The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
hackney-coach-man was always content with double; so upon this occasion
Mrs. Lovett got a "thank ye, mum;" and a long straw that had taken an
affection for the skirt of her dress was arrested by jarvey and restored
to the coach again.
Mrs. Lovett walked to all appearance composedly up Fleet-street. Alas!
in this world who can trust to appearances? She had time, before
reaching the shop of Sweeney Todd, to arrange slightly what she should
say to that worthy. Of course, he could know nothing of her visit to the
City--of her interview with Mr. Brown, and she need not blurt that out
too soon. She would argue with him a little, and then she would be down
upon him with the knowledge of his knavery and treachery. She reached
the shop. No wonder she paused there a moment or two to draw breath. You
would have done the same; and after all, Mrs. Lovett was mortal. But she
did not hesitate for long. The threshold was crossed--the handle of the
door was in her hand--it was turned, and she stood in Todd's shop. Todd
was looking at something in a bottle, which he was holding up to the
light; and Mrs. Lovett saw, too, that a pretty genteel-looking lad was
poking about the fire, as if to rouse it.
"Ah, Mrs. Lovett!" said Todd, "how do you do? Some more of that fine
grease for the hair, I suppose, madam?" Todd winked towards the lad (our
dear friend Johanna), as though he would have said--"Don't appear to
know me too well before this boy. Be careful, if you please."
"I have something to say to you, Mr. Todd."
"Oh, certainly, madam. Pray walk in--this way, if you please, madam--to
my humble bachelor-parlour, madam. It is not fit exactly to ask a lady
into; but we poor miserable single men, you know, madam, can only do the
best we can. Ha! ha! This way."
"No."
"Eh? Not come in?"
"No. I have something to say to you, Mr. Todd; but I will say it here."
And now Mrs. Lovett gave a sidelong glance at the seeming boy, as much
as to say--
"You can easily send him away if you don't want him to listen to our
discourse."
Todd saw the glance; and the diabolical look that he sent to Mrs. Lovett
in return would indeed have appalled any one of less nerve than she was
possessed of. But she had come to that place wound up firmly to a
resolution, and she would not shrink. Todd had no resource.
"Charley," he said, "you can go and take a little turn--here is a penny
to spend; get yourself something in the market. But be sure you are back
within half an hour, for we shall have some customers, no doubt."
"Yes, sir."
Johanna did not exactly know whether to think that Mrs. Lovett came in
anger or friendship; but, at all events, she felt that it would be
hazardous to remain after so marked a dismissal from Todd, although she
would gladly have heard what the subject of the conversation between
those two was to be. Neither Mrs. Lovett nor Todd now spoke until
Johanna had fairly gone and closed the door after her. Then Todd, as he
folded his arms, and looked Mrs. Lovett fully in the face, said--
"Well?"
"The time has come."
"What time?"
"For the end of our partnership--the dissolution of our agreement. I
will go on no further. You can do as you please; but I am content."
"Humph!" said Todd.
"After much thought, I have come to this conclusion, Todd. Of course,
let me be where I may, the secret of our road to fortune remains hidden
here (she struck her breast as she spoke). All I want is my half of the
proceeds, and then we part, I hope, for ever."
"Humph!" said Todd.
"And--and the sooner we can forget, if that be possible, the past, the
better it will be for us both--only tell me where you purpose going, and
I will take care to avoid you."
"Humph!"
Passion was boiling in the heart of Mrs. Lovett; and that was just what
Todd wanted; for well he knew that something had gone amiss, and that as
long as Mrs. Lovett could keep herself calm and reasonable, he should
stand but a poor chance of finding out what it was, unless she chose, as
part of her arrangement, to tell it; but if he could but rouse her
passion, he should know all. Therefore was it that he kept on replying
to what she said with that cold insulting sort of "humph!"
"Man, do you hear me?"
"Humph!"
"You villain!"
"Humph!"
Mrs. Lovett took from a side-table an iron, which, in the mystery of
hair-dressing, was used for some purpose, and in a cool, calm voice, she
said--
"If you do not answer me as you ought, I will throw this through your
window, into the street; and the first person who comes in, in
consequence, I will ask to seize Todd, the murderer! and offer myself as
evidence of his numerous atrocities--contrite evidence--myself repenting
of my share in them, and relying upon the mercy of the crown, which, in
recompense for my denouncing you may graciously pardon me."
"And so it has come to this?" said Todd.
"You see and hear that it has."
It was rather a curious coincidence, that Mrs. Lovett had threatened
Todd that she would awaken public attention to his shop by the same
means that Sir Richard Blunt had recommended to Johanna to use in case
of any emergency--namely, throwing something through the window into the
street. If Mrs. Lovett had been goaded by Todd to throw the iron through
a pane of his glass, the officers of Sir Richard would quickly have made
their appearance to hear her denunciation of the barber. Unhappy woman!
If she had but known what the future had in store for her, that act
which she threatened Todd with, and which to her imagination seemed such
a piece of pure desperation, would have been the most prudent thing she
could have done. But it was not to be! There was a few moments silence
now between them. It was broken by Todd.
"Are you mad?" he said.
"No."
"Then, what, in the name of all that is devilish, has got possession of
you?"
"I have told you my determination. Give me twenty thousand pounds--you
may profit by the odd sum--give me that amount, and I will go in peace.
You know I am entitled to more; but there is no occasion for us to
reckon closely. Give me the sum I seek, and you will see me no more.
"You take me by surprise. Just step into the parlour, and--"
"No--no."
"Why not? Do you suspect--"
"I suspect nothing; but I am sure of much. Now, for me to set foot
within your parlour would be tantamount to the commission of suicide,
and I am not yet come to that--you understand me?"
Todd understood her. His hand strayed to a razor that lay partially open
close to him. Mrs. Lovett raised the iron.
"Beware!" she said.
Todd shrunk back.
"Pho! pho! this is child's play," he said. "You and I, Mrs. Lovett,
ought to be above all this--far above it. You want your half of the
proceeds of our joint business, and I must confess, at the moment, that
the demand rather staggered and distressed me; but the more I think of
it, the more reasonable it appears."
"Very well. Give it to me, then."
"Why, really now, my dear Mrs. Lovett, you quite forget that all our
joint savings are in the hands of Mr. Brown."
Todd glared at her as though he would read her very soul. She felt that
he more than suspected she knew all, and she adopted at once the bold
policy of avowing it.
"I do not forget anything that it is essential should be remembered,"
she said; "and among other things, I know that, by forging my name, you
have withdrawn the whole of the money from the hands of Brown. It is not
worth our while to dispute concerning your motives for such an act. Let
it suffice that I know it, and that I am here to demand my due."
"Ha! ha!"
"You laugh?"
"I do, indeed. Why, really now--ha! ha!--this is good; and so it is this
withdrawal of the money from Brown that has made all this riot in your
brain? Why, I withdrew it from him simply because I had certain secret
information that his affairs were not in the best order; and from a
fear, grounded upon that information, that he might be tempted to put
his hand into our purse, if he found nothing in his own."
"Well, well; it matters not what were your reasons. Give me my half. It
will be then out of your custody, and you will have no anxiety
concerning it, while I can have no suspicions."
"In a moment--"
"You will?"
"If I had it here; but I have re-invested the whole, you see, and cannot
get it at a moment's notice. I have moved it from the hands of Brown to
those of Black."
CHAPTER LXXIX.
MRS. LOVETT FINDS THAT IN THIS WORLD THERE IS RETRIBUTION.
"Black?" said Mrs. Lovett.
"Yes, Black."
"Do you think me so--" green, she was going to say, but the accidental
conjunction of the colours--brown, black, and green--suddenly struck her
as ludicrous, and she altered it to foolish. "Do you think me so foolish
as for one moment to credit you?"
"Hark you, Mrs. Lovett," pursued Todd, suddenly assuming quite a
different tone. "You have come here full of passion, because you thought
I was deceiving you."
"You are."
"Allow me to proceed. It is, I believe, one of the penalties of all
associations for--for--why do I hesitate about a word?--guilty purposes
that there should be mutual distrust. I tell you again, that if I had
not moved the money from Brown, we should have lost it all."
"But why not come to me and get my signature?"
"There--really--was--not--time," said Todd, dropping his words out one
by one, with a _staccato_ expression.
"That is too absurd."
Todd shrugged his shoulders, as though he would have said--"Well, if you
will have it so, I cannot help it;" and then he said--
"I was in the City. I heard the rumour of the instability of Brown. I
flew into a shop. I wrote the order like a flash of lightning. I went to
Brown's like an avalanche, and I brought away the money, as if Heaven
and earth were coming together."
There was not the ghost of a smile upon Todd's face as he made use of
these superlatives. Mrs. Lovett began to be staggered.
"Then you have it here?"
"No, no!"
"You have. Tell me that you have, and that this Mr. Black you mentioned
is a mere delusion."
"Black may be no colour, but it is not a delusion."
"You trifle with me. Beware!"
"In a word then, my charming Mrs. Lovett, I dreaded to bring the money
here. I thought my house the most unsafe place in the world for it. I
and you stand upon the brink of a precipice--a slumbering volcano is
beneath our feet. Pshaw! Where is your old acuteness, that you do not
see at once how truly foolish it would have been to bring the money
here?"
"Juggler! Fiend!"
"Hard words, Mrs. Lovett."
She dashed her hand across her brow, as though by that physical effort
she could brush from her intellect the sophistical cobwebs that Todd had
endeavoured to move before it, and then she said--
"I know not. I care not. All I ask--all I demand--is my share of the
money. Give it to me, and let me go."
"I will."
"When?"
"This day. Stay, the day is fast going, but I will say this night, if
you really, in your cool judgment, insist upon it."
"I do. I do!"
"Well, you shall have. This night after business was over and the shop
was closed, I intended to have come to you, and fully planned all this
that you have unfortunately tortured yourself by finding out. I regret
that you think of so quickly leaving the profits of a partnership which,
in a short time longer, would have made us rich as monarchs. Of course,
if you leave, I am compelled."
"You compelled?"
"Yes. How can I carry on business without you? How could I, without your
aid, dispose of the--"
"Hush, hush!"
Mrs. Lovett shuddered.
"As you please," said Todd. "I only say, I regret that a co-partnership
that promised such happy results should now be broken up. However, that