Mara didn't trust her mother's oven; as a child she'd sworn it had large, menacing facial features, with doors for eyes and the furnace as a gaping mouth, just waiting to eat her up. But since she was old enough to reach its doors she'd been forced into oven duty and the baking of the pies. Mainly because her mother, being the vain thing she was, liked to leave the dirtier jobs to her daughter, but also because Mara preferred to stay in the back rather than deal with the customers. She didn't know how she'd ever run the whole business if she inherited it one day, but Nellie assured her she'd grow into it.
"Unless you run off with some man," her mother would lament everyday, this time when she brought down the daily meat for grinding. "Atleast marry rich and provide for your poor old mumsie." Mara ignored Nellie's pitiful sighs and stared at the package from the butchers, which wasn't much bigger than one of their own pies.
"What is that?"
"That's our beef, dear; no need to gawk at it so."
Mara picked up the meat as she wrinkled her nose at it. "It's pathetic."
"It's all we can afford," said Nellie, rapping her daughter on the back of the head. "And it's not going to grind itself, so get going. Go on!" She wiped her hands on her apron as she shoo'd the child off. "Give it a few extra passes this time; I want to get as much out of it as we can. And be sure to stoke the fire again, it looks a little low and I want those pies baked and sold before anyone notices there's less filling."
"Do we have to lower prices, mum?" Mara asked from the grinder. "If we're giving the customers less?"
"Not if I can help it," said Nellie, nearly smiling at her daughter's naiveté. "You charge what you can, dear, as long as you keep selling." Mara hmm'd over the proposition as her mother started flattening globs of dough for two-penny pies. Despite the cheery advice she'd just given, there was a clear anxiety in her work rhythm and Mara glanced at her periodically, watching the jerky movement of her elbows and the swaying of her skirts. There was still only silence between them when all of the meat had been ground, and several pass throughs made which rendered it little more than grit. Nellie began grabbing the meat and shoving it into the dough with such reckless abandonment it was a wonder the pies resembled anything other than disturbing blobs.
"Mum, can you slow down?" Mara finally asked, tired of listening to her mother's sighs and sharp breaths. "I can hardly get the gravy in."
"Sorry, dear, sorry," Nellie sighed once more, stepping away from the mess of dough and approaching the oven to stoke the fire instead. "I must be losing my mind… Over money troubles, I mean, that is. These butchers, I can't believe them, the way they try to swindle us. How are we supposed to make meat pies without meat? Immoral, that's what it is."
"Immoral meat pies, mum?"
"No, dear, that they're putting us out of our livelihood to benefit themselves. Oh." She noticed the tray Mara had been trying to hand her and slid it into the oven. "Really, dear, how am I supposed to teach you anything if you don't pay attention?"
If I listened to everything you said my ears would fall off, thought Mara, but she chose not to say as much.
"Well," the girl said instead, "even Jesus had to explain what he told to his disciples."
"No need for such talk before Sunday, dear," said Nellie. She paused, withstanding the heat to stare at the sorry lot of pies before closing the oven door. "I don't know how we're going to make enough to buy meat tomorrow. If we even sell these… I just don't know…" She continued muttering to herself as she went back to the shop, Mara following behind. It was a relief to be away from the overwhelming stuffiness of the bake house, but while the girl felt brighter, Nellie only filled a mug with ale and sat at the backroom table, her face in her hands.
"Mum… mum," Mara pried, poking at the vertebrae jutting from the back of her mother's neck. "Aren't we going to ready the front to open?"
"Huh? Oh… right." Nellie gulped down some ale like fresh water before slowly getting back up. Mara was shoo'd off to tend the pies again, but she stopped at the doorway to watch as her mother stalled to finish her mug.
"Not so fast, mum, you'll make yourself ill."
Nellie waved her daughter off as she finished swallowing. "A sour stomach's my affair, dear. Now get going." Mara groaned, knowing she'd be the one to hear about it no matter whose affair it was, but continued her descent into the smoking depths.
Noon came as it always did, but the customers seemed to already know the sorry state of Mrs. Lovett's meat pies and trickled in less than usual.
"It's a malady, that's what it is!" cried Dr. Lupin as soon as he entered the shop and found it deserted. "Every pie shop on Bell Yard, and now you, too, Mrs. Lovett?"
"It's those damned butchers, Dr. Lupin." Nellie waved her rolling pin enthusiastically, and Mara had to turn from her sweeping to make sure she wasn't using it as a weapon. "They've got us, every one, and the entire meat pie industry has gone to pot."
"Does that mean no meat at all?"
"From now on it does," Nellie sighed. She leaned on the counter, as though from fatigue.
"Should I cross out the 'meat' on the sign outside, mum?" Mara interjected, but was sharply shushed.
"Is that all you've come for, Lupy?" Nellie asked, watching the man wistfully. Dr. Lupin didn't return the gaze.
"I can't imagine you'll sell any pies now, will you?" he implored. "The whole business is in shambles?"
"Oh, come now, Lupy, can't we talk about something other than pies? I see pies in my nightmares, and all day I make pies, smell pies-"
"-Sleep with pies, because no one will sleep with her," Mara added with a snicker.
"What a wicked child!" Nellie took a meatless pie and threw it at her daughter, who shrieked and ducked. "See what I have to put up with all day? Can't you deliver me from this?" The same pie came her way but missed completely.
"Can't say I can, Mrs. Lovett." He gave the shop one last look around before tipping his hat. "Good day, ladies." And he was out the door before Nellie could protest.
"Wha-? Now this? Why does everything have to go wrong at once?" Nellie's whining became a cry of anguish.
"He was only interested in the business," said Mara.
"Yes, but still…"
"Is it really true that all of the pie shops can't afford meat?" Mara continued before her mother started throwing a fit.
"It sounds like it, doesn't it?" Nellie opened the front door and watched the streets, as though she intended to get some customers by grabbing anyone who passed by.
"I heard Mrs. Mooney's still doing some business."
Nellie brought her head back in. "What, where'd you hear such a thing?"
"From that beggar woman who's always around," said Mara. She looked up from her sweeping to find her mother's expression had gone from upset to furious. "I didn't go near her, mum, I swear! I just heard her in the alleyway through the backdoor, and she was practically raving about it, she was. There's no way I couldn't have heard her."
"She'll molest you as soon as look at you. Surely I've told you a thousand times?"
Mara nodded and looked back down at her sweeping, hoping she wasn't going to get a beating. Her heart nearly stopped when Nellie grabbed the broom, but her mother's anger was directed elsewhere. "So, Mrs. Mooney's found a way to hold her own, eh? I'm going to go have a talk with her; you stay here, dear." Nellie left the shop in a huff and started marching down the street.
Mara didn't dare try to stop her mother, and wasn't sure what to do without her broom, so she just stood still for a moment. She was in the middle of dusting off the counter when screams were heard in the distance. Mara was afraid to look, but she couldn't help it, and she soon spotted her mother being chased out of the shop at the end of the street by Mrs. Mooney herself. Most of the customers found it hilarious, but Mr. Mooney came out to end their spat and sent Nellie out for good, without her broom. She came back to her shop looking frazzled, but more disappointed than defeated. "Now I not only look like a failure, but everyone thinks I've lost it."
"And you've lost our broom, too," Mara said. "Splendid job, mother."
Nellie kept up appearances, but something had truly hurt her that day. It could have been many things, but Mara couldn't imagine her mother's will being bent by… well, anything. Not by the rejection of a man, nor by being Fleet Street's laughing stock of the evening, not even by the loss of their entire livelihood. It was always onto the next thing, onto the next day. But as Nellie looked around the shop that evening, the lines on her face seemed deeper, and her eyes searched desperately, flickering left and right, as though what she sought were the blurs on the edge of her consciousness. Maybe it was because Mara didn't know what her mother desired from these walls, but the more she watched her the more she felt her search was in vain. Nellie finally locked the door, flinching at the resolute sound of the bolt sliding shut.
"Come to bed, mum!" Mara called from their chamber, looking out the door to see Nellie's light still flickering in the sitting room.
"Alright, just a moment…"
"Mum!" Mara shouted again until she heard an exasperated sigh. Nellie put down her mug and shuffled down the hall, still gripping her book of figures. Mara led her to the bed and sat behind her to undo her hair. "You keep drinking that ale like you do, and you'll end up as fat as Mrs. Poorlean."
"If I had an alehouse I would be by now." Nellie hissed as Mara tried to pull a stuck pin out of her hair. "As it is we're going to starve on a diet of flour."
"There." As Mara got the pins out, half of her mother's hair fell loose, crimped from being twisted up so long. "We're not really going to starve, mum."
"No, but…" Nellie sighed and trailed off. "If only we had a man, to work at the docks, maybe, we'd be better off."
"You mean Mr. Lovett, or that Mr. Barker of yours?" Mara smiled knowingly.
"Oh, well…" Her mother wiggled in her seat like a love struck girl. "No need to mind my fantasies, dear." The last half of her hair fell in her face as it was released, and Mara went back to her own bed to let Nellie get into her sleeping gown. "And what about you, dear little daughter? Have you found a man for us, yet? I wasn't much past your age when I was married, you know. Of course, my grandfather was eager to be rid of me…"
Mara sighed, having heard the reminder many times. "Mum, a man wouldn't look my way if I had a knife at his throat."
"Oh, come now." Nellie finished changing and settled herself in bed. "They're just shy; you're adorable, dear."
"Well, if I find my birthparents, I'll thank them- for nothing. I've not even a decent chest, yet."
"Oh, you will soon enough," said Nellie. "But, what about that sailor lad of yours?"
"Mr. Thornhill? What makes you think he wants me?"
"He was always looking for you when he came in." Nellie smirked. "And he never knew what he wanted when he came to the counter, as though his mind were elsewhere…"
"Yes, like not there at all." Mara blew out the candle, enveloping the room in darkness. All was still for a moment.
"But he stopped coming around," Nellie's voice piped up again. "Why could that be?"
"Maybe he heard the ghost stories around here."
"Oh, those foolish tales? Who believes those?"
"But, mum, you told me you knew the poor folks they tell about."
Nellie hesitated. "Well, yes, but I don't know their ghosts, dear, so how can there be stories about hauntings and such? Nonsense. We shouldn't talk about such things in the dark."
Mara paused to think it through. "Well, if that poor woman's spirit still lingered around here, we would have seen something by now, right?"
"Right," Nellie whispered, as though the spirits might hear her.
Nellie hated the pie shop, yet she still couldn't stand the thought of losing it. Not just because she had no where else to go –having no parents or siblings, and the remnants of her extended family wanting nothing to do with her- but because it had too many ghosts and she was their keeper, too many lost desires she couldn't let go of, because the life she was living these last 15 years was no life at all, but a hollow shell. While the business supported them she could keep herself stable, satisfied, but now… She had nothing, she never had, and she had no interest in keeping up a sane façade.
When she wasn't drinking she was habitually, obsessively making pies, because what else could she do? The odd poor soul might wander in and be made ill by her pies, or she would give them hell when she was drunk, or both, and more often people were crossing the street to avoid walking in front of her shop. Even Mara began to stay around less and less, though Nellie didn't notice half the time; she didn't want to. Whenever Mara came into the sitting room Nellie would leave, waiting for the day she could stand being with her daughter again, when she could face what remained of Lucy and Benjamin.
"Is this place open?" someone asked from the front door, startling Nellie, who had grown used to the self-inflicted silence. She turned from her dough kneading to find the Thornhill lad stepping hesitantly through her door. He seemed terrified that he had to face her. "Is-is Miss Lov- …Um, your daughter here?"
Nellie smiled at him. "I've seen you around here. Mr. Thornhill, is it?"
"Um…"
"She's pretty, isn't she?" Nellie held up her dough to just stare at it.
"Yes…"
"The gray eyes, pretty chin, that little nose." She balled up the dough and squeezed it in her fist, until it oozed between her fingers. Thornhill remained dumbstruck for a moment, until Mara came running into the room.
"Mum!" She looked between Nellie and Thornhill frantically, then grabbed the sailor's arm and pulled him out of the shop, banging the door behind her. Nellie continued to smile after them as she dropped the dough, but her eyes were pained by how cut off she felt from her life.
Days went by, days Nellie was no longer keeping track of. After the fifth bell rang from St. Dunstan's steeple one evening, Nellie was woken by the slam of her front door. She looked up from the counter she was slumped over, but could only see the bottom half of a dress.
"Mrs. Lovett," said the woman's stern voice. "In case you're too drunk to recognize me, I'm Lillian Oakley."
"Mmm?" Nellie sat up and rubbed her face.
"The woman you tricked into the Judge's clutches? Ring a bell?"
"Right," said Nellie, smacking her palm on the counter, though she'd known whom it was from her voice. "I didn't know he allowed you to stray. I don't suppose you've come for a pie?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Oh, so you've come to mock me and laugh at my failure, then?" said Nellie. "Well, you and every other woman on this street. Mrs. Mooney already paid me a visit." She gestured to her window, smeared with a mess of rotten eggs, and Lillian stared at it for a moment.
"Yes, well, I had some news for your daughter, and I thought I'd share it with you, too."
Nellie stood up slowly, carefully watching Lillian's expression. "What, exactly?"
"Just that her sailor's been coming by the Judge's house everyday to look for Johanna, instead of seeing your daughter, it seems."
"You didn't have to tell her that," Nellie hissed.
"Your girl seemed rather upset, as you can imagine. The Judge will find the boy soon enough, anyway." Lillian's voice was smirking even though her lips weren't, and she was quick to leave the shop before Nellie could lung at her.
There was nothing more Nellie would've loved to do than attack Lillian in the street, but she had to wait for Mara to come home, so she could comfort her somehow. At least, she hoped she could conjure up enough heart to.
When the girl did return to the shop she was calm but red-faced, clutching something in her fist.
"Mara?" Nellie wondered as her daughter came into the parlor.
"Mum?"
Nellie stood to place her hands on the girl's shoulders. Yes, that seemed like a sympathetic gesture. "Mara, I know you're upset. You can tell your mumsie."
"What?" Mara jerked back defensively, and part of what she held spilled between her fingers.
"Mara, what's..?"
They were white pearls, a string of them, perhaps a necklace. The girl put her other hand over it in an effort to conceal.
"It's nothing, mum, it's…" Mara took in a shuttered breath to keep from sobbing. "He was going to bring them to that… that other girl!"
"Who?" Nellie asked, carefully.
"I don't know. This woman said… I just know it was another girl."
She didn't seem to know who it was, or even that the other girl was the Judge's ward, which relieved Nellie.
"But why did you take the necklace, dear?" Nellie asked, worried that it would get them into trouble, something they were in no position to deal with.
"Because, he…"
"It doesn't matter, just go give it back."
"I-I can't…"
"What're you…?" Nellie blinked at her daughter, wondering what the shame she saw in her body language meant.
"I didn't mean to, it was an accident."
"What was?" Nellie grabbed Mara's collar, pulling her closer. "What was?"
"I found him by the bay, he was going to give the necklace to the other girl, I didn't mean to push him in!"
"What do you mean you didn't mean to push him in!" Nellie gasped in panic. "Well, what happened, was he upset? Oh, you stupid girl, this is no time to be messing with men! He'll take legal action and we'll be out on the streets." Nellie paused but Mara didn't answer. "Mara? What happened, just tell me what he did."
"He… well…"
"Well, what?"
"He didn't exactly come back up again."
Nellie blinked. How could a sailor drown? "Oh, God, Mara, you killed him?"
"It's not my fault he didn't come back up!"
"Okay, alright, we need to figure this out. Do you know who might miss him?"
"I don't know if he has family, but I think he signed up to work at the docks, starting tomorrow."
Nellie paused to think, her lips slightly parted. "Okay. How about… Well, that's an interesting idea…"
"What?" Mara asked in worry, watching her mother go off to some trunks in the hall and start rummaging around in them.
"Here, these'll do." She returned with a man's shirt and trousers, either kept from her late husband or stolen belongings from Benjamin. "You're going to wear these, you're going to go to the docks, and you're going to be Mr. Thornhill."
"Mum, you're crazy," said Mara as she pushed the clothes away, so Nellie threw them on her daughter's head. "Won't they know I'm not him?"
"Oh, these dockworkers just sign a list and show up the next day, they'll never know." Nellie grabbed the pearls to hide later, then pushed Mara through the backdoor.
"You're sending me right now?"
"Of course, you need to be prompt or someone will notice."
"But-"
Nellie slammed the door and locked it, listening to Mara's protests and hammering on the wood. And somehow Nellie felt relief when the din finally ceased and Mara walked away, relieved that she was finally rid of the girl. It had been an accident, of course, Mara hadn't wanted it to happen, but… It was odd, how unaffected both of them were by someone's death.
Lovett continued making pies the next day, just as she always did, and when they staled and hardened she had something to throw at beggars. But she still kept an eye on the door, sure that if anybody came around these days it might be Mara running back home.
Someone did come through the door eventually, knocking it against the sad, rusted bell. It made Nellie jump up instantly, disturbing the flour she was using into a slight mist around the counter, but a tall man was entering the shop instead of her girl. That was good enough for Nellie, who lunged at the fellow so suddenly he nearly fled the store.
"Wait, sir!" she cried. "What's your rush…?"
(Note: The characters of Dr. Lupin and Mrs. Poorlean come from an 1842 script of Sweeney Todd by George Pitt, as well as the surname Oakley (originally used by Johanna in said play).)
