DOMBEY & SON (Illustrated). Charles Dickens
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‘If the dear child,’ said Mrs Chick, in the tone of one who was summing up what had been previously quite agreed upon, instead of saying it all for the first time, ‘is a little weakened by that last attack, and is not in quite such vigorous health as we could wish; and if he has some temporary weakness in his system, and does occasionally seem about to lose, for the moment, the use of his—’
Mrs Chick was afraid to say limbs, after Mr Dombey’s recent objection to bones, and therefore waited for a suggestion from Miss Tox, who, true to her office, hazarded ‘members.’
‘Members!’ repeated Mr Dombey.
‘I think the medical gentleman mentioned legs this morning, my dear Louisa, did he not?’ said Miss Tox.
‘Why, of course he did, my love,’ retorted Mrs Chick, mildly reproachful. ‘How can you ask me? You heard him. I say, if our dear Paul should lose, for the moment, the use of his legs, these are casualties common to many children at his time of life, and not to be prevented by any care or caution. The sooner you understand that, Paul, and admit that, the better. If you have any doubt as to the amount of care, and caution, and affection, and self-sacrifice, that has been bestowed upon little Paul, I should wish to refer the question to your medical attendant, or to any of your dependants in this house. Call Towlinson,’ said Mrs Chick, ‘I believe he has no prejudice in our favour; quite the contrary. I should wish to hear what accusation Towlinson can make!’
‘Surely you must know, Louisa,’ observed Mr Dombey, ‘that I don’t question your natural devotion to, and regard for, the future head of my house.’
‘I am glad to hear it, Paul,’ said Mrs Chick; ‘but really you are very odd, and sometimes talk very strangely, though without meaning it, I know. If your dear boy’s soul is too much for his body, Paul, you should remember whose fault that is—who he takes after, I mean—and make the best of it. He’s as like his Papa as he can be. People have noticed it in the streets. The very beadle, I am informed, observed it, so long ago as at his christening. He’s a very respectable man, with children of his own. He ought to know.’
‘Mr Pilkins saw Paul this morning, I believe?’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Yes, he did,’ returned his sister. ‘Miss Tox and myself were present. Miss Tox and myself are always present. We make a point of it. Mr Pilkins has seen him for some days past, and a very clever man I believe him to be. He says it is nothing to speak of; which I can confirm, if that is any consolation; but he recommended, to-day, sea-air. Very wisely, Paul, I feel convinced.’
‘Sea-air,’ repeated Mr Dombey, looking at his sister.
‘There is nothing to be made uneasy by, in that,’ said Mrs Chick. ‘My George and Frederick were both ordered sea-air, when they were about his age; and I have been ordered it myself a great many times. I quite agree with you, Paul, that perhaps topics may be incautiously mentioned upstairs before him, which it would be as well for his little mind not to expatiate upon; but I really don’t see how that is to be helped, in the case of a child of his quickness. If he were a common child, there would be nothing in it. I must say I think, with Miss Tox, that a short absence from this house, the air of Brighton, and the bodily and mental training of so judicious a person as Mrs Pipchin for instance—’
‘Who is Mrs Pipchin, Louisa?’ asked Mr Dombey; aghast at this familiar introduction of a name he had never heard before.
‘Mrs Pipchin, my dear Paul,’ returned his sister, ‘is an elderly lady—Miss Tox knows her whole history—who has for some time devoted all the energies of her mind, with the greatest success, to the study and treatment of infancy, and who has been extremely well connected. Her husband broke his heart in—how did you say her husband broke his heart, my dear? I forget the precise circumstances.
‘In pumping water out of the Peruvian Mines,’ replied Miss Tox.
‘Not being a Pumper himself, of course,’ said Mrs Chick, glancing at her brother; and it really did seem necessary to offer the explanation, for Miss Tox had spoken of him as if he had died at the handle; ‘but having invested money in the speculation, which failed. I believe that Mrs Pipchin’s management of children is quite astonishing. I have heard it commended in private circles ever since I was—dear me—how high!’ Mrs Chick’s eye wandered about the bookcase near the bust of Mr Pitt, which was about ten feet from the ground.
‘Perhaps I should say of Mrs Pipchin, my dear Sir,’ observed Miss Tox, with an ingenuous blush, ‘having been so pointedly referred to, that the encomium which has been passed upon her by your sweet sister is well merited. Many ladies and gentleman, now grown up to be interesting members of society, have been indebted to her care. The humble individual who addresses you was once under her charge. I believe juvenile nobility itself is no stranger to her establishment.’
‘Do I understand that this respectable matron keeps an establishment, Miss Tox?’ the Mr Dombey, condescendingly.
‘Why, I really don’t know,’ rejoined that lady, ‘whether I am justified in calling it so. It is not a Preparatory School by any means. Should I express my meaning,’ said Miss Tox, with peculiar sweetness, ‘if I designated it an infantine Boarding-House of a very select description?’
‘On an exceedingly limited and particular scale,’ suggested Mrs Chick, with a glance at her brother.
‘Oh! Exclusion itself!’ said Miss Tox.
There was something in this. Mrs Pipchin’s husband having broken his heart of the Peruvian mines was good. It had a rich sound. Besides, Mr Dombey was in a state almost amounting to consternation at the idea of Paul remaining where he was one hour after his removal had been recommended by the medical practitioner. It was a stoppage and delay upon the road the child must traverse, slowly at the best, before the goal was reached. Their recommendation of Mrs Pipchin had great weight with him; for he knew that they were jealous of any interference with their charge, and he never for a moment took it into account that they might be solicitous to divide a responsibility, of which he had, as shown just now, his own established views. Broke his heart of the Peruvian mines, mused Mr Dombey. Well! a very respectable way of doing It.
‘Supposing we should decide, on to-morrow’s inquiries, to send Paul down to Brighton to this lady, who would go with him?’ inquired Mr Dombey, after some reflection.
‘I don’t think you could send the child anywhere at present without Florence, my dear Paul,’ returned his sister, hesitating. ‘It’s quite an infatuation with him. He’s very young, you know, and has his fancies.’
Mr Dombey turned his head away, and going slowly to the bookcase, and unlocking it, brought back a book to read.
‘Anybody else, Louisa?’ he said, without looking up, and turning over the leaves.
‘Wickam, of course. Wickam would be quite sufficient, I should say,’ returned his sister. ‘Paul being in such hands as Mrs Pipchin’s, you could hardly send anybody who would be a further check upon her. You would go down yourself once a week at least, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Mr Dombey; and sat looking at one page for an hour afterwards, without reading one word.
This celebrated Mrs Pipchin was a marvellous ill-favoured, ill-conditioned old lady, of a stooping figure, with a mottled face, like bad marble, a hook nose, and a hard grey eye, that looked as if it might have been hammered at on an anvil without sustaining any injury. Forty years at least had elapsed since the Peruvian mines had been the death of Mr Pipchin; but his relict still wore black bombazeen, of such a lustreless, deep, dead, sombre shade, that gas itself couldn’t light her up after dark, and her presence was a quencher to any number of candles. She was generally spoken of as ‘a great manager’ of children; and the secret of her management was, to give them everything that they didn’t like, and nothing that they did—which was found to sweeten their dispositions very much. She was such a bitter old lady, that one was tempted to believe there had been some mistake in the application of the Peruvian machinery, and that all her waters of gladness and milk of human kindness, had been pumped out