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 passed 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 wishing 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 reassure 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 clustering 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 assurance 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 God 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,
compassion 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 sunshine 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 Lass," 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 Lass!" 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 Lass, 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 ship-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 Lass," said he, "Cheer up, and try to eat a bit. Stand by,
dearie! Liver wing it is. Sarse it is. Sassage 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 Lass--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 Lass, 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 ashore
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 ship, 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 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 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!"
Then he 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 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.
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 stuck in
his throat, and nervously proceeded:
"That there unfortunate 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,
even 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 carried away, her best men
swept overboard, and she left in 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 shell. Every black spot in every mountain of water that rolled
away was a bit of the ship's life, or a living man, and so she went to
pieces, Beauty, and no grass will never grow upon the graves of them as
manned that ship."
"They were not all lost!" cried Florence. "Some were saved! Was one?"
"Aboard o' that there unfortunate wessel," said the captain, rising from
his chair, and clenching his hand with prodigious energy and exultation,
"was a lad, a gallant lad--as I've heard tell--that had loved when he
was a boy to read and talk about brave actions in shipwrecks--I've heerd
him!--I've heerd him!--and he remembered of 'em in his hour of need; for
when the stoutest hearts and oldest hands was hove down, he was firm and
cheery. It wa'n't the want of objects to like and love ashore that gave
him courage; it was his nat'ral mind. I've seen it in his face when he
was no more than a child--ah, many a time!--and when I thought it
nothing but his good looks, bless him!"
"And was he saved?" cried Florence. "Was he saved?"
"That brave lad," said the captain,--"look at me, pretty! Don't look
round--"
Florence had hardly power to repeat, "Why not?"
"Because there's nothing there, my deary," said the captain. "Don't be
took aback, pretty creetur! Don't for the sake of Wal'r as was dear to
all on us! That there lad," said the captain, "arter working with the
best, and standing by the fainthearted, and never making no complaint
nor sign of fear, and keeping up a spirit in all hands that made 'em
honor him as if he'd been a admiral--that lad, alone with the second
mate and one seaman, was left, of all the beatin' hearts that went
aboard that ship, the only living creeturs--lashed to a fragment of the
wreck, and drifting on the stormy sea."
"Were they saved?" cried Florence.
"Days and nights they drifted on them endless waters," said the captain,
"until at last--no! don't look that way, Pretty!--a sail bore down upon
'em, and they was, by the Lord's mercy, took aboard, two living, and
one dead."
"Which of them was dead?" cried Florence.
"Not the lad I speak on," said the captain.
"Thank God! Oh, thank God!"
"Amen!" returned the captain hurriedly. "Don't be took aback! A minute
more, my Lady Lass! with a good heart!--Aboard that ship, they went a
long voyage, right away across the chart (for there wa'n't no touching
nowhere), and on that voyage the seaman as was picked up with him died.
But he was spared, and--."
The captain, without knowing what he did, had cut a slice of bread from
the loaf, and put it on his hook (which was his usual toasting fork), on
which he now held it to the fire; looking behind Florence with great
emotions in his face, and suffering the bread to blaze and burn
like fuel.
"Was spared," repeated Florence, "and--"
"And come home in that ship," said the captain, still looking in the
same direction, "and--don't be frightened, Pretty!--and landed; and one
morning come cautiously to his own door to take a observation, knowing
that his friends would think him drowned, when he sheered off at the
unexpected--"
"At the unexpected barking of a dog?" cried Florence quickly.
"Yes!" roared the captain. "Steady, darling! courage! Don't look round
yet. See there! upon the wall!"
There was the shadow of a man upon the wall close to her. She started
up, looked round, and, with a piercing cry, saw Walter Gay behind her!
She had no thought of him but as a brother, a brother rescued from the
grave; a shipwrecked brother, saved, and at her side,--and rushed into
his arms. In all the world he seemed to be her hope, her comfort,
refuge, natural protector. In his home-coming,--her champion and
knight-errant from childhood's early days,--there came to Florence a
compensation for all that she had suffered.
On that night within the little Shop a light arose for her that never
ceased to shed its brilliance on her path. Young, strong, and powerful,
Walter Gay in his chivalrous reverence and love for her, would
henceforth protect her life from sadness.
Except from that one great sorrow that he could not lift;--she was
estranged from her father's love and care;--but in sweet submission she
bent her shoulders to the burden of that loss, and accepted the new joy
of Walter's return with a lightened heart.
Years later, when Mr. Dombey by a turn of fortune's wheel, was left
alone in his dreary mansion, broken in mind and body, bereft of all his
wealth; deserted alike by friends and servants;--it was Florence, the
neglected, spurned, exiled daughter, who came like a good household
angel and clung to him, caressing him, forgetting all but love, and love
that outlasts injuries.
As she clung close to him, he kissed her on the lips and lifting up his
eyes, said, "Oh, my God, _forgive me_, for I need it very much!"
With that he dropped his head again, lamenting over her and caressing
her, and there was not a sound in all the house for a long, long, time;
they remaining clasped in one another's arms, in the glorious sunshine
that had crept in with Florence. And so we leave them--Father and
Daughter--united at last in an undying affection.
CHARLEY
[Illustration: CHARLEY]
CHARLEY
When I, Esther Summerson, was taken from the school where the early
years of my childhood had been spent; having no home or parents, as had
the other girls in the school, my guardian, Mr. Jarndyce, gave me a home
with him, where I was companion to his young and lovely ward, Ada Clare.
I soon grew deeply attached to Ada, the dearest girl in the world; to my
guardian, the kindest and most thoughtful of men; and to Bleak House, my
happy home.
One day, upon hearing of the death of a poor man whom we had known, and
learning that he had left three motherless children in great poverty, my
guardian and I set out to discover for ourselves the extent of their
need. We were directed to a chandler's shop in Bell Yard, a narrow, dark
alley, where we found an old woman, who replied to my inquiry for
Neckett's children: "Yes, surely, Miss. Three pair, if you please. Door
right opposite the stairs." And she handed me a key across the counter.
As she seemed to take it for granted I knew what to do with the key, I
inferred it must be intended for the children's door, so without any
more questions I led the way up a dark stair.
Reaching the top room designated, I tapped at the door, and a little
shrill voice inside said, "We are locked in. Mrs. Blinder's got
the key!"
I applied the key, and opened the door. In a poor room, with a sloping
ceiling, and containing very little furniture, was a mite of a boy,
some five or six years old, nursing and hushing a heavy child of
eighteen months. There was no fire, though the weather was cold; both
children were wrapped in some poor shawls and tippets, as a substitute.
Their clothing was not so warm, however, but that their noses looked red
and pinched, and their small figures shrunken, as the boy walked up and
down, nursing and hushing the child with its head on his shoulder.
"Who has locked you up here alone?" we naturally asked.
"Charley," said the boy.
"Is Charley your brother?"
"No, she's my sister, Charlotte. Father called her Charley."
"Are there any more of you besides Charley?"
"Me," said the boy, "and Emma," patting the child he was nursing, "and
Charley."
"Where is Charley now?"