Dombey and Son
“And therefore, Sir,” said Walter, venturing to meet Mr Dombey’s eye,
and proceeding with better courage in the very desperation of the case,
now that there was no avoiding it, “therefore I have come, with him,
Sir, to say that my poor old Uncle is in very great affliction and
distress. That, through the gradual loss of his business, and not being
able to make a payment, the apprehension of which has weighed very
heavily upon his mind, months and months, as indeed I know, Sir, he has
an execution in his house, and is in danger of losing all he has, and
breaking his heart. And that if you would, in your kindness, and in
your old knowledge of him as a respectable man, do anything to help him
out of his difficulty, Sir, we never could thank you enough for it.”
Walter’s eyes filled with tears as he spoke; and so did those of
Florence. Her father saw them glistening, though he appeared to look at
Walter only.
“It is a very large sum, Sir,” said Walter. “More than three hundred
pounds. My Uncle is quite beaten down by his misfortune, it lies so
heavy on him; and is quite unable to do anything for his own relief. He
doesn’t even know yet, that I have come to speak to you. You would wish
me to say, Sir,” added Walter, after a moment’s hesitation, “exactly
what it is I want. I really don’t know, Sir. There is my Uncle’s stock,
on which I believe I may say, confidently, there are no other demands,
and there is Captain Cuttle, who would wish to be security too. I—I
hardly like to mention,” said Walter, “such earnings as mine; but if
you would allow them—accumulate—payment—advance—Uncle—frugal,
honourable, old man.” Walter trailed off, through these broken
sentences, into silence: and stood with downcast head, before his
employer.
Considering this a favourable moment for the display of the valuables,
Captain Cuttle advanced to the table; and clearing a space among the
breakfast-cups at Mr Dombey’s elbow, produced the silver watch, the
ready money, the teaspoons, and the sugar-tongs; and piling them up
into a heap that they might look as precious as possible, delivered
himself of these words:
“Half a loaf’s better than no bread, and the same remark holds good
with crumbs. There’s a few. Annuity of one hundred pound premium also
ready to be made over. If there is a man chock full of science in the
world, it’s old Sol Gills. If there is a lad of promise—one flowing,”
added the Captain, in one of his happy quotations, “with milk and
honey—it’s his nevy!”
The Captain then withdrew to his former place, where he stood arranging
his scattered locks with the air of a man who had given the finishing
touch to a difficult performance.
When Walter ceased to speak, Mr Dombey’s eyes were attracted to little
Paul, who, seeing his sister hanging down her head and silently weeping
in her commiseration for the distress she had heard described, went
over to her, and tried to comfort her: looking at Walter and his father
as he did so, with a very expressive face. After the momentary
distraction of Captain Cuttle’s address, which he regarded with lofty
indifference, Mr Dombey again turned his eyes upon his son, and sat
steadily regarding the child, for some moments, in silence.
“What was this debt contracted for?” asked Mr Dombey, at length. “Who
is the creditor?”
“He don’t know,” replied the Captain, putting his hand on Walter’s
shoulder. “I do. It came of helping a man that’s dead now, and that’s
cost my friend Gills many a hundred pound already. More particulars in
private, if agreeable.”
“People who have enough to do to hold their own way,” said Mr Dombey,
unobservant of the Captain’s mysterious signs behind Walter, and still
looking at his son, “had better be content with their own obligations
and difficulties, and not increase them by engaging for other men. It
is an act of dishonesty and presumption, too,” said Mr Dombey, sternly;
“great presumption; for the wealthy could do no more. Paul, come here!”
The child obeyed: and Mr Dombey took him on his knee.
“If you had money now—” said Mr Dombey. “Look at me!”
Paul, whose eyes had wandered to his sister, and to Walter, looked his
father in the face.
“If you had money now,” said Mr Dombey; “as much money as young Gay has
talked about; what would you do?”
“Give it to his old Uncle,” returned Paul.
“Lend it to his old Uncle, eh?” retorted Mr Dombey. “Well! When you are
old enough, you know, you will share my money, and we shall use it
together.”
“Dombey and Son,” interrupted Paul, who had been tutored early in the
phrase.
“Dombey and Son,” repeated his father. “Would you like to begin to be
Dombey and Son, now, and lend this money to young Gay’s Uncle?”
“Oh! if you please, Papa!” said Paul: “and so would Florence.”
“Girls,” said Mr Dombey, “have nothing to do with Dombey and Son. Would
you like it?”
“Yes, Papa, yes!”
“Then you shall do it,” returned his father. “And you see, Paul,” he
added, dropping his voice, “how powerful money is, and how anxious
people are to get it. Young Gay comes all this way to beg for money,
and you, who are so grand and great, having got it, are going to let
him have it, as a great favour and obligation.”
Paul turned up the old face for a moment, in which there was a sharp
understanding of the reference conveyed in these words: but it was a
young and childish face immediately afterwards, when he slipped down
from his father’s knee, and ran to tell Florence not to cry any more,
for he was going to let young Gay have the money.
Mr Dombey then turned to a side-table, and wrote a note and sealed it.
During the interval, Paul and Florence whispered to Walter, and Captain
Cuttle beamed on the three, with such aspiring and ineffably
presumptuous thoughts as Mr Dombey never could have believed in. The
note being finished, Mr Dombey turned round to his former place, and
held it out to Walter.
“Give that,” he said, “the first thing to-morrow morning, to Mr Carker.
He will immediately take care that one of my people releases your Uncle
from his present position, by paying the amount at issue; and that such
arrangements are made for its repayment as may be consistent with your
Uncle’s circumstances. You will consider that this is done for you by
Master Paul.”
Walter, in the emotion of holding in his hand the means of releasing
his good Uncle from his trouble, would have endeavoured to express
something of his gratitude and joy. But Mr Dombey stopped him short.
“You will consider that it is done,” he repeated, “by Master Paul. I
have explained that to him, and he understands it. I wish no more to be
said.”
As he motioned towards the door, Walter could only bow his head and
retire. Miss Tox, seeing that the Captain appeared about to do the
same, interposed.
“My dear Sir,” she said, addressing Mr Dombey, at whose munificence
both she and Mrs Chick were shedding tears copiously; “I think you have
overlooked something. Pardon me, Mr Dombey, I think, in the nobility of
your character, and its exalted scope, you have omitted a matter of
detail.”
“Indeed, Miss Tox!” said Mr Dombey.
“The gentleman with the—Instrument,” pursued Miss Tox, glancing at
Captain Cuttle, “has left upon the table, at your elbow—”
“Good Heaven!” said Mr Dombey, sweeping the Captain’s property from
him, as if it were so much crumb indeed. “Take these things away. I am
obliged to you, Miss Tox; it is like your usual discretion. Have the
goodness to take these things away, Sir!”
Captain Cuttle felt he had no alternative but to comply. But he was so
much struck by the magnanimity of Mr Dombey, in refusing treasures
lying heaped up to his hand, that when he had deposited the teaspoons
and sugar-tongs in one pocket, and the ready money in another, and had
lowered the great watch down slowly into its proper vault, he could not
refrain from seizing that gentleman’s right hand in his own solitary
left, and while he held it open with his powerful fingers, bringing the
hook down upon its palm in a transport of admiration. At this touch of
warm feeling and cold iron, Mr Dombey shivered all over.
Captain Cuttle then kissed his hook to the ladies several times, with
great elegance and gallantry; and having taken a particular leave of
Paul and Florence, accompanied Walter out of the room. Florence was
running after them in the earnestness of her heart, to send some
message to old Sol, when Mr Dombey called her back, and bade her stay
where she was.
“Will you never be a Dombey, my dear child!” said Mrs Chick, with
pathetic reproachfulness.
“Dear aunt,” said Florence. “Don’t be angry with me. I am so thankful
to Papa!”
She would have run and thrown her arms about his neck if she had dared;
but as she did not dare, she glanced with thankful eyes towards him, as
he sat musing; sometimes bestowing an uneasy glance on her, but, for
the most part, watching Paul, who walked about the room with the
new-blown dignity of having let young Gay have the money.
And young Gay—Walter—what of him?
He was overjoyed to purge the old man’s hearth from bailiffs and
brokers, and to hurry back to his Uncle with the good tidings. He was
overjoyed to have it all arranged and settled next day before noon; and
to sit down at evening in the little back parlour with old Sol and
Captain Cuttle; and to see the Instrument-maker already reviving, and
hopeful for the future, and feeling that the wooden Midshipman was his
own again. But without the least impeachment of his gratitude to Mr
Dombey, it must be confessed that Walter was humbled and cast down. It
is when our budding hopes are nipped beyond recovery by some rough
wind, that we are the most disposed to picture to ourselves what
flowers they might have borne, if they had flourished; and now, when
Walter found himself cut off from that great Dombey height, by the
depth of a new and terrible tumble, and felt that all his old wild
fancies had been scattered to the winds in the fall, he began to
suspect that they might have led him on to harmless visions of aspiring
to Florence in the remote distance of time.
The Captain viewed the subject in quite a different light. He appeared
to entertain a belief that the interview at which he had assisted was
so very satisfactory and encouraging, as to be only a step or two
removed from a regular betrothal of Florence to Walter; and that the
late transaction had immensely forwarded, if not thoroughly
established, the Whittingtonian hopes. Stimulated by this conviction,
and by the improvement in the spirits of his old friend, and by his own
consequent gaiety, he even attempted, in favouring them with the ballad
of “Lovely Peg” for the third time in one evening, to make an
extemporaneous substitution of the name “Florence;” but finding this
difficult, on account of the word Peg invariably rhyming to leg (in
which personal beauty the original was described as having excelled all
competitors), he hit upon the happy thought of changing it to Fle-e-eg;
which he accordingly did, with an archness almost supernatural, and a
voice quite vociferous, notwithstanding that the time was close at hand
when he must seek the abode of the dreadful Mrs MacStinger.
That same evening the Major was diffuse at his club, on the subject of
his friend Dombey in the City. “Damme, Sir,” said the Major, “he’s a
prince, is my friend Dombey in the City. I tell you what, Sir. If you
had a few more men among you like old Joe Bagstock and my friend Dombey
in the City, Sir, you’d do!”
CHAPTER XI.
Paul’s Introduction to a New Scene
Mrs Pipchin’s constitution was made of such hard metal, in spite of its
liability to the fleshly weaknesses of standing in need of repose after
chops, and of requiring to be coaxed to sleep by the soporific agency