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

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

One summer afternoon; a year, wanting some odd days, after the marriage
in the City church; there was a buzz and whisper upon 'Change of a great
failure. A certain cold proud man, well known there, was not there, nor
was he represented there. Next day it was noised abroad that Dombey and
Son had stopped, and next night there was a List of Bankrupts published,
headed by that name.

The world was very busy now, in sooth, and had a deal to say. It was an
innocently credulous and a much ill-used world. It was a world in
which there was no other sort of bankruptcy whatever. There were
no conspicuous people in it, trading far and wide on rotten banks
of religion, patriotism, virtue, honour. There was no amount worth
mentioning of mere paper in circulation, on which anybody lived pretty
handsomely, promising to pay great sums of goodness with no effects.
There were no shortcomings anywhere, in anything but money. The world
was very angry indeed; and the people especially, who, in a worse world,
might have been supposed to be apt traders themselves in shows and
pretences, were observed to be mightily indignant.

Here was a new inducement to dissipation, presented to that sport of
circumstances, Mr Perch the Messenger! It was apparently the fate of
Mr Perch to be always waking up, and finding himself famous. He had
but yesterday, as one might say, subsided into private life from the
celebrity of the elopement and the events that followed it; and now he
was made a more important man than ever, by the bankruptcy. Gliding from
his bracket in the outer office where he now sat, watching the strange
faces of accountants and others, who quickly superseded nearly all the
old clerks, Mr Perch had but to show himself in the court outside, or,
at farthest, in the bar of the King's Arms, to be asked a multitude of
questions, almost certain to include that interesting question, what
would he take to drink? Then would Mr Perch descant upon the hours of
acute uneasiness he and Mrs Perch had suffered out at Balls Pond, when
they first suspected 'things was going wrong.' Then would Mr Perch
relate to gaping listeners, in a low voice, as if the corpse of the
deceased House were lying unburied in the next room, how Mrs Perch had
first come to surmise that things was going wrong by hearing him (Perch)
moaning in his sleep, 'twelve and ninepence in the pound, twelve and
ninepence in the pound!' Which act of somnambulism he supposed to have
originated in the impression made upon him by the change in Mr Dombey's
face. Then would he inform them how he had once said, 'Might I make so
bold as ask, Sir, are you unhappy in your mind?' and how Mr Dombey had
replied, 'My faithful Perch--but no, it cannot be!' and with that had
struck his hand upon his forehead, and said, 'Leave me, Perch!' Then,
in short, would Mr Perch, a victim to his position, tell all manner of
lies; affecting himself to tears by those that were of a moving
nature, and really believing that the inventions of yesterday had, on
repetition, a sort of truth about them to-day.

Mr Perch always closed these conferences by meekly remarking, That, of
course, whatever his suspicions might have been (as if he had ever had
any!) it wasn't for him to betray his trust, was it? Which sentiment
(there never being any creditors present) was received as doing great
honour to his feelings. Thus, he generally brought away a soothed
conscience and left an agreeable impression behind him, when he
returned to his bracket: again to sit watching the strange faces of the
accountants and others, making so free with the great mysteries, the
Books; or now and then to go on tiptoe into Mr Dombey's empty room, and
stir the fire; or to take an airing at the door, and have a little more
doleful chat with any straggler whom he knew; or to propitiate, with
various small attentions, the head accountant: from whom Mr Perch had
expectations of a messengership in a Fire Office, when the affairs of
the House should be wound up.

To Major Bagstock, the bankruptcy was quite a calamity. The Major was
not a sympathetic character--his attention being wholly concentrated
on J. B.--nor was he a man subject to lively emotions, except in the
physical regards of gasping and choking. But he had so paraded his
friend Dombey at the club; had so flourished him at the heads of the
members in general, and so put them down by continual assertion of his
riches; that the club, being but human, was delighted to retort upon
the Major, by asking him, with a show of great concern, whether this
tremendous smash had been at all expected, and how his friend Dombey
bore it. To such questions, the Major, waxing very purple, would reply
that it was a bad world, Sir, altogether; that Joey knew a thing or two,
but had been done, Sir, done like an infant; that if you had foretold
this, Sir, to J. Bagstock, when he went abroad with Dombey and was
chasing that vagabond up and down France, J. Bagstock would have
pooh-pooh'd you--would have pooh-pooh'd you, Sir, by the Lord! That Joe
had been deceived, Sir, taken in, hoodwinked, blindfolded, but was broad
awake again and staring; insomuch, Sir, that if Joe's father were to
rise up from the grave to-morrow, he wouldn't trust the old blade with a
penny piece, but would tell him that his son Josh was too old a soldier
to be done again, Sir. That he was a suspicious, crabbed, cranky,
used-up, J. B. infidel, Sir; and that if it were consistent with the
dignity of a rough and tough old Major, of the old school, who had had
the honour of being personally known to, and commended by, their late
Royal Highnesses the Dukes of Kent and York, to retire to a tub and live
in it, by Gad! Sir, he'd have a tub in Pall Mall to-morrow, to show his
contempt for mankind!

Of all this, and many variations of the same tune, the Major would
deliver himself with so many apoplectic symptoms, such rollings of his
head, and such violent growls of ill usage and resentment, that the
younger members of the club surmised he had invested money in his friend
Dombey's House, and lost it; though the older soldiers and deeper dogs,
who knew Joe better, wouldn't hear of such a thing. The unfortunate
Native, expressing no opinion, suffered dreadfully; not merely in his
moral feelings, which were regularly fusilladed by the Major every hour
in the day, and riddled through and through, but in his sensitiveness to
bodily knocks and bumps, which was kept continually on the stretch. For
six entire weeks after the bankruptcy, this miserable foreigner lived in
a rainy season of boot-jacks and brushes.

Mrs Chick had three ideas upon the subject of the terrible reverse. The
first was that she could not understand it. The second, that her brother
had not made an effort. The third, that if she had been invited to
dinner on the day of that first party, it never would have happened; and
that she had said so, at the time.

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

The clerks dispersed after holding a little dinner of condolence
among themselves, which was enlivened by comic singing, and went off
admirably. Some took places abroad, and some engaged in other Houses at
home; some looked up relations in the country, for whom they suddenly
remembered they had a particular affection; and some advertised for
employment in the newspapers. Mr Perch alone remained of all the late
establishment, sitting on his bracket looking at the accountants, or
starting off it, to propitiate the head accountant, who was to get
him into the Fire Office. The Counting House soon got to be dirty and
neglected. The principal slipper and dogs' collar seller, at the corner
of the court, would have doubted the propriety of throwing up his
forefinger to the brim of his hat, any more, if Mr Dombey had appeared
there now; and the ticket porter, with his hands under his white apron,
moralised good sound morality about ambition, which (he observed) was
not, in his opinion, made to rhyme to perdition, for nothing.

Mr Morfin, the hazel-eyed bachelor, with the hair and whiskers sprinkled
with grey, was perhaps the only person within the atmosphere of the
House--its head, of course, excepted--who was heartily and deeply
affected by the disaster that had befallen it. He had treated Mr Dombey
with due respect and deference through many years, but he had never
disguised his natural character, or meanly truckled to him, or pampered
his master passion for the advancement of his own purposes. He had,
therefore, no self-disrespect to avenge; no long-tightened springs
to release with a quick recoil. He worked early and late to unravel
whatever was complicated or difficult in the records of the transactions
of the House; was always in attendance to explain whatever required
explanation; sat in his old room sometimes very late at night, studying
points by his mastery of which he could spare Mr Dombey the pain of
being personally referred to; and then would go home to Islington, and
calm his mind by producing the most dismal and forlorn sounds out of his
violoncello before going to bed.

He was solacing himself with this melodious grumbler one evening, and,
having been much dispirited by the proceedings of the day, was scraping
consolation out of its deepest notes, when his landlady (who was
fortunately deaf, and had no other consciousness of these performances
than a sensation of something rumbling in her bones) announced a lady.

'In mourning,' she said.

The violoncello stopped immediately; and the performer, laying it on the
sofa with great tenderness and care, made a sign that the lady was to
come in. He followed directly, and met Harriet Carker on the stair.

'Alone!' he said, 'and John here this morning! Is there anything the
matter, my dear? But no,' he added, 'your face tells quite another
story.'

'I am afraid it is a selfish revelation that you see there, then,' she
answered.

'It is a very pleasant one,' said he; 'and, if selfish, a novelty too,
worth seeing in you. But I don't believe that.'

He had placed a chair for her by this time, and sat down opposite; the
violoncello lying snugly on the sofa between them.

'You will not be surprised at my coming alone, or at John's not having
told you I was coming,' said Harriet; 'and you will believe that, when I
tell you why I have come. May I do so now?'

'You can do nothing better.'

'You were not busy?'

He pointed to the violoncello lying on the sofa, and said 'I have been,
all day. Here's my witness. I have been confiding all my cares to it. I
wish I had none but my own to tell.'

'Is the House at an end?' said Harriet, earnestly.

'Completely at an end.'

'Will it never be resumed?'

'Never.'

The bright expression of her face was not overshadowed as her lips
silently repeated the word. He seemed to observe this with some little
involuntary surprise: and said again:

'Never. You remember what I told you. It has been, all along, impossible
to convince him; impossible to reason with him; sometimes, impossible
even to approach him. The worst has happened; and the House has fallen,
never to be built up any more.'

'And Mr Dombey, is he personally ruined?'

'Ruined.'

'Will he have no private fortune left? Nothing?'

A certain eagerness in her voice, and something that was almost joyful
in her look, seemed to surprise him more and more; to disappoint him
too, and jar discordantly against his own emotions. He drummed with the
fingers of one hand on the table, looking wistfully at her, and shaking
his head, said, after a pause:

'The extent of Mr Dombey's resources is not accurately within my
knowledge; but though they are doubtless very large, his obligations are
enormous. He is a gentleman of high honour and integrity. Any man in
his position could, and many a man in his position would, have saved
himself, by making terms which would have very slightly, almost
insensibly, increased the losses of those who had had dealings with him,
and left him a remnant to live upon. But he is resolved on payment to
the last farthing of his means. His own words are, that they will clear,
or nearly clear, the House, and that no one can lose much. Ah, Miss
Harriet, it would do us no harm to remember oftener than we do, that
vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess! His pride shows well
in this.'

She heard him with little or no change in her expression, and with a
divided attention that showed her to be busy with something in her own
mind. When he was silent, she asked him hurriedly:

'Have you seen him lately?'

'No one sees him. When this crisis of his affairs renders it necessary
for him to come out of his house, he comes out for the occasion, and
again goes home, and shuts himself up, and will see no one. He has
written me a letter, acknowledging our past connexion in higher terms
than it deserved, and parting from me. I am delicate of obtruding myself
upon him now, never having had much intercourse with him in better
times; but I have tried to do so. I have written, gone there, entreated.
Quite in vain.'

He watched her, as in the hope that she would testify some greater
concern than she had yet shown; and spoke gravely and feelingly, as if
to impress her the more; but there was no change in her.

'Well, well, Miss Harriet,' he said, with a disappointed air, 'this is
not to the purpose. You have not come here to hear this. Some other and
pleasanter theme is in your mind. Let it be in mine, too, and we shall
talk upon more equal terms. Come!'

'No, it is the same theme,' returned Harriet, with frank and quick
surprise. 'Is it not likely that it should be? Is it not natural that
John and I should have been thinking and speaking very much of late of
these great changes? Mr Dombey, whom he served so many years--you know
upon what terms--reduced, as you describe; and we quite rich!'

Good, true face, as that face of hers was, and pleasant as it had been
to him, Mr Morfin, the hazel-eyed bachelor, since the first time he had
ever looked upon it, it pleased him less at that moment, lighted with a
ray of exultation, than it had ever pleased him before.

'I need not remind you,' said Harriet, casting down her eyes upon her
black dress, 'through what means our circumstances changed. You have not
forgotten that our brother James, upon that dreadful day, left no will,
no relations but ourselves.'

The face was pleasanter to him now, though it was pale and melancholy,
than it had been a moment since. He seemed to breathe more cheerily.

'You know,' she said, 'our history, the history of both my brothers,
in connexion with the unfortunate, unhappy gentleman, of whom you have
spoken so truly. You know how few our wants are--John's and mine--and
what little use we have for money, after the life we have led together
for so many years; and now that he is earning an income that is ample
for us, through your kindness. You are not unprepared to hear what
favour I have come to ask of you?'

'I hardly know. I was, a minute ago. Now, I think, I am not.'

'Of my dead brother I say nothing. If the dead know what we do--but you
understand me. Of my living brother I could say much; but what need I
say more, than that this act of duty, in which I have come to ask your
indispensable assistance, is his own, and that he cannot rest until it
is performed!'

She raised her eyes again; and the light of exultation in her face began
to appear beautiful, in the observant eyes that watched her.

'Dear Sir,' she went on to say, 'it must be done very quietly and
secretly. Your experience and knowledge will point out a way of doing
it. Mr Dombey may, perhaps, be led to believe that it is something
saved, unexpectedly, from the wreck of his fortunes; or that it is a
voluntary tribute to his honourable and upright character, from some of
those with whom he has had great dealings; or that it is some old lost
debt repaid. There must be many ways of doing it. I know you will choose
the best. The favour I have come to ask is, that you will do it for
us in your own kind, generous, considerate manner. That you will never
speak of it to John, whose chief happiness in this act of restitution
is to do it secretly, unknown, and unapproved of: that only a very small
part of the inheritance may be reserved to us, until Mr Dombey shall
have possessed the interest of the rest for the remainder of his life;
that you will keep our secret, faithfully--but that I am sure you will;
and that, from this time, it may seldom be whispered, even between
you and me, but may live in my thoughts only as a new reason for
thankfulness to Heaven, and joy and pride in my brother.'

Such a look of exultation there may be on Angels' faces when the one
repentant sinner enters Heaven, among ninety-nine just men. It was not
dimmed or tarnished by the joyful tears that filled her eyes, but was
the brighter for them.

'My dear Harriet,' said Mr Morfin, after a silence, 'I was not prepared
for this. Do I understand you that you wish to make your own part in the
inheritance available for your good purpose, as well as John's?'

'Oh, yes,' she returned 'When we have shared everything together for so
long a time, and have had no care, hope, or purpose apart, could I bear
to be excluded from my share in this? May I not urge a claim to be my
brother's partner and companion to the last?'

'Heaven forbid that I should dispute it!' he replied.

'We may rely on your friendly help?' she said. 'I knew we might!'

'I should be a worse man than,--than I hope I am, or would willingly
believe myself, if I could not give you that assurance from my heart and
soul. You may, implicitly. Upon my honour, I will keep your secret. And
if it should be found that Mr Dombey is so reduced as I fear he will be,
acting on a determination that there seem to be no means of influencing,
I will assist you to accomplish the design, on which you and John are
jointly resolved.'

She gave him her hand, and thanked him with a cordial, happy face.

'Harriet,' he said, detaining it in his. 'To speak to you of the worth
of any sacrifice that you can make now--above all, of any sacrifice of
mere money--would be idle and presumptuous. To put before you any appeal
to reconsider your purpose or to set narrow limits to it, would be,
I feel, not less so. I have no right to mar the great end of a great
history, by any obtrusion of my own weak self. I have every right to
bend my head before what you confide to me, satisfied that it comes
from a higher and better source of inspiration than my poor worldly
knowledge. I will say only this: I am your faithful steward; and I would
rather be so, and your chosen friend, than I would be anybody in the
world, except yourself.'

She thanked him again, cordially, and wished him good-night.

'Are you going home?' he said. 'Let me go with you.'

'Not to-night. I am not going home now; I have a visit to make alone.
Will you come to-morrow?'

'Well, well,' said he, 'I'll come to-morrow. In the meantime, I'll think
of this, and how we can best proceed. And perhaps I'll think of it, dear
Harriet, and--and--think of me a little in connexion with it.'

He handed her down to a coach she had in waiting at the door; and if
his landlady had not been deaf, she would have heard him muttering as
he went back upstairs, when the coach had driven off, that we were
creatures of habit, and it was a sorrowful habit to be an old bachelor.

The violoncello lying on the sofa between the two chairs, he took it up,
without putting away the vacant chair, and sat droning on it, and
slowly shaking his head at the vacant chair, for a long, long time.
The expression he communicated to the instrument at first, though
monstrously pathetic and bland, was nothing to the expression he
communicated to his own face, and bestowed upon the empty chair: which
was so sincere, that he was obliged to have recourse to Captain Cuttle's
remedy more than once, and to rub his face with his sleeve. By degrees,
however, the violoncello, in unison with his own frame of mind, glided
melodiously into the Harmonious Blacksmith, which he played over and
over again, until his ruddy and serene face gleamed like true metal on
the anvil of a veritable blacksmith. In fine, the violoncello and
the empty chair were the companions of his bachelorhood until nearly
midnight; and when he took his supper, the violoncello set up on end in
the sofa corner, big with the latent harmony of a whole foundry full
of harmonious blacksmiths, seemed to ogle the empty chair out of its
crooked eyes, with unutterable intelligence.

When Harriet left the house, the driver of her hired coach, taking
a course that was evidently no new one to him, went in and out by
bye-ways, through that part of the suburbs, until he arrived at some
open ground, where there were a few quiet little old houses standing
among gardens. At the garden-gate of one of these he stopped, and
Harriet alighted.

Her gentle ringing at the bell was responded to by a dolorous-looking
woman, of light complexion, with raised eyebrows, and head drooping on
one side, who curtseyed at sight of her, and conducted her across the
garden to the house.

'How is your patient, nurse, to-night?' said Harriet.

'In a poor way, Miss, I am afraid. Oh how she do remind me, sometimes,
of my Uncle's Betsey Jane!' returned the woman of the light complexion,
in a sort of doleful rapture.

'In what respect?' asked Harriet.

'Miss, in all respects,' replied the other, 'except that she's grown up,
and Betsey Jane, when at death's door, was but a child.'

'But you have told me she recovered,' observed Harriet mildly; 'so there
is the more reason for hope, Mrs Wickam.'

'Ah, Miss, hope is an excellent thing for such as has the spirits to
bear it!' said Mrs Wickam, shaking her head. 'My own spirits is not
equal to it, but I don't owe it any grudge. I envys them that is so
blest!'

'You should try to be more cheerful,' remarked Harriet.

'Thank you, Miss, I'm sure,' said Mrs Wickam grimly. 'If I was so
inclined, the loneliness of this situation--you'll excuse my speaking
so free--would put it out of my power, in four and twenty hours; but I
ain't at all. I'd rather not. The little spirits that I ever had, I was
bereaved of at Brighton some few years ago, and I think I feel myself
the better for it.'

In truth, this was the very Mrs Wickam who had superseded Mrs Richards
as the nurse of little Paul, and who considered herself to have gained
the loss in question, under the roof of the amiable Pipchin. The
excellent and thoughtful old system, hallowed by long prescription,
which has usually picked out from the rest of mankind the most dreary
and uncomfortable people that could possibly be laid hold of, to act as
instructors of youth, finger-posts to the virtues, matrons, monitors,
attendants on sick beds, and the like, had established Mrs Wickam in
very good business as a nurse, and had led to her serious qualities
being particularly commended by an admiring and numerous connexion.

Mrs Wickam, with her eyebrows elevated, and her head on one side,
lighted the way upstairs to a clean, neat chamber, opening on another
chamber dimly lighted, where there was a bed. In the first room, an old
woman sat mechanically staring out at the open window, on the darkness.
In the second, stretched upon the bed, lay the shadow of a figure that
had spurned the wind and rain, one wintry night; hardly to be recognised
now, but by the long black hair that showed so very black against the
colourless face, and all the white things about it.

Oh, the strong eyes, and the weak frame! The eyes that turned so eagerly
and brightly to the door when Harriet came in; the feeble head that
could not raise itself, and moved so slowly round upon its pillow!

'Alice!' said the visitor's mild voice, 'am I late to-night?'

'You always seem late, but are always early.'

Harriet had sat down by the bedside now, and put her hand upon the thin
hand lying there.

'You are better?'

Mrs Wickam, standing at the foot of the bed, like a disconsolate
spectre, most decidedly and forcibly shook her head to negative this
position.

'It matters very little!' said Alice, with a faint smile. 'Better or
worse to-day, is but a day's difference--perhaps not so much.'

Mrs Wickam, as a serious character, expressed her approval with a groan;
and having made some cold dabs at the bottom of the bedclothes, as
feeling for the patient's feet and expecting to find them stony; went
clinking among the medicine bottles on the table, as who should say,
'while we are here, let us repeat the mixture as before.'

'No,' said Alice, whispering to her visitor, 'evil courses, and remorse,
travel, want, and weather, storm within, and storm without, have worn my
life away. It will not last much longer.

She drew the hand up as she spoke, and laid her face against it.

'I lie here, sometimes, thinking I should like to live until I had had
a little time to show you how grateful I could be! It is a weakness, and
soon passes. Better for you as it is. Better for me!'

How different her hold upon the hand, from what it had been when she
took it by the fireside on the bleak winter evening! Scorn, rage,
defiance, recklessness, look here! This is the end.

Mrs Wickam having clinked sufficiently among the bottles, now produced
the mixture. Mrs Wickam looked hard at her patient in the act of
drinking, screwed her mouth up tight, her eyebrows also, and shook her
head, expressing that tortures shouldn't make her say it was a hopeless
case. Mrs Wickam then sprinkled a little cooling-stuff about the room,
with the air of a female grave-digger, who was strewing ashes on ashes,
dust on dust--for she was a serious character--and withdrew to partake
of certain funeral baked meats downstairs.

'How long is it,' asked Alice, 'since I went to you and told you what
I had done, and when you were advised it was too late for anyone to
follow?'

'It is a year and more,' said Harriet.

'A year and more,' said Alice, thoughtfully intent upon her face.
'Months upon months since you brought me here!'

Harriet answered 'Yes.'

'Brought me here, by force of gentleness and kindness. Me!' said Alice,
shrinking with her face behind her hand, 'and made me human by woman's
looks and words, and angel's deeds!'

Harriet bending over her, composed and soothed her. By and bye, Alice
lying as before, with the hand against her face, asked to have her
mother called.

Harriet called to her more than once, but the old woman was so absorbed
looking out at the open window on the darkness, that she did not hear.
It was not until Harriet went to her and touched her, that she rose up,
and came.

'Mother,' said Alice, taking the hand again, and fixing her lustrous
eyes lovingly upon her visitor, while she merely addressed a motion of
her finger to the old woman, 'tell her what you know.'

'To-night, my deary?'

'Ay, mother,' answered Alice, faintly and solemnly, 'to-night!'

The old woman, whose wits appeared disorderly by alarm, remorse, or
grief, came creeping along the side of the bed, opposite to that on
which Harriet sat; and kneeling down, so as to bring her withered face
upon a level with the coverlet, and stretching out her hand, so as to
touch her daughter's arm, began:

'My handsome gal--'

Heaven, what a cry was that, with which she stopped there, gazing at the
poor form lying on the bed!

'Changed, long ago, mother! Withered, long ago,' said Alice, without
looking at her. 'Don't grieve for that now.'

'--My daughter,' faltered the old woman, 'my gal who'll soon get better,
and shame 'em all with her good looks.'

Alice smiled mournfully at Harriet, and fondled her hand a little
closer, but said nothing.

'Who'll soon get better, I say,' repeated the old woman, menacing the
vacant air with her shrivelled fist, 'and who'll shame 'em all with her
good looks--she will. I say she will! she shall!'--as if she were in
passionate contention with some unseen opponent at the bedside, who
contradicted her--'my daughter has been turned away from, and cast out,
but she could boast relationship to proud folks too, if she chose.
Ah! To proud folks! There's relationship without your clergy and
your wedding rings--they may make it, but they can't break it--and
my daughter's well related. Show me Mrs Dombey, and I'll show you my
Alice's first cousin.'

Harriet glanced from the old woman to the lustrous eyes intent upon her
face, and derived corroboration from them.

'What!' cried the old woman, her nodding head bridling with a ghastly
vanity. 'Though I am old and ugly now,--much older by life and habit
than years though,--I was once as young as any. Ah! as pretty too, as
many! I was a fresh country wench in my time, darling,' stretching out
her arm to Harriet, across the bed, 'and looked it, too. Down in my
country, Mrs Dombey's father and his brother were the gayest gentlemen
and the best-liked that came a visiting from London--they have long
been dead, though! Lord, Lord, this long while! The brother, who was my
Ally's father, longest of the two.'

She raised her head a little, and peered at her daughter's face; as if
from the remembrance of her own youth, she had flown to the remembrance
of her child's. Then, suddenly, she laid her face down on the bed, and
shut her head up in her hands and arms.

'They were as like,' said the old woman, without looking up, as you
could see two brothers, so near an age--there wasn't much more than a
year between them, as I recollect--and if you could have seen my gal, as
I have seen her once, side by side with the other's daughter, you'd have
seen, for all the difference of dress and life, that they were like each
other. Oh! is the likeness gone, and is it my gal--only my gal--that's
to change so!'

'We shall all change, mother, in our turn,' said Alice.

'Turn!' cried the old woman, 'but why not hers as soon as my gal's! The
mother must have changed--she looked as old as me, and full as wrinkled
through her paint--but she was handsome. What have I done, I, what have
I done worse than her, that only my gal is to lie there fading!'

With another of those wild cries, she went running out into the room from
which she had come; but immediately, in her uncertain mood, returned,
and creeping up to Harriet, said:

'That's what Alice bade me tell you, deary. That's all. I found it out
when I began to ask who she was, and all about her, away in Warwickshire
there, one summer-time. Such relations was no good to me, then. They
wouldn't have owned me, and had nothing to give me. I should have asked
'em, maybe, for a little money, afterwards, if it hadn't been for my
Alice; she'd a'most have killed me, if I had, I think She was as proud
as t'other in her way,' said the old woman, touching the face of her
daughter fearfully, and withdrawing her hand, 'for all she's so quiet
now; but she'll shame 'em with her good looks yet. Ha, ha! She'll shame
'em, will my handsome daughter!'

Her laugh, as she retreated, was worse than her cry; worse than the
burst of imbecile lamentation in which it ended; worse than the doting
air with which she sat down in her old seat, and stared out at the
darkness.

The eyes of Alice had all this time been fixed on Harriet, whose hand
she had never released. She said now:

'I have felt, lying here, that I should like you to know this. It might
explain, I have thought, something that used to help to harden me. I had
heard so much, in my wrongdoing, of my neglected duty, that I took up
with the belief that duty had not been done to me, and that as the seed
was sown, the harvest grew. I somehow made it out that when ladies had
bad homes and mothers, they went wrong in their way, too; but that their
way was not so foul a one as mine, and they had need to bless God for
it. That is all past. It is like a dream, now, which I cannot quite
remember or understand. It has been more and more like a dream, every
day, since you began to sit here, and to read to me. I only tell it you,
as I can recollect it. Will you read to me a little more?'

Harriet was withdrawing her hand to open the book, when Alice detained
it for a moment.

'You will not forget my mother? I forgive her, if I have any cause.
I know that she forgives me, and is sorry in her heart. You will not
forget her?'

'Never, Alice!'

'A moment yet. Lay your head so, dear, that as you read I may see the
words in your kind face.'

Harriet complied and read--read the eternal book for all the weary, and
the heavy-laden; for all the wretched, fallen, and neglected of this
earth--read the blessed history, in which the blind lame palsied beggar,
the criminal, the woman stained with shame, the shunned of all our
dainty clay, has each a portion, that no human pride, indifference, or
sophistry, through all the ages that this world shall last, can take
away, or by the thousandth atom of a grain reduce--read the ministry of
Him who, through the round of human life, and all its hopes and griefs,
from birth to death, from infancy to age, had sweet compassion for, and
interest in, its every scene and stage, its every suffering and sorrow.

'I shall come,' said Harriet, when she shut the book, 'very early in the
morning.'

The lustrous eyes, yet fixed upon her face, closed for a moment, then
opened; and Alice kissed and blest her.

The same eyes followed her to the door; and in their light, and on the
tranquil face, there was a smile when it was closed.

They never turned away. She laid her hand upon her breast, murmuring the
sacred name that had been read to her; and life passed from her face,
like light removed.

Nothing lay there, any longer, but the ruin of the mortal house on which
the rain had beaten, and the black hair that had fluttered in the wintry
wind.

A year passes. Dombey refuses to scale back his business, and the firm goes bankrupt. Shortly thereafter, Harriet goes to visit Morfin at his home. He confirms the collapse of the Dombey firm and that Dombey has lost all of his own money as well. Morfin is surprised and a bit displeased that Harriet seems happy to hear this news. However, she goes on to explain that at the time of James Carker's death, since he died without a will, she and John inherited all of his wealth. They now wish to secretly give this money to Dombey, and ask Morfin to arrange it so that he will not know where it came from. After she leaves Morfin's house, Harriet continues on at a house where Mrs. Wickam is nursing Alice. While very ill, she has found peace and contentment in the care Harriet has given her. At Alice's request, Mrs. Brown reveals that Edith and Alice are cousins. Mrs. Brown's lover, the father of Alice, was the elder brother of Edith's father. Alice asks Harriet to continue to care for her mother. Harriet says she will, and promises to come back the next day; however, Alice dies peacefully shortly after she leaves

Despite the personal tragedies that befall him with the loss of both of his wives, his son, and his daughter, the loss that finally pushes Dombey to his breaking point is the loss of his business. Importantly, the firm goes bankrupt not simply because of Carker's mismanagement but because of Dombey's pride and stubbornness, and his refusal to make the appropriate adjustments to his business practices. The collapse of the firm creates a second scandal following the dissolution of his marriage and completes the collapse of the Dombey reputation. Just as he has feared, he is the subject of gossip and speculation, and many individuals are somewhat pleased to see him humbled. Moreover, even characters like Bagstock and Mrs. Chick make it clear that they don't know how to relate to Dombey in his new position, and he loses the few superficial relationships he possessed. Dombey's isolation and humiliation, however, are the forces that finally break down his pride and stubbornness, allowing him both to reflect on his life and, for the first time, to recognize his mistakes. Once everyone else abandons him, he can finally see the value of Florence's unconditional love and loyalty. Now that he is no longer obsessed with lineage and wealth, he can see the value of her not as a commodity but as an individual who has suffered so patiently. Because Dombey is reduced to a state of humility and vulnerability, he can open his heart, and meet Florence with open arms when she returns to the house. Florence's decision to go back to her father's house when she returns to England may seem unconvincing, since she has been treated so badly by him, and has finally succeeded in establishing a new life for herself. However, now that she has become a mother, she seems to have an even deeper craving for connection to her own family. The next generation, first with her son and then with her daughter, functions as a source of redemption and new beginning. Florence's reestablishment of family is completed in that she not only reconciles with her father but also has a chance to say a final farewell to Edith. Even before Edith explains that she is not actually guilty of adultery, Florence is willing to show compassion to her. Edith's insistence on Florence knowing the truth rather than believing that she had an affair with Carker reveals the stigma around this behavior. While Edith was willing to sacrifice her public reputation to free herself from her marriage, she could bear to have Florence think of her as a fallen woman. A parallel is established between Edith and Alice in that Alice also seems to have been morally redeemed by the time of her death. Harriet's virtue and compassion, much like that of Florence, allows her to end the novel at peace. In typical Victorian novel fashion, many of the characters marry at the novel's conclusion. Some of these marriages seem improbable and abrupt, and may represent a last-minute desire to reassert the value of the domestic world after a novel that has been deeply critical of marriage and the family. What finally provides redemption is Dombey's reform. He not only reorients himself to a totally different kind of life and the companionship of characters far outside of his typical social circle, he also deliberately seeks to correct his past mistakes. This is seen most explicitly in his interactions with his granddaughter. He showers her with the love he has previously denied to his own child. While the errors of the past can never be undone, the novel ends with the suggestion that change and reform are possible even for the most unlikely characters.


Changes have come again upon the great house in the long dull street,
once the scene of Florence's childhood and loneliness. It is a great
house still, proof against wind and weather, without breaches in the
roof, or shattered windows, or dilapidated walls; but it is a ruin none
the less, and the rats fly from it.

Mr Towlinson and company are, at first, incredulous in respect of the
shapeless rumours that they hear. Cook says our people's credit ain't so
easy shook as that comes to, thank God; and Mr Towlinson expects to hear
it reported next, that the Bank of England's a-going to break, or the
jewels in the Tower to be sold up. But, next come the Gazette, and Mr
Perch; and Mr Perch brings Mrs Perch to talk it over in the kitchen, and
to spend a pleasant evening.

As soon as there is no doubt about it, Mr Towlinson's main anxiety is
that the failure should be a good round one--not less than a hundred
thousand pound. Mr Perch don't think himself that a hundred thousand
pound will nearly cover it. The women, led by Mrs Perch and Cook, often
repeat 'a hun-dred thou-sand pound!' with awful satisfaction--as if
handling the words were like handling the money; and the housemaid, who
has her eye on Mr Towlinson, wishes she had only a hundredth part of the
sum to bestow on the man of her choice. Mr Towlinson, still mindful of
his old wrong, opines that a foreigner would hardly know what to do with
so much money, unless he spent it on his whiskers; which bitter sarcasm
causes the housemaid to withdraw in tears.

But not to remain long absent; for Cook, who has the reputation of being
extremely good-hearted, says, whatever they do, let 'em stand by one
another now, Towlinson, for there's no telling how soon they may be
divided. They have been in that house (says Cook) through a funeral, a
wedding, and a running-away; and let it not be said that they couldn't
agree among themselves at such a time as the present. Mrs Perch is
immensely affected by this moving address, and openly remarks that Cook
is an angel. Mr Towlinson replies to Cook, far be it from him to
stand in the way of that good feeling which he could wish to see; and
adjourning in quest of the housemaid, and presently returning with that
young lady on his arm, informs the kitchen that foreigners is only his
fun, and that him and Anne have now resolved to take one another
for better for worse, and to settle in Oxford Market in the general
greengrocery and herb and leech line, where your kind favours is
particular requested. This announcement is received with acclamation;
and Mrs Perch, projecting her soul into futurity, says, 'girls,' in
Cook's ear, in a solemn whisper.

Misfortune in the family without feasting, in these lower regions,
couldn't be. Therefore Cook tosses up a hot dish or two for supper,
and Mr Towlinson compounds a lobster salad to be devoted to the same
hospitable purpose. Even Mrs Pipchin, agitated by the occasion, rings
her bell, and sends down word that she requests to have that little bit
of sweetbread that was left, warmed up for her supper, and sent to her
on a tray with about a quarter of a tumbler-full of mulled sherry; for
she feels poorly.

There is a little talk about Mr Dombey, but very little. It is chiefly
speculation as to how long he has known that this was going to happen.
Cook says shrewdly, 'Oh a long time, bless you! Take your oath of that.'
And reference being made to Mr Perch, he confirms her view of the
case. Somebody wonders what he'll do, and whether he'll go out in any
situation. Mr Towlinson thinks not, and hints at a refuge in one of them
genteel almshouses of the better kind. 'Ah, where he'll have his little
garden, you know,' says Cook plaintively, 'and bring up sweet peas
in the spring.' 'Exactly so,' says Mr Towlinson, 'and be one of the
Brethren of something or another.' 'We are all brethren,' says Mrs
Perch, in a pause of her drink. 'Except the sisters,' says Mr Perch.
'How are the mighty fallen!' remarks Cook. 'Pride shall have a fall, and
it always was and will be so!' observes the housemaid.

It is wonderful how good they feel, in making these reflections; and
what a Christian unanimity they are sensible of, in bearing the common
shock with resignation. There is only one interruption to this excellent
state of mind, which is occasioned by a young kitchen-maid of inferior
rank--in black stockings--who, having sat with her mouth open for a long
time, unexpectedly discharges from it words to this effect, 'Suppose the
wages shouldn't be paid!' The company sit for a moment speechless; but
Cook recovering first, turns upon the young woman, and requests to
know how she dares insult the family, whose bread she eats, by such a
dishonest supposition, and whether she thinks that anybody, with a scrap
of honour left, could deprive poor servants of their pittance? 'Because
if that is your religious feelings, Mary Daws,' says Cook warmly, 'I
don't know where you mean to go to.'

Mr Towlinson don't know either; nor anybody; and the young kitchen-maid,
appearing not to know exactly, herself, and scouted by the general
voice, is covered with confusion, as with a garment.

After a few days, strange people begin to call at the house, and to
make appointments with one another in the dining-room, as if they lived
there. Especially, there is a gentleman, of a Mosaic Arabian cast
of countenance, with a very massive watch-guard, who whistles in the
drawing-room, and, while he is waiting for the other gentleman, who
always has pen and ink in his pocket, asks Mr Towlinson (by the easy
name of 'Old Cock,') if he happens to know what the figure of them
crimson and gold hangings might have been, when new bought. The callers
and appointments in the dining-room become more numerous every day, and
every gentleman seems to have pen and ink in his pocket, and to have
some occasion to use it. At last it is said that there is going to be
a Sale; and then more people arrive, with pen and ink in their pockets,
commanding a detachment of men with carpet caps, who immediately begin
to pull up the carpets, and knock the furniture about, and to print off
thousands of impressions of their shoes upon the hall and staircase.

The council downstairs are in full conclave all this time, and, having
nothing to do, perform perfect feats of eating. At length, they are one
day summoned in a body to Mrs Pipchin's room, and thus addressed by the
fair Peruvian:

'Your master's in difficulties,' says Mrs Pipchin, tartly. 'You know
that, I suppose?'

Mr Towlinson, as spokesman, admits a general knowledge of the fact.

'And you're all on the look-out for yourselves, I warrant you,' says Mrs
Pipchin, shaking her head at them.

A shrill voice from the rear exclaims, 'No more than yourself!'

'That's your opinion, Mrs Impudence, is it?' says the ireful Pipchin,
looking with a fiery eye over the intermediate heads.

'Yes, Mrs Pipchin, it is,' replies Cook, advancing. 'And what then,
pray?'

'Why, then you may go as soon as you like,' says Mrs Pipchin. 'The
sooner the better; and I hope I shall never see your face again.'

With this the doughty Pipchin produces a canvas bag; and tells her wages
out to that day, and a month beyond it; and clutches the money tight,
until a receipt for the same is duly signed, to the last upstroke; when
she grudgingly lets it go. This form of proceeding Mrs Pipchin repeats
with every member of the household, until all are paid.

'Now those that choose, can go about their business,' says Mrs Pipchin,
'and those that choose can stay here on board wages for a week or so,
and make themselves useful. Except,' says the inflammable Pipchin, 'that
slut of a cook, who'll go immediately.'

'That,' says Cook, 'she certainly will! I wish you good day, Mrs
Pipchin, and sincerely wish I could compliment you on the sweetness of
your appearance!'

'Get along with you,' says Mrs Pipchin, stamping her foot.

Cook sails off with an air of beneficent dignity, highly exasperating
to Mrs Pipchin, and is shortly joined below stairs by the rest of the
confederation.

Mr Towlinson then says that, in the first place, he would beg to propose
a little snack of something to eat; and over that snack would desire to
offer a suggestion which he thinks will meet the position in which
they find themselves. The refreshment being produced, and very heartily
partaken of, Mr Towlinson's suggestion is, in effect, that Cook is
going, and that if we are not true to ourselves, nobody will be true
to us. That they have lived in that house a long time, and exerted
themselves very much to be sociable together. (At this, Cook says, with
emotion, 'Hear, hear!' and Mrs Perch, who is there again, and full to
the throat, sheds tears.) And that he thinks, at the present time, the
feeling ought to be 'Go one, go all!' The housemaid is much affected by
this generous sentiment, and warmly seconds it. Cook says she feels it's
right, and only hopes it's not done as a compliment to her, but from a
sense of duty. Mr Towlinson replies, from a sense of duty; and that now
he is driven to express his opinions, he will openly say, that he does
not think it over-respectable to remain in a house where Sales and
such-like are carrying forwards. The housemaid is sure of it; and
relates, in confirmation, that a strange man, in a carpet cap, offered,
this very morning, to kiss her on the stairs. Hereupon, Mr Towlinson is
starting from his chair, to seek and 'smash' the offender; when he is
laid hold on by the ladies, who beseech him to calm himself, and
to reflect that it is easier and wiser to leave the scene of such
indecencies at once. Mrs Perch, presenting the case in a new light,
even shows that delicacy towards Mr Dombey, shut up in his own rooms,
imperatively demands precipitate retreat. 'For what,' says the good
woman, 'must his feelings be, if he was to come upon any of the poor
servants that he once deceived into thinking him immensely rich!' Cook
is so struck by this moral consideration, that Mrs Perch improves it
with several pious axioms, original and selected. It becomes a clear
case that they must all go. Boxes are packed, cabs fetched, and at dusk
that evening there is not one member of the party left.

The house stands, large and weather-proof, in the long dull street; but
it is a ruin, and the rats fly from it.

The men in the carpet caps go on tumbling the furniture about; and the
gentlemen with the pens and ink make out inventories of it, and sit upon
pieces of furniture never made to be sat upon, and eat bread and cheese
from the public-house on other pieces of furniture never made to be
eaten on, and seem to have a delight in appropriating precious articles
to strange uses. Chaotic combinations of furniture also take place.
Mattresses and bedding appear in the dining-room; the glass and china
get into the conservatory; the great dinner service is set out in heaps
on the long divan in the large drawing-room; and the stair-wires, made
into fasces, decorate the marble chimneypieces. Finally, a rug, with
a printed bill upon it, is hung out from the balcony; and a similar
appendage graces either side of the hall door.

Then, all day long, there is a retinue of mouldy gigs and chaise-carts
in the street; and herds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, over-run
the house, sounding the plate-glass mirrors with their knuckles, striking
discordant octaves on the Grand Piano, drawing wet forefingers over the
pictures, breathing on the blades of the best dinner-knives, punching
the squabs of chairs and sofas with their dirty fists, touzling the
feather beds, opening and shutting all the drawers, balancing the silver
spoons and forks, looking into the very threads of the drapery and
linen, and disparaging everything. There is not a secret place in the
whole house. Fluffy and snuffy strangers stare into the kitchen-range as
curiously as into the attic clothes-press. Stout men with napless hats
on, look out of the bedroom windows, and cut jokes with friends in the
street. Quiet, calculating spirits withdraw into the dressing-rooms with
catalogues, and make marginal notes thereon, with stumps of pencils. Two
brokers invade the very fire-escape, and take a panoramic survey of the
neighbourhood from the top of the house. The swarm and buzz, and going
up and down, endure for days. The Capital Modern Household Furniture,
&c., is on view.

Then there is a palisade of tables made in the best drawing-room; and
on the capital, french-polished, extending, telescopic range of Spanish
mahogany dining-tables with turned legs, the pulpit of the Auctioneer
is erected; and the herds of shabby vampires, Jew and Christian, the
strangers fluffy and snuffy, and the stout men with the napless hats,
congregate about it and sit upon everything within reach, mantel-pieces
included, and begin to bid. Hot, humming, and dusty are the rooms all
day; and--high above the heat, hum, and dust--the head and shoulders,
voice and hammer, of the Auctioneer, are ever at work. The men in the
carpet caps get flustered and vicious with tumbling the Lots about, and
still the Lots are going, going, gone; still coming on. Sometimes
there is joking and a general roar. This lasts all day and three days
following. The Capital Modern Household Furniture, &c., is on sale.

Then the mouldy gigs and chaise-carts reappear; and with them come
spring-vans and waggons, and an army of porters with knots. All day
long, the men with carpet caps are screwing at screw-drivers and
bed-winches, or staggering by the dozen together on the staircase under
heavy burdens, or upheaving perfect rocks of Spanish mahogany, best
rose-wood, or plate-glass, into the gigs and chaise-carts, vans and
waggons. All sorts of vehicles of burden are in attendance, from a
tilted waggon to a wheelbarrow. Poor Paul's little bedstead is carried
off in a donkey-tandem. For nearly a whole week, the Capital Modern
Household Furniture, & c., is in course of removal.

At last it is all gone. Nothing is left about the house but scattered
leaves of catalogues, littered scraps of straw and hay, and a battery of
pewter pots behind the hall-door. The men with the carpet-caps gather up
their screw-drivers and bed-winches into bags, shoulder them, and walk
off. One of the pen-and-ink gentlemen goes over the house as a last
attention; sticking up bills in the windows respecting the lease of
this desirable family mansion, and shutting the shutters. At length he
follows the men with the carpet caps. None of the invaders remain. The
house is a ruin, and the rats fly from it.

Mrs Pipchin's apartments, together with those locked rooms on the
ground-floor where the window-blinds are drawn down close, have been
spared the general devastation. Mrs Pipchin has remained austere and
stony during the proceedings, in her own room; or has occasionally
looked in at the sale to see what the goods are fetching, and to bid for
one particular easy chair. Mrs Pipchin has been the highest bidder for
the easy chair, and sits upon her property when Mrs Chick comes to see
her.

'How is my brother, Mrs Pipchin?' says Mrs Chick.

'I don't know any more than the deuce,' says Mrs Pipchin. 'He never does
me the honour to speak to me. He has his meat and drink put in the next
room to his own; and what he takes, he comes out and takes when there's
nobody there. It's no use asking me. I know no more about him than the
man in the south who burnt his mouth by eating cold plum porridge.'

This the acrimonious Pipchin says with a flounce.

'But good gracious me!' cries Mrs Chick blandly. 'How long is this to
last! If my brother will not make an effort, Mrs Pipchin, what is to
become of him? I am sure I should have thought he had seen enough of the
consequences of not making an effort, by this time, to be warned against
that fatal error.'

'Hoity toity!' says Mrs Pipchin, rubbing her nose. 'There's a great
fuss, I think, about it. It ain't so wonderful a case. People have had
misfortunes before now, and been obliged to part with their furniture.
I'm sure I have!'

'My brother,' pursues Mrs Chick profoundly, 'is so peculiar--so strange
a man. He is the most peculiar man I ever saw. Would anyone believe that
when he received news of the marriage and emigration of that unnatural
child--it's a comfort to me, now, to remember that I always said there
was something extraordinary about that child: but nobody minds me--would
anybody believe, I say, that he should then turn round upon me and say
he had supposed, from my manner, that she had come to my house? Why,
my gracious! And would anybody believe that when I merely say to him,
"Paul, I may be very foolish, and I have no doubt I am, but I cannot
understand how your affairs can have got into this state," he should
actually fly at me, and request that I will come to see him no more
until he asks me! Why, my goodness!'

'Ah!' says Mrs Pipchin. 'It's a pity he hadn't a little more to do with
mines. They'd have tried his temper for him.'

'And what,' resumes Mrs Chick, quite regardless of Mrs Pipchin's
observations, 'is it to end in? That's what I want to know. What does my
brother mean to do? He must do something. It's of no use remaining shut
up in his own rooms. Business won't come to him. No. He must go to it.
Then why don't he go? He knows where to go, I suppose, having been a man
of business all his life. Very good. Then why not go there?'

Mrs Chick, after forging this powerful chain of reasoning, remains
silent for a minute to admire it.

'Besides,' says the discreet lady, with an argumentative air, 'who ever
heard of such obstinacy as his staying shut up here through all these
dreadful disagreeables? It's not as if there was no place for him to go
to. Of course he could have come to our house. He knows he is at home
there, I suppose? Mr Chick has perfectly bored about it, and I said
with my own lips, "Why surely, Paul, you don't imagine that because your
affairs have got into this state, you are the less at home to such near
relatives as ourselves? You don't imagine that we are like the rest of
the world?" But no; here he stays all through, and here he is. Why, good
gracious me, suppose the house was to be let! What would he do then? He
couldn't remain here then. If he attempted to do so, there would be an
ejectment, an action for Doe, and all sorts of things; and then he must
go. Then why not go at first instead of at last? And that brings me back
to what I said just now, and I naturally ask what is to be the end of
it?'

'I know what's to be the end of it, as far as I am concerned,' replies
Mrs Pipchin, 'and that's enough for me. I'm going to take myself off in
a jiffy.'

'In a which, Mrs Pipchin,' says Mrs Chick.

'In a jiffy,' retorts Mrs Pipchin sharply.

'Ah, well! really I can't blame you, Mrs Pipchin,' says Mrs Chick, with
frankness.

'It would be pretty much the same to me, if you could,' replies the
sardonic Pipchin. 'At any rate I'm going. I can't stop here. I should
be dead in a week. I had to cook my own pork chop yesterday, and I'm not
used to it. My constitution will be giving way next. Besides, I had a
very fair connexion at Brighton when I came here--little Pankey's folks
alone were worth a good eighty pounds a-year to me--and I can't afford
to throw it away. I've written to my niece, and she expects me by this
time.'

'Have you spoken to my brother?' inquires Mrs Chick

'Oh, yes, it's very easy to say speak to him,' retorts Mrs Pipchin. 'How
is it done? I called out to him yesterday, that I was no use here, and
that he had better let me send for Mrs Richards. He grunted something
or other that meant yes, and I sent. Grunt indeed! If he had been Mr
Pipchin, he'd have had some reason to grunt. Yah! I've no patience with
it!'

Here this exemplary female, who has pumped up so much fortitude and
virtue from the depths of the Peruvian mines, rises from her cushioned
property to see Mrs Chick to the door. Mrs Chick, deploring to the
last the peculiar character of her brother, noiselessly retires, much
occupied with her own sagacity and clearness of head.

In the dusk of the evening Mr Toodle, being off duty, arrives with Polly
and a box, and leaves them, with a sounding kiss, in the hall of the
empty house, the retired character of which affects Mr Toodle's spirits
strongly.

'I tell you what, Polly, me dear,' says Mr Toodle, 'being now an
ingine-driver, and well to do in the world, I shouldn't allow of your
coming here, to be made dull-like, if it warn't for favours past.
But favours past, Polly, is never to be forgot. To them which is in
adversity, besides, your face is a cord'l. So let's have another kiss on
it, my dear. You wish no better than to do a right act, I know; and my
views is, that it's right and dutiful to do this. Good-night, Polly!'

Mrs Pipchin by this time looms dark in her black bombazeen skirts, black
bonnet, and shawl; and has her personal property packed up; and has her
chair (late a favourite chair of Mr Dombey's and the dead bargain of
the sale) ready near the street door; and is only waiting for a fly-van,
going to-night to Brighton on private service, which is to call for her,
by private contract, and convey her home.

Presently it comes. Mrs Pipchin's wardrobe being handed in and stowed
away, Mrs Pipchin's chair is next handed in, and placed in a convenient
corner among certain trusses of hay; it being the intention of the
amiable woman to occupy the chair during her journey. Mrs Pipchin
herself is next handed in, and grimly takes her seat. There is a snaky
gleam in her hard grey eye, as of anticipated rounds of buttered toast,
relays of hot chops, worryings and quellings of young children, sharp
snappings at poor Berry, and all the other delights of her Ogress's
castle. Mrs Pipchin almost laughs as the fly-van drives off, and she
composes her black bombazeen skirts, and settles herself among the
cushions of her easy chair.

The house is such a ruin that the rats have fled, and there is not one
left.

But Polly, though alone in the deserted mansion--for there is no
companionship in the shut-up rooms in which its late master hides his
head--is not alone long. It is night; and she is sitting at work in the
housekeeper's room, trying to forget what a lonely house it is, and what
a history belongs to it; when there is a knock at the hall door, as loud
sounding as any knock can be, striking into such an empty place. Opening
it, she returns across the echoing hall, accompanied by a female figure
in a close black bonnet. It is Miss Tox, and Miss Tox's eyes are red.

'Oh, Polly,' says Miss Tox, 'when I looked in to have a little lesson
with the children just now, I got the message that you left for me; and
as soon as I could recover my spirits at all, I came on after you. Is
there no one here but you?'

'Ah! not a soul,' says Polly.

'Have you seen him?' whispers Miss Tox.

'Bless you,' returns Polly, 'no; he has not been seen this many a day.
They tell me he never leaves his room.'

'Is he said to be ill?' inquires Miss Tox.

'No, Ma'am, not that I know of,' returns Polly, 'except in his mind. He
must be very bad there, poor gentleman!'

Miss Tox's sympathy is such that she can scarcely speak. She is no
chicken, but she has not grown tough with age and celibacy. Her heart is
very tender, her compassion very genuine, her homage very real. Beneath
the locket with the fishy eye in it, Miss Tox bears better qualities
than many a less whimsical outside; such qualities as will outlive, by
many courses of the sun, the best outsides and brightest husks that fall
in the harvest of the great reaper.

It is long before Miss Tox goes away, and before Polly, with a candle
flaring on the blank stairs, looks after her, for company, down the
street, and feels unwilling to go back into the dreary house, and jar
its emptiness with the heavy fastenings of the door, and glide away to
bed. But all this Polly does; and in the morning sets in one of those
darkened rooms such matters as she has been advised to prepare, and then
retires and enters them no more until next morning at the same hour.
There are bells there, but they never ring; and though she can sometimes
hear a footfall going to and fro, it never comes out.

Miss Tox returns early in the day. It then begins to be Miss Tox's
occupation to prepare little dainties--or what are such to her--to be
carried into these rooms next morning. She derives so much satisfaction
from the pursuit, that she enters on it regularly from that time; and
brings daily in her little basket, various choice condiments selected
from the scanty stores of the deceased owner of the powdered head and
pigtail. She likewise brings, in sheets of curl-paper, morsels of
cold meats, tongues of sheep, halves of fowls, for her own dinner; and
sharing these collations with Polly, passes the greater part of her time
in the ruined house that the rats have fled from: hiding, in a fright
at every sound, stealing in and out like a criminal; only desiring to be
true to the fallen object of her admiration, unknown to him, unknown to
all the world but one poor simple woman.

The Major knows it; but no one is the wiser for that, though the Major
is much the merrier. The Major, in a fit of curiosity, has charged
the Native to watch the house sometimes, and find out what becomes of
Dombey. The Native has reported Miss Tox's fidelity, and the Major has
nearly choked himself dead with laughter. He is permanently bluer from
that hour, and constantly wheezes to himself, his lobster eyes starting
out of his head, 'Damme, Sir, the woman's a born idiot!'

And the ruined man. How does he pass the hours, alone?

'Let him remember it in that room, years to come!' He did remember it.
It was heavy on his mind now; heavier than all the rest.

'Let him remember it in that room, years to come! The rain that
falls upon the roof, the wind that mourns outside the door, may have
foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. Let him remember it in that
room, years to come!'

He did remember it. In the miserable night he thought of it; in the
dreary day, the wretched dawn, the ghostly, memory-haunted twilight.
He did remember it. In agony, in sorrow, in remorse, in despair! 'Papa!
Papa! Speak to me, dear Papa!' He heard the words again, and saw
the face. He saw it fall upon the trembling hands, and heard the one
prolonged low cry go upward.

He was fallen, never to be raised up any more. For the night of his
worldly ruin there was no to-morrow's sun; for the stain of his domestic
shame there was no purification; nothing, thank Heaven, could bring his
dead child back to life. But that which he might have made so different
in all the Past--which might have made the Past itself so different,
though this he hardly thought of now--that which was his own work,
that which he could so easily have wrought into a blessing, and had set
himself so steadily for years to form into a curse: that was the sharp
grief of his soul.

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

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

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

In his pride--for he was proud yet--he let the world go from him freely.
As it fell away, he shook it off. Whether he imagined its face as
expressing pity for him, or indifference to him, he shunned it alike. It
was in the same degree to be avoided, in either aspect. He had no idea
of any one companion in his misery, but the one he had driven away. What
he would have said to her, or what consolation submitted to receive from
her, he never pictured to himself. But he always knew she would have
been true to him, if he had suffered her. He always knew she would have
loved him better now, than at any other time; he was as certain that it
was in her nature, as he was that there was a sky above him; and he sat
thinking so, in his loneliness, from hour to hour. Day after day uttered
this speech; night after night showed him this knowledge.

It began, beyond all doubt (however slow it advanced for some time), in
the receipt of her young husband's letter, and the certainty that she
was gone. And yet--so proud he was in his ruin, or so reminiscent of
her only as something that might have been his, but was lost beyond
redemption--that if he could have heard her voice in an adjoining room,
he would not have gone to her. If he could have seen her in the street,
and she had done no more than look at him as she had been used to look,
he would have passed on with his old cold unforgiving face, and not
addressed her, or relaxed it, though his heart should have broken soon
afterwards. However turbulent his thoughts, or harsh his anger had been,
at first, concerning her marriage, or her husband, that was all past
now. He chiefly thought of what might have been, and what was not. What
was, was all summed up in this: that she was lost, and he bowed down
with sorrow and remorse.

And now he felt that he had had two children born to him in that house,
and that between him and the bare wide empty walls there was a tie,
mournful, but hard to rend asunder, connected with a double childhood,
and a double loss. He had thought to leave the house--knowing he must
go, not knowing whither--upon the evening of the day on which this
feeling first struck root in his breast; but he resolved to stay another
night, and in the night to ramble through the rooms once more.

He came out of his solitude when it was the dead of night, and with
a candle in his hand went softly up the stairs. Of all the footmarks
there, making them as common as the common street, there was not one, he
thought, but had seemed at the time to set itself upon his brain while
he had kept close, listening. He looked at their number, and their
hurry, and contention--foot treading foot out, and upward track and
downward jostling one another--and thought, with absolute dread and
wonder, how much he must have suffered during that trial, and what
a changed man he had cause to be. He thought, besides, oh was there,
somewhere in the world, a light footstep that might have worn out in a
moment half those marks!--and bent his head, and wept as he went up.

He almost saw it, going on before. He stopped, looking up towards the
skylight; and a figure, childish itself, but carrying a child, and
singing as it went, seemed to be there again. Anon, it was the same
figure, alone, stopping for an instant, with suspended breath; the
bright hair clustering loosely round its tearful face; and looking back
at him.

He wandered through the rooms: lately so luxurious; now so bare and
dismal and so changed, apparently, even in their shape and size. The
press of footsteps was as thick here; and the same consideration of the
suffering he had had, perplexed and terrified him. He began to fear
that all this intricacy in his brain would drive him mad; and that his
thoughts already lost coherence as the footprints did, and were pieced
on to one another, with the same trackless involutions, and varieties of
indistinct shapes.

He did not so much as know in which of these rooms she had lived, when
she was alone. He was glad to leave them, and go wandering higher up.
Abundance of associations were here, connected with his false wife, his
false friend and servant, his false grounds of pride; but he put
them all by now, and only recalled miserably, weakly, fondly, his two
children.

Everywhere, the footsteps! They had had no respect for the old room high
up, where the little bed had been; he could hardly find a clear space
there, to throw himself down, on the floor, against the wall, poor
broken man, and let his tears flow as they would. He had shed so many
tears here, long ago, that he was less ashamed of his weakness in this
place than in any other--perhaps, with that consciousness, had made
excuses to himself for coming here. Here, with stooping shoulders, and
his chin dropped on his breast, he had come. Here, thrown upon the bare
boards, in the dead of night, he wept, alone--a proud man, even then;
who, if a kind hand could have been stretched out, or a kind face could
have looked in, would have risen up, and turned away, and gone down to
his cell.

When the day broke he was shut up in his rooms again. He had meant to
go away to-day, but clung to this tie in the house as the last and only
thing left to him. He would go to-morrow. To-morrow came. He would go
to-morrow. Every night, within the knowledge of no human creature, he
came forth, and wandered through the despoiled house like a ghost. Many
a morning when the day broke, his altered face, drooping behind the
closed blind in his window, imperfectly transparent to the light as yet,
pondered on the loss of his two children. It was one child no more. He
reunited them in his thoughts, and they were never asunder. Oh, that he
could have united them in his past love, and in death, and that one had
not been so much worse than dead!

Strong mental agitation and disturbance was no novelty to him, even
before his late sufferings. It never is, to obstinate and sullen
natures; for they struggle hard to be such. Ground, long undermined,
will often fall down in a moment; what was undermined here in so many
ways, weakened, and crumbled, little by little, more and more, as the
hand moved on the dial.

At last he began to think he need not go at all. He might yet give up
what his creditors had spared him (that they had not spared him more,
was his own act), and only sever the tie between him and the ruined
house, by severing that other link--

It was then that his footfall was audible in the late housekeeper's
room, as he walked to and fro; but not audible in its true meaning, or
it would have had an appalling sound.

The world was very busy and restless about him. He became aware of that
again. It was whispering and babbling. It was never quiet. This, and
the intricacy and complication of the footsteps, harassed him to death.
Objects began to take a bleared and russet colour in his eyes. Dombey
and Son was no more--his children no more. This must be thought of,
well, to-morrow.

He thought of it to-morrow; and sitting thinking in his chair, saw in
the glass, from time to time, this picture:

A spectral, haggard, wasted likeness of himself, brooded and brooded
over the empty fireplace. Now it lifted up its head, examining the lines
and hollows in its face; now hung it down again, and brooded afresh. Now
it rose and walked about; now passed into the next room, and came
back with something from the dressing-table in its breast. Now, it was
looking at the bottom of the door, and thinking.

--Hush! what?

It was thinking that if blood were to trickle that way, and to leak out
into the hall, it must be a long time going so far. It would move so
stealthily and slowly, creeping on, with here a lazy little pool, and
there a start, and then another little pool, that a desperately wounded
man could only be discovered through its means, either dead or dying.
When it had thought of this a long while, it got up again, and walked to
and fro with its hand in its breast. He glanced at it occasionally, very
curious to watch its motions, and he marked how wicked and murderous that
hand looked.

Now it was thinking again! What was it thinking?

Whether they would tread in the blood when it crept so far, and carry
it about the house among those many prints of feet, or even out into the
street.

It sat down, with its eyes upon the empty fireplace, and as it lost
itself in thought there shone into the room a gleam of light; a ray of
sun. It was quite unmindful, and sat thinking. Suddenly it rose, with
a terrible face, and that guilty hand grasping what was in its breast.
Then it was arrested by a cry--a wild, loud, piercing, loving, rapturous
cry--and he only saw his own reflection in the glass, and at his knees,
his daughter!

Yes. His daughter! Look at her! Look here! Down upon the ground,
clinging to him, calling to him, folding her hands, praying to him.

'Papa! Dearest Papa! Pardon me, forgive me! I have come back to ask
forgiveness on my knees. I never can be happy more, without it!'

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

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

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

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

'Papa, love, I am a mother. I have a child who will soon call Walter by
the name by which I call you. When it was born, and when I knew how
much I loved it, I knew what I had done in leaving you. Forgive me, dear
Papa! oh say God bless me, and my little child!'

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

'My little child was born at sea, Papa I prayed to God (and so did
Walter for me) to spare me, that I might come home. The moment I could
land, I came back to you. Never let us be parted any more, Papa. Never
let us be parted any more!'

His head, now grey, was encircled by her arm; and he groaned to think
that never, never, had it rested so before.

'You will come home with me, Papa, and see my baby. A boy, Papa. His
name is Paul. I think--I hope--he's like--'

Her tears stopped her.

'Dear Papa, for the sake of my child, for the sake of the name we have
given him, for my sake, pardon Walter. He is so kind and tender to me. I
am so happy with him. It was not his fault that we were married. It was
mine. I loved him so much.'

She clung closer to him, more endearing and more earnest.

'He is the darling of my heart, Papa I would die for him. He will love
and honour you as I will. We will teach our little child to love and
honour you; and we will tell him, when he can understand, that you had
a son of that name once, and that he died, and you were very sorry; but
that he is gone to Heaven, where we all hope to see him when our
time for resting comes. Kiss me, Papa, as a promise that you will be
reconciled to Walter--to my dearest husband--to the father of the little
child who taught me to come back, Papa Who taught me to come back!'

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

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

He dressed himself for going out, with a docile submission to her
entreaty; and walking with a feeble gait, and looking back, with a
tremble, at the room in which he had been so long shut up, and where he
had seen the picture in the glass, passed out with her into the hall.
Florence, hardly glancing round her, lest she should remind him freshly
of their last parting--for their feet were on the very stones where he
had struck her in his madness--and keeping close to him, with her eyes
upon his face, and his arm about her, led him out to a coach that was
waiting at the door, and carried him away.

Then, Miss Tox and Polly came out of their concealment, and exulted
tearfully. And then they packed his clothes, and books, and so forth,
with great care; and consigned them in due course to certain persons
sent by Florence, in the evening, to fetch them. And then they took a
last cup of tea in the lonely house.

'And so Dombey and Son, as I observed upon a certain sad occasion,' said
Miss Tox, winding up a host of recollections, 'is indeed a daughter,
Polly, after all.'

'And a good one!' exclaimed Polly.

'You are right,' said Miss Tox; 'and it's a credit to you, Polly, that
you were always her friend when she was a little child. You were her
friend long before I was, Polly,' said Miss Tox; 'and you're a good
creature. Robin!'

Miss Tox addressed herself to a bullet-headed young man, who appeared to
be in but indifferent circumstances, and in depressed spirits, and who
was sitting in a remote corner. Rising, he disclosed to view the form
and features of the Grinder.

'Robin,' said Miss Tox, 'I have just observed to your mother, as you may
have heard, that she is a good creature.'

'And so she is, Miss,' quoth the Grinder, with some feeling.

'Very well, Robin,' said Miss Tox, 'I am glad to hear you say so. Now,
Robin, as I am going to give you a trial, at your urgent request, as my
domestic, with a view to your restoration to respectability, I will take
this impressive occasion of remarking that I hope you will never forget
that you have, and have always had, a good mother, and that you will
endeavour so to conduct yourself as to be a comfort to her.'

'Upon my soul I will, Miss,' returned the Grinder. 'I have come through
a good deal, and my intentions is now as straightfor'ard, Miss, as a
cove's--'

'I must get you to break yourself of that word, Robin, if you please,'
interposed Miss Tox, politely.

'If you please, Miss, as a chap's--'

'Thankee, Robin, no,' returned Miss Tox, 'I should prefer individual.'

'As a indiwiddle's--,' said the Grinder.

'Much better,' remarked Miss Tox, complacently; 'infinitely more
expressive!'

'--can be,' pursued Rob. 'If I hadn't been and got made a Grinder on,
Miss and Mother, which was a most unfortunate circumstance for a young
co--indiwiddle--'

'Very good indeed,' observed Miss Tox, approvingly.

'--and if I hadn't been led away by birds, and then fallen into a bad
service,' said the Grinder, 'I hope I might have done better. But it's
never too late for a--'

'Indi--' suggested Miss Tox.

'--widdle,' said the Grinder, 'to mend; and I hope to mend, Miss, with
your kind trial; and wishing, Mother, my love to father, and brothers
and sisters, and saying of it.'

'I am very glad indeed to hear it,' observed Miss Tox. 'Will you take a
little bread and butter, and a cup of tea, before we go, Robin?'

'Thankee, Miss,' returned the Grinder; who immediately began to use his
own personal grinders in a most remarkable manner, as if he had been on
very short allowance for a considerable period.

Miss Tox, being, in good time, bonneted and shawled, and Polly too, Rob
hugged his mother, and followed his new mistress away; so much to the
hopeful admiration of Polly, that something in her eyes made luminous
rings round the gas-lamps as she looked after him. Polly then put out
her light, locked the house-door, delivered the key at an agent's hard
by, and went home as fast as she could go; rejoicing in the shrill
delight that her unexpected arrival would occasion there. The great
house, dumb as to all that had been suffered in it, and the changes it
had witnessed, stood frowning like a dark mute on the street; baulking
any nearer inquiries with the staring announcement that the lease of
this desirable Family Mansion was to be disposed of.

Dombey's servants speculate as to what the impact of the bankruptcy will be. Furniture and valuables are sold from the house. As the house empties out, Mrs. Chick goes to visit Mrs. Pipchin to see how her brother is doing. Mrs. Chick has been cut off from her brother since questioning how he got into such a disastrous financial state. Mrs. Pipchin is planning to leave the house and has contacted Polly Toodle to serve as replacement housekeeper. Polly arrives the next day, accompanied by her husband, and Mrs. Pipchin promptly leaves. The next evening while Polly is sitting alone, Miss Tox arrives, having heard from the Toodle household that she has taken up the position. Saddened to hear of Dombey's isolation, Miss Tox begins visiting the house regularly to try to provide assistance. Bagstock, whose servant has been entrusted to spy on the house, is astonished that Tox clings to her devotion to Mr. Dombey. Dombey, meanwhile, has come to realize how badly he has mistreated Florence, and how faithfully she has loved him. He considers moving away, but cannot bear to leave the house associated with memories of his children. He is in such despair that he contemplates killing himself, and then one day is surprised by a visit from Florence. She has come to beg his forgiveness, having returned from her voyage with Walter and now a young son, whom she has named Paul. As she begs him to forgive both her and Walter, Dombey exclaims that he is the one who needs to be forgiven. Dombey and Florence leave the house together, while Miss Tox and Polly pack up the last remaining possessions. Miss Tox also decides to employ Rob, who is determined to reform his behavior, as a servant. The house is left empty, and put up for rent