Father and Daughter
There is a hush through Mr Dombey’s house. Servants gliding up and down
stairs rustle, but make no sound of footsteps. They talk together
constantly, and sit long at meals, making much of their meat and drink,
and enjoying themselves after a grim unholy fashion. Mrs Wickam, with
her eyes suffused with tears, relates melancholy anecdotes; and tells
them how she always said at Mrs Pipchin’s that it would be so, and
takes more table-ale than usual, and is very sorry but sociable. Cook’s
state of mind is similar. She promises a little fry for supper, and
struggles about equally against her feelings and the onions. Towlinson
begins to think there’s a fate in it, and wants to know if anybody can
tell him of any good that ever came of living in a corner house. It
seems to all of them as having happened a long time ago; though yet the
child lies, calm and beautiful, upon his little bed.
After dark there come some visitors—noiseless visitors, with shoes of
felt—who have been there before; and with them comes that bed of rest
which is so strange a one for infant sleepers. All this time, the
bereaved father has not been seen even by his attendant; for he sits in
an inner corner of his own dark room when anyone is there, and never
seems to move at other times, except to pace it to and fro. But in the
morning it is whispered among the household that he was heard to go
upstairs in the dead night, and that he stayed there—in the room—until
the sun was shining.
At the offices in the City, the ground-glass windows are made more dim
by shutters; and while the lighted lamps upon the desks are half
extinguished by the day that wanders in, the day is half extinguished
by the lamps, and an unusual gloom prevails. There is not much business
done. The clerks are indisposed to work; and they make assignations to
eat chops in the afternoon, and go up the river. Perch, the messenger,
stays long upon his errands; and finds himself in bars of
public-houses, invited thither by friends, and holding forth on the
uncertainty of human affairs. He goes home to Ball’s Pond earlier in
the evening than usual, and treats Mrs Perch to a veal cutlet and
Scotch ale. Mr Carker the Manager treats no one; neither is he treated;
but alone in his own room he shows his teeth all day; and it would seem
that there is something gone from Mr Carker’s path—some obstacle
removed—which clears his way before him.
Now the rosy children living opposite to Mr Dombey’s house, peep from
their nursery windows down into the street; for there are four black
horses at his door, with feathers on their heads; and feathers tremble
on the carriage that they draw; and these, and an array of men with
scarves and staves, attract a crowd. The juggler who was going to twirl
the basin, puts his loose coat on again over his fine dress; and his
trudging wife, one-sided with her heavy baby in her arms, loiters to
see the company come out. But closer to her dingy breast she presses
her baby, when the burden that is so easily carried is borne forth; and
the youngest of the rosy children at the high window opposite, needs no
restraining hand to check her in her glee, when, pointing with her
dimpled finger, she looks into her nurse’s face, and asks “What’s
that?”
And now, among the knot of servants dressed in mourning, and the
weeping women, Mr Dombey passes through the hall to the other carriage
that is waiting to receive him. He is not “brought down,” these
observers think, by sorrow and distress of mind. His walk is as erect,
his bearing is as stiff as ever it has been. He hides his face behind
no handkerchief, and looks before him. But that his face is something
sunk and rigid, and is pale, it bears the same expression as of old. He
takes his place within the carriage, and three other gentlemen follow.
Then the grand funeral moves slowly down the street. The feathers are
yet nodding in the distance, when the juggler has the basin spinning on
a cane, and has the same crowd to admire it. But the juggler’s wife is
less alert than usual with the money-box, for a child’s burial has set
her thinking that perhaps the baby underneath her shabby shawl may not
grow up to be a man, and wear a sky-blue fillet round his head, and
salmon-coloured worsted drawers, and tumble in the mud.
The feathers wind their gloomy way along the streets, and come within
the sound of a church bell. In this same church, the pretty boy
received all that will soon be left of him on earth—a name. All of him
that is dead, they lay there, near the perishable substance of his
mother. It is well. Their ashes lie where Florence in her walks—oh
lonely, lonely walks!—may pass them any day.
The service over, and the clergyman withdrawn, Mr Dombey looks round,
demanding in a low voice, whether the person who has been requested to
attend to receive instructions for the tablet, is there?
Someone comes forward, and says “Yes.”
Mr Dombey intimates where he would have it placed; and shows him, with
his hand upon the wall, the shape and size; and how it is to follow the
memorial to the mother. Then, with his pencil, he writes out the
inscription, and gives it to him: adding, “I wish to have it done at
once.
“It shall be done immediately, Sir.”
“There is really nothing to inscribe but name and age, you see.”
The man bows, glancing at the paper, but appears to hesitate. Mr Dombey
not observing his hesitation, turns away, and leads towards the porch.
“I beg your pardon, Sir;” a touch falls gently on his mourning cloak;
“but as you wish it done immediately, and it may be put in hand when I
get back—”
“Well?”
“Will you be so good as read it over again? I think there’s a mistake.”
“Where?”
The statuary gives him back the paper, and points out, with his pocket
rule, the words, “beloved and only child.”
“It should be, ‘son,’ I think, Sir?”
“You are right. Of course. Make the correction.”
The father, with a hastier step, pursues his way to the coach. When the
other three, who follow closely, take their seats, his face is hidden
for the first time—shaded by his cloak. Nor do they see it any more
that day. He alights first, and passes immediately into his own room.
The other mourners (who are only Mr Chick, and two of the medical
attendants) proceed upstairs to the drawing-room, to be received by Mrs
Chick and Miss Tox. And what the face is, in the shut-up chamber
underneath: or what the thoughts are: what the heart is, what the
contest or the suffering: no one knows.
The chief thing that they know, below stairs, in the kitchen, is that
“it seems like Sunday.” They can hardly persuade themselves but that
there is something unbecoming, if not wicked, in the conduct of the
people out of doors, who pursue their ordinary occupations, and wear
their everyday attire. It is quite a novelty to have the blinds up, and
the shutters open; and they make themselves dismally comfortable over
bottles of wine, which are freely broached as on a festival. They are
much inclined to moralise. Mr Towlinson proposes with a sigh,
“Amendment to us all!” for which, as Cook says with another sigh,
“There’s room enough, God knows.” In the evening, Mrs Chick and Miss
Tox take to needlework again. In the evening also, Mr Towlinson goes
out to take the air, accompanied by the housemaid, who has not yet
tried her mourning bonnet. They are very tender to each other at dusky
street-corners, and Towlinson has visions of leading an altered and
blameless existence as a serious greengrocer in Oxford Market.
There is sounder sleep and deeper rest in Mr Dombey’s house tonight,
than there has been for many nights. The morning sun awakens the old
household, settled down once more in their old ways. The rosy children
opposite run past with hoops. There is a splendid wedding in the
church. The juggler’s wife is active with the money-box in another
quarter of the town. The mason sings and whistles as he chips out
P-A-U-L in the marble slab before him.
And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one weak
creature makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing but
the width and depth of vast eternity can fill it up! Florence, in her
innocent affliction, might have answered, “Oh my brother, oh my dearly
loved and loving brother! Only friend and companion of my slighted
childhood! Could any less idea shed the light already dawning on your
early grave, or give birth to the softened sorrow that is springing
into life beneath this rain of tears!”
“My dear child,” said Mrs Chick, who held it as a duty incumbent on
her, to improve the occasion, “when you are as old as I am—”
“Which will be the prime of life,” observed Miss Tox.
“You will then,” pursued Mrs Chick, gently squeezing Miss Tox’s hand in
acknowledgment of her friendly remark, “you will then know that all
grief is unavailing, and that it is our duty to submit.”
“I will try, dear aunt I do try,” answered Florence, sobbing.
“I am glad to hear it,” said Mrs Chick, “because; my love, as our dear
Miss Tox—of whose sound sense and excellent judgment, there cannot
possibly be two opinions—”
“My dear Louisa, I shall really be proud, soon,” said Miss Tox.
“—will tell you, and confirm by her experience,” pursued Mrs Chick, “we
are called upon on all occasions to make an effort It is required of
us. If any—my dear,” turning to Miss Tox, “I want a word. Mis—Mis-”
“Demeanour?” suggested Miss Tox.
“No, no, no,” said Mrs Chic “How can you! Goodness me, it’s on, the end
of my tongue. Mis-”
“Placed affection?” suggested Miss Tox, timidly.
“Good gracious, Lucretia!” returned Mrs Chick “How very monstrous!
Misanthrope, is the word I want. The idea! Misplaced affection! I say,
if any misanthrope were to put, in my presence, the question ‘Why were
we born?’ I should reply, ‘To make an effort’.”
“Very good indeed,” said Miss Tox, much impressed by the originality of
the sentiment “Very good.”
“Unhappily,” pursued Mrs Chick, “we have a warning under our own eyes.
We have but too much reason to suppose, my dear child, that if an
effort had been made in time, in this family, a train of the most
trying and distressing circumstances might have been avoided. Nothing
shall ever persuade me,” observed the good matron, with a resolute air,
“but that if that effort had been made by poor dear Fanny, the poor
dear darling child would at least have had a stronger constitution.”
Mrs Chick abandoned herself to her feelings for half a moment; but, as
a practical illustration of her doctrine, brought herself up short, in
the middle of a sob, and went on again.
“Therefore, Florence, pray let us see that you have some strength of
mind, and do not selfishly aggravate the distress in which your poor
Papa is plunged.”
“Dear aunt!” said Florence, kneeling quickly down before her, that she
might the better and more earnestly look into her face. “Tell me more
about Papa. Pray tell me about him! Is he quite heartbroken?”
Miss Tox was of a tender nature, and there was something in this appeal
that moved her very much. Whether she saw it in a succession, on the
part of the neglected child, to the affectionate concern so often
expressed by her dead brother—or a love that sought to twine itself
about the heart that had loved him, and that could not bear to be shut
out from sympathy with such a sorrow, in such sad community of love and
grief—or whether she only recognised the earnest and devoted spirit
which, although discarded and repulsed, was wrung with tenderness long
unreturned, and in the waste and solitude of this bereavement cried to
him to seek a comfort in it, and to give some, by some small
response—whatever may have been her understanding of it, it moved Miss
Tox. For the moment she forgot the majesty of Mrs Chick, and, patting
Florence hastily on the cheek, turned aside and suffered the tears to
gush from her eyes, without waiting for a lead from that wise matron.
Mrs Chick herself lost, for a moment, the presence of mind on which she
so much prided herself; and remained mute, looking on the beautiful
young face that had so long, so steadily, and patiently, been turned
towards the little bed. But recovering her voice—which was synonymous
with her presence of mind, indeed they were one and the same thing—she
replied with dignity:
“Florence, my dear child, your poor Papa is peculiar at times; and to
question me about him, is to question me upon a subject which I really
do not pretend to understand. I believe I have as much influence with
your Papa as anybody has. Still, all I can say is, that he has said
very little to me; and that I have only seen him once or twice for a
minute at a time, and indeed have hardly seen him then, for his room
has been dark. I have said to your Papa, ‘Paul!’—that is the exact
expression I used—‘Paul! why do you not take something stimulating?’
Your Papa’s reply has always been, ‘Louisa, have the goodness to leave
me. I want nothing. I am better by myself.’ If I was to be put upon my
oath to-morrow, Lucretia, before a magistrate,” said Mrs Chick, “I have
no doubt I could venture to swear to those identical words.”
Miss Tox expressed her admiration by saying, “My Louisa is ever
methodical!”
“In short, Florence,” resumed her aunt, “literally nothing has passed
between your poor Papa and myself, until today; when I mentioned to
your Papa that Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles had written exceedingly
kind notes—our sweet boy! Lady Skettles loved him like a—where’s my
pocket handkerchief?”
Miss Tox produced one.
“Exceedingly kind notes, proposing that you should visit them for
change of scene. Mentioning to your Papa that I thought Miss Tox and
myself might now go home (in which he quite agreed), I inquired if he
had any objection to your accepting this invitation. He said, ‘No,
Louisa, not the least!’”
Florence raised her tearful eye.
“At the same time, if you would prefer staying here, Florence, to
paying this visit at present, or to going home with me—”
“I should much prefer it, aunt,” was the faint rejoinder.
“Why then, child,” said Mrs Chick, “you can. It’s a strange choice, I
must say. But you always were strange. Anybody else at your time of
life, and after what has passed—my dear Miss Tox, I have lost my pocket
handkerchief again—would be glad to leave here, one would suppose.”
“I should not like to feel,” said Florence, “as if the house was
avoided. I should not like to think that the—his—the rooms upstairs
were quite empty and dreary, aunt. I would rather stay here, for the
present. Oh my brother! oh my brother!”
It was a natural emotion, not to be suppressed; and it would make way
even between the fingers of the hands with which she covered up her
face. The overcharged and heavy-laden breast must some times have that
vent, or the poor wounded solitary heart within it would have fluttered
like a bird with broken wings, and sunk down in the dust.
“Well, child!” said Mrs Chick, after a pause “I wouldn’t on any account
say anything unkind to you, and that I’m sure you know. You will remain
here, then, and do exactly as you like. No one will interfere with you,
Florence, or wish to interfere with you, I’m sure.”
Florence shook her head in sad assent.
“I had no sooner begun to advise your poor Papa that he really ought to
seek some distraction and restoration in a temporary change,” said Mrs
Chick, “than he told me he had already formed the intention of going
into the country for a short time. I’m sure I hope he’ll go very soon.
He can’t go too soon. But I suppose there are some arrangements
connected with his private papers and so forth, consequent on the
affliction that has tried us all so much—I can’t think what’s become of
mine: Lucretia, lend me yours, my dear—that may occupy him for one or
two evenings in his own room. Your Papa’s a Dombey, child, if ever
there was one,” said Mrs Chick, drying both her eyes at once with great
care on opposite corners of Miss Tox’s handkerchief “He’ll make an
effort. There’s no fear of him.”
“Is there nothing, aunt,” said Florence, trembling, “I might do to—”
“Lord, my dear child,” interposed Mrs Chick, hastily, “what are you
talking about? If your Papa said to Me—I have given you his exact
words, ‘Louisa, I want nothing; I am better by myself’—what do you
think he’d say to you? You mustn’t show yourself to him, child. Don’t
dream of such a thing.”
“Aunt,” said Florence, “I will go and lie down on my bed.”
Mrs Chick approved of this resolution, and dismissed her with a kiss.
But Miss Tox, on a faint pretence of looking for the mislaid
handkerchief, went upstairs after her; and tried in a few stolen
minutes to comfort her, in spite of great discouragement from Susan
Nipper. For Miss Nipper, in her burning zeal, disparaged Miss Tox as a
crocodile; yet her sympathy seemed genuine, and had at least the
vantage-ground of disinterestedness—there was little favour to be won
by it.
And was there no one nearer and dearer than Susan, to uphold the
striving heart in its anguish? Was there no other neck to clasp; no
other face to turn to? no one else to say a soothing word to such deep
sorrow? Was Florence so alone in the bleak world that nothing else
remained to her? Nothing. Stricken motherless and brotherless at
once—for in the loss of little Paul, that first and greatest loss fell
heavily upon her—this was the only help she had. Oh, who can tell how
much she needed help at first!
At first, when the house subsided into its accustomed course, and they
had all gone away, except the servants, and her father shut up in his
own rooms, Florence could do nothing but weep, and wander up and down,
and sometimes, in a sudden pang of desolate remembrance, fly to her own
chamber, wring her hands, lay her face down on her bed, and know no
consolation: nothing but the bitterness and cruelty of grief. This
commonly ensued upon the recognition of some spot or object very
tenderly associated with him; and it made the miserable house, at
first, a place of agony.
But it is not in the nature of pure love to burn so fiercely and
unkindly long. The flame that in its grosser composition has the taint
of earth may prey upon the breast that gives it shelter; but the fire
from heaven is as gentle in the heart, as when it rested on the heads
of the assembled twelve, and showed each man his brother, brightened
and unhurt. The image conjured up, there soon returned the placid face,
the softened voice, the loving looks, the quiet trustfulness and peace;
and Florence, though she wept still, wept more tranquilly, and courted
the remembrance.
It was not very long before the golden water, dancing on the wall, in
the old place, at the old serene time, had her calm eye fixed upon it
as it ebbed away. It was not very long before that room again knew her,
often; sitting there alone, as patient and as mild as when she had
watched beside the little bed. When any sharp sense of its being empty
smote upon her, she could kneel beside it, and pray GOD—it was the
pouring out of her full heart—to let one angel love her and remember
her.
It was not very long before, in the midst of the dismal house so wide
and dreary, her low voice in the twilight, slowly and stopping
sometimes, touched the old air to which he had so often listened, with
his drooping head upon her arm. And after that, and when it was quite
dark, a little strain of music trembled in the room: so softly played
and sung, that it was more like the mournful recollection of what she
had done at his request on that last night, than the reality repeated.
But it was repeated, often—very often, in the shadowy solitude; and
broken murmurs of the strain still trembled on the keys, when the sweet
voice was hushed in tears.
Thus she gained heart to look upon the work with which her fingers had
been busy by his side on the sea-shore; and thus it was not very long
before she took to it again—with something of a human love for it, as
if it had been sentient and had known him; and, sitting in a window,
near her mother’s picture, in the unused room so long deserted, wore
away the thoughtful hours.
Why did the dark eyes turn so often from this work to where the rosy
children lived? They were not immediately suggestive of her loss; for
they were all girls: four little sisters. But they were motherless like
her—and had a father.
It was easy to know when he had gone out and was expected home, for the
elder child was always dressed and waiting for him at the drawing-room
window, or on the balcony; and when he appeared, her expectant face
lighted up with joy, while the others at the high window, and always on
the watch too, clapped their hands, and drummed them on the sill, and
called to him. The elder child would come down to the hall, and put her
hand in his, and lead him up the stairs; and Florence would see her
afterwards sitting by his side, or on his knee, or hanging coaxingly
about his neck and talking to him: and though they were always gay
together, he would often watch her face as if he thought her like her
mother that was dead. Florence would sometimes look no more at this,
and bursting into tears would hide behind the curtain as if she were
frightened, or would hurry from the window. Yet she could not help
returning; and her work would soon fall unheeded from her hands again.
It was the house that had been empty, years ago. It had remained so for
a long time. At last, and while she had been away from home, this
family had taken it; and it was repaired and newly painted; and there
were birds and flowers about it; and it looked very different from its
old self. But she never thought of the house. The children and their
father were all in all.
When he had dined, she could see them, through the open windows, go
down with their governess or nurse, and cluster round the table; and in
the still summer weather, the sound of their childish voices and clear
laughter would come ringing across the street, into the drooping air of
the room in which she sat. Then they would climb and clamber upstairs
with him, and romp about him on the sofa, or group themselves at his
knee, a very nosegay of little faces, while he seemed to tell them some
story. Or they would come running out into the balcony; and then
Florence would hide herself quickly, lest it should check them in their
joy, to see her in her black dress, sitting there alone.
The elder child remained with her father when the rest had gone away,
and made his tea for him—happy little house-keeper she was then!—and
sat conversing with him, sometimes at the window, sometimes in the
room, until the candles came. He made her his companion, though she was
some years younger than Florence; and she could be as staid and
pleasantly demure, with her little book or work-box, as a woman. When
they had candles, Florence from her own dark room was not afraid to
look again. But when the time came for the child to say “Good-night,
Papa,” and go to bed, Florence would sob and tremble as she raised her
face to him, and could look no more.
Though still she would turn, again and again, before going to bed
herself from the simple air that had lulled him to rest so often, long
ago, and from the other low soft broken strain of music, back to that
house. But that she ever thought of it, or watched it, was a secret
which she kept within her own young breast.
And did that breast of Florence—Florence, so ingenuous and true—so
worthy of the love that he had borne her, and had whispered in his last
faint words—whose guileless heart was mirrored in the beauty of her
face, and breathed in every accent of her gentle voice—did that young
breast hold any other secret? Yes. One more.
When no one in the house was stirring, and the lights were all
extinguished, she would softly leave her own room, and with noiseless
feet descend the staircase, and approach her father’s door. Against it,
scarcely breathing, she would rest her face and head, and press her
lips, in the yearning of her love. She crouched upon the cold stone
floor outside it, every night, to listen even for his breath; and in
her one absorbing wish to be allowed to show him some affection, to be
a consolation to him, to win him over to the endurance of some
tenderness from her, his solitary child, she would have knelt down at
his feet, if she had dared, in humble supplication.
No one knew it. No one thought of it. The door was ever closed, and he
shut up within. He went out once or twice, and it was said in the house
that he was very soon going on his country journey; but he lived in
those rooms, and lived alone, and never saw her, or inquired for her.
Perhaps he did not even know that she was in the house.
One day, about a week after the funeral, Florence was sitting at her
work, when Susan appeared, with a face half laughing and half crying,
to announce a visitor.
“A visitor! To me, Susan!” said Florence, looking up in astonishment.
“Well, it is a wonder, ain’t it now, Miss Floy?” said Susan; “but I
wish you had a many visitors, I do, indeed, for you’d be all the better
for it, and it’s my opinion that the sooner you and me goes even to
them old Skettleses, Miss, the better for both, I may not wish to live
in crowds, Miss Floy, but still I’m not a oyster.”
To do Miss Nipper justice, she spoke more for her young mistress than
herself; and her face showed it.
“But the visitor, Susan,” said Florence.
Susan, with an hysterical explosion that was as much a laugh as a sob,
and as much a sob as a laugh, answered,
“Mr Toots!”
The smile that appeared on Florence’s face passed from it in a moment,
and her eyes filled with tears. But at any rate it was a smile, and
that gave great satisfaction to Miss Nipper.
“My own feelings exactly, Miss Floy,” said Susan, putting her apron to
her eyes, and shaking her head. “Immediately I see that Innocent in the
Hall, Miss Floy, I burst out laughing first, and then I choked.”
Susan Nipper involuntarily proceeded to do the like again on the spot.
In the meantime Mr Toots, who had come upstairs after her, all
unconscious of the effect he produced, announced himself with his
knuckles on the door, and walked in very briskly.
“How d’ye do, Miss Dombey?” said Mr Toots. “I’m very well, I thank you;
how are you?”
Mr Toots—than whom there were few better fellows in the world, though
there may have been one or two brighter spirits—had laboriously
invented this long burst of discourse with the view of relieving the
feelings both of Florence and himself. But finding that he had run
through his property, as it were, in an injudicious manner, by
squandering the whole before taking a chair, or before Florence had
uttered a word, or before he had well got in at the door, he deemed it
advisable to begin again.
“How d’ye do, Miss Dombey?” said Mr Toots. “I’m very well, I thank you;
how are you?”
Florence gave him her hand, and said she was very well.
“I’m very well indeed,” said Mr Toots, taking a chair. “Very well
indeed, I am. I don’t remember,” said Mr Toots, after reflecting a
little, “that I was ever better, thank you.”
“It’s very kind of you to come,” said Florence, taking up her work, “I
am very glad to see you.”
Mr Toots responded with a chuckle. Thinking that might be too lively,
he corrected it with a sigh. Thinking that might be too melancholy, he
corrected it with a chuckle. Not thoroughly pleasing himself with
either mode of reply, he breathed hard.
“You were very kind to my dear brother,” said Florence, obeying her own
natural impulse to relieve him by saying so. “He often talked to me
about you.”
“Oh it’s of no consequence,” said Mr Toots hastily. “Warm, ain’t it?”
“It is beautiful weather,” replied Florence.
“It agrees with me!” said Mr Toots. “I don’t think I ever was so well
as I find myself at present, I’m obliged to you.
After stating this curious and unexpected fact, Mr Toots fell into a
deep well of silence.
“You have left Dr Blimber’s, I think?” said Florence, trying to help
him out.
“I should hope so,” returned Mr Toots. And tumbled in again.
He remained at the bottom, apparently drowned, for at least ten
minutes. At the expiration of that period, he suddenly floated, and
said,
“Well! Good morning, Miss Dombey.”
“Are you going?” asked Florence, rising.
“I don’t know, though. No, not just at present,” said Mr Toots, sitting
down again, most unexpectedly. “The fact is—I say, Miss Dombey!”
“Don’t be afraid to speak to me,” said Florence, with a quiet smile, “I
should be very glad if you would talk about my brother.”
“Would you, though?” retorted Mr Toots, with sympathy in every fibre of
his otherwise expressionless face. “Poor Dombey! I’m sure I never
thought that Burgess and Co.—fashionable tailors (but very dear), that
we used to talk about—would make this suit of clothes for such a
purpose.” Mr Toots was dressed in mourning. “Poor Dombey! I say! Miss
Dombey!” blubbered Toots.
“Yes,” said Florence.
“There’s a friend he took to very much at last. I thought you’d like to
have him, perhaps, as a sort of keepsake. You remember his remembering
Diogenes?”
“Oh yes! oh yes” cried Florence.
“Poor Dombey! So do I,” said Mr Toots.
Mr Toots, seeing Florence in tears, had great difficulty in getting
beyond this point, and had nearly tumbled into the well again. But a
chuckle saved him on the brink.
“I say,” he proceeded, “Miss Dombey! I could have had him stolen for
ten shillings, if they hadn’t given him up: and I would: but they were
glad to get rid of him, I think. If you’d like to have him, he’s at the
door. I brought him on purpose for you. He ain’t a lady’s dog, you
know,” said Mr Toots, “but you won’t mind that, will you?”
In fact, Diogenes was at that moment, as they presently ascertained
from looking down into the street, staring through the window of a
hackney cabriolet, into which, for conveyance to that spot, he had been
ensnared, on a false pretence of rats among the straw. Sooth to say, he
was as unlike a lady’s dog as might be; and in his gruff anxiety to get
out, presented an appearance sufficiently unpromising, as he gave short
yelps out of one side of his mouth, and overbalancing himself by the
intensity of every one of those efforts, tumbled down into the straw,
and then sprung panting up again, putting out his tongue, as if he had
come express to a Dispensary to be examined for his health.
But though Diogenes was as ridiculous a dog as one would meet with on a
summer’s day; a blundering, ill-favoured, clumsy, bullet-headed dog,
continually acting on a wrong idea that there was an enemy in the
neighbourhood, whom it was meritorious to bark at; and though he was
far from good-tempered, and certainly was not clever, and had hair all
over his eyes, and a comic nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff
voice; he was dearer to Florence, in virtue of that parting remembrance
of him, and that request that he might be taken care of, than the most
valuable and beautiful of his kind. So dear, indeed, was this same ugly
Diogenes, and so welcome to her, that she took the jewelled hand of Mr
Toots and kissed it in her gratitude. And when Diogenes, released, came
tearing up the stairs and bouncing into the room (such a business as
there was, first, to get him out of the cabriolet!), dived under all
the furniture, and wound a long iron chain, that dangled from his neck,
round legs of chairs and tables, and then tugged at it until his eyes
became unnaturally visible, in consequence of their nearly starting out
of his head; and when he growled at Mr Toots, who affected familiarity;
and went pell-mell at Towlinson, morally convinced that he was the
enemy whom he had barked at round the corner all his life and had never
seen yet; Florence was as pleased with him as if he had been a miracle
of discretion.
Mr Toots was so overjoyed by the success of his present, and was so
delighted to see Florence bending down over Diogenes, smoothing his
coarse back with her little delicate hand—Diogenes graciously allowing
it from the first moment of their acquaintance—that he felt it
difficult to take leave, and would, no doubt, have been a much longer
time in making up his mind to do so, if he had not been assisted by
Diogenes himself, who suddenly took it into his head to bay Mr Toots,
and to make short runs at him with his mouth open. Not exactly seeing
his way to the end of these demonstrations, and sensible that they
placed the pantaloons constructed by the art of Burgess and Co. in
jeopardy, Mr Toots, with chuckles, lapsed out at the door: by which,
after looking in again two or three times, without any object at all,
and being on each occasion greeted with a fresh run from Diogenes, he
finally took himself off and got away.
“Come, then, Di! Dear Di! Make friends with your new mistress. Let us
love each other, Di!” said Florence, fondling his shaggy head. And Di,
the rough and gruff, as if his hairy hide were pervious to the tear
that dropped upon it, and his dog’s heart melted as it fell, put his
nose up to her face, and swore fidelity.
[Illustration]
Diogenes the man did not speak plainer to Alexander the Great than
Diogenes the dog spoke to Florence. He subscribed to the offer of his
little mistress cheerfully, and devoted himself to her service. A
banquet was immediately provided for him in a corner; and when he had
eaten and drunk his fill, he went to the window where Florence was
sitting, looking on, rose up on his hind legs, with his awkward fore
paws on her shoulders, licked her face and hands, nestled his great
head against her heart, and wagged his tail till he was tired. Finally,
Diogenes coiled himself up at her feet and went to sleep.
Although Miss Nipper was nervous in regard of dogs, and felt it
necessary to come into the room with her skirts carefully collected
about her, as if she were crossing a brook on stepping-stones; also to
utter little screams and stand up on chairs when Diogenes stretched
himself, she was in her own manner affected by the kindness of Mr
Toots, and could not see Florence so alive to the attachment and
society of this rude friend of little Paul’s, without some mental
comments thereupon that brought the water to her eyes. Mr Dombey, as a
part of her reflections, may have been, in the association of ideas,
connected with the dog; but, at any rate, after observing Diogenes and
his mistress all the evening, and after exerting herself with much
good-will to provide Diogenes a bed in an ante-chamber outside his
mistress’s door, she said hurriedly to Florence, before leaving her for
the night:
“Your Pa’s a going off, Miss Floy, tomorrow morning.”
“To-morrow morning, Susan?”
“Yes, Miss; that’s the orders. Early.”
“Do you know,” asked Florence, without looking at her, “where Papa is
going, Susan?”
“Not exactly, Miss. He’s going to meet that precious Major first, and I
must say if I was acquainted with any Major myself (which Heavens
forbid), it shouldn’t be a blue one!”
“Hush, Susan!” urged Florence gently.
“Well, Miss Floy,” returned Miss Nipper, who was full of burning
indignation, and minded her stops even less than usual. “I can’t help
it, blue he is, and while I was a Christian, although humble, I would
have natural-coloured friends, or none.”
It appeared from what she added and had gleaned downstairs, that Mrs
Chick had proposed the Major for Mr Dombey’s companion, and that Mr
Dombey, after some hesitation, had invited him.
“Talk of him being a change, indeed!” observed Miss Nipper to herself
with boundless contempt. “If he’s a change, give me a constancy.”
“Good-night, Susan,” said Florence.
“Good-night, my darling dear Miss Floy.”
Her tone of commiseration smote the chord so often roughly touched, but
never listened to while she or anyone looked on. Florence left alone,
laid her head upon her hand, and pressing the other over her swelling
heart, held free communication with her sorrows.
It was a wet night; and the melancholy rain fell pattering and dropping
with a weary sound. A sluggish wind was blowing, and went moaning round
the house, as if it were in pain or grief. A shrill noise quivered
through the trees. While she sat weeping, it grew late, and dreary
midnight tolled out from the steeples.
Florence was little more than a child in years—not yet fourteen—and the
loneliness and gloom of such an hour in the great house where Death had
lately made its own tremendous devastation, might have set an older
fancy brooding on vague terrors. But her innocent imagination was too
full of one theme to admit them. Nothing wandered in her thoughts but
love—a wandering love, indeed, and castaway—but turning always to her
father.
There was nothing in the dropping of the rain, the moaning of the wind,
the shuddering of the trees, the striking of the solemn clocks, that
shook this one thought, or diminished its interest. Her recollections
of the dear dead boy—and they were never absent—were itself, the same
thing. And oh, to be shut out: to be so lost: never to have looked into
her father’s face or touched him, since that hour!
She could not go to bed, poor child, and never had gone yet, since
then, without making her nightly pilgrimage to his door. It would have
been a strange sad sight, to see her now, stealing lightly down the
stairs through the thick gloom, and stopping at it with a beating
heart, and blinded eyes, and hair that fell down loosely and unthought
of; and touching it outside with her wet cheek. But the night covered
it, and no one knew.
The moment that she touched the door on this night, Florence found that
it was open. For the first time it stood open, though by but a
hair’s-breadth: and there was a light within. The first impulse of the
timid child—and she yielded to it—was to retire swiftly. Her next, to
go back, and to enter; and this second impulse held her in irresolution
on the staircase.
In its standing open, even by so much as that chink, there seemed to be
hope. There was encouragement in seeing a ray of light from within,
stealing through the dark stern doorway, and falling in a thread upon
the marble floor. She turned back, hardly knowing what she did, but
urged on by the love within her, and the trial they had undergone
together, but not shared: and with her hands a little raised and
trembling, glided in.
Her father sat at his old table in the middle room. He had been
arranging some papers, and destroying others, and the latter lay in
fragile ruins before him. The rain dripped heavily upon the glass panes
in the outer room, where he had so often watched poor Paul, a baby; and
the low complainings of the wind were heard without.
But not by him. He sat with his eyes fixed on the table, so immersed in
thought, that a far heavier tread than the light foot of his child
could make, might have failed to rouse him. His face was turned towards
her. By the waning lamp, and at that haggard hour, it looked worn and
dejected; and in the utter loneliness surrounding him, there was an
appeal to Florence that struck home.
“Papa! Papa! speak to me, dear Papa!”
He started at her voice, and leaped up from his seat. She was close
before him with extended arms, but he fell back.
“What is the matter?” he said, sternly. “Why do you come here? What has
frightened you?”
If anything had frightened her, it was the face he turned upon her. The
glowing love within the breast of his young daughter froze before it,
and she stood and looked at him as if stricken into stone.
There was not one touch of tenderness or pity in it. There was not one
gleam of interest, parental recognition, or relenting in it. There was
a change in it, but not of that kind. The old indifference and cold
constraint had given place to something: what, she never thought and
did not dare to think, and yet she felt it in its force, and knew it
well without a name: that as it looked upon her, seemed to cast a
shadow on her head.
Did he see before him the successful rival of his son, in health and
life? Did he look upon his own successful rival in that son’s
affection? Did a mad jealousy and withered pride, poison sweet
remembrances that should have endeared and made her precious to him?
Could it be possible that it was gall to him to look upon her in her
beauty and her promise: thinking of his infant boy!
Florence had no such thoughts. But love is quick to know when it is
spurned and hopeless: and hope died out of hers, as she stood looking
in her father’s face.
“I ask you, Florence, are you frightened? Is there anything the matter,
that you come here?”
“I came, Papa—”
“Against my wishes. Why?”
She saw he knew why: it was written broadly on his face: and dropped
her head upon her hands with one prolonged low cry.
Let him remember it in that room, years to come. It has faded from the
air, before he breaks the silence. It may pass as quickly from his
brain, as he believes, but it is there. Let him remember it in that
room, years to come!
He took her by the arm. His hand was cold, and loose, and scarcely
closed upon her.
“You are tired, I daresay,” he said, taking up the light, and leading
her towards the door, “and want rest. We all want rest. Go, Florence.
You have been dreaming.”
The dream she had had, was over then, God help her! and she felt that
it could never more come back.
“I will remain here to light you up the stairs. The whole house is
yours above there,” said her father, slowly. “You are its mistress now.
Good-night!”
Still covering her face, she sobbed, and answered “Good-night, dear
Papa,” and silently ascended. Once she looked back as if she would have
returned to him, but for fear. It was a momentary thought, too hopeless
to encourage; and her father stood there with the light—hard,
unresponsive, motionless—until the fluttering dress of his fair child
was lost in the darkness.
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!
The last time he had watched her, from the same place, winding up those
stairs, she had had her brother in her arms. It did not move his heart
towards her now, it steeled it: but he went into his room, and locked
his door, and sat down in his chair, and cried for his lost boy.
Diogenes was broad awake upon his post, and waiting for his little
mistress.
“Oh, Di! Oh, dear Di! Love me for his sake!”
Diogenes already loved her for her own, and didn’t care how much he
showed it. So he made himself vastly ridiculous by performing a variety
of uncouth bounces in the ante-chamber, and concluded, when poor
Florence was at last asleep, and dreaming of the rosy children
opposite, by scratching open her bedroom door: rolling up his bed into
a pillow: lying down on the boards, at the full length of his tether,
with his head towards her: and looking lazily at her, upside down, out
of the tops of his eyes, until from winking and winking he fell asleep
himself, and dreamed, with gruff barks, of his enemy.