Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens (ebooks that read to you .txt) 📕

At the offices in the City, the ground-glass windows are made more dim by shutters; and while the lighted lamps upon the desks are half extinguished by the day that wanders in, the day is half extinguished by the lamps, and an unusual gloom prevails. There is not much business done. The clerks are indisposed to work; and they make assignations to eat chops in the afternoon, and go up the river. Perch, the messenger, stays long upon his errands; and finds himself in bars of public-houses, invited thither by friends, and holding forth on the uncertainty of human affairs. He goes home to Ball’s Pond earlier in the evening than usual, and treats Mrs Perch to a veal cutlet and Scotch ale. Mr Carker the Manager treats no one; neither is he treated; but alone in his own room he shows his teeth all day; and it would seem that there is something gone from Mr Carker’s path—some obstacle removed—which clears his way before him.

Now the rosy children living opposite to Mr Dombey’s house, peep from their nursery windows down into the street; for there are four black horses at his door, with feathers on their heads; and feathers tremble on the carriage that they draw; and these, and an array of men with scarves and staves, attract a crowd. The juggler who was going to twirl the basin, puts his loose coat on again over his fine dress; and his trudging wife, one-sided with her heavy baby in her arms, loiters to see the company come out. But closer to her dingy breast she presses her baby, when the burden that is so easily carried is borne forth; and the youngest of the rosy children at the high window opposite, needs no restraining hand to check her in her glee, when, pointing with her dimpled finger, she looks into her nurse’s face, and asks ‘What’s that?’

And now, among the knot of servants dressed in mourning, and the weeping women, Mr Dombey passes through the hall to the other carriage that is waiting to receive him. He is not ‘brought down,’ these observers think, by sorrow and distress of mind. His walk is as erect, his bearing is as stiff as ever it has been. He hides his face behind no handkerchief, and looks before him. But that his face is something sunk and rigid, and is pale, it bears the same expression as of old. He takes his place within the carriage, and three other gentlemen follow. Then the grand funeral moves slowly down the street. The feathers are yet nodding in the distance, when the juggler has the basin spinning on a cane, and has the same crowd to admire it. But the juggler’s wife is less alert than usual with the money-box, for a child’s burial has set her thinking that perhaps the baby underneath her shabby shawl may not grow up to be a man, and wear a sky-blue fillet round his head, and salmon-coloured worsted drawers, and tumble in the mud.

The feathers wind their gloomy way along the streets, and come within the sound of a church bell. In this same church, the pretty boy received all that will soon be left of him on earth—a name. All of him that is dead, they lay there, near the perishable substance of his mother. It is well. Their ashes lie where Florence in her walks—oh lonely, lonely walks!—may pass them any day.

The service over, and the clergyman withdrawn, Mr Dombey looks round, demanding in a low voice, whether the person who has been requested to attend to receive instructions for the tablet, is there?

Someone comes forward, and says ‘Yes.’

Mr Dombey intimates where he would have it placed; and shows him, with his hand upon the wall, the shape and size; and how it is to follow the memorial to the mother. Then, with his pencil, he writes out the inscription, and gives it to him: adding, ‘I wish to have it done at once.

‘It shall be done immediately, Sir.’

‘There is really nothing to inscribe but name and age, you see.’

The man bows, glancing at the paper, but appears to hesitate. Mr Dombey not observing his hesitation, turns away, and leads towards the porch.

‘I beg your pardon, Sir;’ a touch falls gently on his mourning cloak; ‘but as you wish it done immediately, and it may be put in hand when I get back—’

‘Well?’

‘Will you be so good as read it over again? I think there’s a mistake.’

‘Where?’

The statuary gives him back the paper, and points out, with his pocket rule, the words, ‘beloved and only child.’

‘It should be, “son,” I think, Sir?’

‘You are right. Of course. Make the correction.’

The father, with a hastier step, pursues his way to the coach. When the other three, who follow closely, take their seats, his face is hidden for the first time—shaded by his cloak. Nor do they see it any more that day. He alights first, and passes immediately into his own room. The other mourners (who are only Mr Chick, and two of the medical attendants) proceed upstairs to the drawing-room, to be received by Mrs Chick and Miss Tox. And what the face is, in the shut-up chamber underneath: or what the thoughts are: what the heart is, what the contest or the suffering: no one knows.

The chief thing that they know, below stairs, in the kitchen, is that ‘it seems like Sunday.’ They can hardly persuade themselves but that there is something unbecoming, if not wicked, in the conduct of the people out of doors, who pursue their ordinary occupations, and wear their everyday attire. It is quite a novelty to have the blinds up, and the shutters open; and they make themselves dismally comfortable over bottles of wine, which are freely broached as on a festival. They are much inclined to moralise. Mr Towlinson proposes with a sigh, ‘Amendment to us all!’ for which, as Cook says with another sigh, ‘There’s room enough, God knows.’ In the evening, Mrs Chick and Miss Tox take to needlework again. In the evening also, Mr Towlinson goes out to take the air, accompanied by the housemaid, who has not yet tried her mourning bonnet. They are very tender to each other at dusky street-corners, and Towlinson has visions of leading an altered and blameless existence as a serious greengrocer in Oxford Market.

There is sounder sleep and deeper rest in Mr Dombey’s house tonight, than there has been for many nights. The morning sun awakens the old household, settled down once more in their old ways. The rosy children opposite run past with hoops. There is a splendid wedding in the church. The juggler’s wife is active with the money-box in another quarter of the town. The mason sings and whistles as he chips out P-A-U-L in the marble slab before him.

And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one weak creature makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of vast eternity can fill it up! Florence, in her innocent affliction, might have answered, ‘Oh my brother, oh my dearly loved and loving brother! Only friend and companion of my slighted childhood! Could any less idea shed the light already dawning on your early grave, or give birth to the softened sorrow that is springing into life beneath this rain of tears!’

‘My dear child,’ said Mrs Chick, who held it as a duty incumbent on her, to improve the occasion, ‘when you are as old as I am—’

‘Which will be the prime of life,’ observed Miss Tox.

‘You will then,’ pursued Mrs Chick, gently squeezing Miss Tox’s hand in acknowledgment of her friendly remark, ‘you will then know that all grief is unavailing, and that it is our duty to submit.’

‘I will try, dear aunt I do try,’ answered Florence, sobbing.

‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Mrs Chick, ‘because; my love, as our dear Miss Tox—of whose sound sense and excellent judgment, there cannot possibly be two opinions—’

‘My dear Louisa, I shall really be proud, soon,’ said Miss Tox.

‘—will tell you, and confirm by her experience,’ pursued Mrs Chick, ‘we are called upon on all occasions to make an effort It is required of us. If any—my dear,’ turning to Miss Tox, ‘I want a word. Mis—Mis-’

‘Demeanour?’ suggested Miss Tox.

‘No, no, no,’ said Mrs Chic ‘How can you! Goodness me, it’s on, the end of my tongue. Mis-’

‘Placed affection?’ suggested Miss Tox, timidly.

‘Good gracious, Lucretia!’ returned Mrs Chick ‘How very monstrous! Misanthrope, is the word I want. The idea! Misplaced affection! I say, if any misanthrope were to put, in my presence, the question “Why were we born?” I should reply, “To make an effort”.’

‘Very good indeed,’ said Miss Tox, much impressed by the originality of the sentiment ‘Very good.’

‘Unhappily,’ pursued Mrs Chick, ‘we have a warning under our own eyes. We have but too much reason to suppose, my dear child, that if an effort had been made in time, in this family, a train of the most trying and distressing circumstances might have been avoided. Nothing shall ever persuade me,’ observed the good matron, with a resolute air, ‘but that if that effort had been made by poor dear Fanny, the poor dear darling child would at least have had a stronger constitution.’

Mrs Chick abandoned herself to her feelings for half a moment; but, as a practical illustration of her doctrine, brought herself up short, in the middle of a sob, and went on again.

‘Therefore, Florence, pray let us see that you have some strength of mind, and do not selfishly aggravate the distress in which your poor Papa is plunged.’

‘Dear aunt!’ said Florence, kneeling quickly down before her, that she might the better and more earnestly look into her face. ‘Tell me more about Papa. Pray tell me about him! Is he quite heartbroken?’

Miss Tox was of a tender nature, and there was something in this appeal that moved her very much. Whether she saw it in a succession, on the part of the neglected child, to the affectionate concern so often expressed by her dead brother—or a love that sought to twine itself about the heart that had loved him, and that could not bear to be shut out from sympathy with such a sorrow, in such sad community of love and grief—or whether she only recognised the earnest and devoted spirit which, although discarded and repulsed, was wrung with tenderness long unreturned, and in the waste and solitude of this bereavement cried to him to seek a comfort in it, and to give some, by some small response—whatever may have been her understanding of it, it moved Miss Tox. For the moment she forgot the majesty of Mrs Chick, and, patting Florence hastily on the cheek, turned aside and suffered the tears to gush from her eyes, without waiting for a lead from that wise matron.

Mrs Chick herself lost, for a moment, the presence of mind on which she so much prided herself; and remained mute, looking on the beautiful young face that had so long, so steadily, and patiently, been turned towards the little bed. But recovering her voice—which was synonymous with her presence of mind, indeed they were one and the same thing—she replied with dignity:

‘Florence, my dear child, your poor Papa is peculiar at times; and to question me about him, is to question me upon a subject which I really do not pretend to understand. I believe I have as much influence with your Papa as anybody has. Still, all I can say is, that he has said very little to me; and that I have only seen him once or twice for a minute at a time, and indeed have hardly seen him then, for his room has been dark. I have said to your Papa, “Paul!”—that is the exact expression I used—“Paul! why do you not take something stimulating?” Your