“What dreadful things are these!” said Rose, involuntarily falling from her strange companion.
“Thank Heaven upon your knees, dear lady,” cried the girl, “that you had friends to care for and keep you in your childhood, and that you were never in the midst of cold and hunger, and riot and drunkenness, and—and—something worse than all—as I have been from my cradle. I may use the word, for the alley and the gutter were mine, as they will be my death bed.”
“I pity you!” said Rose, in a broken voice. “It wrings my heart to hear you!”
“Heaven bless you for your goodness!” rejoined the girl. “If you knew what I am sometimes, you would pity me, indeed But I have stolen away from those who would surely murder me, if they knew I had been here, to tell you what I have over heard. Do you know a man named Monks?”
“No,” said Rose.
“He knows you,” replied the girl, “and knew you were here for it was by hearing him tell the place that I found you out.”
“I never heard the name, said Rose.
“Then he goes by some other amongst us,” rejoined the girl “which I more than thought before. Some time ago, and soor after Oliver was put into your house on the night of the rob bery, I—suspecting this man—listened to a conversation held between him and Fagin in the dark. I found out, from what heard, that Monks—the man I asked you about, you know—”
“Yes,” said Rose, “I understand.”
“—That Monks,” pursued the girl, “had seen him accidentally with two of our boys on the day we first lost him, and had known him directly to be the same child that he was watching . for, though I couldn’t make out why. A bargain was struck with Fagin, that if Oliver was got back he should have a certain sum; and he was to have more for making him a thief which this Monks wanted for some purpose of his own.”
“For what purpose?” asked Rose.
“He caught sight of my shadow on the wall as I listened, ir the hope of finding out,” said the girl; “and there are not many people besides me that could have got out of their way in time to escape discovery. But I did, and I saw him no more till last night.”
“And what occurred then?”
“I’ll tell you, lady. Last night he came again. Again they went upstairs, and I, wrapping myself up so that my shadow should not betray me, again listened at the door. The firs words I heard Monks say were these: ‘So the only proofs o the boy’s identity lie at the bottom of the river, and the old hag that received them from the mother is rotting in her coffin.’ They laughed, and talked of his success in doing this; and Monks, talking on about the boy, and getting very wild. said that though he had got the young devil’s money safely now, he’d rather have had it the other way; for what a game it would have been to have brought down the boast of the father’s will, by driving him through every jail in town, and then hauling him up for some capital felony which Fagin could easily manage, after having made a good profit of him besides.”
“What is all this!” said Rose.
“The truth, lady, though it comes from my lips,” replied the girl. “Then, he said. with oaths common enough in my ears, but strange to yours, that if he could gratify his hatred by taking the boy’s life without bringing his own neck in danger, he would; but, as he couldn‘t, he’d be upon the watch to meet him at every turn in life; and if he took advantage of his birth and history, he might harm him yet. ‘In short, Fagin,’ he says, ‘Jew as you are, you never laid such snares as I’ll contrive for my young brother, Oliver.’”
“His brother!” exclaimed Rose.
“Those were his words,” said Nancy, glancing uneasily round, as she had scarcely ceased to do since she began to speak, for a vision of Sikes haunted her perpetually. “And more. When he spoke of you and the other lady, and said it seemed contrived by Heaven, or the devil, against him, that Oliver should come into your hands, he laughed, and said there was some comfort in that too, for how many thousands and hundreds of thousands of pounds would you not give, if you had them, to know who your two-legged spaniel was.”
“You do not mean,” said Rose, turning very pale. “to tell me that this was said in earnest?”
“He spoke in hard and angry earnest, if a man ever did,” replied the girl, shaking her head. “He is an earnest man when his hatred is up. I know many who do worse things, but I’d rather listen to them all a dozen times than to that Monks once. It is growing late, and I have to reach home without suspicion of having been on such an errand as this. I must get back quickly.”
“But what can I do?” said Rose. “To what use can I turn this communication without you? Back! Why do you wish to return to companions you paint in such terrible colours? If you repeat this information to a gentleman whom I can summon in an instant from the next room, you can be consigned to some place of safety without half an hour’s delay.”
“I wish to go back,” said the girl. “I must go back, because—how can I tell such things to an innocent lady like you?—because among the men I have told you of, there is one, the most desperate among them all, that I can’t leave—no, not even to be saved from the life I am leading now.”
“Your having interfered in this dear boy’s behalf before,” said Rose; “your coming here, at so great a risk, to tell me what you have heard; your manner, which convinces me of the truth of what you say; your evident contrition, and sense of shame—all lead me to believe that you might be yet reclaimed. Oh!” said the earnest girl, folding her hands as the tears coursed down her face, “do not turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of one of your own sex; the first—the first, I do believe, who ever appealed to you in the voice of pity and compassion. Do hear my words, and let me save you yet, for better things.”
“Lady,” cried the girl, sinking on her knees, “dear, sweet, angel lady, you
are
the first that ever blessed me with such words as these, and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!”
“It is never too late,” said Rose, “for penitence and atonement.”
“It is,” cried the girl, writhing in the agony of her mind; “I cannot leave him now! I could not be his death.”
“Why should you be?” asked Rose.
“Nothing could save him,” cried the girl. “If I told others what I have told you, and led to their being taken, he would be sure to die. He is the boldest; and has been so cruel!”
“Is it possible,” cried Rose, “that for such a man as this you can resign every future hope and the certainty of immediate rescue? It is madness.”
“I don’t know what it is,” answered the girl; “I only know that it is so, and not with me alone, but with hundreds of others as bad and wretched as myself. I must go back. Whether it is God’s wrath for the wrong I have done, I do not know; but I am drawn back to him through every suffering and ill-usage; and I should be, I believe, if I knew that I was to die by his hand at last.”
“What am I to do?” said Rose. “I should not let you depart from me thus.”
“You should, lady, and I know you will,” rejoined the girl. rising. “You will not stop my going because I have trusted in your goodness, and forced no promise from you, as I might have done.”
“Of what use, then, is the communication you have made?” said Rose. “This mystery must be investigated, or how will its disclosure to me benefit Oliver, whom you are anxious to serve?”
“You must have some kind gentleman about you that will hear it as a secret, and advise you what to do,” rejoined the girl.
“But where can I find you again when it is necessary?” asked Rose. “I do not seek to know where these dreadful people live, but where will you be walking or passing at any settled period from this time?”
“Will you promise me that you will have my secret strictly kept, and come alone, or with the only other person that knows it; and that I shall not be watched or followed?” asked the girl.
“I promise you solemnly,” answered Rose.
“Every Sunday night, from eleven until the clock strikes twelve,” said the girl without hesitation, “I will walk on London Bridge if I am alive.”
“Stay another moment,” interposed Rose, as the girl moved hurriedly towards the door. “Think once again on your own condition, and the opportunity you have of escaping from it. You have a claim on me, not only as the voluntary bearer of this intelligence, but as a woman lost almost beyond redemption. Will you return to this gang of robbers, and to this man, when a word can save you? What fascination is it that can take you back, and make you cling to wickedness and misery? Oh! is there no chord in your heart that I can touch! Is there nothing left to which I can appeal against this terrible infatuation!”
“When ladies as young, and good, and beautiful as you are,” replied the girl steadily, “give away your hearts, love will carry you all lengths—even such as you, who have home, friends, other admirers, everything, to fill them. When such as I, who have no certain roof but the coffin-lid, and no friend in sickness or death but the hospital nurse, set our rotten hearts on any man, and let him fill the place that has been a blank through all our wretched lives, who can hope to cure us? Pity us, !ady—pity us for having only one feeling of the woman left, and for having that turned, by a heavy judgment, from a comfort and a pride into a new means of violence and suffering.”
“You will,” said Rose, after a pause, “take some money from me, which may enable you to live without dishonesty—at all events until we meet again?”
“Not a penny,” replied the girl, waving her hand.
“Do not close your heart against all my efforts to help you,” said Rose, stepping gently forward. “I wish to serve you indeed.”
“You would serve me best, lady,” replied the girl, wringing her hands, “if you could take my life at once; for I have felt more grief to think of what I am, to-night, than I ever did before, and it would be something not to die in the hell in which I have lived. God bless you, sweet lady, and send as much happiness on your head as I have brought shame on mine!”
Thus speaking, and sobbing aloud, the unhappy creature turned away, while Rose Maylie, overpowered by this extraordinary interview, which had more the semblance of a rapid dream than an actual occurrence, sank into a chair and endeavoured to collect her wandering thoughts.
CHAPTER XLI
Containing fresh discoveries, and showing that surprises,
like misfortunes, seldom come alone.
HER SITUATION WAS, INDEED, ONE OF NO COMMON TRIAL AND difficulty. While she felt the most eager and burning desire to penetrate the mystery in which Oliver’s history was enveloped, she could not but hold sacred the confidence which the miserable woman with whom she had just conversed had reposed in her as a young and guileless girl. Her words and manner had touched Rose Maylie’s heart; and, mingled with her love for her young charge, and scarcely less intense in its truth and fervour, was her fond wish to win the outcast back to repentance and hope.
They purposed remaining in London only three days, prior to departing for some weeks to a distant part of the coast. It was now midnight of the first day. What course of action could she determine upon, which could be adopted in eight-and-forty hours? Or how could she postpone the journey without exciting suspicion?
Mr. Losberne was with them, and would be for the next two days; but Rose was too well acquainted with the excellent gentleman’s impetuosity, and foresaw too clearly the wrath with which, in the first explosion of his indignation, he would regard the instrument of Oliver’s re-capture, to trust him with the secret, when her representations in the girl’s behalf could be seconded by no experienced person. These were all reasons for the greatest caution and most circumspect behaviour in communicating it to Mrs. Maylie, whose first impulse would infallibly be to hold a conference with the worthy doctor on the subject. As to resorting to any legal adviser, even if she had known how to do so, it was scarcely to be thought of, for the same reasons. Once the thought occurred to her of seeking assistance from Harry; but this awakened the recollection of their last parting, and it seemed unworthy of her to call him back when—the tears rose to her eyes as she pursued this train of reflection—he might have by this time learnt to forget her, and to be happier away.
Disturbed by these different reflections, inclining now to one course and then to another, and again recoiling from all, as each successive consideration presented itself to her mind, Rose passed a sleepless, and anxious night. After more com muning with herself next day, she arrived at the desperate conclusion of consulting Harry.
“If it be painful to him,” she thought, “to come back here, how painful it will be to me! But perhaps he will not come; he may write, or he may come himself and studiously abstain from meeting me—he did when he went away. I hardly thought he would, but it was better for us both.” And here Rose dropped the pen and turned away, as though the very paper which was to be her messenger should not see her weep.
She had taken up the same pen and laid it down again fifty times, and had considered and reconsidered the first line of her letter without writing the first word when Oliver, who had been walking in the streets, with Mr. Giles for a body-guard, entered the room in such breathless haste and violent agitation, as seemed to betoken some new cause of alarm.
“What makes you look so Hurried?” asked Rose, advancing to meet him.
“I hardly know,how; I feel as if I should be choked,” replied the boy. “Oh dear! To think that I should see him at last, and-you should be able, to know that have told you all the truth!”
“I never thought you had told us anything but the truth,” said Rose, soothing him. “But what is mis?—of whom do you speak?”
“I have seen the gentleman,” replied Oliver, scarcely able to articulate, “the gentleman who was so good to me—Mr. Brownlow, that we have so often talked about.”
“Where?” asked Rose.