The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
"Are you sure you have none?"
"Quite sure, sir."
"Then I won't occupy your shop and read your _Courant_ for nothing, and
as I am here I will have a shave."
"That's very kind of you, sir," said Todd. "Very kind."
"Not at all," said the gentleman, taking up the paper again with all the
coolness in the world. "Not at all. Don't mention it, I always like to
carry out the moral maxim of--Do unto others as you would that others
should do unto you."
"How charming!" exclaimed Todd, lifting up his hands, in one of which
was the razor. "How charming it is in this indifferent and selfish age
to meet with any one who is so charitable as to do more than merely
speak of such a sentiment as a curiosity in morals."
"You are above your condition as regards education," said the
clerical-looking gentleman.
"Why, to tell the truth, sir--"
"Psha!" said he who was being or rather not being shaved--"psha! And all
this while the very soap is drying upon my face."
"A thousand pardons," said Todd.
"Many apologies," said the clerical gentleman, hastily resuming the
perusal of the _Courant_.
"Sir," added Todd, as he finished the shaving and whipped off the cloth
from the patient. "Sir, I should have finished you five minutes ago, so
that I am sure no one would have heard the slightest complaint from you,
but for the truly engaging conversation of this gentleman here, whom I
shall have great pleasure now in polishing off."
"Oh, don't name it," said the shaved customer, laying down a penny.
"Don't name it, I said I was in no hurry, so I can hardly blame you for
taking your time."
He went through the usual operation of a partial sloush of cold water
from a pewter basin, and then dried himself upon a jack towel, and left
the shop.
"Now, sir," said Todd.
The clerical-looking gentleman waved his hand as though he would have
said--
"For goodness sake don't interrupt me until I have finished this
paragraph."
Todd fixed his eyes upon him, and began slowly stropping the razor he
had been recently using.
"Now, sir, if you please."
"One moment--one--mo--ment, I shall get through the deaths in an
in--stant."
Todd continued stropping the razor, when suddenly the _Courant_ dropped
from the hands of the clerical-looking gentleman, and he uttered a groan
that made Todd start.
"Hopkins--Hopkins--Gabriel Hopkins!"
"Sir."
"Hop--kins! my friend--my councillor--my fellow student--my
companion--my Mentor--my--my Hopkins."
The clerical-looking gentleman shut up his face in his hands, and rocked
to and fro in an agony of grief.
"Good God, sir," cried Todd, advancing. "What is the meaning of this?"
"In that paper you will find the death of Hopkins inserted, sir. Yes, in
the obituary of that paper. Gabriel Hopkins--the true--the gentle--the
affectionate--the christian--Hop--kins!"
"How sorry I am, sir," said Todd. "But, pray sit in this chair, sir, a
shave will compose your feelings."
"A shave! You barbarian. Do you think I could think of being shaved
within two minutes of hearing of the death of the oldest and best friend
I ever had in the world. No--no. Oh, Hopkins--Hop--kins!"
The Rev. gentleman in a paroxysm of grief rushed from the house, and
Todd himself sunk upon the shaving chair.
"It is, it must be so," cried Todd, as his face became livid with rage
and apprehension. "There is more in these coincidences than mere chance
will suffice to account for. Why is it that, if I have a customer here,
some one else will be sure to come in, and then after waiting until he
is gone himself, leave upon some frivolous excuse? Do I stand upon a
mine? Am I suspected?--am I watched? or--or more terrible, ten times
more terrible question still, am--am I at length, with all my care,
discovered?"
CHAPTER LXIII.
JOHANNA STARTS FOR TODD'S.
We will leave Todd to the indulgence of some of the most uncomfortable
reflections that ever passed through his mind, while we once again seek
the sweet companionship of the fair Johanna, and her dear romantic
friend, Arabella Wilmot. The project which these two young and
inexperienced girls were bent upon, was one that might well appal the
stoutest heart that ever beat in human bosom. It was one which, with a
more enlarged experience of the world, they would not for one moment
have entertained, but by long thought and much grief upon the subject of
her hopeless love, Johanna had much observed that clearness of
perception that otherwise would have saved her from what to all
appearance is a piece of extravagance. As for Arabella, she had
originally conceived the idea from her love for the romantic, and it was
only when it came near to the execution of it that she started at the
possible and indeed highly probable danger of the loss to one whom she
loved so sincerely as she loved Johanna. But all that has passed away.
The remonstrances have been made, and made in vain; Arabella is
silenced, and nothing remains but to detail to the reader the steps by
which the courageous girl sought to carry out a plan so fraught with a
thousand dangers. Both Arabella and Johanna sought the abode of the
latter's father, for the first step in the affair was to say something
there which was to account seemingly satisfactorily for any lengthened
stay of Johanna from home. This was by no manner of means a task of any
difficulty, for in addition to the old spectacle maker being innocence
itself as regarded the secreting anything in the shape of a plot,
Arabella Wilmot was the very last person in all the world he would have
thought capable of joining in one. As for Mrs. Oakley, she was by far
too intent, as she said herself frequently, upon things which are
eternal, to trouble herself much about terrestrial affairs, always
except they came to her in the shape of something enticing to the
appetites. What a state of things, that a mother should forget the trust
that is placed in her when she is given a child, and fancy she is really
propitiating the Almighty by neglecting a stewardship which He has
imposed upon her! But so it is. There are, we fear, in different ways, a
great many Mrs. Oakleys in the world.
"Ah, my dear Miss Wilmot," said the old spectacle-maker to Arabella,
when he saw her. "How glad I am to see you. How fresh you look."
Arabella's face was flushed with excitement, and some shame that the
errand she came upon was to deceive. She had not heard yet of the
spurious philosophy that the end sanctifies the means.
"I have come to--to--to--"
"Yes, my dear. To stay awhile, and let us look at your pretty face.
Come, my dear Johanna, your mother is out. What can you get for your
friend, Miss Wilmot? Here, my dear, take this half-crown and get some
sweetmeats, and I will open for you a bottle of the old Malaga wine."
Johanna's eyes filled with tears, and she was compelled to turn aside to
conceal those tell-tale traces of emotion from her father. Arabella saw
that if anything was to be said or done in furtherance of the affair
upon which Johanna had now set her heart, she must do it or say it.
Summoning all her courage, she said--
"My dear sir--"
"Sir?--sir? Bless me, my child, when did you begin to call your old kind
friend sir?"
"My dear Mr. Oakley--"
"Ah, that's nearer the old way. Well, my dear Arabella, what would you
say to me?"
"Will you trust Johanna with me to-night, and perhaps to-morrow night?"
"I don't think Johanna can come to much harm with you, my dear," said
Mr. Oakley. "You are older than she a little, and at your age a little
goes a long way, so take her, Arabella, and bring her back to me when
you like."
With what a shrill of agony did Arabella hear Johanna thus committed to
her care. She was compelled to grasp the back of the old
spectacle-maker's chair for support.
"Yes, yes, sir," she said. "Oh, yes, Mr. Oakley."
"Well, my dears, go, and God bless you both."
To both Arabella and Johanna's perception there was something ominous
about this blessing, at such a time, and yet it had really about it
nothing at all unusual, for Mr. Oakley was very much in the habit of
saying to them "God bless you," when they left him; but feeling, as they
did, the hazard that she (Johanna) might encounter before again she
heard that voice say "God bless you," if, indeed, she ever again heard
it, no wonder the words sank deep into their hearts, and called up the
most painful emotions. Johanna certainly could not speak. Arabella tried
to laugh, to hide an emotion that would not be hidden, and only
succeeded in producing an hysterical sound, that surprised Mr. Oakley.
"What's the matter, my dear?" he said.
"Oh, nothing--nothing, dear Mr. Oakley, nothing."
"Well, I'm glad to hear it. Perhaps I only fancy it; but you both
seem--seem--"
"What do we seem, father?" said Johanna, looking very pale, and speaking
with a great effort.
"Not quite as usual, my darling."
"That--that," gasped Johanna, "can only be--be fancy."
"Of course not," said Oakley. "Fancy, I think I said it was, or if I did
not, I meant to say so, my love."
"Come," said Arabella.
"Yes--yes. Father--father. Good day."
She kissed his cheek; and then, before the old man could say another
word, she rushed to the door.
"Farewell!" said Arabella. "Good day, Mr. Oakley. I--I thank you, sir.
Good day, sir."
"Dear, dear," said the old man, "what is the matter with the girls? How
odd they both seem to-day. What can be the cause of it? I never before
saw them so strange in their manner. Ah! I have it. My wife has met
them, I dare say, and has said some unkind things to them about hats or
ribbons, or some harmless little piece of girlish pride. Well--well. All
that will pass away. I'm glad I hit upon it, for--"
At this moment old Oakley was astounded by the sudden entrance of
Johanna, who, clasping him in her arms, cried in a voice, half choked
with tears--
"Good bye, father--good bye. God help me!"
Without, then, waiting for a word from the spectacle-maker, she again
rushed from the shop, and joining Arabella a few doors off, they both
hurried to the house of the latter. Old Oakley tottered back until he
came to a seat, upon which he sank, with an air of abstraction and
confusion, that threatened to last him for some time; and in that, for
the present, we must leave him, while we look narrowly at the conduct of
the two young creatures, who have, in the pride of their virtue and
their nobleness of purpose, presumed to set up their innocence against
the deep craft of such a man as Sweeney Todd. Well might Johanna say
"God help me!"
"It is done!" said Johanna, as she clutched her friend by the arm. "It
is done now. The worst is over."
"Oh, Johanna--Johanna--"
"Well, Arabella, why do you pause? What would you say?"
"I scarcely know, and yet I feel that it ought to be something that I
have promised you. I would not say."
"Let your lips be sealed, then, dear friend; and be assured that now
nothing but the visible interposition of God shall turn me from my
purpose. I am calm and resolved."
These words, few as they were, were too significant, and spoken with too
evident sincerity to permit a doubt of their deep intensity and truth,
and from that moment Arabella Wilmot looked upon the scheme of Johanna
going in disguise to Todd's as quite settled so far as regarded the
attempt. It was the result now only that had to be looked to.
"I will say no more, Johanna, except as regards detail. In that I may
offer you advice."
"Oh, yes--yes, Arabella. Thankfully received advice, as well you know.
What is it you would say?"
"That you ought to wait until the morning."