Dombey and Son
“Yes,” returned Mrs Pipchin, “and don’t smile at me, you minx, or I’ll
know the reason why! Go along with you this minute!”
“I intend to go this minute, you may rely upon it,” said the voluble
Nipper. “I have been in this house waiting on my young lady a dozen
year and I won’t stop in it one hour under notice from a person owning
to the name of Pipchin trust me, Mrs P.”
“A good riddance of bad rubbish!” said that wrathful old lady. “Get
along with you, or I’ll have you carried out!”
“My comfort is,” said Susan, looking back at Mr Dombey, “that I have
told a piece of truth this day which ought to have been told long
before and can’t be told too often or too plain and that no amount of
Pipchinses—I hope the number of ’em mayn’t be great” (here Mrs Pipchin
uttered a very sharp “Go along with you!” and Miss Nipper repeated the
look) “can unsay what I have said, though they gave a whole year full
of warnings beginning at ten o’clock in the forenoon and never leaving
off till twelve at night and died of the exhaustion which would be a
Jubilee!”
With these words, Miss Nipper preceded her foe out of the room; and
walking upstairs to her own apartments in great state, to the choking
exasperation of the ireful Pipchin, sat down among her boxes and began
to cry.
From this soft mood she was soon aroused, with a very wholesome and
refreshing effect, by the voice of Mrs Pipchin outside the door.
“Does that bold-faced slut,” said the fell Pipchin, “intend to take her
warning, or does she not?”
Miss Nipper replied from within that the person described did not
inhabit that part of the house, but that her name was Pipchin, and she
was to be found in the housekeeper’s room.
“You saucy baggage!” retorted Mrs Pipchin, rattling at the handle of
the door. “Go along with you this minute. Pack up your things directly!
How dare you talk in this way to a gentle-woman who has seen better
days?”
To which Miss Nipper rejoined from her castle, that she pitied the
better days that had seen Mrs Pipchin; and that for her part she
considered the worst days in the year to be about that lady’s mark,
except that they were much too good for her.
“But you needn’t trouble yourself to make a noise at my door,” said
Susan Nipper, “nor to contaminate the key-hole with your eye, I’m
packing up and going you may take your affidavit.”
The Dowager expressed her lively satisfaction at this intelligence, and
with some general opinions upon young hussies as a race, and especially
upon their demerits after being spoiled by Miss Dombey, withdrew to
prepare the Nipper’s wages. Susan then bestirred herself to get her
trunks in order, that she might take an immediate and dignified
departure; sobbing heartily all the time, as she thought of Florence.
The object of her regret was not long in coming to her, for the news
soon spread over the house that Susan Nipper had had a disturbance with
Mrs Pipchin, and that they had both appealed to Mr Dombey, and that
there had been an unprecedented piece of work in Mr Dombey’s room, and
that Susan was going. The latter part of this confused rumour, Florence
found to be so correct, that Susan had locked the last trunk and was
sitting upon it with her bonnet on, when she came into her room.
“Susan!” cried Florence. “Going to leave me! You!”
“Oh for goodness gracious sake, Miss Floy,” said Susan, sobbing, “don’t
speak a word to me or I shall demean myself before them Pi-i-pchinses,
and I wouldn’t have ’em see me cry Miss Floy for worlds!”
“Susan!” said Florence. “My dear girl, my old friend! What shall I do
without you! Can you bear to go away so?”
“No-n-o-o, my darling dear Miss Floy, I can’t indeed,” sobbed Susan.
“But it can’t be helped, I’ve done my duty, Miss, I have indeed. It’s
no fault of mine. I am quite resigned. I couldn’t stay my month or I
could never leave you then my darling and I must at last as well as at
first, don’t speak to me Miss Floy, for though I’m pretty firm I’m not
a marble doorpost, my own dear.”
“What is it? Why is it?” said Florence, “Won’t you tell me?” For Susan
was shaking her head.
“No-n-no, my darling,” returned Susan. “Don’t ask me, for I mustn’t,
and whatever you do don’t put in a word for me to stop, for it couldn’t
be and you’d only wrong yourself, and so God bless you my own precious
and forgive me any harm I have done, or any temper I have showed in all
these many years!”
With which entreaty, very heartily delivered, Susan hugged her mistress
in her arms.
“My darling there’s a many that may come to serve you and be glad to
serve you and who’ll serve you well and true,” said Susan, “but there
can’t be one who’ll serve you so affectionate as me or love you half as
dearly, that’s my comfort. Go-ood-bye, sweet Miss Floy!”
“Where will you go, Susan?” asked her weeping mistress.
“I’ve got a brother down in the country Miss—a farmer in Essex,” said
the heart-broken Nipper, “that keeps ever so many co-o-ows and pigs and
I shall go down there by the coach and sto-op with him, and don’t mind
me, for I’ve got money in the Savings Banks my dear, and needn’t take
another service just yet, which I couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t do, my
heart’s own mistress!” Susan finished with a burst of sorrow, which was
opportunely broken by the voice of Mrs Pipchin talking downstairs; on
hearing which, she dried her red and swollen eyes, and made a
melancholy feint of calling jauntily to Mr Towlinson to fetch a cab and
carry down her boxes.
Florence, pale and hurried and distressed, but withheld from useless
interference even here, by her dread of causing any new division
between her father and his wife (whose stern, indignant face had been a
warning to her a few moments since), and by her apprehension of being
in some way unconsciously connected already with the dismissal of her
old servant and friend, followed, weeping, downstairs to Edith’s
dressing-room, whither Susan betook herself to make her parting
curtsey.
“Now, here’s the cab, and here’s the boxes, get along with you, do!”
said Mrs Pipchin, presenting herself at the same moment. “I beg your
pardon, Ma’am, but Mr Dombey’s orders are imperative.”
Edith, sitting under the hands of her maid—she was going out to
dinner—preserved her haughty face, and took not the least notice.
“There’s your money,” said Mrs Pipchin, who, in pursuance of her
system, and in recollection of the Mines, was accustomed to rout the
servants about, as she had routed her young Brighton boarders; to the
everlasting acidulation of Master Bitherstone, “and the sooner this
house sees your back the better.”
Susan had no spirits even for the look that belonged to Ma Pipchin by
right; so she dropped her curtsey to Mrs Dombey (who inclined her head
without one word, and whose eye avoided everyone but Florence), and
gave one last parting hug to her young mistress, and received her
parting embrace in return. Poor Susan’s face at this crisis, in the
intensity of her feelings and the determined suffocation of her sobs,
lest one should become audible and be a triumph to Mrs Pipchin,
presented a series of the most extraordinary physiognomical phenomena
ever witnessed.
“I beg your pardon, Miss, I’m sure,” said Towlinson, outside the door
with the boxes, addressing Florence, “but Mr Toots is in the
drawing-room, and sends his compliments, and begs to know how Diogenes
and Master is.”
Quick as thought, Florence glided out and hastened downstairs, where Mr
Toots, in the most splendid vestments, was breathing very hard with
doubt and agitation on the subject of her coming.
“Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey,” said Mr Toots, “God bless my soul!”
This last ejaculation was occasioned by Mr Toots’s deep concern at the
distress he saw in Florence’s face; which caused him to stop short in a
fit of chuckles, and become an image of despair.
“Dear Mr Toots,” said Florence, “you are so friendly to me, and so
honest, that I am sure I may ask a favour of you.”
“Miss Dombey,” returned Mr Toots, “if you’ll only name one,
you’ll—you’ll give me an appetite. To which,” said Mr Toots, with some
sentiment, “I have long been a stranger.”
“Susan, who is an old friend of mine, the oldest friend I have,” said
Florence, “is about to leave here suddenly, and quite alone, poor girl.
She is going home, a little way into the country. Might I ask you to
take care of her until she is in the coach?”
“Miss Dombey,” returned Mr Toots, “you really do me an honour and a
kindness. This proof of your confidence, after the manner in which I
was Beast enough to conduct myself at Brighton—”
“Yes,” said Florence, hurriedly—“no—don’t think of that. Then would you
have the kindness to—to go? and to be ready to meet her when she comes
out? Thank you a thousand times! You ease my mind so much. She doesn’t
seem so desolate. You cannot think how grateful I feel to you, or what
a good friend I am sure you are!” and Florence in her earnestness
thanked him again and again; and Mr Toots, in his earnestness, hurried
away—but backwards, that he might lose no glimpse of her.
Florence had not the courage to go out, when she saw poor Susan in the
hall, with Mrs Pipchin driving her forth, and Diogenes jumping about
her, and terrifying Mrs Pipchin to the last degree by making snaps at
her bombazeen skirts, and howling with anguish at the sound of her
voice—for the good duenna was the dearest and most cherished aversion
of his breast. But she saw Susan shake hands with the servants all
round, and turn once to look at her old home; and she saw Diogenes
bound out after the cab, and want to follow it, and testify an
impossibility of conviction that he had no longer any property in the
fare; and the door was shut, and the hurry over, and her tears flowed
fast for the loss of an old friend, whom no one could replace. No one.
No one.
Mr Toots, like the leal and trusty soul he was, stopped the cabriolet
in a twinkling, and told Susan Nipper of his commission, at which she
cried more than before.
“Upon my soul and body!” said Mr Toots, taking his seat beside her. “I
feel for you. Upon my word and honour I think you can hardly know your
own feelings better than I imagine them. I can conceive nothing more
dreadful than to have to leave Miss Dombey.”
Susan abandoned herself to her grief now, and it really was touching to
see her.
“I say,” said Mr Toots, “now, don’t! at least I mean now do, you know!”
“Do what, Mr Toots!” cried Susan.
“Why, come home to my place, and have some dinner before you start,”
said Mr Toots. “My cook’s a most respectable woman—one of the most
motherly people I ever saw—and she’ll be delighted to make you
comfortable. Her son,” said Mr Toots, as an additional recommendation,
“was educated in the Bluecoat School, and blown up in a powder-mill.”
Susan accepting this kind offer, Mr Toots conducted her to his
dwelling, where they were received by the Matron in question who fully
justified his character of her, and by the Chicken who at first
supposed, on seeing a lady in the vehicle, that Mr Dombey had been
doubled up, agreeably to his old recommendation, and Miss Dombey
abducted. This gentleman awakened in Miss Nipper some considerable
astonishment; for, having been defeated by the Larkey Boy, his visage
was in a state of such great dilapidation, as to be hardly presentable
in society with comfort to the beholders. The Chicken himself
attributed this punishment to his having had the misfortune to get into
Chancery early in the proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the
Larkey one, and heavily grassed. But it appeared from the published
records of that great contest that the Larkey Boy had had it all his
own way from the beginning, and that the Chicken had been tapped, and