The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
the meat, and that you will always find ranged upon shelves either in
lumps or steaks, in a small room through this door, but it is only at
particular times you will find the door open; and whenever you do so,
you had better always take out what meat you think you will require for
the next batch."
"I understand all that, madam," said Williams, "but how does it get
there?"
"That's no business of yours; so long as you are supplied with it, that
is sufficient for you; and now I will go through the process of making
one pie, so that you may know how to proceed, and you will find with
what amazing quickness they can be manufactured if you set about them in
the proper manner."
She then showed him how a piece of meat thrown into a machine became
finely minced up, by merely turning a handle; and then how flour and
water and lard were mixed up together, to make the crust of the pies, by
another machine, which threw out the paste thus manufactured in small
pieces, each just large enough for a pie. Lastly, she showed him how a
tray, which just held a hundred, could be filled, and, by turning a
windlass, sent up to the shop, through a square trap-door, which went
right up to the very counter.
"And now," she said, "I must leave you. As long as you are industrious
you will go on very well, but as soon as you begin to be idle, and
neglect the orders which are sent to you by me, you will get a piece of
information which will be useful, and which if you be a prudent man will
enable you to know what you are about."
"What is that? you may as well give it to me now."
"No; we seldom find there is occasion for it at first, but, after a
time, when you get well fed, you are pretty sure to want it."
So saying she left the place, and he heard the door by which he had
entered, carefully barred after her. Suddenly then he heard her voice
again, and so clearly and distinctly, too, that he thought she must have
come back again; but upon looking up at the door, he found that that
arose from her speaking through a small grating at the upper part of it,
to which her mouth was closely placed.
"Remember your duty," she said, "and I warn you, that any attempt to
leave here will be as futile as it will be dangerous."
"Except with your consent, when I relinquish the situation."
"Oh, certainly--certainly, you are quite right there, everybody who
relinquishes the situation goes to his old friends, whom he has not seen
for many years, perhaps."
"What a strange manner of talking she has!" said Jarvis Williams to
himself, when he found he was alone. "There seems to be some singular
and hidden meaning in every word she utters. What can she mean by a
communication being made to me, if I neglect my duty! It is very
strange; and what a singular looking place this is! I think it would be
quite unbearable if it were not for the delightful odour of the pies,
and they are indeed delicious--perhaps more delicious to me, who has
been famished so long, and have gone through so much wretchedness; there
is no one here but myself, and I am hungry now--frightfully hungry, and
whether the pies be done or not, I'll have half a dozen of them at any
rate, so here goes."
He opened one of the ovens, and the fragrant steam that came out was
perfectly delicious, and he sniffed it up with a satisfaction such as he
had never felt before, as regards anything that was eatable.
"Is it possible," he said "that I shall be able to make such delicious
pies? At all events one can't starve here, and if it be a kind of
imprisonment, it's a pleasant one. Upon my soul, they are nice, even
half-cooked--delicious! I'll have another half-dozen, there are lots of
them--delightful! I can't keep the gravy from running out of the corners
of my mouth. Upon my soul, Mrs. Lovett, I don't know where you get your
meat, but it's all as tender as young chickens, and the fat actually
melts away in one's mouth. Ah, these are pies, something like
pies!--they are positively fit for the gods!"
Mrs. Lovett's new man ate twelve threepenny pies, and then he thought of
leaving off. It was a little drawback not to have anything to wash them
down with but cold water; but he reconciled himself to this.
"For," as he said, "after all it would be a pity to take the flavour of
such pies out of one's mouth--indeed it would be a thousand pities, so I
won't think of it, but just put up with what I have got and not
complain. I might have gone further and fared worse with a vengeance,
and I cannot help looking upon it as a singular piece of good fortune
that made me think of coming here in my deep distress to try and get
something to do. I have no friends and no money; she whom I loved is
faithless, and here I am, master of as many pies as I like, and to all
appearance monarch of all I survey; for there really seems to be no one
to dispute my supremacy. To be sure my kingdom is rather a gloomy one;
but then I can abdicate it when I like, and when I am tired of those
delicious pies, if such a thing be possible, which I really very much
doubt, I can give up my situation, and think of something else. If I do
that, I will leave England for ever; it's no place for me after the many
disappointments I have had. No friend left me--my girl false--not a
relation but who would turn his back upon me! I will go somewhere where
I am unknown and can form new connexions, and perhaps make new
friendships of a more permanent and stable character than the old ones,
which have all proved so false to me; and, in the meantime, I'll make
and eat pies as fast as I can."
CHAPTER XII.
THE RESOLUTION COME TO BY JOHANNA OAKLEY.
The beautiful Johanna--when in obedience to the command of her father
she left him, and begged him (the beef-eater) to manage matters with the
Rev. Mr. Lupin--did not proceed directly up stairs to her apartment, but
lingered on the staircase to hear what ensued; and if anything in her
dejected state of mind could have given her amusement, it would
certainly have been the way in which the beef-eater exacted a
retribution from the reverend personage, who was not likely again to
intrude himself into the house of the spectacle-maker. But when he was
gone, and she heard that a sort of peace had been patched up with her
mother--a peace which, from her knowledge of the high contracting
parties, she conjectured would not last long--she returned to her room,
and locked herself in; so that if any attempt were made to get her down
to partake of the supper, it might be supposed she was asleep, for she
felt herself totally unequal to the task of making one in any party,
however much she might respect the individual members that composed it.
And she did respect Ben the beef-eater; for she had a lively
recollection of much kindness from him during her early years, and she
knew that he had never come to the house when she was a child without
bringing her some token of his regard in the shape of a plaything, or
some little article of doll's finery, which at that time was very
precious. She was not wrong in her conjectures that Ben would make an
attempt to get her down stairs, for her father came up at the
beef-eater's request, and tapped at her door. She thought the best plan,
as indeed it was, would be to make no answer, so that the old
spectacle-maker concluded at once what she wished him to conclude,
namely, that she had gone to sleep; and he walked quietly down the
stairs again, glad that he had not disturbed her, and told Ben as much.
Now, feeling herself quite secure from interruption for the night,
Johanna did not attempt to seek repose, but set herself seriously to
reflect upon what had occurred. She almost repeated to herself, word for
word, what Colonel Jeffery had told her; and, as she revolved the matter
over and over again in her brain, a strange thought took possession of
her, which she could not banish, and which, when once it found a home
within her breast, began to gather probability from every slight
circumstance that was in any way connected with it. This thought,
strange as it may appear, was, that the Mr. Thornhill, of whom Colonel
Jeffery spoke in terms of such high eulogium, was no other than Mark
Ingestrie himself. It is astonishing, when once a thought occurs to the
mind, that makes a strong impression, how, with immense rapidity, a rush
of evidence will appear to come to support it. And thus it was with
regard to this supposition of Johanna Oakley. She immediately remembered
a host of little things which favoured the idea, and among the rest, she
fully recollected that Mark Ingestrie had told her he meant to change
his name when he left England; for that he wished her and her only to
know anything of him, or what had become of him; and that his intention
was to baffle inquiry, in case it should be made, particularly by Mr.
Grant, towards whom he felt a far greater amount of indignation, than
the circumstances at all warranted him in feeling. Then she recollected
all that Colonel Jeffery had said with regard to the gallant and noble
conduct of this Mr. Thornhill, and, girl like, she thought that those
high and noble qualities could surely belong to no one but her own
lover, to such an extent; and that, therefore, Mr. Thornhill and Mark
Ingestrie must be one and the same person. Over and over again, she
regretted she had not asked Colonel Jeffery for a personal description
of Mr. Thornhill, for that would have settled all her doubts at once,
and the idea that she had it still in her power to do so, in consequence
of the appointment he had made with her for that day week brought her
some consolation.
"It must have been he," she said; "his anxiety to leave the ship, and
get here by the day he mentions, proves it; besides, how improbable it
is, that at the burning of the ill-fated vessel, Ingestrie should place
in the hands of another what he intended for me, when that other was
quite as likely, and perhaps more so, to meet with death as Mark
himself."
Thus she reasoned, forcing herself each moment into a stronger belief of
the identity of Thornhill with Mark Ingestrie, and so certainly
narrowing her anxieties to a consideration of the fate of one person
instead of two.
"I will meet Colonel Jeffery," she said, "and ask him if this Mr.
Thornhill had fair hair, and a soft and pleasing expression about the
eyes, that could not fail to be remembered. I will ask him how he spoke,
and how he looked; and get him, if he can, to describe to me even the
very tones of his voice; and then I shall be sure, without the shadow of
a doubt, that it is Mark. But then, oh! then comes the anxious question,
of what has been his fate?"
When poor Johanna began to consider the multitude of things that might
have happened to her lover during his progress from Sweeney Todd's, in
Fleet-street, to her father's house, she became quite lost in a perfect
maze of conjecture, and then her thoughts always painfully reverted back
to the barber's shop where the dog had been stationed; and she trembled
to reflect for a moment upon the frightful danger to which that string
of pearls might have subjected him.
"Alas! alas!" she cried, "I can well conceive that the man whom I saw
attempting to poison the dog would be capable of any enormity. I saw his
face but for a moment, and yet it was one never again to be forgotten.
It was a face in which might be read cruelty and evil passions; besides,
the man who would put an unoffending animal to a cruel death, shows an
absence of feeling, and a baseness of mind, which make him capable of
any crime he thinks he can commit with impunity. What can I do--oh! what
can I do to unravel this mystery?"
No one could have been more tenderly and gently brought up than Johanna