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 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 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 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, 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
occurrence, sank into a chair, and endeavoured to collect her
wandering thoughts.