Dombey and Son

His face, remarkable for a brown solidity, brightened as he shook hands with Uncle and nephew; but he seemed to be of a laconic disposition, and merely said:

‘How goes it?’

‘All well,’ said Mr Gills, pushing the bottle towards him.

He took it up, and having surveyed and smelt it, said with extraordinary expression:

‘The?’

‘The,’ returned the Instrument-maker.

Upon that he whistled as he filled his glass, and seemed to think they were making holiday indeed.

‘Wal’r!’ he said, arranging his hair (which was thin) with his hook, and then pointing it at the Instrument-maker, ‘Look at him! Love! Honour! And Obey! Overhaul your catechism till you find that passage, and when found turn the leaf down. Success, my boy!’

He was so perfectly satisfied both with his quotation and his reference to it, that he could not help repeating the words again in a low voice, and saying he had forgotten ‘em these forty year.

‘But I never wanted two or three words in my life that I didn’t know where to lay my hand upon ‘em, Gills,’ he observed. ‘It comes of not wasting language as some do.’

The reflection perhaps reminded him that he had better, like young Norval’s father, “increase his store.” At any rate he became silent, and remained so, until old Sol went out into the shop to light it up, when he turned to Walter, and said, without any introductory remark: —

‘I suppose he could make a clock if he tried?’

‘I shouldn’t wonder, Captain Cuttle,’ returned the boy.

‘And it would go!’ said Captain Cuttle, making a species of serpent in the air with his hook. ‘Lord, how that clock would go!’

For a moment or two he seemed quite lost in contemplating the pace of this ideal timepiece, and sat looking at the boy as if his face were the dial.

‘But he’s chock-full of science,’ he observed, waving his hook towards the stock-in-trade. ‘Look’ye here! Here’s a collection of ‘em. Earth, air, or water. It’s all one. Only say where you’ll have it. Up in a balloon? There you are. Down in a bell? There you are. D’ye want to put the North Star in a pair of scales and weigh it? He’ll do it for you.’

It may be gathered from these remarks that Captain Cuttle’s reverence for the stock of instruments was profound, and that his philosophy knew little or no distinction between trading in it and inventing it.

‘Ah!’ he said, with a sigh, ‘it’s a fine thing to understand ‘em. And yet it’s a fine thing not to understand ‘em. I hardly know which is best. It’s so comfortable to sit here and feel that you might be weighed, measured, magnified, electrified, polarized, played the very devil with: and never know how.’

Nothing short of the wonderful Madeira, combined with the occasion (which rendered it desirable to improve and expand Walter’s mind), could have ever loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance to this prodigious oration. He seemed quite amazed himself at the manner in which it opened up to view the sources of the taciturn delight he had had in eating Sunday dinners in that parlour for ten years. Becoming a sadder and a wiser man, he mused and held his peace.

‘Come!’ cried the subject of this admiration, returning. ‘Before you have your glass of grog, Ned, we must finish the bottle.’

‘Stand by!’ said Ned, filling his glass. ‘Give the boy some more.’

‘No more, thank’e, Uncle!’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Sol, ‘a little more. We’ll finish the bottle, to the House, Ned – Walter’s House. Why it may be his House one of these days, in part. Who knows? Sir Richard Whittington married his master’s daughter.’

‘“Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are old you will never depart from it,”’ interposed the Captain. ‘Wal’r! Overhaul the book, my lad.’

‘And although Mr Dombey hasn’t a daughter,’ Sol began.

‘Yes, yes, he has, Uncle,’ said the boy, reddening and laughing.

‘Has he?’ cried the old man. ‘Indeed I think he has too.’

‘Oh! I know he has,’ said the boy. ‘Some of ‘em were talking about it in the office today. And they do say, Uncle and Captain Cuttle,’ lowering his voice, ‘that he’s taken a dislike to her, and that she’s left, unnoticed, among the servants, and that his mind’s so set all the while upon having his son in the House, that although he’s only a baby now, he is going to have balances struck oftener than formerly, and the books kept closer than they used to be, and has even been seen (when he thought he wasn’t) walking in the Docks, looking at his ships and property and all that, as if he was exulting like, over what he and his son will possess together. That’s what they say. Of course, I don’t know.’

‘He knows all about her already, you see,’ said the instrument-maker.

‘Nonsense, Uncle,’ cried the boy, still reddening and laughing, boy-like. ‘How can I help hearing what they tell me?’

‘The son’s a little in our way at present, I’m afraid, Ned,’ said the old man, humouring the joke.

‘Very much,’ said the Captain.

‘Nevertheless, we’ll drink him,’ pursued Sol. ‘So, here’s to Dombey and Son.’

‘Oh, very well, Uncle,’ said the boy, merrily. ‘Since you have introduced the mention of her, and have connected me with her and have said that I know all about her, I shall make bold to amend the toast. So here’s to Dombey – and Son – and Daughter!’

CHAPTER 5. Paul’s Progress and Christening

Little Paul, suffering no contamination from the blood of the Toodles, grew stouter and stronger every day. Every day, too, he was more and more ardently cherished by Miss Tox, whose devotion was so far appreciated by Mr Dombey that he began to regard her as a woman of great natural good sense, whose feelings did her credit and deserved encouragement. He was so lavish of this condescension, that he not only bowed to her, in a particular manner, on several occasions, but even entrusted such stately recognitions of her to his sister as ‘pray tell your friend, Louisa, that she is very good,’ or ‘mention to Miss Tox, Louisa, that I am obliged to her;’ specialities which made a deep impression on the lady thus distinguished.

Whether Miss Tox conceived that having been selected by the Fates to welcome the little Dombey before he was born, in Kirby, Beard and Kirby’s Best Mixed Pins, it therefore naturally devolved upon her to greet him with all other forms of welcome in all other early stages of his existence – or whether her overflowing goodness induced her to volunteer into the domestic militia as a substitute in some sort for his deceased Mama – or whether she was conscious of any other motives – are questions which in this stage of the Firm’s history herself only could have solved. Nor have they much bearing on the fact (of which there is no doubt), that Miss Tox’s constancy and zeal were a heavy discouragement to Richards, who lost flesh hourly under her patronage, and was in some danger of being superintended to death.

Miss Tox was often in the habit of assuring Mrs Chick, that nothing could exceed her interest in all connected with the development of that sweet child; and an observer of Miss Tox’s proceedings might have inferred so much without declaratory confirmation. She would preside over the innocent repasts of the young heir, with ineffable satisfaction, almost with an air of joint proprietorship with Richards in the entertainment. At the little ceremonies of the bath and toilette, she assisted with enthusiasm. The administration of infantine doses of physic awakened all the active sympathy of her character; and being on one occasion secreted in a cupboard (whither she had fled in modesty), when Mr Dombey was introduced into the nursery by his sister, to behold his son, in the course of preparation for bed, taking a short walk uphill over Richards’s gown, in a short and airy linen jacket, Miss Tox was so transported beyond the ignorant present as to be unable to refrain from crying out, ‘Is he not beautiful Mr Dombey! Is he not a Cupid, Sir!’ and then almost sinking behind the closet door with confusion and blushes.

‘Louisa,’ said Mr Dombey, one day, to his sister, ‘I really think I must present your friend with some little token, on the occasion of Paul’s christening. She has exerted herself so warmly in the child’s behalf from the first, and seems to understand her position so thoroughly (a very rare merit in this world, I am sorry to say), that it would really be agreeable to me to notice her.’

Let it be no detraction from the merits of Miss Tox, to hint that in Mr Dombey’s eyes, as in some others that occasionally see the light, they only achieved that mighty piece of knowledge, the understanding of their own position, who showed a fitting reverence for his. It was not so much their merit that they knew themselves, as that they knew him, and bowed low before him.

‘My dear Paul,’ returned his sister, ‘you do Miss Tox but justice, as a man of your penetration was sure, I knew, to do. I believe if there are three words in the English language for which she has a respect amounting almost to veneration, those words are, Dombey and Son.’

‘Well,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘I believe it. It does Miss Tox credit.’

‘And as to anything in the shape of a token, my dear Paul,’ pursued his sister, ‘all I can say is that anything you give Miss Tox will be hoarded and prized, I am sure, like a relic. But there is a way, my dear Paul, of showing your sense of Miss Tox’s friendliness in a still more flattering and acceptable manner, if you should be so inclined.’

‘How is that?’ asked Mr Dombey.

‘Godfathers, of course,’ continued Mrs Chick, ‘are important in point of connexion and influence.’

‘I don’t know why they should be, to my son,’ said Mr Dombey, coldly.

‘Very true, my dear Paul,’ retorted Mrs Chick, with an extraordinary show of animation, to cover the suddenness of her conversion; ‘and spoken like yourself. I might have expected nothing else from you. I might have known that such would have been your opinion. Perhaps;’ here Mrs Chick faltered again, as not quite comfortably feeling her way; ‘perhaps that is a reason why you might have the less objection to allowing Miss Tox to be godmother to the dear thing, if it were only as deputy and proxy for someone else. That it would be received as a great honour and distinction, Paul, I need not say.’

‘Louisa,’ said Mr Dombey, after a short pause, ‘it is not to be supposed – ’

‘Certainly not,’ cried Mrs Chick, hastening to anticipate a refusal, ‘I never thought it was.’

Mr Dombey looked at her impatiently.