CHAPTER CXXV.

MRS. LOVETT SEES SOME TWILIGHT SPECTRES IN HER CELL.

After she had sat for some time in this state of feeling, and just

before the darkness got so apparent that but little could be seen of the

few articles that the place contained, she heard the door open.

A flash of light came into the place.

"Who is that?" she cried.

"Oh, you needn't think as it's robbers--it's only me," said a voice.

"You are quite safe here, ma'am. That's one good of being in the stone

jug: you needn't be afraid of thieves breaking into your place."

She saw that it was the turnkey whose duty it was to keep watch in the

passage outside her cell.

"What do you want here?" she said, "Cannot I have the poor privilege of

being left alone?"

"Oh, yes, only it's your rations' time, and here's your boiled rice and

water, and here's your loaf, mum. In course, that ain't exactly the sort

of thing you have been accustomed to; but it's all the county

allows--only between you and me and the post, Mrs. Lovett, as they say

you have got a pretty heavy purse, you can have just what you like."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, in a moderate way you know. You have only to pay, and you can have

anything."

"Then even Newgate is like the rest of the world. Money rules even here,

does it?"

"Why, in a manner of speaking, a guinea is worth twenty-one shillings

here, just the same as it is outside, ma'am."

"Then how much will purchase my liberty?"

The turnkey shook his head.

"There, ma'am, you ask for an article that I don't deal in. My shop

don't keep such a thing as liberty. What I mean is, that you may have

just what you like to eat and drink."

"Very well. In the morning you can bring me what I order."

"Oh, yes--yes."

"I will pay handsomely for what I do order, for I have, as you say, a

heavy purse. Much heavier, indeed it is, than any of you imagine, my

friends."

"Your humble servant, ma'am. I only wish Newgate was full of such as

you."

"Ah, I hear a footstep. Who is it that is about to intrude upon me

to-night?"

"It's the chaplain."

"The chaplain? I thought he understood that I declined his visits

completely."

"Why, you see, ma'am, so you did, but it's his duty to go the round of

all the cells before the prison shuts up for the night, so he will come,

you see; and if I might advise you, ma'am, I should say be civil to him

whatever you may think, for he can do you an ill turn if he likes in his

report. He has more underhanded sort of power than you are aware of,

Mrs. Lovett; so you had better, as I say, be civil to him, and keep your

thoughts to yourself. Where's the odds, you know, ma'am?"

"I am much obliged to you for this advice, and I will pay you for it.

There is a couple of guineas for you as a slight remembrance of me, and

let others say what they will, you at least will not accuse me of

ingratitude for any benefit conferred upon me."

"That I won't, ma'am; but here he comes. Mum is the word about what I

have said, or else my place would not be worth much, I can tell you."

"Depend upon me."

The turnkey, with a great show of respect, backed out of the cell as the

chaplain entered it.

"Well, Mrs. Lovett," said the pious individual, "I hope to find you in a

better frame of mind than upon my last visit to you."

"Sir," said Mrs. Lovett, "if you will come to me at your own hour in the

morning, I shall then present myself to you in a different manner, and I

shall no longer object to anything you may be pleased to say to me."

"What a blessed conversion. Really, now, this is very satisfactory

indeed. Mrs. Lovett, of course you are a very great sinner, but if you

attend to me, I can warrant your being received in the other world by

ten thousand angels."

"I thank you, sir. Half the number would be quite sufficient, I feel

assured, for my poor deserts."

"Oh no, ten thousand--ten thousand. Not one less than that number. But

if you have any doubts about the reality of flames everlasting, I shall

have great satisfaction in removing them, by holding your hand for a few

moments in the flame of this candle."

"You are very kind," said Mrs. Lovett, "but I shall be quite as well

convinced if you hold yours, as I shall then I hope see the agony

depicted in your countenance."

"Humph!--ah! No, I would rather not exactly. But quite rejoicing that

you are in so very pious a frame of mind, I shall have the pleasure of

seeing you to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock."

"That will do very well," said Mrs. Lovett.

The chaplain, thinking he had made quite a wonderful convert in Mrs.

Lovett, and with serious thoughts of getting somebody to write a tract

for him on the subject, left the cell, little suspecting how he was to

be duped.

"Well, you did gammon him," said the turnkey, "I will say that for you."

"Can you not leave me a light?"

"Agin the rules. Can't do it; but I'll wait till you have put the

mattress to rights, if you like."

"Oh, no. It will do very well. Good night."

"Good night, Ma'am Lovett, and thank you for me. They may say what they

likes about you, but I will stick up for you, so far that you are

liberal with your tin, and that's a very good thing indeed. I ain't

quite sure that it isn't everything, as this here world goes."

The door of the cell was closed, and the last rays of the turnkey's

candle disappeared. Mrs. Lovett was alone again in her dreary cell.

The darkness now was very intense, indeed: for during the few minutes

that she had been conversing with the chaplain, the twilight had almost

faded away, dropping quite into night, so that not an object was visible

in the cell. She heard the turnkey's footsteps die away in the distance,

and then indeed she felt truly alone.

"And I shall not see the sunlight of another day," she said. "My

pilgrimage is over."

She pronounced these words with a shudder, for even she could not at

such a moment feel quite at ease. She held in her hands the means of

death, and yet she hesitated--not that she had the remotest intention of

foregoing her fixed resolve; but feeling that at any moment she had it

in her power now to carry it out, she lingered there upon the shores of

life.

"And it has come to this," she said. "After all my scheming--after all

my resolves, it has come to suicide in a felon's cell. Well, I played a

daring game, and for heavy stakes, and I have lost, that is all."

She covered her eyes with her hands for several minutes, and slowly

rocked to and fro.

Who shall say what thoughts crossed that bold bad woman's soul at that

time? Who shall say that in those few moments her memory did not fly

back to some period when she was innocent and happy?--for even Mrs.

Lovett must have been innocent and happy once; and the thought that such

had been her blessed state, compared to what it was now, was enough to

drive her mad--quite mad.

When she withdrew her hands from before her eyes she uttered a cry of

terror. Memory had conjured up the forms of departed spirits to her; and

now so strong had become the impression upon her mind in that hour of

agony, that she thought she saw them in her cell.

"Oh, mercy--mercy!" she said. "Why should I be tortured thus? Why should

I suffer such horrors? Why do you glare at me with such fiery eyes for,

horrible spectres!"

[Illustration: Mrs. Lovett In Newgate.--Is Conscience-Stricken.]

She covered up her eyes again; but then a still more terrible

supposition took possession of her, for instead of fancying that the

spectres were in the darkness of the cell at some distance from her, she

thought that they all came crowding up to within an inch of her face,

gibing and mocking.

"Off--off!" she cried, as she suddenly stretched out her arm. "Do not

drive me quite mad."

Her eyes glared in the darkness like those of some wild animal. They

looked phosphorescent, and for some time such was the agony and the

thraldom of her feelings, that she quite forgot she had the means of

death in her hands.

She began to question the spirits that fancy presented in the darkness

as thronging her cell.

"Who are you?" she said. "I know you not. I did not kill you! Why do you

glare at me? And you, with your face matted with blood, I did not kill

you. Who are you, too, with those mangled limbs? I killed none of you.

Go to Sweeney Todd--go to Sweeney Todd!"

She kept her hands stretched out before her, and she fancied that it was

only by such an action that she kept them from touching her very face.

Then she dropped upon her knees, and in the same wild half-screaming

voice she spoke again, crying--

"Away with you all! Todd it was that killed you--not I. He would have

killed me, too. Do you hear, that he tried to kill me? but he could not.

What boy are you? Oh, I know you now. He sent you to the madhouse. You

are George Allan. Well, I did not kill you. I see that there is blood

upon you! But why do you all come to me and leave Todd's cell

tenantless, except by himself? for you cannot be here and there both!

Away, I say! Away to him! Do not come here to torture me!"

Tap--tap--tap came a sound on the door of the cell.

"Hush!" she said. "Hush!"

"What's the matter?" said the turnkey.

"Nothing--nothing."

"But I heard you calling out about something."

"It is nothing, my friend. All is right. I was only--only praying."

"Humph!" said the turnkey. "If you were, it is something rather new, I

reckon. She can't do any mischief, that's one comfort; and many of the

worst ones as comes here don't pass very nice, cosy, comfortable nights.

They fancies they sees all sorts of things, they does. Poor devils! I

never seed nothing worse than myself or my wife in all my time, and I

don't think I ever shall."

Mrs. Lovett did not now utter one word until she was sure the turnkey

was out of hearing. That slight interruption had recalled her to

herself, and done much to banish from her disturbed imagination all

those fancied monsters of the brain which had disturbed her.

"Why did I yield even for a moment," she said, "to such a load of

superstition? I thought that even at such a moment as this I should be

free from such terrors. How I should have smiled in derision of any one

else who had been weak enough to give way to them--and yet how real they

looked. How very unlike the mere creations of a disturbed brain. Could

they be real? Is it possible?"

Mrs. Lovett shook a little as she asked herself these questions, and it

was only at such a moment that she could or was at all likely to ask

them, for our readers may well believe that such a woman could have had

no sort of belief in a providence, or she never, with her active

intellect, could have fallen into the mistake of supposing that she was

compassing happiness by committing crime.

For awhile now the doubt that she had suggested to herself shook her

very much. It was the very first time in all her wicked life that

anything like a perception of a future state had crossed her mind; and

each minute how fearfully to her the possibility, and then the

probability, that there really was another world than this, began now to

grow upon her.

That thought was more full of agony than the appearance of the spectres

had been to her--those spectres which were only called into existence by

her own consciousness of overpowering guilt and deep iniquity.

"I am going now," she said. "I am going. World that I hate, and all upon

thee, farewell!"

She broke the tin case containing the poison, and applying one of the

broken ends to her lips, she swallowed two drops of the deadly liquid,

and fell dead upon the floor of her cell.