Housewarming
Many succeeding days passed in like manner; except that there were
numerous visits received and paid, and that Mrs Skewton held little
levees in her own apartments, at which Major Bagstock was a frequent
attendant, and that Florence encountered no second look from her
father, although she saw him every day. Nor had she much communication
in words with her new Mama, who was imperious and proud to all the
house but her—Florence could not but observe that—and who, although she
always sent for her or went to her when she came home from visiting,
and would always go into her room at night, before retiring to rest,
however late the hour, and never lost an opportunity of being with her,
was often her silent and thoughtful companion for a long time together.
Florence, who had hoped for so much from this marriage, could not help
sometimes comparing the bright house with the faded dreary place out of
which it had arisen, and wondering when, in any shape, it would begin
to be a home; for that it was no home then, for anyone, though
everything went on luxuriously and regularly, she had always a secret
misgiving. Many an hour of sorrowful reflection by day and night, and
many a tear of blighted hope, Florence bestowed upon the assurance her
new Mama had given her so strongly, that there was no one on the earth
more powerless than herself to teach her how to win her father’s heart.
And soon Florence began to think—resolved to think would be the truer
phrase—that as no one knew so well, how hopeless of being subdued or
changed her father’s coldness to her was, so she had given her this
warning, and forbidden the subject in very compassion. Unselfish here,
as in her every act and fancy, Florence preferred to bear the pain of
this new wound, rather than encourage any faint foreshadowings of the
truth as it concerned her father; tender of him, even in her wandering
thoughts. As for his home, she hoped it would become a better one, when
its state of novelty and transition should be over; and for herself,
thought little and lamented less.
If none of the new family were particularly at home in private, it was
resolved that Mrs Dombey at least should be at home in public, without
delay. A series of entertainments in celebration of the late nuptials,
and in cultivation of society, were arranged, chiefly by Mr Dombey and
Mrs Skewton; and it was settled that the festive proceedings should
commence by Mrs Dombey’s being at home upon a certain evening, and by
Mr and Mrs Dombey’s requesting the honour of the company of a great
many incongruous people to dinner on the same day.
Accordingly, Mr Dombey produced a list of sundry eastern magnates who
were to be bidden to this feast on his behalf; to which Mrs Skewton,
acting for her dearest child, who was haughtily careless on the
subject, subjoined a western list, comprising Cousin Feenix, not yet
returned to Baden-Baden, greatly to the detriment of his personal
estate; and a variety of moths of various degrees and ages, who had, at
various times, fluttered round the light of her fair daughter, or
herself, without any lasting injury to their wings. Florence was
enrolled as a member of the dinner-party, by Edith’s command—elicited
by a moment’s doubt and hesitation on the part of Mrs Skewton; and
Florence, with a wondering heart, and with a quick instinctive sense of
everything that grated on her father in the least, took her silent
share in the proceedings of the day.
The proceedings commenced by Mr Dombey, in a cravat of extraordinary
height and stiffness, walking restlessly about the drawing-room until
the hour appointed for dinner; punctual to which, an East India
Director, of immense wealth, in a waistcoat apparently constructed in
serviceable deal by some plain carpenter, but really engendered in the
tailor’s art, and composed of the material called nankeen, arrived and
was received by Mr Dombey alone. The next stage of the proceedings was
Mr Dombey’s sending his compliments to Mrs Dombey, with a correct
statement of the time; and the next, the East India Director’s falling
prostrate, in a conversational point of view, and as Mr Dombey was not
the man to pick him up, staring at the fire until rescue appeared in
the shape of Mrs Skewton; whom the director, as a pleasant start in
life for the evening, mistook for Mrs Dombey, and greeted with
enthusiasm.
The next arrival was a Bank Director, reputed to be able to buy up
anything—human Nature generally, if he should take it in his head to
influence the money market in that direction—but who was a wonderfully
modest-spoken man, almost boastfully so, and mentioned his “little
place” at Kingston-upon-Thames, and its just being barely equal to
giving Dombey a bed and a chop, if he would come and visit it. Ladies,
he said, it was not for a man who lived in his quiet way to take upon
himself to invite—but if Mrs Skewton and her daughter, Mrs Dombey,
should ever find themselves in that direction, and would do him the
honour to look at a little bit of a shrubbery they would find there,
and a poor little flower-bed or so, and a humble apology for a pinery,
and two or three little attempts of that sort without any pretension,
they would distinguish him very much. Carrying out his character, this
gentleman was very plainly dressed, in a wisp of cambric for a
neckcloth, big shoes, a coat that was too loose for him, and a pair of
trousers that were too spare; and mention being made of the Opera by
Mrs Skewton, he said he very seldom went there, for he couldn’t afford
it. It seemed greatly to delight and exhilarate him to say so: and he
beamed on his audience afterwards, with his hands in his pockets, and
excessive satisfaction twinkling in his eyes.
Now Mrs Dombey appeared, beautiful and proud, and as disdainful and
defiant of them all as if the bridal wreath upon her head had been a
garland of steel spikes put on to force concession from her which she
would die sooner than yield. With her was Florence. When they entered
together, the shadow of the night of the return again darkened Mr
Dombey’s face. But unobserved; for Florence did not venture to raise
her eyes to his, and Edith’s indifference was too supreme to take the
least heed of him.
The arrivals quickly became numerous. More directors, chairmen of
public companies, elderly ladies carrying burdens on their heads for
full dress, Cousin Feenix, Major Bagstock, friends of Mrs Skewton, with
the same bright bloom on their complexion, and very precious necklaces
on very withered necks. Among these, a young lady of sixty-five,
remarkably coolly dressed as to her back and shoulders, who spoke with
an engaging lisp, and whose eyelids wouldn’t keep up well, without a
great deal of trouble on her part, and whose manners had that
indefinable charm which so frequently attaches to the giddiness of
youth. As the greater part of Mr Dombey’s list were disposed to be
taciturn, and the greater part of Mrs Dombey’s list were disposed to be
talkative, and there was no sympathy between them, Mrs Dombey’s list,
by magnetic agreement, entered into a bond of union against Mr Dombey’s
list, who, wandering about the rooms in a desolate manner, or seeking
refuge in corners, entangled themselves with company coming in, and
became barricaded behind sofas, and had doors opened smartly from
without against their heads, and underwent every sort of discomfiture.
When dinner was announced, Mr Dombey took down an old lady like a
crimson velvet pincushion stuffed with bank notes, who might have been
the identical old lady of Threadneedle Street, she was so rich, and
looked so unaccommodating; Cousin Feenix took down Mrs Dombey; Major
Bagstock took down Mrs Skewton; the young thing with the shoulders was
bestowed, as an extinguisher, upon the East India Director; and the
remaining ladies were left on view in the drawing-room by the remaining
gentlemen, until a forlorn hope volunteered to conduct them downstairs,
and those brave spirits with their captives blocked up the dining-room
door, shutting out seven mild men in the stony-hearted hall. When all
the rest were got in and were seated, one of these mild men still
appeared, in smiling confusion, totally destitute and unprovided for,
and, escorted by the butler, made the complete circuit of the table
twice before his chair could be found, which it finally was, on Mrs
Dombey’s left hand; after which the mild man never held up his head
again.
Now, the spacious dining-room, with the company seated round the
glittering table, busy with their glittering spoons, and knives and
forks, and plates, might have been taken for a grown-up exposition of
Tom Tiddler’s ground, where children pick up gold and silver. Mr
Dombey, as Tiddler, looked his character to admiration; and the long
plateau of precious metal frosted, separating him from Mrs Dombey,
whereon frosted Cupids offered scentless flowers to each of them, was
allegorical to see.
Cousin Feenix was in great force, and looked astonishingly young. But
he was sometimes thoughtless in his good humour—his memory occasionally
wandering like his legs—and on this occasion caused the company to
shudder. It happened thus. The young lady with the back, who regarded
Cousin Feenix with sentiments of tenderness, had entrapped the East
India Director into leading her to the chair next him; in return for
which good office, she immediately abandoned the Director, who, being
shaded on the other side by a gloomy black velvet hat surmounting a
bony and speechless female with a fan, yielded to a depression of
spirits and withdrew into himself. Cousin Feenix and the young lady
were very lively and humorous, and the young lady laughed so much at
something Cousin Feenix related to her, that Major Bagstock begged
leave to inquire on behalf of Mrs Skewton (they were sitting opposite,
a little lower down), whether that might not be considered public
property.
“Why, upon my life,” said Cousin Feenix, “there’s nothing in it; it
really is not worth repeating: in point of fact, it’s merely an
anecdote of Jack Adams. I dare say my friend Dombey;” for the general
attention was concentrated on Cousin Feenix; “may remember Jack Adams,
Jack Adams, not Joe; that was his brother. Jack—little Jack—man with a
cast in his eye, and slight impediment in his speech—man who sat for
somebody’s borough. We used to call him in my parliamentary time W. P.
Adams, in consequence of his being Warming Pan for a young fellow who
was in his minority. Perhaps my friend Dombey may have known the man?”
Mr Dombey, who was as likely to have known Guy Fawkes, replied in the
negative. But one of the seven mild men unexpectedly leaped into
distinction, by saying he had known him, and adding—“always wore
Hessian boots!”
“Exactly,” said Cousin Feenix, bending forward to see the mild man, and
smile encouragement at him down the table. “That was Jack. Joe wore—”
“Tops!” cried the mild man, rising in public estimation every Instant.
“Of course,” said Cousin Feenix, “you were intimate with em?”
“I knew them both,” said the mild man. With whom Mr Dombey immediately
took wine.
“Devilish good fellow, Jack!” said Cousin Feenix, again bending
forward, and smiling.
“Excellent,” returned the mild man, becoming bold on his success. “One
of the best fellows I ever knew.”
“No doubt you have heard the story?” said Cousin Feenix.
“I shall know,” replied the bold mild man, “when I have heard your
Ludship tell it.” With that, he leaned back in his chair and smiled at
the ceiling, as knowing it by heart, and being already tickled.
“In point of fact, it’s nothing of a story in itself,” said Cousin
Feenix, addressing the table with a smile, and a gay shake of his head,
“and not worth a word of preface. But it’s illustrative of the neatness
of Jack’s humour. The fact is, that Jack was invited down to a
marriage—which I think took place in Berkshire?”
“Shropshire,” said the bold mild man, finding himself appealed to.
“Was it? Well! In point of fact it might have been in any shire,” said
Cousin Feenix. “So my friend being invited down to this marriage in
Anyshire,” with a pleasant sense of the readiness of this joke, “goes.
Just as some of us, having had the honour of being invited to the
marriage of my lovely and accomplished relative with my friend Dombey,
didn’t require to be asked twice, and were devilish glad to be present
on so interesting an occasion.—Goes—Jack goes. Now, this marriage was,
in point of fact, the marriage of an uncommonly fine girl with a man
for whom she didn’t care a button, but whom she accepted on account of
his property, which was immense. When Jack returned to town, after the
nuptials, a man he knew, meeting him in the lobby of the House of
Commons, says, ‘Well, Jack, how are the ill-matched couple?’
‘Ill-matched,’ says Jack ‘Not at all. It’s a perfectly and equal
transaction. She is regularly bought, and you may take your oath he is
as regularly sold!’”
In his full enjoyment of this culminating point of his story, the
shudder, which had gone all round the table like an electric spark,
struck Cousin Feenix, and he stopped. Not a smile occasioned by the
only general topic of conversation broached that day, appeared on any
face. A profound silence ensued; and the wretched mild man, who had
been as innocent of any real foreknowledge of the story as the child
unborn, had the exquisite misery of reading in every eye that he was
regarded as the prime mover of the mischief.
Mr Dombey’s face was not a changeful one, and being cast in its mould
of state that day, showed little other apprehension of the story, if
any, than that which he expressed when he said solemnly, amidst the
silence, that it was “Very good.” There was a rapid glance from Edith
towards Florence, but otherwise she remained, externally, impassive and
unconscious.
Through the various stages of rich meats and wines, continual gold and
silver, dainties of earth, air, fire, and water, heaped-up fruits, and
that unnecessary article in Mr Dombey’s banquets—ice—the dinner slowly
made its way: the later stages being achieved to the sonorous music of
incessant double knocks, announcing the arrival of visitors, whose
portion of the feast was limited to the smell thereof. When Mrs Dombey
rose, it was a sight to see her lord, with stiff throat and erect head,
hold the door open for the withdrawal of the ladies; and to see how she
swept past him with his daughter on her arm.
Mr Dombey was a grave sight, behind the decanters, in a state of
dignity; and the East India Director was a forlorn sight near the
unoccupied end of the table, in a state of solitude; and the Major was
a military sight, relating stories of the Duke of York to six of the
seven mild men (the ambitious one was utterly quenched); and the Bank
Director was a lowly sight, making a plan of his little attempt at a
pinery, with dessert-knives, for a group of admirers; and Cousin Feenix
was a thoughtful sight, as he smoothed his long wristbands and
stealthily adjusted his wig. But all these sights were of short
duration, being speedily broken up by coffee, and the desertion of the
room.
[Illustration]
There was a throng in the state-rooms upstairs, increasing every
minute; but still Mr Dombey’s list of visitors appeared to have some
native impossibility of amalgamation with Mrs Dombey’s list, and no one
could have doubted which was which. The single exception to this rule
perhaps was Mr Carker, who now smiled among the company, and who, as he
stood in the circle that was gathered about Mrs Dombey—watchful of her,
of them, his chief, Cleopatra and the Major, Florence, and everything
around—appeared at ease with both divisions of guests, and not marked
as exclusively belonging to either.
Florence had a dread of him, which made his presence in the room a
nightmare to her. She could not avoid the recollection of it, for her
eyes were drawn towards him every now and then, by an attraction of
dislike and distrust that she could not resist. Yet her thoughts were
busy with other things; for as she sat apart—not unadmired or unsought,
but in the gentleness of her quiet spirit—she felt how little part her
father had in what was going on, and saw, with pain, how ill at ease he
seemed to be, and how little regarded he was as he lingered about near
the door, for those visitors whom he wished to distinguish with
particular attention, and took them up to introduce them to his wife,
who received them with proud coldness, but showed no interest or wish
to please, and never, after the bare ceremony of reception, in
consultation of his wishes, or in welcome of his friends, opened her
lips. It was not the less perplexing or painful to Florence, that she
who acted thus, treated her so kindly and with such loving
consideration, that it almost seemed an ungrateful return on her part
even to know of what was passing before her eyes.
Happy Florence would have been, might she have ventured to bear her
father company, by so much as a look; and happy Florence was, in little
suspecting the main cause of his uneasiness. But afraid of seeming to
know that he was placed at any disadvantage, lest he should be
resentful of that knowledge; and divided between her impulse towards
him, and her grateful affection for Edith; she scarcely dared to raise
her eyes towards either. Anxious and unhappy for them both, the thought
stole on her through the crowd, that it might have been better for them
if this noise of tongues and tread of feet had never come there,—if the
old dulness and decay had never been replaced by novelty and
splendour,—if the neglected child had found no friend in Edith, but had
lived her solitary life, unpitied and forgotten.
Mrs Chick had some such thoughts too, but they were not so quietly
developed in her mind. This good matron had been outraged in the first
instance by not receiving an invitation to dinner. That blow partially
recovered, she had gone to a vast expense to make such a figure before
Mrs Dombey at home, as should dazzle the senses of that lady, and heap
mortification, mountains high, on the head of Mrs Skewton.
“But I am made,” said Mrs Chick to Mr Chick, “of no more account than
Florence! Who takes the smallest notice of me? No one!”
“No one, my dear,” assented Mr Chick, who was seated by the side of Mrs
Chick against the wall, and could console himself, even there, by
softly whistling.
“Does it at all appear as if I was wanted here?” exclaimed Mrs Chick,
with flashing eyes.
“No, my dear, I don’t think it does,” said Mr Chick.
“Paul’s mad!” said Mrs Chick.
Mr Chick whistled.
“Unless you are a monster, which I sometimes think you are,” said Mrs
Chick with candour, “don’t sit there humming tunes. How anyone with the
most distant feelings of a man, can see that mother-in-law of Paul’s,
dressed as she is, going on like that, with Major Bagstock, for whom,
among other precious things, we are indebted to your Lucretia Tox.”
“_My_ Lucretia Tox, my dear!” said Mr Chick, astounded.
“Yes,” retorted Mrs Chick, with great severity, “your Lucretia Tox—I
say how anybody can see that mother-in-law of Paul’s, and that haughty
wife of Paul’s, and these indecent old frights with their backs and
shoulders, and in short this at home generally, and hum—” on which word
Mrs Chick laid a scornful emphasis that made Mr Chick start, “is, I
thank Heaven, a mystery to me!”
Mr Chick screwed his mouth into a form irreconcilable with humming or
whistling, and looked very contemplative.
“But I hope I know what is due to myself,” said Mrs Chick, swelling
with indignation, “though Paul has forgotten what is due to me. I am
not going to sit here, a member of this family, to be taken no notice
of. I am not the dirt under Mrs Dombey’s feet, yet—not quite yet,” said
Mrs Chick, as if she expected to become so, about the day after
to-morrow. “And I shall go. I will not say (whatever I may think) that
this affair has been got up solely to degrade and insult me. I shall
merely go. I shall not be missed!”
Mrs Chick rose erect with these words, and took the arm of Mr Chick,
who escorted her from the room, after half an hour’s shady sojourn
there. And it is due to her penetration to observe that she certainly
was not missed at all.
But she was not the only indignant guest; for Mr Dombey’s list (still
constantly in difficulties) were, as a body, indignant with Mrs
Dombey’s list, for looking at them through eyeglasses, and audibly
wondering who all those people were; while Mrs Dombey’s list complained
of weariness, and the young thing with the shoulders, deprived of the
attentions of that gay youth Cousin Feenix (who went away from the
dinner-table), confidentially alleged to thirty or forty friends that
she was bored to death. All the old ladies with the burdens on their
heads, had greater or less cause of complaint against Mr Dombey; and
the Directors and Chairmen coincided in thinking that if Dombey must
marry, he had better have married somebody nearer his own age, not
quite so handsome, and a little better off. The general opinion among
this class of gentlemen was, that it was a weak thing in Dombey, and
he’d live to repent it. Hardly anybody there, except the mild men,
stayed, or went away, without considering himself or herself neglected
and aggrieved by Mr Dombey or Mrs Dombey; and the speechless female in
the black velvet hat was found to have been stricken mute, because the
lady in the crimson velvet had been handed down before her. The nature
even of the mild men got corrupted, either from their curdling it with
too much lemonade, or from the general inoculation that prevailed; and
they made sarcastic jokes to one another, and whispered disparagement
on stairs and in bye-places. The general dissatisfaction and discomfort
so diffused itself, that the assembled footmen in the hall were as well
acquainted with it as the company above. Nay, the very linkmen outside
got hold of it, and compared the party to a funeral out of mourning,
with none of the company remembered in the will.
At last, the guests were all gone, and the linkmen too; and the street,
crowded so long with carriages, was clear; and the dying lights showed
no one in the rooms, but Mr Dombey and Mr Carker, who were talking
together apart, and Mrs Dombey and her mother: the former seated on an
ottoman; the latter reclining in the Cleopatra attitude, awaiting the
arrival of her maid. Mr Dombey having finished his communication to
Carker, the latter advanced obsequiously to take leave.
“I trust,” he said, “that the fatigues of this delightful evening will
not inconvenience Mrs Dombey to-morrow.”
“Mrs Dombey,” said Mr Dombey, advancing, “has sufficiently spared
herself fatigue, to relieve you from any anxiety of that kind. I regret
to say, Mrs Dombey, that I could have wished you had fatigued yourself
a little more on this occasion.
She looked at him with a supercilious glance, that it seemed not worth
her while to protract, and turned away her eyes without speaking.
“I am sorry, Madam,” said Mr Dombey, “that you should not have thought
it your duty—”
She looked at him again.
“Your duty, Madam,” pursued Mr Dombey, “to have received my friends
with a little more deference. Some of those whom you have been pleased
to slight tonight in a very marked manner, Mrs Dombey, confer a
distinction upon you, I must tell you, in any visit they pay you.”
“Do you know that there is someone here?” she returned, now looking at
him steadily.
“No! Carker! I beg that you do not. I insist that you do not,” cried Mr
Dombey, stopping that noiseless gentleman in his withdrawal. “Mr
Carker, Madam, as you know, possesses my confidence. He is as well
acquainted as myself with the subject on which I speak. I beg to tell
you, for your information, Mrs Dombey, that I consider these wealthy
and important persons confer a distinction upon me:” and Mr Dombey drew
himself up, as having now rendered them of the highest possible
importance.
“I ask you,” she repeated, bending her disdainful, steady gaze upon
him, “do you know that there is someone here, Sir?”
“I must entreat,” said Mr Carker, stepping forward, “I must beg, I must
demand, to be released. Slight and unimportant as this difference is—”
Mrs Skewton, who had been intent upon her daughter’s face, took him up
here.
“My sweetest Edith,” she said, “and my dearest Dombey; our excellent
friend Mr Carker, for so I am sure I ought to mention him—”
Mr Carker murmured, “Too much honour.”
“—has used the very words that were in my mind, and that I have been
dying, these ages, for an opportunity of introducing. Slight and
unimportant! My sweetest Edith, and my dearest Dombey, do we not know
that any difference between you two—No, Flowers; not now.”
Flowers was the maid, who, finding gentlemen present, retreated with
precipitation.
“That any difference between you two,” resumed Mrs Skewton, “with the
Heart you possess in common, and the excessively charming bond of
feeling that there is between you, must be slight and unimportant? What
words could better define the fact? None. Therefore I am glad to take
this slight occasion—this trifling occasion, that is so replete with
Nature, and your individual characters, and all that—so truly
calculated to bring the tears into a parent’s eyes—to say that I attach
no importance to them in the least, except as developing these minor
elements of Soul; and that, unlike most Mamas-in-law (that odious
phrase, dear Dombey!) as they have been represented to me to exist in
this I fear too artificial world, I never shall attempt to interpose
between you, at such a time, and never can much regret, after all, such
little flashes of the torch of What’s-his-name—not Cupid, but the other
delightful creature.”
There was a sharpness in the good mother’s glance at both her children
as she spoke, that may have been expressive of a direct and
well-considered purpose hidden between these rambling words. That
purpose, providently to detach herself in the beginning from all the
clankings of their chain that were to come, and to shelter herself with
the fiction of her innocent belief in their mutual affection, and their
adaptation to each other.
“I have pointed out to Mrs Dombey,” said Mr Dombey, in his most stately
manner, “that in her conduct thus early in our married life, to which I
object, and which, I request, may be corrected. Carker,” with a nod of
dismissal, “good-night to you!”
Mr Carker bowed to the imperious form of the Bride, whose sparkling eye
was fixed upon her husband; and stopping at Cleopatra’s couch on his
way out, raised to his lips the hand she graciously extended to him, in
lowly and admiring homage.
If his handsome wife had reproached him, or even changed countenance,
or broken the silence in which she remained, by one word, now that they
were alone (for Cleopatra made off with all speed), Mr Dombey would
have been equal to some assertion of his case against her. But the
intense, unutterable, withering scorn, with which, after looking upon
him, she dropped her eyes, as if he were too worthless and indifferent
to her to be challenged with a syllable—the ineffable disdain and
haughtiness in which she sat before him—the cold inflexible resolve
with which her every feature seemed to bear him down, and put him
by—these, he had no resource against; and he left her, with her whole
overbearing beauty concentrated on despising him.
Was he coward enough to watch her, an hour afterwards, on the old well
staircase, where he had once seen Florence in the moonlight, toiling up
with Paul? Or was he in the dark by accident, when, looking up, he saw
her coming, with a light, from the room where Florence lay, and marked
again the face so changed, which he could not subdue?
But it could never alter as his own did. It never, in its uttermost
pride and passion, knew the shadow that had fallen on his, in the dark
corner, on the night of the return; and often since; and which deepened
on it now, as he looked up.