Mrs. Bumble shouting at Mr. Bumble in front of the washerwomenMr. Bumble degraded in the eyes of the Paupers.
Mr. Bumble degraded in the eyes of the Paupers.
“You thought they were talking too much?” said Mrs. Bumble. “What business is it of yours?”
“Why, my dear—” urged Mr. Bumble, submissively.
“What business is it of yours?” demanded Mrs. Bumble, again.
“It’s very true, you’re matron here, my dear,” submitted Mr. Bumble; “but I thought you mightn’t be in the way just then.”
“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Bumble,” returned his lady, “we don’t want any of your interference, and you’re a great deal too fond of poking your nose into things that don’t concern you, making everybody in the house laugh the moment your back is turned, and making yourself look like a fool every hour in the day. Be off; come!”
Mr. Bumble, seeing with excruciating feelings the delight of the two old paupers who were tittering together most rapturously, hesitated for an instant. Mrs. Bumble, whose patience brooked no delay, caught up a bowl of soap-suds, and motioning him towards the door, ordered him instantly to depart, on pain of receiving the contents upon his portly person.
What could Mr. Bumble do? He looked dejectedly round, and slunk away; and, as he reached the door, the titterings of the paupers broke into a shrill chuckle of irrepressible delight It wanted but this. He was degraded in their eyes; he had lost caste and station before the very paupers; he had fallen from all the height and pomp of beadleship to the lowest depth of the most snubbed hen-peckery.
“All in two months!” said Mr. Bumble, filled with dismal thoughts. “Two months—not more than two months ago, I was not only my own master, but everybody else’s, so far as the porochial workhouse was concerned, and now!——”
It was too much. Mr. Bumble boxed the ears of the boy who opened the gate for him (for he had reached the portal in his reverie), and walked distractedly into the street.
He walked up one street and down another, until exercise had abated the first passion of his grief, and then the revulsion of feeling made him thirsty. He passed a great many public-houses, and at length paused before one in a by-way, whose parlour, as he gathered from a hasty peep over the blinds, was deserted, save by one solitary customer. It began to rain heavily at the moment, and this determined him; Mr. Bumble stepped in, and ordering something to drink, as he passed the bar, entered the apartment into which he had looked from the street.
The man who was seated there was tall and dark, and wore a large cloak. He had the air of a stranger, and seemed, by a certain haggardness in his look, as well as by the dusty soils on his dress, to have travelled some distance. He eyed Bumble askance as he entered, but scarcely deigned to nod his head in acknowledgment of his salutation.
Mr. Bumble had quite dignity enough for two, supposing even that the stranger had been more familiar, so he drank his gin-and-water insilence, and read the paper with great show of pomp and importance.
It so happened, however—as it will happen very often, when men fall into company under such circumstances—that Mr. Bumble felt every now and then a powerful inducement, which he could not resist, to steal a look at the stranger; and that whenever he did so he withdrew his eyes in some confusion, to find that the stranger was at that moment stealing a look at him. Mr. Bumble’s awkwardness was enhanced by the very remarkable expression of the stranger’s eye, which was keen and bright, but shadowed by a scowl of distrust and suspicion, unlike anything he had ever observed before, and most repulsive to behold.
When they had encountered each other’s glance several times in this way, the stranger, in a harsh, deep voice, broke silence.
“Were you looking for me,” he said, “when you peered in at the window?”
“Not that I am aware of, unless you’re Mr. ——” Here Mr. Bumble stopped short, for he was curious to know the stranger’s name,and thought, in his impatience, he might supply the blank.
“I see you were not,” said the stranger, an expression of quiet sarcasm playing about his mouth, “or you would have known my name. You don’t know it, and I should recommend you not to inquire.”
“I meant no harm, young man,” observed Mr. Bumble, majestically.
“And have done none,” said the stranger.
Another silence succeeded this short dialogue, which was again broken by the stranger.
“I have seen you before, I think,” said he. “You were differently dressed at that time, and I only passed you in the street, but I should know you again. You were beadle here once, were you not?”
“I was,” said Mr. Bumble, in some surprise; “porochial beadle.”
“Just so,” rejoined the other, nodding his head. “It was in that character I saw you. What are you now?”
“Master of the workhouse,” rejoined Mr. Bumble, slowly and impressively, to check anyundue familiarity the stranger might otherwise assume. “Master of the workhouse, young man!”
“You have the same eye to your own interest that you always have had, I doubt not?” resumed the stranger, looking keenly into Mr. Bumble’s eyes, as he raised them in astonishment at the question. “Don’t scruple to answer freely, man. I know you pretty well, you see.”
“I suppose, a married man,” replied Mr. Bumble, shading his eyes with his hand, and surveying the stranger from head to foot in evident perplexity, “is not more averse to turning an honest penny when he can than a single one. Porochial officers are not so well paid that they can afford to refuse any little extra fee, when it comes to them in a civil and proper manner.”
The stranger smiled, and nodded his head again; as much as to say, he found he had not mistaken his man: then rang the bell.
“Fill this glass again,” he said, handing Mr. Bumble’s empty tumbler to the landlord.“Let it be strong and hot. You like it so, I suppose?”
“Not too strong,” replied Mr. Bumble, with a delicate cough.
“You understand what that means, landlord!” said the stranger, drily.
The host smiled, disappeared, and shortly afterwards returned with a steaming jorum, of which the first gulp brought the water into Mr. Bumble’s eyes.
“Now listen to me,” said the stranger, after closing the door and window. “I came down to this place to-day to find you out, and, by one of those chances which the devil throws in the way of his friends sometimes, you walked into the very room I was sitting in while you were uppermost in my mind. I want some information from you, and don’t ask you to give it for nothing, slight as it is. Put up that to begin with.”
As he spoke, he pushed a couple of sovereigns across the table to his companion carefully, as though unwilling that the chinking of money should be heard without; and when Mr. Bumblehad scrupulously examined the coins, to see that they were genuine, and put them up, with much satisfaction, in his waistcoat-pocket, he went on,—
“Carry your memory back—let me see—twelve years, last winter.”
“It’s a long time,” said Mr. Bumble. “Very good. I’ve done it.”
“The scene, the workhouse.”
“Good!”
“And the time, night.”
“Yes.”
“And the place, the crazy hole, wherever it was, in which miserable drabs brought forth the life and health so often denied to themselves—gave birth to puling children for the parish to rear, and hid their shame, rot ’em, in the grave!”
“The lying-in room, I suppose, that means?” said Mr. Bumble, not quite following the stranger’s excited description.
“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, impatiently; “I speak of one, a meek-looking, pale-faced hound, 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 very 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 any way.”
“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, and rose as if to depart.
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 solitarywitness, 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 shewing 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 an obscure address by the water-side upon it, in characters that betrayed his agitation; “at nine in the evening, bring her to me there. I needn’t tell you to be secret, for 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; and shortly remarking that their roads were different, 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.
“Who’s that?” 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.
END OF VOL. II.——————T.C. Savill, Printer, 107, St. Martin’s Lane.
Transcriber’s Notes:Apostrophe usage is not consistent in the text as in using both “dont” and “don’t.” It also spells “visitor” as “visiter.” This was retained.Obvious punctuation errors repaired.Page 80, “Fagan” changed to “Fagin” (Matter, Fagin)Page 125, “beable” changed to “beadle” (beadle said this)Page 136, "proferring" changed to "preferring" (preferring the chance)Page 197, illustration caption, “Bon-Street” changed to “Bow-Street” (by the Bow-Street Runners)Page 267, “disspatched” changed to “dispatched” (Giles was dispatched)Page 287, “i” changed to “in” (was wide-skirted, and in)
Transcriber’s Notes:
Apostrophe usage is not consistent in the text as in using both “dont” and “don’t.” It also spells “visitor” as “visiter.” This was retained.
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 80, “Fagan” changed to “Fagin” (Matter, Fagin)
Page 125, “beable” changed to “beadle” (beadle said this)
Page 136, "proferring" changed to "preferring" (preferring the chance)
Page 197, illustration caption, “Bon-Street” changed to “Bow-Street” (by the Bow-Street Runners)
Page 267, “disspatched” changed to “dispatched” (Giles was dispatched)
Page 287, “i” changed to “in” (was wide-skirted, and in)