Dombey and Son
Dombey, when he should have gained a better knowledge of the case, and
before that day. That there was no immediate cause for—what? Paul lost
that word. And that the little fellow had a fine mind, but was an
old-fashioned boy.
What old fashion could that be, Paul wondered with a palpitating heart,
that was so visibly expressed in him; so plainly seen by so many
people!
He could neither make it out, nor trouble himself long with the effort.
Mrs Pipchin was again beside him, if she had ever been away (he thought
she had gone out with the Doctor, but it was all a dream perhaps), and
presently a bottle and glass got into her hands magically, and she
poured out the contents for him. After that, he had some real good
jelly, which Mrs Blimber brought to him herself; and then he was so
well, that Mrs Pipchin went home, at his urgent solicitation, and
Briggs and Tozer came to bed. Poor Briggs grumbled terribly about his
own analysis, which could hardly have discomposed him more if it had
been a chemical process; but he was very good to Paul, and so was
Tozer, and so were all the rest, for they every one looked in before
going to bed, and said, “How are you now, Dombey?” “Cheer up, little
Dombey!” and so forth. After Briggs had got into bed, he lay awake for
a long time, still bemoaning his analysis, and saying he knew it was
all wrong, and they couldn’t have analysed a murderer worse, and—how
would Doctor Blimber like it if his pocket-money depended on it? It was
very easy, Briggs said, to make a galley-slave of a boy all the
half-year, and then score him up idle; and to crib two dinners a-week
out of his board, and then score him up greedy; but that wasn’t going
to be submitted to, he believed, was it? Oh! Ah!
Before the weak-eyed young man performed on the gong next morning, he
came upstairs to Paul and told him he was to lie still, which Paul very
gladly did. Mrs Pipchin reappeared a little before the Apothecary, and
a little after the good young woman whom Paul had seen cleaning the
stove on that first morning (how long ago it seemed now!) had brought
him his breakfast. There was another consultation a long way off, or
else Paul dreamed it again; and then the Apothecary, coming back with
Doctor and Mrs Blimber, said:
“Yes, I think, Doctor Blimber, we may release this young gentleman from
his books just now; the vacation being so very near at hand.”
“By all means,” said Doctor Blimber. “My love, you will inform
Cornelia, if you please.”
“Assuredly,” said Mrs Blimber.
The Apothecary bending down, looked closely into Paul’s eyes, and felt
his head, and his pulse, and his heart, with so much interest and care,
that Paul said, “Thank you, Sir.”
“Our little friend,” observed Doctor Blimber, “has never complained.”
“Oh no!” replied the Apothecary. “He was not likely to complain.”
“You find him greatly better?” said Doctor Blimber.
“Oh! he is greatly better, Sir,” returned the Apothecary.
Paul had begun to speculate, in his own odd way, on the subject that
might occupy the Apothecary’s mind just at that moment; so musingly had
he answered the two questions of Doctor Blimber. But the Apothecary
happening to meet his little patient’s eyes, as the latter set off on
that mental expedition, and coming instantly out of his abstraction
with a cheerful smile, Paul smiled in return and abandoned it.
He lay in bed all that day, dozing and dreaming, and looking at Mr
Toots; but got up on the next, and went downstairs. Lo and behold,
there was something the matter with the great clock; and a workman on a
pair of steps had taken its face off, and was poking instruments into
the works by the light of a candle! This was a great event for Paul,
who sat down on the bottom stair, and watched the operation
attentively: now and then glancing at the clock face, leaning all
askew, against the wall hard by, and feeling a little confused by a
suspicion that it was ogling him.
The workman on the steps was very civil; and as he said, when he
observed Paul, “How do you do, Sir?” Paul got into conversation with
him, and told him he hadn’t been quite well lately. The ice being thus
broken, Paul asked him a multitude of questions about chimes and
clocks: as, whether people watched up in the lonely church steeples by
night to make them strike, and how the bells were rung when people
died, and whether those were different bells from wedding bells, or
only sounded dismal in the fancies of the living. Finding that his new
acquaintance was not very well informed on the subject of the Curfew
Bell of ancient days, Paul gave him an account of that institution; and
also asked him, as a practical man, what he thought about King Alfred’s
idea of measuring time by the burning of candles; to which the workman
replied, that he thought it would be the ruin of the clock trade if it
was to come up again. In fine, Paul looked on, until the clock had
quite recovered its familiar aspect, and resumed its sedate inquiry;
when the workman, putting away his tools in a long basket, bade him
good day, and went away. Though not before he had whispered something,
on the door-mat, to the footman, in which there was the phrase
“old-fashioned”—for Paul heard it.
What could that old fashion be, that seemed to make the people sorry!
What could it be!
Having nothing to learn now, he thought of this frequently; though not
so often as he might have done, if he had had fewer things to think of.
But he had a great many; and was always thinking, all day long.
First, there was Florence coming to the party. Florence would see that
the boys were fond of him; and that would make her happy. This was his
great theme. Let Florence once be sure that they were gentle and good
to him, and that he had become a little favourite among them, and then
she would always think of the time he had passed there, without being
very sorry. Florence might be all the happier too for that, perhaps,
when he came back.
When he came back! Fifty times a day, his noiseless little feet went up
the stairs to his own room, as he collected every book, and scrap, and
trifle that belonged to him, and put them all together there, down to
the minutest thing, for taking home! There was no shade of coming back
on little Paul; no preparation for it, or other reference to it, grew
out of anything he thought or did, except this slight one in connexion
with his sister. On the contrary, he had to think of everything
familiar to him, in his contemplative moods and in his wanderings about
the house, as being to be parted with; and hence the many things he had
to think of, all day long.
He had to peep into those rooms upstairs, and think how solitary they
would be when he was gone, and wonder through how many silent days,
weeks, months, and years, they would continue just as grave and
undisturbed. He had to think—would any other child (old-fashioned, like
himself) stray there at any time, to whom the same grotesque
distortions of pattern and furniture would manifest themselves; and
would anybody tell that boy of little Dombey, who had been there once?
He had to think of a portrait on the stairs, which always looked
earnestly after him as he went away, eyeing it over his shoulder; and
which, when he passed it in the company of anyone, still seemed to gaze
at him, and not at his companion. He had much to think of, in
association with a print that hung up in another place, where, in the
centre of a wondering group, one figure that he knew, a figure with a
light about its head—benignant, mild, and merciful—stood pointing
upward.
At his own bedroom window, there were crowds of thoughts that mixed
with these, and came on, one upon another, like the rolling waves.
Where those wild birds lived, that were always hovering out at sea in
troubled weather; where the clouds rose and first began; whence the
wind issued on its rushing flight, and where it stopped; whether the
spot where he and Florence had so often sat, and watched, and talked
about these things, could ever be exactly as it used to be without
them; whether it could ever be the same to Florence, if he were in some
distant place, and she were sitting there alone.
He had to think, too, of Mr Toots, and Mr Feeder, B.A., of all the
boys; and of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber; of home,
and of his aunt and Miss Tox; of his father; Dombey and Son, Walter
with the poor old Uncle who had got the money he wanted, and that
gruff-voiced Captain with the iron hand. Besides all this, he had a
number of little visits to pay, in the course of the day; to the
schoolroom, to Doctor Blimber’s study, to Mrs Blimber’s private
apartment, to Miss Blimber’s, and to the dog. For he was free of the
whole house now, to range it as he chose; and, in his desire to part
with everybody on affectionate terms, he attended, in his way, to them
all. Sometimes he found places in books for Briggs, who was always
losing them; sometimes he looked up words in dictionaries for other
young gentlemen who were in extremity; sometimes he held skeins of silk
for Mrs Blimber to wind; sometimes he put Cornelia’s desk to rights;
sometimes he would even creep into the Doctor’s study, and, sitting on
the carpet near his learned feet, turn the globes softly, and go round
the world, or take a flight among the far-off stars.
In those days immediately before the holidays, in short, when the other
young gentlemen were labouring for dear life through a general
resumption of the studies of the whole half-year, Paul was such a
privileged pupil as had never been seen in that house before. He could
hardly believe it himself; but his liberty lasted from hour to hour,
and from day to day; and little Dombey was caressed by everyone. Doctor
Blimber was so particular about him, that he requested Johnson to
retire from the dinner-table one day, for having thoughtlessly spoken
to him as “poor little Dombey;” which Paul thought rather hard and
severe, though he had flushed at the moment, and wondered why Johnson
should pity him. It was the more questionable justice, Paul thought, in
the Doctor, from his having certainly overheard that great authority
give his assent on the previous evening, to the proposition (stated by
Mrs Blimber) that poor dear little Dombey was more old-fashioned than
ever. And now it was that Paul began to think it must surely be
old-fashioned to be very thin, and light, and easily tired, and soon
disposed to lie down anywhere and rest; for he couldn’t help feeling
that these were more and more his habits every day.
At last the party-day arrived; and Doctor Blimber said at breakfast,
“Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth of next
month.” Mr Toots immediately threw off his allegiance, and put on his
ring: and mentioning the Doctor in casual conversation shortly
afterwards, spoke of him as “Blimber”! This act of freedom inspired the
older pupils with admiration and envy; but the younger spirits were
appalled, and seemed to marvel that no beam fell down and crushed him.
Not the least allusion was made to the ceremonies of the evening,
either at breakfast or at dinner; but there was a bustle in the house
all day, and in the course of his perambulations, Paul made
acquaintance with various strange benches and candlesticks, and met a
harp in a green greatcoat standing on the landing outside the
drawing-room door. There was something queer, too, about Mrs Blimber’s
head at dinner-time, as if she had screwed her hair up too tight; and
though Miss Blimber showed a graceful bunch of plaited hair on each
temple, she seemed to have her own little curls in paper underneath,
and in a play-bill too; for Paul read “Theatre Royal” over one of her
sparkling spectacles, and “Brighton” over the other.