Ten Girls from Dickens Part 21

"She'll be quite happy, now that she's come home again," said Polly, nodding to her with a smile, "and will be so pleased to see her dear papa to-night."

"Lork, Mrs. Richards!" cried Miss Nipper, taking up her words with a jerk, "Don't! See her dear papa, indeed! I should like to see her do it!

Her pa's a deal too wrapped up in somebody else; and before there was somebody else to be wrapped up in, she never was a favorite. Girls are thrown away in this house, I a.s.sure you."

"You surprise me," cried Polly. "Hasn't Mr. Dombey seen her since--"

"No," interrupted Miss Nipper. "Not once since. And he hadn't hardly set his eyes upon her before that, for months and months, and I don't think he would know her for his own child if he was to meet her in the streets to-morrow. Oh, there's a Tartar within a hundred miles of here, I can tell you, Mrs. Richards!" said Susan Nipper; "Wish you good morning, Mrs. Richards. Now Miss Floy, you come along with me, and don't go hanging back like a naughty wicked child, that judgments is no example to, don't."

In spite of being thus adjured, and in spite also of some hauling on the part of Susan Nipper, little Florence broke away, and kissed her new friend affectionately, but Susan Nipper made a charge at her, and swept her out of the room.

When Polly Richards was left alone, her heart was sore for the motherless little girl, and she determined to devise some means of having Florence beside her lawfully and without rebellion. An opening happened to present itself that very night.

She had been rung down into the conservatory, as usual, and was walking about with the baby in her arms, when Mr. Dombey came up and stopped her.

"He looks thriving," said Mr. Dombey, glancing with great interest at Paul's tiny face, which she uncovered for his observation. "They give you everything that you want, I hope?"

"Oh, yes, thank you, sir;"

She hesitated so, however, that Mr. Dombey stopped again and looked at her inquiringly.

"I believe nothing is so good for making children lively, sir, as seeing other children playing about them," observed Polly, taking courage.

"I think I mentioned to you, Richards, when you came here," said Mr.

Dombey, with a frown; "that I wished you to see as little of your family as possible. You can continue your walk, if you please."

With that he disappeared into an inner room, and Polly felt that she had fallen into disgrace without the least advancement of her purpose; but next night when she came down, he called her to him. "If you really think that kind of society is good for the child," he said sharply, as if there had been no interval since she proposed it, "where's Miss Florence?"

"Nothing could be better than Miss Florence, sir," said Polly eagerly, "but I understood from her little maid that they were not to--" But Mr.

Dombey rang the bell, and gave his orders before she had a chance to finish the sentence.

"Tell them always to let Miss Florence be with Richards when she chooses," he commanded; and, the iron being hot, Richards striking on it boldly, requested that the child might be sent down at once to make friends with her little brother.

When Florence timidly presented herself, had Mr. Dombey looked towards her with a father's eye, he might have read in her keen glance the pa.s.sionate desire to run to him, crying, "Oh, father, try to love me,--there is no one else"; the dread of a repulse; the fear of being too bold and of offending him. But he saw nothing of this. He saw her pause at the door and look towards him, and he saw no more.

"Come here, Florence," said her father coldly. "Have you nothing to say to me?"

The tears that stood in her eyes as she raised them quickly to his face, were frozen by the expression it wore. She looked down again, and put out her trembling hand, which Mr. Dombey took loosely in his own.

"There! be a good girl," he said, patting her on the head, and regarding her with a disturbed and doubtful look, "go to Richards! go!"

His little daughter hesitated for another instant, as though she would have clung about him still, or had some lingering hope that he might raise her in his arms and kiss her. But he dropped her hand and turned away. Still Polly persevered, and managed so well with little Paul as to make it very plain that he was all the livelier for his sister's company. When it was time for Florence to go to bed, the nurse urged her to say good night to her father, but the child hesitated, and Mr. Dombey called from the inner room; "It doesn't matter. You can let her come and go without regarding me."

The child shrunk as she listened, and was gone before her humble friend looked around again.

Just around the corner from Mr. Dombey's office was the little shop of a nautical-instrument maker whose name was Solomon Gills. The stock-in-trade of this old gentleman comprised chronometers, barometers, telescopes, compa.s.ses, charts, maps, and every kind of an instrument used in the working of a ship's course, or the keeping of a ship's reckoning, or the prosecuting of a ship's discovery. Old prints of ships hung in frames upon the walls; outlandish sh.e.l.ls, seaweeds and mosses decorated the chimney-piece; the little wainscoted parlor was lighted by a skylight, like a cabin, The shop itself seemed almost to become a sea-going ship-shape concern, wanting only good sea room, in the event of an unexpected launch, to work its way securely to any desert island in the world.

Here Solomon Gills lived, in skipper-like state, all alone with his nephew, Walter; a boy of fourteen, who looked quite enough like a midshipman to carry out the prevailing idea.

It is half past five o'clock, and an autumn afternoon. Solomon Gills is wondering where Walter is, when a voice exclaims, "Halloa, Uncle Sol!"

and the instrument-maker, turning briskly around, sees a cheerful-looking, merry boy fresh with running home in the rain; fair-faced, bright-eyed and curly-haired.

"Well, uncle, how have you got on without me all day? Is dinner ready?

I'm so hungry."

"As to getting on," said Solomon, good-naturedly, "It would be odd if I couldn't get on without a young dog like you a great deal better than with you. As to dinner being ready, it's been waiting for you this half-hour. As to being hungry, I am!"

"Come along, then, uncle!" cried the boy, and Uncle Sol and his nephew were speedily engaged on a fried sole, with a prospect of steak to follow.

"Now," said the old man eagerly, "Let's hear something about the Firm."

"Oh! there's not much to be told, uncle," said the boy, plying his knife and fork. "When Mr. Dombey came in, he walked up to my seat--I wish he wasn't so solemn and stiff, uncle--and told me you had spoken to him about me, and that he had found me employment in the House accordingly, and that I was expected to be attentive and punctual, and then he went away. I thought he didn't seem to like me much."

"You mean, I suppose." observed the instrument-maker, "that you didn't seem to like him much."

"Well, uncle," returned the boy laughing, "perhaps so; I never thought of that."

Solomon looked a little graver as he finished his dinner, and glanced from time to time at the boy's bright face. When dinner was done, he went down into a little cellar, and returned with a bottle covered with dust and dirt.

"Why, uncle Sol!" said the boy, "What are you about? that's the wonderful Madeira--there's only one more bottle!"

Uncle Sol nodded his head, and having drawn the cork in solemn silence, filled two gla.s.ses, and set the bottle and a third clean gla.s.s on the table.

"You shall drink the other bottle, Wally," he said, "When you come to good fortune; when you are a thriving, respected, happy man; when the start in life you have made to-day shall have brought you--as I pray Heaven it may!--to a smooth part of the course you have to run, my child. My love to you!"

They clinked their gla.s.ses together, and were deep in conversation, when an addition to the little party made its appearance, in the shape of a gentleman with a hook instead of a hand attached to his right wrist; very bushy black eyebrows; and a thick stick in his left hand, covered all over (like his nose) with k.n.o.bs. He wore a loose black silk handkerchief round his neck, and such a very large shirt-collar that it looked like a small sail over his wide suit of blue. He was evidently the person for whom the spare winegla.s.s was intended, and evidently knew it; for having taken off his coat, and hung up his hard glazed hat, he brought a chair to where the clean gla.s.s was, and sat himself down behind it. He was usually addressed as Captain, this visitor; and had been a pilot, or a skipper, or a privateer's man, or all three perhaps; and was a very salt looking man indeed. His face brightened as he shook hands with uncle and nephew; but he seemed to be of a laconic disposition, and merely said: "How goes it?"

"All well," said Mr. Gills, pushing the bottle towards the new-comer, Captain Cuttle, who thereupon proceeded to fill his gla.s.s, and the wonderful Madeira loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance to a prodigous oration for Walter's benefit.

"Come," cried Solomon Gills, "we must finish the bottle."

"Stand by!" said Captain Cuttle, filling his gla.s.s again. "Give the boy some more."

"Yes," said Sol, "a little more. We'll finish the bottle to the House,--Walter's house. Why, it may be his house one of these days, in part. Who knows? Sir Richard Whittington married his master's daughter."

"Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are old, you will never depart from it," interposed the Captain. "Wal'r, overhaul the book, my lad!"

"And although Mr. Dombey hasn't a daughter--" Sol began.

"Yes, yes, he has, uncle," said the boy, reddening and laughing. "I know he has. Some of them were talking about it in the office to-day. And they do say that he's taken a dislike to her, and that she's left unnoticed among the servants, while he thinks of no one but his son.

That's what they say. Of course I don't know."

"He knows all about her already, you see," said the instrument-maker.

"Nonsense, uncle," cried the boy reddening again; "how can I help hearing what they tell me?"

"The son's a little in our way at present, I'm afraid," added the old man, humoring the joke. "Nevertheless, we'll drink to him," pursued Sol.