The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
not leave me thus. It is false--it is some desperate juggle! My
child--my child, come once again to these arms.--God--God help me!"
Arabella's aunt rose in the greatest alarm, and rung the bell so
sharply, that it brought everybody that was in the house to that room,
and Mr. Lupin, when he saw what a congregation there was, rose up and
said in a snuffling voice--
"Is there any objection to a prayer?"
"The greatest at present, sir," said Arabella's aunt. "Sir, there is a
time for all things. The state of poor Mr. Oakley, now claims all our
care. If you are his friend--"
At these words, Oakley appeared to shake off much of the prostrating
effects of the first dreadful conviction, that what Lupin had told him
was true, and he said--
"No--no, he is no friend--he is a bitter enemy. The enemy of my peace,
and of my dear child. I am calmer now, and I demand--I implore, that
that man be made to leave this house."
"Brother Oakley," said Lupin, "you brought me here."
"And I now command you hence. Begone, villain, begone; go and exult over
the heart-broken father's grief; go and tell the tale where you will.
You cannot move me now--go--go--go."
"Truly I will go presently, but first of all, I say to you, brother
Oakley, hardened sinner as you are, repent. Down upon your knees all of
you, and join me in prayer, that the unbelievers may roll upon billows
of burning brimstone, and that--"
"Come," said a man, who happened to be in the house upon some domestic
errand, "Mrs. Wilmot says you are to go, and go you shall. Come, be
off--I know who you are. You are the rascal that married the widow in
Moorfields, but who, they say, has another wife in Liverpool. If you
don't go, I shall give you in charge for bigamy, and the widow says she
will spend her last penny in prosecuting you."
To meet any one half so well informed about his affairs, would have been
a terrible blow to Mr. Lupin; but when he found that this man, who was a
kind of jobbing cabinet-maker, knew so much, his great goggle eyes
opened to an alarming width, and he made a movement towards the door.
Still, he did not like to go without saying something.
"Flee, ye wretches," he said, "from the wrath to come! You will all go
into the bottomless pit, you will, and I shall rejoice at it; and sing
many songs of joy over you. Scoffers and mockers, I leave you all to
your fate. The devil will have you all, and that is a great comfort and
gratification to the elect and to the saints."
With this, Mr. Lupin made a precipitate retreat, having achieved about
as little in the way of satisfying his curiosity as could very well be
conceived.
It was a relief--a great relief to Mr. Oakley to be rid of such a
witness to his feelings as Lupin; and when he had fairly gone, and the
outer door was closed upon him, the spectacle-maker, with clasped hands,
and countenance expressive of the greatest possible amount of mental
agony, spoke--
"Dismiss all but ourselves, madam," he said. "There's that to say which
may be said to you alone, but which it would break my heart to say to
many."
The room was soon clear, and then Oakley continued in a low faltering
voice to make those inquiries, each answer to which was so fatal to his
peace of mind.
"Madam," he said, "is not my child--my Johanna--here staying on a visit
with Arabella?"
"No, no--certainly not."
This was so frightfully conclusive, that it was some few moments before
he could go on; but when he did, he said--
"Is Arabella in the house?"
"That, Mr. Oakley," replied the aunt, "is a question I cannot answer you
at the moment; but rest and compose yourself for a few moments, and I
will ascertain myself if she be in or out, and if the latter, when she
was last seen."
"I am much beholden to you, madam. I am a poor old man, much broken in
spirit, and with but one strong tie to bind me to a world which has
nearly done with me. That tie is the love of my dear child, Johanna.
Alas! if that be broken, I am all adrift, and at the mercy of the winds
and waves of evil fortune; and the sooner I close my eyes in the long
sleep of death, the better for me and all who feel for me."
"Nay, Mr. Oakley, I look upon it as a thing almost criminal to despair.
There is one maxim which I have learnt in my experience of life, and
which I am sure you must have had abundant opportunities of learning
likewise. It is, 'Never to trust to appearances.'"
The old man looked at her with a saddened aspect. It was quite evident
his feelings had been too strongly acted upon to make any philosophy
available to him; and when she left the room to make the inquiries
concerning Arabella, he wrung his hands, and wept.
"Yes," he said, "yes, I am indeed alone now--a wreck--a straw upon the
ocean of society. The sooner I drift in the grave now, the better for
me, and all who pity the old man. Oh, Johanna--Johanna. My child--my
beautiful, why did you not wait until I was dead before you left me?
Then I should have slept calmly, and known nothing; but now my days and
nights will be dreams of horror."
The door opened and the aunt re-appeared.
"Arabella is not within," she said, "and has not been seen for some
hours now. When last seen her manner was evidently perturbed. But now,
Mr. Oakley, sit down by me and tell me as clearly and as distinctly, all
you know and all you fear. There are few evils in this world but there
are some remedies for, and you shall have my true and calm opinion if
you will tell me all."
It is something astonishing, and yet one of the most ordinary of mental
phenomena, to note what a power a cool and clear intellect will exert
over one that is distracted and full of woe and clamorous grief. Mr.
Oakley did sit down by the side of Arabella's aunt, and he told her all
that happened the girl of which, of course, was the real or supposed
appearance of Johanna in Fleet Street, in male attire. The collateral
circumstances, such as the hurried and half frantic farewell of him in
the shop by Johanna, and the misrepresentation by Arabella, that she
(Johanna) was going to stop there, evidently made a deep impression upon
the aunt. Her countenance changed visibly, as she said faintly--
"God help us all."
"Lost! lost," cried Oakley. "Yes, you--even you, hopeful as you were,
and hopeful as you would fain have made me--even you, now that you know
all, feel that she is lost. God, indeed, only can help me now."
"No, Mr. Oakley," said the aunt, rallying, "I will not yet trust to
appearances, although I own that they are bad. I will come to no
conclusion until I have seen Arabella, and got the truth from her. It is
quite clear that there is some secret between the two young creatures.
It is quite clear that there is something going on that we know nothing
of, and to speculate upon which may only involve us in an inextricable
labyrinth of conjectures. I say, there is some secret, but it may not be
a guilty one."
"Not--not guilty?"
"No, Mr. Oakley, there are many degrees of indiscretion to pass through
ere the gulf of guilt is reached at last. I have faith in Arabella--I
have faith in Johanna; and even now, admitting for a moment the truth of
what that man whom you brought with you here, reports, Johanna may only
have to be blamed for folly."
"Do--do you think he did so see her?"
"I doubt it much."
"Mother," said a lad of fifteen, coming hastily into the room. "Mother
I--"
He paused upon seeing Mr. Oakley there, and stammered out some apology--
"He had only come to tell his mother that a whole suit of his clothes
were missing from his room and that he could find them nowhere, and he
could not make it out; and one of his hats was gone too, and a pair of
shoes, and--"
Old Oakley fell back in his chair with a groan.
"She has them," he said. "She has them. My child, whom I shall never see
again, has them."
CHAPTER XC.
MORNING IN FLEET STREET AGAIN.
Another day has dawned upon the great city--another sun has risen upon
the iniquities of hosts of men, but upon no amount of cold-blooded,
hardened, pitiless criminality that could come near to that of Sweeney
Todd. No, he certainly held the position of being in London, then, the
worst of the worst.
But who shall take upon himself now to say that in this pest-ridden,
loyalty-mad, abuse-loving city of London, there are not some who are
more than even Sweeney Todd's equals? Who shall say that hidden scenes
of guilt and horror are not transacting all around us, that would, in
their black iniquity, far transcend anything that Sweeney Todd has done
or dreamt of doing? Let the imagination run riot in its fanciful
conjectures of what human nature is capable of, and in London there
shall be found those who will reduce to practice the worst frenzied
deeds that can be conceived.
Yes, the dawn of another day had come, and Todd had made all his
preparations. Nothing was wanting, but the match that was to set Fleet
Street, he fondly hoped, in a blaze. His own house, he felt quite
certain, could not escape. It would be a charred mass long before any
effectual means could be procured to check the devastation of the
flames, and then as the good ship spread its swelling sails to the wind
to bear him to another shore, he should be lighted upon his way by the
glare of the great fire in Fleet Street, that no one would be able to
guess the origin of.
So he told himself.
Short-sighted mortals that we are! How little Todd, with all his
cleverness--all his far-seeing thrift and fancy--dreamt of the volcano
upon which he stood. How little he for one moment imagined it was
possible that the sword of justice hung over him by so slender a thread.
How he would have glared at any one who might have told him that he only
moved about by sufferance; and yet such was the fact.
Sir Richard Blunt could put his hand upon him at any moment, and say,
"Todd, you are my prisoner. To Newgate--to Newgate, from whence only you
will emerge to your trial, and to the scaffold!"
No, Todd, good easy soul, had not the slightest idea of his real
position upon that morning.
He waited rather impatiently for the arrival of Johanna to take down the
shutters, and she urged upon Sir Richard Blunt and her friends at the
fruiterer's, the propriety of her going and doing that morning piece of
work; but they would not hear of it. She at length used an argument
which made Sir Richard adopt another course than keeping her at the
fruiterer's until Todd should get out of all patience and open his shop
himself.
"It is possible," she said, "that I may be subjected to ill-usage if I
am not there; and then being compelled to call for aid as I might, you
would feel that you were forced to take Todd into custody before the
time at which you have resolved so to do."
"That is true," said Sir Richard; and then, after some little
consideration, he added, "I have a plan that will save you both ways.
You shall be in time, and yet you shall not take down Todd's shutters."
They could none of them conceive at the moment how Sir Richard intended
to manage this; but they quickly saw that it was easy enough. Opening
just a little way one of the windows of the first floor at the
fruiterer's, he blew a whistle that he had suspended round his neck by a
small chain. In the course of a few moments, Crotchet walked into the
shop.
"Governor here?" he said. "I heard him a chirping for me just
now--didn't I?"
"Yes, Crotchet," said the fruiterer, who knew him quite well. "Step
up-stairs; you will find him there."
Crotchet was soon in the presence of Sir Richard, and Johanna, and the
fruiterer's daughter. He made a rough sort of salute to the whole party,