<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER 20. Mr Dombey goes upon a Journey </h2>
<p>'Mr Dombey, Sir,' said Major Bagstock, 'Joee' B. is not in general a man
of sentiment, for Joseph is tough. But Joe has his feelings, Sir, and when
they are awakened—Damme, Mr Dombey,' cried the Major with sudden
ferocity, 'this is weakness, and I won't submit to it!'</p>
<p>Major Bagstock delivered himself of these expressions on receiving Mr
Dombey as his guest at the head of his own staircase in Princess's Place.
Mr Dombey had come to breakfast with the Major, previous to their setting
forth on their trip; and the ill-starved Native had already undergone a
world of misery arising out of the muffins, while, in connexion with the
general question of boiled eggs, life was a burden to him.</p>
<p>'It is not for an old soldier of the Bagstock breed,' observed the Major,
relapsing into a mild state, 'to deliver himself up, a prey to his own
emotions; but—damme, Sir,' cried the Major, in another spasm of
ferocity, 'I condole with you!'</p>
<p>The Major's purple visage deepened in its hue, and the Major's lobster
eyes stood out in bolder relief, as he shook Mr Dombey by the hand,
imparting to that peaceful action as defiant a character as if it had been
the prelude to his immediately boxing Mr Dombey for a thousand pounds a
side and the championship of England. With a rotatory motion of his head,
and a wheeze very like the cough of a horse, the Major then conducted his
visitor to the sitting-room, and there welcomed him (having now composed
his feelings) with the freedom and frankness of a travelling companion.</p>
<p>'Dombey,' said the Major, 'I'm glad to see you. I'm proud to see you.
There are not many men in Europe to whom J. Bagstock would say that—for
Josh is blunt. Sir: it's his nature—but Joey B. is proud to see you,
Dombey.'</p>
<p>'Major,' returned Mr Dombey, 'you are very obliging.'</p>
<p>'No, Sir,' said the Major, 'Devil a bit! That's not my character. If that
had been Joe's character, Joe might have been, by this time, Lieutenant-
General Sir Joseph Bagstock, K.C.B., and might have received you in very
different quarters. You don't know old Joe yet, I find. But this occasion,
being special, is a source of pride to me. By the Lord, Sir,' said the
Major resolutely, 'it's an honour to me!'</p>
<p>Mr Dombey, in his estimation of himself and his money, felt that this was
very true, and therefore did not dispute the point. But the instinctive
recognition of such a truth by the Major, and his plain avowal of it, were
very able. It was a confirmation to Mr Dombey, if he had required any, of
his not being mistaken in the Major. It was an assurance to him that his
power extended beyond his own immediate sphere; and that the Major, as an
officer and a gentleman, had a no less becoming sense of it, than the
beadle of the Royal Exchange.</p>
<p>And if it were ever consolatory to know this, or the like of this, it was
consolatory then, when the impotence of his will, the instability of his
hopes, the feebleness of wealth, had been so direfully impressed upon him.
What could it do, his boy had asked him. Sometimes, thinking of the baby
question, he could hardly forbear inquiring, himself, what could it do
indeed: what had it done?</p>
<p>But these were lonely thoughts, bred late at night in the sullen
despondency and gloom of his retirement, and pride easily found its
reassurance in many testimonies to the truth, as unimpeachable and
precious as the Major's. Mr Dombey, in his friendlessness, inclined to the
Major. It cannot be said that he warmed towards him, but he thawed a
little, The Major had had some part—and not too much—in the
days by the seaside. He was a man of the world, and knew some great
people. He talked much, and told stories; and Mr Dombey was disposed to
regard him as a choice spirit who shone in society, and who had not that
poisonous ingredient of poverty with which choice spirits in general are
too much adulterated. His station was undeniable. Altogether the Major was
a creditable companion, well accustomed to a life of leisure, and to such
places as that they were about to visit, and having an air of gentlemanly
ease about him that mixed well enough with his own City character, and did
not compete with it at all. If Mr Dombey had any lingering idea that the
Major, as a man accustomed, in the way of his calling, to make light of
the ruthless hand that had lately crushed his hopes, might unconsciously
impart some useful philosophy to him, and scare away his weak regrets, he
hid it from himself, and left it lying at the bottom of his pride,
unexamined.</p>
<p>'Where is my scoundrel?' said the Major, looking wrathfully round the
room.</p>
<p>The Native, who had no particular name, but answered to any vituperative
epithet, presented himself instantly at the door and ventured to come no
nearer.</p>
<p>'You villain!' said the choleric Major, 'where's the breakfast?'</p>
<p>The dark servant disappeared in search of it, and was quickly heard
reascending the stairs in such a tremulous state, that the plates and
dishes on the tray he carried, trembling sympathetically as he came,
rattled again, all the way up.</p>
<p>'Dombey,' said the Major, glancing at the Native as he arranged the table,
and encouraging him with an awful shake of his fist when he upset a spoon,
'here is a devilled grill, a savoury pie, a dish of kidneys, and so forth.
Pray sit down. Old Joe can give you nothing but camp fare, you see.</p>
<p>'Very excellent fare, Major,' replied his guest; and not in mere
politeness either; for the Major always took the best possible care of
himself, and indeed ate rather more of rich meats than was good for him,
insomuch that his Imperial complexion was mainly referred by the faculty
to that circumstance.</p>
<p>'You have been looking over the way, Sir,' observed the Major. 'Have you
seen our friend?'</p>
<p>'You mean Miss Tox,' retorted Mr Dombey. 'No.'</p>
<p>'Charming woman, Sir,' said the Major, with a fat laugh rising in his
short throat, and nearly suffocating him.</p>
<p>'Miss Tox is a very good sort of person, I believe,' replied Mr Dombey.</p>
<p>The haughty coldness of the reply seemed to afford Major Bagstock infinite
delight. He swelled and swelled, exceedingly: and even laid down his knife
and fork for a moment, to rub his hands.</p>
<p>'Old Joe, Sir,' said the Major, 'was a bit of a favourite in that quarter
once. But Joe has had his day. J. Bagstock is extinguished—outrivalled—
floored, Sir.'</p>
<p>'I should have supposed,' Mr Dombey replied, 'that the lady's day for
favourites was over: but perhaps you are jesting, Major.'</p>
<p>'Perhaps you are jesting, Dombey?' was the Major's rejoinder.</p>
<p>There never was a more unlikely possibility. It was so clearly expressed
in Mr Dombey's face, that the Major apologised.</p>
<p>'I beg your pardon,' he said. 'I see you are in earnest. I tell you what,
Dombey.' The Major paused in his eating, and looked mysteriously
indignant. 'That's a de-vilish ambitious woman, Sir.'</p>
<p>Mr Dombey said 'Indeed?' with frigid indifference: mingled perhaps with
some contemptuous incredulity as to Miss Tox having the presumption to
harbour such a superior quality.</p>
<p>'That woman, Sir,' said the Major, 'is, in her way, a Lucifer. Joey B. has
had his day, Sir, but he keeps his eyes. He sees, does Joe. His Royal
Highness the late Duke of York observed of Joey, at a levee, that he saw.'</p>
<p>The Major accompanied this with such a look, and, between eating,
drinking, hot tea, devilled grill, muffins, and meaning, was altogether so
swollen and inflamed about the head, that even Mr Dombey showed some
anxiety for him.</p>
<p>'That ridiculous old spectacle, Sir,' pursued the Major, 'aspires. She
aspires sky-high, Sir. Matrimonially, Dombey.'</p>
<p>'I am sorry for her,' said Mr Dombey.</p>
<p>'Don't say that, Dombey,' returned the Major in a warning voice.</p>
<p>'Why should I not, Major?' said Mr Dombey.</p>
<p>The Major gave no answer but the horse's cough, and went on eating
vigorously.</p>
<p>'She has taken an interest in your household,' said the Major, stopping
short again, 'and has been a frequent visitor at your house for some time
now.'</p>
<p>'Yes,' replied Mr Dombey with great stateliness, 'Miss Tox was originally
received there, at the time of Mrs Dombey's death, as a friend of my
sister's; and being a well-behaved person, and showing a liking for the
poor infant, she was permitted—may I say encouraged—to repeat
her visits with my sister, and gradually to occupy a kind of footing of
familiarity in the family. I have,' said Mr Dombey, in the tone of a man
who was making a great and valuable concession, 'I have a respect for Miss
Tox. She his been so obliging as to render many little services in my
house: trifling and insignificant services perhaps, Major, but not to be
disparaged on that account: and I hope I have had the good fortune to be
enabled to acknowledge them by such attention and notice as it has been in
my power to bestow. I hold myself indebted to Miss Tox, Major,' added Mr
Dombey, with a slight wave of his hand, 'for the pleasure of your
acquaintance.'</p>
<p>'Dombey,' said the Major, warmly: 'no! No, Sir! Joseph Bagstock can never
permit that assertion to pass uncontradicted. Your knowledge of old Joe,
Sir, such as he is, and old Joe's knowledge of you, Sir, had its origin in
a noble fellow, Sir—in a great creature, Sir. Dombey!' said the
Major, with a struggle which it was not very difficult to parade, his
whole life being a struggle against all kinds of apoplectic symptoms, 'we
knew each other through your boy.'</p>
<p>Mr Dombey seemed touched, as it is not improbable the Major designed he
should be, by this allusion. He looked down and sighed: and the Major,
rousing himself fiercely, again said, in reference to the state of mind
into which he felt himself in danger of falling, that this was weakness,
and nothing should induce him to submit to it.</p>
<p>'Our friend had a remote connexion with that event,' said the Major, 'and
all the credit that belongs to her, J. B. is willing to give her, Sir.
Notwithstanding which, Ma'am,' he added, raising his eyes from his plate,
and casting them across Princess's Place, to where Miss Tox was at that
moment visible at her window watering her flowers, 'you're a scheming
jade, Ma'am, and your ambition is a piece of monstrous impudence. If it
only made yourself ridiculous, Ma'am,' said the Major, rolling his head at
the unconscious Miss Tox, while his starting eyes appeared to make a leap
towards her, 'you might do that to your heart's content, Ma'am, without
any objection, I assure you, on the part of Bagstock.' Here the Major
laughed frightfully up in the tips of his ears and in the veins of his
head. 'But when, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'you compromise other people, and
generous, unsuspicious people too, as a repayment for their condescension,
you stir the blood of old Joe in his body.'</p>
<p>'Major,' said Mr Dombey, reddening, 'I hope you do not hint at anything so
absurd on the part of Miss Tox as—'</p>
<p>'Dombey,' returned the Major, 'I hint at nothing. But Joey B. has lived in
the world, Sir: lived in the world with his eyes open, Sir, and his ears
cocked: and Joe tells you, Dombey, that there's a devilish artful and
ambitious woman over the way.'</p>
<p>Mr Dombey involuntarily glanced over the way; and an angry glance he sent
in that direction, too.</p>
<p>'That's all on such a subject that shall pass the lips of Joseph
Bagstock,' said the Major firmly. 'Joe is not a tale-bearer, but there are
times when he must speak, when he will speak!—confound your arts,
Ma'am,' cried the Major, again apostrophising his fair neighbour, with
great ire,—'when the provocation is too strong to admit of his
remaining silent.'</p>
<p>The emotion of this outbreak threw the Major into a paroxysm of horse's
coughs, which held him for a long time. On recovering he added:</p>
<p>'And now, Dombey, as you have invited Joe—old Joe, who has no other
merit, Sir, but that he is tough and hearty—to be your guest and
guide at Leamington, command him in any way you please, and he is wholly
yours. I don't know, Sir,' said the Major, wagging his double chin with a
jocose air, 'what it is you people see in Joe to make you hold him in such
great request, all of you; but this I know, Sir, that if he wasn't pretty
tough, and obstinate in his refusals, you'd kill him among you with your
invitations and so forth, in double-quick time.'</p>
<p>Mr Dombey, in a few words, expressed his sense of the preference he
received over those other distinguished members of society who were
clamouring for the possession of Major Bagstock. But the Major cut him
short by giving him to understand that he followed his own inclinations,
and that they had risen up in a body and said with one accord, 'J. B.,
Dombey is the man for you to choose as a friend.'</p>
<p>The Major being by this time in a state of repletion, with essence of
savoury pie oozing out at the corners of his eyes, and devilled grill and
kidneys tightening his cravat: and the time moreover approaching for the
departure of the railway train to Birmingham, by which they were to leave
town: the Native got him into his great-coat with immense difficulty, and
buttoned him up until his face looked staring and gasping, over the top of
that garment, as if he were in a barrel. The Native then handed him
separately, and with a decent interval between each supply, his
washleather gloves, his thick stick, and his hat; which latter article the
Major wore with a rakish air on one side of his head, by way of toning
down his remarkable visage. The Native had previously packed, in all
possible and impossible parts of Mr Dombey's chariot, which was in
waiting, an unusual quantity of carpet-bags and small portmanteaus, no
less apoplectic in appearance than the Major himself: and having filled
his own pockets with Seltzer water, East India sherry, sandwiches, shawls,
telescopes, maps, and newspapers, any or all of which light baggage the
Major might require at any instant of the journey, he announced that
everything was ready. To complete the equipment of this unfortunate
foreigner (currently believed to be a prince in his own country), when he
took his seat in the rumble by the side of Mr Towlinson, a pile of the
Major's cloaks and great-coats was hurled upon him by the landlord, who
aimed at him from the pavement with those great missiles like a Titan, and
so covered him up, that he proceeded, in a living tomb, to the railroad
station.</p>
<p>But before the carriage moved away, and while the Native was in the act of
sepulture, Miss Tox appearing at her window, waved a lilywhite
handkerchief. Mr Dombey received this parting salutation very coldly—very
coldly even for him—and honouring her with the slightest possible
inclination of his head, leaned back in the carriage with a very
discontented look. His marked behaviour seemed to afford the Major (who
was all politeness in his recognition of Miss Tox) unbounded satisfaction;
and he sat for a long time afterwards, leering, and choking, like an
over-fed Mephistopheles.</p>
<p>During the bustle of preparation at the railway, Mr Dombey and the Major
walked up and down the platform side by side; the former taciturn and
gloomy, and the latter entertaining him, or entertaining himself, with a
variety of anecdotes and reminiscences, in most of which Joe Bagstock was
the principal performer. Neither of the two observed that in the course of
these walks, they attracted the attention of a working man who was
standing near the engine, and who touched his hat every time they passed;
for Mr Dombey habitually looked over the vulgar herd, not at them; and the
Major was looking, at the time, into the core of one of his stories. At
length, however, this man stepped before them as they turned round, and
pulling his hat off, and keeping it off, ducked his head to Mr Dombey.</p>
<p>'Beg your pardon, Sir,' said the man, 'but I hope you're a doin' pretty
well, Sir.'</p>
<p>He was dressed in a canvas suit abundantly besmeared with coal-dust and
oil, and had cinders in his whiskers, and a smell of half-slaked ashes all
over him. He was not a bad-looking fellow, nor even what could be fairly
called a dirty-looking fellow, in spite of this; and, in short, he was Mr
Toodle, professionally clothed.</p>
<p>'I shall have the honour of stokin' of you down, Sir,' said Mr Toodle.
'Beg your pardon, Sir.—I hope you find yourself a coming round?'</p>
<p>Mr Dombey looked at him, in return for his tone of interest, as if a man
like that would make his very eyesight dirty.</p>
<p>''Scuse the liberty, Sir,' said Toodle, seeing he was not clearly
remembered, 'but my wife Polly, as was called Richards in your family—'</p>
<p>A change in Mr Dombey's face, which seemed to express recollection of him,
and so it did, but it expressed in a much stronger degree an angry sense
of humiliation, stopped Mr Toodle short.</p>
<p>'Your wife wants money, I suppose,' said Mr Dombey, putting his hand in
his pocket, and speaking (but that he always did) haughtily.</p>
<p>'No thank'ee, Sir,' returned Toodle, 'I can't say she does. I don't.'</p>
<p>Mr Dombey was stopped short now in his turn: and awkwardly: with his hand
in his pocket.</p>
<p>'No, Sir,' said Toodle, turning his oilskin cap round and round; 'we're a
doin' pretty well, Sir; we haven't no cause to complain in the worldly
way, Sir. We've had four more since then, Sir, but we rubs on.'</p>
<p>Mr Dombey would have rubbed on to his own carriage, though in so doing he
had rubbed the stoker underneath the wheels; but his attention was
arrested by something in connexion with the cap still going slowly round
and round in the man's hand.</p>
<p>'We lost one babby,' observed Toodle, 'there's no denyin'.'</p>
<p>'Lately,' added Mr Dombey, looking at the cap.</p>
<p>'No, Sir, up'ard of three years ago, but all the rest is hearty. And in
the matter o readin', Sir,' said Toodle, ducking again, as if to remind Mr
Dombey of what had passed between them on that subject long ago, 'them
boys o' mine, they learned me, among 'em, arter all. They've made a wery
tolerable scholar of me, Sir, them boys.'</p>
<p>'Come, Major!' said Mr Dombey.</p>
<p>'Beg your pardon, Sir,' resumed Toodle, taking a step before them and
deferentially stopping them again, still cap in hand: 'I wouldn't have
troubled you with such a pint except as a way of gettin' in the name of my
son Biler—christened Robin—him as you was so good as to make a
Charitable Grinder on.'</p>
<p>'Well, man,' said Mr Dombey in his severest manner. 'What about him?'</p>
<p>'Why, Sir,' returned Toodle, shaking his head with a face of great anxiety
and distress, 'I'm forced to say, Sir, that he's gone wrong.</p>
<p>'He has gone wrong, has he?' said Mr Dombey, with a hard kind of
satisfaction.</p>
<p>'He has fell into bad company, you see, genelmen,' pursued the father,
looking wistfully at both, and evidently taking the Major into the
conversation with the hope of having his sympathy. 'He has got into bad
ways. God send he may come to again, genelmen, but he's on the wrong track
now! You could hardly be off hearing of it somehow, Sir,' said Toodle,
again addressing Mr Dombey individually; 'and it's better I should out and
say my boy's gone rather wrong. Polly's dreadful down about it, genelmen,'
said Toodle with the same dejected look, and another appeal to the Major.</p>
<p>'A son of this man's whom I caused to be educated, Major,' said Mr Dombey,
giving him his arm. 'The usual return!'</p>
<p>'Take advice from plain old Joe, and never educate that sort of people,
Sir,' returned the Major. 'Damme, Sir, it never does! It always fails!'</p>
<p>The simple father was beginning to submit that he hoped his son, the
quondam Grinder, huffed and cuffed, and flogged and badged, and taught, as
parrots are, by a brute jobbed into his place of schoolmaster with as much
fitness for it as a hound, might not have been educated on quite a right
plan in some undiscovered respect, when Mr Dombey angrily repeating 'The
usual return!' led the Major away. And the Major being heavy to hoist into
Mr Dombey's carriage, elevated in mid-air, and having to stop and swear
that he would flay the Native alive, and break every bone in his skin, and
visit other physical torments upon him, every time he couldn't get his
foot on the step, and fell back on that dark exile, had barely time before
they started to repeat hoarsely that it would never do: that it always
failed: and that if he were to educate 'his own vagabond,' he would
certainly be hanged.</p>
<p>Mr Dombey assented bitterly; but there was something more in his
bitterness, and in his moody way of falling back in the carriage, and
looking with knitted brows at the changing objects without, than the
failure of that noble educational system administered by the Grinders'
Company. He had seen upon the man's rough cap a piece of new crape, and he
had assured himself, from his manner and his answers, that he wore it for
his son.</p>
<p>Sol from high to low, at home or abroad, from Florence in his great house
to the coarse churl who was feeding the fire then smoking before them,
everyone set up some claim or other to a share in his dead boy, and was a
bidder against him! Could he ever forget how that woman had wept over his
pillow, and called him her own child! or how he, waking from his sleep,
had asked for her, and had raised himself in his bed and brightened when
she came in!</p>
<p>To think of this presumptuous raker among coals and ashes going on before
there, with his sign of mourning! To think that he dared to enter, even by
a common show like that, into the trial and disappointment of a proud
gentleman's secret heart! To think that this lost child, who was to have
divided with him his riches, and his projects, and his power, and allied
with whom he was to have shut out all the world as with a double door of
gold, should have let in such a herd to insult him with their knowledge of
his defeated hopes, and their boasts of claiming community of feeling with
himself, so far removed: if not of having crept into the place wherein he
would have lorded it, alone!</p>
<p>He found no pleasure or relief in the journey. Tortured by these thoughts
he carried monotony with him, through the rushing landscape, and hurried
headlong, not through a rich and varied country, but a wilderness of
blighted plans and gnawing jealousies. The very speed at which the train
was whirled along, mocked the swift course of the young life that had been
borne away so steadily and so inexorably to its foredoomed end. The power
that forced itself upon its iron way—its own—defiant of all
paths and roads, piercing through the heart of every obstacle, and
dragging living creatures of all classes, ages, and degrees behind it, was
a type of the triumphant monster, Death.</p>
<p>Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, from the town, burrowing
among the dwellings of men and making the streets hum, flashing out into
the meadows for a moment, mining in through the damp earth, booming on in
darkness and heavy air, bursting out again into the sunny day so bright
and wide; away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, through the
fields, through the woods, through the corn, through the hay, through the
chalk, through the mould, through the clay, through the rock, among
objects close at hand and almost in the grasp, ever flying from the
traveller, and a deceitful distance ever moving slowly within him: like as
in the track of the remorseless monster, Death!</p>
<p>Through the hollow, on the height, by the heath, by the orchard, by the
park, by the garden, over the canal, across the river, where the sheep are
feeding, where the mill is going, where the barge is floating, where the
dead are lying, where the factory is smoking, where the stream is running,
where the village clusters, where the great cathedral rises, where the
bleak moor lies, and the wild breeze smooths or ruffles it at its
inconstant will; away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, and no
trace to leave behind but dust and vapour: like as in the track of the
remorseless monster, Death!</p>
<p>Breasting the wind and light, the shower and sunshine, away, and still
away, it rolls and roars, fierce and rapid, smooth and certain, and great
works and massive bridges crossing up above, fall like a beam of shadow an
inch broad, upon the eye, and then are lost. Away, and still away, onward
and onward ever: glimpses of cottage-homes, of houses, mansions, rich
estates, of husbandry and handicraft, of people, of old roads and paths
that look deserted, small, and insignificant as they are left behind: and
so they do, and what else is there but such glimpses, in the track of the
indomitable monster, Death!</p>
<p>Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, plunging down into the
earth again, and working on in such a storm of energy and perseverance,
that amidst the darkness and whirlwind the motion seems reversed, and to
tend furiously backward, until a ray of light upon the Wet wall shows its
surface flying past like a fierce stream, Away once more into the day, and
through the day, with a shrill yell of exultation, roaring, rattling,
tearing on, spurning everything with its dark breath, sometimes pausing
for a minute where a crowd of faces are, that in a minute more are not;
sometimes lapping water greedily, and before the spout at which it drinks'
has ceased to drip upon the ground, shrieking, roaring, rattling through
the purple distance!</p>
<p>Louder and louder yet, it shrieks and cries as it comes tearing on
resistless to the goal: and now its way, still like the way of Death, is
strewn with ashes thickly. Everything around is blackened. There are dark
pools of water, muddy lanes, and miserable habitations far below. There
are jagged walls and falling houses close at hand, and through the
battered roofs and broken windows, wretched rooms are seen, where 'want
and fever hide themselves in many wretched shapes, while smoke and crowded
gables, and distorted chimneys, and deformity of brick and mortar penning
up deformity of mind and body, choke the murky distance. As Mr Dombey
looks out of his carriage window, it is never in his thoughts that the
monster who has brought him there has let the light of day in on these
things: not made or caused them. It was the journey's fitting end, and
might have been the end of everything; it was so ruinous and dreary.'</p>
<p>So, pursuing the one course of thought, he had the one relentless monster
still before him. All things looked black, and cold, and deadly upon him,
and he on them. He found a likeness to his misfortune everywhere. There
was a remorseless triumph going on about him, and it galled and stung him
in his pride and jealousy, whatever form it took: though most of all when
it divided with him the love and memory of his lost boy.</p>
<p>There was a face—he had looked upon it, on the previous night, and
it on him with eyes that read his soul, though they were dim with tears,
and hidden soon behind two quivering hands—that often had attended
him in fancy, on this ride. He had seen it, with the expression of last
night, timidly pleading to him. It was not reproachful, but there was
something of doubt, almost of hopeful incredulity in it, which, as he once
more saw that fade away into a desolate certainty of his dislike, was like
reproach. It was a trouble to him to think of this face of Florence.</p>
<p>Because he felt any new compunction towards it? No. Because the feeling it
awakened in him—of which he had had some old foreshadowing in older
times- -was full-formed now, and spoke out plainly, moving him too much,
and threatening to grow too strong for his composure. Because the face was
abroad, in the expression of defeat and persecution that seemed to
encircle him like the air. Because it barbed the arrow of that cruel and
remorseless enemy on which his thoughts so ran, and put into its grasp a
double-handed sword. Because he knew full well, in his own breast, as he
stood there, tinging the scene of transition before him with the morbid
colours of his own mind, and making it a ruin and a picture of decay,
instead of hopeful change, and promise of better things, that life had
quite as much to do with his complainings as death. One child was gone,
and one child left. Why was the object of his hope removed instead of her?</p>
<p>The sweet, calm, gentle presence in his fancy, moved him to no reflection
but that. She had been unwelcome to him from the first; she was an
aggravation of his bitterness now. If his son had been his only child, and
the same blow had fallen on him, it would have been heavy to bear; but
infinitely lighter than now, when it might have fallen on her (whom he
could have lost, or he believed it, without a pang), and had not. Her
loving and innocent face rising before him, had no softening or winning
influence. He rejected the angel, and took up with the tormenting spirit
crouching in his bosom. Her patience, goodness, youth, devotion, love,
were as so many atoms in the ashes upon which he set his heel. He saw her
image in the blight and blackness all around him, not irradiating but
deepening the gloom. More than once upon this journey, and now again as he
stood pondering at this journey's end, tracing figures in the dust with
his stick, the thought came into his mind, what was there he could
interpose between himself and it?</p>
<p>The Major, who had been blowing and panting all the way down, like another
engine, and whose eye had often wandered from his newspaper to leer at the
prospect, as if there were a procession of discomfited Miss Toxes pouring
out in the smoke of the train, and flying away over the fields to hide
themselves in any place of refuge, aroused his friends by informing him
that the post-horses were harnessed and the carriage ready.</p>
<p>'Dombey,' said the Major, rapping him on the arm with his cane, 'don't be
thoughtful. It's a bad habit, Old Joe, Sir, wouldn't be as tough as you
see him, if he had ever encouraged it. You are too great a man, Dombey, to
be thoughtful. In your position, Sir, you're far above that kind of
thing.'</p>
<p>The Major even in his friendly remonstrances, thus consulting the dignity
and honour of Mr Dombey, and showing a lively sense of their importance,
Mr Dombey felt more than ever disposed to defer to a gentleman possessing
so much good sense and such a well-regulated mind; accordingly he made an
effort to listen to the Major's stories, as they trotted along the
turnpike road; and the Major, finding both the pace and the road a great
deal better adapted to his conversational powers than the mode of
travelling they had just relinquished, came out of his entertainment.</p>
<p>But still the Major, blunt and tough as he was, and as he so very often
said he was, administered some palatable catering to his companion's
appetite. He related, or rather suffered it to escape him, accidentally,
and as one might say, grudgingly and against his will, how there was great
curiosity and excitement at the club, in regard of his friend Dombey. How
he was suffocated with questions, Sir. How old Joe Bagstock was a greater
man than ever, there, on the strength of Dombey. How they said, 'Bagstock,
your friend Dombey now, what is the view he takes of such and such a
question? Though, by the Rood, Sir,' said the Major, with a broad stare,
'how they discovered that J. B. ever came to know you, is a mystery!'</p>
<p>In this flow of spirits and conversation, only interrupted by his usual
plethoric symptoms, and by intervals of lunch, and from time to time by
some violent assault upon the Native, who wore a pair of ear-rings in his
dark-brown ears, and on whom his European clothes sat with an outlandish
impossibility of adjustment—being, of their own accord, and without
any reference to the tailor's art, long where they ought to be short,
short where they ought to be long, tight where they ought to be loose, and
loose where they ought to be tight—and to which he imparted a new
grace, whenever the Major attacked him, by shrinking into them like a
shrivelled nut, or a cold monkey—in this flow of spirits and
conversation, the Major continued all day: so that when evening came on,
and found them trotting through the green and leafy road near Leamington,
the Major's voice, what with talking and eating and chuckling and choking,
appeared to be in the box under the rumble, or in some neighbouring
hay-stack. Nor did the Major improve it at the Royal Hotel, where rooms
and dinner had been ordered, and where he so oppressed his organs of
speech by eating and drinking, that when he retired to bed he had no voice
at all, except to cough with, and could only make himself intelligible to
the dark servant by gasping at him.</p>
<p>He not only rose next morning, however, like a giant refreshed, but
conducted himself, at breakfast like a giant refreshing. At this meal they
arranged their daily habits. The Major was to take the responsibility of
ordering everything to eat and drink; and they were to have a late
breakfast together every morning, and a late dinner together every day. Mr
Dombey would prefer remaining in his own room, or walking in the country
by himself, on that first day of their sojourn at Leamington; but next
morning he would be happy to accompany the Major to the Pump-room, and
about the town. So they parted until dinner-time. Mr Dombey retired to
nurse his wholesome thoughts in his own way. The Major, attended by the
Native carrying a camp- stool, a great-coat, and an umbrella, swaggered up
and down through all the public places: looking into subscription books to
find out who was there, looking up old ladies by whom he was much admired,
reporting J. B. tougher than ever, and puffing his rich friend Dombey
wherever he went. There never was a man who stood by a friend more
staunchly than the Major, when in puffing him, he puffed himself.</p>
<p>It was surprising how much new conversation the Major had to let off at
dinner-time, and what occasion he gave Mr Dombey to admire his social
qualities. At breakfast next morning, he knew the contents of the latest
newspapers received; and mentioned several subjects in connexion with
them, on which his opinion had recently been sought by persons of such
power and might, that they were only to be obscurely hinted at. Mr Dombey,
who had been so long shut up within himself, and who had rarely, at any
time, overstepped the enchanted circle within which the operations of
Dombey and Son were conducted, began to think this an improvement on his
solitary life; and in place of excusing himself for another day, as he had
thought of doing when alone, walked out with the Major arm-in-arm.</p>
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