Dombey and Son
master’s coat, won’t do. I tell you it won’t do with him. A cove had
better drown himself. He says so. I shouldn’t have so much as told you
what his name was, if you hadn’t known it. Talk about somebody else.”
As Rob took another cautious survey of the yard, the old woman made a
secret motion to her daughter. It was momentary, but the daughter, with
a slight look of intelligence, withdrew her eyes from the boy’s face,
and sat folded in her cloak as before.
“Rob, lovey!” said the old woman, beckoning him to the other end of the
bench. “You were always a pet and favourite of mine. Now, weren’t you?
Don’t you know you were?”
“Yes, Misses Brown,” replied the Grinder, with a very bad grace.
“And you could leave me!” said the old woman, flinging her arms about
his neck. “You could go away, and grow almost out of knowledge, and
never come to tell your poor old friend how fortunate you were, proud
lad! Oho, Oho!”
“Oh here’s a dreadful go for a cove that’s got a master wide awake in
the neighbourhood!” exclaimed the wretched Grinder. “To be howled over
like this here!”
“Won’t you come and see me, Robby?” cried Mrs Brown. “Oho, won’t you
ever come and see me?”
“Yes, I tell you! Yes, I will!” returned the Grinder.
“That’s my own Rob! That’s my lovey!” said Mrs Brown, drying the tears
upon her shrivelled face, and giving him a tender squeeze. “At the old
place, Rob?”
“Yes,” replied the Grinder.
“Soon, Robby dear?” cried Mrs Brown; “and often?”
“Yes. Yes. Yes,” replied Rob. “I will indeed, upon my soul and body.”
“And then,” said Mrs Brown, with her arms uplifted towards the sky, and
her head thrown back and shaking, “if he’s true to his word, I’ll never
come a-near him though I know where he is, and never breathe a syllable
about him! Never!”
This ejaculation seemed a drop of comfort to the miserable Grinder, who
shook Mrs Brown by the hand upon it, and implored her with tears in his
eyes, to leave a cove and not destroy his prospects. Mrs Brown, with
another fond embrace, assented; but in the act of following her
daughter, turned back, with her finger stealthily raised, and asked in
a hoarse whisper for some money.
“A shilling, dear!” she said, with her eager avaricious face, “or
sixpence! For old acquaintance sake. I’m so poor. And my handsome
gal”—looking over her shoulder—“she’s my gal, Rob—half starves me.”
But as the reluctant Grinder put it in her hand, her daughter, coming
quietly back, caught the hand in hers, and twisted out the coin.
“What,” she said, “mother! always money! money from the first, and to
the last. Do you mind so little what I said but now? Here. Take it!”
The old woman uttered a moan as the money was restored, but without in
any other way opposing its restoration, hobbled at her daughter’s side
out of the yard, and along the by-street upon which it opened. The
astonished and dismayed Rob staring after them, saw that they stopped,
and fell to earnest conversation very soon; and more than once observed
a darkly threatening action of the younger woman’s hand (obviously
having reference to someone of whom they spoke), and a crooning feeble
imitation of it on the part of Mrs Brown, that made him earnestly hope
he might not be the subject of their discourse.
With the present consolation that they were gone, and with the
prospective comfort that Mrs Brown could not live for ever, and was not
likely to live long to trouble him, the Grinder, not otherwise
regretting his misdeeds than as they were attended with such
disagreeable incidental consequences, composed his ruffled features to
a more serene expression by thinking of the admirable manner in which
he had disposed of Captain Cuttle (a reflection that seldom failed to
put him in a flow of spirits), and went to the Dombey Counting House to
receive his master’s orders.
There his master, so subtle and vigilant of eye, that Rob quaked before
him, more than half expecting to be taxed with Mrs Brown, gave him the
usual morning’s box of papers for Mr Dombey, and a note for Mrs Dombey:
merely nodding his head as an enjoinder to be careful, and to use
dispatch—a mysterious admonition, fraught in the Grinder’s imagination
with dismal warnings and threats; and more powerful with him than any
words.
Alone again, in his own room, Mr Carker applied himself to work, and
worked all day. He saw many visitors; overlooked a number of documents;
went in and out, to and from, sundry places of mercantile resort; and
indulged in no more abstraction until the day’s business was done. But,
when the usual clearance of papers from his table was made at last, he
fell into his thoughtful mood once more.
He was standing in his accustomed place and attitude, with his eyes
intently fixed upon the ground, when his brother entered to bring back
some letters that had been taken out in the course of the day. He put
them quietly on the table, and was going immediately, when Mr Carker
the Manager, whose eyes had rested on him, on his entrance, as if they
had all this time had him for the subject of their contemplation,
instead of the office-floor, said:
“Well, John Carker, and what brings you here?”
His brother pointed to the letters, and was again withdrawing.
“I wonder,” said the Manager, “that you can come and go, without
inquiring how our master is”.
“We had word this morning in the Counting House, that Mr Dombey was
doing well,” replied his brother.
“You are such a meek fellow,” said the Manager, with a smile,—“but you
have grown so, in the course of years—that if any harm came to him,
you’d be miserable, I dare swear now.”
“I should be truly sorry, James,” returned the other.
“He would be sorry!” said the Manager, pointing at him, as if there
were some other person present to whom he was appealing. “He would be
truly sorry! This brother of mine! This junior of the place, this
slighted piece of lumber, pushed aside with his face to the wall, like
a rotten picture, and left so, for Heaven knows how many years he’s all
gratitude and respect, and devotion too, he would have me believe!”
“I would have you believe nothing, James,” returned the other. “Be as
just to me as you would to any other man below you. You ask a question,
and I answer it.”
“And have you nothing, Spaniel,” said the Manager, with unusual
irascibility, “to complain of in him? No proud treatment to resent, no
insolence, no foolery of state, no exaction of any sort! What the
devil! are you man or mouse?”
“It would be strange if any two persons could be together for so many
years, especially as superior and inferior, without each having
something to complain of in the other—as he thought, at all events,”
replied John Carker. “But apart from my history here—”
“His history here!” exclaimed the Manager. “Why, there it is. The very
fact that makes him an extreme case, puts him out of the whole chapter!
Well?”
“Apart from that, which, as you hint, gives me a reason to be thankful
that I alone (happily for all the rest) possess, surely there is no one
in the House who would not say and feel at least as much. You do not
think that anybody here would be indifferent to a mischance or
misfortune happening to the head of the House, or anything than truly
sorry for it?”
“You have good reason to be bound to him too!” said the Manager,
contemptuously. “Why, don’t you believe that you are kept here, as a
cheap example, and a famous instance of the clemency of Dombey and Son,
redounding to the credit of the illustrious House?”
“No,” replied his brother, mildly, “I have long believed that I am kept
here for more kind and disinterested reasons.”
“But you were going,” said the Manager, with the snarl of a tiger-cat,
“to recite some Christian precept, I observed.”
“Nay, James,” returned the other, “though the tie of brotherhood
between us has been long broken and thrown away—”
“Who broke it, good Sir?” said the Manager.
“I, by my misconduct. I do not charge it upon you.”
The Manager replied, with that mute action of his bristling mouth, “Oh,
you don’t charge it upon me!” and bade him go on.
“I say, though there is not that tie between us, do not, I entreat,
assail me with unnecessary taunts, or misinterpret what I say, or would
say. I was only going to suggest to you that it would be a mistake to
suppose that it is only you, who have been selected here, above all
others, for advancement, confidence and distinction (selected, in the
beginning, I know, for your great ability and trustfulness), and who
communicate more freely with Mr Dombey than anyone, and stand, it may
be said, on equal terms with him, and have been favoured and enriched
by him—that it would be a mistake to suppose that it is only you who
are tender of his welfare and reputation. There is no one in the House,
from yourself down to the lowest, I sincerely believe, who does not
participate in that feeling.”
“You lie!” said the Manager, red with sudden anger. “You’re a
hypocrite, John Carker, and you lie.”
“James!” cried the other, flushing in his turn. “What do you mean by
these insulting words? Why do you so basely use them to me,
unprovoked?”
“I tell you,” said the Manager, “that your hypocrisy and meekness—that
all the hypocrisy and meekness of this place—is not worth that to me,”
snapping his thumb and finger, “and that I see through it as if it were
air! There is not a man employed here, standing between myself and the
lowest in place (of whom you are very considerate, and with reason, for
he is not far off), who wouldn’t be glad at heart to see his master
humbled: who does not hate him, secretly: who does not wish him evil
rather than good: and who would not turn upon him, if he had the power
and boldness. The nearer to his favour, the nearer to his insolence;
the closer to him, the farther from him. That’s the creed here!”
“I don’t know,” said his brother, whose roused feelings had soon
yielded to surprise, “who may have abused your ear with such
representations; or why you have chosen to try me, rather than another.
But that you have been trying me, and tampering with me, I am now sure.
You have a different manner and a different aspect from any that I ever
saw in you. I will only say to you, once more, you are deceived.”
“I know I am,” said the Manager. “I have told you so.”
“Not by me,” returned his brother. “By your informant, if you have one.
If not, by your own thoughts and suspicions.”
“I have no suspicions,” said the Manager. “Mine are certainties. You
pusillanimous, abject, cringing dogs! All making the same show, all
canting the same story, all whining the same professions, all
harbouring the same transparent secret.”
His brother withdrew, without saying more, and shut the door as he
concluded. Mr Carker the Manager drew a chair close before the fire,
and fell to beating the coals softly with the poker.
“The faint-hearted, fawning knaves,” he muttered, with his two shining
rows of teeth laid bare. “There’s not one among them, who wouldn’t
feign to be so shocked and outraged—! Bah! There’s not one among them,
but if he had at once the power, and the wit and daring to use it,
would scatter Dombey’s pride and lay it low, as ruthlessly as I rake
out these ashes.”
As he broke them up and strewed them in the grate, he looked on with a
thoughtful smile at what he was doing. “Without the same queen beckoner
too!” he added presently; “and there is pride there, not to be
forgotten—witness our own acquaintance!” With that he fell into a
deeper reverie, and sat pondering over the blackening grate, until he
rose up like a man who had been absorbed in a book, and looking round
him took his hat and gloves, went to where his horse was waiting,
mounted, and rode away through the lighted streets, for it was evening.