Page:Dombey and Son.djvu/94

60 Mr. Dombey, who had never found her, kissed her once upon the forehead, and cautioned her not to run away again, or wander anywhere with treacherous attendants. Mrs. Chick stopped in her lamentations on the corruption of human nature, even when beckoned to the paths of virtue by a Charitable Grinder; and received her with a welcome something short of the reception due to none but perfect Dombeys. Miss Tox regulated her feelings by the models before her. Richards, the culprit Richards, alone poured out her heart in broken words of welcome, and bowed herself over the little wandering head as if she really loved it.

"Ah, Richards!" said Mrs. Chick, with a sigh. "It would have been much more satisfactory to those who wish to think well of their fellow creatures, and much more becoming in you, if you had shown some proper feeling, in time, for the little child that is now going to be prematurely deprived of its natural nourishment."

"Cut off," said Miss Tox, in a plaintive whisper, "from one common fountain!"

"If it was my ungrateful case," said Mrs. Chick, solemnly, "and I had your reflections, Richards, I should feel as if the Charitable Grinders’ dress would blight my child, and the education choke him."

For the matter of that—but Mrs Chick didn’t know it—he had been pretty well blighted by the dress already; and as to the education, even its retributive effect might be produced in time, for it was a storm of sobs and blows.

"Louisa!" said Mr. Dombey. "It is not necessary to prolong these observations. The woman is discharged and paid. You leave this house, Richards, for taking my son—my son," said Mr. Dombey, emphatically repeating these two words, "into haunts and into society which are not to be thought of without a shudder. As to the accident which befel Miss Florence this morning, I regard that as, in one great sense, a happy and fortunate circumstance; inasmuch as, but for that occurrence, I never could have known—and from your own lips too—of what you had been guilty. I think, Louisa, the other nurse, the young person," here Miss Nipper sobbed aloud, "being so much younger, and necessarily influenced by Paul’s nurse, may remain. Have the goodness to direct that this woman’s coach is paid to—" Mr. Dombey stopped and winced—"to Staggs’s Gardens."

Polly moved towards the door, with Florence holding to her dress, and crying to her in the most pathetic manner not to go away. It was a dagger in the haughty father’s heart, an arrow in his brain, to see how the flesh and blood he could not disown clung to this obscure stranger, and he sitting by. Not that he cared to whom his daughter turned, or from whom turned away. The swift sharp agony struck through him, as he thought of what his son might do.

His son cried lustily that night, at all events. Sooth to say, poor Paul had better reason for his tears than sons of that age often have, for he had lost his second mother—his first, so far as he knew—by a stroke as sudden as that natural affliction which had darkened the beginning of his life. At the same blow, his sister too, who cried herself to sleep so mournfully, had lost as good and true a friend. But that is quite beside the question. Let us waste no words about it.