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

avaricious face, ‘or sixpence! For old acquaintance sake. I’m so poor. And my handsome gal’—looking over her shoulder—‘she’s my gal, Rob—half starves me.’

But as the reluctant Grinder put it in her hand, her daughter, coming quietly back, caught the hand in hers, and twisted out the coin.

‘What,’ she said, ‘mother! always money! money from the first, and to the last. Do you mind so little what I said but now? Here. Take it!’

The old woman uttered a moan as the money was restored, but without in any other way opposing its restoration, hobbled at her daughter’s side out of the yard, and along the by-street upon which it opened. The astonished and dismayed Rob staring after them, saw that they stopped, and fell to earnest conversation very soon; and more than once observed a darkly threatening action of the younger woman’s hand (obviously having reference to someone of whom they spoke), and a crooning feeble imitation of it on the part of Mrs Brown, that made him earnestly hope he might not be the subject of their discourse.

With the present consolation that they were gone, and with the prospective comfort that Mrs Brown could not live for ever, and was not likely to live long to trouble him, the Grinder, not otherwise regretting his misdeeds than as they were attended with such disagreeable incidental consequences, composed his ruffled features to a more serene expression by thinking of the admirable manner in which he had disposed of Captain Cuttle (a reflection that seldom failed to put him in a flow of spirits), and went to the Dombey Counting House to receive his master’s orders.

There his master, so subtle and vigilant of eye, that Rob quaked before him, more than half expecting to be taxed with Mrs Brown, gave him the usual morning’s box of papers for Mr Dombey, and a note for Mrs Dombey: merely nodding his head as an enjoinder to be careful, and to use dispatch—a mysterious admonition, fraught in the Grinder’s imagination with dismal warnings and threats; and more powerful with him than any words.

Alone again, in his own room, Mr Carker applied himself to work, and worked all day. He saw many visitors; overlooked a number of documents; went in and out, to and from, sundry places of mercantile resort; and indulged in no more abstraction until the day’s business was done. But, when the usual clearance of papers from his table was made at last, he fell into his thoughtful mood once more.

He was standing in his accustomed place and attitude, with his eyes intently fixed upon the ground, when his brother entered to bring back some letters that had been taken out in the course of the day. He put them quietly on the table, and was going immediately, when Mr Carker the Manager, whose eyes had rested on him, on his entrance, as if they had all this time had him for the subject of their contemplation, instead of the office-floor, said:

‘Well, John Carker, and what brings you here?’

His brother pointed to the letters, and was again withdrawing.

‘I wonder,’ said the Manager, ‘that you can come and go, without inquiring how our master is’.

‘We had word this morning in the Counting House, that Mr Dombey was doing well,’ replied his brother.

‘You are such a meek fellow,’ said the Manager, with a smile,—‘but you have grown so, in the course of years—that if any harm came to him, you’d be miserable, I dare swear now.’

‘I should be truly sorry, James,’ returned the other.

‘He would be sorry!’ said the Manager, pointing at him, as if there were some other person present to whom he was appealing. ‘He would be truly sorry! This brother of mine! This junior of the place, this slighted piece of lumber, pushed aside with his face to the wall, like a rotten picture, and left so, for Heaven knows how many years he’s all gratitude and respect, and devotion too, he would have me believe!’

‘I would have you believe nothing, James,’ returned the other. ‘Be as just to me as you would to any other man below you. You ask a question, and I answer it.’

‘And have you nothing, Spaniel,’ said the Manager, with unusual irascibility, ‘to complain of in him? No proud treatment to resent, no insolence, no foolery of state, no exaction of any sort! What the devil! are you man or mouse?’

‘It would be strange if any two persons could be together for so many years, especially as superior and inferior, without each having something to complain of in the other—as he thought, at all events,’ replied John Carker. ‘But apart from my history here—’

‘His history here!’ exclaimed the Manager. ‘Why, there it is. The very fact that makes him an extreme case, puts him out of the whole chapter! Well?’

‘Apart from that, which, as you hint, gives me a reason to be thankful that I alone (happily for all the rest) possess, surely there is no one in the House who would not say and feel at least as much. You do not think that anybody here would be indifferent to a mischance or misfortune happening to the head of the House, or anything than truly sorry for it?’

‘You have good reason to be bound to him too!’ said the Manager, contemptuously. ‘Why, don’t you believe that you are kept here, as a cheap example, and a famous instance of the clemency of Dombey and Son, redounding to the credit of the illustrious House?’

‘No,’ replied his brother, mildly, ‘I have long believed that I am kept here for more kind and disinterested reasons.’

‘But you were going,’ said the Manager, with the snarl of a tiger-cat, ‘to recite some Christian precept, I observed.’

‘Nay, James,’ returned the other, ‘though the tie of brotherhood between us has been long broken and thrown away—’

‘Who broke it, good Sir?’ said the Manager.

‘I, by my misconduct. I do not charge it upon you.’

The Manager replied, with that mute action of his bristling mouth, ‘Oh, you don’t charge it upon me!’ and bade him go on.

‘I say, though there is not that tie between us, do not, I entreat, assail me with unnecessary taunts, or misinterpret what I say, or would say. I was only going to suggest to you that it would be a mistake to suppose that it is only you, who have been selected here, above all others, for advancement, confidence and distinction (selected, in the beginning, I know, for your great ability and trustfulness), and who communicate more freely with Mr Dombey than anyone, and stand, it may be said, on equal terms with him, and have been favoured and enriched by him—that it would be a mistake to suppose that it is only you who are tender of his welfare and reputation. There is no one in the House, from yourself down to the lowest, I sincerely believe, who does not participate in that feeling.’

‘You lie!’ said the Manager, red with sudden anger. ‘You’re a hypocrite, John Carker, and you lie.’

‘James!’ cried the other, flushing in his turn. ‘What do you mean by these insulting words? Why do you so basely use them to me, unprovoked?’

‘I tell you,’ said the Manager, ‘that your hypocrisy and meekness—that all the hypocrisy and meekness of this place—is not worth that to me,’ snapping his thumb and finger, ‘and that I see through it as if it were air! There is not a man employed here, standing between myself and the lowest in place (of whom you are very considerate, and with reason, for he is not far off), who wouldn’t be glad at heart to see his master humbled: who does not hate him, secretly: who does not wish him evil rather than good: and who would not turn upon him, if he had the power and boldness. The nearer to his favour, the nearer to his insolence; the closer to him, the farther from him. That’s the creed here!’

‘I don’t know,’ said his brother, whose roused feelings had soon yielded to surprise, ‘who may have abused your ear with such representations; or why you have chosen to try me, rather than another. But that you have been trying me, and tampering with me, I am now sure. You have a different manner and a different aspect from any that I ever saw in you. I will only say to you, once more, you are deceived.’

‘I know I am,’ said the Manager. ‘I have told you so.’

‘Not by me,’ returned his brother. ‘By your informant, if you have one. If not, by your own thoughts and suspicions.’

‘I have no suspicions,’ said the Manager. ‘Mine are certainties. You pusillanimous, abject, cringing dogs! All making the same show, all canting the same story, all whining the same professions, all harbouring the same transparent secret.’

His brother withdrew, without saying more, and shut the door as he concluded. Mr Carker the Manager drew a chair close before the fire, and fell to beating the coals softly with the poker.

‘The faint-hearted, fawning knaves,’ he muttered, with his two shining rows of teeth laid bare. ‘There’s not one among them, who wouldn’t feign to be so shocked and outraged—! Bah! There’s not one among them, but if he had at once the power, and the wit and daring to use it, would scatter Dombey’s pride and lay it low, as ruthlessly as I rake out these ashes.’

As he broke them up and strewed them in the grate, he looked on with a thoughtful smile at what he was doing. ‘Without the same queen beckoner too!’ he added presently; ‘and there is pride there, not to be forgotten—witness our own acquaintance!’ With that he fell into a deeper reverie, and sat pondering over the blackening grate, until he rose up like a man who had been absorbed in a book, and looking round him took his hat and gloves, went to where his horse was waiting, mounted, and rode away through the lighted streets, for it was evening.

He rode near Mr Dombey’s house; and falling into a walk as he approached it, looked up at the windows The window where he had once seen Florence sitting with her dog attracted his attention first, though there was no light in it; but he smiled as he carried his eyes up the tall front of the house, and seemed to leave that object superciliously behind.

‘Time was,’ he said, ‘when it was well to watch even your rising little star, and know in what quarter there were clouds, to shadow you if needful. But a planet has arisen, and you are lost in its light.’

He turned the white-legged horse round the street corner, and sought one shining window from among those at the back of the house. Associated with it was a certain stately presence, a gloved hand, the remembrance how the feathers of a beautiful bird’s wing had been showered down upon the floor, and how the light white down upon a robe had stirred and rustled, as in the rising of a distant storm. These were the things he carried with him as he turned away again, and rode through the darkening and deserted Parks at a quick rate.

In fatal truth, these were associated with a woman, a proud woman, who hated him, but who by slow and sure degrees had been led on by his craft, and her pride and resentment, to endure his company, and little by little to receive him as one who had the privilege to talk to her of her own defiant disregard of her own husband, and her abandonment of high consideration for herself. They were associated with a woman who hated him deeply, and who knew him, and who mistrusted him because she knew him, and because he knew her; but who fed her fierce resentment by suffering him to draw nearer and yet nearer to her every day, in spite of the hate she cherished for him. In spite of it! For that