Mr. Dombey’s cup of satisfaction was so full at this moment, however, that he felt he could afford a drop or two of its contents, even to sprinkle on the dust in the bypath of his little daughter.
So he said, “Florence, you may go and look at your pretty brother, if you like, I daresay. Don’t touch him!”
The child glanced keenly at the blue coat and stiff white cravat, which, with a pair of creaking boots and a very loud ticking watch, embodied her idea of a father; but her eyes returned to her mother’s face immediately, and she neither moved nor answered.
Next moment, the lady had opened her eyes and seen the child; and the child had run towards her; and, standing on tiptoe, the better to hide her face in her embrace, had clung about her with a desperate affection very much at variance with her years.
“Oh Lord bless me!” said Mr. Dombey, rising testily. “A very ill-advised and feverish proceeding this, I am sure. I had better ask Doctor Peps if he’ll have the goodness to step upstairs again perhaps. I’ll go down. I’ll go down. I needn’t beg you,” he added, pausing for a moment at the settee before the fire, “to take particular care of this young gentleman, Mrs. ⸻”
“Blockitt, Sir?” suggested the nurse, a simpering piece of faded gentility, who did not presume to state her name as a fact, but merely offered it as a mild suggestion.
“Of this young gentleman, Mrs. Blockitt.”
“No, Sir, indeed. I remember when Miss Florence was born—”
“Ay, ay, ay,” said Mr. Dombey, bending over the basket bedstead, and slightly bending his brows at the same time. “Miss Florence was all very well, but this is another matter. This young gentleman has to accomplish a destiny. A destiny, little fellow!” As he thus apostrophised the infant he raised one of his hands to his lips, and kissed it; then, seeming to fear that the action involved some compromise of his dignity, went, awkwardly enough, away.
Doctor Parker Peps, one of the Court Physicians, and a man of immense reputation for assisting at the increase of great families, was walking up and down the drawing-room with his hands behind him, to the unspeakable admiration of the family Surgeon, who had regularly puffed the case for the last six weeks, among all his patients, friends, and acquaintances, as one to which he was in hourly expectation day and night of being summoned, in conjunction with Doctor Parker Peps.
“Well, Sir,” said Doctor Parker Peps in a round, deep, sonorous voice, muffled for the occasion, like the knocker; “do you find that your dear lady is at all roused by your visit?”
“Stimulated as it were?” said the family practitioner faintly: bowing at the same time to the Doctor, as much as to say, “Excuse my putting in a word, but this is a valuable connection.”
Mr. Dombey was quite discomfited by the question. He had thought so little of the patient, that he was not in a condition to answer it. He said that it would be a satisfaction to him, if Doctor Parker Peps would walk upstairs again.
“Good! We must not disguise from you, Sir,” said Doctor Parker Peps, “that there is a want of power in Her Grace the Duchess—I beg your pardon; I confound names; I should say, in your amiable lady. That there is a certain degree of languor, and a general absence of elasticity, which we would rather—not—”
“See,” interposed the family practitioner with another inclination of the head.
“Quite so,” said Doctor Parker Peps, “which we would rather not see. It would appear that the system of Lady Cankaby—excuse me: I should say of Mrs. Dombey: I confuse the names of cases—”
“So very numerous,” murmured the family practitioner—“can’t be expected I’m sure—quite wonderful if otherwise—Doctor Parker Peps’s West-End practice—”
“Thank you,” said the Doctor, “quite so. It would appear, I was observing, that the system of our patient has sustained a shock, from which it can only hope to rally by a great and strong—”
“And vigorous,” murmured the family practitioner.
“Quite so,” assented the Doctor—“and vigorous effort. Mr. Pilkins here, who from his position of medical adviser in this family—no one better qualified to fill that position, I am sure.”
“Oh!” murmured the family practitioner. “ ‘Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley!’ ”
“You are good enough,” returned Doctor Parker Peps, “to say so. Mr. Pilkins who, from his position, is best acquainted with the patient’s constitution in its normal state (an acquaintance very valuable to us in forming our opinions in these occasions), is of opinion, with me, that Nature must be called upon to make a vigorous effort in this instance; and that if our interesting friend the Countess of Dombey—I beg your pardon; Mrs. Dombey—should not be—”
“Able,” said the family practitioner.
“To make that effort successfully,” said Doctor Parker Peps, “then a crisis might arise, which we should both sincerely deplore.”
With that, they stood for a few seconds looking at the ground. Then, on the motion—made in dumb show—of Doctor Parker Peps, they went upstairs; the family practitioner opening the room door for that distinguished professional, and following him out, with most obsequious politeness.
To record of Mr. Dombey that he was not in his way affected by this intelligence, would be to do him an injustice. He was not a man of whom it could properly be said that he was ever startled, or shocked; but he certainly had a sense within him, that if his wife should sicken and decay, he would be very sorry, and that he would find a something gone from among
