by G. M. Best
‘ “Bill, suppose,” says Fagin, pointing to me, “this lad was to peach – to blow upon us all. Suppose Bolter was to do it, of his own fancy – not grabbed, tried, imprisoned – but of his own fancy, to please his own taste; stealing out nights to do it, Bill. Suppose he did all this, what then?”
‘ “What then? If he was left alive till I came, I’d grind his skull under the iron heel of my boot into as many grains as there are hairs on his head.”
‘ “What if I did it, Bill?” replies Fagin.
‘ “I’d beat your brains out afore everyone. I’d smash your head as if a loaded wagon had gone over it.”
‘ “And what if it was Nancy, Bill? Tell him about Nancy, Bolter. How you followed her.”
‘ “You followed Nancy?” says Bill, staring at me as if he was about to kill me on the spot.
‘ “Yes. To London Bridge where she met two people,” I says. “A gentleman and a lady who asked her to give up her pals, and Monks first, which she did – and to describe him – which she did – and to tell her what house it was that we meet at, and go to, which she did – and where it could best be watched from, which she did – and what time people went there, which she did.”
‘ “She told it all,” says Fagin. “And tell Bill what they said about last Sunday.”
“They asked her why she didn’t come last Sunday, as she promised. She said she couldn’t because you, Bill, kept her forcibly at home. She said she had no laudanum to use on you as was her normal practice when she needed to be free of your attentions.”
‘I got no further, for Bill was so enraged he made for to leave immediately to confront her. Fagin tried to hold him back, saying, “Bill, you won’t be too violent. I mean not too violent for safety. Be crafty, Bill and not too bold.”
‘If murder was not on the Jew’s agenda, Bill was too incensed to listen and he dashed out of the room, swearing and cursing, brushing both of us aside. Fagin ordered me to follow him. It was a bloody easy task. He was so furious with rage he cared not who followed him on his headlong course. He headed for his lodgings and I heard and watched all that happened after he had burst into his room. He grasped the unfortunate Nancy by the head and throat, dragged her into the middle of the room, and yelled her crime into her ears, calling her a she-devil.
‘She pleaded for mercy and clung to him as he struck her again and again. She begged him to abandon his criminal way of life and get away from Fagin by accompanying her to some foreign country. In reply he took out his pistol and struck her a vicious blow across the forehead. Her blood poured on to the carpet, staining it bright red. As she pulled out a handkerchief to stem the flow, he struck her again.’
‘Stop it! Stop it! I can’t bear it!’ I sobbed.
‘Can’t you bear it, Mr Twist? It may surprise you but neither could I. And that is why, although you may not believe me, I intervened. Running into the room I leapt on to Bill’s back and prevented further blows. Looking back it was a damn stupid thing to do because he could easily have felled me as he had felled her, but my action seemed to snap him out of his fury. All his anger drained away almost as rapidly as Nancy’s blood was pouring from the deep gash on her brow.
‘And then he wept. The great brute wept like a blubbing baby at what he had done. Begged her forgiveness. Blessed me for stopping him. Said he’d nivver intended to harm her as much as he had. Together we stanched her wounds and carried her to the bed. Despite the obvious pain she was in, Nancy offered no curses. She simply looked at him with such love in her eyes. And she readily forgave him, telling him he deserved a full explanation of her actions.
‘Battered though she was, Nancy indicated to Bill that she wanted me gone before she spoke, and he told me to get out. I instantly obeyed but I did not go far. Sikes was too agitated to make sure that I really had left and Nancy was still too weakened from his attack to leave the bed. I placed my ear next to the closed door and thus was able to hear almost all their conversation whilst they were unaware of my continued presence. The information I heard from Nancy’s lips I have told no one, but time has moved on and I don’t much mind speaking out now, especially as the terms of our contract are so good. The police will tell you I believe in giving good value for money.’
‘But why wait until now! I don’t understand. Why?’ I demanded, grasping his shoulders as if I could shake the truth out of him. He pushed me away and smiled contemptuously.
‘At the time it was a different matter. Silence seemed the better course of action. I did not want whoever killed Nancy to know that I knew Bill was innocent of her death. It’s called self-preservation, Mr Twist. For all I knew speaking out then might have ended in me becoming the next victim. Besides, have you forgotten the extent of the chaos among all us members of Fagin’s gang? We sought to hide ourselves as best we could and most of the gang I’ve nivver seen since. Even that old cow Charlotte, who I thought was besotted with me, vanished. She was a pathetic creature but I had hoped to use her talents in various ways and at the time I regretted her disappearance from me life. You can turn a pretty penny if you know how to sell a woman as sexually obliging as Charlotte could be.’
Once again I was treated to Claypole’s lascivious smile before he continued: ‘As it happened, I was one of the first to be arrested. At first I tried to stay dumb, but when I heard the news of Bill’s death, I decided to save my skin by becoming the chief witness against Fagin. It seemed safer to let the world continue to think Bill was Nancy’s murderer. After all, my testimony could not bring him back to life.’
‘So what did Nancy tell Sikes?’ I interjected.
‘Something which it gives me pleasure to tell you, Mr Twist. Nancy told Bill that you were her child, taken from her when she was little more than a child herself. She begged him to understand why she wanted you to have a different and better way of life from her own. She explained that she had been able to produce false evidence that you were the heir to the property of a family called the Leefords. She had enlisted the help of a writer called Charles Dickens to ensure your removal from Fagin’s clutches by telling him he had fathered you. Funny, isn’t it, that you may have a worse mother than you thought but a very famous father!’
‘But that’s impossible! I cannot be his son,’ I interjected. ‘He’s far too young and, besides, I know he would never have wished to become her lover.’
‘I can only tell you what she said. If I had proof, don’t you think I might have tried me hand with seeing Mr Dickens before now. That story would be worth a penny or two if it could be proved.’ Claypole laughed at my discomforture, and then resumed his narrative. ‘Nancy went on to tell Sikes the attempted burglary had been a put-up job with the express aim of making Fagin believe you had been shot and killed. Dickens had guaranteed to her that Bill and anyone else involved in the burglary would not be captured. Unfortunately, their plan had almost gone fatally wrong. One of the servants sent to fire the gun that would drive away Bill had panicked and ended up actually hitting you. As she told Bill this, I could hear her sobbing even at the memory of how close you had come to death.
‘Once she had recovered her composure, she told him how matters had then got beyond her control for reasons she didn’t understand. First of all, Dickens, who until then had been her willing gull, had refused to play his next part in her plan. This was to betray a man called Monks to the police. She told Bill that Monks was really called Edward Leeford and it was he she had deceived into believing that you were his half-brother. Nancy had been confident that his arrest would have resulted in your becoming rich.
‘However, Nancy said she had far worse to deal with than Dickens’s new-found awkwardness. She felt she had strong cause to believe that someone was attempting to poison her and her son. Nancy believed others had fallen victim instead to this unknown person’s murderous attempts. She reminded Bill of his own illness and told how the young woman called Rose Maylie, who was looking after you, had also almost died.
‘At first she had though
t the poison had been directed at those who had been taken ill, but, after reflection, she had realized this was not the case. She had come to believe she was the intended victim. Her protective attitude towards her son had not gone unnoticed among Fagin’s gang and she thought one of them must have been tailing her and was now acting against her. For weeks she had been keeping a constant watch on those around her.
‘She told Bill it was her view that the attempted poisonings were the work of the Artful Dodger. In the short time you had been in Fagin’s hands, Dawkins had become very physically attached to you, Mr Twist. She believed his jealous passion at your removal lay behind his attempted murder of both her, the instigator of your escape, and you.
‘Frightened and unable to confide her fears in anyone, she had taken the only course open to her. First, she had acted as informer to the police to secure the arrest of the Dodger, planting enough evidence on him to ensure he would probably be transported abroad to a penal colony. Secondly, she had risked seeing Rose Maylie and Mr Brownlow on London Bridge so that she could betray Monks herself. However, she told Bill she had refused to provide information to either them or the police on Fagin or any other members of his gang. She begged Bill again to forgive her.
‘Although I could only hear and not see, I believe Bill kissed her. At least that’s what it sounded like to me. He told her he would go find Betsy to patch her up and that he would put matters right with Fagin. Hearing him move, I hurriedly hid. He left the room and headed off.
‘I made my own way back towards the Three Cripples where I had arranged to meet Fagin at a later hour. Before he and I met, the news of Nancy’s murder was being shouted around the whole neighbourhood. I can only surmise that Nancy got it wrong and that the man out to destroy her was not the Dodger. Weak from loss of blood, she must have fallen an easy victim to her murderer, who finished the beating that Bill had commenced.
‘I can’t help thinking, Mr Twist, that it must have come as a terrible shock to Bill to hear of her death and to realize that he was believed to be the killer. No wonder he did not flee but sought information to avenge her. Only the dreadful accident in which he hanged himself put paid to his investigations.’
When Claypole had finished, my head was reeling with the information he had provided. I thanked him – more graciously than I had expected – and even shook his hand. I have no recollection of my departure from his house or indeed of how I got myself home. My brain was in a complete whirl. Only gradually did the questions begin to shape in my mind and certain thoughts to dominate. Nancy had engaged the support of Dickens because she had told him I was his child. Was this another of her lies or was he truly my father? If so, was the Dodger really the mysterious poisoner? If he was, then it was possible that Dickens might be the murderer of my mother. The attempted poisoning of Nancy had struck not only Bill Sikes and Rose Maylie but also Mary Hogarth, Dickens’s sister-in-law. He had told me he believed Nancy had killed Mary. Demented by her death, had he gone to see Nancy and, seeing her battered condition, made use of the opportunity to avenge his sister-in-law’s cruel sufferings? If the Dodger was not the poisoner, then who was? And had this mysterious monster abandoned poison to savagely bludgeon my poor mother to death?
Amid the questions, one thing became certain. I had to see the great writer again and I knew the meeting would not be an easy one. Dickens had not told me all the truth on our first meeting. Would I be any more successful on a return visit in obtaining what he truly knew about Nancy’s murder? And would he admit to being my father?
14
DICKENS AGAIN
Dickens agreed to meet me again but this time not at his house. I suspect he feared a scene. He therefore preferred to hold our meeting elsewhere and told me to make my way to the ruins of Rochester Castle, a place he associated with the happiest days of his childhood. Rochester was not a place I knew but, as I walked along its old High Street, I admired its many old houses and strange gables, and understood a little why Dickens held the place in such affection. When I reached the castle he was waiting for me at the foot of its ancient, ivy-covered walls and he was the first to speak.
‘I have happy memories of this place which I oft frequented as a child. Of course the town has shrunk fearfully from the picture I retained in my head. I had entertained the idea that the High Street was at least as wide as Regent Street in London, but now I find it is little better than a lane. The public clock, which I supposed to be the finest in the world, now appears to be as moon-faced and weak a clock as I ever saw, and the town hall, which I thought a model for the palace of Aladdin, is in reality a rather mean brick heap. It was a relief to come here and find this castle at least unchanged. A man’s life seems a brief little practical joke in comparison with the solidity, stature, and strength of its walls, even though the blue sky now provides its sole roof and crows and jackdaws are its only warders.’
I made no comment and he went on. ‘While waiting for you I climbed its rugged staircase, stopping now and then to capture glimpses of the Medway or to peer down through the gaps between the bare joists that are all that remain of former floors. The view from the castle ramparts on to the cathedral and the crumbling remains of the old priory is delightful. You can see the row of staid old red-brick houses where the Cathedral dignitaries live and the shrunken fragments of one of the old city gates. And the old trees with their high tops below me are just as I remember them. Oh, how I used to love this place when I was a child and I could dream its former glories back into life in my imagination! Don’t you agree, Mr Twist, that there are few things in this beautiful country of England more picturesque to the eye, and agreeable to the fancy, than an old cathedral town. Have you been inside the cathedral?’
‘No, not yet,’ I replied.
‘You must, if only to see the battered effigies of clergy long since deceased and the praying figures of knights and ladies on the tombs, with little headless generations of sons and daughters kneeling around them. And there is nothing quite like the soft and mellow light provided by cathedral stained-glass windows. It’s no surprise to me that men and women believe their prayers may be better answered within such hallowed surroundings.’
‘And both you and I may be much in need of prayer after this meeting,’ I interrupted, sensing that his conversation was but a thin disguise to hide his nervousness at our second meeting.
He smiled and replied, ‘I see you are keen to tell me what you have uncovered, so proceed, and maybe we will leave our sight-seeing till later.’
We moved to sit on a bench and there, under the leafy boughs of a tree, I outlined to him all the things that had happened to me since we had last met. Only a few passing birds bore witness to our meeting. He listened patiently but with increasing agitation, nodding his head and interrupting my story with the occasional phrase, such as ‘God bless my soul,’ or ‘Oh Lord no!’ He then asked me to wait while he walked for a time to compose himself.
I watched him pace backwards and forwards. He appeared deep in conversation with himself. Every emotion known to man seemed to cross his troubled face. At least a half hour must have passed by. Then he returned to tell me what was either the truth or a cleverly constructed story. How can you tell the difference when you are dealing with Britain’s greatest storyteller? All I can say is that throughout our conversation he seemed to be one who could not stand still, but must be moving and that he waved his arms so dramatically it was a wonder his manner did not draw an audience and so negate the secrecy of our meeting.
‘Last time we met I told you how it was Nancy who seduced me when I was still a child. And that was true,’ he began. ‘What I did not say is that, corrupted though she was, she was only a month or two older than I. She told me long afterwards that she failed to take any precautions. Whether that was because she thought me too young to be a danger to her or whether simply she was too drunk, I cannot say. She told me she became pregnant but was too frightened to tell anyone. Young in years though she was, she had seen t
he result of enough bloody backroom abortions for the prospect of one to fill her with terror.
‘Inevitably a day came when her pregnancy could no longer be concealed. Of course, by then it was too late for her to have an abortion. She told me Fagin was furious and beat her most cruelly, almost to the extent where both she and the child were lost. However, he did not cast her out as she had expected. Apparently there is a market even for pregnant girls and Fagin always put cash first. It is hard to conceive – if you’ll pardon that expression – of a more monstrous situation than a pregnant thirteen-year-old girl forced to engage in further sexual practices with deviant men, but that was Nancy’s fate until she gave birth. She told me Fagin had planned it so that no one would aid her when the time arrived, but the other prostitutes intervened. It was fortunate that they did because the birth proved difficult and, had a midwife not been called, both mother and child would have been lost. As it was, Nancy suffered such damage that any future pregnancy became an impossibility. For that mercy she expressed her gratitude to God.
She was not allowed to keep the child for long. Fagin disposed of it. For nine years she pushed the memory of her unwanted child to the back of her mind knowing no one would wish to have a whore and a thief for a mother. Imagine her consternation when she saw the naked back of Fagin’s latest recruit and recognized the one feature of her child she recalled with ease: a birthmark. Her instant response was to protect you and to that end she devoted all her energies. Her plan to palm you off as Leeford’s stepbrother was inspired, but she needed an ally, and naturally she looked to the one other person who could be counted upon to help. That person was the father of her son. Our meeting in Newgate prison was no accident. What a fool I was. Nancy had been seeking me out for days.
