There are folks who can and who will bow like reeds to the decrees of evil fortune, and with a patient, ass-like placidity, go on bearing the ruffles of a thankless world without complaining, but Mrs. Lovett's new cook was not one of those. The more destiny seemed to say to him—"Be quiet!" the more he writhed, and wriggled, and fumed, and could not be quiet. The more fate whispered in his ears—"You can do nothing," the more intent he was upon doing something, let it be what it might. And he had a little something, in the shape of a respite too, now, for had he not baked a batch of pies, and sent them up to the devouring fangs of the lawyers' clerks in all their gelatinous, beauty and gushing sweetness, to be devoured. To be sure he had, and therefore having, for a space, obeyed the behests of his task-mistress, he could sit with his head resting upon his hands and think. Thought! What a luxury! Where is the Indian satrap—where the arch Inquisitor—where the grasping, dishonest, scheming employer who can stop a man from thinking?—and as Shakspeare, says of sleep, "From that sleep, what dreams may come?"
so might he have said of thought,
From that thought what acts may come?
Now we are afraid that, in the first place, the cook, in spite of himself, uttered some expression concerning Mrs. Lovett of neither an evangelical or a polite character, and with these we need not trouble the reader. They acted as a sort of safety-valve to his feelings, and after consigning that fascinating female to a certain warm place, where we may fancy everybody's pie might be cooked on the very shortest notice, he got a little more calm.
"What shall I do?—what shall I do?"
Such was the rather vague question he asked of himself. Alas! how often are those four simple words linked together, finding but a vain echo in the over-charged heart. What shall I do? Ay, what!—small power had he to do anything, except the quietest thing of all—that one thing which Heaven in its mercy has left for every wretch to do if it so pleases him—to die! But, somehow or another, a man upon the up-hill side of life is apt to think he may do something rather than that, and our cook, although he was about as desperate a cook as the world ever saw, did not like yet to say die. Now, in that curious combination of passions, impulses, and prejudices in the mind of this man it would be a hard case if some scheme of action did not present itself, even in circumstances of the greatest possible seeming depression, and so, after a time, the cook did think of something to do.
"Many of these pies," he said to himself, "are not eaten in the shop, ergo they are eaten out of the shop, and possibly at the respective houses of the purchasers—what more feasible mode of disclosing my position, and 'the secrets of my prison-house,' can there be than the enclosing a note in one of Mrs. Lovett's pies?"
After reviewing all the pros and cons of this scheme, there only appeared a few little difficulties in the way, but, although they were rather serious, they were not insurmountable. In the first place, it was possible enough that the unfortunate pie in which the note might be enclosed might be eaten in the shop, in which event the note might go down the throat of some hungry lawyer's clerk, and it might be handed to Mrs. Lovett, with a "God bless me, ma'am, what's this in the pie?" and then Mrs. Lovett might, by a not very remote possibility, say to herself—"This cook is a scheming, long-headed sort of a cook, and notwithstanding he does his duty by the pies, he shall be sent upon an errand to another and a better world," and in that case the delectable scheme of the note could only end in the total destruction of the unfortunate who conceived it. Objection the second was, that, although nothing is so easy as to say—"Oh, write a note all about it," nothing is so difficult as to write a note about anything without paper, ink, and a pen. The cook rubbed his forehead, and cried—
"D——n it!"
This seemed to have the desired effect, for he at once recollected that he was supplied with a thin piece of paper for the purpose of laying over the pies if the oven should by chance be over heated, and so subject them to an over-browning process.
"Surely," he thought, "I shall be able to make a substitute for a pen, and as for ink, a little coal and water, or—ah, I have it, black from my lights, of course. Ha—ha! How difficulties vanish when a man has thoroughly made up his mind to overcome them. Ha—ha! I write a note—I post it in a pie—some lawyer sends his clerk for a pie, and he gets that pie. He opens it and sees the note—he reads it—he flies to a police-office, and gets a private interview with a magistrate—a couple of Bow-street runners walk down to Bell Yard, and seize Mrs. Lovett—I hear a row in the shop, and cry—'Here I am—I am here—make haste—here I am—here I am!' Ha—ha—ha—ha—ha—ha!"
"Are you mad?"
The cook started to his feet—
"Who spoke—who spoke?"
"I," said Mrs. Lovett, looking through the ingenious little wicket at the top of the door. "What do you mean by that laughing? If you have gone mad, as one cook once did, death will be a relief to you. Only convince me of that fact, and in two hours you sleep the long sleep."
"I beg your pardon, ma'am, I am not at all mad."
"Then why did you laugh in such a way that it reached even my ears above?"
"Why, ma'am, are you not a widow?"
"Well?"
"Well then, you could not have possibly looked at me as you ought to have done, or you would have seen that I am anything but a bad looking fellow, and as I am decidedly single, what do you say to taking me for better or for worse? The pie business is a thriving one, and, of course, if I had an interest in it, I should say nothing of affairs down below here."
"Fool!"
"Thank you, madam, for the compliment, but I assure you, the idea of such an arrangement made me laugh, and at all events, provided I do my duty, you don't mind my laughing a little at it?"
Mrs. Lovett disdained any further conversation with the cook, and closed the little wicket. When she was gone he took himself seriously to task for being so foolish as to utter his thoughts aloud, but yet he did not think he had gone so far as to speak loud enough about the plan of putting the letter in a pie for her to hear that.
"Oh, no—no, I am safe enough. It was the laughing that made her come. I am safe as yet!"
Having satisfied himself fully upon this point, he at once set to work to manufacture his note. The paper, as he had said, was ready at hand. To be sure, it was of a thin and flimsy texture, and decidedly brown, but a man in his situation could be hardly supposed to stand upon punctilios. After some trouble he succeeded in making an apology for a pen by the aid of a piece of stick, and he manufactured some very tolerable ink, at least, as good as the soot and water commonly sold in London for the best "japan," and then he set about writing his note. As we have an opportunity of looking over his shoulder, we give the note verbatim.
"Sir—(or Madam)—I am a prisoner beneath the shop of Mrs. Lovett, the pie female, in Bell Yard. I am threatened with death if I attempt to escape from my now enforced employment. Moreover, I am convinced that there is some dreadful secret connected with the pies, which I can hardly trust my imagination to dwell upon, much less here set it down. Pray instantly, upon receipt of this, go to the nearest police-office and procure me immediate aid, or I shall soon be numbered with the dead. In the sacred names of justice and humanity, I charge you to do this."
The cook did not, for fear of accidents, put his name to this epistle. It was sufficient, he thought, that he designated his condition, and pointed out where he was. This note he folded into a close flat shape, and pressed it with his hands, so that it would take up a very small portion of room in a pie, and yet, from its size and nature, if the pie fell into the hands of some gourmand who commenced eating it violently, he could not fail to feel that there was a something in his mouth more indigestible than the delicate mutton or veal and the flaky crust of which Mrs. Lovett's delicacies were composed. Having proceeded thus far, he concluded that the only real risk he ran was, that the pie might be eaten in the shop, and the enclosure, without examination, handed over to Mrs. Lovett merely as a piece of paper which had insinuated itself where it had no right to be. But as no design whatever can be carried out without some risk or another, he was not disposed to give up his, because some contingency of that character was attached to it. The prospect of deliverance from the horrible condition to which he was reduced, now spread over his mind a pleasing calm, and he set about the manufacture of a batch of p............