Dombey and Son
of carriages and carts, and people passing and repassing; and would
fall asleep, or be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense again—the
child could hardly tell whether this were in his sleeping or his waking
moments—of that rushing river. “Why, will it never stop, Floy?” he
would sometimes ask her. “It is bearing me away, I think!”
But Floy could always soothe and reassure him; and it was his daily
delight to make her lay her head down on his pillow, and take some
rest.
“You are always watching me, Floy, let me watch you, now!” They would
prop him up with cushions in a corner of his bed, and there he would
recline the while she lay beside him: bending forward oftentimes to
kiss her, and whispering to those who were near that she was tired, and
how she had sat up so many nights beside him.
Thus, the flush of the day, in its heat and light, would gradually
decline; and again the golden water would be dancing on the wall.
He was visited by as many as three grave doctors—they used to assemble
downstairs, and come up together—and the room was so quiet, and Paul
was so observant of them (though he never asked of anybody what they
said), that he even knew the difference in the sound of their watches.
But his interest centred in Sir Parker Peps, who always took his seat
on the side of the bed. For Paul had heard them say long ago, that that
gentleman had been with his Mama when she clasped Florence in her arms,
and died. And he could not forget it, now. He liked him for it. He was
not afraid.
The people round him changed as unaccountably as on that first night at
Doctor Blimber’s—except Florence; Florence never changed—and what had
been Sir Parker Peps, was now his father, sitting with his head upon
his hand. Old Mrs Pipchin dozing in an easy chair, often changed to
Miss Tox, or his aunt; and Paul was quite content to shut his eyes
again, and see what happened next, without emotion. But this figure
with its head upon its hand returned so often, and remained so long,
and sat so still and solemn, never speaking, never being spoken to, and
rarely lifting up its face, that Paul began to wonder languidly, if it
were real; and in the night-time saw it sitting there, with fear.
“Floy!” he said. “What is that?”
“Where, dearest?”
“There! at the bottom of the bed.”
“There’s nothing there, except Papa!”
The figure lifted up its head, and rose, and coming to the bedside,
said: “My own boy! Don’t you know me?”
Paul looked it in the face, and thought, was this his father? But the
face so altered to his thinking, thrilled while he gazed, as if it were
in pain; and before he could reach out both his hands to take it
between them, and draw it towards him, the figure turned away quickly
from the little bed, and went out at the door.
Paul looked at Florence with a fluttering heart, but he knew what she
was going to say, and stopped her with his face against her lips. The
next time he observed the figure sitting at the bottom of the bed, he
called to it.
“Don’t be sorry for me, dear Papa! Indeed I am quite happy!”
His father coming and bending down to him—which he did quickly, and
without first pausing by the bedside—Paul held him round the neck, and
repeated those words to him several times, and very earnestly; and Paul
never saw him in his room again at any time, whether it were day or
night, but he called out, “Don’t be sorry for me! Indeed I am quite
happy!” This was the beginning of his always saying in the morning that
he was a great deal better, and that they were to tell his father so.
How many times the golden water danced upon the wall; how many nights
the dark, dark river rolled towards the sea in spite of him; Paul never
counted, never sought to know. If their kindness, or his sense of it,
could have increased, they were more kind, and he more grateful every
day; but whether they were many days or few, appeared of little moment
now, to the gentle boy.
One night he had been thinking of his mother, and her picture in the
drawing-room downstairs, and thought she must have loved sweet Florence
better than his father did, to have held her in her arms when she felt
that she was dying—for even he, her brother, who had such dear love for
her, could have no greater wish than that. The train of thought
suggested to him to inquire if he had ever seen his mother? for he
could not remember whether they had told him, yes or no, the river
running very fast, and confusing his mind.
“Floy, did I ever see Mama?”
“No, darling, why?”
“Did I ever see any kind face, like Mama’s, looking at me when I was a
baby, Floy?”
He asked, incredulously, as if he had some vision of a face before him.
“Oh yes, dear!”
“Whose, Floy?”
“Your old nurse’s. Often.”
“And where is my old nurse?” said Paul. “Is she dead too? Floy, are we
all dead, except you?”
There was a hurry in the room, for an instant—longer, perhaps; but it
seemed no more—then all was still again; and Florence, with her face
quite colourless, but smiling, held his head upon her arm. Her arm
trembled very much.
“Show me that old nurse, Floy, if you please!”
“She is not here, darling. She shall come to-morrow.”
“Thank you, Floy!”
Paul closed his eyes with those words, and fell asleep. When he awoke,
the sun was high, and the broad day was clear and warm. He lay a
little, looking at the windows, which were open, and the curtains
rustling in the air, and waving to and fro: then he said, “Floy, is it
tomorrow? Is she come?”
Someone seemed to go in quest of her. Perhaps it was Susan. Paul
thought he heard her telling him when he had closed his eyes again,
that she would soon be back; but he did not open them to see. She kept
her word—perhaps she had never been away—but the next thing that
happened was a noise of footsteps on the stairs, and then Paul
woke—woke mind and body—and sat upright in his bed. He saw them now
about him. There was no grey mist before them, as there had been
sometimes in the night. He knew them every one, and called them by
their names.
“And who is this? Is this my old nurse?” said the child, regarding with
a radiant smile, a figure coming in.
Yes, yes. No other stranger would have shed those tears at sight of
him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor blighted
child. No other woman would have stooped down by his bed, and taken up
his wasted hand, and put it to her lips and breast, as one who had some
right to fondle it. No other woman would have so forgotten everybody
there but him and Floy, and been so full of tenderness and pity.
“Floy! this is a kind good face!” said Paul. “I am glad to see it
again. Don’t go away, old nurse! Stay here.”
His senses were all quickened, and he heard a name he knew.
“Who was that, who said ‘Walter’?” he asked, looking round. “Someone
said Walter. Is he here? I should like to see him very much.”
Nobody replied directly; but his father soon said to Susan, “Call him
back, then: let him come up!” Alter a short pause of expectation,
during which he looked with smiling interest and wonder, on his nurse,
and saw that she had not forgotten Floy, Walter was brought into the
room. His open face and manner, and his cheerful eyes, had always made
him a favourite with Paul; and when Paul saw him, he stretched Out his
hand, and said “Good-bye!”
“Good-bye, my child!” said Mrs Pipchin, hurrying to his bed’s head.
“Not good-bye?”
For an instant, Paul looked at her with the wistful face with which he
had so often gazed upon her in his corner by the fire. “Yes,” he said
placidly, “good-bye! Walter dear, good-bye!”—turning his head to where
he stood, and putting out his hand again. “Where is Papa?”
He felt his father’s breath upon his cheek, before the words had parted
from his lips.
“Remember Walter, dear Papa,” he whispered, looking in his face.
“Remember Walter. I was fond of Walter!” The feeble hand waved in the
air, as if it cried “good-bye!” to Walter once again.
“Now lay me down,” he said, “and, Floy, come close to me, and let me
see you!”
Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden
light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together.
“How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes, Floy!
But it’s very near the sea. I hear the waves! They always said so!”
Presently he told her the motion of the boat upon the stream was
lulling him to rest. How green the banks were now, how bright the
flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes! Now the boat was out
at sea, but gliding smoothly on. And now there was a shore before him.
Who stood on the bank?—
He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his prayers. He
did not remove his arms to do it; but they saw him fold them so, behind
her neck.
“Mama is like you, Floy. I know her by the face! But tell them that the
print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. The light about
the head is shining on me as I go!”
The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred
in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our
first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its
course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old
fashion—Death!
Oh thank GOD, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of
Immortality! And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards
not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean!
“Dear me, dear me! To think,” said Miss Tox, bursting out afresh that
night, as if her heart were broken, “that Dombey and Son should be a
Daughter after all!”
CHAPTER XVII.
Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young People
Captain Cuttle, in the exercise of that surprising talent for deep-laid
and unfathomable scheming, with which (as is not unusual in men of
transparent simplicity) he sincerely believed himself to be endowed by
nature, had gone to Mr Dombey’s house on the eventful Sunday, winking
all the way as a vent for his superfluous sagacity, and had presented
himself in the full lustre of the ankle-jacks before the eyes of
Towlinson. Hearing from that individual, to his great concern, of the
impending calamity, Captain Cuttle, in his delicacy, sheered off again
confounded; merely handing in the nosegay as a small mark of his
solicitude, and leaving his respectful compliments for the family in
general, which he accompanied with an expression of his hope that they
would lay their heads well to the wind under existing circumstances,
and a friendly intimation that he would “look up again” to-morrow.
The Captain’s compliments were never heard of any more. The Captain’s
nosegay, after lying in the hall all night, was swept into the dust-bin
next morning; and the Captain’s sly arrangement, involved in one
catastrophe with greater hopes and loftier designs, was crushed to
pieces. So, when an avalanche bears down a mountain-forest, twigs and
bushes suffer with the trees, and all perish together.
When Walter returned home on the Sunday evening from his long walk, and
its memorable close, he was too much occupied at first by the tidings
he had to give them, and by the emotions naturally awakened in his
breast by the scene through which he had passed, to observe either that
his Uncle was evidently unacquainted with the intelligence the Captain
had undertaken to impart, or that the Captain made signals with his
hook, warning him to avoid the subject. Not that the Captain’s signals
were calculated to have proved very comprehensible, however attentively
observed; for, like those Chinese sages who are said in their
conferences to write certain learned words in the air that are wholly
impossible of pronunciation, the Captain made such waves and flourishes