Dombey and Son
of sweet-breads, that it utterly set at naught the predictions of Mrs
Wickam, and showed no symptoms of decline. Yet, as Paul’s rapt interest
in the old lady continued unbated, Mrs Wickam would not budge an inch
from the position she had taken up. Fortifying and entrenching herself
on the strong ground of her Uncle’s Betsey Jane, she advised Miss
Berry, as a friend, to prepare herself for the worst; and forewarned
her that her aunt might, at any time, be expected to go off suddenly,
like a powder-mill.
“I hope, Miss Berry,” Mrs Wickam would observe, “that you’ll come into
whatever little property there may be to leave. You deserve it, I am
sure, for yours is a trying life. Though there don’t seem much worth
coming into—you’ll excuse my being so open—in this dismal den.”
Poor Berry took it all in good part, and drudged and slaved away as
usual; perfectly convinced that Mrs Pipchin was one of the most
meritorious persons in the world, and making every day innumerable
sacrifices of herself upon the altar of that noble old woman. But all
these immolations of Berry were somehow carried to the credit of Mrs
Pipchin by Mrs Pipchin’s friends and admirers; and were made to
harmonise with, and carry out, that melancholy fact of the deceased Mr
Pipchin having broken his heart in the Peruvian mines.
For example, there was an honest grocer and general dealer in the
retail line of business, between whom and Mrs Pipchin there was a small
memorandum book, with a greasy red cover, perpetually in question, and
concerning which divers secret councils and conferences were
continually being held between the parties to that register, on the mat
in the passage, and with closed doors in the parlour. Nor were there
wanting dark hints from Master Bitherstone (whose temper had been made
revengeful by the solar heats of India acting on his blood), of
balances unsettled, and of a failure, on one occasion within his
memory, in the supply of moist sugar at tea-time. This grocer being a
bachelor and not a man who looked upon the surface for beauty, had once
made honourable offers for the hand of Berry, which Mrs Pipchin had,
with contumely and scorn, rejected. Everybody said how laudable this
was in Mrs Pipchin, relict of a man who had died of the Peruvian mines;
and what a staunch, high, independent spirit the old lady had. But
nobody said anything about poor Berry, who cried for six weeks (being
soundly rated by her good aunt all the time), and lapsed into a state
of hopeless spinsterhood.
“Berry’s very fond of you, ain’t she?” Paul once asked Mrs Pipchin when
they were sitting by the fire with the cat.
“Yes,” said Mrs Pipchin.
“Why?” asked Paul.
“Why!” returned the disconcerted old lady. “How can you ask such
things, Sir! why are you fond of your sister Florence?”
“Because she’s very good,” said Paul. “There’s nobody like Florence.”
“Well!” retorted Mrs Pipchin, shortly, “and there’s nobody like me, I
suppose.”
“Ain’t there really though?” asked Paul, leaning forward in his chair,
and looking at her very hard.
“No,” said the old lady.
“I am glad of that,” observed Paul, rubbing his hands thoughtfully.
“That’s a very good thing.”
Mrs Pipchin didn’t dare to ask him why, lest she should receive some
perfectly annihilating answer. But as a compensation to her wounded
feelings, she harassed Master Bitherstone to that extent until
bed-time, that he began that very night to make arrangements for an
overland return to India, by secreting from his supper a quarter of a
round of bread and a fragment of moist Dutch cheese, as the beginning
of a stock of provision to support him on the voyage.
Mrs Pipchin had kept watch and ward over little Paul and his sister for
nearly twelve months. They had been home twice, but only for a few
days; and had been constant in their weekly visits to Mr Dombey at the
hotel. By little and little Paul had grown stronger, and had become
able to dispense with his carriage; though he still looked thin and
delicate; and still remained the same old, quiet, dreamy child that he
had been when first consigned to Mrs Pipchin’s care. One Saturday
afternoon, at dusk, great consternation was occasioned in the Castle by
the unlooked-for announcement of Mr Dombey as a visitor to Mrs Pipchin.
The population of the parlour was immediately swept upstairs as on the
wings of a whirlwind, and after much slamming of bedroom doors, and
trampling overhead, and some knocking about of Master Bitherstone by
Mrs Pipchin, as a relief to the perturbation of her spirits, the black
bombazeen garments of the worthy old lady darkened the audience-chamber
where Mr Dombey was contemplating the vacant arm-chair of his son and
heir.
“Mrs Pipchin,” said Mr Dombey, “How do you do?”
“Thank you, Sir,” said Mrs Pipchin, “I am pretty well, considering.”
Mrs Pipchin always used that form of words. It meant, considering her
virtues, sacrifices, and so forth.
“I can’t expect, Sir, to be very well,” said Mrs Pipchin, taking a
chair and fetching her breath; “but such health as I have, I am
grateful for.”
Mr Dombey inclined his head with the satisfied air of a patron, who
felt that this was the sort of thing for which he paid so much a
quarter. After a moment’s silence he went on to say:
“Mrs Pipchin, I have taken the liberty of calling, to consult you in
reference to my son. I have had it in my mind to do so for some time
past; but have deferred it from time to time, in order that his health
might be thoroughly re-established. You have no misgivings on that
subject, Mrs Pipchin?”
“Brighton has proved very beneficial, Sir,” returned Mrs Pipchin. “Very
beneficial, indeed.”
“I purpose,” said Mr Dombey, “his remaining at Brighton.”
Mrs Pipchin rubbed her hands, and bent her grey eyes on the fire.
“But,” pursued Mr Dombey, stretching out his forefinger, “but possibly
that he should now make a change, and lead a different kind of life
here. In short, Mrs Pipchin, that is the object of my visit. My son is
getting on, Mrs Pipchin. Really, he is getting on.”
There was something melancholy in the triumphant air with which Mr
Dombey said this. It showed how long Paul’s childish life had been to
him, and how his hopes were set upon a later stage of his existence.
Pity may appear a strange word to connect with anyone so haughty and so
cold, and yet he seemed a worthy subject for it at that moment.
“Six years old!” said Mr Dombey, settling his neckcloth—perhaps to hide
an irrepressible smile that rather seemed to strike upon the surface of
his face and glance away, as finding no resting-place, than to play
there for an instant. “Dear me, six will be changed to sixteen, before
we have time to look about us.”
“Ten years,” croaked the unsympathetic Pipchin, with a frosty
glistening of her hard grey eye, and a dreary shaking of her bent head,
“is a long time.”
“It depends on circumstances, returned Mr Dombey; “at all events, Mrs
Pipchin, my son is six years old, and there is no doubt, I fear, that
in his studies he is behind many children of his age—or his youth,”
said Mr Dombey, quickly answering what he mistrusted was a shrewd
twinkle of the frosty eye, “his youth is a more appropriate expression.
Now, Mrs Pipchin, instead of being behind his peers, my son ought to be
before them; far before them. There is an eminence ready for him to
mount upon. There is nothing of chance or doubt in the course before my
son. His way in life was clear and prepared, and marked out before he
existed. The education of such a young gentleman must not be delayed.
It must not be left imperfect. It must be very steadily and seriously
undertaken, Mrs Pipchin.”
“Well, Sir,” said Mrs Pipchin, “I can say nothing to the contrary.”
“I was quite sure, Mrs Pipchin,” returned Mr Dombey, approvingly, “that
a person of your good sense could not, and would not.”
“There is a great deal of nonsense—and worse—talked about young people
not being pressed too hard at first, and being tempted on, and all the
rest of it, Sir,” said Mrs Pipchin, impatiently rubbing her hooked
nose. “It never was thought of in my time, and it has no business to be
thought of now. My opinion is ‘keep ’em at it’.”
“My good madam,” returned Mr Dombey, “you have not acquired your
reputation undeservedly; and I beg you to believe, Mrs Pipchin, that I
am more than satisfied with your excellent system of management, and
shall have the greatest pleasure in commending it whenever my poor
commendation—” Mr Dombey’s loftiness when he affected to disparage his
own importance, passed all bounds—“can be of any service. I have been
thinking of Doctor Blimber’s, Mrs Pipchin.”
“My neighbour, Sir?” said Mrs Pipchin. “I believe the Doctor’s is an
excellent establishment. I’ve heard that it’s very strictly conducted,
and there is nothing but learning going on from morning to night.”
“And it’s very expensive,” added Mr Dombey.
“And it’s very expensive, Sir,” returned Mrs Pipchin, catching at the
fact, as if in omitting that, she had omitted one of its leading
merits.
“I have had some communication with the Doctor, Mrs Pipchin,” said Mr
Dombey, hitching his chair anxiously a little nearer to the fire, “and
he does not consider Paul at all too young for his purpose. He
mentioned several instances of boys in Greek at about the same age. If
I have any little uneasiness in my own mind, Mrs Pipchin, on the
subject of this change, it is not on that head. My son not having known
a mother has gradually concentrated much—too much—of his childish
affection on his sister. Whether their separation—” Mr Dombey said no
more, but sat silent.
“Hoity-toity!” exclaimed Mrs Pipchin, shaking out her black bombazeen
skirts, and plucking up all the ogress within her. “If she don’t like
it, Mr Dombey, she must be taught to lump it.” The good lady apologised
immediately afterwards for using so common a figure of speech, but said
(and truly) that that was the way she reasoned with ’em.
Mr Dombey waited until Mrs Pipchin had done bridling and shaking her
head, and frowning down a legion of Bitherstones and Pankeys; and then
said quietly, but correctively, “He, my good madam, he.”
Mrs Pipchin’s system would have applied very much the same mode of cure
to any uneasiness on the part of Paul, too; but as the hard grey eye
was sharp enough to see that the recipe, however Mr Dombey might admit
its efficacy in the case of the daughter, was not a sovereign remedy
for the son, she argued the point; and contended that change, and new
society, and the different form of life he would lead at Doctor
Blimber’s, and the studies he would have to master, would very soon
prove sufficient alienations. As this chimed in with Mr Dombey’s own
hope and belief, it gave that gentleman a still higher opinion of Mrs
Pipchin’s understanding; and as Mrs Pipchin, at the same time, bewailed
the loss of her dear little friend (which was not an overwhelming shock
to her, as she had long expected it, and had not looked, in the
beginning, for his remaining with her longer than three months), he
formed an equally good opinion of Mrs Pipchin’s disinterestedness. It
was plain that he had given the subject anxious consideration, for he
had formed a plan, which he announced to the ogress, of sending Paul to
the Doctor’s as a weekly boarder for the first half year, during which
time Florence would remain at the Castle, that she might receive her
brother there, on Saturdays. This would wean him by degrees, Mr Dombey
said; possibly with a recollection of his not having been weaned by
degrees on a former occasion.
Mr Dombey finished the interview by expressing his hope that Mrs
Pipchin would still remain in office as general superintendent and
overseer of his son, pending his studies at Brighton; and having kissed