Oliver Twist (46 page)

“Yes,” said the stranger. “A boy was born there.”

“A many boys,” observed Mr. Bumble, shaking his head, despondingly.

“A murrain on the young devils!” cried the stranger; “I speak of one; a meek-looking, pale-faced boy, who was apprenticed down here to a coffin-maker—I wish he had made his coffin, and screwed his body in it—and who afterwards ran away to London, as it was supposed.”

“Why, you mean Oliver! Young Twist!” said Mr. Bumble; “I remember him, of course. There wasn’t a obstinater young’ rascal—”

“It’s not of him I want to hear; I’ve heard enough of him,” said the stranger, stopping Mr. Bumble in the outset of a tirade on the subject of poor Oliver’s vices. “It’s of a woman; the hag that nursed his mother. Where is she?”

“Where is she?” said Mr. Bumble, whom the gin-and-water had rendered facetious. “It would be hard to tell. There’s no midwifery there, whichever place she’s gone to; so I suppose she’s out of employment, anyway.”

“What do you mean?” demanded the stranger, sternly.

“That she died last winter,” rejoined Mr. Bumble.

The man looked fixedly at him when he had given this information, and although he did not withdraw his eyes for some time afterwards, his gaze gradually became vacant and abstracted, and he seemed lost in thought. For some time he appeared doubtful whether he ought to be relieved or disappointed by the intelligence; but at length he breathed more freely and, withdrawing his eyes, observed that it was no great matter. With that he rose, as if to depart.

But Mr. Bumble was cunning enough; and he at once saw that an opportunity was opened for the lucrative disposal of some secret in the possession of his better half. He well remembered the night of old Sally’s death, which the occurrences of that day had given him good reason to recollect as the occasion on which he had proposed to Mrs. Corney; and although that lady had never confided to him the disclosure of which she had been the solitary witness, he had heard enough to know that it related to something that had occurred in the old woman’s attendance, as workhouse nurse, upon the young mother of Oliver Twist. Hastily calling this circumstance to mind, he informed the stranger, with an air of mystery, that one woman had been closeted with the old harridan shortly before she died, and that she could, as he had reason to believe, throw some light on the subject of his inquiry.

“How can I find her?” said the stranger, thrown off his guard, and plainly showing that all his fears (whatever they were) were aroused afresh by the intelligence.

“Only through me,” rejoined Mr. Bumble.

“When?” cried the stranger, hastily.

“To-morrow,” rejoined Bumble.

“At nine in the evening,” said the stranger, producing a scrap of paper and writing down upon it an obscure address by the water-side, in characters that betrayed his agitation; “at nine in the evening, bring her to me there. I needn’t tell you to be secret. It’s your interest.”

With these words, he led the way to the door, after stopping to pay for the liquor that had been drunk. Shortly remarking that their roads were different, he departed, without more ceremony than an emphatic repetition of the hour of appointment for the following night.

On glancing at the address, the parochial functionary observed that it contained no name. The stranger had not gone far, so he made after him to ask it.

“What do you want?” cried the man, turning quickly round, as Bumble touched him on the arm. “Following me?”

“Only to ask a question,” said the other, pointing to the scrap of paper. “What name am I to ask for?”

“Monks!” rejoined the man: and strode hastily away.

 

IT WAS A DULL, CLOSE, OVERCAST SUMMER EVENING. THE clouds, which had been threatening all day, spread out in a dense and sluggish mass of vapour, already yielded large drops of rain, and seemed to presage a violent thunder-storm, when Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, turning out of the main street of the town, directed their course towards a scattered little colony of ruinous houses, distant from it some mile and a half or thereabouts, and erected on a low unwholesome swamp bordering upon the river.

They were both wrapped in old and shabby outer garments, which might, perhaps, serve the double purpose of protecting their persons from the rain and sheltering them from observation. The husband carried a lantern, from which, however, no light yet shone; and trudged on, a few paces in front, as though—the way being dirty—to give his wife the benefit of treading in his heavy footprints. They went on, in profound silence; every now and then Mr. Bumble relaxed his pace and turned his head as if to make sure that his helpmate was following; then, discovering that she was close at his heels, he mended his rate of walking and proceeded. at a considerable increase of speed, towards their place of destination.

This was far from being a place of doubtful character; for it had long been known as the residence of none but low ruffians, who, under various pretences of living by their labour, subsisted chiefly on plunder and crime. It was a collection of mere hovets—some hastily built with loose bricks, others, of old worm-eaten ship-timber—jumbled together without any attempt at order or arrangement, and planted, for the most part, within a few feet of the river’s bank. A few leaky boats drawn up on the mud and made fast to the dwarf wall which skirted it, and here and there an oar or coil of rope, appeared at first to indicate that the inhabitants of these miserable cottages pursued some avocation on the river; but a glance at the shattered and useless condition of the articles thus displayed would have led a passer-by, without much difficulty, to the conjecture that they were disposed there rather for the preservation of appearances than with any view to their being actually employed.

In the heart of this cluster of huts, and skirting the river, which its upper stories overhung, stood a large building, formerly used as a manufactory of some kind. It had, in its day, probably furnished employment to the inhabitants of the surrounding tenements. But it had long since gone to ruin. The rat, the worm, and the action of the damp had weakened and rotted the piles on which it stood; and a considerable portion of the building had already sunk down into the water, while the remainder, tottering and bending over the dark stream, seemed to wait a favourable opportunity of following its old companion and involving itself in the same fate.

It was before this ruinous building that the worthy couple paused as the first peal of distant thunder reverberated in the air, and the rain commenced pouring violently down.

“The place should be somewhere here,” said Bumble, consulting a scrap of paper he held in his hand.

“Halloa there!” cried a voice from above.

Following the sound, Mr. Bumble raised his head and descried a man looking out of a door, breast-high, on the second story.

“Stand still, a minute,” cried the voice; “I’ll be with you directly.” With which the head disappeared and the door closed.

“Is that the man?” asked Mr. Bumble’s good lady.

Mr. Bumble nodded in the affirmative.

“Then mind what I told you.” said the matron, “and be careful to say as little as you can, or you’ll betray us at once.”

Mr. Bumble, who had eyed the building with very rueful looks, was apparently about to express some doubts relative to the advisability of proceeding any further with the enterprise just then, when he was prevented by the appearance of Monks, who opened a small door, near which they stood, and beckoned them inwards.

“Come in!” he cried impatiently, stamping his foot upon the ground. “Don’t keep me here!”

The woman, who had hesitated at first, walked boldly in without any other invitation. Mr. Bumble, who was ashamed or afraid to lag behind, followed, obviously very ill at ease and with scarcely any of that remarkable dignity which was usually his chief characteristic.

“What the devil made you stand lingering there in the wet?” said Monks, turning round and addressing Bumble, after he had bolted the door behind them.

“We—we were only cooling ourselves,” stammered Bumble, looking apprehensively about him.

“Cooling yourselves!” retorted Monks. “Not all the rain that ever fell, or ever will fall, will put as much of hell’s fire out as a man can carry about with him. You won’t cool yourselves so easily; don’t think it!”

With this agreeable speech, Monks turned short upon the matron and bent his gaze upon her till even she, who was not easily cowed, was fain to withdraw her eyes and turn them towards the ground.

“This is the woman, is it?” demanded Monks.

“Hem! That is the woman,” replied Mr. Bumble, mindful of his wife’s caution.

“You think women never can keep secrets, I suppose?” said the matron, interposing, and returning, as she spoke, the searching looks of Monks.

“I know they will always keep
one
till it’s found out,” said Monks.

“And what may that be?” asked the matron.

“The loss of their own good name,” replied Monks. “So, by the same rule, if a woman’s a party to a secret that might hang or transport her, I’m not afraid of her telling it to anybody, not I! Do you understand, mistress?”

“No,” rejoined the matron, slightly colouring as she spoke.

“Of course you don‘t!” said Monks. “How should you?”

Bestowing something half-way between a smile and a frown upon his two companions, and again beckoning them to follow him, the man hastened across the apartment, which was of considerable extent but low in the roof. He was preparing to ascend a steep staircase, or rather ladder, leading to another floor of warehouses above, when a bright flash of lightning streamed down the aperture, and a peal of thunder followed, which shook the crazy building to its centre.

“Hear it!” he cried, shrinking back. “Hear it! Rolling and crashing on as if it echoed through a thousand caverns where the devils were hiding from it. I hate the sound!”

He remained silent for a few moments; and then, removing his hands suddenly from his face, showed, to the unspeakable discomposure of Mr. Bumble, that it was much distorted, and discoloured.

“These fits come over me, now and then,” said Monks, observing his alarm; “and thunder sometimes brings them on. Don’t mind me now; it’s all over for this once.”

Thus speaking, he led the way up the ladder and, hastily closing the window-shutter of the room into which it led, lowered a lantern which hung at the end of a rope and pulley passed through one of the heavy beams in the ceiling, and which cast a dim light up on an old table and three chairs that were placed beneath it.

“Now,” said Monks, when they had all three seated themselves, “the sooner we come to our business, the better for all. The woman knows what it is, does she?”

The question was addressed to Bumble, but his wife anticipated the reply by intimating that she was perfectly acquainted with it.

“He is right in saying that you were with this hag the night she died, and that she told you something—”

“About the mother of the boy you named,” replied the matron interrupting him. “Yes.”

“The first question is, of what nature was her communication?” said Monks.

“That’s the second,” observed the woman with much deliberation. “The first is, what may the communication be worth?”

“Who the devil can tell that, without knowing of what kind it is?” asked Monks.

“Nobody better than you, I am persuaded,” answered Mrs. Bumble, who did not want for spirit, as her yoke-fellow could abundantly testify.

“Humph!” said Monks significantly, and with a look of eager inquiry; “there may be money’s worth to get, eh?”

“Perhaps there may,” was the composed reply.

“Something that was taken from her,” said Monks. “Something that she wore. Something that—”

“You had better bid,” interrupted Mrs. Bumble. “I have heard enough, already, to assure me that you are the man I ought to talk to.”

Mr. Bumble, who had not yet been admitted by his better half into any greater share of the secret than he had originally possessed, listened to this dialogue with outstretched neck and distended eyes, which he directed towards his wife and Monks, by turns, in undisguised astonishment—increased, if possible, when the latter sternly demanded what sum was required for the disclosure.

“What’s it worth to you?” asked the woman, as collectedly as before.

“It may be nothing; it may be twenty pounds,” replied Monks. “Speak, out, and let me know which.”

“Add five pounds to the sum you have named; give me five-and-twenty pounds in gold,” said the woman; “and I’ll tell you all I know. Not before.”

“Five”-and-twenty pounds!” exclaimed Monks, drawing back.

“I spoke as plainly as I could,” replied Mrs. Bumble. “It’s not a large sum, either.”

“Not a large sum for a paltry secret that may be nothing when it’s told!” cried Monks impatiently; “and which has been lying dead for twelve years past or more!”

“Such matters keep well and, like good wine, often double their value in course of time,” answered the matron, still preserving the resolute indifference she had assumed. “As to lying dead, there are those who will lie dead for twelve thousand years to come, or twelve million, for anything you or I know, who will tell strange tales at last!”

“What if I pay it for nothing?” asked Monks, hesitating.

“You can easily take it away again,” replied the matron. “I am but a woman, alone here, and unprotected.”

“Not alone, my dear, nor unprotected neither,” submitted Mr. Bumble, in a voice tremulous with fear:
“I
am here, my dear. And besides,” said Mr. Bumble, his teeth chattering as he spoke, “Mr. Monks is too much of a gentleman to attempt any violence on porochial persons. Mr. Monks is aware that I am not a young man. my dear, and also that I am a little run to seed, as I may say; but he has heerd—I say I have no doubt Mr. Monks has heerd, my dear—that! I am a very determined officer, with very uncommon strength. if I’m once roused. I only want a little rousing, that’s all.”