Dombey and Son
night of being summoned, in conjunction with Doctor Parker Pep.
“Well, Sir,” said Doctor Parker Peps in a round, deep, sonorous voice,
muffled for the occasion, like the knocker; “do you find that your dear
lady is at all roused by your visit?”
“Stimulated as it were?” said the family practitioner faintly: bowing
at the same time to the Doctor, as much as to say, “Excuse my putting
in a word, but this is a valuable connexion.”
Mr Dombey was quite discomfited by the question. He had thought so
little of the patient, that he was not in a condition to answer it. He
said that it would be a satisfaction to him, if Doctor Parker Peps
would walk upstairs again.
“Good! We must not disguise from you, Sir,” said Doctor Parker Peps,
“that there is a want of power in Her Grace the Duchess—I beg your
pardon; I confound names; I should say, in your amiable lady. That
there is a certain degree of languor, and a general absence of
elasticity, which we would rather—not—”
“See,” interposed the family practitioner with another inclination of
the head.
“Quite so,” said Doctor Parker Peps, “which we would rather not see. It
would appear that the system of Lady Cankaby—excuse me: I should say of
Mrs Dombey: I confuse the names of cases—”
“So very numerous,” murmured the family practitioner—“can’t be expected
I’m sure—quite wonderful if otherwise—Doctor Parker Peps’s West-End
practice—”
“Thank you,” said the Doctor, “quite so. It would appear, I was
observing, that the system of our patient has sustained a shock, from
which it can only hope to rally by a great and strong—”
“And vigorous,” murmured the family practitioner.
“Quite so,” assented the Doctor—“and vigorous effort. Mr Pilkins here,
who from his position of medical adviser in this family—no one better
qualified to fill that position, I am sure.”
“Oh!” murmured the family practitioner. “‘Praise from Sir Hubert
Stanley!’”
“You are good enough,” returned Doctor Parker Peps, “to say so. Mr
Pilkins who, from his position, is best acquainted with the patient’s
constitution in its normal state (an acquaintance very valuable to us
in forming our opinions in these occasions), is of opinion, with me,
that Nature must be called upon to make a vigorous effort in this
instance; and that if our interesting friend the Countess of Dombey—I
_beg_ your pardon; Mrs Dombey—should not be—”
“Able,” said the family practitioner.
“To make,” said Doctor Parker Peps.
“That effort,” said the family practitioner.
“Successfully,” said they both together.
“Then,” added Doctor Parker Peps, alone and very gravely, “a crisis
might arise, which we should both sincerely deplore.”
With that, they stood for a few seconds looking at the ground. Then, on
the motion—made in dumb show—of Doctor Parker Peps, they went upstairs;
the family practitioner opening the room door for that distinguished
professional, and following him out, with most obsequious politeness.
To record of Mr Dombey that he was not in his way affected by this
intelligence, would be to do him an injustice. He was not a man of whom
it could properly be said that he was ever startled, or shocked; but he
certainly had a sense within him, that if his wife should sicken and
decay, he would be very sorry, and that he would find a something gone
from among his plate and furniture, and other household possessions,
which was well worth the having, and could not be lost without sincere
regret. Though it would be a cool, business-like, gentlemanly,
self-possessed regret, no doubt.
His meditations on the subject were soon interrupted, first by the
rustling of garments on the staircase, and then by the sudden whisking
into the room of a lady rather past the middle age than otherwise but
dressed in a very juvenile manner, particularly as to the tightness of
her bodice, who, running up to him with a kind of screw in her face and
carriage, expressive of suppressed emotion, flung her arms around his
neck, and said, in a choking voice,
“My dear Paul! He’s quite a Dombey!”
“Well, well!” returned her brother—for Mr Dombey was her brother—“I
think he is like the family. Don’t agitate yourself, Louisa.”
“It’s very foolish of me,” said Louisa, sitting down, and taking out
her pocket-handkerchief, “but he’s—he’s such a perfect Dombey!”
Mr Dombey coughed.
“It’s so extraordinary,” said Louisa; smiling through her tears, which
indeed were not overpowering, “as to be perfectly ridiculous. So
completely our family. _I_ never saw anything like it in my life!”
“But what is this about Fanny, herself?” said Mr Dombey. “How is
Fanny?”
“My dear Paul,” returned Louisa, “it’s nothing whatever. Take my word,
it’s nothing whatever. There is exhaustion, certainly, but nothing like
what I underwent myself, either with George or Frederick. An effort is
necessary. That’s all. If dear Fanny were a Dombey!—But I daresay
she’ll make it; I have no doubt she’ll make it. Knowing it to be
required of her, as a duty, of course she’ll make it. My dear Paul,
it’s very weak and silly of me, I know, to be so trembly and shaky from
head to foot; but I am so very queer that I must ask you for a glass of
wine and a morsel of that cake.”
Mr Dombey promptly supplied her with these refreshments from a tray on
the table.
“I shall not drink my love to you, Paul,” said Louisa: “I shall drink
to the little Dombey. Good gracious me!—it’s the most astonishing thing
I ever knew in all my days, he’s such a perfect Dombey.”
Quenching this expression of opinion in a short hysterical laugh which
terminated in tears, Louisa cast up her eyes, and emptied her glass.
“I know it’s very weak and silly of me,” she repeated, “to be so
trembly and shaky from head to foot, and to allow my feelings so
completely to get the better of me, but I cannot help it. I thought I
should have fallen out of the staircase window as I came down from
seeing dear Fanny, and that tiddy ickle sing.” These last words
originated in a sudden vivid reminiscence of the baby.
They were succeeded by a gentle tap at the door.
“Mrs Chick,” said a very bland female voice outside, “how are you now,
my dear friend?”
“My dear Paul,” said Louisa in a low voice, as she rose from her seat,
“it’s Miss Tox. The kindest creature! I never could have got here
without her! Miss Tox, my brother Mr Dombey. Paul, my dear, my very
particular friend Miss Tox.”
The lady thus specially presented, was a long lean figure, wearing such
a faded air that she seemed not to have been made in what linen-drapers
call “fast colours” originally, and to have, by little and little,
washed out. But for this she might have been described as the very pink
of general propitiation and politeness. From a long habit of listening
admiringly to everything that was said in her presence, and looking at
the speakers as if she were mentally engaged in taking off impressions
of their images upon her soul, never to part with the same but with
life, her head had quite settled on one side. Her hands had contracted
a spasmodic habit of raising themselves of their own accord as in
involuntary admiration. Her eyes were liable to a similar affection.
She had the softest voice that ever was heard; and her nose,
stupendously aquiline, had a little knob in the very centre or
key-stone of the bridge, whence it tended downwards towards her face,
as in an invincible determination never to turn up at anything.
Miss Tox’s dress, though perfectly genteel and good, had a certain
character of angularity and scantiness. She was accustomed to wear odd
weedy little flowers in her bonnets and caps. Strange grasses were
sometimes perceived in her hair; and it was observed by the curious, of
all her collars, frills, tuckers, wristbands, and other gossamer
articles—indeed of everything she wore which had two ends to it
intended to unite—that the two ends were never on good terms, and
wouldn’t quite meet without a struggle. She had furry articles for
winter wear, as tippets, boas, and muffs, which stood up on end in
rampant manner, and were not at all sleek. She was much given to the
carrying about of small bags with snaps to them, that went off like
little pistols when they were shut up; and when full-dressed, she wore
round her neck the barrenest of lockets, representing a fishy old eye,
with no approach to speculation in it. These and other appearances of a
similar nature, had served to propagate the opinion, that Miss Tox was
a lady of what is called a limited independence, which she turned to
the best account. Possibly her mincing gait encouraged the belief, and
suggested that her clipping a step of ordinary compass into two or
three, originated in her habit of making the most of everything.
“I am sure,” said Miss Tox, with a prodigious curtsey, “that to have
the honour of being presented to Mr Dombey is a distinction which I
have long sought, but very little expected at the present moment. My
dear Mrs Chick—may I say Louisa!”
Mrs Chick took Miss Tox’s hand in hers, rested the foot of her
wine-glass upon it, repressed a tear, and said in a low voice, “God
bless you!”
“My dear Louisa then,” said Miss Tox, “my sweet friend, how are you
now?”
“Better,” Mrs Chick returned. “Take some wine. You have been almost as
anxious as I have been, and must want it, I am sure.”
Mr Dombey of course officiated, and also refilled his sister’s glass,
which she (looking another way, and unconscious of his intention) held
straight and steady the while, and then regarded with great
astonishment, saying, “My dear Paul, what have you been doing!”
“Miss Tox, Paul,” pursued Mrs Chick, still retaining her hand, “knowing
how much I have been interested in the anticipation of the event of
today, and how trembly and shaky I have been from head to foot in
expectation of it, has been working at a little gift for Fanny, which I
promised to present. Miss Tox is ingenuity itself.”
“My dear Louisa,” said Miss Tox. “Don’t say so.”
“It is only a pincushion for the toilette table, Paul,” resumed his
sister; “one of those trifles which are insignificant to your sex in
general, as it’s very natural they should be—we have no business to
expect they should be otherwise—but to which we attach some interest.”
“Miss Tox is very good,” said Mr Dombey.
“And I do say, and will say, and must say,” pursued his sister,
pressing the foot of the wine-glass on Miss Tox’s hand, at each of the
three clauses, “that Miss Tox has very prettily adapted the sentiment
to the occasion. I call ‘Welcome little Dombey’ Poetry, myself!”
“Is that the device?” inquired her brother.
“That is the device,” returned Louisa.
“But do me the justice to remember, my dear Louisa,” said Miss Tox in a
tone of low and earnest entreaty, “that nothing but the—I have some
difficulty in expressing myself—the dubiousness of the result would
have induced me to take so great a liberty: ‘Welcome, Master Dombey,’
would have been much more congenial to my feelings, as I am sure you
know. But the uncertainty attendant on angelic strangers, will, I hope,
excuse what must otherwise appear an unwarrantable familiarity.” Miss
Tox made a graceful bend as she spoke, in favour of Mr Dombey, which
that gentleman graciously acknowledged. Even the sort of recognition of
Dombey and Son, conveyed in the foregoing conversation, was so
palatable to him, that his sister, Mrs Chick—though he affected to
consider her a weak good-natured person—had perhaps more influence over
him than anybody else.
“My dear Paul,” that lady broke out afresh, after silently
contemplating his features for a few moments, “I don’t know whether to
laugh or cry when I look at you, I declare, you do so remind me of that
dear baby upstairs.”
“Well!” said Mrs Chick, with a sweet smile, “after this, I forgive
Fanny everything!”