Dombey and Son

Plot summary

The story concerns Paul Dombey, the wealthy owner of the shipping company of the book's title, whose dream is to have a son to continue his business. The book begins when his son is born and Dombey's wife dies shortly after giving birth. Following the advice of Mrs Louisa Chick, his sister, Dombey employs a wet nurse named Mrs Richards (Toodle). Dombey already has a six-year-old daughter, Florence, but, bitter at her not having been the desired boy, he neglects her; following her mother's death, her main source of love is her young attendant, Susan Nipper. About six months later, the two servants take their charges on an unauthorised visit to the home of Mrs Richards, so that she can see her children briefly. On the long walk home, Florence becomes separated from them and is kidnapped for a short time by Good Mrs Brown before being returned to the streets. She makes her way to Dombey and Son's offices in the City and there is found and brought home by Walter Gay, a junior employee of Mr Dombey, who first introduces her to his uncle and guardian, the navigation instrument maker Solomon Gills, at his shop, The Wooden Midshipman.

Dombey’s son, named Paul after his father, is a weak and sickly child who does not socialise normally with others; adults call him "old fashioned". He is intensely fond of his sister, Florence, who is deliberately neglected by her father as a supposedly irrelevant distraction. Paul is sent to the seaside at Brighton for his health, where he and Florence lodge with the ancient and acidic Mrs Pipchin. Finding his health beginning to improve there, Mr Dombey keeps him at Brighton and has him educated at Dr and Mrs Blimber's school, where he and the other boys undergo an intense and arduous education under the tutelage of Mr Feeder, B.A. and Cornelia Blimber. It is here that Paul is befriended by a much older fellow pupil, the amiable but weak-minded Mr Toots.

Here Paul's health declines even further in this "great hothouse" and he finally dies. Dombey pushes his daughter away from him after the death of his son while she futilely tries to earn his love. In the meantime young Walter is sent off to fill a junior position in the firm's counting house in Barbados through the manipulations of Mr Dombey's confidential manager, Mr James Carker, "with his white teeth", who sees him as a potential rival through his association with Florence. The ship, The Son and Heir, is reported lost; Walter is presumed drowned. Solomon Gills departs London in search of his nephew, leaving his great friend Captain Edward Cuttle in charge of The Wooden Midshipman. Meanwhile Florence is left alone with few friends to keep her company.

Dombey goes to Leamington Spa to improve his health with a new friend, Major Joseph Bagstock. The Major deliberately sets out to befriend Dombey to spite his neighbour, Miss Tox, who has turned cold towards him owing to her hopes – through her close friendship with Mrs Chick – of marrying Mr Dombey. At the spa, the Major introduces Dombey to Mrs Skewton and her widowed daughter, Mrs Edith Granger. Mr Dombey, on the lookout for a new wife since his son's death, considers Edith a suitable match owing to her accomplishments and family connections. She has beauty; he has money. He is encouraged by both the Major and Mrs Skewton, but obviously feels no affection for her, nor she for him. They return to London and marry. Dombey has effectively bought the haughty Edith, since she and her mother are in a poor financial state. The marriage is loveless; his wife despises Dombey for his overbearing pride and herself for being shallow and worthless. Her love for Florence initially prevents her from leaving but finally she conspires with Mr Carker to ruin Dombey's public image by running away together to France. They do so after yet another argument with Dombey in which he once again attempts to subdue her to his will. When he discovers that she has left him, he blames Florence for siding with her stepmother, striking her on the breast in his anger. Florence runs away from home. Distraught, she makes her way to The Wooden Midshipman, where she lodges with Captain Cuttle as he attempts to restore her to health. They are visited frequently by Mr Toots and his prizefighter companion, the Chicken, the former having been desperately in love with Florence since their time together in Brighton.

Dombey sets out to find his runaway wife. He is helped by Mrs Brown and her daughter, Alice, who, as it turns out, had been seduced and abandoned by Mr Carker when she was young. After being transported as a convict, for criminal activities in which Mr Carker had involved her, she returns to England, reunites with her mother, and determines to seek her revenge. Mrs Brown arranges for Dombey to overhear her conversation with Rob the Grinder – whom Mr Carker has employed as a spy – about the whereabouts of the pair who have absconded. Dombey, accompanied by Major Bagstock, sets off to France in pursuit. In the meantime, in Dijon, Mrs Dombey informs Carker that she sees him in no better a light than she sees Dombey and that she will not stay with him, and she flees their apartment. Distraught, with both his financial and personal hopes lost, Carker flees from his former employer's pursuit. He seeks refuge back in England, but being greatly overwrought throws himself under a train and is killed.

Meanwhile, back at The Midshipman, Walter reappears, having been saved by a passing ship after floating adrift with two other sailors on some wreckage. After some time he and Florence are finally reunited – not as "brother and sister" but as lovers, and they marry prior to sailing for China on Walter's new ship. This is also the time when Sol Gills returns to The Midshipman. As he relates to his friends, he received news whilst in Barbados that a homeward-bound China trader had picked up Walter and so had returned to England immediately. He said he had sent letters whilst in the Caribbean to his friend Ned Cuttle c/o Mrs MacStinger at Cuttle's former lodgings, and the bemused Captain recounts how he fled the place and thus never received them.

After Carker's death it is discovered that he had been running the firm far beyond its means. This information is gleaned by Carker's brother and sister, John and Harriet, from Mr Morfin, the assistant manager at Dombey and Son, who sets out to help John Carker. He often overheard the conversations between the two brothers in which James, the younger, often abused John, the older, a clerk who early in his career abused his financial position at Dombey and Son but was retained by Dombey as an example and possibly because of his relationship to James Carker. It is unclear whether James worked at the firm at the time of John's downfall. As his nearest relatives John and Harriet inherit all Carker's ill-gotten gains, to which they feel they have no right. Consequently they surreptitiously give the proceeds to Mr Dombey through Mr Morfin, who is instructed to let Dombey believe they are merely something forgotten in the general wreck of his fortunes.

Florence and Walter depart and Sol Gills is entrusted with a letter, written by Walter to Florence’s father, pleading for him to be reconciled towards them both. A year passes and Alice Brown has slowly been dying despite the tender care of Harriet Carker. One night Alice's mother reveals that Alice herself is the illegitimate cousin of Edith Dombey (which accounts for their similarity in appearance when they meet). In a chapter entitled ‘Retribution’ Dombey and Son goes bankrupt. Dombey retires to two rooms in his house and all the house's contents are put up for sale. Mrs Pipchin, for some time the housekeeper, dismisses all the servants and returns to Brighton, to be replaced by Mrs Richards. Dombey spends his days sunk in gloom, seeing no-one and thinking only of his daughter:

He thought of her as she had been that night when he and his bride came home. He thought of her as she had been in all the home events of the abandoned house. He thought, now, that of all around him she alone had never changed. His boy had faded into dust, his proud wife had sunk into a polluted creature, his flatterer and friend had been transformed into the worst of villains, his riches had melted away, the very walls that sheltered him looked on him as a stranger; she alone had turned the same mild gentle look upon him always. Yes, to the latest and the last. She had never changed to him – nor had he ever changed to her – and she was lost.[1]: 772–773 

However one day Florence returns to the house with her baby son, Paul, and is lovingly reunited with her father.

Dombey accompanies his daughter to her and Walter's house, where he slowly starts to decline, cared for by Florence and also Susan Nipper, now Mrs Toots. They receive a visit from Edith's cousin Feenix, who takes Florence to Edith for one final time: Feenix had sought Edith out in France and she had returned to England under his protection. Edith gives Florence a letter, asking Dombey to forgive her her crime before her departure to the South of Italy with her elderly relative. As she says to Florence, "I will try, then, to forgive him his share of the blame. Let him try to forgive me mine!"[1]: 801 

The final chapter (LXII) sees Dombey now a white-haired old man "whose face bears heavy marks of care and suffering; but they are traces of a storm that has passed on for ever, and left a clear evening in its track".[1]: 803  Sol Gills and Ned Cuttle are now partners at The Midshipman, a source of great pride to the latter, and Mr and Mrs Toots announce the birth of their third daughter. Walter is doing well in business, having been appointed to a position of great confidence and trust, and Dombey is the proud grandfather of both a grandson and granddaughter, whom he dotes on. The book ends with the lines:

"Dear grandpapa, why do you cry when you kiss me?"

He only answers, "Little Florence! Little Florence!" and smooths away the curls that shade her earnest eyes.[1]: 808 


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