Dombey and Son
proved. But a cry of recognition proceeding from the party, and
Alexander MacStinger running up to the Captain with open arms, the
Captain struck.
“Well, Cap’en Cuttle!” said Mrs MacStinger. “This is indeed a meeting!
I bear no malice now, Cap’en Cuttle—you needn’t fear that I’m a going
to cast any reflections. I hope to go to the altar in another spirit.”
Here Mrs MacStinger paused, and drawing herself up, and inflating her
bosom with a long breath, said, in allusion to the victim, “My “usband,
Cap’en Cuttle!”
The abject Bunsby looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor at
his bride, nor at his friend, but straight before him at nothing. The
Captain putting out his hand, Bunsby put out his; but, in answer to the
Captain’s greeting, spake no word.
“Cap’en Cuttle,” said Mrs MacStinger, “if you would wish to heal up
past animosities, and to see the last of your friend, my “usband, as a
single person, we should be “appy of your company to chapel. Here is a
lady here,” said Mrs MacStinger, turning round to the more intrepid of
the two, “my bridesmaid, that will be glad of your protection, Cap’en
Cuttle.”
The short gentleman in the tall hat, who it appeared was the husband of
the other lady, and who evidently exulted at the reduction of a fellow
creature to his own condition, gave place at this, and resigned the
lady to Captain Cuttle. The lady immediately seized him, and, observing
that there was no time to lose, gave the word, in a strong voice, to
advance.
The Captain’s concern for his friend, not unmingled, at first, with
some concern for himself—for a shadowy terror that he might be married
by violence, possessed him, until his knowledge of the service came to
his relief, and remembering the legal obligation of saying, “I will,”
he felt himself personally safe so long as he resolved, if asked any
question, distinctly to reply “I won’t”—threw him into a profuse
perspiration; and rendered him, for a time, insensible to the movements
of the procession, of which he now formed a feature, and to the
conversation of his fair companion. But as he became less agitated, he
learnt from this lady that she was the widow of a Mr Bokum, who had
held an employment in the Custom House; that she was the dearest friend
of Mrs MacStinger, whom she considered a pattern for her sex; that she
had often heard of the Captain, and now hoped he had repented of his
past life; that she trusted Mr Bunsby knew what a blessing he had
gained, but that she feared men seldom did know what such blessings
were, until they had lost them; with more to the same purpose.
All this time, the Captain could not but observe that Mrs Bokum kept
her eyes steadily on the bridegroom, and that whenever they came near a
court or other narrow turning which appeared favourable for flight, she
was on the alert to cut him off if he attempted escape. The other lady,
too, as well as her husband, the short gentleman with the tall hat,
were plainly on guard, according to a preconcerted plan; and the
wretched man was so secured by Mrs MacStinger, that any effort at
self-preservation by flight was rendered futile. This, indeed, was
apparent to the mere populace, who expressed their perception of the
fact by jeers and cries; to all of which, the dread MacStinger was
inflexibly indifferent, while Bunsby himself appeared in a state of
unconsciousness.
The Captain made many attempts to accost the philosopher, if only in a
monosyllable or a signal; but always failed, in consequence of the
vigilance of the guard, and the difficulty, at all times peculiar to
Bunsby’s constitution, of having his attention aroused by any outward
and visible sign whatever. Thus they approached the chapel, a neat
whitewashed edifice, recently engaged by the Reverend Melchisedech
Howler, who had consented, on very urgent solicitation, to give the
world another two years of existence, but had informed his followers
that, then, it must positively go.
While the Reverend Melchisedech was offering up some extemporary
orisons, the Captain found an opportunity of growling in the
bridegroom’s ear:
“What cheer, my lad, what cheer?”
To which Bunsby replied, with a forgetfulness of the Reverend
Melchisedech, which nothing but his desperate circumstances could have
excused:
“D——d bad,”
“Jack Bunsby,” whispered the Captain, “do you do this here, of your own
free will?”
Mr Bunsby answered “No.”
“Why do you do it, then, my lad?” inquired the Captain, not
unnaturally.
Bunsby, still looking, and always looking with an immovable
countenance, at the opposite side of the world, made no reply.
“Why not sheer off?” said the Captain. “Eh?” whispered Bunsby, with a
momentary gleam of hope.
“Sheer off,” said the Captain.
“Where’s the good?” retorted the forlorn sage. “She’d capter me agen.”
“Try!” replied the Captain. “Cheer up! Come! Now’s your time. Sheer
off, Jack Bunsby!”
Jack Bunsby, however, instead of profiting by the advice, said in a
doleful whisper:
“It all began in that there chest o’ yourn. Why did I ever conwoy her
into port that night?”
“My lad,” faltered the Captain, “I thought as you had come over her;
not as she had come over you. A man as has got such opinions as you
have!”
Mr Bunsby merely uttered a suppressed groan.
“Come!” said the Captain, nudging him with his elbow, “now’s your time!
Sheer off! I’ll cover your retreat. The time’s a flying. Bunsby! It’s
for liberty. Will you once?”
Bunsby was immovable.
“Bunsby!” whispered the Captain, “will you twice?”
Bunsby wouldn’t twice.
“Bunsby!” urged the Captain, “it’s for liberty; will you three times?
Now or never!”
Bunsby didn’t then, and didn’t ever; for Mrs MacStinger immediately
afterwards married him.
One of the most frightful circumstances of the ceremony to the Captain,
was the deadly interest exhibited therein by Juliana MacStinger; and
the fatal concentration of her faculties, with which that promising
child, already the image of her parent, observed the whole proceedings.
The Captain saw in this a succession of man-traps stretching out
infinitely; a series of ages of oppression and coercion, through which
the seafaring line was doomed. It was a more memorable sight than the
unflinching steadiness of Mrs Bokum and the other lady, the exultation
of the short gentleman in the tall hat, or even the fell inflexibility
of Mrs MacStinger. The Master MacStingers understood little of what was
going on, and cared less; being chiefly engaged, during the ceremony,
in treading on one another’s half-boots; but the contrast afforded by
those wretched infants only set off and adorned the precocious woman in
Juliana. Another year or two, the Captain thought, and to lodge where
that child was, would be destruction.
The ceremony was concluded by a general spring of the young family on
Mr Bunsby, whom they hailed by the endearing name of father, and from
whom they solicited half-pence. These gushes of affection over, the
procession was about to issue forth again, when it was delayed for some
little time by an unexpected transport on the part of Alexander
MacStinger. That dear child, it seemed, connecting a chapel with
tombstones, when it was entered for any purpose apart from the ordinary
religious exercises, could not be persuaded but that his mother was now
to be decently interred, and lost to him for ever. In the anguish of
this conviction, he screamed with astonishing force, and turned black
in the face. However touching these marks of a tender disposition were
to his mother, it was not in the character of that remarkable woman to
permit her recognition of them to degenerate into weakness. Therefore,
after vainly endeavouring to convince his reason by shakes, pokes,
bawlings-out, and similar applications to his head, she led him into
the air, and tried another method; which was manifested to the marriage
party by a quick succession of sharp sounds, resembling applause, and
subsequently, by their seeing Alexander in contact with the coolest
paving-stone in the court, greatly flushed, and loudly lamenting.
The procession being then in a condition to form itself once more, and
repair to Brig Place, where a marriage feast was in readiness, returned
as it had come; not without the receipt, by Bunsby, of many humorous
congratulations from the populace on his recently-acquired happiness.
The Captain accompanied it as far as the house-door, but, being made
uneasy by the gentler manner of Mrs Bokum, who, now that she was
relieved from her engrossing duty—for the watchfulness and alacrity of
the ladies sensibly diminished when the bridegroom was safely
married—had greater leisure to show an interest in his behalf, there
left it and the captive; faintly pleading an appointment, and promising
to return presently. The Captain had another cause for uneasiness, in
remorsefully reflecting that he had been the first means of Bunsby’s
entrapment, though certainly without intending it, and through his
unbounded faith in the resources of that philosopher.
To go back to old Sol Gills at the wooden Midshipman’s, and not first
go round to ask how Mr Dombey was—albeit the house where he lay was out
of London, and away on the borders of a fresh heath—was quite out of
the Captain’s course. So he got a lift when he was tired, and made out
the journey gaily.
The blinds were pulled down, and the house so quiet, that the Captain
was almost afraid to knock; but listening at the door, he heard low
voices within, very near it, and, knocking softly, was admitted by Mr
Toots. Mr Toots and his wife had, in fact, just arrived there; having
been at the Midshipman’s to seek him, and having there obtained the
address.
They were not so recently arrived, but that Mrs Toots had caught the
baby from somebody, taken it in her arms, and sat down on the stairs,
hugging and fondling it. Florence was stooping down beside her; and no
one could have said which Mrs Toots was hugging and fondling most, the
mother or the child, or which was the tenderer, Florence of Mrs Toots,
or Mrs Toots of her, or both of the baby; it was such a little group of
love and agitation.
“And is your Pa very ill, my darling dear Miss Floy?” asked Susan.
“He is very, very ill,” said Florence. “But, Susan, dear, you must not
speak to me as you used to speak. And what’s this?” said Florence,
touching her clothes, in amazement. “Your old dress, dear? Your old
cap, curls, and all?”
Susan burst into tears, and showered kisses on the little hand that had
touched her so wonderingly.
“My dear Miss Dombey,” said Mr Toots, stepping forward, “I’ll explain.
She’s the most extraordinary woman. There are not many to equal her!
She has always said—she said before we were married, and has said to
this day—that whenever you came home, she’d come to you in no dress but
the dress she used to serve you in, for fear she might seem strange to
you, and you might like her less. I admire the dress myself,” said Mr
Toots, “of all things. I adore her in it! My dear Miss Dombey, she’ll
be your maid again, your nurse, all that she ever was, and more.
There’s no change in her. But, Susan, my dear,” said Mr Toots, who had
spoken with great feeling and high admiration, “all I ask is, that
you’ll remember the medical man, and not exert yourself too much!”
CHAPTER LXI.
Relenting
Florence had need of help. Her father’s need of it was sore, and made
the aid of her old friend invaluable. Death stood at his pillow. A
shade, already, of what he had been, shattered in mind, and perilously
sick in body, he laid his weary head down on the bed his daughter’s
hands prepared for him, and had never raised it since.
She was always with him. He knew her, generally; though, in the
wandering of his brain, he often confused the circumstances under which