The World's Greatest Books_ Volume 3 Part 16

and then added, "or Preventive."

"A boat with a sail," repeated Paul. "It went away into the distance, and what do you think it seemed to do as it moved with the waves?"

"Pitch!" said Mr. Toots.

"It seemed to beckon," said the child; "to beckon me to come."

Certainly people found him an "old-fashioned" child. At the end of the term Dr. and Mrs. Blimber gave an early party to their pupils and their parents and guardians, and it was a day or two before this event when Paul was taken ill. This illness released him from his books, and made him think the more of Florence.

They all loved "Dombey's sister" at that party, and Paul, sitting in a cushioned corner, heard her praises constantly. There was a half-intelligible sentiment, too, diffused around, referring to Florence and himself, and breathing sympathy for both, that soothed and touched him. He did not know why, but it seemed to have something to do with his "old-fashioned" reputation.

The time arrived for taking leave.

"Good-bye, Doctor Blimber," said Paul, stretching out his hand.

"Good-bye, my little friend," returned the doctor. "Dombey, Dombey, you have always been my favourite pupil."

"G.o.d bless you!" said Cornelia, taking both Paul's hands in hers. And it showed, Paul thought, how easily one might do injustice to a person; for Miss Blimber meant it--though she _was_ a Forcer--and felt it.

There was a general move after Paul and Florence down the staircase, in which the whole Blimber family were included. Such a circ.u.mstance, Mr.

Feeder said aloud, as has never happened in the case of any former young gentleman within his experience. The servants, with the butler--a stern man--at their head, had all an interest in seeing little Dombey go; while the young gentlemen pressed to shake hands with him, crying individually "Dombey, don't forget me!"

Once for a last look, Paul turned and gazed upon the faces addressed to him, and from that time whenever he thought of Dr. Blimber's it came back as he had seen it in this last view; and it never seemed to be a real place, but always a dream, full of faces.

_IV.--Paul Goes Out with the Stream_

From the night they brought him home from Dr. Blimber's Paul had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly; not caring much how the time went, but watching it, and watching everywhere about him with observing eyes.

When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that evening was coming on.

By little and little he got tired of the bustle of the day, the noise of the carriages and carts, and people pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing; and would fall asleep or be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense of a rushing river. "Why will it never stop, Floy?" he would sometimes ask her. "It is bearing me away, I think!"

But Floy could always soothe him.

He was visited by as many as three grave doctors, and the room was so quiet, and Paul was so observant of them, that he even knew the difference in the sound of their watches. But his interest centred in Sir Parker Peps; for Paul had heard them say long ago that that gentleman had been with his mamma when she clasped Florence in her arms and died. And he could not forget it now. He liked him for it. He was not afraid.

The people in the room were always changing, and in the night-time Paul began to wonder languidly who the figure was, with its head upon its hand, that returned so often and remained so long.

"Floy," he said, "what is that--there at the bottom of the bed?"

"There's nothing there except papa."

The figure lifted up its head and rose, and said, "My own boy! Don't you know me?"

Paul looked it in the face, and thought, was that his father? The next time he observed the figure at the bottom of the bed, he called to it.

"Don't be sorry for me, dear papa. Indeed, I am quite happy."

That was the beginning of his always saying in the morning that he was a great deal better, and that they were to tell his father so.

How many times the golden water danced upon the wall, how many nights the dark, dark river rolled towards the sea, Paul never counted, never sought to know.

One night he had been thinking of his mother, and her picture in the drawing-room downstairs.

"Floy, did I ever see mamma?"

"No, darling."

The river was running very fast now, and confusing his mind. Paul fell asleep, and when he awoke the sun was high.

"Floy, come close to me, and let me see you."

Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them locked together.

"How fast the river runs between its green banks and the rushes, Floy!

But it's very near the sea. I hear the waves. They always said so."

Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream was lulling him to rest, now the boat was out at sea but gliding smoothly on. And now there was a sh.o.r.e before him. Who stood on the bank?

He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his prayers. He did not remove his arms to do it, but they saw him fold them so behind her neck.

"Mamma is like you, Floy. I know her by the face! The light about her head is shining on me as I go."

The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our first parents, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion--Death!

_V.--The End of Dombey and Son_

The stonemason to whom Mr. Dombey gave his order for a tablet in the church, in memory of little Paul, called his attention to the inscription "Beloved and only child," and said, "It should be 'son,' I think, sir?"

"You are right, of course. Make the correction."

And there came a time when it was to Florence, and Florence only, that Mr. Dombey turned. For the great house of Dombey and Son fell, and in the crash its proud head became a ruined man, ruined beyond recovery.

Bankrupt in purse, his personal pride was yet further humbled. For Mr.

Dombey had married again, a loveless match, and his wife deserted him.

In the hour when he discovered that desertion he had driven his daughter Florence from the house.

He was fallen now never to be raised up any more. For the night of his worldly ruin there was no to-morrow's sun, for the stain of his domestic shame there was no purification.

In his pride--for he was proud yet--he let the world go from him freely.

As it fell away, he shook it off. He knew, now, what it was to be rejected and deserted. Dombey and Son was no more--his children no more.

His daughter Florence had married--married a young sailor once a boy in the office of Dombey and Son--and thinking of her, Dombey, in the solitude of his dismantled home, remembered that she had never changed to him through all those years; and the mist through which he had seen her, cleared, and showed him her true self.

He wandered through the rooms, and thought of suicide; a guilty hand was grasping what was in his breast.