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, some one
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 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
Edith. `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'shis-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 light 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 be 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 selfdepreciating 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 far 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 night-gown, 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 cruelest 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 rosecoloured curtains could not make
otherwise than seared 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 stern beauty.
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