The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
upon the advice of the medical man. The latter closed the shutters of
the room all but one, so that there was but a soft and chastened light
in the room; and then, with a smile upon his face, Tobias--after hoping
that they would arouse him when Minna should come, and receiving a
promise that way--turned his face to his pillow, and composed himself to
the first pure rest he had had since the attack that the villain Todd
had made upon him in the colonel's house.
"It is not much of a deception," said Colonel Jeffery to the surgeon,
when the latter was leaving the house, "for I believe now that Todd's
hours are indeed numbered. He will be arrested to-night."
"I am glad to hear it," replied the surgeon. "Such a notable villain
ought to be as quickly as possible put out of the world."
"He ought, indeed; and from what I hear from Sir Richard Blunt, I
believe that before twenty-four hours are gone over my head, the whole
of London will ring with the name of Todd, and the story of his
frightful criminality."
Tobias slept quietly, and securely for four hours, during which space of
time he was twice visited by Minna Gray, who had arrived while he was in
that state of repose. The colonel, although he felt the danger of
letting Mrs. Ragg know that the report to Tobias of the death of Todd
was premature, felt no such scruple with regard to Minna. Indeed he
considered that it would have been an insult to her judgment not to have
told her exactly how the case stood.
When she heard it all, and upon visiting Tobias's bed-room, found what a
sweet sleep he was in, and what a quiet gentle smile was upon his face,
she tearfully acknowledged what a good thing the innocent deception was
which had produced such a result.
"It will save him," she said.
"It will," replied the colonel; "and be sure that you keep sufficient
guard over yourself to keep from betraying the secret."
"Oh, sir, trust me, I will."
"And remember that in this house, Minna, it is known only to you and to
me. If Tobias should ask you anything about it, you had better know
nothing, for I promised him that he should have the pleasure of making
the communication to you himself, therefore you cannot be puzzled by any
questions regarding particulars when he is your informant."
Minna joyfully concurred with all that the colonel said upon this head;
and then, after a long talk with Mrs. Ragg in the kitchen--that good
lady having the most implicit faith in the story of the death of Todd,
and the profoundest hope that she should soon hear the full particulars
of that event--she betook herself to the bedside of Tobias, there to
await his awakening.
When he did open his eyes, they were clear and bright, and the fever had
left his brow and cheeks. The first object his eye rested upon was
Minna, and the first words he said were--
"Todd is dead!"
"Ah, then, Tobias, you have nothing now to fear, for you have not an
enemy in the world."
"No," he cried, "I have now nothing to fear--but, my Minna, my own, my
beautiful! how much I have to love! We shall be now, Minna, very, very
happy, indeed, and God will bless me for your dear sake!"
CHAPTER CIII.
MR. LUPIN HAS A SINGULAR INTERVIEW WITH MRS. OAKLEY.
Amid all the exciting circumstances that it has been our duty to
relate--amid the turmoil of events consequent upon the wild villainy of
Todd, and the urgent attempts of Mrs. Lovett to get her accounts
audited--we have very much lost sight of Mrs. Oakley.
Perhaps the reader has not been altogether unwilling to lose sight of a
lady who, we will admit, was not calculated to make great advances in
his esteem.
But yet one thing must be recollected, and that is that Mrs. Oakley is
Johanna's mother! That we opine is a fact which she should be given some
degree of attention for; and insomuch as the bright eyes of the fair and
noble-minded Johanna might be dimmed by an additional tear if anything
very serious was to become of Mrs. Oakley, we will go a little out of
our way just now to see what that deluded parson-ridden woman is about.
The outgoings and the incomings of Mrs. Oakley for a long time past had
been so various and discursive, that the poor spectacle-maker had long
since left off considering that he had anything in the shape of a
domestic establishment. Certainly, Johanna was always at hand, until
lately, to attend to her father's comforts--but the wife never. There
was either a prayer-meeting, or a love-feast, or some congregation or
another assembled to hear or to see Mr. Lupin; so that if the wife and
the mother went to such places to learn her duties, it was pretty
evident that the lesson occupied the whole of her time.
But still at times she did come home. At odd seasons she was to be found
groaning and snuffling at the fireside in the little dark parlour at the
back of the shop; but now for some few days she had totally disappeared.
Mr. Oakley was alone.
* * * * *
Up a dingy court in the City, not a hundred miles from the dingy
purlieus of Monkwell Street, there was a dingy conventicle, upon the
front of which the word "Ebenezer" announced its character, or its
would-be character. The upper part of this chapel was converted into a
dwelling-place, and there luxuriated Mr. Lupin.
The flock (geese, of course!) of the reverend gent rented the edifice,
so that there he was rent free, and there he was in the habit of
inviting to tea such of the females of his congregation who either had
money of their own, or whose husbands had tills easily accessible, or
pockets into which the wife's hand could be dipped at discretion; and
dipped it generally was at in-discretion;--for folks, whether they be
wives or not, when they can dip into other folks' pockets, do not always
know how much to take just and no more.
Now Mr. Lupin had established a Three-days-two-hours
and-general-subscription-saving grace-prayer, which consisted of praying
every two hours for three days and three nights, and at each prayer
making an offering in hard cash for the use of the church and the
gospel, he (Mr. Lupin) being both the church and the gospel.
Alas! what will not human folly in the name of religion stoop to! There
were women--mothers of families, who came to Mr. Lupin's house above the
chapel with what plunder they could get together, and there actually
stand the three days and three nights, the reverend gent making it is
duty to keep them awake at the end of every two hours at least, as he
pretended to pray, and sending them away completely placid, but with the
comfortable conviction, as they themselves expressed it, that their
"souls were saved alive."
Mrs. Oakley was one of these dupes.
Now, although these proceedings were very profitable to Mr. Lupin, he
found that it was very irksome to get up himself in the middle of the
night to awaken the sinners to prayer, so he used to introduce
brandy-and-water after he had pretty well tired out his devotee, and
ascertained the amount of money he was likely to get, and in the
confusion of mind consequent upon that gentle stimulant, the time went
on very glibly.
"Sister Oakley," said Lupin, on the evening of the first day of Mrs.
Oakley's residence beneath his highly-spiritual roof. "Sister Oakley,
truly you will be a great brand snatched from the burning--How much
money have you got?"
"Alas!" said Mrs. Oakley, "business must be bad, for I only found in the
till three pounds eleven-and-sixpence."
Mr. Lupin groaned.
"But I will from time to time take what I can, and let you have it, for
the welfare of one's precious soul is above all price."
"Truly, Sister Oakley, it is, and you may as well give me the small
instalment now if it shall seem right unto thee, sister. I thank you in
the name of the Lord! Humph--only three pounds eleven-and-sixpence.
Well, well, we shall do better another time, perhaps, sister. Rest in
peace, and I will from time to time come in and awaken thee to prayer.
Truly and verily I have a hard time of it always."
It was on the second night that fatigue had had a great effect upon Mrs.
Oakley, and upon the reverend gent likewise that he brought her a
tumbler of hot brandy-and-water, saying as he placed it by her--
"Truly I have had a dream, and the Lord told me to give you this. I pray
you take it, Mrs. O., and may it put you in mind of the glory of the
world that is to come--Amen!"
Mr. Lupin retired, and as the stimulant was not at all an ungrateful
thing to Mrs. Oakley, she was about to raise it to her lips, when a
stunning knock at the chapel door made her give such a start, that she
dropped glass, and spirit, and spoon to the ground. No doubt, a
repetition of the knock at the moment, prevented Lupin from hearing the
crash, which the fall in spirits produced. Mrs. Oakley heard him open
the window of his room, and in a voice of stifled anger cry--
"Who is there? Who is there?"
"It's me, Groggs, and you know it," said a female voice. "Come down and
open the door, or I will rouse the whole neighbourhood."
"Come, you be off. I have some one here."
"What, another idiot? Ho!--ho!--ho! Why, Groggs, they will find you out
some day, and limb you. If they only knew that you were Groggs the
returned transport, how they would mob you to be sure. But I have come
for money, old fellow, and I will have it. I ain't drunk, but I have had
enough--just enough, mark me old boy, and you know what I am capable of
when that's the case. I am your wife and you know it. Ho! ho!"
Dab came the knocker again upon the chapel door.
"Do you want to be my ruin?" said Lupin. "Stay a moment and I will throw
you out five shillings; but if you make any noise you shall not have one
farthing from me."
"Shall I not? Ha!--ha! Shall I not? Five shillings indeed!"
The lady upon this, feeling no doubt that both her wants and his powers
of persuasion were made very light of, commenced such a tremendous
knocking at the door, that the terrified Lupin at once descended to let
her in, uttering such terrible curses as he went that Mrs. Oakley was
petrified with dismay.
Foolish woman! Did she expect that her idol would turn out to be
anything but a common brazen image?
In the course of a few moments she heard the couple coming up stairs
again, and when they reached the top, she heard Lupin say, "Confound
you, you always will come with your infernal demands at the very worst
and most awkward times and seasons to me. Did you not take ten pounds
some time ago, and promise to come near me no more?"
"Ha!--ha! Yes, I did. But I am here again you see. You thought I would
drink myself to death with that amount of money, and that you would get
rid of me, but it did me good. Ho!--ho!--ho! The good stuff did me
good."
"You are a fool," said Lupin. "I tell you, woman, you will be my ruin,
my absolute ruin; and then where will your supplies come from I should
like to know? Why I have an idiot only in the next room, of whom I hope
to make a good thing; and if you had only come in five minutes sooner
you would have been heard by her, and I should have been done up here."
"And why don't she hear you now? Have you cut her throat like you did
the woman's by Wapping?"
"Hush!--hush! you devil! Why do you allude to that?"
"Because I like, my beauty. Because I know you did it. And whenever I do
mention it, the gallows shines out in your face as plain--ay, as plain
as this hand; and I like to see you quake and change colour, and be
ready almost to fall down with your fears. Ho!--ho! I like that. Yes,
it's as good to me as a drop of drink, that it is."
"I only wish your throat was cut, that is all."
"I know you do. But you won't try that on upon me. No--no. You won't try