“I beg your pardon,” said Carker, after a silence, suddenly resuming his chair, and drawing it opposite to Mr. Dombey’s, “but let me understand. Mrs. Dombey is aware of the probability of your making me the organ of your displeasure?”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Dombey. “I have said so.”
“Yes,” rejoined Carker, quickly; “but why?”
“Why!” Mr. Dombey repeated, not without hesitation. “Because I told her.”
“Ay,” replied Carker. “But why did you tell her? You see,” he continued with a smile, and softly laying his velvet hand, as a cat might have laid its sheathed claws, on Mr. Dombey’s arm; “if I perfectly understand what is in your mind, I am so much more likely to be useful, and to have the happiness of being effectually employed. I think I do understand. I have not the honour of Mrs. Dombey’s good opinion. In my position, I have no reason to expect it; but I take the fact to be, that I have not got it?”
“Possibly not,” said Mr. Dombey.
“Consequently,” pursued Carker, “your making the communications to Mrs. Dombey through me, is sure to be particularly unpalatable to that lady?”
“It appears to me,” said Mr. Dombey, with haughty reserve, and yet with some embarrassment, “that Mrs. Dombey’s views upon the subject form no part of it as it presents itself to you and me, Carker. But it may be so.”
“And—pardon me—do I misconceive you,” said Carker, “when I think you descry in this, a likely means of humbling Mrs. Dombey’s pride—I use the word as expressive of a quality which, kept within due bounds, adorns and graces a lady so distinguished for her beauty and accomplishments—and, not to say of punishing her, but of reducing her to the submission you so naturally and justly require?”
“I am not accustomed, Carker, as you know,” said Mr. Dombey, “to give such close reasons for any course of conduct I think proper to adopt, but I will gainsay nothing of this. If you have any objection to found upon it, that is indeed another thing, and the mere statement that you have one will be sufficient. But I have not supposed, I confess, that any confidence I could entrust to you, would be likely to degrade you—”
“Oh! I degraded!” exclaimed Carker. “In your service!”
“—or to place you,” pursued Mr. Dombey, “in a false position.”
“I in a false position!” exclaimed Carker. “I shall be proud—delighted—to execute your trust. I could have wished, I own, to have given the lady at whose feet I would lay my humble duty and devotion—for is she not your wife!—no new cause of dislike; but a wish from you is, of course, paramount to every other consideration on earth. Besides, when Mrs. Dombey is converted from these little errors of judgment, incidental, I would presume to say, to the novelty of her situation, I shall hope that she will perceive in the slight part I take, only a grain—my removed and different sphere gives room for little more—of the respect for you, and sacrifice of all considerations to you, of which it will be her pleasure and privilege to garner up a great store every day.”
Mr. Dombey seemed, at the moment, again to see her with her hand stretched out towards the door, and again to hear through the mild speech of his confidential agent an echo of the words, “Nothing can make us stranger to each other than we are henceforth!” But he shook off the fancy, and did not shake in his resolution, and said, “Certainly, no doubt.”
“There is nothing more,” quoth Carker, drawing his chair back to its old place—for they had taken little breakfast as yet—and pausing for an answer before he sat down.
“Nothing,” said Mr. Dombey, “but this. You will be good enough to observe, Carker, that no message to Mrs. Dombey with which you are or may be charged, admits of reply. You will be good enough to bring me no reply. Mrs. Dombey is informed that it does not become me to temporise or treat upon any matter that is at issue between us, and that what I say is final.”
Mr. Carker signified his understanding of these credentials, and they fell to breakfast with what appetite they might. The Grinder also, in due time reappeared, keeping his eyes upon his master without a moment’s respite, and passing the time in a reverie of worshipful tenor. Breakfast concluded, Mr. Dombey’s horse was ordered out again, and Mr. Carker mounting his own, they rode off for the City together.
Mr. Carker was in capital spirits, and talked much. Mr. Dombey received his conversation with the sovereign air of a man who had a right to be talked to, and occasionally condescended to throw in a few words to carry on the conversation. So they rode on characteristically enough. But Mr. Dombey, in his dignity, rode with very long stirrups, and a very loose rein, and very rarely deigned to look down to see where his horse went. In consequence of which it happened that Mr. Dombey’s horse, while going at a round trot, stumbled on some loose stones, threw him, rolled over him, and lashing out with his iron-shod feet, in his struggles to get up, kicked him.
Mr. Carker, quick of eye, steady of hand, and a good horseman, was afoot, and had the struggling animal upon his legs and by the bridle, in a moment. Otherwise that morning’s confidence would have been Mr. Dombey’s last. Yet even with the flush and hurry of this action red upon him, he bent over his prostrate chief with every tooth disclosed, and muttered as he stooped down, “I have given good cause of offence to Mrs. Dombey now, if she knew it!”
Mr. Dombey being insensible, and bleeding from the head and face, was carried by certain
