Oliver Twist. Volume 3 of 3. Чарльз Диккенс

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      “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 yokefellow 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 eagerly; “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, “and 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 any thing 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 parochial 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 canvass 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, that I feel is coming up to break over the house-top, is gone, let’s hear your story.”

      The roar of 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 at last!”

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ