Which was rendered no less clear by the expression of Susan Nipper’s countenance, than by her words.
“There ain’t a person in your service, Sir,” pursued the black-eyed, “that has always stood more in awe of you than me and you may think how true it is when I make so bold as say that I have hundreds and hundreds of times thought of speaking to you and never been able to make my mind up to it till last night, but last night decided of me.”
Mr. Dombey, in a paroxysm of rage, made another grasp at the bell-rope that was not there, and, in its absence, pulled his hair rather than nothing.
“I have seen,” said Susan Nipper, “Miss Floy strive and strive when nothing but a child so sweet and patient that the best of women might have copied from her, I’ve seen her sitting nights together half the night through to help her delicate brother with his learning, I’ve seen her helping him and watching him at other times—some well know when—I’ve seen her, with no encouragement and no help, grow up to be a lady, thank God! that is the grace and pride of every company she goes in, and I’ve always seen her cruelly neglected and keenly feeling of it—I say to some and all, I have!—and never said one word, but ordering one’s self lowly and reverently towards one’s betters, is not to be a worshipper of graven images, and I will and must speak!”
“Is there anybody there?” cried Mr. Dombey, calling out. “Where are the men? where are the women? Is there no one there?”
“I left my dear young lady out of bed late last night,” said Susan, nothing checked, “and I knew why, for you was ill Sir and she didn’t know how ill and that was enough to make her wretched as I saw it did. I may not be a Peacock; but I have my eyes—and I sat up a little in my own room thinking she might be lonesome and might want me, and I saw her steal downstairs and come to this door as if it was a guilty thing to look at her own Pa, and then steal back again and go into them lonely drawing-rooms, a-crying so, that I could hardly bear to hear it. I can not bear to hear it,” said Susan Nipper, wiping her black eyes, and fixing them undauntingly on Mr. Dombey’s infuriated face. “It’s not the first time I have heard it, not by many and many a time you don’t know your own daughter, Sir, you don’t know what you’re doing, Sir, I say to some and all,” cried Susan Nipper, in a final burst, “that it’s a sinful shame!”
“Why, hoity toity!” cried the voice of Mrs. Pipchin, as the black bombazeen garments of that fair Peruvian Miner swept into the room. “What’s this, indeed?”
Susan favoured Mrs. Pipchin with a look she had invented expressly for her when they first became acquainted, and resigned the reply to Mr. Dombey.
“What’s this?” repeated Mr. Dombey, almost foaming. “What’s this, Madam? You who are at the head of this household, and bound to keep it in order, have reason to inquire. Do you know this woman?”
“I know very little good of her, Sir,” croaked Mrs. Pipchin. “How dare you come here, you hussy? Go along with you!”
But the inflexible Nipper, merely honouring Mrs. Pipchin with another look, remained.
“Do you call it managing this establishment, Madam,” said Mr. Dombey, “to leave a person like this at liberty to come and talk to me! A gentleman—in his own house—in his own room—assailed with the impertinences of women-servants!”
“Well, Sir,” returned Mrs. Pipchin, with vengeance in her hard grey eye, “I exceedingly deplore it; nothing can be more irregular; nothing can be more out of all bounds and reason; but I regret to say, Sir, that this young woman is quite beyond control. She has been spoiled by Miss Dombey, and is amenable to nobody. You know you’re not,” said Mrs. Pipchin, sharply, and shaking her head at Susan Nipper. “For shame, you hussy! Go along with you!”
“If you find people in my service who are not to be controlled, Mrs. Pipchin,” said Mr. Dombey, turning back towards the fire, “you know what to do with them, I presume. You know what you are here for? Take her away!”
“Sir, I know what to do,” retorted Mrs. Pipchin, “and of course shall do it. Susan Nipper,” snapping her up particularly short, “a month’s warning from this hour.”
“Oh indeed!” cried Susan, loftily.
“Yes,” returned Mrs. Pipchin, “and don’t smile at me, you minx, or I’ll know the reason why! Go along with you this minute!”
“I intend to go this minute, you may rely upon it,” said the voluble Nipper. “I have been in this house waiting on my young lady a dozen year and I won’t stop in it one hour under notice from a person owning to the name of Pipchin trust me, Mrs. P.”
“A good riddance of bad rubbish!” said that wrathful old lady. “Get along with you, or I’ll have you carried out!”
“My comfort is,” said Susan, looking back at Mr. Dombey, “that I have told a piece of truth this day which ought to have been told long before and can’t be told too often or too plain and that no amount of Pipchinses—I hope the number of ’em mayn’t be great” (here Mrs. Pipchin uttered a very sharp “Go along with you!” and Miss Nipper repeated the look) “can unsay what I
