The Happy Pair
The dark blot on the street is gone. Mr Dombey’s mansion, if it be a
gap among the other houses any longer, is only so because it is not to
be vied with in its brightness, and haughtily casts them off. The
saying is, that home is home, be it never so homely. If it hold good in
the opposite contingency, and home is home be it never so stately, what
an altar to the Household Gods is raised up here!
Lights are sparkling in the windows this evening, and the ruddy glow of
fires is warm and bright upon the hangings and soft carpets, and the
dinner waits to be served, and the dinner-table is handsomely set
forth, though only for four persons, and the side board is cumbrous
with plate. It is the first time that the house has been arranged for
occupation since its late changes, and the happy pair are looked for
every minute.
Only second to the wedding morning, in the interest and expectation it
engenders among the household, is this evening of the coming home. Mrs
Perch is in the kitchen taking tea; and has made the tour of the
establishment, and priced the silks and damasks by the yard, and
exhausted every interjection in the dictionary and out of it expressive
of admiration and wonder. The upholsterer’s foreman, who has left his
hat, with a pocket-handkerchief in it, both smelling strongly of
varnish, under a chair in the hall, lurks about the house, gazing
upwards at the cornices, and downward at the carpets, and occasionally,
in a silent transport of enjoyment, taking a rule out of his pocket,
and skirmishingly measuring expensive objects, with unutterable
feelings. Cook is in high spirits, and says give her a place where
there’s plenty of company (as she’ll bet you sixpence there will be
now), for she is of a lively disposition, and she always was from a
child, and she don’t mind who knows it; which sentiment elicits from
the breast of Mrs Perch a responsive murmur of support and approbation.
All the housemaid hopes is, happiness for ’em—but marriage is a
lottery, and the more she thinks about it, the more she feels the
independence and the safety of a single life. Mr Towlinson is saturnine
and grim, and says that’s his opinion too, and give him War besides,
and down with the French—for this young man has a general impression
that every foreigner is a Frenchman, and must be by the laws of nature.
At each new sound of wheels, they all stop, whatever they are saying,
and listen; and more than once there is a general starting up and a cry
of “Here they are!” But here they are not yet; and Cook begins to mourn
over the dinner, which has been put back twice, and the upholsterer’s
foreman still goes lurking about the rooms, undisturbed in his blissful
reverie!
Florence is ready to receive her father and her new Mama. Whether the
emotions that are throbbing in her breast originate in pleasure or in
pain, she hardly knows. But the fluttering heart sends added colour to
her cheeks, and brightness to her eyes; and they say downstairs,
drawing their heads together—for they always speak softly when they
speak of her—how beautiful Miss Florence looks tonight, and what a
sweet young lady she has grown, poor dear! A pause succeeds; and then
Cook, feeling, as president, that her sentiments are waited for,
wonders whether—and there stops. The housemaid wonders too, and so does
Mrs Perch, who has the happy social faculty of always wondering when
other people wonder, without being at all particular what she wonders
at. Mr Towlinson, who now descries an opportunity of bringing down the
spirits of the ladies to his own level, says wait and see; he wishes
some people were well out of this. Cook leads a sigh then, and a murmur
of “Ah, it’s a strange world, it is indeed!” and when it has gone round
the table, adds persuasively, “but Miss Florence can’t well be the
worse for any change, Tom.” Mr Towlinson’s rejoinder, pregnant with
frightful meaning, is “Oh, can’t she though!” and sensible that a mere
man can scarcely be more prophetic, or improve upon that, he holds his
peace.
Mrs Skewton, prepared to greet her darling daughter and dear son-in-law
with open arms, is appropriately attired for that purpose in a very
youthful costume, with short sleeves. At present, however, her ripe
charms are blooming in the shade of her own apartments, whence she had
not emerged since she took possession of them a few hours ago, and
where she is fast growing fretful, on account of the postponement of
dinner. The maid who ought to be a skeleton, but is in truth a buxom
damsel, is, on the other hand, in a most amiable state: considering her
quarterly stipend much safer than heretofore, and foreseeing a great
improvement in her board and lodging.
Where are the happy pair, for whom this brave home is waiting? Do
steam, tide, wind, and horses, all abate their speed, to linger on such
happiness? Does the swarm of loves and graces hovering about them
retard their progress by its numbers? Are there so many flowers in
their happy path, that they can scarcely move along, without
entanglement in thornless roses, and sweetest briar?
They are here at last! The noise of wheels is heard, grows louder, and
a carriage drives up to the door! A thundering knock from the obnoxious
foreigner anticipates the rush of Mr Towlinson and party to open it;
and Mr Dombey and his bride alight, and walk in arm in arm.
“My sweetest Edith!” cries an agitated voice upon the stairs. “My
dearest Dombey!” and the short sleeves wreath themselves about the
happy couple in turn, and embrace them.
Florence had come down to the hall too, but did not advance: reserving
her timid welcome until these nearer and dearer transports should
subside. But the eyes of Edith sought her out, upon the threshold; and
dismissing her sensitive parent with a slight kiss on the cheek, she
hurried on to Florence and embraced her.
“How do you do, Florence?” said Mr Dombey, putting out his hand.
As Florence, trembling, raised it to her lips, she met his glance. The
look was cold and distant enough, but it stirred her heart to think
that she observed in it something more of interest than he had ever
shown before. It even expressed a kind of faint surprise, and not a
disagreeable surprise, at sight of her. She dared not raise her eyes to
his any more; but she felt that he looked at her once again, and not
less favourably. Oh what a thrill of joy shot through her, awakened by
even this intangible and baseless confirmation of her hope that she
would learn to win him, through her new and beautiful Mama!
“You will not be long dressing, Mrs Dombey, I presume?” said Mr Dombey.
“I shall be ready immediately.”
“Let them send up dinner in a quarter of an hour.”
With that Mr Dombey stalked away to his own dressing-room, and Mrs
Dombey went upstairs to hers. Mrs Skewton and Florence repaired to the
drawing-room, where that excellent mother considered it incumbent on
her to shed a few irrepressible tears, supposed to be forced from her
by her daughter’s felicity; and which she was still drying, very
gingerly, with a laced corner of her pocket-handkerchief, when her
son-in-law appeared.
“And how, my dearest Dombey, did you find that delightfullest of
cities, Paris?” she asked, subduing her emotion.
“It was cold,” returned Mr Dombey.
“Gay as ever,” said Mrs Skewton, “of course.
“Not particularly. I thought it dull,” said Mr Dombey.
“Fie, my dearest Dombey!” archly; “dull!”
“It made that impression upon me, Madam,” said Mr Dombey, with grave
politeness. “I believe Mrs Dombey found it dull too. She mentioned once
or twice that she thought it so.”
“Why, you naughty girl!” cried Mrs Skewton, rallying her dear child,
who now entered, “what dreadfully heretical things have you been saying
about Paris?”
Edith raised her eyebrows with an air of weariness; and passing the
folding-doors which were thrown open to display the suite of rooms in
their new and handsome garniture, and barely glancing at them as she
passed, sat down by Florence.
“My dear Dombey,” said Mrs Skewton, “how charmingly these people have
carried out every idea that we hinted. They have made a perfect palace
of the house, positively.”
“It is handsome,” said Mr Dombey, looking round. “I directed that no
expense should be spared; and all that money could do, has been done, I
believe.”
“And what can it not do, dear Dombey?” observed Cleopatra.
“It is powerful, Madam,” said Mr Dombey.
He looked in his solemn way towards his wife, but not a word said she.
“I hope, Mrs Dombey,” addressing her after a moment’s silence, with
especial distinctness; “that these alterations meet with your
approval?”
“They are as handsome as they can be,” she returned, with haughty
carelessness. “They should be so, of course. And I suppose they are.”
An expression of scorn was habitual to the proud face, and seemed
inseparable from it; but the contempt with which it received any appeal
to admiration, respect, or consideration on the ground of his riches,
no matter how slight or ordinary in itself, was a new and different
expression, unequalled in intensity by any other of which it was
capable. Whether Mr Dombey, wrapped in his own greatness, was at all
aware of this, or no, there had not been wanting opportunities already
for his complete enlightenment; and at that moment it might have been
effected by the one glance of the dark eye that lighted on him, after
it had rapidly and scornfully surveyed the theme of his
self-glorification. He might have read in that one glance that nothing
that his wealth could do, though it were increased ten thousand fold,
could win him for its own sake, one look of softened recognition from
the defiant woman, linked to him, but arrayed with her whole soul
against him. He might have read in that one glance that even for its
sordid and mercenary influence upon herself, she spurned it, while she
claimed its utmost power as her right, her bargain—as the base and
worthless recompense for which she had become his wife. He might have
read in it that, ever baring her own head for the lightning of her own
contempt and pride to strike, the most innocent allusion to the power
of his riches degraded her anew, sunk her deeper in her own respect,
and made the blight and waste within her more complete.
But dinner was announced, and Mr Dombey led down Cleopatra; Edith and
his daughter following. Sweeping past the gold and silver demonstration
on the sideboard as if it were heaped-up dirt, and deigning to bestow
no look upon the elegancies around her, she took her place at his board
for the first time, and sat, like a statue, at the feast.
Mr Dombey, being a good deal in the statue way himself, was well enough
pleased to see his handsome wife immovable and proud and cold. Her
deportment being always elegant and graceful, this as a general
behaviour was agreeable and congenial to him. Presiding, therefore,
with his accustomed dignity, and not at all reflecting on his wife by
any warmth or hilarity of his own, he performed his share of the
honours of the table with a cool satisfaction; and the installation
dinner, though not regarded downstairs as a great success, or very
promising beginning, passed off, above, in a sufficiently polite,
genteel, and frosty manner.
Soon after tea, Mrs Skewton, who affected to be quite overcome and worn
out by her emotions of happiness, arising in the contemplation of her
dear child united to the man of her heart, but who, there is reason to
suppose, found this family party somewhat dull, as she yawned for one
hour continually behind her fan, retired to bed. Edith, also, silently
withdrew and came back no more. Thus, it happened that Florence, who
had been upstairs to have some conversation with Diogenes, returning to
the drawing-room with her little work-basket, found no one there but
her father, who was walking to and fro, in dreary magnificence.
“I beg your pardon. Shall I go away, Papa?” said Florence faintly,
hesitating at the door.
“No,” returned Mr Dombey, looking round over his shoulder; “you can
come and go here, Florence, as you please. This is not my private
room.”
Florence entered, and sat down at a distant little table with her work:
finding herself for the first time in her life—for the very first time
within her memory from her infancy to that hour—alone with her father,
as his companion. She, his natural companion, his only child, who in
her lonely life and grief had known the suffering of a breaking heart;
who, in her rejected love, had never breathed his name to God at night,
but with a tearful blessing, heavier on him than a curse; who had
prayed to die young, so she might only die in his arms; who had, all
through, repaid the agony of slight and coldness, and dislike, with
patient unexacting love, excusing him, and pleading for him, like his
better angel!
She trembled, and her eyes were dim. His figure seemed to grow in
height and bulk before her as he paced the room: now it was all blurred
and indistinct; now clear again, and plain; and now she seemed to think
that this had happened, just the same, a multitude of years ago. She
yearned towards him, and yet shrunk from his approach. Unnatural
emotion in a child, innocent of wrong! Unnatural the hand that had
directed the sharp plough, which furrowed up her gentle nature for the
sowing of its seeds!
Bent upon not distressing or offending him by her distress, Florence
controlled herself, and sat quietly at her work. After a few more turns
across and across the room, he left off pacing it; and withdrawing into
a shadowy corner at some distance, where there was an easy chair,
covered his head with a handkerchief, and composed himself to sleep.
It was enough for Florence to sit there watching him; turning her eyes
towards his chair from time to time; watching him with her thoughts,
when her face was intent upon her work; and sorrowfully glad to think
that he _could_ sleep, while she was there, and that he was not made
restless by her strange and long-forbidden presence.
What would have been her thoughts if she had known that he was steadily
regarding her; that the veil upon his face, by accident or by design,
was so adjusted that his sight was free, and that it never wandered
from her face an instant. That when she looked towards him, in the
obscure dark corner, her speaking eyes, more earnest and pathetic in
their voiceless speech than all the orators of all the world, and
impeaching him more nearly in their mute address, met his, and did not
know it! That when she bent her head again over her work, he drew his
breath more easily, but with the same attention looked upon her
still—upon her white brow and her falling hair, and busy hands; and
once attracted, seemed to have no power to turn his eyes away!
And what were his thoughts meanwhile? With what emotions did he prolong
the attentive gaze covertly directed on his unknown daughter? Was there
reproach to him in the quiet figure and the mild eyes? Had he begun to
feel her disregarded claims and did they touch him home at last, and
waken him to some sense of his cruel injustice?
There are yielding moments in the lives of the sternest and harshest
men, though such men often keep their secret well. The sight of her in
her beauty, almost changed into a woman without his knowledge, may have
struck out some such moments even in his life of pride. Some passing
thought that he had had a happy home within his reach—had had a
household spirit bending at his feet—had overlooked it in his
stiffnecked sullen arrogance, and wandered away and lost himself, may
have engendered them. Some simple eloquence distinctly heard, though
only uttered in her eyes, unconscious that he read them as “By the
death-beds I have tended, by the childhood I have suffered, by our
meeting in this dreary house at midnight, by the cry wrung from me in
the anguish of my heart, oh, father, turn to me and seek a refuge in my
love before it is too late!” may have arrested them. Meaner and lower
thoughts, as that his dead boy was now superseded by new ties, and he
could forgive the having been supplanted in his affection, may have
occasioned them. The mere association of her as an ornament, with all
the ornament and pomp about him, may have been sufficient. But as he
looked, he softened to her, more and more. As he looked, she became
blended with the child he had loved, and he could hardly separate the
two. As he looked, he saw her for an instant by a clearer and a
brighter light, not bending over that child’s pillow as his
rival—monstrous thought—but as the spirit of his home, and in the
action tending himself no less, as he sat once more with his bowed-down
head upon his hand at the foot of the little bed. He felt inclined to
speak to her, and call her to him. The words “Florence, come here!”
were rising to his lips—but slowly and with difficulty, they were so
very strange—when they were checked and stifled by a footstep on the
stair.
It was his wife’s. She had exchanged her dinner dress for a loose robe,
and unbound her hair, which fell freely about her neck. But this was
not the change in her that startled him.
“Florence, dear,” she said, “I have been looking for you everywhere.”
As she sat down by the side of Florence, she stooped and kissed her
hand. He hardly knew his wife. She was so changed. It was not merely
that her smile was new to him—though that he had never seen; but her
manner, the tone of her voice, the light of her eyes, the interest, and
confidence, and winning wish to please, expressed in all-this was not
Edith.
“Softly, dear Mama. Papa is asleep.”
It was Edith now. She looked towards the corner where he was, and he
knew that face and manner very well.
“I scarcely thought you could be here, Florence.”
Again, how altered and how softened, in an instant!
“I left here early,” pursued Edith, “purposely to sit upstairs and talk
with you. But, going to your room, I found my bird was flown, and I
have been waiting there ever since, expecting its return.
If it had been a bird, indeed, she could not have taken it more
tenderly and gently to her breast, than she did Florence.
“Come, dear!”
“Papa will not expect to find me, I suppose, when he wakes,” hesitated
Florence.
“Do you think he will, Florence?” said Edith, looking full upon her.
Florence drooped her head, and rose, and put up her work-basket. Edith
drew her hand through her arm, and they went out of the room like
sisters. Her very step was different and new to him, Mr Dombey thought,
as his eyes followed her to the door.
He sat in his shadowy corner so long, that the church clocks struck the
hour three times before he moved that night. All that while his face
was still intent upon the spot where Florence had been seated. The room
grew darker, as the candles waned and went out; but a darkness gathered
on his face, exceeding any that the night could cast, and rested there.
Florence and Edith, seated before the fire in the remote room where
little Paul had died, talked together for a long time. Diogenes, who
was of the party, had at first objected to the admission of Edith, and,
even in deference to his mistress’s wish, had only permitted it under
growling protest. But, emerging by little and little from the
ante-room, whither he had retired in dudgeon, he soon appeared to
comprehend, that with the most amiable intentions he had made one of
those mistakes which will occasionally arise in the best-regulated
dogs’ minds; as a friendly apology for which he stuck himself up on end
between the two, in a very hot place in front of the fire, and sat
panting at it, with his tongue out, and a most imbecile expression of
countenance, listening to the conversation.
It turned, at first, on Florence’s books and favourite pursuits, and on
the manner in which she had beguiled the interval since the marriage.
The last theme opened up to her a subject which lay very near her
heart, and she said, with the tears starting to her eyes:
“Oh, Mama! I have had a great sorrow since that day.”
“You a great sorrow, Florence!”
“Yes. Poor Walter is drowned.”
Florence spread her hands before her face, and wept with all her heart.
Many as were the secret tears which Walter’s fate had cost her, they
flowed yet, when she thought or spoke of him.
“But tell me, dear,” said Edith, soothing her. “Who was Walter? What
was he to you?”
“He was my brother, Mama. After dear Paul died, we said we would be
brother and sister. I had known him a long time—from a little child. He
knew Paul, who liked him very much; Paul said, almost at the last,
‘Take care of Walter, dear Papa! I was fond of him!’ Walter had been
brought in to see him, and was there then—in this room.”
“And did he take care of Walter?” inquired Edith, sternly.
“Papa? He appointed him to go abroad. He was drowned in shipwreck on
his voyage,” said Florence, sobbing.
“Does he know that he is dead?” asked Edith.
“I cannot tell, Mama. I have no means of knowing. Dear Mama!” cried
Florence, clinging to her as for help, and hiding her face upon her
bosom, “I know that you have seen—”
“Stay! Stop, Florence.” Edith turned so pale, and spoke so earnestly,
that Florence did not need her restraining hand upon her lips. “Tell me
all about Walter first; let me understand this history all through.”
Florence related it, and everything belonging to it, even down to the
friendship of Mr Toots, of whom she could hardly speak in her distress
without a tearful smile, although she was deeply grateful to him. When
she had concluded her account, to the whole of which Edith, holding her
hand, listened with close attention, and when a silence had succeeded,
Edith said:
“What is it that you know I have seen, Florence?”
“That I am not,” said Florence, with the same mute appeal, and the same
quick concealment of her face as before, “that I am not a favourite
child, Mama. I never have been. I have never known how to be. I have
missed the way, and had no one to show it to me. Oh, let me learn from
you how to become dearer to Papa Teach me! you, who can so well!” and
clinging closer to her, with some broken fervent words of gratitude and
endearment, Florence, relieved of her sad secret, wept long, but not as
painfully as of yore, within the encircling arms of her new mother.
Pale even to her lips, and with a face that strove for composure until
its proud beauty was as fixed as death, Edith looked down upon the
weeping girl, and once kissed her. Then gradually disengaging herself,
and putting Florence away, she said, stately, and quiet as a marble
image, and in a voice that deepened as she spoke, but had no other
token of emotion in it:
“Florence, you do not know me! Heaven forbid that you should learn from
me!”
“Not learn from you?” repeated Florence, in surprise.
“That I should teach you how to love, or be loved, Heaven forbid!” said
Edith. “If you could teach me, that were better; but it is too late.
You are dear to me, Florence. I did not think that anything could ever
be so dear to me, as you are in this little time.”
She saw that Florence would have spoken here, so checked her with her
hand, and went on.
“I will be your true friend always. I will cherish you, as much, if not
as well as anyone in this world could. You may trust in me—I know it
and I say it, dear,—with the whole confidence even of your pure heart.
There are hosts of women whom he might have married, better and truer
in all other respects than I am, Florence; but there is not one who
could come here, his wife, whose heart could beat with greater truth to
you than mine does.”
“I know it, dear Mama!” cried Florence. “From that first most happy day
I have known it.”
“Most happy day!” Edith seemed to repeat the words involuntarily, and
went on. “Though the merit is not mine, for I thought little of you
until I saw you, let the undeserved reward be mine in your trust and
love. And in this—in this, Florence; on the first night of my taking up
my abode here; I am led on as it is best I should be, to say it for the
first and last time.”
Florence, without knowing why, felt almost afraid to hear her proceed,
but kept her eyes riveted on the beautiful face so fixed upon her own.
“Never seek to find in me,” said Edith, laying her hand upon her
breast, “what is not here. Never if you can help it, Florence, fall off
from me because it is not here. Little by little you will know me
better, and the time will come when you will know me, as I know myself.
Then, be as lenient to me as you can, and do not turn to bitterness the
only sweet remembrance I shall have.”
The tears that were visible in her eyes as she kept them fixed on
Florence, showed that the composed face was but as a handsome mask; but
she preserved it, and continued:
“I have seen what you say, and know how true it is. But believe me—you
will soon, if you cannot now—there is no one on this earth less
qualified to set it right or help you, Florence, than I. Never ask me
why, or speak to me about it or of my husband, more. There should be,
so far, a division, and a silence between us two, like the grave
itself.”
She sat for some time silent; Florence scarcely venturing to breathe
meanwhile, as dim and imperfect shadows of the truth, and all its daily
consequences, chased each other through her terrified, yet incredulous
imagination. Almost as soon as she had ceased to speak, Edith’s face
began to subside from its set composure to that quieter and more
relenting aspect, which it usually wore when she and Florence were
alone together. She shaded it, after this change, with her hands; and
when she arose, and with an affectionate embrace bade Florence
good-night, went quickly, and without looking round.
But when Florence was in bed, and the room was dark except for the glow
of the fire, Edith returned, and saying that she could not sleep, and
that her dressing-room was lonely, drew a chair upon the hearth, and
watched the embers as they died away. Florence watched them too from
her bed, until they, and the noble figure before them, crowned with its
flowing hair, and in its thoughtful eyes reflecting back their light,
became confused and indistinct, and finally were lost in slumber.
In her sleep, however, Florence could not lose an undefined impression
of what had so recently passed. It formed the subject of her dreams,
and haunted her; now in one shape, now in another; but always
oppressively; and with a sense of fear. She dreamed of seeking her
father in wildernesses, of following his track up fearful heights, and
down into deep mines and caverns; of being charged with something that
would release him from extraordinary suffering—she knew not what, or
why—yet never being able to attain the goal and set him free. Then she
saw him dead, upon that very bed, and in that very room, and knew that
he had never loved her to the last, and fell upon his cold breast,
passionately weeping. Then a prospect opened, and a river flowed, and a
plaintive voice she knew, cried, “It is running on, Floy! It has never
stopped! You are moving with it!” And she saw him at a distance
stretching out his arms towards her, while a figure such as Walter’s
used to be, stood near him, awfully serene and still. In every vision,
Edith came and went, sometimes to her joy, sometimes to her sorrow,
until they were alone upon the brink of a dark grave, and Edith
pointing down, she looked and saw—what!—another Edith lying at the
bottom.
In the terror of this dream, she cried out and awoke, she thought. A
soft voice seemed to whisper in her ear, “Florence, dear Florence, it
is nothing but a dream!” and stretching out her arms, she returned the
caress of her new Mama, who then went out at the door in the light of
the grey morning. In a moment, Florence sat up wondering whether this
had really taken place or not; but she was only certain that it was
grey morning indeed, and that the blackened ashes of the fire were on
the hearth, and that she was alone.
So passed the night on which the happy pair came home.