Oliver Twist Capitulo XXIV

CHAPTER XXIV

TREATS ON A VERY POOR SUBJECT. BUT IS A SHORT ONE, AND MAY BE

FOUND OF IMPORTANCE IN THIS HISTORY

It was no unfit messanger of death, who had disturbed the quiet of the matron's room.

Her body was bent by age; her limbs trembled with palsy; her face, distorted into a

mumbling leer, resembled more the grotesque shaping of some wild pencil, than the

work of Nature's hand.

Alas! How few of Nature's faces are left alone to gladden us with their beauty! The

cares, and sorrows, and hungerings, of the world, change them as they change hearts;

and it is only when those passions sleep, and have lost their hold for ever, that the

troubled clouds pass off, and leave Heaven's surface clear. It is a common thing for the

countenances of the dead, even in that fixed and rigid state, to subside into the longforgotten

expression of sleeping infancy, and settle into the very look of early life; so

calm, so peaceful, do they grow again, that those who knew them in their happy

childhood, kneel by the coffin's side in awe, and see the Angel even upon earth.

The old crone tottered alone the passages, and up the stairs, muttering some indistinct

answers to the chidings of her companion; being at length compelled to pause for

breath, she gave the light into her hand, and remained behind to follow as she might:

while the more nimble superior made her way to the room where the sick woman lay.

It was a bare garret-room, with a dim light burning at the farther end. There was

another old woman watching by the bed; the parish apothecary's apprentice was

standing by the fire, making a toothpick out of a quill.

'Cold night, Mrs. Corney,' said this young gentleman, as the matron entered.

'Very cold, indeed, sir,' replied the mistress, in her most civil tones, and dropping a

curtsey as she spoke.

'You should get better coals out of your contractors,' said the apothecary's deputy,

breaking a lump on the top of the fire with the rusty poker; 'these are not at all the sort

of thing for a cold night.'

'They're the board's choosing, sir,' returned the matron. 'The least they could do, would

be to keep us pretty warm: for our places are hard enough.'

The conversation was here interrupted by a moan from the sick woman.

'Oh!' said the young mag, turning his face towards the bed, as if he had previously quite

forgotten the patient, 'it's all U.P. there, Mrs. Corney.'

'It is, is it, sir?' asked the matron.

'If she lasts a couple of hours, I shall be surprised.' said the apothecary's apprentice,

intent upon the toothpick's point. 'It's a break-up of the system altogether. Is she

dozing, old lady?'

The attendant stooped over the bed, to ascertain; and nodded in the affirmative.

'Then perhaps she'll go off in that way, if you don't make a row,' said the young man.

'Put the light on the floor. She won't see it there.'

The attendant did as she was told: shaking her head meanwhile, to intimate that the

woman would not die so easily; having done so, she resumed her seat by the side of the

other nurse, who had by this time returned. The mistress, with an expression of

impatience, wrapped herself in her shawl, and sat at the foot of the bed.

The apothecary's apprentice, having completed the manufacture of the toothpick,

planted himself in front of the fire and made good use of it for ten minutes or so: when

apparently growing rather dull, he wished Mrs. Corney joy of her job, and took himself

off on tiptoe.

When they had sat in silence for some time, the two old women rose from the bed, and

crouching over the fire, held out their withered hands to catch the heat. The flame threw

a ghastly light on their shrivelled faces, and made their ugliness appear terrible, as, in

this position, they began to converse in a low voice.

'Did she say any more, Anny dear, while I was gone?' inquired the messenger.

'Not a word,' replied the other. 'She plucked and tore at her arms for a little time; but I

held her hands, and she soon dropped off. She hasn't much strength in her, so I easily

kept her quiet. I ain't so weak for an old woman, although I am on parish allowance; no,

no!'

'Did she drink the hot wine the doctor said she was to have?' demanded the first.

'I tried to get it down,' rejoined the other. 'But her teeth were tight set, and she clenched

the mug so hard that it was as much as I could do to get it back again. So I drank it; and

it did me good!'

Looking cautiously round, to ascertain that they were not overheard, the two hags

cowered nearer to the fire, and chuckled heartily.

'I mind the time,' said the first speaker, 'when she would have done the same, and made

rare fun of it afterwards.'

'Ay, that she would,' rejoined the other; 'she had a merry heart.

A many, many, beautiful corpses she laid out, as nice and neat as waxwork. My old

eyes have seen them--ay, and those old hands touched them too; for I have helped her,

scores of times.'

Stretching forth her trembling fingers as she spoke, the old creature shook them

exultingly before her face, and fumbling in her pocket, brought out an old timediscoloured

tin snuff-box, from which she shook a few grains into the outstretched palm

of her companion, and a few more into her own. While they were thus employed, the

matron, who had been impatiently watching until the dying woman should awaken from

her stupor, joined them by the fire, and sharply asked how long she was to wait?

'Not long, mistress,' replied the second woman, looking up into her face. 'We have none

of us long to wait for Death. Patience, patience! He'll be here soon enough for us all.'

'Hold your tongue, you doting idiot!' said the matron sternly.

'You, Martha, tell me; has she been in this way before?'

'Often,' answered the first woman.

'But will never be again,' added the second one; 'that is, she'll never wake again but

once--and mind, mistress, that won't be for long!'

'Long or short,' said the matron, snappishly, 'she won't find me here when she does

wake; take care, both of you, how you worry me again for nothing. It's no part of my

duty to see all the old women in the house die, and I won't--that's more. Mind that, you

impudent old harridans. If you make a fool of me again, I'll soon cure you, I warrant

you!'

She was bouncing away, when a cry from the two women, who had turned towards the

bed, caused her to look round. The patient had raised herself upright, and was

stretching her arms towards them.

'Who's that?' she cried, in a hollow voice.

'Hush, hush!' said one of the women, stooping over her. 'Lie down, lie down!'

'I'll never lie down again alive!' said the woman, struggling. 'I WILL tell her! Come

here! Nearer! Let me whisper in your ear.'

She clutched the matron by the arm, and forcing her into a chair by the bedside, was

about to speak, when looking round, she caught sight of the two old women bending

forward in the attitude of eager listeners.

'Turn them away,' said the woman, drowsily; 'make haste! make haste!'

The two old crones, chiming in together, began pouring out many piteous lamentations

that the poor dear was too far gone to know her best friends; and were uttering sundry

protestations that they would never leave her, when the superior pushed them from the

room, closed the door, and returned to the bedside. On being excluded, the old ladies

changed their tone, and cried through the keyhole that old Sally was drunk; which,

indeed, was not unlikely; since, in addition to a moderate dose of opium prescribed by

the apothecary, she was labouring under the effects of a final taste of gin-and-water

which had been privily administered, in the openness of their hearts, by the worthy old

ladies themselves.

'Now listen to me,' said the dying woman aloud, as if making a great effort to revive one

latent spark of energy. 'In this very room--in this very bed--I once nursed a pretty

young creetur', that was brought into the house with her feet cut and bruised with

walking, and all soiled with dust and blood. She gave birth to a boy, and died. Let me

think--what was the year again!'

'Never mind the year,' said the impatient auditor; 'what about her?'

'Ay,' murmured the sick woman, relapsing into her former drowsy state, 'what about

her?--what about--I know!' she cried, jumping fiercely up: her face flushed, and her eyes

starting from her head--'I robbed her, so I did! She wasn't cold--I tell you she wasn't

cold, when I stole it!'

'Stole what, for God's sake?' cried the matron, with a gesture as if she would call for

help.

'IT!' replied the woman, laying her hand over the other's mouth. 'The only thing she

had. She wanted clothes to keep her warm, and food to eat; but she had kept it safe, and

had it in her bosom. It was gold, I tell you! Rich gold, that might have saved her life!'

'Gold!' echoed the matron, bending eagerly over the woman as she fell back. 'Go on, go

on--yest--what of it? Who was the mother?

When was it?'

'She charge me to keep it safe,' replied the woman with a groan, 'and trusted me as the

only woman about her. I stole it in my heart when she first showed it me hanging round

her neck; and the child's death, perhaps, is on me besides! They would have treated him

better, if they had known it all!'

'Known what?' asked the other. 'Speak!'

'The boy grew so like his mother,' said the woman, rambling on, and not heeding the

question, 'that I could never forget it when I saw his face. Poor girl! poor girl! She was

so young, too! Such a gentle lamb! Wait; there's more to tell. I have not told you all,

have I?'

'No, no,' replied the matron, inclining her head to catch the words, as they came more

faintly from the dying woman. 'Be quick, or it may be too late!'

'The mother,' said the woman, making a more violent effort than before; 'the mother,

when the pains of death first came upon her, whispered in my ear that if her baby was

born alive, and thrived, the day might come when it would not feel so much disgraced

to hear its poor young mother named. "And oh, kind Heaven!" she said, folding her thin

hands together, "whether it be boy or girl, raise up some friends for it in this troubled

world, and take pity upon a lonely desolate child, abandoned to its mercy!"'

'The boy's name?' demanded the matron.

'They CALLED him Oliver,' replied the woman, feebly. 'The gold I

stole was--'

'Yes, yes--what?' cried the other.

She was bending eagerly over the woman to hear her reply; but drew back, instinctively,

as she once again rose, slowly and stiffly, into a sitting posture; then, clutching the

coverlid with both hands, muttered some indistinct sounds in her throat, and fell lifeless

on the bed.

'Stone dead!' said one of the old women, hurrying in as soon as the door was opened.

'And nothing to tell, after all,' rejoined the matron, walking carelessly away.

The two crones, to all appearance, too busily occupied in the preparations for their

dreadful duties to make any reply, were left alone, hovering about the body.