Dombey and Son
his eyes, the expression of his features, the very voice in which he
spoke, were all subdued and quenched, as if the spirit within him lay
in ashes. He was respectably, though very plainly dressed, in black;
but his clothes, moulded to the general character of his figure, seemed
to shrink and abase themselves upon him, and to join in the sorrowful
solicitation which the whole man from head to foot expressed, to be
left unnoticed, and alone in his humility.
And yet his interest in youth and hopefulness was not extinguished with
the other embers of his soul, for he watched the boy’s earnest
countenance as he spoke with unusual sympathy, though with an
inexplicable show of trouble and compassion, which escaped into his
looks, however hard he strove to hold it prisoner. When Walter, in
conclusion, put to him the question he had put to Florence, he still
stood glancing at him with the same expression, as if he had read some
fate upon his face, mournfully at variance with its present brightness.
“What do you advise, Mr Carker?” said Walter, smiling. “You always give
me good advice, you know, when you do speak to me. That’s not often,
though.”
“I think your own idea is the best,” he answered: looking from Florence
to Walter, and back again.
“Mr Carker,” said Walter, brightening with a generous thought, “Come!
Here’s a chance for you. Go you to Mr Dombey’s, and be the messenger of
good news. It may do you some good, Sir. I’ll remain at home. You shall
go.”
“I!” returned the other.
“Yes. Why not, Mr Carker?” said the boy.
He merely shook him by the hand in answer; he seemed in a manner
ashamed and afraid even to do that; and bidding him good-night, and
advising him to make haste, turned away.
“Come, Miss Dombey,” said Walter, looking after him as they turned away
also, “we’ll go to my Uncle’s as quick as we can. Did you ever hear Mr
Dombey speak of Mr Carker the Junior, Miss Florence?”
“No,” returned the child, mildly, “I don’t often hear Papa speak.”
“Ah! true! more shame for him,” thought Walter. After a minute’s pause,
during which he had been looking down upon the gentle patient little
face moving on at his side, he said, “The strangest man, Mr Carker the
Junior is, Miss Florence, that ever you heard of. If you could
understand what an extraordinary interest he takes in me, and yet how
he shuns me and avoids me; and what a low place he holds in our office,
and how he is never advanced, and never complains, though year after
year he sees young men passed over his head, and though his brother
(younger than he is), is our head Manager, you would be as much puzzled
about him as I am.”
As Florence could hardly be expected to understand much about it,
Walter bestirred himself with his accustomed boyish animation and
restlessness to change the subject; and one of the unfortunate shoes
coming off again opportunely, proposed to carry Florence to his uncle’s
in his arms. Florence, though very tired, laughingly declined the
proposal, lest he should let her fall; and as they were already near
the wooden Midshipman, and as Walter went on to cite various
precedents, from shipwrecks and other moving accidents, where younger
boys than he had triumphantly rescued and carried off older girls than
Florence, they were still in full conversation about it when they
arrived at the Instrument-maker’s door.
“Holloa, Uncle Sol!” cried Walter, bursting into the shop, and speaking
incoherently and out of breath, from that time forth, for the rest of
the evening. “Here’s a wonderful adventure! Here’s Mr Dombey’s daughter
lost in the streets, and robbed of her clothes by an old witch of a
woman—found by me—brought home to our parlour to rest—look here!”
“Good Heaven!” said Uncle Sol, starting back against his favourite
compass-case. “It can’t be! Well, I—”
“No, nor anybody else,” said Walter, anticipating the rest. “Nobody
would, nobody could, you know. Here! just help me lift the little sofa
near the fire, will you, Uncle Sol—take care of the plates—cut some
dinner for her, will you, Uncle—throw those shoes under the grate. Miss
Florence—put your feet on the fender to dry—how damp they are—here’s an
adventure, Uncle, eh?—God bless my soul, how hot I am!”
Solomon Gills was quite as hot, by sympathy, and in excessive
bewilderment. He patted Florence’s head, pressed her to eat, pressed
her to drink, rubbed the soles of her feet with his pocket-handkerchief
heated at the fire, followed his locomotive nephew with his eyes, and
ears, and had no clear perception of anything except that he was being
constantly knocked against and tumbled over by that excited young
gentleman, as he darted about the room attempting to accomplish twenty
things at once, and doing nothing at all.
“Here, wait a minute, Uncle,” he continued, catching up a candle, “till
I run upstairs, and get another jacket on, and then I’ll be off. I say,
Uncle, isn’t this an adventure?”
“My dear boy,” said Solomon, who, with his spectacles on his forehead
and the great chronometer in his pocket, was incessantly oscillating
between Florence on the sofa, and his nephew in all parts of the
parlour, “it’s the most extraordinary—”
“No, but do, Uncle, please—do, Miss Florence—dinner, you know, Uncle.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” cried Solomon, cutting instantly into a leg of mutton,
as if he were catering for a giant. “I’ll take care of her, Wally! I
understand. Pretty dear! Famished, of course. You go and get ready.
Lord bless me! Sir Richard Whittington thrice Lord Mayor of London.”
Walter was not very long in mounting to his lofty garret and descending
from it, but in the meantime Florence, overcome by fatigue, had sunk
into a doze before the fire. The short interval of quiet, though only a
few minutes in duration, enabled Solomon Gills so far to collect his
wits as to make some little arrangements for her comfort, and to darken
the room, and to screen her from the blaze. Thus, when the boy
returned, she was sleeping peacefully.
“That’s capital!” he whispered, giving Solomon such a hug that it
squeezed a new expression into his face. “Now I’m off. I’ll just take a
crust of bread with me, for I’m very hungry—and don’t wake her, Uncle
Sol.”
“No, no,” said Solomon. “Pretty child.”
“Pretty, indeed!” cried Walter. “I never saw such a face, Uncle Sol.
Now I’m off.”
“That’s right,” said Solomon, greatly relieved.
“I say, Uncle Sol,” cried Walter, putting his face in at the door.
“Here he is again,” said Solomon.
“How does she look now?”
“Quite happy,” said Solomon.
“That’s famous! now I’m off.”
“I hope you are,” said Solomon to himself.
“I say, Uncle Sol,” cried Walter, reappearing at the door.
“Here he is again!” said Solomon.
“We met Mr Carker the Junior in the street, queerer than ever. He bade
me good-bye, but came behind us here—there’s an odd thing!—for when we
reached the shop door, I looked round, and saw him going quietly away,
like a servant who had seen me home, or a faithful dog. How does she
look now, Uncle?”
“Pretty much the same as before, Wally,” replied Uncle Sol.
“That’s right. Now I am off!”
And this time he really was: and Solomon Gills, with no appetite for
dinner, sat on the opposite side of the fire, watching Florence in her
slumber, building a great many airy castles of the most fantastic
architecture; and looking, in the dim shade, and in the close vicinity
of all the instruments, like a magician disguised in a Welsh wig and a
suit of coffee colour, who held the child in an enchanted sleep.
In the meantime, Walter proceeded towards Mr Dombey’s house at a pace
seldom achieved by a hack horse from the stand; and yet with his head
out of window every two or three minutes, in impatient remonstrance
with the driver. Arriving at his journey’s end, he leaped out, and
breathlessly announcing his errand to the servant, followed him
straight into the library, we there was a great confusion of tongues,
and where Mr Dombey, his sister, and Miss Tox, Richards, and Nipper,
were all congregated together.
“Oh! I beg your pardon, Sir,” said Walter, rushing up to him, “but I’m
happy to say it’s all right, Sir. Miss Dombey’s found!”
The boy with his open face, and flowing hair, and sparkling eyes,
panting with pleasure and excitement, was wonderfully opposed to Mr
Dombey, as he sat confronting him in his library chair.
“I told you, Louisa, that she would certainly be found,” said Mr
Dombey, looking slightly over his shoulder at that lady, who wept in
company with Miss Tox. “Let the servants know that no further steps are
necessary. This boy who brings the information, is young Gay, from the
office. How was my daughter found, Sir? I know how she was lost.” Here
he looked majestically at Richards. “But how was she found? Who found
her?”
“Why, I believe I found Miss Dombey, Sir,” said Walter modestly, “at
least I don’t know that I can claim the merit of having exactly found
her, Sir, but I was the fortunate instrument of—”
“What do you mean, Sir,” interrupted Mr Dombey, regarding the boy’s
evident pride and pleasure in his share of the transaction with an
instinctive dislike, “by not having exactly found my daughter, and by
being a fortunate instrument? Be plain and coherent, if you please.”
It was quite out of Walter’s power to be coherent; but he rendered
himself as explanatory as he could, in his breathless state, and stated
why he had come alone.
“You hear this, girl?” said Mr Dombey sternly to the black-eyed. “Take
what is necessary, and return immediately with this young man to fetch
Miss Florence home. Gay, you will be rewarded to-morrow.”
“Oh! thank you, Sir,” said Walter. “You are very kind. I’m sure I was
not thinking of any reward, Sir.”
“You are a boy,” said Mr Dombey, suddenly and almost fiercely; “and
what you think of, or affect to think of, is of little consequence. You
have done well, Sir. Don’t undo it. Louisa, please to give the lad some
wine.”
Mr Dombey’s glance followed Walter Gay with sharp disfavour, as he left
the room under the pilotage of Mrs Chick; and it may be that his mind’s
eye followed him with no greater relish, as he rode back to his Uncle’s
with Miss Susan Nipper.
There they found that Florence, much refreshed by sleep, had dined, and
greatly improved the acquaintance of Solomon Gills, with whom she was
on terms of perfect confidence and ease. The black-eyed (who had cried
so much that she might now be called the red-eyed, and who was very
silent and depressed) caught her in her arms without a word of
contradiction or reproach, and made a very hysterical meeting of it.
Then converting the parlour, for the nonce, into a private tiring room,
she dressed her, with great care, in proper clothes; and presently led
her forth, as like a Dombey as her natural disqualifications admitted
of her being made.
“Good-night!” said Florence, running up to Solomon. “You have been very
good to me.”
Old Sol was quite delighted, and kissed her like her grand-father.
“Good-night, Walter! Good-bye!” said Florence.
“Good-bye!” said Walter, giving both his hands.
“I’ll never forget you,” pursued Florence. “No! indeed I never will.
Good-bye, Walter!”
In the innocence of her grateful heart, the child lifted up her face to
his. Walter, bending down his own, raised it again, all red and
burning; and looked at Uncle Sol, quite sheepishly.
“Where’s Walter?” “Good-night, Walter!” “Good-bye, Walter!” “Shake
hands once more, Walter!” This was still Florence’s cry, after she was
shut up with her little maid, in the coach. And when the coach at
length moved off, Walter on the door-step gaily returned the waving of
her handkerchief, while the wooden Midshipman behind him seemed, like
himself, intent upon that coach alone, excluding all the other passing