Preparations for a choice repast were completed, he found, at the hotel; and Mr. Dombey, and the Major, and the breakfast, were awaiting the ladies. Individual constitution has much to do with the development of such facts, no doubt; but in this case, appetite carried it hollow over the tender passion; Mr. Dombey being very cool and collected, and the Major fretting and fuming in a state of violent heat and irritation. At length the door was thrown open by the Native, and, after a pause, occupied by her languishing along the gallery, a very blooming, but not very youthful lady, appeared.
“My dear Mr. Dombey,” said the lady, “I am afraid we are late, but Edith has been out already looking for a favourable point of view for a sketch, and kept me waiting for her. Falsest of Majors,” giving him her little finger, “how do you do?”
“Mrs. Skewton,” said Mr. Dombey, “let me gratify my friend Carker.” Mr. Dombey unconsciously emphasised the word friend, as saying “no really; I do allow him to take credit for that distinction”; “by presenting him to you. You have heard me mention Mr. Carker.”
“I am charmed, I am sure,” said Mrs. Skewton, graciously.
Mr. Carker was charmed, of course. Would he have been more charmed on Mr. Dombey’s behalf, if Mrs. Skewton had been (as he at first supposed her) the Edith whom they had toasted overnight?
“Why, where, for Heaven’s sake, is Edith?” exclaimed Mrs. Skewton, looking round. “Still at the door, giving Withers orders about the mounting of those drawings! My dear Mr. Dombey, will you have the kindness”—
Mr. Dombey was already gone to seek her. Next moment he returned, bearing on his arm the same elegantly dressed and very handsome lady whom Mr. Carker had encountered underneath the trees.
“Carker—” began Mr. Dombey. But their recognition of each other was so manifest, that Mr. Dombey stopped surprised.
“I am obliged to the gentleman,” said Edith, with a stately bend, “for sparing me some annoyance from an importunate beggar just now.”
“I am obliged to my good fortune,” said Mr. Carker, bowing low, “for the opportunity of rendering so slight a service to one whose servant I am proud to be.”
As her eye rested on him for an instant, and then lighted on the ground, he saw in its bright and searching glance a suspicion that he had not come up at the moment of his interference, but had secretly observed her sooner. As he saw that, she saw in his eye that her distrust was not without foundation.
“Really,” cried Mrs. Skewton, who had taken this opportunity of inspecting Mr. Carker through her glass, and satisfying herself (as she lisped audibly to the Major) that he was all heart; “really now, this is one of the most enchanting coincidences that I ever heard of. The idea! My dearest Edith, there is such an obvious destiny in it, that really one might almost be induced to cross one’s arms upon one’s frock, and say, like those wicked Turks, there is no What’s-his-name but Thingummy, and What-you-may-call-it is his prophet!”
Edith designed no revision of this extraordinary quotation from the Koran, but Mr. Dombey felt it necessary to offer a few polite remarks.
“It gives me great pleasure,” said Mr. Dombey, with cumbrous gallantry, “that a gentleman so nearly connected with myself as Carker is, should have had the honour and happiness of rendering the least assistance to Mrs. Granger.” Mr. Dombey bowed to her. “But it gives me some pain, and it occasions me to be really envious of Carker;” he unconsciously laid stress on these words, as sensible that they must appear to involve a very surprising proposition; “envious of Carker, that I had not that honour and that happiness myself.” Mr. Dombey bowed again. Edith, saving for a curl of her lip, was motionless.
“By the Lord, Sir,” cried the Major, bursting into speech at sight of the waiter, who was come to announce breakfast, “it’s an extraordinary thing to me that no one can have the honour and happiness of shooting all such beggars through the head without being brought to book for it. But here’s an arm for Mrs. Granger if she’ll do J. B. the honour to accept it; and the greatest service Joe can render you, Ma’am, just now, is, to lead you in to table!”
With this, the Major gave his arm to Edith; Mr. Dombey led the way with Mrs. Skewton; Mr. Carker went last, smiling on the party.
“I am quite rejoiced, Mr. Carker,” said the lady-mother, at breakfast, after another approving survey of him through her glass, “that you have timed your visit so happily, as to go with us today. It is the most enchanting expedition!”
“Any expedition would be enchanting in such society,” returned Carker; “but I believe it is, in itself, full of interest.”
“Oh!” cried Mrs. Skewton, with a faded little scream of rapture, “the Castle is charming!—associations of the Middle Ages—and all that—which is so truly exquisite. Don’t you dote upon the Middle Ages, Mr. Carker?”
“Very much, indeed,” said Mr. Carker.
“Such charming times!” cried Cleopatra. “So full of faith! So vigorous and forcible! So picturesque! So perfectly removed from commonplace! Oh dear! If they would only leave us a little more of the poetry of existence in these terrible days!”
Mrs. Skewton was looking sharp after Mr. Dombey all the time she said this, who was looking at Edith: who was listening, but who never lifted up her eyes.
“We are dreadfully real, Mr. Carker,” said Mrs. Skewton; “are we not?”
Few people had less reason to complain of their reality than Cleopatra, who had as much that was false about her as could well go to the composition of anybody with a real individual existence. But Mr. Carker commiserated our reality nevertheless, and agreed that we were very hardly used in that regard.
“Pictures at the Castle, quite divine!” said Cleopatra. “I hope you dote upon pictures?”
“I assure you, Mrs. Skewton,” said Mr. Dombey, with solemn encouragement of
