The String of Pearls 103Johanna Has a Visitor While Todd Is Gone Upon the River
18
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
The String of Pearls 103
Johanna Has a Visitor While Todd Is Gone Upon the River
PrestEnglish
"Well?" said Todd.
"Well, sir, I was thinking that--that you might spare a trifle for the children, sir. They are starving--do you hear, Mr. Todd?--they are starving, and have no father now."
"What was the value of the watch-cases your husband had with him, Mrs. Cummins, when he disappeared?"
"About a hundred pounds, sir, they tell me. But don't you believe, sir, for one moment that John deserted me and these--ah no, sir."
"You really think so?"
"I am sure of it, sir, quite--quite sure of it. He loved me, sir, and these--he did indeed, sir. You will help us, Mr. Todd--oh, say that you will do what you can for us."
"Certainly, my good woman--certainly. What is this little fellow's name, Mrs. Cummins?"
"William--William is his name," said the poor woman, in such a flurry from the idea of what Todd was going to do for the children that she could hardly speak, but caught her breath hysterically. "His name is William, Mr. Todd."
"And this little girl, ma'am?"
"Ann, sir--Ann. That is her name, Mr. Todd. The same, if you please, sir, as her poor mother's. Look up, Ann, my dear, and courtesy to the gentleman. God bless you, Mr. Todd, for thinking of me and mine. God bless you, sir!"
"Ann and William," said Todd, "Ann and William; and very nice children they are, too, in my opinion, Mrs. Cummins."
"They are good children, sir." Mrs. Cummins burst into tears at the idea of what Todd was going to do for the children, for the whole of the parish was impressed with the idea that he was well to do. "They are very good children Mr. Todd; and although a charge to me, are still a blessing; for now that John is gone, they seem to hold me to the world, sir."
"Well, Mrs. Cummins, I am glad you have applied to me, for if you had not, I certainly should not have known the names of your children. As it is, however, whenever I pray, I will think of them, and of you; and in the meantime, I commend you to the care of that Providence which, of course, cannot permit the widow and the fatherless to want anything in this world, or the next either."
Todd walked leisurely on.
"Ha! ha!" he laughed. "Good again. What have I to do with charity, or charity with me? I am at war with all the world, and at war with Heaven, too, if there be one, which I will not admit! No, no--I will not admit that."
While Todd was away upon this errand of getting rid of Mrs. Lovett, which we have seen he has accomplished so much to his satisfaction, Johanna was not entirely without visitors. The excellent watch that was kept upon the movements of Todd, in their minutest particular, by Sir Richard Blunt and his officers, let them know perfectly well that Todd was from home; but it was not from them that Johanna had her first visit after Todd was gone.
He had not left the shop above ten minutes when Johanna heard a mysterious noise outside the door of it. It sounded as if someone were scraping it with something. At first she felt a little uneasy at the sound, but as it increased she calmed herself, and resolved upon ascertaining what it was.
Turning to the door, cautiously she opened it a little way. That was quite sufficient to dispel any fears that she might have, for the paw of a dog was immediately thrust through the opening; and when upon this Johanna opened the door freely, Hector, with a loud bark, dashed into the shop.
So fierce was the dog's demeanour, that Johanna shrank aside, but master Hector saw with half an eye that he had frightened her, so he went up to her, and licked her hand in token of amity, after which he barked loudly at the shop, as though he would have said, "Mind though I am friends with you, I am still the uncompromising foe of all else in this place."
"Alas poor dog," said Johanna as the tears rushed to her eyes, "you will never see your master again."
The young girl's grief for the loss of her lover seemed all to be roused up freshly from the depths of her heart at this appearance of the dog, which she had some reason to believe had been the companion of Mark Ingestrie. She sat down upon the little stool by the fire, and covering face with her hands, she wept bitterly.
In the meantime, Hector, finding that Todd was not there to do battle with him, made up his mind for a grand rummage in the shop; and truly he conducted it with a perseverance and a recklessness of consequences that was wonderful. He was on the counter that ran along under the window--he was under it--he was on every shelf, and he tore open every cupboard; but alas! poor Hector could find no token of his lost master. At length the howling and the scratching that he made induced Johanna to look up to see what he wanted. She was rather appalled at the confusion he had created, and she could not think what he wanted until she found that there was a shelf at the top of the cupboard, that was equally out of her reach as it was out of his.
"I cannot help you, my poor friend," she said. "There seems to be nothing on that shelf."
Hector, however, having retired to a remote corner of the shop, and got on a chair in order that he might get a good look at the shelf, was of a different opinion; and, finding that he was not to calculate upon any help from Johanna, he made various springs up to the shelf with his mouth open, until at last he caught hold of a little bit of tape that seemed to be hanging over the edge of it.
The tape was attached to something, which Hector immediately, with a loud bark of defiance, took possession of, partly by standing upon it, and partly by holding it in his mouth. Upon stooping to see what this was, Johanna discovered that it was a waistcoat of blue cloth.
At first Hector did not seem much to fancy even letting her look at it; but after looking intently in her face for a few moments, he very quietly resigned it to her, only he kept very close to it while she turned it round and round and looked at it. It might have been Mark Ingestrie's. It looked something like the sort of garment that a master mariner might be supposed to wear, and the evident recognition of it by the dog spoke wonders in favour of the supposition that it had belonged to his master at one time or another.
Johanna thought that in one of the pockets there seemed something, and upon putting in her hand she found a small piece of paper folded in four. To undo it was the work of a moment, and then she saw upon it the following words:--
Her senses seemed upon the point of deserting her. Every object for a moment appeared to whirl round her in a mad dance. Who should know better--ah, who should know half so well as she--the handwriting which conveyed those few words to her senses? It was the handwriting of her lost lover, Mark Ingestrie!
"Hilloa! Pison, is you here?" cried a voice at the shop door at this moment.
Johanna started to her feet.
"Who are you?--what do you want?" she cried. "Murder!--murder! He has been foully murdered, I say; I will swear it--I--I--God help me!"
With the little scrap of paper in her hand, she staggered back until she came to the huge shaving-chair, into which she sank with a long-drawn sigh.
"Why, what's the row?" said the man, who was no other than Hector's friend, the ostler, from the inn opposite. "What's the row? Now what an out-and-out willain of a dog you is, Pison, to cut over here like bricks as soon as you can git loose to do so. Don't you know that old Todd is a busting to do you an ill turn some o' these days? and yet you will come, you hidiot."
"Mr. Todd is out," said Johanna.
"Oh, is he, my little man? Well, the devil go with him, that's all I say. Come along, that's a good dog."
Pison only wagged his tail in recognition of the friendly feeling between him and the ostler, and then he kept quite close to Johanna and the waistcoat, which the moment he saw her drop, he laid hold of, and held tight with such an expression as was quite enough to convince the ostler he would not readily give it up again.
"Now what a hanimal you is," cried the ostler. "Whose blessed veskut is that you as got?"
"He found it here," said Johanna. "Did you see his master on the day when he came here?"
"No, my little chap, I didn't; but I don't care who knows it--it's my 'pinion that whosomedever his master was, old Sweeney Todd, your master, knows more on him than most folks. Come away, Pison, will you?"
The dog did not now show much disinclination to follow the ostler, but he kept the waistcoat firmly in his grasp, as he left the shop after him. Johanna still held that little scrap of paper in her hand, and oh! what a world of food for reflection did it present her with. Was it, or was it not, an establishment of the fact of Mark Ingestrie having been Todd's victim? That was the question that Johanna put to herself, as through her tears, that fell like rain, she gazed upon that paper, with those few words upon it, in the well-known hand of her lover.
The more Johanna reflected upon this question, the more difficult a one did she find it to answer in any way that was at all satisfactory to her feelings. The strong presumption that Mark Ingestrie had fallen a victim to Todd had not been sufficiently obliterated by all that Sir Richard Blunt had said to her to free her mind from a strong bias to fancy anything that transpired at Todd's a corroboration of that fact.
"Yes," she said, mournfully, "yes, poor--poor Mark. Each day only adds to my conviction that you became this man's victim, and that that fatal String of Pearls, which you fondly thought would be a means of uniting us together by removing the disabilities of want of fortune, has been your death. That waistcoat, which your faithful dog has carried with him, is another relic of you, and this scrap of paper is but another link in the chain of circumstances that convinces me we shall never meet again in this world."
Poor Johanna was absolutely reasoning herself into an agony of grief, when the door of the shop opened, and an old man with white hair made his appearance.
"Is Mr. Todd within?" he said.
"No, sir," replied Johanna.
"And is it possible," added the old man, straightening himself up, "that I am disguised so well that even you do not know me, Johanna?"
In a moment now she recognised the voice. It was that of Sir Richard Blunt.
"Oh, sir," she said, "I do indeed know you now, and I am very--very wretched."
"Has anything new occurred, Johanna, to produce this feeling?"
"Yes, sir. The dog, that my heart tells me belonged to poor Mark, has been over here, and with a rare instinct he found a piece of apparel, in the pocket of which was this paper. It is in his writing. I know it too--too well to be denied. Ah, sir, you, even you, will no longer now seek to delude me with false hopes. But do not tarry here, sir; Todd has been long gone, and may at any chance moment come back again."
"Be at rest upon that point, Johanna. He cannot come back without my being made aware of it by my friends without. But tell me in what way you attach such serious importance to this piece of paper, Johanna?"
"In what way, my dear friend? Do I not say that it is in poor Mark's own handwriting? How could it come here unless he brought it? Oh, sir, do not ask me in what way I attach importance to it. Rather let me ask you how, otherwise than upon the supposition of his having become one of Todd's victims, can you account for its being here at all?"
"Really," said Sir Richard, "this Mark Ingestrie must have been a very forgetful young man."
"Forgetful?"
"Yes. It seems that it was necessary for him to carry your name and address in his pocket. Now if he had given such a slip of paper as this to another person for fear he should forget what was not so deeply imprinted in his memory I should not have wondered at it for a moment."
Johanna clasped her hands and looked the magistrate in the face, as she said--
"Then, sir, you think--that is, you believe--that--that this is no proof of poor Mark having been here?"
"As I hope for mercy in Heaven, it is to my mind a proof the other way, Johanna."
She burst into a passion of hysterical weeping. Sir Richard Blunt knew too much of human nature to interfere by word or gesture, with this effort of nature to relieve the overchanged heart, and he waited patiently, affecting to be looking upon some old prints upon the wall until he heard the sobs decrease to sighs. Then he turned with a smile to Johanna, and said--
"My dear girl, gather hope from that scrap of paper, not despair. Depend upon it the address of your father held too conspicuous a place in the heart of him who loved you to require that it should have been written upon a piece of paper. You know that my theory on the subject is that Mr. Thornhill was actually sent to you by Mark Ingestrie, and that it was he who perished here."
"And Mark himself--if that were so?"
"His fate has still to be elucidated; but that he perished here I do not believe, as I have often told you."
"This is an exquisite relief," said Johanna, as she laid her hand upon her heart.
"Make much of it," said Sir Richard; "something even yet seems to tell me that you will be happy. I cannot think it possible that Heaven would permit such a man as Todd to destroy your earthly felicity. But how comes the shop in such confusion?"
"It was the dog. He would look everywhere, and I had not the heart nor the strength to prevent him. Todd has a horror of him; and fright will keep him quiet when I tell him the cause of the mischief that is done here."
"Perhaps then it will be better to leave it as it is," said Sir Richard, "than awaken his suspicions by attempting to put the place to rights, in which you might fail in some particulars known to him. And now tell me, Johanna, what passed between him and this Mrs. Lovett?"
"But a few words, sir, before I was sent out. There is one thing though that I suspect, and that is that Mrs. Lovett has found out my secret."
"Indeed?"
"Yes, she regarded me with a strange gaze that made me feel that she penetrated my disguise. I know not if she will say as much to Todd, but one glance of his eye upon me when he returns will satisfy me upon that, I think."
At this moment a bugle sounded in Fleet Street.
"That is my signal," said Sir Richard. "Todd is coming. I will be close at hand, Johanna, lest Mrs. Lovett has told him your secret, and you should find yourself in any danger. Farewell! Heaven hold you in its keeping."
