Chapter 59. Retribution

Dombey and Son

by Charles Dickens

Changes have come again upon the great house in the long dull
street, once the scene of Florence's childhood and loneliness. It is
a great house still, proof against wind and weather, without breaches
in the roof, or shattered windows, or dilapidated walls; but it is a
ruin none the less, and the rats fly from it.

Mr Towlinson and company are, at first, incredulous in respect
of the shapeless rumours that they hear. Cook says our people's
credit ain't so easy shook as that comes to, thank God; and Mr
Towlinson expects to hear it reported next, that the Bank of
England's a-going to break, or the jewels in the Tower to be sold up.
But, next come the Gazette, and Mr Perch; and Mr Perch brings Mrs
Perch to talk it over in the kitchen, and to spend a pleasant
evening.

As soon as there is no doubt about it, Mr Towlinson's main
anxiety is that the failure should be a good round one - not less
than a hundred thousand pound. Mr Perch don't think himself that a
hundred thousand pound will nearly cover it. The women, led by Mrs
Perch and Cook, often repeat 'a hun-dred thou-sand pound!' with awful
satisfaction - as if handling the words were like handling the money;
and the housemaid, who has her eye on Mr Towlinson, wishes she had
only a hundredth part of the sum to bestow on the man of her choice.
Mr Towlinson, still mindful of his old wrong, opines that a foreigner
would hardly know what to do with so much money, unless he spent it
on his whiskers; which bitter sarcasm causes the housemaid to
withdraw in tears.

But not to remain long absent; for Cook, who has the reputation
of being extremely good-hearted, says, whatever they do, let 'em
stand by one another now, Towlinson, for there's no telling how soon
they may be divided. They have been in that house (says Cook) through
a funeral, a wedding, and a running-away; and let it not be said that
they couldn't agree among themselves at such a time as the present.
Mrs Perch is immensely affected by this moving address, and openly
remarks that Cook is an angel. Mr Towlinson replies to Cook, far be
it from him to stand in the way of that good feeling which he could
wish to see; and adjourning in quest of the housemaid, and presently
returning with that young lady on his arm, informs the kitchen that
foreigners is only his fun, and that him and Anne have now resolved
to take one another for better for worse, and to settle in Oxford
Market in the general greengrocery and herb and leech line, where
your kind favours is particular requested. This announcement is
received with acclamation; and Mrs Perch, projecting her soul into
futurity, says, 'girls,' in Cook's ear, in a solemn whisper.

Misfortune in the family without feasting, in these lower
regions, couldn't be. Therefore Cook tosses up a hot dish or two for
supper, and Mr Towlinson compounds a lobster salad to be devoted to
the same hospitable purpose. Even Mrs Pipchin, agitated by the
occasion, rings her bell, and sends down word that she requests to
have that little bit of sweetbread that was left, warmed up for her
supper, and sent to her on a tray with about a quarter of a
tumbler-full of mulled sherry; for she feels poorly.

There is a little talk about Mr Dombey, but very little. It is
chiefly speculation as to how long he has known that this was going
to happen. Cook says shrewdly, 'Oh a long time, bless you! Take your
oath of that.' And reference being made to Mr Perch, he confirms her
view of the case. Somebody wonders what he'll do, and whether he'll
go out in any situation. Mr Towlinson thinks not, and hints at a
refuge in one of them genteel almshouses of the better kind. 'Ah,
where he'll have his little garden, you know,' says Cook plaintively,
'and bring up sweet peas in the spring.' 'Exactly so,' says Mr
Towlinson, 'and be one of the Brethren of something or another.' 'We
are all brethren,' says Mrs Perch, in a pause of her drink. 'Except
the sisters,' says Mr Perch. 'How are the mighty fallen!' remarks
Cook. 'Pride shall have a fall, and it always was and will be so!'
observes the housemaid.

It is wonderful how good they feel, in making these reflections;
and what a Christian unanimity they are sensible of, in bearing the
common shock with resignation. There is only one interruption to this
excellent state of mind, which is occasioned by a young kitchen-maid
of inferior rank - in black stockings - who, having sat with her
mouth open for a long time, unexpectedly discharges from it words to
this effect, 'Suppose the wages shouldn't be paid!' The company sit
for a moment speechless; but Cook recovering first, turns upon the
young woman, and requests to know how she dares insult the family,
whose bread she eats, by such a dishonest supposition, and whether
she thinks that anybody, with a scrap of honour left, could deprive
poor servants of their pittance? 'Because if that is your religious
feelings, Mary Daws,' says Cook warmly, 'I don't know where you mean
to go to.

Mr Towlinson don't know either; nor anybody; and the young
kitchen-maid, appearing not to know exactly, herself, and scouted by
the general voice, is covered with confusion, as with a garment.

After a few days, strange people begin to call at the house, and
to make appointments with one another in the dining-room, as if they
lived there. Especially, there is a gentleman, of a Mosaic Arabian
cast of countenance, with a very massive watch-guard, who whistles in
the drawing-room, and, while he is waiting for the other gentleman,
who always has pen and ink in his pocket, asks Mr Towlinson (by the
easy name of 'Old Cock,') if he happens to know what the figure of
them crimson and gold hangings might have been, when new bought. The
callers and appointments in the dining-room become more numerous
every day, and every gentleman seems to have pen and ink in his
pocket, and to have some occasion to use it. At last it is said that
there is going to be a Sale; and then more people arrive, with pen
and ink in their pockets, commanding a detachment of men with carpet
caps, who immediately begin to pull up the carpets, and knock the
furniture about, and to print off thousands of impressions of their
shoes upon the hall and staircase.

The council downstairs are in full conclave all this time, and,
having nothing to do, perform perfect feats of eating. At length,
they are one day summoned in a body to Mrs Pipchin's room, and thus
addressed by the fair Peruvian:

'Your master's in difficulties,' says Mrs Pipchin, tartly. 'You
know that, I suppose?'

Mr Towlinson, as spokesman, admits a general knowledge of the
fact.

'And you're all on the look-out for yourselves, I warrant you,
says Mrs Pipchin, shaking her head at them.

A shrill voice from the rear exclaims, 'No more than
yourself!'

'That's your opinion, Mrs Impudence, is it?' says the ireful
Pipchin, looking with a fiery eye over the intermediate heads.

'Yes, Mrs Pipchin, it is,' replies Cook, advancing. 'And what
then, pray?'

'Why, then you may go as soon as you like,' says Mrs Pipchin.
'The sooner the better; and I hope I shall never see your face
again.'

With this the doughty Pipchin produces a canvas bag; and tells
her wages out to that day, and a month beyond it; and clutches the
money tight, until a receipt for the same is duly signed, to the last
upstroke; when she grudgingly lets it go. This form of proceeding Mrs
Pipchin repeats with every member of the household, until all are
paid.

'Now those that choose, can go about their business,' says Mrs
Pipchin, 'and those that choose can stay here on board wages for a
week or so, and make themselves useful. Except,' says the inflammable
Pipchin, 'that slut of a cook, who'll go immediately.'

'That,' says Cook, 'she certainly will! I wish you good day, Mrs
Pipchin, and sincerely wish I could compliment you on the sweetness
of your appearance!'

'Get along with you,' says Mrs Pipchin, stamping her foot.

Cook sails off with an air of beneficent dignity, highly
exasperating to Mrs Pipchin, and is shortly joined below stairs by
the rest of the confederation.

Mr Towlinson then says that, in the first place, he would beg to
propose a little snack of something to eat; and over that snack would
desire to offer a suggestion which he thinks will meet the position
in which they find themselves. The refreshment being produced, and
very heartily partaken of, Mr Towlinson's suggestion is, in effect,
that Cook is going, and that if we are not true to ourselves, nobody
will be true to us. That they have lived in that house a long time,
and exerted themselves very much to be sociable together. (At this,
Cook says, with emotion, 'Hear, hear!' and Mrs Perch, who is there
again, and full to the throat, sheds tears.) And that he thinks, at
the present time, the feeling ought to be 'Go one, go all!' The
housemaid is much affected by this generous sentiment, and warmly
seconds it. Cook says she feels it's right, and only hopes it's not
done as a compliment to her, but from a sense of duty. Mr Towlinson
replies, from a sense of duty; and that now he is driven to express
his opinions, he will openly say, that he does not think it
over-respectable to remain in a house where Sales and such-like are
carrying forwards. The housemaid is sure of it; and relates, in
confirmation, that a strange man, in a carpet cap, offered, this very
morning, to kiss her on the stairs. Hereupon, Mr Towlinson is
starting from his chair, to seek and 'smash' the offender; when he is
laid hold on by the ladies, who beseech him to calm himself, and to
reflect that it is easier and wiser to leave the scene of such
indecencies at once. Mrs Perch, presenting the case in a new light,
even shows that delicacy towards Mr Dombey, shut up in his own rooms,
imperatively demands precipitate retreat. 'For what,' says the good
woman, 'must his feelings be, if he was to come upon any of the poor
servants that he once deceived into thinking him immensely rich!'
Cook is so struck by this moral consideration, that Mrs Perch
improves it with several pious axioms, original and selected. It
becomes a clear case that they must all go. Boxes are packed, cabs
fetched, and at dusk that evening there is not one member of the
party left.

The house stands, large and weather-proof, in the long dull
street; but it is a ruin, and the rats fly from it.

The men in the carpet caps go on tumbling the furniture about;
and the gentlemen with the pens and ink make out inventories of it,
and sit upon pieces of furniture never made to be sat upon, and eat
bread and cheese from the public-house on other pieces of furniture
never made to be eaten on, and seem to have a delight in
appropriating precious articles to strange uses. Chaotic combinations
of furniture also take place. Mattresses and bedding appear in the
dining-room; the glass and china get into the conservatory; the great
dinner service is set out in heaps on the long divan in the large
drawing-room; and the stair-wires, made into fasces, decorate the
marble chimneypieces. Finally, a rug, with a printed bill upon it, is
hung out from the balcony; and a similar appendage graces either side
of the hall door.

Then, all day long, there is a retinue of mouldy gigs and
chaise-carts in the street; and herds of shabby vampires, Jew and
Christian, over-run the house, sounding the plate-glass minors with
their knuckles, striking discordant octaves on the Grand Piano,
drawing wet forefingers over the pictures, breathing on the blades of
the best dinner-knives, punching the squabs of chairs and sofas with
their dirty fists, touzling the feather beds, opening and shutting
all the drawers, balancing the silver spoons and forks, looking into
the very threads of the drapery and linen, and disparaging
everything. There is not a secret place in the whole house. Fluffy
and snuffy strangers stare into the kitchen-range as curiously as
into the attic clothes-press. Stout men with napless hats on, look
out of the bedroom windows, and cut jokes with friends in the street.
Quiet, calculating spirits withdraw into the dressing-rooms with
catalogues, and make marginal notes thereon, with stumps of pencils.
Two brokers invade the very fire-escape, and take a panoramic survey
of the neighbourhood from the top of the house. The swarm and buzz,
and going up and down, endure for days. The Capital Modern Household
Furniture, &c., is on view.

Then there is a palisade of tables made in the best
drawing-room; and on the capital, french-polished, extending,
telescopic range of Spanish mahogany dining-tables with turned legs,
the pulpit of the Auctioneer is erected; and the herds of shabby
vampires, Jew and Christian, the strangers fluffy and snuffy, and the
stout men with the napless hats, congregate about it and sit upon
everything within reach, mantel-pieces included, and begin to bid.
Hot, humming, and dusty are the rooms all day; and - high above the
heat, hum, and dust - the head and shoulders, voice and hammer, of
the Auctioneer, are ever at work. The men in the carpet caps get
flustered and vicious with tumbling the Lots about, and still the
Lots are going, going, gone; still coming on. Sometimes there is
joking and a general roar. This lasts all day and three days
following. The Capital Modern Household Furniture, &c., is on
sale.

Then the mouldy gigs and chaise-carts reappear; and with them
come spring-vans and waggons, and an army of porters with knots. All
day long, the men with carpet caps are screwing at screw-drivers and
bed-winches, or staggering by the dozen together on the staircase
under heavy burdens, or upheaving perfect rocks of Spanish mahogany,
best rose-wood, or plate-glass, into the gigs and chaise-carts, vans
and waggons. All sorts of vehicles of burden are in attendance, from
a tilted waggon to a wheelbarrow. Poor Paul's little bedstead is
carried off in a donkey-tandem. For nearly a whole week, the Capital
Modern Household Furniture, & c., is in course of removal.

At last it is all gone. Nothing is left about the house but
scattered leaves of catalogues, littered scraps of straw and hay, and
a battery of pewter pots behind the hall-door. The men with the
carpet-caps gather up their screw-drivers and bed-winches into bags,
shoulder them, and walk off. One of the pen-and-ink gentlemen goes
over the house as a last attention; sticking up bills in the windows
respecting the lease of this desirable family mansion, and shutting
the shutters. At length he follows the men with the carpet caps. None
of the invaders remain. The house is a ruin, and the rats fly from
it.

Mrs Pipchin's apartments, together with those locked rooms on
the ground-floor where the window-blinds are drawn down close, have
been spared the general devastation. Mrs Pipchin has remained austere
and stony during the proceedings, in her own room; or has
occasionally looked in at the sale to see what the goods are
fetching, and to bid for one particular easy chair. Mrs Pipchin has
been the highest bidder for the easy chair, and sits upon her
property when Mrs Chick comes to see her.

'How is my brother, Mrs Pipchin?' says Mrs Chick.

'I don't know any more than the deuce,' says Mrs Pipchin. 'He
never does me the honour to speak to me. He has his meat and drink
put in the next room to his own; and what he takes, he comes out and
takes when there's nobody there. It's no use asking me. I know no
more about him than the man in the south who burnt his mouth by
eating cold plum porridge."

This the acrimonious Pipchin says with a flounce.

'But good gracious me!' cries Mrs Chick blandly. 'How long is
this to last! If my brother will not make an effort, Mrs Pipchin,
what is to become of him? I am sure I should have thought he had seen
enough of the consequences of not making an effort, by this time, to
be warned against that fatal error.'

'Hoity toity!' says Mrs Pipchin, rubbing her nose. 'There's a
great fuss, I think, about it. It ain't so wonderful a case. People
have had misfortunes before now, and been obliged to part with their
furniture. I'm sure I have!'

'My brother,' pursues Mrs Chick profoundly, 'is so peculiar - so
strange a man. He is the most peculiar man I ever saw. Would anyone
believe that when he received news of the marriage and emigration of
that unnatural child - it's a comfort to me, now, to remember that I
always said there was something extraordinary about that child: but
nobody minds me - would anybody believe, I say, that he should then
turn round upon me and say he had supposed, from my manner, that she
had come to my house? Why, my gracious! And would anybody believe
that when I merely say to him, "Paul, I may be very foolish, and I
have no doubt I am, but I cannot understand how your affairs can have
got into this state," he should actually fly at me, and request that
I will come to see him no more until he asks me! Why, my
goodness!'

'Ah'!' says Mrs Pipchin. 'It's a pity he hadn't a little more to
do with mines. They'd have tried his temper for him.'

'And what,' resumes Mrs Chick, quite regardless of Mrs Pipchin's
observations, 'is it to end in? That's what I want to know. What does
my brother mean to do? He must do something. It's of no use remaining
shut up in his own rooms. Business won't come to him. No. He must go
to it. Then why don't he go? He knows where to go, I suppose, having
been a man of business all his life. Very good. Then why not go
there?'

Mrs Chick, after forging this powerful chain of reasoning,
remains silent for a minute to admire it.

'Besides,' says the discreet lady, with an argumentative air,
'who ever heard of such obstinacy as his staying shut up here through
all these dreadful disagreeables? It's not as if there was no place
for him to go to. Of course he could have come to our house. He knows
he is at home there, I suppose? Mr Chick has perfectly bored about
it, and I said with my own lips, "Why surely, Paul, you don't imagine
that because your affairs have got into this state, you are the less
at home to such near relatives as ourselves? You don't imagine that
we are like the rest of the world?" But no; here he stays all
through, and here he is. Why, good gracious me, suppose the house was
to be let! What would he do then? He couldn't remain here then. If he
attempted to do so, there would be an ejectment, an action for Doe,
and all sorts of things; and then he must go. Then why not go at
first instead of at last? And that brings me back to what I said just
now, and I naturally ask what is to be the end of it?'

'I know what's to be the end of it, as far as I am concerned,'
replies Mrs Pipchin, 'and that's enough for me. I'm going to take
myself off in a jiffy.'

'In a which, Mrs Pipchin,' says Mrs Chick.

'In a jiffy,' retorts Mrs Pipchin sharply.

'Ah, well! really I can't blame you, Mrs Pipchin,' says Mrs
Chick, with frankness.

'It would be pretty much the same to me, if you could,' replies
the sardonic Pipchin. 'At any rate I'm going. I can't stop here. I
should be dead in a week. I had to cook my own pork chop yesterday,
and I'm not used to it. My constitution will be giving way next.
Besides, I had a very fair connexion at Brighton when I came here -
little Pankey's folks alone were worth a good eighty pounds a-year to
me - and I can't afford to throw it away. I've written to my niece,
and she expects me by this time.'

'Have you spoken to my brother?' inquires Mrs Chick

'Oh, yes, it's very easy to say speak to him,' retorts Mrs
Pipchin. 'How is it done? I called out to him yesterday, that I was
no use here, and that he had better let me send for Mrs Richards. He
grunted something or other that meant yes, and I sent. Grunt indeed!
If he had been Mr Pipchin, he'd have had some reason to grunt. Yah!
I've no patience with it!'

Here this exemplary female, who has pumped up so much fortitude
and virtue from the depths of the Peruvian mines, rises from her
cushioned property to see Mrs Chick to the door. Mrs Chick, deploring
to the last the peculiar character of her brother, noiselessly
retires, much occupied with her own sagacity and clearness of
head.

In the dusk of the evening Mr Toodle, being off duty, arrives
with Polly and a box, and leaves them, with a sounding kiss, in the
hall of the empty house, the retired character of which affects Mr
Toodle's spirits strongly.

'I tell you what, Polly, me dear,' says Mr Toodle, 'being now an
ingine-driver, and well to do in the world, I shouldn't allow of your
coming here, to be made dull-like, if it warn't for favours past. But
favours past, Polly, is never to be forgot. To them which is in
adversity, besides, your face is a cord'l. So let's have another kiss
on it, my dear. You wish no better than to do a right act, I know;
and my views is, that it's right and dutiful to do this. Good-night,
Polly!'

Mrs Pipchin by this time looms dark in her black bombazeen
skirts, black bonnet, and shawl; and has her personal property packed
up; and has her chair (late a favourite chair of Mr Dombey's and the
dead bargain of the sale) ready near the street door; and is only
waiting for a fly-van, going to-night to Brighton on private service,
which is to call for her, by private contract, and convey her
home.

Presently it comes. Mrs Pipchin's wardrobe being handed in and
stowed away, Mrs Pipchin's chair is next handed in, and placed in a
convenient corner among certain trusses of hay; it being the
intention of the amiable woman to occupy the chair during her
journey. Mrs Pipchin herself is next handed in, and grimly takes her
seat. There is a snaky gleam in her hard grey eye, as of anticipated
rounds of buttered toast, relays of hot chops, worryings and
quellings of young children, sharp snappings at poor Berry, and all
the other delights of her Ogress's castle. Mrs Pipchin almost laughs
as the fly-van drives off, and she composes her black bombazeen
skirts, and settles herself among the cushions of her easy chair.

The house is such a ruin that the rats have fled, and there is
not one left.

But Polly, though alone in the deserted mansion - for there is
no companionship in the shut-up rooms in which its late master hides
his head - is not alone long. It is night; and she is sitting at work
in the housekeeper's room, trying to forget what a lonely house it
is, and what a history belongs to it; when there is a knock at the
hall door, as loud sounding as any knock can be, striking into such
an empty place. Opening it, she returns across the echoing hall,
accompanied by a female figure in a close black bonnet. It is Miss
Tox, and Miss Tox's eyes are red.

'Oh, Polly,' says Miss Tox, 'when I looked in to have a little
lesson with the children just now, I got the message that you left
for me; and as soon as I could recover my spirits at all, I came on
after you. Is there no one here but you?'

'Ah! not a soul,' says Polly.

'Have you seen him?' whispers Miss Tox.

'Bless you,' returns Polly, 'no; he has not been seen this many
a day. They tell me he never leaves his room.'

'Is he said to be ill?' inquires Miss Tox.

'No, Ma'am, not that I know of,' returns Polly, 'except in his
mind. He must be very bad there, poor gentleman!'

Miss Tox's sympathy is such that she can scarcely speak. She is
no chicken, but she has not grown tough with age and celibacy. Her
heart is very tender, her compassion very genuine, her homage very
real. Beneath the locket with the fishy eye in it, Miss Tox bears
better qualities than many a less whimsical outside; such qualities
as will outlive, by many courses of the sun, the best outsides and
brightest husks that fall in the harvest of the great reaper.

It is long before Miss Tox goes away, and before Polly, with a
candle flaring on the blank stairs, looks after her, for company,
down the street, and feels unwilling to go back into the dreary
house, and jar its emptiness with the heavy fastenings of the door,
and glide away to bed. But all this Polly does; and in the morning
sets in one of those darkened rooms such matters as she has been
advised to prepare, and then retires and enters them no more until
next morning at the same hour. There are bells there, but they never
ring; and though she can sometimes hear a footfall going to and fro,
it never comes out.

Miss Tox returns early in the day. It then begins to be Miss
Tox's occupation to prepare little dainties - or what are such to her
- to be carried into these rooms next morning. She derives so much
satisfaction from the pursuit, that she enters on it regularly from
that time; and brings daily in her little basket, various choice
condiments selected from the scanty stores of the deceased owner of
the powdered head and pigtail. She likewise brings, in sheets of
curl-paper, morsels of cold meats, tongues of sheep, halves of fowls,
for her own dinner; and sharing these collations with Polly, passes
the greater part of her time in the ruined house that the rats have
fled from: hiding, in a fright at every sound, stealing in and out
like a criminal; only desiring to be true to the fallen object of her
admiration, unknown to him, unknown to all the world but one poor
simple woman.

The Major knows it; but no one is the wiser for that, though the
Major is much the merrier. The Major, in a fit of curiosity, has
charged the Native to watch the house sometimes, and find out what
becomes of Dombey. The Native has reported Miss Tox's fidelity, and
the Major has nearly choked himself dead with laughter. He is
permanently bluer from that hour, and constantly wheezes to himself,
his lobster eyes starting out of his head, 'Damme, Sir, the woman's a
born idiot!'

And the ruined man. How does he pass the hours, alone?

'Let him remember it in that room, years to come!' He did
remember it. It was heavy on his mind now; heavier than all the
rest.

'Let him remember it in that room, years to come! The rain that
falls upon the roof, the wind that mourns outside the door, may have
foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. Let him remember it in that
room, years to come!'

He did remember it. In the miserable night he thought of it; in
the dreary day, the wretched dawn, the ghostly, memory-haunted
twilight. He did remember it. In agony, in sorrow, in remorse, in
despair! 'Papa! Papa! Speak to me, dear Papa!' He heard the words
again, and saw the face. He saw it fall upon the trembling hands, and
heard the one prolonged low cry go upward.

He was fallen, never to be raised up any more. For the night of
his worldly ruin there was no to-morrow's sun; for the stain of his
domestic shame there was no purification; nothing, thank Heaven,
could bring his dead child back to life. But that which he might have
made so different in all the Past - which might have made the Past
itself so different, though this he hardly thought of now - that
which was his own work, that which he could so easily have wrought
into a blessing, and had set himself so steadily for years to form
into a curse: that was the sharp grief of his soul.

Oh! He did remember it! The rain that fell upon the roof, the
wind that mourned outside the door that night, had had foreknowledge
in their melancholy sound. He knew, now, what he had done. He knew,
now, that he had called down that upon his head, which bowed it lower
than the heaviest stroke of fortune. He knew, now, what it was to be
rejected and deserted; now, when every loving blossom he had withered
in his innocent daughter's heart was snowing down in ashes on him.

He thought of her, as she had been that night when he and his
bride came home. He thought of her as she had been, in all the
home-events of the abandoned house. He thought, now, that of all
around him, she alone had never changed. His boy had faded into dust,
his proud wife had sunk into a polluted creature, his flatterer and
friend had been transformed into the worst of villains, his riches
had melted away, the very walls that sheltered him looked on him as a
stranger; she alone had turned the same mild gentle look upon him
always. Yes, to the latest and the last. She had never changed to him
- nor had he ever changed to her - and she was lost.

As, one by one, they fell away before his mind - his baby- hope,
his wife, his friend, his fortune - oh how the mist, through which he
had seen her, cleared, and showed him her true self! Oh, how much
better than this that he had loved her as he had his boy, and lost
her as he had his boy, and laid them in their early grave
together!

In his pride - for he was proud yet - he let the world go from
him freely. As it fell away, he shook it off. Whether he imagined its
face as expressing pity for him, or indifference to him, he shunned
it alike. It was in the same degree to be avoided, in either aspect.
He had no idea of any one companion in his misery, but the one he had
driven away. What he would have said to her, or what consolation
submitted to receive from her, he never pictured to himself. But he
always knew she would have been true to him, if he had suffered her.
He always knew she would have loved him better now, than at any other
time; he was as certain that it was in her nature, as he was that
there was a sky above him; and he sat thinking so, in his loneliness,
from hour to hour. Day after day uttered this speech; night after
night showed him this knowledge.

It began, beyond all doubt (however slow it advanced for some
time), in the receipt of her young husband's letter, and the
certainty that she was gone. And yet - so proud he was in his ruin,
or so reminiscent of her only as something that might have been his,
but was lost beyond redemption - that if he could have heard her
voice in an adjoining room, he would not have gone to her. If he
could have seen her in the street, and she had done no more than look
at him as she had been used to look, he would have passed on with his
old cold unforgiving face, and not addressed her, or relaxed it,
though his heart should have broken soon afterwards. However
turbulent his thoughts, or harsh his anger had been, at first,
concerning her marriage, or her husband, that was all past now. He
chiefly thought of what might have been, and what was not. What was,
was all summed up in this: that she was lost, and he bowed down with
sorrow and remorse.

And now he felt that he had had two children born to him in that
house, and that between him and the bare wide empty walls there was a
tie, mournful, but hard to rend asunder, connected with a double
childhood, and a double loss. He had thought to leave the house -
knowing he must go, not knowing whither - upon the evening of the day
on which this feeling first struck root in his breast; but he
resolved to stay another night, and in the night to ramble through
the rooms once more.

He came out of his solitude when it was the dead of night, and
with a candle in his hand went softly up the stairs. Of all the
footmarks there, making them as common as the common street, there
was not one, he thought, but had seemed at the time to set itself
upon his brain while he had kept close, listening. He looked at their
number, and their hurry, and contention - foot treading foot out, and
upward track and downward jostling one another - and thought, with
absolute dread and wonder, how much he must have suffered during that
trial, and what a changed man he had cause to be. He thought,
besides, oh was there, somewhere in the world, a light footstep that
might have worn out in a moment half those marks! - and bent his
head, and wept as he went up.

He almost saw it, going on before. He stopped, looking up
towards the skylight; and a figure, childish itself, but carrying a
child, and singing as it went, seemed to be there again. Anon, it was
the same figure, alone, stopping for an instant, with suspended
breath; the bright hair clustering loosely round its tearful face;
and looking back at him.

He wandered through the rooms: lately so luxurious; now so bare
and dismal and so changed, apparently, even in their shape and size.
The press of footsteps was as thick here; and the same consideration
of the suffering he had had, perplexed and terrified him. He began to
fear that all this intricacy in his brain would drive him mad; and
that his thoughts already lost coherence as the footprints did, and
were pieced on to one another, with the same trackless involutions,
and varieties of indistinct shapes.

He did not so much as know in which of these rooms she had
lived, when she was alone. He was glad to leave them, and go
wandering higher up. Abundance of associations were here, connected
with his false wife, his false friend and servant, his false grounds
of pride; but he put them all by now, and only recalled miserably,
weakly, fondly, his two children.

Everywhere, the footsteps! They had had no respect for the old
room high up, where the little bed had been; he could hardly find a
clear space there, to throw himself down, on the floor, against the
wall, poor broken man, and let his tears flow as they would. He had
shed so many tears here, long ago, that he was less ashamed of his
weakness in this place than in any other - perhaps, with that
consciousness, had made excuses to himself for coming here. Here,
with stooping shoulders, and his chin dropped on his breast, he had
come. Here, thrown upon the bare boards, in the dead of night, he
wept, alone - a proud man, even then; who, if a kind hand could have
been stretched out, or a kind face could have looked in, would have
risen up, and turned away, and gone down to his cell.

When the day broke he was shut up in his rooms again. He had
meant to go away to-day, but clung to this tie in the house as the
last and only thing left to him. He would go to-morrow. To-morrow
came. He would go to-morrow. Every night, within the knowledge of no
human creature, he came forth, and wandered through the despoiled
house like a ghost. Many a morning when the day broke, his altered
face, drooping behind the closed blind in his window, imperfectly
transparent to the light as yet, pondered on the loss of his two
children. It was one child no more. He reunited them in his thoughts,
and they were never asunder. Oh, that he could have united them in
his past love, and in death, and that one had not been so much worse
than dead!

Strong mental agitation and disturbance was no novelty to him,
even before his late sufferings. It never is, to obstinate and sullen
natures; for they struggle hard to be such. Ground, long undermined,
will often fall down in a moment; what was undermined here in so many
ways, weakened, and crumbled, little by little, more and more, as the
hand moved on the dial.

At last he began to think he need not go at all. He might yet
give up what his creditors had spared him (that they had not spared
him more, was his own act), and only sever the tie between him and
the ruined house, by severing that other link -

It was then that his footfall was audible in the late
housekeeper's room, as he walked to and fro; but not audible in its
true meaning, or it would have had an appalling sound.

The world was very busy and restless about him. He became aware
of that again. It was whispering and babbling. It was never quiet.
This, and the intricacy and complication of the footsteps, harassed
him to death. Objects began to take a bleared and russet colour in
his eyes. Dombey and Son was no more - his children no more. This
must be thought of, well, to-morrow.

He thought of it to-morrow; and sitting thinking in his chair,
saw in the glass, from time to time, this picture:

A spectral, haggard, wasted likeness of himself, brooded and
brooded over the empty fireplace. Now it lifted up its head,
examining the lines and hollows in its face; now hung it down again,
and brooded afresh. Now it rose and walked about; now passed into the
next room, and came back with something from the dressing-table in
its breast. Now, it was looking at the bottom of the door, and
thinking.

Hush! what? It was thinking that if blood were to trickle that
way, and to leak out into the hall, it must be a long time going so
far. It would move so stealthily and slowly, creeping on, with here a
lazy little pool, and there a start, and then another little pool,
that a desperately wounded man could only be discovered through its
means, either dead or dying. When it had thought of this a long
while, it got up again, and walked to and fro with its hand in its
breast. He glanced at it occasionally, very curious to watch its
motions, and he marked how wicked and murderous that hand looked.

Now it was thinking again! What was it thinking?

Whether they would tread in the blood when it crept so far, and
carry it about the house among those many prints of feet, or even out
into the street.

It sat down, with its eyes upon the empty fireplace, and as it
lost itself in thought there shone into the room a gleam of light; a
ray of sun. It was quite unmindful, and sat thinking. Suddenly it
rose, with a terrible face, and that guilty hand grasping what was in
its breast. Then it was arrested by a cry - a wild, loud, piercing,
loving, rapturous cry - and he only saw his own reflection in the
glass, and at his knees, his daughter!

Yes. His daughter! Look at her! Look here! Down upon the ground,
clinging to him, calling to him, folding her hands, praying to
him.

'Papa! Dearest Papa! Pardon me, forgive me! I have come back to
ask forgiveness on my knees. I never can be happy more, without
it!'

Unchanged still. Of all the world, unchanged. Raising the same
face to his, as on that miserable night. Asking his forgiveness!

'Dear Papa, oh don't look strangely on me! I never meant to
leave you. I never thought of it, before or afterwards. I was
frightened when I went away, and could not think. Papa, dear, I am
changed. I am penitent. I know my fault. I know my duty better now.
Papa, don't cast me off, or I shall die!'

He tottered to his chair. He felt her draw his arms about her
neck; he felt her put her own round his; he felt her kisses on his
face; he felt her wet cheek laid against his own; he felt - oh, how
deeply! - all that he had done.

Upon the breast that he had bruised, against the heart that he
had almost broken, she laid his face, now covered with his hands, and
said, sobbing:

'Papa, love, I am a mother. I have a child who will soon call
Walter by the name by which I call you. When it was born, and when I
knew how much I loved it, I knew what I had done in leaving you.
Forgive me, dear Papa! oh say God bless me, and my little child!'

He would have said it, if he could. He would have raised his
hands and besought her for pardon, but she caught them in her own,
and put them down, hurriedly.

'My little child was born at sea, Papa I prayed to God (and so
did Walter for me) to spare me, that I might come home. The moment I
could land, I came back to you. Never let us be parted any more,
Papa. Never let us be parted any more!'

His head, now grey, was encircled by her arm; and he groaned to
think that never, never, had it rested so before.

'You will come home with me, Papa, and see my baby. A boy, Papa.
His name is Paul. I think - I hope - he's like - '

Her tears stopped her.

'Dear Papa, for the sake of my child, for the sake of the name
we have given him, for my sake, pardon Walter. He is so kind and
tender to me. I am so happy with him. It was not his fault that we
were married. It was mine. I loved him so much.'

She clung closer to him, more endearing and more earnest.

'He is the darling of my heart, Papa I would die for him. He
will love and honour you as I will. We will teach our little child to
love and honour you; and we will tell him, when he can understand,
that you had a son of that name once, and that he died, and you were
very sorry; but that he is gone to Heaven, where we all hope to see
him when our time for resting comes. Kiss me, Papa, as a promise that
you will be reconciled to Walter - to my dearest husband - to the
father of the little child who taught me to come back, Papa Who
taught me to come back!'

As she clung closer to him, in another burst of tears, he kissed
her on her lips, and, lifting up his eyes, said, 'Oh my God, forgive
me, for I need it very much!'

With that he dropped his head again, lamenting over and
caressing her, and there was not a sound in all the house for a long,
long time; they remaining clasped in one another's arms, in the
glorious sunshine that had crept in with Florence.

He dressed himself for going out, with a docile submission to
her entreaty; and walking with a feeble gait, and looking back, with
a tremble, at the room in which he had been so long shut up, and
where he had seen the picture in the glass, passed out with her into
the hall. Florence, hardly glancing round her, lest she should remind
him freshly of their last parting - for their feet were on the very
stones where he had struck her in his madness - and keeping close to
him, with her eyes upon his face, and his arm about her, led him out
to a coach that was waiting at the door, and carried him away.

Then, Miss Tox and Polly came out of their concealment, and
exulted tearfully. And then they packed his clothes, and books, and
so forth, with great care; and consigned them in due course to
certain persons sent by Florence, in the evening, to fetch them. And
then they took a last cup of tea in the lonely house.

'And so Dombey and Son, as I observed upon a certain sad
occasion,' said Miss Tox, winding up a host of recollections, 'is
indeed a daughter, Polly, after all.'

'And a good one!' exclaimed Polly.

'You are right,' said Miss Tox; 'and it's a credit to you,
Polly, that you were always her friend when she was a little child.
You were her friend long before I was, Polly,' said Miss Tox; 'and
you're a good creature. Robin!'

Miss Tox addressed herself to a bullet-headed young man, who
appeared to be in but indifferent circumstances, and in depressed
spirits, and who was sitting in a remote corner. Rising, he disclosed
to view the form and features of the Grinder.

'Robin,' said Miss Tox, 'I have just observed to your mother, as
you may have heard, that she is a good creature.

'And so she is, Miss,' quoth the Grinder, with some feeling.

'Very well, Robin,' said Miss Tox, 'I am glad to hear you say
so. Now, Robin, as I am going to give you a trial, at your urgent
request, as my domestic, with a view to your restoration to
respectability, I will take this impressive occasion of remarking
that I hope you will never forget that you have, and have always had,
a good mother, and that you will endeavour so to conduct yourself as
to be a comfort to her.'

'Upon my soul I will, Miss,' returned the Grinder. 'I have come
through a good deal, and my intentions is now as straightfor'ard,
Miss, as a cove's - '

'I must get you to break yourself of that word, Robin, if you
Please,' interposed Miss Tox, politely.

'If you please, Miss, as a chap's - '

'Thankee, Robin, no,' returned Miss Tox, 'I should prefer
individual.'

'As a indiwiddle's,' said the Grinder.

'Much better,' remarked Miss Tox, complacently; 'infinitely more
expressive!'

' - can be,' pursued Rob. 'If I hadn't been and got made a
Grinder on, Miss and Mother, which was a most unfortunate
circumstance for a young co - indiwiddle.'

'Very good indeed,' observed Miss Tox, approvingly.

' - and if I hadn't been led away by birds, and then fallen into
a bad service,' said the Grinder, 'I hope I might have done better.
But it's never too late for a - '

'Indi - ' suggested Miss Tox.

' - widdle,' said the Grinder, 'to mend; and I hope to mend,
Miss, with your kind trial; and wishing, Mother, my love to father,
and brothers and sisters, and saying of it.'

'I am very glad indeed to hear it,' observed Miss Tox. 'Will you
take a little bread and butter, and a cup of tea, before we go,
Robin?'

'Thankee, Miss,' returned the Grinder; who immediately began to
use his own personal grinders in a most remarkable manner, as if he
had been on very short allowance for a considerable period.

Miss Tox, being, in good time, bonneted and shawled, and Polly
too, Rob hugged his mother, and followed his new mistress away; so
much to the hopeful admiration of Polly, that something in her eyes
made luminous rings round the gas-lamps as she looked after him.
Polly then put out her light, locked the house-door, delivered the
key at an agent's hard by, and went home as fast as she could go;
rejoicing in the shrill delight that her unexpected arrival would
occasion there. The great house, dumb as to all that had been
suffered in it, and the changes it had witnessed, stood frowning like
a dark mute on the street; baulking any nearer inquiries with the
staring announcement that the lease of this desirable Family Mansion
was to be disposed of.