added, when the enmeshed Grinder was
gone.
     'No,' said Mr Dombey, with magnificent indifference.
     'Not  likely  that  a man like  you would. Hardly  possible,'  murmured
Carker. 'But he is  one of that  family from whom you  took a nurse. Perhaps
you may remember having generously charged yourself with his education?'
     'Is it that boy?' said Mr Dombey, with a frown. 'He does little  credit
to his education, I believe.'
     'Why,  he is a young rip, I am afraid,' returned Carker,  with a shrug.
'He bears  that character.  But  the truth  is, I took him  into my  service
because,  being able  to get no  other employment, he  conceived  (had  been
taught at home, I daresay) that he had some sort of claim upon you, and  was
constantly  trying to  dog your heels  with his petition.  And  although  my
defined and recognised  connexion with your affairs is merely  of a business
character, still I have that spontaneous interest in everything belonging to
you, that - '
     He stopped again, as if to  discover whether he had led  Mr Dombey  far
enough yet. And again, with  his chin resting  on his hand, he leered at the
picture.
     'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, 'I am sensible that you do not limit your - '
     'Service,' suggested his smiling entertainer.
     'No; I prefer to  say  your regard,' observed Mr Dombey; very sensible,
as he said so, that he was paying him a handsome and flattering  compliment,
'to our mere business relations. Your consideration for my feelings,  hopes,
and disappointments, in the little instance you have just now mentioned,  is
an example in point. I I am obliged to you, Carker.'
     Mr Carker bent his head slowly, and very softly rubbed his hands, as if
he were  afraid  by any  action  to  disturb  the  current  of  Mr  Dombey's
confidence.
     'Your allusion to  it is opportune,'  said  Mr Dombey,  after  a little
hesitation; 'for it prepares the  way to what I was beginning to say to you,
and  reminds me that that  involves no absolutely new relations between  us,
although it  may involve  more personal  confidence on my  part than  I have
hitherto - '
     'Distinguished  me  with,' suggested Carker, bending his head again: 'I
will not say to you how honoured  I  am; for a man  like you well knows  how
much honour he has in his power to bestow at pleasure.'
     'Mrs  Dombey and myself,' said  Mr Dombey, passing this compliment with
august self-denial, 'are not quite agreed upon some points. We do not appear
to understand each other yet' Mrs Dombey has something to learn.'
     'Mrs Dombey  is distinguished  by  many  rare attractions; and has been
accustomed, no doubt, to  receive  much adulation,'  said the smooth,  sleek
watcher of his slightest look and tone. 'But where there is affection, duty,
and respect,  any  little  mistakes engendered by such causes  are soon  set
right.'
     Mr  Dombey's  thoughts  instinctively flew  back to  the face that  had
looked  at him  in  his wife's  dressing-room  when  an imperious  hand  was
stretched  towards  the  door;  and  remembering  the affection,  duty,  and
respect, expressed  in it, he felt the blood  rush to his own face quite  as
plainly as the watchful eyes upon him saw it there.
     'Mrs  Dombey  and myself,' he went  on to  say,  'had some  discussion,
before Mrs Skewton's death, upon  the causes of my dissatisfaction; of which
you will have  formed a general understanding from having been  a witness of
what passed between Mrs Dombey  and myself on  the evening when you  were at
our - at my house.'
     'When  I so much  regretted being present,'  said the  smiling  Carker.
'Proud as a man in my position nay must be  of your familiar notice - though
I give you no credit for it;  you may do anything you  please without losing
caste - and honoured as I was by an early presentation to Mrs Dombey, before
she was made eminent by bearing your name, I almost regretted that  night, I
assure you, that I had been the object of such especial good fortune'
     That any man could, under any possible circumstances, regret  the being
distinguished  by his condescension  and patronage,  was a  moral phenomenon
which  Mr Dombey  could  not  comprehend.  He  therefore  responded, with  a
considerable accession of dignity. 'Indeed! And why, Carker?'
     'I fear,' returned the confidential agent, 'that Mrs Dombey, never very
much  disposed to  regard me with  favourable interest  - one in my position
could not expect that, from a lady naturally proud,  and whose pride becomes
her so well -  may not easily forgive my innocent part in that conversation.
Your displeasure  is no light matter, you must remember;  and  to be visited
with it before a third party -
     'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, arrogantly; 'I  presume that I am  the  first
consideration?'
     'Oh!  Can  there  be  a  doubt about it?' replied  the other, with  the
impatience of a man admitting a notorious and incontrovertible fact'
     'Mrs  Dombey  becomes a  secondary  consideration, when we are  both in
question, I imagine,' said Mr Dombey. 'Is that so?'
     'Is it so?'  returned Carker. 'Do you know better than anyone, that you
have no need to ask?'
     'Then  I  hope,  Carker,' said Mr  Dombey,  'that  your regret  in  the
acquisition of  Mrs  Dombey's displeasure,  may be almost counterbalanced by
your satisfaction in retaining my confidence and good opinion.'
     'I  have the misfortune,  I  find,' returned  Carker, 'to have incurred
that displeasure. Mrs Dombey has expressed it to you?'
     'Mrs Dombey has  expressed  various opinions,'  said  Mr  Dombey,  with
majestic  coldness  and indifference, 'in  which  I do not  participate, and
which  I  am not  inclined to discuss,  or to  recall.  I made  Mr's  Dombey
acquainted, some time since, as I have already told you, with certain points
of domestic deference and submission on which I felt it necessary to insist.
I  failed  to  convince Mrs  Dombey of  the  expediency of  her  immediately
altering  her conduct in  those respects, with  a view to her own peace  and
welfare, and  my dignity; and I informed Mrs Dombey that if I should find it
necessary to object or remonstrate again, I should express my opinion to her
through yourself, my confidential agent.'
     Blended with the look that Carker bent upon him, was a devilish look at
the picture over his head, that struck upon it like a flash of lightning.
     'Now, Carker,' said Mr Dombey, 'I do not hesitate  to say to you that I
will carry my point. I am not to be trifled with. Mrs Dombey must understand
that my will is law, and  that  I cannot allow of one exception to the whole
rule of my life. You will have the goodness to undertake this charge, which,
coming from  me, is not unacceptable to you, I hope, whatever regret you may
politely  profess  - for  which I am obliged to you on behalf of Mrs Dombey;
and you  will have the goodness, I am persuaded, to discharge  it as exactly
as any other commission.'
     'You know,' said Mr Carker, 'that you have only to command me.
     'I know,' said Mr Dombey, with a majestic indication of assent, 'that I
have only to command you. It is necessary that I should proceed in this. Mrs
Dombey is a lady undoubtedly highly qualified, in many respects, to -
     'To do credit even to your  choice,'  suggested  Carker, with a yawning
show of teeth.
     'Yes;  if  you please to adopt that form of words,' said  Mr Dombey, in
his tone of state;  'and  at present I do not conceive that Mrs Dombey  does
that  credit to  it, to  which  it is  entitled.  There  is  a  principle of
opposition in Mrs Dombey that must be eradicated; that must be overcome: Mrs
Dombey does not  appear to understand,' said Mr Dombey, forcibly, 'that  the
idea of opposition to Me is monstrous and absurd.'
     'We, in  the  City, know you better,' replied Carker, with a smile from
ear to ear.
     'You know me better,' said Mr Dombey. 'I hope so.  Though, indeed, I am
bound to do Mrs Dombey the  justice of saying, however  inconsistent  it may
seem  with her  subsequent  conduct  (which remains  unchanged), that on  my
expressing  my disapprobation and determination to her, with some  severity,
on the occasion  to which I have referred, my admonition appeared to produce
a  very powerful effect.'  Mr Dombey  delivered himself  of those words with
most  portentous stateliness. 'I wish you  to have  the  goodness,  then, to
inform  Mrs  Dombey,  Carker,  from  me,  that  I  must  recall  our  former
conversation  to her remembrance, in some  surprise that it has not  yet had
its  effect.  That  I  must insist  upon  her regulating  her conduct by the
injunctions laid upon her in that conversation. That I am not satisfied with
her conduct.  That  I am greatly dissatisfied with it. And  that I  shall be
under the very disagreeable necessity of making  you the bearer  of yet more
unwelcome and explicit communications, if she has not the good sense and the
proper feeling to adapt herself  to my wishes, as the first Mrs  Dombey did,
and, I believe I may add, as any other lady in her place would.'
     'The first Mrs Dombey lived very happily,' said Carker.
     'The  first  Mrs Dombey  had great  good sense,'  said Mr Dombey,  in a
gentlemanly toleration of the dead, 'and very correct feeling.'
     'Is Miss Dombey like her mother, do you think?' said Carker.
     Swiftly  and darkly, Mr  Dombey's  face changed. His confidential agent
eyed it keenly.
     'I  have approached a painful  subject,'  he said, in a soft  regretful
tone of voice, irreconcilable with his eager eye. 'Pray forgive me. I forget
these chains of association in the interest I have. Pray forgive me.'
     But for  all he said,  his eager eye scanned Mr Dombey's downcast  face
none the less closely;  and then  it shot a  strange triumphant look  at the
picture,  as appealing  to  it to bear witness how he  led him on again, and
what was coming.
     Carker,' said  Mr  Dombey, looking here  and there upon  the table, and
saying in a somewhat altered  and more hurried voice, and  with a paler lip,
'there is no occasion  for apology. You mistake. The association is with the
matter in hand, and not with  any  recollection,  as you suppose.  I  do not
approve of Mrs Dombey's behaviour towards my daughter.'
     'Pardon me,' said Mr Carker, 'I don't quite understand.'
     'Understand then,' returned Mr Dombey, 'that you may  make that  - that
you will  make  that, if you please -  matter of direct objection from me to
Mrs  Dombey. You will please  to tell  her  that her show of devotion for my
daughter is disagreeable to me. It is likely to be noticed. It is  likely to
induce people  to contrast Mrs Dombey in her  relation towards my  daughter,
with Mrs Dombey in her relation towards myself.  You will have the  goodness
to let Mrs Dombey know,  plainly, that I object to it; and that I expect her
to defer, immediately, to my objection. Mrs Dombey may be in earnest, or she
may be pursuing a whim, or she may be opposing me; but I object to it in any
case,  and in  every  case. If Mrs  Dombey  is in earnest,  so much the less
reluctant should she be to desist; for she will not serve my daughter by any
such display.  If my wife  has any superfluous gentleness, and duty over and
above her proper submission  to me,  she may  bestow them where she pleases,
perhaps;  but  I will have submission first!  -  Carker,'  said  Mr  Dombey,
checking the unusual  emotion with which he had  spoken,  and falling into a
tone more like that in which he was accustomed to assert his greatness, 'you
will have the goodness not to omit or slur this point,  but to consider it a
very important part of your instructions.'
     Mr  Carker bowed  his  head,  and  rising from  the table, and standing
thoughtfully  before the fire, with his hand to his smooth chin, looked down
at Mr Dombey with the evil slyness of some  monkish  carving, half human and
half  brute;  or like  a  leering  face  on an old water-spout.  Mr  Dombey,
recovering his composure by  degrees, or cooling his emotion in his sense of
having taken a high position, sat gradually stiffening again, and looking at
the parrot as she swung to and fro, in her great wedding ring.
     'I beg your pardon,'  said Carker, after  a silence, suddenly  resuming
his chair,  and drawing it opposite to Mr Dombey's, 'but  let me understand.
Mrs Dombey is aware of the probability of your making me the organ  of  your
displeasure?'
     'Yes,' replied Mr Dombey. 'I have said so.'
     'Yes,' rejoined Carker, quickly; 'but why?'
     'Why!' Mr Dombey repeated,  not  without  hesitation. 'Because  I  told
her.'
     'Ay,' replied Carker. 'But why did you tell her? You see,' he continued
with a smile,  and  softly laying his  velvet hand, as a cat might have laid
its sheathed claws,  on Mr Dombey's arm;  'if I perfectly understand what is
in  your mind,  I  am so much  more  likely to  be  useful, and  to have the
happiness of being effectually employed. I think I do understand. I have not
the honour of Mrs Dombey's good opinion. In my position, I have no reason to
expect it; but I take the fact to be, that I have not got it?'
     'Possibly not,' said Mr Dombey.
     'Consequently,' pursued  Carker, 'your making the communications to Mrs
Dombey through me, is sure to be particularly unpalatable to that lady?'
     'It  appears to me,' said Mr Dombey, with haughty reserve, and yet with
some  embarrassment, 'that  Mrs Dombey's views upon the subject form no part
of it as it presents itself to you and me, Carker. But it may be so.'
     'And - pardon me -  do I  misconceive you,' said Carker,  'when I think
you descry in this, a  likely  means  of humbling Mrs Dombey's pride - I use
the word as expressive  of  a quality which,  kept within due bounds, adorns
and graces a lady so distinguished for her beauty and accomplishments - and,
not to say of punishing her,  but of reducing her  to  the submission you so
naturally and justly require?'
     'I am not accustomed, Carker, as you know,'  said Mr  Dombey, 'to  give
such close reasons for any course of  conduct I think proper to adopt, but I
will gainsay nothing of this. If you have  any  objection to found  upon it,
that is indeed another thing, and the mere statement that you  have one will
be sufficient. But  I have not supposed,  I  confess, that any confidence  I
could entrust to you, would be likely to degrade you - '
     'Oh! I degraded!' exclaimed Carker. 'In your service!'
     'or to place you,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'in a false position.'
     'I  in  a  false  position!' exclaimed  Carker. 'I  shall  be  proud  -
delighted - to execute your trust. I could have wished, I own, to have given
the lady at whose feet  I would lay my humble duty and devotion - for is she
not your wife! - no new cause of dislike; but a wish from you is, of course,
paramount to every other consideration on earth. Besides, when Mrs Dombey is
converted from  these little errors of judgment, incidental, I would presume
to say, to the novelty of her situation, I shall hope that she will perceive
in the slight part I  take, only a grain - my  removed  and different sphere
gives room for  little  more - of the  respect for you, and sacrifice of all
considerations  to you,  of which it will  be her  pleasure and privilege to
garner up a great store every day.'
     Mr  Dombey seemed,  at  the  moment,  again to see  her  with her  hand
stretched out towards the door, and again to hear through the mild speech of
his  confidential agent an echo of the words,  'Nothing can make us stranger
to  each other than we are henceforth!' But he shook  off the fancy, and did
not shake in his resolution, and said, 'Certainly, no doubt.'
     'There is nothing more,' quoth Carker, drawing his chair  back  to  its
old place -  for they had taken little breakfast as yet-  and pausing for an
answer before he sat down.
     'Nothing,'  said  Mr  Dombey,  'but  this. You will be  good  enough to
observe, Carker, that no message  to Mrs Dombey with which you are or may be
charged, admits of reply. You will be good enough to bring me no reply.  Mrs
Dombey is informed that it does not become me to temporise or treat upon any
matter that is at issue between us, and that what I say is final.'
     Mr Carker signIfied his understanding  of  these  credentials, and they
fell to breakfast with what  appetite  they might. The Grinder  also, in due
time  reappeared,  keeping  his  eyes upon  his  master without  a  moment's
respite, and passing the  time in  a reverie of worshipful tenor.  Breakfast
concluded, Mr Dombey's  horse  was ordered out again, and Mr Carker mounting
his own, they rode off for the City together.
     Mr Carker was in  capital spirits,  and talked much. Mr Dombey received
his conversation with  the  sovereign air of a man  who had  a  right  to be
talked to, and occasionally condescended to throw in a few words to carry on
the conversation. So they rode on characteristically  enough. But Mr Dombey,
in his dignity,  rode with  very long stirrups, and a very  loose  rein, and
very rarely deigned to look down to see where his horse went. In consequence
of which  it happened  that  Mr Dombey's horse, while going at a round trot,
stumbled on  some loose stones, threw him, rolled  over him, and lashing out
with his iron-shod feet, in his struggles to get up, kicked him.
     Mr Carker, quick of eye,  steady of  hand,  and  a good  horseman,  was
afoot, and  had the struggling  animal upon his legs and by the bridle, in a
moment.  Otherwise  that morning's confidence would have  been  Mr  Dombey's
last. Yet even with the flush and hurry of this action red upon him, he bent
over  his prostrate  chief with every  tooth  disclosed, and  muttered as he
stooped down, 'I have given good cause  of offence to Mrs Dombey now, if she
knew it!'
     Mr Dombey being insensible,  and bleeding from the  head and  face, was
carried  by  certain menders of  the road,  under Carker's direction, to the
nearest public-house, which was not far  off, and where he was soon attended
by divers surgeons,  who arrived in quick succession from all parts, and who
seemed  to come by  some mysterious instinct, as vultures are said to gather
about a camel who  dies in the desert. After being at some pains to  restore
him to consciousness,  these  gentlemen  examined into  the  nature  of  his
injuries.
     One surgeon who lived hard by was strong for a compound fracture of the
leg, which  was the landlord's opinion also; but two surgeons who lived at a
distance, and  were only in that neighbourhood  by  accident,  combated this
opinion so  disinterestedly, that it was  decided at last  that the patient,
though severely cut and bruised, had broken no bones but a lesser rib or so,
and might be  carefully  taken home before night. His injuries being dressed
and bandaged, which was  a long operation, and he at length left  to repose,
Mr Carker mounted  his horse again, and rode  away to carry the intelligence
home.
     Crafty and cruel as his face was at the best of times, though it was  a
sufficiently fair face as to form and  regularity of  feature, it was at its
worst when he set forth on this errand; animated by the craft and cruelty of
thoughts within him, suggestions of remote possibility rather than of design
or plot, that made him  ride as if he hunted men  and women. Drawing rein at
length, and slackening in his speed, as he came into the  more public roads,
he checked his  white-legged horse  into picking his way along as usual, and
hid himself beneath his sleek, hushed, crouched manner, and his ivory smile,
as he best could.
     He rode direct  to Mr Dombey's house,  alighted at the door, and begged
to see Mrs Dombey on an affair of importance. The servant who showed  him to
Mr Dombey's own room, soon returned to say that it was not Mrs Dombey's hour
for receiving visitors, and that he begged pardon for  not having  mentioned
it before.
     Mr Carker, who was quite prepared for  a cold  reception, wrote upon  a
card that he must take the liberty of pressing for an interview, and that he
would not be so bold as to do so,  for the second time (this he underlined),
if  he  were  not  equally sure  of  the occasion  being sufficient  for his
justification.  After  a trifling  delay, Mrs Dombey's  maid  appeared,  and
conducted him to  a morning room  upstairs, where  Edith and  Florence  were
together.
     He had never thought Edith half so beautiful before. Much as he admired
the  graces  of  her face and form, and  freshly  as  they dwelt  within his
sensual remembrance, he had never thought her half so beautiful.
     Her glance fell  haughtily  upon  him in the doorway; but  he looked at
Florence - though only in the  act of bending his head, as he came in - with
some irrepressible  expression  of  the new power  he  held; and it was  his
triumph to see the glance  droop and falter, and to see that Edith half rose
up to receive him.
     He  was very sorry,  he was  deeply grieved;  he couldn't say with what
unwillingness  he came to prepare  her for the intelligence of a very slight
accident. He entreated Mrs Dombey to  compose  herself. Upon his sacred word
of honour, there was no cause of alarm. But Mr Dombey -
     Florence uttered a  sudden cry.  He did not  look at her, but at Edith.
Edith composed and reassured her. She uttered no cry of distress. No, no.
     Mr  Dombey had met  with an accident in riding. His horse had  slipped,
and he had been thrown.
     Florence wildly exclaimed that he was badly hurt; that he was killed!
     No. Upon  his  honour,  Mr  Dombey, though  stunned at first, was  soon
recovered, and though certainly hurt was in no  kind of danger. If this were
not the truth, he, the distressed intruder, never could have had the courage
to present himself before Mrs Dombey. It  was the truth  indeed, he solemnly
assured her.
     All this he said as  if he were answering  Edith, and not Florence, and
with his eyes and his smile fastened on Edith.
     He  then went on to tell her where Mr Dombey was lying, and  to request
that a carriage might be placed at his disposal to bring him home.
     'Mama,' faltered Florence in tears, 'if I might venture to go!'
     Mr Carker, having his eyes on Edith when he heard these words, gave her
a  secret  look  and slightly shook  his head.  He saw how she  battled with
herself before  she answered  him with her handsome eyes, but he wrested the
answer from  her  - he  showed her that  he would have  it, or that he would
speak and cut Florence  to the  heart  -  and she gave  it to him. As he had
looked at the picture in  the morning, so  he looked at her afterwards, when
she turned her eyes away.
     'I  am directed to  request,'  he said, 'that the new housekeeper - Mrs
Pipchin, I think, is the name - '
     Nothing escaped him. He saw in an instant, that she  was another slight
of Mr Dombey's on his wife.
     ' -  may be informed that Mr Dombey  wishes to have his bed prepared in
his  own apartments downstairs,  as he prefers those rooms  to any other.  I
shall return to Mr Dombey almost  immediately. That every possible attention
has been paid to his  comfort, and that he  is the  object of every possible
solicitude,  I need not assure  you,  Madam.  Let me  again say, there is no
cause for the least alarm. Even you may be quite at ease, believe me.'
     He bowed  himself  out,  with  his  extremest  show  of  deference  and
conciliation; and having returned to  Mr  Dombey's room,  and there arranged
for a carriage being  sent after him  to the City,  mounted his horse again,
and rode slowly thither. He was very thoughtful  as he went along,  and very
thoughtful there, and very thoughtful in the carriage on his way back to the
place where  Mr Dombey  had  been left.  It  was  only when sitting by  that
gentleman's  couch  that he was  quite  himself  again, and conscious of his
teeth.
     About the time of twilight,  Mr Dombey, grievously afflicted with aches
and pains, was helped into his carriage, and propped with cloaks and pillows
on one side of it,  while his  confidential agent  bore him company upon the
other. As he  was not to be shaken, they moved at  little more  than  a foot
pace;  and hence it  was quite dark  when he was brought home. Mrs  Pipchin,
bitter   and  grim,  and  not  oblivious  of  the  Peruvian  mines,  as  the
establishment in general had good reason to know, received  him at the door,
and  freshened  the  domestics  with  several  little  sprinklings  of wordy
vinegar,  while they  assisted  in conveying  him  to  his  room. Mr  Carker
remained in attendance until he was safe in bed, and then, as he declined to
receive any  female visitor, but the  excellent Ogress who presided over his
household,  waited  on Mrs Dombey  once more,  with his report on her lord's
condition.
     He again found  Edith alone with Florence,  and he again addressed  the
whole  of  his  soothing speech to  Edith, as  if  she were  a  prey to  the
liveliest  and  most  affectionate  anxieties.  So earnest  he  was  in  his
respectful sympathy,  that  on  taking leave,  he  ventured -  with one more
glance towards Florence at  the moment - to take her hand, and  bending over
it, to touch it with his lips.
     Edith did not withdraw the hand, nor did  she strike his fair face with
it, despite the flush upon her cheek, the bright light in her eyes,  and the
dilation of  her whole form. But when she  was  alone in her  own room,  she
struck it on the marble chimney-shelf, so that, at one blow, it was bruised,
and bled; and held it from her, near the shining fire, as if she could  have
thrust it in and burned it'
     Far  into the  night she sat  alone, by the sinking blaze, in dark  and
threatening beauty, watching the murky  shadows looming on the  wall,  as if
her thoughts were tangible, and cast  them there. Whatever shapes of outrage
and  affront,  and  black  foreshadowings  of   things  that  might  happen,
flickered,  indistinct  and  giant-like, before  her,  one  resented  figure
marshalled them against her. And that figure was her husband.

        CHAPTER 43.
     The Watches of the Night

     Florence, long  since awakened  from her dream, mournfully observed the
estrangement  between her father and Edith,  and saw it widen more and more,
and  knew that  there was greater  bitterness between  them  every day. Each
day's added  knowledge deepened the shade  upon her love and hope, roused up
the old sorrow  that had slumbered for  a  little  time, and  made  it  even
heavier to bear than it had been before.
     It had been hard - how hard  may none but Florence ever know! - to have
the natural affection of a  true and earnest  nature  turned to  agony;  and
slight, or stern repulse, substituted for the tenderest  protection and  the
dearest  care. It had been hard to feel in her deep heart what she had felt,
and never know the happiness of one touch of response. But it was much  more
hard to be compelled  to doubt  either  her father or Edith, so affectionate
and dear to her, and  to think of her love for each  of them, by turns, with
fear, distrust, and wonder.
     Yet Florence now began to do so; and the doing of it was a task imposed
upon her by the very purity of her soul, as one she  could not fly from. She
saw her father  cold and obdurate to  Edith,  as  to  her; hard, inflexible,
unyielding. Could it be, she asked herself with starting tears, that her own
dear mother had been made unhappy by such treatment, and had  pined away and
died?  Then she would think how proud and stately Edith was to  everyone but
her, with  what disdain she  treated him, how distantly  she kept apart from
him, and what she had said on the night when they came home; and  quickly it
would come on Florence, almost as a crime, that she loved one who was set in
opposition to her father, and that her father knowing of  it, must think  of
her in his solitary room as the unnatural child who  added this wrong to the
old fault, so much wept for, of never having won his fatherly affection from
her birth. The next kind word from Edith,  the next kind glance, would shake
these thoughts again, and make them seem like black ingratitude; for who but
she had cheered the drooping heart of  Florence, so lonely and  so hurt, and
been  its best of  comforters! Thus, with her gentle nature yearning to them
both, feeling for the misery of both, and whispering  doubts of her own duty
to both, Florence in her wider and expanded love,  and by the side of Edith,
endured  more than  when  she  had  hoarded up  her undivided secret  in the
mournful house, and her beautiful Mama had never dawned upon it.
     One exquisite unhappiness that would have far outweighed this, Florence
was spared.  She never had the least suspicion  that Edith by her tenderness
for her  widened the separation from her  father,  or gave him new cause  of
dislike. If  Florence had conceived the possIbility of such an effect  being
wrought  by such a cause, what grief she would have felt, what sacrifice she
would have  tried to  make, poor loving  girl,  how fast and sure her  quiet
passage might have been beneath it to the presence of that higher Father who
does not reject his children's love, or spurn their tried and broken hearts,
Heaven knows! But it was otherwise, and that was well.
     No  word  was  ever  spoken  between Florence  and Edith now, on  these
subjects. Edith  had said there  ought  to be between them,  in that wise, a
division  and  a silence like  the grave  itself: and Florence felt  she was
right'
     In this state of  affairs her  father was brought  home, suffering  and
disabled; and  gloomily  retired to his own rooms, where he  was  tended  by
servants, not approached  by Edith,  and had no  friend or companion  but Mr
Carker, who withdrew near midnight.
     'And nice company  he  is, Miss Floy,'  said Susan Nipper. 'Oh,  he's a
precious piece of goods! If ever he wants a character don't let him  come to
me whatever he does, that's all I tell him.'
     'Dear Susan,' urged Florence, 'don't!'
     'Oh, it's very  well  to  say "don't" Miss Floy,' returned  the Nipper,
much exasperated; 'but raly begging  your pardon we're coming to such passes
that it turns all the  blood in  a person's body into pins and needles, with
their  pints all ways.  Don't  mistake me, Miss Floy,  I don't mean  nothing
again your ma-in-law who has always treated me as  a lady should though  she
is rather  high  I must  say not that I  have any  right  to object  to that
particular,  but when we come to  Mrs Pipchinses and having them put over us
and keeping guard  at  your Pa's door like crocodiles (only make us thankful
that they lay no eggs!) we are a growing too outrageous!'
     'Papa thinks well of Mrs Pipchin, Susan,' returned Florence, 'and has a
right to choose his housekeeper, you know. Pray don't!'
     'Well Miss Floy,' returned the Nipper, 'when you say don't, I  never do
I  hope but  Mrs  Pipchin acts like  early  gooseberries upon  me Miss,  and
nothing less.'
     Susan  was  unusually  emphatic  and destitute of  punctuation  in  her
discourse  on this night, which was the night of  Mr  Dombey's being brought
home, because, having been sent downstairs by Florence to inquire after him,
she had been obliged to deliver her message to her mortal enemy Mrs Pipchin;
who, without carrying it in to  Mr Dombey, had taken upon herself  to return
what Miss  Nipper  called a huffish answer, on her own responsibility. This,
Susan  Nipper  construed  into presumption  on the  part of  that  exemplary
sufferer by  the Peruvian mines, and a deed of disparagement upon  her young
lady,  that  was  not  to be forgiven;  and so  far her  emphatic  state was
special.  But she had been in a condition of greatly increased suspicion and
distrust, ever since the marriage; for,  like most persons of her quality of
mind, who  form  a strong  and sincere attachment to  one in  the  different
station which  Florence occupied, Susan was  very  jealous, and her jealousy
naturally attached to Edith, who divided  her  old empire, and  came between
them. Proud  and  glad as Susan Nipper  truly was, that  her  young mistress
should be advanced towards her proper place in the scene of her old neglect,
and that  she should  have her father's handsome wife for  her companion and
protectress,  she  could not relinquish any  part of her own dominion to the
handsome  wife, without a grudge  and a vague feeling of ill-will, for which
she  did  not  fail  to  find  a disinterested  justification  in  her sharp
perception of  the  pride  and  passion  of  the lady's character.  From the
background  to  which  she  had  necessarily  retired  somewhat,  since  the
marriage, Miss Nipper looked  on, therefore, at domestic affairs in general,
with  a  resolute  conviction that no good would come of  Mrs Dombey: always
being  very  careful to  publish  on all  possible occasions,  that  she had
nothing to say against her.
     'Susan,' said  Florence, who was sitting thoughtfully at her table, 'it
is very late. I shall want nothing more to-night.'
     'Ah, Miss Floy!' returned the Nipper, 'I'm sure I  often wish for  them
old  times when  I sat  up with you  hours later than this  and  fell asleep
through being  tired out  when  you  was as  broad awake as spectacles,  but
you've ma's-in-law to come and  sit with you now Miss Floy and I'm  thankful
for it I'm sure. I've not a word to say against 'em.'
     'I shall not forget who was my old companion when  I  had none, Susan,'
returned  Florence, gently, 'never!'  And looking up, she put  her arm round
the neck of her humble friend, drew her face down to  hers, and  bidding her
good-night,  kissed  it;  which so  mollified Miss Nipper,  that  she fell a
sobbing.
     'Now my dear Miss Floy, said Susan, 'let me go downstairs again and see
how  your Pa is, I know you're wretched  about him, do let  me go downstairs
again and knock at his door my own self.'
     'No,' said Florence, 'go to bed. We shall hear  more in the  morning. I
will inquire myself in the morning. Mama has been down, I daresay;' Florence
blushed, for she had no such hope; 'or is there now, perhaps. Good-night!'
     Susan was  too much softened to express  her  private  opinion  on  the
probability of Mrs Dombey's being in attendance on her husband, and silently
withdrew. Florence left alone, soon hid her head upon her  hands  as she had
often done in  other days, and did not restrain the tears from coursing down
her face. The misery of this domestic discord and unhappiness; the  withered
hope she cherished now,  if hope it could  be called, of ever being taken to
her father's  heart;  her doubts and fears between the two;  the yearning of
her innocent breast to both; the heavy disappointment and regret of such  an
end as this, to  what had  been a vision of bright hope and  promise to her;
all crowded on  her mind and made her tears  flow fast.  Her mother and  her
brother  dead,  her father  unmoved towards her,  Edith opposed to  him  and
casting him away,  but loving her,  and loved by her,  it seemed as  if  her
affection  could  never prosper, rest where it would. That weak thought  was
soon hushed,  but  the thoughts  in which  it  had arisen were  too true and
strong to be dismissed with it; and they made the night desolate.
     Among such  reflections there rose up, as there  had  risen up all day,
the  image of her  father,  wounded and in  pain,  alone  in  his own  room,
untended by those who should  be nearest to him, and passing the tardy hours
in lonely suffering. A frightened thought which made her start and clasp her
hands  - though  it was not a new one  in her mind - that he might  die, and
never  see her  or  pronounce  her  name, thrilled her whole  frame. In  her
agitation she thought, and trembled while she thought, of once more stealing
downstairs, and venturing to his door.
     She listened at her  own. The house was  quiet, and all the lights were
out. It was  a  long, long  time,  she thought, since  she used  to make her
nightly pilgrimages  to his  door! It was  a long, long  time, she tried  to
think, since she had entered  his room at midnight, and he had led  her back
to the stair-foot!
     With  the same  child's heart  within  her,  as of old: even  with  the
child's  sweet  timid eyes and clustering hair: Florence, as  strange to her
father in  her  early maiden bloom, as in her nursery  time, crept  down the
staircase listening  as she  went, and  drew near to his room.  No  one  was
stirring in the house. The door was partly open to admit air; and all was so
still  within, that  she could hear the  burning of  the fire, and count the
ticking of the clock that stood upon the chimney-piece.
     She looked in.  In that room, the  housekeeper wrapped in a blanket was
fast asleep in an easy chair  before the fire. The doors between  it and the
next were partly closed, and a screen was drawn before them; but there was a
light there, and it shone upon the cornice of his bed. All was so very still
that she  could  hear from  his breathing that he  was asleep. This gave her
courage to pass round the screen, and look into his chamber.
     It was as great a start to come  upon his sleeping face as  if she  had
not  expected to  see it. Florence stood arrested on the spot, and if he had
awakened then, must have remained there.
     There was a cut  upon his forehead, and they had been wetting his hair,
which lay bedabbled  and entangled  on the pillow. One of his arms,  resting
outside  the  bed,  was bandaged up, and he was  very white. But it  was not
this, that after the first quick glance, and first assurance of his sleeping
quietly, held Florence rooted to the ground. It was something very different
from this, and more than this, that made him look so solemn in her eye
     She had never seen his face in all her life, but there had been upon it
- or she  fancied so  - some disturbing  consciousness of her. She had never
seen his face in all her life, but hope had sunk  within her, and her  timid
glance had dropped before its stern,  unloving, and repelling  harshness. As
she looked upon it now, she saw it, for the  first time, free from the cloud
that  had darkened  her childhood. Calm,  tranquil night was reigning in its
stead. He might  have gone  to sleep,  for anything she saw  there, blessing
her.
     Awake, unkind father! Awake, now,  sullen man! The time is flitting by;
the hour is coming with an angry tread. Awake!
     There was no change upon his face; and as she watched  it, awfully, its
motionless reponse recalled  the  faces that  were gone.  So they looked, so
would  he;  so she, his weeping child, who should say when! so all the world
of love and hatred and indifference around them! When that time should come,
it  would not be  the heavier to him, for this that she was going to do; and
it might fall something lighter upon her.
     She stole close to the bed,  and drawing  in her breath, bent down, and
softly kissed him on the face, and laid her own for one  brief moment by its
side, and put the  arm, with  which she dared not touch him, round about him
on the pillow.
     Awake, doomed man, while she is near! The time is flitting by; the hour
is coming with an angry tread; its foot is in the house. Awake!
     In her  mind, she prayed to God to bless her father, and to  soften him
towards her, if it might be so; and if not, to forgive him if he was  wrong,
and pardon her the prayer which almost seemed  impiety. And  doing  so,  and
looking back at him with blinded eyes, and stealing timidly away, passed out
of his room, and crossed the other, and was gone.
     He may sleep on now. He may sleep on while he may. But let him look for
that slight  figure when he wakes, and  find  it near him  when the  hour is
come!
     Sad and grieving  was the heart of Florence, as she crept upstairs. The
quiet house had grown  more  dismal  since  she came down. The sleep she had
been looking on, in the dead of night, had the solemnity to her of death and
life in  one. The secrecy  and  silence of her own proceeding made the night
secret, silent, and oppressive.  She felt unwilling, almost unable, to go on
to her  own chamber; and turnIng into the  drawing-rooms, where  the clouded
moon was shining through the blinds, looked out into the empty streets.
     The wind was blowing  drearily. The lamps looked  pale, and shook as if
they were cold. There was a distant glimmer of something that  was not quite
darkness,  rather  than of  light,  in  the  sky;  and foreboding  night was
shivering  and restless, as the dying are who make a troubled  end. Florence
remembered how, as a watcher, by a sick-bed, she