Tales from Dickens Part 18

So Florence's adventure turned out very well in one way, since through it she first met Walter Gay; but it turned out badly in another way, for Mr. Dombey was angry that any one should have seen a daughter of his in such a plight, and, unjustly enough, treasured this anger against Walter. Florence, however, never forgot her rescuer after that day, and as for Walter, he fell quite in love with her.

Florence loved her little brother very dearly, but Paul, in the constant companionship of his father, grew up without boys or play. His face was old and wistful, and he had an old-fashioned way of sitting, brooding in his little arm-chair beside his father, looking into the fire. He used to ask strange, wise questions, and the only time he seemed childlike at all was when he was with Florence. He was never strong and well, like her, but he grew tired easily, and used to say that his bones ached.

Mr. Dombey at length grew anxious about Paul's health and sent him with Florence to Brighton, a town on the sea-coast, to the house of a Mrs.

Pipchin, a stooped old lady with a mottled face, a hooked nose and a hard gray eye.

Mrs. Pipchin took little children to board, and her idea of "managing"

them was to give them everything they didn't like and nothing they did like. She lived in a gloomy house, so windy that it always sounded to any one in it like a great sh.e.l.l which one had to hold to his ear whether he liked it or not. The children there stayed most of the time in a bare room they called "the dungeon," with a big ragged fireplace in it. They, had only bread and b.u.t.ter and rice to eat, while Mrs. Pipchin had tea and mutton chops and b.u.t.tered toast and other nice things.

Little Paul's father did not know what a dreary place this was for a child, or doubtless he would not have sent him there. Mr. Dombey knew so little about children that it seemed as if he had never been a child himself. Paul was not happy--except when he was out on the beach with Florence, who used to draw him in a little carriage and sing to him and tell him stories. Once a week Mr. Dombey came to Brighton and then she and little Paul would go to his hotel to take tea with him.

Paul seemed to find a curious fascination in Mrs. Pipchin. He would sit by the hour before the fire looking steadily at her, where she sat with her old black cat beside her, till his gaze quite disturbed her. He did not care to play with other children--only with Florence, whom he called "Floy." Often, as they sat together on the beach, he would ask her what it was the sea was always saying, and would rise up on his couch to listen to something he seemed to hear, far, far away.

Walter Gay, meanwhile, in London, was working away and thinking often of Florence. He was greatly worried about his Uncle Solomon, for the business of the old instrument maker was in a bad way, and Old Sol himself was melancholy.

One day Walter came home from his work at Dombey and Son's to find that an officer had taken possession of the shop and all that was in it for debt. His old Uncle Sol was sobbing like a child, and not knowing what else to do, he went post-haste for Captain Cuttle.

He found the captain with his hat on, peeling potatoes with a knife screwed into the wooden socket in his wrist instead of the hook. When he told him what had happened, Captain Cuttle jumped up, put all the money he had, his silver watch, some spoons and a pair of sugar-tongs into his pocket and went back at once with him to the shop.

But the debt, he found, was far too big to be thus paid, and Captain Cuttle advised Walter to go to Mr. Dombey and ask him to help them, or else everything in the shop would have to be sold, and that would kill old Solomon Gills.

It was Sat.u.r.day, and Mr. Dombey had gone to see little Paul, so Walter and Captain Cuttle took the next coach for Brighton.

They found him with the children at breakfast, and Walter, discouraged by his cold look, faltered lamely through his story, while Captain Cuttle laid on the table the money, the watch, the spoons and the sugar-tongs, offering them to help pay the debt. Mr. Dombey was astonished at his strange appearance and indignant at being annoyed by such an errand, so that Florence, seeing his mood and Walter's trouble, began to sob. Little Paul, however, stood looking from Walter to his father so intently and wisely that the latter, telling him he was one day to be a part of Dombey and Son, asked him if he would like to loan Walter the money.

Paul joyfully said yes, and Mr. Dombey, telling Walter that it was to be considered a loan from the boy, gave him a note which would at once release his uncle from his difficulty. So Walter and Captain Cuttle went gladly back to London.

Soon after this, when Paul was six years old, his father thought he should be studying, so he put him in a school next door to Mrs.

Pipchin's.

The master was Doctor Blimber, a portly gentleman in knee-breeches, with a bald head and a double chin. He made all the boys there study much too hard; even those only six years old had to learn Greek and history. Poor little Paul did the best he could, but such difficult tasks made him giddy and dull. It was only the Sat.u.r.days he enjoyed; these he spent with Florence on the seash.o.r.e or in Mrs. Pipchin's bare room.

Paul would have broken down sooner under Doctor Blimber's system but that Florence bought all the books he studied and studied them herself, so as to help him on Sat.u.r.days. People called him "old-fashioned," and that troubled him a great deal, but he tried to love even the old watch-dog at Doctor Blimber's, and before the holidays came everybody in the school liked him.

But before the term ended little Paul fell sick. He seemed not to be ill of any particular disease, but only weak; so weak he had to sit propped up with pillows at the entertainment Doctor Blimber gave on the final evening. After that everything was hazy until he found himself, somehow, at home in bed, with Florence beside him.

He lay there day after day, watching and dreaming. He dreamed often of a swift, silent river that flowed on and on, and he wanted to stop it with his hands.

"Why will it never stop, Floy?" he would ask her. "It is bearing me away, I think."

There were many shadowy figures that came and went. One came often and sat long, but never spoke. One day he saw it was his father, and he called out to it: "Don't be so sorry for me, dear papa. Indeed, I am quite happy."

Once he roused himself, and there were many about the bed: Florence, his father, his old nurse and Walter Gay, and he called each by name and waved his hand to them.

Florence took him in her arms and he heard the swift river flowing.

"How fast it runs, Floy! It is taking me with it. There is a sh.o.r.e before me now. Who is standing on the bank?"

He put his hands together behind her neck, as he had been used to do at his prayers.

"Mama is like you, Floy," he said. "I know her by her face. The light about the head is shining upon me as I go."

So little Paul died.

II

HOW FLORENCE LOST HER FATHER

It was a sad, sad house for many days after that, and Florence, in her loneliness, often thought her heart would break. Her father she scarcely ever saw, for he sat alone in his room. Every night she would steal down the dark hall to his door, and lay her head against the panels, hungering for a little love; but he thought only of his dead son, and gave no sign of tenderness to her.

One of Doctor Blimber's pupils begged for and brought her Diogenes, the old watch-dog which little Paul had petted at the school and this dog was all she had to love. She had not seen Walter Gay since the death of her brother, though he himself thought of her very often.

Walter's prospects, thanks to an enemy he had made without knowing it, had changed since then. This enemy was Carker, the manager at Dombey and Son's.

Carker was a thin man, with the whitest, most regular teeth, which he continually showed in an unpleasant smile. There was something cat-like about him; the more he disliked a person the wider was his smile. Carker had a brother whom he hated, and Walter unconsciously earned his enmity by liking and being kind to this brother.

Mr. Dombey was not fond of Walter either, the less so because Florence liked him, and disliking Florence, he disliked all for whom she cared.

So, between Mr. Dombey and Carker, Walter was ordered to go, on business for the firm, on a long voyage to the West Indies.

Walter was not deceived. He knew he was not sent there for his own good, but in order not to worry his uncle he and Captain Cuttle pretended that it was a splendid opportunity. So old Solomon Gills tried not to sorrow for his going.

Florence heard of the voyage, and, the night before Walter sailed, in she came to the little shop where Walter had brought her years before when she had been lost. She kissed Old Sol and called Walter her brother, and said she would never forget him.

And so Walter, when next day he sailed away, waving his hand to his uncle and Captain Cuttle, went with even more of love in his heart for Florence than he had had.

After his going Florence was lonelier than before. She was all alone, save for the dog Diogenes and her books and music. Her father was much away, and in the evenings she could go into his room and nestle in his easy chair without fear of repulse. She kept the room in order and a fresh nosegay on the table, and never left it without leaving on his deserted desk a kiss and a tear. The purpose of her life, she determined, should be to try continually to let her father know how much she loved him.

But months pa.s.sed and she had no chance. Her father, in fact, seldom came near the house. He was away visiting in the country with a Major Bagstock, who had struck up an acquaintance with him because of Mr.

Dombey's wealth.

Bagstock (who had a habit of referring to himself as "J. B." or "Joey B.," or almost anything but his full name) was as fat as a dancing bear, with a purple, apoplectic-looking face, and a laugh like a horse's cough. He was a glutton, and stuffed himself so at meals that he did little but choke and wheeze through the latter half of them. He was a great flatterer, however, and he flattered so well that Mr. Dombey, blind from his own pride, thought him a very proper person indeed. And even though everybody laughed at the major, Mr. Dombey always found him most agreeable company.

There was an old lady at the town they visited who was poor, but very fond of fashion and rich people. She had no heart, and was silly enough, even though she was seventy years old, to wear rouge on her cheeks and dress like a girl of seventeen. She had a widowed daughter, Edith Granger, a proud, lovely woman, who despised the life her mother led, but, in spite of this, was weak enough to be influenced by her.

Major Bagstock introduced Mr. Dombey to the mother, and the latter soon made up her mind that her daughter should marry him. The major (who wanted Mr. Dombey to marry so he himself could profit by the dinners and entertainments that would follow) helped this affair on all he could, and Edith, though at times she hated herself for the false part she was playing, agreed to it.

To tell the truth, Mr. Dombey was so full of his own conceit that he never stopped to wonder if Edith could really love him. She was beautiful and as cold and haughty as he was himself, and that was all he considered. So Major Bagstock and the old lady were soon chuckling and wheezing together with delight at the success of their plan, and before long Edith had promised to marry Florence's father.

Poor Florence! She had other griefs of her own by this time. Carker, of Dombey and Son, with the false smile and the white teeth, came several times to see her, asking if she had messages to send to her father--each time seeming purposely to wound her by recalling her father's dislike.

She tried to like the smooth, oily manager, but there was something in his face she could not but distrust.

To add to her trouble, the ship by which Walter Gay had sailed for the West Indies had not yet arrived there. It was long overdue, and in the absence of news people began to fear it had been lost. She went to the little shop where the wooden midshipman stood, but found old Solomon Gills and Captain Cuttle in as great anxiety.

Old Sol, indeed, was soon in such distress for fear Walter had been drowned, that he felt he could bear the suspense no longer. One day, soon after Florence's visit, he disappeared from London, leaving a letter for Captain Cuttle.

This letter said he had gone to the West Indies to search for Walter, and asked the captain to care for the little shop and keep it open, so that it could be a home for his nephew if he should ever appear. As for himself, Old Sol said if he did not return within a year he would be dead, and the captain should take the shop for his own.