had noted  this bleak time,
and felt  its influence, as  if in some hidden natural antipathy to  it; and
now it was very, very gloomy.
     Her Mama  had not come to her room that night, which  was  one cause of
her  having sat late out of her bed. In her general uneasiness, no less than
in her ardent longing to have somebody  to speak  to, and to break the spell
of gloom and silence, Florence directed her steps towards the  chamber where
she slept.
     The  door  was  not  fastened  within,  and  yielded  smoothly  to  her
hesitating  hand. She  was  surprised to find a bright light burning;  still
more  surprised,  on  looking  in,  to  see  that  her  Mama,  but partially
undressed, was sitting near  the ashes of the fire,  which had  crumbled and
dropped away. Her eyes were intently bent upon  the air; and in their light,
and in her face, and in her  form,  and in the grasp with which she held the
elbows of her  chair as  if  about  to start  up, Florence  saw such  fierce
emotion that it terrified her.
     'Mama!' she cried, 'what is the matter?'
     Edith  started; looking at her with such  a  strange dread in her face,
that Florence was more frightened than before.
     'Mama!' said Florence, hurriedly advancing.  'Dear  Mama! what  is  the
matter?'
     'I have  not been well,' said Edith, shaking, and still  looking at her
in the same strange way. 'I have had had dreams, my love.'
     'And not yet been to bed, Mama?'
     'No,' she returned. 'Half-waking dreams.'
     Her features gradually softened; and suffering Florence  to come closer
to her, within her embrace, she said  in a tender manner, 'But  what does my
bird do here? What does my bird do here?'
     'I have been  uneasy,  Mama, in  not  seeing you  to-night,  and in not
knowing how Papa was; and I - '
     Florence stopped there, and said no more.
     'Is it late?' asked Edith, fondly  putting back the curls that  mingled
with her own dark hair, and strayed upon her face.
     'Very late. Near day.'
     'Near day!' she repeated in surprise.
     'Dear Mama, what have you done to your hand?' said Florence.
     Edith drew it suddenly away, and, for a moment, looked at her  with the
same strange dread (there was a sort of wild avoidance in it) as before; but
she  presently said,  'Nothing,  nothing.  A  blow.' And  then she said, 'My
Florence!' and then her bosom heaved, and she was weeping passionately.
     'Mama!' said Florence. 'Oh Mama, what  can  I do, what should I  do, to
make us happier? Is there anything?'
     'Nothing,' she replied.
     'Are you sure of that? Can it never be? If I speak now of what is in my
thoughts,  in spite  of what we  have agreed,' said Florence,  'you will not
blame me, will you?'
     'It is useless,' she replied, 'useless. I  have told you,  dear, that I
have had bad dreams. Nothing can change them, or prevent them coming back.'
     'I do not understand,' said Florence, gazing on her agitated face which
seemed to darken as she looked.
     'I  have dreamed,' said  Edith in a low voice, 'of a  pride that is all
powerless  for good, all powerful for evil;  of a pride that has been galled
and goaded, through many shameful years, and has never recoiled except  upon
itself;  a pride that has debased its  owner  with the consciousness of deep
humiliation, and never helped its owner boldly to resent it or  avoid it, or
to  say,  "This  shall not be!" a pride that, rightly guided, might have led
perhaps to better things, but  which,  misdirected  and perverted,  like all
else belonging to the same possessor, has been self-contempt, mere hardihood
and ruin.'
     She neither looked  nor  spoke to Florence now, but went on  as  if she
were alone.
     'I  have dreamed,' she  said, 'of  such indifference  and  callousness,
arising  from  this  self-contempt;  this  wretched, inefficient,  miserable
pride; that it  has gone on with listless  steps even to the altar, yielding
to the old,  familiar, beckoning finger, -  oh mother, oh mother! - while it
spurned it; and willing to be hateful to itself for once and for all, rather
than to be stung daily in some new form. Mean, poor thing!'
     And  now with gathering and darkening  emotion, she  looked as  she had
looked when Florence entered.
     'And I have dreamed,' she said, 'that in a first late effort to achieve
a purpose,  it has been  trodden  on, and trodden down by  a base  foot, but
turns and looks upon him. I have dreamed  that it is  wounded,  hunted,  set
upon by  dogs, but that it stands at hay,  and will not yield;  no,  that it
cannot if it would; but that it is urged on to hate
     Her clenched hand tightened on the trembling  arm she had in hers,  and
as she looked  down on  the alarmed and  wondering face, frown subsided. 'Oh
Florence!' she said, 'I think  I have been nearly mad to-night!' and humbled
her proud head upon her neck and wept again.
     'Don't leave me! be near me! I have no hope but in you! These words she
said a score of times.
     Soon  she grew calmer, and was full of pity  for the tears of Florence,
and for  her  waking at such untimely hours.  And  the day now dawning, with
folded her in her arms and laid  her down  upon her bed, and, not lying down
herself, sat by her, and bade her try to sleep.
     'For you are weary, dearest, and unhappy, and should rest.'
     'I am indeed unhappy, dear Mama, tonight,' said  Florence. 'But you are
weary and unhappy, too.'
     'Not when you lie asleep so near me, sweet.'
     They  kissed each other,  and Florence, worn out, gradually fell into a
gentle slumber; but as her eyes closed on the face beside her, it was so sad
to think  upon the face downstairs, that her  hand  drew closer to Edith for
some comfort; yet, even in the act, it faltered, lest it should be deserting
him. So, in her sleep, she tried  to reconcile the two together, and to show
them that she loved them both, but could not do it, and her waking grief was
part of her dreams.
     Edith,  sitting by, looked down at the  dark eyelashes lying wet on the
flushed cheeks, and looked with gentleness and pity, for she knew the truth.
But  no sleep  hung  upon her own eyes.  As  the day came  on she  still sat
watching and waking, with the placid hand in hers, and  sometimes whispered,
as  she looked at the hushed face, 'Be near me, Florence. I have no hope but
in you!'

        CHAPTER 44.
     A Separation

     With the day, though not so early as the sun, uprose Miss Susan Nipper.
There was a heaviness  in this young maiden's  exceedingly sharp black eyes,
that abated somewhat of their sparkling, and suggested - which was not their
usual character -  the possibility of their being sometimes  shut. There was
likewise a  swollen look about them, as if they had  been crying over-night.
But the Nipper, so far from being cast down, was singularly brisk and  bold,
and all her energies appeared to be braced  up for some great feat. This was
noticeable even in her dress, which was much more tight and trim than usual;
and in occasional twitches of  her head as she  went about  the house, which
were mightily expressive of determination.
     In a word,  she had  formed a  determination, and an  aspiring  one: it
being nothing less than this  - to  penetrate  to Mr Dombey's  presence, and
have  speech of  that  gentleman alone.  'I have often  said I  would,'  she
remarked,  in  a  threatening  manner, to  herself, that morning,  with many
twitches of her head, 'and now I will!'
     Spurring  herself on  to  the accomplishment of this desperate  design,
with a sharpness that was peculiar to herself, Susan Nipper haunted the hall
and  staircase  during  the  whole forenoon, without  finding  a  favourable
opportunity for the assault. Not at all  baffled by this discomfiture, which
indeed had a stimulating effect, and put her on  her mettle,  she diminished
nothing of her vigilance; and  at last discovered, towards evening, that her
sworn foe Mrs Pipchin, under pretence of having sat up all night, was dozing
in her own room, and that Mr Dombey was lying on his sofa, unattended.
     With a  twitch - not of her  head merely,  this  time, but of her whole
self  - the  Nipper  went on tiptoe to Mr  Dombey's door, and knocked. 'Come
in!' said Mr Dombey. Susan encouraged herself with a  final twitch, and went
in.
     Mr Dombey, who was eyeing the fire, gave an amazed look at his visitor,
and raised himself a little on his arm. The Nipper dropped a curtsey.
     'What do you want?' said Mr Dombey.
     'If you please, Sir, I wish to speak to you,' said Susan.
     Mr Dombey  moved  his lips as if he were repeating  the words,  but  he
seemed so lost in astonishment at the presumption of  the young woman  as to
be incapable of giving them utterance.
     'I have been  in your service, Sir,' said Susan  Nipper, with her usual
rapidity, 'now twelve  'year  a waiting  on  Miss Floy my own young lady who
couldn't speak plain when I first come here and I was old in this house when
Mrs  Richards was new, I may  not be  Meethosalem, but  I am  not a child in
arms.'
     Mr Dombey, raised upon his  arm and looking  at her, offered no comment
on this preparatory statement of fact.
     'There  never was a dearer or a blesseder young lady than is  my  young
lady, Sir,' said Susan, 'and  I  ought to know a great deal better than some
for I have seen her in her grief and I have seen her in her joy (there's not
been much of it) and I have seen her with her brother and I have seen her in
her loneliness and some have never seen her, and  I  say to some and all - I
do!' and here the black-eyed shook her head, and slightly stamped her  foot;
'that she's the blessedest and dearest angel is Miss Floy that ever drew the
breath of life, the  more that I was  torn to pieces Sir the more I'd say it
though I may not be a Fox's Martyr..'
     Mr Dombey turned yet paler than his fall had made him, with indignation
and astonishment; and kept  his eyes upon the speaker as if he accused them,
and his ears too, of playing him false.
     'No one  could  be anything but true  and faithful to  Miss Floy, Sir,'
pursued Susan,  'and I take no merit  for my  service of twelve year,  for I
love her - yes, I say to some and all I do!' - and here the black-eyed shook
her head again, and slightly stamped her foot again, and checked a sob; 'but
true and  faithful service  gives me right to speak I hope, and speak I must
and will now, right or wrong.
     'What do you mean, woman?' said Mr Dombey,  glaring at her. 'How do you
dare?'
     'What I mean, Sir, is to speak respectful and without offence, but out,
and how I dare I know not but I do!'said Susan. 'Oh! you don't know my young
lady Sir you don't indeed, you'd never know so little of her, if you did.'
     Mr Dombey, in a fury, put his hand out for the bell-rope; but there was
no bell-rope  on that side of the  fire,  and he could not rise and cross to
the  other  without assistance. The  quick eye of  the  Nipper  detected his
helplessness immediately, and now, as she afterwards observed, she felt  she
had got him.
     'Miss Floy,' said Susan Nipper, 'is the most devoted and  most  patient
and  most dutiful and beautiful  of daughters, there ain't no gentleman,  no
Sir, though as great and rich as all the greatest and richest of England put
together, but might be  proud of  her and  would and  ought. If he  knew her
value right, he'd rather lose his greatness  and his fortune piece by  piece
and beg his way in rags from door to door, I say to some and all, he would!'
cried  Susan  Nipper,  bursting into tears,  'than bring the sorrow  on  her
tender heart that I have seen it suffer in this house!'
     'Woman,' cried Mr Dombey, 'leave the room.
     'Begging  your pardon, not even  if  I am to leave the situation, Sir,'
replied the steadfast  Nipper, 'in which I have been  so many years and seen
so much  -  although I hope you'd never  have the heart to send me from Miss
Floy  for such a  cause - will I go now till I have said the rest, I may not
be a Indian widow Sir and I am not and I would  not so become but if I  once
made up my mind to burn myself alive, I'd do it! And I've made my mind up to
go on.'
     Which was rendered no  less clear by  the expression of Susan  Nipper's
countenance, than by her words.
     'There  ain't a  person in your service, Sir,' pursued the  black-eyed,
'that has always stood more in awe of you than me and you may think how true
it is when I make so bold as say that I have  hundreds and hundreds of times
thought of speaking to you and never been able to make my mind up to it till
last night, but last night decided of me.'
     Mr Dombey, in a paroxysm  of rage, made another grasp  at the bell-rope
that  was  not  there, and,  in its  absence,  pulled  his hair rather  than
nothing.
     'I have  seen,' said Susan Nipper,  'Miss Floy strive and  strive  when
nothing but a child so sweet and  patient that the best of  women might have
copied from  her,  I've  seen her  sitting  nights  together  half the night
through to  help  her delicate  brother  with  his learning,  I've seen  her
helping him  and watching  him at  other times - some well know when  - I've
seen  her, with no encouragement  and no help,  grow up to  be a lady, thank
God!  that is the  grace and pride of every company she  goes  in,  and I've
always seen her cruelly neglected and keenly feeling of it  - I say to  some
and all, I have!  - and never said one  word, but  ordering one's self lowly
and reverently towards one's betters, is  not  to  be a worshipper of graven
images, and I will and must speak!'
     'Is there  anybody there?' cried Mr Dombey, calling out. 'Where are the
men? where are the women? Is there no one there?'
     'I left  my  dear young lady out of bed  late last night,'  said Susan,
nothing checked, 'and  I knew why, for you was ill Sir and she  didn't  know
how ill and that was enough to make her wretched  as I saw it did. I may not
be  a  Peacock; but I have my eyes  - and  I sat up a little in  my own room
thinking she  might  be lonesome and might  want me,  and  I  saw her  steal
downstairs and come to this door as if it was a guilty  thing to look at her
own Pa,  and then steal back again and  go  into them lonely  drawing-rooms,
a-crying  so, that I could hardly  bear to hear  it. I can not bear  to hear
it,' said Susan  Nipper, wiping her black eyes, and fixing them undauntingly
on Mr  Dombey's infuriated face. 'It's not the first time  I have  heard it,
not by many and many a time you don't know your own daughter, Sir, you don't
know what you're doing,  Sir, I say to some and all,' cried Susan Nipper, in
a final burst, 'that it's a sinful shame!'
     'Why,  hoity  toity!' cried the  voice of  Mrs  Pipchin, as  the  black
bombazeen garments of that  fair Peruvian Miner swept into the room. 'What's
this, indeed?'
     Susan favoured  Mrs Pipchin with a look she  had invented expressly for
her when they first became acquainted, and resigned the reply to Mr Dombey.
     'What's this?' repeated Mr Dombey, almost foaming. 'What's this, Madam?
You who  are at the head of this household,  and bound to keep  it in order,
have reason to inquire. Do you know this woman?'
     'I know very  little  good of her, Sir,' croaked Mrs Pipchin. 'How dare
you come here, you hussy? Go along with you!'
     But the inflexible  Nipper,  merely honouring Mrs  Pipchin with another
look, remained.
     'Do you call it managing this  establishment, Madam,'  said Mr  Dombey,
'to leave a  person like this at liberty to come and talk to me! A gentleman
-  in  his own house - in his own room - assailed with  the impertinences of
women-servants!'
     'Well, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin, with vengeance in her hard grey eye,
'I exceedingly deplore it;  nothing can  be  more irregular; nothing  can be
more out of all bounds and reason; but I regret to say, Sir, that this young
woman is quite  beyond control. She  has been spoiled by Miss Dombey, and is
amenable to  nobody. You know  you're  not,' said  Mrs Pipchin, sharply, and
shaking her head at Susan Nipper. 'For shame, you hussy! Go along with you!'
     'If you find people  in my  service  who are  not to be controlled, Mrs
Pipchin,' said Mr  Dombey, turning back towards the  fire, 'you know what to
do with them, I presume. You know what you are here for? Take her away!'
     'Sir, I know what to do,' retorted Mrs Pipchin, 'and of course shall do
it'  Susan Nipper,'  snapping her up particularly short,  'a month's warning
from this hour.'
     'Oh indeed!' cried Susan, loftily.
     'Yes,' returned Mrs Pipchin, 'and  don't smile at me, you minx, or I'll
know the reason why! Go along with you this minute!'
     'I  intend to go this minute, you may  rely upon  it,' said the voluble
Nipper. 'I have been in this house waiting on my young lady a dozen year and
I won't stop in it one hour under notice from a person owning to the name of
Pipchin trust me, Mrs P.'
     'A  good riddance  of  bad rubbish!' said  that wrathful old lady. 'Get
along with you, or I'll have you carried out!'
     'My  comfort is,' said Susan, looking back at Mr  Dombey, 'that I  have
told a piece of truth this day which ought to have been told long before and
can't be told too  often or too plain  and that no amount  of Pipchinses - I
hope the number of 'em mayn't be  great' (here Mrs  Pipchin  uttered a  very
sharp 'Go  along with you!' and Miss  Nipper repeated  the  look) 'can unsay
what I have said, though they gave a whole year full  of  warnings beginning
at ten o'clock in  the forenoon  and  never leaving off till twelve at night
and died of the exhaustion which would be a Jubilee!'
     With  these words, Miss  Nipper  preceded her foe out of the  room; and
walking upstairs to  her  own  apartments  in great state,  to  the  choking
exasperation of  the  ireful Pipchin, sat down among her boxes and began  to
cry.
     From  this soft mood she  was soon  aroused,  with a very wholesome and
refreshing effect, by the voice of Mrs Pipchin outside the door.
     'Does that bold-faced slut,' said the fell Pipchin, 'intend to take her
warning, or does she not?'
     Miss  Nipper replied from within  that  the  person described  did  not
inhabit  that  part of the house, but that her name was Pipchin, and she was
to be found in the housekeeper's room.
     'You  saucy baggage!' retorted Mrs Pipchin,  rattling at  the handle of
the door. 'Go along with you this minute. Pack up your things directly!  How
dare you talk in this way to a gentle-woman who has seen better days?'
     To  which  Miss Nipper rejoined  from  her castle, that she  pitied the
better days that had seen Mrs Pipchin; and that for her part she  considered
the worst  days  in the year to  be about that lady's mark, except that they
were much too good for her.
     'But  you  needn't trouble yourself to make a noise  at my  door,' said
Susan Nipper, 'nor to contaminate the key-hole with your eye, I'm packing up
and going you may take your affidavit.'
     The Dowager expressed her lively satisfaction at this intelligence, and
with some general opinions upon young hussies as a race, and especially upon
their demerits after being spoiled  by Miss Dombey, withdrew to prepare  the
Nipper~s wages. Susan then bestirred  herself  to get  her  trunks in order,
that  she might take an immediate and dignified departure;  sobbing heartily
all the time, as she thought of Florence.
     The object of her regret was not long in  coming  to  her, for the news
soon spread over the house that  Susan Nipper had had a disturbance with Mrs
Pipchin,  and that they  had both appealed to Mr Dombey,  and that there had
been an unprecedented piece of work in Mr  Dombey's room, and that Susan was
going. The latter part  of this confused rumour,  Florence  found  to be  so
correct,  that Susan had locked the  last trunk and was sitting upon it with
her bonnet on, when she came into her room.
     'Susan!' cried Florence. 'Going to leave me! You!'
     'Oh for goodness gracious sake, Miss Floy,' said Susan, sobbing, 'don't
speak a word to me  or I shall demean myself before them'  Pipchinses, and I
wouldn't have 'em see me cry Miss Floy for worlds!'
     'Susan!' said Florence. 'My dear girl,  my  old friend! What shall I do
without you! Can you bear to go away so?'
     'No-n-o-o, my darling  dear Miss Floy, I can't indeed,'  sobbed  Susan.
'But it can't be helped,  I've  done my duty' Miss, I  have  indeed. It's no
fault  of mine.  I am quite resigned. I couldn't  stay my  month or  I could
never leave  you then my darling  and I  must at last  as well as at  first,
don't speak  to  me  Miss Floy, for though I'm  pretty firm I'm not a marble
doorpost, my own dear.'
     'What is it? Why is it?' said Florence, 'Won't you tell me?' For  Susan
was shaking her head.
     'No-n-no,  my  darling,' returned Susan. 'Don't ask me,  for I mustn't,
and whatever you  do don't put in a word  for me to stop, for it couldn't be
and you'd only wrong  yourself,  and  so God bless  you my  own precious and
forgive me any harm I have  done, or any temper  I have showed in  all these
many years!'
     With which entreaty, very heartily delivered, Susan hugged her mistress
in her arms.
     'My  darling there's a many that may  come to serve you and be glad  to
serve you and who'll  serve you well and true,' said Susan, 'but there can't
be one who'll serve you so affectionate as me  or  love you  half as dearly,
that's my comfort' Good-bye, sweet Miss Floy!'
     'Where will you go, Susan?' asked her weeping mistress.
     'I've got a brother down in the country Miss  - a farmer in  Essex said
the  heart-broken Nipper, 'that keeps ever so  many co-o-ows and pigs  and I
shall go down there by the coach and sto-op with him, and don't mind me, for
I've  got  money in  the  Savings  Banks my dear,  and needn't take  another
service  just yet, which I  couldn't, couldn't, couldn't  do, my heart's own
mistress!' Susan  finished  with  a  burst of sorrow, which was  opportunely
broken by the voice of Mrs Pipchin talking downstairs; on hearing which, she
dried  her  red and  swollen eyes, and made  a melancholy feint  of  calling
jauntily to Mr Towlinson to fetch a cab and carry down her boxes.
     Florence, pale and hurried and  distressed, but  withheld from  useless
interference even here, by her dread of causing any new division between her
father and his wife (whose stern, indignant face had been a warning to her a
few  moments  since),  and  by  her  apprehension  of  being   in  some  way
unconsciously connected  already  with  the dismissal of her old servant and
friend,  followed,  weeping,  downstairs to  Edith's dressing-room,  whither
Susan betook herself to make her parting curtsey.
     'Now,  here's  the  cab, and here's the boxes, get along with you, do!'
said Mrs Pipchin, presenting herself at the same moment. 'I beg your pardon,
Ma'am, but Mr Dombey's orders are imperative.'
     Edith,  sitting  under the hands of  her maid -  she was  going out  to
dinner - preserved her haughty face, and took not the least notice.
     'There's your money,' said Mrs Pipchin, who in pursuance of her system,
and in recollection of the Mines, was accustomed to rout the servants about,
as  she   had  routed  her  young  Brighton  boarders;  to  the  everlasting
acidulation of Master Bitherstone, 'and the sooner this house sees your back
the better.
     Susan had no spirits even for  the look that  belonged to Ma Pipchin by
right; so  she  dropped  her curtsey to Mrs  Dombey  (who  inclined her head
without one word, and whose eye avoided everyone but Florence), and gave one
last parting hug  to her young mistress, and received her parting embrace in
return.  Poor Susan's face at this crisis, in  the intensity of her feelings
and the  determined suffocation of her sobs, lest  one should become audible
and  be  a  triumph  to  Mrs  Pipchin,  presented  a  series  of   the  most
extraordinary physiognomical phenomena ever witnessed.
     'I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure,'  said Towlinson, outside the  door
with the  boxes,  addressing Florence, 'but Mr Toots is in the drawing-room,
and sends his compliments, and begs to know how Diogenes and Master is.'
     Quick as thought, Florence glided out and hastened downstairs, where Mr
Toots,  in the most  splendid vestments, was breathing very hard  with doubt
and agitation on the subject of her coming.
     'Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, 'God bless my soul!'
     This last ejaculation was occasioned by Mr  Toots's deep concern at the
distress he saw in Florence's  face; which caused him to stop short in a fit
of chuckles, and become an image of despair.
     'Dear  Mr Toots,'  said Florence, 'you are so friendly  to  me, and  so
honest, that I am sure I may ask a favour of you.
     'Miss Dombey,' returned Mr Toots, 'if  you'll only name  one, you'll  -
you'll  give me  an appetite. To which,' said Mr Toots, with some sentiment,
'I have long been a stranger.
     'Susan, who is an old friend of  mine, the oldest friend I  have,' said
Florence, 'is about to leave here suddenly, and quite alone,  poor girl. She
is going home, a little way into the country. Might I ask you to  take  care
of her until she is in the coach?'
     'Miss Dombey,'  returned  Mr Toots, 'you really do me an honour  and  a
kindness.  This proof  of your  confidence, after  the manner in which I was
Beast enough to conduct myself at Brighton - '
     'Yes,' said Florence, hurriedly - 'no - don't think of that. Then would
you have the kindness to - to go? and to be ready to meet her when she comes
out? Thank you a thousand times! You ease my mind so much.  She doesn't seem
so desolate. You  cannot think how grateful I  feel to you, or  what  a good
friend I am sure you are!' and Florence in her earnestness thanked him again
and again; and Mr  Toots, in his earnestness, hurried away -  but backwards,
that he might lose no glimpse of her.
     Florence  had not the courage to go out, when she saw poor Susan in the
hall, with Mrs Pipchin driving her forth,  and  Diogenes  jumping about her,
and  terrifying Mrs Pipchin to  the  last degree  by  making  snaps  at  her
bombazeen skirts, and howling with anguish at  the sound of her voice -  for
the good duenna  was the dearest and most cherished aversion of  his breast.
But she saw Susan shake hands with the servants all round,  and turn once to
look at her old home; and she saw Diogenes bound out after the cab, and want
to follow  it,  and testify an impossibility of conviction  that he  had  no
longer any  property in the fare; and the door was shut, and the hurry over,
and her tears flowed fast for  the loss of an old friend, whom no one  could
replace. No one. No one.
     Mr Toots, like the leal and trusty soul he was,  stopped the  cabriolet
in a twinkling, and told Susan Nipper of  his commission, at which she cried
more than before.
     'Upon my soul and body!' said Mr Toots, taking  his seat beside her. 'I
feel for you. Upon my word and honour  I think you  can hardly know your own
feelings  better than I imagine them. I  can  conceive nothing more dreadful
than to have to leave Miss Dombey.'
     Susan abandoned herself to her grief now, and it really was touching to
see her.
     'I say,' said Mr Toots, 'now, don't! at least I mean now do, you know!'
     'Do what, Mr Toots!' cried Susan.
     'Why, come home to my  place, and  have some  dinner before you start,'
said  Mr  Toots.  'My cook's  a most respectable woman  -  one  of  the most
motherly  people  I  ever  saw  -  and  she'll  be  delighted  to  make  you
comfortable. Her son,' said Mr Toots, as an additional  recommendation, 'was
educated in the Bluecoat School,' and blown up in a powder-mill.'
     Susan  accepting  this kind  offer,  Mr  Toots  conducted  her  to  his
dwelling, where  they were received  by  the  Matron in  question who  fully
justified his character of her, and by the Chicken who at first supposed, on
seeing a  lady in the vehicle, that Mr Dombey had  been  doubled up, ably to
his old recommendation, and Miss Dombey abducted. This gentleman awakened in
Miss Nipper some considerable astonishment; for, having been defeated by the
Larkey  Boy, his visage  was in a state of such great dilapidation, as to be
hardly  presentable in society with  comfort  to the beholders.  The Chicken
himself  attributed this punishment to his having had the  misfortune to get
into Chancery  early  in the proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the
Larkey  one, and heavily grassed. But it appeared from the published records
of that  great  contest that the  Larkey Boy had had it all his own way from
the  beginning, and  that the Chicken had  been  tapped, and bunged, and had
received pepper, and  had been made groggy, and had come  up piping, and had
endured a complication of similar strange inconveniences, until  he had been
gone into and finished.
     After  a  good  repast,  and  much  hospitality, Susan  set out for the
coach-office in another cabriolet, with Mr Toots inside, as  before, and the
Chicken on the  box, who, whatever  distinction  he conferred on  the little
party by  the  moral  weight  and heroism of  his  character,  was  scarcely
ornamental to  it,  physically speaking,  on account  of his plasters; which
were numerous.  But the Chicken  had  registered a vow,  in  secret, that he
would never leave Mr Toots  (who was secretly pining to get rid of him), for
any less consideration than the  good-will and fixtures of  a  public-house;
and being ambitious to go into that line, and drink himself to death as soon
as possible, he felt it his cue to make his company unacceptable.
     The  night-coach  by  which  Susan  was  to go, was  on  the  point  of
departure.  Mr  Toots  having  put  her  inside,  lingered  by  the  window,
irresolutely,  until the driver  was about to  mount; when, standing  on the
step, and  putting in  a  face that by the light of the lamp was anxious and
confused, he said abruptly:
     'I say, Susan! Miss Dombey, you know - '
     'Yes, Sir.'
     'Do you think she could - you know - eh?'
     'I beg your pardon, Mr Toots,' said Susan, 'but I don't hear you.
     'Do you think she could be brought, you know - not exactly at once, but
in  time - in  a long time - to - to love me, you know? There!' said poor Mr
Toots.
     'Oh  dear  no!' returned Susan, shaking her head. 'I should say, never.
Never!'
     'Thank'ee!' said Mr Toots. 'It's of no consequence. Good-night. It's of
no consequence, thank'ee!'

        CHAPTER 45.
     The Trusty Agent

     Edith  went out alone that day, and  returned  home early. It was but a
few minutes after ten o'clock,  when her carriage rolled along the street in
which she lived.
     There was the same enforced composure on  her face, that there had been
when  she was dressing; and the wreath upon her head encircled the same cold
and  steady brow. But  it would have been better to have seen its leaves and
flowers reft into fragments by her passionate hand, or rendered shapeless by
the   fitful  searches  of  a   throbbing  and  bewildered  brain  for   any
resting-place,  than   adorning   such   tranquillity.   So   obdurate,   so
unapproachable,  so  unrelenting, one  would have thought that nothing could
soften such a woman's nature, and that everything in life had hardened it.
     Arrived  at  her own  door, she  was alighting,  when some  one  coming
quietly from the hall, and standing bareheaded,  offered  her  his  arm. The
servant being thrust aside, she had no choice but to touch it;  and she then
knew whose arm it was.
     'How is your patient, Sir?' she asked, with a curled lip.
     'He is  better,' returned Carker. 'He is doing very  well.  I have left
him for the night.'
     She  bent her head,  and was passing up the staircase, when he followed
and said, speaking at the bottom:
     'Madam! May I beg the favour of a minute's audience?'
     She stopped and turned her  eyes back 'It is an unseasonable time, Sir,
and I am fatigued. Is your business urgent?'
     'It is very urgent, returned Carker. 'As  I  am so fortunate as to have
met you, let me press my petition.'
     She looked down for a moment at his glistening mouth;  and he looked up
at her, standing  above him  in her stately  dress, and thought,  again, how
beautiful she was.
     'Where is Miss Dombey?' she asked the servant, aloud.
     'In the morning room, Ma'am.'
     'Show the way there!' Turning her eyes again on the attentive gentleman
at the bottom of  the  stairs, and informing him with a slight motion of her
head, that he was at liberty to follow, she passed on.
     'I  beg your pardon!  Madam! Mrs  Dombey!' cried  the  soft and  nimble
Carker,  at her  side in  a moment. 'May I be permitted to entreat that Miss
Dombey is not present?'
     She  confronted   him,  with   a   quick  look,   but  with   the  same
self-possession and steadiness.
     'I  would  spare  Miss Dombey,'  said  Carker,  in a  low  voice,  'the
knowledge of what I have to say. At least, Madam, I would leave it to you to
decide whether  she shall  know of it or  not. I owe  that to  you. It is my
bounden duty to you. After our former interview, it would be monstrous in me
if I did otherwise.'
     She slowly withdrew her eyes from his face, and turning to the servant,
said, 'Some other room.' He led the way to a drawing-room, which he speedily
lighted up and then left them.  While  he remained,  not a word  was spoken.
Edith enthroned herself  upon a  couch  by the fire; and Mr Carker, with his
hat in his hand and his eyes bent upon the carpet, stood before her, at some
little distance.
     'Before I hear you, Sir,' said Edith, when the door was closed, 'I wish
you to hear me.'
     'To  be addressed by  Mrs  Dombey,'  he returned, 'even in  accents  of
unmerited reproach, is an honour  I so greatly esteem,  that although I were
not her servant in all things, I should defer to such a wish, most readily.'
     'If you are charged by the man  whom  you have just now  left, Sir;' Mr
Carker raised his eyes, as if he were going to counterfeit surprise, but she
met them, and stopped him, if such  were his intention; 'with any message to
me, do not attempt to deliver it, for I will not receive it. I need scarcely
ask you if you are come on such an errand. I have expected you some time.
     'It is my misfortune,' he replied, 'to be here, wholly against my will,
for such a purpose. Allow me to say that I am here for two purposes. That is
one.'
     'That one, Sir,' she returned, 'is ended. Or, if you return to it - '
     'Can  Mrs  Dombey believe,'  said Carker, coming nearer, 'that  I would
return to it in the face of her prohibition? Is it possible that Mrs Dombey,
having no regard to my unfortunate position, is so determined to consider me
inseparable from my instructor as to do me great and wilful injustice?'
     'Sir,'  returned Edith,  bending  her  dark  gaze full  upon  him,  and
speaking with a  rising passion that  inflated  her  proud  nostril and  her
swelling  neck, and  stirred the delicate white down  upon a robe she  wore,
thrown loosely over shoulders that could  hear its snowy neighbourhood. 'Why
do you present yourself to me, as you have done, and speak to me of love and
duty to my husband, and pretend to think that I am happily married, and that
I honour  him? How dare you venture  so to affront me, when you know - I  do
not know better, Sir: I  have seen it in your every glance, and heard  it in
your every word - that in place of affection between us  there  is  aversion
and contempt, and  that I  despise him hardly less than I despise myself for
being his! Injustice! If I had done justice to the  torment you have made me
feel, and  to my sense  of the insult you have  put upon  me, I should  have
slain you!'
     She  had  asked  him why he  did  this. Had she not been blinded by her
pride and wrath, and self-humiliation, - which she was, fiercely as she bent
her gaze upon  him, -  she would have seen  the answer in his face. To bring
her to this declaration.
     She saw it not, and cared not whether it  was there or no. She saw only
the indignities and struggles she had undergone and had to undergo,  and was
writhing under them. As she sat looking fixedly at them, rather than at him,
she plucked the  feathers  from a pinion of  some  rare and  beautiful bird,
which hung from her  wrist  by a golden thread, to serve  her as a  fan, and
rained them on the ground.
     He did not shrink beneath her gaze, but stood, until such outward signs
of her anger as had escaped her control subsided,  with the air of a man who
had his sufficient reply in reserve and would presently deliver  it. And  he
then spoke, looking straight into her kindling eyes.
     'Madam,' he said, 'I know, and knew before to-day, that I have found no
favour with  you; and I knew why. Yes. I knew why. You have spoken so openly
to me; I am so relieved by the possession of your confidence - '
     'Confidence!' she repeated, with disdain.
     He passed it over.
     ' - that I  will make no pretence  of concealment. I did  see  from the
first, that there was no affection on your part for Mr Dombey - how could it
possibly exist between such different subjects? And I have seen, since, that
stronger feelings  than  indifference have  been engendered in your breast -
how could that  possibly be  otherwise,  either, circumstanced as  you  have
been? But was it for me to presume to  avow this knowledge to you in so many
words?'
     'Was  it for you, Sir,' she replied, 'to  feign that other  belief, and
audaciously to thrust it on me day by day?'
     'Madam, it was,' he eagerly retorted.  'If I had done  less,  if  I had
done  anything but that, I should not be speaking to you thus; and I foresaw
- who  could better foresee, for who has had greater experience of Mr Dombey
than myself? - that unless your character should prove to be as yielding and
obedient as that of his first submissive lady, which I did not believe - '
     A haughty smile gave him reason to observe that he might repeat this.
     'I say, which I did not believe, -  the time was likely  to come,  when
such an understanding as we have now arrived at, would be serviceable.'
     'Serviceable to whom, Sir?' she demanded scornfully.
     'To you. I will not add  to  myself, as warning me to refrain even from
that limited commendation  of Mr Dombey, in which I can honestly indulge, in
order  that I may not have the misfortune of saying anything distasteful  to
one whose aversion and contempt,' with great expression, 'are so keen.'
     'Is  it honest in you, Sir,' said  Edith, 'to confess to your  "limited
commendation,"  and to  speak  in that tone of  disparagement, even  of him:
being his chief counsellor and flatterer!'
     'Counsellor,  -  yes,'  said  Carker.   'Flatterer,  -   no.  A  little
reservation  I  fear  I must confess to. But  our interest  and  convenience
commonly oblige many of us to make professions that we cannot  feel. We have
partnerships  of  interest  and  convenience,  friendships  of  interest and
convenience, dealings of interest and convenience, marriages of interest and
convenience, every day.'
     She  bit her blood-red  lip; but  without wavering in  the  dark, stern
watch she kept upon him.
     'Madam,' said Mr  Carker, sitting down in a  chair  that was  near her,
with an air of the most profound and most considerate respect, 'why should I
hesitate now, being altogether devoted to your service, to speak plainly? It
was natural that  a lady,  endowed as  you are,  should think it feasible to
change her husband's character in some respects, and mould  him to  a better
form.'
     'It  was  not  natural  to me, Sir,'  she  rejoined.  'I had never  any
expectation or intention of that kind.'
     The proud undaunted face showed him it was resolute  to wear no mask he
offered,  but was  set upon a reckless disclosure of itself,  indifferent to
any aspect in which it might present itself to such as he.
     'At  least it was natural,' he resumed, 'that  you should deem it quite
possible to live with Mr Dombey as his  wife, at once  without submitting to
him,  and  without coming into such violent collision  with him. But, Madam,
you did not know Mr Dombey (as you have since ascertained), when you thought
that. You did not know how exacting and how proud he  is, or how he is, if I
may  say  so,  the slave of  his own  greatness,  and goes yoked  to his own
triumphal car like a beast  of burden, with  no idea on earth but that it is
behind him and is to be drawn on, over everything and through everything.'
     His teeth  gleamed through  his malicious relish of this conceit, a