DOMBEY & SON (Illustrated). Charles Dickens
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her brother before dinner: and it by no means indisposed Mr Dombey to receive the Major with unwonted cordiality. The Major, for his part, was in a state of plethoric satisfaction that knew no bounds: and he coughed, and choked, and chuckled, and gasped, and swelled, until the waiters seemed positively afraid of him.
‘Your family monopolises Joe’s light, Sir,’ said the Major, when he had saluted Miss Tox. ‘Joe lives in darkness. Princess’s Place is changed into Kamschatka in the winter time. There is no ray of sun, Sir, for Joey B., now.’
‘Miss Tox is good enough to take a great deal of interest in Paul, Major,’ returned Mr Dombey on behalf of that blushing virgin.
‘Damme Sir,’ said the Major, ‘I’m jealous of my little friend. I’m pining away Sir. The Bagstock breed is degenerating in the forsaken person of old Joe.’ And the Major, becoming bluer and bluer and puffing his cheeks further and further over the stiff ridge of his tight cravat, stared at Miss Tox, until his eyes seemed as if he were at that moment being overdone before the slow fire at the military college.
Notwithstanding the palpitation of the heart which these allusions occasioned her, they were anything but disagreeable to Miss Tox, as they enabled her to be extremely interesting, and to manifest an occasional incoherence and distraction which she was not at all unwilling to display. The Major gave her abundant opportunities of exhibiting this emotion: being profuse in his complaints, at dinner, of her desertion of him and Princess’s Place: and as he appeared to derive great enjoyment from making them, they all got on very well.
None the worse on account of the Major taking charge of the whole conversation, and showing as great an appetite in that respect as in regard of the various dainties on the table, among which he may be almost said to have wallowed: greatly to the aggravation of his inflammatory tendencies. Mr Dombey’s habitual silence and reserve yielding readily to this usurpation, the Major felt that he was coming out and shining: and in the flow of spirits thus engendered, rang such an infinite number of new changes on his own name that he quite astonished himself. In a word, they were all very well pleased. The Major was considered to possess an inexhaustible fund of conversation; and when he took a late farewell, after a long rubber, Mr Dombey again complimented the blushing Miss Tox on her neighbour and acquaintance.
But all the way home to his own hotel, the Major incessantly said to himself, and of himself, ‘Sly, Sir—sly, Sir—de-vil-ish sly!’ And when he got there, sat down in a chair, and fell into a silent fit of laughter, with which he was sometimes seized, and which was always particularly awful. It held him so long on this occasion that the dark servant, who stood watching him at a distance, but dared not for his life approach, twice or thrice gave him over for lost. His whole form, but especially his face and head, dilated beyond all former experience; and presented to the dark man’s view, nothing but a heaving mass of indigo. At length he burst into a violent paroxysm of coughing, and when that was a little better burst into such ejaculations as the following:
‘Would you, Ma’am, would you? Mrs Dombey, eh, Ma’am? I think not, Ma’am. Not while Joe B. can put a spoke in your wheel, Ma’am. J. B.‘s even with you now, Ma’am. He isn’t altogether bowled out, yet, Sir, isn’t Bagstock. She’s deep, Sir, deep, but Josh is deeper. Wide awake is old Joe—broad awake, and staring, Sir!’ There was no doubt of this last assertion being true, and to a very fearful extent; as it continued to be during the greater part of that night, which the Major chiefly passed in similar exclamations, diversified with fits of coughing and choking that startled the whole house.
It was on the day after this occasion (being Sunday) when, as Mr Dombey, Mrs Chick, and Miss Tox were sitting at breakfast, still eulogising the Major, Florence came running in: her face suffused with a bright colour, and her eyes sparkling joyfully: and cried,
‘Papa! Papa! Here’s Walter! and he won’t come in.’
‘Who?’ cried Mr Dombey. ‘What does she mean? What is this?’
‘Walter, Papa!’ said Florence timidly; sensible of having approached the presence with too much familiarity. ‘Who found me when I was lost.’
‘Does she mean young Gay, Louisa?’ inquired Mr Dombey, knitting his brows. ‘Really, this child’s manners have become very boisterous. She cannot mean young Gay, I think. See what it is, will you?’
Mrs Chick hurried into the passage, and returned with the information that it was young Gay, accompanied by a very strange-looking person; and that young Gay said he would not take the liberty of coming in, hearing Mr Dombey was at breakfast, but would wait until Mr Dombey should signify that he might approach.
‘Tell the boy to come in now,’ said Mr Dombey. ‘Now, Gay, what is the matter? Who sent you down here? Was there nobody else to come?’
‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ returned Walter. ‘I have not been sent. I have been so bold as to come on my own account, which I hope you’ll pardon when I mention the cause.
But Mr Dombey, without attending to what he said, was looking impatiently on either side of him (as if he were a pillar in his way) at some object behind.
‘What’s that?’ said Mr Dombey. ‘Who is that? I think you have made some mistake in the door, Sir.’
‘Oh, I’m very sorry to intrude with anyone, Sir,’ cried Walter, hastily: ‘but this is—this is Captain Cuttle, Sir.’
‘Wal’r, my lad,’ observed the Captain in a deep voice: ‘stand by!’
At the same time the Captain, coming a little further in, brought out his wide suit of blue, his conspicuous shirt-collar, and his knobby nose in full relief, and stood bowing to Mr Dombey, and waving his hook politely to the ladies, with the hard glazed hat in his one hand, and a red equator round his head which it had newly imprinted there.
Mr Dombey regarded this phenomenon with amazement and indignation, and seemed by his looks to appeal to Mrs Chick and Miss Tox against it. Little Paul, who had come in after Florence, backed towards Miss Tox as the Captain waved his hook, and stood on the defensive.
‘Now, Gay,’ said Mr Dombey. ‘What have you got to say to me?’
Again the Captain observed, as a general opening of the conversation that could not fail to propitiate all parties, ‘Wal’r, standby!’
‘I am afraid, Sir,’ began Walter, trembling, and looking down at the ground, ‘that I take a very great liberty in coming—indeed, I am sure I do. I should hardly have had the courage to ask to see you, Sir, even after coming down, I am afraid, if I had not overtaken Miss Dombey, and—’
‘Well!’ said Mr Dombey, following his eyes as he glanced at the attentive Florence, and frowning unconsciously as she encouraged him with a smile. ‘Go on, if you please.’
‘Ay, ay,’ observed the Captain, considering it incumbent on him, as a point of good breeding, to support Mr Dombey. ‘Well said! Go on, Wal’r.’
Captain Cuttle ought to have been withered by the look which Mr Dombey bestowed upon him in acknowledgment of his patronage. But quite innocent of this, he closed one eye in reply, and gave Mr Dombey to understand, by certain significant motions of his hook, that Walter was a little bashful at first, and might be expected to come out shortly.
‘It is entirely a private and personal matter, that has brought me here, Sir,’ continued Walter, faltering, ‘and Captain Cuttle—’
‘Here!’ interposed the Captain, as an assurance that he was at hand, and might be relied upon.
‘Who is a very old friend of my poor Uncle’s, and a most excellent man, Sir,’ pursued Walter, raising his eyes with a look of entreaty in the Captain’s behalf, ‘was so good as to offer to come with me, which I could hardly refuse.’
‘No, no, no;’ observed the Captain complacently. ‘Of course not. No call for refusing. Go on, Wal’r.’
‘And therefore,