Dombey and Son
discharge, and daily work to do—for such commonplace spirits that are
not heroic, often work hard with their hands—and Harriet was soon busy
with her household tasks. These discharged, and the poor house made
quite neat and orderly, she counted her little stock of money, with an
anxious face, and went out thoughtfully to buy some necessaries for
their table, planning and conniving, as she went, how to save. So
sordid are the lives of such low natures, who are not only not heroic
to their valets and waiting-women, but have neither valets nor
waiting-women to be heroic to withal!
While she was absent, and there was no one in the house, there
approached it by a different way from that the brother had taken, a
gentleman, a very little past his prime of life perhaps, but of a
healthy florid hue, an upright presence, and a bright clear aspect,
that was gracious and good-humoured. His eyebrows were still black, and
so was much of his hair; the sprinkling of grey observable among the
latter, graced the former very much, and showed his broad frank brow
and honest eyes to great advantage.
After knocking once at the door, and obtaining no response, this
gentleman sat down on a bench in the little porch to wait. A certain
skilful action of his fingers as he hummed some bars, and beat time on
the seat beside him, seemed to denote the musician; and the
extraordinary satisfaction he derived from humming something very slow
and long, which had no recognisable tune, seemed to denote that he was
a scientific one.
The gentleman was still twirling a theme, which seemed to go round and
round and round, and in and in and in, and to involve itself like a
corkscrew twirled upon a table, without getting any nearer to anything,
when Harriet appeared returning. He rose up as she advanced, and stood
with his head uncovered.
“You are come again, Sir!” she said, faltering.
“I take that liberty,” he answered. “May I ask for five minutes of your
leisure?”
After a moment’s hesitation, she opened the door, and gave him
admission to the little parlour. The gentleman sat down there, drew his
chair to the table over against her, and said, in a voice that
perfectly corresponded to his appearance, and with a simplicity that
was very engaging:
“Miss Harriet, you cannot be proud. You signified to me, when I called
t’other morning, that you were. Pardon me if I say that I looked into
your face while you spoke, and that it contradicted you. I look into it
again,” he added, laying his hand gently on her arm, for an instant,
“and it contradicts you more and more.”
She was somewhat confused and agitated, and could make no ready answer.
“It is the mirror of truth,” said her visitor, “and gentleness. Excuse
my trusting to it, and returning.”
His manner of saying these words, divested them entirely of the
character of compliments. It was so plain, grave, unaffected, and
sincere, that she bent her head, as if at once to thank him, and
acknowledge his sincerity.
“The disparity between our ages,” said the gentleman, “and the
plainness of my purpose, empower me, I am glad to think, to speak my
mind. That is my mind; and so you see me for the second time.”
“There is a kind of pride, Sir,” she returned, after a moment’s
silence, “or what may be supposed to be pride, which is mere duty. I
hope I cherish no other.”
“For yourself,” he said.
“For myself.”
“But—pardon me—” suggested the gentleman. “For your brother John?”
“Proud of his love, I am,” said Harriet, looking full upon her visitor,
and changing her manner on the instant—not that it was less composed
and quiet, but that there was a deep impassioned earnestness in it that
made the very tremble in her voice a part of her firmness, “and proud
of him. Sir, you who strangely know the story of his life, and repeated
it to me when you were here last—”
“Merely to make my way into your confidence,” interposed the gentleman.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t suppose—”
“I am sure,” she said, “you revived it, in my hearing, with a kind and
good purpose. I am quite sure of it.”
“I thank you,” returned her visitor, pressing her hand hastily. “I am
much obliged to you. You do me justice, I assure you. You were going to
say, that I, who know the story of John Carker’s life—”
“May think it pride in me,” she continued, “when I say that I am proud
of him! I am. You know the time was, when I was not—when I could not
be—but that is past. The humility of many years, the uncomplaining
expiation, the true repentance, the terrible regret, the pain I know he
has even in my affection, which he thinks has cost me dear, though
Heaven knows I am happy, but for his sorrow I—oh, Sir, after what I
have seen, let me conjure you, if you are in any place of power, and
are ever wronged, never, for any wrong, inflict a punishment that
cannot be recalled; while there is a GOD above us to work changes in
the hearts He made.”
“Your brother is an altered man,” returned the gentleman,
compassionately. “I assure you I don’t doubt it.”
“He was an altered man when he did wrong,” said Harriet. “He is an
altered man again, and is his true self now, believe me, Sir.”
“But we go on,” said her visitor, rubbing his forehead, in an absent
manner, with his hand, and then drumming thoughtfully on the table, “we
go on in our clockwork routine, from day to day, and can’t make out, or
follow, these changes. They—they’re a metaphysical sort of thing. We—we
haven’t leisure for it. We—we haven’t courage. They’re not taught at
schools or colleges, and we don’t know how to set about it. In short,
we are so d——d business-like,” said the gentleman, walking to the
window, and back, and sitting down again, in a state of extreme
dissatisfaction and vexation.
“I am sure,” said the gentleman, rubbing his forehead again; and
drumming on the table as before, “I have good reason to believe that a
jog-trot life, the same from day to day, would reconcile one to
anything. One don’t see anything, one don’t hear anything, one don’t
know anything; that’s the fact. We go on taking everything for granted,
and so we go on, until whatever we do, good, bad, or indifferent, we do
from habit. Habit is all I shall have to report, when I am called upon
to plead to my conscience, on my death-bed. ‘Habit,’ says I; ‘I was
deaf, dumb, blind, and paralytic, to a million things, from habit.’
‘Very business-like indeed, Mr What’s-your-name,’ says Conscience, ‘but
it won’t do here!’”
The gentleman got up and walked to the window again and back: seriously
uneasy, though giving his uneasiness this peculiar expression.
“Miss Harriet,” he said, resuming his chair, “I wish you would let me
serve you. Look at me; I ought to look honest, for I know I am so, at
present. Do I?”
“Yes,” she answered with a smile.
“I believe every word you have said,” he returned. “I am full of
self-reproach that I might have known this and seen this, and known you
and seen you, any time these dozen years, and that I never have. I
hardly know how I ever got here—creature that I am, not only of my own
habit, but of other people’s! But having done so, let me do something.
I ask it in all honour and respect. You inspire me with both, in the
highest degree. Let me do something.”
“We are contented, Sir.”
“No, no, not quite,” returned the gentleman. “I think not quite. There
are some little comforts that might smooth your life, and his. And
his!” he repeated, fancying that had made some impression on her. “I
have been in the habit of thinking that there was nothing wanting to be
done for him; that it was all settled and over; in short, of not
thinking at all about it. I am different now. Let me do something for
him. You too,” said the visitor, with careful delicacy, “have need to
watch your health closely, for his sake, and I fear it fails.”
“Whoever you may be, Sir,” answered Harriet, raising her eyes to his
face, “I am deeply grateful to you. I feel certain that in all you say,
you have no object in the world but kindness to us. But years have
passed since we began this life; and to take from my brother any part
of what has so endeared him to me, and so proved his better
resolution—any fragment of the merit of his unassisted, obscure, and
forgotten reparation—would be to diminish the comfort it will be to him
and me, when that time comes to each of us, of which you spoke just
now. I thank you better with these tears than any words. Believe it,
pray.”
The gentleman was moved, and put the hand she held out, to his lips,
much as a tender father might kiss the hand of a dutiful child. But
more reverently.
“If the day should ever come,” said Harriet, “when he is restored, in
part, to the position he lost—”
“Restored!” cried the gentleman, quickly. “How can that be hoped for?
In whose hands does the power of any restoration lie? It is no mistake
of mine, surely, to suppose that his having gained the priceless
blessing of his life, is one cause of the animosity shown to him by his
brother.”
“You touch upon a subject that is never breathed between us; not even
between us,” said Harriet.
“I beg your forgiveness,” said the visitor. “I should have known it. I
entreat you to forget that I have done so, inadvertently. And now, as I
dare urge no more—as I am not sure that I have a right to do so—though
Heaven knows, even that doubt may be habit,” said the gentleman,
rubbing his head, as despondently as before, “let me; though a
stranger, yet no stranger; ask two favours.”
“What are they?” she inquired.
“The first, that if you should see cause to change your resolution, you
will suffer me to be as your right hand. My name shall then be at your
service; it is useless now, and always insignificant.”
“Our choice of friends,” she answered, smiling faintly, “is not so
great, that I need any time for consideration. I can promise that.”
“The second, that you will allow me sometimes, say every Monday
morning, at nine o’clock—habit again—I must be businesslike,” said the
gentleman, with a whimsical inclination to quarrel with himself on that
head, “in walking past, to see you at the door or window. I don’t ask
to come in, as your brother will be gone out at that hour. I don’t ask
to speak to you. I merely ask to see, for the satisfaction of my own
mind, that you are well, and without intrusion to remind you, by the
sight of me, that you have a friend—an elderly friend, grey-haired
already, and fast growing greyer—whom you may ever command.”
The cordial face looked up in his; confided in it; and promised.
“I understand, as before,” said the gentleman, rising, “that you
purpose not to mention my visit to John Carker, lest he should be at
all distressed by my acquaintance with his history. I am glad of it,
for it is out of the ordinary course of things, and—habit again!” said
the gentleman, checking himself impatiently, “as if there were no
better course than the ordinary course!”
With that he turned to go, and walking, bareheaded, to the outside of
the little porch, took leave of her with such a happy mixture of
unconstrained respect and unaffected interest, as no breeding could
have taught, no truth mistrusted, and nothing but a pure and single
heart expressed.
Many half-forgotten emotions were awakened in the sister’s mind by this
visit. It was so very long since any other visitor had crossed their
threshold; it was so very long since any voice of apathy had made sad
music in her ears; that the stranger’s figure remained present to her,
hours afterwards, when she sat at the window, plying her needle; and
his words seemed newly spoken, again and again. He had touched the
spring that opened her whole life; and if she lost him for a short
space, it was only among the many shapes of the one great recollection
of which that life was made.