Chiefly Matrimonial
The grand half-yearly festival holden by Doctor and Mrs Blimber, on
which occasion they requested the pleasure of the company of every
young gentleman pursuing his studies in that genteel establishment, at
an early party, when the hour was half-past seven o’clock, and when the
object was quadrilles, had duly taken place, about this time; and the
young gentlemen, with no unbecoming demonstrations of levity, had
betaken themselves, in a state of scholastic repletion, to their own
homes. Mr Skettles had repaired abroad, permanently to grace the
establishment of his father Sir Barnet Skettles, whose popular manners
had obtained him a diplomatic appointment, the honours of which were
discharged by himself and Lady Skettles, to the satisfaction even of
their own countrymen and countrywomen: which was considered almost
miraculous. Mr Tozer, now a young man of lofty stature, in Wellington
boots, was so extremely full of antiquity as to be nearly on a par with
a genuine ancient Roman in his knowledge of English: a triumph that
affected his good parents with the tenderest emotions, and caused the
father and mother of Mr Briggs (whose learning, like ill-arranged
luggage, was so tightly packed that he couldn’t get at anything he
wanted) to hide their diminished heads. The fruit laboriously gathered
from the tree of knowledge by this latter young gentleman, in fact, had
been subjected to so much pressure, that it had become a kind of
intellectual Norfolk Biffin, and had nothing of its original form or
flavour remaining. Master Bitherstone now, on whom the forcing system
had the happier and not uncommon effect of leaving no impression
whatever, when the forcing apparatus ceased to work, was in a much more
comfortable plight; and being then on shipboard, bound for Bengal,
found himself forgetting, with such admirable rapidity, that it was
doubtful whether his declensions of noun-substantives would hold out to
the end of the voyage.
When Doctor Blimber, in pursuance of the usual course, would have said
to the young gentlemen, on the morning of the party, “Gentlemen, we
will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth of next month,” he departed
from the usual course, and said, “Gentlemen, when our friend
Cincinnatus retired to his farm, he did not present to the senate any
Roman who he sought to nominate as his successor. But there is a Roman
here,” said Doctor Blimber, laying his hand on the shoulder of Mr
Feeder, B.A., “adolescens imprimis gravis et doctus, gentlemen, whom I,
a retiring Cincinnatus, wish to present to my little senate, as their
future Dictator. Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the
twenty-fifth of next month, under the auspices of Mr Feeder, B.A.” At
this (which Doctor Blimber had previously called upon all the parents,
and urbanely explained), the young gentlemen cheered; and Mr Tozer, on
behalf of the rest, instantly presented the Doctor with a silver
inkstand, in a speech containing very little of the mother-tongue, but
fifteen quotations from the Latin, and seven from the Greek, which
moved the younger of the young gentlemen to discontent and envy: they
remarking, “Oh, ah. It was all very well for old Tozer, but they didn’t
subscribe money for old Tozer to show off with, they supposed; did
they? What business was it of old Tozer’s more than anybody else’s? It
wasn’t his inkstand. Why couldn’t he leave the boys’ property alone?”
and murmuring other expressions of their dissatisfaction, which seemed
to find a greater relief in calling him old Tozer, than in any other
available vent.
Not a word had been said to the young gentlemen, nor a hint dropped, of
anything like a contemplated marriage between Mr Feeder, B.A., and the
fair Cornelia Blimber. Doctor Blimber, especially, seemed to take pains
to look as if nothing would surprise him more; but it was perfectly
well known to all the young gentlemen nevertheless, and when they
departed for the society of their relations and friends, they took
leave of Mr Feeder with awe.
Mr Feeder’s most romantic visions were fulfilled. The Doctor had
determined to paint the house outside, and put it in thorough repair;
and to give up the business, and to give up Cornelia. The painting and
repairing began upon the very day of the young gentlemen’s departure,
and now behold! the wedding morning was come, and Cornelia, in a new
pair of spectacles, was waiting to be led to the hymeneal altar.
The Doctor with his learned legs, and Mrs Blimber in a lilac bonnet,
and Mr Feeder, B.A., with his long knuckles and his bristly head of
hair, and Mr Feeder’s brother, the Reverend Alfred Feeder, M.A., who
was to perform the ceremony, were all assembled in the drawing-room,
and Cornelia with her orange-flowers and bridesmaids had just come
down, and looked, as of old, a little squeezed in appearance, but very
charming, when the door opened, and the weak-eyed young man, in a loud
voice, made the following proclamation:
“MR AND MRS TOOTS!”
Upon which there entered Mr Toots, grown extremely stout, and on his
arm a lady very handsomely and becomingly dressed, with very bright
black eyes.
“Mrs Blimber,” said Mr Toots, “allow me to present my wife.”
Mrs Blimber was delighted to receive her. Mrs Blimber was a little
condescending, but extremely kind.
“And as you’ve known me for a long time, you know,” said Mr Toots, “let
me assure you that she is one of the most remarkable women that ever
lived.”
“My dear!” remonstrated Mrs Toots.
“Upon my word and honour she is,” said Mr Toots. “I—I assure you, Mrs
Blimber, she’s a most extraordinary woman.”
Mrs Toots laughed merrily, and Mrs Blimber led her to Cornelia. Mr
Toots having paid his respects in that direction and having saluted his
old preceptor, who said, in allusion to his conjugal state, “Well,
Toots, well, Toots! So you are one of us, are you, Toots?”—retired with
Mr Feeder, B.A., into a window.
Mr Feeder, B.A., being in great spirits, made a spar at Mr Toots, and
tapped him skilfully with the back of his hand on the breastbone.
“Well, old Buck!” said Mr Feeder with a laugh. “Well! Here we are!
Taken in and done for. Eh?”
“Feeder,” returned Mr Toots. “I give you joy. If you’re as—as—as
perfectly blissful in a matrimonial life, as I am myself, you’ll have
nothing to desire.”
“I don’t forget my old friends, you see,” said Mr Feeder. “I ask em to
my wedding, Toots.”
“Feeder,” replied Mr Toots gravely, “the fact is, that there were
several circumstances which prevented me from communicating with you
until after my marriage had been solemnised. In the first place, I had
made a perfect brute of myself to you, on the subject of Miss Dombey;
and I felt that if you were asked to any wedding of mine, you would
naturally expect that it was with Miss Dombey, which involved
explanations, that upon my word and honour, at that crisis, would have
knocked me completely over. In the second place, our wedding was
strictly private; there being nobody present but one friend of myself
and Mrs Toots’s, who is a Captain in—I don’t exactly know in what,”
said Mr Toots, “but it’s of no consequence. I hope, Feeder, that in
writing a statement of what had occurred before Mrs Toots and myself
went abroad upon our foreign tour, I fully discharged the offices of
friendship.”
“Toots, my boy,” said Mr Feeder, shaking his hands, “I was joking.”
“And now, Feeder,” said Mr Toots, “I should be glad to know what you
think of my union.”
“Capital!” returned Mr Feeder.
“You think it’s capital, do you, Feeder?” said Mr Toots solemnly. “Then
how capital must it be to Me! For you can never know what an
extraordinary woman that is.”
Mr Feeder was willing to take it for granted. But Mr Toots shook his
head, and wouldn’t hear of that being possible.
“You see,” said Mr Toots, “what I wanted in a wife was—in short, was
sense. Money, Feeder, I had. Sense I—I had not, particularly.”
Mr Feeder murmured, “Oh, yes, you had, Toots!” But Mr Toots said:
“No, Feeder, I had not. Why should I disguise it? I had not. I knew
that sense was There,” said Mr Toots, stretching out his hand towards
his wife, “in perfect heaps. I had no relation to object or be
offended, on the score of station; for I had no relation. I have never
had anybody belonging to me but my guardian, and him, Feeder, I have
always considered as a Pirate and a Corsair. Therefore, you know it was
not likely,” said Mr Toots, “that I should take his opinion.”
“No,” said Mr Feeder.
“Accordingly,” resumed Mr Toots, “I acted on my own. Bright was the day
on which I did so! Feeder! Nobody but myself can tell what the capacity
of that woman’s mind is. If ever the Rights of Women, and all that kind
of thing, are properly attended to, it will be through her powerful
intellect—Susan, my dear!” said Mr Toots, looking abruptly out of the
windows “pray do not exert yourself!”
“My dear,” said Mrs Toots, “I was only talking.”
“But, my love,” said Mr Toots, “pray do not exert yourself. You really
must be careful. Do not, my dear Susan, exert yourself. She’s so easily
excited,” said Mr Toots, apart to Mrs Blimber, “and then she forgets
the medical man altogether.”
Mrs Blimber was impressing on Mrs Toots the necessity of caution, when
Mr Feeder, B.A., offered her his arm, and led her down to the carriages
that were waiting to go to church. Doctor Blimber escorted Mrs Toots.
Mr Toots escorted the fair bride, around whose lambent spectacles two
gauzy little bridesmaids fluttered like moths. Mr Feeder’s brother, Mr
Alfred Feeder, M.A., had already gone on, in advance, to assume his
official functions.
The ceremony was performed in an admirable manner. Cornelia, with her
crisp little curls, “went in,” as the Chicken might have said, with
great composure; and Doctor Blimber gave her away, like a man who had
quite made up his mind to it. The gauzy little bridesmaids appeared to
suffer most. Mrs Blimber was affected, but gently so; and told the
Reverend Mr Alfred Feeder, M.A., on the way home, that if she could
only have seen Cicero in his retirement at Tusculum, she would not have
had a wish, now, ungratified.
There was a breakfast afterwards, limited to the same small party; at
which the spirits of Mr Feeder, B.A., were tremendous, and so
communicated themselves to Mrs Toots that Mr Toots was several times
heard to observe, across the table, “My dear Susan, don’t exert
yourself!” The best of it was, that Mr Toots felt it incumbent on him
to make a speech; and in spite of a whole code of telegraphic
dissuasions from Mrs Toots, appeared on his legs for the first time in
his life.
“I really,” said Mr Toots, “in this house, where whatever was done to
me in the way of—of any mental confusion sometimes—which is of no
consequence and I impute to nobody—I was always treated like one of
Doctor Blimber’s family, and had a desk to myself for a considerable
period—can—not—allow—my friend Feeder to be—”
Mrs Toots suggested “married.”
“It may not be inappropriate to the occasion, or altogether
uninteresting,” said Mr Toots with a delighted face, “to observe that
my wife is a most extraordinary woman, and would do this much better
than myself—allow my friend Feeder to be married—especially to—”
Mrs Toots suggested “to Miss Blimber.”
“To Mrs Feeder, my love!” said Mr Toots, in a subdued tone of private
discussion: ‘“whom God hath joined,’ you know, ‘let no man’—don’t you
know? I cannot allow my friend Feeder to be married—especially to Mrs
Feeder—without proposing their—their—Toasts; and may,” said Mr Toots,
fixing his eyes on his wife, as if for inspiration in a high flight,
“may the torch of Hymen be the beacon of joy, and may the flowers we
have this day strewed in their path, be the—the banishers of—of gloom!”
Doctor Blimber, who had a taste for metaphor, was pleased with this,
and said, “Very good, Toots! Very well said, indeed, Toots!” and nodded
his head and patted his hands. Mr Feeder made in reply, a comic speech
chequered with sentiment. Mr Alfred Feeder, M.A., was afterwards very
happy on Doctor and Mrs Blimber; Mr Feeder, B.A., scarcely less so, on
the gauzy little bridesmaids. Doctor Blimber then, in a sonorous voice,
delivered a few thoughts in the pastoral style, relative to the rushes
among which it was the intention of himself and Mrs Blimber to dwell,
and the bee that would hum around their cot. Shortly after which, as
the Doctor’s eyes were twinkling in a remarkable manner, and his
son-in-law had already observed that time was made for slaves, and had
inquired whether Mrs Toots sang, the discreet Mrs Blimber dissolved the
sitting, and sent Cornelia away, very cool and comfortable, in a
post-chaise, with the man of her heart.
Mr and Mrs Toots withdrew to the Bedford (Mrs Toots had been there
before in old times, under her maiden name of Nipper), and there found
a letter, which it took Mr Toots such an enormous time to read, that
Mrs Toots was frightened.
“My dear Susan,” said Mr Toots, “fright is worse than exertion. Pray be
calm!”
“Who is it from?” asked Mrs Toots.
“Why, my love,” said Mr Toots, “it’s from Captain Gills. Do not excite
yourself. Walters and Miss Dombey are expected home!”
“My dear,” said Mrs Toots, raising herself quickly from the sofa, very
pale, “don’t try to deceive me, for it’s no use, they’re come home—I
see it plainly in your face!”
“She’s a most extraordinary woman!” exclaimed Mr Toots, in rapturous
admiration. “You’re perfectly right, my love, they have come home. Miss
Dombey has seen her father, and they are reconciled!”
“Reconciled!” cried Mrs Toots, clapping her hands.
“My dear,” said Mr Toots; “pray do not exert yourself. Do remember the
medical man! Captain Gills says—at least he don’t say, but I imagine,
from what I can make out, he means—that Miss Dombey has brought her
unfortunate father away from his old house, to one where she and
Walters are living; that he is lying very ill there—supposed to be
dying; and that she attends upon him night and day.”
Mrs Toots began to cry quite bitterly.
“My dearest Susan,” replied Mr Toots, “do, do, if you possibly can,
remember the medical man! If you can’t, it’s of no consequence—but do
endeavour to!”
His wife, with her old manner suddenly restored, so pathetically
entreated him to take her to her precious pet, her little mistress, her
own darling, and the like, that Mr Toots, whose sympathy and admiration
were of the strongest kind, consented from his very heart of hearts;
and they agreed to depart immediately, and present themselves in answer
to the Captain’s letter.
Now some hidden sympathies of things, or some coincidences, had that
day brought the Captain himself (toward whom Mr and Mrs Toots were soon
journeying) into the flowery train of wedlock; not as a principal, but
as an accessory. It happened accidentally, and thus:
The Captain, having seen Florence and her baby for a moment, to his
unbounded content, and having had a long talk with Walter, turned out
for a walk; feeling it necessary to have some solitary meditation on
the changes of human affairs, and to shake his glazed hat profoundly
over the fall of Mr Dombey, for whom the generosity and simplicity of
his nature were awakened in a lively manner. The Captain would have
been very low, indeed, on the unhappy gentleman’s account, but for the
recollection of the baby; which afforded him such intense satisfaction
whenever it arose, that he laughed aloud as he went along the street,
and, indeed, more than once, in a sudden impulse of joy, threw up his
glazed hat and caught it again; much to the amazement of the
spectators. The rapid alternations of light and shade to which these
two conflicting subjects of reflection exposed the Captain, were so
very trying to his spirits, that he felt a long walk necessary to his
composure; and as there is a great deal in the influence of harmonious
associations, he chose, for the scene of this walk, his old
neighbourhood, down among the mast, oar, and block makers, ship-biscuit
bakers, coal-whippers, pitch-kettles, sailors, canals, docks,
swing-bridges, and other soothing objects.
These peaceful scenes, and particularly the region of Limehouse Hole
and thereabouts, were so influential in calming the Captain, that he
walked on with restored tranquillity, and was, in fact, regaling
himself, under his breath, with the ballad of Lovely Peg, when, on
turning a corner, he was suddenly transfixed and rendered speechless by
a triumphant procession that he beheld advancing towards him.
This awful demonstration was headed by that determined woman Mrs
MacStinger, who, preserving a countenance of inexorable resolution, and
wearing conspicuously attached to her obdurate bosom a stupendous watch
and appendages, which the Captain recognised at a glance as the
property of Bunsby, conducted under her arm no other than that
sagacious mariner; he, with the distraught and melancholy visage of a
captive borne into a foreign land, meekly resigning himself to her
will. Behind them appeared the young MacStingers, in a body, exulting.
Behind them, two ladies of a terrible and steadfast aspect, leading
between them a short gentleman in a tall hat, who likewise exulted. In
the wake, appeared Bunsby’s boy, bearing umbrellas. The whole were in
good marching order; and a dreadful smartness that pervaded the party
would have sufficiently announced, if the intrepid countenances of the
ladies had been wanting, that it was a procession of sacrifice, and
that the victim was Bunsby.
[Illustration]
The first impulse of the Captain was to run away. This also appeared to
be the first impulse of Bunsby, hopeless as its execution must have
proved. But a cry of recognition proceeding from the party, and
Alexander MacStinger running up to the Captain with open arms, the
Captain struck.
“Well, Cap’en Cuttle!” said Mrs MacStinger. “This is indeed a meeting!
I bear no malice now, Cap’en Cuttle—you needn’t fear that I’m a going
to cast any reflections. I hope to go to the altar in another spirit.”
Here Mrs MacStinger paused, and drawing herself up, and inflating her
bosom with a long breath, said, in allusion to the victim, “My “usband,
Cap’en Cuttle!”
The abject Bunsby looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor at
his bride, nor at his friend, but straight before him at nothing. The
Captain putting out his hand, Bunsby put out his; but, in answer to the
Captain’s greeting, spake no word.
“Cap’en Cuttle,” said Mrs MacStinger, “if you would wish to heal up
past animosities, and to see the last of your friend, my “usband, as a
single person, we should be “appy of your company to chapel. Here is a
lady here,” said Mrs MacStinger, turning round to the more intrepid of
the two, “my bridesmaid, that will be glad of your protection, Cap’en
Cuttle.”
The short gentleman in the tall hat, who it appeared was the husband of
the other lady, and who evidently exulted at the reduction of a fellow
creature to his own condition, gave place at this, and resigned the
lady to Captain Cuttle. The lady immediately seized him, and, observing
that there was no time to lose, gave the word, in a strong voice, to
advance.
The Captain’s concern for his friend, not unmingled, at first, with
some concern for himself—for a shadowy terror that he might be married
by violence, possessed him, until his knowledge of the service came to
his relief, and remembering the legal obligation of saying, “I will,”
he felt himself personally safe so long as he resolved, if asked any
question, distinctly to reply “I won’t”—threw him into a profuse
perspiration; and rendered him, for a time, insensible to the movements
of the procession, of which he now formed a feature, and to the
conversation of his fair companion. But as he became less agitated, he
learnt from this lady that she was the widow of a Mr Bokum, who had
held an employment in the Custom House; that she was the dearest friend
of Mrs MacStinger, whom she considered a pattern for her sex; that she
had often heard of the Captain, and now hoped he had repented of his
past life; that she trusted Mr Bunsby knew what a blessing he had
gained, but that she feared men seldom did know what such blessings
were, until they had lost them; with more to the same purpose.
All this time, the Captain could not but observe that Mrs Bokum kept
her eyes steadily on the bridegroom, and that whenever they came near a
court or other narrow turning which appeared favourable for flight, she
was on the alert to cut him off if he attempted escape. The other lady,
too, as well as her husband, the short gentleman with the tall hat,
were plainly on guard, according to a preconcerted plan; and the
wretched man was so secured by Mrs MacStinger, that any effort at
self-preservation by flight was rendered futile. This, indeed, was
apparent to the mere populace, who expressed their perception of the
fact by jeers and cries; to all of which, the dread MacStinger was
inflexibly indifferent, while Bunsby himself appeared in a state of
unconsciousness.
The Captain made many attempts to accost the philosopher, if only in a
monosyllable or a signal; but always failed, in consequence of the
vigilance of the guard, and the difficulty, at all times peculiar to
Bunsby’s constitution, of having his attention aroused by any outward
and visible sign whatever. Thus they approached the chapel, a neat
whitewashed edifice, recently engaged by the Reverend Melchisedech
Howler, who had consented, on very urgent solicitation, to give the
world another two years of existence, but had informed his followers
that, then, it must positively go.
While the Reverend Melchisedech was offering up some extemporary
orisons, the Captain found an opportunity of growling in the
bridegroom’s ear:
“What cheer, my lad, what cheer?”
To which Bunsby replied, with a forgetfulness of the Reverend
Melchisedech, which nothing but his desperate circumstances could have
excused:
“D——d bad,”
“Jack Bunsby,” whispered the Captain, “do you do this here, of your own
free will?”
Mr Bunsby answered “No.”
“Why do you do it, then, my lad?” inquired the Captain, not
unnaturally.
Bunsby, still looking, and always looking with an immovable
countenance, at the opposite side of the world, made no reply.
“Why not sheer off?” said the Captain. “Eh?” whispered Bunsby, with a
momentary gleam of hope.
“Sheer off,” said the Captain.
“Where’s the good?” retorted the forlorn sage. “She’d capter me agen.”
“Try!” replied the Captain. “Cheer up! Come! Now’s your time. Sheer
off, Jack Bunsby!”
Jack Bunsby, however, instead of profiting by the advice, said in a
doleful whisper:
“It all began in that there chest o’ yourn. Why did I ever conwoy her
into port that night?”
“My lad,” faltered the Captain, “I thought as you had come over her;
not as she had come over you. A man as has got such opinions as you
have!”
Mr Bunsby merely uttered a suppressed groan.
“Come!” said the Captain, nudging him with his elbow, “now’s your time!
Sheer off! I’ll cover your retreat. The time’s a flying. Bunsby! It’s
for liberty. Will you once?”
Bunsby was immovable.
“Bunsby!” whispered the Captain, “will you twice?”
Bunsby wouldn’t twice.
“Bunsby!” urged the Captain, “it’s for liberty; will you three times?
Now or never!”
Bunsby didn’t then, and didn’t ever; for Mrs MacStinger immediately
afterwards married him.
One of the most frightful circumstances of the ceremony to the Captain,
was the deadly interest exhibited therein by Juliana MacStinger; and
the fatal concentration of her faculties, with which that promising
child, already the image of her parent, observed the whole proceedings.
The Captain saw in this a succession of man-traps stretching out
infinitely; a series of ages of oppression and coercion, through which
the seafaring line was doomed. It was a more memorable sight than the
unflinching steadiness of Mrs Bokum and the other lady, the exultation
of the short gentleman in the tall hat, or even the fell inflexibility
of Mrs MacStinger. The Master MacStingers understood little of what was
going on, and cared less; being chiefly engaged, during the ceremony,
in treading on one another’s half-boots; but the contrast afforded by
those wretched infants only set off and adorned the precocious woman in
Juliana. Another year or two, the Captain thought, and to lodge where
that child was, would be destruction.
The ceremony was concluded by a general spring of the young family on
Mr Bunsby, whom they hailed by the endearing name of father, and from
whom they solicited half-pence. These gushes of affection over, the
procession was about to issue forth again, when it was delayed for some
little time by an unexpected transport on the part of Alexander
MacStinger. That dear child, it seemed, connecting a chapel with
tombstones, when it was entered for any purpose apart from the ordinary
religious exercises, could not be persuaded but that his mother was now
to be decently interred, and lost to him for ever. In the anguish of
this conviction, he screamed with astonishing force, and turned black
in the face. However touching these marks of a tender disposition were
to his mother, it was not in the character of that remarkable woman to
permit her recognition of them to degenerate into weakness. Therefore,
after vainly endeavouring to convince his reason by shakes, pokes,
bawlings-out, and similar applications to his head, she led him into
the air, and tried another method; which was manifested to the marriage
party by a quick succession of sharp sounds, resembling applause, and
subsequently, by their seeing Alexander in contact with the coolest
paving-stone in the court, greatly flushed, and loudly lamenting.
The procession being then in a condition to form itself once more, and
repair to Brig Place, where a marriage feast was in readiness, returned
as it had come; not without the receipt, by Bunsby, of many humorous
congratulations from the populace on his recently-acquired happiness.
The Captain accompanied it as far as the house-door, but, being made
uneasy by the gentler manner of Mrs Bokum, who, now that she was
relieved from her engrossing duty—for the watchfulness and alacrity of
the ladies sensibly diminished when the bridegroom was safely
married—had greater leisure to show an interest in his behalf, there
left it and the captive; faintly pleading an appointment, and promising
to return presently. The Captain had another cause for uneasiness, in
remorsefully reflecting that he had been the first means of Bunsby’s
entrapment, though certainly without intending it, and through his
unbounded faith in the resources of that philosopher.
To go back to old Sol Gills at the wooden Midshipman’s, and not first
go round to ask how Mr Dombey was—albeit the house where he lay was out
of London, and away on the borders of a fresh heath—was quite out of
the Captain’s course. So he got a lift when he was tired, and made out
the journey gaily.
The blinds were pulled down, and the house so quiet, that the Captain
was almost afraid to knock; but listening at the door, he heard low
voices within, very near it, and, knocking softly, was admitted by Mr
Toots. Mr Toots and his wife had, in fact, just arrived there; having
been at the Midshipman’s to seek him, and having there obtained the
address.
They were not so recently arrived, but that Mrs Toots had caught the
baby from somebody, taken it in her arms, and sat down on the stairs,
hugging and fondling it. Florence was stooping down beside her; and no
one could have said which Mrs Toots was hugging and fondling most, the
mother or the child, or which was the tenderer, Florence of Mrs Toots,
or Mrs Toots of her, or both of the baby; it was such a little group of
love and agitation.
“And is your Pa very ill, my darling dear Miss Floy?” asked Susan.
“He is very, very ill,” said Florence. “But, Susan, dear, you must not
speak to me as you used to speak. And what’s this?” said Florence,
touching her clothes, in amazement. “Your old dress, dear? Your old
cap, curls, and all?”
Susan burst into tears, and showered kisses on the little hand that had
touched her so wonderingly.
“My dear Miss Dombey,” said Mr Toots, stepping forward, “I’ll explain.
She’s the most extraordinary woman. There are not many to equal her!
She has always said—she said before we were married, and has said to
this day—that whenever you came home, she’d come to you in no dress but
the dress she used to serve you in, for fear she might seem strange to
you, and you might like her less. I admire the dress myself,” said Mr
Toots, “of all things. I adore her in it! My dear Miss Dombey, she’ll
be your maid again, your nurse, all that she ever was, and more.
There’s no change in her. But, Susan, my dear,” said Mr Toots, who had
spoken with great feeling and high admiration, “all I ask is, that
you’ll remember the medical man, and not exert yourself too much!”