Retribution
CHANGES have come again upon the great house in the long dull street, once
the scene of Florence's childhood and loneliness. It is a great house still,
proof against wind and weather, without breaches in the roof, or shattered
windows, or dilapidated walls; but it is a ruin none the less, and the rats fly
from it.
Mr. Towlinson and company are, at first, incredulous in respect of the
shapeless rumours that they hear. Cook says our people's credit ain't so easy
shook as that comes to, thank God; and Mr. Towlinson expects to hear it reported
that the Bank of England's a-going to break, or the jewels in the Tower to be
sold up. But, next come the Gazette, and Mr. Perch: and Mr. Perch brings Mrs.
Perch to talk it over in the kitchen, and to spend a pleasant evening.
As soon as there is no doubt about it, Mr. Towlinson's main anxiety is that
the failure should be a good round one--not less than a hundred thousand pound.
Mr. Perch don't think himself that a hundred thousand pound will nearly cover
it. The women, led by Mrs. Perch and Cook, often repeat `a hun-dred thous-sand
pound!' with awful satisfaction--as if handling the word were like handling the
money; and the housemaid, who has her eye on Mr. Towlinson, wishes she had only
a hundredth part of the sum to bestow on the man of her choice. Mr. Towlinson,
still mindful of his old wrong, opines that a foreigner would hardly know what
to do with so much money, unless he spent it on his whiskers; which bitter
sarcasm causes the housemaid to withdraw in tears.
But not to remain long absent; for Cook, who has the reputation of being
extremely good-hearted, says, whatever they do, let 'em stand by one another
now, Towlinson, for there's no telling how soon they may be divided. They have
been in that house (says Cook) through a funeral, a wedding, and a running-away;
and let it not be said that they couldn't agree among themselves at such a time
as the present. Mrs. Perch is immensely affected by this moving address, and
openly remarks that Cook is an angel. Mr. Towlinson replies to Cook, far be it
from him to stand in the way of that good feeling which he could wish to see;
and adjourning in quest of the housemaid, and presently returning with that
young lady on his arm, informs the kitchen that foreigners is only his fun, and
that him and Anne have now resolved to take one another for better for worse,
and to settle in Oxford Market in the general greengrocery and herb and leech
line, where your kind favours is particular requested. This announcement is
received with acclamation; and Mrs. Perch, projecting her soul into futurity,
says, `girls,' in Cook's ear, in a solemn whisper.
Misfortune in the family without feasting, in these lower regions, Couldn't
be. Therefore Cook tosses up a hot dish or two for supper, and Mr. Towlinson
compounds a lobster salad to be devoted to the same hospitable purpose. Even
Mrs. Pipchin, agitated by the occasion, rings her bell, and sends down word that
she requests to have that little bit of sweet-bread that was left, warmed up for
her supper, and sent to her on a tray with about a quarter of a tumbler-full of
mulled sherry; for she feels poorly.
There is a little talk about Mr. Dombey, but very little. It is chiefly
speculation as to how long he has known that this was going to happen. Cook says
shrewdly, `Oh a long time, bless you! Take your oath of that.' And reference
being made to Mr. Perch, he confirms her view of the case. Somebody wonders what
he'll do, and whether he'll go out in any situation. Mr. Towlinson thinks not,
and hints at a refuge in one of them gen-teel almshouses of the better kind.
`Ah, where he'll have his little garden, you know,' says Cook plaintively, `and
bring up sweet peas in the spring.' `Exactly so,' says Mr. Towlinson, `and be
one of the Brethren of something or another.' `We are all brethren, says Mrs.
Perch, in a pause of her drink. `Except the sisters,' says Mr. Perch. `How are
the mighty fallen!' remarks Cook. `Pride shall have a fall, and it always was
and will be so!' observes the housemaid.
It is wonderful how good they feel, in making these reflections; and what a
Christian unanimity they are sensible of, in bearing the common shock with
resignation. There is only one interruption to this excellent state of mind,
which is occasioned by a young kitchen-maid of inferior rank--in black
stockings--who, having sat with her mouth open for a long time, unexpectedly
discharges from it words to this effect, `Suppose the wages shouldn't be paid!'
The company sit for a moment speechless; but Cook recovering first, turns upon
the young woman, and requests to know how she dares insult the family, whose
bread she eats, by such a dishonest supposition, and whether she thinks that
anybody, with a scrap of honour left, could deprive poor servants of their
pittance? `Because if that is your religious feelings, Mary Daws,' says Cook
warmly, `I don't know where you mean to go to.'
Mr. Towlinson don't know either; nor anybody; and the young kitchen-maid,
appearing not to know exactly, herself, and scouted by the general voice, is
covered with confusion, as with a garment.
After a few days, strange people begin to call at the house, and to make
appointments with one another in the dining-room, as if they lived there.
Especially, there is a gentleman, of a Mosaic Abrabian cast of countenance, with
a very massive watch-guard, who whistles in the drawing-room, and, while he is
waiting for the other gentleman, who always has pen and ink in his pocket, asks
Mr. Towlinson (by the easy name of `Old Cock,') if he happens to know what the
figure of them crimson and gold hangings might have been, when new bought. The
callers and appointments in the dining-room become more numerous every day, and
every gentlemen seems to have pen and ink in his pocket, and to have some
occasion to use it. At last it is said that there is going to be a Sale; and
then more people arrive, with pen and ink in their pockets, commanding a
detachment of men with carpet caps, who immediately begin to pull up the
carpets, and knock the furniture about, and to print off thousands of
impressions of their shoes upon the hall and staircase.
The council down stairs are in full conclave all this time, and, having
nothing to do, perform perfect feats of eating. At length, they are one day
summoned in a body to Mrs. Pipchin's room, and thus addressed by the fair
Peruvian:
`Your master's in difficulties,' says Mrs. Pipchin, tartly. `You know that, I
suppose?'
Mr. Towlinson, as spokesman, admits a general knowledge of the fact.
`And you're all on the look-out for yourselves, I warrant you,' says Mrs.
Pipchin, shaking her head at them.
A shrill voice from the rear exclaims, `No more than yourself!'
`That's your opinion, Mrs. Impudence, is it?' says the ireful Pipchin,
looking with a fiery eye over the intermediate heads.
`Yes, Mrs. Pipchin, it is,' replies Cook, advancing. `And what then, pray?'
`Why, then you may go as soon as you like,' says Mrs. Pipchin, `The sooner
the better; and I hope I shall never see your face again.'
With this the doughty Pipchin produces a canvas bag; and tells her wages out
to that day, and a month beyond it: and clutches the money tight until a receipt
for the same is duly signed, to the last up-stroke; when she grudgingly lets it
go. This form of proceeding Mrs. Pipchin repeats with every member of the
household, until are paid.
`Now those that choose can go about their business,' says Mrs. Pipchin, `and
those that choose can stay here on board wages for a week or so, and make
themselves useful. Except,' says the inflammable Pipchin, `that slut of a cook,
who'll go immediately.'
`That,' says Cook, `she certainly will! I wish you good day, Mrs. Pipchin,
and sincerely wish I could compliment you on the sweetness of your appearance!'
`Get along with you,' says Mrs. Pipchin, stamping her foot.
Cook sails off with an air of beneficent dignity, highly exasperating to Mrs.
Pipchin, and is shortly joined below stairs by the rest of the confederation.
Mr. Towlinson then says that, in the first place, he would beg to propose a
little snack of something to eat; and over that snack would desire to offer a
suggestion which he thinks will meet the position in which they find themselves.
The refreshment being produced, and very heartily partaken of, Mr. Towlinson's
suggestion is, in effect, that Cook is going, and that if we are not true to
ourselves, nobody will be true to us. That they have lived in that house a long
time, and exerted themselves very much to be sociable together. (At this, Cook
says, with emotion, `Hear, hear!' and Mrs. Perch, who is there again, and full
to the throat, sheds tears). And that he thinks, at the present time, the
feeling ought to be `Go one, go all!' The housemaid is much affected by this
generous sentiment, and warmly seconds it. Cook says she feels it's right, and
only hopes it's not done as a compliment to her, but from a sense of duty. Mr.
Towlinson replies, from a sense of duty; and that now he is driven to express
his opinions, he will openly say, that he does not think it over-respectable to
remain in a house where Sales and such-like are carrying forwards. The housemaid
is sure of it; and relates, in confirmation, that a strange man, in a carpet
cap, offered this very morning to kiss her on the stairs. Hereupon, Mr.
Towlinson is starting from his chair, to seek and `smash' the offender; when he
is laid hold on by the ladies, who beseech him to calm himself, and to reflect
that it is easier and wiser to leave the scene of such indecencies at once. Mrs.
Perch, presenting the case in a new light, even shows that delicacy towards Mr.
Dombey, shut up in his own rooms, imperatively demands precipitate retreat. `For
what,' says the good woman, `must his feelings be, if he was to come upon any of
the poor servants that he once deceived into thinking him immensely rich!' Cook
is so struck by this moral consideration that Mrs. Perch improves it with
several pious axioms, original and selected. It becomes a clear case that they
must all go. Boxes are packed, cabs fetched, and at dusk that evening there is
not one member of the party left.
The house stands, large and weather-proof, in the long dull street; but it is
a ruin, and the rats fly from it.
The men in the carpet caps go on tumbling the furniture about; and the
gentlemen with the pens and ink make out inventories of it, and sit upon pieces
of furniture never made to be sat upon, and eat bread and cheese from the
public-house on other pieces of furniture never made to be eaten on, and seem to
have a delight in appropriating precious articles to strange uses. Chaotic
combinations of furniture also take place. Mattresses and bedding appear in the
dining-room; the glass and china get into the conservatory; the great dinner
service is set out in heaps on the long divan in the large drawing-room; and the
stair-wires, made into fasces, decorate the marble chimneypieces. Finally, a
rug, with a printed bill upon it, is hung out from the balcony; and a similar
appendage graces either side of the hall door.
Then, all day long, there is a retinue of mouldy gigs and chaise-carts in the
street; and herds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, over-run the house,
sounding the plate-glass mirrors with their knuckles, striking discordant
octaves on the Grand Piano, drawing wet forefingers over the pictures, breathing
on the blades of the best dinner-knives, punching the squabs of chairs and sofas
with their dirty fists, touzling the feather beds, opening and shutting all the
drawers, balancing the silver spoons and forks, looking into the very threads of
the drapery and linen, and disparaging everything. There is not a secret place
in the whole house. Fluffy and snuffy strangers stare into the kitchen-range as
curiously as into the attic clothes-press. Stout men with napless hats on, look
out of the bedroom windows, and cut jokes with friends in the street. Quiet,
calculating spirits withdraw into the dressing-rooms with catalogues, and make
marginal notes thereon, with stumps of pencils. Two brokers invade the very
fire-escape, and take a panoramic survey of the neighbourhood from the top of
the house. The swarm and buzz, and going up and down, endure for days. The
Capital Modern Household Furniture, &c., is on view.
Then there is a palisade of tables made in the best drawing-room; and on the
capital, french-polished, extending, telescopic range of Spanish mahogany
dining-tables with turned legs, the pulpit of the Auctioneer is erected; and the
herds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, the strangers fluffy and snuffy,
and the stout men with the napless hats, congregate about it and sit upon
everything within reach, mantel-pieces included, and begin to bid. Hot, humming,
and dusty are the rooms all day; and--high above the heat, hum, and dust--the
head and shoulders, voice and hammer, of the Auctioneer, are ever at work. The
men in the carpet caps get flustered and vicious with tumbling the Lots about,
and still the Lots are going, going, gone; still coming on. Sometimes there is
joking and a general roar. This lasts all day and three days following. The
Capital Modern Household Furniture, &c., is on sale.
Then the mouldy gigs and chaise-carts reappear; and with them come
spring-vans and waggons, and an army of porters with knots. All day long, the
men with carpet caps are screwing at screw-drivers and bed-winches, or
staggering by the dozen together on the staircase under heavy burdens, or
upheaving perfect rocks of Spanish mahogany, best rose-wood, or plate-glass,
into the gigs and chaise-carts, vans and waggons. All sorts of vehicles of
burden are in attendance, from a tilted waggon to a wheelbarrow. Poor Paul's
little bedstead is carried off in a donkey-tandem. For nearly a whole week, the
Capital Modern Household Furniture, &c., is in course of removal.
At last it is all gone. Nothing is left about the house but scattered leaves
of catalogues, littered scraps of straw and hay, and a battery of pewter pots
behind the hall-door. The men with the carpet caps gather up their screw-drivers
and bed-winches into bags, shoulder them, and walk off. One of the pen-and-ink
gentlemen goes over the house as a last attention; sticking up bills in the
windows respecting the lease of this desirable family mansion, and shutting the
shutters. At length he follows the men with the carpet caps. None of the
invaders remain. The house is a ruin, and the rats fly from it.
Mrs. Pipchin's apartments, together with those locked rooms on the
ground-floor where the window-blinds are drawn down close, have been spared the
general devastation. Mrs. Pipchin has remained austere and stony during the
proceedings in her own room; or has occasionally looked in at the sale to see
what the goods are fetching, and to bid for one particular easy chair. Mrs.
Pipchin has been the highest bidder for the easy chair, and sits upon her
property when Mrs. Chick comes to see her.
`How is my brother, Mrs. Pipchin?' says Mrs. Chick.
`I don't know any more than the deuce,' says Mrs. Pipchin. `He never does me
the honour to speak to me. He has his meat and drink put in the next room to his
own; and what he takes, he comes out and takes when there's nobody there. It's
no use asking me. I know no more about him than the man in the south who burnt
his mouth by eating cold plum porridge.'
This the acrimonious Pipchin says with a flounce.
`But good gracious me!' cries Mrs. Chick blandly. `How long is this to last!
If my brother will not make an effort, Mrs. Pipchin, what is to become of him? I
am sure I should have thought he had seen enough of the consequences of not
making an effort, by this time, to be warned against that fatal error.'
`Hoity toity!' says Mrs. Pipchin, rubbing her nose. `There's a great fuss, I
think, about it. It an't so wonderful a case. People have had misfortunes before
now, and been obliged to part with their furniture. I'm sure I have!'
`My brother,' pursues Mrs. Chick profoundly, `is so peculiar--so strange a
man. He is the most peculiar man I ever saw. Would any one believe that when he
received news of the marriage and emigration of that unnatural child--it's a
comfort to me, now, to remember that I always said there was something
extraordinary about that child: but nobody minds me--would anybody believe, I
say, that he should then turn round upon me and say he had supposed, from my
manner, that she had come to my house? Why, my gracious! And would anybody
believe that when I merely say to him, "Paul, I may be very foolish, and I have
no doubt I am, but I cannot understand how your affairs can have got into this
state," he should actually fly at me, and request that I will come to see him no
more until he asks me! Why, my goodness!'
`Ah!' says Mrs. Pipchin, `It's a pity he hadn't a little more to do with
mines. They'd have tried his temper for him.'
`And what,' resumes Mrs. Chick, quite regardless of Mrs. Pipchin's
observations, `is it to end in? That's what I want to know. What does my brother
mean to do? He must do something. It's of no use remaining shut up in his own
rooms. Business won't come to him. No. He must go to it. Then why don't he go!
He knows where to go, I suppose, having been a man of business all his life.
Very good. Then why not go there?'
Mrs. Chick, after forging this powerful chain of reasoning, remains silent
for a minute to admire it.
`Besides,' says the discreet lady, with an argumentative air, `who ever heard
of such obstinacy as his staying shut up here through all these dreadful
disagreeables? It's not as if there was no place for him to go to. Of course he
could have come to our house. He knows he is at home there, I suppose? Mr. Chick
has perfectly bored about it, and I said with my own lips, "Why surely, Paul,
you don't imagine that because your affairs have got into this state, you are
the less at home to such near relatives as ourselves? You don't imagine that we
are like the rest of the world?" But no; here he stays all through, and here he
is. Why, good gracious me, suppose the house was to be let! What would he do
then? He couldn't remain here then. If he attempted to do so, there would be an
ejectment, an action for Doe, and all sorts of things; and then he must go. Then
why not go at first instead of at last? And that brings me back to what I said
just now, and I naturally ask what is to be the end of it?'
`I know what's to be the end of it, as far as I am concerned,' replies Mrs.
Pipchin, `and that's enough for me. I'm going to take myself off in a jiffy.'
`In a which, Mrs. Pipchin,' says Mrs. Chick.
`In a jiffy,' retorts Mrs. Pipchin sharply.
`Ah, well! really I can't blame you, Mrs. Pipchin,' says Mrs. Chick, with
frankness.
`It would be pretty much the same to me, if you could,' replies the sardonic
Pipchin. `At any rate I'm going. I can't stop here. I should be dead in a week.
I had to cook my own pork chop yesterday, and I'm not used to it. My
constitution will be giving way next. Besides, I had a very fair connexion at
Brighton when I came here--little Pankey's folks alone were worth a good eighty
pounds a-year to me--and I can't afford to throw it away. I've written to my
niece, and she expects me by this time.'
`Have you spoken to my brother?' inquires Mrs. Chick.
`Oh, yes, it's very easy to say speak to him,' retorts Mrs. Pipchin. `How is
it done? I called out to him yesterday, that I was no use here, and that he had
better let me send for Mrs. Richards. He grunted something or other that meant
yes, and I sent! Grunt indeed! If he had been Mr. Pipchin, he'd have had some
reason to grunt. Yah! I've no patience with it!'
Here this exemplary female, who has pumped up so much fortitude and virtue
from the depths of the Peruvian mines, rises from her cushioned property to see
Mrs. Chick to the door. Mrs. Chick, deploring to the last the peculiar character
of her brother, noiselessly retires, much occupied with her own sagacity and
clearness of head.
In the dusk of the evening Mr. Toodle, being off duty, arrives with Polly and
a box, and leaves them, with a sounding kiss, in the hall of the empty house,
the retired character of which affects Mr. Toodle's spirits strongly.
`I tell you what, Polly, my dear.' says Mr. Toodle, `being now an
ingein-driver, and well to do in the world, I shouldn't allow of your coming
here, to be made dull-like, if it warn't for favours past. But favours past,
Polly, is never to be forgot. To them which is in adversity, besides, your face
is a cord'l. So let's have another kiss on it, my dear. You wish no better than
to do a right act, I know; and my views is, that it's right and dutiful to do
this. Good night, Polly!'
Mrs. Pipchin by this time looms dark in her black bombazeen skirts, black
bonnet, and shawl; and has her personal property packed up; and has her chair
(late a favourite chair of Mr. Dombey's and the dead bargain of the sale) ready
near the street door; and is only waiting for a fly-van, going to-night to
Brighton on private service, which is to call for her, by private contract, and
convey her home.
Presently it comes. Mrs. Pipchin's wardrobe being handed in and stowed away,
Mrs. Pipchin's chair is next handed in, and placed in a convenient corner among
certain trusses of hay; it being the intention of the amiable woman to occupy
the chair during her journey. Mrs. Pipchin herself is next handed in, and grimly
takes her seat. There is a snaky gleam in her hard grey eye, as of anticipated
rounds of buttered toast, relays of hot chops, worryings and quellings of young
children, sharp snappings at poor Berry, and all the other delights of her
Ogress's castle. Mrs. Pipchin almost laughs as the fly-van drives off, and she
composes her black bombazeen skirts, and settles herself among the cushions of
her easy chair.
The house is such a ruin that the rats have fled, and there is not one left.
But Polly, though alone in the deserted mansion--for there is no
companionship in the shut-up rooms in which its late master hides his head--is
not alone long. It is night; and she is sitting at work in the housekeeper's
room, trying to forget what a lonely house it is, and what a history belongs to
it; when there is a knock at the hall door, as loud sounding as any knock can
be, striking into such an empty place. Opening it, she returns across the
echoing hall, accompanied by a female figure in a close black bonnet. It is Miss
Tox, and Miss Tox's eyes are red.
`Oh, Polly,' says Miss Tox, `when I looked in to have a little lesson with
the children just now, I got the message that you left for me; and as soon as I
could recover my spirits at all, I came on after you. Is there no one here but
you?'
`Ah! not a soul.' says Polly.
`Have you seen him?' whispers Miss Tox.
`Bless you,' returns Polly, `no; he has not been seen this many a day. They
tell me he never leaves his room.'
`Is he said to be ill?' inquires Miss Tox.
`No, ma'am, not that I know of,' returns Polly, `except in his mind. He must
be very bad there poor gentleman!'
Miss Tox's sympathy is such that she can scarcely speak. She is no chicken,
but she has not grown tough with age and celibacy. Her heart is very tender, her
compassion very genuine, her homage very real. Beneath the locket with the fishy
eye in it, Miss Tox bears better qualities than many a less whimsical outside;
such qualities as will outlive, by many courses of the sun, the best outsides
and brightest husks that fall in the harvest of the great reaper.
It is long before Miss Tox goes away, and before Polly, with a candle flaring
on the blank stairs, looks after her, for company, down the street, and feels
unwilling to go back into the dreary house, and jar its emptiness with the heavy
fastenings of the door, and glide away to bed. But all this Polly does; and in
the morning sets in one of those darkened rooms such matters as she has been
advised to prepare, and then retires and enters them no more until next morning
at the same hour. There are bells there, but they never ring; and though she can
sometimes hear a footfall going to and fro, it never comes out.
Miss Tox returns early in the day. It then begins to be Miss Tox's occupation
to prepare little dainties--or what are such to her--to be carried into these
rooms next morning. She derives so much satisfaction from the pursuit, that she
enters on it regularly from that time; and brings daily in her little basket,
various choice condiments selected from the scanty stores of the deceased owner
of the powered head and pigtail. She likewise brings, in sheets of curl-paper,
morsels of cold meats, tongues of sheep, halves of fowls, for her own dinner;
and sharing these collations with Polly, passes the greater part of her time in
the ruined house that the rats have fled from: hiding, in a fright at every
sound, stealing in and out like a criminal; only desiring to be true to the
fallen object of her admiration, unknown to him, unknown to all the world but
one poor simple woman.
The Major knows it; but no one is the wiser for that, though the Major is
much the merrier. The Major, in a fit of curiosity, has charged the Native to
watch the house sometimes, and find out what becomes of Dombey. The Native has
reported Miss Tox's fidelity, and the Major has nearly choked himself dead with
laughter. He is permanently bluer from that hour, and constantly wheezes to
himself, his lobster eyes starting out of his head, `Damme, Sir, the woman's a
born idiot!'
And the ruined man. How does he pass the hours, alone?
`Let him remember it in that room, years to come!' He did remember it. It was
heavy on his mind now; heavier than all the rest.
`Let him remember it in that room, years to come! The rain that falls upon
the roof, the wind that mourns outside the door, may have foreknowledge in their
melancholy sound. Let him remember it in that room, years to come!'
He did remember it. In the miserable night he thought of it; in the dreary
day, the wretched dawn, the ghostly, memory-haunted twilight. He did remember
it. In agony, in sorrow, in remorse, in despair! `Papa! papa! Speak to me, dear
papa!' He heard the words again, and saw the face. He saw it fall upon the
trembling hands, and heard the one prolonged low cry go upward.
He was fallen, never to be raised up any more. For the night of his worldly
ruin there was no to-morrow's sun; for the stain of his domestic shame there was
no purification; nothing, thank Heaven, could bring his dead child back to life.
But that which he might have made so different in all the Past--which might have
made the Past itself so different, though this he hardly thought of now--that
which was his own work, that which he could so easily have wrought into a
blessing, and had set himself so steadily for years to form into a curse: that
was the sharp grief of his soul.
Oh! He did remember it! The rain that fell upon the roof, the wind that
mourned outside the door that night, had had foreknowledge in their melancholy
sound. He knew, now, what he had done. He knew, now, that he had called down
that upon his head, which bowed it lower that the heaviest stroke of fortune. He
knew, now, what it was to be rejected and deserted; now, when every loving
blossom he had withered in his innocent daughter's heart was snowing down in
ashes on him.
He thought of her, as she had been that night when he and his bride came
home. He thought of her as she had been, in all the home-events, of the
abandoned House. He thought, now, that of all around him, she alone had never
changed. His boy had faded into dust, his proud wife had sunk into a polluted
creature, his flatterer and friend had been transformed into the worst of
villains, his riches had melted away, the very walls that sheltered him looked
on him as a stranger; she alone had turned the same mild gentle look upon him
always. Yes, to the latest and the last. She had never changed to him--nor had
he ever changed to her--and she was lost.
As, one by one, they fell away before his mind--his baby-hope, his wife, his
friend, his fortune--oh how the mist, through which he had seen her, cleared,
and showed him her true self! Oh, how much better than this that he had loved
her as had hid boy, and lost her as he had his boy, and laid them in their early
grave together!
In his pride--for he was proud yet--he let the world go from him freely. As
it fell away, he shook it off. Whether he imagined its face as expressing pity
for him, or indifference to him, he shunned it alike. It was in the same degree
to be avoided, in either aspect. He had no idea of any one companion in his
misery, but the one he had driven away. What he would have said to her, or what
consolation submitted to receive from her, he never pictured to himself. But he
always knew she would have been true to him, if he had suffered her. He always
knew she would have loved him better now, than at any other time: he was as
certain that it was in her nature, as he was that there was a sky above him; and
he sat thinking so, in his loneliness, from hour to hour. Day after day uttered
this speech; night after night showed him this knowledge.
It began, beyond all doubt (however slow it advanced for some time), in the
receipt of her young husband's letter, and the certainty that she was gone. And
yet--so proud he was in his ruin, or so reminiscent of her, only as something
that might have been his, but was lost beyond redemption--that if he could have
heard her voice in an adjoining room, he would not have gone to her. If he could
have seen her in the street, and she had done no more than look at him as she
had been used to look, he would have passed on with his old cold unforgiving
face, and not addressed her, or relaxed it, though his heart should have broken
soon afterwards. However turbulent his thoughts, or harsh is anger had been, at
first, concerning her marriage, or her husband, that was all past now. He
chiefly thought of what might have been, and what was not. What was, was all
summed up in this: that she was lost, and he bowed down with sorrow and remorse.
And now he felt that he had had two children born to him in that house, and
that between him and the bare wide empty walls there was a tie, mournful, but
hard to rend asunder, connected with a double childhood, and a double loss. He
had thought to leave the house--knowing he must go, not knowing whither--upon
the evening of the day on which this feeling first struck root in his breast;
but he resolved to stay another night, and in the night to ramble through the
rooms once more.
He came out of his solitude when it was the dead of night, and with a candle
in his hand went softly up the stairs. Of all the footmarks there, making them
as common as the common street, there was not one, he thought, but had seemed at
the time to set itself upon his brain while he had kept close, listening. He
looked at their number, and their hurry, and contention--foot treading foot out,
and upward track and downward jostling one another--and thought, with absolute
dread and wonder, how much he must have suffered during that trial, and what a
changed man he had cause to be. He thought, besides, oh was there, somewhere in
the world, a light footstep that might have worn out in a moment half those
marks!--and bent his head, and wept as he went up.
He almost saw it, going on before. He stopped, looking up towards the
skylight; and a figure, childish itself, but carrying a child, and singing as it
went, seemed to be there again. Anon, it was the same figure, alone, stopping
for an instant, with suspended breath; the bright hair clustering loosely round
its tearful face; and looking back at him.
He wandered through the rooms: lately so luxurious; now so bare and dismal
and so changed, apparently, even in their shape and size. The press of footsteps
was as thick here; and the same consideration of the suffering he had had,
perplexed and terrified him. He began to fear that all this intricacy in his
brain would drive him mad; and that his thoughts already lost coherence as the
footprints did, and were pieced on to one another, with the same trackless
involutions, and varieties of indistinct shapes.
He did not so much as know in which of these rooms she had lived, when she
was alone. He was glad to leave them, and go wandering higher up. Abundance of
associations were here, connected with his false wife, his false friend and
servant, his false grounds of pride; but he put them all by now, and only
recalled miserably, weakly, fondly, his two children.
Everywhere, the footsteps! They had had no respect for the old room high up,
where the little bed had been; he could hardly find a clear space there, to
throw himself down, on the floor, against the wall, poor broken man, and let his
tears flow as they would. He had shed so many tears here, long ago, that he was
less ashamed of his weakness in this place than in any other--perhaps, with that
consciousness, had made excuses to himself for coming here. Here, with stooping
shoulders, and his chin dropped on his breast, he had come. Here, thrown upon
the bare boards, in the dead of night, he wept, alone--a proud man, even then;
who, if a kind hand could have been stretched out, or a kind face could have
looked in would have risen up, and turned away, and gone down to his cell.
When the day broke he was shut up in his rooms again. He had meant to go away
to-day, but clung to this tie in the house as the last and only thing left to
him. He would go to-morrow. To-morrow came. He would go to-morrow. Every night,
within the knowledge of no human creature, he came forth, and wandered through
the despoiled house like a ghost. Many a morning when the day broke, his altered
face, drooping behind the closed blind in his window, imperfectly transparent to
the light as yet, pondered on the loss of his two children. It was one child no
more. He reunited them in his thoughts, and they were never asunder. Oh, that he
could have united them in his past love, and in death, and that one had not been
so much worse than dead!
Strong mental agitation and disturbance was no novelty to him, even before
his late suffering. It never is, to obstinate and sullen natures; for they
struggle hard to be such. Ground, long undermined, will often fall down in a
moment; what was undermined here in so many ways, weakened, and crumbled, little
by little, more and more, as the hand moved on the dial.
At last he began to think he need not go at all. He might yet give up what
his creditors had spared him (that they had not spared him more, was his own
act), and only sever the tie between him and the ruined house, by severing that
other link
It was then that his footfall was audible in the late house-keeper's room, as
he walked to and fro; but not audible in its true meaning, or it would have had
an appalling sound.
The world was very busy and restless about him. He became aware of that
again. It was whispering and babbling. It was never quiet. This, and the
intricacy and complication of the footsteps, harassed him to death. Objects
began to take a bleared and russet colour in his eyes. Dombey and Son was no
more--his children no more. This must be thought of, well, to-morrow.
He thought of it to-morrow; and sitting thinking in his chair, saw in the
glass, from time to time, this picture:
A spectral, haggard, wasted likeness of himself, brooded and brooded over the
empty fireplace. Now it lifted up its head, examining the lines and hollows in
its face; now hung it down again, and brooded afresh. Now it rose and walked
about; now passed into the next room, and came back with something from the
dressing-table in its breast. Now, it was looking at the bottom of the door, and
thinking.
--Hush! what?
It was thinking that if blood were to trickle that way, and to leak out into
the hall, it must be a long time going so far. It would move so stealthily and
slowly, creeping on, with her a lazy little pool, and there a start, and then
another little pool, that a desperately wounded man could only be discovered
through its means, either dead or dying. When it had thought of this a long
while, it got up again, and walked to and fro with its hand in its breast. He
glanced at it occasionally, very curious to watch its motions, and he marked how
wicked and murderous that hand looked.
Now it was thinking again! What was it thinking?
Whether they would tread in the blood when it crept so far, and carry it
about the house among those many prints of feet, or even out into the street.
It sat down, with its eyes upon the empty fireplace, and as it lost itself in
thought there shone into the room a gleam of light; a ray of sun. It was quite
unmindful, and sat thinking. Suddenly it rose, with a terrible face, and that
guilty hand grasping what was in its breast. Then it was arrested by a cry--a
wild, loud, piercing, loving rapturous cry--and he only saw his own reflection
in the glass, and at his knees, his daughter!
Yes. His daughter! Look at her! Look here! Down upon the ground, clinging to
him, calling to him, folding her hands, praying to him.
`Papa! Dearest papa! Pardon me, forgive me! I have come back to ask
forgiveness on my knees. I never can be happy more, without it!'
Unchanged still. Of all the world, unchanged. Raising the same face to his,
as on that miserable night. Asking his forgiveness!
`Dear papa, oh don't look strangely on me! I never meant to leave you. I
never thought of it, before or afterwards. I was frightened when I went away,
and could not think. Papa, dear, I am changed. I am penitent. I know my fault. I
know my duty better now. Papa, don't cast me off, or I shall die!'
He tottered to his chair. He felt her draw his arms about her neck; he felt
her put her own round his; he felt her kisses on his face; he felt her wet cheek
laid against his own; he felt--oh, how deeply!--all that he had done.
Upon the breast that he had bruised, against the heart that he had almost
broken, she laid his face, now covered with his hands, and said, sobbing:
`Papa, love, I am a mother. I have a child who will soon call Walter by the
name by which I call you. When it was born, and when I knew how much I loved it,
I knew what I had done in leaving you. Forgive me, dear Papa! oh say God bless
me, and my little child!'
He would have said it, if he could. He would have raised his hands and
besought her for pardon, but she caught them in her own, and put them down,
hurriedly.
`My little child was born at sea, Papa. I prayed to God (and so did Walter
for me) to spare me, that I might come home. The moment I could land, I came
back to you. Never let us be parted any more, Papa!'
His head, now grey, was encircled by her arm; and he groaned to think that
never, never, had it rested so before.
`You will come home with me, Papa, and see my baby. A boy, Papa. His name is
Paul. I think--I hope--he's like--'
Her tears stopped her.
`Dear Papa, for the sake of my child, for the sake of the name we have given
him, for my sake, pardon Walter. He is so kind and tender to me. I am so happy
with him. It was not his fault that we were married. It was mine. I loved him so
much.'
She clung closer to him, more endearing and more earnest.
`He is the darling of my heart, Papa. I would die for him. He will love and
honour your as I will. We will teach our little child to love and honour you;
and we will tell him, when he can understand, that you had a son of that name
once, and that he died, and you were very sorry; but that he is gone to Heaven,
where we all hope to see him when our time for resting comes. Kiss me, Papa, as
a promise that you will be reconciled to Walter--to my dearest husband--to the
father of the little child who taught me to come back, Papa. Who taught me to
come back!'
As she clung closer to him, in another burst of tears, he kissed her on her
lips, and, lifting up his eyes, said, `Oh my God, forgive me, for I need it very
much!'
With that he dropped his head again, lamenting over and caressing her, and
there was not a sound in all the house for a long, long time; they remaining
clasped in one another's arms, in the glorious sunshine that had crept in with
Florence.
He dressed himself for going out, with a docile submission to her entreaty;
and walking with a feeble gait, and looking back, with a tremble, at the room in
which he had been so long shut up, and where he had seen the picture in the
glass, passed out with her into the hall. Florence, hardly glancing round her,
lest she should remind him freshly of their last parting--for their feet were on
the very stones where he had struck her in his madness--and keeping close to
him, with her eyes upon his face, and his arm about her, led him out to a coach
that was waiting at the door, and carried him away.
Then, Miss Tox and Polly came out of their concealment, and exulted
tearfully. And then they packed his clothes, and books, and so forth, with great
care; and consigned them in due course to certain persons sent by Florence in
the evening, to fetch them. And then they took a last cup of tea in the lonely
house.
`And so Dombey and Son, as I observed upon a certain sad occasion,' said Miss
Tox, winding up a host of recollections, `is indeed a daughter, Polly, after
all.'
`And a good one!' exclaimed Polly.
`You are right,' said Miss Tox; `and it's a credit to you Polly, that you
were always her friend when she was a little child. You were her friend long
before I was, Polly,' said Miss Tox; `and you're a good creature. Robin!'
Miss Tox addressed herself to a bullet-headed young man, who appeared to be
in but indifferent circumstances, and in depressed spirits, and who was sitting
in a remote corner. Rising, he disclosed to view the form and features of the
Grinder.
`Robin,' said Miss Tox, `I have just observed to your mother, as you may have
heard, that she is a good creature.'
`And so she is, Miss.' quoth the Grinder, with some feeling.
`Very well, Robin,' said Miss Tox, `I am glad to hear you say so. Now, Robin,
as I am going to give you a trial, at your urgent request, as my domestic, with
a view to your restoration to respectability, I will take this impressive
occasion of remarking that I hope you will never forget that you have, and have
always had, a good mother, and that your will endeavour so to conduct yourself
as to be a comfort to her.'
`Upon my soul I will, Miss,' returned the Grinder. `I have come through a
good deal, and my intentions is now as straightfor'ard, Miss, as a cove's--'
`I must get you to break yourself of that word, Robin, if you please,'
interposed Miss Tox, politely.
`If you please, Miss as a chap's--'
`Thankee, Robin, no,' returned Miss Tox. `I should prefer individual.'
`As a indiwiddle's,' said the Grinder.
`Much better,' remarked Miss Tox, complacently; `infinitely more expressive!'
`--can be,' pursued Rob. `If I hadn't been and got made a Grinder on, Miss
and Mother, which was a most unfortunate circumstance for a young
co--indiwiddle.'
`Very good indeed,' observed Miss Tox, approvingly.
`--and if I hadn't been led away by birds, and then fallen into a bad
service,' said the Grinder, `I hope I might have done better. But it's never too
late for a--'
`Indi--' suggested Miss Tox.
`--widdle,' said the Grinder, `to mend; and I hope to mend, Miss, with your
kind trial; and wishing, Mother, my love to father, and brothers and sisters,
and saying of it.'
`I am very glad indeed to hear it,' observed Miss Tox. `Will you take a
little bread and butter, and a cup of tea, before we go, Robin?'
`Thankee, Miss,' returned the Grinder; who immediately began to use his own
personal grinders in a most remarkable manner, as if he had been on very short
allowance for a considerable period.
Miss Tox, being, in good time, bonneted and shawled, and Polly too, Rob
hugged his mother, and followed his new mistress away; so much to the hopeful
admiration of Polly, that something in her eyes made luminous rings round the
gas-lamps as she looked after him. Polly then put out her light, locked the
house-door, delivered the key at an agent's hard by, and went home as fast as
she could go; rejoicing in the shrill delight that her unexpected arrival would
occasion there. The great house, dumb as to all that had been suffered in it,
and the changes it had witnessed, stood frowning like a dark mute on the street;
baulking any nearer inquiries with the staring announcement that the lease of
this desirable Family Mansion was to be disposed of.
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