Dombey and Son
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 creep 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 Skewton. 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 Skewton;
“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 Skewton 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 a curtsey. “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 me, Edith!” said Mrs Skewton,
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,” chattered the old woman, holding out her
avaricious hand. “Thankee, my Lady. Lord bless you, my Lady. Sixpence
more, my pretty Lady, as a good mother yourself.”
“And treated undutifully enough, too, my good old creature, sometimes,
I assure you,” said Mrs Skewton, whimpering. “There! Shake hands with
me. You’re a very good old creature—full of what’s-his-name—and all
that. You’re all affection and et cetera, ain’t you?”
“Oh, yes, my Lady!”
“Yes, I’m sure you are; and so’s that 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’ll show more gratitude,
and natural what’s-its-name, and all the rest of it—but I never
remember names—for there never was a better mother than the good old
creature’s been to you. Come, Edith!”
As the ruin of Cleopatra tottered off whimpering, and wiping its eyes
with a gingerly remembrance of rouge in their neighbourhood, 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!”
CHAPTER XLI.
New Voices in the Waves
All is going on as it was wont. The waves are hoarse with repetition of
their mystery; the dust lies piled upon the shore; the sea-birds 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 Dombey 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 addle-brained; 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’s cost) for his great mill with the Larkey
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, too, Miss Dombey!” 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’s legs, and tumbles over
himself in the desperation with which he makes at him, like a very dog
of Montargis. 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, Miss Dombey?” says Mr
Toots.
Florence assents, with a grateful smile.
“Miss Dombey,” says Mr Toots, “beg your pardon, but if you would like
to walk to Blimber’s, 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’s legs shake
under him; and though he is splendidly dressed, he feels misfits, and
sees wrinkles, in the masterpieces of Burgess and Co., and wishes he
had put on that brightest pair of boots.
Doctor Blimber’s 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 it on the roll, calls everything to
earth.
And here is Doctor 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
forlorn 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 principle!
“Toots,” says Doctor Blimber, “I am very glad to see you, Toots.”
Mr Toots chuckles in reply.
“Also to see you, Toots, in such good company,” says Doctor Blimber.
Mr Toots, with a scarlet visage, explains that he has met Miss Dombey
by accident, and that Miss Dombey wishing, like himself, to see the old
place, they have come together.
“You will like,” says Doctor Blimber, “to step among our young friends,
Miss Dombey, no doubt. All fellow-students of yours, Toots, once. I
think we have no new disciples in our little portico, my dear,” says
Doctor Blimber to Cornelia, “since Mr Toots left us.”
“Except Bitherstone,” returns Cornelia.
“Ay, truly,” says the Doctor. “Bitherstone is new to Mr Toots.”
New to Florence, too, almost; for, in the schoolroom, Bitherstone—no
longer Master Bitherstone of Mrs Pipchin’s—shows in collars and a
neckcloth, and wears a watch. But Bitherstone, born beneath some Bengal
star of ill-omen, 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 Bitherstone its
master, forced at Doctor Blimber’s highest pressure; but in the yawn of
Bitherstone there is malice and snarl, and he has been heard to say
that he wishes he could catch “old Blimber” in India. He’d precious
soon find himself carried up the country by a few of his
(Bitherstone’s) 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 Feeder, B.A., with his bony hand and bristly head, is
still hard at it; with his Herodotus stop on just 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 bilious Bitherstone,
who is not of Mr Toots’s 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
Rajah. 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 bilious Bitherstone, 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 Parr, 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 Dombey’s