Dombey and Son
his arm until it shone like burnished copper, “don’t you say a word to
Ed’ard Cuttle, until such times as you finds yourself a riding smooth
and easy; which won’t be today, nor yet to-morrow. And as to giving of
you up, or reporting where you are, yes verily, and by God’s help, so I
won’t, Church catechism, make a note on!”
This the Captain said, reference and all, in one breath, and with much
solemnity; taking off his hat at “yes verily,” and putting it on again,
when he had quite concluded.
Florence could do but one thing more to thank him, and to show him how
she trusted in him; and she did it. Clinging to this rough creature as
the last asylum of her bleeding heart, she laid her head upon his
honest shoulder, and clasped him round his neck, and would have kneeled
down to bless him, but that he divined her purpose, and held her up
like a true man.
“Steady!” said the Captain. “Steady! You’re too weak to stand, you see,
my pretty, and must lie down here again. There, there!” To see the
Captain lift her on the sofa, and cover her with his coat, would have
been worth a hundred state sights. “And now,” said the Captain, “you
must take some breakfast, lady lass, and the dog shall have some too.
And arter that you shall go aloft to old Sol Gills’s room, and fall
asleep there, like a angel.”
Captain Cuttle patted Diogenes when he made allusion to him, and
Diogenes met that overture graciously, half-way. During the
administration of the restoratives he had clearly been in two minds
whether to fly at the Captain or to offer him his friendship; and he
had expressed that conflict of feeling by alternate waggings of his
tail, and displays of his teeth, with now and then a growl or so. But
by this time, his doubts were all removed. It was plain that he
considered the Captain one of the most amiable of men, and a man whom
it was an honour to a dog to know.
In evidence of these convictions, Diogenes attended on the Captain
while he made some tea and toast, and showed a lively interest in his
housekeeping. But it was in vain for the kind Captain to make such
preparations for Florence, who sorely tried to do some honour to them,
but could touch nothing, and could only weep and weep again.
“Well, well!” said the compassionate Captain, “arter turning in, my
Heart’s Delight, you’ll get more way upon you. Now, I’ll serve out your
allowance, my lad.” To Diogenes. “And you shall keep guard on your
mistress aloft.”
Diogenes, however, although he had been eyeing his intended breakfast
with a watering mouth and glistening eyes, instead of falling to,
ravenously, when it was put before him, pricked up his ears, darted to
the shop-door, and barked there furiously: burrowing with his head at
the bottom, as if he were bent on mining his way out.
“Can there be anybody there!” asked Florence, in alarm.
“No, my lady lass,” returned the Captain. “Who’d stay there, without
making any noise! Keep up a good heart, pretty. It’s only people going
by.”
But for all that, Diogenes barked and barked, and burrowed and
burrowed, with pertinacious fury; and whenever he stopped to listen,
appeared to receive some new conviction into his mind, for he set to,
barking and burrowing again, a dozen times. Even when he was persuaded
to return to his breakfast, he came jogging back to it, with a very
doubtful air; and was off again, in another paroxysm, before touching a
morsel.
“If there should be someone listening and watching,” whispered
Florence. “Someone who saw me come—who followed me, perhaps.”
“It ain’t the young woman, lady lass, is it?” said the Captain, taken
with a bright idea.
“Susan?” said Florence, shaking her head. “Ah no! Susan has been gone
from me a long time.”
“Not deserted, I hope?” said the Captain. “Don’t say that that there
young woman’s run, my pretty!”
“Oh, no, no!” cried Florence. “She is one of the truest hearts in the
world!”
The Captain was greatly relieved by this reply, and expressed his
satisfaction by taking off his hard glazed hat, and dabbing his head
all over with his handkerchief, rolled up like a ball, observing
several times, with infinite complacency, and with a beaming
countenance, that he know’d it.
“So you’re quiet now, are you, brother?” said the Captain to Diogenes.
“There warn’t nobody there, my lady lass, bless you!”
Diogenes was not so sure of that. The door still had an attraction for
him at intervals; and he went snuffing about it, and growling to
himself, unable to forget the subject. This incident, coupled with the
Captain’s observation of Florence’s fatigue and faintness, decided him
to prepare Sol Gills’s chamber as a place of retirement for her
immediately. He therefore hastily betook himself to the top of the
house, and made the best arrangement of it that his imagination and his
means suggested.
It was very clean already; and the Captain, being an orderly man, and
accustomed to make things ship-shape, converted the bed into a couch,
by covering it all over with a clean white drapery. By a similar
contrivance, the Captain converted the little dressing-table into a
species of altar, on which he set forth two silver teaspoons, a
flower-pot, a telescope, his celebrated watch, a pocket-comb, and a
song-book, as a small collection of rarities, that made a choice
appearance. Having darkened the window, and straightened the pieces of
carpet on the floor, the Captain surveyed these preparations with great
delight, and descended to the little parlour again, to bring Florence
to her bower.
Nothing would induce the Captain to believe that it was possible for
Florence to walk upstairs. If he could have got the idea into his head,
he would have considered it an outrageous breach of hospitality to
allow her to do so. Florence was too weak to dispute the point, and the
Captain carried her up out of hand, laid her down, and covered her with
a great watch-coat.
“My lady lass!” said the Captain, “you’re as safe here as if you was at
the top of St Paul’s Cathedral, with the ladder cast off. Sleep is what
you want, afore all other things, and may you be able to show yourself
smart with that there balsam for the still small woice of a wounded
mind! When there’s anything you want, my Heart’s Delight, as this here
humble house or town can offer, pass the word to Ed’ard Cuttle, as’ll
stand off and on outside that door, and that there man will wibrate
with joy.” The Captain concluded by kissing the hand that Florence
stretched out to him, with the chivalry of any old knight-errant, and
walking on tiptoe out of the room.
Descending to the little parlour, Captain Cuttle, after holding a hasty
council with himself, decided to open the shop-door for a few minutes,
and satisfy himself that now, at all events, there was no one loitering
about it. Accordingly he set it open, and stood upon the threshold,
keeping a bright look-out, and sweeping the whole street with his
spectacles.
“How de do, Captain Gills?” said a voice beside him. The Captain,
looking down, found that he had been boarded by Mr Toots while sweeping
the horizon.
“How are, you, my lad?” replied the Captain.
“Well, I’m pretty well, thank’ee, Captain Gills,” said Mr Toots. “You
know I’m never quite what I could wish to be, now. I don’t expect that
I ever shall be any more.”
Mr Toots never approached any nearer than this to the great theme of
his life, when in conversation with Captain Cuttle, on account of the
agreement between them.
“Captain Gills,” said Mr Toots, “if I could have the pleasure of a word
with you, it’s—it’s rather particular.”
“Why, you see, my lad,” replied the Captain, leading the way into the
parlour, “I ain’t what you may call exactly free this morning; and
therefore if you can clap on a bit, I should take it kindly.”
“Certainly, Captain Gills,” replied Mr Toots, who seldom had any notion
of the Captain’s meaning. “To clap on, is exactly what I could wish to
do. Naturally.”
“If so be, my lad,” returned the Captain. “Do it!”
The Captain was so impressed by the possession of his tremendous
secret—by the fact of Miss Dombey being at that moment under his roof,
while the innocent and unconscious Toots sat opposite to him—that a
perspiration broke out on his forehead, and he found it impossible,
while slowly drying the same, glazed hat in hand, to keep his eyes off
Mr Toots’s face. Mr Toots, who himself appeared to have some secret
reasons for being in a nervous state, was so unspeakably disconcerted
by the Captain’s stare, that after looking at him vacantly for some
time in silence, and shifting uneasily on his chair, he said:
“I beg your pardon, Captain Gills, but you don’t happen to see anything
particular in me, do you?”
“No, my lad,” returned the Captain. “No.”
“Because you know,” said Mr Toots with a chuckle, “I know I’m wasting
away. You needn’t at all mind alluding to that. I—I should like it.
Burgess and Co. have altered my measure, I’m in that state of thinness.
It’s a gratification to me. I—I’m glad of it. I—I’d a great deal rather
go into a decline, if I could. I’m a mere brute you know, grazing upon
the surface of the earth, Captain Gills.”
The more Mr Toots went on in this way, the more the Captain was weighed
down by his secret, and stared at him. What with this cause of
uneasiness, and his desire to get rid of Mr Toots, the Captain was in
such a scared and strange condition, indeed, that if he had been in
conversation with a ghost, he could hardly have evinced greater
discomposure.
“But I was going to say, Captain Gills,” said Mr Toots. “Happening to
be this way early this morning—to tell you the truth, I was coming to
breakfast with you. As to sleep, you know, I never sleep now. I might
be a Watchman, except that I don’t get any pay, and he’s got nothing on
his mind.”
“Carry on, my lad!” said the Captain, in an admonitory voice.
“Certainly, Captain Gills,” said Mr Toots. “Perfectly true! Happening
to be this way early this morning (an hour or so ago), and finding the
door shut—”
“What! were you waiting there, brother?” demanded the Captain.
“Not at all, Captain Gills,” returned Mr Toots. “I didn’t stop a
moment. I thought you were out. But the person said—by the bye, you
don’t keep a dog, you, Captain Gills?”
The Captain shook his head.
“To be sure,” said Mr Toots, “that’s exactly what I said. I knew you
didn’t. There is a dog, Captain Gills, connected with—but excuse me.
That’s forbidden ground.”
The Captain stared at Mr Toots until he seemed to swell to twice his
natural size; and again the perspiration broke out on the Captain’s
forehead, when he thought of Diogenes taking it into his head to come
down and make a third in the parlour.
“The person said,” continued Mr Toots, “that he had heard a dog barking
in the shop: which I knew couldn’t be, and I told him so. But he was as
positive as if he had seen the dog.”
“What person, my lad?” inquired the Captain.
“Why, you see there it is, Captain Gills,” said Mr Toots, with a
perceptible increase in the nervousness of his manner. “It’s not for me
to say what may have taken place, or what may not have taken place.
Indeed, I don’t know. I get mixed up with all sorts of things that I
don’t quite understand, and I think there’s something rather weak in
my—in my head, in short.”
The Captain nodded his own, as a mark of assent.
“But the person said, as we were walking away,” continued Mr Toots,
“that you knew what, under existing circumstances, might occur—he said
‘might,’ very strongly—and that if you were requested to prepare
yourself, you would, no doubt, come prepared.”
“Person, my lad” the Captain repeated.
“I don’t know what person, I’m sure, Captain Gills,” replied Mr Toots,
“I haven’t the least idea. But coming to the door, I found him waiting