Domestic Relations
IT was not in the nature of things that a man of Mr. Dombey's mood, opposed
to such a spirit as he had raised against himself, should be softened in the
imperious asperity of his temper; or that the cold hard armour of pride in which
he lived encased, should be made more flexible by constant collision with
haughty scorn and defiance. It is the curse of such a nature--it is a main part
of the heavy retribution on itself it bears within itself--that while deference
and concession swell its evil qualities, and are the food it grows upon,
resistance and a questioning of its exacting claims, foster it too, no less. The
evil that is in it finds equally its means of growth and propagation in
opposites. It draws support and life from sweets and bitters; bowed down before,
or unacknowledged, it still enslaves the breast in which it has its throne; and,
worshipped or rejected, is as hard a master as the Devil in dark fables.
Towards his first wife, Mr. Dombey, in his cold and lofty arrogance, had
borne himself like the removed Being he almost conceived himself to be. He had
been `Mr. Dombey' with her when she first saw him, and he was `Mr. Dombey' when
she died. He had asserted his greatness during their whole married life, and she
had meekly recognised it. He had kept his distant seat of state on the top of
his throne, and she her humble station on its lowest step; and much good it had
done him, so to live in solitary bondage to his one idea! He had imagined that
the proud character of his second wife would have been added to his own--would
have merged into it, and exalted his greatness. He had pictured himself
haughtier than ever, with Edith's haughtiness subservient to his. He had never
entertained the possibility of its arraying itself against him. And now, when he
found it rising in his path at every step and turn of his daily life, fixing its
cold, defiant, and contemptuous face upon him, this pride of his, instead of
withering, or hanging down its head beneath the shock, put forth new shoots,
became more concentrated and intense, more gloomy, sullen, irksome, and
unyielding, than it had ever been before.
Who wears such armour, too, bears with him ever another heavy retribution. It
is of proof against conciliation, love, and confidence! against all gentle
sympathy from without, all trust, all tenderness, all soft emotion; but to deep
stabs in the selflove, it is as vulnerable as the bare breast to steel; and such
tormenting festers rankle there, as follow on no other wounds, no, though dealt
with the mailed hand of Pride itself, on weaker pride, disarmed and thrown down.
Such wounds were his. He felt them sharply, in the solitude of his old rooms;
whither he now began often to retire again, and pass long solitary hours. It
seemed his fate to be ever proud and powerful; ever humbled and powerless where
he would be most strong. Who seemed fated to work out that doom?
Who? Who was it who could win his wife as she had won his boy? Who was it who
had shown him that new victory, as he sat in the dark corner? Who was it whose
least word did what his utmost means could not? Who was it who, unaided by his
love, regard or notice, thrived and grew beautiful when those so aided died? Who
could it be, but the same child at whom he had often glanced uneasily in her
motherless infancy, with a kind of dread, lest he might come to hate her; and of
whom his foreboding was fulfilled, for he DID hate her in his heart?
Yes, and he would have it hatred, and he made it hatred, though some sparkles
of the light in which she had appeared before him on the memorable night of his
return home with his Bride, occasionally hung about her still. He knew now that
she was beautiful; he did not dispute that she was graceful and winning, and
that in the bright dawn of her womanhood she had come upon him, a surprise. But
he turned even this against her. In his sullen and unwholesome brooding, the
unhappy man, with a dull perception of his alienation from all hearts, and a
vague yearning for what he had all his life repelled, made a distorted picture
of his rights and wrongs, and justified himself with it against her. The
worthier she promised to be of him, the greater claim he was disposed to
ante-date upon her duty and submission? When had she ever shown him duty and
submission? Did she grace his life--or Edith's? Had her attractions been
manifested first to him--or Edith? Why, he and she had never been, from her
birth, like father and child! They had always been estranged. She had crossed
him every way and everywhere. She was leagued against him now. Her very beauty
softened natures that were obdurate to him, and insulted him with an unnatural
triumph.
It may have been that in all this there were mutterings of an awakened
feeling in his breast, however selfishly aroused by his position of
disadvantage, in comparison with what she might have made his life. But he
silenced the distant thunder with the rolling of his sea of pride. He would bear
nothing but his pride. And in his pride, a heap of inconsistency, and misery,
and self-inflicted torment, he hated her.
To the moody, stubborn, sullen demon, that possessed him, his wife opposed
her different pride in its full force. They never could have led a happy life
together; but nothing could have made it more unhappy, than the wilful and
determined warfare of such elements. His pride was set upon maintaining his
magnificent supremacy, and forcing recognition of it from her. She would have
been racked to death, and turned but her haughty glance of calm inflexible
disdain upon him, to the last. Such recognition from Edith! He little knew
through what a storm and struggle she had been driven onward to the crowning
honour of his hand. He little knew how much she thought she had conceded, when
she suffered him to call her wife.
Mr. Dombey was resolved to show her that he was supreme. There must be no
will but his. Proud he desired that she should be, but she must be proud for,
not against him. As he sat alone, hardening, he would often hear her go out and
come home, treading the round of London life with no more heed of his liking or
disliking, pleasure or displeasure, than if he had been her groom. Her cold
supreme indifference--his own unquestioned attribute usurped--stung him more
than any other kind of treatment could have done; and he determined to bend her
to his magnificent and stately will.
He had been long communing with these thoughts, when one night he sought her
in her own apartment, after he had heard her return home late. She was alone, in
her brilliant dress, and had but that moment come from her mother's room. Her
face was melancholy and pensive, when he came upon her; but it marked him at the
door; for, glancing at the mirror before it, he saw immediately, as in a
picture-frame, the knitted brow, and darkened beauty that he knew so well.
`Mrs. Dombey,' he said, entering, `I must beg leave to have a few words with
you.'
`To-morrow,' she replied.
`There is no time like the present, Madam,' he returned. `You mistake your
position. I am used to choose my own times; not to have them chosen for me. I
think you scarcely understand who and what I am, Mrs. Dombey.'
`I think,' she answered, `that I understand you very well.'
She looked upon him as she said so, and folding her white arms, sparkling
with gold and gems, upon her swelling breast, turned away her eyes.
If she had been less handsome, and less stately in her cold composure, she
might not have had the power of impressing him with the sense of disadvantage
that penetrated through his utmost pride. But she had the power, and he felt it
keenly. He glanced round the room: saw how the splendid means of personal
adornment, and the luxuries of dress, were scattered here and there, and
disregarded; not in mere caprice and carelessness (or so he thought), but in a
steadfast haughty disregard of costly things: and felt it more and more.
Chaplets of flowers, plumes of feathers, jewels, laces, silks and satins; look
where he would, he saw riches, despised, poured out, and made of no account. The
very diamonds--a marriage gift--that rose and fell impatiently upon her bosom,
seemed to pant to break the chain that clasped them round her neck, and roll
down on the floor where she might tread upon them.
He felt his disadvantage, and he showed it. Solemn and strange among his
wealth of colour and voluptuous glitter, strange and constrained towards its
haughty mistress, whose repellent beauty it repeated, and presented all around
him, as in so many fragments of a mirror, he was conscious of embarrassment and
awkwardness. Nothing that ministered to her disdainful self-possession could
fail to gall him. Galled and irritated with himself, he sat down, and went on in
no improved humour:
`Mrs. Dombey, it is very necessary that there should be some understanding
arrived at between us. Your conduct does not please Me, madam.'
She merely glanced at him again, and again averted her eyes; but she might
have spoken for an hour, and expressed less.
`I repeat, Mrs. Dombey, does not please me. I have already taken occasion to
request that it may be corrected. I now insist upon it.'
`You chose a fitting occasion for your first remonstrance, Sir, and you adopt
a fitting manner, and a fitting word for your second. You insist! To me!'
`Madam,' said Mr. Dombey, with his most offensive air of state, `I have made
you my wife. You bear my name. You are associated with my position and my
reputation. I will not say that the world in general may be disposed to think
you honoured by that association; but I will say that I am accustomed to
"insist," to my connections and dependents.'
`Which may you be pleased to consider me?' she asked.
`Possibly I may think that my wife should partake--or does partake, and
cannot help herself--of both characters, Mrs. Dombey.'
She bent her eyes upon him steadily, and set her trembling lips. He saw her
bosom throb, and saw her face flush and turn white. All this he could know, and
did: but he could not know that one word was whispering in the deep recesses of
her heart, to keep her quiet; and that the word was Florence.
Blind idiot, rushing to a precipice! He thought she stood in awe of him!
`You are too expensive, Madam,' said Mr. Dombey. `You are extravagant. You
waste a great deal of money--or what would be a great deal in the pockets of
most gentlemen--in cultivating a kind of society that is useless to me, and,
indeed, that upon the whole is disagreeable to me. I have to insist upon a total
change in all these respects. I know that in the novelty of possessing a tithe
of such means as Fortune has placed at your disposal, ladies are apt to run into
a sudden extreme. There has been more than enough of that extreme. I beg that
Mrs. Granger's very different experiences may now come to the instruction of
Mrs. Dombey.'
Still the fixed look, the trembling lips, the throbbing breast, the face now
crimson and now white; and still the deep whisper Florence, Florence, speaking
to her in the beating of her heart.
His insolence of self-importance dilated as he saw this alteration in her.
Swollen no less by her past scorn of him, and his so recent feeling of
disadvantage, than by her present submission (as he took it to be), it became
too mighty for his breast, and burst all bounds. Why, who could long resist his
lofty will and pleasure! He had resolved to conquer her, and look here!
`You will further please, Madam,' said Mr. Dombey, in a tone of sovereign
command, `to understand distinctly, that I am to be deferred to and obeyed. That
I must have a positive show and confession of deference before the world, Madam.
I am used to this. I require it as my right. In short I will have it. I consider
it no unreasonable return for the worldly advancement that has befallen you; and
I believe nobody will be surprised, either at its being required from you, or at
your making it.--To Me--To Me!' he added, with emphasis.
No word from her. No change in her. Her eyes upon him.
`I have learnt from your mother, Mrs. Dombey,' said Mr. Dombey, with
magisterial importance, `what no doubt you know, namely, that Brighton is
recommended for her health. Mr. Carker has been so good'
She changed suddenly. Her face and bosom glowed as if the red light of an
angry sunset had been flung upon them. Not unobservant of the change, and
putting his own interpretation upon it, Mr. Dombey resumed:
`Mr. Carker has been so good as to go down and secure a house there, for a
time. On the return of the establishment to London, I shall take such steps for
its better management as I consider necessary. One of these, will be the
engagement at Brighton (if it is to be effected), of a very respectable reduced
person there, a Mrs. Pipchin, formerly employed in a situation of trust in my
family, to act as housekeeper. An establishment like this, presided over but
nominally, Mrs. Dombey, requires a competent head.'
She had changed her attitude before he arrived at these words, and now
sat--still looking at him fixedly--turning a bracelet round and round upon her
arm; not winding it about with a light, womanly touch, but pressing and dragging
it over the smooth skin, until the white limb showed a bar of red.
`I observed,' said Mr. Dombey--`and this concludes what I deem it necessary
to say to you at present, Mrs. Dombey--I observed a moment ago, Madam, that my
allusion to Mr. Carker was received in a peculiar manner. On the occasion of my
happening to point out to you, before that confidential agent, the objection I
had to your mode of receiving my visitors, you were pleased to object to his
presence. You will have to get the better of that objection, Madam, and to
accustom yourself to it very probably on many similar occasions; unless you
adopt the remedy which is in your own hands, of giving me no cause of complaint.
Mr. Carker,' said Mr. Dombey, who, after the emotion he had just seen, set great
store by this means of reducing his proud wife, and who was perhaps sufficiently
willing to exhibit his power to that gentleman in a new and triumphant aspect,
`Mr. Carker being in my confidence, Mrs. Dombey, may very well be in yours to
such an extent. I hope, Mrs. Dombey,' he continued, after a few moments, during
which, in his increasing haughtiness, he had improved on his idea, `I may not
find it necessary ever to intrust Mr. Carker with any message of objection or
remonstrance to you; but as it would be derogatory to my position and reputation
to be frequently holding trivial disputes with a lady upon whom I have conferred
the highest distinction that it is in my power to bestow, I shall not scruple to
avail myself of his services if I see occasion.'
`And now,' he thought, rising in his moral magnificence, and rising a stiffer
and more impenetrable man than ever, `she knows me and my resolution.'
The hand that had so pressed the bracelet was laid heavily upon her breast,
but she looked at him still, with an unaltered face, and said in a low voice:
`Wait! For God's sake! I must speak to you.'
Why did she not, and what was the inward struggle that rendered her incapable
of doing so, for minutes, while, in the strong constraint she put upon her face,
it was as fixed as any statue's--looking upon him with neither yielding nor
unyielding, liking nor hatred, pride nor humility: nothing but a searching gaze?
`Did I ever tempt you to seek my hand? Did I ever use any art to win you? Was
I ever more conciliating to you when you pursued me, than I have been since our
marriage? Was I ever other to you than I am?'
`It is wholly unnecessary, Madam,' said Mr. Dombey, `to enter upon such
discussions.'
`Did you think I loved you? Did you know I did not? Did you ever care, Man!
for my heart, or propose to yourself to win the worthless thing? Was there any
poor pretence of any in our bargain? Upon your side, or on mine?'
`These questions,' said Mr. Dombey, `are all wide of the purpose, Madam.'
She moved between him and the door to prevent his going away, and drawing her
majestic figure to its height, looked steadily upon him still.
`You answer each of them. You answer me before I speak, I see. How can you
help it; you who know the miserable truth as well as I? Now, tell me. If I loved
you to devotion, could I do more than render up my whole will and being to you,
as you have just demanded? If my heart were pure and all untried, and you its
idol, could you ask more; could you have more?'
`Possibly not, Madam,' he returned coolly.
`You know how different I am. You see me looking on you now, and you can read
the warmth of passion for you that is breathing in my face.' Not a curl of the
proud lip, not a flash of the dark eye, nothing but the same intent and
searching look, accompanied these words. `You know my general history. You have
spoken of my mother. Do you think you can degrade, or bend or break, me to
submission and obedience?'
Mr. Dombey smiled, as he might have smiled at an inquiry whether he thought
he could raise ten thousand pounds.
`If there is anything unusual here,' she said, with a slight motion of her
hand before her brow, which did not for a moment flinch from its immovable and
otherwise expressionless gaze, `as I know there are unusual feelings here,'
raising the hand she pressed upon her bosom, and heavily returning it, `consider
that there is no common meaning in the appeal I am going to make you. Yes, for I
am going;' she said it as in prompt reply to something in his face; `to appeal
to you.'
Mr. Dombey, with a slightly condescending bend of his chin that rustled and
crackled his stiff cravat, sat down on a sofa that was near him, to hear the
appeal.
`If you can believe that I am of such a nature now,'--he fancied he saw tears
glistening in her eyes, and he thought, complacently, that he had forced them
from her, though none fell on her cheek, and she regarded him as steadily as
ever,--`as would make what I now say almost incredible to myself, said to any
man who had become my husband, but, above all, said to you, you may, perhaps,
attach the greater weight to it. In the dark end to which we are tending, and
may come, we shall not involve ourselves alone (that might not be much) but
others.'
Others! He knew at whom that word pointed, and frowned heavily.
`I speak to you for the sake of others. Also your own sake; and for mine.
Since our marriage, you have been arrogant to me; and I have repaid you in kind.
You have shown to me and every one around us, every day and hour, that you think
I am graced and distinguished by your alliance. I do not think so, and have
shown that too. It seems you do not understand, or (so far as your power can go)
intend that each of us shall take a separate course; and you expect from me
instead, a homage you will never have.'
Although her face was still the same, there was emphatic confirmation of this
`Never' in the very breath she drew.
`I feel no tenderness towards you; that you know. You would care nothing for
it, if I did or could. I know as well that you feel none towards me. But we are
linked together; and in the knot that ties us, as I have said, others are bound
up. We must both die; we are both connected with the dead already, each by a
little child. Let us forbear.'
Mr. Dombey took a long respiration, as if he would have said, Oh! was this
all!
`There is no wealth,' she went on, turning paler as she watched him, while
her eyes grew yet more lustrous in their earnestness, `that could buy these
words of me, and the meaning that belongs to them. Once cast away as idle
breath, no wealth or power can bring them back. I mean them; I have weighed
them; and I will be true to what I undertake. If you will promise to forbear on
your part, I will promise to forbear on mine. We are a most unhappy pair, in
whom, from different causes, every sentiment that blesses marriage, or justifies
it, is rooted out; but in the course of time, some friendship, or some fitness
for each other, may arise between us. I will try to hope so, if you will make
the endeavour too; and I will look forward to a better and a happier use of age
than I have made of youth or prime.'
Throughout she had spoken in a low plain voice, that neither rose nor fell;
ceasing, she dropped the hand with which she had enforced herself to be so
passionless and distinct, but not the eyes with which she had so steadily
observed him.
`Madam,' said Mr. Dombey, with his utmost dignity, `I cannot entertain any
proposal of this extraordinary nature.'
She looked at him yet, without the least change.
`I cannot,' said Mr. Dombey, rising as he spoke, `consent to temporise or
treat with you, Mrs. Dombey, upon a subject as to which you are in possession of
my opinions and expectations. I have stated my ultimatum, Madam, and have only
to request your very serious attention to it.'
To see the face change to its old expression, deepened in intensity! To see
the eyes droop as from some mean and odious object! To see the lighting of the
haughty brow! To see scorn, anger, indignation, and abhorrence starting into
sight, and the pale blank earnestness vanish like a mist! He could not choose
but look, although he looked to his dismay.
`Go, Sir!' she said, pointing with an imperious hand towards the door. `Our
first and last confidence is at an end. Nothing can make us stranger to each
other than we are henceforth.'
`I shall take my rightful course, Madam,' said Mr. Dombey, `undeterred, you
may be sure, by any general declamation.'
She turned her back upon him, and, without reply, sat down before her glass.
`I place my reliance on your improved sense of duty, and more correct
feeling, and better reflection, Madam,' said Mr. Dombey.
She answered not one word. He saw no more expression of any heed of him, in
the mirror, than if he had been an unseen spider on the wall, or beetle on the
floor, or rather, than if he had been the one or other, seen and crushed when
she last turned from him, and forgotten among the ignominious and dead vermin of
the ground.
He looked back, as he went out at the door, upon the welllighted and
luxurious room, the beautiful and glittering objects everywhere displayed, the
shape of Edith in its rich dress seated before her glass, and the face of Edith
as the glass presented it to him; and betook himself to his old chamber of
cogitation, carrying away with him a vivid picture in his mind of all these
things, and a rambling and unaccountable speculation (such as sometimes comes
into a man's head) how they would all look when he saw them next.
For the rest, Mr. Dombey was very taciturn, and very dignified, and very
confident of carrying out his purpose; and remained so.
He did not design accompanying the family to Brighton; but he graciously
informed Cleopatra at breakfast, on the morning of departure, which arrived a
day or two afterwards, that he might be expected down, soon. There was no time
to be lost in getting Cleopatra to any place recommended as being salutary; for,
indeed, she seemed upon the wane, and turning of the earth, earthy.
Without having undergone any decided second attack of her malady, the old
woman seemed to have crawled backward in her recovery from the first. She was
more lean and shrunken, more uncertain in her imbecility, and made stranger
confusions in her mind and memory. Among other symptoms of this last affliction,
she fell into the habit of confounding the names of her two sons-in-law, the
living and the deceased; and in general called Mr. Dombey, either `Grangeby,' or
`Domber,' or indifferently, both.
But she was youthful, very youthful still; and in her youthfulness appeared
at breakfast, before going away, in a new bonnet made express, and a travelling
robe that was embroidered and braided like an old baby's. It was not easy to put
her into a fly-away bonnet now, or to keep the bonnet in its place on the back
of her poor nodding head, when it was got on. In this instance, it had not only
the extraneous effect of being always on one side, but of being perpetually
tapped on the crown by Flowers the maid, who attended in the background during
breakfast to perform that duty.
`Now, my dearest Grangeby,' said Mrs. Skewton, `you must posively prom,' she
cut some of her words short, and cut out others altogether, `come down very
soon.'
`I said just now, Madam,' returned Mr. Dombey, loudly and laboriously, `that
I am coming in a day or two.'
`Bless you, Domber!'
Here the Major, who was come to take leave of the ladies, and who was staring
through his apoplectic eyes at Mrs. Skewton's face, with the disinterested
composure of an immortal being, said:
`Begad, Ma'am, you don't ask old Joe to come!'
`Sterious wretch, who's he?' lisped Cleopatra. But a tap on the bonnet from
Flowers seeming to jog her memory, she added, `Oh! You mean yourself, you
naughty creature!'
`Devilish queer, Sir,' whispered the Major to Mr. Dombey. `Bad case. Never
did wrap up enough;' the Major being buttoned to the chin. `Why who should J. B.
mean by Joe, but old Joe Bagstock--Joseph--your slave--Joe, Ma'am? Here!Here's
the man! Here are the Bagstock bellows, Ma'am!' cried the Major, striking
himself a sounding blow on the chest.
`My dearest Edith--Grangeby--it's most trordinry thing,' said Cleopatra,
pettishly, `that Major--'
`Bagstock! J. B.!' cried the Major, seeing that she faltered for his name.
`Well, it don't matter,' said Cleopatra. `Edith, my love, you know I never
could remember names--what was it? oh!--most trordinry thing that so many people
want to come down to see me. I'm not going for long. I'm coming back. Surely
they can wait, till I come back!'
Cleopatra looked all round the table as she said it, and appeared very
uneasy.
`I won't have visitors--really don't want visitors,' she said; `little
repose--and all that sort of thing--is what I quire. No odious brutes must
proach me till I've shaken off this numbness;' and in a grisly resumption of her
coquettish ways, she made a dab at the Major with her fan, but overset Mr.
Dombey's breakfast cup instead, which was in quite a different direction.
Then she called for Withers, and charged him to see particularly that word
was left about some trivial alterations in her room, which must be all made
before she came back, and which must be set about immediately, as there was no
saying how soon she might come back; for she had a great many engagements, and
all sorts of people to call upon. Withers received these directions with
becoming deference, and gave his guarantee for their execution; but when he
withdrew a pace or two behind her, it appeared as if he couldn't help looking
strangely at the Major, who couldn't help looking strangely at Mr. Dombey, who
couldn't help looking strangely at Cleopatra, who couldn't help nodding her
bonnet over one eye, and rattling her knife and fork upon her plate in using
them, as if she were playing castanets.
Edith alone never lifted her eyes to any face at the table, and never seemed
dismayed by anything her mother said or did. She listened to her disjointed
talk, or at least, turned her head towards her when addressed; replied in a few
low words when necessary; and sometimes stopped her when she was rambling, or
brought her thoughts back with a monosyllable, to the point from which they had
strayed. The mother, however unsteady in other things, was constant in
this--that she was always observant of her. She would look at the beautiful
face, in its marble stillness and severity, now with a kind of fearful
admiration; now in a giggling foolish effort to move it to a smile; now with
capricious tears and jealous shakings of her head, as imagining herself
neglected by it; always with an attraction towards it, that never fluctuated
like her other ideas, but had constant possession of her. From Edith she would
sometimes look at Florence, and back again at Edith, in a manner that was wild
enough; and sometimes she would try to look elsewhere, as if to escape from her
daughter's face; but back to it she seemed forced to come, although it never
sought hers unless sought, or troubled her with one single glance.
The breakfast concluded, Mrs. Skewton, affecting to lean girlishly upon the
Major's arm, but heavily supported on the other side by Flowers the maid, and
propped up behind by Withers the page, was conducted to the carriage, which was
to take her, Florence, and Edith to Brighton.
`And is Joseph absolutely banished?' said the Major, thrusting in his purple
face over the steps. `Damme, Ma'am, is Cleopatra so hard-hearted as to forbid
her faithful Antony Bagstock to approach the presence?'
`Go along!' said Cleopatra, `I can't bear you. You shall see me when I come
back, if you are very good.'
`Tell Joseph, he may live in hope, Ma'am,' said the Major; `or he'll die in
despair.'
Cleopatra shuddered, and leaned back. `Edith, my dear,' she said. `Tell
him--'
`What?'
`Such dreadful words,' said Cleopatra. `He uses such dreadful words!'
Edith signed to him to retire, gave the word to go on, and left the
objectionable Major to Mr. Dombey. To whom he returned, whistling.
`I'll tell you what, Sir,' said the Major, with his hands behind him, and his
legs very wide asunder, `a fair friend of ours has removed to Queer Street.'
`What do you mean, Major?' inquired Mr. Dombey.
`I mean to say, Dombey,' returned the Major, `that you'll soon be an
orphan-in-law.'
Mr. Dombey appeared to relish this waggish description of himself so very
little, that the Major wound up with the horse's cough, as an expression of
gravity.
`Damme, Sir,' said the Major, `there is no use in disguising a fact. Joe is
blunt, Sir. That's his nature. If you take old Josh at all, you take him as you
find him; and a de-vilish rusty, old rasper, of a close-toothed, J. B. file, you
do find him. Dombey,' said the Major, `your wife's mother is on the move, Sir.'
`I fear,' returned Mr. Dombey, with much philosophy, `that Mrs. Skewton is
shaken.'
`Shaken, Dombey!' said the Major. `Smashed!'
`Change, however,' pursued Mr. Dombey, `and attention may do much yet.'
`Don't believe it, Sir,' returned the Major. `Damme, Sir, she never wrapped
up enough. If a man don't wrap up,' said the Major, taking in another button of
his buff waistcoat, `he has nothing to fall back upon. But some people will die.
They will do it. Damme, they will. They're obstinate. I tell you what, Dombey,
it may not be ornamental; it may not be refined; it may be rough and tough; but
a little of the genuine old English Bagstock stamina, Sir, would do all the good
in the world to the human breed.'
After imparting this precious piece of information, the Major, who was
certainly true-blue, whatever other endowments he may have possessed or wanted,
coming within the `genuine old English' classification, which has never been
exactly ascertained, took his lobster-eyes and his apoplexy to the club, and
choked there all day.
Cleopatra, at one time fretful, at another self-complacent, sometimes awake,
sometimes asleep, and at all times juvenile, reached Brighton the same night,
fell to pieces as usual, and was put away in bed; where a gloomy fancy might
have pictured a more potent skeleton than the maid, who should have been one,
watching at the rose-coloured curtains, which were carried down to shed their
bloom upon her.
It was settled in high council of medical authority that she should take a
carriage airing every day, and that it was important she should get out every
day, and walk if she could. Edith was ready to attend her--always ready to
attend her, with the same mechanical attention and immoveable beauty--and they
drove out alone; for Edith had an uneasiness in the presence of Florence, now
that her mother was worse, and told Florence, with a kiss, that she would rather
they two went alone.
Mrs. Skewton, on one particular day, was in the irresolute, exacting, jealous
temper that had developed itself on her recovery from her first attack. After
sitting silent in the carriage watching Edith for some time, she took her hand
and kissed it passionately. The hand was neither given nor withdrawn, but simply
yielded to her raising of it, and being released, dropped down again, almost as
if it were insensible. At this she began to whimper and moan, and say what a
mother she had been, and how she was forgotten! This she continued to do at
capricious intervals, even when they had alighted: when she herself was halting
along with the joint support of Withers and a stick, and Edith was walking by
her side, and the carriage slowly following at a little distance.
It was a bleak, lowering, windy day, and they were out upon the Downs with
nothing but a bare sweep of land between them and the sky. The mother, with a
querulous satisfaction in the monotony of her complaint, was still repeating it
in a low voice from time to time, and the proud form of her daughter moved
beside her slowly, when there came advancing over a dark ridge before them, two
other figures, which in the distance, were so like an exaggerated imitation of
their own, that Edith stopped.
Almost as she stopped, the two figures stopped; and that one which to Edith's
thinking was like a distorted shadow of her mother, spoke to the other,
earnestly, and with a pointing hand towards them. That one seemed inclined to
turn back, but the other, in which Edith recognised enough that was like herself
to strike her with an unusual feeling, not quite free from fear, came on; and
then they came on together.
The greater part of this observation, she made while walking towards them,
for her stoppage had been momentary. Nearer observation sowed her that they were
poorly dressed, as wanderers about the country; that the younger woman carried
knitted work or some such goods for sale; and that the old one toiled on
empty-handed.
And yet, however far removed she was in dress, in dignity, in beauty, Edith
could not but compare the younger woman with herself, still. It may have been
that she saw upon her face some traces which she knew were lingering in her own
soul, if not yet written on that index; but, as the woman came on, returning her
gaze, fixing her shining eyes upon her, undoubtedly presenting something of her
own air and stature, and appearing to reciprocate her own thoughts, she felt a
chill creep over her, as if the day were darkening, and the wind were colder.
They had now come up. The old woman holding out her hand importunately,
stopped to beg of Mrs. Skewton. The younger one stopped too, and she and Edith
looked in one another's eyes.
`What is it that you have to sell?' said Edith.
`Only this,' returned the woman, holding out her wares, without looking at
them. `I sold myself long ago.'
`My lady, don't believe her,' croaked the old woman to Mrs. Skewton; `don't
believe what she says. She loves to talk like that. She's my handsome and
undutiful daughter. She gives me nothing but reproaches, my lady, for all I have
done for her. Look at her now, my lady, how she turns upon her poor old mother
with her looks.'
As Mrs. Skewton drew her purse out with a trembling hand, and eagerly fumbled
for some money, which the other old woman greedily watched for--their heads all
but touching, in their hurry and decrepitude--Edith interposed:
`I have seen you,' addressing the old woman, `before.'
`Yes, my lady,' with a curtsey. `Down in Warwickshire. The morning among the
trees. When you wouldn't give me nothing. But the gentleman, he give me
something! Oh, bless him, bless him!' mumbled the old woman, holding up her
skinny hand, and grinning frightfully at her daughter.
`It's of no use attempting to stay me, Edith!' said Mrs. Skewton, angrily
anticipating an objection from her. `You know nothing about it. I won't be
dissuaded. I am sure this is an excellent woman, and a good mother.'
`Yes, my lady, yes,' chattered the old woman, holding out her avaricious
hand. `Thankee, my lady. Lord bless you, my lady. Sixpence more, my pretty lady,
as a good mother yourself.'
`And treated undutifully enough, too, my good old creature, sometimes, I
assure you,' said Mrs. Skewton, whimpering. `There! Shake hands with me. You're
a very good old creature--full of what's-his-name--and all that. You're all
affection and et cetera, an't you?'
`Oh, yes, my lady!'
`Yes, I'm sure you are; and so's that gentlemanly creature Grangeby. I must
really shake hands with you again. And now you can go, you know; and I hope,'
addressing the daughter, `you'll show more gratitude, and natural
what'sits-name, and all the rest of it--but I never did> remember names--for
there never was a better mother than the good old creature's been to you. Come,
Edith!'
As the ruin of Cleopatra tottered off whimpering, and wiping its eyes with a
gingerly remembrance of rouge in their neighbourhood, the old woman hobbled
another way, mumbling and counting her money. Not one word more, nor one other
gesture, had been exchanged between Edith and the younger woman, but neither had
removed her eyes from the other for a moment. They had remained confronted until
now, when Edith, as awakening from a dream, passed slowly on.
`You're a handsome woman,' muttered her shadow, looking after her; `but good
looks won't save us. And you're a proud woman; but pride won't save us. We had
need to know each other when we meet again!'
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