Oliver Twist
Fagin nodded in the affirmative. Pointing in the direction of Saffron
Hill, he inquired whether any one was up yonder tonight.
“At the Cripples?” inquired the man.
The Jew nodded.
“Let me see,” pursued the merchant, reflecting. “Yes, there’s some
half-dozen of ’em gone in, that I knows. I don’t think your friend’s
there.”
“Sikes is not, I suppose?” inquired the Jew, with a disappointed
countenance.
“_Non istwentus_, as the lawyers say,” replied the little man, shaking
his head, and looking amazingly sly. “Have you got anything in my line
tonight?”
“Nothing tonight,” said the Jew, turning away.
“Are you going up to the Cripples, Fagin?” cried the little man,
calling after him. “Stop! I don’t mind if I have a drop there with
you!”
But as the Jew, looking back, waved his hand to intimate that he
preferred being alone; and, moreover, as the little man could not very
easily disengage himself from the chair; the sign of the Cripples was,
for a time, bereft of the advantage of Mr. Lively’s presence. By the
time he had got upon his legs, the Jew had disappeared; so Mr. Lively,
after ineffectually standing on tiptoe, in the hope of catching sight
of him, again forced himself into the little chair, and, exchanging a
shake of the head with a lady in the opposite shop, in which doubt and
mistrust were plainly mingled, resumed his pipe with a grave demeanour.
The Three Cripples, or rather the Cripples; which was the sign by which
the establishment was familiarly known to its patrons: was the
public-house in which Mr. Sikes and his dog have already figured.
Merely making a sign to a man at the bar, Fagin walked straight
upstairs, and opening the door of a room, and softly insinuating
himself into the chamber, looked anxiously about: shading his eyes with
his hand, as if in search of some particular person.
The room was illuminated by two gas-lights; the glare of which was
prevented by the barred shutters, and closely-drawn curtains of faded
red, from being visible outside. The ceiling was blackened, to prevent
its colour from being injured by the flaring of the lamps; and the
place was so full of dense tobacco smoke, that at first it was scarcely
possible to discern anything more. By degrees, however, as some of it
cleared away through the open door, an assemblage of heads, as confused
as the noises that greeted the ear, might be made out; and as the eye
grew more accustomed to the scene, the spectator gradually became aware
of the presence of a numerous company, male and female, crowded round a
long table: at the upper end of which, sat a chairman with a hammer of
office in his hand; while a professional gentleman with a bluish nose,
and his face tied up for the benefit of a toothache, presided at a
jingling piano in a remote corner.
As Fagin stepped softly in, the professional gentleman, running over
the keys by way of prelude, occasioned a general cry of order for a
song; which having subsided, a young lady proceeded to entertain the
company with a ballad in four verses, between each of which the
accompanyist played the melody all through, as loud as he could. When
this was over, the chairman gave a sentiment, after which, the
professional gentleman on the chairman’s right and left volunteered a
duet, and sang it, with great applause.
It was curious to observe some faces which stood out prominently from
among the group. There was the chairman himself, (the landlord of the
house,) a coarse, rough, heavy built fellow, who, while the songs were
proceeding, rolled his eyes hither and thither, and, seeming to give
himself up to joviality, had an eye for everything that was done, and
an ear for everything that was said—and sharp ones, too. Near him were
the singers: receiving, with professional indifference, the compliments
of the company, and applying themselves, in turn, to a dozen proffered
glasses of spirits and water, tendered by their more boisterous
admirers; whose countenances, expressive of almost every vice in almost
every grade, irresistibly attracted the attention, by their very
repulsiveness. Cunning, ferocity, and drunkeness in all its stages,
were there, in their strongest aspect; and women: some with the last
lingering tinge of their early freshness almost fading as you looked:
others with every mark and stamp of their sex utterly beaten out, and
presenting but one loathsome blank of profligacy and crime; some mere
girls, others but young women, and none past the prime of life; formed
the darkest and saddest portion of this dreary picture.
Fagin, troubled by no grave emotions, looked eagerly from face to face
while these proceedings were in progress; but apparently without
meeting that of which he was in search. Succeeding, at length, in
catching the eye of the man who occupied the chair, he beckoned to him
slightly, and left the room, as quietly as he had entered it.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Fagin?” inquired the man, as he followed
him out to the landing. “Won’t you join us? They’ll be delighted, every
one of ’em.”
The Jew shook his head impatiently, and said in a whisper, “Is _he_
here?”
“No,” replied the man.
“And no news of Barney?” inquired Fagin.
“None,” replied the landlord of the Cripples; for it was he. “He won’t
stir till it’s all safe. Depend on it, they’re on the scent down there;
and that if he moved, he’d blow upon the thing at once. He’s all right
enough, Barney is, else I should have heard of him. I’ll pound it, that
Barney’s managing properly. Let him alone for that.”
“Will _he_ be here tonight?” asked the Jew, laying the same emphasis
on the pronoun as before.
“Monks, do you mean?” inquired the landlord, hesitating.
“Hush!” said the Jew. “Yes.”
“Certain,” replied the man, drawing a gold watch from his fob; “I
expected him here before now. If you’ll wait ten minutes, he’ll be—”
“No, no,” said the Jew, hastily; as though, however desirous he might
be to see the person in question, he was nevertheless relieved by his
absence. “Tell him I came here to see him; and that he must come to me
tonight. No, say tomorrow. As he is not here, tomorrow will be time
enough.”
“Good!” said the man. “Nothing more?”
“Not a word now,” said the Jew, descending the stairs.
“I say,” said the other, looking over the rails, and speaking in a
hoarse whisper; “what a time this would be for a sell! I’ve got Phil
Barker here: so drunk, that a boy might take him!”
“Ah! But it’s not Phil Barker’s time,” said the Jew, looking up. “Phil
has something more to do, before we can afford to part with him; so go
back to the company, my dear, and tell them to lead merry lives—_while
they last_. Ha! ha! ha!”
The landlord reciprocated the old man’s laugh; and returned to his
guests. The Jew was no sooner alone, than his countenance resumed its
former expression of anxiety and thought. After a brief reflection, he
called a hack-cabriolet, and bade the man drive towards Bethnal Green.
He dismissed him within some quarter of a mile of Mr. Sikes’s
residence, and performed the short remainder of the distance on foot.
“Now,” muttered the Jew, as he knocked at the door, “if there is any
deep play here, I shall have it out of you, my girl, cunning as you
are.”
She was in her room, the woman said. Fagin crept softly upstairs, and
entered it without any previous ceremony. The girl was alone; lying
with her head upon the table, and her hair straggling over it.
“She has been drinking,” thought the Jew, cooly, “or perhaps she is
only miserable.”
The old man turned to close the door, as he made this reflection; the
noise thus occasioned, roused the girl. She eyed his crafty face
narrowly, as she inquired to his recital of Toby Crackit’s story. When
it was concluded, she sank into her former attitude, but spoke not a
word. She pushed the candle impatiently away; and once or twice as she
feverishly changed her position, shuffled her feet upon the ground; but
this was all.
During the silence, the Jew looked restlessly about the room, as if to
assure himself that there were no appearances of Sikes having covertly
returned. Apparently satisfied with his inspection, he coughed twice or
thrice, and made as many efforts to open a conversation; but the girl
heeded him no more than if he had been made of stone. At length he made
another attempt; and rubbing his hands together, said, in his most
conciliatory tone,
“And where should you think Bill was now, my dear?”
The girl moaned out some half intelligible reply, that she could not
tell; and seemed, from the smothered noise that escaped her, to be
crying.
“And the boy, too,” said the Jew, straining his eyes to catch a glimpse
of her face. “Poor leetle child! Left in a ditch, Nance; only think!”
“The child,” said the girl, suddenly looking up, “is better where he
is, than among us; and if no harm comes to Bill from it, I hope he lies
dead in the ditch and that his young bones may rot there.”
“What!” cried the Jew, in amazement.
“Ay, I do,” returned the girl, meeting his gaze. “I shall be glad to
have him away from my eyes, and to know that the worst is over. I can’t
bear to have him about me. The sight of him turns me against myself,
and all of you.”
“Pooh!” said the Jew, scornfully. “You’re drunk.”
“Am I?” cried the girl bitterly. “It’s no fault of yours, if I am not!
You’d never have me anything else, if you had your will, except
now;—the humour doesn’t suit you, doesn’t it?”
“No!” rejoined the Jew, furiously. “It does not.”
“Change it, then!” responded the girl, with a laugh.
“Change it!” exclaimed the Jew, exasperated beyond all bounds by his
companion’s unexpected obstinacy, and the vexation of the night, “I
_will_ change it! Listen to me, you drab. Listen to me, who with six
words, can strangle Sikes as surely as if I had his bull’s throat
between my fingers now. If he comes back, and leaves the boy behind
him; if he gets off free, and dead or alive, fails to restore him to
me; murder him yourself if you would have him escape Jack Ketch. And do
it the moment he sets foot in this room, or mind me, it will be too
late!”
“What is all this?” cried the girl involuntarily.
“What is it?” pursued Fagin, mad with rage. “When the boy’s worth
hundreds of pounds to me, am I to lose what chance threw me in the way
of getting safely, through the whims of a drunken gang that I could
whistle away the lives of! And me bound, too, to a born devil that only
wants the will, and has the power to, to—”
Panting for breath, the old man stammered for a word; and in that
instant checked the torrent of his wrath, and changed his whole
demeanour. A moment before, his clenched hands had grasped the air; his
eyes had dilated; and his face grown livid with passion; but now, he
shrunk into a chair, and, cowering together, trembled with the
apprehension of having himself disclosed some hidden villainy. After a
short silence, he ventured to look round at his companion. He appeared
somewhat reassured, on beholding her in the same listless attitude from
which he had first roused her.
“Nancy, dear!” croaked the Jew, in his usual voice. “Did you mind me,
dear?”
“Don’t worry me now, Fagin!” replied the girl, raising her head
languidly. “If Bill has not done it this time, he will another. He has
done many a good job for you, and will do many more when he can; and
when he can’t he won’t; so no more about that.”
“Regarding this boy, my dear?” said the Jew, rubbing the palms of his
hands nervously together.
“The boy must take his chance with the rest,” interrupted Nancy,
hastily; “and I say again, I hope he is dead, and out of harm’s way,
and out of yours,—that is, if Bill comes to no harm. And if Toby got
clear off, Bill’s pretty sure to be safe; for Bill’s worth two of Toby
any time.”