Relenting
Florence had need of help. Her father’s need of it was sore, and made
the aid of her old friend invaluable. Death stood at his pillow. A
shade, already, of what he had been, shattered in mind, and perilously
sick in body, he laid his weary head down on the bed his daughter’s
hands prepared for him, and had never raised it since.
She was always with him. He knew her, generally; though, in the
wandering of his brain, he often confused the circumstances under which
he spoke to her. Thus he would address her, sometimes, as if his boy
were newly dead; and would tell her, that although he had said nothing
of her ministering at the little bedside, yet he had seen it—he had
seen it; and then would hide his face and sob, and put out his worn
hand. Sometimes he would ask her for herself. “Where is Florence?” “I
am here, Papa, I am here.” “I don’t know her!” he would cry. “We have
been parted so long, that I don’t know her!” and then a staring dread
would be upon him, until she could soothe his perturbation; and recall
the tears she tried so hard, at other times, to dry.
He rambled through the scenes of his old pursuits—through many where
Florence lost him as she listened—sometimes for hours. He would repeat
that childish question, “What is money?” and ponder on it, and think
about it, and reason with himself, more or less connectedly, for a good
answer; as if it had never been proposed to him until that moment. He
would go on with a musing repetition of the title of his old firm
twenty thousand times, and at every one of them, would turn his head
upon his pillow. He would count his children—one—two—stop, and go back,
and begin again in the same way.
But this was when his mind was in its most distracted state. In all the
other phases of its illness, and in those to which it was most
constant, it always turned on Florence. What he would oftenest do was
this: he would recall that night he had so recently remembered, the
night on which she came down to his room, and would imagine that his
heart smote him, and that he went out after her, and up the stairs to
seek her. Then, confounding that time with the later days of the many
footsteps, he would be amazed at their number, and begin to count them
as he followed her. Here, of a sudden, was a bloody footstep going on
among the others; and after it there began to be, at intervals, doors
standing open, through which certain terrible pictures were seen, in
mirrors, of haggard men, concealing something in their breasts. Still,
among the many footsteps and the bloody footsteps here and there, was
the step of Florence. Still she was going on before. Still the restless
mind went, following and counting, ever farther, ever higher, as to the
summit of a mighty tower that it took years to climb.
One day he inquired if that were not Susan who had spoken a long while
ago.
Florence said “Yes, dear Papa;” and asked him would he like to see her?
He said “very much.” And Susan, with no little trepidation, showed
herself at his bedside.
It seemed a great relief to him. He begged her not to go; to understand
that he forgave her what she had said; and that she was to stay.
Florence and he were very different now, he said, and very happy. Let
her look at this! He meant his drawing the gentle head down to his
pillow, and laying it beside him.
He remained like this for days and weeks. At length, lying, the faint
feeble semblance of a man, upon his bed, and speaking in a voice so low
that they could only hear him by listening very near to his lips, he
became quiet. It was dimly pleasant to him now, to lie there, with the
window open, looking out at the summer sky and the trees: and, in the
evening, at the sunset. To watch the shadows of the clouds and leaves,
and seem to feel a sympathy with shadows. It was natural that he
should. To him, life and the world were nothing else.
He began to show now that he thought of Florence’s fatigue: and often
taxed his weakness to whisper to her, “Go and walk, my dearest, in the
sweet air. Go to your good husband!” One time when Walter was in his
room, he beckoned him to come near, and to stoop down; and pressing his
hand, whispered an assurance to him that he knew he could trust him
with his child when he was dead.
It chanced one evening, towards sunset, when Florence and Walter were
sitting in his room together, as he liked to see them, that Florence,
having her baby in her arms, began in a low voice to sing to the little
fellow, and sang the old tune she had so often sung to the dead child:
He could not bear it at the time; he held up his trembling hand,
imploring her to stop; but next day he asked her to repeat it, and to
do so often of an evening: which she did. He listening, with his face
turned away.
Florence was sitting on a certain time by his window, with her
work-basket between her and her old attendant, who was still her
faithful companion. He had fallen into a doze. It was a beautiful
evening, with two hours of light to come yet; and the tranquillity and
quiet made Florence very thoughtful. She was lost to everything for the
moment, but the occasion when the so altered figure on the bed had
first presented her to her beautiful Mama; when a touch from Walter
leaning on the back of her chair, made her start.
“My dear,” said Walter, “there is someone downstairs who wishes to
speak to you.”
She fancied Walter looked grave, and asked him if anything had
happened.
“No, no, my love!” said Walter. “I have seen the gentleman myself, and
spoken with him. Nothing has happened. Will you come?”
Florence put her arm through his; and confiding her father to the
black-eyed Mrs Toots, who sat as brisk and smart at her work as
black-eyed woman could, accompanied her husband downstairs. In the
pleasant little parlour opening on the garden, sat a gentleman, who
rose to advance towards her when she came in, but turned off, by reason
of some peculiarity in his legs, and was only stopped by the table.
Florence then remembered Cousin Feenix, whom she had not at first
recognised in the shade of the leaves. Cousin Feenix took her hand, and
congratulated her upon her marriage.
“I could have wished, I am sure,” said Cousin Feenix, sitting down as
Florence sat, “to have had an earlier opportunity of offering my
congratulations; but, in point of fact, so many painful occurrences
have happened, treading, as a man may say, on one another’s heels, that
I have been in a devil of a state myself, and perfectly unfit for every
description of society. The only description of society I have kept,
has been my own; and it certainly is anything but flattering to a man’s
good opinion of his own sources, to know that, in point of fact, he has
the capacity of boring himself to a perfectly unlimited extent.”
Florence divined, from some indefinable constraint and anxiety in this
gentleman’s manner—which was always a gentleman’s, in spite of the
harmless little eccentricities that attached to it—and from Walter’s
manner no less, that something more immediately tending to some object
was to follow this.
“I have been mentioning to my friend Mr Gay, if I may be allowed to
have the honour of calling him so,” said Cousin Feenix, “that I am
rejoiced to hear that my friend Dombey is very decidedly mending. I
trust my friend Dombey will not allow his mind to be too much preyed
upon, by any mere loss of fortune. I cannot say that I have ever
experienced any very great loss of fortune myself: never having had, in
point of fact, any great amount of fortune to lose. But as much as I
could lose, I have lost; and I don’t find that I particularly care
about it. I know my friend Dombey to be a devilish honourable man; and
it’s calculated to console my friend Dombey very much, to know, that
this is the universal sentiment. Even Tommy Screwzer,—a man of an
extremely bilious habit, with whom my friend Gay is probably
acquainted—cannot say a syllable in disputation of the fact.”
Florence felt, more than ever, that there was something to come; and
looked earnestly for it. So earnestly, that Cousin Feenix answered, as
if she had spoken.
“The fact is,” said Cousin Feenix, “that my friend Gay and myself have
been discussing the propriety of entreating a favour at your hands; and
that I have the consent of my friend Gay—who has met me in an
exceedingly kind and open manner, for which I am very much indebted to
him—to solicit it. I am sensible that so amiable a lady as the lovely
and accomplished daughter of my friend Dombey will not require much
urging; but I am happy to know, that I am supported by my friend Gay’s
influence and approval. As in my parliamentary time, when a man had a
motion to make of any sort—which happened seldom in those days, for we
were kept very tight in hand, the leaders on both sides being regular
Martinets, which was a devilish good thing for the rank and file, like
myself, and prevented our exposing ourselves continually, as a great
many of us had a feverish anxiety to do—as, in my parliamentary time, I
was about to say, when a man had leave to let off any little private
popgun, it was always considered a great point for him to say that he
had the happiness of believing that his sentiments were not without an
echo in the breast of Mr Pitt; the pilot, in point of fact, who had
weathered the storm. Upon which, a devilish large number of fellows
immediately cheered, and put him in spirits. Though the fact is, that
these fellows, being under orders to cheer most excessively whenever Mr
Pitt’s name was mentioned, became so proficient that it always woke
’em. And they were so entirely innocent of what was going on,
otherwise, that it used to be commonly said by Conversation
Brown—four-bottle man at the Treasury Board, with whom the father of my
friend Gay was probably acquainted, for it was before my friend Gay’s
time—that if a man had risen in his place, and said that he regretted
to inform the house that there was an Honourable Member in the last
stage of convulsions in the Lobby, and that the Honourable Member’s
name was Pitt, the approbation would have been vociferous.”
This postponement of the point, put Florence in a flutter; and she
looked from Cousin Feenix to Walter, in increasing agitation.
“My love,” said Walter, “there is nothing the matter.”
“There is nothing the matter, upon my honour,” said Cousin Feenix; “and
I am deeply distressed at being the means of causing you a moment’s
uneasiness. I beg to assure you that there is nothing the matter. The
favour that I have to ask is, simply—but it really does seem so
exceedingly singular, that I should be in the last degree obliged to my
friend Gay if he would have the goodness to break the—in point of fact,
the ice,” said Cousin Feenix.
Walter thus appealed to, and appealed to no less in the look that
Florence turned towards him, said:
“My dearest, it is no more than this. That you will ride to London with
this gentleman, whom you know.”
“And my friend Gay, also—I beg your pardon!” interrupted Cousin Feenix.
“—And with me—and make a visit somewhere.”
“To whom?” asked Florence, looking from one to the other.
“If I might entreat,” said Cousin Feenix, “that you would not press for
an answer to that question, I would venture to take the liberty of
making the request.”
“Do you know, Walter?”
“Yes.”
“And think it right?”
“Yes. Only because I am sure that you would too. Though there may be
reasons I very well understand, which make it better that nothing more
should be said beforehand.”
“If Papa is still asleep, or can spare me if he is awake, I will go
immediately,” said Florence. And rising quietly, and glancing at them
with a look that was a little alarmed but perfectly confiding, left the
room.
When she came back, ready to bear them company, they were talking
together, gravely, at the window; and Florence could not but wonder
what the topic was, that had made them so well acquainted in so short a
time. She did not wonder at the look of pride and love with which her
husband broke off as she entered; for she never saw him, but that
rested on her.
“I will leave,” said Cousin Feenix, “a card for my friend Dombey,
sincerely trusting that he will pick up health and strength with every
returning hour. And I hope my friend Dombey will do me the favour to
consider me a man who has a devilish warm admiration of his character,
as, in point of fact, a British merchant and a devilish upright
gentleman. My place in the country is in a most confounded state of
dilapidation, but if my friend Dombey should require a change of air,
and would take up his quarters there, he would find it a remarkably
healthy spot—as it need be, for it’s amazingly dull. If my friend
Dombey suffers from bodily weakness, and would allow me to recommend
what has frequently done myself good, as a man who has been extremely
queer at times, and who lived pretty freely in the days when men lived
very freely, I should say, let it be in point of fact the yolk of an
egg, beat up with sugar and nutmeg, in a glass of sherry, and taken in
the morning with a slice of dry toast. Jackson, who kept the
boxing-rooms in Bond Street—man of very superior qualifications, with
whose reputation my friend Gay is no doubt acquainted—used to mention
that in training for the ring they substituted rum for sherry. I should
recommend sherry in this case, on account of my friend Dombey being in
an invalided condition; which might occasion rum to fly—in point of
fact to his head—and throw him into a devil of a state.”
Of all this, Cousin Feenix delivered himself with an obviously nervous
and discomposed air. Then, giving his arm to Florence, and putting the
strongest possible constraint upon his wilful legs, which seemed
determined to go out into the garden, he led her to the door, and
handed her into a carriage that was ready for her reception.
Walter entered after him, and they drove away.
Their ride was six or eight miles long. When they drove through certain
dull and stately streets, lying westward in London, it was growing
dusk. Florence had, by this time, put her hand in Walter’s; and was
looking very earnestly, and with increasing agitation, into every new
street into which they turned.
When the carriage stopped, at last, before that house in Brook Street,
where her father’s unhappy marriage had been celebrated, Florence said,
“Walter, what is this? Who is here?” Walter cheering her, and not
replying, she glanced up at the house-front, and saw that all the
windows were shut, as if it were uninhabited. Cousin Feenix had by this
time alighted, and was offering his hand.
“Are you not coming, Walter?”
“No, I will remain here. Don’t tremble there is nothing to fear,
dearest Florence.”
“I know that, Walter, with you so near. I am sure of that, but—”
The door was softly opened, without any knock, and Cousin Feenix led
her out of the summer evening air into the close dull house. More
sombre and brown than ever, it seemed to have been shut up from the
wedding-day, and to have hoarded darkness and sadness ever since.
Florence ascended the dusky staircase, trembling; and stopped, with her
conductor, at the drawing-room door. He opened it, without speaking,
and signed an entreaty to her to advance into the inner room, while he
remained there. Florence, after hesitating an instant, complied.
Sitting by the window at a table, where she seemed to have been writing
or drawing, was a lady, whose head, turned away towards the dying
light, was resting on her hand. Florence advancing, doubtfully, all at
once stood still, as if she had lost the power of motion. The lady
turned her head.
“Great Heaven!” she said, “what is this?”
“No, no!” cried Florence, shrinking back as she rose up and putting out
her hands to keep her off. “Mama!”
They stood looking at each other. Passion and pride had worn it, but it
was the face of Edith, and beautiful and stately yet. It was the face
of Florence, and through all the terrified avoidance it expressed,
there was pity in it, sorrow, a grateful tender memory. On each face,
wonder and fear were painted vividly; each so still and silent, looking
at the other over the black gulf of the irrevocable past.
Florence was the first to change. Bursting into tears, she said from
her full heart, “Oh, Mama, Mama! why do we meet like this? Why were you
ever kind to me when there was no one else, that we should meet like
this?”
Edith stood before her, dumb and motionless. Her eyes were fixed upon
her face.
“I dare not think of that,” said Florence, “I am come from Papa’s sick
bed. We are never asunder now; we never shall be” any more. If you
would have me ask his pardon, I will do it, Mama. I am almost sure he
will grant it now, if I ask him. May Heaven grant it to you, too, and
comfort you!”
She answered not a word.
“Walter—I am married to him, and we have a son,” said Florence,
timidly—“is at the door, and has brought me here. I will tell him that
you are repentant; that you are changed,” said Florence, looking
mournfully upon her; “and he will speak to Papa with me, I know. Is
there anything but this that I can do?”
Edith, breaking her silence, without moving eye or limb, answered
slowly:
“The stain upon your name, upon your husband’s, on your child’s. Will
that ever be forgiven, Florence?”
“Will it ever be, Mama? It is! Freely, freely, both by Walter and by
me. If that is any consolation to you, there is nothing that you may
believe more certainly. You do not—you do not,” faltered Florence,
“speak of Papa; but I am sure you wish that I should ask him for his
forgiveness. I am sure you do.”
She answered not a word.
“I will!” said Florence. “I will bring it you, if you will let me; and
then, perhaps, we may take leave of each other, more like what we used
to be to one another. I have not,” said Florence very gently, and
drawing nearer to her, “I have not shrunk back from you, Mama, because
I fear you, or because I dread to be disgraced by you. I only wish to
do my duty to Papa. I am very dear to him, and he is very dear to me.
But I never can forget that you were very good to me. Oh, pray to
Heaven,” cried Florence, falling on her bosom, “pray to Heaven, Mama,
to forgive you all this sin and shame, and to forgive me if I cannot
help doing this (if it is wrong), when I remember what you used to be!”
Edith, as if she fell beneath her touch, sunk down on her knees, and
caught her round the neck.
“Florence!” she cried. “My better angel! Before I am mad again, before
my stubbornness comes back and strikes me dumb, believe me, upon my
soul I am innocent!”
“Mama!”
“Guilty of much! Guilty of that which sets a waste between us evermore.
Guilty of what must separate me, through the whole remainder of my
life, from purity and innocence—from you, of all the earth. Guilty of a
blind and passionate resentment, of which I do not, cannot, will not,
even now, repent; but not guilty with that dead man. Before God!”
Upon her knees upon the ground, she held up both her hands, and swore
it.
“Florence!” she said, “purest and best of natures,—whom I love—who
might have changed me long ago, and did for a time work some change
even in the woman that I am,—believe me, I am innocent of that; and
once more, on my desolate heart, let me lay this dear head, for the
last time!”
She was moved and weeping. Had she been oftener thus in older days, she
had been happier now.
“There is nothing else in all the world,” she said, “that would have
wrung denial from me. No love, no hatred, no hope, no threat. I said
that I would die, and make no sign. I could have done so, and I would,
if we had never met, Florence.”
“I trust,” said Cousin Feenix, ambling in at the door, and speaking,
half in the room, and half out of it, “that my lovely and accomplished
relative will excuse my having, by a little stratagem, effected this
meeting. I cannot say that I was, at first, wholly incredulous as to
the possibility of my lovely and accomplished relative having, very
unfortunately, committed herself with the deceased person with white
teeth; because in point of fact, one does see, in this world—which is
remarkable for devilish strange arrangements, and for being decidedly
the most unintelligible thing within a man’s experience—very odd
conjunctions of that sort. But as I mentioned to my friend Dombey, I
could not admit the criminality of my lovely and accomplished relative
until it was perfectly established. And feeling, when the deceased
person was, in point of fact, destroyed in a devilish horrible manner,
that her position was a very painful one—and feeling besides that our
family had been a little to blame in not paying more attention to her,
and that we are a careless family—and also that my aunt, though a
devilish lively woman, had perhaps not been the very best of mothers—I
took the liberty of seeking her in France, and offering her such
protection as a man very much out at elbows could offer. Upon which
occasion, my lovely and accomplished relative did me the honour to
express that she believed I was, in my way, a devilish good sort of
fellow; and that therefore she put herself under my protection. Which
in point of fact I understood to be a kind thing on the part of my
lovely and accomplished relative, as I am getting extremely shaky, and
have derived great comfort from her solicitude.”
Edith, who had taken Florence to a sofa, made a gesture with her hand
as if she would have begged him to say no more.
“My lovely and accomplished relative,” resumed Cousin Feenix, still
ambling about at the door, “will excuse me, if, for her satisfaction,
and my own, and that of my friend Dombey, whose lovely and accomplished
daughter we so much admire, I complete the thread of my observations.
She will remember that, from the first, she and I never alluded to the
subject of her elopement. My impression, certainly, has always been,
that there was a mystery in the affair which she could explain if so
inclined. But my lovely and accomplished relative being a devilish
resolute woman, I knew that she was not, in point of fact, to be
trifled with, and therefore did not involve myself in any discussions.
But, observing lately, that her accessible point did appear to be a
very strong description of tenderness for the daughter of my friend
Dombey, it occurred to me that if I could bring about a meeting,
unexpected on both sides, it might lead to beneficial results.
Therefore, we being in London, in the present private way, before going
to the South of Italy, there to establish ourselves, in point of fact,
until we go to our long homes, which is a devilish disagreeable
reflection for a man, I applied myself to the discovery of the
residence of my friend Gay—handsome man of an uncommonly frank
disposition, who is probably known to my lovely and accomplished
relative—and had the happiness of bringing his amiable wife to the
present place. And now,” said Cousin Feenix, with a real and genuine
earnestness shining through the levity of his manner and his slipshod
speech, “I do conjure my relative, not to stop half way, but to set
right, as far as she can, whatever she has done wrong—not for the
honour of her family, not for her own fame, not for any of those
considerations which unfortunate circumstances have induced her to
regard as hollow, and in point of fact, as approaching to humbug—but
because it is wrong, and not right.”
Cousin Feenix’s legs consented to take him away after this; and leaving
them alone together, he shut the door.
Edith remained silent for some minutes, with Florence sitting close
beside her. Then she took from her bosom a sealed paper.
“I debated with myself a long time,” she said in a low voice, “whether
to write this at all, in case of dying suddenly or by accident, and
feeling the want of it upon me. I have deliberated, ever since, when
and how to destroy it. Take it, Florence. The truth is written in it.”
“Is it for Papa?” asked Florence.
“It is for whom you will,” she answered. “It is given to you, and is
obtained by you. He never could have had it otherwise.”
Again they sat silent, in the deepening darkness.
“Mama,” said Florence, “he has lost his fortune; he has been at the
point of death; he may not recover, even now. Is there any word that I
shall say to him from you?”
“Did you tell me,” asked Edith, “that you were very dear to him?”
“Yes!” said Florence, in a thrilling voice.
“Tell him I am sorry that we ever met.”
“No more?” said Florence after a pause.
“Tell him, if he asks, that I do not repent of what I have done—not
yet—for if it were to do again to-morrow, I should do it. But if he is
a changed man—-”
She stopped. There was something in the silent touch of Florence’s hand
that stopped her.
“—But that being a changed man, he knows, now, it would never be. Tell
him I wish it never had been.”
“May I say,” said Florence, “that you grieved to hear of the
afflictions he has suffered?”
“Not,” she replied, “if they have taught him that his daughter is very
dear to him. He will not grieve for them himself, one day, if they have
brought that lesson, Florence.”
“You wish well to him, and would have him happy. I am sure you would!”
said Florence. “Oh! let me be able, if I have the occasion at some
future time, to say so?”
Edith sat with her dark eyes gazing steadfastly before her, and did not
reply until Florence had repeated her entreaty; when she drew her hand
within her arm, and said, with the same thoughtful gaze upon the night
outside:
“Tell him that if, in his own present, he can find any reason to
compassionate my past, I sent word that I asked him to do so. Tell him
that if, in his own present, he can find a reason to think less
bitterly of me, I asked him to do so. Tell him, that, dead as we are to
one another, never more to meet on this side of eternity, he knows
there is one feeling in common between us now, that there never was
before.”
Her sternness seemed to yield, and there were tears in her dark eyes.
“I trust myself to that,” she said, “for his better thoughts of me, and
mine of him. When he loves his Florence most, he will hate me least.
When he is most proud and happy in her and her children, he will be
most repentant of his own part in the dark vision of our married life.
At that time, I will be repentant too—let him know it then—and think
that when I thought so much of all the causes that had made me what I
was, I needed to have allowed more for the causes that had made him
what he was. I will try, then, to forgive him his share of blame. Let
him try to forgive me mine!”
“Oh Mama!” said Florence. “How it lightens my heart, even in such a
strange meeting and parting, to hear this!”
“Strange words in my own ears,” said Edith, “and foreign to the sound
of my own voice! But even if I had been the wretched creature I have
given him occasion to believe me, I think I could have said them still,
hearing that you and he were very dear to one another. Let him, when
you are dearest, ever feel that he is most forbearing in his thoughts
of me—that I am most forbearing in my thoughts of him! Those are the
last words I send him! Now, goodbye, my life!”
She clasped her in her arms, and seemed to pour out all her woman’s
soul of love and tenderness at once.
“This kiss for your child! These kisses for a blessing on your head! My
own dear Florence, my sweet girl, farewell!”
“To meet again!” cried Florence.
“Never again! Never again! When you leave me in this dark room, think
that you have left me in the grave. Remember only that I was once, and
that I loved you!”
And Florence left her, seeing her face no more, but accompanied by her
embraces and caresses to the last.
Cousin Feenix met her at the door, and took her down to Walter in the
dingy dining room, upon whose shoulder she laid her head weeping.
“I am devilish sorry,” said Cousin Feenix, lifting his wristbands to
his eyes in the simplest manner possible, and without the least
concealment, “that the lovely and accomplished daughter of my friend
Dombey and amiable wife of my friend Gay, should have had her sensitive
nature so very much distressed and cut up by the interview which is
just concluded. But I hope and trust I have acted for the best, and
that my honourable friend Dombey will find his mind relieved by the
disclosures which have taken place. I exceedingly lament that my friend
Dombey should have got himself, in point of fact, into the devil’s own
state of conglomeration by an alliance with our family; but am strongly
of opinion that if it hadn’t been for the infernal scoundrel Barker—man
with white teeth—everything would have gone on pretty smoothly. In
regard to my relative who does me the honour to have formed an
uncommonly good opinion of myself, I can assure the amiable wife of my
friend Gay, that she may rely on my being, in point of fact, a father
to her. And in regard to the changes of human life, and the
extraordinary manner in which we are perpetually conducting ourselves,
all I can say is, with my friend Shakespeare—man who wasn’t for an age
but for all time, and with whom my friend Gay is no doubt
acquainted—that its like the shadow of a dream.”