 CHAPTER 40 Domestic Relations. It was not in the nature of things that a man of Mr. Dombie's mood, opposed to such a spirit as he had raised against himself, should be softened in the imperious asperity of his temper, or that the cold hard armour of pride in which he lived encased, should be made more flexible by constant collision with haughty scorn and defiance. It is the curse of such a nature. It is a main part of the heavy retribution on itself, it bears within itself, that while deference and concession swell its evil qualities, and are the food it grows upon, resistance and a questioning of its exacting claims foster it too, no less. The evil that is in it finds equally its means of growth and propagation in opposites. It draws support and life from sweets and bitters, bowed down before, or unacknowledged, it still enslaves the breast in which it has its throne, and, worshipped or rejected, is as hard a master as the devil in dark fables. Towards his first wife, Mr. Dombie, in his cold and lofty arrogance, had borne himself like the removed being he almost conceived himself to be. He had been Mr. Dombie with her when she first saw him, and he was Mr. Dombie when she died. He had asserted his greatness during their whole married life, and she had meekly recognized it. He had kept his distant seat of state on the top of his throne, and she, her humble station on its lowest step, and much good it had done him, so to live in solitary bondage to his one idea. He had imagined that the proud character of his second wife would have been added to his own, would have merged into it, and exalted his greatness. He had pictured himself haughtier than ever, with Edith's haughtiness subservient to his. He had never entertained the possibility of its arraying itself against him. And now, when he found it rising in his path at every step and turn of his daily life, fixing its cold, defiant, and contemptuous face upon him, this pride of his, instead of withering or hanging down its head beneath the shock, put forth new shoots, became more concentrated and intense, more gloomy, sullen, irksome, and unyielding than it had ever been before. Who wears such armor, too, bears with him ever another heavy retribution. It is of proof against conciliation, love, and confidence, against all gentle sympathy from without, all trust, all tenderness, all soft emotion, but to deep stabs in the self-love. It is as vulnerable as the bare breast to steal, and such tormenting festers wrinkle there, as follow on no other wounds, no, though dealt with the mailed hand of pride itself, in weaker pride, disarmed and thrown down. Such wounds were his. He felt them sharply in the solitude of his old rooms, whether he now began often to retire again and pass long solitary hours. It seemed his fate to be ever proud and powerful, ever humbled and powerless where he would be most strong. Who seemed fated to work out that doom? Who? Who was it who could win his wife as she had won his boy? Who was it who had shown him that new victory as he sat in the dark corner? Who was it whose least word did what his utmost means could not? Who was it who, unaided by his love, regard or notice, thrived and grew beautiful when those so aided died? Who could it be but the same child at whom he had often glanced uneasily in her motherless infancy, for the kind of dread lest he might come to hate her, and of whom his foreboding was fulfilled, for he did hate her in his heart? Yes, and he would have it hatred, and he made it hatred, though some sparkles of the light in which she had appeared before him on the memorable night of his return home with his bride, occasionally hung about her still. He knew now that she was beautiful. He did not dispute that she was graceful and winning, and that in the bright dawn of her womanhood she had come upon him a surprise. But he turned even this against her. In his sullen and unwholesome brooding, the unhappy man, with a dull perception of his alienation from all hearts, and a vague yearning for what he had all his life repelled, made a distorted picture of his rights and wrongs, and justified himself with it against her. The worthier she promised to be of him, the greater claim he was disposed to antedate upon her duty and submission. When had she ever shown him duty and submission? Did she grace his life, or Edith's? Had her attractions been manifest at first to him, or Edith? Why, he and she had never been, from her birth, like father and child. They had always been estranged. She had crossed him every way and everywhere. She was leagued against him now. Her very beauty softened natures that were obdurate to him, and insulted him with an unnatural triumph. It may have been that in all this there were mutterings of an awakened feeling in his breast, however selfishly aroused by his position of disadvantage, in comparison with what she might have made his life. But he silenced the distant thunder with the rolling of his sea of pride. He would bear nothing but his pride, and in his pride, a heap of inconsistency and misery and self-inflicted torment, he hated her. To the moody, stubborn, sullen demon that possessed him, his wife opposed her different pride in its full force. They never could have led a happy life together, but nothing could have made it more unhappy than the willful and determined warfare of such elements. His pride was set upon maintaining his magnificent supremacy, and forcing recognition of it from her. She would have been wracked to death, and turned but her haughty glance of calm inflexible disdain upon him to the last. Such recognition from Edith. He little knew through what a storm and struggle she had been driven onward to the crowning honor of his hand. He little knew how much she thought she had conceded when she suffered him to call her wife. Mr. Dombey was resolved to show her that he was supreme. There must be no will but his. Proud he desired that she should be, but she must be proud for, not against him. As he sat alone, hardening, he would often hear her go out and come home, treading the round of London life with no more heed of his liking or disliking, pleasure or displeasure, than if he had been her groom. Her cold supreme indifference, his own unquestioned attribute usurped, stung him more than any other kind of treatment could have done, and he determined to bend her to his magnificent and stately will. She had been long communing with these thoughts, when one night he sought her in her own apartment after he had heard her return home late. She was alone in her brilliant dress, and had but that moment come from her mother's room. Her face was melancholy-impensive when he came upon her, but it marked him at the door. Four glancing at the mirror before it, he saw immediately, as in a picture frame, the knitted brow and darkened beauty that he knew so well. Mrs. Dombie, he said, entering, I must beg leave to have a few words with you. Tomorrow, she replied, there is no time like the present, madam, he returned. You mistake your position. I am used to choose my own times, not to have them chosen for me. I think you scarcely understand who and what I am, Mrs. Dombie. I think, she answered, that I understand you very well. She looked upon him as she said so, and folding her white arms, sparkling with gold and gems, upon her swelling breast, turned away her eyes. If she had been less handsome, and less stately in her cold composure, she might not have had the power of impressing him with the sense of disadvantage that penetrated through his utmost pride. But she had the power, and he felt it keenly. He glanced round the room, saw how the splendid means of personal adornment, and the luxuries of dress, were scattered here and there and disregarded, not in mere caprice and carelessness, or so he thought, but in a steadfast, haughty disregard of costly things, and felt it more and more. Chaplets of flowers, plumes of feathers, jewels, laces, soaks and satins, look where he would, he saw riches, despised, poured out, and made of no account. The very diamonds, a marriage-gift, that rose and fell impatiently upon her bosom, seemed to pent to break the chain that clasped them round her neck, and rolled down on the floor where she might tread upon them. He felt his disadvantage, and he showed it. Solemn and strange among this wealth of colour and voluptuous litter, strange and constrained towards its haughty mistress, whose repellent beauty it repeated, and presented all around him as in so many fragments of a mirror, he was conscious of embarrassment and awkwardness. Nothing that ministered to her disdainful self-possession could fail to gall him. Children irritated with himself, he sat down, and went on in no improved humour. Mrs. Dombie, it is very necessary that there should be some understanding arrived at between us. Your conduct does not please me, madam. She merely glanced at him again, and again averted her eyes, but she might have spoken for an hour, and expressed less. I repeat, Mrs. Dombie, does not please me. I have already taken occasion to request that it may be corrected. I now insist upon it. You chose a fitting occasion for your first remonstrance, sir, and you adopt a fitting manner and a fitting word for your second. You insist? To me. Madam, said Mr. Dombie, with his most offensive air of state. I have made you my wife. You bear my name. You are associated with my position and my reputation. I will not say that the world in general may be disposed to think you honoured by that association, but I will say that I am accustomed to insist to my connections and dependence. Which may you be pleased to consider me? She asked. Surely I may think that my wife should partake, or does partake, and cannot help herself, of both characters, Mrs. Dombie. She bent her eyes upon him steadily, and set her trembling lips. He saw her bosomthrob, and saw her face flush and turn white. All this he could know and did, but he could not know that one word was whispering in the deep recesses of her heart to keep her quiet, and that the word was Florence. Blind idiot, rushing to a precipice, he thought she stood in awe of him. You are too expensive, madam, said Mr. Dombie. You are extravagant. You waste a great deal of money, or what would be a great deal in the pockets of most gentlemen, in cultivating a kind of society that is useless to me, and indeed that upon the whole is disagreeable to me. I have to insist upon a total change in all these respects. I know that in the novelty of possessing a tithe of such means as fortune has placed at your disposal, ladies are apt to run into a sudden extreme. There has been more than enough of that extreme. I beg that Mrs. Granger's very different experiences may now come to the instruction of Mrs. Dombie. Still the fixed look, the trembling lips, the throbbing breast, the face now crimson and now white, and still the deep whisper, Florence, Florence, speaking to her in the beating of her heart. His insolence of self-importance dilated as he saw this alteration in her. Swollen no less by her past scorn of him and his so recent feeling of disadvantage than by her present submission, as he took it to be, it became too mighty for his breast and burst all bounds. Why, who could long resist his lofty will and pleasure? He had resolved to conquer her, and look here. You will further please, madam, said Mr. Dombie in a tone of sovereign command, to understand distinctly that I am to be deferred to and obeyed, that I must have a positive show and confession of deference before the world, madam. I am used to this. I require it as my right. In short, I will have it. I consider it no unreasonable return for the worldly advancement that has befallen you, and I believe nobody will be surprised, either at its being required from you, or at your making it, to me, to me, he added, with emphasis. No word from her, no change in her, her eyes upon him. I have learnt from your mother, Mrs. Dombie, said Mr. Dombie, with magisterial importance, what no doubt you know namely, that Brighton is recommended for her health. Mr. Carker has been so good, she changed suddenly, her face and bosom glowed as if the red light of an angry sunset had been flung upon them. Not unobservant of the change, and putting his own interpretation upon it, Mr. Dombie resumed. Mr. Carker has been so good as to go down and secure a house there for a time. On the return of the establishment to London, I shall take such steps for its better management as I consider necessary. One of these will be the engagement at Brighton, if it is to be effected, of a very respectable reduced person there, a Mrs. Pipchen, formerly employed in a situation of trust in my family, to act as housekeeper. An establishment like this, presided over but nominally, Mrs. Dombie, requires a competent head. She had changed her attitude before he arrived at these words, and now sat, still looking at him fixedly, turning a bracelet round and round upon her arm. Not winding it about with a light, womanly touch, but pressing and dragging it over the smooth skin until the white limb showed a bar of red. "'I observed,' said Mr. Dombie, and this concludes what I deem it necessary to say to you at present, Mrs. Dombie, "'I observed a moment ago, madam, and my allusion to Mr. Carker was received in a peculiar manner. On the occasion of my happening to point out to you, before that confidential agent, the objection I had to your mode of receiving my visitors, you were pleased to object to his presence. You will have to get to the better of that objection, madam, and to accustom yourself to it very probably on many similar occasions, unless you adopt the remedy which is in your own hands of giving me no cause of complaint.' Mr. Carker, said Mr. Dombie, who, after the emotion he had just seen, set great stall by this means of reducing his proud wife, and who was perhaps sufficiently willing to exhibit his power to that gentleman in a new and triumphant aspect. "'Mr. Carker, being in my confidence, Mrs. Dombie, may very well be in yours to such an extent. I hope, Mrs. Dombie,' he continued, after a few moments, during which in his increasing haughtiness he had improved on his idea. "'I may not find it necessary ever to entrust Mr. Carker with any message of objection or remonstrance to you. But as it would be derogatory to my position and reputation to be frequently holding trivial disputes with the lady upon whom I have conferred the highest distinction that is in my power to bestow, I shall not scruple to avail myself of his services if I see the occasion. And now,' he thought, rising in his moral magnificence, and rising a stiffer and more impenetrable man than ever, she knows me and my resolution. The hand that had so pressed the bracelet was laid heavily upon her breast, but she looked at him still, with an unaltered face, and said in a low voice, "'Wait, for God's sake, I must speak to you.' Why did she not? And what was the inward struggle that rendered her incapable of doing so for minutes, while in the strong constraint she put upon her face it was as fixed as any statues, looking upon him with neither yielding nor unyielding, liking nor hatred, pride nor humility, nothing but a searching gaze? Did I ever tempt you to seek my hand? Did I ever use any art to win you? Was I ever more conciliating to you when you pursued me than I have been since our marriage? Was I ever other to you than I am?' "'It is wholly unnecessary, madame,' said Mr. Dombie, to enter upon such discussions. "'Did you think I loved you? Did you know I did not? Did you ever care, man, for my heart, or propose to yourself to win the worthless thing? Was there any poor pretence of any in our bargain, upon your side, or on mine?' "'These questions,' said Mr. Dombie, are all wide of the purpose, madame. She moved between him and the door to prevent his going away, and drawing her majestic figure to its height, looked steadily upon him still. "'You answer each of them. You answer me before I speak, I see. How can you help it? You who know the miserable truth as well as I now tell me, if I loved you to devotion, could I do more than render up my whole will and being to you as you have just demanded? If my heart were pure and all untried and you its idle, could you ask more? Could you have more?' "'Possibly not, madame,' he returned coolly. "'You know how different I am. You see me looking on you now, and you can read the warmth of passion for you that is breathing in my face. Not a curl of the proud lip, not a flash of the dark eye. Nothing but the same intent and searching look accompanied these words. You know my general history. You have spoken of my mother. Do you think you can degrade or bend or break me to submission and obedience?' Mr. Donby smiled, as he might have smiled at an inquiry whether he thought he could raise ten thousand pounds. "'If there is anything unusual here,' she said, with a slight motion of her hand before her brow, which did not for a moment flinch from its immovable and otherwise expressionless gaze, as I know there are unusual feelings here.' Raising the hand, she pressed upon her bosom and heavily returned it. "'Consider that there is no common meaning in the appeal I am going to make you. Yes, for I am going,' she said it as impromptu reply to something in his face, "'to appeal to you.' Mr. Donby, with a slight condescending bend of his chin, that rustled and crackled his stiff cravat, sat down on a sofa that was near him, to hear the appeal. "'If you can believe that I am of such a nature now,' he fancied he saw tears glistening in her eyes, and he thought complacently that he had forced him from her, though none fell on her cheek, and she regarded him as steadily as ever. As would make what I now say almost incredible to myself, said to any man who had become my husband, but above all said to you, you may perhaps attach the greater weight to it. In the dark end to which we are tending, and may come, we shall not involve ourselves alone. That might not be much. But others. Others. He knew at whom that word pointed, and frowned heavily. "'I speak to you for the sake of others, also your own sake, and for mine. Since our marriage you have been arrogant to me, and I have repaid you in kind. You have shown to me, and everyone around us, every day and hour, that you think I am graced and distinguished by your alliance. I do not think so, and have shown that too. It seems you do not understand, or, so far as your power can go, intend that each of us shall take a separate course, and you expect from me instead a homage you will never have.' Although her face was still the same, there was emphatic confirmation of this never, in the very breath she drew. I feel no tenderness towards you, that you know. You would care nothing for it, if I did or could. I know as well that you feel none towards me, but we are linked together, and in the knot that ties us, as I have said, others are bound up. We must both die, we are both connected with the dead already, each by a little child. Let us forbear.' Mr. Donby took a long respiration, as if you would have said, oh, was this all? There is no wealth, she went on turning paler as she watched him, while her eyes grew yet more lustrous in their earnestness. That could buy these words of me, and the meaning that belongs to them. Once cast away as idle breath, no wealth or power can bring them back. I mean them. I have weighed them, and I will be true to what I undertake. If you will promise to forbear on your part, I will promise to forbear on mine. We are a most unhappy pair, in whom, from different causes, every sentiment that blesses marriage, or justifies it, is rooted out. But in the course of time, some friendship, or some fitness for each other, may arise between us. I will try to hope so, if you will make the endeavour, too, and I will look forward to a better and happier use of age than I have made of youth or prime. Throughout she had spoken in a low plain voice that neither rose nor fell. Ceasing, she dropped the hand with which she had enforced herself to be so passionless and distinct, but not the eyes with which she had so steadily observed him. Madam! said Mr. Donby, with his utmost dignity. I cannot entertain any proposal of this extraordinary nature. She looked at him yet without the least change. I cannot, said Mr. Donby, rising as he spoke, consent to temporise or treat with you, Mrs. Donby, upon a subject as to which you are in possession of my opinions and expectations. I have stated my ultimatum, madam, and have only to request your very serious attention to it. To see the face changed to its old expression, deepened in intensity. To see the eyes droop, as from some mean and odious object. To see the lighting of the haughty brow. To see scorn, anger, indignation, and abhorrence starting into sight. And the pale blank earnestness vanish like a mist. He could not choose but look, although he looked to his dismay. Go, sir! she said, pointing with an imperious hand towards the door. Our first and last confidence is at an end. Nothing can make us stranger to each other than we are henceforth. I shall take my rightful course, madam, said Mr. Donby. Undeterred, you may be sure, by any general declamation. She turned her back upon him, and, without reply, sat down before her glass. I place my reliance on your improved sense of duty, and more correct feeling, and better reflection, madam, said Mr. Donby. She answered not one word. He saw no more expression of any heed of him in the mirror than if he had been an unseen spider on the wall, or beetle on the floor. Or rather, than if he had been the one or other seen and crushed when she last turned from him, and forgotten among the ignominious and dead vermin of the ground. He looked back, as he went out at the door, upon the well-lighted and luxurious room, the beautiful and glittering objects everywhere displayed, the shape of Edith in its rich dress seated before her glass, and the face of Edith as the glass presented it to him, and betook himself to his old chamber of cogitation, carrying away with him a vivid picture in his mind of all these things, and a rambling and unaccountable speculation, such as sometimes comes into a man's head, how they would all look when he saw them next. For the rest, Mr. Donby was very taciturn, and very dignified, and very confident of carrying out his purpose, and remained so. He did not design accompanying the family to Brighton, but he graciously informed Cleopatra at breakfast on the morning of departure, which arrived a day or two afterwards, that he might be expected down soon. There was no time to be lost in getting Cleopatra to any place recommended as being salutary, for indeed she seemed upon the wane and turning of the earth earthy. Without having undergone any decided second attack of her malady, the old woman seemed to have crawled backward in her recovery from the first. She was more lean and shrunken, more uncertain in her imbecility, and made strange confusions in her mind and memory. Among other symptoms of this last affliction, she fell into the habit of confounding the names of her two sons-in-law, the living and the deceased, and in general called Mr. Donby either Grangeby or Domba, or indifferently both. But she was youthful, very youthful still, and in her youthfulness appeared at breakfast, before going away in a new bonnet made express, and a travelling robe that was embroidered and braided like an old baby's. It was not easy to put her into a flyaway bonnet now, or to keep the bonnet in its place on the back of her poor nodding head, when it was got on. In this instance it had not only the extraneous effect of being always on one side, but of being perpetually tapped on the crown by flowers the maid, who attended in the background during breakfast to perform that duty. Now, my dearest Grangeby, said Mrs. Scootin, you must positively prom. She cut some of her words short, and cut out others altogether. Come down very soon. I said, just now, madam, turned Mr. Donby loudly and laboriously, that I am coming in a day or two. Bless you, Domba. Here the Major, who has come to take leave of the ladies, and who was staring through his apoplectic eyes at Mrs. Scootin's face, with the disinterested composure of an immortal being, said, Begad, man, you don't ask old Joe to come. Stereo stretch. Who's he? Lisped, Cleopatra. But a tap on the bonnet from flowers seemed to jog her memory. She added, Oh, you mean yourself, you naughty creature. Devilish queer, sir, whispered the Major to Mr. Donby. Bad case, never did wrap up enough. The Major being buttoned to the chin. Why, who should JB mean by Joe, but old Joe Bagstock, Joseph, your slave, Joe, ma'am. Here, here's the man, here are the Bagstock bellows, ma'am, cried the Major, striking himself a sounding blow on the chest. My dearest Edith, Grangeby, it's most troddenery thing, said Cleopatra petishly, that Major Bagstock, JB cried the Major, seeing that she faltered for his name. Well, it don't matter, said Cleopatra. Edith, my love, you know, I never could remember names. What was it? Oh, most troddenery thing that so many people want to come down to see me, I'm not going for long, I'm coming back. Surely they can wait till I come back? Cleopatra looked all round the table, she said it, and appeared very uneasy. I won't have visitors, really don't want visitors. She said, little repose, and all that sort of thing is what I acquire. No oldious brutes must approach me till I've shaken off this numbness. And in a grisly resumption of her coquettish ways, she made a dab at the Major with her fan. But overset Mr. Dombie's breakfast cup instead, which was in quite a different direction. Then she called for withers, and charged him to see, particularly, that word was left about, some trivial alterations in her room, which must be all made before she came back, and which must be set about immediately, as there was no saying how soon she might come back, for she had a great many engagements, and all sorts of people to call upon. Withers received these directions with becoming deference, and gave his guarantee for their execution. But when he withdrew a pace or two behind her, it appeared as if he couldn't help looking strangely at the Major, who couldn't help looking strangely at Mr. Dombie, who couldn't help looking strangely at Cleopatra, who couldn't help nodding her bonnet over one eye, and rattling her knife and fork upon her plate and using them, as if she were playing castanets. Edith alone never lifted her eyes to any face at the table, and never seemed dismayed by anything her mother said or did. She listened to her disjointed talk, or at least turned her head towards her when addressed, replied in a few low words when necessary, and sometimes stopped her when she was rambling, or brought her thoughts back with a monosyllable to the point from which they had strayed. The mother, however unsteady in other things, was constant in this, that she was always observant of her. She would look at the beautiful face in its marble stillness and severity, now with the kind of fearful admiration, now in a giggling, foolish effort to move it to a smile, now with capricious tears and jealous shakings of her head, as imagining herself neglected by it, always with an attraction towards it, that never fluctuated like her other ideas, but had constant possession of her. From Edith she would sometimes look at Florence, and back again at Edith, in a manner that was wild enough, and sometimes she would try to look elsewhere as if to escape from her daughter's face, but back to it she seemed forced to come, although it never sought hers unless sought, or troubled her with one single glance. The best concluded, Mrs. Stuton, affecting to lean girlishly upon the Major's arm, but heavily supported on the other side by flowers the maid, and propped up behind by withers the page, was conducted to the carriage, which was to take her, Florence, and Edith, to Brighton. And is Joseph absolutely banished? said the Major, thrusting in his purple face over the steps? dare, ma'am! is Cleopatra so hard-hearted as to forbid her faithful entity, Bankstock, to approach the presence. Go along, said Cleopatra. I can't bear you. You shall see me when I come back, if you are very good. Tell Joseph, he may live and hope, ma'am, said the Major, or he'll die in despair. Cleopatra shuddered and leaned back. Edith, my dear, she said. Tell him what? Such dreadful words, said Cleopatra. He uses such dreadful words. Edith signed to him to retire, gave the word to go on, and left the objectionable Major to Mr. Dombie, to whom he returned whistling. I'll tell you what, sir? said the Major, with his hands behind him and his legs very wide asunder. A fair friend of ours has removed to Queer Street. What do you mean, Major? inquired Mr. Dombie. I mean to say, Dombie, returned the Major, that you'll soon be an orphan in law. Mr. Dombie appeared to relish this waggish description of himself so very little that the Major wound up with the horse's cough as an expression of gravity. Damn, sir, said the Major, there is no use in disguising a fact. Joe is blunt, sir. That's his nature. If you take old Josh at all, you take him as you find him, and a devilish, rusty old rasper of a close-toothed JB file, you do find him, Dombie. Said the Major, your wife's mother is on the move, sir. I fear, returned Mr. Dombie with much philosophy, that Mrs. Scuton is shaken. Shaken, Dombie, said the Major, smash it. Change, however, pursued Mr. Dombie, and attention may do much yet. Don't believe it, sir, returned the Major. Damn, sir, she never wrapped up enough. If a man don't wrap up, said the Major, taking in another button of his buff waistcoat, he has nothing to fall back upon. But some people will die. They will do it. Damn, they will. They're obstinate. I tell you what, Dombie, it may not be ornamental, it may not be refined, it may be rough and tough, but a little of the genuine old English bag-stock stamina, sir, would do all the good in the world to the human breed. After imparting this precious piece of information, the Major, who was certainly true blue, whatever other endowments he may have had or wanted, coming within the genuine old English classification, which has never been exactly ascertained, took his lobster eyes and his apoplexy to the club, and choked there all day. Cleopatra, at one time fretful, at another self-complacent, sometimes awake, sometimes asleep, and at all times juvenile, reached Brighton the same night, fell to pieces as usual, and was put away in bed, where a gloomy fancy might have pictured a more potent skeleton than the maid who should have been one, watching at the rose-coloured curtains, which were carried down to shed their bloom upon her. It was settled in High Council of Medical Authority that she should take a carriage airing every day, and that it was important she should get out every day and walk if she could. Edith was ready to attend her, always ready to attend her, with the same mechanical attention and immovable beauty. And they drove out alone, for Edith had an uneasiness in the presence of Florence, now that her mother was worse, and told Florence with a kiss that she would rather they too went alone. Mrs. Gutten, on one particular day, was in the irresolute, exacting, jealous temper that had developed itself on her recovery from her first attack. After sitting silent in the carriage watching Edith for some time, she took her hand and kissed it passionately. The hand was neither given nor withdrawn, but simply yielded to her raising of it, and being released, dropped down again, almost as if it were insensible. At this she began to whimper and moan, and say what a mother she had been, and how she was forgotten. This she continued to do at capricious intervals, even when they had alighted, when she herself was halting along with the joint support of withers and a stick, and Edith was walking by her side, and the carriage slowly following at a little distance. It was a bleak, lowering, windy day, and they were out upon the downs with nothing but a bare sweep of land between them and the sky. The mother, with a crerillous satisfaction in the monotony of her complaint, was still repeating it in a low voice from time to time, and the proud form of her daughter moved beside her slowly. When there came advancing over a dark ridge before them, two other figures, which in the distance were so like an exaggerated imitation of their own, that Edith stopped. Almost as she stopped, the two figures stopped, and that one which, to Edith's thinking, was like a distorted shadow of her mother, spoke to the other earnestly, and with a pointing hand towards them. That one seemed inclined to turn back, but the other, in which Edith recognized enough that was like herself to strike her with an unusual feeling, not quite free from fear, came on, and then they came on together. The greater part of this observation she made while walking towards them, for her stoppage had been momentary. Neera observation showed her that they were poorly dressed as wanderers about the country, that the younger woman carried knitted work, or some such goods for sale, and that the old one toiled on empty-handed. And yet, however far removed she was in dress, in dignity, in beauty, Edith could not but compare the younger woman with herself still. It may have been that she saw upon her face some traces which she knew were lingering in her own soul, if not yet written on that index. But as the woman came on, returning her gaze, fixing her shining eyes upon her, undoubtedly presenting something of her own air and stature, and appearing to reciprocate her own thoughts, she felt a chill keep over her, as if the day were darkening, and the wind were colder. They had now come up. The old woman, holding out her hand, importunately, stopped to beg of Mrs. Gutten. The younger one stopped too, and she and Edith looked in one another's eyes. What is it that you have to sell? said Edith. Only this, returned the woman, holding out her wares, without looking at them. I sold myself long ago. My lady, don't believe her! croaked the old woman to Mrs. Gutten. Don't believe what she says! She loves to talk like that. She's my handsome and undutiful daughter. She gives me nothing but reproaches, my lady, for all I have done for her. Look at her now, my lady, how she turns upon her poor old mother with her looks. As Mrs. Gutten drew her purse out with a trembling hand, and eagerly fumbled for some money, which the other old woman greedily watched for, their heads all but touching in their hurry and decrepitude, Edith interposed. I have seen you, addressing the old woman, before. Yes, my lady, with the curtsy, down in Warwickshire, the morning among the trees, when you wouldn't give me nothing, but the gentleman he give me something. Oh, bless him, bless him! mumbled the old woman, holding up her skinny hand and grinning frightfully at her daughter. It's of no use attempting to stay at me, Edith, said Mrs. Gutten, angrily anticipating an objection from her. You know nothing about it. I won't be dissuaded. I am sure this is an excellent woman and a good mother. Yes, my lady, yes. Chatter the old woman, holding out her avaricious hand. Thank ye, my lady, Lord bless you, my lady, sixpence more, my pretty lady, as a good maver yourself. And treated, undutifully enough, too, my good old creature. Sometimes I assure you, said Mrs. Gutten, whimpering, there, shake hands with me. You're a very good old creature, full of what is name, and all that. You're all affection and etc. Ain't you? Oh, yes, my lady. Yes, I'm sure you are, and so's that, a gentlemanly creature, Grangeby. I must really shake hands with you again. And now you can go, you know, and I hope, addressing the daughter, that you show more gratitude and natural what is name, and all the rest of it. But I never remember names, for there never was a better mother than a good old creature's being to you. Come, Edith. As the ruin of Cleopatra tottered off, whimpering and wiping its eyes of the gingerly remembrance of Rouge in their neighborhood, the old woman hobbled another way, mumbling and counting her money. Not one word more, nor one other gesture, had been exchanged between Edith and the younger woman, but neither had removed her eyes from the other for a moment. They had remained confronted until now, when Edith, as awakening from a dream, passed slowly on. You're a handsome woman, muttered her shadow, looking after her, but good looks won't save us. And you're a proud woman, but pride won't save us. We had need to know each other, when we meet again. End of Chapter 40 Chapter 41 of Dumbie 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. Recorded by Mill Nicholson. Dumbie and Son by Charles Dickens. Chapter 41 New Voices in the Waves All is going on as it was won't. The waves are hoarse with repetition of their mystery. The dust lies piled upon the shore. The seabirds soar and hover. The winds and clouds go forth upon their trackless flight. The white arms beckon in the moonlight, to the invisible country far away. With a tender melancholy pleasure, Florence finds herself again on the old ground so sadly trodden, yet so happily, and thinks of him in the quiet place, where he and she have many and many a time conversed together with the water welling up about his couch. And now, as she sits pensive there, she hears in the wild low murmur of the sea, his little story, told again, his very words repeated, and finds that all her life and hopes, and griefs, since, in the solitary house, and in the pageant it has changed to, have a portion in the burden of the marvellous song. And gentle Mr. Toots, who wanders at a distance, looking wistfully towards the figure that he dotes upon, and has followed there, but cannot in his delicacy disturb at such a time, likewise hears the requiem of little Dumbie on the waters, rising and falling in the lulls of their eternal madrigal in praise of Florence. Yes, and he faintly understands, poor Mr. Toots, that they are saying something of a time when he was sensible of being brighter and not Addlebrained, and the tears rising in his eyes when he fears that he is dull and stupid now, and good for little but to be laughed at, diminish his satisfaction in their soothing reminder that he is relieved from present responsibility to the chicken, by the absence of that game-head of poultry in the country, training, at Toots' cost, for his great mill with the larky boy. But Mr. Toots takes courage, when they whisper a kind thought to him, and by slow degrees and with many indecisive stoppages on the way, approaches Florence, stammering and blushing, Mr. Toots affects amazement when he comes near her, and says, having followed close on the carriage in which she travelled every inch of the way from London, loving even to be choked by the dust of its wheels, that he never was so surprised in all his life. And you've brought Diogenes to, Mr. Dumbie, says Mr. Toots, thrilled through and through by the touch of the small hand so pleasantly and frankly given him. No doubt Diogenes is there, and no doubt Mr. Toots has reason to observe him, for he comes straightway at Mr. Toots' legs, and tumbles over himself in the desperation with which he makes at him, like a very dog of Montagus. But he is checked by his sweet mistress. Down, Di, down! Don't you remember who first made us friends, Di? For shame! Oh, well may Di lay his loving cheek against her hand, and run off, and run back, and run round her, barking, and run headlong at anybody coming by to show his devotion. Mr. Toots would run headlong at anybody, too. A military gentleman goes past, and Mr. Toots would like nothing better than to run at him full tilt. Diogenes is quite in his native air, isn't he, Mr. Dumbie? says Mr. Toots. Florence ascents with a grateful smile. Miss Dumbie? says Mr. Toots. Beg your pardon, but if you would like to walk to Blimbers, I—I'm going there. Florence puts her arm in that of Mr. Toots without a word, and they walk away together with Diogenes going on before. Mr. Toots' legs shake under him, and though he is splendidly dressed, he feels misfits and sees wrinkles in the masterpieces of Burgess and Coe, and wishes he had put on that brightest pair of boots. Dr. Blimbers' house, outside, has as scholastic and studious an air as ever, and up there is the window where she used to look for the pale face, and where the pale face brightened when it saw her, and the wasted little hand waved kisses as she passed. The door is opened by the same weak-eyed young man, whose imbecility of grin at sight of Mr. Toots is feebleness of character personified. They are shown into the doctor's study, where blind Homer and Minerva give them audience as of yore, to the sober ticking of the great clock in the hall, and where the globes stand still in their accustomed places, as if the world were stationary too, and nothing in it ever perished in obedience to the universal law, that, while it keeps on the roll, calls everything to earth. And here is Dr. Blimber with his learned legs, and here is Mrs. Blimber with her sky-blue cap, and here Cornelia with her sandy little row of curls and her bright spectacles, still working like a sexton in the graves of languages. Here is the table upon which he sat for lawn and strange, the new boy of the school, and hither comes the distant cooing of the old boys at their old lives in the old room on the old principal. Toots, says Dr. Blimber. I am very glad to see you, Toots. Mr. Toots chuckles in reply. Also to see you, Toots, in such good company, says Dr. Blimber. Mr. Toots, with a scarlet visage, explains that he has met Ms. Domby by accident, and that Ms. Domby wishing, like himself, to see the old place, they have come together. You will like, says Dr. Blimber, to step among our young friends, Ms. Domby, no doubt, all fellow students of yours, Toots, once. I think we have no new disciples in our little portico, my dear, says Dr. Blimber to Cornelia, since Mr. Toots left us. Except Bithystone returns Cornelia. I truly, says the doctor, Bithystone is new to Mr. Toots. New to Florence too, almost, for in the schoolroom, Bithystone, no longer master Bithystone of Mrs. Pipchins, shows in collars and a netcloth, and wears a watch. But Bithystone, born beneath some Bengal star of Iloman, is extremely inky, and his lexicon has got so dropsical from constant reference that it won't shut, and yawns as if it really could not bear to be so bothered. So does Bithystone, its master, forced at Dr. Blimber's highest pressure, but in the yawn of Bithystone there is malice and snarl, and he has been heard to say that he wishes he could catch old Blimber in India. He, precious, soon find himself carried up the country by a few of his Bithystones Coolies, and handed over to the Thugs, he can tell him that. Briggs is still grinding in the mill of knowledge, and Tozer too, and Johnson too, and all the rest, the older pupils being principally engaged in forgetting, with prodigious labour, everything they knew when they were younger. All are as polite and as pale as ever, and among them Mr. Feder B. A., with his bony hand and bristly head, is still hard at it, with his herodotus stop unjust at present, and his other barrels on a shelf behind him. A mighty sensation is created, even among these grave young gentlemen, by a visit from the emancipated Toots, who is regarded with a kind of awe, as one who has passed the Rubicon, and is pledged never to come back, and concerning the cut of whose clothes and fashion of whose jewellery whispers go about behind hands, the billious Bithystone, who is not of Mr. Toots' time, affecting to despise the latter to the smaller boys, and saying he knows better, and that he should like to see him coming that sort of thing in Bengal, where his mother had got an emerald belonging to him, that was taken out of the footstool of a raja. Come now! Bewildering emotions are awakened also by the sight of Florence, with whom every young gentleman immediately falls in love again, except, as aforesaid, the billious Bithystone, who declines to do so out of contradiction. Black jealousies of Mr. Toots arise, and Briggs is of opinion that he ain't so very old after all, but this disparaging insinuation is speedily made nought by Mr. Toots saying aloud to Mr. Feeder, B.A., How are you, Feeder? and asking him to come and dine with him today at the Bedford, in right of which feats he might set up as old par, if he chose, unquestioned. There is much shaking of hands, and much bowing, and a great desire on the part of each young gentleman to take Toots down in Miss Dombie's good graces. And then Mr. Toots having bestowed a chuckle on his old desk, Florence and he withdraw with Mrs. Blimber and Cornelia, and Dr. Blimber is heard to observe behind them as he comes out last, and shuts the door. Gentlemen, we will now resume our studies. For that, and little else, is what the doctor hears the sea say, or has heard it saying, all his life. Florence then steals away and goes upstairs to the old bedroom with Mrs. Blimber and Cornelia. Mr. Toots, who feels that neither he nor anybody else is wanted there, stands talking to the doctor at the study door, or rather hearing the doctor talk to him, and wondering how he ever thought the study a great sanctuary, and the doctor, with his round turned legs, like a clerical pianoforte, an awful man. Florence soon comes down and takes leave. Mr. Toots takes leave, and Iogenes, who has been worrying the weak-eyed young man pitilessly all the time, shoots out at the door, and barks a glad defiance down the cliff. While Melia, and another of the doctor's female domestics, looks out of an upper window, laughing at that there, Toots, and saying of Miss Dombie, but really though now, ain't she like her brother only prettier. Mr. Toots, who saw when Florence came down that there were tears upon her face, is desperately anxious and uneasy, and at first fears that he did wrong in proposing the visit. But he is soon relieved by her saying she's very glad to have been there again, and by her talking quite cheerfully about it all as they walked on by the sea. What were the voices there, and her sweet voice, when they come near Mr. Dombie's house, and Mr. Toots must leave her? He is so enslaved that he has not a scrap of free will left. When she gives him her hand at parting, he cannot let it go. Miss Dombie, I beg your pardon, says Mr. Toots in a sad fluster. But if you would allow me to do the smiling and unconscious look of Florence, brings him to a dead stop. If you would allow me to, if you would not consider it liberty, Miss Dombie, if I was to, without any encouragement at all, if I was to hope, you know, says Mr. Toots. Florence looks at him inquiringly. Miss Dombie, says Mr. Toots, who feels that he is in for it now. I really am in that state of adoration of you, that I don't know what to do with myself. I am the most deplorable wretch. If it wasn't at the corner of the square at present, I should go down on my knees and beg and entreat of you, without any encouragement at all, just to let me hope that I may, may, may think it possible that you... Oh, if you please don't, cries Florence, for the moment quite alarmed and distressed. Oh, pray don't, Mr. Toots. Stop, if you please. Don't say any more, as a kindness and a favour to me don't. Mr. Toots is dreadfully abashed, and his mouth opens. You have been so good to me, says Florence. I am so grateful to you. I have such reason to like you for being a kind friend to me, and I do like you so much. And here the ingenuous face smiles upon him with the pleasantest look of honesty in the world, that I am sure you are only going to say goodbye. Goodbye. Uh, certainly, Miss Donby, says Mr. Toots. I, I, that's exactly what I mean. It, it, it of no consequence. Goodbye. cries Florence. Goodbye, Miss Donby. Stammers, Mr. Toots. I hope you won't think anything about it. It, it, it of no consequence, thank you. It's not of the least consequence in the world. Poor Mr. Toots goes home to his hotel in a state of desperation, locks himself into his bedroom, flings himself upon his bed, and lies there for a long time, as if it were of the greatest consequence nevertheless. But Mr. Feder B.A. is coming to dinner, which happens well for Mr. Toots, or there is no knowing when he might get up again. Mr. Toots is obliged to get up to receive him, and to give him hospitable entertainment. And the generous influence of that social virtue, hospitality, to make no mention of wine and good cheer, opens Mr. Toots' heart, and warms him to conversation. He does not tell Mr. Feder B.A. what passed at the corner of the square, but when Mr. Feder asks him when it is to come off, Mr. Toots replies that there are certain subjects, which brings Mr. Feder down a peg or two immediately. Mr. Toots adds that he don't know what right Blimber had to notice his being in Miss Dombie's company, and that if he thought he meant impudence by it, he'd have him out, doctor or no doctor, but he supposes it's only his ignorance. Mr. Feder says he has no doubt of it. Mr. Feder, however, as an intimate friend, is not excluded from the subject. Mr. Toots merely requires that it should be mentioned mysteriously and with feeling. After a few glasses of wine, he gives Miss Dombie's health, observing, Feder, you have no idea of the sentiments with which I propose that toast. Mr. Feder replies, oh yes, I have my dear Toots, and greatly they redound to your honour, old boy. Mr. Feder is then agitated by friendship and shakes hands, and says if ever Toots wants a brother, he knows where to find him, either by post or parcel. Mr. Feder likewise says that if he may advise, he would recommend Mr. Toots to learn the guitar, or at least the flute, for women like music, when you are paying your addresses to him, and he has found the advantage of it himself. This brings Mr. Feder B.A. to the confession that he has his eye upon Cornelia Blimber. He informs Mr. Toots that he don't object to spectacles, and that if the doctor were to do the handsome thing and give up the business, why there they are provided for. He says it's his opinion that when a man has made a handsome sum by his business, he is bound to give it up, and that Cornelia would be an assistance in it, which any man might be proud of. Mr. Toots replies by launching wildly out into Miss Dombie's praises, and by insinuations that sometimes he thinks he should like to blow his brains out. Mr. Feder strongly urges that it would be a rash attempt, and shows him as a reconcilment to existence Cornelia's portrait, spectacles and all. Thus these quiet spirits pass the evening, and when it has yielded place tonight, Mr. Toots walks home with Mr. Feder, and parts with him at Dr. Blimber's door. But Mr. Feder only goes up the steps, and when Mr. Toots is gone, comes down again to stroll upon the beach alone, and think about his prospects. Mr. Feder plainly hears the waves informing him, as he loiters along, that Dr. Blimber will give up the business, and he feels a soft, romantic pleasure in looking at the outside of the house, and thinking that the doctor will first paint it, and put it into thorough repair. Mr. Toots is likewise roaming up and down, outside the casket that contains his jewel, and in a deplorable condition of mind, and not unsuspected by the police, gazes at a window where he sees a light, and which he has no doubt is Florence's. But it is not, for that is Mrs. Scuton's room. And while Florence, sleeping in another chamber, dreams lovingly in the midst of the old scenes and their old associations live again, the figure which in grim reality is substituted for the patient boys on the same theatre, wants more to connect it, but how differently, with decay and death, is stretched there, wakeful and complaining. Ugly and haggard it lies upon its bed of unrest, and by it in the terror of her impassioned loveliness, for it has terror and the sufferer's failing eyes, sits Edith. What do the waves say, in the stillness of the night, to them? Edith. What of that stone arm raised to strike me? Don't you see it? There is nothing, Mother, but your fancy. That's my fancy. Everything is my fancy. Look, is it possible that you don't see it? Edith. Indeed, Mother, there is nothing. Should I sit unmoved, if there were any such thing there? Edith. Unmoved. Edith. Looking wildly at her. Edith. It's gone now. And why are you so unmoved? That is not my fancy, Edith. It turns me cold to see you sitting at my side. Edith. I am sorry, Mother. Edith. Sorry. You seem always sorry. But it is not for me. Edith. With that she cries, and tossing her restless head from side to side upon her pillow, runs on about neglect, and the mother she has been, and the mother the good old creature was whom they met, and the cold return the daughters of such mothers make. In the midst of her incoherence, she stops, looks at her daughter, cries out that her wits are going, and hides her face upon the bed. Edith, in compassion, bends over her, and speaks to her. The sick old woman clutches her round the neck, and says, for the look of horror, Edith. Almost. Going back. You mean that I shall go home again? Edith. Yes, Mother. Yes. Mother. And what he said, what his name, I never could remember names. Major, that dreadful word, when we came away, it's not true, Edith. Edith. With a shriek and a stare. Mother. It's not that. That is the matter with me. Edith. Night after night, the lights burn in the window. And the figure lies upon the bed, and Edith sits beside it, and the restless waves are calling to them both the whole night long. Night after night, the waves are hoarse with repetition of their mystery. The dust lies piled upon the shore. The seabirds soar and hover. The winds at clouds are on their trackless flight. The white arms beckon in the moonlight to the invisible country far away. And still the sick old woman looks into the corner, where the stone arm, part of a figure of some tomb, she says, is raised to strike her. At last it falls. And then a dumb old woman lies upon the bed, and she is crooked and shrunk up, and half of her is dead. Such is the figure painted and patched for the sun to mock, that is drawn slowly through the crowd from day to day, looking as it goes for the good old creature who is such a mother, and making mouths as it peers among the crowd in vain. Such is the figure that is often wheeled down to the margin of the sea and stationed there, but on which no wind can blow freshness, and for which the murmur of the ocean has no soothing word. She lies and listens to it by the hour, but its speech is dark and gloomy to her, and a dread is on her face. And when her eyes wander over the expanse, they see but a broad stretch of desolation between earth and heaven. Florence she seldom sees, and when she does, is angry with and mows at. Edith is beside her always, and keeps Florence away, and Florence, in her bed at night, trembles at the thought of death in such a shape, and often wakes and listens, thinking it has come. No one attends on her but Edith. It is better that few eyes should see her, and her daughter watches alone by the bedside. A shadow even on that shadowed face, a sharpening even of the sharpened features, and a thickening of the veil before the eyes into a pall that chuts out the dim world, is come. Her wandering hands upon the covalet join feebly, palm to palm, and move towards her daughter. And a voice, not like hers, not like any voice that speaks our mortal language, says, For I nursed you. Edith, without a tear, kneels down to bring her voice closer to the sinking head, and answers, Mother, can you hear me? Staring wide, she tries to nod in answer. Can you recollect the night before I married? The head is motionless, but it expresses somehow that she does. I told you then that I forgave your part in it, and prayed God to forgive my own. I told you that time past was at an end between us. I say so now again. Kiss me, Mother. Edith touches the white lips, and for a moment all is still. A moment afterwards, her mother, with her girlish laugh, and the skeleton of the Cleopatra manor, rises in her bed. Draw the rose-colored curtains. There is something else upon its flight beside the wind and clouds. Draw the rose-colored curtains close. Intelligence of the event is sent to Mr. Dombie in town, who waits upon Cousin Phoenix, not yet able to make up his mind for Barden-Barden, who has just received it too. A good-natured creature like Cousin Phoenix is the very man for a marriage or a funeral, and his position in the family renders it right that he should be consulted. Dombie, says Cousin Phoenix. Upon my soul I am very much shocked to see you on such a melancholy occasion. My poor aunt, she was a devilish, lively woman. Mr. Dombie replies, very much so. And made up, says Cousin Phoenix, really young, you know, considering I am sure on the day of your marriage I thought she was good for another twenty years. In point of fact, I said so to a man at Brooks's, little Billy Jopper. You know him no doubt, man with a glass in his eye. Mr. Dombie bows a negative. In reference to the obsequies, he hints, whether there is any suggestion, well, upon my life, says Cousin Phoenix, stroking his chin, which he has just enough of hand below his wristbands to do. I really don't know. There's a morselin down at my place in the park, but I'm afraid it's in bad repair and in point of fact in a devil of a state. But for being a little out at elbows, I should have had it put to rights. But I believe the people come and make picnic parties there inside the iron railings. Mr. Dombie is clear that this won't do. There's an uncommon good church in the village, says Cousin Phoenix thoughtfully, pure specimen of the Anglo-Norman style and admirably well sketched to by Lady Jane Finchbury, woman with tight stays. But they've spoilt it with white wash, I understand, and it's a long journey. Perhaps Brighton itself, Mr. Dombie suggests. Upon my honour, Dombie, I don't think we could do better, says Cousin Phoenix. It's on the spot, you see, in a very cheerful place. And when, hints Mr. Dombie, would it be convenient? I shall make a point, says Cousin Phoenix, of pledging myself for any day you think best. I shall have great pleasure, melancholy pleasure, of course, in following my poor aunt to the confines of the, in point of fact, to the grave, says Cousin Phoenix, failing in the other turn of speech. Would Monday do for leaving town? says Mr. Dombie. Monday would suit me to perfection, replies Cousin Phoenix. Therefore Mr. Dombie arranges to take Cousin Phoenix down on that day, and presently takes his leave, attended to the stairs by Cousin Phoenix, who says at parting, I'm really excessively sorry, Dombie, that you should have so much trouble about it. To which Mr. Dombie answers, not at all. At the appointed time, Cousin Phoenix and Mr. Dombie meet, and go down to Brighton, and representing in their two selves all the other mourners for the deceased lady's loss, attend her remains to their place of rest. Cousin Phoenix, sitting in the morning coach, recognizes innumerable acquaintances on the road, but takes no other notice of them, in decorum, and checking them off aloud, as they go by, for Mr. Dombie's information, as Tom Johnson, man with cork leg from whites. What are you here, Tommy? Foley on a blood mare. The smaller girls. And so forth. At the ceremony Cousin Phoenix is depressed, observing that these are the occasions to make a man think in point of fact that he is getting shaky and his eyes are really moistened when it is over. But he soon recovers, and so do the rest of Mrs. Scuton's relatives and friends, of whom the major continually tells the club that she never did wrap up enough, while the young lady with the back, who has so much trouble with her eyelids, says with a little scream that she must have been enormously old, and that she died of all kinds of horrors, and you mustn't mention it. So Edith's mother lies unmentioned of her dear friends, who are deaf to the waves that are hoarse with repetition of their mystery, and blind to the dust that is piled upon the shore, and to the white arms that are beckoning in the moonlight to the invisible country far away. But all goes on, as it was won't, upon the margin of the unknown sea. And Edith, standing there alone, and listening to its waves, has dank weed cast up at her feet to strew her path in life with all.