Dombey and Son
Blind idiot, rushing to a precipice! He thought she stood in awe of
him.
“You are too expensive, Madam,” said Mr Dombey. “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 Dombey.”
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 Dombey, 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 Dombey,” said Mr Dombey, 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 Dombey 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 Pipchin, formerly employed in a
situation of trust in my family, to act as housekeeper. An
establishment like this, presided over but nominally, Mrs Dombey,
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 Dombey—“and this concludes what I deem it
necessary to say to you at present, Mrs Dombey—I observed a moment ago,
Madam, that 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 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 Dombey, who, after the emotion he had just seen, set
great store 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
Dombey, may very well be in yours to such an extent. I hope, Mrs
Dombey,” 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 a lady upon
whom I have conferred the highest distinction that it is in my power to
bestow, I shall not scruple to avail myself of his services if I see
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 statue’s—looking upon him
with neither yielding nor unyielding, liking nor hatred, pride not
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, Madam,” said Mr Dombey, “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 Dombey, “are all wide of the purpose,
Madam.”
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 idol, could you ask more; could you have
more?”
“Possibly not, Madam,” 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 Dombey 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 returning 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
in prompt reply to something in his face; “to appeal to you.”
Mr Dombey, with a slightly 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 them 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 Dombey took a long respiration, as if he 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 a 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 Dombey, 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 Dombey, rising as he spoke, “consent to temporise
or treat with you, Mrs Dombey, 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 change 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 Dombey, “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 Dombey.
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