Dombey and Son
“His legs is short,” returned Jemima; “especially behind; but they’ll
get longer, Polly, every day.”
It was a slow, prospective kind of consolation; but the cheerfulness
and good nature with which it was administered, gave it a value it did
not intrinsically possess. After a moment’s silence, Polly asked, in a
more sprightly manner:
“And where’s Father, Jemima dear?”—for by that patriarchal appellation,
Mr Toodle was generally known in the family.
“There again!” said Jemima. “What a pity! Father took his dinner with
him this morning, and isn’t coming home till night. But he’s always
talking of you, Polly, and telling the children about you; and is the
peaceablest, patientest, best-temperedest soul in the world, as he
always was and will be!”
“Thankee, Jemima,” cried the simple Polly; delighted by the speech, and
disappointed by the absence.
“Oh you needn’t thank me, Polly,” said her sister, giving her a
sounding kiss upon the cheek, and then dancing little Paul cheerfully.
“I say the same of you sometimes, and think it too.”
In spite of the double disappointment, it was impossible to regard in
the light of a failure a visit which was greeted with such a reception;
so the sisters talked hopefully about family matters, and about Biler,
and about all his brothers and sisters: while the black-eyed, having
performed several journeys to Banbury Cross and back, took sharp note
of the furniture, the Dutch clock, the cupboard, the castle on the
mantel-piece with red and green windows in it, susceptible of
illumination by a candle-end within; and the pair of small black velvet
kittens, each with a lady’s reticule in its mouth; regarded by the
Staggs’s Gardeners as prodigies of imitative art. The conversation soon
becoming general lest the black-eyed should go off at score and turn
sarcastic, that young lady related to Jemima a summary of everything
she knew concerning Mr Dombey, his prospects, family, pursuits, and
character. Also an exact inventory of her personal wardrobe, and some
account of her principal relations and friends. Having relieved her
mind of these disclosures, she partook of shrimps and porter, and
evinced a disposition to swear eternal friendship.
Little Florence herself was not behind-hand in improving the occasion;
for, being conducted forth by the young Toodles to inspect some
toad-stools and other curiosities of the Gardens, she entered with
them, heart and soul, on the formation of a temporary breakwater across
a small green pool that had collected in a corner. She was still busily
engaged in that labour, when sought and found by Susan; who, such was
her sense of duty, even under the humanizing influence of shrimps,
delivered a moral address to her (punctuated with thumps) on her
degenerate nature, while washing her face and hands; and predicted that
she would bring the grey hairs of her family in general, with sorrow to
the grave. After some delay, occasioned by a pretty long confidential
interview above stairs on pecuniary subjects, between Polly and Jemima,
an interchange of babies was again effected—for Polly had all this time
retained her own child, and Jemima little Paul—and the visitors took
leave.
But first the young Toodles, victims of a pious fraud, were deluded
into repairing in a body to a chandler’s shop in the neighbourhood, for
the ostensible purpose of spending a penny; and when the coast was
quite clear, Polly fled: Jemima calling after her that if they could
only go round towards the City Road on their way back, they would be
sure to meet little Biler coming from school.
“Do you think that we might make time to go a little round in that
direction, Susan?” inquired Polly, when they halted to take breath.
“Why not, Mrs Richards?” returned Susan.
“It’s getting on towards our dinner time you know,” said Polly.
But lunch had rendered her companion more than indifferent to this
grave consideration, so she allowed no weight to it, and they resolved
to go “a little round.”
Now, it happened that poor Biler’s life had been, since yesterday
morning, rendered weary by the costume of the Charitable Grinders. The
youth of the streets could not endure it. No young vagabond could be
brought to bear its contemplation for a moment, without throwing
himself upon the unoffending wearer, and doing him a mischief. His
social existence had been more like that of an early Christian, than an
innocent child of the nineteenth century. He had been stoned in the
streets. He had been overthrown into gutters; bespattered with mud;
violently flattened against posts. Entire strangers to his person had
lifted his yellow cap off his head, and cast it to the winds. His legs
had not only undergone verbal criticisms and revilings, but had been
handled and pinched. That very morning, he had received a perfectly
unsolicited black eye on his way to the Grinders’ establishment, and
had been punished for it by the master: a superannuated old Grinder of
savage disposition, who had been appointed schoolmaster because he
didn’t know anything, and wasn’t fit for anything, and for whose cruel
cane all chubby little boys had a perfect fascination.
Thus it fell out that Biler, on his way home, sought unfrequented
paths; and slunk along by narrow passages and back streets, to avoid
his tormentors. Being compelled to emerge into the main road, his ill
fortune brought him at last where a small party of boys, headed by a
ferocious young butcher, were lying in wait for any means of
pleasurable excitement that might happen. These, finding a Charitable
Grinder in the midst of them—unaccountably delivered over, as it were,
into their hands—set up a general yell and rushed upon him.
But it so fell out likewise, that, at the same time, Polly, looking
hopelessly along the road before her, after a good hour’s walk, had
said it was no use going any further, when suddenly she saw this sight.
She no sooner saw it than, uttering a hasty exclamation, and giving
Master Dombey to the black-eyed, she started to the rescue of her
unhappy little son.
Surprises, like misfortunes, rarely come alone. The astonished Susan
Nipper and her two young charges were rescued by the bystanders from
under the very wheels of a passing carriage before they knew what had
happened; and at that moment (it was market day) a thundering alarm of
“Mad Bull!” was raised.
With a wild confusion before her, of people running up and down, and
shouting, and wheels running over them, and boys fighting, and mad
bulls coming up, and the nurse in the midst of all these dangers being
torn to pieces, Florence screamed and ran. She ran till she was
exhausted, urging Susan to do the same; and then, stopping and wringing
her hands as she remembered they had left the other nurse behind,
found, with a sensation of terror not to be described, that she was
quite alone.
“Susan! Susan!” cried Florence, clapping her hands in the very ecstasy
of her alarm. “Oh, where are they? where are they?”
“Where are they?” said an old woman, coming hobbling across as fast as
she could from the opposite side of the way. “Why did you run away from
’em?”
“I was frightened,” answered Florence. “I didn’t know what I did. I
thought they were with me. Where are they?”
The old woman took her by the wrist, and said, “I’ll show you.”
She was a very ugly old woman, with red rims round her eyes, and a
mouth that mumbled and chattered of itself when she was not speaking.
She was miserably dressed, and carried some skins over her arm. She
seemed to have followed Florence some little way at all events, for she
had lost her breath; and this made her uglier still, as she stood
trying to regain it: working her shrivelled yellow face and throat into
all sorts of contortions.
Florence was afraid of her, and looked, hesitating, up the street, of
which she had almost reached the bottom. It was a solitary place—more a
back road than a street—and there was no one in it but her-self and the
old woman.
“You needn’t be frightened now,” said the old woman, still holding her
tight. “Come along with me.”
“I—I don’t know you. What’s your name?” asked Florence.
“Mrs Brown,” said the old woman. “Good Mrs Brown.”
“Are they near here?” asked Florence, beginning to be led away.
“Susan ain’t far off,” said Good Mrs Brown; “and the others are close
to her.”
“Is anybody hurt?” cried Florence.
“Not a bit of it,” said Good Mrs Brown.
The child shed tears of delight on hearing this, and accompanied the
old woman willingly; though she could not help glancing at her face as
they went along—particularly at that industrious mouth—and wondering
whether Bad Mrs Brown, if there were such a person, was at all like
her.
They had not gone far, but had gone by some very uncomfortable places,
such as brick-fields and tile-yards, when the old woman turned down a
dirty lane, where the mud lay in deep black ruts in the middle of the
road. She stopped before a shabby little house, as closely shut up as a
house that was full of cracks and crevices could be. Opening the door
with a key she took out of her bonnet, she pushed the child before her
into a back room, where there was a great heap of rags of different
colours lying on the floor; a heap of bones, and a heap of sifted dust
or cinders; but there was no furniture at all, and the walls and
ceiling were quite black.
The child became so terrified the she was stricken speechless, and
looked as though about to swoon.
“Now don’t be a young mule,” said Good Mrs Brown, reviving her with a
shake. “I’m not a going to hurt you. Sit upon the rags.”
Florence obeyed her, holding out her folded hands, in mute
supplication.
“I’m not a going to keep you, even, above an hour,” said Mrs Brown.
“D’ye understand what I say?”
The child answered with great difficulty, “Yes.”
“Then,” said Good Mrs Brown, taking her own seat on the bones, “don’t
vex me. If you don’t, I tell you I won’t hurt you. But if you do, I’ll
kill you. I could have you killed at any time—even if you was in your
own bed at home. Now let’s know who you are, and what you are, and all
about it.”
The old woman’s threats and promises; the dread of giving her offence;
and the habit, unusual to a child, but almost natural to Florence now,
of being quiet, and repressing what she felt, and feared, and hoped;
enabled her to do this bidding, and to tell her little history, or what
she knew of it. Mrs Brown listened attentively, until she had finished.
“So your name’s Dombey, eh?” said Mrs Brown.
“I want that pretty frock, Miss Dombey,” said Good Mrs Brown, “and that
little bonnet, and a petticoat or two, and anything else you can spare.
Come! Take ’em off.”
Florence obeyed, as fast as her trembling hands would allow; keeping,
all the while, a frightened eye on Mrs Brown. When she had divested
herself of all the articles of apparel mentioned by that lady, Mrs B.
examined them at leisure, and seemed tolerably well satisfied with
their quality and value.
“Humph!” she said, running her eyes over the child’s slight figure, “I
don’t see anything else—except the shoes. I must have the shoes, Miss
Dombey.”
Poor little Florence took them off with equal alacrity, only too glad
to have any more means of conciliation about her. The old woman then
produced some wretched substitutes from the bottom of the heap of rags,
which she turned up for that purpose; together with a girl’s cloak,
quite worn out and very old; and the crushed remains of a bonnet that
had probably been picked up from some ditch or dunghill. In this dainty
raiment, she instructed Florence to dress herself; and as such
preparation seemed a prelude to her release, the child complied with
increased readiness, if possible.
In hurriedly putting on the bonnet, if that may be called a bonnet