Oliver Twist (1838)/Volume 2/Chapter 34
CHAPTER XXXIV.
When the inmates of the house, attracted by Oliver's cries, hurried to the spot from which they proceeded, they found him, pale and agitated, pointing in the direction of the meadows behind the house, and scarcely able to articulate the words "The Jew! the Jew!"
Mr. Giles was at a loss to comprehend what this outcry meant; but Harry Maylie, whose perceptions were something quicker, and who had heard Oliver's history from his mother, understood it at once.
"What direction did he take?" he asked, catching up a heavy stick which was standing in a corner.
"That," replied Oliver, pointing out the course the men had taken. "I missed them all in an instant."
"Then they are in the ditch!" said Harry. "Follow, and keep as near me as you can." So saying he sprang over the hedge, and darted off with a speed which rendered it matter of exceeding difficulty for the others to keep near him.
Giles followed as well as he could, and Oliver followed too, and in the course of a minute or two, Mr. Losberne, who had been out walking, and just then returned, tumbled over the hedge after them, and picking himself up with more agility than he could have been supposed to possess, struck into the same course at no contemptible speed, shouting all the while most prodigiously to know what was the matter.
On they all went; nor stopped they once to breathe until the leader, striking off into an angle of the field indicated by Oliver, began to search narrowly the ditch and hedge adjoining, which afforded time for the remainder of the party to come up, and for Oliver to communicate to Mr. Losberne the circumstances that had led to so vigorous a pursuit.
The search was all in vain. There were not even the traces of recent footsteps to be seen. They stood now on the summit of a little hill, commanding the open fields in every direction for three or four miles. There was the village in the hollow on the left; but, in order to gain that, after pursuing the track Oliver had pointed out, the men must have made a circuit of open ground which it was impossible they could have accomplished in so short a time. A thick wood skirted the meadow-land in another direction; but they could not have gained that covert for the same reason.
"It must have been a dream, Oliver?" said Harry Maylie, taking him aside.
"Oh no, indeed, sir," replied Oliver, shuddering at the very recollection of the old wretch's countenance; "I saw him too plainly for that. I saw them both as plainly as I see you now."
"Who was the other?" inquired Harry and Mr. Losberne together.
"The very same man that I told you of, who came so suddenly upon me at the inn," said Oliver. "We had our eyes fixed full upon each other, and I could swear to him."
"They took this way?" demanded Harry; "are you certain of that?"
"As I am that the men were at the window," replied Oliver, pointing down as he spoke to the hedge which divided the cottage-garden from the meadow. "The tall man leaped over just there; and the Jew, running a few paces to the right, crept through that gap."
The two gentlemen watched Oliver's earnest face as he spoke, and looking from him to each other, seemed to feel satisfied of the accuracy of what he said. Still, in no direction were there any appearances of the trampling of men in hurried flight. The grass was long, but it was trodden down nowhere save where their own feet had crushed it. The sides and brinks of the ditches were of damp clay, but in no one place could they discern the print of men's shoes, or the slightest mark which would indicate that any feet had pressed the ground for hours before.
"This is strange!" said Harry.
"Strange?" echoed the doctor. "Blathers and Duff themselves could make nothing of it."
Notwithstanding the evidently inefficacious nature of their search, however, they did not desist until the coming on of night rendered its further prosecution hopeless, and even then they gave it up with reluctance. Giles was despatched to the different alehouses in the village, furnished with the best description Oliver could give of the appearance and dress of the strangers; of whom the Jew was at all events sufficiently remarkable to be remembered supposing he had been seen drinking, or loitering about; but he returned without any intelligence calculated to dispel or lessen the mystery.
On the next day further search was made, and the inquiries renewed, but with no better success. On the day following, Oliver and Mr. Maylie repaired to the market-town, in the hope of seeing or hearing something of the men there; but this effort was equally fruitless; and, after a few days the affair began to be forgotten, as most affairs are, when wonder, having no fresh food to support it, dies away of itself.
Meanwhile Rose was rapidly recovering. She had left her room, was able to go out, and, mixing once more with the family, carried joy into the hearts of all.
But although this happy change had a visible effect on the little circle, and although cheerful voices and merry laughter were once more heard in the cottage, there was at times an unwonted restraint upon some there—even upon Rose herself—which Oliver could not fail to remark. Mrs. Maylie and her son were often closeted together for a long time, and more than once Rose appeared with traces of tears upon her face. After Mr. Losberne had fixed a day for his departure to Chertsey, these symptoms increased, and it became evident that something was in progress which affected the peace of the young lady and of somebody else besides.
At length one morning, when Rose was alone in the breakfast-parlour, Harry Maylie entered, and with some hesitation begged permission to speak with her for a few moments.
"A few—a very few—will suffice, Rose," said the young man, drawing his chair towards her. "What I shall have to say has already presented itself to your mind; the most cherished hopes of my heart are not unknown to you, though from my lips you have not yet heard them stated."
Rose had been very pale from the moment of his entrance, although that might have been the effect of her recent illness. She merely bowed, and bending over some plants that stood near, waited in silence for him to proceed.
"I—I—ought to have left here before," said Harry.
"You should indeed," replied Rose. "Forgive me for saying so, but I wish you had."
"I was brought here by the most dreadful and agonizing of all apprehensions," said the young man, "the fear of losing the one dear being on whom my every wish and hope are centred. You had been dying—trembling between earth and heaven. We know that when the young, the beautiful, and good, are visited with sickness, their pure spirits insensibly turn towards their bright home of lasting rest, and hence it is that the best and fairest of our kind so often fade in blooming."
There were tears in the eye of the gentle girl as these words were spoken, and when one fell upon the flower over which she bent, and glistened brightly in its cup, making it more beautiful, it seemed as though the outpourings of a fresh young heart claimed common kindred with the loveliest things in nature.
"An angel," continued the young man passionately, "a creature as fair and innocent of guile as one of God's own angels, fluttered between life and death. Oh! who could hope, when the distant world to which she was akin half opened to her view, that she would return to the sorrow and calamity of this! Rose, Rose, to know that you were passing away like some soft shadow, which a light from above casts upon the earth—to have no hope that you would be spared to those who linger here, and to know no reason why you should—to feel that you belonged to that bright sphere whither so many gifted creatures in infancy and youth have winged their early flight—and yet to pray, amid all these consolations, that you might be restored to those who loved you—these are distractions almost too great to bear. They were mine by day and night, and with them came such a rushing torrent of fears and apprehensions, and selfish regrets lest you should die and never know how devotedly I loved you, as almost bore down sense and reason in its course. You recovered—day by day, and almost hour by hour, some drop of health came back, and mingling with the spent and feeble stream of life which circulated languidly within you, swelled it again to a high and rushing tide. I have watched you change almost from death to life, with eyes that moistened with their own eagerness and deep affection. Do not tell me that you wish I had lost this; for it has softened my heart to all mankind."
"I did not mean that," said Rose weeping; "I only wish you had left here, that you might have turned to high and noble pursuits again—to pursuits well worthy of you."
"There is no pursuit more worthy of me—more worthy of the highest nature that exists—than the struggle to win such a heart as yours," said the young man taking her hand. "Rose, my own dear Rose, for years—for years I have loved you, hoping to win my way to fame, and then come proudly home and tell you it had been sought, only for you to share; thinking in my day-dreams how I would remind you in that happy moment of the many silent tokens I had given of a boy's attachment, and rally you who had blushed to mark them, and then claim your hand, as if in redemption of some old mute contract that had been sealed between us. That time has not arrived; but here, with no fame won and no young vision realized, I give to you the heart so long your own, and stake my all upon the words with which you greet the offer."
"Your behaviour has ever been kind and noble," said Rose, mastering the emotions by which she was agitated. "As you believe that I am not insensible or ungrateful, so hear my answer."
"It is that I may endeavour to deserve you—is it, dear Rose?"
"It is," replied Rose, "that you must endeavour to forget me—not as your old and dearly-attached companion, for that would wound me deeply, but as the object of your love. Look into the world, think how many hearts you would be equally proud to gain are there. Confide some other passion to me if you will, and I will be the truest, warmest, most faithful friend you have."
There was a pause, during which Rose, who had covered her face with one hand, gave free vent to her tears. Harry still retained the other. "And your reasons, Rose," he said at length in a low voice, "your reasons for this decision—may I ask them?"
"You have a right to know them," rejoined Rose. "You can say nothing to alter my resolution. It is a duty that I must perform. I owe it alike to others, and to myself."
"To yourself?"
"Yes, Harry, I owe it to myself that I, a friendless, portionless girl, with a blight upon my name, should not give the world reason to suspect that I had sordidly yielded to your first passion, and fastened myself, a clog, upon all your hopes and projects. I owe it to you and yours to prevent you from opposing, in the warmth of your generous nature, this great obstacle to your progress in the world."
"If your inclinations chime with your sense of duty" Harry began.
"They do not," replied Rose, colouring deeply.
"Then you return my love?" said Harry. "Say but that, Rose; say but that, and soften the bitterness of this hard disappointment."
"If I could have done so without doing heavy wrong to him I loved," rejoined Rose, "I could have—"
"Have received this declaration very differently?" said Harry with great eagerness. "Do not conceal that from me at least, Rose."
"I could," said Rose. "Stay," she added, disengaging her hand, "why should we prolong this painful interview? most painful to me, and yet productive of lasting happiness notwithstanding; for it will be happiness to know that I once held the high place in your regard which I now occupy, and every triumph you achieve in life will animate me with new fortitude and firmness. Farewell, Harry! for as we have met to-day, we meet no more: but in other relations than those in which this conversation would have placed us, may we be long and happily intwined; and may every blessing that the prayers of a true and earnest heart can call down from where all is truth and sincerity cheer and prosper you."
"Another word, Rose," said Harry. "Your reason in your own words. From your own lips let me hear it."
"The prospect before you," answered Rose firmly, "is a brilliant one; all the honours to which great talents and powerful connexions can help men in public life are in store for you. But those connexions are proud, and I will neither mingle with such as hold in scorn the mother who gave me life, nor bring disgrace or failure upon the son of her who has so well supplied that mother's place. "In a word," said the young lady, turning away as her temporary firmness forsook her, "there is a stain upon my name which the world visits on innocent heads: I will carry it into no blood but my own and the reproach shall rest alone on me."
"One word more, Rose—dear Rose, one more," cried Harry throwing himself before her. "If I had been less, less fortunate, as the world would call it,—if some obscure and peaceful life had been my destiny,—if I had been poor, sick, helpless,—would you have turned from me then? or has my probable advancement to riches and honour given this scruple birth?"
"Do not press me to reply," answered Rose. "The question does not arise, and never will. It is unfair, unkind, to urge it."
"If your answer be what I almost dare to hope it is," retorted Harry, "it will shed a gleam of happiness upon my lonely way, and light the dreary path before me. It is not an idle thing to do so much, by the utterance of a few brief words, for one who loves us beyond all else. Oh, Rose, in the name of my ardent and enduring attachment,—in the name of all I have suffered for you, and all you doom me to undergo,—answer me that one question."
"Then if your lot had been differently cast," rejoined Rose; "if you had been even a little, but not so far above me; if I could have been a help and comfort to you in some humble scene of peace and retirement, and not a blot and drawback in ambitious and distinguished crowds; I should have been spared this trial. I have every reason to be happy, very happy, now; but then, Harry, I own I should have been happier."
Busy recollections of old hopes, cherished as a girl long ago, crowded into the mind of Rose while making this avowal; but they brought tears with them, as old hopes will when they come back withered, and they relieved her.
"I cannot help this weakness, and it makes my purpose stronger," said Rose extending her hand. "I must leave you now, indeed."
"I ask one promise," said Harry. "Once, and only once more,—say within a year, but it may be much sooner,—let me speak to you again on this subject for the last time."
"Not to press me to alter my right determination," replied Rose with a melancholy smile: "it will be useless."
"No," said Harry; "to hear you repeat it, if you will; finally repeat it. I will lay at your feet whatever of station or fortune I may possess, and if you still adhere to your present resolution, will not seek by word or act to change it."
"Then let it be so," rejoined Rose. "It is but one pang the more, and by that time I may be enabled to bear it better."
She extended her hand again, but the young man caught her to his bosom, and, imprinting one kiss upon her beautiful forehead, hurried from the room.