“Very well, Sir,” returned Mr. Carker the Manager, plucking them sharply from his hand. “Go about your business.”
But in taking them with so little ceremony, Mr. Carker dropped one on the floor, and did not see what he had done; neither did Mr. Dombey observe the letter lying near his feet. Walter hesitated for a moment, thinking that one or other of them would notice it; but finding that neither did, he stopped, came back, picked it up, and laid it himself on Mr. Dombey’s desk. The letters were post-letters; and it happened that the one in question was Mrs. Pipchin’s regular report, directed as usual—for Mrs. Pipchin was but an indifferent penwoman—by Florence. Mr. Dombey, having his attention silently called to this letter by Walter, started, and looked fiercely at him, as if he believed that he had purposely selected it from all the rest.
“You can leave the room, Sir!” said Mr. Dombey, haughtily.
He crushed the letter in his hand; and having watched Walter out at the door, put it in his pocket without breaking the seal.
“You want somebody to send to the West Indies, you were saying,” observed Mr. Dombey, hurriedly.
“Yes,” replied Carker.
“Send young Gay.”
“Good, very good indeed. Nothing easier,” said Mr. Carker, without any show of surprise, and taking up the pen to re-endorse the letter, as coolly as he had done before. “ ‘Send young Gay.’ ”
“Call him back,” said Mr. Dombey.
Mr. Carker was quick to do so, and Walter was quick to return.
“Gay,” said Mr. Dombey, turning a little to look at him over his shoulder. “Here is a—”
“An opening,” said Mr. Carker, with his mouth stretched to the utmost.
“In the West Indies. At Barbados. I am going to send you,” said Mr. Dombey, scorning to embellish the bare truth, “to fill a junior situation in the countinghouse at Barbados. Let your Uncle know from me, that I have chosen you to go to the West Indies.”
Walter’s breath was so completely taken away by his astonishment, that he could hardly find enough for the repetition of the words “West Indies.”
“Somebody must go,” said Mr. Dombey, “and you are young and healthy, and your Uncle’s circumstances are not good. Tell your Uncle that you are appointed. You will not go yet. There will be an interval of a month—or two perhaps.”
“Shall I remain there, Sir?” inquired Walter.
“Will you remain there, Sir!” repeated Mr. Dombey, turning a little more round towards him. “What do you mean? What does he mean, Carker?”
“Live there, Sir,” faltered Walter.
“Certainly,” returned Mr. Dombey.
Walter bowed.
“That’s all,” said Mr. Dombey, resuming his letters. “You will explain to him in good time about the usual outfit and so forth, Carker, of course. He needn’t wait, Carker.”
“You needn’t wait, Gay,” observed Mr. Carker: bare to the gums.
“Unless,” said Mr. Dombey, stopping in his reading without looking off the letter, and seeming to listen. “Unless he has anything to say.”
“No, Sir,” returned Walter, agitated and confused, and almost stunned, as an infinite variety of pictures presented themselves to his mind; among which Captain Cuttle, in his glazed hat, transfixed with astonishment at Mrs. MacStinger’s, and his uncle bemoaning his loss in the little back parlour, held prominent places. “I hardly know—I—I am much obliged, Sir.”
“He needn’t wait, Carker,” said Mr. Dombey.
And as Mr. Carker again echoed the words, and also collected his papers as if he were going away too, Walter felt that his lingering any longer would be an unpardonable intrusion—especially as he had nothing to say—and therefore walked out quite confounded.
Going along the passage, with the mingled consciousness and helplessness of a dream, he heard Mr. Dombey’s door shut again, as Mr. Carker came out: and immediately afterwards that gentleman called to him.
“Bring your friend Mr. Carker the Junior to my room, Sir, if you please.”
Walter went to the outer office and apprised Mr. Carker the Junior of his errand, who accordingly came out from behind a partition where he sat alone in one corner, and returned with him to the room of Mr. Carker the Manager.
That gentleman was standing with his back to the fire, and his hands under his coattails, looking over his white cravat, as unpromisingly as Mr. Dombey himself could have looked. He received them without any change in his attitude or softening of his harsh and black expression: merely signing to Walter to close the door.
“John Carker,” said the Manager, when this was done, turning suddenly upon his brother, with his two rows of teeth bristling as if he would have bitten him, “what is the league between you and this young man, in virtue of which I am haunted and hunted by the mention of your name? Is it not enough for you, John Carker, that I am your near relation, and can’t detach myself from that—”
“Say disgrace, James,” interposed the other in a low voice, finding that he stammered for a word. “You mean it, and have reason, say disgrace.”
“From that disgrace,” assented his brother with keen emphasis, “but is the fact to be blurted out and trumpeted, and proclaimed continually in the presence of the very House! In moments of confidence too? Do you think your name is calculated to harmonise in this place with trust and confidence, John Carker?”
“No,” returned the other. “No, James. God knows I have no such thought.”
“What is your thought, then?” said his brother, “and why do you thrust yourself in my way? Haven’t you injured me enough already?”
“I have never injured you, James, wilfully.”
“You are my brother,” said the Manager. “That’s injury enough.”
“I wish I could undo it, James.”
“I wish you could and would.”
During this conversation, Walter had looked from one brother to the other, with pain and amazement. He who was the Senior in years, and Junior in the House, stood, with his eyes cast upon the ground, and his head bowed, humbly listening to the reproaches of the other. Though these were rendered very bitter by the tone and look with which
