Chapter 51. Mr Dombey and the World

Dombey and Son

by Charles Dickens

What is the proud man doing, while the days go by? Does he ever
think of his daughter, or wonder where she is gone? Does he suppose
she has come home, and is leading her old life in the weary house? No
one can answer for him. He has never uttered her name, since. His
household dread him too much to approach a subject on which he is
resolutely dumb; and the only person who dares question him, he
silences immediately.

'My dear Paul!' murmurs his sister, sidling into the room, on
the day of Florence's departure, 'your wife! that upstart woman! Is
it possible that what I hear confusedly, is true, and that this is
her return for your unparalleled devotion to her; extending, I am
sure, even to the sacrifice of your own relations, to her caprices
and haughtiness? My poor brother!'

With this speech feelingly reminiscent of her not having been
asked to dinner on the day of the first party, Mrs Chick makes great
use of her pocket-handkerchief, and falls on Mr Dombey's neck. But Mr
Dombey frigidly lifts her off, and hands her to a chair.

'I thank you, Louisa,' he says, 'for this mark of your
affection; but desire that our conversation may refer to any other
subject. When I bewail my fate, Louisa, or express myself as being in
want of consolation, you can offer it, if you will have the
goodness.'

'My dear Paul,' rejoins his sister, with her handkerchief to her
face, and shaking her head, 'I know your great spirit, and will say
no more upon a theme so painful and revolting;' on the heads of which
two adjectives, Mrs Chick visits scathing indignation; 'but pray let
me ask you - though I dread to hear something that will shock and
distress me - that unfortunate child Florence -

'Louisa!' says her brother, sternly, 'silence! Not another word
of this!'

Mrs Chick can only shake her head, and use her handkerchief, and
moan over degenerate Dombeys, who are no Dombeys. But whether
Florence has been inculpated in the flight of Edith, or has followed
her, or has done too much, or too little, or anything, or nothing,
she has not the least idea.

He goes on, without deviation, keeping his thoughts and feelings
close within his own breast, and imparting them to no one. He makes
no search for his daughter. He may think that she is with his sister,
or that she is under his own roof. He may think of her constantly, or
he may never think about her. It is all one for any sign he makes.

But this is sure; he does not think that he has lost her. He has
no suspicion of the truth. He has lived too long shut up in his
towering supremacy, seeing her, a patient gentle creature, in the
path below it, to have any fear of that. Shaken as he is by his
disgrace, he is not yet humbled to the level earth. The root is broad
and deep, and in the course of years its fibres have spread out and
gathered nourishment from everything around it. The tree is struck,
but not down.

Though he hide the world within him from the world without -
which he believes has but one purpose for the time, and that, to
watch him eagerly wherever he goes - he cannot hide those rebel
traces of it, which escape in hollow eyes and cheeks, a haggard
forehead, and a moody, brooding air. Impenetrable as before, he is
still an altered man; and, proud as ever, he is humbled, or those
marks would not be there.

The world. What the world thinks of him, how it looks at him,
what it sees in him, and what it says - this is the haunting demon of
his mind. It is everywhere where he is; and, worse than that, it is
everywhere where he is not. It comes out with him among his servants,
and yet he leaves it whispering behind; he sees it pointing after him
in the street; it is waiting for him in his counting-house; it leers
over the shoulders of rich men among the merchants; it goes beckoning
and babbling among the crowd; it always anticipates him, in every
place; and is always busiest, he knows, when he has gone away. When
he is shut up in his room at night, it is in his house, outside it,
audible in footsteps on the pavement, visible in print upon the
table, steaming to and fro on railroads and in ships; restless and
busy everywhere, with nothing else but him.

It is not a phantom of his imagination. It is as active in other
people's minds as in his. Witness Cousin Feenix, who comes from
Baden-Baden, purposely to talk to him. Witness Major Bagstock, who
accompanies Cousin Feenix on that friendly mission.

Mr Dombey receives them with his usual dignity, and stands
erect, in his old attitude, before the fire. He feels that the world
is looking at him out of their eyes. That it is in the stare of the
pictures. That Mr Pitt, upon the bookcase, represents it. That there
are eyes in its own map, hanging on the wall.

'An unusually cold spring,' says Mr Dombey - to deceive the
world.

'Damme, Sir,' says the Major, in the warmth of friendship,
'Joseph Bagstock is a bad hand at a counterfeit. If you want to hold
your friends off, Dombey, and to give them the cold shoulder, J. B.
is not the man for your purpose. Joe is rough and tough, Sir; blunt,
Sir, blunt, is Joe. His Royal Highness the late Duke of York did me
the honour to say, deservedly or undeservedly - never mind that - "If
there is a man in the service on whom I can depend for coming to the
point, that man is Joe - Joe Bagstock."'

Mr Dombey intimates his acquiescence.

'Now, Dombey,' says the Major, 'I am a man of the world. Our
friend Feenix - if I may presume to - '

'Honoured, I am sure,' says Cousin Feenix.

' - is,' proceeds the Major, with a wag of his head, 'also a man
of the world. Dombey, you are a man of the world. Now, when three men
of the world meet together, and are friends - as I believe - ' again
appealing to Cousin Feenix.

'I am sure,' says Cousin Feenix, 'most friendly.'

' - and are friends,' resumes the Major, 'Old Joe's opinion is
(I may be wrong), that the opinion of the world on any particular
subject, is very easily got at.

'Undoubtedly,' says Cousin Feenix. 'In point of fact, it's quite
a self-evident sort of thing. I am extremely anxious, Major, that my
friend Dombey should hear me express my very great astonishment and
regret, that my lovely and accomplished relative, who was possessed
of every qualification to make a man happy, should have so far
forgotten what was due to - in point of fact, to the world - as to
commit herself in such a very extraordinary manner. I have been in a
devilish state of depression ever since; and said indeed to Long
Saxby last night - man of six foot ten, with whom my friend Dombey is
probably acquainted - that it had upset me in a confounded way, and
made me bilious. It induces a man to reflect, this kind of fatal
catastrophe,' says Cousin Feenix, 'that events do occur in quite a
providential manner; for if my Aunt had been living at the time, I
think the effect upon a devilish lively woman like herself, would
have been prostration, and that she would have fallen, in point of
fact, a victim.'

'Now, Dombey! - ' says the Major, resuming his discourse with
great energy.

'I beg your pardon,' interposes Cousin Feenix. 'Allow me another
word. My friend Dombey will permit me to say, that if any
circumstance could have added to the most infernal state of pain in
which I find myself on this occasion, it would be the natural
amazement of the world at my lovely and accomplished relative (as I
must still beg leave to call her) being supposed to have so committed
herself with a person - man with white teeth, in point of fact - of
very inferior station to her husband. But while I must, rather
peremptorily, request my friend Dombey not to criminate my lovely and
accomplished relative until her criminality is perfectly established,
I beg to assure my friend Dombey that the family I represent, and
which is now almost extinct (devilish sad reflection for a man), will
interpose no obstacle in his way, and will be happy to assent to any
honourable course of proceeding, with a view to the future, that he
may point out. I trust my friend Dombey will give me credit for the
intentions by which I am animated in this very melancholy affair, and
- a - in point of fact, I am not aware that I need trouble my friend
Dombey with any further observations.'

Mr Dombey bows, without raising his eyes, and is silent.

'Now, Dombey,' says the Major, 'our friend Feenix having, with
an amount of eloquence that Old Joe B. has never heard surpassed -
no, by the Lord, Sir! never!' - says the Major, very blue, indeed,
and grasping his cane in the middle - 'stated the case as regards the
lady, I shall presume upon our friendship, Dombey, to offer a word on
another aspect of it. Sir,' says the Major, with the horse's cough,
'the world in these things has opinions, which must be satisfied.'

'I know it,' rejoins Mr Dombey.

'Of course you know it, Dombey,' says the Major, 'Damme, Sir, I
know you know it. A man of your calibre is not likely to be ignorant
of it.'

'I hope not,' replies Mr Dombey.

'Dombey!' says the Major, 'you will guess the rest. I speak out
- prematurely, perhaps - because the Bagstock breed have always spoke
out. Little, Sir, have they ever got by doing it; but it's in the
Bagstock blood. A shot is to be taken at this man. You have J. B. at
your elbow. He claims the name of friend. God bless you!'

'Major,' returns Mr Dombey, 'I am obliged. I shall put myself in
your hands when the time comes. The time not being come, I have
forborne to speak to you.'

'Where is the fellow, Dombey?' inquires the Major, after gasping
and looking at him, for a minute.

'I don't know.'

'Any intelligence of him?' asks the Major.

'Yes.'

'Dombey, I am rejoiced to hear it,' says the Major. 'I
congratulate you.'

'You will excuse - even you, Major,' replies Mr Dombey, 'my
entering into any further detail at present. The intelligence is of a
singular kind, and singularly obtained. It may turn out to be
valueless; it may turn out to be true; I cannot say at present. My
explanation must stop here.'

Although this is but a dry reply to the Major's purple
enthusiasm, the Major receives it graciously, and is delighted to
think that the world has such a fair prospect of soon receiving its
due. Cousin Feenix is then presented with his meed of acknowledgment
by the husband of his lovely and accomplished relative, and Cousin
Feenix and Major Bagstock retire, leaving that husband to the world
again, and to ponder at leisure on their representation of its state
of mind concerning his affairs, and on its just and reasonable
expectations.

But who sits in the housekeeper's room, shedding tears, and
talking to Mrs Pipchin in a low tone, with uplifted hands? It is a
lady with her face concealed in a very close black bonnet, which
appears not to belong to her. It is Miss Tox, who has borrowed this
disguise from her servant, and comes from Princess's Place, thus
secretly, to revive her old acquaintance with Mrs Pipchin, in order
to get certain information of the state of Mr Dombey.

'How does he bear it, my dear creature?' asks Miss Tox.

'Well,' says Mrs Pipchin, in her snappish way, 'he's pretty much
as usual.'

'Externally,' suggests Miss Tox 'But what he feels within!'

Mrs Pipchin's hard grey eye looks doubtful as she answers, in
three distinct jerks, 'Ah! Perhaps. I suppose so.'

'To tell you my mind, Lucretia,' says Mrs Pipchin; she still
calls Miss Tox Lucretia, on account of having made her first
experiments in the child-quelling line of business on that lady, when
an unfortunate and weazen little girl of tender years; 'to tell you
my mind, Lucretia, I think it's a good riddance. I don't want any of
your brazen faces here, myself!'

'Brazen indeed! Well may you say brazen, Mrs Pipchin!' returned
Miss Tox. 'To leave him! Such a noble figure of a man!' And here Miss
Tox is overcome.

'I don't know about noble, I'm sure,' observes Mrs Pipchin;
irascibly rubbing her nose. 'But I know this - that when people meet
with trials, they must bear 'em. Hoity, toity! I have had enough to
bear myself, in my time! What a fuss there is! She's gone, and well
got rid of. Nobody wants her back, I should think!' This hint of the
Peruvian Mines, causes Miss Tox to rise to go away; when Mrs Pipchin
rings the bell for Towlinson to show her out, Mr Towlinson, not
having seen Miss Tox for ages, grins, and hopes she's well; observing
that he didn't know her at first, in that bonnet.

'Pretty well, Towlinson, I thank you,' says Miss Tox. 'I beg
you'll have the goodness, when you happen to see me here, not to
mention it. My visits are merely to Mrs Pipchin.'

'Very good, Miss,' says Towlinson.

'Shocking circumstances occur, Towlinson,' says Miss Tox.

'Very much so indeed, Miss,' rejoins Towlinson.

'I hope, Towlinson,' says Miss Tox, who, in her instruction of
the Toodle family, has acquired an admonitorial tone, and a habit of
improving passing occasions, 'that what has happened here, will be a
warning to you, Towlinson.'

'Thank you, Miss, I'm sure,' says Towlinson.

He appears to be falling into a consideration of the manner in
which this warning ought to operate in his particular case, when the
vinegary Mrs Pipchin, suddenly stirring him up with a 'What are you
doing? Why don't you show the lady to the door?' he ushers Miss Tox
forth. As she passes Mr Dombey's room, she shrinks into the inmost
depths of the black bonnet, and walks, on tip-toe; and there is not
another atom in the world which haunts him so, that feels such sorrow
and solicitude about him, as Miss Tox takes out under the black
bonnet into the street, and tries to carry home shadowed it from the
newly-lighted lamps

But Miss Tox is not a part of Mr Dombey's world. She comes back
every evening at dusk; adding clogs and an umbrella to the bonnet on
wet nights; and bears the grins of Towlinson, and the huffs and
rebuffs of Mrs Pipchin, and all to ask how he does, and how he bears
his misfortune: but she has nothing to do with Mr Dombey's world.
Exacting and harassing as ever, it goes on without her; and she, a by
no means bright or particular star, moves in her little orbit in the
corner of another system, and knows it quite well, and comes, and
cries, and goes away, and is satisfied. Verily Miss Tox is easier of
satisfaction than the world that troubles Mr Dombey so much!

At the Counting House, the clerks discuss the great disaster in
all its lights and shades, but chiefly wonder who will get Mr
Carker's place. They are generally of opinion that it will be shorn
of some of its emoluments, and made uncomfortable by newly-devised
checks and restrictions; and those who are beyond all hope of it are
quite sure they would rather not have it, and don't at all envy the
person for whom it may prove to be reserved. Nothing like the
prevailing sensation has existed in the Counting House since Mr
Dombey's little son died; but all such excitements there take a
social, not to say a jovial turn, and lead to the cultivation of good
fellowship. A reconciliation is established on this propitious
occasion between the acknowledged wit of the Counting House and an
aspiring rival, with whom he has been at deadly feud for months; and
a little dinner being proposed, in commemoration of their happily
restored amity, takes place at a neighbouring tavern; the wit in the
chair; the rival acting as Vice-President. The orations following the
removal of the cloth are opened by the Chair, who says, Gentlemen, he
can't disguise from himself that this is not a time for private
dissensions. Recent occurrences to which he need not more
particularly allude, but which have not been altogether without
notice in some Sunday Papers,' and in a daily paper which he need not
name (here every other member of the company names it in an audible
murmur), have caused him to reflect; and he feels that for him and
Robinson to have any personal differences at such a moment, would be
for ever to deny that good feeling in the general cause, for which he
has reason to think and hope that the gentlemen in Dombey's House
have always been distinguished. Robinson replies to this like a man
and a brother; and one gentleman who has been in the office three
years, under continual notice to quit on account of lapses in his
arithmetic, appears in a perfectly new light, suddenly bursting out
with a thrilling speech, in which he says, May their respected chief
never again know the desolation which has fallen on his hearth! and
says a great variety of things, beginning with 'May he never again,'
which are received with thunders of applause. In short, a most
delightful evening is passed, only interrupted by a difference
between two juniors, who, quarrelling about the probable amount of Mr
Carker's late receipts per annum, defy each other with decanters, and
are taken out greatly excited. Soda water is in general request at
the office next day, and most of the party deem the bill an
imposition.

As to Perch, the messenger, he is in a fair way of being ruined
for life. He finds himself again constantly in bars of public-houses,
being treated and lying dreadfully. It appears that he met everybody
concerned in the late transaction, everywhere, and said to them,
'Sir,' or 'Madam,' as the case was, 'why do you look so pale?' at
which each shuddered from head to foot, and said, 'Oh, Perch!' and
ran away. Either the consciousness of these enormities, or the
reaction consequent on liquor, reduces Mr Perch to an extreme state
of low spirits at that hour of the evening when he usually seeks
consolation in the society of Mrs Perch at Balls Pond; and Mrs Perch
frets a good deal, for she fears his confidence in woman is shaken
now, and that he half expects on coming home at night to find her
gone off with some Viscount - 'which,' as she observes to an intimate
female friend, 'is what these wretches in the form of woman have to
answer for, Mrs P. It ain't the harm they do themselves so much as
what they reflect upon us, Ma'am; and I see it in Perch's eye.

Mr Dombey's servants are becoming, at the same time, quite
dissipated, and unfit for other service. They have hot suppers every
night, and 'talk it over' with smoking drinks upon the board. Mr
Towlinson is always maudlin after half-past ten, and frequently begs
to know whether he didn't say that no good would ever come of living
in a corner house? They whisper about Miss Florence, and wonder where
she is; but agree that if Mr Dombey don't know, Mrs Dombey does. This
brings them to the latter, of whom Cook says, She had a stately way
though, hadn't she? But she was too high! They all agree that she was
too high, and Mr Towlinson's old flame, the housemaid (who is very
virtuous), entreats that you will never talk to her any more about
people who hold their heads up, as if the ground wasn't good enough
for 'em.

Everything that is said and done about it, except by Mr Dombey,
is done in chorus. Mr Dombey and the world are alone together.