Oliver needed no prompting to despatch, and in little more than
five minutes they were on their way to Craven Street. When they
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arrived there, Rose left Oliver in the coach, under pretence of
preparing the old gentleman to receive him; and sending up her
card by the servant, requested to see Mr. Brownlow on very
pressing business. The servant soon returned, to beg that she
would walk upstairs; and following him into an upper room, Miss
Maylie was presented to an elderly gentleman of benevolent
appearance, in a bottle-green coat. At no great distance from
whom, was seated another old gentleman, in nankeen breeches
and gaiters; who did not look particularly benevolent, and who
was sitting with his hands clasped on the top of a thick stick, and
his chin propped thereupon.
“Dear me,” said the gentleman in the bottle-green coat, hastily
rising with great politeness, “I beg your pardon, young lady—I
imagined it was some importunate person who—I beg you will
excuse me. Be seated, pray.”
“Mr. Brownlow, I believe, sir?” said Rose, glancing from the
other gentleman to the one who had spoken.
“That is my name,” said the old gentleman. “This is my friend,
Mr. Grimwig. Grimwig, will you leave us for a few minutes?”
“I believe,” interposed Miss Maylie, “that at this period of our
interview, I need not give the gentleman the trouble of going away.
If I am correctly informed, he is cognisant of the business on
which I wish to speak to you.”
Mr. Brownlow inclined his head. Mr. Grimwig, who had made
one very stiff bow, and risen from his chair, made another very
stiff bow, and dropped into it again.
“I shall surprise you very much, I have no doubt,” said Rose,
naturally embarrassed; “but you once showed great benevolence
and goodness to a very dear young friend of mine, and I am sure
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you will take an interest in hearing of him again.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Brownlow.
“Oliver Twist you knew him as,” replied Rose.
The words no sooner escaped her lips, than Mr. Grimwig, who
had been affecting to dip into a large book that lay on the table,
upset it with a great crash, and falling back in his chair,
discharged from his features every expression but one of
unmitigated wonder, and indulged in a prolonged and vacant
stare; then, as if ashamed of having betrayed so much emotion, he
jerked himself, as it were, by a convulsion into his former attitude,
and looking out straight before him emitted a long, deep whistle,
which seemed, at last, not to be discharged on empty air, but to die
away in the innermost recesses of his stomach.
Mr. Brownlow was no less surprised, although his astonishment
was not expressed in the same eccentric manner. He drew his
chair nearer to Miss Maylie’s, and said:
“Do me the favour, my dear young lady, to leave entirely out of
the question that goodness and benevolence of which you speak,
and of which nobody else knows anything; and if you have it in
your power to produce any evidence which will alter the
unfavourable opinion I was once induced to entertain of that poor
child, in Heaven’s name put me in possession of it.”
“A bad one! I’ll eat my head if he is not a bad one,” growled Mr.
Grimwig, speaking by some ventriloquial power, without moving a
muscle of his face.
“He is a child of a noble nature and a warm heart,” said Rose,
colouring; “and that Power which has thought fit to try him
beyond his years, has planted in his breast affections and feelings
which would do honour to many who have numbered his days six
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times over.”
“I’m only sixty-one,” said Mr. Grimwig, with the same rigid
face. “And, as the devil’s in it if this Oliver is not twelve years old
at least, I don’t see the application of that remark.”
“Do not heed my friend, Miss Maylie,” said Mr. Brownlow; “he
does not mean what he says.”
“Yes, he does,” growled Mr. Grimwig.
“No, he does not,” said Mr. Brownlow, obviously rising in wrath
as he spoke.
“He’ll eat his head, if he doesn’t,” growled Mr. Grimwig.
“He would deserve to have it knocked off, if he does,” said Mr.
Brownlow.
“And he’d uncommonly like to see any man offer to do it,”
responded Mr. Grimwig, knocking his stick upon the floor.
Having gone thus far, the two old gentleman severally took
snuff, and afterwards shook hands, according to their invariable
custom.
“Now, Miss Maylie,” said Mr. Brownlow, “to return to the
subject in which your humanity is so much interested. Will you let
me know what intelligence you have of this poor child; allowing
me to premise that I exhausted every means in my power of
discovering him, and that since I have been absent from this
country, my first impression that he had imposed upon me, and
had been persuaded by his former associates to rob me, has been
considerably shaken.”
Rose, who had had time to collect her thoughts, at once related,
in a few natural words, all that had befallen Oliver since he left Mr.
Brownlow’s house; reserving Nancy’s information for that
gentleman’s private ear, and concluding with the assurance that
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his only sorrow, for some months past, had been the not being able
to meet with his former benefactor and friend.
“Thank God!” said the old gentleman. “This is great happiness
to me—great happiness. But you have not told me where he is
now, Miss Maylie. You must pardon my finding fault with you—
but why not have brought him?”
“He is waiting in a coach at the door,” replied Rose.
“At this door!” cried the old gentleman. With which he hurried
out of the room, down the stairs, up the coach steps, and into the
coach, without another word.
When the room door closed behind him, Mr. Grimwig lifted up
his head, and converting one of the hind legs of his chair into a
pivot, described three distinct circles with the assistance of his
stick and the table, sitting in it all the time. After performing this
evolution, he rose and limped as fast as he could up and down the
room at least a dozen times, and then stopping before Rose, kissed
her without the slightest preface.
“Hush!” he said, as the young lady rose in some alarm at this
unusual proceeding. “Don’t be afraid. I’m old enough to be your
grandfather. You’re a sweet girl. I like you. Here they are!”
In fact, as he threw himself at one dextrous dive into his former
seat, Mr. Brownlow returned, accompanied by Oliver, whom Mr.
Grimwig received very graciously; and if the gratification of that
moment had been the only reward for all her anxiety and care in
Oliver’s behalf, Rose Maylie would have been well repaid.
“There is somebody else who should not be forgotten, by the
bye,” said Mr. Brownlow, ringing the bell. “Send Mrs. Bedwin
here, if you please.”
The old housekeeper answered the summons with all despatch;
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and dropping a curtsey at the door, waited for orders.
“Why, you get blinder every day, Bedwin,” said Mr. Brownlow,
rather testily.
“Well, that I do, sir,” replied the old lady. “People’s eyes, at my
time of life, don’t improve with age, sir.”
“I could have told you that,” rejoined Mr. Brownlow; “but put
on your glasses, and see if you can’t find out what you were
wanted for, will you?”
The old lady began to rummage in her pocket for her
spectacles. But Oliver’s patience was not proof against this new
trial; and yielding to his first impulse, he sprang into her arms.
“God be good to me!” cried the old lady, embracing him; “it is
my innocent boy!”
“My dear old nurse!” cried Oliver.
“He would come back—I knew he would,” said the old lady,
holding him in her arms. “How well he looks, and how like a
gentleman’s son he is dressed again! Where have you been, this
long, long while? Ah! the same sweet face, but not so pale; the
same soft eye, but not so sad. I have never forgotten them, or his
quiet smile, but have seen them every day, side by side with those
of my own dear children, dead and gone since I was a lightsome
young creature.” Running on thus, and now holding Oliver from
her to mark how he had grown, now clasping him to her and
passing her fingers fondly through his hair, the good soul laughed
and wept upon his neck by turns.
Leaving her and Oliver to compare notes at leisure, Mr.
Brownlow led the way into another room, and there heard from
Rose a full narration of her interview with Nancy, which
occasioned him no little surprise and perplexity. Rose also
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explained her reasons for not confiding in her friend Mr. Losberne
in the first instance. The old gentleman considered that she had
acted prudently, and readily undertook to hold solemn conference
with the worthy doctor himself. To afford him an early opportunity
for the execution of this design, it was arranged that he should call
at the hotel at eight o’clock that evening, and that in the meantime
Mrs. Maylie should be cautiously informed of all that had
occurred. These preliminaries adjusted, Rose and Oliver returned
home.
Rose had by no means overrated the measure of the good
doctor’s wrath. Nancy’s history was no sooner unfolded to him
than he poured forth a shower of mingled threats and execrations;
threatened to make her the first victim of the combined ingenuity
of Messrs. Blathers and Duff; and actually put on his hat
preparatory to sallying forth to obtain the assistance of those
worthies. And, doubtless, he would, in this first outbreak, have
carried the intention into effect without a moment’s consideration
of the consequences, if he had not been restrained, in part, by
corresponding violence on the side of Mr. Brownlow, who was
himself of an irascible temperament, and partly by such
arguments and representations as seemed best calculated to
dissuade him from his hot-brained purpose.
“Then what the devil is to be done?” said the impetuous doctor,
when they had rejoined the two ladies. “Are we to pass a vote of
thanks to all these vagabonds, male and female, and beg them to
accept a hundred pounds, or so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our
esteem, and some slight acknowledgement of their kindness to
Oliver?”
“Not exactly that,” rejoined Mr. Brownlow, laughing; “but we
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must proceed gently and with great care.”
“Gentleness and care,” exclaimed the doctor. “I’d send them
one and all to—”
“Never mind where,” interposed Mr. Brownlow. “But reflect
whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we
have in view.”
“What object?” asked the doctor.
“Simply, the discovery of Oliver’s parentage, and regaining for
him the inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been
fraudulently deprived.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Losberne, cooling himself with his pocket-
handkerchief; “I almost forgot that.”
“You see,” pursued Mr. Brownlow; “placing this poor girl
entirely out of the question, and supposing it were possible to
bring these scoundrels to justice without compromising her safety,
what good should we bring about?”
“Hanging a few of them at least, in all probability,” suggested
the doctor, “and transporting the rest.”
“Very good,” replied Mr. Brownlow, smiling; abut no doubt
they will bring that about for themselves in the fulness of time,
and if we step in to forestall them, it seems to me that we shall be
performing a very quixotic act, in direct opposition to our own
interest—or at least Oliver’s, which is the same thing.”
“How?” inquired the doctor.
“Thus. It is quite clear that we shall have extreme difficulty in
getting to the bottom of this mystery, unless we can bring this
man, Monks, upon his knees. That can only be done by stratagem,
and by catching him when he is not surrounded by these people.
For, suppose he were apprehended, we have no proof against him.
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He is not even (so far as we know, or as the facts appear to us)
concerned with the gang in any of their robberies. If he were not
discharged, it is very unlikely that he could receive any further
punishment than being committed to prison as a rogue and
vagabond; and of course ever afterwards his mouth would be so
obstinately closed that he might as well, for our purpose, be deaf,
dumb, blind, and an idiot.”
“Then,” said the doctor impetuously, “I put it to you again,
whether you think it reasonable that this promise to the girl
should be considered binding; a promise made with the best and
kindest intentions, but really—”
“Do not discuss the point, my dear young lady, pray,” said Mr.
Brownlow, interrupting Rose as she was about to speak. “The
promise shall be kept. I don’t think it will, in the slightest degree,
interfere with our proceedings. But, before we can resolve upon
any precise course of action, it will be necessary to see the girl; to
ascertain from her whether she will point out this Monks, on the
understanding that he is to be dealt with by us, and not by the law;
or, if she will not, or cannot do that, to procure from her such an
account of his haunts and description of his person, as will enable
us to identify him. She cannot be seen until next Sunday night;
this is Tuesday. I would suggest that in the meantime we remain
perfectly quiet, and keep these matters secret even from Oliver
himself.”
Although Mr. Losberne received with many wry faces a
proposal involving a delay of five whole days, he was fain to admit
that no better course occurred to him just then; and as both Rose
and Mrs. Maylie sided very strongly with Mr. Brownlow, that
gentleman’s proposition was carried unanimously.
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“I should like,” he said, “to call in the aid of my friend Grimwig.
He is a strange creature, but a shrewd one, and might prove of
material assistance to us; I should say that he was bred a lawyer,
and quitted the bar in disgust because he had only one brief and a
motion of course, in twenty years, though whether that is a
recommendation or not, you must determine for yourselves.”
“I have no objection to your calling in your friend if I may call in
mine,” said the doctor.
“We must put it to the vote,” replied Mr. Brownlow, “who may
he be?”
“That lady’s son, and this young lady’s very old friend,” said the
doctor, motioning towards Mrs. Maylie, and concluding with an
expressive glance at her niece.
Rose blushed deeply, but she did not make any audible
objection to this motion (possibly she felt in a hopeless minority);
and Harry Maylie and Mr. Grimwig were accordingly added to the
committee.
“We stay in town, of course,” said Mr. Maylie, “while there
remains the slightest prospect of prosecuting this inquiry with a
chance of success. I will spare neither trouble nor expense in
behalf of the object in which we are all so deeply interested, and I
am content to remain here, if it be for twelve months, so long as
you assure me that any hope remains.”
“Good!” rejoined Mr. Brownlow. “And as I see on the faces
about me, a disposition to inquire how it happened that I was not
in the way to corroborate Oliver’s tale, and had so suddenly left
the kingdom, let me stipulate that I shall be asked no questions
until such time as I may deem it expedient to forestall them by
telling my own story. Believe me, I make this request with good
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reason, for I might otherwise excite hopes destined never to be
realised, and only increase difficulties and disappointments
already numerous enough. Come! Supper has been announced,
and young Oliver, who is all alone in the next room, will have
begun to think, by this time, that we have wearied of his company,
and entered into some dark conspiracy to thrust him forth upon
the world.”
With these words, the old gentleman gave his hand to Mrs.
Maylie, and escorted her into the supper-room. Mr. Losberne
followed, leading Rose; and the council was, for the present,
effectually broken up.
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