“God bless you, Susan; dearest Susan! If you ever can bear witness to the love I have for Walter, and the reason that I have to love him, do it for his sake. Goodbye! Goodbye!”
They have thought it better not to go back to the Midshipman, but to part so; a coach is waiting for them, near at hand.
Miss Nipper cannot speak; she only sobs and chokes, and hugs her mistress. Mr. Toots advances, urges her to cheer up, and takes charge of her. Florence gives him her hand—gives him, in the fullness of her heart, her lips—kisses Uncle Sol, and Captain Cuttle, and is borne away by her young husband.
But Susan cannot bear that Florence should go away with a mournful recollection of her. She had meant to be so different, that she reproaches herself bitterly. Intent on making one last effort to redeem her character, she breaks from Mr. Toots and runs away to find the coach, and show a parting smile. The Captain, divining her object, sets off after her; for he feels it his duty also to dismiss them with a cheer, if possible. Uncle Sol and Mr. Toots are left behind together, outside the church, to wait for them.
The coach is gone, but the street is steep, and narrow, and blocked up, and Susan can see it at a standstill in the distance, she is sure. Captain Cuttle follows her as she flies down the hill, and waves his glazed hat as a general signal, which may attract the right coach and which may not.
Susan outstrips the Captain, and comes up with it. She looks in at the window, sees Walter, with the gentle face beside him, and claps her hands and screams:
“Miss Floy, my darling! look at me! We are all so happy now, dear! One more goodbye, my precious, one more!”
How Susan does it, she don’t know, but she reaches to the window, kisses her, and has her arms about her neck, in a moment.
“We are all so—so happy now, my dear Miss Floy!” says Susan, with a suspicious catching in her breath. “You, you won’t be angry with me now. Now will you?”
“Angry, Susan!”
“No, no; I am sure you won’t. I say you won’t, my pet, my dearest!” exclaims Susan; “and here’s the Captain too—your friend the Captain, you know—to say goodbye once more!”
“Hooroar, my Heart’s Delight!” vociferates the Captain, with a countenance of strong emotion. “Hooroar, Wal’r my lad. Hooroar! Hooroar!”
What with the young husband at one window, and the young wife at the other; the Captain hanging on at this door, and Susan Nipper holding fast by that; the coach obliged to go on whether it will or no, and all the other carts and coaches turbulent because it hesitates; there never was so much confusion on four wheels. But Susan Nipper gallantly maintains her point. She keeps a smiling face upon her mistress, smiling through her tears, until the last. Even when she is left behind, the Captain continues to appear and disappear at the door, crying “Hooroar, my lad! Hooroar, my Heart’s Delight!” with his shirt-collar in a violent state of agitation, until it is hopeless to attempt to keep up with the coach any longer. Finally, when the coach is gone, Susan Nipper, being rejoined by the Captain, falls into a state of insensibility, and is taken into a baker’s shop to recover.
Uncle Sol and Mr. Toots wait patiently in the churchyard, sitting on the coping-stone of the railings, until Captain Cuttle and Susan come back. Neither being at all desirous to speak, or to be spoken to, they are excellent company, and quite satisfied. When they all arrive again at the little Midshipman, and sit down to breakfast, nobody can touch a morsel. Captain Cuttle makes a feint of being voracious about toast, but gives it up as a swindle. Mr. Toots says, after breakfast, he will come back in the evening; and goes wandering about the town all day, with a vague sensation upon him as if he hadn’t been to bed for a fortnight.
There is a strange charm in the house, and in the room, in which they have been used to be together, and out of which so much is gone. It aggravates, and yet it soothes, the sorrow of the separation. Mr. Toots tells Susan Nipper when he comes at night, that he hasn’t been so wretched all day long, and yet he likes it. He confides in Susan Nipper, being alone with her, and tells her what his feelings were when she gave him that candid opinion as to the probability of Miss Dombey’s ever loving him. In the vein of confidence engendered by these common recollections, and their tears, Mr. Toots proposes that they shall go out together, and buy something for supper. Miss Nipper assenting, they buy a good many little things; and, with the aid of Mrs. Richards, set the supper out quite showily before the Captain and old Sol came home.
The Captain and old Sol have been on board the ship, and have established Di there, and have seen the chests put aboard. They have much to tell about the popularity of Walter, and the comforts he will have about him, and the quiet way in which it seems he has been working early and late, to make his cabin what the Captain calls “a picter,” to surprise his little wife. “A admiral’s cabin, mind you,” says the Captain, “ain’t more trim.”
But one of the Captain’s chief delights is, that he knows the big watch, and the sugar-tongs, and teaspoons, are on board: and again and again he murmurs to himself, “Ed’ard Cuttle, my lad, you never shaped a better course in your life than when you made that there little
