The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
"I do not shrink from the pronunciation of that name; I have said that I
loved Johanna. If she had been fancy-free and would have looked upon me
with eyes of favour, I would have made her my wife; but such was not to
be, and for the same qualities that I loved her I love you. I am afraid
I have not explained my feelings well."
"Oh, yes. That is, I don't know."
"And now, Miss Wilmot, will you allow me to hope that what I have said
to you may not be all in vain? That--"
"No, no."
"No?"
"Allow me to go, now. My mind is too full of the fate of Johanna even to
permit me to reject in the language taught--"
"Reject?"
"Yes," she said, "reject. I wish you all the happiness this world can
afford to you, Colonel Jeffery."
"Then you will be mine?"
"No, no, no. Farewell."
She rose, and this time the colonel did not attempt to detain her. He
stepped back a pace or two, and bowed, and then rose and walked a pace
or two away. Then she turned, and holding out her hand, she cried--
"We may--may be friends."
The colonel took the little hand in silence, but the expression of his
face was one of deep chagrin.
"Good-bye," said Arabella.
How courageous she had become all of a sudden, as it were.
"And is this all?" said Jeffery.
"Yes, all. When I see Johanna I will remember you to her."
The colonel bowed again, as he replied--
"I shall be much beholden to you, Miss Wilmot, for that kindness."
"And--and I hope you will find--find--that is, meet with some one,
who--who don't chance to know that your love is a kind of
second-hand--that is, I don't mean that, but a--a--Yes, that is all."
Arabella was saying too much. The colonel replied gently--
"I am truly obliged for the highly explanatory speech just uttered by
Arabella Wilmot, whom I have the honour to wish a very good-day."
Arabella trembled.
"No, no. Not thus, Colonel Jeffery. We are friends, indeed."
"Remarkable good acquaintances," said the colonel, as he walked away
towards Sir Richard Blunt and Ben. Arabella walked hastily on, having
but one idea at the moment, and that was to leave the garden, but she
could not find the gate, and Ben ran after her as well as he could,
calling--
"Miss A. W.--Miss A. W., where are you a-going? Don't you go yet. I'll
take care of you and see you all right, you know, or perhaps you'd like
to take a wherry here at the Temple stairs, and go to the Tower, and see
the animals fed?"
"Yes, no--that is, anything," replied Arabella. "I will go home now, I
am so very--very wretched!"
"What, wretched? Here, Colonel thingumy, she says she--"
"If you dare!" said Arabella, as she placed her hand upon the arm of
Ben. "If you dare!"
"Lor!" said Ben, as he looked down from his altitude upon the frail and
beautiful young creature. "Lor! easy does it!"
The voice of Ben, however, had brought both the colonel and Sir Richard
Blunt to the spot. During that brief time that had elapsed since the
colonel had last spoken to Arabella, Sir Richard had told him of the
perilous position of Johanna, and the look of anxiety upon his face was
most marked. Arabella heard him say--
"Make use of me in any way you please, Sir Richard. Regard my safety or
even my life as nothing compared to her preservation."
Arabella knew what he meant.
"Ben," she said, "will you come with me, and see me a part of my way
home?"
"Yes, my dear, to be sure. Then you won't come and see the criturs fed
to-day, I supposes?"
"No, no."
"Very well. Easy does it. Come along, my dear--come along. Lord love
you! I'll take care of you. I should only like to see anybody look at
you while you are with me, my duck. Bless your little bits of twinkling
eyes!"
"Thank you--thank you."
"Lor! it's enough to make a fellow go mad in love, to see such criturs
as you, my dear; but whenever I thinks of such things, I says to
myself--'I'll just pop in and see Mother Oakley,' and that soon puts it
all out of my head, I can tell you."
"Indeed?"
"Yes. You should go in at feeding time some day, and see her a-coming it
strong with fried ingins."
"Fried what?"
"Ingins--ingins; round things. Ingions--ah! that's it."
"Onions?"
"Very like--very like. But come on, my dear--come on. Easy does it!
Always remember that whenever you gets into any fix. Easy does it!"
Did Arabella think the colonel would run after her and say something?
Yes she did; but he came not. Did she think he would be loath to part
with her upon such terms as they had seemed to part? Yes, yes. Surely he
could not let her go without some kinder, softer, word that he had last
spoken to her? But he did. He only watched her with his eyes; and when
Sir Richard Blunt, who, it would appear, knew something of the colonel's
feelings, said to him--
"All right, I suppose, Colonel Jeffery?"
He only shook his head.
"What, anything amiss?"
"She has rejected me!"
"Oh, is that all?"
"All? And enough too."
"Phoo! She was sure to do that. Don't you know the old adage, that--
"Woman's nay still stands for nought."
"Why, man, No comes as naturally to the tip of a young girl's tongue
when she means Yes, as Don't when she expects to be kissed. I tell you,
she loves you. She adores the very ground you walk on."
"And yet she taunted me with my passion for Johanna, and called me a
second-hand lover."
"Did she, though? Ha! ha! ha! ha! Upon my life that was good--was it
not?"
CHAPTER LXXVII.
MRS. LOVETT VISITS THE BANK.
Mrs. Lovett, Mrs. Lovett, we are neglecting you! Excuse us, fascinating
piece of wickedness. We are now in Bell-yard again. It will be
recollected what a mental ferment the appearance of Ben, and Arabella,
and Sir Richard Blunt, at the window of her shop had put her in. Not
that she knew any of those parties--nor that she connected any of them
in any way with her feelings, except so far as their attitudes might at
that moment lead her to suppose. The attitudes certainly were such as to
create suspicion. All this, joined to the previous state of mind of Mrs.
Lovett, did not tend to produce that heavenly calm, which philosophers
tell us is such a remarkably nice thing. On the contrary, the mind of
Mrs. Lovett rather resembled a raging torrent, boiling and bubbling to
some destruction which was afar off, and which could only be reached
through the perils and dangers of some stormy passage. She was sighing
for peace. She had begun to sicken for the results of her life of
iniquity--not those results which an indignant and outraged public would
have visited her with, but those results which she and all persons, who
deliberately and systematically commence a career of guilt, picture to
themselves. Criminality is never engaged in for its own sake. There is
always some ultimate object in view, which makes the retrospect less
horrible, and the prospect dim and dubious, though it may be yet a thing
of pleasurable anticipation. Of course, we are only reasoning upon those
minds that reflect. There are many who lead a life of criminality, who
do so as the manifestation of an intellect that can picture nothing
else. But the reader knows that Mrs. Lovett was not of such an order.
She was to some extent an educated, and to a considerable extent a
clever woman. Hence, then, she had always pictured to herself wealth and
retirement, respect and power, as the ends for which she was striving
with such unscrupulous means. But of late, with a shuddering horror, she
had begun to dread that all she had hoped for was getting only more
distant. She had contracted a strong notion of the bad faith of Todd,
and if such were really the case, all was indeed lost. If he allowed his
cupidity just to induce him to commit the crime that would be one too
many, destruction must fall upon them both. If likewise he instantly
made an effort to take to himself all the profits of the unholy traffic
that they were mutually engaged in, all would be lost to both; for was
she a likely woman to crouch down in silence under such a blow? No! the
scaffold prepared by her instrumentality for Todd, would be scarcely
less a triumph to her that she herself would share it with him. He ought
to have known better than he did. How clear and long-sighted we find
people upon subjects that from this distance may be supposed to present
difficulties, and yet how shallow they are upon what is close to them.
One would have thought that such a man as Todd could easily have said to
himself, with regard to Mrs. Lovett, "I dare not tamper with the objects
of that woman," and he would have said it with truth; but on the
contrary, he only looked upon her as a convenient tool, which was to be
thrown aside when it had served all the purposes for which he intended
it. There could not have been a more fatal mistake upon the part of Todd
as concerned his safety. But to return to Mrs. Lovett. The brandy she
had promised to the prisoner was quite forgotten. She sat revolving in
her mind, how she could put an end to the state of horrible doubt and
perplexity in which she was. There were some little difficulties in the
way of Mrs. Lovett emerging from her present condition. It has been
before hinted at, that Todd and the fair lady of the pie-shop had
between them accumulated a large sum of money, and that the money was
duly deposited in the hands of a stock-broker, who was by no means to
part with it to either of them, except upon an order signed by both. So
far all looked fair enough; and as they were likewise bound together by
such a bond of mutual guilt, it did not look likely that either would
make an endeavour to get the better of the other. Suppose there was
£40,000 in the hands of the stock-broker, it did not seem, we say, under
all the circumstances likely that Todd--being fairly entitled as between
them, to £20,000--would peril the safety of both their necks, by getting
up a quarrel about the division equitably of the spoil. The same
reasoning will apply to Mrs. Lovett. But these unlikely things are the
very things that do come to pass to upset the finest plans. Todd never
from the first--whenever that was--meant that Mrs. Lovett should share
with him; no, he thought that he, as the superior genius, the greater
villain, would manage to cheat her, and that she would, for her own
safety's sake, be obliged to put up with what he chose to give her. That
would have been only such a pittance, as to keep her constantly in a
state of dependance upon him. Now, to do Mrs. Lovett justice upon the
old equitable principle of giving the devil his due, she never had any
intention, until she saw symptoms of bad faith in Todd, of attempting to
act otherwise than fairly by him. She loathed him; and all she meant to
do, was when the division of the spoil should take place, to ascertain
where he was going, and then to get as far off him as possible. Of late,
however, finding that Todd was getting lucky, and feeling quite
convinced that he aimed at her life, other views had dawned upon her, as
we are already well aware. She did not so much care for all the money as
she would have liked in her retirement, wherever it was, to have felt
sure that Todd was not
"An inhabitant of the earth;"
and hence she had taken the pains, all of which had been frustrated, to
put him into another world. But a feeling, superstitiously consequent
upon her failure, had started up in her mind that he bore a charmed
life; and hence she bethought herself of flying from England; but the
money--how was she to get the money to do so? How was she, without his
cognisance, to get her share of the funds which had been placed in the
hands of a stock-broker? Now, since she had begun to feel uncomfortable
regarding the faith of Todd, Mrs. Lovett had kept what cash she saved at