Works of Charles Dickens (200+ Works) The Adventures of Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, David Copperfield & more (mobi)

by Charles Dickens

  Captain Cuttle liked this idea very much. It came upon him in a moment of inspiration, as he was smoking an early pipe in Brig Place after breakfast; and it was worthy of the tobacco. It would quiet his conscience, which was an honest one, and was made a little uneasy by what Walter had confided to him, and what Sol Gills had said; and it would be a deep, shrewd act of friendship. He would sound Mr Carker carefully, and say much or little, just as he read that gentleman's character, and discovered that they got on well together or the reverse.

  Accordingly, without the fear of Walter before his eyes (who he knew was at home packing), Captain Cuttle again assumed his ankle-jacks and mourning brooch, and issued forth on this second expedition. He purchased no propitiatory nosegay on the present occasion, as he was going to a place of business; but he put a small sunflower in his button-hole to give himself an agreeable relish of the country; and with this, and the knobby stick, and the glazed hat, bore down upon the offices of Dombey and Son.

  After taking a glass of warm rum-and-water at a tavern close by, to collect his thoughts, the Captain made a rush down the court, lest its good effects should evaporate, and appeared suddenly to Mr Perch.

  'Matey,' said the Captain, in persuasive accents. 'One of your Governors is named Carker.' Mr Perch admitted it; but gave him to understand, as in official duty bound, that all his Governors were engaged, and never expected to be disengaged any more.

  'Look'ee here, mate,' said the Captain in his ear; 'my name's Cap'en Cuttle.'

  The Captain would have hooked Perch gently to him, but Mr Perch eluded the attempt; not so much in design, as in starting at the sudden thought that such a weapon unexpectedly exhibited to Mrs Perch might, in her then condition, be destructive to that lady's hopes.

  'If you'll be so good as just report Cap'en Cuttle here, when you get a chance,' said the Captain, 'I'll wait.'

  Saying which, the Captain took his seat on Mr Perch's bracket, and drawing out his handkerchief from the crown of the glazed hat which he jammed between his knees (without injury to its shape, for nothing human could bend it), rubbed his head well all over, and appeared refreshed. He subsequently arranged his hair with his hook, and sat looking round the office, contemplating the clerks with a serene respect.

  The Captain's equanimity was so impenetrable, and he was altogether so mysterious a being, that Perch the messenger was daunted.

  'What name was it you said?' asked Mr Perch, bending down over him as he sat on the bracket.

  'Cap'en,' in a deep hoarse whisper.

  'Yes,' said Mr Perch, keeping time with his head.

  'Cuttle.'

  'Oh!' said Mr Perch, in the same tone, for he caught it, and couldn't help it; the Captain, in his diplomacy, was so impressive. 'I'll see if he's disengaged now. I don't know. Perhaps he may be for a minute.'

  'Ay, ay, my lad, I won't detain him longer than a minute,' said the Captain, nodding with all the weighty importance that he felt within him. Perch, soon returning, said, 'Will Captain Cuttle walk this way?'

  Mr Carker the Manager, standing on the hearth-rug before the empty fireplace, which was ornamented with a castellated sheet of brown paper, looked at the Captain as he came in, with no very special encouragement.

  'Mr Carker?' said Captain Cuttle.

  'I believe so,' said Mr Carker, showing all his teeth.

  The Captain liked his answering with a smile; it looked pleasant. 'You see,' began the Captain, rolling his eyes slowly round the little room, and taking in as much of it as his shirt-collar permitted; 'I'm a seafaring man myself, Mr Carker, and Wal'r, as is on your books here, is almost a son of mine.'

  'Walter Gay?' said Mr Carker, showing all his teeth again.

  'Wal'r Gay it is,' replied the Captain, 'right!' The Captain's manner expressed a warm approval of Mr Carker's quickness of perception. 'I'm a intimate friend of his and his Uncle's. Perhaps,' said the Captain, 'you may have heard your head Governor mention my name? - Captain Cuttle.'

  'No!' said Mr Carker, with a still wider demonstration than before.

  'Well,' resumed the Captain, 'I've the pleasure of his acquaintance. I waited upon him down on the Sussex coast there, with my young friend Wal'r, when - in short, when there was a little accommodation wanted.' The Captain nodded his head in a manner that was at once comfortable, easy, and expressive. 'You remember, I daresay?'

  'I think,' said Mr Carker, 'I had the honour of arranging the business.'

  'To be sure!' returned the Captain. 'Right again! you had. Now I've took the liberty of coming here -

  'Won't you sit down?' said Mr Carker, smiling.

  'Thank'ee,' returned the Captain, availing himself of the offer. 'A man does get more way upon himself, perhaps, in his conversation, when he sits down. Won't you take a cheer yourself?'

  'No thank you,' said the Manager, standing, perhaps from the force of winter habit, with his back against the chimney-piece, and looking down upon the Captain with an eye in every tooth and gum. 'You have taken the liberty, you were going to say - though it's none - '

  'Thank'ee kindly, my lad,' returned the Captain: 'of coming here, on account of my friend Wal'r. Sol Gills, his Uncle, is a man of science, and in science he may be considered a clipper; but he ain't what I should altogether call a able seaman - not man of practice. Wal'r is as trim a lad as ever stepped; but he's a little down by the head in one respect, and that is, modesty. Now what I should wish to put to you,' said the Captain, lowering his voice, and speaking in a kind of confidential growl, 'in a friendly way, entirely between you and me, and for my own private reckoning, 'till your head Governor has wore round a bit, and I can come alongside of him, is this - Is everything right and comfortable here, and is Wal'r out'ard bound with a pretty fair wind?'

  'What do you think now, Captain Cuttle?' returned Carker, gathering up his skirts and settling himself in his position. 'You are a practical man; what do you think?'

  The acuteness and the significance of the Captain's eye as he cocked it in reply, no words short of those unutterable Chinese words before referred to could describe.

  'Come!' said the Captain, unspeakably encouraged, 'what do you say? Am I right or wrong?'

  So much had the Captain expressed in his eye, emboldened and incited by Mr Carker's smiling urbanity, that he felt himself in as fair a condition to put the question, as if he had expressed his sentiments with the utmost elaboration.

  'Right,' said Mr Carker, 'I have no doubt.'

  'Out'ard bound with fair weather, then, I say,' cried Captain Cuttle.

  Mr Carker smiled assent.

  'Wind right astarn, and plenty of it,' pursued the Captain.

  Mr Carker smiled assent again.

  'Ay, ay!' said Captain Cuttle, greatly relieved and pleased. 'I know'd how she headed, well enough; I told Wal'r so. Thank'ee, thank'ee.'

  'Gay has brilliant prospects,' observed Mr Carker, stretching his mouth wider yet: 'all the world before him.'

  'All the world and his wife too, as the saying is,' returned the delighted Captain.

  At the word 'wife' (which he had uttered without design), the Captain stopped, cocked his eye again, and putting the glazed hat on the top of the knobby stick, gave it a twirl, and looked sideways at his always smiling friend.

  'I'd bet a gill of old Jamaica,' said the Captain, eyeing him attentively, 'that I know what you're a smiling at.'

  Mr Carker took his cue, and smiled the more.

  'It goes no farther?' said the Captain, making a poke at the door with the knobby stick to assure himself that it was shut.

  'Not an inch,' said Mr Carker.

  'You're thinking of a capital F perhaps?' said the Captain.

  Mr Carker didn't deny it.

  'Anything about a L,' said the Captain, 'or a O?'

  Mr Carker still smiled.

  'Am I right, again?' inquired the Captain in a whisper, with the scarlet circle on his forehead swelling in his triumphant joy.

  Mr Carker, in reply, still smiling, and now n
odding assent, Captain Cuttle rose and squeezed him by the hand, assuring him, warmly, that they were on the same tack, and that as for him (Cuttle) he had laid his course that way all along. 'He know'd her first,' said the Captain, with all the secrecy and gravity that the subject demanded, 'in an uncommon manner - you remember his finding her in the street when she was a'most a babby - he has liked her ever since, and she him, as much as two youngsters can. We've always said, Sol Gills and me, that they was cut out for each other.'

  A cat, or a monkey, or a hyena, or a death's-head, could not have shown the Captain more teeth at one time, than Mr Carker showed him at this period of their interview.

  'There's a general indraught that way,' observed the happy Captain. 'Wind and water sets in that direction, you see. Look at his being present t'other day!'

  'Most favourable to his hopes,' said Mr Carker.

  'Look at his being towed along in the wake of that day!' pursued the Captain. 'Why what can cut him adrift now?'

  'Nothing,' replied Mr Carker.

  'You're right again,' returned the Captain, giving his hand another squeeze. 'Nothing it is. So! steady! There's a son gone: pretty little creetur. Ain't there?'

  'Yes, there's a son gone,' said the acquiescent Carker.

  'Pass the word, and there's another ready for you,' quoth the Captain. 'Nevy of a scientific Uncle! Nevy of Sol Gills! Wal'r! Wal'r, as is already in your business! And' - said the Captain, rising gradually to a quotation he was preparing for a final burst, 'who - comes from Sol Gills's daily, to your business, and your buzzums.' The Captain's complacency as he gently jogged Mr Carker with his elbow, on concluding each of the foregoing short sentences, could be surpassed by nothing but the exultation with which he fell back and eyed him when he had finished this brilliant display of eloquence and sagacity; his great blue waistcoat heaving with the throes of such a masterpiece, and his nose in a state of violent inflammation from the same cause.

  'Am I right?' said the Captain.

  'Captain Cuttle,' said Mr Carker, bending down at the knees, for a moment, in an odd manner, as if he were falling together to hug the whole of himself at once, 'your views in reference to Walter Gay are thoroughly and accurately right. I understand that we speak together in confidence.

  'Honour!' interposed the Captain. 'Not a word.'

  'To him or anyone?' pursued the Manager.

  Captain Cuttle frowned and shook his head.

  'But merely for your own satisfaction and guidance - and guidance, of course,' repeated Mr Carker, 'with a view to your future proceedings.'

  'Thank'ee kindly, I am sure,' said the Captain, listening with great attention.

  'I have no hesitation in saying, that's the fact. You have hit the probabilities exactly.'

  'And with regard to your head Governor,' said the Captain, 'why an interview had better come about nat'ral between us. There's time enough.'

  Mr Carker, with his mouth from ear to ear, repeated, 'Time enough.' Not articulating the words, but bowing his head affably, and forming them with his tongue and lips.

  'And as I know - it's what I always said- that Wal'r's in a way to make his fortune,' said the Captain.

  'To make his fortune,' Mr Carker repeated, in the same dumb manner.

  'And as Wal'r's going on this little voyage is, as I may say, in his day's work, and a part of his general expectations here,' said the Captain.

  'Of his general expectations here,' assented Mr Carker, dumbly as before.

  'Why, so long as I know that,' pursued the Captain, 'there's no hurry, and my mind's at ease.

  Mr Carker still blandly assenting in the same voiceless manner, Captain Cuttle was strongly confirmed in his opinion that he was one of the most agreeable men he had ever met, and that even Mr Dombey might improve himself on such a model. With great heartiness, therefore, the Captain once again extended his enormous hand (not unlike an old block in colour), and gave him a grip that left upon his smoother flesh a proof impression of the chinks and crevices with which the Captain's palm was liberally tattooed.

  'Farewell!' said the Captain. 'I ain't a man of many words, but I take it very kind of you to be so friendly, and above-board. You'll excuse me if I've been at all intruding, will you?' said the Captain.

  'Not at all,' returned the other.

  'Thank'ee. My berth ain't very roomy,' said the Captain, turning back again, 'but it's tolerably snug; and if you was to find yourself near Brig Place, number nine, at any time - will you make a note of it? - and would come upstairs, without minding what was said by the person at the door, I should be proud to see you.

  With that hospitable invitation, the Captain said 'Good day!' and walked out and shut the door; leaving Mr Carker still reclining against the chimney-piece. In whose sly look and watchful manner; in whose false mouth, stretched but not laughing; in whose spotless cravat and very whiskers; even in whose silent passing of his soft hand over his white linen and his smooth face; there was something desperately cat-like.

  The unconscious Captain walked out in a state of self-glorification that imparted quite a new cut to the broad blue suit. 'Stand by, Ned!' said the Captain to himself. 'You've done a little business for the youngsters today, my lad!'

  In his exultation, and in his familiarity, present and prospective, with the House, the Captain, when he reached the outer office, could not refrain from rallying Mr Perch a little, and asking him whether he thought everybody was still engaged. But not to be bitter on a man who had done his duty, the Captain whispered in his ear, that if he felt disposed for a glass of rum-and-water, and would follow, he would be happy to bestow the same upon him.

  Before leaving the premises, the Captain, somewhat to the astonishment of the clerks, looked round from a central point of view, and took a general survey of the officers part and parcel of a project in which his young friend was nearly interested. The strong-room excited his especial admiration; but, that he might not appear too particular, he limited himself to an approving glance, and, with a graceful recognition of the clerks as a body, that was full of politeness and patronage, passed out into the court. Being promptly joined by Mr Perch, he conveyed that gentleman to the tavern, and fulfilled his pledge - hastily, for Perch's time was precious.

  'I'll give you for a toast,' said the Captain, 'Wal'r!'

  'Who?' submitted Mr Perch.

  'Wal'r!' repeated the Captain, in a voice of thunder.

  Mr Perch, who seemed to remember having heard in infancy that there was once a poet of that name, made no objection; but he was much astonished at the Captain's coming into the City to propose a poet; indeed, if he had proposed to put a poet's statue up - say Shakespeare's for example - in a civic thoroughfare, he could hardly have done a greater outrage to Mr Perch's experience. On the whole, he was such a mysterious and incomprehensible character, that Mr Perch decided not to mention him to Mrs Perch at all, in case of giving rise to any disagreeable consequences.

  Mysterious and incomprehensible, the Captain, with that lively sense upon him of having done a little business for the youngsters, remained all day, even to his most intimate friends; and but that Walter attributed his winks and grins, and other such pantomimic reliefs of himself, to his satisfaction in the success of their innocent deception upon old Sol Gills, he would assuredly have betrayed himself before night. As it was, however, he kept his own secret; and went home late from the Instrument-maker's house, wearing the glazed hat so much on one side, and carrying such a beaming expression in his eyes, that Mrs MacStinger (who might have been brought up at Doctor Blimber's, she was such a Roman matron) fortified herself, at the first glimpse of him, behind the open street door, and refused to come out to the contemplation of her blessed infants, until he was securely lodged in his own room.

  CHAPTER 18.

  Father and Daughter

  There is a hush through Mr Dombey's house. Servants gliding up and down stairs rustle, but make no sound of footsteps. They talk together constantly, and sit long at meals, making muc
h of their meat and drink, and enjoying themselves after a grim unholy fashion. Mrs Wickam, with her eyes suffused with tears, relates melancholy anecdotes; and tells them how she always said at Mrs Pipchin's that it would be so, and takes more table-ale than usual, and is very sorry but sociable. Cook's state of mind is similar. She promises a little fry for supper, and struggles about equally against her feelings and the onions. Towlinson begins to think there's a fate in it, and wants to know if anybody can tell him ofany good that ever came of living in a corner house. It seems to all of them as having happened a long time ago; though yet the child lies, calm and beautiful, upon his little bed.

  After dark there come some visitors - noiseless visitors, with shoes of felt - who have been there before; and with them comes that bed of rest which is so strange a one for infant sleepers. All this time, the bereaved father has not been seen even by his attendant; for he sits in an inner corner of his own dark room when anyone is there, and never seems to move at other times, except to pace it to and fro. But in the morning it is whispered among the household that he was heard to go upstairs in the dead night, and that he stayed there - in the room - until the sun was shining.

  At the offices in the City, the ground-glass windows are made more dim by shutters; and while the lighted lamps upon the desks are half extinguished by the day that wanders in, the day is half extinguished by the lamps, and an unusual gloom prevails. There is not much business done. The clerks are indisposed to work; and they make assignations to eat chops in the afternoon, and go up the river. Perch, the messenger, stays long upon his errands; and finds himself in bars of public-houses, invited thither by friends, and holding forth on the uncertainty of human affairs. He goes home to Ball's Pond earlier in the evening than usual, and treats Mrs Perch to a veal cutlet and Scotch ale. Mr Carker the Manager treats no one; neither is he treated; but alone in his own room he shows his teeth all day; and it would seem that there is something gone from Mr Carker's path - some obstacle removed - which clears his way before him.