Credit obviously to Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler.
She wakes up early, with a start, when the clock chimes six. She presses her face in the pillow beneath her - a bit grimy, that one is, but still warm as ever. Six o'clock, then; so there's still half an hour left until she's got to haul her bones up from bed. Under her sheets, she rubs her one foot against her other ankle, but soon enough she sucks in a sharp breath to her lungs. Her feet are like bleeding sacks of ice, and she hasn't even been up from bed yet. 'Hell,' Nell mumbles, her arm draped over her face now, and lets her right foot fall to one side.
She turns over and stares at her bed-side clock, a lovely old thing what was a present from her mother, for her wedding. Mercy, but she don't much like to think, any more, how long ago that was. With her mother dead now, and her husband dead too. Mother got plague; and Albert got gout. Nell got nothing, so here she still is. Things seem to go like that quite a peculiar lot of the time, she thinks.
Well, now, her half-hour's up, isn't it? Yes. She takes one last glance at the clock to be sure - yes. She sits up in bed. She's got a headache, but then, she's got a headache almost all the time lately, and she's got to get herself up and make the shop ready. Not that she's all too like to see a blind soul all day, but she can dream, can't she, and dream she does. Not dreaming would be giving up hope, and Nell can't do that, you see. So, dreams it is.
She peels off the covers, and the night air grips her straight to the bone. She shivers and wraps her arms up round her. Mercy. It's always so bloody cold all the time. But that's just March, that is. Nell don't take too kind to March. She's been sick again; not even the proper kind of sick, but the ticking, annoying kind, with her eyes puffy and her forehead burning, and her nose running all over. She gets that more often than not in March; she swears there's got to be something in the air.
She hops out of bed in the dark, her bare feet against the freezing wood floor. She hasn't got anything on except for a white dressing gown and pantalettes; well, they were white once. They've faded a bit; they were wedding presents too. Most everything she still owns was a wedding present. She's hocked everything she couldn't put a sentiment to. Not the best lot of good it did her, either, except perhaps right at first. But, well, you can't say she didn't try.
The wedding. She's reminiscing as she sits perched on the edge of the bed to do up her stockings. She turned seventeen in January of that year, and was married that June. She didn't love her husband then, but she did like him. Such a sweet man, he was. Albert was the one as had taught Nell how to write, just because she'd asked him to, when they were engaged to marry. He was entirely patient with her, even when she kept doing the 'L' in 'Lovett' backwards.
One stocking up and fastened. Nell dresses slow when she's got her mind in another place. She slips her toes into the other one.
They were going to have a big lovely family, Nell and Albert were; they meant to. But they had nine tries in the seven years they were married, and none of those turning out too well, either. Just like her mother, she supposes she was. Nell can remember when she was little, and she'd hide behind walls' corners, watching midwives come and go from her mother's room, stained head to foot with blood; but Nell still grew up the only child. Well, at least her mother'd had the one, which is one more than Nell can say herself. She supposes it was all for the best, though. If she had had a child what lived, by now, she couldn't have took care of it right and proper, could she? She's only eating thrice a week as it is.
So, here she is now: a woman of five-and-thirty years, who's seen a great deal more than she looks like she has, with one stocking done and the other halfway up. She's surprisingly not much the worse for wear. Well, truth be told she is missing one tooth, but it was from the very back of her jaw, and you can't tell. She's still got quite the stock of inky black curls, too; and dark, adoring eyes. Nell sticks her left leg in the air so as she can do her last stocking up proper. Once it's done, she stands in the middle of the floor for a second, still in her old dressing gown. Well, she certainly hasn't grown any taller since she was seventeen. She's never been particularly tall.
She glances out the window, and then shakes her head quick, snapping herself out of the state. It's got to be later by now than she'd thought it was. She shoves on her dress, snaps up her corset with hasty, fumbling hands. She grabs up her gloves, and over her hands they go. Nell has never liked her hands, which are plumper than she'd fancy they should be. So are her feet, come to that; she has no ankles to speak about.
She sighs and sits on the floor to lace up her black boots. She's done in half a minute each, and then she hops up and out the door. She comes out to the front of the shop, passing the hall clock on the way. It's half-past seven already; she really ought to stop being so distractible. Which is easier said than done, of course. She sighs again. Well, she never does open shop 'til eight o'clock, so it's none too bad. It's just, when custom was better and she had reason to be making pies every day, she was always in the shop earlier, by half an hour at least. Oh, well. Perhaps someone will come in today. She says that every day, and they never do. But she dreams, all the time. One day someone will. She hopes so, at least.
Still, she isn't in any sort of great hurry just now. Nell might be a bit too hopeful sometimes, but she's a bit sensible too. She knows not to pace it too quick; not just now, anyway. If you go quick with business when there isn't custom, she knows well and good, then in three months you'll have all them dozens of pies falling to pieces on the counter. And that wouldn't do at all. So, she runs shop slower nowadays; she hasn't got a choice in it any more.
She wanders over to the window. It's grey and raining outside, again. She rubs hard at her nose, which is red and running already. 'Bloody March,' she mutters to herself. She sweeps the floor and whacks out a few roaches before unlocking the door and flipping the sign, so as it says 'Open.'
Sometimes, in summer, she leaves the door open while she works, so as the people might be more like to come in. It works a little better, but they still don't come in again, even if she's got them in the door once. No; the only one as comes wandering in regular is mad old Mrs Barker, looking for coins. Well, if she thinks Nell's got any coins to spare on her, she's as mad as she's made herself. She keeps coming round, though, and Nell don't hesitate tossing her out - with the end of the broom, if she has to. Still, Mrs Barker aside, the summer's breeze is quite lovely, so she keeps her door open in the summer season. But it isn't summer; it's bloody March.
She has a sneezing fit what don't stop until she's sneezed her bleeding brains out ten times over, leaving her out of breath and red in the face. Nell groans and puts a finger to her temples. 'Bloody March,' she says again. At nine o'clock, Nell decides she's baking today. She hasn't done any baking in three months, custom being so bad as it is, and she might be finally getting low on pies; there's only five more of them sitting on the counter. And God knows what kind of state they're in; rancid like always and stale by now, most like. Today, she's careful when she makes the batter; she knows because she's ruined too many before. She stands over the bowl, her eyes burning with concentration.
She's a bit on the flighty side; sometimes she stirs too long when she's got things on her mind. Which is always. Alone like she is, she's got to depend quite the odd bit on her thoughts. But not today; today, she makes up a nice batter and don't leave it too long.
By half past nine, she's starting on the gravy. It's going to have onions in it, she's decided. There's nothing she can do about the meat being so rancid; it's all she can afford any more. But, well, onions are nice, aren't they; and they might even cut the taste a bit. She's got out the big knife, and chops them away, rhythmic, rather like a dance. Ooh, she does wish there was someone to dance with. Sometimes, if she asked him, Albert used to oblige her and go for a dance, in the days when he could still walk. Nell smiles; and she hums a pretty waltzing tune.
The door creaks open, so soft she don't hear it right at first. She feels the cold March wind snake in, and thinks she must be fooling herself; the door's not open, is it? She glances up, and there's a grave, silent man standing in the threshold. He looks up towards her as he steps in, and his eyes graze hers for a shattered piece of a moment. Nell's eyes change and stay; and there's a reverence in her sudden glance. She knows them eyes, she does; she never forgot. How them breaking, kneading eyes did haunt her whenever she closed hers; and how many times they'd crossed her mind, just on little moments. When she couldn't remember any more the shape of his face, the eyes had been so fresh and flashing.
He withdraws. Panic swirls in her; it starts in her neck and surges down to her wrist. She stabs the knife deep in the cutting-board and rushes across the room. 'Wait!' she shouts to him, catching her fingers on his shoulder. 'What's your rush?' She flicks her eyes up to his, pressing her fingers round his arm for just a bit of a second. His skin is burning through his shirt and coat, or maybe she's just imagining silly things. None the less, he stays; he lets her draw him through the door.
Nell Lovett has set herself on fire.