Oliver Twist
“And about what I was saying, my dear?” observed the Jew, keeping his
glistening eye steadily upon her.
“You must say it all over again, if it’s anything you want me to do,”
rejoined Nancy; “and if it is, you had better wait till tomorrow. You
put me up for a minute; but now I’m stupid again.”
Fagin put several other questions: all with the same drift of
ascertaining whether the girl had profited by his unguarded hints; but,
she answered them so readily, and was withal so utterly unmoved by his
searching looks, that his original impression of her being more than a
trifle in liquor, was confirmed. Nancy, indeed, was not exempt from a
failing which was very common among the Jew’s female pupils; and in
which, in their tenderer years, they were rather encouraged than
checked. Her disordered appearance, and a wholesale perfume of Geneva
which pervaded the apartment, afforded strong confirmatory evidence of
the justice of the Jew’s supposition; and when, after indulging in the
temporary display of violence above described, she subsided, first into
dullness, and afterwards into a compound of feelings: under the
influence of which she shed tears one minute, and in the next gave
utterance to various exclamations of “Never say die!” and divers
calculations as to what might be the amount of the odds so long as a
lady or gentleman was happy, Mr. Fagin, who had had considerable
experience of such matters in his time, saw, with great satisfaction,
that she was very far gone indeed.
Having eased his mind by this discovery; and having accomplished his
twofold object of imparting to the girl what he had, that night, heard,
and of ascertaining, with his own eyes, that Sikes had not returned,
Mr. Fagin again turned his face homeward: leaving his young friend
asleep, with her head upon the table.
It was within an hour of midnight. The weather being dark, and piercing
cold, he had no great temptation to loiter. The sharp wind that scoured
the streets, seemed to have cleared them of passengers, as of dust and
mud, for few people were abroad, and they were to all appearance
hastening fast home. It blew from the right quarter for the Jew,
however, and straight before it he went: trembling, and shivering, as
every fresh gust drove him rudely on his way.
He had reached the corner of his own street, and was already fumbling
in his pocket for the door-key, when a dark figure emerged from a
projecting entrance which lay in deep shadow, and, crossing the road,
glided up to him unperceived.
“Fagin!” whispered a voice close to his ear.
“Ah!” said the Jew, turning quickly round, “is that—”
“Yes!” interrupted the stranger. “I have been lingering here these two
hours. Where the devil have you been?”
“On your business, my dear,” replied the Jew, glancing uneasily at his
companion, and slackening his pace as he spoke. “On your business all
night.”
“Oh, of course!” said the stranger, with a sneer. “Well; and what’s
come of it?”
“Nothing good,” said the Jew.
“Nothing bad, I hope?” said the stranger, stopping short, and turning a
startled look on his companion.
The Jew shook his head, and was about to reply, when the stranger,
interrupting him, motioned to the house, before which they had by this
time arrived: remarking, that he had better say what he had got to say,
under cover: for his blood was chilled with standing about so long, and
the wind blew through him.
Fagin looked as if he could have willingly excused himself from taking
home a visitor at that unseasonable hour; and, indeed, muttered
something about having no fire; but his companion repeating his request
in a peremptory manner, he unlocked the door, and requested him to
close it softly, while he got a light.
“It’s as dark as the grave,” said the man, groping forward a few steps.
“Make haste!”
“Shut the door,” whispered Fagin from the end of the passage. As he
spoke, it closed with a loud noise.
“That wasn’t my doing,” said the other man, feeling his way. “The wind
blew it to, or it shut of its own accord: one or the other. Look sharp
with the light, or I shall knock my brains out against something in
this confounded hole.”
Fagin stealthily descended the kitchen stairs. After a short absence,
he returned with a lighted candle, and the intelligence that Toby
Crackit was asleep in the back room below, and that the boys were in
the front one. Beckoning the man to follow him, he led the way
upstairs.
“We can say the few words we’ve got to say in here, my dear,” said the
Jew, throwing open a door on the first floor; “and as there are holes
in the shutters, and we never show lights to our neighbours, we’ll set
the candle on the stairs. There!”
With those words, the Jew, stooping down, placed the candle on an upper
flight of stairs, exactly opposite to the room door. This done, he led
the way into the apartment; which was destitute of all movables save a
broken arm-chair, and an old couch or sofa without covering, which
stood behind the door. Upon this piece of furniture, the stranger sat
himself with the air of a weary man; and the Jew, drawing up the
arm-chair opposite, they sat face to face. It was not quite dark; the
door was partially open; and the candle outside, threw a feeble
reflection on the opposite wall.
They conversed for some time in whispers. Though nothing of the
conversation was distinguishable beyond a few disjointed words here and
there, a listener might easily have perceived that Fagin appeared to be
defending himself against some remarks of the stranger; and that the
latter was in a state of considerable irritation. They might have been
talking, thus, for a quarter of an hour or more, when Monks—by which
name the Jew had designated the strange man several times in the course
of their colloquy—said, raising his voice a little,
“I tell you again, it was badly planned. Why not have kept him here
among the rest, and made a sneaking, snivelling pickpocket of him at
once?”
“Only hear him!” exclaimed the Jew, shrugging his shoulders.
“Why, do you mean to say you couldn’t have done it, if you had chosen?”
demanded Monks, sternly. “Haven’t you done it, with other boys, scores
of times? If you had had patience for a twelvemonth, at most, couldn’t
you have got him convicted, and sent safely out of the kingdom; perhaps
for life?”
“Whose turn would that have served, my dear?” inquired the Jew humbly.
“Mine,” replied Monks.
“But not mine,” said the Jew, submissively. “He might have become of
use to me. When there are two parties to a bargain, it is only
reasonable that the interests of both should be consulted; is it, my
good friend?”
“What then?” demanded Monks.
“I saw it was not easy to train him to the business,” replied the Jew;
“he was not like other boys in the same circumstances.”
“Curse him, no!” muttered the man, “or he would have been a thief, long
ago.”
“I had no hold upon him to make him worse,” pursued the Jew, anxiously
watching the countenance of his companion. “His hand was not in. I had
nothing to frighten him with; which we always must have in the
beginning, or we labour in vain. What could I do? Send him out with the
Dodger and Charley? We had enough of that, at first, my dear; I
trembled for us all.”
“_That_ was not my doing,” observed Monks.
“No, no, my dear!” renewed the Jew. “And I don’t quarrel with it now;
because, if it had never happened, you might never have clapped eyes on
the boy to notice him, and so led to the discovery that it was him you
were looking for. Well! I got him back for you by means of the girl;
and then _she_ begins to favour him.”
“Throttle the girl!” said Monks, impatiently.
“Why, we can’t afford to do that just now, my dear,” replied the Jew,
smiling; “and, besides, that sort of thing is not in our way; or, one
of these days, I might be glad to have it done. I know what these girls
are, Monks, well. As soon as the boy begins to harden, she’ll care no
more for him, than for a block of wood. You want him made a thief. If
he is alive, I can make him one from this time; and, if—if—” said the
Jew, drawing nearer to the other,—“it’s not likely, mind,—but if the
worst comes to the worst, and he is dead—”
“It’s no fault of mine if he is!” interposed the other man, with a look
of terror, and clasping the Jew’s arm with trembling hands. “Mind that.
Fagin! I had no hand in it. Anything but his death, I told you from the
first. I won’t shed blood; it’s always found out, and haunts a man
besides. If they shot him dead, I was not the cause; do you hear me?
Fire this infernal den! What’s that?”
“What!” cried the Jew, grasping the coward round the body, with both
arms, as he sprung to his feet. “Where?”
“Yonder!” replied the man, glaring at the opposite wall. “The shadow! I
saw the shadow of a woman, in a cloak and bonnet, pass along the
wainscot like a breath!”
The Jew released his hold, and they rushed tumultuously from the room.
The candle, wasted by the draught, was standing where it had been
placed. It showed them only the empty staircase, and their own white
faces. They listened intently: a profound silence reigned throughout
the house.
“It’s your fancy,” said the Jew, taking up the light and turning to his
companion.
“I’ll swear I saw it!” replied Monks, trembling. “It was bending
forward when I saw it first; and when I spoke, it darted away.”
The Jew glanced contemptuously at the pale face of his associate, and,
telling him he could follow, if he pleased, ascended the stairs. They
looked into all the rooms; they were cold, bare, and empty. They
descended into the passage, and thence into the cellars below. The
green damp hung upon the low walls; the tracks of the snail and slug
glistened in the light of the candle; but all was still as death.
“What do you think now?” said the Jew, when they had regained the
passage. “Besides ourselves, there’s not a creature in the house except
Toby and the boys; and they’re safe enough. See here!”
As a proof of the fact, the Jew drew forth two keys from his pocket;
and explained, that when he first went downstairs, he had locked them
in, to prevent any intrusion on the conference.
This accumulated testimony effectually staggered Mr. Monks. His
protestations had gradually become less and less vehement as they
proceeded in their search without making any discovery; and, now, he
gave vent to several very grim laughs, and confessed it could only have
been his excited imagination. He declined any renewal of the
conversation, however, for that night: suddenly remembering that it was
past one o’clock. And so the amiable couple parted.
CHAPTER XXVII.
ATONES FOR THE UNPOLITENESS OF A FORMER CHAPTER; WHICH DESERTED A LADY,
MOST UNCEREMONIOUSLY
As it would be, by no means, seemly in a humble author to keep so
mighty a personage as a beadle waiting, with his back to the fire, and
the skirts of his coat gathered up under his arms, until such time as
it might suit his pleasure to relieve him; and as it would still less
become his station, or his gallantry to involve in the same neglect a
lady on whom that beadle had looked with an eye of tenderness and
affection, and in whose ear he had whispered sweet words, which, coming
from such a quarter, might well thrill the bosom of maid or matron of
whatsoever degree; the historian whose pen traces these words—trusting
that he knows his place, and that he entertains a becoming reverence
for those upon earth to whom high and important authority is
delegated—hastens to pay them that respect which their position
demands, and to treat them with all that duteous ceremony which their
exalted rank, and (by consequence) great virtues, imperatively claim at
his hands. Towards this end, indeed, he had purposed to introduce, in