“Who is she?” inquired Noah.
“One of us.”
“Oh, Lor!” cried Noah, curling up his nose. “Yer doubtful of
her, are yer?”
“She has found out some new friends, my dear, and I must
know who they are,” replied Fagin.
“I see,” said Noah. “Just to have the pleasure of knowing them,
if they’re respectable people, eh? Ha! ha I ha! I’m your man.”
“I knew you would be,” cried Fagin, elated by the success of his
proposal.
“Of course, of course,” replied Noah. “Where is she? Where am
I to wait for her? Where am I to go?”
“All that, my dear, you shall hear from me. I’ll point her out at
the proper time,” said Fagin. “You keep ready, and leave the rest
to me.”
That night, and the next, and the next again, the spy sat booted
and equipped in his carter’s dress, ready to turn out at a word
from Fagin. Six nights passed—six long, weary nights—and at
each, Fagin came home with a disappointed face, and briefly
intimated that it was not yet time. On the seventh, he returned
earlier, and with an exultation he could not conceal. It was
Sunday.
“She goes abroad tonight,” said Fagin, “and on the right
errand, I’m sure; for she has been alone all day, and the man she is
afraid of, will not be back much before daybreak. Come with me,
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Quick.”
Noah started up without saying a word; for the Jew was in a
state of such intense excitement that it infected him. They left the
house stealthily, and, hurrying through a labyrinth of streets,
arrived at length before a public-house, which Noah recognised as
the same in which he had slept, on the night of his arrival in
London.
It was past eleven o’clock, and the door was closed. It opened
softly on its hinges as Fagin gave a low whistle. They entered,
without noise; and the door was closed behind them.
Scarcely venturing to whisper, but substituting dumb show for
words, Fagin, and the young Jew who had admitted them, pointed
out the pane of glass to Noah, and signed to him to climb up and
observe the person in the adjoining room. “Is that the woman?” he
asked, scarcely above his breath.
Fagin nodded yes.
“I can’t see her face well,” whispered Noah. “She is looking
down, and the candle is behind her.”
“Stay here,” whispered Fagin. He signed to Barney, who
withdrew. In an instant, the lad entered the room adjoining, and,
under pretence of snuffling the candle, moved it, in the required
position, and, speaking to the girl, caused her to raise her face.
“I see her now,” cried the spy.
“Plainly?”
“I should know her among a thousand.”
He hastily descended, as the room door opened, and the girl
came out. Fagin drew him behind a small partition which was
curtained off, and they held their breaths as she passed within a
few feet of their place of concealment, and emerged by the door at
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which they had entered.
“Hist!” cried the lad, who held the door. “Dow.”
Noah exchanged a look with Fagin, and darted out.
“To the left,” whispered the lad; “take the left had, and keep on
the other side.”
He did so; and, by the light of the lamps, saw the girl’s
retreating figure, already at some distance before him. He
advanced as near as he considered prudent, and kept on the
opposite side of the street, the better to observe her motions. She
looked nervously round, twice or thrice, and once stopped to let
two men who were following close behind her, pass on. She
seemed to gather courage as she advanced, and to walk with a
steadier and firmer step. The spy preserved the same relative
distance between them, and followed, with his eye upon her.
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Chapter 46
The Appointment Kept.
The church clocks chimed three quarters past eleven, as
two figures emerged on London Bridge. One, which
advanced with a swift and rapid step, was that of a woman
who looked eagerly about her as though in quest of some expected
object; the other figure was that of a man, who slunk along in the
deepest shadow he could find, and, at some distance,
accommodated his pace to hers—stopping when she stopped, and,
as she moved again, creeping stealthily on—but never allowing
himself, in the ardour of his pursuit, to gain upon her footsteps.
Thus, they crossed the bridge, from the Middlesex to the Surrey
shore, when the woman, apparently disappointed in her anxious
scrutiny of the foot-passengers, turned back. The movement was
sudden; but he who watched her; was not thrown off his guard by
it; for, shrinking into one of the recesses which surmount the piers
of the bridge, and leaning over the parapet the better to conceal
his figure, he suffered her to pass by on the opposite pavement.
When she was about the same distance in advance as she had
been before, he slipped quietly down, and followed her again. At
nearly the centre of the bridge, she stopped. The man stopped too.
It was a very dark night. The day had been unfavourable, and at
that hour and place there were few people stirring. Such as there
were, hurried quickly past; very possibly without seeing, but
certainly without noticing, either the woman, or the man who kept
her in view. Their appearance was not calculated to attract the
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importunate regards of such of London’s destitute population, as
chanced to take their way over the bridge that night in search of
some cold arch or doorless hovel wherein to lay their heads; they
stood there in silence, neither speaking nor spoken, by any one
who passed.
A mist hung over the river, deepening the red glare of the fires
that burned upon the small craft moored off the different wharves,
and rendering darker and more indistinct the murky buildings on
the banks. The old smoke-stained storehouses on either side, rose
heavy and dull from the dense mass of roofs and gables, and
frowned sternly upon water too black to reflect even their
lumbering shapes. The tower of old St. Saviour’s Church, and the
spire of St. Magnus, so long the giant-warders of the ancient
bridge, were visible in the gloom; but the forest of shipping below
bridge, and the thickly scattered spires of churches above were
nearly all hidden from the sight.
The girl had taken a few restless turns to and fro—closely
watched meanwhile by her hidden observer—when the heavy bell
of St. Paul’s tolled for the death of another day. Midnight had
come upon the crowded city. The palace, the night-cellar, the jail,
the madhouse; the chambers of birth and death, of health and
sickness, the rigid face of the corpse and the calm sleep of the
child; midnight was upon them all.
The hour had not struck two minutes, when a young lady,
accompanied by a grey-haired gentleman, alighted from a
hackney-carriage within a short distance of the bridge, and,
having dismissed the vehicle, walked straight towards it. They had
scarcely set foot upon its pavement, when the girl started, and
immediately made towards them.
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They walked onward, looking about them with the air of
persons who entertained some very slight expectation which had
little chance of being realised, when they were suddenly joined by
this new associate. They halted with an exclamation of surprise,
but suppressed it immediately; for a man in the garments of a
countryman came close up—brushed against them indeed—at that
precise moment.
“Not here,” said Nancy hurriedly; “I am afraid to speak to you
here. Come away—out of the public road—down the steps
yonder!”
As she uttered these words, and indicated, with her hand, the
direction in which she wished them to proceed, the countryman
looked round, and roughly asking what they took up the whole
pavement for, passed on.
The steps to which the girl had pointed, were those which, on
the Surrey bank, and on the same side of the bridge as St.
Saviour’s Church, form a landing-stairs from the river. To this
spot, the man bearing the appearance of a countryman, hastened
unobserved; and, after a moment’s survey of the place, he began to
descend.
These stairs are a part of the bridge; they consist of three
flights. Just below the end of the second, going down, the stone
wall on the left terminates in an ornamental pilaster facing
towards the Thames. At this point the lower steps widen; so that a
person turning that angle of the wall, is necessarily unseen by any
others on the stairs who chance to be above him, if only a step.
The countryman looked hastily round, when he reached this point;
and, as there seemed no better place of concealment, and the tide
being out, there was plenty of room, he slipped aside, with his
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back to the pilaster, and there waited; pretty certain that they
would come no lower, and that even if he could not hear what was
said, he could follow them again, with safety.
So tardily stole the time in this lonely place, and so eager was
the spy to penetrate the motives of an interview so different from
what he had been led to expect, that he more than once gave the
matter up for lost, and persuaded himself, either that they had
stopped far above, or had resorted to some entirely different spot
to hold their mysterious conversation. He was on the point of
emerging from his hiding-place, and regaining the road above,
when he heard the sound of footsteps, and directly afterwards of
voices almost close to his ear.
He drew himself straight upright against the wall, and, scarcely
breathing, listened attentively.
“This is far enough,” said a voice, which was evidently that of a
gentleman. “I will not suffer the young lady to go any further.
Many people would have distrusted you too much to have come
even so far, but you see I am willing to humour you.”
“To humour me!” cried the voice of the girl whom he had
followed. “You’re considerate, indeed, sir. To humour me! Well,
well, it’s no matter.”
“Why, for what,” said the gentleman in a kinder tone, “for what
purpose can you have brought us to this strange place? Why not
have let me speak to you, above there, where it is light, and there
is something stirring, instead of bringing us to this dark and
dismal hole?”
“I told you before,” replied Nancy, “that I was afraid to speak to
you there. I don’t know why it is,” said the girl, shuddering, “but I
have such a fear and dread upon me tonight that I can hardly
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stand.”
“A fear of what?” asked the gentleman, who seemed to pity her.
“I scarcely know what,” replied the girl. “I wish I did. Horrible
thoughts of death, and shrouds with blood upon them, and a fear
that has made me burn as if I was on fire, have been upon me all
day. I was reading a book tonight, to wile the time away, and the
same things came into the print.”
“Imagination,” said the gentleman, soothing her.
“No imagination,” replied the girl, in a hoarse voice. “I’ll swear
I saw ‘coffin’ written in every page of the book in large black
letters—aye, and they carried one close to me, in the streets
tonight.”
“There is nothing unusual in that,” said the gentleman. “They
have passed me often.”
“Real ones,” rejoined the girl. “This was not.”
There was something so uncommon in her manner, that the
flesh of the concealed listener crept as he heard the girl utter these
words, and the blood chilled within him. He had never
experienced a greater relief than in hearing the sweet voice of the
young lady as she begged her to be calm, and not allow herself to
become the prey of such fearful fancies.
“Speak to her kindly,” said the young lady to her companion.
“Poor creature! She seems to need it.”
“Your haughty religious people would have held their heads up
to see me as I am tonight, and preached of flames and vengeance,”
cried the girl. “Oh, dear lady, why ar’n’t those who claim to be
God’s own folks as gentle and as kind to us poor wretches as you,
who, having youth, and beauty, and all that they have lost, might
be a little proud instead of so much humbler.”
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“Ah!” said the gentleman. “A Turk turns his face, after washing
it well, to the east, when he says his prayers; these good people,
after giving their faces such a rub against the world as to take the
smiles off, turn with no less regularity to the darkest side of
heaven. Between the Mussulman and the Pharisee, commend me
to the first.”
These words appeared to be addressed to the young lady, and
were perhaps uttered with the view of affording Nancy time to
recover herself. The gentleman, shortly afterwards, addressed
himself to her.
“You were not here last Sunday night,” he said.
“I couldn’t come,” replied Nancy; “I was kept by force.”
“By whom?”
“Him that I told the young lady of before.”
“You were not suspected of holding any communication with
anybody on the subject which has brought us here tonight, I
hope?” asked the old gentleman.
“No,” replied the girl, shaking her head. “It’s not very easy for
me to leave him unless he knows why; I couldn’t have seen the
lady when I did, but that I gave him a drink of laudanum before I
came away.”
“Did he awake before you returned?” inquired the gentleman.
“No; and neither he nor any of them suspect me.”
“Good,” said the gentleman. “Now listen to me.”
“I am ready,” replied the girl, as he paused for a moment.
“This young lady,” the gentleman began, “has communicated to
me, and to some other friends who can be safely trusted, what you
told her nearly a fortnight since. I confess to you that I had doubts,
at first, whether you were to be implicitly relied upon, but now I
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firmly believe you are.”
“I am,” replied the girl earnestly.
“I repeat that I firmly believe it. To prove to you that I am
disposed to trust you, I tell you without reserve, that we propose to
extort the secret, whatever it may be, from the fears of this man
Monks. But if—if—” said the gentleman, “he cannot be secured,
or, if secured, cannot be acted upon as we wish, you must deliver
up the Jew.”
“Fagin,” cried the girl, recoiling.
“That man must be delivered up by you,” said the gentleman.
“I will not do it! I will never do it!” replied the girl. “Devil that
he is, and worse than devil as he has been to me, I will never do
that.”
“You will not?” said the gentleman, who seemed fully prepared
for this answer.
“Never!” returned the girl.
“Tell me why?”
“For one reason,” rejoined the girl firmly—“for one reason, that
the lady knows and will stand by me in, I know she will, for I have
her promise; and for this other reason, besides, that, bad life as he
has led, I have led a bad life too; there are many of us who have
kept the same courses together, and I’ll not turn upon them, who
might—any of them—have turned upon me but didn’t, bad as they
are.”
“Then,” said the gentleman quickly, as if this had been the
point that he had been aiming to attain, “put Monks into my
hands, and leave him to me to deal with.”
“What if he turned against the others?”
“I promise you that in that case, if the truth is forced from him,
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