الفصل الفصل 38 · CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN MR. AND MRS. BUMBLE, AND

. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN MR. AND MRS. BUMBLE, AND

MR. MONKS, AT THEIR NOCTURNAL INTERVIEW

It was a dull, close, overcast summer evening. The clouds, which had

been threatening all day, spread out in a dense and sluggish mass of

vapour, already yielded large drops of rain, and seemed to presage a

violent thunder-storm, when Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, turning out of the

main street of the town, directed their course towards a scattered

little colony of ruinous houses, distant from it some mile and a-half,

or thereabouts, and erected on a low unwholesome swamp, bordering upon

the river.

They were both wrapped in old and shabby outer garments, which might,

perhaps, serve the double purpose of protecting their persons from the

rain, and sheltering them from observation. The husband carried a

lantern, from which, however, no light yet shone; and trudged on, a few

paces in front, as though—the way being dirty—to give his wife the

benefit of treading in his heavy footprints. They went on, in profound

silence; every now and then, Mr. Bumble relaxed his pace, and turned

his head as if to make sure that his helpmate was following; then,

discovering that she was close at his heels, he mended his rate of

walking, and proceeded, at a considerable increase of speed, towards

their place of destination.

This was far from being a place of doubtful character; for it had long

been known as the residence of none but low ruffians, who, under

various pretences of living by their labour, subsisted chiefly on

plunder and crime. It was a collection of mere hovels: some, hastily

built with loose bricks: others, of old worm-eaten ship-timber: jumbled

together without any attempt at order or arrangement, and planted, for

the most part, within a few feet of the river’s bank. A few leaky boats

drawn up on the mud, and made fast to the dwarf wall which skirted it:

and here and there an oar or coil of rope: appeared, at first, to

indicate that the inhabitants of these miserable cottages pursued some

avocation on the river; but a glance at the shattered and useless

condition of the articles thus displayed, would have led a passer-by,

without much difficulty, to the conjecture that they were disposed

there, rather for the preservation of appearances, than with any view

to their being actually employed.

In the heart of this cluster of huts; and skirting the river, which its

upper stories overhung; stood a large building, formerly used as a

manufactory of some kind. It had, in its day, probably furnished

employment to the inhabitants of the surrounding tenements. But it had

long since gone to ruin. The rat, the worm, and the action of the damp,

had weakened and rotted the piles on which it stood; and a considerable

portion of the building had already sunk down into the water; while the

remainder, tottering and bending over the dark stream, seemed to wait a

favourable opportunity of following its old companion, and involving

itself in the same fate.

It was before this ruinous building that the worthy couple paused, as

the first peal of distant thunder reverberated in the air, and the rain

commenced pouring violently down.

“The place should be somewhere here,” said Bumble, consulting a scrap

of paper he held in his hand.

“Halloa there!” cried a voice from above.

Following the sound, Mr. Bumble raised his head and descried a man

looking out of a door, breast-high, on the second story.

“Stand still, a minute,” cried the voice; “I’ll be with you directly.”

With which the head disappeared, and the door closed.

“Is that the man?” asked Mr. Bumble’s good lady.

Mr. Bumble nodded in the affirmative.

“Then, mind what I told you,” said the matron: “and be careful to say

as little as you can, or you’ll betray us at once.”

Mr. Bumble, who had eyed the building with very rueful looks, was

apparently about to express some doubts relative to the advisability of

proceeding any further with the enterprise just then, when he was

prevented by the appearance of Monks: who opened a small door, near

which they stood, and beckoned them inwards.

“Come in!” he cried impatiently, stamping his foot upon the ground.

“Don’t keep me here!”

The woman, who had hesitated at first, walked boldly in, without any

other invitation. Mr. Bumble, who was ashamed or afraid to lag behind,

followed: obviously very ill at ease and with scarcely any of that

remarkable dignity which was usually his chief characteristic.

“What the devil made you stand lingering there, in the wet?” said

Monks, turning round, and addressing Bumble, after he had bolted the

door behind them.

“We—we were only cooling ourselves,” stammered Bumble, looking

apprehensively about him.

“Cooling yourselves!” retorted Monks. “Not all the rain that ever fell,

or ever will fall, will put as much of hell’s fire out, as a man can

carry about with him. You won’t cool yourself so easily; don’t think

it!”

With this agreeable speech, Monks turned short upon the matron, and

bent his gaze upon her, till even she, who was not easily cowed, was

fain to withdraw her eyes, and turn them towards the ground.

“This is the woman, is it?” demanded Monks.

“Hem! That is the woman,” replied Mr. Bumble, mindful of his wife’s

caution.

“You think women never can keep secrets, I suppose?” said the matron,

interposing, and returning, as she spoke, the searching look of Monks.

“I know they will always keep _one_ till it’s found out,” said Monks.

“And what may that be?” asked the matron.

“The loss of their own good name,” replied Monks. “So, by the same

rule, if a woman’s a party to a secret that might hang or transport

her, I’m not afraid of her telling it to anybody; not I! Do you

understand, mistress?”

“No,” rejoined the matron, slightly colouring as she spoke.

“Of course you don’t!” said Monks. “How should you?”

Bestowing something half-way between a smile and a frown upon his two

companions, and again beckoning them to follow him, the man hastened

across the apartment, which was of considerable extent, but low in the

roof. He was preparing to ascend a steep staircase, or rather ladder,

leading to another floor of warehouses above: when a bright flash of

lightning streamed down the aperture, and a peal of thunder followed,

which shook the crazy building to its centre.

“Hear it!” he cried, shrinking back. “Hear it! Rolling and crashing on

as if it echoed through a thousand caverns where the devils were hiding

from it. I hate the sound!”

He remained silent for a few moments; and then, removing his hands

suddenly from his face, showed, to the unspeakable discomposure of Mr.

Bumble, that it was much distorted and discoloured.

“These fits come over me, now and then,” said Monks, observing his

alarm; “and thunder sometimes brings them on. Don’t mind me now; it’s

all over for this once.”

Thus speaking, he led the way up the ladder; and hastily closing the

window-shutter of the room into which it led, lowered a lantern which

hung at the end of a rope and pulley passed through one of the heavy

beams in the ceiling: and which cast a dim light upon an old table and

three chairs that were placed beneath it.

“Now,” said Monks, when they had all three seated themselves, “the

sooner we come to our business, the better for all. The woman know what

it is, does she?”

The question was addressed to Bumble; but his wife anticipated the

reply, by intimating that she was perfectly acquainted with it.

“He is right in saying that you were with this hag the night she died;

and that she told you something—”

“About the mother of the boy you named,” replied the matron

interrupting him. “Yes.”

“The first question is, of what nature was her communication?” said

Monks.

“That’s the second,” observed the woman with much deliberation. “The

first is, what may the communication be worth?”

“Who the devil can tell that, without knowing of what kind it is?”

asked Monks.

“Nobody better than you, I am persuaded,” answered Mrs. Bumble: who did

not want for spirit, as her yoke-fellow could abundantly testify.

“Humph!” said Monks significantly, and with a look of eager inquiry;

“there may be money’s worth to get, eh?”

“Perhaps there may,” was the composed reply.

“Something that was taken from her,” said Monks. “Something that she

wore. Something that—”

“You had better bid,” interrupted Mrs. Bumble. “I have heard enough,

already, to assure me that you are the man I ought to talk to.”

Mr. Bumble, who had not yet been admitted by his better half into any

greater share of the secret than he had originally possessed, listened

to this dialogue with outstretched neck and distended eyes: which he

directed towards his wife and Monks, by turns, in undisguised

astonishment; increased, if possible, when the latter sternly demanded,

what sum was required for the disclosure.

“What’s it worth to you?” asked the woman, as collectedly as before.

“It may be nothing; it may be twenty pounds,” replied Monks. “Speak

out, and let me know which.”

“Add five pounds to the sum you have named; give me five-and-twenty

pounds in gold,” said the woman; “and I’ll tell you all I know. Not

before.”

“Five-and-twenty pounds!” exclaimed Monks, drawing back.

“I spoke as plainly as I could,” replied Mrs. Bumble. “It’s not a large

sum, either.”

“Not a large sum for a paltry secret, that may be nothing when it’s

told!” cried Monks impatiently; “and which has been lying dead for

twelve years past or more!”

“Such matters keep well, and, like good wine, often double their value

in course of time,” answered the matron, still preserving the resolute

indifference she had assumed. “As to lying dead, there are those who

will lie dead for twelve thousand years to come, or twelve million, for

anything you or I know, who will tell strange tales at last!”

“What if I pay it for nothing?” asked Monks, hesitating.

“You can easily take it away again,” replied the matron. “I am but a

woman; alone here; and unprotected.”

“Not alone, my dear, nor unprotected, neither,” submitted Mr. Bumble,

in a voice tremulous with fear: “_I_ am here, my dear. And besides,”

said Mr. Bumble, his teeth chattering as he spoke, “Mr. Monks is too

much of a gentleman to attempt any violence on porochial persons. Mr.

Monks is aware that I am not a young man, my dear, and also that I am a

little run to seed, as I may say; but he has heerd: I say I have no

doubt Mr. Monks has heerd, my dear: that I am a very determined

officer, with very uncommon strength, if I’m once roused. I only want a

little rousing; that’s all.”

As Mr. Bumble spoke, he made a melancholy feint of grasping his lantern

with fierce determination; and plainly showed, by the alarmed

expression of every feature, that he _did_ want a little rousing, and

not a little, prior to making any very warlike demonstration: unless,

indeed, against paupers, or other person or persons trained down for

the purpose.

“You are a fool,” said Mrs. Bumble, in reply; “and had better hold your

tongue.”

“He had better have cut it out, before he came, if he can’t speak in a

lower tone,” said Monks, grimly. “So! He’s your husband, eh?”

“He my husband!” tittered the matron, parrying the question.

“I thought as much, when you came in,” rejoined Monks, marking the

angry glance which the lady darted at her spouse as she spoke. “So much

the better; I have less hesitation in dealing with two people, when I

find that there’s only one will between them. I’m in earnest. See

here!”

He thrust his hand into a side-pocket; and producing a canvas bag, told

out twenty-five sovereigns on the table, and pushed them over to the

woman.

“Now,” he said, “gather them up; and when this cursed peal of thunder,

which I feel is coming up to break over the house-top, is gone, let’s

hear your story.”

The thunder, which seemed in fact much nearer, and to shiver and break

almost over their heads, having subsided, Monks, raising his face from

the table, bent forward to listen to what the woman should say. The

faces of the three nearly touched, as the two men leant over the small

table in their eagerness to hear, and the woman also leant forward to

render her whisper audible. The sickly rays of the suspended lantern

falling directly upon them, aggravated the paleness and anxiety of

their countenances: which, encircled by the deepest gloom and darkness,

looked ghastly in the extreme.

“When this woman, that we called old Sally, died,” the matron began,

“she and I were alone.”

“Was there no one by?” asked Monks, in the same hollow whisper; “No

sick wretch or idiot in some other bed? No one who could hear, and

might, by possibility, understand?”

“Not a soul,” replied the woman; “we were alone. _I_ stood alone beside

the body when death came over it.”

“Good,” said Monks, regarding her attentively. “Go on.”

“She spoke of a young creature,” resumed the matron, “who had brought a

child into the world some years before; not merely in the same room,

but in the same bed, in which she then lay dying.”

“Ay?” said Monks, with quivering lip, and glancing over his shoulder,

“Blood! How things come about!”

“The child was the one you named to him last night,” said the matron,

nodding carelessly towards her husband; “the mother this nurse had

robbed.”

“In life?” asked Monks.

“In death,” replied the woman, with something like a shudder. “She

stole from the corpse, when it had hardly turned to one, that which the

dead mother had prayed her, with her last breath, to keep for the

infant’s sake.”

“She sold it,” cried Monks, with desperate eagerness; “did she sell it?

Where? When? To whom? How long before?”

“As she told me, with great difficulty, that she had done this,” said

the matron, “she fell back and died.”

“Without saying more?” cried Monks, in a voice which, from its very

suppression, seemed only the more furious. “It’s a lie! I’ll not be

played with. She said more. I’ll tear the life out of you both, but

I’ll know what it was.”

“She didn’t utter another word,” said the woman, to all appearance

unmoved (as Mr. Bumble was very far from being) by the strange man’s

violence; “but she clutched my gown, violently, with one hand, which

was partly closed; and when I saw that she was dead, and so removed the

hand by force, I found it clasped a scrap of dirty paper.”

“Which contained—” interposed Monks, stretching forward.

“Nothing,” replied the woman; “it was a pawnbroker’s duplicate.”

“For what?” demanded Monks.

“In good time I’ll tell you.” said the woman. “I judge that she had

kept the trinket, for some time, in the hope of turning it to better

account; and then had pawned it; and had saved or scraped together

money to pay the pawnbroker’s interest year by year, and prevent its

running out; so that if anything came of it, it could still be

redeemed. Nothing had come of it; and, as I tell you, she died with the

scrap of paper, all worn and tattered, in her hand. The time was out in

two days; I thought something might one day come of it too; and so

redeemed the pledge.”

“Where is it now?” asked Monks quickly.

“_There_,” replied the woman. And, as if glad to be relieved of it, she

hastily threw upon the table a small kid bag scarcely large enough for

a French watch, which Monks pouncing upon, tore open with trembling

hands. It contained a little gold locket: in which were two locks of

hair, and a plain gold wedding-ring.

“It has the word ‘Agnes’ engraved on the inside,” said the woman.

“There is a blank left for the surname; and then follows the date;

which is within a year before the child was born. I found out that.”

“And this is all?” said Monks, after a close and eager scrutiny of the

contents of the little packet.

“All,” replied the woman.

Mr. Bumble drew a long breath, as if he were glad to find that the

story was over, and no mention made of taking the five-and-twenty

pounds back again; and now he took courage to wipe the perspiration

which had been trickling over his nose, unchecked, during the whole of

the previous dialogue.

“I know nothing of the story, beyond what I can guess at,” said his

wife addressing Monks, after a short silence; “and I want to know

nothing; for it’s safer not. But I may ask you two questions, may I?”

“You may ask,” said Monks, with some show of surprise; “but whether I

answer or not is another question.”

“—Which makes three,” observed Mr. Bumble, essaying a stroke of

facetiousness.

“Is that what you expected to get from me?” demanded the matron.

“It is,” replied Monks. “The other question?”

“What do you propose to do with it? Can it be used against me?”

“Never,” rejoined Monks; “nor against me either. See here! But don’t

move a step forward, or your life is not worth a bulrush.”

With these words, he suddenly wheeled the table aside, and pulling an

iron ring in the boarding, threw back a large trap-door which opened

close at Mr. Bumble’s feet, and caused that gentleman to retire several

paces backward, with great precipitation.

“Look down,” said Monks, lowering the lantern into the gulf. “Don’t

fear me. I could have let you down, quietly enough, when you were

seated over it, if that had been my game.”

Thus encouraged, the matron drew near to the brink; and even Mr. Bumble

himself, impelled by curiousity, ventured to do the same. The turbid

water, swollen by the heavy rain, was rushing rapidly on below; and all

other sounds were lost in the noise of its plashing and eddying against

the green and slimy piles. There had once been a water-mill beneath;

the tide foaming and chafing round the few rotten stakes, and fragments

of machinery that yet remained, seemed to dart onward, with a new

impulse, when freed from the obstacles which had unavailingly attempted

to stem its headlong course.

“If you flung a man’s body down there, where would it be tomorrow

morning?” said Monks, swinging the lantern to and fro in the dark well.

“Twelve miles down the river, and cut to pieces besides,” replied

Bumble, recoiling at the thought.

Monks drew the little packet from his breast, where he had hurriedly

thrust it; and tying it to a leaden weight, which had formed a part of

some pulley, and was lying on the floor, dropped it into the stream. It

fell straight, and true as a die; clove the water with a scarcely

audible splash; and was gone.

The three looking into each other’s faces, seemed to breathe more

freely.

“There!” said Monks, closing the trap-door, which fell heavily back

into its former position. “If the sea ever gives up its dead, as books

say it will, it will keep its gold and silver to itself, and that trash

among it. We have nothing more to say, and may break up our pleasant

party.”

“By all means,” observed Mr. Bumble, with great alacrity.

“You’ll keep a quiet tongue in your head, will you?” said Monks, with a

threatening look. “I am not afraid of your wife.”

“You may depend upon me, young man,” answered Mr. Bumble, bowing

himself gradually towards the ladder, with excessive politeness. “On

everybody’s account, young man; on my own, you know, Mr. Monks.”

“I am glad, for your sake, to hear it,” remarked Monks. “Light your

lantern! And get away from here as fast as you can.”

It was fortunate that the conversation terminated at this point, or Mr.

Bumble, who had bowed himself to within six inches of the ladder, would

infallibly have pitched headlong into the room below. He lighted his

lantern from that which Monks had detached from the rope, and now

carried in his hand; and making no effort to prolong the discourse,

descended in silence, followed by his wife. Monks brought up the rear,

after pausing on the steps to satisfy himself that there were no other

sounds to be heard than the beating of the rain without, and the

rushing of the water.

They traversed the lower room, slowly, and with caution; for Monks

started at every shadow; and Mr. Bumble, holding his lantern a foot

above the ground, walked not only with remarkable care, but with a

marvellously light step for a gentleman of his figure: looking

nervously about him for hidden trap-doors. The gate at which they had

entered, was softly unfastened and opened by Monks; merely exchanging a

nod with their mysterious acquaintance, the married couple emerged into

the wet and darkness outside.

They were no sooner gone, than Monks, who appeared to entertain an

invincible repugnance to being left alone, called to a boy who had been

hidden somewhere below. Bidding him go first, and bear the light, he

returned to the chamber he had just quitted.