Dombey and Son

Dombey and Son

Charles Dickens

Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new.

Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and though a handsome well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance, to be prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of course) an undeniably fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his general effect, as yet. On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother Care had set some marks, as on a tree that was to come down in good time—remorseless twins they are for striding through their human forests, notching as they go—while the countenance of Son was crossed with a thousand little creases, which the same deceitful Time would take delight in smoothing out and wearing away with the flat part of his scythe, as a preparation of the surface for his deeper operations.

Dombey, exulting in the long-looked-for event, jingled and jingled the heavy gold watch-chain that depended from below his trim blue coat, whereof the buttons sparkled phosphorescently in the feeble rays of the distant fire. Son, with his little fists curled up and clenched, seemed, in his feeble way, to be squaring at existence for having come upon him so unexpectedly.

“The House will once again, Mrs Dombey,” said Mr Dombey, “be not only in name but in fact Dombey and Son;” and he added, in a tone of luxurious satisfaction, with his eyes half-closed as if he were reading the name in a device of flowers, and inhaling their fragrance at the same time; “Dom-bey and Son!”

The words had such a softening influence, that he appended a term of endearment to Mrs Dombey’s name (though not without some hesitation, as being a man but little used to that form of address): and said, “Mrs Dombey, my—my dear.”

A transient flush of faint surprise overspread the sick lady’s face as she raised her eyes towards him.

“He will be christened Paul, my—Mrs Dombey—of course.”

She feebly echoed, “Of course,” or rather expressed it by the motion of her lips, and closed her eyes again.

“His father’s name, Mrs Dombey, and his grandfather’s! I wish his grandfather were alive this day! There is some inconvenience in the necessity of writing Junior,” said Mr Dombey, making a fictitious autograph on his knee; “but it is merely of a private and personal complexion. It doesn’t enter into the correspondence of the House. Its signature remains the same.” And again he said “Dombey and Son,” in exactly the same tone as before.

Those three words conveyed the one idea of Mr Dombey’s life. The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon were made to give them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float their ships; rainbows gave them promise of fair weather; winds blew for or against their enterprises; stars and planets circled in their orbits, to preserve inviolate a system of which they were the centre. Common abbreviations took new meanings in his eyes, and had sole reference to them. A. D. had no concern with Anno Domini, but stood for anno Dombei—and Son.

He had risen, as his father had before him, in the course of life and death, from Son to Dombey, and for nearly twenty years had been the sole representative of the Firm. Of those years he had been married, ten—married, as some said, to a lady with no heart to give him; whose happiness was in the past, and who was content to bind her broken spirit to the dutiful and meek endurance of the present. Such idle talk was little likely to reach the ears of Mr Dombey, whom it nearly concerned; and probably no one in the world would have received it with such utter incredulity as he, if it had reached him. Dombey and Son had often dealt in hides, but never in hearts. They left that fancy ware to boys and girls, and boarding-schools and books. Mr Dombey would have reasoned: That a matrimonial alliance with himself _must_, in the nature of things, be gratifying and honourable to any woman of common sense. That the hope of giving birth to a new partner in such a House, could not fail to awaken a glorious and stirring ambition in the breast of the least ambitious of her sex. That Mrs Dombey had entered on that social contract of matrimony: almost necessarily part of a genteel and wealthy station, even without reference to the perpetuation of family Firms: with her eyes fully open to these advantages. That Mrs Dombey had had daily practical knowledge of his position in society. That Mrs Dombey had always sat at the head of his table, and done the honours of his house in a remarkably lady-like and becoming manner. That Mrs Dombey must have been happy. That she couldn’t help it.

I shall never cease to congratulate myself,” said Mrs Chick,” on having said, when I little thought what was in store for us,—really as if I was inspired by something,—that I forgave poor dear Fanny everything. Whatever happens, that must always be a comfort to me!”

Mrs Chick made this impressive observation in the drawing-room, after having descended thither from the inspection of the mantua-makers upstairs, who were busy on the family mourning. She delivered it for the behoof of Mr Chick, who was a stout bald gentleman, with a very large face, and his hands continually in his pockets, and who had a tendency in his nature to whistle and hum tunes, which, sensible of the indecorum of such sounds in a house of grief, he was at some pains to repress at present.

“Don’t you over-exert yourself, Loo,” said Mr Chick, “or you’ll be laid up with spasms, I see. Right tol loor rul! Bless my soul, I forgot! We’re here one day and gone the next!”

Mrs Chick contented herself with a glance of reproof, and then proceeded with the thread of her discourse.

“I am sure,” she said, “I hope this heart-rending occurrence will be a warning to all of us, to accustom ourselves to rouse ourselves, and to make efforts in time where they’re required of us. There’s a moral in everything, if we would only avail ourselves of it. It will be our own faults if we lose sight of this one.”

Mr Chick invaded the grave silence which ensued on this remark with the singularly inappropriate air of “A cobbler there was;” and checking himself, in some confusion, observed, that it was undoubtedly our own faults if we didn’t improve such melancholy occasions as the present.

“Which might be better improved, I should think, Mr C.,” retorted his helpmate, after a short pause, “than by the introduction, either of the college hornpipe, or the equally unmeaning and unfeeling remark of rump-te-iddity, bow-wow-wow!”—which Mr Chick had indeed indulged in, under his breath, and which Mrs Chick repeated in a tone of withering scorn.

“Merely habit, my dear,” pleaded Mr Chick.

“Nonsense! Habit!” returned his wife. “If you’re a rational being, don’t make such ridiculous excuses. Habit! If I was to get a habit (as you call it) of walking on the ceiling, like the flies, I should hear enough of it, I daresay.”

It appeared so probable that such a habit might be attended with some degree of notoriety, that Mr Chick didn’t venture to dispute the position.

“Bow-wow-wow!” repeated Mrs Chick with an emphasis of blighting contempt on the last syllable. “More like a professional singer with the hydrophobia, than a man in your station of life!”

“How’s the Baby, Loo?” asked Mr Chick: to change the subject.

“What Baby do you mean?” answered Mrs Chick.

“The poor bereaved little baby,” said Mr Chick. “I don’t know of any other, my dear.”

“You don’t know of any other,” retorted Mrs Chick. “More shame for you, I was going to say.”

Mr Chick looked astonished.

“I am sure the morning I have had, with that dining-room downstairs, one mass of babies, no one in their senses would believe.”

“One mass of babies!” repeated Mr Chick, staring with an alarmed expression about him.

“It would have occurred to most men,” said Mrs Chick, “that poor dear Fanny being no more,—those words of mine will always be a balm and comfort to me,” here she dried her eyes; “it becomes necessary to provide a Nurse.”

“Oh! Ah!” said Mr Chick. “Toor-ru!—such is life, I mean. I hope you are suited, my dear.”

“Indeed I am not,” said Mrs Chick; “nor likely to be, so far as I can see, and in the meantime the poor child seems likely to be starved to death. Paul is so very particular—naturally so, of course, having set his whole heart on this one boy—and there are so many objections to everybody that offers, that I don’t see, myself, the least chance of an arrangement. Meanwhile, of course, the child is—”