The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™

by Oscar Wilde

  ‘Oh! it’s nothing, it’s nothing,’ said Mr Fogg: ‘if you had resided here as long as I have, you would get accustomed to hearing a slight noise. The worst of it is, when half a dozen of the mad fellows get shrieking against each other in the middle of the night. That, I grant, is a little annoying.’

  ‘What do you do with them?’

  ‘We send in one of the keepers with the lash, and soon put a stop to that. We are forced to keep the upper hand of them, or else we should have no rest. Hark! do you hear that fellow now? he is generally pretty quiet, but he has taken it into his head to be outrageous today; but one of my men will soon put a stop to that. This way, Mr Todd, if you please, and as we don’t often meet, I think when we do we ought to have a social glass.’

  Sweeney Todd made several horrible faces as he followed the madhouse keeper, and he looked as if it would have given him quite as much pleasure, and no doubt it would, to brain that individual, as to drink his wine, although probably he would have preferred doing the latter process first, and executing the former afterwards, and at his leisure.

  They soon reached the room which was devoted to the use of Mr Fogg and his friends, and which contained the many little curiosities in the way of madhouse discipline, that were in that age considered indispensable in such establishments.

  Mr Fogg moved away with his hands a great number of the books and papers which were on the table, so as to leave a vacant space, and then drawing the cork of a bottle he filled himself a large glass of its contents, and invited Sweeney Todd to do the same, who was by no means slow in following his example.

  While these two villains are carousing, and caring nothing for the scene of misery with which they are surrounded, poor Tobias, in conformity with the orders that had been issued with regard to him, was conveyed along a number of winding passages and down several staircases towards the cells of the establishment.

  In vain he struggled to get free from his captor—as well might a hare have struggled in the fangs of a wolf—nor were his cries at all heeded; although, now and then, the shriek he uttered was terrible to hear, and enough to fill anyone with dismay.

  ‘I am not mad,’ said he, ‘indeed I am not mad—let me go, and I will say nothing—not one word shall ever pass my lips regarding Mr Todd—let me go, oh, let me go, and I will pray for you as long as I live.’

  Mr Watson whistled a lively tune.

  ‘If I promise—if I swear to tell nothing, Mr Todd will not wish me kept here—all he wants is my silence, and I will take any oath he likes. Speak to him for me, I implore you, and let me go.

  Mr Watson commenced the second part of his lively tune, and by that time he reached a door, which he unlocked, and then, setting down Tobias upon the threshold, he gave him a violent kick, which flung him down two steps on to the stone floor of a miserable cell, from the roof of which continual moisture was dripping, the only accommodation it possessed being a truss of damp straw flung into one corner.

  ‘There,’ said Mr Watson, ‘my lad, you can stay there and make yourself comfortable till somebody comes to shave your head, and after that you will find yourself quite a gentleman.’

  ‘Mercy! mercy! have mercy on me!’

  ‘Mercy! what the devil do you mean by mercy? Well, that’s a good joke; but I can tell you, you have come to the wrong shop for that, we don’t keep it in stock here, and if we wanted ever so little of it, we should have to go somewhere else for it.’

  Mr Watson laughed so much at his own joke, that he felt quite amiable, and told Tobias that if he were perfectly quiet, and said ‘thank you’ for everything, he wouldn’t put him in the straight waistcoat, although Mr Fogg had ordered it; ‘for,’ added Mr Watson, ‘so far as that goes, I don’t care a straw what Mr Fogg says or what he does; he can’t do without me, damn him! because I know too many of his secrets.’

  Tobias made no answer to this promise, but he lay upon his back on the floor of his cell wringing his hands despairingly, and feeling that almost the very atmosphere of the place seemed pregnant with insanity, and giving himself up for lost entirely.

  ‘I shall never—never,’ he said, ‘look upon the bright sky and the green fields again. I shall be murdered here, because I know too much; what can save me now? Oh, what an evil chance it was that brought me back again to my mother, when I ought to have been far, far away by this time, instead of being, as I know I am, condemned to death in this frightful place. Despair seizes upon me! What noise is that—a shriek? Yes, yes, there is some other blighted heart beside mine in this dreadful house. Oh, Heaven! what will become of me? I feel already stifled and sick, and faint with the air of this dreadful cell. Help, help, help! have mercy upon me, and I will do anything, promise anything, swear anything!’

  If poor Tobias had uttered his complaints on the most desolate shore that ever a shipwrecked mariner was cast upon, they could not have been more unheeded than they were in that house of terror.

  He screamed and shrieked for aid. He called upon all the friends he had ever known in early life, and at that moment he seemed to remember the name of everyone who had ever uttered a kind word to him; and to those persons who, alas! could not hear him, but were far enough removed away from his cell, he called for aid in that hour of his deep distress.

  At length, faint, wearied and exhausted, he lay a mere living wreck in that damp, unwholesome cell, and felt almost willing that death should come and relieve him, at least from the pang of constantly expecting it!

  His cries, however, had had the effect of summoning up all the wild spirits in that building; and, as he now lay in the quiet of absolute exhaustion, he heard from far and near smothered cries and shrieks and groans, such as one might expect would fill the air of the infernal regions with dismal echoes.

  A cold and clammy perspiration broke out upon him, as these sounds each moment more plainly fell upon his ear, and as he gazed upon the profound darkness of the cell, his excited fancy began to people it with strange, unearthly beings, and he could suppose that he saw hideous faces grinning at him, and huge misshapen creatures crawling on the walls, and floating in the damp, pestiferous atmosphere of the wretched cell.

  In vain he covered his eyes with his hands; these creatures of his imagination were not to be shut out from the mind, and he saw them, if possible, more vividly than before, and presenting themselves with more frightfully tangible shapes. Truly, if such visions should continue to haunt him, poor Tobias was likely enough to follow the fate of many others who had been held in that establishment perfectly sane, but in a short time exhibited in it as raving lunatics.

  * * * *

  ‘A nice clear cool glass of wine,’ said Sweeney Todd, as he held up his glass between him and the light, ‘and pleasant drinking; so soft and mild in the mouth, and yet gliding down the throat with a pleasant strength of flavour.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Fogg, ‘it might be worse. You see, some patients, who are low and melancholy mad, require stimulants, and their friends send them wine. This is some that was so sent.’

  ‘I should certainly, Mr Fogg, not expect such an act of indiscretion from you, knowing you as I do to be quite a man of the world.’

  ‘Thank you for the compliment. This wine, now, was sent for an old gentleman who had turned so melancholy, that he not only would not take food enough to keep life and soul together, but he really terrified his friends so by threatening suicide that they sent him here for a few months; and, as stimulants were recommended for him, they sent this wine, you see; but I stimulated him without it quite as well, for I drink the wine myself and give him such an infernal good kick or two every day, and that stimulates him, for it puts him in such a devil of a passion that I am quite sure he doesn’t want any wine.

  ‘A good plan,’ said Sweeney Todd, ‘but I wonder you don’t contrive that your own private room should be free from the annoyance of hearing such sounds as those that have been coming upon m
y ears for then last five or ten minutes.’

  ‘It’s impossible; you cannot get out of the way if you live in the house at all; and you see, as regards these mad fellows, they are quite like a pack of wolves, and when once one of them begins howling and shouting, the others are sure to chime in, in full chorus, and make no end of a disturbance till we stop them, as I have already told you we do, with a strong hand.’

  ‘While I think of it,’ said Sweeney Todd, as he drew from his pocket a leathern bag, ‘while I think of it, I may as well pay you the year’s money, for the lad I have brought you; you see, I have not forgot the excellent rule you have of being paid in advance. There is the amount.

  ‘Ah, Mr Todd,’ said the madhouse keeper, as he counted the money, and then placed it in his pocket, ‘it’s a pleasure to do business with a thorough business man like yourself. The bottle stands with you, Mr Todd, and I beg you will not spare it. Do you know, Mr Todd, this is a line of life which I have often thought would have suited you; I am certain you have a genius for such things.’

  ‘Not equal to you,’ said Todd; ‘but as I am fond, certainly, of what is strange and out of the way, some of the scenes and characters you come across would, I have no doubt, be highly entertaining to me.’

  ‘Scenes and characters, I believe you! During the course of a business like ours, we come across all sorts of strange things; and if I chose to do it, which, of course, I don’t, I could tell a few tales which would make some people shake in their shoes; but I have no right to tell them, for I have been paid, and what the deuce is it to me?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, of course, nothing. But just while we are sipping our wine, now, couldn’t you tell me something that would not be betraying anybody else’s confidence?’

  ‘I could, I could; I don’t mean to say that I could not, and I don’t much care if I do, to you.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  MR FOGG’S STORY AT THE MADHOUSE

  After a short pause, during which Mr Fogg appeared to be referring to the cells of his memory, with the view of being refreshed m a matter that had long since been a bygone, but which he desired to place as clearly before his listener as he could, in fact, to make if possible that relation real to him, and to omit nothing during its progress that should be told; or possibly that amiable individual was engaged in considering if there were any salient points that might incriminate himself, or give even a friend a handle to make use of against him, but apparently there was nothing of the kind, for, after a loud ‘hem!’ he filled the glasses, saying,

  ‘Well, now, as you are a friend, I don’t mind telling you how we do business here—things that have been done, you know, by others; but I have had my share as well as others—I have known a thing or two, Mr Todd, and I may say I have done a thing or two, too.’

  ‘Well, we must all live and let live,’ said Sweeney Todd, ‘there s no going against that, you know; if all I have done could speak, why—but no matter, I am listening to you—however, if deeds could speak, one or two clever things would come out, rather, I think.’

  ‘Ay, ’tis well they don’t,’ said Mr Fogg, with much solemnity, ‘if they did, they would constantly be speaking at times when it would be very inconvenient to hear them, and dangerous besides.’

  ‘So it would,’ said Sweeney, ‘a still tongue makes a wise head—but, then the silent system would bring no grist to the mill, and we must speak when we know we are right and among friends.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Fogg, ‘of course, that’s the right use of speech, and one may as well be without it as to have it and not use it; but come—drink, and fill again before I begin, and then to my tale. But we may as well have sentiment. Sentiment, you know,’ continued Fogg, ‘is the very soul of friendship. What do you say to “The heart that can feel for another”?’

  ‘With all my soul,’ said Sweeney Todd; ‘it’s very touching—very touching indeed. “The heart that can feel for another!”’ and as he spoke, he emptied the glass, which he pushed towards Fogg to refill.

  ‘Well,’ said Fogg, as he complied, ‘we have had the sentiment, we may as well have the exemplification.’

  ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ said Todd, ‘very good, very good indeed; pray go on, that will do capitally.’

  ‘I may as well tell you the whole matter, as it occurred; I will then let you know all I know, and in the same manner. None of the parties are now living, or, at least, they are not in this country, which is just the same thing, so far as I am concerned.’

  ‘Then that is an affair settled and done with,’ remarked Sweeney Todd parenthetically.

  ‘Yes, quite. Well, it was one night—such a one as this, and pretty well about the same hour, perhaps somewhat earlier than this. However, it doesn’t signify a straw about the hour; but it was quite night, a dark and wet night too, when a knock came at the street door—a sharp double knock it was. I was sitting alone, as I might have been now, drinking a glass or two of wine; I was startled, for I was thinking about an affair I had on hand at that very moment, of which there was a little stir.

  ‘However, I went to the door, and peeped through a grating that I had there, and saw only a man; he had drawn his horse inside the gate, and secured him; he wore a large Whitney riding coat with a cape that would have thrown off a deluge.

  ‘I fancied, or I thought I could tell, that he meant no mischief; so I opened the door at once and saw a tall gentlemanly man, but wrapped up so, that you could not tell who or what he was; but my eyes are sharp, you know, Mr Todd: we haven’t seen so much of the world without learning to distinguish what kind of person one has to deal with.’

  ‘I should think not,’ said Todd.

  “Well,” said I, “what is your pleasure?”

  ‘The stranger paused a moment or two before he made any reply to me.

  ‘”Is your name Fogg?” he said.

  “Yes, it is,” said I, “what is your pleasure, sir?”

  ‘”Why,” said he, after another pause, during which he fixed his eye very hard upon me—“why, I wish to have a little private conversation with you, if you can spare so much time, upon a very important matter which I have in hand.”

  “Walk in, sir,” said I, as soon as I heard what it was he wanted, and he followed me in. “It is a very unpleasant night, and it’s coming on to rain harder: I think it is fortunate you have got housed.”

  ‘He came into this very parlour, and took a seat before the fire, with his back to the light, so that I couldn’t see his face very well.

  ‘However, I was determined that I would be satisfied in those particulars, and so, when he had taken off his hat, I stirred up the fire, and made a blaze that illuminated the whole room, and which showed me the sharp, thin visage of my visitor, who was a dark man with keen grey eyes that were very restless.

  ‘”Will you have a glass of wine?” said I; “the night is cold as well as wet.”

  ‘”Yes, I will,” he replied; “I am cold with riding. You have a lonely place about here; your house, I see, stands alone too. You have not many neighbours.”

  “No, sir,” said I; “we hadn’t need, for when any of the poor things set to screaming, it would make them feel very uncomfortable indeed.”

  ‘”So it would; there is an advantage in that both to yourself as well as to them. It would be disagreeable to you to know that you were disturbing your neighbours, and they would feel equally uncomfortable in being disturbed, and yet you must do your duty.”

  ‘”Ay! to be sure,” said I; “I must do my duty, and people won’t pay me for letting madmen go, though they may for keeping them; and besides that, I think some on ‘em would get their throats cut if I did.”

  ‘”You are right—quite right,” said he; “I am glad to find you of that mind, for I came to you about an affair that requires some delicacy about it, since it is a female patient.”

  ‘”Ah!” said I, “I alway
s pay a great attention, very great attention, and I don’t recollect a case, however violent it may be, but what I can overcome. I always make ‘em acknowledge me, and there’s much art in that.”

  ‘”To be sure, there must be.”

  ‘”And moreover, they wouldn’t so soon crouch and shrink away from me, and do what I tell ‘em, if I did not treat them with kindness, that is, as far as is consistent with one’s duty, for I mustn’t forget that.”

  ‘”Exactly,” he replied; “those are my sentiments exactly.”

  ‘”And now, sir, will you inform me in what way I can serve you?”

  ‘”Why, I have a relative—a female relative, who is unhappily affected with a brain disease; we have tried all we can do, without any effect. Do what we will, it comes to the same thing in the end.”

  ‘”Ah!” said I; “poor thing—what a dreadful thing it must be to you or any of her friends, who have the charge of her, to see her day by day an incurable maniac. Why, it is just as bad as when a friend or relative was dead, and you were obliged to have the dead body constantly in your house before your eyes.

  ‘”Exactly, my friend,” replied the stranger, “exactly, you are a man of discernment, Mr Fogg. I see that is truly the state of the case. You may then guess at the state of our feelings, when we have to part with one beloved by us.”

  ‘As he spoke, he turned right round, and faced me, looking very hard into my face.

  ‘”Well,” said I, “yours is a hard case; but to have one afflicted about you in the manner the young lady is, is truly distressing: it is like having a perpetual lumbago in your back.”

  ‘”Exactly,” said the stranger. “I tell you what, you are the very man to do this thing for me.”

  “I am sure of it,” said I.

  ‘”Then we understand each other, eh?” said the stranger. “I must say I like your appearance; it is not often such people as you and I meet.”

  ‘”I hope it will be to our mutual advantage,” said I, “because such people don’t meet every day, and we oughtn’t to meet to no purpose; so, in anything delicate and confidential, you may command me.”