Dombey and Daughter: a moral fiction

Chapter I

wen," as the icebergs of the northern seas, or the scorching sunfires of the distant tropics — less known, certainly, less known ; for into the recesses of some dark metropolitan obscurities the mind is never led, even by books, by maps, or charts ; while the penetrating lamp of discovery has been lighted by the enterprise of skilful humanity, over the latitude and longitude of lands and seas, of deserts and of rivers, far, far be yond the trace of the camel's foot, or the voice of even barbarian mortality. Descend with me, oh ! fair and gentle reader, descend with me to the level of the Thames. I DIM LOCALITIES OF LONDON — DESCEND WITH ME — A. QUEER NEIGHBOURHOOD AND THE INHA- BITANTS THEREOF DESCRIBED — ALL IN THE SHADES BELOW — PETER THE HERBALIST, SOOTH- SAYER, AND QUACK-DOCTOR INTRODUCED — HIS INDULGENCES VIVIFIED — A COLD NIGHT — AN EVENING CALL — MRS. FRIBBLE, THE OBJECT OF HER VISIT — THE DOCTOR'S RESOLVE, JOURNEY IN PURSUIT OF FAME, &C. There are in London localities as little known to the majority of the denizens of the " great am no Quixote, but the wonders of the fabled cave of Montesinos shall not fall short of the marvels of our expedition.

Down, down, down, with gentle, n ot with hasty tread, that flight of stone stairs, close to the Feathers Tavern, on the Surrey side of Waterloo-bridge. Down, down, I say, with step cautious and soft, and we will penetrate the black labyrinths of sloth, of crime, of idleness, of poverty below. Stacks of wretched houses, the dwellings of the wicked, the unfortunate, the furtive, the blighted, and the damned, are huddled together in mean design, one unblushing hotbed of mental and physical decomposition. These warrens for the burrowing and multi plying of wretched and depraved materialism are called back streets, and the back streets of the Waterloo-road are perhaps farther back in the world of morals and the Bill of Health, than any other back streets in the suburbs of the metropolis. Dirty and slip-shod, improvident wives of improvident mechanics loiter and gossip in gin shop doorways, with females in figured finery, whose nameless occupation is betokened by the unmistakeable evidences of stale carmine and a shameless arrangement of dress, antagonistic to decorum, and in defiance of every known order in the architecture of feminine costume.

Chil dren — squalid, in -kneed, bandy, and bow-legged — fester in the fetid auof leprous exhalations, crying whoop at nightfall from hollow jaws and morbid lungs ; and by day, wayward, wanton, and neglected, playing pitch-and-toss together in nooks, corners, and bye-places, away from the scrutiny of passer and police. At the corner of a street in this colony of vicious vicissitude was the shop of old Peter the herbalist. Peter Grumper, or Doctor Grumper, as he was called in the neighbourhood, was a man of lean and spare appearance, withered, aged, and attenuated. In his shop-window were displayed blue and scarlet bottles, meagre-looking leeches, blisters, bandages, and poor-man's plaister ; decoctions of scarce and medicinal herbs, sanatory and poisonous ; eammomiles, mint, poppies, henbane, hemlock, hyssop, and nightshade ; with dusty pill-boxes, lapsed pow ders, and long glass phials with hideous ribbon worms and reptiles, enough to turn the heart sick, and to scare one's very stomach from its propriety.

Behind all this show of herbal experience and examples of physicianal success, Dr. Grumper exercised another, a contraband profession : he cast nativities, told fortunes, and enlightened the ignorant upon the prospects of their dark futurity. There was scarcely a gossip in the vicinity that had not some strange tale to tell of old Peter's verified revelations, and one and all agreed upon his infallibility as an oracle in divination and prognostics. It was a dark winter's night, dark as the sable gloom of unblessed eternity, dark as the raven's wing, sombre as the burial sigh, and still as the bend of funeral feathers. Oh ! how dark it was. Doors were closed, and fires blazed through parlour windows ; black slides were on the ken nel-pools ; icicles turned dark with intense frost, and none but those in dire necessity ventured out in that cold, drear, and black midnight. reter the herbalist had finished his pipe, and brought almost to the finale his last tumbler of hot rum-and-water ; for although Peter was supposed to be in communion with superior intelligences, he was by no means indifferent to the excellences of living, nor at variance with the indulgent application of seasonable stimulants.

Doctor Peter Grumper said to himself : " Now I'll go to bed." And there is no doubt but that the doctor would have been as good as his word, had not his resolution been delayed by a loud knock at his shop door. " Who's there i" quoth Dr. Grumper. " Sirs. Fribble," said an impatient voice from without. " Drat the woman," said the doctor, solilo quising; " what can she want at this unseemly hour of the night ?" The doctor unlocked the door, and a little podgy female, apparently about forty-five years of age, hurried into the shop. "My gracious, doctor !" said the little woman, " ain't it cold ! Nothing but a very serious mat ter would have brought me down here to-night, I can tell you." "Come in, and sit down," said the doctor. "What is it?" " Well, Lor' bless us!" said Mrs. Fribble, taking off a large pair of worsted gloves ; " well, it is cold, to be sure.

You hav'n't got a drop of summut in the house, doctor, have you ? — the smallest drop in the world — just a thimble ful. Well, I never was so cold in my life. It's colderer than it was last winter, doctor." By this time, Doctor Grumper had taken out what he facetiously called his " own medicine chest," namely, a small liquor-ease, and having handed the matron a bumper of old Jamaica rum, he sat down to hear what she had to say. " Oh ! my goodness, Grumper, why you've took my breath away," said Mrs. Fribble, as she made a painful affectation of a wry face at the strength of the rum. " A bit of sugar, my dear man, or I shall have the hiccups for a week." The doctor, although a gallant man, began to get somewhat out of patience ; he had, for at least ten minutes before Mrs. Fribble arrived, been indulging in the anticipated warmth of extra blankets, and a ditto glass of rum-and water in bed.

These anticipations, he began to apprehend, were likely to become mere chimera of the imagination, or at best but matter of vague speculation, if he encouraged Mrs. Frib ble. He knew that she was an inveterate gossip, and he therefore resolved to bring her to the point at once. "There is the sugar, Mrs. Fribble— there is the sugar, ma'am ; but you will excuse me if I beg you will say at once what your bushiess is with me so late at night ; for, to tell you the truth, Mrs. F., I was just going to bed."" " So was I, doctor, so was I ; yes, I was going to bed, and should have been in bed now and fast asleep, hours ago, if it had not been for my business with you." "Well, ma'am,' said the doctor, sharplv "what is that business ?" " " Why," said Mrs. Fribble, "you know the pretty little girl that I send for the cammomile «we,?.. _she d,°?t01' noddod a response.- •\\ ell, contmued Mrs. Fribble, "her mother is the young woman as has for the last ten months - rented my first-floor."

I " The invalid," said the doctor. JI T£e-?£?r si.°¥j ?eetur as * tokl 5'ou of," said Mrs Fribble. " Well, she's a-dyingLjf sll'e ain dead now, I expect she will be before I get back " How can I help you i" said the doctor. " Has she had advice : ' W"1- DOMEEY AND DAUGHTER. i( " The best in the world," said Mrs. Fribble ; " and they have all given her up. It's a gal loping consumption. You must know," pursued the lady, " that since she has been with me, she has had no visitors except oue middle-aged gentleman, who used to leave his carriage on the bridge, and pop slily down the steps to our house, which, as you know, doctor, ain't far down the road. Well, my boy Tom followed him once or twice, as far as the carriage. Plague on it he did not follow him home ! Now he hasn't been near for two months.

The poor young creetur's unsensible. We want to send for him, but we don't know where he lives." Mrs. Fribble paused, and looked at the doctor. " Well," said that learned gentleman, " well." " Well," echoed Mrs. Fribble, " I want you to tell me " sight ; and that dear little child, too, as Mrs. Fribble says, must go to the workus. Oh ! la ! it's very shocking ; but then, as I says to my Joe, I always says, ' Joe,' says I, ' it might have been worse.' Now, suppose there had been six young children instead of one ?" " Why, then, in course," said Mrs. Whimper, " it would be six times as bad as it is at pre sent." In this the two crones agreed, and having finished a light supper of liver and bacon, in Mrs. Fribble s kitchen, they proceeded to resume theuduties as nurses in the chamber of the sick young woman.

In that chamber there was a sorrowing, yet a godly sight. A child, a beauteous child, be tween seven and eight years old, was on her knees, praying by the death-bed of her dying mother. Her hair was fair and flowing. From 'ncath the deep lashes of her eyebrows streamed tears, in steady progress, adown her pale and tender cheek ; but steadfastly she clasped her hands, and prayed. Oh ! fervently she prayed. Startled, but not alarmed, by the entrance ofthe two women, she rose and placed the cold hand of her dying mother to her heart, to her lips ; and it was bathed in tears. "Tell you what?" said the doctor, in sur prise. " What !" exclaimed Mrs. Fribble. " Why, I want you to tell me where he lives." Doctor Peter Grumper felt this request to be ludicrous in the extreme, and he had much ado to keep himself from laughing in the good lady's presence ; but it also struck the doctor as a great compliment paid to his skill in the black art.

Oh ! fair and sympathising reader, have you in your gentle childhood striven to rear the droop ing lily, or revive the faded rose — cool earth, fresh water, the dew of morning, the hot-house, all, all in vain ! The little maiden showered tears upon her mother's hand ; she warmed, or tried to warm it on her panting bosom. Oh ! the throbbing pulses of that pure, de voted heart were worth miracles — a million — to shake the creed of the wandering materialist, and show the heaven-born soul of suffering humanity, even in an infant's breast ! " She sleeps, I think. Had you not better leave her, my dear?" said Mrs. Bell. " No, no, no," cried the child, impatiently; " never, never ! How can I leave my dear mamma!" " This ignorant woman," thought the doctor, " has come out on this bitter night, late and lonely, under the absurd impression that I, knowing all things, or dealing with the devil, can give her the address of a man I never saw or heard of before.

If I can by any means manage this, I see great fame in the per spective." At length the doctor, addressing Mrs. Frib ble, observed : " I must have time, a little time in this business. I will accompany you home, and see what is to be done — or which way the wind blows," said the doctor, aside. A few minutes later saw Doctor Peter Grum per and Mrs. Fribble sliding along towards the residence of that lady. As they may be long on the road, we will leave them, and in troduce the reader to the chamber of the sick young lady, before they get there. The patient opened her eyes, and nervously clutched the hand of the anxious child ; but she spoke not — that was past. The child, as if conscious that medicable aid or human assistance had done their last office, knelt again, and prayed in silent fervency. By this time Doctor Grumper and Mrs. Frib ble had arrived.

Chapter II. Feeling Demonstrated By The Unfeeling

— CONSOLATION — IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN WORSE THE SICK CHAMBER — THE CHILD'S DEVOTION — A TOUCHING ILLUSTRATION, AND A LESSON TO THE UNBELIEVER PETER THE* HERBALIST ARRIVES, AND UNEXPECTEDLY HAS HIS SENSI BILITIES AWAKENED — HIS UNFEIGNED SORROW AND FEELING HEART DESCRIBED — HIS INTERRO GATIONS, AND THE RESULT — HIS FAREWELL, DEPARTURE, AND PROMISE. It is due to the doctor here to observe, that though in every-day life he figured as a quack and an arch-impostor, and by such degraded means earned his daily bread, yet his heart and nature were naturally kind and soft ; he was easily melted, even to tears, by a narrative of distress ; and therefore we cannot wonder that his keenest sensibilities were awakened by the scene of sorrow before him. "She's a-wandering, Mrs. Bell; she was just like this all last night.

And there's that poor infant, as won't close her eyes a minute, keeps a watching her, and seems to know all she says, and to understand it into the bargain. Why, it's enough to make a angel shed tears, to see her. Well, well ; the doctor says 'twill all be over to-night; but, for the life of me, I can't help crying, though I are seed so much." " Why, Mrs. Whimper," responded the Mrs. Bell aforesaid, " I think in my experience I have seed as much as most of us, and, as you say, the poor young creetur up-stairs is a molancholy The sick young woman lay stretched on the bed of death. That form, once comely, elegant, and attractive, was wasted to a skeleton ; her bright blue eyes no longer sparkled, but wore the glaze and stare of death ; and in strange con trast to the decay of every other relic of her mortality, exquisite auburn tresses hung luxu riantly adown her pallid face and neck.

The child, on the entrance of the stranger, laid her tiny face in her mother's hand, and sobbed as if her heart would brealc. A tear, perhaps many, stole down the fur rowed cheek of the herbalist, as he advanced, with sensible and soothing words of comfort, to the poor, care-stricken girl. " Come, my child," said he, " do not take on so ; ma' will be better presently." " Are you a doctor ?" said the child, turning round to Peter the herbalist with something like a returning ray of hope, which had not been hastily abandoned. " Yes, my dear," said Peter. The child threw herself on her knees before him, and clasping his legs in beseeching agony, she exclaimed: " Oh ! save my mamma !" The virtuous energy with which these words were uttered would have struck deeply into the bosom of the case-hardened sinner, but the tender-hearted old man was quite overcome ; he burst into a flood of tears, almost hysterical.

The child looked at him in amazement. It was the first tear she had seen shed with hers in all her hours of grief and watching. Silent, but awake, she had laid by the side of her wasting, invalid mother. Nurses had slept, had snored ; but her loving and watchful mind chid herself for a worn and weary doze, or a dreamy, broken slumber. The oranges, the barley-water, the time to take the medicine, were all the child's solicitude. Oh ! this was the loving heart with which poor Peter Grumper the herbalist wept tear for tear.

Chapter III

A DEATH ANNOUNCED — INDICATIONS OF THE SAME, BY CERTAIN OMINOUS DEPARTURES — A GOSSIP AT THE PUBLIC-HOUSE— THE LISTENER- SMALL-TALK AND CURL-PAPERS— THE HORRID MAN AT THE DEAL-WHARF—INFORMATION SERIOUS THOUGHTS — HARDSHIPS OF GOVER- NESSES—A VERY BENEVOLENT RESOLUTION. The one o'clock beer going to No. 9, met the baked shoulder of mutton going to No. 11 ; and the one o'clock beer said to the baked shoulder of mutton : " There's somebody dead at No. 10. " I dare say," said the baked shoulder of mut ton to the one o'clock beer, " that it's the young woman wot's been ill so long, and, as Mrs. Frib ble says, nobody comes to see, except the doctors." Then the baked shoulder of mutton said: " He shouldn't wonder, and that life was like a hot dinner— it made a noise while there was a bit of it left, but when it was all down, it was all up."

Then the one o'clock beer said : " That a pint of old ale, or a pot of mild porter made life ex pire like a dinner — a good deal comfortabler than without it. Then the baked shoulder of mutton knocked at the door of No. 9, and cried "Baker!" as if he would wake the somebody that was dead at No. 10. The one o'clock beer was less boisterous, and more considerate ; he looked down the area of No. 11, and said: " Be-er," in a kind of divided cadence, and with a wistful glance at the frothy pot, as if he would much rather drink everybody's health than hear of anybody's death or indisposition. All the blinds were drawn down at Mrs. Fribble's ; the front kitchen window had one shutter closed. Mrs. Bell and Mrs. Whimper were seen to quit the house with bundles in blue check handkerchiefs, their clogs in their hands, and no end of physic-phials hi a basket.

They looked in at the public-house at the corner, to say "it was all over, and they were glad of it ; that the poor young creature had just got money enough left to bury her, and that the child must go to the workus." " In fact," said Mrs. Bell, it's many a good man's child's misfortin to go to the parish ; and, as Mrs. Fribble says, in course she can't keep a great gal like that ; and if she could, there ain't no reason why she should, being a lone widder woman, with only just enough to keep herself, if it wasn't for letting her bits of lodgings now and then." Then Mrs. Whimper said : " In course nobody hadn't no right to keep nobody else's children, but it was a beautiful engaging little darling, too ; and if she (Mrs. Whimper) was a indepen dent lady, nothin' she should like better than to adopt the little dear, and edecate her like a lady; but as she wasn't a independent woman, she couldn't do nothing of the sort, so it was no good athinking on it."

During the progress of this conversation, a listener, an acute listener, had been present ; and how she came there, and why she came there, will now be revealed to the reader. " Dear Mrs. Burrell, how do you do ? AVhat bitter weather it is," said a very genteel little lady, all over cloak and curl-papers, addressing herself to the hostess behind the bar. " Now, you know," continued the little lady in the cloak and curl-papers, " how I dislike to come out for my beer, but I hadn't a soul to send ; and there's that horrid Mr. Fink at the timber wharf over the way, he's never had his eyes off " Do you love my ma' ?" said the child, after the first ecstacy of Peter's grief had subsided. " Yes, my darling," said Peter; " and I love you too." There was something in these kind words, and in the sympathy of Peter, which rivetted the child's attention, and excited her interest.

" If you love my mamma," said she, " pray save her. They tell me she must die, and be buried in the pit-hole." Here the grief of the poor child overcame her speech. In a paroxysm, she threw her fair head on the bed, and sobbed almost to convul sions. A fewminutes elapsed, and Peter, see ing her sorrow subdued, ventured at once upon his interrogations. " My dear," said Peter, " we will save your mamma, if it is possible — if human skill can achieve such an object, it shall be done ; but, in the meantime, I want to sec your papa." "My papa?" said the child; "I have no papa." " Who then is the gentleman who used to come and see your mamma, my dear?" said Peter. " Mr. Dombey," responded the child. " AVhere does he live ?" inquired Peter, think mg himself, now, somewhat on vantage-ground. " I don't know," said the child.

After many questions and cross-questions, all thatPeter could elicit was, that, prior to coming to reside at Mrs. Fribble's, the child and her mamma had lived in a cottage with a large garden; that they came up to town one fine day with Mr. Dombey, by railway ; and that her mamma had been gettmg worse in health ever since. Peter felt convinced that the child had told him all she knew. He left, giving her a kiss and, his blessing, at the same time assuring Mrs. Fribble that he would shortly be able to forward her the address of the mysterious visitor, Mr. Dombey. our parlour wmdow all the morning. AArhat the man's looking at, I can't think. I never did see such an aggravating monster in my life. At last I was obliged to put on my old cloak, and come out in my curl-papers, in spite of him, the horrid thing !

" See what it is to be young and handsome, and have all the young men looking after you !" said the good-natured landlady, evidently with a view of gratifying the vanity of the fair one in the cloak and curl-papers. " Now, that's always the way with you, Mrs. Burrell," said the lady of the curl-papers. " You are so fond of joking us girls. AVhat do you suppose I care for the men, the nasty thing's — impudent things ! In fact, Mrs. Burrell, between you and me, I really believe that there is not one in fifty, ay, not one in a hunch-ed, that is not a perfect rhinoceros." Mrs. Burrell congratulated herself that her good man was not a wild beast. The lady in the curl-papers was about to depart, when the landlady remarked: "I suppose you've heard that the poor young woman at No. 10's gone ?" " No, indeed, I have not," said the lady in eurl-papers.

" Is it her child those two women were talking about?" The landlady explained that it was. " Poor deal- !" said the lady in curl-papers, with a sigh. The lady in curl-papers left the public -house with far more serious thoughts than she entered it, and absolutely let herself in with the latch-key, to No. 14, without even a glance at the knowing clerk at the deal-wharf, whose old-fashioned head peered with impertinent curiosity right through the officewindow to the knocker, key-hole, scraper, and brass-plate of that same No. 1-1, into which the lady in the cloak and curl-papers mechanically disappeared. AVe have said that a brass-plate graced the door of No. 14. On that plate was engraven " Ladies' School," and under a bell by the side was a small or juvenile brass-plate, apparently the grandson of the other brass-plate, with " School-bell " at the bottom, and " Miss AAritherly " at the top.

The brass-plate, the school-bell, and the name of AVitherly, all belonged to the lady in the cloak and curl-papers. Poor creature ! hers was a Hfe doomed to toil, anxiety, and necessity. The position of governess or school-keeping in a humble way, is, generally speaking, the last resource of a neglected spinster. AVhen chill poverty comes upon a respectable family by the death of a father, the first, or rather last suggestion, is, that the two girls must set up a school, to maintain themselves and their aged mother. If a welleducated widow is left destitute, " Let her open a school," quoth the sage advisers. Some helpless maidens are what is termed " brought up " for governesses : better far be brought up for the scrubbing-brush. " I have no money to give her," says the well-intentioned father; " but I'll give her a good education, that she may take a governess's place, or open a school."

Distressing mistake ! Single women of a certain age, however, seem to battle with the breeze of life in this same school -keeping, perhaps better than others. AVhether it is that they have arrived at a more philosophic time of life, and therefore can the better endure privations, insult, and labour, cannot be determined ; certain it is, however, that the genteel misery that exists amongst Such persons is heartrending — but it is silent, and the sigh of its suffering is stifled, and floats not on the breath of public supplication. Of this " certain age," or philosophic time of life, was Miss Julia AVitherly. She had for nearly ten years kept a school in the same house, in the Commercial-road, Lambeth, where the reader finds her, and managed, as she often boasted, to pay her way, although (as she would not often admit, such was her excusable pride) at the expense of many a cold and hungry night of suffering.

Poor Miss AVitherly was a tender hearted gui, as she would herself sometimes playfully observe ; and occasionally her self reproach went so far as to accuse herself, on her own evidence, of being a giddy, thoughtless thing, a very incautious little puss ; and, con sidering that Miss AVitherly was what is termed " on the wrong side of forty," if she were really guilty of these flexible misdemeanours, she ought to have known better. With all her ec centricities, Miss Julia Witherly was one of the kindest, best-hearted little beings under heaven's canopy. " Well, to be sure !" said Miss AA'itherly, as she put her half-pint of fourpenny ale on the table ; "so that duck of a child must go to the workhouse. No, it sha'n't — no, it must not — there, it shall not, while I've got a crust to give it — I'll prevent that."

So saying, Miss AVitherly had her dinner, drank her half-pint of fourpenny ale, and, in less than five minutes, was again in the street, in the cloak and curl-papers, knocking softly at the door of No. 10.

Chapter IV

Peter's energy, tact, and attention displayed — important information received — peter goes on a journey, and alights in an old-fashioned town inquiries a rusty gentleman awakened — peter impor tant and mysterious— a message, or com mand op the fair— an old acquaintance TEA, TOAST, AND TABLE-TALK TELLING FOR- TUNES—LISTENERS HEAR NO GOOD OF THEM. SELVES. Peter the herbalist was by no means an idle man ; he had made up his mind to find out Mr. Dombey, and he had also made up his mind to leave all other mundane affairs untouched, until that difficult object was achieved. There was no end to old Peter's industry of thought ; he arose betimes, left his dingy abode, and lifted himself, per the stone steps, into the clearer and purer atmosphere of the vicinity ofthe toll-house on Waterloo-bridge.

Mr. Grumper's modus operandi was to attack or mterrogate the toll man ; and to that end he very civilly asked that functionary how he did, and followed up his remark by an indisputable truism, viz. that it was a cold morning. " That it is, and no mistake," said the toll man. " You don't happen to remember seeing a carriage standing hereabouts, waiting for a gentle man who used to go down the steps sometimes, about three months ago, do you ?" said Peter. " How do you know I don't ?" said the toll man. " AA'ell, well," said the old man, " I don't say you don't, but do you ?" man waited a quarter of an hour, then he pulled a little stronger— tinkle, tinkle, tmkle. Now it happened that the gentleman who had the care of the bell, the gate, and the key of the gate, was one Mr. Bubbage, a lusty person who resided in the lodge— the very lodge to the wall of which the bell was affixed.

Mr. Bubbage was indulging in his afternoon nap, in his easy chair, by the fire, with his handkerchief over his head, when the second pull at the bell startled and awakened him. He hurried out ; and when he "ot to the gate, he eyed old Peter from top to toe, and then enquhed if he thought they were all dead. Old Peter answered, that he never for a moment entertained such an impression, and was about to apologise for any discomfi ture he might have caused the portly gentle man before him, when he was interrupted with : " AVhat do you want, taking people from the fire this cold day ?" "This is Mr. Dombey's house, I believe," said Peter. "I just wished to enquire his address at Brighton. "AVhat's your business with him?" said Mr. Bubbage. "I have business of importance with him," said the herbalist, feeling that he must assume consequence as well as mystery with the pompous and arrogant specimen of pampered humanity he was addressing.