Page:Dombey and Son.djvu/527

436 "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 an’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 stedfast 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,