Dombey and Son
“Mr Carker’s parrot, Rob?”
“Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?” returned the goaded Grinder.
“What do you go naming names for? I’m blest,” said Rob, pulling his
hair with both hands in the exasperation of his feelings, “if she ain’t
enough to make a cove run wild!”
“What! Do you snub me, thankless boy!” cried the old woman, with ready
vehemence.
“Good gracious, Misses Brown, no!” returned the Grinder, with tears in
his eyes. “Was there ever such a—! Don’t I dote upon you, Misses
Brown?”
“Do you, sweet Rob? Do you truly, chickabiddy?” With that, Mrs Brown
held him in her fond embrace once more; and did not release him until
he had made several violent and ineffectual struggles with his legs,
and his hair was standing on end all over his head.
“Oh!” returned the Grinder, “what a thing it is to be perfectly pitched
into with affection like this here. I wish she was—How have you been,
Misses Brown?”
“Ah! Not here since this night week!” said the old woman, contemplating
him with a look of reproach.
“Good gracious, Misses Brown,” returned the Grinder, “I said tonight’s
a week, that I’d come tonight, didn’t I? And here I am. How you do go
on! I wish you’d be a little rational, Misses Brown. I’m hoarse with
saying things in my defence, and my very face is shiny with being
hugged!” He rubbed it hard with his sleeve, as if to remove the tender
polish in question.
“Drink a little drop to comfort you, my Robin,” said the old woman,
filling the glass from the bottle and giving it to him.
“Thank’ee, Misses Brown,” returned the Grinder. “Here’s your health.
And long may you—et ceterer.” Which, to judge from the expression of
his face, did not include any very choice blessings. “And here’s her
health,” said the Grinder, glancing at Alice, who sat with her eyes
fixed, as it seemed to him, on the wall behind him, but in reality on
Mr Dombey’s face at the door, “and wishing her the same and many of
’em!”
He drained the glass to these two sentiments, and set it down.
“Well, I say, Misses Brown!” he proceeded. “To go on a little rational
now. You’re a judge of birds, and up to their ways, as I know to my
cost.”
“Cost!” repeated Mrs Brown.
“Satisfaction, I mean,” returned the Grinder. “How you do take up a
cove, Misses Brown! You’ve put it all out of my head again.”
“Judge of birds, Robby,” suggested the old woman.
“Ah!” said the Grinder. “Well, I’ve got to take care of this
parrot—certain things being sold, and a certain establishment broke
up—and as I don’t want no notice took at present, I wish you’d attend
to her for a week or so, and give her board and lodging, will you? If I
must come backwards and forwards,” mused the Grinder with a dejected
face, “I may as well have something to come for.”
“Something to come for?” screamed the old woman.
“Besides you, I mean, Misses Brown,” returned the craven Rob. “Not that
I want any inducement but yourself, Misses Brown, I’m sure. Don’t begin
again, for goodness’ sake.”
“He don’t care for me! He don’t care for me, as I care for him!” cried
Mrs Brown, lifting up her skinny hands. “But I’ll take care of his
bird.”
“Take good care of it too, you know, Mrs Brown,” said Rob, shaking his
head. “If you was so much as to stroke its feathers once the wrong way,
I believe it would be found out.”
“Ah, so sharp as that, Rob?” said Mrs Brown, quickly.
“Sharp, Misses Brown!” repeated Rob. “But this is not to be talked
about.”
Checking himself abruptly, and not without a fearful glance across the
room, Rob filled the glass again, and having slowly emptied it, shook
his head, and began to draw his fingers across and across the wires of
the parrot’s cage by way of a diversion from the dangerous theme that
had just been broached.
The old woman eyed him slily, and hitching her chair nearer his, and
looking in at the parrot, who came down from the gilded dome at her
call, said:
“Out of place now, Robby?”
“Never you mind, Misses Brown,” returned the Grinder, shortly.
“Board wages, perhaps, Rob?” said Mrs Brown.
“Pretty Polly!” said the Grinder.
The old woman darted a glance at him that might have warned him to
consider his ears in danger, but it was his turn to look in at the
parrot now, and however expressive his imagination may have made her
angry scowl, it was unseen by his bodily eyes.
“I wonder Master didn’t take you with him, Rob,” said the old woman, in
a wheedling voice, but with increased malignity of aspect.
Rob was so absorbed in contemplation of the parrot, and in trolling his
forefinger on the wires, that he made no answer.
The old woman had her clutch within a hair’s breadth of his shock of
hair as it stooped over the table; but she restrained her fingers, and
said, in a voice that choked with its efforts to be coaxing:
“Robby, my child.”
“Well, Misses Brown,” returned the Grinder.
“I say I wonder Master didn’t take you with him, dear.”
“Never you mind, Misses Brown,” returned the Grinder.
Mrs Brown instantly directed the clutch of her right hand at his hair,
and the clutch of her left hand at his throat, and held on to the
object of her fond affection with such extraordinary fury, that his
face began to blacken in a moment.
“Misses Brown!” exclaimed the Grinder, “let go, will you? What are you
doing of? Help, young woman! Misses Brow—Brow—!”
The young woman, however, equally unmoved by his direct appeal to her,
and by his inarticulate utterance, remained quite neutral, until, after
struggling with his assailant into a corner, Rob disengaged himself,
and stood there panting and fenced in by his own elbows, while the old
woman, panting too, and stamping with rage and eagerness, appeared to
be collecting her energies for another swoop upon him. At this crisis
Alice interposed her voice, but not in the Grinder’s favour, by saying,
“Well done, mother. Tear him to pieces!”
“What, young woman!” blubbered Rob; “are you against me too? What have
I been and done? What am I to be tore to pieces for, I should like to
know? Why do you take and choke a cove who has never done you any harm,
neither of you? Call yourselves females, too!” said the frightened and
afflicted Grinder, with his coat-cuff at his eye. “I’m surprised at
you! Where’s your feminine tenderness?”
“You thankless dog!” gasped Mrs Brown. “You impudent insulting dog!”
“What have I been and done to go and give you offence, Misses Brown?”
retorted the fearful Rob. “You was very much attached to me a minute
ago.”
“To cut me off with his short answers and his sulky words,” said the
old woman. “Me! Because I happen to be curious to have a little bit of
gossip about Master and the lady, to dare to play at fast and loose
with me! But I’ll talk to you no more, my lad. Now go!”
“I’m sure, Misses Brown,” returned the abject Grinder, “I never
insiniwated that I wished to go. Don’t talk like that, Misses Brown, if
you please.”
“I won’t talk at all,” said Mrs Brown, with an action of her crooked
fingers that made him shrink into half his natural compass in the
corner. “Not another word with him shall pass my lips. He’s an
ungrateful hound. I cast him off. Now let him go! And I’ll slip those
after him that shall talk too much; that won’t be shook away; that’ll
hang to him like leeches, and slink arter him like foxes. What! He
knows ’em. He knows his old games and his old ways. If he’s forgotten
’em, they’ll soon remind him. Now let him go, and see how he’ll do
Master’s business, and keep Master’s secrets, with such company always
following him up and down. Ha, ha, ha! He’ll find ’em a different sort
from you and me, Ally; Close as he is with you and me. Now let him go,
now let him go!”
The old woman, to the unspeakable dismay of the Grinder, walked her
twisted figure round and round, in a ring of some four feet in
diameter, constantly repeating these words, and shaking her fist above
her head, and working her mouth about.
“Misses Brown,” pleaded Rob, coming a little out of his corner, “I’m
sure you wouldn’t injure a cove, on second thoughts, and in cold blood,
would you?”
“Don’t talk to me,” said Mrs Brown, still wrathfully pursuing her
circle. “Now let him go, now let him go!”
“Misses Brown,” urged the tormented Grinder, “I didn’t mean to—Oh, what
a thing it is for a cove to get into such a line as this!—I was only
careful of talking, Misses Brown, because I always am, on account of
his being up to everything; but I might have known it wouldn’t have
gone any further. I’m sure I’m quite agreeable,” with a wretched face,
“for any little bit of gossip, Misses Brown. Don’t go on like this, if
you please. Oh, couldn’t you have the goodness to put in a word for a
miserable cove, here?” said the Grinder, appealing in desperation to
the daughter.
“Come, mother, you hear what he says,” she interposed, in her stern
voice, and with an impatient action of her head; “try him once more,
and if you fall out with him again, ruin him, if you like, and have
done with him.”
Mrs Brown, moved as it seemed by this very tender exhortation,
presently began to howl; and softening by degrees, took the apologetic
Grinder to her arms, who embraced her with a face of unutterable woe,
and like a victim as he was, resumed his former seat, close by the side
of his venerable friend, whom he suffered, not without much constrained
sweetness of countenance, combating very expressive physiognomical
revelations of an opposite character to draw his arm through hers, and
keep it there.
“And how’s Master, deary dear?” said Mrs Brown, when, sitting in this
amicable posture, they had pledged each other.
“Hush! If you’d be so good, Misses Brown, as to speak a little lower,”
Rob implored. “Why, he’s pretty well, thank’ee, I suppose.”
“You’re not out of place, Robby?” said Mrs Brown, in a wheedling tone.
“Why, I’m not exactly out of place, nor in,” faltered Rob. “I—I’m still
in pay, Misses Brown.”
“And nothing to do, Rob?”
“Nothing particular to do just now, Misses Brown, but to—keep my eyes
open,” said the Grinder, rolling them in a forlorn way.
“Master abroad, Rob?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Misses Brown, couldn’t you gossip with a cove
about anything else?” cried the Grinder, in a burst of despair.
The impetuous Mrs Brown rising directly, the tortured Grinder detained
her, stammering “Ye-es, Misses Brown, I believe he’s abroad. What’s she
staring at?” he added, in allusion to the daughter, whose eyes were
fixed upon the face that now again looked out behind.
“Don’t mind her, lad,” said the old woman, holding him closer to
prevent his turning round. “It’s her way—her way. Tell me, Rob. Did you
ever see the lady, deary?”
“Oh, Misses Brown, what lady?” cried the Grinder in a tone of piteous
supplication.
“What lady?” she retorted. “The lady; Mrs Dombey.”
“Yes, I believe I see her once,” replied Rob.
“The night she went away, Robby, eh?” said the old woman in his ear,
and taking note of every change in his face. “Aha! I know it was that
night.”
“Well, if you know it was that night, you know, Misses Brown,” replied
Rob, “it’s no use putting pinchers into a cove to make him say so.
“Where did they go that night, Rob? Straight away? How did they go?
Where did you see her? Did she laugh? Did she cry? Tell me all about
it,” cried the old hag, holding him closer yet, patting the hand that
was drawn through his arm against her other hand, and searching every
line in his face with her bleared eyes. “Come! Begin! I want to be told
all about it. What, Rob, boy! You and me can keep a secret together,
eh? We’ve done so before now. Where did they go first, Rob?”
The wretched Grinder made a gasp, and a pause.
“Are you dumb?” said the old woman, angrily.
“Lord, Misses Brown, no! You expect a cove to be a flash of lightning.