Dombey and Son

by Charles Dickens

  'Wal'r, my lad!'said Captain Cuttle. 'Stand by and knock again.

  Hard! It's washing day.'

  Walter, in his impatience, gave a prodigious thump with the knocker.

  'Hard it is!' said Captain Cuttle, and immediately drew in his head, as if he expected a squall.

  Nor was he mistaken: for a widow lady, with her sleeves rolled up to her shoulders, and her arms frothy with soap-suds and smoking with hot water, replied to the summons with startling rapidity. Before she looked at Walter she looked at the knocker, and then, measuring him with her eyes from head to foot, said she wondered he had left any of it.

  'Captain Cuttle's at home, I know,' said Walter with a conciliatory smile.

  'Is he?' replied the widow lady. 'In-deed!'

  'He has just been speaking to me,' said Walter, in breathless explanation.

  'Has he?' replied the widow lady. 'Then p'raps you'll give him Mrs MacStinger's respects, and say that the next time he lowers himself and his lodgings by talking out of the winder she'll thank him to come down and open the door too.' Mrs MacStinger spoke loud, and listened for any observations that might be offered from the first floor.

  'I'll mention it,' said Walter, 'if you'll have the goodness to let me in, Ma'am.'

  For he was repelled by a wooden fortification extending across the doorway, and put there to prevent the little MacStingers in their moments of recreation from tumbling down the steps.

  'A boy that can knock my door down,' said Mrs MacStinger, contemptuously, 'can get over that, I should hope!' But Walter, taking this as a permission to enter, and getting over it, Mrs MacStinger immediately demanded whether an Englishwoman's house was her castle or not; and whether she was to be broke in upon by 'raff.' On these subjects her thirst for information was still very importunate, when Walter, having made his way up the little staircase through an artificial fog occasioned by the washing, which covered the banisters with a clammy perspiration, entered Captain Cuttle's room, and found that gentleman in ambush behind the door.

  'Never owed her a penny, Wal'r,' said Captain Cuttle, in a low voice, and with visible marks of trepidation on his countenance. 'Done her a world of good turns, and the children too. Vixen at times, though. Whew!'

  'I should go away, Captain Cuttle,' said Walter.

  'Dursn't do it, Wal'r,' returned the Captain. 'She'd find me out, wherever I went. Sit down. How's Gills?'

  The Captain was dining (in his hat) off cold loin of mutton, porter, and some smoking hot potatoes, which he had cooked himself, and took out of a little saucepan before the fire as he wanted them.

  He unscrewed his hook at dinner-time, and screwed a knife into its wooden socket instead, with which he had already begun to peel one of these potatoes for Walter. His rooms were very small, and strongly impregnated with tobacco-smoke, but snug enough: everything being stowed away, as if there were an earthquake regularly every half-hour.

  'How's Gills?' inquired the Captain.

  Walter, who had by this time recovered his breath, and lost his spirits — or such temporary spirits as his rapid journey had given him — looked at his questioner for a moment, said 'Oh, Captain Cuttle!' and burst into tears.

  No words can describe the Captain's consternation at this sight Mrs MacStinger faded into nothing before it. He dropped the potato and the fork — and would have dropped the knife too if he could — and sat gazing at the boy, as if he expected to hear next moment that a gulf had opened in the City, which had swallowed up his old friend, coffee-coloured suit, buttons, chronometer, spectacles, and all.

  But when Walter told him what was really the matter, Captain Cuttle, after a moment's reflection, started up into full activity. He emptied out of a little tin canister on the top shelf of the cupboard, his whole stock of ready money (amounting to thirteen pounds and half-a-crown), which he transferred to one of the pockets of his square blue coat; further enriched that repository with the contents of his plate chest, consisting of two withered atomies of tea-spoons, and an obsolete pair of knock-knee'd sugar-tongs; pulled up his immense double-cased silver watch from the depths in which it reposed, to assure himself that that valuable was sound and whole; re-attached the hook to his right wrist; and seizing the stick covered over with knobs, bade Walter come along.

  Remembering, however, in the midst of his virtuous excitement, that Mrs MacStinger might be lying in wait below, Captain Cuttle hesitated at last, not without glancing at the window, as if he had some thoughts of escaping by that unusual means of egress, rather than encounter his terrible enemy. He decided, however, in favour of stratagem.

  'Wal'r,' said the Captain, with a timid wink, 'go afore, my lad.

  Sing out, "good-bye, Captain Cuttle," when you're in the passage, and shut the door. Then wait at the corner of the street 'till you see me.

  These directions were not issued without a previous knowledge of the enemy's tactics, for when Walter got downstairs, Mrs MacStinger glided out of the little back kitchen, like an avenging spirit. But not gliding out upon the Captain, as she had expected, she merely made a further allusion to the knocker, and glided in again.

  Some five minutes elapsed before Captain Cuttle could summon courage to attempt his escape; for Walter waited so long at the street corner, looking back at the house, before there were any symptoms of the hard glazed hat. At length the Captain burst out of the door with the suddenness of an explosion, and coming towards him at a great pace, and never once looking over his shoulder, pretended, as soon as they were well out of the street, to whistle a tune.

  'Uncle much hove down, Wal'r?' inquired the Captain, as they were walking along.

  'I am afraid so. If you had seen him this morning, you would never have forgotten it.'

  'Walk fast, Wal'r, my lad,' returned the Captain, mending his pace; 'and walk the same all the days of your life. Overhaul the catechism for that advice, and keep it!'

  The Captain was too busy with his own thoughts of Solomon Gills, mingled perhaps with some reflections on his late escape from Mrs MacStinger, to offer any further quotations on the way for Walter's moral improvement They interchanged no other word until they arrived at old Sol's door, where the unfortunate wooden Midshipman, with his instrument at his eye, seemed to be surveying the whole horizon in search of some friend to help him out of his difficulty.

  'Gills!' said the Captain, hurrying into the back parlour, and taking him by the hand quite tenderly. 'Lay your head well to the wind, and we'll fight through it. All you've got to do,' said the Captain, with the solemnity of a man who was delivering himself of one of the most precious practical tenets ever discovered by human wisdom, 'is to lay your head well to the wind, and we'll fight through it!'

  Old Sol returned the pressure of his hand, and thanked him.

  Captain Cuttle, then, with a gravity suitable to the nature of the occasion, put down upon the table the two tea-spoons and the sugar-tongs, the silver watch, and the ready money; and asked Mr Brogley, the broker, what the damage was.

  'Come! What do you make of it?' said Captain Cuttle.

  'Why, Lord help you!' returned the broker; 'you don't suppose that property's of any use, do you?'

  'Why not?' inquired the Captain.

  'Why? The amount's three hundred and seventy, odd,' replied the broker.

  'Never mind,' returned the Captain, though he was evidently dismayed by the figures: 'all's fish that comes to your net, I suppose?'

  'Certainly,' said Mr Brogley. 'But sprats ain't whales, you know.'

  The philosophy of this observation seemed to strike the Captain. He ruminated for a minute; eyeing the broker, meanwhile, as a deep genius; and then called the Instrument-maker aside.

  'Gills,' said Captain Cuttle, 'what's the bearings of this business? Who's the creditor?'

  'Hush!' returned the old man. 'Come away. Don't speak before Wally.

  It's a matter of security for Wally's father — an old bond. I've paid a good deal of it, Ned, but the times are so bad with me that I can't
do more just now. I've foreseen it, but I couldn't help it. Not a word before Wally, for all the world.'

  'You've got some money, haven't you?' whispered the Captain.

  'Yes, yes — oh yes— I've got some,' returned old Sol, first putting his hands into his empty pockets, and then squeezing his Welsh wig between them, as if he thought he might wring some gold out of it; 'but I — the little I have got, isn't convertible, Ned; it can't be got at. I have been trying to do something with it for Wally, and I'm old fashioned, and behind the time. It's here and there, and — and, in short, it's as good as nowhere,' said the old man, looking in bewilderment about him.

  He had so much the air of a half-witted person who had been hiding his money in a variety of places, and had forgotten where, that the Captain followed his eyes, not without a faint hope that he might remember some few hundred pounds concealed up the chimney, or down in the cellar. But Solomon Gills knew better than that.

  'I'm behind the time altogether, my dear Ned,' said Sol, in resigned despair, 'a long way. It's no use my lagging on so far behind it. The stock had better be sold — it's worth more than this debt — and I had better go and die somewhere, on the balance. I haven't any energy left. I don't understand things. This had better be the end of it. Let 'em sell the stock and take him down,' said the old man, pointing feebly to the wooden Midshipman, 'and let us both be broken up together.'

  'And what d'ye mean to do with Wal'r?'said the Captain. 'There, there! Sit ye down, Gills, sit ye down, and let me think o' this. If I warn't a man on a small annuity, that was large enough till to-day, I hadn't need to think of it. But you only lay your head well to the wind,' said the Captain, again administering that unanswerable piece of consolation, 'and you're all right!'

  Old Sol thanked him from his heart, and went and laid it against the back parlour fire-place instead.

  Captain Cuttle walked up and down the shop for some time, cogitating profoundly, and bringing his bushy black eyebrows to bear so heavily on his nose, like clouds setting on a mountain, that Walter was afraid to offer any interruption to the current of his reflections. Mr Brogley, who was averse to being any constraint upon the party, and who had an ingenious cast of mind, went, softly whistling, among the stock; rattling weather-glasses, shaking compasses as if they were physic, catching up keys with loadstones, looking through telescopes, endeavouring to make himself acquainted with the use of the globes, setting parallel rulers astride on to his nose, and amusing himself with other philosophical transactions.

  'Wal'r!' said the Captain at last. 'I've got it.'

  'Have you, Captain Cuttle?' cried Walter, with great animation.

  'Come this way, my lad,' said the Captain. 'The stock's the security. I'm another. Your governor's the man to advance money.'

  'Mr Dombey!' faltered Walter.

  The Captain nodded gravely. 'Look at him,' he said. 'Look at Gills.

  If they was to sell off these things now, he'd die of it. You know he would. We mustn't leave a stone unturned — and there's a stone for you.'

  'A stone! — Mr Dombey!' faltered Walter.

  'You run round to the office, first of all, and see if he's there,' said Captain Cuttle, clapping him on the back. 'Quick!'

  Walter felt he must not dispute the command — a glance at his Uncle would have determined him if he had felt otherwise — and disappeared to execute it. He soon returned, out of breath, to say that Mr Dombey was not there. It was Saturday, and he had gone to Brighton.

  'I tell you what, Wal'r!' said the Captain, who seemed to have prepared himself for this contingency in his absence. 'We'll go to Brighton. I'll back you, my boy. I'll back you, Wal'r. We'll go to Brighton by the afternoon's coach.'

  If the application must be made to Mr Dombey at all, which was awful to think of, Walter felt that he would rather prefer it alone and unassisted, than backed by the personal influence of Captain Cuttle, to which he hardly thought Mr Dombey would attach much weight.

  But as the Captain appeared to be of quite another opinion, and was bent upon it, and as his friendship was too zealous and serious to be trifled with by one so much younger than himself, he forbore to hint the least objection. Cuttle, therefore, taking a hurried leave of Solomon Gills, and returning the ready money, the teaspoons, the sugar-tongs, and the silver watch, to his pocket — with a view, as Walter thought, with horror, to making a gorgeous impression on Mr Dombey — bore him off to the coach-office, with— out a minute's delay, and repeatedly assured him, on the road, that he would stick by him to the last.

  CHAPTER 10

  Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman's Disaster

  Major Bagstock, after long and frequent observation of Paul, across Princess's Place, through his double-barrelled opera-glass; and after receiving many minute reports, daily, weekly, and monthly, on that subject, from the native who kept himself in constant communication with Miss Tox's maid for that purpose; came to the conclusion that Dombey, Sir, was a man to be known, and that J. B. was the boy to make his acquaintance.

  Miss Tox, however, maintaining her reserved behaviour, and frigidly declining to understand the Major whenever he called (which he often did) on any little fishing excursion connected with this project, the Major, in spite of his constitutional toughness and slyness, was fain to leave the accomplishment of his desire in some measure to chance, 'which,' as he was used to observe with chuckles at his club, 'has been fifty to one in favour of Joey B., Sir, ever since his elder brother died of Yellow Jack in the West Indies.'

  It was some time coming to his aid in the present instance, but it befriended him at last. When the dark servant, with full particulars, reported Miss Tox absent on Brighton service, the Major was suddenly touched with affectionate reminiscences of his friend Bill Bitherstone of Bengal, who had written to ask him, if he ever went that way, to bestow a call upon his only son. But when the same dark servant reported Paul at Mrs Pipchin's, and the Major, referring to the letter favoured by Master Bitherstone on his arrival in England — to which he had never had the least idea of paying any attention — saw the opening that presented itself, he was made so rabid by the gout, with which he happened to be then laid up, that he threw a footstool at the dark servant in return for his intelligence, and swore he would be the death of the rascal before he had done with him: which the dark servant was more than half disposed to believe.

  At length the Major being released from his fit, went one Saturday growling down to Brighton, with the native behind him; apostrophizing Miss Tox all the way, and gloating over the prospect of carrying by storm the distinguished friend to whom she attached so much mystery, and for whom she had deserted him, 'Would you, Ma'am, would you!' said the Major, straining with vindictiveness, and swelling every already swollen vein in his head.

  'Would you give Joey B. the go-by, Ma'am? Not yet, Ma'am, not yet!

  Damme, not yet, Sir. Joe is awake, Ma'am. Bagstock is alive, Sir. J.

  B. knows a move or two, Ma'am. Josh has his weather-eye open, Sir.

  You'll find him tough, Ma'am. Tough, Sir, tough is Joseph. Tough, and de-vilish sly!'

  And very tough indeed Master Bitherstone found him, when he took that young gentleman out for a walk. But the Major, with his complexion like a Stilton cheese, and his eyes like a prawn's, went roving about, perfectly indifferent to Master Bitherstone's amusement, and dragging Master Bitherstone along, while he looked about him high and low, for Mr Dombey and his children.

  In good time the Major, previously instructed by Mrs Pipchin, spied out Paul and Florence, and bore down upon them; there being a stately gentleman (Mr Dombey, doubtless) in their company. Charging with Master Bitherstone into the very heart of the little squadron, it fell out, of course, that Master Bitherstone spoke to his fellow-sufferers.

  Upon that the Major stopped to notice and admire them; remembered with amazement that he had seen and spoken to them at his friend Miss Tox's in Princess's Place; opined that Paul was a devilish fine fellow, and his own little friend; inqu
ired if he remembered Joey B. the Major; and finally, with a sudden recollection of the conventionalities of life, turned and apologised to Mr Dombey.

  'But my little friend here, Sir,' said the Major, 'makes a boy of me again: An old soldier, Sir — Major Bagstock, at your service — is not ashamed to confess it.' Here the Major lifted his hat. 'Damme, Sir,' cried the Major with sudden warmth, 'I envy you.' Then he recollected himself, and added, 'Excuse my freedom.'

  Mr Dombey begged he wouldn't mention it.

  'An old campaigner, Sir,' said the Major, 'a smoke-dried, sun-burnt, used-up, invalided old dog of a Major, Sir, was not afraid of being condemned for his whim by a man like Mr Dombey. I have the honour of addressing Mr Dombey, I believe?'

  'I am the present unworthy representative of that name, Major,' returned Mr Dombey.

  'By G-, Sir!' said the Major, 'it's a great name. It's a name, Sir,' said the Major firmly, as if he defied Mr Dombey to contradict him, and would feel it his painful duty to bully him if he did, 'that is known and honoured in the British possessions abroad. It is a name, Sir, that a man is proud to recognise. There is nothing adulatory in Joseph Bagstock, Sir. His Royal Highness the Duke of York observed on more than one occasion, "there is no adulation in Joey. He is a plain old soldier is Joe. He is tough to a fault is Joseph:" but it's a great name, Sir. By the Lord, it's a great name!' said the Major, solemnly.

  'You are good enough to rate it higher than it deserves, perhaps, Major,' returned Mr Dombey.