Dombey and Son
native skies, “beyond which endurance becomes ridiculous, if not
culpable. I can bear much; but not too much. What spell was on me when
I came into this house this day, I don’t know; but I had a
presentiment—a dark presentiment,” said Mrs Chick, with a shiver, “that
something was going to happen. Well may I have had that foreboding,
Lucretia, when my confidence of many years is destroyed in an instant,
when my eyes are opened all at once, and when I find you revealed in
your true colours. Lucretia, I have been mistaken in you. It is better
for us both that this subject should end here. I wish you well, and I
shall ever wish you well. But, as an individual who desires to be true
to herself in her own poor position, whatever that position may be, or
may not be—and as the sister of my brother—and as the sister-in-law of
my brother’s wife—and as a connexion by marriage of my brother’s wife’s
mother—may I be permitted to add, as a Dombey?—I can wish you nothing
else but good morning.”
These words, delivered with cutting suavity, tempered and chastened by
a lofty air of moral rectitude, carried the speaker to the door. There
she inclined her head in a ghostly and statue-like manner, and so
withdrew to her carriage, to seek comfort and consolation in the arms
of Mr Chick, her lord.
Figuratively speaking, that is to say; for the arms of Mr Chick were
full of his newspaper. Neither did that gentleman address his eyes
towards his wife otherwise than by stealth. Neither did he offer any
consolation whatever. In short, he sat reading, and humming fag ends of
tunes, and sometimes glancing furtively at her without delivering
himself of a word, good, bad, or indifferent.
In the meantime Mrs Chick sat swelling and bridling, and tossing her
head, as if she were still repeating that solemn formula of farewell to
Lucretia Tox. At length, she said aloud, “Oh the extent to which her
eyes had been opened that day!”
“To which your eyes have been opened, my dear!” repeated Mr Chick.
“Oh, don’t talk to me!” said Mrs Chic “if you can bear to see me in
this state, and not ask me what the matter is, you had better hold your
tongue for ever.”
“What is the matter, my dear?” asked Mr Chick
“To think,” said Mrs Chick, in a state of soliloquy, “that she should
ever have conceived the base idea of connecting herself with our family
by a marriage with Paul! To think that when she was playing at horses
with that dear child who is now in his grave—I never liked it at the
time—she should have been hiding such a double-faced design! I wonder
she was never afraid that something would happen to her. She is
fortunate if nothing does.”
“I really thought, my dear,” said Mr Chick slowly, after rubbing the
bridge of his nose for some time with his newspaper, “that you had gone
on the same tack yourself, all along, until this morning; and had
thought it would be a convenient thing enough, if it could have been
brought about.”
Mrs Chick instantly burst into tears, and told Mr Chick that if he
wished to trample upon her with his boots, he had better do It.
“But with Lucretia Tox I have done,” said Mrs Chick, after abandoning
herself to her feelings for some minutes, to Mr Chick’s great terror.
“I can bear to resign Paul’s confidence in favour of one who, I hope
and trust, may be deserving of it, and with whom he has a perfect right
to replace poor Fanny if he chooses; I can bear to be informed, in
Paul’s cool manner, of such a change in his plans, and never to be
consulted until all is settled and determined; but deceit I can not
bear, and with Lucretia Tox I have done. It is better as it is,” said
Mrs Chick, piously; “much better. It would have been a long time before
I could have accommodated myself comfortably with her, after this; and
I really don’t know, as Paul is going to be very grand, and these are
people of condition, that she would have been quite presentable, and
might not have compromised myself. There’s a providence in everything;
everything works for the best; I have been tried today but on the whole
I do not regret it.”
In which Christian spirit, Mrs Chick dried her eyes and smoothed her
lap, and sat as became a person calm under a great wrong. Mr Chick
feeling his unworthiness no doubt, took an early opportunity of being
set down at a street corner and walking away whistling, with his
shoulders very much raised, and his hands in his pockets.
While poor excommunicated Miss Tox, who, if she were a fawner and
toad-eater, was at least an honest and a constant one, and had ever
borne a faithful friendship towards her impeacher and had been truly
absorbed and swallowed up in devotion to the magnificence of Mr
Dombey—while poor excommunicated Miss Tox watered her plants with her
tears, and felt that it was winter in Princess’s Place.
CHAPTER XXX.
The interval before the Marriage
Although the enchanted house was no more, and the working world had
broken into it, and was hammering and crashing and tramping up and down
stairs all day long keeping Diogenes in an incessant paroxysm of
barking, from sunrise to sunset—evidently convinced that his enemy had
got the better of him at last, and was then sacking the premises in
triumphant defiance—there was, at first, no other great change in the
method of Florence’s life. At night, when the workpeople went away, the
house was dreary and deserted again; and Florence, listening to their
voices echoing through the hall and staircase as they departed,
pictured to herself the cheerful homes to which they were returning,
and the children who were waiting for them, and was glad to think that
they were merry and well pleased to go.
She welcomed back the evening silence as an old friend, but it came now
with an altered face, and looked more kindly on her. Fresh hope was in
it. The beautiful lady who had soothed and carressed her, in the very
room in which her heart had been so wrung, was a spirit of promise to
her. Soft shadows of the bright life dawning, when her father’s
affection should be gradually won, and all, or much should be restored,
of what she had lost on the dark day when a mother’s love had faded
with a mother’s last breath on her cheek, moved about her in the
twilight and were welcome company. Peeping at the rosy children her
neighbours, it was a new and precious sensation to think that they
might soon speak together and know each other; when she would not fear,
as of old, to show herself before them, lest they should be grieved to
see her in her black dress sitting there alone!
In her thoughts of her new mother, and in the love and trust
overflowing her pure heart towards her, Florence loved her own dead
mother more and more. She had no fear of setting up a rival in her
breast. The new flower sprang from the deep-planted and long-cherished
root, she knew. Every gentle word that had fallen from the lips of the
beautiful lady, sounded to Florence like an echo of the voice long
hushed and silent. How could she love that memory less for living
tenderness, when it was her memory of all parental tenderness and love!
Florence was, one day, sitting reading in her room, and thinking of the
lady and her promised visit soon—for her book turned on a kindred
subject—when, raising her eyes, she saw her standing in the doorway.
“Mama!” cried Florence, joyfully meeting her. “Come again!”
“Not Mama yet,” returned the lady, with a serious smile, as she
encircled Florence’s neck with her arm.
“But very soon to be,” cried Florence.
“Very soon now, Florence: very soon.”
Edith bent her head a little, so as to press the blooming cheek of
Florence against her own, and for some few moments remained thus
silent. There was something so very tender in her manner, that Florence
was even more sensible of it than on the first occasion of their
meeting.
She led Florence to a chair beside her, and sat down: Florence looking
in her face, quite wondering at its beauty, and willingly leaving her
hand in hers.
“Have you been alone, Florence, since I was here last?”
“Oh yes!” smiled Florence, hastily.
She hesitated and cast down her eyes; for her new Mama was very earnest
in her look, and the look was intently and thoughtfully fixed upon her
face.
“I—I—am used to be alone,” said Florence. “I don’t mind it at all. Di
and I pass whole days together, sometimes.” Florence might have said,
whole weeks and months.
“Is Di your maid, love?”
“My dog, Mama,” said Florence, laughing. “Susan is my maid.”
“And these are your rooms,” said Edith, looking round. “I was not shown
these rooms the other day. We must have them improved, Florence. They
shall be made the prettiest in the house.”
“If I might change them, Mama,” returned Florence; “there is one
upstairs I should like much better.”
“Is this not high enough, dear girl?” asked Edith, smiling.
“The other was my brother’s room,” said Florence, “and I am very fond
of it. I would have spoken to Papa about it when I came home, and found
the workmen here, and everything changing; but—”
Florence dropped her eyes, lest the same look should make her falter
again.
“but I was afraid it might distress him; and as you said you would be
here again soon, Mama, and are the mistress of everything, I determined
to take courage and ask you.”
Edith sat looking at her, with her brilliant eyes intent upon her face,
until Florence raising her own, she, in her turn, withdrew her gaze,
and turned it on the ground. It was then that Florence thought how
different this lady’s beauty was, from what she had supposed. She had
thought it of a proud and lofty kind; yet her manner was so subdued and
gentle, that if she had been of Florence’s own age and character, it
scarcely could have invited confidence more.
Except when a constrained and singular reserve crept over her; and then
she seemed (but Florence hardly understood this, though she could not
choose but notice it, and think about it) as if she were humbled before
Florence, and ill at ease. When she had said that she was not her Mama
yet, and when Florence had called her the mistress of everything there,
this change in her was quick and startling; and now, while the eyes of
Florence rested on her face, she sat as though she would have shrunk
and hidden from her, rather than as one about to love and cherish her,
in right of such a near connexion.
She gave Florence her ready promise, about her new room, and said she
would give directions about it herself. She then asked some questions
concerning poor Paul; and when they had sat in conversation for some
time, told Florence she had come to take her to her own home.
“We have come to London now, my mother and I,” said Edith, “and you
shall stay with us until I am married. I wish that we should know and
trust each other, Florence.”
“You are very kind to me,” said Florence, “dear Mama. How much I thank
you!”
“Let me say now, for it may be the best opportunity,” continued Edith,
looking round to see that they were quite alone, and speaking in a
lower voice, “that when I am married, and have gone away for some
weeks, I shall be easier at heart if you will come home here. No matter
who invites you to stay elsewhere. Come home here. It is better to be
alone than—what I would say is,” she added, checking herself, “that I
know well you are best at home, dear Florence.”
“I will come home on the very day, Mama”
“Do so. I rely on that promise. Now, prepare to come with me, dear
girl. You will find me downstairs when you are ready.”
Slowly and thoughtfully did Edith wander alone through the mansion of
which she was so soon to be the lady: and little heed took she of all
the elegance and splendour it began to display. The same indomitable
haughtiness of soul, the same proud scorn expressed in eye and lip, the