A/N: Thanks to: JamesLuver, MisssElphaba, Nellie Lovett Gracey, MireiLovett1846, StarMimi, Viuda Lovett, the-sadisticalovett-nutcase, Stargatecrazy, F8WUZL8, linalove, Dorryen Golde, AngelofDarkness1605, and TrixieFirecracker. Each of your reviews inspired me!
~Chapter 3~
"Why are you crying?" The man removed his night cap and sat the candle on the window ledge. His posture was immaculate, even so late into the night. Just as if he were presiding over an imaginary court room, and she were the accused.
The girl stared, wordless. More bird-like than her mother, her darting eyes flew to the window. And her curls were golden rivers of heaven in such light – if there was such a paradise where the good and just were rewarded.
He lowered his voice. "I heard you. Don't lie to me, child."
"There's a witch down there. On the pavement. She won't go away."
She spoke with no more than a child's whisper, as if she were a woman coaching herself to be a girl. The cumbersome corset kept at bay any splaying flesh, and the layers of blue lace and satin cream were her armoury with which she faced the world. In her mind, at least, Johanna could dream she was Joan of Arc, leading herself away from a kingdom of crushed dreams. This was her true sorrow - if she'd been born a boy, he would no reason to stare at her through the peep-hole. After all, he had left no son to inherit his crumbled world. The only heirs seemed to be phantoms. Johanna knew it well - a ghost woman stalked the corridors, leaving trails of yellow flowers. She knew, because the servants were always muttering about "the beautiful spectre who haunts Turpin nightly." The rumour was that she would be the death of him - in the end.
And these were not suppositions. Johanna had heard the noises herself. The fleeting scratches against her door, and just yesterday, the blood spots at the foot of the dining table. The girl was convinced that her guardian had been deeply attached to a woman in his past, and through tragic circumstances, this woman had died. Yet so great was their attachment, the woman had followed him from beyond the grave.
"May I sit with you, by the bed?"
His direct question startled her. He very rarely spoke to her in such close proximity. A thin smile leaked from the corners of his mouth.
She kept the pillows propped up between them, nodding: "Yes. Sir."
"Nightmares are man's curse, Johanna," he said, more gently than he'd intended. "You must use your willto overcome them." He spoiled her too much, but then somethinghad to make amends for the terrible curse he'd placed on that ruined creature wandering up and down the length of Fleet Street, searching for kindness that no one wished to bestow.
"It is no nightmare, I witness you, sir. Go to the window yourself – you will see."
The Judge raised a brow. It was rare to see Johanna so adamant. He was lucky to receive three words from her at breakfast, and now that the Beadle was out sight she wished to claim all his attention. Should he reprimand her for her childishness? He glanced at her milk-white breast. She was no longer a child in certain respects – he had watched her blossom for over a year now.
Temptation led him to the window instead. His ward was right. It was no phantom – the child, it seemed, was not all lace and sugared frosting. Skin against glass, Turpin contemplated Joanna's walking nightmare. There wasa figure there, wandering down below. Not wandering, but purposed steps, as if the cloaked woman were enacting some primitive dance. And it was a woman. Turpin knew from the nature of her sprightly, almost spiral walk. No beggar woman lingered there, beyond the spluttering lamplight, where darkness reigned supreme. This was a different specimen altogether.
"Will I hunt out the monster for you, Johanna?"
Niceties often frightened her. His broad smile startled her, as did the gentle kissed delivered atop her head. He was not plotting anything – she saw that clearly from the gleam in his eyes. He truly was going to exorcise that demon on the street, solely to comfort her. Was there something of a father in him, yet?
* * *
No need to rouse the Beadle.
He would scare off the whore (for that was no doubt what the creature was) and turn into bed. He did not like to walk that avenue at the best of times – it reminded him of when he'd been a young man, with dreams in his breast, and an eye for the yellow-haired beauty with the ribboned bonnet crowning her head. Every day now he passed the same corners, and saw the vestige of her youth in the old crow's flimsy string hair and glazed over gaze. His sins were stamped over the city – this one especially so, for not only did it follow him, it lingered at the scene of the crime, as if the rotting madness in the woman's brain could still recall the cruelty inflicted on her more than five and ten score years ago.
"Who are you?"
Under the little lamp light left, he held the candle aloft at the figure in the middle of the laneway. Its features were impossible to discern. He saw only the burgundy cloak, and pools of velvet folds about exposed arms. He floundered in the mystery of this night visitation.
"Show yourself, or risk the full arm of the law!"
The figure stepped forth, undeterred. Before he could raise the alarm, white hands lifted the cloak and let it fall from her face, to reveal the full splendour of the woman hidden beneath. The death pale face, coated with the thick rimmed fullness of immodest eyes, and lips equally uneven and glorious. It was all too familiar. He knew her instantly then. Not her Christian name – such intimate details were of course, not his to possess. But the woman was already his, in a manner of speaking. He could confiscate her shop from her, sentence her to gaol, have her hung,if necessary, should he feel so inclined. He had some power to influence her.
"I shouldn't be here," she whispered, yet her eyes did not scan the street, or dart away. They remained fully on his, as if this moment between them had been rehearsed many times.
He sought no more words from her. She shouldn'thave been there, nor should he have lingered. A woman who undressed herself in the street was hardly a woman. The cloak fell around her elbows, and underneath he appraised those bare shoulders. It was a dress sculpted to invite a man's wandering eye; a strange concoction of orange and black frills.
His hand reached forward of its own accord. It wanted the skin for its own.
"Madam," was all he could manage, dry-throat and dull. He remembered Johanna upstairs, and pulled back instinctively onto the safety of the steps. He would not surrender to this thing.
Yet she would. Mrs Lovett bolted forward, as if she aimed to run past him. Before he knew it, the sensation was on his lips; shewas on his lips, this white-devil woman injecting flour and her own acrid blood and exotic smell into his breath. He opened his eyes, expecting hers closed. They weren't. They faced each other in rapture, two creatures fully conscious of their devouring the other.
At last, when they broke, her eyes went briefly to the cracks in the steps, as if contemplating what she had done.
"Come again tomorrow," he implored.
~*~*~*~*~*~