Читать книгу Sweeney Todd - Anonymous - Страница 7

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Seated in a neat little parlour at the back of the spectacle-maker's shop were Mr. Oakley and his beautiful daughter Johanna; they had evidently been conversing on a very painful subject.

"Dear father," said the girl, "your kind words were well meant, and if I have any consolation it is the knowledge that in revealing to you the state of my feelings, you do not blame me. A vessel has arrived from India, and tortured by my hopes and fears, this day has been one of the most wretched that I have ever passed. Not even two years ago, when I parted with Mark Ingestrie, did I feel such a pang of anguish as now fills my heart, when I see the day gliding away and the I evening creeping on apace without word or token from him."

Her father tried to console her, but she wept such bitter tears as only such a heart as hers can know, when it feels the deep and bitter anguish of desertion.

At this moment her mother entered.

"Really, Johanna," said Mrs. Oakley, in the true, conventicle twang, "you look so pale and ill that I must positively speak to Mr. Lupin about you."

"Mr. Lupin, my dear," said the spectacle-maker, "may be all very well in his way as a parson; but I don't see what he can have to do with Johanna looking pale."

"A pious man, Mr. Oakley, has to do with everything and everybody."

"Then he must be the most intolerable bore in existence; and I don't wonder at his being kicked out of some people's houses, as I have heard Mr. Lupin has been."

"And if he has, Mr. Oakley, I can tell you he glories in it. Mr. Lupin likes to suffer for the faith; and if he were to be made a martyr of to-morrow, I am quite certain it would give him a deal of pleasure."

"My dear, I am quite sure it would not give him half the pleasure it would me."

"I understand your insinuation, Mr. Oakley: you would like to have him murdered on account of his holiness; but, though you can say these kind of things at your own breakfast-table you won't say as much to him when he comes to tea this afternoon."

"To tea, Mrs. Oakley! Haven't I told you time after time I will not have that man in my house?"

"And haven't I told you, Mr. Oakley, twice that number of times that he shall come to tea, and I have asked him now, and it can't be altered?"

"But, Mrs. Oakley--."

We here leave the happy couple to settle their differences, while Johanna retired up stairs to her own room, which commanded a view of the street. It was an old-fashioned house with a balcony in front, and as she looked listlessly out into Fore-street, which was far then from being the thoroughfare it is now, she saw standing in a doorway on the opposite side of the way a stranger, who was looking intently at the house, and who, when he caught her eye, walked instantly across to it, and cast something into the balcony of the first floor. Then he touched his cap and walked rapidly from the street.

The thought immediately occurred to Johanna that this might possibly be some messenger from him concerning whose existence and welfare she was so deeply anxious. It was not to be wondered at, therefore, that with the name of Mark Ingestrie upon her lips she should rush down to the balcony in intense anxiety to hear and see it such were really the case.

When she reached the balcony she found lying in it a scrap of paper, in which a stone was wrapped up, in order to give it weight, so that it might be cast with a certainty into the balcony. With trembling eagerness she opened the paper, and read upon it the following words:--

"For news of. Mark Ingestrie, come to the Temple-gardens one hour before sunset, and do not fear addressing a man who will be holding a white rose in his hand."

"He lives! he lives!" she cried. "He lives, and joy again becomes the inhabitant of my bosom! Oh, it is daylight now and sunshine compared to the black midnight of despair Mark Ingestrie lives, and I shall be happy yet."

And so she tried to while away the anxious hours, sometimes succeeding in forgetting how long it was still to sunset, and at others feeling as if each minute was perversely swelling itself out into ten times its usual proportion of time in order to become wearisome to her.

She had said that she would be in the Temple-gardens two hours before sunset instead of one, and she kept her word. Looking happier than she had done for weeks, she tripped down the stairs of her father's house, and left by the private staircase without attracting any attention.

As he walked upon that side of the way of Feet-street where Sweeney Todd's house and shop were situated, a feeling of curiosity prompted her to stop for a moment and look at the melancholy looking dog that stood watching a hat at his door.

The appearance of grief upon the creature's face could not be mistaken, and, as she gazed, she saw the shop-door gently opened and a piece of meat thrown out.

"These are kind people," she said, "be they whom they may;" but when she saw the dog turn away with loathing, and herself observed that there was a white powder upon it, the idea that it was poisoned, and only intended for the poor creature's destruction, came instantly across her mind.

And when she saw the horrible-looking face of Sweeney Todd glaring at her from the partially-opened door, she could not doubt any further the fact, for that face was quite enough to give a warrant for any amount of villainy whatever.

She passed on with a shudder, little suspecting, however, that that dog had anything to do with her fate, or the circumstances which made up the sum of her destiny.

It wanted a full hour to the appointed time of meeting when she reached the Temple-gardens, and partly blaming herself that she was so soon, while at the same time she would not for worlds have been away, she sat down on one of the garden seats to think over the past.