The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.

hastily to Downing Street. When he got there he entered the official residence of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and being well known to the clerk, he was at once conducted into a little room carefully hung round with crimson cloth, so as to deaden the sound of any voices that might be raised in it. In the course of a few minutes a small door was opened, and a shabby looking man entered, with a hesitating expression upon his face. "Ah, Sir Richard Blunt," he said, "is that you?" "Yes, your lordship, and if you are disengaged for a few minutes, I have something to communicate." "Ah, some new plot. Confound those Jacobin rascals!" "No, my lord, the affair is quite domestic and social. It has no shade of politics about it." The look of interest which the face of the secretary had assumed was gone in a moment, but still he could not very well refuse now to hear what Sir Richard Blunt had to say, and the conference lasted a quarter of an hour. At its termination, as Sir Richard was leaving the room, the secretary said-- "Oh, yes, of course, take full discretionary powers, and the Home-office will pay all expenses. I never heard of such a thing in all my life." "Nor I, my lord." "It's really horrible." "It is even so far as we know already, and yet I think there is much to learn. I shall, of course, communicate to your lordship anything that transpires." "Certainly--certainly. Good day." Sir Richard Blunt left the Secretary of State, and proceeded to his own residence, and while he is there, making some alteration in his dress, we may as well take a glance at Crotchet, and see what that energetic but somewhat eccentric individual is about. After parting with Sir Richard Blunt at Temple Bar, he walked up Fleet Street, upon Sweeney Todd's side of the way, until he overtook a man with a pair of spectacles on, and a stoop in his gait, as though age had crept upon him. "King," said Crotchet. "All right," said the spectacled old gentleman in a firm voice. "What's the news?" "A long job, I think. Where's Morgan?" "On the other side of the way." "Well, just listen to me as we walk along, and if you see him, beckon him over to us." As they walked along Crotchet told King what were the orders of Sir Richard Blunt, and they were soon joined by Morgan. The other officer, Godfrey, who had been mentioned by the magistrate, was sent for. "Now," said Crotchet, "here we are, four of us, and so you see we can take it two and two for four hours at a stretch as long as this confounded barber's shop keeps open." "But," said Morgan, "he will suspect something." "Well, we can't help that. It's quite clear he smugs the people, and all we have got to do is to prevent him smugging any more of 'em you see." "Well, well, we must do the best we can." "Exactly; so now keep a bright look out, and hang it all, we have been in enough rum adventures to be able to get the better of a rascally barber, I should think. Look out--look out; there's somebody going in now." CHAPTER LI. JOHANNA RUSHES TO HER DESTINY. Johanna had enough confidants now. Her father--Colonel Jeffery--Big Ben--and Arabella Wilmot, all knew "The sad story of her love." It will be a hard case if, among so many councillors, she hits upon the worst--a most truly hazardous course of proceeding; but then it is a fault of the young to mistake daring for ability, and to fancy that that course of proceeding which involves the most personal risk is necessarily the most likely to be successful. Colonel Jeffery was, of all Johanna Oakley's advisers, the one who was most likely to advise her well, but unfortunately he had told her that he loved her, and from that time, with an instinctive delicacy of feeling which no one could have to greater perfection than Johanna, she had shunned him. And yet the reader, who knows the colonel well, knows that, quite irrespective of the attachment that had sprung up in his bosom for the beautiful and heart-stricken girl, he would have played the part of a sincere friend to her and stood manfully between her and all danger. But it was not to be. From the moment that he had breathed to her the secret of his attachment, a barrier was, in her imagination, raised between them. Her father evidently was not one who could or who would advise anything at all energetic; and as for Big Ben, the conversation she had had with him upon the subject had quite been sufficient to convince her that to take him out of the ordinary routine of his thoughts and habits was thoroughly to bewilder him, and that he was as little calculated to plot and to plan in any emergency as a child. She would indeed have trembled at the result of the confidential communication to Big Ben, if she had been aware of the frightfully imprudent manner in which he had thrown himself into communication and collision with Todd, the consequences of which glaring act of indiscretion he was only saved from by Sir Richard Blunt entering the shop, and remaining there until he (Ben) was shaved. Under all these circumstances, then, Johanna found herself thrown back upon her old friend Arabella Wilmot. Now, Arabella was the worst adviser of all, for the romantic notions she had received from her novel reading, imparted so strong a tone to her character, that she might be said in imagination to live in a world of the mind. It was, as the reader will recollect, to Arabella Wilmot that Johanna owed the idea of going to Todd in boy's apparel--a measure fraught with frightful danger, and yet, to the fancy of the young girl, fascinating upon that very account, because it had the appearance as though she were doing something really serious for Mark Ingestrie. To Arabella, then, Johanna went, after Ben had left her, and finding her young friend within, she told her all that had occurred since they last met. "What shall I do?" she said. "I tell my tale of woe, and people look kind upon me, but no one helps me." "Oh, Johanna, can you say that of me?" "No, no. Not of you, Arabella, for you see I have come to you again; but of all others, I can and may say it." "Comfort yourself, my dear Johanna. Comfort yourself, my dear friend. Come, now--you will make me weep too, if I see those tears." "What shall I do?--what shall I do?" "There, now, I am putting on my things; and as you are dressed, we will go out for a walk, and as we go along we can talk of the affair, and you will find your spirits improve by exercise. Come, my dear Johanna. Don't you give way so." "I cannot help it. Let us go." "We will walk round St. Paul's Churchyard." "No--no. To Fleet Street--to Fleet Street!" "Why would you wish to add to your sorrows, by again looking upon that shop?" "I do not know, I cannot tell you; but a horrible species of fascination draws me there, and if I come from home, I seem as though I were drawn from all other places towards that one by an irresistible attraction. It seems as though the blood of Mark Ingestrie called aloud to me to revenge his murder, by bringing the perpetrators of it to justice. Oh, my friend--my Arabella, I think I shall go mad." Johanna sunk upon her knees by a chair, and hid her fair face in her hands, as she trembled with excess of emotion. Arabella Wilmot began to be really alarmed at the consequences of her friend's excited and overwrought feelings. "Oh, Johanna--Johanna!" she cried, "cheer up. You shall go when you please, so that you will not give way to this sorrow. You do not know how much you terrify me. Rise--rise, I implore you. We will go to Fleet Street, since such is your wish." After a time, Johanna recovered from the burst of emotion that had taken such certain possession of her, and she was able to speak more calmly and composedly to her friend than she had yet done during that visit. The tears she had shed, and the show of feeling that had crept over her, had been a great relief in reality. "Can you pardon me for thus tormenting you with my grief?" said Johanna. "Do not talk so. Rather wonder how I should pardon you if you tell your griefs elsewhere. To whom should you bring them but to the bosom of one who, however she may err in judgment regarding you, cannot err in feeling." Johanna could only press her friend's hand in her own, and look the gratitude which she had not the language to give utterance to. It being then settled that they were to go to Fleet Street, it next became a matter of rather grave debate between them whether they were to go as they were, or Johanna was to again equip herself in the disguise of a boy. "This is merely a visit of observation, Johanna; I will go as I am." "Very well, dear." They accordingly set out, and as the distance from the house of Arabella Wilmot's father was but short to the shop of Sweeney Todd, they soon caught sight of the projecting pole that was his sign. "Now be satisfied," said Arabella, "by passing twice; once up Fleet Street, and once down it." "I will," said Johanna. Todd's shop was closed as usual. There was never an open door to that establishment, so that it was, after all, but a barren satisfaction for poor Johanna to pass the place where her imagination, strengthened by many circumstantial pieces of evidence, told her Mark Ingestrie had met with his death; still, as she had said to Arabella before starting, a horrible sort of fascination drew her to the spot, and she could not resist the fearful attraction that the outside of Todd's shop had for her. They passed rather rapidly, for Arabella Wilmot did not wish Johanna to pause, for fear she should be unable to combat her feelings, and make some sort of exhibition of them in the open street. "Are you content, Johanna?" she said. "Must we pass again?" "Oh, yes--yes. Again and again; I can almost fancy that by continued looking at that place I could see what has been the fate of Mark." "But this is imagination and folly." "It may be so, but when the realities of life have become so hideously full of horrors, one may be excused for seeking some consolation from the fairy cave. Arabella, let us turn again." They had got as far as Temple Bar, when they again turned, and this time Johanna would not pass the shop so abruptly as she had done before, and any one, to see the marked interest with which she paused at the window, would have imagined that she must have some lover there whom she could see, notwithstanding the interior of the shop was so completely impervious to all ordinary gazers. "There is nothing to see," said Arabella. "No. But yet--ha!--look--look!" Johanna pointed to one particular spot of the window, and there was the eye of Sweeney Todd glaring upon them. "We are observed," whispered Arabella; "it will be much better to leave the window at once. Come away--oh, come away, Johanna." "Not yet--not yet. Oh, if I could look well at that man's face, I think I ought to be able to judge if he were likely to be the murderer of Mark Ingestrie." Todd came to his door. "Good God, he is here!" said Arabella. "Come away. Come!" "Never. No! Perhaps this is providential. I will, I must look at this man, happen what may." Todd glared at the two young girls like some ogre intent upon their destruction, and as Johanna looked at him, a painter who loved contrast, might have indeed found a study, from the wonderful difference between those two human countenances. They neither spoke for some few moments, and it was reserved for Todd to break the silence. "What do you want here?" he cried, in a hoarse rough voice. "Be off with you. What do you mean by knocking at the window of an honest tradesman? I don't want to have anything to say to such as you."