Dombey and Son

‘Why yes, yes – some of our lost ships, freighted with gold, have come home, truly,’ returns old Sol, laughing. ‘Small craft, Mr Toots, but serviceable to my boy!’

‘Exactly so,’ says Mr Toots. ‘You’ll never find my wife wrong. “Here he is,” says that most remarkable woman, “so situated, – and what follows? What follows?” observed Mrs Toots. Now pray remark, Captain Gills, and Mr Sols, the depth of my wife’s penetration. “Why that, under the very eye of Mr Dombey, there is a foundation going on, upon which a – an Edifice;” that was Mrs Toots’s word,’ says Mr Toots exultingly, “‘is gradually rising, perhaps to equal, perhaps excel, that of which he was once the head, and the small beginnings of which (a common fault, but a bad one, Mrs Toots said) escaped his memory. Thus,” said my wife, “from his daughter, after all, another Dombey and Son will ascend” – no “rise;” that was Mrs Toots’s word – “triumphant!”’

Mr Toots, with the assistance of his pipe – which he is extremely glad to devote to oratorical purposes, as its proper use affects him with a very uncomfortable sensation – does such grand justice to this prophetic sentence of his wife’s, that the Captain, throwing away his glazed hat in a state of the greatest excitement, cries:

‘Sol Gills, you man of science and my ould pardner, what did I tell Wal’r to overhaul on that there night when he first took to business? Was it this here quotation, “Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are old you will never depart from it.” Was it them words, Sol Gills?’

‘It certainly was, Ned,’ replied the old Instrument-maker. ‘I remember well.’

‘Then I tell you what,’ says the Captain, leaning back in his chair, and composing his chest for a prodigious roar. ‘I’ll give you Lovely Peg right through; and stand by, both on you, for the chorus!’

Buried wine grows older, as the old Madeira did, in its time; and dust and cobwebs thicken on the bottles.

Autumn days are shining, and on the sea-beach there are often a young lady, and a white-haired gentleman. With them, or near them, are two children: boy and girl. And an old dog is generally in their company.

The white-haired gentleman walks with the little boy, talks with him, helps him in his play, attends upon him, watches him as if he were the object of his life. If he be thoughtful, the white-haired gentleman is thoughtful too; and sometimes when the child is sitting by his side, and looks up in his face, asking him questions, he takes the tiny hand in his, and holding it, forgets to answer. Then the child says:

‘What, grandpa! Am I so like my poor little Uncle again?’

‘Yes, Paul. But he was weak, and you are very strong.’

‘Oh yes, I am very strong.’

‘And he lay on a little bed beside the sea, and you can run about.’

And so they range away again, busily, for the white-haired gentleman likes best to see the child free and stirring; and as they go about together, the story of the bond between them goes about, and follows them.

But no one, except Florence, knows the measure of the white-haired gentleman’s affection for the girl. That story never goes about. The child herself almost wonders at a certain secrecy he keeps in it. He hoards her in his heart. He cannot bear to see a cloud upon her face. He cannot bear to see her sit apart. He fancies that she feels a slight, when there is none. He steals away to look at her, in her sleep. It pleases him to have her come, and wake him in the morning. He is fondest of her and most loving to her, when there is no creature by. The child says then, sometimes:

‘Dear grandpapa, why do you cry when you kiss me?’

He only answers, ‘Little Florence! little Florence!’ and smooths away the curls that shade her earnest eyes.

The voices in the waves speak low to him of Florence, day and night – plainest when he, his blooming daughter, and her husband, beside them in the evening, or sit at an open window, listening to their roar. They speak to him of Florence and his altered heart; of Florence and their ceaseless murmuring to her of the love, eternal and illimitable, extending still, beyond the sea, beyond the sky, to the invisible country far away.

Never from the mighty sea may voices rise too late, to come between us and the unseen region on the other shore! Better, far better, that they whispered of that region in our childish ears, and the swift river hurried us away!