"Widow Lovett…"
She looks down at him, and makes a mental note that if two people are dropped into the bake house, they will die. But if a third is dropped, there's a high chance that the bodies will soften the blow and the third will live. Not good for business, to be sure.
He is begging of her. The 'honorable' Judge Turpin is begging of her; the 'lowly' widowed Mrs. Nellie Lovett.
His long fingers around the ends of her skirts, tugging at her. His hazel eyes are focused on her pale face. There is no doubt that he is still alive, even if there is blood running from his neck, and dripping from his lips.
"Die! Die already, you filthy man, die!" She screams, "Die! Die! Die!"
She pulls her skirts away from him, repulsed by the idea that she has been in any kind of contact with him.
There is the sound of running feet, and Mr. Todd appears. His shirt will certainly need a good wash. That's the blood of three people on his clothing.
"Why did you scream?"
"He… 'e was still livin'. What was I suppose't' do?"
"I'll take care of him."
But he seems to notice something first. It's the face of the unfortunate beggar woman. So sad, such bad timing.
"Mr. Todd?" Mrs. Lovett tries to focus the attention on her, tries to pull his eyes from the pitiful hag.
"'Don't I know you'…" Mr. Todd looks dumbly at the beggar. "Lucy. You knew she lived."
"I swear, I was only thinkin' o' you…" Mrs. Lovett speaks too quickly. It sounds false. She begins to panic. "I told ya she took a poison. Never said she died, did I? Nah, poor dear. Couldn' get ou' o' bed for weeks, wound herself up in Bedlam…"
"Lucy… What have I done? You lied to me!"
"Yes! Yes, I lied. I lied 'cause I love you! I'd be twice the wife she was!"
But Mr. Todd doesn't believe a word of it. In his mind, Lucy is virtuous and good. Lucy is not a formerly desperate woman in his mind. She is perfect and beautiful and Mrs. Lovett is the Devil's wife.
'Oh,' Mrs. Lovett thinks as Mr. Todd approaches her, 'If you'd have only seen…'
(15 Years Prior)
The smile on Lucy's face had not been one of sorrow. Mrs. Lovett had watched from Ms. Thompson's Flower Stand with shock. It had to have been an innocent mistake. Mr. Barker had never done anything to deserve the punishment of the law.
Lucy had stood there stupidly, holding her daughter, watching her husband get dragged away.
'A mistake', Mrs. Lovett had thought, 'Surely, naught but a mistake.'
But days passed. Days and days and days.
"Where d' you suppose Mr. Barker went t'?" Albert Lovett asked lazily one evening, relaxing in his favorite chair after dinner.
"Y' know, I'd been wonderin' that meself," Mrs. Lovett sighed with a frown, looking out the window of the shop.
"Ah well," Albert dismissed his comment, "I'm sure 'e'll be back any day now."
The next morning Mrs. Lovett went upstairs. It had been Mr. Barker's Barber Shop, as well as his family's room. Now it was only a bedroom, and was filled to the top with flowers.
"What's all this?"
Lucy was sitting by the window, her young daughter in her arms, surrounded by the mess of daisies and lilies. "Oh, Nellie. Good morning. I do apologize if there is a problem with our rent…"
"I ain't stiff 'bout it… Now where'd these come from?" Mrs. Lovett held up a bouquet of roses that was nearly dead from age, examining them quizzically. No one on Fleet Street had near enough money for roses. Even Ms. Thompson's Flower Stand didn't sell roses.
"From him." Lucy nodded to the window with a look of wistful longing.
Mrs. Lovett put the roses down and stood beside Lucy, looking at the man she had indicated.
"Flashy lookin' fellow ain't 'e?"
"That's his honor Judge Turpin." Lucy looked miserable beyond compare. "It truly is a pity that he's not a more handsome man."
"Well, he ain't exactly a monster…"
Judge Turpin was neither handsome nor ugly. Had Mrs. Lovett been forced to describe his appearance in one word, she would have said "cruel."
Indeed, there was an air of cruelty that was reflected in Judge Turpin's deep-set hazel eyes. And it was a cruelty that Mrs. Lovett had seen before… In the square! It occurred to her then that Mr. Benjamin Barker's 'un-explained vacation' was perfectly explainable, and perfectly awful.
Lucy was crying now, "Oh, Nellie. Don't think me awful, but I would rather like to have a fashionable dress once in a while… Don't think that I don't love Ben, but I rather missed having all the things that I could have had if I had married a wealthy man."
It was all too horrible. "What'll you do, dear?"
"I don't know. I ought to be loyal to Ben, oughtn't I?"
"I would suppose so."
"You probably speak the truth, Nellie." Even as Lucy spoke, her face said more. She wanted the money. She wanted to be seen for her beauty. And she was beautiful, poor thing, but it was the beauty of Helen of Troy. A beauty to start wars, and a greed to spurn evil.
X
Lucy burst into Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pie Shop two weeks later with tears on her face and a bottle of arsenic in her coat pocket. "Nellie! Nellie!"
Mrs. Lovett appeared from her room with her hair even more unruly than usual. "What's all this shoutin' Lucy?"
"Nellie, I was such a fool!" Lucy sat down on one of the stools near the front oven, "I will never again think of any man besides my Ben."
"What's 'appened?"
Lucy told her story through her sobs. She told of how Beadle Bamford had come under the guise of kindness and sorrow, how the party had been a masquerade, how she had had no time to gather her bearings before she was given a drink, and her carnal relations with the 'honorable' Judge.
When the tale of sorrow was done, Mrs. Lovett had to bite back asking if Lucy had learned some kind of lesson. "Poor dear," she finally said, pushing Lucy's hair out of her eyes, "You've 'ad a rough night. Why don' you get some sleep, a'right?"
"I have to end my life."
"What?"
Lucy held up the arsenic tincture and looked into Mrs. Lovett's eyes with an earnest expression that had never before been there. "I have to. I have been selfish."
"Oh no, Lucy. You don' have to."
"Goodnight, Nellie."
X
Albert sighed deeply, his large frame moving with the effort of it. "Well, she's alive, that's for sure. We'll let 'er rest, I guess. Probably better this way, you know, m'love?"
Mrs. Lovett nodded, "Alright, you stay with her today. I got customers t' attend t'."
A sloppy grin covered Albert's fat features, "That's me clever wife."
Mrs. Lovett descended the stairs from Mr. Barker's old shop to her bakery, and nearly died of fright when she reached the final step.
"Nellie Lovett."
She spun around quickly, and found herself facing Judge Turpin. Even in all of his finery, he looked only shades of pale. There was a slight scowl across his thin lips.
"Y' honor…"
"I do not intend to waste more time with you and your disgusting establishment than needed, so I will make my stay brief. I am here for the girl." He didn't blink, and Mrs. Lovett felt that his eyes were burning holes through her; his voice was calm, with a tone of superiority.
"Lucy's… a bit ill today," Mrs. Lovett lied quickly. Quickly, too quickly. It was a nervous habit, to talk quickly.
Turpin seemed to know this. "I do not so much care for Mrs. Barker. She promised me her daughter."
"'Aven't ya got no 'eart?"
"What are you implying?"
"After what ya did t' the poor thing, ya can' even come and see the state she's in?"
"What I did?" Turpin's lips curled into a horrible grin, "Mrs. Barker obviously left out important parts of the story."
Mrs. Lovett crossed her arms, "I got told enough."
"Really? Did she tell you that she moaned like a whore? Or that she asked me for money? If you think I had no inkling of her feelings after the act, than you are a bigger fool than I took you for. Where is she? Dead?"
Morbid. Cruel and morbid. Mrs. Lovett was not impressed by "His Honor". "She ain't dead."
"Then I will be taking the girl."
"And just when did ya get it int' your 'ead that you deserve Emma?"
"Emma?" He laughed coldly, "Children named Emma grow up to be either nuns or prostitutes. I will be bestowing a more fitting name onto my daughter."
"Y' don' seem t' be the real fatherly type…"
"That is none of your concern. I made a promise to Mrs. Barker that I would provide for her daughter in the way that she will never be able to."
"Well, we can't rightly ask 'er now that she's poisoned 'erself. Who'm I t' know if this is real or if you're lyin'."
"If she ever becomes convalescent, you may ask her. For now, get me the girl."
"Why should I?"
Turpin's eyes flashed with anger and he pushed her against the wall. "You dare to call me a liar?"
Mrs. Lovett felt a rush of fear that subsided slowly. "Now then, this ain't nothin' t' lose your 'ead over. I'll get Emma for ya, but don't be expectin' t' keep 'er for more than a year 'r so."
A smile of superiority replaced anger on Turpin's face. "Oh, I would not be here if I did not have my own plans. And besides, it isn't as though Mrs. Barker could protest in her… current state."
X
She has no time to say this. She has no time to say that Lucy was selfish. She has no time to say that it was only bad luck.
Mr. Todd... Mr. Barker…
"Life is for the alive, my dear," Mr. Todd says charmingly, "And as you've said, there's little point on dwelling on the past."
Mrs. Lovett accepts his embrace, entwining her fingers with his. She can sense the direction that they're going, and she begins cry. Only ever so slightly. She always looks on the verge of tears, so what does it matter if she really cries?
"Can we still be married?"she asks pleadingly, looking into his dark eyes, hoping that he stops their dance of death.
He only smiles slightly, and she feels her feet lift the ground. Then there is pain so intense that she screams.
There was no way to make him understand. He had to have been there. There was so much more than what he thought he knew.
But the truth, along with the desire to live beside the sea with Mr. Todd and Toby, burned to a crisp with the calculating but passionate Mrs. Nellie Lovett.