Attired no more in Captain Cuttle's sable slops and sou'-wester hat, but
dressed in a substantial suit of brown livery, which, while it
affected to be a very sober and demure livery indeed, was really as
self-satisfied and confident a one as tailor need desire to make, Rob
the Grinder, thus transformed as to his outer man, and all regardless
within of the Captain and the Midshipman, except when he devoted a few
minutes of his leisure time to crowing over those inseparable worthies,
and recalling, with much applauding music from that brazen instrument,
his conscience, the triumphant manner in which he had disembarrassed
himself of their company, now served his patron, Mr Carker. Inmate of Mr
Carker's house, and serving about his person, Rob kept his round eyes
on the white teeth with fear and trembling, and felt that he had need to
open them wider than ever.

He could not have quaked more, through his whole being, before the
teeth, though he had come into the service of some powerful enchanter,
and they had been his strongest spells. The boy had a sense of power and
authority in this patron of his that engrossed his whole attention and
exacted his most implicit submission and obedience. He hardly considered
himself safe in thinking about him when he was absent, lest he should
feel himself immediately taken by the throat again, as on the morning
when he first became bound to him, and should see every one of the teeth
finding him out, and taxing him with every fancy of his mind. Face to
face with him, Rob had no more doubt that Mr Carker read his secret
thoughts, or that he could read them by the least exertion of his will
if he were so inclined, than he had that Mr Carker saw him when he
looked at him. The ascendancy was so complete, and held him in such
enthralment, that, hardly daring to think at all, but with his
mind filled with a constantly dilating impression of his patron's
irresistible command over him, and power of doing anything with him, he
would stand watching his pleasure, and trying to anticipate his orders,
in a state of mental suspension, as to all other things.

Rob had not informed himself perhaps--in his then state of mind it would
have been an act of no common temerity to inquire--whether he yielded
so completely to this influence in any part, because he had floating
suspicions of his patron's being a master of certain treacherous arts
in which he had himself been a poor scholar at the Grinders' School. But
certainly Rob admired him, as well as feared him. Mr Carker, perhaps,
was better acquainted with the sources of his power, which lost nothing
by his management of it.

On the very night when he left the Captain's service, Rob, after
disposing of his pigeons, and even making a bad bargain in his hurry,
had gone straight down to Mr Carker's house, and hotly presented
himself before his new master with a glowing face that seemed to expect
commendation.

'What, scapegrace!' said Mr Carker, glancing at his bundle 'Have you
left your situation and come to me?'

'Oh if you please, Sir,' faltered Rob, 'you said, you know, when I come
here last--'

'I said,' returned Mr Carker, 'what did I say?'

'If you please, Sir, you didn't say nothing at all, Sir,' returned Rob,
warned by the manner of this inquiry, and very much disconcerted.

His patron looked at him with a wide display of gums, and shaking his
forefinger, observed:

'You'll come to an evil end, my vagabond friend, I foresee. There's ruin
in store for you.

'Oh if you please, don't, Sir!' cried Rob, with his legs trembling under
him. 'I'm sure, Sir, I only want to work for you, Sir, and to wait upon
you, Sir, and to do faithful whatever I'm bid, Sir.'

'You had better do faithfully whatever you are bid,' returned his
patron, 'if you have anything to do with me.'

'Yes, I know that, Sir,' pleaded the submissive Rob; 'I'm sure of that,
SIr. If you'll only be so good as try me, Sir! And if ever you find me
out, Sir, doing anything against your wishes, I give you leave to kill
me.'

'You dog!' said Mr Carker, leaning back in his chair, and smiling at him
serenely. 'That's nothing to what I'd do to you, if you tried to deceive
me.'

'Yes, Sir,' replied the abject Grinder, 'I'm sure you would be down upon
me dreadful, Sir. I wouldn't attempt for to go and do it, Sir, not if I
was bribed with golden guineas.'

Thoroughly checked in his expectations of commendation, the crestfallen
Grinder stood looking at his patron, and vainly endeavouring not to look
at him, with the uneasiness which a cur will often manifest in a similar
situation.

'So you have left your old service, and come here to ask me to take you
into mine, eh?' said Mr Carker.

'Yes, if you please, Sir,' returned Rob, who, in doing so, had acted
on his patron's own instructions, but dared not justify himself by the
least insinuation to that effect.

'Well!' said Mr Carker. 'You know me, boy?'

'Please, Sir, yes, Sir,' returned Rob, tumbling with his hat, and still
fixed by Mr Carker's eye, and fruitlessly endeavouring to unfix himself.

Mr Carker nodded. 'Take care, then!'

Rob expressed in a number of short bows his lively understanding of this
caution, and was bowing himself back to the door, greatly relieved by
the prospect of getting on the outside of it, when his patron stopped
him.

'Halloa!' he cried, calling him roughly back. 'You have been--shut that
door.'

Rob obeyed as if his life had depended on his alacrity.

'You have been used to eaves-dropping. Do you know what that means?'

'Listening, Sir?' Rob hazarded, after some embarrassed reflection.

His patron nodded. 'And watching, and so forth.'

'I wouldn't do such a thing here, Sir,' answered Rob; 'upon my word and
honour, I wouldn't, Sir, I wish I may die if I would, Sir, for anything
that could be promised to me. I should consider it is as much as all
the world was worth, to offer to do such a thing, unless I was ordered,
Sir.'

'You had better not' You have been used, too, to babbling and tattling,'
said his patron with perfect coolness. 'Beware of that here, or you're
a lost rascal,' and he smiled again, and again cautioned him with his
forefinger.

The Grinder's breath came short and thick with consternation. He tried
to protest the purity of his intentions, but could only stare at the
smiling gentleman in a stupor of submission, with which the smiling
gentleman seemed well enough satisfied, for he ordered him downstairs,
after observing him for some moments in silence, and gave him to
understand that he was retained in his employment.

This was the manner of Rob the Grinder's engagement by Mr Carker, and
his awe-stricken devotion to that gentleman had strengthened and
increased, if possible, with every minute of his service.

It was a service of some months' duration, when early one morning, Rob
opened the garden gate to Mr Dombey, who was come to breakfast with
his master, by appointment. At the same moment his master himself came,
hurrying forth to receive the distinguished guest, and give him welcome
with all his teeth.

'I never thought,' said Carker, when he had assisted him to alight from
his horse, 'to see you here, I'm sure. This is an extraordinary day in
my calendar. No occasion is very special to a man like you, who may do
anything; but to a man like me, the case is widely different.'

'You have a tasteful place here, Carker,' said Mr Dombey, condescending
to stop upon the lawn, to look about him.

'You can afford to say so,' returned Carker. 'Thank you.'

'Indeed,' said Mr Dombey, in his lofty patronage, 'anyone might say
so. As far as it goes, it is a very commodious and well-arranged
place--quite elegant.'

'As far as it goes, truly,' returned Carker, with an air of
disparagement. 'It wants that qualification. Well! we have said
enough about it; and though you can afford to praise it, I thank you
nonetheless. Will you walk in?'

Mr Dombey, entering the house, noticed, as he had reason to do, the
complete arrangement of the rooms, and the numerous contrivances for
comfort and effect that abounded there. Mr Carker, in his ostentation
of humility, received this notice with a deferential smile, and said he
understood its delicate meaning, and appreciated it, but in truth the
cottage was good enough for one in his position--better, perhaps, than
such a man should occupy, poor as it was.

'But perhaps to you, who are so far removed, it really does look better
than it is,' he said, with his false mouth distended to its fullest
stretch. 'Just as monarchs imagine attractions in the lives of beggars.'

He directed a sharp glance and a sharp smile at Mr Dombey as he spoke,
and a sharper glance, and a sharper smile yet, when Mr Dombey, drawing
himself up before the fire, in the attitude so often copied by his
second in command, looked round at the pictures on the walls. Cursorily
as his cold eye wandered over them, Carker's keen glance accompanied
his, and kept pace with his, marking exactly where it went, and what it
saw. As it rested on one picture in particular, Carker hardly seemed to
breathe, his sidelong scrutiny was so cat-like and vigilant, but the eye
of his great chief passed from that, as from the others, and appeared no
more impressed by it than by the rest.

Carker looked at it--it was the picture that resembled Edith--as if it
were a living thing; and with a wicked, silent laugh upon his face, that
seemed in part addressed to it, though it was all derisive of the great
man standing so unconscious beside him. Breakfast was soon set upon the
table; and, inviting Mr Dombey to a chair which had its back towards
this picture, he took his own seat opposite to it as usual.

Mr Dombey was even graver than it was his custom to be, and quite
silent. The parrot, swinging in the gilded hoop within her gaudy cage,
attempted in vain to attract notice, for Carker was too observant of his
visitor to heed her; and the visitor, abstracted in meditation, looked
fixedly, not to say sullenly, over his stiff neckcloth, without raising
his eyes from the table-cloth. As to Rob, who was in attendance, all his
faculties and energies were so locked up in observation of his master,
that he scarcely ventured to give shelter to the thought that the
visitor was the great gentleman before whom he had been carried as a
certificate of the family health, in his childhood, and to whom he had
been indebted for his leather smalls.

'Allow me,' said Carker suddenly, 'to ask how Mrs Dombey is?'

He leaned forward obsequiously, as he made the inquiry, with his chin
resting on his hand; and at the same time his eyes went up to the
picture, as if he said to it, 'Now, see, how I will lead him on!'

Mr Dombey reddened as he answered:

'Mrs Dombey is quite well. You remind me, Carker, of some conversation
that I wish to have with you.'

'Robin, you can leave us,' said his master, at whose mild tones Robin
started and disappeared, with his eyes fixed on his patron to the last.
'You don't remember that boy, of course?' he added, when the enmeshed
Grinder was gone.

'No,' said Mr Dombey, with magnificent indifference.

'Not likely that a man like you would. Hardly possible,' murmured
Carker. 'But he is one of that family from whom you took a nurse.
Perhaps you may remember having generously charged yourself with his
education?'

'Is it that boy?' said Mr Dombey, with a frown. 'He does little credit
to his education, I believe.'

'Why, he is a young rip, I am afraid,' returned Carker, with a shrug.
'He bears that character. But the truth is, I took him into my service
because, being able to get no other employment, he conceived (had been
taught at home, I daresay) that he had some sort of claim upon you, and
was constantly trying to dog your heels with his petition. And although
my defined and recognised connexion with your affairs is merely of a
business character, still I have that spontaneous interest in everything
belonging to you, that--'

He stopped again, as if to discover whether he had led Mr Dombey far
enough yet. And again, with his chin resting on his hand, he leered at
the picture.

'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, 'I am sensible that you do not limit your--'

'Service,' suggested his smiling entertainer.

'No; I prefer to say your regard,' observed Mr Dombey; very sensible, as
he said so, that he was paying him a handsome and flattering compliment,
'to our mere business relations. Your consideration for my feelings,
hopes, and disappointments, in the little instance you have just now
mentioned, is an example in point. I am obliged to you, Carker.'

Mr Carker bent his head slowly, and very softly rubbed his hands, as
if he were afraid by any action to disturb the current of Mr Dombey's
confidence.

'Your allusion to it is opportune,' said Mr Dombey, after a little
hesitation; 'for it prepares the way to what I was beginning to say
to you, and reminds me that that involves no absolutely new relations
between us, although it may involve more personal confidence on my part
than I have hitherto--'

'Distinguished me with,' suggested Carker, bending his head again: 'I
will not say to you how honoured I am; for a man like you well knows how
much honour he has in his power to bestow at pleasure.'

'Mrs Dombey and myself,' said Mr Dombey, passing this compliment with
august self-denial, 'are not quite agreed upon some points. We do not
appear to understand each other yet. Mrs Dombey has something to learn.'

'Mrs Dombey is distinguished by many rare attractions; and has been
accustomed, no doubt, to receive much adulation,' said the smooth, sleek
watcher of his slightest look and tone. 'But where there is affection,
duty, and respect, any little mistakes engendered by such causes are
soon set right.'

Mr Dombey's thoughts instinctively flew back to the face that had looked
at him in his wife's dressing-room when an imperious hand was stretched
towards the door; and remembering the affection, duty, and respect,
expressed in it, he felt the blood rush to his own face quite as plainly
as the watchful eyes upon him saw it there.

'Mrs Dombey and myself,' he went on to say, 'had some discussion, before
Mrs Skewton's death, upon the causes of my dissatisfaction; of which you
will have formed a general understanding from having been a witness of
what passed between Mrs Dombey and myself on the evening when you were
at our--at my house.'

'When I so much regretted being present,' said the smiling Carker.
'Proud as a man in my position necessarily must be of your familiar
notice--though I give you no credit for it; you may do anything
you please without losing caste--and honoured as I was by an early
presentation to Mrs Dombey, before she was made eminent by bearing your
name, I almost regretted that night, I assure you, that I had been the
object of such especial good fortune.'

That any man could, under any possible circumstances, regret the being
distinguished by his condescension and patronage, was a moral phenomenon
which Mr Dombey could not comprehend. He therefore responded, with a
considerable accession of dignity. 'Indeed! And why, Carker?'

'I fear,' returned the confidential agent, 'that Mrs Dombey, never very
much disposed to regard me with favourable interest--one in my position
could not expect that, from a lady naturally proud, and whose pride
becomes her so well--may not easily forgive my innocent part in that
conversation. Your displeasure is no light matter, you must remember;
and to be visited with it before a third party--'

'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, arrogantly; 'I presume that I am the first
consideration?'

'Oh! Can there be a doubt about it?' replied the other, with the
impatience of a man admitting a notorious and incontrovertible fact.

'Mrs Dombey becomes a secondary consideration, when we are both in
question, I imagine,' said Mr Dombey. 'Is that so?'

'Is it so?' returned Carker. 'Do you know better than anyone, that you
have no need to ask?'

'Then I hope, Carker,' said Mr Dombey, 'that your regret in the
acquisition of Mrs Dombey's displeasure, may be almost counterbalanced
by your satisfaction in retaining my confidence and good opinion.'

'I have the misfortune, I find,' returned Carker, 'to have incurred that
displeasure. Mrs Dombey has expressed it to you?'

'Mrs Dombey has expressed various opinions,' said Mr Dombey, with
majestic coldness and indifference, 'in which I do not participate, and
which I am not inclined to discuss, or to recall. I made Mr Dombey
acquainted, some time since, as I have already told you, with certain
points of domestic deference and submission on which I felt it necessary
to insist. I failed to convince Mrs Dombey of the expediency of her
immediately altering her conduct in those respects, with a view to her
own peace and welfare, and my dignity; and I informed Mrs Dombey that
if I should find it necessary to object or remonstrate again, I should
express my opinion to her through yourself, my confidential agent.'

Blended with the look that Carker bent upon him, was a devilish look
at the picture over his head, that struck upon it like a flash of
lightning.

'Now, Carker,' said Mr Dombey, 'I do not hesitate to say to you that
I will carry my point. I am not to be trifled with. Mrs Dombey must
understand that my will is law, and that I cannot allow of one exception
to the whole rule of my life. You will have the goodness to undertake
this charge, which, coming from me, is not unacceptable to you, I hope,
whatever regret you may politely profess--for which I am obliged to you
on behalf of Mrs Dombey; and you will have the goodness, I am persuaded,
to discharge it as exactly as any other commission.'

'You know,' said Mr Carker, 'that you have only to command me.'

'I know,' said Mr Dombey, with a majestic indication of assent, 'that I
have only to command you. It is necessary that I should proceed in this.
Mrs Dombey is a lady undoubtedly highly qualified, in many respects,
to--'

'To do credit even to your choice,' suggested Carker, with a yawning
show of teeth.

'Yes; if you please to adopt that form of words,' said Mr Dombey, in his
tone of state; 'and at present I do not conceive that Mrs Dombey does
that credit to it, to which it is entitled. There is a principle of
opposition in Mrs Dombey that must be eradicated; that must be overcome:
Mrs Dombey does not appear to understand,' said Mr Dombey, forcibly,
'that the idea of opposition to Me is monstrous and absurd.'

'We, in the City, know you better,' replied Carker, with a smile from
ear to ear.

'You know me better,' said Mr Dombey. 'I hope so. Though, indeed, I am
bound to do Mrs Dombey the justice of saying, however inconsistent it
may seem with her subsequent conduct (which remains unchanged), that
on my expressing my disapprobation and determination to her, with
some severity, on the occasion to which I have referred, my admonition
appeared to produce a very powerful effect.' Mr Dombey delivered himself
of those words with most portentous stateliness. 'I wish you to have
the goodness, then, to inform Mrs Dombey, Carker, from me, that I must
recall our former conversation to her remembrance, in some surprise that
it has not yet had its effect. That I must insist upon her regulating
her conduct by the injunctions laid upon her in that conversation. That
I am not satisfied with her conduct. That I am greatly dissatisfied with
it. And that I shall be under the very disagreeable necessity of making
you the bearer of yet more unwelcome and explicit communications, if
she has not the good sense and the proper feeling to adapt herself to
my wishes, as the first Mrs Dombey did, and, I believe I may add, as any
other lady in her place would.'

'The first Mrs Dombey lived very happily,' said Carker.

'The first Mrs Dombey had great good sense,' said Mr Dombey, in a
gentlemanly toleration of the dead, 'and very correct feeling.'

'Is Miss Dombey like her mother, do you think?' said Carker.

Swiftly and darkly, Mr Dombey's face changed. His confidential agent
eyed it keenly.

'I have approached a painful subject,' he said, in a soft regretful tone
of voice, irreconcilable with his eager eye. 'Pray forgive me. I forget
these chains of association in the interest I have. Pray forgive me.'

But for all he said, his eager eye scanned Mr Dombey's downcast face
none the less closely; and then it shot a strange triumphant look at the
picture, as appealing to it to bear witness how he led him on again, and
what was coming.

'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, looking here and there upon the table, and
saying in a somewhat altered and more hurried voice, and with a paler
lip, 'there is no occasion for apology. You mistake. The association is
with the matter in hand, and not with any recollection, as you suppose.
I do not approve of Mrs Dombey's behaviour towards my daughter.'

'Pardon me,' said Mr Carker, 'I don't quite understand.'

'Understand then,' returned Mr Dombey, 'that you may make that--that you
will make that, if you please--matter of direct objection from me to
Mrs Dombey. You will please to tell her that her show of devotion for my
daughter is disagreeable to me. It is likely to be noticed. It is likely
to induce people to contrast Mrs Dombey in her relation towards my
daughter, with Mrs Dombey in her relation towards myself. You will have
the goodness to let Mrs Dombey know, plainly, that I object to it; and
that I expect her to defer, immediately, to my objection. Mrs Dombey may
be in earnest, or she may be pursuing a whim, or she may be opposing me;
but I object to it in any case, and in every case. If Mrs Dombey is in
earnest, so much the less reluctant should she be to desist; for she
will not serve my daughter by any such display. If my wife has any
superfluous gentleness, and duty over and above her proper submission
to me, she may bestow them where she pleases, perhaps; but I will have
submission first!--Carker,' said Mr Dombey, checking the unusual emotion
with which he had spoken, and falling into a tone more like that in
which he was accustomed to assert his greatness, 'you will have the
goodness not to omit or slur this point, but to consider it a very
important part of your instructions.'

Mr Carker bowed his head, and rising from the table, and standing
thoughtfully before the fire, with his hand to his smooth chin, looked
down at Mr Dombey with the evil slyness of some monkish carving, half
human and half brute; or like a leering face on an old water-spout. Mr
Dombey, recovering his composure by degrees, or cooling his emotion
in his sense of having taken a high position, sat gradually stiffening
again, and looking at the parrot as she swung to and fro, in her great
wedding ring.

'I beg your pardon,' said Carker, after a silence, suddenly resuming his
chair, and drawing it opposite to Mr Dombey's, 'but let me understand.
Mrs Dombey is aware of the probability of your making me the organ of
your displeasure?'

'Yes,' replied Mr Dombey. 'I have said so.'

'Yes,' rejoined Carker, quickly; 'but why?'

'Why!' Mr Dombey repeated, not without hesitation. 'Because I told her.'

'Ay,' replied Carker. 'But why did you tell her? You see,' he continued
with a smile, and softly laying his velvet hand, as a cat might have
laid its sheathed claws, on Mr Dombey's arm; 'if I perfectly understand
what is in your mind, I am so much more likely to be useful, and to have
the happiness of being effectually employed. I think I do understand. I
have not the honour of Mrs Dombey's good opinion. In my position, I have
no reason to expect it; but I take the fact to be, that I have not got
it?'

'Possibly not,' said Mr Dombey.

'Consequently,' pursued Carker, 'your making the communications to Mrs
Dombey through me, is sure to be particularly unpalatable to that lady?'

'It appears to me,' said Mr Dombey, with haughty reserve, and yet with
some embarrassment, 'that Mrs Dombey's views upon the subject form no
part of it as it presents itself to you and me, Carker. But it may be
so.'

'And--pardon me--do I misconceive you,' said Carker, 'when I think you
descry in this, a likely means of humbling Mrs Dombey's pride--I use the
word as expressive of a quality which, kept within due bounds,
adorns and graces a lady so distinguished for her beauty and
accomplishments--and, not to say of punishing her, but of reducing her
to the submission you so naturally and justly require?'

'I am not accustomed, Carker, as you know,' said Mr Dombey, 'to give
such close reasons for any course of conduct I think proper to adopt,
but I will gainsay nothing of this. If you have any objection to found
upon it, that is indeed another thing, and the mere statement that you
have one will be sufficient. But I have not supposed, I confess, that
any confidence I could entrust to you, would be likely to degrade you--'

'Oh! I degraded!' exclaimed Carker. 'In your service!'

'--or to place you,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'in a false position.'

'I in a false position!' exclaimed Carker. 'I shall be
proud--delighted--to execute your trust. I could have wished, I own,
to have given the lady at whose feet I would lay my humble duty and
devotion--for is she not your wife!--no new cause of dislike; but a wish
from you is, of course, paramount to every other consideration on
earth. Besides, when Mrs Dombey is converted from these little errors
of judgment, incidental, I would presume to say, to the novelty of her
situation, I shall hope that she will perceive in the slight part I
take, only a grain--my removed and different sphere gives room for
little more--of the respect for you, and sacrifice of all considerations
to you, of which it will be her pleasure and privilege to garner up a
great store every day.'

Mr Dombey seemed, at the moment, again to see her with her hand
stretched out towards the door, and again to hear through the mild
speech of his confidential agent an echo of the words, 'Nothing can make
us stranger to each other than we are henceforth!' But he shook off the
fancy, and did not shake in his resolution, and said, 'Certainly, no
doubt.'

'There is nothing more,' quoth Carker, drawing his chair back to its old
place--for they had taken little breakfast as yet--and pausing for an
answer before he sat down.

'Nothing,' said Mr Dombey, 'but this. You will be good enough to
observe, Carker, that no message to Mrs Dombey with which you are or
may be charged, admits of reply. You will be good enough to bring me no
reply. Mrs Dombey is informed that it does not become me to temporise or
treat upon any matter that is at issue between us, and that what I say
is final.'

Mr Carker signified his understanding of these credentials, and they
fell to breakfast with what appetite they might. The Grinder also, in
due time reappeared, keeping his eyes upon his master without a
moment's respite, and passing the time in a reverie of worshipful tenor.
Breakfast concluded, Mr Dombey's horse was ordered out again, and Mr
Carker mounting his own, they rode off for the City together.

Mr Carker was in capital spirits, and talked much. Mr Dombey received
his conversation with the sovereign air of a man who had a right to
be talked to, and occasionally condescended to throw in a few words to
carry on the conversation. So they rode on characteristically enough.
But Mr Dombey, in his dignity, rode with very long stirrups, and a very
loose rein, and very rarely deigned to look down to see where his horse
went. In consequence of which it happened that Mr Dombey's horse, while
going at a round trot, stumbled on some loose stones, threw him, rolled
over him, and lashing out with his iron-shod feet, in his struggles to
get up, kicked him.

Mr Carker, quick of eye, steady of hand, and a good horseman, was afoot,
and had the struggling animal upon his legs and by the bridle, in a
moment. Otherwise that morning's confidence would have been Mr Dombey's
last. Yet even with the flush and hurry of this action red upon him, he
bent over his prostrate chief with every tooth disclosed, and muttered
as he stooped down, 'I have given good cause of offence to Mrs Dombey
now, if she knew it!'

Mr Dombey being insensible, and bleeding from the head and face, was
carried by certain menders of the road, under Carker's direction, to
the nearest public-house, which was not far off, and where he was soon
attended by divers surgeons, who arrived in quick succession from all
parts, and who seemed to come by some mysterious instinct, as vultures
are said to gather about a camel who dies in the desert. After being
at some pains to restore him to consciousness, these gentlemen examined
into the nature of his injuries. One surgeon who lived hard by was strong
for a compound fracture of the leg, which was the landlord's opinion
also; but two surgeons who lived at a distance, and were only in that
neighbourhood by accident, combated this opinion so disinterestedly, that
it was decided at last that the patient, though severely cut and bruised,
had broken no bones but a lesser rib or so, and might be carefully taken
home before night. His injuries being dressed and bandaged, which was a
long operation, and he at length left to repose, Mr Carker mounted his
horse again, and rode away to carry the intelligence home.

Crafty and cruel as his face was at the best of times, though it was a
sufficiently fair face as to form and regularity of feature, it was at
its worst when he set forth on this errand; animated by the craft and
cruelty of thoughts within him, suggestions of remote possibility rather
than of design or plot, that made him ride as if he hunted men and
women. Drawing rein at length, and slackening in his speed, as he came
into the more public roads, he checked his white-legged horse into
picking his way along as usual, and hid himself beneath his sleek,
hushed, crouched manner, and his ivory smile, as he best could.

He rode direct to Mr Dombey's house, alighted at the door, and begged to
see Mrs Dombey on an affair of importance. The servant who showed him to
Mr Dombey's own room, soon returned to say that it was not Mrs Dombey's
hour for receiving visitors, and that he begged pardon for not having
mentioned it before.

Mr Carker, who was quite prepared for a cold reception, wrote upon a
card that he must take the liberty of pressing for an interview, and
that he would not be so bold as to do so, for the second time (this
he underlined), if he were not equally sure of the occasion being
sufficient for his justification. After a trifling delay, Mrs Dombey's
maid appeared, and conducted him to a morning room upstairs, where Edith
and Florence were together.

He had never thought Edith half so beautiful before. Much as he admired
the graces of her face and form, and freshly as they dwelt within his
sensual remembrance, he had never thought her half so beautiful.

Her glance fell haughtily upon him in the doorway; but he looked
at Florence--though only in the act of bending his head, as he came
in--with some irrepressible expression of the new power he held; and
it was his triumph to see the glance droop and falter, and to see that
Edith half rose up to receive him.

He was very sorry, he was deeply grieved; he couldn't say with what
unwillingness he came to prepare her for the intelligence of a very
slight accident. He entreated Mrs Dombey to compose herself. Upon his
sacred word of honour, there was no cause of alarm. But Mr Dombey--

Florence uttered a sudden cry. He did not look at her, but at Edith.
Edith composed and reassured her. She uttered no cry of distress. No,
no.

Mr Dombey had met with an accident in riding. His horse had slipped, and
he had been thrown.

Florence wildly exclaimed that he was badly hurt; that he was killed!

No. Upon his honour, Mr Dombey, though stunned at first, was soon
recovered, and though certainly hurt was in no kind of danger. If this
were not the truth, he, the distressed intruder, never could have had
the courage to present himself before Mrs Dombey. It was the truth
indeed, he solemnly assured her.

All this he said as if he were answering Edith, and not Florence, and
with his eyes and his smile fastened on Edith.

He then went on to tell her where Mr Dombey was lying, and to request
that a carriage might be placed at his disposal to bring him home.

'Mama,' faltered Florence in tears, 'if I might venture to go!'

Mr Carker, having his eyes on Edith when he heard these words, gave her
a secret look and slightly shook his head. He saw how she battled with
herself before she answered him with her handsome eyes, but he wrested
the answer from her--he showed her that he would have it, or that he
would speak and cut Florence to the heart--and she gave it to him. As
he had looked at the picture in the morning, so he looked at her
afterwards, when she turned her eyes away.

'I am directed to request,' he said, 'that the new housekeeper--Mrs
Pipchin, I think, is the name--'

Nothing escaped him. He saw in an instant, that she was another slight
of Mr Dombey's on his wife.

'--may be informed that Mr Dombey wishes to have his bed prepared in
his own apartments downstairs, as he prefers those rooms to any other.
I shall return to Mr Dombey almost immediately. That every possible
attention has been paid to his comfort, and that he is the object of
every possible solicitude, I need not assure you, Madam. Let me again
say, there is no cause for the least alarm. Even you may be quite at
ease, believe me.'

He bowed himself out, with his extremest show of deference and
conciliation; and having returned to Mr Dombey's room, and there
arranged for a carriage being sent after him to the City, mounted his
horse again, and rode slowly thither. He was very thoughtful as he went
along, and very thoughtful there, and very thoughtful in the carriage
on his way back to the place where Mr Dombey had been left. It was only
when sitting by that gentleman's couch that he was quite himself again,
and conscious of his teeth.

About the time of twilight, Mr Dombey, grievously afflicted with aches
and pains, was helped into his carriage, and propped with cloaks and
pillows on one side of it, while his confidential agent bore him company
upon the other. As he was not to be shaken, they moved at little more
than a foot pace; and hence it was quite dark when he was brought home.
Mrs Pipchin, bitter and grim, and not oblivious of the Peruvian mines,
as the establishment in general had good reason to know, received him at
the door, and freshened the domestics with several little sprinklings
of wordy vinegar, while they assisted in conveying him to his room. Mr
Carker remained in attendance until he was safe in bed, and then, as
he declined to receive any female visitor, but the excellent Ogress who
presided over his household, waited on Mrs Dombey once more, with his
report on her lord's condition.

He again found Edith alone with Florence, and he again addressed the
whole of his soothing speech to Edith, as if she were a prey to the
liveliest and most affectionate anxieties. So earnest he was in his
respectful sympathy, that on taking leave, he ventured--with one more
glance towards Florence at the moment--to take her hand, and bending
over it, to touch it with his lips.

Edith did not withdraw the hand, nor did she strike his fair face with
it, despite the flush upon her cheek, the bright light in her eyes, and
the dilation of her whole form. But when she was alone in her own room,
she struck it on the marble chimney-shelf, so that, at one blow, it was
bruised, and bled; and held it from her, near the shining fire, as if
she could have thrust it in and burned it.

Far into the night she sat alone, by the sinking blaze, in dark and
threatening beauty, watching the murky shadows looming on the wall, as
if her thoughts were tangible, and cast them there. Whatever shapes
of outrage and affront, and black foreshadowings of things that might
happen, flickered, indistinct and giant-like, before her, one resented
figure marshalled them against her. And that figure was her husband.

Rob is now working directly for Carker. He had quit working for Cuttle at Carker's instruction but when he goes to report this, Carker skillfully manipulates him into feeling that he ought to be grateful for Carker offering him a job now that he has none. His job is now to spy for Carker, and because he is intimidated and awe-struck by his patron, he is very loyal. One day, Mr. Dombey comes to visit Carker at his home. Mr. Dombey explains his dissatisfaction with his wife and his plan to have Carker act as intermediary if she does not change her behavior. Carker coyly manages to bring up Florence, and Dombey tells Carker to inform Edith that he dislikes the affection she shows to his daughter. After this conversation, Carker and Dombey set out for the firm's offices, but as they ride there, Dombey is thrown from his horse and badly injured. Carker goes to the Dombey house and insists on seeing Edith, even after being initially refused. He breaks the news to both Edith and Florence; the latter is very upset. He oversees the transfer of Dombey back to his home. Edith is aware that Carker's power and influence is growing ever stronger, and is humiliated and angry


Florence, long since awakened from her dream, mournfully observed the
estrangement between her father and Edith, and saw it widen more and
more, and knew that there was greater bitterness between them every day.
Each day's added knowledge deepened the shade upon her love and hope,
roused up the old sorrow that had slumbered for a little time, and made
it even heavier to bear than it had been before.

It had been hard--how hard may none but Florence ever know!--to have
the natural affection of a true and earnest nature turned to agony; and
slight, or stern repulse, substituted for the tenderest protection and
the dearest care. It had been hard to feel in her deep heart what she
had felt, and never know the happiness of one touch of response. But it
was much more hard to be compelled to doubt either her father or Edith,
so affectionate and dear to her, and to think of her love for each of
them, by turns, with fear, distrust, and wonder.

Yet Florence now began to do so; and the doing of it was a task imposed
upon her by the very purity of her soul, as one she could not fly
from. She saw her father cold and obdurate to Edith, as to her; hard,
inflexible, unyielding. Could it be, she asked herself with starting
tears, that her own dear mother had been made unhappy by such treatment,
and had pined away and died? Then she would think how proud and stately
Edith was to everyone but her, with what disdain she treated him, how
distantly she kept apart from him, and what she had said on the night
when they came home; and quickly it would come on Florence, almost as a
crime, that she loved one who was set in opposition to her father, and
that her father knowing of it, must think of her in his solitary room as
the unnatural child who added this wrong to the old fault, so much wept
for, of never having won his fatherly affection from her birth. The next
kind word from Edith, the next kind glance, would shake these thoughts
again, and make them seem like black ingratitude; for who but she had
cheered the drooping heart of Florence, so lonely and so hurt, and been
its best of comforters! Thus, with her gentle nature yearning to them
both, feeling for the misery of both, and whispering doubts of her own
duty to both, Florence in her wider and expanded love, and by the side
of Edith, endured more than when she had hoarded up her undivided secret
in the mournful house, and her beautiful Mama had never dawned upon it.

One exquisite unhappiness that would have far outweighed this, Florence
was spared. She never had the least suspicion that Edith by her
tenderness for her widened the separation from her father, or gave him
new cause of dislike. If Florence had conceived the possibility of such
an effect being wrought by such a cause, what grief she would have felt,
what sacrifice she would have tried to make, poor loving girl, how fast
and sure her quiet passage might have been beneath it to the presence
of that higher Father who does not reject his children's love, or spurn
their tried and broken hearts, Heaven knows! But it was otherwise, and
that was well.

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

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

'And nice company he is, Miss Floy,' said Susan Nipper. 'Oh, he's a
precious piece of goods! If ever he wants a character don't let him come
to me whatever he does, that's all I tell him.'

'Dear Susan,' urged Florence, 'don't!'

'Oh, it's very well to say "don't" Miss Floy,' returned the Nipper, much
exasperated; 'but raly begging your pardon we're coming to such passes
that it turns all the blood in a person's body into pins and needles,
with their pints all ways. Don't mistake me, Miss Floy, I don't mean
nothing again your ma-in-law who has always treated me as a lady should
though she is rather high I must say not that I have any right to object
to that particular, but when we come to Mrs Pipchinses and having them
put over us and keeping guard at your Pa's door like crocodiles
(only make us thankful that they lay no eggs!) we are a growing too
outrageous!'

'Papa thinks well of Mrs Pipchin, Susan,' returned Florence, 'and has a
right to choose his housekeeper, you know. Pray don't!'

'Well Miss Floy,' returned the Nipper, 'when you say don't, I never do
I hope but Mrs Pipchin acts like early gooseberries upon me Miss, and
nothing less.'

Susan was unusually emphatic and destitute of punctuation in her
discourse on this night, which was the night of Mr Dombey's being
brought home, because, having been sent downstairs by Florence to
inquire after him, she had been obliged to deliver her message to her
mortal enemy Mrs Pipchin; who, without carrying it in to Mr Dombey, had
taken upon herself to return what Miss Nipper called a huffish answer,
on her own responsibility. This, Susan Nipper construed into presumption
on the part of that exemplary sufferer by the Peruvian mines, and a deed
of disparagement upon her young lady, that was not to be forgiven; and
so far her emphatic state was special. But she had been in a condition
of greatly increased suspicion and distrust, ever since the marriage;
for, like most persons of her quality of mind, who form a strong and
sincere attachment to one in the different station which Florence
occupied, Susan was very jealous, and her jealousy naturally attached to
Edith, who divided her old empire, and came between them. Proud and glad
as Susan Nipper truly was, that her young mistress should be advanced
towards her proper place in the scene of her old neglect, and that
she should have her father's handsome wife for her companion and
protectress, she could not relinquish any part of her own dominion to
the handsome wife, without a grudge and a vague feeling of ill-will,
for which she did not fail to find a disinterested justification in her
sharp perception of the pride and passion of the lady's character. From
the background to which she had necessarily retired somewhat, since
the marriage, Miss Nipper looked on, therefore, at domestic affairs
in general, with a resolute conviction that no good would come of Mrs
Dombey: always being very careful to publish on all possible occasions,
that she had nothing to say against her.

'Susan,' said Florence, who was sitting thoughtfully at her table, 'it
is very late. I shall want nothing more to-night.'

'Ah, Miss Floy!' returned the Nipper, 'I'm sure I often wish for them
old times when I sat up with you hours later than this and fell asleep
through being tired out when you was as broad awake as spectacles,
but you've ma's-in-law to come and sit with you now Miss Floy and I'm
thankful for it I'm sure. I've not a word to say against 'em.'

'I shall not forget who was my old companion when I had none, Susan,'
returned Florence, gently, 'never!' And looking up, she put her arm
round the neck of her humble friend, drew her face down to hers, and
bidding her good-night, kissed it; which so mollified Miss Nipper, that
she fell a sobbing.

'Now my dear Miss Floy,' said Susan, 'let me go downstairs again and
see how your Pa is, I know you're wretched about him, do let me go
downstairs again and knock at his door my own self.'

'No,' said Florence, 'go to bed. We shall hear more in the morning.
I will inquire myself in the morning. Mama has been down, I daresay;'
Florence blushed, for she had no such hope; 'or is there now, perhaps.
Good-night!'

Susan was too much softened to express her private opinion on the
probability of Mrs Dombey's being in attendance on her husband, and
silently withdrew. Florence left alone, soon hid her head upon her hands
as she had often done in other days, and did not restrain the tears
from coursing down her face. The misery of this domestic discord and
unhappiness; the withered hope she cherished now, if hope it could be
called, of ever being taken to her father's heart; her doubts and fears
between the two; the yearning of her innocent breast to both; the heavy
disappointment and regret of such an end as this, to what had been a
vision of bright hope and promise to her; all crowded on her mind and
made her tears flow fast. Her mother and her brother dead, her father
unmoved towards her, Edith opposed to him and casting him away, but
loving her, and loved by her, it seemed as if her affection could never
prosper, rest where it would. That weak thought was soon hushed, but the
thoughts in which it had arisen were too true and strong to be dismissed
with it; and they made the night desolate.

Among such reflections there rose up, as there had risen up all day,
the image of her father, wounded and in pain, alone in his own room,
untended by those who should be nearest to him, and passing the tardy
hours in lonely suffering. A frightened thought which made her start and
clasp her hands--though it was not a new one in her mind--that he might
die, and never see her or pronounce her name, thrilled her whole frame.
In her agitation she thought, and trembled while she thought, of once
more stealing downstairs, and venturing to his door.

She listened at her own. The house was quiet, and all the lights were
out. It was a long, long time, she thought, since she used to make her
nightly pilgrimages to his door! It was a long, long time, she tried to
think, since she had entered his room at midnight, and he had led her
back to the stair-foot!

With the same child's heart within her, as of old: even with the child's
sweet timid eyes and clustering hair: Florence, as strange to her
father in her early maiden bloom, as in her nursery time, crept down the
staircase listening as she went, and drew near to his room. No one was
stirring in the house. The door was partly open to admit air; and all
was so still within, that she could hear the burning of the fire, and
count the ticking of the clock that stood upon the chimney-piece.

She looked in. In that room, the housekeeper wrapped in a blanket was
fast asleep in an easy chair before the fire. The doors between it and
the next were partly closed, and a screen was drawn before them; but
there was a light there, and it shone upon the cornice of his bed. All
was so very still that she could hear from his breathing that he was
asleep. This gave her courage to pass round the screen, and look into
his chamber.

It was as great a start to come upon his sleeping face as if she had not
expected to see it. Florence stood arrested on the spot, and if he had
awakened then, must have remained there.

There was a cut upon his forehead, and they had been wetting his hair,
which lay bedabbled and entangled on the pillow. One of his arms,
resting outside the bed, was bandaged up, and he was very white. But it
was not this, that after the first quick glance, and first assurance
of his sleeping quietly, held Florence rooted to the ground. It was
something very different from this, and more than this, that made him
look so solemn in her eye.

She had never seen his face in all her life, but there had been upon
it--or she fancied so--some disturbing consciousness of her. She had
never seen his face in all her life, but hope had sunk within her, and
her timid glance had dropped before its stern, unloving, and repelling
harshness. As she looked upon it now, she saw it, for the first time,
free from the cloud that had darkened her childhood. Calm, tranquil
night was reigning in its stead. He might have gone to sleep, for
anything she saw there, blessing her.

Awake, unkind father! Awake, now, sullen man! The time is flitting by;
the hour is coming with an angry tread. Awake!

There was no change upon his face; and as she watched it, awfully, its
motionless response recalled the faces that were gone. So they looked,
so would he; so she, his weeping child, who should say when! so all the
world of love and hatred and indifference around them! When that time
should come, it would not be the heavier to him, for this that she was
going to do; and it might fall something lighter upon her.

She stole close to the bed, and drawing in her breath, bent down, and
softly kissed him on the face, and laid her own for one brief moment
by its side, and put the arm, with which she dared not touch him, round
about him on the pillow.

Awake, doomed man, while she is near! The time is flitting by; the hour
is coming with an angry tread; its foot is in the house. Awake!

In her mind, she prayed to God to bless her father, and to soften him
towards her, if it might be so; and if not, to forgive him if he was
wrong, and pardon her the prayer which almost seemed impiety. And doing
so, and looking back at him with blinded eyes, and stealing timidly
away, passed out of his room, and crossed the other, and was gone.

He may sleep on now. He may sleep on while he may. But let him look for
that slight figure when he wakes, and find it near him when the hour is
come!

Sad and grieving was the heart of Florence, as she crept upstairs. The
quiet house had grown more dismal since she came down. The sleep she had
been looking on, in the dead of night, had the solemnity to her of death
and life in one. The secrecy and silence of her own proceeding made the
night secret, silent, and oppressive. She felt unwilling, almost unable,
to go on to her own chamber; and turning into the drawing-rooms, where
the clouded moon was shining through the blinds, looked out into the
empty streets.

The wind was blowing drearily. The lamps looked pale, and shook as if
they were cold. There was a distant glimmer of something that was not
quite darkness, rather than of light, in the sky; and foreboding night
was shivering and restless, as the dying are who make a troubled end.
Florence remembered how, as a watcher, by a sick-bed, she had noted
this bleak time, and felt its influence, as if in some hidden natural
antipathy to it; and now it was very, very gloomy.

Her Mama had not come to her room that night, which was one cause of her
having sat late out of her bed. In her general uneasiness, no less than
in her ardent longing to have somebody to speak to, and to break the
spell of gloom and silence, Florence directed her steps towards the
chamber where she slept.

The door was not fastened within, and yielded smoothly to her hesitating
hand. She was surprised to find a bright light burning; still more
surprised, on looking in, to see that her Mama, but partially undressed,
was sitting near the ashes of the fire, which had crumbled and dropped
away. Her eyes were intently bent upon the air; and in their light, and
in her face, and in her form, and in the grasp with which she held the
elbows of her chair as if about to start up, Florence saw such fierce
emotion that it terrified her.

'Mama!' she cried, 'what is the matter?'

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

'Mama!' said Florence, hurriedly advancing. 'Dear Mama! what is the
matter?'

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

'And not yet been to bed, Mama?'

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

Her features gradually softened; and suffering Florence to come closer
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, Mama, 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?' asked Edith, 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.

'Dear Mama, what have you done to your hand?' said Florence.

Edith drew it suddenly away, and, for a moment, looked at her with the
same strange dread (there was a sort of wild avoidance in it) as before;
but she presently said, 'Nothing, nothing. A blow.' And then she
said, 'My Florence!' and then her bosom heaved, and she was weeping
passionately.

'Mama!' said Florence. 'Oh Mama, 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 them coming
back.'

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

'I have dreamed,' said Edith in a low voice, 'of a pride that is all
powerless for good, all powerful for evil; of a pride that has been
galled and goaded, through many shameful years, and has never recoiled
except upon itself; a pride that has debased its owner with the
consciousness of deep humiliation, and never helped its owner boldly
to resent it or avoid it, or to say, "This shall not be!" a pride that,
rightly guided, might have led perhaps to better things, but which,
misdirected and perverted, like all else belonging to the same
possessor, has been self-contempt, mere hardihood and ruin.'

She neither looked nor spoke to Florence now, but went on as if she were
alone.

'I have dreamed,' she said, 'of such indifference and callousness,
arising from this self-contempt; this wretched, inefficient, miserable
pride; that it has gone on with listless steps even to the altar,
yielding to the old, familiar, beckoning finger,--oh mother, oh
mother!--while it spurned it; and willing to be hateful to itself for
once and for all, rather than to be stung daily in some new form. Mean,
poor thing!'

And now with gathering and darkening emotion, she looked as she had
looked when Florence entered.

'And I have dreamed,' she said, 'that in a first late effort to achieve
a purpose, it has been trodden on, and trodden down by a base foot, but
turns and looks upon him. I have dreamed that it is wounded, hunted, set
upon by dogs, but that it stands at bay, and will not yield; no, that it
cannot if it would; but that it is urged on to hate.'

Her clenched hand tightened on the trembling arm she had in hers, and as
she looked down on the alarmed and wondering face, frown subsided. 'Oh
Florence!' she said, 'I think I have been nearly mad to-night!' and
humbled her proud head upon her neck and wept again.

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

Soon she grew calmer, and was full of pity for the tears of Florence,
and for her waking at such untimely hours. And the day now dawning, with
folded her in her arms and laid her down upon her bed, and, not lying
down herself, sat by her, and bade her try to sleep.

'For you are weary, dearest, and unhappy, and should rest.'

'I am indeed unhappy, dear Mama, tonight,' said Florence. 'But you are
weary and unhappy, too.'

'Not when you lie asleep so near me, sweet.'

They kissed each other, and Florence, worn out, gradually fell into a
gentle slumber; but as her eyes closed on the face beside her, it was
so sad to think upon the face downstairs, that her hand drew closer
to Edith for some comfort; yet, even in the act, it faltered, lest it
should be deserting him. So, in her sleep, she tried to reconcile the
two together, and to show them that she loved them both, but could not
do it, and her waking grief was part of her dreams.

Edith, sitting by, looked down at the dark eyelashes lying wet on the
flushed cheeks, and looked with gentleness and pity, for she knew the
truth. But no sleep hung upon her own eyes. As the day came on she still
sat watching and waking, with the placid hand in hers, and sometimes
whispered, as she looked at the hushed face, 'Be near me, Florence. I
have no hope but in you!'

Florence is saddened by the tension between Edith and her father. The night he is brought back after his injury, she slips into his room to see him while he sleeps. Afterwards, she goes to see Edith and is shocked by the anguish Edith is clearly experiencing, though she composes herself when she realizes that Florence is present. Edith clings to Florence as the only good thing in her life

This section is perhaps the darkest in the novel. It unflinchingly addresses the dark possibilities that have been implied from the beginning: are there situations in which there is no hope? Will individuals remain stubbornly incapable of recognizing the error of their perspectives? While Mrs. Skewton is a relatively minor character, her death adds a bleak note to the novel in that she dies without ever realizing the tragic impact her actions have had, or coming to understand that her toxic view of the world was wrong. Her death therefore endorses the possibility that characters may not be capable of reform, change, or growth. This possibility looms even larger as Dombey and Edith's marriage disintegrates. While Edith can be spiteful in her behavior towards him, she proposes a number of possibilities meant to allow them to live in relative peace. She is also very concerned that Florence not be impacted by their antagonism. Dombey, however, rejects all of her attempts at trying to make conditions in the household more bearable. In his interactions with his wife, Dombey shows even more explicit coldness and cruelty than what he has demonstrated to his daughter. He demands subservience from Edith, clearly believing that his position as a man entitles him to dictate the terms of their marriage. He also uses his intelligence to maximize damage: since he can tell that she dislikes Carker, he knows it will be especially humiliating for her to have Carker be involved in the intimate details of their life. Dombey shows that he has no compassion in what he is willing to do to make it clear that he is superior to others. Carker also demonstrates his ability to cruelly manipulate people. He knows that Florence is Edith's weak spot, and he uses this knowledge to blackmail Edith and push her into situations she would not otherwise agree to. Edith's helpless position between the two men, both of whom only want to break her to their will and don't care for her well-being, helps to create sympathy for her, which is especially important given that, in the eyes of a Victorian audience, her decision to leave her husband for another man would be shocking and highly immoral. Her wildness in her interaction with Florence is also important in that it demonstrates she is not taking her decision lightly, and would not resort to this drastic step if she had any other options. Her disgust with the valuable luxuries Dombey has given her also provides a kind of moral redemption: she is unwilling to sacrifice her integrity just so that she can enjoy costly clothes and jewelry. Florence is perpetually put in the middle of conflicts between her father and stepmother, and when Edith leaves, she attempts to comfort her father. While his reaction speaks to the grief and rage he is experiencing, it is a devastating blow to Florence. Years of psychological violence are finally manifested in a physical strike. There is also the indication of how their relationship has only soured further as Florence has matured from child into woman. Dombey's misogynistic rage at the realization that his wife has betrayed him extends to Florence as well. Dickens carefully omits the language Dombey uses in this critical scene but he implies that Dombey presumably uses a sexualized slur against Edith, perhaps explicitly making the connection to the implied references to prostitution. To use this kind of language in front of his young, sheltered daughter would be hugely taboo and constitute another kind of violence, confirming for Florence that her father has no respect for her well-being.


With the day, though not so early as the sun, uprose Miss Susan Nipper.
There was a heaviness in this young maiden's exceedingly sharp black
eyes, that abated somewhat of their sparkling, and suggested--which
was not their usual character--the possibility of their being sometimes
shut. There was likewise a swollen look about them, as if they had been
crying over-night. But the Nipper, so far from being cast down, was
singularly brisk and bold, and all her energies appeared to be braced
up for some great feat. This was noticeable even in her dress, which was
much more tight and trim than usual; and in occasional twitches of her
head as she went about the house, which were mightily expressive of
determination.

In a word, she had formed a determination, and an aspiring one: it being
nothing less than this--to penetrate to Mr Dombey's presence, and
have speech of that gentleman alone. 'I have often said I would,' she
remarked, in a threatening manner, to herself, that morning, with many
twitches of her head, 'and now I will!'

Spurring herself on to the accomplishment of this desperate design, with
a sharpness that was peculiar to herself, Susan Nipper haunted the hall
and staircase during the whole forenoon, without finding a favourable
opportunity for the assault. Not at all baffled by this discomfiture,
which indeed had a stimulating effect, and put her on her mettle, she
diminished nothing of her vigilance; and at last discovered, towards
evening, that her sworn foe Mrs Pipchin, under pretence of having sat up
all night, was dozing in her own room, and that Mr Dombey was lying on
his sofa, unattended.

With a twitch--not of her head merely, this time, but of her whole
self--the Nipper went on tiptoe to Mr Dombey's door, and knocked. 'Come
in!' said Mr Dombey. Susan encouraged herself with a final twitch, and
went in.

Mr Dombey, who was eyeing the fire, gave an amazed look at his visitor,
and raised himself a little on his arm. The Nipper dropped a curtsey.

'What do you want?' said Mr Dombey.

'If you please, Sir, I wish to speak to you,' said Susan.

Mr Dombey moved his lips as if he were repeating the words, but he
seemed so lost in astonishment at the presumption of the young woman as
to be incapable of giving them utterance.

'I have been in your service, Sir,' said Susan Nipper, with her usual
rapidity, 'now twelve 'year a waiting on Miss Floy my own young lady who
couldn't speak plain when I first come here and I was old in this house
when Mrs Richards was new, I may not be Meethosalem, but I am not a
child in arms.'

Mr Dombey, raised upon his arm and looking at her, offered no comment on
this preparatory statement of fact.

'There never was a dearer or a blesseder young lady than is my young
lady, Sir,' said Susan, 'and I ought to know a great deal better than
some for I have seen her in her grief and I have seen her in her joy
(there's not been much of it) and I have seen her with her brother and I
have seen her in her loneliness and some have never seen her, and I
say to some and all--I do!' and here the black-eyed shook her head, and
slightly stamped her foot; 'that she's the blessedest and dearest angel
is Miss Floy that ever drew the breath of life, the more that I was torn
to pieces Sir the more I'd say it though I may not be a Fox's Martyr.'

Mr Dombey turned yet paler than his fall had made him, with indignation
and astonishment; and kept his eyes upon the speaker as if he accused
them, and his ears too, of playing him false.

'No one could be anything but true and faithful to Miss Floy, Sir,'
pursued Susan, 'and I take no merit for my service of twelve year, for
I love her--yes, I say to some and all I do!'--and here the black-eyed
shook her head again, and slightly stamped her foot again, and checked a
sob; 'but true and faithful service gives me right to speak I hope, and
speak I must and will now, right or wrong.'

'What do you mean, woman?' said Mr Dombey, glaring at her. 'How do you
dare?'

'What I mean, Sir, is to speak respectful and without offence, but out,
and how I dare I know not but I do!' said Susan. 'Oh! you don't know my
young lady Sir you don't indeed, you'd never know so little of her, if
you did.'

Mr Dombey, in a fury, put his hand out for the bell-rope; but there was
no bell-rope on that side of the fire, and he could not rise and cross
to the other without assistance. The quick eye of the Nipper detected
his helplessness immediately, and now, as she afterwards observed, she
felt she had got him.

'Miss Floy,' said Susan Nipper, 'is the most devoted and most patient
and most dutiful and beautiful of daughters, there ain't no gentleman,
no Sir, though as great and rich as all the greatest and richest of
England put together, but might be proud of her and would and ought. If
he knew her value right, he'd rather lose his greatness and his fortune
piece by piece and beg his way in rags from door to door, I say to some
and all, he would!' cried Susan Nipper, bursting into tears, 'than
bring the sorrow on her tender heart that I have seen it suffer in this
house!'

'Woman,' cried Mr Dombey, 'leave the room.'

'Begging your pardon, not even if I am to leave the situation, Sir,'
replied the steadfast Nipper, 'in which I have been so many years and
seen so much--although I hope you'd never have the heart to send me from
Miss Floy for such a cause--will I go now till I have said the rest, I
may not be a Indian widow Sir and I am not and I would not so become but
if I once made up my mind to burn myself alive, I'd do it! And I've made
my mind up to go on.'

Which was rendered no less clear by the expression of Susan Nipper's
countenance, than by her words.

'There ain't a person in your service, Sir,' pursued the black-eyed,
'that has always stood more in awe of you than me and you may think how
true it is when I make so bold as say that I have hundreds and hundreds
of times thought of speaking to you and never been able to make my mind
up to it till last night, but last night decided of me.'

Mr Dombey, in a paroxysm of rage, made another grasp at the bell-rope
that was not there, and, in its absence, pulled his hair rather than
nothing.

'I have seen,' said Susan Nipper, 'Miss Floy strive and strive when
nothing but a child so sweet and patient that the best of women might
have copied from her, I've seen her sitting nights together half the
night through to help her delicate brother with his learning, I've
seen her helping him and watching him at other times--some well know
when--I've seen her, with no encouragement and no help, grow up to be a
lady, thank God! that is the grace and pride of every company she goes
in, and I've always seen her cruelly neglected and keenly feeling
of it--I say to some and all, I have!--and never said one word, but
ordering one's self lowly and reverently towards one's betters, is not
to be a worshipper of graven images, and I will and must speak!'

'Is there anybody there?' cried Mr Dombey, calling out. 'Where are the
men? where are the women? Is there no one there?'

'I left my dear young lady out of bed late last night,' said Susan,
nothing checked, 'and I knew why, for you was ill Sir and she didn't
know how ill and that was enough to make her wretched as I saw it did.
I may not be a Peacock; but I have my eyes--and I sat up a little in my
own room thinking she might be lonesome and might want me, and I saw her
steal downstairs and come to this door as if it was a guilty thing to
look at her own Pa, and then steal back again and go into them lonely
drawing-rooms, a-crying so, that I could hardly bear to hear it. I can
not bear to hear it,' said Susan Nipper, wiping her black eyes, and
fixing them undauntingly on Mr Dombey's infuriated face. 'It's not the
first time I have heard it, not by many and many a time you don't know
your own daughter, Sir, you don't know what you're doing, Sir, I say to
some and all,' cried Susan Nipper, in a final burst, 'that it's a sinful
shame!'

'Why, hoity toity!' cried the voice of Mrs Pipchin, as the black
bombazeen garments of that fair Peruvian Miner swept into the room.
'What's this, indeed?'

Susan favoured Mrs Pipchin with a look she had invented expressly for
her when they first became acquainted, and resigned the reply to Mr
Dombey.

'What's this?' repeated Mr Dombey, almost foaming. 'What's this, Madam?
You who are at the head of this household, and bound to keep it in
order, have reason to inquire. Do you know this woman?'

'I know very little good of her, Sir,' croaked Mrs Pipchin. 'How dare
you come here, you hussy? Go along with you!'

But the inflexible Nipper, merely honouring Mrs Pipchin with another
look, remained.

'Do you call it managing this establishment, Madam,' said Mr Dombey,
'to leave a person like this at liberty to come and talk to me!
A gentleman--in his own house--in his own room--assailed with the
impertinences of women-servants!'

'Well, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin, with vengeance in her hard grey eye,
'I exceedingly deplore it; nothing can be more irregular; nothing can be
more out of all bounds and reason; but I regret to say, Sir, that
this young woman is quite beyond control. She has been spoiled by
Miss Dombey, and is amenable to nobody. You know you're not,' said Mrs
Pipchin, sharply, and shaking her head at Susan Nipper. 'For shame, you
hussy! Go along with you!'

'If you find people in my service who are not to be controlled, Mrs
Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, turning back towards the fire, 'you know what
to do with them, I presume. You know what you are here for? Take her
away!'

'Sir, I know what to do,' retorted Mrs Pipchin, 'and of course shall
do it. Susan Nipper,' snapping her up particularly short, 'a month's
warning from this hour.'

'Oh indeed!' cried Susan, loftily.

'Yes,' returned Mrs Pipchin, 'and don't smile at me, you minx, or I'll
know the reason why! Go along with you this minute!'

'I intend to go this minute, you may rely upon it,' said the voluble
Nipper. 'I have been in this house waiting on my young lady a dozen year
and I won't stop in it one hour under notice from a person owning to the
name of Pipchin trust me, Mrs P.'

'A good riddance of bad rubbish!' said that wrathful old lady. 'Get
along with you, or I'll have you carried out!'

'My comfort is,' said Susan, looking back at Mr Dombey, 'that I have
told a piece of truth this day which ought to have been told long
before and can't be told too often or too plain and that no amount of
Pipchinses--I hope the number of 'em mayn't be great' (here Mrs Pipchin
uttered a very sharp 'Go along with you!' and Miss Nipper repeated the
look) 'can unsay what I have said, though they gave a whole year full of
warnings beginning at ten o'clock in the forenoon and never leaving
off till twelve at night and died of the exhaustion which would be a
Jubilee!'

With these words, Miss Nipper preceded her foe out of the room; and
walking upstairs to her own apartments in great state, to the choking
exasperation of the ireful Pipchin, sat down among her boxes and began
to cry.

From this soft mood she was soon aroused, with a very wholesome and
refreshing effect, by the voice of Mrs Pipchin outside the door.

'Does that bold-faced slut,' said the fell Pipchin, 'intend to take her
warning, or does she not?'

Miss Nipper replied from within that the person described did not
inhabit that part of the house, but that her name was Pipchin, and she
was to be found in the housekeeper's room.

'You saucy baggage!' retorted Mrs Pipchin, rattling at the handle of the
door. 'Go along with you this minute. Pack up your things directly! How
dare you talk in this way to a gentle-woman who has seen better days?'

To which Miss Nipper rejoined from her castle, that she pitied the
better days that had seen Mrs Pipchin; and that for her part she
considered the worst days in the year to be about that lady's mark,
except that they were much too good for her.

'But you needn't trouble yourself to make a noise at my door,' said
Susan Nipper, 'nor to contaminate the key-hole with your eye, I'm
packing up and going you may take your affidavit.'

The Dowager expressed her lively satisfaction at this intelligence, and
with some general opinions upon young hussies as a race, and especially
upon their demerits after being spoiled by Miss Dombey, withdrew to
prepare the Nipper's wages. Susan then bestirred herself to get
her trunks in order, that she might take an immediate and dignified
departure; sobbing heartily all the time, as she thought of Florence.

The object of her regret was not long in coming to her, for the news
soon spread over the house that Susan Nipper had had a disturbance with
Mrs Pipchin, and that they had both appealed to Mr Dombey, and that
there had been an unprecedented piece of work in Mr Dombey's room, and
that Susan was going. The latter part of this confused rumour, Florence
found to be so correct, that Susan had locked the last trunk and was
sitting upon it with her bonnet on, when she came into her room.

'Susan!' cried Florence. 'Going to leave me! You!'

'Oh for goodness gracious sake, Miss Floy,' said Susan, sobbing, 'don't
speak a word to me or I shall demean myself before them Pi-i-pchinses,
and I wouldn't have 'em see me cry Miss Floy for worlds!'

'Susan!' said Florence. 'My dear girl, my old friend! What shall I do
without you! Can you bear to go away so?'

'No-n-o-o, my darling dear Miss Floy, I can't indeed,' sobbed Susan.
'But it can't be helped, I've done my duty, Miss, I have indeed. It's no
fault of mine. I am quite resigned. I couldn't stay my month or I could
never leave you then my darling and I must at last as well as at first,
don't speak to me Miss Floy, for though I'm pretty firm I'm not a marble
doorpost, my own dear.'

'What is it? Why is it?' said Florence, 'Won't you tell me?' For Susan
was shaking her head.

'No-n-no, my darling,' returned Susan. 'Don't ask me, for I mustn't, and
whatever you do don't put in a word for me to stop, for it couldn't be
and you'd only wrong yourself, and so God bless you my own precious
and forgive me any harm I have done, or any temper I have showed in all
these many years!'

With which entreaty, very heartily delivered, Susan hugged her mistress
in her arms.

'My darling there's a many that may come to serve you and be glad to
serve you and who'll serve you well and true,' said Susan, 'but there
can't be one who'll serve you so affectionate as me or love you half as
dearly, that's my comfort. Go-ood-bye, sweet Miss Floy!'

'Where will you go, Susan?' asked her weeping mistress.

'I've got a brother down in the country Miss--a farmer in Essex,' said
the heart-broken Nipper, 'that keeps ever so many co-o-ows and pigs and
I shall go down there by the coach and sto-op with him, and don't mind
me, for I've got money in the Savings Banks my dear, and needn't take
another service just yet, which I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't do, my
heart's own mistress!' Susan finished with a burst of sorrow, which was
opportunely broken by the voice of Mrs Pipchin talking downstairs; on
hearing which, she dried her red and swollen eyes, and made a melancholy
feint of calling jauntily to Mr Towlinson to fetch a cab and carry down
her boxes.

Florence, pale and hurried and distressed, but withheld from useless
interference even here, by her dread of causing any new division between
her father and his wife (whose stern, indignant face had been a warning
to her a few moments since), and by her apprehension of being in some
way unconsciously connected already with the dismissal of her
old servant and friend, followed, weeping, downstairs to Edith's
dressing-room, whither Susan betook herself to make her parting curtsey.

'Now, here's the cab, and here's the boxes, get along with you, do!'
said Mrs Pipchin, presenting herself at the same moment. 'I beg your
pardon, Ma'am, but Mr Dombey's orders are imperative.'

Edith, sitting under the hands of her maid--she was going out to
dinner--preserved her haughty face, and took not the least notice.

'There's your money,' said Mrs Pipchin, who in pursuance of her system,
and in recollection of the Mines, was accustomed to rout the servants
about, as she had routed her young Brighton boarders; to the everlasting
acidulation of Master Bitherstone, 'and the sooner this house sees your
back the better.'

Susan had no spirits even for the look that belonged to Ma Pipchin by
right; so she dropped her curtsey to Mrs Dombey (who inclined her head
without one word, and whose eye avoided everyone but Florence), and gave
one last parting hug to her young mistress, and received her parting
embrace in return. Poor Susan's face at this crisis, in the intensity of
her feelings and the determined suffocation of her sobs, lest one should
become audible and be a triumph to Mrs Pipchin, presented a series of
the most extraordinary physiognomical phenomena ever witnessed.

'I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure,' said Towlinson, outside the
door with the boxes, addressing Florence, 'but Mr Toots is in the
drawing-room, and sends his compliments, and begs to know how Diogenes
and Master is.'

Quick as thought, Florence glided out and hastened downstairs, where
Mr Toots, in the most splendid vestments, was breathing very hard with
doubt and agitation on the subject of her coming.

'Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, 'God bless my soul!'

This last ejaculation was occasioned by Mr Toots's deep concern at the
distress he saw in Florence's face; which caused him to stop short in a
fit of chuckles, and become an image of despair.

'Dear Mr Toots,' said Florence, 'you are so friendly to me, and so
honest, that I am sure I may ask a favour of you.'

'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'if you'll only name one,
you'll--you'll give me an appetite. To which,' said Mr Toots, with some
sentiment, 'I have long been a stranger.'

'Susan, who is an old friend of mine, the oldest friend I have,' said
Florence, 'is about to leave here suddenly, and quite alone, poor girl.
She is going home, a little way into the country. Might I ask you to
take care of her until she is in the coach?'

'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'you really do me an honour and a
kindness. This proof of your confidence, after the manner in which I was
Beast enough to conduct myself at Brighton--'

'Yes,' said Florence, hurriedly--'no--don't think of that. Then would
you have the kindness to--to go? and to be ready to meet her when she
comes out? Thank you a thousand times! You ease my mind so much. She
doesn't seem so desolate. You cannot think how grateful I feel to
you, or what a good friend I am sure you are!' and Florence in
her earnestness thanked him again and again; and Mr Toots, in his
earnestness, hurried away--but backwards, that he might lose no glimpse
of her.

Florence had not the courage to go out, when she saw poor Susan in the
hall, with Mrs Pipchin driving her forth, and Diogenes jumping about
her, and terrifying Mrs Pipchin to the last degree by making snaps
at her bombazeen skirts, and howling with anguish at the sound of her
voice--for the good duenna was the dearest and most cherished aversion
of his breast. But she saw Susan shake hands with the servants all
round, and turn once to look at her old home; and she saw Diogenes bound
out after the cab, and want to follow it, and testify an impossibility
of conviction that he had no longer any property in the fare; and the
door was shut, and the hurry over, and her tears flowed fast for the
loss of an old friend, whom no one could replace. No one. No one.

Mr Toots, like the leal and trusty soul he was, stopped the cabriolet in
a twinkling, and told Susan Nipper of his commission, at which she cried
more than before.

'Upon my soul and body!' said Mr Toots, taking his seat beside her. 'I
feel for you. Upon my word and honour I think you can hardly know your
own feelings better than I imagine them. I can conceive nothing more
dreadful than to have to leave Miss Dombey.'

Susan abandoned herself to her grief now, and it really was touching to
see her.

'I say,' said Mr Toots, 'now, don't! at least I mean now do, you know!'

'Do what, Mr Toots!' cried Susan.

'Why, come home to my place, and have some dinner before you start,'
said Mr Toots. 'My cook's a most respectable woman--one of the most
motherly people I ever saw--and she'll be delighted to make you
comfortable. Her son,' said Mr Toots, as an additional recommendation,
'was educated in the Bluecoat School, and blown up in a powder-mill.'

Susan accepting this kind offer, Mr Toots conducted her to his dwelling,
where they were received by the Matron in question who fully justified
his character of her, and by the Chicken who at first supposed, on
seeing a lady in the vehicle, that Mr Dombey had been doubled up, ably
to his old recommendation, and Miss Dombey abducted. This gentleman
awakened in Miss Nipper some considerable astonishment; for, having
been defeated by the Larkey Boy, his visage was in a state of such great
dilapidation, as to be hardly presentable in society with comfort to the
beholders. The Chicken himself attributed this punishment to his having
had the misfortune to get into Chancery early in the proceedings, when
he was severely fibbed by the Larkey one, and heavily grassed. But
it appeared from the published records of that great contest that the
Larkey Boy had had it all his own way from the beginning, and that the
Chicken had been tapped, and bunged, and had received pepper, and had
been made groggy, and had come up piping, and had endured a complication
of similar strange inconveniences, until he had been gone into and
finished.

After a good repast, and much hospitality, Susan set out for the
coach-office in another cabriolet, with Mr Toots inside, as before, and
the Chicken on the box, who, whatever distinction he conferred on the
little party by the moral weight and heroism of his character, was
scarcely ornamental to it, physically speaking, on account of his
plasters; which were numerous. But the Chicken had registered a vow, in
secret, that he would never leave Mr Toots (who was secretly pining
to get rid of him), for any less consideration than the good-will and
fixtures of a public-house; and being ambitious to go into that line,
and drink himself to death as soon as possible, he felt it his cue to
make his company unacceptable.

The night-coach by which Susan was to go, was on the point of departure.
Mr Toots having put her inside, lingered by the window, irresolutely,
until the driver was about to mount; when, standing on the step,
and putting in a face that by the light of the lamp was anxious and
confused, he said abruptly:

'I say, Susan! Miss Dombey, you know--'

'Yes, Sir.'

'Do you think she could--you know--eh?'

'I beg your pardon, Mr Toots,' said Susan, 'but I don't hear you.'

'Do you think she could be brought, you know--not exactly at once, but
in time--in a long time--to--to love me, you know? There!' said poor Mr
Toots.

'Oh dear no!' returned Susan, shaking her head. 'I should say, never.
Never!'

'Thank'ee!' said Mr Toots. 'It's of no consequence. Good-night. It's of
no consequence, thank'ee!'

The next morning, Susan takes advantage to Mr. Domey's weakened state to speak frankly to him. She angrily rebukes him for his mistreatment and neglect of Florence. Mrs. Pipchin arrives, and Mr. Dombey is furious with her for having not prevented Susan from speaking to him in this way. Mrs. Pipchin fires Susan. Shortly afterwards, Florence learns what has happened and expresses her grief that Susan will leave. Susan explains that she will go to stay with her brother, and that she has savings, and that she is very sorry to leave Florence. Fortunately, Toots happens to have come to see Florence and she asks him to accompany Susan to her brother's home, which she is happy to do. Before he sees Susan off, Toots asks her if she thinks Florence could ever love him, and Susan says she doesn't think so