Dombey and Son
gentlemen oozed away, semi-annually, to their own homes; but they never
broke up. They would have scorned the action.
Tozer, who was constantly galled and tormented by a starched white
cambric neckerchief, which he wore at the express desire of Mrs Tozer,
his parent, who, designing him for the Church, was of opinion that he
couldn’t be in that forward state of preparation too soon—Tozer said,
indeed, that choosing between two evils, he thought he would rather
stay where he was, than go home. However inconsistent this declaration
might appear with that passage in Tozer’s Essay on the subject, wherein
he had observed “that the thoughts of home and all its recollections,
awakened in his mind the most pleasing emotions of anticipation and
delight,” and had also likened himself to a Roman General, flushed with
a recent victory over the Iceni, or laden with Carthaginian spoil,
advancing within a few hours’ march of the Capitol, presupposed, for
the purposes of the simile, to be the dwelling-place of Mrs Tozer,
still it was very sincerely made. For it seemed that Tozer had a
dreadful Uncle, who not only volunteered examinations of him, in the
holidays, on abstruse points, but twisted innocent events and things,
and wrenched them to the same fell purpose. So that if this Uncle took
him to the Play, or, on a similar pretence of kindness, carried him to
see a Giant, or a Dwarf, or a Conjuror, or anything, Tozer knew he had
read up some classical allusion to the subject beforehand, and was
thrown into a state of mortal apprehension: not foreseeing where he
might break out, or what authority he might not quote against him.
As to Briggs, his father made no show of artifice about it. He never
would leave him alone. So numerous and severe were the mental trials of
that unfortunate youth in vacation time, that the friends of the family
(then resident near Bayswater, London) seldom approached the ornamental
piece of water in Kensington Gardens, without a vague expectation of
seeing Master Briggs’s hat floating on the surface, and an unfinished
exercise lying on the bank. Briggs, therefore, was not at all sanguine
on the subject of holidays; and these two sharers of little Paul’s
bedroom were so fair a sample of the young gentlemen in general, that
the most elastic among them contemplated the arrival of those festive
periods with genteel resignation.
It was far otherwise with little Paul. The end of these first holidays
was to witness his separation from Florence, but who ever looked
forward to the end of holidays whose beginning was not yet come! Not
Paul, assuredly. As the happy time drew near, the lions and tigers
climbing up the bedroom walls became quite tame and frolicsome. The
grim sly faces in the squares and diamonds of the floor-cloth, relaxed
and peeped out at him with less wicked eyes. The grave old clock had
more of personal interest in the tone of its formal inquiry; and the
restless sea went rolling on all night, to the sounding of a melancholy
strain—yet it was pleasant too—that rose and fell with the waves, and
rocked him, as it were, to sleep.
Mr Feeder, B.A., seemed to think that he, too, would enjoy the holidays
very much. Mr Toots projected a life of holidays from that time forth;
for, as he regularly informed Paul every day, it was his “last half” at
Doctor Blimber’s, and he was going to begin to come into his property
directly.
It was perfectly understood between Paul and Mr Toots, that they were
intimate friends, notwithstanding their distance in point of years and
station. As the vacation approached, and Mr Toots breathed harder and
stared oftener in Paul’s society, than he had done before, Paul knew
that he meant he was sorry they were going to lose sight of each other,
and felt very much obliged to him for his patronage and good opinion.
It was even understood by Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss
Blimber, as well as by the young gentlemen in general, that Toots had
somehow constituted himself protector and guardian of Dombey, and the
circumstance became so notorious, even to Mrs Pipchin, that the good
old creature cherished feelings of bitterness and jealousy against
Toots; and, in the sanctuary of her own home, repeatedly denounced him
as a “chuckle-headed noodle.” Whereas the innocent Toots had no more
idea of awakening Mrs Pipchin’s wrath, than he had of any other
definite possibility or proposition. On the contrary, he was disposed
to consider her rather a remarkable character, with many points of
interest about her. For this reason he smiled on her with so much
urbanity, and asked her how she did, so often, in the course of her
visits to little Paul, that at last she one night told him plainly, she
wasn’t used to it, whatever he might think; and she could not, and she
would not bear it, either from himself or any other puppy then
existing: at which unexpected acknowledgment of his civilities, Mr
Toots was so alarmed that he secreted himself in a retired spot until
she had gone. Nor did he ever again face the doughty Mrs Pipchin, under
Doctor Blimber’s roof.
They were within two or three weeks of the holidays, when, one day,
Cornelia Blimber called Paul into her room, and said, “Dombey, I am
going to send home your analysis.”
“Thank you, Ma’am,” returned Paul.
“You know what I mean, do you, Dombey?” inquired Miss Blimber, looking
hard at him, through the spectacles.
“No, Ma’am,” said Paul.
“Dombey, Dombey,” said Miss Blimber, “I begin to be afraid you are a
sad boy. When you don’t know the meaning of an expression, why don’t
you seek for information?”
“Mrs Pipchin told me I wasn’t to ask questions,” returned Paul.
“I must beg you not to mention Mrs Pipchin to me, on any account,
Dombey,” returned Miss Blimber. “I couldn’t think of allowing it. The
course of study here, is very far removed from anything of that sort. A
repetition of such allusions would make it necessary for me to request
to hear, without a mistake, before breakfast-time to-morrow morning,
from Verbum personale down to simillimia cygno.”
“I didn’t mean, Ma’am—” began little Paul.
“I must trouble you not to tell me that you didn’t mean, if you please,
Dombey,” said Miss Blimber, who preserved an awful politeness in her
admonitions. “That is a line of argument I couldn’t dream of
permitting.”
Paul felt it safest to say nothing at all, so he only looked at Miss
Blimber’s spectacles. Miss Blimber having shaken her head at him
gravely, referred to a paper lying before her.
“‘Analysis of the character of P. Dombey.’ If my recollection serves
me,” said Miss Blimber breaking off, “the word analysis as opposed to
synthesis, is thus defined by Walker. ‘The resolution of an object,
whether of the senses or of the intellect, into its first elements.’ As
opposed to synthesis, you observe. Now you know what analysis is,
Dombey.”
Dombey didn’t seem to be absolutely blinded by the light let in upon
his intellect, but he made Miss Blimber a little bow.
“‘Analysis,’” resumed Miss Blimber, casting her eye over the paper,
“‘of the character of P. Dombey.’ I find that the natural capacity of
Dombey is extremely good; and that his general disposition to study may
be stated in an equal ratio. Thus, taking eight as our standard and
highest number, I find these qualities in Dombey stated each at six
three-fourths!”
Miss Blimber paused to see how Paul received this news. Being undecided
whether six three-fourths meant six pounds fifteen, or sixpence three
farthings, or six foot three, or three quarters past six, or six
somethings that he hadn’t learnt yet, with three unknown something
elses over, Paul rubbed his hands and looked straight at Miss Blimber.
It happened to answer as well as anything else he could have done; and
Cornelia proceeded.
“‘Violence two. Selfishness two. Inclination to low company, as evinced
in the case of a person named Glubb, originally seven, but since
reduced. Gentlemanly demeanour four, and improving with advancing
years.’ Now what I particularly wish to call your attention to, Dombey,
is the general observation at the close of this analysis.”
Paul set himself to follow it with great care.
“‘It may be generally observed of Dombey,’” said Miss Blimber, reading
in a loud voice, and at every second word directing her spectacles
towards the little figure before her: “‘that his abilities and
inclinations are good, and that he has made as much progress as under
the circumstances could have been expected. But it is to be lamented of
this young gentleman that he is singular (what is usually termed
old-fashioned) in his character and conduct, and that, without
presenting anything in either which distinctly calls for reprobation,
he is often very unlike other young gentlemen of his age and social
position.’ Now, Dombey,” said Miss Blimber, laying down the paper, “do
you understand that?”
“I think I do, Ma’am,” said Paul.
“This analysis, you see, Dombey,” Miss Blimber continued, “is going to
be sent home to your respected parent. It will naturally be very
painful to him to find that you are singular in your character and
conduct. It is naturally painful to us; for we can’t like you, you
know, Dombey, as well as we could wish.”
She touched the child upon a tender point. He had secretly become more
and more solicitous from day to day, as the time of his departure drew
more near, that all the house should like him. From some hidden reason,
very imperfectly understood by himself—if understood at all—he felt a
gradually increasing impulse of affection, towards almost everything
and everybody in the place. He could not bear to think that they would
be quite indifferent to him when he was gone. He wanted them to
remember him kindly; and he had made it his business even to conciliate
a great hoarse shaggy dog, chained up at the back of the house, who had
previously been the terror of his life: that even he might miss him
when he was no longer there.
Little thinking that in this, he only showed again the difference
between himself and his compeers, poor tiny Paul set it forth to Miss
Blimber as well as he could, and begged her, in despite of the official
analysis, to have the goodness to try and like him. To Mrs Blimber, who
had joined them, he preferred the same petition: and when that lady
could not forbear, even in his presence, from giving utterance to her
often-repeated opinion, that he was an odd child, Paul told her that he
was sure she was quite right; that he thought it must be his bones, but
he didn’t know; and that he hoped she would overlook it, for he was
fond of them all.
“Not so fond,” said Paul, with a mixture of timidity and perfect
frankness, which was one of the most peculiar and most engaging
qualities of the child, “not so fond as I am of Florence, of course;
that could never be. You couldn’t expect that, could you, Ma’am?”
“Oh! the old-fashioned little soul!” cried Mrs Blimber, in a whisper.
“But I like everybody here very much,” pursued Paul, “and I should
grieve to go away, and think that anyone was glad that I was gone, or
didn’t care.”
Mrs Blimber was now quite sure that Paul was the oddest child in the
world; and when she told the Doctor what had passed, the Doctor did not
controvert his wife’s opinion. But he said, as he had said before, when
Paul first came, that study would do much; and he also said, as he had
said on that occasion, “Bring him on, Cornelia! Bring him on!”
Cornelia had always brought him on as vigorously as she could; and Paul
had had a hard life of it. But over and above the getting through his
tasks, he had long had another purpose always present to him, and to
which he still held fast. It was, to be a gentle, useful, quiet little
fellow, always striving to secure the love and attachment of the rest;