After a Lapse
THE sea had ebbed and flowed, through a whole year. Through a whole year, the
winds and clouds had come and gone; the ceaseless work of Time had been
performed, in storm and sunshine. Through a whole year, the tides of human
chance and change had set in their allotted courses. Through a whole year, the
famous House of Dombey and Son had fought a fight for life, against cross
accidents, doubtful rumours, unsuccessful ventures, unpropitious times, and most
of all, against the infatuation of its head, who would not contract its
enterprises by a hair's breadth, and would not listen to a word of warning that
the ship he strained so hard against the storm, was weak, and could not bear it.
The year was out, and the great House was down.
One summer afternoon; a year, wanting some odd days, after the marriage in
the City church; there was a buzz and whisper upon 'Change of a great failure. A
certain cold proud man, well known there, was not there, nor was he represented
there. Next day it was noised abroad that Dombey and Son had stopped, and next
night there was a List of Bankrupts published, headed by that name.
The world was very busy now, in sooth, and had a deal to say. It was an
innocently credulous and a much ill-used world. It was a world in which there
was no other sort of bankruptcy whatever. There were no conspicuous people in
it, trading far and wide on rotten banks of religion, patriotism, virtue,
honour. There was no amount worth mentioning of mere paper in circulation, on
which anybody lived pretty handsomely, promising to pay great sums of goodness
with no effects. There was no shortcomings anywhere, in anything but money. The
world was very angry indeed; and the people especially, who, in a worse world,
might have been supposed to be bankrupt traders themselves in shows and
pretences, were observed to be mightily indignant.
Here was a new inducement to dissipation, presented to that sport of
circumstances, Mr. Perch the Messenger! It was apparently the fate of Mr. Perch
to be always waking up, and finding himself famous. He had but yesterday, as one
might say, subsided into private life from the celebrity of the elopement and
the events that followed it; and now he was made a more important man than ever,
by the bankruptcy. Gliding from his bracket in the outer office where he now
sat, watching the strange faces of accountants and others, who quickly
superseded nearly all the old clerks, Mr. Perch had but to show himself in the
court outside, or, at farthest, in the bar of the King's Arms, to be asked a
multitude of questions, almost certain to include that interesting question,
what would he take to drink? Then would Mr. Perch descant upon the hours of
acute uneasiness he and Mrs. Perch had suffered out at Balls Pond, when they
first suspected `things was going wrong.' Then would Mr. Perch relate to gaping
listeners, in a low voice, as if the corpse of the deceased House were lying
unburied in the next room, how Mrs. Perch had first come to surmise that things
was going wrong by hearing him (Perch) moaning in his sleep, `twelve and
ninepence in the pound, twelve and ninepence in the pound!' Which act of
somnambulism he supposed to have originated in the impression made upon him by
the change in Mr. Dombey's face. Then would he inform them how he had once said,
`Might I make so bold as ask, Sir, are you unhappy in your mind?' and how Mr.
Dombey had replied, `My faithful Perch--but no, it cannot be!' and with that had
struck his hand upon his forehead, and said, `Leave me, Perch!' Then, in short,
would Mr. Perch, a victim to his position, tell all manner of lies; affecting
himself to tears by those that were of a moving nature, and really believing
that the inventions of yesterday had, on repetition, a sort of truth about them
to-day.
Mr. Perch always closed these conferences by meekly remarking, That, of
course, whatever his suspicions might have been (as if he had ever had any!) it
wasn't for him to betray his trust, was it? Which sentiment (there never being
any creditors present) was received as doing as doing great honour to his
feelings. Thus, he generally brought away a soothed conscience and left an
agreeable impression behind him, when he returned to his bracket: again to sit
watching the strange faces of the accountants and others, making so free with
the great mysteries, the Books; or now and then to go on tiptoe into Mr.
Dombey's empty room, and stir the fire; or to take an airing at the door, and
have a little more doleful chat with any straggler whom he knew; or to
propitiate, with various small attentions, the head accountant: from whom Mr.
Perch had expectations of a messengership in a Fire Office, when the affairs of
the House should be wound up.
To Major Bagstock, the bankruptcy was quite a calamity. The Major was not a
sympathetic character--his attention being wholly concentrated on J.B.--nor was
he a man subject to lively emotions, except in the physical regards of gasping
and choking. But he had so paraded his friend Dombey at the club; had so
flourished him at the heads of the members in general, and so put them down by
continual assertion of his riches; that the club, being but human, was delighted
to retort upon the Major, by asking him, with a show of great concern, whether
this tremendous smash had been at all expected, and how his friend Dombey bore
it. To such questions, the Major, waxing very purple, would reply that it was a
bad world, Sir, altogether; that Joey knew a thing or two, but had been done,
Sir, done like an infant; that if you had foretold this, Sir, to J. Bagstock,
when he went abroad with Dombey and was chasing that vagabond up and down
France, J. Bagstock would have pooh-pooh'd you--would have pooh-pooh'd you, Sir,
by the Lord! That Joe had been deceived, Sir, taken in, hoodwinked, blindfolded,
but was broad awake again and staring; insomuch, Sir, that if Joe's father were
to rise up from the grave to-morrow, he wouldn't trust the old blade with a
penny piece, but would tell him that his son Josh was too old a soldier to be
done again, Sir. That he was a suspicious, crabbed, cranky, used-up, J.B.
infidel, Sir; and that if it were consistent with the dignity of a rough and
tough old Major, of the old school, who had had the honour of being personally
known to, and commended by, their late Royal Highnesses the Dukes of Kent and
York, to retire to a tub and live in it, by Gad! Sir, he'd have a tub in Pall
Mall to-morrow, to show his contempt for mankind!
Of all this, and many variations of the same tune, the Major would deliver
himself with so many apoplectic symptoms, such rollings of his head, and such
violent growls of ill usage and resentment, that the younger members of the club
surmised he had invested money in his friend Dombey's House, and lost it; though
the older soldiers and deeper dogs, who knew Joe better, wouldn't hear of such a
thing. The unfortunate Native, expressing no opinion, suffered dreadfully; not
merely in his moral feelings, which were regularly fusilladed by the Major every
nour in the day, and riddled through and through, but in his sensitiveness to
bodily knocks and bumps, which was kept continually on the stretch. For six
entire weeks after the bankruptcy, this miserable foreigner lived in a rainy
season of boot-jacks and brushes.
Mrs. Chick had three ideas upon the subject of the terrible reverse. The
first was that she could not understand it. The second, that her brother had not
made an effort. The third, that if she had been invited to dinner on the day of
that first party, it never would have happened; and that she had said so, at the
time.
Nobody's opinion stayed the misfortune, lightened it, or made it heavier. It
was understood that the affairs of the House were to be wound up as they best
could be; that Mr. Dombey freely resigned everything he had, and asked for no
favour from any one. That any resumption of the business was out of the
question, as he would listen to no friendly negotiation having that compromise
in view; that he had relinquished every post of trust or distinction he had
held, as a man respected among merchants; that he was dying, according to some;
that he was going melancholy mad, according to others; that he was a broken man,
according to all.
The clerks dispersed after holding a little dinner of condolence among
themselves, which was enlivened by comic singing, and went off admirably. Some
took places abroad, and some engaged in other Houses at home; some looked up
relations in the country, for whom they suddenly remembered they had a
particular affection; and some advertised for employment in the newspapers. Mr.
Perch alone remained of all the late establishment, sitting on his bracket
looking at the accountants, or starting off it, to propitiate the head
accountant, who was to get him into the Fire Office. The Counting House soon got
to be dirty and neglected. The principal slipper and dogs' collar seller, at the
corner of the court, would have doubted the propriety of throwing up his
forefinger to the brim of his hat, any more, if Mr. Dombey had appeared there
now; and the ticket porter, with his hands under his white apron, moralised good
sound morality about ambition, which (he observed) was not, in his opinion, made
to rhyme to perdition, for nothing.
Mr. Morfin, the hazel-eyed bachelor, with the hair and whiskers sprinkled
with grey, was perhaps the only person within the atmosphere of the House--its
head, of course, excepted--who was heartily and deeply affected by the disaster
that had befallen it. He had treated Mr. Dombey with due respect and deference
through many years, but he had never disguised his natural character, or meanly
truckled to him, or pampered his master passion for the advancement of his own
purposes. He had, therefore, no self-disrespect to avenge; no long-tightened
springs to release with a quick recoil. He worked early and late to unravel
whatever was complicated or difficult in the records of the transactions of the
House; was always in attendance to explain whatever required explanation; sat in
his old room sometimes very late at night, studying points by his mastery of
which he could spare Mr. Dombey the pain of being personally referred to; and
then would go home to Islington, and calm his mind by producing the most dismal
and forlorn sounds out of his violoncello before going to bed.
He was solacing himself with this melodious grumbler one evening, and, having
been much dispirited by the proceedings of the day, was scraping consolation out
of its deepest notes, when his landlady (who was fortunately deaf, and had no
other consciousness of these performances than a sensation of something rumbling
in her bones) announced a lady.
`In mourning,' she said.
The violoncello stopped immediately; and the performer, laying it on the sofa
with great tenderness and care, made a sign that the lady was to come in. He
followed directly, and met Harriet Carker on the stair.
`Alone!' he said, `and John here this morning! Is there anything the matter,
my dear? But no,' he added, `your face tells quite another story.'
`I am afraid it is a selfish revelation that you see there, then,' she
answered.
`It is a very pleasant one,' said he; `and, if selfish, a novelty too, worth
seeing in you. But I don't believe that.'
He had placed a chair for her by this time, and sat down opposite; the
violoncello lying snugly on the sofa between them.
`You will not be surprised at my coming alone, or at John's not having told
you I was coming,' said Harriet; `and you will believe that, when I tell you why
I have come. May I do so now?'
`You can do nothing better.'
`You were not busy?'
He pointed to the violoncello lying on the sofa, and said, `I have been, all
day. Here's my witness. I have been confiding all my cares to it. I wish I had
none but my own to tell.'
`Is the House at an end?' said Harriet, earnestly.
`Completely at an end.'
`Will it never be resumed?'
`Never.'
The bright expression of her face was not overshadowed as her lips silently
repeated the word. He seemed to observe this with some little involuntary
surprise: and said again:
`Never. You remember what I told you. It has been, all along, impossible to
convince him; impossible to reason with him; sometimes, impossible even to
approach him. The worst has happened; and the House has fallen, never to built
up any more.'
`And Mr. Dombey, is he personally ruined?'
`Ruined.' `Will he have no private fortune left? Nothing?'
A certain eagerness in her voice, and something that was almost joyful in her
look, seemed to surprise him more and more; to disappoint him too, and jar
discordantly against his own emotions. He drummed with the fingers of one hand
on the table, looking wistfully at her, and shaking his head, said, after a
pause:
`The extent of Mr. Dombey's resources is not accurately within my knowledge;
but though they are doubtless very large, his obligations are enormous. He is a
gentleman of high honour and integrity. Any man in his position could, and many
a man in his position would, have saved himself, by making terms which would
have very slighty, almost insensibly, increased the losses of those who had had
dealings with him, and left him a remnant to live upon. But he is resolved on
payment to the last farthing of his means. His own words are, that they will
clear, or nearly clear, the House, and that no one can lose much. Ah, Miss
Harriet, it would do us no harm to remember oftener than we do, that vices are
sometimes only virtues carried to excess! His pride shows well in this.'
She heard him with little or no change in her expression, and with a divided
attention that showed her to be busy with something in her own mind. When he was
silent, she asked him hurriedly:
`Have you seen him lately?'
`No one sees him. When this crisis of his affairs renders it necessary for
him to come out of his house, he comes out for the occasion, and again goes
home, and shuts himself up, and will see no one. He has written me a letter,
acknowledging our past connexion in higher terms than it deserved, and parting
from me. I am delicate of obtruding myself upon him now, never having had much
intercourse with him in better times; but I have tried to do so. I have written,
gone there, entreated. Quite in vain.'
He watched her, as in the hope that she would testify some greater concern
than she had yet shown; and spoke gravely and feelingly, as if to impress her
the more; but there was no change in her.
`Well, well, Miss Harriet,' he said, with a disappointed air, `this is not to
the purpose. You have not come here to hear this. Some other and pleasanter
theme is in your mind. Let it be in mine, too, and we shall talk upon more equal
terms. Come!'
`No, it is the same theme,' returned Harriet, with frank and quick surprise.
`Is it not likely that it should be? Is it not natural that John and I should
have been thinking and speaking very much of late of these great changes? Mr.
Dombey, whom he served so many years--you know upon what terms--reduced, as you
describe; and we quite rich!'
Good, true face, as that face of hers was, and pleasant as it had been to
him, Mr. Morfin, the hazel-eyed bachelor, since the first time he had ever
looked upon it, it pleased him less at that moment, lighted with a ray of
exultation, than it had ever pleased him before.
`I need not remind you,' said Harriet, casting down her eyes upon her black
dress, `through what means our circumstances changed. You have not forgotten
that our brother James, upon that dreadful day, left no will, no relations but
ourselves.'
The face was pleasanter to him now, though it was pale and melancholy, than
it had been a moment since. He seemed to breathe more cheerily.
`You know,' she said, `our history, the history of both my brothers, in
connexion with the unfortunate, unhappy gentleman, of whom you have spoken so
truly. You know how few our wants are--John's and mine--and what little use we
have for money, after the life we have led together for so many years; and now
that he is earning an income that is ample for us, through your kindness. You
are not unprepared to hear what favour I have come to ask of you?'
`I hardly know. I was, a minute ago. Now, I think, I am not.'
`Of my dead brother I say nothing. If the dead know what we do--but you
understand me. Of my living brother I could say much: but what need I say more,
than that this act of duty, in which I have come to ask your indispensable
assistance, is his own, and that he cannot rest until it is performed!'
She raised her eyes again; and the light of exultation in her face begin to
appear beautiful, in the observant eyes that watched her.
`Dear sir,' she went on to say, `It must be done very quietly and secretly.
Your experience and knowledge will point out a way of doing it. Mr. Dombey may,
perhaps, be led to believe that it is something saved, unexpectedly, from the
wreck of his fortunes; or that it is a voluntary tribute to his honourable and
upright character, from some of those with whom he has had great dealings; or
that it is some old lost debt repaid. There must be many ways of doing it. I
know you will choose the best. The favour I have come to ask is, that you will
do it for us in your own kind, generous, considerate manner. That you will never
speak of it to John, whose chief happiness in this act of restitution is to do
it secretly, unknown, and unapproved of: that only a very small part of the
inheritance may be reserved to us, until Mr. Dombey shall have possessed the
interest of the rest for the remainder of his life; that you will keep our
secret, faithfully--but that I am sure you will; and that, from this time, it
may seldom be whispered, even between you and me, but may live in any thoughts
only as a new reason for thankfulness to Heaven, and joy and pride in my
brother.'
Such a look of exultation there may be on Angels' faces, when the one
repentant sinner enters Heaven, among ninety-nine just men. It was not dimmed or
tarnished by the joyful tears that filled her eyes, but was the brighter for
them.
`My dear Harriet,' said Mr. Morfin, after a silence, `I was not prepared for
this. Do I understand you that you wish to make your own part in the inheritance
available for your good purpose, as well as John's?'
`Oh, yes,' she returned. `When we have shared everything together for so long
a time, and have had no care, hope, or purpose apart, could I bear to be
excluded from my share in this? May I not urge a claim to be my brother's
partner and companion to the last?'
`Heaven forbid that I should dispute it!' he replied.
`We may rely on your friendly help?' she said. `I knew we might!'
`I should be a worse man than,--than I hope I am, or would willingly believe
myself, if I could not give you that assurance from my heart and soul. You may,
implicitly. Upon my honour, I will keep your secret. And if it should be found
that Mr. Dombey is so reduced as I fear he will be, acting on a determination
that there seem to be no means of influencing, I will assist you to accomplish
the design, on which you and John are jointly resolved.'
She gave him her hand, and thanked him with a cordial, happy face.
`Harriet,' he said, detaining it in his. `To speak to you of the worth of any
sacrifice that you can make now--above all, of any sacrifice of mere
money--would be idle and presumptuous. To put before you any appeal to
reconsider your purpose or to set narrow limits to it, would be, I feel, not
less so. I have no right to mar the great end of a great history, by any
obtrusion of my own weak self. I have every right to bend my head before what
you confide to me, satisfied that it comes from a higher and better source of
inspiration than my poor worldly knowledge. I will say only this: I am your
faithful steward; and I would rather be so, and your chosen friend, than I would
be anybody in the world, except yourself.'
She thanked him again, cordially, and wished him good night.
`Are you going home?' he said. `Let me go with you.'
`Not to-night. I am not going home now; I have a visit to make alone. Will
you come to-morrow?'
`Well, well,' said he, `I'll come to-morrow. In the meantime, I'll think of
this, and how we can best proceed. And perhaps you'll think of it, dear Harriet,
and--and--think of me a little in connexion with it.'
He handed her down to a coach she had in waiting at the door; and if his
landlady had not been deaf, she would have heard him muttering as he went back
upstairs, when the coach had driven off, that we were creatures of habit, and it
was a sorrowful habit to be an old bachelor.
The violoncello lying on the sofa between the two chairs, he took it up,
without putting away the vacant chair, and sat droning on it, and slowly shaking
his head at the vacant chair, for a long, long time. The expression he
communicated to the instrument at first, though monstrously pathetic and bland,
was nothing to the expression he communicated to this own face, and bestowed
upon the empty chair: which was so sincere, that he was obliged to have recourse
to Captain Cuttle's remedy more than once, and to rub his face with his sleeve.
By degrees, however, the violoncello, in unison with his own frame of mind,
glided melodiously into the Harmonious Blacksmith, which he played over and over
again, until his ruddy and serene face gleamed like true metal on the anvil of a
veritable blacksmith. In fine, the violoncello and the empty chair were the
companions of his bachelorhood until nearly midnight; and when he took his
supper, the violoncello set up on end in the sofa corner, big with the latent
harmony of a whole foundry full of harmonious blacksmiths, seemed to ogle the
empty chair out of its crooked eyes, with unutterable intelligence.
When Harriet left the house, the driver of her hired coach, taking a course
that was evidently no new one to him, went in and out by bye-ways, through that
part of the suburbs, until he arrived at some open ground, where there were a
few quiet little old houses standing among gardens. At the garden-gate of one of
these he stopped, and Harriet alighted.
Her gentle ringing at the bell was responded to by a dolorous-looking woman,
of light complexion, with raised eyebrows, and head drooping on one side, who
curtseyed at sight of her, and conducted her across the garden to the house.
`How is your patient, nurse, to-night?' said Harriet.
`In a poor way, Miss, I am afraid. Oh how she do remind me, sometimes, of my
uncle's Betsey Jane!' returned the woman of the light complexion, in a sort of
doleful rapture.
`In what respect?' asked Harriet.
`Miss, in all respects,' replied the other, `except that she's grown up, and
Betsey Jane, when at death's door, was but a child.'
`But you have told me she recovered,' observed Harriet mildly; `so there is
the more reason for hope, Mrs. Wickam.'
`Ah, Miss, hope is an excellent thing for such as has the spirits to bear
it!' said Mrs. Wickam, shaking her head. `My own spirits is not equal to it, but
I don't owe it any grudge. I envys them that is so blest!'
`You should try to be more cheerful,' remarked Harriet.
`Thank you, Miss, I'm sure,' said Mrs. Wickam grimly. `If I was so inclined,
the loneliness of this situation--you'll excuse my speaking so free--would put
it out of my power in four and twenty hours; but I an't at all. I'd rather not.
The little spirits that I ever had, I was bereaved of at Brighton some few years
ago, and I think I feel myself the better for it.'
In truth, this was the very Mrs. Wickam who had super-seded Mrs. Richards as
the nurse of little Paul, and who considered herself to have gained the loss in
question, under the roof of the amiable Pipchin. The excellent and thoughtful
old system, hallowed by long prescription, which has usually picked out from the
rest of mankind the most dreary and uncomfortable people that could possibly be
laid hold of, to act as instructors of youth, finger-posts to the virtues,
matrons, monitors, attendants on sick beds, and the like, had established Mrs.
Wickam in very good business as a nurse, and had led to her serious qualities
being particularly commended by an admiring and numerous connexion.
Mrs. Wickam, with her eyebrows elevated, and her head on one side, lighted
the way up stairs to a clean, neat chamber, opening on another chamber dimly
lighted, where there was a bed. In the first room, an old woman sat mechanically
staring out at the open window, on the darkness. In the second, stretched upon
the bed, lay the shadow of a figure that had spurned the wind and rain, one
wintry night; hardly to be recognised now, but by the long black hair that
showed so very black against the colourless face, and all the white things about
it.
Oh, the strong eyes, and the weak frame! The eyes that turned so eagerly and
brightly to the door when Harriet came in; the feeble head that could not raise
itself, and moved so slowly round upon its pillow!
`Alice!' said the visitor's mild voice, `am I late to-night?'
`You always seem late, but are always early.'
Harriet had sat down by the bedside now, and put her hand upon the thin hand
lying there.
`You are better?'
Mrs. Wickam, standing at the foot of the bed, like a disconsolate spectre,
most decidedly and forcibly shook her head to negative this position.
`It matters very little!' said Alice, with a faint smile. `Better or worse
to-day, is but a day's difference--perhaps not so much.'
Mrs. Wickam, as a serious character, expressed her approval with a groan; and
having made some cold dabs at the bottom of the bedclothes, as feeling for the
patient's feet and expecting to find them stony, went clinking among the
medicine bottles on the table, as who should say, `while we are here, let us
repeat the mixture as before.'
`No,' said Alice, whispering to her visitor, `evil courses, and remorse,
travel, want, and weather, storm within, and storm without, have worn my life
away. It will not last much longer.'
She drew the hand up as she spike, and laid her face against it.
`I lie here, sometimes, thinking I should like to live until I had had a
little time to show you how grateful I could be! It is a weakness, and soon
passes. Better for you as it is. Better for me!'
How different her hold upon the hand, from what it had been when she took it
by the fireside on the bleak winter evening! Scorn, rage, defiance,
recklessness, look here! This is the end.
Mrs. Wickam having clinked sufficiently among the bottles, now produced the
mixture. Mrs. Wickam looked hard at her patient in the act of drinking, screwed
her mouth up tight, her eyebrows also, and shook her head, expressing that
tortures shouldn't make her say it was a hopeless case. Mrs. Wickam then
sprinkled a little cooling-stuff about the room, with the air of a female
grave-digger, who was strewing ashes on ashes, dust on dust--for she was a
serious character--and withdrew to partake of certain funeral baked meats
downstairs.
`How long is it,' asked Alice, `Since I went to you and told you what I had
done, and when you were advised it was too late for any one to follow?'
`It is a year and more,' said Harriet.
`A year and more,' said Alice, thoughtfully intent upon her face. `Months
upon months since you brought me here!'
Harriet answered `Yes.'
`Brought me here, by force of gentleness and kindness. Me!' said Alice,
shrinking with her face behind the hand, `and made me human by woman's looks and
words, and angel's deeds!'
Harriet bending over her, composed and soothed her. By and bye, Alice lying
as before, with the hand against her face, asked to have her mother called.
Harriet called to her more than once, but the old woman was so absorbed
looking out at the open window on the darkness, that she did not hear. It was
not until Harriet went to her and touched her, that she rose up, and came.
`Mother,' said Alice, taking the hand again, and fixing her lustrous eyes
lovingly upon her visitor, while she merely addressed a motion of her finger to
the old woman, `tell her what you know.'
`To-night, my deary?'
`Aye, mother,' answered Alice, faintly and solemnly, `to-night!'
The old woman, whose wits appeared disordered by alarm, remorse, or grief,
came creeping along the side of the bed, opposite to that on which Harriet sat;
and kneeling down, so as to bring her withered face upon a level with the
coverlet, and stretching out her hand, so as to touch her daughter's arm, began:
`My handsome gal--'
Heaven, what a cry was that, with which she stopped there, gazing at the poor
form lying on the bed!'
`Changed, long ago, mother! Withered, long ago,' said Alice, without looking
at her. `Don't grieve for that now.'
`--My daughter,' faltered the old woman, `my gal who'll soon get better, and
shame 'em all with her good looks.'
Alice smiled mournfully at Harriet, and fondled her hand a little closer, but
said nothing.
`Who'll soon get better, I say,' repeated the old woman, menacing the vacant
air with her shrivelled fist, `and who'll shame 'em all with her good looks--she
will. I say she will!she shall!'--as if she were in passionate contention with
some unseen opponent at the bedside, who contradicted her--`my daughter has been
turned away from, and cast out, but she could boast relationship to proud folks
too, if she chose. Ah! To proud folks! There's relationship without your clergy
and your wedding rings--they may make it, but they can't break it--and my
daughter's well related. Show me Mrs. Dombey, and I'll show you my Alice's first
cousin.'
Harriet glanced from the old woman to the lustrous eyes intent upon her face,
and derived corroboration from them.
`What!' cried the old woman, her nodding head bridling with a ghastly vanity.
`Though I am old an ugly now,--much older by life and habit than years
though,--I was once as young as any. Ah! as pretty too, as many! I was a fresh
country wench in my time, darling,' stretching out her arm to Harriet, across
the bed, `and looked it, too. Down in my country, Mrs. Dombey's father and his
brother were the gayest gentlemen and the best-liked that came a visiting from
London--they have long been dead, though! Lord, Lord, this long while! The
brother, who was my Ally's father, longest of the two.'
She raised her head a little, and peered at her daughter's face; as if from
the remembrance of her own youth, she had flown to the remembrance of her
child's. Then, suddenly, she laid her face down on the bed, and shut her head up
in her hands and arms.
`They were as like,' said the old woman, without looking up, `as you could
see two brothers, so near an age--there wasn't much more than a year between
them, as I recollect--and if you could have seen my gal, as I have seen her
once, side by side with the other's daughter, you'd have seen, for all the
difference of dress and life, that they were like each other. Oh! is the
likeness gone, and is it my gal--only my gal--that's to change so!'
`We shall all change, mother, in our turn,' said Alice.
`Turn!' cried the old woman, `but why not hers as soon as my gal's! The
mother must have changed--she looked as old as me, and full as wrinkled through
her paint--but she was handsome. What have I done, I, what have I done worse
than her, that only my gal is to lie there fading!'
With another of those wild cries, she went running out into the room from
which she had come; but immediately, in her uncertain mood, returned, and
creeping up to Harriet, said:
`That's what Alice bade me tell you, deary. That's all. I found it out when I
began to ask who she was, and all about her, away in Warwickshire there, one
summer-time. Such relations was no good to me, then. They wouldn't have owned
me, and had nothing to give me. I should have asked 'em, maybe, for a little
money, afterwards, if it hadn't been for my Alice; she'd a'most have killed me,
if I had, I think. She was as proud as t'other in her way,' said the old woman,
touching the face of her daughter fearfully, and withdrawing her hand, `for all
she's so quiet now; but she'll shame 'em with her good looks yet. Ha, ha! she'll
shame 'em, will my handsome daughter!'
Her laugh, as she retreated, was worse than her cry; worse than the burst of
imbecile lamentation in which it ended; worse than the doting air with which she
sat down in her old seat, and stared out at the darkness.
The eyes of Alice had all this time been fixed on Harriet, whose hand she had
never released. She said now:
`I have felt, lying here, that I should like you to know this. It might
explain, I have thought, something that used to help to harden me. I had heard
so much, in my wrongdoing, of my neglected duty, that I took up with the belief
that duty had not been done to me, and that as the seed was sown, the harvest
grew. I somehow made it out that when ladies had bad homes and mothers, they
went wrong in their way, too; but that their way was not so foul a one as mine,
and they had need to bless God for it. That is all past. It is like a dream,
now, which I cannot quite remember or understand. It has been more and more like
a dream, every day, since you began to sit here, and to read to me. I only tell
it you, as I can recollect it. Will you read to me a little more?'
Harriet was withdrawing her hand to open the book, when Alice detained it for
a moment.
`You will not forget my mother? I forgive her, if I have any cause. I know
that she forgives me, and is sorry in her heart. You will not forget her?'
`Never, Alice!'
`A moment yet. Lay my head so, dear, that as you read I may see the words in
your kind face.'
Harriet complied and read--read the eternal book for all the weary and the
heavy-laden; for all the wretched, fallen, and neglected of this earth--read the
blessed history, in which the blind lame palsied beggar, the criminal, the woman
stained with shame, the shunned of all our dainty clay, has each a portion, that
no human pride, indifference, or sophistry, through all the ages that this world
shall last, can take away, or by the thousandth atom of a grain reduce--read the
ministry of Him who, through the round of human life, and all its hopes and
griefs, from birth to death, from infancy to age, had sweet compassion for, and
interest in, its every scene and stage, its every suffering and sorrow.
`I shall come,' said Harriet, when she shut the book, `very early in the
morning.'
The lustrous eyes, yet fixed upon her face, closed for a moment, then opened;
and Alice kissed and blest her.
The same eyes followed her to the door; and in their light, and on the
tranquil face, there was a smile when it was closed.
They never turned away. She laid her hand upon her breast, murmuring the
sacred name that had been read to her; and life passed from her face, like light
removed.
Nothing lay there, any longer, but the ruin of the mortal house on which the
rain had beaten, and the black hair that had fluttered in the wintry wind.
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