"Cornelia," said the doctor. "Dombey will be your charge at first. Bring
him on, Cornelia, bring him on."
It was hard work, for no sooner had Paul mastered subject A than he was
immediately provided with subject B, from which we passed to C, and even
D. Often he felt giddy and confused, and drowsy and dull.
But there were always the Saturdays when Florence came at noon to fetch
him, and never would she, in any weather, stay away. Florence brought
the school-books he was studying, and every Saturday night would
patiently assist him through so much as they could anticipate together
of his next week's work. And this saved him, possibly, from sinking
underneath the burden which the fair Cornelia Blimber piled upon his
back.
It was not that Miss Blimber meant to be too hard upon him, or that Dr.
Blimber meant to bear too heavily on the young gentlemen in general. But
when Dr. Blimber said that Paul made great progress, and was naturally
clever, Mr. Dombey was more bent than ever on his being forced and
crammed.
Such spirits as he had at the outset Paul soon lost, of course. But he
retained all that was strange, and odd, and thoughtful in his character;
and Mrs. Blimber thought him "odd," and whispered that he was "old
fashioned," and that was all.
Between little Paul Dombey the youngest, and Mr. Toots, the oldest of
Dr. Blimber's young gentlemen, a strong attachment existed. Toots had
"gone through" so much, that he had left off growing, and was free to
pursue his own course of study, which was chiefly to write long letters
to himself from persons of distinction, addressed "P. Toots, Esquire,
Brighton," to preserve them in his desk with great care.
"How are you?" Toots would say to Paul, fifty times a day.
"Quite well, sir, thank you," Paul would answer.
"Shake hands," would be Toot's next advance. Which Paul, of course,
would immediately do.
"I say!" cried Toots one evening, finding Paul looking out of the
window. "I say, what do you think about?"
"Oh, I think about a great many things," replied Paul.
"Do you, though?" said Toots, appearing to consider that fact in itself
surprising.
"If you had to die," said Paul, "don't you think you would rather die on
a moonlight night, when the sky is quite clear, and the wind blowing, as
it did last night?"
Mr. Toots, looking doubtfully at Paul, said he didn't know about that.
"It was a beautiful night," said Paul. "There was a boat over there, in
the full light of the moon, a boat with a sail."
Mr. Toots, feeling called upon to say something, suggested "Smugglers,"
and then added, "or Preventive."
"A boat with a sail," repeated Paul. "It went away into the distance,
and what do you think it seemed to do as it moved with the waves?"
"Pitch!" said Mr. Toots.
"It seemed to beckon," said the child; "to beckon me to come."
Certainly people found him an "old-fashioned" child. At the end of the
term Dr. and Mrs. Blimber gave an early party to their pupils and their
parents and guardians, and it was a day or two before this event when
Paul was taken ill. This illness released him from his books, and made
him think the more of Florence.
They all loved "Dombey's sister" at that party, and Paul, sitting in a
cushioned corner, heard her praises constantly. There was a
half-intelligible sentiment, too, diffused around, referring to Florence
and himself, and breathing sympathy for both, that soothed and touched
him. He did not know why, but it seemed to have something to do with his
"old-fashioned" reputation.
The time arrived for taking leave.
"Good-bye, Doctor Blimber," said Paul, stretching out his hand.
"Good-bye, my little friend," returned the doctor. "Dombey, Dombey, you
have always been my favourite pupil."
"God bless you!" said Cornelia, taking both Paul's hands in hers. And it
showed, Paul thought, how easily one might do injustice to a person; for
Miss Blimber meant it--though she _was_ a Forcer--and felt it.
There was a general move after Paul and Florence down the staircase, in
which the whole Blimber family were included. Such a circumstance, Mr.
Feeder said aloud, as has never happened in the case of any former young
gentleman within his experience. The servants, with the butler--a stern
man--at their head, had all an interest in seeing little Dombey go;
while the young gentlemen pressed to shake hands with him, crying
individually "Dombey, don't forget me!"
Once for a last look, Paul turned and gazed upon the faces addressed to
him, and from that time whenever he thought of Dr. Blimber's it came
back as he had seen it in this last view; and it never seemed to be a
real place, but always a dream, full of faces.
_IV.--Paul Goes Out with the Stream_
From the night they brought him home from Dr. Blimber's Paul had never
risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening to the noises in the
street, quite tranquilly; not caring much how the time went, but
watching it, and watching everywhere about him with observing eyes.
When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and
quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that evening
was coming on.
By little and little he got tired of the bustle of the day, the noise of
the carriages and carts, and people passing and repassing; and would
fall asleep or be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense of a rushing
river. "Why will it never stop, Floy?" he would sometimes ask her. "It
is bearing me away, I think!"
But Floy could always soothe him.
He was visited by as many as three grave doctors, and the room was so
quiet, and Paul was so observant of them, that he even knew the
difference in the sound of their watches. But his interest centred in
Sir Parker Peps; for Paul had heard them say long ago that that
gentleman had been with his mamma when she clasped Florence in her arms
and died. And he could not forget it now. He liked him for it. He was
not afraid.
The people in the room were always changing, and in the night-time Paul
began to wonder languidly who the figure was, with its head upon its
hand, that returned so often and remained so long.
"Floy," he said, "what is that--there at the bottom of the bed?"
"There's nothing there except papa."
The figure lifted up its head and rose, and said, "My own boy! Don't you
know me?"
Paul looked it in the face, and thought, was that his father? The next
time he observed the figure at the bottom of the bed, he called to it.
"Don't be sorry for me, dear papa. Indeed, I am quite happy."
That was the beginning of his always saying in the morning that he was a
great deal better, and that they were to tell his father so.
How many times the golden water danced upon the wall, how many nights
the dark, dark river rolled towards the sea, Paul never counted, never
sought to know.
One night he had been thinking of his mother, and her picture in the
drawing-room downstairs.
"Floy, did I ever see mamma?"
"No, darling."
The river was running very fast now, and confusing his mind. Paul fell
asleep, and when he awoke the sun was high.
"Floy, come close to me, and let me see you."
Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden
light came streaming in, and fell upon them locked together.
"How fast the river runs between its green banks and the rushes, Floy!
But it's very near the sea. I hear the waves. They always said so."
Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream was
lulling him to rest, now the boat was out at sea but gliding smoothly
on. And now there was a shore before him. Who stood on the bank?
He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his prayers. He
did not remove his arms to do it, but they saw him fold them so behind
her neck.
"Mamma is like you, Floy. I know her by the face! The light about her
head is shining on me as I go."
The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred
in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our
first parents, and will last unchanged until our race has run its
course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old
fashion--Death!
_V.--The End of Dombey and Son_
The stonemason to whom Mr. Dombey gave his order for a tablet in the
church, in memory of little Paul, called his attention to the
inscription "Beloved and only child," and said, "It should be 'son,' I
think, sir?"
"You are right, of course. Make the correction."
And there came a time when it was to Florence, and Florence only, that
Mr. Dombey turned. For the great house of Dombey and Son fell, and in
the crash its proud head became a ruined man, ruined beyond recovery.
Bankrupt in purse, his personal pride was yet further humbled. For Mr.
Dombey had married again, a loveless match, and his wife deserted him.
In the hour when he discovered that desertion he had driven his daughter
Florence from the house.
He was fallen now never to be raised up any more. For the night of his
worldly ruin there was no to-morrow's sun, for the stain of his domestic
shame there was no purification.
In his pride--for he was proud yet--he let the world go from him freely.
As it fell away, he shook it off. He knew, now, what it was to be
rejected and deserted. Dombey and Son was no more--his children no more.
His daughter Florence had married--married a young sailor once a boy in
the office of Dombey and Son--and thinking of her, Dombey, in the
solitude of his dismantled home, remembered that she had never changed
to him through all those years; and the mist through which he had seen
her, cleared, and showed him her true self.
He wandered through the rooms, and thought of suicide; a guilty hand was
grasping what was in his breast.
It was arrested by a cry--a wild, loud, loving, rapturous cry, and he
saw his daughter.
"Papa! Dearest papa!"
Unchanged still. Of all the world unchanged.
He tottered to his chair. He felt her draw his arms about her neck. He
felt her kisses on his face, he felt--oh, how deeply!--all that he had
done.
She laid his face, now covered with his hands, against the heart that he
had almost broken, and said, sobbing, "Papa, love, I am a mother. Papa,
dear, oh, say God bless me and my little child!"
His head, now grey, was encircled by her arm, and he groaned to think
that never, never had it rested so before.
"My little child was born at sea, papa. I prayed to God to spare me that
I might come. The moment I could land I came to you. Never let us be
parted any more, papa!"
He kissed her on the lips, and lifting up his eyes, said, "Oh, my God,
forgive me, for I need it very much!"
* * * * *