"Major," returns Mr. Dombey, "I am obliged. I shall put myself in your hands when the time comes. The time not being come, I have forborne to speak to you."
"Where is the fellow, Dombey?" inquires the Major, after gasping and looking at him, for a minute.
"I don’t know."
"Any intelligence of him?" asks the Major.
"Yes."
"Dombey, I am rejoiced to hear it," says the Major. "I congratulate you."
"You will excuse—even you, Major," replies Mr. Dombey, "my entering into any further detail at present. The intelligence is of a singular kind, and singularly obtained. It may turn out to be valueless; it may turn out to be true; I cannot say, at present. My explanation must stop here."
Although this is but a dry reply to the Major’s purple enthusiasm, the Major receives it graciously, and is delighted to think that the world has such a fair prospect of soon receiving its due. Cousin Feenix is then presented with his meed of acknowledgment by the husband of his lovely and accomplished relative, and Cousin Feenix and Major Bagstock retire, leaving that husband to the world again, and to ponder at leisure on their representation of its state of mind concerning his affairs, and on its just and reasonable expectations.
But who sits in the housekeeper’s room, shedding tears, and talking to Mrs. Pipchin in a low tone, with uplifted hands? It is a lady with her face concealed in a very close black bonnet, which appears not to belong to her. It is Miss Tox, who has borrowed this disguise from her servant, and comes from Princess’s Place, thus secretly, to revive her old acquaintance with Mrs. Pipchin, in order to get certain information of the state of Mr. Dombey.
"How does he bear it, my dear creature?" asks Miss Tox.
"Well," says Mrs. Pipchin, in her snappish way, "he’s pretty much as usual."
"Externally," suggests Miss Tox. "But what he feels within!"
Mrs. Pipchin’s hard grey eye looks doubtful as she answers, in three distinct jerks, "Ah! Perhaps. I suppose so."
"To tell you my mind, Lucretia," says Mrs. Pipchin; she still calls Miss Tox Lucretia, on account of having made her first experiments in the child-quelling line of business on that lady, when an unfortunate and weazen little girl of tender years; "to tell you my mind, Lucretia, I think it’s a good riddance. I don’t want any of your brazen faces here, myself!"
"Brazen indeed! Well may you say brazen, Mrs. Pipchin!" returned Miss Tox. "To leave him! Such a noble figure of a man!" And here Miss Tox is overcome.
"I don’t know about noble, I’m sure," observes Mrs. Pipchin; irascibly rubbing her nose. "But I know this—that when people meet with trials, they must bear 'em. Hoity, toity! I have had enough to bear myself, in my time! What a fuss there is! She’s gone, and well got rid of. Nobody wants her back, I should think!"
