Business at Mrs. Lovett's was brisk. During the whole of that day—that most eventful day upon which the fair Johanna Oakley had gone upon her desperate errand to Sweeney Todd's—the shop in Bell Yard had been besieged by customers. Truly it was a pity to give up such an excellent business. The tills groaned with money, and Mrs. Lovett's smiles and pies never appeared so perfect as upon that day. At about half-past twelve o'clock, when the Lord Chancellor suddenly got up from his chair, in the great hall of Lincoln's Inn, and put on his furry-looking hat, and when the curtain which shuts in his lordship from invidious blasts was withdrawn with a screaming jerk, and a gentleman was stopped in the middle of an argument, what a rush of lawyer's clerks there was to the pie-shop in Bell Yard. Then was it that the anxious solicitor's fag, who must know something, and have some brains, smiled at the prospect of the luxurious repast he was about to have, and jingled the twopence he had kept in a side pocket for only one pie, and grudged it not out of his hard-earned pittance. Then was it that the bloated barrister's clerk, who had grown shining and obese upon fares, and who is not required to know anything but the complete art of insolence to his brothers, nor to have any more brains than will suffice him to make up his book in the long vacation, smacks his lips at the thought of Lovett's pies, and sends the expectant boy of the chamber—the snob of a snob—for three twopennies. Lean and hungry-looking young men start into Bell Yard from the Strand, producing crumbled pieces of paper, bag their twopenny, and retire to eat it in some corner of the old Temple. All is bustle—all is animation, and the side counter—that one, you know, which ran parallel to the window—was lined by clerks, who sat eating and driving their heels against the boarding, and joking, and laughing "Ha! ha!" how they did laugh! And then what stories they told of their "Governors;" and how such an one was going out of practice; and how such another one was a screw, and so on, to the great delight of the mere boys, who hoped one day to wear their hair long and grey, and to dress in an outrageous caricature of the mode! As the machine that let down at the back of the counter, to bring up the pies, went down for the one o'clock batch, it was noticed that Mrs. Lovett looked a little anxious. The fact was, that the cook had been so prompt upon that day in his movements, that she began to think there must be, as folks say, "Something in it," and she was beginning to terrify herself with the idea that he had some scheme of redemption for himself in view, that might most unseasonably develope itself before the customers. "Ah, Mrs. Lovett," said one young gent, while the gravy ran down the sides of his mouth from the pie he was consuming. "You don't seem at all yourself to-day. Indeed you don't."
"Who do I seem, then?"
"Ha! ha! Upon my life that's good!" roared another.
A small amount of wit did for Lovett's pie shop. It was like the House of Commons in that particular, and "loud laughter" was sure to welcome the smallest joke. Mrs. Lovett's eyes were bent upon the abyss, down which the trap had descended but a moment before.
"Ain't they a-coming, mum?" said one.
"Oh, don't I sniff 'em," said another, working his nose like an ex-chancellor. "Don't I sniff 'em."
"De—licious!" cried another.
A feeling of relief was visible upon the face of Mrs. Lovett as the trap slowly ascended, bringing with it the one o'clock batch, in all their steaming glory. The whole shop was in a moment filled with the fresh appetite-giving aroma of those bubbling hot pies; and as the French newspapers say, when a member of the extreme right, or half way to the left, or two degrees from the centre, swerves, there was "a sensation." Five minutes—only five minutes—and the whole batch was cleared off, not one was left!
"Another batch of one hundred, gentlemen, at two," said Mrs. Lovett, with a bland look.
"At two, mum?" cried a customer. "Why, what's to become of the half-past one batch?"
"We are rather short of—of meat," said Mrs. Lovett, with one of her strange metallic smiles.
"The devil you are! Ain't there butchers enough?"
"Oh, dear, yes; but we could not get such meat as we put in our pies, at the butcher's."
"You kill your own, mum, then, I suppose?"
"We do," replied Mrs. Lovett, with another smile, more metallic than the former.
"And where is your farm, mum?"
"Really, sir, you want to know too much. I appeal to those gentlemen if any of them know where my farm is."
"No—no. D—n it, no, nor don't care," said all the lawyer's clerks. "Don't know anything about it."
"And don't care," said another. "Sufficient for the day is the pie thereof."
"Very good—Ha! ha!—Very good."
The crowd gradually dispersed. Mrs. Lovett put a placard in the window, announcing—
"A hot batch at two o'clock."
She then closed the shop door, and retired to the parlour. She cast herself upon a sofa, and hiding the light from her eyes with one of her arms, she gave herself up to thought. Yes, that bold bad woman was beginning to have her moments of thought, during which it appeared to be as though a thousand mocking fiends were thronging around her. No holy thoughts or impulses crossed her mind. Solitude, that best of company to the good and just, was to her peopled with countless horrors; and yet there must have been a time when that woman was pure, and her soul spotless—a time when it was free from
"The black engraved spots"
which now deformed it. And yet who, to look upon her now, could fancy that she was ever other than what she seemed?............