Oliver Twist
“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 yet be 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 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 coffinlid, 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, lady—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, tonight, 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 SUPRISES, 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 recapture, 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 reason. 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 communing 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 flurried?” 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 I have told you the truth!”
“I never thought you had told us anything but the truth,” said Rose,
soothing him. “But what is this?—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.
“Getting out of a coach,” replied Oliver, shedding tears of delight,
“and going into a house. I didn’t speak to him—I couldn’t speak to him,
for he didn’t see me, and I trembled so, that I was not able to go up
to him. But Giles asked, for me, whether he lived there, and they said
he did. Look here,” said Oliver, opening a scrap of paper, “here it is;
here’s where he lives—I’m going there directly! Oh, dear me, dear me!
What shall I do when I come to see him and hear him speak again!”
With her attention not a little distracted by these and a great many
other incoherent exclamations of joy, Rose read the address, which was
Craven Street, in the Strand. She very soon determined upon turning the
discovery to account.
“Quick!” she said. “Tell them to fetch a hackney-coach, and be ready to
go with me. I will take you there directly, without a minute’s loss of
time. I will only tell my aunt that we are going out for an hour, and
be ready as soon as you are.”
Oliver needed no prompting to despatch, and in little more than five
minutes they were on their way to Craven Street. When they arrived
there, Rose left Oliver in the coach, under pretence of preparing the
old gentleman to receive him; and sending up her card by the servant,
requested to see Mr. Brownlow on very pressing business. The servant
soon returned, to beg that she would walk upstairs; and following him
into an upper room, Miss Maylie was presented to an elderly gentleman
of benevolent appearance, in a bottle-green coat. At no great distance
from whom, was seated another old gentleman, in nankeen breeches and
gaiters; who did not look particularly benevolent, and who was sitting
with his hands clasped on the top of a thick stick, and his chin
propped thereupon.
“Dear me,” said the gentleman, in the bottle-green coat, hastily rising
with great politeness, “I beg your pardon, young lady—I imagined it was
some importunate person who—I beg you will excuse me. Be seated, pray.”
“Mr. Brownlow, I believe, sir?” said Rose, glancing from the other
gentleman to the one who had spoken.
“That is my name,” said the old gentleman. “This is my friend, Mr.
Grimwig. Grimwig, will you leave us for a few minutes?”
“I believe,” interposed Miss Maylie, “that at this period of our
interview, I need not give that gentleman the trouble of going away. If
I am correctly informed, he is cognizant of the business on which I
wish to speak to you.”
Mr. Brownlow inclined his head. Mr. Grimwig, who had made one very
stiff bow, and risen from his chair, made another very stiff bow, and
dropped into it again.
“I shall surprise you very much, I have no doubt,” said Rose, naturally
embarrassed; “but you once showed great benevolence and goodness to a
very dear young friend of mine, and I am sure you will take an interest