Dombey and Son
he spoke to her. Thus he would address her, sometimes, as if his boy
were newly dead; and would tell her, that although he had said nothing
of her ministering at the little bedside, yet he had seen it—he had
seen it; and then would hide his face and sob, and put out his worn
hand. Sometimes he would ask her for herself. “Where is Florence?” “I
am here, Papa, I am here.” “I don’t know her!” he would cry. “We have
been parted so long, that I don’t know her!” and then a staring dread
would be upon him, until she could soothe his perturbation; and recall
the tears she tried so hard, at other times, to dry.
He rambled through the scenes of his old pursuits—through many where
Florence lost him as she listened—sometimes for hours. He would repeat
that childish question, “What is money?” and ponder on it, and think
about it, and reason with himself, more or less connectedly, for a good
answer; as if it had never been proposed to him until that moment. He
would go on with a musing repetition of the title of his old firm
twenty thousand times, and at every one of them, would turn his head
upon his pillow. He would count his children—one—two—stop, and go back,
and begin again in the same way.
But this was when his mind was in its most distracted state. In all the
other phases of its illness, and in those to which it was most
constant, it always turned on Florence. What he would oftenest do was
this: he would recall that night he had so recently remembered, the
night on which she came down to his room, and would imagine that his
heart smote him, and that he went out after her, and up the stairs to
seek her. Then, confounding that time with the later days of the many
footsteps, he would be amazed at their number, and begin to count them
as he followed her. Here, of a sudden, was a bloody footstep going on
among the others; and after it there began to be, at intervals, doors
standing open, through which certain terrible pictures were seen, in
mirrors, of haggard men, concealing something in their breasts. Still,
among the many footsteps and the bloody footsteps here and there, was
the step of Florence. Still she was going on before. Still the restless
mind went, following and counting, ever farther, ever higher, as to the
summit of a mighty tower that it took years to climb.
One day he inquired if that were not Susan who had spoken a long while
ago.
Florence said “Yes, dear Papa;” and asked him would he like to see her?
He said “very much.” And Susan, with no little trepidation, showed
herself at his bedside.
It seemed a great relief to him. He begged her not to go; to understand
that he forgave her what she had said; and that she was to stay.
Florence and he were very different now, he said, and very happy. Let
her look at this! He meant his drawing the gentle head down to his
pillow, and laying it beside him.
He remained like this for days and weeks. At length, lying, the faint
feeble semblance of a man, upon his bed, and speaking in a voice so low
that they could only hear him by listening very near to his lips, he
became quiet. It was dimly pleasant to him now, to lie there, with the
window open, looking out at the summer sky and the trees: and, in the
evening, at the sunset. To watch the shadows of the clouds and leaves,
and seem to feel a sympathy with shadows. It was natural that he
should. To him, life and the world were nothing else.
He began to show now that he thought of Florence’s fatigue: and often
taxed his weakness to whisper to her, “Go and walk, my dearest, in the
sweet air. Go to your good husband!” One time when Walter was in his
room, he beckoned him to come near, and to stoop down; and pressing his
hand, whispered an assurance to him that he knew he could trust him
with his child when he was dead.
It chanced one evening, towards sunset, when Florence and Walter were
sitting in his room together, as he liked to see them, that Florence,
having her baby in her arms, began in a low voice to sing to the little
fellow, and sang the old tune she had so often sung to the dead child:
He could not bear it at the time; he held up his trembling hand,
imploring her to stop; but next day he asked her to repeat it, and to
do so often of an evening: which she did. He listening, with his face
turned away.
Florence was sitting on a certain time by his window, with her
work-basket between her and her old attendant, who was still her
faithful companion. He had fallen into a doze. It was a beautiful
evening, with two hours of light to come yet; and the tranquillity and
quiet made Florence very thoughtful. She was lost to everything for the
moment, but the occasion when the so altered figure on the bed had
first presented her to her beautiful Mama; when a touch from Walter
leaning on the back of her chair, made her start.
“My dear,” said Walter, “there is someone downstairs who wishes to
speak to you.”
She fancied Walter looked grave, and asked him if anything had
happened.
“No, no, my love!” said Walter. “I have seen the gentleman myself, and
spoken with him. Nothing has happened. Will you come?”
Florence put her arm through his; and confiding her father to the
black-eyed Mrs Toots, who sat as brisk and smart at her work as
black-eyed woman could, accompanied her husband downstairs. In the
pleasant little parlour opening on the garden, sat a gentleman, who
rose to advance towards her when she came in, but turned off, by reason
of some peculiarity in his legs, and was only stopped by the table.
Florence then remembered Cousin Feenix, whom she had not at first
recognised in the shade of the leaves. Cousin Feenix took her hand, and
congratulated her upon her marriage.
“I could have wished, I am sure,” said Cousin Feenix, sitting down as
Florence sat, “to have had an earlier opportunity of offering my
congratulations; but, in point of fact, so many painful occurrences
have happened, treading, as a man may say, on one another’s heels, that
I have been in a devil of a state myself, and perfectly unfit for every
description of society. The only description of society I have kept,
has been my own; and it certainly is anything but flattering to a man’s
good opinion of his own sources, to know that, in point of fact, he has
the capacity of boring himself to a perfectly unlimited extent.”
Florence divined, from some indefinable constraint and anxiety in this
gentleman’s manner—which was always a gentleman’s, in spite of the
harmless little eccentricities that attached to it—and from Walter’s
manner no less, that something more immediately tending to some object
was to follow this.
“I have been mentioning to my friend Mr Gay, if I may be allowed to
have the honour of calling him so,” said Cousin Feenix, “that I am
rejoiced to hear that my friend Dombey is very decidedly mending. I
trust my friend Dombey will not allow his mind to be too much preyed
upon, by any mere loss of fortune. I cannot say that I have ever
experienced any very great loss of fortune myself: never having had, in
point of fact, any great amount of fortune to lose. But as much as I
could lose, I have lost; and I don’t find that I particularly care
about it. I know my friend Dombey to be a devilish honourable man; and
it’s calculated to console my friend Dombey very much, to know, that
this is the universal sentiment. Even Tommy Screwzer,—a man of an
extremely bilious habit, with whom my friend Gay is probably
acquainted—cannot say a syllable in disputation of the fact.”
Florence felt, more than ever, that there was something to come; and
looked earnestly for it. So earnestly, that Cousin Feenix answered, as
if she had spoken.
“The fact is,” said Cousin Feenix, “that my friend Gay and myself have
been discussing the propriety of entreating a favour at your hands; and
that I have the consent of my friend Gay—who has met me in an
exceedingly kind and open manner, for which I am very much indebted to
him—to solicit it. I am sensible that so amiable a lady as the lovely
and accomplished daughter of my friend Dombey will not require much
urging; but I am happy to know, that I am supported by my friend Gay’s
influence and approval. As in my parliamentary time, when a man had a
motion to make of any sort—which happened seldom in those days, for we
were kept very tight in hand, the leaders on both sides being regular
Martinets, which was a devilish good thing for the rank and file, like
myself, and prevented our exposing ourselves continually, as a great
many of us had a feverish anxiety to do—as, in my parliamentary time, I
was about to say, when a man had leave to let off any little private
popgun, it was always considered a great point for him to say that he
had the happiness of believing that his sentiments were not without an
echo in the breast of Mr Pitt; the pilot, in point of fact, who had
weathered the storm. Upon which, a devilish large number of fellows
immediately cheered, and put him in spirits. Though the fact is, that
these fellows, being under orders to cheer most excessively whenever Mr
Pitt’s name was mentioned, became so proficient that it always woke
’em. And they were so entirely innocent of what was going on,
otherwise, that it used to be commonly said by Conversation
Brown—four-bottle man at the Treasury Board, with whom the father of my
friend Gay was probably acquainted, for it was before my friend Gay’s
time—that if a man had risen in his place, and said that he regretted
to inform the house that there was an Honourable Member in the last
stage of convulsions in the Lobby, and that the Honourable Member’s
name was Pitt, the approbation would have been vociferous.”
This postponement of the point, put Florence in a flutter; and she
looked from Cousin Feenix to Walter, in increasing agitation.
“My love,” said Walter, “there is nothing the matter.”
“There is nothing the matter, upon my honour,” said Cousin Feenix; “and
I am deeply distressed at being the means of causing you a moment’s
uneasiness. I beg to assure you that there is nothing the matter. The
favour that I have to ask is, simply—but it really does seem so
exceedingly singular, that I should be in the last degree obliged to my
friend Gay if he would have the goodness to break the—in point of fact,
the ice,” said Cousin Feenix.
Walter thus appealed to, and appealed to no less in the look that
Florence turned towards him, said:
“My dearest, it is no more than this. That you will ride to London with
this gentleman, whom you know.”
“And my friend Gay, also—I beg your pardon!” interrupted Cousin Feenix.
“—And with me—and make a visit somewhere.”
“To whom?” asked Florence, looking from one to the other.
“If I might entreat,” said Cousin Feenix, “that you would not press for
an answer to that question, I would venture to take the liberty of
making the request.”
“Do you know, Walter?”
“Yes.”
“And think it right?”
“Yes. Only because I am sure that you would too. Though there may be
reasons I very well understand, which make it better that nothing more
should be said beforehand.”
“If Papa is still asleep, or can spare me if he is awake, I will go
immediately,” said Florence. And rising quietly, and glancing at them
with a look that was a little alarmed but perfectly confiding, left the
room.
When she came back, ready to bear them company, they were talking
together, gravely, at the window; and Florence could not but wonder
what the topic was, that had made them so well acquainted in so short a
time. She did not wonder at the look of pride and love with which her
husband broke off as she entered; for she never saw him, but that
rested on her.
“I will leave,” said Cousin Feenix, “a card for my friend Dombey,
sincerely trusting that he will pick up health and strength with every