Chapter-8
On the evening following that upon which the three worthies mentioned in the last chapter disposed of their little matter of business as therein narrated, Mr William Sikes, awakening from a nap, drowsily growled forth aninquity what time of night it was.
The room in which Mr Sikes was situated was at no great distance from his former lodgings. It was not in appearance so desirable a habitation as his old quarters, being a mean and badly furnished apartment, of very limited size, lighted by only one small window in the shelving roof, and abutting on a close and dirty lane. Nor were there wanting other indications of a good gentleman’s having gone down in the world of late.
The house-breaker was lying on his bed, wrapped in his white greatcoat, by way of dressing gown, and displaying a set of features in no degree improved by the cadaverous hue of illness, and the addition of a soiled nightcap and a stiff, black beard of a week’s growth. The dog sat at the bedside, now eyeing his master with a wistful look, and now pricking his ears and uttering a low growl as some noise in the street, or in the lower part of the house, attracted his attention. Seated by the window, busily engaged in patching an old waistcoat which formed a portion of the robber’s ordinary chess, was a female, so pale and reduced with watching arid privation that there would have been considerable difficulty in recognizing her as the same Nancy who had already figured in this tale, but for the voice in which she replied to Mr Sikes’s question.
‘Not long gone seven,’ said the girl, ‘How do you feel tonight, Bill?’
‘As weak as water,’ replied Mr Sikes, with an imprecation on his eyes and limbs, ‘Here: lend me a hand, and let me get off this thundering bed anyhow.’
Illness had not improved Mr Sikes’s temper; as the girl raised him up and led him to a chair he muttered various curses on her awkwardness and struck her. Thereupon the girl, being really weak and exhausted, dropped her head over the back of the chair and fainted. Mr Sikes tried a little blasphemy and, finding that mode of treatment ineffectual, called for assistance.
‘What’s the matter here, my dear?’ said Fagin, looking in.
‘Lend a hand to the girl, can’t you?’ replied Sikes impatiently, ‘Don’t stand chattering and grinning at me!
With an exclamation of surprise, Fagin hastened to the girl’s assistance, while Mr John Dawkins (otherwise the Artful Dodger) who had followed his venerable friend into the room, hastily deposited on the floor a bundle with which he was laden, and snatching a bottle from the grasp of Master Charles Bates who came close at his heels, uncorked it in a twinkling with his teeth, and poured a portion of the contents down the patient’s throat, previously taking a taste himself to prevent mistakes.
‘Give her a whiff of fresh air with the bellows, Charlie,’ said Mr Dawkins, ‘and you slap her hands, Fagin, while Bill undoes the petticuts.’
These united restoratives, administered with great energy—especially that department consigned to Master Bates, who appeared to consider his share in the proceedings a piece of unexampled pleasantry—were not long in producing the desired effect. The girl gradually recovered her senses and, staggering to a chair by the bedside, hid her face upon the pillow, leaving Mr Sikes to confront the newcomers, in some astonishment at their unlooked—for appearance.
‘Why, what evil wind has blown you here?’ he asked Fagin.
‘No evil wind at all, my dear, for evil winds blow nobody any good; and I’ve brought something good with me that you’ll be glad to see. Dodger, my dear, open the bundle, and give Bill all the little trifles that we spent all our money on this morning.’
In compliance with Mr Fagin’s request, the Artful untied his bundle, which was of large size and formed of an old tablecloth, and handed the articles of food and drink it contained one by one to Charley Bates, who placed them on the table, with various econiums on their rarity and excellence.
‘The things are well enough in their way,’ observed Mr Sikes, a little soothed as he glanced over the table, ‘but what have you got to say for yourself? Why you should leave me here, down in the mouth, health, blunt, and everything else, and take no more notice of me all this mortal time, than if I was that ‘mere dog.’
‘I was away a week and snore, my dear,’ replied the old Jew, ‘on a plant.’
‘And what about the other fortnight?’ demanded Sikes, ‘What about the other fortnight that you’ve left me lying here, like a sick rat in his hole?’
‘I couldn’t help it, Bill; I can’t go into a long explanation before company; but I couldn’t help it, upon my honour.’
‘Upon your what?’ growled Sikes, with excessive disgust, ‘Here! Cut me off a piece of that pie, one of you boys, to take the taste of that out of my mouth, or it’ll choke me dead!’
Fagin, feigning an unusual show of spirits, gradually brought Mr Sikes into a better temper by affecting to regard his threats as a little pleasant banter, and, moreover, by laughing very heartily at one or two rough jokes, which, after repeated applications to the spirit bottle, he condescended to make.
‘It’s all very well,’ said Mr Sikes, ‘but I must have some blunt from you tonight.’
‘I haven’t a piece of coin about me,’ replied the Jew.
‘Then you’ve got lots at home,’ retorted Sikes, ‘and I must have some from there. Nancy shall go to the ken and fetch it, and I’ll lie down and have a snooze while she’s gone.’
After a great deal of haggling and squabbling, Fagin beat down the amount of the required advance from five pounds to three pounds four and six pence, protesting with many solemn asseverations that that would only leave him eighteen-pence to keep house with. The Jew then, taking leave of his affectionate friend, returned homeward, attended by Nancy and the boys, Mr Sikes, meanwhile, flinging himself on the bed and composing himself to while away the time until the young lady’s return.
In due course they arrived at Fagin’s abode, where they found Toby Crackit and Mr Chitling intent upon their fifteenth game of cribbage, which it is scarcely necessary to say the latter gentleman lost, and with it his fifteenth and last six pence, much to the amusement of his young friends. Mr Crackit took up his hat to go.
‘Has nobody been, Toby?’ asked Fagin.
‘Not a living leg,’ answered Mr Crackit, pulling up collar; ‘it’s been as dull as swipes. You ought to stand something handsome, Fagin, to recompense me for keeping house for so long.’
‘Dodger! Charley!’ cried Fagin, ‘it’s time you were on the lay. Come! It’s near ten and nothing done yet.’ When they had left the room Fagin continued: ‘Now, I’ll go and get you that cash, Nancy. This is only the key of a little cupboard where I keep a few odd things the boys get, my dear. I never lock up my money, for I’ve got none to lock up, my dear—ha, ha, ha—none to lock up. Hush!’ he said, hastily concealing the key in his breast, ‘who’s that? Listen!’
The girl, who was sitting at the table with her arms folded, appeared in no way interested in the arrival or to care whether the person, whoever he was, came or went, until the murmur of a man’s voice reached her ears. The instant she caught the sound she tore off her bonnet and shawl, with the rapidity of lightning, and thrust them under the table. The Jew, turning round immediately afterwards, she muttered a complaint of the heat in a tone of languor that contrasted very remarkably with the extreme haste and violence of this action, which, however, had been unobserved by Fagin, who had his back towards her at the time.
‘Oh!’ he whispered, as though nettled by the interruption, ‘it’s the man I expected before; he’s coming downstairs. Not a word about the money while he’s here, Nance. He won’t stop long. Not ten minutes, my dear.’
Laying a skinny forefinger upon his lip, the Jew carried a candle to the door, as a man’s step was heard upon the step without. He reached it at the same moment as the visitor, who, coming hastily into the room, was close upon the girl before he observed her.
It was Monks.
‘Only one of my young people,’ said Fagin, observing that Monks drew back on beholding a stranger, ‘Don’t move, Nancy.’
The girl drew closer to the table and, glancing at Monks with an air of careless levity, withdrew her eyes, but as he turned towards Fagin, she stole another look so keen and searching, and full of purpose, that if there had been any bystander to observe the change, he could hardly have believed the two looks to have proceeded from the same person.
‘Any news?’ inquired Fagin.
‘Great.’
‘And—and—good?’ asked Fagin, hesitating as though he feared to vex the other man by being too sanguine.
‘Not bad, anyway,’ replied Monks with a smile.
The Jew pointed upwards and took Monks out of the room. Slipping off her shoes, Nancy followed and stood at the door, listening with breathless interest. When Fagin returned, after Monks had gone off into the street, the girl was adjusting her shawl and bonnet, as if preparing to be gone.
‘Why, Nancy,’ exclaimed the Jew, starting back as he put down the candle. ‘how pale you are! What have you been doing to yourself?’
‘Nothing that I know of except sitting in this close place, for I don’t know how long and all,’ replied the girl carelessly, ‘Comet! Let me get back; that’s a dear.’
With a sigh for every piece of money, Fagin counted the amount into her hand. They parted without more conversation, merely interchanging a ‘goodnight’.
If Nancy betrayed any agitation when she presented herself to Mr Sikes, he did not observe it; for merely inquiring if she had brought the money, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, he uttered a growl of satisfaction, and replacing his head upon the pillow, resumed the slumbers which her arrival had interrupted.
It was fortunate for her that the possession of money occasioned him so much employment next day in the way of eating and drinking, and withal had so beneficial an effect in smoothing down the asperities of his temper that he had neither time nor inclination to be very critical upon her behaviour and deportment. That she had all the abstracted and nervous manner of one who is on the eve of some bold and hazardous step, which it has required no common struggle to resolve upon, would have been obvious to the lynx-eyed Fagin.
When night came on, she sat by watching until the house-breaker, with many grumbling oaths, called for his physic. Then she jumped up with great alacrity, poured it out quickly but with her back towards him, and held the vessel to his lips while he drank of the contents. Two or three minutes later his arm fell languidly by his side, and he lay like one in a profound trance.
‘The laudanum has taken effect at last,’ murmured the girl as she rose from the bedside, ‘I may be too late even now.’
She hastily dressed in her bonnet and shawl, looking fearfully round from time to time as if, despite the sleeping draught, she expected every moment to feel the pressure of Sikes’s heavy hand upon her shoulder; then, stooping softly over the bed, she kissed the robber’s lips, and, opening and closing the room door with noiseless touch, hurried from the house.
A watchman was crying half-past nine down a dark passage through which she had to pass in gaining the main thoroughfare.
‘Has it long gone the half-hour?’ asked the girl.
‘It’ll strike the hour in another quarter,’ said the man, raising his lantern to her face.
‘And I cannot get there in less than an hour or mote,’ muttered Nancy, brushing swiftly past him and gliding rapidly down the street.
Many of the shops were already closing in the back lanes and avenues through which she tracked her way, in making from Spitalfields towards the West End of London. The clock struck ten, increasing her impatience, and she tore along the narrow pavement until she reached the more wealthy quarter of the town where she found her destination.
It was a family hotel in a quiet but handsome street near Hyde Park. As the brilliant light of the lamp, which burnt before its door, guided her to the spot, the clock struck eleven. She had loitered for a few paces as though irresolute and making up her mind to advance, but the sound determined her and she stepped into the hall. The porter’s seat was vacant. She looked round with an air of incertitude and advanced towards the stairs.
‘Now, young woman!’ said a smartly dressed female, looking out from a door behind her, ‘who do you want here?’
‘A lady who is stopping in this house,’ answered the girl.
‘A lady! was the reply, accompanied with a scornful look, ‘What lady?’
‘Miss May lie, said Nancy.
The young woman, who had by this time noted her appearance, replied only by a look of virtuous disdain, and summoned a man to answer her. To him Nancy repeated her request.
‘What name am I to say?’ asked the waiter.
‘It’s of no use saying any,’ replied Nancy. ‘Just say that a young woman earnestly asks to speak to Miss Maylie alone.’
The man ran upstairs. Nancy remained, pale and almost breathless, until the man returned and said the young woman was to walk upstairs.
Nancy followed the man with trembling limbs, to a small antechamber lighted by a lamp from the ceiling. Here he left her and retired. When she heard a light step approaching the door opposite to that by which she had entered, she raised her eyes sufficiently to observe that the figure which presented itself was that of a slight and beautiful girl; then bending them on the ground, she tossed her head with affected carelessness as she said:
‘It’s a hard matter to get to see you, lady. If I had taken offence and gone away, as many would have done, you’d have been sorry for it one day, and not without reason either.’
‘I am very sorry if anyone has behaved harshly to you,’ replied Rose, ‘Do not think of that. Tell me why you wished to see me. I am the person you enquired for.’
At the kind tone of this answer Nancy burst into tears.
‘Sit down,’ said Rose earnestly, ‘If you are in poverty or affliction I shall be truly glad to relieve you if I can—I shall indeed. Sit down.’
‘Let me stand, lady,’ said the girl, still weeping, ‘and do not speak to me so kindly until you know me better. It is growing late. Is—is—that door shut?’
‘Yes,’ said Rose, recoiling a few steps, as if to be nearer assistance in case she should require it, ‘Why?’
‘Because,’ said the girl, ‘I am about to put my life and the lives of others in your hands. I am the girl that dragged little Oliver back to old Fagin’s, on the night he went out from the house in Pentonville.’
‘You!’ said Rose Maylie.
‘I, lady,’ replied the girl, ‘I am the infamous creature you have heard of that lives among the thieves. But I have stolen away from those who would surely murder me, if they knew I had been here, to tell you what I have overheard. Do you know a man named Monks.’
‘No, said Rose.
‘He knows you,’ replied the girl, ‘and knew you were here, for it was by hearing him tell the place that I found you out.’
‘I never heard the name,’ said Rose.
‘Then he goes by some other amongst us,’ rejoined the girl, ‘which I more than thought before some time ago, and soon after Oliver was put into your house on the night of the robbery. I suspecting this man listened to a conversation held between him and Fagin in the dark. I found out, from—what I heard, that Monks the man I asked you about, you know. ‘Yes,’ said Rose, ‘I understand.’
‘That Monks,’ pursued the girl, ‘had seen him accidentally with two of our boys on the day we first lost him, and had known him directly to be the same child he was watching for, though I couldn’t make out why. A bargain was struck with Fagin, that if Oliver was got back he would have a certain sum; and he was to have more for making him a thief, which this Monks wanted for some purpose of his own.’
‘For what purpose?’ asked Rose.
‘He caught sight of my shadow on the wall as I listened, in the hope of finding out,’ said the girl, ‘so I heard no more and I saw him no snore till last night.’
‘And what occurred then?’
‘I’ll tell you, lady. Last night he came again. Again they went upstairs, and I wrapping myself up so that my shadow might not betray me, again listened at the door. The first words I heard Monks say were these: ‘So the only proofs of the boy’s identity lie at the bottom of the river, and the old hag that received them from the mother is rotting in her coffin.’ They laughed, and talked of his success in doing this; and Monks, talking on about the boy and getting very wild, said that though he had got the young devil’s money safely now, he’d rather have had it the other way; for what a game it would have been to have brought down the boast of the father’s will, by diving him through every jail in town, and then hauling him up for some capital felony which Fagin could easily manage, after having made a good profit of him besides.’
What is all this?’ said Rose.
‘The truth, lady, though it comes from my lips,’ replied the girl, ‘Then, he said, with oaths common enough in my ears, but strange to yours, that if he could gratify his hatred by taking the boy’s life without bringing his own neck in danger, he would; but, as he couldn’t, he’d be on the watch to meet him at every turn in life; and if he took advantage of his birth and history, he might harm him yet. ‘In short, Fagin,’ he says, ‘Jew as you are, you never laid such snares as I’ll contrive for my young brother Oliver.’
‘His brother!’ exclaimed Rose.
‘Those were his words,’ said Nancy, glancing uneasily around as she had scarcely ceased to do since she began to speak, for a vision of Sikes haunted her perpetually. ‘And more. When he spoke of you and the other lady, and said it seemed contrived by Heaven or the devil against him, that Oliver should come into your hands, he laughed, and said there was some comfort in that too, for how many thousands and hundreds of thousands of pounds would you not give, if you had them, to know who your two-legged spaniel was.’
‘You do not mean,’ said Rose, turning very pale, ‘to tell me that this was said in earnest.’
‘He spoke in hard and angry earnest, if a man ever did,’ replied the girl, shaking her head ‘He is an’ earnest man when his hatred is up. I know many who do worse things, but I’d rather listen to them all a dozen times than to that Monks once. It is growing late and I have to reach home without suspicion of having been on such an errand as this. I must get back quickly.’
‘But what can I do? said Rose, ‘To what use, can I turn this communication without you? Back! Why do you wish to return to companions you paint in such terrible colours? If you repeat this information to a gentleman whom I can summon in an instant from the next room, you can be consigned to some place of safety without half-an-hour’s delay.’
‘I must go back because—because among the men I have told you of, there is one, the most desperate among them all, than I can’t leave—no, not even to be saved from the life I am leading now.’
‘It is madness,’ cried Rose.
‘I don’t know what it is, answered the girl, ‘but I am drawn back to him through every suffering and ill-usage.’
