The children of Dickens

IN London there is a portion of the huge town that is called the City. People do not live in the City—they do business there. That is where the big banks are and the offices of the great merchants whose ships go round the world. In the City the Lord Mayor of London rules, as he did in the days when the gay apprentice, Dick Whittington, heard the bells prophesying what he should be.

On one of the streets of the City was a building that had an ancient sign, Dombey and Son. It had been there many years, since the time when the original Dombey had taken his son into partnership. The Dombeys owned a great many ships that sailed to the West Indies and the East Indies, and wherever they could make money on their voyages. Up to this time, each Dombey had been a good business man and had taught his son how to save and how to venture wisely. So that the Dombeys had become richer and richer. All had gone well with them; but there had come a time when there was a Dombey who hadn’t any son. Mr. and Mrs. Dombey had a daughter named Florence, who was a very nice little girl. Her mother loved her dearly, but her father thought she didn’t amount to much, because he couldn’t put on the sign on his office the words, “Dombey and Daughter.” That wouldn’t have sounded right in the days of good Queen Victoria. He wanted the name to be always Dombey and Son.

When at last a boy was born, Mr. Dombey was delighted. He dreamed of a time when little Paul would grow up to be a man just like himself, and would take his place in the office and make everybody afraid of him. He should be the Prince while his father was King in the Kingdom of Dombey and Son. All this was very pleasant to think about, and it seemed as if the business in the City would go on forever. But while Mr. Dombey dreamed of what his son would do when he was grown up, he didn’t do anything to help him grow. Paul was a poor little rich boy, who lived in a big, uncomfortable house, and was sent to school with other poor little rich boys. I’m sorry for little Paul, but I don’t care to read about him very much.

It’s a relief to meet the people who didn’t have any money, for they seem so much more cheerful than any of the Dombeys. There was Toodles, the husband of little Paul’s nurse. Mr. Dombey wanted to find out all about him.

“Mr. What’s-your-name, you have a son, I believe.”

“Four on ’em, sir. Four hims and a her. All alive.”

“Why, it’s as much as you can afford to keep them!” said Mr. Dombey.

“I couldn’t afford but one thing in the world less, sir.”

“What is that?”

“To lose ’em, sir.”

“Can you read?” asked Mr. Dombey.

“Why, not partik’ler, sir.”

“Write?”

“With chalk, sir?”

“With anything.”

“I could make shift to chalk a bit, I think, if I were put to it,” said Toodles after some reflection.

“And yet,” said Mr. Dombey, “you are two or three-and-thirty, I suppose.”

“Thereabouts, I suppose, sir,” answered Toodles after more reflection.

“Then why don’t you learn?” asked Mr. Dombey.

“So I’m agoing to, sir. One of my little boys is agoing to learn me when he’s old enough, and been to school himself.”

“Well!” said Mr. Dombey. It was all that he could say. It all seemed so foolish. It would have surprised Mr. Dombey if he had been told that Mr. Toodles’s children were more fortunate than his own, and that they were having a great deal better time. But that was what Dickens thought, and I agree with him.

Little Paul was so carefully looked after that he had no adventures. But his sister Florence had better luck. One of her adventures was quite exciting, for she was lost in one of the worst parts of London, and was rescued by a young gentleman who felt the romance of it. At the time Paul was a baby, and Mrs. Toodles had a longing to see her own children. So without asking permission she took Paul and Florence with her. They found their way to the poor part of town where her family lived, and all the little Toodleses greeted their mother with shouts, and there was a great celebration. On going home they fell in with a noisy and pushing crowd. Mrs. Toodles of course looked after little Paul, who was very important, but she forgot Florence for a moment. When she looked for her she wasn’t there. What followed let Dickens tell.

HOW FLORENCE DOMBEY WAS LOST IN LONDON

AS Susan Nipper and the two children were in the crowd, there came a wild cry of “Mad bull!” With a wild confusion before her, of people running up and down, and shouting, and wheels running over them, and boys fighting, and mad bulls coming up, and the nurse in the midst of all these dangers being torn to pieces, Florence screamed and ran. She ran till she was exhausted, urging Susan to do the same; and then, stopping and wringing her hands as she remembered they had left the other nurse behind, found, with a sensation of terror not to be described, that she was quite alone.

“Susan! Susan!” cried Florence, clapping her hands in the very ecstasy of her alarm. “Oh, where are they! where are they!”

“Where are they?” said an old woman, coming hobbling across as fast as she could from the opposite side of the way. “Why did you run away from ’em?”

“I was frightened,” answered Florence. “I didn’t know what I did. I thought they were with me. Where are they?”

The old woman took her by the wrist, and said: “I’ll show you.”

She was a very ugly old woman, with red rims round her eyes, and a mouth that mumbled and chattered of itself when she was not speaking. She was miserably dressed, and carried some skins over her arm. She seemed to have followed Florence some little way at all events, for she had lost her breath; and this made her uglier still, as she stood trying to regain it: working her shrivelled, yellow face and throat into all sorts of contortions.

Florence was afraid of her, and looked, hesitating, up the street, of which she had almost reached the bottom. It was a solitary place—more a back road than a street—and there was no one in it but herself and the old woman.

“You needn’t be frightened now,” said the old woman, still holding her tight. “Come along with me.”

“I—I don’t know you. What’s your name?” asked Florence.

“Mrs. Brown,” said the old woman. “Good Mrs. Brown.”

“Are they near here?” asked Florence, beginning to be led away.

“Susan an’t far off,” said Good Mrs. Brown; “and the others are close to her.”

“Is anybody hurt?” cried Florence.

“Not a bit of it,” said Good Mrs. Brown.

The child shed tears of delight on hearing this, and accompanied the old woman willingly; though she could not help glancing at her face as they went along—particularly at that industrious mouth—and wondering whether Bad Mrs. Brown, if there were such a person, was at all like her.

They had not gone very far, but had gone by some very uncomfortable places, such as brick-fields and tile-yards, when the old woman turned down a dirty lane, where the mud lay in deep black ruts in the middle of the road. She stopped before a shabby little house, as closely shut up as a house that was full of cracks and crevices could be. Opening the door with a key she took out of her bonnet, she pushed the child before her into a back room, where there was a great heap of rags of different colors lying on the floor; a heap of bones, and a heap of sifted dust or cinders; but there was no furniture at all, and the walls and ceiling were quite black.

The child became so terrified that she was stricken speechless, and looked as though about to swoon.

“Now don’t be a young mule,” said Good Mrs. Brown, reviving her with a shake. “I’m not a going to hurt you. Sit upon the rags.”

Florence obeyed her, holding out her folded hands, in mute supplication.

“I’m not a going to keep you, even, above an hour,” said Mrs. Brown. “D’ye understand what I say?”

The child answered with great difficulty, “Yes.”

“Then,” said Good Mrs. Brown, taking her own seat on the bones, “don’t vex me. If you don’t, I tell you I won’t hurt you. But if you do, I’ll kill you. I could have you killed at any time—even if you was in your own bed at home. Now let’s know who you are, and what you are, and all about it.”

The old woman’s threats and promises; the dread of giving her offense; and the habit, unusual to a child, but almost natural to Florence now, of being quiet, and repressing what she felt, and feared, and hoped, enabled her to do this bidding, and to tell her little history, or what she knew of it. Mrs. Brown listened attentively, until she had finished.

“So your name’s Dombey, eh?” said Mrs. Brown.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I want that pretty frock, Miss Dombey,” said Good Mrs. Brown, “and that little bonnet, and a petticoat or two, and anything else you can spare. Come! Take ’em off.”

Florence obeyed, as fast as her trembling hands would allow; keeping, all the while, a frightened eye on Mrs. Brown. When she had divested herself of all the articles of apparel mentioned by that lady, Mrs. B. examined them at leisure, and seemed tolerably well satisfied with their quality and value.

“Humph!” she said, running her eyes over the child’s slight figure. “I don’t see anything else—except the shoes. I must have the shoes, Miss Dombey.”

Poor little Florence took them off with equal alacrity, only too glad to have any more means of conciliation about her. The old woman then produced some wretched substitutes from the bottom of the heap of rags, which she turned up for that purpose; together with a girl’s cloak, quite worn out and very old; and the crushed remains of a bonnet that had probably been picked up from some ditch or dunghill. In this dainty raiment, she instructed Florence to dress herself; and as such preparation seemed a prelude to her release, the child complied with increased readiness, if possible.

In hurriedly putting on the bonnet, if that may be called a bonnet which was more like a pad to carry loads on, she caught it in her hair which grew luxuriantly, and could not immediately disentangle it. Good Mrs. Brown whipped out a large pair of scissors, and fell into an unaccountable state of excitement.

“Why couldn’t you let me be!” said Mrs. Brown “when I was contented. You little fool!”

“I beg your pardon. I don’t know what I have done,” panted Florence. “I couldn’t help it.”

“Couldn’t help it!” cried Mrs. Brown. “How do you expect I can help it? Why, Lord!” said the old woman, ruffling her curls with a furious pleasure, “anybody but me would have had ’em off, first of all.”

Florence was so relieved to find that it was only her hair and not her head which Mrs. Brown coveted, that she offered no resistance or entreaty, and merely raised her mild eyes toward the face of that good soul.

“If I hadn’t once had a gal of my own—beyond seas now—that was proud of her hair,” said Mrs. Brown, “I’d have had every lock of it. She’s far away, she’s far away! Oho! Oho!”

Mrs. Brown’s was not a melodious cry, but, accompanied with a wild tossing up of her lean arms, it was full of passionate grief, and thrilled to the heart of Florence, whom it frightened more than ever. It had its part, perhaps, in saving her curls; for Mrs. Brown, after hovering about her with the scissors for some moments, like a new kind of butterfly, bade her hide them under the bonnet and let no trace of them escape to tempt her. Having accomplished this victory over herself, Mrs. Brown resumed her seat on the bones, and smoked a very short black pipe, moving and mumbling all the time, as if she were eating the stem.

When the pipe was smoked out, she gave the child a rabbit-skin to carry, that she might appear the more like her ordinary companion, and told her that she was now going to lead her to a public street, whence she could inquire her way to her friends. But she cautioned her, with threats of summary and deadly vengeance in case of disobedience, not to talk to strangers, nor to repair to her own home (which may have been too near for Mrs. Brown’s convenience), but to her father’s office in the City; also to wait at the street corner where she would be left, until the clock struck three. These directions Mrs. Brown enforced with assurances that there would be potent eyes and ears in her employment cognizant of all she did; and these directions Florence promised faithfully and earnestly to observe.

At length, Mrs. Brown, issuing forth, conducted her changed and ragged little friend through a labyrinth of narrow streets and lanes and alleys, which emerged, after a long time, upon a stable-yard, with a gateway at the end, whence the roar of a great thoroughfare made itself audible. Pointing out this gateway, and informing Florence that when the clocks struck three she was to go to the left, Mrs. Brown, after making a parting grasp at her hair which seemed involuntary and quite beyond her own control, told her she knew what to do, and bade her go and do it: remembering that she was watched.

With a lighter heart, but still sore afraid, Florence felt herself released, and tripped off to the corner. When she reached it, she looked back and saw the head of Good Mrs. Brown peeping out of the low wooden passage, where she had issued her parting injunctions; likewise the fist of Good Mrs. Brown shaking toward her. But though she often looked back afterward—every minute, at least, in her nervous recollection of the old woman—she could not see her again.

Florence remained there, looking at the bustle in the street, and more and more bewildered by it; and in the meanwhile the clocks appeared to have made up their minds never to strike three any more. At last the steeples rang out three o’clock; there was one close by, so she couldn’t be mistaken; and—after often looking over her shoulder, and often going a little way, and as often coming back again, lest the all-powerful spies of Mrs. Brown should take offense—she hurried off, as fast as she could in her slipshod shoes, holding the rabbit-skin tight in her hand.

All she knew of her father’s offices was that they belonged to Dombey and Son, and that that was a great power belonging to the City. So she could only ask the way to Dombey and Son’s in the City; and as she generally made inquiry of children—being afraid to ask grown people—she got very little satisfaction indeed. But by dint of asking her way to the City after a while, and dropping the rest of her inquiry for the present, she really did advance, by slow degrees, toward the heart of that great region which is governed by the terrible Lord Mayor.

Tired of walking, repulsed and pushed about, stunned by the noise and confusion, anxious for her brother and the nurses, terrified by what she had undergone, and the prospect of encountering her angry father in such an altered state; perplexed and frightened alike by what had passed, and what was passing, and what was yet before her, Florence went upon her weary way with tearful eyes, and once or twice could not help stopping to ease her bursting heart by crying bitterly. But few people noticed her at those times, in the garb she wore; or if they did, believed that she was tutored to excite compassion, and passed on. Florence, too, called to her aid all the firmness and self-reliance of a character that her sad experience had prematurely formed and tried; and keeping the end she had in view steadily before her, steadily pursued it.

It was full two hours later in the afternoon than when she had started on this strange adventure, when, escaping from the clash and clangor of a narrow street full of carts and wagons, she peeped into a kind of wharf or landing-place upon the riverside, where there were a great many packages, casks, and boxes strewn about; a large pair of wooden scales; and a little wooden house on wheels, outside of which, looking at the neighboring masts and boats, a stout man stood whistling, with his pen behind his ear, and his hands in his pockets, as if his day’s work were nearly done.

“Now then!” said this man, happening to turn round. “We haven’t got anything for you, little girl. Be off!”

“If you please, is this the City?” asked the trembling daughter of the Dombeys.

“Ah! it’s the City. You know that well enough, I dare say. Be off! We haven’t got anything for you.”

“I don’t want anything, thank you,” was the timid answer. “Except to know the way to Dombey and Son’s.”

The man who had been strolling carelessly toward her, seemed surprised by this reply, and looking attentively in her face, rejoined:

“Why, what can you want with Dombey and Son’s?”

“To know the way there, if you please.”

The man looked at her yet more curiously, and rubbed the back of his head so hard in his wonderment that he knocked his own hat off.

“Joe!” he called to another man—a laborer—as he picked it up and put it on again.

“Joe it is!” said Joe.

“Where’s that young spark of Dombey’s who’s been watching the shipment of them goods?”

“Just gone, by the t’other gate,” said Joe.

“Call him back a minute.”

Joe ran up an archway, bawling as he went, and very soon returned with a blithe-looking boy.

“You’re Dombey’s jockey, an’t you?” said the first man.

“I’m in Dombey’s House, Mr. Clark,” returned the boy.

“Look ye here, then,” said Mr. Clark.

Obedient to the indication of Mr. Clark’s hand, the boy approached toward Florence, wondering, as well he might, what he had to do with her. But she, who had heard what passed, and who, besides the relief of so suddenly considering herself safe at her journey’s end, felt reassured beyond all measure by his lively youthful face and manner, ran eagerly up to him, leaving one of the slipshod shoes upon the ground and caught his hand in both of hers.

“I am lost, if you please!” said Florence.

“Lost!” cried the boy.

“Yes, I was lost this morning, a long way from here—and I have had my clothes taken away, since—and I am not dressed in my own now—and my name is Florence Dombey, my little brother’s only sister—and, oh dear, dear, take care of me, if you please!” sobbed Florence, giving full vent to the childish feelings she had so long suppressed, and bursting into tears. At the same time her miserable bonnet falling off, her hair came tumbling down about her face: moving to speechless admiration and commiseration, young Walter, nephew of Solomon Gills, ships’ instrument-maker in general.

Mr. Clark stood rapt in amazement: observing under his breath, I never saw such a start on this wharf before. Walter picked up the shoe, and put it on the little foot as the Prince in the story might have fitted Cinderella’s slipper on. He hung the rabbit-skin over his left arm; gave the right to Florence; and felt, not to say like Richard Whittington—that is a tame comparison—but like Saint George of England, with the dragon lying dead before him.

“Don’t cry, Miss Dombey,” said Walter, in a transport of enthusiasm. “What a wonderful thing for me that I am here. You are as safe now as if you were guarded by a whole boat’s crew of picked men from a man-of-war. Oh, don’t cry.”

“I won’t cry any more,” said Florence. “I am only crying for joy.”

“Crying for joy!” thought Walter, “and I’m the cause of it! Come along, Miss Dombey. There’s the other shoe off now! Take mine, Miss Dombey.”

“No, no, no,” said Florence, checking him in the act of impetuously pulling off his own. “These do better. These do very well.”

“Why, to be sure,” said Walter, glancing at her foot, “mine are a mile too large. What am I thinking about! You never could walk in mine! Come along, Miss Dombey. Let me see the villain who will dare molest you now.”

So Walter, looking immensely fierce, led off Florence, looking very happy; and they went arm in arm along the streets, perfectly indifferent to any astonishment that their appearance might or did excite by the way.

Then, though it was growing dark and foggy, Florence was perfectly happy, and Walter felt that he was a knight escorting a princess to her father’s castle.

PAUL DOMBEY AT BRIGHTON

LITTLE Paul Dombey was only six and very small for his age, when his father sent him to a boarding-school at Brighton. The head master’s name was Blimber, and he prided himself on giving information to his pupils at all times. Here is a scene at the dinner table.

Doctor Blimber was already in his place in the dining-room, at the top of the table, with Miss Blimber and Mrs. Blimber on either side of him. Mr. Feeder in a black coat was at the bottom. Paul’s chair was next to Miss Blimber; but it being found, when he sat in it, that his eyebrows were not much above the level of the table-cloth, some books were brought in from the Doctor’s study, on which he was elevated, and on which he always sat from that time—carrying them in and out himself on after occasions, like a little elephant and castle.

Grace having been said by the Doctor, dinner began. There was some nice soup; also roast meat, boiled meat, vegetables, pie, and cheese. Every young gentleman had a massive silver fork, and a napkin; and all the arrangements were stately and handsome. In particular, there was a butler in a blue coat and bright buttons, who gave quite a winey flavor to the table beer; he poured it out so superbly.

Nobody spoke, unless spoken to, except Doctor Blimber, Mrs. Blimber, and Miss Blimber, who conversed occasionally. Whenever a young gentleman was not actually engaged with his knife and fork or spoon, his eye, with an irresistible attraction, sought the eye of Doctor Blimber, Mrs. Blimber, or Miss Blimber, and modestly rested there. Toots appeared to be the only exception to this rule. He sat next Mr. Feeder on Paul’s side of the table, and frequently looked behind and before the intervening boys to catch a glimpse of Paul.

Only once during dinner was there any conversation that included the young gentlemen. It happened at the epoch of the cheese, when the Doctor, having taken a glass of port wine and hemmed twice or thrice, said:

“It is remarkable, Mr. Feeder, that the Romans——”

At the mention of this terrible people, their implacable enemies, every young gentleman fastened his gaze upon the Doctor, with an assumption of the deepest interest. One of the number who happened to be drinking, and who caught the Doctor’s eye glaring at him through the side of his tumbler, left off so hastily that he was convulsed for some moments, and in the sequel ruined Doctor Blimber’s point.

“It is remarkable, Mr. Feeder,” said the Doctor, beginning again slowly, “that the Romans, in those gorgeous and profuse entertainments of which we read in the days of the Emperors, when luxury had attained a height unknown before or since, and when whole provinces were ravaged to supply the splendid means of one Imperial Banquet——”

Here the offender, who had been swelling and straining, and waiting in vain for a full stop, broke out violently.

“Johnson,” said Mr. Feeder, in a low, reproachful voice, “take some water.”

The Doctor, looking very stern, made a pause until the water was brought, and then resumed:

“And when, Mr. Feeder——”

But Mr. Feeder, who saw that Johnson must break out again, and who knew that the Doctor would never come to a period before the young gentlemen until he had finished all he meant to say, couldn’t keep his eye off Johnson; and thus was caught in the act of not looking at the Doctor, who consequently stopped.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mr. Feeder, reddening. “I beg your pardon, Doctor Blimber.”

“And when,” said the Doctor, raising his voice, “when, sir, as we read, and have no reason to doubt—incredible as it may appear to the vulgar of our time—the brother of Vitellius prepared for him a feast, in which were served, of fish, two thousand dishes——”

“Take some water, Johnson—dishes, sir,” said Mr. Feeder.

“Of various sorts of fowl, five thousand dishes.”

“Or try a crust of bread,” said Mr. Feeder.

“And one dish,” pursued Doctor Blimber, raising his voice still higher as he looked all round the table, “called, from its enormous dimensions, the Shield of Minerva, and made, among other costly ingredients, of the brains of pheasants——”

“Ow, ow, ow!” (from Johnson).

“Woodcocks,——”

“Ow, ow, ow!”

“The sounds of the fish called scari,——”

“You’ll burst some vessel in your head,” said Mr. Feeder. “You had better let it come.”

“And the spawn of the lamprey, brought from the Carpathian Sea,” pursued the Doctor, in his severest voice; “when we read of costly entertainments such as these, and still remember, that we have a Titus,——”

“What would be your mother’s feelings if you died of apoplexy!” said Mr. Feeder.

“A Domitian,——”

“And you’re blue, you know,” said Mr. Feeder.

“A Nero, a Tiberius, a Caligula, a Heliogabalus, and many more,” pursued the Doctor; “it is, Mr. Feeder—if you are doing me the honor to attend—remarkable; VERY remarkable, sir——”

But Johnson, unable to suppress it any longer, burst at that moment into such an overwhelming fit of coughing, that, although both his immediate neighbors thumped him on the back, and Mr. Feeder himself held a glass of water to his lips, and the butler walked him up and down several times between his own chair and the sideboard, like a sentry, it was full five minutes before he was moderately composed. Then there was a profound silence.

“Gentlemen,” said Doctor Blimber, “rise for grace! Cornelia, lift Dombey down”—nothing of whom but his scalp was accordingly seen above the table-cloth. “Johnson will repeat to me to-morrow morning before breakfast, without book, and from the Greek Testament, the first Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians. We will resume our studies, Mr. Feeder, in half-an-hour.”

No wonder that poor little Paul looked forward longingly to the happy Saturdays, for then Florence always came at noon, and they had long walks on the great beach, and watched the waves come in. Then Paul forgot about Doctor Blimber and Nero, and Tiberius and the rest, and only knew how much he loved his sister.