The church clocks chimed three quarters past eleven, as two figures
emerged on London Bridge. One, which advanced with a swift and rapid
step, was that of a woman who looked eagerly about her as though in
quest of some expected object; the other figure was that of a man,
who slunk along in the deepest shadow he could find, and, at some
distance, accommodated his pace to hers: stopping when she stopped:
and as she moved again, creeping stealthily on: but never allowing
himself, in the ardour of his pursuit, to gain upon her footsteps.
Thus, they crossed the bridge, from the Middlesex to the Surrey
shore, when the woman, apparently disappointed in her anxious
scrutiny of the foot-passengers, turned back. The movement was
sudden; but he who watched her, was not thrown off his guard by it;
for, shrinking into one of the recesses which surmount the piers of
the bridge, and leaning over the parapet the better to conceal his
figure, he suffered her to pass on the opposite pavement. When she
was about the same distance in advance as she had been before, he
slipped quietly down, and followed her again. At nearly the centre
of the bridge, she stopped. The man stopped too.
It was a very dark night. The day had been unfavourable, and at that
hour and place there were few people stirring. Such as there were,
hurried quickly past: very possibly without seeing, but certainly
without noticing, either the woman, or the man who kept her in
view. Their appearance was not calculated to attract the importunate
regards of such of London’s destitute population, as chanced to take
their way over the bridge that night in search of some cold arch
or doorless hovel wherein to lay their heads; they stood there in
silence: neither speaking nor spoken to, by any one who passed.
A mist hung over the river, deepening the red glare of the fires
that burnt upon the small craft moored off the different wharfs,
and rendering darker and more indistinct the murky buildings on the
banks. The old smoke-stained storehouses on either side, rose
heavy and dull from the dense mass of roofs and gables, and frowned
sternly upon water too black to reflect even their lumbering shapes.
The tower of old Saint Saviour’s Church, and the spire of Saint
Magnus, so long the giant-warders of the ancient bridge, were
visible in the gloom; but the forest of shipping below bridge, and
the thickly scattered spires of churches above, were nearly all
hidden from sight.
The girl had taken a few restless turns to and fro--closely watched
meanwhile by her hidden observer--when the heavy bell of St. Paul’s
tolled for the death of another day. Midnight had come upon the
crowded city. The palace, the night-cellar, the jail, the madhouse:
the chambers of birth and death, of health and sickness, the rigid
face of the corpse and the calm sleep of the child: midnight was
upon them all.
The hour had not struck two minutes, when a young lady, accompanied
by a grey-haired gentleman, alighted from a hackney-carriage within
a short distance of the bridge, and, having dismissed the vehicle,
walked straight towards it. They had scarcely set foot upon its
pavement, when the girl started, and immediately made towards them.
They walked onward, looking about them with the air of persons who
entertained some very slight expectation which had little chance
of being realised, when they were suddenly joined by this new
associate. They halted with an exclamation of surprise, but
suppressed it immediately; for a man in the garments of a countryman
came close up--brushed against them, indeed--at that precise moment.
‘Not here,’ said Nancy hurriedly, ‘I am afraid to speak to you here.
Come away--out of the public road--down the steps yonder!’
As she uttered these words, and indicated, with her hand, the
direction in which she wished them to proceed, the countryman looked
round, and roughly asking what they took up the whole pavement for,
passed on.
The steps to which the girl had pointed, were those which, on the
Surrey bank, and on the same side of the bridge as Saint Saviour’s
Church, form a landing-stairs from the river. To this spot, the man
bearing the appearance of a countryman, hastened unobserved; and
after a moment’s survey of the place, he began to descend.
These stairs are a part of the bridge; they consist of three
flights. Just below the end of the second, going down, the stone
wall on the left terminates in an ornamental pilaster facing towards
the Thames. At this point the lower steps widen: so that a person
turning that angle of the wall, is necessarily unseen by any others
on the stairs who chance to be above him, if only a step. The
countryman looked hastily round, when he reached this point; and
as there seemed no better place of concealment, and, the tide being
out, there was plenty of room, he slipped aside, with his back to
the pilaster, and there waited: pretty certain that they would come
no lower, and that even if he could not hear what was said, he could
follow them again, with safety.
So tardily stole the time in this lonely place, and so eager was the
spy to penetrate the motives of an interview so different from what
he had been led to expect, that he more than once gave the matter
up for lost, and persuaded himself, either that they had stopped far
above, or had resorted to some entirely different spot to hold their
mysterious conversation. He was on the point of emerging from his
hiding-place, and regaining the road above, when he heard the sound
of footsteps, and directly afterwards of voices almost close at his
ear.
He drew himself straight upright against the wall, and, scarcely
breathing, listened attentively.
‘This is far enough,’ said a voice, which was evidently that of the
gentleman. ‘I will not suffer the young lady to go any farther. Many
people would have distrusted you too much to have come even so far,
but you see I am willing to humour you.’
‘To humour me!’ cried the voice of the girl whom he had followed.
‘You’re considerate, indeed, sir. To humour me! Well, well, it’s no
matter.’
‘Why, for what,’ said the gentleman in a kinder tone, ‘for what
purpose can you have brought us to this strange place? Why not have
let me speak to you, above there, where it is light, and there is
something stirring, instead of bringing us to this dark and dismal
hole?’
‘I told you before,’ replied Nancy, ‘that I was afraid to speak to
you there. I don’t know why it is,’ said the girl, shuddering, ‘but
I have such a fear and dread upon me to-night that I can hardly
stand.’
‘A fear of what?’ asked the gentleman, who seemed to pity her.
‘I scarcely know of what,’ replied the girl. ‘I wish I did. Horrible
thoughts of death, and shrouds with blood upon them, and a fear that
has made me burn as if I was on fire, have been upon me all day.
I was reading a book to-night, to wile the time away, and the same
things came into the print.’
‘Imagination,’ said the gentleman, soothing her.
‘No imagination,’ replied the girl in a hoarse voice. ‘I’ll swear
I saw “coffin” written in every page of the book in large black
letters,--aye, and they carried one close to me, in the streets
to-night.’
‘There is nothing unusual in that,’ said the gentleman. ‘They have
passed me often.’
‘_Real ones_,’ rejoined the girl. ‘This was not.’
There was something so uncommon in her manner, that the flesh of the
concealed listener crept as he heard the girl utter these words,
and the blood chilled within him. He had never experienced a greater
relief than in hearing the sweet voice of the young lady as she
begged her to be calm, and not allow herself to become the prey of
such fearful fancies.
‘Speak to her kindly,’ said the young lady to her companion. ‘Poor
creature! She seems to need it.’
‘Your haughty religious people would have held their heads up to see
me as I am to-night, and preached of flames and vengeance,’ cried
the girl. ‘Oh, dear lady, why ar’n’t those who claim to be God’s own
folks as gentle and as kind to us poor wretches as you, who, having
youth, and beauty, and all that they have lost, might be a little
proud instead of so much humbler?’
‘Ah!’ said the gentleman. ‘A Turk turns his face, after washing
it well, to the East, when he says his prayers; these good people,
after giving their faces such a rub against the World as to take
the smiles off, turn with no less regularity, to the darkest side
of Heaven. Between the Mussulman and the Pharisee, commend me to the
first!’
These words appeared to be addressed to the young lady, and were
perhaps uttered with the view of affording Nancy time to recover
herself. The gentleman, shortly afterwards, addressed himself to
her.
‘You were not here last Sunday night,’ he said.
‘I couldn’t come,’ replied Nancy; ‘I was kept by force.’
‘By whom?’
‘Him that I told the young lady of before.’
‘You were not suspected of holding any communication with anybody on
the subject which has brought us here to-night, I hope?’ asked the
old gentleman.
‘No,’ replied the girl, shaking her head. ‘It’s not very easy for
me to leave him unless he knows why; I couldn’t give him a drink of
laudanum before I came away.’
‘Did he awake before you returned?’ inquired the gentleman.
‘No; and neither he nor any of them suspect me.’
‘Good,’ said the gentleman. ‘Now listen to me.’
‘I am ready,’ replied the girl, as he paused for a moment.
‘This young lady,’ the gentleman began, ‘has communicated to me, and
to some other friends who can be safely trusted, what you told her
nearly a fortnight since. I confess to you that I had doubts, at
first, whether you were to be implicitly relied upon, but now I
firmly believe you are.’
‘I am,’ said the girl earnestly.
‘I repeat that I firmly believe it. To prove to you that I am
disposed to trust you, I tell you without reserve, that we propose
to extort the secret, whatever it may be, from the fear of this man
Monks. But if--if--’ said the gentleman, ‘he cannot be secured, or,
if secured, cannot be acted upon as we wish, you must deliver up the
Jew.’
‘Fagin,’ cried the girl, recoiling.
‘That man must be delivered up by you,’ said the gentleman.
‘I will not do it! I will never do it!’ replied the girl. ‘Devil
that he is, and worse than devil as he has been to me, I will never
do that.’
‘You will not?’ said the gentleman, who seemed fully prepared for
this answer.
‘Never!’ returned the girl.
‘Tell me why?’
‘For one reason,’ rejoined the girl firmly, ‘for one reason, that
the lady knows and will stand by me in, I know she will, for I have
her promise: and for this other reason, besides, that, bad life as
he has led, I have led a bad life too; there are many of us who have
kept the same courses together, and I’ll not turn upon them, who
might--any of them--have turned upon me, but didn’t, bad as they
are.’
‘Then,’ said the gentleman, quickly, as if this had been the point
he had been aiming to attain; ‘put Monks into my hands, and leave
him to me to deal with.’
‘What if he turns against the others?’
‘I promise you that in that case, if the truth is forced from him,
there the matter will rest; there must be circumstances in Oliver’s
little history which it would be painful to drag before the public
eye, and if the truth is once elicited, they shall go scot free.’
‘And if it is not?’ suggested the girl.
‘Then,’ pursued the gentleman, ‘this Fagin shall not be brought
to justice without your consent. In such a case I could show you
reasons, I think, which would induce you to yield it.’
‘Have I the lady’s promise for that?’ asked the girl.
‘You have,’ replied Rose. ‘My true and faithful pledge.’
‘Monks would never learn how you knew what you do?’ said the girl,
after a short pause.
‘Never,’ replied the gentleman. ‘The intelligence should be brought
to bear upon him, that he could never even guess.’
‘I have been a liar, and among liars from a little child,’ said
the girl after another interval of silence, ‘but I will take your
words.’
After receiving an assurance from both, that she might safely do so,
she proceeded in a voice so low that it was often difficult for the
listener to discover even the purport of what she said, to describe,
by name and situation, the public-house whence she had been followed
that night. From the manner in which she occasionally paused, it
appeared as if the gentleman were making some hasty notes of the
information she communicated. When she had thoroughly explained the
localities of the place, the best position from which to watch it
without exciting observation, and the night and hour on which Monks
was most in the habit of frequenting it, she seemed to consider
for a few moments, for the purpose of recalling his features and
appearances more forcibly to her recollection.
‘He is tall,’ said the girl, ‘and a strongly made man, but not
stout; he has a lurking walk; and as he walks, constantly looks over
his shoulder, first on one side, and then on the other. Don’t forget
that, for his eyes are sunk in his head so much deeper than any
other man’s, that you might almost tell him by that alone. His face
is dark, like his hair and eyes; and, although he can’t be more than
six or eight and twenty, withered and haggard. His lips are often
discoloured and disfigured with the marks of teeth; for he has
desperate fits, and sometimes even bites his hands and covers them
with wounds--why did you start?’ said the girl, stopping suddenly.
The gentleman replied, in a hurried manner, that he was not
conscious of having done so, and begged her to proceed.
‘Part of this,’ said the girl, ‘I have drawn out from other people
at the house I tell you of, for I have only seen him twice, and both
times he was covered up in a large cloak. I think that’s all I can
give you to know him by. Stay though,’ she added. ‘Upon his throat:
so high that you can see a part of it below his neckerchief when he
turns his face: there is--’
‘A broad red mark, like a burn or scald?’ cried the gentleman.
‘How’s this?’ said the girl. ‘You know him!’
The young lady uttered a cry of surprise, and for a few moments they
were so still that the listener could distinctly hear them breathe.
‘I think I do,’ said the gentleman, breaking silence. ‘I should by
your description. We shall see. Many people are singularly like each
other. It may not be the same.’
As he expressed himself to this effect, with assumed carelessness,
he took a step or two nearer the concealed spy, as the latter could
tell from the distinctness with which he heard him mutter, ‘It must
be he!’
‘Now,’ he said, returning: so it seemed by the sound: to the
spot where he had stood before, ‘you have given us most valuable
assistance, young woman, and I wish you to be the better for it.
What can I do to serve you?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Nancy.
‘You will not persist in saying that,’ rejoined the gentleman, with
a voice and emphasis of kindness that might have touched a much
harder and more obdurate heart. ‘Think now. Tell me.’
‘Nothing, sir,’ rejoined the girl, weeping. ‘You can do nothing to
help me. I am past all hope, indeed.’
‘You put yourself beyond its pale,’ said the gentleman. ‘The past
has been a dreary waste with you, of youthful energies mis-spent,
and such priceless treasures lavished, as the Creator bestows but
once and never grants again, but, for the future, you may hope. I
do not say that it is in our power to offer you peace of heart and
mind, for that must come as you seek it; but a quiet asylum, either
in England, or, if you fear to remain here, in some foreign country,
it is not only within the compass of our ability but our most
anxious wish to secure you. Before the dawn of morning, before this
river wakes to the first glimpse of day-light, you shall be placed
as entirely beyond the reach of your former associates, and leave
as utter an absence of all trace behind you, as if you were to
disappear from the earth this moment. Come! I would not have you go
back to exchange one word with any old companion, or take one look
at any old haunt, or breathe the very air which is pestilence and
death to you. Quit them all, while there is time and opportunity!’
‘She will be persuaded now,’ cried the young lady. ‘She hesitates, I
am sure.’
‘I fear not, my dear,’ said the gentleman.
‘No sir, I do not,’ replied the girl, after a short struggle. ‘I am
chained to my old life. I loathe and hate it now, but I cannot leave
it. I must have gone too far to turn back,--and yet I don’t know,
for if you had spoken to me so, some time ago, I should have laughed
it off. But,’ she said, looking hastily round, ‘this fear comes over
me again. I must go home.’
‘Home!’ repeated the young lady, with great stress upon the word.
‘Home, lady,’ rejoined the girl. ‘To such a home as I have raised
for myself with the work of my whole life. Let us part. I shall be
watched or seen. Go! Go! If I have done you any service all I ask
is, that you leave me, and let me go my way alone.’
‘It is useless,’ said the gentleman, with a sigh. ‘We compromise her
safety, perhaps, by staying here. We may have detained her longer
than she expected already.’
‘Yes, yes,’ urged the girl. ‘You have.’
‘What,’ cried the young lady, ‘can be the end of this poor
creature’s life!’
‘What!’ repeated the girl. ‘Look before you, lady. Look at that dark
water. How many times do you read of such as I who spring into the
tide, and leave no living thing, to care for, or bewail them. It may
be years hence, or it may be only months, but I shall come to that
at last.’
‘Do not speak thus, pray,’ returned the young lady, sobbing.
‘It will never reach your ears, dear lady, and God forbid such
horrors should!’ replied the girl. ‘Good-night, good-night!’
The gentleman turned away.
‘This purse,’ cried the young lady. ‘Take it for my sake, that you
may have some resource in an hour of need and trouble.’
‘No!’ replied the girl. ‘I have not done this for money. Let me have
that to think of. And yet--give me something that you have worn: I
should like to have something--no, no, not a ring--your gloves or
handkerchief--anything that I can keep, as having belonged to
you, sweet lady. There. Bless you! God bless you. Good-night,
good-night!’
The violent agitation of the girl, and the apprehension of some
discovery which would subject her to ill-usage and violence, seemed
to determine the gentleman to leave her, as she requested.
The sound of retreating footsteps were audible and the voices
ceased.
The two figures of the young lady and her companion soon afterwards
appeared upon the bridge. They stopped at the summit of the stairs.
‘Hark!’ cried the young lady, listening. ‘Did she call! I thought I
heard her voice.’
‘No, my love,’ replied Mr. Brownlow, looking sadly back. ‘She has
not moved, and will not till we are gone.’
Rose Maylie lingered, but the old gentleman drew her arm through
his, and led her, with gentle force, away. As they disappeared,
the girl sunk down nearly at her full length upon one of the stone
stairs, and vented the anguish of her heart in bitter tears.
After a time she arose, and with feeble and tottering steps ascended
the street. The astonished listener remained motionless on his
post for some minutes afterwards, and having ascertained, with many
cautious glances round him, that he was again alone, crept slowly
from his hiding-place, and returned, stealthily and in the shade of
the wall, in the same manner as he had descended.
Peeping out, more than once, when he reached the top, to make sure
that he was unobserved, Noah Claypole darted away at his utmost
speed, and made for the Jew’s house as fast as his legs would carry
him.