Dombey and Son
The dark blot on the street is gone. Mr Dombey’s mansion, if it be a
gap among the other houses any longer, is only so because it is not to
be vied with in its brightness, and haughtily casts them off. The
saying is, that home is home, be it never so homely. If it hold good in
the opposite contingency, and home is home be it never so stately, what
an altar to the Household Gods is raised up here!
Lights are sparkling in the windows this evening, and the ruddy glow of
fires is warm and bright upon the hangings and soft carpets, and the
dinner waits to be served, and the dinner-table is handsomely set
forth, though only for four persons, and the side board is cumbrous
with plate. It is the first time that the house has been arranged for
occupation since its late changes, and the happy pair are looked for
every minute.
Only second to the wedding morning, in the interest and expectation it
engenders among the household, is this evening of the coming home. Mrs
Perch is in the kitchen taking tea; and has made the tour of the
establishment, and priced the silks and damasks by the yard, and
exhausted every interjection in the dictionary and out of it expressive
of admiration and wonder. The upholsterer’s foreman, who has left his
hat, with a pocket-handkerchief in it, both smelling strongly of
varnish, under a chair in the hall, lurks about the house, gazing
upwards at the cornices, and downward at the carpets, and occasionally,
in a silent transport of enjoyment, taking a rule out of his pocket,
and skirmishingly measuring expensive objects, with unutterable
feelings. Cook is in high spirits, and says give her a place where
there’s plenty of company (as she’ll bet you sixpence there will be
now), for she is of a lively disposition, and she always was from a
child, and she don’t mind who knows it; which sentiment elicits from
the breast of Mrs Perch a responsive murmur of support and approbation.
All the housemaid hopes is, happiness for ’em—but marriage is a
lottery, and the more she thinks about it, the more she feels the
independence and the safety of a single life. Mr Towlinson is saturnine
and grim, and says that’s his opinion too, and give him War besides,
and down with the French—for this young man has a general impression
that every foreigner is a Frenchman, and must be by the laws of nature.
At each new sound of wheels, they all stop, whatever they are saying,
and listen; and more than once there is a general starting up and a cry
of “Here they are!” But here they are not yet; and Cook begins to mourn
over the dinner, which has been put back twice, and the upholsterer’s
foreman still goes lurking about the rooms, undisturbed in his blissful
reverie!
Florence is ready to receive her father and her new Mama. Whether the
emotions that are throbbing in her breast originate in pleasure or in
pain, she hardly knows. But the fluttering heart sends added colour to
her cheeks, and brightness to her eyes; and they say downstairs,
drawing their heads together—for they always speak softly when they
speak of her—how beautiful Miss Florence looks tonight, and what a
sweet young lady she has grown, poor dear! A pause succeeds; and then
Cook, feeling, as president, that her sentiments are waited for,
wonders whether—and there stops. The housemaid wonders too, and so does
Mrs Perch, who has the happy social faculty of always wondering when
other people wonder, without being at all particular what she wonders
at. Mr Towlinson, who now descries an opportunity of bringing down the
spirits of the ladies to his own level, says wait and see; he wishes
some people were well out of this. Cook leads a sigh then, and a murmur
of “Ah, it’s a strange world, it is indeed!” and when it has gone round
the table, adds persuasively, “but Miss Florence can’t well be the
worse for any change, Tom.” Mr Towlinson’s rejoinder, pregnant with
frightful meaning, is “Oh, can’t she though!” and sensible that a mere
man can scarcely be more prophetic, or improve upon that, he holds his
peace.
Mrs Skewton, prepared to greet her darling daughter and dear son-in-law
with open arms, is appropriately attired for that purpose in a very
youthful costume, with short sleeves. At present, however, her ripe
charms are blooming in the shade of her own apartments, whence she had
not emerged since she took possession of them a few hours ago, and
where she is fast growing fretful, on account of the postponement of
dinner. The maid who ought to be a skeleton, but is in truth a buxom
damsel, is, on the other hand, in a most amiable state: considering her
quarterly stipend much safer than heretofore, and foreseeing a great
improvement in her board and lodging.
Where are the happy pair, for whom this brave home is waiting? Do
steam, tide, wind, and horses, all abate their speed, to linger on such
happiness? Does the swarm of loves and graces hovering about them
retard their progress by its numbers? Are there so many flowers in
their happy path, that they can scarcely move along, without
entanglement in thornless roses, and sweetest briar?
They are here at last! The noise of wheels is heard, grows louder, and
a carriage drives up to the door! A thundering knock from the obnoxious
foreigner anticipates the rush of Mr Towlinson and party to open it;
and Mr Dombey and his bride alight, and walk in arm in arm.
“My sweetest Edith!” cries an agitated voice upon the stairs. “My
dearest Dombey!” and the short sleeves wreath themselves about the
happy couple in turn, and embrace them.
Florence had come down to the hall too, but did not advance: reserving
her timid welcome until these nearer and dearer transports should
subside. But the eyes of Edith sought her out, upon the threshold; and
dismissing her sensitive parent with a slight kiss on the cheek, she
hurried on to Florence and embraced her.
“How do you do, Florence?” said Mr Dombey, putting out his hand.
As Florence, trembling, raised it to her lips, she met his glance. The
look was cold and distant enough, but it stirred her heart to think
that she observed in it something more of interest than he had ever
shown before. It even expressed a kind of faint surprise, and not a
disagreeable surprise, at sight of her. She dared not raise her eyes to
his any more; but she felt that he looked at her once again, and not
less favourably. Oh what a thrill of joy shot through her, awakened by
even this intangible and baseless confirmation of her hope that she
would learn to win him, through her new and beautiful Mama!
“You will not be long dressing, Mrs Dombey, I presume?” said Mr Dombey.
“I shall be ready immediately.”
“Let them send up dinner in a quarter of an hour.”
With that Mr Dombey stalked away to his own dressing-room, and Mrs
Dombey went upstairs to hers. Mrs Skewton and Florence repaired to the
drawing-room, where that excellent mother considered it incumbent on
her to shed a few irrepressible tears, supposed to be forced from her
by her daughter’s felicity; and which she was still drying, very
gingerly, with a laced corner of her pocket-handkerchief, when her
son-in-law appeared.
“And how, my dearest Dombey, did you find that delightfullest of
cities, Paris?” she asked, subduing her emotion.
“It was cold,” returned Mr Dombey.
“Gay as ever,” said Mrs Skewton, “of course.
“Not particularly. I thought it dull,” said Mr Dombey.
“Fie, my dearest Dombey!” archly; “dull!”
“It made that impression upon me, Madam,” said Mr Dombey, with grave
politeness. “I believe Mrs Dombey found it dull too. She mentioned once
or twice that she thought it so.”
“Why, you naughty girl!” cried Mrs Skewton, rallying her dear child,
who now entered, “what dreadfully heretical things have you been saying
about Paris?”
Edith raised her eyebrows with an air of weariness; and passing the
folding-doors which were thrown open to display the suite of rooms in
their new and handsome garniture, and barely glancing at them as she
passed, sat down by Florence.
“My dear Dombey,” said Mrs Skewton, “how charmingly these people have
carried out every idea that we hinted. They have made a perfect palace
of the house, positively.”
“It is handsome,” said Mr Dombey, looking round. “I directed that no
expense should be spared; and all that money could do, has been done, I
believe.”
“And what can it not do, dear Dombey?” observed Cleopatra.
“It is powerful, Madam,” said Mr Dombey.
He looked in his solemn way towards his wife, but not a word said she.
“I hope, Mrs Dombey,” addressing her after a moment’s silence, with
especial distinctness; “that these alterations meet with your
approval?”
“They are as handsome as they can be,” she returned, with haughty
carelessness. “They should be so, of course. And I suppose they are.”
An expression of scorn was habitual to the proud face, and seemed
inseparable from it; but the contempt with which it received any appeal
to admiration, respect, or consideration on the ground of his riches,
no matter how slight or ordinary in itself, was a new and different
expression, unequalled in intensity by any other of which it was
capable. Whether Mr Dombey, wrapped in his own greatness, was at all
aware of this, or no, there had not been wanting opportunities already
for his complete enlightenment; and at that moment it might have been
effected by the one glance of the dark eye that lighted on him, after
it had rapidly and scornfully surveyed the theme of his
self-glorification. He might have read in that one glance that nothing
that his wealth could do, though it were increased ten thousand fold,
could win him for its own sake, one look of softened recognition from
the defiant woman, linked to him, but arrayed with her whole soul
against him. He might have read in that one glance that even for its
sordid and mercenary influence upon herself, she spurned it, while she
claimed its utmost power as her right, her bargain—as the base and
worthless recompense for which she had become his wife. He might have
read in it that, ever baring her own head for the lightning of her own
contempt and pride to strike, the most innocent allusion to the power
of his riches degraded her anew, sunk her deeper in her own respect,
and made the blight and waste within her more complete.
But dinner was announced, and Mr Dombey led down Cleopatra; Edith and
his daughter following. Sweeping past the gold and silver demonstration
on the sideboard as if it were heaped-up dirt, and deigning to bestow
no look upon the elegancies around her, she took her place at his board
for the first time, and sat, like a statue, at the feast.
Mr Dombey, being a good deal in the statue way himself, was well enough
pleased to see his handsome wife immovable and proud and cold. Her
deportment being always elegant and graceful, this as a general
behaviour was agreeable and congenial to him. Presiding, therefore,
with his accustomed dignity, and not at all reflecting on his wife by
any warmth or hilarity of his own, he performed his share of the
honours of the table with a cool satisfaction; and the installation
dinner, though not regarded downstairs as a great success, or very
promising beginning, passed off, above, in a sufficiently polite,
genteel, and frosty manner.
Soon after tea, Mrs Skewton, who affected to be quite overcome and worn
out by her emotions of happiness, arising in the contemplation of her
dear child united to the man of her heart, but who, there is reason to
suppose, found this family party somewhat dull, as she yawned for one
hour continually behind her fan, retired to bed. Edith, also, silently
withdrew and came back no more. Thus, it happened that Florence, who
had been upstairs to have some conversation with Diogenes, returning to