While all these things were going on at Sweeney Todd's, in Fleet-street, Mrs. Lovett was not quite idle as regarded her own affairs and feelings. That lady's--what shall we say--certainly not affections, for she had none--passions is a better word--were inconceivably shocked by the discovery she had made of the perfidy of her flaunting and moustachied lover. It will be perceived, by this little affair of Mrs. Lovett's, how strong-minded women have their little weaknesses. The hour of the appointment, which she (Mrs. Lovett) had made with her military-looking beau, came round; and there she sat, looking rather disconsolate.
"Am I never to succeed," she muttered to herself, "in finding one with whom I can make my escape from this sea of horrors that surrounds me? Am I, notwithstanding I have so fully accomplished all I wished to accomplish, by--by"--she shuddered and paused.--"Well, well, the time will come--I must go alone. Let Todd go alone, and let me go alone. Why should he wish to trammel my actions? He cannot surely think, for a moment, that with him I will consent to pass the remainder of my life!"
The scornful curl of the lip, and the indignant toss of the head, which accompanied these words, would have been quite sufficient to convince Todd, had he seen them, of the hopelessness of any such notion.
"No," she added, after a pause, "I shall be alone in the world, or, if I make ties, they shall be made in another country. There it is possible I may be--oh, no, no--not happy; but I may be powerful, and have cringing slaves about me, who, finding that I am rich, will tell me that I am beautiful, and I shall be able to drink deeply of the intoxicating cup of pleasure, in some land where prudery, or what is called propriety, has not set up its banner as it has in this land of outward virtue. As for Todd--I--I will try to be assured that he is a corpse before I breathe freely; and if I fail in that, I will hope that we shall be thousands of leagues asunder."
A shadow passed the window. Mrs. Lovett started to her feet.
"Ah! who comes? 'Tis he--no--God! 'tis Todd."
For a moment she pressed her hands upon her face, as though she would squeeze out the traces of passion from the muscles, and then her old set smile came back again. Todd entered the shop. For a few moments they looked at each other in silence, and then Todd said--
"Alone?"
"Quite," she replied.
He gave one of his peculiar laughs, and then glided into the parlour behind the shop. Mrs. Lovett followed him.
"News?" he said.
"None."
"Hem! The time is coming."
"The time to leave off this--"
"Yes. The time to quit business, Mrs. Lovett. All goes well--swimmingly. Ha! ha!"
She shuddered as she said--
"Do not laugh."
"Let those laugh who win," replied Todd. "How old are you, Sarah?"
"Old?"
"Yes, or to shape the question perhaps more to a woman's liking, how young are you? Have you yet many years before you in which to enjoy the fruits of our labours? Have you the iron frame which will enable you to say--'I shall revel for years in the soft enjoyments of luxury stolen from a world I hate?' Tell me."
Mrs. Lovett fell into a musing attitude, and Todd thought she was reflecting upon her age; but at length she said--
"I sometimes think I would give half of what is mine if I could forget how I became possessed of the whole."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, Todd. Has no such feeling ever crossed you?"
"Never! I am implacable. Fate made me a barber, but nature made me something else. In the formation of man there is a something that gives weakness to his resolves, and makes him pause upon the verge of enterprise with a shrinking horror. That is what the world calls conscience. It has no hold of me. I have but one feeling towards the human race, and that is hatred. I saw that while they pretended to bow down to God, they had in reality set up another idol in their heart of hearts. Gold! gold! Tell me--how many men there are in this great city who do not worship gold far more sincerely and heartily than they worship Heaven?"
"Few--few."
"Few? None, I say, none. No. The future is a dream--an ignis fatuus--a vapour. The present we can grasp--ha!"
"What is our wealth, Todd?"
"Hundreds of thousands."
He shaded his eyes with his hands, and peered from the parlour into the shop.
"Who is that keeps dodging past the window each moment, and peeping in at every convenient open space in the glass that he can find?"
Mrs. Lovett looked, and then, after an effort, she said--
"Todd, I was going to speak to you of that man."
"Ah!"
"Listen; I suspect him. For some days past he has haunted the shop, and makes endeavours to become acquainted with me. I did not think it sound policy wholly to shun him, but gave him such encouragement as might supply me with opportunities of judging if he were a spy or not."
"Humph!"
"I think him dangerous."
Todd's eyes glistened like burning coals.
"Should he come into your shop to be shaved, Todd--"
"Ha! ha!"
The horrible laugh rang through the place, and Mrs. Lovett's lover, with the moustache, sprung to the other side of Bell Yard, for the unearthly sound even reached his ears as he was peeping through the window to catch a glimpse of the charming widow.
"You understand me, Todd?"
"Perfectly--perfectly--I shall know him again. Ah, my dear Mrs. Lovett, how dangerous it is to be safe in this world. Even our virtue cannot escape detraction; but we will live in hopes of better times. You and I will show the world, yet, what wealth is."
"Yes--yes."
Todd crept close to her, and was about to place his arm round her waist, but she started from him, exclaiming--
"No--no, Todd--a thousand times no. Have we not before quarrelled upon this point. Do not approach me, or our compact, infernal as it is, is at an end. I have sold my soul to you, but I have not bartered myself."
The expression of Todd's countenance at this juncture was that of an incarnate fiend. He glared at Mrs. Lovett as though with the horrible fascination of his ugliness he would overcome her, and then slowly rising, he said--
"Her soul--ha! She has sold her soul to me--ha! I will call to-morrow."
He left the shop, and as he passed the gent who, by force of his moustache, hoped to win the affections of Mrs. Lovett, he gave him such a look that he terrified him and the gent found himself in the shop before he was aware.
"Bless me, what a horrid looking fellow! I swear by my courage and honour I never saw such a face. Ah, my charmer! Who was that left your charming presence just now?"
"Some one who came for a pie."
"'Pon honour, he's enough to poison all the pies! Oh, you beauty, yo--ou--ou--ou--"
The gallant's mouth was so full of a veal pie that he had stuffed into it that for some few moments he could not produce an intelligible sound. When he had recovered, he walked into the parlour and sat down, saying--
"Now, Mrs. Lovett, here am I, 'pon honour, your humble servant, and stop my breath if I'd say as much to the commander-in-chief. When's the happy day to be?"
"Do you really love me?"
"Do I love you? Do I love fighting? Do I love honour--glory? Do I love eating and drinking? Do I love myself?"
"Ah, Major Bounce, you military men are so gallant."
"'Pon honour we are. General Cavendish used to say to me--'Bounce,' says he, 'if you don't make your fortune by war, which you ought to do, Bounce, 'pon honour, you will make it by love.' 'General,' says I--now I was always ready for a smart answer, Mrs. Lovett--so 'General,' says I, 'the same to you!'"
"Very smart."
"Yes, wasn't it. 'Pon honour it was, and 'pon soul you looks more and more charming every day that I see you."
"Oh you flatterer!"
"No--no. Bar flattering--bar flattering. His Majesty has often said, 'Talk of flattery. Oh dear, Bounce is the man for me. He is right down--straight up-off handed. And no sort of mistake, on--on--on.'"
Another pie converted the oratory of the major into something between a grunt and a sigh.
"But major, I'm afraid that you will regret marrying me. If I convert all I have into money"--the major pricked up his ears--"I could not make of it more than fifty thousand pounds."
The major's eyes opened to the size of pint saucers, as he said--
"Fifty--fift--fif.--Say it again!"
"Fifty thousand pounds."
The major rose and embraced Mrs. Lovett. Tears actually came into his eyes, and gulping down the pie, he cried--
"You have fifty thousand charms. Only let me be your slave, your dog, damme--your dog, Mrs. Lovett, and I shall consider myself the luckiest dog in the world, but not for the money--not for the money. No, as the Marquis of Cleveland once said, 'If you want a thoroughly disinterested man, go to Bounce.'"
"Well, major, since we understand each other so well, there are two little things that I must name as my conditions."
"Name 'em--name 'em. Do you want me to bring you the king's eye-tooth, or her majesty's wig and snuff-box--only say the word."
"One is, that I will leave England. I have a private reason for so doing."
"Damme, so have I. That is a-hem! If you have a reason, that is a reason to me, you know."
"Exactly. In some other capital of Europe we may spend our money and enjoy all the delights of existence. Do you speak French?"
"Ah-hem! Oh, of course. I never tried particularly, but as Lord North said to the Duke of Bridgewater, 'Bounce is the man if you want anything done of an out of-the-way character.'"
"Very well, then. My next condition is, that you shave off your moustache."
"What?"
"Shave off your moustache; I have the greatest possible aversion to moustache, therefore I make that a positive condition without which I shall say no more to you."
"My charmer, do you think I hesitate? If you were to say to me, 'Bounce, off with your head,' in a moment it would roll at your feet."
"Go, then, to Mr. Todd's, the barber, in Fleet-street, and have them taken off at once, and then come back to me, for I declare I won't speak another word to you while you have them on."
"But, dear creature--"
Mrs. Lovett shook her head.
"'Pon honour!"
She shook her head again.
"I'll go at once then, 'pon soul, and have 'em taken off. I'll be back in a jiffy, Mrs. Lovett. Oh, you duck, I adore you. Confound the cash! It's you I knuckle under to. Man doats on Venus, and I love Lovett. Bye, bye; I'll get it done and soon be back. Fifty thousand--fifty--fif.--Oh, lor' why Flukes, your fortune is made at last."
These last words did not reach the ear of Mrs. Lovett. That lady threw herself into a chair, where the gallant major had left her.
"Another!" she said. "Another! Why did he try to deceive me? The fool, to pitch upon me, of all persons, to make his victim. I must have found him out, and poisoned him, if I had married him. It is better that Todd should take vengeance for me, and then the time shall come when he shall fall. Yes, so soon as I can, by cajollery or scheming, get sufficient of the plunder into my own hands, Todd's hours are numbered."
After this, Mrs. Lovett fell into a train of musing, and her face assumed an expression so different from that with which she was wont to welcome her customers in the shop, that not one of them would have known her. But we must look at Todd. It was upon his return home from several calls, the last of which had been this recent visit to Mrs. Lovett, that he had heard the noise in his house, which had terminated in his going up stairs, and being so terrified by Crotchet. It will be recollected that he fell insensible upon the staircase, and that Crotchet took that opportunity of making good his retreat. How long he lay there, he, Todd, had no means of knowing, for all was profound darkness upon the staircase, but his first sensation consisted of a tingling in his feet and hands, similar to the sensation which is properly called "your limbs going to sleep." Then a knocking noise came upon his sense of hearing.
"What's that? Where am I?" he cried. "No--no. Don't hang me. Where's Mrs. Lovett? Hang her. She is guilty!"
Knock!--knock!--knock!
"Hush! hush! What is it? Who wants me? Good God--no--no. There is no good God for me!"
Knock! knock! knock! came again with increased violence at the door of the shop below.
