Florence had a dread of him, which made his presence in the room a nightmare to her. She could not avoid the recollection of it, for her eyes were drawn towards him every now and then, by an attraction of dislike and distrust that she could not resist. Yet her thoughts were busy with other things; for as she sat apart—not unadmired or unsought, but in the gentleness of her quiet spirit—she felt how little part her father had in what was going on, and saw, with pain, how ill at ease he seemed to be, and how little regarded he was as he lingered about near the door, for those visitors whom he wished to distinguish with particular attention, and took them up to introduce them to his wife, who received them with proud coldness, but showed no interest or wish to please, and never, after the bare ceremony of reception, in consultation of his wishes, or in welcome of his friends, opened her lips. It was not the less perplexing or painful to Florence, that she who acted thus, treated her so kindly and with such loving consideration, that it almost seemed an ungrateful return on her part even to know of what was passing before her eyes.
Happy Florence would have been, might she have ventured to bear her father company, by so much as a look; and happy Florence was, in little suspecting the main cause of his uneasiness. But afraid of seeming to know that he was placed at any disadvantage, lest he should be resentful of that knowledge; and divided between her impulse towards him, and her grateful affection for Edith; she scarcely dared to raise her eyes towards either. Anxious and unhappy for them both, the thought stole on her through the crowd, that it might have been better for them if this noise of tongues and tread of feet had never come there—if the old dullness and decay had never been replaced by novelty and splendour—if the neglected child had found no friend in Edith, but had lived her solitary life, unpitied and forgotten.
Mrs. Chick had some such thoughts too, but they were not so quietly developed in her mind. This good matron had been outraged in the first instance by not receiving an invitation to dinner. That blow partially recovered, she had gone to a vast expense to make such a figure before Mrs. Dombey at home, as should dazzle the senses of that lady, and heap mortification, mountains high, on the head of Mrs. Skewton.
“But I am made,” said Mrs. Chick to Mr. Chick, “of no more account than Florence! Who takes the smallest notice of me? No one!”
“No one, my dear,” assented Mr. Chick, who was seated by the side of Mrs. Chick against the wall, and could console himself, even there, by softly whistling.
“Does it at all appear as if I was wanted here?” exclaimed Mrs. Chick, with flashing eyes.
“No, my dear, I don’t think it does,” said Mr. Chick.
“Paul’s mad!” said Mrs. Chick.
Mr. Chick whistled.
“Unless you are a monster, which I sometimes think you are,” said Mrs. Chick with candour, “don’t sit there humming tunes. How anyone with the most distant feelings of a man, can see that mother-in-law of Paul’s, dressed as she is, going on like that, with Major Bagstock, for whom, among other precious things, we are indebted to your Lucretia Tox—”
“My Lucretia Tox, my dear!” said Mr. Chick, astounded.
“Yes,” retorted Mrs. Chick, with great severity, “your Lucretia Tox—I say how anybody can see that mother-in-law of Paul’s, and that haughty wife of Paul’s, and these indecent old frights with their backs and shoulders, and in short this at home generally, and hum—” on which word Mrs. Chick laid a scornful emphasis that made Mr. Chick start, “is, I thank Heaven, a mystery to me!”
Mr. Chick screwed his mouth into a form irreconcilable with humming or whistling, and looked very contemplative.
“But I hope I know what is due to myself,” said Mrs. Chick, swelling with indignation, “though Paul has forgotten what is due to me. I am not going to sit here, a member of this family, to be taken no notice of. I am not the dirt under Mrs. Dombey’s feet, yet—not quite yet,” said Mrs. Chick, as if she expected to become so, about the day after tomorrow. “And I shall go. I will not say (whatever I may think) that this affair has been got up solely to degrade and insult me. I shall merely go. I shall not be missed!”
Mrs. Chick rose erect with these words, and took the arm of Mr. Chick, who escorted her from the room, after half an hour’s shady sojourn there. And it is due to her penetration to observe that she certainly was not missed at all.
But she was not the only indignant guest; for Mr. Dombey’s list (still constantly in difficulties) were, as a body, indignant with Mrs. Dombey’s list, for looking at them through eyeglasses, and audibly wondering who all those people were; while Mrs. Dombey’s list complained of weariness, and the young thing with the shoulders, deprived of the attentions of that gay youth Cousin Feenix (who went away from the dinner-table), confidentially alleged to thirty or forty friends that she was bored to death. All the old ladies with the burdens on their heads, had greater or less cause of complaint against Mrs. Dombey; and the Directors and Chairmen coincided in
