Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens (ebooks that read to you .txt) 📕

There was an empty room above-stairs at the wooden Midshipman’s, which, in days of yore, had been Walter’s bedroom. Walter, rousing up the Captain betimes in the morning, proposed that they should carry thither such furniture out of the little parlour as would grace it best, so that Florence might take possession of it when she rose. As nothing could be more agreeable to Captain Cuttle than making himself very red and short of breath in such a cause, he turned to (as he himself said) with a will; and, in a couple of hours, this garret was transformed into a species of land-cabin, adorned with all the choicest moveables out of the parlour, inclusive even of the Tartar frigate, which the Captain hung up over the chimney-piece with such extreme delight, that he could do nothing for half-an-hour afterwards but walk backward from it, lost in admiration.

The Captain could be induced by no persuasion of Walter’s to wind up the big watch, or to take back the canister, or to touch the sugar-tongs and teaspoons. ‘No, no, my lad;’ was the Captain’s invariable reply to any solicitation of the kind, ‘I’ve made that there little property over, jintly.’ These words he repeated with great unction and gravity, evidently believing that they had the virtue of an Act of Parliament, and that unless he committed himself by some new admission of ownership, no flaw could be found in such a form of conveyance.

It was an advantage of the new arrangement, that besides the greater seclusion it afforded Florence, it admitted of the Midshipman being restored to his usual post of observation, and also of the shop shutters being taken down. The latter ceremony, however little importance the unconscious Captain attached to it, was not wholly superfluous; for, on the previous day, so much excitement had been occasioned in the neighbourhood, by the shutters remaining unopened, that the Instrument-maker’s house had been honoured with an unusual share of public observation, and had been intently stared at from the opposite side of the way, by groups of hungry gazers, at any time between sunrise and sunset. The idlers and vagabonds had been particularly interested in the Captain’s fate; constantly grovelling in the mud to apply their eyes to the cellar-grating, under the shop-window, and delighting their imaginations with the fancy that they could see a piece of his coat as he hung in a corner; though this settlement of him was stoutly disputed by an opposite faction, who were of opinion that he lay murdered with a hammer, on the stairs. It was not without exciting some discontent, therefore, that the subject of these rumours was seen early in the morning standing at his shop-door as hale and hearty as if nothing had happened; and the beadle of that quarter, a man of an ambitious character, who had expected to have the distinction of being present at the breaking open of the door, and of giving evidence in full uniform before the coroner, went so far as to say to an opposite neighbour, that the chap in the glazed hat had better not try it on there—without more particularly mentioning what—and further, that he, the beadle, would keep his eye upon him.

‘Captain Cuttle,’ said Walter, musing, when they stood resting from their labours at the shop-door, looking down the old familiar street; it being still early in the morning; ‘nothing at all of Uncle Sol, in all that time!’

‘Nothing at all, my lad,’ replied the Captain, shaking his head.

‘Gone in search of me, dear, kind old man,’ said Walter: ‘yet never write to you! But why not? He says, in effect, in this packet that you gave me,’ taking the paper from his pocket, which had been opened in the presence of the enlightened Bunsby, ‘that if you never hear from him before opening it, you may believe him dead. Heaven forbid! But you would have heard of him, even if he were dead! Someone would have written, surely, by his desire, if he could not; and have said, “on such a day, there died in my house,” or “under my care,” or so forth, “Mr Solomon Gills of London, who left this last remembrance and this last request to you”.’

The Captain, who had never climbed to such a clear height of probability before, was greatly impressed by the wide prospect it opened, and answered, with a thoughtful shake of his head, ‘Well said, my lad; wery well said.’

‘I have been thinking of this, or, at least,’ said Walter, colouring, ‘I have been thinking of one thing and another, all through a sleepless night, and I cannot believe, Captain Cuttle, but that my Uncle Sol (Lord bless him!) is alive, and will return. I don’t so much wonder at his going away, because, leaving out of consideration that spice of the marvellous which was always in his character, and his great affection for me, before which every other consideration of his life became nothing, as no one ought to know so well as I who had the best of fathers in him,’—Walter’s voice was indistinct and husky here, and he looked away, along the street,—‘leaving that out of consideration, I say, I have often read and heard of people who, having some near and dear relative, who was supposed to be shipwrecked at sea, have gone down to live on that part of the sea-shore where any tidings of the missing ship might be expected to arrive, though only an hour or two sooner than elsewhere, or have even gone upon her track to the place whither she was bound, as if their going would create intelligence. I think I should do such a thing myself, as soon as another, or sooner than many, perhaps. But why my Uncle shouldn’t write to you, when he so clearly intended to do so, or how he should die abroad, and you not know it through some other hand, I cannot make out.’

Captain Cuttle observed, with a shake of his head, that Jack Bunsby himself hadn’t made it out, and that he was a man as could give a pretty taut opinion too.

‘If my Uncle had been a heedless young man, likely to be entrapped by jovial company to some drinking-place, where he was to be got rid of for the sake of what money he might have about him,’ said Walter; ‘or if he had been a reckless sailor, going ashore with two or three months’ pay in his pocket, I could understand his disappearing, and leaving no trace behind. But, being what he was—and is, I hope—I can’t believe it.’

‘Wal’r, my lad,’ inquired the Captain, wistfully eyeing him as he pondered and pondered, ‘what do you make of it, then?’

‘Captain Cuttle,’ returned Walter, ‘I don’t know what to make of it. I suppose he never has written! There is no doubt about that?’

‘If so be as Sol Gills wrote, my lad,’ replied the Captain, argumentatively, ‘where’s his dispatch?’

‘Say that he entrusted it to some private hand,’ suggested Walter, ‘and that it has been forgotten, or carelessly thrown aside, or lost. Even that is more probable to me, than the other event. In short, I not only cannot bear to contemplate that other event, Captain Cuttle, but I can’t, and won’t.’

‘Hope, you see, Wal’r,’ said the Captain, sagely, ‘Hope. It’s that as animates you. Hope is a buoy, for which you overhaul your Little Warbler, sentimental diwision, but Lord, my lad, like any other buoy, it only floats; it can’t be steered nowhere. Along with the figure-head of Hope,’ said the Captain, ‘there’s a anchor; but what’s the good of my having a anchor, if I can’t find no bottom to let it go in?’

Captain Cuttle said this rather in his character of a sagacious citizen and householder, bound to impart a morsel from his stores of wisdom to an inexperienced youth, than in his own proper person. Indeed, his face was quite luminous as he spoke, with new hope, caught from Walter; and he appropriately concluded by slapping him on the back; and saying, with enthusiasm, ‘Hooroar, my lad! Indiwidually, I’m o’ your opinion.’

Walter, with his cheerful laugh, returned the salutation, and said:

‘Only one word more about my Uncle at present, Captain Cuttle. I suppose it is impossible that he can have written in the ordinary course—by mail packet, or ship letter, you understand—’

‘Ay, ay, my lad,’ said the Captain approvingly.

‘—And that you have missed the letter, anyhow?’

‘Why, Wal’r,’ said the Captain, turning his eyes upon him with a faint approach to a severe expression, ‘ain’t I been on the look-out for any tidings of that man o’ science, old Sol Gills, your Uncle, day and night, ever since I lost him? Ain’t my heart been heavy and watchful always, along of him and you? Sleeping and waking, ain’t I been upon my post, and wouldn’t I scorn to quit it while this here Midshipman held together!’

‘Yes, Captain Cuttle,’ replied Walter, grasping his hand, ‘I know you would, and I know how faithful and earnest all you say and feel is. I am sure of it. You don’t doubt that I am as sure of it as I am that my foot is again upon this door-step, or that I again have hold of this true hand. Do you?’

‘No, no, Wal’r,’ returned the Captain, with his beaming

‘I’ll hazard no more conjectures,’ said Walter, fervently shaking the hard hand of the Captain, who shook his with no less goodwill. ‘All I will add is, Heaven forbid that I should touch my Uncle’s possessions, Captain Cuttle! Everything that he left here, shall remain in the care of the truest of stewards and kindest of men—and if his name is not Cuttle, he has no name! Now, best of friends, about—Miss Dombey.’

There was a change in Walter’s manner, as he