The girl’s life had been wasted in the streets and among the most foul slums and dens of London, but there was something of her original womanly nature remaining within her. When she heard a light step approaching the door opposite the one she had entered, and thought of the vast contrast between herself and the lady she was about to meet, she felt burdened by a deep sense of shame. She shrank back, feeling as though she could hardly bear the presence of the person she had sought out for this interview.
However, struggling against these better feelings was pride—a vice found in the most corrupt and degraded individuals just as often as in the wealthy and self-assured. This miserable companion of thieves and criminals, an outcast of the lowest haunts who lived in the shadow of the executioner's rope, felt too proud to reveal any hint of the womanly emotion she considered a weakness. Yet, it was this very feeling that still connected her to humanity—a connection that her harsh life had almost entirely destroyed since she was a child.
She raised her eyes just enough to observe that the figure entering the room was a slender and beautiful young woman. Then, fixing her gaze on the ground, she tossed her head with pretended indifference as she spoke.
“It is a difficult matter to get an audience with you, lady. If I had taken offense and walked away, as many others would have done, you would have regretted it one day—and with good reason, too.”
“I am very sorry if anyone has behaved harshly toward you,” Rose replied. “Do not dwell on that. Tell me why you wished to see me. I am the person you inquired for.”
The kind tone of this answer, the sweet voice, and the gentle manner—entirely lacking any hint of superiority or anger—took the girl completely by surprise, and she burst into tears.
“Oh, lady, lady!” she cried, clutching her hands passionately before her face. “If there were more people like you, there would be fewer like me—there really would!”
“Sit down,” Rose said earnestly. “If you are suffering from poverty or distress, I shall be truly glad to assist you if I can. Please, sit down.”
“Let me stand, lady,” the girl replied, still weeping. “And do not speak to me so kindly until you know me better. It is growing late. Is—is that door shut?”
“Yes,” said Rose, stepping back instinctively, as if to be closer to help should she require it. “Why do you ask?”
“Because,” said the girl, “I am about to put my life and the lives of others in your hands. I am the girl who dragged little Oliver back to old Fagin’s house on the night he left his home in Pentonville.”
“You!” Rose Maylie exclaimed.
“I, lady!” the girl replied. “I am that infamous creature you have heard of, who lives among thieves. From the first moment I can remember opening my eyes in the London streets, I have never known a better life or kinder words than they have given me, so help me God! Do not hesitate to shrink away from me, lady. I am younger than I look, but I am well used to it. Even the poorest women step aside when I make my way along a crowded pavement.”
“What dreadful things are these!” Rose said, involuntarily moving away from her strange companion.
“Thank Heaven on your knees, dear lady,” the girl cried, “that you had friends to care for you in your childhood. You were never forced to endure cold, hunger, and violence, or—something worse than all—as I have been since my cradle. I use that word lightly, for the alley and the gutter were my only cradle, just as they will be my deathbed.”
“I pity you!” Rose said in a broken voice. “It breaks my heart to hear this.”
“Heaven bless you for your goodness!” the girl responded. “If you knew what I am forced to be sometimes, you would pity me indeed. But I have stolen away from those who would surely murder me if they knew I had been here. I have come to tell you what I overheard. Do you know a man named Monks?”
“No,” Rose replied.
“He knows you,” the girl said. “He knew you were here, for it was by hearing him mention this place that I managed to find you.”
“I have never heard the name,” said Rose.
“Then he must use another name among us,” the girl remarked, “which is what I suspected. Some time ago, shortly after Oliver was taken into your house on the night of the robbery, I became suspicious of this man. I listened to a conversation between him and Fagin in the dark. I discovered that Monks—the man I asked about—"
“Yes,” said Rose, “I understand.”
“That Monks,” the girl continued, “had seen Oliver by accident with two of our boys on the day we first lost him. He recognized him immediately as the child he had been searching for, though I couldn’t understand why. A bargain was struck with Fagin: if Oliver was brought back, Fagin would receive a certain sum of money. He was promised even more if he could turn the boy into a thief, which Monks wanted for some secret purpose of his own.”
“For what purpose?” Rose asked.
“He saw my shadow on the wall while I was listening, hoping to find out,” the girl said. “There are not many people besides me who could have escaped in time to avoid discovery. But I did, and I did not see him again until last night.”
“And what happened then?”
“I’ll tell you, lady. Last night he returned. Again they went upstairs, and I, wrapping myself up so that my shadow would not betray me, listened at the door once more. The first words I heard Monks say were: ‘So the only proofs of the boy’s identity lie at the bottom of the river, and the old woman who took them from his mother is rotting in her coffin.’ They laughed and celebrated their success. Monks, becoming quite wild as he spoke of the boy, said that although he now had the young devil’s money safely, he would have preferred a different outcome. He said it would have been a great victory to ruin the reputation of the father’s will by dragging the boy through every jail in town, eventually leading him to the gallows—something Fagin could easily have arranged.”
“What does all this mean!” Rose cried.
“It is the truth, lady, even if it comes from my lips,” the girl replied. “Then he claimed, using oaths that would be foreign to your ears, that if he could satisfy his hatred by taking the boy’s life without risking his own, he would. Since he cannot, he intends to watch for him at every turn. ‘In short, Fagin,’ he said, ‘as clever as you are, you never laid such traps as I will create for my young brother, Oliver.’”
“His brother!” Rose exclaimed.
“Those were his words,” said Nancy, glancing uneasily around. She had been doing this constantly since she began speaking, as if the terrifying memory of her companion, Sikes, haunted her. “And there is more. When he spoke of you and the other lady, he laughed. He said it seemed as though Heaven or the devil was working against him by letting Oliver fall into your hands, but he found comfort in one thing: he wondered how many thousands of pounds you would give to know who the boy really was.”
“You do not mean,” said Rose, turning very pale, “that he said this in earnest?”
“He was as serious as a man can be when he is filled with hatred,” the girl replied, shaking her head. “I know many who do terrible things, but I would rather listen to all of them a dozen times than hear Monks once. It is growing late, and I must reach home before they suspect I have been on such an errand. I must return quickly.”
“But what can I do?” Rose asked. “How can I use this information without your help? Why must you return to companions you describe in such terrifying terms? If you repeat this information to a gentleman I can call from the next room, you could be taken to a place of safety within half an hour.”
“I must go back,” the girl insisted. “I have to return because—how can I explain this to an innocent lady like you?—because among the men I told you of, there is one, the most desperate of them all, whom I cannot leave. I could not leave him even to save myself from the life I lead now.”
“Your past help for this dear boy,” Rose said, “your coming here at such great risk, and your evident regret all convince me that you could still be saved. Oh!” the earnest girl cried, folding her hands as tears ran down her face, “do not ignore the plea of another woman. Do let me save you for a better life.”
“Lady,” the girl cried, falling to her knees, “dear, sweet lady, you are the first person who has ever blessed me with such words. If I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin. But it is too late!”
“It is never too late,” Rose said, “for repentance and making amends.”
“It is,” the girl cried, clearly in agony. “I cannot leave him now! I could not be the cause of his death.”
“Why would you be?” Rose asked.
“Nothing could save him,” the girl cried. “If I told others what I have told you, he would surely be caught and executed. He is the boldest, and he has been so cruel!”
“Is it possible,” Rose asked, “that for such a man, you would give up all hope for the future? It is madness.”
“I don't know what it is,” the girl answered. “I only know that it is so, and I am not alone. I am drawn back to him through every bit of suffering and ill-treatment. I believe I would return even if I knew I were to die by his hand.”
“What am I to do?” Rose asked. “I should not let you leave me like this.”
“You should, lady, and I know you will,” the girl said, rising. “You will not stop me from leaving because I have trusted in your goodness and did not force a promise from you, as I might have done.”
“Then how will this help Oliver?” Rose asked. “This mystery must be investigated.”
“You must have some kind gentleman with you who can hear this secret and advise you,” the girl suggested.
“But where can I find you again?” Rose asked. “Where will you be walking at any fixed time from now on?”
“Will you promise that you will keep my secret strictly, and come alone, or with only the other person who knows it? And promise that I shall not be followed?”
“I promise you solemnly,” Rose answered.
“Every Sunday night, from eleven until the clock strikes twelve,” the girl said without hesitation, “I will walk on London Bridge, if I am alive.”
“Stay another moment,” Rose urged as the girl moved toward the door. “Think once more of your situation. Will you truly return to this gang of robbers when a word could save you? Is there no part of your heart I can touch to save you from this terrible obsession?”
“When ladies as young and beautiful as you give away your hearts,” the girl replied steadily, “love carries you to great lengths—even though you have homes, friends, and everything else to fill your lives. When people like me, who have no roof but a coffin and no friends but a hospital nurse, give our hearts to a man, he fills a space that has been empty all our wretched lives. Pity us, lady—pity us that our only womanly feeling has been turned into a source of violence and suffering.”
“Will you,” Rose said after a pause, “take some money from me? It might enable you to live honestly until we meet again.”
“Not a penny,” the girl replied, waving her hand.
“Do not close your heart against my help,” Rose said, stepping forward. “I truly wish to serve you.”
“You would serve me best, lady,” the girl replied, wringing her hands, “if you could take my life now. I have felt more grief tonight, thinking of what I am, than I ever have before. God bless you, sweet lady, and send you as much happiness as I have brought shame upon myself!”
Sobbing aloud, the unhappy creature turned away. Rose Maylie, overwhelmed by this extraordinary interview which felt more like a dream than reality, sank into a chair and tried to collect her wandering thoughts.