“Thank you, Sir,” said Mrs. Pipchin, “I am pretty well, considering.”
Mrs. Pipchin always used that form of words. It meant, considering her virtues, sacrifices, and so forth.
“I can’t expect, Sir, to be very well,” said Mrs. Pipchin, taking a chair and fetching her breath; “but such health as I have, I am grateful for.”
Mr. Dombey inclined his head with the satisfied air of a patron, who felt that this was the sort of thing for which he paid so much a quarter. After a moment’s silence he went on to say:
“Mrs. Pipchin, I have taken the liberty of calling, to consult you in reference to my son. I have had it in my mind to do so for some time past; but have deferred it from time to time, in order that his health might be thoroughly reestablished. You have no misgivings on that subject, Mrs. Pipchin?”
“Brighton has proved very beneficial, Sir,” returned Mrs. Pipchin. “Very beneficial, indeed.”
“I purpose,” said Mr. Dombey, “his remaining at Brighton.”
Mrs. Pipchin rubbed her hands, and bent her grey eyes on the fire.
“But,” pursued Mr. Dombey, stretching out his forefinger, “but possibly that he should now make a change, and lead a different kind of life here. In short, Mrs. Pipchin, that is the object of my visit. My son is getting on, Mrs. Pipchin. Really, he is getting on.”
There was something melancholy in the triumphant air with which Mr. Dombey said this. It showed how long Paul’s childish life had been to him, and how his hopes were set upon a later stage of his existence. Pity may appear a strange word to connect with anyone so haughty and so cold, and yet he seemed a worthy subject for it at that moment.
“Six years old!” said Mr. Dombey, settling his neckcloth—perhaps to hide an irrepressible smile that rather seemed to strike upon the surface of his face and glance away, as finding no resting-place, than to play there for an instant. “Dear me, six will be changed to sixteen, before we have time to look about us.”
“Ten years,” croaked the unsympathetic Pipchin, with a frosty glistening of her hard grey eye, and a dreary shaking of her bent head, “is a long time.”
“It depends on circumstances,” returned Mr. Dombey; “at all events, Mrs. Pipchin, my son is six years old, and there is no doubt, I fear, that in his studies he is behind many children of his age—or his youth,” said Mr. Dombey, quickly answering what he mistrusted was a shrewd twinkle of the frosty eye, “his youth is a more appropriate expression. Now, Mrs. Pipchin, instead of being behind his peers, my son ought to be before them; far before them. There is an eminence ready for him to mount upon. There is nothing of chance or doubt in the course before my son. His way in life was clear and prepared, and marked out before he existed. The education of such a young gentleman must not be delayed. It must not be left imperfect. It must be very steadily and seriously undertaken, Mrs. Pipchin.”
“Well, Sir,” said Mrs. Pipchin, “I can say nothing to the contrary.”
“I was quite sure, Mrs. Pipchin,” returned Mr. Dombey, approvingly, “that a person of your good sense could not, and would not.”
“There is a great deal of nonsense—and worse—talked about young people not being pressed too hard at first, and being tempted on, and all the rest of it, Sir,” said Mrs. Pipchin, impatiently rubbing her hooked nose. “It never was thought of in my time, and it has no business to be thought of now. My opinion is ‘keep ’em at it.’ ”
“My good madam,” returned Mr. Dombey, “you have not acquired your reputation undeservedly; and I beg you to believe, Mrs. Pipchin, that I am more than satisfied with your excellent system of management, and shall have the greatest pleasure in commending it whenever my poor commendation”—Mr. Dombey’s loftiness when he affected to disparage his own importance, passed all bounds—“can be of any service. I have been thinking of Doctor Blimber’s, Mrs. Pipchin.”
“My neighbour, Sir?” said Mrs. Pipchin. “I believe the Doctor’s is an excellent establishment. I’ve heard that it’s very strictly conducted, and there is nothing but learning going on from morning to night.”
“And it’s very expensive,” added Mr. Dombey.
“And it’s very expensive, Sir,” returned Mrs. Pipchin, catching at the fact, as if in omitting that, she had omitted one of its leading merits.
“I have had some communication with the Doctor, Mrs. Pipchin,” said Mr. Dombey, hitching his chair anxiously a little nearer to the fire, “and he does not consider Paul at all too young for his purpose. He mentioned several instances of boys in Greek at about the same age. If I have any little uneasiness in my own mind, Mrs. Pipchin, on the subject of this change, it is not on that head. My son not having known a mother has gradually concentrated much—too much—of his childish affection on his sister. Whether their separation—” Mr. Dombey said no more, but sat silent.
“Hoity-toity!” exclaimed Mrs. Pipchin, shaking out her black bombazeen skirts, and plucking up all the ogress within her. “If she don’t like it, Mr. Dombey, she must be taught to lump it.” The good lady apologised immediately afterwards for using so common a figure of speech, but said (and truly) that that was the way she reasoned with ’em.
Mr. Dombey waited until Mrs. Pipchin had done bridling and shaking her head, and frowning down a legion of Bitherstones and Pankeys; and then said quietly, but correctively, “He, my good madam, he.”
Mrs. Pipchin’s system would have applied very much the same mode of cure to any uneasiness on the part of Paul, too; but as the hard grey eye was sharp enough to see that the recipe, however Mr. Dombey might admit its efficacy in the case of the daughter, was not a sovereign remedy for the son, she argued the point; and contended that
