Paul's Introduction to a New Scene
MRS. PIPCHIN'S constitution was made of such hard metal, in spite of its
liability to the fleshly weaknesses of standing in need of repose after chops,
and of requiring to be coaxed to sleep by the soporific agency of sweet-breads,
that it utterly set at naught the predictions of Mrs. Wickam, and showed no
symptoms of decline. Yet, as Paul's rapt interest inthe old lady continued
unabated, Mrs. Wickam would not budge an inch from the position she had taken
up. Fortifying and entrenching herself on the strong ground of her uncle's
Betsey Jane, she advised Miss Berry, as a friend, to prepare herself for the
worst; and forewarned her that her aunt might, at any time, be expected to go
off suddenly, like a powder-mill.
Poor Berry took it all in good part, and drudged and slaved away as usual;
perfectly convinced that Mrs. Pipchin was one of the most meritorious persons in
the world, and making every day innumerable sacrifices of herself upon the altar
of that noble old woman. But all these immolations of Berry were somehow carried
to the credit of Mrs. Pipchin by Mrs. Pipchin's friends and admirers; and were
made to harmonise with, and carry out, that melancholy fact of the deceased Mr.
Pipchin having broken his heart in the Peruvian mines.
For example, there was an honest grocer and general dealer in the retail line
of business, between whom and Mrs. Pipchin there was a small memorandum book,
with a greasy red cover, perpetually in question, and concerning which divers
secret councils and conferences were continually being held between the parties
to the register, on the mat in the passage, and with closed doors in the parlour.
Nor were there wanting dark hints from Master Bitherstone (whose temper had been
made re-vengeful by the solar heats of India acting on his blood), of balances
unsettled, and of a failure, on one occasion with his memory, in the supply of
moist sugar at tea-time. This grocer being a bachelor, and not a man who looked
upon the surface for beauty, had once made honourable offers for the hand of
Berry, which Mrs. Pipchin had, with contumely and scorn, rejected. Everybody
said how laudable this was in Mrs. Pipchin, relict of a man who had died of the
Peruvian mines; and what a staunch, high, independent spirit the old lady had.
But nobody said anything about poor Berry, who cried for six weeks (being
soundly rated by her good aunt all the time), and lapsed into a state of
hopeless spinsterhood.
`Berry's very fond of you, ain't she?' Paul once asked Mrs. Pipchin when they
were sitting by the fire with the cat.
`Yes,' said Mrs. Pipchin.
`Why?' asked Paul.
`Why!' returned the disconcerted old lady. `How can you ask such things, Sir!
why are you fond of your sister Florence?'
`Because she's very good,' said Paul. `There's nobody like Florence.'
`Well!' retorted Mrs. Pipchin, shortly, `and there's nobody like me, I
suppose.'
`Ain't there really though?' asked Paul, leaning forward in his chair, and
looking at her very hard.
`No,' said the old lady.
`I am glad of that,' observed Paul, rubbing his hands thoughtfully. `That's a
very good thing.'
Mrs. Pipchin didn't dare to ask him why, lest she should receive some
perfectly annihilating answer. But as a compensation to her wounded feelings,
she harassed Master Bitherstone to that extent until bed-time, that he began
that very night to make arrangements for an overland return to India, by
Secreting from his supper a quarter of a round of bread and a fragment of moist
Dutch cheese, as the beginning of a stock of provision to support him on the
voyage.
Mrs. Pipchin had kept watch and ward over little Paul and his sister for
nearly twelve months. They had been home twice, but only for a few days; and had
been constant in their weekly visits to Mr. Dombey at the hotel. By little and
little Paul had grown stronger, and had become able to dispense with his
carriage; though he still looked thin and delicate; and still remained the same
old, quiet, dreamy child that he had been when first consigned to Mrs. Pipchin's
care. One Saturday afternoon, at dusk, great consternation was occasioned in the
castle by the unlooked-for announcement of Mr. Dombey as a visitor to Mrs.
Pipchin. The population of the parlour wasimmediately swept up stairs as on the
wings of a whirlwind, and after much slamming of bedroom doors, and trampling
overhead, and some knocking about of Master Bitherstone by Mrs. Pipchin, as a
relief to the perturbation of her spirits, the black bombazeen garments of the
worthy old lady darkened the audience-chamber where Mr. Dombey was contemplating
the vacant arm-chair of his son and heir.
`Mrs. Pipchin,' said Mr. Dombey, `How do you do?'
`Thank you, Sir,' said Mrs. Pipchin, `I am pretty well, considering.'
Mrs. Pipchin always used that form of words. It meant, considering her
virtues, sacrifices, and so forth.
`I can't expect, Sir, to be very well,' said Mrs. Pipchin, taking a chair and
fetching her breath; `but such health as I have, I am grateful for.'
Mr. Dombey inclined his head with the satisfied air of a patron, who felt
that this was the sort of thing for which he paid so much a quarter. After a
moment's silence he went on to say:
`Mrs. Pipchin, I have taken the liberty of calling, to consult you in
reference to my son. I have had it in my mind to do so for some time past; but
have deferred it from time to time, in order that his health might be thoroughly
re-established. You have no misgivings on that subject, Mrs. Pipchin?'
`Brighton has proved very beneficial, Sir,' returned Mrs. Pipchin. `Very
beneficial, indeed.'
`I purpose,' said Mr. Dombey, `his remaining at Brighton.'
Mrs. Pipchin rubbed her hands, and bent her grey eyes on the fire.
`But,' pursued Mr. Dombey, stretching out his forefinger, `but possibly that
he should now make a change, and lead different kind of life here. In short,
Mrs. Pipchin, that is the object of my visit. My son is getting on, Mrs. Pipchin.
Really he is getting on.'
There was something melancholy in the triumphant air with which Mr. Dombey
said this. It showed how long Paul's childish life had been to him, and how his
hopes were set upon a later stage of his existence. Pity may appear a strange
word to connect with any one so haughty and so cold, and yet he seemed a worthy
subject for it at that moment.
`Six years old!' said Mr. Dombey, settling his neckcloth--perhaps to hide an
irrepressible smile that rather seemed to strike upon the surface of his face
and glance away, as finding no resting-place, than to play there for an instant.
`Dear me, six will be changed to sixteen, before we have time to look about us.'
`Ten years,' croaked the unsympathetic Pipchin, with a frosty glistening of
her hard grey eye, and a dreary shaking of her bent head, `is a long time.'
`It depends on circumstances,' returned Mr. Dombey; `at all events, Mrs.
Pipchin, my son is six years old, and there is no doubt, I fear, that in his
studies he is behind many children of his age--or his youth,' said Mr. Dombey,
quickly answering what he mistrusted was a shrewd twinkle of the frosty eye,
`his youth is a more appropriate expression. Now, Mrs. Pipchin, instead of being
behind his peers, my son ought to be before them; far before them. There is an
eminence ready for him to mount upon. There is nothing of chance or doubt in the
course before my son. His way in life was clear and prepared, and marked out
before he existed. The education of such a young gentleman must not be delayed.
It must not be left imperfect. It must be very steadily and seriously
undertaken, Mrs. Pipchin.' `Well, Sir,' said Mrs. Pipchin, `I can say nothing to
the contrary.'
`I was quite sure, Mrs. Pipchin,' returned Mr. Dombey, approvingly, `that a
person of your good sense could not, and would not.'
`There is a great deal of nonsense--and worse--talked about young people not
being pressed too hard at first, and being tempted on, and all the rest of it,
Sir,' said Mrs. Pipchin, impatiently rubbing her hooked nose. `It never was
thought of in my time, and it has no business to be thought of now. My opinion
is "keep'em at it."'
`My good madam,' returned Mr. Dombey, `you have not acquired your reputation
undeservedly; and I beg you to believe, Mrs. Pipchin, that I am more than
satisfied with your excellent system of management, and shall have the greatest
pleasure in commending it whenever my poor commendation'--Mr. Dombey's loftiness
when he affected to disparage his own importance, passed all bounds--`can be of
any service. I have been thinking of Doctor Blimber's, Mrs. Pipchin.'
`My neighbour, Sir?' said Mrs. Pipchin. `I believe the Doctor's is an
excellent establishment. I've heard that it's very strictly conducted, and there
is nothing but learning going on from morning to night.'
`And it's very expensive,' added Mr. Dombey.
`And it's very expensive, Sir,'returned Mrs. Pipchin, catching at the fact,
as if in omitting that, she had omitted one of its leading merits.
`I have had some communication with the Doctor, Mrs. Pipchin,' said Mr.
Dombey, hitching his chair anxiously a little nearer to the fire, `and he does
not consider Paul at all too young for his purpose. He mentioned several
instances of boys in Greek at about the same age. If I have any little
uneasiness in my own mind, Mrs. Pipchin, on the subject of this change, it is
not on that head. My son not having known a mother has gradually concentrated
much--too much--of his childish affection on his sister. Whether their
separation--' Mr. Dombey said no more, but sat silent.
`Hoity-toity!' exclaimed Mrs. Pipchin, shaking out her black bombazeen
skirts, and plucking up all the ogress within her. `If she don't like it, Mr.
Dombey, she must be taught to lump it.' The good lady apologised immediately
afterwards for using so common a figure of speech, but said (and truly) that
that was the way she reasoned with 'em.
Mr. Dombey waited until Mrs. Pipchin had done bridling and shaking her head,
and frowning down a legion of Bitherstones and Pankeys; and then said quietly,
but correctively, `He, my good madam, he.'
Mrs. Pipchin's system would have applied very much the same mode of cure to
any uneasiness on the part of Paul, too; but as the hard grey eye was sharp
enough to see that the recipe, however Mr. Dombey might admit its efficacy in
the case of the daughter, was not a sovereign remedy for the son, she argued the
point; and contended that change, and new society, and the different form of
life he would lead at Doctor Blimber's, and the studies he would have to master,
would very soon prove sufficient alienations. As this chimed in with Mr.
Dombey's own hope and belief, it gave that gentleman a still higher opinion of
Mrs. Pipchin's understanding: and as Mrs. Pipchin, at the same time, bewailed
the loss of her dear little friend (which was not an overwhelming shock to her,
as she had long expected it, and had not looked, in the beginning, for his
remaining with her longer than three months), he formed an equally good opinion
of Mrs. Pipchin's disinterestedness. It was plain that he had given the subject
anxious consideration, for he had formed a plan, which he announced to the
ogress, of sending Paul to the Doctor's as a weekly boarder for the first half
year, during which time Florence would remain at the castle, that she might
receive her brother there, on Saturdays. This would wean him by degrees, Mr.
Dombey said; probably with a recollection of his not having been weaned by
degrees on a former occasion.
Mr. Dombey finished the interview by expressing his hope that Mrs. Pipchin
would still remain in office as general superintendent and overseer of his son,
pending his studies at Brighton; and having kissed Paul, and shaken hands with
Florence, and beheld Master Bitherstone in his collar of state, and made Miss
Pankey cry by patting her on the head (in which region she was uncommonly
tender, on account of a habit Mrs. Pipchin had of sounding it with her knuckles,
like a cask), he withdrew to his hotel and dinner: resolved that Paul, now that
he was getting so old and well, should begin a vigorous course of education
forthwith, to qualify him for the position in which he was to shine; and that
Doctor Blimber should take him in hand immediately.
Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor Blimber, he might
consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The doctor only undertook the
charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had, always ready, a supply of learning
for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; and it was at once the business and
delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with it.
In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house, in which there
was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before their
time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus
all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common
at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber's
cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the
driest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no
consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear,
Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other.
This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing was
attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right taste about the
premature productions, and they didn't keep well. Moreover, one young gentleman,
with a swollen nose and an excessively large head (the oldest of the ten who had
`gone through' everything), suddenly left off blowing one day, and remained in
the establishment a mere stalk. And people did say that the Doctor had rather
overdone it with young Toots, and that when he began to have whiskers he left
off having brains.
There young Toots was, at any rate; possessed of the gruffest of voices and
the shrillest of minds; sticking ornamental pins into his shirt, and keeping a
ring in his waistcoat pocket to put on his little finger by stealth, when the
pupils went out walking; constantly falling in love by sight with nurserymaids,
who had no idea of his existence; and looking at the gas-lighted world over the
little iron bars in the left-hand corner window of the front three pairs of
stairs, after bed-time, like a greatly overgrown cherub who had sat up aloft
much too long.
The Doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with strings at his
knees, and stockings below them. He had a bald head, highly polished; a deep
voice; and a chin so very double, that it was a wonder how he ever managed to
shave into the creases. He had likewise a pair of little eyes that were always
half shut up, and a mouth that was always half expanded into a grin, as if he
had, that moment, posed a boy, and were waiting to convict him from his own
lips. Insomuch, that when the Doctor put his right hand into the breast of his
coat, and with his other hand behind him, and a scarcely perceptible wag of his
head, made the commonest observation to a nervous stranger, it was like a
sentiment from the sphynx, and settled his business.
The Doctor's was a mighty fine house, fronting the sea. Not a joyful style of
house within, but quite the contrary. Sad-coloured curtains, whose proportions
were spare and lean, hid themselves despondently behind the windows. The tables
and chairs were put away in rows, like figures in a sum: fires were so rarely
lighted in the rooms of ceremony, that they felt like wells, and a visitor
represented the bucket; the dining-room seemed the last place in the world where
any eating or drinking was likely to occur; there was no sound through all the
house but the ticking of a great clock in the hall, which made itself audible in
the very garrets: and sometimes a dull crying of young gentlemen at their
lessons, like the murmurings of an assemblage of melancholy pigeons.
Miss Blimber, too, although a slim and graceful maid, did no soft violence to
the gravity of the house. There was no light nonsense about Miss Blimber. She
kept her hair short and crisp, and wore spectacles. She was dry and sandy with
working in the graves of deceased languages. None of your live languages for
Miss Blimber. They must be dead--stone dead--and then Miss Blimber dug them up
like a Ghoul.
Mrs. Blimber, her mama, was not learned herself, but she pretended to be, and
that did quite as well. She said at evening parties, that if she could have
known Cicero, she thought she could have died contented. It was the steady joy
of her life to see the Doctor's young gentlemen go out walking, unlike all other
young gentlemen, in the largest possible shirt-collars, and the stiffest
possible cravats. It was so classical, she said.
As to Mr. Feeder, B.A., Doctor Blimber's assistant, he was a kind of human
barrel-organ, with a little list of tunes at which he was continually working,
over and over again, without any variation. He might have been fitted up with a
change of barrels, perhaps, in early life, if his destiny had been favourable;
but it had not been; and he had only one, with which, in a monotonous round, it
was his occupation to bewilder the young ideas of Doctor Blimber's young
gentlemen. The young gentlemen were prematurely full of carking anxieties. They
knew no rest from the pursuit of stony-hearted verbs, savage noun-substantives,
inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of exercises that appeared to them in
their dreams. Under the forcing system, a young gentleman usually took leave of
his spirits in three weeks. He had all the cares of the world on his head in
three months. He conceived bitter sentiments against his parents or guardians in
four; he was an old misanthrope, in five; envied Curtius that blessed refuge in
the earth, in six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth had arrived at the
conclusion, from which he never afterwards departed, that all the fancies of the
poets, and lessons of the sages, were a mere collection of words and grammar,
and had no other meaning in the world.
But he went on blow, blow, blowing, in the Doctor's hot-house, all the time;
and the Doctor's glory and reputation were great, when he took his wintry growth
home to his relations and friends.
Upon the Doctor's door-steps one day, Paul stood with a fluttering heart, and
with his small right hand in his father's. His other hand was locked in that of
Florence. How tight the tiny pressure of that one; and how loose and cold the
other!
Mrs. Pinchin hovered behind the victim, with her sable plumage and her hooked
beak, like a bird of ill-omen. She was out of breath--for Mr. Dombey, full of
great thoughts, had walked fast--and she croaked hoarsely as she waited for the
opening of the door.
`Now, Paul,' said Mr. Dombey, exultingly. `This is the way indeed to be
Dombey and Son, and have money. You are almost a man already.'
`Almost,' returned the child.
Even his childish agitation could not master the sly and quaint yet touching
look, with which he accompanied the reply.
It brought a vague expression of dissatisfaction into Mr. Dombey's face; but
the door being opened, it was quickly gone.
`Doctor Blimber is at home, I believe?' said Mr. Dombey.
The man said yes; and as they passed in, looked at Paul as if he were a
little mouse, and the house were a trap. He was a weak-eyed young man, with the
first faint streaks or early dawn of a grin on his countenance. It was mere
imbecility; but Mrs. Pipchin took it into her head that it was impudence, and
made a snap at him directly.
`How dare you laugh behind the gentleman's back?' said Mrs. Pipchin. `And
what do you take me for?'
`I ain't a laughing at nobody, and I'm sure I don't take you for nothing,
Ma'am,' returned the young man, in consternation.
`A pack of idle dogs!' said Mrs. Pipchin, `only fit to be turnspits. Go and
tell your master that Mr. Dombey's here, or it'll be worse for you!'
The weak-eyed young man went, very meekly, to discharge himself of this
commission; and soon came back to invite them to the Doctor's study.
`You're laughing again, Sir,'said Mrs. Pipchin, when it came to her turn,
bringing up the rear, to pass him in the hall.
`I ain't, returned the young man, grievously oppressed. `I never see such a
thing as this!'
`What is the matter, Mrs. Pipchin?' said Mr. Dombey, looking round. `Softly!
Pray!'
Mrs. Pipchin, in her deference, merely muttered at the young man as she
passed on, and said, `Oh! he was a precious fellow'--leaving the young man, who
was all meekness and incapacity, affected even to tears by the incident. But
Mrs. Pipchin had a way of falling foul of all meek people; and her friends said
who could wonder at it, after the Peruvian mines!
The Doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at each knee,
books all round him, Homer over the door, and Minerva on the mantel-shelf. `And
how do you do, Sir?' he said to Mr. Dombey; `and how is my little friend?' Grave
as an organ was the Doctor's speech; and when he ceased, the great clock in the
hall seemed (to Paul at least) to take him up, and to go on saying, `how, is,
my, lit, tle, friend? how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?' over and over and over
again.
The little friend being something too small to be seen at all from where the
Doctor sat, over the books on his table, the Doctor made several futile attempts
to get a view of him round the legs; which Mr. Dombey perceiving, relieved the
Doctor from his embarrassment by taking Paul up in his arms, and sitting him on
another little table, over against the Doctor, in the middle of the room.
`Ha!' said the Doctor, leaning back in his chair with his hand in his breast.
`Now I see my little friend. How do you do, my little friend?'
The clock in the hall wouldn't subscribe to this alteration in the form of
words, but continued to repeat `how, is, my, lit, tle, friend? how, is, my, lit,
tle, friend?'
`Very well, I thank you, Sir,' returned Paul, answering the clock quite as
much as the Doctor.
`Ha!' said Doctor Blimber. `Shall we make a man of him?'
`Do you hear, Paul?' added Mr. Dombey; Paul being silent.
`Shall we make a man of him?' repeated the Doctor.
`I had rather be a child,' replied Paul.
`Indeed!' said the Doctor. `Why?'
The child sat on the table looking at him, with a curious expression of
suppressed emotion in his face, and beating one hand proudly on his knee as if
he had the rising tears beneath it, and crushed them. But his other hand strayed
a little way the while, a little farther--farther from him yet--until it lighted
on the neck of Florence. `This is why,' it seemed to say, and then the steady
look was broken up and gone; the working lip was loosened; and the tears came
streaming forth.
`Mrs. Pipchin,' said his father, in a querulous manner, `I am really very
sorry to see this.'
`Come away from him, do, Miss Dombey,' quoth the matron.
`Never mind,' said the Doctor, blandly nodding his head, to keep Mrs. Pipchin
back. `Ne-ver mind; we shall substitute new cares and new impressions, Mr.
Dombey, very shortly. You would still wish my little friend to acquire'
`Everything, if you please, Doctor,' returned Mr. Dombey, firmly.
`Yes,' said the Doctor, who, with his half-shut eyes, and his usual smile,
seemed to survey Paul with the sort of interest that might attach to some choice
little animal he was going to stuff. `Yes, exactly. Ha! We shall impart a great
variety of information to our little friend, and bring him quickly forward, I
dare say. I dare say. Quite a virgin soil, I believe you said, Mr. Dombey?'
`Except some ordinary preparation at home, and from this lady,' replied Mr.
Dombey, introducing Mrs. Pipchin, who instantly communicated a rigidity to her
whole muscular system, and snorted defiance beforehand, in case the Doctor
should disparage her; `except so far, Paul has, as yet, applied himself to no
studies at all.'
Doctor Blimber inclined his head, in gentle tolerance of such insignificant
poaching as Mrs. Pipchin's, and said he was glad to hear it. It was much more
satisfactory, he observed, rubbing his hands, to begin at the foundation. And
again he leered at Paul, as if he would have liked to tackle him with the Greek
alphabet on the spot.
`That circumstance, indeed, Doctor Blimber,' pursued Mr. Dombey, glancing at
his little son, `and the interview I have already had the pleasure of holding
with you, renders any further explanation, and consequently, and further
intrusion on your valuable time, so unnecessary, that--'
`Now, Miss Dombey!' said the acid Pipchin.
`Permit me,' said the Doctor, `one moment. Allow me to present Mrs. Blimber
and my daughter, who will be associated with the domestic life of our young
Pilgrim to Parnassus. Mrs. Blimber,' for the lady, who had perhaps been in
waiting, opportunely entered, followed by her daughter, that fair Sexton in
spectacles, `Mr. Dombey. My daughter Cornelia, Mr. Dombey. Mr. Dombey, my love,'
pursued the Doctor, turning to his wife, `is so confiding as to--do you see our
little friend?'
Mrs. Blimber, in an excess of politeness, of which Mr. Dombey was the object,
apparently did not, for she was backing against the little friend, and very much
endangering his position on the table. But, on this hint, she turned to admire
his classical and intellectual lineaments, and turning again to Mr. Dombey,
said, with a sigh, that she envied his dear son.
`Like a bee, Sir,' said Mrs. Blimber, with uplifted eyes, `about to plunge
into a garden of the choicest flowers, and sip the sweets for the first time.
Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Terence, Plautus, Cicero. What a world of honey have we
here. It may appear remarkable, Mr. Dombey, in one who is a wife--the wife of
such a husband--'
`Hush, hush,' said Doctor Blimber. `Fie for shame.'
`Mr. Dombey will forgive the partiality of a wife,' said Mrs. Blimber, with
an engaging smile.
Mr. Dombey answered `Not at all:' applying those words, it is to be presumed,
to the partiality, and not to the forgiveness.
`--And it may seem remarkable in one who is a mother also,' resumed Mrs.
Blimber.
`And such a mother,' observed Mr. Dombey, bowing with some confused idea of
being complimentary to Cornelia.
`But really,' pursued Mrs. Blimber, `I think if I could have known Cicero,
and been his friend, and talked with him in his retirement at Tusculum
(beautiful Tusculum!), I could have died contented.'
A learned enthusiasm is so very contagious, that Mr. Dombey half believed
this was exactly his case; and even Mrs. Pipchin, who was not, as we have seen,
of an accommodating disposition generally, gave utterance to a little sound
between a groan and a sigh, as if she would have said that nobody but Cicero
could have proved a lasting consolation under that failure of the Peruvian
Mines, but that he indeed would have been a very Davy-lamp of refuge.
Cornelia looked at Mr. Dombey through her spectacles, as if she would have
liked to crack a few quotations with him from the authority in question. But
this design, if she entertained it, was frustrated by a knock at the room-door.
`Who is that?' said the Doctor. `Oh! Come in, Toots: come in. Mr. Dombey,
Sir.' Toots bowed. `Quite a coincidence!' said Doctor Blimber. `Here we have the
beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega. Our head boy, Mr. Dombey.'
The Doctor might have called him their head and shoulders boy, for he was at
least that much taller than any of the rest. He blushed very much at finding
himself among strangers, and chuckled aloud.
`An addition to our little Portico, Toots,' said the Doctor; `Mr. Dombey's
son.'
Young Toots blushed again: and finding, from a solemn silence which prevailed
that he was expected to say something, said to Paul, `How are you?' in a voice
so deep, and a manner so sheepish, that if a lamb had roared it couldn't have
been more surprising.
`Ask Mr. Feeder, if you please, Toots,' said the Doctor, `to prepare a few
introductory volumes for Mr. Dombey's Son, and to allot him a convenient seat
for study. My dear, I believe Mr. Dombey has not seen the dormitories.'
`If Mr. Dombey will walk up stairs,' said Mrs. Blimber, `I shall be more than
proud to show him the dominions of the drowsy god.'
With that, Mrs. Blimber, who was a lady of great suavity, and a wiry figure,
and who wore a cap composed of sky-blue materials, proceeded up stairs with Mr.
Dombey and Cornelia; Mrs. Pipchin following, and looking out sharp for her enemy
the footman.
While they were gone, Paul sat upon the table, holding Florence by the hand,
and glancing timidly from the Doctor round and round the room, while the Doctor,
leaning back in his chair, with his hand in his breast as usual, held a book
from him at arm's length, and read. There was something very awful in this
manner of reading. It was such a determined, unimpassioned, inflexible,
coldblooded way of going to work. It left the Doctor's countenance exposed to
view; and when the Doctor smiled auspiciously at his author, or knit his brows,
or shook his head and made wry faces at him, as much as to say, `Don't tell me,
Sir; I know better,' it was terrific.
Toots, too, had no business to be outside the door, ostentatiously examining
the wheels in his watch, and counting his half-crowns. But that didn't last
long; for Doctor Blimber, happening to change the position of his tight plump
legs, as if he were going to get up, Toots swiftly vanished, and appeared no
more.
Mr. Dombey and his conductress were soon heard coming down stairs again,
talking all the way; and presently they reentered the Doctor's study.
`I hope, Mr. Dombey,' said the Doctor, laying down his book, `that the
arrangements meet your approval.'
`They are excellent, Sir,' said Mr. Dombey.
`Very fair, indeed,' said Mrs. Pipchin, in a low voice; never disposed to
give too much encouragement.
`Mrs. Pipchin,' said Mr. Dombey, wheeling round, `will, with your permission,
Doctor and Mrs. Blimber, visit Paul now and then.'
`Whenever Mrs. Pipchin pleases,' observed the Doctor.
`Always happy to see her,' said Mrs. Blimber.
`I think,' said Mr. Dombey, `I have given all the trouble I need, and may
take my leave. Paul, my child,' he went close to him, as he sat upon the table.
`Good-bye.'
`Good-bye, Papa.'
The limp and careless little hand that Mr. Dombey took in his, was singularly
out of keeping with the wistful face. But he had no part in its sorrowful
expression. It was not addressed to him. No, no. To Florence--all to Florence.
If Mr. Dombey in his insolence of wealth, had ever made an enemy, hard to
appease and cruelly vindictive in his hate, even such an enemy might have
received the pang that wrung his proud heart then, as compensation for his
injury.
He bent down over his boy, and kissed him. If his sight were dimmed as he did
so, by something that for a moment blurred the little face, and made it
indistinct to him, his mental vision may have been, for that short time, the
clearer perhaps.
`I shall see you soon, Paul. You are free on Saturdays and Sundays, you
know.'
`Yes, papa,' returned Paul: looking at his sister. `On Saturdays and
Sundays.'
`And you'll try and learn a great deal here, and be a clever man,' said Mr.
Dombey; `won't you?'
`I'll try,' returned the child wearily.
`And you'll soon be grown up now!' said Mr. Dombey.
`Oh! very soon!' replied the child. Once more the old, old look passed
rapidly across his features like a strange light. It fell on Mrs. Pipchin, and
extinguished itself in her black dress. That excellent ogress stepped forward to
take leave and to bear off Florence, which she had long been thirsting to do.
The move on her part roused Mr. Dombey, whose eyes were fixed on Paul. After
patting him on the head, and pressing his small hand again, he took leave of
Doctor Blimber, Mrs. Blimber, and Miss Blimber, with his usual polite frigidity,
and walked out of the study.
Despite his entreaty that they would not think of stirring, Doctor Blimber,
Mrs. Blimber, and Miss Blimber all pressed forward to attend him to the hall;
and thus Mrs. Pipchin got into a state of entanglement with Miss Blimber and the
Doctor, and was crowded out of the study before she could clutch Florence. To
which happy accident Paul stood afterwards indebted for the dear remembrance,
that Florence ran back to throw her arms round his neck, and that hers was the
last face in the doorway: turned towards him with a smile of encouragement, the
brighter for the tears through which it beamed.
It made his childish bosom heave and swell when it was gone; and sent the
globes, the books, blind Homer and Minerva, swimming round the room. But they
stopped, all of a sudden; and then he heard the loud clock in the hall still
gravely inquiring `how, is, my, lit, tle, friend? how, is, my, lit, tle,
friend?' as it had done before.
He sat, with folded hands, upon his pedestal, silently listening. But he
might have answered `weary, weary! very lonely, very sad!' And there, with an
aching void in his young heart, and all outside so cold, and bare, and strange,
Paul sat as if he had taken life unfurnished, and the upholsterer were never
coming.
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