Dombey and Son
“But it made us what we were, Sir,” said the Major, settling his shirt
frill. “We were iron, Sir, and it forged us. Are you remaining here, Mr
Dombey?”
“I generally come down once a week, Major,” returned that gentleman. “I
stay at the Bedford.”
“I shall have the honour of calling at the Bedford, Sir, if you’ll
permit me,” said the Major. “Joey B., Sir, is not in general a calling
man, but Mr Dombey’s is not a common name. I am much indebted to my
little friend, Sir, for the honour of this introduction.”
Mr Dombey made a very gracious reply; and Major Bagstock, having patted
Paul on the head, and said of Florence that her eyes would play the
Devil with the youngsters before long—“and the oldsters too, Sir, if
you come to that,” added the Major, chuckling very much—stirred up
Master Bitherstone with his walking-stick, and departed with that young
gentleman, at a kind of half-trot; rolling his head and coughing with
great dignity, as he staggered away, with his legs very wide asunder.
In fulfilment of his promise, the Major afterwards called on Mr Dombey;
and Mr Dombey, having referred to the army list, afterwards called on
the Major. Then the Major called at Mr Dombey’s house in town; and came
down again, in the same coach as Mr Dombey. In short, Mr Dombey and the
Major got on uncommonly well together, and uncommonly fast: and Mr
Dombey observed of the Major, to his sister, that besides being quite a
military man he was really something more, as he had a very admirable
idea of the importance of things unconnected with his own profession.
At length Mr Dombey, bringing down Miss Tox and Mrs Chick to see the
children, and finding the Major again at Brighton, invited him to
dinner at the Bedford, and complimented Miss Tox highly, beforehand, on
her neighbour and acquaintance.
“My dearest Louisa,” said Miss Tox to Mrs Chick, when they were alone
together, on the morning of the appointed day, “if I should seem at all
reserved to Major Bagstock, or under any constraint with him, promise
me not to notice it.”
“My dear Lucretia,” returned Mrs Chick, “what mystery is involved in
this remarkable request? I must insist upon knowing.”
“Since you are resolved to extort a confession from me, Louisa,” said
Miss Tox instantly, “I have no alternative but to confide to you that
the Major has been particular.”
“Particular!” repeated Mrs Chick.
“The Major has long been very particular indeed, my love, in his
attentions,” said Miss Tox, “occasionally they have been so very
marked, that my position has been one of no common difficulty.”
“Is he in good circumstances?” inquired Mrs Chick.
“I have every reason to believe, my dear—indeed I may say I know,”
returned Miss Tox, “that he is wealthy. He is truly military, and full
of anecdote. I have been informed that his valour, when he was in
active service, knew no bounds. I am told that he did all sorts of
things in the Peninsula, with every description of fire-arm; and in the
East and West Indies, my love, I really couldn’t undertake to say what
he did not do.”
“Very creditable to him indeed,” said Mrs Chick, “extremely so; and you
have given him no encouragement, my dear?”
“If I were to say, Louisa,” replied Miss Tox, with every demonstration
of making an effort that rent her soul, “that I never encouraged Major
Bagstock slightly, I should not do justice to the friendship which
exists between you and me. It is, perhaps, hardly in the nature of
woman to receive such attentions as the Major once lavished upon myself
without betraying some sense of obligation. But that is past—long past.
Between the Major and me there is now a yawning chasm, and I will not
feign to give encouragement, Louisa, where I cannot give my heart. My
affections,” said Miss Tox—“but, Louisa, this is madness!” and departed
from the room.
All this Mrs Chick communicated to her brother before dinner: and it by
no means indisposed Mr Dombey to receive the Major with unwonted
cordiality. The Major, for his part, was in a state of plethoric
satisfaction that knew no bounds: and he coughed, and choked, and
chuckled, and gasped, and swelled, until the waiters seemed positively
afraid of him.
“Your family monopolises Joe’s light, Sir,” said the Major, when he had
saluted Miss Tox. “Joe lives in darkness. Princess’s Place is changed
into Kamschatka in the winter time. There is no ray of sun, Sir, for
Joey B., now.”
“Miss Tox is good enough to take a great deal of interest in Paul,
Major,” returned Mr Dombey on behalf of that blushing virgin.
“Damme Sir,” said the Major, “I’m jealous of my little friend. I’m
pining away Sir. The Bagstock breed is degenerating in the forsaken
person of old Joe.” And the Major, becoming bluer and bluer and puffing
his cheeks further and further over the stiff ridge of his tight
cravat, stared at Miss Tox, until his eyes seemed as if he were at that
moment being overdone before the slow fire at the military college.
Notwithstanding the palpitation of the heart which these allusions
occasioned her, they were anything but disagreeable to Miss Tox, as
they enabled her to be extremely interesting, and to manifest an
occasional incoherence and distraction which she was not at all
unwilling to display. The Major gave her abundant opportunities of
exhibiting this emotion: being profuse in his complaints, at dinner, of
her desertion of him and Princess’s Place: and as he appeared to derive
great enjoyment from making them, they all got on very well.
None the worse on account of the Major taking charge of the whole
conversation, and showing as great an appetite in that respect as in
regard of the various dainties on the table, among which he may be
almost said to have wallowed: greatly to the aggravation of his
inflammatory tendencies. Mr Dombey’s habitual silence and reserve
yielding readily to this usurpation, the Major felt that he was coming
out and shining: and in the flow of spirits thus engendered, rang such
an infinite number of new changes on his own name that he quite
astonished himself. In a word, they were all very well pleased. The
Major was considered to possess an inexhaustible fund of conversation;
and when he took a late farewell, after a long rubber, Mr Dombey again
complimented the blushing Miss Tox on her neighbour and acquaintance.
But all the way home to his own hotel, the Major incessantly said to
himself, and of himself, “Sly, Sir—sly, Sir—de-vil-ish sly!” And when
he got there, sat down in a chair, and fell into a silent fit of
laughter, with which he was sometimes seized, and which was always
particularly awful. It held him so long on this occasion that the dark
servant, who stood watching him at a distance, but dared not for his
life approach, twice or thrice gave him over for lost. His whole form,
but especially his face and head, dilated beyond all former experience;
and presented to the dark man’s view, nothing but a heaving mass of
indigo. At length he burst into a violent paroxysm of coughing, and
when that was a little better burst into such ejaculations as the
following:
“Would you, Ma’am, would you? Mrs Dombey, eh, Ma’am? I think not,
Ma’am. Not while Joe B. can put a spoke in your wheel, Ma’am. J. B.“s
even with you now, Ma’am. He isn’t altogether bowled out, yet, Sir,
isn’t Bagstock. She’s deep, Sir, deep, but Josh is deeper. Wide awake
is old Joe—broad awake, and staring, Sir!” There was no doubt of this
last assertion being true, and to a very fearful extent; as it
continued to be during the greater part of that night, which the Major
chiefly passed in similar exclamations, diversified with fits of
coughing and choking that startled the whole house.
It was on the day after this occasion (being Sunday) when, as Mr
Dombey, Mrs Chick, and Miss Tox were sitting at breakfast, still
eulogising the Major, Florence came running in: her face suffused with
a bright colour, and her eyes sparkling joyfully: and cried,
“Papa! Papa! Here’s Walter! and he won’t come in.”
“Who?” cried Mr Dombey. “What does she mean? What is this?”
“Walter, Papa!” said Florence timidly; sensible of having approached
the presence with too much familiarity. “Who found me when I was lost.”
“Does she mean young Gay, Louisa?” inquired Mr Dombey, knitting his
brows. “Really, this child’s manners have become very boisterous. She
cannot mean young Gay, I think. See what it is, will you?”
Mrs Chick hurried into the passage, and returned with the information
that it was young Gay, accompanied by a very strange-looking person;
and that young Gay said he would not take the liberty of coming in,
hearing Mr Dombey was at breakfast, but would wait until Mr Dombey
should signify that he might approach.
“Tell the boy to come in now,” said Mr Dombey. “Now, Gay, what is the
matter? Who sent you down here? Was there nobody else to come?”
“I beg your pardon, Sir,” returned Walter. “I have not been sent. I
have been so bold as to come on my own account, which I hope you’ll
pardon when I mention the cause.
But Mr Dombey, without attending to what he said, was looking
impatiently on either side of him (as if he were a pillar in his way)
at some object behind.
“What’s that?” said Mr Dombey. “Who is that? I think you have made some
mistake in the door, Sir.”
“Oh, I’m very sorry to intrude with anyone, Sir,” cried Walter,
hastily: “but this is—this is Captain Cuttle, Sir.”
“Wal”r, my lad,” observed the Captain in a deep voice: “stand by!”
At the same time the Captain, coming a little further in, brought out
his wide suit of blue, his conspicuous shirt-collar, and his knobby
nose in full relief, and stood bowing to Mr Dombey, and waving his hook
politely to the ladies, with the hard glazed hat in his one hand, and a
red equator round his head which it had newly imprinted there.
Mr Dombey regarded this phenomenon with amazement and indignation, and
seemed by his looks to appeal to Mrs Chick and Miss Tox against it.
Little Paul, who had come in after Florence, backed towards Miss Tox as
the Captain waved his hook, and stood on the defensive.
“Now, Gay,” said Mr Dombey. “What have you got to say to me?”
Again the Captain observed, as a general opening of the conversation
that could not fail to propitiate all parties, “Wal”r, standby!”
“I am afraid, Sir,” began Walter, trembling, and looking down at the
ground, “that I take a very great liberty in coming—indeed, I am sure I
do. I should hardly have had the courage to ask to see you, Sir, even
after coming down, I am afraid, if I had not overtaken Miss Dombey,
and—”
“Well!” said Mr Dombey, following his eyes as he glanced at the
attentive Florence, and frowning unconsciously as she encouraged him
with a smile. “Go on, if you please.”
“Ay, ay,” observed the Captain, considering it incumbent on him, as a
point of good breeding, to support Mr Dombey. “Well said! Go on,
Wal”r.”
Captain Cuttle ought to have been withered by the look which Mr Dombey
bestowed upon him in acknowledgment of his patronage. But quite
innocent of this, he closed one eye in reply, and gave Mr Dombey to
understand, by certain significant motions of his hook, that Walter was
a little bashful at first, and might be expected to come out shortly.
“It is entirely a private and personal matter, that has brought me
here, Sir,” continued Walter, faltering, “and Captain Cuttle—”
“Here!” interposed the Captain, as an assurance that he was at hand,
and might be relied upon.
“Who is a very old friend of my poor Uncle’s, and a most excellent man,
Sir,” pursued Walter, raising his eyes with a look of entreaty in the
Captain’s behalf, “was so good as to offer to come with me, which I
could hardly refuse.”
“No, no, no;” observed the Captain complacently. “Of course not. No
call for refusing. Go on, Wal”r.”