Chapter 44. A Separation

Dombey and Son

by Charles Dickens

With the day, though not so early as the sun, uprose Miss Susan
Nipper. There was a heaviness in this young maiden's exceedingly
sharp black eyes, that abated somewhat of their sparkling, and
suggested - which was not their usual character - the possibility of
their being sometimes shut. There was likewise a swollen look about
them, as if they had been crying over-night. But the Nipper, so far
from being cast down, was singularly brisk and bold, and all her
energies appeared to be braced up for some great feat. This was
noticeable even in her dress, which was much more tight and trim than
usual; and in occasional twitches of her head as she went about the
house, which were mightily expressive of determination.

In a word, she had formed a determination, and an aspiring one:
it being nothing less than this - to penetrate to Mr Dombey's
presence, and have speech of that gentleman alone. 'I have often said
I would,' she remarked, in a threatening manner, to herself, that
morning, with many twitches of her head, 'and now I will!'

Spurring herself on to the accomplishment of this desperate
design, with a sharpness that was peculiar to herself, Susan Nipper
haunted the hall and staircase during the whole forenoon, without
finding a favourable opportunity for the assault. Not at all baffled
by this discomfiture, which indeed had a stimulating effect, and put
her on her mettle, she diminished nothing of her vigilance; and at
last discovered, towards evening, that her sworn foe Mrs Pipchin,
under pretence of having sat up all night, was dozing in her own
room, and that Mr Dombey was lying on his sofa, unattended.

With a twitch - not of her head merely, this time, but of her
whole self - the Nipper went on tiptoe to Mr Dombey's door, and
knocked. 'Come in!' said Mr Dombey. Susan encouraged herself with a
final twitch, and went in.

Mr Dombey, who was eyeing the fire, gave an amazed look at his
visitor, and raised himself a little on his arm. The Nipper dropped a
curtsey.

'What do you want?' said Mr Dombey.

'If you please, Sir, I wish to speak to you,' said Susan.

Mr Dombey moved his lips as if he were repeating the words, but
he seemed so lost in astonishment at the presumption of the young
woman as to be incapable of giving them utterance.

'I have been in your service, Sir,' said Susan Nipper, with her
usual rapidity, 'now twelve 'year a waiting on Miss Floy my own young
lady who couldn't speak plain when I first come here and I was old in
this house when Mrs Richards was new, I may not be Meethosalem, but I
am not a child in arms.'

Mr Dombey, raised upon his arm and looking at her, offered no
comment on this preparatory statement of fact.

'There never was a dearer or a blesseder young lady than is my
young lady, Sir,' said Susan, 'and I ought to know a great deal
better than some for I have seen her in her grief and I have seen her
in her joy (there's not been much of it) and I have seen her with her
brother and I have seen her in her loneliness and some have never
seen her, and I say to some and all - I do!' and here the black-eyed
shook her head, and slightly stamped her foot; 'that she's the
blessedest and dearest angel is Miss Floy that ever drew the breath
of life, the more that I was torn to pieces Sir the more I'd say it
though I may not be a Fox's Martyr..'

Mr Dombey turned yet paler than his fall had made him, with
indignation and astonishment; and kept his eyes upon the speaker as
if he accused them, and his ears too, of playing him false.

'No one could be anything but true and faithful to Miss Floy,
Sir,' pursued Susan, 'and I take no merit for my service of twelve
year, for I love her - yes, I say to some and all I do!' - and here
the black-eyed shook her head again, and slightly stamped her foot
again, and checked a sob; 'but true and faithful service gives me
right to speak I hope, and speak I must and will now, right or
wrong.

'What do you mean, woman?' said Mr Dombey, glaring at her. 'How
do you dare?'

'What I mean, Sir, is to speak respectful and without offence,
but out, and how I dare I know not but I do!'said Susan. 'Oh! you
don't know my young lady Sir you don't indeed, you'd never know so
little of her, if you did.'

Mr Dombey, in a fury, put his hand out for the bell-rope; but
there was no bell-rope on that side of the fire, and he could not
rise and cross to the other without assistance. The quick eye of the
Nipper detected his helplessness immediately, and now, as she
afterwards observed, she felt she had got him.

'Miss Floy,' said Susan Nipper, 'is the most devoted and most
patient and most dutiful and beautiful of daughters, there ain't no
gentleman, no Sir, though as great and rich as all the greatest and
richest of England put together, but might be proud of her and would
and ought. If he knew her value right, he'd rather lose his greatness
and his fortune piece by piece and beg his way in rags from door to
door, I say to some and all, he would!' cried Susan Nipper, bursting
into tears, 'than bring the sorrow on her tender heart that I have
seen it suffer in this house!'

'Woman,' cried Mr Dombey, 'leave the room.

'Begging your pardon, not even if I am to leave the situation,
Sir,' replied the steadfast Nipper, 'in which I have been so many
years and seen so much - although I hope you'd never have the heart
to send me from Miss Floy for such a cause - will I go now till I
have said the rest, I may not be a Indian widow Sir and I am not and
I would not so become but if I once made up my mind to burn myself
alive, I'd do it! And I've made my mind up to go on.'

Which was rendered no less clear by the expression of Susan
Nipper's countenance, than by her words.

'There ain't a person in your service, Sir,' pursued the
black-eyed, 'that has always stood more in awe of you than me and you
may think how true it is when I make so bold as say that I have
hundreds and hundreds of times thought of speaking to you and never
been able to make my mind up to it till last night, but last night
decided of me.'

Mr Dombey, in a paroxysm of rage, made another grasp at the
bell-rope that was not there, and, in its absence, pulled his hair
rather than nothing.

'I have seen,' said Susan Nipper, 'Miss Floy strive and strive
when nothing but a child so sweet and patient that the best of women
might have copied from her, I've seen her sitting nights together
half the night through to help her delicate brother with his
learning, I've seen her helping him and watching him at other times -
some well know when - I've seen her, with no encouragement and no
help, grow up to be a lady, thank God! that is the grace and pride of
every company she goes in, and I've always seen her cruelly neglected
and keenly feeling of it - I say to some and all, I have! - and never
said one word, but ordering one's self lowly and reverently towards
one's betters, is not to be a worshipper of graven images, and I will
and must speak!'

'Is there anybody there?' cried Mr Dombey, calling out. 'Where
are the men? where are the women? Is there no one there?'

'I left my dear young lady out of bed late last night,' said
Susan, nothing checked, 'and I knew why, for you was ill Sir and she
didn't know how ill and that was enough to make her wretched as I saw
it did. I may not be a Peacock; but I have my eyes - and I sat up a
little in my own room thinking she might be lonesome and might want
me, and I saw her steal downstairs and come to this door as if it was
a guilty thing to look at her own Pa, and then steal back again and
go into them lonely drawing-rooms, a-crying so, that I could hardly
bear to hear it. I can not bear to hear it,' said Susan Nipper,
wiping her black eyes, and fixing them undauntingly on Mr Dombey's
infuriated face. 'It's not the first time I have heard it, not by
many and many a time you don't know your own daughter, Sir, you don't
know what you're doing, Sir, I say to some and all,' cried Susan
Nipper, in a final burst, 'that it's a sinful shame!'

'Why, hoity toity!' cried the voice of Mrs Pipchin, as the black
bombazeen garments of that fair Peruvian Miner swept into the room.
'What's this, indeed?'

Susan favoured Mrs Pipchin with a look she had invented
expressly for her when they first became acquainted, and resigned the
reply to Mr Dombey.

'What's this?' repeated Mr Dombey, almost foaming. 'What's this,
Madam? You who are at the head of this household, and bound to keep
it in order, have reason to inquire. Do you know this woman?'

'I know very little good of her, Sir,' croaked Mrs Pipchin. 'How
dare you come here, you hussy? Go along with you!'

But the inflexible Nipper, merely honouring Mrs Pipchin with
another look, remained.

'Do you call it managing this establishment, Madam,' said Mr
Dombey, 'to leave a person like this at liberty to come and talk to
me! A gentleman - in his own house - in his own room - assailed with
the impertinences of women-servants!'

'Well, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin, with vengeance in her hard
grey eye, 'I exceedingly deplore it; nothing can be more irregular;
nothing can be more out of all bounds and reason; but I regret to
say, Sir, that this young woman is quite beyond control. She has been
spoiled by Miss Dombey, and is amenable to nobody. You know you're
not,' said Mrs Pipchin, sharply, and shaking her head at Susan
Nipper. 'For shame, you hussy! Go along with you!'

'If you find people in my service who are not to be controlled,
Mrs Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, turning back towards the fire, 'you
know what to do with them, I presume. You know what you are here for?
Take her away!'

'Sir, I know what to do,' retorted Mrs Pipchin, 'and of course
shall do it' Susan Nipper,' snapping her up particularly short, 'a
month's warning from this hour.'

'Oh indeed!' cried Susan, loftily.

'Yes,' returned Mrs Pipchin, 'and don't smile at me, you minx,
or I'll know the reason why! Go along with you this minute!'

'I intend to go this minute, you may rely upon it,' said the
voluble Nipper. 'I have been in this house waiting on my young lady a
dozen year and I won't stop in it one hour under notice from a person
owning to the name of Pipchin trust me, Mrs P.'

'A good riddance of bad rubbish!' said that wrathful old lady.
'Get along with you, or I'll have you carried out!'

'My comfort is,' said Susan, looking back at Mr Dombey, 'that I
have told a piece of truth this day which ought to have been told
long before and can't be told too often or too plain and that no
amount of Pipchinses - I hope the number of 'em mayn't be great'
(here Mrs Pipchin uttered a very sharp 'Go along with you!' and Miss
Nipper repeated the look) 'can unsay what I have said, though they
gave a whole year full of warnings beginning at ten o'clock in the
forenoon and never leaving off till twelve at night and died of the
exhaustion which would be a Jubilee!'

With these words, Miss Nipper preceded her foe out of the room;
and walking upstairs to her own apartments in great state, to the
choking exasperation of the ireful Pipchin, sat down among her boxes
and began to cry.

From this soft mood she was soon aroused, with a very wholesome
and refreshing effect, by the voice of Mrs Pipchin outside the
door.

'Does that bold-faced slut,' said the fell Pipchin, 'intend to
take her warning, or does she not?'

Miss Nipper replied from within that the person described did
not inhabit that part of the house, but that her name was Pipchin,
and she was to be found in the housekeeper's room.

'You saucy baggage!' retorted Mrs Pipchin, rattling at the
handle of the door. 'Go along with you this minute. Pack up your
things directly! How dare you talk in this way to a gentle-woman who
has seen better days?'

To which Miss Nipper rejoined from her castle, that she pitied
the better days that had seen Mrs Pipchin; and that for her part she
considered the worst days in the year to be about that lady's mark,
except that they were much too good for her.

'But you needn't trouble yourself to make a noise at my door,'
said Susan Nipper, 'nor to contaminate the key-hole with your eye,
I'm packing up and going you may take your affidavit.'

The Dowager expressed her lively satisfaction at this
intelligence, and with some general opinions upon young hussies as a
race, and especially upon their demerits after being spoiled by Miss
Dombey, withdrew to prepare the Nipper's wages. Susan then bestirred
herself to get her trunks in order, that she might take an immediate
and dignified departure; sobbing heartily all the time, as she
thought of Florence.

The object of her regret was not long in coming to her, for the
news soon spread over the house that Susan Nipper had had a
disturbance with Mrs Pipchin, and that they had both appealed to Mr
Dombey, and that there had been an unprecedented piece of work in Mr
Dombey's room, and that Susan was going. The latter part of this
confused rumour, Florence found to be so correct, that Susan had
locked the last trunk and was sitting upon it with her bonnet on,
when she came into her room.

'Susan!' cried Florence. 'Going to leave me! You!'

'Oh for goodness gracious sake, Miss Floy,' said Susan, sobbing,
'don't speak a word to me or I shall demean myself before them'
Pipchinses, and I wouldn't have 'em see me cry Miss Floy for
worlds!'

'Susan!' said Florence. 'My dear girl, my old friend! What shall
I do without you! Can you bear to go away so?'

'No-n-o-o, my darling dear Miss Floy, I can't indeed,' sobbed
Susan. 'But it can't be helped, I've done my duty' Miss, I have
indeed. It's no fault of mine. I am quite resigned. I couldn't stay
my month or I could never leave you then my darling and I must at
last as well as at first, don't speak to me Miss Floy, for though I'm
pretty firm I'm not a marble doorpost, my own dear.'

'What is it? Why is it?' said Florence, 'Won't you tell me?' For
Susan was shaking her head.

'No-n-no, my darling,' returned Susan. 'Don't ask me, for I
mustn't, and whatever you do don't put in a word for me to stop, for
it couldn't be and you'd only wrong yourself, and so God bless you my
own precious and forgive me any harm I have done, or any temper I
have showed in all these many years!'

With which entreaty, very heartily delivered, Susan hugged her
mistress in her arms.

'My darling there's a many that may come to serve you and be
glad to serve you and who'll serve you well and true,' said Susan,
'but there can't be one who'll serve you so affectionate as me or
love you half as dearly, that's my comfort' Good-bye, sweet Miss
Floy!'

'Where will you go, Susan?' asked her weeping mistress.

'I've got a brother down in the country Miss - a farmer in Essex
said the heart-broken Nipper, 'that keeps ever so many co-o-ows and
pigs and I shall go down there by the coach and sto-op with him, and
don't mind me, for I've got money in the Savings Banks my dear, and
needn't take another service just yet, which I couldn't, couldn't,
couldn't do, my heart's own mistress!' Susan finished with a burst of
sorrow, which was opportunely broken by the voice of Mrs Pipchin
talking downstairs; on hearing which, she dried her red and swollen
eyes, and made a melancholy feint of calling jauntily to Mr Towlinson
to fetch a cab and carry down her boxes.

Florence, pale and hurried and distressed, but withheld from
useless interference even here, by her dread of causing any new
division between her father and his wife (whose stern, indignant face
had been a warning to her a few moments since), and by her
apprehension of being in some way unconsciously connected already
with the dismissal of her old servant and friend, followed, weeping,
downstairs to Edith's dressing-room, whither Susan betook herself to
make her parting curtsey.

'Now, here's the cab, and here's the boxes, get along with you,
do!' said Mrs Pipchin, presenting herself at the same moment. 'I beg
your pardon, Ma'am, but Mr Dombey's orders are imperative.'

Edith, sitting under the hands of her maid - she was going out
to dinner - preserved her haughty face, and took not the least
notice.

'There's your money,' said Mrs Pipchin, who in pursuance of her
system, and in recollection of the Mines, was accustomed to rout the
servants about, as she had routed her young Brighton boarders; to the
everlasting acidulation of Master Bitherstone, 'and the sooner this
house sees your back the better.

Susan had no spirits even for the look that belonged to Ma
Pipchin by right; so she dropped her curtsey to Mrs Dombey (who
inclined her head without one word, and whose eye avoided everyone
but Florence), and gave one last parting hug to her young mistress,
and received her parting embrace in return. Poor Susan's face at this
crisis, in the intensity of her feelings and the determined
suffocation of her sobs, lest one should become audible and be a
triumph to Mrs Pipchin, presented a series of the most extraordinary
physiognomical phenomena ever witnessed.

'I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure,' said Towlinson, outside the
door with the boxes, addressing Florence, 'but Mr Toots is in the
drawing-room, and sends his compliments, and begs to know how
Diogenes and Master is.'

Quick as thought, Florence glided out and hastened downstairs,
where Mr Toots, in the most splendid vestments, was breathing very
hard with doubt and agitation on the subject of her coming.

'Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, 'God bless my
soul!'

This last ejaculation was occasioned by Mr Toots's deep concern
at the distress he saw in Florence's face; which caused him to stop
short in a fit of chuckles, and become an image of despair.

'Dear Mr Toots,' said Florence, 'you are so friendly to me, and
so honest, that I am sure I may ask a favour of you.

'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'if you'll only name one,
you'll - you'll give me an appetite. To which,' said Mr Toots, with
some sentiment, 'I have long been a stranger.

'Susan, who is an old friend of mine, the oldest friend I have,'
said Florence, 'is about to leave here suddenly, and quite alone,
poor girl. She is going home, a little way into the country. Might I
ask you to take care of her until she is in the coach?'

'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'you really do me an honour
and a kindness. This proof of your confidence, after the manner in
which I was Beast enough to conduct myself at Brighton - '

'Yes,' said Florence, hurriedly - 'no - don't think of that.
Then would you have the kindness to - to go? and to be ready to meet
her when she comes out? Thank you a thousand times! You ease my mind
so much. She doesn't seem so desolate. You cannot think how grateful
I feel to you, or what a good friend I am sure you are!' and Florence
in her earnestness thanked him again and again; and Mr Toots, in his
earnestness, hurried away - but backwards, that he might lose no
glimpse of her.

Florence had not the courage to go out, when she saw poor Susan
in the hall, with Mrs Pipchin driving her forth, and Diogenes jumping
about her, and terrifying Mrs Pipchin to the last degree by making
snaps at her bombazeen skirts, and howling with anguish at the sound
of her voice - for the good duenna was the dearest and most cherished
aversion of his breast. But she saw Susan shake hands with the
servants all round, and turn once to look at her old home; and she
saw Diogenes bound out after the cab, and want to follow it, and
testify an impossibility of conviction that he had no longer any
property in the fare; and the door was shut, and the hurry over, and
her tears flowed fast for the loss of an old friend, whom no one
could replace. No one. No one.

Mr Toots, like the leal and trusty soul he was, stopped the
cabriolet in a twinkling, and told Susan Nipper of his commission, at
which she cried more than before.

'Upon my soul and body!' said Mr Toots, taking his seat beside
her. 'I feel for you. Upon my word and honour I think you can hardly
know your own feelings better than I imagine them. I can conceive
nothing more dreadful than to have to leave Miss Dombey.'

Susan abandoned herself to her grief now, and it really was
touching to see her.

'I say,' said Mr Toots, 'now, don't! at least I mean now do, you
know!'

'Do what, Mr Toots!' cried Susan.

'Why, come home to my place, and have some dinner before you
start,' said Mr Toots. 'My cook's a most respectable woman - one of
the most motherly people I ever saw - and she'll be delighted to make
you comfortable. Her son,' said Mr Toots, as an additional
recommendation, 'was educated in the Bluecoat School,' and blown up
in a powder-mill.'

Susan accepting this kind offer, Mr Toots conducted her to his
dwelling, where they were received by the Matron in question who
fully justified his character of her, and by the Chicken who at first
supposed, on seeing a lady in the vehicle, that Mr Dombey had been
doubled up, ably to his old recommendation, and Miss Dombey abducted.
This gentleman awakened in Miss Nipper some considerable
astonishment; for, having been defeated by the Larkey Boy, his visage
was in a state of such great dilapidation, as to be hardly
presentable in society with comfort to the beholders. The Chicken
himself attributed this punishment to his having had the misfortune
to get into Chancery early in the proceedings, when he was severely
fibbed by the Larkey one, and heavily grassed. But it appeared from
the published records of that great contest that the Larkey Boy had
had it all his own way from the beginning, and that the Chicken had
been tapped, and bunged, and had received pepper, and had been made
groggy, and had come up piping, and had endured a complication of
similar strange inconveniences, until he had been gone into and
finished.

After a good repast, and much hospitality, Susan set out for the
coach-office in another cabriolet, with Mr Toots inside, as before,
and the Chicken on the box, who, whatever distinction he conferred on
the little party by the moral weight and heroism of his character,
was scarcely ornamental to it, physically speaking, on account of his
plasters; which were numerous. But the Chicken had registered a vow,
in secret, that he would never leave Mr Toots (who was secretly
pining to get rid of him), for any less consideration than the
good-will and fixtures of a public-house; and being ambitious to go
into that line, and drink himself to death as soon as possible, he
felt it his cue to make his company unacceptable.

The night-coach by which Susan was to go, was on the point of
departure. Mr Toots having put her inside, lingered by the window,
irresolutely, until the driver was about to mount; when, standing on
the step, and putting in a face that by the light of the lamp was
anxious and confused, he said abruptly:

'I say, Susan! Miss Dombey, you know - '

'Yes, Sir.'

'Do you think she could - you know - eh?'

'I beg your pardon, Mr Toots,' said Susan, 'but I don't hear
you.

'Do you think she could be brought, you know - not exactly at
once, but in time - in a long time - to - to love me, you know?
There!' said poor Mr Toots.

'Oh dear no!' returned Susan, shaking her head. 'I should say,
never. Never!'

'Thank'ee!' said Mr Toots. 'It's of no consequence. Good-night.
It's of no consequence, thank'ee!'