Sir Richard Blunt left the shop, and Johanna had just time to conceal the scrap of paper which she had found in the waistcoat, and to seem to be busy at the fire, when Todd made his appearance. She had never seen such a grim smile upon Todd's face as it now wore. He was for once in his life fairly pleased. When had he made such a morning's work as that? Not even in his acquisition of those fatal Pearls had he gained so much as by that one slight push that had sent Mrs. Lovett and her claims into the river so neatly. No wonder Sweeney Todd was elated and delighted. He had all the money now to himself. There was no one now to say to him "Where is my share?" He had all the produce of another's awful criminality to add to his own. Was he not thus a very happy man for a little while?
The sunshine of the heart was not a thing to last long in such a bosom as Sweeney Todd's. His was not that sweet and lasting hilarity of soul that can alone arise from a deep and sincere consciousness of right. No! The fierce delight of a successful stroke of villany may for a time resemble happiness, but it is a resemblance as weak as that between the faint watery ray of a winter's sun and the full blaze of the god-like luminary in all the beauty of the vernal season.
But for the time, we say, Todd was pleased, and the demoniac triumph of his soul beamed forth from his eyes and played around the puckered corners of his huge mouth.
"Well, Charley," he said, "how goes it with you, my lad?"
Johanna stared as well she might to hear Todd speak in such a mild pacific sort of way.
"Sir?" she said.
"I say, how goes it with you, my good boy. How have you passed the time in my unavoidable absence upon a little business?"
"Quite tolerable, sir, thank you, with the exception that a dog pushed his way into the shop, and, as you see, sir, has made some confusion."
"A dog?"
"Yes, sir. A large one, black and white. I had no strength to turn him out, so he had his will in the shop, and tossed the things about as you see, sir."
"My malediction upon that confounded dog. He is mad, Charley, I tell you, he is stark, staring mad. Why did you not throw open razors at him until one had transfixed him?"
"I don't like touching the razors, sir."
"You don't—you don't? He! he! What will he think when one touches him?" muttered Todd to himself as he turned aside and made a movement as though cutting a throat. "You don't like touching the razors, Charley?"
"No, sir, I thought you would be angry if I had, so the dog had all his own way here. I would have put the place to rights, but I thought you aught to see it as it is."
"Right, my boy—right. To-morrow will be quite time enough to put it to rights. Yes, to-morrow. Has any one called, Charley?"
"No, sir."
"Well I am glad of that, for when one is off upon an action of charity one don't like one's business to suffer as well. It's quite unknown what I give away, and I always like to see the object myself, you know, Charley, as I find I can then better adapt my benevolence to their real wants, which is a great—a very great object."
"I should think it was, sir."
"You are a clever observant lad, Charley, and you will, when you leave me, I feel convinced, drop into a genteel independence. You will want for nothing then, I feel quite assured, Charley."
"You are very good, sir."
"I strive to be good, Charley, and by the help of the gospel we may all be good to some extent—sinners that we are. Now, simple as is, it's really a great thing to be supplied in an unlimited manner with cold water."
"No doubt of it, sir."
"Well, I have supplied the person to whom my benevolence has extended this morning, with, I hope, an unlimited quantity, and always fresh. He!"
Todd here executed one of his awful laughs, and then went into his parlour grinning at his own hideous facetiousness over the murder he had committed. Johanna had managed to say, from time to time, what was expected by way of answer to him, but it was with a shuddering consciousness that he had been about some great crime that she did so; and when he had left the shop, she said faintly to herself—
"He has murdered Mrs. Lovett."
It was sufficient, if Todd went out with an enemy and came home jocular, to conclude what had happened. That person then might be fairly presumed to be no more, and hence, with a shudder of horror pervading her frame, did Johanna whisper to herself—
"He has surely murdered Mrs. Lovett."
The first thing that Todd did when he was alone in his parlour, and the door fast, was to produce the memoranda he had made of all that he had to do previous to leaving England. One item ran thus:—
"Mem. To pay Mrs. Lovet in full."
After that item he wrote paid, and then he laughed again in his hideous way, and leaning his head upon his hand, or rather his chin upon it, he spoke in a chuckling tone.
"She will turn up some day—yes, she will turn up some day, and the swollen disgusting mass, that was once the bold and glittering Mrs. Lovett, will be pulled through the river mud by a boat-hook, and then there will be an inquest, and a verdict of found drowned, with a statement that the body was in too advanced a state of decomposition to be identified. Ha!"
Todd actually rubbed his hands together, and then he took a good drop of brandy, and felt himself quite a pleasant sort of character, and one upon whom the fickle goddess, Fortune, had taken to smiling in her most bland and pleasant way.
"When I am snug and comfortable at Hamburgh," he said, "how eagerly I shall look for the London papers, to let me know how far the fire in Fleet Street, that is to happen to-night, has extended. How I shall laugh if it travel to the old church, and burns that down likewise. Ha! I think I shall take to laughing as a regular thing when I am fairly abroad with all my money, and safe—so safe as I shall be, so very—very safe."
Yes, there sat Sweeney Todd rejoicing. He might have said with Romeo in Mantua—
"My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne,
And all this day an unaccustomed spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts."
But as it was with the young husband of the sainted Juliet, the day of reckoning was coming to Todd, and the spirit that spoke of comfort, joy, and security to his heart and brain, was after all a false one.
But we must leave Todd to his self-felicitations, while we request the reader's kind company to Bell Yard, for certain things had taken place in the establishment of Mrs. Lovett which it i............