iitrition xte ^txxxc



DOMBEY AND SON



BY



CHARLES DICKENS



VOL. II.




WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. K. BROWNE.



BOSTON:

E S T E S & L A U R 1 A T.
1890.



EDITION DE LUXE.
Limited to One Thousand Copies.



TYPOGRAPHY AND ELECTROTYPING BY C. J.
PETERS &■ SON. PRINTED AT THE ESTES
PRESS, BY BERWICK &> SMITH, BOSTON, U.S.A.



dm



CONTENTS.
VOL. 11.



CHAPTER I.

PAGE

New Faces 1

CHAPTER II.
A Trifle of Management by Mr. Carker the Manager . 18

CHAPTER III.
Florence Solitary, and the Midshipman Mysterious . . 48

CHAPTER lY.
The Study of a Loving Heart 83

CHAPTER V.
Strange News of Uncle Sol 101

CHAPTER VI.
Shadows of the Past and Future 116

CHAPTER VII.
Deeper Shadows 141

CHAPTER VIII.
Alterations 167

CHAPTER IX.
The Opening of the Eyes of Mrs. Chick 183



IV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER X.

PAGE

The Interval before the Marriage 201

CHAPTER XL
The Wedding 225

CHAPTER XII.
The Wooden Midshipman goes to Pieces 250

CHAPTER XIII.
Contrasts 277

CHAPTER XIV.
Another Mother and Daughter 297

CHAPTER XV.
The Happy Pair 316

CHAPTER XVI.
House-warming 335

CHAPTER XVII.
More Warnings than One 353

CHAPTER XVIII.
Miss Tox Improves an Old Acquaintance 370

CHAPTER XIX.

Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner 384

CHAPTER XX.
Domestic Relations 410



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOL. II.



PAGE
POKTRAIT OF DiCKENS {^t. 32). FROM PORTRAIT

PAINTED BY Miss MARGARET GiLLiES, 1844, Title Page
Major Bagstook is delighted to have that

Opportunity 2

Mr. Toots becomes particular — Diogenes also, 45

Solemn Reference is made to Mr. Bunsby . . 78
Mr, Carker introduces himself to Florence

AND THE SkETTLES FAMILY 98

"Joe B. is sly, sir, devilish sly" 138

Mr. Dombey introduces his Daughter Florence, 181
The Eyes of Mrs. Chick are opened to Lucre-

TiA Tox 195

Coming Home from Church 240

A Visitor of Distinction 258

The Eejected Alms 312

Mrs, Dombey at Home 344

Miss Tox pays a Visit to the Toodles Family . 377

The Midshipman is boarded by the Enemy . . 403

A Chance Meeting 432

V



DOMBET AIsTD SOK



CHAPTER I.



KEW FACES.



The major, more blue-faced and staring — more
over-ripe, as it were, than ever — and giving vent,
every now and then, to one of the horse's coughs,
not so much of necessity as in a spontaneous explo-
sion of importance, walked arm in arm with Mr.
Dombey up the sunny side of the way, with his
cheeks swelling over his tight stock, his legs majes-
tically wide apart, and his great head wagging from
side to side, as if he were remonstrating within him-
self for being such a captivating object. They had
not walked many yards before the major encountered
somebody he knew, nor many yards farther before
the major encountered somebody else he knew, but
he merely shook his fingers at them as he passed,
and led Mr. Dombey on : pointing out the localities
as they went, and enlivening the walk with any
current scandal suggested by them.

In this manner the major and Mr. Dombey were
walking arm in arm, much to their own satisfaction,
when they beheld advancing towards them a wheeled
chair, in which a lady was seated^ indolently steering

VOL. U.-l.



2 DOMIBEY AKD SON.

her carriage by a kind of rudder in front, while it
was propelled by some unseen power in the rear.
Although the lady was not young, she was very
blooming in the face — quite rosy — and her dress
and attitude were perfectly juvenile. Walking by
the side of the chair, and carrying her gossamer
parasol with a proud and weary air, as if so great
an effort must be soon abandoned, and the parasol
dropped, sauntered a much younger lady, very hand-
some, very haughty, very wilful, who tossed her head
and drooped her eyelids, as though, if there were
anything in all the world worth looking into, save a
mirror, it certainly was not the earth or sky.

" Why, what the devil have we here, sir ? " cried
the major, stopping as this little cavalcade drew near.

"My dearest Edith!" drawled the lady in the
chair, " Major Bagstock ! "

The major no sooner heard the voice than he
relinquished Mr. Dombey's arm, darted forward,
took the hand of the lady in the chair, and pressed
it to his lips. With no less gallantry the major
folded both his gloves upon his heart, and bowed
low to the other lady. And now, the chair having
stopped, the motive power became visible in the
shape of a flushed page pushing behind, who seemed
to have in part outgrown and in part outpushed his
strength, for when he stood upright he was tall, and
wan, and thin, and his plight appeared the more
forlorn from his having injured the shape of his
hat, by butting at the carriage with his head to urge
it forward, as is sometimes done by elephants in
Oriental countries.

"Joe Bagstock," said the major to both ladies, "is
a proud and happy man for the rest of his life."



DOMBEY AND SON. 3

" You false creature ! " said the old lady in the
chair insipidly. "Where do you come from? I
can't bear you."

" Then suffer old Joe to present a friend, ma'am,"
said the major promptly, "as a reason for being
tolerated. Mr. Dombey, Mrs. Skewton." The lady
in the chair was gracious. "Mr. Dombey, Mrs.
Granger." The lady with the parasol was faintly
conscious of Mr. Dombey's taking off his hat, and
bowing low. "I am delighted, sir," said the major,
" to have this opportunity."

The major seemed in earnest, for he looked at all
the three, and leered in his ugliest manner.

" Mrs. Skewton, Dombey," said the major, " makes
havoc in the heart of old Josh."

Mr. Dombey signified that he didn't wonder at it.

" You perfidious goblin," said the lady in the
chair, " I have done ! How long have you been here,
bad man ? "

" One day," replied the major.

"And can you be a day, or even a minute,"
returned the lady, slightly settling her false curls
and false eyebrows with her fan, and showing her
false teeth, set off by her false complexion, " in the
garden of what's-its-name — "

"Eden, I suppose, mamma," interrupted the
younger lady scornfully.

" My dear Edith," said the other, " I cannot help
it. I never can remember those frightful names —
without having your whole soul and being inspired
by the sight of Nature ; by the perfume," said Mrs.
Skewton, rustling a handkerchief that was faint and
sickly with essences, "of her artless breath, you
creature ? "



4 DOMBEY AND SON.

The discrepancy between Mrs. Skewton's fresh
enthusiasm of words and forlornly faded manner
was hardly less observable than that between her
age, which was about seventy, and her dress, which
would have been youthful for twenty-seven. Her
attitude in the wheeled chair (which she never
varied) was one in which she had been taken in a
barouche, some fifty years before, by a then fash-
ionable artist, who had appended to his published
sketch the name of Cleopatra : in consequence of a
discovery made by the critics of the time, that it
bore an exact resemblance to that princess as she
reclined on board her galley. Mrs. Skewton was a
beauty then, and bucks threw wine-glasses over their
heads by dozens in her honor. The beauty and the
barouche had both passed away, but she still pre-
served the attitude, and, for this reason expressly,
maintained the wheeled chair and the butting page :
there being nothing whatever, except the attitude,
to prevent her from walking.

" Mr. Dombey is devoted to Nature, I trust ? "
said Mrs. Skewton, settling her diamond brooch.
And by the way, she chiefly lived upon the reputa-
tion of some diamonds, and her family connections.

" My friend Dombey, ma'am," returned the major,
" may be devoted to her in secret, but a man who is
paramount in the greatest city in the universe — "

" No one can be a stranger," said Mrs. Skewton,
'' to Mr. Dombey's immense influence."

As Mr. Dombey acknowledged the compliment
with a bend of his head, the younger lady, glancing
at him, met his eyes.

" You reside here, madam ? " said Mr. Dombey,
addressing her.



DOMBEY AND SON. 5

" Xo, we have been to a great many places. To
Harrogate, and Scarborough, and into Devonshire.
We have been visiting and resting here and there.
Mamma likes change."

"Edith, of course, does not," said Mrs. Skewton
■with a ghastly archness.

"I have not found that there is any change in
such places," was the answer, delivered with
supreme indifference.

" They libel me. There is only one change, Mr.
Dombey," observed Mrs. Skewton with a mincing
sigh, "for which I really care, and that I fear I
shall never be permitted to enjoy. People cannot
spare one. But seclusion and contemplation are
my what's-his-name — "

" If you mean Paradise, mamma, you had better
say so, to render yourself intelligible," said the
younger lady.

"My dearest Edith," returned Mrs. Skewton,
" you know that I am wholly dependent upon you for
those odious names. I assure you, Mr. Dombey,
Nature intended me for an Arcadian. I am thrown
away in society. Cows are my passion. What I
have ever sighed for has been to retreat to a Swiss
farm, and live entirely surrounded by cows — and
china."

This curious association of objects, suggesting a
remembrance of the celebrated bull who got by
mistake into a crockery shop, was received with
perfect gravity by Mr. Dombey, who intimated his
opinion that Nature was, no doubt, a very respect-
able institution.

"What I want," drawled Mrs. Skewton, pinching
her shrivelled throat, " is heart." It was frightfully



6 DOMBEY AND SON.

true in one sense, if not in that in which she used
the phrase. " What I want is frankness, confidence,
less conventionality, and freer play of soul. We
are so dreadfully artificial."

We were, indeed.

"In short," said Mrs. Skewton, "I want Nature
everywhere. It would be so extremely charming."

" Nature is inviting us away now, mamma, if you
are ready," said the younger lady, curling her
handsome lip. At this hint, the wan page, who
had been surveying the party over the top of the
chair, vanished behind it, as if the ground had
swallowed him up.

" Stop a moment. Withers ! " said Mrs. Skewton
as the chair began to move; calling to the page
with all the languid dignity with which she had
called in days of yore to a coachman with a wig,
cauliflower nosegay, and silk stockings. "Where
are you staying, abomination ? "

The major was staying at the Koyal Hotel, with
his friend Dombey.

"You may come and see us any evening when
you are good," lisped Mrs. Skewton. " If Mr. Dom-
bey will honor us, we shall be happy. Withers,
go on ! "

The major again pressed to his blue lips the tips
of the fingers that were disposed on the ledge of
the wheeled chair with careful carelessness ; after
the Cleopatra model : and Mr. Dombey bowed. The
elder lady honored them both with a very gracious
smile and a girlish wave of her hand ; the younger
lady with the very slightest inclination of her
head that common courtesy allowed.

The last glimpse of the wrinkled face of the



DO:srBEY AND SON. 7

mother, with that patched color on it which the sun
made infinitely more haggard and dismal than any
■want of color could have been, and of the proud
beauty of the daughter with her graceful figure and
erect deportment, engendered such an involuntary
disposition on the part of both the major and Mr.
Dombey to look after them, that they both turned
at the same moment. The page, nearly as much
aslant as his own shadow, was toiling after the
chair, uphill, like a slow battering-ram ; the top of
Cleopatra's bonnet was fluttering in exactly the
same corner to the inch as before ; and the Beauty,
loitering by herself a little in advance, expressed in
all her elegant form, from head to foot, the same
supreme disregard of everything and everybody.

" I tell you what, sir," said the major as they
resumed their walk again, " if Joe Bagstock were a
younger man, there's not a woman in the world
whom he'd prefer for Mrs. Bagstock to that woman.
By George, sir ! " said the major, " she's superb ! "

" Do you mean the daughter ? " inquired Mr.
Dombey.

" Is Joey B. a turnip, Dombey," said the major,
'' that he should mean the mother ? "

"You were complimentary to the mother," re-
turned jMr. Dombey.

*'An ancient flame, sir," chuckled Major Bag-
stock. " De-vilish ancient. I humor her."

" She impresses me as being perfectly genteel,"
said Mr. Dombey.

''Genteel, sir!" said the major, stopping short,
and staring in his companion's face. " The Honor-
able Mrs. Skewton, sir, is sister to the late Lord
Feenix, and aunt to the present lord. The family



8 DOiVIBEY AND SON.

are not -wealthy — they're poor, indeed — and slie
lives upon a small jointure ; but if you come to
blood, sir!" The major gave a flourish with his
stick, and walked on again, in despair of being
able to say what you came to, if you came to
that.

" You addressed the daughter, I observed," said
Mr. Dombey after a short pause, "as !Mrs.
Granger."

"Edith Skewton, sir," returned the major, stop-
ping short again, and punching a mark in the
ground with his cane to represent her, "married
(at eighteen) Granger of Ours ; " whom the major
indicated by another punch, "Granger, sir," said
the major, tapping the last ideal portrait, and roll-
ing his head emphatically, "was Colonel of Ours ; a
de-vilish handsome fellow, sir, of forty-one. He
died, sir, in the second year of his marriage." The
major ran the representative of the deceased Gran-
ger through and through the body with his walking-
stick, and went on again, carrying his stick over his
shoulder.

"How long is this ago?" asked Mr. Dombey,
making another halt.

"Edith Granger, sir," replied the major, shutting
one eye, putting his head on one side, passing his
cane into his left hand, and smoothing his shirt-frill
with his right, " is at this present time not quite
thirty. And damme, sir," said the major, shoulder-
ing his stick once more and walking on again,
" she's a peerless woman ! "

" Was there any family ? " asked Mr. Dombey
presently.

" Yes, sir/' said the major. " There was a boy."



DOJIBEY A^TD SON. 9

Mr. Dombey's eyes sought the ground, and a
shade came over his face.

"Who was drowned, sir," pursued the major,
*' when a child of four or five years old."

" Indeed ? " said Mr. Dombey, raising his head.

" By the upsetting of a boat in which his nurse
had no business to have put him," said the major.
" That's his history. Edith Granger is Edith
Granger still ; but if tough old Joey B., sir, were a
little younger and a little richer, the name of that
immortal paragon should be Bagstock."

The major heaved his shoulders and his cheeks,
and laughed more like an over-fed Mephistophiles
than ever, as he said the words.

"Provided the lady made no objection, I sup-
pose ? " said Mr. Dombey coldly.

"By Gad, sir," said the major, "the Bagstock
breed are not accustomed to that sort of obstacle.
Though it's true enough that Edith might have
married twen-ty times, but for being proud, sir,
proud."

Mr. Dombey seemed, by his face, to think no
worse of her for that.

"It's a great quality after all," said the major.
" By the Lord, it's a high quality ! Dombey !
You are proud yourself, and your friend, old Joe,
respects you for it, sir."

With this tribute to the character of his ally,
which seemed to be wrung from him by the force
of circumstances and the irresistible tendency of
their conversation, the major closed the subject,
and glided into a general exposition of the extent
to which he had been beloved and doted on by
splendid women and brilliant creatures.



10 DOMBEY AND SON.

On the next day but one, Mr. Dombey and the
major encountered the Honorable Mrs. Skewton
and her daughter in the Pump-room; on the day
after, they met them again very near the place
where they had met them first. After meeting
them thus three or four times in all, it became a
point of mere civility to old acquaintances that the
major should go there one evening. Mr. Dombey
had not originally intended to pay visits, but, on
the major announcing this intention, he said he
would have the pleasure of accompanying him. So
the major told the native to go round before dinner,
and say, with his and Mr. Dombey's compliments,
that they would have the honor of visiting the
ladies that same evening, if the ladies were alone.
In answer to which message, the native brought
back a very small note with a very large quantity
of scent about it, indited by the Honorable Mrs.
Skewton to Major Bagstock, and briefly saying,
" You are a shocking bear, and I have a great mind
not to forgive you, but if you are very good indeed,"
which was underlined, "you may come. Compli-
ments (in which Edith unites) to Mr. Dombey."

The Honorable Mrs. Skewton and her daughter,
Mrs. Granger, resided, while at Leamington, in lodg-
ings that were fashionable enough and dear enough,
but rather limited in point of space and conven-
iences ; so that the Honorable Mrs. Skewton, being
in bed, had her feet in the window and her head in
the fireplace, while the Honorable Mrs. Skewton's
maid was quartered in a closet within the drawing-
room, so extremely small, that, to avoid developing
the whole of its accommodations, she was obliged
to writhe in and out of the door like a beautiful



DOMBEY AND SON. 11

serpent. Withers, the wan page, slept out of the
house immediately under the tiles at a neighboring
milk-shop ; and the wheeled chair, which was the
stone of that young Sisyphus, passed the night in a
shed belonging to the same dairy, where new-laid
eggs were produced by the poultry connected with
the establishment, who roosted on a broken donkey-
cart — persuaded, to all appearance, that it grew
there, and was a species of tree.

Mr. Dombey and the major found Mrs. Skewton
arranged, as Cleopatra, among the cushions of a
sofa ; very airily dressed ; and certainly not resem-
bling Shakespeare's Cleopatra, whom age could not
wither. On their way upstairs they had heard the
sound of a harp, but it had ceased on their being
announced, and Edith now stood beside it, hand-
somer and haughtier than ever. It was a remark-
able characteristic of this lady's beauty that it ap-
peared to vaunt and assert itself without her aid,
and against her will. She knew that she was beauti-
ful : it was impossible that it could be otherwise : but
she seemed with her own pride to defy her very self.

Whether she held cheap, attractions that could
only call forth admiration that was worthless to
her, or Avhether she designed to render them more
precious to admirers by this usage of them, those to
whom they were precious seldom paused to consider.

" I hope, Mrs. Granger," said Mr. Dombey, advan-
cing a step towards her, '' we are not the cause of
your ceasing to play ? "

" You ? Oh, no ! "

" Why do you not go on, then, my dearest Edith ? "
said Cleopatra.

" I left off as I began — of my own fancy."



12 DOMBEY AKD SON.

The exquisite indifference of her manner in say-
ing this : an indifference quite removed from dul-
ness or insensibility, for it was pointed with proud
purpose : was well set off by the carelessness with
which she drew her hand across the strings, and
came from that part of the room.

" Do you know, Mr. Dombey," said her languish-
ing mother, playing with a hand-screen, " that occa-
sionally my dearest Edith and myself actually almost
differ — "

" Not quite, sometimes, mamma ? " said Edith.

" Oh, never quite, my darling ! Eie, fie, it would
break my heart," returned her mother, making a
faint attempt to pat her with the screen, which
Edith made no movement to meet. " — About
these cold conventionalities of manner that are
observed in little things ? Why are we not more
natural ? Dear me ! With all those yearnings, and
gushings, and impulsive throbbings that we have
implanted in our souls, and which are so very charm-
ing, why are we not more natural ? "

Mr. Dombey said it was very true, very true.

"We could be more natural, I suppose, if we
tried ? " said Mrs. Skewton.

Mr. Dombey thought it possible.

"Devil a bit, ma'am," said the major. "We
couldn't afford it. Unless the world was peopled
with J. B.'s — tough and blunt old Joes, ma'am,
plain red herrings with hard roes, sir — we couldn't
afford it. It wouldn't do."

"You naughty infidel," said Mrs. Skewton, "be
mute."

" Cleopatra commands," returned the major, kiss-
ing his hand, " and Antony Bagstock obeys."



DOJVIBEY AND SON. 13

" The man has no sensitiveness," said Mrs. Skew-
ton, cruelly holding up the hand-screen so as to shut
the major out. "No sympathy. And what do we
live for but sympathy ? What else is so extremely
charming ? Without that gleam of sunshine on our
cold, cold earth," said Mrs. Skewton, arranging her
lace tucker, and complacently observing the effect of
her bare lean arm, looking upward from the wrist,
" how could we possibly bear it ? In short, obdu-
rate man ! " glancing at the major round the screen,
" I would have my world all heart ; and Faith is so
excessively charming, that I won't allow you to dis-
turb it, do you hear ? "

The major replied that it was hard in Cleopatra
to require the world to be all heart, and yet to
appropriate to herself the hearts of all the world ;
which obliged Cleopatra to remind him that flattery
was insupportable to her, and that, if he had the
boldness to address her in that strain any more, she
would positively send him home.

Withers the Wan, at this period, handing round
the tea, Mr. Dombey again addressed himself to
Edith.

''There is not much company here, it would
seem ? " said Mr. Dombey in his own portentous,
gentlemanly way.

"I believe not. We see none."

"Why, really," observed Mrs. Skewton from her
couch, "there are no people here just now with whom
we care to associate."

"They have not enough heart," said Edith with a
smile. The very twilight of a smile : so singularly
were its light and darkness blended.

" My dearest Edith rallies me, you see ! " said her



14 DOMBEY AND SON.

mother, shaking her head : which shook a little of
itself sometimes, as if the palsy twinkled now and
then in opposition to the diamonds. " Wicked one ! "

"You have been here before, if I am not mis-
taken ? " said Mr. Dombey. Still to Edith.

" Oh, several times. I think we have been every-
where."

" A beautiful country ! "

" I suppose it is. Everybody says so."

" Your cousin Feenix raves about it, Edith," inter-
posed her mother from her couch.

The daughter slightly turned her graceful head,
and raising her eyebrows by a hair's breadth, as if
her cousin Feenix were of all the mortal world the
least to be regarded, turned her eyes again towards
Mr. Dombey.

"I hope, for the credit of my good taste, that I
am tired of the neighborhood," she said.

"You have almost reason to be, madam," he re-
plied, glancing at a variety of landscape drawings,
of which he had already recognized several as repre-
senting neighboring points of view, and which were
strewn abundantly about the room, " if these beauti-
ful productions are from your hand."

She gave him no reply, but sat in a disdainful
beauty, quite amazing.

" Have they that interest ? " said Mr. Dombey.
" Are they yours ? "

« Yes."

" And you play, I already know."

"Yes."

"And sing?"

"Yes."

She answered all these questions with a strange



DOMBEY AXD SOX. 15

reluctance ; and with that remarkable air of opposi-
tion to herself, already noticed as belonging to her
beauty. Yet she was not embarrassed, but wholly
self-possessed. Neither did she seem to wish to
avoid the conversation, for she addressed her face,
and — so far as she could — her manner also, to
him ; and continued to do so when he was silent.

" You have many resources against weariness at
least," said Mr. Dombey.

" Whatever their efficiency may be," she returned,
"you know them all now. I have no more."

" May I hope to prove them all ? " said Mr. Dom-
bey with solemn gallantry, laying down a drawing
he had held, and motioning towards the harp.

" Oh, certainly ! If you desire it ! "

She rose as she spoke, and crossing by her
mother's couch, and directing a stately look towards
her, which was instantaneous in its duration, but
inclusive (if any one had seen it) of a multitude of
expressions, among which that of the twilight smile,
without the smile itself, overshadowed all the rest,
went out of the room.

The major, who was quite forgiven by this time,
had wheeled a little table up to Cleopatra, and was
sitting down to play piquet with her. Mr. Dombey,