We will leave Todd to the indulgence of some of the most uncomfortable reflections that ever passed through his mind, while we once again seek the sweet companionship of the fair Johanna, and her dear romantic friend, Arabella Wilmot. The project which these two young and inexperienced girls were bent upon, was one that might well appal the stoutest heart that ever beat in human bosom. It was one which, with a more enlarged experience of the world, they would not for one moment have entertained, but by long thought and much grief upon the subject of her hopeless love, Johanna had much observed that clearness of perception that otherwise would have saved her from what to all appearance is a piece of extravagance. As for Arabella, she had originally conceived the idea from her love for the romantic, and it was only when it came near to the execution of it that she started at the possible and indeed highly probable danger of the loss to one whom she loved so sincerely as she loved Johanna. But all that has passed away. The remonstrances have been made, and made in vain; Arabella is silenced, and nothing remains but to detail to the reader the steps by which the courageous girl sought to carry out a plan so fraught with a thousand dangers. Both Arabella and Johanna sought the abode of the latter's father, for the first step in the affair was to say something there which was to account seemingly satisfactorily for any lengthened stay of Johanna from home. This was by no manner of means a task of any difficulty, for in addition to the old spectacle maker being innocence itself as regarded the secreting anything in the shape of a plot, Arabella Wilmot was the very last person in all the world he would have thought capable of joining in one. As for Mrs. Oakley, she was by far too intent, as she said herself frequently, upon things which are eternal, to trouble herself much about terrestrial affairs, always except they came to her in the shape of something enticing to the appetites. What a state of things, that a mother should forget the trust that is placed in her when she is given a child, and fancy she is really propitiating the Almighty by neglecting a stewardship which He has imposed upon her! But so it is. There are, we fear, in different ways, a great many Mrs. Oakleys in the world.
"Ah, my dear Miss Wilmot," said the old spectacle-maker to Arabella, when he saw her. "How glad I am to see you. How fresh you look."
Arabella's face was flushed with excitement, and some shame that the errand she came upon was to deceive. She had not heard yet of the spurious philosophy that the end sanctifies the means.
"I have come to--to--to--"
"Yes, my dear. To stay awhile, and let us look at your pretty face. Come, my dear Johanna, your mother is out. What can you get for your friend, Miss Wilmot? Here, my dear, take this half-crown and get some sweetmeats, and I will open for you a bottle of the old Malaga wine."
Johanna's eyes filled with tears, and she was compelled to turn aside to conceal those tell-tale traces of emotion from her father. Arabella saw that if anything was to be said or done in furtherance of the affair upon which Johanna had now set her heart, she must do it or say it. Summoning all her courage, she said--
"My dear sir--"
"Sir?--sir? Bless me, my child, when did you begin to call your old kind friend sir?"
"My dear Mr. Oakley--"
"Ah, that's nearer the old way. Well, my dear Arabella, what would you say to me?"
"Will you trust Johanna with me to-night, and perhaps to-morrow night?"
"I don't think Johanna can come to much harm with you, my dear," said Mr. Oakley. "You are older than she a little, and at your age a little goes a long way, so take her, Arabella, and bring her back to me when you like."
With what a shrill of agony did Arabella hear Johanna thus committed to her care. She was compelled to grasp the back of the old spectacle-maker's chair for support.
"Yes, yes, sir," she said. "Oh, yes, Mr. Oakley."
"Well, my dears, go, and God bless you both."
To both Arabella and Johanna's perception there was something ominous about this blessing, at such a time, and yet it had really about it nothing at all unusual, for Mr. Oakley was very much in the habit of saying to them "God bless you," when they left him; but feeling, as they did, the hazard that she (Johanna) might encounter before again she heard that voice say "God bless you," if, indeed, she ever again heard it, no wonder the words sank deep into their hearts, and called up the most painful emotions. Johanna certainly could not speak. Arabella tried to laugh, to hide an emotion that would not be hidden, and only succeeded in producing an hysterical sound, that surprised Mr. Oakley.
"What's the matter, my dear?" he said.
"Oh, nothing--nothing, dear Mr. Oakley, nothing."
"Well, I'm glad to hear it. Perhaps I only fancy it; but you both seem--seem--"
"What do we seem, father?" said Johanna, looking very pale, and speaking with a great effort.
"Not quite as usual, my darling."
"That--that," gasped Johanna, "can only be--be fancy."
"Of course not," said Oakley. "Fancy, I think I said it was, or if I did not, I meant to say so, my love."
"Come," said Arabella.
"Yes--yes. Father--father. Good day."
She kissed his cheek; and then, before the old man could say another word, she rushed to the door.
"Farewell!" said Arabella. "Good day, Mr. Oakley. I--I thank you, sir. Good day, sir."
"Dear, dear," said the old man, "what is the matter with the girls? How odd they both seem to-day. What can be the cause of it? I never before saw them so strange in their manner. Ah! I have it. My wife has met them, I dare say, and has said some unkind things to them about hats or ribbons, or some harmless little piece of girlish pride. Well--well. All that will pass away. I'm glad I hit upon it, for--"
At this moment old Oakley was astounded by the sudden entrance of Johanna, who, clasping him in her arms, cried in a voice, half choked with tears--
"Good bye, father--good bye. God help me!"
Without, then, waiting for a word from the spectacle-maker, she again rushed from the shop, and joining Arabella a few doors off, they both hurried to the house of the latter. Old Oakley tottered back until he came to a seat, upon which he sank, with an air of abstraction and confusion, that threatened to last him for some time; and in that, for the present, we must leave him, while we look narrowly at the conduct of the two young creatures, who have, in the pride of their virtue and their nobleness of purpose, presumed to set up their innocence against the deep craft of such a man as Sweeney Todd. Well might Johanna say "God help me!"
"It is done!" said Johanna, as she clutched her friend by the arm. "It is done now. The worst is over."
"Oh, Johanna--Johanna--"
"Well, Arabella, why do you pause? What would you say?"
"I scarcely know, and yet I feel that it ought to be something that I have promised you. I would not say."
"Let your lips be sealed, then, dear friend; and be assured that now nothing but the visible interposition of God shall turn me from my purpose. I am calm and resolved."
These words, few as they were, were too significant, and spoken with too evident sincerity to permit a doubt of their deep intensity and truth, and from that moment Arabella Wilmot looked upon the scheme of Johanna going in disguise to Todd's as quite settled so far as regarded the attempt. It was the result now only that had to be looked to.
"I will say no more, Johanna, except as regards detail. In that I may offer you advice."
"Oh, yes--yes, Arabella. Thankfully received advice, as well you know. What is it you would say?"
"That you ought to wait until the morning."
"And so perhaps lose precious hours. Oh, no--no. Do not ask me now to submit to any delays, Arabella."
"But if there be reason, Johanna?"
"Well, the reason, then--the reason?"
"I think that, if possible, it would be well to avoid the necessity of remaining a night at Todd's; and so if you go in the morning, you see, Johanna, you may have an opportunity before nightfall of making all the discoveries you wish, or of satisfying yourself that they are not to be made at all."
"It might be so, and yet--yet I almost think night will be the best time of all."
"But by waiting until to-morrow morning, Johanna, you will have both day and night."
"Yes, yes. I wish I knew what would be the best, Arabella. My feelings are wound up to this enterprise, and I am altogether in such a frightful state of excitement concerning it, that--that I know not how I should be able to support myself under the delay of the remainder of to-day and the whole of the ensuing night."
"In the night you will have repose, and to-morrow morning, with much more calmness and effect, you will be able to start upon your errand. Believe me, Johanna, I don't counsel this delay with any hope, or wish, or expectation, that it will turn you from your purpose, but simply because I think it will the better ensure its successful termination."
"Successful! What will you call successful, Arabella?"
"Your coming back to me uninjured, Johanna."
"Ah, that speaks your love for me, while I--I love him for whose sake I am about to undergo so much, sufficiently to feel that were I sure he was no more, my own death at the hands of Sweeney Todd would be success."
"Johanna--Johanna, don't speak in such a strain. Have you no thought for me? have you no thought for your poor father, to whom, as you well know, you are the dearest tie that he has in the world? Oh, Johanna, do not be so selfish."
"Selfish?"
"Yes, it is selfish, when you know what others must suffer because they love you, to speak as though it were a thing to be desired that you should die by violence."
"Arabella, can you forgive me? can you make sufficient allowances for this poor distracted heart, to forgive its ravings?"
"I can--I do, Johanna, and in the words of your father, I am ever ready to say 'God bless you!' You will not go till to-morrow?"
After the pause of a few moments, Johanna said faintly--
"I will not--I will not."
"Oh that is much. Then at least for another night we shall enjoy our old sweet companionship."
They by this time had reached the home of Arabella, and as it was an understood thing that Johanna was not expected home, the two young girls retired to converse in unrestrained freedom upon all their hopes and fears.
