(1)
The three stared down at the Beadle's body sprawled on the bake house floor, his pooling and smeared trail of blood beginning to dry over the layers come before it. If it weren't for his split throat he may have just closed his eyes for a moment; his expression in death looked no different than when he'd lived. Nellie smirked over the idea and kicked his head, causing it to shift forward like a heavy sack.
"We'll have to dispose of him completely," Sweeney told them. "Clothing, hair, bones, every bit of him. Char his flesh to dust."
"They'll still know he was here," said Nellie, deep in her throat.
"They have no proof," he snapped at her. "They only have our word. Now let's get started." The last bit was directed at Mara, who nodded and quickly bent to take hold of the Beadle's coat, helping Sweeney drag him to the furnace. Nellie thought the girl might take pleasure in destroying her assaulter, but she showed none, just a frown as grim as her task.
Within moments, however, there were clunks from above, and they paused mid-breath as rushed footsteps traveled to the second floor. Sweeney's voice was harsh and low, like one of his hacksaws as it ground through a femur.
"Not a sound down here, you understand?"
Mara and Nellie nodded, not daring to blink as Sweeney slipped out of the light emitted from the oven's furnace, barely creaking the door. They didn't move for a long moment.
"Have we been found?" Mara whispered. "Have we been found? Have we?"
"I-I need to sit down." Nellie looked about for somewhere to rest, afraid she would go into labor if she didn't. There were more pounding footsteps, scuffs and scrapes, and a sudden calm as two pairs of steps came down to the first floor, but only one went back up again.
"Maybe it's alright," said Mara with a heavy breath. "It sounds like he's handling the situation-"
Both women shrieked as a body shot down to them – the body of Anthony. His torso twisted in the chute as he fell out, landing on the Beadle, and the two became one mass of sprawled limbs. Nellie stared at the growing pile before her mind put the situation together, and her gaze shot back up to her daughter.
"The sailor lad, Mara! He must have come back with-" The rest was lost in her throat as she suddenly gathered her skirts and hurried up the stairs as best she could. But she paused just at the door, careful to open and close it discreetly.
A voice, female. "Where's Anthony? He said we had to leave right away-"
"I'm afraid he's left you."
"He wouldn't!"
Johanna's voice squeaked and quivered, scaring Nellie more than the corpses could. She fixed her hair to not appear so disheveled and stepped into the room. The girl was dressed in sailor's clothes, as though stuffing her hair in a cap was fooling anyone, and Sweeney looked stiff and awkward as he tried to comfort her. Nellie cleared her throat and the two turned her way.
"Mrs. Lovett." It was hard to tell if Sweeney was annoyed by the interruption. "This is Johanna; Anthony left her in my room while I was out, but it seems he's abandoned her at the last moment."
"Oh, poor dear." Nellie tried to frown sympathetically.
"Mrs. Lovett is my neighbor; she'll accommodate us."
Johanna protested, "But, I really should go find Anthony-"
"It's dangerous out there, for a young girl." Sweeney pulled off her cap, letting her pale locks fall loose. Johanna continued to look as jittery as a spooked sparrow.
"You won't turn me back to the Judge, will you, Mr. Todd?" the girl asked.
"Of course not, you can stay here with us." Sweeney looked to Nellie. "Can't she, Mrs. Lovett?"
"Yes, we'd be happy to have her."
But events continued to unfold at an alarming rate as the bell on the outdoor stairs rang. The effect it had on Sweeney was electric, and Nellie knew what was going on immediately.
"Stay down here Johanna, I have to see to a customer. Mrs. Lovett, don't you have to return to your bake house?"
He was waiting for her response before he ran up to the shop, but Nellie could feel her body panicking against her will.
"I… I don't think I can." She managed to get herself to the couch before the dizziness overtook her.
"Mrs. Lovett!" Sweeney snapped at her but had to flee to his shop before he could follow up his outburst. Nellie closed her eyes and breathed slowly for a moment, trying to wait out the pain that was coursing through her chest. When she looked up again Johanna hadn't moved at all and was weeping openly.
"It's all right, dear," Nellie said with a heavy sigh. "Why don't you sit for a bit?" Johanna did as though she'd been given an order, rubbing her eyes on her sleeves.
"I was so close to leaving… Anthony and I were to be wed and he would take me away… Why would he just leave me?"
"Dear," said Nellie, patting Johanna's shoulder. "Believe me, being wed is more of a prison than a saving grace." Her words seemed to have a profound effect on the girl.
"What? But, my father's home was a prison and Anthony would take me away."
"Yes, to his home where you would belong to him and do as he tells you."
As Johanna stared at her, perplexed by the revelation, Nellie heard her mind ask, Then why do you want to marry Mr. Todd? Are you so sure you can manipulate him? So desperate to be dominant?
Johanna might have replied if Sweeney hadn't suddenly rushed out of his room and down the stairs.
"Mrs. Lovett! We have business in the bake house. Now."
"Mr. Todd, I'm afraid I'm not well enough to join you." Nellie sighed to emphasize her state. "All this rushing about is too much for me."
Sweeney stood over her for a moment, taking in harsh breaths.
"Is it the child? Is it time?"
"No no no." Nellie waved airily at him and brushed hair out of her face, as it was rapidly coming undone. "I just need to rest a bit."
"Alright, just make sure nobody else comes around-"
"Mr. Todd," Nellie interrupted him. "Don't you have something you want to explain to Johanna?" Sweeney frowned, meeting his daughter's eyes. Hers were so clear, like Lucy's.
"Yes. Yes… But later, not yet." He turned and disappeared down into the bake house. Nellie huffed to herself, wondering how a murderer could still be such a confrontation avoider.
"What?" Johanna piped up innocently. "Explain what?"
"Oh, well I probably shouldn't – Oh, okay." She turned her knees towards Johanna and leaned forward a bit. "What Mr. Todd really should be telling you is that he's your real father."
Johanna's expression seemed more worried than surprised.
"What? But… my real father's dead, like my mother."
"So the Judge has told you. But he also locked you away in an asylum. Do you really think he's trust worthy?"
"Well, no…" The girl pursed her lips together in some silly pout, which was probably her way of looking doubtful. "I know he isn't. But, why would he take me as his ward if I had a father?"
"Because the Judge wanted you for himself, because he… couldn't have your mother."
Johanna paused, Nellie's words suddenly making sense. "And that's why he wants to marry me? He was just waiting for me to grow up…"
"I'm afraid so, dear. But, you can have your freedom here, and the Judge won't take you back, we'll make sure."
"Really?" That seemed enough for the girl, and she suddenly leaned over to hug Nellie. "Then if Anthony doesn't return you can be my parents, whether Mr. Todd's my real father or not." She let off, looking Nellie up and down. "Are you Mr. Todd's new wife, then?" From her tone it wasn't clear if Johanna's question was sincere or if she just wanted to force herself to play along.
"Oh, where'd you get that idea, dear?" Nellie smiled innocently and shifted away from Johanna. The pain was subsiding but she still couldn't convince herself to stand.
"Well, you kept saying 'we,' and I thought… maybe…"
"That I would be your mother?" Nellie cocked her head slightly, her half-smile as wistful as it was crooked. "Is that what you want, child?"
"Well, I just-"
"We're almost married, then, if that's what you'd like to know." Nellie's voice was a bit quieter, and she looked down at her stomach. "And this is your half-sibling, I suppose." Johanna covered her mouth in shock, but she seemed to be smiling under her hand.
When Sweeney and Mara finally came back from their work they were exhausted, but the evidence was disposed of entirely. The four of them sat together in the parlor, the women on the couch and Sweeney in a chair, and the situation was explained all around. Johanna seemed more hesitant about the idea when her father was actually before her, but she forced herself to take to it. She didn't have much of a choice. And although they were in a precarious situation, Nellie could only feel satisfaction from having a full parlor room for perhaps the first time. A man, children, another on the way; the fulfillment it gave her was almost unnerving. She'd never felt anything close to it, even if it was fake. Mara, on the other hand, seemed to feel quite differently about the situation, and she huddled closer to Nellie as Sweeney told Johanna about Lucy and what the Judge had done to her.
Nellie had almost drifted off again when hearing her name brought her back.
"And will Mrs. Lovett be my mother now?" Johanna asked.
Sweeney faltered, shocked by the question. "Is that what you want?"
"Oh, yes! I've always longed for a mother. And she's already told me you two are nearly wed."
"She did, did she?" Sweeney gave Nellie a look she knew too well, the one he made when he realized she was meddling with him. This hadn't been her intention, for the girl to want Nellie, but she wondered why such a fiendish plot hadn't crossed her mind before. She smiled at Sweeney, not with her usual coy or smugness, but with a satisfaction the man couldn't decipher. "We'll decide tomorrow," he continued. "Why don't the girls turn in for the night? Johanna, you can take my bed upstairs."
"But, can't I-" The girl looked between Sweeney and Nellie. "Can't I stay down here, with Mrs. Lovett?"
"Of course, dear," Nellie replied. "You can stay with Mara in her bed. Why don't you two go on?"
As the girls left, Nellie leaned against the couch arm, gnawing her knuckle as she watched Sweeney. He had his hands over his forehead, his fingers digging into scalp until his hair stood up more than usual.
"You're a bloody wonder, Mrs. Lovett," he growled after a time.
"I should think so."
"Johanna… My Johanna. She's finally here, finally mine and she'll barely look at me."
"We'll, you're not exactly easy on the eyes," said Nellie. "What with your brooding and hunching and wayward hair. And with all your rushing about and wild antics tonight, I'm sure you've scared her out of her wits."
"She wants a mother, she wants you."
"I can assure you I hadn't planned that." Nellie watched Sweeney's hands as they flexed, ready to strangle her. "How could I?"
"I should have killed you when I had the chance…"
"Hm." Nellie shifted herself and looked at her fingernails. "And you want to kill me now but you can't, can you? Because you'd take a mother away from Johanna for a second time?"
Sweeney jumped to his feet and was suddenly standing over Nellie.
"I've had enough!" He grabbed her arms and yanked her to her feet, holding her in a threatening grip. "We're leaving tomorrow, all of us, and from now on you're doing as I say! Do you really think the baby means that much to me?"
"Mr. Todd - please!" Nellie tried to twist free but Sweeney pulled her closer, breathing in her face.
"I know who you are, Mrs. Lovett, what you are, and if you think I have any love or respect for you at all, you're fooling yourself." Nellie tried to bite his hand but he smacked her jaw and then grabbed her around the neck. "I don't know what you hope to gain, woman. I know you lust for wealth and for me, but what do the children have to do with it?"
He let go of Nellie and she stumbled back, hunching over as she gasped for air. She had to wait for her voice to return but still couldn't straighten.
"Do I feign womanhood, Mr. Todd?" She held her stomach even though the pain was in her chest. "What I want will always be what a woman wants, and you know nothing about that. Why can't I desire a family?"
"I didn't think you were capable of love."
"And you think you are? You don't love Johanna, Mr. Todd, you lust for her as a woman. You killed the Judge to take his place."
Sweeney grabbed for her again, but she lost her balance and he was forced to hold her. There was no way to threaten her when she was slumped over his shoulder. "Mrs. Lovett! Don't do this now, have some strength." But she didn't move or try to stand on her own.
"Mr. Todd… the baby is killing me," she said, hoarsely. "I've hid it as best I can, but… I don't know how I'll be in another month, or less. What will you do with me then?"
Sweeney took her shoulders and leaned Nellie back to get a look at her.
"Why should I believe you?"
"Haven't I grown pale and too weary to even stand for long? I hardly sleep anymore, and you've said yourself that I seem to grow thinner every day."
Sweeney watched her, his gaze switching between her stomach and her eyes, and then he rubbed her cheek with his thumb. "If you're going to die before the baby's born, then there's no point in keeping you safe, is there?"
He left her with that thought, one that profoundly disturbed Nellie.
She sat on the couch again after Sweeney went back up to his room, getting ready to have a long pondering session with herself. But there seemed to be no need; the only thought that filled her mind was of leaving. Sweeney was going to make them all flee tomorrow, or perhaps sooner, she couldn't be sure. And if she went with him she would be at his whim as he'd threatened. That, above all things, Nellie couldn't handle. Not now, after so many years by herself and so many months of having asserted her dominance over Sweeney. He'd always had strength over her, but now he'd finally shown that he also had the will to control her. A will she hadn't known existed.
That was all you've ever wanted, Helen, she told herself, to prove you didn't need to be rescued by Benjamin. He couldn't save you because he was weak, and of all men him you could control, and show that there was atleast one man whom you didn't obey. But she couldn't have that, and now not even Mara mattered.
Nellie quickly put on a couple coats and left the shop right then and there. She had nowhere to go, but she was willing to take her chances. How far she traveled that night she'd never know.
(2)
Toby felt Nellie's face as she slept, tracing her eyebrows with his finger, pushing her eyelid up enough to expose her iris, colored such a light shade of hazel that it resembled an unnatural yellow. The prodding only caused Nellie to stir a bit, and Toby continued his caressing, wanting to pull her apart, wanting to see what was inside of her that made him love her so. He'd always searched for kindness and affection, but now he was oddly concerned that he couldn't comprehend it.
He bent low to her, so that his lips met hers, barely enough to moisten them. He wasn't sure what he wanted to get out of the action, but it excited him. He sat up, and was still feeling his lips in wonder when Nellie woke. Blinking, she opened her eyes and stared above her, frozen for a moment. Now that Toby had seen her eyes so close up, he could still tell how their color glowed, not just as flat orbs, but as bowls filled with amber liquid. He realized it was why he had so often feared her gaze even as he longed for it.
(3)
Nellie found herself in a cramped wooden room, one that was oddly closed in and slightly tilted. She looked down at the stiff, grimy blanket she was wrapped in, and then saw Toby crouched next to her.
"Mum?" he asked. Nellie only watched him for a moment, not sure if he was real. "Mum?" he said again, patting her cheek. "You okay, mum? Can you wake up?"
"Mmm… Yes, yes, I'm awake." Nellie sighed and rubbed her eyes deeply. "Should I ask where I am or am I going to regret it?" The look Toby gave her was one of worry, at best.
"You don't remember last night?"
Nellie shook her head slowly; not many good conversations had started with that question.
"I found you wandering the streets," Toby told her. "And you seemed a bit out of your head. I thought you were ill, but I didn't know what to do with you, so I brought you here. What did Mr. Todd do to you?"
"I- what? He hasn't…"
Toby whimpered. "I should have been there to protect you, mum." He hugged Nellie around her shoulders and shoved his face into the blanket. "I should have come back, but Mara said Mr. Todd would kill you if I tried to stop him, and I was scared and…"
"Oh, come now, dear." Nellie put her hand on the back of his head and gave it a few pats. "I'm alright, you did nothing wrong."
Did she really have such a motherly semblance that every child she came across was seeking comfort from her? Or were they so mother deprived that they didn't know any better? Either way, Nellie took little satisfaction from the affections, still feeling no more like a maternal figure than she ever had. Even raising Mara hadn't slaked her desire, but maybe she didn't know what it was she was searching for in the first place. After all, Nellie herself hadn't been cared for by a woman growing up, though it seemed she'd wanted it that way by choice, having killed her mother at birth. And after her father's disappearance she'd become her grandfather's ward, often left with whichever cousin was willing to put up with her.
Not until her transition in name and identity, from Helen Brown to Mrs. Albert Lovett, did she have some meager taste of female guidance, in the form of her mother-in-law Margaret Lovett, the Mrs. Lovett before her. Margaret had been a harsh, cantankerous woman who could always argue her way into getting what she wanted, and though Nellie had wanted to murder the woman in her sleep, she also saw her as a kind of mentor for making her way in the world. Still, Nellie could partly blame her for the mess she was in now; after all, it was Margaret who had taught her how to make the meat pies.
It was all mud and gloom outside of the small shelter, settled on the limbo of the mouth of an alley and a ditch crowded with thorny bramble. With a fair amount of difficulty Nellie heaved herself out of the confines, past makeshift planks that served as a door covering, and sat staring at the wooden structure for a long while. She was sure she recognized it, that she knew the fractured wood that reached out of the earth and filth piled around its frame, like the dwelling of a muskrat. Toby sat at its threshold, watching the smog and haze stewing above the factories, perhaps at the coin of weak light, the sun burning out. Even that was gone a moment later, and Toby looked as grim as though it would never return again. Maybe it wouldn't.
Nellie had opened her mouth to speak to the boy when the piles of rags on the edge of the bramble suddenly stirred and took on human form, causing her to gasp and jerk back into Toby. He chuckled at her and grabbed her shoulders in reassurance.
"They're only some of the beggars, mum; they're alright, they let me stay here."
"Let you?" Nellie wondered. How could they have authority over an area they didn't own? As she spoke, one of the bundles rose and slid away, down the alley, like a twisted mass that had blown off of the bramble. The remaining homely figures made no acknowledgement that their numbers had reduced.
"They said this is my wagon and let me have it," Toby told her. Nellie drew in a sharp breath and looked up at the planks. The wagon! That was it, the contraption Toby had carted the Pirelli fellow around in. Fate hadn't been kind to it once it was abandoned, by the looks of it, having been stripped of any parts that had made it mobile, and there only seemed to be half of it left before her. Of course, its owner's fate hadn't been much more pleasant, she'd seen to that.
Toby leaned Nellie back against himself, until her head was supported on his shoulder. "How can I care for you, mum?" he asked.
"You can start by not coddling me so." She began to sit up, but only managed to lift her head and chest while the rest of her remained decidedly stationary. Nellie had little choice but to fall back on Toby's support again, suddenly short of breath. He almost seemed satisfied, like he'd been testing her.
"Rest, mum, you're pale, and I'm sure you need to eat."
Nellie breathed heavily for a moment, stewing in her defeat. But when Toby rose, gently helping her sit against the shelter, and looked like he meant to follow through on his threat of feeding her, she felt a sudden panic.
"Toby? Um, Toby, dear, what are you doing?"
"I'm going to find something to eat, mum."
"No, no, please, don't find something." Nellie pat her breasts down frantically, relieved to find she still had her purse. She had Toby help her back into the wagon before revealing her stash. "Here, Toby, just because we're living like beggars doesn't mean we have to eat like them." She slipped him a few pennies. "Just buy something dry, bread or such, I don't think I could stomach much else."
As Toby left, Nellie was very aware of her eyes closing themselves, like curtains slowly pulled shut, and she remembered the vast black space as her body shut down but her mind didn't know what to do with itself yet. But apparently she didn't remember waking up, because when she came to herself she was being fed by Toby. She'd already eaten a few bites without having realized it.
"This better be bread," she told him, chuckling through her delirium, "because I can barely tell." Toby nodded, his face serious. He smoothed disarrayed hair out of her eyes.
"Any better, mum? Do you need to sleep some more?"
She couldn't say if she needed to, but she wanted to, that much she knew. If she'd lost control of everything, at least she could still will herself to ignore it all, to not acknowledge that she'd lost. She could will herself to be unwilling.
With a soft moan Nellie leaned into Toby, the rise of her stomach bumping against his knee, and he held her in his lap for a long while, having undying patience just for her.
