Chapter 37. More Warnings than One

Dombey and Son

by Charles Dickens

Florence, Edith, and Mrs Skewton were together next day, and the
carriage was waiting at the door to take them out. For Cleopatra had
her galley again now, and Withers, no longer the-wan, stood upright
in a pigeon-breasted jacket and military trousers, behind her
wheel-less chair at dinner-time and butted no more. The hair of
Withers was radiant with pomatum, in these days of down, and he wore
kid gloves and smelt of the water of Cologne.

They were assembled in Cleopatra's room The Serpent of old Nile
(not to mention her disrespectfully) was reposing on her sofa,
sipping her morning chocolate at three o'clock in the afternoon, and
Flowers the Maid was fastening on her youthful cuffs and frills, and
performing a kind of private coronation ceremony on her, with a
peach-coloured velvet bonnet; the artificial roses in which nodded to
uncommon advantage, as the palsy trifled with them, like a breeze.

'I think I am a little nervous this morning, Flowers,' said Mrs
Skewton. 'My hand quite shakes.'

'You were the life of the party last night, Ma'am, you know,'
returned Flowers, ' and you suffer for it, to-day, you see.'

Edith, who had beckoned Florence to the window, and was looking
out, with her back turned on the toilet of her esteemed mother,
suddenly withdrew from it, as if it had lightened.

'My darling child,' cried Cleopatra, languidly, 'you are not
nervous? Don't tell me, my dear Edith, that you, so enviably
self-possessed, are beginning to be a martyr too, like your
unfortunately constituted mother! Withers, someone at the door.'

'Card, Ma'am,' said Withers, taking it towards Mrs Dombey.

'I am going out,' she said without looking at it.

'My dear love,' drawled Mrs Skewton, 'how very odd to send that
message without seeing the name! Bring it here, Withers. Dear me, my
love; Mr Carker, too! That very sensible person!'

'I am going out,' repeated Edith, in so imperious a tone that
Withers, going to the door, imperiously informed the servant who was
waiting, 'Mrs Dombey is going out. Get along with you,' and shut it
on him.'

But the servant came back after a short absence, and whispered
to Withers again, who once more, and not very willingly, presented
himself before Mrs Dombey.

'If you please, Ma'am, Mr Carker sends his respectful
compliments, and begs you would spare him one minute, if you could -
for business, Ma'am, if you please.'

'Really, my love,' said Mrs Skewton in her mildest manner; for
her daughter's face was threatening; 'if you would allow me to offer
a word, I should recommend - '

'Show him this way,' said Edith. As Withers disappeared to
execute the command, she added, frowning on her mother, 'As he comes
at your recommendation, let him come to your room.'

'May I - shall I go away?' asked Florence, hurriedly.

Edith nodded yes, but on her way to the door Florence met the
visitor coming in. With the same disagreeable mixture of familiarity
and forbearance, with which he had first addressed her, he addressed
her now in his softest manner - hoped she was quite well - needed not
to ask, with such looks to anticipate the answer - had scarcely had
the honour to know her, last night, she was so greatly changed - and
held the door open for her to pass out; with a secret sense of power
in her shrinking from him, that all the deference and politeness of
his manner could not quite conceal.

He then bowed himself for a moment over Mrs Skewton's
condescending hand, and lastly bowed to Edith. Coldly returning his
salute without looking at him, and neither seating herself nor
inviting him to be seated, she waited for him to speak.

Entrenched in her pride and power, and with all the obduracy of
her spirit summoned about her, still her old conviction that she and
her mother had been known by this man in their worst colours, from
their first acquaintance; that every degradation she had suffered in
her own eyes was as plain to him as to herself; that he read her life
as though it were a vile book, and fluttered the leaves before her in
slight looks and tones of voice which no one else could detect;
weakened and undermined her. Proudly as she opposed herself to him,
with her commanding face exacting his humility, her disdainful lip
repulsing him, her bosom angry at his intrusion, and the dark lashes
of her eyes sullenly veiling their light, that no ray of it might
shine upon him - and submissively as he stood before her, with an
entreating injured manner, but with complete submission to her will -
she knew, in her own soul, that the cases were reversed, and that the
triumph and superiority were his, and that he knew it full well.

'I have presumed,' said Mr Carker, 'to solicit an interview, and
I have ventured to describe it as being one of business, because -
'

'Perhaps you are charged by Mr Dombey with some message of
reproof,' said Edit 'You possess Mr Dombey's confidence in such an
unusual degree, Sir, that you would scarcely surprise me if that were
your business.'

'I have no message to the lady who sheds a lustre upon his
name,' said Mr Carker. 'But I entreat that lady, on my own behalf to
be just to a very humble claimant for justice at her hands - a mere
dependant of Mr Dombey's - which is a position of humility; and to
reflect upon my perfect helplessness last night, and the
impossibility of my avoiding the share that was forced upon me in a
very painful occasion.'

'My dearest Edith,' hinted Cleopatra in a low voice, as she held
her eye-glass aside, 'really very charming of Mr What's-his-name. And
full of heart!'

'For I do,' said Mr Carker, appealing to Mrs Skewton with a look
of grateful deference, - 'I do venture to call it a painful occasion,
though merely because it was so to me, who had the misfortune to be
present. So slight a difference, as between the principals - between
those who love each other with disinterested devotion, and would make
any sacrifice of self in such a cause - is nothing. As Mrs Skewton
herself expressed, with so much truth and feeling last night, it is
nothing.'

Edith could not look at him, but she said after a few
moments,

'And your business, Sir - '

'Edith, my pet,' said Mrs Skewton, 'all this time Mr Carker is
standing! My dear Mr Carker, take a seat, I beg.'

He offered no reply to the mother, but fixed his eyes on the
proud daughter, as though he would only be bidden by her, and was
resolved to he bidden by her. Edith, in spite of herself sat down,
and slightly motioned with her hand to him to be seated too. No
action could be colder, haughtier, more insolent in its air of
supremacy and disrespect, but she had struggled against even that
concession ineffectually, and it was wrested from her. That was
enough! Mr Carker sat down.

'May I be allowed, Madam,' said Carker, turning his white teeth
on Mrs Skewton like a light - 'a lady of your excellent sense and
quick feeling will give me credit, for good reason, I am sure - to
address what I have to say, to Mrs Dombey, and to leave her to impart
it to you who are her best and dearest friend - next to Mr
Dombey?'

Mrs Skewton would have retired, but Edith stopped her. Edith
would have stopped him too, and indignantly ordered him to speak
openly or not at all, but that he said, in a low Voice - 'Miss
Florence - the young lady who has just left the room - '

Edith suffered him to proceed. She looked at him now. As he bent
forward, to be nearer, with the utmost show of delicacy and respect,
and with his teeth persuasively arrayed, in a self-depreciating
smile, she felt as if she could have struck him dead.

'Miss Florence's position,' he began, 'has been an unfortunate
one. I have a difficulty in alluding to it to you, whose attachment
to her father is naturally watchful and jealous of every word that
applies to him.' Always distinct and soft in speech, no language
could describe the extent of his distinctness and softness, when he
said these words, or came to any others of a similar import. 'But, as
one who is devoted to Mr Dombey in his different way, and whose life
is passed in admiration of Mr Dombey's character, may I say, without
offence to your tenderness as a wife, that Miss Florence has
unhappily been neglected - by her father. May I say by her
father?'

Edith replied, 'I know it.'

'You know it!' said Mr Carker, with a great appearance of
relief. 'It removes a mountain from my breast. May I hope you know
how the neglect originated; in what an amiable phase of Mr Dombey's
pride - character I mean?'

'You may pass that by, Sir,' she returned, 'and come the sooner
to the end of what you have to say.'

'Indeed, I am sensible, Madam,' replied Carker, - 'trust me, I
am deeply sensible, that Mr Dombey can require no justification in
anything to you. But, kindly judge of my breast by your own, and you
will forgive my interest in him, if in its excess, it goes at all
astray.

What a stab to her proud heart, to sit there, face to face with
him, and have him tendering her false oath at the altar again and
again for her acceptance, and pressing it upon her like the dregs of
a sickening cup she could not own her loathing of or turn away from'.
How shame, remorse, and passion raged within her, when, upright and
majestic in her beauty before him, she knew that in her spirit she
was down at his feet!

'Miss Florence,' said Carker, 'left to the care - if one may
call it care - of servants and mercenary people, in every way her
inferiors, necessarily wanted some guide and compass in her younger
days, and, naturally, for want of them, has been indiscreet, and has
in some degree forgotten her station. There was some folly about one
Walter, a common lad, who is fortunately dead now: and some very
undesirable association, I regret to say, with certain coasting
sailors, of anything but good repute, and a runaway old bankrupt.'

'I have heard the circumstances, Sir,' said Edith, flashing her
disdainful glance upon him, 'and I know that you pervert them. You
may not know it. I hope so.'

'Pardon me,' said Mr Carker, 'I believe that nobody knows them
so well as I. Your generous and ardent nature, Madam - the same
nature which is so nobly imperative in vindication of your beloved
and honoured husband, and which has blessed him as even his merits
deserve - I must respect, defer to, bow before. But, as regards the
circumstances, which is indeed the business I presumed to solicit
your attention to, I can have no doubt, since, in the execution of my
trust as Mr Dombey's confidential - I presume to say - friend, I have
fully ascertained them. In my execution of that trust; in my deep
concern, which you can so well understand, for everything relating to
him, intensified, if you will (for I fear I labour under your
displeasure), by the lower motive of desire to prove my diligence,
and make myself the more acceptable; I have long pursued these
circumstances by myself and trustworthy instruments, and have
innumerable and most minute proofs.'

She raised her eyes no higher than his mouth, but she saw the
means of mischief vaunted in every tooth it contained.

'Pardon me, Madam,' he continued, 'if in my perplexity, I
presume to take counsel with you, and to consult your pleasure. I
think I have observed that you are greatly interested in Miss
Florence?'

What was there in her he had not observed, and did not know?
Humbled and yet maddened by the thought, in every new presentment of
it, however faint, she pressed her teeth upon her quivering lip to
force composure on it, and distantly inclined her head in reply.

'This interest, Madam - so touching an evidence of everything
associated with Mr Dombey being dear to you - induces me to pause
before I make him acquainted with these circumstances, which, as yet,
he does not know. It so shakes me, if I may make the confession, in
my allegiance, that on the intimation of the least desire to that
effect from you, I would suppress them.'

Edith raised her head quickly, and starting back, bent her dark
glance upon him. He met it with his blandest and most deferential
smile, and went on.

'You say that as I describe them, they are perverted. I fear not
- I fear not: but let us assume that they are. The uneasiness I have
for some time felt on the subject, arises in this: that the mere
circumstance of such association often repeated, on the part of Miss
Florence, however innocently and confidingly, would be conclusive
with Mr Dombey, already predisposed against her, and would lead him
to take some step (I know he has occasionally contemplated it) of
separation and alienation of her from his home. Madam, bear with me,
and remember my intercourse with Mr Dombey, and my knowledge of him,
and my reverence for him, almost from childhood, when I say that if
he has a fault, it is a lofty stubbornness, rooted in that noble
pride and sense of power which belong to him, and which we must all
defer to; which is not assailable like the obstinacy of other
characters; and which grows upon itself from day to day, and year to
year.

She bent her glance upon him still; but, look as steadfast as
she would, her haughty nostrils dilated, and her breath came somewhat
deeper, and her lip would slightly curl, as he described that in his
patron to which they must all bow down. He saw it; and though his
expression did not change, she knew he saw it.

'Even so slight an incident as last night's,' he said, 'if I
might refer to it once more, would serve to illustrate my meaning,
better than a greater one. Dombey and Son know neither time, nor
place, nor season, but bear them all down. But I rejoice in its
occurrence, for it has opened the way for me to approach Mrs Dombey
with this subject to-day, even if it has entailed upon me the penalty
of her temporary displeasure. Madam, in the midst of my uneasiness
and apprehension on this subject, I was summoned by Mr Dombey to
Leamington. There I saw you. There I could not help knowing what
relation you would shortly occupy towards him - to his enduring
happiness and yours. There I resolved to await the time of your
establishment at home here, and to do as I have now done. I have, at
heart, no fear that I shall be wanting in my duty to Mr Dombey, if I
bury what I know in your breast; for where there is but one heart and
mind between two persons - as in such a marriage - one almost
represents the other. I can acquit my conscience therefore, almost
equally, by confidence, on such a theme, in you or him. For the
reasons I have mentioned I would select you. May I aspire to the
distinction of believing that my confidence is accepted, and that I
am relieved from my responsibility?'

He long remembered the look she gave him - who could see it, and
forget it? - and the struggle that ensued within her. At last she
said:

'I accept it, Sir You will please to consider this matter at an
end, and that it goes no farther.'

He bowed low, and rose. She rose too, and he took leave with all
humility. But Withers, meeting him on the stairs, stood amazed at the
beauty of his teeth, and at his brilliant smile; and as he rode away
upon his white-legged horse, the people took him for a dentist, such
was the dazzling show he made. The people took her, when she rode out
in her carriage presently, for a great lady, as happy as she was rich
and fine. But they had not seen her, just before, in her own room
with no one by; and they had not heard her utterance of the three
words, 'Oh Florence, Florence!'

Mrs Skewton, reposing on her sofa, and sipping her chocolate,
had heard nothing but the low word business, for which she had a
mortal aversion, insomuch that she had long banished it from her
vocabulary, and had gone nigh, in a charming manner and with an
immense amount of heart, to say nothing of soul, to ruin divers
milliners and others in consequence. Therefore Mrs Skewton asked no
questions, and showed no curiosity. Indeed, the peach-velvet bonnet
gave her sufficient occupation out of doors; for being perched on the
back of her head, and the day being rather windy, it was frantic to
escape from Mrs Skewton's company, and would be coaxed into no sort
of compromise. When the carriage was closed, and the wind shut out,
the palsy played among the artificial roses again like an
almshouse-full of superannuated zephyrs; and altogether Mrs Skewton
had enough to do, and got on but indifferently.

She got on no better towards night; for when Mrs Dombey, in her
dressing-room, had been dressed and waiting for her half an hour, and
Mr Dombey, in the drawing-room, had paraded himself into a state of
solemn fretfulness (they were all three going out to dinner), Flowers
the Maid appeared with a pale face to Mrs Dombey, saying:

'If you please, Ma'am, I beg your pardon, but I can't do nothing
with Missis!'

'What do you mean?' asked Edith.

'Well, Ma'am,' replied the frightened maid, 'I hardly know.
She's making faces!'

Edith hurried with her to her mother's room. Cleopatra was
arrayed in full dress, with the diamonds, short sleeves, rouge,
curls, teeth, and other juvenility all complete; but Paralysis was
not to be deceived, had known her for the object of its errand, and
had struck her at her glass, where she lay like a horrible doll that
had tumbled down.

They took her to pieces in very shame, and put the little of her
that was real on a bed. Doctors were sent for, and soon came.
Powerful remedies were resorted to; opinions given that she would
rally from this shock, but would not survive another; and there she
lay speechless, and staring at the ceiling, for days; sometimes
making inarticulate sounds in answer to such questions as did she
know who were present, and the like: sometimes giving no reply either
by sign or gesture, or in her unwinking eyes.

At length she began to recover consciousness, and in some degree
the power of motion, though not yet of speech. One day the use of her
right hand returned; and showing it to her maid who was in attendance
on her, and appearing very uneasy in her mind, she made signs for a
pencil and some paper. This the maid immediately provided, thinking
she was going to make a will, or write some last request; and Mrs
Dombey being from home, the maid awaited the result with solemn
feelings.

After much painful scrawling and erasing, and putting in of
wrong characters, which seemed to tumble out of the pencil of their
own accord, the old woman produced this document:

'Rose-coloured curtains.' The maid being
perfectly transfixed, and with tolerable reason, Cleopatra amended
the manuscript by adding two words more, when it stood thus:

'Rose-coloured curtains for doctors.' The maid
now perceived remotely that she wished these articles to be provided
for the better presentation of her complexion to the faculty; and as
those in the house who knew her best, had no doubt of the correctness
of this opinion, which she was soon able to establish for herself the
rose-coloured curtains were added to her bed, and she mended with
increased rapidity from that hour. She was soon able to sit up, in
curls and a laced cap and nightgown, and to have a little artificial
bloom dropped into the hollow caverns of her cheeks.

It was a tremendous sight to see this old woman in her finery
leering and mincing at Death, and playing off her youthful tricks
upon him as if he had been the Major; but an alteration in her mind
that ensued on the paralytic stroke was fraught with as much matter
for reflection, and was quite as ghastly.

Whether the weakening of her intellect made her more cunning and
false than before, or whether it confused her between what she had
assumed to be and what she really had been, or whether it had
awakened any glimmering of remorse, which could neither struggle into
light nor get back into total darkness, or whether, in the jumble of
her faculties, a combination of these effects had been shaken up,
which is perhaps the more likely supposition, the result was this: -
That she became hugely exacting in respect of Edith's affection and
gratitude and attention to her; highly laudatory of herself as a most
inestimable parent; and very jealous of having any rival in Edith's
regard. Further, in place of remembering that compact made between
them for an avoidance of the subject, she constantly alluded to her
daughter's marriage as a proof of her being an incomparable mother;
and all this, with the weakness and peevishness of such a state,
always serving for a sarcastic commentary on her levity and
youthfulness.

'Where is Mrs Dombey? she would say to her maid.

'Gone out, Ma'am.'

'Gone out! Does she go out to shun her Mama, Flowers?'

'La bless you, no, Ma'am. Mrs Dombey has only gone out for a
ride with Miss Florence.'

'Miss Florence. Who's Miss Florence? Don't tell me about Miss
Florence. What's Miss Florence to her, compared to me?'

The apposite display of the diamonds, or the peach-velvet bonnet
(she sat in the bonnet to receive visitors, weeks before she could
stir out of doors), or the dressing of her up in some gaud or other,
usually stopped the tears that began to flow hereabouts; and she
would remain in a complacent state until Edith came to see her; when,
at a glance of the proud face, she would relapse again.

'Well, I am sure, Edith!' she would cry, shaking her head.

'What is the matter, mother?'

'Matter! I really don't know what is the matter. The world is
coming to such an artificial and ungrateful state, that I begin to
think there's no Heart - or anything of that sort - left in it,
positively. Withers is more a child to me than you are. He attends to
me much more than my own daughter. I almost wish I didn't look so
young - and all that kind of thing - and then perhaps I should be
more considered.'

'What would you have, mother?'

'Oh, a great deal, Edith,' impatiently.

'Is there anything you want that you have not? It is your own
fault if there be.'

'My own fault!' beginning to whimper. 'The parent I have been to
you, Edith: making you a companion from your cradle! And when you
neglect me, and have no more natural affection for me than if I was a
stranger - not a twentieth part of the affection that you have for
Florence - but I am only your mother, and should corrupt her in a
day! - you reproach me with its being my own fault.'

'Mother, mother, I reproach you with nothing. Why will you
always dwell on this?'

'Isn't it natural that I should dwell on this, when I am all
affection and sensitiveness, and am wounded in the cruellest way,
whenever you look at me?'

'I do not mean to wound you, mother. Have you no remembrance of
what has been said between us? Let the Past rest.'

'Yes, rest! And let gratitude to me rest; and let affection for
me rest; and let me rest in my out-of-the-way room, with no society
and no attention, while you find new relations to make much of, who
have no earthly claim upon you! Good gracious, Edith, do you know
what an elegant establishment you are at the head of?'

'Yes. Hush!'

'And that gentlemanly creature, Dombey? Do you know that you are
married to him, Edith, and that you have a settlement and a position,
and a carriage, and I don't know what?'

'Indeed, I know it, mother; well.'

'As you would have had with that delightful good soul - what did
they call him? - Granger - if he hadn't died. And who have you to
thank for all this, Edith?'

'You, mother; you.'

'Then put your arms round my neck, and kiss me; and show me,
Edith, that you know there never was a better Mama than I have been
to you. And don't let me become a perfect fright with teasing and
wearing myself at your ingratitude, or when I'm out again in society
no soul will know me, not even that hateful animal, the Major.'

But, sometimes, when Edith went nearer to her, and bending down
her stately head, Put her cold cheek to hers, the mother would draw
back as If she were afraid of her, and would fall into a fit of
trembling, and cry out that there was a wandering in her wits. And
sometimes she would entreat her, with humility, to sit down on the
chair beside her bed, and would look at her (as she sat there
brooding) with a face that even the rose-coloured curtains could not
make otherwise than scared and wild.

The rose-coloured curtains blushed, in course of time, on
Cleopatra's bodily recovery, and on her dress - more juvenile than
ever, to repair the ravages of illness - and on the rouge, and on the
teeth, and on the curls, and on the diamonds, and the short sleeves,
and the whole wardrobe of the doll that had tumbled down before the
mirror. They blushed, too, now and then, upon an indistinctness in
her speech which she turned off with a girlish giggle, and on an
occasional failing In her memory, that had no rule in it, but came
and went fantastically, as if in mockery of her fantastic self.

But they never blushed upon a change in the new manner of her
thought and speech towards her daughter. And though that daughter
often came within their influence, they never blushed upon her
loveliness irradiated by a smile, or softened by the light of filial
love, in its stem beauty.