 Chapter 58 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. Dombe and Son by Charles Dickens. Chapter 58, After a Lapse. Recording by Cynthia Lyons. The sea had ebbed and flowed through a whole year. Through a whole year the winds and clouds had come and gone. The ceaseless work of time had been performed in storm and sunshine. Through a whole year the tides of human chance and change had set in their allotted courses. Through a whole year the famous House of Dombe and Son had fought a fight for life against cross accidents, doubtful rumors, unsuccessful ventures, unpropitious times, and most of all against the infatuation of its head, who would not contract its enterprises by a hair's breath, and would not listen to a word of warning that the ship he strained so hard against the storm was weak and could not bear it. There was out and the great house was down. One summer morning, a year, wanting some odd days after the marriage in the city church, there was a buzz and whisper upon change of a great failure. A certain cold proud man, well known there, was not there, nor was he represented there. Next day it was noise to broad that Dombe and Son had stopped, and next night there was a list of bankrupts published, headed by that name. The world was very busy now in Soothe and had a deal to say. It was an innocently credulous and much ill-used world. It was a world in which there was no other sort of bankruptcy whatever. There were no conspicuous people in it, trading far and wide on rotten banks of religion, patriotism, virtue, honor. There was no amount worth mentioning of mere paper in circulation on which anybody lived pretty handsomely, promising to pay great sums of goodness with no effects. There were no shortcomings anywhere in anything but money. The world was very angry indeed, and the people especially, who in a worse world might have been supposed to be bankrupt traders themselves in shows and pretenses, were observed to be mightily indignant. Here was a new inducement to dissipation presented to that sport of circumstances, Mr. Perch the messenger. It was apparently the fate of Mr. Perch to be always waking up and finding himself famous. He had, but yesterday, as one might say, subsided into private life from the celebrity of the elopement and the events that followed it, and now he was made a more important man than ever by the bankruptcy, gliding from his bracket in the outer office where he now sat, watching the strange faces of accountants and others who quickly superseded nearly all the old clerks Mr. Perch had but to show himself in the court outside, or at farthest in the bar of the king's arms to be asked a multitude of questions almost certain to include that interesting question, what would he take to drink? Then would Mr. Perch discount upon the hours of acute uneasiness he and Mrs. Perch had suffered out at Ball's pond when they first suspected things was going wrong. Then would Mr. Perch relate to gaping listeners in a low voice as if the corpse of the deceased house were lying unburied in the next room, how Mrs. Perch had first come to surmise that things was going wrong by hearing him, Perch moaning in his twelve and nine pence in the pound, which act of some nambulism he supposed to have originated in the impression made upon him by the change in Mr. Dombie's face. Then would he inform them how he had once said, might I make so bold to ask, sir, are you unhappy in your mind? And how Mr. Dombie had replied, my faithful Perch, but no, it cannot be. And with that had struck his hand upon his forehead and said, leave me, Perch. Then in short would Mr. Perch, a victim to his position, tell all manner of lies affecting himself to tears by those that were of a moving nature, and really believing that the inventions of yesterday had, on repetition, a sort of truth about them today. Mr. Perch always closed these conferences by meekly remarking that, of course, whatever his suspicions might have been, as if he had ever had any. It wasn't for him to betray his trust, was it? Which sentiment, there never being any creditors present, was received as doing great honor to his feelings. Thus he generally brought away a soothed conscience and left an agreeable impression behind him when he returned to his bracket, again to sit watching the strange faces of the accountants and others, making so free with the great mysteries, the books, or now and then, to go on tiptoe into Mr. Dombie's empty room and stir the fire, or to take an airing at the door and have a little more doleful chat with any straggler whom he knew, or to propitiate, with various small attentions, the head accountant from whom Mr. Perch had expectations of a messenger ship in a fire office when the affairs of the house should be wound up. To Major Bagstock the bankruptcy was quite a calamity. The Major was not a sympathetic character, his attention being wholly concentrated on J. B., nor was he a man subject to lively emotions, except in the physical regards of gasping and choking. But he had so paraded his friend Dombie at the club, had so flourished him at the heads of the members in general, and so put them down by continual assertion of his riches that the club, being but human, was delighted to retort upon the Major by asking him, with a show of great concern, whether this tremendous smash had been at all expected, and how his friend Dombie bore it. To such questions the Major, waxing very purple, would reply that it was a bad world, sir, altogether, that Joey knew a thing or two but had been done, sir, done like an infant, that if you had foretold this, sir, to J. Bagstock, when he went abroad with Dombie and was chasing that vagabond up and down France, J. Bagstock would have poo-pooed you, would have poo-pooed you, sir, by the Lord, that Joe had been deceived, sir, taken in, hoodwinked, blindfolded, but was broad awake again and staring in so much, sir, that if Joe's father were to rise up from the grave tomorrow he wouldn't trust the old blade with a penny-piece, but would tell him that his son, Josh, was too old a soldier to be done again, sir, that he was a suspicious, crapped, cranky, used-up J.B., infidel, sir, and that if it were consistent with the dignity of a rough-and-tough old Major of the old school who had had the honor of being personally known to and commended by their late royal highnesses, the dukes of Kent and York, to retire to a tub and live in it by Gad, sir, he'd have a tub in Pelmel tomorrow to show his contempt for mankind. Of all this and many variations of the same tune the Major would deliver himself with so many apoplectic symptoms, such rollings of his head and such violent growls of ill-usage and resentment that the younger members of the club surmised he had invested money in his friend Dombie's house and lost it, though the old soldiers and deeper dogs who knew Joe better wouldn't hear of such a thing. The unfortunate native, expressing no opinion, suffered dreadfully, not merely in his moral feelings which were regularly fusilladed by the Major every hour in the day and riddled through and through, but in his sensitiveness to bodily knocks and bumps which were kept continually on the stretch. For six entire weeks after the bankruptcy this miserable foreigner lived in a rainy season of bootjacks and brushes. Mrs. Chick had three ideas upon the subject of the terrible reverse. The first was that she could not understand it. The second that her brother had not made an effort. The third that if she had been invited to a dinner on the day of that first party it never would have happened and that she had said so at the time. Nobody's opinion stayed the misfortune, lightened it, or made it heavier. It was understood that the affairs of the house were to be wound up as best they could be, that Mr. Domby freely resigned everything he had and asked for no favor from anyone, that any resumption of the business was out of the question as he would listen to no friendly negotiation having that compromise in view, that he had relinquished every post of trust and distinction he had held as a man respected among merchants, that he was dying according to some, that he was going melancholy mad according to others, that he was a broken man according to all. The clerks dispensed after holding a little dinner of condolence among themselves, which was enlivened by comic singing and went off admirably. Some took places abroad and some engaged in other houses at home. Some looked up relations in the country for whom they suddenly remembered they had, a particular affection, and some advertised for employment in the newspapers. Mr. Perch alone remained of all the late establishment, sitting on his bracket looking at the accountants before starting off it to propitiate the head accountant who was to get him into the fire-office. The counting-house soon got to be dirty and neglected. The principal, slipper, and dog's-collar cellar at the corner of the court would have doubted the propriety of throwing up his forefinger to the brim of his hat any more if Mr. Dombie had appeared there now, and the ticket porter with his hands under his white apron moralized good-sound morality about ambition, which, he observed, was not, in his opinion, made to rhyme to perdition for nothing. Mr. Morphin, the hazel-eyed bachelor with the hair and whiskers sprinkled with gray, was perhaps the only person within the atmosphere of the house, its head, of course, accepted, who was heartily and deeply affected by the disaster that had befallen it. He had treated Mr. Dombie with due respect and deference through many years, but he had never disguised his natural character or meanly chuckled to him or pampered his master's passion for the advancement of his own purposes. He had, therefore, no self-disrespect of avenge, no long tightening springs to release with a quick recoil. He worked early and late to unravel whatever was complicated or difficult in the records of the transactions of the house, was always in attendance to explain whatever required explanation, sat in his old room sometimes very late at night, studying points by his mastery of which he could spare Mr. Dombie the pain of being personally referred to, and then would go home to Islington and calm his mind by producing the most dismal and forlorn sounds out of his violin cello before going to bed. He was solacing himself with this melodious grumbler one evening, and, having been much dispirited by the proceedings of the day, was scraping consolation out of its deepest notes when his landlady, who was fortunately deaf and had no other consciousness of these performances than a sensation of something rumbling in her bones, announced a lady. In mourning, she said, the violin cello stopped immediately, and the performer, laying it on the sofa with great tenderness and care, made a sign that the lady was to come in. He followed directly and met Harriet Cawker on the stair. Alone, he said, and John here this morning, is there anything the matter, my dear? But no, he added, your face tells quite another story. I am afraid it is a selfish revelation that you see there, then, she answered. It is a very pleasant one, said he, and, if selfish, a novelty too worth seeing in you, but I don't believe that. He had placed a chair for her by this time and sat down opposite, the violin cello lying snugly on the sofa between them. You will not be surprised at my coming alone, or at John's not having told you I was coming, said Harriet, and you will believe that when I tell you why I have come. May I do so now? You can do nothing better. You were not busy. He pointed to the violin cello lying on the sofa and said, I have been all day. Here's my witness. I have been confiding all my cares to it. I wish I had none but my own to tell. Is the house at an end, said Harriet, earnestly? Completely at an end. Will it never be resumed? Never. The bright expression of her face was not overshadowed as her lips silently repeated the word. He seemed to observe this with some little involuntary surprise and said again, Never. You remember what I told you. It has been all along impossible to convince him, impossible to reason with him, sometimes impossible even to approach him. The worst has happened and the house has fallen. Never to be built up any more. And Mr. Dombie, is he personally ruined? Ruined. Will he have no private fortune left? Nothing? A certain eagerness in her voice and something that was almost joyful in her look seemed to surprise him more and more, to disappoint him too and jar discordantly against his own emotions. He drummed with the fingers of one hand on the table, looking wistfully at her and shaking his head and said after a pause. The extent of Mr. Dombie's resources is not accurately within my knowledge, but though they are doubtless very large, his obligations are enormous. He is a gentleman of high honor and integrity. Any man in his position could, and many a man in his position would, have saved himself by making terms which would have very slightly, almost insensibly increased the losses of those who had had dealings with him and left him a remnant to live upon. But he is resolved on payment to the last farthing of his means. His own words are that they will clear or nearly clear the house and that no one can lose much. Ah, Miss Harriet, it would do us no harm to remember oftener than we do that vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess. This pride shows well in this. She heard him with little or no change in her expression and with a divided attention that showed her to be busy with something in her own mind. When he was silent, she asked him hurriedly. Have you seen him lately? No one sees him. When this crisis of his affairs renders it necessary for him to come out of his house, he comes out for the occasion and again goes home and shuts himself up and will see no one. He has written me a letter acknowledging our past connection in higher terms than it deserved and parting from me. I am delicate of obtruding myself upon him now, never having had much intercourse with him in better times. But I have tried to do so. Gone there and treated. Quite in vain. He watched her as in the hope that she would testify some greater concern than she had yet shown and spoke gravely and feelingly as if to impress her the more. But there was no change in her. Well, well, Miss Harriet, he said, with a disappointed air. This is not to the purpose. You have not come here to hear this. Some other and pleasanter theme is in your mind. Let it be in mind, too, and we shall talk upon more equal terms. Come. No. It is the same theme returned Harriet, with frank and quick surprise. Is it not likely that it should be? Is it not natural that John and I should have been thinking and speaking very much of late of these great changes? Mr. Namby, whom he served so many years, you know upon what terms, reduced as you describe, and we quite rich. Good, true face, as that face of hers was and pleasant as it had been to him, Mr. Morphin, the hazel-eyed bachelor, since the first time he had ever looked upon it, it pleased him less at that moment, lighted with array of exultation than it had ever pleased him before. I need not remind you, said Harriet, casting down her eyes upon her black dress, through what means our circumstances changed. You have not forgotten that our brother James upon that dreadful day left no will, no relations but ourselves. The face was pleasanter to him now, though it was pale and melancholy, than it had been a moment since. He seemed to breathe more cheerily. You know, she said, our history, the history of both my brothers in connection with the unfortunate unhappy gentleman of whom you have spoken so truly. You know how few our wants are, Johns and mine, and what little use we have for money the life we have led together for so many years, and now that he is earning an income that is ample for us through your kindness. You are not unprepared to hear what favor I have come to ask of you. I hardly know, I was a minute ago, now I think I am not. Of my dead brother I say nothing, if the dead know what we do, but you understand me. Of my living brother I could say much, but what need I say more than this act of duty in which I have come to ask your indispensable assistance is his own, and that he cannot rest until it is performed. She raised her eyes again, and the light of exultation in her face began to appear beautiful in the observant eyes that watched her. Dear sir, she went on to say, it must be done very quietly and secretly. Your experience and knowledge will point out a way of doing it. Mr. Dombie may, perhaps, be led to believe that it is something saved unexpectedly from the wreck of his fortunes, or that it is a voluntary tribute to his honorable and upright character, from some of those with whom he has had great dealings, or that it is some old lost debt repaid. There must be many ways of doing it. I know you will choose the best. The favor I have come to ask is that you will do it for us in your own kind, generous, considerate manner, that you will never speak of it to John, whose chief happiness in this act of restitution is to do it secretly, unknown and unapproved of, that only a very small part of the inheritance may be reserved to us until Mr. Dombie shall have possessed the interest of the rest for the remainder of his life, that you will keep our secret faithfully, but that I am sure you will and that from this time it may seldom be whispered even between you and me, but may live in my thoughts only as a new reason for thankfulness to heaven and joy and pride in my brother. Such a look of exultation there may be on angels' faces when the one repentant sinner enters heaven, among ninety-nine just men. It was not dimmed or tarnished by the joyful tears that filled her eyes, but was the brighter for them. My dear Harriet, said Mr. Morphin, after a silence, I was not prepared for this. Do I understand that you wish to make your own part in the inheritance available for your good purpose as well as John's? Oh, yes, she returned. When we have shared everything together for so long a time and have had no care, hope or purpose apart, do I bear to be excluded from my share in this? May I not urge a claim to be my brother's partner and companion to the last? Heaven forbid that I should dispute it, he replied. We may rely on your friendly help, she said. I knew we might. I should be a worse man than I hope I am or would willingly believe myself if I could not give you that assurance in your soul. You may, implicitly. Upon my honour I will keep your secret, and if it should be found that Mr. Dombie is so reduced as I fear he will be, acting on a determination that there seem to be no means of influencing, I will assist you to accomplish the design on which you and John are jointly resolved. She gave him her hand Harriet, he said, detaining it in his, to speak to you of the worth of any sacrifice that you can make now, above all of any sacrifice of mere money would be idle and presumptuous. To put before you any appeal to reconsider your purpose or to set narrow limits to it would be, I feel, not less so. I have no right to mar the great end of a great history by any abtrusion of my own weak self. I have every right to bend my head before what you confide to me, satisfied that it comes from a higher and better source of inspiration than my poor worldly knowledge. I will say only this I am your faithful steward and I would rather be so and your chosen friend than I would be anybody in the world except yourself. She thanked him again cordially and wished him good night. Are you going home, he said, let me go with you. Not tonight. I am not going home now. I have a visit to make alone. Will you come to-morrow? Well, well, said he, I'll come to-morrow. In the meantime I'll think of this and how we can best proceed and perhaps you'll think of it, dear Harriet, and and think of me a little in connection with it. He handed her down to a coach she had in waiting at the door and if his landlady had not been deaf she would have heard him muttering as he went back upstairs when the coach had driven off that we were creatures of habit and it was a sorrowful habit to be an old bachelor. The violin cello lying on the sofa between the two chairs he took it up without putting away the vacant chair and sat droning on it and slowly shaking his head at the vacant chair for a long, long time. The expression he communicated to the instrument at first though monstrously pathetic and bland was nothing to the expression he communicated to his own face and bestowed upon the empty chair which was so sincere that he was obliged to have recourse wrapped in cuddle's remedy more than once and to rub his face with his sleeve. By degrees however the violin cello in unison with his own frame of mind glided melodiously into the harmonious blacksmith which he played over and over again until his ruddy and serene face gleamed like the true metal on the anvil of a veritable blacksmith. In fine the violin cello and the empty chair were the companions of his bachelorhood until nearly midnight and when he took his supper the violin cello set up on end in the sofa corner big with the latent harmony of a whole foundry full of harmonious blacksmiths seemed to ogle the empty chair out of its crooked eyes with unutterable intelligence. When Harriet left the house the driver of her hired coach taking a course that was evidently no new one to him went in and out by byways through that part of the suburbs until he arrived at some open ground where there were a few quiet little old houses standing among gardens at the garden gate of one of these he stopped and Harriet alighted her gentle ringing at the bell was responded to by a dolerous looking woman of light complexion with raised eyebrows and head drooping on one side who curtsied at sight of her and conducted her across the garden to the house how is your patient nurse tonight said Harriet in a poor way miss oh how she do remind me sometimes of my uncle's Betsy Jane returned the woman of the light complexion in a sort of doleful rapture in what respect asked Harriet miss in all respects replied the other except that she's grown up in Betsy Jane when a death store was but a child but you have told me she recovered observed Harriet mildly so there is the more reason for hope mrs. Wickham ah miss hope is an excellent thing for such as has the spirits to bear it said mrs. Wickham shaking her head my own spirits is not equal to it but I don't owe in any grudge I envies them that is so blessed then you should try to be more cheerful remarked Harriet thank you miss I'm sure said mrs. Wickham grimly if I was so inclined the loneliness of this situation you'll excuse my speaking so free would put it out of my power in four and twenty hours but I ain't at all I'd rather not the little spirits that I ever had I was bereaved of at Brighton some few years ago and I think I feel myself the better for it in truth this was the very mrs. Wickham who had superseded mrs. Richards as the nurse of little Paul and who considered herself to have gained the loss in question under the roof of the amiable Pipchen the excellent and thoughtful old system hallowed by long prescription which has usually picked out from the rest of mankind the most dreary and uncomfortable people that could possibly be laid hold of to act of instructors of youth finger posts to the virtues matrons monitors attendance on sick beds and the like had established mrs. Wickham in very good business as a nurse and had led to her serious qualities being particularly commended by an admiring and numerous connection mrs. Wickham with her eyebrows elevated and her head on one side lighted the way upstairs to a clean neat chamber opening on another chamber dimly lighted where there was a bed in the first room an old woman sat mechanically staring out at the open window on the darkness in the second stretched upon the bed lay the shadow of a figure that had spurned the wind and rain one wintry night hardly to be recognized now but by the long black hair that showed so very black against the colorless face and all the white things about it oh the strong eyes and the weak frame the eyes that turned so eagerly and brightly to the door when Harriet came in the feeble head that could not raise itself moved so slowly round upon its pillow Alice said the visitor's mild voice am I late tonight you always seem late but are always early Harriet had sat down by the bedside now and put her hand upon the thin hand lying there you are better mrs. Wickham standing at the foot of the bed like a disconsolate specter most decidedly and forcibly shook her head to negative this position it matters very little said Alice with a faint smile better or worse today is but a day's difference perhaps not so much mrs. Wickham as a serious character expressed her approval with a groan and having made some cold dabs at the bottom of the bedclothes as feeling for the patient's feet and expecting to find them stoning when clinking among the medicine bottles on the table as who should say while we are here let us repeat the mixture as before no said Alice whispering to her visitor evil courses and remorse travel want and weather storm within and storm without have worn my life away not last much longer she drew the hand up as she spoke and laid her face against it I lie here sometimes thinking I should like to live until I had had a little time to show you how grateful I could be it is a weakness and soon passes better for you as it is better for me how different her hold upon the hand from what it had been took it by the fireside on the bleak winter evening scorn, rage defiance, recklessness look here, this is the end Mrs. Wickham having clinked sufficiently among the bottles now produced the mixture Mrs. Wickham looked hard at her patient in the act of drinking screwed her mouth up tight her eyebrows also and shook her head expressing that her stitches shouldn't make her say it was a hopeless case Mrs. Wickham then sprinkled a little cooling stuff about the room with the air of a female grave digger who was screwing ashes on ashes dust on dust for she was a serious character and withdrew to partake of certain funeral baked meats downstairs how long is it since I went to you and told you what I had done and when you were advised it was too late for anyone to follow it is a year and more said Harriet a year and more said Alice thoughtfully intent upon her face months and months since you brought me here Harriet answered yes brought me here by force of gentleness and kindness said Alice shrinking with her face behind the hand and made me human by woman's looks and words and angels deeds Harriet bending over her composed and soothed her by and by Alice lying as before with the hand against her face asked to have her mother called Harriet called to her more than once but the old woman was so absorbed looking out at the open window on the darkness that she did not hear it was not until Harriet went to her and touched her that she rose up and came mother said Alice taking the hand again and fixing her lustrous eyes lovingly upon her visitor while she merely addressed a motion of her finger to the old woman tell her what you know tonight my dearie I mother answered Alice faintly and solemnly tonight the old woman whose wits appeared disordered by alarm remorse or grief came creeping along the side of the bed opposite to that on which Harriet sat and kneeling down so as to bring her withered face upon a level with the coverlet and stretching out her hand so as to touch her daughter's arm began my handsome gal heaven what a cry was that with which she stopped there gazing at the poor form lying on the bed changed long ago mother withered long ago said Alice without looking at her don't grieve for that now my daughter faltered the old woman my gal who soon get better and shame Alice smiled mournfully at Harriet and fondled her hand a little closer but said nothing who get better I say repeated the old woman menacing the vacant air with her shriveled fist and who'll shame all with her good looks she will I say she will she shall as if she were in passionate contention with some unseen opponent at the bedside who contradicted her my daughter has been turned away from and cast out but she could boast relationship to proud folks too if she chose I to proud folks there's relationship without your clergy and your wedding rings they may make it but they can't break it and my daughter's well related show me Mrs. Dombie and I'll show you my Alice's first cousin Harriet glance from the old woman to the lustrous eyes intent upon her face and derived corroboration from them what cried the old woman her nodding head bridling with a ghastly vanity though I am old and ugly now much older by life and habit than years though I was once as young as any ah as pretty too as many I was a fresh country wench in my time struggling stretching out her arm to Harriet across the bed and looked at too down in my country Mrs. Dombie's father and his brother were the gayest gentleman and the best like that came a visiting from London they have long been dead though lord lord this while long while the brother who is my alias father longest of the two she raised her head a little and peered at her daughter's face as if from the remembrance of her own youth she had flown to the remembrance of her child then suddenly she laid her face down on the bed and shut her head up in her hands and arms they were as like said the old woman without looking up as you could see two brothers so near an age much more than a year between them as I recollect and if you could have seen my gal as I have seen her once side by side with the other's daughter you have seen for all the difference of dress and life that they were like each other oh is the likeness gone and is it my gal only my gal that's to change so change mother in our turn said Alice turn cried the old woman but why not hers as soon as my gal's the mother must have changed she looked as old as me and full as wrinkled through her paint but she was handsome what have I done worse than her that only my gal is to lie there fading another of those wild cries she went running out into the room from which she had come but immediately in her uncertain mood returned and creeping up to Harriet said that's what Alice made me tell you dearie that's all I found it out when I began to ask who she was and all about her away in Warwick show there one summertime was no good to me then they wouldn't have owned me and had nothing to give me I should have asked him maybe for a little money afterwards if it hadn't been for my Alice she'd almost have killed me if I had I think she was as proud as the other in her way said the old woman touching the face of her daughter fearfully and withdrawing her hand for all she's so quiet now she'll shame him with her good looks yet ha ha she'll shame him will my handsome daughter her laugh as she retreated was worse than her cry worse than the burst of imbecile lamentation in which it ended worse than the doting air with which she sat down in her old seat and stared out at the darkness the eyes of Alice had all this time so quiet whose hand she had never released she said now I have felt lying here that I should like you to know this it might explain I have thought something that used to help to harden me I had heard so much in my wrongdoing of my neglected duty that I took up with a belief that duty had not been done to me and that as the seed was sown I somehow made it out that when ladies had bad homes and mothers they went wrong in their way too but that their way was not so foul a one as mine and they had need to bless God for it that is all past it is like a dream now which I cannot quite remember or understand it has been more and more like a dream every day since you began to sit here and to read to me I only tell it you as I can recollect it will you read to me a little more Harriet was withdrawing her hand to open the book when Alice detained it for a moment you will not forget my mother I forgive her if I have any cause I know that she forgives me and is sorry in her heart you will not forget her never Alice a moment yet lay my head so dear that as you read I may see the words in your kind face Harriet complied and read read the eternal book for all the weary and the heavy laden for all the wretched fallen and neglected on this earth read the blessed history in which the blind lame palsied beggar the criminal the woman stained with shame the shunned of all our dainty clay has each a portion that no human pride indifference or sophistry through all the ages that this world shall last can take away or by the thousandth atom of a grain reduce read the ministry of him who through the round of human life and all its hopes and griefs from birth to death from infancy to age had sweet compassion for and interest in in every scene and stage its every suffering and sorrow I shall come said Harriet when she shut the book very early in the morning the lustrous eyes yet fixed upon her face closed for a moment then opened and Alice kissed and blessed her the same eyes followed her to the door and in their light and on the tranquil face there was a smile when it was closed they never turned away she laid her hand upon her breast murmuring the sacred name that had been read to her and life passed from her face like light removed nothing lay there any longer but the ruin of the mortal house on which the rain had beaten and the black hair that had fluttered in the wintry wind End of Chapter 58 Chapter 59 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 59 Retribution Changes have come again upon the great house in the long dull street once the scene of Florence's childhood and loneliness it is a great house still proof against wind and weather without breeches in the roof or shattered windows or dilapidated walls but it is a ruin nonetheless and the rats fly from it Mr. Towlinson and Company are at first incredulous in respect of the shapeless rumors that they hear Cook says our people's credit ain't so easy shook as that comes to thank God and Mr. Towlinson expects to hear it reported that the Bank of England's are going to break or the jewels in the tower to be sold up but next comes the Gazette and Mr. Perch and Mr. Perch brings Mrs. Perch to talk it over in the kitchen and to spend a pleasant evening as soon as there is no doubt about it Mr. Towlinson's main anxiety is that the failure should be a good round one not less than £100,000 Mr. Perch don't think himself that £100,000 will nearly cover it the women led by Mrs. Perch and Cook often repeat £100,000 with awful satisfaction as if handling the words were like handling the money and the housemaid who has her eye on Mr. Towlinson wishes she had only a hundredth part of the sum to bestow on the man of her choice Mr. Towlinson still mindful of his old wrong, a pines that a foreigner would hardly know what to do with so much money unless he spent it on his whiskers which bitter sarcasm causes the housemaid to withdraw in tears but not to remain long absent who has the reputation of being extremely good hearted says whatever they do let them stand by one another now Towlinson for there's no telling how soon they may be divided they have been in that house says Cook through a funeral a wedding and a running away and let it not be said that they couldn't agree among themselves at such a time as the present this perch is immensely affected by this moving address and openly remarks that Cook is an angel Mr. Towlinson replies to Cook far be it from him to stand in the way of that good feeling which he could wish to see and adjourned in quest of the housemaid and presently returning with that young lady on his arm informs the kitchen that foreigners is only his fun and that him and Anne have now resolved to take one another for better for worse and to settle in Oxford market in the general green grocery and herb and leech line where your kind favors is particular requested this announcement is received with acclamation and Mrs. Perch projecting her soul into futurity says girls in Cook's ear in a solemn whisper miss fortune in the family without feasting in these lower regions couldn't be therefore Cook tosses up a hot dish or two for supper and Mr. Towlinson compounds a lobster salad to be devoted to the same hospitable purpose even Mrs. Pipchin hosted by the occasion rings her bell and sends downward that she requests to have that little bit of sweet bread that was left, warmed up for her supper and sent to her on a tray with about a quarter of a tumbler full of mulled sherry for she feels poorly there is a little talk about Mr. Dambi but very little it is chiefly speculation as to how long he has known what was going to happen Cook says shrewdly oh a long time bless you take your oath of that and reference being made to Mr. Perch he confirms her view of the case somebody wonders what he'll do and whether he'll go out in any situation Mr. Towlinson thinks not and hints at a refuge in one of them gentile alms houses of the better kind where he'll have his little garden you know says Cook plaintively and bring up sweet peas in the spring exactly so says Mr. Towlinson and be one of the brethren of something or another we are all brethren says Mrs. Perch in a pause of her drink except the sisters says Mr. Perch how are the mighty fallen remarks Cook and it always was and will be so observes the housemaid it is wonderful how good they feel in making these reflections and what a Christian unanimity they are sensible of in bearing the common shock with resignation there is only one interruption to this excellent state of mind which is occasioned by a young kitchen maid of inferior rank in black stockings who having sat with her mouth open for a long time unexpectedly discharges from it words to this effect suppose the wages shouldn't be paid the company sit for a moment speechless but Cook recovering first turns upon the young woman and requests to know how she dares insult the family whose bread she eats by such a dishonest supposition and whether she thinks that anybody with a scrap of honor left could deprive poor servants of their pittance because if that is your religious feelings Mary Dawes says Cook warmly I don't know where you mean to go to Mr. Talonson don't know either nor anybody and the young kitchen maid appearing not to know herself exactly but she's doubted by the general voice is covered with confusion as with a garment after a few days strange people begin to call at the house and to make appointments with one another in the dining room as if they lived there especially there is a gentleman of a mosaic Arabian cast of countenance with a very massive watch guard who whistles in the drawing room and while he's waiting the gentleman who always has pen and ink in his pocket asks Mr. Talonson by the name of Old Cook if he happens to know what the figure of them crimson and gold hangings might have been when new bought the callers and appointments in the dining room become more numerous every day and every gentleman seems to have pen and ink in his pocket and to have some occasion to use it at last it is said that there is going to be a sale and then more people arrive with pen and ink in their pockets commanding a detachment of men with carpet caps who immediately begin to pull up the carpets and knock the furniture about and to print off thousands of impressions of their shoes upon the hall and staircase the council downstairs are in full conclave all this time and having nothing to do perform perfect feats of eating at length they are one day summoned in a body to Mrs. Pipchin's room and thus addressed by the fair Peruvian your masters in difficulties says Mrs. Pipchin tartly you know that I suppose Mr. Talonson as spokesman admits a general knowledge of the fact and you're all on the lookout for yourselves I warrant you says Mrs. Pipchin shaking her head at them a shrill voice from the rear exclaims no more than yourself that's your opinion Mrs. Imprudence is it says the ireful Pipchin looking with a fiery eye over the intermediate heads yes Mrs. Pipchin it is, replies Cook advancing and what then pray why then you may go as soon as you like says Mrs. Pipchin the sooner the better and I hope I shall never see your face again with this the doubty Pipchin produces a canvas bag and tells her wages out to that day and a month beyond it and clutches the money tight until a receipt for the same is duly signed to the last upstroke when she grudgingly lets it go this form of proceeding Mrs. Pipchin repeats with every member of the household until all are paid now those that choose can go about their business says Mrs. Pipchin and those that choose can stay here on board wages for a week or so and make themselves useful except says the infamable Pipchin that slut of a cook who go immediately that says Cook she certainly will I wish you good day Mrs. Pipchin and sincerely wish I could compliment you on the sweetness of your appearance get along with you says Mrs. Pipchin stamping her foot Cook sails off with an air of beneficent dignity highly exasperating to Mrs. Pipchin and is shortly joined below stares by the rest of the confederation Mr. Talinson then says that in the first place he would beg to propose a little snack of something to eat and over that snack would desire to offer a suggestion which he thinks will meet the position in which they find themselves the refreshment being produced and very heartily partaken of Mr. Talinson's suggestion is in effect that Cook is going and that if we are not true to ourselves nobody will be true to us that they have lived in that house a long time and exerted themselves very much to be sociable together at this Cook says with emotion here here and Mrs. Pirch who is there again and full to the throat sheds tears and that he thinks to be go on, go all the housemaid is much affected by this generous sentiment and warmly seconds it Cook says she feels it's right and only hopes it is not done as a compliment to her but from a sense of duty Mr. Talinson replies from a sense of duty and that now he is driven to express his opinions and say that he does not think it over respectable to remain in a house where sales and such like are carrying forwards the housemaid is sure of it and relates in confirmation that a strange man in a carpet cap offered this very morning to kiss her on the stairs here upon Mr. Talinson is starting from his chair to seek and smash the offender when he is laid hold on by the ladies who beseech him to calm himself and to reflect that it is easier and wiser to leave the scene of such indecenties at once Mrs. Pirch presenting the case in a new light even shows that delicacy towards Mr. Dombie shut up in his own room imperatively demands a treat for what says the good woman must his feelings be if he was to come upon any of the poor servants that he once deceived into thinking him immensely rich Cook is so struck by this moral consideration that Mrs. Pirch improves it with several pious axioms original and selected it becomes a clear case that they must all go boxes are packed cabs fetched and at dusk that evening there is not one member of the party left the house stands large and weatherproof in the long dull street but it is a ruin and the rats fly from it the men in the carpet caps go on tumbling the furniture about and the gentlemen with the pens and ink the conservatories of it and sit upon pieces of furniture never made to be sat upon and eat bread and cheese from the public house on other pieces of furniture never made to be eaten on and seem to have a delight in appropriating precious articles to strange uses chaotic combinations of furniture also take place mattresses and bedding appear in the dining room the conservatory the great dinner service is set out in heaps on the long divan in the large drawing room and the stair wires made into facies decorate the marble chimney pieces finally a rug with a printed bill upon it is hung out from the balcony and a similar appendage graces either side of the hall door then all day long of moldy gigs and shez carts in the street and herds of shabby vampires Jew and Christian overrun the house sounding the plate glass mirrors with their knuckles striking discordant octaves on the grand piano drawing wet forefingers over the pictures breathing on the blades of the best dinner knives punching the squabs of chairs and sofas with their dirty fists touseling the feather beds opening and shutting all the drawers balancing the silver spoons and forks looking into the very threads of the drapery and linen and disparaging everything there is not a secret place in the whole house fluffy and snuffy strangers stare into the kitchen range as curiously as into the attic closed press stout men with napless hats on look out of the bedroom windows and cut jokes with friends in the street quiet calculating spirits withdraw into the drawing rooms with catalogs and make marginal notes thereon with stumps of pencils two brokers invade the very fire escape and take a panoramic survey of the neighborhood from the top of the house the swarm buzz and going up and down in door for days the capital modern household furniture etc is on view then there is a palisade of tables made in the best drawing room and on the capital french polished extending telescopic range of spanish mahogany dining tables with turned legs the pulpit of the auctioneer is erected and the herds of shabby vampires Jew and Christian the strangers fluffy and snuffy and the stout men with the napless hats congregate about it and sit upon everything within reach mantle pieces included and begin to bid hot humming and dusty other rooms all day and high above the heat hum and dust the head and shoulders the summer of the auctioneer are ever at work the men in the carpet caps get flustered and vicious with tumbling the lots about and still the lots are going going gone still coming on sometimes there is joking and a general roar this lasts all day and three days following the capital modern household furniture etc is on sale then the moldy gigs and shes carts reappear and with them come spring vans and wagons and an army of portas with knots all day long the men with carpet caps are screwing at screwdrivers and bed winches or staggering by the dozen together on the staircase under heavy burdens or up heaving perfect rocks of spanish mahogany into the gigs and shes carts vans and wagons all sorts of vehicles of burden are in attendance from a tilted wagon to a wheel barrel poor paul's little bedstead is carried off in a donkey tandem for nearly a whole week the capital modern household furniture etc is in course of removal at last it is all gone nothing is left about the house but scattered leaves of catalogs littered scraps of straw and hay and a battery of pewter pots behind the hall door the men with the carpet caps gather up their screwdrivers and bed winches into bags shoulder them and walk off one of the pen and ink gentlemen goes over the house as a last attention sticking up bills in the windows respecting the lease of this desirable family mansion and shutting the shutters at length he follows the men with the carpet caps none of the invaders remain the house is a ruin and the rats fly from it mrs. pipchins apartments together with those locked rooms on the ground floor where the window blinds are drawn down close have been spared the general devastation mrs. pipchins has remained austere and stony during the proceedings in her own room or has occasionally looked in at the sale to see what the goods are fetching and to bid for one particular easy chair mrs. pipchins has been the highest bidder for the easy chair and sits upon her property when mrs. chick comes to see her how is my brother mrs. pipchins says mrs. chick i don't know any more than the deuce says mrs. pipchins he never does me the honor to speak to me he has his meat and drink put in the next room to his own and what he takes he comes out and takes when there's nobody there it's no use asking me i know no more about him he's the south who burnt his mouth by eating cold plum porridge this the acrimonious pipchins says with a flounce but good gracious me cries mrs. chick blandly how long is this to last if my brother will not make an effort mrs. pipchins what is to become of him i am sure i should have thought he had seen enough of the consequences of not making an effort by this time he was warned against that fatal error hoity-toity says mrs. pipchins rubbing her nose there's a great fuss i think about it it ain't so wonderful a case people have had misfortunes before now and been obliged to part with their furniture i'm sure i have my brother pursues mrs. chick profoundly is so peculiar so strange a man he's the most peculiar man i ever saw but would anyone believe that when he received news of the marriage and emigration of that unnatural child it's a comfort to me now to remember that i always said there was something extraordinary about that child but nobody minds me would anybody believe i say that he should then turn round upon me and say he had supposed from my manner that she was my house why my gracious and would anybody believe that when i merely say to him paul i may be very foolish and i have no doubt i am but i cannot understand how your affairs can have got into this state he should actually fly at me and request that i will come to see him no more until he asks me why my goodness ah says mrs. pipchen it's a pity he hadn't a little more to do with minds they'd have tried his temper for him and what resumes mrs. chick quite regardless of mrs. pipchen's observations is it to end in that's what i want to know what does my brother mean to do he must do something it's of no use remaining shut up in his own rooms and come to him no he must go to it then why don't he go he knows where to go i suppose having been a man of business all his life very good then why not go there mrs. chick after forging this powerful chain of reasoning remains silent for a moment to admire it besides says the discreet lady with an argumentative air who ever heard of such obstinacy as his staying shut up here through all these dreadful disagreeables it's not as if there was no place for him to go to of course he could have come to our house he knows he is at home there i suppose mrs. chick has perfectly bored about it and i said with my own lips why surely paul you don't imagine that because we've got into this state you are the less at home to such near relatives as ourselves you don't imagine that we are like the rest of the world but no here he stays all through and here he is why good gracious me suppose the house was to be let what would he do then he couldn't remain here then if he attempted to do so there would be an ejectment an action for dough and then he must go and why not go at first instead of at last and that brings me back to what i said just now and i naturally ask what is to be the end of it i know what's to be the end of it as far as i am concerned replies mrs. pipchen and that's enough for me i'm going to take myself off in a jiffy in a witch mrs. pipchen says mrs. chick in a jiffy retorts mrs. pipchen sharply ah well really i can't blame you mrs. pipchen says mrs. chick with frankness it would be pretty much the same to me if you could replies the sardonic pipchen at any rate i'm going i can't stop here i should be dead in a week i had to cook my own pork chop yesterday and i'm not used to it my constitution will be giving way next besides i had a very fair connection at brighton when i came here little pankies folks alone were worth a good eighty pounds a year to me and i can't afford to throw it away i've written to my niece and she expects me by this time have you spoken to my brother inquires mrs. chick oh yes it's very easy to say speak to him retorts mrs. pipchen how is it done i called out to him yesterday that i was no use here and that he had better let me send for mrs. richards he grunted something or other that meant yes and i sent grunt indeed if he had been mr. pipchen he'd have had some reason to grunt yeah i've no patience with it here this exemplary female who has pumped up so much fortitude and virtue from the depths of the peruvian minds rises from her cushion property to see mrs. chick to the door mrs. chick deploring to the last the peculiar character of her brother noiselessly retires much occupied with her own sagacity and clearness of head in the dusk of the evening mr. tutel being off duty arrives with poly and a box and leaves them with a sounding kiss in the hall of the empty house the retired character of which affects mr. tutel's spirits strongly i tell you what poly my dear says mr. tutel being now an engine driver and well to do in the world i shouldn't allow of your coming here to be made dull like if it weren't for favors past but favors past poly is never to be forgot to them which is in adversity besides your face is a chordal so let's have another kiss on it my dear you wish no better than to do a right act i know and my views is that it's right and dutiful to do this good night poly mrs. pipchen by this time looms dark in her black bombazine skirts black bonnet and shawl and has her personal property packed up and has her chair late a favorite chair of mr. donby's and the dead bargain sale ready near the street door and is only waiting for a fly van going tonight to brighten on private service which is to call for her by private contract and convey her home presently it comes mrs. pipchen's wardrobe being handed in and stowed away mrs. pipchen's chair is next handed in and placed in a convenient corner among certain trusses of hay it being the intention of the amiable woman to occupy the chair during her journey mrs. pipchen herself is next handed in and grimly takes her seat there is a snaky gleam in her hard grey eye as of anticipated rounds of buttered toast relays of hot chops worryings and quellings of young children sharp snappings at poor berry and all the other delights of her ogres' castle mrs. pipchen almost laughs as the fly van drives off and she composes her black bombazine skirts and settles herself among the cushions of her easy chair the house is such a ruin that the rats have fled and there is not one left but Polly alone in the deserted mansion for there is no companionship in the shut up rooms in which its late master hides his head is not alone long it is night and she is sitting at work in the housekeeper's room trying to forget what a lonely house it is and what a history belongs to it when there is a knock at the hall door as loud sounding as any door can be striking into such an empty place opening it she returns across the echoing hall accompanied by a female figure in a close black bonnet it is Ms. Tox and Ms. Tox's eyes are red oh Polly says Ms. Tox when I looked in to have a little lesson with the children just now I thought I could recover my spirits at all I came on after you is there no one here but you ah not a soul says Polly have you seen him whispers Ms. Tox bless you returns Polly no he has not been seen this many a day they tell me he never leaves his room is he said to be ill inquires Ms. Tox no ma'am not that I know of returns Polly except in his mind he must be very bad there poor gentlemen Ms. Tox's sympathy is such that she can hardly speak she is no chicken but she has not grown tough with age and celibacy her heart is very tender her compassion very genuine her homage very real beneath the locket with the fishy eye in it Ms. Tox bears better qualities than many whimsical outside such qualities as will outlive by many courses of the sun the best outsides and brightest husks that fall in the harvest of the great reaper it is long before Ms. Tox goes away and before Polly with a candle flaring on the blank stairs looks after her for company down the street and feels unwilling to go back into the dreary house and jar its emptiness with the heavy fastenings of the door and glide away to bed but all this Polly does and in the morning sets in one of those darkened rooms such matters as she has been advised to prepare and then retires and enters them no more until next morning at the same hour there are bells there but they never ring so she can sometimes hear a footfall going to and fro it never comes out Ms. Tox returns early in the day it then begins to be Ms. Tox's occupation to prepare little dainties or what are such to her to be carried into these rooms next morning she derives so much satisfaction from the pursuit that she enters on it regularly from that time daily in her little basket various choice condiments selected from the scanty stores of the deceased owner of the powdered head and pigtail she likewise brings in sheets of curl paper morsels of cold meats tongues of sheep halves of fowls for her own dinner and sharing these collations with Polly passes the greater part of her time in the ruined house the rats have fled from hiding in a fright at every sound stealing in and out like a criminal only desiring to be true to the fallen object of her admiration unknown to him unknown to all the world but one poor simple woman the major knows it but no one is the wiser for that though the major is much the merrier the major in a fit of curiosity has charged the native to watch the house sometimes and find out what becomes of Dombie the native has reported Miss Tox's fidelity and the major has nearly choked himself dead with laughter he is permanently bluer from that hour and constantly wheezes to himself his lobster eyes starting out of his head Dami sir the woman's a born idiot and the ruined man how does he pass the hours alone let him remember it in that room years to come he did remember it it was heavy on his mind now heavier than all the rest let him remember it in that room years to come the rain that falls upon the roof the wind that mourns outside the door may have foreknowledge in their melancholy sound let him remember it in that room years to come he did remember it in the miserable night he thought of it in the dreary day the wretched dawn the ghostly memory haunted twilight he did remember it in agony and sorrow in remorse and despair papa, papa, speak to me dear papa he heard the words again and saw the face he saw it fall upon the trembling hands and heard the one prolonged low cry go upward he was fallen never to be raised up anymore for the night of his worldly ruin there was no tomorrow's sun for the stain of his domestic shame there was no purification nothing, thank heaven, could bring his dead child back to life but that which he might have made so different in all the past which might have made the past itself so different though this he hardly thought of now that which was his own work that which he could so easily have wrought into a blessing and had set himself so steadily for years to form into a curse that was the sharp grief of his soul oh he did remember it the rain that fell upon the roof the wind that mourned outside the door that night had had foreknowledge in their melancholy sound he knew now what he had done he knew now what he had called down upon his head which bowed it lower than the heaviest stroke of fortune he knew now what it was to be rejected and deserted now when every loving blossom he had withered in his innocent daughter's heart was snowing down in ashes on him he thought of her as she had been that night when he and his bride came home he thought of her as she had been in all the home events of the abandoned house he thought now all around him she alone had never changed his boy had faded into dust his proud wife had sunk into a polluted creature his flatterer and friend had been transformed into the worst of villains his riches had melted away the very walls that sheltered him looked on him as a stranger she alone had turned the same mild gentle look upon him always yes to the latest and the last she had never changed to him nor had he ever changed to her and she was lost as one by one they fell away from his mind his baby hope his wife his friend his fortune oh how the mist through which he had seen her cleared and showed him her true self oh how much better that he had loved her as he had his boy and lost her as he had his boy and laid them in their early grave together in his pride for he was proud yet he let the world go from him freely as it fell away he shook it off whether he imagined its face as expressing pity for him or indifference to him he shunned it alike it was in the same degree to be avoided in either aspect he had no idea of any one companion in his misery but the one he had driven away what he would have said to her or what consolation submitted to receive from her he never pictured to himself but he always knew she would have been true to him if he had suffered her he always knew she would have loved him better now than at any other time he was as certain that it was in her nature as he was that there was a sky above him and he sat thinking so in his loneliness from hour to hour day after day uttered this speech night after night showed him this knowledge it began beyond all doubt however slow it advanced for some time he was at the seat of her young husband's letter and the certainty that she was gone and yet so proud he was in his ruin or so reminiscent of her only as something that might have been his but was lost beyond redemption that if he could have heard her voice in an adjoining room he would not have gone to her if he could have seen her in the street and she had done no more than look at him as she had been used to look he would have passed on with his old cold unforgiving face and not addressed her or relaxed it though his heart should have broken soon afterwards however turbulent his thoughts or harsh his anger had been at first concerning her marriage or her husband that was all past now he chiefly thought he would have been and what was not what was was all summed up in this that she was lost and he bowed down with sorrow and remorse and now he felt that he had had two children born to him in that house and that between him and the bare wide empty walls there was a tie mournful but hard to rend a double loss he had thought to leave the house knowing he must go not knowing wither upon the evening of the day on which this feeling first struck root in his breast but he resolved to stay another night and in the night to ramble through the rooms once more he came out of his solitude when it was the dead of night and with a candle in his hand went softly up the stairs of all the foot marks there making them as common as the common street there was not one he thought but had seemed at the time to set itself upon his brain while he had kept close listening he looked at their number and their hurry and contention foot treading foot out and upward track and downward dostling one another and thought with absolute dread and wonder how much he must have suffered during that trial and what a changed man he had caused to be he thought besides oh was there somewhere in the world a light footstep that might have worn out in a moment half those marks and bent his head and wept as he went up he almost thought going on before he stopped looking up towards the skylight and a figure childish itself but carrying a child and singing as it went seemed to be there again anon it was the same figure alone stopping for an instant with suspended breath the bright hair clustering loosely round its tearful face and looking back at him he heard through the rooms lately so luxurious now so bare and dismal and so changed apparently even in their shape and size the press of footsteps was as thick here and the same consideration of the suffering he had had perplexed and terrified him he began to fear that all this intricacy was of him mad and that his thoughts already lost coherence as the footprints did and were pieced on to one another with the same trackless involutions and varieties of indistinct shapes he did not so much as know in which of these rooms she had lived when she was alone he was glad to leave them and go wandering higher up the abundance of associations were here connected with his false wife his false friend and servant his false grounds of pride but he put them all by now and only recalled miserably, weekly, fondly his two children everywhere the footsteps they had had no respect for the old room high up where the little bed had been he could hardly find a clear space there to throw himself down on the floor against the wall poor broken man and let his tears flow as they would he had shed so many tears here long ago that he was less ashamed of his weakness in this place than in any other perhaps with that consciousness had made excuses to himself for coming here here with stooping shoulders and his chin dropped on his breast he had come here thrown upon the bare boards in the dead of night he wept alone a proud man even then who, if a kind hand could have been stretched out or a kind face could have looked in would have risen up and turned away and gone down to his cell when the day broke in his rooms again he had meant to go away today but clung to this tie in the house as the last and only thing left to him he would go to-morrow to-morrow came he would go to-morrow every night within the knowledge of no human creature he came forth and wandered through the disboiled house like a ghost many a morning when the day broke in his place drooping behind the clothes blind in his window imperfectly transparent to the light as yet pondered on the loss of his two children it was one child no more he reunited them in his thoughts and they were never asunder oh, that he could have united them in his past love and in death stronger than death strong mental agitation and disturbance was no novelty to him even before his late sufferings it never is to obstinate and sullen natures for they struggle hard to be such ground long undermined will often fall down in a moment what was undermined here in so many ways little by little more and more as the hand moved on the dial at last he began to think he need not go at all he might yet give up what his creditors had spared him that they had not spared him more was his own act and only sever the tie between him and the ruined house by severing that other link it was then that his footfall was audible in the late housekeeper's room as he walked to and fro but not audible in its true meaning or it would have had an appalling sound the world was very busy and restless about him he became aware of that again it was whispering and babbling it was never quiet this and the intricacy and complication of the footsteps harassed him to death objects began to take a bleared and russet color in his eyes Dambe and son was no more his children no more this must be thought of well tomorrow he thought of it tomorrow and sitting thinking in his chair saw in the glass from time to time haggard wasted likeness of himself brooded and brooded over the empty fireplace now it lifted up its head examining the lines and hollows in its face now hung it down again and brooded afresh now it rose and walked about now passed into the next room and came back with something on the dressing table in his breast now it was looking at the bottom of the door and thinking hush what it was thinking that if blood were to trickle that way and to leak out into the hall it must be a long time going so far it would move so stealthily and slowly creeping on with here a lazy little pool and there a start and then another little pool that a desperately wounded man could only be discovered through its means either dead or dying when it had thought of this a long while it got up again and walked to and fro with its hand in its breast he glanced at it occasionally very curious to watch its motions marked how wicked and murderous that hand looked now it was thinking again what was it thinking whether they would tread in the blood when it crept so far and carried about the house among those many prints of feet or even out into the street it sat down with its eyes upon the empty fireplace as it lost itself in thought they're shown into the room a gleam of light a ray of sun it was quite unmindful and sat thinking suddenly it rose with a terrible face and that guilty hand grasping what was in its breast then it was arrested by a cry a wild loud piercing loving rapturous cry he only saw his own reflection in the glass and at his knees his daughter yes, his daughter look at her, look here down upon the ground clinging to him, calling to him folding her hands praying to him papa, dearest papa pardon me, forgive me I have come back to ask forgiveness on my knees unchanged still of all the world unchanged raising the same face to his as on that miserable night asking his forgiveness dear papa oh don't look strangely on me I never meant to leave you I never thought of it before or afterwards I was frightened when I went away and could not think papa, dear impenitent I know my fault I know my duty better now papa, don't cast me off or I shall die he tottered to his chair he felt her draw his arms about her neck he felt her put her own round his he felt her kisses on his face he felt her wet cheek laid against his own he felt oh how deeply all that he had done blessed that he had bruised against the heart that he had almost broken she laid his face now covered with his hands and said sobbing papa, love I am a mother I have a child who will soon call Walter by the name by which I call you when it was born and when I knew how much I loved it I knew what I had done forgive me, dear papa oh, say God bless me and my little child he would have said it if he could he would have raised his hands and besought her for pardon but she caught them in her own and put them down hurriedly my little child was born at sea papa, I prayed to God and so did Walter for me to spare me that I might come home the moment I could land I came back to you never let us be parted anymore papa his head now gray was encircled by her arm and he groaned to think that never never had it rested so before you will come home with me papa and see my baby a boy papa his name is paul I think I hope he's like his tears stopped her papa for the sake of my child for the sake of the name we have given him for my sake, pardon Walter he is so kind and so tender to me I am so happy with him it was not his fault that we were married it was mine, I loved him so much she clung closer to him more endearing and more earnest he is the darling of my heart papa, I would die for him we will love and honor you as I will we will teach our little child to love and honor you and we will tell him when he can understand that you had a son of that name once and that he died and that you were very sorry but that he has gone to heaven where we all hope to see him when our time for resting comes kiss me papa as a promise that you will be reconciled to Walter to the husband to the father of the little child who taught me to come back papa who taught me to come back as she clung closer to him in another burst of tears he kissed her on the lips and lifting up his eyes said oh my god forgive me for I need it very much with that he dropped his head again lamenting over harassing her and there was not a sound in all the house for a long long time they remained clasped in one another's arms in the glorious sunshine that had crept in with Florence he dressed himself for going out with a docile submission to her entreaty and walking with a feeble gate and looking back with a tremble at the room in which he had been so long shut up in where he had seen the picture in the glass passed out with her into the hall Florence hardly glancing round her lest she should remind him freshly of their last parting for their feet were on the very stones where he had struck her in his madness and keeping close to him with her eyes upon his face and his arm about her led him out to a coach and carried him away then Miss Tox and Polly came out of their concealment and exalted tearfully and then they packed his clothes and books and so forth with great care and consigned them in due course to certain persons sent by Florence in the evening to fetch them and then they took a last cup of tea in the lonely house and so Dambi and Son as I observed upon a certain sad occasion said Miss Tox winding up a host of recollections is indeed a daughter Polly after all and a good one exclaimed Polly you are right said Miss Tox and it's a credit to you Polly that you were always her friend when she was a little child you were her friend long before I was Polly said Miss Tox and you're a good creature Robin Miss Tox addressed herself to a bullet headed young man who appeared to be in but in different circumstances and in depressed spirits and who was sitting in a remote corner rising he disclosed to view the form and features of the grinder Robin said Miss Tox I have just observed to your mother as you may have heard that she is a good creature and so she is Miss quote the grinder with some feeling very well Robin said Miss Tox I am glad to hear you say some now Robin as I am going to give you a trial at your urgent request as my domestic with a view to your restoration to respectability I will take this impressive occasion of remarking that I hope you will never forget that you have and always have always had a good mother and that you will endeavor so to conduct yourself as to be a comfort to her upon my soul I will miss return the grinder I have come through a good deal and my intentions is now as straight forward Miss as a coves I must get you to break yourself of that word Robin if you please into pose Miss Tox if you please Miss as a chaps thank you Robin no return Miss Tox I should prefer individual as a individual said the grinder much better remark Miss Tox complacently infinitely more expressive can be pursued Rob if I hadn't been and got made a grinder on Miss and mother which was a most unfortunate circumstance for a young co individual very good indeed observed Miss Tox approvingly and if I hadn't been led away by birds and then fallen into a bad service said the grinder I hope I might have done better but it's never too late for a ind suggested Miss Tox whittle said the grinder to mend and I hope to mend Miss with your kind trial and wishing mother my love to father and brothers and sisters and saying of it I am very glad indeed to hear it observed Miss Tox will you take a little bread and butter and a cup of tea before we go Robin thank you Miss return the grinder who immediately began to use his own personal grinders in a most remarkable manner had been on very short allowance for a considerable period Miss Tox being in good time and shalt and Polly too Rob hugged his mother and followed his new mistress away so much to the hopeful admiration of Polly that something in her eyes made luminous rings around the gas lamps as she looked after him Polly then walked out her light locked the house door delivered the key at an agent's hard buy and went home as fast as she could go rejoicing in the shrill delight that her unexpected arrival would occasion there the great house dumb as to all that had been suffered in it and the changes it had witnessed stood frowning like a dark mute on the street balking any near inquiries with the staring announcement that the lease of this family mansion was to be disposed of end of chapter 59