Dombey and Son
the first touch of Florence’s arm, and they returned with the same
precautions as they had come; the Captain opening the door of the
little Midshipman’s berth, and diving in, with a suddenness which his
great practice only could have taught him. During Florence’s slumber in
the morning, he had engaged the daughter of an elderly lady who usually
sat under a blue umbrella in Leadenhall Market, selling poultry, to
come and put her room in order, and render her any little services she
required; and this damsel now appearing, Florence found everything
about her as convenient and orderly, if not as handsome, as in the
terrible dream she had once called Home.
When they were alone again, the Captain insisted on her eating a slice
of dry toast, and drinking a glass of spiced negus (which he made to
perfection); and, encouraging her with every kind word and
inconsequential quotation he could possibly think of, led her upstairs
to her bedroom. But he too had something on his mind, and was not easy
in his manner.
“Good-night, dear heart,” said Captain Cuttle to her at her
chamber-door.
Florence raised her lips to his face, and kissed him.
At any other time the Captain would have been overbalanced by such a
token of her affection and gratitude; but now, although he was very
sensible of it, he looked in her face with even more uneasiness than he
had testified before, and seemed unwilling to leave her.
“Poor Wal”r!” said the Captain.
“Poor, poor Walter!” sighed Florence.
“Drownded, ain’t he?” said the Captain.
Florence shook her head, and sighed.
“Good-night, my lady lass!” said Captain Cuttle, putting out his hand.
“God bless you, dear, kind friend!”
But the Captain lingered still.
“Is anything the matter, dear Captain Cuttle?” said Florence, easily
alarmed in her then state of mind. “Have you anything to tell me?”
“To tell you, lady lass!” replied the Captain, meeting her eyes in
confusion. “No, no; what should I have to tell you, pretty! You don’t
expect as I’ve got anything good to tell you, sure?”
“No!” said Florence, shaking her head.
The Captain looked at her wistfully, and repeated “No,”— still
lingering, and still showing embarrassment.
“Poor Wal”r!” said the Captain. “My Wal”r, as I used to call you! Old
Sol Gills’s nevy! Welcome to all as knowed you, as the flowers in May!
Where are you got to, brave boy? Drownded, ain’t he?”
Concluding his apostrophe with this abrupt appeal to Florence, the
Captain bade her good-night, and descended the stairs, while Florence
remained at the top, holding the candle out to light him down. He was
lost in the obscurity, and, judging from the sound of his receding
footsteps, was in the act of turning into the little parlour, when his
head and shoulders unexpectedly emerged again, as from the deep,
apparently for no other purpose than to repeat, “Drownded, ain’t he,
pretty?” For when he had said that in a tone of tender condolence, he
disappeared.
Florence was very sorry that she should unwittingly, though naturally,
have awakened these associations in the mind of her protector, by
taking refuge there; and sitting down before the little table where the
Captain had arranged the telescope and song-book, and those other
rarities, thought of Walter, and of all that was connected with him in
the past, until she could have almost wished to lie down on her bed and
fade away. But in her lonely yearning to the dead whom she had loved,
no thought of home—no possibility of going back—no presentation of it
as yet existing, or as sheltering her father—once entered her thoughts.
She had seen the murder done. In the last lingering natural aspect in
which she had cherished him through so much, he had been torn out of
her heart, defaced, and slain. The thought of it was so appalling to
her, that she covered her eyes, and shrunk trembling from the least
remembrance of the deed, or of the cruel hand that did it. If her fond
heart could have held his image after that, it must have broken; but it
could not; and the void was filled with a wild dread that fled from all
confronting with its shattered fragments—with such a dread as could
have risen out of nothing but the depths of such a love, so wronged.
She dared not look into the glass; for the sight of the darkening mark
upon her bosom made her afraid of herself, as if she bore about her
something wicked. She covered it up, with a hasty, faltering hand, and
in the dark; and laid her weary head down, weeping.
The Captain did not go to bed for a long time. He walked to and fro in
the shop and in the little parlour, for a full hour, and, appearing to
have composed himself by that exercise, sat down with a grave and
thoughtful face, and read out of a Prayer-book the forms of prayer
appointed to be used at sea. These were not easily disposed of; the
good Captain being a mighty slow, gruff reader, and frequently stopping
at a hard word to give himself such encouragement as “Now, my lad! With
a will!” or, “Steady, Ed’ard Cuttle, steady!” which had a great effect
in helping him out of any difficulty. Moreover, his spectacles greatly
interfered with his powers of vision. But notwithstanding these
drawbacks, the Captain, being heartily in earnest, read the service to
the very last line, and with genuine feeling too; and approving of it
very much when he had done, turned in, under the counter (but not
before he had been upstairs, and listened at Florence’s door), with a
serene breast, and a most benevolent visage.
The Captain turned out several times in the course of the night, to
assure himself that his charge was resting quietly; and once, at
daybreak, found that she was awake: for she called to know if it were
he, on hearing footsteps near her door.
“Yes, my lady lass,” replied the Captain, in a growling whisper. “Are
you all right, di’mond?”
Florence thanked him, and said “Yes.”
The Captain could not lose so favourable an opportunity of applying his
mouth to the keyhole, and calling through it, like a hoarse breeze,
“Poor Wal”r! Drownded, ain’t he?” after which he withdrew, and turning
in again, slept till seven o’clock.
Nor was he free from his uneasy and embarrassed manner all that day;
though Florence, being busy with her needle in the little parlour, was
more calm and tranquil than she had been on the day preceding. Almost
always when she raised her eyes from her work, she observed the captain
looking at her, and thoughtfully stroking his chin; and he so often
hitched his arm-chair close to her, as if he were going to say
something very confidential, and hitched it away again, as not being
able to make up his mind how to begin, that in the course of the day he
cruised completely round the parlour in that frail bark, and more than
once went ashore against the wainscot or the closet door, in a very
distressed condition.
It was not until the twilight that Captain Cuttle, fairly dropping
anchor, at last, by the side of Florence, began to talk at all
connectedly. But when the light of the fire was shining on the walls
and ceiling of the little room, and on the tea-board and the cups and
saucers that were ranged upon the table, and on her calm face turned
towards the flame, and reflecting it in the tears that filled her eyes,
the Captain broke a long silence thus:
“You never was at sea, my own?”
“No,” replied Florence.
“Ay,” said the Captain, reverentially; “it’s a almighty element.
There’s wonders in the deep, my pretty. Think on it when the winds is
roaring and the waves is rowling. Think on it when the stormy nights is
so pitch dark,” said the Captain, solemnly holding up his hook, “as you
can’t see your hand afore you, excepting when the wiwid lightning
reweals the same; and when you drive, drive, drive through the storm
and dark, as if you was a driving, head on, to the world without end,
evermore, amen, and when found making a note of. Them’s the times, my
beauty, when a man may say to his messmate (previously a overhauling of
the wollume), ‘A stiff nor’wester’s blowing, Bill; hark, don’t you hear
it roar now! Lord help ’em, how I pitys all unhappy folks ashore now!’”
Which quotation, as particularly applicable to the terrors of the
ocean, the Captain delivered in a most impressive manner, concluding
with a sonorous “Stand by!”
“Were you ever in a dreadful storm?” asked Florence.
“Why ay, my lady lass, I’ve seen my share of bad weather,” said the
Captain, tremulously wiping his head, “and I’ve had my share of
knocking about; but—but it ain’t of myself as I was a meaning to speak.
Our dear boy,” drawing closer to her, “Wal”r, darling, as was
drownded.”
The Captain spoke in such a trembling voice, and looked at Florence
with a face so pale and agitated, that she clung to his hand in
affright.
“Your face is changed,” cried Florence. “You are altered in a moment.
What is it? Dear Captain Cuttle, it turns me cold to see you!”
“What! Lady lass,” returned the Captain, supporting her with his hand,
“don’t be took aback. No, no! All’s well, all’s well, my dear. As I was
a saying—Wal”r—he’s—he’s drownded. Ain’t he?”
Florence looked at him intently; her colour came and went; and she laid
her hand upon her breast.
“There’s perils and dangers on the deep, my beauty,” said the Captain;
“and over many a brave ship, and many and many a bould heart, the
secret waters has closed up, and never told no tales. But there’s
escapes upon the deep, too, and sometimes one man out of a score,—ah!
maybe out of a hundred, pretty,—has been saved by the mercy of God, and
come home after being given over for dead, and told of all hands lost.
I—I know a story, Heart’s Delight,” stammered the Captain, “o’ this
natur, as was told to me once; and being on this here tack, and you and
me sitting alone by the fire, maybe you’d like to hear me tell it.
Would you, deary?”
Florence, trembling with an agitation which she could not control or
understand, involuntarily followed his glance, which went behind her
into the shop, where a lamp was burning. The instant that she turned
her head, the Captain sprung out of his chair, and interposed his hand.
“There’s nothing there, my beauty,” said the Captain. “Don’t look
there.”
“Why not?” asked Florence.
The Captain murmured something about its being dull that way, and about
the fire being cheerful. He drew the door ajar, which had been standing
open until now, and resumed his seat. Florence followed him with her
eyes, and looked intently in his face.
“The story was about a ship, my lady lass,” began the Captain, “as
sailed out of the Port of London, with a fair wind and in fair weather,
bound for—don’t be took aback, my lady lass, she was only out’ard
bound, pretty, only out’ard bound!”
The expression on Florence’s face alarmed the Captain, who was himself
very hot and flurried, and showed scarcely less agitation than she did.
“Shall I go on, Beauty?” said the Captain.
“Yes, yes, pray!” cried Florence.
The Captain made a gulp as if to get down something that was sticking
in his throat, and nervously proceeded:
“That there unfort’nate ship met with such foul weather, out at sea, as
don’t blow once in twenty year, my darling. There was hurricanes ashore
as tore up forests and blowed down towns, and there was gales at sea in
them latitudes, as not the stoutest wessel ever launched could live in.
Day arter day that there unfort’nate ship behaved noble, I’m told, and
did her duty brave, my pretty, but at one blow a’most her bulwarks was
stove in, her masts and rudder carved away, her best man swept
overboard, and she left to the mercy of the storm as had no mercy but
blowed harder and harder yet, while the waves dashed over her, and beat
her in, and every time they come a thundering at her, broke her like a