Even from behind the trash barrels in the alley, the beggar woman could hear all of the sounds coming from the back room of that vile woman's pie shop. She stayed there for many hours, hearing the calls of 'Toby!' or 'More Hot Pies!' come from the front of shop. She could always hear things, clanging of trash cans as the alley cats dashed across her legs, her angry breaths as she caught a glimpse of Nellie Lovett through the window. Only once had she ever bothered to open the window, the beggar woman did, and when she did she looked in. She knew that meat can leave some bloodstains on a counter, but not to the amount that was covering her table. The beggar woman had always tried to get a free pie out of swindling, and had succeeded at such other pie shops, Mooney's shop included. But that devil woman, Mrs. Lovett, she had no heart. She had no consideration for her poor person. In her ruthless fight to keep her out of her shop, the beggar woman had intensified her hatred towards her. And it seemed that now, more than ever, she hated her, knowing that now she was getting her muff split by the barber. And unknowingly, she hated it. She hated the idea. But until the day would come that she found her jealous revenge on Nellie Lovett, the beggar woman stood outside of the pie shop window; always watching, always listening.
Beware of her! She's a wicked one she is!
All of her suspicions of that Lovett woman were made worse when the Vesper's bell rung at night. Always, when the bell rang, smoke would creep up from the bake house chimney and cloud over Fleet Street as quickly as a plague. A horrible, pungent smell. The kind of smell that should wake people from their slumbers, or make fair women vomit after their dinners. The kind of quiet death that God should send down from the clouds to punish the evildoers. No one else spoke of it until the beggar woman had decided to speak for herself. In the middle of night, and no other time, she ran up and down the street in front of the pie shop, screaming and flailing her skirts up to her face to cover her nose from the smell. She had ran to the Beadle's house, seven blocks away at the fancier district, only to be shunned and dragged away by constables as she threw pebbles at the Beadle's window, screaming for him to wake and put an end to the woman's business.
Witch! Witch!
Behind all of this energy, this anger and emotion spewing out from the Beggar woman in violent fits and rages, was a deep sense of protection. For who? There was no one in the world that cared for the woman, why should she care for anyone in return? But there was something, something about that barber that made her feel she must protect him from that woman. She felt for sure that she knew him from somewhere, but from where, God only knows.
Don't I know you, mister?