Ten Girls from Dickens Part 24

Just at this time she learned that Walter's s.h.i.+p was overdue, and no news had been received of her, and, her mind filled with sad forebodings, she went to see old Sol, She found him tearful and desolate, broken down by the weight of his anxiety, refusing to be comforted even by the hopeful words of Captain Cuttle. So it was with a heavy heart that she went to pay her visit, accompanied by her little maid.

There were some other children staying at the Skettleses. Children who were frank and happy, with fathers and mothers. Children who had no restraint upon their love, and showed it freely. Florence thoughtfully observed them, sought to find out from them what simple art they knew, and she knew not; how she could be taught by them to show her father how she loved him, and to win his love again. But all her efforts failed to give her the secret of the nameless grace she sought, among the youthful company who were a.s.sembled in the house, or among the children of the poor, whom she often visited.

Of Walter she thought constantly. Her tears fell often for his sufferings, but rarely for his supposed death, and never long. Thus matters stood with Florence on the day she went home, gladly, to her old secluded life.

"You'll be glad to go through the old rooms, won't you, Susan," said Florence as they turned into the familiar street.

"Well, Miss," returned the Nipper, "I wont deny but what I shall, though I shall hate them again to-morrow, very likely!"--adding breathlessly--"Why gracious me, _where's our house_?"--

There was a labyrinth of scaffolding raised all around the house. Loads of bricks and stones, and heaps of mortar, and piles of wood, blocked up half of the broad street. Ladders were raised against the walls; men were at work upon the scaffolding; painters and decorators were busy inside; great rolls of paper were being delivered from a cart at the door; an upholsterer's wagon also stopped the way; nothing was to be seen but workmen, swarming from the kitchens to the garret. Inside and outside alike; bricklayers, painters, carpenters, masons; hammer, hod, brush, pickaxe, saw, trowel: all at work together, in full chorus.

Florence descended from the coach, half doubting if it could be the right house, until she recognized Towlinson, the butler, standing at the door to receive her. She pa.s.sed him as if she were in a dream, and hurried upstairs. Her own room was not yet touched within, but there were beams and boards raised against it without. She went up swiftly to that other bedroom, where her brother's little bed was; and a dark giant of a man, with a pipe in his mouth, and his head tied up in a pocket handkerchief, was staring in at the window.

It was here that Susan Nipper found her, and said would she go downstairs to her papa, who wished to speak to her?

"At home! and wis.h.i.+ng to speak to me!" cried Florence, pale and agitated, hurrying down without a moment's hesitation. She thought upon the way down, would she dare to kiss him? Her father might have heard her heart beat when she came into his presence. He was not alone. There were two ladies there. One was old, and the other was young and very beautiful, and of an elegant figure.

"Edith," said Mr. Dombey, "this is my daughter. Florence, this lady will soon be your mamma."

The girl started, and looked up at the beautiful face in a conflict of emotions, among which the tears that name awakened struggled for a moment with surprise, interest, admiration, and an indefinable sort of fear. Then she cried out, "Oh, papa, may you be happy! May you be very, very happy all your life!" then fell weeping on the lady's bosom.

The beautiful lady held her to her breast, and pressed the hand with which she clasped her, as if to rea.s.sure and comfort her, and bent her head down over Florence and kissed her on the cheek.

And now Florence began to hope that she would learn from her new and beautiful mamma how to gain her father's love. And in her sleep that night her own mother smiled radiantly upon the hope, and blessed it.

Even in the busy weeks before the wedding-day, the bride-elect had time to win the heart of the lonely girl, and Florence responded to her advances with trustful love, and was happy and hopeful, while the new mother's affection deepened daily. But it soon became evident that the affection aroused Mr. Dombey's keen jealousy, and his wife thought it best to repress her feelings for Florence.

The girl soon became aware that there was no real sympathy between her father and his second wife, and that the happiness in their home, of which she had dreamed, would never be a reality. In truth the cold, proud man with all his wealth and power, could not win from his wife one smile such as she had often bestowed upon Florence in his presence, and this added to his dislike for the girl.

Once only, as Mr. Dombey sat and watched his daughter, the sight of her in her beauty, now almost changed into a woman, roused within him a fleeting feeling of regret at having had a household spirit bending at his feet, and of having overlooked it in his stiff-necked pride. He felt inclined to call her to him; the words were rising to his lips, when they were checked by the entrance of his wife, whose haughty bearing and indifference to him caused the gentle impulse to flee from him, and it never returned.

The breach between husband and wife was daily growing wider, when one morning, riding to the city, Mr. Dombey was thrown from his horse, and being brought home, he gloomily retired to his own rooms, where he was attended by servants, not approached by his wife. Late that night there arose in Florence's mind the image of her father, wounded and in pain, alone, in his own home.

With the same child's heart within her as of old, even as with the child's sweet, timid eyes and cl.u.s.tering hair, Florence, as strange to her father in her early maiden bloom as in her nursery days, crept down to his room and looked in. The housekeeper was fast asleep in an easy-chair before the fire. All was so very still that she knew he was asleep. There was a cut upon his forehead. One of his arms, resting outside of the bed, was bandaged up, and he was very white. After the first a.s.surance of his sleeping quietly, Florence stole close to the bed, and softly kissed him and put the arm with which she dared not touch him, waking, round about him on the pillow, praying to G.o.d to bless her father, and to soften him towards her, if it might be so.

On the following day Susan Nipper braced herself for a great feat which she had long been contemplating; forced an entrance into Mr. Dombey's room, and told him in most emphatic language what she thought of his treatment of the motherless little girl who had so long been her charge.

Speechless with rage and amazement, Mr. Dombey attempted to summon some one to protect him from her flow of language, but there was no bell-rope near, and he could not move, so he was forced to listen to her tirade until the entrance of the housekeeper cut it short. Susan Nipper was then instantly discharged, and bestirred herself to get her trunks in order, sobbing heartily as she thought of Florence, but exulting at the memory of Mr. Dombey's discomfiture. Florence dared not interfere with her father's commands, and took a sad farewell of the faithful little maid, who had for so long been her companion.

Now Florence was quite alone. She had grown to be seventeen; timid and retiring as her solitary life had made her, it had not embittered her. A child in innocent simplicity: a woman in her modest self-reliance and her deep intensity of feeling, both child and woman seemed at once expressed in her fair face and fragile delicacy of shape; in her thrilling voice, her calm eyes, and sometimes in a strange ethereal light that seemed to rest upon her head.

Mrs. Dombey she seldom saw, and the day soon came when she lost her entirely. The wife's supreme indifference to himself and his wishes, stung Mr. Dombey more than any other kind of treatment could have done, and he determined to bend her to his will. She was the first person who had ever ventured to oppose him in the slightest particular;--their pride, however different in kind, was equal in degree, and their flinty opposition struck out fire which consumed the tie between them--and soon the final separation came.

One evening after a dispute with her husband, Mrs. Dombey went out to dinner, and did not return. In the confusion of that dreadful night, compa.s.sion for her father was the first distinct emotion that overwhelmed Florence. At daybreak she hastened to him with her arms stretched out, crying, "Oh, dear, dear papa!" as if she would have clasped him around the neck. But in his frenzy he answered her with brutal words, and lifted up his cruel arm and struck her, with that heaviness, that she tottered on the marble floor. She did not sink down at his feet; she did not shut out the sight of him with her trembling hands; she did not utter one word of reproach. But she looked at him, and a cry of desolation issued from her heart. She saw she had no father upon earth, and ran out, orphaned, from his house. Another moment and Florence, with her head bent down to hide her agony of tears, was in the street.

In the wildness of her sorrow, shame, and terror, the forlorn girl hurried through the suns.h.i.+ne of a bright morning as if it were the darkness of a winter night. Wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, she fled without a thought, without a hope, without a purpose, but to fly somewhere--anywhere. Suddenly she thought of the only other time she had been lost in the wide wilderness of London--and went that way. To the home of Walter's uncle.

Checking her sobs and endeavoring to calm the agitation of her manner, so as to avoid attracting notice, Florence was going more quietly when Diogenes, panting for breath, and making the street ring with his glad bark, was at her feet.

She bent down on the pavement, and laid his rough loving foolish head against her breast, and they went on together.

At length the little shop came into view. She ran in and found Captain Cuttle, in his glazed hat, standing over the fire, making his morning's cocoa. Hearing a footstep and the rustle of a dress, the captain turned at the instant when Florence reeled and fell upon the floor.

The captain, pale as Florence, calling her by his childhood's name for her, raised her like a baby, and laid her upon the same old sofa upon which she had slumbered long ago.

"It's Heart's Delight!" he exclaimed; "It's the sweet creetur grow'd a woman!"

But Florence did not stir, and the captain moistened her lips and forehead, put back her hair, covered her feet with his own coat, patted her hand--so small in his, that he was struck with wonder when he touched it--and seeing that her eyelids quivered and that her lips began to move, continued these restorative applications with a better heart.

At last she opened her eyes, and spoke: "Captain Cuttle! Is it you? Is Walter's uncle here?"

"Here, Pretty?" returned the captain. "He a'n't been here this many a long day. He a'n't been heer'd on since he sheered off arter poor Wal'r.

But," said the captain, as a quotation, "Though lost to sight, to memory dear, and England, home, and beauty!"

"Do you live here?" asked Florence.

"Yes, my Lady La.s.s," returned the captain.

"Oh, Captain Cuttle!" cried Florence, "Save me! Keep me here! Let no one know where I am! I will tell you what has happened by and by, when I can. I have no one in the world to go to. Do not send me away!"

"Send you away, my Lady La.s.s!" exclaimed the captain; "you, my Heart's Delight!--Stay a bit! We'll put up this dead-light, and take a double turn on the key."

With these words the captain got out the shutter of the door, put it up, made it all fast, and locked the door itself.

"And now," said he, "You must take some breakfast, Lady La.s.s, and the dog shall have some too, and after that you shall go aloft to old Sol Gill's room, and fall asleep there, like an angel."

The room to which the captain presently carried Florence was very clean, and being an orderly man, and accustomed to make things s.h.i.+p-shape, he converted the bed into a couch by covering it with a clean white drapery. By a similar contrivance he 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 rareties that made a choice appearance.

Having darkened the window, the captain walked on tiptoe out of the room, and from sheer exhaustion Florence soon fell asleep.

When she awoke the sun was getting low in the West, and after cooling her aching head and burning face in fresh water, she made ready to go downstairs again. What to do or where to live, she--poor, inexperienced girl!--could not yet consider. All was dim and clouded to her mind. She only knew that she had no father upon earth, and she said so many times, with her suppliant head hidden from all but her Father who was in Heaven. Then she tried to calm her thoughts and stay her tears, and went down to her kind protector.

The captain had cooked the evening meal and spread the cloth with great care, and when Florence appeared he dressed for dinner, by taking off his glazed hat and putting on his coat. That done, he wheeled the table against her on the sofa, said Grace, and did the honors of the table.

"My Lady La.s.s," said he, "Cheer up, and try to eat a bit. Stand by, dearie! Liver wing it is. Sa.r.s.e it is. Sa.s.sage it is. And potato!"

All of these delicacies the captain ranged symetrically on the plate, pouring hot gravy on the whole and adding: "Try and pick a bit, my Pretty. If Wal'r was here--"

"Ah! If I had him for my brother now!" cried Florence.

"Don't take on, my Pretty," said the captain: "awast, to obleege me. He was your nat'r'l born friend like, wa'n't he, Pet? Well, well! If our poor Wal'r was here, my Lady La.s.s--or if he could be--for he's drowned, a'n't he?--As I was saying, if he could be here, he'd beg and pray of you, my precious, to pick a leetle bit, with a look-out for your own sweet health. Whereby, hold your own, my Lady La.s.s, as if it was for Wal'r's sake, and lay your pretty head to the wind!"

Florence essayed to eat a morsel for the captain's pleasure, but she was so tired and so sad that she could do scant justice to the meal, and was glad indeed when the time came to retire.

She slept that night in the same little room, and the next day sat in the small parlor, busy with her needle, and more calm and tranquil than she had been on the day preceding. The captain, looking at her, 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. In the course of the day he cruised completely around the parlor in that frail bark, and more than once went ash.o.r.e against the wainscot, or the closet door, in a very distressed condition.

It was not until deep twilight that he fairly dropped anchor at last by the side of Florence, and began to talk connectedly. He 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, and her color came and went as she listened.

"There's perils and dangers on the deep, my Beauty," said the captain; "and over many a brave s.h.i.+p, and many and many a bold 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 G.o.d, 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 by the fire, maybe you'd like to hear me tell it. Would you, deary?"