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

‘I don’t know, mother.’ Rob hesitated, and looked down. ‘Father—when’s he coming home?’

‘Not till two o’clock to-morrow morning.’

‘I’ll come back, mother dear!’ cried Rob. And passing through the shrill cry of his brothers and sisters in reception of this promise, he followed Mr Carker out.

‘What!’ said Mr Carker, who had heard this. ‘You have a bad father, have you?’

‘No, Sir!’ returned Rob, amazed. ‘There ain’t a better nor a kinder father going, than mine is.’

‘Why don’t you want to see him then?’ inquired his patron.

‘There’s such a difference between a father and a mother, Sir,’ said Rob, after faltering for a moment. ‘He couldn’t hardly believe yet that I was doing to do better—though I know he’d try to—but a mother—she always believes what’s good, Sir; at least, I know my mother does, God bless her!’

Mr Carker’s mouth expanded, but he said no more until he was mounted on his horse, and had dismissed the man who held it, when, looking down from the saddle steadily into the attentive and watchful face of the boy, he said:

‘You’ll come to me tomorrow morning, and you shall be shown where that old gentleman lives; that old gentleman who was with me this morning; where you are going, as you heard me say.’

‘Yes, Sir,’ returned Rob.

‘I have a great interest in that old gentleman, and in serving him, you serve me, boy, do you understand? Well,’ he added, interrupting him, for he saw his round face brighten when he was told that: ‘I see you do. I want to know all about that old gentleman, and how he goes on from day to day—for I am anxious to be of service to him—and especially who comes there to see him. Do you understand?’

Rob nodded his steadfast face, and said ‘Yes, Sir,’ again.

‘I should like to know that he has friends who are attentive to him, and that they don’t desert him—for he lives very much alone now, poor fellow; but that they are fond of him, and of his nephew who has gone abroad. There is a very young lady who may perhaps come to see him. I want particularly to know all about her.’

‘I’ll take care, Sir,’ said the boy.

‘And take care,’ returned his patron, bending forward to advance his grinning face closer to the boy’s, and pat him on the shoulder with the handle of his whip: ‘take care you talk about affairs of mine to nobody but me.’

‘To nobody in the world, Sir,’ replied Rob, shaking his head.

‘Neither there,’ said Mr Carker, pointing to the place they had just left, ‘nor anywhere else. I’ll try how true and grateful you can be. I’ll prove you!’ Making this, by his display of teeth and by the action of his head, as much a threat as a promise, he turned from Rob’s eyes, which were nailed upon him as if he had won the boy by a charm, body and soul, and rode away. But again becoming conscious, after trotting a short distance, that his devoted henchman, girt as before, was yielding him the same attendance, to the great amusement of sundry spectators, he reined up, and ordered him off. To ensure his obedience, he turned in the saddle and watched him as he retired. It was curious to see that even then Rob could not keep his eyes wholly averted from his patron’s face, but, constantly turning and turning again to look after him, involved himself in a tempest of buffetings and jostlings from the other passengers in the street: of which, in the pursuit of the one paramount idea, he was perfectly heedless.

Mr Carker the Manager rode on at a foot-pace, with the easy air of one who had performed all the business of the day in a satisfactory manner, and got it comfortably off his mind. Complacent and affable as man could be, Mr Carker picked his way along the streets and hummed a soft tune as he went. He seemed to purr, he was so glad.

And in some sort, Mr Carker, in his fancy, basked upon a hearth too. Coiled up snugly at certain feet, he was ready for a spring, Or for a tear, or for a scratch, or for a velvet touch, as the humour took him and occasion served. Was there any bird in a cage, that came in for a share of his regards?

‘A very young lady!’ thought Mr Carker the Manager, through his song. ‘Ay! when I saw her last, she was a little child. With dark eyes and hair, I recollect, and a good face; a very good face! I daresay she’s pretty.’

More affable and pleasant yet, and humming his song until his many teeth vibrated to it, Mr Carker picked his way along, and turned at last into the shady street where Mr Dombey’s house stood. He had been so busy, winding webs round good faces, and obscuring them with meshes, that he hardly thought of being at this point of his ride, until, glancing down the cold perspective of tall houses, he reined in his horse quickly within a few yards of the door. But to explain why Mr Carker reined in his horse quickly, and what he looked at in no small surprise, a few digressive words are necessary.

Mr Toots, emancipated from the Blimber thraldom and coming into the possession of a certain portion of his worldly wealth, ‘which,’ as he had been wont, during his last half-year’s probation, to communicate to Mr Feeder every evening as a new discovery, ‘the executors couldn’t keep him out of’ had applied himself with great diligence, to the science of Life. Fired with a noble emulation to pursue a brilliant and distinguished career, Mr Toots had furnished a choice set of apartments; had established among them a sporting bower, embellished with the portraits of winning horses, in which he took no particle of interest; and a divan, which made him poorly. In this delicious abode, Mr Toots devoted himself to the cultivation of those gentle arts which refine and humanise existence, his chief instructor in which was an interesting character called the Game Chicken, who was always to be heard of at the bar of the Black Badger, wore a shaggy white great-coat in the warmest weather, and knocked Mr Toots about the head three times a week, for the small consideration of ten and six per visit.

The Game Chicken, who was quite the Apollo of Mr Toots’s Pantheon, had introduced to him a marker who taught billiards, a Life Guard who taught fencing, a jobmaster who taught riding, a Cornish gentleman who was up to anything in the athletic line, and two or three other friends connected no less intimately with the fine arts. Under whose auspices Mr Toots could hardly fail to improve apace, and under whose tuition he went to work.

But however it came about, it came to pass, even while these gentlemen had the gloss of novelty upon them, that Mr Toots felt, he didn’t know how, unsettled and uneasy. There were husks in his corn, that even Game Chickens couldn’t peck up; gloomy giants in his leisure, that even Game Chickens couldn’t knock down. Nothing seemed to do Mr Toots so much good as incessantly leaving cards at Mr Dombey’s door. No taxgatherer in the British Dominions—that wide-spread territory on which the sun never sets, and where the tax-gatherer never goes to bed—was more regular and persevering in his calls than Mr Toots.

Mr Toots never went upstairs; and always performed the same ceremonies, richly dressed for the purpose, at the hall door.

‘Oh! Good morning!’ would be Mr Toots’s first remark to the servant. ‘For Mr Dombey,’ would be Mr Toots’s next remark, as he handed in a card. ‘For Miss Dombey,’ would be his next, as he handed in another.

Mr Toots would then turn round as if to go away; but the man knew him by this time, and knew he wouldn’t.

‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ Mr Toots would say, as if a thought had suddenly descended on him. ‘Is the young woman at home?’

The man would rather think she was, but wouldn’t quite know. Then he would ring a bell that rang upstairs, and would look up the staircase, and would say, yes, she was at home, and was coming down. Then Miss Nipper would appear, and the man would retire.

‘Oh! How de do?’ Mr Toots would say, with a chuckle and a blush.

Susan would thank him, and say she was very well.

‘How’s Diogenes going on?’ would be Mr Toots’s second interrogation.

Very well indeed. Miss Florence was fonder and fonder of him every day. Mr Toots was sure to hail this with a burst of chuckles, like the opening of a bottle of some effervescent beverage.

‘Miss Florence is quite well, Sir,’ Susan would add.

‘Oh, it’s of no consequence, thank’ee,’ was the invariable reply of Mr Toots; and when he had said so, he always went away very fast.

Now it is certain that Mr Toots had a filmy something in his mind, which led him to conclude that if he could aspire successfully in the fulness of time, to the hand of Florence, he would be fortunate and blest. It is certain that Mr Toots, by some remote and roundabout road, had got to that point, and that there he made a stand. His heart was wounded; he was touched; he was in love. He had made a desperate attempt, one night, and had sat up all night for the purpose, to write an acrostic on Florence, which affected him to tears in the conception. But he never proceeded in the execution further than the words ‘For when I gaze,’—the flow of imagination in which he had previously written down the initial letters of the other seven lines, deserting him at that point.

Beyond devising that very artful and politic measure of leaving a card for Mr Dombey daily, the brain of Mr Toots had not worked much in reference to the subject that held his feelings prisoner. But deep consideration at length assured Mr Toots that an important step to gain, was, the conciliation of Miss Susan Nipper, preparatory to giving her some inkling of his state of mind.

A little light and playful gallantry towards this lady seemed the means to employ in that early chapter of the history, for winning her to his interests. Not being able quite to make up his mind about it, he consulted the Chicken—without taking that gentleman into his confidence; merely informing him that a friend in Yorkshire had written to him (Mr Toots) for his opinion on such a question. The Chicken replying that his opinion always was, ‘Go in and win,’ and further, ‘When your man’s before you and your work cut out, go in and do it,’ Mr Toots considered this a figurative way of supporting his own view of the case, and heroically resolved to kiss Miss Nipper next day.

Upon the next day, therefore, Mr Toots, putting into requisition some of the greatest marvels that Burgess and Co. had ever turned out, went off to Mr Dombey’s upon this design. But his heart failed him so much as he approached the scene of action, that, although he arrived on the ground at three o’clock in the afternoon, it was six before he knocked at the door.

Everything happened as usual, down to the point where Susan said her young mistress was well, and Mr Toots said it was of no consequence. To her amazement, Mr Toots, instead of going off, like a rocket, after that observation, lingered and chuckled.

‘Perhaps you’d like to walk upstairs, Sir!’ said Susan.

‘Well, I think I will come in!’ said Mr Toots.

But instead of walking upstairs, the bold Toots made an awkward plunge at Susan when the door was shut, and embracing that fair creature, kissed her on the cheek.

‘Go along with you!’ cried Susan, ‘or Ill tear