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DOMBEY AND SON
By Charles Dickens
CHAPTER 41. New Voices in the Waves
All is going on as it was wont. The waves are hoarse with repetition of
their mystery; the dust lies piled upon the shore; the sea-birds soar
and hover; the winds and clouds go forth upon their trackless flight;
the white arms beckon, in the moonlight, to the invisible country far
away.
With a tender melancholy pleasure, Florence finds herself again on the
old ground so sadly trodden, yet so happily, and thinks of him in
the quiet place, where he and she have many and many a time conversed
together, with the water welling up about his couch. And now, as she
sits pensive there, she hears in the wild low murmur of the sea, his
little story told again, his very words repeated; and finds that all
her life and hopes, and griefs, since--in the solitary house, and in
the pageant it has changed to--have a portion in the burden of the
marvellous song.
And gentle Mr ***, who wanders at a distance, looking wistfully
towards the figure that he dotes upon, and has followed there, but
cannot in his delicacy disturb at such a time, likewise hears the
requiem of little Dombey on the waters, rising and falling in the lulls
of their eternal madrigal in praise of Florence. Yes! and he faintly
understands, poor Mr ***, that they are saying something of a time
when he was sensible of being brighter and not addle-brained; and the
tears rising in his eyes when he fears that he is dull and stupid now,
and good for little but to be laughed at, diminish his satisfaction in
their soothing reminder that he is relieved from present responsibility
to the Chicken, by the absence of that game head of poultry in the
country, training (at ***'s cost) for his great mill with the Larkey
Boy.
But Mr *** takes courage, when they whisper a kind thought to him;
and by slow degrees and with many indecisive stoppages on the way,
approaches Florence. Stammering and blushing, Mr *** affects amazement
when he comes near her, and says (having followed close on the carriage
in which she travelled, every inch of the way from London, loving even
to be choked by the dust of its wheels) that he never was so surprised
in all his life.
'And you've brought Diogenes, too, Miss Dombey!' says Mr ***, thrilled
through and through by the touch of the small hand so pleasantly and
frankly given him.
No doubt Diogenes is there, and no doubt Mr *** has reason to observe
him, for he comes straightway at Mr ***'s legs, and tumbles over
himself in the desperation with which he makes at him, like a very dog
of Montargis. But he is checked by his sweet mistress.
'Down, Di, down. Don't you remember who first made us friends, Di? For
shame!'
Oh! Well may Di lay his loving cheek against her hand, and run off, and
run back, and run round her, barking, and run headlong at anybody coming
by, to show his devotion. Mr *** would run headlong at anybody, too.
A military gentleman goes past, and Mr *** would like nothing better
than to run at him, full tilt.
'Diogenes is quite in his native air, isn't he, Miss Dombey?' says Mr
***.
Florence assents, with a grateful smile.
'Miss Dombey,' says Mr ***, 'beg your pardon, but if you would like to
walk to Blimber's, I--I'm going there.'
Florence puts her arm in that of Mr *** without a word, and they walk
away together, with Diogenes going on before. Mr ***'s legs shake
under him; and though he is splendidly dressed, he feels misfits, and
sees wrinkles, in the masterpieces of Burgess and Co., and wishes he had
put on that brightest pair of boots.
Doctor Blimber's house, outside, has as scholastic and studious an air
as ever; and up there is the window where she used to look for the pale
face, and where the pale face brightened when it saw her, and the wasted
little hand waved kisses as she passed. The door is opened by the same
weak-eyed young man, whose imbecility of grin at sight of Mr *** is
feebleness of character personified. They are shown into the Doctor's
study, where blind Homer and Minerva give them audience as of yore, to
the sober ticking of the great clock in the hall; and where the globes
stand still in their accustomed places, as if the world were stationary
too, and nothing in it ever perished in obedience to the universal law,
that, while it keeps it on the roll, calls everything to earth.
And here is Doctor Blimber, with his learned legs; and here is Mrs
Blimber, with her sky-blue cap; and here Cornelia, with her sandy little
row of curls, and her bright spectacles, still working like a sexton in
the graves of languages. Here is the table upon which he sat forlorn
and strange, the 'new boy' of the school; and hither comes the distant
cooing of the old boys, at their old lives in the old room on the old
principle!
'***,' says Doctor Blimber, 'I am very glad to see you, ***.'
Mr *** chuckles in reply.
'Also to see you, ***, in such good company,' says Doctor Blimber.
Mr ***, with a scarlet visage, explains that he has met Miss Dombey
by accident, and that Miss Dombey wishing, like himself, to see the old
place, they have come together.
'You will like,' says Doctor Blimber, 'to step among our young friends,
Miss Dombey, no doubt. All fellow-students of yours, ***, once. I
think we have no new disciples in our little portico, my dear,' says
Doctor Blimber to Cornelia, 'since Mr *** left us.'
'Except Bitherstone,' returns Cornelia.
'Ay, truly,' says the Doctor. 'Bitherstone is new to Mr ***.'
New to Florence, too, almost; for, in the schoolroom, Bitherstone--no
longer Master Bitherstone of Mrs Pipchin's--shows in collars and a
neckcloth, and wears a watch. But Bitherstone, born beneath some
Bengal star of ill-omen, is extremely inky; and his Lexicon has got so
dropsical from constant reference, that it won't shut, and yawns as
if it really could not bear to be so bothered. So does Bitherstone its
master, forced at Doctor Blimber's highest pressure; but in the yawn of
Bitherstone there is malice and snarl, and he has been heard to say that
he wishes he could catch 'old Blimber' in India. He'd precious soon find
himself carried up the country by a few of his (Bitherstone's) Coolies,
and handed over to the Thugs; he can tell him that.
Briggs is still grinding in the mill of knowledge; and Tozer, too;
and Johnson, too; and all the rest; the older pupils being principally
engaged in forgetting, with prodigious labour, everything they knew
when they were younger. All are as polite and as pale as ever; and among
them, Mr Feeder, B.A., with his bony hand and bristly head, is still
hard at it; with his Herodotus stop on just at present, and his other
barrels on a shelf behind him.
A mighty sensation is created, even among these grave young gentlemen,
by a visit from the emancipated ***; who is regarded with a kind of
awe, as one who has passed the Rubicon, and is pledged never to come
back, and concerning the cut of whose clothes, and fashion of whose
jewellery, whispers go about, behind hands; the bilious Bitherstone,
who is not of Mr ***'s time, affecting to despise the latter to the
smaller boys, and saying he knows better, and that he should like to
see him coming that sort of thing in Bengal, where his mother had got an
emerald belonging to him that was taken out of the footstool of a Rajah.
Come now!
Bewildering emotions are awakened also by the sight of Florence, with
whom every young gentleman immediately falls in love, again; except,
as aforesaid, the bilious Bitherstone, who declines to do so, out of
contradiction. Black jealousies of Mr *** arise, and Briggs is of
opinion that he ain't so very old after all. But this disparaging
insinuation is speedily made nought by Mr *** saying aloud to Mr
Feeder, B.A., 'How are you, Feeder?' and asking him to come and dine
with him to-day at the Bedford; in right of which feats he might set up
as Old Parr, if he chose, unquestioned.
There is much shaking of hands, and much bowing, and a great desire on
the part of each young gentleman to take *** down in Miss Dombey's
good graces; and then, Mr *** having bestowed a chuckle on his old
desk, Florence and he withdraw with Mrs Blimber and Cornelia; and Doctor
Blimber is heard to observe behind them as he comes out last, and shuts
the door, 'Gentlemen, we will now resume our studies,' For that and
little else is what the Doctor hears the sea say, or has heard it saying
all his life.
Florence then steals away and goes upstairs to the old bedroom with Mrs
Blimber and Cornelia; Mr ***, who feels that neither he nor anybody
else is wanted there, stands talking to the Doctor at the study-door, or
rather hearing the Doctor talk to him, and wondering how he ever thought
the study a great sanctuary, and the Doctor, with his round turned legs,
like a clerical pianoforte, an awful man. Florence soon comes down and
takes leave; Mr *** takes leave; and Diogenes, who has been worrying
the weak-eyed young man pitilessly all the time, shoots out at the door,
and barks a glad defiance down the cliff; while Melia, and another of
the Doctor's female domestics, looks out of an upper window, laughing
'at that there ***,' and saying of Miss Dombey, 'But really though,
now--ain't she like her brother, only prettier?'
Mr ***, who saw when Florence came down that there were tears upon her
face, is desperately anxious and uneasy, and at first fears that he did
wrong in proposing the visit. But he is soon relieved by her saying
she is very glad to have been there again, and by her talking quite
cheerfully about it all, as they walked on by the sea. What with the
voices there, and her sweet voice, when they come near Mr Dombey's
house, and Mr *** must leave her, he is so enslaved that he has not
a scrap of free-will left; when she gives him her hand at parting, he
cannot let it go.
'Miss Dombey, I beg your pardon,' says Mr ***, in a sad fluster, 'but
if you would allow me to--to--'
The smiling and unconscious look of Florence brings him to a dead stop.
'If you would allow me to--if you would not consider it a liberty, Miss
Dombey, if I was to--without any encouragement at all, if I was to hope,
you know,' says Mr ***.
Florence looks at him inquiringly.
'Miss Dombey,' says Mr ***, who feels that he is in for it now, 'I
really am in that state of adoration of you that I don't know what to do
with myself. I am the most deplorable wretch. If it wasn't at the corner
of the Square at present, I should go down on my knees, and beg and
entreat of you, without any encouragement at all, just to let me hope
that I may--may think it possible that you--'
'Oh, if you please, don't!' cries Florence, for the moment quite alarmed
and distressed. 'Oh, pray don't, Mr ***. Stop, if you please. Don't
say any more. As a kindness and a favour to me, don't.'
Mr *** is dreadfully abashed, and his mouth opens.
'You have been so good to me,' says Florence, 'I am so grateful to you,
I have such reason to like you for being a kind friend to me, and I do
like you so much;' and here the ingenuous face smiles upon him with the
pleasantest look of honesty in the world; 'that I am sure you are only
going to say good-bye!'
'Certainly, Miss Dombey,' says Mr ***, 'I--I--that's exactly what I
mean. It's of no consequence.'
'Good-bye!' cries Florence.
'Good-bye, Miss Dombey!' stammers Mr ***. 'I hope you won't think
anything about it. It's--it's of no consequence, thank you. It's not of
the least consequence in the world.'
Poor Mr *** goes home to his hotel in a state of desperation, locks
himself into his bedroom, flings himself upon his bed, and lies
there for a long time; as if it were of the greatest consequence,
nevertheless. But Mr Feeder, B.A., is coming to dinner, which happens
well for Mr ***, or there is no knowing when he might get up again.
Mr *** is obliged to get up to receive him, and to give him hospitable
entertainment.
And the generous influence of that social virtue, hospitality (to make
no mention of wine and good cheer), opens Mr ***'s heart, and warms
him to conversation. He does not tell Mr Feeder, B.A., what passed at
the corner of the Square; but when Mr Feeder asks him 'When it is to
come off?' Mr *** replies, 'that there are certain subjects'--which
brings Mr Feeder down a peg or two immediately. Mr *** adds, that he
don't know what right Blimber had to notice his being in Miss Dombey's
company, and that if he thought he meant impudence by it, he'd have him
out, Doctor or no Doctor; but he supposes its only his ignorance. Mr
Feeder says he has no doubt of it.
Mr Feeder, however, as an intimate friend, is not excluded from
the subject. Mr *** merely requires that it should be mentioned
mysteriously, and with feeling. After a few glasses of wine, he gives
Miss Dombey's health, observing, 'Feeder, you have no idea of the
sentiments with which I propose that toast.' Mr Feeder replies, 'Oh,
yes, I have, my dear ***; and greatly they redound to your honour, old
boy.' Mr Feeder is then agitated by friendship, and shakes hands; and
says, if ever *** wants a brother, he knows where to find him, either
by post or parcel. Mr Feeder like-wise says, that if he may advise, he
would recommend Mr *** to learn the guitar, or, at least the flute;
for women like music, when you are paying your addresses to 'em, and he
has found the advantage of it himself.
This brings Mr Feeder, B.A., to the confession that he has his eye
upon Cornelia Blimber. He informs Mr *** that he don't object to
spectacles, and that if the Doctor were to do the handsome thing and
give up the business, why, there they are--provided for. He says it's
his opinion that when a man has made a handsome sum by his business, he
is bound to give it up; and that Cornelia would be an assistance in it
which any man might be proud of. Mr *** replies by launching wildly
out into Miss Dombey's praises, and by insinuations that sometimes he
thinks he should like to blow his brains out. Mr Feeder strongly urges
that it would be a rash attempt, and shows him, as a reconcilement to
existence, Cornelia's portrait, spectacles and all.
Thus these quiet spirits pass the evening; and when it has yielded place
to night, Mr *** walks home with Mr Feeder, and parts with him at
Doctor Blimber's door. But Mr Feeder only goes up the steps, and when
Mr *** is gone, comes down again, to stroll upon the beach alone, and
think about his prospects. Mr Feeder plainly hears the waves informing
him, as he loiters along, that Doctor Blimber will give up the business;
and he feels a soft romantic pleasure in looking at the outside of the
house, and thinking that the Doctor will first paint it, and put it into
thorough repair.
Mr *** is likewise roaming up and down, outside the casket that
contains his jewel; and in a deplorable condition of mind, and not
unsuspected by the police, gazes at a window where he sees a light,
and which he has no doubt is Florence's. But it is not, for that is Mrs
Skewton's room; and while Florence, sleeping in another chamber, dreams
lovingly, in the midst of the old scenes, and their old associations
live again, the figure which in grim reality is substituted for the
patient boy's on the same theatre, once more to connect it--but how
differently!--with decay and death, is stretched there, wakeful and
complaining. Ugly and haggard it lies upon its bed of unrest; and by it,
in the terror of her unimpassioned loveliness--for it has terror in
the sufferer's failing eyes--sits Edith. What do the waves say, in the
stillness of the night, to them?
'Edith, what is that stone arm raised to strike me? Don't you see it?'
'There is nothing, mother, but your fancy.'
'But my fancy! Everything is my fancy. Look! Is it possible that you
don't see it?'
'Indeed, mother, there is nothing. Should I sit unmoved, if there were
any such thing there?'
'Unmoved?' looking wildly at her--'it's gone now--and why are you
so unmoved? That is not my fancy, Edith. It turns me cold to see you
sitting at my side.'
'I am sorry, mother.'
'Sorry! You seem always sorry. But it is not for me!'
With that, she cries; and tossing her restless head from side to side
upon her pillow, runs on about neglect, and the mother she has been, and
the mother the good old creature was, whom they met, and the cold return
the daughters of such mothers make. In the midst of her incoherence,
she stops, looks at her daughter, cries out that her wits are going, and
hides her face upon the bed.
Edith, in compassion, bends over her and speaks to her. The sick old
woman clutches her round the neck, and says, with a look of horror,
'Edith! we are going home soon; going back. You mean that I shall go
home again?'
'Yes, mother, yes.'
'And what he said--what's-his-name, I never could remember
names--Major--that dreadful word, when we came away--it's not true?
Edith!' with a shriek and a stare, 'it's not that that is the matter
with me.'
Night after night, the lights burn in the window, and the figure lies
upon the bed, and Edith sits beside it, and the restless waves are
calling to them both the whole night long. Night after night, the waves
are hoarse with repetition of their mystery; the dust lies piled upon
the shore; the sea-birds soar and hover; the winds and clouds are on
their trackless flight; the white arms beckon, in the moonlight, to the
invisible country far away.
And still the sick old woman looks into the corner, where the stone
arm--part of a figure of some tomb, she says--is raised to strike her.
At last it falls; and then a dumb old woman lies upon the bed, and
she is crooked and shrunk up, and half of her is dead.
Such is the figure, painted and patched for the sun to mock, that is
drawn slowly through the crowd from day to day; looking, as it goes,
for the good old creature who was such a mother, and making mouths as it
peers among the crowd in vain. Such is the figure that is often wheeled
down to the margin of the sea, and stationed there; but on which no
wind can blow freshness, and for which the murmur of the ocean has no
soothing word. She lies and listens to it by the hour; but its speech
is dark and gloomy to her, and a dread is on her face, and when her
eyes wander over the expanse, they see but a broad stretch of desolation
between earth and heaven.
Florence she seldom sees, and when she does, is angry with and mows at.
Edith is beside her always, and keeps Florence away; and Florence, in
her bed at night, trembles at the thought of death in such a shape, and
often wakes and listens, thinking it has come. No one attends on her
but Edith. It is better that few eyes should see her; and her daughter
watches alone by the bedside.
A shadow even on that shadowed face, a sharpening even of the sharpened
features, and a thickening of the veil before the eyes into a pall that
shuts out the dim world, is come. Her wandering hands upon the coverlet
join feebly palm to palm, and move towards her daughter; and a voice
not like hers, not like any voice that speaks our mortal language--says,
'For I nursed you!'
Edith, without a tear, kneels down to bring her voice closer to the
sinking head, and answers:
'Mother, can you hear me?'
Staring wide, she tries to nod in answer.
'Can you recollect the night before I married?'
The head is motionless, but it expresses somehow that she does.
'I told you then that I forgave your part in it, and prayed God to
forgive my own. I told you that time past was at an end between us. I
say so now, again. Kiss me, mother.'
Edith touches the white lips, and for a moment all is still. A moment
afterwards, her mother, with her girlish laugh, and the skeleton of the
Cleopatra manner, rises in her bed.
Draw the rose-coloured curtains. There is something else upon its flight
besides the wind and clouds. Draw the rose-coloured curtains close!
Intelligence of the event is sent to Mr Dombey in town, who waits upon
Cousin Feenix (not yet able to make up his mind for Baden-Baden), who
has just received it too. A good-natured creature like Cousin Feenix is
the very man for a marriage or a funeral, and his position in the family
renders it right that he should be consulted.
'Dombey,' said Cousin Feenix, 'upon my soul, I am very much shocked to
see you on such a melancholy occasion. My poor aunt! She was a devilish
lively woman.'
Mr Dombey replies, 'Very much so.'
'And made up,' says Cousin Feenix, 'really young, you know, considering.
I am sure, on the day of your marriage, I thought she was good
for another twenty years. In point of fact, I said so to a man at
Brooks's--little Billy Joper--you know him, no doubt--man with a glass
in his eye?'
Mr Dombey bows a negative. 'In reference to the obsequies,' he hints,
'whether there is any suggestion--'
'Well, upon my life,' says Cousin Feenix, stroking his chin, which he
has just enough of hand below his wristbands to do; 'I really don't
know. There's a Mausoleum down at my place, in the park, but I'm afraid
it's in bad repair, and, in point of fact, in a devil of a state. But
for being a little out at elbows, I should have had it put to rights;
but I believe the people come and make pic-nic parties there inside the
iron railings.'
Mr Dombey is clear that this won't do.
'There's an uncommon good church in the village,' says Cousin Feenix,
thoughtfully; 'pure specimen of the Anglo-Norman style, and admirably
well sketched too by Lady Jane Finchbury--woman with tight stays--but
they've spoilt it with whitewash, I understand, and it's a long journey.'
'Perhaps Brighton itself,' Mr Dombey suggests.
'Upon my honour, Dombey, I don't think we could do better,' says Cousin
Feenix. 'It's on the spot, you see, and a very cheerful place.'
'And when,' hints Mr Dombey, 'would it be convenient?'
'I shall make a point,' says Cousin Feenix, 'of pledging myself for any
day you think best. I shall have great pleasure (melancholy pleasure,
of course) in following my poor aunt to the confines of the--in point
of fact, to the grave,' says Cousin Feenix, failing in the other turn of
speech.
'Would Monday do for leaving town?' says Mr Dombey.
'Monday would suit me to perfection,' replies Cousin Feenix. Therefore
Mr Dombey arranges to take Cousin Feenix down on that day, and presently
takes his leave, attended to the stairs by Cousin Feenix, who says, at
parting, 'I'm really excessively sorry, Dombey, that you should have so
much trouble about it;' to which Mr Dombey answers, 'Not at all.'
At the appointed time, Cousin Feenix and Mr Dombey meet, and go down to
Brighton, and representing, in their two selves, all the other mourners
for the deceased lady's loss, attend her remains to their place of rest.
Cousin Feenix, sitting in the mourning-coach, recognises innumerable
acquaintances on the road, but takes no other notice of them, in
decorum, than checking them off aloud, as they go by, for Mr Dombey's
information, as 'Tom Johnson. Man with cork leg, from White's. What,
are you here, Tommy? Foley on a blood mare. The Smalder girls'--and so
forth. At the ceremony Cousin Feenix is depressed, observing, that these
are the occasions to make a man think, in point of fact, that he is
getting shaky; and his eyes are really moistened, when it is over. But
he soon recovers; and so do the rest of Mrs Skewton's relatives and
friends, of whom the Major continually tells the club that she never
did wrap up enough; while the young lady with the back, who has so much
trouble with her eyelids, says, with a little scream, that she must have
been enormously old, and that she died of all kinds of horrors, and you
mustn't mention it.
So Edith's mother lies unmentioned of her dear friends, who are deaf to
the waves that are hoarse with repetition of their mystery, and blind
to the dust that is piled upon the shore, and to the white arms that are
beckoning, in the moonlight, to the invisible country far away. But all
goes on, as it was wont, upon the margin of the unknown sea; and Edith
standing there alone, and listening to its waves, has dank weed cast up
at her feet, to strew her path in life withal.