Dombey and Son
attention, if he had anything more to say. There was something in the
manner of this simple courtesy: almost defiant, and giving it the
character of being rendered on compulsion, or as a matter of traffic to
which she was a reluctant party again not lost upon that same observer
who was smiling round the board. It set him thinking of her as he had
first seen her, when she had believed herself to be alone among the
trees.
Mr Dombey having nothing else to say, proposed—the breakfast being now
finished, and the Major gorged, like any Boa Constrictor—that they
should start. A barouche being in waiting, according to the orders of
that gentleman, the two ladies, the Major and himself, took their seats
in it; the Native and the wan page mounted the box, Mr Towlinson being
left behind; and Mr Carker, on horseback, brought up the rear.
Mr Carker cantered behind the carriage at the distance of a hundred
yards or so, and watched it, during all the ride, as if he were a cat,
indeed, and its four occupants, mice. Whether he looked to one side of
the road, or to the other—over distant landscape, with its smooth
undulations, wind-mills, corn, grass, bean fields, wild-flowers,
farm-yards, hayricks, and the spire among the wood—or upwards in the
sunny air, where butterflies were sporting round his head, and birds
were pouring out their songs—or downward, where the shadows of the
branches interlaced, and made a trembling carpet on the road—or onward,
where the overhanging trees formed aisles and arches, dim with the
softened light that steeped through leaves—one corner of his eye was
ever on the formal head of Mr Dombey, addressed towards him, and the
feather in the bonnet, drooping so neglectfully and scornfully between
them; much as he had seen the haughty eyelids droop; not least so, when
the face met that now fronting it. Once, and once only, did his wary
glance release these objects; and that was, when a leap over a low
hedge, and a gallop across a field, enabled him to anticipate the
carriage coming by the road, and to be standing ready, at the journey’s
end, to hand the ladies out. Then, and but then, he met her glance for
an instant in her first surprise; but when he touched her, in
alighting, with his soft white hand, it overlooked him altogether as
before.
Mrs Skewton was bent on taking charge of Mr Carker herself, and showing
him the beauties of the Castle. She was determined to have his arm, and
the Major’s too. It would do that incorrigible creature: who was the
most barbarous infidel in point of poetry: good to be in such company.
This chance arrangement left Mr Dombey at liberty to escort Edith:
which he did: stalking before them through the apartments with a
gentlemanly solemnity.
“Those darling byegone times, Mr Carker,” said Cleopatra, “with their
delicious fortresses, and their dear old dungeons, and their delightful
places of torture, and their romantic vengeances, and their picturesque
assaults and sieges, and everything that makes life truly charming! How
dreadfully we have degenerated!”
“Yes, we have fallen off deplorably,” said Mr Carker.
The peculiarity of their conversation was, that Mrs Skewton, in spite
of her ecstasies, and Mr Carker, in spite of his urbanity, were both
intent on watching Mr Dombey and Edith. With all their conversational
endowments, they spoke somewhat distractedly, and at random, in
consequence.
“We have no Faith left, positively,” said Mrs Skewton, advancing her
shrivelled ear; for Mr Dombey was saying something to Edith. “We have
no Faith in the dear old Barons, who were the most delightful
creatures—or in the dear old Priests, who were the most warlike of
men—or even in the days of that inestimable Queen Bess, upon the wall
there, which were so extremely golden. Dear creature! She was all Heart
And that charming father of hers! I hope you dote on Harry the Eighth!”
“I admire him very much,” said Carker.
“So bluff!” cried Mrs Skewton, “wasn’t he? So burly. So truly English.
Such a picture, too, he makes, with his dear little peepy eyes, and his
benevolent chin!”
“Ah, Ma’am!” said Carker, stopping short; “but if you speak of
pictures, there’s a composition! What gallery in the world can produce
the counterpart of that?”
As the smiling gentleman thus spake, he pointed through a doorway to
where Mr Dombey and Edith were standing alone in the centre of another
room.
They were not interchanging a word or a look. Standing together, arm in
arm, they had the appearance of being more divided than if seas had
rolled between them. There was a difference even in the pride of the
two, that removed them farther from each other, than if one had been
the proudest and the other the humblest specimen of humanity in all
creation. He, self-important, unbending, formal, austere. She, lovely
and graceful, in an uncommon degree, but totally regardless of herself
and him and everything around, and spurning her own attractions with
her haughty brow and lip, as if they were a badge or livery she hated.
So unmatched were they, and opposed, so forced and linked together by a
chain which adverse hazard and mischance had forged: that fancy might
have imagined the pictures on the walls around them, startled by the
unnatural conjunction, and observant of it in their several
expressions. Grim knights and warriors looked scowling on them. A
churchman, with his hand upraised, denounced the mockery of such a
couple coming to God’s altar. Quiet waters in landscapes, with the sun
reflected in their depths, asked, if better means of escape were not at
hand, was there no drowning left? Ruins cried, “Look here, and see what
We are, wedded to uncongenial Time!” Animals, opposed by nature,
worried one another, as a moral to them. Loves and Cupids took to
flight afraid, and Martyrdom had no such torment in its painted history
of suffering.
Nevertheless, Mrs Skewton was so charmed by the sight to which Mr
Carker invoked her attention, that she could not refrain from saying,
half aloud, how sweet, how very full of soul it was! Edith,
overhearing, looked round, and flushed indignant scarlet to her hair.
“My dearest Edith knows I was admiring her!” said Cleopatra, tapping
her, almost timidly, on the back with her parasol. “Sweet pet!”
Again Mr Carker saw the strife he had witnessed so unexpectedly among
the trees. Again he saw the haughty languor and indifference come over
it, and hide it like a cloud.
She did not raise her eyes to him; but with a slight peremptory motion
of them, seemed to bid her mother come near. Mrs Skewton thought it
expedient to understand the hint, and advancing quickly, with her two
cavaliers, kept near her daughter from that time.
Mr Carker now, having nothing to distract his attention, began to
discourse upon the pictures and to select the best, and point them out
to Mr Dombey: speaking with his usual familiar recognition of Mr
Dombey’s greatness, and rendering homage by adjusting his eye-glass for
him, or finding out the right place in his catalogue, or holding his
stick, or the like. These services did not so much originate with Mr
Carker, in truth, as with Mr Dombey himself, who was apt to assert his
chieftainship by saying, with subdued authority, and in an easy way—for
him—“Here, Carker, have the goodness to assist me, will you?” which the
smiling gentleman always did with pleasure.
They made the tour of the pictures, the walls, crow’s nest, and so
forth; and as they were still one little party, and the Major was
rather in the shade: being sleepy during the process of digestion: Mr
Carker became communicative and agreeable. At first, he addressed
himself for the most part to Mrs Skewton; but as that sensitive lady
was in such ecstasies with the works of art, after the first quarter of
an hour, that she could do nothing but yawn (they were such perfect
inspirations, she observed as a reason for that mark of rapture), he
transferred his attentions to Mr Dombey. Mr Dombey said little beyond
an occasional “Very true, Carker,” or “Indeed, Carker,” but he tacitly
encouraged Carker to proceed, and inwardly approved of his behaviour
very much: deeming it as well that somebody should talk, and thinking
that his remarks, which were, as one might say, a branch of the parent
establishment, might amuse Mrs Granger. Mr Carker, who possessed an
excellent discretion, never took the liberty of addressing that lady,
direct; but she seemed to listen, though she never looked at him; and
once or twice, when he was emphatic in his peculiar humility, the
twilight smile stole over her face, not as a light, but as a deep black
shadow.
Warwick Castle being at length pretty well exhausted, and the Major
very much so: to say nothing of Mrs Skewton, whose peculiar
demonstrations of delight had become very frequent Indeed: the carriage
was again put in requisition, and they rode to several admired points
of view in the neighbourhood. Mr Dombey ceremoniously observed of one
of these, that a sketch, however slight, from the fair hand of Mrs
Granger, would be a remembrance to him of that agreeable day: though he
wanted no artificial remembrance, he was sure (here Mr Dombey made
another of his bows), which he must always highly value. Withers the
lean having Edith’s sketch-book under his arm, was immediately called
upon by Mrs Skewton to produce the same: and the carriage stopped, that
Edith might make the drawing, which Mr Dombey was to put away among his
treasures.
“But I am afraid I trouble you too much,” said Mr Dombey.
“By no means. Where would you wish it taken from?” she answered,
turning to him with the same enforced attention as before.
Mr Dombey, with another bow, which cracked the starch in his cravat,
would beg to leave that to the Artist.
“I would rather you chose for yourself,” said Edith.
“Suppose then,” said Mr Dombey, “we say from here. It appears a good
spot for the purpose, or—Carker, what do you think?”
There happened to be in the foreground, at some little distance, a
grove of trees, not unlike that in which Mr Carker had made his chain
of footsteps in the morning, and with a seat under one tree, greatly
resembling, in the general character of its situation, the point where
his chain had broken.
“Might I venture to suggest to Mrs Granger,” said Carker, “that that is
an interesting—almost a curious—point of view?”
She followed the direction of his riding-whip with her eyes, and raised
them quickly to his face. It was the second glance they had exchanged
since their introduction; and would have been exactly like the first,
but that its expression was plainer.
“Will you like that?” said Edith to Mr Dombey.
“I shall be charmed,” said Mr Dombey to Edith.
Therefore the carriage was driven to the spot where Mr Dombey was to be
charmed; and Edith, without moving from her seat, and opening her
sketch-book with her usual proud indifference, began to sketch.
“My pencils are all pointless,” she said, stopping and turning them
over.
“Pray allow me,” said Mr Dombey. “Or Carker will do it better, as he
understands these things. Carker, have the goodness to see to these
pencils for Mrs Granger.”
Mr Carker rode up close to the carriage-door on Mrs Granger’s side, and
letting the rein fall on his horse’s neck, took the pencils from her
hand with a smile and a bow, and sat in the saddle leisurely mending
them. Having done so, he begged to be allowed to hold them, and to hand
them to her as they were required; and thus Mr Carker, with many
commendations of Mrs Granger’s extraordinary skill—especially in
trees—remained—close at her side, looking over the drawing as she made
it. Mr Dombey in the meantime stood bolt upright in the carriage like a
highly respectable ghost, looking on too; while Cleopatra and the Major