Dombey and Son
watch that’ll do you credit.”
“Captain Cuttle! I couldn’t think of it!” cried Walter, detaining him,
for he was running away. “Pray take it back. I have one already.”
“Then, Wal”r,” said the Captain, suddenly diving into one of his
pockets and bringing up the two teaspoons and the sugar-tongs, with
which he had armed himself to meet such an objection, “take this here
trifle of plate, instead.”
“No, no, I couldn’t indeed!” cried Walter, “a thousand thanks! Don’t
throw them away, Captain Cuttle!” for the Captain was about to jerk
them overboard. “They’ll be of much more use to you than me. Give me
your stick. I have often thought I should like to have it. There!
Good-bye, Captain Cuttle! Take care of my Uncle! Uncle Sol, God bless
you!”
They were over the side in the confusion, before Walter caught another
glimpse of either; and when he ran up to the stern, and looked after
them, he saw his Uncle hanging down his head in the boat, and Captain
Cuttle rapping him on the back with the great silver watch (it must
have been very painful), and gesticulating hopefully with the teaspoons
and sugar-tongs. Catching sight of Walter, Captain Cuttle dropped the
property into the bottom of the boat with perfect unconcern, being
evidently oblivious of its existence, and pulling off the glazed hat
hailed him lustily. The glazed hat made quite a show in the sun with
its glistening, and the Captain continued to wave it until he could be
seen no longer. Then the confusion on board, which had been rapidly
increasing, reached its height; two or three other boats went away with
a cheer; the sails shone bright and full above, as Walter watched them
spread their surface to the favourable breeze; the water flew in
sparkles from the prow; and off upon her voyage went the Son and Heir,
as hopefully and trippingly as many another son and heir, gone down,
had started on his way before her.
Day after day, old Sol and Captain Cuttle kept her reckoning in the
little back parlour and worked out her course, with the chart spread
before them on the round table. At night, when old Sol climbed
upstairs, so lonely, to the attic where it sometimes blew great guns,
he looked up at the stars and listened to the wind, and kept a longer
watch than would have fallen to his lot on board the ship. The last
bottle of the old Madeira, which had had its cruising days, and known
its dangers of the deep, lay silently beneath its dust and cobwebs, in
the meanwhile, undisturbed.
CHAPTER XX.
Mr Dombey goes upon a Journey
Mr Dombey, Sir,” said Major Bagstock, “Joey” B. is not in general a
man of sentiment, for Joseph is tough. But Joe has his feelings, Sir,
and when they are awakened—Damme, Mr Dombey,” cried the Major with
sudden ferocity, “this is weakness, and I won’t submit to it!”
Major Bagstock delivered himself of these expressions on receiving Mr
Dombey as his guest at the head of his own staircase in Princess’s
Place. Mr Dombey had come to breakfast with the Major, previous to
their setting forth on their trip; and the ill-starved Native had
already undergone a world of misery arising out of the muffins, while,
in connexion with the general question of boiled eggs, life was a
burden to him.
“It is not for an old soldier of the Bagstock breed,” observed the
Major, relapsing into a mild state, “to deliver himself up, a prey to
his own emotions; but—damme, Sir,” cried the Major, in another spasm of
ferocity, “I condole with you!”
The Major’s purple visage deepened in its hue, and the Major’s lobster
eyes stood out in bolder relief, as he shook Mr Dombey by the hand,
imparting to that peaceful action as defiant a character as if it had
been the prelude to his immediately boxing Mr Dombey for a thousand
pounds a side and the championship of England. With a rotatory motion
of his head, and a wheeze very like the cough of a horse, the Major
then conducted his visitor to the sitting-room, and there welcomed him
(having now composed his feelings) with the freedom and frankness of a
travelling companion.
“Dombey,” said the Major, “I’m glad to see you. I’m proud to see you.
There are not many men in Europe to whom J. Bagstock would say that—for
Josh is blunt. Sir: it’s his nature—but Joey B. is proud to see you,
Dombey.”
“Major,” returned Mr Dombey, “you are very obliging.”
“No, Sir,” said the Major, “Devil a bit! That’s not my character. If
that had been Joe’s character, Joe might have been, by this time,
Lieutenant-General Sir Joseph Bagstock, K.C.B., and might have received
you in very different quarters. You don’t know old Joe yet, I find. But
this occasion, being special, is a source of pride to me. By the Lord,
Sir,” said the Major resolutely, “it’s an honour to me!”
Mr Dombey, in his estimation of himself and his money, felt that this
was very true, and therefore did not dispute the point. But the
instinctive recognition of such a truth by the Major, and his plain
avowal of it, were very able. It was a confirmation to Mr Dombey, if he
had required any, of his not being mistaken in the Major. It was an
assurance to him that his power extended beyond his own immediate
sphere; and that the Major, as an officer and a gentleman, had a no
less becoming sense of it, than the beadle of the Royal Exchange.
And if it were ever consolatory to know this, or the like of this, it
was consolatory then, when the impotence of his will, the instability
of his hopes, the feebleness of wealth, had been so direfully impressed
upon him. What could it do, his boy had asked him. Sometimes, thinking
of the baby question, he could hardly forbear inquiring, himself, what
could it do indeed: what had it done?
But these were lonely thoughts, bred late at night in the sullen
despondency and gloom of his retirement, and pride easily found its
reassurance in many testimonies to the truth, as unimpeachable and
precious as the Major’s. Mr Dombey, in his friendlessness, inclined to
the Major. It cannot be said that he warmed towards him, but he thawed
a little, The Major had had some part—and not too much—in the days by
the seaside. He was a man of the world, and knew some great people. He
talked much, and told stories; and Mr Dombey was disposed to regard him
as a choice spirit who shone in society, and who had not that poisonous
ingredient of poverty with which choice spirits in general are too much
adulterated. His station was undeniable. Altogether the Major was a
creditable companion, well accustomed to a life of leisure, and to such
places as that they were about to visit, and having an air of
gentlemanly ease about him that mixed well enough with his own City
character, and did not compete with it at all. If Mr Dombey had any
lingering idea that the Major, as a man accustomed, in the way of his
calling, to make light of the ruthless hand that had lately crushed his
hopes, might unconsciously impart some useful philosophy to him, and
scare away his weak regrets, he hid it from himself, and left it lying
at the bottom of his pride, unexamined.
“Where is my scoundrel?” said the Major, looking wrathfully round the
room.
The Native, who had no particular name, but answered to any
vituperative epithet, presented himself instantly at the door and
ventured to come no nearer.
“You villain!” said the choleric Major, “where’s the breakfast?”
The dark servant disappeared in search of it, and was quickly heard
reascending the stairs in such a tremulous state, that the plates and
dishes on the tray he carried, trembling sympathetically as he came,
rattled again, all the way up.
“Dombey,” said the Major, glancing at the Native as he arranged the
table, and encouraging him with an awful shake of his fist when he
upset a spoon, “here is a devilled grill, a savoury pie, a dish of
kidneys, and so forth. Pray sit down. Old Joe can give you nothing but
camp fare, you see.”
“Very excellent fare, Major,” replied his guest; and not in mere
politeness either; for the Major always took the best possible care of
himself, and indeed ate rather more of rich meats than was good for
him, insomuch that his Imperial complexion was mainly referred by the
faculty to that circumstance.
“You have been looking over the way, Sir,” observed the Major. “Have
you seen our friend?”
“You mean Miss Tox,” retorted Mr Dombey. “No.”
“Charming woman, Sir,” said the Major, with a fat laugh rising in his
short throat, and nearly suffocating him.
“Miss Tox is a very good sort of person, I believe,” replied Mr Dombey.
The haughty coldness of the reply seemed to afford Major Bagstock
infinite delight. He swelled and swelled, exceedingly: and even laid
down his knife and fork for a moment, to rub his hands.
“Old Joe, Sir,” said the Major, “was a bit of a favourite in that
quarter once. But Joe has had his day. J. Bagstock is
extinguished—outrivalled—floored, Sir.”
“I should have supposed,” Mr Dombey replied, “that the lady’s day for
favourites was over: but perhaps you are jesting, Major.”
“Perhaps you are jesting, Dombey?” was the Major’s rejoinder.
There never was a more unlikely possibility. It was so clearly
expressed in Mr Dombey’s face, that the Major apologised.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I see you are in earnest. I tell you
what, Dombey.” The Major paused in his eating, and looked mysteriously
indignant. “That’s a de-vilish ambitious woman, Sir.”
Mr Dombey said “Indeed?” with frigid indifference: mingled perhaps with
some contemptuous incredulity as to Miss Tox having the presumption to
harbour such a superior quality.
“That woman, Sir,” said the Major, “is, in her way, a Lucifer. Joey B.
has had his day, Sir, but he keeps his eyes. He sees, does Joe. His
Royal Highness the late Duke of York observed of Joey, at a levee, that
he saw.”
The Major accompanied this with such a look, and, between eating,
drinking, hot tea, devilled grill, muffins, and meaning, was altogether
so swollen and inflamed about the head, that even Mr Dombey showed some
anxiety for him.
“That ridiculous old spectacle, Sir,” pursued the Major, “aspires. She
aspires sky-high, Sir. Matrimonially, Dombey.”
“I am sorry for her,” said Mr Dombey.
“Don’t say that, Dombey,” returned the Major in a warning voice.
“Why should I not, Major?” said Mr Dombey.
The Major gave no answer but the horse’s cough, and went on eating
vigorously.
“She has taken an interest in your household,” said the Major, stopping
short again, “and has been a frequent visitor at your house for some
time now.”
“Yes,” replied Mr Dombey with great stateliness, “Miss Tox was
originally received there, at the time of Mrs Dombey’s death, as a
friend of my sister’s; and being a well-behaved person, and showing a
liking for the poor infant, she was permitted—may I say encouraged—to
repeat her visits with my sister, and gradually to occupy a kind of
footing of familiarity in the family. I have,” said Mr Dombey, in the
tone of a man who was making a great and valuable concession, “I have a
respect for Miss Tox. She has been so obliging as to render many little
services in my house: trifling and insignificant services perhaps,
Major, but not to be disparaged on that account: and I hope I have had
the good fortune to be enabled to acknowledge them by such attention
and notice as it has been in my power to bestow. I hold myself indebted
to Miss Tox, Major,” added Mr Dombey, with a slight wave of his hand,
“for the pleasure of your acquaintance.”
“Dombey,” said the Major, warmly: “no! No, Sir! Joseph Bagstock can
never permit that assertion to pass uncontradicted. Your knowledge of
old Joe, Sir, such as he is, and old Joe’s knowledge of you, Sir, had
its origin in a noble fellow, Sir—in a great creature, Sir. Dombey!”
said the Major, with a struggle which it was not very difficult to