Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens [top ten ebook reader .TXT] 📗

‘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.