The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
street. It was an old-fashioned house, with a balcony in front, and as
she looked listlessly out into Fore-street, which was far then from
being the thoroughfare it is now, she saw standing in a doorway on the
opposite side of the way a stranger, who was looking intently at the
house, and who, when he caught her eye, walked instantly across to it,
and cast something into the balcony of the first floor. Then he touched
his cap, and walked rapidly from the street.
The thought immediately occurred to Johanna that this might possibly be
some messenger from him concerning whose existence and welfare she was
so deeply anxious. It was not to be wondered at, therefore, that with
the name of Mark Ingestrie upon her lips she should rush down to the
balcony in intense anxiety to hear, and see if such was really the case.
When she reached the balcony she found lying in it a scrap of paper, in
which a stone was wrapped up, in order to give it weight, so that it
might be cast with a certainty into the balcony. With trembling
eagerness she opened the paper, and read upon it the following words:--
"For news of Mark Ingestrie, come to the Temple-gardens one hour before
sunset, and do not fear addressing a man who will be holding a white
rose in his hand."
"He lives! he lives!" she cried. "He lives, and joy again becomes the
inhabitant of my bosom! Oh, it is daylight now and sunshine compared to
the black midnight of despair. Mark Ingestrie lives, and I shall be
happy yet."
She placed the little scrap of paper carefully in her bosom, and then,
with clasped hands and a delighted expression of countenance, she
repeated the brief and expressive words it contained, adding,--
"Yes, yes, I will be there; the white rose is an emblem of his purity
and affection, his spotless love, and that is why his messenger carries
it. I will be there. One hour ay, two hours before sunset, I will be
there. Joy, joy! he lives, he lives! Mark Ingestrie lives! Perchance,
too, successful in his object, he returns to tell me that he can make me
his, and that no obstacle can now interfere to frustrate our union.
Time, time, float onwards on your fleetest pinions!"
She went to her own apartment, but it was not, as she had last gone to
it, to weep; on the contrary, it was to smile at her former fears, and
to admit the philosophy of the assertion that we suffer much more from a
dread of those things that never happen than we do for actual calamities
which occur in their full force to us.
"Oh, that this messenger," she said, "had come but yesterday! What hours
of anguish I should have been spared! But I will not complain; it shall
not be said that I repine at present joy because it did not come before.
I will be happy when I can; and, in the consciousness that I shall soon
hear blissful tidings of Mark Ingestrie, I will banish every fear."
The impatience which she now felt brought its pains and its penalties
with it, and yet it was quite a different description of feeling to any
she had formerly endured, and certainly far more desirable than the
absolute anguish that had taken possession of her upon hearing nothing
of Mark Ingestrie.
It was strange, very strange, that the thought never crossed her that
the tidings she had to hear in the Temple Gardens from the stranger
might be evil ones, but certainly such a thought did not occur to her,
and she looked forward with joy and satisfaction to a meeting which she
certainly had no evidence to know, might not be of the most disastrous
character.
She asked herself over and over again if she should tell her father what
had occurred, but as often as she thought of doing so she shrank from
carrying out the mental suggestion, and all the natural disposition
again to keep to herself the secret of her happiness returned to her in
full force.
But yet she was not so unjust as not to feel that it was treating her
father but slightingly to throw all her sorrows into his lap, as it
were, and then to keep from him everything of joy appertaining to the
same circumstances.
This was a thing that she was not likely to continue doing, and so she
made up her mind to relieve her conscience from the pang it would
otherwise have had, by determining to tell him, after the interview in
the Temple Gardens, what was its result; but she could not make up her
mind to do so beforehand; it was so pleasant and so delicious to keep
the secret all to herself, and to feel that she alone knew that her
lover had so closely kept faith with her as to be only one day behind
his time in sending to her, and that day, perhaps, far from being his
fault.
And so she reasoned to herself and tried to wile away the anxious hours,
sometimes succeeding in forgetting how long it was still to sunset, and
at others feeling as if each minute was perversely swelling itself out
into ten times its usual proportion of time in order to become wearisome
to her.
She had said that she would be at the Temple Gardens two hours before
sunset instead of one, and she kept her word, for, looking happier than
she had done for weeks, she tripped down the stairs of her father's
house, and was about to leave it by the private staircase, when a
strange gaunt-looking figure attracted her attention.
This was no other than the Rev. Mr. Lupin: he was a long strange-looking
man, and upon this occasion he came upon what he called horseback, that
is to say, he was mounted upon a very small pony, which seemed quite
unequal to support his weight, and was so short that, if the reverend
gentleman had not poked his legs out at an angle, they must inevitably
have touched the ground.
"Praise the Lord!" he said: "I have intercepted the evil one. Maiden, I
have come here at thy mother's bidding, and thou shalt remain and
partake of the mixture called tea."
Johanna scarcely condescended to glance at him, but drawing her mantle
close around her, which he actually had the impertinence to endeavour to
lay hold of, she walked on, so that the reverend gentleman was left to
make the best he could of the matter.
"Stop," he cried, "stop! I can well perceive that the devil has a strong
hold of you: I can well perceive--the lord have mercy upon me! this
animal hath some design against me as sure as fate."
This last ejaculation arose from the fact that the pony had flung up his
heels behind in a most mysterious manner.
"I am afraid, sir," said a lad who was no more than our old
acquaintance, Sam--"I am afraid, sir, that there is something the matter
with the pony."
Up went the pony's heels again in the same unaccountable manner.
"God bless me!" said the reverend gentleman; "he never did such a thing
before. I--there he goes again--murder! Young man, I pray you to help me
to get down; I think I know you; you are the nephew of the goodly Mrs.
Pump--truly this animal wishes to be the death of me."
At this moment the pony gave such a vigorous kick up behind, that Mr.
Lupin was fairly pitched upon his head, and made a complete summerset,
alighting with his heels in the spectacle-maker's passage; and it
unfortunately happened that Mrs. Oakley at that moment, hearing the
altercation, came rushing out, and the first thing she did was to fall
sprawling over Mr. Lupin's feet.
Sam now felt it time to go; and as we dislike useless mysteries, we may
as well explain that these extraordinary circumstances arose from the
fact that Sam had brought from the haberdasher's opposite a
halfpenny-worth of pins, and had amused himself by making a pincushion
of the hind quarters of the Reverend Mr. Lupin's pony, which, not being
accustomed to that sort of thing, had kicked out vigorously in
opposition to the same, and produced the results we have recorded.
Johanna Oakley was some distance upon her road before the reverend
gentleman was pitched into her father's house in the manner we have
described, so that she knew nothing of it, nor would she have cared if
she had, for her mind was wholly bent upon the expedition she was
proceeding on.
As she walked upon that side of the way of Fleet-street where Sweeney
Todd's house and shop were situated, a feeling of curiosity prompted her
to stop for a moment and look at the melancholy-looking dog that stood
watching a hat at his door.
The appearance of grief upon the creature's face could not be mistaken,
and, as she gazed, she saw the shop-door gently opened and a piece of
meat thrown out.
"These are kind people," she said, "be they whom they may;" but when she
saw the dog turn away with loathing, and herself observed that there was
a white powder upon it, the idea that it was poisoned, and only intended
for the poor creature's destruction, came instantly across her mind.
And when she saw the horrible-looking face of Sweeney Todd glaring at
her from the partially-opened door, she could not doubt any further the
fact, for that face was quite enough to give a warrant for any amount of
villany whatever.
She passed on with a shudder, little suspecting, however, that that dog
had anything to do with her fate, or the circumstances which made up the
sum of her destiny.
It wanted a full hour to the appointed time of meeting when she reached
the Temple-gardens, and partly blaming herself that she was so soon,
while at the same time she would not for worlds have been away, she sat
down on one of the garden-seats to think over the past, and to recall to
her memory with all the vivid freshness of young Love's devotion, the
many gentle words which from time to time had been spoken to her two
summers since by him whose faith she had never doubted, and whose image
was enshrined at the bottom of her heart.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CONFERENCE, AND THE FEARFUL NARRATION IN THE GARDEN.
The Temple clock struck the hour of meeting, and Johanna looked
anxiously around her for any one who should seem to her to bear the
appearance of being such a person as she might suppose Mark Ingestrie
would choose for his messenger.
She turned her eyes towards the gate, for she thought she heard it
close, and then she saw a gentlemanly-looking man, attired in a cloak,
and who was looking around him, apparently in search of some one.
When his eye fell upon her he immediately produced from beneath his
cloak a white rose, and in another minute they met.
"I have the honour," he said, "of speaking to Miss Johanna Oakley?"
"Yes, sir; and you are Mark Ingestrie's messenger?"
"I am; that is to say, I am he who comes to bring you news of Mark
Ingestrie, although I grieve to say I am not the messenger that was
expressly deputed by him so to do."
"Oh! sir, your looks are sad and serious; you seem as if you would
announce that some misfortune had occurred. Tell me that it is not so;
speak to me at once, or my heart will break!"
"Compose yourself, lady, I pray you."
"I cannot--dare not do so, unless you tell me he lives. Tell me that
Mark Ingestrie lives, and then I shall be all patience: tell me that,
and you shall not hear a murmur from me. Speak the word at once--at
once! It is cruel, believe me, it is cruel to keep me in this suspense."
"This is one of the saddest errands I ever came upon," said the
stranger, as he led Johanna to a seat. "Recollect, lady, what creatures
of accident and chance we are--recollect how the slightest circumstances
will affect us, in driving us to the confines of despair, and remember
by how frail a tenure the best of us hold existence."
"No more--no more!" shrieked Johanna, as she clasped her hands--"I know
all now, and am desolate."
She let her face drop upon her hands, and shook as with a convulsion of
grief.
"Mark, Mark!" she cried, "you have gone from me! I thought not this--I
thought not this. Oh, Heaven! why have I lived so long as to have the