Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist. Volume 2 of 3

Whatever were Mr. Bumble’s intentions, however, – and no doubt they were of the best, – whatever they were, it unfortunately, happened, as has been twice before remarked, that the table was a round one; consequently, Mr. Bumble, moving his chair by little and little, soon began to diminish the distance between himself and the matron, and, continuing to travel round the outer edge of the circle, brought his chair in time close to that in which the matron was seated. Indeed, the two chairs touched; and when they did so, Mr. Bumble stopped.

Now, if the matron had moved her chair to the right, she would have been scorched by the fire, and if to the left, she must have fallen into Mr. Bumble’s arms; so (being a discreet matron, and no doubt foreseeing these consequences at a glance) she remained where she was, and handed Mr. Bumble another cup of tea.

“Hard-hearted, Mrs. Corney?” said Mr. Bumble, stirring his tea, and looking up into the matron’s face; “are you hard-hearted, Mrs. Corney?”

“Dear me!” exclaimed the matron, “what a very curious question from a single man. What can you want to know for, Mr. Bumble?”

The beadle drank his tea to the last drop, finished a piece of toast, whisked the crumbs off his knees, wiped his lips, and deliberately kissed the matron.

“Mr. Bumble,” cried that discreet lady in a whisper, for the fright was so great that she had quite lost her voice, “Mr. Bumble, I shall scream!” Mr. Bumble made no reply, but in a slow and dignified manner put his arm round the matron’s waist.

As the lady had stated her intention of screaming, of course she would have screamed at this additional boldness, but that the exertion was rendered unnecessary by a hasty knocking at the door, which was no sooner heard than Mr. Bumble darted with much agility to the wine-bottles, and began dusting them with great violence, while the matron sharply demanded who was there. It is worthy of remark, as a curious physical instance of the efficacy of a sudden surprise in counteracting the effects of extreme fear, that her voice had quite recovered all its official asperity.

“If you please, mistress,” said a withered old female pauper, hideously ugly, putting her head in at the door, “Old Sally is a-going fast.”

“Well, what’s that to me?” angrily demanded the matron. “I can’t keep her alive, can I?”

“No, no, mistress,” replied the old woman; “nobody can; she’s far beyond the reach of help. I’ve seen a many people die, little babes and great strong men, and I know when death’s a-coming well enough. But she’s troubled in her mind; and when the fits are not on her, – and that’s not often, for she is dying very hard, – she says she has got something to tell which you must hear. She’ll never die quiet till you come, mistress.”

At this intelligence the worthy Mrs. Corney muttered a variety of invectives against old women who couldn’t even die without purposely annoying their betters; and, muffling herself in a thick shawl which she hastily caught up, briefly requested Mr. Bumble to stop till she came back, lest anything particular should occur, and bidding the messenger walk fast, and not be all night hobbling up the stairs, followed her from the room with a very ill grace, scolding all the way.

Mr. Bumble’s conduct on being left to himself was rather inexplicable. He opened the closet, counted the tea-spoons, weighed the sugar-tongs, closely inspected a silver milk-pot to ascertain that it was of the genuine metal; and, having satisfied his curiosity upon these points, put on his cocked-hat corner-wise, and danced with much gravity four distinct times round the table. Having gone through this very extraordinary performance, he took off the cocked-hat again, and, spreading himself before the fire with his back towards it, seemed to be mentally engaged in taking an exact inventory of the furniture.

It was no unfit messenger of death that had disturbed the quiet of the matron’s room. Her body was bent by age, her limbs trembled with palsy, and 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 there are 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 long-forgotten 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 along the passages and up the stairs, muttering some indistinct answers to the chidings of her companion; and being at length compelled to pause for breath, 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, and 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 man, 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 wont see it there.”

The attendant did as she was bidden, shaking her head meanwhile to intimate that the woman would not die so easily; and having done so, 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 perfectly 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.