Oliver Twist Investigates (6 page)

‘Telling me more of your story became Nancy's perfect excuse for securing further meetings with me, during which she exerted all her not inconsiderable charm. I foolishly did
not see the dangers into which this would lead me. At that time fiction frequently pretended that the criminal was a kind of hero. Highwaymen, for example, were depicted as seductive fellows, amiable for the most part, faultless in dress, plump in pocket, choice in horseflesh, bold in bearing, fortunate in gallantry. They were fit companions for the bravest. I had no desire to write of such romantic highwaymen or moonlit heaths with merry-making in the snuggest of taverns. Instead I wanted to depict the cold, wet, shelterless midnight streets of London and the foul and frowsty dens in which hunger and disease dwell as the handmaids of crime and the destroyers of innocence. I wanted to portray thieves as they really are in the world which Nancy and I knew. I wanted to describe Fagin and his gang in all their deformity, in all their wretchedness, in all the squalid misery of their lives, forever skulking uneasily through the dirtiest paths of life.

‘I readily agreed to become a participant in your rescue from the clutches of those who had abused my own innocence and who were abusing yours. You know the details of how this was achieved. I then embarked on the serialization of your story in the February of 1837. By then my meetings with Nancy were becoming more difficult, despite the fact we had managed to remove you from Fagin's control. I made the mistake of telling her how happy my life had become and, for reasons that I failed to understand, she became increasingly jealous of my relationship with my wife once Catherine gave birth to our first son, whom we christened Charles. She seemed to think that you, Oliver, united her and me in a way that was deeper and more significant than anything I shared with Catherine.

‘I soon realized that she thought any child born to me
would somehow rebound upon my willingness to continue helping you. My defence of my wife – and I confess I foolishly compared her virtue with Nancy's fallen state – seemed to send Nancy into a paroxysm of fury. She launched into such an obscene vocal attack on her that even now I cannot bring myself to repeat a word of it. She vowed to make Catherine pay for casting such a spell over me. To my undying regret I naïvely laughed at her curses and ignored her threats.

‘On the evening of 6 May, a date engraven forever on my memory, I went to the St James's Theatre with my wife and her younger sister, Mary. She was staying with us in order to help Catherine following the birth of our son. The performance was a farce called
Is She His Wife?
which I had written. I was understandably very excited at the prospect of seeing my own writing, whatever its imperfections, being performed because I had long had a fascination with matters theatrical. Even as a child I used to go alone to see shows and, if challenged, I would pretend to look for somebody as if I had been inadvertently separated from the adult who had brought me. The theatre offered a different reality from the one I knew and I welcomed all its sham.

‘Imagine my horror, then, when Nancy intercepted us just as we were about to enter the theatre. She was acting as if she was a street-seller and was offering for sale some brandy-balls made of sugar, water, peppermint, and a little cinnamon. Knowing that the sale of sweets was far from her normal occupation, I was understandably suspicious of her motives. I tried to get Catherine and Mary to ignore her but my kind-hearted wife and sister-in-law would have none of my interference. Beguiled by her charm, they determined to buy some of her sweets and they criticized me for my
unkindness to a poor woman who was simply trying to make an honest living. I managed to draw Catherine away but Mary talked further with Nancy and, to my frustration, I could not hear what was whispered between them because of the noise of the crowd around us. To my relief Nancy seemed content with the snatched conversation and did not press herself any further on our company. Mary also appeared untroubled by whatever had been said and we all enjoyed the show.

‘I thought no more of the matter until our return home at about one in the morning. My sister-in-law went to her room but, before she could undress, she gave a heart-rending cry and collapsed. We hurriedly called a doctor. He declared it was a problem with Mary's heart. We applied every remedy that his skill and our anxiety could suggest. She seemed eventually to rally after a bout of being repeatedly sick and she managed to swallow a little brandy from my hand. She then entered into a calm and gentle sleep as I held her in my arms and I thought the crisis was past. It was some time before I realized that the body I held so lovingly had – without my being aware – breathed its last. I was merely holding her lifeless form whilst her soul had fled to Heaven. It pains me still that the very last words she whispered were of the love she felt for her sister and me.

‘Everyone who knew Mary loved her. She was one of God's angels both in her looks and in her temperament. From the day of our marriage the dear girl had been the grace and life of our home, our constant companion, and the sharer of all our little pleasures. Her death tore my newfound happiness apart. I was so shaken and unnerved by the loss of this dear girl that I was compelled for once to give up all idea of monthly work and to seek rest and quiet.
As if being deprived of her sunshine was insufficient punishment, other calamities followed. First, my mother-in-law collapsed. Then, far worse, my wife, who had become pregnant again, suffered a miscarriage. And, through all this I hid from the world my conviction that Nancy had murdered my sister-in-law. I was sure the sweets had been poisoned and that their intended victim had been Catherine, but I had no proof – the remaining sweets had been thrown away before we left the theatre – and I was ashamed of owning up to my acquaintance with a whore.

‘People say I was overwhelmed with grief at Mary's death to an unhealthy extent, but now you know the true reason for my despair. I had unwittingly brought a mild, gentle, and beautiful seventeen-year-old innocent into fatal contact with a woman drawn from one of the darkest hellholes in London. I could hardly sleep because Mary haunted my dreams, sometimes bearing in her arms the bloody corpse of my wife's aborted child. I vowed vengeance on Nancy and I knew how to wreak it. It was a simple matter to let Fagin know of all the secrets she had betrayed. I knew I could count on him to see she was dealt with. You know the outcome. He told Bill Sikes, who was never a man to tolerate such an act of duplicity. The outcome was a foregone conclusion. Bill battered her to death. I was responsible for the murder of a whore and a murderess and, may God forgive me, I still rejoice in her death and the manner of it. In my imaginings I sometimes feel that I am Sikes, that it is my hands that wield the repeated blows on her skull. And I tell you, Mr Twist, each hammer blow is my revenge for Mary's untimely death.

‘I have avoided you because you remind me too much of that unhappy time of my life and because Nancy's death
failed to free me from my sense of failure at allowing my sister-in-law to be murdered. Indeed, if truth be told, it was Mary's haunting face that gave such power to my description of the death of Little Nell in
The Old Curiosity Shop
. When my account threw the nation into mourning, only I knew they mourned fiction whilst I mourned fact. Speak to my friends and they will tell you I grew so wretched at the horrible shadow this cast over me that it was as much as I could do to go on living. So strange did my behaviour become that there were rumours that I had become an alcoholic or had passed into madness.

‘For a time I contemplated moving to America because so many places here remind me daily of her loss. I travelled there, but I found it not to be the land of liberty and liberalism I had expected. I soon yearned after our English customs and manners, especially disliking the American propensity to spit everywhere. Whenever I journeyed on a train, the flashes of saliva flew so perpetually and incessantly out of the windows all along the way that it looked as if they were ripping open feather-beds inside, and letting the wind dispose of their feathers!

‘And, though I found Americans to be earnest, hospitable, kind, frank, enthusiastic, and far less prejudiced than you would suppose, I tired of the crowds that besieged me wherever I went. If I walked in the street, I was followed by a multitude. If I stayed at home, the house became, with callers, like a fair. If I went to a party, I was so enclosed and hemmed about by people, that, stand where I might, I was exhausted for want of air. Whenever I dined, I had to talk about everything to everybody. I couldn't even drink a glass of water without having a hundred people looking down my throat when I opened my mouth to swallow. I became an
object rather than a person and I never knew less of myself in all my life, or had less time for those confidential interviews with myself, whereby I earn my bread.

‘When I returned I found that the sweetness of my literary success, like my marriage, was still regularly soured by my unhappy memories of Mary's loss. I foolishly pursued a girl called Catherine Weller, simply because she resembled Mary, but, fortunately, her marriage to another man pulled me to my senses. I dabbled with the occult, attending a seance and trying the art of table spinning to see if I could communicate with my dead sister-in-law. It is no coincidence that ghosts feature in some of my tales for there are times when I feel I live in the land of shadows. In my recent travels abroad I found, God forgive me, that the many churches dedicated to the Virgin Mother caused me to think too much of my lost Mary. So do not be surprised when I tell you that, since writing your story, I have avoided the danger of mixing too much fact with my fiction and risking further tragedy. Although many of my characters are still based on the people I meet, the situations I place them in are now mostly all my invention.

‘With all this in mind I suggest, Mr Twist, that you do not invent a story where there is none. Do not mistake short-lived shadows for realities. I do not know how Mr Brownlow came to be able to leave you so much money but enjoy your good fortune. It is possible that Nancy believed you to be her son, but Fagin's allegations about there being some dark secret about your birth which I needed to hide are but the sick and demented ravings of a man about to face the gallows. The truth is much simpler. Nancy brought me nothing but grief. She raped me when I was but a child of thirteen and killed one of the dearest persons in the world. I
live in the constant shadow of her cruelty. If I were you I would not wish to discover any links with a woman so debased. Believe me, Mr Twist, stick to the family you have acquired. Who would want the foul Nancy as their mother?'

I found it difficult to know how to respond to Dickens' final words, which seemed more of a challenge than a question. We both appeared to recognize there was little more to be said. The emotion with which he had told his tale had left both him and me feeling drained and exhausted. I thanked him for his painful honesty and we exchanged a few brief comments about what had happened to others connected with my early life. He appeared to know little about most of them and to care still less. We said we ought to meet each other again but neither of us expected to do so. I now knew why he had avoided me and, for my part, I had no desire to continue our renewed acquaintance. I cursed the day I had opened Fagin's letter. If Nancy really was the child-seducing murderess Dickens believed her to be, my connection with her was indeed most undesirable. I bade him farewell and he bid me good day.

After the immediate shock of Charles Dickens's revelations wore off I found myself questioning his account of events and wondering whether he was simply manipulating me. When he challenged me as to why anyone would want a whore and a murderess as a parent, he fully understood that I had long regarded Agnes Fleming as my mother. He knew the easiest choice for me was to reject Nancy, especially as she was not there to argue her case. Why should I replace the idealized mother of my imagination with the common slut he had depicted? For years I had daily looked at the features of the beautiful woman I had come to believe was my mother. Agnes's portrait dominated not only my bedroom but also my mind. Hers was the last face I saw each night before I closed my eyes in sleep and I woke to her innocent gaze each morning. I felt I knew her because of my dealings with her sister, Rose Maylie, and, rightly or wrongly, I assumed that all Rose's virtues belonged equally to Agnes.

The story of Agnes Fleming as I had been told it was indeed a tragic one. She was the elder daughter of a retired
naval officer who, at the age of nineteen, had the misfortune to fall in love with a rich and handsome man named Edwin Leeford. Mr Brownlow informed me that he was a very fine character and I trust his judgement. He knew Edwin Leeford very well because he had been engaged to Edwin's sister until her untimely early death. Maybe some of his passion for his lost love explains why Mr Brownlow also loved Edwin, whom he came to regard as his best friend. According to him, Edwin's family had forced him when he was still a youth into an extremely unhappy arranged marriage with an older and hard-hearted woman. The two had nothing in common and she was as wicked as Edwin was good. Even the birth of a son, whom they christened Edward, failed to end the anguish of their ill-assorted union. Indifference inevitably gave place to dislike and dislike to hatred and hatred to loathing. As time passed cold formalities were replaced by open conflict and eventual separation. Thus Edwin Leeford was still just in his early thirties and yet had been apart from his wife and son for over a decade when he met Agnes and fell passionately in love with her.

Mr Brownlow stated that the union of Edwin and Agnes was formed in heaven but Edwin's earlier dismal marriage meant it was nevertheless condemned to hell. Edwin refused to risk bigamy and merely told Agnes there was a secret family reason why he could not marry her in public. She, trusting him too deeply, surrendered herself as if they were married, losing what none could ever give her back. And I was the bastard product of their illicit but undoubtedly heartfelt love. For business reasons my father had to leave England for Rome before he could set in place appropriate arrangements to cover up her shame. And
whilst in that city he contracted a fatal illness. Though long estranged, his first wife made sure she was at his deathbed and thus gained access to his final correspondence. This comprised a will and a letter to my mother in which he told her of his love and what he had intended to do for her had he lived. The will left only small annuities to his wife and legitimate son. The bulk of his estate was left to Agnes and her child, should it survive. I was therefore effectively Edwin Leeford's sole heir.

Needless to say, Edwin's embittered wife destroyed both the letter and the will, hoping that there was no copy of the latter somewhere else. She thus ensured that his entire property fell to her and her son, Edward Leeford. Meanwhile Agnes's father removed my unfortunate mother to a remote corner of Wales, where her shame could be well hidden. Who knows what passed between them in their isolation, but there must have been very harsh and bitter words because Agnes eventually chose to flee from her unhappy home. The result was tragic. With nowhere to go, Agnes ended up a homeless wanderer until she was tragically found lying in a street with her clothes sodden and her shoes worn to pieces. She was taken to the nearest workhouse and there she died giving birth to me. Charles Dickens in his account has the exhausted Agnes imperfectly articulate the words, ‘Let me see the child, and die', but that was probably just his literary licence.

My grandfather was distraught at her disappearance, and shortly afterwards he died of a broken heart, not knowing either the fate of his daughter or his grandchild. I thus grew up in the cruel poverty of the workhouse. In contrast my half-brother Edward Leeford reached his manhood surrounded by all the things money could buy and all
purchased with the wealth of my inheritance. However, at one level his life was not any happier than mine. At least I was a child born in love whereas Edward Leeford was a child conceived in hate. Certainly Mr Brownlow was quick to inform me that Edward's upbringing had created a very seriously flawed man. He used to joke sometimes that if I was known as Oliver Twist, then my stepbrother should have been renamed ‘Edward Twisted'. There is no doubt that his profligate and debauched lifestyle soon destroyed not only much of his fortune but also his looks and his reputation.

Edward was eventually forced to flee London society to avoid arrest for a series of crimes. He retired to some family estates in the West Indies, his face and mind scarred by the pox. When he returned to England, he did so to fulfil the dying wishes of his mother. She had made him promise to seek out Agnes Fleming and any child she might have produced because she was fearful that at some stage, if another version of Edwin Leeford's will was discovered, they might challenge him for the return of what was rightly theirs. Assuming the name of Monks lest the police capture him for his earlier misdeeds, Edward's enquiries eventually led him to the workhouse where my mother had died. They also led to his pursuit of me. It was his malicious wish to ensure that I should live as miserable a life as possible. Imagine therefore his delight to discover that one of his former associates, Fagin, actually knew of my whereabouts. And imagine his subsequent frustration at my escape, first to the home of his hated father's best friend, Mr Brownlow, and then to the home of Mrs Maylie, who was the benefactress who had taken in my mother's younger sister, Rose. She had saved her from destitution at the time of her
father's untimely death, following the disappearance of her sister.

As I have already indicated, I believed it was Nancy who had thwarted both Monks' and Fagin's endeavours to destroy me. Although Dickens viewed her as not just a whore but also a murderess, I found this difficult to reconcile with my memories of Nancy's kindness to me and to other unfortunates. I had no wish to replace Agnes Fleming with such a woman as a mother and yet I had to know the truth. Was my likeness to Agnes Fleming only in the mind of Mr Brownlow, who had never actually met her and whose picture of her was based only on a portrait that was perhaps not even a good likeness? Was Edward Leeford equally mistaken in thinking I was his stepbrother? Was Nancy's interest in me really kindled by the fact I was her son? And, if so, who might be my father? How and why had Mr Brownlow acquired greater wealth to bequeath to me? And what had happened to Agnes Fleming's true son? These and many more questions so obsessed me that I knew I could not leave the matter alone.

Although Dickens had assumed that our conversation would end the matter, he had unwittingly given me the vehicle for more research. Before I had left his house, he had given me one vital piece of information. It was the whereabouts of Betsy, Nancy's closest friend. To my surprise, Dickens had not only kept in touch with Betsy but also secured her placement as the controller of a home for fallen women that he had helped to set up. It was capable of holding thirteen inmates at a time and he told me that Betsy was one of the two superintendents who ran it. I recognized that she, more than anyone else, might know if there were any truth behind Fagin's accusations, and I wrote requesting
a meeting with her. Having received a gracious and affirmative reply, I made my way to see Betsy, without informing Dickens of my intentions.

The house for fallen women was aptly called Redemption Cottage and was near Shepherd's Bush. It was an unprepossessing building from the outside, austere and forbidding. It had the air of a house that had known more prosperous days but was entering into a slow and inexorable decline. Its mortar was crumbling and its paintwork, such as remained, peeling. Only the well-tended garden sang a welcome. It was full of flowers, a festive mix of yellows, blues, purples, and reds, which even the soot-laden fog of London could not hide. A sallow-faced, red-haired, rather sulky young woman answered my knock at the door. After surveying me from head to toe through its glass panel, she applied a large key to the lock and gave me entry. I told her my name and that I was expected and, after a moment's hesitation in which she studied my face with a strange intensity, she led me into the parlour.

The woman who greeted me when I entered was very different from the Betsy I remembered. Then she had been a scarlet-dressed girl with blue sparkling eyes and brown wavy hair for whom men had been prepared to pay handsomely. Now she was a smartly dressed woman in a well-preserved black silk gown and a handsome white shawl, a mature woman with greying hair and a nose that appeared more hook-shaped than I remembered. Then she had been the laughing, semi-drunk companion, always in Nancy's shadow. Now she appeared imposingly tall and the strength of her character was evident in her shrewd eyes, which were deep-sunken above cheekbones that jutted squarely across her face. Her gaze seemed to enter into my
very head and to search my innermost thoughts and desires. Despite the unhappy memories my appearance must have evoked, she gave me a kindly welcome and smilingly enquired whether I minded her calling me ‘Master Oliver' in memory of former times. I readily assented.

‘Before we speak of the matters that have brought you here,' she said, ‘let me show you the work we do.'

For the next half-hour or so she took a pride in guiding me around her domain. Some say that a person cannot change from their evil ways but Betsy was truly a woman transformed by the Christian faith she had embraced. No longer was she the dirty, slipshod and dishevelled person I had known in Fagin's den. Instead she was an angel of mercy. Her passionate and moving concern for the welfare of the home's inmates was so heartfelt that it soon became immediately obvious. I can still recall much of what she told me and I think it bears repeating, though much of it is irrelevant to my tale. Amid the horrors I depict in these pages, it is good to give space to dwell at least for a time on acts of Christian charity. These were Betsy's words as I recall them:

‘Master Oliver, I have found deep contentment and happiness here. I say nothing but the truth when I tell you that this house enables some extremely unhappy women to become a blessing to themselves and others instead of being just a curse on society. Misfortune and distress are the only introduction that a woman requires to enter our walls. Here you will find former shoplifters and pickpockets, domestic servants who have been seduced by their masters, girls who have attempted suicide, and whores who have escaped their pimps. We have poor girls from ragged schools, destitute girls who have applied at police stations for aid, starving needlewomen who have been unable to pay the rent on their
furnished lodgings without resorting to prostitution, and violent girls committed to prison for disturbances in ill-conducted workhouses. Most of those we help are in their early twenties but, disgrace that it is, we have taken some as young as seven or eight years old. Nearly all are ignorant. What almost all share in common is that they have had little or no experience of kindness in their lives. I don't need to tell you how lonely and isolated that makes you feel.

When a girl arrives we ask her to tell us her history and we record it in a book. Believe me, if ever it were to be published, this book would be such a damning indictment of our society that England's reputation would be forever blighted. But once their history is known we rarely talk further about it because we encourage them to look to a better future. Our aim, Master Oliver, is to offer these young women, who have lost their character and lapsed into sin, a sense of hope and a chance to start their lives anew in Australia or America or elsewhere. We are not naïve. We have no extravagant expectations. It is not always easy to persuade a girl to work for many hours a day in order to earn what she can gain in a few minutes by simply opening her legs. We have faced many failures and disappointments but I consider this enterprise well rewarded if but a third of those we receive are saved and fly from crime and prostitution. Does not Heaven itself rejoice over one sinner who repents?'

I nodded my assent and Betsy, grateful for my approval (for not all of society would agree with this sentiment), warmly grasped my hands between hers before continuing her account.

‘I have learnt that the past is something to be largely forgotten, Master Oliver, and that what we do now and in
the future is far more important. The fact that we offer the girls forgiveness does not make us soft. On the contrary, we impose a strict routine and expect the girls to be practical and active. They get up at six in the morning, winter and summer, and we hold prayers and a scripture reading before breakfast. The day is then partly taken up with housework undertaken on a rota. Two work in the bedrooms, two in the general living room, two in the kitchens, two in the scullery, and five in the laundry. They make and mend their own clothes, although we never allow them to keep any spare clothes under their control lest they attempt to sneak out and sell them. Indeed we keep all their clothes under lock and key in a wardrobe room. The rest of the day is taken up with two hours of lessons in the mornings and a few hours in the afternoons when the girls do needlework or are helped to write letters to relatives or someone who has been kind to them (if such exist). Those who can read do so out loud for the benefit of the rest.

‘All our meals are communal. Dinner is at one and tea at six. After tea the girls are allowed a half-hour in the garden if the weather permits. Three times a fortnight a local clergyman joins us in the evenings and provides additional religious instruction. He's a good man because there are some clergy who will have nothing to do with this place. How they square that with following our Lord and Master I do not know! Every evening we hold evening prayers half an hour before bedtime at nine. They say temptation does not knock on the door, it leans on the doorbell, and so we have to be constantly vigilant. For that reason no one has a room to herself and we place those we can trust most as the bedmates of those we can trust least. Nobody makes her own bed so they cannot contemplate hiding things and all
cupboards in the house are kept locked and the keys are never left lying about. We even keep the garden gate locked at night, so they cannot just wander out.'