Oliver Twist (23 page)

“Nothing, sir,” replied the child faintly.

“I should think not,” said Mrs. Mann, who had of course laughed very much at Mr. Bumble’s humour. “You want for nothing, I’m sure.”

“I should like—” faltered the child.

“Heyday!” interposed Mrs. Mann, “I suppose you’re going to say that you
do
want for something, now? Why, you little wretch—”

“Stop, Mrs. Mann, stop!” said the beadle, raising his hand with a show of authority. “Like what, sir, eh?”

“I should like,” faltered the child, “if somebody that can write, would put a few words down for me on a piece of paper, and fold it up and seal it, and keep it for me, after I am laid in the ground.”

“Why, what does the boy mean?” exclaimed Mr. Bumble, on whom the earnest manner and wan aspect of the child had made some impression, accustomed as he was to such things. “What do you mean, sir?”

“I should like,” said the child, “to leave my dear love to poor Oliver Twist, and to let him know how often I have sat by myself and cried to think of his wandering about in the dark nights with nobody to help him. And I should like to tell him,” said the child, pressing his small hands together, and speaking with great fervour, “that I was glad to die when I was very young; for, perhaps, if I had lived to be a man and had grown old, my little sister, who is in Heaven, might forget me or be unlike me; and it would be so much happier if we were both children there together.”

Mr. Bumble surveyed the little speaker, from head to foot, with indescribable astonishment, and, turning to his companion, said, “They’re all in one story, Mrs. Mann. That outda cious Oliver has demogalized them all!”

“I couldn’t have believed it, sir!” said Mrs. Mann, holding up her hands, and looking malignantly at Dick. “I never see such a hardened little wretch!”

“Take him away, ma‘am!” said Mr. Bumble imperiously. “This must be stated to the board, Mrs. Mann.”

“I hope the gentlemen will understand that it isn’t my fault, sir?” said Mrs. Mann, whimpering pathetically.

“They shall understand that, ma‘am; they shall be acquainted with the true state of the case,” said Mr. Bumble. “There; take him away, I can’t bear the sight on him.”

Dick was immediately taken away, and locked up in the coal-cellar. Mr. Bumble shortly afterwards took himself off to prepare for his journey.

At six o‘clock next morning Mr. Bumble, having exchanged his cocked hat for a round one and encased his person in a blue greatcoat with a cape to it, took his place on the outside of the coach, accompanied by the criminals whose settlement was disputed, with whom, in due course of time, he arrived in London. He experienced no other crosses on the way than those which originated in the perverse behaviour of the two paupers, who persisted in shivering, and complaining of the cold, in a manner which, Mr. Bumble declared, caused his teeth to chatter in his head, and made him feel quite uncomfortable, although he had a greatcoat on.

Having disposed of these evil-minded persons for the night, Mr. Bumble sat himself down in the house at which the coach stopped and took a temperate dinner of steaks, oyster sauce, and porter. Putting a glass of hot gin-and-water on the chimney-piece, he drew his chair to the fire and, with sundry moral reflections on the too-prevalent sin of discontent and complaining, composed himself to read the paper.

The very first paragraph upon which Mr. Bumble’s eye rested, was the following advertisement.

“FIVE GUINEAS REWARD

 

“Whereas a young boy, named Oliver Twist, absconded, or was enticed, on Thursday evening last, from his home, at Pentonville ; and has not since been heard of. The above reward will be paid to any person who will give such information as will lead to the discovery of the said Oliver Twist, or tend to throw any light upon his previous history, in which the advertiser is, for many reasons, warmly interested.”

 

And then followed a full description of Oliver’s dress, person, appearance, and disappearance, with the name and address of Mr. Brownlow at full length.

Mr. Bumble opened his eyes; read the advertisement, slowly and carefully, three several times; and in something more than five minutes was on his way to Pentonville, having actually, in his excitement, left the glass of hot gin-and-water, untasted.

“Is Mr. Brownlow at home?” inquired Mr. Bumble of the girl who opened the door.

To this inquiry the girl returned the not uncommon but rather evasive reply of “I don’t know; where do you come from?”

Mr. Bumble no sooner uttered Oliver’s name, in explanation of his errand, than Mrs. Bedwin, who had been listening at the parlour door, hastened into the passage in a breathless state.

“Come in, come in,” said the old lady; “I knew we should hear of him. Poor dear! I knew we should! I was certain of it. Bless his heart! I said so, all along.”

Having said this, the worthy old lady hurried back into the parlour again and, seating herself on a sofa, burst into tears. The girl, who was not quite so susceptible, had run upstairs meanwhile, and now returned with a request that Mr. Bumble would follow her immediately, which he did.

He was shown into the little back study, where sat Mr. Brownlow and his friend Mr. Grimwig, with decanters and glasses before them. The latter gentleman at once burst into the exclamation:

“A beadle! A parish beadle, or I’ll eat my head.”

“Pray don’t interrupt just now,” said Mr. Brownlow. “Take a seat, will you?”

Mr. Bumble sat himself down, quite confounded by the oddity of Mr. Grimwig’s manner. Mr. Brownlow moved the lamp so as to obtain an uninterrupted view of the Beadle’s countenance, and said, with a little impatience:

“Now, sir, you come in consequence of having seen the advertisement?”

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Bumble.

“And you
are
a beadle, are you not?” inquired Mr. Grimwig.

“I am porochial beadle, gentlemen,” rejoined Mr. Bumble, proudly.

“Of course,” observed Mr. Grimwig aside to his friend, “I knew he was. A beadle all over!”

Mr. Brownlow gently shook his head to impose silence on his friend, and resumed:

“Do you know where this poor boy is now?”

“No more than nobody,” replied Mr. Bumble.

“Well, what
do
you know of him?” inquired the old gentleman. “Speak out, my friend, if you have anything to say. What do you know of him?”

“You don’t happen to know any good of him, do you?” said Mr. Grimwig, caustically, after an attentive perusal of Mr. Bumble’s features.

Mr. Bumble, catching at the inquiry very quickly, shook his head with portentous solemnity.

“You see?” said Mr. Grimwig, looking triumphantly, at Mr. Brownlow.

Mr. Brownlow looked apprehensively at Mr. Bumble’s pursed-up countenance, and requested him to communicate what he knew regarding Oliver in as few words as possible.

Mr. Bumble put down his hat, unbuttoned his coat, folded his arms, inclined his head in a retrospective manner, and, after a few moments’ reflection, commenced his story.

It would be tedious if given in the beadle’s words—occupying, as it did, some twenty minutes in the telling—but the sum and substance of it was. That Oliver was a foundling, born of low and vicious parents. That he had, from his birth, displayed no better qualities than treachery, ingratitude, and malice. That he had terminated his brief career in the place of his birth, by making a sanguinary and cowardly attack on an unoffending lad, and running away in the night-time from his master’s house. In proof of his really being the person he represented himself, Mr. Bumble laid upon the table the papers he had brought to town. Folding his arms again, he then awaited Mr. Brownlow’s observations.

“I fear it is all too true,” said the old gentleman sorrowfully, after looking over the papers. “This is not much for your intelligence, but I would gladly have given you treble the money if it had been favourable to the boy.”

It is not improbable that if Mr. Bumble had been possessed of this information at an earlier period of the interview, he might have imparted a very different colouring to his little history. It was too late to do it now, however; so he shook his head gravely and, pocketing the five guineas, withdrew.

Mr. Brownlow paced the room to and fro for some minutes, evidently so much disturbed by the beadle’s tale that even Mr. Grimwig forbore to vex him further.

At length he stopped, and rang the bell violently.

“Mrs. Bedwin,” said Mr. Brownlow, when the housekeeper appeared; “that boy, Oliver, is an imposter.”

“It can’t be, sir. It cannot be,” said the old lady energetically.

“I tell you he is,” retorted the old gentleman. “What do you mean by can’t be? We have just heard a full account of him from his birth; and he has been a thorough-paced little villain all his life.”

“I never will believe it, sir,” replied the old lady, firmly. “Never!”

“You old women never believe anything but quack-doctors, and lying story-books,” growled Mr. Grimwig. “I knew it all along. Why didn’t you take my advice in the beginning; you would, if he hadn’t had a fever, I suppose, eh? He was interesting, wasn’t he? Interesting! Bah!” And Mr. Grimwig poked the fire with a flourish.

“He was a dear, grateful, gentle child, sir,” retorted Mrs. Bedwin, indignantly. “I know what children are, sir; and have done these forty years; and people who can’t say the same, shouldn’t say anything about them. That’s my opinion!”

This was a hard hit at Mr. Grimwig, who was a bachelor. As it extorted nothing from that gentleman but a smile, the old lady tossed her head and smoothed down her apron preparatory to another speech, when she was stopped by Mr. Brownlow.

“Silence!” said the old gentleman, feigning an anger he was far from feeling. “Never let me hear the boy’s name again. I rang to tell you that. Never. Never, on any pretence, mind! You may leave the room, Mrs Bedwin. Remember! I am in earnest.”

There were sad hearts at Mr. Brownlow’s that night.

Oliver’s heart sank within him when he thought of his good kind friends; it was well for him that he could not know what they had heard, or it might have broken outright.

 

ABOUT NOON NEXT DAY, WHEN THE DODGER AND MASTER BATES had gone out to pursue their customary avocations, Mr. Fagin took the opportunity of reading Oliver a long lecture on the crying sin of ingratitude, of which he clearly demonstrated he had been guilty, to no ordinary extent, in wilfully absenting himself from the society of his anxious friends and, still more, in endeavouring to escape from them after so much trouble and expense had been incurred in his recovery. Mr. Fagin laid great stress on the fact of his having taken Oliver in, and cherished him, when, without his timely aid, he might have perished with hunger; and he related the dismal and affecting. history of a young lad whom, in his philanthropy, he had succoured under parallel circumstances, but who, proving unworthy of his confidence and evincing a desire to communicate with the police, had unfortunately come to be hanged at the Old Bailey one morning. Mr. Fagin did not seek to conceal his share in the catastrophe, but lamented with tears in his eyes that the wrong-headed and treacherous behaviour of the young person in question had rendered it necessary that he should become the victim of certain evidence for the crown—which, if it were not precisely true, was indispensably necessary for the safety of him (Mr. Fagin) and a few select friends. Mr. Fagin concluded by drawing a rather disagreeable picture of the discomforts of hanging, and, with great friendliness and politeness of manner, expressed his anxious hopes that he might never be obliged to submit Oliver Twist to that unpleasant operation.

Little Oliver’s blood ran cold as he listened to the Jew’s words, and imperfectly comprehended the dark threats conveyed in them. That it was possible even for justice itself to confound the innocent with the guilty when they were in accidental companionship, he knew already; and that deeply-laid plans for the destruction of inconveniently knowing or over-communicative persons, had been really devised and carried out by the old Jew on more occasions than one, he thought by no means unlikely when he recollected the general nature of the altercations between that gentleman and Mr. Sikes, which seemed to bear reference to some foregone conspiracy of the kind. As he glanced timidly up and met the Jew’s searching look, he felt that his pale face and trembling limbs were neither unnoticed nor unrelished by that wary old gentleman.

The Jew, smiling hideously, patted Oliver on the head, and said that if he kept himself quiet, and applied himself to business, he saw they would be very good friends yet. Then, taking his hat, and covering himself with an old patched greatcoat, he went out and locked the room-door behind him.

And so Oliver remained all that day, and for the greater part of many subsequent days, seeing nobody between early morning and midnight, and left during the long hours to commune with his own thoughts. Which, never failing to revert to his kind friends, and the opinion they must long ago have formed of him, were sad indeed.

After the lapse of a week or so, the Jew left the room-door unlocked; and he was at liberty to wander about the house.

It was a very dirty place. The rooms upstairs had great high wooden chimney-pieces and large doors, with panelled walls and cornices to the ceilings, which, although they were black with neglect and dust, were ornamented in various ways. From all of these tokens Oliver concluded that a long time ago, before the old Jew was born, it had belonged to better people, and had perhaps been quite gay and handsome, dismal and dreary as it looked now.

Spiders had built their webs in the angles of the walls and ceilings; and sometimes, when Oliver walked softly in a room, the mice would scamper across the floor and run back terrified to their holes. With these exceptions, there was neither sight nor sound of any living thing; and often, when it grew dark, and he was tired of wandering from room to room, he would crouch in the corner of the passage by the street-door, to be as near living people as he could, and would remain there, listening and counting the hours, until the Jew or the boys returned.