The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
"How very satisfactory. I am only going a little way with this lady, and
will soon be back. You can keep up the fire, Charley, and in that corner
you will find some religious tracts, which will I hope improve your
mind. Above all things, my lad, never neglect your religious exercises.
I hope you said your prayers last night, Charley?"
"I did, sir," said Johanna, and she said it with a look that added the
query, "did you say your's?"
Todd hesitated a moment, as though something were passing through his
mind respecting Johanna, and then he muttered to himself--
"There is time enough, yet."
No doubt he had begun to entertain serious suspicions of Master Charley,
and in those few words was alluding to his intention of taking his life
before the coming night.
"Now, my dear Mrs. Lovett," said Todd, as he put on his hat, and pressed
it down unusually over his brows, "I am ready."
"And I," she said.
Todd only glanced round the shop, to be certain that he had left
everything as he wished it, and he tried the parlour door. Then he at
once stalked into Fleet Street, followed by Mrs. Lovett.
"It will look better for you to take my arm," he said.
"I don't care how it looks," she replied. "All I want is my money. Do
not touch me, or you will see good cause shortly to me having done so.
Go on and I will follow you; but if you attempt to escape me, I will
raise the street in pursuit of you, by screaming out that you are Todd
the mur--"
"Hush--hush, woman. Do you know where you are?"
"Yes, in the street, but I do not care. All I want is my money, and I
will have it."
"Curses on you and your money too," muttered Todd, as he crossed Fleet
Street, and turned up Bridge Street at a rapid pace. He passed all the
turnings leading to the city, and kept on his way towards the bridge.
Mrs. Lovett followed him closely.
"Stop!" she said. "Stop!"
Todd stopped and turned about. He was mortally afraid that she would
carry out some of her threats if he exhibited anything of a restive
spirit towards her.
"Whither are you going?" she said. "This is not the way to the City."
"It is by the Thames."
"By the Thames?"
"Yes, I go by water; I do not wish to run the risk of meeting all sorts
of people in the streets. I have not communicated to you that we are in
great danger, but it is a fact. I do not now think that I shall get
fairly off, but you will, if I am not interfered with before you get
your money. By taking a boat at the stairs here by Blackfriars Bridge,
we can be landed at a spot within about twenty yards of the
banking-house, which will be by far the safer route."
Mrs. Lovett did not much fancy the river excursion; but she considered
that after all there would be a waterman in the boat, and that the river
at that time of the day was populous, so she thought that Todd dared not
attempt anything.
"Very well," she said; "so that we are quick, I care not."
"I am to the full," said Todd, "as anxious as you can be to get the job
settled."
Mrs. Lovett thought that there was something ominous in the way in which
he pronounced the word "job;" but then she thought perhaps she was too
critical, and she followed him to the stairs by the side of the old
bridge, certainly not without suspicions, but they were only general
ones. The idea struck her, however, that she should be safer with two
watermen, and she said--
"We will have two men, and by so doing we shall go quicker down the
stream."
"So we shall," said Todd; "it is a good idea. Hilloa! first oars,
here--first oars!"
"Here you are, sir," said a waterman.
"We want a couple of you," said Todd.
"Yes, your honour. Here we are--me and my mate. All's right, your
honour. Now, Bill, look alive.--Mind the step, ma'am. That's yer sort.
Where to, your honour?"
"To Pigs Quay."
"Ay, ay. Give way, Bill, give way. A nice day for the water, your
honour; a fine fresh air, and not too much of it. Easy, Bill."
"Very," said Todd, as he took his place beside Mrs. Lovett in the stern
of the boat, which in a moment, propelled by the vigorous strokes of the
two rowers, shot out into the middle of the stream. He whispered to Mrs.
Lovett--"Now, how delightful it would be if you and I, with all our
money, were going from England to-day!"
"No."
"No? Why, I cannot conceive anything more pleasant. Ha! ha!"
Both Todd and Mrs. Lovett were so much occupied in watching each other,
that they did not perceive another boat push off from the same stairs at
which they had embarked with two men in it, and which kept in their wake
pretty closely. The two watermen of Todd's boat, however, saw it, and
they looked at each other, but they said nothing. They went upon the
wise plan, that it was no business of theirs; and so they pulled away,
while Todd glanced uneasily into the pale face of Mrs. Lovett.
To say that Mrs. Lovett kept an eye upon Todd, would be but faintly to
express the feline-like watchfulness with which she regarded him, as
they sat together in the boat. There was not the slightest movement of
his eye--the least twitch of a muscle of his face, that she did not
observe, and strive to draw some conclusion from; and he felt that his
very soul was being looked into by that bold woman, who had been the
companion of his iniquity, and whom he was now plotting and planning, by
some mad desperate means, to deprive of her share of that ill-gotten
wealth, which never in this world, even if ten times the amount, could
make either of them happy.
CHAPTER XCVII.
THE ATTEMPTED MURDER ON THE THAMES.
The boat that followed Todd did not, after a time, keep quite in the
wake of the one containing him and Mrs. Lovett. It rather went on a line
parallel to it, but it kept at a convenient distance; and there were
those in that boat, who never took an eye off Todd and his female
accomplice.
It must not be for one moment supposed that Mrs. Lovett was quite
deceived by Todd's representations concerning the money; but then it
must be considered that, with all her cunning, that lady was in a very
difficult position indeed--one that it was impossible to change for the
better.
If she had boldly told Todd that she doubted--nay, that she absolutely
disbelieved all that he said about the money being lodged with a firm in
the city, she gained nothing, but simply placed herself in a position
that forced upon her some violent action.
What that action could be would have been Mrs. Lovett's great
difficulty. Of course she would have had no trouble in the world in
going at once to a police-office, and denouncing Todd. That, to be sure,
would have been a great revenge; but then, in the midst of all her
anger, she did not forget that by so doing she had to criminate herself,
and from that moment put an end to all her dreams of revelling in some
foreign land upon the produce of her crimes.
Situated, then, as she was, Mrs. Lovett felt that she had no sort of
resource but to follow Todd up, as it were--to keep close to him, and
partly to worry him, and partly to shame him into doing her justice.
Well she knew that he was upon the point of fleeing from the scene of
his iniquities; and well she knew what a hindrance it would be to his
arrangements to have her at his elbow continually.
And so she thought that he would see it was better to pay her, and be
rid of her, and so every one would have thought; but Todd's nature was
of that mad implacable character, that anything in the shape of
opposition only made a wish a passion.
"I will not pay her," he muttered to himself, "if my refusal so to do
brings us both to the gallows!"
If Mrs. Lovett could have dived sufficiently deep into Todd's mind to be
aware of this sentiment, she might have changed her tactics; but who
could have thought it? Who could have supposed that any passion but
self-preservation could master all others in his mind?
The two boats sped on towards London Bridge--not the elegant structure
that now spans the Thames, but the previous one, with its narrow arches,
and its dangerous fall of water when the tide was ebbing, which was the
case upon this occasion.
The watermen looked uneasily at the arch through which it would be
necessary to go, and where the tide was raging with unexampled fury, and
lashing the sides of the arch like a mill-stream, bearing upon its
surface millions of bubbles, and making such a seething roaring sound,
that it was a point of attraction to some idle chance passengers upon
the bridge to watch any adventurous wherry as it shot through the
dangerous passage.
"A rough tide, Bill," growled one of the watermen.
"Ay," said the other. "Do you want to go through the bridge, master?"
Todd smiled grimly as he replied by asking a question.
"Is it dangerous?"
"Why, you see, master, it may be or it may not. But we are not the sort
to say no, if a fare says as he wants to go through the bridge. To be
sure there be times when there is a squall upon the river, and then any
man may say no."
"But that is not now," said Todd.
"No, master, that is not now, so if you must go through the bridge, only
say so, and through we go. We have been lots o' times when it's as bad,
ay, and perhaps a trifle waser than it is now. Haven't we, Bill?"
"Ay, ay."
"If," said Todd, "the lady has no particular objection."
"Can we not land upon this side of the bridge?" said Mrs. Lovett.
"In course, ma'am," said one of the boatmen. "In course, ma'am."
"But," added Todd hastily, "we must, then, until to-morrow, abandon the
business upon which we came, as landing upon this side of the bridge
will not suit me by any means."
"Pass through," cried Mrs. Lovett sternly. "I for one will not abandon
the business upon which I came, except with my life. It is more than
life to me, and I will go upon it, let it lead me where it may."
"And I," said Todd, in a voice of great indifference, "I, too, am of
precisely that opinion. So through the bridge we must go at any risk, if
you, my men, will take us."
"Pull away. Bill," was the only reply of the waterman. "Pull away, Bill,
and keep her steady. On we go."
By this time a curious throng of persons had assembled on the bridge to
watch the wherry, for previous to its approach two others had declined
the dangerous passage of the arch, and had landed their passengers at a
small stairs some distance from the strong eddying current that leaped
and bubbled through the arch. It was therefore something of a treat for
the crowd to see their boat make for the dreaded spot, an evident
determination on the part of the rowers to shoot through the arch of the
bridge if it were possible so to do.
No one spoke on board the boat. The watermen pulled very steady into the
current, keeping over their shoulders a wary eye upon the head of the
boat. Todd's eyes gleamed like two coals of fire, and Mrs. Lovett was as
pale as death itself.
Perhaps at that moment she reflected that she had trusted herself with
all her sins on board that little boat amid the wild rush of waters; but
if she did, she said nothing. Neither by word nor by action did she give
indication of the fear that was tugging at her heart.
And now the little wherry was floating in the boiling surge that flew
towards the arch, and made when it got there such a battle to get
through. There was no occasion for pulling. The only good they could now
do with their oars was to steady the little craft, and so far as was
possible to keep her head to the current.
That this was done by the two watermen with admirable and practised
skill, every one who watched the progress of the party from the bridge
or elsewhere could perceive; and now the critical moment was at hand,
and the boat being caught like a reed, was swept under the bridge by the