CHAPTER XL

A STRANGE INTERVIEW, WHICH IS A SEQUEL TO THE LAST CHAMBER

The girl's life had been squandered in the streets, and among the

most noisome of the stews and dens of London, but there was

something of the woman's original nature left in her still; and

when she heard a light step approaching the door opposite to that

by which she had entered, and thought of the wide contrast which

the small room would in another moment contain, she felt burdened

with the sense of her own deep shame, and shrunk as though she

could scarcely bear the presence of her with whom she had sought

this interview.

But struggling with these better feelings was pride,--the vice of

the lowest and most debased creatures no less than of the high

and self-assured. The miserable companion of thieves and

ruffians, the fallen outcast of low haunts, the associate of the

scourings of the jails and hulks, living within the shadow of the

gallows itself,--even this degraded being felt too proud to

betray a feeble gleam of the womanly feeling which she thought a

weakness, but which alone connected her with that humanity, of

which her wasting life had obliterated so many, many traces when

a very child.

She raised her eyes sufficiently to observe that the figure which

presented itself was that of a slight and beautiful girl; then,

bending them on the ground, she tossed her head with affected

carelessness as she said:

'It's a hard matter to get to see you, lady. If I had taken

offence, and gone away, as many would have done, you'd have been

sorry for it one day, and not without reason either.'

'I am very sorry if any one has behaved harshly to you,' replied

Rose. 'Do not think of that. Tell me why you wished to see me.

I am the person you inquired for.'

The kind tone of this answer, the sweet voice, the gentle manner,

the absence of any accent of haughtiness or displeasure, took the

girl completely by surprise, and she burst into tears.

'Oh, lady, lady!' she said, clasping her hands passionately

before her face, 'if there was more like you, there would be

fewer like me,--there would--there would!'

'Sit down,' said Rose, earnestly. 'If you are in poverty or

affliction I shall be truly glad to relieve you if I can,--I

shall indeed. Sit down.'

'Let me stand, lady,' said the girl, still weeping, 'and do not

speak to me so kindly till you know me better. It is growing

late. Is--is--that door shut?'

'Yes,' said Rose, recoiling a few steps, as if to be nearer

assistance in case she should require it. 'Why?'

'Because,' said the girl, 'I am about to put my life and the

lives of others in your hands. I am the girl that dragged little

Oliver back to old Fagin's on the night he went out from the

house in Pentonville.'

'You!' said Rose Maylie.

'I, lady!' replied the girl. 'I am the infamous creature you

have heard of, that lives among the thieves, and that never from

the first moment I can recollect my eyes and senses opening on

London streets have known any better life, or kinder words than

they have given me, so help me God! Do not mind shrinking openly

from me, lady. I am younger than you would think, to look at me,

but I am well used to it. The poorest women fall back, as I make

my way along the crowded pavement.'

'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 deathbed.'

'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 overheard. 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 soon after

Oliver was put into your house on the night of the robbery,

I--suspecting this man--listened to a conversation held between

him and Fagin in the dark. I found out, from what I heard, that

Monks--the man I asked you about, you know--'

'Yes,' said Rose, 'I understand.'

'--That Monks,' pursued the girl, 'had seen him accidently 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, in 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 would not

betray me, again listened at the door. The first words I heard

Monks say were these: "So the only proofs of 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 know, 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 colors? 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 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, 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 occurance, sank into a chair, and endeavoured to collect

her wandering thoughts.

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