Dombey and Son
a man of that range of ability and purpose, that he is doing something
which sharpens and keeps alive his keenest powers.
The only decided alteration in him was, that as he rode to and fro
along the streets, he would fall into deep fits of musing, like that in
which he had come away from Mr Dombey’s house, on the morning of that
gentleman’s disaster. At such times, he would keep clear of the
obstacles in his way, mechanically; and would appear to see and hear
nothing until arrival at his destination, or some sudden chance or
effort roused him.
Walking his white-legged horse thus, to the counting-house of Dombey
and Son one day, he was as unconscious of the observation of two pairs
of women’s eyes, as of the fascinated orbs of Rob the Grinder, who, in
waiting a street’s length from the appointed place, as a demonstration
of punctuality, vainly touched and retouched his hat to attract
attention, and trotted along on foot, by his master’s side, prepared to
hold his stirrup when he should alight.
“See where he goes!” cried one of these two women, an old creature, who
stretched out her shrivelled arm to point him out to her companion, a
young woman, who stood close beside her, withdrawn like herself into a
gateway.
Mrs Brown’s daughter looked out, at this bidding on the part of Mrs
Brown; and there were wrath and vengeance in her face.
“I never thought to look at him again,” she said, in a low voice; “but
it’s well I should, perhaps. I see. I see!”
“Not changed!” said the old woman, with a look of eager malice.
“He changed!” returned the other. “What for? What has he suffered?
There is change enough for twenty in me. Isn’t that enough?”
“See where he goes!” muttered the old woman, watching her daughter with
her red eyes; “so easy and so trim a-horseback, while we are in the
mud.”
“And of it,” said her daughter impatiently. “We are mud, underneath his
horse’s feet. What should we be?”
In the intentness with which she looked after him again, she made a
hasty gesture with her hand when the old woman began to reply, as if
her view could be obstructed by mere sound. Her mother watching her,
and not him, remained silent; until her kindling glance subsided, and
she drew a long breath, as if in the relief of his being gone.
“Deary!” said the old woman then. “Alice! Handsome gall Ally!” She
gently shook her sleeve to arouse her attention. “Will you let him go
like that, when you can wring money from him? Why, it’s a wickedness,
my daughter.”
“Haven’t I told you, that I will not have money from him?” she
returned. “And don’t you yet believe me? Did I take his sister’s money?
Would I touch a penny, if I knew it, that had gone through his white
hands—unless it was, indeed, that I could poison it, and send it back
to him? Peace, mother, and come away.”
“And him so rich?” murmured the old woman. “And us so poor!”
“Poor in not being able to pay him any of the harm we owe him,”
returned her daughter. “Let him give me that sort of riches, and I’ll
take them from him, and use them. Come away. Its no good looking at his
horse. Come away, mother!”
But the old woman, for whom the spectacle of Rob the Grinder returning
down the street, leading the riderless horse, appeared to have some
extraneous interest that it did not possess in itself, surveyed that
young man with the utmost earnestness; and seeming to have whatever
doubts she entertained, resolved as he drew nearer, glanced at her
daughter with brightened eyes and with her finger on her lip, and
emerging from the gateway at the moment of his passing, touched him on
the shoulder.
“Why, where’s my sprightly Rob been, all this time!” she said, as he
turned round.
The sprightly Rob, whose sprightliness was very much diminished by the
salutation, looked exceedingly dismayed, and said, with the water
rising in his eyes:
“Oh! why can’t you leave a poor cove alone, Misses Brown, when he’s
getting an honest livelihood and conducting himself respectable? What
do you come and deprive a cove of his character for, by talking to him
in the streets, when he’s taking his master’s horse to a honest
stable—a horse you’d go and sell for cats’ and dogs’ meat if you had
your way! Why, I thought,” said the Grinder, producing his concluding
remark as if it were the climax of all his injuries, “that you was dead
long ago!”
“This is the way,” cried the old woman, appealing to her daughter,
“that he talks to me, who knew him weeks and months together, my deary,
and have stood his friend many and many a time among the
pigeon-fancying tramps and bird-catchers.”
“Let the birds be, will you, Misses Brown?” retorted Rob, in a tone of
the acutest anguish. “I think a cove had better have to do with lions
than them little creeturs, for they’re always flying back in your face
when you least expect it. Well, how d’ye do and what do you want?”
These polite inquiries the Grinder uttered, as it were under protest,
and with great exasperation and vindictiveness.
“Hark how he speaks to an old friend, my deary!” said Mrs Brown, again
appealing to her daughter. “But there’s some of his old friends not so
patient as me. If I was to tell some that he knows, and has spotted and
cheated with, where to find him—”
“Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?” interrupted the miserable
Grinder, glancing quickly round, as though he expected to see his
master’s teeth shining at his elbow. “What do you take a pleasure in
ruining a cove for? At your time of life too! when you ought to be
thinking of a variety of things!”
“What a gallant horse!” said the old woman, patting the animal’s neck.
“Let him alone, will you, Misses Brown?” cried Rob, pushing away her
hand. “You’re enough to drive a penitent cove mad!”
“Why, what hurt do I do him, child?” returned the old woman.
“Hurt?” said Rob. “He’s got a master that would find it out if he was
touched with a straw.” And he blew upon the place where the old woman’s
hand had rested for a moment, and smoothed it gently with his finger,
as if he seriously believed what he said.
The old woman looking back to mumble and mouth at her daughter, who
followed, kept close to Rob’s heels as he walked on with the bridle in
his hand; and pursued the conversation.
“A good place, Rob, eh?” said she. “You’re in luck, my child.”
“Oh don’t talk about luck, Misses Brown,” returned the wretched
Grinder, facing round and stopping. “If you’d never come, or if you’d
go away, then indeed a cove might be considered tolerable lucky. Can’t
you go along, Misses Brown, and not foller me!” blubbered Rob, with
sudden defiance. “If the young woman’s a friend of yours, why don’t she
take you away, instead of letting you make yourself so disgraceful!”
“What!” croaked the old woman, putting her face close to his, with a
malevolent grin upon it that puckered up the loose skin down in her
very throat. “Do you deny your old chum! Have you lurked to my house
fifty times, and slept sound in a corner when you had no other bed but
the paving-stones, and do you talk to me like this! Have I bought and
sold with you, and helped you in my way of business, schoolboy, sneak,
and what not, and do you tell me to go along? Could I raise a crowd of
old company about you to-morrow morning, that would follow you to ruin
like copies of your own shadow, and do you turn on me with your bold
looks! I’ll go. Come, Alice.”
“Stop, Misses Brown!” cried the distracted Grinder. “What are you doing
of? Don’t put yourself in a passion! Don’t let her go, if you please. I
haven’t meant any offence. I said ‘how d’ye do,’ at first, didn’t I?
But you wouldn’t answer. How you do? Besides,” said Rob piteously,
“look here! How can a cove stand talking in the street with his
master’s prad a-wanting to be took to be rubbed down, and his master up
to every individgle thing that happens!”
The old woman made a show of being partially appeased, but shook her
head, and mouthed and muttered still.
“Come along to the stables, and have a glass of something that’s good
for you, Misses Brown, can’t you?” said Rob, “instead of going on, like
that, which is no good to you, nor anybody else. Come along with her,
will you be so kind?” said Rob. “I’m sure I’m delighted to see her, if
it wasn’t for the horse!”
With this apology, Rob turned away, a rueful picture of despair, and
walked his charge down a bye street. The old woman, mouthing at her
daughter, followed close upon him. The daughter followed.
Turning into a silent little square or court-yard that had a great
church tower rising above it, and a packer’s warehouse, and a
bottle-maker’s warehouse, for its places of business, Rob the Grinder
delivered the white-legged horse to the hostler of a quaint stable at
the corner; and inviting Mrs Brown and her daughter to seat themselves
upon a stone bench at the gate of that establishment, soon reappeared
from a neighbouring public-house with a pewter measure and a glass.
“Here’s master—Mr Carker, child!” said the old woman, slowly, as her
sentiment before drinking. “Lord bless him!”
“Why, I didn’t tell you who he was,” observed Rob, with staring eyes.
“We know him by sight,” said Mrs Brown, whose working mouth and nodding
head stopped for the moment, in the fixedness of her attention. “We saw
him pass this morning, afore he got off his horse; when you were ready
to take it.”
“Ay, ay,” returned Rob, appearing to wish that his readiness had
carried him to any other place.—“What’s the matter with her? Won’t she
drink?”
This inquiry had reference to Alice, who, folded in her cloak, sat a
little apart, profoundly inattentive to his offer of the replenished
glass.
The old woman shook her head. “Don’t mind her,” she said; “she’s a
strange creetur, if you know’d her, Rob. But Mr Carker—”
“Hush!” said Rob, glancing cautiously up at the packer’s, and at the
bottle-maker’s, as if, from any one of the tiers of warehouses, Mr
Carker might be looking down. “Softly.”
“Why, he ain’t here!” cried Mrs Brown.
“I don’t know that,” muttered Rob, whose glance even wandered to the
church tower, as if he might be there, with a supernatural power of
hearing.
“Good master?” inquired Mrs Brown.
Rob nodded; and added, in a low voice, “precious sharp.”
“Lives out of town, don’t he, lovey?” said the old woman.
“When he’s at home,” returned Rob; “but we don’t live at home just
now.”
“Where then?” asked the old woman.
“Lodgings; up near Mr Dombey’s,” returned Rob.
The younger woman fixed her eyes so searchingly upon him, and so
suddenly, that Rob was quite confounded, and offered the glass again,
but with no more effect upon her than before.
“Mr Dombey—you and I used to talk about him, sometimes, you know,” said
Rob to Mrs Brown. “You used to get me to talk about him.”
The old woman nodded.
“Well, Mr Dombey, he’s had a fall from his horse,” said Rob,
unwillingly; “and my master has to be up there, more than usual, either
with him, or Mrs Dombey, or some of ’em; and so we’ve come to town.”
“Are they good friends, lovey?” asked the old woman.
“Who?” retorted Rob.
“He and she?”
“What, Mr and Mrs Dombey?” said Rob. “How should I know!”
“Not them—Master and Mrs Dombey, chick,” replied the old woman,
coaxingly.
“I don’t know,” said Rob, looking round him again. “I suppose so. How
curious you are, Misses Brown! Least said, soonest mended.”
“Why there’s no harm in it!” exclaimed the old woman, with a laugh, and
a clap of her hands. “Sprightly Rob, has grown tame since he has been
well off! There’s no harm in it.”
“No, there’s no harm in it, I know,” returned Rob, with the same
distrustful glance at the packer’s and the bottle-maker’s, and the
church; “but blabbing, if it’s only about the number of buttons on my