by Oscar Wilde
Johanna went upstairs 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 is 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 if such was 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 weigh, so that it might be cast with 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.’
She placed the little scrap of paper in her bosom, and then, with clasped hands and a delighted expression of countenance, she repeated the brief but expressive words it contained, adding, ‘Yes, yes, I will be there; the white rose is an emblem of his purity and affection, his spotless love, and that is why his messenger carries it. I will be there. One hour before sunset, ay two hours before sunset, I will be there. Joy, joy! he lives, he lives! Mark Ingestrie lives! Perchance, too, successful in his object, he returns to tell me that he can make me his, and that no obstacle can now interfere to frustrate our union. Time, time, float onwards on your fleetest pinions!’
She went to her own apartment, but it was not, as she had last gone to it, to weep; on the contrary, it was to smile at her former fears, and to admit the philosophy of the assertion that we suffer much more from a dread of those things that never happen than we do for actual calamities which occur in their full force to us.
‘Oh, that this messenger,’ she said, ‘had come but yesterday! what hours of anguish I should have been spared! But I will not complain; it shall not be said that I repine at present joy because it did not come before. I will be happy when I can; and, in the consciousness that I shall soon hear blissful tidings of Mark Ingestrie, I will banish every fear.’
The impatience which she now felt brought its pains and its penalties with it, and yet it was quite a different description of feeling to any she had formerly endured, and certainly far more desirable than the absolute anguish that had taken possession of her upon hearing nothing of Mark Ingestrie.
It was strange, very strange, that the thought never crossed her mind that the tidings she had to hear in the Temple-gardens from the stranger might be evil ones, but certainly such a thought did not occur to her, and she looked forward to a meeting which she certainly had no evidence to know might not be of the most disastrous character.
She asked herself over and over again if she should tell her father what had occurred, but as often as she thought of doing so she shrank from carrying out the mental suggestion, and all the natural disposition again to keep to herself the secret of her happiness returned to her with full force.
But yet she was not so unjust as not to feel that it was treating her father but slightingly to throw all her sorrows into his lap, as it were, and then to keep from him everything of joy appertaining to the same circumstances.
This was a thing that she was not likely to continue doing, and so she made up her mind to relieve her conscience from the pang it would otherwise have had, by determining to tell him, after the interview in the Temple-gardens, what was its result; but she could not make up her mind to do so beforehand; it was so pleasant and so delicious to keep the secret all to herself, and to feel that she alone knew that her lover had so closely kept faith with her as to be only one day behind his time in sending to her, and that day, perhaps, far from being his fault.
And so she reasoned to herself and tried to wile 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 she would be at the Temple-gardens two hours before sunset instead of one, and she kept her word, for, looking happier than she had done for weeks, she tripped down the stairs of her father’s house, and was about to leave it by the private staircase when a strange gaunt-looking figure attracted her attention.
This was no other than the Rev Mr Lupin: he was a long strange-looking man, and upon this occasion he came upon what he called horseback, that is to say, he was mounted upon a very small pony, which seemed quite unequal to support his weight, and was so short that, if the reverend gentleman had not poked his legs out at an angle, they must inevitably have touched the ground.
‘Praise the Lord!’ he said: ‘I have intercepted the evil one. Maiden, I have come here at thy mother’s bidding, and thou shalt remain and partake of the mixture called tea.’
Johanna scarcely condescended to glance at him; but, drawing her mantle close around her, which he actually had the impertinence to endeavour to lay hold of, she walked on, so that the reverend gentleman was left to make the best he could of the matter.
‘Stop!’ he cried, ‘stop! I can well perceive that the devil has a strong hold of you: I can well perceive—the Lord have mercy upon me! this animal hath some design against me as sure as fate.’
This last ejaculation arose from the fact that the pony had flung up his heels behind in a most mysterious manner.
‘I’m afraid, sir,’ said a lad who was no other than our old acquaintance, Sam, ‘I am afraid, sir, that there is something the matter with the pony.’
Up went the pony’s heels again in the same unaccustomed manner. ‘God bless me!’ said the reverend gentleman; ‘he never did such a thing before. I—there he goes again—murder! Young man, I pray you help me to get down; I think I know you; you are the nephew of the godly Mrs Pump—truly this animal wishes to be the death of me!’
At this moment the pony gave such a vigorous kick up behind that Mr Lupin was fairly pitched upon his head, and made a complete somersault, alighting with his heels in the spectacle-maker’s passage; and it unfortunately happened that Mrs Oakley at that moment, hearing the altercation, came rushing out, and the first thing she did was to fall sprawling over Mr Lupin’s feet.
Sam now felt it time to go; and as we dislike useless mysteries, we may as well explain that these extraordinary circumstances arose from the fact that Sam had bought himself from the haberdasher’s opposite a halfpenny-worth of pins, and had amused himself by making a pincushion of the hind quarters of the Reverend Lupin’s pony, which, not being accustomed to that sort of thing, had kicked out vigorously in opposition to the same, and produced the results we have recorded. Johanna Oakley was some distance upon her road before the reverend gentleman was pitched into her father’s house in the manner we have described, so that she knew nothing of it, nor would she have cared if she had, for her mind was wholly bent upon the expedition she was proceeding on.
As she walked upon that side of the way of Fleet-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.
‘Those are kind people,’ she said, ‘be they who they may’; but when she saw the dog turn away from the meat 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, and to recall to her memory, with all the vivid freshness of young Love’s devotion, the many gentle words which, from time to time, had been spoken to her two summers since by him whose faith she had never doubted, and whose image was enshrined at the bottom of her heart.
CHAPTER SIX
THE CONFERENCE, AND THE FEARFUL NARRATION IN THE GARDEN
The Temple clock struck the hour of meeting, and Johanna looked anxiously around her for anyone who should seem to bear the appearance of being such a person as she might suppose Mark Ingestrie would choose for his messenger.
She turned her eyes towards the gate, for she thought she heard it close, and then she saw a gentlemanly-looking man, attired in a cloak, and who was looking about him, apparently in search of someone.
When his eye fell upon her he immediately produced from beneath his cloak a white rose, and in another minute they met.
‘I have the honour,’ he said, ‘of speaking to Miss Johanna Oakley?’
‘Yes, sir; and you are Mark Ingestrie’s messenger?’
‘I am; that is to say, I am he who comes to bring you news of Mark Ingestrie, although I grieve to say I am not the messenger that was expressly deputed by him to do so.’
‘Oh! sir, your looks are sad and serious; you seem as if you would announce that some misfortune had occurred. Tell me that it is not so; speak to me at once, or my heart will break!’
‘Compose yourself, lady, I pray you.
‘I cannot—dare not do so, unless you tell me he lives. Tell me that Mark Ingestrie lives, and then I shall be all patience: tell me that, and you shall not hear a murmur from me. Speak the word at once—at once! It is cruel, believe me, to keep me in this suspense.’
‘This is one of the saddest errands I ever came upon,’ said the stranger, as he led Johanna to a seat. ‘Recollect, lady, what creatures of accident and chance we are—recollect how the slightest circumstances will affect us, in driving us to the confines of despair, and remember by how frail a tenure the best of us hold existence.’
‘No more—no more!’ shrieked Johanna, as she clasped her hands—’I know all now and am desolate.’
She let her face drop upon her hands, and shook as with a convulsion of grief.
‘Mark! Mark!’ she cried, ‘you have gone from me! I thought not this—I thought not this. Oh, Heaven! why have I lived so long as to have the capacity to listen to such fearful tidings? Lost—lost—all lost! God of Heaven! what a wilderness the world is now to me!’
‘Let me pray you, lady, to subdue this passion of grief, and listen truly to what I shall unfold to you. There is much to hear and much to speculate upon; and if, from all that I have learnt, I cannot, dare not tell you that Mark Ingestrie lives, I likewise shrink from telling you he is no more.’
‘Speak again—say those words again! There is a hope, then—oh, there is a hope!’
‘There is a hope; and better it is that your mind should receive the first shock of the probability of the death of him whom you have so anxiously expected and then afterwards, from what I shall relate to you, gather hope that it may not be so, than that from the first you should expect too much, and then have those expectations rudely destroyed.’
‘It is so—it is so; this is kind of you, and if I cannot thank you as I ought, you will know that it is because I am in a state of too great affliction so to do, and not from want of will; you will understand that—I am sure you will understand that.’
‘Make no excuses to me. Believe me, I can fully appreciate all that you would say, and all that you must feel. I ought to tell you who I am, that you may have confidence in what I have to relate to you. My name is Jeffery, and I am a colonel in the India army.’
‘I am much beholden to you, sir; but you bring with you a passport to my confidence, in the name of Mark Ingestrie, which is at once sufficient. I live again in the hope that you have given me of his continued existence, and in that hope I will maintain a cheerful resignation that shall enable me to bear up against all you have to tell me, be that what it may, and with a feeling that through much suffering there may come joy at last. You shall find me very patient, ay, extremely patient—so patient that you shall scarcely see the havoc that grief has already made here.’
She pressed her hands on her breast as she spoke, and looked in his face with such an expression of tearful melancholy that it was quite heart-rending to witness it; and he, although not used to the melting-mood, was compelled to pause for a few moments ere he could proceed in the task which he had set himself. ‘I will be as brief,’ he said, ‘as possible, consistent with stating all that is requisite for me to state, and I must commence by asking you if you are aware under what circumstances Mark Ingestrie went abroad?’
‘I am aware of so much: that a quarrel with his uncle, Mr Grant, was the great cause, and that his main endeavour was to better his fortunes, so that we might be happy and independent of those who looked not with an eye of favour on our projected union.’
‘Yes; but what I meant was, were you aware of the sort of adventure he embarked in to the Indian seas?’
‘No, I know nothing further; we met here on this spot, we parted at yonder gate, and we have never met again.’
‘Then I have something to tell you, in order to make the narrative clear and explicit.’
‘I shall listen to you with an attention so profound that you shall see how my whole soul is wrapped up in what you say.’
They both sat upon the garden-seat; and while Johanna fixed her eyes upon her companion’s face, expressive as it was of the most generous emotions and noble feelings, he commenced relating to her the incidents which never left her memory, and in which she took so deep an interest.
‘You must know,’ he said, ‘that what it was which so much inflamed the imagination of Mark Ingestrie consisted in this. There came to London a man with a well-authenticated and extremely well put together report, that there had been discovered, in one of the small islands near the Indian seas, a river which deposited an enormous quantity of gold dust in its progress to the ocean. He told his story so well, and seemed to be such a perfect master of all the circumstances connected with it, that there was scarcely room for a doubt upon the subject.
‘The thing was kept quiet and secret; and a meeting was held of some influential men—influential on account of the money they possessed, among whom was one who had towards Mark Ingestrie most friendly feelings; so Mark attended the meeting with this friend of his, although he felt his utter incapacity, from want of resources, to take any part in the affair.
‘But he was not aware of what his friend’s generous intentions were in the matter until they were explained to him, and they consisted in this: he, the friend, was to provide the necessary means for embarking in the adventure, so far as regarded taking a share in it, and he told Mark Ingestrie that, if he would go personally on to the expedition, he would share in the proceeds with him, be they what they might.
‘Now, to a young man like Ingestrie, totally dest
itute of personal resources, but of ardent and enthusiastic temperament, you can imagine how extremely tempting such an offer was likely to be. He embraced it at once with the greatest pleasure, and from that moment he took an interest in the affair of the closest and most powerful description. It seized completely hold of his imagination, presenting itself to him in the most tempting colours; and from the description that has been given me of his enthusiastic disposition, I can well imagine with what kindness and impetuosity he would enter into such an affair.’
‘You know him well,’ said Johanna, gently.
‘No, I never saw him. All that I say concerning him is from the description of another who did know him well, and who sailed with him in the vessel that ultimately left the port of London on the vague and wild adventure I have mentioned.’
‘That one, be he who he may, must have known Mark Ingestrie well, and have enjoyed much of his confidence to be able to describe him so accurately.’
‘I believe that such was the case; and it is from the lips of that one, instead of mine, that you ought to have heard what I am now relating. That gentleman, whose name was Thornhill, ought to have made to you this communication; but by some strange accident it seems he has been prevented, or you would not be here listening to me upon a subject which would have come better from his lips.’
‘And he was to have come yesterday to me?’
‘He was.’
‘Then Mark Ingestrie kept his word; and but for the adverse circumstances which delayed his messenger, I should have heard yesterday what you are now relating to me. I pray you go on, sir, and pardon the interruption.’
‘I need not trouble you with all the negotiations, the trouble, and the difficulty that arose before the expedition could be started fairly—suffice it to say, that at length, after much annoyance and trouble, it was started, and a vessel was duly chartered and manned for the purpose of proceeding to the Indian seas in search of the treasure, which was reported to be there for the first adventurer who had the boldness to seek it.
