Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens [top ten ebook reader .TXT] 📗
- Author: Charles Dickens
- Performer: -
Book online «Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens [top ten ebook reader .TXT] 📗». Author Charles Dickens
The old woman, who had shown great uneasiness during this speech, which had a tendency to depreciate her expected gains, pulled Mr Dombey softly by the sleeve, and whispered to him not to mind her. He glared at them both, by turns, with a haggard look, and said, in a deeper voice than was usual with him:
‘Go on—what do you know?’
‘Oh, not so fast, your worship! we must wait for someone,’ answered the old woman. ‘It’s to be got from someone else—wormed out—screwed and twisted from him.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Patience,’ she croaked, laying her hand, like a claw, upon his arm. ‘Patience. I’ll get at it. I know I can! If he was to hold it back from me,’ said Good Mrs Brown, crooking her ten fingers, ‘I’d tear it out of him!’
Mr Dombey followed her with his eyes as she hobbled to the door, and looked out again: and then his glance sought her daughter; but she remained impassive, silent, and regardless of him.
‘Do you tell me, woman,’ he said, when the bent figure of Mrs Brown came back, shaking its head and chattering to itself, ‘that there is another person expected here?’
‘Yes!’ said the old woman, looking up into his face, and nodding.
‘From whom you are to exact the intelligence that is to be useful to me?’
‘Yes,’ said the old woman, nodding again.
‘A stranger?’
‘Chut!’ said the old woman, with a shrill laugh. ‘What signifies! Well, well; no. No stranger to your worship. But he won’t see you. He’d be afraid of you, and wouldn’t talk. You’ll stand behind that door, and judge him for yourself. We don’t ask to be believed on trust What! Your worship doubts the room behind the door? Oh the suspicion of you rich gentlefolks! Look at it, then.’
Her sharp eye had detected an involuntary expression of this feeling on his part, which was not unreasonable under the circumstances. In satisfaction of it she now took the candle to the door she spoke of. Mr Dombey looked in; assured himself that it was an empty, crazy room; and signed to her to put the light back in its place.
‘How long,’ he asked, ‘before this person comes?’
‘Not long,’ she answered. ‘Would your worship sit down for a few odd minutes?’
He made no answer; but began pacing the room with an irresolute air, as if he were undecided whether to remain or depart, and as if he had some quarrel with himself for being there at all. But soon his tread grew slower and heavier, and his face more sternly thoughtful; as the object with which he had come, fixed itself in his mind, and dilated there again.
While he thus walked up and down with his eyes on the ground, Mrs Brown, in the chair from which she had risen to receive him, sat listening anew. The monotony of his step, or the uncertainty of age, made her so slow of hearing, that a footfall without had sounded in her daughter’s ears for some moments, and she had looked up hastily to warn her mother of its approach, before the old woman was roused by it. But then she started from her seat, and whispering ‘Here he is!’ hurried her visitor to his place of observation, and put a bottle and glass upon the table, with such alacrity, as to be ready to fling her arms round the neck of Rob the Grinder on his appearance at the door.
Original
‘And here’s my bonny boy,’ cried Mrs Brown, ‘at last!—oho, oho! You’re like my own son, Robby!’
‘Oh! Misses Brown!’ remonstrated the Grinder. ‘Don’t! Can’t you be fond of a cove without squeedging and throttling of him? Take care of the birdcage in my hand, will you?’
‘Thinks of a birdcage, afore me!’ cried the old woman, apostrophizing the ceiling. ‘Me that feels more than a mother for him!’
‘Well, I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you, Misses Brown,’ said the unfortunate youth, greatly aggravated; ‘but you’re so jealous of a cove. I’m very fond of you myself, and all that, of course; but I don’t smother you, do I, Misses Brown?’
He looked and spoke as if he would have been far from objecting to do so, however, on a favourable occasion.
‘And to talk about birdcages, too!’ whimpered the Grinder. ‘As if that was a crime! Why, look’ee here! Do you know who this belongs to?’
‘To Master, dear?’ said the old woman with a grin.
‘Ah!’ replied the Grinder, lifting a large cage tied up in a wrapper, on the table, and untying it with his teeth and hands. ‘It’s our parrot, this is.’
‘Mr Carker’s parrot, Rob?’
‘Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?’ returned the goaded Grinder. ‘What do you go naming names for? I’m blest,’ said Rob, pulling his hair with both hands in the exasperation of his feelings, ‘if she ain’t enough to make a cove run wild!’
‘What! Do you snub me, thankless boy!’ cried the old woman, with ready vehemence.
‘Good gracious, Misses Brown, no!’ returned the Grinder, with tears in his eyes. ‘Was there ever such a—! Don’t I dote upon you, Misses Brown?’
‘Do you, sweet Rob? Do you truly, chickabiddy?’ With that, Mrs Brown held him in her fond embrace once more; and did not release him until he had made several violent and ineffectual struggles with his legs, and his hair was standing on end all over his head.
‘Oh!’ returned the Grinder, ‘what a thing it is to be perfectly pitched into with affection like this here. I wish she was—How have you been, Misses Brown?’
‘Ah! Not here since this night week!’ said the old woman, contemplating him with a look of reproach.
‘Good gracious, Misses Brown,’ returned the Grinder, ‘I said tonight’s a week, that I’d come tonight, didn’t I? And here I am. How you do go on! I wish you’d be a little rational, Misses Brown. I’m hoarse with saying things in my defence, and my very face is shiny with being hugged!’ He rubbed it hard with his sleeve, as if to remove the tender polish in question.
‘Drink a little drop to comfort you, my Robin,’ said the old woman, filling the glass from the bottle and giving it to him.
‘Thank’ee, Misses Brown,’ returned the Grinder. ‘Here’s your health. And long may you—et ceterer.’ Which, to judge from the expression of his face, did not include any very choice blessings. ‘And here’s her health,’ said the Grinder, glancing at Alice, who sat with her eyes fixed, as it seemed to him, on the wall behind him, but in reality on Mr Dombey’s face at the door, ‘and wishing her the same and many of ‘em!’
He drained the glass to these two sentiments, and set it down.
‘Well, I say, Misses Brown!’ he proceeded. ‘To go on a little rational now. You’re a judge of birds, and up to their ways, as I know to my cost.’
‘Cost!’ repeated Mrs Brown.
‘Satisfaction, I mean,’ returned the Grinder. ‘How you do take up a cove, Misses Brown! You’ve put it all out of my head again.’
‘Judge of birds, Robby,’ suggested the old woman.
‘Ah!’ said the Grinder. ‘Well, I’ve got to take care of this parrot—certain things being sold, and a certain establishment broke up—and as I don’t want no notice took at present, I wish you’d attend to her for a week or so, and give her board and lodging, will you? If I must come backwards and forwards,’ mused the Grinder with a dejected face, ‘I may as well have something to come for.’
‘Something to come for?’ screamed the old woman.
‘Besides you, I mean, Misses Brown,’ returned the craven Rob. ‘Not that I want any inducement but yourself, Misses Brown, I’m sure. Don’t begin again, for goodness’ sake.’
‘He don’t care for me! He don’t care for me, as I care for him!’ cried Mrs Brown, lifting up her skinny hands. ‘But I’ll take care of his bird.’
‘Take good care of it too, you know, Mrs Brown,’ said Rob, shaking his head. ‘If you was so much as to stroke its feathers once the wrong way, I believe it would be found out.’
‘Ah, so sharp as that, Rob?’ said Mrs Brown, quickly.
‘Sharp, Misses Brown!’ repeated Rob. ‘But this is not to be talked about.’
Checking himself abruptly, and not without a fearful glance across the room, Rob filled the glass again, and having slowly emptied it, shook his head, and began to draw his fingers across and across the wires of the parrot’s cage by way of a diversion from the dangerous theme that had just been broached.
The old woman eyed him slily, and hitching her chair nearer his, and looking in at the parrot, who came down from the gilded dome at her call, said:
‘Out of place now, Robby?’
‘Never you mind, Misses Brown,’ returned the Grinder, shortly.
‘Board wages, perhaps, Rob?’ said Mrs Brown.
‘Pretty Polly!’ said the Grinder.
The old woman darted a glance at him that might have warned him to consider his ears in danger, but it was his turn to look in at the parrot now, and however expressive his imagination may have made her angry scowl, it was unseen by his bodily eyes.
‘I wonder Master didn’t take you with him, Rob,’ said the old woman, in a wheedling voice, but with increased malignity of aspect.
Rob was so absorbed in contemplation of the parrot, and in trolling his forefinger on the wires, that he made no answer.
The old woman had her clutch within a hair’s breadth of his shock of hair as it stooped over the table; but she restrained her fingers, and said, in a voice that choked with its efforts to be coaxing:
‘Robby, my child.’
‘Well, Misses Brown,’ returned the Grinder.
‘I say I wonder Master didn’t take you with him, dear.’
‘Never you mind, Misses Brown,’ returned the Grinder.
Mrs Brown instantly directed the clutch of her right hand at his hair, and the clutch of her left hand at his throat, and held on to the object of her fond affection with such extraordinary fury, that his face began to blacken in a moment.
‘Misses Brown!’ exclaimed the Grinder, ‘let go, will you? What are you doing of? Help, young woman! Misses Brow—Brow—!’
The young woman, however, equally unmoved by his direct appeal to her, and by his inarticulate utterance, remained quite neutral, until, after struggling with his assailant into a corner, Rob disengaged himself, and stood there panting and fenced in by his own elbows, while the old woman, panting too, and stamping with rage and eagerness, appeared to be collecting her energies for another swoop upon him. At this crisis Alice interposed her voice, but not in the Grinder’s favour, by saying,
‘Well done, mother. Tear him to pieces!’
‘What, young woman!’ blubbered Rob; ‘are you against me too? What have I been and done? What am I to be tore to pieces for, I should like to know? Why do you take and choke a cove who has never done you any harm, neither of you? Call yourselves females, too!’ said the frightened and afflicted Grinder, with his coat-cuff at his eye. ‘I’m surprised at you! Where’s your feminine tenderness?’
‘You thankless dog!’ gasped Mrs Brown. ‘You impudent insulting dog!’
‘What have I been and done to go and give you offence, Misses Brown?’ retorted the fearful Rob. ‘You was very much attached to me a minute ago.’
‘To cut me off with his short answers and his sulky words,’ said the old woman. ‘Me! Because I happen to be curious to have a little bit of gossip about Master and the lady, to dare to play at fast and loose with me! But I’ll talk to you no more, my lad. Now go!’
‘I’m sure, Misses Brown,’ returned the abject Grinder, ‘I never insiniwated that I wished to go. Don’t talk like that, Misses Brown, if you please.’
‘I won’t talk at all,’ said Mrs Brown, with an action of her crooked fingers that made him shrink
Comments (0)