Dombey and Son
that excess of faith and trustfulness which has led to such distressing
consequences; and almost from minute to minute, I hope that Mr Dombey
may explain himself, and relieve the torture I undergo, which is
extremely wearing. But nothing happens, my dear Major; I am the slave
of remorse—take care of the coffee-cup: you are so very awkward—my
darling Edith is an altered being; and I really don’t see what is to be
done, or what good creature I can advise with.”
Major Bagstock, encouraged perhaps by the softened and confidential
tone into which Mrs Skewton, after several times lapsing into it for a
moment, seemed now to have subsided for good, stretched out his hand
across the little table, and said with a leer,
“Advise with Joe, Ma’am.”
“Then, you aggravating monster,” said Cleopatra, giving one hand to the
Major, and tapping his knuckles with her fan, which she held in the
other: “why don’t you talk to me? you know what I mean. Why don’t you
tell me something to the purpose?”
The Major laughed, and kissed the hand she had bestowed upon him, and
laughed again immensely.
“Is there as much Heart in Mr Dombey as I gave him credit for?”
languished Cleopatra tenderly. “Do you think he is in earnest, my dear
Major? Would you recommend his being spoken to, or his being left
alone? Now tell me, like a dear man, what would you advise.”
“Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma’am?” chuckled the Major,
hoarsely.
“Mysterious creature!” returned Cleopatra, bringing her fan to bear
upon the Major’s nose. “How can we marry him?”
“Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma’am, I say?” chuckled the Major
again.
Mrs Skewton returned no answer in words, but smiled upon the Major with
so much archness and vivacity, that that gallant officer considering
himself challenged, would have imprinted a kiss on her exceedingly red
lips, but for her interposing the fan with a very winning and juvenile
dexterity. It might have been in modesty; it might have been in
apprehension of some danger to their bloom.
“Dombey, Ma’am,” said the Major, “is a great catch.”
“Oh, mercenary wretch!” cried Cleopatra, with a little shriek, “I am
shocked.”
“And Dombey, Ma’am,” pursued the Major, thrusting forward his head, and
distending his eyes, “is in earnest. Joseph says it; Bagstock knows it;
J. B. keeps him to the mark. Leave Dombey to himself, Ma’am. Dombey is
safe, Ma’am. Do as you have done; do no more; and trust to J. B. for
the end.”
“You really think so, my dear Major?” returned Cleopatra, who had eyed
him very cautiously, and very searchingly, in spite of her listless
bearing.
“Sure of it, Ma’am,” rejoined the Major. “Cleopatra the peerless, and
her Antony Bagstock, will often speak of this, triumphantly, when
sharing the elegance and wealth of Edith Dombey’s establishment.
Dombey’s right-hand man, Ma’am,” said the Major, stopping abruptly in a
chuckle, and becoming serious, “has arrived.”
“This morning?” said Cleopatra.
“This morning, Ma’am,” returned the Major. “And Dombey’s anxiety for
his arrival, Ma’am, is to be referred—take J. B.“s word for this; for
Joe is devilish sly”—the Major tapped his nose, and screwed up one of
his eyes tight: which did not enhance his native beauty—“to his desire
that what is in the wind should become known to him” without Dombey’s
telling and consulting him. For Dombey is as proud, Ma’am,” said the
Major, “as Lucifer.”
“A charming quality,” lisped Mrs Skewton; “reminding one of dearest
Edith.”
“Well, Ma’am,” said the Major. “I have thrown out hints already, and
the right-hand man understands ’em; and I’ll throw out more, before the
day is done. Dombey projected this morning a ride to Warwick Castle,
and to Kenilworth, to-morrow, to be preceded by a breakfast with us. I
undertook the delivery of this invitation. Will you honour us so far,
Ma’am?” said the Major, swelling with shortness of breath and slyness,
as he produced a note, addressed to the Honourable Mrs Skewton, by
favour of Major Bagstock, wherein hers ever faithfully, Paul Dombey,
besought her and her amiable and accomplished daughter to consent to
the proposed excursion; and in a postscript unto which, the same ever
faithfully Paul Dombey entreated to be recalled to the remembrance of
Mrs Granger.
“Hush!” said Cleopatra, suddenly, “Edith!”
The loving mother can scarcely be described as resuming her insipid and
affected air when she made this exclamation; for she had never cast it
off; nor was it likely that she ever would or could, in any other place
than in the grave. But hurriedly dismissing whatever shadow of
earnestness, or faint confession of a purpose, laudable or wicked, that
her face, or voice, or manner: had, for the moment, betrayed, she
lounged upon the couch, her most insipid and most languid self again,
as Edith entered the room.
Edith, so beautiful and stately, but so cold and so repelling. Who,
slightly acknowledging the presence of Major Bagstock, and directing a
keen glance at her mother, drew back from a window, and sat down there,
looking out.
“My dearest Edith,” said Mrs Skewton, “where on earth have you been? I
have wanted you, my love, most sadly.”
“You said you were engaged, and I stayed away,” she answered, without
turning her head.
“It was cruel to Old Joe, Ma’am,” said the Major in his gallantry.
“It was very cruel, I know,” she said, still looking out—and said with
such calm disdain, that the Major was discomfited, and could think of
nothing in reply.
“Major Bagstock, my darling Edith,” drawled her mother, “who is
generally the most useless and disagreeable creature in the world: as
you know—”
“It is surely not worthwhile, Mama,” said Edith, looking round, “to
observe these forms of speech. We are quite alone. We know each other.”
The quiet scorn that sat upon her handsome face—a scorn that evidently
lighted on herself, no less than them—was so intense and deep, that her
mother’s simper, for the instant, though of a hardy constitution,
drooped before it.
“My darling girl,” she began again.
“Not woman yet?” said Edith, with a smile.
“How very odd you are today, my dear! Pray let me say, my love, that
Major Bagstock has brought the kindest of notes from Mr Dombey,
proposing that we should breakfast with him to-morrow, and ride to
Warwick and Kenilworth. Will you go, Edith?”
“Will I go!” she repeated, turning very red, and breathing quickly as
she looked round at her mother.
“I knew you would, my own, observed the latter carelessly. “It is, as
you say, quite a form to ask. Here is Mr Dombey’s letter, Edith.”
“Thank you. I have no desire to read it,” was her answer.
“Then perhaps I had better answer it myself,” said Mrs Skewton, “though
I had thought of asking you to be my secretary, darling.” As Edith made
no movement, and no answer, Mrs Skewton begged the Major to wheel her
little table nearer, and to set open the desk it contained, and to take
out pen and paper for her; all which congenial offices of gallantry the
Major discharged, with much submission and devotion.
“Your regards, Edith, my dear?” said Mrs Skewton, pausing, pen in hand,
at the postscript.
“What you will, Mama,” she answered, without turning her head, and with
supreme indifference.
Mrs Skewton wrote what she would, without seeking for any more explicit
directions, and handed her letter to the Major, who receiving it as a
precious charge, made a show of laying it near his heart, but was fain
to put it in the pocket of his pantaloons on account of the insecurity
of his waistcoat. The Major then took a very polished and chivalrous
farewell of both ladies, which the elder one acknowledged in her usual
manner, while the younger, sitting with her face addressed to the
window, bent her head so slightly that it would have been a greater
compliment to the Major to have made no sign at all, and to have left
him to infer that he had not been heard or thought of.
“As to alteration in her, Sir,” mused the Major on his way back; on
which expedition—the afternoon being sunny and hot—he ordered the
Native and the light baggage to the front, and walked in the shadow of
that expatriated prince: “as to alteration, Sir, and pining, and so
forth, that won’t go down with Joseph Bagstock, None of that, Sir. It
won’t do here. But as to there being something of a division between
’em—or a gulf as the mother calls it—damme, Sir, that seems true
enough. And it’s odd enough! Well, Sir!” panted the Major, “Edith
Granger and Dombey are well matched; let ’em fight it out! Bagstock
backs the winner!”
The Major, by saying these latter words aloud, in the vigour of his
thoughts, caused the unhappy Native to stop, and turn round, in the
belief that he was personally addressed. Exasperated to the last degree
by this act of insubordination, the Major (though he was swelling with
enjoyment of his own humour), at the moment of its occurrence instantly
thrust his cane among the Native’s ribs, and continued to stir him up,
at short intervals, all the way to the hotel.
Nor was the Major less exasperated as he dressed for dinner, during
which operation the dark servant underwent the pelting of a shower of
miscellaneous objects, varying in size from a boot to a hairbrush, and
including everything that came within his master’s reach. For the Major
plumed himself on having the Native in a perfect state of drill, and
visited the least departure from strict discipline with this kind of
fatigue duty. Add to this, that he maintained the Native about his
person as a counter-irritant against the gout, and all other vexations,
mental as well as bodily; and the Native would appear to have earned
his pay—which was not large.
At length, the Major having disposed of all the missiles that were
convenient to his hand, and having called the Native so many new names
as must have given him great occasion to marvel at the resources of the
English language, submitted to have his cravat put on; and being
dressed, and finding himself in a brisk flow of spirits after this
exercise, went downstairs to enliven “Dombey” and his right-hand man.
Dombey was not yet in the room, but the right-hand man was there, and
his dental treasures were, as usual, ready for the Major.
“Well, Sir!” said the Major. “How have you passed the time since I had
the happiness of meeting you? Have you walked at all?”
“A saunter of barely half an hour’s duration,” returned Carker. “We
have been so much occupied.”
“Business, eh?” said the Major.
“A variety of little matters necessary to be gone through,” replied
Carker. “But do you know—this is quite unusual with me, educated in a
distrustful school, and who am not generally disposed to be
communicative,” he said, breaking off, and speaking in a charming tone
of frankness—“but I feel quite confidential with you, Major Bagstock.”
“You do me honour, Sir,” returned the Major. “You may be.”
“Do you know, then,” pursued Carker, “that I have not found my
friend—our friend, I ought rather to call him—”
“Meaning Dombey, Sir?” cried the Major. “You see me, Mr Carker,
standing here! J. B.?”
He was puffy enough to see, and blue enough; and Mr Carker intimated
the he had that pleasure.
“Then you see a man, Sir, who would go through fire and water to serve
Dombey,” returned Major Bagstock.
Mr Carker smiled, and said he was sure of it. “Do you know, Major,” he
proceeded: “to resume where I left off: that I have not found our
friend so attentive to business today, as usual?”
“No?” observed the delighted Major.
“I have found him a little abstracted, and with his attention disposed
to wander,” said Carker.
“By Jove, Sir,” cried the Major, “there’s a lady in the case.”
“Indeed, I begin to believe there really is,” returned Carker; “I