Dombey and Son
“No, Ma’am, no,” said Toodle. “But we’ve all on us got a little older
since then.”
“And how do you find yourself, Sir?” inquired Miss Tox, blandly.
“Hearty, Ma’am, thank’ee,” replied Toodle. “How do _you_ find
_your_self, Ma’am? Do the rheumaticks keep off pretty well, Ma’am? We
must all expect to grow into ’em, as we gets on.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Tox. “I have not felt any inconvenience from
that disorder yet.”
“You’re wery fortunate, Ma’am,” returned Mr Toodle. “Many people at
your time of life, Ma’am, is martyrs to it. There was my mother—” But
catching his wife’s eye here, Mr Toodle judiciously buried the rest in
another mug of tea.
“You never mean to say, Mrs Richards,” cried Miss Tox, looking at Rob,
“that that is your—”
“Eldest, Ma’am,” said Polly. “Yes, indeed, it is. That’s the little
fellow, Ma’am, that was the innocent cause of so much.”
“This here, Ma’am,” said Toodle, “is him with the short legs—and they
was,” said Mr Toodle, with a touch of poetry in his tone, “unusual
short for leathers—as Mr Dombey made a Grinder on.”
The recollection almost overpowered Miss Tox. The subject of it had a
peculiar interest for her directly. She asked him to shake hands, and
congratulated his mother on his frank, ingenuous face. Rob, overhearing
her, called up a look, to justify the eulogium, but it was hardly the
right look.
“And now, Mrs Richards,” said Miss Tox,—“and you too, Sir,” addressing
Toodle—“I’ll tell you, plainly and truly, what I have come here for.
You may be aware, Mrs Richards—and, possibly, you may be aware too,
Sir—that a little distance has interposed itself between me and some of
my friends, and that where I used to visit a good deal, I do not visit
now.”
Polly, who, with a woman’s tact, understood this at once, expressed as
much in a little look. Mr Toodle, who had not the faintest idea of what
Miss Tox was talking about, expressed that also, in a stare.
“Of course,” said Miss Tox, “how our little coolness has arisen is of
no moment, and does not require to be discussed. It is sufficient for
me to say, that I have the greatest possible respect for, and interest
in, Mr Dombey;” Miss Tox’s voice faltered; “and everything that relates
to him.”
Mr Toodle, enlightened, shook his head, and said he had heerd it said,
and, for his own part, he did think, as Mr Dombey was a difficult
subject.
“Pray don’t say so, Sir, if you please,” returned Miss Tox. “Let me
entreat you not to say so, Sir, either now, or at any future time. Such
observations cannot but be very painful to me; and to a gentleman,
whose mind is constituted as, I am quite sure, yours is, can afford no
permanent satisfaction.”
Mr Toodle, who had not entertained the least doubt of offering a remark
that would be received with acquiescence, was greatly confounded.
“All that I wish to say, Mrs Richards,” resumed Miss Tox,—“and I
address myself to you too, Sir,—is this. That any intelligence of the
proceedings of the family, of the welfare of the family, of the health
of the family, that reaches you, will be always most acceptable to me.
That I shall be always very glad to chat with Mrs Richards about the
family, and about old time. And as Mrs Richards and I never had the
least difference (though I could wish now that we had been better
acquainted, but I have no one but myself to blame for that), I hope she
will not object to our being very good friends now, and to my coming
backwards and forwards here, when I like, without being a stranger.
Now, I really hope, Mrs Richards,” said Miss Tox, earnestly, “that you
will take this, as I mean it, like a good-humoured creature, as you
always were.”
Polly was gratified, and showed it. Mr Toodle didn’t know whether he
was gratified or not, and preserved a stolid calmness.
“You see, Mrs Richards,” said Miss Tox—“and I hope you see too,
Sir—there are many little ways in which I can be slightly useful to
you, if you will make no stranger of me; and in which I shall be
delighted to be so. For instance, I can teach your children something.
I shall bring a few little books, if you’ll allow me, and some work,
and of an evening now and then, they’ll learn—dear me, they’ll learn a
great deal, I trust, and be a credit to their teacher.”
Mr Toodle, who had a great respect for learning, jerked his head
approvingly at his wife, and moistened his hands with dawning
satisfaction.
“Then, not being a stranger, I shall be in nobody’s way,” said Miss
Tox, “and everything will go on just as if I were not here. Mrs
Richards will do her mending, or her ironing, or her nursing, whatever
it is, without minding me: and you’ll smoke your pipe, too, if you’re
so disposed, Sir, won’t you?”
“Thank’ee, Mum,” said Mr Toodle. “Yes; I’ll take my bit of backer.”
“Very good of you to say so, Sir,” rejoined Miss Tox, “and I really do
assure you now, unfeignedly, that it will be a great comfort to me, and
that whatever good I may be fortunate enough to do the children, you
will more than pay back to me, if you’ll enter into this little bargain
comfortably, and easily, and good-naturedly, without another word about
it.”
The bargain was ratified on the spot; and Miss Tox found herself so
much at home already, that without delay she instituted a preliminary
examination of the children all round—which Mr Toodle much admired—and
booked their ages, names, and acquirements, on a piece of paper. This
ceremony, and a little attendant gossip, prolonged the time until after
their usual hour of going to bed, and detained Miss Tox at the Toodle
fireside until it was too late for her to walk home alone. The gallant
Grinder, however, being still there, politely offered to attend her to
her own door; and as it was something to Miss Tox to be seen home by a
youth whom Mr Dombey had first inducted into those manly garments which
are rarely mentioned by name, she very readily accepted the proposal.
After shaking hands with Mr Toodle and Polly, and kissing all the
children, Miss Tox left the house, therefore, with unlimited
popularity, and carrying away with her so light a heart that it might
have given Mrs Chick offence if that good lady could have weighed it.
Rob the Grinder, in his modesty, would have walked behind, but Miss Tox
desired him to keep beside her, for conversational purposes; and, as
she afterwards expressed it to his mother, “drew him out,” upon the
road.
He drew out so bright, and clear, and shining, that Miss Tox was
charmed with him. The more Miss Tox drew him out, the finer he
came—like wire. There never was a better or more promising youth—a more
affectionate, steady, prudent, sober, honest, meek, candid young
man—than Rob drew out, that night.
“I am quite glad,” said Miss Tox, arrived at her own door, “to know
you. I hope you’ll consider me your friend, and that you’ll come and
see me as often as you like. Do you keep a money-box?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” returned Rob; “I’m saving up, against I’ve got enough to
put in the Bank, Ma’am.
“Very laudable indeed,” said Miss Tox. “I’m glad to hear it. Put this
half-crown into it, if you please.”
“Oh thank you, Ma’am,” replied Rob, “but really I couldn’t think of
depriving you.”
“I commend your independent spirit,” said Miss Tox, “but it’s no
deprivation, I assure you. I shall be offended if you don’t take it, as
a mark of my good-will. Good-night, Robin.”
“Good-night, Ma’am,” said Rob, “and thank you!”
Who ran sniggering off to get change, and tossed it away with a pieman.
But they never taught honour at the Grinders’ School, where the system
that prevailed was particularly strong in the engendering of hypocrisy.
Insomuch, that many of the friends and masters of past Grinders said,
if this were what came of education for the common people, let us have
none. Some more rational said, let us have a better one. But the
governing powers of the Grinders’ Company were always ready for them,
by picking out a few boys who had turned out well in spite of the
system, and roundly asserting that they could have only turned out well
because of it. Which settled the business of those objectors out of
hand, and established the glory of the Grinders’ Institution.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner
Time, sure of foot and strong of will, had so pressed onward, that the
year enjoined by the old Instrument-maker, as the term during which his
friend should refrain from opening the sealed packet accompanying the
letter he had left for him, was now nearly expired, and Captain Cuttle
began to look at it, of an evening, with feelings of mystery and
uneasiness.
The Captain, in his honour, would as soon have thought of opening the
parcel one hour before the expiration of the term, as he would have
thought of opening himself, to study his own anatomy. He merely brought
it out, at a certain stage of his first evening pipe, laid it on the
table, and sat gazing at the outside of it, through the smoke, in
silent gravity, for two or three hours at a spell. Sometimes, when he
had contemplated it thus for a pretty long while, the Captain would
hitch his chair, by degrees, farther and farther off, as if to get
beyond the range of its fascination; but if this were his design, he
never succeeded: for even when he was brought up by the parlour wall,
the packet still attracted him; or if his eyes, in thoughtful
wandering, roved to the ceiling or the fire, its image immediately
followed, and posted itself conspicuously among the coals, or took up
an advantageous position on the whitewash.
In respect of Heart’s Delight, the Captain’s parental and admiration
knew no change. But since his last interview with Mr Carker, Captain
Cuttle had come to entertain doubts whether his former intervention in
behalf of that young lady and his dear boy Wal”r, had proved altogether
so favourable as he could have wished, and as he at the time believed.
The Captain was troubled with a serious misgiving that he had done more
harm than good, in short; and in his remorse and modesty he made the
best atonement he could think of, by putting himself out of the way of
doing any harm to anyone, and, as it were, throwing himself overboard
for a dangerous person.
Self-buried, therefore, among the instruments, the Captain never went
near Mr Dombey’s house, or reported himself in any way to Florence or
Miss Nipper. He even severed himself from Mr Perch, on the occasion of
his next visit, by dryly informing that gentleman, that he thanked him
for his company, but had cut himself adrift from all such acquaintance,
as he didn’t know what magazine he mightn’t blow up, without meaning of
it. In this self-imposed retirement, the Captain passed whole days and
weeks without interchanging a word with anyone but Rob the Grinder,
whom he esteemed as a pattern of disinterested attachment and fidelity.
In this retirement, the Captain, gazing at the packet of an evening,
would sit smoking, and thinking of Florence and poor Walter, until they
both seemed to his homely fancy to be dead, and to have passed away
into eternal youth, the beautiful and innocent children of his first
remembrance.
The Captain did not, however, in his musings, neglect his own
improvement, or the mental culture of Rob the Grinder. That young man
was generally required to read out of some book to the Captain, for one
hour, every evening; and as the Captain implicitly believed that all
books were true, he accumulated, by this means, many remarkable facts.
On Sunday nights, the Captain always read for himself, before going to
bed, a certain Divine Sermon once delivered on a Mount; and although he
was accustomed to quote the text, without book, after his own manner,
he appeared to read it with as reverent an understanding of its