Dombey and Son
“No thank’ee, Ma’am,” returned the Captain very humbly.
“I’m sure you’re out of sorts, and want to be stimulated,” said Mrs
MacStinger. “Why not have, for once in a way, a bottle of sherry wine?”
“Well, Ma’am,” rejoined the Captain, “if you’d be so good as take a
glass or two, I think I would try that. Would you do me the favour,
Ma’am,” said the Captain, torn to pieces by his conscience, “to accept
a quarter’s rent ahead?”
“And why so, Cap’en Cuttle?” retorted Mrs MacStinger—sharply, as the
Captain thought.
The Captain was frightened to dead “If you would Ma’am,” he said with
submission, “it would oblige me. I can’t keep my money very well. It
pays itself out. I should take it kind if you’d comply.”
“Well, Cap’en Cuttle,” said the unconscious MacStinger, rubbing her
hands, “you can do as you please. It’s not for me, with my family, to
refuse, no more than it is to ask.”
“And would you, Ma’am,” said the Captain, taking down the tin canister
in which he kept his cash, from the top shelf of the cupboard, “be so
good as offer eighteen-pence a-piece to the little family all round? If
you could make it convenient, Ma’am, to pass the word presently for
them children to come for’ard, in a body, I should be glad to see ’em.”
These innocent MacStingers were so many daggers to the Captain’s
breast, when they appeared in a swarm, and tore at him with the
confiding trustfulness he so little deserved. The eye of Alexander
MacStinger, who had been his favourite, was insupportable to the
Captain; the voice of Juliana MacStinger, who was the picture of her
mother, made a coward of him.
Captain Cuttle kept up appearances, nevertheless, tolerably well, and
for an hour or two was very hardly used and roughly handled by the
young MacStingers: who in their childish frolics, did a little damage
also to the glazed hat, by sitting in it, two at a time, as in a nest,
and drumming on the inside of the crown with their shoes. At length the
Captain sorrowfully dismissed them: taking leave of these cherubs with
the poignant remorse and grief of a man who was going to execution.
In the silence of night, the Captain packed up his heavier property in
a chest, which he locked, intending to leave it there, in all
probability for ever, but on the forlorn chance of one day finding a
man sufficiently bold and desperate to come and ask for it. Of his
lighter necessaries, the Captain made a bundle; and disposed his plate
about his person, ready for flight. At the hour of midnight, when Brig
Place was buried in slumber, and Mrs MacStinger was lulled in sweet
oblivion, with her infants around her, the guilty Captain, stealing
down on tiptoe, in the dark, opened the door, closed it softly after
him, and took to his heels.
Pursued by the image of Mrs MacStinger springing out of bed, and,
regardless of costume, following and bringing him back; pursued also by
a consciousness of his enormous crime; Captain Cuttle held on at a
great pace, and allowed no grass to grow under his feet, between Brig
Place and the Instrument-maker’s door. It opened when he knocked—for
Rob was on the watch—and when it was bolted and locked behind him,
Captain Cuttle felt comparatively safe.
“Whew!” cried the Captain, looking round him. “It’s a breather!”
“Nothing the matter, is there, Captain?” cried the gaping Rob.
“No, no!” said Captain Cuttle, after changing colour, and listening to
a passing footstep in the street. “But mind ye, my lad; if any lady,
except either of them two as you see t’other day, ever comes and asks
for Cap’en Cuttle, be sure to report no person of that name known, nor
never heard of here; observe them orders, will you?”
“I’ll take care, Captain,” returned Rob.
“You might say—if you liked,” hesitated the Captain, “that you’d read
in the paper that a Cap’en of that name was gone to Australia,
emigrating, along with a whole ship’s complement of people as had all
swore never to come back no more.”
Rob nodded his understanding of these instructions; and Captain Cuttle
promising to make a man of him, if he obeyed orders, dismissed him,
yawning, to his bed under the counter, and went aloft to the chamber of
Solomon Gills.
What the Captain suffered next day, whenever a bonnet passed, or how
often he darted out of the shop to elude imaginary MacStingers, and
sought safety in the attic, cannot be told. But to avoid the fatigues
attendant on this means of self-preservation, the Captain curtained the
glass door of communication between the shop and parlour, on the
inside; fitted a key to it from the bunch that had been sent to him;
and cut a small hole of espial in the wall. The advantage of this
fortification is obvious. On a bonnet appearing, the Captain instantly
slipped into his garrison, locked himself up, and took a secret
observation of the enemy. Finding it a false alarm, the Captain
instantly slipped out again. And the bonnets in the street were so very
numerous, and alarms were so inseparable from their appearance, that
the Captain was almost incessantly slipping in and out all day long.
Captain Cuttle found time, however, in the midst of this fatiguing
service to inspect the stock; in connexion with which he had the
general idea (very laborious to Rob) that too much friction could not
be bestowed upon it, and that it could not be made too bright. He also
ticketed a few attractive-looking articles at a venture, at prices
ranging from ten shillings to fifty pounds, and exposed them in the
window to the great astonishment of the public.
After effecting these improvements, Captain Cuttle, surrounded by the
instruments, began to feel scientific: and looked up at the stars at
night, through the skylight, when he was smoking his pipe in the little
back parlour before going to bed, as if he had established a kind of
property in them. As a tradesman in the City, too, he began to have an
interest in the Lord Mayor, and the Sheriffs, and in Public Companies;
and felt bound to read the quotations of the Funds every day, though he
was unable to make out, on any principle of navigation, what the
figures meant, and could have very well dispensed with the fractions.
Florence, the Captain waited on, with his strange news of Uncle Sol,
immediately after taking possession of the Midshipman; but she was away
from home. So the Captain sat himself down in his altered station of
life, with no company but Rob the Grinder; and losing count of time, as
men do when great changes come upon them, thought musingly of Walter,
and of Solomon Gills, and even of Mrs MacStinger herself, as among the
things that had been.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Shadows of the Past and Future
Your most obedient, Sir,” said the Major. “Damme, Sir, a friend of my
friend Dombey’s is a friend of mine, and I’m glad to see you!”
“I am infinitely obliged, Carker,” explained Mr Dombey, “to Major
Bagstock, for his company and conversation. Major Bagstock has rendered
me great service, Carker.”
Mr Carker the Manager, hat in hand, just arrived at Leamington, and
just introduced to the Major, showed the Major his whole double range
of teeth, and trusted he might take the liberty of thanking him with
all his heart for having effected so great an Improvement in Mr
Dombey’s looks and spirits.
“By Gad, Sir,” said the Major, in reply, “there are no thanks due to
me, for it’s a give and take affair. A great creature like our friend
Dombey, Sir,” said the Major, lowering his voice, but not lowering it
so much as to render it inaudible to that gentleman, “cannot help
improving and exalting his friends. He strengthens and invigorates a
man, Sir, does Dombey, in his moral nature.”
Mr Carker snapped at the expression. In his moral nature. Exactly. The
very words he had been on the point of suggesting.
“But when my friend Dombey, Sir,” added the Major, “talks to you of
Major Bagstock, I must crave leave to set him and you right. He means
plain Joe, Sir—Joey B.—Josh. Bagstock—Joseph—rough and tough Old J.,
Sir. At your service.”
Mr Carker’s excessively friendly inclinations towards the Major, and Mr
Carker’s admiration of his roughness, toughness, and plainness, gleamed
out of every tooth in Mr Carker’s head.
“And now, Sir,” said the Major, “you and Dombey have the devil’s own
amount of business to talk over.”
“By no means, Major,” observed Mr Dombey.
“Dombey,” said the Major, defiantly, “I know better; a man of your
mark—the Colossus of commerce—is not to be interrupted. Your moments
are precious. We shall meet at dinner-time. In the interval, old Joseph
will be scarce. The dinner-hour is a sharp seven, Mr Carker.”
With that, the Major, greatly swollen as to his face, withdrew; but
immediately putting in his head at the door again, said:
“I beg your pardon. Dombey, have you any message to ’em?”
Mr Dombey in some embarrassment, and not without a glance at the
courteous keeper of his business confidence, entrusted the Major with
his compliments.
“By the Lord, Sir,” said the Major, “you must make it something warmer
than that, or old Joe will be far from welcome.”
“Regards then, if you will, Major,” returned Mr Dombey.
“Damme, Sir,” said the Major, shaking his shoulders and his great
cheeks jocularly: “make it something warmer than that.”
“What you please, then, Major,” observed Mr Dombey.
“Our friend is sly, Sir, sly, Sir, de-vilish sly,” said the Major,
staring round the door at Carker. “So is Bagstock.” But stopping in the
midst of a chuckle, and drawing himself up to his full height, the
Major solemnly exclaimed, as he struck himself on the chest, “Dombey! I
envy your feelings. God bless you!” and withdrew.
“You must have found the gentleman a great resource,” said Carker,
following him with his teeth.
“Very great indeed,” said Mr Dombey.
“He has friends here, no doubt,” pursued Carker. “I perceive, from what
he has said, that you go into society here. Do you know,” smiling
horribly, “I am so very glad that you go into society!”
Mr Dombey acknowledged this display of interest on the part of his
second in command, by twirling his watch-chain, and slightly moving his
head.
“You were formed for society,” said Carker. “Of all the men I know, you
are the best adapted, by nature and by position, for society. Do you
know I have been frequently amazed that you should have held it at
arm’s length so long!”
“I have had my reasons, Carker. I have been alone, and indifferent to
it. But you have great social qualifications yourself, and are the more
likely to have been surprised.”
“Oh! I!” returned the other, with ready self-disparagement. “It’s quite
another matter in the case of a man like me. I don’t come into
comparison with you.”
Mr Dombey put his hand to his neckcloth, settled his chin in it,
coughed, and stood looking at his faithful friend and servant for a few
moments in silence.
“I shall have the pleasure, Carker,” said Mr Dombey at length: making
as if he swallowed something a little too large for his throat: “to
present you to my—to the Major’s friends. Highly agreeable people.”
“Ladies among them, I presume?” insinuated the smooth Manager.
“They are all—that is to say, they are both—ladies,” replied Mr Dombey.
“Only two?” smiled Carker.
“They are only two. I have confined my visits to their residence, and
have made no other acquaintance here.”
“Sisters, perhaps?” quoth Carker.
“Mother and daughter,” replied Mr Dombey.
As Mr Dombey dropped his eyes, and adjusted his neckcloth again, the
smiling face of Mr Carker the Manager became in a moment, and without
any stage of transition, transformed into a most intent and frowning
face, scanning his closely, and with an ugly sneer. As Mr Dombey raised
his eyes, it changed back, no less quickly, to its old expression, and