Dombey and Son

Still no one knew of this. Unless the household found it out when she was not there – and they all held Mr Dombey’s rooms in awe – it was as deep a secret in her breast as what had gone before it. Florence stole into those rooms at twilight, early in the morning, and at times when meals were served downstairs. And although they were in every nook the better and the brighter for her care, she entered and passed out as quietly as any sunbeam, opting that she left her light behind.

Shadowy company attended Florence up and down the echoing house, and sat with her in the dismantled rooms. As if her life were an enchanted vision, there arose out of her solitude ministering thoughts, that made it fanciful and unreal. She imagined so often what her life would have been if her father could have loved her and she had been a favourite child, that sometimes, for the moment, she almost believed it was so, and, borne on by the current of that pensive fiction, seemed to remember how they had watched her brother in his grave together; how they had freely shared his heart between them; how they were united in the dear remembrance of him; how they often spoke about him yet; and her kind father, looking at her gently, told her of their common hope and trust in God. At other times she pictured to herself her mother yet alive. And oh the happiness of falling on her neck, and clinging to her with the love and confidence of all her soul! And oh the desolation of the solitary house again, with evening coming on, and no one there!

But there was one thought, scarcely shaped out to herself, yet fervent and strong within her, that upheld Florence when she strove and filled her true young heart, so sorely tried, with constancy of purpose. Into her mind, as into all others contending with the great affliction of our mortal nature, there had stolen solemn wonderings and hopes, arising in the dim world beyond the present life, and murmuring, like faint music, of recognition in the far-off land between her brother and her mother: of some present consciousness in both of her: some love and commiseration for her: and some knowledge of her as she went her way upon the earth. It was a soothing consolation to Florence to give shelter to these thoughts, until one day – it was soon after she had last seen her father in his own room, late at night – the fancy came upon her, that, in weeping for his alienated heart, she might stir the spirits of the dead against him. Wild, weak, childish, as it may have been to think so, and to tremble at the half-formed thought, it was the impulse of her loving nature; and from that hour Florence strove against the cruel wound in her breast, and tried to think of him whose hand had made it, only with hope.

Her father did not know – she held to it from that time – how much she loved him. She was very young, and had no mother, and had never learned, by some fault or misfortune, how to express to him that she loved him. She would be patient, and would try to gain that art in time, and win him to a better knowledge of his only child.

This became the purpose of her life. The morning sun shone down upon the faded house, and found the resolution bright and fresh within the bosom of its solitary mistress, Through all the duties of the day, it animated her; for Florence hoped that the more she knew, and the more accomplished she became, the more glad he would be when he came to know and like her. Sometimes she wondered, with a swelling heart and rising tear, whether she was proficient enough in anything to surprise him when they should become companions. Sometimes she tried to think if there were any kind of knowledge that would bespeak his interest more readily than another. Always: at her books, her music, and her work: in her morning walks, and in her nightly prayers: she had her engrossing aim in view. Strange study for a child, to learn the road to a hard parent’s heart!

There were many careless loungers through the street, as the summer evening deepened into night, who glanced across the road at the sombre house, and saw the youthful figure at the window, such a contrast to it, looking upward at the stars as they began to shine, who would have slept the worse if they had known on what design she mused so steadfastly. The reputation of the mansion as a haunted house, would not have been the gayer with some humble dwellers elsewhere, who were struck by its external gloom in passing and repassing on their daily avocations, and so named it, if they could have read its story in the darkening face. But Florence held her sacred purpose, unsuspected and unaided: and studied only how to bring her father to the understanding that she loved him, and made no appeal against him in any wandering thought.

Thus Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded day, and still she lived alone, and the monotonous walls looked down upon her with a stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like intent to stare her youth and beauty into stone.

Susan Nipper stood opposite to her young mistress one morning, as she folded and sealed a note she had been writing: and showed in her looks an approving knowledge of its contents.

‘Better late than never, dear Miss Floy,’ said Susan, ‘and I do say, that even a visit to them old Skettleses will be a Godsend.’

‘It is very good of Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, Susan,’ returned Florence, with a mild correction of that young lady’s familiar mention of the family in question, ‘to repeat their invitation so kindly.’

Miss Nipper, who was perhaps the most thoroughgoing partisan on the face of the earth, and who carried her partisanship into all matters great or small, and perpetually waged war with it against society, screwed up her lips and shook her head, as a protest against any recognition of disinterestedness in the Skettleses, and a plea in bar that they would have valuable consideration for their kindness, in the company of Florence.

‘They know what they’re about, if ever people did,’ murmured Miss Nipper, drawing in her breath ‘oh! trust them Skettleses for that!’

‘I am not very anxious to go to Fulham, Susan, I confess,’ said Florence thoughtfully: ‘but it will be right to go. I think it will be better.’

‘Much better,’ interposed Susan, with another emphatic shake of her head.

‘And so,’ said Florence, ‘though I would prefer to have gone when there was no one there, instead of in this vacation time, when it seems there are some young people staying in the house, I have thankfully said yes.’

‘For which I say, Miss Floy, Oh be joyful!’ returned Susan, ‘Ah! h – h!’

This last ejaculation, with which Miss Nipper frequently wound up a sentence, at about that epoch of time, was supposed below the level of the hall to have a general reference to Mr Dombey, and to be expressive of a yearning in Miss Nipper to favour that gentleman with a piece of her mind. But she never explained it; and it had, in consequence, the charm of mystery, in addition to the advantage of the sharpest expression.

‘How long it is before we have any news of Walter, Susan!’ observed Florence, after a moment’s silence.

‘Long indeed, Miss Floy!’ replied her maid. ‘And Perch said, when he came just now to see for letters – but what signifies what he says!’ exclaimed Susan, reddening and breaking off. ‘Much he knows about it!’

Florence raised her eyes quickly, and a flush overspread her face.

‘If I hadn’t,’ said Susan Nipper, evidently struggling with some latent anxiety and alarm, and looking full at her young mistress, while endeavouring to work herself into a state of resentment with the unoffending Mr Perch’s image, ‘if I hadn’t more manliness than that insipidest of his sex, I’d never take pride in my hair again, but turn it up behind my ears, and wear coarse caps, without a bit of border, until death released me from my insignificance. I may not be a Amazon, Miss Floy, and wouldn’t so demean myself by such disfigurement, but anyways I’m not a giver up, I hope.’

‘Give up! What?’ cried Florence, with a face of terror.

‘Why, nothing, Miss,’ said Susan. ‘Good gracious, nothing! It’s only that wet curl-paper of a man, Perch, that anyone might almost make away with, with a touch, and really it would be a blessed event for all parties if someone would take pity on him, and would have the goodness!’

‘Does he give up the ship, Susan?’ inquired Florence, very pale.

‘No, Miss,’ returned Susan, ‘I should like to see him make so bold as do it to my face! No, Miss, but he goes on about some bothering ginger that Mr Walter was to send to Mrs Perch, and shakes his dismal head, and says he hopes it may be coming; anyhow, he says, it can’t come now in time for the intended occasion, but may do for next, which really,’ said Miss Nipper, with aggravated scorn, ‘puts me out of patience with the man, for though I can bear a great deal, I am not a camel, neither am I,’ added Susan, after a moment’s consideration, ‘if I know myself, a dromedary neither.’

‘What else does he say, Susan?’ inquired Florence, earnestly. ‘Won’t you tell me?’

‘As if I wouldn’t tell you anything, Miss Floy, and everything!’ said Susan. ‘Why, nothing Miss, he says that there begins to be a general talk about the ship, and that they have never had a ship on that voyage half so long unheard of, and that the Captain’s wife was at the office yesterday, and seemed a little put out about it, but anyone could say that, we knew nearly that before.’

‘I must visit Walter’s uncle,’ said Florence, hurriedly, ‘before I leave home. I will go and see him this morning. Let us walk there, directly, Susan.’

Miss Nipper having nothing to urge against the proposal, but being perfectly acquiescent, they were soon equipped, and in the streets, and on their way towards the little Midshipman.

The state of mind in which poor Walter had gone to Captain Cuttle’s, on the day when Brogley the broker came into possession, and when there seemed to him to be an execution in the very steeples, was pretty much the same as that in which Florence now took her way to Uncle Sol’s; with this difference, that Florence suffered the added pain of thinking that she had been, perhaps, the innocent occasion of involving Walter in peril, and all to whom he was dear, herself included, in an agony of suspense. For the rest, uncertainty and danger seemed written upon everything. The weathercocks on spires and housetops were mysterious with hints of stormy wind, and pointed, like so many ghostly fingers, out to dangerous seas, where fragments of great wrecks were drifting, perhaps, and helpless men were rocked upon them into a sleep as deep as the unfathomable waters. When Florence came into the City, and passed gentlemen who were talking together, she dreaded to hear them speaking of the ship, and saying it was lost. Pictures and prints of vessels fighting with the rolling waves filled her with alarm. The smoke and clouds, though moving gently, moved too fast for her apprehensions, and made her fear there was a tempest blowing at that moment on the ocean.

Susan Nipper may or may not have been affected similarly, but having her attention much engaged in struggles with boys, whenever there was any press of people – for, between that grade of human kind and herself, there was some natural animosity that invariably broke out, whenever they came together – it would seem that she had not much leisure on the road for intellectual operations.

Arriving in good time abreast of the wooden Midshipman on the opposite side of the way, and waiting for an opportunity to cross the street, they were a little surprised at first to see, at the Instrument-maker’s door, a round-headed lad, with his chubby face addressed towards the sky, who, as they looked at him, suddenly thrust into his capacious mouth two fingers of each hand, and with the assistance of that machinery whistled, with astonishing shrillness, to some pigeons at a considerable elevation in the air.

‘Mrs Richards’s eldest, Miss!’ said Susan, ‘and the worrit of Mrs Richards’s life!’

As Polly had been to tell Florence of the resuscitated prospects of her son and heir, Florence was prepared for the meeting: so, a favourable moment presenting itself, they both hastened across, without any further contemplation of Mrs Richards’s bane. That sporting character, unconscious of their approach, again whistled with his utmost might, and then yelled in a rapture of excitement, ‘Strays! Whoo-oop! Strays!’ which identification had such an effect upon the conscience-stricken pigeons, that instead of going direct to some town in the North of England, as appeared to have been their original intention, they began to wheel and falter; whereupon Mrs Richards’s first born pierced them with another whistle, and again yelled, in a voice that rose above the turmoil of the street, ‘Strays! Whoo-oop! Strays!’

From this transport, he was abruptly recalled to terrestrial objects, by a poke from Miss Nipper, which sent him into the shop.

‘Is this the way you show your penitence, when Mrs Richards has been fretting for you months and months?’ said Susan, following the poke. ‘Where’s Mr Gills?’

Rob, who smoothed his first rebellious glance at Miss Nipper when he saw Florence following, put his knuckles to his hair, in honour of the latter, and said to the former, that Mr Gills was out.’

‘Fetch him home,’ said Miss Nipper, with authority, ‘and say that my young lady’s here.’

‘I don’t know where he’s gone,’ said Rob.

‘Is that your penitence?’ cried Susan, with stinging sharpness.

‘Why how can I go and fetch him when I don’t know where to go?’ whimpered the baited Rob. ‘How can you be so unreasonable?’

‘Did Mr Gills say when he should be home?’ asked Florence.

‘Yes, Miss,’ replied Rob, with another application of his knuckles to his hair. ‘He said he should be home early in the afternoon; in about a couple of hours from now, Miss.’

‘Is he very anxious about his nephew?’ inquired Susan.

‘Yes, Miss,’ returned Rob, preferring to address himself to Florence and slighting Nipper; ‘I should say he was, very much so. He ain’t indoors, Miss, not a quarter of an hour together. He can’t settle in one place five minutes. He goes about, like a – just like a stray,’ said Rob, stooping to get a glimpse of the pigeons through the window, and checking himself, with his fingers half-way to his mouth, on the verge of another whistle.

‘Do you know a friend of Mr Gills, called Captain Cuttle?’ inquired Florence, after a moment’s reflection.

‘Him with a hook, Miss?’ rejoined Rob, with an illustrative twist of his left hand. Yes, Miss. He was here the day before yesterday.’

‘Has he not been here since?’ asked Susan.

‘No, Miss,’ returned Rob, still addressing his reply to Florence.

‘Perhaps Walter’s Uncle has gone there, Susan,’ observed Florence, turning to her.

‘To Captain Cuttle’s, Miss?’ interposed Rob; ‘no, he’s not gone there, Miss. Because he left particular word that if Captain Cuttle called, I should tell him how surprised he was, not to have seen him yesterday, and should make him stop till he came back.’

‘Do you know where Captain Cuttle lives?’ asked Florence.

Rob replied in the affirmative, and turning to a greasy parchment book on the shop desk, read the address aloud.

Florence again turned to her maid and took counsel with her in a low voice, while Rob the round-eyed, mindful of his patron’s secret charge, looked on and listened. Florence proposed that they could go to Captain Cuttle’s house; hear from his own lips, what he thought of the absence of any tidings of the Son and Heir; and bring him, if they could, to comfort Uncle Sol. Susan at first objected slightly, on the score of distance; but a hackney-coach being mentioned by her mistress, withdrew that opposition, and gave in her assent. There were some minutes of discussion between them before they came to this conclusion, during which the staring Rob paid close attention to both speakers, and inclined his ear to each by turns, as if he were appointed arbitrator of the argument.

In time, Rob was despatched for a coach, the visitors keeping shop meanwhile; and when he brought it, they got into it, leaving word for Uncle Sol that they would be sure to call again, on their way back. Rob having stared after the coach until it was as invisible as the pigeons had now become, sat down behind the desk with a most assiduous demeanour; and in order that he might forget nothing of what had transpired, made notes of it on various small scraps of paper, with a vast expenditure of ink. There was no danger of these documents betraying anything, if accidentally lost; for long before a word was dry, it became as profound a mystery to Rob, as if he had had no part whatever in its production.

While he was yet busy with these labours, the hackney-coach, after encountering unheard-of difficulties from swivel-bridges, soft roads, impassable canals, caravans of casks, settlements of scarlet-beans and little wash-houses, and many such obstacles abounding in that country, stopped at the corner of Brig Place. Alighting here, Florence and Susan Nipper walked down the street, and sought out the abode of Captain Cuttle.

It happened by evil chance to be one of Mrs MacStinger’s great cleaning days. On these occasions, Mrs MacStinger was knocked up by the policeman at a quarter before three in the morning, and rarely such before twelve o’clock next night. The chief object of this institution appeared to be, that Mrs MacStinger should move all the furniture into the back garden at early dawn, walk about the house in pattens all day, and move the furniture back again after dark. These ceremonies greatly fluttered those doves the young MacStingers, who were not only unable at such times to find any resting-place for the soles of their feet, but generally came in for a good deal of pecking from the maternal bird during the progress of the solemnities.

At the moment when Florence and Susan Nipper presented themselves at Mrs MacStinger’s door, that worthy but redoubtable female was in the act of conveying Alexander MacStinger, aged two years and three months, along the passage, for forcible deposition in a sitting posture on the street pavement: Alexander being black in the face with holding his breath after punishment, and a cool paving-stone being usually found to act as a powerful restorative in such cases.

The feelings of Mrs MacStinger, as a woman and a mother, were outraged by the look of pity for Alexander which she observed on Florence’s face. Therefore, Mrs MacStinger asserting those finest emotions of our nature, in preference to weakly gratifying her curiosity, shook and buffeted Alexander both before and during the application of the paving-stone, and took no further notice of the strangers.

‘I beg your pardon, Ma’am,’ said Florence, when the child had found his breath again, and was using it. ‘Is this Captain Cuttle’s house?’

‘No,’ said Mrs MacStinger.

‘Not Number Nine?’ asked Florence, hesitating.

‘Who said it wasn’t Number Nine?’ said Mrs MacStinger.

Susan Nipper instantly struck in, and begged to inquire what Mrs MacStinger meant by that, and if she knew whom she was talking to.

Mrs MacStinger in retort, looked at her all over. ‘What do you want with Captain Cuttle, I should wish to know?’ said Mrs MacStinger.

‘Should you? Then I’m sorry that you won’t be satisfied,’ returned Miss Nipper.

‘Hush, Susan! If you please!’ said Florence. ‘Perhaps you can have the goodness to tell us where Captain Cuttle lives, Ma’am as he don’t live here.’

‘Who says he don’t live here?’ retorted the implacable MacStinger. ‘I said it wasn’t Cap’en Cuttle’s house – and it ain’t his house – and forbid it, that it ever should be his house – for Cap’en Cuttle don’t know how to keep a house – and don’t deserve to have a house – it’s my house – and when I let the upper floor to Cap’en Cuttle, oh I do a thankless thing, and cast pearls before swine!’

Mrs MacStinger pitched her voice for the upper windows in offering these remarks, and cracked off each clause sharply by itself as if from a rifle possessing an infinity of barrels. After the last shot, the Captain’s voice was heard to say, in feeble remonstrance from his own room, ‘Steady below!’

‘Since you want Cap’en Cuttle, there he is!’ said Mrs MacStinger, with an angry motion of her hand. On Florence making bold to enter, without any more parley, and on Susan following, Mrs MacStinger recommenced her pedestrian exercise in pattens, and Alexander MacStinger (still on the paving-stone), who had stopped in his crying to attend to the conversation, began to wail again, entertaining himself during that dismal performance, which was quite mechanical, with a general survey of the prospect, terminating in the hackney-coach.

The Captain in his own apartment was sitting with his hands in his pockets and his legs drawn up under his chair, on a very small desolate island, lying about midway in an ocean of soap and water. The Captain’s windows had been cleaned, the walls had been cleaned, the stove had been cleaned, and everything the stove excepted, was wet, and shining with soft soap and sand: the smell of which dry-saltery impregnated the air. In the midst of the dreary scene, the Captain, cast away upon his island, looked round on the waste of waters with a rueful countenance, and seemed waiting for some friendly bark to come that way, and take him off.

But when the Captain, directing his forlorn visage towards the door, saw Florence appear with her maid, no words can describe his astonishment. Mrs MacStinger’s eloquence having rendered all other sounds but imperfectly distinguishable, he had looked for no rarer visitor than the potboy or the milkman; wherefore, when Florence appeared, and coming to the confines of the island, put her hand in his, the Captain stood up, aghast, as if he supposed her, for the moment, to be some young member of the Flying Dutchman’s family.

Instantly recovering his self-possession, however, the Captain’s first care was to place her on dry land, which he happily accomplished, with one motion of his arm. Issuing forth, then, upon the main, Captain Cuttle took Miss Nipper round the waist, and bore her to the island also. Captain Cuttle, then, with great respect and admiration, raised the hand of Florence to his lips, and standing off a little (for the island was not large enough for three), beamed on her from the soap and water like a new description of Triton.

‘You are amazed to see us, I am sure,’ said Florence, with a smile.

The inexpressibly gratified Captain kissed his hook in reply, and growled, as if a choice and delicate compliment were included in the words, ‘Stand by! Stand by!’

‘But I couldn’t rest,’ said Florence, ‘without coming to ask you what you think about dear Walter – who is my brother now – and whether there is anything to fear, and whether you will not go and console his poor Uncle every day, until we have some intelligence of him?’

At these words Captain Cuttle, as by an involuntary gesture, clapped his hand to his head, on which the hard glazed hat was not, and looked discomfited.

‘Have you any fears for Walter’s safety?’ inquired Florence, from whose face the Captain (so enraptured he was with it) could not take his eyes: while she, in her turn, looked earnestly at him, to be assured of the sincerity of his reply.

‘No, Heart’s-delight,’ said Captain Cuttle, ‘I am not afeard. Wal’r is a lad as’ll go through a deal o’ hard weather. Wal’r is a lad as’ll bring as much success to that ‘ere brig as a lad is capable on. Wal’r,’ said the Captain, his eyes glistening with the praise of his young friend, and his hook raised to announce a beautiful quotation, ‘is what you may call a out’ard and visible sign of an in’ard and spirited grasp, and when found make a note of.’

Florence, who did not quite understand this, though the Captain evidently thought it full of meaning, and highly satisfactory, mildly looked to him for something more.

‘I am not afeard, my Heart’s-delight,’ resumed the Captain, ‘There’s been most uncommon bad weather in them latitudes, there’s no denyin’, and they have drove and drove and been beat off, may be t’other side the world. But the ship’s a good ship, and the lad’s a good lad; and it ain’t easy, thank the Lord,’ the Captain made a little bow, ‘to break up hearts of oak, whether they’re in brigs or buzzums. Here we have ‘em both ways, which is bringing it up with a round turn, and so I ain’t a bit afeard as yet.’

‘As yet?’ repeated Florence.