Dombey and Son
command, she added, frowning on her mother, “As he comes at your
recommendation, let him come to your room.”
“May I—shall I go away?” asked Florence, hurriedly.
Edith nodded yes, but on her way to the door Florence met the visitor
coming in. With the same disagreeable mixture of familiarity and
forbearance, with which he had first addressed her, he addressed her
now in his softest manner—hoped she was quite well—needed not to ask,
with such looks to anticipate the answer—had scarcely had the honour to
know her, last night, she was so greatly changed—and held the door open
for her to pass out; with a secret sense of power in her shrinking from
him, that all the deference and politeness of his manner could not
quite conceal.
He then bowed himself for a moment over Mrs Skewton’s condescending
hand, and lastly bowed to Edith. Coldly returning his salute without
looking at him, and neither seating herself nor inviting him to be
seated, she waited for him to speak.
Entrenched in her pride and power, and with all the obduracy of her
spirit summoned about her, still her old conviction that she and her
mother had been known by this man in their worst colours, from their
first acquaintance; that every degradation she had suffered in her own
eyes was as plain to him as to herself; that he read her life as though
it were a vile book, and fluttered the leaves before her in slight
looks and tones of voice which no one else could detect; weakened and
undermined her. Proudly as she opposed herself to him, with her
commanding face exacting his humility, her disdainful lip repulsing
him, her bosom angry at his intrusion, and the dark lashes of her eyes
sullenly veiling their light, that no ray of it might shine upon
him—and submissively as he stood before her, with an entreating injured
manner, but with complete submission to her will—she knew, in her own
soul, that the cases were reversed, and that the triumph and
superiority were his, and that he knew it full well.
“I have presumed,” said Mr Carker, “to solicit an interview, and I have
ventured to describe it as being one of business, because—”
“Perhaps you are charged by Mr Dombey with some message of reproof,”
said Edith “You possess Mr Dombey’s confidence in such an unusual
degree, Sir, that you would scarcely surprise me if that were your
business.”
“I have no message to the lady who sheds a lustre upon his name,” said
Mr Carker. “But I entreat that lady, on my own behalf, to be just to a
very humble claimant for justice at her hands—a mere dependant of Mr
Dombey’s—which is a position of humility; and to reflect upon my
perfect helplessness last night, and the impossibility of my avoiding
the share that was forced upon me in a very painful occasion.”
“My dearest Edith,” hinted Cleopatra in a low voice, as she held her
eye-glass aside, “really very charming of Mr What’s-his-name. And full
of heart!”
“For I do,” said Mr Carker, appealing to Mrs Skewton with a look of
grateful deference,—“I do venture to call it a painful occasion, though
merely because it was so to me, who had the misfortune to be present.
So slight a difference, as between the principals—between those who
love each other with disinterested devotion, and would make any
sacrifice of self in such a cause—is nothing. As Mrs Skewton herself
expressed, with so much truth and feeling last night, it is nothing.”
Edith could not look at him, but she said after a few moments.
“And your business, Sir—”
“Edith, my pet,” said Mrs Skewton, “all this time Mr Carker is
standing! My dear Mr Carker, take a seat, I beg.”
He offered no reply to the mother, but fixed his eyes on the proud
daughter, as though he would only be bidden by her, and was resolved to
be bidden by her. Edith, in spite of herself, sat down, and slightly
motioned with her hand to him to be seated too. No action could be
colder, haughtier, more insolent in its air of supremacy and
disrespect, but she had struggled against even that concession
ineffectually, and it was wrested from her. That was enough! Mr Carker
sat down.
“May I be allowed, Madam,” said Carker, turning his white teeth on Mrs
Skewton like a light—“a lady of your excellent sense and quick feeling
will give me credit, for good reason, I am sure—to address what I have
to say, to Mrs Dombey, and to leave her to impart it to you who are her
best and dearest friend—next to Mr Dombey?”
Mrs Skewton would have retired, but Edith stopped her. Edith would have
stopped him too, and indignantly ordered him to speak openly or not at
all, but that he said, in a low Voice—“Miss Florence—the young lady who
has just left the room—”
Edith suffered him to proceed. She looked at him now. As he bent
forward, to be nearer, with the utmost show of delicacy and respect,
and with his teeth persuasively arrayed, in a self-depreciating smile,
she felt as if she could have struck him dead.
“Miss Florence’s position,” he began, “has been an unfortunate one. I
have a difficulty in alluding to it to you, whose attachment to her
father is naturally watchful and jealous of every word that applies to
him.” Always distinct and soft in speech, no language could describe
the extent of his distinctness and softness, when he said these words,
or came to any others of a similar import. “But, as one who is devoted
to Mr Dombey in his different way, and whose life is passed in
admiration of Mr Dombey’s character, may I say, without offence to your
tenderness as a wife, that Miss Florence has unhappily been
neglected—by her father. May I say by her father?”
Edith replied, “I know it.”
“You know it!” said Mr Carker, with a great appearance of relief. “It
removes a mountain from my breast. May I hope you know how the neglect
originated; in what an amiable phase of Mr Dombey’s pride—character I
mean?”
“You may pass that by, Sir,” she returned, “and come the sooner to the
end of what you have to say.”
“Indeed, I am sensible, Madam,” replied Carker,—“trust me, I am deeply
sensible, that Mr Dombey can require no justification in anything to
you. But, kindly judge of my breast by your own, and you will forgive
my interest in him, if in its excess, it goes at all astray.”
What a stab to her proud heart, to sit there, face to face with him,
and have him tendering her false oath at the altar again and again for
her acceptance, and pressing it upon her like the dregs of a sickening
cup she could not own her loathing of, or turn away from! How shame,
remorse, and passion raged within her, when, upright and majestic in
her beauty before him, she knew that in her spirit she was down at his
feet!
“Miss Florence,” said Carker, “left to the care—if one may call it
care—of servants and mercenary people, in every way her inferiors,
necessarily wanted some guide and compass in her younger days, and,
naturally, for want of them, has been indiscreet, and has in some
degree forgotten her station. There was some folly about one Walter, a
common lad, who is fortunately dead now: and some very undesirable
association, I regret to say, with certain coasting sailors, of
anything but good repute, and a runaway old bankrupt.”
“I have heard the circumstances, Sir,” said Edith, flashing her
disdainful glance upon him, “and I know that you pervert them. You may
not know it. I hope so.”
“Pardon me,” said Mr Carker, “I believe that nobody knows them so well
as I. Your generous and ardent nature, Madam—the same nature which is
so nobly imperative in vindication of your beloved and honoured
husband, and which has blessed him as even his merits deserve—I must
respect, defer to, bow before. But, as regards the circumstances, which
is indeed the business I presumed to solicit your attention to, I can
have no doubt, since, in the execution of my trust as Mr Dombey’s
confidential—I presume to say—friend, I have fully ascertained them. In
my execution of that trust; in my deep concern, which you can so well
understand, for everything relating to him, intensified, if you will
(for I fear I labour under your displeasure), by the lower motive of
desire to prove my diligence, and make myself the more acceptable; I
have long pursued these circumstances by myself and trustworthy
instruments, and have innumerable and most minute proofs.”
She raised her eyes no higher than his mouth, but she saw the means of
mischief vaunted in every tooth it contained.
“Pardon me, Madam,” he continued, “if in my perplexity, I presume to
take counsel with you, and to consult your pleasure. I think I have
observed that you are greatly interested in Miss Florence?”
What was there in her he had not observed, and did not know? Humbled
and yet maddened by the thought, in every new presentment of it,
however faint, she pressed her teeth upon her quivering lip to force
composure on it, and distantly inclined her head in reply.
“This interest, Madam—so touching an evidence of everything associated
with Mr Dombey being dear to you—induces me to pause before I make him
acquainted with these circumstances, which, as yet, he does not know.
It so shakes me, if I may make the confession, in my allegiance, that
on the intimation of the least desire to that effect from you, I would
suppress them.”
Edith raised her head quickly, and starting back, bent her dark glance
upon him. He met it with his blandest and most deferential smile, and
went on.
“You say that as I describe them, they are perverted. I fear not—I fear
not: but let us assume that they are. The uneasiness I have for some
time felt on the subject, arises in this: that the mere circumstance of
such association often repeated, on the part of Miss Florence, however
innocently and confidingly, would be conclusive with Mr Dombey, already
predisposed against her, and would lead him to take some step (I know
he has occasionally contemplated it) of separation and alienation of
her from his home. Madam, bear with me, and remember my intercourse
with Mr Dombey, and my knowledge of him, and my reverence for him,
almost from childhood, when I say that if he has a fault, it is a lofty
stubbornness, rooted in that noble pride and sense of power which
belong to him, and which we must all defer to; which is not assailable
like the obstinacy of other characters; and which grows upon itself
from day to day, and year to year.”
She bent her glance upon him still; but, look as steadfast as she
would, her haughty nostrils dilated, and her breath came somewhat
deeper, and her lip would slightly curl, as he described that in his
patron to which they must all bow down. He saw it; and though his
expression did not change, she knew he saw it.
“Even so slight an incident as last night’s,” he said, “if I might
refer to it once more, would serve to illustrate my meaning, better
than a greater one. Dombey and Son know neither time, nor place, nor
season, but bear them all down. But I rejoice in its occurrence, for it
has opened the way for me to approach Mrs Dombey with this subject
today, even if it has entailed upon me the penalty of her temporary
displeasure. Madam, in the midst of my uneasiness and apprehension on
this subject, I was summoned by Mr Dombey to Leamington. There I saw
you. There I could not help knowing what relation you would shortly
occupy towards him—to his enduring happiness and yours. There I
resolved to await the time of your establishment at home here, and to
do as I have now done. I have, at heart, no fear that I shall be
wanting in my duty to Mr Dombey, if I bury what I know in your breast;
for where there is but one heart and mind between two persons—as in
such a marriage—one almost represents the other. I can acquit my
conscience therefore, almost equally, by confidence, on such a theme,
in you or him. For the reasons I have mentioned I would select you. May