"It's gonna take a lot more than ale to wash that taste out." the landlady said to him. "Come with me. We'll got you a nice tumbler of gin, eh?" Mrs. Lovett went into the other room. Todd got up and followed her, stopping to look up the stairs on his way. Mrs. Lovett continued to babble to herself. "Isn't this homey, now? And the wallpaper was only partly singed when the chapel burned down. Here you go." she said, handing him a glass. He looked at it. "You sit down, warm your bones." He slowly walked over to a chair by the fire and sat down.
"You've a room over the shop here? Times are so hard, why don't you rent it out?" he mumbled. Suddenly, the door from the kitchen swung open. The sound of pouring rain and thunder was heard until it was quickly shut again. A figure stood by the door, catching their breath.
"Where've you been, love? I was getting worried with the storm." Mrs. Lovett asked. The figure, a girl, walked into the room. She was dripping wet from head to toe and shivering, her tattered, flimsy old pea coat doing almost nothing to keep out the weather. She wore no hat or hood so her long, dark hair added to the mess. She took her coat off and hung it up, she was only wearing a simple, short sleeved dress underneath it. Mrs. Lovett grabbed a blanket off the couch and threw it over the girl's shoulders. She led her into the room and sat her down opposite Todd. "Calm down, dear. Catch yer breath." the girl breathed heavily and gradually stopped shivering. "Now. Where you been?"
The girl was fiddling with her fingers, she looked down at her feet when she spoke.
"The graveyard, ma'am."
"Now what on earth were you doing there on a day like this? Not right in the head, you are. Absolutely batty. And I needed your 'elp. We almost had a family come in today. Busiest it's been all year."
"I was visiting my mother's grave while I was out running errands, ma'am." At that point. Mr. Todd instantly knew who this was.
"What's your name, dearie?" he asked her.
"Lorette Finch, sir." he merely nodded as anyone would and the matter was dropped. It's been so long and she was so young, she wouldn't be able to recognize him.
"She's my angel, she is. Comes here out of nowhere, looking for work and a place to stay a few years ago. Quiet, earns 'er keep. Warms up the place with some music when she's not helping me out. I'd have to close down shop is she never came along." Mrs. Lovett said as if they were actually listening to her. She reached down and patted the girl on the shoulder, and the girl flinched.
"You play?"
"The violin, sir. My mother taught me when I was very young."
"Who was your mother?"
"Fantine Lanoire. That's all I remember of her though. Why?" she asked, getting skeptical.
"Curiosity." he said back to her, with enough certainty to put her off guard. "Anyways. The room over the shop?"
"Oh yeah. We'd rent it out, but I won't go near it. People say it's haunted." Mrs. Lovett said. The girl stared into the fire.
"Haunted?" Todd asked.
"Oh, yeah. You see something happened up there, years ago. Something not very nice." she said, sitting down. The girl got up from her seat and went to the back of the room, but no one cared to notice.
LOVETT: "There was a barber and his wife, and he was beautiful. A proper artist with a knife, but they transported him for life, and he was beautiful."
"He was sent to Australia. Fifteen years of hard labor." the girl butted in as she was looking at the pictures on the shelf.
"What was his crime?' Todd asked.
LOVETT: "Foolishness. He had this wife, you see. Pretty little thing, silly little nit had her chance for the moon on a string, poor thing, poor thing. There was this judge, you see. Wanted her like mad, everyday he'd send her a flower. But did she come down from her tower? Sat up there and sobbed by the hour, poor fool. Ah, but there was worse yet to come, poor thing. The Beadle calls on her all polite, poor thing, poor thing. The judge, he tells her, is al contrite, he blames himself for her deadly plight, she must coem straight to his house tonight, poor thing, poor thing."
Todd sat listening intently, fire boiling up inside of him.
LOVETT: "Of course, when she goes there, poor thing, poor thing, they're having this ball all in masks. There's no one she knows there, poor dear, poor thing, she wanders tormented and drinks poor thing, 'the judge has repented' she thinks, poor thing, "oh where is Judge Turpin?" she asks. He was there, alright, only not so contrite. She wasn't no match for this craft, you see, and everyone thought it so droll. They figured she had to be daft, you see, so all of them stood there and laughed, you see, poor soul, poor thing!"
"NO!" Todd stood, completely shocked by the story.
"So it is you. Benjamin Barker." The girl in the shadows said.
"You know him?" Mrs. Lovett asked her, astonished, but she received no reply. The girl left the room.
"Poisoned herself. Arsenic, from the apothecary 'round the corner. Tried to stop her, but she wouldn't listen to me. And he's got your daughter."
"He? Judge Turpin?"
"Adopted her. Like his own." The man stood, speechless.
"Fifteen years. Fifteen years I've sweated in a living hell on a false charge. Fifteen years I spent dreaming I might come home to a wife and child."
"Well I can't say the years have been particularly kind to you, Mr. Barker - "
"No." he stood. "Not Barker. That man is dead. It's Todd now. Sweeney Todd. And he will have his revenge." they simply looked at each other. He turned and took his coat off and tossed it angrily into an armchair. She got up and started walking into the other room.
"I have something you might want, sir." the girl's voice from the other room called to him. He walked into the other room to see the girl, his Little Lottie, standing by the door. She looked as young and as innocent as ever, even though she had certainly grown up. She'd be a few months away from turning 22 now. But there she was, still surviving, even though he could tell she had been through a lot, and standing before him was what the poor little French violinist girl that he had taken in as his own all those years ago. Her hair had lightened up a bit with age, it had been much darker when she was young, and she had grown out of her freckles. Her skin was still very fair, and she looked rather sickly and thin. She looked at him, then scurried out the door. He looked at Mrs. Lovett, who merely shrugged. He decided to follow Lottie, and Mrs. Lovett followed him. The girl was waiting for them at the foot of the stairs. She picked up her skirt so she wouldn't trip and led them up the stairs, and once they were at the top, she opened the door to the old barber shop, and looked around sadly, for this was the only place she had ever known happiness. She walked in, but Mr. Todd stopped at the threshold.
"Come in." she said softly. He looked up at her, with equal, if not more sadness and fear. "Nothing to be afraid of, sir." she said as she walked across the room, as if she knew what he was thinking. Her eyes shifted across the floor, as if looking for something. He walked in slowly, looking around at everything as if he were a child. He sighed when he saw a doll and a ratty old stuffed rabbit sitting alone on an empty chest in the corner near the door, the two had belonged to Johanna and Lottie respectively as children. His attention was grabbed when he heard something behind him. Mrs. Lovett was standing calmly, watching Lottie as she patted numerous floor boards with her hand, trying to find the hollow board. She found it and pulled it up without any trouble; there were no nails in it. She knelt down and set it aside, then pulled a clothed something out of the hole. Setting it down and carefully unwrapping it, Mr. Todd recognized the box. He walked over and knelt next to her, and she gently handed him the box.
"When they came for us, I hid them." she said as he opened the box to see his own seven Sterling silver razors, still in the perfect condition he had left them in.
"Those handles is chased silver, ain't they?" Mrs. Lovett asked, looking over Mr. Todd's shoulder.
"Silver, yes." he said, looking at his reflection in the razor he had picked up, a million things running through his mind. "Leave me." he said to the two women. Lottie obeyed immediately, and Mrs. Lovett followed her out the door with reluctance.
