MRS. LOVETT FINDS THAT IT IS EASIER TO PLAN THAN TO EXECUTE.
It wants five minutes to nine, and Mrs. Lovett's shop is filling with
persons anxious to devour or to carry away one or more of the nine
o'clock batch of savoury, delightful, gushing gravy pies.
Many of Mrs. Lovett's customers paid her in advance for the pies, in
order that they might be quite sure of getting their orders fulfilled
when the first batch should make its gracious appearance from the depths
below.
"Well, Jiggs," said one of the legal fraternity to another, "how are you
to-day, old fellow? What do you bring it in?"
"Oh! I ain't very blooming. The fact is, the count and I, and a few
others, made a night of it last evening; and somehow or another I don't
think whiskey-and-water, half-and-half, and tripe, go well together."
"I should wonder if they did."
"And so I've come for a pie just to settle my stomach; you see I'm
rather delicate."
"Ah! you are just like me, young man, there," said an elderly personage;
"I have a delicate stomach, and the slightest thing disagrees with me. A
mere idea will make me quite ill."
"Will it, really?"
"Yes; and my wife, she--"
"Oh, bother your wife! It's only five minutes to nine, don't you see?
What a crowd there is, to be sure. Mrs. Lovett, you charmer, I hope you
have ordered enough pies to be made to-night? You see what a lot of
customers you have."
"Oh, there will be plenty."
"That's right. I say, don't push so; you'll be in time, I tell you;
don't be pushing and driving in that sort of way--I've got ribs."
"And so have I. Last night I didn't get a pie at all, and my old woman
is in a certain condition, you see, gentlemen, and won't fancy anything
but one of Lovett's veal pies; so I've come all the way from Newington
to get one for--"
"Hold your row, will you? and don't push."
"For to have the child marked with a pie on its--"
"Behind there, I say; don't be pushing a fellow as if it were half price
at a theatre."
Each moment added some new comers to the throng, and at last any
strangers who had known nothing of the attractions of Mrs. Lovett's
pie-shop and had walked down Bell Yard, would have been astonished at
the throng of persons there assembled--a throng that was each moment
increasing in density, and becoming more and more urgent and clamorous.
* * * * *
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine! Yes, it is nine at
last. It strikes by old St. Dunstan's church clock, and in weaker
strains the chronometical machine at the pie-shop echoes the sound. What
excitement there is to get at the pies when they shall come! Mrs. Lovett
lets down the square moveable platform that goes on pullies in the
cellar; some machinery, which only requires a handle to be turned,
brings up a hundred pies in a tray. These are eagerly seized by parties
who have previously paid, and such a smacking of lips ensues as never
was known.
Down goes the platform for the next hundred, and a gentlemanly man
says--
"Let me work the handle, Mrs. Lovett, if you please; it's too much for
you I'm sure."
"Sir, you are very kind, but I never allow anybody on this side of the
counter but my own people, sir. I can turn the handle myself, sir, if
you please, with the assistance of this girl. Keep your distance, sir,
nobody wants your help."
"But my dear madam, only consider your delicacy. Really you ought not to
be permitted to work away like a negro slave at a winch handle. Really
you ought not."
The man who spoke thus obligingly to Mrs. Lovett, was tall and stout,
and the lawyers clerks repressed the ire they otherwise would probably
have given utterance to at thus finding any one quizzing their charming
Mrs. Lovett.
"Sir, I tell you again that I don't want your help; keep your distance,
sir, if you please."
"Now don't get angry, fair one," said the man. "You don't know but I
might have made you an offer before I left the shop."
"Sir," said Mrs. Lovett, drawing herself up and striking terror into the
hearts of the limbs of the law. "Sir! What do you want? Say what you
want, and be served, sir, and then go. Do you want a pie, sir?"
"A pie? Oh, dear no, I don't want a pie. I would not eat one of the
nasty things on any account. Pah!" Here the man spat on the floor. "Oh,
dear, don't ask me to eat any of your pies."
"Shame, shame," said several of the lawyers clerks.
"Will any gentleman who thinks it a shame, be so good as to step forward
and say so a little closer?"
Everybody shrunk back upon this, instead of accepting the challenge, and
Mrs. Lovett soon saw that she must, despite all the legal chivalry by
which she was surrounded, fight her battles herself. With a look of
vehement anger, she cried--
"Beware, sir, I am not to be trifled with. If you carry your jokes too
far, you will wish that you had not found your way, sir, into this
shop."
"That, madam," said the tall stout man, "is not surely possible, when I
have the beauty of a Mrs. Lovett to gaze upon, and render the place so
exquisitely attractive; but if you will not permit me to have the
pleasure of helping you up with the next batch of pies, which, after
all, you may find heavier than you expect, I must leave you to do it
yourself."
"So that I am not troubled any longer by you, sir, at all," said Mrs.
Lovett, "I don't care how heavy the next batch of pies may happen to be,
sir."
"Very good, madam."
"Upon my word," said a small boy, giving the side of his face a violent
rub with the hope of finding the ghost of a whisker there, "it's really
too bad."
"Ah, who's that? Let me get at him!"
"Oh, no, no, I--mean--that it's too bad of Mrs. Lovett, my dear sir. Oh,
don't."
"Oh, very good; I am satisfied. Now, madam, you see that even your dear
friends here, from Lincoln's Inn--Are you from the Inn, small boy?"
"Yes, sir, if you please."
"Very good. As I was saying, Mrs. Lovett, you now must of necessity
perceive, that even your friends from the Inn, feel that your conduct is
really too bad, madam."
Mrs. Lovett was upon this so dreadfully angry, that she disdained any
reply to the tall stout man, but at once she applied herself to the
windlass, which worked up the little platform, upon which a whole tray
of a hundred pies was wont to come up, and began to turn it with what
might be called a vengeance.
How very strange it was--surely the words of the tall stout impertinent
stranger were prophetic, for never before had Mrs. Lovett found what a
job it was to work that handle, as upon that night. The axle creaked,
and the cords and the pullies strained and wheezed, but she was a
determined woman, and she worked away at it.
"I told you so, my dear madam," said the stranger; "it is more evidently
than you can do."
"Peace, sir."
"I am done; work away ma'am, only don't say afterwards that I did not
offer to help you, that's all."
Indignation was swelling at the heart of Mrs. Lovett, but she felt that
if she wasted her breath upon the impertinent stranger, she should have
none for the windlass; so setting her teeth, she fagged at it with a
strength and a will that if she had not been in a right royal passion,
she could not have brought to bear upon it on any account.
There was quite an awful stillness in the shop. All eyes were bent upon
Mrs. Lovett, and the cavity through which the next batch of those
delicious pies were coming. Those who had had the good fortune to get
one of the first lot, had only had their appetites heightened by the
luxurious feast they had partaken of, while those who had had as yet
none, actually licked their lips, and snuffed up the delightful aroma
from the remains of the first batch.
"Two for me, Mrs. Lovett," cried a voice. "One veal for me. Three
porks--one pork."
The voices grew fast and furious.
"Silence!" cried the tall stout man. "I will engage that everybody shall
be fully satisfied; and no one shall leave here without a thorough
conviction that his wants in pies has been more than attended to."
The platform could be made to stop at any stage of its upward progress,
by means of a ratchet wheel and a catch, and now Mrs. Lovett paused to
take breath. She attributed the unusual difficulty in working the
machinery to her own weakness, contingent upon her recent immersion in
the Thames.
"Sir," she said between her clenched teeth, addressing the man who was
such an eye-sore to her in the shop. "Sir, I don't know who you are, but
I hope to be able to show you when I have served these gentlemen, that
even I am not to be insulted with impunity."
"Anything you please, madam," he replied, "in a small way, only don't
exert yourself too much."
Mrs. Lovett flew to the windlass again, and from the manner in which she
now worked at it, it was quite clear that when she had her hands free
from that job, she fully intended to make good her threats against the
tall stout man. The young beardless scions of the law, trembled at the
idea of what might happen.
And now the tops of the pies appeared. Then they saw the rim of the
large tray upon which they were, and then just as the platform itself
was level with the floor of the shop, up flew tray and pies, as if
something had exploded beneath them, and a tall slim man sprung upon the
counter. It was the cook, who from the cellars beneath, had laid himself
as flat as he could beneath the tray of pies, and so had been worked up
to the shop by Mrs. Lovett!
[Illustration: Mrs. Lovett's Cook Astonishes Her Customers, Rather.]
"Gentlemen," he cried, "I am Mrs. Lovett's cook. The pies are made of
_human flesh_!"
* * * * *
We shrink, we tremble at the idea of attempting to describe the scene
that ensued in the shop of Mrs. Lovett contingent upon this frightful
apparition, and still more frightful speech of the cook; but duty--our
duty to the public--requires that we should say something upon the
occasion.
If we can do nothing more, we can briefly enumerate what did actually
take place in some instances.
About twenty clerks rushed into Bell Yard, and there and then, to the
intense surprise of the passers-by, became intensely sick. The cook,
with one spring, cleared the counter, and alighted amongst the
customers, and with another spring, the tall impertinent man, who had
made many remarks to Mrs. Lovett of an aggravating tendency, cleared the
counter likewise in the other direction, and, alighting close to Mrs.
Lovett, he cried--
"Madam, you are my prisoner!"
For a moment, and only for a moment, the great--the cunning, and the
redoubtable Mrs. Lovett, lost her self-possession, and, staggering back,
she lurched heavily against the glass-case next to the wall, immediately
behind the counter. It was only for a moment, though, that such an
effect was produced upon Mrs. Lovett; and then, with a spring like an
enraged tigress, she caught up a knife that was used for slipping under
the pies and getting them cleanly out of the little tins, and rushed
upon the tall stranger.
Yes, she rushed upon him; but for once in a way, even Mrs. Lovett had
met with her match. With a dexterity, that only long practice in
dealings with the more desperate portion of human nature could have
taught him, the tall man closed with her, and had the knife out of her
hand in a moment. He at once threw it right through the window into Bell
Yard, and then, holding Mrs. Lovett in his arms, he said--
"My dear madam, you only distress yourself for nothing; all resistance
is perfectly useless. Either I must take you prisoner, or you me, and I
decidedly incline to the former alternative."
The knife that had been thrown through the window was not without its
object, for in a moment afterwards Mr. Crotchet made his appearance in
the shop.
"All right, Crotchet," said he who had captured Mrs. Lovett; "first clap
the bracelets on this lady."
"Here yer is," said Crotchet. "Lor, mum! I had a eye on you months and
months agone. How is you, mum, in yer _feelin's_ this here nice
evening?--Eh mum?"
"A knife--a knife! Oh, for a knife!" cried Mrs. Lovett.
"Ex-actly, mum," added Crotchet, as he with professional dexterity
slipped the handcuffs on her wrists. "Would you like one with a hivory
handle, mum? or would anything more common do, mum?"
Mrs. Lovett fell to the floor, or rather she cast herself to it, and
began voluntarily beating her head against the boards. They quickly
lifted her up; and then the tall stranger turned to the cook, who, after
leaping over the counter, had sat down upon a chair in a state of
complete exhaustion, and he said--
"Do you know the way to Sir Richard's office, in Craven Street? He
expects you there, I believe?"
"Yes, yes. But now that all is over, I feel very ill."
"In that case, I will go with you, then. Crotchet, who have you got
outside?"
"Only two of our pals, Muster Green; but it's all right, if so be as you
leaves the lady to us."
"Very well. The warrant is at Newgate, and the governor is expecting her
instant arrival. You will get a coach at the corner of the yard, and be
off with her at once."
"All's right," said Crotchet. "I knowed as she'd be nabbed, and I had
one all ready, you sees."
"That was right, Crotchet. How amazingly quick everybody has left the
shop. Why--why, what is all this?"
As the officer spoke, about half a dozen squares of glass in the shop
window of the house were broken in, and a ringing shout from a dense mob
that was rapidly collecting in the yard, came upon the ears of the
officer. The two men whom Crotchet had mentioned, with difficulty
pressed their way into the shop, and one of them cried--
"The people that were in the shop have spread the news all over the
neighbourhood, and the place is getting jammed up with a mob, every one
of which is mad, I think, for they talk of nothing but of the tearing of
Mrs. Lovett to pieces. They are pouring in from Fleet Street and Carey
Street by hundreds at a time."