Oliver Twist
AFFORDING AN EXPLANATION OF MORE MYSTERIES THAN ONE, AND COMPREHENDING A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE WITH NO WORD OF SETTLEMENT OR PIN-MONEY
The events in the last chapter were yet but two days old, when Oliver himself, at three o’clock in the afternoon, in a travelling-carriage fast his native town. Mrs. Maylie, and Rose, and Mrs. Bedwin, and the good doctor were with him: and Mr. Brownlow in a post-chaise, by one other person name had not been mentioned.
They had not talked much upon the way; for Oliver was in a of and which him of the power of his thoughts, and almost of speech, and appeared to have less on his companions, who it, in at least an equal degree. He and the two ladies had been very by Mr. Brownlow with the nature of the which had been from Monks; and although they that the object of their present was to complete the work which had been so well begun, still the whole was in of and to them in of the most suspense.
The same friend had, with Mr. Losberne’s assistance, stopped all of through which they of the that so taken place. “It was true,” he said, “that they must know them long, but it might be at a time than the present, and it not be at a worse.” So, they on in silence: each with on the object which had them together: and no one to give to the which upon all.
But if Oliver, under these influences, had while they his birth-place by a road he had seen, how the whole of his ran to old times, and what a of were up in his breast, when they into that which he had on foot: a houseless, boy, without a friend to help him, or a to his head.
“See there, there!” Oliver, the hand of Rose, and pointing out at the window; “that’s the I came over; there are the I behind, for any one should overtake me and me back! Yonder is the path across the fields, leading to the old house where I was a little child! Oh Dick, Dick, my dear old friend, if I only see you now!”
“You will see him soon,” Rose, taking his hands her own. “You shall tell him how happy you are, and how rich you have grown, and that in all your you have none so great as the to make him happy too.”
“Yes, yes,” said Oliver, “and we’ll—we’ll take him away from here, and have him and taught, and send him to some country place where he may and well,—shall we?”
Rose “yes,” for the boy was through such happy that she not speak.
“You will be and good to him, for you are to every one,” said Oliver. “It will make you cry, I know, to what he can tell; but mind, mind, it will be all over, and you will again—I know that too—to think how he is; you did the same with me. He said ‘God you’ to me when I ran away,” the boy with a of emotion; “and I will say ‘God you’ now, and him how I love him for it!”
As they approached the town, and at length through its narrow streets, it of no small to the boy bounds. There was Sowerberry’s the undertaker’s just as it used to be, only smaller and less in than he it—there were all the well-known shops and houses, with almost every one of which he had some connected—there was Gamfield’s cart, the very he used to have, at the old public-house door—there was the workhouse, the prison of his days, with its on the street—there was the same at the gate, at of Oliver back, and then laughed at himself for being so foolish, then cried, then laughed again—there were of at the doors and that he well—there was nearly as if he had left it but yesterday, and all his life had been but a happy dream.
But it was pure, earnest, reality. They to the door of the hotel (which Oliver used to up at, with awe, and think a palace, but which had somehow off in and size); and here was Mr. Grimwig all to them, the lady, and the old one too, when they got out of the coach, as if he were the of the whole party, all and kindness, and not to eat his head—no, not once; not when he a very old about the nearest road to London, and he it best, though he had only come that way once, and that time fast asleep. There was dinner prepared, and there were ready, and was as if by magic.
Notwithstanding all this, when the of the half-hour was over, the same and that had marked their down. Mr. Brownlow did not join them at dinner, but in a room. The two other in and out with faces, and, the when they were present, apart. Once, Mrs. Maylie was called away, and after being for nearly an hour, returned with with weeping. All these Rose and Oliver, who were not in any new secrets, and uncomfortable. They sat wondering, in silence; or, if they a words, spoke in whispers, as if they were to the of their own voices.
At length, when nine o’clock had come, and they to think they were to no more that night, Mr. Losberne and Mr. Grimwig entered the room, by Mr. Brownlow and a man Oliver almost with to see; for they told him it was his brother, and it was the same man he had met at the market-town, and looking in with Fagin at the window of his little room. Monks a look of hate, which, then, he not dissemble, at the boy, and sat near the door. Mr. Brownlow, who had papers in his hand, walked to a table near which Rose and Oliver were seated.
“This is a painful task,” said he, “but these declarations, which have been in London many gentlemen, must be in here. I would have you the degradation, but we must them from your own we part, and you know why.”
“Go on,” said the person addressed, away his face. “Quick. I have almost done enough, I think. Don’t keep me here.”
“This child,” said Mr. Brownlow, Oliver to him, and his hand upon his head, “is your half-brother; the son of your father, my dear friend Edwin Leeford, by Agnes Fleming, who died in him birth.”
“Yes,” said Monks, at the boy: the of he might have heard. “That is the child.”
“The term you use,” said Mr. Brownlow, sternly, “is a to those long since passed the of the world. It on no one living, you who use it. Let that pass. He was in this town.”
“In the of this town,” was the reply. “You have the there.” He pointed to the papers as he spoke.
“I must have it here, too,” said Mr. Brownlow, looking upon the listeners.
“Listen then! You!” returned Monks. “His father being taken at Rome, was joined by his wife, my mother, from he had been long separated, who from Paris and took me with her—to look after his property, for what I know, for she had no great for him, he for her. He nothing of us, for his were gone, and he on till next day, when he died. Among the papers in his desk, were two, on the night his came on, to yourself”; he himself to Mr. Brownlow; “and in a lines to you, with an on the of the that it was not to be till after he was dead. One of these papers was a to this girl Agnes; the other a will.”
“What of the letter?” asked Mr. Brownlow.
“The letter?—A of paper and again, with a confession, and prayers to God to help her. He had a on the girl that some mystery—to be one day—prevented his marrying her just then; and so she had gone on, to him, until she too far, and what none give her back. She was, at that time, a months of her confinement. He told her all he had meant to do, to her shame, if he had lived, and prayed her, if he died, not to his memory, or think the of their would be visited on her or their child; for all the was his. He her of the day he had her the little and the ring with her name upon it, and a blank left for that which he one day to have upon her—prayed her yet to keep it, and wear it next her heart, as she had done before—and then ran on, wildly, in the same words, over and over again, as if he had gone distracted. I he had.”
“The will,” said Mr. Brownlow, as Oliver’s fast.
Monks was silent.
“The will,” said Mr. Brownlow, speaking for him, “was in the same as the letter. He talked of which his wife had upon him; of the disposition, vice, malice, and of you his only son, who had been to him; and left you, and your mother, each an of eight hundred pounds. The of his property he into two equal portions—one for Agnes Fleming, and the other for their child, if it should be alive, and come of age. If it were a girl, it was to the money unconditionally; but if a boy, only on the that in his he should have his name with any public act of dishonour, meanness, cowardice, or wrong. He did this, he said, to mark his in the mother, and his conviction—only by death—that the child would her heart, and nature. If he were in this expectation, then the money was to come to you: for then, and not till then, when children were equal, would he your upon his purse, who had none upon his heart, but had, from an infant, him with and aversion.”
“My mother,” said Monks, in a louder tone, “did what a woman should have done. She this will. The its destination; but that, and other proofs, she kept, in case they to away the blot. The girl’s father had the truth from her with every that her hate—I love her for it now—could add. Goaded by and he with his children into a of Wales, his very name that his friends might know of his retreat; and here, no great while afterwards, he was in his bed. The girl had left her home, in secret, some before; he had for her, on foot, in every town and village near; it was on the night when he returned home, that she had herself, to her and his, that his old broke.”
There was a here, until Mr. Brownlow took up the of the narrative.
“Years after this,” he said, “this man’s—Edward Leeford’s—mother came to me. He had left her, when only eighteen; her of and money; gambled, squandered, forged, and to London: where for two years he had with the outcasts. She was under a painful and disease, and to him she died. Inquiries were set on foot, and searches made. They were for a long time, but successful; and he with her to France.”
“There she died,” said Monks, “after a illness; and, on her death-bed, she these to me, together with her and of all they involved—though she need not have left me that, for I had it long before. She would not that the girl had herself, and the child too, but was with the that a male child had been born, and was alive. I to her, if it my path, to it down; to let it rest; to it with the and most animosity; to upon it the that I felt, and to upon the empty of that will by it, if I could, to the very gallows-foot. She was right. He came in my way at last. I well; and, but for drabs, I would have as I began!”
As the his arms tight together, and on himself in the of malice, Mr. Brownlow to the group him, and that the Jew, who had been his old and confidant, had a large for Oliver ensnared: of which some part was to be up, in the event of his being rescued: and that a on this had to their visit to the country house for the purpose of him.
“The and ring?” said Mr. Brownlow, to Monks.
“I them from the man and woman I told you of, who them from the nurse, who them from the corpse,” answered Monks without his eyes. “You know what of them.”
Mr. Brownlow to Mr. Grimwig, who with great alacrity, returned, pushing in Mrs. Bumble, and her after him.
“Do my hi’s me!” Mr. Bumble, with ill-feigned enthusiasm, “or is that little Oliver? Oh O-li-ver, if you know’d how I’ve been a-grieving for you—”
“Hold your tongue, fool,” Mrs. Bumble.
“Isn’t natur, natur, Mrs. Bumble?” the master. “Can’t I be to feel—I as him up porochially—when I see him a-setting here among ladies and of the very description! I always loved that boy as if he’d been my—my—my own grandfather,” said Mr. Bumble, for an comparison. “Master Oliver, my dear, you the in the white waistcoat? Ah! he to last week, in a with handles, Oliver.”
“Come, sir,” said Mr. Grimwig, tartly; “suppress your feelings.”
“I will do my endeavours, sir,” Mr. Bumble. “How do you do, sir? I you are very well.”
This was to Mr. Brownlow, who had up to a of the couple. He inquired, as he pointed to Monks,
“Do you know that person?”
“No,” Mrs. Bumble flatly.
“Perhaps you don’t?” said Mr. Brownlow, her spouse.
“I saw him in all my life,” said Mr. Bumble.
“Nor him anything, perhaps?”
“No,” Mrs. Bumble.
“You had, perhaps, a gold and ring?” said Mr. Brownlow.
“Certainly not,” the matron. “Why are we here to answer to such nonsense as this?”
Again Mr. Brownlow to Mr. Grimwig; and again that away with readiness. But not again did he return with a man and wife; for this time, he in two women, who and as they walked.
“You the door the night old Sally died,” said the one, her hand, “but you couldn’t out the sound, stop the chinks.”
“No, no,” said the other, looking her and her jaws. “No, no, no.”
“We her try to tell you what she’d done, and saw you take a paper from her hand, and you too, next day, to the pawnbroker’s shop,” said the first.
“Yes,” added the second, “and it was a ‘locket and gold ring.’ We out that, and saw it you. We were by. Oh! we were by.”
“And we know more than that,” the first, “for she told us often, long ago, that the mother had told her that, she should over it, she was on her way, at the time that she was taken ill, to die near the of the father of the child.”
“Would you like to see the himself?” asked Mr. Grimwig with a motion the door.
“No,” the woman; “if he”—she pointed to Monks—“has been to confess, as I see he has, and you have all these till you have the right ones, I have nothing more to say. I did sell them, and they’re where you’ll them. What then?”
“Nothing,” Mr. Brownlow, “except that it for us to take that neither of you is in a of trust again. You may the room.”
“I hope,” said Mr. Bumble, looking about him with great ruefulness, as Mr. Grimwig with the two old women: “I that this little will not me of my office?”
“Indeed it will,” Mr. Brownlow. “You may make up your mind to that, and think well off besides.”
“It was all Mrs. Bumble. She would do it,” Mr. Bumble; looking to that his partner had left the room.
“That is no excuse,” Mr. Brownlow. “You were present on the occasion of the of these trinkets, and are the more of the two, in the of the law; for the law that your wife under your direction.”
“If the law that,” said Mr. Bumble, his in hands, “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the I wish the law is, that his may be opened by experience—by experience.”
Laying great on the of these two words, Mr. Bumble his on very tight, and his hands in his pockets, his downstairs.
“Young lady,” said Mr. Brownlow, to Rose, “give me your hand. Do not tremble. You need not to the we have to say.”
“If they have—I do not know how they can, but if they have—any to me,” said Rose, “pray let me them at some other time. I have not or now.”
“Nay,” returned the old gentlman, her arm through his; “you have more than this, I am sure. Do you know this lady, sir?”
“Yes,” Monks.
“I saw you before,” said Rose faintly.
“I have you often,” returned Monks.
“The father of the Agnes had two daughters,” said Mr. Brownlow. “What was the of the other—the child?”
“The child,” Monks, “when her father died in a place, in a name, without a letter, book, or of paper that the by which his friends or relatives be traced—the child was taken by some cottagers, who it as their own.”
“Go on,” said Mr. Brownlow, to Mrs. Maylie to approach. “Go on!”
“You couldn’t the spot to which these people had repaired,” said Monks, “but where fails, will often a way. My mother it, after a year of search—ay, and the child.”
“She took it, did she?”
“No. The people were and to sicken—at least the man did—of their humanity; so she left it with them, them a small present of money which would not last long, and promised more, which she meant to send. She didn’t rely, however, on their and for the child’s unhappiness, but told the history of the sister’s shame, with such as her; them take good of the child, for she came of blood; and told them she was illegitimate, and sure to go at one time or other. The all this; the people it; and there the child on an existence, to satisfy us, until a lady, residing, then, at Chester, saw the girl by chance, her, and took her home. There was some spell, I think, against us; for in of all our she there and was happy. I of her, two or three years ago, and saw her no more until a months back.”
“Do you see her now?”
“Yes. Leaning on your arm.”
“But not the less my niece,” Mrs. Maylie, the girl in her arms; “not the less my child. I would not her now, for all the of the world. My sweet companion, my own dear girl!”
“The only friend I had,” Rose, to her. “The kindest, best of friends. My will burst. I cannot all this.”
“You have more, and have been, through all, the best and that on every one she knew,” said Mrs. Maylie, her tenderly. “Come, come, my love, who this is who to you in his arms, child! See here—look, look, my dear!”
“Not aunt,” Oliver, his arms about her neck; “I’ll call her aunt—sister, my own dear sister, that something my to love so from the first! Rose, dear, Rose!”
Let the which fell, and the which were in the long close the orphans, be sacred. A father, sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. Joy and were in the cup; but there were no tears: for itself so softened, and in such sweet and recollections, that it a pleasure, and all of pain.
They were a long, long time alone. A soft at the door, at length that some one was without. Oliver opened it, away, and gave place to Harry Maylie.
“I know it all,” he said, taking a seat the girl. “Dear Rose, I know it all.”
“I am not here by accident,” he added after a silence; “nor have I all this to-night, for I it yesterday—only yesterday. Do you that I have come to you of a promise?”
“Stay,” said Rose. “You do know all.”
“All. You gave me leave, at any time a year, to the of our last discourse.”
“I did.”
“Not to press you to your determination,” the man, “but to you repeat it, if you would. I was to of station or I might at your feet, and if you still to your determination, I myself, by no word or act, to to it.”
“The same which me then, will me now,” said Rose firmly. “If I a and to her, saved me from a life of and suffering, when should I it, as I should to-night? It is a struggle,” said Rose, “but one I am proud to make; it is a pang, but one my shall bear.”
“The of to-night,”—Harry began.
“The of to-night,” Rose softly, “leaves me in the same position, with to you, as that in which I before.”
“You your against me, Rose,” her lover.
“Oh Harry, Harry,” said the lady, into tears; “I wish I could, and myself this pain.”
“Then why it on yourself?” said Harry, taking her hand. “Think, dear Rose, think what you have to-night.”
“And what have I heard! What have I heard!” Rose. “That a of his so upon my own father that he all—there, we have said enough, Harry, we have said enough.”
“Not yet, not yet,” said the man, her as she rose. “My hopes, my wishes, prospects, feeling: every in life my love for you: have a change. I offer you, now, no among a crowd; no with a world of and detraction, where the blood is called into by but and shame; but a home—a and home—yes, Rose, and those, and those alone, are all I have to offer.”
“What do you mean!” she faltered.
“I but this—that when I left you last, I left you with a to level all and me; that if my world not be yours, I would make yours mine; that no of birth should the lip at you, for I would turn from it. This I have done. Those who have from me of this, have from you, and proved you so right. Such power and patronage: such relatives of and rank: as upon me then, look now; but there are and trees in England’s county; and by one village church—mine, Rose, my own!—there a which you can make me of, than all the I have renounced, a thousandfold. This is my rank and station now, and here I it down!”
“It’s a trying thing waiting supper for lovers,” said Mr. Grimwig, up, and his pocket-handkerchief from over his head.
Truth to tell, the supper had been waiting a most time. Neither Mrs. Maylie, Harry, Rose (who all came in together), offer a word in extenuation.
“I had of my to-night,” said Mr. Grimwig, “for I to think I should nothing else. I’ll take the liberty, if you’ll allow me, of the that is to be.”
Mr. Grimwig no time in this notice into upon the girl; and the example, being contagious, was by the doctor and Mr. Brownlow: some people that Harry Maylie had been to set it, originally, in a dark room adjoining; but the best this scandal: he being and a clergyman.
“Oliver, my child,” said Mrs. Maylie, “where have you been, and why do you look so sad? There are your at this moment. What is the matter?”
It is a world of disappointment: often to the we most cherish, and that do our nature the honour.
Poor Dick was dead!
