The Watches of the Night
Florence, long since awakened from her dream, mournfully observed the
estrangement between her father and Edith, and saw it widen more and
more, and knew that there was greater bitterness between them every
day. Each day’s added knowledge deepened the shade upon her love and
hope, roused up the old sorrow that had slumbered for a little time,
and made it even heavier to bear than it had been before.
It had been hard—how hard may none but Florence ever know!—to have the
natural affection of a true and earnest nature turned to agony; and
slight, or stern repulse, substituted for the tenderest protection and
the dearest care. It had been hard to feel in her deep heart what she
had felt, and never know the happiness of one touch of response. But it
was much more hard to be compelled to doubt either her father or Edith,
so affectionate and dear to her, and to think of her love for each of
them, by turns, with fear, distrust, and wonder.
Yet Florence now began to do so; and the doing of it was a task imposed
upon her by the very purity of her soul, as one she could not fly from.
She saw her father cold and obdurate to Edith, as to her; hard,
inflexible, unyielding. Could it be, she asked herself with starting
tears, that her own dear mother had been made unhappy by such
treatment, and had pined away and died? Then she would think how proud
and stately Edith was to everyone but her, with what disdain she
treated him, how distantly she kept apart from him, and what she had
said on the night when they came home; and quickly it would come on
Florence, almost as a crime, that she loved one who was set in
opposition to her father, and that her father knowing of it, must think
of her in his solitary room as the unnatural child who added this wrong
to the old fault, so much wept for, of never having won his fatherly
affection from her birth. The next kind word from Edith, the next kind
glance, would shake these thoughts again, and make them seem like black
ingratitude; for who but she had cheered the drooping heart of
Florence, so lonely and so hurt, and been its best of comforters! Thus,
with her gentle nature yearning to them both, feeling for the misery of
both, and whispering doubts of her own duty to both, Florence in her
wider and expanded love, and by the side of Edith, endured more than
when she had hoarded up her undivided secret in the mournful house, and
her beautiful Mama had never dawned upon it.
One exquisite unhappiness that would have far outweighed this, Florence
was spared. She never had the least suspicion that Edith by her
tenderness for her widened the separation from her father, or gave him
new cause of dislike. If Florence had conceived the possibility of such
an effect being wrought by such a cause, what grief she would have
felt, what sacrifice she would have tried to make, poor loving girl,
how fast and sure her quiet passage might have been beneath it to the
presence of that higher Father who does not reject his children’s love,
or spurn their tried and broken hearts, Heaven knows! But it was
otherwise, and that was well.
No word was ever spoken between Florence and Edith now, on these
subjects. Edith had said there ought to be between them, in that wise,
a division and a silence like the grave itself: and Florence felt she
was right.
In this state of affairs her father was brought home, suffering and
disabled; and gloomily retired to his own rooms, where he was tended by
servants, not approached by Edith, and had no friend or companion but
Mr Carker, who withdrew near midnight.
“And nice company he is, Miss Floy,” said Susan Nipper. “Oh, he’s a
precious piece of goods! If ever he wants a character don’t let him
come to me whatever he does, that’s all I tell him.”
“Dear Susan,” urged Florence, “don’t!”
“Oh, it’s very well to say ‘don’t’ Miss Floy,” returned the Nipper,
much exasperated; “but raly begging your pardon we’re coming to such
passes that it turns all the blood in a person’s body into pins and
needles, with their pints all ways. Don’t mistake me, Miss Floy, I
don’t mean nothing again your ma-in-law who has always treated me as a
lady should though she is rather high I must say not that I have any
right to object to that particular, but when we come to Mrs Pipchinses
and having them put over us and keeping guard at your Pa’s door like
crocodiles (only make us thankful that they lay no eggs!) we are a
growing too outrageous!”
“Papa thinks well of Mrs Pipchin, Susan,” returned Florence, “and has a
right to choose his housekeeper, you know. Pray don’t!”
“Well Miss Floy,” returned the Nipper, “when you say don’t, I never do
I hope but Mrs Pipchin acts like early gooseberries upon me Miss, and
nothing less.”
Susan was unusually emphatic and destitute of punctuation in her
discourse on this night, which was the night of Mr Dombey’s being
brought home, because, having been sent downstairs by Florence to
inquire after him, she had been obliged to deliver her message to her
mortal enemy Mrs Pipchin; who, without carrying it in to Mr Dombey, had
taken upon herself to return what Miss Nipper called a huffish answer,
on her own responsibility. This, Susan Nipper construed into
presumption on the part of that exemplary sufferer by the Peruvian
mines, and a deed of disparagement upon her young lady, that was not to
be forgiven; and so far her emphatic state was special. But she had
been in a condition of greatly increased suspicion and distrust, ever
since the marriage; for, like most persons of her quality of mind, who
form a strong and sincere attachment to one in the different station
which Florence occupied, Susan was very jealous, and her jealousy
naturally attached to Edith, who divided her old empire, and came
between them. Proud and glad as Susan Nipper truly was, that her young
mistress should be advanced towards her proper place in the scene of
her old neglect, and that she should have her father’s handsome wife
for her companion and protectress, she could not relinquish any part of
her own dominion to the handsome wife, without a grudge and a vague
feeling of ill-will, for which she did not fail to find a disinterested
justification in her sharp perception of the pride and passion of the
lady’s character. From the background to which she had necessarily
retired somewhat, since the marriage, Miss Nipper looked on, therefore,
at domestic affairs in general, with a resolute conviction that no good
would come of Mrs Dombey: always being very careful to publish on all
possible occasions, that she had nothing to say against her.
“Susan,” said Florence, who was sitting thoughtfully at her table, “it
is very late. I shall want nothing more tonight.”
“Ah, Miss Floy!” returned the Nipper, “I’m sure I often wish for them
old times when I sat up with you hours later than this and fell asleep
through being tired out when you was as broad awake as spectacles, but
you’ve ma’s-in-law to come and sit with you now Miss Floy and I’m
thankful for it I’m sure. I’ve not a word to say against ’em.”
“I shall not forget who was my old companion when I had none, Susan,”
returned Florence, gently, “never!” And looking up, she put her arm
round the neck of her humble friend, drew her face down to hers, and
bidding her good-night, kissed it; which so mollified Miss Nipper, that
she fell a sobbing.
“Now my dear Miss Floy,” said Susan, “let me go downstairs again and
see how your Pa is, I know you’re wretched about him, do let me go
downstairs again and knock at his door my own self.”
“No,” said Florence, “go to bed. We shall hear more in the morning. I
will inquire myself in the morning. Mama has been down, I daresay;”
Florence blushed, for she had no such hope; “or is there now, perhaps.
Good-night!”
Susan was too much softened to express her private opinion on the
probability of Mrs Dombey’s being in attendance on her husband, and
silently withdrew. Florence left alone, soon hid her head upon her
hands as she had often done in other days, and did not restrain the
tears from coursing down her face. The misery of this domestic discord
and unhappiness; the withered hope she cherished now, if hope it could
be called, of ever being taken to her father’s heart; her doubts and
fears between the two; the yearning of her innocent breast to both; the
heavy disappointment and regret of such an end as this, to what had
been a vision of bright hope and promise to her; all crowded on her
mind and made her tears flow fast. Her mother and her brother dead, her
father unmoved towards her, Edith opposed to him and casting him away,
but loving her, and loved by her, it seemed as if her affection could
never prosper, rest where it would. That weak thought was soon hushed,
but the thoughts in which it had arisen were too true and strong to be
dismissed with it; and they made the night desolate.
Among such reflections there rose up, as there had risen up all day,
the image of her father, wounded and in pain, alone in his own room,
untended by those who should be nearest to him, and passing the tardy
hours in lonely suffering. A frightened thought which made her start
and clasp her hands—though it was not a new one in her mind—that he
might die, and never see her or pronounce her name, thrilled her whole
frame. In her agitation she thought, and trembled while she thought, of
once more stealing downstairs, and venturing to his door.
She listened at her own. The house was quiet, and all the lights were
out. It was a long, long time, she thought, since she used to make her
nightly pilgrimages to his door! It was a long, long time, she tried to
think, since she had entered his room at midnight, and he had led her
back to the stair-foot!
With the same child’s heart within her, as of old: even with the
child’s sweet timid eyes and clustering hair: Florence, as strange to
her father in her early maiden bloom, as in her nursery time, crept
down the staircase listening as she went, and drew near to his room. No
one was stirring in the house. The door was partly open to admit air;
and all was so still within, that she could hear the burning of the
fire, and count the ticking of the clock that stood upon the
chimney-piece.
She looked in. In that room, the housekeeper wrapped in a blanket was
fast asleep in an easy chair before the fire. The doors between it and
the next were partly closed, and a screen was drawn before them; but
there was a light there, and it shone upon the cornice of his bed. All
was so very still that she could hear from his breathing that he was
asleep. This gave her courage to pass round the screen, and look into
his chamber.
It was as great a start to come upon his sleeping face as if she had
not expected to see it. Florence stood arrested on the spot, and if he
had awakened then, must have remained there.
There was a cut upon his forehead, and they had been wetting his hair,
which lay bedabbled and entangled on the pillow. One of his arms,
resting outside the bed, was bandaged up, and he was very white. But it
was not this, that after the first quick glance, and first assurance of
his sleeping quietly, held Florence rooted to the ground. It was
something very different from this, and more than this, that made him
look so solemn in her eye.
She had never seen his face in all her life, but there had been upon
it—or she fancied so—some disturbing consciousness of her. She had
never seen his face in all her life, but hope had sunk within her, and
her timid glance had dropped before its stern, unloving, and repelling
harshness. As she looked upon it now, she saw it, for the first time,
free from the cloud that had darkened her childhood. Calm, tranquil
night was reigning in its stead. He might have gone to sleep, for
anything she saw there, blessing her.
Awake, unkind father! Awake, now, sullen man! The time is flitting by;
the hour is coming with an angry tread. Awake!
There was no change upon his face; and as she watched it, awfully, its
motionless response recalled the faces that were gone. So they looked,
so would he; so she, his weeping child, who should say when! so all the
world of love and hatred and indifference around them! When that time
should come, it would not be the heavier to him, for this that she was
going to do; and it might fall something lighter upon her.
She stole close to the bed, and drawing in her breath, bent down, and
softly kissed him on the face, and laid her own for one brief moment by
its side, and put the arm, with which she dared not touch him, round
about him on the pillow.
Awake, doomed man, while she is near! The time is flitting by; the hour
is coming with an angry tread; its foot is in the house. Awake!
In her mind, she prayed to God to bless her father, and to soften him
towards her, if it might be so; and if not, to forgive him if he was
wrong, and pardon her the prayer which almost seemed impiety. And doing
so, and looking back at him with blinded eyes, and stealing timidly
away, passed out of his room, and crossed the other, and was gone.
He may sleep on now. He may sleep on while he may. But let him look for
that slight figure when he wakes, and find it near him when the hour is
come!
Sad and grieving was the heart of Florence, as she crept upstairs. The
quiet house had grown more dismal since she came down. The sleep she
had been looking on, in the dead of night, had the solemnity to her of
death and life in one. The secrecy and silence of her own proceeding
made the night secret, silent, and oppressive. She felt unwilling,
almost unable, to go on to her own chamber; and turning into the
drawing-rooms, where the clouded moon was shining through the blinds,
looked out into the empty streets.
The wind was blowing drearily. The lamps looked pale, and shook as if
they were cold. There was a distant glimmer of something that was not
quite darkness, rather than of light, in the sky; and foreboding night
was shivering and restless, as the dying are who make a troubled end.
Florence remembered how, as a watcher, by a sick-bed, she had noted
this bleak time, and felt its influence, as if in some hidden natural
antipathy to it; and now it was very, very gloomy.
Her Mama had not come to her room that night, which was one cause of
her having sat late out of her bed. In her general uneasiness, no less
than in her ardent longing to have somebody to speak to, and to break
the spell of gloom and silence, Florence directed her steps towards the
chamber where she slept.
The door was not fastened within, and yielded smoothly to her
hesitating hand. She was surprised to find a bright light burning;
still more surprised, on looking in, to see that her Mama, but
partially undressed, was sitting near the ashes of the fire, which had
crumbled and dropped away. Her eyes were intently bent upon the air;
and in their light, and in her face, and in her form, and in the grasp
with which she held the elbows of her chair as if about to start up,
Florence saw such fierce emotion that it terrified her.
“Mama!” she cried, “what is the matter?”
Edith started; looking at her with such a strange dread in her face,
that Florence was more frightened than before.
“Mama!” said Florence, hurriedly advancing. “Dear Mama! what is the
matter?”
“I have not been well,” said Edith, shaking, and still looking at her
in the same strange way. “I have had bad dreams, my love.”
“And not yet been to bed, Mama?”
“No,” she returned. “Half-waking dreams.”
Her features gradually softened; and suffering Florence to come closer
to her, within her embrace, she said in a tender manner, “But what does
my bird do here? What does my bird do here?”
“I have been uneasy, Mama, in not seeing you tonight, and in not
knowing how Papa was; and I—”
Florence stopped there, and said no more.
“Is it late?” asked Edith, fondly putting back the curls that mingled
with her own dark hair, and strayed upon her face.
“Very late. Near day.”
“Near day!” she repeated in surprise.
“Dear Mama, what have you done to your hand?” said Florence.
Edith drew it suddenly away, and, for a moment, looked at her with the
same strange dread (there was a sort of wild avoidance in it) as
before; but she presently said, “Nothing, nothing. A blow.” And then
she said, “My Florence!” and then her bosom heaved, and she was weeping
passionately.
“Mama!” said Florence. “Oh Mama, what can I do, what should I do, to
make us happier? Is there anything?”
“Nothing,” she replied.
“Are you sure of that? Can it never be? If I speak now of what is in my
thoughts, in spite of what we have agreed,” said Florence, “you will
not blame me, will you?”
“It is useless,” she replied, “useless. I have told you, dear, that I
have had bad dreams. Nothing can change them, or prevent them coming
back.”
“I do not understand,” said Florence, gazing on her agitated face which
seemed to darken as she looked.
“I have dreamed,” said Edith in a low voice, “of a pride that is all
powerless for good, all powerful for evil; of a pride that has been
galled and goaded, through many shameful years, and has never recoiled
except upon itself; a pride that has debased its owner with the
consciousness of deep humiliation, and never helped its owner boldly to
resent it or avoid it, or to say, ‘This shall not be!’ a pride that,
rightly guided, might have led perhaps to better things, but which,
misdirected and perverted, like all else belonging to the same
possessor, has been self-contempt, mere hardihood and ruin.”
She neither looked nor spoke to Florence now, but went on as if she
were alone.
“I have dreamed,” she said, “of such indifference and callousness,
arising from this self-contempt; this wretched, inefficient, miserable
pride; that it has gone on with listless steps even to the altar,
yielding to the old, familiar, beckoning finger,—oh mother, oh
mother!—while it spurned it; and willing to be hateful to itself for
once and for all, rather than to be stung daily in some new form. Mean,
poor thing!”
And now with gathering and darkening emotion, she looked as she had
looked when Florence entered.
“And I have dreamed,” she said, “that in a first late effort to achieve
a purpose, it has been trodden on, and trodden down by a base foot, but
turns and looks upon him. I have dreamed that it is wounded, hunted,
set upon by dogs, but that it stands at bay, and will not yield; no,
that it cannot if it would; but that it is urged on to hate.”
Her clenched hand tightened on the trembling arm she had in hers, and
as she looked down on the alarmed and wondering face, frown subsided.
“Oh Florence!” she said, “I think I have been nearly mad tonight!” and
humbled her proud head upon her neck and wept again.
“Don’t leave me! be near me! I have no hope but in you!” These words
she said a score of times.
Soon she grew calmer, and was full of pity for the tears of Florence,
and for her waking at such untimely hours. And the day now dawning,
Edith folded her in her arms and laid her down upon her bed, and, not
lying down herself, sat by her, and bade her try to sleep.
“For you are weary, dearest, and unhappy, and should rest.”
“I am indeed unhappy, dear Mama, tonight,” said Florence. “But you are
weary and unhappy, too.”
“Not when you lie asleep so near me, sweet.”
They kissed each other, and Florence, worn out, gradually fell into a
gentle slumber; but as her eyes closed on the face beside her, it was
so sad to think upon the face downstairs, that her hand drew closer to
Edith for some comfort; yet, even in the act, it faltered, lest it
should be deserting him. So, in her sleep, she tried to reconcile the
two together, and to show them that she loved them both, but could not
do it, and her waking grief was part of her dreams.
Edith, sitting by, looked down at the dark eyelashes lying wet on the
flushed cheeks, and looked with gentleness and pity, for she knew the
truth. But no sleep hung upon her own eyes. As the day came on she
still sat watching and waking, with the placid hand in hers, and
sometimes whispered, as she looked at the hushed face, “Be near me,
Florence. I have no hope but in you!”