sarcastic
commentary on her levity and youthfulness.
'Where is Mrs Dombey? she would say to her maid.
'Gone out, Ma'am.'
'Gone out! Does she go out to shun her Mama, Flowers?'
'La bless you, no, Ma'am. Mrs Dombey has only gone out for a ride with
Miss Florence.'
'Miss Florence. Who's Miss Florence? Don't tell me about Miss Florence.
What's Miss Florence to her, compared to me?'
The apposite display of the diamonds, or the peach-velvet bonnet (she
sat in the bonnet to receive visitors, weeks before she could stir out of
doors), or the dressing of her up in some gaud or other, usually stopped the
tears that began to flow hereabouts; and she would remain in a complacent
state until Edith came to see her; when, at a glance of the proud face, she
would relapse again.
'Well, I am sure, Edith!' she would cry, shaking her head.
'What is the matter, mother?'
'Matter! I really don't know what is the matter. The world is coming to
such an artificial and ungrateful state, that I begin to think there's no
Heart - or anything of that sort - left in it, positively. Withers is more a
child to me than you are. He attends to me much more than my own daughter. I
almost wish I didn't look so young - and all that kind of thing - and then
perhaps I should be more considered.'
'What would you have, mother?'
'Oh, a great deal, Edith,' impatiently.
'Is there anything you want that you have not? It is your own fault if
there be.'
'My own fault!' beginning to whimper. 'The parent I have been to you,
Edith: making you a companion from your cradle! And when you neglect me, and
have no more natural affection for me than if I was a stranger - not a
twentieth part of the affection that you have for Florence - but I am only
your mother, and should corrupt her in a day! - you reproach me with its
being my own fault.'
'Mother, mother, I reproach you with nothing. Why will you always dwell
on this?'
'Isn't it natural that I should dwell on this, when I am all affection
and sensitiveness, and am wounded in the cruellest way, whenever you look at
me?'
'I do not mean to wound you, mother. Have you no remembrance of what
has been said between us? Let the Past rest.'
'Yes, rest! And let gratitude to me rest; and let affection for me
rest; and let me rest in my out-of-the-way room, with no society and no
attention, while you find new relations to make much of, who have no earthly
claim upon you! Good gracious, Edith, do you know what an elegant
establishment you are at the head of?'
'Yes. Hush!'
'And that gentlemanly creature, Dombey? Do you know that you are
married to him, Edith, and that you have a settlement and a position, and a
carriage, and I don't know what?'
'Indeed, I know it, mother; well.'
'As you would have had with that delightful good soul - what did they
call him? - Granger - if he hadn't died. And who have you to thank for all
this, Edith?'
'You, mother; you.'
'Then put your arms round my neck, and kiss me; and show me, Edith,
that you know there never was a better Mama than I have been to you. And
don't let me become a perfect fright with teasing and wearing myself at your
ingratitude, or when I'm out again in society no soul will know me, not even
that hateful animal, the Major.'
But, sometimes, when Edith went nearer to her, and bending down her
stately head, Put her cold cheek to hers, the mother would draw back as If
she were afraid of her, and would fall into a fit of trembling, and cry out
that there was a wandering in her wits. And sometimes she would entreat her,
with humility, to sit down on the chair beside her bed, and would look at
her (as she sat there brooding) with a face that even the rose-coloured
curtains could not make otherwise than scared and wild.
The rose-coloured curtains blushed, in course of time, on Cleopatra's
bodily recovery, and on her dress - more juvenile than ever, to repair the
ravages of illness - and on the rouge, and on the teeth, and on the curls,
and on the diamonds, and the short sleeves, and the whole wardrobe of the
doll that had tumbled down before the mirror. They blushed, too, now and
then, upon an indistinctness in her speech which she turned off with a
girlish giggle, and on an occasional failing In her memory, that had no rule
in it, but came and went fantastically, as if in mockery of her fantastic
self.
But they never blushed upon a change in the new manner of her thought
and speech towards her daughter. And though that daughter often came within
their influence, they never blushed upon her loveliness irradiated by a
smile, or softened by the light of filial love, in its stem beauty.
Miss Tox improves an Old Acquaintance
The forlorn Miss Tox, abandoned by her friend Louisa Chick, and bereft
of Mr Dombey's countenance - for no delicate pair of wedding cards, united
by a silver thread, graced the chimney-glass in Princess's Place, or the
harpsichord, or any of those little posts of display which Lucretia reserved
for holiday occupation - became depressed in her spirits, and suffered much
from melancholy. For a time the Bird Waltz was unheard in Princess's Place,
the plants were neglected, and dust collected on the miniature of Miss Tox's
ancestor with the powdered head and pigtail.
Miss Tox, however, was not of an age or of a disposition long to
abandon herself to unavailing regrets. Only two notes of the harpsichord
were dumb from disuse when the Bird Waltz again warbled and trilled in the
crooked drawing-room: only one slip of geranium fell a victim to imperfect
nursing, before she was gardening at her green baskets again, regularly
every morning; the powdered-headed ancestor had not been under a cloud for
more than six weeks, when Miss Tox breathed on his benignant visage, and
polished him up with a piece of wash-leather.
Still, Miss Tox was lonely, and at a loss. Her attachments, however
ludicrously shown, were real and strong; and she was, as she expressed it,
'deeply hurt by the unmerited contumely she had met with from Louisa.' But
there was no such thing as anger in Miss Tox's composition. If she had
ambled on through life, in her soft spoken way, without any opinions, she
had, at least, got so far without any harsh passions. The mere sight of
Louisa Chick in the street one day, at a considerable distance, so
overpowered her milky nature, that she was fain to seek immediate refuge in
a pastrycook's, and there, in a musty little back room usually devoted to
the consumption of soups, and pervaded by an ox-tail atmosphere, relieve her
feelings by weeping plentifully.
Against Mr Dombey Miss Tox hardly felt that she had any reason of
'Excellent,' returned the mild man, becoming bold on his success. 'One
of the best fellows I ever knew.'
'No doubt you have heard the story?' said Cousin Feenix.
'I shall know,' replied the bold mild man, 'when I have heard your
Ludship tell it.' With that, he leaned back in his chair and smiled at the
ceiling, as knowing it by heart, and being already tickled.
'In point of fact, it's nothing of a story in itself,' said Cousin
Feenix, addressing the table with a smile, and a gay shake of his head, 'and
not worth a word of preface. But it's illustrative of the neatness of Jack's
humour. The fact is, that Jack was invited down to a marriage - which I
think took place in Berkshire?'
'Shropshire,' said the bold mild man, finding himself appealed to.
'Was it? Well! In point of fact it might have been in any shire,' said
Cousin Feenix. 'So my friend being invited down to this marriage in
Anyshire,' with a pleasant sense of the readiness of this joke, 'goes. Just
as some of us, having had the honour of being invited to the marriage of my
lovely and accomplished relative with my friend Dombey, didn't require to be
asked twice, and were devilish glad to be present on so interesting an
occasion. - Goes - Jack goes. Now, this marriage was, in point of fact, the
marriage of an uncommonly fine girl with a man for whom she didn't care a
button, but whom she accepted on account of his property, which was immense.
When Jack returned to town, after the nuptials, a man he knew, meeting him
in the lobby of the House of Commons, says, "Well, Jack, how are the
ill-matched couple?" "Ill-matched," says Jack "Not at all. It's a perfectly
and equal transaction. She is regularly bought, and you may take your oath
he is as regularly sold!"'
In his full enjoyment of this culminating point of his story, the
shudder, which had gone all round the table like an electric spark, struck
Cousin Feenix, and he stopped. Not a smile occasioned by the only general
topic of conversation broached that day, appeared on any face. A profound
silence ensued; and the wretched mild man, who had been as innocent of any
real foreknowledge of the story as the child unborn, had the exquisite
misery of reading in every eye that he was regarded as the prime mover of
the mischief.
Mr Dombey's face was not a changeful one, and being cast in its mould
of state that day, showed little other apprehension of the story, if any,
than that which he expressed when he said solemnly, amidst the silence, that
it was 'Very good.' There was a rapid glance from Edith towards Florence,
but otherwise she remained, externally, impassive and unconscious.
Through the various stages of rich meats and wines, continual gold and
silver, dainties of earth, air, fire, and water, heaped-up fruits, and that
unnecessary article in Mr Dombey's banquets - ice- the dinner slowly made
its way: the later stages being achieved to the sonorous music of incessant
double knocks, announcing the arrival of visitors, whose portion of the
feast was limited to the smell thereof. When Mrs Dombey rose, it was a sight
to see her lord, with stiff throat and erect head, hold the door open for
the withdrawal of the ladies; and to see how she swept past him with his
daughter on her arm.
Mr Dombey was a grave sight, behind the decanters, in a state of
dignity; and the East India Director was a forlorn sight near the unoccupied
end of the table, in a state of solitude; and the Major was a military
sight, relating stories of the Duke of York to six of the seven mild men
(the ambitious one was utterly quenched); and the Bank Director was a lowly
sight, making a plan of his little attempt at a pinery, with dessert-knives,
for a group of admirers; and Cousin Feenix was a thoughtful sight, as he
smoothed his long wristbands and stealthily adjusted his wig. But all these
sights were of short duration, being speedily broken up by coffee, and the
desertion of the room.
There was a throng in the state-rooms upstairs, increasing every
minute; but still Mr Dombey's list of visitors appeared to have some native
impossibility of amalgamation with Mrs Dombey's list, and no one could have
doubted which was which. The single exception to this rule perhaps was Mr
Carker, who now smiled among the company, and who, as he stood in the circle
that was gathered about Mrs Dombey - watchful of her, of them, his chief,
Cleopatra and the Major, Florence, and everything around - appeared at ease
with both divisions of guests, and not marked as exclusively belonging to
either.
Florence had a dread of him, which made his presence in the room a
nightmare to her. She could not avoid the recollection of it, for her eyes
were drawn towards him every now and then, by an attraction of dislike and
distrust that she could not resist. Yet her thoughts were busy with other
things; for as she sat apart - not unadmired or unsought, but in the
gentleness of her quiet spirit - she felt how little part her father had in
what was going on, and saw, with pain, how ill at ease he seemed to be, and
how little regarded he was as he lingered about near the door, for those
visitors whom he wished to distinguish with particular attention, and took
them up to introduce them to his wife, who received them with proud
coldness, but showed no interest or wish to please, and never, after the
bare ceremony of reception, in consultation of his wishes, or in welcome of
his friends, opened her lips. It was not the less perplexing or painful to
Florence, that she who acted thus, treated her so kindly and with such
loving consideration, that it almost seemed an ungrateful return on her part
even to know of what was passing before her eyes.
Happy Florence would have been, might she have ventured to bear her
father company, by so much as a look; and happy Florence was, in little
suspecting the main cause of his uneasiness. But afraid of seeming to know
that he was placed at any did advantage, lest he should be resentful of that
knowledge; and divided between her impulse towards him, and her grateful
affection for Edith; she scarcely dared to raise her eyes towards either.
Anxious and unhappy for them both, the thought stole on her through the
crowd, that it might have been better for them if this noise of tongues and
tread of feet had never come there, - if the old dulness and decay had never
been replaced by novelty and splendour, - if the neglected child had found
no friend in Edith, but had lived her solitary life, unpitied and forgotten.
Mrs Chick had some such thoughts too, but they were not so quietly
developed in her mind. This good matron had been outraged in the first
instance by not receiving an invitation to dinner. That blow partially
recovered, she had gone to a vast expense to make such a figure before Mrs
Dombey at home, as should dazzle the senses of that lady, and heap
mortification, mountains high, on the head of Mrs Skewton.
'But I am made,' said Mrs Chick to Mr Chick, 'of no more account than
Florence! Who takes the smallest notice of me? No one!'
'No one, my dear,' assented Mr Chick, who was seated by the side of Mrs
Chick against the wall, and could console himself, even there, by softly
whistling.
'Does it at all appear as if I was wanted here?' exclaimed Mrs Chick,
with flashing eyes.
'No, my dear, I don't think it does,' said Mr Chic
'Paul's mad!' said Mrs Chic
Mr Chick whistled.
'Unless you are a monster, which I sometimes think you are,' said Mrs
Chick with candour, 'don't sit there humming tunes. How anyone with the most
distant feelings of a man, can see that mother-in-law of Paul's, dressed as
she is, going on like that, with Major Bagstock, for whom, among other
precious things, we are indebted to your Lucretia Tox
'My Lucretia Tox, my dear!' said Mr Chick, astounded.
'Yes,' retorted Mrs Chick, with great severity, 'your Lucretia Tox - I
say how anybody can see that mother-in-law of Paul's, and that haughty wife
of Paul's, and these indecent old frights with their backs and shoulders,
and in short this at home generally, and hum - ' on which word Mrs Chick
laid a scornful emphasis that made Mr Chick start, 'is, I thank Heaven, a
mystery to me!
Mr Chick screwed his mouth into a form irreconcilable with humming or
whistling, and looked very contemplative.
'But I hope I know what is due to myself,' said Mrs Chick, swelling
with indignation, 'though Paul has forgotten what is due to me. I am not
going to sit here, a member of this family, to be taken no notice of. I am
not the dirt under Mrs Dombey's feet, yet - not quite yet,' said Mrs Chick,
as if she expected to become so, about the day after to-morrow. 'And I shall
go. I will not say (whatever I may think) that this affair has been got up
solely to degrade and insult me. I shall merely go. I shall not be missed!'
Mrs Chick rose erect with these words, and took the arm of Mr Chick,
who escorted her from the room, after half an hour's shady sojourn there.
And it is due to her penetration to observe that she certainly was not
missed at all.
But she was not the only indignant guest; for Mr Dombey's list (still
constantly in difficulties) were, as a body, indignant with Mrs Dombey's
list, for looking at them through eyeglasses, and audibly wondering who all
those people were; while Mrs Dombey's list complained of weariness, and the
young thing with the shoulders, deprived of the attentions of that gay youth
Cousin Feenix (who went away from the dinner-table), confidentially alleged
to thirty or forty friends that she was bored to death. All the old ladies
with the burdens on their heads, had greater or less cause of complaint
against Mr Dombey; and the Directors and Chairmen coincided in thinking that
if Dombey must marry, he had better have married somebody nearer his own
age, not quite so handsome, and a little better off. The general opinion
among this class of gentlemen was, that it was a weak thing in Dombey, and
he'd live to repent it. Hardly anybody there, except the mild men, stayed,
or went away, without considering himself or herself neglected and aggrieved
by Mr Dombey or Mrs Dombey; and the speechless female in the black velvet
hat was found to have been stricken mute, because the lady in the crimson
velvet had been handed down before her. The nature even of the mild men got
corrupted, either from their curdling it with too much lemonade, or from the
general inoculation that prevailed; and they made sarcastic jokes to one
another, and whispered disparagement on stairs and in bye-places. The
general dissatisfaction and discomfort so diffused itself, that the
assembled footmen in the hall were as well acquainted with it as the company
above. Nay, the very linkmen outside got hold of it, and compared the party
to a funeral out of mourning, with none of the company remembered in the
will. At last, the guests were all gone, and the linkmen too; and the
street, crowded so long with carriages, was clear; and the dying lights
showed no one in the rooms, but Mr Dombey and Mr Carker, who were talking
together apart, and Mrs Dombey and her mother: the former seated on an
ottoman; the latter reclining in the Cleopatra attitude, awaiting the
arrival of her maid. Mr Dombey having finished his communication to Carker,
the latter advanced obsequiously to take leave.
'I trust,' he said, 'that the fatigues of this delightful evening will
not inconvenience Mrs Dombey to-morrow.'
'Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, advancing, 'has sufficiently spared
herself fatigue, to relieve you from any anxiety of that kind. I regret to
say, Mrs Dombey, that I could have wished you had fatigued yourself a little
more on this occasion.
She looked at him with a supercilious glance, that it seemed not worth
her while to protract, and turned away her eyes without speaking.
'I am sorry, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, 'that you should not have thought
it your duty -
She looked at him again.
'Your duty, Madam,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'to have received my friends
with a little more deference. Some of those whom you have been pleased to
slight to-night in a very marked manner, Mrs Dombey, confer a distinction
upon you, I must tell you, in any visit they pay you.
'Do you know that there is someone here?' she returned, now looking at
him steadily.
'No! Carker! I beg that you do not. I insist that you do not,' cried Mr
Dombey, stopping that noiseless gentleman in his withdrawal. 'Mr Carker,
Madam, as you know, possesses my confidence. He is as well acquainted as
myself with the subject on which I speak. I beg to tell you, for your
information, Mrs Dombey, that I consider these wealthy and important persons
confer a distinction upon me:' and Mr Dombey drew himself up, as having now
rendered them of the highest possible importance.
'I ask you,' she repeated, bending her disdainful, steady gaze upon
him, 'do you know that there is someone here, Sir?'
'I must entreat,' said Mr Carker, stepping forward, 'I must beg, I must
demand, to be released. Slight and unimportant as this difference is - '
Mrs Skewton, who had been intent upon her daughter's face, took him up
here.
'My sweetest Edith,' she said, 'and my dearest Dombey; our excellent
friend Mr Carker, for so I am sure I ought to mention him - '
Mr Carker murmured, 'Too much honour.'
' - has used the very words that were in my mind, and that I have been
dying, these ages, for an opportunity of introducing. Slight and
unimportant! My sweetest Edith, and my dearest Dombey, do we not know that
any difference between you two - No, Flowers; not now.
Flowers was the maid, who, finding gentlemen present, retreated with
precipitation.
'That any difference between you two,' resumed Mrs Skewton, 'with the
Heart you possess in common, and the excessively charming bond of feeling
that there is between you, must be slight and unimportant? What words could
better define the fact? None. Therefore I am glad to take this slight
occasion - this trifling occasion, that is so replete with Nature, and your
individual characters, and all that - so truly calculated to bring the tears
into a parent's eyes - to say that I attach no importance to them in the
least, except as developing these minor elements of Soul; and that, unlike
most Mamas-in-law (that odious phrase, dear Dombey!) as they have been
represented to me to exist in this I fear too artificial world, I never
shall attempt to interpose between you, at such a time, and never can much
regret, after all, such little flashes of the torch of What's-his-name - not
Cupid, but the other delightful creature.
There was a sharpness in the good mother's glance at both her children
as she spoke, that may have been expressive of a direct and well-considered
purpose hidden between these rambling words. That purpose, providently to
detach herself in the beginning from all the clankings of their chain that
were to come, and to shelter herself with the fiction of her innocent belief
in their mutual affection, and their adaptation to each other.
'I have pointed out to Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, in his most stately
manner, 'that in her conduct thus early in our married life, to which I
object, and which, I request, may be corrected. Carker,' with a nod of
dismissal, 'good-night to you!'
Mr Carker bowed to the imperious form of the Bride, whose sparkling eye
was fixed upon her husband; and stopping at Cleopatra's couch on his way
out, raised to his lips the hand she graciously extended to him, in lowly
and admiring homage.
If his handsome wife had reproached him, or even changed countenance,
or broken the silence in which she remained, by one word, now that they were
alone (for Cleopatra made off with all speed), Mr Dombey would have been
equal to some assertion of his case against her. But the intense,
unutterable, withering scorn, with which, after looking upon him, she
dropped her eyes, as if he were too worthless and indifferent to her to be
challenged with a syllable - the ineffable disdain and haughtiness in which
she sat before him - the cold inflexible resolve with which her every
feature seemed to bear him down, and put him by - these, he had no resource
against; and he left her, with her whole overbearing beauty concentrated on
despising him.
Was he coward enough to watch her, an hour afterwards, on the old well
staircase, where he had once seen Florence in the moonlight, toiling up with
Paul? Or was he in the dark by accident, when, looking up, he saw her
coming, with a light, from the room where Florence lay, and marked again the
face so changed, which he could not subdue?
But it could never alter as his own did. It never, in its uttermost
pride and passion, knew the shadow that had fallen on his, in the dark
corner, on the night of the return; and often since; and which deepened on
it now, as he looked up.
More Warnings than One
Florence, Edith, and Mrs Skewton were together next day, and the
carriage was waiting at the door to take them out. For Cleopatra had her
galley again now, and Withers, no longer the-wan, stood upright in a
pigeon-breasted jacket and military trousers, behind her wheel-less chair at
dinner-time and butted no more. The hair of Withers was radiant with
pomatum, in these days of down, and he wore kid gloves and smelt of the
water of Cologne.
They were assembled in Cleopatra's room The Serpent of old Nile (not to
mention her disrespectfully) was reposing on her sofa, sipping her morning
chocolate at three o'clock in the afternoon, and Flowers the Maid was
fastening on her youthful cuffs and frills, and performing a kind of private
coronation ceremony on her, with a peach-coloured velvet bonnet; the
artificial roses in which nodded to uncommon advantage, as the palsy trifled
with them, like a breeze.
'I think I am a little nervous this morning, Flowers,' said Mrs
Skewton. 'My hand quite shakes.'
'You were the life of the party last night, Ma'am, you know,' returned
Flowers, ' and you suffer for it, to-day, you see.'
Edith, who had beckoned Florence to the window, and was looking out,
with her back turned on the toilet of her esteemed mother, suddenly withdrew
from it, as if it had lightened.
'My darling child,' cried Cleopatra, languidly, 'you are not nervous?
Don't tell me, my dear Edith, that you, so enviably self-possessed, are
beginning to be a martyr too, like your unfortunately constituted mother!
Withers, someone at the door.'
'Card, Ma'am,' said Withers, taking it towards Mrs Dombey.
'I am going out,' she said without looking at it.
'My dear love,' drawled Mrs Skewton, 'how very odd to send that message
without seeing the name! Bring it here, Withers. Dear me, my love; Mr
Carker, too! That very sensible person!'
'I am going out,' repeated Edith, in so imperious a tone that Withers,
going to the door, imperiously informed the servant who was waiting, 'Mrs
Dombey is going out. Get along with you,' and shut it on him.'
But the servant came back after a short absence, and whispered to
Withers again, who once more, and not very willingly, presented himself
before Mrs Dombey.
'If you please, Ma'am, Mr Carker sends his respectful compliments, and
begs you would spare him one minute, if you could - for business, Ma'am, if
you please.'
'Really, my love,' said Mrs Skewton in her mildest manner; for her
daughter's face was threatening; 'if you would allow me to offer a word, I
should recommend - '
'Show him this way,' said Edith. As Withers disappeared to execute the
command, she added, frowning on her mother, 'As he comes at your
recommendation, let him come to your room.'
'May I - shall I go away?' asked Florence, hurriedly.
Edith nodded yes, but on her way to the door Florence met the visitor
coming in. With the same disagreeable mixture of familiarity and
forbearance, with which he had first addressed her, he addressed her now in
his softest manner - hoped she was quite well - needed not to ask, with such
looks to anticipate the answer - had scarcely had the honour to know her,
last night, she was so greatly changed - and held the door open for her to
pass out; with a secret sense of power in her shrinking from him, that all
the deference and politeness of his manner could not quite conceal.
He then bowed himself for a moment over Mrs Skewton's condescending
hand, and lastly bowed to Edith. Coldly returning his salute without looking
at him, and neither seating herself nor inviting him to be seated, she
waited for him to speak.
Entrenched in her pride and power, and with all the obduracy of her
spirit summoned about her, still her old conviction that she and her mother
had been known by this man in their worst colours, from their first
acquaintance; that every degradation she had suffered in her own eyes was as
plain to him as to herself; that he read her life as though it were a vile
book, and fluttered the leaves before her in slight looks and tones of voice
which no one else could detect; weakened and undermined her. Proudly as she
opposed herself to him, with her commanding face exacting his humility, her
disdainful lip repulsing him, her bosom angry at his intrusion, and the dark
lashes of her eyes sullenly veiling their light, that no ray of it might
shine upon him - and submissively as he stood before her, with an entreating
injured manner, but with complete submission to her will - she knew, in her
own soul, that the cases were reversed, and that the triumph and superiority
were his, and that he knew it full well.
'I have presumed,' said Mr Carker, 'to solicit an interview, and I have
ventured to describe it as being one of business, because - '
'Perhaps you are charged by Mr Dombey with some message of reproof,'
said Edit 'You possess Mr Dombey's confidence in such an unusual degree,
Sir, that you would scarcely surprise me if that were your business.'
'I have no message to the lady who sheds a lustre upon his name,' said
Mr Carker. 'But I entreat that lady, on my own behalf to be just to a very
humble claimant for justice at her hands - a mere dependant of Mr Dombey's -
which is a position of humility; and to reflect upon my perfect helplessness
last night, and the impossibility of my avoiding the share that was forced
upon me in a very painful occasion.'
'My dearest Edith,' hinted Cleopatra in a low voice, as she held her
eye-glass aside, 'really very charming of Mr What's-his-name. And full of
heart!'
'For I do,' said Mr Carker, appealing to Mrs Skewton with a look of
grateful deference, - 'I do venture to call it a painful occasion, though
merely because it was so to me, who had the misfortune to be present. So
slight a difference, as between the principals - between those who love each
other with disinterested devotion, and would make any sacrifice of self in
such a cause - is nothing. As Mrs Skewton herself expressed, with so much
truth and feeling last night, it is nothing.'
Edith could not look at him, but she said after a few moments,
'And your business, Sir - '
'Edith, my pet,' said Mrs Skewton, 'all this time Mr Carker is
standing! My dear Mr Carker, take a seat, I beg.'
He offered no reply to the mother, but fixed his eyes on the proud
daughter, as though he would only be bidden by her, and was resolved to he
bidden by her. Edith, in spite of herself sat down, and slightly motioned
with her hand to him to be seated too. No action could be colder, haughtier,
more insolent in its air of supremacy and disrespect, but she had struggled
against even that concession ineffectually, and it was wrested from her.
That was enough! Mr Carker sat down.
'May I be allowed, Madam,' said Carker, turning his white teeth on Mrs
Skewton like a light - 'a lady of your excellent sense and quick feeling
will give me credit, for good reason, I am sure - to address what I have to
say, to Mrs Dombey, and to leave her to impart it to you who are her best
and dearest friend - next to Mr Dombey?'
Mrs Skewton would have retired, but Edith stopped her. Edith would have
stopped him too, and indignantly ordered him to speak openly or not at all,
but that he said, in a low Voice - 'Miss Florence - the young lady who has
just left the room - '
Edith suffered him to proceed. She looked at him now. As he bent
forward, to be nearer, with the utmost show of delicacy and respect, and
with his teeth persuasively arrayed, in a self-depreciating smile, she felt
as if she could have struck him dead.
'Miss Florence's position,' he began, 'has been an unfortunate one. I
have a difficulty in alluding to it to you, whose attachment to her father
is naturally watchful and jealous of every word that applies to him.' Always
distinct and soft in speech, no language could describe the extent of his
distinctness and softness, when he said these words, or came to any others
of a similar import. 'But, as one who is devoted to Mr Dombey in his
different way, and whose life is passed in admiration of Mr Dombey's
character, may I say, without offence to your tenderness as a wife, that
Miss Florence has unhappily been neglected - by her father. May I say by her
father?'
Edith replied, 'I know it.'
'You know it!' said Mr Carker, with a great appearance of relief. 'It
removes a mountain from my breast. May I hope you know how the neglect
originated; in what an amiable phase of Mr Dombey's pride - character I
mean?'
'You may pass that by, Sir,' she returned, 'and come the sooner to the
end of what you have to say.'
'Indeed, I am sensible, Madam,' replied Carker, - 'trust me, I am
deeply sensible, that Mr Dombey can require no justification in anything to
you. But, kindly judge of my breast by your own, and you will forgive my
interest in him, if in its excess, it goes at all astray.
What a stab to her proud heart, to sit there, face to face with him,
and have him tendering her false oath at the altar again and again for her
acceptance, and pressing it upon her like the dregs of a sickening cup she
could not own her loathing of or turn away from'. How shame, remorse, and
passion raged within her, when, upright and majestic in her beauty before
him, she knew that in her spirit she was down at his feet!
'Miss Florence,' said Carker, 'left to the care - if one may call it
care - of servants and mercenary people, in every way her inferiors,
necessarily wanted some guide and compass in her younger days, and,
naturally, for want of them, has been indiscreet, and has in some degree
forgotten her station. There was some folly about one Walter, a common lad,
who is fortunately dead now: and some very undesirable association, I regret
to say, with certain coasting sailors, of anything but good repute, and a
runaway old bankrupt.'
'I have heard the circumstances, Sir,' said Edith, flashing her
disdainful glance upon him, 'and I know that you pervert them. You may not
know it. I hope so.'
'Pardon me,' said Mr Carker, 'I believe that nobody knows them so well
as I. Your generous and ardent nature, Madam - the same nature which is so
nobly imperative in vindication of your beloved and honoured husband, and
which has blessed him as even his merits deserve - I must respect, defer to,
bow before. But, as regards the circumstances, which is indeed the business
I presumed to solicit your attention to, I can have no doubt, since, in the
execution of my trust as Mr Dombey's confidential - I presume to say -
friend, I have fully ascertained them. In my execution of that trust; in my
deep concern, which you can so well understand, for everything relating to
him, intensified, if you will (for I fear I labour under your displeasure),
by the lower motive of desire to prove my diligence, and make myself the
more acceptable; I have long pursued these circumstances by myself and
trustworthy instruments, and have innumerable and most minute proofs.'
She raised her eyes no higher than his mouth, but she saw the means of
mischief vaunted in every tooth it contained.
'Pardon me, Madam,' he continued, 'if in my perplexity, I presume to
take counsel with you, and to consult your pleasure. I think I have observed
that you are greatly interested in Miss Florence?'
What was there in her he had not observed, and did not know? Humbled
and yet maddened by the thought, in every new presentment of it, however
faint, she pressed her teeth upon her quivering lip to force composure on
it, and distantly inclined her head in reply.
'This interest, Madam - so touching an evidence of everything
associated with Mr Dombey being dear to you - induces me to pause before I
make him acquainted with these circumstances, which, as yet, he does not
know. It so shakes me, if I may make the confession, in my allegiance, that
on the intimation of the least desire to that effect from you, I would
suppress them.'
Edith raised her head quickly, and starting back, bent her dark glance
upon him. He met it with his blandest and most deferential smile, and went
on.
'You say that as I describe them, they are perverted. I fear not - I
fear not: but let us assume that they are. The uneasiness I have for some
time felt on the subject, arises in this: that the mere circumstance of such
association often repeated, on the part of Miss Florence, however innocently
and confidingly, would be conclusive with Mr Dombey, already predisposed
against her, and would lead him to take some step (I know he has
occasionally contemplated it) of separation and alienation of her from his
home. Madam, bear with me, and remember my intercourse with Mr Dombey, and
my knowledge of him, and my reverence for him, almost from childhood, when I
say that if he has a fault, it is a lofty stubbornness, rooted in that noble
pride and sense of power which belong to him, and which we must all defer
to; which is not assailable like the obstinacy of other characters; and
which grows upon itself from day to day, and year to year.
She bent her glance upon him still; but, look as steadfast as she
would, her haughty nostrils dilated, and her breath came somewhat deeper,
and her lip would slightly curl, as he described that in his patron to which
they must all bow down. He saw it; and though his expression did not change,
she knew he saw it.
'Even so slight an incident as last night's,' he said, 'if I might
refer to it once more, would serve to illustrate my meaning, better than a
greater one. Dombey and Son know neither time, nor place, nor season, but
bear them all down. But I rejoice in its occurrence, for it has opened the
way for me to approach Mrs Dombey with this subject to-day, even if it has
entailed upon me the penalty of her temporary displeasure. Madam, in the
midst of my uneasiness and apprehension on this subject, I was summoned by
Mr Dombey to Leamington. There I saw you. There I could not help knowing
what relation you would shortly occupy towards him - to his enduring
happiness and yours. There I resolved to await the time of your
establishment at home here, and to do as I have now done. I have, at heart,
no fear that I shall be wanting in my duty to Mr Dombey, if I bury what I
know in your breast; for where there is but one heart and mind between two
persons - as in such a marriage - one almost represents the other. I can
acquit my conscience therefore, almost equally, by confidence, on such a
theme, in you or him. For the reasons I have mentioned I would select you.
May I aspire to the distinction of believing that my confidence is accepted,
and that I am relieved from my responsibility?'
He long remembered the look she gave him - who could see it, and forget
it? - and the struggle that ensued within her. At last she said:
'I accept it, Sir You will please to consider this matter at an end,
and that it goes no farther.'
He bowed low, and rose. She rose too, and he took leave with all
humility. But Withers, meeting him on the stairs, stood amazed at the beauty
of his teeth, and at his brilliant smile; and as he rode away upon his
white-legged horse, the people took him for a dentist, such was the dazzling
show he made. The people took her, when she rode out in her carriage
presently, for a great lady, as happy as she was rich and fine. But they had
not seen her, just before, in her own room with no one by; and they had not
heard her utterance of the three words, 'Oh Florence, Florence!'
Mrs Skewton, reposing on her sofa, and sipping her chocolate, had heard
nothing but the low word business, for which she had a mortal aversion,
insomuch that she had long banished it from her vocabulary, and had gone
nigh, in a charming manner and with an immense amount of heart, to say
nothing of soul, to ruin divers milliners and others in consequence.
Therefore Mrs Skewton asked no questions, and showed no curiosity. Indeed,
the peach-velvet bonnet gave her sufficient occupation out of doors; for
being perched on the back of her head, and the day being rather windy, it
was frantic to escape from Mrs Skewton's company, and would be coaxed into
no sort of compromise. When the carriage was closed, and the wind shut out,
the palsy played among the artificial roses again like an almshouse-full of
superannuated zephyrs; and altogether Mrs Skewton had enough to do, and got
on but indifferently.
She got on no better towards night; for when Mrs Dombey, in her
dressing-room, had been dressed and waiting for her half an hour, and Mr
Dombey, in the drawing-room, had paraded himself into a state of solemn
fretfulness (they were all three going out to dinner), Flowers the Maid
appeared with a pale face to Mrs Dombey, saying:
'If you please, Ma'am, I beg your pardon, but I can't do nothing with
Missis!'
'What do you mean?' asked Edith.
'Well, Ma'am,' replied the frightened maid, 'I hardly know. She's
making faces!'
Edith hurried with her to her mother's room. Cleopatra was arrayed in
full dress, with the diamonds, short sleeves, rouge, curls, teeth, and other
juvenility all complete; but Paralysis was not to be deceived, had known her
for the object of its errand, and had struck her at her glass, where she lay
like a horrible doll that had tumbled down.
They took her to pieces in very shame, and put the little of her that
was real on a bed. Doctors were sent for, and soon came. Powerful remedies
were resorted to; opinions given that she would rally from this shock, but
would not survive another; and there she lay speechless, and staring at the
ceiling, for days; sometimes making inarticulate sounds in answer to such
questions as did she know who were present, and the like: sometimes giving
no reply either by sign or gesture, or in her unwinking eyes.
At length she began to recover consciousness, and in some degree the
power of motion, though not yet of speech. One day the use of her right hand
returned; and showing it to her maid who was in attendance on her, and
appearing very uneasy in her mind, she made signs for a pencil and some
paper. This the maid immediately provided, thinking she was going to make a
will, or write some last request; and Mrs Dombey being from home, the maid
awaited the result with solemn feelings.
After much painful scrawling and erasing, and putting in of wrong
characters, which seemed to tumble out of the pencil of their own accord,
the old woman produced this document:
'Rose-coloured curtains.'
The maid being perfectly transfixed, and with tolerable reason,
Cleopatra amended the manuscript by adding two words more, when it stood
thus:
'Rose-coloured curtains for doctors.'
The maid now perceived remotely that she wished these articles to be
provided for the better presentation of her complexion to the faculty; and
as those in the house who knew her best, had no doubt of the correctness of
this opinion, which she was soon able to establish for herself the
rose-coloured curtains were added to her bed, and she mended with increased
rapidity from that hour. She was soon able to sit up, in curls and a laced
cap and nightgown, and to have a little artificial bloom dropped into the
hollow caverns of her cheeks.
It was a tremendous sight to see this old woman in her finery leering
and mincing at Death, and playing off her youthful tricks upon him as if he
had been the Major; but an alteration in her mind that ensued on the
paralytic stroke was fraught with as much matter for reflection, and was
quite as ghastly.
Whether the weakening of her intellect made her more cunning and false
than before, or whether it confused her between what she had assumed to be
and what she really had been, or whether it had awakened any glimmering of
remorse, which could neither struggle into light nor get back into total
darkness, or whether, in the jumble of her faculties, a combination of these
effects had been shaken up, which is perhaps the more likely supposition,
the result was this: - That she became hugely exacting in respect of Edith's
affection and gratitude and attention to her; highly laudatory of herself as
a most inestimable parent; and very jealous of having any rival in Edith's
regard. Further, in place of remembering that compact made between them for
an avoidance of the subject, she constantly alluded to her daughter's
marriage as a proof of her being an incomparable mother; and all this, with
the weakness and peevishness of such a state, always serving for a sarcastic
commentary on her levity and youthfulness.
'Where is Mrs Dombey? she would say to her maid.
'Gone out, Ma'am.'
'Gone out! Does she go out to shun her Mama, Flowers?'
'La bless you, no, Ma'am. Mrs Dombey has only gone out for a ride with
Miss Florence.'
'Miss Florence. Who's Miss Florence? Don't tell me about Miss Florence.
What's Miss Florence to her, compared to me?'
The apposite display of the diamonds, or the peach-velvet bonnet (she
sat in the bonnet to receive visitors, weeks before she could stir out of
doors), or the dressing of her up in some gaud or other, usually stopped the
tears that began to flow hereabouts; and she would remain in a complacent
state until Edith came to see her; when, at a glance of the proud face, she
would relapse again.
'Well, I am sure, Edith!' she would cry, shaking her head.
'What is the matter, mother?'
'Matter! I really don't know what is the matter. The world is coming to
such an artificial and ungrateful state, that I begin to think there's no
Heart - or anything of that sort - left in it, positively. Withers is more a
child to me than you are. He attends to me much more than my own daughter. I
almost wish I didn't look so young - and all that kind of thing - and then
perhaps I should be more considered.'
'What would you have, mother?'
'Oh, a great deal, Edith,' impatiently.
'Is there anything you want that you have not? It is your own fault if
there be.'
'My own fault!' beginning to whimper. 'The parent I have been to you,
Edith: making you a companion from your cradle! And when you neglect me, and
have no more natural affection for me than if I was a stranger - not a
twentieth part of the affection that you have for Florence - but I am only
your mother, and should corrupt her in a day! - you reproach me with its
being my own fault.'
'Mother, mother, I reproach you with nothing. Why will you always dwell
on this?'
'Isn't it natural that I should dwell on this, when I am all affection
and sensitiveness, and am wounded in the cruellest way, whenever you look at
me?'
'I do not mean to wound you, mother. Have you no remembrance of what
has been said between us? Let the Past rest.'
'Yes, rest! And let gratitude to me rest; and let affection for me
rest; and let me rest in my out-of-the-way room, with no society and no
attention, while you find new relations to make much of, who have no earthly
claim upon you! Good gracious, Edith, do you know what an elegant
establishment you are at the head of?'
'Yes. Hush!'
'And that gentlemanly creature, Dombey? Do you know that you are
married to him, Edith, and that you have a settlement and a position, and a
carriage, and I don't know what?'
'Indeed, I know it, mother; well.'
'As you would have had with that delightful good soul - what did they
call him? - Granger - if he hadn't died. And who have you to thank for all
this, Edith?'
'You, mother; you.'
'Then put your arms round my neck, and kiss me; and show me, Edith,
that you know there never was a better Mama than I have been to you. And
don't let me become a perfect fright with teasing and wearing myself at your
ingratitude, or when I'm out again in society no soul will know me, not even
that hateful animal, the Major.'
But, sometimes, when Edith went nearer to her, and bending down her
stately head, Put her cold cheek to hers, the mother would draw back as If
she were afraid of her, and would fall into a fit of trembling, and cry out
that there was a wandering in her wits. And sometimes she would entreat her,
with humility, to sit down on the chair beside her bed, and would look at
her (as she sat there brooding) with a face that even the rose-coloured
curtains could not make otherwise than scared and wild.
The rose-coloured curtains blushed, in course of time, on Cleopatra's
bodily recovery, and on her dress - more juvenile than ever, to repair the
ravages of illness - and on the rouge, and on the teeth, and on the curls,
and on the diamonds, and the short sleeves, and the whole wardrobe of the
doll that had tumbled down before the mirror. They blushed, too, now and
then, upon an indistinctness in her speech which she turned off with a
girlish giggle, and on an occasional failing In her memory, that had no rule
in it, but came and went fantastically, as if in mockery of her fantastic
self.
But they never blushed upon a change in the new manner of her thought
and speech towards her daughter. And though that daughter often came within
their influence, they never blushed upon her loveliness irradiated by a
smile, or softened by the light of filial love, in its stem beauty.
Miss Tox improves an Old Acquaintance
The forlorn Miss Tox, abandoned by her friend Louisa Chick, and bereft
of Mr Dombey's countenance - for no delicate pair of wedding cards, united
by a silver thread, graced the chimney-glass in Princess's Place, or the
harpsichord, or any of those little posts of display which Lucretia reserved
for holiday occupation - became depressed in her spirits, and suffered much
from melancholy. For a time the Bird Waltz was unheard in Princess's Place,
the plants were neglected, and dust collected on the miniature of Miss Tox's
ancestor with the powdered head and pigtail.
Miss Tox, however, was not of an age or of a disposition long to
abandon herself to unavailing regrets. Only two notes of the harpsichord
were dumb from disuse when the Bird Waltz again warbled and trilled in the
crooked drawing-room: only one slip of geranium fell a victim to imperfect
nursing, before she was gardening at her green baskets again, regularly
every morning; the powdered-headed ancestor had not been under a cloud for
more than six weeks, when Miss Tox breathed on his benignant visage, and
polished him up with a piece of wash-leather.
Still, Miss Tox was lonely, and at a loss. Her attachments, however
ludicrously shown, were real and strong; and she was, as she expressed it,
'deeply hurt by the unmerited contumely she had met with from Louisa.' But
there was no such thing as anger in Miss Tox's composition. If she had
ambled on through life, in her soft spoken way, without any opinions, she
had, at least, got so far without any harsh passions. The mere sight of
Louisa Chick in the street one day, at a considerable distance, so
overpowered her milky nature, that she was fain to seek immediate refuge in
a pastrycook's, and there, in a musty little back room usually devoted to
the consumption of soups, and pervaded by an ox-tail atmosphere, relieve her
feelings by weeping plentifully.
Against Mr Dombey Miss Tox hardly felt that she had any reason of