Tales from Dickens, Charles Dickens [best book club books .TXT] 📗

Florence. So at last he commenced to tell her a story about a shipwreck in which only one was saved, and then she began to suspect the truth and her heart beat joyfully. Just as he finished the story the door opened. There was Walter himself, alive and well, and with a cry of joy she sprang to his arms.

There was much to talk of that night in the little shop. With her face on Captain Cuttle's shoulder, Florence told him how and why she had left her home. And Walter, as he took her hand and kissed it, knew that she was a homeless, wandering fugitive, but richer to him thus than in all the wealth and pride of her former station, that had once made her seem so far off from him. Very soon after that he told Florence that he loved her—not as a brother, but as something even dearer—and she promised to be his wife.

On the evening before their wedding-day one more surprise came to them. They were all gathered in the shop when the outer door opened. Captain Cuttle suddenly hit the table a terrific blow with his hook, shouted "Sol Gills, ahoy!" and tumbled into the arms of a man in an old, weather-beaten coat. It was old Solomon Gills indeed, returned from his long search, and now, to see Walter there, weeping with joy.

In another moment Walter and Florence were both in his arms, too, and everybody was laughing and crying and talking together. Old Sol had been half-way around the world in his search for Walter, but had finally heard of his safety and started home, knowing he would go there also. It was a very joyous evening, that last evening of Florence's girl life.

The next morning Walter and Florence paid an early visit to the grave of little Paul. She bade it a long good-by, for Walter had become an officer of a ship and she was to make the coming voyage with her husband. Then they went to the church, where they were married, and a few days later they sailed away to China (with Captain Cuttle's big watch and sugar-tongs and teaspoons, that he had once offered to Mr. Dombey, for wedding presents), content in each other's love.

Often, indeed, in this happy honeymoon Florence remembered the father who had spurned her. But Walter's love had taken away the bitterness of that thought. She tried to love her father now rather as she loved the memory of little Paul—not as a cruel, cold, living man, but as some one who had once lived and who might once have loved her.

IV

HOW FLORENCE FOUND HER FATHER AT LAST

Mr. Dombey, alone in the silent house, had made no search for Florence. His pride bade him hide all traces of his grief and rage from the world. He had only one thought—to find where Carker had fled with his wife, to follow and to kill him. He hired detectives and at last discovered that Carker had gone to a certain city in France. And to that place he followed him.

Now Edith, desperate as she had been, had not really been so wicked as Mr. Dombey supposed her. She had deserted him, but she had not run away with Carker. In all the trouble between herself and Mr. Dombey, Carker (the smooth, smiling hypocrite!) had labored to make matters worse. He had lied to Mr. Dombey about his wife and taunted her with her position, and done everything in his power to make them hate each other more bitterly. At last, when he saw Edith could bear it no longer, he had begged her to run away with him, and when she refused, he had threatened her in many cowardly ways. But Edith hated him as much as she disliked her husband, and had not the least idea of running away with him. She had pretended to Carker that she would do so, and had led her husband and everybody else to think she had done so, but this was only to wound her husband's pride, and to punish him for all his tortures. Carker had followed her to France, but, once there, he had found the tables turned. Edith laughed at him and scorned him, and sent him from her, baffled and furious.

Carker was thus caught in his own trap. He had lost his own position and reputation, and had gained nothing for all his evil plots. And besides this, he was a fugitive, and Mr. Dombey, the man he had wronged, was on his track.

When he learned his enemy had followed him to France, Carker, raging, but cowardly, fled back to England; and back to England Edith's revengeful husband followed him day and night. The wicked manager knew no more peace or rest. He traveled into the country, seeking some lonely village in which to hide, but he could not shake off that grim pursuer.

They met at last face to face one day on a railroad platform when neither was expecting to see the other.

In the surprise of the meeting, Carker's foot slipped—he stepped backward, directly in the path of the engine that was roaring up the track. It caught him, and tossed him, and tore him limb from limb, and its iron wheels crushed and ground him to pieces.

And that was the end of Carker, of the white teeth and false smile, and Mr. Dombey went back to London, still proud and alone, still cold and forbidding.

But his conscience at last had begun to cry out against him, and to deafen its voice he plunged more and more recklessly into business, spending money too lavishly, and taking risks of which, in other days, he would not have thought.

The months went by and little by little the old firm of Dombey and Son became more entangled. Soon there were whispers that the business was in difficulty, but Mr. Dombey did not hear them. One morning the crash came. A bank closed and then suddenly the word went around that the old firm had failed.

It was too true. The proud, hard-hearted merchant, who had driven his daughter from him, was ruined and a beggar. His rich friends, whom he had treated so haughtily, shrugged their shoulders and sneered. Even Major Bagstock at his club grew purple in the face with chuckling.

The servants were all sent away, most of the furniture was sold at a public sale, and the old man, who had once been so proud and held his gray head so high, still sat on hour after hour in the echoing house, so empty now that even the rats would not live in it. What was he thinking?

At last, in his agony, his sorrow, his remorse, his despair, he remembered Florence. He saw again her trembling lips, her lonely face longing for love—the terrible hopeless change that came over it when his own cruel arm struck her on that final day when she had stood before him.

His pride at last had fallen. He knew now himself what it was to be rejected and deserted. He thought how the daughter he had disliked, of them all, had never changed in her love for him. And by his own act he had lost her for ever. His son, his wife, his fortune, all had gone, and now at last in his wretchedness he knew that Florence would always have been true to him if he had only let her.

Days passed, but he never left the house; every night he wandered through the empty rooms like a ghost. He grew to be a haggard, wasted likeness of himself. And one day the thought came to him that it would be better if he, too, were dead, even if it be by his own hand. This thought clung to him. He could not shake it off.

One day he took a pistol from his dressing-table and sat hugging it to his breast. At length he rose and stood in front of a mirror with the weapon in his hand.

But suddenly he heard a cry—a piercing, loving, rapturous cry—and he saw at his feet, clasping his knees, with her face lifted to his, Florence, his long-lost daughter.

"Papa, dearest papa!" she cried, "I have come back to you. I never can be happy more without you."

He tottered to a chair, feeling her draw his arms around her neck. He felt her wet cheek laid against his own. He heard her soft voice telling him that now she herself had a little child—a baby boy born at sea—whom she and Walter had named Paul.

"Dear papa," she said, "you will come home with me. We will teach our little child to love and honor you, and we will tell him when he can understand that you had a son of that name once, and that he died and that you were sorry; but that he is gone to Heaven, where we all hope to see him sometime. Kiss me, papa, as a promise that you will be reconciled. Never let us be parted any more!"

His hard heart had been melting while she spoke. As she clung closer to him he kissed her, and she heard him mutter, "Oh, God forgive me, for I need it very much!"

She drew him to his feet, and walking with a feeble gait he went with her. With her eyes upon his face and his arm about her, she led him to the coach waiting at the door and carried him away.

Mr. Dombey was very ill for a long time. When he recovered he was no longer his old self, but a gentle, loving, white-haired old man. Walter did not go to sea again, but found a position of great trust and confidence in London, and in their home the old man felt growing stronger and stronger his new-found love for the daughter whom till now he had never really known.

Florence never saw Edith again but once. Then the latter came back to bid her farewell for ever before she went to live in Italy. In these years Edith had seen her own pride and grieved for her fault. There were tears in her stern, dark eyes when Florence asked if she would send some message to Mr. Dombey.

"Tell him," she answered, "that if in his own present he can find a reason to think less bitterly of me, I asked him to do so. I will try to forgive him his share of blame; let him try to forgive me mine."

Time went happily by in the home of Walter and Florence. They often visited the little shop where stood the wooden midshipman, now in a new suit of paint. The sign above the door had become "Gills and Cuttle," for Old Sol and the Captain had gone into partnership, and the firm had grown rich through the successes of some of Solomon Gills's old investments which had finally turned out well.

Walter was beloved by everybody who knew him, and in time refounded the old firm of Dombey and Son.

Often in the summer, on the sea-beach, old Mr. Dombey might have been seen wandering with Florence's little children. The oldest was little Paul, and he thought of him sometimes almost as of the other little Paul who died.

But most of all the old gentleman loved the little girl. He could not bear to see her sit apart or with a cloud on her face. He often stole away to look at her in her sleep, and was fondest and most loving to her when there was no one by.

The child used to say then sometimes:

"Dear grandpa, why do you cry when you kiss me?"

But he would only answer, "Little Florence! Little Florence!" and smooth away the curls that shaded her earnest eyes.