Oliver Twist(雾都孤儿(孤星血泪))-53

“Nothing,” replied Mr. Brownlow—“nothing to you. But it washers; and even at this distance of time brings back to me, an oldman, the glow and thrill which I once felt, only to hear it repeatedby a stranger. I am very glad you have changed it—very—very.”“This is all mighty fine,” said Monks (to retain his assumeddesignation) after a long silence, during which he had jerkedhimself in sullen defiance to and fro, and Mr. Brownlow had sat,shading his face with his hand. “But what do you want with me?”“You have a brother,” said Mr. Brownlow, rousing himself; “abrother, the whisper of whose name in your ear when I camebehind you in the street, was, in itself, almost enough to make youaccompany me hither, in wonder and alarm.”“I have no brother,” replied Monks. “You know I was an onlychild. Why do you talk to me of brothers? You know that, as wellas I.”“Attend to what I do know, and you may not,” said Mr.Brownlow. “I shall interest you by and by. I know that of thewretched marriage, into which family pride, and the most sordidand narrowest of all ambition, forced your unhappy father when amere boy, you were the sole and most unnatural issue.”“I don’t care for hard names,” interrupted Monks, with ajeering laugh. “You know the fact, and that’s enough for me.”“But I also know,” pursued the old gentleman, “the misery, theslow torture, the protracted anguish of that ill-assorted union. Iknow how listlessly and wearily each of that wretched pairdragged on their heavy chain through a world that was poisonedto them both. I know how cold formalities were succeeded by openCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 526taunts; how indifference gave place to dislike, dislike to hate, andhate to loathing, until at last they wrenched the clanking bondasunder, and retiring a wide space apart, carried each a gallingfragment, of which nothing but death could break the rivets, tohide it in new society beneath the gayest looks they could assume.Your mother succeeded; she forgot it soon. But it rusted andcankered at your father’s heart for years.”“Well, they were separated,” said Monks, “and what of that?”“When they had been separated for some time,” returned Mr.Brownlow, “and your mother, wholly given up to continentalfrivolities, had utterly forgotten the young husband ten good yearsher junior, who, with prospects blighted, lingered on at home, hefell among new friends. This circumstance, at least, you knowalready.”“Not I,” said Monks, turning away his eyes and beating his footupon the ground, as a man who is determined to deny everything.“Not I.”“Your manner, no less than your actions, assures me that youhave never forgotten it, or ceased to think of it with bitterness,”returned Mr. Brownlow. “I speak of fifteen years ago, when youwere not more than eleven years old, and your father but one-andthirty—for he was, I repeat, a boy, when his father ordered him tomarry. Must I go back to events which cast a shade upon thememory of your parent, or will you spare it, and disclose to me thetruth?”“I have nothing to disclose,” rejoined Monks. “You must talk onif you will.”“These new friends, then,” said Mr. Brownlow, “were a navalofficer retired from active service, whose wife had died some half aCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 527year before, and left him with two children—there had been more,but, of all their family, happily but two survived. They were bothdaughters; one a beautiful creature of nineteen, and the other amere child of two or three years old.”“What’s this to me?” asked Monks.“They resided,” said Mr. Brownlow, without seeming to hearthe interruption, “in a part of the country to which your father inhis wanderings had repaired, and where he had taken up hisabode. Acquaintance, intimacy, friendship, fast followed on eachother. Your father was gifted as few men are. He had his sister’ssoul and person. As the old officer knew him more and more, hegrew to love him. I would that it had ended there. His daughter didthe same.”The old gentleman paused; Monks was biting his lips, with hiseyes fixed upon the floor; seeing this, he immediately resumed:“The end of a year found him contracted, solemnly contracted,to that daughter; the object of the first, true, ardent, only passionof a guileless girl.”“Your tale is of the longest,” observed Monks, moving restlesslyin his chair.“It is a true tale of grief, and trial, and sorrow, young man,”returned Mr. Brownlow, “and such tales usually are; if it were oneof unmixed joy and happiness, it would be very brief. At length,one of those rich relations to strengthen whose interest andimportance your father had been sacrificed, as others are often—itis no uncommon case—died, and to repair the misery he had beeninstrumental in occasioning, left him his panacea for all griefs—money. It was necessary that he should immediately repair toRome, whither this man had sped for health, and where he hadCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 528died, leaving his affairs in great confusion. He went; was seizedwith mortal illness there; was followed, the moment theintelligence reached Paris, by your mother, who carried you withher; he died the day after her arrival, leaving no will—no will—sothat the whole property fell to her and you.”At this part of the recital, Monks held his breath, and listenedwith a face of intense eagerness, though his eyes were not directedtowards the speaker. As Mr. Brownlow paused, he changed hisposition with the air of one who has experienced a sudden relief,and wiped his hot face and hands.“Before he went abroad, and as he passed through London onhis way,” said Mr. Brownlow slowly, and fixing his eyes upon theother’s face, “he came to me.”“I never heard of that,” interrupted Monks, in a tone intendedto appear incredulous, but savouring more of disagreeablesurprise.“He came to me, and left with me, among some other things, apicture—a portrait painted by himself—a likeness of this poorgirl—which he did not wish to leave behind, and could not carryforward on his hasty journey. He was worn by anxiety andremorse almost to a shadow; talked in a wild, distracted way, ofruin and dishonour worked by himself; confided in me hisintention to convert his whole property, at any loss, into money,and, having settled on his wife and you a portion of his recentacquisition, to fly the country—I guessed too well he would not flyalone—and never see it more. Even from me, his old and earlyfriend, whose strong attachment had taken root in the earth andcovered one most dear to both—even from me he withheld anymore particular confession, promising to write and tell me all, andCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 529after that to see me once again, for the last time on earth. Alas!That was the last time. I had no letter, and I never saw him more.“I went,” said Mr. Brownlow after a short pause—“I went,when all was over, to the scene of his—I will use the term theworld would freely use, for worldly harshness or favour are nowalike to him—of his guilty love, resolved that if her fears wererealised, that erring child should find one heart and home toshelter and compassionate her. The family had left that part aweek before; they had called in such trifling debts as wereoutstanding, discharged them, and left the place by night. Why, orwhither, none can tell.”Monks drew his breath yet more freely, and looked round witha smile of triumph.“When your brother,” said Mr. Brownlow, drawing nearer tothe other’s chair—“when your brother—a feeble, ragged,neglected child—was cast in my way by a stronger hand thanchance, and rescued by me from a life of vice and infamy—”“What?” cried Monks.“By me,” said Mr. Brownlow. “I told you I should interest youbefore long. I say by me—I see that your cunning associatesuppressed my name, although for aught he knew, it would bequite strange to your ears. When he was rescued by me, then, andlay recovering from sickness in my house, his strong resemblanceto this picture I have spoken of, struck me with astonishment.Even when I first saw him in all his dirt and misery, there was alingering expression in his face that came upon me like a glimpseof some old friend flashing on one in a vivid dream. I need not tellyou he was snared away before I knew his history—”“Why not?” asked Monks hastily.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 530“Because you know it well.”“I!”“Denial to me is vain,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “I shall show youthat I know more than that.”“You—you—can’t prove anything against me,” stammeredMonks. “I defy you to do it!”“We shall see,” returned the old gentleman, with a searchingglance. “I lost the boy, and no efforts of mine could recover him.Your mother being dead, I knew that you alone could solve themystery if anybody could, and as, when I had last heard of you,you were on your own estate in the West Indies—whither, as youwell know, you retired upon your mother’s death to escape theconsequences of vicious courses here—I made the voyage. Youhad left it, months before, and were supposed to be in London, butno one could tell where. I returned. Your agents had no clue toyour residence. You came and went, they said, as strangely as youhad ever done, sometimes for days together and sometimes not formonths, keeping, to all appearance, the same low haunts andmingling with the same infamous herd who had been yourassociates when a fierce, ungovernable boy. I wearied them withnew applications. I paced the streets by night and day, but untiltwo hours ago, all my efforts were fruitless, and I never saw youfor an instant.”“And now you do see me,” said Monks, rising boldly, “whatthen? Fraud and robbery are high-sounding words—justified, youthink, by a fancied resemblance in some young imp to an idle daubof a dead man’s. Brother! You don’t even know that a child wasborn of this maudlin pair; you don’t even known that.”“I did not,” replied Mr. Brownlow, rising too; “but within theCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 531last fortnight I have learned it all. You have a brother; you know it,and him. There was a will, which your mother destroyed, leavingthe secret and the gain to you at her own death. It contained areference to some child likely to be the result of this sadconnection; which child was born, and accidentally encounteredby you, when your suspicions were first awakened by hisresemblance to his father. You repaired to the place of his birth.There existed proofs—proofs long suppressed—of his birth andparentage. Those proofs were destroyed by you, and now, in yourown words to your accomplice the Jew, ‘the only proofs of the boy’sidentity lie at the bottom of the river, and the old hag that receivedthem from the mother is rotting in her coffin.’ Unworthy son,coward, liar—you, who hold your councils with thieves andmurderers in dark rooms at night, you, whose plots and wiles havebrought a violent death upon the head of one worth millions suchas you—you, who from your cradle were gall and bitterness toyour own father’s heart, and in whom all evil passions, vice, andprofligacy, festered, till they found a vent in a hideous diseasewhich has made your face an index even to your mind—you,Edward Leeford, do you still brave me?”“No, no, no!” returned the coward, overwhelmed by theseaccumulated charges.“Every word!” cried the old gentleman—“every word that haspassed between you and this detested villain, is known to me.Shadows on the wall have caught your whispers, and broughtthem to my ear; the sight of the persecuted child has turned viceitself, and given it the courage and almost the attributes of virtue.Murder has been done, to which you were morally if not really aparty.”Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 532“No, no,” interposed Monks. “I—I know nothing of that; I wasgoing to inquire the truth of the story when you overtook me. Ididn’t know the cause. I thought it was a common quarrel.”“It was the partial disclosure of your secrets,” replied Mr.Brownlow. “Will you disclose the whole?”“Yes, I will.”“Set your hand to a statement of truth and facts, and repeat itbefore witnesses?”“That I promise, too.”“Remain quietly here, until such a document is drawn up, andproceed with me to such a place as I may deem most advisable, forthe purpose of attesting it?”“If you insist upon that, I’ll do that also,” replied Monks.“You must do more than that,” said Mr. Brownlow. “Makerestitution to an innocent and unoffending child, for such he is,although the offspring of a guilty and most miserable love. Youhave not forgotten the provisions of the will. Carry them intoexecution so far as your brother is concerned, and then go whereyou please. In this world you need meet no more.”While Monks was pacing up and down, meditating with darkand evil looks on this disposal and the possibilities of evading it,torn by his fears on the one hand and his hatred on the other, thedoor was hurriedly unlocked, and a gentleman (Mr. Losberne)entered the room in violent agitation.“The man will be taken,” he cried. “He will be taken tonight!”“The murderer?” asked Mr. Brownlow.“Yes, yes,” replied the other. “His dog has been seen lurkingabout some old haunt, and there seems little doubt that his mastereither is, or will be, there, under cover of darkness. Spies areCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 533hovering about in every direction. I have spoken to the men whoare charged with his capture, and they tell me he can neverescape. A reward of a hundred pounds is proclaimed byGovernment tonight.”“I will give fifty more,” said Mr. Brownlow, “and proclaim itwith my own lips upon the spot, if I can reach it. Where is Mr.Maylie?”“Harry? As soon as he had seen your friend here, safe in acoach with you, he hurried off to where he heard this,” replied thedoctor, “and, mounting his horse, sallied forth to join the firstparty at some place in the outskirts agreed upon between them.”“Fagin,” said Mr. Brownlow; “what of him?”“When I last heard, he had not been taken; but he will be, or is,by this time. They’re sure of him.”“Have you made up your mind?” asked Mr. Brownlow, in a lowvoice, of Monks.“Yes,” he replied. “You—you—will be secret with me?”“I will. Remain here till I return. It is your only hope of safety.”They left the room, and the door was again locked.“What have you done?” asked the doctor, in a whisper.“All that I could hope to do, and even more. Coupling the poorgirl’s intelligence with my previous knowledge, and the result ofour good friend’s inquiries on the spot, I left him no loophole ofescape, and laid bare the whole villainy which by these lightsbecame plain as day. Write and appoint the evening aftertomorrow, at seven, for the meeting. We shall be down there, a fewhours before, but shall require rest; especially the young lady, whomay have greater need of firmness than either you or I can quiteforesee just now. But my blood boils to avenge this poor murderedCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 534creature. Which way have they taken?”“Drive straight to the office and you will be in time,” replied Mr.Losberne. “I will remain here.”The two gentlemen hastily separated; each in a fever ofexcitement wholly uncontrollable.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 535Chapter 50The Pursuit And Escape.Near to that part of the Thames on which the church atRotherhithe abuts, where the buildings on the banks aredirtiest and the vessels on the river blackest with the dustof colliers and the smoke of close-built, low-roofed houses, thereexists the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of themany localities that are hidden in London, wholly unknown, evenby name, to the great mass of its inhabitants.To reach this place, the visitor has to penetrate through a mazeof close, narrow, and muddy streets, thronged by the roughest andpoorest of waterside people, and devoted to the traffic they may besupposed to occasion. The cheapest and least delicate provisionsare heaped in the shops; the coarsest and commonest articles of