by Oscar Wilde
‘Yes, sir,’ said the boy timidly.
‘You will acquire a first-rate profession, and quite as good as the law, which your mother tells me she would have put you to, only that a little weakness of the headpiece unqualified you. And now, Tobias, listen to me, and treasure up every word I say.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ll cut your throat from ear to ear, if you repeat one word of what passes in this shop, or dare to make any supposition, or draw any conclusion from anything you may see, or hear, or fancy you see or hear. Now you understand me—I’ll cut your throat from ear to ear—do you understand me?’
‘Yes, sir, I won’t say nothing. I wish, sir, as I maybe made into veal pies at Lovett’s in Bell Yard if I as much as says a word.’
Sweeney Todd rose from his seat; and opening his huge mouth, he looked at the boy for a minute or two in silence, as if he fully intended swallowing him, but had not quite made up his mind where to begin.
‘Very good,’ he said at length, ‘I am satisfied, I am quite satisfied; and mark me—the shop, and the shop only, is your place.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And if any customer gives you a penny, you can keep it, so that if you get enough of them you will become a rich man; only I will take care of them for you, and when I think you want them I will let you have them. Run out and see what’s o’clock by St Dunstan’s.’
There was a small crowd collected opposite the church, for the figures were about to strike three-quarters past six; and among that crowd was one man who gazed with as much curiosity as anybody at the exhibition.
‘Now for it!’ he said, ‘they are going to begin; well, that is ingenious. Look at the fellow lifting up his club, and down it comes bang upon the old bell.’
The three-quarters were struck by the figures; and then the people who had loitered to see it done, many of whom had day by day looked at the same exhibition for years past, walked away, with the exception of the man who seemed so deeply interested.
He remained, and crouching at his feet was a noble-looking dog, who looked likewise up at the figures; and who, observing his master’s attention to be closely fixed upon them, endeavoured to show as great an appearance of interest as he possibly could.
‘What do you think of that, Hector?’ said the man.
The dog gave a short low whine, and then his master proceeded, ‘There is a barber’s shop opposite, so before I go any farther, as I have got to see the ladies, although it’s on a very melancholy errand, for I have got to tell them that poor. Mark Ingestrie is no more, and Heaven knows what poor Johanna will say—I think I should know her by his description of her, poor fellow. It grieves me to think now how he used to talk about her in the long night-watches, when all was still, and not a breath of air touched a curl upon his cheek. I could almost think I saw her sometimes, as he used to tell me of her soft beaming eyes, her little gentle pouting lips, and the dimples that played about her mouth. Well, well, it’s of no use grieving; he is dead and gone, poor fellow, and the salt water washes over as brave a heart as ever beat. His sweetheart, Johanna, though, shall have the string of pearls for all that; and if she cannot be Mark Ingestrie’s wife in this world, she shall be rich and happy, poor young thing, while she stays in it, that is to say as happy as she can be; and she must just look forward to meeting him aloft, where there are no squalls or tempests. And so I’ll go and get shaved at once.’
He crossed the road towards Sweeney Todd’s shop, and, stepping down the low doorway, he stood face to face with the odd-looking barber.
The dog gave a low growl and sniffed the air.
‘Why, Hector,’ said his master, ‘what’s the matter? Down, sir, down!’
‘I have a mortal fear of dogs,’ said Sweeney Todd. ‘Would you mind him, sir, sitting outside the door and waiting for you, if it’s all the same? Only look at him, he is going to fly at me!’
‘Then you are the first person he ever touched without provocation,’ said the man; ‘but I suppose he don’t like your looks, and I must confess I ain’t much surprised at that. I have seen a few rum-looking guys in my time, but hang me if ever I saw such a figure-head as yours. What the devil noise was that?’
‘It was only me,’ said Sweeney Todd; ‘I laughed.’
‘Laughed! do you call that a laugh? I suppose you caught it of somebody who died of it. If that’s your way of laughing, I beg you won’t do it any more.
‘Stop the dog! stop the dog! I can’t have dogs running into my back parlour.’
‘Here, Hector, here!’ cried his master; ‘get out!’
Most unwillingly the dog left the shop, and crouched down close to the outer door, which the barber took care to close, muttering something about a draught of air coming in, and then, turning to the apprentice boy, who was screwed up in a corner, he said, ‘Tobias, my lad, go to Leadenhall-street, and bring a small bag of the thick biscuits from Mr Peterson’s; say they are for me. Now, sir, I suppose you want to be shaved, and it is well you have come here, for there ain’t a shaving-shop, although I say it, in the city of London that ever thinks of polishing anybody off as I do.’
‘I tell you what it is, master barber: if you come that laugh again, I will get up and go. I don’t like it, and there is an end of it.’
‘Very good,’ said Sweeney Todd, as he mixed up a lather. ‘Who are you? where did you come from? and where are you going?’
‘That’s cool, at all events. Damn it! what do you mean by putting the brush in my mouth? Now, don’t laugh; and since you are so fond of asking questions, just answer me one.
‘Oh, yes, of course: what is it, sir?’
‘Do you know a Mr Oakley, who lives somewhere in London, and is a spectacle-maker?’
‘Yes, to be sure I do—John Oakley, the spectacle-maker, in Fore-street, and he has got a daughter named Johanna, that the young bloods call the Flower of Fore-street.’
‘Ah, poor thing! do they? Now, confound you! what are you laughing at now? What do you mean by it?’
‘Didn’t you say, “Ah, poor thing?” Just turn your head a little on one side; that will do. You have been to sea, sir?’
‘Yes, I have, and have only now lately come up the river from an Indian voyage.’
‘Indeed! where can my strop be? I had it this minute; I must have laid it down somewhere. What an odd thing that I can’t see it! It’s very extraordinary; what can have become of it? Oh, I recollect, I took it into the parlour. Sit still, sir. I shall not be gone a moment; sit still, sir, if you please. By the by, you can amuse yourself with the Courier, sir, for a moment.’
Sweeney Todd walked into the back parlour and closed the door. There was a strange sound suddenly compounded of a rushing noise and then a heavy blow, immediately after which Sweeney Todd emerged from his parlour, and, folding his arms, he looked upon the vacant chair where his customer had been seated, but the customer was gone, leaving not the slightest trace of his presence behind except his hat, and that Sweeney Todd immediately seized and thrust into a cupboard that was at one corner of the shop.
‘What’s that?’ he said, ‘what’s that? I thought I heard a noise.
The door was slowly opened, and Tobias made his appearance, saying, ‘If you please, sir, I have forgot the money, and have run all the way back from St Paul’s churchyard.’
In two strides Todd reached him, and clutching him by the arm he dragged him into the farthest corner of the shop, and then he stood opposite to him glaring in his face with such a demoniac expression that the boy was frightfully terrified.
‘Speak!’ cried Todd, ‘speak! and speak the truth, or your last hour is come! How long were you peeping through the door before you came in?’
‘Peeping, sir?’
‘Yes, peeping; don’t repeat my words, but answer me at once, you will find it better for you in the end.’
‘I wasn’t p
eeping, sir, at all.’
Sweeney Todd drew a long breath as he then said, in a strange, shrieking sort of manner, which he intended, no doubt, should be jocose, ‘Well, well, very well; if you did peep, what then? it’s no matter; I only wanted to know, that’s all; it was quite a joke, wasn’t it—quite funny, though rather odd, eh? Why don’t you laugh, you dog? Come, now, there is no harm done. Tell me what you thought about it at once, and we will be merry over it—very merry.
‘I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ said the boy, who was quite as much alarmed at Mr Todd’s mirth as he was at his anger. ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir; I only just come back because I hadn’t any money to pay for the biscuits at Peterson’s.’
‘I mean nothing at all,’ said Todd, suddenly turning upon his heel; ‘what’s that scratching at the door?’
Tobias opened the shop-door, and there stood the dog, who looked wistfully round the place, and then gave a howl that seriously alarmed the barber.
‘It’s the gentleman’s dog, sir,’ said Tobias, ‘it’s the gentleman’s dog, sir, that was looking at old St Dunstan’s clock, and came in here to be shaved. It’s funny, ain’t it, sir, that the dog didn’t go away with his master?’
‘Why don’t you laugh if it’s funny? Turn out the dog, Tobias; we’ll have no dogs here; I hate the sight of them; turn him out—turn him out.’
‘I would, sir, in a minute; but I’m afraid he wouldn’t let me, somehow. Only look, sir—look; see what he is at now! did you ever see such a violent fellow, sir? why he will have down the cupboard door.’
‘Stop him—stop him! the devil is in the animal! stop him I say!’
The dog was certainly getting the door open, when Sweeney Todd rushed forward to stop him; but that he was soon admonished of the danger of doing, for the dog gave him a grip of the leg, which made him give such a howl, that he precipitately retreated, and left the animal to do its pleasure. This consisted in forcing open the cupboard door, and seizing upon the hat which Sweeney Todd had thrust therein, and dashing out of the shop with it in triumph.
‘The devil’s in the beast,’ muttered Todd, ‘he’s off. Tobias, you said you saw the man who owned that fiend of a cur looking at St Dunstan’s church.’
‘Yes, sir, I did see him there. If you recollect, you sent me to see the time, and the figures were just going to strike three-quarters past six; and before I came away, I heard him say that Mark Ingestrie was dead, and Johanna should have the string of pearls. Then I came in, and then, if you recollect, sir, he came in, and the odd thing, you know, to me, sir, is that he didn’t take his dog with him, because, you know, sir?’
‘Because what?’ shouted Todd.
‘Because people generally do take their dogs with them, you know, sir; and may I be made into one of Lovett’s pies, if I don’t?’
‘Hush! someone comes; it’s old Mr Grant, from the Temple. How do you do, Mr Grant? glad to see you looking so well, sir. It does one’s heart good to see a gentleman of your years looking so fresh and hearty. Sit down, sir; a little this way, if you please. Shaved, I suppose?’
‘Yes, Todd, yes. Any news?’
‘No, sir, nothing stirring. Everything very quiet, sir, except the high wind. They say it blew the king’s hat off yesterday, sir, and he borrowed Lord North’s. Trade is dull, too, sir. I suppose people won’t come out to be cleaned and dressed in a misling rain. We haven’t had anybody in the shop for an hour and a half.’
‘Lor! sir,’ said Tobias, ‘you forgot the seafaring gentleman with the dog, you know, sir.’
‘Ah! so I do,’ said Todd. ‘He went away, and I saw him get into some disturbance, I think, just at the corner of the market.’
‘I wonder I didn’t meet him, sir,’ said Tobias, ‘for I came that way; and then it’s so very odd leaving his dog behind him.’
‘Yes very,’ said Todd. ‘Will you excuse me a moment, Mr Grant? Tobias, my lad, I just want you to lend me a hand in the parlour.’
Tobias followed Todd very unsuspectingly into the parlour; but when they got there and the door was closed, the barber sprang upon him like an enraged tiger, and, grappling him by the throat, he gave his head such a succession of knocks against the wainscot, that Mr Grant must have thought that some carpenter was at work. Then he tore a handful of his hair out, after which he twisted him round, and dealt him such a kick, that he was flung sprawling into a corner of the room, and then, without a word, the barber walked out again to his customer, and he bolted his parlour door on the outside, leaving Tobias to digest the usage he had received at his leisure, and in the best way he could.
When he came back to Mr Grant, he apologised for keeping him waiting by saying—
‘It became necessary, sir, to teach my new apprentice a little bit of his business. I have left him studying it now. There is nothing like teaching young folks at once.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr Grant, with a sigh, ‘I know what it is to let young folks grow wild; for although I have neither chick nor child of my own, I had a sister’s son to look to—a handsome, wild, harum-scarum sort of fellow, as like me as one pea is like another. I tried to make a lawyer of him, but it wouldn’t do, and it’s now more than two years ago he left me altogether; and yet there were some good traits about Mark.’
‘Mark, sir! did you say Mark?’
‘Yes, that was his name, Mark Ingestrie. God knows what’s become of him.’
‘Oh!’ said Sweeney Todd; and he went on lathering the chin of Mr Grant.
CHAPTER TWO
THE SPECTACLE MAKER’S DAUGHTER
‘Johanna, Johanna, my dear, do you know what time it is? Johanna, I say, my dear, are you going to get up? Here’s your mother has trotted out to parson Lupin’s and you know I have to go to Alderman Judd’s house in Cripplegate the first thing, and I haven’t had a morsel of breakfast yet. Johanna, my dear, do you hear me?’
These observations were made by Mr Oakley, the spectacle-maker, at the door of his daughter Johanna’s chamber, on the morning after the events we have just recorded at Sweeney Todd’s; and presently a soft sweet voice answered him, saying,-
‘I am coming, father, I am coming: in a moment, father, I shall be down.’
‘Don’t hurry yourself, my darling, I can wait.’
The little old spectacle-maker descended the staircase again and sat down in the parlour at the back of the shop where, in a few moments, he was joined by Johanna, his only and his much-loved child.
She was indeed a creature of the rarest grace and beauty. Her age was eighteen, but she looked rather younger, and upon her face she had that sweetness and intelligence of expression which almost bids defiance to the march of time. Her hair was of a glossy blackness, and what was rare in conjunction with such a feature, her eyes were of a deep and heavenly blue. There was nothing of the commanding or of the severe style of beauty about her, but the expression of her face was all grace and sweetness. It was one of those countenances which one could look at for a long summer’s day, as upon the pages of some deeply interesting volume, which furnished the most abundant food for pleasant and delightful reflection.
There was a touch of sadness about her voice, which, perhaps, only tended to make it the more musical, although mournfully so, and which seemed to indicate that at the bottom of her heart there lay some grief which had not yet been spoken—some cherished aspiration of her pure soul, which looked hopeless as regards completion—some remembrance of a former joy, which had been turned to bitterness and grief: it was the cloud in the sunny sky—the shadow through which there still gleamed bright and beautiful sunshine, but which still proclaimed its presence.
‘I have kept you waiting, father,’ she said, as she flung her arms about the old man’s neck. ‘I have kept you waiting.’
‘Never mind, my dear, never mind. Your mother is so taken up with Mr Lupin, that you know, this being Wednesday morning, she
is off to his prayer meeting, and so I have had no breakfast; and really I think I must discharge Sam.’
‘Indeed, father! what has he done?’
‘Nothing at all, and that’s the very reason. I had to take down the shutters myself this morning, and what do you think for? He had the coolness to tell me that he couldn’t take down the shutter this morning, or sweep out the shop, because his aunt had the toothache.’
‘A poor excuse, father,’ said Johanna, as she bustled about and got the breakfast ready; ‘a very poor excuse!’
‘Poor indeed! but his month is up today, and I must get rid of him. But I suppose I shall have no end of bother with your mother, because his aunt belongs to Mr Lupin’s congregation; but as sure as this is the 20th day of August—’
‘It is the 20th day of August,’ said Johanna, as she sank into a chair and burst into tears. ‘It is, it is! I thought I could have controlled this, but I cannot, father, I cannot. It was that which made me late. I knew mother was out; I knew that I ought to be down and attending upon you, and I was praying to Heaven for strength to do so because this was the 20th of August.’
Johanna spoke these words incoherently and amidst sobs, and when she had finished them she leant her sweet face upon her small hands and wept like a child.
The astonishment, not unmingled with positive dismay, of the old spectacle-maker, was vividly depicted on his countenance, and for some minutes he sat perfectly aghast, with his hands resting on his knees, and looking in the face of his beautiful child—that is to say, as much as he could see of it between those little taper fingers that were spread upon it—as if he were newly awakened from some dream.
‘Good God, Johanna!’ he said at length, ‘what is this? my dear child, what has happened? Tell me, my dear, unless you wish to kill me with grief.’
‘You shall know, father,’ she said. ‘I did not think to say a word about it, but considered I had strength enough of mind to keep my sorrows in my own breast, but the effort has been too much for me, and I have been compelled to yield. If you had not looked so kindly on me—if I did not know that you loved me as you do, I should easily have kept my secret, but knowing that much, I cannot.’