CHAPTER XX.

THE NEW COOK TO MRS. LOVETT GETS TIRED OF HIS SITUATION.

From what we have already had occasion to record about Mrs. Lovett's new

cook, who ate so voraciously in the cellar, our readers will no doubt be

induced to believe that he was a gentleman likely enough soon to be

tired of his situation. To a starving man, and one who seemed completely

abandoned even by hope, Lovett's bake-house, with an unlimited leave to

eat as much as possible, must of course present itself in the most

desirable and lively colours: and no wonder therefore, that, banishing

all scruple, a man so placed, would take the situation, with very little

inquiry. But people will tire of good things; and it is a remarkable

well-authenticated fact that human nature is prone to be discontented.

And those persons who are well acquainted with the human mind, and who

know well how little value people set upon things which they possess,

while those which they are pursuing, and which seem to be beyond their

reach, assume the liveliest colours imaginable, adopt various means of

turning this to account. Napoleon took good care that the meanest of his

soldiers should see in perspective the possibility of grasping a

marshal's baton. Confectioners at the present day, when they take a new

apprentice, tell him to eat as much as he likes of those tempting tarts

and sweetmeats, one or two of which before had been a most delicious

treat. The soldier goes on fighting away, and never gets the marshal's

baton. The confectioner's boy crams himself with Banbury cakes, gets

dreadfully sick, and never touches one afterwards. And now, to revert to

our friend in Mrs. Lovett's bakehouse. At first everything was

delightful, and, by the aid of the machinery, he found that it was no

difficult matter to keep up the supply of pies by really a very small

amount of manual labour. And that labour also was such a labour of love,

for the pies were delicious; there could be no mistake about that. He

tasted them half cooked, he tasted them wholly, and he tasted them

over-done; hot and cold; pork and veal with seasoning, and without

seasoning, until at last he had had them in every possible way and

shape; and when the fourth day came after his arrival in the cellar, he

might have been sitting in rather a contemplative attitude with a pie

before him. It was twelve o'clock: he had heard that sound come from the

shop. Yes, it was twelve o'clock, and he had eaten nothing yet; but he

kept his eye fixed upon the pie that lay untouched before him.

"The pies are all very well," he said; "in fact, of course they are

capital pies; and now that I see how they are made, and know that there

is nothing wrong in them, I, of course, relish them more than ever; but

one can't always live upon pies; it's quite impossible one can subsist

upon pies from one end of the year to the other, if they were the finest

pies the world ever saw, or ever will see. I don't say anything against

the pies--I know they are made of the finest flour, the best possible

butter, and that the meat, which comes from God knows where, is the most

delicate looking and tender I ever ate in all my life."

He stretched out his hand and broke a small portion of the crust from

the pie that was before him, and he tried to eat it. He certainly did

succeed; but it was a great effort; and when he had done, he shook his

head, saying--

"No, no!--d--n it! I cannot eat it, and that's the fact--one cannot be

continually eating pies: it is out of the question, quite out the

question; and all I have to remark is--d--n the pies! I really don't

think I shall be able to let another one pass my lips."

He rose and paced with rapid strides the place in which he was, and then

suddenly he heard a noise; and, looking up, he saw a trap door in the

roof open, and a sack of flour begin gradually to come down.

"Hilloa, hilloa!" he cried, "Mrs. Lovett--Mrs. Lovett!"

Down came the flour, and the trap door was closed.

"Oh, I can't stand this sort of thing," he exclaimed; "I cannot be made

into a mere machine for the manufacture of pies. I cannot and will not

endure it--it is past all bearing."

For the first time almost since his incarceration, for such it really

was, he began to think that he would take an accurate survey of the

place where this tempting manufacture was carried on. The fact was, his

mind had been so intensely occupied during the time he had been there in

providing merely for his physical wants, that he had scarcely had time

to think or reason upon the probabilities of an uncomfortable

termination of his career; but now, when he had really become quite

surfeited with the pies, and tired of the darkness and gloom of the

place, many unknown fears began to creep across him, and he really

trembled, as he asked himself what was to be the end of all. It was with

such a feeling as this that he now set about a careful and accurate

survey of the place; and taking a little lamp in his hand, he resolved

upon peering into every corner of it, with a hope that surely he should

find some means by which he should effect an escape from what otherwise

threatened to be an intolerable imprisonment. The vault in which the

ovens were situated was the largest; and although a number of smaller

ones communicated with it, containing the different mechanical

contrivances for pie-making, he could not from any one of them discover

an outlet. But it was to the vault where the meat was deposited upon

stone shelves that he paid the greatest share of attention, for to that

vault he felt convinced there must be some hidden and secret means of

ingress, and therefore of egress likewise, or else how came the shelves

always so well stocked with meat as they were? This vault was larger

than any of the other subsidiary ones, and the roof was very high, and,

come into it when he would, it always happened that he found meat enough

upon the shelves, cut into large lumps, and sometimes into slices, to

make a batch of pies with. When it got there, was not so much a mystery

to him as how it got there; for, of course, as he must sleep sometimes,

he concluded, naturally enough, that it was brought in by some means

during the period that he devoted to repose. He stood in the centre of

this vault with the lamp in his hand, and he turned slowly round,

surveying the walls and the ceilings with the most critical and marked

attention, but not the smallest appearance of an outlet was observable.

In fact, the walls were so entirely filled up with the stone shelves,

that there was no space left for a door; and as for the ceiling, it

seemed perfectly entire. Then the floor was of earth; so that the idea

of a trap door opening in it was out of the question, because there was

no one on his side of it to place the earth again over it, and give it

its compact and usual appearance.

"This is most mysterious," he said; "and if ever I could have been

brought to believe that any one had the assistance of the devil himself

in conducting human affairs, I should say that by some means Mrs. Lovett

had made it worth the while of that elderly individual to assist her;

for, unless the meat gets here by some supernatural agency, I really

cannot see how it can get here at all. And yet here it is--so fresh, and

pure, and white-looking, although I never could tell the pork from the

veal myself, for they seemed to me both alike."

He now made a still narrower examination of this vault, but he gained

nothing by that. He found that the walls at the back of the shelves were

composed of flat pieces of stone, which, no doubt, were necessary for

the support of the shelves themselves; but beyond that he made no

further discovery, and he was about leaving the place, when he fancied

he saw some writing on the inner side of the door. A closer inspection

convinced him that there were a number of lines written with lead

pencil, and after some difficulty he decyphered them as follows:--

"Whatever unhappy wretch reads these lines may bid adieu to the world

and all hope, for he is a doomed man! He will never emerge from these

vaults with life, for there is a secret connected with them so awful and

so hideous, that to write it makes one's blood curdle, and the flesh to

creep upon my bones. That secret is this--and you may be assured,

whoever is reading these lines, that I write the truth, and that it is

as impossible to make that awful truth worse by any exaggeration, as it

would be by a candle at mid-day to attempt to add any new lustre to the

sunbeams."

Here, most unfortunately, the writing broke off, and our friend, who, up

to this point, had perused the lines with the most intense interest,

felt great bitterness of disappointment, from the fact that enough

should have been written to stimulate his curiosity to the highest

possible point, but not enough to gratify it.

"This is, indeed, most provoking," he exclaimed. "What can this most

dreadful secret be, which it is impossible to exaggerate? I cannot, for

a moment, divine to what it can allude."

In vain he searched over the door for some more writing--there was none

to be found, and from the long straggling pencil-mark, which followed

the last word, it seemed as if he who had been then writing had been

interrupted, and possibly met the fate that he had predicted, and was

about to explain the reason of.

"This is worse than no information. I had better have remained in

ignorance than have received so indistinct a warning; but they shall not

find me an easy victim, and, besides, what power on earth can force me

to make pies unless I like, I should wish to know?"

As he stepped out of the place in which the meat was kept into the large

vault where the ovens were, he trod upon a piece of paper that was lying

upon the ground, and which he was quite certain he had not observed

before. It was fresh and white, and clean too, so that it could not have

been long there, and he picked it up with some curiosity. That curiosity

was, however, soon turned to dismay when he saw what was written upon

it, which was to the following effect, and well calculated to produce a

considerable amount of alarm in the breast of any one situated as he

was, so entirely friendless and so entirely hopeless of any extraneous

aid in those dismal vaults, which he began, with a shudder, to suspect

would be his tomb:--

"You are getting dissatisfied, and therefore it becomes necessary to

explain to you your real position, which is simply this:--You are a

prisoner, and were such from the first moment that you set foot where

you now are; and you will find, unless you are resolved upon sacrificing

your life, that your best plan will be to quietly give into the

circumstances in which you find yourself placed. Without going into any

argument or details upon the subject, it is sufficient to inform you

that so long as you continue to make the pies, you will be safe; but if

you refuse, then the first time you are caught asleep your throat will

be cut."

This document was so much to the purpose, and really had so little of

verbosity about it, that it was extremely difficult to doubt its

sincerity. It dropped from the half-paralysed hands of that man, who, in

the depth of his distress, and urged on by great necessity, had accepted

a situation that he would have given worlds to escape from, had he been

possessed of them.

"Gracious Heaven!" he exclaimed, "and am I then indeed condemned to such

a slavery? Is it possible, that even in the heart of London, I am a

prisoner, and without the means of resisting the most frightful threats

that are uttered against me? Surely, surely this must be all a dream! It

is too terrific to be true!"

He sat down upon that low stool where his predecessor had sat before,

receiving his death-wound from the assassin who had glided in behind

him, and dealt him that crashing blow, whose only mercy was that it had

at once deprived the victim of existence. He could have wept bitterly,

wept as he there sat, for he thought over days long passed away, of

opportunities let go by with the heedless laugh of youth; he thought

over all the chances and fortunes of his life, and now to find himself

the miserable inhabitant of a cellar, condemned to a mean and

troublesome employment, without even the liberty of leaving that, to

starve if he chose, upon pain of death--a frightful death, which had

been threatened him, was indeed torment! No wonder that at times he felt

himself unnerved, and that a child might have conquered him, while at

other moments such a feeling of despair would come across him, that he

called aloud upon his enemies to make their appearance, and give him at

least the chance of a struggle for his life.

"If I am to die," he cried, "let me die with some weapon in my hand, as

a brave man ought, and I will not complain, for there is little indeed

in life now which should induce me to cling to it; but I will not be

murdered in the dark."

He sprang to his feet, and rushing up to the door, which opened from the

house into the vaults, he made a violent and desperate effort to shake

it. But such a contingency as this had surely been looked forward to and

provided against, for the door was of amazing strength, and most

effectually resisted all his efforts, so that the result of his

endeavours was but to exhaust himself, and he staggered back, panting

and despairing, to the seat he had so recently left. Then he heard a

voice, and upon looking up he saw that the small square opening in the

upper part of the door, through which he had been before addressed, was

open, and a face there appeared, but it was not the face of Mrs. Lovett.

On the contrary, it was a large and hideous male physiognomy, and the

voice that came from it was croaking and harsh, sounding most

unmusically upon the ears of the unfortunate man who was thus made a

victim to Mrs. Lovett's pie popularity.

"Continue at your work," said the voice, "or death will be your portion

as soon as sleep overcomes you, and you sink exhausted to that repose

which you will never awaken from, except to feel the pangs of death, and

to be conscious that you are weltering in your blood. Continue at your

work, and you will escape all this--neglect it, and your doom is

sealed."

[Illustration: The Stranger In Mrs. Lovett's Bakehouse.]

"What have I done that I should be made such a victim of? Let me go, and

I will swear never to divulge the fact that I have been in these vaults,

so I cannot disclose any of their secrets, even if knew them."

"Make pies," said the voice, "eat them, and be happy. How many a man

would envy your position--withdrawn from all the struggles of existence,

amply provided with board and lodging, and engaged in a pleasant and

delightful occupation; it is astonishing how you can be dissatisfied!"

Bang! went the little square orifice at the top of the door, and the

voice was heard no more. The jeering mockery of those tones, however,

still lingered upon the ear of the unhappy prisoner, and he clasped his

head in his hands with a fearful impression upon his brain that he

surely must be going mad.

"He will drive me to insanity," he cried; "already I feel a sort of

slumber stealing over me for want of exercise, and the confined air of

these vaults hinder me from taking regular repose; but now, if I close

an eye, I shall expect to find the assassin's knife at my throat."

He sat for some time longer, and not even the dread he had of sleep

could prevent a drowsiness creeping across his faculties, and this

weariness would not be shaken off by any ordinary means, until at length

he sprang to his feet, and shaking himself roughly, like one determined

to be wide awake, he said to himself, mournfully--

"I must do their bidding or die; hope may be a delusion here, but I

cannot altogether abandon it, and not until its faintest image has

departed from my breast can I lie down to sleep and say--Let death come

in any shape it may, it is welcome."

With a desperate and despairing energy he set about replenishing the

furnaces of the oven, and, when he had got them all in a good state, he

commenced manufacturing a batch of one hundred pies, which, when he had

finished and placed upon the tray, and set the machine in motion which

conducted them up to the shop, he considered to be a sort of price paid

for his continued existence, and flinging himself upon the ground, he

fell into a deep slumber.