Dombey and Son
should I do anything else? There is no reason; it would be absurd. But
I wish to express myself clearly, Lucretia; and therefore to go back to
that remark, I must beg to say that it was not intended to relate to
Florence, in any way.”
“Indeed!” returned Miss Tox.
“No,” said Mrs Chick shortly and decisively.
“Pardon me, my dear,” rejoined her meek friend; “but I cannot have
understood it. I fear I am dull.”
Mrs Chick looked round the room and over the way; at the plants, at the
bird, at the watering-pot, at almost everything within view, except
Miss Tox; and finally dropping her glance upon Miss Tox, for a moment,
on its way to the ground, said, looking meanwhile with elevated
eyebrows at the carpet:
“When I speak, Lucretia, of her being worthy of the name, I speak of my
brother Paul’s second wife. I believe I have already said, in effect,
if not in the very words I now use, that it is his intention to marry a
second wife.”
Miss Tox left her seat in a hurry, and returned to her plants; clipping
among the stems and leaves, with as little favour as a barber working
at so many pauper heads of hair.
“Whether she will be fully sensible of the distinction conferred upon
her,” said Mrs Chick, in a lofty tone, “is quite another question. I
hope she may be. We are bound to think well of one another in this
world, and I hope she may be. I have not been advised with myself. If I
had been advised with, I have no doubt my advice would have been
cavalierly received, and therefore it is infinitely better as it is. I
much prefer it as it is.”
Miss Tox, with head bent down, still clipped among the plants. Mrs
Chick, with energetic shakings of her own head from time to time,
continued to hold forth, as if in defiance of somebody.
“If my brother Paul had consulted with me, which he sometimes does—or
rather, sometimes used to do; for he will naturally do that no more
now, and this is a circumstance which I regard as a relief from
responsibility,” said Mrs Chick, hysterically, “for I thank Heaven I am
not jealous—” here Mrs Chick again shed tears: “if my brother Paul had
come to me, and had said, ‘Louisa, what kind of qualities would you
advise me to look out for, in a wife?’ I should certainly have
answered, ‘Paul, you must have family, you must have beauty, you must
have dignity, you must have connexion.’ Those are the words I should
have used. You might have led me to the block immediately afterwards,”
said Mrs Chick, as if that consequence were highly probable, “but I
should have used them. I should have said, ‘Paul! You to marry a second
time without family! You to marry without beauty! You to marry without
dignity! You to marry without connexion! There is nobody in the world,
not mad, who could dream of daring to entertain such a preposterous
idea!’”
Miss Tox stopped clipping; and with her head among the plants, listened
attentively. Perhaps Miss Tox thought there was hope in this exordium,
and the warmth of Mrs Chick.
“I should have adopted this course of argument,” pursued the discreet
lady, “because I trust I am not a fool. I make no claim to be
considered a person of superior intellect—though I believe some people
have been extraordinary enough to consider me so; one so little
humoured as I am, would very soon be disabused of any such notion; but
I trust I am not a downright fool. And to tell ME,” said Mrs Chick with
ineffable disdain, “that my brother Paul Dombey could ever contemplate
the possibility of uniting himself to anybody—I don’t care who”—she was
more sharp and emphatic in that short clause than in any other part of
her discourse—“not possessing these requisites, would be to insult what
understanding I have got, as much as if I was to be told that I was
born and bred an elephant, which I may be told next,” said Mrs Chick,
with resignation. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all. I expect it.”
In the moment’s silence that ensued, Miss Tox’s scissors gave a feeble
clip or two; but Miss Tox’s face was still invisible, and Miss Tox’s
morning gown was agitated. Mrs Chick looked sideways at her, through
the intervening plants, and went on to say, in a tone of bland
conviction, and as one dwelling on a point of fact that hardly required
to be stated:
“Therefore, of course my brother Paul has done what was to be expected
of him, and what anybody might have foreseen he would do, if he entered
the marriage state again. I confess it takes me rather by surprise,
however gratifying; because when Paul went out of town I had no idea at
all that he would form any attachment out of town, and he certainly had
no attachment when he left here. However, it seems to be extremely
desirable in every point of view. I have no doubt the mother is a most
genteel and elegant creature, and I have no right whatever to dispute
the policy of her living with them: which is Paul’s affair, not
mine—and as to Paul’s choice, herself, I have only seen her picture
yet, but that is beautiful indeed. Her name is beautiful too,” said Mrs
Chick, shaking her head with energy, and arranging herself in her
chair; “Edith is at once uncommon, as it strikes me, and distinguished.
Consequently, Lucretia, I have no doubt you will be happy to hear that
the marriage is to take place immediately—of course, you will:” great
emphasis again: “and that you are delighted with this change in the
condition of my brother, who has shown you a great deal of pleasant
attention at various times.”
Miss Tox made no verbal answer, but took up the little watering-pot
with a trembling hand, and looked vacantly round as if considering what
article of furniture would be improved by the contents. The room door
opening at this crisis of Miss Tox’s feelings, she started, laughed
aloud, and fell into the arms of the person entering; happily
insensible alike of Mrs Chick’s indignant countenance and of the Major
at his window over the way, who had his double-barrelled eye-glass in
full action, and whose face and figure were dilated with
Mephistophelean joy.
Not so the expatriated Native, amazed supporter of Miss Tox’s swooning
form, who, coming straight upstairs, with a polite inquiry touching
Miss Tox’s health (in exact pursuance of the Major’s malicious
instructions), had accidentally arrived in the very nick of time to
catch the delicate burden in his arms, and to receive the contents of
the little watering-pot in his shoe; both of which circumstances,
coupled with his consciousness of being closely watched by the wrathful
Major, who had threatened the usual penalty in regard of every bone in
his skin in case of any failure, combined to render him a moving
spectacle of mental and bodily distress.
For some moments, this afflicted foreigner remained clasping Miss Tox
to his heart, with an energy of action in remarkable opposition to his
disconcerted face, while that poor lady trickled slowly down upon him
the very last sprinklings of the little watering-pot, as if he were a
delicate exotic (which indeed he was), and might be almost expected to
blow while the gentle rain descended. Mrs Chick, at length recovering
sufficient presence of mind to interpose, commanded him to drop Miss
Tox upon the sofa and withdraw; and the exile promptly obeying, she
applied herself to promote Miss Tox’s recovery.
But none of that gentle concern which usually characterises the
daughters of Eve in their tending of each other; none of that
freemasonry in fainting, by which they are generally bound together in
a mysterious bond of sisterhood; was visible in Mrs Chick’s demeanour.
Rather like the executioner who restores the victim to sensation
previous to proceeding with the torture (or was wont to do so, in the
good old times for which all true men wear perpetual mourning), did Mrs
Chick administer the smelling-bottle, the slapping on the hands, the
dashing of cold water on the face, and the other proved remedies. And
when, at length, Miss Tox opened her eyes, and gradually became
restored to animation and consciousness, Mrs Chick drew off as from a
criminal, and reversing the precedent of the murdered king of Denmark,
regarded her more in anger than in sorrow.”
“Lucretia!” said Mrs Chick “I will not attempt to disguise what I feel.
My eyes are opened, all at once. I wouldn’t have believed this, if a
Saint had told it to me.”
“I am foolish to give way to faintness,” Miss Tox faltered. “I shall be
better presently.”
“You will be better presently, Lucretia!” repeated Mrs Chick, with
exceeding scorn. “Do you suppose I am blind? Do you imagine I am in my
second childhood? No, Lucretia! I am obliged to you!”
Miss Tox directed an imploring, helpless kind of look towards her
friend, and put her handkerchief before her face.
“If anyone had told me this yesterday,” said Mrs Chick, with majesty,
“or even half-an-hour ago, I should have been tempted, I almost
believe, to strike them to the earth. Lucretia Tox, my eyes are opened
to you all at once. The scales:” here Mrs Chick cast down an imaginary
pair, such as are commonly used in grocers” shops: “have fallen from my
sight. The blindness of my confidence is past, Lucretia. It has been
abused and played, upon, and evasion is quite out of the question now,
I assure you.”
“Oh! to what do you allude so cruelly, my love?” asked Miss Tox,
through her tears.
“Lucretia,” said Mrs Chick, “ask your own heart. I must entreat you not
to address me by any such familiar term as you have just used, if you
please. I have some self-respect left, though you may think otherwise.”
“Oh, Louisa!” cried Miss Tox. “How can you speak to me like that?”
“How can I speak to you like that?” retorted Mrs Chick, who, in default
of having any particular argument to sustain herself upon, relied
principally on such repetitions for her most withering effects. “Like
that! You may well say like that, indeed!”
Miss Tox sobbed pitifully.
“The idea!” said Mrs Chick, “of your having basked at my brother’s
fireside, like a serpent, and wound yourself, through me, almost into
his confidence, Lucretia, that you might, in secret, entertain designs
upon him, and dare to aspire to contemplate the possibility of his
uniting himself to you! Why, it is an idea,” said Mrs Chick, with
sarcastic dignity, “the absurdity of which almost relieves its
treachery.”
“Pray, Louisa,” urged Miss Tox, “do not say such dreadful things.”
“Dreadful things!” repeated Mrs Chick. “Dreadful things! Is it not a
fact, Lucretia, that you have just now been unable to command your
feelings even before me, whose eyes you had so completely closed?”
“I have made no complaint,” sobbed Miss Tox. “I have said nothing. If I
have been a little overpowered by your news, Louisa, and have ever had
any lingering thought that Mr Dombey was inclined to be particular
towards me, surely you will not condemn me.”
“She is going to say,” said Mrs Chick, addressing herself to the whole
of the furniture, in a comprehensive glance of resignation and appeal,
“She is going to say—I know it—that I have encouraged her!”
“I don’t wish to exchange reproaches, dear Louisa,” sobbed Miss Tox.
“Nor do I wish to complain. But, in my own defence—”
“Yes,” cried Mrs Chick, looking round the room with a prophetic smile,
“that’s what she’s going to say. I knew it. You had better say it. Say
it openly! Be open, Lucretia Tox,” said Mrs Chick, with desperate
sternness, “whatever you are.”
“In my own defence,” faltered Miss Tox, “and only in my own defence
against your unkind words, my dear Louisa, I would merely ask you if
you haven’t often favoured such a fancy, and even said it might happen,
for anything we could tell?”
“There is a point,” said Mrs Chick, rising, not as if she were going to
stop at the floor, but as if she were about to soar up, high, into her