Page:Dombey and Son.djvu/103

Rh moment. But it sought the fire again as soon as he released it; and remained, addressed towards the flickering blaze, until the nurse appeared, to summon him to bed.

"I want Florence to come for me," said Paul.

"Won’t you come with your poor Nurse Wickam, Master Paul?" inquired that attendant, with great pathos.

"No, I won’t," replied Paul, composing himself in his arm-chair again, like the master of the house.

Invoking a blessing upon his innocence, Mrs. Wickam withdrew, and presently Florence appeared in her stead. The child immediately started up with sudden readiness and animation, and raised towards his father in bidding him good-night, a countenance so much brighter, so much younger, and so much more child-like altogether, that Mr. Dombey, while he felt greatly reassured by the change, was quite amazed at it.

After they had left the room together, he thought he heard a soft voice singing; and remembering that Paul had said his sister sung to him, he had the curiosity to open the door and listen, and look after them. She was toiling up the great, wide, vacant staircase, with him in her arms; his head was lying on her shoulder, one of his arms thrown negligently round her neck. So they went, toiling up; she singing all the way, and Paul sometimes crooning out a feeble accompaniment. Mr. Dombey looked after them until they reached the top of the staircase—not without halting to rest by the way—and passed out of his sight; and then he still stood gazing upwards, until the dull rays of the moon, glimmering in a melancholy manner through the dim skylight, sent him back to his room.

Mrs. Chick and Miss Tox were convoked in council at dinner next day; and when the cloth was removed, Mr. Dombey opened the proceedings by requiring to be informed, without any gloss or reservation, whether there was anything the matter with Paul, and what Mr. Pilkins said about him.

"For the child is hardly," said Mr. Dombey, "as stout as I could wish."

"With your usual happy discrimination, my dear Paul," resumed Mrs. Chick, "you have hit the point at once. Our darling is not altogether as stout as we could wish. The fact is, that his mind is too much for him. His soul is a great deal too large for his frame. I am sure the way in which that dear child talks!" said Mrs. Chick, shaking her head; "no one would believe. His expressions, Lucretia, only yesterday upon the subject of Funerals!—"

"I am afraid," said Mr. Dombey, interrupting her testily, "that some of those persons upstairs suggest improper subjects to the child. He was speaking to me last night about his—about his Bones," said Mr. Dombey, laying an irritated stress upon the word. "What on earth has anybody to do with the—with the—Bones of my son? He is not a living skeleton, I suppose."

"Very far from it," said Mrs Chick, with unspeakable expression.

"I hope so," returned her brother. "Funerals again! who talks to the child of funerals? We are not undertakers, or mutes, or grave-diggers, I believe."

"Very far from it," interposed Mrs Chick, with the same profound expression as before.

"Then who puts such things into his head?" said Mr. Dombey.