The Thunderbolt
THE barrier between Mr. Dombey and his wife was not weakened by time.
Ill-assorted couple, unhappy in themselves and in each other, bound together by
no tie but the manacle that joined their fettered hands, and straining that so
harshly, in their shrinking asunder, that it wore and chafed to the bone, Time,
consoler of affliction and softener of anger, could do nothing to help them.
Their pride, however different in kind and object, was equal in degree; and, in
their flinty opposition, struck out fire between them which might smoulder or
might blaze, as circumstances were, but burned up everything within their mutual
reach, and made their marriage way a road of ashes.
Let us be just to him: In the monstrous delusion of his life, swelling with
every grain of sand that shifted in its glass, he urged her on, he little
thought to what, or considered how; but still his feeling towards her, such as
it was, remained as at first. She had the grand demerit of unaccountably putting
herself in opposition to the recognition of his vast importance, and to the
acknowledgment of her complete submission to it, and so far it was necessary to
correct and reduce her; but otherwise he still considered her, in his cold way,
a lady capable of doing honour, if she would, to his choice and name, and of
reflecting credit on his proprietorship.
Now, she, with all her might of passionate and proud resentment, bent her
dark glance from day to day, and hour to hour--from that night in her own
chamber, when she had sat gazing at the shadows on the wall, to the deeper night
fast coming--upon one figure directing a crowd of humiliations and exasperations
against her; and that figure, still her husband's.
Was Mr. Dombey's master-vice, that ruled him so inexorably, an unnatural
characteristic? It might be worth while, sometimes, to inquire what Nature is,
and how men work to change her, and whether, in the enforced distortions so
produced, it is not natural to be unnatural. Coop any son or daughter of our
mighty mother within narrow range, and bind the prisoner to one idea, and foster
it by servile worship of it on the part of the few timid or designing people
standing round, and what is Nature to the willing captive who has never risen up
upon the wings of a free mind--drooping and useless soon--to see her in her
comprehensive truth!
Alas! are there so few things in the world, about us, most unnatural, and yet
most natural in being so? Hear the magistrate or judge admonish the unnatural
outcasts of society; unnatural in brutal habits, unnatural in want of decency,
unnatural in losing and confounding all distinctions between good and evil;
unnatural in ignorance, in vice, in recklessness, in contumacy, in mind, in
looks, in everything. But follow the good clergyman or doctor, who, with his
life imperilled at every breath he draws, goes down into their dens, lying
within the echoes of our carriage wheels and daily tread upon the pavement
stones. Look round upon the world of odious sights--millions of immortal
creatures have no other world on earth--at the lightest mention of which
humanity revolts, and dainty delicacy living in the next street, stops her ears,
and lisps `I don't believe it!' Breathe the polluted air, foul with every
impurity that is poisonous to health and life; and have every sense, conferred
upon our race for its delight and happiness, offended, sickened and disgusted,
and made a channel by which misery and death alone can enter. Vainly attempt to
think of any simple plant, or flower, or wholesome weed, that, set in this
foetid bed, could have its natural growth, or put its little leaves off to the
sun as GOD designed it. And then, calling up some ghastly child, with stunted
form and wicked face, hold forth on its unnatural sinfulness, and lament its
being, so early, far away from Heaven--but think a little of its having been
conceived, and born and bred, in Hell!
Those who study the physical sciences, and bring them to bear upon the health
of Man, tell us that if the noxious particles that rise from vitiated air were
palpable to the sight, we should see them lowering in a dense black cloud above
such haunts, and rolling slowly on to corrupt the better portions of a town. But
if the moral pestilence that rises with them and in the eternal laws of outraged
Nature, is inseparable from them, could be made discernible too, how terrible
the revelation!Then should we see depravity, impiety, drunkenness, theft,
murder, and a long train of nameless sins against the natural affections and
repulsions of mankind, overhanging the devoted spots, and creeping on, to blight
the innocent and spread contagion among the pure. Then should we see how the
same poisoned fountains that flow into our hospitals and lazarhouses, inundate
the jails, and make the convict-ships swim deep, and roll across the seas, and
over-run vast continents with crime. Then should we stand appalled to know, that
where we generate disease to strike our children down and entail itself on
unborn generations, there also we breed, by the same certain process, infancy
that knows no innocence, youth without modesty or shame, maturity that is mature
in nothing but in suffering and guilt, blasted old age that is a scandal on the
form we bear. Unnatural humanity! When we shall gather grapes from thorns, and
figs from thistles; when fields of grain shall spring up from the offal in the
bye-ways of our wicked cities, and roses bloom in the fact churchyards that they
cherish; then we may look for natural humanity and find it growing from such
seed.
Oh for a good spirit who would take the house-tops off, with a more potent
and benignant hand than the lame demon in the tale, and show a Christian people
what dark shapes issue from amidst their homes, to swell the retinue of the
Destroying Angel as he moves forth among them! For only one night's view of the
pale phantoms rising from the scenes of our toolong neglect; and from the thick
and sullen air where Vice and Fever propagate together, raining the tremendous
social retributions which are ever pouring down, and ever coming thicker! Bright
and blest the morning that should rise on such a night: for men, delayed to no
more by stumbling-blocks of their own making, which are but specks of dust upon
the path between them and eternity, would then apply themselves, like creatures
of one common origin, owing one duty to the Father of one family, and tending to
one common end, to make the world a better place!
Not the less bright and blest would that day be for rousing some who never
have looked out upon the world of human life around them, to a knowledge of
their own relation to it, and for making them acquainted with a perversion of
nature in their own contracted sympathies and estimates; as great, and yet as
natural in its development when once begun, as the lowest degradation known.
But no such day had ever dawned on Mr. Dombey, or his wife; and the course of
each was taken.
Through six months that ensued upon his accident, they held the same
relations one towards the other. A marble rock could not have stood more
obdurately in his way than she; and no chilled spring, lying uncheered by any
ray of light in the depths of a deep cave, could be more sullen or more cold
than he.
The hope that had fluttered within her when the promise of her new home
dawned, was quite gone from the heart of Florence now. That home was nearly two
years old; and even the patient trust that was in her, could not survive the
daily blight of such experience. If she had any lingering fancy in the nature of
hope left, that Edith and her father might be happier together, in some distant
time, she had none, now, that her father would ever love her. The little
interval in which she had imagined that she saw some small relenting in him, was
forgotten in the long remembrance of his coldness since and before, or only
remembered as a sorrowful delusion.
Florence loved him still, but, by degrees, had come to love him rather as
some dear one who had been, or who might have been, than as the hard reality
before her eyes. Something of the softened sadness with which she loved the
memory of little Paul, or of her mother, seemed to enter now into her thoughts
of him, and to make them, as it were, a dear remembrance. Whether it was that he
was dead to her, and that partly for this reason, partly for his share in those
old objects of her affection, and partly for the long association of him with
hopes that were withered and tendernesses he had frozen, she could not have
told; but the father whom she loved began to be a vague and dreamy idea to her:
hardly more substantially connected with her real life, than the image she would
sometimes conjure up, of her dear brother yet alive, and growing to be a man,
who would protect and cherish her.
The change, if it may be called one, had stolen on her like the change from
childhood to womanhood, and had come with it. Florence was almost seventeen,
when, in her lonely musings, she was conscious of these thoughts.
She was often alone now, for the old association between her and her mama was
greatly changed. At the time of her father's accident, and when he was lying in
his room downstairs, Florence had first observed that Edith avoided her. Wounded
and shocked, and yet unable to reconcile this with her affection when they did
meet, she sought her in her own room at night, once more.
`Mama,' said Florence, stealing softly to her side, `have I offended you?'
Edith answered `No.'
`I must have done something,' said Florence. `Tell me what it is. You have
changed your manner to me, dear Mama. I cannot say how instantly I feel the
least change; for I love you with my whole heart.'
`As I do you,' said Edith. `Ah, Florence, believe me never more than now!'
`Why do you go away from me so often, and keep away?' asked Florence. `And
why do you sometimes look so strangely on me, dear Mama? You do so, do you not?'
Edith signified assent with her dark eyes.
`Why?' returned Florence imploringly. `Tell me why, that I may know how to
please you better; and tell me this shall not be so any more.'
`My Florence,' answered Edith, taking the hand that embraced her neck, and
looking into the eyes that looked into hers so lovingly, as Florence knelt upon
the ground before her; `why it is, I cannot tell you. It is neither for me to
say, nor you to hear; but that it is, and that it must be, I know. Should I do
it if I did not?'
`Are we to be estranged, Mama? asked Florence, gazing at her like one
frightened.
Edith's silent lips formed `Yes.'
Florence looked at her with increasing fear and wonder, until she could see
her no more through the blinding tears that ran down her face.
`Florence! my life!' said Edith, hurriedly, `listen to me. I cannot bear to
see this grief. Be calmer. You see that I am composed, and is it nothing to me?'
She resumed her steady voice and manner as she said the latter words, and
added presently:
`Not wholly estranged. Partially: and only that, in appearance, Florence, for
in my own breast I am still the same to you, and ever will be. But what I do is
not done for myself.'
`Is it for me, Mama?' asked Florence.
`It is enough,' said Edith, after a pause, `to know what it is; why, matters
little. Dear Florence, it is better--it is necessary--it must be--that our
association should be less frequent. The confidence there has been between us
must be broken off.'
`When?' cried Florence. `Oh, Mama, when?'
`Now,' said Edith.
`For all time to come?' asked Florence.
`I do not say that,' answered Edith. `I do not know that. Nor will I say that
companionship between us is, at the best, an ill-assorted and unholy union, of
which I might have known no good could come. My way here has been through paths
that you will never tread, and my way henceforth may lie--God knows--I do not
see it--'
Her voice died away into silence; and she sat, looking at Florence, and
almost shrinking from her, with the same strange dread and wild avoidance that
Florence had noticed once before. The same dark pride and rage succeeded,
sweeping over her form and features like an angry chord across the strings of a
wild harp. But no softness or humility ensued on that. She did not lay her head
down now, and weep, and say that she had no hope but in Florence. She held it up
as if she were a beautiful Medusa, looking on him, face to face, to strike him
dead. Yes, and she would have done it, if she had had the charm.
`Mama,' said Florence, anxiously, `there is a change in you, in more than
what you say to me, which alarms me. Let me stay with you a little.'
`No,' said Edith, `no, dearest. I am best left alone now, and I do best to
keep apart from you, of all else. Ask me no questions, but believe that what I
am when I seem fickle or capricious to you, I am not of my own will, or for
myself. Believe, though we are stranger to each other than we have been, that I
am unchanged to you within. Forgive me for having ever darkened your dark
home--I am a shadow on it, I know well--and let us never speak of this again.'
`Mama,' sobbed Florence, `we are not to part?'
`We do this that we may not part,' said Edith. `Ask no more. Go, Florence! My
love and my remorse go with you!'
She embraced her, and dismissed her; and as Florence passed out of her room,
Edith looked on the retiring figure, as if her good angel went out in that form,
and left her to the haughty and indignant passions that now claimed her for
their own, and set their seal upon her brow.
From that hour, Florence and she were, as they had been, no more. For days
together, they would seldom meet, except at table, and when Mr. Dombey was
present. Then Edith, imperious, inflexible, and silent, never looked at her.
Whenever Mr. Carker was of the party, as he often was, during the progress of
Mr. Dombey's recovery, and afterwards, Edith held herself more removed from her,
and was more distant towards her, than at other times. Yet she and Florence
never encountered, when there was no one by, but she would embrace her as
affectionately as of old, though not with the same relenting of her proud
aspect; and often, when she had been out late, she would steal up to Florence's
room, as she had been used to do, in the dark, and whisper `Good Night,' on her
pillow. When unconscious, in her slumber, of such visits, Florence would
sometimes awake, as from a dream of those words, softly spoken, and would seem
to feel the touch of lips upon her face. But less and less often as the months
went on.
And now the void Florence's own heart began again, indeed, to make a solitude
around her. As the image of the father whom she loved had insensibly become a
mere abstraction, so Edith, following the fate of all the rest about whom her
affections had entwined themselves, was fleeting, fading, growing paler in the
distance, every day. Little by little, she receded from Florence, like the
retiring ghost of what she had been; little by little, the chasm between them
widened and seemed deeper; little by little, all the power of earnestness and
tenderness she had shown, was frozen up in the bold, angry hardihood with which
she stood, upon the brink of a deep precipice unseen by Florence, daring to look
down.
There was but one consideration to set against the heavy loss of Edith, and
though it was slight comfort to her burdened heart, she tried to think it some
relief. No longer divided between her affection and duty to the two, Florence
could love both and do no injustice to either. As shadows of her fond
imagination, she could give them equal place in her own bosom, and wrong them
with no doubts.
So she tried to do. At times, and often too, wondering speculations on the
cause of this change in Edith would obtrude themselves upon her mind and
frighten her; but in the calm of its abandonment once more to silent grief and
loneliness, it was not a curious mind. Florence had only to remember that her
star of promise was clouded in the general gloom that hung upon the house, and
to weep and be resigned.
Thus living, in a dream wherein the overflowing love of her young heart
expended itself on airy forms, and in a real world where she had experienced
little but the rolling back of that strong tide upon itself, Florence grew to be
seventeen. Timid and retiring as her solitary life had made her, it had not
embittered her sweet temper, or her earnest nature. A child in innocent
simplicity; a woman in her modest self-reliance, and her deep intensity of
feeling; both child and woman seemed at once expressed in her fair face and
fragile delicacy of shape, and gracefully to mingle there;--as if the spring
should be unwilling to depart when summer came, and sought to blend the earlier
beauties of the flowers with their bloom. But in her thrilling voice, in her
calm eyes, sometimes in a strange ethereal light that seemed to rest upon her
head, and always in a certain pensive air upon her beauty, there was an
expression, such as had been seen in the dead boy; and the council in the
Servants'Hall whispered so among themselves, and shook their heads, and ate and
drank the more, in a closer bond of goodfellowship.
This observant body had plenty to say of Mr. and Mrs. Dombey, and of Mr.
Carker, who appeared to be a mediator between them, and who came and went as if
he were trying to make peace, but never could. They all deplored the
uncomfortable state of affairs, and all agreed that Mrs. Pipchin (whose
unpopularity was not to be surpassed) had some hand in it; but, upon the whole,
it was agreeable to have so good a subject for a rallying point, and they made a
great deal of it, and enjoyed themselves very much.
The general visitors who came to the house, and those among whom Mr. and Mrs.
Dombey visited, thought it a pretty equal match, as to haughtiness, at all
events, and thought nothing more about it. The young lady with the back did not
appear for some time after Mrs. Skewton's death; observing to some particular
friends, with her usual engaging little scream, that she couldn't separate the
family from a notion of tombstones, and horrors of that sort; but when she did
come, she saw nothing wrong, except Mr. Dombey's wearing a bunch of gold seals
to his watch, which shocked her very much, as an exploded superstition. This
youthful fascinator considered a daughterin-law objectionable in principle;
otherwise, she had nothing to say against Florence, but that she sadly wanted
`style'--which might mean back, perhaps. Many, who only came to the house on
state occasions, hardly knew who Florence was, and said, going home, `Indeed,
was that Miss Dombey, in the corner? Very pretty, but a little delicate and
thoughtful in appearance!'
None the less so, certainly, for her life of the last six months, Florence
took her seat at the dinner-table, on the day before the second anniversary of
her father's marriage to Edith (Mrs. Skewton had been lying stricken with
paralysis when the first came round), with an uneasiness, amounting to dread.
She had no other warrant for it, than the occasion, the expression of her
father's face, in the hasty glance she caught of it, and the presence of Mr.
Carker, which, always unpleasant to her, was more so on this day, than she had
ever felt it before.
Edith was richly dressed, for she and Mr. Dombey were engaged in the evening
to some large assembly, and the dinnerhour that day was late. She did not appear
until they were seated at table, when Mr. Carker rose and led her to her chair.
Beautiful and lustrous as she was, there was that in her face and air which
seemed to separate her hopelessly from Florence, and from every one, for ever
more. And yet, for an instant, Florence saw a beam of kindness in her eyes, when
they were turned on her, that made the distance to which she had withdrawn
herself, a greater cause of sorrow and regret than ever.
There was very little said at dinner. Florence heard her father speak to Mr.
Carker sometimes on business matters, and heard him softly reply, but she paid
little attention to what they said, and only wished the dinner at an end. When
the dessert was placed upon the table, and they were left alone, with no servant
in attendance, Mr. Dombey, who had been several times clearing his throat in a
manner that augured no good, said:
`Mrs. Dombey, you know, I suppose, that I have instructed the housekeeper
that there will be some company to dinner here to-morrow.'
`I do not dine at home,' she answered.
`Not a large party,' pursued Mr. Dombey, with an indifferent assumption of
not having heard her; `merely some twelve or fourteen. My sister, Major
Bagstock, and some others whom you know but slightly.'
`I do not dine at home,' she repeated.
`However doubtful reason I may have, Mrs. Dombey,' said Mr. Dombey, still
going majestically on, as if she had not spoken, `to hold the occasion in very
pleasant remembrance just now, there are appearances in these things which must
be maintained before the world. If you have no respect for yourself, Mrs.
Dombey--'
`I have none,' she said.
`Madam,' cried Mr. Dombey, striking his hand upon the table, `hear me if you
please. I say, if you have no respect for yourself--'
`And I say I have none,' she answered.
He looked at her; but the face she showed him in return would not have
changed, if death itself had looked.
`Carker,' said Mr. Dombey, turning more quietly to that gentleman, `as you
have been my medium of communication with Mrs. Dombey on former occasions, and
as I choose to preserve the decencies of life, so far as I am individually
concerned, I will trouble you to have the goodness to inform Mrs. Dombey that if
she has no respect for herself, I have some respect for myself, and therefore
insist on my arrangements for to-morrow.'
`Tell your sovereign master, Sir,' said Edith, `that I will take leave to
speak to him on this subject by-and-bye, and that I will speak to him alone.'
`Mr. Carker, Madam,' said her husband, `being in possession of the reason
which obliges me to refuse you that privilege, shall be absolved from the
delivery of any such message.' He saw her eyes move, while he spoke, and
followed them with his own.
`Your daughter is present, Sir,' said Edith.
`My daughter will remain present,' said Mr. Dombey.
Florence, who had risen, sat down again, hiding her face in her hands, and
trembling.
`My daughter, Madam'--began Mr. Dombey.
But Edith stopped him, in a voice which, although not raised in the least,
was so clear, emphatic, and distinct, that it might have been heard in a
whirlwind.
`I tell you I will speak to you alone,' she said. `If you are not mad, heed
what I say.'
`I have authority to speak to you, Madam,' returned her husband, `when and
where I please; and it is my pleasure to speak here and now.'
She rose up as if to leave the room; but sat down again, and looking at him
with all outward composure, said, in the same voice:
`You shall!'
`I must tell you first, that there is a threatening appearance in your
manner, Madam,' said Mr. Dombey, `which does not become you.'
She laughed. The shaken diamonds in her hair started and trembled. There are
fables of precious stones that would turn pale, their wearer being in danger.
Had these been such, their imprisoned rays of light would have have taken flight
that moment, and they would have been as dull as lead.
Carker listened, with his eyes cast down.
`As to my daughter, Madam,' said Mr. Dombey, resuming the thread of his
discourse, `it is by no means inconsistent with her duty to me, that she should
know what conduct to avoid. At present you are a very strong example to her of
this kind, and I hope she may profit by it.'
`I would not stop you now,' returned his wife, immoveable in eye, and voice,
and attitude; `I would not rise and go away, and save you the utterance of one
word, if the room were burning.'
Mr. Dombey moved his head, as if in a sarcastic acknowledgment of the
attention, and resumed. But not with so much self-possession as before; for
Edith's indifference to him and his censure, chafed and galled him like a
stiffening wound.
`Mrs. Dombey,' said he, `it may not be inconsistent with my daughter's
improvement to know how very much to be lamented, and how necessary to be
corrected, a stubborn disposition is, especially when it is indulged
in--unthankfully indulged in, I will add--after the gratification of ambition
and interest. Both of which, I believe, had some share in inducing you to occupy
your present station at this board.'
`No! I would not rise, and go away, and save you the utterance of one word,'
she repeated, exactly as before, `if the room were burning.'
`It may be natural enough, Mrs. Dombey,' he pursued, `that you should be
uneasy in the presence of any auditors of these disagreeable truths; though
why'--he could not hide his real feelings here, or keep his eyes from glancing
gloomily at Florence--`why any one can give them greater force and point than
myself, whom they so nearly concern, I do not pretend to understand. It may be
natural enough that you should object to hear, in anybody's presence, that there
is a rebellious principle within you which you cannot curb too soon; which you
must curb, Mrs. Dombey; and which, I regret to say, I remember to have seen
manifested--with some doubt and displeasure, on more than one occasion before
our marriage-towards your deceased mother. But you have the remedy in your own
hands. I by no means forgot, when I began, that my daughter was present, Mrs.
Dombey. I beg you will not forget, to-morrow, that there are several persons
present; and that, with some regard to appearances, you will receive your
company in a becoming manner.'
`So it is not enough,' said Edith, `that you know what has passed between
yourself and me; it is not enough that you can look here,' pointing at Carker,
who still listened, with his eyes cast down, `and be reminded of the affronts
you have put upon me; it is not enough that you can look here,' pointing to
Florence with a hand that slightly trembled for the first and only time, `and
think of what you have done, and of the ingenious agony, daily, hourly,
constant, you have made me feel in doing it; it is not enough that this day, of
all others in the year, is memorable to me for a struggle (well-deserved, but
not conceivable by such as you) in which I wish I had died! You add to all this,
do you, the last crowning meanness of making her a witness of the depth to which
I have fallen; when you know that you have made me sacrifice to her peace, the
only gentle feeling and interest of my life, when you know that for her sake, I
would now if could--but I can not, my soul recoils from you too much--submit
myself wholly to your will and be the meekest vassal that you have!'
This was not the way to minister to Mr. Dombey's greatness. The old feeling
was roused by what she said, into a stronger and fiercer existence than it had
ever had. Again, his neglected child, at this rough passage of his life, put
forth by even this rebellious woman, as powerful where he was powerless, and
everything where he was nothing!
He turned on Florence, as if it were she who had spoken, and bade her leave
the room. Florence with her covered face obeyed, trembling and weeping as she
went.
`I understand, Madam,' said Mr. Dombey, with an angry flush of triumph, `the
spirit of opposition that turned your affections in that channel, but they have
been met, Mrs. Dombey; they have been met, and turned back!'
`The worse for you!' she answered, with her voice and manner still unchanged.
`Aye!' for he turned sharply when she said so, `what is the worse for me, is
twenty million times the worse for you. Heed that, if you heed nothing else.'
The arch of diamonds spanning her dark hair, flashed and glittered like a
starry bridge. There was no warning in them, or they would have turned as dull
and dim as tarnished honour. Carker still sat and listened, with his eyes cast
down.
`Mrs. Dombey,' said Mr. Dombey, resuming as much as he could of his arrogant
composure, `you will not conciliate me, or turn me from any purpose, by this
course of conduct.'
`It is the only true although it is a faint expression of what is within me,'
she replied. `But if I thought it would conciliate you, I would repress it, if
it were repressible by any human effort. I will do nothing that you ask.'
`I am not accustomed to ask, Mrs. Dombey,' he observed; `I direct.'
`I will hold no place in your house to-morrow, or on any recurrence of
to-morrow. I will be exhibited to no one, as the refractory slave you purchased,
such a time. If I kept my marriage-day, I would keep it as a day of shame.
Self-respect!appearances before the world! what are these to me? You have done
all you can to make them nothing to me, and they are nothing.'
`Carker,' said Mr. Dombey, speaking with knitted brows, and after a moment's
consideration, `Mrs. Dombey is so forgetful of herself and me in all this, and
places me in a position so unsuited to my character, that I must bring this
state of matters to a close.'
`Release me, then,' said Edith, immoveable in voice, in look, and bearing, as
she had been throughout, `from the chain by which I am bound. Let me go.'
`Madam?' exclaimed Mr. Dombey.
`Loose me. Set me free!'
`Madam?' he repeated. `Mrs. Dombey?'
`Tell him,' said Edith, addressing her proud face to Carker, `that I wish for
a separation between us. That there had better be one. That I recommend it to
him. Tell him it may take place on his own terms--his wealth is nothing to
me--but that it cannot be too soon.'
`Good Heaven, Mrs. Dombey!' said her husband, with supreme amazement, `do you
imagine it possible that I could ever listen to such a proposition? Do you know
who I am, Madam? Do you know what I represent? Did you ever hear of Dombey and
Son? People to say that Mr. Dombey--Mr. Dombey!--was separated from his wife!
Common people to talk of Mr. Dombey and his domestic affairs! Do you seriously
think, Mrs. Dombey, that I would permit my name to be handed about in such
connexion? Pooh, pooh, Madam! Fie for shame! You're absurd.' Mr. Dombey
absolutely laughed.
But not as she did. She had better have been dead than laugh as she did, in
reply, with her intent look fixed upon him. He had better have been dead, than
sitting there, in his magnificence, to hear her.
`No, Mrs. Dombey,' he resumed. `No, Madam. There is no possibility of
separation between you and me, and therefore I the more advise you to be
awakened to a sense of duty. And, Carker, as I was about to say to you--'
Mr. Carker, who had sat and listened all this time, now raised his eyes, in
which there was a bright unusual light.
`--As I was about to say to you,'resumed Mr. Dombey, `I must beg you, now
that matters have come to this, to inform Mrs. Dombey, that it is not the rule
of my life to allow myself to be thwarted by anybody--anybody, Carker--or to
suffer anybody to be paraded as a stronger motive for obedience in those who owe
obedience to me than I am myself. The mention that has been made of my daughter,
and the use that is made of my daughter, in opposition to me, are unnatural.
Whether my daughter is in actual concert with Mrs. Dombey, I do not know, and do
not care; but after what Mrs. Dombey has said to-day, and my daughter has heard
to-day, I beg you to make known to Mrs. Dombey, that if she continues to make
this house the scene of contention it has become, I shall consider my daughter
responsible in some degree, on that lady's own avowal, and shall visit her with
my severe displeasure. Mrs. Dombey has asked "whether it is not enough," that
she had done this and that. You will please to answer no, it is not enough.'
`A moment!' cried Carker, interposing, `permit me! painful as my position is,
at the best, and unusually painful in seeming to entertain a different opinion
from you,' addressing Mr. Dombey, `I must ask, had you not better reconsider the
question of a separation? I know how incompatible it appears with your high
public position, and I know how determined you are when you give Mrs. Dombey to
understand'--the light in his eyes fell upon her as he separated his words each
from each, with the distinctness of so many bells--`that nothing but death can
ever part you. Nothing else. But when you consider that Mrs. Dombey, by living
in this house, and making it as you have said, a scene of contention, not only
has her part in that contention, but compromises Miss Dombey every day (for I
know how determined you are), will you not relieve her from a continual
irritation of spirit, and a continual sense of being unjust to another, almost
intolerable? Does this not seem like--I do not say it is--sacrificing Mrs.
Dombey to the preservation of your pre-eminent and unassailable position?'
Again the light in his eyes fell upon her, as she stood looking at her
husband: now with an extraordinary and awful smile upon her face.
`Carker,' returned Mr. Dombey, with a supercilious frown, and in a tone that
was intended to be final, `you mistake your position in offering advice to me on
such a point, and you mistake me (I am surprised to find) in the character of
your advice. I have no more to say.'
`Perhaps,' said Carker, with an unusual and indefinable taunt in his air,
`you mistook my position, when you honoured me with the negotiations in which I
have been engaged here'--with a motion of his hand towards Mrs. Dombey.
`Not at all, Sir, not at all,' returned the other haughtily. `You were
employed--'
`Being an inferior person, for the humiliation of Mrs. Dombey. I forgot. Oh,
yes, it was expressly understood!' said Carker. `I beg your pardon!'
As he bent his head to Mr. Dombey, with an air of deference that accorded ill
with his words, though they were humbly spoken, he moved it round towards her,
and kept his watching eyes that way.
She had better have turned hideous and dropped dead, than have stood up with
such a smile upon her face, in such a fallen spirit's majesty of scorn and
beauty. She lifted her hand to the tiara of bright jewels radiant on her head,
and, plucking it off with a force that dragged and strained her rich black hair
with heedless cruelty, and brought it tumbling wildly on her shoulders, cast the
gems upon the ground. From each arm, she unclasped a diamond bracelet, flung it
down, and trod upon the glittering heap. Without a word, without a shadow on the
fire of her bright eye, without abatement of her awful smile, she looked on Mr.
Dombey to the last, in moving to the door; and left him.
Florence had heard enough before quitting the room, to know that Edith loved
her yet; that she had suffered for her sake; and that she had kept her
sacrifices quiet, lest they should trouble her peace. She did not want to speak
to her of this--she could not, remembering to whom she was opposed--but she
wished, in one silent and affectionate embrace, to assure her that she felt it
all, and thanked her.
Her father went out alone, that evening, and Florence issuing from her own
chamber soon afterwards, went about the house in search of Edith, but
unavailingly. She was in her own rooms, where Florence had long ceased to go,
and did not dare to venture now, lest she should unconsciously engender new
trouble. Still Florence hoping to meet her before going to bed, changed from
room to room, and wandered through the house so splendid and so dreary, without
remaining anywhere.
She was crossing a gallery of communication that opened at some little
distance on the staircase, and was only lighted on great occasions, when she
saw, through the opening, which was an arch, the figure of a man coming down
some few stairs opposite. Instinctively apprehensive of her father, whom she
supposed it was, she stopped, in the dark, gazing through the arch into the
light. But it was Mr. Carker coming down alone, and looking over the railing
into the hall. No bell was rung to announce his departure, and no servant was in
attendance. He went down quietly, opened the door for himself, glided out, and
shut it softly after him.
Her invincible repugnance to this man, and perhaps the stealthy act of
watching any one, which, even under such innocent circumstances, is in a manner
guilty and oppressive, made Florence shake from head to foot. Her blood seemed
to run cold. As soon as she could--for at first she felt an insurmountable dread
of moving--she went quickly to her own room and locked her door; but even then,
shut in with her dog beside her, felt a chill sensation of horror, as if there
were danger brooding somewhere near her.
It invaded her dreams and disturbed the whole night. Rising in the morning,
unrefreshed, and with a heavy recollection of the domestic unhappiness of the
preceding day, she sought Edith again in all the rooms, and did so, from time to
time, all the morning. But she remained in her own chamber, and Florence saw
nothing of her. Learning, however, that the projected dinner at home was put
off, Florence thought it likely that she would go out in the evening to fulfil
the engagement she had spoken of; and resolved to try and meet her, then, upon
the staircase.
When the evening had set in, she heard, from the room in which she sat on
purpose, a footstep on the stairs that she thought to be Edith's. Hurrying out,
and up towards her room, Florence met her immediately, coming down alone.
What was Florence's affright and wonder when, at sight of her, with her
tearful face, and outstretched arms, Edith recoiled and shrieked!
`Don't come near me!' she cried. `Keep away! Let me go by!'
`Mama!' said Florence.
`Don't call me by that name! Don't speak to me! Don't look at me! Florence!'
shrinking back, as Florence moved a step towards her, `don't touch me!'
As Florence stood transfixed before the haggard face and staring eyes, she
noted, as in a dream, that Edith spread her hands over them, and shuddering
through all her form, and crouching down against the wall, crawled by her like
some lower animal, sprang up, and fled away.
Florence dropped upon the stairs in a swoon; and was found there by Mrs.
Pipchin, she supposed. She knew nothing more, until she found herself lying on
her own bed, with Mrs. Pipchin and some servants standing round her.
`Where is Mama?' was her first question.
`Gone out to dinner,' said Mrs. Pipchin.
`And Papa?'
`Mr. Dombey is in his own room, Miss Dombey,' said Mrs. Pipchin, `and the
best thing you can do, is to take off your things and go to bed this minute.'
This was the sagacious woman's remedy for all complaints, particularly lowness
of spirits, and inability to sleep; for which offences, many young victims in
the days of the Brighton Castle had been committed to bed at ten o'clock in the
morning.
Without promising obedience, but on the plea of desiring to be very quiet,
Florence disengaged herself, as soon as she could, from the ministration of Mrs.
Pipchin and her attendants. Left alone, she thought of what had happened on the
staircase, at first in doubt of its reality; then with tears; then with an
indescribable and terrible alarm, like that she had felt the night before.
She determined not to go bed until Edith returned, and if she could not speak
to her, at least to be sure that she was safe at home. What indistinct and
shadowy dread moved Florence to this resolution, she did not know, and did not
dare to think. She only knew that until Edith came back, there was no repose for
her aching head or throbbing heart.
The evening deepened into night: midnight came; no Edith.
Florence could not read, or rest a moment. She paced her own room, opened the
door and paced the staircase-gallery outside, looked out of window on the night,
listened to the wind blowing and the rain falling, sat down and watched the
faces in the fire, got up and watched the moon flying like a storm-driven ship
through the sea of clouds.
All the house was gone to bed, except two servants who were waiting the
return of their mistress, downstairs.
One o'clock. The carriages that rumbled in the distance, turned away, or
stopped short, or went past; the silence gradually deepened, and was more and
more rarely broken, save by a rush of wind or sweep of rain. Two o'clock. No
Edith!
Florence, more agitated, paced her room, and paced the gallery outside; and
looked out at the night, blurred and wavy with the raindrops on the glass, and
the tears in her own eyes; and looked up at the hurry in the sky, so different
from the repose below, and yet so tranquil and solitary. Three o'clock!There was
a terror in every ash that dropped out of the fire. No Edith yet.
More and More agitated, Florence paced her room, and paced the gallery, and
looked out at the moon with a new fancy of her likeness to a pale fugitive
hurrying away and hiding her guilty face. Four struck! Five! No Edith yet.
But now there some cautious stir in the house; and Florence found that Mrs.
Pipchin had been awakened by one of those who sat up, had risen and had gone
down to her father's door. Stealing lower down the stairs, and observing what
passed, she saw her father come out in his morning gown, and start when he was
told his wife had not come home. He dispatched a messenger to the stables to
inquire whether the coachman was there; and while the man was gone, dressed
himself very hurriedly.
The man came back, in great haste, bringing the coachman with him, who said
he had been at home and in bed since ten o'clock. He had driven his mistress to
her old house in Brook Street, where she had been met by Mr. Carker--
Florence stood upon the very spot where she had seen him coming down. Again
she shivered with the nameless terror of that sight, and had hardly steadiness
enough to hear and understand what followed.
--Who had told him, the man went on to say, that his mistress would not want
the carriage to go home in; and had dismissed him.
She saw her father turn white in the face, and heard him ask in a quick,
trembling voice for Mrs. Dombey's maid. The whole house was roused; for she was
there, in a moment, very pale too, and speaking incoherently.
She said she had dressed her mistress early--full two hours before she went
out--and had been told, as she often was, that she would not be wanted at night.
She had just come from her mistress's rooms, but--
`But what! what was it?' Florence heard her father demand like a madman.
`But the inner dressing-room was locked, and the key gone.'
Her father seized a candle that was flaming on the ground --some one had put
it down there, and forgotten it--and came running up stairs with such fury, that
Florence, in her fear, had hardly time to fly before him. She heard him striking
in the door as she ran on, with her hands widely spread, and her hair streaming,
and her face like a distracted person's, back to her own room.
When the door yielded, and he rushed in, what did he see there? No one knew.
But thrown down in a costly mass upon the ground, was every ornament she had
had, since she had been his wife: every dress she had worn; and everything she
had possessed. This was the room in which he had seen, in yonder mirror, the
proud face discard him. This was the room in which he had wondered, idly, how
these things would look when he should see them next!
Heaping them back into the drawers, and locking them up in a rage of haste,
he saw some papers on the table. The deed of settlement he had executed on their
marriage, and a letter. He read that she was gone. He read that he was
dishonoured. He read that she had fled, upon her shameful wedding-day, with the
man whom he had chosen for her humiliation; and he tore out of the room, and out
of the house, with a frantic idea of finding her yet, at the place to which she
had been taken, and beating all trace of beauty out of the triumphant face with
his bare hand.
Florence, not knowing what she did, put on a shawl and bonnet, in a dream of
running through the streets until she found Edith, and then clasping her in her
arms, to save and bring her back. But when she hurried out upon the staircase,
and saw the frightened servants going up and down with lights, and whispering
together, and falling away from her father as he passed down, she awoke to a
sense of her own powerlessness; and hiding in one of the great rooms that had
been made gorgeous for this, felt as if her heart would burst with grief.
Compassion for her father was the first distinct emotion that made head
against the flood of sorrow which overwhelmed her. Her constant nature turned to
him in his distress, as fervently and faithfully, as if, in his prosperity, he
had been the embodiment of that idea which had gradually become so faint and
dim. Although she did not know, otherwise than through the suggestions of a
shapeless fear, the full extent of his calamity, he stood before her wronged and
deserted; and again her yearning love impelled her to his side.
He was not long away: for Florence was yet weeping in the great room and
nourishing these thoughts, when she heard him come back. He ordered the servants
to set about their ordinary occupations, and went into his own apartment, where
he trod so heavily that she could hear him walking up and down from end to end.
Yielding at once to the impulse of her affection, timid at all other times,
but bold in its truth to him in his adversity, and undaunted by past repulse,
Florence, dressed as she was, hurried downstairs. As she set her light foot in
the hall, he came out of his room. She hastened towards him unchecked, with her
arms stretched out, and crying `Oh dear, dear Papa!' as if she would have
clasped him round the neck.
And so she would have done. But in his frenzy, he lifted up his cruel arm,
and struck her, crosswise, with that heaviness, that she tottered on the marble
floor; and as he dealt the blow, he told her what Edith was, and bade her follow
her, since they had always been in league.
She did not sink down at his feet; she did not shut out the sight of him with
her trembling hands; she did not weep; she did not utter one word of reproach.
But she looked at him, and a cry of desolation issued from her heart. For as she
looked, she saw him murdering that fond idea to which she had held in spite of
him. She saw his cruelty, neglect, and hatred dominant above it, and stamping it
down. She saw she had no father upon earth, and ran out, orphaned, from his
house.
Ran out of his house. A moment, and her hand was on the lock, the cry was on
her lips, his face was there, made paler by the yellow candles hastily put down
and guttering away, and by the daylight coming in above the door. Another
moment, and the close darkness of the shut-up house (forgotten to be opened,
though it was long since day) yielded to the unexpected glare and freedom of the
morning; and Florence, with her head bent down to hide her agony of tears, was
in the streets.
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