Dombey and Son
“No, Wally, no,” replied the old man; “everything I hear about Miss
Dombey, now that she is left alone, poor lamb, I’ll write. I fear it
won’t be much though, Wally.”
“Why, I’ll tell you what, Uncle,” said Walter, after a moment’s
hesitation, “I have just been up there.”
“Ay, ay, ay?” murmured the old man, raising his eyebrows, and his
spectacles with them.
“Not to see her,” said Walter, “though I could have seen her, I
daresay, if I had asked, Mr Dombey being out of town: but to say a
parting word to Susan. I thought I might venture to do that, you know,
under the circumstances, and remembering when I saw Miss Dombey last.”
“Yes, my boy, yes,” replied his Uncle, rousing himself from a temporary
abstraction.
“So I saw her,” pursued Walter, “Susan, I mean: and I told her I was
off and away to-morrow. And I said, Uncle, that you had always had an
interest in Miss Dombey since that night when she was here, and always
wished her well and happy, and always would be proud and glad to serve
her in the least: I thought I might say that, you know, under the
circumstances. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes, my boy, yes,” replied his Uncle, in the tone as before.
“And I added,” pursued Walter, “that if she—Susan, I mean—could ever
let you know, either through herself, or Mrs Richards, or anybody else
who might be coming this way, that Miss Dombey was well and happy, you
would take it very kindly, and would write so much to me, and I should
take it very kindly too. There! Upon my word, Uncle,” said Walter, “I
scarcely slept all last night through thinking of doing this; and could
not make up my mind when I was out, whether to do it or not; and yet I
am sure it is the true feeling of my heart, and I should have been
quite miserable afterwards if I had not relieved it.”
His honest voice and manner corroborated what he said, and quite
established its ingenuousness.
“So, if you ever see her, Uncle,” said Walter, “I mean Miss Dombey
now—and perhaps you may, who knows!—tell her how much I felt for her;
how much I used to think of her when I was here; how I spoke of her,
with the tears in my eyes, Uncle, on this last night before I went
away. Tell her that I said I never could forget her gentle manner, or
her beautiful face, or her sweet kind disposition that was better than
all. And as I didn’t take them from a woman’s feet, or a young lady’s:
only a little innocent child’s,” said Walter: “tell her, if you don’t
mind, Uncle, that I kept those shoes—she’ll remember how often they
fell off, that night—and took them away with me as a remembrance!”
They were at that very moment going out at the door in one of Walter’s
trunks. A porter carrying off his baggage on a truck for shipment at
the docks on board the Son and Heir, had got possession of them; and
wheeled them away under the very eye of the insensible Midshipman
before their owner had well finished speaking.
But that ancient mariner might have been excused his insensibility to
the treasure as it rolled away. For, under his eye at the same moment,
accurately within his range of observation, coming full into the sphere
of his startled and intensely wide-awake look-out, were Florence and
Susan Nipper: Florence looking up into his face half timidly, and
receiving the whole shock of his wooden ogling!
More than this, they passed into the shop, and passed in at the parlour
door before they were observed by anybody but the Midshipman. And
Walter, having his back to the door, would have known nothing of their
apparition even then, but for seeing his Uncle spring out of his own
chair, and nearly tumble over another.
“Why, Uncle!” exclaimed Walter. “What’s the matter?”
Old Solomon replied, “Miss Dombey!”
“Is it possible?” cried Walter, looking round and starting up in his
turn. “Here!”
Why, It was so possible and so actual, that, while the words were on
his lips, Florence hurried past him; took Uncle Sol’s snuff-coloured
lapels, one in each hand; kissed him on the cheek; and turning, gave
her hand to Walter with a simple truth and earnestness that was her
own, and no one else’s in the world!
“Going away, Walter?” said Florence.
“Yes, Miss Dombey,” he replied, but not so hopefully as he endeavoured:
“I have a voyage before me.”
“And your Uncle,” said Florence, looking back at Solomon. “He is sorry
you are going, I am sure. Ah! I see he is! Dear Walter, I am very sorry
too.”
“Goodness knows,” exclaimed Miss Nipper, “there’s a many we could spare
instead, if numbers is a object, Mrs Pipchin as a overseer would come
cheap at her weight in gold, and if a knowledge of black slavery should
be required, them Blimbers is the very people for the sitiwation.”
With that Miss Nipper untied her bonnet strings, and after looking
vacantly for some moments into a little black teapot that was set forth
with the usual homely service on the table, shook her head and a tin
canister, and began unasked to make the tea.
In the meantime Florence had turned again to the Instrument-maker, who
was as full of admiration as surprise. “So grown!” said old Sol. “So
improved! And yet not altered! Just the same!”
“Indeed!” said Florence.
“Ye—yes,” returned old Sol, rubbing his hands slowly, and considering
the matter half aloud, as something pensive in the bright eyes looking
at him arrested his attention. “Yes, that expression was in the younger
face, too!”
“You remember me,” said Florence with a smile, “and what a little
creature I was then?”
“My dear young lady,” returned the Instrument-maker, “how could I
forget you, often as I have thought of you and heard of you since! At
the very moment, indeed, when you came in, Wally was talking about you
to me, and leaving messages for you, and—”
“Was he?” said Florence. “Thank you, Walter! Oh thank you, Walter! I
was afraid you might be going away and hardly thinking of me;” and
again she gave him her little hand so freely and so faithfully that
Walter held it for some moments in his own, and could not bear to let
it go.
Yet Walter did not hold it as he might have held it once, nor did its
touch awaken those old day-dreams of his boyhood that had floated past
him sometimes even lately, and confused him with their indistinct and
broken shapes. The purity and innocence of her endearing manner, and
its perfect trustfulness, and the undisguised regard for him that lay
so deeply seated in her constant eyes, and glowed upon her fair face
through the smile that shaded—for alas! it was a smile too sad to
brighten—it, were not of their romantic race. They brought back to his
thoughts the early death-bed he had seen her tending, and the love the
child had borne her; and on the wings of such remembrances she seemed
to rise up, far above his idle fancies, into clearer and serener air.
“I—I am afraid I must call you Walter’s Uncle, Sir,” said Florence to
the old man, “if you’ll let me.”
“My dear young lady,” cried old Sol. “Let you! Good gracious!”
“We always knew you by that name, and talked of you,” said Florence,
glancing round, and sighing gently. “The nice old parlour! Just the
same! How well I recollect it!”
Old Sol looked first at her, then at his nephew, and then rubbed his
hands, and rubbed his spectacles, and said below his breath, “Ah! time,
time, time!”
There was a short silence; during which Susan Nipper skilfully
impounded two extra cups and saucers from the cupboard, and awaited the
drawing of the tea with a thoughtful air.
“I want to tell Walter’s Uncle,” said Florence, laying her hand timidly
upon the old man’s as it rested on the table, to bespeak his attention,
“something that I am anxious about. He is going to be left alone, and
if he will allow me—not to take Walter’s place, for that I couldn’t do,
but to be his true friend and help him if I ever can while Walter is
away, I shall be very much obliged to him indeed. Will you? May I,
Walter’s Uncle?”
The Instrument-maker, without speaking, put her hand to his lips, and
Susan Nipper, leaning back with her arms crossed, in the chair of
presidency into which she had voted herself, bit one end of her bonnet
strings, and heaved a gentle sigh as she looked up at the skylight.
“You will let me come to see you,” said Florence, “when I can; and you
will tell me everything about yourself and Walter; and you will have no
secrets from Susan when she comes and I do not, but will confide in us,
and trust us, and rely upon us. And you’ll try to let us be a comfort
to you? Will you, Walter’s Uncle?”
The sweet face looking into his, the gentle pleading eyes, the soft
voice, and the light touch on his arm made the more winning by a
child’s respect and honour for his age, that gave to all an air of
graceful doubt and modest hesitation—these, and her natural
earnestness, so overcame the poor old Instrument-maker, that he only
answered:
“Wally! say a word for me, my dear. I’m very grateful.”
“No, Walter,” returned Florence with her quiet smile. “Say nothing for
him, if you please. I understand him very well, and we must learn to
talk together without you, dear Walter.”
The regretful tone in which she said these latter words, touched Walter
more than all the rest.
“Miss Florence,” he replied, with an effort to recover the cheerful
manner he had preserved while talking with his Uncle, “I know no more
than my Uncle, what to say in acknowledgment of such kindness, I am
sure. But what could I say, after all, if I had the power of talking
for an hour, except that it is like you?”
Susan Nipper began upon a new part of her bonnet string, and nodded at
the skylight, in approval of the sentiment expressed.
“Oh! but, Walter,” said Florence, “there is something that I wish to
say to you before you go away, and you must call me Florence, if you
please, and not speak like a stranger.”
“Like a stranger!” returned Walter, “No. I couldn’t speak so. I am
sure, at least, I couldn’t feel like one.”
“Ay, but that is not enough, and is not what I mean. For, Walter,”
added Florence, bursting into tears, “he liked you very much, and said
before he died that he was fond of you, and said ‘Remember Walter!’ and
if you’ll be a brother to me, Walter, now that he is gone and I have
none on earth, I’ll be your sister all my life, and think of you like
one wherever we may be! This is what I wished to say, dear Walter, but
I cannot say it as I would, because my heart is full.”
And in its fulness and its sweet simplicity, she held out both her
hands to him. Walter taking them, stooped down and touched the tearful
face that neither shrunk nor turned away, nor reddened as he did so,
but looked up at him with confidence and truth. In that one moment,
every shadow of doubt or agitation passed away from Walter’s soul. It
seemed to him that he responded to her innocent appeal, beside the dead
child’s bed: and, in the solemn presence he had seen there, pledged
himself to cherish and protect her very image, in his banishment, with
brotherly regard; to garner up her simple faith, inviolate; and hold
himself degraded if he breathed upon it any thought that was not in her
own breast when she gave it to him.
Susan Nipper, who had bitten both her bonnet strings at once, and
imparted a great deal of private emotion to the skylight, during this
transaction, now changed the subject by inquiring who took milk and who
took sugar; and being enlightened on these points, poured out the tea.
They all four gathered socially about the little table, and took tea
under that young lady’s active superintendence; and the presence of
Florence in the back parlour, brightened the Tartar frigate on the
wall.
Half an hour ago Walter, for his life, would have hardly called her by
her name. But he could do so now when she entreated him. He could think