harm Nicholas now, he tried to hurt him through Smike. He sent for
Squeers, and the latter, finding Smike alone one day on the street,
seized him, put him in a coach and started to take him back to Dotheboys
Hall. But luckily his victim escaped and got back to London.
Then Ralph formed a wicked plot to get Smike surely into their hands. He
hired a man to claim that he was the boy's father, who had first taken
him to Squeers's school. Squeers, too, swore to this lying tale. But the
Cheeryble brothers suspected the story, and when Ralph saw they were
determined to help Nicholas protect Smike, he was afraid to go any
further with the plan. So he smothered his rage for the time being, and
meanwhile a most important thing happened to Nicholas--he fell in love!
It came about in this way: There was a man named Bray, who had been
arrested for debt and was allowed to live only in a certain street under
the guardianship of the jailer, for this was the law in England then. He
was slowly dying of heart-disease, and all the money he had to live on
was what his only daughter, a lovely girl named Madeline, earned by
painting and selling pictures.
The Cheeryble brothers had learned of their poverty, (for it was hard
for Madeline to find purchasers), and they sent Nicholas to buy some of
the pictures. He was to pretend to be a dealer, so that Madeline would
not suspect it was done for charity. Nicholas went more than once and
soon had fallen very much in love with Madeline Bray.
He was not the only one who admired her, however. There was an old man
named Gride, almost as stingy as Ralph Nickleby, who had discovered by
accident that a large sum of money really belonged to Madeline, which
she and her father knew nothing about, and he thought it would be a fine
thing to marry her and thus get this fortune into his hands. Now, Ralph
Nickleby was one of the men who was keeping Bray a prisoner, and so
Gride went to him and asked him to help him marry Madeline. If Bray
made his daughter marry the old miser he himself was to be set free.
Ralph, for his share, was to get some of the money the old man Gride
knew should be Madeline's.
It was a pretty plan and it pleased Ralph, for he cared little what
lives he ruined so long as he got money by it. So he agreed, and soon
convinced Bray (who, ill as he was, was utterly selfish) that it would
be a fine thing for Madeline to marry the hideous old Gride and so free
her father. At length, in despair, because she thought it her duty to
her heartless father, Madeline consented to do so.
Nicholas might never have known of this till after the wedding, but
luckily Noggs, the clerk, had overheard the old skinflint make the
bargain with Ralph, and when one day Nicholas confessed that he was in
love with Madeline, the good-hearted clerk told him all that he had
found out.
Nicholas was in great trouble, for he loved Madeline very dearly. He
went to her and begged her not to marry Gride, but she thought it her
duty. He went to Gride, too, but the hideous old miser only sneered at
him.
At last, in desperation, he told Kate, and the brother and sister went
together to Bray's house. They reached it just as the wedding was about
to begin.
Ralph Nickleby, who was there, foamed with fury to find the nephew he so
hated again stepping between him and his evil designs. He tried to bar
them out, but Nicholas forced him back.
They would doubtless have come to blows, but at that moment there came
from another room the sound of a fall, and a scream from Madeline. The
excitement had proved too much for her father. His heart had failed and
he had fallen dead on the floor. Thus Providence interfered to bring the
wicked scheme of the marriage to naught.
Vainly did Gride bemoan the loss of the money he had hoped to gain, and
vainly did Ralph Nickleby, with curses, try to prevent. Nicholas thrust
them both aside, lifted the unconscious Madeline as easily as if she had
been a baby, placed her with Kate in a coach and, daring Ralph to
follow; jumped up beside the coachman and bade him drive away.
He took her to his own home, where his mother and Kate cared for her
tenderly till she had recovered from the shock and was her own lovely
self again.
The penalty that he had so long deserved was soon to overtake Ralph
Nickleby. He lost much of his wealth through a failure, and close on the
heels of this misfortune came the news that the infamous plot he had
formed against Smike had been discovered and that Squeers, his
accomplice, had been arrested.
The most terrible blow came last. A man whom Ralph had long ago ruined
and had caused to be transported for a crime, confessed that he had
been the one who, many years before, had left Smike at Dotheboys Hall,
and he confessed also that Smike was really Ralph Nickleby's own son by
a secret marriage. Ralph had not known this, because the man, in
revenge, had falsely told him the child was dead.
The knowledge that, in Smike, he had been persecuting his own son was
the crowning blow for cruel Ralph Nickleby. When he heard this he locked
himself up alone in his great house and never was seen alive again. His
body was found in the garret where he had hanged himself to a rafter.
Poor Smike, however, did not live to sorrow over the villainy of his
father. The exposure and hardships of his years at Squeers's school had
broken his health. He had for long been gradually growing weaker, and at
last one day he died peacefully, with Nicholas's arms around him.
Every one of whose villainy this story tells came to a bad end. Sir
Mulberry Hawk quarreled with young Lord Verisopht and shot him dead in
the duel that followed. For this he himself had to fly to a foreign
country, where he finally died miserably in jail. Gride, the miser who
had plotted to marry Madeline, met almost as terrible a fate as Ralph's.
His house was broken into by burglars one night and he was found
murdered in his bed.
Squeers was declared guilty and transported for seven years. When the
news reached Dotheboys Hall such a cheer arose as had never been heard
there. It came on the weekly "treacle day," and the boys ducked young
Wackford in the soup kettle and made Mrs. Squeers swallow a big dose of
her own brimstone. Then, big and little, they all ran away, just as
Nicholas and Smike had done.
Kate married a nephew of the Cheeryble brothers, and Nicholas, of
course, married Madeline, and in time became a partner in the firm. All
of them lived near by, and their little children played together under
the watchful care of old Noggs, the one-eyed clerk, who loved them all
alike.
The children laid flowers every day on poor Smike's grave, and often
their eyes filled with tears as they spoke low and softly of the dead
cousin they had never known.
DEALINGS WITH THE FIRM OF DOMBEY AND SON WHOLESALE, RETAIL, AND FOR
EXPORTATION
Published 1846-1848
_Scene_: London, Brighton, and France
_Time_: About 1830 to 1846
CHARACTERS
Mr. Dombey A London merchant
Head of the firm of Dombey and Son
"Little Paul" His son
Florence His daughter
Called by little Paul, "Floy"
Edith Granger A widow
Later, Mr. Dombey's wife
Walter Gay A clerk for Dombey and Son
Later, Florence's husband
Solomon Gills His uncle
A ship's instrument maker. Known as Old Sol
Captain Cuttle A retired seaman
Bosom friend of Old Sol's
Carker Manager for Dombey and Son
Mrs. Pipchin Proprietress of a children's boarding-house
at Brighton
Later, Mr. Dombey's housekeeper
Doctor Blimber Proprietor of a boys' school at Brighton
Major Bagstock A retired army officer
Diogenes Doctor Blimber's dog
Later a pet of Florence's
DOMBEY AND SON
I
LITTLE PAUL
In London there was once a business house known as Dombey and Son. It
had borne that name for generations, though at the time this story
begins Mr. Dombey, the head of the house, had no son. He was a merchant,
hard, cold and selfish, who thought the world was made only for his firm
to trade in. He had one little daughter, Florence, but never since her
birth had he loved or petted her because of his disappointment that she
was not a boy.
When at last a son was born to him it wakened something at the bottom of
his cold and heavy heart that he had never known before. He scarcely
grieved for his wife, who died when the baby was born, but gave all his
thought to the child. He named him Paul, and began at once to long for
the time when he should become old enough to be a real member of the
firm in which all his own interest centered--Dombey and Son. He hired
the best nurse he could find, and, when he was not at his office, would
sit and watch the baby Paul hour after hour, laying plans for his
future. So selfishly was the father's soul wrapped up in this that he
scarcely ever noticed poor, lonely little Florence, whose warm heart was
starving for affection.
Little Paul's nurse was very fond of him, and of his sister, too; but
she had children of her own also, and one day, instead of walking up and
down with Florence and the baby near the Dombey house, she took the
children to another part of the city to visit her own home.
This was a wrong thing to do, and resulted in a very unhappy adventure
for Florence. On their way home a mad bull broke away from his keepers
and charged through the crowded street. There was great screaming and
confusion and people ran in every direction, Florence among the rest.
She ran for a long way, and when she stopped, her nurse was nowhere to
be seen. Terrified to find herself lost in the great city, she began to
cry.
The next thing she knew, an ugly old woman, with red-rimmed eyes and a
mouth that mumbled all the while, grasped her by the wrist and dragged
her through the shabby doorway of a dirty house into a back room heaped
with rags.
"I want that pretty frock," said she, "and that little bonnet and your
petticoat. Come! Take them off!"
Florence, dreadfully frightened, obeyed. The old woman took away her
shoes, too, and made her put on some filthy ragged clothing from the
heaps on the floor. Then she let her go, first making her promise she
would not ask any one to show her the way home.
The poor child could think of nothing else but to find her father's
office at Dombey and Son's, and for two hours she walked, asking the way
of everybody she met. She might not have found it at all, but at a wharf
where she wandered, there happened to be a young clerk of Dombey and
Son's, and the minute he was pointed out to her she felt such trust in
his bright and open face that she caught his hand and sobbed out all her
story.
This lad's name was Walter Gay. He lived with his uncle, honest old
Solomon Gills, a maker of ship's instruments, who kept a little shop
with the wooden figure of a midshipman set outside. Very few customers
ever came into the shop, and, indeed, hardly any one else, for Old Sol,
as the neighbors called him, had only one intimate friend.
This friend was a retired seaman named Captain Cuttle, who always
dressed in blue, as if he were a bird and those were his feathers. He
had a hook instead of a hand attached to his right wrist, a shirt collar
so large that it looked like a small sail, and wherever he went he
carried in his left hand a thick stick that was covered all over (like
his nose) with knobs.
Captain Cuttle used to talk on land just as if he were at sea. He would
say "Steady!" and "Belay, there!" and called Old Sol "Shipmate," as
though the little shop, in which he spent his evenings, was a ship. He
had a deep, rumbling voice, in which he would sing _Lovely Peg_, the
only song he knew, and which he never but once got through to the last
line. But in spite of his queer ways and talk, Captain Cuttle had the
softest, kindest heart in the world. He thought old Solomon Gills the
greatest man alive, and was as fond as possible of "Wal'r," as he called
the nephew. And, indeed, Walter was a handsome boy, and as good as he
was handsome.
Walter soothed Florence's tears and took her, ragged clothes and all,
straight home to Solomon Gills's shop, where his uncle gave her a warm
supper, while Walter ran to the Dombey house with the news that she was
found, and to bring back a dress for her to wear.
So Florence's adventure turned out very well in one way, since through
it she first met Walter Gay; but it turned out badly in another way, for
Mr. Dombey was angry that any one should have seen a daughter of his in
such a plight, and, unjustly enough, treasured this anger against
Walter. Florence, however, never forgot her rescuer after that day, and
as for Walter, he fell quite in love with her.
Florence loved her little brother very dearly, but Paul, in the constant
companionship of his father, grew up without boys or play. His face was
old and wistful, and he had an old-fashioned way of sitting, brooding
in his little arm-chair beside his father, looking into the fire. He
used to ask strange, wise questions, and the only time he seemed
childlike at all was when he was with Florence. He was never strong and
well, like her, but he grew tired easily, and used to say that his bones
ached.
Mr. Dombey at length grew anxious about Paul's health and sent him with
Florence to Brighton, a town on the sea-coast, to the house of a Mrs.
Pipchin, a stooped old lady with a mottled face, a hooked nose and a
hard gray eye.
Mrs. Pipchin took little children to board, and her idea of "managing"
them was to give them everything they didn't like and nothing they did
like. She lived in a gloomy house, so windy that it always sounded to
any one in it like a great shell which one had to hold to his ear
whether he liked it or not. The children there stayed most of the time
in a bare room they called "the dungeon," with a big ragged fireplace in
it. They, had only bread and butter and rice to eat, while Mrs. Pipchin
had tea and mutton chops and buttered toast and other nice things.
Little Paul's father did not know what a dreary place this was for a
child, or doubtless he would not have sent him there. Mr. Dombey knew so
little about children that it seemed as if he had never been a child
himself. Paul was not happy--except when he was out on the beach with
Florence, who used to draw him in a little carriage and sing to him and
tell him stories. Once a week Mr. Dombey came to Brighton and then she
and little Paul would go to his hotel to take tea with him.
Paul seemed to find a curious fascination in Mrs. Pipchin. He would sit
by the hour before the fire looking steadily at her, where she sat with
her old black cat beside her, till his gaze quite disturbed her. He did
not care to play with other children--only with Florence, whom he called
"Floy." Often, as they sat together on the beach, he would ask her what
it was the sea was always saying, and would rise up on his couch to
listen to something he seemed to hear, far, far away.
Walter Gay, meanwhile, in London, was working away and thinking often of
Florence. He was greatly worried about his Uncle Solomon, for the
business of the old instrument maker was in a bad way, and Old Sol
himself was melancholy.
One day Walter came home from his work at Dombey and Son's to find that
an officer had taken possession of the shop and all that was in it for
debt. His old Uncle Sol was sobbing like a child, and not knowing what
else to do, he went post-haste for Captain Cuttle.
He found the captain with his hat on, peeling potatoes with a knife
screwed into the wooden socket in his wrist instead of the hook. When he
told him what had happened, Captain Cuttle jumped up, put all the money
he had, his silver watch, some spoons and a pair of sugar-tongs into
his pocket and went back at once with him to the shop.
But the debt, he found, was far too big to be thus paid, and Captain
Cuttle advised Walter to go to Mr. Dombey and ask him to help them, or
else everything in the shop would have to be sold, and that would kill
old Solomon Gills.
It was Saturday, and Mr. Dombey had gone to see little Paul, so Walter
and Captain Cuttle took the next coach for Brighton.
They found him with the children at breakfast, and Walter, discouraged
by his cold look, faltered lamely through his story, while Captain
Cuttle laid on the table the money, the watch, the spoons and the
sugar-tongs, offering them to help pay the debt. Mr. Dombey was
astonished at his strange appearance and indignant at being annoyed by
such an errand, so that Florence, seeing his mood and Walter's trouble,
began to sob. Little Paul, however, stood looking from Walter to his
father so intently and wisely that the latter, telling him he was one
day to be a part of Dombey and Son, asked him if he would like to loan
Walter the money.
Paul joyfully said yes, and Mr. Dombey, telling Walter that it was to be
considered a loan from the boy, gave him a note which would at once
release his uncle from his difficulty. So Walter and Captain Cuttle went
gladly back to London.
Soon after this, when Paul was six years old, his father thought he
should be studying, so he put him in a school next door to Mrs.
Pipchin's.
The master was Doctor Blimber, a portly gentleman in knee-breeches, with
a bald head and a double chin. He made all the boys there study much too
hard; even those only six years old had to learn Greek and history. Poor
little Paul did the best he could, but such difficult tasks made him
giddy and dull. It was only the Saturdays he enjoyed; these he spent
with Florence on the seashore or in Mrs. Pipchin's bare room.
Paul would have broken down sooner under Doctor Blimber's system but
that Florence bought all the books he studied and studied them herself,
so as to help him on Saturdays. People called him "old-fashioned," and
that troubled him a great deal, but he tried to love even the old
watch-dog at Doctor Blimber's, and before the holidays came everybody in
the school liked him.
But before the term ended little Paul fell sick. He seemed not to be ill
of any particular disease, but only weak; so weak he had to sit propped
up with pillows at the entertainment Doctor Blimber gave on the final
evening. After that everything was hazy until he found himself, somehow,
at home in bed, with Florence beside him.
He lay there day after day, watching and dreaming. He dreamed often of a
swift, silent river that flowed on and on, and he wanted to stop it with
his hands.
"Why will it never stop, Floy?" he would ask her. "It is bearing me
away, I think."
There were many shadowy figures that came and went. One came often and
sat long, but never spoke. One day he saw it was his father, and he
called out to it: "Don't be so sorry for me, dear papa. Indeed, I am
quite happy."
Once he roused himself, and there were many about the bed: Florence, his
father, his old nurse and Walter Gay, and he called each by name and
waved his hand to them.
Florence took him in her arms and he heard the swift river flowing.
"How fast it runs, Floy! It is taking me with it. There is a shore
before me now. Who is standing on the bank?"
He put his hands together behind her neck, as he had been used to do at
his prayers.
"Mama is like you, Floy," he said. "I know her by her face. The light
about the head is shining upon me as I go."
So little Paul died.
II
HOW FLORENCE LOST HER FATHER
It was a sad, sad house for many days after that, and Florence, in her
loneliness, often thought her heart would break. Her father she scarcely
ever saw, for he sat alone in his room. Every night she would steal
down the dark hall to his door, and lay her head against the panels,
hungering for a little love; but he thought only of his dead son, and
gave no sign of tenderness to her.
One of Doctor Blimber's pupils begged for and brought her Diogenes, the
old watch-dog which little Paul had petted at the school and this dog
was all she had to love. She had not seen Walter Gay since the death of
her brother, though he himself thought of her very often.
Walter's prospects, thanks to an enemy he had made without knowing it,
had changed since then. This enemy was Carker, the manager at Dombey and
Son's.
Carker was a thin man, with the whitest, most regular teeth, which he
continually showed in an unpleasant smile. There was something cat-like
about him; the more he disliked a person the wider was his smile. Carker
had a brother whom he hated, and Walter unconsciously earned his enmity
by liking and being kind to this brother.
Mr. Dombey was not fond of Walter either, the less so because Florence
liked him, and disliking Florence, he disliked all for whom she cared.
So, between Mr. Dombey and Carker, Walter was ordered to go, on business
for the firm, on a long voyage to the West Indies.
Walter was not deceived. He knew he was not sent there for his own good,
but in order not to worry his uncle he and Captain Cuttle pretended
that it was a splendid opportunity. So old Solomon Gills tried not to
sorrow for his going.
Florence heard of the voyage, and, the night before Walter sailed, in
she came to the little shop where Walter had brought her years before
when she had been lost. She kissed Old Sol and called Walter her
brother, and said she would never forget him.
And so Walter, when next day he sailed away, waving his hand to his
uncle and Captain Cuttle, went with even more of love in his heart for
Florence than he had had.
After his going Florence was lonelier than before. She was all alone,
save for the dog Diogenes and her books and music. Her father was much
away, and in the evenings she could go into his room and nestle in his
easy chair without fear of repulse. She kept the room in order and a
fresh nosegay on the table, and never left it without leaving on his
deserted desk a kiss and a tear. The purpose of her life, she
determined, should be to try continually to let her father know how much
she loved him.
But months passed and she had no chance. Her father, in fact, seldom
came near the house. He was away visiting in the country with a Major
Bagstock, who had struck up an acquaintance with him because of Mr.
Dombey's wealth.
Bagstock (who had a habit of referring to himself as "J. B." or "Joey
B.," or almost anything but his full name) was as fat as a dancing
bear, with a purple, apoplectic-looking face, and a laugh like a horse's
cough. He was a glutton, and stuffed himself so at meals that he did
little but choke and wheeze through the latter half of them. He was a
great flatterer, however, and he flattered so well that Mr. Dombey,
blind from his own pride, thought him a very proper person indeed. And
even though everybody laughed at the major, Mr. Dombey always found him
most agreeable company.
There was an old lady at the town they visited who was poor, but very
fond of fashion and rich people. She had no heart, and was silly enough,
even though she was seventy years old, to wear rouge on her cheeks and
dress like a girl of seventeen. She had a widowed daughter, Edith
Granger, a proud, lovely woman, who despised the life her mother led,
but, in spite of this, was weak enough to be influenced by her.
Major Bagstock introduced Mr. Dombey to the mother, and the latter soon
made up her mind that her daughter should marry him. The major (who
wanted Mr. Dombey to marry so he himself could profit by the dinners and
entertainments that would follow) helped this affair on all he could,
and Edith, though at times she hated herself for the false part she was
playing, agreed to it.
To tell the truth, Mr. Dombey was so full of his own conceit that he
never stopped to wonder if Edith could really love him. She was
beautiful and as cold and haughty as he was himself, and that was all he
considered. So Major Bagstock and the old lady were soon chuckling and
wheezing together with delight at the success of their plan, and before
long Edith had promised to marry Florence's father.
Poor Florence! She had other griefs of her own by this time. Carker, of
Dombey and Son, with the false smile and the white teeth, came several
times to see her, asking if she had messages to send to her father--each
time seeming purposely to wound her by recalling her father's dislike.
She tried to like the smooth, oily manager, but there was something in
his face she could not but distrust.
To add to her trouble, the ship by which Walter Gay had sailed for the
West Indies had not yet arrived there. It was long overdue, and in the
absence of news people began to fear it had been lost. She went to the
little shop where the wooden midshipman stood, but found old Solomon
Gills and Captain Cuttle in as great anxiety.
Old Sol, indeed, was soon in such distress for fear Walter had been
drowned, that he felt he could bear the suspense no longer. One day,
soon after Florence's visit, he disappeared from London, leaving a
letter for Captain Cuttle.