Part 9

Then Mr. Dombey hit upon the meanest trick of his weak nature. When he found that he could not "humble" his wife by ordinary means, he called in his business manager, Carker, a smooth, deceitful man, whose hair was plastered down close to his white forehead and whose teeth shone in a continual sly smile. To Carker Mr. Dombey would entrust various messages for Mrs. Dombey, as to the running of the house, the hiring of servants, and the like. Mr. Dombey knew that she would resent such petty interference, especially through an outsider; but he did not know that she submitted quietly to these indignities simply for the sake of Florence, whom she wished to protect. And even her love for the girl was given in secret, for the same reason.

Florence, long since awakened from her dream, mournfully observed the estrangement between her father and new mother; and saw it widen more and more, and knew that there was greater bitterness between them every day. It had been very hard to have all her love repulsed, but it now seemed harder to be compelled to doubt her father, or choose between him and this mother, so affectionate and dear to her, yet whose other moods she could only witness with distrust or fear.

One great sorrow, however, was spared her. She never had the least suspicion that Mrs. Dombey, by her tenderness for her, widened the separation from her father, or gave him new cause of dislike. If she had thought it, for a single moment, what grief she would have felt, what sacrifice she would have tried to make, poor loving girl!

No word was ever spoken between Florence and her mother now, on these subjects. Mrs. Dombey had said there ought to be between them, in that wise, a silence like the grave itself; and Florence felt that she was right.

In this state of affairs her father was brought home suffering and ill, and gloomily retired to his own rooms, where he was tended by servants, not approached by his wife, and had no friend or companion but Mr. Carker, who always withdrew near midnight.

Every night Florence would listen out in the hall for news of him, after leaving her mother. But, late one evening, she was surprised to see a bright light burning in her room, and her mother sitting before the dying fire looking so fiercely at it that it terrified her.

"Mamma!" she cried, "what is the matter?"

Mrs. Dombey started; looking at her with such a strange dread in her face that Florence was more frightened than before.

"Mamma!" said Florence, hurriedly advancing. "Dear mamma! what is the matter?"

"I have not been well," said Mrs. Dombey, shaking, and still looking at her in the same strange way. "I have had bad dreams, my love."

"And have not yet been to bed, mamma?"

"No," she returned. "Half-waking dreams."

Her features gradually softened; and suffering Florence to come close to her, within her embrace, she said in a tender manner, "But what does my bird do here! What does my bird do here!"

"I have been uneasy, mamma, in not seeing you to-night, and in not knowing how papa was; and I--"

Florence stopped there, and said no more.

"Is it late?" her mother asked, fondly putting back the curls that mingled with her own dark hair, and strayed upon her face.

"Very late. Near day."

"Near day!" she repeated in surprise.

"Mamma!" said Florence. "Oh, mamma, what can I do, what should I do, to make us happier? Is there anything?"

"Nothing," she replied.

"Are you sure of that? Can it never be? If I speak now of what is in my thoughts, in spite of what we have agreed," said Florence, "you will not blame me, will you?"

"It is useless," she replied, "useless. I have told you, dear, that I have had bad dreams. Nothing can change them, or prevent their coming back."

"I do not understand," said Florence, gazing on her agitated face, which seemed to darken as she looked.

Her mother's clenched hand tightened on the trembling arm she had in hers, and as she looked down on the alarmed and wondering face, her own feelings subsided. "Oh, Florence!" she said, "I think I have been nearly mad to-night!" and humbled her proud head upon the girl's neck, and burst into tears.

"Don't leave me! be near me! I have no hope but in you!" These words she said a score of times.

Florence was greatly puzzled and distressed, and could only repeat her promise of love and trust.

Through six months that followed upon Mr. Dombey's illness and recovery, no outward change was shown between him and his wife. Both were cold and proud; and still Mr. Carker--a man whom she detested----bore his petty commands to her.

As for Florence, the little hope she had ever held for happiness in their new home was quite gone now. That home was nearly two years old, and even the patient trust that was in her could not survive the daily blight of such an experience.

Florence loved her father still, but by degrees had come to love him rather as some dear one who had been, or who might have been, than as the hard reality before her eyes. Something of the softened sadness with which she loved the memory of little Paul or her mother, seemed to enter now into her thoughts of him, and to make them, as it were, a dear remembrance. Whether it was that he was dead to her, and that partly for this reason, partly for his share in those old objects of her affection, and partly for the long association of him with hopes that were withered and tendernesses he had frozen, she could not have told; but the father whom she loved began to be a vague and dreamy idea to her; hardly more substantially connected with her real life than the image she would sometimes conjure up of her dear brother yet alive, and growing to be a man, who would protect and cherish her.

The change, if it may be called one, had stolen on her like the change from childhood to womanhood, and had come with it. Florence was almost seventeen, when, in her lonely musings, she was conscious of these thoughts.

She was often alone now, for the old association between her and her mamma was greatly changed. At the time of her father's illness, and when he was lying in his room downstairs, Florence had first observed that Edith avoided her. Wounded and shocked, and yet unable to reconcile this with her affection when they did meet, she sought her in her own room at night, once more.

"Mamma," said Florence, stealing softly to her side, "have I offended you?"

She answered "No."

"I must have done something," said Florence. "Tell me what it is. You have changed your manner to me, dear mamma. I cannot say how instantly I feel the least change; for I love you with my whole heart."

"As I do you," said Mrs. Dombey. "Ah, Florence, believe me never more than now!"

"Why do you go away from me so often, and keep away?" asked Florence. "And why do you sometimes look so strangely on me, dear mamma? You do so, do you not?"

"Dear Florence, it is for your good. Why, I cannot tell you now. But you will believe I have always tried to make you happy, dear, will you not?"

"Mamma," said Florence, anxiously, "there is a change in you, in more than what you say to me, which alarms me. Let me stay with you a little."

"No, dearest. I am best left alone now, and I do best to keep apart from you, of all else. Ask me no questions, but believe that what I am, I am not of my own will, or for myself. Forgive me for having ever darkened your dark home--I am a shadow on it, I know well--and let us never speak of this again."

"Mamma," sobbed Florence, "we are not to part?"

"We do this that we may not part," said her mother. "Ask no more. Go, Florence! My love and my remorse go with you!"

Thus did Mrs. Dombey hide from Florence one dark secret--that her husband was displeased with their love for each other. It was for Florence's welfare that she felt compelled to hide her affections.

From that hour Florence and she were as they had been no more. For days together they would seldom meet, except at table, and when Mr. Dombey was present. Then Mrs. Dombey, imperious, inflexible, and silent, never looked at her. Whenever Mr. Carker was of the party, as he often was during the progress of Mr. Dombey's recovery, she was more distant towards her than at other times. Yet she and Florence never encountered, when there was no one by, but she would embrace her as affectionately as of old, though not with the same relenting of her proud aspect; and often when she had been out late she would steal up to Florence's room as she had been used to do in the dark, and whisper "Good-night."

Then came a dreadful day not long afterwards when it was found that Mrs. Dombey had fled from her home. The day was the second anniversary of this ill-starred marriage; and the poor, misguided woman left a note for her husband telling him that she had gone away with the man whom he had trusted most (and whom she hated most) Mr. Carker. It was a foolish way to be revenged for the harsh treatment she had received, but it served her purpose. Mr. Dombey was wounded in his most vulnerable spot--his pride.

As for Florence, she was overcome with grief; yet in the midst of her own emotion she could realize her father's bitterness. Yielding at once to the impulse of her affection and forgetful of his past coldness, Florence hurried to him with her arms stretched out and crying, "Oh dear, dear papa!" tried to clasp him round the neck.

But in his wild despair he shook her off so roughly that she almost fell to the floor; telling her she could join her mother, for all he cared, as they had always been in league against him.

She did not sink down at his feet; she did not shut out the sight of him with her trembling hands; she did not weep nor speak one word of reproach. She only uttered a single low cry of pain and then fled from the house like a hunted animal.

Without a roof over her head--without father or mother, she was indeed an orphan.

While the days went by, after Florence's flight, what was the proud man doing? Did he ever think of his daughter or wonder where she had gone? Did he suppose she had come home again and was leading her old life in the weary house? He did not utter her name or make any search for her. He might have thought of her constantly, or not at all. It was all one for any sign he made.

But this was sure. He did not think that he had lost her. He had no suspicion of the truth that she had fled away from him. He had lived too long shut up in his pride, seeing her a patient, gentle creature in his path, to have any fear of that. And so he waited, day by day, until she should make her appearance on the stairs or at the table as before.

But the days dragged slowly by and she did not come.

The sea had ebbed and flowed through a whole year. Through a whole year the winds and clouds had come and gone; the ceaseless work of Time had been performed, in storm and sunshine. Through a whole year the famous House of Dombey and Son had fought a fight for life, against doubtful rumors, unsuccessful ventures, and most of all, against the bad judgment of its head, who would not contract its enterprises by a hair's breadth, and would not listen to a word of warning that the ship he strained so hard against the storm was weak, and could not bear it.

For Mr. Dombey had grown strangely indifferent and reckless, and plunged blindly into speculation.

The year was out, and the great House was down.

One summer afternoon there was a buzz and whisper, about the streets of London, of a great failure. A certain cold, proud man, well known there, was not there, nor was he represented there. Next day it was noised abroad that Dombey and Son had stopped, and next night there was a list of bankrupts published, headed by that name.

Nobody's opinion stayed the misfortune, lightened it, or made it heavier. It was understood that the affairs of the House were to be wound up as they best could be; that Mr. Dombey freely resigned everything he had, and asked for no favor from any one. That any resumption of the business was out of the question, as he would listen to no friendly negotiation having that compromise in view; that he had relinquished every post of trust or distinction he had held as a man respected among merchants; and that he was a broken man.

The old home where Paul had died and whence Florence had fled away was now empty and deserted--a wreck of what it had been. All the furniture and hangings had been sold to satisfy Mr. Dombey's creditors; and he now lived there alone in one cheerless room--a man without friends, without hope.

But at last he began to come to his senses; to see what a treasure he had cast away in Florence; to recall his own injustice and cruelty toward her.

In the miserable night he thought of it; in the dreary day, the wretched dawn, the ghostly, memory-haunted twilight, he remembered. In agony, in sorrow, in remorse, in despair!

"Papa! papa!" He heard the words again, and saw the face. He saw it fall upon the trembling hands, and heard the one prolonged, low cry go upward.

Oh! He did remember it! The rain that fell upon the roof, the wind that mourned outside the door, had foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. He knew now what he had done. He knew now that he had called down that upon his head, which bowed it lower than the heaviest stroke of fortune. He knew now what it was to be rejected and deserted; now, when every loving blossom he had withered in his innocent daughter's heart was snowing down in ashes on him.

He thought of her as she had been that night when he and his bride came home. He thought of her as she had been in all the home events of the abandoned house. He thought now that of all around him, she alone had never changed. His boy had faded into dust, his proud wife had deserted him, his flatterer and friend had been transformed into the worst of villains, his riches had melted away, the very walls that sheltered him looked on him as a stranger; she alone had turned the same mild, gentle look upon him always. Yes, to the latest and the last. She had never changed to him--nor had he ever changed to her--and she was lost.

As, one by one, they fell away before his mind--his baby hope, his wife, his friend, his fortune--oh, how the mist through which he had seen her cleared, and showed him her true self! How much better than this that he had loved her as he had his boy, and lost her as he had his boy, and laid them in their early grave together!

As the days dragged by, it seemed to him that he should go mad with remorse and longing. He haunted Paul's room and Florence's room--so empty now--as though they were his only dwelling-place. He had meant to go away, but clung to this tie in the house as the last and only thing left to him. He would go to-morrow. To-morrow came. He would go to-morrow. Every night, within the knowledge of no human creature, he came forth, and wandered through the despoiled house like a ghost. Many a morning when the day broke, with altered face drooping behind the closed blind in his window, he pondered on the loss of his two children. It was one child no more. He reunited them in his thoughts, and they were never asunder.

Then, one day, when strange fancies oppressed him more than usual, he paused at Florence's door and gazed wildly down as though suddenly awakened from a dream.

He heard a cry--a loving, pleading voice--and there at his knees knelt Florence herself.

"Papa! Dearest papa! I have come back to ask forgiveness. I never can be happy more, without it!"

Unchanged still. Of all the world, unchanged. Raising the same face to his as on that miserable night. Asking _his_ forgiveness!

"Dear papa, oh, don't look strangely on me! I never meant to leave you. I never thought of it, before or afterwards. I was frightened when I went away and could not think. Papa, dear, I am changed. I am penitent. I know my fault. I know my duty better now. Papa, don't cast me off or I shall die!"

He tottered to his chair. He felt her draw his arms about her neck: he felt her put her own round his; he felt her kisses on his face; he felt her wet cheek laid against his own; he felt--oh, how deeply!--all that he had done.

Upon the breast that he had bruised, against the heart that he had almost broken, she laid his face, now covered with his hands, and said, sobbing,--

"I have been far away, dear papa, and could not come back before this. I have been across the seas, and I have a home of my own over there now. Oh, I want you to see it! I want to take you there; for my home is _your_ home--always, always! Say you will pardon me, will come to me!"

He would have said it if he could. He would have raised his hands and besought _her_ for pardon, but she caught them in her own and put them down hurriedly.

"You will come, I know, dear papa! And I will know by that that you forgive me. And we will never talk about what is past and forgotten; never again!"

As she clung closer to him, in another burst of tears, he kissed her on the lips, and, lifting up his eyes, said, "Oh, my God, forgive me, for I need it very much!"

With that he dropped his head again, lamenting over and caressing her, and there was not a sound in all the house for a long, long time; they remaining clasped in one another's arms, in the glorious sunshine that had crept in with Florence.

*THE STORY OF PIP AS TOLD BY HIMSELF*

*I. HOW PIP HELPED THE CONVICT*

My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer than Pip. So I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister--Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones.

Ours was the marsh country down by the river, within twenty miles of the sea. My most vivid memory of these early days was of a raw evening about dusk. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak spot where I chanced to be wandering all alone was the churchyard; that the low, leaden line beyond was the river; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry was myself--Pip.

"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch.

He was a fearful looking man, clad in coarse gray, covered with mud and brambles, and with a great clanking chain upon his leg.

"Tell us your name!" said the man.

"Quick!"

"Pip, sir."

"Show us where you live," said the man. "P'int out the place!"

I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the trees a mile or more from the church.

The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside-down and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself--for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head-over-heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet--when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling, while he ate the bread ravenously.

"You young dog," said the man, licking his lips, "what fat cheeks you ha' got."

I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my years, and not strong.

"Darn _me_ if I couldn't eat 'em," said the man, with a threatening shake of his head, "and if I ha'nt half a mind to't!"

I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn't, and held tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me; partly to keep myself upon it; partly to keep myself from crying.

"Now lookee here!" said the man. "Where's your mother?"

"There, sir!" said I.

He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"There, sir!" I timidly explained, pointing to an inscription on a stone; "that's my mother."

"Oh!" said he, coming back. "And is that your father alonger your mother?"

"Yes, sir," said I; "him too; 'late of this parish.'"

"Ha!" he muttered then, considering. "Who d' ye live with--supposin' you're kindly let to live, which I ha'nt made up my mind about?"

"My sister, sir--Mrs. Joe Gargery--wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir."

"Blacksmith, eh?" said he, and looked down at his leg.

After darkly looking at his leg and at me several times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me, so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his.

"Now lookee here," he said, "the question being whether you're to be let to live. You know what a file is?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you know what wittles is?"

"Yes, sir."

After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.

"You get me a file." He tilted me again. "And you get me some wittles. If you don't--!"

He tilted me again and shook me till my teeth chattered.

"In--indeed--I will, sir," said I, "if you will only let me go. I'll run all the way home."

"Well, see that you come back. But to-morrow morning will do--early--before day. I'll wait for you here."

As he released me, I needed no second bidding, but scurried away as fast as I could, and soon reached the blacksmith shop.

My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbors because she had brought me up "by hand." Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.

She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow--a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.

My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened behind with two loops, and having a bib in front that was stuck full of pins and needles.

Joe's forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the dwellings in our country were--most of them, at that time. When I ran home from the churchyard the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me the moment I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner.

"Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times looking for you, Pip. And she's out now, making it a baker's dozen."

"Is she?"

"Yes, Pip," said Joe; "and what's worse, she's got Tickler with her."

At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.

"She sot down," said Joe, "and she got up, and she made a grab at Tickler, and she Rampaged out. That's what she did," said Joe, slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at it; "she Rampaged out, Pip."

"Has she been gone long, Joe?" I always treated him as no more than my equal.

"Well," said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, "she's been on the Rampage, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She's a coming! Get behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you."