Florence after Paul's death. Follows Florence when she flees her father's household Chapter 14 Mr Towlinson: Mr Dombey's butler Chapter 21 Mrs Skewton ('Cleopatra'): Seventy years old but dresses as if she were 20. Introduced to Mr Dombey by her old friend Major Bagstock at Leamington. Ambitious for herself and her daughter, she urges Edith to marry Mr Dombey. Has a stroke and later dies Edith Skewton Granger: Chilly, haughty beauty, daughter of Mrs Skewton, widow of an army officer, lost a small son to drowning. Becomes second Mrs Dombey. The conflict between Edith's pride and Mr Dombey's is a key element of the story. She and her mother have had prior financial dealings with Mr Carker the Manager and Edith dislikes him intensely. She is determined that her unspoiled, innocent stepdaughter Florence will not suffer her fate of essentially being sold to men. After abandoning Mr Dombey in a rage of resentment, she is later partially reconciled to him through the intervention of Florence in a very poignant parting scene between Edith and Florence at the end of the book. Chapter 22 The Game Chicken: boxer and rowdy companion of Mr Toots Chapter 23 Jack Bunsby: captain of the Cautious Clara; taciturn but regarded as an oracle by Captain Cuttle, eventually wedded to Mrs MacStinger Cousin Feenix: Relative of the Skewtons. Returning from the spa at Baden-Baden, he drunkenly toasts Edith's marriage to Dombey. The couple live in his house while the Dombey mansion is being renovated. Chapter 33 Miss Harriet Carker: Sister of James and John, disowned by James for taking John's side in the wake of the latter's disgrace Chapter 34 Alice: daughter of Mrs Brown, recently returned from transportation. Nurses a deep hatred of all the Carkers owing to having been once used as a sex object and discarded by Mr Carker the Manager, who then refused to aid her when she got in trouble with the law. Eventually reconciles with Harriet Critical appreciation Dombey and Son was conceived first and foremost as a continuous novel. A letter from Dickens to Forster on 26 July 1846 shows the major details of the plot and theme already substantially worked out. According to the novelist George Gissing, Dombey was begun at Lausanne, continued at Paris, completed in London, and at English seaside places; whilst the early parts were being written, a Christmas story, The Battle of Life, was