title Rainy Night
author pinkeop
summary Well, Mrs. Lovett loves a rainy night!
authors note A request from my darling Brina, who is working hard at making me the acclaimed Queen of Sweenett here on because of all her "Write a sweenet about this! write one to this song! PROMPT TIME!" She's so adorable. ;
So, Miss Brina wanted me to write a fan fiction to the song, "I Love Rainy Night" about Mrs. Lovett and her love for rainy nights and she has to be cooking and singing and dancing. And goodness, this is going to be so much fun!
Don't forget to read and review you silly children!
Love!
Pink Elephants on Parade.
p.s; I Love A Rainy Night is (c) to Eddie Rabbitt and obviously not around in 1846, so Nellie is making up this song as she goes along for this fic. Hey, if she can sing about making men into pies, she can sing about rainy nights.
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Rainy Night
There was no music, but Mrs. Lovett didn't need music to her words as she sang warmly from where she stood in the kitchen, behind the counter. Her dress was new, dark and black and auburn with golden trim, and her hair was actually washed and brushed and the kinks and curls sat atop her head, a few falling to rest against her pale throat. Business was good, and once the last customer left, the woman would clean and then cook dinner for the boy and for the man upstairs. She had enough money to go to the marker to buy small slabs of meat for herself and Todd and Toby, not being able to serve them the customers that went up for a shave.
No, they had specially cooked dinners, and tonight Mrs. Lovett was in a delightful mood as she swayed in time with the music in her head, a meat cleaver in one hand and the other holding down the meat so she could chop it.
As she sang, she danced. As she cut the meat, she danced and she sung. The beats and rhytmns of the kitchen were her music.
"I love a rainy night," the woman sang warmly as she chopped the meat and every so often went to stir the stew and check on the biscuits and add seasoning to her infamous gravy that topped all her meat pies.
"I love to hear the thunder, watch the lightening when it lights up the sky," she went on, wriggling her bottom and hearing her skirts swish in time with her little song. "You know it makes me feel good!"
"Mum, wot you doin'?" Toby peered in from the parlor, crossing over to sit at the booth. Mrs. Lovett's eyes were bright with unexplained excitement and childish giddiness took over her.
"Singing!" she explained. "Well, I love a rainy night! It's such a beautiful sight--"
"Mum, s'not even rainin' out!" the boy croaked in confusion.
"--I love to feel the rain on my face, taste the rain on my lips- in the moonlight shadows..." Mrs. Lovett didn't care if it wasn't raining, or if poor Toby was so confused about her jubilee singing. No, her own little euphoria was spreading through her as she carried the plate of cut meat to the small oven behind the counter and put them out, taking out the biscuits as she did so, ignoring the way the hot pan hurt her fingers, completely forgetting about a mit. Her eyes prickled with tears as she nearly tossed the hot pan on the counter.
But not even that could dampen her oddly happy mood.
"Showers washed all my cares away," She sang lightly as she skipped around the counter, grabbing Toby by the hand and pulling him into a dance. It wasn't a waltz, nor was it anything formal. She scuffed her feet and shook her bottom in a playful manner and pulled Toby too and fro around the shop, begging with her movements for him to hop and dance about with her. Slowly, the boy got the picture, and his laughter was the background music to her song.
"I wake up to a sunny day!" The woman crowed. "Cos I love a rainy night! Yeah, I love a rainy night! Ooh-ooh!"
She let go of his hands and the boy bound to the counter as she moved around it to tend to the stew, stirring the thick concoction
With one hand, she stirred, with the other, she clapped her hands against her hip. Toby, bless his heart, began alternatively snapping his fingers and clapping his hands down on the counter. Laughing through her words, Mrs. Lovett looked to him with a wide smile.
"I love a rainy night! I love a rainy night! I love to hear the thunder, watch the lightening when it lights up the sky- you know it makes me feel good--"
"What on earth are you howling about down here?" Mr. Todd's snarl came from the side door as he hovered in the doorway, obviously having recently stomped down from his shop. Normally, the mood seemed to dampen whenever he entered the room, but not even today. Mrs. Lovett chuckled and snapped her fingers in time with Toby's clapping.
"Sorry, love!" Mrs. Lovett cooed. "We was juss singin'!"
"'Bout rainy nights!" Toby spoke up brightly.
"Cause I love a rainy night!" Mrs. Lovett sang, laughter in her voice as she danced from her spot at the stew, to Mr. Todd, grabbing him by the hands. He looked so taken aback and surprised that he let her pull him into the middle of the shop.
"Puts a song in this old heart of mine," Mrs. Lovett told him warmly, swinging his arms as she danced just as playfully and wildly as she had with Toby. The man did not look amused. Snorting her laughter, she let him stand there as she danced around him, back towards the counter. Her hips popped back and forth as she hopped back to her place to watch the dinner she was cooking.
"Puts a smile on my face every time!" She sang. Toby laughed and clapped his hands in time with her music. Mr. Todd stood there, drowning in their mirth and not exactly knowing how to fish himself out of the situation he had just put himself in, for his dark eyes were wide, his brows furrowed, focusing on Mrs. Lovett with confusion etched in every line in his face.
"Showers washed all my cares away, I wake up to a sunny day! Cos I love a rainy night!" she went on, turning to look at Mr. Todd with a young, warm, mirthful smile. "Well, I love a rainy night, you can see it in my eyes. Yeah, I love a rainy night, well it makes me high! Ohh, I love a rainy night!"
Her laughter, childish and ever so young, took over her singing, and her bouncing about died down to just little skips and hops. She turned to look at Toby and Mr. Todd, the former smiling and resting his chin on the counter top, the latter staring at her as if she'd just gone barking mad. Hands on her hips, she pulled her lips into a smirk.
"Oh, Mr. T, now don't look like you've never 'eard me singin' a'fore!" she scolded. "An' dinner'll be ready soon, so why don't you boys go an' wash up?"
Toby took off for the wash room, but Mr. Todd hovered where he stood. "I haven't an appitite, Mr. Lovett," the man said slowly, turning as if to make an escape out the door. Mrs. Lovett shook her head and bustled to his side, pushing and cuffing him until he found himelf sitting in the booth, looking both lost and confused.
"Not tonight yeh not, Mr. T!" she told him firmly. "Yeh sit down 'ere and yeh eat the dinner that I cooked fer yeh!" She waited for a moment making sure he wasn't going to get up, before she went to the counter and began pulling out three plates.
"May I ask what makes you sing, Mrs. Lovett?" The barber questioned finally.
Mrs. Lovett shrugged her shoulders. "Juss in one of them moods, yeh knows? So 'appy that I could just sing!" She giggled. "Looks like I did, didn't I?"
"About rain?" the man questioned unsurly.
"I wake up to a sunny day," Mrs. Lovett sang at him from her spot behind the counter as she loaded the three plates, pulling out the meat from the oven and placing a piece on eat plate.
Mr. Todd's brows furrowed and he stared at the table top. "For a moment I expected to find..." he paused, and choked out the name. "Lucy... to be down here with you. You would sing all the time with my Lucy..."
Mrs. Lovett turned half way to look at him, her lips turning downwards ever so slightly. It was true. Lucy was warm and young and soft, and even if she wasn't the most intelligent girl around, she would make up songs about everything, sing about everything, and she and Lucy would sit in the shop on Sunday mornings while the woman was still pregnant, cooking cornbread and singing about anything and everything. Benjamin would come down on occasion to kiss his pregnant bride and compliment Mrs. Lovett on her cooking, her singing, her company, before he would disappear for another customer.
Shaking her head, Mrs. Lovett turned back to her task. "Juss me an' Toby, now, dear," she said lightly. "Juss singin' away our happy."
Mr. Todd looked up when she placed a plate in front of him. "You don't sing as much anymore." He stated plainly. Mrs. Lovett's eyes crinkled when she smiled, turning away from him to get the other two plates from the counter just as Toby came rushing back from the wash room.
"I juss found two reasons to be singin' again, love," she said quietly, setting the plate down in front of Toby before sitting in the booth herself. Mr. Todd didn't look at his dinner, instead, he bored his eyes right into hers. She looked back at him without hesitation or falter or fear. Toby looked back and forth between the two, his stew-filled spoon hovering in front of his mouth.
"Did you now?" the man asked coldly.
"Ah, Mr. T," she purred, placing her chin on her hand. "Yeh're my own lit'le rain cloud. An' I could sing forever 'bout rainy nights."