Chapter 48. The Flight of Florence

Dombey and Son

by Charles Dickens

In the wildness of her sorrow, shame, and terror, the forlorn
girl hurried through the sunshine of a bright morning, as if it were
the darkness of a winter night. Wringing her hands and weeping
bitterly, insensible to everything but the deep wound in her breast,
stunned by the loss of all she loved, left like the sole survivor on
a lonely shore from the wreck of a great vessel, she fled without a
thought, without a hope, without a purpose, but to fly somewhere
anywhere.

The cheerful vista of the long street, burnished by the morning
light, the sight of the blue sky and airy clouds, the vigorous
freshness of the day, so flushed and rosy in its conquest of the
night, awakened no responsive feelings in her so hurt bosom.
Somewhere, anywhere, to hide her head! somewhere, anywhere, for
refuge, never more to look upon the place from which she fled!

But there were people going to and fro; there were opening
shops, and servants at the doors of houses; there was the rising
clash and roar of the day's struggle. Florence saw surprise and
curiosity in the faces flitting past her; saw long shadows coming
back upon the pavement; and heard voices that were strange to her
asking her where she went, and what the matter was; and though these
frightened her the more at first, and made her hurry on the faster,
they did her the good service of recalling her in some degree to
herself, and reminding her of the necessity of greater composure.

Where to go? Still somewhere, anywhere! still going on; but
where! She thought of the only other time she had been lost in the
wild wilderness of London - though not lost as now - and went that
way. To the home of Walter's Uncle.

Checking her sobs, and drying her swollen eyes, and endeavouring
to calm the agitation of her manner, so as to avoid attracting
notice, Florence, resolving to keep to the more quiet streets as long
as she could, was going on more quietly herself, when a familiar
little shadow darted past upon the sunny pavement, stopped short,
wheeled about, came close to her, made off again, bounded round and
round her, and Diogenes, panting for breath, and yet making the
street ring with his glad bark, was at her feet.

'Oh, Di! oh, dear, true, faithful Di, how did you come here? How
could I ever leave you, Di, who would never leave me?'

Florence bent down on the pavement, and laid his rough, old,
loving, foolish head against her breast, and they got up together,
and went on together; Di more off the ground than on it, endeavouring
to kiss his mistress flying, tumbling over and getting up again
without the least concern, dashing at big dogs in a jocose defiance
of his species, terrifying with touches of his nose young housemaids
who were cleaning doorsteps, and continually stopping, in the midst
of a thousand extravagances, to look back at Florence, and bark until
all the dogs within hearing answered, and all the dogs who could come
out, came out to stare at him.

With this last adherent, Florence hurried away in the advancing
morning, and the strengthening sunshine, to the City. The roar soon
grew more loud, the passengers more numerous, the shops more busy,
until she was carried onward in a stream of life setting that way,
and flowing, indifferently, past marts and mansions, prisons,
churches, market-places, wealth, poverty, good, and evil, like the
broad river side by side with it, awakened from its dreams of rushes,
willows, and green moss, and rolling on, turbid and troubled, among
the works and cares of men, to the deep sea.

At length the quarters of the little Midshipman arose in view.
Nearer yet, and the little Midshipman himself was seen upon his post,
intent as ever on his observations. Nearer yet, and the door stood
open, inviting her to enter. Florence, who had again quickened her
pace, as she approached the end of her journey, ran across the road
(closely followed by Diogenes, whom the bustle had somewhat
confused), ran in, and sank upon the threshold of the well-remembered
little parlour.

The Captain, in his glazed hat, was standing over the fire,
making his morning's cocoa, with that elegant trifle, his watch, upon
the chimney-piece, for easy reference during the progress of the
cookery. Hearing a footstep and the rustle of a dress, the Captain
turned with a palpitating remembrance of the dreadful Mrs MacStinger,
at the instant when Florence made a motion with her hand towards him,
reeled, and fell upon the floor.

The Captain, pale as Florence, pale in the very knobs upon his
face raised her like a baby, and laid her on the same old sofa upon
which she had slumbered long ago.

'It's Heart's Delight!' said the Captain, looking intently in
her face. 'It's the sweet creetur grow'd a woman!'

Captain Cuttle was so respectful of her, and had such a
reverence for her, in this new character, that he would not have held
her in his arms, while she was unconscious, for a thousand pounds.

'My Heart's Delight!' said the Captain, withdrawing to a little
distance, with the greatest alarm and sympathy depicted on his
countenance. 'If you can hail Ned Cuttle with a finger, do it!'

But Florence did not stir.

'My Heart's Delight!' said the trembling Captain. 'For the sake
of Wal'r drownded in the briny deep, turn to, and histe up something
or another, if able!'

Finding her insensible to this impressive adjuration also,
Captain Cuttle snatched from his breakfast-table a basin of cold
water, and sprinkled some upon her face. Yielding to the urgency of
the case, the Captain then, using his immense hand with extraordinary
gentleness, relieved her of her bonnet, moistened her lips and
forehead, put back her hair, covered her feet with his own coat which
he pulled off for the purpose, patted her hand - so small in his,
that he was struck with wonder when he touched it - and seeing that
her eyelids quivered, and that her lips began to move, continued
these restorative applications with a better heart.

'Cheerily,' said the Captain. 'Cheerily! Stand by, my pretty
one, stand by! There! You're better now. Steady's the word, and
steady it is. Keep her so! Drink a little drop o' this here,' said
the Captain. 'There you are! What cheer now, my pretty, what cheer
now?'

At this stage of her recovery, Captain Cuttle, with an imperfect
association of a Watch with a Physician's treatment of a patient,
took his own down from the mantel-shelf, and holding it out on his
hook, and taking Florence's hand in his, looked steadily from one to
the other, as expecting the dial to do something.

'What cheer, my pretty?' said the Captain. 'What cheer now?
You've done her some good, my lad, I believe,' said the Captain,
under his breath, and throwing an approving glance upon his watch.
'Put you back half-an-hour every morning, and about another quarter
towards the arternoon, and you're a watch as can be ekalled by few
and excelled by none. What cheer, my lady lass!'

'Captain Cuttle! Is it you?' exclaimed Florence, raising herself
a little.

'Yes, yes, my lady lass,' said the Captain, hastily deciding in
his own mind upon the superior elegance of that form of address, as
the most courtly he could think of.

'Is Walter's Uncle here?' asked Florence.

'Here, pretty?' returned the Captain. 'He ain't been here this
many a long day. He ain't been heerd on, since he sheered off arter
poor Wal'r. But,' said the Captain, as a quotation, 'Though lost to
sight, to memory dear, and England, Home, and Beauty!'

'Do you live here?' asked Florence.

'Yes, my lady lass,' returned the Captain.

'Oh, Captain Cuttle!' cried Florence, putting her hands
together, and speaking wildly. 'Save me! keep me here! Let no one
know where I am! I'll tell you what has happened by-and-by, when I
can. I have no one in the world to go to. Do not send me away!'

'Send you away, my lady lass!' exclaimed the Captain. 'You, my
Heart's Delight! Stay a bit! We'll put up this here deadlight, and
take a double turn on the key!'

With these words, the Captain, using his one hand and his hook
with the greatest dexterity, got out the shutter of the door, put it
up, made it all fast, and locked the door itself.

When he came back to the side of Florence, she took his hand,
and kissed it. The helplessness of the action, the appeal it made to
him, the confidence it expressed, the unspeakable sorrow in her face,
the pain of mind she had too plainly suffered, and was suffering
then, his knowledge of her past history, her present lonely, worn,
and unprotected appearance, all so rushed upon the good Captain
together, that he fairly overflowed with compassion and
gentleness.

'My lady lass,' said the Captain, polishing the bridge of his
nose with his arm until it shone like burnished copper, 'don't you
say a word to Ed'ard Cuttle, until such times as you finds yourself a
riding smooth and easy; which won't be to-day, nor yet to-morrow. And
as to giving of you up, or reporting where you are, yes verily, and
by God's help, so I won't, Church catechism, make a note on!'

This the Captain said, reference and all, in one breath, and
with much solemnity; taking off his hat at 'yes verily,' and putting
it on again, when he had quite concluded.

Florence could do but one thing more to thank him, and to show
him how she trusted in him; and she did it' Clinging to this rough
creature as the last asylum of her bleeding heart, she laid her head
upon his honest shoulder, and clasped him round his neck, and would
have kneeled down to bless him, but that he divined her purpose, and
held her up like a true man.

'Steady!' said the Captain. 'Steady! You're too weak to stand,
you see, my pretty, and must lie down here again. There, there!' To
see the Captain lift her on the sofa, and cover her with his coat,
would have been worth a hundred state sights. 'And now,' said the
Captain, 'you must take some breakfast, lady lass, and the dog shall
have some too. And arter that you shall go aloft to old Sol Gills's
room, and fall asleep there, like a angel.'

Captain Cuttle patted Diogenes when he made allusion to him, and
Diogenes met that overture graciously, half-way. During the
administration of the restoratives he had clearly been in two minds
whether to fly at the Captain or to offer him his friendship; and he
had expressed that conflict of feeling by alternate waggings of his
tail, and displays of his teeth, with now and then a growl or so. But
by this time, his doubts were all removed. It was plain that he
considered the Captain one of the most amiable of men, and a man whom
it was an honour to a dog to know.

In evidence of these convictions, Diogenes attended on the
Captain while he made some tea and toast, and showed a lively
interest in his housekeeping. But it was in vain for the kind Captain
to make such preparations for Florence, who sorely tried to do some
honour to them, but could touch nothing, and could only weep and weep
again.

'Well, well!' said the compassionate Captain, 'arter turning in,
my Heart's Delight, you'll get more way upon you. Now, I'll serve out
your allowance, my lad.' To Diogenes. 'And you shall keep guard on
your mistress aloft.'

Diogenes, however, although he had been eyeing his intended
breakfast with a watering mouth and glistening eyes, instead of
falling to, ravenously, when it was put before him, pricked up his
ears, darted to the shop-door, and barked there furiously: burrowing
with his head at the bottom, as if he were bent on mining his way
out.

'Can there be anybody there!' asked Florence, in alarm.

'No, my lady lass,' returned the Captain. 'Who'd stay there,
without making any noise! Keep up a good heart, pretty. It's only
people going by.'

But for all that, Diogenes barked and barked, and burrowed and
burrowed, with pertinacious fury; and whenever he stopped to listen,
appeared to receive some new conviction into his mind, for he set to,
barking and burrowing again, a dozen times. Even when he was
persuaded to return to his breakfast, he came jogging back to it,
with a very doubtful air; and was off again, in another paroxysm,
before touching a morsel.

'If there should be someone listening and watching,' whispered
Florence. 'Someone who saw me come - who followed me, perhaps.'

'It ain't the young woman, lady lass, is it?' said the Captain,
taken with a bright idea

'Susan?' said Florence, shaking her head. 'Ah no! Susan has been
gone from me a long time.'

'Not deserted, I hope?' said the Captain. 'Don't say that that
there young woman's run, my pretty!'

'Oh, no, no!' cried Florence. 'She is one of the truest hearts
in the world!'

The Captain was greatly relieved by this reply, and expressed
his satisfaction by taking off his hard glazed hat, and dabbing his
head all over with his handkerchief, rolled up like a ball, observing
several times, with infinite complacency, and with a beaming
countenance, that he know'd it.

'So you're quiet now, are you, brother?' said the Captain to
Diogenes. 'There warn't nobody there, my lady lass, bless you!'

Diogenes was not so sure of that. The door still had an
attraction for him at intervals; and he went snuffing about it, and
growling to himself, unable to forget the subject. This incident,
coupled with the Captain's observation of Florence's fatigue and
faintness, decided him to prepare Sol Gills's chamber as a place of
retirement for her immediately. He therefore hastily betook himself
to the top of the house, and made the best arrangement of it that his
imagination and his means suggested.

It was very clean already; and the Captain being an orderly man,
and accustomed to make things ship-shape, converted the bed into a
couch, by covering it all over with a clean white drapery. By a
similar contrivance, the Captain converted the little dressing-table
into a species of altar, on which he set forth two silver teaspoons,
a flower-pot, a telescope, his celebrated watch, a pocket-comb, and a
song-book, as a small collection of rarities, that made a choice
appearance. Having darkened the window, and straightened the pieces
of carpet on the floor, the Captain surveyed these preparations with
great delight, and descended to the little parlour again, to bring
Florence to her bower.

Nothing would induce the Captain to believe that it was possible
for Florence to walk upstairs. If he could have got the idea into his
head, he would have considered it an outrageous breach of hospitality
to allow her to do so. Florence was too weak to dispute the point,
and the Captain carried her up out of hand, laid her down, and
covered her with a great watch-coat.

'My lady lass!' said the Captain, 'you're as safe here as if you
was at the top of St Paul's Cathedral, with the ladder cast off.
Sleep is what you want, afore all other things, and may you be able
to show yourself smart with that there balsam for the still small
woice of a wounded mind! When there's anything you want, my Heart's
Delight, as this here humble house or town can offer, pass the word
to Ed'ard Cuttle, as'll stand off and on outside that door, and that
there man will wibrate with joy.' The Captain concluded by kissing
the hand that Florence stretched out to him, with the chivalry of any
old knight-errant, and walking on tiptoe out of the room.

Descending to the little parlour, Captain Cuttle, after holding
a hasty council with himself, decided to open the shop-door for a few
minutes, and satisfy himself that now, at all events, there was no
one loitering about it. Accordingly he set it open, and stood upon
the threshold, keeping a bright look-out, and sweeping the whole
street with his spectacles.

'How de do, Captain Gills?' said a voice beside him. The
Captain, looking down, found that he had been boarded by Mr Toots
while sweeping the horizon.

'How are, you, my lad?' replied the Captain.

'Well, I m pretty well, thank'ee, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots.
'You know I'm never quite what I could wish to be, now. I don't
expect that I ever shall be any more.'

Mr Toots never approached any nearer than this to the great
theme of his life, when in conversation with Captain Cuttle, on
account of the agreement between them.

'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'if I could have the pleasure of
a word with you, it's - it's rather particular.'

'Why, you see, my lad,' replied the Captain, leading the way
into the parlour, 'I ain't what you may call exactly free this
morning; and therefore if you can clap on a bit, I should take it
kindly.'

'Certainly, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, who seldom had any
notion of the Captain's meaning. 'To clap on, is exactly what I could
wish to do. Naturally.'

'If so be, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'Do it!'

The Captain was so impressed by the possession of his tremendous
secret - by the fact of Miss Dombey being at that moment under his
roof, while the innocent and unconscious Toots sat opposite to him -
that a perspiration broke out on his forehead, and he found it
impossible, while slowly drying the same, glazed hat in hand, to keep
his eyes off Mr Toots's face. Mr Toots, who himself appeared to have
some secret reasons for being in a nervous state, was so unspeakably
disconcerted by the Captain's stare, that after looking at him
vacantly for some time in silence, and shifting uneasily on his
chair, he said:

'I beg your pardon, Captain Gills, but you don't happen to see
anything particular in me, do you?'

'No, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'No.'

'Because you know,' said Mr Toots with a chuckle, 'I know I'm
wasting away. You needn't at all mind alluding to that. I - I should
like it. Burgess and Co. have altered my measure, I'm in that state
of thinness. It's a gratification to me. I - I'm glad of it. I - I'd
a great deal rather go into a decline, if I could. I'm a mere brute
you know, grazing upon the surface of the earth, Captain Gills.'

The more Mr Toots went on in this way, the more the Captain was
weighed down by his secret, and stared at him. What with this cause
of uneasiness, and his desire to get rid of Mr Toots, the Captain was
in such a scared and strange condition, indeed, that if he had been
in conversation with a ghost, he could hardly have evinced greater
discomposure.

'But I was going to say, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots.
'Happening to be this way early this morning - to tell you the truth,
I was coming to breakfast with you. As to sleep, you know, I never
sleep now. I might be a Watchman, except that I don't get any pay,
and he's got nothing on his mind.'

'Carry on, my lad!' said the Captain, in an admonitory voice.

'Certainly, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Perfectly true!
Happening to be this way early this morning (an hour or so ago), and
finding the door shut - '

'What! were you waiting there, brother?' demanded the
Captain.

'Not at all, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots. 'I didn't stop a
moment. I thought you were out. But the person said - by the bye, you
don't keep a dog, you, Captain Gills?'

The Captain shook his head.

'To be sure,' said Mr Toots, 'that's exactly what I said. I knew
you didn't. There is a dog, Captain Gills, connected with - but
excuse me. That's forbidden ground.'

The Captain stared at Mr Toots until he seemed to swell to twice
his natural size; and again the perspiration broke out on the
Captain's forehead, when he thought of Diogenes taking it into his
head to come down and make a third in the parlour.

'The person said,' continued Mr Toots, 'that he had heard a dog
barking in the shop: which I knew couldn't be, and I told him so. But
he was as positive as if he had seen the dog.'

'What person, my lad?' inquired the Captain.

'Why, you see there it is, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, with a
perceptible increase in the nervousness of his manner. 'It's not for
me to say what may have taken place, or what may not have taken
place. Indeed, I don't know. I get mixed up with all sorts of things
that I don't quite understand, and I think there's something rather
weak in my - in my head, in short.'

The Captain nodded his own, as a mark of assent.

'But the person said, as we were walking away,' continued Mr
Toots, 'that you knew what, under existing circumstances, might occur
- he said "might," very strongly - and that if you were requested to
prepare yourself, you would, no doubt, come prepared.'

'Person, my lad' the Captain repeated.

'I don't know what person, I'm sure, Captain Gills,' replied Mr
Toots, 'I haven't the least idea. But coming to the door, I found him
waiting there; and he said was I coming back again, and I said yes;
and he said did I know you, and I said, yes, I had the pleasure of
your acquaintance - you had given me the pleasure of your
acquaintance, after some persuasion; and he said, if that was the
case, would I say to you what I have said, about existing
circumstances and coming prepared, and as soon as ever I saw you,
would I ask you to step round the corner, if it was only for one
minute, on most important business, to Mr Brogley's the Broker's.
Now, I tell you what, Captain Gills - whatever it is, I am convinced
it's very important; and if you like to step round, now, I'll wait
here till you come back.'

The Captain, divided between his fear of compromising Florence
in some way by not going, and his horror of leaving Mr Toots in
possession of the house with a chance of finding out the secret, was
a spectacle of mental disturbance that even Mr Toots could not be
blind to. But that young gentleman, considering his nautical friend
as merely in a state of preparation for the interview he was going to
have, was quite satisfied, and did not review his own discreet
conduct without chuckle

At length the Captain decided, as the lesser of two evils, to
run round to Brogley's the Broker's: previously locking the door that
communicated with the upper part of the house, and putting the key in
his pocket. 'If so be,' said the Captain to Mr Toots, with not a
little shame and hesitation, 'as you'll excuse my doing of it,
brother.'

'Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'whatever you do, is
satisfactory to me.

The Captain thanked him heartily, and promising to come back in
less than five minutes, went out in quest of the person who had
entrusted Mr Toots with this mysterious message. Poor Mr Toots, left
to himself, lay down upon the sofa, little thinking who had reclined
there last, and, gazing up at the skylight and resigning himself to
visions of Miss Dombey, lost all heed of time and place.

It was as well that he did so; for although the Captain was not
gone long, he was gone much longer than he had proposed. When he came
back, he was very pale indeed, and greatly agitated, and even looked
as if he had been shedding tears. He seemed to have lost the faculty
of speech, until he had been to the cupboard and taken a dram of rum
from the case-bottle, when he fetched a deep breath, and sat down in
a chair with his hand before his face.

'Captain Gills,' said Toots, kindly, 'I hope and trust there's
nothing wrong?'

'Thank'ee, my lad, not a bit,' said the Captain. 'Quite
contrairy.'

'You have the appearance of being overcome, Captain Gills,'
observed Mr Toots.

'Why, my lad, I am took aback,' the Captain admitted. 'I am.'

'Is there anything I can do, Captain Gills?' inquired Mr Toots.
'If there is, make use of me.'

The Captain removed his hand from his face, looked at him with a
remarkable expression of pity and tenderness, and took him by the
hand, and shook it hard.

'No, thank'ee,' said the Captain. 'Nothing. Only I'll take it as
a favour if you'll part company for the present. I believe, brother,'
wringing his hand again, 'that, after Wal'r, and on a different
model, you're as good a lad as ever stepped.'

'Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots,
giving the Captain's hand a preliminary slap before shaking it again,
'it's delightful to me to possess your good opinion. Thank'ee.

'And bear a hand and cheer up,' said the Captain, patting him on
the back. 'What! There's more than one sweet creetur in the
world!'

'Not to me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots gravely. 'Not to
me, I assure you. The state of my feelings towards Miss Dombey is of
that unspeakable description, that my heart is a desert island, and
she lives in it alone. I'm getting more used up every day, and I'm
proud to be so. If you could see my legs when I take my boots off,
you'd form some idea of what unrequited affection is. I have been
prescribed bark, but I don't take it, for I don't wish to have any
tone whatever given to my constitution. I'd rather not. This,
however, is forbidden ground. Captain Gills, goodbye!'

Captain Cuttle cordially reciprocating the warmth of Mr Toots's
farewell, locked the door behind him, and shaking his head with the
same remarkable expression of pity and tenderness as he had regarded
him with before, went up to see if Florence wanted him.

There was an entire change in the Captain's face as he went
upstairs. He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief, and he polished
the bridge of his nose with his sleeve as he had done already that
morning, but his face was absolutely changed. Now, he might have been
thought supremely happy; now, he might have been thought sad; but the
kind of gravity that sat upon his features was quite new to them, and
was as great an improvement to them as if they had undergone some
sublimating process.

He knocked softly, with his hook, at Florence's door, twice or
thrice; but, receiving no answer, ventured first to peep in, and then
to enter: emboldened to take the latter step, perhaps, by the
familiar recognition of Diogenes, who, stretched upon the ground by
the side of her couch, wagged his tail, and winked his eyes at the
Captain, without being at the trouble of getting up.

She was sleeping heavily, and moaning in her sleep; and Captain
Cuttle, with a perfect awe of her youth, and beauty, and her sorrow,
raised her head, and adjusted the coat that covered her, where it had
fallen off, and darkened the window a little more that she might
sleep on, and crept out again, and took his post of watch upon the
stairs. All this, with a touch and tread as light as Florence's
own.

Long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of
decision, which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty's
goodness - the delicate fingers that are formed for sensitiveness and
sympathy of touch, and made to minister to pain and grief, or the
rough hard Captain Cuttle hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and
softens in a moment!

Florence slept upon her couch, forgetful of her homelessness and
orphanage, and Captain Cuttle watched upon the stairs. A louder sob
or moan than usual, brought him sometimes to her door; but by degrees
she slept more peacefully, and the Captain's watch was
undisturbed.