CHAPTER LXXXVI.

TODD RECEIVES TWO EXTRAORDINARY LETTERS, AND ACTS UPON THEM.

Todd looked the picture of amazement.

"Two letters!" he muttered, "two letters to me, who seldom receive any?

To me who have no acquaintances--no relations? Bah! It must be some

mistake, or perhaps, after all, some infernal nonsense about the

parish."

He tore open the last received one, and read as follows:--

"Colonel Jeffery informs Sweeney Todd that, although from a variety of

reasons he may not think proper to prosecute him for his recent outrage

at his house, he will, upon a repetition of such conduct, at once hand

him over to the police."

Todd's countenance, during the perusal of this brief note, betrayed a

variety of emotions; and when he had concluded it, he let it drop from

his hands, and knitting his brows, he muttered--

"What does this mean?"

That there was--that there must be something much more than met the eye

in this boasted clemency of the colonel towards him, he felt quite

convinced; but what it was, he was puzzled to think for a time. At

length, brightening up, he said--

"Yes, I have it. It is Tobias--it is Tobias. He cannot rid himself from

the idea that I have some mysterious power of injuring his mother; and

perhaps, after all, he may have made no disclosures to the colonel

injurious to me."

Comforted by this wide supposition, Todd picked up the letter again, and

put it in his pocket carefully.

"It is as well," he said, "for I shall not now be hurried. No, I shall

not be at all hurried now, which I might have been.--Charley."

"Yes, sir."

"Trim the lamp."

Johanna did so; and while the process was going on, Todd opened the

other letter, it was as follows:--

"Sir,--We beg to inform you that our Hamburgh vessel in which you

have done us the favour to take passage, will not sail until

to-morrow night at four, God willing, and that consequently there

will be no occasion for your coming on board earlier.--We are, sir,

"Your obedient servants,

"BROWN, BUGGINS, MUGGS, AND SCREAMER."

"To Mr. S. Todd."

Todd ground his teeth together in a horrible manner. He dashed the

letter to the floor, and stamped upon it.

"Curse Brown and Buggins!" he cried. "I only wish I could dash out Muggs

and Screamer's brains with Brown and Buggins's skulls. Confound them and

their ships. May they all go to the bottom when I am out of them, and be

smashed and d--d!"

Johanna was amazed at this sudden torrent of wrath. She could not

imagine what had produced it, for Todd had read the letter in a

muttering tone, that effectually prevented her from hearing any of it.

Suddenly he rose and rushed into the back room, and bolted the door upon

himself. He went to think what was best to be done.

When he was alone he read both the letters again, and then he burst out

into such a torrent of wrath against the ship-owners, that it was a

mercy Johanna's ears were spared the dreadful words that came from his

lips.

Suddenly he saw a postscript at the foot of the ship-owner's letter,

which he had at first overlooked.

"P. S.--The ship is removed to Crimmins's Wharf, but will be at her

old moorings at time mentioned above."

"D--n Crimmins and his wharf, too!" cried Todd.

He flung himself into a chair, and sat for a time profoundly still.

During that period he tried to make up his mind as to what it would be

best for him, under the circumstances, to do. Many plans floated through

his imagination. He could not for a long time bring himself to believe

that the letter of the colonel's was anything but a feint to throw him

off his guard in some way.

At length he got into a calmer frame of mind.

"Shall I leave at once, or stay till to-morrow night, that is the

question?"

He argued this with himself, pro and con.

If he left he would have to secret himself somewhere all the following

day, and the fact of his having left would make an active search, safe

to be instituted for him, which would possibly be successful. Besides,

how was he to conveniently set fire to his house, unless he was off on

the moment that the flames burst forth?

Then if he stayed he had Mrs. Lovett to encounter, but that was all; and

surely he could put her off for a few hours? Surely she, of all people

in the world, was not to run to a police-office and destroy both him and

herself, just because she did not get some money at ten o'clock that he

had promised to hand to her.

"She shall be put off," he said, suddenly, "and I will stay over

to-morrow. I am safer here than anywhere else, of that I feel assured.

If there are any suspicious whisperings about me at all, they will grow

to loud clamours the moment I am gone, and then they may reach the ears

of these ship-owners, and they may say at once, 'Why we have such a man

with a passage taken in one of our Hamburgh ships.' Let them say that

when the ship is some twenty hours gone with me on board, and I don't

care; but with me on land, and the ship only to sail, instead of having

actually sailed, it is quite a different matter."

He rose from his seat. His mind was made up. He had not quite decided

what he should say to Mrs. Lovett, but he had decided upon staying.

"Charley will live another day," he muttered; "but to-morrow night he

dies, and his body will be consumed with this house, and, I hope, a good

part of Fleet-street. It will not be prudent to get him to assist now in

disposing the combustibles to fire the house. He might speak of it

before to-morrow night."

Todd came out into the shop.

"Charley, my boy!" How kindly he spoke!

"I am here, sir."

"You must not mind what I say when I am vexed. Many things happen to put

me out of the way. Sometimes people that I have done I don't know how

much for, turn out to be very ungrateful, and then I get chafed, you

see, Charley."

"Yes, sir, no doubt."

"But, after I have retired to the parlour and prayed a little, my mind

soon recovers its usual religious tone, and its wonted serenity; and for

the sake of the Almighty, who, you know, is good to us all, Charley, I

forgive all that is done to me, and pray for the wicked."

Johanna shuddered. This hypocrisy sounded awful to her.

"Never go to rest, Charley, without saying your prayers. There's

threepence for you. You can get yourself a bed in the neighbourhood for

that amount somewhere, I daresay. I am very sorry I cannot accommodate

you here, Charley. Now go away, and let me have you here by seven in the

morning; and mind, above all things, cultivate a religious spirit, and

do unto your neighbours as you would that your neighbours should do unto

you."

Johanna could not reply.

"Here is a tract that you can read before you go to sleep, if they allow

you a candle, when you get a-bed. It is entitled 'Groans of Grace, or

the Sinner Sifted,' a most godly production, from a pious bookseller in

Paternoster-row, Charley."

"Yes," Johanna just managed to say.

"Now you may go."

She darted from the shop.

"Hilloa! hilloa! Stop--stop, Charley! Stop--stop, will you? Confound

you, stop! The infernal shutters are not up. Do you hear? I forgot

them."

Todd rushed to his door. He looked right and left, and over the way,

and, in fact, everywhere, but no Charley was to be seen. The fact is,

that Johanna, the moment she felt herself released from the shop, had

darted over the way, and into the fruiterers, where she had found so

friendly a welcome before, and all this was done in such a moment, that

she was housed before Todd could get his shop-door open.

"Welcome!" said a voice.

She found it proceeded from the fruiterer's daughter, who had behaved so

kindly to her.

Johanna burst into tears.

"What has happened?--what has happened?" cried the young girl.

"Nothing, now," said Johanna. "But I cannot keep up longer than when I

am in that shop. As soon as I am fairly out of the presence of that

dreadful man, I feel ready to faint."

"Be of good cheer," said a deep-toned voice.

She looked up, and saw Sir Richard Blunt.

"You here, sir?"

"Yes, Johanna. I have been now for some time watching Todd's shop from

our friend's first-floor window. I saw you dart across the road, and for

the moment feared something had gone wrong. Did Todd get two letters?"

"He did."

"They will, I hope, keep him quiet until another night. Dare you go back

again, Johanna, to that place?"

"Yes, if it be necessary; but he has told me to sleep out, and the gust

of pleasure I felt at the permission, almost, I fear, betrayed me."

"He came to the door and looked furiously after you, but he did not see

which way you had come. You were over here like a flash of light."

"He would have had me back again, then?--What could that be for?"

"At all events, you shall not go until the morning, and not then, unless

after a night's rest here, you feel that you can do so with a good

heart."

"Oh yes, I will fulfil my mission."

"Todd is putting up his shutters," said the fruiterer, as he came in

from his front shop.

"Ah, then the secret is out," said Sir Richard Blunt. "That is what he

wanted you back for, Johanna. He had forgotten at the moment all about

the shutters you may depend. I am glad he spared you the trouble, at any

rate. I do not like you to perform any service for such a rank villain

as he is."

"It would not have been for him, sir."

"For who, then?"

"For the dead. I feel that I am bound to bring to justice the murderer

of Mark Ingestrie. When I was here last, sir, you strove to comfort me,

by making me feel a sort of hope that he was not dead, but I cannot

think that--I would that I could, but indeed I cannot, sir."

"Do not be too sure, Johanna."

"Nay, look at that."

She laid before the magistrate the sleeve of the jacket that she had

found at Todd's, and which fancy, for she certainly had no proof that

way tending, told her had belonged to Mark Ingestrie.

"What is this?"

"Look at it, sir. My heart tells me it was his!"

"And so you suppose there was never but one sailor's jacket with ivory

buttons on the wrist in the world, and never any one who wore one, but

Mark Ingestrie?"

"Nay, the place in which it was found brings conviction."

"Not at all. Do you forget there was such a person as Thornhill in the

world, Johanna?"

"No; but why will every one persist in fancying Thornhill and Ingestrie

to be two persons, when I am convinced they were but one? Let who will

identify this as part of Thornhill's apparel, and I will weep for Mark."

"I cannot just now shake this supposition."

"You never will."

"If I live I will, Johanna, I give you my word for so much. Pray who is

the best to judge of such things? You, a young girl who have seen little

or nothing of the world, and whose natural apprehension is rendered

obscure by the conflict of your affections, or I whose business it is to

come to an accurate conclusion of such matters? I repeat my conviction,

that Thornhill was not Mark Ingestrie."

"Oh, if I could think so!"

"You will."

"You have no doubt, sir, but Thornhill perished by the hand of Todd?"

"None whatever."

Johanna looked deeply affected.

"Come," added Sir Richard, "you want both rest and refreshment, and you

can have both here at this house. To-morrow I hope will end all your

trials, my dear girl, and I shall live, I trust, to see you smile as you

ought to smile, and to be as happy as only a very dim recollection of

the past will make you."

"Ah, no--never happy."

"You must love some one. You must recover, and in the cares and joys of

a new existence, you must only look back upon what has passed, as though

you pondered upon the phantasma of some fearful dream; and when you see

all around you smiling--"

"It will be cruel for them to smile, sir; and it is now cruel of you to

speak to me of loving another, when you know my affections are with

Ingestrie, in that world to which he has gone before me, but to which I

look forward to as the place of our happy meeting, where we shall part

again no more."

"Well, I thought I could find you a lover that would be to your mind

when all these affairs were over."

"Sir?"

"Nay, be not offended. You know I am your sincere friend."

"I know you are, and that is what makes it so grievous to me to hear you

talk in such a strain, sir."

"Then I will say no more."

"I thank you, Sir Richard; and I will forget what you have said, because

I will recollect nothing from you, or committed with you, but kindness

and consideration."

Sir Richard smiled slightly for a moment, as he turned aside and spoke

to his friend the fruiterer for some minutes in a low tone. The young

girl who had before behaved with such kindness to Johanna, took her by

the hand, and led her up-stairs.

"Come," she said, "you shall tell me all you have suffered opposite

since we parted last, and I will speak to you of him whom you love."

"You are too good to me."

While all this was going on so close to him, Todd, with many oaths and

execrations, was putting up his own shutters, which he did with a

violence that nearly knocked the front of the window in. When he had

finished, he walked into his house, and closing the door, he said, in a

low tone--

"I must make up my mind what to say to Mrs. Lovett in the morning. I am

afraid she will be hard to pacify."

At this moment a man peered out from the inn gateway opposite, and said

to himself--

"Now begins my watch. I dare say now Mrs. Lovett has some particular

reason for watching this barber, though she did not tell me. However, a

guinea for one night's work is not bad pay."