Oliver Twist
THE TIME ARRIVES FOR NANCY TO REDEEM HER PLEDGE TO ROSE MAYLIE. SHE FAILS.
Adept as she was, in all the of and dissimulation, the girl Nancy not the which the knowledge of the step she had taken, upon her mind. She that the Jew and the Sikes had to her schemes, which had been from all others: in the full that she was and the of their suspicion. Vile as those were, as were their originators, and as were her Fagin, who had her, step by step, and into an of and misery, was no escape; still, there were times when, him, she some relenting, her should him the iron he had so long eluded, and he should at last—richly as he such a fate—by her hand.
But, these were the of a mind unable to itself from old and associations, though to itself on one object, and not to be by any consideration. Her for Sikes would have been more powerful to while there was yet time; but she had that her should be kept, she had no which lead to his discovery, she had refused, for his sake, a from all the and that her—and what more she do! She was resolved.
Though all her in this conclusion, they themselves upon her, again and again, and left their too. She and thin, a days. At times, she took no of what was her, or no part in where once, she would have been the loudest. At other times, she laughed without merriment, and was noisy without a moment afterwards—she sat and dejected, with her upon her hands, while the very by which she herself, told, more than these indications, that she was at ease, and that her were with very different and from those in the of by her companions.
It was Sunday night, and the of the nearest church the hour. Sikes and the Jew were talking, but they paused to listen. The girl looked up from the low seat on which she crouched, and too. Eleven.
“An hour this of midnight,” said Sikes, the to look out and returning to his seat. “Dark and it is too. A good night for this.”
“Ah!” Fagin. “What a pity, Bill, my dear, that there’s none to be done.”
“You’re right for once,” Sikes gruffly. “It is a pity, for I’m in the too.”
Fagin sighed, and his despondingly.
“We must make up for time when we’ve got into a good train. That’s all I know,” said Sikes.
“That’s the way to talk, my dear,” Fagin, to him on the shoulder. “It me good to you.”
“Does you good, it!” Sikes. “Well, so be it.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Fagin, as if he were by this concession. “You’re like to-night, Bill. Quite like yourself.”
“I don’t like myself when you that old on my shoulder, so take it away,” said Sikes, off the Jew’s hand.
“It make you nervous, Bill,—reminds you of being nabbed, it?” said Fagin, not to be offended.
“Reminds me of being by the devil,” returned Sikes. “There was another man with such a as yours, unless it was your father, and I he is his red by this time, unless you came from the old ’un without any father at all you; which I shouldn’t wonder at, a bit.”
Fagin offered no reply to this compliment: but, Sikes by the sleeve, pointed his Nancy, who had taken of the to put on her bonnet, and was now the room.
“Hallo!” Sikes. “Nance. Where’s the going to at this time of night?”
“Not far.”
“What answer’s that?” Sikes. “Do you me?”
“I don’t know where,” the girl.
“Then I do,” said Sikes, more in the of than he had any to the girl going where she listed. “Nowhere. Sit down.”
“I’m not well. I told you that before,” the girl. “I want a of air.”
“Put your out of the winder,” Sikes.
“There’s not there,” said the girl. “I want it in the street.”
“Then you won’t have it,” Sikes. With which he rose, locked the door, took the key out, and her from her head, it up to the top of an old press. “There,” said the robber. “Now stop where you are, will you?”
“It’s not such a as a would keep me,” said the girl very pale. “What do you mean, Bill? Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Know what I’m—Oh!” Sikes, to Fagin, “she’s out of her senses, you know, or she daren’t talk to me in that way.”
“You’ll drive me on the something desperate,” the girl hands upon her breast, as though to keep by some outbreak. “Let me go, will you,—this minute—this instant.”
“No!” said Sikes.
“Tell him to let me go, Fagin. He had better. It’ll be for him. Do you me?” Nancy her upon the ground.
“Hear you!” Sikes in his chair to her. “Aye! And if I you for a minute longer, the dog shall have such a on your as’ll tear some of that voice out. Wot has come over you, you jade! Wot is it?”
“Let me go,” said the girl with great earnestness; then herself on the floor, the door, she said, “Bill, let me go; you don’t know what you are doing. You don’t, indeed. For only one hour—do—do!”
“Cut my off one by one!” Sikes, her by the arm, “If I don’t think the gal’s mad. Get up.”
“Not till you let me go—not till you let me go—Never—never!” the girl. Sikes looked on, for a minute, his opportunity, and her hands her, and with him by the way, into a small room adjoining, where he sat himself on a bench, and her into a chair, her by force. She and by until twelve o’clock had struck, and then, and exhausted, to the point any further. With a caution, by many oaths, to make no more to go out that night, Sikes left her to at and Fagin.
“Whew!” said the the from his face. “Wot a that is!”
“You may say that, Bill,” Fagin thoughtfully. “You may say that.”
“Wot did she take it into her to go out to-night for, do you think?” asked Sikes. “Come; you should know her than me. Wot it mean?”
“Obstinacy; woman’s obstinacy, I suppose, my dear.”
“Well, I it is,” Sikes. “I I had her, but she’s as as ever.”
“Worse,” said Fagin thoughtfully. “I her like this, for such a little cause.”
“Nor I,” said Sikes. “I think she’s got a touch of that in her blood yet, and it won’t come out—eh?”
“Like enough.”
“I’ll let her a little blood, without the doctor, if she’s took that way again,” said Sikes.
Fagin an of this mode of treatment.
“She was about me all day, and night too, when I was on my back; and you, like a as you are, aloof,” said Sikes. “We was too, all the time, and I think, one way or other, it’s and her; and that being up here so long has her restless—eh?”
“That’s it, my dear,” the Jew in a whisper. “Hush!”
As he these words, the girl herself appeared and her seat. Her were and red; she herself to and fro; her head; and, after a little time, out laughing.
“Why, now she’s on the other tack!” Sikes, a look of on his companion.
Fagin to him to take no notice just then; and, in a minutes, the girl into her demeanour. Whispering Sikes that there was no of her relapsing, Fagin took up his and him good-night. He paused when he the room-door, and looking round, asked if somebody would light him the dark stairs.
“Light him down,” said Sikes, who was his pipe. “It’s a he should his himself, and the sight-seers. Show him a light.”
Nancy the old man downstairs, with a candle. When they the passage, he his on his lip, and close to the girl, said, in a whisper.
“What is it, Nancy, dear?”
“What do you mean?” the girl, in the same tone.
“The of all this,” Fagin. “If he”—he pointed with his fore-finger up the stairs—“is so hard with you (he’s a brute, Nance, a brute-beast), why don’t you—”
“Well?” said the girl, as Fagin paused, with his mouth almost her ear, and his looking into hers.
“No just now. We’ll talk of this again. You have a friend in me, Nance; a friend. I have the means at hand, and close. If you want on those that you like a dog—like a dog! than his dog, for he him sometimes—come to me. I say, come to me. He is the of a day, but you know me of old, Nance.”
“I know you well,” the girl, without the least emotion. “Good-night.”
She back, as Fagin offered to his hand on hers, but said good-night again, in a voice, and, his look with a of intelligence, closed the door them.
Fagin walked his home, upon the that were his brain. He had the idea—not from what had just passed though that had to him, but slowly and by degrees—that Nancy, of the housebreaker’s brutality, had an for some new friend. Her manner, her from home alone, her to the of the for which she had once been so zealous, and, added to these, her to home that night at a particular hour, all the supposition, and it, to him at least, almost of certainty. The object of this new was not among his myrmidons. He would be a valuable with such an as Nancy, and must (thus Fagin argued) be without delay.
There was another, and a object, to be gained. Sikes too much, and his had not Fagin the less, the were hidden. The girl must know, well, that if she him off, she be safe from his fury, and that it would be surely wreaked—to the of limbs, or the of life—on the object of her more fancy.
“With a little persuasion,” Fagin, “what more likely than that she would to him? Women have done such things, and worse, to secure the same object now. There would be the villain: the man I hate: gone; another in his place; and my over the girl, with a knowledge of this to it, unlimited.”
These passed through the mind of Fagin, the time he sat alone, in the housebreaker’s room; and with them in his thoughts, he had taken the opportunity him, of the girl in the he out at parting. There was no of surprise, no of an to his meaning. The girl it. Her at that.
But she would from a plot to take the life of Sikes, and that was one of the ends to be attained. “How,” Fagin, as he homeward, “can I my with her? What new power can I acquire?”
Such are in expedients. If, without a from herself, he a watch, the object of her regard, and to the whole history to Sikes (of she in no common fear) unless she entered into his designs, he not secure her compliance?
“I can,” said Fagin, almost aloud. “She not me then. Not for her life, not for her life! I have it all. The means are ready, and shall be set to work. I shall have you yet!”
He a dark look, and a motion of the hand, the spot where he had left the villain; and on his way: his hands in the of his garment, which he in his grasp, as though there were a enemy with every motion of his fingers.
