Charles Dickens. Dombey and Son (chapter 31-62)

        CHAPTER 31.
     The Wedding

     Dawn with its  passionless blank face,  steals shivering  to the church
beneath which  lies the dust of little Paul and  his mother, and looks in at
the windows. It is cold and dark. Night crouches yet, upon the pavement, and
broods, sombre and  heavy,  in  nooks  and  corners  of  the  building.  The
steeple-clock, perched up above the houses, emerging from beneath another of
the  countless ripples  in the tide of time that regularly roll and break on
the eternal shore, is greyly visible, like a stone beacon, recording how the
sea flows on; but within doors, dawn, at first, can  only peep at night, and
see that it is there.
     Hovering feebly round the  church, and looking in, dawn moans and weeps
for  its short  reign, and  its tears  trickle on the  window-glass, and the
trees against the church-wall bow their heads, and wring their many hands in
sympathy. Night, growing  pale before it, gradually fades out of the church,
but lingers  in  the  vaults below, and sits upon the coffins. And now comes
bright  day,  burnishing  the steeple-clock,  and reddening  the spire,  and
drying  up the tears  of dawn, and stifling  its  complaining; and the dawn,
following the  night, and chasing it from its  last refuge, shrinks into the
vaults itself and hides, with a frightened face, among the dead, until night
returns, refreshed, to drive it out.
     And  now,  the mice, who  have been  busier with  the prayer-books than
their proper owners, and with the hassocks, more worn  by their little teeth
than by human knees, hide their bright eyes in their holes, and gather close
together in affright at  the resounding clashing of the church-door. For the
beadle, that man of power, comes early this morning with the sexton; and Mrs
Miff, the wheezy little pew-opener - a mighty dry old lady, sparely dressed,
with not an inch of fulness anywhere about  her - is also here, and has been
waiting at the church-gate half-an-hour, as her place is, for the beadle.
     A vinegary face has Mrs Miff, and a mortified bonnet, and eke a thirsty
soul for  sixpences and shillings. Beckoning  to stray people  to  come into
pews, has given Mrs Miff an air of mystery;  and there is reservation in the
eye  of  Mrs  Miff,  as  always  knowing  of a  softer  seat, but having her
suspicions of the fee. There is no such fact as Mr Miff, nor has there been,
these twenty  years,  and Mrs  Miff would rather  not allude to him. He held
some  bad  opinions,  it would  seem, about free seats;  and though Mrs Miff
hopes he may be gone upwards, she couldn't positively undertake to say so.
     Busy is Mrs  Miff  this morning at the church-door, beating and dusting
the altar-cloth, the carpet, and the cushions; and much has Mrs Miff to say,
about  the wedding  they are going to have. Mrs Miff  is told, that  the new
furniture and alterations in the house cost full five thousand pound if they
cost a penny; and Mrs Miff has heard, upon the best authority, that the lady
hasn't got a sixpence wherewithal to bless herself. Mrs Miff remembers, like
wise,  as if it had happened yesterday, the first  wife's  funeral, and then
the christening, and  then the other  funeral; and Mrs Miff says, by-the-bye
she'll  soap-and-water  that  'ere tablet  presently,  against  the  company
arrive. Mr  Sownds  the  Beadle, who is  sitting  in the sun upon the church
steps all this time (and seldom does anything else, except, in cold weather,
sitting by the fire), approves of Mrs Miff's discourse, and asks if Mrs Miff
has heard it said, that the  lady is uncommon handsome?  The information Mrs
Miff  has received, being of this  nature, Mr Sownds the Beadle, who, though
orthodox and corpulent, is still an admirer of female beauty, observes, with
unction, yes, he hears she is a spanker - an expression that  seems somewhat
forcible to Mrs Miff, or  would, from any lips but  those of  Mr Sownds  the
Beadle.
     In  Mr Dombey's  house, at this  same  time,  there  is  great stir and
bustle, more especially  among the  women: not one of whom has had a wink of
sleep since four o'clock, and all of  whom were fully dressed before six. Mr
Towlinson is an object of greater consideration than usual to the housemaid,
and  the cook  says at breakfast time that one wedding makes many, which the
housemaid can't believe,  and don't think true at all. Mr Towlinson reserves
his sentiments on  this question;  being  rendered  something gloomy by  the
engagement of  a  foreigner  with  whiskers  (Mr  Towlinson  is  whiskerless
himself), who has been hired to  accompany the happy  pair to Paris, and who
is busy packing the new chariot. In respect of this personage, Mr  Towlinson
admits,  presently,  that  he never  knew of  any  good  that ever  come  of
foreigners; and being  charged by  the ladies  with prejudice, says, look at
Bonaparte  who was at the head  of 'em,  and see what  he was always up  to!
Which the housemaid says is very true.
     The pastry-cook is hard at  work in the funereal  room in Brook Street,
and the very tall young men are busy looking on. One of the very tall  young
men already smells  of sherry, and his eyes have a tendency to become  fixed
in  his  head, and to  stare at objects without seeing  them. The very  tall
young  man is conscious of this failing in himself; and informs his  comrade
that it's his 'exciseman.' The very tall young man would say excitement, but
his speech is hazy.
     The men who play  the  bells have got  scent of the  marriage;  and the
marrow-bones and  cleavers  too; and  a  brass  band  too.  The  first,  are
practising  in  a  back  settlement   near  Battlebridge;  the  second,  put
themselves in communication, through their chief, with Mr Towlinson, to whom
they offer terms to be bought off; and the third, in the person of an artful
trombone,  lurks  and dodges  round the  corner,  waiting for  some  traitor
tradesman  to  reveal  the  place  and  hour  of  breakfast,  for  a  bribe.
Expectation and excitement extend further yet,  and take a wider range. From
Balls Pond,  Mr Perch brings Mrs  Perch to spend the  day with  Mr  Dombey's
servants, and accompany them,  surreptitiously, to  see the  wedding.  In Mr
Toots's lodgings,  Mr  Toots  attires  himself as if  he were at  least  the
Bridegroom; determined to behold the  spectacle in splendour  from a  secret
corner  of  the gallery, and thither  to convey  the Chicken:  for  it is Mr
Toots's desperate intent to point out  Florence to  the  Chicken,  then  and
there, and openly to  say, 'Now, Chicken, I will not deceive you any longer;
the friend I have  sometimes mentioned to you is myself;  Miss Dombey is the
object of my passion; what are your  opinions,  Chicken,  in  this  state of
things,  and what, on the spot, do you advise? The  so-much-to-be-astonished
Chicken,  in the meanwhile, dips his beak into a tankard  of strong beer, in
Mr Toots's  kitchen,  and pecks up two  pounds of beefsteaks.  In Princess's
Place, Miss Tox is  up and doing;  for she too, though  in sore distress, is
resolved  to put  a shilling in the  hands of Mrs Miff, and see the ceremony
which has a cruel fascination for her, from some lonely corner. The quarters
of  the  wooden  Midshipman  are  all  alive;  for  Captain Cuttle,  in  his
ankle-jacks  and  with  a  huge  shirt-collar, is  seated  at his breakfast,
listening  to  Rob  the Grinder as  he  reads  the  marriage service  to him
beforehand,  under  orders,  to the  end  that  the  Captain  may  perfectly
understand  the solemnity he  is about to  witness:  for  which purpose, the
Captain gravely lays injunctions on his chaplain, from time to time, to 'put
about,'  or  to  'overhaul that 'ere article again,' or  to stick to his own
duty, and leave  the Amens  to him, the  Captain;  one  of which he repeats,
whenever a pause is made by Rob the Grinder, with sonorous satisfaction.
     Besides all this,  and  much more,  twenty nursery-maids in Mr Dombey's
street   alone,  have  promised  twenty  families  of  little  women,  whose
instinctive interest in nuptials dates from their cradles,  that  they shall
go and see the marriage. Truly, Mr Sownds the Beadle has good reason to feel
himself in office, as he suns his portly figure on the church steps, waiting
for the marriage hour. Truly, Mrs  Miff has cause  to  pounce on  an unlucky
dwarf child, with a giant baby,  who  peeps in at the  porch, and drive  her
forth with indignation!
     Cousin  Feenix  has  come  over  from  abroad, expressly to  attend the
marriage. Cousin Feenix  was a man  about town, forty years  ago; but  he is
still  so  juvenile  in figure  and  in manner,  and  so  well got  up, that
strangers are amazed when they  discover  latent wrinkles  in his lordship's
face, and crows'  feet  in his eyes:  and  first  observe him,  not  exactly
certain when he walks across a  room, of  going  quite straight to where  he
wants to go. But Cousin Feenix, getting up at half-past seven o'clock or so,
is quite another thing from  Cousin  Feenix got up; and very dim, indeed, he
looks, while being shaved at Long's Hotel, in Bond Street.
     Mr  Dombey leaves his dressing-room, amidst a general  whisking away of
the women on the  staircase, who  disperse in  all  directions, with a great
rustling of skirts, except Mrs Perch, who, being (but that she always is) in
an interesting situation, is  not nimble, and is obliged to face him, and is
ready  to sink with confusion as she  curtesys; - may Heaven avert all  evil
consequences   from  the  house  of  Perch!  Mr   Dombey  walks  up  to  the
drawing-room, to bide  his  time.  Gorgeous are  Mr Dombey's new blue  coat,
fawn-coloured pantaloons, and  lilac waistcoat; and a whisper goes about the
house, that Mr Dombey's hair is curled.
     A double knock announces the arrival of the Major, who is gorgeous too,
and wears a whole geranium in his button-hole, and has his hair curled tight
and crisp, as well the Native knows.
     'Dombey!' says the Major, putting out both hands, 'how are you?'
     'Major,' says Mr Dombey, 'how are You?'
     'By Jove, Sir,' says the Major, 'Joey B. is in such  case this morning,
Sir,' - and  here he hits himself hard upon the breast - 'In such  case this
morning, Sir,  that, damme, Dombey,  he  has  half  a mind to make  a double
marriage of it, Sir, and take the mother.'
     Mr Dombey  smiles; but faintly,  even for him; for Mr Dombey feels that
he   is  going  to  be  related  to  the  mother,  and   that,  under  those
circumstances, she is not to be joked about.
     'Dombey,' says the Major, seeing this, 'I give you joy. I  congratulate
you, Dombey. By the Lord, Sir,' says the Major,  'you are more to be envied,
this day, than any man in England!'
     Here  again  Mr Dombey's assent is  qualified;  because he is  going to
confer a  great  distinction  on a lady; and, no doubt, she  is to be envied
most.
     'As to Edith Granger, Sir,' pursues the Major, 'there is not a woman in
all Europe but might - and would, Sir, you will allow  Bagstock to add - and
would- give her  ears,  and her  earrings,  too, to be  in  Edith  Granger's
place.'
     'You are good enough to say so, Major,' says Mr Dombey.
     'Dombey,'  returns  the  Major,  'you  know it. Let  us have  no  false
delicacy. You  know  it. Do you know  it, or  do you not, Dombey?' says  the
Major, almost in a passion.
     'Oh, really, Major - '
     'Damme, Sir,' retorts the Major, 'do you know that fact, or do you not?
Dombey!  Is  old  Joe  your  friend? Are we  on  that  footing of unreserved
intimacy, Dombey, that may  justify a man -  a blunt old Joseph B., Sir - in
speaking out; or am I to take open order,  Dombey, and  to keep my distance,
and to stand on forms?'
     'My  dear Major Bagstock,' says Mr Dombey,  with  a gratified air, 'you
are quite warm.'
     'By Gad,  Sir,' says the Major, 'I am warm. Joseph B. does not deny it,
Dombey.  He is warm. This is  an  occasion,  Sir,  that calls forth  all the
honest   sympathies  remaining  in  an  old,  infernal,  battered,  used-up,
invalided, J. B. carcase. And I tell you what, Dombey - at such a time a man
must blurt out what he feels, or put a muzzle on; and  Joseph Bagstock tells
you  to your face, Dombey,  as he tells his  club behind  your back, that he
never will be muzzled  when Paul  Dombey is  in question. Now,  damme, Sir,'
concludes the Major, with great firmness, 'what do you make of that?'
     'Major,' says Mr Dombey, 'I assure you that I am really obliged to you.
I had no idea of checking your too partial friendship.'
     'Not too partial, Sir!'  exclaims  the choleric Major. 'Dombey, I  deny
it.'
     'Your friendship I will say then,'  pursues Mr Dombey, 'on any account.
Nor can I  forget, Major,  on such an occasion as the present, how much I am
indebted to it.'
     'Dombey,' says the Major, with appropriate action, 'that is the hand of
Joseph Bagstock: of plain old Joey B., Sir, if you like that better! That is
the  hand, of which His Royal  Highness the  late Duke of York,  did me  the
honour to observe, Sir, to His Royal Highness the late Duke of Kent, that it
was the hand  of Josh: a  rough and  tough, and possibly an up-to-snuff, old
vagabond. Dombey, may the  present moment be the least unhappy of our lives.
God bless you!'
     Now  enters   Mr  Carker,  gorgeous  likewise,   and   smiling  like  a
wedding-guest indeed.  He can  scarcely let Mr Dombey's  hand go, he  is  so
congratulatory; and he shakes the Major's hand so heartily at the same time,
that his voice shakes too, in accord with his arms, as it comes sliding from
between his teeth.
     'The very  day  is auspicious,' says Mr Carker. 'The brightest and most
genial weather! I hope I am not a moment late?'
     'Punctual to your time, Sir,' says the Major.
     'I am  rejoiced, I am sure,' says Mr Carker. 'I was afraid I might be a
few seconds after  the appointed time, for I was delayed by  a procession of
waggons;  and I  took the liberty of riding round to Brook Street' - this to
Mr  Dombey - 'to leave a few poor rarities of flowers for Mrs Dombey. A  man
in my  position,  and so distinguished as to  be invited  here,  is proud to
offer some homage in acknowledgment of his vassalage: and as I have no doubt
Mrs  Dombey is overwhelmed with what  is  costly  and  magnificent;'  with a
strange glance at  his patron; 'I  hope the very poverty of my offering, may
find favour for it.'
     'Mrs Dombey, that is to be,' returns  Mr Dombey, condescendingly, 'will
be very sensible of your attention, Carker, I am sure.'
     'And  if she is to be Mrs  Dombey  this morning, Sir,'  says the Major,
putting down  his coffee-cup, and looking  at  his watch, 'it's high time we
were off!'
     Forth, in a barouche, ride Mr Dombey, Major Bagstock, and Mr Carker, to
the  church. Mr Sownds the Beadle  has long risen from the  steps, and is in
waiting  with his  cocked hat  in  his hand. Mrs  Miff curtseys and proposes
chairs in the vestry. Mr Dombey prefers remaining in the church. As he looks
up at the organ, Miss Tox in the  gallery shrinks  behind  the fat leg of  a
cherubim on a monument,  with  cheeks like a young  Wind. Captain Cuttle, on
the  contrary, stands  up  and  waves  his  hook, in  token  of welcome  and
encouragement.  Mr  Toots  informs the  Chicken, behind his  hand,  that the
middle gentleman, he in the fawn-coloured pantaloons, is  the  father of his
love.  The  Chicken hoarsely whispers Mr Toots that he's as stiff a  cove as
ever he see,  but that it is within  the resources  of Science to double him
up, with one blow in the waistcoat.
     Mr Sownds  and  Mrs Miff are eyeing Mr Dombey  from a  little distance,
when the noise  of approaching  wheels is heard, and Mr Sownds goes out. Mrs
Miff,  meeting Mr  Dombey's  eye  as  it is withdrawn  from the presumptuous
maniac upstairs, who salutes him with so much urbanity, drops a curtsey, and
informs him  that she  believes his 'good lady'  is  come. Then  there is  a
crowding and a whispering at  the  door, and the  good lady  enters,  with a
haughty step.
     There is no sign upon her face, of last  night's suffering; there is no
trace  in her manner, of the woman on  the  bended knees, reposing  her wild
head, in beautiful abandonment, upon the pillow  of the  sleeping girl. That
girl, all gentle and lovely, is at her side - a striking contrast to her own
disdainful and defiant figure, standing there, composed, erect,  inscrutable
of will,  resplendent and majestic in the zenith of  its charms, yet beating
down, and treading on, the admiration that it challenges.
     There is a pause while Mr Sownds the Beadle glides into the  vestry for
the clergyman and clerk. At this juncture, Mrs Skewton speaks to  Mr Dombey:
more distinctly and emphatically than  her custom is, and moving at the same
time, close to Edith.
     'My dear Dombey,' said the good Mama, 'I fear I must relinquish darling
Florence  after  all, and suffer her to go home,  as she  herself  proposed.
After my loss of to-day, my dear  Dombey, I feel I shall  not  have spirits,
even for her society.'
     'Had she not better stay with you?' returns the Bridegroom.
     'I think not, my dear Dombey. No, I think not. I shall be better alone.
Besides, my dearest Edith will be her natural and constant guardian when you
return, and I had better  not encroach upon her trust, perhaps. She might be
jealous. Eh, dear Edith?'
     The  affectionate  Mama presses  her daughter's arm,  as she says this;
perhaps entreating her attention earnestly.
     'To be  serious, my dear Dombey,'  she resumes, 'I will relinquish  our
dear child,  and not inflict my gloom upon  her. We have settled  that, just
now. She  fully  understands,  dear  Dombey.  Edith,  my  dear, -  she fully
understands.'
     Again, the good mother presses her  daughter's arm. Mr Dombey offers no
additional  remonstrance;  for the clergyman and clerk appear; and Mrs Miff,
and  Mr  Sownds the Beadle,  group  the party in their proper  places at the
altar rails.
     The  sun  is  shining   down,  upon  the  golden  letters  of  the  ten
commandments. Why does  the Bride's eye read them,  one by one? Which one of
all  the ten appears  the plainest to her in the glare of light? False Gods;
murder;  theft; the honour that  she owes  her mother;  -  which is it  that
appears to  leave the wall, and printing itself in glowing  letters,  on her
book!
     "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?"'
     Cousin  Feenix  does that.  He  has come  from  Baden-Baden on purpose.
'Confound it,' Cousin  Feenix says  - good-natured creature, Cousin Feenix -
'when  we  do  get a rich City fellow into the family, let us show him  some
attention; let  us do something for him.' I give this woman to be married to
this man,' saith Cousin Feenix therefore. Cousin Feenix, meaning to go in  a
straight line, but turning off sideways by reason of his wilful  legs, gives
the wrong woman to be married to this man, at first - to wit, a brides- maid
of some condition, distantly connected with the family,  and  ten  years Mrs
Skewton's  junior  -  but  Mrs  Miff,  interposing   her  mortified  bonnet,
dexterously turns him back, and runs him, as on  castors, full at  the 'good
lady:' whom  Cousin Feenix giveth  to married to  this man accordingly.  And
will they in the sight of heaven - ? Ay, that  they  will: Mr Dombey says he
will. And what says Edith?  She will. So, from that day forward,  for better
for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to  love and to
cherish,  till death do them part, they  plight  their troth to one another,
and are  married. In a firm, free hand, the Bride subscribes her name in the
register, when  they adjourn to the vestry. 'There ain't a many ladies  come
here,' Mrs Miff says with a curtsey - to look at Mrs Miff, at such a season,
is to make her mortified bonnet go down with a dip - writes their names like
this  good  lady!'  Mr  Sownds  the Beadle  thinks  it is  a truly  spanking
signature,  and worthy of the writer  - this, however,  between  himself and
conscience. Florence signs too, but unapplauded,  for her  hand shakes.  All
the party sign; Cousin Feenix last;  who puts his  noble  name  into a wrong
place,  and  enrols himself  as having been born that morning. The Major now
salutes the Bride  right gallantly, and  carries out that branch of military
tactics in reference to  all the ladies: notwithstanding Mrs Skewton's being
extremely  hard to  kiss,  and squeaking  shrilly in the sacred edIfice. The
example  is followed by Cousin. Feenix and  even by  Mr  Dombey.  Lastly, Mr
Carker,  with  hIs white teeth glistening, approaches Edith, more  as if  he
meant to bite her, than to taste the sweets that linger on her lips.
     There is a  glow upon her proud cheek, and a flashing in her eyes, that
may be meant  to  stay him; but it does not, for he salutes her as  the rest
have done, and wishes her all happiness.
     'If  wishes,'  says he in a low voice, 'are not superfluous, applied to
such a union.'
     'I  thank you, Sir,' she  answers, with  a curled  lip, and  a  heaving
bosom.
     But, does  Edith  feel still, as on the night  when  she  knew  that Mr
Dombey would return to offer his alliance, that Carker knows her thoroughly,
and reads her right, and  that she is more degraded by his knowledge of her,
than  by aught else?  Is  it  for this reason that her  haughtiness  shrinks
beneath his smile, like  snow  within the hands  that  grasps it firmly, and
that her imperious glance droops In meeting his, and seeks the ground?
     'I am proud to see,' said  Mr Carker,  with  a  servile stooping of his
neck, which  the revelations  making by his eyes and teeth proclaim to be  a
lie,  'I am proud to see that  my  humble offering is graced by Mrs Dombey's
hand, and permitted to hold so favoured a place in so joyful an occasion.'
     Though  she  bends her  head,  in  answer, there  is something  in  the
momentary action of  her hand, as if she  would crush the  flowers it holds,
and  fling  them, with contempt, upon  the ground.  But, she  puts  the hand
through  the arm  of her new husband, who has been standing near, conversing
with the Major, and is proud again, and motionless, and silent.
     The carriages are once more at  the church  door.  Mr  Dombey, with his
bride upon his arm, conducts her through the twenty families of little women
who are on the steps,  and every one  of whom remembers the  fashion and the
colour of her every  article of dress from that moment, and reproduces it on
her doll, who  is for  ever being married. Cleopatra and Cousin Feenix enter
the same carriage. The Major hands into a second carriage, Florence, and the
bridesmaid who so  narrowly escaped being given away  by  mistake, and  then
enters it  himself, and is followed by Mr  Carker. Horses prance and  caper;
coachmen and  footmen  shine in  fluttering favours, flowers,  and  new-made
liveries. Away  they dash and  rattle through the streets; and as  they pass
along,  a thousand heads  are turned to look at them, and a  thousand  sober
moralists  revenge themselves  for not being married  too,  that morning, by
reflecting that these people little think such happiness can't last.
     Miss Tox emerges from behind the cherubim's leg, when all is quiet, and
comes  slowly down  from  the  gallery.  Miss Tox's  eyes  are  red, and her
pocket-handkerchief  is damp. She is wounded, but not exasperated,  and  she
hopes they may be  happy.  She quite  admits to  herself the  beauty of  the
bride,  and  her own  comparatively feeble and  faded  attractions; but  the
stately image  of  Mr Dombey in his  lilac waistcoat, and  his fawn-coloured
pantaloons,  is present to her mind, and  Miss Tox weeps  afresh, behind her
veil, on her way home to Princess's Place. Captain Cuttle, having  joined in
all the amens and responses, with a devout growl, feels much improved by his
religious  exercises; and in  a peaceful frame of  mind pervades the body of
the church, glazed hat in hand, and reads the tablet to the memory of little
Paul.  The gallant  Mr Toots,  attended by the faithful  Chicken, leaves the
building in torments  of love.  The Chicken is as yet  unable to elaborate a
scheme  for winning  Florence,  but his  first idea has gained possession of
him, and he thinks the doubling up of Mr Dombey would be a move in the right
direction. Mr Dombey's servants come out of their hiding-places, and prepare
to rush to Brook Street, when they are delayed by symptoms  of indisposition
on  the part  of Mrs Perch,  who  entreats  a  glass of water,  and  becomes
alarming; Mrs Perch gets better  soon, however, and  is borne away; and  Mrs
Miff,  and Mr Sownds the Beadle, sit upon the steps to count  what they have
gained by the affair, and talk it over, while the sexton tolls a funeral.
     Now,  the carriages arrive at the Bride's residence, and the players on
the bells begin to jingle, and the band strikes up, and Mr Punch, that model
of  connubial bliss,  salutes  his  wife. Now, the people run, and push, and
press  round in a gaping throng, while Mr  Dombey, leading Mrs Dombey by the
hand, advances solemnly into the  Feenix Halls. Now, the rest of the wedding
party alight, and enter after them. And why does  Mr Carker, passing through
the people to the hall-door, think of the old woman who called to him in the
Grove  that morning?  Or why does Florence,  as  she passes,  think, with  a
tremble, of her childhood,  when she was lost, and of the visage of Good Mrs
Brown?
     Now, there are more congratulations  on this happiest of days, and more
company,  though  not much; and now  they leave  the drawing-room, and range
themselves at table in the dark-brown dining-room, which no confectioner can
brighten  up, let him garnish the exhausted negroes with as many flowers and
love-knots as he will.
     The pastry-cook  has  done  his  duty  like  a man, though,  and a rich
breakfast  is  set  forth.  Mr and Mrs  Chick  have joined the party,  among
others. Mrs Chick admires that Edith should be,  by  nature,  such a perfect
Dombey;  and is  affable and confidential to  Mrs  Skewton,  whose  mind  is
relieved of a great load, and who takes her share of the champagne. The very
tall young man who  suffered  from excitement early, is better; but a  vague
sentiment  of  repentance has seized upon  him, and he hates  the other very
tall young man, and  wrests dishes from him  by violence, and  takes a  grim
delight in  disobliging the company. The  company are cool and calm, and  do
not outrage the black hatchments  of pictures looking down upon them, by any
excess of  mirth. Cousin Feenix and  the Major are the gayest there;  but Mr
Carker has a smile  for the  whole  table. He  has an especial smile for the
Bride, who very, very seldom meets it.
     Cousin  Feenix  rises, when  the  company  have  breakfasted,  and  the
servants have left the room; and wonderfully young he looks,  with his white
wristbands almost  covering his hands (otherwise rather bony), and the bloom
of the champagne in his cheeks.
     'Upon my honour,' says Cousin Feenix, 'although it's an unusual sort of
thing in a private gentleman's house, I must beg  leave to call  upon you to
drink what is usually called a - in fact a toast.
     The Major very hoarsely indicates his  approval. Mr Carker, bending his
head forward over the table in  the direction of Cousin  Feenix,  smiles and
nods a great many times.
     'A - in fact it's not a - ' Cousin  Feenix beginning again, thus, comes
to a dead stop.
     'Hear, hear!' says the Major, in a tone of conviction.
     Mr Carker softly  claps  his hands, and bending forward over the  table
again, smiles  and nods a great many more times than  before,  as if he were
particularly struck  by  this  last  observation, and desired personally  to
express his sense of the good it has done
     'It  is,' says Cousin  Feenix, 'an occasion in  fact, when the  general
usages of  life  may  be a  little  departed from, without impropriety;  and
although I never was an orator in  my life, and when I  was  in the House of
Commons, and had the  honour  of seconding  the  address, was - in fact, was
laid up for a fortnight with the consciousness of failure - '
     The Major  and Mr  Carker are  so  much delighted by  this  fragment of
personal  history,   that  Cousin  Feenix   laughs,  and   addressing   them
individually, goes on to say:
     'And in point  of fact,  when I was devilish  ill - still, you know,  I
feel  that  a  duty devolves upon  me.  And  when a duty  devolves  upon  an
Englishman, he is bound to get out of it, in my opinion, in  the best way he
can.  Well!  our  family  has had the gratification, to-day,  of  connecting
itself, in the person of my lovely and accomplished relative, whom I now see
- in point of fact, present - '
     Here there is general applause.
     'Present,' repeats Cousin Feenix, feeling that it is a neat point which
will bear repetition, - 'with one who - that is to say, with a  man, at whom
the finger of  scorn can never - in fact,  with my honourable friend Dombey,
if he will allow me to call him so.'
     Cousin  Feenix bows to  Mr Dombey; Mr Dombey  solemnly returns the bow;
everybody is more or less gratified and affected by  this extraordinary, and
perhaps unprecedented, appeal to the feelings.
     'I have not,'  says Cousin Feenix, 'enjoyed those opportunities which I
could have desired, of cultivating the acquaintance of my friend Dombey, and
studying those qualities which do equal honour to his head, and, in point of
fact, to his heart; for it has been my misfortune  to be,  as we used to say
in my time in the House of Commons, when it was not  the custom to allude to
the Lords, and  when  the  order of parliamentary  proceedings  was  perhaps
better observed than it is now - to be in - in  point of fact,' says  Cousin
Feenix, cherishing his joke, with great slyness, and finally bringing it out
with a jerk, "'in another place!"'
     The Major falls into convulsions, and is recovered with difficulty.
     'But I know sufficient of my friend Dombey,' resumes Cousin Feenix in a
graver tone, as if he had suddenly become  a sadder  and wiser man' 'to know
that he is, in point of fact, what may be emphatically called a - a merchant
- a British merchant - and a - and a man. And  although I have been resident
abroad, for some years (it would give me great pleasure to receive my friend
Dombey, and  everybody here, at Baden-Baden, and  to have  an opportunity of
making 'em  known to the Grand Duke), still I know enough, I flatter myself,
of my lovely  and accomplished  relative,  to know that she  possesses every
requisite  to make a man happy, and that her  marriage with my friend Dombey
is one of inclination and affection on both sides.'
     Many smiles and nods from Mr Carker.
     'Therefore,'  says Cousin Feenix, 'I congratulate the family of which I
am  a  member, on the  acquisition  of  my friend Dombey.  I congratulate my
friend Dombey  on his  union with  my lovely  and  accomplished relative who
possesses every requisite to make a  man  happy;  and I take  the liberty of
calling on you all, in  point of fact, to congratulate both my friend Dombey
and my lovely and accomplished relative, on the present occasion.'
     The speech  of Cousin Feenix is  received with great  applause,  and Mr
Dombey  returns thanks on behalf  of himself and  Mrs Dombey.  J. B. shortly
afterwards proposes Mrs Skewton. The breakfast languishes when that is done,
the  violated  hatchments  are  avenged,  and  Edith  rises  to  assume  her
travelling dress.
     All  the  servants  in  the  meantime, have  been  breakfasting  below.
Champagne has grown too common among them to be mentioned, and  roast fowls,
raised pies, and lobster-salad, have become mere drugs. The very tall  young
man  has recovered  his spirits, and  again alludes  to  the  exciseman. His
comrade's eye begins  to emulate his  own, and  he, too,  stares  at objects
without  taking cognizance thereof.  There is a general redness in the faces
of the ladies;  in the  face of  Mrs Perch  particularly, who is  joyous and
beaming, and lifted so far  above the cares of life, that  if she were asked
just now to direct a wayfarer to Ball's Pond, where her own cares lodge, she
would have some difficulty in  recalling the  way. Mr Towlinson has proposed
the happy pair; to which the silver-headed butler has  responded neatly, and
with  emotion; for  he  half begins  to  think he is an old retainer  of the
family,  and that  he is bound  to be  affected by these changes. The  whole
party, and especially the ladies, are very frolicsome. Mr Dombey's cook, who
generally takes  the lead in society,  has  said, it is impossible to settle
down after this, and why not  go, in a party,  to the  play? Everybody  (Mrs
Perch included) has agreed to  this; even the Native, who is tigerish in his
drink, and  who alarms the ladies (Mrs Perch particularly) by the rolling of
his eyes. One of the very tall young men has even proposed a ball  after the
play, and it  presents itself to no one (Mrs Perch included) in the light of
an impossibility. Words have arisen  between the housemaid and Mr Towlinson;
she,  on  the authority of an old  saw,  asserting  marriages to be made  in
Heaven: he, affecting to trace the manufacture elsewhere; he, supposing that
she says so, because she thinks of  being married her own self: she, saying,
Lord forbid, at  any  rate,  that  she should ever marry him. To  calm these
flying taunts, the  silver-headed butler rises to propose  the health  of Mr
Towlinson, whom to know is to esteem, and to  esteem is to wish well settled
in life  with  the  object of his choice,  wherever (here the  silver-headed
butler  eyes  the housemaid) she may be. Mr  Towlinson returns  thanks in  a
speech  replete  with  feeling, of which the peroration turns on foreigners,
regarding whom he  says  they may  find  favour, sometimes,  with  weak  and
inconstant intellects that can be led away by hair, but all he hopes, is, he
may never hear  of  no  foreigner  never boning nothing out of no travelling
chariot.  The eye  of Mr Towlinson is so severe and so expressive here, that
the housemaid is turning  hysterical, when  she and all  the rest, roused by
the intelligence that the Bride is going away, hurry upstairs to witness her
departure.
     The chariot is at the door; the Bride is  descending to the hall, where
Mr Dombey waits for  her. Florence  is ready on the staircase to depart too;
and Miss Nipper,  who has held a  middle state between  the parlour  and the
kitchen,  is  prepared to accompany her. As  Edith appears, Florence hastens
towards her, to bid her farewell.
     Is Edith cold, that she should tremble! Is there anything unnatural  or
unwholesome in the touch  of  Florence, that the beautiful form recedes  and
contracts, as if it could not bear  it! Is there so much hurry in this going
away, that Edith, with a wave of her hand, sweeps on, and is gone!
     Mrs Skewton, overpowered by her feelings as a mother, sinks on her sofa
in the Cleopatra  attitude, when the clatter of the chariot wheels  is lost,
and sheds several tears. The Major, coming with the rest of the company from
table,  endeavours to comfort  her; but  she  will  not be comforted on  any
terms,  and so the Major takes his leave. Cousin Feenix takes his leave, and
Mr Carker  takes  his leave. The guests all go away. Cleopatra, left  alone,
feels a little giddy from her strong emotion, and falls asleep.
     Giddiness prevails  below stairs too.  The  very tall  young man  whose
excitement came on so  soon, appears to have his  head glued to the table in
the pantry, and cannot be detached from - it. A violent  revulsion has taken
place in the  spirits of Mrs Perch, who is low  on account  of Mr Perch, and
tells cook that she fears he is not so much attached to his home, as he used
to be, when they were only nine in family. Mr Towlinson has a singing in his
ears and a large wheel going round and round inside his head.  The housemaid
wishes it wasn't wicked to wish that one was dead.
     There is  a general delusion likewise,  in these lower  regions, on the
subject  of time; everybody conceiving that it ought to be, at the earliest,
ten  o'clock at  night,  whereas it is  not yet three  in the  afternoon.  A
shadowy idea of wickedness  committed, haunts every individual in the party;
and  each one secretly thinks the other  a companion in guilt, whom it would
be  agreeable  to  avoid.  No  man or woman has the hardihood to hint at the
projected visit to the  play.  Anyone reviving the notion of the ball, would
be scouted as a malignant idiot.
     Mrs Skewton sleeps upstairs, two hours afterwards, and naps are not yet
over  in the kitchen. The hatchments in the dining-room look down on crumbs,
dirty  plates,  spillings  of  wine,  half-thawed   ice,  stale  discoloured
heel-taps, scraps  of  lobster,  drumsticks  of  fowls, and pensive jellies,
gradually  resolving themselves into a lukewarm gummy soup. The marriage is,
by this time, almost as denuded of its show and garnish as the breakfast. Mr
Dombey's servants moralise so much about it, and are so repentant over their
early tea,  at  home,  that by eight o'clock or so,  they settle  down  into
confirmed seriousness; and Mr  Perch, arriving at that time from  the  City,
fresh  and jocular, with  a white waistcoat and a comic song, ready to spend
the evening, and prepared  for any  amount of dissipation, is amazed to find
himself coldly received, and  Mrs Perch but poorly, and to have the pleasing
duty of escorting that lady home by the next omnibus.
     Night closes in. Florence, having rambled  through  the handsome house,
from room  to  room,  seeks her  own chamber,  where the  care  of Edith has
surrounded  her with luxuries  and  comforts; and  divesting herself  of her
handsome dress, puts on her old simple mourning for dear Paul, and sits down
to read,  with Diogenes winking and  blinking on the  ground beside her. But
Florence cannot read tonight. The house seems strange and new, and there are
loud  echoes in  it. There is a  shadow on  her heart: she  knows not why or
what:  but it  is heavy.  Florence  shuts  her book, and gruff Diogenes, who
takes that  for  a signal, puts his paws upon  her  lap,  and  rubs his ears
against her  caressing  hands.  But Florence  cannot see  him plainly,  in a
little time,  for  there is a mist  between her  eyes  and him, and her dead
brother and dead mother shine in it like angels. Walter, too, poor wandering
shipwrecked boy, oh, where is he?
     The  Major don't know; that's for  certain; and  don't care. The Major,
having choked and slumbered,  all the afternoon, has taken a late  dinner at
his  club, and now  sits over his pint of  wine, driving a modest young man,
with a fresh-coloured face, at the next table (who would give a handsome sum
to  be able to rise and go away,  but cannot do it) to the verge of madness,
by anecdotes of Bagstock, Sir,  at Dombey's wedding, and Old Joe's  devilish
gentle  manly friend, Lord Feenix. While  Cousin Feenix, who  ought to be at
Long's,  and  in bed, finds  himself, instead, at a  gaming-table, where his
wilful legs have taken him, perhaps, in his own despite.
     Night, like a giant, fills the church, from pavement to roof, and holds
dominion through the silent hours. Pale dawn again comes peeping through the
windows: and, giving place to  day, sees night withdraw into the vaults, and
follows it,  and  drives  it  out, and hides among the dead.  The timid mice
again  cower  close together, when the great door clashes, and Mr Sownds and
Mrs  Miff  treading the circle of their daily lives, unbroken as a  marriage
ring, come in. Again, the cocked hat and the mortified bonnet  stand in  the
background at the marriage hour;  and again this man  taketh this woman, and
this woman taketh this man, on the solemn terms:
     'To have and to hold,  from this day forward, for better for worse, for
richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to  cherish, until
death do them part.'
     The very words that Mr Carker rides into town repeating, with his mouth
stretched to the utmost, as he picks his dainty way.

        CHAPTER 32.
     The Wooden Midshipman goes to Pieces

     Honest Captain Cuttle, as  the  weeks  flew over him in  his  fortified
retreat, by no means abated any of  his prudent provisions against surprise,
because of  the non-appearance of the  enemy.  The  Captain argued  that his
present  security was too  profound and wonderful  to endure much longer; he
knew that when the  wind stood in a fair quarter, the weathercock was seldom
nailed  there; and he  was  too  well  acquainted with  the  determined  and
dauntless character of Mrs MacStinger, to doubt that  that heroic  woman had
devoted  herself to the task of his discovery and capture. Trembling beneath
the  weight of these reasons, Captain Cuttle  lived a very close and retired
life; seldom stirring abroad until after dark; venturing even then only into
the obscurest streets; never going forth at  all on Sundays; and both within
and without the walls of his retreat, avoiding bonnets, as if they were worn
by raging lions.
     The Captain never dreamed  that  in the event of his being pounced upon
by  Mrs MacStinger, in his walks, it would be  possible to offer resistance.
He felt that it could not be done.  He saw himself,  in his mind's eye,  put
meekly in a hackney-coach, and carried  off to his  old lodgings. He foresaw
that,  once immured there, he was a lost man:  his hat gone; Mrs  MacStinger
watchful of him day and  night; reproaches  heaped upon his head, before the
infant family; himself the guilty object of suspicion and distrust;  an ogre
in the children's eyes, and in their mother's a detected traitor.
     A violent perspiration, and a  lowness of spirits, always came over the
Captain as this gloomy  picture  presented  itself  to his  imagination.  It
generally  did so previous to his stealing out of doors at night for air and
exercise. Sensible  of the  risk he ran, the  Captain took leave  of Rob, at
those  times, with the solemnity which became a man who  might never return:
exhorting him, in the event of his  (the Captain's) being lost sight of, for
a  time, to  tread  in  the paths of virtue, and keep the brazen instruments
well polished.
     But not  to throw away a chance; and to  secure to  himself a means, in
case of the worst, of holding communication with the external world; Captain
Cuttle soon conceived the happy idea of teaching Rob the Grinder some secret
signal, by which that adherent might make his presence and fidelity known to
his commander, in the hour of adversity. After much cogitation,  the Captain
decided  in  favour  of instructing  him  to whistle  the marine melody, 'Oh
cheerily,  cheerily!'  and  Rob  the  Grinder  attaining  a  point  as  near
perfection  in  that  accomplishment as a landsman  could hope to reach, the
Captain impressed these mysterious instructions on his mind:
     'Now, my lad, stand by! If ever I'm took - '
     'Took, Captain!' interposed Rob, with his round eyes wide open.
     'Ah!' said Captain Cuttle darkly, 'if ever I goes away, meaning to come
back to supper, and don't come within hail again, twenty-four hours arter my
loss, go you to Brig Place and whistle that 'ere tune near my old moorings -
not as if  you was a meaning of it, you understand, but as if  you'd drifted
there, promiscuous. If I answer in  that tune,  you sheer off,  my  lad, and
come back four-and-twenty hours arterwards; if I answer in another  tune, do
you stand  off and on,  and wait  till I throw out further  signals.  Do you
understand them orders, now?'
     'What  am  I  to stand  off  and  on  of, Captain?' inquired  Rob. 'The
horse-road?'
     'Here's a smart lad for you!' cried the Captain eyeing him sternly, 'as
don't  know  his own  native  alphabet! Go  away  a bit and come  back again
alternate - d'ye understand that?'
     'Yes, Captain,' said Rob.
     'Very good my lad, then,' said the Captain, relenting. 'Do it!'
     That  he might do it the better, Captain Cuttle sometimes condescended,
of an evening after the shop was shut, to rehearse this scene: retiring into
the  parlour  for  the purpose,  as  into the lodgings  of a  supposititious
MacStinger, and carefully observing the behaviour of his ally, from the hole
of espial he had  cut in the wall. Rob the Grinder discharged himself of his
duty with so much exactness and judgment,  when thus put to the  proof, that
the Captain  presented him, at divers  times, with seven sixpences, in token
of satisfaction; and gradually felt stealing over his spirit the resignation
of  a man who had made  provision for the worst, and taken every  reasonable
precaution against an unrelenting fate.
     Nevertheless, the Captain did not tempt ill-fortune, by  being  a  whit
more  venturesome than  before.  Though  he considered  it  a point  of good
breeding in  himself,  as  a  general  friend  of  the  family, to attend Mr
Dombey's wedding  (of which he  had heard from Mr Perch),  and  to show that
gentleman a  pleasant  and approving countenance  from  the gallery, he  had
repaired to  the church in a hackney cabriolet  with  both windows  up;  and
might  have  scrupled even  to  make  that  venture,  in his  dread  of  Mrs
MacStinger, but that the lady's  attendance on the ministry  of the Reverend
Melchisedech  rendered  it peculiarly  unlikely  that she would  be found in
communion with the Establishment.
     The Captain got safe home again, and fell into the  ordinary routine of
his  new life, without encountering  any  more direct alarm  from the enemy,
than  was suggested to him by  the  daily  bonnets in the  street. But other
subjects began to lay heavy  on the Captain's  mind. Walter's ship was still
unheard of. No news came of old Sol Gills. Florence did not even know of the
old man's  disappearance, and Captain Cuttle had not the heart to  tell her.
Indeed  the  Captain,   as  his  own  hopes   of   the  generous,  handsome,
gallant-hearted youth, whom  he  had loved,  according to  his rough manner,
from a child, began to fade, and faded more and more from day to day, shrunk
with instinctive pain from the thought of exchanging  a word  with Florence.
If  he had  had good news  to  carry  to her, the honest Captain would  have
braved  the newly  decorated house and  splendid furniture  -  though these,
connected with  the lady he had seen at church, were awful to him - and made
his way into her presence. With a dark horizon gathering around their common
hopes, however, that darkened  every hour, the Captain almost felt  as if he
were a new misfortune and affliction to her; and was scarcely less afraid of
a visit from Florence, than from Mrs MacStinger herself.
     It was a  chill dark autumn evening,  and Captain Cuttle  had ordered a
fire  to be kindled in the little back parlour, now more  than ever like the
cabin  of a ship. The rain fell fast,  and the wind blew  hard; and straying
out on the house-top by that stormy  bedroom of  his old friend,  to take an
observation of the weather, the Captain's heart died within him, when he saw
how wild and  desolate  it was. Not that  he associated the  weather of that
time with  poor  Walter's destiny, or  doubted that if Providence had doomed
him to  be lost and shipwrecked, it was over, long ago; but  that beneath an
outward  influence, quite distinct from  the subject-matter of his thoughts,
the Captain's spirits sank, and his hopes turned pale, as those of wiser men
had often done before him, and will often do again.
     Captain  Cuttle,  addressing his  face  to the sharp wind  and slanting
rain,  looked up at the heavy scud that was flying fast over  the wilderness
of house-tops, and looked for something  cheery there in  vain. The prospect
near at hand was  no better. In sundry tea-chests and  other rough  boxes at
his  feet, the  pigeons  of Rob the Grinder were cooing  like so many dismal
breezes getting up. A crazy weathercock of a midshipman, with a telescope at
his eye,  once visible  from the  street, but  long bricked out, creaked and
complained  upon his  rusty  pivot as the  shrill  blast  spun him round and
round, and sported with him cruelly. Upon the Captain's coarse blue vest the
cold  raindrops  started  like  steel beads;  and  he  could hardly maintain
himself aslant against the stiff Nor'-Wester that came pressing against him,
importunate to topple him over  the  parapet, and throw him on the  pavement
below. If there were any Hope alive that evening, the Captain thought, as he
held his hat  on, it certainly kept  house, and wasn't out of doors;  so the
Captain, shaking his head in a despondent manner, went in to look for it.
     Captain Cuttle descended slowly to the little back parlour, and, seated
in his accustomed chair,  looked for it in the  fire;  but it was not there,
though the  fire  was bright.  He took  out  his tobacco-box  and pipe,  and
composing himself to smoke, looked for it in the red glow from the bowl, and
in the wreaths of vapour that curled upward from his lips; but there was not
so much as an atom of  the rust of Hope's anchor in either. He tried a glass
of  grog;  but  melancholy  truth  was at  the  bottom of that  well, and he
couldn't finish it. He made a turn or two  in  the shop, and looked for Hope
among the  instruments;  but they  obstinately worked out reckonings for the
missing ship, in spite of any opposition he could  offer, that ended  at the
bottom of the lone sea.
     The wind  still rushing,  and  the rain  still pattering,  against  the
closed shutters, the Captain brought to before  the wooden  Midshipman  upon
the counter, and thought, as he dried  the little officer's uniform with his
sleeve, how many years the Midshipman had seen, during  which few changes  -
hardly  any - had transpired  among his  ship's company; how the changes had
come all together, one day, as it might be; and of what a sweeping kind they
web Here was the little society of the back parlour broken up, and scattered
far and wide. Here was no audience  for Lovely  Peg,  even if there had been
anybody  to sing  it, which  there was not;  for the  Captain was as morally
certain that nobody but he could execute that ballad, he was that he had not
the spirit, under existing circumstances, to attempt it. There was no bright
face of 'Wal'r' In the  house; - here the Captain transferred his sleeve for
a moment from the Midshipman's uniform to his  own cheek; - the familiar wig
and buttons of Sol  Gills were a vision of the past; Richard Whittington was
knocked  on  the head;  and  every plan and  project  in connexion  with the
Midshipman, lay drifting, without mast or rudder, on the waste of waters.
     As  the Captain, with a dejected face, stood revolving these  thoughts,
and polishing the Midshipman, partly in the tenderness of old  acquaintance,
and  partly  in  the absence  of  his mind,  a  knocking  at  the  shop-door
communicated a frightful  start to the frame  of Rob the  Grinder, seated on
the counter, whose large eyes had been intently fixed on the Captain's face,
and who  had  been debating  within  himself, for the five  hundredth  time,
whether  the Captain  could  have  done a  murder, that he had such  an evil
conscience, and was always running away.
     'What's that?' said Captain Cuttle, softly.
     'Somebody's knuckles, Captain,' answered Rob the Grinder.
     The Captain,  with an  abashed and  guilty  air, immediately walked  on
tiptoe to the little  parlour and locked himself in.  Rob, opening the door,
would  have  parleyed  with the visitor on the threshold if  the visitor had
come in female guise; but the figure being of the male sex, and Rob's orders
only applying to women, Rob  held  the door open and  allowed  it  to enter:
which it did very quickly, glad to get out of the driving rain.
     'A job for Burgess and Co. at any rate,' said the visitor, looking over
his  shoulder compassionately  at  his own legs,  which were  very  wet  and
covered with splashes. 'Oh, how-de-do, Mr Gills?'
     The salutation was addressed to the Captain, now emerging from the back
parlour with a most transparent and utterly futile affectation of coming out
by accidence.
     'Thankee,'  the gentleman went on to say  in the same breath; 'I'm very
well indeed, myself, I'm much obliged  to you. My name  is  Toots, -  Mister
Toots.'
     The  Captain  remembered  to  have  seen  this  young  gentleman at the
wedding,  and  made him  a bow. Mr Toots replied with a chuckle;  and  being
embarrassed, as  he  generally  was,  breathed  hard,  shook hands with  the
Captain for a long time, and then falling on Rob the Grinder, in the absence
of  any  other resource, shook hands with  him in  a most  affectionate  and
cordial manner.
     'I say! I should like to speak a word to you, Mr Gills, if you please,'
said Toots at length, with surprising presence of mind. 'I say! Miss  D.O.M.
you know!'
     The Captain, with responsive gravity and mystery, immediately waved his
hook towards the little parlour, whither Mr Toots followed him.
     'Oh!  I  beg  your  pardon  though,' said  Mr Toots, looking  up In the
Captain's face as he  sat  down in a chair by  the  fire, which the  Captain
placed  for him;  'you  don't happen to  know the Chicken at all; do you, Mr
Gills?'
     'The Chicken?' said the Captain.
     'The Game Chicken,' said Mr Toots.
     The Captain  shaking his head, Mr Toots explained  that the man alluded
to  was  the celebrated  public character who  had covered  himself and  his
country with glory in his  contest with  the Nobby  Shropshire One; but this
piece of information did not appear to enlighten the Captain very much.
     'Because  he's  outside:  that's  all,' said  Mr Toots. 'But it's of no
consequence; he won't get very wet, perhaps.'
     'I can pass the word for him in a moment,' said the Captain.
     'Well, if you  would have the goodness to let him  sit in the shop with
your  young  man,' chuckled  Mr Toots, 'I should be glad; because, you know,
he's easily offended, and the damp's rather bad for his  stamina. I'll  call
him in, Mr Gills.'
     With that, Mr Toots repairing to the shop-door, sent a peculiar whistle
into  the night, which  produced  a  stoical gentleman  in  a  shaggy  white
great-coat  and a flat-brimmed hat, with very short hair, a broken nose, and
a considerable tract of bare and sterile country behind each ear.
     'Sit down, Chicken,' said Mr Toots.
     The compliant Chicken spat out some small pieces of straw on  which  he
was  regaling himself, and took in a fresh supply from a  reserve he carried
in his hand.
     'There  ain't no  drain  of  nothing short handy, is  there?'  said the
Chicken, generally.  'This here sluicing night is  hard lines  to  a  man as
lives on his condition.
     Captain Cuttle  proffered  a glass of  rum, which the Chicken, throwing
back his head, emptied  into  himself, as into a  cask, after  proposing the
brief sentiment,  'Towards us!' Mr  Toots and the  Captain returning then to
the parlour, and taking their seats before the fire, Mr Toots began:
     'Mr Gills - '
     'Awast!' said the Captain. 'My name's Cuttle.'
     Mr  Toots  looked  greatly  disconcerted,  while the Captain  proceeded
gravely.
     'Cap'en Cuttle  is my name, and  England is  my nation, this here is my
dwelling-place, and  blessed be  creation - Job,' said the  Captain,  as  an
index to his authority.
     'Oh! I couldn't see Mr Gills, could I?' said Mr Toots; 'because - '
     'If  you  could  see  Sol Gills,  young  gen'l'm'n,' said  the Captain,
impressively, and laying  his heavy hand on  Mr Toots's knee, 'old Sol, mind
you - with your own eyes - as  you sit there - you'd be welcomer to me, than
a wind astern, to  a  ship becalmed. But  you can't  see Sol Gills.  And why
can't you see Sol Gills?' said the Captain, apprised by the face of Mr Toots
that he was  making a profound impression on that gentleman's mind. 'Because
he's inwisible.'
     Mr  Toots  in his  agitation was  going  to  reply that  it  was of  no
consequence at all. But he corrected himself, and said, 'Lor bless me!'
     'That there  man,' said the Captain,  'has left me in  charge here by a
piece of writing, but though  he was a'most  as  good as my sworn brother, I
know no more where he's gone, or why  he's gone; if so be to seek his  nevy,
or if  so be along of  being not quite settled in his mind; than you do. One
morning  at daybreak,  he went over the side,' said the Captain, 'without  a
splash, without a ripple I have looked for  that man high and low, and never
set eyes, nor ears, nor nothing else, upon him from that hour.'
     'But, good Gracious, Miss Dombey don't know - ' Mr Toots began.
     'Why, I ask you, as  a feeling heart,'  said the  Captain, dropping his
voice, 'why should she know? why should she be made to know, until such time
as  there wam't any help for it? She took to  old  Sol Gills, did that sweet
creetur, with a  kindness,  with a affability, with a -  what's the good  of
saying so? you know her.'
     'I  should  hope so,'  chuckled Mr Toots,  with a  conscious blush that
suffused his whole countenance.
     'And you come here from her?' said the Captain.
     'I should think so,' chuckled Mr Toots.
     'Then all I  need  observe,  is,' said the  Captain, 'that you  know  a
angel, and are chartered a angel.'
     Mr Toots  instantly seized the Captain's hand, and requested the favour
of his friendship.
     'Upon my word and honour,' said Mr Toots, earnestly, 'I should  be very
much obliged to you if you'd improve my  acquaintance I should like  to know
you, Captain,  very much. I really  am  In  want of a  friend, I am.  Little
Dombey was my friend at old Blimber's, and would have been now, if he'd have
lived. The  Chicken,'  said Mr Toots, in a forlorn whisper, 'is very well  -
admirable in his way - the sharpest man perhaps in  the world; there's not a
move he isn't  up to,  everybody  says so  - but  I don't  know  - he's  not
everything. So she is an angel, Captain. If there is an angel anywhere, it's
Miss Dombey. That's what I've always said. Really though, you know,' said Mr
Toots,  'I  should  be very  much  obliged  to  you  if  you'd  cultivate my
acquaintance.'
     Captain  Cuttle received this  proposal in a  polite manner,  but still
without committing himself to  its acceptance; merely observing, 'Ay, ay, my
lad. We  shall see,  we shall see;' and reminding Mr Toots of his  immediate
mission, by inquiring to what he was indebted for the honour of that visit.
     'Why the fact is,' replied Mr Toots,  'that it's the young woman I come
from. Not Miss Dombey - Susan, you know.
     The Captain  nodded  his head once,  with a  grave  expression  of face
indicative of his regarding that young woman with serious respect.
     'And I'll tell you how it  happens,' said Mr Toots. 'You know, I go and
call sometimes, on Miss Dombey. I don't go there on purpose, you know, but I
happen to  be in the neighbourhood very often; and when I find myself there,
why - why I call.'
     'Nat'rally,' observed the Captain.
     'Yes,' said  Mr Toots.  'I called  this afternoon.  Upon  my  word  and
honour, I don't think it's possible to form an idea of the angel Miss Dombey
was this afternoon.'
     The Captain answered  with a jerk  of his head,  implying that it might
not be easy to some people, but was quite so to him.
     'As I  was coming out,' said Mr Toots, 'the  young woman,  in the  most
unexpected manner, took me into the pantry.
     The Captain seemed, for the moment,  to object to this  proceeding; and
leaning  back in his chair,  looked at  Mr Toots with a distrustful, if  not
threatening visage.
     'Where  she brought out,' said Mr Toots,  'this newspaper. She  told me
that she  had kept it from Miss Dombey all day, on account of something that
was in it,  about somebody that she  and Dombey used  to know;  and then she
read  the passage to me. Very well. Then she said  - wait a minute; what was
it she said, though!'
     Mr  Toots,  endeavouring  to  concentrate  his  mental powers  on  this
question,  unintentionally  fixed  the  Captain's  eye,  and  was   so  much
discomposed by  its  stern  expression, that his difficulty  in resuming the
thread of his subject was enhanced to a painful extent.
     'Oh!' said Mr Toots after long  consideration. 'Oh,  ah! Yes! She  said
that she hoped  there was  a bare possibility  that it mightn't be true; and
that as  she  couldn't very well come  out herself,  without surprising Miss
Dombey, would I go down  to Mr Solomon  Gills the Instrument-maker's in this
street, who was the party's Uncle, and ask whether he believed it  was true,
or had heard anything else in the City. She said,  if he couldn't  speak  to
me,  no doubt  Captain Cuttle  could. By the  bye!'  said Mr Toots,  as  the
discovery flashed upon him, 'you, you know!'
     The  Captain  glanced at the newspaper in Mr Toots's hand, and breathed
short and hurriedly.
     'Well, pursued Mr Toots, 'the reason why I'm rather late  is, because I
went up as far as Finchley first, to get some uncommonly fine chickweed that
grows  there,  for  Miss  Dombey's  bird.  But  I  came  on  here,  directly
afterwards. You've seen the paper, I suppose?'
     The  Captain,  who had become  cautious  of reading  the news, lest  he
should find himself advertised at full length by  Mrs MacStinger,  shook his
head.
     'Shall I read the passage to you?' inquired Mr Toots.
     The Captain making a sign in the affirmative, Mr Toots read as follows,
from the Shipping Intelligence:
     '"Southampton. The barque  Defiance, Henry James, Commander, arrived in
this port to-day, with a cargo of sugar, coffee, and rum, reports that being
becalmed on  the sixth day of her passage home from  Jamaica,  in" - in such
and such a latitude, you know,' said Mr Toots, after making a feeble dash at
the figures, and tumbling over them.
     'Ay!'  cried the  Captain,  striking his  clenched hand on  the  table.
'Heave ahead, my lad!'
     '  -  latitude,'  repeated  Mr  Toots,  with  a startled  glance at the
Captain, 'and  longitude so-and-so, -  "the look-out observed, half  an hour
before sunset, some fragments of a wreck,  drifting at about the distance of
a  mile. The weather  being clear, and the  barque making no way, a boat was
hoisted  out, with  orders  to inspect  the same, when  they  were  found to
consist of sundry large spars, and a part of the main rigging of an  English
brig, of about five hundred tons burden, together with a portion of the stem
on which the words  and letters  'Son  and H-' were yet plainly legible.  No
vestige of any dead body was to be seen upon the floating fragments. Log  of
the Defiance states, that a breeze springing up in the night, the wreck  was
seen no more. There can be no  doubt that all surmises as to the fate of the
missing vessel, the  Son and Heir, port of London, bound  for Barbados,  are
now set at rest for ever; that she broke up in the last  hurricane; and that
every soul on board perished."'
     Captain  Cuttle, like  all  mankind,  little  knew  how  much  hope had
survived within him  under  discouragement, until  he felt  its death-shock.
During the reading of the paragraph, and for a minute  or two afterwards, he
sat with his gaze fixed on the modest Mr Toots, like  a man entranced; then,
suddenly rising, and putting  on  his glazed hat,  which,  in his  visitor's
honour, he had laid upon  the table, the Captain  turned his  back, and bent
his head down on the little chimneypiece.
     'Oh' upon my word and honour,'  cried Mr Toots, whose  tender heart was
moved by the Captain's unexpected distress, 'this is a most wretched sort of
affair this world is! Somebody's always dying,  or going and doing something
uncomfortable in it. I'm sure I never should have looked forward so much, to
coming into my property, if I had known this. I never saw such a world. It's
a great deal worse than Blimber's.'
     Captain  Cuttle, without  altering his position, signed to Mr Toots not
to  mind  him; and  presently turned  round, with his glazed hat thrust back
upon his ears, and his hand composing and smoothing his brown face.
     'Wal'r, my dear lad,' said the  Captain, 'farewell! Wal'r my  child, my
boy,  and man, I loved you! He warn't my flesh and blood,' said the Captain,
looking at the fire -  'I ain't got none  - but  something of what  a father
feels  when he  loses  a  son, I feel  in losing  Wal'r. For  why?' said the
Captain. 'Because it ain't  one loss, but a round  dozen. Where's that there
young school-boy with the rosy face and curly hair, that used to be as merry
in this here parlour,  come round every week, as a piece of music? Gone down
with Wal'r. Where's that there fresh lad, that nothing couldn't tire nor put
out, and that  sparkled up and  blushed so, when  we joked him about Heart's
Delight,  that he was beautiful to  look at? Gone  down  with Wal'r. Where's
that there man's spirit,  all afire, that wouldn't see the old man hove down
for a minute, and  cared nothing for itself? Gone down with  Wal'r. It ain't
one Wal'r. There  was a dozen  Wal'rs that  I know'd and  loved, all holding
round his neck when he went down, and they're a-holding round mine now!'
     Mr Toots sat silent: folding and refolding  the  newspaper  as small as
possible upon his knee.
     'And Sol  Gills,' said the Captain, gazing at the fire,  'poor nevyless
old Sol, where are you got to! you was left in charge of  me; his last words
was, "Take care  of my Uncle!" What came over you, Sol,  when  you went  and
gave the go-bye to Ned Cuttle; and what am I to put In my accounts that he's
a  looking  down  upon,  respecting  you!  Sol Gills,  Sol Gills!' said  the
Captain, shaking his head slowly, 'catch sight of that there newspaper, away
from home, with no one  as know'd  Wal'r by, to say a word; and broadside to
you broach, and down you pitch, head foremost!'
     Drawing  a  heavy sigh,  the  Captain turned  to  Mr Toots, and  roused
himself to a sustained consciousness of that gentleman's presence.
     'My lad,' said  the Captain, 'you  must tell the  young  woman honestly
that this  here  fatal news  is too correct. They don't romance, you see, on
such pints. It's entered  on the ship's log, and that's the truest book as a
man can write. To-morrow morning,' said the Captain, 'I'll step out and make
inquiries;  but they'll lead to no good. They can't do it. If you'll give me
a look-in  in the forenoon, you shall  know what I have heerd; but tell  the
young woman  from  Cap'en Cuttle,  that it's  over.  Over!' And the Captain,
hooking off his  glazed hat, pulled his handkerchief out of the crown, wiped
his grizzled head  despairingly, and tossed the handkerchief in again,  with
the indifference of deep dejection.
     'Oh! I assure you,'  said Mr Toots, 'really I am dreadfully sorry. Upon
my word I am, though I  wasn't  acquainted with the party. Do you think Miss
Dombey will be very much affected, Captain Gills - I mean Mr Cuttle?'
     'Why,  Lord  love  you,'  returned   the  Captain,  with  something  of
compassion for Mr  Toots's innocence. When  she warn't no  higher than that,
they were as fond of one another as two young doves.'
     'Were they though!' said Mr Toots, with a considerably lengthened face.
     'They were made for  one  another,' said the  Captain, mournfully; 'but
what signifies that now!'
     'Upon  my word  and honour,' cried Mr  Toots,  blurting out  his  words
through a singular combination  of awkward  chuckles and emotion, 'I'm  even
more  sorry than I  was before. You  know,  Captain Gills, I -  I positively
adore Miss  Dombey; - I -  I am perfectly sore  with loving her;'  the burst
with  which  this confession  forced  itself  out  of the  unhappy Mr Toots,
bespoke the  vehemence of his  feelings; 'but what would  be the good of  my
regarding her in this manner, if I  wasn't truly sorry for her feeling pain,
whatever  was the cause of it.  Mine ain't a  selfish  affection, you know,'
said Mr Toots, in the confidence engendered  by his having been a witness of
the Captain's  tenderness.  'It's the  sort of thing with me, Captain Gills,
that if I could be run over - or - or trampled upon  - or  - or thrown off a
very high place -or anything of that sort - for Miss Dombey's sake, it would
be the most delightful thing that could happen to me.
     All this, Mr Toots said in a  suppressed voice, to prevent its reaching
the jealous  ears of the Chicken, who objected to the softer emotions; which
effort of restraint,  coupled with the intensity  of his feelings,  made him
red to the tips of  his ears, and caused him  to  present such  an affecting
spectacle of disinterested love to the eyes of Captain Cuttle, that the good
Captain patted him consolingly on the back, and bade him cheer up.
     'Thankee,  Captain Gills,' said  Mr  Toots, 'it's  kind of you, in  the
midst of your own troubles,  to say so. I'm very  much obliged to  you. As I
said  before,  I  really  want a  friend, and  should be glad  to  have your
acquaintance. Although I am very well off,' said Mr Toots, with energy, 'you
can't  think what a miserable Beast  I am. The  hollow crowd, you know, when
they  see me with  the Chicken,  and characters  of distinction  like  that,
suppose me to be happy; but I'm wretched. I suffer for Miss Dombey,  Captain
Gills. I  can't get through  my meals;  I have no pleasure  in my  tailor; I
often cry when I'm alone. I assure you it'll be a satisfaction to me to come
back to-morrow, or to come back fifty times.'
     Mr  Toots, with  these  words, shook the Captain's hand; and disguising
such traces of his  agitation as  could be disguised  on so  short a notice,
before the Chicken's penetrating  glance, rejoined that eminent gentleman in
the  shop. The  Chicken, who was  apt  to be jealous of his ascendancy, eyed
Captain Cuttle with anything but favour as  he took  leave of Mr Toots,  but
followed his patron without  being otherwise demonstrative  of his ill-will:
leaving the Captain oppressed with sorrow; and Rob the Grinder elevated with
joy, on account of having had the  honour of staring for nearly half an hour
at the conqueror of the Nobby Shropshire One.
     Long  after  Rob  was fast asleep  in  his bed under  the counter,  the
Captain sat looking  at the fire;  and long after there was no fire  to look
at, the Captain sat gazing on the rusty  bars,  with unavailing thoughts  of
Walter  and old  Sol crowding through  his  mind. Retirement  to the  stormy
chamber at the top of  the house brought no rest with  it; and  the  Captain
rose up in the morning, sorrowful and unrefreshed.
     As soon as  the  City offices were opened,  the Captain issued forth to
the  counting-house  of Dombey  and  Son.  But  there was no opening of  the
Midshipman's windows that morning. Rob the Grinder, by the Captain's orders,
left the shutters closed, and the house was as a house of death.
     It chanced that  Mr Carker was entering  the office, as  Captain Cuttle
arrived at the door. Receiving the Manager's  benison  gravely and silently,
Captain Cuttle made bold to accompany him into his own room.
     'Well, Captain  Cuttle,'  said  Mr Carker, taking up his usual position
before the fireplace, and keeping on his hat, 'this is a bad business.'
     'You have received the news as  was in print  yesterday, Sir?' said the
Captain.
     'Yes,' said  Mr Carker, 'we have received it! It was accurately stated.
The  underwriters  suffer a considerable loss. We  are  very sorry. No help!
Such is life!'
     Mr Carker pared his nails delicately with a penknife, and smiled at the
Captain, who was standing by the door looking at him.
     'I  excessively  regret  poor  Gay,'  said  Carker, 'and  the  crew.  I
understand there were some of our very best men among 'em. It always happens
so.  Many men with families too. A comfort  to reflect that poor Gay had  no
family, Captain Cuttle!'
     The Captain  stood rubbing  his chin, and looking at  the Manager.  The
Manager glanced at the  unopened letters lying on his desk, and took up  the
newspaper.
     'Is there anything I can do for  you, Captain Cuttle?' he asked looking
off it, with a smiling and expressive glance at the door.
     'I wish you could set my mind  at rest, Sir,  on  something it's uneasy
about,' returned the Captain.
     'Ay!' exclaimed the Manager, 'what's that? Come, Captain Cuttle, I must
trouble you to be quick, if you please. I am much engaged.'
     'Lookee  here, Sir,'  said  the  Captain, advancing a step.  'Afore  my
friend Wal'r went on this here disastrous voyage -
     'Come, come, Captain Cuttle,' interposed the  smiling  Manager,  'don't
talk about  disastrous voyages  in  that way.  We  have nothing  to do  with
disastrous voyages  here, my good fellow.  You must have begun very early on
your  day's allowance, Captain, if you don't remember that there are hazards
in all  voyages,  whether  by sea  or land. You  are not made uneasy by  the
supposition that young what's-his-name was lost  in bad weather that was got
up  against  him  in these  offices  - are  you?  Fie,  Captain! Sleep,  and
soda-water, are the best cures for such uneasiness as that.
     'My lad,'  returned the Captain, slowly  - 'you are a'most a lad to me,
and so I  don't ask your pardon for that slip of a  word, - if you find  any
pleasure in  this here sport, you ain't the gentleman I took you for. And if
you  ain't the  gentleman I took you for, may  be  my mind  has  call to  be
uneasy. Now this is what it is, Mr Carker. - Afore  that poor lad went away,
according  to  orders,  he told me that he warn't  a going away  for his own
good, or for promotion, he know'd. It was my belief that he was wrong, and I
told him  so, and I come here, your head governor  being  absent,  to ask  a
question  or  two  of  you in a civil  way, for  my  own  satisfaction. Them
questions you answered - free. Now  it'll  ease my mind to know, when all is
over, as it is, and when what  can't be cured must be endoored  - for which,
as a scholar, you'll overhaul the book it's in, and thereof make a note - to
know once more, in a word, that I warn't mistaken; that I warn't back'ard in
my duty when I didn't tell the old man what Wal'r told me; and that the wind
was  truly in his  sail,  when he highsted  of it for Barbados  Harbour.  Mr
Carker,'  said the Captain, in the goodness of his nature,  'when I was here
last, we was very pleasant together. If I ain't been altogether so  pleasant
myself this morning, on account of this poor lad, and if I have chafed again
any observation  of yours that I  might  have fended off, my  name is Ed'ard
Cuttle, and I ask your pardon.'
     'Captain Cuttle,' returned  the Manager, with  all possible politeness,
'I must ask you to do me a favour.'
     'And what is it, Sir?' inquired the Captain.
     'To  have  the goodness  to  walk  off, if  you  please,' rejoined  the
Manager,  stretching  forth  his arm,  'and  to carry your  jargon somewhere
else.'
     Every knob in  the Captain's  face turned  white with  astonishment and
indignation;  even the red rim  on  his forehead faded, like a rainbow among
the gathering clouds.
     'I  tell  you  what, Captain  Cuttle,'  said the  Manager, shaking  his
forefinger at him, and showing him all his teeth, but still amiably smiling,
'I was much too lenient with you when you came here before. You belong to an
artful  and  audacious  set  of  people.   In   my  desire  to  save   young
what's-his-name from being kicked out of this place, neck and crop,  my good
Captain, I tolerated you; but for once, and only once. Now, go, my friend!'
     The Captain was absolutely rooted to the ground, and speechless -
     'Go,'  said  the  good-humoured Manager, gathering up his  skirts,  and
standing astride upon the hearth-rug, 'like  a sensible fellow,  and let  us
have no turning out, or any such violent measures.  If Mr Dombey  were here,
Captain,  you  might  be  obliged to  leave in a  more  ignominious  manner,
possibly. I merely say, Go!'
     The  Captain, laying  his  ponderous  hand  upon his  chest, to  assist
himself in  fetching a deep breath, looked at Mr Carker  from head to  foot,
and looked round the little room, as if he  did not clearly understand where
he was, or in what company.
     'You are deep,  Captain  Cuttle,'  pursued  Carker, with the  easy  and
vivacious frankness of a man of the world  who knew the world too well to be
ruffled  by any discovery of misdoing, when it did  not  immediately concern
himself,  'but you are not quite out of soundings, either -  neither you nor
your absent friend, Captain.  What have  you done  with your absent  friend,
hey?'
     Again  the Captain laid his hand upon his chest. After drawing  another
deep breath, he conjured himself to 'stand by!' But In a whisper.
     'You hatch nice little plots, and  hold nice  little councils, and make
nice little appointments,  and receive  nice  little visitors, too, Captain,
hey?' said Carker, bending his brows upon him, without showing his teeth any
the  less:  'but it's a bold measure to come  here afterwards. Not like your
discretion! You  conspirators, and hiders,  and  runners-away,  should  know
better than that. Will you oblige me by going?'
     'My lad,' gasped the Captain, in a choked and trembling voice, and with
a curious action going  on  in  the  ponderous fist; 'there's a many words I
could wish to say to you, but I don't rightly know where they're stowed just
at present. My young friend, Wal'r, was drownded  only last night, according
to my  reckoning,  and it puts  me out, you  see. But you  and  me will come
alongside o'one  another  again, my  lad,' said  the Captain, holding up his
hook, if we live.'
     'It  will  be  anything but shrewd in you,  my good fellow, if  we do,'
returned the Manager, with the same frankness; 'for you may rely, I give you
fair warning, upon  my detecting and exposing you.  I don't pretend to be  a
more moral man than my neighbours, my good  Captain;  but the  confidence of
this  House, or  of  any  member of  this  House,  is  not to be  abused and
undermined while I have eyes and  ears. Good day!' said Mr  Carker,  nodding
his head.
     Captain  Cuttle,  looking  at him  steadily  (Mr Carker looked full  as
steadily  at the Captain),  went out  of  the  office and left him  standing
astride before the fire, as calm and pleasant as if there were no more spots
upon his soul than on his pure white linen, and his smooth sleek skin.
     The  Captain glanced,  in  passing through the outer counting-house, at
the  desk where he  knew  poor Walter  had been used to sit, now occupied by
another young boy, with a face almost as fresh and hopeful as his on the day
when they tapped the famous last bottle but one of  the old  Madeira, in the
little back parlour. The nation of ideas, thus  awakened,  did the Captain a
great deal of good; it softened  him  in the  very  height of his anger, and
brought the tears into his eyes.
     Arrived  at the wooden Midshipman's again, and sitting down in a corner
of the dark shop, the Captain's indignation, strong as it was, could make no
head against his grief. Passion seemed not only to  do wrong and violence to
the memory  of  the dead,  but  to be  infected by death,  and to  droop and
decline  beside it.  All the  living knaves  and  liars in the  world,  were
nothing to the honesty and truth of one dead friend.
     The  only  thing the honest Captain made out clearly, in  this state of
mind, besides the loss of Walter, was, that  with him almost the whole world
of Captain  Cuttle had been drowned. If he reproached himself sometimes, and
keenly too, for having ever connived at Walter's innocent deceit, he thought
at least as often of the Mr Carker whom no sea could ever render up; and the
Mr Dombey, whom he now began to perceive was as far beyond human recall; and
the  'Heart's  Delight,' with whom he  must  never foregather again; and the
Lovely Peg, that  teak-built  and trim ballad,  that had gone  ashore upon a
rock, and split into mere planks and beams  of rhyme. The Captain sat in the
dark shop,  thinking of  these  things, to the entire  exclusion  of his own
injury;  and  looking  with  as  sad  an  eye  upon the  ground,  as  if  in
contemplation of their actual fragments, as they floated past
     But the  Captain was  not unmindful, for all that, of  such decent  and
rest observances  in memory  of  poor Walter,  as he felt within  his power.
Rousing himself, and rousing Rob the Grinder (who in the unnatural  twilight
was fast asleep), the Captain sallied forth with his attendant at his heels,
and  the  door-key  in  his pocket, and repairing to one of those convenient
slop-selling establishments of which there is abundant choice at the eastern
end of London, purchased on the spot two suits of mourning - one for Rob the
Grinder, which  was immensely  too  small, and  one for himself,  which  was
immensely too large. He also provided  Rob with a species of hat, greatly to
be admired for its symmetry  and usefulness, as well as for a happy blending
of the mariner with the coal-heaver; which  is  usually termed a sou'wester;
and  which was  something  of  a  novelty in connexion  with  the instrument
business. In their several garments, which the vendor declared  to be such a
miracle  in point of  fit as  nothing but  a  rare combination of fortuitous
circumstances ever brought about, and the fashion of which  was unparalleled
within  the memory  of  the  oldest  inhabitant,  the  Captain  and  Grinder
immediately  arrayed themselves: presenting a spectacle fraught with  wonder
to all who beheld it.
     In this altered form, the  Captain received Mr Toots. 'I'm took  aback,
my lad, at present,' said the Captain, 'and will only confirm that there ill
news. Tell the  young woman  to break it gentle to  the  young lady, and for
neither of 'em never to think of me no more - 'special, mind you, that  is -
though I will  think of them, when night comes  on  a hurricane and  seas is
mountains rowling, for which  overhaul your  Doctor Watts, brother, and when
found make a note on."
     The Captain  reserved, until  some fitter time, the consideration of Mr
Toots's  offer  of  friendship,  and  thus dismissed  him.  Captain Cuttle's
spirits were so low, in truth, that he half determined, that day, to take no
further precautions  against surprise from Mrs MacStinger,  but  to  abandon
himself  recklessly to  chance, and be indifferent to  what might happen. As
evening came on,  he  fell into a better frame of  mind,  however; and spoke
much of Walter to Rob the Grinder, whose attention and fidelity  he likewise
incidentally commended. Rob did not blush to hear the Captain earnest in his
praises, but sat staring  at him, and affecting to snivel with sympathy, and
making a feint of being virtuous, and treasuring up every word he said (like
a young spy as he was) with very promising deceit.
     When Rob had turned  in, and was fast asleep,  the Captain  trimmed the
candle,  put on his  spectacles  -  he  had felt it appropriate to  take  to
spectacles on entering into the Instrument Trade, though his  eyes were like
a  hawk's - and opened the prayer-book at  the Burial Service.  And  reading
softly to himself, in the little back parlour, and  stopping now and then to
wipe  his eyes, the Captain, In a true and simple spirit, committed Walter's
body to the deep.

        CHAPTER 33.
     Contrasts

     Turn  we  our eyes upon two homes;  not lying side by  side,  but  wide
apart, though both within easy range and reach of the great city of London.
     The first is situated in the  green and wooded country near Norwood. It
is not a mansion; it is of  no pretensions as to size; but it is beautifully
arranged, and  tastefully  kept.  The lawn,  the  soft,  smooth  slope,  the
flower-garden,  the clumps of trees where graceful forms of ash  and  willow
are not wanting,  the conservatory,  the rustic verandah with sweet-smelling
creeping  plants entwined  about  the pillars,  the  simple  exterior of the
house, the well-ordered offices, though all upon the diminutive scale proper
to a mere cottage,  bespeak  an amount of elegant comfort within, that might
serve for a palace. This indication is  not without warrant; for, within, it
is a house of refinement and luxury. Rich colours, excellently blended, meet
the eye at every turn; in the furniture -  its proportions admirably devised
to  suit  the shapes and sizes  of the small rooms; on the  walls;  upon the
floors; tingeing and subduing the light that comes in through the odd  glass
doors and windows here and there. There are a few choice prints and pictures
too; in quaint nooks and recesses there is  no want of books;  and there are
games of  skill and chance set forth on  tables -  fantastic chessmen, dice,
backgammon, cards, and billiards.
     And  yet amidst this opulence  of  comfort, there  is something  in the
general  air that is  not well. Is  it that the carpets and the cushions are
too soft and noiseless, so that those  who move or repose among them seem to
act by stealth? Is it that the  prints and pictures do not commemorate great
thoughts  or  deeds, or render nature  in the Poetry  of landscape, hall, or
hut, but are of one voluptuous cast - mere shows of form and colour - and no
more?  Is it that the books have all their gold outside, and that the titles
of  the greater  part  qualify  them  to be  companions of  the  prints  and
pictures? Is it that the  completeness and  the beauty of the place are here
and  there belied  by an  affectation of  humility, in some unimportant  and
inexpensive  regard, which is as false as the face of the too truly  painted
portrait hanging  yonder,  or its original at breakfast  in his  easy  chair
below it? Or is  it that, with the daily breath  of that original and master
of all here, there issues forth some subtle portion of  himself, which gives
a vague expression of himself to everything about him?
     It is Mr Carker the Manager who  sits in the easy chair. A gaudy parrot
in a burnished  cage  upon the table tears at the wires with her  beak,  and
goes  walking,  upside  down,  in  its  dome-top,   shaking  her  house  and
screeching;  but  Mr Carker  is  indifferent to the bird, and  looks with  a
musing smile at a picture on the opposite wall.
     'A most extraordinary accidental likeness, certainly,' says he.
     Perhaps it is a Juno; perhaps a Potiphar's Wife'; perhaps some scornful
Nymph  -  according as  the  Picture Dealers  found  the  market, when  they
christened it. It is the figure of a woman, supremely handsome, who, turning
away, but with her face addressed to the spectator, flashes her proud glance
upon him.
     It is like Edith.
     With a passing gesture of his hand at the picture - what! a menace? No;
yet  something like  it. A wave as of  triumph?  No; yet more like that.  An
insolent salute wafted from his lips? No; yet like that too - he resumes his
breakfast, and calls to the chafing  and  imprisoned  bird,  who coming down
into  a pendant gilded  hoop within  the cage, like  a  great  wedding-ring,
swings in it, for his delight.
     The second home is on the  other side of London, near to where the busy
great  north road of bygone days  is  silent  and almost deserted, except by
wayfarers who toil  along  on foot. It  is  a  poor small house, barely  and
sparely furnished, but very clean;  and there is even an attempt to decorate
it,  shown  in the homely flowers trained about  the porch and in the narrow
garden. The neighbourhood in which it stands has as little of the country to
recommend'it, as it has of the  town. It is neither of the town nor country.
The former,  like the giant in his travelling boots, has  made a stride  and
passed it, and has set his brick-and-mortar heel  a long way in advance; but
the intermediate space between  the  giant's feet, as yet, is  only blighted
country, and not town; and, here, among a few tall chimneys  belching  smoke
all day and  night,  and among the  brick-fields and the lanes where turf is
cut, and where the fences tumble down, and where the dusty nettles grow, and
where a scrap  or  two of hedge may yet be seen, and where  the bird-catcher
still comes occasionally, though he swears every time to come no more - this
second home is to be found.'
     She who inhabits it, is she who left the first  in her devotion  to  an
outcast  brother. She withdrew from that home its redeeming spirit, and from
its master's  breast his solitary  angel: but though his liking  for  her is
gone, after  this  ungrateful  slight as he  considers  it;  and  though  he
abandons her altogether in return, an old idea of her is not quite forgotten
even by  him. Let her  flower-garden, in  which  he never sets his foot, but
which  is  yet maintained,  among  all his costly alterations, as if she had
quitted it but yesterday, bear witness!
     Harriet  Carker  has changed since  then,  and  on her beauty there has
fallen a heavier shade than Time of his unassisted self can cast, all-potent
as he is - the  shadow of anxiety and sorrow, and  the daily  struggle  of a
poor existence. But it is  beauty still;  and  still  a  gentle, quiet,  and
retiring beauty  that must  be sought out, for it cannot vaunt itself; if it
could, it would be what it is, no more.
     Yes.  This  slight, small,  patient figure,  neatly  dressed  in homely
stuffs, and indicating nothing but the dull, household virtues, that have so
little in  common with the  received idea of heroism  and greatness, unless,
indeed, any ray of them should shine through the  lives of the great ones of
the earth,  when  it becomes  a  constellation  and  is  tracked  in  Heaven
straightway - this slight, small, patient  figure, leaning  on the man still
young but  worn and grey, is  she,  his sister, who, of all the  world, went
over to him in his shame and put her hand in his, and with a sweet composure
and determination, led him hopefully upon his barren way.
     'It is early, John,' she said. 'Why do you go so early?'
     'Not many minutes earlier than  usual, Harriet.  If I have the time  to
spare, I  should like, I think -  it's  a fancy  - to walk once by the house
where I took leave of him.'
     'I wish I had ever seen or known him, John.'
     'It is better as it is, my dear, remembering his fate.'
     'But I could not regret  it  more, though I had known him. Is not  your
sorrow  mine?  And if  I had, perhaps you  would feel  that I  was a  better
companion to you in speaking about him, than I may seem now.
     'My dearest sister!  Is there anything within the range of rejoicing or
regret, in which I am not sure of your companionship?'
     'I hope you think not, John, for surely there is nothing!'
     'How could you be better to me, or  nearer to  me then, than you are in
this,  or  anything?' said her  brother.  'I feel  that  you did  know  him,
Harriet, and that you shared my feelings towards him.'
     She  drew the  hand which had been resting  on his shoulder, round  his
neck, and answered, with some hesitation:
     'No, not quite.'
     'True, true!' he said;  'you think I might  have done  him no harm if I
had allowed myself to know him better?'
     'Think! I know it.'
     'Designedly, Heaven  knows I would not,'  he replied,  shaking his head
mournfully;  'but  his  reputation was  too precious to be perilled  by such
association. Whether you share that knowledge, or do not, my dear - '
     'I do not,' she said quietly.
     'It is still the truth, Harriet, and my mind is lighter when I think of
him for that which made it so much heavier  then.' He checked himself in his
tone of melancholy, and smiled upon her as he said 'Good-bye!'
     'Good-bye,  dear John! In  the evening, at the  old time  and  place, I
shall meet you as usual on your way home. Good-bye.'
     The  cordial face  she lifted up to his to kiss him, was  his home, his
life, his universe, and yet  it was  a portion of  his punishment and grief;
for in  the cloud he  saw upon it -  though  serene and calm as any  radiant
cloud at sunset - and in the constancy and devotion of her life, and  in the
sacrifice she had  made of ease,  enjoyment,  and  hope, he  saw  the bitter
fruits of his old crime, for ever ripe and fresh.
     She stood at the door looking after him, with her hands loosely clasped
in each other, as he made his way over the frowzy and uneven patch of ground
which lay before their  house, which had  once (and  not  long ago)  been  a
pleasant  meadow,  and  was now  a very waste,  with a  disorderly  crop  of
beginnings of mean  houses,  rising out of the rubbish,  as if they had been
unskilfully sown there. Whenever he looked back  - as once or twice he did -
her cordial face shone like a  light upon his heart; but when he plodded  on
his way, and  saw her not, the tears were in her eyes as she stood  watching
him.
     Her pensive form was not long idle at the door. There was daily duty to
discharge, and daily work to do - for such  commonplace spirits that are not
heroic, often work hard  with  their hands -  and Harriet was soon busy with
her household  tasks. These  discharged,  and the poor house made quite neat
and orderly, she counted her  little  stock of money, with  an anxious face,
and went out thoughtfully to buy  some necessaries for their table, planning
and conniving, as  she went, how to save. So sordid are the lives of such lo
natures, who are not only not heroic to  their valets and waiting-women, but
have neither valets nor waiting-women to be heroic to withal!
     While  she  was absent,  and  there  was  no  one in  the house,  there
approached  it  by  a  different  way  from  that  the brother had taken,  a
gentleman, a very little  past his prime of life  perhaps, but  of a healthy
florid  hue, an upright  presence,  and  a  bright  clear aspect,  that  was
gracious and good-humoured. His eyebrows were still black, and so  was  much
of his hair; the sprinkling of grey observable among the latter, graced  the
former very much, and showed his broad frank brow and honest  eyes  to great
advantage.
     After  knocking once  at the  door, and  obtaining  no  response,  this
gentleman sat down on a bench in the little porch to wait. A certain skilful
action of his fingers  as  he  hummed some bars, and  beat time on  the seat
beside   him,  seemed  to  denote  the  musician;   and  the   extraordinary
satisfaction he derived from humming something very slow and long, which had
no recognisable tune, seemed to denote that he was a scientific one.
     The gentleman  was still twirlIng a theme, which seemed to go round and
round  and round,  and in and  in  and in,  and  to involve  itself  like  a
corkscrew twirled upon a table, without getting any nearer to anything, when
Harriet appeared  returning. He rose up as she advanced,  and stood with his
head uncovered.
     'You are come again, Sir!' she said, faltering.
     'I take that liberty,' he answered. 'May I ask for five minutes of your
leisure?'
     After  a  moment's  hesitation,  she  opened  the  door, and  gave  him
admission  to the little parlour.  The gentleman sat  down  there,  drew his
chair  to  the table over against her, and  said, in a voice  that perfectly
corresponded  to  his  appearance, and  with  a  simplicity  that  was  very
engaging:
     'Miss Harriet, you cannot be proud. You signified to me, when I  called
t'other morning,  that you were. Pardon me if I say that I looked into  your
face while you spoke, and that it contradicted  you. I look  into it again,'
he  added,  laying  his hand gently  on  her  arm,  for an  instant, 'and it
contradicts you more and more.'
     She was somewhat confused and agitated, and could make no ready answer.
     'It is the  mirror of truth,' said her visitor, 'and gentleness. Excuse
my trusting to it, and returning.'
     His  manner of  saying  these  words,  divested  them  entirely of  the
character of compliments. It  was so plain,  grave, unaffected, and sincere,
that she bent her head,  as if at  once  to thank him, and  acknowledge  his
sincerity.
     'The  disparity  between  our  ages,'  said  the  gentleman,  'and  the
plainness  of my purpose,  empower me, I am glad to think, to speak my mind.
That is my mind; and so you see me for the second time.'
     'There  is a  kind  of pride,  Sir,'  she  returned, after  a  moment's
silence, 'or what may be supposed to be pride, which  is mere duty. I hope I
cherish no other.'
     'For yourself,' he said.
     'For myself.'
     'But - pardon me - ' suggested the gentleman. 'For your brother John?'
     'Proud of his love, I am,' said Harriet, looking full upon her visitor,
and changing her manner on the  instant - not that it was less  composed and
quiet, but that there was a deep impassioned earnestness in it that made the
very tremble in her voice a part  of her firmness, 'and proud of  him.  Sir,
you who strangely know the story of his life, and repeated it to me when you
were here last - '
     'Merely to make my way into your confidence,' interposed the gentleman.
'For heaven's sake, don't suppose - '
     'I am sure,' she said, 'you revived it, in my hearing, with a kind  and
good purpose. I am quite sure of it.'
     'I  thank you,' returned her visitor, pressing her hand hastily. 'I  am
much obliged to you. You do me justice, I assure you. You were going to say,
that I, who know the story of John Carker's life - '
     'May think it pride in  me,' she continued, 'when I say that I am proud
of him! I am. You know the time was, when I was not - when I could not  be -
but that is past. The humility of  many  years, the uncomplaining expiation,
the true repentance,  the terrible regret, the pain I know he has even in my
affection, which he thinks has cost me dear, though Heaven knows I am happy,
but for his sorrow I - oh, Sir,  after what I have seen, let me conjure you,
if  you are  in any place of  power,  and  are ever wronged, never, for  any
wrong, inflict a  punishment that cannot be  recalled; while there is a  GOD
above us to work changes in the hearts He made.'
     'Your   brother   is  an   altered  man,'   returned   the   gentleman,
compassionately. 'I assure you I don't doubt it.'
     'He  was  an altered  man when he  did wrong,' said Harriet.  'He is an
altered man again, and is his true self now, believe me, Sir.'
     'But we  go on, said  her  visitor, rubbing his  forehead, in an absent
manner, with his  hand, and then drumming  thoughtfully on the table, 'we go
on in our clockwork routine, from day to day, and can't make out, or follow,
these  changes. They - they're a metaphysical sort of thing. We - we haven't
leisure for it. We - we haven't  courage.  They're not taught  at schools or
colleges, and  we  don't know  how to  set about it.  In short,  we  are  so
d-------d  business-like,' said the gentleman,  walking to the  window,  and
back, and  sitting  down  again, in a state of  extreme  dissatisfaction and
vexation.
     'I am  sure,'  said  the  gentleman, rubbing  his  forehead again;  and
drumming  on the table  as  before, 'I  have good reason to  believe that  a
jog-trot life,  the same  from day to day,  would reconcile one to anything.
One  don't see  anything, one don't hear anything, one don't know  anything;
that's  the fact. We go  on taking everything for granted, and  so we go on,
until whatever we do, good, bad, or  indifferent, we do from habit. Habit is
all I shall have to report, when I am called upon to plead to my conscience,
on my death-bed. ''Habit," says I; ''I was deaf, dumb, blind, and paralytic,
to   a  million  things,  from  habit."  ''Very  business-like   indeed,  Mr
What's-your-name,' says Conscience, ''but it won't do here!"'
     The gentleman got up and walked to the window again and back: seriously
uneasy, though giving his uneasiness this peculiar expression.
     'Miss  Harriet,' he said, resuming his chair, 'I wish you would let  me
serve  you.  Look  at me; I  ought  to look honest, for I know I  am  so, at
present. Do I?'
     'Yes,' she answered with a smile.
     'I believe  every  word  you  have  said,' he returned.  'I am full  of
self-reproach that I might have known this and  seen this, and known you and
seen you, any time  these dozen years, and that I never have. I hardly  know
how I ever got  here - creature that I am, not only of my own habit,  but of
other people'sl But having done  so, let me  do something. I  ask it  in all
honour and respect. You inspire me  with both, in the highest degree. Let me
do something.'
     'We are contented, Sir.'
     'No, no, not quite,' returned  the gentleman. 'I think not quite. There
are some little comforts that might smooth your life, and his. And  his!' he
repeated, fancying that had made some impression on her. 'I have been in the
habit of thinking that there was nothing wanting to be done for him; that it
was all  settled  and over;  in short, of not thinking at all about it. I am
different now. Let me do something for him. You too,' said the visitor, with
careful delicacy, 'have need to watch your health closely, for his sake, and
I fear it fails.'
     'Whoever  you may  be, Sir,' answered  Harriet, raising her eyes to his
face, 'I am deeply grateful to you. I feel certain that  in all you say, you
have no object in the world but  kindness to us. But years have passed since
we  began this life;  and to take  from my brother any  part  of what has so
endeared  him to me, and so proved h