Dombey and Son

by Charles Dickens

  'How long is this ago?' asked Mr Dombey, making another halt.

  'Edith Granger, Sir,' replied the Major, shutting one eye, putting his head on one side, passing his cane into his left hand, and smoothing his shirt-frill with his right, 'is, at this present time, not quite thirty. And damme, Sir,' said the Major, shouldering his stick once more, and walking on again, 'she's a peerless woman!'

  'Was there any family?' asked Mr Dombey presently.

  'Yes, Sir,' said the Major. 'There was a boy.'

  Mr Dombey's eyes sought the ground, and a shade came over his face.

  'Who was drowned, Sir,' pursued the Major. 'When a child of four or five years old.'

  'Indeed?' said Mr Dombey, raising his head.

  'By the upsetting of a boat in which his nurse had no business to have put him,' said the Major. 'That's his history. Edith Granger is Edith Granger still; but if tough old Joey B., Sir, were a little younger and a little richer, the name of that immortal paragon should be Bagstock.'

  The Major heaved his shoulders, and his cheeks, and laughed more like an over-fed Mephistopheles than ever, as he said the words.

  'Provided the lady made no objection, I suppose?' said Mr Dombey coldly.

  'By Gad, Sir,' said the Major, 'the Bagstock breed are not accustomed to that sort of obstacle. Though it's true enough that Edith might have married twenty times, but for being proud, Sir, proud.'

  Mr Dombey seemed, by his face, to think no worse of her for that.

  'It's a great quality after all,' said the Major. 'By the Lord, it's a high quality! Dombey! You are proud yourself, and your friend, Old Joe, respects you for it, Sir.'

  With this tribute to the character of his ally, which seemed to be wrung from him by the force of circumstances and the irresistible tendency of their conversation, the Major closed the subject, and glided into a general exposition of the extent to which he had been beloved and doted on by splendid women and brilliant creatures.

  On the next day but one, Mr Dombey and the Major encountered the Honourable Mrs Skewton and her daughter in the Pump-room; on the day after, they met them again very near the place where they had met them first. After meeting them thus, three or four times in all, it became a point of mere civility to old acquaintances that the Major should go there one evening. Mr Dombey had not originally intended to pay visits, but on the Major announcing this intention, he said he would have the pleasure of accompanying him. So the Major told the Native to go round before dinner, and say, with his and Mr Dombey's compliments, that they would have the honour of visiting the ladies that same evening, if the ladies were alone. In answer to which message, the Native brought back a very small note with a very large quantity of scent about it, indited by the Honourable Mrs Skewton to Major Bagstock, and briefly saying, 'You are a shocking bear and I have a great mind not to forgive you, but if you are very good indeed,' which was underlined, 'you may come. Compliments (in which Edith unites) to Mr Dombey.'

  The Honourable Mrs Skewton and her daughter, Mrs Granger, resided, while at Leamington, in lodgings that were fashionable enough and dear enough, but rather limited in point of space and conveniences; so that the Honourable Mrs Skewton, being in bed, had her feet in the window and her head in the fireplace, while the Honourable Mrs Skewton's maid was quartered in a closet within the drawing-room, so extremely small, that, to avoid developing the whole of its accommodations, she was obliged to writhe in and out of the door like a beautiful serpent.

  Withers, the wan page, slept out of the house immediately under the tiles at a neighbouring milk-shop; and the wheeled chair, which was the stone of that young Sisyphus, passed the night in a shed belonging to the same dairy, where new-laid eggs were produced by the poultry connected with the establishment, who roosted on a broken donkey-cart, persuaded, to all appearance, that it grew there, and was a species of tree.

  Mr Dombey and the Major found Mrs Skewton arranged, as Cleopatra, among the cushions of a sofa: very airily dressed; and certainly not resembling Shakespeare's Cleopatra, whom age could not wither. On their way upstairs they had heard the sound of a harp, but it had ceased on their being announced, and Edith now stood beside it handsomer and haughtier than ever. It was a remarkable characteristic of this lady's beauty that it appeared to vaunt and assert itself without her aid, and against her will. She knew that she was beautiful: it was impossible that it could be otherwise: but she seemed with her own pride to defy her very self.

  Whether she held cheap attractions that could only call forth admiration that was worthless to her, or whether she designed to render them more precious to admirers by this usage of them, those to whom they were precious seldom paused to consider.

  'I hope, Mrs Granger,' said Mr Dombey, advancing a step towards her, 'we are not the cause of your ceasing to play?'

  'You! oh no!'

  'Why do you not go on then, my dearest Edith?' said Cleopatra.

  'I left off as I began — of my own fancy.'

  The exquisite indifference of her manner in saying this: an indifference quite removed from dulness or insensibility, for it was pointed with proud purpose: was well set off by the carelessness with which she drew her hand across the strings, and came from that part of the room.

  'Do you know, Mr Dombey,' said her languishing mother, playing with a hand-screen, 'that occasionally my dearest Edith and myself actually almost differ — '

  'Not quite, sometimes, Mama?' said Edith.

  'Oh never quite, my darling! Fie, fie, it would break my heart,' returned her mother, making a faint attempt to pat her with the screen, which Edith made no movement to meet, ' — about these old conventionalities of manner that are observed in little things? Why are we not more natural? Dear me! With all those yearnings, and gushings, and impulsive throbbings that we have implanted in our souls, and which are so very charming, why are we not more natural?'

  Mr Dombey said it was very true, very true.

  'We could be more natural I suppose if we tried?' said Mrs Skewton.

  Mr Dombey thought it possible.

  'Devil a bit, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'We couldn't afford it.

  Unless the world was peopled with J.B.'s — tough and blunt old Joes, Ma'am, plain red herrings with hard roes, Sir — we couldn't afford it.

  It wouldn't do.'

  'You naughty Infidel,' said Mrs Skewton, 'be mute.'

  'Cleopatra commands,' returned the Major, kissing his hand, 'and Antony Bagstock obeys.'

  'The man has no sensitiveness,' said Mrs Skewton, cruelly holding up the hand-screen so as to shut the Major out. 'No sympathy. And what do we live for but sympathy! What else is so extremely charming!

  Without that gleam of sunshine on our cold cold earth,' said Mrs Skewton, arranging her lace tucker, and complacently observing the effect of her bare lean arm, looking upward from the wrist, 'how could we possibly bear it? In short, obdurate man!' glancing at the Major, round the screen, 'I would have my world all heart; and Faith is so excessively charming, that I won't allow you to disturb it, do you hear?'

  The Major replied that it was hard in Cleopatra to require the world to be all heart, and yet to appropriate to herself the hearts of all the world; which obliged Cleopatra to remind him that flattery was insupportable to her, and that if he had the boldness to address her in that strain any more, she would positively send him home.

  Withers the Wan, at this period, handing round the tea, Mr Dombey again addressed himself to Edith.

  'There is not much company here, it would seem?' said Mr Dombey, in his own portentous gentlemanly way.

  'I believe not. We see none.'

  'Why really,' observed Mrs Skewton fom her couch, 'there are no people here just now with whom we care to associate.'

  'They have not enough heart,' said Edith, with a smile. The very twilight of a smile: so singularly were its light and darkness blended.

  'My dearest Edith rallies me, you see!' said her mother, shaking her head: which shook a little of itself sometimes, as i
f the palsy Bed now and then in opposition to the diamonds. 'Wicked one!'

  'You have been here before, if I am not mistaken?' said Mr Dombey.

  Still to Edith.

  'Oh, several times. I think we have been everywhere.'

  'A beautiful country!'

  'I suppose it is. Everybody says so.'

  'Your cousin Feenix raves about it, Edith,' interposed her mother from her couch.

  The daughter slightly turned her graceful head, and raising her eyebrows by a hair's-breadth, as if her cousin Feenix were of all the mortal world the least to be regarded, turned her eyes again towards Mr Dombey.

  'I hope, for the credit of my good taste, that I am tired of the neighbourhood,' she said.

  'You have almost reason to be, Madam,' he replied, glancing at a variety of landscape drawings, of which he had already recognised several as representing neighbouring points of view, and which were strewn abundantly about the room, 'if these beautiful productions are from your hand.'

  She gave him no reply, but sat in a disdainful beauty, quite amazing.

  'Have they that interest?' said Mr Dombey. 'Are they yours?'

  'Yes.'

  'And you play, I already know.'

  'Yes.'

  'And sing?'

  'Yes.'

  She answered all these questions with a strange reluctance; and with that remarkable air of opposition to herself, already noticed as belonging to her beauty. Yet she was not embarrassed, but wholly self-possessed. Neither did she seem to wish to avoid the conversation, for she addressed her face, and — so far as she could — her manner also, to him; and continued to do so, when he was silent.

  'You have many resources against weariness at least,' said Mr Dombey.

  'Whatever their efficiency may be,' she returned, 'you know them all now. I have no more.

  'May I hope to prove them all?' said Mr Dombey, with solemn gallantry, laying down a drawing he had held, and motioning towards the harp.

  'Oh certainly] If you desire it!'

  She rose as she spoke, and crossing by her mother's couch, and directing a stately look towards her, which was instantaneous in its duration, but inclusive (if anyone had seen it) of a multitude of expressions, among which that of the twilight smile, without the smile itself, overshadowed all the rest, went out of the room.

  The Major, who was quite forgiven by this time, had wheeled a little table up to Cleopatra, and was sitting down to play picquet with her. Mr Dombey, not knowing the game, sat down to watch them for his edification until Edith should return.

  'We are going to have some music, Mr Dombey, I hope?' said Cleopatra.

  'Mrs Granger has been kind enough to promise so,' said Mr Dombey.

  'Ah! That's very nice. Do you propose, Major?'

  'No, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'Couldn't do it.'

  'You're a barbarous being,' replied the lady, 'and my hand's destroyed. You are fond of music, Mr Dombey?'

  'Eminently so,' was Mr Dombey's answer.

  'Yes. It's very nice,' said Cleopatra, looking at her cards. 'So much heart in it — undeveloped recollections of a previous state of existence' — and all that — which is so truly charming. Do you know,' simpered Cleopatra, reversing the knave of clubs, who had come into her game with his heels uppermost, 'that if anything could tempt me to put a period to my life, it would be curiosity to find out what it's all about, and what it means; there are so many provoking mysteries, really, that are hidden from us. Major, you to play.'

  The Major played; and Mr Dombey, looking on for his instruction, would soon have been in a state of dire confusion, but that he gave no attention to the game whatever, and sat wondering instead when Edith would come back.

  She came at last, and sat down to her harp, and Mr Dombey rose and stood beside her, listening. He had little taste for music, and no knowledge of the strain she played, but he saw her bending over it, and perhaps he heard among the sounding strings some distant music of his own, that tamed the monster of the iron road, and made it less inexorable.

  Cleopatra had a sharp eye, verily, at picquet. It glistened like a bird's, and did not fix itself upon the game, but pierced the room from end to end, and gleamed on harp, performer, listener, everything.

  When the haughty beauty had concluded, she arose, and receiving Mr Dombey's thanks and compliments in exactly the same manner as before, went with scarcely any pause to the piano, and began there.

  Edith Granger, any song but that! Edith Granger, you are very handsome, and your touch upon the keys is brilliant, and your voice is deep and rich; but not the air that his neglected daughter sang to his dead son] Alas, he knows it not; and if he did, what air of hers would stir him, rigid man! Sleep, lonely Florence, sleep! Peace in thy dreams, although the night has turned dark, and the clouds are gathering, and threaten to discharge themselves in hail!

  CHAPTER 22

  A Trifle of Management by Mr Carker the Manager

  Mr Carker the Manager sat at his desk, smooth and soft as usual, reading those letters which were reserved for him to open, backing them occasionally with such memoranda and references as their business purport required, and parcelling them out into little heaps for distribution through the several departments of the House. The post had come in heavy that morning, and Mr Carker the Manager had a good deal to do.

  The general action of a man so engaged — pausing to look over a bundle of papers in his hand, dealing them round in various portions, taking up another bundle and examining its contents with knitted brows and pursed-out lips — dealing, and sorting, and pondering by turns — would easily suggest some whimsical resemblance to a player at cards.

  The face of Mr Carker the Manager was in good keeping with such a fancy. It was the face of a man who studied his play, warily: who made himself master of all the strong and weak points of the game: who registered the cards in his mind as they fell about him, knew exactly what was on them, what they missed, and what they made: who was crafty to find out what the other players held, and who never betrayed his own hand.

  The letters were in various languages, but Mr Carker the Manager read them all. If there had been anything in the offices of Dombey and Son that he could read, there would have been a card wanting in the pack. He read almost at a glance, and made combinations of one letter with another and one business with another as he went on, adding new matter to the heaps — much as a man would know the cards at sight, and work out their combinations in his mind after they were turned.

  Something too deep for a partner, and much too deep for an adversary, Mr Carker the Manager sat in the rays of the sun that came down slanting on him through the skylight, playing his game alone.

  And although it is not among the instincts wild or domestic of the cat tribe to play at cards, feline from sole to crown was Mr Carker the Manager, as he basked in the strip of summer-light and warmth that shone upon his table and the ground as if they were a crooked dial-plate, and himself the only figure on it. With hair and whiskers deficient in colour at all times, but feebler than common in the rich sunshine, and more like the coat of a sandy tortoise-shell cat; with long nails, nicely pared and sharpened; with a natural antipathy to any speck of dirt, which made him pause sometimes and watch the falling motes of dust, and rub them off his smooth white hand or glossy linen: Mr Carker the Manager, sly of manner, sharp of tooth, soft of foot, watchful of eye, oily of tongue, cruel of heart, nice of habit, sat with a dainty steadfastness and patience at his work, as if he were waiting at a mouse's hole.

  At length the letters were disposed of, excepting one which he reserved for a particular audience. Having locked the more confidential correspondence in a drawer, Mr Carker the Manager rang his bell.

  'Why do you answer it?' was his reception of his brother.

  'The messenger is out, and I am the next,' was the submissive reply.

  'You are the next?' muttered the Manager. 'Yes! Creditable to me!

  There!'

  Pointing to the heaps of opened l
etters, he turned disdainfully away, in his elbow-chair, and broke the seal of that one which he held in his hand.

  'I am sorry to trouble you, James,' said the brother, gathering them up, 'but — '

  'Oh! you have something to say. I knew that. Well?'

  Mr Carker the Manager did not raise his eyes or turn them on his brother, but kept them on his letter, though without opening it.

  'Well?' he repeated sharply.

  'I am uneasy about Harriet.'

  'Harriet who? what Harriet? I know nobody of that name.'

  'She is not well, and has changed very much of late.'

  'She changed very much, a great many years ago,' replied the Manager; 'and that is all I have to say.

  'I think if you would hear me — 'Why should I hear you, Brother John?' returned the Manager, laying a sarcastic emphasis on those two words, and throwing up his head, but not lifting his eyes. 'I tell you, Harriet Carker made her choice many years ago between her two brothers. She may repent it, but she must abide by it.'

  'Don't mistake me. I do not say she does repent it. It would be black ingratitude in me to hint at such a thing,' returned the other.

  'Though believe me, James, I am as sorry for her sacrifice as you.'

  'As I?' exclaimed the Manager. 'As I?'

  'As sorry for her choice — for what you call her choice — as you are angry at it,' said the Junior.

  'Angry?' repeated the other, with a wide show of his teeth.

  'Displeased. Whatever word you like best. You know my meaning.

  There is no offence in my intention.'