The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
Johanna Oakley and her friend Arabella had concerted so romantic a plan
of operations regarding him. "What is the meaning of all this? Am I
going mad?"
Now Todd's question was no doubt a result of some peculiar sensations
that had come over him; but, propounded as it was to silence and to
vacancy, it of course got no answer. A cold perspiration had suddenly
broke out upon his brow, and, for the space of about ten minutes, he was
subject to one of those strange foreshadowings of coming ills to him,
which of late had begun to make his waking hours anything but joyous,
and his dreams hideous.
"What can it mean?" he said. "What can it mean?"
He wiped his face with a miserable looking handkerchief, and then, with
a deep sigh, he said--
"It is that fiend in the shape of a woman!"
No doubt he meant his dear friend, Mrs. Lovett. Alas! what a thorn she
was in the side of Sweeney Todd. How poor a thing, by way of recompense
for the dark and terrible suspicions he had of her, was his heaped up
wealth? Todd--yes, Sweeney Todd, who had waded knee-deep--knee-deep do
we say?--lip-deep in blood for gold, had begun to find that there was
something more precious still which he had bartered for it--peace! That
peace of mind--that sweet serenity of soul, which, like the love of God,
is beautiful, and yet passeth understanding. Yes, Todd was beginning to
find out that he had bartered the jewel for the setting! What a common
mistake. Does not all the world do it? They do; but the difference
between Todd and common people merely was that he played the game with
high stakes.
"Yes," added Todd, after a pause, "curses on her, it is that fiend in
the shape of a woman, who
'Cows my better part of man,'
and she or I must fall. That is settled; yes--she or I. There was a time
when I used to say she and I could not live in the same country; but now
I feel that we cannot both live in the same world. She must go--she must
lapse into the sleep of death."
Todd rose, and stalked to and fro in his shop. He felt as if something
was going to happen: that undefinable fidgetty feeling which will attack
all persons at times, came over him, and yet it was not a feeling of
deep apprehension that was at his heart.
"Oh," he muttered, "it is the recollection of that dreadful woman--that
fiend, who, with a seeming prescience, knows when there is poison in her
glass, and baffles me. It is the dim and shadowy thought of what I must
do with her that shatters me. If poison will not do the deed, steel or a
bullet must. Ah!"
Some one was trying the handle of the shop door, and so timidly was it
tried, that Todd stood still to listen, without saying "Come in," or
otherwise encouraging the visitor.
"Who is it?" he gasped.
Still the handle of the door-lock only shook. To be sure, it was a
difficult door to open to all who did not know it well. Todd had taken
care of that, for if there was anything more than another which such a
man as he might be fairly enough presumed to dislike, it would be to be
glided in upon by the sudden opening of an easy-going door.
"Come in," he now cried.
The person without was evidently anxious to obey the invitation, and a
more strenuous effort was made to unfasten the door. It yielded at
length. A young and pretty looking lad, apparently of about thirteen or
fourteen years of age, stood upon the threshold. He and Sweeney Todd
looked at each other in silence for a few moments. If a painter or a
sculptor could have caught them as they stood, and transferred them to
canvas or to marble, he might have called them an idea of Guilt and
Innocence. There was Todd, with evil passions and wickedness written
upon every feature of his face. There was the boy, with the rosy
gentleness and innocence of Heaven upon his brow. God made both these
creatures! It was Todd who broke the silence. A gathering flush was upon
the face of the boy, and he could not speak.
"What do you want?" said Todd.
He rattled his chair as he spoke, as though he would have said, "It is
not to be shaved." The boy was too much engaged with his own thoughts to
pay much attention to Todd's pantomime. He evidently, though, wished to
say something, which he could not command breath to give utterance to.
Like the "Amen" of Macbeth, something he would fain have uttered, seemed
to stick in his throat.
"What is it?" again demanded Todd, eagerly.
This roused the boy. The boy, do we say. Ah, our readers have already
recognised in that boy the beautiful and enthusiastic Johanna Oakley.
"There is a bill in your window--"
"A what?"
Todd had forgotten the announcement regarding the youth he wanted, with
a taste for piety.
"A bill. You want a boy, sir."
"Oh," said Todd, as the object of the visit at once thus became clear
and apparent to him. "Oh, that's it."
"Yes, sir."
Todd held up his hand to his eyes, as though he were shading them from
sunlight, as he gazed upon Johanna, and then, in an abrupt tone of
voice, he said--
"You won't do."
"Thank you, sir."
She moved towards the door. Her hand touched the handle. It was not
fast. The door opened. Another moment, and she would have been gone.
"Stop!" cried Todd.
She returned at once.
"You don't look like a lad in want of a situation. Your clothes are
good--your whole appearance is that of a young gentleman. What do you
mean by coming here to ask to be an errand boy in a barber's shop? I
don't understand it. You had different expectations."
"Yes, sir. But Mrs. Green--"
"Mrs. who?"
"Green, sir, my mother-in-law, don't use me well, and I would rather go
to sea, or seek my living in any way, than go back again to her; and if
I were to come into your service, all I would ask would be, that you did
not let her know where I was."
"Humph! Your mother-in-law, you say?"
"Yes, sir. I have been far happier since I ran away from her, than I
have been for a long time past."
"Ah, you ran away? Where lives she?"
"At Oxford. I came to London in the waggon, and at every step the lazy
horses took, I felt a degree of pleasure that I was placing a greater
distance between me and oppression."
"Your own name?"
"Charley Green. It was all very well as long as my father lived; but
when he was no more, my mother-in-law began her ill-usage of me. I bore
it as long as I could, and then I ran away. If you can take me, sir, I
hope you will."
"Go along with you. You won't suit me at all. I wonder at your impudence
in coming."
"No harm done, sir. I will try my fortune elsewhere."
Todd began sharpening a razor, as the boy went to the door again.
"Shall I take him?" he said to himself. "I do want some one for the
short time I shall be here. Humph! An orphan--strange in London. No one
to care for him. The very thing for me. No prying friends--nowhere to
run, the moment he is sent of an errand, with open mouth, proclaiming
this and that has happened in the shop. I will have him."
He darted to the door.
"Hoi!--hoi!"
Johanna turned round, and came back in a minute. Todd had caught at the
bait at last. She got close to the door.
"Upon consideration," said Todd, "I will speak to you again. But just
run and see what the time is by St. Dunstan's Church."
"St.--St. who?" said Johanna, looking around her with a bewildered,
confused sort of air. "St. who?"
"St. Dunstan's, in Fleet Street."
"Fleet Street? If you will direct me, sir, I dare say I shall find
it--oh, yes. I am good at finding places."
"He _is_ strange in London," muttered Todd. "I am satisfied of that. He
is strange. Come in--come in, and shut the door after you."
With a heart beating with violence, that was positively fearful, Johanna
followed Todd into the shop, carefully closing the door behind her, as
she had been ordered to do.
"Now," said Todd, "nothing in the world but my consideration for your
orphan and desolate condition, could possibly induce me to think of
taking you in; but the fact is, being an orphan myself--(here Todd made
a hideous grimace)--I say, being an orphan myself, with little to
distress me amid the oceans and quicksands of this wicked world, some
very strong sense of religion--(another hideous grimace)--I naturally
feel for you."
"Thank you, sir."
"Are you decidedly pious?"
"I hope so, sir."
"Humph! Well, we will say more upon that all-important subject another
time, and if I consent to be your master, a--a--a--"
"Charley Green, sir."
"Ay, Charley Green. If I consent to take you for a week upon trial, you
must wholly attribute it to my feelings."
"Certainly, sir."
"Have you any idea yourself as to terms?"
"None in the least, sir."
"Very good. Then you will not be disappointed. I shall give you sixpence
a week, and your board wages of threepence a day, besides perquisites.
The threepence I advise you to spend in three penny pies, at Mrs.
Lovett's, in Bell Yard. They are the most nutritious and appetizing
things you can buy; and in the Temple you will find an excellent pump,
so that the half hour you will be allowed for dinner will be admirably
consumed in your walk to the pie shop, and from thence to the pump, and
then home here again."
"Yes, sir."
"You will sleep under the counter, here, of a night, and the perquisites
I mention will consist of the use of the pewter wash-hand basin, the
soap, and the end of a towel."
"Yes, sir."
"You will hear and see much in this place. Perhaps now and then you will
be surprised at something; but--but, master Charley, if you go and
gossip about me or my affairs, or what you see, or what you hear, or
what you think you would like to see or hear, I'll cut your throat!"
"Charley" started.
"Oh! sir," he said, "you may rely upon me. I will be quite discreet. I
am a fortunate lad to get so soon into the employment of such an
exemplary master."
"Ha!"
Todd, for a space of two minutes made the most hideous and extraordinary
grimaces.
"Fortunate lad," he said. "Exemplary master! How true. Ha!"--Poor
Johanna shuddered at that dreadful charnel-house sort of laugh.
"My God," she thought, "was that the last sound that rung in the ears of
my poor Mark, ere he bade adieu to this world for ever?" Then she could
not but utter a sort of groan.
"What's that?" said Todd.
"What, sir?"
"I--I thought some one groaned, or--or sighed. Was it you? No.--Well, it
was nothing. See if that water on the fire is hot. Do you hear me?
Well--well don't be alarmed. Is it hot?"
"I think."
"Think! Put your hand in it."
"Quite hot, sir."
"Well, then, master Charley--Ah! A customer! Come in, sir; come in, if
you please, sir. A remarkably fine day, sir. Cloudy, though. Pray be
seated, sir. A-hem! Now, Charley, bustle--bustle. Shaved, sir, I
presume? D--n the door!"
Todd was making exertions to shut the door after the entrance of a
stout-built man, in an ample white coat and a broad brimmed farmer
looking hat; but he could not get it close, and then the stout-built man
cried out--
"Why don't you come in, Bob--leave off your tricks. Why you is old
enough to know better."
"It's only me," said another stout-built man, in another white coat, as
he came in with a broad grin upon his face. "It's only me, Mr.
Barber--ha! ha! ha!"
Todd looked quite bland, as he said--
"Well, it was a good joke. I could not for the moment think what it was
kept the door from shutting, and I always close it, because there's a
mad dog in the neighbourhood, you see, gentlemen."
Crack went something to the floor.
"It's this mug, sir," said Charley. "I dropped it."
"Well--well, my dear, don't mind that. Accidents, you know, will happen;
bless you."
Todd, as he said this, caught up a small piece of Charley's hair in his