as if some ghostly puppet-show were performing there, ‘and my bones ache so (Wickam says it’s my bones), that I don’t know what to do.’
‘Ay! But that’s at night,’ said Mr Dombey, drawing his own chair closer to his son’s, and laying his hand gently on his back; ‘little people should be tired at night, for then they sleep well.’
‘Oh, it’s not at night, Papa,’ returned the child, ‘it’s in the day; and I lie down in Florence’s lap, and she sings to me. At night I dream about such cu-ri-ous things!’
And he went on, warming his hands again, and thinking about them, like an old man or a young goblin.
Mr Dombey was so astonished, and so uncomfortable, and so perfectly at a loss how to pursue the conversation, that he could only sit looking at his son by the light of the fire, with his hand resting on his back, as if it were detained there by some magnetic attraction. Once he advanced his other hand, and turned the contemplative face towards his own for a 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.’
‘My dear Paul,’ returned Mrs Chick, ‘with your usual happy discrimination, which I am weak enough to envy you, every time I am in your company; and so I think is Miss Tox.’
‘Oh my dear!’ said Miss Tox, softly, ‘how could it be otherwise? Presumptuous as it is to aspire to such a level; still, if the bird of night may – but I’ll not trouble Mr Dombey with the sentiment. It merely relates to the Bulbul.’
Mr Dombey bent his head in stately recognition of the Bulbuls as an old-established body.
‘With your usual happy discrimination, my dear Paul,’ resumed Mrs Chick, ‘you have hit the point at once. Our darling is 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. ‘Really I was quite dismayed and shocked last night. Who puts such things into his head, Louisa?’
‘My dear Paul,’ said Mrs Chick, after a moment’s silence, ‘it is of no use inquiring. I do not think, I will tell you candidly that Wickam is a person of very cheerful spirit, or what one would call a – ’
‘A daughter of Momus,’ Miss Tox softly suggested.
‘Exactly so,’ said Mrs Chick; ‘but she is exceedingly attentive and useful, and not at all presumptuous; indeed I never saw a more biddable woman. I would say that for her, if I was put upon my trial before a Court of Justice.’
‘Well! you are not put upon your trial before a Court of Justice, at present, Louisa,’ returned Mr Dombey, chafing, ‘and therefore it don’t matter.’
‘My dear Paul,’ said Mrs Chick, in a warning voice, ‘I must be spoken to kindly, or there is an end of me,’ at the same time a premonitory redness developed itself in Mrs Chick’s eyelids which was an invariable sign of rain, unless the weather changed directly.
‘I was inquiring, Louisa,’ observed Mr Dombey, in an altered voice, and after a decent interval, ‘about Paul’s health and actual state.’
‘If the dear child,’ said Mrs Chick, in the tone of one who was summing up what had been previously quite agreed upon, instead of saying it all for the first time, ‘is a little weakened by that last attack, and is not in quite such vigorous health as we could wish; and if he has some temporary weakness in his system, and does occasionally seem about to lose, for the moment, the use of his – ’
Mrs Chick was afraid to say limbs, after Mr Dombey’s recent objection to bones, and therefore waited for a suggestion from Miss Tox, who, true to her office, hazarded ‘members.’
‘Members!’ repeated Mr Dombey.
‘I think the medical gentleman mentioned legs this morning, my dear Louisa, did he not?’ said Miss Tox.
‘Why, of course he did, my love,’ retorted Mrs Chick, mildly reproachful. ‘How can you ask me? You heard him. I say, if our dear Paul should lose, for the moment, the use of his legs, these are casualties common to many children at his time of life, and not to be prevented by any care or caution. The sooner you understand that, Paul, and admit that, the better. If you have any doubt as to the amount of care, and caution, and affection, and self-sacrifice, that has been bestowed upon little Paul, I should wish to refer the question to your medical attendant, or to any of your dependants in this house. Call Towlinson,’ said Mrs Chick, ‘I believe he has no prejudice in our favour; quite the contrary. I should wish to hear what accusation Towlinson can make!’
‘Surely you must know, Louisa,’ observed Mr Dombey, ‘that I don’t question your natural devotion to, and regard for, the future head of my house.’
‘I am glad to hear it, Paul,’ said Mrs Chick; ‘but really you are very odd, and sometimes talk very strangely, though without meaning it, I know. If your dear boy’s soul is too much for his body, Paul, you should remember whose fault that is – who he takes after, I mean – and make the best of it. He’s as like his Papa as he can be. People have noticed it in the streets. The very beadle, I am informed, observed it, so long ago as at his christening. He’s a very respectable man, with children of his own. He ought to know.’
‘Mr Pilkins saw Paul this morning, I believe?’ said Mr Dombey.
‘Yes, he did,’ returned his sister.