 Chapter 51 of Dombe and Son. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Cynthia Lyons. Dombe and Son by Charles Dickens. Chapter 51. Mr. Dombe and the World. What is the proud man doing while the days go by? Does he ever think of his daughter or wonder where she is gone? Does he suppose she has come home and is leading her old life in the weary house? No one can answer for him. He has never uttered her name since. His household dread him too much to approach a subject on which he is resolutely dumb and the only person who dares question him, he silences immediately. My dear Paul murmurs his sister, sidelining into the room on the day of Florence's departure. Your wife, that upstart woman, is it possible that what I hear confusedly is true and that this is her return for your unparalleled devotion to her, extending, I am sure, even to the sacrifice of your own relations to her caprices and haughtiness? My poor brother, with this speech feelingly reminiscent of her not having been asked to dinner on the day of the first party, Mrs. Chick makes great use of her pocket handkerchief and falls on Mr. Dombe's neck. But Mr. Dombe frigidly lifts her off and hands her to a chair. I thank you, Louisa, he says, for this mark of your affection, but desire that our conversation may refer to any other subject. When I bewail my fate, Louisa, or express myself as being in want of consolation, you can offer it, if you will have the goodness. My dear Paul rejoins his sister, with her handkerchief to her face and shaking her head. I know your great spirit and will say no more upon a theme so painful and revolting. On the heads of which two adjectives, Mrs. Chick, visit scathing indignation. But pray, let me ask you, though I dread to hear something that will shock and distress me, that unfortunate child Florence. Louisa says her brother sternly, silence, not another word of this. Mrs. Chick can only shake her head and use her handkerchief and moan over degenerate Dombe's who are no Dombe's. But whether Florence has been inculpated in the flight of Edith or has followed her, or has done too much or too little or anything or nothing, she is not the least idea. He goes on without deviation, keeping his thoughts and feelings close within his own breast and imparting them to no one. He makes no search for his daughter. He may think that she is with his sister or that she is under his own roof. He may think of her constantly or he may never think about her. It is all one for any sign he makes. But this is sure. He does not think that he has lost her. He has no suspicion of the truth. He has lived too long shut up in his towering supremacy, seeing her, a patient, gentle creature in the path below it, to have any fear of that. Shaken as he is by his disgrace, he is not yet humbled to the level earth. The root is broad and deep, and in the course of years its fibers have spread out and gathered nourishment from everything around it. The tree is struck but not down. Though he hide the world within him from the world without, which he believes has but one purpose for the time, and that, to watch him eagerly wherever he goes, he cannot hide those rebel traces of it which escape in hollow eyes and cheeks, a haggard forehead and a moody brooding air. Impenetrable as before, he is still an altered man, and proud as ever he is humbled, or those marks would not be there. The world, what the world thinks of him, how it looks at him, what it sees in him, and what it says, this is the haunting demon of his mind. It is everywhere where he is, and worse than that, it is everywhere where he is not. It comes out with him among his servants, and yet he leaves it whispering behind. He sees it pointing after him in the streets. It is waiting for him in his counting house. It leers over the shoulders of rich men among the merchants. It goes beckoning and babbling among the crowd. It always anticipates him in every place, and is always busiest, he knows, when he has gone away. When he is shut up in his room at night, it is in his house, outside it, audible in footsteps on the pavement, visible in print upon the table, steaming to and fro on railroads and in ships, restless and busy everywhere, with nothing else but him. It is not a phantom of his imagination. It is as active in other people's minds as in his. Witness Cousin Phoenix, who comes from Bodden-Bodden purposely to talk to him. Witness Major Bagstock, who accompanies Cousin Phoenix on that friendly mission. Mr. Dombie receives them with his usual dignity and stands erect in his old attitude before the fire. He feels that the world is looking at him out of their eyes, that it is in the stare of the pictures that Mr. Pitt upon the bookcase represents it, that there are eyes in its own map hanging on the wall. An unusually cold spring says Mr. Dombie to deceive the world. Dami, sir, says the Major in the warmth of friendship. Joseph Bagstock is a bad hand at a counterfeit. If you want to hold your friends off Dombie and to give them cold shoulder, JB is not the man for your purpose. Joe is rough and tough, sir. Blunt, sir. Blunt is Joe. His Royal Highness the late Duke of York did me the honor to say, deservedly or undeservedly, never mind that. If there is a man in the service on whom I can depend for coming to the point, that man is Joe, Joe Bagstock. Mr. Dombie intimates his acquiescence. Now Dombie says the Major, I am a man of the world, our friend Phoenix, if I may presume to. Honored I am sure, says Cousin Phoenix. Iz precedes the Major with a wag of his head. Also a man of the world, Dombie, you are a man of the world. Now, when three men of the world meet together and our friends, as I believe, again appealing to Cousin Phoenix, I am sure, says Cousin Phoenix, most friendly. And our friends, resumes the Major. Old Joe's opinion is, J may be wrong, that is the opinion of the world on any particular subject, is very easily got out. Undoubtedly, says Cousin Phoenix, in point of fact it's quite a self-evident sort of thing. I am extremely anxious, Major, that my friend Dombie should hear me express my very great astonishment and regret, that my lovely and accomplished relative, who is possessed of every qualification to make a man happy, should have so far forgotten what was due to, in point of fact, to the world, as to commit herself in such a very extraordinary manner. I have been in a devilish state of depression ever since, and said indeed to Long Saxby last night, man of six foot ten, with whom my friend Dombie is probably acquainted, that it had upset me in a confounded way, and made me billious. It induces a man to reflect, this kind of fatal catastrophe, says Cousin Phoenix, that events do occur in quite a providential manner. For if my aunt had been living at the time, I think the effect upon a devilish, lively woman like herself would have been prostration, and that she would have fallen in point of fact a victim. Now Dombie, says the Major, resuming his discourse with great energy. I beg your pardon, interposes Cousin Phoenix. Allow me another word. My friend Dombie will permit me to say, that if any circumstance could have added to the most infernal state of pain in which I find myself on this occasion, it would be the natural amazement of the world at my lovely and accomplished relative, as I must still beg leave to call her, being supposed to have so committed herself with a person, man with white teeth in point of fact, a very inferior station to her husband. But while I must, rather preemptorily, request my friend Dombie not to criminate my lovely and accomplished relative until her criminality is perfectly established, I beg to assure my friend Dombie that the family I represent, and which is now almost extinct, devilish sad reflection for a man, will interpose no obstacle in his way, and will be happy to assent to any honorable course of proceeding with a view to the future that he may point out. I trust my friend Dombie will give me credit for the intentions by which I am animated in this very melancholy affair, and in point of fact, I am not aware that I need trouble my friend Dombie with any further observations. Mr. Dombie bows without raising his eyes and is silent. Now, Dombie, says the Major, our friend Phoenix, having, with an amount of eloquence that old Joe B. has never heard surpassed, no, by the Lord Sir, never, says the Major, very blue indeed, and grasping his cane in the middle, stated the case as regards the Lady. I shall presume upon our friendship, Dombie, to offer a word on another aspect of it, Sir, says the Major with the horse's cough. The world in these things has opinions which must be satisfied. I know it, rejoins Mr. Dombie. Of course you know it, Dombie, says the Major. Dammit, Sir, I know you know it. A man of your caliber is not likely to be ignorant of it. I hope not, replies Mr. Dombie. Dombie, says the Major, you will guess the rest. I speak out, prematurely perhaps, because the bag stock breed have always spoken out. Little Sir, have they ever got by doing it, but it's in the bag stock blood. A shot is to be taken at this man. You have JB at your elbow. He claims the name of friend. God bless you. Major returns Mr. Dombie, I am obliged. I shall put myself in your hands when the time comes. The time not being come, I have foreborn to speak to you. Where is the fellow Dombie? inquires the Major after gasping and looking at him for a minute. I don't know. Any intelligence of him asks the Major? Yes. Dombie, I am rejoiced to hear it, says the Major. I congratulate you. You will excuse. Even you, Major, replies Mr. Dombie, my entering into any further detail at present. The intelligence is of a singular kind and singularly obtained. It may turn out to be valueless. It may turn out to be true. I cannot say at present. My explanation must stop here. Although this is but a dry reply to the Major's purple enthusiasm, the Major receives it graciously and is delighted to think that the world has such a fair prospect of soon receiving its due. Cousin Phoenix is then presented with his mead of accomplishment and the husband of his lovely and accomplished relative, and Cousin Phoenix and Major Bagstock retire, leaving that husband to the world again and to ponder at leisure on their representation of its state of mind concerning his affairs and on its just and reasonable expectations. But who sits in the housekeeper's room shedding tears and talking to Mrs. Pipchen in her tone with uplifted hands? It is a lady with her face concealed in a very close black bonnet which appears not to belong to her. It is Miss Tox who has borrowed this disguise from her servant and comes from Princess's place, thus secretly, to revive her old acquaintance with Mrs. Pipchen in order to get certain information of the state of Mr. Dombie. How does he bear it, my dear creature? asks Miss Tox. Well, says Mrs. Pipchen in her snappish way. He's pretty much as usual. Externally suggests Miss Tox, but what he feels within? Mrs. Pipchen's hard gray eye looks doubtful as she answers in three distinct jerks. Ah, perhaps, I suppose so. To tell you my mind, Lucretia, says Mrs. Pipchen. She still calls Miss Tox Lucretia on account of having made her first experiments in the child quelling line of business on that lady when an unfortunate and wheezing little girl of tender years. To tell you my mind, Lucretia, I think it's a good riddance. I don't want any of your brazen faces here myself. Brazen, indeed. Well, may you say, brazen, Mrs. Pipchen, returns Miss Tox. To leave him such a noble figure of a man. And here Miss Tox is overcome. I don't know about noble, I'm sure, observes Mrs. Pipchen, irassibly rubbing her nose. But I know this, that when people meet with trials they must bear them. Hoity-toity, I have had enough to bear myself in my time. What a fuss there is. She is gone and well got rid of. Nobody wants her back, I should think. This hint of the Peruvian minds causes Miss Tox to rise and go away when Mrs. Pipchen rings the bell for Talinson to show her out. Mr. Talinson, not having seen Miss Tox for ages, grins and hopes she's well, observing that he didn't know her at first in that bonnet. Pretty well, Talinson, I thank you, says Miss Tox. I beg you'll have the goodness when you happen to see me here, not to mention it. My visits are merely to Mrs. Pipchen. Very good, Miss, says Talinson. Shocking circumstances occur, Talinson, says Miss Tox. Very much so indeed, Miss rejoins Talinson. I hope Talinson says Miss Tox, who, in her instruction of the Toodle family, has acquired an admonitorial tone and a habit of improving passing occasions, that what has happened here will be a warning to you, Talinson. Thank you, Miss, I'm sure, says Talinson. He appears to be falling into a consideration of the manner in which this warning ought to operate in his particular case, when the vinegary Mrs. Pipchen suddenly, stirring him up with a, what are you doing? Why don't you show the lady to the door? He ushers Miss Tox forth. As she passes Mr. Dombie's room, she shrinks into the inmost depths of the black bonnet and walks on tiptoe, and there is not another atom in the world which haunts him so. That feels such sorrow and solicitude about him, as Miss Tox takes out under the black bonnet into the street and tries to carry home shadowed from the newly lighted lamps. But Miss Tox is not a part of Mr. Dombie's world. She comes back every evening at dusk, adding clogs and an umbrella to the bonnet on wet nights, and bears the grin of Talinson and the huffs and rebuffs of Mrs. Pipchen, and all to ask how he does and how he bears his misfortune. But she has nothing to do with Mr. Dombie's world. Exacting and harassing as ever, it goes on without her, and she, a by no means bright or particular star, moves in her little orbit in the corner of another system and knows it quite well and comes and cries and goes away and is satisfied. Verily, Miss Tox is easier of satisfaction than the world that troubles Mr. Dombie so much. At the counting-house the clerks discuss the great disaster in all its lights and shades, but chiefly wonder who will get Mr. Carker's place. They are generally of opinion that it will be shorn of some of its emoluments and made uncomfortable by newly devised checks and restrictions, and those who are beyond all hope of it are quite sure they would rather not have it and don't at all envy the person for whom it may prove to be reserved. Nothing like the prevailing sensation has existed in the counting-house since Mr. Dombie's little son died, but all such excitements there take a social, not to say a jovial turn, and lead to the cultivation of good fellowship. A reconciliation is established on this propitious occasion between the acknowledged wit of the counting-house and an aspiring rival with whom he has been at deadly feud for months, and a little dinner being proposed in commemoration of their happily restored amity takes place at a neighboring tavern. The wit in the chair, the rival acting as vice-president. The orations following the removal of the cloth are opened by the chair, who says, gentlemen, he can't disguise himself that this is not a time for private dissensions. Recent occurrences to which he need not more particularly elude, but which have not been altogether without notice in some Sunday papers and in a daily paper which he need not name, here every other member of the company names it in an audible murmur, have caused him to reflect, and he feels that for him and Robinson to have any personal differences at such a moment would be forever to deny that good feeling in the general cause for which he has reason to think and hope that the gentlemen in Dombie's house have always been distinguished. Robinson replies to this like a man and a brother, and one gentleman who has been in the office three years under continual notice to quit on account of lapses in his arithmetic appears in a perfectly new light, suddenly bursting out with a thrilling speech in which he says, may their respected chief never again know the desolation which has fallen on his hearth and says a great variety of things, beginning with may he never again which are received with thunders of applause. In short, a most delightful evening is past, only interrupted by a difference between two juniors, who quarreling about the probable amount of Mr. Karker's late receipts per annum defy each other with decanters and are taken out greatly excited. Soda water is in general request at the office next day and most of the party deem the bill an imposition. As to Perch, the messenger, he is in a fair way of being ruined for life. He finds himself again constantly in bars of public houses being treated and lying dreadfully. It appears that he met everybody concerned in the late transaction everywhere and said to them, Sir or Madam as the case was, why do you look so pale at which each shuddered from head to foot and said, O Perch, and ran away. Either the consciousness of these enormities or the reaction consequent on liquor reduces Mr. Perch to an extreme state of low spirits at that hour of the evening when he usually seeks consolation in the society of Mrs. Perch at Ball's pond and Mrs. Perch frets a good deal for she fears his confidence in women is shaken now and that he half expects on coming home at night to find her gone off with some vikout which, as she observes to an intimate female friend, is what these wretches in the form of woman have to answer for Mrs. P. It ain't the harm they do themselves so much as what they reflect upon us, ma'am, and I see it in Perch's eye. Mr. Dombie's servants are becoming at the same time quite dissipated and unfit for other service. They have hot suppers every night and talk it over with smoking drinks upon the board. Mr. Towlinson is always maudlin after half past ten and frequently begs to know whether he didn't say that no good would ever come of living in a corner house. They whisper about Miss Florence and wonder where she is but agree that if Mr. Dombie don't know, Mrs. Dombie does. This brings them to the latter of whom Cook says, she had a stately way, though, hadn't she, but she was too high. They all agree that she was too high and Mr. Towlinson's old flame, the housemaid, who is very virtuous and treats that you will never talk to her anymore about people who hold their heads up as if the ground wasn't good enough for them. Everything that is said and done about it, except by Mr. Dombie, is done in chorus. Mr. Dombie and the world are alone together. Org Dombie and Son by Charles Dickens Recording by Cynthia Lyons Chapter 52 Secret Intelligence Good Mrs. Brown and her daughter Alice kept silent company together in their own dwelling. It was early in the evening and late in the spring but a few days had elapsed since Mr. Dombie had told major back stock that his singular intelligence singularly obtained which might turn out to be valueless and might turn out to be true and the world was not satisfied yet. The mother and daughter sat for a long time without interchanging a word, almost without motion. The old woman's face was shrewdly anxious and expectant. That of her daughter was expectant too, but in a less sharp degree and sometimes it darkened as if with gathering disappointment and incredulity. The old woman, without heeding these changes in its expression, though her eyes were often turned towards it, sat mumbling and munching and listening confidently. There abode, though poor and miserable, not so utterly wretched as in the days when only good Mrs. Brown inhabited it. Some few attempts at cleanliness and order were manifest, though made in a reckless gypsy way that might have connected them at a glance with the younger woman. The shades of evening thickened and deepened as the two kept silent until the blackened walls were nearly lost in the prevailing gloom. Then Alice broke the silence which had lasted so long and said, You may give him up, mother. He'll not come here. Death give him up, returned the old woman impatiently. He will come here. We shall see, said Alice. We shall see him, returned her mother. And doomsday, said the daughter. You think I'm in my second childhood, I know, croaked the old woman. That's the respect and duty that I get from my own gal. But I'm wiser than you take me for. He'll come. The other day when I touched his coat in the street he looked round as if I was a toad, but Lord, to see him when I said their names and asked him if he'd like to find out where they was. Was it so angry, asked her daughter, roused to interest in a moment? Angry, ask if it was bloody. That's more like the word. Angry, ha-ha. To call that only angry, said the old woman, hobbling to the cupboard and lighting a candle which displayed the workings of her mouth to ugly advantage as she brought it to the table. I might as well call your face only angry when you think or talk about them. It was something different from that truly as she sat as still as a crouched Tigris with her kindling eyes. Hark! said the old woman triumphantly. I hear a step coming. It's not the tread of anyone that lives about here or comes this way often. We don't walk like that. We should go proud on such neighbors. Do you hear him? I believe you're our right mother, replied Alice in a low voice. Peace open the door. As she drew herself within her shawl and gathered it about her, the old woman complied and peering out and beckoning gave admission to Mr. Dombie who stopped when he had set his foot within the door and looked distrustfully around. It's a poor place for a great gentleman like your worship, said the old woman, curtsying and chattering. I told you so, but there's no harm in it. Who is that? asked Mr. Dombie, looking at her companion. That's my handsome daughter, said the old woman. Your worship won't mind her. She knows all about it. A shadow fell upon his face, not less expressive than if he had groaned aloud. Who does not know all about it? But he looked at her steadily and she, without any acknowledgement of his presence, looked at him. The shadow on his face was darker when he turned his glance away from her and even then it wandered back again furtively as if he were haunted by her bold eyes and some remembrance they inspired. Woman, said Mr. Dombie to the old witch who was chuckling and leering close at his elbow and who, when he turned to address her, pointed stealthily at her daughter and rubbed her hands and pointed again. Woman, I believe that I am weak and forgetful of my station in coming here, but you know why I come and what you offered when you stopped me in the street the other day. What? What is it that you have to tell me concerning what I want to know and how does it happen that I can find voluntary intelligence in a hovel like this with a disdainful glance about him? When I have exerted my power and means to obtain it in vain, I do not think, he said after a moment's pause, during which he had observed her sternly, that you are so audacious as to mean to trifle with me or endeavor to impose upon me. But if you have that purpose, you had better stop on the threshold of your scheme. My humor is not a trifling one and my acknowledgement will be severe. Oh, a proud, hard gentleman! Chuckle the old woman, shaking her head and rubbing her shriveled hands. Oh, hard, hard, hard, but your worship shall see with your own eyes and hear with your own ears, not with ours. And if your worships put upon their track, you won't mind paying something for it. Will you, honorable Deary? Money, returned Mr. Dombie, apparently relieved and reassured by this inquiry, will bring about unlikely things, I know. It may turn even means as unexpected and unpromising as these to account. Yes, for any reliable information I receive, I will pay, but I must have the information first and judge for myself of its value. Do you know nothing more powerful than money? Ask the younger woman without rising or altering her attitude. Not here, I should imagine, said Mr. Dombie. You should know of something that is more powerful elsewhere as I judge, she returned. Do you know nothing of a woman's anger? You have a saucy tongue, Jade, said Mr. Dombie. Not usually, she answered, without any show of emotion. I speak to you now that you may understand us better and rely more on us. A woman's anger is pretty much the same here as in your fine house. I am angry. I have been so many years. I have as good cause for my anger as you have for yours and its object is the same man. He started in spite of himself and looked at her with astonishment. Yes, she said with a kind laugh. Wide as the distance may seem between us, it is so. How it is so is no matter. That is my story and I keep my story to myself. I would bring you and him together because I have a rage against him. My mother there is avaricious and poor and she would sell any tidings she could glean or anything or anybody for money. It is fair enough perhaps that you should pay her some if she can help you to what you want to know. But that is not my motive. I have told you what mine is and it would be as strong and all sufficient with me if you haggled and bargained with her for a sixpence. I have done. My saucy tongue says no more if you wait here till sunrise tomorrow. The old woman who had shown great uneasiness during this speech which had a tendency to depreciate her expected gains pulled Mr. Dombie softly by the sleeve and whispered to him not to mind her. He glanced at them both by turns with a haggard look and said in a deeper voice than was usual with him, Go on, what do you know? Oh, not so fast, your worship. We must wait for someone, answered the old woman. It's to be got from someone else, wormed out, screwed and twisted from him. What do you mean? said Mr. Dombie. Patience, she croaked, laying her hand like a claw upon his arm. Patience, I'll get at it. I know I can. If he was to hold it back from me, said good Mrs. Brown, crooking her ten fingers, I'd tear it out of him. Mr. Dombie followed her with his eyes as she hobbled to the door and looked out again and then his glance sought her daughter but she remained impassive, silent and regardless of him. Do you tell me, woman, he said, when the bent figure of Mrs. Brown came back, shaking its head and chattering to itself, that there is another person expected here? Yes, said the old woman, looking up into his face and nodding, from whom you are to exact the intelligence that is to be useful to me. Yes, said the old woman, nodding again. A stranger? Chut! said the old woman with a shrill laugh. What signifies? Well, well, no. No stranger to your worship, but he won't see you. He'd be afraid of you and wouldn't talk. You'll stand behind that door and judge him for yourself. We don't ask to be believed on trust. What? Your worship doubts the room behind the door? Oh, the suspicion of you rich gentle folks! Look at it, then! Her sharp eye had detected an involuntary expression of this feeling on his part, which was not unreasonable under the circumstances. In satisfaction of it, she now took the candle to the door she spoke of. Mr. Domby looked in, assured himself that it was an empty, crazy room and signed to her to put the light back in its place. How long, he asked, before this person comes? Not long, she answered, would your worship sit down for a few odd minutes? He made no answer, but began pacing the room with an irresolute air as if he were undecided whether to remain or depart, and as if he had some quarrel with himself for being there at all. But soon his tread grew slower and heavier and his face more sternly thoughtful as the object with which he had come fixed itself in his mind and dilated there again. While he thus walked up and down with his eyes on the ground, Mrs. Brown, in the chair from which she had risen to receive him, sat listening anew. The monotony of his step or the uncertainty of age made her so slow of hearing that a footfall without had sounded in her daughter's ears for some moments, and she had looked up hastily to warn her mother of its approach before the old woman was roused by it. But then she started from her seat and whispering, here he is, hurried her visitor to his place of observation, and put a bottle and glass upon the table with such alacrity as to be ready to fling her arms round the neck of Robb the Grinder on his appearance at the door. And here's my bonny boy, cried Mrs. Brown, at last a-ho, a-ho, you're like my own son, Robbie. Oh, Mrs. Brown, remonstrated the Grinder. Don't! Can't you be fond of a cove without squeegeeing and throttling of him? Take care of the birdcage in my hand, will you? Thinks of a birdcage afore me, cried the old woman, apostrophizing the ceiling. Me that feels more than a mother for him. Well, I'm sure, I'm very much obliged to you, Mrs. Brown, said the unfortunate youth, greatly aggravated. But you're so jealous of a cove, I'm very fond of you myself, and all that, of course, but I don't smother you, do I, Mrs. Brown? He looked and spoke as if he would have been far from objecting to do so, however, on a favourable occasion. And to talk about birdcages, too, whimpered the Grinder, as if that was a crime. Why, lookie here, do you know who this belongs to? To Master, dear, said the old woman with a grin. Ah, replied the Grinder, lifting a large cage tied up in a wrapper on the table, and untieing it with his teeth and hands. It's our parrot, this is. Mr. Parker's parrot, Rob? Will you hold your tongue, Mrs. Brown, returned the goaded Grinder? What do you go naming names for? I'm blessed, said Rob, pulling his hair with both hands in the exasperation of his feelings, if she ain't enough to make a cove run wild. What? Do you snub me, thankless boy? cried the old woman with ready vehemence. Good gracious, Mrs. Brown, no, returned the Grinder with tears in his eyes. Was there ever such a... Don't I doubt on you, Mrs. Brown? Do you, sweet Rob? Do truly chickabitty. With that, Mrs. Brown held him in her fond embrace once more, and did not release him until he had made several violent and ineffectual struggles with his legs, and his hair was standing on end all over his head. Oh, returned the Grinder, what a thing it is to be perfectly pitched into with affection like this here. I wish she was. How have you been, Mrs. Brown? Ah, not here since this night week, said the old woman, contemplating him with a look of reproach. Good gracious, Mrs. Brown, returned the Grinder. I said to nights a week that I'd come to night, didn't I? And here I am. How do you go on? I wish you'd be a little rational, Mrs. Brown. I'm hoarse with saying things in my defense, and my very face is shiny with being hugged. He rubbed it hard with his sleeve, as if to remove the tender polish in question. Drink a little drop to comfort you, my Robin, said the old woman, filling the glass from the bottle and giving it to him. Thank ye, Mrs. Brown, returned the Grinder. Here's your health, and long may you, etc. Which to judge from the expression of his face did not include any very choice blessings. And here's her health, said the Grinder, glancing at Alice, who sat with his eyes fixed, as it seemed to him on the wall behind him, but in reality on Mr. Dombie's face at the door, and wishing her the same and many of them. He drained the glass to these two sentiments and set it down. Well, I say, Mrs. Brown, he proceeded, to go on a little rational now. You're a judge of birds and up to their ways, as I know, to my cost. Cost, repeated Mrs. Brown. Satisfaction, I mean, returned the Grinder. How you do take up a cove, Mrs. Brown, you've put it all out of my head again. Judge of birds, Robbie, suggested the old woman. Ah, said the Grinder. Well, I've got to take care of this parrot. Certain things being sold, and a certain establishment broke up. And as I don't want no notice took at present, I wish you'd attend to her for a week or so, and give her board and lodging, will you? I must come backwards and forwards, mused the Grinder with a dejected face. I may as well have something to come for. Something to come for? Screamed the old woman. Besides you, I mean, Mrs. Brown, returned the Craven Rob. Not that I want any inducement but yourself, Mrs. Brown, I'm sure. Don't begin again for goodness sake. He don't care for me, he don't care for me, as I care for him, cried Mrs. Brown, lifting up her skinny hands. But I'll take care of his bird. Take good care of it, too. You know, Mrs. Brown, said Rob, shaking his head. If you was so much as to stroke his feathers once the wrong way, I believe it would be found out. Ah, so sharp as that, Rob, said Mrs. Brown quickly. Sharp, Mrs. Brown, repeated Rob, but this is not to be talked about. Checking himself abruptly and not without a fearful glance across the room, Rob filled the glass again and, having slowly emptied it, shook his head and began to draw his fingers across and across the wires of the parrot's cage by way of a diversion from the dangerous theme that had just been broached. The old woman eyed him silly and hitching her chair nearer his and looking in at the parrot, who came down from the gilded dome at her call, said, Out of place now, Robby? Never you mind, Mrs. Brown, returned the grinder shortly. Bored wages perhaps, Rob, said Mrs. Brown? Pretty Polly, said the grinder. The old woman darted a glance at him that might have warned him to consider his ears in danger, but it was his turn to look in at the parrot now and, however expressive his imagination may have made her angry scowl, it was unseen by his bodily eyes. I wonder, Master didn't take you with him, Rob, said the old woman in a weadling voice but with increased malignity of aspect. Rob was so absorbed in contemplation of the parrot and in trolling his forefinger on the wires that he made no answer. The old woman had her clutch within a hair's breath of his shock of hair as it stooped over the table, but she restrained her fingers and said in a voice that choked with its efforts to be coaxing, Robby, my child. Well, Mrs. Brown, returned the grinder. I say I wonder, Master didn't take you with him, dear. Never you mind, Mrs. Brown, returned the grinder. Mrs. Brown instantly directed the clutch of her right hand at his hair and the clutch of her left hand at his throat and held on to the object of her fond affection with such extraordinary fury that his face began to blacken in a moment. Mrs. Brown exclaimed the grinder. Let go, will you. What are you doing of? Help, young woman, Mrs. Brown. The young woman, however, equally unmoved by his direct appeal to her and by his inarticulate utterance, remained quite neutral until, after struggling with his assailant into a corner, Robb disengaged himself and stood there panting and fenced in by his own elbows while the old woman panting, too, and stamping with rage and eagerness, appeared to be collecting her energies for another swoop upon him. At this crisis Alice interposed her voice but not in the grinder's favor by saying, well done, mother, tear him to pieces. What, young woman, blubbered Robb, are you against me, too? What have I been and done? What am I to be tore to pieces for, I should like to know? Why do you take and choke a cove who has never done you any harm, neither of you? Call yourselves females, too, said the frightened and afflicted grinder with his coat cuff at his eye. I'm surprised at you. Where's your feminine tenderness? You thankless dog, gasped Mrs. Brown. You impudent, insulting dog. What have I been and done to go and give you offense, Mrs. Brown? Retorted the fearful Robb. You was very much attached to me a minute ago to cut me off with his short answers and his sulky words, said the old woman. Me, because I happen to be curious to have a little bit of gossip about master and the lady to dare to play at fast and loose with me. But I'll talk to you no more, my lad. Now go. I'm sure Mrs. Brown returned the abject grinder. I never insinuated that I wished to go. Don't talk like that, Mrs. Brown, if you please. I won't talk at all, said Mrs. Brown, with an action of her crooked fingers that made him shrink into half his natural compass in the corner. Not another word with him shall pass my lips. He's an ungrateful hound. I cast him off. Now let him go. And I'll slip those after him that shall talk too much, that won't be shook away, that's hang to him like leeches and slink after him like foxes. What? He knows him. He knows his old games and his old ways. If he's forgotten them, they'll soon remind him. Now let him go and see how he'll do master's business and keep master's secrets with such company always following him up and down. Ha, ha, ha. He'll find him a different sort from you and me. Ali, close as he is with you and me. Now let him go. Let him go. The old woman to the unspeakable dismay of the grinder walked her twisted figure round and round in a ring of some four feet in diameter, constantly repeating these words and shaking her fist above her head and working her mouth about. Mrs. Brown pleaded Rob, coming a little out of his corner. I'm sure you wouldn't injure a cove on second thoughts and in cold blood, would you? Don't talk to me, said Mrs. Brown, still wrathfully pursuing her circle. Now let him go. Now let him go. Mrs. Brown urged the tormented grinder. I didn't mean to. Oh, what a thing it is for a cove to get into such a line as this. I was only careful of talking, Mrs. Brown, because I always am on account of his being up to everything. But I might have known it wouldn't have gone any further. I'm sure I'm quite agreeable with a wretched face for any little bit of gossip, Mrs. Brown. Don't go on like this if you please. Oh, couldn't you have the goodness to put in a word for a miserable cove here? Said the grinder, appealing in desperation to the daughter. Come, Mother, you hear what he says, she interposed in her stern voice, and with an impatient action of her head. Try him once more, and if you fall out with him again, ruin him, if you like, and have done with him. Mrs. Brown, moved as it seemed by this very tender exhortation, presently began to howl and softening by degrees took the apologetic grinder to her arms, who embraced her with a face of unutterable woe, and like a victim, as he was, resumed his former seat, close by the side of his venerable friend, whom he suffered not without much constrained sweetness of countenance, combating very expressive physiognomical revelations of an opposite character to draw his arm through hers and keep it there. And how's Master, dearie-dear, said Mrs. Brown, when, sitting in this amicable posture, they had pledged each other. Hush, if you'd be so good, Mrs. Brown, as to speak a little lower, Rob employed. Why, he's pretty well, thanky, I suppose. You're not out of place, Robbie, said Mrs. Brown, in a weedling tone. Why, I'm not exactly out of place, nor in, faltered Rob. I'm still in pay, Mrs. Brown. And nothing to do, Rob? Nothing particular to do just now, Mrs. Brown, but to keep my eyes open, said Rob, the grinder, rolling them in a forlorn way. Master a broad, Rob? Oh, for goodness' sake, Mrs. Brown, couldn't you gossip with a cove about anything else? Cried the grinder in a burst of despair. The impetuous Mrs. Brown rising directly, the tortured grinder detaining her, stammering, yes, Mrs. Brown, I believe he's abroad. What's she staring at? He added, an allusion to the daughter, whose eyes were fixed upon the face that now again looked out behind him. Don't mind her lad, said the old woman, holding him closer to prevent his turning round. It's her way, her way. Tell me, Rob, did you ever see the lady, dearie? Oh, Mrs. Brown, what lady? cried the grinder in a tone of piteous supplication. What lady, she retorted? The lady, Mrs. Domby. Yes, I believe I see her once. Replied, Rob. The night she went away, Robby, eh? Said the old woman in his ear and taking note of every change in his face. Aha, I know it was that night. Well, if you know it was that night, you know, Mrs. Brown, replied Rob. It's no use putting pinchers into a cove to make him say so. Where did they go that night, Rob? Straight away. How did they go? Where did you see her? Did she laugh? Did she cry? Tell me all about it, cried the old hag, holding him closer yet, patting the hand that was drawn through her arm against her other hand and searching every line in his face with her bleared eyes. Come, begin. I want to be told all about it. What, Rob boy? You and me can keep a secret together, eh? We've done so before now. Where did they go first, Rob? The wretched grinder made a gasp and a pause. Are you dumb? Said the old woman angrily. Lord, Mrs. Brown, no, you expect a cove to be a flash of lightning. I wish I was the electric fluency, muttered the bewildered grinder. I'd have a shock at somebody that would settle their business. What do you say? asked the old woman with a grin. I'm wishing my love to you, Mrs. Brown returned the false Rob, seeking consolation in the glass. Where did they go to first, was it? Him and her, do you mean? Ah, said the old woman eagerly, them too. Why, they didn't go nowhere, not together, I mean, answered Rob. The old woman looked at him as though she had a strong impulse upon her to make another clutch at his head and throat, but was restrained by a certain dogged mystery in his face. That was the art of it, said the reluctant grinder. That's the way nobody saw him go, or has been able to say how they did go. They went different ways, I tell you, Mrs. Brown. Aye, aye, aye, to meet at an appointed place, chuckled the old woman, after a moment's silence and keen scrutiny of his face. Why, if they weren't going to meet somewhere, I suppose they might as well trade home, mind they, Mrs. Brown, returned the unwilling grinder. Well, Rob, well, said the old woman, drawing his arm yet tighter through her own, as if, in her eagerness, she were afraid of his slipping away. What, haven't we talked enough yet? Mrs. Brown returned the grinder, who, between his sense of injury, his sense of liquor, of being on the rack, had become so lacrimose, that at almost every answer, he scooped his coat-cuff into one or other of his eyes and uttered an unavailing whine or a monstrance. Did she laugh that night, was it? Did you ask if she laughed, Mrs. Brown? Or cried, asked the old woman, nodding ascent? Neither, said the grinder, she kept as steady when she and me. Oh, I see you will have it out of me, Mrs. Brown, but I take your solemn oath now that you'll never tell anybody. This, Mrs. Brown, very readily did, being naturally Jesuitical and having no other intention in the matter than that her concealed visitor should hear for himself. She kept as steady then when she and me went down to Southampton, said the grinder, as a image. In the morning she was just the same, Mrs. Brown, and when she went away in the packet before daylight by herself, me pretending to be her servant and seeing her safe aboard, she was just the same. Now are you contented, Mrs. Brown? No, Rob, not yet, answered Mrs. Brown decisively. Oh, here's a woman for you, cried the unfortunate Rob in an outburst of feeble lamentation over his own helplessness. What did you wish to know next, Mrs. Brown? What became of Master? Where did he go? She inquired, still holding him tight and looking close into his face with her sharp eyes. Upon my soul I don't know, Mrs. Brown, answered Rob. Upon my soul I don't know what he did nor where he went, nor anything about him. I only know what he said to me as a caution to hold my tongue when we parted, and I tell you this, Mrs. Brown, as a friend that sooner than ever repeat a word of what we're saying now. You had better take and shoot yourself or shut yourself up in this house and set it afire for there's nothing he wouldn't do to be revenged upon you. You don't know him half as well as I do, Mrs. Brown. You're never safe from him, I tell you. Haven't I taken an oath retorted the old woman and won't I keep it? Well, I'm sure I hope you will, Mrs. Brown, returned Rob, somewhat doubtfully and not without a latent threatening in his manner for your own sake quite as much as mine. He looked at her as he gave her this friendly caution and emphasized it with a nodding of his head but finding it uncomfortable to encounter the yellow face with its grotesque action and the ferret eyes with their keen old wintry gaze so close to his own. He looked down uneasily and sat shuffling in his chair as if he were trying to bring himself to a sullen declaration that he would answer no more questions. The old woman, still holding him as before, took this opportunity of raising the forefinger of her right hand in the air as a stealthy signal to the concealed observer to give particular attention to what was about to follow. Rob, she said in her most coaxing tone, good gracious Mrs. Brown, what's the matter now? returned the exasperated grinder. Rob, where did the lady and master appoint to meet? Rob shuffled more and more and looked up and looked down and bit his thumb and dried it on his waistcoat and finally said, eyeing his tormentor a scant. How should I know, Mrs. Brown? The old woman held up her finger again as before and replying, come, lad, it's no use leading me to that and they're leaving me. I want to know. Waited for his answer. Rob, after a discomforted pause, suddenly broke out with, how can I pronounce the names of foreign places, Mrs. Brown? What an unreasonable woman you are! But you have heard it said, Robby, she retorted firmly and you know what it sounded like, come. I never heard it said, Mrs. Brown, return the grinder. Then retorted the old woman quickly, you have seen it written and you can spell it. Rob, with a petulant exclamation between laughing and crying for he was penetrated with some admiration of Mrs. Brown's cunning, even through this persecution, after some reluctant fumbling in his waistcoat pocket produced from it a little piece of chalk, the old woman's eyes sparkled when she saw it between his thumb and finger and hastily clearing a space on the deal table that he might write the word there, she once more made her signal with a shaking hand. Now I tell you beforehand what it is, Mrs. Brown, said Rob. It's no use asking me anything else. I won't answer anything else, I can't. How long it was to be before they met or whose plan it was that they was to go away alone. I don't know more than you do. I don't know any more about it. If I was to tell you how I found out this word, you'd believe that. Shall I tell you, Mrs. Brown? Yes, Rob. Well then, Mrs. Brown, the way, now you won't ask anymore, you know, said Rob, turning his eyes, which were now fast getting drowsy and stupid upon her. Not another word, said Mrs. Brown. Well then, the way was this. When a certain person left the lady with me, he put a piece of paper with a direction written on it in the lady's hand, saying it was in case she should forget. She wasn't afraid of forgetting, for she tore it up as soon as his back was turned. And when I put up the carriage steps, I shook out one of the pieces. She sprinkled the rest out of the window, I suppose, for there was none there afterwards, though I looked for him. There was only one word on it. And that was this, if you must and will know. But remember, you're upon your oath, Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Brown knew that, she said. Rob, having nothing more to say, began to chalk slowly and laboriously on the table. Dee, the old woman read aloud when he had formed the letter. Will you hold your tongue, Mrs. Brown, he exclaimed, covering it with his hand and turning impatiently upon her. I won't have it read out. Be quiet, will you. Then, writ large, Rob, she returned, repeating her secret signal, for my eyes are not good even at print. Muttering to himself and returning to his work with an ill will, Rob went on with the word. As he bent his head down, the person for whose information he so unconsciously labored moved from the door behind him to within a short stride of his shoulder and looked eagerly towards the creeping track of his hand upon the table. At the same time, Alice, from her opposite chair, watched it narrowly as it shaped the letters and repeated each one on her lips as he made it without articulating it aloud. At the end of every letter her eyes and Mr. Dombe's met as if each of them sought to be confirmed by the other, and thus they both spelt D-I-J-O-N. There, said the grinder, moistening the palm of his hand hastily to obliterate the word and not content with smearing it out, rubbing and planing all trace of it away with his coat sleeve until the very color of the chalk was gone from the table. Now I hope you're contented, Mrs. Brown. The old woman, in token of her being so, released his arm and padded his back, and the grinder, overcome with mortification, cross-examination, and liquor, folded his arms on the table, laid his head upon them, and fell asleep. Not until he had been heavily asleep some time and was snoring roundly did the old woman turn towards the door where Mr. Dombe stood concealed and beckoned him to come through the room and pass out. Even then she hovered over Robb, ready to blind him with her hands or strike his head down if he should raise it while the secret step was crossing to the door. But though her glance took sharp cognizance of the sleeper, it was sharp too for the waking man, and when he touched her hand with his, and in spite of all his caution made a chinking golden sound, it was as bright and greedy as a raven's. The daughter's dark gaze followed him to the door and noted well how pale he was and how his hurried tread indicated that the least delay was an insupportable restraint upon him and how he was burning to be active in a way. As he closed the door behind him she looked round at her mother. The old woman trotted to her, opened her hand to show what was within and tightly closing it again in her jealousy and avarice whispered, What will he do, Allie? Mischief, said the daughter. Murder, asked the old woman. He's a madman in his wounded pride and may do that for anything we can say or he either. Her glance was brighter than her mother's and the fire that shone in it was fiercer, but her face was colourless, even to her lips. They said no more but sat apart. The mother, communicating with her money, the daughter with her thoughts, the glance of each shining in the gloom of the feebly lighted room, Robb slept and snored. The disregarded parrot only was in action. It twisted and pulled at the wires of its cage with its crooked beak and crawled up to the dome and along its roof like a fly and down again, head foremost and shook and bit and rattled at every slender bar as if it knew its master's danger and was wild to force a passage out and fly away to warn him of it. End of Chapter 52 Chapter 53 of Dombie and Son This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Cynthia Lyons. Dombie and Son By Charles Dickens Chapter 53 More Intelligence There were two of the traitors' own blood, his renounced brother and sister, on whom the weight of his guilt rested almost more heavily at this time than on the man whom he had so deeply injured, prying and tormenting as the world was. It did Mr. Dombie the service of nerving him to pursuit and revenge. It roused his passion, stung his pride, twisted the one idea of his life into new shape, and made some gratification of his wrath, the object into which his whole intellectual existence resolved itself. All the stubbornness and implacability of his nature, all its hard, impenetrable quality, all its gloom and moroseness, all its exaggerated sense of personal importance, all its jealous disposition to resent the least flaw and the ample recognition of his importance by others, set this way like many streams united into one and bore him on upon their tide. The most impetuously passionate and violently impulsive of mankind would have been a milder enemy to encounter than the sullen Mr. Dombie wrought to this. A wild beast would have been easier turned or soothed than the grave gentleman without a wrinkle in his starched cravat. But the very intensity of his purpose became almost a substitute for action in it. While he was yet uninformed of the traitor's retreat, it served to divert his mind from his own calamity and to entertain it with another prospect. The brother and sister of his false favorite had no such relief. Everything in their history, past and present, gave his delinquency a more afflicting meaning to them. The sister may have sometimes sadly thought that if she had remained with him the companion and friend she had been once, he might have escaped the crime into which he had fallen. If she ever thought so it was still without regret for what she had done, without the least doubt of her duty, without any pricing or enhancing of her self-devotion. But when this possibility presented itself to the airing and repentant brother, as it sometimes did, it smote upon his heart with such a keen, reproachful touch as he could hardly bear. No idea of retort upon his cruel brother came into his mind, no accusation of himself, fresh inward lamentings over his own unworthiness, and the ruin in which it was at once his consolation and his self-reproach that he did not stand alone were the sole kind of reflections to which the discovery gave rise in him. It was on the very same day whose evening set upon the last chapter, and when Mr. Dombie's world was busiest with the elopement of his wife that the window of the room in which the brother and the sister sat at their early breakfast was darkened by the unexpected shadow of a man coming to the little porch, which man was Perch, the messenger. I've stepped over from Ball's pond at an early hour, said Mr. Perch, confidentially looking in at the room door, and stopping on the mat to wipe his shoes all round, which had no mud upon them. Agreeable to my instructions last night, they was, to be sure, and bring a note to you, Mr. Carker, before you went out in the morning, I should have been here a good hour and a half ago, said Mr. Perch meekly. But for the state of health of Mrs. P., who I thought I should have lost in the night, I do assure you five distinct times. Is your wife so ill? asked Harriet. Why, you see, said Mr. Perch, first turning round to shut the door carefully. She takes what has happened in our house so much to heart, Miss. Her nerves is so very delicate, you see, and soon unstrung. Not but what the strongest nerves had good need to be shook, I'm sure. You feel it very much yourself, no doubts. Harriet repressed a sigh and glanced at her brother. I'm sure I feel it myself in my humble way, Mr. Perch went on to say, with a shake of his head, in a manner I couldn't have believed if I hadn't been called upon to undergo. It has almost the effect of drink upon me. I literally feels every morning as if I had been taking more than was good for me overnight. Mr. Perch's appearance corroborated this recital of his symptoms. There was an air of feverish lassitude about it that seemed referable to drams, and which, in fact, might no doubt have been traced to those numerous discoveries of himself in the bars of public houses, being treated and questioned, which he was in the daily habit of making. Therefore I can judge, said Mr. Perch, shaking his head again and speaking in a silvery murmur of the feelings of such as is, at all, all peculiarly situated in this most painful revelation. Here Mr. Perch waited to be confided in, and, receiving no confidence, coughed behind his hand. This leading to nothing he coughed behind his hat, and that leading to nothing he put his hat on the ground and sought in his breast pocket for the letter. If I rightly recollect, there was no answer, said Mr. Perch, with an affable smile, but perhaps you'll be so good as cast your eye over it, sir. John Parker broke the seal, which was Mr. Dombe's, and possessing himself of the contents, which were very brief, replied, No, no answer is expected. Then I shall wish you good morning, Miss, said Perch, taking a step towards the door, and hoping, I'm sure, that you'll not permit yourself to be more reduced in mind than you can help by the late, painful revelation. The papers, said Mr. Perch, taking two steps back again and comprehensively addressing both the brother and sister in a whisper of increased mystery. Is more eager for news of it than you'd suppose possible? One of the Sunday ones in a blue cloak and a white hat that had previously offered for to bribe me, need I say with what success, was dodging about our court last night, as late as twenty minutes after eight o'clock. I see him myself with his eye at the counting-house keyhole, which, being patent, is impervious. Another one, said Mr. Perch, with military frogs, is in the parlor of the king's arms all the blessed day. I happened last week to let a little observation fall there, and next morning, which was Sunday, I see it worked up in print in a most surprising manner. Mr. Perch resorted to his breast pocket as if to produce the paragraph, but receiving no encouragement, pulled out his beaver gloves, picked up his hat, and took his leave. And before it was high noon, Mr. Perch had related to several select audiences at the king's arms and elsewhere, how Miss Parker, bursting into tears, had caught him by both hands, and said, Oh, dear, dear Perch, the sight of you is all the comfort I have left, and how Mr. John Parker had said in an awful voice, Perch, I disown him, never let me hear him mentioned as a brother more. Dear John, said Harriet, when they were left alone and had remained silent for some few moments, there are bad tidings in that letter. Yes, but nothing unexpected, he replied, I saw the writer yesterday. The writer? Mr. Domby. He passed twice through the counting-house while I was there. I had been able to avoid him before, but of course could not hope to do that long. I know how natural it was that he should regard my presence as something offensive. I felt it must be so myself. He did not say so? No, he said nothing, but I saw that his glance rested on me for a moment, and I was prepared for what would happen, for what has happened, I am dismissed. She looked as little shocked and as hopeful as she could, but it was distressing news for many reasons. I need not tell you, said John Parker, reading the letter, why your name would henceforth have a natural sound in however remote a connection with mine, or why the daily sight of anyone who bears it would be unendurable to me. I have to notify the cessation of all engagements between us, from this state, and to request that no renewal of any communication with me or my establishment be ever attempted by you. Enclosed is an equivalent in money to a generously long notice, and this is my discharge. Heaven knows, Harriet, it is a lenient and considerate one when we remember all. If it be lenient and considerate to punish you at all, John, for the misdeed of another, she replied gently. Yes. We have been an ill omen race to him, said John Parker. He has reason to shrink from the sound of our name and to think that there is something cursed and wicked in our blood. I should almost think it too, Harriet, but for you. Brother, don't speak like this. If you have any special reason, as you say you have and think you have, though I say no to love me, spare me the hearing of such wild mad words. He covered his face with both his hands, but soon permitted her, coming near him, to take one in her own. After so many years, this parting is a melancholy thing I know, said his sister, and the cause of it is dreadful to us both. We have to live too and must look about us for the means. Well, well, we can do so undismayed. It is our pride, not our trouble, to strive, John, and to strive together. His smile played on her lips, as she kissed his cheek and entreated him to be of good cheer. Oh, dearest sister, tied of your own noble will to a ruined man whose reputation is blighted, who has no friend himself and has driven every friend of yours away. John, she laid her hand hastily upon his lips, for my sake, in remembrance of our long companionship, he was silent. Now, let me tell you, dear, quietly sitting by his side, I have, as you have, expected this, and when I have been thinking of it and fearing that it would happen and preparing myself for it, as well as I could, I have resolved to tell you, if it should be so, that I have kept a secret from you and that we have a friend. What is our friend's name, Harriet? He answered with a sorrowful smile. Indeed, I don't know, but he once made a very earnest protestation to me of his friendship and his wish to serve us and to this day I believe him. Harriet exclaimed, her wondering brother, where does this friend live? Neither do I know that, she returned. But he knows us both and our history, all our little history, John. That is the reason why, at his own suggestion, I have kept the secret of his coming here from you, lest his acquaintance with it should distress you. Here? Has he been here, Harriet? Here, in this room, once. What kind of man? Not young, grey-headed, as he said, and fast-growing grayer, but generous and frank and good, I am sure. And only seen once, Harriet? In this room, only once, said his sister, with the slightest and most transient glow upon her cheek. But when here, he entreated me to suffer him to see me once a week as he passed by, in token of our being well and continuing to need nothing at his hands. For I told him, when he proffered us any service he could render, which was the object of his visit, that we needed nothing. And once a week, once every week since then, and always on the same day, and at the same hour, he has gone past, always on foot, always going in the same direction, towards London, and never pausing longer than to bow to me and wave his hand cheerfully, as a kind guardian might. He made that promise when he proposed these curious interviews, and has kept it so faithfully and pleasantly that if I ever felt any trifling uneasiness about them in the beginning, which I don't think I did, John, his manner was so plain and true. It very soon vanished, and left me quite glad when the day was coming. Last Monday, the first since this terrible event, he did not go by, and I have wondered whether his absence can have been in any way connected with what has happened. How, inquired her brother, I don't know how. I have only speculated on the coincidence. I have not tried to account for it. I feel sure he will return. But he does, dear John, let me tell him that I have at last spoken to you, and let me bring you together. He will certainly help us to a new livelihood. His entreaty was that he might do something to smooth my life and yours, and I gave him my promise that if we ever wanted a friend I would remember him. Then his name was to be no secret. Harriet, said her brother, who had listened with close attention, described this gentleman to me. I surely ought to know one who knows me so well. His sister painted as vividly as she could the features, stature, and dress of her visitor. But John Parker, either from having no knowledge of the original or from some fault in her description or from some abstraction of his thoughts as he walked to and fro, pondering, could not recognize the portrait she presented to him. However, it was agreed between them that he should see the original when he next appeared. This concluded the sister applied herself with a less anxious breast to her domestic occupations and the gray-haired man, late Junior of Dombies, on the first day of his unwanted liberty to working in the garden. It was quite late at night and the brother was reading aloud while the sister plied her needle when they were interrupted by a knocking at the door. In the atmosphere of vague anxiety and dread that lowered about them in connection with their fugitive brother, this sound, unusual there, became almost alarming. The brother going to the door, the sister sat and listened timidly. Someone spoke to him and he replied and seemed surprised and after a few words the two approached together. Harriet, said her brother, lighting in their late visitor and speaking in a low voice. Mr. Morphin, the gentleman so long in Dombie's house with James. His sister started back after a ghost had entered. In the doorway stood the unknown friend with the dark hair sprinkled with gray, the ruddy face, the broad clear brow and hazel eyes whose secret she had kept so long. John, she said half-breathless. Is it the gentleman I told you of today? The gentleman, Miss Harriet, said the visitor coming in, for he had stopped a moment in the doorway. He is greatly relieved to hear you say that. He has been devising ways and means all the way here of explaining himself and has been satisfied with none. Mr. John, I am not quite a stranger here. You were stricken with astonishment when you saw me at your door just now. I observe you are more astonished at present. Well, that's reasonable enough under the existing circumstances. If we were not such creatures of habit as we are, we shouldn't have reason to be astonished half so often. By this time he had greeted Harriet with that agreeable mingling of cordiality and respect which she recollected so well and had sat down near her, pulled off his gloves and thrown them into his hat upon the table. There's nothing astonishing, he said, in my having conceived a desire to see your sister, Mr. John, or in my having gratified it in my own way. As to the regularity of my visit since, which she may have mentioned to you, there is nothing extraordinary in that. They soon grew into a habit and we are creatures of habit, creatures of habit. Putting his hands into his pockets and leaning back in his chair, he looked at the brother and sister as if it were interesting to him to see them together and went on to say with a kind of irritable thoughtfulness, It's this same habit that confirms some of us who are capable of better things in Lucifer's own pride and stubbornness that confirms and deepens others of us in villainy, more of us in indifference that hardens us from day to day according to the temper of our clay like images and leaves us as susceptible as images to new impressions and convictions. You shall judge of its influence on me, John. For more years than I need name, I had my small and exactly defined share in the management of Dombie's house and saw your brother who has proved himself a scoundrel. Your sister will forgive my being obliged to mention it, extending and extending his influence until the business and its owner were his football and saw you toiling at your obscure desk every day and was quite content to be as little troubled as I might be out of my own strip of duty to let everything about me go on day by day unquestioned like a great machine that was in its habit and mine and to take it all for granted and consider it all right. My Wednesday nights came regularly round our quartet parties came regularly off my violin cello was in good tune and there was nothing wrong in my world or if anything not much or little or much was no affair of mine. I can answer for your being more respected and beloved during all that time than anybody in the house, sir," said John Parker. Poo! Good-natured and easy enough, I dare say, returned the other. A habit I had. It suited the manager. It suited the man he managed. It suited me best of all. I did what was allotted to me to do, made no court to either of them and was glad to occupy a station in which none was required. So I should have gone on till now but that my room had a thin wall. You can tell your sister that it was divided from the manager's room by a Wayne Scott partition. They were adjoining rooms, had been one perhaps originally, and were separated, as Mr. Morphin says, said her brother, looking back to him in the resumption of his explanation. I have whistled, hum tunes, gone accurately through the whole of Beethoven's sonata in B to let him know that I was within hearing, said Mr. Morphin, but he never heeded me. It happened seldom enough that I was within hearing of anything of a private nature, certainly. But, when I was, and couldn't otherwise avoid knowing something of it, I walked out. I walked out once, John, during a conversation between two brothers to which, in the beginning, young Walter Gay was a party. But I overheard some of it before I left the room. You remember, it sufficiently perhaps, to tell your sister what its nature was. It referred Harriet, said her brother in a low voice, to the past and to our relative position in the house. Its matter was not new to me, but was presented in a new aspect. It shook me in my habit, the habit of nine-tenths of the world, of believing that all was right about me, because I was used to it, said their visitor, and induced me to recall the history of the two brothers and to ponder on it. I think it was almost the first time in my life when I fell into this train of reflection, how will many things that are familiar and quite matters, of course, to us now look when we come to see them from that new and distant point of view which we must all take up, one day or other. I was something less good-natured as the phrase goes, after that morning less easy and complacent altogether. He sat for a minute or so drumming with one hand on the table and resumed in a hurry as if he were anxious to get rid of his confession. Before I knew what to do or whether I could do anything, there was a second conversation between the same two brothers in which their sister was mentioned. I had no scruples of conscience in suffering all the waves and strays of that conversation to float to me as freely as they would. I considered them mine by right. After that I came here to see the sister for myself. The first time I stopped at the garden gate I made a pretext of inquiring into the character of a poor neighbor, but I wandered out of that tract and I think Miss Harriet mistrusted me. The second time I asked leave to come in, came in and said what I wished to say. Your sister showed me reasons which I dared not dispute for receiving no assistance from me then, but I established a means of communication between us, which remained unbroken until within these few days when I was prevented by important matters that have been lately devolved upon me from maintaining them. How little I have suspected this, said John Parker, when I have seen you every day, sir, if Harriet could have guessed your name. Why, to tell you the truth, John, interposed the visitor. I kept it to myself for two reasons. I don't know that the first might have been binding alone, but one has no business to take credit for good intentions and I made up my mind at all events not to disclose myself until I should be able to do you some real service or other. My second reason was that I always hoped there might be some lingering possibility of your brother's relenting towards you both and in that case I felt that where there was the chance of a man of his suspicious watchful character discovering that you had been secretly befriended to me, there was the chance of a new and fatal cause of division. I resolved, to be sure, at the risk of turning his displeasure against myself, which would have been no matter, to watch my opportunity of serving you with the head of the house, but the distractions of death, courtship marriage, and domestic unhappiness have left us no head but your brother for this long, long time and it would have been better for us, said the visitor dropping his voice, to have been a lifeless trunk. He seemed conscious that these latter words had escaped him against his will and stretching out a hand to the brother and a hand to the sister continued. All I could desire to say and more I have now said all I mean goes beyond words as I hope you understand and believe. The time has come, John, though most unfortunately and unhappily come when I may help you without interfering with that redeeming struggle which has lasted through so many years since you were discharged from it today by no act of your own. It is late, I need say no more tonight. You will guard the treasure you have here without advice or reminder from me. With these words he rose to go. But go you first, John, he said good-humoredly, with a light without saying what you want to say, whatever that may be. John Parker's heart was full and he would have relieved it in speech if he could and let me have a word with your sister. We have talked alone before and in this room too though it looks more natural with you here. Following him out with his eyes he turned kindly to Harriet and said in a lower voice and with an altered and graver manner, you wish to ask me something of the man whose sister it is your misfortune to be. I dread to ask, said Harriet. You have looked so earnestly at me more than once, rejoined the visitor, that I think I can divine your question. Has he taken money, is that it? Yes, he has not. I thank Heaven, said Harriet, for the sake of John, that he has abused his trust in many ways, said Mr. Morphin, that he has often er dealt and speculated to advantage for himself than for the house he represented, that he has led the house on to prodigious ventures, often resulting in enormous losses, that he has always pampered the vanity and ambition of his employer when it was his duty to have held them in check and shown, as it was in his power to do so, to what they tended here or there, will not perhaps surprise you now. Undertakings have been entered on to swell the reputation of the house for vast resources and to exhibit it in magnificent contrast to other merchants' houses, of which it requires a steady head to contemplate the possibility. A few disastrous changes of affairs might render them the probably runous consequences. In the midst of the many transactions of the house in most parts of the world a great labyrinth of which only he has held the clue, he has had the opportunity and he seems to have used it of keeping the various results afloat when ascertained and substituting estimates and generalities for facts. But, latterly, you follow me, Miss Harriet? Perfectly, perfectly, she answered with her frightened face fixed on his. Pray tell me all the worst at once. Laterly, he appears to have devoted the greatest pains to making these results so plain and clear that reference to the private books enables one to grasp them, numerous and varying as they are, with extraordinary ease, as if he had resolved to show his employer at one broad view what has been brought upon him by ministration to his ruling passion, that it has been his constant practice to minister to that passion basely and to flatter it corruptly is indubitable, in that his criminality, as it is connected with the affairs of the house, chiefly consists. One other word before you leave me, dear sir, said Harriet, there is no danger in all this? How danger, he returned with a little hesitation. To the credit of the house, I cannot help answering you plainly and trusting you completely, said Mr. Morphin, after a moment's survey of her face. You may, indeed you may. I am sure I may. Danger to the house's credit? No, none. There may be difficulty, greater or less difficulty, but no danger, unless indeed the head of the house unable to bring his mind to the reduction of its enterprises and positively refusing to believe that it is or can be in any position, but the position in which he has always represented it to himself should urge it beyond its strength. Then it would totter. But there is no apprehension of that, said Harriet. There shall be no half-confidence, he replied, shaking her hand between us. Mr. Domby is unapproachable by anyone, and his state of mind is haughty, rash, unreasonable, and ungovernable now. But he is disturbed and agitated now beyond all common bounds, and it may pass. You now know all, both worst and best. No more tonight, and good night. With that he kissed her hand, and passing out to the door where her brother stood awaiting his coming, put him cheerfully aside when he is said to speak, and told him that as they would see each other soon and often he might speak at another time if he would, but there was no leisure for it then, and went away at a round pace in order that no word of gratitude might follow him. The brother and sister sat conversing by the fireside until it was almost day, made sleepless by this glimpse of the new world that opened before them, and feeling like two people shipwrecked long ago upon a solitary coast to whom a ship had come at last when they were old in resignation and had lost all thought of any other home. But another, and different kind of disquietude, kept them waking too. The darkness out of which this light had broken on them gathered around, the shadow of their guilty brother was in the house where his foot had never trod. Nor was it to be driven out, nor did it fade before the sun. Next morning it was there at noon at night, darkest and most distant at night, as is now to be told. John Parker had gone out in pursuance of a letter of appointment from their friend, and Harriet was left in the house alone. She had been alone some hours, a dull, grave evening, and a deepening twilight were not favourable to the removal of the oppression on her spirits. The idea of this brother long unseen and unknown flitted about her in frightful shapes. He was dead, dying, calling to her, staring at her, frowning on her. The pictures in her mind were so obtrusive and exact that as the twilight deepened she dreaded to raise her head and look at the dark corners of the room lest his wraith, the offspring of her excited imagination should be waiting there to startle her. Once she had such a fancy of his being in the next room hiding, though she knew quite well what a distempered fancy it was and had no belief in it, that she forced herself to go there for her own conviction. But in vain, the room resumed its shadowy terrors the moment she left it and she had no more power to divest herself of these vague impressions of dread than if they had been stone giants rooted in the solid earth. It was almost dark and she was sitting near the window with her head upon her hand looking down when sensible of a sudden increase in the gloom of the apartment she raised her eyes and uttered an involuntary cry. Close to the glass a pale, scared face gazed in, vacantly, for an instant, as searching for an object then the eyes rested on herself and lighted up. Let me in, let me in, I want to speak to you and the hand rattled on the glass. She recognized immediately the woman with the long dark hair to whom she had given warmth, food, and shelter one wet night, naturally afraid of her remembering her violent behavior, Harriet, retreating a little from the window, stood undecided and alarmed. Let me in, let me speak to you, I am thankful, quiet, humble, anything you like, but let me speak to you. The vehement manner of the entreaty, the earnest expression of the face, the trembling of the two hands that were raised imploringly, a certain dread and terror in the voice akin to her own condition at the moment, prevailed with Harriet. She hastened to the door and opened it. May I come in, or shall I speak here? said the woman, catching at her hand. What is it that you want? What is it that you have to say? Not much, but let me say it out, or I shall never say it. I am tempted now to go away. There seem to be hands dragging me from the door. Let me come in, if you can trust me for this once. Her energy again prevailed, and they passed into the firelight of the little kitchen where she had before sat and ate and dried her clothes. Sit there, said Alice, kneeling down beside her, and look at me, you remember me? I do. You remember what I told you I had been and where I came from, ragged in lame, with the fierce wind and weather beating on my head? Yes. You know how I came back that night and threw your money in the dirt and cursed you and your race. Now, see me here upon my knees. Am I less earnest now than I was then? If what you ask, said Harriet gently, is forgiveness. But it's not, returned the other, with a proud, fierce look. What I ask is to be believed. Now you shall judge if I am worthy of belief, both as I was and as I am. Still upon her knees and with her eyes upon the fire and the fire shining on her ruined beauty and her wild black hair, one long tress of which she pulled over her shoulder and wound about her head and thoughtfully bit and tore while speaking, she went on. When I was young and pretty and this, plucking contemptuously at the hair, she held, was only handled delicately and couldn't be admired enough, my mother, who had not been very mindful of me as a child, found out my merits and was fond of me and proud of me. She was covetous and poor and thought to make a sort of property of me. No great lady ever thought that of a daughter yet, I'm sure, or acted as if she did. It's never done, we all know, and that shows that the only instances of mothers bringing up their daughters wrong and evil coming of it are among such miserable folks as us. Looking at the fire as if she were forgetful for the moment of having any auditor, she continued in a dreamy way as she wound the long tress of hair tight round and round her hand. What came of that, I needn't say, wretched marriages don't come of such things in our degree, only wretchedness and ruin, wretchedness and ruin came on me, came on me, raising her eyes swiftly from their moody gaze upon the fire to Harriet's face, she said. I am wasting time and there is none to spare, yet, if I hadn't thought of it, I shouldn't be here now. Wretchedness and ruin came on me, I say. I was made a short-lived toy and flung aside more cruelly and carelessly than ever such things are. By whose hand do you think? Why do you ask me, said Harriet? Why do you tremble, rejoined Alice, with an eager look? His usage made a devil of me. I sunk in wretchedness and ruin, lower and lower yet. I was concerned in a robbery, in every part of it but the gains, and was found out and sent to be tried without a friend, without a penny, though I was but a girl, I would have gone to death sooner than ask him for a word if a word of his could have saved me, I would, to any death that could have been invented. But my mother, covetous always, sent to him in my name, told the true story of my case and humbly prayed and petitioned for a small last gift, for not so many pounds as I have fingers on this hand. Who was it, do you think, who snapped his fingers at me in my misery, lying, as he believed, at his feet, and left me without even this poor sign of remembrance? Well satisfied that I should be sent abroad beyond the reach of further trouble to him and should die and rot there. Who was this, do you think? Why do you ask me, repeated Harriet? Why do you tremble, said Alice, laying her hand upon her arm and looking in her face, but that the answer is on your lips? It was your brother, James. Harriet trembled more and more, but did not avert her eyes from the eager look that rested on them. When I knew you were the sister, which was on that night, I came back, weary and lame, to spurn your gift. I felt that night as if I could have traveled weary and lame over the whole world to stab him if I could have found him in a lonely place with no one near. Do you believe that I was earnest in all that? I do, good heaven, why are you come again? Since then, said Alice, with the same grasp of her arm and the same look in her face, I have seen him, I have followed him with my eyes in that broad day, if any spark of my resentment remembered in my bosom, it sprung into a blaze when my eyes rested on him. You know he has wronged a proud man and made him his deadly enemy. What if I had given information of him to that man? Information, repeated Harriet, what if I had found out one who knew your brother's secret, who knew the manner of his flight, where he and the companion of his flight were gone? What if I had made him utter all his knowledge word by word before his enemy concealed to hear it? What if I had sat by at the time looking into this enemy's face and seeing it change till it was scarcely human? What if I had seen him rush away mad in pursuit? What if I knew now that he was on his road more fiend than man and must in so many hours come up with him? Remove your hands, said Harriet, recoiling. Go away, your touch is dreadful to me. I have done this, pursued the other, with her eager look, regardless of the interruption. Do I speak and look as if I really had? Do you believe what I am saying? I fear I must let my arm go. Not yet a moment more. You can think what my revengeful purpose must have been to last so long and urge me to do this. Dreadful, said Harriet. Then, when you see me now, said Alice Horsley, here again, kneeling quietly on the ground with my touch upon your arm, with my eyes upon your face, you may believe that there is no common earnestness in what I say and that no common struggle has been battling in my breast. I am ashamed to speak the words, but I relent. I despise myself. I have fought with myself all day and all last night, but I relent towards him without reason and wish to repair what I have done if it is possible. I wouldn't have them come together while his pursuer is so blind and headlong. If you had seen him as he went out last night, you would know the danger better. How shall it be prevented? What can I do? cried Harriet. All night long pursued the other hurriedly. I had dreams of him, and yet I didn't sleep in his blood. All day I have had him near me. What can I do? cried Harriet, shuddering at these words. If there is anyone who will write or send or go to him, let them lose no time. He is at Dijon. Do you know the name and where it is? Yes. Warn him that the man he has made his enemy is in a frenzy, and that he doesn't know him if he makes light of his approach. Tell him that he is on the road. I know he is, and hurrying on. A month or so will make years of difference. Let them not encounter through me anywhere but there, anytime but now. Let his foe follow him and find him for himself, but not through me. There is enough upon my head without. The fire ceased to be reflected in her jet-black hair, uplifted face and eager eyes. Her hand was gone from Harriet's arm, and the place where she had been was empty.