Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens (ebook reader 7 inch .txt) 📖

The ill-starred youngest Toodle but one, who would appear, from the frequency of his domestic troubles, to have been born under an unlucky planet, was prevented from performing his part in this general salutation by having fixed the sou’wester hat (with which he had been previously trifling) deep on his head, hind side before, and being unable to get it off again; which accident presenting to his terrified imagination a dismal picture of his passing the rest of his days in darkness, and in hopeless seclusion from his friends and family, caused him to struggle with great violence, and to utter suffocating cries. Being released, his face was discovered to be very hot, and red, and damp; and Miss Tox took him on her lap, much exhausted.

‘You have almost forgotten me, Sir, I daresay,’ said Miss Tox to Mr Toodle.

‘No, Ma’am, no,’ said Toodle. ‘But we’ve all on us got a little older since then.’

‘And how do you find yourself, Sir?’ inquired Miss Tox, blandly.

‘Hearty, Ma’am, thank’ee,’ replied Toodle. ‘How do you find yourself, Ma’am? Do the rheumaticks keep off pretty well, Ma’am? We must all expect to grow into ‘em, as we gets on.’

‘Thank you,’ said Miss Tox. ‘I have not felt any inconvenience from that disorder yet.’

‘You’re wery fortunate, Ma’am,’ returned Mr Toodle. ‘Many people at your time of life, Ma’am, is martyrs to it. There was my mother—’ But catching his wife’s eye here, Mr Toodle judiciously buried the rest in another mug of tea.

‘You never mean to say, Mrs Richards,’ cried Miss Tox, looking at Rob, ‘that that is your—’

‘Eldest, Ma’am,’ said Polly. ‘Yes, indeed, it is. That’s the little fellow, Ma’am, that was the innocent cause of so much.’

‘This here, Ma’am,’ said Toodle, ‘is him with the short legs—and they was,’ said Mr Toodle, with a touch of poetry in his tone, ‘unusual short for leathers—as Mr Dombey made a Grinder on.’

The recollection almost overpowered Miss Tox. The subject of it had a peculiar interest for her directly. She asked him to shake hands, and congratulated his mother on his frank, ingenuous face. Rob, overhearing her, called up a look, to justify the eulogium, but it was hardly the right look.

‘And now, Mrs Richards,’ said Miss Tox,—‘and you too, Sir,’ addressing Toodle—‘I’ll tell you, plainly and truly, what I have come here for. You may be aware, Mrs Richards—and, possibly, you may be aware too, Sir—that a little distance has interposed itself between me and some of my friends, and that where I used to visit a good deal, I do not visit now.’

Polly, who, with a woman’s tact, understood this at once, expressed as much in a little look. Mr Toodle, who had not the faintest idea of what Miss Tox was talking about, expressed that also, in a stare.

‘Of course,’ said Miss Tox, ‘how our little coolness has arisen is of no moment, and does not require to be discussed. It is sufficient for me to say, that I have the greatest possible respect for, and interest in, Mr Dombey;’ Miss Tox’s voice faltered; ‘and everything that relates to him.’

Mr Toodle, enlightened, shook his head, and said he had heerd it said, and, for his own part, he did think, as Mr Dombey was a difficult subject.

‘Pray don’t say so, Sir, if you please,’ returned Miss Tox. ‘Let me entreat you not to say so, Sir, either now, or at any future time. Such observations cannot but be very painful to me; and to a gentleman, whose mind is constituted as, I am quite sure, yours is, can afford no permanent satisfaction.’

Mr Toodle, who had not entertained the least doubt of offering a remark that would be received with acquiescence, was greatly confounded.

‘All that I wish to say, Mrs Richards,’ resumed Miss Tox,—‘and I address myself to you too, Sir,—is this. That any intelligence of the proceedings of the family, of the welfare of the family, of the health of the family, that reaches you, will be always most acceptable to me. That I shall be always very glad to chat with Mrs Richards about the family, and about old time And as Mrs Richards and I never had the least difference (though I could wish now that we had been better acquainted, but I have no one but myself to blame for that), I hope she will not object to our being very good friends now, and to my coming backwards and forwards here, when I like, without being a stranger. Now, I really hope, Mrs Richards,’ said Miss Tox—earnestly, ‘that you will take this, as I mean it, like a good-humoured creature, as you always were.’

Polly was gratified, and showed it. Mr Toodle didn’t know whether he was gratified or not, and preserved a stolid calmness.

‘You see, Mrs Richards,’ said Miss Tox—‘and I hope you see too, Sir—there are many little ways in which I can be slightly useful to you, if you will make no stranger of me; and in which I shall be delighted to be so. For instance, I can teach your children something. I shall bring a few little books, if you’ll allow me, and some work, and of an evening now and then, they’ll learn—dear me, they’ll learn a great deal, I trust, and be a credit to their teacher.’

Mr Toodle, who had a great respect for learning, jerked his head approvingly at his wife, and moistened his hands with dawning satisfaction.

‘Then, not being a stranger, I shall be in nobody’s way,’ said Miss Tox, ‘and everything will go on just as if I were not here. Mrs Richards will do her mending, or her ironing, or her nursing, whatever it is, without minding me: and you’ll smoke your pipe, too, if you’re so disposed, Sir, won’t you?’

‘Thank’ee, Mum,’ said Mr Toodle. ‘Yes; I’ll take my bit of backer.’

‘Very good of you to say so, Sir,’ rejoined Miss Tox, ‘and I really do assure you now, unfeignedly, that it will be a great comfort to me, and that whatever good I may be fortunate enough to do the children, you will more than pay back to me, if you’ll enter into this little bargain comfortably, and easily, and good-naturedly, without another word about it.’

The bargain was ratified on the spot; and Miss Tox found herself so much at home already, that without delay she instituted a preliminary examination of the children all round—which Mr Toodle much admired—and booked their ages, names, and acquirements, on a piece of paper. This ceremony, and a little attendant gossip, prolonged the time until after their usual hour of going to bed, and detained Miss Tox at the Toodle fireside until it was too late for her to walk home alone. The gallant Grinder, however, being still there, politely offered to attend her to her own door; and as it was something to Miss Tox to be seen home by a youth whom Mr Dombey had first inducted into those manly garments which are rarely mentioned by name, she very readily accepted the proposal.

After shaking hands with Mr Toodle and Polly, and kissing all the children, Miss Tox left the house, therefore, with unlimited popularity, and carrying away with her so light a heart that it might have given Mrs Chick offence if that good lady could have weighed it.

Rob the Grinder, in his modesty, would have walked behind, but Miss Tox desired him to keep beside her, for conversational purposes; and, as she afterwards expressed it to his mother, ‘drew him out,’ upon the road.

He drew out so bright, and clear, and shining, that Miss Tox was charmed with him. The more Miss Tox drew him out, the finer he came—like wire. There never was a better or more promising youth—a more affectionate, steady, prudent, sober, honest, meek, candid young man—than Rob drew out, that night.

‘I am quite glad,’ said Miss Tox, arrived at her own door, ‘to know you. I hope you’ll consider me your friend, and that you’ll come and see me as often as you like. Do you keep a money-box?’

‘Yes, Ma’am,’ returned Rob; ‘I’m saving up, against I’ve got enough to put in the Bank, Ma’am.

‘Very laudable indeed,’ said Miss Tox. ‘I’m glad to hear it. Put this half-crown into it, if you please.’

‘Oh thank you, Ma’am,’ replied Rob, ‘but really I couldn’t think of depriving you.’

‘I commend your independent spirit,’ said Miss Tox, ‘but it’s no deprivation, I assure you. I shall be offended if you don’t take it, as a mark of my good-will. Good-night, Robin.’

‘Good-night, Ma’am,’ said Rob, ‘and thank you!’

Who ran sniggering off to get change, and tossed it away with a pieman. But they never taught honour at the Grinders’ School, where the system that prevailed was particularly strong in the engendering of hypocrisy. Insomuch, that many of the friends and masters of past Grinders said, if this were what came of education for the common people, let us have none. Some more rational said, let us have a better one. But the governing powers of the Grinders’ Company were always ready for them, by picking out a few boys who had turned out well in spite of the system, and roundly asserting that they could have only turned out well because of it. Which settled the business of those objectors out of hand, and established the glory of the Grinders’ Institution.