Dombey and Son
said Mr Morfin, after a moment’s survey of her face.
“You may. Indeed you may!”
“I am sure I may. Danger to the House’s credit? No; none There may be
difficulty, greater or less difficulty, but no danger, unless—unless,
indeed—the head of the House, unable to bring his mind to the reduction
of its enterprises, and positively refusing to believe that it is, or
can be, in any position but the position in which he has always
represented it to himself, should urge it beyond its strength. Then it
would totter.”
“But there is no apprehension of that?” said Harriet.
“There shall be no half-confidence,” he replied, shaking her hand,
“between us. Mr Dombey is unapproachable by anyone, and his state of
mind is haughty, rash, unreasonable, and ungovernable, now. But he is
disturbed and agitated now beyond all common bounds, and it may pass.
You now know all, both worst and best. No more tonight, and
good-night!”
With that he kissed her hand, and, passing out to the door where her
brother stood awaiting his coming, put him cheerfully aside when he
essayed to speak; told him that, as they would see each other soon and
often, he might speak at another time, if he would, but there was no
leisure for it then; and went away at a round pace, in order that no
word of gratitude might follow him.
The brother and sister sat conversing by the fireside, until it was
almost day; made sleepless by this glimpse of the new world that opened
before them, and feeling like two people shipwrecked long ago, upon a
solitary coast, to whom a ship had come at last, when they were old in
resignation, and had lost all thought of any other home. But another
and different kind of disquietude kept them waking too. The darkness
out of which this light had broken on them gathered around; and the
shadow of their guilty brother was in the house where his foot had
never trod.
Nor was it to be driven out, nor did it fade before the sun. Next
morning it was there; at noon; at night Darkest and most distinct at
night, as is now to be told.
John Carker had gone out, in pursuance of a letter of appointment from
their friend, and Harriet was left in the house alone. She had been
alone some hours. A dull, grave evening, and a deepening twilight, were
not favourable to the removal of the oppression on her spirits. The
idea of this brother, long unseen and unknown, flitted about her in
frightful shapes. He was dead, dying, calling to her, staring at her,
frowning on her. The pictures in her mind were so obtrusive and exact
that, as the twilight deepened, she dreaded to raise her head and look
at the dark corners of the room, lest his wraith, the offspring of her
excited imagination, should be waiting there, to startle her. Once she
had such a fancy of his being in the next room, hiding—though she knew
quite well what a distempered fancy it was, and had no belief in
it—that she forced herself to go there, for her own conviction. But in
vain. The room resumed its shadowy terrors, the moment she left it; and
she had no more power to divest herself of these vague impressions of
dread, than if they had been stone giants, rooted in the solid earth.
It was almost dark, and she was sitting near the window, with her head
upon her hand, looking down, when, sensible of a sudden increase in the
gloom of the apartment, she raised her eyes, and uttered an involuntary
cry. Close to the glass, a pale scared face gazed in; vacantly, for an
instant, as searching for an object; then the eyes rested on herself,
and lighted up.
“Let me in! Let me in! I want to speak to you!” and the hand rattled on
the glass.
She recognised immediately the woman with the long dark hair, to whom
she had given warmth, food, and shelter, one wet night. Naturally
afraid of her, remembering her violent behaviour, Harriet, retreating a
little from the window, stood undecided and alarmed.
“Let me in! Let me speak to you! I am thankful—quiet—humble—anything
you like. But let me speak to you.”
The vehement manner of the entreaty, the earnest expression of the
face, the trembling of the two hands that were raised imploringly, a
certain dread and terror in the voice akin to her own condition at the
moment, prevailed with Harriet. She hastened to the door and opened it.
“May I come in, or shall I speak here?” said the woman, catching at her
hand.
“What is it that you want? What is it that you have to say?”
“Not much, but let me say it out, or I shall never say it. I am tempted
now to go away. There seem to be hands dragging me from the door. Let
me come in, if you can trust me for this once!”
Her energy again prevailed, and they passed into the firelight of the
little kitchen, where she had before sat, and ate, and dried her
clothes.
“Sit there,” said Alice, kneeling down beside her, “and look at me. You
remember me?”
“I do.”
“You remember what I told you I had been, and where I came from, ragged
and lame, with the fierce wind and weather beating on my head?”
“Yes.”
“You know how I came back that night, and threw your money in the dirt,
and you and your race. Now, see me here, upon my knees. Am I less
earnest now, than I was then?”
“If what you ask,” said Harriet, gently, “is forgiveness—”
“But it’s not!” returned the other, with a proud, fierce look “What I
ask is to be believed. Now you shall judge if I am worthy of belief,
both as I was, and as I am.”
Still upon her knees, and with her eyes upon the fire, and the fire
shining on her ruined beauty and her wild black hair, one long tress of
which she pulled over her shoulder, and wound about her hand, and
thoughtfully bit and tore while speaking, she went on:
“When I was young and pretty, and this,” plucking contemptuously at the
hair she held, “was only handled delicately, and couldn’t be admired
enough, my mother, who had not been very mindful of me as a child,
found out my merits, and was fond of me, and proud of me. She was
covetous and poor, and thought to make a sort of property of me. No
great lady ever thought that of a daughter yet, I’m sure, or acted as
if she did—it’s never done, we all know—and that shows that the only
instances of mothers bringing up their daughters wrong, and evil coming
of it, are among such miserable folks as us.”
Looking at the fire, as if she were forgetful, for the moment, of
having any auditor, she continued in a dreamy way, as she wound the
long tress of hair tight round and round her hand.
“What came of that, I needn’t say. Wretched marriages don’t come of
such things, in our degree; only wretchedness and ruin. Wretchedness
and ruin came on me—came on me.”
Raising her eyes swiftly from their moody gaze upon the fire, to
Harriet’s face, she said:
“I am wasting time, and there is none to spare; yet if I hadn’t thought
of all, I shouldn’t be here now. Wretchedness and ruin came on me, I
say. I was made a short-lived toy, and flung aside more cruelly and
carelessly than even such things are. By whose hand do you think?”
“Why do you ask me?” said Harriet.
“Why do you tremble?” rejoined Alice, with an eager look. “His usage
made a Devil of me. I sunk in wretchedness and ruin, lower and lower
yet. I was concerned in a robbery—in every part of it but the gains—and
was found out, and sent to be tried, without a friend, without a penny.
Though I was but a girl, I would have gone to Death, sooner than ask
him for a word, if a word of his could have saved me. I would! To any
death that could have been invented. But my mother, covetous always,
sent to him in my name, told the true story of my case, and humbly
prayed and petitioned for a small last gift—for not so many pounds as I
have fingers on this hand. Who was it, do you think, who snapped his
fingers at me in my misery, lying, as he believed, at his feet, and
left me without even this poor sign of remembrance; well satisfied that
I should be sent abroad, beyond the reach of farther trouble to him,
and should die, and rot there? Who was this, do you think?”
“Why do you ask me?” repeated Harriet.
“Why do you tremble?” said Alice, laying her hand upon her arm, and
looking in her face, “but that the answer is on your lips! It was your
brother James.”
Harriet trembled more and more, but did not avert her eyes from the
eager look that rested on them.
“When I knew you were his sister—which was on that night—I came back,
weary and lame, to spurn your gift. I felt that night as if I could
have travelled, weary and lame, over the whole world, to stab him, if I
could have found him in a lonely place with no one near. Do you believe
that I was earnest in all that?”
“I do! Good Heaven, why are you come again?”
“Since then,” said Alice, with the same grasp of her arm, and the same
look in her face, “I have seen him! I have followed him with my eyes.
In the broad day. If any spark of my resentment slumbered in my bosom,
it sprung into a blaze when my eyes rested on him. You know he has
wronged a proud man, and made him his deadly enemy. What if I had given
information of him to that man?”
“Information!” repeated Harriet.
“What if I had found out one who knew your brother’s secret; who knew
the manner of his flight, who knew where he and the companion of his
flight were gone? What if I had made him utter all his knowledge, word
by word, before his enemy, concealed to hear it? What if I had sat by
at the time, looking into this enemy’s face, and seeing it change till
it was scarcely human? What if I had seen him rush away, mad, in
pursuit? What if I knew, now, that he was on his road, more fiend than
man, and must, in so many hours, come up with him?”
“Remove your hand!” said Harriet, recoiling. “Go away! Your touch is
dreadful to me!”
“I have done this,” pursued the other, with her eager look, regardless
of the interruption. “Do I speak and look as if I really had? Do you
believe what I am saying?”
“I fear I must. Let my arm go!”
“Not yet. A moment more. You can think what my revengeful purpose must
have been, to last so long, and urge me to do this?”
“Dreadful!” said Harriet.
“Then when you see me now,” said Alice hoarsely, “here again, kneeling
quietly on the ground, with my touch upon your arm, with my eyes upon
your face, you may believe that there is no common earnestness in what
I say, and that no common struggle has been battling in my breast. I am
ashamed to speak the words, but I relent. I despise myself; I have
fought with myself all day, and all last night; but I relent towards
him without reason, and wish to repair what I have done, if it is
possible. I wouldn’t have them come together while his pursuer is so
blind and headlong. If you had seen him as he went out last night, you
would know the danger better.”
“How can it be prevented? What can I do?” cried Harriet.
“All night long,” pursued the other, hurriedly, “I had dreams of
him—and yet I didn’t sleep—in his blood. All day, I have had him near
me.”
“What can I do?” cried Harriet, shuddering at these words.
“If there is anyone who’ll write, or send, or go to him, let them lose
no time. He is at Dijon. Do you know the name, and where it is?”
“Yes.”
“Warn him that the man he has made his enemy is in a frenzy, and that
he doesn’t know him if he makes light of his approach. Tell him that he
is on the road—I know he is!—and hurrying on. Urge him to get away
while there is time—if there is time—and not to meet him yet. A month
or so will make years of difference. Let them not encounter, through
me. Anywhere but there! Any time but now! Let his foe follow him, and
find him for himself, but not through me! There is enough upon my head
without.”
The fire ceased to be reflected in her jet black hair, uplifted face,
and eager eyes; her hand was gone from Harriet’s arm; and the place