“Oh, not so fast, your worship! we must wait for someone,” answered the old woman. “It’s to be got from someone else—wormed out—screwed and twisted from him.”
“What do you mean?” said Mr Dombey.
“Patience,” she croaked, laying her hand, like a claw, upon his arm. “Patience. I’ll get at it. I know I can! If he was to hold it back from me,” said Good Mrs Brown, crooking her ten fingers, “I’d tear it out of him!”
Mr Dombey followed her with his eyes as she hobbled to the door, and looked out again: and then his glance sought her daughter; but she remained impassive, silent, and regardless of him.
“Do you tell me, woman,” he said, when the bent figure of Mrs Brown came back, shaking its head and chattering to itself, “that there is another person expected here?”
“Yes!” said the old woman, looking up into his face, and nodding.
“From whom you are to exact the intelligence that is to be useful to me?”
“Yes,” said the old woman, nodding again.
“A stranger?”
“Chut!” said the old woman, with a shrill laugh. “What signifies! Well, well; no. No stranger to your worship. But he won’t see you. He’d be afraid of you, and wouldn’t talk. You’ll stand behind that door, and judge him for yourself. We don’t ask to be believed on trust What! Your worship doubts the room behind the door? Oh the suspicion of you rich gentlefolks! Look at it, then.”