第 五十一 章 · AFFORDING AN EXPLANATION OF MORE MYSTERIES THAN ONE, AND COMPREHENDING

. AFFORDING AN EXPLANATION OF MORE MYSTERIES THAN ONE, AND COMPREHENDING

A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE WITH NO WORD OF SETTLEMENT OR PIN-MONEY

The events narrated in the last chapter were yet but two days old, when

Oliver found himself, at three o’clock in the afternoon, in a

travelling-carriage rolling fast towards his native town. Mrs. Maylie,

and Rose, and Mrs. Bedwin, and the good doctor were with him: and Mr.

Brownlow followed in a post-chaise, accompanied by one other person

whose name had not been mentioned.

They had not talked much upon the way; for Oliver was in a flutter of

agitation and uncertainty which deprived him of the power of collecting

his thoughts, and almost of speech, and appeared to have scarcely less

effect on his companions, who shared it, in at least an equal degree.

He and the two ladies had been very carefully made acquainted by Mr.

Brownlow with the nature of the admissions which had been forced from

Monks; and although they knew that the object of their present journey

was to complete the work which had been so well begun, still the whole

matter was enveloped in enough of doubt and mystery to leave them in

endurance of the most intense suspense.

The same kind friend had, with Mr. Losberne’s assistance, cautiously

stopped all channels of communication through which they could receive

intelligence of the dreadful occurrences that had so recently taken

place. “It was quite true,” he said, “that they must know them before

long, but it might be at a better time than the present, and it could

not be at a worse.” So, they travelled on in silence: each busied with

reflections on the object which had brought them together: and no one

disposed to give utterance to the thoughts which crowded upon all.

But if Oliver, under these influences, had remained silent while they

journeyed towards his birth-place by a road he had never seen, how the

whole current of his recollections ran back to old times, and what a

crowd of emotions were wakened up in his breast, when they turned into

that which he had traversed on foot: a poor houseless, wandering boy,

without a friend to help him, or a roof to shelter his head.

“See there, there!” cried Oliver, eagerly clasping the hand of Rose,

and pointing out at the carriage window; “that’s the stile I came over;

there are the hedges I crept behind, for fear any one should overtake

me and force 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 could only see you now!”

“You will see him soon,” replied Rose, gently taking his folded hands

between her own. “You shall tell him how happy you are, and how rich

you have grown, and that in all your happiness you have none so great

as the coming back to make him happy too.”

“Yes, yes,” said Oliver, “and we’ll—we’ll take him away from here, and

have him clothed and taught, and send him to some quiet country place

where he may grow strong and well,—shall we?”

Rose nodded “yes,” for the boy was smiling through such happy tears

that she could not speak.

“You will be kind and good to him, for you are to every one,” said

Oliver. “It will make you cry, I know, to hear what he can tell; but

never mind, never mind, it will be all over, and you will smile again—I

know that too—to think how changed he is; you did the same with me. He

said ‘God bless you’ to me when I ran away,” cried the boy with a burst

of affectionate emotion; “and I will say ‘God bless you’ now, and show

him how I love him for it!”

As they approached the town, and at length drove through its narrow

streets, it became matter of no small difficulty to restrain the boy

within reasonable bounds. There was Sowerberry’s the undertaker’s just

as it used to be, only smaller and less imposing in appearance than he

remembered it—there were all the well-known shops and houses, with

almost every one of which he had some slight incident connected—there

was Gamfield’s cart, the very cart he used to have, standing at the old

public-house door—there was the workhouse, the dreary prison of his

youthful days, with its dismal windows frowning on the street—there was

the same lean porter standing at the gate, at sight of whom Oliver

involuntarily shrunk back, and then laughed at himself for being so

foolish, then cried, then laughed again—there were scores of faces at

the doors and windows that he knew quite well—there was nearly

everything as if he had left it but yesterday, and all his recent life

had been but a happy dream.

But it was pure, earnest, joyful reality. They drove straight to the

door of the chief hotel (which Oliver used to stare up at, with awe,

and think a mighty palace, but which had somehow fallen off in grandeur

and size); and here was Mr. Grimwig all ready to receive them, kissing

the young lady, and the old one too, when they got out of the coach, as

if he were the grandfather of the whole party, all smiles and kindness,

and not offering to eat his head—no, not once; not even when he

contradicted a very old postboy about the nearest road to London, and

maintained he knew it best, though he had only come that way once, and

that time fast asleep. There was dinner prepared, and there were

bedrooms ready, and everything was arranged as if by magic.

Notwithstanding all this, when the hurry of the first half-hour was

over, the same silence and constraint prevailed that had marked their

journey down. Mr. Brownlow did not join them at dinner, but remained in

a separate room. The two other gentlemen hurried in and out with

anxious faces, and, during the short intervals when they were present,

conversed apart. Once, Mrs. Maylie was called away, and after being

absent for nearly an hour, returned with eyes swollen with weeping. All

these things made Rose and Oliver, who were not in any new secrets,

nervous and uncomfortable. They sat wondering, in silence; or, if they

exchanged a few words, spoke in whispers, as if they were afraid to

hear the sound of their own voices.

At length, when nine o’clock had come, and they began to think they

were to hear no more that night, Mr. Losberne and Mr. Grimwig entered

the room, followed by Mr. Brownlow and a man whom Oliver almost

shrieked with surprise to see; for they told him it was his brother,

and it was the same man he had met at the market-town, and seen looking

in with Fagin at the window of his little room. Monks cast a look of

hate, which, even then, he could not dissemble, at the astonished boy,

and sat down 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 signed in London before many gentlemen, must be in substance

repeated here. I would have spared you the degradation, but we must

hear them from your own lips before we part, and you know why.”

“Go on,” said the person addressed, turning away his face. “Quick. I

have almost done enough, I think. Don’t keep me here.”

“This child,” said Mr. Brownlow, drawing Oliver to him, and laying his

hand upon his head, “is your half-brother; the illegitimate son of your

father, my dear friend Edwin Leeford, by poor young Agnes Fleming, who

died in giving him birth.”

“Yes,” said Monks, scowling at the trembling boy: the beating of whose

heart he might have heard. “That is the bastard child.”

“The term you use,” said Mr. Brownlow, sternly, “is a reproach to those

long since passed beyond the feeble censure of the world. It reflects

disgrace on no one living, except you who use it. Let that pass. He was

born in this town.”

“In the workhouse of this town,” was the sullen reply. “You have the

story there.” He pointed impatiently to the papers as he spoke.

“I must have it here, too,” said Mr. Brownlow, looking round upon the

listeners.

“Listen then! You!” returned Monks. “His father being taken ill at

Rome, was joined by his wife, my mother, from whom he had been long

separated, who went from Paris and took me with her—to look after his

property, for what I know, for she had no great affection for him, nor

he for her. He knew nothing of us, for his senses were gone, and he

slumbered on till next day, when he died. Among the papers in his desk,

were two, dated on the night his illness first came on, directed to

yourself”; he addressed himself to Mr. Brownlow; “and enclosed in a few

short lines to you, with an intimation on the cover of the package that

it was not to be forwarded till after he was dead. One of these papers

was a letter to this girl Agnes; the other a will.”

“What of the letter?” asked Mr. Brownlow.

“The letter?—A sheet of paper crossed and crossed again, with a

penitent confession, and prayers to God to help her. He had palmed a

tale on the girl that some secret mystery—to be explained one

day—prevented his marrying her just then; and so she had gone on,

trusting patiently to him, until she trusted too far, and lost what

none could ever give her back. She was, at that time, within a few

months of her confinement. He told her all he had meant to do, to hide

her shame, if he had lived, and prayed her, if he died, not to curse

his memory, or think the consequences of their sin would be visited on

her or their young child; for all the guilt was his. He reminded her of

the day he had given her the little locket and the ring with her

christian name engraved upon it, and a blank left for that which he

hoped one day to have bestowed 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

believe he had.”

“The will,” said Mr. Brownlow, as Oliver’s tears fell fast.

Monks was silent.

“The will,” said Mr. Brownlow, speaking for him, “was in the same

spirit as the letter. He talked of miseries which his wife had brought

upon him; of the rebellious disposition, vice, malice, and premature

bad passions of you his only son, who had been trained to hate him; and

left you, and your mother, each an annuity of eight hundred pounds. The

bulk of his property he divided into two equal portions—one for Agnes

Fleming, and the other for their child, if it should be born alive, and

ever come of age. If it were a girl, it was to inherit the money

unconditionally; but if a boy, only on the stipulation that in his

minority he should never have stained his name with any public act of

dishonour, meanness, cowardice, or wrong. He did this, he said, to mark

his confidence in the mother, and his conviction—only strengthened by

approaching death—that the child would share her gentle heart, and

noble nature. If he were disappointed in this expectation, then the

money was to come to you: for then, and not till then, when both

children were equal, would he recognise your prior claim upon his

purse, who had none upon his heart, but had, from an infant, repulsed

him with coldness and aversion.”

“My mother,” said Monks, in a louder tone, “did what a woman should

have done. She burnt this will. The letter never reached its

destination; but that, and other proofs, she kept, in case they ever

tried to lie away the blot. The girl’s father had the truth from her

with every aggravation that her violent hate—I love her for it

now—could add. Goaded by shame and dishonour he fled with his children

into a remote corner of Wales, changing his very name that his friends

might never know of his retreat; and here, no great while afterwards,

he was found dead in his bed. The girl had left her home, in secret,

some weeks before; he had searched for her, on foot, in every town and

village near; it was on the night when he returned home, assured that

she had destroyed herself, to hide her shame and his, that his old

heart broke.”

There was a short silence here, until Mr. Brownlow took up the thread

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; robbed her of jewels and

money; gambled, squandered, forged, and fled to London: where for two

years he had associated with the lowest outcasts. She was sinking under

a painful and incurable disease, and wished to recover him before she

died. Inquiries were set on foot, and strict searches made. They were

unavailing for a long time, but ultimately successful; and he went back

with her to France.”

“There she died,” said Monks, “after a lingering illness; and, on her

death-bed, she bequeathed these secrets to me, together with her

unquenchable and deadly hatred of all whom they involved—though she

need not have left me that, for I had inherited it long before. She

would not believe that the girl had destroyed herself, and the child

too, but was filled with the impression that a male child had been

born, and was alive. I swore to her, if ever it crossed my path, to

hunt it down; never to let it rest; to pursue it with the bitterest and

most unrelenting animosity; to vent upon it the hatred that I deeply

felt, and to spit upon the empty vaunt of that insulting will by

dragging it, if I could, to the very gallows-foot. She was right. He

came in my way at last. I began well; and, but for babbling drabs, I

would have finished as I began!”

As the villain folded his arms tight together, and muttered curses on

himself in the impotence of baffled malice, Mr. Brownlow turned to the

terrified group beside him, and explained that the Jew, who had been

his old accomplice and confidant, had a large reward for keeping Oliver

ensnared: of which some part was to be given up, in the event of his

being rescued: and that a dispute on this head had led to their visit

to the country house for the purpose of identifying him.

“The locket and ring?” said Mr. Brownlow, turning to Monks.

“I bought them from the man and woman I told you of, who stole them

from the nurse, who stole them from the corpse,” answered Monks without

raising his eyes. “You know what became of them.”

Mr. Brownlow merely nodded to Mr. Grimwig, who disappearing with great

alacrity, shortly returned, pushing in Mrs. Bumble, and dragging her

unwilling consort after him.

“Do my hi’s deceive me!” cried 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,” murmured Mrs. Bumble.

“Isn’t natur, natur, Mrs. Bumble?” remonstrated the workhouse master.

“Can’t I be supposed to feel—_I_ as brought him up porochially—when I

see him a-setting here among ladies and gentlemen of the very affablest

description! I always loved that boy as if he’d been my—my—my own

grandfather,” said Mr. Bumble, halting for an appropriate comparison.

“Master Oliver, my dear, you remember the blessed gentleman in the

white waistcoat? Ah! he went to heaven last week, in a oak coffin with

plated handles, Oliver.”

“Come, sir,” said Mr. Grimwig, tartly; “suppress your feelings.”

“I will do my endeavours, sir,” replied Mr. Bumble. “How do you do,

sir? I hope you are very well.”

This salutation was addressed to Mr. Brownlow, who had stepped up to

within a short distance of the respectable couple. He inquired, as he

pointed to Monks,

“Do you know that person?”

“No,” replied Mrs. Bumble flatly.

“Perhaps _you_ don’t?” said Mr. Brownlow, addressing her spouse.

“I never saw him in all my life,” said Mr. Bumble.

“Nor sold him anything, perhaps?”

“No,” replied Mrs. Bumble.

“You never had, perhaps, a certain gold locket and ring?” said Mr.

Brownlow.

“Certainly not,” replied the matron. “Why are we brought here to answer

to such nonsense as this?”

Again Mr. Brownlow nodded to Mr. Grimwig; and again that gentleman

limped away with extraordinary readiness. But not again did he return

with a stout man and wife; for this time, he led in two palsied women,

who shook and tottered as they walked.

“You shut the door the night old Sally died,” said the foremost one,

raising her shrivelled hand, “but you couldn’t shut out the sound, nor

stop the chinks.”

“No, no,” said the other, looking round her and wagging her toothless

jaws. “No, no, no.”

“We heard her try to tell you what she’d done, and saw you take a paper

from her hand, and watched 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 found

out that, and saw it given you. We were by. Oh! we were by.”

“And we know more than that,” resumed the first, “for she told us

often, long ago, that the young mother had told her that, feeling she

should never get over it, she was on her way, at the time that she was

taken ill, to die near the grave of the father of the child.”

“Would you like to see the pawnbroker himself?” asked Mr. Grimwig with

a motion towards the door.

“No,” replied the woman; “if he”—she pointed to Monks—“has been coward

enough to confess, as I see he has, and you have sounded all these hags

till you have found the right ones, I have nothing more to say. I _did_

sell them, and they’re where you’ll never get them. What then?”

“Nothing,” replied Mr. Brownlow, “except that it remains for us to take

care that neither of you is employed in a situation of trust again. You

may leave the room.”

“I hope,” said Mr. Bumble, looking about him with great ruefulness, as

Mr. Grimwig disappeared with the two old women: “I hope that this

unfortunate little circumstance will not deprive me of my porochial

office?”

“Indeed it will,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “You may make up your mind to

that, and think yourself well off besides.”

“It was all Mrs. Bumble. She _would_ do it,” urged Mr. Bumble; first

looking round to ascertain that his partner had left the room.

“That is no excuse,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “You were present on the

occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and indeed are the more

guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that

your wife acts under your direction.”

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat

emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the

eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is,

that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”

Laying great stress on the repetition of these two words, Mr. Bumble

fixed his hat on very tight, and putting his hands in his pockets,

followed his helpmate downstairs.

“Young lady,” said Mr. Brownlow, turning to Rose, “give me your hand.

Do not tremble. You need not fear to hear the few remaining words we

have to say.”

“If they have—I do not know how they can, but if they have—any

reference to me,” said Rose, “pray let me hear them at some other time.

I have not strength or spirits now.”

“Nay,” returned the old gentleman, drawing her arm through his; “you

have more fortitude than this, I am sure. Do you know this young lady,

sir?”

“Yes,” replied Monks.

“I never saw you before,” said Rose faintly.

“I have seen you often,” returned Monks.

“The father of the unhappy Agnes had _two_ daughters,” said Mr.

Brownlow. “What was the fate of the other—the child?”

“The child,” replied Monks, “when her father died in a strange place,

in a strange name, without a letter, book, or scrap of paper that

yielded the faintest clue by which his friends or relatives could be

traced—the child was taken by some wretched cottagers, who reared it as

their own.”

“Go on,” said Mr. Brownlow, signing to Mrs. Maylie to approach. “Go

on!”

“You couldn’t find the spot to which these people had repaired,” said

Monks, “but where friendship fails, hatred will often force a way. My

mother found it, after a year of cunning search—ay, and found the

child.”

“She took it, did she?”

“No. The people were poor and began to sicken—at least the man did—of

their fine humanity; so she left it with them, giving them a small

present of money which would not last long, and promised more, which

she never meant to send. She didn’t quite rely, however, on their

discontent and poverty for the child’s unhappiness, but told the

history of the sister’s shame, with such alterations as suited her;

bade them take good heed of the child, for she came of bad blood; and

told them she was illegitimate, and sure to go wrong at one time or

other. The circumstances countenanced all this; the people believed it;

and there the child dragged on an existence, miserable enough even to

satisfy us, until a widow lady, residing, then, at Chester, saw the

girl by chance, pitied her, and took her home. There was some cursed

spell, I think, against us; for in spite of all our efforts she

remained there and was happy. I lost sight of her, two or three years

ago, and saw her no more until a few months back.”

“Do you see her now?”

“Yes. Leaning on your arm.”

“But not the less my niece,” cried Mrs. Maylie, folding the fainting

girl in her arms; “not the less my dearest child. I would not lose her

now, for all the treasures of the world. My sweet companion, my own

dear girl!”

“The only friend I ever had,” cried Rose, clinging to her. “The

kindest, best of friends. My heart will burst. I cannot bear all this.”

“You have borne more, and have been, through all, the best and gentlest

creature that ever shed happiness on every one she knew,” said Mrs.

Maylie, embracing her tenderly. “Come, come, my love, remember who this

is who waits to clasp you in his arms, poor child! See here—look, look,

my dear!”

“Not aunt,” cried Oliver, throwing his arms about her neck; “I’ll never

call her aunt—sister, my own dear sister, that something taught my

heart to love so dearly from the first! Rose, dear, darling Rose!”

Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in

the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. A father,

sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. Joy and

grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even

grief itself arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender

recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character

of pain.

They were a long, long time alone. A soft tap at the door, at length

announced that some one was without. Oliver opened it, glided away, and

gave place to Harry Maylie.

“I know it all,” he said, taking a seat beside the lovely girl. “Dear

Rose, I know it all.”

“I am not here by accident,” he added after a lengthened silence; “nor

have I heard all this tonight, for I knew it yesterday—only yesterday.

Do you guess that I have come to remind you of a promise?”

“Stay,” said Rose. “You _do_ know all.”

“All. You gave me leave, at any time within a year, to renew the

subject of our last discourse.”

“I did.”

“Not to press you to alter your determination,” pursued the young man,

“but to hear you repeat it, if you would. I was to lay whatever of

station or fortune I might possess at your feet, and if you still

adhered to your former determination, I pledged myself, by no word or

act, to seek to change it.”

“The same reasons which influenced me then, will influence me now,”

said Rose firmly. “If I ever owed a strict and rigid duty to her, whose

goodness saved me from a life of indigence and suffering, when should I

ever feel it, as I should tonight? It is a struggle,” said Rose, “but

one I am proud to make; it is a pang, but one my heart shall bear.”

“The disclosure of tonight,”—Harry began.

“The disclosure of tonight,” replied Rose softly, “leaves me in the

same position, with reference to you, as that in which I stood before.”

“You harden your heart against me, Rose,” urged her lover.

“Oh Harry, Harry,” said the young lady, bursting into tears; “I wish I

could, and spare myself this pain.”

“Then why inflict it on yourself?” said Harry, taking her hand. “Think,

dear Rose, think what you have heard tonight.”

“And what have I heard! What have I heard!” cried Rose. “That a sense

of his deep disgrace so worked upon my own father that he shunned

all—there, we have said enough, Harry, we have said enough.”

“Not yet, not yet,” said the young man, detaining her as she rose. “My

hopes, my wishes, prospects, feeling: every thought in life except my

love for you: have undergone a change. I offer you, now, no distinction

among a bustling crowd; no mingling with a world of malice and

detraction, where the blood is called into honest cheeks by aught but

real disgrace and shame; but a home—a heart and home—yes, dearest Rose,

and those, and those alone, are all I have to offer.”

“What do you mean!” she faltered.

“I mean but this—that when I left you last, I left you with a firm

determination to level all fancied barriers between yourself and me;

resolved that if my world could not be yours, I would make yours mine;

that no pride of birth should curl the lip at you, for I would turn

from it. This I have done. Those who have shrunk from me because of

this, have shrunk from you, and proved you so far right. Such power and

patronage: such relatives of influence and rank: as smiled upon me

then, look coldly now; but there are smiling fields and waving trees in

England’s richest county; and by one village church—mine, Rose, my

own!—there stands a rustic dwelling which you can make me prouder of,

than all the hopes I have renounced, measured a thousandfold. This is

my rank and station now, and here I lay it down!”

“It’s a trying thing waiting supper for lovers,” said Mr. Grimwig,

waking up, and pulling his pocket-handkerchief from over his head.

Truth to tell, the supper had been waiting a most unreasonable time.

Neither Mrs. Maylie, nor Harry, nor Rose (who all came in together),

could offer a word in extenuation.

“I had serious thoughts of eating my head tonight,” said Mr. Grimwig,

“for I began to think I should get nothing else. I’ll take the liberty,

if you’ll allow me, of saluting the bride that is to be.”

Mr. Grimwig lost no time in carrying this notice into effect upon the

blushing girl; and the example, being contagious, was followed both by

the doctor and Mr. Brownlow: some people affirm that Harry Maylie had

been observed to set it, originally, in a dark room adjoining; but the

best authorities consider this downright scandal: he being young and a

clergyman.

“Oliver, my child,” said Mrs. Maylie, “where have you been, and why do

you look so sad? There are tears stealing down your face at this

moment. What is the matter?”

It is a world of disappointment: often to the hopes we most cherish,

and hopes that do our nature the greatest honour.

Poor Dick was dead!