OLIVER TWIST.
VOL. III.
[Illustration: _The Last Chance._]
OLIVER TWIST.
BY
CHARLES DICKENS.
AUTHOR OF “THE PICKWICK PAPERS.”
SECOND EDITION.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
————
1839.
WHITING,
BEAUFORT HOUSE.
OLIVER TWIST.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN MR. AND MRS. BUMBLE AND
MONKS, AT THEIR NOCTURNAL INTERVIEW.
IT was a dull, close, overcast summer evening, when 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 thunderstorm,—as 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 foot-prints. They went on in profound
silence; every now and then Mr. Bumble relaxed his pace, and turned
his head round, as if to make sure that his helpmate was following,
and, discovering that she was close at his heels, 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 and desperate ruffians,
who, under various pretences of living by their labour, subsisted
chiefly on plunder and crime. It was a collection of mere hovels, some
hastily built with loose bricks, and 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 passerby 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, and which 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 beneath, 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, 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 farther 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!” 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
further invitation, and Mr. Bumble, who was ashamed or afraid to lag
behind, followed, obviously very ill at his 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 yourself so easily, don’t think
it!”
With this agreeable speech Monks turned short upon the matron, and bent
his fierce 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 look of Monks.
“I know they will always keep _one_ till it’s found out,” said Monks
contemptuously.
“And what may that be?” asked the matron in the same tone.
“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 any body, not I. Do you
understand me?”
“No,” rejoined the matron, slightly colouring as she spoke.
“Of course you don’t!” said Monks ironically. “How should you?”
Bestowing something half-way between a sneer and a scowl 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, and 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 away
as if it echoed through a thousand caverns, where the devils are hiding
from it. Fire the sound! I hate it.”
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 nearly blank.
“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 upon 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 yokefellow 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 eagerly; “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, “and 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
any thing 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 parochial 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.”
As Mr. Bumble spoke, he made a melancholy feint of grasping his
lantern with fierce determination, and plainly showed, by the alarmed
expression of every feature, that he did want a little rousing, and
not a little, prior to making any very warlike demonstration, unless,
indeed, against paupers, or other person or persons trained down for
the purpose.
“You are a fool,” said Mrs. Bumble, in reply, “and had better hold your
tongue.”
“He had better have cut it out before he came, if he can’t speak in a
lower tone,” said Monks, grimly. “So he’s your husband, eh?”
“He my husband!” tittered the matron, parrying the question.
“I thought as much when you came in,” rejoined Monks, marking the angry
glance which the lady darted at her spouse as she spoke. “So much the
better; I have less hesitation in dealing with two people, when I find
that there’s only one will between them. I’m in earnest—see here.”
He thrust his hand into a side-pocket, and producing a canvass bag,
told out twenty-five sovereigns on the table, and pushed them over to
the woman.
“Now,” he said, “gather them up; and when this cursed peal of thunder,
that I feel is coming up to break over the house-top, is gone, let’s
hear your story.”
The roar of thunder, which seemed in fact much nearer, and to shiver
and break almost over their heads, having subsided, Monks, raising his
face from the table, bent forward to listen to what the woman should
say. The faces of the three nearly touched as the two men leant over
the small table in their eagerness to hear, and the woman also leant
forward to render her whisper audible. The sickly rays of the suspended
lantern falling directly upon them, aggravated the paleness and anxiety
of their countenances, which, encircled by the deepest gloom and
darkness, looked ghastly in the extreme.
“When this woman, that we called old Sally, died,” the matron began,
“she and I were alone.”
“Was there no one by?” asked Monks, in the same hollow whisper, “no
sick wretch or idiot in some other bed?—no one who could hear, and
might by possibility understand?”
“Not a soul,” replied the woman; “we were alone: _I_ stood alone beside
the body when death came over it.”
“Good,” said Monks, regarding her attentively: “go on.”
“She spoke of a young creature,” resumed the matron, “who had brought
a child into the world some years before: not merely in the same room,
but in the same bed in which she then lay dying.”
“Ay?” said Monks, with quivering lip, and glancing over his shoulder.
“Blood! How things come about at last!”
“The child was the one you named to him last night,” said the matron,
nodding carelessly towards her husband; “the mother this nurse had
robbed.”
“In life?” asked Monks.
“In death,” replied the woman, with something like a shudder. “She
stole from the corpse, when it had hardly turned to one, that which
the dead mother had prayed her with her last breath to keep for the
infant’s sake.”
“She sold it?” cried Monks, with desperate eagerness; “did she sell
it?—where?—when?—to whom?—how long before?”
“As she told me with great difficulty that she had done this,” said the
matron, “she fell back and died.”
“Without saying more?” cried Monks, in a voice which, from its very
suppression, seemed only the more furious. “It’s a lie! I’ll not be
played with. She said more—I’ll tear the life out of you both, but
I’ll know what it was.”
“She didn’t utter another word,” said the woman, to all appearance
unmoved (as Mr. Bumble was very far from being) by the strange man’s
violence; “but she clutched my gown violently with one hand, which was
partly closed, and when I saw that she was dead, and so removed the
hand by force, I found it clasped a scrap of dirty paper.”
“Which contained—” interposed Monks, stretching forward.
“Nothing,” replied the woman; “it was a pawnbroker’s duplicate.”
“For what?” demanded Monks.
“In good time I’ll tell you,” said the woman. “I judge that she had
kept the trinket for some time, in the hope of turning it to better
account, and then pawned it, and saved or scraped together money to pay
the pawnbroker’s interest year by year, and prevent its running out, so
that if any thing came of it, it could still be redeemed. Nothing had
come of it; and, as I tell you, she died with the scrap of paper, all
worn and tattered, in her hand. The time was out in two days; I thought
something might one day come of it too, and so redeemed the pledge.”
“Where is it now?” asked Monks quickly.
“_There_,” replied the woman. And, as if glad to be relieved of it, she
hastily threw upon the table a small kid bag scarcely large enough for
a French watch, which Monks pouncing upon, tore open with trembling
hands. It contained a little gold locket, in which were two locks of
hair, and a plain gold wedding-ring.
“It has the word ‘Agnes’ engraved on the inside,” said the woman.
“There is a blank left for the surname, and then follows the date,
which is within a year before the child was born; I found out that.”
“And this is all?” said Monks, after a close and eager scrutiny of the
contents of the little packet.
“All,” replied the woman.
Mr. Bumble drew a long breath, as if he were glad to find that the
story was over, and no mention made of taking the five-and-twenty
pounds back again; and now took courage to wipe off the perspiration,
which had been trickling over his nose unchecked during the whole of
the previous conversation.
“I know nothing of the story beyond what I can guess at,” said his
wife, addressing Monks after a short silence, “and I want to know
nothing, for it’s safer not. But I may ask you two questions, may I?”
“You may ask,” said Monks, with some show of surprise, “but whether I
answer or not is another question.”
“—Which makes three,” observed Mr. Bumble, essaying a stroke of
facetiousness.
“Is that what you expected to get from me?” demanded the matron.
“It is,” replied Monks. “The other question?—”
“What you propose to do with it. Can it be used against me?”
“Never,” rejoined Monks; “nor against me either. See here; but don’t
move a step forward, or your life’s not worth a bulrush!”
With these words he suddenly wheeled the table aside, and pulling an
iron ring in the boarding, threw back a large trap-door which opened
close at Mr. Bumble’s feet, and caused that gentleman to retire several
paces backward with great precipitation.
“Look down,” said Monks, lowering the lantern into the gulf. “Don’t
fear me. I could have let you down quietly enough when you were seated
over it, if that had been my game.”
Thus encouraged, the matron drew near to the brink, and even Mr. Bumble
himself, impelled by curiosity, ventured to do the same. The turbid
water, swollen by the heavy rain, was rushing rapidly on below, and
all other sounds were lost in the noise of its plashing and eddying
against the green and slimy piles. There had once been a water-mill
beneath, and the tide, foaming and chafing round the few rotten stakes,
and fragments of machinery, that yet remained, seemed to dart onward
with a new impulse when freed from the obstacles which had unavailingly
attempted to stem its headlong course.
“If you flung a man’s body down there, where would it be to-morrow
morning?” said Monks, swinging the lantern to and fro in the dark well.
“Twelve miles down the river, and cut to pieces besides,” replied
Bumble, recoiling at the very notion.
Monks drew the little packet from his breast, into which he had
hurriedly thrust it, and tying it firmly to a leaden weight which had
formed a part of some pulley, and was lying on the floor, dropped it
into the stream. It fell straight, and true as a die, clove the water
with a scarcely audible splash, and was gone.
[Illustration: _The evidence destroyed._]
The three looked into each other’s faces, and seemed to breathe more
freely.
“There!” said Monks, closing the trap-door, which fell heavily back
into its former position. “If the sea ever gives up its dead—as books
say it will—it will keep its gold and silver to itself, and that trash
among it. We have nothing more to say, and may break up our pleasant
party.”
“By all means,” observed Mr. Bumble with great alacrity.
“You’ll keep a quiet tongue in your head, will you?” said Monks, with a
threatening look. “I am not afraid of your wife.”
“You may depend upon me, young man,” answered Mr. Bumble, bowing
himself gradually towards the ladder with excessive politeness. “On
every body’s account, young man; on my own, you know, Mr. Monks.”
“I am glad for your sake to hear it,” remarked Monks. “Light your
lantern, and get away from here as fast as you can.”
It was fortunate that the conversation terminated at this point, or
Mr. Bumble, who had bowed himself to within six inches of the ladder,
would infallibly have pitched headlong into the room below. He lighted
his lantern from that which Monks had detached from the rope, and now
carried in his hand, and, making no effort to prolong the discourse,
descended in silence, followed by his wife. Monks brought up the rear,
after pausing on the steps to satisfy himself that there were no other
sounds to be heard than the beating of the rain without, and the
rushing of the water.
They traversed the lower room slowly, and with caution, for Monks
started at every shadow, and Mr. Bumble, holding his lantern a foot
above the ground, walked not only with remarkable care, but with
a marvellously light step for a gentleman of his figure: looking
nervously about him for hidden trap-doors. The gate at which they
had entered was softly unfastened and opened by Monks, and, merely
exchanging a nod with their mysterious acquaintance, the married couple
emerged into the wet and darkness outside.
They were no sooner gone, than Monks, who appeared to entertain an
invincible repugnance to being left alone, called to a boy who had been
hidden somewhere below, and bidding him go first, and bear the light,
returned to the chamber he had just quitted.