Mr Dombey and the World
What is the proud man doing, while the days go by? Does he ever think
of his daughter, or wonder where she is gone? Does he suppose she has
come home, and is leading her old life in the weary house? No one can
answer for him. He has never uttered her name, since. His household
dread him too much to approach a subject on which he is resolutely
dumb; and the only person who dares question him, he silences
immediately.
“My dear Paul!” murmurs his sister, sidling into the room, on the day
of Florence’s departure, “your wife! that upstart woman! Is it possible
that what I hear confusedly, is true, and that this is her return for
your unparalleled devotion to her; extending, I am sure, even to the
sacrifice of your own relations, to her caprices and haughtiness? My
poor brother!”
With this speech feelingly reminiscent of her not having been asked to
dinner on the day of the first party, Mrs Chick makes great use of her
pocket-handkerchief, and falls on Mr Dombey’s neck. But Mr Dombey
frigidly lifts her off, and hands her to a chair.
“I thank you, Louisa,” he says, “for this mark of your affection; but
desire that our conversation may refer to any other subject. When I
bewail my fate, Louisa, or express myself as being in want of
consolation, you can offer it, if you will have the goodness.”
“My dear Paul,” rejoins his sister, with her handkerchief to her face,
and shaking her head, “I know your great spirit, and will say no more
upon a theme so painful and revolting;” on the heads of which two
adjectives, Mrs Chick visits scathing indignation; “but pray let me ask
you—though I dread to hear something that will shock and distress
me—that unfortunate child Florence—”
“Louisa!” says her brother, sternly, “silence! Not another word of
this!”
Mrs Chick can only shake her head, and use her handkerchief, and moan
over degenerate Dombeys, who are no Dombeys. But whether Florence has
been inculpated in the flight of Edith, or has followed her, or has
done too much, or too little, or anything, or nothing, she has not the
least idea.
He goes on, without deviation, keeping his thoughts and feelings close
within his own breast, and imparting them to no one. He makes no search
for his daughter. He may think that she is with his sister, or that she
is under his own roof. He may think of her constantly, or he may never
think about her. It is all one for any sign he makes.
But this is sure; he does not think that he has lost her. He has no
suspicion of the truth. He has lived too long shut up in his towering
supremacy, seeing her, a patient gentle creature, in the path below it,
to have any fear of that. Shaken as he is by his disgrace, he is not
yet humbled to the level earth. The root is broad and deep, and in the
course of years its fibres have spread out and gathered nourishment
from everything around it. The tree is struck, but not down.
Though he hide the world within him from the world without—which he
believes has but one purpose for the time, and that, to watch him
eagerly wherever he goes—he cannot hide those rebel traces of it, which
escape in hollow eyes and cheeks, a haggard forehead, and a moody,
brooding air. Impenetrable as before, he is still an altered man; and,
proud as ever, he is humbled, or those marks would not be there.
[Illustration]
The world. What the world thinks of him, how it looks at him, what it
sees in him, and what it says—this is the haunting demon of his mind.
It is everywhere where he is; and, worse than that, it is everywhere
where he is not. It comes out with him among his servants, and yet he
leaves it whispering behind; he sees it pointing after him in the
street; it is waiting for him in his counting-house; it leers over the
shoulders of rich men among the merchants; it goes beckoning and
babbling among the crowd; it always anticipates him, in every place;
and is always busiest, he knows, when he has gone away. When he is shut
up in his room at night, it is in his house, outside it, audible in
footsteps on the pavement, visible in print upon the table, steaming to
and fro on railroads and in ships; restless and busy everywhere, with
nothing else but him.
It is not a phantom of his imagination. It is as active in other
people’s minds as in his. Witness Cousin Feenix, who comes from
Baden-Baden, purposely to talk to him. Witness Major Bagstock, who
accompanies Cousin Feenix on that friendly mission.
Mr Dombey receives them with his usual dignity, and stands erect, in
his old attitude, before the fire. He feels that the world is looking
at him out of their eyes. That it is in the stare of the pictures. That
Mr Pitt, upon the bookcase, represents it. That there are eyes in its
own map, hanging on the wall.
“An unusually cold spring,” says Mr Dombey—to deceive the world.
“Damme, Sir,” says the Major, in the warmth of friendship, “Joseph
Bagstock is a bad hand at a counterfeit. If you want to hold your
friends off, Dombey, and to give them the cold shoulder, J. B. is not
the man for your purpose. Joe is rough and tough, Sir; blunt, Sir,
blunt, is Joe. His Royal Highness the late Duke of York did me the
honour to say, deservedly or undeservedly—never mind that—‘If there is
a man in the service on whom I can depend for coming to the point, that
man is Joe—Joe Bagstock.’”
Mr Dombey intimates his acquiescence.
“Now, Dombey,” says the Major, “I am a man of the world. Our friend
Feenix—if I may presume to—”
“Honoured, I am sure,” says Cousin Feenix.
“—is,” proceeds the Major, with a wag of his head, “also a man of the
world. Dombey, you are a man of the world. Now, when three men of the
world meet together, and are friends—as I believe—” again appealing to
Cousin Feenix.
“I am sure,” says Cousin Feenix, “most friendly.”
“—and are friends,” resumes the Major, “Old Joe’s opinion is (I may be
wrong), that the opinion of the world on any particular subject, is
very easily got at.”
“Undoubtedly,” says Cousin Feenix. “In point of fact, it’s quite a
self-evident sort of thing. I am extremely anxious, Major, that my
friend Dombey should hear me express my very great astonishment and
regret, that my lovely and accomplished relative, who was possessed of
every qualification to make a man happy, should have so far forgotten
what was due to—in point of fact, to the world—as to commit herself in
such a very extraordinary manner. I have been in a devilish state of
depression ever since; and said indeed to Long Saxby last night—man of
six foot ten, with whom my friend Dombey is probably acquainted—that it
had upset me in a confounded way, and made me bilious. It induces a man
to reflect, this kind of fatal catastrophe,” says Cousin Feenix, “that
events do occur in quite a providential manner; for if my Aunt had been
living at the time, I think the effect upon a devilish lively woman
like herself, would have been prostration, and that she would have
fallen, in point of fact, a victim.”
“Now, Dombey!—” says the Major, resuming his discourse with great
energy.
“I beg your pardon,” interposes Cousin Feenix. “Allow me another word.
My friend Dombey will permit me to say, that if any circumstance could
have added to the most infernal state of pain in which I find myself on
this occasion, it would be the natural amazement of the world at my
lovely and accomplished relative (as I must still beg leave to call
her) being supposed to have so committed herself with a person—man with
white teeth, in point of fact—of very inferior station to her husband.
But while I must, rather peremptorily, request my friend Dombey not to
criminate my lovely and accomplished relative until her criminality is
perfectly established, I beg to assure my friend Dombey that the family
I represent, and which is now almost extinct (devilish sad reflection
for a man), will interpose no obstacle in his way, and will be happy to
assent to any honourable course of proceeding, with a view to the
future, that he may point out. I trust my friend Dombey will give me
credit for the intentions by which I am animated in this very
melancholy affair, and—a—in point of fact, I am not aware that I need
trouble my friend Dombey with any further observations.”
Mr Dombey bows, without raising his eyes, and is silent.
“Now, Dombey,” says the Major, “our friend Feenix having, with an
amount of eloquence that Old Joe B. has never heard surpassed—no, by
the Lord, Sir! never!”—says the Major, very blue, indeed, and grasping
his cane in the middle—“stated the case as regards the lady, I shall
presume upon our friendship, Dombey, to offer a word on another aspect
of it. Sir,” says the Major, with the horse’s cough, “the world in
these things has opinions, which must be satisfied.”
“I know it,” rejoins Mr Dombey.
“Of course you know it, Dombey,” says the Major, “Damme, Sir, I know
you know it. A man of your calibre is not likely to be ignorant of it.”
“I hope not,” replies Mr Dombey.
“Dombey!” says the Major, “you will guess the rest. I speak
out—prematurely, perhaps—because the Bagstock breed have always spoke
out. Little, Sir, have they ever got by doing it; but it’s in the
Bagstock blood. A shot is to be taken at this man. You have J. B. at
your elbow. He claims the name of friend. God bless you!”
“Major,” returns Mr Dombey, “I am obliged. I shall put myself in your
hands when the time comes. The time not being come, I have forborne to
speak to you.”
“Where is the fellow, Dombey?” inquires the Major, after gasping and
looking at him, for a minute.
“I don’t know.”
“Any intelligence of him?” asks the Major.
“Yes.”
“Dombey, I am rejoiced to hear it,” says the Major. “I congratulate
you.”
“You will excuse—even you, Major,” replies Mr Dombey, “my entering into
any further detail at present. The intelligence is of a singular kind,
and singularly obtained. It may turn out to be valueless; it may turn
out to be true; I cannot say at present. My explanation must stop
here.”
Although this is but a dry reply to the Major’s purple enthusiasm, the
Major receives it graciously, and is delighted to think that the world
has such a fair prospect of soon receiving its due. Cousin Feenix is
then presented with his meed of acknowledgment by the husband of his
lovely and accomplished relative, and Cousin Feenix and Major Bagstock
retire, leaving that husband to the world again, and to ponder at
leisure on their representation of its state of mind concerning his
affairs, and on its just and reasonable expectations.
But who sits in the housekeeper’s room, shedding tears, and talking to
Mrs Pipchin in a low tone, with uplifted hands? It is a lady with her
face concealed in a very close black bonnet, which appears not to
belong to her. It is Miss Tox, who has borrowed this disguise from her
servant, and comes from Princess’s Place, thus secretly, to revive her
old acquaintance with Mrs Pipchin, in order to get certain information
of the state of Mr Dombey.
“How does he bear it, my dear creature?” asks Miss Tox.
“Well,” says Mrs Pipchin, in her snappish way, “he’s pretty much as
usual.”
“Externally,” suggests Miss Tox “But what he feels within!”
Mrs Pipchin’s hard grey eye looks doubtful as she answers, in three
distinct jerks, “Ah! Perhaps. I suppose so.”
“To tell you my mind, Lucretia,” says Mrs Pipchin; she still calls Miss
Tox Lucretia, on account of having made her first experiments in the
child-quelling line of business on that lady, when an unfortunate and
weazen little girl of tender years; “to tell you my mind, Lucretia, I
think it’s a good riddance. I don’t want any of your brazen faces here,
myself!”
“Brazen indeed! Well may you say brazen, Mrs Pipchin!” returned Miss
Tox. “To leave him! Such a noble figure of a man!” And here Miss Tox is
overcome.
“I don’t know about noble, I’m sure,” observes Mrs Pipchin; irascibly
rubbing her nose. “But I know this—that when people meet with trials,
they must bear ’em. Hoity, toity! I have had enough to bear myself, in
my time! What a fuss there is! She’s gone, and well got rid of. Nobody
wants her back, I should think!”
This hint of the Peruvian Mines, causes Miss Tox to rise to go away;
when Mrs Pipchin rings the bell for Towlinson to show her out, Mr
Towlinson, not having seen Miss Tox for ages, grins, and hopes she’s
well; observing that he didn’t know her at first, in that bonnet.
“Pretty well, Towlinson, I thank you,” says Miss Tox. “I beg you’ll
have the goodness, when you happen to see me here, not to mention it.
My visits are merely to Mrs Pipchin.”
“Very good, Miss,” says Towlinson.
“Shocking circumstances occur, Towlinson,” says Miss Tox.
“Very much so indeed, Miss,” rejoins Towlinson.
“I hope, Towlinson,” says Miss Tox, who, in her instruction of the
Toodle family, has acquired an admonitorial tone, and a habit of
improving passing occasions, “that what has happened here, will be a
warning to you, Towlinson.”
“Thank you, Miss, I’m sure,” says Towlinson.
He appears to be falling into a consideration of the manner in which
this warning ought to operate in his particular case, when the vinegary
Mrs Pipchin, suddenly stirring him up with a “What are you doing? Why
don’t you show the lady to the door?” he ushers Miss Tox forth. As she
passes Mr Dombey’s room, she shrinks into the inmost depths of the
black bonnet, and walks, on tip-toe; and there is not another atom in
the world which haunts him so, that feels such sorrow and solicitude
about him, as Miss Tox takes out under the black bonnet into the
street, and tries to carry home shadowed it from the newly-lighted
lamps.
But Miss Tox is not a part of Mr Dombey’s world. She comes back every
evening at dusk; adding clogs and an umbrella to the bonnet on wet
nights; and bears the grins of Towlinson, and the huffs and rebuffs of
Mrs Pipchin, and all to ask how he does, and how he bears his
misfortune: but she has nothing to do with Mr Dombey’s world. Exacting
and harassing as ever, it goes on without her; and she, a by no means
bright or particular star, moves in her little orbit in the corner of
another system, and knows it quite well, and comes, and cries, and goes
away, and is satisfied. Verily Miss Tox is easier of satisfaction than
the world that troubles Mr Dombey so much!
At the Counting House, the clerks discuss the great disaster in all its
lights and shades, but chiefly wonder who will get Mr Carker’s place.
They are generally of opinion that it will be shorn of some of its
emoluments, and made uncomfortable by newly-devised checks and
restrictions; and those who are beyond all hope of it are quite sure
they would rather not have it, and don’t at all envy the person for
whom it may prove to be reserved. Nothing like the prevailing sensation
has existed in the Counting House since Mr Dombey’s little son died;
but all such excitements there take a social, not to say a jovial turn,
and lead to the cultivation of good fellowship. A reconciliation is
established on this propitious occasion between the acknowledged wit of
the Counting House and an aspiring rival, with whom he has been at
deadly feud for months; and a little dinner being proposed, in
commemoration of their happily restored amity, takes place at a
neighbouring tavern; the wit in the chair; the rival acting as
Vice-President. The orations following the removal of the cloth are
opened by the Chair, who says, Gentlemen, he can’t disguise from
himself that this is not a time for private dissensions. Recent
occurrences to which he need not more particularly allude, but which
have not been altogether without notice in some Sunday Papers, and in a
daily paper which he need not name (here every other member of the
company names it in an audible murmur), have caused him to reflect; and
he feels that for him and Robinson to have any personal differences at
such a moment, would be for ever to deny that good feeling in the
general cause, for which he has reason to think and hope that the
gentlemen in Dombey’s House have always been distinguished. Robinson
replies to this like a man and a brother; and one gentleman who has
been in the office three years, under continual notice to quit on
account of lapses in his arithmetic, appears in a perfectly new light,
suddenly bursting out with a thrilling speech, in which he says, May
their respected chief never again know the desolation which has fallen
on his hearth! and says a great variety of things, beginning with “May
he never again,” which are received with thunders of applause. In
short, a most delightful evening is passed, only interrupted by a
difference between two juniors, who, quarrelling about the probable
amount of Mr Carker’s late receipts per annum, defy each other with
decanters, and are taken out greatly excited. Soda water is in general
request at the office next day, and most of the party deem the bill an
imposition.
As to Perch, the messenger, he is in a fair way of being ruined for
life. He finds himself again constantly in bars of public-houses, being
treated and lying dreadfully. It appears that he met everybody
concerned in the late transaction, everywhere, and said to them, “Sir,”
or “Madam,” as the case was, “why do you look so pale?” at which each
shuddered from head to foot, and said, “Oh, Perch!” and ran away.
Either the consciousness of these enormities, or the reaction
consequent on liquor, reduces Mr Perch to an extreme state of low
spirits at that hour of the evening when he usually seeks consolation
in the society of Mrs Perch at Balls Pond; and Mrs Perch frets a good
deal, for she fears his confidence in woman is shaken now, and that he
half expects on coming home at night to find her gone off with some
Viscount—“which,” as she observes to an intimate female friend, “is
what these wretches in the form of woman have to answer for, Mrs P. It
ain’t the harm they do themselves so much as what they reflect upon us,
Ma’am; and I see it in Perch’s eye.”
Mr Dombey’s servants are becoming, at the same time, quite dissipated,
and unfit for other service. They have hot suppers every night, and
“talk it over” with smoking drinks upon the board. Mr Towlinson is
always maudlin after half-past ten, and frequently begs to know whether
he didn’t say that no good would ever come of living in a corner house?
They whisper about Miss Florence, and wonder where she is; but agree
that if Mr Dombey don’t know, Mrs Dombey does. This brings them to the
latter, of whom Cook says, She had a stately way though, hadn’t she?
But she was too high! They all agree that she was too high, and Mr
Towlinson’s old flame, the housemaid (who is very virtuous), entreats
that you will never talk to her any more about people who hold their
heads up, as if the ground wasn’t good enough for ’em.
Everything that is said and done about it, except by Mr Dombey, is done
in chorus. Mr Dombey and the world are alone together.