The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
she added in the same tone of calmness she had made the terrific
announcement concerning the poisoning--
"Now, you wretches, you see what a woman can do when she makes up her
mind for vengeance. As long as you all live, you'll recollect me; but,
if you don't, that won't much matter, for you won't live long, I can
tell you, and now I'm going to my sister's, Mrs. Tiddiblow."
So saying, Mrs. Oakley turned quickly round, and, with an insulting toss
of her head, and not at all caring for the pangs and sufferings of her
poor victims, she left the place, and proceeded to her sister's house,
where she slept as comfortably as if she had not by any means committed
two diabolical murders. But has she done so, or shall we, for the honour
of human nature, discover that she went to a neighbouring chemist's, and
only purchased some dreadfully powerful medicinal compound, which she
placed in the half-and-half, and which began to give those pangs to Big
Ben, the beef-eater, and to Mr. Oakley, concerning which they were both
so eloquent? This must have been the case; for Mrs. Oakley could not
have been such a fiend in a human guise as to laugh as she passed the
chemist's shop. Oh no! she might not have felt remorse, but that is a
very different thing, indeed, from laughing at the matter, unless it
were really laughable and not serious, at all. Big Ben and Mr. Oakley
must have at length found out how they had been hoaxed, and the most
probable thing was that the before-mentioned chemist himself told them;
for they sent for him in order to know if anything could be done to save
their lives. Ben from that day forthwith made a determination that he
would not visit Mr. Oakley, and the next time they met he said--
"I tell you what it is, that old hag, your wife, is one too many for us,
that's a fact; she gets the better of me altogether--so, whenever you
feels a little inclined for a gossip about old times, just you come down
to the Tower."
"I will, Ben."
"Do; we can always find something to drink, and you can amuse yourself,
too, by looking at the animals. Remember, feeding time is two o'clock;
so, now and then, I shall expect to see you, and, above all, be sure you
let me know if that canting parson, Lupin, comes any more to your
house."
"I will, Ben."
"Ah, do; and I'll give him another lesson if he should, and I tell you
how I'll do it. I'll get a free admission to the wild _beastesses_ in
the Tower, and when he comes to see 'em, for them 'ere sort of fellows
always goes everywhere they can go for nothing, I'll just manage to pop
him into a cage along of some of the most _cantankerous_ creatures as we
have."
"But would not that be dangerous?"
"Oh dear no! we has a laughing hyaena as would frighten him out of his
wits; but I don't think as he'd bite him much, do you know. He's as
playful as a kitten, and very fond of standing on his head."
"Well, then, Ben, I have, of course, no objection, although I do think
that the lesson you have already given to the reverend gentleman will
and ought to be fully sufficient for all purposes, and I don't expect we
shall see him again."
"But how does Mrs. O. behave to you?" asked Ben.
"Well, Ben, I don't think there's much difference; sometimes she's a
little civil, and sometimes she ain't; it's just as she takes it into
her head."
"Ah! that all comes of marrying."
"I have often wondered, though, Ben, that you never married." Ben gave a
chuckle as he replied--
"Have you though, really? Well, Cousin Oakley, I don't mind telling you,
but the real fact is, once I was very near being served out in that sort
of way."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. I'll tell you how it was; there was a girl called Angelina Day,
and a nice-looking enough creature she was as you'd wish to see, and
didn't seem as if she'd got any claws at all; leastways she kept them
in, like a cat at meal times."
"Upon my word, Ben, you have a great knowledge of the world."
"I believe you, I have! Haven't I been brought up among the wild beasts
in the Tower all my life? That's the place to get a knowledge of the
world in, my boy. I ought to know a thing or two, and in course I does."
"Well, but how was it, Ben, that you did not marry this Angelina you
speak of?"
"I'll tell you; she thought she had me as safe as a hare in a trap, and
she was as amiable as a lump of cotton. You'd have thought, to look at
her, that she did nothing but smile; and, to hear her, that she said
nothing but nice, mild, pleasant things, and I really began to think as
I had found out the proper sort of animal."
"But you were mistaken?"
"I believe you, I was. One day I'd been there to see her, I mean, at her
father's house, and she'd been as amiable as she could be; I got up to
go away, with a determination that the next time I got there I would ask
her to say yes, and when I had got a little way out of the garden of the
house where they lived--it was out of town some distance--I found I had
left my little walking-cane behind me, so I goes back to get it, and
when I got into the garden I heard a voice."
"Whose voice?"
"Why Angelina's, to be sure; she was speaking to a poor little dab of a
servant they had; and oh, my eye! how she did rap out, to be sure! Such
a speech as I never heard in all my life. She went on a matter of ten
minutes without stopping, and every other word was some ill name or
another; and her voice--oh, gracious! it was like a bundle of wire all
of a tangle--it was."
"And what did you do, then, upon making such a discovery as that in so
very odd and unexpected a manner?"
"Do! What do you suppose I did?"
"I really cannot say, as you are rather an eccentric fellow."
"Well then, I'll tell you. I went up to the house, and just popped in my
head, and says I, 'Angelina, I find out that all cats have claws after
all; good evening, and no more from your humble servant, who don't mind
the job of taming any wild animal but a woman;' and then off I walked,
and I never heard of her afterwards."
"Ah, Ben, it's true enough! You never know them beforehand; but after a
little time, as you say, then out come the claws."
"They does--they does."
"And I suppose you since, then, made up your mind to be a bachelor for
the rest of your life, Ben?"
"Of course I did. After such experience as that, I should have deserved
all I got, and no mistake, I can tell you; and if ever you catches me
paying any attention to a female woman, just put me in mind of Angelina
Day, and you'll see how I shall be off at once like a shot."
"Ah!" said Mr. Oakley, with a sigh, "everybody, Ben, aint born with your
good luck, I can tell you. You are a most fortunate man, Ben, and that's
a fact. You must have been born under some lucky planet I think, Ben, or
else you never would have had such a warning as you have had about the
claws. I found 'em out, Ben, but it was a deal too late; so I had only
to put up with my fate, and put the best face I could upon the matter."
"Yes, that's what learned folks call--what's its
name--fill--fill--something."
"Philosophy, I suppose you mean, Ben."
"Ah, that's it--you must put up with what you can't help, it means, I
take it. It's a fine name for saying you must grin and bear it."
"I suppose that is about the truth, Ben."
It cannot, however, be exactly said that the little incident connected
with Mr. Lupin had no good effect upon Mrs. Oakley, for it certainly
shook most alarmingly her confidence in that pious individual. In the
first place, it was quite clear that he shrank from the horrors of
martyrdom; and, indeed, to escape any bodily inconvenience, was
perfectly willing to put up with any amount of degradation or
humiliation that he could be subjected to; and that was, to the
apprehension of Mrs. Oakley, a great departure from what a saint ought
to be. Then again, her faith in the fact that Mr. Lupin was such a
chosen morsel as he had represented himself, was shaken from the
circumstance that no miracle in the shape of a judgment had taken place
to save him from the malevolence of Big Ben, the beef-eater; so that,
taking one thing in connexion with another, Mrs. Oakley was not near so
religious a character after that evening as she had been before it, and
that was something gained. Then circumstances soon occurred, of which
the reader will very shortly be fully aware, which were calculated to
awaken all the feelings of Mrs. Oakley, if she had really any feelings
to awaken, and to force her to make common cause with her husband in an
affair that touched him to the very soul, and did succeed in awakening
some feelings in her heart that had lain dormant for a long time, but
which were still far from being completely destroyed. These
circumstances were closely connected with the fate of one in whom we
hope, that by this time, the reader has taken a deep and kindly
interest--we mean Johanna--that young and beautiful, and gentle,
creature, who seemed to have been created with all the capacity to be so
very happy, and yet whose fate had become so clouded by misfortune, and
who appears now to be doomed through her best affections to suffer so
great an amount of sorrow, and to go through so many sad difficulties.
Alas, poor Johanna Oakley! Better had you loved some one of less
aspiring feelings, and of less ardent imagination, than he possessed to
whom you have given your heart's young affections. It is true that Mark
Ingestrie possessed genius, and perhaps it was the glorious light that
hovers around that fatal gift which prompted you to love him. But genius
is not only a blight and a desolation to its possessor, but it is so to
all who are bound to the gifted being by the ties of fond affection. It
brings with it that unhappy restlessness of intellect which is ever
straining after the unattainable, and which is never content to know the
end and ultimatum of earthly hopes and wishes; no, the whole life of
such persons is spent in one long struggle for a fancied happiness,
which like the ignis-fatuus of the swamp glitters but to betray those
who trust to its delusive and flickering beams.
CHAPTER XIII.
JOHANNA'S INTERVIEW WITH ARABELLA WILMOT, AND THE ADVICE.
Alas! poor Johanna, thou hast chosen but an indifferent confidante in
the person of that young and inexperienced girl to whom it seems good to
thee to impart thy griefs. Not for one moment do we mean to say, that
the young creature to whom the spectacle-maker's daughter made up her
mind to unbosom herself, was not all that any one could wish as regards
honour, goodness, and friendship. But she was one of those creatures who
yet look upon the world as a fresh green garden, and had not yet lost
that romance of existence which the world and its ways soon banish from
the breasts of all. She was young, even almost to girlhood, and having
been the idol of her family circle, she knew just about as little of the
great world as a child. But while we cannot but to some extent regret
that Johanna should have chosen such a confidant and admirer, we with
feelings of great freshness and pleasure proceed to accompany her to
that young girl's house. Now, a visit from Johanna Oakley to the Wilmots
was not so rare a thing, that it should excite any unusual surprise, but
in this case it did excite unusual pleasure, because they had not been
there for some time. And the reason that she had not, may well be found
in the peculiar circumstances that had for a considerable period
environed her. She had a secret to keep which, although it might not
proclaim what it was most legibly upon her countenance, yet proclaimed
that it had an existence, and as she had not made Arabella a confidant,
she dreaded the other's friendly questions of the young creature. It may