Miss Tox improves an Old Acquaintance
THE forlorn Miss Tox, abandoned by her friend Louisa Chick, and bereft of Mr.
Dombey's countenance--for on 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 complaint.
Her sense of that gentleman's magnificence was such, that once removed from him,
she felt as if her distance always had been immeasurable, and as if he had
greatly condescended in tolerating her at all. No wife could be too handsome or
too stately for him, according to Miss Tox's sincere opinion. It was perfectly
natural that in looking for one, he should look high. Miss Tox with tears laid
down this proposition, and fully admitted it, twenty times a day. She never
recalled the lofty manner in which Mr. Dombey had made her subservient to his
convenience and caprices, and had graciously permitted her to be one of the
nurses of his little son. She only thought, in her own words, `that she had
passed a great many happy hours in that house, which she must ever remember with
gratification, and that she could never cease to regard Mr. Dombey as one of the
most impressive and dignified to men.'
Cut off, however, from the implacable Louisa, and being shy of the Major
(whom she viewed with some distrust now), Miss Tox found it very irksome to know
nothing of what was going on in Mr. Dombey's establishment. And as she really
had got into the habit of considering Dombey and Son as the pivot on which the
world in general turned, she resolved, rather than be ignorant of intelligence
which so strongly interested her, to cultivate her old acquaintance, Mrs.
Richards, who she knew, since her last memorable appearance before Mr. Dombey,
was in the habit of sometimes holding communication with his servants. Perhaps
Miss Tox, in seeking out the Toodle family, had the tender motive hidden in her
breast of having somebody to whom she could talk about Mr. Dombey, no matter how
humble that somebody might be.
At all events, towards the Toodle habitation Miss Tox directed her steps one
evening, what time Mr. Toodle, cindery and swart, was refreshing himself with
tea, in the bosom of his family. Mr. Toodle had only three stages of existence.
He was either taking refreshment in the bosom just mentioned, or he was tearing
through the country at from twenty-five to fifty miles an hour, or he was
sleeping after his fatigues. He was always in a whirlwind or a calm, and a
peaceable, contented, easy-going man Mr. Toodle was in either state, who seemed
to have made over all his own inheritance of fuming and fretting to the engines
with which he was connected, which panted, and gasped, and chafed, and wore
themselves out, in a most unsparing manner, while Mr. Toodle led a mild and
equable life.
`Polly, my gal,' said Mr. Toodle, with a young Toodle on each knee, and two
more making tea for him, and plenty more scattered about--Mr. Toodle was never
out of children, but always kept a good supply on hand--`you an't seen our Biler
lately, have you?'
`No,' replied Polly, `but he's almost certain to look in tonight. It's his
right evening, and he's very regular.'
`I suppose,' said Mr. Toodle, relishing his meal infinitely, `as our Biler is
a doin' now about as well as a boy can do, eh, Polly?'
`Oh! he's a doing beautiful!' responded Polly.
`He an't got to be at all secret-like--has he, Polly?' inquired Mr. Toodle.
`No!' said Mrs. Toodle, plumply.
`I'm glad he an't got to be at all secret-like, Polly,' observed Mr. Toodle
in his slow and measured way, and shovelling in his bread and butter with a
clasp knife, as if he were stoking himself, `because that don't look well; do
it, Polly?'
`Why, of course it don't, father. How can you ask!'
`You see, my boys and gals,' said Mr. Toodle, looking round upon his family,
`wotever you're up to in a honest way, it's my opinion as you can't do better
than be open. If you find yourselves in cuttings or in tunnels, don't you play
no secret games. Keep your whistles going, and let's know where you are.'
The rising Toodles set up a shrill murmur, expressive of their resolution to
profit by the paternal advice.
`But what makes you say this along of Rob, father?' asked his wife,
anxiously.
`Polly, old 'ooman,' said Mr. Toodle, `I don't know as I said it partickler
along o' Rob, I'm sure. I starts light with Rob only; I comes to a branch; I
takes on what I finds there; and a whole train of ideas gets coupled on to him,
afore I knows where I am, or where they comes from. What a Junction a man's
thoughts is,' said Mr. Toodle, `to-be-sure!'
This profound reflection Mr. Toodle washed down with a pint mug of tea, and
proceeded to solidify with a great weight of bread and butter; charging his
young daughters meanwhile, to keep plenty of hot water in the pot, as he was
uncommon dry, and should take the indefinite quantity of `a sight of mugs,'
before his thirst was appeased.
In satisfying himself, however, Mr. Toodle was not regardless of the younger
branches about him, who, although they had made their own evening repast, were
on the look-out for irregular morsels, as possessing a relish. These he
distributed now and then to the expectant circle, by holding out great wedges of
bread and butter, to be bitten at by the family in lawful succession, and by
serving out small doses of tea in like manner with a spoon; which snacks had
such a relish in the mouths of these young Toodles, that, after partaking of the
same, they performed private dances of ecstasy among themselves, and stood on
one leg apiece, and hopped, and indulged in other saltatory tokens of gladness.
These vents for their excitement found, they gradually closed about Mr. Toodle
again, and eyed him hard as he got through more bread and butter and tea;
affecting, however, to have no further expectations of their own in reference to
those viands, but to be conversing on foreign subjects, and whispering
confidently.
Mr. Toodle, in the midst of this family group, and setting an awful example
to his children in the way of appetite, was conveying the two young Toodles on
his knees to Birmingham by special engine, and was contemplating the rest over a
barrier of bread and butter, when Rob the Grinder, in his sou'wester hat and
mourning slops, presented himself, and was received with a general rush of
brothers and sisters.
`Well, mother!' said Rob, dutifully kissing her; `how are you, mother?'
`There's my boy!' cried Polly, giving him a hug and a pat on the back.
`Secret! Bless you, father, not he!'
This was intended for Mr. Toodle's private edification, but Rob the Grinder,
whose withers were not unwrung, caught the words as they were spoken.
`What! father's been a saying something more again me, has he?' cried the
injured innocent. `Oh, what a hard thing it is that when a cove has once gone a
little wrong, a cove's own father should be always a throwing it in his face
behind his back! It's enough,' cried Rob, resorting to his coat-cuff in anguish
of spirit, `to make a cove go and do something out of spite!'
`My poor boy!' cried Polly, `father didn't mean anything.'
`If father didn't mean anything,' blubbered the injured Grinder, `why did he
go and say anything, mother? Nobody thinks half so bad of me as my own father
does. What a unnatural thing! I wish somebody'd take and chop my head off.
Father wouldn't mind doing it, I believe, and I'd much rather he did that than
t'other.'
At these desperate words all the young Toodles shrieked; a pathetic effect,
which the Grinder improved by ironically adjuring them not to cry for him, for
they ought to hate him, they ought, if they was good boys and girls; and this so
touched the youngest Toodle but one, who was easily moved, that it touched him
not only in his spirit but in his wind too; making him so purple that Mr. Toodle
in consternation carried him out to the water-butt, and would have put him under
the tap, but for his being recovered by the sight of that instrument.
Matters having reached this point, Mr. Toodle explained, and the virtuous
feelings of his son being thereby calmed, they shook hands, and harmony reigned
again.
`Will you do as I do, Biler, my boy?' inquired his father, returning to his
tea with new strength.
`No, thank'ee, father. Master and I had tea together.'
`And how is master, Rob? said Polly.
`Well, I don't know, mother; not much to boast on. There ain't no bis'ness
done, you see. He don't know anything about it, the Cap'en don't. There was a
man come into the shop this very day, and says, "I want a so-and-so," he
says--some hard name or another. "A which?" says the Cap'en. "A so-and-so," says
the man. "Brother," says the Cap'en, "will you take a observation round the
shop?" "Well," says the man, "I've done it." "Do you see wot you want?" says the
Cap'en. "No, I don't," says the man. "Do you know it wen you do see it?" says
the Cap'en. "No, I don't," says the man. "Why, then I tell you wot, my lad,"
says the Cap'en, "you'd better go back and ask wot it's like, outside, for no
more don't I!"'
`That ain't the way to make money, though, is it?' said Polly.
`Money, mother! He'll never make money. He has such ways as I never see. He
ain't a bad master though, I'll say that for him. But that ain't much to me, for
I don't think I shall stop with him long.'
`Not stop in your place, Rob!' cried his mother; while Mr. Toodle opened his
eyes.
`Not in that place, p'raps,' returned the Grinder, with a wink. `I shouldn't
wonder--friends at court you know--but never you mind, mother, just now; I'm all
right, that's all.'
The indisputable proof afforded in these hints, and in the Grinder's
mysterious manner, of his not being subject to that failing which Mr. Toodle
had, by implication, attributed to him, might have led to a renewal of his
wrongs, and of the sensation in the family, but for the opportune arrival of
another visitor, who, to Polly's great surprise, appeared at the door, smiling
patronage and friendship on all there.
`How do you do, Mrs. Richards?' said Miss Tox. `I have come to see you. May I
come in?'
The cheery face of Mrs. Richards shone with a hospitable reply, and Miss Tox,
accepting the proffered chair, and gracefully recognising Mr. Toodle on her way
to it, united her bonnet strings, and said that in the first place she must beg
the dear children, one and all, to come and kiss her.
The ill-starred youngest Toodle but one, who would appear, from the frequency
of his domestic troubles, to have been born under an unlucky planet, was
prevented from performing his part in this general salutation by having fixed
the sou'wester hat (with which he had been previously trifling) deep on his
head, hind side before, and being unable to get it off again; which accident
presenting to his terrified imagination a dismal picture of his passing the rest
of his days in darkness, and in hopeless seclusion from his friends and family,
caused him to struggle with great violence, and to utter suffocating cries.
Being released, his face was discovered to be very hot, and red, and damp; and
Miss Tox took him on her lap, much exhausted.
`You have almost forgotten me, Sir, I dare say,' said Miss Tox to Mr. Toodle.
`No, Ma'am, no,' said Toodle. `But we've all on us got a little older since
then.'
`And how do you find yourself, Sir?' inquired Miss Tox, blandly.
`Hearty, Ma'am, thank'ee,' replied Toodle. `How do you find yourself, Ma'am?
Do the rheumaticks keep off pretty well, Ma'am? We must all expect to grow into
'em, as we gets on.'
`Thank you,' said Miss Tox. `I have not felt any inconvenience from that
disorder yet.'
`You're wery fortunate, Ma'am,' returned Mr. Toodle. `Many people at your
time of life, Ma'am is martyrs to it. There was my mother--' But catching his
wife's eye here, Mr. Toodle judiciously buried the rest in another mug of tea.
`You never mean to say, Mrs. Richards,' cried Miss Tox, looking at Rob, `that
that is your--'
`Eldest, Ma'am,' said Polly. `Yes, indeed, it is. That's the little fellow,
ma'am, that was the innocent cause of so much.'
`This here, Ma'am,' said Toodle, `is him with the short legs--and they was,'
said Mr. Toodle, with a touch of poetry in his tone, `unusual short for
leathers--as Mr. Dombey made a Grinder on.'
The recollection of almost overpowered Miss Tox. The subject of it had a
peculiar interest for her directly. She asked him to shake hands, and
congratulated his mother on his frank, ingenuous face. Rob, overhearing her,
called up a look, to justify the eulogium, but it was hardly the right look.
`And now, Mrs. Richards,' said Miss Tox,--`and you too, Sir,' addressing
Toodle--`I'll tell you, plainly and truly, what I have come here for. You may be
aware, Mrs. Richards--and, possibly, you may be aware too, Sir--that a little
distance has interposed itself between me and some of my friends, and that where
I used to visit a good deal, I do not visit now.'
Polly, who, with a woman's tact, understood that at once, expressed as much
in a little look. Mr. Toodle, who had not the faintest idea of what Miss Tox was
talking about, expressed that also, in a stare.
`Of course,' said Miss Tox, `how our little coolness has arisen is of no
moment, and does not require to be discussed. It is sufficient for me to say,
that I have the greatest possible respect for, and interest in, Mr. Dombey;'
Miss Tox's voice faltered; `and everything that relates to him.'
Mr. Toodle, enlightened, shook his head, and said he had heerd it said, and,
for his own part, he did think, as Mr. Dombey was a difficult subject.
`Pray don't say so, Sir, if you please,' returned Miss Tox. `Let me entreat
you not to say so, Sir, either now, or at any future time. Such observations
cannot but be very painful to me; and to a gentleman, whose mind is constituted
as, I am quite sure yours is, can afford no permanent satisfaction.'
Mr. Toodle, who had not entertained the least doubt of offering a remark that
would received with acquiescence, was greatly confounded.
`All that I wish to say, Mrs. Richards,' resumed Miss Tox,--`and I address
myself to you too, Sir,--is this. That any intelligence of the proceedings of
the family, of the welfare of the family, of the health of the family, that
reaches you, will be always most acceptable to me. That I shall be always very
glad to chat with Mrs. Richards about the family, and about old times. And as
Mrs. Richards and I never had the least difference (though I could wish now that
we had been better acquainted, but I have no one but myself to blame for that),
I hope she will not object to our being very good friends now, and to my coming
backwards and forwards here, when I like, without being a stranger. Now, I
really hope, Mrs. Richards,' said Miss Tox, earnestly, `that you will take this,
as I mean it, like a good-humoured creature, as you always were.'
Polly was gratified, and showed it. Mr. Toodle didn't know whether he was
gratified or not, and preserved a stolid calmness.
`You see, Mrs. Richards,' said Miss Tox--`and I hope you see too, Sir--there
are many little ways in which I can be slightly useful to you, if you will make
no stranger of me; and in which I shall be delighted to be so. For instance, I
can teach your children something. I shall bring a few little books, if you'll
allow me, and some work, and of an evening now and then, they'll learn--dear me,
they'll learn a great deal, I trust, and be a credit to their teacher.'
Mr. Toodle, who had a great respect for learning, jerked his head approvingly
at his wife, and moistened his hands with dawning satisfaction.
`Then, not being a stranger, I shall be in nobody's way,' said Miss Tox, `and
everything will go on just as if I were not here. Mrs. Richards will do her
mending, or her ironing, or her nursing, whatever it is, without minding me: and
you'll smoke your pipe, too, if you're so disposed, Sir, won't you?'
`Thank'ee, Mum,' said Mr. Toodle. `Yes; I'll take my bit of backer.'
`Very good of you to say so, Sir,' rejoined Miss Tox, `and I really do assure
you now, unfeignedly, that it will be a great comfort to me, and that whatever
good I may be fortunate enough to do the children, you will more than pay back
to me, if you'll enter into this little bargain comfortably, and easily, and
good-naturedly, without another word about it.'
The bargain was ratified on the spot; and Miss Tox found herself so much at
home already, that without delay she instituted a preliminary examination of the
children all roundwhich Mr. Toodle much admired--and booked their ages, names,
and acquirements, on a piece of paper. This ceremony, and a little attendant
gossip prolonged the time until after their usual hour of going to bed, and
detained Mrs. Tox at the Toodle fireside until it was too late for her to walk
home alone. The gallant Grinder, however, being still there, politely offered to
attend her to her own door; and as it was something to Miss Tox to be seen home
by a youth whom Mr. Dombey had first inducted into those manly garments which
are rarely mentioned by name, she very readily accepted the proposal.
After shaking hands with Mr. Toodle and Polly, and kissing all the children,
Miss Tox left the house, therefore, with unlimited popularity, and carrying away
with her so light a heart that it might have given Mrs. Chick offence if that
good lady could have weighed it.
Rob the Grinder, in his modesty, would have walked behind, but Miss Tox
desired him to keep beside her, for conversational purposes; and, as she
afterwards expressed it to his mother, `drew him out' upon the road.
He drew out so bright, and clear, and shining, that Miss Tox was charmed with
him. The more Miss Tox drew him out, the finer he came--like wire. There never
was better or more promising youth--a more affectionate, steady, prudent, sober,
honest, meek, candid young man--than Rob drew out that night.
`I am quite glad,' said Miss Tox, arrived at her own door, `to know you. I
hope you'll consider me your friend, and that you'll come and see me as often as
you like. Do you keep a money-box?'
`Yes, Ma'am,' returned Rob; `I'm saving up against I've got enough to put in
the Bank, ma'am.'
`Very laudable indeed,' said Miss Tox. `I'm glad to hear it. Put this
half-crown into it, if you please.'
`Oh thank you, Ma'am,' replied Rob, `but really I couldn't think of depriving
you.'
`I commend your independent spirit,' said Miss Tox, `but it's no deprivation,
I assure you. I shall be offended if you don't take it, as a mark of my
good-will. Good night, Robin.'
`Good night, Ma'am,' said Rob, `and thank you!'
Who ran sniggering off to get change, and tossed it way with a pieman. But
they never taught honour at the Grinders'School, where the system that prevailed
was particularly strong in the engendering of hypocrisy. Insomuch, that many of
the friends and masters of past Grinders said, if this were what came of
education for the common people, let have none.
Some more rational said, let us have a better one. But the governing powers
of the Grinders' Company were always ready for them, by picking out a few boys
who had turned out well, in spite of the system, and roundly asserting that they
could have only turned out well because of it. Which settled the business of
those objectors out of hand, and established the glory of the Grinders'
Institution.
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