Oliver Twist Investigates (17 page)

‘With my credentials established, Oliver, I was able to attract the attention of a rich trader. I had the commitment and energy that he increasingly lacked, and so step by step he entrusted me with more and more of his business until eventually he made me his partner. My efforts transformed his business and my share of the profits enabled me to set
myself up as an independent man. I've got a large farm to my name now and I am respected. It's ironic that, returning here, I remain just a convict.' The Dodger sensed my impatience. ‘But enough of my history,' he said, ‘Tell me what you want.'

I told my entire story as quickly as I could and he proved just as attentive a listener to me as I had been when he had narrated the story of his life. He heard all I had to say intently, only occasionally interrupting me to seek clarification on a point. To my surprise I could tell that he already knew much of what I told him. His manner towards me seemed to undergo a total transformation. When I had finished, he grasped me by my hand and shook it vigorously.

‘I have to admire you, Oliver. Not many would have discovered so much – or wished to! You have convinced me that your motives are honourable and I will therefore take you to the only person who can answer all your remaining questions, providing you agree to being blindfolded.'

Needless to say, I nodded my assent. Dawkins led me back up the stairs and along the bridge to where a hackney carriage was waiting. Once I was aboard it, I submitted to the blindfold he had requested and we embarked on our mystery journey. I passed through the darkened city streets in a deeper darkness both of body and mind, wondering to whom I was being taken. The Dodger refused to speak further and we sat in an uneasy silence, broken only by the sound of the wheels of the hackney carriage and the horse's hoofs on the cobbles. After what seemed an eternity but in fact was probably no more than an hour or so, the carriage came to a halt and, still blindfolded, I disembarked into a darkened street. Dawkins spun me round so that I lost all
sense of direction. Then he grasped my hand and led me through a couple of streets. We stopped and I heard him unlock a door. He guided me inside and led me up a flight of stairs. Again, I heard the unlocking of a door and we entered a room. I was pushed gently but firmly into a chair. He told me to stay quietly there until he could prepare the person he wanted me to see. Although I could easily have removed the blindfold, for my hands were untied, I refrained from doing so. And I waited in the darkness, the only sound that of a nearby ticking clock.

When Dawkins returned I could hear that he was helping someone into the room. I sensed that the person was moving slowly towards me and my whole body tensed. The person's hands touched my face and gently caressed it. The hands were soft and those of a woman. With an audible sob, the woman began untying my blindfold but the task seemed almost beyond her because her hands trembled so. I stayed rigid as if frozen to the spot. At last the blindfold fell away. There was nothing to be seen but only because, in my emotion, I had closed both eyes tightly shut. I opened my eyes and fainted with the shock of what I saw. It was Nancy.

When I opened my eyes she was still there. My sight had not deceived me. She looked much older than I would have expected and there was an extreme frailty about her that obviously caused the Dodger deep concern. But it was she. It was indeed Nancy and her eyes looked into mine with the same intense passion I had sensed all those years before.

Nancy broke the silence first. ‘You've no idea, Oliver,' she said, ‘how much I have both longed and dreaded our meeting again. There has never been a day since we last met that I have not thought of you and begged God's blessing on my poor boy. And now I see you I know you're such a fine young gentleman, so all my prayers have been answered. I am glad from what Jack tells me that you now know as much as you do, although it was I who wanted so much to protect you from that knowledge.'

‘But you were found dead,' I gasped. ‘Your skull was shattered. Your features were bludgeoned into a pulp. Your blood was splattered all over the room. The ashes of the club used to kill you were found in the grate, along with
fragments of bloodstained cloth. The very feet of Sikes's dog were bloody. Bill died seeking your murderer. I attended your funeral.'

‘It was not me who died in that room that night, Oliver. It was another. After Bill had left, I lay on the bed in a kind of semi-swoon. There was indeed a terrible gash on my forehead where in his fury he had struck me and, despite his attempts to stem the flow of blood, it was still bleeding profusely. Fleshy wounds of that sort often do. I am not sure how long I lay there. Bull's-eye for a time kept me company but I eventually tired of his piteous whining and, staggering to my feet, I threw him out. Yes, I believe his paws were covered with my blood. However, by then my head wound had ceased bleeding and I ripped up some pieces of cloth to mop up some of the blood that stained the floor. It was while I was engaged in that task that I heard the stealthy approach of someone up the stairs. Fearing it might be someone sent by Fagin, I seized the only thing in the room available to protect myself: the club that Bill had used to hit me and which, in detestation of his actions, he had left behind.

‘The door was unlocked and I had not time to find the key, which had been displaced in my fight with Bill. I therefore took refuge behind the table and, with beating heart, awaited my visitor. When the door opened I breathed a sigh of relief and dropped the club because it was only Charlotte Bolter, or rather, to give her the name I now know to be her true one, Charlotte Sowerberry. I had had little to do with her because she had only recently joined our group, having come to London with her lover, Morris Bolter, or should I say, Noah Claypole. The little I had seen had not impressed me. She seemed to lack everything. Her looks were poor, her dress slovenly, her brain slow, and her tongue quick but
stupid. The best Fagin could do with her was to assign her to steal from little children. As far as I knew her one saving grace was her obvious obsession with her lover, but even that lacked attraction because her choice of man was a pretty poor specimen.'

The Dodger could not help laughing at this. ‘You're a fine one to talk, Nancy. Most of us could nivver see what you saw in Bill, brute that he was.'

‘I won't deny Bill had his faults, especially when he had been drinking, but he didn't deceive and use me the way Noah Claypole did Charlotte. She was expected to wait on him hand and foot. Not that she was meek and mild by temperament. Far from it. Oliver had told me enough of her treatment of him to make me realize what a cow she really was. And on this occasion I saw the worst of her. She had discovered from one of the lads that Fagin had sent Noah to my place. Everyone knew Fagin was desperate to drive a wedge between me and Bill and, foolishly, she believed that Noah had been selected to win over my affections. As if he could! Only Charlotte could believe Noah to be so special. Sick though I still felt, I could not hide my amusement when she challenged me with seeking to seduce her man.

‘My cruel laughter was a mistake, but I made matters worse by comparing Claypole to Bill and telling her exactly what Bill would do to her precious Noah if he ever approached me. My words seemed to make her view the gash on my forehead and the bloody marks around the room in a new and horrible light. She became irrational, convinced that Bill had found Noah and me together and had punished both him and me. She could see what he had done to me, but what had he done to Noah? And where were they now? With mounting panic that paid no heed to
what I was trying to say to her, she looked around her. Then she saw Bill's bloody club and the bloody pawmarks of his dog. Screaming obscenities at me, she launched herself across the room towards me.

‘Weakened by loss of blood, I knew I would be no match for her. I pushed the table at her to give me a momentary advantage and, picking up the club, swung it at her as hard as I could. She fell backwards on the grate and her head struck the iron fender. She lay still. I thought myself fortunate to have knocked her out with just the one blow, but then I noticed the blood trickling from the back of her neck. Kneeling down, I lifted her head and realized that her skull was cracked and she was dead. The poor unfortunate woman must have had some weakness there for her to die so easily. Looking at her corpse, I confess I panicked. Already people called me a whore and a thief, now they would call me a murderess. No one would believe it to be an accident. The pictures of the gallows that Fagin showed me as a child came flashing into my mind. I felt as if I was as good as dead.

‘And then I had an idea. Charlotte and I were about the same size. What if people thought the dead body was mine? The finger of suspicion would fall on Fagin. Everyone in the gang knew he was out to get me. In my confused state, I didn't imagine they would think it was Bill. Although he was rough at times, I thought everyone knew he loved me too much to be my murderer. With the police after Fagin, he would have to take flight and his gang would break up. They would no longer be a threat to my son or to me, and I could seek a new life. Mr Brownlow and Rose Maylie had promised me they would do all in their power to give me a new start in a new country if I wished it. With the threat of
Fagin removed, I was sure you, Oliver, would be recognized as the half-brother of Edward Leeford and become a wealthy man. And that was all I wanted for you. I did not wish you to know who your real mother was. It was better I lived so far away that I would never be tempted to try and see you. The one problem I could foresee was persuading Bill to come with me, but I was confident I could achieve that.

‘And so I stripped Charlotte of her clothes, took off my garments, and put them on to her. Then came the worst part. I covered the body with a rug so that I did not have to see exactly what I was doing and I battered her head repeatedly with the club so that her face would be unrecognizable. I then threw the instrument into the fire lest it provide any clues as to its user. And thus I murdered myself.'

She paused and looked to see my reaction, dreading lest I reject her. But how could I? She was my mother. My loving mother, more sinned against than sinning, who had risked everything for me. I clutched her frail body to me and repeatedly but gently kissed her careworn face. Our joint tears gave expression to my forgiveness and her contrition. I could sense that even the hardened Dodger was moved by the signs of our mutual love. And when the intensity of our embrace had ended, my mother slowly gathered herself together and resumed her story:

‘I fled from the room, disguised in Charlotte's clothes. My intention was to hide and get a message to Bill about my whereabouts. But that is when everything went wrong. As I crossed through an alleyway, a richly clothed child recognized Charlotte's dress and called out that I was the lady who had robbed him the previous day. His father shouted out
thief!
and promised a guinea to any man who would seize hold of me till the police could be brought.
Before I knew where I was, I was being pursued. Weakened from loss of blood and from all my exertions, I slipped and fell very heavily down a flight of stairs, knocking myself unconscious.

‘When I eventually came round I found myself in a hospital bed. When my body had been turned over in the street, the child had confessed I was a different lady from the one who had stolen from him. His father, mortified at causing an innocent woman such an injury, had paid for me to be looked after. The nurse told me I was lucky to be alive and that I had been in a coma for over a fortnight.

‘I released myself from the hospital as soon as I could. By then, of course, it was too late. You can imagine my horror when I discovered that Bill had been accused of my murder and had been killed trying to escape. My one consolation was that the rest of my plan had worked better than I had envisaged and that Fagin was on trial and his hanging a foregone conclusion. Your own future, Oliver, was secured. I rapidly came to the conclusion that it was better if you and the whole world thought me dead, and so I sought out Mr Brownlow. Swearing him to secrecy, I told him what I have told you about Charlotte's death. He was true to his earlier promise and gave me recommendations to start a new life abroad. I suspect he was rather glad to free himself and you of my presence.

‘My life since then, Oliver, has been a good one. No son would find fault with the tenor of my life over these past few years. I made the most of my new start and a couple of years ago had the good fortune to meet the Dodger, who had also done very well for himself. He has risked everything to bring me back to England. I had no intention of finding you again, but I hoped to be able to see you without your being
aware of my presence. I wanted to see what had happened to my son before I died.'

‘Died?'

‘Look at her, Oliver,' interrupted the Dodger. ‘You can see she is very sick, very sick indeed. If the truth be told it is only her determination to see you that has kept her alive. Though she is ashamed to tell you herself, her physical and, increasingly, her mental frailty are due to the fact she is entering the last stages of syphilis. We've both seen enough of the rashes produced by the disease to recognize its symptoms all too well. She has been taking some arsenic to try and keep it at bay.'

Nancy looked at me and whispered, ‘Sadly I have found you cannot escape your past.'

‘So have I,' I replied and clutched her thin frame to my chest. My heart felt as if it would break.

And so I was reunited with my mother, but not for long. On closer acquaintance it became all too obvious that the terrible disease she had contracted had already affected her in a variety of ways, weakening her constitution, limiting her movements, impairing her concentration and affecting her judgement. Her body was covered with itchy rashes and sores that gave her leopard-like blotches on her skin. She also had an agonizing pain in her back and there was a kind of inflammation in her joints that made them stiff and swollen so that any movement was painful. It was not uncommon for her to burn up with fever and increasingly she could not find rest in sleep. Her determination to see me had held the disease at bay, but, now that we were together, her physical state rapidly declined. Her speech became ever more slurred and at times we could not understand what she was trying to say. Some days she would appear almost
paralysed but then violent convulsions would occur and she would suddenly roar and rage like an animal in a cage, lashing out at anyone near her in her agony.

However, far worse than the relentless physical deterioration was the increasing mental effect of the disease. Sometimes she had bouts when she lost all touch with reality and suffered from strange delusions, while at other times she appeared disorientated or strangely and sadly apathetic. There were days when she was so racked by hallucinations that we had no option but to physically restrain her. Worst of all, her memory became obviously faulty so that on occasion she could not recall words or phrases and this added to the physical difficulties she was having in making herself understood. There were even times when she could not remember who she was or where she was and then she could not recognize either the Dodger or me. Those days were the worst.

And yet very occasionally Nancy still had better days in which she appeared more like herself. At such times she told me she was now content to die, knowing that I was well situated. It was her way of reinforcing to me, that having been reunited with her son, she no longer cared about resisting the effects of the appalling disease. The Dodger and I agreed to tell Dickens what had happened because we both recognized that it was safer to ensure that his investigative powers were taken off the case. However, we swore him to secrecy and I informed Rose and Harry that my search had come to a dead end. Although I hated to deceive them, I knew that the fewer who knew of Nancy's existence the more likelihood there was that I could keep her secret safe from the authorities. Desperately ill though Nancy was, we feared she would face the gallows if her murder of Charlotte
became a matter for police investigation.

Dickens came only once to the house where we tended her, and neither the Dodger nor I was allowed to be present for their meeting. Fortunately his arrival coincided with one of her better days. I cannot tell you what was said for both found it too painful to speak of what they shared, but I sensed that both forgave each other for past wrongs. Dickens was certainly deeply moved. Both he and I encouraged the Dodger, good friend though he had proved to be to Nancy, to return to his new life abroad before the authorities caught up with him. With sadness, he agreed because he knew he could do no more for her. However, their parting, which took place in one of Nancy's few more rational phases, was a painful one. They had shared much together and the Dodger's loyalty and love had been significant in helping her face her declining health. I too was sorry to see him leave because his care for my mother had made me long since forgive his role in leading me as a child into Fagin's clutches.