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

Joseph Bagstock tells you to your face, Dombey, as he tells his club behind your back, that he never will be muzzled when Paul Dombey is in question. Now, damme, Sir,’ concludes the Major, with great firmness, ‘what do you make of that?’

‘Major,’ says Mr Dombey, ‘I assure you that I am really obliged to you. I had no idea of checking your too partial friendship.’

‘Not too partial, Sir!’ exclaims the choleric Major. ‘Dombey, I deny it.’

‘Your friendship I will say then,’ pursues Mr Dombey, ‘on any account. Nor can I forget, Major, on such an occasion as the present, how much I am indebted to it.’

‘Dombey,’ says the Major, with appropriate action, ‘that is the hand of Joseph Bagstock: of plain old Joey B., Sir, if you like that better! That is the hand, of which His Royal Highness the late Duke of York, did me the honour to observe, Sir, to His Royal Highness the late Duke of Kent, that it was the hand of Josh: a rough and tough, and possibly an up-to-snuff, old vagabond. Dombey, may the present moment be the least unhappy of our lives. God bless you!’

Now enters Mr Carker, gorgeous likewise, and smiling like a wedding-guest indeed. He can scarcely let Mr Dombey’s hand go, he is so congratulatory; and he shakes the Major’s hand so heartily at the same time, that his voice shakes too, in accord with his arms, as it comes sliding from between his teeth.

‘The very day is auspicious,’ says Mr Carker. ‘The brightest and most genial weather! I hope I am not a moment late?’

‘Punctual to your time, Sir,’ says the Major.

‘I am rejoiced, I am sure,’ says Mr Carker. ‘I was afraid I might be a few seconds after the appointed time, for I was delayed by a procession of waggons; and I took the liberty of riding round to Brook Street’—this to Mr Dombey—‘to leave a few poor rarities of flowers for Mrs Dombey. A man in my position, and so distinguished as to be invited here, is proud to offer some homage in acknowledgment of his vassalage: and as I have no doubt Mrs Dombey is overwhelmed with what is costly and magnificent;’ with a strange glance at his patron; ‘I hope the very poverty of my offering, may find favour for it.’

‘Mrs Dombey, that is to be,’ returns Mr Dombey, condescendingly, ‘will be very sensible of your attention, Carker, I am sure.’

‘And if she is to be Mrs Dombey this morning, Sir,’ says the Major, putting down his coffee-cup, and looking at his watch, ‘it’s high time we were off!’

Forth, in a barouche, ride Mr Dombey, Major Bagstock, and Mr Carker, to the church. Mr Sownds the Beadle has long risen from the steps, and is in waiting with his cocked hat in his hand. Mrs Miff curtseys and proposes chairs in the vestry. Mr Dombey prefers remaining in the church. As he looks up at the organ, Miss Tox in the gallery shrinks behind the fat leg of a cherubim on a monument, with cheeks like a young Wind. Captain Cuttle, on the contrary, stands up and waves his hook, in token of welcome and encouragement. Mr Toots informs the Chicken, behind his hand, that the middle gentleman, he in the fawn-coloured pantaloons, is the father of his love. The Chicken hoarsely whispers Mr Toots that he’s as stiff a cove as ever he see, but that it is within the resources of Science to double him up, with one blow in the waistcoat.

Mr Sownds and Mrs Miff are eyeing Mr Dombey from a little distance, when the noise of approaching wheels is heard, and Mr Sownds goes out. Mrs Miff, meeting Mr Dombey’s eye as it is withdrawn from the presumptuous maniac upstairs, who salutes him with so much urbanity, drops a curtsey, and informs him that she believes his ‘good lady’ is come. Then there is a crowding and a whispering at the door, and the good lady enters, with a haughty step.

There is no sign upon her face, of last night’s suffering; there is no trace in her manner, of the woman on the bended knees, reposing her wild head, in beautiful abandonment, upon the pillow of the sleeping girl. That girl, all gentle and lovely, is at her side—a striking contrast to her own disdainful and defiant figure, standing there, composed, erect, inscrutable of will, resplendent and majestic in the zenith of its charms, yet beating down, and treading on, the admiration that it challenges.

There is a pause while Mr Sownds the Beadle glides into the vestry for the clergyman and clerk. At this juncture, Mrs Skewton speaks to Mr Dombey: more distinctly and emphatically than her custom is, and moving at the same time, close to Edith.

‘My dear Dombey,’ said the good Mama, ‘I fear I must relinquish darling Florence after all, and suffer her to go home, as she herself proposed. After my loss of to-day, my dear Dombey, I feel I shall not have spirits, even for her society.’

‘Had she not better stay with you?’ returns the Bridegroom.

‘I think not, my dear Dombey. No, I think not. I shall be better alone. Besides, my dearest Edith will be her natural and constant guardian when you return, and I had better not encroach upon her trust, perhaps. She might be jealous. Eh, dear Edith?’

The affectionate Mama presses her daughter’s arm, as she says this; perhaps entreating her attention earnestly.

‘To be serious, my dear Dombey,’ she resumes, ‘I will relinquish our dear child, and not inflict my gloom upon her. We have settled that, just now. She fully understands, dear Dombey. Edith, my dear,—she fully understands.’

Again, the good mother presses her daughter’s arm. Mr Dombey offers no additional remonstrance; for the clergyman and clerk appear; and Mrs Miff, and Mr Sownds the Beadle, group the party in their proper places at the altar rails.

The sun is shining down, upon the golden letters of the ten commandments. Why does the Bride’s eye read them, one by one? Which one of all the ten appears the plainest to her in the glare of light? False Gods; murder; theft; the honour that she owes her mother;—which is it that appears to leave the wall, and printing itself in glowing letters, on her book!

‘Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?’

Cousin Feenix does that. He has come from Baden-Baden on purpose. ‘Confound it,’ Cousin Feenix says—good-natured creature, Cousin Feenix—‘when we do get a rich City fellow into the family, let us show him some attention; let us do something for him.’

‘I give this woman to be married to this man,’ saith Cousin Feenix therefore. Cousin Feenix, meaning to go in a straight line, but turning off sideways by reason of his wilful legs, gives the wrong woman to be married to this man, at first—to wit, a brides—maid of some condition, distantly connected with the family, and ten years Mrs Skewton’s junior —but Mrs Miff, interposing her mortified bonnet, dexterously turns him back, and runs him, as on castors, full at the ‘good lady:’ whom Cousin Feenix giveth to married to this man accordingly.

And will they in the sight of heaven—?

Ay, that they will: Mr Dombey says he will. And what says Edith? She will.

So, from that day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do them part, they plight their troth to one another, and are married.

In a firm, free hand, the Bride subscribes her name in the register, when they adjourn to the vestry. ‘There ain’t a many ladies come here,’ Mrs Miff says with a curtsey—to look at Mrs Miff, at such a season, is to make her mortified bonnet go down with a dip—‘writes their names like this good lady!’ Mr Sownds the Beadle thinks it is a truly spanking signature, and worthy of the writer—this, however, between himself and conscience.

Florence signs too, but unapplauded, for her hand shakes. All the party sign; Cousin Feenix last; who puts his noble name into a wrong place, and enrols himself as having been born that morning.

The Major now salutes the Bride right gallantly, and carries out that branch of military tactics in reference to all the ladies: notwithstanding Mrs Skewton’s being extremely hard to kiss, and squeaking shrilly in the sacred edifice. The example is followed by Cousin Feenix and even by Mr Dombey. Lastly, Mr Carker, with his white teeth glistening, approaches Edith, more as if he meant to bite her, than to taste the sweets that linger on her lips.

There is a glow upon her proud cheek, and a flashing in her eyes, that may be meant to stay him; but it does not, for he salutes her as the rest have done, and wishes her all happiness.

‘If wishes,’ says he in a low voice, ‘are not superfluous, applied to such a union.’

‘I thank you, Sir,’ she answers, with a curled lip, and a heaving bosom.

But, does Edith feel still, as on the night when she knew that Mr Dombey would return to offer his alliance, that Carker knows her thoroughly, and reads her right, and that she is more degraded by his knowledge of her, than by aught else? Is it for this reason that her haughtiness shrinks beneath his smile, like snow within the hands that grasps it firmly, and that her imperious glance droops in meeting his, and seeks the ground?

‘I am proud to see,’ said Mr Carker, with a servile stooping of his neck, which the revelations making by his eyes and teeth proclaim to be a lie, ‘I am proud to see that my humble offering is graced by Mrs Dombey’s hand, and permitted to hold so favoured a place in so joyful an occasion.’

Though she bends her head, in answer, there is something in the momentary action of her hand, as if she would crush the flowers it holds, and fling them, with contempt, upon the ground. But, she puts the hand through the arm of her new husband, who has been standing near, conversing with the Major, and is proud again, and motionless, and silent.

The carriages are once more at the church door. Mr Dombey, with his bride upon his arm, conducts her through the twenty families of little women who are on the steps, and every one of whom remembers the fashion and the colour of her every article of dress from that moment, and reproduces it on her doll, who is for ever being married. Cleopatra and Cousin Feenix enter the same carriage. The Major hands into a second carriage, Florence, and the bridesmaid who so narrowly escaped being given away by mistake, and then enters it himself, and is followed by Mr Carker. Horses prance and caper; coachmen and footmen shine in fluttering favours, flowers, and new-made liveries. Away they dash and rattle through the streets; and as they pass along, a thousand heads are turned to look at them, and a thousand sober moralists revenge themselves for not being married too, that morning, by reflecting that these people little think such happiness can’t last.