Dombey and Son
Mrs Miff says with a curtsey—to look at Mrs Miff, at such a season, is
to make her mortified bonnet go down with a dip—“writes their names
like this good lady!” Mr Sownds the Beadle thinks it is a truly
spanking signature, and worthy of the writer—this, however, between
himself and conscience.
Florence signs too, but unapplauded, for her hand shakes. All the party
sign; Cousin Feenix last; who puts his noble name into a wrong place,
and enrols himself as having been born that morning.
The Major now salutes the Bride right gallantly, and carries out that
branch of military tactics in reference to all the ladies:
notwithstanding Mrs Skewton’s being extremely hard to kiss, and
squeaking shrilly in the sacred edifice. The example is followed by
Cousin Feenix and even by Mr Dombey. Lastly, Mr Carker, with his white
teeth glistening, approaches Edith, more as if he meant to bite her,
than to taste the sweets that linger on her lips.
There is a glow upon her proud cheek, and a flashing in her eyes, that
may be meant to stay him; but it does not, for he salutes her as the
rest have done, and wishes her all happiness.
“If wishes,” says he in a low voice, “are not superfluous, applied to
such a union.”
“I thank you, Sir,” she answers, with a curled lip, and a heaving
bosom.
But, does Edith feel still, as on the night when she knew that Mr
Dombey would return to offer his alliance, that Carker knows her
thoroughly, and reads her right, and that she is more degraded by his
knowledge of her, than by aught else? Is it for this reason that her
haughtiness shrinks beneath his smile, like snow within the hands that
grasps it firmly, and that her imperious glance droops in meeting his,
and seeks the ground?
“I am proud to see,” said Mr Carker, with a servile stooping of his
neck, which the revelations making by his eyes and teeth proclaim to be
a lie, “I am proud to see that my humble offering is graced by Mrs
Dombey’s hand, and permitted to hold so favoured a place in so joyful
an occasion.”
Though she bends her head, in answer, there is something in the
momentary action of her hand, as if she would crush the flowers it
holds, and fling them, with contempt, upon the ground. But, she puts
the hand through the arm of her new husband, who has been standing
near, conversing with the Major, and is proud again, and motionless,
and silent.
The carriages are once more at the church door. Mr Dombey, with his
bride upon his arm, conducts her through the twenty families of little
women who are on the steps, and every one of whom remembers the fashion
and the colour of her every article of dress from that moment, and
reproduces it on her doll, who is for ever being married. Cleopatra and
Cousin Feenix enter the same carriage. The Major hands into a second
carriage, Florence, and the bridesmaid who so narrowly escaped being
given away by mistake, and then enters it himself, and is followed by
Mr Carker. Horses prance and caper; coachmen and footmen shine in
fluttering favours, flowers, and new-made liveries. Away they dash and
rattle through the streets; and as they pass along, a thousand heads
are turned to look at them, and a thousand sober moralists revenge
themselves for not being married too, that morning, by reflecting that
these people little think such happiness can’t last.
Miss Tox emerges from behind the cherubim’s leg, when all is quiet, and
comes slowly down from the gallery. Miss Tox’s eyes are red, and her
pocket-handkerchief is damp. She is wounded, but not exasperated, and
she hopes they may be happy. She quite admits to herself the beauty of
the bride, and her own comparatively feeble and faded attractions; but
the stately image of Mr Dombey in his lilac waistcoat, and his
fawn-coloured pantaloons, is present to her mind, and Miss Tox weeps
afresh, behind her veil, on her way home to Princess’s Place. Captain
Cuttle, having joined in all the amens and responses, with a devout
growl, feels much improved by his religious exercises; and in a
peaceful frame of mind pervades the body of the church, glazed hat in
hand, and reads the tablet to the memory of little Paul. The gallant Mr
Toots, attended by the faithful Chicken, leaves the building in
torments of love. The Chicken is as yet unable to elaborate a scheme
for winning Florence, but his first idea has gained possession of him,
and he thinks the doubling up of Mr Dombey would be a move in the right
direction. Mr Dombey’s servants come out of their hiding-places, and
prepare to rush to Brook Street, when they are delayed by symptoms of
indisposition on the part of Mrs Perch, who entreats a glass of water,
and becomes alarming; Mrs Perch gets better soon, however, and is borne
away; and Mrs Miff, and Mr Sownds the Beadle, sit upon the steps to
count what they have gained by the affair, and talk it over, while the
sexton tolls a funeral.
Now, the carriages arrive at the Bride’s residence, and the players on
the bells begin to jingle, and the band strikes up, and Mr Punch, that
model of connubial bliss, salutes his wife. Now, the people run, and
push, and press round in a gaping throng, while Mr Dombey, leading Mrs
Dombey by the hand, advances solemnly into the Feenix Halls. Now, the
rest of the wedding party alight, and enter after them. And why does Mr
Carker, passing through the people to the hall-door, think of the old
woman who called to him in the Grove that morning? Or why does
Florence, as she passes, think, with a tremble, of her childhood, when
she was lost, and of the visage of Good Mrs Brown?
Now, there are more congratulations on this happiest of days, and more
company, though not much; and now they leave the drawing-room, and
range themselves at table in the dark-brown dining-room, which no
confectioner can brighten up, let him garnish the exhausted negroes
with as many flowers and love-knots as he will.
The pastry-cook has done his duty like a man, though, and a rich
breakfast is set forth. Mr and Mrs Chick have joined the party, among
others. Mrs Chick admires that Edith should be, by nature, such a
perfect Dombey; and is affable and confidential to Mrs Skewton, whose
mind is relieved of a great load, and who takes her share of the
champagne. The very tall young man who suffered from excitement early,
is better; but a vague sentiment of repentance has seized upon him, and
he hates the other very tall young man, and wrests dishes from him by
violence, and takes a grim delight in disobliging the company. The
company are cool and calm, and do not outrage the black hatchments of
pictures looking down upon them, by any excess of mirth. Cousin Feenix
and the Major are the gayest there; but Mr Carker has a smile for the
whole table. He has an especial smile for the Bride, who very, very
seldom meets it.
Cousin Feenix rises, when the company have breakfasted, and the
servants have left the room; and wonderfully young he looks, with his
white wristbands almost covering his hands (otherwise rather bony), and
the bloom of the champagne in his cheeks.
“Upon my honour,” says Cousin Feenix, “although it’s an unusual sort of
thing in a private gentleman’s house, I must beg leave to call upon you
to drink what is usually called a—in fact a toast.”
The Major very hoarsely indicates his approval. Mr Carker, bending his
head forward over the table in the direction of Cousin Feenix, smiles
and nods a great many times.
“A—in fact it’s not a—” Cousin Feenix beginning again, thus, comes to a
dead stop.
“Hear, hear!” says the Major, in a tone of conviction.
Mr Carker softly claps his hands, and bending forward over the table
again, smiles and nods a great many more times than before, as if he
were particularly struck by this last observation, and desired
personally to express his sense of the good it has done.
“It is,” says Cousin Feenix, “an occasion in fact, when the general
usages of life may be a little departed from, without impropriety; and
although I never was an orator in my life, and when I was in the House
of Commons, and had the honour of seconding the address, was—in fact,
was laid up for a fortnight with the consciousness of failure—”
The Major and Mr Carker are so much delighted by this fragment of
personal history, that Cousin Feenix laughs, and addressing them
individually, goes on to say:
“And in point of fact, when I was devilish ill—still, you know, I feel
that a duty devolves upon me. And when a duty devolves upon an
Englishman, he is bound to get out of it, in my opinion, in the best
way he can. Well! our family has had the gratification, today, of
connecting itself, in the person of my lovely and accomplished
relative, whom I now see—in point of fact, present—”
Here there is general applause.
“Present,” repeats Cousin Feenix, feeling that it is a neat point which
will bear repetition,—“with one who—that is to say, with a man, at whom
the finger of scorn can never—in fact, with my honourable friend
Dombey, if he will allow me to call him so.”
Cousin Feenix bows to Mr Dombey; Mr Dombey solemnly returns the bow;
everybody is more or less gratified and affected by this extraordinary,
and perhaps unprecedented, appeal to the feelings.
“I have not,” says Cousin Feenix, “enjoyed those opportunities which I
could have desired, of cultivating the acquaintance of my friend
Dombey, and studying those qualities which do equal honour to his head,
and, in point of fact, to his heart; for it has been my misfortune to
be, as we used to say in my time in the House of Commons, when it was
not the custom to allude to the Lords, and when the order of
parliamentary proceedings was perhaps better observed than it is now—to
be in—in point of fact,” says Cousin Feenix, cherishing his joke, with
great slyness, and finally bringing it out with a jerk, ‘“in another
place!’”
The Major falls into convulsions, and is recovered with difficulty.
“But I know sufficient of my friend Dombey,” resumes Cousin Feenix in a
graver tone, as if he had suddenly become a sadder and wiser man, “to
know that he is, in point of fact, what may be emphatically called a—a
merchant—a British merchant—and a—and a man. And although I have been
resident abroad, for some years (it would give me great pleasure to
receive my friend Dombey, and everybody here, at Baden-Baden, and to
have an opportunity of making ’em known to the Grand Duke), still I
know enough, I flatter myself, of my lovely and accomplished relative,
to know that she possesses every requisite to make a man happy, and
that her marriage with my friend Dombey is one of inclination and
affection on both sides.”
Many smiles and nods from Mr Carker.
“Therefore,” says Cousin Feenix, “I congratulate the family of which I
am a member, on the acquisition of my friend Dombey. I congratulate my
friend Dombey on his union with my lovely and accomplished relative who
possesses every requisite to make a man happy; and I take the liberty
of calling on you all, in point of fact, to congratulate both my friend
Dombey and my lovely and accomplished relative, on the present
occasion.”
The speech of Cousin Feenix is received with great applause, and Mr
Dombey returns thanks on behalf of himself and Mrs Dombey. J. B.
shortly afterwards proposes Mrs Skewton. The breakfast languishes when
that is done, the violated hatchments are avenged, and Edith rises to
assume her travelling dress.
All the servants in the meantime, have been breakfasting below.
Champagne has grown too common among them to be mentioned, and roast
fowls, raised pies, and lobster-salad, have become mere drugs. The very
tall young man has recovered his spirits, and again alludes to the
exciseman. His comrade’s eye begins to emulate his own, and he, too,